Returning to the realm of the living...

 o/

They're just a little side project...

Yes, I alive again and as such I managed to get in a little bit of hobbying this past weekend. First up: I assembled my new squad of Demiurg allies to go with my Tau army. These will be used as an auxiliary support detachment which will cost me 2CPs and a bunch of special rules that I forget to use 99% of the time anyways. 

Droid on the left and some dude with bionic feet on the right. 'Hey, remember the day that Bob tried to dive to safety thru the airlock, but he didn't jump far enough because he's short and the blast door cut him off at the ankles?' I'm sure that there's some sort of story like that to account for his bionic feet. 

I've armed them with Ion Blasters which teams up nicely with the Tau allied theme, not to mention they pack a lot more of a punch (in exchange for range and rate of fire). The support troopers have an HYLas auto rifle and an L7 missile launcher. Plus there's a scanner dude and a medic. The leader is holding a plasma knife which sounds cool but has no stats as like the Tau's bonding knives, it's purely ceremonial. Because reasons. 

I also painted up another 15mm tank for my Quar. I intend to use the Bolt Action ruleset with these at some point with Frankie as my 'guinea pig' opponent (unless somebody else wants to try it out). They'll be fighting in my caverns terrain which ought to be interesting. 

It's a neat little self-propelled gun not at all outta place in a WWII-like army. It remains to be seen as to how well it'll work in a cave...

lol, with the hand on the head of the guy in the middle, it's almost like he's saying:

'Fuck, where'd that shot land?' 

Yes, I had to paint the crew separately and then glue them in place afterwards.

Fat little bastards barely fit into their uniforms it seems. 

They'd better correct their aim quickly, only 5 more shells left...

Thankfully September has come to an end...

 o/

Loren succumbs to the lure of Chaos...

Yeah, September wasn't a good month for me. It started out alright, however at about the week following my last post a coworker who thought he 'just had a cold' instead gave me covid. Which I in turn gave to my fiancé, who inadvertently gave it to her best (in the pic above), and its a 50/50 as to which of us then gave it to my stepson Frankie. 

We've all since recovered, but there was a lot of suck in those last two weeks (and that's just on the covid front, I'll spare you the rest). 

Doesn't even look like a repaint, just don't look at the other side of that gun shield!

The Drakes were strong with this one as it took multiple attempts (and decals) in order to get that icon to properly affix to his pauldron!

Another view from the business end. They're not in any of the pictures, but two more assault intercessors are also in-progress

Like my first time with the 'rona, once I started to feel better I started to paint minis during my enforced quarantine (unlike the last time, the quarantine wasn't 10 days, and I no longer live alone meaning I didn't paint 10+ minis this go round). 

First up I partially repainted the Firestrike Servo-Turret since the rest of my painted Silver Drakes have redeployed to the Connecticut subsector. The lack of availability in acquiring the needed metallic blue paint led to that army's demise. Given that the vast majority were unpainted, my Smurf army just got a BIG boost in numbers!

This is probably the equivalent of a Renault FT.

With the Quar equivalent of General Patton riding in the turret.

Space marine belt pouches for stowage.

The Servo turret added to the background for scale.

On a whim, I also painted up my 15mm Quar tank. I was so enamored with it that I then went on the zombiesmith website and ordered another one (different type) along with some other cool little vehicles. I'm thinking that I'll introduce Frankie to Bolt Action's rule set using the 15mm Quar in my caves terrain.  

Moving onto October...

...and it's DREADtober! My paltry entry into this year's event is my Day'lth Tau's Sub Commander Firestorm. Firestorm has thus far led my Tau infantry horde to a string of costly defeats. No doubt these were if fact diversionary assaults, drawing forces away from the actual invasions rendering said defeats into victories For the Greater Good! 

Coming to a close combat near you!

I've outfitted him/her with 3D printed, twin-airbursting fragmentation launchers (mortars) a shield generator and a prototype Thermoneutronic Projector. I thought the frag launchers looked cool and opted for them before I realized that mortars were the meta (ooh how I hate that term) weapon of choice. 

However, both pre- and post- mortar nerf, they've accomplished little. Most likely because this guy has a penchant for suicide charges into close combat where that projector is pretty much cheese on a stick! Suck it Farsight! 

No idea whose Rhino door it will be that Firestorm is striding over.

Whilst less than effective versus Neverness whose Termies all choose to hide behind the one guy with a storm shield when making armor saves, yet not when making their attacks (speaking of cheesy), Firestorm has sent a fair few of Rob's plague marines to their unexpected deaths! 

I doubt a proper paint job will improve his/her leadership capabilities, however it's high time this mini was painted since it leads and army that has 40-50ish painted models already, and is by far my most painted of armies. 

Making progress on painting up my caverns.

 o/

One of these is not like the others...

Welp, this project is going faster than I expected. After trying one or two color combos I just opted to go super easy, with a simple dry brushed layer of Bleached Bone over Testors Light Earth flat spray paint. 

Amusingly, my generic base flocking works quite well in the caves.

Mad Cap Mushrooms?

To break up the monotony, I've added a few little tufts here and there in a variety of colors representing alien shrooms, fungi, or flowers that apparently don't need any light. Several columns and wall sides are also 'ard coated to look wet but that doesn't show up in these pics. 

I have 2 of each type of entrance. 

No cave trolls spotted...yet.

The two cave entrances that I have painted thus far are flocked mainly on the outside and around the arch undersides, representing the forest beyond. 

The simple dry brushing really ties it all together nicely.

Zone Mortalis in 15mm!!

These are fairly quick and easy to do, and am batch painting them at a rate of a half dozen at a time. Already about a third of the way done, I'm hoping I can push thru the rest before running out of steam, with my hobby butterfly wandering off to paint something else. 

