Weekend Challenge III

Rainy morning and so with the gardening schedule pushed back I've started painting the first 'jack. This took way longer than I expected, even with the limited palette so the alternative 15 pt. battle group is looking unlikely at the moment. I've gone vanilla Menoth with a conventional colour scheme. First photo is just after blocking in the colours.

It's particularly garish and very 'Hello Kitty' but it'll calm down with a good ink wash. The pink is Warlord Purple from the Game Color range. Thank goodness I'm using a white primer, I'd have needed 10 coats over black! Second photo is after a wash, white highlights and painting in the eyes.

Well, I think I've managed the tabletop standard I aspire to; I don't have the patience for anything else. The pink is now the crimson I was aiming for and I'm happy to move on to the other figures with this scheme now. I'll base them all together and then show off the battle group in another post.

Weekend Challenge II

The 15 pt. force I've selected to start with consists of Kreoss and 3 jacks, a Castigator and 2 Revengers. A 15 pt. force normally seems to fit in a unit as well but the three Menoth jacks are expensive pts. wise. All the figures were undercoated in black or badly painted, both Revengers were damaged, one had an arm that had snapped in two different places.

I drilled and pinned the damaged arm and took the opportunity to repose the figure as the two Revengers were almost identical. The second Revenger's 'loin cloth' was missing. The ebay lot had come with several mystery fabric loin cloths that didn't fit any of the figures so I added one of these. The Castigator is in a weird pose, like it sagged while the glue was drying. I decided to live with it, not knowing where the joins were to break them apart.

The next big decision was base colour. I nearly always favour black but for Menoth thought white might be worth a try / good idea. It'll certainly take me out of my comfort zone wrt. painting. A quick spray of Halford's acrylic primer and I'm done for the night.

It seems unlikely that I'll manage 25 pts. for the games on Tuesday but if I get the chance I'll paint a few figures for a variant 15 pt. list. I've fixed up minimum strength Temple Flameguard and Choir units and sprayed them in case I get the chance. Points wise they'll replace one Revenger. More tomorrow.

This Weekend's Challenge - Painting Menoth for Warmachine

One of the new projects I mentioned a few posts ago is a small Menoth army for Privateer Press' game Warmachine. Sean bought some starter sets a while back (and I bought the rules) but the game didn't 'take' at the club and was forgotten... by everyone but Sean.

Sean never gave up and returned to the club last month with his painted starter sets and put Keith and myself through our paces; Cygnar vs. Cryx. Keith still didn't bite but I've gone for it in a big way (typically).

I snapped up over £200 worth of Menoth stuff in an Ebay auction for £82 plus postage. It was well packed but still felt like assembling a 3D jigsaw when it arrived because I can't tell Menoth arse from Menoth elbow at the moment... (Heresy!)

After sorting I had the Mk II rules, the expansion Wrath, the Menoth faction guide, the official counters and lot's of figures.

Warcasters: Kreoss and Thyra; Jacks: Castigator and 2 x Revenger (and a Merc. Gunbunny); Solo: Nicia; Units: 6 x Choir, 6 x Knights Exemplar, 6 x Flameguard, 6 x Deliverers. Unfortunately the commander of the Flameguard seems to have a Relic Sword instead of a Flamespear but I can live with that for £82...

Why is this a 'weekend challenge'? Sean is coming around for a game on Tuesday and I am too snobby to play with unpainted figures. 15pts will be painted for Tuesday, 25pts if I can. Let the challenge commence.

Club Night 18th April - Hammerin' Iron

(Bugger! I just accidentally deleted the photos from last nights game... Sean's ships are lovely too!)

Sean acted as a non-playing game master for a session of Peter Pig's Hammerin' Iron leaving Dave to play the Confederates against Keith and myself as the emancipators. Dave had the mighty CSS Virginia and the tiny ram CSS Planter. Keith had the CSS Chillicothe and the monitor Keokuk at his disposal while I just had the CSS Tuscumbia to look after.

Both fleets went straight at each other, though the Keokuk was in a bad position and spent most of the game going around an island to come up behind the 'feds. Planter managed an early ram on Chillicothe but damaged herself almost as badly. She then went on to disable one of Keokuk's turrets but shortly after her guns were all shot away, she started to burn and finally Tuscumbia sent her to the bottom.

The star of the show was the Virginia who focussed fire on the Chillicothe whenever possible in an attempt to even the numbers. Once the Planter had been turned into the latest Confederate submarine all the Union ships concentrated on the Virginia and the battle become one of firepower and attrition with very little movement.

The Chillicothe was soon very battered and in danger of sinking. Keith commented on how none of the light guns on either side had managed to do any damage in the entire battle; shortly before just such a gun sank the brave Chillicothe.

