Another YT-1300 Repaint

o/

Previously I had repainted a HWK-290 for my friend Billy, as he can no longer paint due to health issues. Recently he acquired a 2nd Millennium Falcon after buying an X-Wing collection from someone getting out of the game, and he asked me to repaint it for him.

Billy: Paint it anyway you like. 
Me: What's your favorite color? 
Billy: Pink, but please don't paint my YT that!

lol, for my effort he gave me an excess X-Wing that he had also gotten from his purchase. Generally Billy doesn't name his larger ships as I do, however I dubbed the YT Ol' Ironsides (which is also Billy's nickname for his father).

Unlike my own YT Scarlet Harlot, I wanted this YT to look like it was well past its prime.

I opted for an orange engine glow to contrast with the ship's paint job.

A liberal dose of GW's Ryza Rust helped to achieve the beat-up look.

It remains to be seen whether he'll keep the name or not. Regardless, he was quite pleased with the ship when I gave it to him.

:-)

The Rise of Infinity's Yu Jing!

o/

Sorry about yesterday's post, I simply ran out of time (I'm just squeaking this one in too!).

Anyways, last week on our FLGS' FB page, our friend Scott asked if anyone wanted some Infinity minis, because he was getting out of the game (he plays too many games apparently...). Now, my friends often lament the continuous cycle of me selling my armies, however I have nothing on Scott. Really what he needs is an army rental service (an idea to which his wife readily agreed!).

Now, as I'm sure you'll recall, I recently posted a rant on here about how Infinity hates me. Wolfy however, likes it a lot. She's even commented to me that D20s are her favorite kind of dice. I inquired to see if Scott would want something in trade (as our finances are always tight), he replied with Do you have any Imperial Guard? lol, whilst there may be too many games in Scott's repertoire, model count apparently isn't an issue.

I haven't fielded IG in quite some time (and well before the name change which I still don't use), and only had a pair of Chimeras left (one of which was a piece of shit wreck, and the other a Chapterhouse conversion). I also threw in a pair of Imperial Bastions, one painted and one unassembled half-bastion (it was sans the middle section with the Heavy bolters).

In trade, Wolfy got all of these (plus templates and tokens):

I posted the one on the left in this post previously.

The two female Samurai  in back have already been dubbed the 'Femurai'.

Aside from knowing that these four are Japanese 'cheerleaders', I don't know what any of these minis are. We're going to have to figure out what they are on CB's website.

All of them together.

In addition to all of the above, our buddy Hoss acquired Scott's Nomads (all unpainted) as well.

Scott said he'd paint the last two primed minis above to match the rest which is a good thing as his painting style is totally different than mine. Scott said he wouldn't rule out ever playing Infinity again, and I asked if he thought he'd get the bug again when he got around to painting those two minis. He just shrugged and said maybe, but it would be Pan-O next time around (not that he's thought about it...lol).

Is this the post you're looking for?

No, this is not the post you are looking for. 

Move along, move along...(and come back tomorrow...).

Yeah I'm loving the new Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato Y-Wings!

After stumbling for a turn or three on the title name of BTL-A4, I just said the hell with it and dubbed my Y-Wings the BLT Y-Wings and now that that's now stuck in my mind, thus shall they forever be known.

Anyways, Wolfy and I took on Billy in a 150 point rematch this past weekend. It was a Scum and Villainy turf war as we were all fielding them for the first time. Billy, as usual forgot the details of the game and had to make a 150 point list last minute (after confirming that point level earlier in the week, go figure...), and had kindova mish-mash of a list. Wolfy had 3 Bianyre Z-95s with hot-shot blasters, and a decked out HWK, and I had 2 hired thugs in BLT Y's with ion cannons and unhinged astromechs, and Drea in a BLT with an auto-blaster, and an unhinged astro as well.

Also this was our first game with our Gale Force Nine battle mat! Its a major improvement over our old cut-up BFG space mats, and as soon as we able we're going to get another incase Wolfy and I are playing in separate games!

On to the game:

The opening moves...Billy was fielding the HWK that I painted for the first time. Unbeknownst to him, I 'painted' a double agent into the pilot seat, as his Aggressor flew into the HWK for 3 turns in a row!

Y-Wings everywhere! Almost every turn I had to remind Billy not to shoot the yellow ones, because they were his. Usually this was followed by: Damnit! I was in range 1!

Don't shoot that red HWK, he's on our side! Well, until it kept dropping our HWK's PS to 0, marking it for death...

I love my wonderful Wolfy! The aggressor tried to break free only to be cock-blocked (her term for it) by her surrounding trio of Z-95.

The HWK's exchange broadsides whilst Y-Wings cut loose in all directions!

Not only did Wolfy tie up the Aggressor after Billy's HWK got out of the way, she chewed it down to just one HP (whilst losing only a single Z-95). This left it easy prey for my 2 Y's which hosed it down thoroughly (though it was only the last shot that killed it as he was evading like a mother-fucker!).

