Where Have I Been? SPACE!

I have been absent for a week, which is - I think - the longest gap in posting this year. Mostly this has been because of the heat, which has left me barely capable of thinking, let alone painting, but it is also because over the weekend I went to Death Unto Darkness Event 11: HERETEK where I spent a weekend as Sister Superior Humility of the Order of His Sanguine Tears. Many foes of the Emperor were slain, and much fun was had by all. Here are some photos:

 

Here I was having an argument about whether or not criminals were stupid; my position was that as crime is an offence against the God-Emperor, only stupid people would commit crime and thus criminals by definition are stupid

Here I was being exorcised after getting only a little bit possessed

This is a really good portrait of me - many kudos to the photographer!

Right at the start of the event, before I started to melt in the 27 degree heat and 60% humidity and discarded the wimple

 In terms of painting, I have some medieval civilians and an old Wargames Foundry Scrooge model on the way which I hope to get done tomorrow. On Saturday myself and my friends C, D, and H are going to have a day of wargaming - 4th Edition 40K! So expect many photos from that. 

Licking Our Wounds

The Wyld Kats got their second outing tonight in the local club's campaign, against N's Cold Steel Orlocks. Unlike last time, they got thoroughly demolished - mostly because I couldn't seem to roll above a two, and N was rolling hot the whole time. I ended up with five fighters Out Of Action, of whom one died! So at some point the Wyld Kats are going to come gunning for Cold Steel... 

It started off with a lot of jockeying for position, with me moving the bulk of my gang aggressively towards the enemy relic

And the Orlocks responding by taking cover and moving around me, so we ended up fighting left-to-right instead of front-to-back (in this photo you can see the Orlock relic, a pile of tyres!)

 

Initial reinforcements were OK, I managed to get my gangers in a position to defend my own relic (seen here just in front of Vikki Vicious and Tia Venom)

But then it all went wrong! A couple of turns of excellent dice rolls from N and terrible ones from me took Fancy Fliss, Sinnamon Kane and Wildsnake Bliss Out Of Action, and I tried to turn the tide by playing Hive Tremors...

...only for my high Initiative Escher to completely fuck it up and almost everyone became pinned, while only the Orlock Captain and Champion fell over. Bugger!

Last gasp attempt to claw something back and my Matriarch fires her plasma pistol at Hot Pete. I needed 2+... and rolled a 1. Shortly thereafter Hot Pete set Roxy Danger on fire, taking her Out Of Action. I voluntarily bottled and fled the scene

But too late for Roxy! I tried taking her to the Doc, but the Doc wanted 120 creds (about the only time I rolled sixes all game) and I couldn't afford it, so she died in the streets of her injuries!

The end result was no new Juves or Gangers from my two settlements, one death, two head injuries (Losse de Grey and Sinnamon Kane), an Old Battle Wound on Fancy, and wounded gang pride. 

Frankly, I buggered up the initial exchange by losing Losse de Grey for a single Orlock ganger - they squared off in the centre of the board, the Orlock managed to disengage and Losse rolled a 1 to try to reaction attack - again, all she needed was a 2 or more - and then I foolishly chased him down, leaving her in the open in front of three Orlocks who promptly shot her to bits then delivered a coup de gras. I should have moved her into cover and shot the ganger, and waited for backup. Then, later, when I had a bit of a chance to try and do something by charging Wyldsnake Bliss into Rudy Judy, an Orlock wrecker, I rolled two 1s and a 2 with three attacks followed by Rudy dealing a serious injury and then a coup de gras. That forced me to use Penny Diamond to take Rudy out, rather than going for Hot Pete... which then left Hot Pete alive and able to hand flamer Penny and Fancy. 

Still, when the dice are against you there's not a great deal you can do. My general plan was sound - use the bulk of my gang, particularly my Leader and Champions, to press towards the enemy relic and defend my own with my reserves. Unfortunately it was not to be, this time. But the Wyld Kats will be back - and angrier than ever!

In other news, I popped into Wayland's Forge today for a rummage and walked out with some Skaven Jezzail teams and a Death Cult Assassin:

The jezzail teams are from the new Age of Sigmar box, but they look absolutely fantastic on proper 6th Edition style bases, and will go nicely into my 6th Edition Skaven army. Which I should probably look at again, I'm pretty sure it's a bit more than 2,000 points now. Might add some Plague Monks at some point. And a Screaming Bell. And a Warp Lightning Cannon... and I should probably paint some of them too honestly.

The Death Cult Assassin is a Copplestone Castings miniature - WH1, Girl Werewolf Hunter - which I got to complement (and complete) the two Hasslefree Miniatures versions of the same character... Selene, from the Underworld film series.

I also took some photos of the various games being played at the club tonight:

Kill Team!

Lord of the Rings!

Super small scale (2mm?) WW2!

