Grudge match: Luke vs Vader!

Popped out to TCOW again as it is rapidly becoming my X-Wing gaming venue of choice! I went head to head with Rob again, this time taking the Rebels - I wanted to test out a squadron with Luke, Wedge and Horton (with an Ion Cannon, R2-D2 and 2 Proton Torpedoes). The plan was that he would fire off a couple of long range salvos, then Ion Cannon targets for the X-Wings whilst R2 repaired his shields.

Rob had a plan of his own though taking three TIE Advanced (with Vader and Maarek Stele), matching my elite fighters with some of his own!

(Forgive the really bad photoshop explosions, not my best effort.....)

Both sides close on each other...

The TIEs break right trying to throw off the Rebels aim

Vader and Wedge pull of Koiogran turns and a TIE takes fire from all three Rebel ships (and explodes)

Maarek Stele gets caught in a cross fire and is destroyed

Vader pulls in behind Horton whilst Luke and Wedge flip around to save him

Horton hits Vader with the Ion Canon and breaks right, meanwhile Wedge pulls the "Hazell Maneuver"*

Vader shakes off the hit and swings around to finish off Horton...

But cannot shake off the X Wings, with Luke getting the final

The X-Wings managed to pull off the win, but there a few rough patches - I think I need to move the 2nd set of Proton Torpedoes to one of the X-Wings (thinking Wedge at the moment, although Luke should be pretty handy with them too....). Also not convinced by Horton Salm, I might have to go back and read up on the other Y-Wing pilots. Last of all it might be worth moving R2 over to Wedge as well (I hear he is broken-good when used together) as Luke has inbuilt defensive skills, the Y-Wings have shields and hull points to take a few hits, where-as Wedge found himself pretty badly beaten up by the end of the encounter.

More thinking required, especially if our local store is going to try to run a Kessel Run event (hopefully the NZ distributor of Fantasy Flight product is getting these promo packs in!).


*The "Hazell Maneuver" is where you plan on turning one direction, but accidently find yourself turning the other direction. Confusing to both friend and foe alike it can sometimes be useful, but is generally met with much laughter. Named after an occasional TCOW visitor....

Road to the FlamesCon 2012 - Israeli Sherman Company (1956)

With FlamesCon less than 1 week away I am starting to look a little dire on the painting front. I have all my tanks basically finished and it just a case of working on the details, my artillery (25pdrs) are painted, but the crew are not.

St Andrews Cross "masks"

With regards to the tanks I have been having a bit of a whinge about the fact I cannot get hold of the St Andrews Crosses which are used as Air Recognition symbols, or the Israeli tank number decals. In stepped a couple of friends... Victor whipped up a "cut file" in photoshop that could go into one of our lasers at work and Jeff finished the job, getting a sheet of masking tape "masks" cut for me.

With a little bit of fiddling about they worked a treat (thanks guys), so now I have one tank with the cross added, and need to get the rest done tomorrow night.

Mask added to the tank and painted blue

Interior cross mask put on the tank

And the gap painted white

Masks removed leaving a nice blue and white cross (best of all they are meant to be slightly off angle making it easier to do!)

After a quick tidy up, ready for a quick drybrush to make it look dusty and then varnish, unless....

Now despite the fact I have not finished my artillery battery, I am thinking about having a go at adding three more pieces details:

1. Aerials - not too hard, just requires some careful drilling
2. Bridge weights - just need to see if Blake's holepunch is about the right size and I can punch some masks out so I get nice circles to paint blue
3. Vehicle numbers - as I have mentioned before Israeli tanks have unique identification numbers painted on (later they actually welded on so that if the tank is destroyed they can more easily determine the number of it).

The numbering I am talking about is the little black bit on the side of the hull with the barely visible white writing

I've picked up a white pen from an art shop and might have a go at painting the small rectangle and then adding tiny numbers tomorrow, meanwhile I should probably focus on the artillery crew and finishing the Shermans before I do anything to crazy.....

