Trip Down Memory Lane PLUS Some WIP Shots of Cottage and Trenches

40k Squats, aka Space Dwarves

So, someone was using old pictures I had posted on DakkaDakka way back in 2007 to promote his commission painting website.  So I had to make my own site and put my own pics up.  What was interesting was how I had not looked at my old 40k stuff in a dogs age.  So, in all its splendor, here is my old converted Squat 40k army, that won a variety of 'Best Painted's along the way, and caused a lot of my bosses (GW) at the time some consternation, especially at Staff GT :)

40k Squats

Now for some WIP shots..

"French Suffer Humiliating Defeat" in a Black Powder game..

"Almost accurate of this battle.  Not enough French casualties though.."

Well, here we are again, Scott's basement, the waning days of 2015, and we have a nice game of Napoleonics using the Black Powder rules.   Mark and Scott will be using the British, whilst I use the French in a meeting engagement to control a farmhouse during the Peninsular Wars.   Our lists are from the Albion Triumphant supplement for Black Powder, and we are using a 8 foot by 6 foot table

Using Alternate Brigade deployment, the French are at Left, British at Right.

As usual, massive dump (pictures that is) and video follows after the break

Mixed Drinks Anyone?

DAKKA!!! DAKKA!!! DAKKA!!! Take that, Jerry!!

So with another Friday Night Fights in the books, we had a little bit of everything on the table. I hosted and was able to setup a Flames of War table and an area for me to try out Kings Of War. It's a 28mm fantasy battle game where it is fast, easy to learn and actually fun to play. Yes, I said fun. I am a huge skeptic when it comes to playing anything 'fantasy' related. I never got into the Warhammer or the 40K of many years ago. I think I wanted to, but likely couldn't afford the models. I played Battletech, a ton of other RPG type games and of course military strategy games like 'Escape From Colditz', 'Axis and Allies', 'Shogun' and of course 'RISK'.

This particular video was from last week, when Dennis and I had a night to practice our Flames of War Mid-War lists for Canadian Nationals, coming up in September. Normally we have been playing elsewhere, but with not a lot going on due to scheduling conflicts and summer holidays winding down, I decided to setup a desert table in the 'War Room'. Duane had a pretty decent German list to take on Den and his Brits (New Zealand from N. Africa).

 Duane looks on and plans his next move. They rolled up 'Encounter' and it was a lot of back and forth in the opening turns.

Duane was not able to save his Tiger from being assaulted in the middle of town. He did manage to kill a few stands in Defensive Fire, but ultimately failed a check to stay in the fight, the crew ultimately fled the Kiwi onslaught.

Carriers move in to try and secure the objective from the grip of a few lone stands of Infantry. Duane would come out of this a little better. The Sturmgeschütz III platoon in the top left of the frame came to the aide of their comrades and destroyed the Recce platoon. This, after a mistake was made in not being able to come into base contact for assaults. This error would cost Dennis the game and more victory points for the Allies.

German Infantry leave their foxholes after a carefully executed assault on a British position. A Crusader platoon lays destroyed and burning in the center of the battlefield.

With prior commitments, I won't have the chance to play very many games in the coming weeks. I'm looking forward to painting and getting my army setup for Canadian Nationals, I have a few ideas on how to base and paint the Dwarves I got free in order to play Kings of War. The rulebook should be out in the coming weeks and I look forward to it's release. As does most of our group, it's nice to have something new on the table. I think it'll be a fun game to pick up and get into a little more. My focus though will always be Flames of War, despite the perceived LW 'creep', I will keep an open mind and continue to play that system and it's expansions. MW will no doubt get some more re-writes and with some new models on the horizon, give me something to paint.

Just a friendly face to remind me I have a lot of Vietnam stuff to assemble and paint up. Really need to get a game of that in soon!

'When in Rome...' FOW Italians for EW and MW Part I

"You lookin' at me??" <DeNiro voice>

So from my good friend Andrew/Twinlinked from the podcast, I have finally convinced him to let go of his Italians.  I am a sucker for those weird wacky armies (Free French, 21 Pzr Bathtubs, etc) so why not trade my unbuilt Canadians for these guys.  Most of the were built, but in varying states of disrepair.   I also bought a few more tanks and things, and am still awaiting a Falco biplane.

