All Systems Nominal

Today I managed to finish the Falcon Guard mechs and, to all intents and purposes, the Canopians as well. On top of that I got some paint onto a couple of the figures I've recently 3D printed, and managed to get the Alacorns and Shreks done for C, too. A pretty productive day, really:

L-R: Warhawk (Cluster Command Star), Vulture (Alpha Trinary Fire Star), Vulture (Bravo Trinary). Note the anti-glare panel in front of the Warhawk's cockpit glass

Just visible on the "cheeks" of the mechs here is the Falcon Guard emblem of a Jade Falcon in flight with a sword clutched in its talons

All three of these omnimechs are in their "prime" configurations - four ER PPCs and an LRM-10 for the Warhawk, two LRM-20s, two large lasers and two medium lasers each for the Vultures

From this angle you can see the Gamma Galaxy emblem - a Jade Falcon flying over a moon - on the "cheeks" of the mechs

After getting those mechs squared away, I started in on the Canopians:

2nd Company, 2/1 CANCUIR - Mech numbers 49 to 60

An Archer from the Company's command lance, with the chassis number 52, and a Wasp from the scout lance with the chassis number 60 - the Wasp is therefore the last 'mech in the company

Like the larger Phoenix Hawks, the Wasp's medium laser can be jettisoned in an emergency

Although originally designed and built by Kuritan factories for Kuritan units, the -2K variant of the Archer is an easy conversion popular with many across the Inner Sphere

The size difference between the 20 ton Wasp and the 70 ton Archer is very noticeable here

 Finally I picked up my 3D printed version of Everqueen Alarielle of Ulthuan, and the 3D printed version of an Imperial Army trooper, and slapped some paint on: a basic undercoat for the Queen (soon to be a Level 4 mage) and some base coats for the Imperial Army trooper. I reckon I'll paint a small force of Rogue Trader style Imperial Army figures as a PDF unit to populate my desert world for 40K games. Very basic weapons, basic vehicles, essentially there as a speed bump against the enemies that they'll face. As for the Everqueen, well, I have plans for her:

I have a horrible feeling that I've printed Alarielle a little too small. I'll measure some High Elves tomorrow and see if she's out of scale - she's correct for 28mm, but are GW High Elves from 4th Edition 28mm or 30mm... as for the Imperial Army woman, despite casting off her body armour she retains the identity disc which will eventually denote squad, platoon, and company

Tomorrow I'm going to make some repairs to the misprinted GEV infantry I printed for C, and then package it all up and post it to him. About 54p per piece, which is pretty good investment to be fair. Other than that I'm hoping to have some progress on the Everqueen as well as finish off the PDF trooper.

Painting Points:
Today: 5
This Week: 5
2025: 546 

Printing And Painting

Yesterday for a variety of reasons I totally failed to get a blog post up, but I did do some painting. Nothing huge, but I got the Warhawk and Vultures most of the way finished, and put a coat of Iyanden Yellow contrast on the Wasp and Archer for the Canopians. Today was spent printing (and failing to print) things for myself, P, and my friend C:

Falcon Guard heavies (and an assault), Canopian light and heavy

The Falcon Guard stuff basically needs the canopies and green accent panels highlighting, the details doing on the markings, and then a bunch of dirtying down. The Canopian mechs are probably halfway done, I basically need to do the black bits, any silver bits, and then dirty down. If I actually sit down to paint tomorrow I can crank all five of those mechs out no bother.

In terms of things I printed today... well that's a bit of a mix; some of it was successful and some of it wasn't. I've releveled the print bed and cleaned the FEP, so hopefully the Battletech scale tanks I'm printing for C will be done overnight without issue. 

A terrible photo of an Elf Queen and an Imperial Army trooper

Don't look at the rotor blades... these are Warrior VTOLs from Battletech for C

 What can that High Elf be for, with her big 25mm base? You'll have to wait and see!

Fly, My Falcons, Fly!

Even though Schlock Mercenary rightfully said that an armoured infantry trooper in flight is nothing more than skeet, the Elementals of Echo Trinary are now all done. Perhaps because they've read their Schlock Mercenary, none of them are in flight (although one has fired off their SRMs):

75 Elementals, making up the final infantry component of the Falcon Guards Cluster in their camouflaged green powered armour suits with integral jump-packs and one-shot SRM launchers on their shoulders

 I also finished the five light Omnimechs that, combined with the already finished mediums and lights, mean I can now say that two of the five Trinaries are complete: Delta and Echo.

