Long Weekends are for Hobby Time?

This past weekend was a long one thanks to Auckland Anniversary Day. Being the eternal optimist that I am I was hoping that I would get a few things done

• Get the base colours on my 10 Khador Man-O-Wars
• See The Hobbit, Skyfall and Jack Reacher
• Get in a little X-Wing
• Take some photos of the T-34 army I am meant to be painting for the website over the course of next month
• Move a small pile of top soil so that I can turn 20 square metres of stones into grass
• Look after my son whilst my wife went off to a concert and a movie

If you seed it, they will grow!

And in typical Chris style, I achieved about half of it seeing The Hobbit (which was good - no Two Towers but a good way to start the trilogy) and Skyfall (I like the Bond reboot, but I miss some of Bond's cool gadgets with the exception of the "invisible car from Die Another Day which I truly hate to this day!). Obviously I managed to spend a great amount of quality time with my son, who pretty much single-handed stopped me achieving any painting this weekend - I think I can put that down to a combination of teeth starting to make an appearance and me looking for other things to do rather than painting. However I did manage to get my back yard sorted out with a pile of soil moved, grass seed sprinkled and watered. I considered this a major achievement as I do hate gardening.

However it does mean I am in bad shape for Ides of March coming up in about 6 weeks. I have decided to take a list of things that I want to paint rather than things that will work on the tabletop as a way to get me to paint these units.

Supreme Kommandant Irusk
- War Dog (painted)
- Juggernaut (painted)
- Destroyer (painted)
 
Man-O-War Bombardiers - Leader & 4 Grunts
Man-O-War Demolition Corps - Leader & 4 Grunts (painted)
Man-O-War Shocktroopers - Leader & 4 Grunts

A messy painting desk (dining room table)

My theory is that Irusk giving Tough out to the infantry and allowing them to walk through each other will make a fairly un-maneuverable force a little more spring. We are also playing Deathclock so not having to move or shoot a heap of figures should make life a little easier. In the one test game I have played I did learn how squishy Irusk is though and need to keep in mind that his job is to lurk well back and let me spam AOEs from the Destroyer and Bombardiers. Now should I fail to get all these bits painted I might need to come up with a fallback list, but that can wait a few weeks. Ideally though I will get the Man-O-Wars done as that will just make me feel good to have them knocked off, leaving me with a couple of units of IFP and a Winter Guard "Deathstar" as my big units of figures to paint.

Of course I do have 21 T-34s and an extra 21 turrets to paint next month so perhaps I should start thinking of my contingency plans sooner rather than later!

Prussian Ships Sighted!

Over the Christmas break I managed to be about as even lazy on the brushes as I get, so a few days before I was meant to head back to work I pulled out my Dystopian Wars ships that have been sitting in a part painted state for the last couple of months and hit them hard. I managed to:

• put decals on 9 Arminius Class Frigates
• paint and decal 6 Wachter Class Escorts
• finish detail work and decal 6 Saxony Class Corvettes
• paint (and decal) 3 Reiver Class Cruisers, and decal another 2
• finish detail work and decal a Rhine Class Fleet Carrier (including a decent number of decals on the wings of the aircraft on the flight deck
• paint and decal 3 Stolz Class Destroyers
• last but not least, complete some last detail work on a pair of Pflicht Class Scoutships

I may need to take a little break from the rest of my ships though as I have to get a couple of armies (one FOW and one Warmachine) painted for some hard deadlines. On the positive side the remaining ships are primarily the ones that I will really enjoy painting (i.e. big ships/airships with really big guns!). I've also ordered the new Danish and Scandinavian ships to add to the fleet. I am current trying to work out a paint scheme for them that will still look Prussian, but have a little local flavour. My current thoughts are to swap the hull colours for the Danish ships, replacing the grey with black, and the black on the dazzle stripes with red. The Scandinavians will get some green added to them (probably replacing the yellow trim on the airship tails). I would like to add some of the green to the Metzger Class Robots to help tie them in as well.

In the meantime, here are some images of the latest ships to come out of drydock.

