Who is really reading this?

o/

Here's a preview of a new project.

Recently (as in the last two posts on both of my blogs), my page hits have gone thru the roof. My previous post on this blog crested 1000 views just this week! Yet no one comments. So where are these views coming from? Bots, Ai queries, or actual hobbyist views? I am sure that there are at least a few of the latter. 

Personally, I am thinking that this has something to do with blogger's new search link suggestions (which were declined for this post). According to my blog stats, a large chunk of views are coming from google as always, yet an extraordinary number of views are coming from a non-descript 'other' that is primarily US based (or so their VPNs say) and using the Microsoft operating system. 

Curiously, the old Faeit 212 is still a strong contributor of what I would call legitimate page views, but those are a mere pittance compared to this recent onslaught. So please, comment below and let me know:

Who are you?

My general state of things.

 o/

Long time, no posts. I am still alive and am posting regularly on my Battletech blog as I am playing that more or less exclusively. That, said, I have been pondering playing something else. My buddy Nick 2.0 wants to try out Down Range at some point which was developed by and for the United State Marine Corps of all things (yes really, read about it here). 

This small bunch is more likely to simply scratch an itch and find itself a spot in my display case than anything else. 

Beaverbug Mk III, used almost exclusively by the British Homeguard, it is as fearsome as it looks. 

Sporting both print lines and markings for my Quar's Eleventy First regiment.

Being a mediocre 3D print, I rated it on eBay equal to what I got: three good wheels out of four. The defective one isn't real noticable, but also ought not have been shipped in my opinion.

With my pre-existing Universal carrier, they form a minimum armored (and I use that term loosely) platoon. 

I have been pondering Bolt Action again, the game that I buy, paint a few minis for, and then sell without ever playing on a seemingly regular basis. That said, I would prefer to play it using my Quar which would clock in at about 600ish points. When I mention this idea to the guys at the shop, I always get the same reply: 'You can just borrow an army if you want to play.'

...sigh...

40K for me is on a permanent hiatus at this point. The prices are down right comical. The FLGS hosts regular games, and almost bi-weekly touraments. The preferred point value for both is 2K. Recently they had a 'teaching tourney' to help players learn to play better/more competively, with winning being a secondary objective. 

That sounded appealing except it was a 2K point limit. How many new players already have 2K point armies? My Tau are in the 600-700 point range, and drop a few points every time the balance dataslate is released it seems. The Orks clock in at maybe a 1K-ish, I honestly have no idea at this point. The Iggies are maybe 1K assuming I ever build my two remaining tanks. Lastly, my smurfs are the largest army, yet still fall short of the 2K requirement as they total up at about 1500 points or so. 

So I passed on that. 

I recently ordered some new helms for a squad's worth of unpainted iggies to syphon off for Trench Crusade. Additionally, i purchased a mechanized heavy infantry model for New Antioch to finally give that game a try. It seems to have a decent following locally with a few of the battletech guys playing it. 

I am also seriously pondering selling off my Star Wars Legion minis (again). I am sure it is a fine game, I love the universe and the minis, but it's player base leaves a lot to be desired. My last game seemed fine at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I became. 

I've hosted plenty of 'teaching games' for new players over the years, mainly 40K. For a teaching game, as I know the rules by heart and my opponent barely knows what he/she is fielding, I would field a mediocre list that will put up a good fight and is more than capable of winning said game. That said it will do so less efficiently, with higher casualties and if I lose, the new player won't feel like I let them win. Whereas if they lose, it'll be close enough that they felt as though they could have won and thus will want to play again. Not to mention their units would have lasted long enough to give a feel for what they can do, in addition to giving the new player an at least halfway decent grasp of the game. 

RJ knew going into our game that I had only played once and only had a vague grasp of the rules. With that foreknowledge he brought his Anakin Skywalker, special build, almost all Arc Trooper special forces list. We both knew his would slaughter my force before any dice were even rolled. 

