What about my chopper?

 Another ogre (I don’t have a problem…).  This time 90’s vintage from Marauder Miniatures.

And for my next song…

Bard from Hasslefree Miniatures, who has been sat on the partly done pile for too long because I was too scared to do the diamond pattern on the leggings.  Far from perfect, somehow both legs ended up with patches that didn’t meet up, but they’re on the inside leg and not obvious.

EDIT - the day after posting…

Well honestly.  What are the odds that the miniature decides to buy a random Lego mini figure with her pocket money today, then finds this when she opens it?

Maxim Bang

After spending what turned out to be weeks painting a unit of White Wolves, I fancied something simpler and quicker. A painting sorbet if you will.

My thought alighted on this chap.  One of the original Squats, a Rogue Trader Space Dwarf.  This one went by the name of 'Maxim Bang' in the adverts as I recall.

He was already undercoated, so I could get started immediately, and he was done in an evening.

A fun model to paint, and a pleasing result.

I'll be back

Up in the attic, retrieving the Christmas decorations and came across this chap.  I recall being pretty pleased with the paintjob at the time.  He's a big so and so!

Back in the Air!

My mate and occasional gaming opponent Matt recently returned back to the UK after a few years teaching English in Japan (welcome back, sorry we appear to have broken the country in your absence!).

We managed a meet up a couple of weeks back to catch up, chew the fat and generally see how the world was treating us.  We also managed to get a quick game of Aeronautica Imperialis in, on the basis that it's fast, there's not much to pack, and it's simple so we could both relearn the rules quickly as its been a while!

As we haven't played for a bit we went with a straight combat air patrol, with two side of equal points facing off.  I took my usual 4 'vanilla' Thunderbolts and two Lightning Interceptors.  Matt took what looked like a swarm of Barracudas, plus a Tigershark Drone control aircraft and two drones, for a bit of variety.  He deployed his entire force together more or less in the centre of is table edge, while I deployed my four Thunderbolts together on my far right flank and the lightnings facing his aircraft,travelling at full speed for a quick slashing attack.

Matt's squadron split as it advanced, with the barracudas taking on the Thunderbolts and the Tigershark, Drones and a covering barracuda taking on the Lightnings.  The Lightning's sped towards the tau and then past, damaging the Tigershark in the way, before looping around for another pass.  Meanwhile the Thunderbolts kept formation and blew one of the Barracudas out of sky with concentrating bolter and lascannon fire, before taking hits from the Barracudas as the two formations mixed.

"Come into the cone of death little fish!"

The Tigershark found itself caught between a tailing Lightning and oncoming Thunderbolts and bit the dust, reducing the effectiveness of the drones, whilst I lost a Thunderbolt (or two) in a dogfight with the other Tau (including one shamelessly gunned down as it tried to retire damaged and low on ammo, typical aliens!).

"He's on my six, can't shake him!"

A Thunderbolt is about to finish off the Tigershark in the background

In the end the honours were about even in terms of aircraft lost and damaged, although Matt pulled out some of his aircraft off the table out of ammo.  With the victory conditions for the scenario including points for surviving aircraft without ammo getting off the table, this made Matt the technical winner, but I like to think that as I was left in charge of the sky with fuel and ammo to spare I was the real winner ;-)

Good game, with a great opponent.

Anniversary Army

Like many others out there, the 25th anniversary of Rogue Trader being published has seen me dust off some of my old minis and give them a repaint (and in some cases a first paint!).  Here are some first edition imperial guard and a couple of pirates for consideration.

Base colour is GW codex grey, but in a few cases I've varied that with Adeptus Battlegrey, to get in some subtle variation that suggests personalised equipment for officers NCOs, or just gear that's faded or been issued at different times.

They Came from the Sky!

Time for a bit of a change from all this Historical activity...

At the weekend my friend Matt and I met up at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield for a couple of games of a personal favourite, Aeronautica Imperialis, and a general catch up between Matt's various travels (he's off to Japan to teach English in a couple of months).  Matt had come up with a scenario he wanted to test that involved escorting a ground convoy across the table, all he needed was an idiot to test it out on, and I was happy to play the role!

