Ideas, Ideas & more Ideas!

Okay,

A while ago my buddy Rob (http://dspaintingblog.blogspot.com/) had a blog entry on "How do you Play 40K? (http://dspaintingblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-do-you-play-40k.html) Well I have been thinking about this since this past weekend.


As some of you know from my previous post, I played three games of 40K this weekend at the 400 point level. The games were a blast to play and we had a loose storyline develop over the three games. Now as some may have noticed, with the 5th edition of 40K, GW seems to be pushing the cinematic aspects of the game. Direct Line of Sight is in there and many articles that I have seen written by GW folk, seem to empathize playing 40K in more as a story rather than as a tournament game. Reason I bring this up is I am wondering if anyone else is picking up on this move towards more story driven games over one off games?



This move, for me at least, has gotten me back into 40K. It is almost like have a small taste of something that you have to have! My 40k appetite has been wetted and I find that I am craving anything 40k related. This morning while eating my breakfast, I was reading the Imperial Guards Uplifting Primer. I brought to work a GW Novel Called Necropolis, stories about Necromunda & I am lurking on a few well know 40K forums and boards!


You see I have not been this excited about 40K in a long time, at least not for two versions. As Rob would tell you, I play 40K, but it's not a game I like to play. I originally picked up the 2nd Edition way back when, right before 3rd Edition came out. I loved what was in the 2nd Edition box set, I loved the story lines & background fluff, but I had no one to play against.
So when 3rd edition came out, I jumped on the game and bought the new edition only to find out they had made some major changes to the game. That's were my dislike started and it continued on with 4th edition. To me they seemed to have lost that storyline driven sort of games and the game was geared towards tournaments.


Now with 5th edition it seems to be geared towards storyline games. Now there is nothing on the rules that really changed from 4th edition, it just seems that GW has made some sort of shift in their thinking. Look at the new Planet strike book, it has you playing 40K in a different way. Cities of Death is another good example of this, playing 40K in a different way instead of the tournament style game with the same old scenarios. This for me has been a breath of fresh air for 40K and that makes me want to play again.


This leads me back to my title, Ideas. Last night while talking to Rob, I started thinking about what else we could use for our linked games. I have Space Hulk (original version), Battle Fleet Gothic (with two fully painted fleets) and Necromunda (original version). All of these games can be used for 40K and the storyline games that our group is interested in playing.



Take for example the game 2 last Sunday where Rob used his Inquisitorial troops took over possession of a container with some sort of mysterious item inside. This could be a data slate, Bio matter or whatever, in fact Rob & I have not yet decided what it has. All we know is that it gives us a reason to have another story arc to follow.



The game with Jerry is already starting to shape up as a Kill team of Xenos Hunters against a lone Genestealer. I busted out Space Hulk and grabbed the old Blip counters from it. I also assembled and will paint up the 8 Tyranid Spore mines from the last 4th edition box set. I envision me running some sort of team going against Jerry and a whole mess of Blip counters. One counter will be the Genestealer the rest will be the Spore Mines and the team will have to track down the Genestealer.


Also Rob & I are talking about doing a BFG game where the Imperial Fleet needs to stop and incoming Invasion fleet of Orks, so there is another story arc out of the three games from last weekend. The possibilities are endless and this is what has me excited about playing 40K again!


TK

Trouble in Eden

Eden, is the setting for our narrative 40k Campaign, it's something I came up with years ago and has been floating around for a while. So this Sunday (7/12/09) Rob & Jerry came over for a few 4oo point combat patrol games.

This is the board layout for the first game against Rob and his Ork patrol, I was playing with Imperial Guard. We called this area The Garden of Eden which is a large forested are on the planet. We used a GW battle matt for the base, a few of the GW "creepy trees"as well as Robs scratch built hills and trees. We also had a Pegasus Hobbies river down the middle of the board, we both agreed that this was a nice looking table!

Well for the game we decided that the first turn we would be using the Night Fight rules, and we also stated that when each force reached 50% we would take a Leadership test to see if the patrol stuck around or took off. Also since Combat Patrols are not in 5th edition, we used the guidelines from our 4th edition books to design the patrols.

Here is a few shots of the Imperial guard patrol force, armour was allocated or this mission in the form of a mighty Chimera transport vehicle.