Wachter Class ships escort three Reiver Class Cruisers

Another angle of the Reiver Class Cruisers

Reiver Class Cruisers surge from a hidden base out to sea

A Rhine Class Fleet Carrier with Saxony Class Corvettes

Another angle of the Fleet Carrier

Close up of the Rhine Class Fleet Carrier

Two Pflicht Class Scoutships pass over the returning Rhine Class Fleet Carrier

The Pflicht Class Scoutships patrol and inspect incoming vessels

A scouting force heads out to sea

The fleet sails!

Vader vs the Salami Dumptruck!

This weekend I headed out to my X-Wing gaming venue of choice, TCOW. Dan and I had arrange for a re-match where I would take Vader and some friends up against Horton and Salami Dumptruck!

I had also downloaded a cool app for my phone that lets you build battle reports from still images so I thought it might be a chance to give that a go as well. The results of both (the game and the app) were pretty good, and I definitely learnt some lessons... the main one being to use a decent camera (rather than the one in my phone - sorry for the blurry shots!) and that if Vader is going to get locked up by three Y-Wings with Photon Torpedoes it pays not to run in to things and lose your actions!

It was a great game, although I think I should start thinking about Rebel builds as I cannot seem to stop my ships from running into each other, so running less ships has to work in my favour!

Dan's List
Pilot: Horton Salm, Y-Wing (25)
Upgrades: Proton Torpedoes (4), Ion Cannon Turret (5), R2-D2 (4)

Pilot: "Dutch" Vander - Y-Wing (23)
Upgrades: Proton Torpedoes (4), Ion Cannon Turret (5), R5-K6 (2)

Pilot: Gold Squadron Pilot, Y-Wing (18)
Upgrades: Proton Torpedoes (4), Ion Cannon Turret (5)

My List
Pilot: Darth Vader, Tie Advanced x1 (29)
Upgrades: Squad Leader (2), Cluster Missiles (4)

Pilot: "Backstabber", Tie Fighter (16)

Pilot: "Howlrunner", Tie Fighter (18)

Pilot: "Mauler Mithel", Tie Fighter (17)

Pilot: Obsidian Squadron Pilot, Tie Fighter (13)

Vader gets a little too close and finds three Photon Torpedoes coming his way

Spoiler Alert - Final shot of the game... literally! Who says Obsidian Squadron Pilots cant shoot straight!

…2013, come on down!

I meant to be put this up a week ago but with a busy first Christmas with my son the holiday period disappeared quite quickly on me. So, on with the show!

2013 is going to be a bit of an odd hobby year for me. We are only holding one GT this year, so it means a little less incentive to work on some of my FOW projects (EW French, EW Soviets or anything Mid War). I am also unsure as to how many “away” games I will get in as it may be hard to get leave passes for the long weekends, although I am in preliminary discussions to head to Napier in June (good wine country down there so I can get in some gaming, and then after that we can visit some wineries!) and Wellington in August (nicest bunch of WarmaHordes players in New Zealand – sorry fellow Aucklanders, you guys are great too but they take the title). Evan is also likely to suggest I make the trip to Panzerschreck for his doubles tournament in July.

What’s the plan?

Q1 – I need to get a 42 point force painted for Ides of March and I have about 7-8 weeks to do it. I have been tossing up between expanding my Kara Sloan list by painting my Minutemen and Gun Mages, or starting my Trolls… Last night I was playing around with War Room and got excited about an eIrusk, 2 Juggernaught, 5 Man-o-War Shocktroopers, Bombardiers and Demo Corps and a small unit of Mechanics with their Officer UA. I love the MoW units (although they seem a little underwhelming on the table) and this would get me to paint them!

I also need to paint up a T-34 Battalion for a web article I am going to be working on. It means assembling and painting up 21 tanks, as well as an additional 21 turrets. Not normally a big issue but it does mean that I need to schedule my painting time well to achieve both sets of goals.

Q2 – If I am heading to NiCon it will either be WarmaHordes teams event (with Sean and Victor) or Flames Of War at a guess. In which case I will need to paint up some Trollbloods or find something that is going to inspire me with regards to Late War (not sure what periods will be on offer, but LW is a safe bet at this stage) – good chance to paint some of the new plastic PaK40s for my Hungarians as well as some Tigers I have had stashed for a rainy day!

