In Fire and Darkness Tested

So, I finally have, what resembles a fully legal Horus Heresy Salamanders army. 

After a very long time, of just painting the stuff I liked the look of, and not really concentrating on any form of force organisation chart. I can't now make a fully fledged army, that quite frankly is a force to be reckoned with. 

I'm really happy with the outcome, I hit a few bumps in the road, this being me first ever fully fledged Sci-Fi "40k" army. 

I of course still have plenty to paint/make for this army. The new Betrayal in Calth box, will be a god send for all my support elements, and will really help me round the army out. 

The XVIII Legion

Thanks for looking guys. 

The Future continued.

Following on from my last post, I am aroun 94% finished on my first Morden troops. The German Bundeswehr I picked up from Eureak miniatures. 

I am happy with the way they've turned out, also with the way my interpretation of Desert Flacktarn looks. I used the sponge technique, that I usually use for weathering my tanks. 

Appolagies for the poor photographs.

Thanks for looking. 

A glimpse of the future.

The new prodject, 

The next few months, I am going to be roughly concentrating on a new prodject, involving modelling and gaming. 

This new prodject will be the Modern theatre. Mainly we are planning to set our games in the near future, a pre WW3 scenario, where the worlds super powers have sent their special forces out, to secure vital objective ect. Before open war is declared. 

This give us a broad aspect, for designing a narrative around out gaming and modelling. 

Rules set, we aren't going to settle on one set for this. But our focus will be the brilliant rules set Spectre (And thier minitures are amazing), we will also be looking at Skirmish Sangin, we have only headed good things about SS. 

Minitures, I have decided to start with a very small force of German Bundeswehr/KSK, quite frankly the G36 toting, armed forces of German these day are bloody cool. 

And I found some of the amazing Eureka minitures to be exactly what I'm looking for. Ordered from Fighting15s here in the UK, the minis are lovely. A little bit more cartoonish for my liking, but beggars can't be choosers.

Crisp models with very little clean up needed. 

I have done some green stuff work, but only a little, adding a UGL (underling grenade launcher) to the bottom of a G36. And wrapped one of the KSK snipers in a shemagh scarf, as these guys will be be in desert camouflage. 

I have also tried out the green stuff on the base trick, to cover the round base these figures come on. I heard about it on a podcast and it's worked quite wel, to blend the base.

I should finish painting these this week, so I will update this post with painted pictures, my photography however is severally lacking. I apologise. 

Hope you enjoyed, 

A little catch up.

No post last month, I need to make a schedule. But with the BAWO2015 taking over my hobby for the last few months. I decided just to settle down and do some hobby, that didn't "HAVE" to be done. 

I've managed to get a lot of work done on my salamanders of late. 

I've got a Deredeo dreadnought finished (lovely model, however terrible to pose in any position than basic boring stance) 

I managed to pose mine a little differing, with some cutting, bending and tactical glueing. The knee pads however will not sit right. If you can live with that then. I problem. (I will try and update this with a painted photo)

A Sicaran Venator, done.

This was a fun tank to paint, refreshing painting a Sci-Fi model, after painting mostly historical. Can go to town with bright colours and be a little liberal with you creation. 

I am now at the moment working on, 4 more vehicles 2x Spratan assault tanks (my favourite flavour of cheese) and 2 rhinos for the little guys).

Whip picture, airbrush work finished here. 

I've also been having some fun with hazard lines, playing around with some techniques, as you can see in the top left. 

There we go, a little update on what I've been doing.

Hope this post isn't too short. I just felt like I need to get something on the blog. 

I have a new project coming up, for a new rules system. That I am going to try and document properly from start to finish. 

So stay tuned. 

Regards,

WIP's and Chains...

The 26th of September (BAWO 2015) is fast approaching, and the days only seem to be going faster. Giving me less and less time to get all the tables ready. 

So my focus of the last month or two has had to be mainly terrain (with a few small paint projects inbetween to keep my hobby mojo going). 

I am working mainly on bits for 3 board, the Tabk factories board, I showed whips of in a priciouse post. 

A Stalingrad (Pavlovs house) board, this will focus on one relatively intact building in the centre of the board. And lots of destroyed ruins surrounding it. 