Here is the deployment of the IG patrol, Squad Alpha is towards the top of the picture, followed by the Platoon Commander riding in the Chimera. Right in front of the woods in the center was the Veterans squad, with Beat squad right next to them. On the bottom of the picture is the Special weapons team with 3 sniper rifles.

The vets were equipped with two flamers and a melta gun as well as all units were equipped with vox casters.

The Platoon commanders squad had a Vox caster, two Plasma guns and one Melta gun, the Commander was equipped with a Bolt Pistol and Chainsword.

The first turn the IG patrol could here movement but were unable to see any enemies, the only sign that there was trouble was when a shell from some sort of gun rocked the Chimer shaking everyone up.

The veterans decided on turn two to advance towards the wooded hill in the center, they spotted crude shapes lurking before them, but could not make out what they were. It seemed that the enemy had covered some of there troops in crude oil turning them all black, but the veterans could hear the grunts of the Orks as they approached there position.

The Snipers on the right flank spotted a bunch of Boyz coming out of the woods but then heard a rough thumping sound in the air and saw two of the craziest looking copters approaching in some sort of grey stealth camo scheme. But the snipers were unable to radio in the targets due to the fact that their radio was left back at base. Needless to say the Death Copters engaged the 6 man team and made quick work of the Special Weapons team.

At this time the Chimera spotted larger than normal Orks leaving the far woods, they tried to open up on them but due to the cover none of the shots hit there mark.

A close up of the targeting optics revealed that these were Ork Nobz and they looked hell bent on engaging the guardsmen and broke off running towards the line of guardsmen.

Two of the fell beasts were shot down but it was clear that not even loosing two Orks from their group of five they were out for blood as they inched closer to the guardsmen.

Soon the Orks crashed into the guardsmen line and a brutal hand to hand fight ensued. The guardsmen fought bravely but were cut down to the last man by the three rampaging Ork Nobz.

The Veterans were also cut down by the Oily Orks in the center and soon, the crude oil covering camo had helped since none of the blows made by the veterans could harm the Orks. With that the Commander sent out a signal on the Vox caster to retreat since the Orks had the advantage. Out of 40 men, only 14 returned to base to tell the tale of what happened in the Garden of Eden. (Victory to Rob and his Orks)

Game two was played with me taking the same Ork Force to go against Robs Inquisitorial Patrol which had 14 Storm troopers mounted in two Chimeras. The objective was a crashed Imperial transport that was carrying a mysterious container. The Inquisition wanted to retrieve this from Eden. Since my IG Patrol was routed, we decided that the Orks were headed towards the crash site to try to Salvage anything they could to up armour themselves and maybe ind some bigger & louder guns.

Here is the board for the second game, all we added was the crashed transport sections to it and rearranged some of the terrain.

The shuttle on impact scattered wreckage on both sides of the river, it would come down to the roll off to see which side got the piece with the container. We also decided that this would be a grab and go scenario. The first patrol to reach the container would have one model spend an entire turn doing nothing but looking for it. You would need to roll a 4+ to see if you found it at the end of the turn. We also stated that night fall would happen on turn 3, so Night Fighting would be in play from turn 3 on.

Luck was with Rob as he got the side with the container on it (the section of the model that has the removable container section). This meant that all he had to do was race to the crash side and look for the container. The Orks would have to run to get there as well as cross the river. So with that the Chimeras rolled on towards the crash site as the Orks raced towards the center. The Two Death Copters turbo boosted into the middle trying to reach the center to do a Kaboom on the stormtroopers but fell short by 3 inches! The Kannon the Orks had fired but missed the Chimera, the rest of the mob ran forward.

The second Chimera took up an Overwatch position and proceeded to shot down both Death Copters which was the closest thing to the objective.

As the Orks reached the river, with the sun setting, the Inquisitor Stormtroopers recovered the container, dashed back into the Chimera and started to withdraw. The Ork Kannon took one last shot but one of the Grots forgot to put a round in the Barrel and all that was heard from the Ork Kannon as a dull click!

Although the Orks were not aware of the mysterious container they still were able to salvage the wreck for more "Hummie Stuffz". So the win went to Rob again as he was able to retrieve the container and take it back to his board edge.

Game three was seeing me face off with Jerry and his 19 Genestealer list, I took the IG patrol again. This scenario was played like the first one with us having to test once 50% of our force was destroyed. I forgot to take pictures during this battle but we had a generic farm stead in the center and the Genestealers raced towards the Guardsmen position. I was feeling pretty good shooting one unit of 6 Stealers to pieces, but 3 Stealers did make it to a 10 man unit of guard. The 3 Stealers were finally cut down but this allowed another unit of 6 to try to sneak up on the other side of the farm stead. Also another 7 Stealers raced towards the other Flank.

