The Carrot

Behold! Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor in his vegetative state...

And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. and took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the space betwixt the air itself.

And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own Midwest.

And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil.

One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possessed me then

And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?"

And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots!

You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust."

And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared: 

"Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! 

Damn you!

Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!"

-from 'Disgustipated' by Tool

Note the discolored gatling gun barrels, no doubt from shooting at many a varmint... 

We all know that Neverness wants one of these...

I mean come on, had I not posted that Tool monologue in this post, then somebody else would have in the comments. Hell, when I posted a WIP pic on facebook a little ways back, the above was one of the first replies I received. 

This was a fun little side project (not that I really have a main project...). No idea what I'll do with it now though, so this is currently hovering ominously in my display case. I have a 2nd one of these I'm looking to 'medieval up' a bit for use as a mobile root vegetable in effigy for Turnip28. But that's a project for a later date as WHFB-esque wagon wheels aren't as easy to come by as they once were. Will need some medievalish looking planking as well...

He's blue steel & sex appeal!

Yeah, sorry Smurf fanbois, this post isn't for you. To the devotees of Slaanesh however, read on...

Sure, he'd prefer to kill the minions of the corpse god as much as any other traitor marine, but going by his tabard of recently flensed Ork's hide along with Ork skulls on his base, clearly any opponent will do. 

To be honest, I actually just sold off the bulk (meagre as it was) of my Children of Torment chaos marines just the other day. The hideous amount of detail on every sculpted surface makes the notion of painting them in bulk something of a nightmare in my opinion. 

From this angle, you can barely see the pink armor. 

But there it is. Curiously it all goes nicely together. 

Already having two painted chaos marines (that Helbrute is now gone btw), I painted this one up this week (and just when you though I'd given up on painting 40k minis...). That leaves me with my aspiring champion, cultist champion and flamer gunner left to go. They, along with my already painted cultists are enough to make a nice looking Kill Team. I could squeeze another cultist in there actually, but folks want too much for em on eBay, and hell they're only 4 points so the absence of one isn't really worrisome. 

Here you can see them as they're being blinded by the glory of Slaanesh!

Originally I was painting each marine with their armor trimmed in a different metallic color, because Chaos. Conveniently, having three of them, it'll now be easy to differentiate which kill team specialist is which. 

It'll do till I get him something better. 

Next up though I think I'm going to work on some cavern tiles as I have 6 of the primed and ready to go. Also my father-in-law got Frankie's lightsaber working...without really doing anything, but the kid is thrilled so it's all good. Speaking of, Ultrasabers finally contacted me today after 19 days of silence, by basically repeating their last email which I had already answered but they apparently failed to actually read. 

As such, I pretty much told them to go to hell. Schmucks.

The underworld expands!

I ordered another set of caves and they arrived this past week. I just love these things and probably spent an hour or so just putting this layout together, assembling and reassembling so as to use every piece that I have. 

The full layout though as always, once disassembled the same layout will never again be made. 

15mm marines performing a sweep and clear. 

The marines consist of a Lt., and (3) 5-man tac squads of 'first born' bolter grunts. It's all straight up 40k with just their movement rates halved.

'Movement detected up ahead...'

...and then there is my Quarmy. Easily representing IG in 15mm, albeit with a few minor alterations.

Both forces clock in at 250pts., though for an almost kill team-esque option, the Quar split in half evenly enough to make two, 125pt forces. I mean let's face it: in tunnel fighting, marines are going to slaughter the IG.

Squad sgt. watching the Sentinel tank as it advances up the narrow passage way.

Company CO bellowing out orders via megaphone...it's no wonder the marines can here them!

It's called Zone Mor-what?!?

The Commissar ambling along in the rear, shooting any stragglers for his own amusement.

As always I want more, but am thinking I'll hold off on any more purchases till I get these painted up. Yeah I know, everybody says that...but this will more or less just be an exercise in dry brushing using a color palette reminiscent of the vastly larger Triceratops I painted some years back. 

I sent the layout pic to my GF, and almost immediately this meme is what I got back in return...lol.

