Woldwrath... Oh My!

I have been wanting to assemble a Colossal or Gargantuan for some time, but never seemed to get round to it so over the last few days I decided to get my act together and give it a go, after all they are just big 'jacks or beasts right?... hmmm not so much!

First up let me say that this is a fantastic model and was a joy to put together (once I figured out the assembly instructions) and looks great once finished. I still have a few metal pieces to glue on but it is otherwise complete and I am really happy with the entire look and feel of the model. If you have not seen Sean Bullough's shots of the master, it is worth checking out here...

I did break one of my rules (avoid pinning at all cost) and broke out the brass rod and GF9 pinning kit as I was worried about the size of the model and the effect of gravity over time. Almost every joint on this model is pinned (and in the case of the right arm, pinned twice!) to just give it a little more strength. The upside is that the PP resin/plastic is really easy to drill  because some of the components are hollow (as my initial suspicions suggested when I held some of the components) to reduce weight and resin, all of which equals reduced production costs and, in my opinion, a better model. 

As you can see I opted to leave the arms off as I have no idea how I would paint it otherwise. Unfortunately for me I have a few projects competing for painting time at the moment so I am not sure when I will start putting some paint on, but I did notice that I have a Woldwyrd,Woldwarden, a partially complete Woldwatcher and a unit of Woldstalkers that also require some painting and assembly so I might have a "Wold Month" later in the year..

Looking at the big fella next to Megalith and eBaldur though I can tell you that I am looking forward to putting some paint on him!.

Minutemen might as well JUMP!

I've had three Minutemen sitting in a blister pack ever since they were released. As this blog makes pretty clear I love the Hunter chassis, so adding a 'jack that could jump, had two nasty little guns and a flak field to that chassis meant I was always going to be getting some for my Kara Sloan list! I was a little disappointed with the models when I received them, not because the 'jack looks anything less that outstanding, more because the pose was so distinct that you had to do some serious work to make them look like individuals. Of course PP probably did not expect people to want to own three of them (I figure I had three Hunters so each one needed a friend!).

The solution was simple and just required a little work with brass rod and GF9 clump foliage. Hope you like the result...

The 'jack on the left is as standard from the blister, the other two have had their legs reposed to appear in-flight.

Close up rear view - the foam needs a few applications of watered down PVA and will be painted black and grey.

As the Van Halen song says... Might as well Jump. Go ahead, jump!

Reinforcements for Vietnam

Quick post this week as it has been a busy time at home and work recently... assembled the new plastic OH-6 Loaches for my Vietnam choppers. I am obviously a little biased but they were a dream to put together. They need a little finishing work (and the door gunners painted) including decals before they are done, but they are tantalisingly close at this point.

Still not sure if I have made the right choice with the windows.... might bow to peer pressure and re-do them... damn you Victor...

The Kara Sloan Tactical Fun Line Goes To NiCon

Another year has rolled by and Sean, Victor and myself headed off for another weekend of playing WarmaHordes at the now annual teams tournament, this time in sunny (and rather beautiful in an art deco kind of way) Napier.

Plan was simple - don't do as badly as last year.... Looks rather like my usual Kara Sloan force, but swapping out the Rangers for ATGMs and a Hunter for a Sentinel (sick of Kara dying to a lucky shot!).

The list was...
Captain Kara Sloan
- Squire
- Defender
- Hunter
- Hunter
- Sentinel
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator
Journeyman Warcaster
Captain Arlan Strangewayes
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
- Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer

Round 1 - Richard from Frozen Nightmare. I said I was not playing either of the two Cryx players and instead faced off against Richard and his Conquest. As usual, round 1 forgetfulness kicked in and my feat turn was a disaster! The Conquest with four mechanics proved too hard to shift and despite shooting up a lot of his army my failure to put the big man down resulted in eSorsha having a good day at the office.