I'm still getting to grips with the lightbox, so the glare is a bit unpleasant here annoyingly

These are all 3D prints, but with the paint on you can't tell at all unless you put them next to a CGL model

The Kit Fox is one of the mechs that the Jade Falcons were famous for using during the invasion of the Inner Sphere, along with the Summoner and Hellbringer

I actually forgot to do any of the dirtying down until after I'd based them, which was a little embarassing

Other than that I also got to the "coated in Nuln Oil" stage on the two Vultures and the Warhawk, which - when they're done - will mean I'll have completed three of the Cluster's five Trinaries, and the Command Star. Exciting stuff! Still nowhere near the number of mechs that C has in his massive Davion force, which is now well into Regimental Combat Team territory.

Also present - two Canopian Cuirassiers' mechs, undercoated and ready for their Iyanden Yellow contrast

I've also been printing a load of stuff for C - some ComGuards mechs, and a bunch of infantry and tanks. I managed to make a mess of the scaling for the tanks and infantry, so I'm going to reprint those, but the mechs are fine. The trucks and Maxims that are currently on the print bed are, I hope, more to scale than the tanks were originally!

Painting Points:
Today: 20
This Week: 20
2025: 541 

Slow Progress Is Still Progress

Well I may not have finished anything today, but I did get 50 Elementals to the same stage as the first 25 of Echo Trinary; meaning that - if all goes well - tomorrow I will finish them. I just need to paint their guns and visors black and then base them, after all. I also basecoated both Vultures and the Warhawk:

 

Elementals! Caliban Green, drybrushed Waaagh Flesh, with Averland Sunset on their SRM tubes ready for some tiny little hazard stripes...

In other news my friend C sent me a bottle of resin with which to print a bunch of 'mechs for him. So that'll be a fun little weekend project!

The Best Laid Plans O' Meece An' (Wo)men

 Gang aft aglae, and all that. I had intended to paint up a load of Jade Falcons tonight, but instead I undercoated a bunch of Elementals and 'mechs in black, and then spent a long time looking at stls of High Elves, Dark Elves, and Wood Elves to mull over some ideas for 500 point The Old World armies. A wargamer's projects are never finished... anyway, here's what I was up to today:

 

Unfinished Jade Falcons and a lot of undercoated Jade Falcons... argh!

Who knows. Maybe I'll get them sorted tomorrow. Maybe not. Perhaps by the weekend? We'll see!

The Machine Spirit Is Angry

Alas, my plans for Elementals (and some more 'mechs) have been foiled by repeated print errors. I thought I'd solved it by changing the FEP sheet that sits at the bottom of the resin tank, and by doing some other basic things, but alas - the error persists, and I am forced to consider that the Machine Spirit has been offended. I will make the relevant offerings and sacrifices to the Omnissiah and see what advice other lay tech-priests can offer. 

The wrath of the machine!

In the meantime, I based what few Elementals I had successfully managed to print bases for, and put a little paint on them and on the light 'mechs I've been working on slowly for the last few days:

The 'mech at the front is a Vulture Prime, the sole survivor of the print that was supposed to also contain a Warhawk and another 25 Elementals...

With the little 'mechs at a point where they can be quickly finished, and the first Star of Echo Trinary Elementals also nearly done (I just need to do the black details and then base them) I should be able to have them all completed tomorrow evening after work, which will be a nice start to the week. Then on Tuesday I will be playing some Mordheim with a chap from the LUNAR club, after N regretfully had to pull out due to transport issues. So I'll have to sort out some Mordheim roster sheets and get them ready which will be a fun exercise in nostalgia! 

Here Come The Big Guns

Well, less the big guns and more the big 'mechs. I had my first print failure today when a print of some Clan light 'mechs went sideways, leaving me with an entirely unprinted Cougar Prime and two damaged Kit Foxes. The two Kit Foxes were sufficiently intact that some surgery meant I could turn them into one functioning Kit Fox, a J variant, but the missing Cougar - a puzzle, there. I think I just messed up the slicer file, but it's not a problem. I still have enough 'mechs left to create two Stars: each comprised of a medium and four lights, giving me enough to make both Delta and Echo Trinaries of my Falcon Guards once I get the next 75 Elementals sorted.

