The turd has been polished...

...of course its still a turd, but whatever. 

The camo netting can only hide so much...

Now that it's all painted up it looks halfway decent, though in hindsight I ought to have put a piece of plasitcard over that rear entry hatch. That one area is now by far the ugliest part on this mini. I added camo netting, with attached foliage using a tutorial I found on a Team Yankee FB group I'm in. 

In person the bleached bone dry brushing isn't as prominent, but that's the camera for ya.

That covered up the most of the more egregious 3d printed defects (rear hatch aside) that I didn't already cover with plasticard and spare bits. I couldn't cover that hatch though as otherwise there'd be no way in or out aside from the driver's hatch. 

All I have left to do now for this army are my A-10s. 

*****

On a different note, I've also started painting on another three camo Smurf Intercessors.

 

My various works in progress...

 

o/

I'm progressing on multiple fronts here of late, painting lots whilst finishing little...well, technically. First up are my caverns. Currently I've finished 50 (!?!) cavern hexes, yet I have many more to go. So yes, I am finishing individual pieces though the project as a whole isn't done (and I'll likely just buy MOAR when it is).

Soon these will be overrun with a horde of 15mm scaled Orks (which arrived in the mail the other day). 

I was thinking that I had about 60 or so cave hexes, but apparently I have more than that. I'll get an accurate count when I finish painting the lot as I've been keeping track of the number painted on a painting progress chart I have. I've dispensed with 'ard coating any more surfaces to make them look wet (as caverns so often are) because ultimately, it's barely noticeable and thus a waste of time. 

Differing somewhat from those tiles with the multicolored funguses, this tile apparently has a small opening to the surface in the roof above. Thus allowing for sunlight, rainwater and seeds/pollen to descend into the depths to sprout some limited green plant growth. 

Next up, I have my mediocre Team Yankee M577 from my prior post. I added two more plasticard bits to the front to cover up the still awful looking area where the tracks and front hull meet. Am thinking I'll get some cheesecloth to make some camo netting to hopefully cover up at least some of the multitude of still visible 3D printed flaws, maybe add a decal or...something.

Looks almost halfway decent...

Ya get what ya pay for...

 o/

Redressed in plasticard and spare bitz.

I recently bought a 3D printed M577 for Team Yankee off of ebay. The auction picture looked decent, just needing a bit of structure trimming, but otherwise not too bad. Here check it out:

$7.00, sure why not. 

However, as you can see from the first pic (and those below)  the tank I received was pretty rough. I had to prime it to even see what I was dealing with as it's really hard to tell in all white. After which...uh yeah. Oh well it was cheap and so I got cheap, as I was tired of being outbid on OOP Flames of War M577s. 

eww.

even more eww...

okay that's...decent...I guess. Not too fond of the flaps over the tracks, but the tracks themselves were hideous and in the end

this is tiny so...

I won't buy from this seller again, but this will work for an objective at least. Measuring in at 1"x1"x2", it's visually not so bad in person. Certainly not as hideous as it looks blown up all nice and big on here. Am hoping it'll paint up fine, though will have to go really light on the dry brushing so as not to pick up too many print lines (actually am thinking I might hide some of the multitude of imperfections under camo netting). 

Edit: When leaving feedback I saw that there was another complaint about the mediocre print quality on this same model about 6 months ago.

This week in camouflage...

Space marines in, in... camouflage?!?!

Wut da fuk...?

HERESY!!

 **BLAM!!!**

Once again I contradict myself. What is it I almost continuously rail about in regards to 40k currently? Primaris Marines. And what is it that I painted this week? A Primaris marine. Facepalm.

Yes, this pic is relevant...

Actually I've been wanting to paint one of these guys up in camouflage for quite awhile for whatever reason. So after finishing up the my two Humvees for Team Yankee earlier this week (which came out really, really well), I figured: eh, what the hell...and so here we are. 

You'll note that not only is this marine painted in the classic, Desert Storm era chocolate chip pattern camo, but he's also bereft of iconography aside from a contrasting OD green Aquila on his chest plate (which likely does NOT mean he's from somebody's 4th battle company...). Camo...no identification...it can mean only one thing. 

Yep, it's the Alpha Legion. Betcha didn't see that coming did you? Hehehe, a little bit of camo-humor there...and uh, moving on...