Round 2 - Mark from Grumpy Old Men. Mark is an old school gamer and was running his Menoth eSeverius list. He pushed up the table and decided to not use his Choir to protect his 'jacks. I asked if he was sure.... he said yes... I removed one and badly damaged the other two. His caster spent the rest of the game hiding whilst I tried to push up field to him. In the end I timed out (50 minute death clock) however Mark conceded the game as he only had a couple of models left and was about to time out himself.


Round 3 - Dave from Good Players. Dave is another old school gamer, yet I think I have only played him once before (my Savage Orcs vs his Lizardmen about 6-8 years ago). He picked up WarmaHordes a couple of years ago and has been undergoing intensive tutorials and is one of the better players in NZ (although he does stick to Cryx...). I basically shot a third of his army off the table on my feat turn and left his Kraken on 1 box (which he failed to repair). He valiantly tried to take the game out by control points and did my best to help him, but managed to pull off the win. Lets be honest Dave is a way better player than me, but now that I am up 1-0 I am happy to let the record show that I am "statistically" the better player.... hehe.


Round 4 - Vincent from Mentally Impaired. Vincent was running a Nemo list with lots of units and I cannot remember much of this game other than it went the distance (i.e. he would have run out of time after forgetting to hit the timer at the end of his turn, except we "turned back the clock"). If I remember correctly Nemo was down to a couple of boxes and Kara found herself on the receiving end of a couple of lightning spells resulting in her looking a little crispy!


Round 5 - Graeme from Lobster Magnet. Graeme and I played at the last tournament and I pulled off a lucky win against his eCaine list. Short version... same deal! I shot a lot, he shot a bit less, kept eCaine out of the line of fire whilst we chipped away at each others forces but in the end he ran out of troops and Caine had to put himself out in the open, if he survived he won... thanks to a lucky shot from Kara he did not survive.


Round 6 - Mike from Maximum Compensation. More old school gamers... Mike was handy with his High Elves but has now turned to the Galleon/Bart list. He used the Galleon well, getting some lucky shots knocking out the guns on both Hunters before I could feat. I played poorly in places forgetting small things that would have made a big difference - that is instead of leaving the Galleon on 5 boxes he probably would have been dead (and Kara would have been alive). Came close to buying two Galleons and Bart after the game... but since my wife reads this I thought better of it!


Round 7 - Peter from Angry Birds. Last round, very tired... and playing Peter who I also played at my previous tournament. Peter was teamed up with two of my gaming buddies that have been playing a lot of WarmaHordes over the past few months. He was running a  Morvahna/Tharn Bloodtrackers/Warpborn Skinwalkers list and I remembered my lesson from the last time we played... kill ALL the Bloodtrackers in one turn or don't even bother trying. We spent the entire game trading figures and although he won, he did it with his caster and three Shifting Stones left and I just had Kara.... the Stones pulling off the win on Control Points.


Three wins out of seven games... that is about as good as I can expect at any WarmaHordes event, at least this time around I could honestly say that I had a couple of games where it would not have taken much for them to go my way, and a couple of the the dicey games turned out in my favour. Summary, great games, great opponents, great weekend... already planning for next years teams tournament in Tauranga. The only bad bit was that I failed to take many photos....

Waking up to this beautiful sunrise... but damn it was cold!

The hall

Dave, after loosing the figures on his left flank, failing his repair check and needing a wee break

At the venue there was also a Model Expo with some cool toys, including this awesome model

The Galleon and Bart - turns out that despite most of my force being alive the Galleon was enough to finish the job

Sean's Nemo3 list finally finished and based!

P.S. thanks Chris B for the new name for my list....

Almost ready for take off

The Blues - five Hueys ready to drop off a platoon of infantry.

I've been a little slack on the painting and blog front over the past few weeks as I have managed to spend the last six weeks feeling less than 100%.... However I did manage to get a little painting done and whilst I really should be painting some Warjacks for a tournament in two weeks, the lure of the Flames Of War choppers has been too strong. I still have a way to go (painting the rotors, crew, decals and final weathering) but I have 16 or so choppers nearly finished!

The one thing I am not too sure about is the way I have painted the glass - I think I am the only person that likes the blue... of course it is an easy thing to change if I get to the end of the process and decide that it is a little too much..