Not to be too put out by the print error, I slapped some basecoats onto the surviving lights and then got sidetracked by the MacLeod's Light Horse assaults (and heavy) that I churned out recently:

L-R: Cyclops (with big "eye" paint scheme around the cockpit glass), Highlander with monster mouth, King Crab with monster mouth and skull and crossed bones on the top; Catapult with angry eyes

The MLLH machines are mostly in this flat green, an attempt at "British Racing Green", with white highlights. The 'mechs of the Heavy Company and the Rgt'l HQ Lance are more... personally decorated

Unlike the Clan 'mechs where I've specified a variant, I haven't bothered here, just naming the base type

I like the side view of the eyes on the Highlander's head armour, and the monster mouths on the Catapult's PPCs

The HQ lance of the Mech Battalion, including - on the far left - the CO of the whole outfit, in her Stalker -3H variant with its 50 LRM tubes and additional laser AMS. On her right is the XO, Major Aisa "Falcon" Thastus, an ex-Jade Falcon. The whole lance has a total of 95 LRM tubes! Woe betide anything that tries to stay out of range...

1st Lance, 1st (Heavy) Company, Mech Battalion, MLLH. The Captain, "Goat", has an austere Black Knight that just has a simple white stripe across its head for personal identification purposes

 I'm quite miffed that the skull and crossbones on the King Crab didn't photograph very well, but such is life. One of these days I'll take a good photo of one of my miniatures, but that day is very much not today. Anyway, enough of dezgra spheroid mercenaries, let us return to the glories of Clan Jade Falcon!

L-R: Adder A, Kit Fox J, Fire Moth D, Fire Moth Prime, Fire Falcon Prime

 The Kit Fox J was intended, I think, to be a H, but the left arm didn't print and it ended up with the twin medium lasers from an I (?) - putting them together made something that looks enough like a J for me to be happy with it. The J mounts a UAC/5 above a Streak SRM-2 on the right, and twin ER Medium Lasers on the left, as well as having jump jets for added mobility. This weekend coming I'm aiming to get these five 'mechs done, as well as the rest of the Elementals for Echo Trinary. Then I guess I'll need to get printing a bunch of other Clan stuff to build out Trinaries Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie.

Painting Points:
Today: 4
This Week: 17
2025: 521 

Come On You Apes! Do You Want To Live Forever?!

As it turns out, once you get the first couple of colours onto a 7 or 8mm tall powered armour wearing supersoldier, they're pretty easy to finish off:

The Falcon Guards Cluster has two Trinaries (company equivalents) comprised primarily of Elementals - this is the Elemental part of Delta Trinary. Delta One (at rear) is a "Nova", which means it also includes five OmniMechs. Deltas Two and Three are made up of Elementals only

Can you tell which ones are the official CGL sculpts? You might be able to spot the misprints...

The Elementals are 8 foot tall genetically engineered power armour wearing super soldiers who are the basic infantry of the Clan Toumans: they wear suits of armour with a huge claw on one arm and a weapon such as a small laser, machine gun, or flame-thrower on the other - and two one-shot short-range missiles on their backs. Oh yeah and they also have jump jets, too. Their role is primarily to swarm over enemy 'mechs and cut their way into the cockpits to kill the pilots. 

I also put the base colours on the MacLeod's Light Horse machines I printed off the other day:

L-R: Cyclops, Highlander -732B, King Crab; Catapult -K2

I should be able to get those finished tomorrow, but I am also going to a boardgames night with P in Menai Bridge, so it depends when I get home I think. 

Painting Points:
Today: 13
This Week: 13
2025: 517 

Problems of Scale

I've been putting some more paint on my Elementals and the two light clan 'mechs I printed to go with them, and I found myself musing about the size of the Fire Moth D. The Catalyst Games Lab Fire Moth is 29mm tall - but that doesn't include the arms; it's measured to the top of the main chassis. When I scaled mine inside Chitubox the other day, I didn't do that - I just adjusted the Z axis to 29mm and left it at that. That means it isn't quite the right size. It doesn't actually matter; it's obviously a Fire Moth, but it is bothering me now. So even though it's got paint on it, I may well scrap it and reprint one the right size. After all, that would stop it bothering me every time I think about it!

