A base for a bug (Part 2)

Notta whole lot has gone on hobbywise this week. Christmas didn't net me any new toys, though My Beloved Wolfy did get me the novel: Magos, the latest in the Eisenhorn series. True to Abnett's form, its been an excellent read right from the start! Its a fairly thick tome, I'm a slow reader, and do so usually only on my lunch breaks at work, so it ought to keep me entertained for quite awhile. 

On the painting front, I'm chugging along slowly but surely on my Tyranid Warrior's base. Its ready for a decal on the escape pod door, and aside from the final assembly, snow flock. However the latter won't come until I first paint the pile o' parts that is my Tyranid warrior (the bastard took a swan dive off the deck during the priming stage that left me searching thru the grass for bug bitz!). 

Oh well, it'll probably be easily to paint unassembled anyways...

Have a happy and safe New years folks!!!

(oh, and be sure to drink heavily if you're hunkering down instead of going out)

My last finished unit of 2018...

o/

Just as the title says, I'm finishing out the year with a completed unit. Thus, I present to you my Marik Militia lance for Classic Battletech:

Two new mechs and all new paint = their inevitable table top DOOM!

Yes, it took almost a full month to paint just four measly mechs, shut up! (lol) I'm quite pleased with them overall, and will do a group shot with all of my Marik Militia forces once I paint my tanks. Here are a few close up pics:

The Griffin's attempt to shield the vitals with its arm was mostly successful...

The twisted, burnt up and mashed wreck at the Hunchback's feet is (was?) a Lyran Royal Guards 10-ton wheeled APC.

Its curious what the camera focuses on. Ya see that black area below the red stripe on the side torso? Its all but invisible on the mini, but SCREAMS at you in this photo! (nope, not fixing it)

The trusty little Whitworth. I'm rather fond of this mini and am contemplating purchasing 3 more to form a medium fire support lance with my Stinger LAM
acting as a spotter.

I'm not sure what's next in the ol' painting queue...I'm thinking its a toss up between Nids, Marines and Muppets!

Christmas break...

There's just too much going on at the moment to dedicate any appreciable time to hobbying. That's alright though because there's at least a few presents, and a lot of people whom I haven't been able to visit with in awhile involved! So its all good.

Da' Red Wun loots fasta!

As such I wish all of you out there in the ol' blogosphere a Blessed Yule & Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy Holidays to whatever you choose to celebrate that I've missed!

Also, I'd be remiss without reposting my Christmas classic repost from 2010, a song I can't help but sing whenever I hear its mainstream incarnation that's been playing incessantly here of late:

'Walking in a Winter Wasteland'

(Just keep the tune of “winter wonderland” when reading)

See the trees,

Watch them burning

Refugees,

camps are forming

A horrific Sight

We’re fleeing tonight

Walking in a winter wasteland

Gone away is the Governor

Here to stay is a Chaos Lord

He brings a long war

We’re put to the sword

Walking in a winter wasteland

In the middle we can build a bridgehead

Then pretend that we’re gaining ground

They’ll say are you ready?

We’ll say no man!

But we’ll go when

The Commissar’s around

Later on

We’ll conspire

To kill him with friendly fire

To face unafraid

The treason we’ve made

Walking in a winter wasteland

In the middle we can build a bridgehead

Then pretend that we’re gaining ground

With bayonets we’re gonna go in!

Until their guns mow us down

Landmines blow

And their killing

Through your nose, blood is spilling

We’ll falter in pain

And then run away

Walking in a winter wasteland

Walking in a winter wasteland!

Walking in a winter wasteland!

Defeat is....inevitable.

He's dead Jim...

SPOILER ALERT!!-oh wait, lol yeah never mind. 

The Silver Drakes had a good run going there, but ya can't win 'em all. That and the combination of only being able to field 5 guys vs. a Nid KT with a fucking lictor that's all but being guaranteed to be in close combat at the beginning of turn 1 kinda skews things outta my favor no matter what strategy one tries. 

Still, my boys went down fighting (or, in some cases hopelessly flailing) and as is always the case when playing Screech, a fun time was had at least.

The field of battle.

The bugs, lurking to my right and looking to overload my flank (which they achieved with frightening speed!).

Only one volley of overwatch was fired before the Lictor connected with a grunt. That did inflict a wound on the monster at the least.