Q3 – Call To Arms in Wellington will definitely be a WarmaHordes weekend with either the Trolls or Kara (or whatever else I end up coming up in between). Looking at my unpainted WarmaHordes figures there are quite a few units that I want to get painted and I know that a tournament is the only way to help me achieve that goal, hence all the swapping between forces.

Q4 – Finish my 1956 Israeli Tank Company! I have the tanks done, now I need to finish my artillery, add some recon and infantry. All the figures are sitting in a box at home, they just need a little paint and a lot of time. Evan is also working on a little Christmas present for me to go with this army – more details on that later.

Throughout the entire year… play some more games in general. Other than getting out to play X-Wing at TCOW in the last part of 2012 I did not play may games so the onus is on me to get the FOW and W/H stuff out of the cupboards a little more regularly. I’m also going to get my Dystopian Wars Prussians (and Allied nations) finished this year. They are quick and fun to paint so I need to stop mucking around and just get them done! I’ll also be getting my Relic Knights pre-order at some point so I should try and get some of that painted (or maybe just assembled). Last (but not least) is to work on some 1967 / 73 Syrians to go up against my Israelis.

Well, that is the 2013 plan, I already have this sinking feeling that I have bitten off more than I can chew!

Between writing this and posting it, I managed to get in two games (WarmaHordes with Tony and Napoleon at War with Wayne) and paint some Dystopian Wars stuff – the year is actually starting off according to plan!

Goodbye 2012...

It is fair to say most of us in the office at work suffer from Mike Envy, that is we are all amazed by the quantity and quality of models Mike paints over the course of a year. Sitting down tonight to a very quiet New Years Eve with my son I thought I would look back at what I have achieved through the year...

January/February - EW French. A full infantry company in time for Battlecry 2012. Waiting for the next EW tournament so that I can paint up my Somuas and Lorraine Carriers. Not looking too good with only one BF GT though...

EW French Infantry Company

March - Circle Warpwolf Stalker. A pretty quiet month on the painting front with focus being more in the direction of planning for coming events.

pKaya goes out with half the cast of Twilight?

April - Khador Iron Fang Uhlans. Another NZ Nationals has come and gone - I took my usual position of "tournament bunny".

CHARGE!

May - Iron Painter and Circle Wolds. I do love our Iron Painter events (24 hours of straight painting) even though I am a bit of a softy and end up sleeping for the last few hours. Whilst the rest of the guys were knocking out forces for Blood, Guts and Glory I was working on my Mid War (and techically EW) Soviets. I also spent a week working on my Circle Wolds in preparation for NiCon and the WarmaHordes teams tournament.

Soviets with camo?

Got Wood for Stone?

June - Tournaments. June was all about the last months furious painting efforts, so not much interest on the brush front. Both tournaments worked out well though with Baldur putting in a solid effort for me, whilst my T-26 horde managed Best Army - June was a good month!

July - Dystopian Wars. Love this game! Managed to finish off some Dystopian Wars terrain that I had been sitting on for a while. Easy to paint and looks great when finished. Guess that means I really should finish those last two islands!

We are sailing...

August -  New Miniature added! Not much to say other than that the early comments about him being a laid back little fella that enjoys sleep, food and daddy time have continued, much to my enjoyment!

Leave me alone, sleeping!

September - IKRPG. Got distracted this month by the new Iron Kingdoms RPG. Victor is going to run a game in the New Year, once the rest of us sort out our characters...

Hey Sean, so about that book?

October/November - Late War GT and 1956 Israelis? Back to the brushes to work on my LW GT army - I thought I would take something different and use Blood, Guts and Glory to field a 1956 Operation Kadesh Israeli Tank Company. It was a heck of a fun army and is definitely going to come out at another event. I just need to finish painting the "missing" platoons that I did not get a chance to do. I also found myself distracted (a lot) by the new X-Wing game by Fantasy Flight...

Flames Of War gamer in the making!

December - More X-Wing.  Pre-painted miniatures... fast game system... that was me distracted for the rest of the year!

