This week in my 'out of left field' category...

 o/

My favorite sculpt of the handful that I have, making her the squad's leader by default. 

On Christmas day I started painting up some of Hasslefree Miniatures' Modern Adventurers. I've always wanted to just chill and paint minis on Christmas. Ya know, just relax after the family gatherings, gift exchanges, food and other fun stuff. I never had the chance to do so as my mother always made Christmas into a big production where everybody had to spend all day together in a 'forced-fun' scenario (yes, even all the way into my late 40s). 

This year however, aside from making dinner for Grandma at her house, we did our own thing and we rather liked it. Am pretty sure this will become our default Christmas plan from now on. 

These four are all female, of the remining three to paint there is one more female (the driver) more or less flipping the male-to-female ratio in a typical mixed gender unit.  

Anyways,  I've had most of these for years, with only a few recent acquisitions. I have seven total minis in this collection, a squad of six, a driver and their APC. I will of course post a final group shot when I get the rest painted up.  

The (literal) rear view, more to show their varied kit rather than their tiny little butts. Personally I've never been a fan of the sexy soldier sculpts that sadly populate so many sci-fi-female miniature ranges. 

A close up of the squad leader on the left and one of her subordinates. 

They're basically 'near future' fighters, equipped with similar though not really standardized body armor. All are armed Heckler & Koch G36c carbines, as well as holstered sidearms. These could easily be used as Ariadna troopers of some sort for Infinity (not that I was ever able to wrap my head around that maddening ruleset). 

Close up of the other two troopers. 

In all likelihood they'll just find a little spot in which to reside in my display case. Though if we were to come across a decent near-future skirmish ruleset I wouldn't mind using them on the table top at some future point. 

Time to restart the painting queue...

PAINT! 

I finally have paint!

One of these is not like the others...

...and as you'll no doubt surmise by the unopened bottles, I haven't actually used any of it yet. During the first week of July, Hasslefree Miniatures had a 20% off sale on all items. They carry the Coat D'arms brand of paints, which is the company GW used back when I first got into 40k. As such they carry many of my old favorite colors that GW no longer does. 

Better yet, the have bigger bottles than GW, and lower prices as well (even before the discount). So, despite the larger bottles, the unfavorable exchange rate between the US dollar vs. the British pound, and shipping direct from England, these were approximately 40% cheaper than the GW paints I could have bought at the FLGS. Hasslefree was out of black paint however, hence the locally purchased Vallejo bottle. Additionally, I bought a can of primer so that I can finally finish the turret of my Vanquisher. 

However, I've instead been too busy gluing space marine bitz to my fingers rather than each other (as intended) to restart the paint queue just yet...

Some wee little pirates...

o/

Pic from their website and entirely
too well painted and clean to be
one of my paint jobs!

Aways back, I ordered a single 'fantasy pirate' (which just happens to have the same build/stature of a Grymn) from Hasslefree minis. This order took what seemed like an inordinate amount of time to arrive, but given that (1) toys are rarely a high priority when it comes to necessities and (2) they generously sent a second, free mini as compensation for the delay, hell...if anything I encourage them to be late every time! lol, yes they're still my favorite mini company in case anyone was wondering. :-)

He'll be a Rogue Trader (force commander) leading the Outremar contingent allied to my Salamanders. I have a little fluff write up for hm already, but will save that for when he's all painted up.

The semi-insane Myr'dok in all her glory!

The gifted mini was the companion pirate to the one I ordered. As you can see, I already had one of these painted up as Myr'dok for the G-Team for Rogue Stars (you know, that game I like making crews and back stories for, but don't actually play...). So I'm not sure what I'll do with the freebee just yet. Perhaps my beloved Wolfy or Hoss will want her for one of their RS crews or something.  

Rogue Stars, the 2nd round...

o/

My grumpy little alien Bob.

We interrupt all this Space Marine goodness for a game of Rogue Stars with my Beloved Wolfy and our buddy Hoss. We were all using the same crews as we did in our first game, though in between this game and that one, Hoss and Wolfy's crews had another, separate skirmish which she won handily.

The objectives were six randomly placed, and unmarked loot tokens. Three were duds and three were worth VPs if they were hauled off of the board by a player's character. So two rival pirate crews trying to steal stuff and a Star Cops crew trying to stop them and recover the soon-to-be-stolen goods. Well that sounds about right.

This isn't really a battle report, just a few photos and highlights. 

The battlefield from Wolfy's point of view.

Taco's typical run forward and shoot something! In this case, Hoss's 'super stealthy ninja chick' near the shuttle in the background, putting her out of action. Whilst Hoss's Star Cop Sergeant skulks around in the background.

