When ya hit a wall, paint it!

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For whatever reason, my hobby mojo has been a bit lacking here of late and I haven't really been motivated to paint/build anything. So...I figured that maybe just picking up a random project from way out of left field, and painting on that instead might just be the jolt to the system that I need. Thus, I found myself working the walls that go with my long forgotten Stirland Watchtower. 

There's no initials more deserving of that tombstone than those of the game itself!

Ah yes, good ol' Warhammer Fantasy, may it rest in peace. I guess at this point I ought to go ahead and start working on the base for it, though that'll make storage a bit of a problem. Indeed, I think that that's why I never finished this project in the first place. 

I'm pretty sure this was the layout I had had for this.

When finished it certainly won't be as grandiose a structure as Neverness' Death Castle. Rather this is just a humble watch tower.

The overhead view.

The 'L' on the roof, visible only to overhead flying heroes mounted on dragons and other such creatures, mark this out as one of the watch towers which guard the approaches to the city of Liecheburg. This forlorn city is situated on Stirland's western frontier, bordering the haunted hills and beyond those, the accursed realm of Slyvania.

I love these old maps! You can still find them here.

Painting these was a fun little afternoon diversion. They're now done for the most part, only needing a few little bitz and bobs painted up prior to gluing onto the base. Once complete, maybe I can use the tower for games of Mordheim or something, as that's just about all the painted remnants of my Stirland army would be fit for these days.

The inevitable, but predictable failure of Palladium's Robotech Tactics Kickstarter...

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FIVE years ago...

I had just met this girl, and she was into gaming, and anime, and I told her about this new Robotech Kickstarter I went in on, and she thought it sounded really cool and...

FIVE years later...

As my Beloved Wolfy (that amazing girl described above) and I quickly close in on our 2nd wedding anniversary, that same Robotech kickstarter is finally spiraling thru it's sad, pathetic demise.

If you're a gaming geek, than you've no doubt heard about this uber-clusterfuck of a Kickstarter. If not...well, you can read a good synopsis here, or for the TLDR crowd, just go to 1D4chan's 'Kickstarter and controversy' section here. Better yet, just go to the comments on the actual KS page. Yup, 102,000+ comments of outrage and vitriol...YEARS of it! Hell for truly disgruntled backers, there's a private FB group pooling their rage for legal action!

Anyways, skipping to the present, ol' Kevin Siembieda, the thief...uh,so-called man in charge of  Palladium, posted the inevitable *update* explaining how 'due to forces beyond his control' (i.e.: his arrogance and complete mismanagement of this whole debacle in which he assigns blame to everyone but himself), indeed all that was missing was the violins playing as a sullen backdrop. BUT there was an option to get something else (from wave 1 which is being liquidated as the game is officially D.E.A.D.) in exchange for the (now confirmed) mythical wave 2.

Worth the wait? No.

Yeah, the KS's Rick Hunter's custom VT was unattainable, but Max & Miriya Sterling's custom VTs were for those attending adepticon. 4chan described most backers as just wanting unseen Battletech minis (yes, I am part of that supposed 98%) and as such ordered a box of Spartan/Phalanx Destroids (aka: Longbows/Archers).  Of course they were $5 more than my pledge and I'd have to pay the additional shipping. Whilst, it felt like throwing more good money after bad, I wanted to get something after 5 years of frustration. Thus, I paid the extra $12 and got the above boxed set.

The 4chan link above says these are some awful models to build and when finished, have some dreadful gaps, but...as I haven't opened the box yet, I'll save that rant for a future post.

Microworld tanks for Battletech

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I've always been a fan of the stats for Battletech's Goblin medium tank. The Goblin's been in use for longer than anyone can recall (seriously, in the fluff there's no start date for production), and used to varying degrees by just about every non-Clan faction. For the succession wars, its easily the best el cheapo MBT available, the only problem is, they never made a model for the original goblin, rather the mini is for the later redesign.

Here they are on a 1" grid.

Luckily, in an image search online, I at some point came across Microworld Games, a small company in New Jersey that makes pseudo OGRE tanks among other things.

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ATTENTION Steve Jackson Fans: THESE ARE THE MINIS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR!!! Unless of course you like paying outrageous ebay prices (cardstock OGREs? Wut?) for ancient minis..

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Anyways, I ordered a 3-pack of their New Terra MBTs , which with shipping came to pretty much the same price as a blister-pack of (2) Bulldogs from Iron Wind Metals (before they add shipping). So, a good deal in my book!

Being 15 tons lighter than a Manticore, they look to be just about right in size.

The casts are excellent and the minis look really good! Their scale is a close approximation of what the Goblin ought to be sized I think (though to be fair, scale of miniatures is the battletech miniature range's most consistently inconsistent flaw). They have a smaller light tank that I think I'll order in the near future to use as proxy Scorpion light tanks (especially as I loathe the actual Scorpion mini).

The gate on the rear hull, it just the right size (after being scraped flat) to look like a ramp for the tank's troop compartment. 

I probably ought to have gotten those at the same time as my proxy Goblins to save on shipping, but I opted not too given I didn't know of anyone who's bought their minis (and as a user of photoshop, I can assure you that photos lie!!), not to mention hobby funds provided by selling my little bit of Warmahordes stuff on ebay were limited. But, as I'm happy with this purchase, there's no longer any worry about product quality.

Organizing the troops...

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Its been kinda quiet on the hobby front here of late, further compounded by a 2-day mild migraine which wiped out any thoughts of painting minis. I did however do a bit of inventorying/organizing of my Battletech forces at least.

Death by a thousand paper cuts...

