15mm Battlefront "Egyptian" PT-76

So Greg's finally sucked me into his crazy Yom Kippur war project. I've agreed to do some Egyptians. The plan is for a couple platoons of tanks, some tank destroyers, and a platoon of infantry. The models are mostly bought (Khurasan T-55s gifted from Greg, Battlefront SU-100s in a trade from Greg, and Khurasan infantry as encouraged by Greg ;-) but this is the first I've painted.

It's a Battlefront PT-76 from their Vietnam range and I have to say it's as sweet as a nut. Slick assembly with a resin body and turret (magnetized!!) and metal tracks and gubbins.

I laid on a pretty basic paint job using GW paints.

I did some "chipping" with GW Mechanicus Standard Grey on a tiny bit of sponge. I like the effect.

Tactical numbers added in Arabic.

All in all I'm pretty pleased with the model and I'll be painting the rest to the same pattern. Quick and easy.

30 Seconds Over New Rynn City: Aeronautica Imperialis Battle Report

Last Thursday I wanted to set up something we hadn't played for awhile. But I also thought it would be cool to do another game in keeping with our current and long-running Rogue Trader "Invasion of Rynn's World" campaign. The solution was "Aeronautica Imperialis", the short-lived aerial combat game from Forge World, set in the 40K universe.

I found a suitable scenario in the AI rulebook. An Ork air fleet is tasked with taking out some ammo supply bunkers on the outskirts of New Rynn City. Imperial interceptor aircraft and ground defences must defend the targets. The Orks had a Blasta Bommer, two Fighta-Bommers, and two squadrons each of three Fightas. The Imperials had two heavy flak guns and two squadrons of Thunderbolts, one of two and the other of three aircraft.

The models I have for AI are mainly the old Epic aircraft, cast in white metal. They're great models.
 

The Ork Fighta-Bommers are converted Imperial Marauders from Epic. I greenstuff'd on some Orky looking engine covers and rivets and gave 'em a red paintjob.
 

The Blasta Bommer is a resin Forge World piece. A gorgeous model but a bit of a challenge to assemble as the resin on the rear stabilizers was pretty warped. Lots of fiddly little gun barrels too, and unfortunately some were casualties of our recent house move :-(

Fightas are Epic pieces and are super-fun to paint. Very characterful and Orky little models.

Here's a nice shot of the beginnings of the furball. Aeronautica Imperialis uses clever little "maneuver cards" that also act like templates for the maneuvers. Pre-plotting is limited to choosing a maneuver for your plane for the next turn. Speed is set at the start of each turn (shown on the red dice) and altitude is a function of maneuvers picked (green dice).
 

The two sides dice for initiative at the start of each turn and the winner picks one plane to move, and play alternates back and forth. Shooting alternates too, with the initiative winner picking the first plane to shoot. Fighters generally take two points of damage to bring down but some weapons can do more than one point per hit. Ork big shootas, for example, roll 8 dice at short range! Hits are scored on a 5 or 6 if the target is at the same altitude as the firer - if they're one range band apart it takes a roll of 6.

A Thunderbolt catches one of the Ork Fightas in a deflection shot. Conscripts Greg and Mike ran the Imperial side, and if it wasn't for bad luck they'd've had no luck at all. Usually Mike can be relied upon for hot die rolling but not this night. Both Greg's and Mike's dice were appalling.

The Orks drew first blood with a shootdown of a Thunderbolt. Kills went back and forth for a bit but the Orks had more planes in the air so could absorb more losses.

Fighta and Fighta-Bommer

The Orks left the heavy lifting to the Blasta Bommer and it obliterated one of the bunkers on its first bomb run. Then the huge Bommer ended up flying off the table! A Fighta-Bommer hit the other bunker and although the doors were blasted off, the ammo inside failed to detonate.

The Orks had much better dice luck than the Imperials in the dogfight and after about 7 turns the Imperials had lost too many planes to continue - after taking 50% losses the remainder must bug out. So although the Orks only busted one bunker, we had to give them the win as they forced the other side off the table.

I really like AI for a straightforward aerial fight. There isn't a ton of record keeping required but the maneuver cards keep things flavorful and moderately tactical. The models are great too, and it's easy to put on a game. It's one of those Specialist Games that never should have died.