Check out my new Light Saber!!

 

er...well, actually it was a gift for my girlfriend's 11 year old son Frankie. The look on his face Christmas morning when he opened the box was priceless. Sadly, those few minutes of glee are about all the good that came out of this purchase. In hindsight, do your research before buying folks, because I got taken for a ride.

Ultrasabers.com (not linked because you SHOULD NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM THEM!!!) was the only company I knew of that makes light sabers aside from going to a Disney theme park. As such, as I've since read on reddit (a site I normally loathe as I find it difficult to navigate) that I made the 'classic mistake' of making my first saber purchase from Ultrasabers. They're one of the longest running, most heavily marketed, and biggest names out there. 

The power button is depressed yet it is unlit, as usual. 

It's really just a glorified flashlight, albeit with faulty wiring. Oh and forget the warranty as there are countless posts about them refusing to honor them. 

Years ago, they were one of the best too. A friend of mine has one of their sabers, has had it for about 3 years now and loves it. However after lighting up as it did above, I wrapped the saber up and awaited Christmas (FYI: you can only return your saber within 3 days of arrival, because they're clearly aware of their poor quality). Christmas morning it went out after about 5 minutes of swinging it around, coming into contact with nothing. 5 sets of batteries later (all different brands) and I realized we had a problem. 

You can remove the blade so as to display just the hilt on a stand (also purchased), however when Frankie took the blade out this silver reflective liner fell out immediately. He tried to get it to back in and it crinkled...  

...and this is what ya get as a result (again, on the rare occasion it'll actually light up). So much for that beautiful glow in the first pic. The blade is clearly designed to be removed, also-don't ever fucking do that! 

After 2 weeks of the run around by customer service, I went looking online and found youtube videos, reddit posts, Better Business Bureau rating, reviews and complaints and found that at some point the company took a bad turn and is now pretty much the worst of the worst. I've read a lot of the horror stories this past weekend, and have to say my experience with them is sadly one of the better ones. 

My father in-law is more or less a retired electrical engineer (skills-yes, that actual degree-no), so will see if he can fix it as from what I've read, were I to send this piece of junk back, I'd never see it again. Currently I'm researching other makers and will buy Frankie a proper, functioning light saber soon I hope (he's such a great kid, he feels bad for me because I've been so mad about what I thought would be the ultimate present that was instead total garbage). 

Don't be like me, do your research before clicking the 'buy' icon! Also, NEVER EVER BY ANYTHING FROM Ultrasabers.com Scumbags.com!! 

Team Yankee LAV & HMMWVs assembled

 o/

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that keyboards count as difficult terrain...

Whilst watching our national embarrassment play out on the news, I was at home, fortifying my 15mm defenses by assembling my Team Yankee LAV-25 and TOW missile equipped Humvees. The irony of assembling a WWIII army whilst rioters had raided the US Capitol building just a few hours earlier is not lost on me. 

They're simple little kits that go together quite easily. That said...Screech has informed me that my two A-10s are reportedly rage inducing according to a mutual friend of ours who has already built them. If that turns out to be true, then perhaps one of my infamous Nerd-RAGE!!!! rant posts is in the future? lol, we shall see.

  

I got these three for $20 along with what I had thought was an M-113 sprue. Instead it turned out to just be an M-113 upgrade sprue (because I apparently can't read). These were actually my first Team Yankee minis purchased, with the prepainted Abrams horde being bought just a little while later. Speaking of, I asked the Abrams' seller what paints he had used and inconveniently, all of them were both oil-based and OOP. So trying to match those paint jobs ought to be fun (but hopefully doable, due to my collection of 'army' colors).

I suppose I ought to try playing a game or two of TY before buying anymore stuff for it but...well, you all know how that goes. 

So long to this wretched year!

 

o/

2020 has been an awful year for most everyone. Rather than recap my personally experienced horrors, I'll instead let ya know where things stand as this ol' blog has been fairly quiet here of late. 