First up I did managed to at least glue three more infantry platoons to their respective bases, making for yet another frustrating painting session in extreme miniature at some future date. I also opted to glue the 6 medium lasers bitz onto my Hunchback. Whilst the versatility of that miniature's design is quite like an Omnimech in the fluff, the weapon attachments constantly jiggle around due to their loose fits. Paint would never hold under that kind of abuse...and beside, the all-laser variant is what I put into my lists 9 times out of 10 anyways. 

As for the aforementioned organization, rather than run 3-4 separate companies with more or less fixed army lists, I lumped most everything into my Free Worlds League's Marik Militia. This gives me a combined-arms battalion consisting of a mech company, a tank demi-company, and an infantry company mounted in heavy hover APCs.

Grey = Unpainted.

The Lyran Alliance's Dixie CTM is more of a place holder than anything. The mechs and tanks in that bunch aren't available to the Marik Militia, barring the Goblins. However those were only used in small numbers during the Star League era and early succession wars.  But back to my earlier point, the unit isn't set, as just about all of the rest of the Inner Sphere's realm's could use these mechs and tanks. 

Of course, until painted any mini's allegiance is in flux...but for right now that's what these models need more than anything else: paint.

So...now that everything is all rounded out, its time to get painting I suppose.  

Sgt. Hensley

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I thought I'd try something a little different than the usual 'this is what I painted this week' post for...you guessed it, the mini I painted this week. I wanted to make one of those trooper vignette/profiles like you see in Forgeworld's Imperial Amor campaign books. 

That was my intent anyways. 

It didn't really turn out as well as I had wanted, but I don't have any more time to fuck with it, so screw it. Here ya go:

Yes, I am well aware that this will suck to read for those on you using smart phones.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park photo credit goes to Mark Harris Photography.

30k Blackshields in Pariah Armor

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The best of the bunch I think.

I really like the idea of blackshield marines for 30k. For those not familiar, Blackshield Marauder squads are kinda like 40k CSM squads weapons wise, as the Blackshields can't have tactical squads. They variety of options is mindboggling, though you can easily make them a nightmare (for yourself) on the table top if you go overboard with them.

Some Blackshields, modify their armor/weapons for greater mobility/flexibility in very unsanctioned ways by the holy standards of the mechanicus. Sometimes its case of lacking the resources to properly maintain their equipment, in others this is done quite intentionally.

Okay cool, now how to model them?

Like this!

30k marines with bare heads (the bare head bits are never in short supply), and maybe scout marine arms. Could work I guess, but I found some necromunda goliath to space marine size comparison photos online, decided they were about the same size, and went that route instead.

The squad as a whole.

The necromunda bitz are a bit pricey, so I opted for the cheapest bodies available on ebay-yup, the ballerina berzerkers. All went together fairly well, after a fair bit of trimming off of Khorne emblems, trimming shoulder joints and to be honest I'm quite happy with the results!

No idea what these guns are called in Necromunda, but they work well for Pariah Bolters (i.e.: 16" ranged astartes shotguns).

The Necromunda Goliath grenade launcher fits in perfectly! Whilst it would make for a decent heavy bolter, the Blackshields conveniently can get grenade launchers.

Just following taking pics of these, I primed 'em up and hopefully will get some paint on at least one of 'em this week.

*apologies for the typos, but Blogger is all sorts of fucked up today!

Pariah Medusa for my 30k Blackshields

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After acquiring a $20, on-the-sprue rhino on ebay, I was able to make some progress on my big momma conversion kit for my 30k marines...

Beware black primered models/minis in ebay listings...because you won't see just how badly the model is assembled till it arrives on your doorstep!

The rear deck plate shown in the link above wasn't included in the ebay auction, Luckily though it doesn't look like anything is actually missing if you didn't know it was supposed to be there in the first place. There is a bit of minor damage that needs to be repaired due to being thin resin that was manhandled by the prior owner, but its nothing a little bit of plasticard can't easily cover up. 

easy fix, moving on...

The only piece of the original rhino I kept was the top deck which thankfully hadn't been glued in place. Whilst it doesn't look bad in the top photo, when looked at from the side, you could see right thru the tank due to a large gap. Thus, the front hull was tossed aside, and a goodly portion of the top plate had to be cut away as well. I also needed to do a bit of filling in of said gap on the bottom of the cannon itself. I suck at greenstuff application, but luckily a strip of plasticard fit in perfectly!

Front and top partially removed...!

Plasticard to the rescue!

With that all taken care of, it all fit together nicely. I swapped out the havoc launcher for a sensor pod which presumably mounts a targeting array for the cannon, not to mention cameras so that the driver can actually see forward and...ya know, drive this beast!

Hmmm...that add-on is a bit too traitorish for the Salamanders, so to the Blackshields this will go!

Look at that gun! Now that is how you over-compensate!! Screech this is normally your M.O., so I hope you're taking notes!

Side by side with one of Kushial's Vindicators, this gun makes the Vindi's Demolisher cannon look like a mere pop gun! As such, this will be used as a Medusa instead. But that presents another problem: along with any sort of a forward vision, there's no room for the front hull-mounted heavy bolter. So...to the pintle mount! 

That works!

Seriously, where else would it go? The weapon is so friggin' big that there's no internal space for...well, anything! Best not to ask how many rounds are stored internally (assuming one is already in the breech, I'm guessing two!), or where the engine, driver, gunner(s?) and other internals would actually go with a gun this large mounted on a mere rhino. True, the Legion Medusa is supposed to be on a reinforced basilisk hull, but the Blackshields already have pariah weapons and power armor, so why not add vehicles to that list?

Now aside from a little bit more work on the hull and of course paint, all that's needed is a 2nd rhino to follow this tank around, acting as an ammo carrier (but don't hold your breath).