Sedition Wars Project - Progress Report #3

The Sedition Wars project continues apace, with the completion of the first five Vanguard Samaritans.

As I stated before, I started with zenithal highlighting; primed the figures black with P3 spray primer, then airbrushed highlights with Acryl flat white. Successive thin glazes of Games Workshop green and sepia washes allows the grey scale undercoats to shine through, emphasized the highlights and shadows of the armour and weapons.

The flesh tones were first done in Vallejo acrylics, then over-painted  with wet-on-wet tube oil paints, mostly from Weber and Winsor & Newton. The visors were also picked out using oils.



The bases were finished with various acrylic washes and oils, with some Vallejo rust wash for the man-hole cover.

To help keep track of the functionally-identical (game-wise) Samaritans, I affixed small etched brass numbers to their bases, sourced from Hasslefree Miniatures.



Next up, some more Samaritans, including heavy and special weapons...



...and one of the named characters, Akosha Nama, whose faces and hair I have already painted .



Edited To Add: These are the paints I used for the faces you see. First time I've used these Vallejo and Weber paint systems. As I indicated above, acrylic base, then oils on top. The professional artists' grade oil paints have pigments ground butter-smooth. Not having to mix up the various flesh tones means that I can work quickly from dark shadow to high highlight. The burnt sienna was used to emphasize some of the middle shadows, and the alizarin crimson was used to tint cheeks and lips slightly red. Working this way, it was 2-3 hours for the faces, easily half or less the time I usually take.

Check Your 6! - Breaking the Luftwaffe Campaign

Feb. 20th saw the latest installment of Bill and Jamie's Check Your 6! campaign. This long-running campaign has seen the 8th Air Force players winning the majority of their games against the hard pressed Luftwaffe.

Unlike our last several games, this scenario was a straight up dogfight, pitting 8 P-47 Thunderbolts against 8 Bf-109G's. However, only 3 of the German aircraft had 30mm cannons, the only weapon type amongst the involved aircraft that had a chance of destroying the tough P-47's.

Below, Glenn, DaveN, and Jamie contemplate the developing situation.






Brian observes over BillC's shoulder as two German rottes make the initial attacks; Brian and I each flew one of these two-plane elements, led by an ace (+3) pilot.



In a close-range exchange of fire, two American planes were shot down by the German aces'  heavy 30mm cannon, but Brian's ace was forced to take to his parachute.



My ace then ran out of 30mm ammo during another pass, as the Germans lost another plane.



Conscript Kevin flew brilliantly, setting up great shots. However, the dice were not with him. He missed by 1 pip on the dice at least 4 times, and the couple of times he did hit, he failed to damage the robust Thunderbolts. Meanwhile, the Germans kept losing plane...







...after plane...



Near the end of the game, my ace's wing man was trying to exit the board with a damaged engine. Seeing one of Bill's planes closing in for an easy kill, I invoked the "It's what he would have done" card and sent my ace head-on into Bill's guns, with only a pair of the Bf-109's mg's working. That German ace was lucky to just get knocked out of the fight with a damaged plane.



After that initial pass at the start of the game, the Americans didn't lose a plane. Conversely, the Germans ended up losing 6 of their 8 planes, with the majority of the German pilots surviving their bailouts. The Germans contented themselves with the thought that all these P-47's were stuck in with the Bf-109's, while somewhere else some FW-190's were tangling with the 8th Air Force bombers.

Byron's Mad Plan - Update

A while back I published a listing of my Mad Plan for the Curt's 4th Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Well, since it is almost at the end of the challenge, I thought I should give an update on how it has all gone, and show off some of the entries

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My first goal was to get 8 infantry sections of Canadians and 3 infantry sections of Germans and 2 HMG's done for my WW1 force for Through the Mud and the Blood.  I currently have 5 Canadian Sections done, 3 German sections, and 1 HMG.  I will likely drop doing the second HMG as 1 has proved nasty enough to have to fight against, but we will see.  I have my doubts if I will finish more than 1 more Canadian section before the end, but I will still be happy with that and call it a win.

A section of riflemen from the CEF 16th Battalion.

A German HMG section with additional riflemen.

In total so far, counting casualty figures I have painted 93 WW1 figures since this started in December!  So if I miss the 8 sections, but get to 100 figures I will be happy.