Death of a Jedi

Popped out to TCOW (That Club Out West) this afternoon for another game of X-Wing. Ended up having a game verses Rob and his rather fantastic home made fighters. I took the same squadron as last time with Vader and 4 friends in Tie Fighters, Rob took 3 X-Wings (including Luke) and a Y-Wing (Mr Salami). He purposely went for the extra X-Wing over upgrades trying to even up the numbers.

Lining up, Backstabber takes the flank whilst the rest goes up the middle

Both sides close.

Backstabber breaks to the right a little early, but Vader is about to claim his first kill.

The furball begins and a Y-Wing finds itself in trouble.

Koiogran Turns are the order of the day as both sides pass through each other and turn for another run.

The furball continues with both sides trading shots and an X-Wing is caught in the crossfire.

Vader lines up Luke... but the Force is strong in that one and Vader misses.

Luke puts some distance on the Imperial fighters and turns for a final pass.

Unfortunately his turn puts him in the middle of a nest of Tie Fighters. Vader watches his son...

It was an outstanding match up, this time Vader managed to come out on top with a little more luck on the dice front and better use of their numbers to put the hurt on one fighter at a time. I was also a little fortunate that Rob ran out of points to put an Ion Cannon on the Y-Wing as those things are definitely my nemesis!

I am still looking for a good (and budget) miniature storage option, although I think I might end up with my old favourite, the Filemaster A4 Storage box with some non-slip mat. I keep looking at the cool foam trays that are on sale and they all seem a little over-kill on the $ front, so the hunt will contine.

I also need to sit down a work out a good Rebel fleet - I liked Robs force but I think I will go for 2 X-Wings and a Y-Wing, all pimped out to one extent or another - if you cannot beat the Ion Cannon club, join 'em I say! 

1956 Israeli Tank Company

It has been a little quiet on the gaming front for the past couple of months since my son joined the family. It has been way too easy to just go home, watch TV and hang out with him! As luck would have it though it seems that my hobby mojo is coming back thanks (as usual) to the announcement of a couple of new tournaments, plus getting out to a few gaming days or events over the past couple of weeks!

Next up: FlamesCon 2013 – Late War GT

In 1956 the President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that he would nationalize the Suez Canal. The threat of access being restricted or lost caused France and Britain to travel down the path to war with Egypt, with Israel acting as the third member of the alliance.

Operation Kadesh (ironically launched 56 years and 1 day ago - Oct 29) was the Israeli plan to invade the Sinai Peninsula and involved a parachute drop to capture the vital Mitla Pass, as well as the capture of the city of Rafah and Gaza Strip.

For the better part of a year I have had figures lurking in a box in preparation for a 1956 Israeli Tank Company using Blood, Guts and Glory as my template list (at least until I get around to making up a “proper” list). The Israeli army in the post war error was a jumble of equipment purchased (and I use that term in its widest possible context) from a variety of sources.

• 32 M4 (105mm) Shermans bought from surplus in Italy
• M4A3 (late) bought from the Philippines
• M3 Halftracks of every type bought from all over the place...

My list is going to comprise of the following (all Confident Veteran):

Company HQ

2 M4A1 76mm Shermans

1 M32 TRV

Tank Platoon

2 M4A1 76mm Shermans

1 M4A3 (late) Sherman

Tank Platoon

2 M4A1 76mm Shermans

1 M4A3 (late) Sherman

Tank Platoon

2 M4A1 76mm Shermans

1 M4A3 (late) Sherman

Field Artillery Battery

HQ Section

4 M2A1 105mm Howitzers (these will be played by British 25pdr guns)

The list is a bit of a compromise between what I can reliably expect to paint over the next couple of weeks, what was (more or less) in service together, and the lists as they stand in BGG. From my reading I should have chosen to use the Confident Trained list from BGG but there was no way that I was going to get it all painted in time as I would have added a platoon of infantry (using a mix of figures from the British Commonwealth Infantry blister) and some recon.