2012 Wrap-up
3 Flames Of War armies
1 Hordes "army"
2 Warmachine/Hordes expansion packs (new things painted to add on to an existing force).
A pile of Dystopian Wars terrain.

Not a bad effort, I think I give myself a A- on the effort front. Feels like I slacked off during the second half of the year, although given the arrival of my son I think I will forgive myself. Over the next couple of days I will sit down with my wife and plan out the 2013 tournament season and from there start thinking about the painting requirements.

Have a good New Years everyone!

Kessel Run!

Over the weekend I headed down to my FLGS (King of Cards) for a X-Wing Kessel Run event. Kessel Run was a special preview event created by Fantasy Flight as part of their X-Wing Miniatures Game due to shipping delays for their 2nd wave of ships. The goal was to head along, play some games and have a chance to win a pre-release Millennium Falcon, Slave I, A-Wing or TIE Interceptor. You also got the chance to have a close up look at the new ships (and cards).

On the day I had a momentary case of brain fade forgetting that my fourth X-Wing was sitting at home, rather than at work with the rest of my X-Wing gear after some after-hours gaming. Arriving at work I quickly modified my list and ended up with Wedge, 2x Rookie X-Wing pilots and 1x Gold Squadron Pilot (in his Y-Wing) with an Ion Cannon.

However I did remember to grab the pre-production GF9 Space Mats so we could play on those as it would look nicer than some plain black table-cloths and hopefully add to the fun of the day. Turning up it seemed that Rebels were definitely out numbered with only three Rebel players and an abundance of 8 TIE fighter squadrons.

Whilst my final standings were not enough to get into the finals pool (and therefore compete for one of the new ships) I did have a great day, and managed to take a few nice photos of the games. The other thing I found very interesting was that whilst many of the competitors were like me (i.e. only played a handful of games) there were many veterans of Wings of War and they definitely seemed to have a leg up on the rest of us. Made me keen to pick up some WoW planes, but the X-Wing addiction might be enough for now...

Games in process

Couple of TIE Fighters lurking away from combat!

Red-on-Red match-up

Furball forming

Wedge and friends go round the outside!

Round 3 - Wedge vs Wedge

Millennium Falcon and A-Wings

A-Wing close-up

Millennium Falcon close-up

Slave 1 and TIE Interceptors

TIE Interceptor close-up

Slave 1 close-up



Final match-up in process

Slave 1 on the tail of the Millennium Falcon 

FlamesCon 2012 - The Wrap Up

FlamesCon was a few weeks ago but between work (and Steve from WWPD visit) and a busy home life I managed to fall a little behind on the updates...

I took my 1956 Israeli Tank Company, using the Blood, Guts and Glory tank company as my template. It was a little sub-optimal as I did not have the time or inclination to paint all the support units that I really needed to fill out the army, but running 11 Confident Vet Shermans (especially when 8 were 76mm versions) was a lot of fun, and despite underestimating the extra 2" of move that my 75's had (thanks to Detroits finest) during play testing, I saw just how great that was in battle where opponents had to constantly plan for those extra 2" of speed.

Arriving early on the day I helped Mark and Surf get the tables out and start setting up the terrain. It is one of those things that takes longer than you would think, luckily there are always a few early birds amongst the tournament attendees to help move it along.

Mid-setup

Round 1 was vs Greg (FT Fallschirmjagers, playing Cauldron. My artillery ended up on the far right (just out of the shot, with the Shermans over on the left. I pushed up aggressively only to have a couple of Jagdpanthers drive in behind my lines. Stuck in between 88s and the new arrivals I sent a platoon of Shermans (and some 105mm howitzer rounds) back to clean up my deployment area whilst keeping the pressure on an objective. Once the Jagdpanthers were dealt with I moved up to take out the 88s (that seemed to pass a lot of saves!) Greg realised that if he assaulted my artillery and knocked out a couple of tanks he would win the game as my force would break before I could clear him off the objective. His plan worked better than mine and I ended up losing. During our post match discussion we came to the agreement that neither of us played this game particularly well (especially me since I ended up losing by pushing a platoon too close to infantry and was then subsequently Panzerfausted to death in the assault), but it was a good learning game for both of us.

