GHARRR!!!!

Why am I painting Ghar again?

Best I can offer you is this: who the hell knows...

Sorry, these indoor pics kinda suck, but I ran out of daylight...

There ya go, the view that most of their foes see: the backsides of these little buggers as they flee for their lives!

I tried eBaying off my previous little Ghar rebel army for close to 6 months to no avail, and eventually gave 'em to my buddy Bob who already had a small Ghar force of some sort (I think). When I got rid of 'em, I included the rule book as well. It's not like I ever played the game, nor is anybody else here locally either. In all honesty, I really don't like any models other than just the basic outcasts (no, not even the Black Guard barring just the one that I have). 

Lovely little cannon once assembled. Assembling it so that the gun itself sits level however...

Anyways, I had kept my original, lone Outcast and had called it a day on Beyond the Gates of Antares...or at least until I stumbled across a NIB, sealed outcast box for $20 on eBay. So here we are again...even less of a force than before. No rules. Neither any hope of, nor intent to actually play the game. Yet I'm painting Ghar rather than my new Orks, the still on the sprue DKK and Ork Terrain, or any of the other myriad new toys that I bought in my last spending spree. Nope, I'm painting Ghar (well, and Battletech minis who have earned their paint jobs in glorious combat). 

Yeah there they go too! It seems that these two are no braver than their compatriots...

These are fairly close though not entirely consistent with my original outcast mini. However they're rebels, so they're not really supposed to be I'd imagine. The lugger guns and disruptor cannon walker on these few are rusted all to hell, having been scavenged from long discarded battlefield detritus. Not all of them will have rusty weaponry though, as I'd imagine that there are at least a few who managed to maintain a white knuckled grip on their guns when fleeing from combat. 
I would imagine that following a battle, once the Ghar forces moved on Fartok's Blackguard would drop in an operative or two to seek out equipment to salvage and outcast survivors to either recruit or else form into insurgent cells such as this one (not that a lone squad of outcasts will strike fear into the hearts of...well anyone). 

The squad so far.

With these five minis now painted, I have just 4 more to go. Hopefully they will scratch the itch sufficiently enough to not encourage any further needless expansion into this seemingly dead game system. That said, there is a somewhat deranged thought that's been rattling around my head here recently to buy several squads of these outcasts, call them Hrud, and use 'em as counts as Imperial Ghard, because you know. I play 40k anymore as often as I do Antares...

I'm stalling...apparently

o/

Ya know it occurred tome earlier this week that in all of my 20+ years of mini gaming, and the myriad of colors I've primed said minis in, I've never once (until now) primed a 40k tank in white. Now, whilst to many folks that statement will likely elicit a mental 'so what?', it's been my experience from watching others that priming tanks in white always ends either badly, or takes two to three times as long to complete (unless you're intending for the whole thing to predominantly white in the end). Indeed, I used to game with a guy who's White Scars' paint jobs barely went beyond their primer coating...

One day this will be a dirty, dust covered orange
(or, thanks to Monkeychuka is it actually red?)...

Yeah I know contrast paint is apparently great and all, but washes on large, flat, horizontal surfaces has also been a bit of an issue in the past for me, and given that contrast is essentially paint mixed with a wash, I think that that maybe part of my worry.  

As such, it appears that I'm stalling. 

1 finished, 3 WIP, and being rebels...conformity is blissfully nowhere in sight!

I've painted two and a half Battletech minis this week (the 'half' was a partial repaint). My second Silver Drakes sergeant is about a third of the way done, and then...clear out of left fucking field (yes, waaaaay out there) I started painting on the rest of my Rebel Ghar Tectorists from Beyond the Gates of Antares. 

The rest of my so-called army (sans one unassembled bodyguard suit), with some Imperial Forestry Service Rangers in the foreground.

BtGoA....you know...that game that I've: (1) never played (2) have in the past tried repeatedly to sell off both in it's entirety as well as in portions (3) and am trying once again to do so now as I'm tired of kicking the box of these around after 3-4 years of not touching them  (4) and know that painted or not, the game locally is pretty much dead (I could be wrong, but when it comes to gaming I don't get out much these days) meaning this 400 point 'army' will likely go back into stasis to not be seen again for who the fuck knows how long. 

So um yeah...that's me for this week. 

I'm calling this mini a Demiurg...

o/

Monday afternoon a thin little box with British postage arrived in the mail for me. The only package I'm expecting from across the pond is one coming from Warlord Games, containing 5 Ghar battlesuit sprues. This box however looked to be able to hold just one at best. Never looking at the return label, I cut thru the tape thinking: 'Great, they ran out before getting to my order, and I just spent $12.50 in shipping on a $1.50 sprue'.

The Regimental Standard does NOT approve of this message!

Thus, you can imagine my pleasant surprise when upon opening the box, I instead found the contents to a Kickstarter that I had completely forgotten about! My minis from Gydran Miniature's Pelegian Sapper Kickstarter had arrived! The KS was for a space rat which struck me initially as appealing. However on seeing the final model I didn't like it and messaged the creator to see if I could order something else instead? 

No problem! Order whatever you'd like from our store-was their reply. So after a brief perusal, I made my selections, paid the postage and promptly forgot all about it. 

That was 3 months ago...

Looks like something from
The Jetsons!

Gydran is a small outfit in Worchestershire, England who specialize primarily sci-fi dwarves (so anybody wanting some 30k Squat breachers, this is the place to go!). Anyways, I had selected the Pugwanian Mercenary B (the 'A' version has an open helmet with the pug's head visible inside), and a funky, retro-bot objective marker (indeed they do make some pretty cool robot minis).

