338! Not too many to go!

I've hit the 338 mark for my painting challenge this year.

33 Epic Ork speed freaks ready for action. Still loads to paint for this force but I'll keep plugging away.

Only 27 figures to go!

These could have been finished weeks ago if I hadn't let myself get soooo distracted by the VSF Aeronef project. Three of the ten kits are finished and on the Blotz site. Three more have been submitted and I'm just waiting to hear back from Blotz on their progress. I still have the Prussian and Antartican ones to do but I'm pretty much settled on how I want them to look so I just need to get my head down and draft them.

My mind is turning towards getting some rules for this VSF game so I'll have to head off to the forums to do a bit of research. In the mean time I'm squeezing in a little time to progress the MDF aeronefs that I have already.

Last night I started the flyers but they will take a while. However I did get to do the Tesla Guns. Black under coat spray and then dry brushed bronze and brass. Simples.

TTFN

A deadline on the horizon

I've allowed myself to get a little distracted by another project of late so must redouble my efforts to get my 365 figures painted before 10/12/17.

Lots of things on the go but I decided to try and finish some half done stuff to get it off of the painting table. First off is a bundle of Ork Dreadnoughts and Killer Kans for EPIC along with an AA wagon. With these finished I've only got 60 left to finish!

 With them out of the way I've moved onto a tray full of Ork buggies, planes and scorchas that had been started. I've slowed myself down, once again, by choosing to paint checker patterns on 6mm figures. why do I make these choices?? Oh yeah! Cos it looks good! ;-)

I'd expect these to take me another week to finish but there is something like 30+ so its more than half of what I need to do before December.

Also on the go are some more Pulp City figures and I've started painting two of the smaller Massive Darkness box sets.

As always I've also allowed myself to be distracted by scenery. No great surprise there as it is a real weakness of mine.

First up a cool phone box and some street lamps from Blotz. Very nice fun little kits to put together!

I'd gotten them at Colours and really wanted to put them together to get them done for my City scenery set. I also got the new tram kit from Warbases as I thought it would look good on the city streets. Sweet kit.

Not quite sure when I'll get around to painting it?

;-)

TTFN

Behind with my blogging....

..but not my games! Still ahead on the objective to make sure I play 52 games in a year.

Game 23

Junt and I had another bash at Epic with not dissimilar forces facing off. However he won the artillery battle early on so I struggled to pull it back from there.

His predators also fared well holding one flank pretty well having mauled my new unit of Land Speeders.

I did get to bloody his nose on the other flank with some mainly infantry on infantry action.

A win for Junt!

Game 24

It became apparent early on that Urn and I, with our marine and chaos marine lists, were going to struggle against Junt and Gareth’s combined force of Space Wolves and Imperial Guard. Junt had brought a super heavy unit, a full unit of Leman Russes and a horrible battery of manticores. Ouch!

The early shots from the rocket battery knobbled my Land Speeders and caught a unit of Urn’s infantry in their transports.

Sadly Urn’s attempts to charge the Guard tanks…….

…. Were as effective as my attempts to win a Land Raider battle vs the Wolves.

It was all over fairly quickly. Not a good day for chaos!

Game 25

With the appearance of Shadow War: Armageddon we decided that it would be rude note to give it a try especially as we have all the figures and plenty of scenery to use. Unfortunately I got so caught up in the new game that I forgot to take any photos. My first game was vs Junt and his Tau. I had my mob of Yoofs armed with shootas and applied a subtle mix of cunning and strategy……oh no hang on, I just charged him.

It worked well up to a point. I had downed a load of his guys, one of mine was sat on the objective and we still had enough boys to carry the fight. Sadly we had taken enough losses that I was making break bottle tests for my mob. Luck can only go so far and sadly one failed roll was enough to give Junt the game. Still it was lots of fun to give the Tau a bop on the nose. Ask Junt about the super-duper rail rifle…….with one round of ammunition. J

Game 26

Next game was vs Silverback’s lovely Skitarii. Oh my they are a bit shooty and their boss man is nails. Still all those Yoofs came in handy to overrun the Martian’s position but not without casualties…….which led to bottle tests……..you see where this is going? Yup. Holding objectives and still numerous but I bottled it again. A well fought win for the Silverback.

