So what about that 2015 eh…

Looking back 12 months ago I can see a year filled with a measure of confidence and a hint of common sense. Did I manage to achieve anything from my plan?
 
Flames Of War 
Yeah, let’s cut to the chase there and say… no. Most, if not all of the items on my list did not progress very far at all. I still want to do my British Comets and got to see how good a list they can be when handled well at FlamesCon last year. The Masters were a wish that I never even came close to achieving after only heading out to a handful to tournaments. I feel a bit guilty about that given I work for the company but I do get to spend my days thinking about all sorts of Flames Of War goodness that it's nice to have other things on the go.
 
Dust Tactics 
The hiatus continues on the Dust front. I have my extra Steel Guard units now (Thunderbolt and Lightning) but haven’t had the enthusiasm to get them primed and painted. I blame Victor for not organising some games for Andrew and I.
 
WarmaHordes – aka The Year (Decade) Of The Troll.
I actually did a decent amount of painting last year! I didn't finish my 50 points but I made more progress on it than any preceding year. My friend Chris Baker gave me some wonderful pointers on airbrushing 28mm figures and I was able to do a pretty decent job of remembering some of his tricks. Certainly the army (half finished) looks really good and given a concerted effort I think I could push my way to 50 points for the next big tournament that I am likely to get too (in August/September). I also took the half-finished force out to Lords Of Ruin in Wellington last year and it was excellent. Almost every game ran the full time on the clock making for hard fought, exciting games where I felt like I had a chance to win – unlike most of my WarmaHordes games. The recent nerf to Warders has dented my enthusiasm a little, but being competitive in WarmaHordes is not a priority so I am sure I will bounce back.

X-Wing (and Armada)
Loving it. Having less hobby time now than in the past I am really enjoying the casual nature of the game and the low requirements (i.e. zero) on my hobby time. I took 3 Phantoms to the NZ Nationals last year and had a blast. It was not a very competitive list (could have been the Squadron Leader?) but it really surprised a few opponents. The NZ meta is quite variable with a good mix of lists, so vs low pilot skill hordes it was awesome, whereas elite high pilot skill squadrons it suffered. Taking such a wacky squadron made the day loads of fun. Looking forward to seeing what 2016 brings after the release of The Force Awakens.

Building Battlefields
Yet another year went by on this front… in the middle of 2015 BF moved offices and we lost our massive gaming/hobby space and I have not been organised (or incentivised?) enough to make a space at home where I can leave everything laid out for a while as I paint and flock up a pile of stuff. I still want to tackle all my Battlefield in a Box product though and get them all flocked up as the roads and forest bases (especially) look better with a little flock on them. I did spend some time on my Tablescapes Urban Tiles and the sample tiles are coming along nicely!

So What Happened?
I was sitting on the train heading home one night last year and found myself getting annoyed at how little gaming and “hobby stuff” I’d done over 2015 and I realised that there were a number of things getting in the way.

1.    “Life” –The average week day looks like this; Get up, shower etc, organise breakfast for my son, walk to train, catch train, walk to work, work, walk to train, catch train, walk home, have dinner, play with my son, bath (for my son), put him to bed/do dishes and tidy up, and bang, its 9pm at night, watch TV or play some World Of Warships to decompress after the days activities and it is off to bed. Another day done. Weekends have more time spare but 70% of the week looks like this.

2.    “Laziness” – Looking around my traditional gaming group (which goes back over 20+ years to university days) that instead of gaming we tend to sit round playing Clash Of Clans during our usual catchups. Instant gratification, no effort, and when you are all playing in the same Clan you get a similar feeling to tabletop gaming where you can discuss raids, plan for Clan Wars etc. Our “group” decision was that this year we will make much more of an effort to put down the tablets and play a game or two a month. So far it has worked.
3.    “Kids” – My son is three and a half and loves playing with dad so there is plenty of time kicking footballs, playing with lightsabers, watching Thomas the Tank Engine etc. We have also recently added another member to our family and as time passes I am sure he will want to do the same thing. Bottom line, less time and less energy for hobby stuff.