The biggest issue is going to be getting the tank markings sorted out. During the ’56 the Israeli’s had issues with tank recognition as both sides were using much of the same equipment (especially Sherman tanks) and after the war adopted a secretive (but very large and obvious) tank marking system. But during this war the tanks had a small ID number painted on the hull in white, a blue and white stripe on the turret roof, and/or a blue and white cross on the engine deck of spare wheel. The stripes or crosses I am going to have to hand paint, although I might try an experiment using Tamiya masking tape to get nice clean lines. I am not sure about the ID numbers – as far as I can tell no-one makes those decals in 15mm and they are still used today on vehicles.

As for how the list will perform – I am not really sure. Veteran tanks with high AT guns are normally a good option in Flames Of War, and American artillery is quite powerful thanks to the Time on Target National Rule (another thing the Israeli artillery should not really have), but it is still a fragile force that will not like coming across 20 T-34/85s – but then I guess that is something that historically they would not have been keen to face either!

Once I have the last of the vehicles assembled I’ll take some photos of the work in progress.

The Salami Dumptruck?

This afternoon I popped out to one of my local gaming clubs for a game of X Wing. So far I had managed to play one test game with Phil at work, and another quick intro style game with some friends. In theory this would be the first "real"outing.

I borrowed Darth Vader off a friend and added in 4 other Tie Fighters (“Mauler Mithel”, "Backstabber", "Winged Gundark" and a Black Squadron Pilot), facing off against Horton Salm (the Salami to his friends) with a seriously pimped out Y Wing, alongside two more unnammed Y Wings (aka the Dumptrucks - they have lots of shields and hit points).

Ready for action

Turn 2: Tie Fighters surround the Y Wings

Turn 3: Initial strafing runs unsucessful, Tie Fighters turn around for another run

Turn 4: Y Wings 360 degree firing Ion Canons cause casualties

Turn 5: Vader finds himself isolated...

Turn 6: and alone...

Turn 7: Ion cannons behind me, laser cannons beside me, stuck in the middle...

Turn 8: and Vader goes down to a Proton Torpedo salvo

So, what did we learn... it takes more than a couple of Tie Fighters to knock over a Y Wing (aka the Dumptruck), in fact the best course of action might have been to fly together as a tight unit pouring fire on to one target as each of the Y's were out of shields and taking damage, of course that does not matter when you run out of guys to shoot at them.

Another good lession was that rolling lots of blank faces on the dice normally results in bad things happening... Darth seemed to be very adept at rolling three jinks or three blanks and nothing in between!

Either way I was great fun and the game was over in about an hour. With a bit of luck my Tie Advanced (with Dark and co) will arrive in the next day or so, letting me noodle up another force to try to take on Dan's Salami Dumptruck Squadron.

I think we will call it...BrimbleCon!

Luke "BrimbleCon"Brimblecombe

A few days ago I was discussing the state of Auckland gaming and making the observation that our gaming bretheren in Wellington do not know how lucky they have it (at least from the outside looking in). The Warmachine crowd is filled with good blokes, the FOW guys are great, and the rest seem organised and on the same page. Sometimes I wonder what that must be like..... Over the weekend one of Auckland members of the Warmachine community ran the first of what will hopefully be a regular event - Auckland Steamroller 2012, or as we all now know it, BrimbleCon 2012 - in an attempt to get our local gaming scene all back on the same page.

My plan was simple, I'd find a force that I wanted to take to Ides of March next year (another new tournament happening in Auckland) and use BrimbleCon as an opportunity to see if I liked the list. I settled on the new pButcher tier list from NQ:
The Butcher of Khardov
- War Dog
- Juggernaut
- Juggernaut

Uhlan Kovnik Markov
Manhunter
Manhunter

Great Bears of Gallowswood
Iron Fang Pikemen - Leader & 9 Grunts
- Black Dragon Officer & Standard
Iron Fang Pikemen - Leader & 9 Grunts
- Iron Fang Officer & Standard
Battle Mechaniks - Leader & 3 Grunts

REINFORCEMENTS
Iron Fang Uhlans - Leader & 2 Grunts 

Yep, it was Irong Fang-tastic! We played four games over the course of the day which was more than enough given my newborn baby addled brain was really suffering by the end of the day...