And a Berlin (style) board, apartment block and ruines (however this will be a very generic city board. 

The last few days I have been working on the buildings, but mainly the scatter terrai. To populate the open spaces, and to give it the destruction feel, without tipping a bag of chippings all over the place. 

I struggle with these type of scenes, as I never feel you can but enough rubble ect. To really give it a good look, without making the table/ terrain piece unplayable. So I've had to settle on a decent look and a more playable table. After all this is mainly for the tournament.

I was really lucky to get my hands on some half kits from warlord games. Thanks to Sam @downorder podcast for passing then on to me. Perfectly there was a T34 chassis, and some tracks, and a Panzer 4 turret. It's like somebody somehere new what I was planning. 

I love it when a plan comes together.

So what comes next is a lot of fun, brake up some cheap cork boards, smash up your pre made, paint mixed into wall filler and left to set in an old baking tray. Get the glue gun out, ready the PvA and go crazy with it. A bit barbed wire here, a track there. And... 

... Here's one I made earlier.

Seal the whole thing with watered down PVA glue, spray black, dust grey, dry brush a bit, dry brush a little more. Pick out the details, remembering Modle Mates rust effect is your best mate. 

Move on to the next. 

The big rounds are old CDs, the other boys are MDF basses I had laying about, cut to be able to slot into corners of buildings, and lay along side walls. 

Hope you've enjoyed, 

More on the Berlin, Pavlovs house boards to come soon.

Thanks for looking

What a difference a wash makes...

Just a quick post, trying to up the rate of posts, even though I get like 3 views a year (ok more than that, but I'm trying to be modest with my self pity). 

This coming bank holiday weekend, August 31st 2015. I am traveling up to Nottingham UK, to participate in a Bolt Action campaign day. Run by Sam from the Down Order podcast (highly recommend the cast, Sam, co hosts, Dave Hunter and occasionally Rich H. Are all personal friends, in wargaming circle terms. And are all extremely lovely guys) + I'm going to be on it next episode talking about the Welsh Open. 

For the day's campaigning, I will be taking up my beloved 8th Army. 

On the day we are allowed to take two lists. One infantry and one optional Tabk list.  

I have opted to take both, and really do something different with my Infantry list, well I've made it just that - infantry. 

How ever I have taken vantage of one other rule for the day. Warplanes. 

I haven't taken a lot of warplanes in BA before so I thought I'd give it a go. 

Some time last year when the optional rules came out, I got strait on eBay, and bought my self a 1/72 Battle of Britain die cast set, a spitfire and a Me109. I wanted 1:48 but the price comparison, and the amount of use I saw them getting did t way up. 

So I have dug out the spitty and tarted her up, or rather scruffed her up. 

Apologies for the poor photo quality. 

Like the title suggests, what a difference  a wash makes. Ok so I have done some sponge weathering ect. 

I am however happy with the result. I would of liked to completely repaint it, in desert camo. But my narrative suggests it has just been flown into the country, and is strait out on a mission, with no time for paint jobs. 

I'm sure I said at the start this would be a short one.... 

Regards as alway, and thanks for looking. 

The king of procrastination returns, all hail the king!

I'm back.... 

In my defence, I have been doing lots of hobby, just not boring the two people who check this blog, with what I have been working on. 

Also, I wrote out a massive post two weeks ago, forgot to save it to drafts. As it wasn't finished. 

Came back on to finish it, and all my work was undone. To say I was less than impressed is an understatement. 

Anyway, on with why you have visit this blog, unless you have come here through some very strange Internet search... 

The last few week, things have been building up to the Bolt Action Welsh Open, of which I am one half of the To team.

Now the tournament this year has considerably increased in size, so we have invested like wise on terrain. 

Being a bit of a stickler for terrain, I am putting me all into making it look the best it can be. How ever as the title sujests, my attention span is small, and I get way layed. For some reason, my subconscious tells me, that doing everything in the last week prior to the tournament (or anything for that matter) is the better way to do things. 

How ever I have done some work, and this is what I'm going to show you today. 

A little while a go, I stumbled across a small company on eBay, when looking for a curtain type of terrain. 