Round 2 vs Phil (CT King Tigers and friends, playing Hold the Line). Sadly this game was largely over in 30 minutes. I held back, letting Phil advance up the table, once his big cats got far enough up I ambushed a platoon of Shermans, drove them round the flanks and knocked out a King Tiger and an Wirblewind. He subsequently bogged a 2nd King Tiger(which I killed) and was then forced to move his 3rd one up the table whilst 105mm rounds landed on top of it.


This was just one of those games where it was an unfortunate match up for Phil, on the wrong table, with the wrong mission.

This was also the first of two games vs the KG Peiper list from Devil's Charge that I played over the weekend. I am a huge fan of this list due to the history and playing against it a couple of times I realised where both opponents were making a key error with list selection - neither of them took Panzer IVJs. Now these are pretty fragile in Late War with their low armour, but given their cost and that their gun is more than capable of dealing with medium armour (and tank destroyers), plus they have a Spearhead move, they make a great punch unit whilst a small unit of Panthers or a lone King Tiger takes field position and draws fire. I have a few IVJs kicking around my desk at work so I might assemble them up for a few test games and see what happens.

During this round my son also popped by for a visit - first wargaming tournament... seemed pretty excited!

Round 3 vs Paul (CT Panthers and friends, playing Dust Up). Paul deployed in one corner, with a strong front line of Panthers, my Sherman platoon went head to head with it with both sides taking casualties.

My reserves started arriving and tipped the fight back in my favour forcing them to retreat, before they swung around the far end of the table to hit his King Tiger and artillery. Paul's reserves consisted of recon, AA and infantry. They largely drove on and tried to stay out of the way as they were easy platoon kills.

My end run worked out well, although by the time the dust settled only Paul had troops alive in that corner, but I had knocked out enough to force company motivation tests, which he eventually failed.

Paul was an exceptionally tough opponent and got my vote for best sportsman as we had a number of 50/50 calls that were were able to discuss and resolve.

A hall full of gamers!

Round 4 vs Kit (CV Grenadiers, playing Fighting Withdrawal). Somehow I managed to not get any photos of this game, not sure how? Kit is a very good player and was packing a force with 9 platoons. Combine his platoon round (and the fact that he ignores one of the casualties for VP purposes) with the mission requirement to withdraw platoons (effectively giving him the ability to remove weakened platoons before I finish them) and it was a tough fight! I tried to cluster my troops together to put the maximum amount of dice in one area to finish platoons off completely and Kit just did a great job of countering me at every step. I think when we finished I had a couple of guns left on the table and that was it for me. Kit had lost a heck of a lot of troops but I only managed to "finish off" 2 or 3.

Round 5 vs Lee (CV Grenadiers with Panthers), playing Hasty Attack). In this game all the action happened in a 2ftx2ft area on the far side of the table with my Shermans rushing round to get close range shots on this Panthers before settling into a gun duel, before his Hornisse and 7.5cm infantry guns managed to pop on the exact spot they needed too, knocking out half my Shermans before I could exact revenge.



Player of the match for Lee would have been his surviving Panther as it managed to bounce 76mm round after 76mm round, whilst avoiding 6 turns of 105 fire! Given that after my initial alpha strike I thought that the game was largely wrapped up, I was stunned at how quickly it went downhill...

Once again Lee was a top bloke to play and despite the fact I lost there was very little I would change with how I played the game.

So with two wins and three losses I closed out the weekend, somewhat exhausted (I was shocked at my lack of tournament fitness these days...) and definitely ready for a good nights sleep. My list was definitely not optimal and it is my intent to paint up some armoured infantry, SP mortars and some AA, as well as some more Shermans so I can run the force as Confident Trained (which I feel would be a more accurate reflection of the Israeli armour of the day). I might even co-opt Sean into making a web briefing for me if I can come with some decent National Special Rules for the Israelis - Mission Tactics and Spearhead Move (for Combat Platoons) is where my head is at right now.

The most surprising part of the weekend was the Phil took out top honors with British Motor Company - who would have thought that he would have shaken off his bridesmaid title to finally take out the whole weekend!