Round 1: Chris Baker with Ossyan and a kitchen sink of infantry and solos. Chris is a master of board positioning and the game ended up with Butcher standing in the scoring zone with dead Mage Hunter Assassins, waiting for the next enemy to come and play when he found himself pushed out the scoring zone. Whoops!

Round 2: Jason Brown with pSkarre, a Kraken and Wraith Engine. We had a great fight - Kovnik Markov let the side down badly by missing the Wraith Engine (double 1's) on the charge. The Wraith Engine would later find itself dining on Butcher...

Round 3: Daryl Painter with Venethrax, Bile Thralls and friends. Daryl's list seemed like a great counter to mine, clearing out my IFP with corrosion, my Manhunters were the stars on the day killing a 'jack and working their way round into the backfield. Daryl unfortunately forgot that the Butcher was a tough nut to crack and threw Vene in to him, needless to say Butcher same out on top!

Round 4: Glenn White with wall to wall Dwarves. For once I actually felt like I understood my opponents army (having run very similar lists in the past. This game was a real grind-a-thon as I felt like I was on top the entire time, which resulted in me playing fairly cautiously to try to make sure I did not end up losing it. In the end my IFP's managed to grind down his 'jacks and opened the way for a Juggernaut to introduce his axe to Gorton's face!

Two wins, two losses - better than most of my efforts. The games were great for getting to understand my list, as well as pointing out that pButcher with Iron Flesh and a bucket of focus is a tough nut to crack!

For the results check out the Thrallblacks site...

Before game on1

Jacks are for big girls!

A Collosal and a Battle Engine... yowzers!

"Take that" - Kovnik Markov shortly before his demise

The bigger they are, the harder they fall! or not....

IKRPG Character Construction 102 - XP and you!

Before I took a look at how I decided to create my first character for the IKRPG I thought I would take some time to have a look at how the XP system works. The primary reason for this is that whilst I was building the character I realised how important it is to understand how it is going to advance as we play, also to avoid disappointments further down the track when I worked out that I could not get the Abilities or Skills that I thought I would get.

So, first up how do you earn XP in the Iron Kingdoms RPG?

1. Play Award - 1 XP for turning up!
2. Teamwork Award - 1 XP for working together as a team and utilising each others strengths
3. Milestone Bonus - 1 XP for finishing chapters or short term goals
4. Conclusion - 1-3 CP for completing the storyline

Based on this I think it is pretty safe to assume that you would be averaging 2-3 points per session, over a decent number of sessions (i.e. completing some milestones along the way to finishing a greater storyline)

So what do you do with this XP? As your XP total increases you pass Character Advancement Milestones, the first one (for example) is when you hit a total of 2 XP, you get to add 2 levels or points, to your Occupation Skills. Advancement happens pretty quickly during the first few gaming sessions and within 3-5 sessions chances are you will have picked up a few skills, a stat point increase and 1 (yes one!) of either a Spell, class Ability, Connection or Military Skill. Just for the people keeping score that is 1 out of those 4... That is why I kept harping on about the importance of a little planning as there is a good chance you are going to be balancing the desire to have both Military Skill increases as well as new Abilities, even worse if you happen to be Gifted and want to learn some new spells!

Some of you may be thinking that I am going off the deep end, after all there will be more XP and more increases... that is true, but they do not come thick or fast and as soon as you want to have two Military Skills (say you want to use a melee weapon as well as a ranged one, or a shield for instance!) at maximum level as well as picking up Abilities from both your Careers you are going to have to make some hard choices. Better you take a look at what you are in for now and make some of those hard calls up front.

So what does the XP table look like? A little bit like that...