Traditionally, we have always referred to this as 'clubbing baby seals'. Needless to say, if you are the baby seal, then it really sucks to be you. RJ seems perplexed by my lack of desire to play again. 

Curious indeed that is...

I never played Legion in Tennessee after watching the local guy who would 'teach' all of the new players in much the same fashion, and when they were justifiably pissed afterwards would say (quote) Well that's just the meta. He came close to getting punched a time or two. Oddly, the player base for Legion didn't seem to expand beyond what it already was.

Back in South Carolina...

I told the FLGS owner that I was on the fence for Legion aways back. When he asked why, I explained my views on teaching games vs my game with RJ in much the same detail as above and he grimaced. He wanted to argue my point, but admitted that he had nothing to offer as a counterpoint. His experiences learning SWL were much the same as mine, though being the FLGS owner who wanted to sell minis, he just quietly put up with losing consistantly. 

I have no such incentive.

*****

So for the TL;DR folks who skipped to the end (and who can blame you given the above wall of text):

Down Range probably.

Bolt Action maybe, Bolt Action with Quar not likely. 

40K, no. 

Trench Crusade, possibly.

Star Wars Legion likely going bye bye. 

Battletech all the time!

What the hell?!?

Ammo explosion?

So, I was loading up my Bolt Action Americans that I simply cannot get interested in, to deliver to a buddy of mine who is aware of my apathetic view of the game and out of the blue offered to buy them last week. When, I opened my miniature display case, picked up my Chaffee and...the tracks were sitting in a puddle of goo. 

Can't blame the Germans when the tank has yet to see battle...

After posting pics on my FLGS' discord along with the requisite WTF?!? It seems that the uncured resin in the cavities inside the turret released gases and not only leaked resin goo down thru the hull, but also popped apart the turret's top. 

This much lubrication is not required...

Needless to say, after a future sojourn out in the sun to cure the innards, this tank will likely serve as terrain only. I bought this in September of 2022, painted it in November 2024, and last touched it in January of this year, meaning this happened sometime since then. 

Oh and by the way Neverness, if the urge ever strikes me to take up Bolt Action again, there's always my beloved Quar...

Trick or Treat!

I'll leave it up to you to decide just which this post is...

This distraction is the real culprit. 

Long time no post (well, on this blog anyways). The Buffet Assault Group however has been going strong in this blog's absence. Especially as Battletech is the only game I've been playing and painting minis for here of late. Nonetheless, hope for this blog may be on the horizon...

You find all sorts of forgotten purchases when you have to move your collection from one house to another.

First up, I finished reading thru the Bolt Action 3rd ed. rulebook, and have watched a few battle reports online. I recently got some OD green spray paint and primed the 3D printed Chaffee light tank above. Currently, this is the entirety of my Bolt Action 'army'.

The base is primed as well. 

I also recently primed my Star Wars Legion Dewback rider. I'm hoping this won't be too hard to paint. Indeed it looks to be more of an inking and dry brushing dream. I also recently acquired a pair of used and (decently) paint Imperial scout speeder bikes (plus another R4 droid just because).

Good enough for now, these may be touched up at some point in the future. 

Leaving the Occupier tank out, these bring me up to a mostly painted 500 point skirmish force. The FLGS has learn to play nights almost weekly, so I'll have to make it to one of those I guess to try and figure Legion out for myself. 

So that's all I have for now. It's not much but it is what it is, I'll see you all in November (at some point).

Guardians of the Storm (pt. 2)

o/

Four more on the finished list. 

Well the storm has past us (mostly, its North Carolina and above's problem now). We even saw a bit of sunshine yesterday! Downtown Charleston and the barrier islands saw some bad flooding. A brief tornado took out an Arby's about 20 minutes from here, and another came ashore and damaged several houses on Edisto island. All told we got about 12-14" of rain, but our neighborhood stayed dry. We're very lucky as they were forecasting upwards of 30" of rain!

This Dark Eldar bayonet allows for the catapult to be swung like a pickaxe. 

