More Blue stuff

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As you can see I was able to accomplish my meager goal of washing, dry brushing and touching up Arkos and his fellow Alpha Legionnaires. I rather like them as they now appear to have kindova blued steel look to them. I still have three more that are base coated and once finished with those guys, all I will need to work on is their Rhino. Streaking in the wash layer will still be an issue with that, but I'll deal with that when I come to it.

Also on the blue front, I got an old (1989) Spacefleet sprue off of ebay. I've had one of these Imperial cruisers before ( I believe it was classed as a battleship way back when), however it was missing a bit on the front. Now that I can see what that little bit is, I think it looks better without it. Doesn't matter really as I don't want the Imperial cruiser, I want the Wraithship. The Imperial portion will be clipped off & promptly put back on ebay.

While I've never fielded Eldar in BFG, I've always liked/wanted one of these old Spacefleet Wraithships. It's just a really cool looking mini IMO. While it's debatable as to whether or not I'll ever use it (it may just sit looking pretty on the shelf) I did come up with a 500pt fleet for it. If I use the 'Doom of the Eldar' PDF available here, counting this as (fittingly enough) a Wraithship, add two blisters of shadow hunter escorts (4 per pack) and that comes to 480 pts. I could add aspect warrior crews for +20 pts. (like Eldar want to be involved in a boarding action), or (and most likely) count is as a 'ghost ship'. They only suffer critical hits on a 6+ like a normal ship, but also have the potential to not do anything for a turn if you fail their CMD check. Eldar LD is high however so that shouldn't happen too often, of course that is if it ever reaches the tabletop to begin with...

The Summer Doldrums

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Notta whole lot has been going on hobby-wise for the past week or so. I played a game of Space Hulk, not much else though. With me at the helm, the Blood Angels lost 10 termies in said hulk, though the Sgt. with the thunder hammer & storm shield personally accounted for a dozen or more genestealers, and the last termie standing died in a very cinematic blaze of glory. It was quite a fun little game.

On the painting front, I base coated another pair of Alpha legion marines, and finished the icon bearer (guy on the right). When i had started painting these guys, it was before I had started using washes again (see guy on the left). However they've kinda struck me as looking too bright & cartoony, especially when on the table with my Blood Eagles & Purge chaos marines.

So I hit the icon bearer with a wash in Delvan mud before adding the bleached bone dry brush layer. Followed them by some snot green touch ups & dry brushing, and the result is a more dark & sinister look, which I find to be quite pleasing. So I'll have to go back & add the wash & additional dry brushing to the already finished Alpha Legionnaires, including Arkos the Faithless. Not too much effort required to do that, so I'll try & at least get that much accomplished for this week.

Well, I got two out of three.

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I finished off the last two slaves (verminkin) for my Mordheim war band yesterday. They're the two on the left side, back row. Now I just need to set up the wheres and whens to get some practice games in. Several of us (myself included) have played Mordheim in the past, however it's been several years. So its more a case of relearning rather than remembering the rules. My 'alternate' war band's leader is also painted and as quick & easy as the rats are to crank out, I may have all of my extras painted in short order as well (unless I get side tracked again, as would be my usual).

I also finished painting up a a Blood Bowl lineman and....screwed it up (hence the title to this post). He's a casualty of not painting any BB minis in a while. I applied an overall wash of delvan mud, and then realized that that was wrong. On the others I used ogryn flesh, or brown, whatever its called. I tried to sop off as much as possible, and then applied the ogryn wash but the damage was already done. Now lineman #31 is veerrry dark. Yes, there will be some simple green in his future. He'd already be in it, except that I'm currently out of the stuff.

Three blind...rats?

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Okay so they're not really blind, but it sounded catchier than 'some more random stuff'. Anyways I painted three Verminkin (or rather slaves) for the Clockwork Forage this week. This leaves me with just two left, after which my starting/prototype Mordheim warband will be completely painted before they even reach the table! Kinda feels like I'll be breaking one of the seven seals of the apocalypse...