The Chimera was able to cut all but 3 Stealers down from the 6 stealers and the Sniper team was able to cut down the 7 stealers racing towards them. Being Genestealers, they had a leadership of 10 and Jerry was passing his tests. The 3 Stealers that had escaped harm from the Chimera were able to attack another 10 man squad on the other side of the farm. They guardsmen fell to a man and the Stealers advanced towards the Snipers on the hill. I passed my Leadership and was feeling pretty good that I could kill the three Stealers. The Stealers engaged the Snipers and I was able to kill two Stealers, but unfortunately the the snipers were killed to a man. This left one Stealer left and I had to pass a leadership test. I picked up two dice and threw double 6's!!!

So Jerry won with 1 Stealer and he sulked off into the woods...

So after three games I went 0 - 3 but I had a blast! Rob & Jerry also had a great time. Because of these games Rob & I will be playing a 40K Skirmish game with my Witch Hunters wanting what he has and Jerry & I can now play a game where I hunt for the Lone Genestealer that got away.

TK

Steel Legion Done...well almost!

Well this weekend I finished up half the the Steel Legion commission that I am working on for a friend. I delivered these to Lonnie on Saturday night and he was very happy with the troops. In my rush to finish these, I did two stupid things, first one was that I forgot to take photos of the figures once completed! That isn't as bad at what I did on Friday night for stupid mistake number two. Let me explain,

So Friday night all I had left to do was Dull Coate 20 Stormtroopers that had been dipped on Thursday. I got a call from my buddy Rob and he was headed over to Lonnie's place for a game, so I told him I would swing by as soon as I was done shopping with the wife. So I went over to Lonnie's around 8:00pm and hung out & watched Lonnie & Rob throw down on some 40k (Tau vs marines). So I left Lonnie's place around 11:30pm and headed home. As I got into the garage I thought "Hey Dullcoate the Stormtroopers before going to bed and they will be ready for basing in the morning." So I grabbed the can of Dullcoate, shook it up and then arranged the models on my spray board. I thin grabbed the can of Dullcoate, popped the top and sprayed away.

But as I sprayed the models I noticed that the Dullcoate was coming out a greenish brown color and as I looked again at the models, I noticed that the models were changing colors from there Blue/Black color scheme to a greenish brown color! I then realized that I had not grabbed the Dullcoate, but instead grabbed the can of Testors SAC Brown!!!!

Now living in Phoenix in the summer it was still about 90 degrees at 11:45pm and was a tad hotter in the garage, so that means that things sprayed out of a can dry almost instantly, see where this is going??

So there was nothing I could do to save the models since the paint had dried pretty quickly to the 99% done models. So after a lot of swearing and throwing the SAC can across the garage, I realized that the only way to save the paint was to strip them down & start from the beginning again. So at 11:48pm, the 20 almost 99% done stormtroopers went into a bucket of Simple Green to be stripped to start over. So an hour later I was re-priming the said models black (after checking that I had grabbed the Flat Black spray!) and by 1:00am I headed to bed!

So the moral of the story is to always, always always test fire a can on a piece of wood or something before you shoot your models! The funny thing is that I have read about people doing this on other blogs & forums but always laughed at these people for doing this, thinking how stupid are you for not knowing what color you have. Well I now can not laugh, because I have egg on my face (which is strangely SAC Brown)!

Now I can move onto the second part of the commission which is to assemble all those Chimeras and paint up all the tanks. Lonnie should be back either in December or January of 2010, so I can take some time building & painting these. Also been working on converting a Steel Legion Command squad. My buddy Rob pointed me to a nice thread on the DakkaDakka forum http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/236631.page This guy is amazing and after reading some of his threads, I got inspired to do the Steel Legion command squad. Will post up a few pictures of these in a few days.

Also got in some Combat Patrol games of 40K this Sunday with Rob & Jerry, took a bunch of pictures and will post them tonight, so stay tuned...

TK

Steel Legion Update

Well,

It has been a while since the last post and this is the first post for July. So here is some of Lonnie's Steel Legion that I am working on, below is a shot of the basic troops with each unit having a vox caster, Grenade launcher, and plasma gunner along with regular troops. There is enough for two companies of 35 men each. You will notice that the figures still have a gloss shine to them. This is because I still have not Dullcoated them yet. Also I need to add the basing as well.