'Wrex' marks the spot!
(yes, I named the objective marker)

The objective marker's casting is nearly flawless, and whilst the Pug-merc did have a few obvious mold lines, when set against the gold standard-it was still a better casting than many of the Forgeworld minis that I have gotten over the years. 

sans-tail

I opted not to use the curly Pug tail sticking out of the back of the space suit (how would that work anyways?), carved down the socket that said tail was to go into (yes, I literally cut off his butt hole...get over it), adding some Space Marine ammo packs and krak grenades instead. I made an antenna by using a barrel from a spare Tau burst cannon, lopped off the teeny tiny gun barrel, replacing it with a trimmed down plasma pistol tip, then added a spare jet/rocket pack made by Bombshell miniatures. Finally I glued it to the MDF base, and added a pair of human skulls just for shits and giggles. 

 All in all I'm quite pleased with it!

Now...what the hell do I do with it? Well, for 40k, the only thing I can come up with is to call it a Demiurg. I only have the one however, so I guess I could just blow a command point to field this as an understrength auxiliary support detachment. For rules, it could be a 'counts as' Vespid (like anyone has those minis anyways). The Vespid in general can barely stand up to a stiff breeze, so I doubt that just one would bother anybody much! Actually, that both sounds like a total waste of points...and something I'd totally do!

You're short! Fat! And a waste of points!

That said, Rogue Stars is really the only viable option. Whilst this mini won't fit in with either of my existing crews, I do have a pair of Tau Muppet Auxiliaries (yes really) coming soon. I suppose I could just make another, never-played RS crew for this to belong to.

Regardless I like the little guy, and that's all that matters!

*****

On a different note: Check out this AWESOME card my Beloved Wolfy got me for my birthday! Its mounted on the wall, just above my computer's monitor.

Ghar Rebel Commander is complete!

o/

Just a quick post as its Valentine's Day, the Mrs. is on her way home from work, and in the mind of the average wife (luckily mine's not average), today isn't a hobbying day. Not going to test that theory though just in case, lol.

Anyways to the point: I finished my Ghar Battlesuit commander!

Neverness needs to paint his army so I know what colors of debris to decorate my Ghar bases with...

I'm really pleased with how this turned out, and...if anything, whilst I may not remember the rules as of right now, I'll at least have a worthy commander to lead my troops into oblivion once I manage to get in a demo game.

Rainy weekends are good for painting...

...that said, you'd think I'd have been smart enough to take pics of my progress before inking the mini. Right?

Actually, no.

The metallic green pincers atop its carapace are from the carcass of a Dire Beetle...or um, something like that.

Anyways...here is my Rebel Ghar battlesuit commander, perched precariously amonst the deitrus of my hobby space (due to not being glued to his base). Ooh the base! I can take a pic of that at least!

Rocks...yay.

Oh well, I did ink Kushial's leviathan at least. It took forever to dry, hence my work on the Ghar suit. It doesn't however look too different from before as I didn't go as heavy on the inking as I so often do on my minis. So, no pic as of yet. Its coming along though. The next step for both the ghar suit and the dread is the dry brushing/dirtying up phase which is easily my favorite part of painting minis.

Not much paintin' but some buildin' at least...

o/

Rather than (*try to*) paint a horde of 30k Salamaders, get bored, and sell 'em off ala my 30k Alpha Legion army, I decided to mix it up a bit and just do a horde of loyalist Istvaan survivors. WHICH...adds in the option of very...colorful...black...armor. Maybe I'll add in some black shields who've renounced their colors and are painted as ANGRY MAHREENZ!! in black (again? seriously?).

...sigh...

Once primed black, I just have to paint the eye lenses and call 'em raven guard, and/or iron hands right?

Anyways, I (literally) 're-armed' my flamer tactical support squad with bolters and then added a bunch of battlefield debris to their bases, and that of several others totaling 12 marines. These will (very shortly) be primed black since its warm today, unlike yesterday and the rest of the week. 

Speaking of...

GHARRRR!!!

My Ghar rebel commander finally finished doggy-paddling its way across the Atlantic, and I assembled that as well and will also be priming that alongside the marines above. Being a metal/plastic hybrid, its a woefully top-heavy model. Luckily my earlier decision to add a bunch of rocks to my Ghar's bases offsets this somewhat, though I'll still have to be careful when fielding it.

It shall remain in pieces for now for ease of painting.

Yeah, so this happened...

Neverness and Bob both have the starter boxes with both the vile Concord and treacherous Ghar Empire armies, Kris has another evil, alien race, the Isorlians and Waaarghpug has the fugly and beligerant rock people, so it was up to me to field the 'good guys'.

I wanna blame Neverness who will no doubt take full credit given that he bought me a squad of Ghar Tectorists 2 years ago. But Bob also deserves some of that after he posted on our local gaming group's FB page, a link to get the basic rules for free. Yup, reading thru that was also was a big nudge in this direction, especially as the more I read (especially on blogs), that BtGoA really isn't Bolt Action in space!

Conformity of color....no, its not going to be a thing with my rebels.

And last but not least, lets not forget good ol' GW, who released 8th ed 40k which I really, really don't like. Yup, good job guys. The above was financed by (mostly) your minis going the way of ebay.

In addition to the above, I also have a ghar rebel command squad and a Rebel commander in a battlesuit that ought to be arriving from England any day now. All in all I have about 300 points which ought to be anough for a few demo-games to see whether or not I want to pursue this game further or not.