The company was called Terrains4wargames, a brilliant run company, still in its infancy, based in Poland. 

When making some inquires with the owners about their product, we got to talking. And a long story short, they sudjested they would like to help our tournament grow, and sponsor us.

We struck a deal, and I had the absolute pleasure of putting their train together. 

I simply cannot wait to put it all on the table now. Just need to figure economic ways of filling the rest of then table. 

As this is essentially tournament terrain, it needs to be transportable, and Storables. But for me it also has to all tie together... Who knows maybe some sacrifices will have to be made. 

This last photo shows these two finished. 

I've modified bits, but cutting the girders. Also added some modellers tin roof sheeing. Used an old GW creator in the centre, to really take up a lot of the spare space, without to much effort. 

And then added generic rubble

. 

Of courses in really life there would be more piles of depris ect, but like I have said, this is a tournament piece of terrain and has to be playable. 

I am happy with the end effect. And when I set my mind to it. It is quite a quick way of doing things. 

Which is nessisary as I have a lot to do before September 26th - 27th. 

As always thank you for looking.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder....

So it turns out I am a rubbish blogger, as far as keeping up a steady flow of posts anyway. 

But real life always has to come before little metal and plastic men.... Right?! 

Life has been hectic over the last few weeks again, but the last week I have managed to settle down and revisit a prodject I started a while ago. 

My 28mm Bolt Action Russian army. I plan to take this army to a upcoming tournament at the end of the month. So wanted to fancy them up a little, to hopefully get some painting scores, because I know full well I won't get meant playing scores. 

So I've decided to do some objective markers to go with the theme of my army (city fight in the snow) on bare with me, my list for the tournament is from the Silow heights selected as I had originally planned 2 tanks with tank riders. 

Now I say bare with me, as my basing and paint scheme is early snow fall. This army list for the tournament is set in The fall of Berlin, there wasn't much snow at that time to be honest. But hey, imagination right? 

So enough of my waffling, pictures. 

My first scenic objective is a meeting of the small council... Wait wrong topic! 

A meeting of Stalins General staff, in this instance discussing the push into Berlin. How ever, depending on the scenario I set for what ever list I write, the picture will have this underneath *insert appropriate fluff here*. 

 

Next is making use of Warlord Games scout squad, love these models full of character, but I just don't see most of them as models, I would want in a squad I played with on the table top. 

But for stuff like this they are amazingly cool. 

Appolagies for my amature photography. I try my best, also I know my white could do with a bit of practise, I tend to avoid it. 

A quick note, command figures are from Black tree designs, tables and most of the stuff on it scratch built. Scout figures are from Warlord Games. The scenice walled corner can be found at http://www.modeldisplayproducts.co.uk

Martin at MDP is a top guy, and visits most of the UK shows. 

Any questions just ask. 

The third objective I haven't acquired all of the bits I need yet, I will update shortly. 

Also still to come a glance of the army I'll be taking to the Ribble Rumble 2015. 

As alway, thank you for looking. 

Nice weather = poor hobby blogger

Absent again,

Due to the outstanding weather we have been experiencing recently, I have simply been making the most of it. 

Lots if golf, lots of work in the gym and camping trips with the family. Make for poor amounts of hobby time. 

I havnt been completely absent from the hobby over the last few months. I have however bounced from prodject to prodject with not a lot of purpose. 

So I will post here a few of the things I have done since my last post. 

Firstly Salute, the same as last year, myself and members from my club, Cardiff Wargames club were 4grounda go too guys, for their WWII display board. 

Stauart the Co owner of Greatescapegames.co.uk took the helm. The demo also have Great escape games the chance to display thier new WW2 rules set, Iron Cross (released later this year). 

For this prodject I was chief gardener, this  entail me making flower beds, painting and "planting" flower pots. And the pain staking task of sticking foliage to tree armatures. 

Products here, can all be found on GEG website. And they are all fantastic prodjects, and what I show here isn't even a drop in the ocean of the amount of these amazing products they stick. 

On to the table, we produces at the end.

It's is band of brothers inspired Holland style landscape. With undulation and raised roads. 

