A "small" diversion...

 BATTLTECH!

This was my first miniature game. As I mentioned in my last post, Battletech holds a dear place in my hobby heart. I remember doing odd jobs when I was 12-13 to scrounge the money to buy the starter box:

 Funny story about that. Despite being release in 1985 I first saw this back in 1988 when I was 12 and fell in love with the box art and the description of the game. When I finally had enough cash (I want to say it was $20?) the local store was sold out!! With no online shopping options for a 12 year old in 1988 I instead turned to the only other box they had:

I still have Citytech to this day. But Kickstarter has changed it. In the past year Catalyst Game Labs has "re-released" Battletech and I joined in day 1 of the Kickstarter despite having not played the game in a long, long time. I received the Battletech Kickstarter just over a year ago (I know, grey plastic shame on me!) but decided to wait until the Clan Invasion (Wave 2) came out this year to open it all up and paint it. Here is what I accomplished:

20 Inner Sphere Mechs painted

12 Clan Mechs w/ 2 stands of Elementals.

I am awaiting Wave 2.5 which will basically see my forces double with the addition of all new mechs for both sides! Until then here are some sample pictures of how I painted them all up.

The "core" generic mechs for the Inner Sphere have been painted up as the 8th Lyran Regulars (House Steiner) with 2 lances painted up in Guard colors:

8th Lyran Regular Marauder and Urbanmech

Urbanmech

Marauder

Lyran Donegal Guards Battle Lance

For the Clan side I went with my personal favorite clan - Clan Ghost Bear!

Clan Ghost Bear Heavy Striker Star

I planned to do some insignia work but found a spot online that sells scale decals for all the different units in the Battletech universe so I will be ordering those. Until then I feel this meets my "Play it painted" standard for a few games to reacquaint myself with the rules and system. 

My eyes are also drawn to the Alpha Strike rules for Battletech as it plays in a more "modern" way with open movement and simplified management of your mechs. I will be trying it out for sure! The beauty is the game can be played either way and you don't have to pick one and stick with it - a great idea!

Now that all these mechs are painted I am looking at a massive heap of plastic sprues that are my Ogor Mawtribes army for AoS and I think that may be my next project. As its over 3000 points worth I feel that will qualify the Ogors as my #newyearnewarmy project. So I will start assembly now, in the hopes to start putting some paint to plastic over the Christmas holidays.

Stay tuned for some more Battletech distraction along with more Games Workshop and Star Wars Legion content!

Cheers,

Ca$h

Blood Angels Arrive

 This post is basically a photo dump of the Space Marine half of the Indomitus boxed set. I finished them all with a Blood Angels successor chapter idea in mind. one that is currently on campaign and the wear on their armor is showing. I used a lot of metallics and chipping effects. I think it turned out well enough for how quickly I can turn them out!

The recipe is as follows:

1. Metallic zenithal highlight (airbrush) over black primer (rattle can) 
2. Fleshtearers Red Contrast paint over the armor
3. Weapons and other dark areas are Black Templar Contrast over silver
4. Eyes: White with Escorpena Green (Game Air) over top
5. Dab silver with foam over red for damaged look
6. Other colors used for non red/black parts are :
• P3 : Jack Bone, Khador Red base, Ironhull Grey, Quick Silver
• GW: Fleshtearers Red Contrast, Black Templar Contrast, Iyanden yellow Contrast (for gold)
7. BASES : Cork, GW Astrogranite Debris, Grey (P3 Greatcoat Grey w/ matt medium), Drybrush w/ White - Wasteland Tufts.
   

Click on after the break for pictures of all the characters, bikes and other units!

1 done, 1 to go!

 I completed the first of two Stegadons! This one being the base model with Skystreak bow:

I am very pleased with how this came out. Being painted to a "table ready" or in my words "good enough" level I think I am happy to call it done.

Here are some more beauty shots:

I am still trying to figure out the coloring for the next one as its the Engine of the Gods so I feel it should have a more unique coloring for its skin and armor plates. Stick around and I will post some wip shot next week of the next one!

Ca$H

Stegadon - Part 2

 The summer has caught up with me. That is to say, I have been out enjoying as much time as possible up at our trailer on the lake, so painting has slide some. Couple that with my airbrush breaking (irreparable) and it has impacted the amount of hobby I have achieved in the last month. I have managed to get some things done though!

First up I finished the "crew" for both the regular stegadon and the Engine of the Gods version:

They follow the same paint scheme I've been using for regular, champion and priest skinks - yellow, blue and orange respectively. I guess I'm still caught in the old school lore of specific spawning pools growing specific role based skinks. 