Game 27

16 Orks vs 6 misguided chaos chaps. This was quick as, given the weight of fire the Yoofs put out, it was only a matter of time before even power armour would fail under such a barrage.

A win for the Orks! Huzzah!

Game 28

Junt and I finally got round to the next game of our Undead vs Seraphon AoS tree campaign. The Undead were winning after the first round in the Verdigris Plains but the Never-dying were now fighting on the Seraphon’s home ground. We played the Revenge at the Blackblood Weald next which is an interesting scenario. The defender takes and initial hammering under the scenario rules to represent the fighting rear-guard action. After that the attacker has the potential for a sluggish start as units can stall for the first round.

The Seraphon started well and used the opportunity to down the Undeads giant and then their cavalry. After that the lizards pushed forward to take the fight to the undead. The massed skeleton units proved too much and whittled the lizards to nothing. The Undead hadn’t fared well with only their archers remaining at the end.

A sort of win to the undead whose archers were a little more potent than they should have been. J

I’m loving the narrative tree campaign. If I had a bit more time at the moment I’d pen a more prosaic batrep like the last one.

Game 29

Silverfox (and all his dice rolling skill) with BFG vs Eddy and Junt

Sigmar vs bad lizards and their undead mates!

Oh the ones. Sooooo many ones. It’s alright tho’ It was the Silverfox throwing them and he was on the other side! This still didn’t prove enough to save us from the wrath of Sigmar. Man they are tough!

The Lizards and Undead pushed towards them early on with the Sigmar archers trying a few rounds of ranging shots with their archers :-P.

Then then the Sigmarites hit. Talk about Hammertime! First the giant fell, then the Kroxigor started to get whooped all whilst the lizard men infantry got bashed about and shot horribly! We didn’t see much from the skeletons on the flank as the chariots had raced away and stalled the enemy advance before being smashed to pieces.

We had to call the game early as it was getting late but it was a definite win for the bing boys of Sigmar. Despite Silverfox’s dice. Tee Hee.

TTFN

Quick update

Another unit finished.

Nothing special just some Epic Land Speeders for my Iron Warriors.

Takes the Tally up to 217.

TTFN

Game 22

Game 22 was a blast!

The Silverback has borrowed more Epic stuff then most sane gamers could imagine from BFG. Sooooooo much old school Epic stuff.

For this bash The Silverback chose the Squats to face my Iron Warriors. 2K points a piece. I had no idea what I was about to face.

The Silverback had set up his table with the scenery he'd gotten for DZC.

It. is. glorious!

We got stuck in straight away with me shilly-shallying around for a move or two and then it started to rain......heavy explody rain. FML. Squats have long range artillery and they could easily reach my whirlwinds. Ouch!

That sort of dictated the course of battle from that point as there was no way I could let those guns hammer me turn after turn. I tripled up a tactical unit and got them right up to the guns. A risk as they would take some fire before the next turn and it wasn't guaranteed that I'd get the initiative but I had to take the change.

The Assault marines and Land Raiders started to move in as well to support them.

Silverback started to advance his troops up to meet the marines and the slow moving form of a Squat Zeppelin drifted forward blasting marines as it came. It walloped the advanced tactical squad badly but not before they had destroyed one gun and stopped the other from firing.

The marines tried desperately to bring down the war machine but they were running out of guns!

The other side of the city had been a much more measured firefight between the two sides but the Land Raiders hardiness meant the squats could not advance. The second assault squad sat on an objective from the end of turn one given the Marines a tecnical victory if not a moral one. They'd taken too much of a shoeing to claim that.

Great battle! Great Table!

TTFN

Not blogged much but...

 ..I've not been idle.

Work on the Epic stuff has been continuing with lots of prep work being done on both the Iron Warriors and the Orks. As we are sticking with it for the time being we have reached the point where we need to start playing proper games with better objectives. With this in mind we've started to put together some markers to use.

Being a bit of a hoarder I tend to keep the inserts and waste pieces from MDF kits. They are finished and cut pieces that can prove very useful. Its also lots of fun sitting down and seeing what fun things you can make out of them!