4.    “Work” – Some (or more than a usual amount) of my blog energy last year seemed to be directed towards stuff for work. Whilst there was no one project that consumed it all, it was a thing here, an article there, and some painting for that. 

I am envious of my friends that have similar constraints on their time but still seem to do it all. Guess I need to train up the kids to paint.

So Whats The Plan?
I’ll cover this in another post but I am heading into 2016 with a realistic take on things, but still deluding myself that I’ll get a lot done. Team Yankee, Terrain, Trollbloods, and US Marines are all on the schedule for this year and that’s taking into account an almost four week old baby at home.

However the one New Years resolution I plan on keeping is that this year there won’t be so many posts on the blog starting with “So its been a while since I posted anything…”

Thinking about 2015

I'm on the last day of my Christmas holidays and before I call them over I wanted to take a few minutes to think about what this year would hold for me on the hobby front!

Flames Of War
I can already feel myself going down the proverbial rabbit hole with FOW this year. The impending release of Nachtjäger has me keen on building two different companies. First up is a German Panther / Jagdpanther company - this has been on my "to-do" list for many years but I've just never gotten around to it. With the new plastics coming and the IR gear I think it might be time to take the plunge and paint up a really late war company. The British are pretty exciting too with the ability to build plastic Comets, supported by plastic infantry, riding in plastic M5 half tracks. My current plan is too keep the list tight with 8-10 tanks, a motor platoon and a carrier patrol.

Following on from this I have a small pile of Israeli Jeeps that are undercoated and ready for pin washing. I'm really enjoying the look of the Sayeret list from Fate Of A Nation and whilst I don't have much to paint to field a Jeep company I am worried about how I will fit it in given all the other projects competing for hobby time this year.

During the break I've also taken the opportunity to tidy up my garage and I came across a pile of Soviet ISU assault guns that I bought during the River Of Heroes play testing, so many years ago. Given how much I love playing tank destroyers in World Of Tanks, the idea of building a small focused ISU company is very appealing!

Last but not least, I'd like to make an effort at qualifying for the NZ Masters this year. I already have a feeling that I wont have the time but I will leave the thought sitting in the back of my head and see what my chances are looking like come the middle of the year. Of course I want to have a little side challenge... I want to do it using Romanian tanks! With the release of the StuG and Panzer IV plastics I can build most of the army using these new kits. Throw in some infantry in 251s, heavy artillery, recon and maybe a Stuka and I might have a fun list!

Dust Tactics
I've taken a bit of a hiatus on painting my Dust models after getting the first 100 points completed, but playing in the tournament at FlamesCon has gotten me pretty excited about pushing on and getting the next 100 done. I just need to make a call as to what it will be. I've completed all of my Steel Guard models, so I need to turn my focus to either the SSU heavy tanks, or Red Guards infantry. Both are tempting and will look great when done. I guess I need to schedule in a tournament to help me focus my energies!

WarmaHordes - aka The Year Of The Troll
Yep, 2013... I mean 2014, no wait, 2015! The Year Of The Troll... This year I am making a serious attempt at putting a fully painted, 50 point, Meat Mountain on the table! I'll explain the Meat
Mountain later in a future post, but suffice to say it involves lots of Trolls, with lots of hit points. To help me achieve this lofty goal I've enlisted the help of local WarmaHordes painting guru, Chris Baker. His ability to paint to a high standard, at an exceptional pace has become legendary round these parts. Of course no matter how hard he tries I wont be able to paint as well, or as fast, but he has shown me a few tricks that I have been trying over the Christmas break. More on that later too!
 
X-Wing (and Armada)
I don't really need to say much on this front. There is nothing to paint, you just put the models on the table and away you go. Of course there are some exciting releases that FFG have already shown off that I really like the look of. It is nice to have a distraction that does not require any brush time.

We have been doing a lot of lunch time X-Wing at work and the ability to power through a game in 2-3 lunch breaks has been really good. We are also really lucky to have a vibrant tournament scene here in NZ thanks to a couple of local organisers and some pretty outstanding local stockists. Which reminds me, I have to go and check out the new store that just opened - sadly here in Middle Earth that is not a statement that we get to make very often! I hear that they are running quite a few 1 day events that would be fun to get involved with.