By the time you have finished the Hero level (that is where you can only have 2 levels or points in a skill, you will have picked up:

• +10 Occupational Skills
• +5 Stat points
• +5 Spells, Abilities, Connections OR Military Skills and
• +3 Archetype benefits

So by the time your party hits "Veteran" (at a guess 20 or so sessions) you will have pretty nicely covered off most of the Occupational Skills, had a nice Stat boost and maxed out the main stats you have chosen to focus on, picked up some nice Archetype (based off being Gifted or Mighty etc) benefits and had to make some really hard calls on the other ones. My Ogrun (for example) spends 2 points on raising the Great Weapon and Shield Military Skills, does not worry about Spells (he is not Gifted), could care less about Connections and has picked up 3 Abilities split between his two Careers. 

Over the next 100 XP (so going up to a total of 150) he will pick up a further +5 Spells, Abilities, Connections OR Military Skills - spending 4 out of those 5 on increasing Great Weapon and Shield, he has 1 slot left open to pick up an Ability - hope I chose well!

After getting my head around the XP system I realised that I had better start my plan for my Ogrun again as just because I can have two starting Careers does not mean that I will have enough advancements to fully utilise them, so I needed to make some hard calls right at the beginning. Next time I'll have a look at those and see what changes I made to my initial plan.

IKRPG Character Construction 101 - Intro

Over the past couple of weeks I have been browsing the IK RPG book quite a bit, preparing a campaign to be run by Victor. I consider myself a fairly experienced role-player (although some would say roll-player) and having a good grasp of the IK fluff it is pretty easy to dive into the book. However I thought I'd briefly go through the character creation process today to help nail down a few things in my head. It is also a massive tome and I still have a lot of it to read once, let alone twice!

Character Stats
IKRPG has a character stat block that does not look too dissimilar to any RPG, there are Primary and Secondary Stats, broken down into three categories - Physique, Agility and Intelect. The first thing I noticed is that your Physique (Primary) stat has absolutely no relation to your Strength (which is a secondary subset stat of Physique). Increases in your Primary stat (either through the character creation process or later on through XP) give no boost or direct benefit to the Secondary stats. This means that you need to be quite selective when choosing your race and subsequent stat advancements.

There are also derived stats, these are things like defence (DEF), armour (ARM) and so on. These are worked out by adding up Primary or Secondary stats as well as other modifiers (type of armour worn etc).

I found it very useful to have a character sheet in front of me when looking through the creation section just to keep reminding me of what each stat influenced.
 
Finally the three Primary stats also have a direct influence on your number of hit points... and you wont have many!
 
Race
Human - are good at everything, but not great at everything. Humans get an extra point to drop against one of the Primary stats to represent their adaptability.
 
Dwarf - short, angry, good at wearing armour.. reminds me of someone I used to know.
 
Gobber - I've never really understood Gobbers in the IK universe, and I cannot say that the RPG has shed much more light on them for me. They dont have access to the Gifted archetype (more on that next) and otherwise have a fairly average stat block.
 
Iosan - who doesn't love high elves... due to their long lives they have access to an additional career Ability. As benefits go thats pretty good in my books.
 
Nyss - wood elves... the Nyss have a bunch of special rules and look quite fun, although their blighted cousins probably give them a bad name.
 
Ogrun - these guys have a good Physique stat block but only have access to the Mighty and Skilled Archetypes. I really like Ogrun in IK and it is looking like my first character will be one.
 
Trollkin - last but not least, the blue guys. To my mind Trolls are fairly similar to Ogrun in terms of their stats, but have some great starting Archetype abilities that make them very cool. They cannot be Warcasters and since we only have book 1 in the series, there is no option for them to be a Warlock yet.

Archetypes
Archetypes come in four flavours, with each one having a selection benefits that a character can acquire as they gain XP.

Gifted - the choice of Warcasters and spellslingers (and a couple in between). Gifted characters get to choose from a selection of abilities that speed casting times, allow them to know extra spells, get additional dice on spells as well as some other non direct combat related abilities.

Intellectual - for smarty pants characters and a good choice for "leader" type characters. Allows you to affect other members of the party, re-roll certain rolls and remember things that the player may have forgotten, but the character has not.

