30k: Centurion and Techmarine

o/

Whew, its been a wild week! I had the whole week off, but there was little hobby time as we had family in from out of state, and of course Christmas day which included me surprising just about everyone when I popped the question to Wolfy (she said 'yes')! So needless to say, it was a really good week for me!

Just prior to Christmas, I put in a bid on ebay for the crew of a Forgeworld Rapier Laser Destroyer (without the Rapier itself or shoulder pads for the crew). I didn't have the $$$ for it, but they were a good deal, so I placed a minimum bid, knowing I'd lose but wouldn't kick myself for not trying. Naturally, I won the auction. Yay, one more charge for the already screaming credit card. Oh well, Friday and Saturday were kinda quiet and so I put the two together.

First up, my Centurion:

I'll probably paint that helmet on his base in EC colors as well, leaving one to wonder if it belonged to friend or foe...

One thing the Emperor's Children were known for was trophy taking. If they defeated a particularly worthy foe, they would take a weapon from their victim as both a trophy, and for use on future battlefields. As you can see, my Centurion has done just that.

Its not really visible, but the arm holding that blade is actually a bionic arm. So it leaves you to wonder if his organic arm was separated from his body by the very blade that the bionic replacement now wields...

I'll count it as a Charnabal Sabre which is a CCW that confers +1 initiative and is rending.  Beyond the exotic blade, he's a bit of a no-frills type of officer who is outfitted with a bolter, bolt pistol, and grenades. I intend to field him as just a standard Centurion, not one of the optional Consuls.

The other Rapier crew-marine (the one who is normally mounted on the Rapier itself) has been converted to a Techmarine with Conversion Beamer:

Armed to the teeth and looking for a fight!

This guy is something of a blasphemy I guess (no doubt why he was slated for termination by his traitorous brethren) as he's an amalgamation of actual Forgeworld and Chinese knock-off resin parts! I had gotten the Astral Claws Techmarine via China but didn't care for some defects in the casting of his torso (though to be honest, it was no worse than some of the actual FW purchases I've made). As such, it was never painted. With the demise of my Astral Claws, I omitted the offending parts and added the rest to the 30k gunner's body.

He looks kinda comical with such an enormous backpack, no doubt his servo-automata (servitors with bolters) help to keep him upright when on the move. Of course the conversion beamer gives my fledgling force some much needed heavy firepower which will also make this guy target priority #1! Thus the servo-automata will also serve as a few ablative wounds to keep him alive a little longer as well!

So, all I need now are some squads in the 'Troops' category (my recon marines sadly are a support squad, so can't be used for compulsory choices). Currently finances don't permit that but...I still only have two of my 30k marines painted so that's alright I guess as there's plenty to do in the interim.

Note: for anyone running short of Mk III shoulder pads, some of the CSM shoulder pads work just as well!

With New Years day falling on a Thursday, I'm not sure if I'll have another post this week or not. So in the event that I don't I'd like to wish all of you a happy New Year to come!!!

Awesome paint job, but kinda blah...

o/

lol, the title is how Wolfy described my Moblot's paint job! I like the grimy, frontline combat feel of them, rather than the pretty/anime look you see more often (and as she prefers). Their uniform camo and colors look like they're station in a semi-arid environment. I'm not sure if there are deserts on the Ariadna homeworld, but certainly there are plains/savannahs of some sort. No doubt my troops are stationed there.

My Spec Ops team thus far ('Army' doesn't sound like an appropriate term for Infinity).

Side and rear views of my Moblot, the frontal pic sucked, so you'll just have to view that in the pic above.

My Dozer Combat Engineer. As he's technically from a separate unit, his uniform is a bit different from the Moblot. No doubt my other units will also vary a bit as well.

This will be the only post for this week as my folks will be here tomorrow. So I'd like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Winter Solstice/and whatever else holidays I've missed!

In the voice of Adrmiral Akbar: May the dice be with us!

o/

Last night we played an epic 300 point game of X-Wing. The Empire was represented by: I.R.-Voril and Wolfy fielding 150 points each, and the Rebels by: Bob, Kushial and myself with 100 points each. In lieu of asteroids, we used some Lego planet halves (though somehow, the Deathstar never made it into any of the photos).

The battle is joined! Despite this horde of ships being on the table, I think one of the TIE Interceptors had already gone boom!

...about mid-way thru the game. Both sides have been thinned out though the Empire has taken the most casualties by far...

...and here we are at the very end, when the Phantom gets all but surrounded and finally falls, ending the game.

