It was a Star Wars Friday night with Frankie

o/

My GF's son is (like me) a bit of a Star Wars nut. As such, the other evening when they were staying at my house for the night he asked What am I going do to entertain myself now? It was too brght outside for a proper light saber duel, his Switch was at home and my XBox has finally kicked the bucket. So I suggested: Let's play X-Wing. 

He had no idea what that entailed but with the name X-Wing he was all for it. I paired it down going super simple (having not played myself since 2019, I was a bit rusty, much less teaching it to someone new to mini gaming in it's entirety). We had 2-ships a piece (approx. 40pts.), Frankie fielded 2 Rookie piloted X-Wings with no upgrades, whereas I had 2 Gold Squadron Y-Wings with R2 Astromechs (to keep them from being too terrible). 

Initially calling it a literal training mission, I belatedly realized I was using Scum & Villainy dials, so instead I guess my Y-wing pilots went rogue and the X-Wings were sent to hunt down the defectors. No asteroids, or or obstacles, and in lieu of target locks, I opted for barrel rolls as well as the standard focuses. 

I didn't take too many pics, but here's kinda how the game went:

It was about two turns in of just maneuvering along with rules explanation before I thought to actually take a pic. This was the first turn of any real shooting and my Y's abysmal lack of evasion dice came sharply into focus.

It was only after losing all of my shields, and taking a few structural hits that my pilots to actually fight back with some decent die rolls, by taking this X-Wing's shields out in one volley.

He really seemed to enjoy the hidden and thus unpredictable movement mechanic.

First blood, one of my Y-Wings disintegrates under the onslaught of beginner's luck.

I did manage to take out one Xing, but only moments later my other Y went boom much to Frankie's delight!

All in all he really enjoyed the game and whilst we didn't have any time for another game this weekend, he's asked several times since when we'll get to play again! He also rummaged thru my collection, as well as my showing him pics of ships that I've converted and painted for others. He really liked this YT conversion, so I've bid on a Millennium Falcon on eBay and in the event I win it (and if I don't I'll just bid on another one), I'll convert it just the same and then paint it up to his liking. 

*****

My young Padawan warming up in the back yard.

After the game it was dark, and time for a proper light saber duel...I might need a GoPro for a proper video of that sort of fun. To my surprise, he was much more aggressive than I thought he'd be! Much fun was had, and we couldn't help but laugh as cars slowed considerably as they drove by, and indeed we even heard one kid yell: 'THAT'S SO COOL!' out of one passing car, lol.

A Cogboy and a Corsair

 o/

I'm quite certain that those runes are insulting in one language or another...

T'was a busy week, but I did manage a little bit of hobby time. Finally managing to get some flat black Panzer grey primer (the latter was close enough, since the former is sold out everywhere locally). As such I primed my small contingent of AdMech minis. They'll serve as an allied contingent to my Incandescent Coyotes, though theoretically they'll likely work well with any of my space marine armies. 

I can easily imagine that incense brazier getting caught on something and yanking this guy off of his feet as a (comical) result. 

This mini is my first WIP model which it was later pointed out to me on FB resembles the paint scheme of the Deimos Forge World. That just happens to be purely coincidental, not that I figured I'd have any sort of original color scheme by this point. Indeed, I'm sure that every possible variation of any possible color scheme has been tried by somebody somewhere. 

Not sure if that'll be just a unit marking, or that of his parent Forge World.

I'm liking it thus far. As per the norm, I thought I was ready to start inking, but instead noticed a slew of needed touch ups in the photos. After fixing those issues, I'll head on to the weathering. Given that these guys are intended to back up my Coyotes, they'll eventually be slathered in the dust wash which will later be blended in once dry for a truly dust caked appearance. No worries though, I'm sure that all of that grit has no ill-effect on Skitarii performance, nor requires any added maintenance needs...

This one's pose with the blade is a little awkward, but it works.

Also, I cranked out another Eldar Corsair. These guys really are simple speed paints which is a nice change from the somewhat tedious norm. This particular model wasn't present for his squad's battlefield debut, however he looks forward to slaughtering some Ratlings just like his brethren did!

SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THR-oh wait! Wrong army...

Two Eldar Corsairs and a Viet Cajun walk into a bar...

You aren't really expecting a punchline are you?

One of these is not like the others...

This week, not having any particular project in mind I just picked minis from within the horde scattered around my hobby area and painted whatever struck my fancy. First up, the Viet Cajun:

Love this sculpt!

Viet Cajun is actually a food genre I recently discovered whilst watching the Netflix series Ugly Delicious. As soon as I head those two words mentioned in conjunction, this mini came to mind!

Originally I had intended to use this mini as an adeptus mechanicus...something, but he/she's way too ragged to fit in with that little contingent. Thus Stargrave will become his/her home I think. 

I recently ordered up the rules PDF and have a multitude of 'off brand' minis (as that GW elitist Neverness would say) to populate my crews. I'm thinking this VC will serve as a locally hired guide or the like.

Speaking of GW, I also painted an Eldar Corsair armed with a shard carbine, as well as a Corsair Fire Dragon (the first ever Fire Dragon that I've painted I might add). I have another 5 of each yet to paint, plus a unit of my spar-glaive equipped Corsairs.  These both went relatively quickly and am sure I can knock the rest out fairly quickly (though whether or not I actually will remains to be seen). 

Similar yet different. Consistency isn't really a thing amongst my Corsair units. 

The yellow flowers are new, though most will end up adorning Fem'Fau Tau bases

Whilst the Silver Drakes as a whole are fighting the Nids, small contingents are sent to fight in other warzones to keep the chapter from becoming too specialized. One can only hope that this one merely lost his helmet...

The decapitation of Larsen Van Der Grauss

 o/

As seen on eBay...

This is a cool, if statically posed mini with a...well, rather ugly head. I wasn't too keen on the big power coils on his backpack either. As such, I decided to do a little conversion. First up: remove that ugly mug of his. 

As an aside, when I first googled 'Larsen Van Der Grauss', Google instead asked: 'Did you mean Luther Vandross?' That's hilarious and as I've seen converted the above mini, I do believe that this will be his new name!

Ouch!

Anyways, back on topic: unfortunately for me, Larsen didn't take too kindly to having his head cut off and as I was trimming out it's remains, Larsen offered me some ocular implants with which to reconsider my decision. I declined his 'offer' however and instead removed the above two plastic bits from my left eye! Yeah, notta pleasant experience. 

So much better.

At that point, with my eye irritated all to hell (and my demeanor not much better) I quit for the night. The following evening went much easier as Larsen Luther was now headless. I trimmed the helm from a Skitarii Alpha a little at the bottom front so he would be looking down at his laptop/scanner thingy, and glued it into place. I then trimmed out the center of his power coils reducing them to a much more pleasing to me height. Lastly I glued him onto a Mechanicum base. 

That goes for his power pack as well. 

I have a grand total of 8 AdMech minis, which will serve as a small allied contingent to my Incandescent Coyotes. They will bring the army up to 750ish points. Luther here will serve as a Mechanicum-aligned Ordo Minoris Inquisitor. His gun will serve as a hot-shot lasgun and when fielding him I'll ignore the chain sword that he so clearly lacks (as well as any other HTH weaponry). 

Once I get some black primer, he will be inducted into the endless painting queue.