Wolfy's Bruuna. That's such a badass looking mini, though I'm a little less fond of her after she gunned down my crew's leader Catalina and then tried to shoot my medic (Bucket) as the robot was administering first aid!

Wolfy's Malakite as she pumps yet more rounds into my already bullet riddled Taco. Taco did manage to graze her with a shot, but didn't stop her from grabbing that loot counter that she's standing on and fleeing the field with it.

Over the course of the game, I managed to successfully steal 2 loot counters via Bob and ZOTT! (my minion bot who I didn't manage to get a pic of) and I took 1 enemy model out of action (shot by Taco) for a total of 9 VPs.

Wolfy managed to steal one counter as well via Malakite, and she also took 2 enemy players out of action (including my leader, Catalina) also for a total of 9VPs, so the game ended in a tie.

Hoss's Cops didn't recover any of the loot or capture any pirates, but did take Wolfy's leader B'Yonsae out of action for 3VPs.

All of the wounded were either carried off or (in the case of my robot Taco), managed to limp off of the field. The recovery of wounded crew members is quite necessary, as those lost on the field of battle could potentially die afterwards.

Likewise, as we keep using the same crews, the end-of-game VPs turn into XPs to improve the crew for a later games. Rogue Stars is a fun little diversion from the other games we play, and the closest we've come to finding something akin to RPG campaign (well, in the vaguest of terms I guess).

As you might expect, fun was had by all, and we're hoping to play again next weekend.

My "Brexit" purchase

o/

Whilst the world reeled in shock at the unexpected voting result in the UK, and the value of the British pound dropped to its lowest point since 1978, I thought (as most everyone did): "how does this effect me?"

The answer:   FORGEWORLD'S ON SALE!!!!!!

lol, actually Hasslefree Miniatures has been all too happy to tout the low price of their products to foreign buyers in all of their news letters since the Brexit vote, so I'm not the only one to cash in on the event. Whilst that is tempting, I instead spent my $$$ on Forgeworld given I had recently gotten a bunch of Grymn anyways.

The nightmarishly frequent typos in the 'Tempest' FW book's Militia army list have been corrected in this tome.

Though still on a Grymn related note, I bought the Crusade Imperialis army list book. Now my Grymn-turned-Outremar Imperial Militia have an actual rulebook and not a hacked Russian PDF!

True to form for a legion that prefers a shroud of secrecy, their decal sheet was decidedly difficult to photograph. This photo is the best I could manage.

The Alpha legion weren't left out either, as I got their decal sheet. I'm waiting for the updated and combined into one volume HH Space marine 'red book' to come out and then I'll get that for my Alpha Legion as well. Shouldn't be long now since the 'special edition' of it sold out near-instantaneously!

Hasslefree Miniatures is an awesome company!

Go buy from them NOW! Here's their link if ya have some extra $$$ burning a hole in your pocket...

Anyone who's read this blog knows that I have a love of their Grymn, and not too long ago I bought two more in Power Armor when they had a sale. Being a small company, the sudden influx of orders left them behind the eight-ball and it took awhile for my order to be processed. Unlike most purchases where I want some instant-gratification, this was a good thing.

These two bring me up to a squad of five.

Ya see, if they run a bit late, the compensate for their untimeliness with a freebee mini of some sort. Usually something related to your order. Another thing is when ordering, they have a suggestion box, where you can comment on what you'd like to see them make. For quite sometime now, and on my past several orders its been 'When are you going to release the Grymn Spec Ops mini in metal?'

Strangly, the backpack is optional but personally I think they look incomplete without the pack. I only had to buy one for these guys though, as I had gotten one as a freebee on a prior order.

Its my favorite Grymn by far (although it doesn't fit aesthetically with my Grymn army at all). As its a resin master, it costs 10 British pounds, or about $15ish dollars (plus shipping) for a tiny little (although really fucking cool) Grymn. Yeah-no. As much as I love that mini, I simply couldn't justify it. Especially as if it was released in metal it's cost would be anywhere from half, to one third of the resin cost.

Thus on my recent order, I once again asked for it to be released in metal, and once again they fell behind on a timely shipping dispatch, and ya know what? They sent me a FREE Grymn Spec Ops mini!!! My order was a smidge over $20 US, so they almost doubled it with this freebee! How fucking cool is that? Hell, that little Grymn was more than I've ever gotten for free from GW after 20+ years of buying their minis and paints.

As such, I posted a pic with a big thank you post on their FB page! Free minis, sales, listening to their customers (though in all honesty I never expected this response) and is it any wonder why Hasslefree is my favorite mini company?

****

Oh, and for anyone looking for an Ork vs. Ork Battle Report, sorry but I haven't waded thru all of the photos from Friday yet. Check back on Thursday.