The scenario was that I had to get a convoy of vehicles from one short edge of the board to the other, under attack from the air.  One of the vehicles (my choice) contained a VIP that had to survive.  Opposing me would be an aerial strike force of Matt's Tau, and I would get support from my own squadrons that would arrive as reserves.  To use one of Matt's favourite quotes 'How hard could it be?'

With 150 points to choose from, I kept my choices pretty simple:

• 2 Hydra Flak Tanks and a Manticore to escort the convoy (which would consist of a further 4 Chimera APCs)
• 1 Thundebolt, Vanilla Flavour
• 2 Thunderbolts with Skystrike missiles
• 2 Lightnings with Skystrike missiles

I assigned all my flak to the convoy and split my aircraft into three groups (the two lightnings, two thunderbolts with missiles and one plain thunderbolt) to maximise my reserve rolls.  Matt deployed his force in one go, consisting of:

• 2 Tigershark AX-1-0 (with the big, nasty railguns and extra seeker missiles)
• 1 Barracuda with Seeker Missiles
• 5 Barracudas

Worried about being outnumbered? Me? Naaa...

So, without further ado, onto the story of the attempts of the 7th Hadley's Reach Yeomanry and 105th Devlan Fighter Wing to protect General Lord Farquharson Smythe from the alien raiders...

 The convoy moves out from the city edge, AA scanning the sky

The Tau strike force moves in.  Lot of 'em aint there?

I fluffed my first reserve roll, giving the Tau two turns to get into position.  The non-missile armed barracudas, which were unable to attack ground targets, maneuvered to avoid the convoy's flak envelope and headed at full speed for my baseline to intercept any arriving Imperial fighters, while their attack aircraft, led by the missile armed barracuda, swung out for a strafing run on the flank of the convoy.

My Thunderbolts arrived on turn 3, but were far too distant to do anything but watch as the Barracuda unleashed all of its Seeker Missiles, brewing up the lead Chimera.

The Lightning's arrived next, screaming straight up the road at full military power and low enough to count the kerbstones.  Up ahead the road was already storm of cannon fire, missile trails and energy beams, as the Tigersharks started their attack run.  By the time the smoke cleared, one of the Hydras was burning and a Chimera was damaged, but still mobile, but one of the Tigersharks had been wiped from the sky by a combination of autocannon fire and a lucky manticore shot.  down the road the fighters met head-on, with the Imperials coming out best from the initial exchange, damaging one Baracuda and downing another, although one the Thunderbolts was now trailing smoke.

One of the Tigersharks lines up for its attack run

 The Imperial Lightnings arrive on the scene

Tau Barracudas head-on

Unfortunately, whilst the convoy powered on up the road with determination, things started to go very wrong for the escorting Imperial fighters, as the next two turns saw every single fighter downed without taking out a single Tau aircraft.  That job seemed to be left to the flak tanks, as the manticore managed to damage the remaining Tigershark as it pulled away from its strafing run.

The Tau, however, had problems of their own.  With one of the Tigersharks down, the remaining one low on ammo and none of the Barracudas equipped with Seeker Missiles (in AI, only weapons with the 'Ground' characteristic can strafe ground targets), they were running out of options for attacking ground targets.  The low maneuverability of the Tigershark also meant it was likely that he'd only be able to pull round for one more pass at the convoy before it reached safety, he had to hope he'd either already hit the General's transport, or that he'd get it with his one remaining chance.

Pulling as tight a turn as possible, the Tigershark managed to line up on the lead Chimera, the Target Lock chimed 'acquired', the pilot pulled the trigger and the Chimera vanished into a cloud of dust and smoke... only to roll on through it with nothing but chipped paint (and probably a need to visit the laundry tent later).

With no more ground attack ordnance left, the Tau had to break off the attack and it was time for me to reveal which vehicle had been carrying the general.  It was the third Chimera in the convoy, the one the Tigershark had in its sights with the last of its ammo...  Technically I'd won, but with all of my aircraft down, it didn't exactly feel like it!

LESSONS LEARNED

Well I won, but more through luck than judgement.  Choosing the Hydras for the convoy worked well, they made life very difficult for the attacking Tau.  The manticore paid its way when it rolled extra damage against the Tigershark, but with the Tau only able to attack from Altitude 1 I didn't really need its range.  In reality my aircraft did little to protect the convoy and just became wreckage.  It was a schoolboy error, I know perfectly well from previous games that the Tau Barracudas are extremely effective in a close up fight; they can slow right down to stay on station, they're cheap and numerous, and the all round drone cannons allow them to mob enemy aircraft.  So what did I do?  Rather than blast straight through with slashing attacks, I slowed down and tried to dogfight, result?  I got slaughtered.