First up:, I based my 15mm Quar kickstarter army and tweaked their 'Sentinel tank' as well. Not knowing just what I'll do with them, I've organized them as a 250pt IG Combat Patrol force for 40k in 15mm. A few liberties were taken but not enough to really matter in the event that that anyone wants to actually fight 15mm anteaters in 40k. 

That said, much like I did with my Weird War II Quar in Bolt Action, there is a temptation to rebase them and use them with my Abrams tanks as a Weird War III Team Yankee army. We'll see on that though...

Yes of course I painted that! Can't you see the brush strokes? 

Speaking of Team Yankee, the MLRS' that I'd gotten with my tanks were actually toys and more importantly, of the wrong scale. So I gave them to my GF's son who was quite please with them. I did however get 2 sprues of individual Humvees, and for Christmas a box of A-10 Warthogs as well as the American army book and unit cards. So more to come on that front in the future. 

Just today I ordered a 2nd allotment of modular caves using my government stimulus $$$. What d'ya mean that's not what it's for?? Fine, fine, the rest will go to my property taxes and savings, sheesh...lol. Essentially it was a carbon copy of my first order. That ought to do it for the caves for the foreseeable future, as now I need to get em painted up. 

All is quiet on the 40k front. I sold off my still new-in-box alt IG, as lord knows when I'd ever get around to them. I haven't painted ANYTHING for them (or much of anything else really), nor played in quite some time. To be honest I don't see any expansion of my current forces/collections for the foreseeable future. 

This Spellcrow Whirlwind bit was my last 40k acquisition. Presumably the Incandescent Coyotes will get it after I eventually finish that Rhino in the background. 

Which means of course that I still have an endless queue to paint on. The FLGS is starting a Crusade campaign this weekend...power levels, bleh. As such, don't expect to hear  too much from me about 40k for a bit aside from my getting bored and painting a random model or two here and there. 

Happy New year folks! Hopefully things will get better for us all in 2021!

Team Yankee Revisited.

 o/

All of this post's photos are straight from the eBay listings as they've yet to arrive. 

About a week or two ago Screech commented 'you're all about 15mm gaming here lately, so how about Team Yankee?' He was referencing my recently acquired caves (which are great for 15mm gaming yet totally useless in TY). I'd looked thru the rules some years back, but nobody I knew of locally was interested in the game so I shelved the rulebook. Not sure where I shelved it as of yet, but I'll find it eventually, my house is fairly small so there aren't too many places for it to hide. 

I'll have to add a decal to one Abrams tanks to mark it out as my army CO's tank.

There's a new, 'old school' FLGS that opened recently, and Team Yankee is one of the games they're looking to build a following for. However as you may have noticed by my lack of recent posting, I've been fairly busy with real life and haven't had much time for hobbying. Thus adding another army to my unpainted pile of shame isn't high on my list of things to do. 

As such I found a 98pt, fully (and nicely) painted American army on eBay for the approximate original retail cost and bought it. Whilst that doesn't help the FLGS any, if I like the game this will (1) only be the beginning and (2) I still need the unit cards, army book, templates, etc.. 

I'm hoping I can match these paint jobs when/if I acquire further units. 

Currently it's a small, uber elite min/max army which you all know isn't my style. So as I add units later on I can 'dumb' my troops down into something more to my liking (ie.: exchanging M1A1's for older M1's and the like). 

My army consists of the following:

M1A1 Combat Team:

(x1) M1A1HC Holy Christ! 'Heavy Common' (up-armored) HQ tank

(x2) platoons of (2) M1A1 Abrams each

(x1) platoon of (2) M1 Abrams (the older, 105MM gun toting variety)

Support Unit:

(x1) MLRS270 Support battery of (2) vehicles

So notta whole lot, but enough to get me going. Currently my army is traversing the wilds of pandemic stricken America via pack mule it seems, so don't look for any bat reps just yet. Speaking of, I also need to actually visit said new FLGS. To date I haven't as it's a mere 5 minutes from my GF's home, and curiously that proximity is distracting me from visiting the store itself. 

Now, off to find that rulebook...