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.

I'm Back... and I've been busy!

I've been a bit slack (I say that a lot) on the blog front over the past few months. Between work, home, hobby time... and some World of Tanks I have found it difficult to get act together.

Hopefully over the next few weeks I am going to get caught up as I have a pile of photos on my camera and a quickly fading memory of what I have been up to over the past few months. But to help jog my memory here is the short version:

• June - The Tauranga Open Warhammer Tournament with my Orcs and Goblins.
• July - Panzerschreck Flames Of War Doubles Tournament in Palmerston North with Jagdtigers and friends.
• August - no tournament but a lot of painting for a web Dust Battle Report (my intro, part 1, part 2).
• September - Lords of Ruin Warmachine Tournament in Wellington with pMorvahna.
• September - Wayne-Con - the Battlefront Staff Early War Tournament and my French infantry.
• October - FlamesCon (okay so this one has not been yet but I am painting for it...).
• And... we have been playing quite a bit of X-Wing at lunch recently.

First up will be the Tauranga Open and my first Warhammer game in probably five years, but in the meantime here are a few photos from the past couple of months...

Tauranga Open - high tables, no post event sore back!

Stopping at the Army Museum on the way to Panzerschreck

Road tripping in the big van to Palmerston North

Sean Lincoln (Lords Of Ruin organiser) and some seriously cool trophies!

Work in progress Somua tanks for FlamesCon

2014 Painting Plans: Thinking about the Rhulic

Later this year a group of us will be heading down to Hamilton for the Annual Warmahordes Teams Tournament. We have put in some solid performances over the past few years, winning a couple of match-ups to keep us off the bottom of the table!

This year we thought we might try to theme our lists, each taking a different Rhulic caster and going for theme rather than substance. I am leaning towards taking Gorton as he is painted and I'm keen for any options to reduce my painting load..

I haven't really fleshed out the rest of the list yet, other than wanting to fit in a Ghordson Earthbreaker and (assuming I can convince my fellow Rhulic partners) Thor Steinhammer.

In preparation though I have begun assembling all of my remaining Rhulic models to I can pick and choose. The plan is to get everything built, based, undercoated and primed - that way I can start play testing a little later in the year and slowly finalise my plans.

Earthbreaker assembled and ready for action. A little tip: paint it in parts before doing your final assembly. I've made a 'Colossal' mistake fully assembling it as it is going to be hard getting into some spots

 

The rest of the assembled Rhulic boys. I have second units of High Shields and Forge Guard, as well as a Artillery Corps and Tactical Arcanist Corp still to put together.

 

 

I am currently thinking of a list that has an Earthbreaker, Thor, a couple of units of Forge Guard and maybe Brun Cragback & Lug. My intent is to begin painting some time after Panzerschreck (which is in July) depending on what other commitments come across my painting table.

2014 Tournament Season

With growing family responsibilities at home as my son gets bigger and starts to throw around the word "daddy" a lot more, 2014 is already panning out to be a big year so I sat down and had a look through the tournament calender to try and plan out the year so there would be no (okay, fewer) surprises on the home front. It also gave me an opportunity to work out what was on the painting schedule.

February: Battlecry and Flames Of War. This will be the first road test for my Desperate Measures Reluctant Trained Tigers.

March: Ides of March and Warmachine. Dusting off my Circle forces and using this to incentivise me to paint up the Woldwrath!

April: Hamilton EW Tournament and FOW. This one is a little up in the air for me right now, but my French are looking for a reason to hit the table and this might be it!

May: NiCon and TBC. Love heading to sunny Tauranga, just need to work out what is on the menu I guess.

July: Panzerschreck and the FOW Doubles Event. It is just easier to give into Evan's nagging and head down. Plus Mike and I have something to make up for after our terrible performance last year.

August: Call to Arms and WarmaHordes. Not sure what I would take, but the WarmaHordes guys in Wellington are great to play so hopefully the timing of this works out.

October: BFGT and FOW. This could be coinciding with my 40th so might be a little challenging, tempted to play in the split 1 day Mid War, 1 day Early War events... wonder how I could convert my '56 Israelis to Mid War?

November: Rallypoint and the WarmaHordes Teams Event. Three man teams and this year it is Ghordson Earthbreakers all round.

So, painting needing to be done for five events this year at minimum, plus some more post war Israeli's for work no doubt.... maybe it is time to start reducing my expectations!

One Sided Games, Fun For All?

I managed to get in a couple of games over the last week of my Christmas / New Years break and both of which felt like really one sided affairs...

Pushing up and popping my Feat

First up was a game of WarmaHordes vs Tony. Vod (as he is locally known) is a playtester for Flames Of War and an exceptionally good wargamer (better than me to be sure), known for playing hard, knowing his opponents and finding holes to exploit both in terms of the their army and the rules!