The token Guardian, frolicking thru the fly traps!

The extended, bejeweled antennae mark this guy out as the squad's comms specialist. 

This one is looking a bit concerned at that little red light on the top of his catapult.

As you can see above, the inability (or rather the lack of desire) to go outside provided me with the opportunity to finish the four guardians from my prior post. These bring me up to a total of six. Before tackling he final four I'm working on my Farseer instead. I also (re)assembled the Dark Reapers that showed up during the deluge. The 'quality' packaging from a cut rate eBay seller was more to blame I think, than the Postal Service.  

Just four more to go!

As I build up this fledgling force, I thought I'd run the numbers and see just what this game costs. I just snagged (10) Dire Avengers off of eBay bringing the 'army' up to 415pts. All told, my 26 Eldar (and Starcannon) have an MSRP of $247.50, $270 including tax, or about $1.53 per point. 

Such an insane hobby we have. 

That said, this force came off of eBay, where I've spent $114.51 and inside that space of time I sold $38 (net) in unwanted, old minis. As such, this army has cost me $76.50 tax and shipping included. Still feels like too much and that's almost a $200 discount! 

Tau vs. Demiurg battle report

When shipments of ores from the Appalachian Subsector came to an inexplicable halt, Water and Merchant caste delegates were dispatched via the next available transport to ascertain the problem. When those envoys also failed to return, the Tau sent a Merchant class cruiser instead, with yet more Merchant and Water caste envoys, as well as Sub-commander Firestorm and her 2nd line cadre along to renegotiate with some fire power if necessary.

Upon locating the wayward Demiurg, the Tau envoys retransmitted the signed and oath-bound contracts to their wayward contractors from orbit. The responding transmissions were garbled, but it sounded as though the Demiurg claimed to not be who the Tau thought they were, claiming instead to be the Wu-Tang or some such nonsense. At a loss, the envoys dispatched Commander Firestorm and her warriors to seek 'clarification' via excessive firepower, to ensure that the Demiurg would once again make good on their ore shipments... 

750 point game, 6 objectives, worth 1 VP per objective controlled, no we didn't bother with the scenario cards and their paragraphs of often confusing text and apparent need to over-complicate the game by passing out  VPs by the bucket load (seriously GW, WTF?).

750 point of Tau = 64 models (plus a few drones)

Rob's Demiurg.

The battlefield. The star wars terrain's rounded edges works well for the Tau I think.

I was taken by surprise by the reality that we've been playing infiltrators wrong in that they don't have to wait till last to deploy which caused me immediate issues as it put his Yeagers in charge range on turn 1! (Rob went first by the way.)

His Thunderkyn on the other side of the board all but erased the pathfinders in one volley, leaving just a lone rail rifle gunner! The railgunner would kill one in return for what little that was worth. 

The Breachers were reduced by half by the Bike squad with a few Hogzilliaries going down as well. The Hogs would soon fall to the Yeager charge giving Rob 3 additional CPs which isn't a whole lot of fun when on turn one you just used the lone CP you had for overwatch. I've never been a fan of the CP farming game mechanic either (although, that was much worse in 9th).

Ignore the Muppet Auxiliaries which didn't take part in this debacle. After doing so, everything else in that tray died on turn 1, before I even got to go! 64 models doesn't mean shit when you lose 40% of your force before you even get to make a shot. Yes I was (am) salty. 

The game was already lost in the stereotypical of 40K 'blown off of the table on turn 1 scenario', as I effectively had about 500 points left to fight off 750 which was already in a better tactical position that controlled multiple objectives. I killed a handful of his models but nothing like the losses I had suffered. Nonetheless, I pressed on...

The cornered Breachers getting ready for a forlorn suicide charge. Ya know the Tau's buddy system for bonus' doesn't work when the nearby units are wiped out. 

