A New Post, from England!

Well here I am in England, finally updating my wargaming blog! Almost 6 months to the day since my last update. The gaming club I play at here is incredible, and I've been splitting my time between Infinity, Warhammer 40k (Using the Heralds of Ruin Kill Team rules, check them out), and just recently Napoleon at War.

So! Here's an update on my current projects!

Armageddon Steel Legion special weapon conversions. GW only made a Grenade Launcher and a Plasma Gun model, so I've converted a couple lasguns into flamers, and carved a couple away entirely to replace with another flamer and a melta gun.

Also, a Company standard bearer! I didn't take a close up of his right arm, but it's from the Cadian command set, I pared away  most of the shoulder pad and filed it down to it Should look just like his normal cloth arm when painted. I'm not good enough to make it look like he's got a heavy glove on his bare hand though, sadly.

All set to burninate some Orks and/or other things

'Need a light?'

In other news, here are some French, marvelously well painted by the magnificent Stuart, and given over to me to command this past Sunday as we did battle against the perfidious Russians and English.

Unconventionally, we had our infantry on the flanks and Cavalry in the center.

My troops begin to shake out of column and into line as we face the brunt of, not only the Russian infantry, but the thunderous fire of their massed artillery battery.

In the center, our cavalry regiments took turns charging and then bouncing off of each other, until they were finally worn away to nothing.

Here, the french Right flank. The woods were thick with English riflemen, and the bayonet played as much a part of the fight as the musket. Other than the sharp engagement in the woods, his troops didn't play much part, other than to keep three battalions of Scottish Highlanders pinned on the hill. 

A close up of Stuart's fantastically, infuriatingly well painted French line infantry. I mean, goddamn look at those! Fantastic. I'm not half jealous.

And here, my own troops in progress, some Austrians.

They'll look better with some washes on the faces, and once they're fully based.

Armageddon Steel Legion!

Finally painted some of my Armageddon Steel Legion for 40k! And here they are. I've wanted some Armageddon Steel Legion for a long, long time, and now I've got some! I already had some tanks painted in that scheme, but I've finally finished a full squad of infantry, on this rainy, dull Sunday.

Hopefully next weekend, we'll be able to have people over and play some 40k. 

The Battle for Hypatia Hive

The Achilus Crusade began in 777.M41, to reclaim the Jericho Reach from the sway of Xenos and Heretical forces. Under the command of Lord General Militant Solomon Tetrarchus, vast army groups of the Imperial Guard, Naval Fleets, Legions of Skitarii and Titans of the Mechanicus, and even the mighty Adeptus Astartes, march to war, to drive out the enemies of mankind.

The Crusade is taking place over three salients: designated Canis, Acheros, and Orpheus. The general Imperial strategy is for the Canis salient drive towards the core of Jericho Reach and crush native resistance while Acheros and Orpheus salients move swiftly through uninhabited rim worlds, encircling the core and disrupting Tau activities in the area.

In the Cellebos Salient, a bloody war of attrition grinds on against both secessionist and Tau forces. The world of Khazant has changed hands several times. The latest Tau counteroffensive, bolstered by newly arrived hunter cadres dispatched from the Sept of Velk'Han, has wrested control of three of the four primary hives on Khazant from the Imperial Defenders.

After nearly a week of bloody street fighting, Brigade Command withdrew all forces from Hive Hypatia to regroup and refit. Theater Commander General Erasmus Grachev, under intense pressure from Crusade Command, struggled to reorganize his shattered battle groups and launched a hasty counter attack on Hypatia.

Elements of the Cadian 1059^th Infantry, Armageddon Steel Legion armored korps, and Krieg 143^rd Siege Regiments were re-designated Task Force Cardogan and tasked with breaking through the Tau lines to establish a foothold back into the city for follow-on forces...

We started the above scenario the other Sunday at my place. We got one and a half turns in before we ran out of time and steam. There was an issue with timing, we got started late, and had a player unfamiliar with the rules. I didn't get any pictures of the game either. 