The underworld expands!

I ordered another set of caves and they arrived this past week. I just love these things and probably spent an hour or so just putting this layout together, assembling and reassembling so as to use every piece that I have. 

The full layout though as always, once disassembled the same layout will never again be made. 

15mm marines performing a sweep and clear. 

The marines consist of a Lt., and (3) 5-man tac squads of 'first born' bolter grunts. It's all straight up 40k with just their movement rates halved.

'Movement detected up ahead...'

...and then there is my Quarmy. Easily representing IG in 15mm, albeit with a few minor alterations.

Both forces clock in at 250pts., though for an almost kill team-esque option, the Quar split in half evenly enough to make two, 125pt forces. I mean let's face it: in tunnel fighting, marines are going to slaughter the IG.

Squad sgt. watching the Sentinel tank as it advances up the narrow passage way.

Company CO bellowing out orders via megaphone...it's no wonder the marines can here them!

It's called Zone Mor-what?!?

The Commissar ambling along in the rear, shooting any stragglers for his own amusement.

As always I want more, but am thinking I'll hold off on any more purchases till I get these painted up. Yeah I know, everybody says that...but this will more or less just be an exercise in dry brushing using a color palette reminiscent of the vastly larger Triceratops I painted some years back. 

I sent the layout pic to my GF, and almost immediately this meme is what I got back in return...lol.

The caves have arrived!

 o/

With the pieces fitting together like a puzzle without a picture to go by, I'll likely never assemble the same board twice. 

I love this stuff and as I've stated previously, I need moar!!! This bunch here clocked in at $100 and it almost fills a third of my game table. Better yet, it fits under the table top meaning it can be left in place when we're done playing.

These won't really work for spess mahreens and their 32mm bases, indeed 25mm bases are the biggest that'll fit but really, this screams 15mm gaming!! May have to sell some 40k armies to finance some more hexes. Anyways, enough jabbering just look at the pics:

Damned Hobbit sized entrance!

As you can see, 25mm bases just barely fit into the passageways.

And even those are a bit too big for some hexes.

Psst, you see anything over there?  yeah, umm...no peeking over the cavern walls, lol.

High crested helms are probably not recommended in caves and caverns. 

15mm minis on the other hand...yeah they're prefect! I've been wanting to break into some sort of 15mm gaming for awhile due to the vastly reduced cost and storage needs. Even going so far as to simply halve the ranges of everything in regular scale 40k for simplicity's sake. If anybody could recommend a good system it would be appreciated. 

A much better fit!

A squad of my 15mm marines getting ambushed by some sort of alien horrors!

15mm 40k

o/

We all know that nowadays I have a love/hate relationship with 40k. However 8th ed is an easy system to learn and readily available to most everyone. For awhile now I’ve wanted to try a 40k/kill team hybrid in 15mm (indeed, I’ve pondered this idea previously). 

Huzzah! These are FINALLY available!!

To start out (on the cheap) it’ll likely be Marines vs. Nids. On the Nids side I just need to pick up a single gargoyle to use as a flying Hive Tyrant, I have a genestealer which will fill in as a Carnifex, and I have 18 old Termagants which will work as Tyranid warriors. 

(no idea why the above paragraph won't justify like the rest...)

Primaris LTs.

For the marines I preordered a 32 man platoon of Khurasan's new earth doom reserves minis which I'll use as primaris marines in terms of stats. I want to ditch 40k's backstory/aesthetic/universe entirely and we can easily make up our own instead. I'm just calling them primaris here for familiarity's sake. 

Basically will just be using 40k rules with KT's initiative and the you go-I go, on a per unit/character basis in lieu of an individual model as per the KT rules (essentially), rather than the 40k one side annihilates the other turn method.  We can also leave out with bits we don't like (CPs and CP farming, the endless, mostly situational stratagems that slow game play to a crawl, oh and those fucking maelstrom cards that turn strategy into the luck of the draw would be my top picks for omission!). 

Okay wait-I'm getting ahead of myself. We're just trying to go super basic at the outset, to see if this is viable and/or if anyone is really interested (so far my buddies Scott and Hoss are). I have PDFs of all of the codexes and will pare them down to just what is needed. Am wanting to see if this works w/o having to write a whole new game. 

Intercessors Colonial Marines.

As for miniatures…if you really wanted the 40k aesthetic, Vanguard minis makes 15mm Orks, Marines and IG, Onslaught minis makes 15mm IG, SoBs, Chaos, Squats, Dark Eldar, and a sorta Kroot faction. The Ion Age has these space...umm...frogs? that ought to work well as Tau...maybe, as well as Space marines (male and female) of their own. And of course Zombiesmith makes HORDES of 15mm Quar which are easy analogs for the Imperial Guard (as aliens), or rather they did and will soon do so again. Currently they are retooling/resculpting the entire line. 

The above is just a small sampling though as there are TONS of 15mm mini gaming manufacturers/retailers out there!

Regardless, this endeavor will be MUCH CHEAPER than actual 40k though as the platoon I ordered clocked in @ $34, which is the price of just ONE fucking character model for 40k these days! Seriously, WTF?

A Rhino Hippo with a turret slapped on top at the
expense of 2 troops carried, kinda like real life AFVs

Conveniently, 40k points are structured so that you have to buy the weapons for the basic tank hull/trooper allowing you to essentially build the tanks and infantry with whatever you want, and ignoring the 40k aesthetic altogether. 

As you can see, my 'datasheets' just a few examples, with all of the rules*, points, and stats coming from the Space Marine codex. 

*Okay, I made up the Amphibious rule because tanks plowing thru water like its not even there is dumb. I also shortened the walking speed because these guys are little!