Curiously, whereas the caked on desert dust wash works quite well on my Incandescent Coyotes, I don't really like it on this desert camo marine. Naturally that makes no sense whatsoever.

This was more or less and exercise with two goals. (1) do I like the look of this? Answer: Yes, just sans the aforementioned dust wash. (2) Is this so laborious to do so as to make painting more than a handful unfeasible? Answer: no...not really. Honestly it was far easier and quicker than I had expected. It would have been even quicker were the mini not primed green to begin with. As for painting more than a few well...it's me. So that answers that.

I pondered iconography for quite a bit, and ultimately skipped it as this was just a test marine anyways. For some reason I kept gravitating towards the Blood Angels, and indeed there is a long, mostly-forgotten precedent for camo'ed BA. The readily available black icons ought to look good on this camo as well, though technically the Space Wolves and Black Templars icons would fit into that category as well. 

For right now though, we'll just go with Alpha Legion. I'm thinking I'll just put this guy on one of the shelves in my cube at work and ponder the idea for awhile before proceeding any further in this direction.  

(Note: Primaris marine pics replaced after publishing due to better lighting here at work.)

Matching colors...

 o/

The LAV-25 has always been one of my favorite looking AFVs.

I took a break from painting caverns on account of  having run out of my Testors Flat Earth paint which I'm using as a base coat. I did manage to restock my supply though it took a trip to one of the local craft stores to do so as the FLGS' was sold out. So instead I thought I'd turn my attention briefly to Team Yankee. 

Note the flight stand is warped, putting this fighter into a perpetual slight banking turn.

First up I assembled the first of two A-10s and boy isn't that kit a peach! Already forewarned that their assembly is raging inducing (quote), I wouldn't go that far though it did give me some Robotech Tactics flashbacks. I mean who doesn't like fine scale modeling at a small scale with vague instructions that don't mention all of the parts on the sprues? Detailed cockpit? Sure. Transparent canopy? Yeah no...that kind of shit.

I do not look forward to building the 2nd one, especially as this fucker took approximately 2 freaking hours to complete. The common consensus in the Team Yankee FB group I'm in is that the kit is crap.

I concur.

I'm happy with this result. 

On a brighter note, aways back I bought seven M-1 Abrams tanks for more or less retail cost. Their paint jobs looked good to me and more importantly, similar to my painting style and thus hopefully easy to replicate myself. This weekend I thought I'd give that a try and I think I did pretty good actually. 

I had messaged the eBay seller to see what paint colors he had used and sadly all were oil based and out of production. Nonetheless army colors are army colors and I was able to match his paint jobs fairly easily, using a combination of GW, Vallejo and Coat D'Arms paints. This LAV-25 is close enough that I think I'd be comfortable expanding this army without the need to eventually repaint the M-1s at some (very) distant point. 

Perfect!

I also got a heavy duty metal hole punch (kinda overkill for this project really), and magnetized the turret of the LAV. I'll do the same with several of my Battletech tanks, but that's a subject for my other blog. So as not to worry about the magnets being too thick, nor any polarity issues, I punched a circle out of tuna can lid to glue to the hull. There's ample room in the turret for a magnet, and it all worked out rather nicely. 

Next up, I think I might paint up my two, TOW equipped Humvees as well before returning to the caverns. 

So long to this wretched year!

 

o/

2020 has been an awful year for most everyone. Rather than recap my personally experienced horrors, I'll instead let ya know where things stand as this ol' blog has been fairly quiet here of late. 

First up:, I based my 15mm Quar kickstarter army and tweaked their 'Sentinel tank' as well. Not knowing just what I'll do with them, I've organized them as a 250pt IG Combat Patrol force for 40k in 15mm. A few liberties were taken but not enough to really matter in the event that that anyone wants to actually fight 15mm anteaters in 40k. 

That said, much like I did with my Weird War II Quar in Bolt Action, there is a temptation to rebase them and use them with my Abrams tanks as a Weird War III Team Yankee army. We'll see on that though...

Yes of course I painted that! Can't you see the brush strokes? 

Speaking of Team Yankee, the MLRS' that I'd gotten with my tanks were actually toys and more importantly, of the wrong scale. So I gave them to my GF's son who was quite please with them. I did however get 2 sprues of individual Humvees, and for Christmas a box of A-10 Warthogs as well as the American army book and unit cards. So more to come on that front in the future. 