Warcry!

Mordheim (my beloved)!

A couple of games of SAGA!

The Old World!

A close up of this beautifully grotesque Nurgle demon engine

And that's that for today - no painting, but a little bit of building of Skaven, and a game of Necromunda, so a pretty productive day in the life of a wargamer. Next week is the club's AGM so I won't be getting any more Necromunda in until the 14th of October probably. Now I just have to work out if I want to spend any of my 150 creds on some new gang members...

Assassins At Last

It took me a lot longer than I'd hoped, but the two 'classic' Death Cult Assassins are done. The sculpts are not the best ones GW has ever produced, and Finecast is not the right medium for them really - as I was painting them I kept finding flash in weird places that needed removing, and I don't think I'd've had that particular problem in metal. And I'd have been able to bend the blades into a proper shape, too. Yes, I know, I could have done the hot water trick but... I couldn't be bothered. I have successfully reduced the Pile of Opportunity by two, and that's the main thing really.

Front view, showing the small differences in the sculpts... and the *very* strange position of the left hand on the one on the right. You try waving a sword around like that!

They look much more similar from the back, but honestly it doesn't matter - I like the textural differences between the shiny bodysuits and the metal and parchment.

I also blocked out some of the colours on the tech-assassin, who I think I'll say is some kind of Mechanicus-based Death Cultist, and had a crack at putting some Black Templar Contrast on the Tomb Kings carrion I've got to do. For some reason despite contrast being very watery as befits what is in essence an ink, it just. did. not. flow across the mini. I think the white undercoat is a bit grittier than the contrast likes. Oh well.

Tech-assassin and three Carrion for the Tomb Kings in The Old World.

The Carrion should, in theory, be pretty easy to paint with just a few colours being needed - but, I suspect, they will be much more of a pain than I expect. We'll see!

I spent much of today thinking about Necromunda, and plotting where I might want to go with my gang as it grows. I have some options, but I think I'm going to be OK for figures in the short term - more Gangers and Juves are never a bad idea - but when the Juves in particular level up I have quite the shortage of special and heavy weapons, so I can forsee a purchase of the Weapons and Upgrade Sprue (and another box of Escher) coming up.

Tomorrow I hope to make more headway on the Tech-assassin and maybe even the Carrion, but I'm also going bird watching with my partner P and playing a game of Wolf Packs and Winter Snows in the evening, so I might not be able to get anything done painting wise.

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 4
2024: 60

 

 

Rolling Dice In The Underhive

Tonight I went to the local wargames club - the Warwickshire Gamers - for my first game in the new Necromunda Dominion campaign being run by a chap called A. I ended up playing a lovely fellow - F - and his very nice and quite intimidating Goliaths, the Slagpit Maulers. We rolled up the scenario Border Dispute and the winner would get a nice Settlement to add to their campaign territory.

I was pretty worried to start with as I only had five of my gang on the board at the start to F's six, and Goliaths are tough. I've had trouble with them in the past because they can be the very devil to wound with basic weapons like las or auto guns. On the other hand, I did have my Death Maiden, Gang Queen, and Specialist with chem-thrower so hopefully I'd be able to do some damage to them.

End Phase of turn one - Vikki Vicious is OOA but so is Smash, F's gang boss

It's a pretty straightforwards mission; the two gangs set up and then have to kick each other's teeth in, with the twist that if your gang relic (mine is seen just to the corner of the green container on the right of the above picture) is defiled you can't win even if every enemy ganger is OOA or fled. We ended up weighting our gangs to my right flank and things kicked off pretty quick. I sent Vikki Vicious forwards to try and gas Runner, the Goliath Forge-Born, but he was made of sterner stuff and this let Smash charge in and put Vikki OOA with a few brutal swings of his massive great big power hammer. His triumph was short lived however as Fancy Fliss and Losse de Grey charged in and Losse ran him through with her stiletto sword, forcing injury rolls due to its poison-coated blade - and OOA he went!

Reinforcements don't always come on where you want them to...

 
Turn two saw a pretty brutal exchange with Cutter the Stimmer thundering into Fancy and taking her OOA with a truly unpleasant number of attacks from his paired axes, only to be first brought low by Losse's reaction attacks, and then given a coup de gras by Tia Venom. At this point I was really concerned because I wasn't liking the exchange rate of one-for-one, but as it turned out I needn't've worried. Losse danced over the moaning Cutter and took Runner OOA in a single fluid motion of elegant violence, while Sinnamon Kane lined up a careful lasgun shot on Pop the Goliath with grenade launcher and gave him a serious injury to keep him occupied. Both gangs broke in the end phase of that turn, with my Wyld Runner Roxy Danger turning up as a reinforcement only to immediately fail her bottle test and run away. Obviously she had more important things to do.

