New Updates of the Week - Warmachine, Dystopian Wars and Napoleonics!

Hello again folks, 
Well, I've been doing bits and bobs in terms of modelling and painting this weekend past.
My Exemplar Cinerators I bought for £7 instead of £26 (Cheers Ebay!), arrived and I've managed to build 4 and start painting 1. Despite believing I was missing a head for the one, I found it and so all models can be finished. Here's a work in progress picture:

The Unit so far

Close-up

The one painted one work in progress so far

In the realms of Dystopian Wars I've glued some more of the tanks to the bases and started painting the Landship, and it's coming along well:

The Landship so far, with the St.Paul's Cathedral styled top HQ section on (leaving these interchangable for turrets and mortars etc).

A  better view of the Landship. I do like the details on these rather small models.

More tanks ready for painting.

And after a long break, I've started doing a bit more to my Napoleonics, both 28 and 54mm tall models, I've removed the crew from the base of the 9 Pounder cannon to make the job of painting easier, and so I've started detailing a crewman, having done the basics on all of them, and I've started finally painting the actual cannon; pictures below:

A crewman so far, now just to recolour the hair, and add the yellow detail to loops and then paint the bandolier.

The cannon, I'm thinking of doing a more basic silvery metal rather than brass now I see how it looks.

In 54mm, I've been painting my rifleman, that I converted from a Victrix Penisular War infantryman. Its an interesting model, as the photos don't show the true extent, but the uniform is a dark green (Ork-hide Shade from Games Workshop), and the trim is black. I did some more work to the rifle, now just the base and a few details and it'll be done.

And that's this week's major updates done folks, hopefully some more finished stuff will be in next week's updates, certainly some progress will be done.
Until next time.....

The plan for the year ahead - 2 months on.

On the 3rd September I posed my ideas and plans for the year ahead in terms of my Wargaming hobby, and now, nearly 2 months on (give or take a week) am writing to explain how it's going.

Well,
I've started the Vietnam Wargaming, with the Force on Force expansion book for the period from Ambush Alley in my hands, and it's a good book, even compared to the Afghanistan expansion book. I have two models for it, one of which is coming along (a 1/48 Huey Hog helicopter). So that's one goal that's going on.

As for painting my Secrets of the Third Reich Brits, nothings changed at the moment, and the same again for Dystopian Wars. Well, actually, thinking on it, I have a land force for my Kingdom of Brittania force, and have started painting it, with more painting planned for this weekend. However, in terms of my sea force, nothing's changed dramatically, except I've done a bit to the Olympus Class Troop Carrier, it's been undercoated, and I've started painting the thousands of tiny windows.
Bolt Action has had a few more models built for it, but overall no real progress.

Warmachine is another new game that's taking up alot of my time in terms of painting and buying of models, since as mentioned in previous posts, I'm participating in a league where games escalate on a monthly basis, so new models, which in turn need painting.

Dystopian Legions is out next month, and so I'm waiting on that project.

The second Black Powder era has sort of blended into my plans for Dystopian Legions, with a Sudan era paint scheme being formulated in my mind. (Wait and see being the main theme here folks).

Firestorm Armada is progressing, with the main ship for my fleet being painted and finished, and a Frigate also nearing completion, I have a few ships for another fleet also being prepared (the biggest of which has been started as stated in another post). So progress is happening in this area folks.

So, my opinions, progress is slow, but I am starting to get back into getting things done and painted. I'll update again around Christmas in terms of seeing how well my plans are coming along since the 3rd September.

Expect my standard weekend updates as usual.

Until next time, readers.....

Various Updates - Warmachine, Dystopian Wars

Hello again folks,

Over the last few days, I've managed a few things;
At Dice and Decks on Friday I managed to lose two Warmachine League Games, luckily this still gets me a few points, but not as many as my opponents, who were already ahead, but oh well. The one game I had no intention of winning, but I needed to have played everyone in the league, and it helps. The other game was the first of the night, and was lost due to two things: my mis-measuring of ranges due to terrain (a big pool of water), specifically charges and secondly, a lack of knowledge about the Killbox scenario, which meant my Warcaster loses me the game if he gets within a 10 inch range of a board edge.
Oh well, lessons learnt. On a different note, I have managed to make some more painting progress; I have completely painted Kreoss, my WarmachineWarcaster, and started to paint a Warjack as well. And as part of Dystopian Wars, I've finished a medium tank (the actual name of the type is lost on me), and I'm very happy with the way it's come out. Pictures are already here for this one:

Finished Kreoss, with Line of Sight markings at last.

Side-view

And from the back

The Repenter Warjack, mid-paint, although my grey undercoat for the white armour makes it look like not alot has happened to it

One Kingdom of Brittania Medium Tank, before the base was done

Alternative View

And with the base done

I'm very happy with it, only another 5 of these, 3 Artillery units and a Landship to go for my Dystopian Wars land force....

And that's the update done and dusted. I'm going to have to crack on with painting, I've slowed down way too much over the last few months and keep buying new models to add to the "to do" list.

Warmachine - League Games and the purchasing and painting updates

Hello once again folks,
Since my last update my Warmachine games have increased from 3, 1 of which was a demo, to 5...(I know that's not really that exciting, but there we go). 
I played a game on the Friday just gone as part of my participation in Dice and Decks Warmachine Journeyman League, Season 2. My opponent was also a new-ish player as well, but was more experienced than me, and stands much higher up the league's points table than I do. He was using Retribution, which have a pesky extra defense in the form of shield boxes, and a very pesky mechanic, and began to start picking apart my force, taking apart my heavy Crusader warjack, and then moving on to start on the light warjacks.