Mighty - kind of sells itself really, if you are going to hit things with a sword you are probably either Mighty or Skilled. Mighty characters get boost damage rolls, can gain extra attacks, countercharge, be tough, regain vitality (hit) points and more.

Skilled - flashy characters that like to dance around and poke things with rapiers. All skilled characters get an additional attack as well as gaining the abilities to avoid penalties from using two weapons, extra DEF, disarm, sidestep and so on.
 
Careers
There are 28 careers to choose from in the first IK book, ranging from Alchemist to Bounty Hunter, Iron Fang to Pirate, Sorcerer to Spy, Trencher to Warcaster. The great thing about the system is that you get to pick two Careers, resulting in a really great mix of characters. It is also pretty easy to guess that careers most of the iconic characters in WarmaHordes choose...

Each class has a starting Skills, Abilities and Assets, and by combining your two careers you can either make a very focused character - Man at Arms/Soldier results in someone that is going to be really good at hitting people and fulfilling the role of party tank, whereas by picking less obviously matched classes - Investigator/Pistoleer - you can have someone that can still be useful in combat, but can also contribute when the shooting stops.

There are a small number of careers that have either Race or Archetype restrictions but these do not appear too onerous.

After the starting Skills and Abilities there comes the advanced options that you can choose as you gain XP. I'll talk about this in another post, but in my opinion the selection of Careers and planning of how your character will advance is far more critical in the IK RPG that ever thought from my first couple of reads.

As your character advances you can also pick up further Careers, to me this does not sound as useful as it may initially appear, but certainly lets you fill in gaps that a party might have, or finish rounding off your character.
 
Abilities
Abilities provide the variations in your character that truly make them unique. Some have pre-requisites that you need to have fulfilled, but once again they all seem to make sense. Many of them will be familiar to WarmaHordes players ('Jack Marshall, Camouflage, Girded, Pathfinder and so on), whilst the rest are pretty easy to get your head around.
The selection of Abilities and remembering that your two Careers gives access to more than you can possibly hope to have is a key part of the character advancement process. Selecting a path early and picking the rights ones will result in a better character.
 
Skills
Skills represent more general knowledge, proficiencies, talents etc that the character has picked up. Some translate directly into combat abilities - the Pistol skill for example, plus  a characters Prowess (secondary skill) equals their RAT (or ranged attack skill). Others represent the ability of the character to determine how to get from A to B, how to sway a crowd of people, how to survive on the streets, or how to craft a bullet.

They are broken down into three categories, Military (hitting or shooting things), Occupational (specifically related back to the Careers you have picked) and General (more everyday abilities that most characters could have the opportunity to pick up).

Depending on your total XP you can have 2, 3 or 4 "points" in a skill, each point gives you +1 to the dice when trying to use that skill (along with the bonus from the primary or secondary stat). This means that having 4 points in a skill verses 1 results in quite a swing when you are only throwing 2d6 to try and do things.

Once again, selecting your Skills early is surprisingly important as you will have very limited opportunities to advance them (mainly the Military skills) - trying to get to 4 points in two or Military skills will result in you having to make hard decisions as you either get a new Ability or a single point in a Military Skill at certain points in the XP advancement tree.

Initially you can only have 2 points in any skill, but as you gain XP this increases to 3, and then to 4. Only the most experienced or heroic characters will advance from Heroes to Veterans (cap of 3 points) to Epic (cap of 4 points).
 
Finally, each Career has skill caps that represent how far a character can advance that particular skill - a Knight can get the Shield Skill up to 4 points, whereas a Soldier can only get it up to 2 points. Another reason to select your Careers carefully.
 

Finishing Off
At this point you get to finish off your character, work out Vitality points, add thee extra Stat points, buy equipment and finish off your character sheet (work out your DEF, ARM, Initiative etc).

Building a character is a fun process, but I would recommend that you make a few before settling on one to play in a campaign as there are plenty of subtleties that you might not get your head around first time - I certainly didn't that's for sure! Next time I'll have a look at the XP Advancement Table, as becoming familiar with this will save a lot of heartache after a few sessions when you work out that you will never be the Aristocrat/Iron Fang/Warcaster that you hoped you would be...