As for the rest of the paint scheme, it has been surprisingly easy. Quick airbrush of US armour, give the model a wash using the MiG Brown Filter for Dark Green, then pinwash the details with with MiG Dark Wash. They will need a little dusting and maybe some targeted washed later, but they were good enough to get the customary "these look like someone who could paint has been working on these, those washes must be good" from one of my friends - high praise indeed  :)

Next up are a few of the new plastic Loaches, then the crews and infantry.

Huey Hog - two choppers armed with rockets and canons ready for some close support.

Heavy Hogs/Frogs - another pair of Hueys, this time armed with a pile of rockets.

Cobra - nice mix of rockets and a chin mounted grenade launcher / minigun

Gatling Cobra - the next step forward, less rockets, but more chaingun!

Heavy Cobra - lots of rockets!

Medivac - looks like I need to fid the tail for this if I want it to fly

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!

The Third Tour...

Over the past few years Battlefront has conducted three tours of Vietnam, each time getting a little deeper into the jungles so to speak and covering more and more of this conflict. Like the other guys in the office I was quite excited but as with any project I had to temper my enthusiasm with the cold hard reality that it was difficult to fit it into my painting schedule.

Like most people I also wanted to make sure it was not a one off project before diving in. The second tour (Tropic Lightning) introduced US tanks and infantry to the game, rekindling my enthusiasm (of course mine ended up painted in desert colours for 1967/1973 Arab-Israeli wars) and I even picked up a couple of choppers.

Once again though, timings and other projects took priority and they remained unpainted. When work started on Tour Of Duty I decided that I would try to move my painting schedules around to fit something in, if for no other reason than it would be a nice change of pace.

I decided to keep heading down the path of the Air Cav (something about all of those helicopters I guess), but instead of painting them as the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) I picked the Air Troop of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment – the Blackhorse Cav. The reasons for this were simple, I could paint up lots of choppers, I could paint up a supporting ACAV platoon with M113s and Sheridans, and finally the Blackhorse Cav were on the front lines in the 1980s holding the Fulda Gap. If something had happened during the days of Reagan, Thatcher, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko these guys would have been up to their ears in Soviets, and as it happened fighting out these theoretical battles was how I cut my teeth with wargaming (along with Napoleonics and WW2).

In terms of what I wanted to paint I kept it simple going for a little bit of everything, that way I can field whatever I feel like within reason. So on the painting table is:

• Aeroscout Platoon (4 Loaches)
• Aerorifle Platoon (5 Slicks and 9 MG teams)
• Aeroweapons Platoon (2 Hogs, 2 Cobras and 2 Gatling Cobras)
• Aerial Rocket Artillery Battery (2 Heavy Hogs/Frogs and 2 Heavy Cobras)
• C&C Helicopter (1 Slick)
• Medevac Dustoff (1 Slick)

I am also using theses models as a test for some new techniques. A couple of months ago Evan was up in Auckland and showed me a few tricks using my airbrush, and the MiG range of oils and filters. I am definitely a novice with them but am pretty happy with how they are working so far.

Next week I’ll have some better WIP photos of the choppers. I don’t think I’ll finish them in time before I have to switch to painting some Warmachine figures for a coming tournament but I expect to get them dangerously close to being finished.

WWPD4Vets Gaming Day (at BF HQ)

Over the weekend we rounded up a few people to spend the day playing games all in the aid of charity. It's a hard life.....! Wayne and Mike organised a large "Return to Budapest" game with 4 generals per side and 1000 points each. I thought this could be a good chance to roll out my T-34s that I had just finished painting. 

I also dug out some old LOTR Rohan figures that I picked up for a long forgotten project and turned them in to a force for Saga (I am calling them the Ro-Normans or Ro-Bretons) for an intro game with Wayne. Finally I managed to play a couple of games with Warma-Hordes verses Casey and long time Warhammer opponent Reid.

It was great to spend a day gaming, but even more importantly it was nice to help the WWPD guys raise some money for a very worthy charity.