...moving on.

Despite my best efforts, as well as those of eriochrome, I still hadn't figured out exactly how to scale my Blood Bowl passing template correctly, as my board is scaled slightly different than the official GW boards are. However while perusing a thread on the NAF forum the other day I found a PDF of the old BB reference sheet, which conveniently had this chart on it. With the ranges clearly being 3/3/4/3, it was a matter of a few simple adjustments, and my passing template is now to scale! Huzzah!


Speaking of Blood Bowl & the NAF, I received my new set of blocking dice recently (if you pay the $10 membership fee to join the NAF they send you a set). As you can see, they are green! The Wurtbastards were quite pleased and have taken this as a sign of Nuffle's favor.


...and onto one more random topic...

The photo at right shows yet another PvE fitted Jaguar that I have in EVE. Like the one I posted previously, there is an extra module mounted. However, instead of one of the guns, it is a salvager turret. Going into my fittings window I saw that the salvager was fitted into the first high slot. So apparently whatever gets mounted in that slot has an extra turret mounted on the ship, although it doesn't provide any actual benefit. So, mystery solved. :-)

The Clockwork Forage

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This weekend was for painting rats. actually I didn't put too much effort into these little guys as....well, they're just rats. Well, okay, so they're mutated rats with spikes, tubes/pipes and mutated boils. These will be there purely to skitter through cover & hopefully make good on my threat to take down Screech's Riekland captain on horseback when we finally start playing Mordheim.

Here is my starting warband, the Clockwork Forage. I'm still going with the Clan Skyre theme even though I heard that an actual Skyre list was released at some point. I don't have it, so am not concerned about it right now. My warplock engineer has been named 'Tik-a-tok', the sorcerer is 'Ratta-kablouie!' and the stormvermin/Black skaven is simply the slave master. The giant rats don't have/need names, nor do the henchmen whom are simply called 'slaves' & 'more slaves'. Two have clubs & shields, and the other three have spears and shields. There's not much to work with, but with only 500gc to start, everyone will have that problem.

I painted these last two rats yesterday. They were intended to be my night runners. However I ran out of gold crowns, and then found that the one on the left is unusable. I believe he's supposed to have a spear, however giver the curved tip of the blade, a halberd comes to mind. Also heroes can't have shields, only bucklers. Yet bucklers can't be used with halberds. Damn it! Oh well, its not like I don't have 2/3 of a box o' rats still on the sprue. An acquaintance of mine is starting a WHFB Skaven army, so this guy will be a donation to that cause. The rat on the right however I rather like. Given that I have so many unused Skaven, I could make another warband with him as leader (with fighting claws). I'm sure we'll try a few 'learning games' initially before launching into a campaign, so multiple warbands will give me some options for trying various things out.

Exodite Swooping Hawks

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Well as you can see, I finished assembling my Exodite bugs. Not sure if I just want to call them Swooping Hawks or something different. However given their bug like wings, I'm sure that they'll be labeled as 'Exodite bugs' when they get their entry in the updated Exodite field guide. Trying to recall what Sgt. Johnson called the little flying covenant when first encountered in Halo 2, 'little buggers' or something like that? My have to play trough that section again to see (assuming the ol' Xbox will cooperate).

Anyways, I have them divided into two units of five, with an Exarch in each. Both Exarchs will have Intercept & Sky Leap. One has a power sword and he other a sun rifle. I'll prime the three on the left squad, and leave the other squad as is to help differentiate them until all are painted. The addition of these two units brings my Exodite army up to the 1300 point mark. Not Sure what I want to add in for the next 200 pts. I'm thinking maybe a Siam-Hann Falcon so I can add in a Fire Dragon squad. I still have 10 DE chainmail skirt/leggings bits, so there will be at least one more guardian or possibly Dire Avenger unit in the Exodite's future as well.