It was too little, too late for the Virginia which was in a terrible state by this point. She switched fire to the other two Union ships finally causing damage to the still fresh Tuscumbia but under a withering fire that would have soon sunk her she was forced to strike and was captured.

Goodbye USS Chillicothe and hello to the new USS Merrimack!

Thanks Sean, great game. Can't believe I deleted the photo's...

Song of Blades and Heroes

Just over a year ago I purchased Song of Drums and Shakos, the fast play Napoleonic skirmish rules from Ganesha Games. We played a single game at the club (granted it was ACW...) and it went down well. I purchased the expansion More Songs of... and determined to play more... I went to Salute 2013 intending to purchase some Napoleonic figures but I ran out of money and it never happened (but it will, one day!)

Squad level ACW fun.

A year later and I've purchased the fantasy variant of the game, Song of Blades and Heroes. I suppose the proof of the game is in the playing but I'm convinced these are my cup of tea. I've started throwing together a couple of 300 point warbands and you should expect a batrep soon.

The first warband consists of dwarfs. I managed to pull enough figures out of my Warhammer army to throw a list together and a few extra figures for variant lists. They were all already painted but needed re-basing to my Mk III standard.

Wizard, Hero/Leader, Troll Slayer

Veterans, Young Dwarfs, Crossbows

The second warband is composed of goblins. First up again, some old figures that I just needed to re-base.

Night Goblins with Leader/Hero

They have a troll!

Night Goblin / Common Goblin Archers

Goblin Shamans

Not having a finished army to cherry pick figures from I had to paint up the rest of the figures I needed over the weekend. Like the dwarfs I now have enough spares for a couple of different lists.
  

Common Goblins with Hero/Leader

A major Hero/Leader and Squig Herder with... Squigs

First game on Tuesday hopefully so expect a batrep shortly and maybe a fully fledged campaign not long after.

Another Club Night

While I was transferring photos from my phone to my laptop I found these shots of a Napoleonic naval game we played during my blogging hiatus. Recollection of events is hazy at best so these are presented merely as eye candy rather than a batrep.

All the ships are 1/2400 from Hallmark and the rules used were Grand Fleet Actions in the Age of Sail which have taken over from FLoB II as my go to rules. Keith and Barry played the Royal Navy and I think John and Tom looked after the French (?)

 The French windward squadron...

... and the leeward squadron.

The Royal Navy advance in fine style, Keith leading.

First fire...

Keith brings his squadron alongside the crapauds...

... achieving remarkably little!

Here comes Barry...

He ignores the unengaged French squadron and crosses the T of Keith's squadron, totally blocking him!

Emergency turns and collisions ensue!

The general melee.

At the end of the session things were pretty balanced. The melee was breaking up as squadrons broke out and reformed in preparation for a second pass at the enemy. Unfortunately I was ill the following week and in my absence the table had to be cleared for another game so we never finished.

I believe Vice Admiral Barry was court martialled and executed...

Strange Aeons.

Well eons have certainly passed since I last updated this blog. Sad to say I fell off the wagon and succumbed once more to my World of Tanks addiction. Wargaming continued apace with regular games on Fridays, just no blogging (and precious little painting or modeling either.)

Still, I have now kicked the habit once more and have started to resume my hobby activities. I've started a few new things that deserve their own posts, more on those later in the week, and resurrected a few old projects.

My mate Sean has been more active at the club lately so we've been Peter Pigging it occasionally. I've joined the PBI play test group and have plans for a Square Bashing set up in 10mm.

First shot, PBI - Germans v. Americans in 1944. Second shot, SB - Germans v. French in 1914.

Armies of Arcana has taken over the fantasy side of things at the club with almost everyone abandoning Warhammer. We started small with a couple of Dwarf v. Elf games without magic, worked our way through tournament sizes games up to 4000 point multiplayer games. Next stop, filling our 11' x 6' table with all the toys we can fit in?

A few shots of our escalating AoA games in no particular order because I can't make my tablet put them in the right order... (If you want to see these games done justice then checkout Stoke Rogue's blog in the side menu; he started blogging more or less when I stopped.)

There were many more games from Saga through Epic Armageddon to Black Powder and Warmachine, etc, etc, but when I stopped blogging the photos stopped too so all record is lost. I did manage to find a couple of photos on my phone that are worth posting though. One shows that FoG games in our group are not actually a myth, 15mm Carthaginian v. Republican Romans; the other is of a large battalion level Battlegroup Overlord game that the lads in the backroom at the club ran for us. This baby ran for weeks and was gorgeous, Brits v. Germans in June 1944.

More soon, ie. not in 12 months...