I took the opportunity to roll out eBaldur to help me prepare for Ides of March (in March...), with Megalith, Wold Guardian, Woldwatcher, Woldwyrd, Druids and Shifting Stones. Tony took eVayl, a host of heavy Warbeasts, Spawning Vessel, Martyrs and Shepherd. We were playing under some time pressure so we opted to go straight assassination rather than digging out SR2013 and picking a scenario. We both pushed up the table, Tony used his range to deal out some damage, I ran up and popped my feat hoping that he would take the bait and rush in. Tony used his speed and powerful ranged game to deal out some more damage whilst keeping his distance. By this point I controlled 3/4 of the board and realised that by not playing a scenario we had stacked the deck completely in Tony's favour (he could maneuver and trade board space for time, whilst I had to have an engagement to try to win) so I went for the hail Mary and threw my Wold Guardian and eBaldur into combat - too little and too late as even though they were able to deal out a lot of damage and kill two of the three heavies, Tony was able to finish the game next turn with his assassination.

Given the one sided nature, was the game worth playing? Absolutely! Not every game goes your way and it is important to play games where you are on the back foot because it lets you work out things with your army that you otherwise may not try. I also realised that I need to get a lot of practice games in before Ides because I have forgotten how eBaldur plays after not taking him out of the box in 18 months.

The German/Finnish first turn

On Friday Wayne and I headed round to the American Embassy (otherwise known as Steven and Andrew's place) for a doubles match up - Kiwis vs Americans and 1000 points per person.

Wayne took two heavy KV-1e companies and a Motorstrelk company, whilst I took a pair of T-34 85 companies and a small platoon of BA-64s. On the other side of the table Andrew took his new Finnish Winter troops with a pile of infantry and a captured SU-152, whilst Steve took three Jagdtigers, Wirbelwinds and 37mm AA guns. For the mission we rolled up Surrounded which resulted in our tanks stuck in the middle, Andrew and Steven opted to deploy in one corner with a forest anchoring their line and advancing out from there.

T-34s pile in to the forrest trying to score some points

Steven and Andrew moved the Jagdtigers forward to be able to shoot at both the T-34s and KVs, perfectly maneuvering them through a combination of "turning to face" when shooting, and Stormtrooper moves to not only hit their pick of targets but also keep their (relatively) soft side armour safe. Wayne pushed the KVs up as a distraction whilst I moved the T-34s around the side. I managed to get to the forest in their deployment area and knock out the defending SU-152 with only a couple of casualties. Andrew had dug his infantry in realising that as long as they did their job of stopping the T-34s from flanking the Jagdtigers the game would be theirs. I knew that I would never get to the Jagdtigers and that my only option was to try and break either Andrew or Steven'companies so where I could I picked off (or tried to pick off) the smaller platoons and eventually threw my tanks into a desperate assault trying destroy and infantry and AA platoon defending the forest - sadly 3 out of the 5 T-34s bogged and that was essentially all that she wrote. A follow up assault from the second company did a little more than kill a couple of teams and my company left the field with only the 4 BA-64s remaining.

I think we all knew how the game was going to pan out with Steven's Jagdtigers being basically unkillable given the forces we opted to take (guess Wayne or I need to paint some 152mm artillery!) so I asked myself the same question though - "was the game worth playing once we rolled up the mission?" and my thoughts were yes. Partially for the same reason as my game vs Tony that you do not always have a fair fight on your hands and the challenge makes you think outside the box, but also because of a few other reasons
1. I have only played Surrounded a handful of times so any exposure to how other players tackle the mission is good.
2. I have four Jagdtigers somewhere deep in the painting queue and it is always nice to see something you want to paint in action to help inspire you to move it up.
3. Since it was a relaxed afternoon game we were just throwing dice, talking smack and discussing rules (i.e. the game was a backdrop to a social few hours!)

With a couple of social games to start off the year hopefully this will set the tone for more to come over the next 12 months. I might even manage to win a couple.

Choptober 2013 - the aftermath

Local "organised guy" Dave Stent rolled out a new tournament concept a couple of weeks ago named Choptober. What made it unique was that he had enough players to divide the entrants in to two pools, the Shark Tank (or eChoptober) and the Paddling Pool (or pChoptober). Using Rankings HQ points he divided us up and through the divine hand of fate I ended up in the Paddling Pool. Looking at who was in each field I was very happy - the Shark Tank was filled with some very competitive players, whereas the pool had a way more laid back feeling!

I won't go into the details about the event other than a few key points from each game, suffice to say it was a heap of fun and (spoiler alert) I even managed to go 3/4 and take out 2nd position!

Local 40K 'ard man - Nikola with pVayl, big gribbles, Striders and solos

Boomhowlers in the middle as a tar pit, Stormwall and Gun Mages on the right

(Ignore the Iosan Cav...they are markers...) Hunters dish out the damage, Striders kill Boomy and his boys, Ravagore shoots Kara... and she dies from the Continuous Fire....

Gordon, old WHFB opponent at his first WH event with pKruger

We both rush the objectives, Boomhowlers try to contest while ATGM, Hunters and Stormwall go after the Gatormen on the right flank.

Kara feats, things die... a Totem Hunter gets the middle of the ATGM and causes some concern

pKruger gets down to 1 (yes 1) box for the 2nd (yes 2nd time), before I finally manage to kill him and win on scenario at the same time.