Besides the troops, I also have a few other items that Lonnie picked up last week, here is a Basilisk and Valkyrie along with Commissar Yarrick awaiting assembly and paint.

Lonnie also wanted to have a few transports for this army, so he bought 6 more Chimeras for the army, so besides the other two kits I also have these to assemble and paint.

So whats left, well here it is, 20 stormtroopers, 3 Missile Launcher teams, 3 Heavy bolter teams and 5 Commissars. These I plan to have done in the next few days.

Also to go along with the added transports, there are two Leman Russ tanks, 1 Vanquisher, 1 Chimera & 3 Sentinels.These will be done in a German grey color.

The Chimera started out as a Chaos vehicle, I had to take the chaos symbols off of it and add a few more Imperial items. You can see the additions in light grey plastic.

Also the Sentinel with the Autocannon needed some work, it was in pretty bad shape. I took the top off and re-mounted it so it was more flush, added a few grabs to try to hid the gaps and added an antenna aerial to the back. I guess this will be a command Sentinel now.

Also I dipped a few more sergeants as well as the Lascannon team, here they are sitting in the garage waiting to dry. Good thing about Phoenix in the summer is that in 45 minutes these will all be dry to the touch!

Also had to run to Micheal's to pick up two cans of Testors Dullcoate, I thought I had a full can out in the garage, but no dice.

Will post a few more photos in a few days....

TK

Fathers meet the Officio Assassinorum Operatives

Well,

Been busy working on Lonnies Steel Legion, but was able to sneak a few of my own models into the painting que. First up a few Ministorum Priests that hve been sitting on the painting bench for about 3 years waiting to be finished. I use these guys with my Imperial guard, Sisters of Battle or for my Inquistion war band.



Next up a few Operatives for the Officio Assassinorum, the first, the dreaded Culexus Assassin

Next, the Callidus Assassin, which I used in a game yesterday against Robs Knights of Eden. She caused much grief for him and his sqaud of tactical marines.

The next two are from the Death Cult assassins. These were the toughest for me to paint since I did not know what colors to use. I was going to do them in Reb, but switched to black and I think its the better color for them.

The last two pictures are for my Radical Inquisitor. First of, this is a really old Bob Nasmith GW model that Rob gave me a few years ago. All I did to it was add the power sword, backpack and Plasma Pistol too him. Secondly, since this dude is a Radical Whitchunter, I wanted to make him stand out on the table, so I choose Gold as his color. Thirdly I opted to mount him on a GW 25mm base followed by a 40mm base, this added some height to him and makes him fit better scale wise with the rest of the current GW line.

So there you go, a few 40K figures for Fathers Day.

TK

Stories

Well I have been thinking a lot about this 40K Skirmish thing again and my mind drifted back a few years ago when are little group had started a small 40K campaign which was story driven. The intent was to play some 40K in its various forms (large battle, 40K in 40 Min, kill teams) and one of the things we wanted to do was battle reports. Now our little group was more concerned with narrative BR's rather than the more blow by blow sort of reports. We started a blog and we got up to 13 posts before life got in the way or other projects caught our eye.

But yesterday I took a stroll down memory lane and revisited the blog ( http://edenwar.blogspot.com/ ) and found myself getting caught up in the writing that we did years ago. It was interesting because we were playing a lot of different games but all of them were tied to the main campaign in some way or another.

Now I have always been one of those guys that have wanted to do a drawn out campaign. In fact my friends all know I am the first to say, lets do a campaign! (And they still give me crap over a defunct LotR campaign I did!) But with a lot of campaigns they sort of just slowly end because people drop out or life happens. Well our intention for the Eden War campaign was to run a narrative storyline campaign that could be played whenever by whomever. Rob has actually been rather busy working on his forces with his Knights of Eden which he has been featured on his blog, which these came about due to this narrative campaign.

So I think that it is about time we get back to Eden and the struggles that were going on there. I will be posting up more stories in the coming days, enjoy the few that are there now at http://edenwar.blogspot.com/

TK

40K Skirmish, game 1

Well,

This past Friday I had a few guys over to the SPL (Secret Pirate Lair) for a few games of the 40K skirmish that myself & my buddy Rob ( http://dspaintingblog.blogspot.com/ ) have been toying around with.