We decided that, story-wise, the Imperial counterattack, an armored thrust supported by heavy amounts of Death Korps of Krieg artillery, was far more than the Tau strike force had expected to reorganize so effectively. After suffering heavy losses, the Hunter Cadres pulled back, looking for better ground upon which to make their stand. Imperial forces will no doubt find their armored advantage nullified in the confines of the ruined hive's narrow streets...

My Current Projects

I guess honestly the death of our beloved cat, Piglet, has been hitting me harder than I thought. Well, not harder than I thought, but for longer. I sure do miss that fluffy bastard. So I've been throwing myself into the hobby with a lot more enthusiasm lately, I guess trying to stay busy and distract myself.

But yeah, I sold some of my old, unused gaming stuff, and with it bought some 15mm miniatures for Beneath the Lily Banner, the ruleset covering the years 1680 to about 1750, maybe 1760 or so? So the first half of Empire: Total War, haha. My previous post covers it more, but here are pictures of the three infantry battalions that I've finished painting, still need banners.

The blue-uniformed battalions are Bavarians.

While the grey-coated ones are French.

Not content with this project, I'm finally getting my Imperial Fists on! I got a Great deal on the Assault on Black Reach starter set from a friend in SA, but until I get that (soon hopefully,) I didn't have anything to do, 40k related (besides work on my guard heavy weapons, but they're so goddamn boring, ugh), so I bought the new Tactical Squad:

Gave the Sergeant an actual bolter with his chainsword, gotta take full advantage of the Imperial Fist bolter drill rules. These are still very much a work in progress, but lemme tell you: Buy the Army Painter spray paint for whatever color marine army you're going to play. It will save you so much time. Especially if you're painting something as crappy to work with as yellow.

The other secret is my Micron pen. It's got a .2mm head on it, and that's how I did all the black lines on the models. Another Tremendous saver of time and effort. (It's also how I did the script on the purity seals, though I'm not sure the pictures show them that well)

Not content with these two other projects, I let my newfound compatriots at Great Hall Games seduce me with the game Bloody Big Battles. (I'm a sucker for alliteration.) A historical ruleset for battles between 1840 and 1905, it covers the Age of Rifles. Each base is 1,000 men, and the groups of bases in a unit represent either a brigade or a division, depending on how many. The scale of the game is really big, and you can refight the entire three day battle of gettysburg in three or four hours. So HERE you can see my Prussians for the Franco-Prussian war. I also got a French army pack of the same size, in 10mm. "10mm?" you say to yourself, "I can't even Concieve of minis so small!" Well...

They look incredibly easy to paint, you don't have to put much detail on such a small model, and they look great on the table.

This is the Army pack. Four infantry divisions, 5 bases of horses (I don't know how the cavalry was organized, cut me some slack,) and 3 cannons still in the bag. the equivalent of 26,000 men or thereabouts. 

So that's what I'm working on these days, haha. If anybody ever wants to join me in Austin to check out the historical gaming scene, the guys are friendly and they'll let you sit down and join in even if you don't have much experience. Most of them have models enough to share, it all depends on what takes your fancy.

And with my new Imperial Fists company beginning to take shape, I'm hoping to get some more 40k games in under my belt before long, especially with summer just around the corner.

At Long Last, an Update! Necrons and Krauts

Hello, loyal follower...s? I haven't updated in a couple of months, just haven't had much drive until recently. I don't have much word content at the moment, but enjoy some pictures!

The Necrons belong to my wife, some of them from my friend Derek. The ones that are originally Ria's are the ones with Purple stuff on 'em, while Derek's are from a wide time period, during which he experimented with different techniques and paint schemes, etc. etc. So it's a very eclectic look, at the moment.

 

Hell hath no fury like the vast robot armies of a woman scorned!

 

Legions (well, like 72) of Warriors! Observe their many different colour patterns etc.

 

Stalwart Immortals do their thing, etc. I don't know if you can see it, but it's a nice blend of new plastics and old metal models, with the old models upgraded with the new weapon arms. They blend pretty seamlessly.

 

Flaaaayed ones! 