 However, despite my Warcaster having only 5 health boxes left, I advanced Kreoss into a combat containing my Revenger warjack, against one of his heavy warjacks and his warcaster. 

Kreoss and the Revenger take on there opposing numbers from the Retribution force

I targeted Kreoss' attack onto his warcaster and rolled this:

Oh yeah!

My opponent showed little in the way of facial expression until this moment, when the game suddenly ended, with me winning! Despite all the odds.
I had borrowed a Deliverer Artillery piece for the game, and it comes a friend's collection, who unfortunately has a Protectorate Menoth force, painted in bright pink (as part of a Cancer charity event in 2007, as I found out during another Warmachine game on Saturday night - I didn't ask why after 5 years, he hadn't re-painted them), as shown in the picture below:

Neal's pink Menoth artillery unit

I borrowed the same weapon to play against my friend Neal Barton's Cryx force on Saturday night, and I was yet again, not expecting the end result. His Cryx force contained some really evil units, and they started knocking down the warjack's armour, and polished off the heavy, again. The Crusader must be cursed or something....
The Revenger and Repenter were both sorrounded, when Neal's Warcaster came into range, and started taking damage, as this was the last chance I had of winning the match. The match was won by me, having used everything I had to do damage to that Warcaster, it still had 2 damage boxes left, but it was on fire. Upon the starting of the next turn, Neal rolled a 4, and it died, winning me the second game of the weekend.

In celebration of my victory on Friday, I decided to add some more paint to Kreoss, and so now, he looks like this:

And so, I have decided to try and choose my next unit to add to the army, in the form of Exemplar Cinerators (after a bit of debate over whether to get Exemplar Bastions or Cinerators). As over the course of the league, games go from starter box, to 15pts for October (our current game size), then 25pts for November and 35pts for December.

New Stuff - Firestorm Armada and Warmachine

Right then, for starters, as mentioned in a previous post; I have a starter set for The Directorate from Spartan Games' Firestorm Armada space combat game. I have, at long last, after painting the thing bit by bit over the last few months, finished the battleship from the starter fleet, and I have pictures to prove it, for once, they are not edited it a week or two after the post either!

Side-view

Top-view

The obvious Star Trek style design was too much to be avoided and was painted to represent such a Star Trek theme. I'm quite chuffed with the paint job on this thing, just a few cruisers and frigates to do before the fleet is ready is ready for action. *Avoiding any Star Trek puns as he writes*
A recent visit from Square Orange Games has resulted in some more ships being purchased by me. These were from the Relthoza fleet range, a R+D cruiser and a Scarab Class Heavy Cruiser, I bought these to compliment the Star Trek theme - as they, too me anyway, look like Star Trek: The Next Generation era Romulans, and will look more so after a paint job in a variety of greens....

The R+D cruiser; looks a bit like a Bird of Prey too me....

Scarab Class Heavy Cruiser. side-view

Top-view of the above, looks a bit like a Warbird

So far, the R+D cruiser was meant to sit on the stand so the thinner sides were actually the top and bottom of the ship, as shown in the picture below:

This just looks odd too me

So, I decided to try and redo the layout of the ship, so that instead of looking like it does above, it will sit in a more traditional style, like this:

The red dot shows which side of the ship I was going to re-drill the hole for the base on

So using a drill I have managed to drill a new hole in the ship for the stand to sit in and hold the ship the way up I imagined it being. Shown below is how far I have gotten this weekend with it:

The re-design has gone well in my eyes

New connection for the stand to sit in

Besides this I have also managed to undercoat the Scarab Class Heavy Cruiser and started to slowly add the first coat of dark green to the ship:

Undercoated

You can just manage to spot the areas where the green paint has started to be applied

Besides working on the Firestorm Armada, I have also, after nearly three years of nagging, started collecting a force for Warmachine, from Privateer Press. I have chosen the Protectorate of Menoth as my faction, and have the starter battlebox for them. Using Dice and Decks Gaming Club's Warmachine Journeyman League as the catalyst to start work on these, I have converted the flamethrower on the Redeemer (not sure if this is the correct Warjack's name), as I didn't like the one it came with. I have also assembled all of the models, and started painting my Warcaster; Kreoss. I've tried 3 games for Warmachine so far, one demo and 2 actual games, I won the demo and my first game, and lost the second one, due to a variety of factors, including a lack of rules knowledge. Pictures of progress so far are included below:

New stuff, new game...

New flamethrower

A mishap, in the form of a broken mace, which needed pinning back into place

All better again...

The other light Warjack (yet to learn the names for each one)

Heavy Warjack, I've pinned all the arms into place on all the Warjacks, as the joins didn't seem very strong

Kreoss at about 2.30 this afternoon, I'm undercoating the armour grey before painting it white to get a better coat (hopefully!)

Warcaster Kreoss with all of his armour base-coated ready for it's proper white colour to be added next weekend when I'm home again

So, I need the rulebook and faction book for Warmachine and Proctectorate of Menoth, which I borrowed for the week from a friend. Additionally, I need the rulebook for Firestorm Armada, ready for some games.
So concludes one of my largest blog posts so far. Till next time, Readers!