Death Korps of Krieg Rough Riders

Horses! Horses of all things! 

In hindsight (pun intended), I should have taken a pic from the other side...

Now I’ve seen everything on the 40k table top! Well okay, I know Rough Riders aren’t a new concept. They’ve been around forever it seems, but this was the first encounter I’ve had with Rough Riders since-what? The hideous pseudo-Mongols of 3rd edition??? So blindsided by these minis was I, that I had to do a post about them!

The Kroot were there before being trampled under hoof.

This was in a game of Kill Team with Courtland, a ‘new guy’ (new to us, as arriving with a fully painted Death Korps of Krieg army hardly puts him into the ‘new’ category) who recently moved to the area. I was totally unprepared for this troop type. This surprise was only compounded by the fact that we’re still using 7th ed rules, meaning my Kroot KT will eternally suffer from being a uselessly redundant shooting unit of pitiful quality, especially when it comes to close combat (they are cool minis though). Needless to say, the cavalry literally ran roughshod thru my ranks, killing many Kroot in exchange for only one cavalryman, and a handful of his foot sloggers.

Ever fond of their technological edge, the Fem Fa'Tau were checking on lines of sight via a cell phone when this pic was inadvertently taken. Its a rarity when accidental photos come out well! No idea what she was aiming at though...

The DKK won the game handily though Bob’s Deathwatch was a close second. My Beloved Wolfy’s Fem Fa’Tau and my Kroot however were left in the dust in terms of VPs. It was a fun game though and he’s welcome new addition to our gaming group!

Upgrade time!!!

Ya know, 8 years is an awful long in ‘computer years’. Its…well, like eons! 

As such my ancient Mac mini’s lifespan has come to an end. Or rather its life with me has, I sold it and its currently Fedexing its way on to a new life. Hey, $54 was better though admittedly not as fun as putting it out of its misery via the ol' sledgeaxe! 

At maximum zoom, this was the best EVE looked on my old Mac Mini.

At normal view well...yes it was just plain awful. 

New macs are unaffordably astronomical in price, for example the one I have at work clocked in at approximately $8400! That price tag aside, given my 'test drive' of that computer over the past 6-months, I'd never buy one now. Seriously, its the worst Mac I've ever worked on! Despite that experience I kept on stubbornly looking at refurbed Macs whilst milking the old mini along as a brand new replacement was out of the question, especially for something I just use for internet browsing and playing EVE online. 

The latter of which I was quite limited in doing given I was running it on minimum settings, and incapable of any form of PVP (a HUGE part of EVE), and…well just about every other aspect of the game was barely functional. Finally, fed up with the obvious Wolfy just asked me point blank: 

'Since we can’t afford a mac, would you be open to getting a PC?'

Huh, honestly that thought never really occurred to me but yeah, sure. Aaaaaand with that her gears got-a-going! Recruiting our friends Chikar and Screech, as well as getting both her parents and my Mom, as well as Screech to chip in on it for my birthday, and I am now up and running on a brand new PC!

My new PC!

Ugh, docked in station was a whole other nightmare before, sparks, steam, unidentifiable shit (space ships) moving around in the background made the all too necessary need to dock my own private hell in EVE.

'Look honey, you can actually see your ship when it undocks!' (an actual quote by Wolfy, she also says the game looks like it might be fun now...).

It was a bit of a trial as UP-fucking-S broke it whilst shipping it twice, requiring returns for repair (and an excessive amount of physical mileage for the average PC, and the proper cosmic allignment...an eclipse to be specific), but delivery # 3 was a charm and all is good now after a bit of set up assistance from Screech.

Hey look! There's actually stuff on the surface of planets now, and here I was ignorantly hoping/assuming they were all bland, matte colored gas giants...

I can also run Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator via my work account of Adobe's creative cloud at home now, another thing my old Mini was too old to run. This was especially frustrating after my employer's IT department gave me the green light to do so months ago. 

As any EVE player knows, long-distance commutes across high-sec in a freighter are sometimes necessary, though certainly not entertaining. Previously such flights were spent painting minis, whereas this one was spent blogging. Running EVE and something else!?! A sheer impossibility on the old mini! Indeed, this is my 1st blog post from my new machine.

So, many, many thanks, especially to my Beloved Wolfy, as well as everyone else who helped out on my awesome birthday present!!