Also just for the hell of it, here's a screen shot of my new favorite (if perplexing) toy in EVE online. It's a Minmatar Jaguar assault frigate. Its set up for PvE play. Which, in the rare case that any EVE players read this, they would be able to identify by the salvagers mounted on the end of the 'wings' (only one can be seen here). In EVE, a single turret mounted module (guns, salvagers, mining lasers, etc.) is displayed as a pair on the ship. Generally on opposite sides of the vessel so as to give the maximum possible coverage of fire. In space, combat isn't just on a horizontal plane (as opposed to any starship encounter in an episode of Star Trek). So it should look as though my Jag has 6 guns mounted (i.e.: 3 pairs ) however, while they can't all be seen in this image, the Jag actually shows 7 guns. WTF? You see that center mounted gun in the rear dorsal mount? I have yet to figure out why that's there, why it fires, and which actual gun's shooting that it represents. After flying well more than a dozen ship types, this is the first time that I've encountered an 'extra' mystery gun.

Another random side project...

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While odds of VOR miniature game reaching the '2.0' stage are at best theoretical and at worst laughable, I still periodically entertain the idea of building another VOR army. Locally, there is one other guy who plays the game on exceedingly rare occasions, however he's thinking of opening an FLGS of his own (again), so future games of VOR may be possible...

Going with that, I was thinking on building another Union army, though a considerably different one than I've fielded in the past. The 'Union' is the amalgamation of the US, Canada & Mexico. They have hover tanks, drones, uber technology, etc. However when the Union formed, many US military units went rogue, formed militias of the quasi legitimate (and completely illegitimate) natures, 'confederate' regiments formed who would only defend the territories of the former USA, and three US states even tried to secede (Utah, Montana & Wyoming, which was pointless as they were completely surrounded). As such many of these rogue/renegade units still exist and the Union's military often carries out 'hunts' (that's what it says in the book) to exterminate them. So my thought was to use the Union force list (mostly) to recreate one of these renegade units. Thus far, I have two models which I painted over the weekend, first my Commander:
This is actually an Infinity Ariadna model. The scale is slightly smaller/thinner than an Imperial Guardsman. He'll be equipped with his assault rifle & power armor (although its not really a full suit, its close enough). The Ariadna have a quasi-Scottish theme, hence the tabard (which on the Infinity site is painted in a Scottish-like tartan pattern). I really wasn't sure what to do with it, till it struck me as a good place to add an old American military star (from a WWII model kit that the Orks had claimed). No idea what the serial number on the shield is for, but the military often festoons it's equipment with serial numbers, so it seemed like a good place to add one. There look to be enough minis in the Ariadna range to build 2-3 Union squads for VOR (if that ever comes to pass).

I said I would be using the Union list 'mostly'. One nice thing about VOR is that there are rules to create your own units/weapons/vehicles. While a bit cumbersome, they are useful. Being a renegade band that's cut off from proper logistical support, I'm sure that the Drones, hover tanks & what not would have fallen out of service (indeed the Commander's power armor will be the best piece of gear in the unit). Instead simpler vehicles would come into use, such as the good ol' army truck:
This is an Old Crow model (with a modified gun barrel using a GW bit). It's about the length of a rhino (w/o the plow) and the width of the rhino hull (i.e.: w/o the sides). I didn't much care for my original paint job on this, as it struck me as a bit bland. So I changed some colors, added some washes (still can't seem to avoid streaks on large flat surfaces), decals (again from the WWII model kits) and overall I rather like it. Well, not so much the streaks, but for something that'll get used once in a blue moon (if ever) its fine. Speaking of decals, the tire pressure ones fit perfectly between the wheels. Rather pleased with that!

Currently the US military LVS & HEMTT transport trucks have a cab that is similar in shape to this, however they are 8x8's. The Union's formation is still some ways off though (200ish years if I recall) so the odds of a 6x6 army truck of a similar cab design entering service and then getting passed off onto the reserves as obsolete (I would guess they have hover trucks to follow the tanks) are decent enough. Anyways, add in some 'hillbilly' armor and a small MG cupola and it's a perfect APC for some gun toting militia wackos!