 Side note: At this point we switched to my cell phone's camera after Wolfy's died. as such you'll note that the above and below pics are of a noticeably inferior quality. 

With the Aggressor and HWK falling on the same turn, all was lost for Billy, though he did fight to the end. No quarter was given, as is typical for space pirates...

Damn, we almost had a flawless victory there, with one of Wolfy's Z-95s coming thru the game completely unscathed! The game was a lot of fun, though I think Billy would have done far better had his aggressor not been hemmed in early on. From what I've heard about that ship, I was seriously concerned about it running rampant. Luckily though, my double agent did his job (before we killed him lol).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

...we have a...um...well, alien I guess.

Take me to your leader Earthling!

lol, we were outta town this past weekend, and Wolfy and I picked up a bit of a stomach bug on our return. As such nothing has happened on the hobby front so far this week. Luckily, in situations like this I invariably have some random mini that I (fairly) recently painted but never blogged about but will do so now. Thus you see the mini above.

The mini is a GDF (Illyrian) Sentry #3 from Bombshell Miniatures' Counterblast Kickstarter but is now available here (and damn these little 'boutique' mini companies are expensive!). Still, I love it! Its weird and neat all at the same time!

 What will I use it for you ask? 

Damned if I know! 

I had some ideas for it as a 40k proxy to go with my already proxied army of Grymn (and this guy/girl/it is painted to match my Grymn). But...my love of 40k has taken a nose dive here of late and I'm not sure what to do with it. Sadly, the above mini is the only pose that's available with a space suit. The other Illyrians are 'plain clothes' models and look dumb to me. Though the Human GDF Sentry and the various Counterblast robots have potential as...something (company for this little guy on the shelf maybe?).

This might find a home in Beyond the Gates of Antares if that game ever gets going (its already the most likely home for my Grymn who I could use as Pan Humans/Free Born Mercenaries). Currently though, BtGoA (still in Beta testing) looks generic and kinda boring to me. Likewise I have no idea on the game of Counterblast which the spawned the mini above. Locally I doubt it would gain any traction, so there's no point in looking into it for the time being.

So I guess this guy is just there to look at...

The demise of (my) Heavy Gear collection...

o/

All purchased over a decade or so...

I love Heavy Gear's universe and it's miniatures. Both make up a good combination of hard science fiction and giant stompy robots! However one thing I don't like are Heavy Gear Blitz's rules. Thru its various incarnations, its been simplified to some extent. However over the course of the game's evolution it has gone from needlessly over-thought and pointlessly complex (the starting point) to the current state of: I think I'm getting  a migraine...yeah, I'm done.

Good sales pitch eh? 

I have no idea on the RPG system as I've never played it, but its probably no better. However the source books are all good reads and I've read damned near all of them! In fact I own damned near all of them...or at least I did till I shipped them all out via Fedex last Friday. Noble Knight Games, which is one of my sources of non-GW minis (most notably my Grymn), excepts trade-ins, and after perusing my inventory via an emailed list and photos, I'm getting an amazing credit of $130 for them! Holy crap! I figured I'd be offered something like $20-$50 at most! They even covered the shipping costs!

Unsurprisingly,  it didn't take very long (oh...about 30 minutes) to figure out how to spend that $130 on their website! That being a new X-Wing battle-mat, Cards Against Humanity (Wolfy's been wanting that for quite awhile), and a bunch of CBT terrain so I can trash the now mostly shot-to-hell paper buildings (there were many casualties when one of our kitties jumped into the open storage box!). I still have a half dozen Gear minis left, just in case the next incarnation of Heavy Gear Blitz, which is currently in beta testing, is more fun than all of the earlier ones (and it better improve by a wide margin!).

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to ransack our bookcases again...

A little bit of Battletech

o/

I had a bit of time this week, and some of the last and used it to paint 3 battlemechs. They paint up quickly which makes me feel like I'm accomplishing more than I really am, lol. I haven't played CBT in a few months, but I do enjoy it and these mechs were a nice departure from the norm (and after 3, these became the 'norm' and the rest were put back in the case, primed but not painted...).

The Robotech mini in the middle is a bit off in scale, but compared to some CBT's notoriously incorrectly-scaled minis issues, its really not noticeable. Left to right they are: a Hoplite, Rifleman & Exterminator.

These are painted as the 15th Dracon Regiment. Originating as an independent regiment in the original SLDF, the 15th opted to not join Kerensky's exodus out of the Inner Sphere. At that point they set themselves up as Mercenaries, spending the majority of their career in Capellan service. So much so that they eventually joined the CCAF as a line unit only to be wiped out less than a decade later (no, not a good career move...).