 

Here is most of them built.. the used stuff was in a tan glossy undercoat which I will have to cover to match the rest.

More Than Just Tanks

This weekend saw Brett and myself take on Sauron's evil minions in an attempt to learn how to play Lord of the Rings LCG. I'm a little late once again to the party of what's good and what isn't in the realm of newer games. It normally takes a lot of research and a little bit of risk when it comes to buying board games or card games these days. A lot of what's out there is very expensive and a lot of the time, not very good.

Long Weekend, Historicon Close Out and more!

Closing out my three part series on our trip down to Historicon, just some final thoughts more than anything. I got sidetracked by my new airbrush....can you blame me?!! All together it was a great event, the Flames of War Nationals certainly began a little later than expected, but Dave did a great job running it solo and we look forward to him running Canadian Nationals at the end of the month. This brings me full circle all the way to this weekend, where we had a holiday and as usual it was time for some gaming out at my place in the 'War Room'. I was getting tired of calling it the shop, not much work get's done out there....it's more of a fun place to chill out and listen to Split Infinity Radio.They're a great site and online radio station that plays to my inner geek. You can find them here SI RADIO

Canadian Invasion Part 2

So Canada wins at the US Nationals. No, really. We scored a major victory when one of our very own won Best Painted Army this year at Historicon. Dennis 'MattVarnish' won with his German DAK army and came away with a nice plaque for his efforts. I'm not going to include all my games this year, but will highlight the ones that left the biggest impressions.  Once again this year, some of our crew managed to hook up and play against some of the 'Utah Boys', Mike managed to bring a few more with him this year and I'm pretty sure they'll be back next year. I played Mike in a game last year and got hammered, this year was a little different against Ryan.

Hold the Line Deployment

FnF and Tournament Preparations

Dusting off some more Mid-War for this installment of Friday Night Fights. We're back at Brett's place after some lengthy renovations to his home. Moving around keeps from the same person hosting over and over every week. Dennis(MattVarnish) has once again brought his DAK over and we decided to play a game of Dust-Up. It's going to be one of the missions at our tanks only event, 'May Madness' we will be having May 3rd at FdB in Gatineau. The idea was to have an all armored event where there are minimal support platoons containing anything other than tanks. Should be fun and hope you can make it out, or at least read about it once the AAR is done!

"I will read 500 posts, and I will read 500 more.."

500 posts man.  Wow.   What have I been up to?   I did a painting blitz (pun intended) on my DAK, now that we have a MW tournament coming up in Petawawa in April.  5 weeks away <gulp>

Here is some pics of what I am working on:

World of Not Painting and FnF

With some well deserved time off of work, I have been busy painting, reading, and trying to get some things done around the house. With the arrival of my parents from the east coast of Canada, I need to get this all out of the way and finished so I can make my way to Historicon relatively 'guilt' free.
Having time off and having friends living close to downtown, it's easy to get a game in at Boutique FDB's (Freres de Bataille) new store. Obviously with the french name, it's a short trip over the bridge into Gatineau Quebec, where they recently moved into their newer, brighter and roomier space. Dennis and myself were eager to trial our Historicon lists and generally talk about our other passion at the moment, World of Not Painting, also known as World of Tanks to everyone else in the Flames of War, or PC gaming community. If you're not a PC gamer, the Xbox 360 will soon have it as well, I know the July 4th weekend was the BETA for the game and so far has had great reviews. The game however will be hosted on a separate server, so right now Xbox vs. PC for World of Tanks is a no go for Wargaming.net

Most Tank Battles End Up Like This

Paras, Tigers and Fights, Oh My!

This past week has been pretty busy with everyone scrambling to get a list or two painted for an upcoming tournament in Petawawa, Ontario. I had some down time from work, which is a rarity for me and I took it as an opportunity to paint some US Paratroops. I thought when I got into FoW a little over a year ago, I would be staying away from painting and modelling any type of infantry stands. I think it had something to do with not wanting to paint hundreds of individual boots, camo, weapons and get them all based while trying to make them not look like a rush job.