Hey, we even played a game with them already: WW1 Take the Farm.

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My second goal was to get one unit of 28mm French Napolionic figures done, so that I can actually contribute (in a VERY small way) to Napolionic games that Curt brings our way.  So far, and I started late on these, I have 1/2 the unit done, and am feeling good that the rest will be done on time.  16 down, 16 to go.

The first base of French done.  OMG, why did the french have to be so vain? 
Wouldn't monochromatic uniforms have been easier?

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My third goal was to clean up a lot of the stuff sitting around gathering dust.  Kind of mixed results on this one, as I will explain later.  First the good news!  I did do a lot of little items that were sitting around.  I banged off a lot of 15mm germans that had been gathering dust for a long time, several solo figures that I kept meaning to get to, a Forgotten Seas fleet, some Warhammer 40k figures that I kept meaning to do, and even got a bunch of Dystopian Wars ships cleaned, assembled, primed and base coated.

A pair of 88's and transports I had sitting around primed for about 8 years!

A squad of Dark Angel Assault Troops, that sat primed for over 10 years!

Then the bad news, I got distracted by some new items like Rivet Wars and buying a laser cutter to play with.

Overall though, I got a lot done but collected even more new stuff to add to the pile!  Overall I got over 100 figures done and painted.  Unfortunately, in that time with Rivet Wars, Zombicide, some 15mm British for Chain of Command, and some Warhammer 30k figures, I have probably added 400 more figures to the painting pile.  Maybe I should talk to Curt about running another of these about a month after this one finishes to that I keep painting???

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My Fourth goal was to submit at least 5 entries out of the 7 possible for the different bonus rounds.  I am glad to say, I managed a perfect 7/7 even if 2 are not posted yet, they are done in time to send off to Curt.  Better yet, I even won one of the rounds with my Old Woman.

My old lady entry for the non-combatant theme.  One of the figures I am most proud of ever painting,
I really like how this turned out, and I NEVER like how my own stuff turns out.

• December 22: Non Combatant(s) – Old Woman 
• January 5: Villain(s) - Nurgle Demon Prince
• January 19: Vehicle – Some brand new and shiny Rivet Wars tanks
• February 2: Hero or Heroic Group - Dark Angels Space Marine Hero
• February 16: Casualty / Casualties - WW1 Canadian Casualties 
• March 2: Favourite Character - James Richardson - Piper for the 16th Battalion
• March 16: Last Stand - Zombicide in Grey Scale

A pair of "Vehicles" for the vehicle themed challenge.  Imagine that!

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Overall, so far it has been a blast.  I have painted far more in the last 3 months than I have in the 18 before it.  It has motivated me to paint different items, different styles, and learn new techniques.  It has also led me to bug and harass both Greg and Curt far more than in the past with questions on "those damn Frenchies", as the Napoleonics are something completely new to me and I am trying to do them some small level of justice. 

Better yet, I have even completed my initial goal of 1000 points already, and have since raised it to 1300.  Given the bonus points still coming for the last two theme entries, I may even hit 1500!  When I went it, I only planned on about 750 points, so not bad.

You can find all my entries with this link: ByronM Entries for the 4th Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

I will post a final roundup once the whole challenge is over with my final numbers and thoughts.  Thanks everyone, now back to painting.

You(erl) Make The Call - Rogue Trader Battle Report

Orks defend their captured Imperial astropathic tower

On February 20th we resumed our casual 40k Rogue Trader campaign set during the Ork invasion of Rynn's World, a plot derived from the original "Warhammer 40,000 - Rogue Trader" rule book. We kicked this off back in the spring of 2012, at the time of the 25th Anniversary of Warhammer 40k.  To recap...

• Pedro Cantor and the Crimson Fist survivors barely escape the "Battle at the Farm".
• Cantor and his Marines try to break through the Ork lines around New Rynn City ; he barely staggers through into the Imperial lines, a moral victory for the Orks.
• Cantor rests up in the medical bays, and is pleased to find a number of additional survivors from the Chapter are present in the New Rynn City garrison, together with Imperial Army and militia units.
• While Cantor is getting his various super-organs treated in hospital, the Orks make a major push against the lines - the Imperials hold them off.