Rob posted up these few modifications on his blog (posted below) and pretty much used them as he wrote them.

Turn Sequence - The basic turn sequence is unchanged from the 5th edition rulebook.

Movement Rules - The basic movement rules are per the 5th edition rulebook.

Disregard the unit coherency rules.

Each figure is treated as an independent unit.

Shooting Rules - The basic shooting rules are per the 5th edition rulebook with the following changes.

Sniper Rifles – target must take a Pin test if hit but no wound is rolled.
Wound Chart – If a target takes an unsaved wound roll on the following chart for the wound effect.

1 – No Effect
2 – Go To Ground
3 – Go To Ground
4 – Wound
5 – Wound
6 – Wound

Thrown Frag Grenades – Frag Grenades are Assault-1 STR-3. They are a blast weapon and use the small circle on the end of flamer template. To Hit is as per blast weapons but roll only 1 d6 for the deviation distance. Range is the length of the flamer template.

Assault Rules - The basic assault and close combat rules are per the 5th edition rulebook with the following modifications.

Ignore the rules for Assault grenades.

Figures that have Gone to Ground, or are Pinned, and are assaulted will recover immediately but they will fight with I=1 on that round of combat.

A model may break-off an assault in their next move phase if their opponent has be forced to go to ground in that Assault phase.

Models must charge the model that they shot at in the Shooting phase unless the target was wounded or forced to go to ground. In this case the assaulting model can assault any target model in range.

So with these rules in hand my Jerry ( http://jerry-bigpicture.blogspot.com/ ) brought over a few Tau Fire Warriors and I busted out a few Imperial Stormtroopers. Jerry had taken 10 Fire warriors equipped to the max which came up to about 140 points.

I took 6 Stormtroopers with one equipped with a Melta and 1 sergeant with Bolter & Plasma gun, basically was about 140 points (using the Whitchunter codex).

I set up a 4' x 4' board with a river running through it with a few buildings on either side. We declared that the river was difficult terrain and choose our side & threw down the dice. One thing I will mention now, is that I forgot about the longer range the Tau have on weapons and the higher strength, needless to say Jerry held up in a building closest to the river. With his longer range & higher strength, I was getting hit pretty quick.

The nice thing with the above rules mods, that even though the Tau were hitting me, the extra roll for what happened was a nice feature. I had the melta gunner break across the river and took 10 shots from fire warriors in Rapid fire range and did not go down! Although my luck ran out and Jerry started killing Stormtroopers after that.

By the end of the 4th turn, I had only two Stormtroopers left and one was about to engage in Hand to Hand combat, while the other was taking pop shots from across the river. By this time we called it since I only had 2 models left and Jerry had only lost one Fire Warrior.

So how did it play? Well it played very well! About the only thing I would add is that you really need some sort of objectives to these games. In our test game, Jerry just hunkered down and shot me up as I tried to cross the river. I think the Kill Team story hooks from 4th edition would work really well for this game, since straight up fights are pretty boring.

We discussed the potential of this sort of game and what the intended purpose is for us. For me, I want to be able to use this game to drive larger games, basically to add a storyline to our games instead of playing 40k just in tournament mode. So I can see my Sisters of battle deploying a few Assassins to take out some person or to use this as a scouting mission to gather data. Once again for me, its all about the storyline.

So give it a try, it may breath some new life into your games...

TK

Necromunda meets 40K

So,

Yesterday I went over to Rob B's house to play a game. I was in the mood for some Necromunda, but Rob wanted to play some 40K. So I packed up my Sisters of Battle and headed south to face off against Rob's custom Space Marines and we had a blast duking it out over his war torn battlefield. (Sorry no pictures were taken)

So why do I mention Necromunda??? Well during the game and after Rob & I got to talking about how we missed Necromunda. Both of us have the first edition of the rules and the last time we played was about 3 years ago. We both have forgotten how to play but reasoned it would be easy to pick back up. Heck I still have a few models to paint up for it & Rob just about has the entire range with a few exceptions.

Then while sitting there in his living room, the thought entered Rob's head that we could play the current edition of 40K as a skirmish game! After all, Rouge Trader started as a skirmish game, so it shouldn't be too much of a stretch right? So we started thinking about it. Rob and I loved playing Combat patrols and Kill teams from the 4th edition of the 40K rules, but there was something missing, we just could not put our fingers on it. But with 5th edition it seems like it could work, it would just need some tweaking to the rules.