Sarge charges into the fray with his usual brand of mediocrity (i.e.: 2 guaranteed missed hits per turn, with no hope of improvement no matter how many CPs are spent on rerolls).

The big beastie's charge was weathered however, and it took a wound as well! Following that, the little gribblies poured into the fray!

How hard can it be to dispatch 2 little gribblies on the 3rd floor?
Quite hard, apparently... 

With my Sergeant down on turn 2, Demotion and my AGL gunner assist by uselessly shooting terrain pieces, along with squandering a my few remaining CPs on futile rerolls to hit.

Now THAT'S how you aim for promotion! My breacher specialist takes down the Lictor armed with no other CCW than his fist! Thusly inspired, my team summarily fails it's break test calls for EVAC and an orbital bombardment now that it's mission is accomplished, and flees fights a textbook withdrawal from the battlefield!

So much for chasing a promotion...apparently he didn't get clear before that orbital strike hit and was instead blown to bits! Martyrdom...it sounds so good until it happens to you.

Well, with the loss of one veteran, to be replaced with a noob means I can field 6 guys again right? Wrong! The rest of my fire team went up to both level 3 as well as another point each, all but negating the noob discount! Hell, after surviving a single game that noob will then rise up to the same level (both in XP and point cost) as the rest. Worse yet, that infernal Lictor not only recovered following the battle, but gained an armor save increase to a 4+!

Oh well, on to the next battle I suppose!

*****

Earlier, Bob played a demo vs. Michael. You can tell that they're both playing Dark Angels not by the paint jobs, but rather because they're both on the same side!
..snicker...

Samuel L Jackson, the Resurrection!

o/

Nope, no progress on the mechs, instead...

Whilst this pic better suits the mini below, Jules from Pulp Fiction is,
I think Samuel's finest acting performance! 

Waaaaaaaaay back in the day (pre-blog times) I had a sizable Iron Hands army lead by the infamous Iron Father Samuel L. Jackson. I used a techmarine as a base for the conversion as I didn't like the actual Iron Father mini, and later on he was cross-promoted (though to the Iron Hands, it was probably more like a demotion) to a captain when the Iron Father rules went away with an edition change. He was armed with a combi-flamer and a trimmed down chainsaw off of the IG Sentinel kit.

When I was tired of the monochromatic-hell of that army, I ebayed 'em but Samuel had earned himself an honored spot on my Hall of Heroes (HoH) display stand, where he lived out his dusty retirement until...I bumped the shelf atop of which the HoH was sitting. Unfortunately Samuel took a tumble to the floor and shattered into his constituent parts! Not having any use for him at that point, I collected his remains and tossed them into the purgatory of my bitz box. 

Whilst this mini lacks the afro and mutton chop side burns, UI have no doubt he'll be shouting Ezekiel 25:17 throughout every battle!

There he rattled around amongst years of collected gaming spares and detritus till I decided to resurrect him a little ways back. Had I thought it out properly (rather than just on impulse), I would have stripped his paint first but oh well. I added a pack and 2 bolt pistol hands, added a new 32mm base and ta-dah! He'll now be a 30k Moritat for my Blackshields/Renegade Iron Hands army. The arm on his pack is less a servo-arm and more a mechandrite. In-game it serves no purpose, aside from adding some visual appeal. Instead I figure it would assist in reloading his pistols, especially as it would be able to swivel around and actually reach the ammo pouches on Samuel's pack!

It was no picnic repositioning that fiddly little servo-arm...

With so many half-done projects already in the works, I have no idea when I'll actually get to painting him up, though given my usual tendencies...probably Tuesday!

WHITE OUT CONDITIONS!!!

o/

Our greyhound Sheba romping around the yard in her tiger coat!

Yes, Da Masta Cheef likes playing in the snow too!

Blizzards, and anything approaching the like are quite rare here in the Appalachian Subsector, but luckily we awoke to just that Sunday morning! When I measured the white stuff around noon, we had 8" but it kept on snowing for quite awhile so we probably got more like 9" in total. Meanwhile, at my sister's house in Knoxville, a mere 2 hours away all they got was a dusting of snow, and another and a half further south, a friend of mine in Chattanooga reported that all they were getting was a cold, miserable downpour all day! Yes I'm bragging and no, it doesn't matter since neither reads my blog, lol!

