Retrospective Day 6 - More Varingr (and more Black Templars)!

I have another squad of Varingr, this time armed with boltguns, a heavy stubber, and a grenade launcher, to provide a bit of mid-range fire support for the rest of the auxiliaries. I really really like the grenadier, which is a fantastic example of Kev White's sculpting genius.

Excuse the glare, I couldn't be bothered to open the display case...!

And in terms of new stuff, I got home from work, wrote some poems, and then finished my Black Templars' Sword Brethren Assault Terminator squad:

I like the way the freehand Maltese crosses turned out; they're a right pain in the bum to paint. Next up is going to be the Castellan, then the Emperor's Champion, before I start doing the basic Initiates.

Public Gaming

Once upon a time, I used to play many (many) games of Warhammer 40K at my local Games Workshop shop. I used to cycle or walk into town with my army in a carry case and play two or three games, one after the other, against whoever was there. I'd often go down two or three times a week in the holidays. Once, back in the days of 4th Edition 40K, I even got into a tournament and went up to Warhammer World to play - I came third from last. Nowadays you can't just go in and play any more; the local manager having pulled the plug because people coming in and playing were distracting customers, telling them negative things, and telling them about other companies and other places, all ultimately reducing his sales and thereby hurting his own paypacket. I don't blame him, I just miss the days of old... kind of. Now I'm not a spotty teenage boy, when myself and JY went in today for a two hour, 1500 point, game of 6th Edition, it was fun - but not as much fun. The endless, loud, talking of the slightly-too-keen slightly-socially-inept man and the lack of people working on their own models (another activity now forbidden without vouchers earnt by spending in store) dampened the atmosphere.

JY and I did, however, have a good game. And, most importantly of all... I won.

 Deployment (start of turn 1).

 Righteous Fists Turn 2 start. Note casualties on both sides, but importantly for me his Pathfinders on my right flank have been knocked out of the game.

 JY surveys the terrain at the start of my Turn 3. I've suffered more casualties, but the Terminators have just teleported in and the Assault Squad is about to start moving forwards.

 Start of my Turn 4. The Terminators will move to the edge of the pad, and the Assault Squad are about to mount a charge on the Firewarriors on the left. The Firewarriors in the centre are about to be blown apart by the combined fire of the surviving Devastators and remaining Terminators.

 Endgame (end Turn 4). My Tactical Marines destroyed both Piranhas - one by shooting, one in combat - and all the Firewarriors are dead or running away.

The view from the other side. I hold one objective and JY holds none.

I also finished the last of the Four Good Women yesterday at work; the half-demon fighter with the flaming sword and hooves.

 I don't know why the photo is so indistinct. It's a shame, she's turned out beautifully, but I can't take a good photo of her to save my life. Oh well. You can at least see the demonic sheen to her skin and the magefire of her sword!

 The star gave me real problems. In the end I decided to paint it as if it were made of six huge, polished, gemstones. It looks good now, but it's part accident!

 Tarnished bronze and shiny red flesh - a sight to chill the bone. Good thing she's a decent person and honourable warrior, eh?

All of them together. I tried to work green into the half-demon and ended up going for tarnished bronze armour; it's very very subtle but there is green there. Just enough to tie her into the rest of the party, as well as having her both compliment and stand out from them.

Talking of yesterday, my partner S and I went to her sister K's student house last night to play A Game Of Thrones with her and St, her boyfriend. We ended up with a six-player game after roping their housemates G and O in; the game went on until the wee small hours and ended with my victory as House Lannister on Turn 9 (of 10)! It was very close-fought and a good game. I've now won with all four of the main Houses, so I'm quite keen to get more six player games in to increase my chances of playing as Tyrell or Martell.

Oh, and today I came home to find the figures for the Dragon Age RPG I'm playing in at the minute had arrived from Hasslefree, so that was nice - Iorek, my dwarf, looks suitably grim for a dishonoured, angry, death-seeking violence-monger. Accomplishments so far include punching a man into a coma and building a litter to drag him back to town on. Oh, and trying to set fire to a forest. We're plunging back into Ferelden tomorrow night, so I should have more antics to report soon.

Painting Points: 1
2013 Total: 267(178x 28mm, 2x 54mm, 10x vehicles, 2x spaceships, 3x 28mm cavalry, 1x flag)

A Weekly Update?

It's been a week since I last posted. In that time Al Front has finally finished his wargames shed, complete with stove, I became 27, and I have played more games than you can shake a stick at. No wargames though! I played A Game Of Thrones with S, her sister K, and her partner ST (I won as House Stark!), Labyrinth with S, my partner (she won) and Talisman with AC, JC, JY, JS and SB (I won), took part in a Dragon Age pen and paper roleplaying game with AC, MB, SB and S, and narrowly lost as House Lannister in a game of A Game Of Thrones against JS, JY and S.


Character creation - human mage (MB), GM (AC), city elf rogue Widget (SB). Not pictured: Wild elf rogue Schneeki Schnea (S) and Iorek the Shamed (me).

 Victory! House Stark rules the North with the seizure of Flint's Finger from House Greyjoy proving the vital final battle (I'd not long before taken King's Landing, too, so sod King in the North, try King of Westeros!

 Carrot cake lovingly baked by S, with candles lit by JY and I. TOP TIP: don't light birthday cake candles underneath a smoke detector. It won't end quietly.