Luckily, I took the Mont'ka, allowing all weapons to assault for the first three turns as well as lethal hits (which i forgot about 2-3 volleys in...). Of course GW took all the AP off of my basic guns (thanks for that). The battle shocked Pathfinder was squandering my still single CP to miss with the rail rifle though could at least still guide the other two squads. Luckily Strike teams Suppressive fire rule negates the Judgement token bonuses somewhat. 

Turn two and the Kroot arrived to run up and hose down the T:5 army with S:4 shooting for no effect. The do at least have sticky objectives or, as it shall forever now be known: They leave their bird poop on them and then leave, (we even used a white die to represent this).

The Piranha dropped in and along with being guided by the pathfinder (as well as the carbine squad) and using a strategem to give their carbines -1 AP, the Thunderkyn withered in the crossfire! Following that the Carbine squad charged the nearest unit of stunties. 

This highly unethical (to the Tau) scrum would occupy these two units for the rest of the game, with occasional models expiring, though both units would ultimately survive... 

Had they not charged, they would have found themselves surrounded by, and in the crossfire of 4 enemy units. Unethical or not, it was a highly prudent move. They probably also realized at this close  range that...'Hey, these aliens don't look like Demiurg! I mean, where are the Klingon foreheads?'

The Wu-Tang turned to hose down their new foe...

 Well the pioneers did. They Kroot fellback out of pistol and charge range of the Yaegers. Note the bird poop on the objective remains.

Kroot shooting managed to kill two pioneers who they then charged thru a hail of overwatch fire, followed by bikes heroically intervening. 

Up until this point, Commander Firestorm had only been successfully guiding her subordinates, and absorbing damage. Her weapons have been nerfed into oblivion by GW, meaning instead of the 9th ed beatstick that she used to be, she didn't kill anything in this game! Here she mistakenly strays into grenade launcher range of the Hearthguard and perishes. She only failed 2 out of 9 saves, but unfortunately she only had 2 wounds left.

The Cadre Fireblade assumed command and while his reduced squad continued to blaze away, he tried to confirm reports from the carbine team that their foes are not Demiurg...

Nope, definitely not Demiurg (told you this fight would never end).

It took I don't know how many editions, but my Kroot finally finished of an enemy unit in close combat! Well, the Shaper did, and as you can see by his two wounds tokens though, he didn't last long to savor this momentous milestone!

At this point, I was down to a handful of models who were vastly outnumbered, and VPs were 7-2 in Rob's favor (the pioneers even mopped up the bird shit), and the Tau initiated a hasty EVAC.

Upon learning for the beleaguered Cadre survivors that they had in fact attacked the Wu-Tang instead of the wayward Demiurg, the Tau's envoys transmitted a letter of apology along with a coupon book good for a few free meal deliveries from their local Earth-Caste Grubhub (Oh, and this is the 'Greater Good' by the way, where all the meals are free...). Then they broke orbit and hurriedly left the system.

*****

Well that was...awful, or at least turn 1 was. The rest of the game wasn't so bad even in spite the futility of it all. That said, I do have a few after action caveats: 

First up Rob has played this army extensively, and wading thru every level of Screech induced Cheesy Necron hell along the way. So he knows every trick in the Votann's book. Me on the other hand, this is my Tau's first outing in 10th ed., and a lot of the good things that my atypical army had in 9th ed. are no longer there (simpler not simple, right?). 

Yes. That glowy green kind of Necron hell...

Two notable examples are that all of my pulse weapons lost their -1 AP &  marker lights are ignores cover only. Sure there's no roll to hit and the Observer/guided/spotted mechanic is supposed to replace that, but it will take some practice to figure out how to use best. 

Ah, the good ol days. 

Then of course Commander Firestorm's experimental airbursting fragmentation projector which in 9th ed was S:4, AP-1, hit on 2's and you could have (2) of them. Now the (obsolete) airbursting fragmentation projector hits on a 3 (4 if firing indirect), is S:3, no AP and you can only have one of them. She also had the experimental thermalneutronic projector which was a sort of weird roll-to-hit flamer that doubled as a close combat weapon that rivaled Commander Farsight's dawn blade. Now, its just a flamer. 