Reid gets his game face on with pMakeda, Molik Karn and lots of Nihilators

Boomhowlers get tar pit duty in the centre, Stormwall and Hunters to take on Warbeasts while ATGM take the scoring zone....

Kara feats, things die...

pMakeda feats, things come back...

Reid pushes up and carves a bloody swathe through my army, compounded by a couple of stupid mistakes by me, luckily for me though he times out before he can get the final blow in. Not a win that I can be proud of, but a win!

Andrew, a visiting American down in NZ to see family and hang at the office playing games. He was packing Gorten, 30 Forge Guard, 10 High Shields, Brun and Lug, Tactical Arcanist Corps and a few jacks

Wall o' Dwarves! Tar pit vs tar pit on the left, ATGM vs more Forge Guard and TAC on the right.

Stormwall and Hunters go to town on the Rhulic 'jacks using their superior range. ATGM go down to a hail of AOEs from the TAC.

Boomhowlers go down fighting (and contesting the scoring zone) whilst I secure the right hand one, eventually taking the win on scenario - 5 points to 4.

Dave look sleepy!

Victor's ATGM in trouble!

Something big this way comes (in the Shark tank)

Cool looking trolls (from the Shark tank)

Looking back at my games I was exceptionally lucky to place where I did, undeserving even. But, I had a pile of fun, learnt a few new rules (never having seriously played with such a big unit of medium base infantry before), and spent an enjoyable day out with the boys!

Thanks to Dave for running everything and thanks to Chris Baker and Victor for supplying me with tokens, objectives, flags and other bits after I suffered a complete brain fade and remembered to bring the army and cards, but nothing else (Chris' Dawnguard Destors have seen more table time as markers than actual models thanks to me!). Now I really must find the enthusiasm to get Boomhowlers, the ATGM and Stormwall painted before they go on another excursion!

New Army Bag for Me!

As I mentioned in my last post, the guys at Slave To Painting held a sale a couple of weeks ago and I weakened and bought a few resin bases. I also made a serious investment and bought a Battlefoam Hordes Bag.

I’ve been keen to buy one of these for some time now as I think the bags are the highest quality (in terms of construction and finishing) of any bags on the market today. I have three or four of the Flames Of War bags and they are a great investment. What stopped me purchasing one before now is the cost – one of the downsides of living in New Zealand is that freighting anything this far to the other side of the world is a wee bit costly. Throw in the fact that you could easily spend the same amount again on foams and it was just not an option for me.

I thought long and hard about buying a competing case, but at the end of the day I wanted something that is rugged and can carry an army plus a pile of other things. I am not looking for a storage solution – the figures will go in the case the day before an event, and in theory come out the day after. I have plenty of document storage cases that are perfect for keeping figures in, however they are terrible when it comes to transporting them on an airplane or when packed in the boot (trunk) of a car. I also wanted something where I could fill half the case with models, and then the other half with a can of deodorant and a couple of days of clothes so that when you fly to a tournament I could take the lot as carry-on.

On to the case itself… it turned up in 3 days which is impressive to say the least. Ordered on Saturday, shipped on Monday and in my hands on Wednesday. It is quite a bit larger than the FOW bag and feels a little more rugged. It has all the usual pockets that you would expect, and came with an assortment of trays.

One of the really cool features is that the back opens up and contains a wealth of pockets for your cards, a set of ring binder clips and a spot for your markers. Disappointingly it does not have a sensible place for your templates.

In terms of trays it contained two each, of three different trays: 

Small base infantry tray

Medium base / light 'jack or beast tray

Large 'jack tray

As you can see from the photos I had no problems fitting my entire Choptober army (minus the Stormwall admittedly) in less than three trays, as well as fitting my Long Gunners, a few extra 'jacks and solos.

As a transport solution I am sold on the Battlefoam bag. I am going to have to save up for a few extra trays, such as a generic 120mm base tray, a couple of Iron Fang Pikemen trays and a couple of others, but the basic ones look like they will do the job nicely!

Secret Weapon Town Square Bases

Earlier this year I took a look at some of the resin bases that are available to wargamers in this post here. A couple of weeks ago the good guys at Slave To Painting had a nice sale and I purchased some of the Secret Weapon Miniatures Town Square bases. I’ve been eyeing these up for a few months but been reluctant to commit thus far, so with the option of a discount I finally weakened! Below are some sample images from their range.

30mm Bases (10 different designs)

40mm Bases (5 different designs)

50mm Bases (4 different designs)

120mm Bases (2 different designs)

For those of you that have never heard of Secret Weapon Miniatures, it was started a few years ago by Justin "misterjustin" McCoy and has grown to have quite a range of cool products including bases, pigments and washes. They also ran a very successful Kickstarter (who isn’t these days) for injection molded plastic table tiles which just look fantastic and I cannot wait to get my hands on the Urban Streets set!

After seeing the quality of these first bases I am seriously tempted to head back to pick up some of their Trench Works and use them for either my Khador or Rhulic army.