I've also been busy at work, with lots of deliveries coming in and tasks to complete as Christmas nears. But I haven't neglected the painting, either:

 A Lamenter scout, armed with a needle sniper rifle and high-tech NVGs. Note lack of markings beyond his tactical Chapter Badge. No weather is too foul for the Emperor's servants to destroy His foes!

 The whole squad. I have another sniper squad to paint up for my Lamenters force, which will be fun.

A beautiful figure from the talented hands of Kev White at Hasslefree Miniatures - I've painted her up as an adventuring type for a D&D campaign I've been plotting for ages, where the player party are all Good aligned female characters trying to assassinate an Orc High Chieftan.

Wood elf mage from the Dungeons and Dragons boardgame. This completes the adventuring party (below).

 The brave (foolish) adventurers! L-R: Mage, Fighter, Priest, Rogue.

 More Kev White goodness! This is my take on his Dwarf slayerette, combining both Games Workshop concepts (the orange hair), my own ideas of Dwarf society and ethnicity in my personal little fantasy sandbox world, and Justin's trews.

And another adventuring party! This one is the all-female, all-Good one. L-R: The half-demon fighter, the Elf priestess, the Dwarf barbarian, and the Human mage. All from Hasslefree Miniatures.

And, just to bookend the miniatures: a Lamenter from the Death Company. Death! Fire! Blood and fury! Etcetera. His armour has been repainted in black, the colour of mourning, and marked with the symbolic wounds of Sanguinius. This Marine will surely die, either in action or from his wounds afterwards. They're not known as the Death Company for nothing! Four more of these chaps to do.

Painting Points: 5
2013 Total: 266 (177x 28mm, 2x 54mm, 10x vehicles, 2x spaceships, 3x 28mm cavalry, 1x flag)

I need to pick up speed if I want to average one point a day... Must paint more vehicles!

Another Terminator, And An Elf

Over the weekend, I managed to finish another Deathwing Terminator (this one carrying the squad's Assault Cannon - think man-portable minigun) and finally finish off one of the four player characters I bought last year for a Dungeons and Dragons game I'm planning to run at some point.

The Terminator! It's incredible how little highlighting of some colours you have to do over a white undercoat.    I still have no idea how to base them. Any ideas?

The Elf priestess from the heroic band of misfits out to save a kingdom from an Orc army - I painted her up as a wood elf, hence the green (and shield).

The rest of the merry band of heroines - a Dwarf beserker, a Human sorceress, the Elf, and a half-Demon half-Human warrior! All of the figures are from Hasslefree Miniatures, because they make some of the best female figures around.

On another note... I've been thinking about the huge number of armies, plans and ideas I've got kicking around in my butterfly-brain. I need to get a handle on them, organise them, and pin them down... then finish the damn things! So that's something else I need to be getting on with, as well as actually painting and modelling stuff too. I may well sell off all my Warhammer stuff to be honest - I've only got two forces (Undead and Empire) in any state worth keeping and the rest can either be co-opted into Mordheim or disposed of. On the other hand, I might regret it - I have all the books for 6th Edition Warhammer Fantasy, after all!

Painting Points: 2

2013 Total: 132 (87x 28mm, 2x 54mm, 3x tanks)

Beyond the Gates of Antares, or, Kickstarter!

So,  the previous post was meant for Wednesday, and it is now Friday, I figure I owe my loyal readers at least one more post. And what better subject than to announce that I have thrown in my feeble financial weight behind Rick Priestly and John Stallard's new wargame concept, Beyond the Gates of Antares. It is a hard-SF setting which the game's backers - yes, me included - can have a say in. The company they've set up, Dark Space Corp, has more details and a forum.

The big attraction for me, apart from the fact that Warhammer 40,000 is my favourite SF wargame setting, and Rick is responsible for, among others things, Necromunda and Black Powder, is that Hasslefree's Miniatures' very own Kev White will be one of the sculptors (and is indeed the man who has made the Kickstarter's unique backer figure, Hansa).

For a £25 pledge, one will receive a hardback rulebook, a special forum badge, a pdf copy of the rules, and the Hansa figure. A bargain!

They have 30 days (or so) to hit a £300,000 target. As of writing they are at £95,066 - so £6,667 a day is required to launch Beyond the Gates of Antares to, well, the beyond! Go - pledge - make wargaming history!

Concept art from the Kickstarter page.

Things

In no particular order, some of the stuff I've done whilst being offline...

Grey Knights Dreadknight, painted waaaay back in 2011 when they were released.

Dark Eldar pain tokens and a member of the Archon's Court (the Gyrinx).

Dual-purpose Chaos Cultists: fit for a Word Bearers' army to play 6th Edition with, and also perfect for Necromunda. Fantastic models that paint up wonderfully well.

Hasslefree Miniatures' H4-ML37 (which I named) painted as an experimental US gene-eered soldier-hound. In powered armour. Of course! HOO-AH MARINES etcetera etcetera.

A special character from Rackham's Confrontation: Hybrid - the first completed part of my commission for J... more of those to come soon!

And, lastly, something I've had my eye out for for a long time:

It's the Cluedo dramatis personae! From this edition of the party favourite:

Sculpted, I think, by Mark Copplestone.
Painting Points:
January 2013: 13 28mm figures, 1 54mm figure = 18 PP.