Just today I ordered a 2nd allotment of modular caves using my government stimulus $$$. What d'ya mean that's not what it's for?? Fine, fine, the rest will go to my property taxes and savings, sheesh...lol. Essentially it was a carbon copy of my first order. That ought to do it for the caves for the foreseeable future, as now I need to get em painted up. 

All is quiet on the 40k front. I sold off my still new-in-box alt IG, as lord knows when I'd ever get around to them. I haven't painted ANYTHING for them (or much of anything else really), nor played in quite some time. To be honest I don't see any expansion of my current forces/collections for the foreseeable future. 

This Spellcrow Whirlwind bit was my last 40k acquisition. Presumably the Incandescent Coyotes will get it after I eventually finish that Rhino in the background. 

Which means of course that I still have an endless queue to paint on. The FLGS is starting a Crusade campaign this weekend...power levels, bleh. As such, don't expect to hear  too much from me about 40k for a bit aside from my getting bored and painting a random model or two here and there. 

Happy New year folks! Hopefully things will get better for us all in 2021!

Team Yankee Revisited.

 o/

All of this post's photos are straight from the eBay listings as they've yet to arrive. 

About a week or two ago Screech commented 'you're all about 15mm gaming here lately, so how about Team Yankee?' He was referencing my recently acquired caves (which are great for 15mm gaming yet totally useless in TY). I'd looked thru the rules some years back, but nobody I knew of locally was interested in the game so I shelved the rulebook. Not sure where I shelved it as of yet, but I'll find it eventually, my house is fairly small so there aren't too many places for it to hide. 

I'll have to add a decal to one Abrams tanks to mark it out as my army CO's tank.

There's a new, 'old school' FLGS that opened recently, and Team Yankee is one of the games they're looking to build a following for. However as you may have noticed by my lack of recent posting, I've been fairly busy with real life and haven't had much time for hobbying. Thus adding another army to my unpainted pile of shame isn't high on my list of things to do. 

As such I found a 98pt, fully (and nicely) painted American army on eBay for the approximate original retail cost and bought it. Whilst that doesn't help the FLGS any, if I like the game this will (1) only be the beginning and (2) I still need the unit cards, army book, templates, etc.. 

I'm hoping I can match these paint jobs when/if I acquire further units. 

Currently it's a small, uber elite min/max army which you all know isn't my style. So as I add units later on I can 'dumb' my troops down into something more to my liking (ie.: exchanging M1A1's for older M1's and the like). 

My army consists of the following:

M1A1 Combat Team:

(x1) M1A1HC Holy Christ! 'Heavy Common' (up-armored) HQ tank

(x2) platoons of (2) M1A1 Abrams each

(x1) platoon of (2) M1 Abrams (the older, 105MM gun toting variety)

Support Unit:

(x1) MLRS270 Support battery of (2) vehicles

So notta whole lot, but enough to get me going. Currently my army is traversing the wilds of pandemic stricken America via pack mule it seems, so don't look for any bat reps just yet. Speaking of, I also need to actually visit said new FLGS. To date I haven't as it's a mere 5 minutes from my GF's home, and curiously that proximity is distracting me from visiting the store itself. 

Now, off to find that rulebook...

Team yankee

o/

With 40k purchases on infini-hold following the release of 8th ed, I've gone looking elsewhere on what to waste my hobby $$$ on. 15mm gaming still intrigues to me despite never having ever played anything in that scale. With the demise of my Gruntz army due mainly to the confusing ruleset, I've still been looking about and picked up Team Yankee's little rule book (a close kin to the 40k variety) for the cost of shipping alone ($7) from the warstore.com.

I haven't had time to dig into it yet as the past week was quite busy including a trip to South Carolina for a wedding. Additionally, yesterday's hobby time was largely consumed with boxing up Bob's cheddar Grey Knight army to be deployed to its new home in Arkansas. Indeed bubble wrapping 20-30 super pointy minis takes far longer than one would think...

That said there's no rush to read it I suppose. Forget the lack of any known players locally, rather $900 spent in unexpected vehicular maintenance this week has more or less eliminated any hobby purchases for the foreseeable future.

Sad face.