Wayne and Mike set up for the big game

Mike's Strelkovy move up through the factory

The Sturmtigers hold the plaza

My T-34/85s support the advancing IS-2s - The T-34s would be routed from the field but no until we had a commanding lead on Victory Points

The Ro-Normans take the field (and get smashed - probably the lack of paint)

Kara's gun line vs Casey's Legion. Too much shooting for Casey to get his head around

Reid and Gordon have a game (converting them both from Warhammer)

Kara vs Reid, seconds after her Feat and a lot of shooting remove Molik Karn

Kara Sloan Artwork

Sean came across a forum post on the PP site earlier in the week where a Hungarian group used some of the images from my blog to make a piece if artwork to promote a tournament. The piece of artwork is outstanding and I am pretty flattered that they used my stuff to create something so cool! I just need to paint up my Squire so that I can field this force.

Original Privateer Press Forum Post

 

Thunderhead!

Took a few photos of the Thunderhead and Journeyman Warcaster that I painted up for Ides of March. I decided to paint the Thunderhead in a bit of a reverse scheme (white with blue accents) to try and make it stand out as something different. When I paint up my Squire I might do the same thing. As for the Journeyman I tried to make her look as much like Kara Sloan as possible - maybe she is a young Kara?

Journeyman Warcaster and Thunderhead

Photography 101

I have been working at Battlefront for almost five years and despite the fact that we have a bunch of talented graphic designers all of whom know how to take great photos, as well Wayne and Pete who are also pretty handy with the camera (Pete did a lot of the early book photography way back in the day), I know very little about using the DSLRs at work. When I first started Casey gave me the Dummies Guide to White Table Photography lesson, but since the cameras are already set up it is pretty easy to take decent photos (except when you forget to turn on a side light!). 

Last year I picked up a Canon 650D DSLR so that I could take some nice shots of my son instead of relying on my the camera in my phone or a point and click digital. I also wanted to be able to get some nice "first" videos (another reason to get the DSLR). Playing around with the camera at a few gaming events and at home I realised very quickly that going from a point and click to a DSLR is a reasonably big step, and then moving up from using the preset functions to manual mode is a huge step, so I decided to head out for half a day and take a practical "Photography Basics" course aimed at people who had just bought their first DSLR and wanted to get more out of it.

The course took a look at the three basic functions you need to get to grips with if you want to use your camera in manual mode where you control how you take photos, rather than letting the camera decide.
1. ISO - basically the sensitivity to light (one of my photography memories as a child back in the '80s is going to the pharmacy and watching my mum or dad buying film, deciding on the ISO rating they should chose - my dad was a very keen photographer).
2. Aperture (or F Stop) - this determines the depth of field, small number means that only the thing you are focused on is in focus, big number means that more things are in focus, so for table shots at a gaming convention you need to use the larger aperture.
3. Shutter Speed - faster means less blurring (so if you want to take a photo of a moving baby or water flying through the air) whereas slower can give you a nice blurring effect but you should invest in a tripod. Great for fireworks or Christmas lights.

The other thing you need to take into account is that as you change these three settings you change the amount of light coming in, so you need to balance the three depending on what effect you want, and what the light conditions are - this was something I had real issues with during the day.

The class was fantastic, I managed to get my head around a few basic concepts that I was struggling with (despite the camera coming with an outstanding manual) as well as getting a better understanding to help me dive into a few of the photography websites out there and not feel completely out of my depth. The next trick is to go out and actually take a few photos and try to bed down this new info before my internal reset button kicks in and I forget everything (normally this happens somewhere between Saturday morning and Sunday night). The other benefit was that I managed to take a few nice photos, none of which were of little toy soldiers for once!

Flowers and plants in Albert Park

Some more flowers...

And this time plants.

Did anyone tell the juggler?

Park bench - nice drybrushing!

Moss growing...

No moss growing on these trees

Fountain/skylight in the Britomart Train Station...

that I walk under most days on the way to work...

And have always wanted to stop under and stare through.

Class photo.