Elementals, painted green and washed with Biel-Tan Shade, accompanied by the too-small Fire Moth on the right and the Fire Falcon on the left. Both 'mechs have been given their base coat of camouflage and a Nuln Oil wash. The three movement trays for N's Chaos Warriors are now complete

In other news, I did correctly scale and successfully print the 'mechs needed to complete the Command Lance and 1st Lance of the 1st Company for my MacLeod's Light Horse mercenaries:

 

L-R: King Crab, Highlander -732B, Cyclops, Catapult -K2

Now if only I could remember where I'd put those spare hex bases...

Every Little Helps

I had intended to do a bit more painting than I ended up doing tonight, but I accidentally got stuck in a loop of looking at STL files on MyMiniFactory, Cults3D and Thingiverse for two and a half hours, so instead I undercoated the Elementals, Fire Falcon and Fire Moth in black and used some of my stock of cardboard sheet to make some movement trays for N's Chaos Warriors. After all, not having to move each mini by hand speeds games up, and a good opponent deserves a gift! 

Elemental points from Delta Trinary, Falcon Guards, a Fire Falcon Prime (left) and a Fire Moth D (right)

A bit of cardboard, a metal ruler, a pencil, a scalpel, and some glue (plus a few minutes' work) resulted in this - next step is to slap some brown paint on as a base for N to replace with whatever fits their eventual basing scheme

Tomorrow I will try and get more done on the Elementals. I may need to do a bit of fiddling to their bases to make them a bit less uneven, and when I do Echo Trinary's Elementals I'll be taking on board the lessons learned in printing and basing these ones. Oh, and I've also got some more Battlemechs printing overnight!

 

The Forge Fires Burn

I may not have done any painting today, but I definitely did hobby stuff. This whole 3D printing business is addictive, I think - I'm going to try to limit my printing for a bit! At least until I paint the stuff I've printed... or most of it... or maybe just the 'mechs... 

Ahem.

Anyway, before I went to bed last night I put a print on for a bunch of bases for the Elementals I printed off yesterday, and this morning I washed and cured them and then spent spare moments at work gluing Elementals to them. After work I printed off a few more Elementals (because either I can't count or the printer didn't quite manage to print 65 Elementals all at once - I was 8 short in the end) as well as some 'mechs, which I scaled to match their Catalyst Games Lab counterparts using this handy sheet some wondrous person knocked up. 

 

65 Clan Elementals to complete Delta Trinary, along with a Fire Moth D (front right) and a Fire Falcon Prime (front left). Behind the Clan 'mechs are a Wasp -1A (rear left) and an Archer -2R, although I think that the mini is actually a -2K (rear right)

The mechs I've printed will let me finish the Battlemech portion of my Canopian Cuirassiers as well as the OmniMech portion of Delta Trinary's Alpha Nova: that's five light 'mechs and five points of Elementals. The light 'mechs transport the Elementals around the battlefield at speed, allowing the Elementals to fire their weapons from the moving 'mechs and - unfortunately for the Elementals - act as ablative armour for the 'mechs...

Tomorrow I'm going to slap a bunch of paint on all these things and see if I can take them from printed to painted in two days or so. Wish me luck, etc! 

The Arsonists

For my own little Battletech mercenary company, MacLeod's Light Horse, I gave each lance a name. So for example the 3rd (Striker) Lance of the First (Heavy) Battlemech Company is called the Stormbringers. It only seemed right to name the 3rd Lance of the Third (Light) Battlemech Company, comprised entirely of Firestarter FS9-S variants The Arsonists. It helps that the callsigns for the pilots are also fire related:

Still trying to figure out the colour balance for the photos, but this is better than the unedited image

L-R: FS9-S or -S2, FS9-S1 or -S3, FS9-S or -S2; FS9-S1 or -S3 (depending on time period)

Jump jets are big, clever, and funny

I did want to do some more freehand on the mechs but I couldn't find any good places for teeth or eyes

As well as finishing the Firestarter lance, I also finished the Gretchin, and dug out the rest of my Ork army's grots. Or most of them, at least. I miscounted, or misremembered, how many grots I actually had, and I think I'm still one short of a full group of 30. But I do now have a full battery of three Kannons:

Four grot krew, and a kannon - nothing special, but great sculpts full of character

The kannon itself has a lot of detail on it which works really well with drybrushing

Da Big Gunz - three kannons and krew. I actually had another grot that works for krew, so there's three grots per kannon, which should help keep them firing a little longer

 
Quite a productive day, really. I also dug out my Necromunda stuff, because I have a game booked for this coming Tuesday at the Llangefni wargames club's inaugural club night - Enforcers versus my Redemptionists! That should be interesting - I have a lot of stuff to set people on fire with, and a little bit of ranged punch, but the Enforcers have a lot of gucci kit... like armour. Still, faith in the divine Emperor will see me through I'm sure.