I make a big mistake and get mobbed...

As for Matt, he decided he'd have been better off sacrificing one of the Barracudas and taking more Seeker Missiles instead.  As it was he was reliant on the Tigersharks, which, with low maneuverability, were going to struggle to make more than a couple of passes (but were pretty efficient when they did).  The Tigersharks also started too high, by the time they dropped low enough to attack, they were within close range of the Hydras and on the receiving end of six dice worth of attacks, instead of getting a couple of turns of shooting in first.  But as for the Barracudas, ouch! They worked well!

ROUND TWO

To test the scenario a bit further, we ran it again, this time with my Imperials attacking.  I took a pair of Maruader Bombers, two Lightnings for top cover and three Thunderbolts carrying Hellstrike missiles.  Matt escorted the convoy with two Skyrays, placed a third dug-in in the destination city, and spent the rest of his points on Barracudas.  I chose to send one of the Thunderbolts after the dug in skyray, the remaining two at the flank of the convoy and the Marauders straight up the road.  

In a partial repeat of the first game, one of my Marauders fell to the convoy's AA before it could attack, but the other successfully bombed the head of the column (Matt had sensibly split it to reduce risk), taking out three vehicles in one go.  The Thunderbolt attacking the Skyray failed to destroy it, and took damage in return, in hindsight a waste of missiles, which should have been expended on the convoy.

The remaining Thunderbolts managed a couple of passes at the convoy, but were unable to score any hits.  They faced heavy fire from the convoy and the escorting Barracudas, managing to take out two but only losing one Thunderbolt (thanks to some lucky 'Durable' saves.  Once again, history repeated itself, as my last Hellstrike equipped Thunderbolt lined up a final shot... and missed.  Matt's VIP turned out not to be in any of the vehicles I'd hit, giving him the win.

Again, I made some errors, I should have equipped more ground attack ordnance, and going after the skyray was pointless.  The surviving bomber was extremely effective, hurrah for 'Bomb Creep'!  With Hindsight, equipping some of the Thunderbolts with bombs and hurling them straight up the road might have been more effective.  A Marauder Destroyer might have been handy too, as it could have engaged the rear half of the convoy at the same time as bombing the front.  Matt meanwhile did a bang up job of defending.  Splitting the column reduced the effectiveness of my bombing and as usual I was hounded by what seemed an endless stream of Barracudas, although this time I avoided getting into a close range knife-fight, which is why I still had some planes left at the end!

The Marauders about to swing onto the road

All in all, honours even and another great game, and a fun and challenging scenario from Matt!

Cheers!

First of 2011

Just a quick post to show the first couple of completed minis from 2011.

First up, a GW 'Last Chancer', painted up for the Sheffield Irregulars January painting challenge 'wounded'

Second is a Copplestone mini from the 'Scavvie Tankbusters' pack.

He'll join my partisans and other 'irregulars' for SF skirmish gaming.

Both were photographed in the new, portable studio my lovely wife got me for Christmas.

Looking back (or, "He's behind you!")

January 's traditionally the time for looking back and evaluating. So I've waited until February...

I thought I'd take a quick look back over 2010, particularly at progress on painting and gaming, and maybe think about what to tackle this year. Overall, "10", as I cam to know it, was a bit of a diverse year. I started a couple of projects, managed to complete some long standing ones and even found time to enter a couple of the Sheffield Irregulars painting challenges (I even managed to win one with a Tau entry although, admittedly, there were only two other entries...). So, what were the other highlights?

• Painted some 'old skool' 40K Imperial Army
• Finished a platoon of Copplestone Neo-Sovs and Partisans/Insurgents for games of Fast and Dirty
• Finally painted that Old Crow Lander
• Upgraded some of the characters and units for my Empire Army
• Started a 20mm WWII project thanks to unearthing some old 1:72nd figures and some cheap Shermans
  

Gaming wise I didn't do that well. Apart from a couple of games at Warhammer World with Matt (who's now gone off travelling the world, how inconsiderate), I didn't get much gaming in.