Building Battlefields!
A bit like the Year Of The Trolls, this is something that has been on my Christmas "to-do" list for a number of years. I have bought a lot of the Battlefield in a Box range of products because they are the perfect combination of pre-painted and well priced! That might sound like a sales pitch but I really believe it when it comes to these items. I generally cannot be bothered building terrain from scratch, let alone painting it (I'd rather be painting miniatures) so the range ticks the box for me. What I would like to do though is put a little flock on them and spruce them up a bit. I've picked up some storage tubs in the Christmas sales and will get everything sorted out and hopefully at some point this year I'll get them all finished.


I also came across a blog post from my friend Pete over at The Fields Of Blood and I am pretty envious of his finished Tablescapes Urban Tiles! 

His painting guide was really good, and most importantly made the task sound really easy... so it looks like I will need to make an exception to my "not painting terrain statement". Somewhere on the 2015 painting plan I need to find time to knock these out. He said it only took about 12 hours, how hard can that be to find!

So, that is my 2015 plan... 1 week into the year and I am feeling confident! 

Good luck with your plans and hopefully the new year treats you well.

More Plastics At FlamesCon!

At FlamesCon this year Battlefront had a little teaser of the some of the plastics that you can expect to see soon, including some serious teasers for next year!

A new frame with both StuG G and StuG G (late) options

Pre-production rapid prototypes of the Cromwell and Comet tanks due out next year

A British infantry frame. Two frames for a full strength platoon with some figures left over for your HQ

Best of all, after a long break I dusted off my EW French and took them out for three games today, winning two games (both 5-2) and loosing one (2-5) I even managed to take out 3rd place on the back of some pretty strong sports votes and a number of the other generals timing out in the last round and bringing home low scoring draws!

The 2nd day of the Late War GT is on tomorrow and with three games to go the top spots are still hotly contested. Meanwhile I'll be bringing out my SSU to join the Dust players in a 1 day tournament.

SSU 179th Steel Guards Battalion

I managed to get the first 100 points of my Steel Guard army finished prior to my big game with Victor for the Dust website. Really happy with how they turned out! Now to finish my captured Ludwig and a few other bits and pieces and I'll be at 150 points before I know it.

The 100 points for our battle

HQ section and Snipers

Matrioshka

Assault Squads

Fakyeli

A close up of my basing

The whole army with some special effects....

Dust Battlefield: Victor (Axis) vs. Chris (SSU)

Victor and I are getting ready for a big face-off...

We have been painting up our 100 point Dust armies over the past few months and now it is time for us to throw down... I am expecting that his Wotan will be declared "man of the match" as it racks up the kills! I have one week left to finish painting my 100 points (Victor is already done) so we can get the Battle Report played next week, and up on the Dust website the following week.

Stay tuned for more developments!

Pushing ahead with my Dust SSU

It has been a very busy month on the hobby front with lots of things pulling me in multiple directions and as usual not getting much finished. Last week though I managed to get the base coats airbrushed on my Steel Guard HQ squad and Matrioshka.

I gave the models a quick clean up to get rid of the worst of the mould lines, then airbrushed them Tamiya Red Brown, with a directional spray of a 50/50 Red Brown and Dark Yellow mix. In some respects the results are a little subtle but I think they look quite good. If nothing else they help to make the real life lighting effects come out a little more.

I love the different backpacks for the HQ squad. Tossing around ideas on how to make it obvious which model is which. Currently thinking that the Officer (middle) will have a dark grey backpack, Mechanic (left) will have light grey, and the Medic a white backpack with a red cross.

The photos make the modulation appear quite subtle but I think in person they make quite a difference, especially on the armour panels on the side of the ams.

Next job will be to a little bit of detail work, then varnish and pin wash the models. However I have a few other tasks that need to take priority including getting my Jagdtigers ready for Panzerschreck as well as a little painting for a work project so I am not sure how long they will sit in this state....