So looking at it most of the rules would work rather well, Movement, Shooting & Fighting, we would need to look at some sort of Moral rules since the current rules are based on squads rather than individuals. We would also need to work on expanding the wounding rolls, possibly add in something like Flesh wounds or taken out of action from Necromunda. Choosing up battles would be easy, you would just need to choose a point level and purchase your guys or teams. Also adding in some sort of experience table could work much like Necromunda. There may be a few other things, but it should be pretty easy to do.

So Rob & I will be exploring this possibility and the bottom line is for us to play a few games. I will be honest, I have been wanting to do this sort of thing for a while but never got around to doing this. In fact I was so fired up, that I rushed home to dump out my unpainted minis and see what sort of team I could put together.

So stay tuned here as well as on Robs Blog, http://dspaintingblog.blogspot.com/ for more info coming...

TK

Gathering in the Desert 2010 planning begins!

Well as the title states, the planning for GitD has begun! As some close friends know, I was contemplating not running it again since GW looks to be dropping the LotR SGB line in favor for WotR. but after thinking about it, I decided that I will continue with GitD even if GW does drop LotR SBG.

So the first thing up in planning is on where we will hold the event again, which looks to be in the same location at Empire Games 1766 S. Greenfield Road: Mesa, AZ 85206. Kyle & Brock we kind enough to host last years event and we look forward to heading back there again in 2010.

The next large hurtle to leap is deciding on changing the points allowed for the game. Currently we are thinking of increasing the point to either 650 or to 700 points as opposed to 600 points we have done in the past. I have a poll running on our local forum Adeptus Arizona http://www.adeptusarizona.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1290 I will also include a poll here on the blog for those that wish to way in on the matter. My personal reason for the increase is to allow folks to bring more Hero's or a few more troops. 650 seems about right while 700 points seems to be too much for 2.5 hour games. Also most of the local guys have their armies built to 600 points, so adding 50 points would mean a few more troops, another hero or a better hero. So it would not be a large impact for folks to add a few models.

The next item is scenarios, which after the feedback from last year we are working on making a few changes on some of the scenarios. I will give a few hints, The Artifact scenario will return, and there may be another chance to look for Bilbo's treasure or light your self on fire, but we shall see.

Another item is terrain, we will once again be having a terrain building contest too see who can build the best looking table. This year I am going to allow folks to build full tables that can be placed on the tables at Empire Games. I have heard from Tom O & he is planning on building another table and bring along his dreaded Osgilith table again, although with a few less pieces. I also have a few planned boards that I am anxious to build like a Dwarven table as well as Weathertop for Amon Sul.

The Red Dragon painting competition will also return, with a possible new catagory for 40mm bases alone. After walking away with two Red Dragons, I will see if I can capture anymore this year. And just for the record, the GitD Staff did not vote on the Red Dragons. We Let the Empire Games Staff vote on those!

So there you have it, the beginning of planning for GitD 2010, as always I will keep you all posted along the way...

TK

Steel Legion Update

Well a small update today,

I heard back from Lonnie, he likes the test model, will move ahead with the army to "Get Er Done"! So sorry to DS & DT, no other pics will go up on the alternate scheme, Lonnie likes whats there. Now to crank out about 150 Steel Legion Guard and about 6 vehicles, which needs to be done by July for Lonnie (when he will be home for a bit from Iraq). So you know what I will be working on for the next month.

Work still continues on another commission for Mike, his Italians for FoW. he finally got the rest of his army in and will be delivering it sometime next week. Also the numidians from Hank arrived last week, basically a huge box full of lead, in it are Johns Spartans that I need to get to him (thankfully I don't need to paint those). The Numidian Project will be delivered to Hank at Adepticon 2010 and will be used in a Classical Campaign that a few of us at Adepticon are working on, stay tuned for more info in the following weeks.

This weekend here in the States is Memorial Day weekend, take some time to remember what soldiers, Past, Present & Future have done for you & your freedoms. It may be about BBQ's, but we should never forget what these brave folks did or are doing now for us, God Bless them and thank you for your sacrifice!