Lead from the front!

There are tons of blogs dedicated to 1944-45 US 101st and 82nd Airborne schemes and techniques, I found a few that looked half decent and managed to find a few color photos as well. After Band of Brothers was released some time ago, interest grew in the history of the 101st and particularly the 506th. After seeing the US, Canadian, and British cemeteries in the area surrounding Normandy in 2007, I had seen the landscape and even Sainte-Mère-Église. Many different men from many different units and elements of the military gave up their lives for history and ultimately the stories of heroism and sacrifice. All of this gives us an opportunity to play Flames of War with the hardships that they endured during WW2. For me, it was part of the reason to take on building a fighting force using the US Para Coy box I had sitting around. I was going to use these as Rangers of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, but decided not too for now. I'll wait until the new books get revamped a bit and I'm excited about the 'Bastogne' books, Devils Charge, Nuts! and the Market Garden lists for late war.

Painted and inked, just waiting a few more details.

Fresh Air and Natural Light!

Basing has always come first for me, I do not take the time to glue/tack them to nails, or sticks and would rather just have them arranged on the bases. I'll be adding a little more grass to these once they're all complete. I like the train ballast as a base with whatever paint and drybrush. Throw on a few tuffs of GW and mix in some GaleForce9 turf to give it more depth. Sometimes when you base first, it makes it a little harder to get right in there to paint, but all worth it in the end once you get used to it and take your time. Unlike tanks, painting figures on bases should not be something you do a week or two before an event unless you know you can crush them out quickly. With a few stands done so far, I have about 1 more boots to paint and taking my time so they turn out they way I want them to.

As promised, I mentioned Tigers!! Well, here they are and I tabled them against Matt Varnish (Dennis) this past Friday in our weekly Friday Night Fights. I like it when there is more than bragging rights on the line, this week it was Arnhem. Complete with a bridge on an angle through one half of the table and some destroyed buildings and fields in the other. 

I was tasked as the defender as we rolled up Cauldron. It started off simple enough with Varnish assaulting early on and his Marders taking out one of my Tigers and after two rounds of shooting. He whiffed on 8 shots missing them all early in the game and I was able to capitalize and assault his infantry, kill his HQ and then destroy and move through his Marders with my remaining Tiger. You can see him in the distance leaving wreckage in his tracks as he moves to find a new target.

Varnish's infantry ready to assault off the bridge!!

Later in the game, I got my reserve Marders in play but they were no match for the Panzer IV platoon he had on the far side of the table. They tried to take cover but were quickly disposed of, as you see in the picture below.The smoke is blocking the view of the other four Panzers lying in wait.

With my Marders burning, my infantry under constant siege at one objective, I was able to get Dennis below half and as I had killed his HQ early on, there was no way for him to check his Company morale. The victory went to me, but was earned only by the skill and gallantry of a single unit of 7.5cm infantry guns. They consist of two guns, one HQ and an observer. They're able to fire bombardments, smoke and have an AT rating of 9!! All this for 65-75 points I think in my MW list. Mix them into one unit of dug in infantry and you have quite a defensive line. I chose to bring them in reserve and deployed my PAK-40's instead in ambush. I figured because they had transports, I could get the 7.5cm's anywhere I needed in a hurry. They were able to hold off a late assault, passed a few 5-up gun shield saves giving me a turn or two to kill some more stands to put Dennis back on his heels, securing me the victory.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Played a few games on the weekend. In addition to the Friday Night Fights, we had a Sunday Bloody Sunday event. With a small crew, some beverages, two kids running around and a BBQ, made for a heck of a day and here's the feature match of PhantomRescue playing his German LW Panzergren list vs. Matt Varnish's LW Free French.

We have some of the new bocage/hedges that Varnish brought back from Historicon and we are loving the look they bring to the game and the table. I laughed at some of the video because I called it an 'event'. I think playing against Varnish is always a blast and seeing as he is in the top players for Flames, I always learn a lot and he does not give too much away. I'm happy to play against the guys in my club, they all have different styles they still don't let me get away with anything when it comes to the game and the rules. This alone helps me pick up so much and I have come a long way I think in the short time I have been playing. Enjoy!