The brand new parish church from the wizards at 4ground. 

A perfect shot of the plant pots and allotments I made. 

The new Parish Church. I can not express enough how amazing this model is! Complete with stain glass window, it looks fantastic. 

During the game, I rolled this firefly to the top of this bluff, where it took pop shots of the tiger over the wall. 

This is a brilliant shot, to show how the board had undulations built in. The way we made the board means we could have deep undulations and raised roads ect. 

Also in this shot a view of the hay stacks I made last year. Inspired by Pat over at paintingwithasilverwhisle, check this page, and amazing amount of insperation terrain and models. 

Getting on to the other things I've done of late (I did want you I jumped from prodject to prodject). Over the last few months to a year, I have started playing a lot of Warhammer fantasy, much to my discust at all the roumors of 9th. Just my luck a game that has been around longer than I have been alive, as soon as I start playing there is all this talk of them killing it. Oh well, I've enjoyed painting stuff that isn't controlled by historical accracy. 

So whole the game is in a state of limbo, I've decided to paint some character models. 

Mage/loremaster

Prince

Noble BSB 

More to come on these. 

Thanks for looking. 

The march to war.

I can't really say I'm much of a tournament player. In truth I'm not a conpetative player (much). All this being said, I am Co TO of one of the biggest Bolt Action Tournaments in the Uk, hopfully the world after September, we are hopful we get the numbers. 

But competitive play is not the reason we run the Bolt Action Welsh Open (BAWO hense forth). Myself and my Co-TO run it because we simply enjoy it. We love the rules set, and can't fault the company behind it. 

We try each year (sucsesfully I think so far) to pump enjoyment and fun into the tournament scene. None of this over conpetative must win at all cost nonsense. If I sit at the TO table and look around seeing smiles on faces and laughter ringing out, I class my job as complete. Anyway I digress, I do that a lot.. 

The coming weekend myself and my good friend (my Co-TO) are travling to a tournament in Poole. The tournament is hosted by PGS and run by none other than MAD bob of Mad Bob Minitures. 

We are both looking forward to the event, not only to get our toys on the table, and meet new people. But because it will be our first look, feel and tase of the new BA.Net rules pack. 

We are still in discistions about the format of the BAWO this year, and this is our chance to see for our selfs if this rules pack the lads over at the WWPDforums

Have put together is what we are looking for in out tournament. 

We are going down open minded but we both have our reservations.  

This post was supposed to be about my preparation for a tournament, not a massive plug for my tournament.... So much digression! 

Anyway.. My preparation. I have decided to take my 8th army out to stretch their legs for this one. 

This army was always a plan of mine when I got into BA, having an emotional tie to the army through my Grandad. I started to get the army together some time last year, on the run up to a tournament purely for North Africa themed armies. Long story sort I stayed up to all hours painting getting the army ready, and then didn't end up going. 

So now it's time, I have decided to take them this time, which gave me the kick up the arse to finally finish them. 

I also made a little purchase to add to the list, in the way of a beautiful Blitzkrieg minitures M3 Grant, more on this in a different post soon. 

So the list I am running with, bearing in mind this is a 1250pt tournament with LMG's only costing 5pts each. In all honesty I struggled to spend all the points. 

That may sound stupid to some people, but I new what I wanted to take, and that took me up to 13 order dice alone. And I really didn't want that many as it was. I much prefure my games at lower order dice level. So I found my self bumbling my way around boltaction.easyarmy.com, to find a way of injecting more points into my troops without young my order dice. 

I endeded up putting my officers to First Lt. And making my truck vet, both not bad things really. Having 10 moral on an out flanking unit is extremely handy. I will add the list at the end of this page. 

Just to finish off some pictures of the army ready to go (I say ready to go, it is 6:52pm on the eve of the tournament and it's still not really finished).

Apologies for the poor quality. 

My new favourate model in the Man Cave. Blitzkrieg minitures are some of the most amazing kits going! 

My Finished squad of Gurkhas. 

And finally got these finished up quickly. 

These are the objective markers we had made by the fantastic Mad Bob, of Mad Bob Minitures, for last years Bolt Action Welsh Open. 