The next chapter in the story would involve a call for help.  The New Rynn City garrison is strong enough to hold the defences, but not strong enough to push the Orks off of Rynn's world. The planetary governor's astropath, Yerl, is located among the survivors, found healing in the medical bays along with Cantor. To make a astropathic distress call, he needs to get back to his designated astropath facility - which happens to be behind the Ork lines. 

Dallas' boyz await the Marine attack

The Imperial garrison sallies forth - the objective is to get Yerl into the tower, get the message out, and get back to friendly lines.  The longer he stays in the tower, the stronger the message will be and the more likelier it will be received by the right Imperial government people elsewhere in the sector.  But Yerl is a VIP - the 40k equivalent of an intergalactic iPhone5S - you need that dude to survive. The Imperials would enter from a short table edge. They had ten turns to get the job done, and get him back off the table.

Love these old RT-era Orks!

The Imperial force was substantial - two squads of Marines, a Predator and a dreadnought.  The Marines were accompanied by a Medic (mostly to protect Yerl) and a Librarian, and led by a kick-ass officer represented on the table by the RT anniversary figure.  Indo and Byron took the Imperial side.

The guys listen to me blab on about the rules - they are thankfully very patient fellows

For their part, the Orks were not sure what the Imperials were up to, but figured it was not good.  They noted the breakout towards the building behind their lines, the building with weird psyker vibes.  A small garrison of two squads of boyz and a Killa Kan was in place to try and hold the Imperials back.  A Wartrack, more boyz squads, and a squad of armoured boyz and a looted Rhino would be the reserve force. The Orks also had a weird boy. Jim and Dallas took command of the Orks.

Marine column approaches

We played pretty close the main Rogue Trader rules for this game - including the Compendium-era vehicle rules (although we ignored the "TRR" - the turning radius - to this day I don't understand how that one actually works).  With these older rules, the Rhinos were tough - like, really, really, really tough. And also very fast. So the Marines rolled up and got down to work.

Dallas' Killa Kan sets off to deal with Indo's Marine squad

Indo was set up to overwhelm an Ork squad with close shooting, but the dice were not with him.  Dallas sent the Killa Kan into them, and it went very, very bad for the Marines, with a number of Crimson Fists ending up as food for the "power klawz" on the Kan.  Ouch! Combined fire from the Predator and the Marine dreadnought eventually hit the Kan critically.  Remember the old critical damage tables? They could be quite funny (at least, when it's not your vehicle involved).  Dallas had seen off Indo's squad, but the damaged Kan turned around an ran wild, opening fire on its own boyz.  Dallas' foot sloggers got BBQ'd by their own Kan!

Byron's Marines deploy from their impervious Rhino

Byron formed his squad with black-powder-era precision out of his Rhino and began a steady march to the "facility".  They took quite a lot of fire as Jim's defenders and Ork reinforcements tried to engage them, and many Marines fell, but at this point my "scenario design", such as it was, hit a pretty big pothole.

Predator and Dreadnought covering the Marine action

The Marine Commander was a serious bad-ass - a minor hero, meant to represent the commander of one of the Companies, sent by Cantor to lead a detachment to bolster New Rynn City, before the Ork attack hit the planet.  Given the catastrophe at the Crimson Fist monastery, he would be one of the only senior officers left in the Chapter. This guy had a BS of '6', so he almost never missed (especially with Byron rolling).  Here is the catch - he had a plasma gun, and a plasma gun is rated "following fire" - remember that rule?

Indo's squad is noticeably smaller after the visit from the Killa Kan

The Marine Commander was a killing machine!  Following fire weapons allowed you to keep shooting as long as you hit and caused a wound, and there were other targets within 4" of the original one. Well, with a BS of '6', this guy almost never missed, and the plasma gun is killer, so it almost always caused a wound.  This guy was scything down whole Ork squads.  Thematically, this matches well with the fluff (especially as the model in question was inspired by the Crimson Fist commander on the cover of the original rule book!).  But it was not fun for the Ork players (although the Marine players found it fantastic, of course).