TK

Steel Legion Test Model

Alright,

Some know that I have taken on a painting project for a friend of mine, Lonnie Jordon. It encompass' painting his Steel Legion for him and here is a test model that I dipped last week & have been pondering if I like it or not. Now Lonnie wants his Steel Legion to have a WW2 feel to them and I am using a color scheme based off of German uniforms. So I thought I would post this up to let you all see, as well as let Lonnie see and give me feedback on it.

Now the base colors are from Vallejo and the coat &; pants are in German Fieldgrey #102, boots and gloves are done in Black with a highlight of German Grey #167. Pouches and canteen are done in German C Mediumbrown #145. The straps and belt are done with Green Ochre #119. Everything done in silver used GW's Boltgun Metal and his Facemask is done with Creamcoate Mudstone. I dipped the figure in Minwax Polyshades Tudor and it was brushed on.

All in all it looks good, but I am not the one paying for it, so it needs to be approved by Lonnie. I can see by the photos that there is a hideous mold line on the helmet and the dip was put on to lightly since it did not recess in all the folds. But all in all looks good.

TK

Desert Rumblings

So here are the few Pulp figures I had worked on this week for my buddy Mike, we are planning on doing a Desert Pulp game similar to the Mummy. The below figures are from Pulp Figures from Bob Murch http://www.pulpfigures.com/ These are some generic British troops to fight off the Mummies.

Here are a few Copplestone Figures as well as another Pulp Figure (middle) to represent Treasure hunters.

Last are a few more Copplestone and another Pulp Figure (middle) to represent a few Hero's. The Figure on the Left looks to me like Rick O'Connel (aka Brendan Fraser from the Mummy). On the right needs no explanation, but good old Indian Jones himself.

Also this week, I completed a deal with Mike to get this little box set below, that's right, I am going to get into Flames of War. We are all working on doing North Afrika and this 1500 point army will get me going for our little campaign. Now Jerry is going to flip out!

Here is how 1500 of DAK comes package, for big blisters! Now I need to get started on this!

Oh by the way, I have to paint a 1500 point Italian army for Mike for the DAK, so I am going to be really busy with painting. Good thing my job is almost over, I am going to need all the time to finish projects!

TK

Whats been going on???

So some have noticed that I have not been doing my twice weekly updates on the blog. Well, I have been busy working on "stuff" and have not been able to do my updates as often as I want. So I thought I would give you a run down on what I am working on.

First up is my buddy Lonnie's Steel Legion that I am doing as a commission for him, delivery date is sometime in July. Basically Lonnie has a huge Steel Legion collection that he has collected from many folks for a couple of years. Most of them were already poorly painted by other people and needed to be stripped to the bare metal. In fact all but 30 of them went into the Simple Green to be stripped. Once the paint was off, I washed all the models (70+) in soapy water to get any residue off and then started to reassemble & base them. This past weekend they all got re-primed black and are now waiting to hit the paint table this weekend. The next part is that I have to fix/repair some of the vehicle models in the lot, which will be easy to fix since I have a ton of vehicle bits.

Besides that, I am awaiting a 2000 point Numdian/Roman army from my good friend Hank Edley in Chicago. I will be assembling and painting this army for a "Classical Campaign" that I will be running at Adepticon 2010. This is sort of a long term commission since I will get to play this army all year leading up to Adepticon and will hand it over to Hank while there. i am looking forward to painting this army, especially since it has a frickin WAR Elephant in it!

I still have a few left over projects that I have been working on for my good friends Mike & Tom. For Mike I still have about 9 Pulp figures to complete for him as well as some Aranica Buildings for Old West gaming. Oh and last night while over at Mike's place picking up my Litko Order, I took home about 12 planes for Check Your 6! to have the decals put on, so today after I get home I will be applying the decals to those.

Tom has a few things still at my place like his Imperial BFG fleet that I have to do the detailing work on, which after reading a book by Jack Campbell called the Dauntless, I was inspired to finish these. Also I need to paint up his Orc army for LotR which has about 70+ figures in it, which will paint up quickly. The only other thing I have is about 4 1/48th scale Tamyia Tanks for Tom. These just need to be built and base painted, Tom will do the detailing like weathering.

Now my latest project that I am working on is a Flames of WAR DAK army. I am still trying to decide what I need for the army and once that is done I will either be getting it from Battlefront or Old Glory, still trying to decide, so we shall see. I am also always working on Pirates, LotR, Old West & Pulp stuff, so I always have stuff to do.

Well that's whats been going on & I should have a few pictures of some of this stuff in the next few days, so stay tuned...

TK