Mid-way through Turn Two, with Cutter lying on the ground moaning by the brown container and Pop doing much the same on the gantry at the back. You can see Spark and Lucky, F's reinforcements, yet to move, over on the far left corner where I'd been able to place them (mwahahaha).

Turn Three ended up being the last turn as the Wyld Kats continued to drive down the right flank towards the Goliath gang relic, shooting at the remaining Goliaths as they did so. With no damage caused to the Wyld Kats this turn, the Slagpit Maulers elected to leg it, vowing they'd be back.

In the post game sequence, it turned out that Fancy Fliss had evaded capture (phew!) but Pop had, um, "succumbed to his injuries" (cheaper than the Doc's fees, you see) and will have to be replaced. Vikki Vicious picked up an Old Battle Wound, but this has no effect on her as she's a Specialist rather than a Champion so doesn't do Post Battle Actions anyway. 

The Wyld Kats made bank, gaining 150 credits, 2 reputation, a settlement, a free Juve from said settlement, and a ton of XP - Losse de Grey getting 10(!), enough to buy the skill Spring Up. Oh, and a visit to the Trading Post meant that Fancy upgraded her chainaxe to a power axe, while Vikki Vicious, seeing how effective Losse's chym-synth was, got one for her chem-thrower. All told, after the little spending spree (including getting some gear for the new Juve, Wildsnake Bliss), the Wyld Kats ended up with 70 creds saved against something nasty for the future. Maybe a Khymerix. Who knows!

And before all that I also managed to finish the Crusaders! They won't win any awards, but they're done and in my display cabinet, so I'll take that as a win honestly.

Crusaders! You can see flames on their tabards. They're not... not Redemptionists are they?

Suppression shields! I did the black and white ropes to symbolise purity and evil.

So all in all a pretty good day really. Two figures painted and a game of Necromunda played (and won)!

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 2
2024: 58

Slowly Shrinks The Pile

Today I purposely managed to do more painting than I have done for the last couple of days, and used that time to finish the Arco-Flagellants. I now have a small, but full-strength, unit of these cybernetic drug-enhanced death machine-people to sprint down a flank and die horribly murderise something squishy, like some Space Marines or something.

Excuse the flash, I was trying to get a reasonable photo of them face on, but it was much harder than I thought. The one on the left is very reminiscent of the Inquisitor 54mm figure Damien-4521.

A less bright photo from the rear showing a bit more of the detail work on the drug auto-injectors and the skin tones.

They fit in nicely with the three I did back in 2020:

A whole squad of frothing bezerkers.

And in between all that I managed to get a little bit of the base work done for some of the details on the Death Cultists and Crusaders, too.

As you can see I redid the legs on the Crusaders to reflect the banded metal armour they seem to be wearing.

Lots of red and black, with some gold and the beginning of some bone too. I have a cunning plan for the Crusader's hooded coats - I'm thinking of doing some black and white checkerwork detail, but that might go out the window depending on how I feel - might instead do something less mind-bending.

I also hope to talk a bit about 40K Live Action Roleplay (LARP) tomorrow, so stick around for that.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 13
2024: 56

Assassins, Bodyguards, and Cybernetic Death Machines, Oh My

I managed to get a little bit of paint on some minis today - I really need to carve out more time to do this but there we are. Anyway currently I'm working on two Death Cultists, two Crusaders, and three Arco-Flagellants, all of which will fill in slots for the Witch Hunter army list from 2003 that I use in games of 3rd and 4th Edition 40K - when I can find opponents, that is.

Essentially I've done the metals on all of them, and blocked out the areas that will be red, and the skin on the Arco-Flagellants (which is most of the models there really). The trousers on the Crusaders are brown to fit in with the Ecclesiarchy minis I have, which are mostly a sort of monastic brown. While painting them I noticed that they actually seem to be wearing some kind of banded armour plate on their legs, so I might have to redo that. But a pretty solid base to move forwards with and get the detail work sorted, so maybe they'll be done by the end of the week perhaps.

The keen-eyed among you may have noticed the unpainted black mini between the Arco-Flagellants and the Death Cultists. Remember yesterday when I said I had a plan for the third Death Cultist I can take in a unit of them?

This is her! She's technically some kind of information warfare assassin expert from the Horus Heresy range, but I liked the mini so picked it up a while ago for use as... something. So now she gets to be a Death Cultist! I'm thinking of painting her similarly to the Hasslefree minis ones I have, and she can be some form of super-specialist. Or maybe she could be a Mechanicus-aligned techno-barbarian cultist? That might be fun. Anyway, she's pretty funky, so she'll get some paint on her tomorrow to bring her up to speed with the others.

Until then, may your dice roll high and your paintjobs never chip!