It was a fun night, although the Empire's poor die rolling in the beginning quickly turned things in our favor, Wolfy and Voril still managed to have fun. Our Rebels also got some new reinforcements:

The A-Wing needs to change to match our Purple Squadron, though I asked Wolfy if we ought to leave the YT in it's stock color scheme. She replied with: We're not stock people are we? lol, no...no we're not!

Voril hooked us up on a good deal for the YT-2400, and Kushial gifted Wolfy with the A-Wing for Christmas. I got some cool toys as well, but I'll save that for another post as they're not X-Wing related. I also have another A-Wing coming in exchange for some paint and repair work for Billy. So at this point our Rebel forces are pretty well fleshed out, though a few might turn to the Scum and Villainy side in a few months...we'll have to see.

Infinity Demo #2

o/

First off, what the hell happened to Thursday's post? Well...to be honest, I just plain forgot about it till after it should have been posted. Not having accomplished a whole lot on the hobby front aside from base coating an Ariadna Moblot I decided to just skip it all together.

Skip forward to this past Saturday in which we played a 3v3 Infinity demo game, and jeez, you'd think I'd have thought to take a photo or two. Nope, not a chance. In truth there was only one fully painted mini on the table, so even that wasn't all that photogenic. Well, aside from that one painted model. Scott's Yu Jing Zuyong Incinible in power armor is just fucking beautifully painted! I was completely blown away by it! Thanks to the interwebz' instant messenger though, Scott was able to send me a pic of it. Check it out:

So awesome!

Anyways, we had fun (and we won). Wolfy's contingent suffered no casualties, and as expected, her Wulver was kicking ass and taking names (and she never even made it to combat)! I still can't wrap my head around the face-to-face rolls and armor saves. Our friends who were giving the demo explained it a dozen times or so, but always in the same way. Repetition does not equal understanding if its not understood to begin with and it was quite frustrating.

This Hasslefree mini (Wolfy's is primed black, which is why I used the pic from the HF site) was what we were using as Wolfy's Wulver, named: Beyonsey (resembling but not to be confused with the singer Beyonce).

My Lt., the Moblot (again, the official pic).

 Still, the game has potential, especially as there is as much attacking in your opponent's turn as you own (which initially was also infuriating as I couldn't make any advance w/o getting lit up by 3-4 opposing models). I lost 2 of my 4 models in the first turn! That said, i found out really quick that I really like my Moblot's mimetism skill! That made up for (or at least balanced out) the Ariadna's lack of effective shooting at range! lol, as soon as I said 'mimetism', there was a volley of profanity sent my way from the other side!

I also got to see the size of the circular template in the game (apparently there is only one, and is about the size of a large blast in 40k), and damn! Our Traktor Muls are gonna be disgusting to play against! Who needs to worry about accuracy when you can just carpet bomb someone (whenever I figure out how to use it and considering the above, its probably not high on anyone's list to teach me)!

Infinity: 1st Traktor Mul finished!

o/

I'm not sure where the time goes but after another week, it seems there was little hobby time for me. I did get in a good game of Battletech at the FLGS (and was victorious!), but not much more than that. Squeezing in time here and there I managed to finally  finish the first Traktor Mul for my fledgling Ariadna force.

Per my norm, rather than going all anime-looking with it, I instead opted for dirt, grime and battle damage (including a brush guard that looks like its hit a tree or two). I still need to clear coat the camera and light lenses, but this is essentially the finished product.

I had to prop up the model with a rock underneath, due to it being so back-heavy. Without the rock, it kept tipping over, even popping up from being glued to its base! That's partly why I also added another 'decorative' rock to that base. I say partly as I realized that after I reglued the Traktor down, that it was off-center. Damnit. Thus, it looks as though the Mul just drove around the offending rock...

Hrmm...looks like I screwed up the color a bit in my photoshop tweaking...

This was also my first use of the Secret Weapon Miniatures leaf litter that I'd purchased several months back. I have to say that I really like that stuff. The base needed something...and that fit the bill nicely! It struck me as appropriate to put some on the traktor itself, since leaves like to collect between the hood and windshield of my car.

I still have no idea on how to use this thing, but hopefully I'll get a chance to use it this coming Friday.

Quonset the Hutt!!!

lol, actually there's only one 'T' in hut, but I couldn't resist.

About two weeks or so back, BoLS posted an article about Fantasy Flight's end of year sale. Most of it was RPG stuff, and whilst they were all good deals (if you played those RPGs), they were still too costly for me to buy at this point in time. All the more so as my RPG group has fallen apart with little hope of recovery. 