One generator, some cargo pods and a missile silo. With a bit of sand to texture the bases these'll be ready to paint.

As an alternative objective or a piece of scenery I knocked together a little cargo lander. I might well make a couple more and a little space port to add to the scenery.

Painting all the Epic stuff I've bought recently will take a while but I am chipping away at it. Nearly done are some Land Speeders for the Iron Warriors and the start of my ork force. They actually take longer to paint than I thought they would.

I'm still plugging away at the 28mm Iron Warriors as well and they've had their transfers and weathering done now along with Army Dip and matt varnish. Just the basing left to do.

I think they've come out pretty well.

TTFN

Game 21

The run of Epic games continued with Game 21 being a mash up between 2K points worth of Urn's Word Bearers (using the Black Legion list) and a combined force of Junta's Luna Wolves and my Iron Warriors. (using the Space Marine list)

As we are new to the game we've kept the objectives simple with two objectives that have to be held a full round to win the game.

New units for us to try were Assaut Marines, Whirlwinds and Urn's Deamons. It all started fairly sedately with the Iron Warriors assault marines moving up on the right flank whilst the Word Bearers pushing forward on the left flank.

The Luna Wolves moved up to try and dent the chaos marines but their shooting was lackluster.

A chaos response was brewing behind the hill.

The right flank was fairing better with the Word Bearer's devastators taking a shock pummeling from the new Whirlwinds followed by fire from the advancing Iron Warrior Land Raiders.

The left flank chaos counter attack was fairly decisive and horrible forcing the Luna Wolves away from the objective. Summoned daemons are nasty!

The situation on the right flank went rapidly down hill as the Iron Warriors Land Raiders could not shift there Word Bearer armour and the assault marines lost an assault with the Word Bearer Devastators.

Desite having artillery support the right flank failed to hold their objective and even a last minute dash from a lone Luna Wolf Vindicator was not sufficient to stop the Word Bearers from taking the day.

TTFN

Epic esculation

Game 19 happened the week before last as Urn and I took our first steps into the world of Epic.

First impressions?

Awesome. Not ever having look at the actual rules until recently I never realised the amount of movement in the game. No static armies plugging away at each other. Zooming units rushing forward to grab objectives and batter the enemy! Great stuff! Good job I’d already bought loads of the stuff ;-)

The game itself was full of our trepidation as we pushed forward fairly innocent of the impact of our actions and the subsequent vulnerability that we would expose units to as they were committed to the battle. The range of choices on orders is great and, as I am coming to prefer alternate activation games, the rules felt new and fresh. I can see why its fanbase has stayed loyal.

It was nice to see Land Raiders as the hardly vehicles that they are meant to be.

Game 20 Mark Epic

The following week Urn and I roped in Junta, Silverback, Silverfox and Gareth (who needs a nickname) in for games of Epic. Urn took Gareth and the Silverfox through a game whilst I helped Silverback and Junta. I say helped, what I mean is ‘tried to not misguide them completely on the rules’.

After Junt had gotten a cheeky win in what was the first game for both of them, I played the silverback who took the game in style. The highlight for me was charging his Land Raiders and putting down some serious smack as my tactical unit took out most of the tanks.

However, the Silverback, never slow to utilise an effective tactic, promptly did exactly the same to me but with greater effect! After that my forces were whittled away effectively by his in a better position. He’d actually won the game in turn two because of my disappearing Land Raiders but we played on for the practice and the fun of it. He won it in turn three and four as well before we called time on the game.

A good evenings gaming especially as I think we’d converted all four of them to Epic!

I’ve been making progress on additional units for my Epic IW and have managed to get some tanks finished.

These are ultimately going to be my AA hunter units but for now, until I get some old painted stripped off a load of models, these are going to proxy for Whirlwinds.

Also completed are five units of assault marines. So far I have been pretty impressed by the models from vanguard that I’ve seen and these are no exception as they have a lovely amount of detail for figures of this scale.

This takes my 365 Tally to a fantastic 146! More progress has been made on my 28mm Iron Warriors but then it stalled as the transfers I had were too big. I’ve ordered some of the proper ones from Forgeworld and this’ll be another 66 finished once they arrive and I can get the last of the weathering and basing done on them.

TTFN