Slowly Ticking Boxes

As I mentioned yesterday I don't have all that many things to paint to "complete" the Witch Hunters Codex entries. Actually, after I made that post I went and got my copy off the bookshelf and flicked through it, and I have a unit for every entry there already - only a tiny handful of minis need painting to "finish" them.

The reason I have the words in scare quotes is because I don't - and never will - have all the possible unit upgrades and the like. I don't, for example, have a jump pack canoness, or a thunder hammer wielding Stormtrooper sergeant, both of which I recall being popular picks in the days of the early to mid 2000s. 

On the other hand, I am inching closer to having six painted arco-flagellants and three painted Death Cult Assassins...

Well, almost. I already have two models I used for Death Cult Assassins, from Hasslefree: 

But I could never find a third one from them that matched those two, and the GW set (which I have started painting up) only has two minis in it which are both essentially the same model with a few tweaks. So I have An Idea floating about. More on that tomorrow!

Redemption Through Suffering!

At last I managed to break free of distractions like job interviews, YouTube, and Hearts of Iron IV and get some painting time. I finished the Penitent Engines which means I now have a full squad of three for my 4th Edition Witch Hunters army - and here they are!

I went for a very simple overall scheme of quite new looking metal because these things aren't meant to last very long - they get built, stuck in storage, then shoved into combat in the expectation that they get destroyed! So very little embellishment and not even any hydraulic leaks or anything - they haven't been around long enough to need lubrication or become particularly stained. There are a few details I probably could have spent some time on but these are more than good enough for gaming work and look fine next to the earlier one I did:

So that's the whole squad. They're a Heavy Support choice for 3rd/4th Edition Witch Hunter armies and can only be taken if you have a Priest in your army. Next up will probably be some arco-flagellants to finish that squad, although I do technically have to undercoat them so I might put those on hold until I have a new can of black spray. For some reason my old cheap go-to of Halfords Matt Black Primer is now drying with a textured finish which is... suboptimal, so I'll have to fork out silly money for a GW spray can probably.

Off the top of my head in order to have models for all the options in the Witch Hunter codex I think I need some more Death Cult Assassins and Crusaders, but I'll have a rummage in my pile of opportunity and see if I have them waiting to paint. I think I do, but we'll see.

And I've still got those Royalist Quar to do, and all...

Painting Points:
Today: 10
This Week: 10
2024: 53

Oops - Distractions

Today I wanted to finish my Penitent Engines. Instead while browsing YouTube for stuff to watch/listen to while I paint I stumbled across this video essay-review of the No One Lives Forever series of PC games that came out in the early 2000s, and which I played and played and played as a teenager. I got NOLF for my birthday in 2000 and was so excited about it I snuck downstairs and played it the night before my birthday. Some years after that, I forget when, probably around 2003ish, I got a 42mm figure at Salute (I think) that was meant to be Diana Rigg as Emma Peel from The Avengers. I, however, had different ideas.

That's Cate Archer, from No One Lives Forever, in the iconic catsuit that she doesn't actually wear all that much...

And that's the 42mm version I painted up in about 2003, when I was around about 15? I remember being really proud of the eyes... I think I can do a bit better now but I'm loathe to repaint them!

So yeah, anyway, I got distracted first with reinstalling and then playing NOLF (which you can get here) and haven't yet finished the Penitent Engines. Still, there's always tomorrow.

The Pile of Opportunity Grows (Thanks, Annie)

A little while ago, Bad Squiddo Games ran a Kickstarter called Definitely Not Damsels 2. I'd not been able to pledge for any minis last time round, but this time round I had some money spare and there were some minis I absolutely had to have. Anyway I got a "posted!" notification yesterday afternoon and this morning they plopped through my letterbox in a lovely pink box with confetti and pink tissue paper and bubblewrap protecting them. Annie's customer service remains top notch!

So here they are:

From left to right, I have a Marauder Berserker for my Old World Sea Wolf army, a Psyker for a 40K Inquisition warband, a funky mini for ... something, a cat (aww) and two snake priestess which will end up with my snake worshippers from my homebrew fantasy setting. I think there's photos of them in this blog way back near the start, sort of around the 2009/10 mark I think.

And I actually managed to put some paint to models today!

The Penitent Engines are reasonably close to finished actually. The majority of what's left is highlighting and detailing on the, er, "drivers", with a bit of detail work on the machines themselves. For such large models, they're remarkably quick to paint if you don't mind a big block of metal!

Further Proof of Life

I painted myself a Tau army last year.

Yes, a whole army. Well, a good core force anyway, for 4th/5th Edition 40K. I didn't, however, have any of the XV-88 'Broadside' battlesuits...

...until now:

Bask in their awesome firepower! Pray that their notoriously weak ankles don't snap, forcing me to pin them!

(And, yes, that is Arch-Confessor Kyrinov behind the Sister of Battle on the right.)

Painting Points: God knows anymore. I'll call these chaps 6 points? Or something.