I do plan to buy a new Iwata airbrush soon, but I did some digging and found an old Paasche airbrush I bought at least 8+ years ago and NEVER used! It's an entry level but great quality so I figured "Why not?" and busted it out to start on the first stegadon:

It offers surprisingly great control and fine spray lines! I know the picture isn't the best but there was literally zero over spray! I didn't mask any of the areas an was able to get the base colors down just fine! It's easy to clean, but I am not a fan of the under mount reservoir. I prefer the top down models. This will get me through for now and allow some time to really research and choose the best new airbrush for my needs. 

I plan to keep working on this purple/green stegadon over the next week or two and finish it up before moving on to the next one. This will be the regular skystreak bow stegadon. I'm excited get one on the table soon! 

-Ca$h

Stegadons Work in Progress

Good day all!

This will be a short update on the pair of Stegadons I am working on. It has been a busy July and with the great weather I haven't been spending much time working on models in my basement. I have build two Stegadons. One is the base behemoth with the Skystreak Bow and the other is the Engine of the Gods.

I have focused on getting the skinks done first as my old, well used, and cheap airbrush finally packed it in so I want to wait until I pick up a new one for the beasts themselves. So here is where I am:

I have added a small piece of paper clip to one foot on each skink to allow me to pin them down to the Stegadon howdah once they are painted. This also allows me to pin them to small pieces of trim to spray and paint them in batches. I will complete these skinks this week, and move on to the Stegadons and howdahs next week.

Here is the a picture of the zenithal primed Stegadons awaiting the airbrush:

You can expect an update early next week with the completed skink "crew" along with any more work I manage to get done on the Stegadons themselves.

Work on the army is slowing down over summer as I expected it would, but I will keep getting small achievable steps completed and the army will continue to grow. I really am still enjoying the building and painting of this army. I am also excited for the resumption of in-person gaming and having many many games to learn how to play these guys effectively!

Thanks for following my progress - stay cool out there!

-Ca$h

First Blood and a Skink Starpriest

The first battle for the new Seraphon between two tenacious commanders. My kids! At 11 and 7, they are primed to enjoy the game now and honestly they are excited to try their wits against each other. Both have obviously been exposed to my longstanding table top gaming hobby so it comes as no surprise that as the self isolation and social distancing continue, they are more keen to try different things with their time. I am more than happy to oblige ;)

But before we get to the game, I did finish another model this week :

 Skink Starpriest

More after the break!

Adding some character to the army

The progress continues on my new Seraphon Army project. After completing 20 skinks and 23 Saurus warriors I have continued into the supporting cast - aka the Heroes of this fledgling force.

Following the "kitbash" recommendations from Lustria Online I have built and painted the following 3 Heroes:

Hero Number #1 -  Skink Priest

Glamour Pic #2

Using one of my spare skinks (from the unit box that comes with 24) along with some bits from the Saurus Warriors sprues I kit-bashed up a simple Skink Priest. The rules (https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-skinkpriest-en.pdf) lends this models to represent the priest with the "Priestly Trappings" choice over the "Cloak of Feathers" option.  Adding the top of a totem along with making my skink heroes orange skinned helps differentiate these from the regular skinks. There is no mistaking them on the table and they are WYSIWIG - perfect! Each kit-bashed hero also saves me $25+ which is awesome. I also ensure that all bits used are GW by the way so they are completely "tournament legal" should the need ever arise.

On to Hero Number 2:

Seraphon - aka Space Lizards!

It's been a long while since I last started an "army" scale project. The last few game systems I have been involved in have been smaller skirmish systems like Infinity that only required 10-20 models at maximum. Now granted, Age of Sigmar army sizes are much smaller (total model count wise) than the Warhammer fantasy of old. Yes you can choose to paint up units of 40+ Skaven clanrats but really the game rewards smaller more mobile units because there are actually very few scenarios that require one to "camp" an objective. This is due to this specific rule:

"Once you gain control ofan objective, it remains underyour control until the enemy isable to gain control of it."

The beauty of this is that you don't have to babysit objective to score them each turn. It encourages mobility, which leads to more back and forth during a game - something I really enjoy. But enough about the core rules (they are free here : https://ageofsigmar.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2018/06/AoS_Rules-ENG.pdf ) let's get back to Seraphon. I have been busy the past 10 days.....

Returning to where it all began...

Well, not exactly. My first war game was Battletech. Bought my first Ral Partha pewter mechs in the late '80s when they looked like this :

I have kickstarted the recent reboot of Battletech along with Battletech: Clan Invasion by Catalyst Games (I will cover more on that later) but this isn't exactly the "roots" I am speaking about. The first war game I really got into, played in stores, and collected and built many armies for was.......


Wait for it.....

The Great Army Restoration Part 1

Ugly, unfinished, messy, half-assed, incomplete, boring, lazy...all words that might describe the above picture, and all are true, to an extent. We all have armies that need some TLC in one form or another. Most often these get pushed to the wayside as the next shiny thing comes out and our hobby brains gravitate towards that. This is my 2016 plan to change that for one of my oldest and most loved armies, my marines for Warhammer 40k.