Next time I'll go through some of the decisions (role and roll-playing) I made as I created by Mighty Ogrun Jack Mechanic Man at Arms. As well as looking at the impact of the XP advance system on Character Creation.

Iron Kingdoms RPG

With Sean and Victor heading off to PAX, I nicely asked them to pick up some phat loots for me - the Iron Kingdoms RPG. Unfortunately some baggage guys in the US had other plans!

Misplaced!

Luckily it arrived in hand a few days later, leaving me with a good 24 hours of fondling! It is a weighty tome of a book, plenty of great fluff for the WarmaHordes geek, character generation has been covered forward and back on various blogs and it is as good as everyone says. Plenty of variation, plenty of character ideas leaping to mind. Victor is going to run a campaign for us once Sean's existing D&D game runs its course and I am really excited - currently trying to decide if I want to play a Ogrun Mighty Man at Arms Field Mechanic (big "tank" style of character, upfront taking the hits with a 'Jack in support), or something that likes to lurk a little further back, letting others take the hits. So many choices!

As for all the other projects on my desk I have not been terribly active, to much time playing with the new miniature  :)

Prussian Month Wrap Up

Well, another month (and three weeks) have passed so I thought I would look back and check out what I achieved during Prussian Month. As it turns out.... not a lot! With the incoming arrival of my son and a fair amount of apathy, plus a mid month arrival of Dropzone Commander I managed to get very little done. I have around 35 or so ships somewhere in the process of undercoated through base coated and whilst they do not require much work once all the base colours are on it still seems to be a bit of a sticking point at the moment. Below are some "representative" images of where the fleet got to.

Gewitterwolke and Imperium Sky Fortress - almost base coated

Imperium Sky Fortress from another angle - not sure about the blue for the planes.

Gewitterwolkewith the bomb bay doors open

Rhine Class Fleet Carrier and Blücher Class Dreadnought - a long way to go on both

A selection of the other vessels - at least the masking tape part (for the black and white stripes) is over and done with.

I did get my latest order of Amera Plastics islands however. I bought a couple of their Fantasy Hills, which are made from a thicker plastic and gave me a couple of fairly flat pieces so that I could make an island airfield, as well as a small corner headland for the table. This would give us a couple of interesting terrain pieces for scenarios or just general play. I've spent a little time playing around with the arrangement of Spartan Games buildings and accessories and I think I have something that will work. Now I just need to pull out the airbrush and go to work on them. Easier said than done at the moment when painting is one of those priorities that is struggling to make its way to the top!

Industrial Headland

Close up of the Bunker Complex

Headland from the top - still trying to decide if I will glue the buildings down. Makes them harder to transport but it will look better.

Island Airfield

Complete with Zeppelin Tower and Radar Station

Island Dock - this piece goes with one of the other Amera islands and fits nicely into the bay

With a couple of left over Prussian Tower guns, the ships should be safe at port.

Dystopian Legions logo - Prussian version

On other Dystopian Wars news it has been a big week or so for Spartan Games, previewing the Kingdom of Denmark fleet, as well as land forces for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth land forces, the Dominion of Canada, as well as their new campaign book Storm of Steel! I've already pre-ordered my copy... Their other bit announcement has been Dystopian Legions - 28mm gaming set in the Dystopian Wars universe. I am excited about this, but not sure if I would be so excited that I would be an adopter of the game. Mainly because I already have a pile of things to play, a larger pile of things to paint and only so much time in the week. Although the images they have put up on their site are pretty awesome so I think it is safe to say I'll invest in the rulebook if nothing else... any maybe a few figures just to have a look... and then maybe a few more....

Prussians vs the FSA (shamelessly stolen from Spartan Games website)

Well, that wraps up Prussian Month - depending on how much painting time I get over the next month or two I am planning on finishing up the islands, as well as my ship backlog. Still contemplating if I want to base my ships, still very tempted but at the same time if I don't then I am one step closer to having them finished!