Byron's 8th through 13th Analogue painting challenge entries

Well, yet another year has almost past in Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting challenge, and yet again, I keep forgetting to update our own blog about my progress.  Greg is great about cross posting, but I always get sidetracked and think well it's up someplace already...  So, with the end nearing, I figured I should at least post a few images here again and some cross links for any of the Fawcett Crew that haven't been following the other blog.

Byron's 8th Entry - All Quiet on the Martian Front - Misc. Vehicles

Several strange contraptions in 18mm for AQotMF, including some mono-wheel tanks (with training wheels), a tank with a gattling turret, and a Tesla Cannon tank.

Byron's 9th Entry - UCM ships for Dropfleet Commander

A collection of plastic space ships that in my mind combine the best of both of Babylon 5's and Battlestar Galactica's aesthetic.  For a very cool new game where the actual combat and kills don't win you the game, it's all about landing troops on the planet!

Byron's 10th Entry - Late Swiss DBA army

This has been on my to do list for a long time, and I finally got around to it, my very first DBA army!  Which I fondly refer to as my skittles army since they are random colours.  I wanted to do better on them, but once I started I got a little lost on what is what on them (breast plates, shirts, greaves, elbow guards, etc) and as a result I ended up short cutting some things, so they are definitely table worthy, but not my best work.  That's what I get for knowing nothing about a period that I am trying to paint, I just wanted to paint some pikemen, so that's how I picked the army.

Byron's 11 Entry - 30k Drop pods and assault troops

Some very cool 3d printed drop pods for my 30k Epic force along with some jump troops to help out in the assault.

Byron's 12th Entry - Kingdom Death Butcher and Malifaux Rail Golem

These were two pieces I tried OSL lighting on, in two different ways wet dotting and air brushing.  Not sure I like either result, but they do work, they just don't fit what I pictured in my head.

Byron's 13th Entry - French Napoleonic command stand for Curt (from MikeA, SteveB, and Myself)

The entrance fee this year as a shared project submission.  I dug around and found some extra Napoleonics that I know Curt likes and conscripted Mike and Steve as my partners to submit this piece.

More to come...

I have a few other small projects in the works, but I have managed to pass my 1000 point goal by 50% so have kind of slowed down at this point.  I have already started planning the madness for next year though!

The Martian Front is progressing...

A long while ago I saw a Kickstarter (sorry to use a swear word, at least in Greg's opinion) for a game that really caught my eye.  The idea of the whole game and setting is based on one of my favourite books, even though neither movie made was all that great.  The game is called "All Quiet on the Martian Front" (AQotMF) and based on H.G.Wells book "War of the Worlds".

A Martian Assault Tripod with both a Heat Ray
and the dreaded Green Gas Grenades

The theory of the game is that the first invasion took place and then the Martians died out, but now 10 years later they have come back with a vengeance.  In that time frame though Earth has prepared.  We now have some weapons based on the Martian technology left behind, and have developed huge steam powered tanks and guns.  The look is steam punk / WW1 / WW2.  While it takes place in 1910 some of the weapons and guns would normally have been almost WW2 level, but due to the advances made after the first invasion the Earth is further ahead in the timeline.

Two units of infantry, a command stand, a machine gun unit,
and a squad of motorcycles.

While I got into the Kickstarter because of the figures and being too cool / goofy to pass up (or Cute in the wife's words) and thought that no matter what the rule set was like since the figures were 15mm(ish) I could use them for any rule set we liked.

As you can see, even though it is a 15mm game,
the martians are HUGE!

However as a pleasant surprise the rules supplied are actually really well done!  The rules are written by a few ex-GW employees namely Priestley, Cavatore, and Baker, which makes it maybe a bit more surprising since the current GW rules are not all that great (maybe because these guys left?).  While the rules are not hugely complicated or in-depth, they are excellent in their simplicity and allow a game to play really quickly and "feel" right, meaning it feels like I think it should fighting the Martian tripods.  

4 units of tanks, 2 units of Mark II's (each armed with a single 4" gun)
and 2 units of Mark III's (each armed with 3x 4" guns)

Now that I have two 1000 point forces painted, I will be getting the figures out for a game soon with the Fawcett crew.  Here are the rest of the images of the stuff I have painted so far, and a few pictures of a game that I played with my son to show how quickly things can go wrong...

3 Scout Tripods and 3 Assault Tripods.  Totaling almost 1200 points,
meaning these 6 models add up to 200 points more than
ALL of the Human forces in the pictures!

A Machine Gun unit and a Rough Riders Motorcycle unit.
The Motorcycle unit all have tow hooks and chains and can
attempt to immobilize the Martian Tripods making the easier to hit.

The Mark II steam tanks.

The Mark III steam tanks.

The game is based on a D10 system, almost everything Human dies in 1 shot if in the open, and the game has a move-shoot-move mechanic. The move-shoot-move allows you to pull out from cover, fire, and get back in cover before being shot at, which is critical for the humans.  It also allows the Tripods to advance at a blinding speed though, as the Assault Tripods have a 8" move and the Scouts have a 10" move. Meaning they can cover 16" or 20" respectively in a turn!

In a test game I played with my son last night he advanced the Martians against the town sweeping all the way around onto my side of the table.

 

The Tripods surrounding the town!

To react I spent several command points to bring 2 previously destroyed units of tanks back into play and launched an attack against the tripods trying to pull them away from the town.  However, the tripods are tough as nails and I only managed to damage 1 of them.  The next turn, the Martians turned around and...

The Martians turned to face the 6 tanks...

... and all were gone!
Even before all 4 tripods had finished firing! 
If I remember correctly only 3 had to shoot.

Anyway, there are the images for the new game and models, and while I may get flack from some gamers due to the cartoony nature of the tripods and the over the top steam punk nature of the tanks, I really like them :-)

Best of all, the game play so far is a lot of fast and furious fun.

I can not wait until wave 2 gets here, at which point I will have even bigger Tripods and tanks, as well as some of the really bizarre / goofy weapons like Tesla guns, Land Ironclads,  clamper tanks, mono-wheels, and more!

Oh, and I am sorry to report, that I lost the game by 1 unit to Riley...  He is of course now grounded for the rest of the summer.