The pinker, more uniform ones are Derek's, while Ria decided that her Flayed ones preferred a more varied diet. The one on the right is wearing an Ork, while two spaces to the left is a Flayed One that ate a Tau.

 

ehhh some Lords and a named character or other, with some scratch built Crypteks behind them.

 

A catacomb and or annihilation barge! I don't know the difference, tbh. Necrons aren't really my thing.

 

Ahhh yes, and a terrifying... Thing! Treeeemmmmble before it's wraaaath!

 

I wish I had an airbrush, you can do some really cool stuff with the glow effects.

 

"Face the enemy, Sergeant!"

 

"There's just too many of them!"

"They won't die!"

"Game over, man, game over!"

And now finally, my WWII Germans! I love Flames of War, and it's only recently that I found a paint scheme for the tanks that I really liked. Pictured below is my Panzerkompanie: Panzer IVs spearheaded by fearsome Panther tanks, backed up by StuGs and Wespe Self Propelled Artillery, and a mechanized Panzergrenadier company (in halftracks)

 

StuG Assault Guns, collected from all the various starter sets I've gotten from this and the previous edition. The Germans made a bunch of them on the Panzer III and Panzer IV chassis because it was far easier, mechanically, to build than a 'true' tank (what with the turret and all). I have a soft spot for them, historically, but it's easier to work with turreted AFVs.

 

My Scout/Recon elements. Infantry scout teams can be taken with most any german list, and these late war guys have been upgraded with Sturmgewehr Assault rifles for some added punch. The 8-wheeled vehicles there are nicknamed Pumas, and I really just got them to spice up an otherwise kind of monotonous Late War armored list.

 

Besides, they look cool. And their main guns are pretty solid for recce vehicles.

 

Company HQ. Not my best paint work, but they were among my first 15mm models ever done, wayyy back in... god, what like 2009? Geez...

 

A grenadier Mortar platoon. Intended for a straight-leg infantry company, but most of that company isn't painted, so they're just chilling here in the group shot. One of my favorite things about FoW is that you really need to use the various elements of your force together to achieve objectives/triumph. You can't just rely on one death star unit or named character to insta-win your way to victory *cough WFB* (and sometimes 40k, too)

 

MG-42 Machine Gun Platoon. Love these guys, almost any german infantry company can take two and mix them in with their other infantry platoons to really beef up their firepower.

 

The massed ranks of Panzer IVs, the German workhorse of the latter half of the war. Slightly better than the M4 Sherman and definitely better than the (basic) T-34, the German armored superiority is mostly thanks to special rules and higher levels of training/motivation than their allied counterparts. Until of course, you take into consideration...

 

The PANTHER TANK! What would have been considered a Heavy tank to the Americans was merely the superior medium tank for the Third Reich. Though they didn't produce nearly as many Panthers as they did Panzer IVs or StuGs, the Panthers were used to equip the very best Wehrmacht and SS armored formations.

 

Back when we played a lot, we didn't have too much in the way of air power in play. Still, there's no harm in coming prepared, and these quad 8cm guns have a prodigious rate of fire that can make a mockery of light vehicles and infantry formations alike.

 

"Mit donnernden Motoren, so schnell wie der Blitz,

Dem Feinde entgegen, im Panzer geschützt
Voraus den Kameraden, Im Kampfe ganz allein, (Ja ganz allein)

 So stoßen wir tief in die feindlichen Reih'n!

 

I had a fully painted Grenadier company at one point that I sold once I got my hands on the new starter set. The new plastic infantry models are MILES ahead of the old pewter ones. I'm no professional painter, but I think they turned out okay. Besides, the 3-foot rule is, as ever, in effect.

 

A slight footnote, all German infantry were granted the honorific title "Grenadier," which had been used in almost all European armies for centuries to denote Elite formations. Grenadiers were infantry, Panzergrenadiers were mounted in trucks and military cars to keep pace with the Panzers, and in FoW, Gepanzertepanzergrenadiers are Panzergrenadiers mounted in armored Halftracks.

 

That's all for now, folks. Next time: Imperial Guard, terrain and maybe something else, too!