Byron's Marines unleash the flamer on Jim's Ork boyz

Even with Commander Killing Machine mowing down every Ork he could see, the aliens put up a very, very stubborn resistance.  Jim's boyz extracted a heavy toll, despite being on the receiving end of flamer shots and bolter fire.  As the Space Marine numbers dwindled we discovered another fun and long lost part of the RT vehicle rules - collisions!  In RT, you can speed up or slow down only a certain amount, so if you are going too fast, you will hit stuff - buildings, dreadnoughts, infantry...

Burn baby burn! The Rhino is poised to run down any survivors...

The Marine Rhinos began to run into all sorts of stuff, I would about 30% on purpose and the rest just by accident. The Ork psyker was squished against the building. Ork infantry were run over. The second Ork Kan was rammed. The Rhinos were damaged bit by bit, but the original Rhinos were super-tough APCs, and it showed in the game.

Ork squad cut to ribbons by the Marine Commander and his following-fire Plasma Gun - ouch

The Ork players returned the favour, running over some Marines with their looted Rhino, and ramming the Marine dreadnought into out-of-control movement (again, hilarious unless it is your dreadnought). In the midst of this chaotic battle, Yerl managed to enter the building and spend two turns calling for help.  But he was not able to escape the table before the game ended!

A second Killa Kan tries to hurry into the action

So the game was a draw!  The Imperials side got a distress call sent, but the fate of their Astropath is unknown.  And the Marines got a bloody nose (they were T '3' - a rude shock for Byron and Indo!), not that "Commander Plasma Gun" would have noticed as he waged a lone war against the Orks.

Dallas' damaged Kan is going bonkers, firing the flamer on the nearest target - his own boyz!

Rogue Trader is so much fun, and it was great to play again.  But the game was also a good dose of reality on some aspects of the rules, particularly the old vehicle rules.  We have previously played Rogue Trader in a hybrid fashion, incorporating 5th edition vehicle rules, and that is something we will go back to.  The original vehicle rules, with their great detail, can be a lot of fun for very small games, but are a bit too wacky to have more than one vehicle on the table. Same goes for the dreadnoughts.  The psykers were also kind of useless, so I'll need to do some better planning there to set it up so there is a reason to use them. 

Finally the Marine Commander was out of control...need to be more careful with his weapons next time, or perhaps have some sort of cap on "following fire" - he was a one-man army!

Collisions galore! One Rhino hits the Ork Kan, the other collides with the fence.

Will Yerl's call for help make it through? Will the Imperial Administration receive the call, and send a relief force? Would nearby patrolling elements of another Space Marine chapter perhaps pick up the distress signal and investigate? Or did the message end up getting filed under "low priority random transmissions" at the desk of some colon servitor at the sector capital? Stay tuned for the continuing campaign in the Battle for Rynn's World!

A big thank you to Dallas for hosting, and to Dallas, Jim, Indo and Byron for their patience and light-hearted spirit with all the Rogue Trader craziness.  It was a fun game, I'm looking forward to the next chapter!

New Insane Project - Legional Lunacy

Resin - the new crack.  Perhaps we can convince the government to give it away for free under the guise of "harm reduction"?

Say what you will about the pricing (no, really - we do elsewhere in this blog, so you should to), but Forge World seems to be last redoubt for 40k sculpters and designers that "get" the story.  The main GW studio still has its hits (like the pending new Imperial Knight - super cool) but seems to release a lot of turds as well (like this, and this, although perhaps these models grow on you after a while - that Marine flyer seems like it might work with some conversion). The Forge World team seems to have a good grasp of the real pulse of the 40k background, and nowhere is this more pronounced than their ever-growing list of Space Marine Legion stuff to go with the Horus Heresy. And so a New Insane Project for 2014 - Space Marine Legion forces for the Horus Heresy.

I know the FW books are super pricey, but this is probably the best FW book I've seen - worth it just for the fluff and pictures

Between reading Dan Abnett's books in the Horus Heresy book series and seeing a copy "Horus Heresy - Book One: Betrayal" I have been getting more and more inspired to do a Legion project. The opening salvos of the Horus Heresy on the world of Istvaan III provide a lot of inspiration, and Forge World sculpts are truly beautiful - and the range is very developed, as they have been adding new models and vehicles for years.  I remember working with the Elysian models and being very frustrated.  It's not perfect, but the castings seem to be a lot nicer now.  These Legion figures are a lot of fun to work with so far.