Painting Points:
Today: 9
This Week: 9
2025: 498

Green, Green, Nothing But Green

Well, not quite. A fair bit of brown, and some gunmetal, and a bit of a sort of canvas or cream, too, but the title was too good to pass up. P has gone to Birmingham to see friends and play D&D, and T was supposed to be visiting this weekend but a signal failure at Stafford last night sank that plan sadly. So today I did a lot of various things around the house and then sat down after dinner to do some painting. 

It might not be only green, but it is quite a lot of green

The first thing I did was drybrush the Firestarters with Waaagh Flesh, before giving them all an overall wash of Biel-Tan Green. I think (I think) that the next step is another drybrush of Waagh Flesh and then a lighter drybrush of Loren Forest, but we'll see. While the Biel-Tan Green was drying, I got out the Gretchin gun crews and the two grots who, when done, will bring my battery of Big Gunz up to three Kannons and my mob of grots up to 30 grots. 31 if you include the Special Forces Grot from the new Kommandos box GW put out for Kill Team.

The grots are great - Brian Nelson sculpts, I think - and they ooze character. I particularly like the grot covering its ears while the other one yells at it. Their kannon is somewhere in one of the boxes of minis in the garage, unless I'm misremembering and they in fact came with a lobba. I'll have to check the picture from the sales post I bought them from.

I'm going to try and get the Firestarters and the grots all done tomorrow. There isn't really a great deal left to do on either, really, so once the washes (Biel-Tan and Agrax Earthshade) dry I should be able to get all of them sorted without too much issue.

No Recipe, No Problem

I only had time for a little bit of painting tonight, but it is at least paint to model, so that's a start. I gave the Firestarter lance a coat of Caliban Green, because I'm fairly sure that's how I started the paintjob on the other mercenary battlemechs I've painted:

Although of course now I look at them I think it may have been Waagh Flesh instead...

 
The problem is that when I painted those, I didn't do what I normally do these days and write down the recipe in my little notebook of paint schemes, which means I'm now forced to look at the finished models and look at these ones and try to match it through memory and guesswork:

...and that green definitely doesn't seem right

 On the other hand, this is a mercenary outfit - even if they are quite large and (presumably) reasonably well equipped in the paint department, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have different shades of green on different mechs in the unit, so I'm not overly bothered. I'm more interested in planning the details. I want to do a mix of white panelling and various "nose" art such as stylised flames, and that sort of thing. Stay tuned, I suppose, to see what happens with that!

Back To (Black) Battlemechs

I'm sure that's a reference to something. Anyway, today while at work I put together the Armiger Warglaive Knight Titan that I had the parts for. I also realised that the reason I can't find the torso element for the second one is because it was used as part of a conversion that P did where they took the legs off a Dunecrawler and the body and arms off an Armiger and put the two together. So I may do the reverse and stick the turret off a Dunecrawler onto the legs of an Armiger and Chaos-ify it. Or Ork-ify it. Who knows. I need a 100mm diameter base first either way.

This cheerful chap will end up in the colours of House MacLeod, my Imperial Knight House, and fight alongside the two Helverins I already have

After work I did a little bit of very simple stuff: first I undercoated the four 3D printed Firestarters I have for my Battletech mercenary outfit, MacLeod's Light Horse, and then I finished the bases on the four Light Horse mechs I've already got painted:

The lighting is poor so these look very much like silhouettes here but they are, in fact, four Firestarter variants: two -S2 and two -S3 machines, making the lance a formidable scouting and light strike asset

Taken in the light box. I tweaked the photo afterwards to enhance the details: this is pretty close to how they look in real life. The rear of each base has the mech type on it (a Stalker, Black Knight, and two Orions) rather than the specific variant designation (STK-3HM, BL-6-KNT, ONI-KMs) mainly because I haven't yet settled on exactly what designation to use for my custom machines...

Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can get the Firestarters done. I was supposed to be popping along to the proposed location of the Llangefni wargames and roleplaying club, but alas I have an appointment that clashes that I can't miss, so saying hello to those people will have to wait.