This probably isn't even worth a mention by the likes of
Mordian7th  and his fellow Coloradans!

Whilst I excavated my trukk to make life a bit easier Monday morning, I made no effort to reduce the 1.5-2 foot high berm of snow the plow trucks have left about 5 feet behind my trukk.  I'm not gonna lie, I can't wait to finally have an excuse (albeit a brief one)  to actually use the 4WD that I haven't used since buying it almost 3 years ago when I leave for work!

At this point, I'm pretty sure Baxter was still thinking: THIS! IS! AWESOME!!!!!

With the white stuff falling, we opened the mini blinds all the way, put on the Christmas music and decorated our tree. Its the first time our kitty Baxter has ever experienced one and he was having a field day with it! After a few passes amongst the faux branches, he decided to romp thru the packaging of the decorations when a vicious gift bag attacked him! (he got his head stuck in the handle). After ramrodding around the house in a panic he broke free after colliding with the threshold to our bedroom at full speed! Luckily he was alright, but after removing the remnants of the offending bag, he's avoided the living room since. Clearly he's had enough of this holiday shit.

They're getting there, slowly but surely...

As for the hobby front this week, not much to report I'm afraid. I did at least paint the metal bitz on my mech lance, clearing the way for touch ups and detailing before slathering them in ink. With luck I'll finish 'em up this week, but don't hold your breath on that...

Three-color minimum achieved!

o/

Lavender Death approaches!
...snicker...

Having just built my the final two mechs in this lance last week, I thought I'd divert myself away from Kill Team projects and try to capitalize on my Battletech enthusiasm by painting these before my mind wanders off in another direction...again, as usual. So I took one of my Urbies out of the case to use as a guide to make sure the red and blue are on the correct sides. Despite being a simple color scheme, its easy to fuck up by getting the colors reversed... 

Woops! Had to hold up on the red to get a quick pic for this post's 3-photo minimum (that's a thing right?).

Aside from the Purple base with red and blue trim, there's no real definitive way to paint FWLM mechs. I figure the trim is left up to the individual mechwarrior's preference, kinda like the nose art on real-world military aircraft (well, mostly vintage aircraft anyways). True, my urbies all match, but hell they're just urbies. Their mechwarrior's are too busy trying to get promoted out of those deathtraps asap, to even worry about what colors they're painted! 

...and now with the red. Next up will be the metal bitz and then onto detailing rather than slogging thru a bunch more yucky batch painting, bleh!

I had hoped to get a game of Battletech in this evening with my buddy Rob, but that's not going to pan out I'm afraid (my schedule is at fault this time, not his as is the norm). Oh well, that give's me more time to get these closer to being done (as opposed to the current: base coated/fugly stage). 

Metal minis, oh how I loathe assembling thee...

o/

Glue not bonding parts together, glue all over my fingers, parts glued to my fingers instead of each other, ah yes...so many bad memories revisited... 

So uh yeah, surprise! Nothing was painted this week as I spent an inordinate amount of time assembling these two little Battlemechs. Seriously, I could've assembled a full tactical squad, hell maybe more in the same amount of time! Its no wonder that there were so many single-piece monopose minis back in the day. 

Now I just need to pick a color scheme and get 'em painted up!

Still, these mechs look far, far better than the previous sculpts that they replaced. Better yet, these two (a Wolverine and a Griffin) finish out my mech company meaning I have no need to buy and build any of these two minis ever again! That is assuming of course that I don't drop one, as a fall from a table with no doubt be enough to shatter either into it's constituent parts with frightening ease.

Shas'wut?

o/

The muppet-Tau auxiliaries have not only their first painted mini, but their team leader whom I've dubbed Shas'wut? 

Here, check him out:

During training missions, the fusion blaster's ammo
canister is replaced with a silly string can!

Dead soul stones...they look
good on the mantle or so I hear.

Originally...I had thought to maybe use this mini as a Demiurg or...something. Well fuck it, Muppets come in all sorts of improbable shapes, sizes, and colors right? Right. 

Thus, rather than a Demiurg, this is just a short, round Jaloof muppet (doubt I'll much call 'em the Jaloof anymore as I only think 'em muppets) in a stealth suit which is obviously turned off since it bears no resemblance whatsoever from its surroundings...

Why didn't the citadel skulls
kit include Eldar Skulls?