Mark IV Space Marines WIP - early assembly stage

There is quite a variety of armour types to choose from for your Legion Marines - from Mark II "Crusade" all the way to the Mark VI "Corvus" (which most would recognize as "classic beakie" armour). The packs are quite compatible with the existing plastic Space Marine bits and arms etc.  I have ordered some Mark IV armour suits & shoulder pads to represent both "sides" of the initial conflict on Istvaan III.   I also have a few Corvus armour sets as well.

I am thinking I will leave the Corvus armour to represent the loyalist Legions. The Corvus suits are not, strictly speaking, "Legion wear" as the armour is meant to be later along in the timeline...but I like to imagine the new suits getting churnred out just as the Heresy broke out, so only the "good guys" got much of it.   The Corvus armour is the armour I remember from that original "Space Marine" game, so it should be in there somewhere, as far as I'm concerned.

Mark VI "Corvus" Marines in production

I first came to the Horus Heresy storyline with the "Space Marine" game, and that vision has always resonated with me.  I like to imagine Horus and his traitors as more of an actual pseudo-political rebellion, in the sense that the supernatural aspects (demons, nurgle stuff etc) did not immediately appear, and the conflict was more of a brother-against-brother theme. Having Space Marines turn on each other is bad enough - why do we need to add a bunch horns and tails?

The Chaos Space Marines today are so spikey and skull-covered that they border on self-parody in my opinion. (YMMV - and let's face it some painters and modellers out there do amazing stuff with them, so what do I know, right?).  The Horus Heresy to me offers a chance for a more interesting "civil war", where the Emperor's pride and joy - his Warmaster, his very own Legions - turn against him. His Great Crusade is stopped cold. The Imperium of Man goes from unstoppable growth and expansion into a kind of plateaued, slow, stubborn decline as the worst war imaginable is fought across countless worlds, the Imperium split nearly in two, the Emperor nearly killed. Cool! Leave the demons to whisper in Horus' ear - they don't need to be on the table for this.

Remember these guys from the original RT rulebook? The Blood Angels looked awesome without wings and bonkers artificer armour etc. I've always loved this picture, particularly the dude with camo armour!

My plan is to start with some troops from the Sons of Horus, the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children, with the latter two being small units that can either represent the (doomed) loyalists on Istvaan III, or combine together with the Sons of Horus to represent an allied traitor side in a game against loyalist forces in some other games.

Blood Angel marine WIP beside a completed-but-not-primed figure - both in "Corvus" armour

Lunacy loves company (is that right? I'll go with it) and I'm pleased to report that Byron has also tilted into the Legion Lunacy as well.  He has some Death Guard slowly taking shape - hopefully he will share a little bit of it on the blog too.  The great thing about the plot developments on Istvaan III is that the Legions were fighting within themselves - Horus was purging the "unreliables" - so you can mix and match whatever faction for whatever side you like.

Crappy photo - sorry - you can see the decal for the chapter symbol (a bit)

The Space Marine Legion army list is kind of off-the-charts bonkers. 30-man tactical squads, anyone? I'll say this - it does a fabulous job matching the vision of the Space Marine Legion - where a "Chapter" is just a small sub-force in an organization with thousands and thousand and thousands of Marines! In this context, whole ten man support squads armed with lascannons and other scary stuff (Volkite blasters, rotary cannons etc) seem to make sense.

But I'm not really getting into this to play within the context of the sixth edition rules - in fact Byron and I are conspiring on how to use Chain of Command for our Horus Heresy games.

I love that studded shoulder pad...

Anyway I've only painted a single figure for now - a test figure of a Blood Angel.  I find the Blood Angel background to be a trifle nauseating (oh, woe is us, we're so perfect and yet cursed, and our primarch has wings!) but on the plus side red is a favourite colour on mine, the Blood Angel Legion was at the forefront of the war against Horus' rebels, not least the seige of Terra and the Emperor's palace. And I always loved the photo of the Blood Angel models from the original Rogue Trader rule book (see earlier in this blog post).

So that's one loyalist ready....

It will take weeks, more like months, before these are ready for the table in any useful number.  But I'm hoping to bring the Horus Heresy to the Fawcett Avenue gaming tables this summer. Stay tuned!