SSU Red Tornado and Silent Death Finished

I've finally completed my first squads of Steel Guard, with two Red Tornado sections and two Silent Death sniper teams. This gives me a little over 60 points of painted troops, just need to get my HQ section done and a walker and I'll be close to having a fully painted Dust army!

I've decided to number the Steel Guard using some of the Flames Of War Vietnam PAVN decals. The big yellow numbers stand out nicely, and there are just enough numbers for what I need.
#00 - ?
#1-3 - HQ Squad
#4-6 - 1st Red Tornado section
#7-9 - 2nd Red Tornado section
#10-12 - ?
#13-15 - ?
#16-17 - 1st Silent Death team
#18-19 - 2nd Silent Death team
 
I am hoping that we will see a Steel Guard Hero (to take the 00 slot) at some point, along with some heavier weapon options (please be quad RPG launchers without limited ammunition!) so I can run a full 100 platoon without needing tanks or walkers.

Steel Guard ready for the tabletop

Red Tornado section

Silent Death team

Slow Progress on the Eastern Front

It has been a while since I posted anything about my SSU Army for Dust. Victor and I have been playing a lot of Dust Battlefield games over the past couple of months and really getting into it. Unfortunately on the modelling and painting front I have been splitting my efforts and making very little progress across a variety of armies, rather than any real progress on one!

However I did have a good “Thursday night painting session” and got most of my Steel Guard to the “almost finished” stage – just decals and 3 crewman left to paint on my first 10 figures. Once they are done I will get the HQ squad done, then move on to the vehicles.

That's big badda-boom!

Almost finished

What I am really enjoying is the fast and furious nature of the game. Things do stuff, things die, things come back, and a 100 point game (which seems to be the average "throw-down" size) can be played quite quickly, letting you get through a couple of games in an evening or afternoon.

Victor has also been making some progress on his Germans so hopefully we can get 100 points finished and put together a short battle report.

Best And Worst Of My 2013 Gaming!

I thought I would take a quick look back at 2013 and put this year to rest by picking out a couple of my highlights and low lights!

Best Moment: Fate Of A Nation
Watching Phil, Mike and Wayne working on their projects is a real privilege as you see how the sausage is made and sometimes you close your eyes and hope that things work out okay, and other times everything seems to just come together like magic. I was a little apprehensive when Phil started work on FOAN as I was so passionate about the project and sometimes it is hard to put your own feelings aside and let the guys just do their thing! FOAN worked out so much better than I could have expected and the finished product is awesome and I cannot wait till the next time we visit the Sinai Desert and Golan Heights!

Honorable Mention: DUST
DUST is just cool, simple as that! I've enjoyed meeting Paolo and Olivier and chatting to them about their game and the products and are looking forward to what comes next. Of course and excuse to add cool toys to my collection is a definite bonus!

Worst Part of 2013: The Year of the Trollbloods (and not the internet type!)
I was so looking forward to tackling my Warmachine Trollbloods army this year and thanks to a couple of (by my standards) large FOW painting projects it got shelved. I would say that 2014 will be the year but I have already worked out that this will not be the case, so hopefully 2015, The Year of the Trollblood!

Dis-Honorable Mention: X-Wing
Such a cool year of X-Wing products and somehow I think my last game was in February or March. Going to have to remedy this in 2014.

DUST Christmas Comes A Little Late

With the FFG sale earlier this month, the guys in the Studio banded together to purchase a few things... today they arrived with me... hohoho. I had a quick look through all their nice toys and then left them on their desks so that they could have a nice surprise when they come back to work in 2014!

Now with a small pile of "back catalogue" items I think we will see some armies coming together! I figure I need to go and do a little research on the 179th Steel Guards Battalion (supported by the 26th Zverograd Tractor Factory Armoured Company) and their exploits - thats the fun part about alternate history games, you get to write your own!

SSU Steel Guard Ready for the Production Line!