After a few attempts, I gave up trying to come up with anything that looks exactly like a burst cannon or fusion blaster, however I was able to add two parts from the latter and figure that'll just have to do. In addition to the fusion blaster there's also a helmet mounted markerlight and possibly the only one that'll be in my team...dunno, will see I guess. 

I've not matte varnished this yet as its 20ish degrees (F) outside with snow flurries currently. Following that I'll add some 'ard coat to the markerlight's lens, the cold, dead soul stones on the base, and the visor on the helm. Speaking of...I made a hopefully not feeble attempt to replicate Dwartist's HUD effect on the visor. Not sure if it worked or not, certainly not as good as his, but not a too half-assed attempt I hope.

As with my Silver Drakes, I put together a customized Kill Team data sheet for both the mini above as well as my other muppet auxiliaries:

Point values will again remain the same as standard Tau. Really all that changes are a few minor handicaps to their stats to better reflect the models themselves, along with a few little bits of humor. 

The struggle is waning...

o/

Well, with the latest and hopefully final paradigm shift (for awhile anyways) having now passed. My Beloved Wolfy and I are settling into our 'new normal' once again. One particular boon of this latest change is the return to a consistent, daily chunk of time that can be easily used for hobbying, huzzah! As such, I was able to finally finish up my Renegade Iron Hands/Blackshields fire support squad:

Lousy photos equals: fun with filters!

Now along with my Medusa, both of my two heavy choices are painted, I'll next turn to that woefully neglected portion of my 30k force org: Troops!

*****

On the Kill Team front: after another two games my Silver Drakes remain undefeated, though admittedly, the last game was won by only the slimmest of margins! Whilst the realization that my marines have a WS/BS of 4+ continues to throw my opponents for a loop, it luckily hasn't proven to be too much of a hinderance to me. 

SMURFS!?! Attack! ATTACK!!!!

What will hurt here shortly is the rising point costs associated with going up in levels! I have a 7 strong team, leaving one extra to fill in for whomever is convalescing. However I'll only be able to field 5 at best now, or possibly just FOUR! (gulp)

What's a little brawl amongst battle brothers, right? Oh, that genestealer masquerading as a lamp post? Meh, let the Salamanders' scouts handle that....

On the bright side though, I took out Matt's level 3 Genestealer Cult Aberrant team leader! Yup, he's dead Jim. Appropriately enough, Matt's morale resource value is now the lowest in the league!

A wiley Matt, lurking in the shadows...

My Daughters of the Burning Rose Kickstarter pledge

o/

My KS freebee Inquisitor (not sure when/if I'll ever use her). 

Well that was a hellacious week...with no hobbying whatsoever aside from putting together the base in my prior post. 

All was a blur, so I'll just skip forward to Friday morning. Whilst making my morning chai latte (aka: a massive jolt of sugar and caffeine) in my cube, I was checking email and praying the day would go easily by (and no, those prayers were not answered!). I did see at least that I got the pledge manager email from the Not Sisters of Battle, the: Daughters of the Burning Rose kickstarter.  

Cyber-Assassins, priced 2-for-1 vs. the post-KS retail price!

I've never made a purchase from Anvil Industry before except for my Grymn Mortars I got on ebay for next to nothing. That said, most of the stuff on their website is drool worthy, and I've wanted to buy lots from them over the years! Thus, I was at least able to enjoy my lunch hour as I perused the pledge manager and built my minis. 

Anvil's modular designs allow for everything from pseudo SoBs, to medieval-esques armored women with crossbows, to the Adeptus Mechanicus-looking militia that I've assembled for my pledge. They'll  accompany my Tech Priest Dominus, and be allied to my Renegade/Blackshield Iron Hands (in the event that I ever play 30k again). Regardless, they'll be a fun addition to a (very) slow burn side project and as an aside, the only actual army I'm working on. Everything else is just Kill Teams. 

I've selected both head options.

Not sure what the actual ETA for shipment of these is, but all of these particular minis are already in production, so hopefully it won't be too far down the road...

A base fit for a bug...

o/

Hobby time has unfortunately been at the minimum here of late, too much adulting going on. In fact I only just put the decals on my renegade Iron Hands Sunday evening, inking them last night. Whilst those were drying, I set about positioning the bitz I purchased for the base of my 'nid kill team's Tyranid warrior leader from my previous post. 

Sometimes there's just no escape...