Revisiting the Fem Fa’Tau

Icon of the Fem Fa-Tau

My Beloved Wolfy’s Fem Fa’Tau army has more or less been in stasis for a few years now. Small contingents of it have fought in a multitude of Kill Team games with considerable success, and I’ve made lists up for Shadow War though she’s yet to try that particular 40k variation out. No new minis have been purchased since before the 7th ed codex’s release, indeed the Fire Warrior ‘Pin-up’ Neverness gifted to her has been the army’s only recent addition. 

I asked a little ways back and she’s pretty much ‘done’ with 40k, preferring the smaller skirmish games instead. As such, I’ve been pondering the revamping her forces a bit. Mainly, I’ve been wanting to update her infantry by selling off the old metal minis in exchange for the newer ones. Primarily the pathfinders, stealth suits and possibly the old original broadsides. The tanks and piranha will stay as none of those models have changed aside from the astronomical inflation of their prices! Seriously, WTF GW?!

Then there’s the drone horde…funky pathfinder and Shadow Sun variants aside, all the rest can go as well w/o need for replacement as I know we have at least another half dozen still on the sprue. Its seems the little bastards breed like rabbits! 

She has 20+ Fire Warriors with pulse rifles, of which about half are painted in the colors of one of my old Tau armies. Thought I might just offload the painted ones with the minis listed above and just keep and paint the primed ones. I’d also like to get a new strike team box and split it between pulse carbine toting Fire Warriors and Breachers to give her some options for variation. 

Her crisis suits will stay unless she’d prefer the newer ones, as will Shadow Sun and the plastic stealth suits. The cadre fireblade (one of my favorites) is a keeper as well even though its worthless in KT, and of course the Kroot will stay. Mediocre as they are, they’re another of my favorite Tau units, and my looted Kroot crisis suit lets us field a Kroot only KT which is always fun!

The rock on the base helps stabilize this hideously off-balance mini.

I painted the above pathfinder as a ‘test mini’ based on her Fem Fa’Tau’s current color scheme. Its darker and grimier per my norm, and was done so after Neverness’ comment he made when he gave Wolfy the Pin-up mini he painted: ‘I was looking on his blog for inspiration and could only find one painted Tau, and the lazy fucker didn’t even bother with any kind of shading…’ (I'm paraphrasing but it was something to that effect). 

Guilty as charged...

She seemed happy with it, though I could try different color schemes if she’d prefer that instead. Paint jobs are often irrelevant on ebay unless they're very well done, so a rainbow assortment won't detract any from bid prices. Anyways, the Fem Fa’Tau will be sticking around and in numbers sufficient for a small army, but in the interim they ought to be making some more regular appearances on here as they go thru their updating. 

Wow, that's bigger than I thought it would be...

...words rarely said by gamers after an online purchase and likewise said by no woman ever and invariably on a completely different topic, but that's a subject for a different blog, not this one.

I was perusing teh inerwebz looking for something to use as a machine gun (MG) variant 10ton APC for Battletech (the actual mini is kinda hideous). The MG variant has 4 machine guns and no troop capacity, making it a dirt cheap militia scout tank. Going forward to the Jihad era you can swap the machine guns for light machine guns for no point differential, getting twice the range for half the damage. At least that's what I was aiming for...

The 6mm listing pic.

The 15mm version's listing pic.

Lots of metal for $14!

I had no idea on the size of the mini as the actual listing's pic is about 1.5" square on screen and not too detailed. Actually I was going off of the 15mm version's listing photo. Given the price of (2) for 2.5 GBP I figured they'd be tiny. A lance of four, with shipping came out to about $14 which is on par the usual Battletech blister pack of two tanks (ebay seller price wars usually drop that average drop by $1-2).

This is on a 1" grid.

Perhaps I should send these to Ground Zero Games to use for their listing...

Scale is always a bit vague and anything but consistent when it comes to CBT minis, but as you can see below, side-by-side with a 60ton Bulldog tank, this won't pass as an APC one 6th that weight!

I'll most likely glue the turrets in place so as not to lose the tiny things!

So...not sure what type I'll use these as, but here are the most likely candidates:

First up: it could easily pass for a Tokugawa were it not for the minuscule turret. That said, mucking around in Skunkwerks I found that if I move the Tokugawa's SRM-6 to the front, it doesn't effect the BV making that an option.

The another likely candidate is the Schiltron C. Weighing in at 80 tons, the C variant dispenses with the bulky missile launchers and just mounts four large lasers in its also minuscule nubbin of a turret. The internal C3 master computer will be wasted, but not utilizing that again has no effect on BV and only wastes 5 tons, so no real loss there. Schiltrons are also packaged individually in their blister packs which really makes this a bargain substitute!