The guys in the BF Studio have been getting quite excited about DUST ever since the announcement that we would be working with Paulo, Olivier, and the rest of the DUST team. The agreement to take over distribution of the DUST range started with the Wave 8 releases, leaving product a little thin on the ground if we wanted to get in and start building armies immediately (although the recent FFG sale has resulted that excitement building as the guys ordered some stuff to get armies started!). Luckily for me I was really interested in the release of the new Steel Guard figures (they reminded me a little of Battletech Clan "Toads") and was able to grab a couple of boxes to start building a small force.

I'd decided I wanted to paint the army, but I also wanted to make sure that I was not going crazy and spending too much time on a per figure basis so I decided to go with a primer red, straight out of the Zverograd factory look. I airbrushed the figures with Tamiya Hull Red, and then did a little highlighting from the top with a Hull Red / Dark Yellow mix. As you can see from the results I ended up with a some nice highlighting of the top surfaces that (I thought) looked really cool. I then varnished the models (and was a little disappointed at this point as the varnish really flattened out the highlighting!) and pin washed them with a MiG Productions Dark Wash. The guns was painted Vallejo Black Grey with a highlight of Oily Steel, the springs in the legs were also painted Oily Steel. The uniform and bed roll were painted English Uniform, given a quick wash with some black paint, then re-highlighted with English Uniform, and the whole model a quick (light) drybrush of Buff.

For the bases I glued on GF9 basing grit, undercoated it black, and then drybrushed on Green Grey, Stone Grey and a little Sky Grey (letting the drybush of this go over the feet and lower legs of the figure a little. Then glued on some "bricks" from the guys at Secret Weapon Miniatures just to help reinforce that Zverograd feeling.

I am pretty happy with the finished model and although there are a couple of things I am not entirely happy with, I was able to complete it quite quickly meaning I can get a small army on the table and play some games over the Christmas break! The rest of my force is undercoated and ready for the pin washing and detail work, with the HQ section currently on a plane somewhere between our factory / distribution hub in KL, and New Zealand. Once these figures are done I am definitely looking forward to painting a couple of the massive SSU tanks as well!

First Game Of Dust Tactics

I managed to get my first game of Dust Tactics in earlier in the week. Andrew was my designated mentor and with a 2 minute explanation we were up and running, throwing dice and moving units around.

It was a very quick game with a little over 100 points on each side. Basically enough for me to see how the game works without needing to get into too many details. Enough that I can now grab the rulebook and try to get my head around the finer points of Tactics. 

I learnt a few important points - it is fast, and it is very deadly! Just like Warmachine you need to have an understanding of what is facing up against you as a game can quickly turn against you if you let a Flamethrower get a shot off on your walker. The final result was a very marginal win to me, although I think Andrew might have been going soft on the newbie.

Based on what I have seen of the models and a brief chat with Paolo when he was in NZ earlier this year I am definitely excited about having a few more games and then checking out the Warfare rules. I am sure a couple of Pounders would look good in the same 1967 camo as my Flames Of War Israeli tanks!

Walkers keeping an eye on each other

Nothing like a good offence though!

Battlefront and Dust!

Earlier today it was publicly announced that Battlefront would be taking over the distribution of the Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare games from Fantasy Flight. For those of you who do not know much about Dust, the game is set in 1947 and World War Two is still very much a current affair. Thanks to a mysterious substance called Vk ore the three main factions Axis (German, Italy and Japan), the Allies (USA, Britain and the Commonwealth, and France) and the SSU (Soviets and Chinese) have pushed forward techology to build wonderous walkers and flying machines. Yep, it is WW2 on steroids (and in 28mm) and I cannot wait to get a copy of the Dust Warfare rulebook to read up on the "history" and rules of the game.

It is pretty easy to tell from my blog that I am a sucker for cool models and these guys take the cake for coming up with some really cool things to put on your table. I am very excited to have the opportunity to pick up a few (nobody tell my wife) and play some games over the coming months - of course the hard part is choosing a faction. The models themselves come with a basecoat applied, as well as some decals so you can put them on the tabletop immediately, but I feel that some of the fun will definitely come from putting a little paint on. Luckily I have been sharpening up my airbrushing skills on those Vietnam choppers because these models look like they will really pop on the tabletop with a few minutes with an airbrush, some filters and a wash or two.

Stay tuned for more info!