Desert Rat Australians

So when I was deciding to create an army I wanted to chose something different. There were lots of Brit players, Americans and obviously Germans. Being Canadian meant I could go with a Canuck army as well, but I was finding the table was already crowded with Canadian armies as well eh. After reading about Australian and other Commonwealth nations I thought something along those lines would be fun and different enough where I was not going to run into too many Aussie players.

Getting my hands on the 8th Army Desert Rat box before it was all but gone from store shelves was essential in wanting to create my Australian list. They're fearless vets, they have access to 8th army assets from the period and they just sound like a good place to start when getting into building my first army. The Divisional Cavalry Squadron is just the right balance of armor and artillery that I was looking to play and has some flexibility if I want to change it later on and add some ground troops or swap out the heavy armored platoons for something else like air support.

My first game playing with this list was a learning experience and exposed weaknesses and strengths of the platoons that made up the Company. I played again this past Saturday and managed a win, I was lucky enough to close distance fairly quickly my last game and came out on top. Whereas the first time I played with this list using one of the new missions in V3 I got stomped pretty effectively. Suffice it to say nothing went right and being the attacker in that mission, I should have played far more aggressively. A mix of errors from me and hot dice from my opponent all but wiped me out. This first game, I had very little painted, some sad looking Crusaders, guns on bases with no teams, just the guns....and not one ounce of paint. I just wanted them to get some shells down range and use them during play.

After a hard honest opinion about my painting and seeing what other people were doing was an eye opener and learning some new tricks I now have my entire army painted and ready to roll out. I look forward to Friday as I will have them all on the board at some point and I no longer have to borrow 2 Crusaders from MattV to make my list complete. This past weekend I was able to table this list and play a game and received some nice feedback about the paint and what I had accomplished in such a short time. I can not thank MattV and Ca$h enough for the tips and Pripyat for allowing me to help with some of the terrain and miniature painting on some of the buildings used at GameSummit2012.

 

So now I have the entire thing organized and all I have to add is the decals. I'm not willing to take too much time painting and attempt to paint any platypus and boomerangs symbols just yet.....anyways here is what I am currently fielding. See you in the middle.

Platoon	Qty	Unit	Points
Headquarters
Divisional Cavalry Squadron HQ (Australian)  p.148	2	Crusader II	155
Combat Platoons
Divisional Cavalry Platoon (Australian)  p.149	3	Crusader II	230
Divisional Cavalry Carrier Platoon (Australian)  p.149	3	Universal Carrier with .50 cal MG	145
Divisional Support
Heavy Armoured Platoon  p.133	3	Sherman II or III with .50 cal AA MG	355
Heavy Armoured Platoon  p.133	3	Sherman II or III with .50 cal AA MG	355
Field Battery, Royal Artillery (Australian)  p.156	2 1 1 1 3 4 4 1	Cmd Rifle team Jeep Staff team Observer Rifle team 15 cwt truck OQF 25 pdr gun Quad tractor All Rifle and Gun teams equipped w/Sticky Bombs	255
Company Points:			1495

(source North Africa c/o www.easyarmy.com)

Desktop Tacticians? Starcraft2 time.

(above) Here is my ultimate BM, I got wiped but my ally was mopping up so I used my remaining one SCV to build this and taunt my enemies to scan it before they died. This is from a while ago. I find its a good title pic for SC2 segment!!


A bunch of the lads have been playing some SC2, and until a copy of retail FRAPS mysteriously finds its way into my email, I'll post pics for now.

600 pt Escalation comes to a close.

Sorry to Marty: I should have posted our game much sooner, so we can see the finished US Paras.