The 15th holds pretty true to its SLDF roots, preferring mechs that originated during the Star League, going so far as to field a fair number of original SLDF era (and now ancient) mechs. They also maintain their original color scheme of gray with O.D. green trim. Not wanting them to look like my 2nd. Legion of Vega mechs (just trimmed in green rather than red) I reversed those colors which worked out nicely I think.

In the 15th's painting queue, I still have another Rifleman and a Warhammer (yes, both are also Robotech Tactics KS minis) and a pair of Goblin tanks for the option of a Capellan augmented lance if I want a bit of variety.

My first official Infinity rant...

...and only 3-4 games in, it sounds like one is due.

That D.E.P. (a bazooka essentially) is already pointed at your feet, just pull the trigger and get it over with buddy, your chances of survival are just about nil anyways...

Our buddy Hoss, local Infinity extraordinaire,  offered to give us another infinity demo using copy-cat Ariadna forces to myself, my wonderful, amazing and beautiful fiance Wolfy, and our opponent: Screech. Now...in every game of infinity thus far, it feels like no matter what I do, whether on offense, defense, whatever it doesn't matter, I'm always at a disadvantage. No one else has this issue, just me...trying to pin down just why that is, has left Hoss feeling quite perplexed.

A turn or so in and after nothing but abject failure on my part (as usual), I got frustrated and just walked the fuck away from the game leaving Wolfy to it. I came back after a little bit, and in my absence she had Screech on the ropes, having cut his force in almost half. I rolled a few more dice, succeeding in nothing more than splattering my Medic's guts across the sidewalk, got pissed again (and walked away again).

On my return, the game was just wrapping up with Screech's 'MVP' (i.e.: the last man standing) hiding behind a cargo container and saying nope, not coming out! So what's my problem. Were my fiance's dice rolling hot? No. Good? eh, maybe. Average? Yes, definitely. However from my point of view, average would be just awesome!

Ya know, everybody has to suffer thru a game now and again when the dice just say: Fuck you pal! You're not going to win today...and you don't. It sucks, we all know this. At worse, you have to slog thru 2 back-to-back games of this (unless of course you insist on using GW's shitty D6s, and make a career out of dice failures).

However it finally clicked Friday that that's my problem with Infinity, the dice have been in Fuck you mode in every game that I've played of it, what the actual fuck?!?! I need to roll high; I roll low. I need to roll low; I row high. I actually manage to hit (via some small miracle), and I lose the face-to-face roll. What. the. Fuck.

Its kinda hard to have fun when nothing works for you, ever! So far the only fun I've had with infinity is painting the minis. I can see the game's potential, I want to like it I really do, but thus far Infinity apparently hates me. Sure I could trash the dice and get new ones, but they worked just fine for my fiance this past game, and the one prior to that she was kicking ass and taking names with them!

...sigh...

Fuming on the way home she commented that: you're having fun with Bolt Action and X-Wing, why don't you just stick with those, and I'll play Infinity. Once I get the rules down better then we can play at home and you can try it again maybe...

Sounds like a plan as right now I don't want to play the fucking game at all!

Orks vs. the Ork Codex...(oh, and some Beakies and Tau)

o/

Just a quick post again. Monday night the shattered remnants of Da Long Wayz Groop and Da Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun took to the field along side Neverness' Orks to oppose Wolfy's Fem Fa'Tau and Jim's Dark Angels. Rather than post a redundant battle report, you can check Neverness' bat rep out here.

Above you see SCHULTZ!!!, the last of his Grot Duvishun, as he laughs in the face of Da Deff wing after rolling snake eyes for LD (and just a turn away from his messy demise)...

X-Wing, X-Wing games everywhere...

lol, curiously actual X-Wing fighters were themselves quite rare this past weekend. We played 3 games in total. Billy bailed on us Friday, but Jeff, another of our group's regulars was happy to step in. Sunday night Imperial Recruitment and Billy-uh, I mean Kushial came over to the house for an afternoon of X-Wing. We played 2 games, followed by going out to dinner to cap off a rather fun weekend!

Pull up! PULL UP!!!

Yeah, Jeff's outer space mat is so much nicer than what we have...we need to remedy that. Speaking of Jeff, we were ill prepared for his 2 Phantoms and he won quite handily.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic ensues at our house, and now with Scum and Villainy!

I think the Minion says it all: WHAAA?!?!?!

My gold squadron Y-Wing finds itself in a very bad neighborhood...

...this one's no better.

The last 4 standing in our first game, appropriately enough with one ship for each!

Down to Just Wolfy and I.R.

Imperial Recruitment wins with...Scum and Villainy? Indeed his minion shirt was apparently prophetic.

Sorry, no pics of the 3rd game as it was terribly blurry, but IR won with S&V in that one too. Not content to stop there, Neverness and our buddy Jim will be over this evening for dinner followed by an oh-so-rare game of 40k at our house. Hopefully I'll have some good pics of that game for Thursday's post.