Everyone who attended the tournament walked away with one of these, plus a price of their choice. 

So this is the list: 

Officer
First Lieutenant  (page: 20)	Regular	85
Qty    Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    First Lieutenant      with Pistol 6" 1 n/a Assault      with Submachine gun 12" 2 n/a Assault      with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 1    Infantry (equipped as modeled) - -

Infantry Squads
Regular Infantry Section (Mid/Late War)  (page: 22)	Regular	105
Qty    Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    NCO with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 8    Infantry with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 1    Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader) 30" 3 n/a Team (2 men)
Regular Infantry Section (Mid/Late War)  (page: 22)	Regular	105
Qty    Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    NCO with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 8    Infantry with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 1    Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader) 30" 3 n/a Team (2 men)

Headquarters
Free Forward Observer (Artillery)  (page: 20)	Regular	10
Qty    Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    Artillery Forward Observer      with Rifle 24" 1 n/a      with Pistol 6" 1 n/a Assault      with Submachine gun 12" 2 n/a Assault 1    Infantry (equipped as modeled) - -

Special Rules
National Characteristic  (page: 18)	Regular	0
Rapid Fire       Rapid Fire

Artillery
Light Artillery  (page: 30)	Regular	55
Qty    Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    Light howitzer (0/24")-48" 1 HE Team (3 men), Gun shield, Fixed, Howitzer, HE (D6), 25-pdr AT shell   (firing as light anti-tank gun) 48" 1 +4 HE (D2)

Armoured Cars
Daimler Armoured Car  (page: 53)	Regular	115
Qty    Vehicle Type Transport  Damage Value         Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    Daimler Armoured Car Wheeled - 7+ Recce        Turret-mounted light anti-tank gun 48" 1 +4 HE (D2)        Co-axial MMG 36" 4 n/a

Transports
3-ton Truck  (page: 58)	Veteran	47
Qty    Vehicle Type Transport  Damage Value         Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    3-ton Truck Wheeled up to 12 6+     Tow: Light howitzer, light or medium anti-tank gun, light or heavy anti-aircraft gun

Tanks and SP Guns
M3 Stuart I  (page: 46)	Regular	125
Qty    Vehicle Type Transport  Damage Value         Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    M3 Stuart I Tracked - 8+ Vulnerable        Turret-mounted light anti-tank gun 48" 1 +4 HE (D2)        Co-axial MMG 36" 4 n/a        Forward facing hull-mounted MMG 36" 4 n/a Front arc        Forward facing hull-mounted MMG 36" 4 n/a Front arc

Platoon #2

Officer
First Lieutenant  (page: 20)	Regular	85
Qty    Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    First Lieutenant      with Pistol 6" 1 n/a Assault      with Submachine gun 12" 2 n/a Assault      with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 1    Infantry (equipped as modeled) - -

Infantry Squads
Gurkha Section  (page: 25)	Veteran	117
Qty    Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    NCO with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 6    Infantry with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 1    Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader) 30" 3 n/a Team (2 men)   Tough Fighters       Tough Fighters   Scary Blighters!       Scary Blighters!
Veteran Infantry Section (Early/Mid War)  (page: 23)	Veteran	135
Qty    Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    NCO with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 8    Infantry with Rifle 24" 1 n/a 1    Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader) 30" 3 n/a Team (2 men)

Artillery
Light Artillery  (page: 30)	Regular	55
Qty    Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    Light howitzer (0/24")-48" 1 HE Team (3 men), Gun shield, Fixed, Howitzer, HE (D6), 25-pdr AT shell   (firing as light anti-tank gun) 48" 1 +4 HE (D2)

Tanks and SP Guns
M3 Grant I  (page: 47)	Regular	210
Qty    Vehicle Type Transport  Damage Value         Weapons Range Shots Penetration Special Rules 1    M3 Grant I Tracked - 9+ Easily catches fire, Vulnerable        Hull-mounted medium anti-tank gun 60" 1 +5 (75mm) HE (D6), Front arc, Right arc        Turret-mounted light anti-tank gun 48" 1 +4 HE (D2)        Co-axial MMG 36" 4 n/a

Platoon Points:

1249

As always, thank you for looking.