When all is said and done, the escape pod will have the hatch attached and like my Silver Drakes, this too will be a snow base, with the skeleton half covered with snow flock, whilst the pod have snow collecting inside. 

I also bought two primaris helmets to decorate the bases of a pair of Termagants who will serve as specialists. While you're allowed up to have up to three specialists, Termagants are limited to only having the scout and veteran specialist abilities. Thus, I'll see if one of the local 'nid players have a genestealer that they can spare to flesh out my roster with it's third specialist.. 

The Hive Mind Cometh..

Little gribblies rejoice! Actually no, just scurry forth into our enemy's prey's guns!

I've been on the ol' eBay hunt for a Tyranid warrior to lead my hive fleet Ouroboris kill team for awhile now. Whilst I think the current warrior sculpt is by far the best incarnation from over the years, to get one unassembled on eBay clocks in at about $21! What the fuck? That's almost half the cost of a box of 3! 

Then of course there are the pro painted  (lol yeah, without a doubt!) and/or the poorly assembled varieties both which often go for far less, but also look as though you'll need to strip/disassemble, and rebuild them once they arrive due to abysmal painting/posing of the minis.

Taken straight out of it's eBay auction!

I only wanted one, and only wanted to spend about $10 on it. So, I opted to get an older metal model for just that price! It works I suppose, especially as I also have the old termagants and (quote): 

"Encounters with Ouroboris have revealed that the organisms spawned by this Hive Fleet contain cruder, primitive versions of common Tyranid bio-weapons and organs." 

Or in other words: they're the obsolete bugs. 

Ultimately though I ended up spending a bit over $20 in total for this as I wanted it to have a really cool base (being my only 'big bug') much like it's Silver Drakes Sergeant counterpart. I'm pretty sure that Tyranid warriors go on 40mm bases, but given that it'll be a bit more like a little diorama, I'm thinking it'll probably end up on a 60mm base. 

Victory at last!!!

o/

My Silver Drakes have finally turned the corner! I figured out what it was, that was the cause of my abysmal die rolls: My Beloved Wolfy wasn't present to bless my dice with her mystical powers! I came to this realisation after she did just that this past Saturday evening, and my Silver Drakes went on to rack up two consecutive victories, huzzah! So pleased was I with how well my dice were rolling that I didn't think to take but a handful of photos. Oops. 

The coordinates said they'd be right around here...somewhere.

First up, my marines sought out their Adeptus Mechanicus allies commanded by my buddy Scott, to seek their guidance in combating the Tyranid menace. However that rendezvous fell apart when, upon first contact, a skitarii armed with an arquebus took out my AGL specialist with a brutal headshot (literally, the strategem used was called 'head shot'). 

Shoot that treacherous, uh...thing!

Enraged, my sergeant took out the verminous gunner with a head shot of his own, and demanded his traitorous counterpart's head on a pike! Engaging in an assassination mission, my Drakes avenged their fallen brother with extreme prejudice! 

Well...except the new guy. With one grunt resting at the convalescent home, my new and literally green recruit ran right up the center only to be taken out next by a rapid firing plasma gun. Ouch. Demotion ended the game though when he took out the Skitarii leader with his stalker pattern bolt rifle despite being both on the move, and his target being snuggled down in heavy cover!

'Twas a good game vs. a fun opponent I haven't played against in years. All marines made a full recovery, though one of Scott's 'nameless grunts' died of his injuries. 

Xenos scum! I'm coming for you!

Following that, Screech's Tyranids returned for another round, and with the dice rolling hot, my Drakes were eager for a rematch! Things started off well for me when the first Hormagaunt kill came via a scouting phase deployed trap (first time that phase has resulted in anything thing for me). He would lose another gaunt to a booby trap later in the game as well. 

His dead pile.

Everything went pretty much my way, other than my Sgt. falling in close combat with his lictor, and Demotion being taken out via a venom cannon round. That injury was sufficient to cause him to miss my next game. Whereas Screech had all but his lictor need to roll on the recovery chart at game's end. Several bugs were to report to the convalescent...uh...something. Don't they just digest the wounded and birth new replacements? Well, its something like that I guess...

Anyways, I'm now technically in the lead with all full resources however I'm so many games behind that I figure my team is a guerrilla force at best. Eh, so long as I have the game all the way figured out by league's end, then I can call that a 'win'.