Honestly, in 9th ed Firestorm propped up the army, charging anything that got into my lines, and while rarely winning said fights, she would tie enemy units up for several turns, inflicting heavy losses along the way. She can't do that anymore. 

For example, after charging and killing 4 plague marines, they fell back and in a desperate attempt to shoot her to death!

Firestorm is an obsolete Legends model (which is fine for a 2nd line army like mine), but her weapons need to be completely swapped out (stay tuned for my next post). For this game, I had already removed one projector leaving her with the other one, and a flamer. So equipped she's really only good at killing units like Grots, (ironically) Kroot, guardsmen, and other types of cannon fodder. Hardly a fitting role for a Commander of any stripe. 

I guess it will be back to the drawing board for my Tau in order to find a way forward. It was however good to see Rob & (briefly) Neverness. Especially as I'm not sure when I'll be back up in Tennessee for a game with either one of them. 

Hobby-wise, my 2024 is so far a bit of a mixed bag...

 o/

My previous Black Dragon pauldron icon decal sheet was down to less than a squad's worth!

On the upside, my Black Dragons army has been saved from certain doom due to a lack of decals. My remaining decals from the now defunct Silver Drakes turned out to be a hellova lot less than I had realized. As such I had stopped painting any more Black Dragons as I agonized over which eight infantry models would get the last of my precious decals. 

Fallout hobbies has stopped their completely custom decal service that I had used a few years back. I was fruitlessly searching for a replacement decal provider when an Etsy seller suggested Death Ray Designs. After asking the latter a few questions in regards to what I wanted, I received the sheet above. I highly recommend them! Now I have more Black Dragon icons than I'll ever need!

I rarely see this in online battle reports, but I opted for the 'rule of cool' and bought it anyways.

On the holiday acquisitions side of things, I bought a Rebel Landspeeder and some Legion barricades for some scatter terrain when visiting Knoxville last weekend, as Sci-Fi City was having their annual, end-of-the-year 30% off storewide sale. I also got a few random GW paints as stocking stuffers for Christmas, and Screech gave me a $40 Gift card to our local Hobbytown which was awesome. 

Trending downward however, I was looking on GW's website to see what I could buy for 40K for $40. Quickly, I changed to my search to what can I get a $40 discount on for 40K. Sheesh! The prices of minis for 40k are really just shocking! its no wonder that I buy most everything second hand or 3D printed these days!

So many projects, yet so little light...

As much as I would like to work on my new toys and previously on-going projects, all painting for me is currently on hold. After ordering a new LED bulb after I thought it blew, it seems that instead it was my hobby lamp that died. As such it is too dark in my office to paint anything (which is ironic considering my wife's vast, stained glass lamp collection) until the replacement lamp arrives this weekend. 

The Roger Rogers

 o/

As fragile as B1s are on the table top, I have no idea how this OOM security droid survived that shot to the chest. 

Now...I don't know what horrible rumors that you've all heard about how hard it is to assemble B1 Battledroids, but rest assured when I tell you that they are not rumors! These spindly little guys are indeed nightmares to assemble and said assembly was done so with much cursing and swearing. 

Oh look, a cheap box o' droids! Then I got home and realized that they were all specialists for squads that I didn't yet have.

As such, after building the four that I have, I just went on eBay and found a reasonably priced auction containing a dozen pre-assembled B1s and promptly bought it. No more assembly required. 

I built them as three grunts and the OOM security droid, and with the aforementioned eBay auction will have enough for two regular squads with options.

As stated previously, these old, still activated droids are rusted all to hell, though somehow still functioning. They paint up quick and easy enough, and their basing is fairly easy as well. As you can see, I'm well on my way now to building a third army for this game that I don't actually play...

Had there been a 4th comms pack, I'd have built all four as regular grunts. The specialists kit however doesn't allow for that. Honestly, I was surprised that I could even build them as regular grunts!