Or, I could just use it as a Hetzer variant. Let's face it, that mini is just an ugly box with a fixed forward weapon mount (quite fitting if I glue on the turrets) and despite this minis's size, a good bit of it is wheels and suspension, so if anything that's less of a stretch than the 80 tonner above.

Guess I'll have to ponder it some...

Salamanders Vigilator

o/

Not sure if I like the finished result or not, but at the very least this guy will stand out from the crowd (painted, primed and even bare plastic)! Vigilators are the covert operatives of the 30k space marine legions. They come equipped with cameleoline, be it in the form of a cloak or more rarely coating their armor as in this case.

Cameleoline (why is it not just spelled/pronounced chameleon?) replicates the surrounding terrain enabling the wearer to blend in. Space Marines with camouflage? Who'd a thunk it? In-game I believe it just confers stealth, so its not all that useful. Still though I thought I'd give it a try. The result:

Overall brown/desert in color, with portions of his armor picking up the green of the vegetation, as well as the black on his weaponry (the latter of which didn't translate too well via my camera). 

Here he is next to a regular bolter grunt.

Yeah, not sure about it to be honest. Of course covert operative or not, no self-respecting Salamander of rank would dare go into battle without some 'bling'. Thus the gold trim and the both ornate and impractical (when it comes to concealment) backpack. He's armed simply with a bolt pistol, bolter with specialized ammo and a master-crafted chainsword because...well, why not?

Given the number of minis in the queue to be painted, he'll stay out of the Simplegreen for the time being which will give it time to see if his paint job grows on me or not...

***

Just as a forewarning: Da Masta Cheef turns a whoppin' 42 (wtf?!?) this week! Family will be in town and I'll be attending the local NASCAR race this coming weekend (for the 1st time in several years), meaning this is likely to be my only post this week and there might not be much next week either.

Mk III assembly is complete!

o/

I finished putting together the last of my Mk III marines meaning all of my Salamanders are now assembled (well, barring of course the Dreadnought which is in a state of permanent disassembly). But anyways these last few will flesh my tactical squads out to 10 each, and my tactical support squads to 6 each-one with flamers and the other with meltaguns.

One of these is not like the others...

Going off of prior experience (only one game, but it worked quite well) the meltagunners will be accompanied by my Praetor and apothecary and will ride in the rhino. Kinda like a pseudo-command squad. The flamer squad meanwhile is left to hoof it across the table. Never a good thing for a short ranged unit. 

Note the discreet armor of
the Vigilator...

The flamer squad will from now on outflank with my Vigilator who was upgraded from a mere grunt in my last post. The Vigilator Centurion has always been a favorite of mine, despite my abysmal track record with the type. He has scout which allows him to outflank, and he passes that onto whichever squad he joins if I understand it correctly (teh interwebz is full of Vigilator and friends outflanking in a Landraider suggestions so I'm assuming I do).  

Vigilators also have a 1-time, pre-game sabotage attack for an added bonus. Its never amounted to much but there’s always the possibility of that paying for him before he even reaches the table! Their specialized ammo is kinda meh, but will at least give his attached unit a token attack beyond bolt pistol range.

Now, its back to the endless painting queue…

Alls quiet on the hobby front...

o/

Just another week filled with time-consuming reality left little time for hobbying. I did manage to assemble two more Salamander tactical grunts at least.

They could actually work as sergeants, but I don't need anymore of those.

The one with the auspex keeps making think he'd make a good sergeant. However the little scrubby brush helmet bit has gone MIA and...well, what my army really needs is basic bolter grunts, not superfluous sergeants. So perhaps that missing bit is for the best...

The Primaris Space Marine problem...

Propaganda.

Whilst rumors spread of lone individuals, squads, and in one case even a whole company of Primaris marines kneeling before the Dark Gods and swearing new allegiances across the bloody battlefields of the Imperium. War is already raging amongst the ranks of the Ordos Hereticus and Malleus. Doubters and believers alike exchange gunfire and lies daily as they desperately seek the their own versions of the truth... 

Reality?

Are Roboute Guilliman and Belisarius Cawl, both the Master and Commander of the Primaris marines, the saviors of the Imperium in these desperate times? Or, with the proliferation of their so-called monsters across the stars, are they in truth the architects of its total destruction? 

lol, I'll bet you didn't think I was going to take that initial query into this direction did you?