And here are some vids

vs US Paras



600 Pt Total War mega battle, 3 x 600 point armies, vs another 3 x 600 pt armies.

New List

Alrighty, so this is a list I've been messing with, and more importantly, trying to build some models for:

HQ

Tyranid Prime with twin boneswords, Devourer and Adrenal Glands: 105pts
Tyranid Prime with twin boneswords, Deathspitter, Adrenal Glands: 100 pts

Elites:

Zoanthropes x 2 120 pts
Zoanthropes x 2 120 pts
Hive Guard x 3 150 pts

Troops

6 Warriors, 5 devourers, 1 barbie strangler, scything talons: 190 pts
6 Warriors, 5 deathspitters, 1 venom cannon, scything talons: 225 pts
Termagaunts x 10 50pts
Termagaunts x 10 50pts
Tervigon, Catalyst, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Cluster Spines: 195
Tervigon, Catalyst, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Cluster Spines: 195 pts



1500 points exactly.

What I need to do to play all-painted, I'd have to paint 2 zoanthropes, 2 primes. Obviously the like-armed Primes go with their respective warrior units, giving them ws5, bs4, and on the charge, each prime dishes out five str 6, ini 6, power sword, instant death attacks....

Which Eldar need The Treatment? Calling Matt Varnish...

It's time for the DGoO Painting Challenge, and I've made a little list of my models which are assembled but the painting isn't done yet:

• Wave Serpent: Needs detail.

• Wave Serpent: Needs a LOT of detailing (so much that you should think of it as merely primed at this point).

• Wave Serpent: One hour left of work and repairs.

• Wave Serpent: Needs detail.

• Three War Walkers: Needs detail.

• Cobra: Needs detail.

• 13 Warlocks: Needs detail and bases

• Maugen Ra: Basecoated, unpainted sand on the base.

• Asurmen: Needs detail, base.

• Farseer: Needs detail

• Farseer: Needs detail

• Yriel: Basecoated. Needs base

• Autarch w/Reaper Launcher: Needs base and touch-ups

• Auarch w/Reaper Launcher: Basecoated, needs base.

• Autarch w/2 Swords: Primed, needs base.

• Dire Avenger Exarch: Base coated.

• Dire Avenger Exarch: Needs base.

• Dire Avenger Exarch: Needs base.

• 20 Storm Guardians: Need details, needs bases.

• Defender Guardian Heavy Weapon Guy: Needs detail.

• Fuegan: Needs detail.

• Fire Dragon Exarch: Base coated, base needs finishing.

• 10 Dark Reapers incl 2 Exarchs: Need touchups. Unpainted sand bases.

• 10 Striking Scorpions incl Exarch: Basecoated, unpainted sand bases.

• 10 Striking Scorpions incl. Exarch: Need details. Unpainted sand bases.

• 9 Dire Avengers: Base coated. Need bases.

• Wraithlord: Needs detail. Black sanded base.

• Wraithlord: Needs detail.

• Wraithlord: Needs detail.

• Falcon conversion: Needs detail.

• Armorcast Falcon (yes, really): Primed black.

• A plethora of magnetized weaponry that's either primed, base coated or bare plastic.

While I understand that it can be pretty boring to look at a list of someone else's models and try to work up some excitement for which needs to be painted next (trust me; I've been in that position), this does have me somewhat stumped as to where I should go next. I'm almost tempted to let Matt Varnish choose for me. Why him?

1. You can't give CA$H any power. He corrupts pretty much instantly.

2. No matter how little you care about which models I paint, Lothlann cares less.

3. Joyous_Oblivion's answer to "which Eldar should I paint?" would be "Macs suck", and that doesn't help me.

4. Matt Varnish is known among his friends as "The Enabler". He'll have no problem giving me things to do instead of looking for work, exercising, reading, cleaning my home, etc...

So, I am officially asking MV to choose 400 points for me to paint to completion. I'm putting it in his hands.

Matt Varnish Replies:

OK I'm going to be a bastard and only let him know one week at a time.

Corey, I Choose your Warwalkers for week one. I want all 6 finished (I think 3 blue ones are done, if so, bonus for you) and based, symbols painted, the works.

My reply:

My War Walkers come in two flavors: Blueberry and Toffee.

Matt made a pretty good approximation of 100 points in terms of how much work is left on these: The base-coats are done, bases, all that stuff. What's missing is that the drivers need to be finished and I need to put runes and glyphs on them to take them the last yard to the finish line. It's a fair challenge, and I accept.