In all, could have done better. However I have had to contend with busy times at work and a house that, in the latter half of the year, was practically a permanent building site. For some months I couldn't even get near the painting table because of stuff stored around it.

Sadly I haven't managed to make much headway until recently on my proposed Tau Army. To be honest I'm not really feeling the love on this one. I've also been having a bit of a think about just how many part started projects I have, and it's quite alarming! Amongst the front runners are:

• More units for the Empire Army, in particular I have some old style Reiksgard and Knights Panther units and a Griffon to tackle (and still haven't done a Free Company)
• Several half completed 'medieval' buildings (including city walls) to finish, plus a pile of plastic food trays to turn into and SF colony
  
• A near complete platoon of Copplestone Troopers (just needing basing and a couple of specialists)
• More old Citadel Imperial Army and Ogre models to paint, just because I love 'em
• That 40K Tau Army

This year I need to be more ruthless in getting projects finished. I'm going to keep track of my expenditure on gaming and sell off some stuff I'm almost certainly never going to get around to using. Oh, and try really hard not to start new projects (at least until some of the above list is done).

Yeah, good luck with that.... ;-)

Tech Adept

This month's painting challenge from the Sheffield Irregulars was simply "Red". I had an old GW Adeptus Mechanicus model that had a pretty poor paintjob (I was younger back then), so out he came for a repaint. I wanted a look that suggested that the 'organic' components, including robes, were rather neglected, in contrast to antique but very well cared for technology. Hope that's how its come out!

Old Guard (of sorts)

Back in the old Rogue Trader Days I collected Imperial Guard, a follow on from my first army of pirates and mercenaries. At that time it was mostly bulked out with the first set of plastic guardsmen GW did, but I always wanted to fill it with the original Imperial Army models. Whilst not exactly realistically proportioned, they were models with great character.

Well I now have quite a collection of these models, some from my original army, some recent additions from ebay, and I finally got around to slapping some paint on. I succumbed to nostalgia and went old school with a mid grey uniform which, as well as looking pretty good, was also incredibly quick to paint. There are still some details to be done, like eyes and unit markings, along with the bases, but progress has been good. I'm going to do these minis in batches, a few at a time between other projects, so I don't get that jaded feeling that sometimes comes from doing whole units (and is why I haven't finished those Tau, and myriad other projects!).

And so, on to the obligatory piccies...

It's not my fault!

This should have been a post about my plans to make the most of the models I already had and concentrating on existing projects. Ah well...

Personally, I blame Matt of the Mottblog. All I did was paint up a handful of Tau ('A fistful of Tau') and he had to go and say, I've got 1500 pts of Marines I don't use, fancy making that into an army?

Curses...

So here I am a few weeks later the proud owner (thanks to ebay) of 22 fire warriors, 4 pathfinders, 8 drones, a devilfish and a Hammerhead gunship. I've never actually played 40K in its current form, so with this as my starting point, I'm going to begin with a basic force of about 1000pts, to which I can add more as I get some experience. Here's my first attempt at playing with a list, to give me something to aim at:

HQ

Commander - Shas’el, Cyclic ion blaster, Shield generator, Command and control node, Hard wired drone controller and marker drone - 125pts

2x Bodyguard - Fusion blaster, flamer, targeting array, hard-wired multi-tracker, hard wired target lock - 142 pts

Troops

3 teams of 7x Fire Warriors and 2x Gun Drones - Shas’ui with markerlight and drone controller, Photon Grenades - 351pts

Fast Attack

Pathfinder Squad, 4x pathfinders (1 with Rail Rifle 3 pulse carbines), 2x Gun Drones - Photon Grenades, EMP grenades, Shas’ui, Bonding knife, Drone Controller - 99pts

Devilfish Transport - Smart missile system, Disruption Pod - 105pts

Heavy Support

1x Hammerhead - Targeting array, Railgun, smart missile system, disruption pod, target lock - 150pts

972 total

So all I need now is 3 battlesuits. With most of it having come cheap from ebay, I'm tempted to splash out on one item and use one of the Forge World battlesuits for my commander (This one?).

What I really ought to do is get rid of a project as a kind of 'gaming karma', maybe those epic Orks I've never really done anything with.

Watch this space for progress...