Idly perusing thru all of the sections, I clicked on Dust Tactics more out of boredom than anything else (I've never had any interest in the game), and stumbled on their Quonset hut 6-pack terrain set listed for a mere $4! 

lol-wut?!? 

Why do the boxes always look so much bigger on the webstore than when you get them at home?

Well, there's no wasted space at least!

I checked online for any reviews, and all were positive so I bought a set which came to $13.15 total with shipping. That translates into: $2.19 per hut! Hell, card-stock terrain costs more than that!

Total time of assembly: about 5 minutes, no glue or trimming required (meaning they still store conveniently in the box).

The scale is perfect for 28mm gaming!

My initial idea was to use them for Infinity. True, these are anything but anime-ish…but I'm going with the Ariadna, who are low-tech/3rd world-like anyways. Besides, these are cheap line-of-sight blockers that aren't my cityfight ruins. Especially as 40k's stereotypical SKULLS ON EVERY SURFACE design philosophy is also quite unanime-ish, not to mention a bit tiresome to look at after 2 decades of gaming in the grim dark. 

To me, Quonset huts scream WWII! Well that and cheap post-WWII housing. In the latter case, I know of 3 in my area, one of which I drive by every time I go to work. So for Bolt Action (which is Weird War II in my case), these will be perfect for terrain. To that end, I pulled my long hibernating (in their miniature cases) Quar out for a quick sweep and clear of the new huts! 

Note: My Camera-Quar is on hand, to photograph the event for propaganda purposes...

ALL CLEAR!

They line up nicely for a longer, multi-room hut as well.

My (futile?) hope is that my so-called opponents will get off their asses and actually build their armies after what…1-2 years? I'm not gonna hold my breath on that though. We're this far along and Rob still can't make up his mind on an army (his latest: I like the look of the Finns...kinda like he said for the Japanese and the Russians before them). My best hope is Bob who just recently picked up the Bolt Action rulebook. 

…sigh… 

I guess my over-weight Aardvarks (of a sort) still rule WWII...quonset huts and all. 

Billy's Jalopies

o/

Well, I now sit here stuffed after a 2nd Thanksgiving dinner (leftovers), once again thinking: 'Oh my god why....why did I eat so much?' I can't do too much in my current state, but I can do a blog post at least I suppose.

So Saturday evening, Billy (last mentioned in this post here) and his fiance joined us for a night of gaming at our house. We were hoping for X-Wing, but he brought a card game called Boss Monster, or Monster Boss...something like that. Generally I don't prefer card games, but his fiance doesn't play X-Wing, so we gave it a go so she wouldn't be reduced to just watching us play. Besides, it had an always fun fuck with your opponents element which appeals to me greatly (and they all ganged up on me in the last round...and I still won! Though only just barely). Indeed, I won 2 out of 3 rounds, so it was all good.

Anyways, Billy is one of our local X-Wing fanbois. Due to health issues he can no longer assemble/paint minis, so he locked onto X-Wing pretty quickly and has a huge horde of ships! Several he got 2nd hand 'cheap' and in bad shape (yes, buyers beware and all that). For example he has a TIE advance that's only fit for a wreckage marker. Speaking of wrecks...

Not an uncommon problem I'm sure...

This Interceptor had a previously broken and reglued (albeit very crooked) wing. I offered to paint some ships for him, and he asked if I would add some red stripes to this beater. Why he didn't want that on a unbroken model is beyond me. That's just Billy, if you knew him you'd understand. So in looking at this fighter the wing quickly broke again. I fixed it, then I dropped it (breaking it again) and all sorts of profanity ensued...

...but as you can see, its fixed again (for the moment). I can't seem to bend the warped wings back into the proper shape. Oh well. He also had a B-Wing which he had broken off the recepticle for the flight-stand-post off of, and reglued sideways if...not entirely straight. 'I was high when I fixed it.' Sigh...stoners for the win.

Anyways, he wanted me to change the wings to be in the folded down/traveling position, and to adjust the cockpit to match the sideways position. It was easy enough to do, though I needed a piece of plasticard on the top wing due to a gap (its not really an issue on the bottom wing).

Note the cockpit is level with the base, not the ship. Though in space 'level' is a curious concept...

He doesn't want it painted yet apparently in hopes the Scum and Villainy will get them, but I'm not holding my breath on that. However it will need to be repainted at some point. I sent him a cellphone pic and he was pleased with it, so all I need to work on now is the racing stripes on the Interceptor along with keeping its freaking wings on.