Been a moment

I have been very busy, and just finished restoring photos deleted from old posts and editing when they could not be found. I also added labels as a means to group the similar posts. I have been very busy with training, work, and keeping up with my kids...not to mention the ever growing "honey-do" list.

I have just(okay a few days/weeks) finished my first Analogue Hobby Winter Painting Challenge. I now have a veritable surplus of hobby goodness to share. Several projects seen huge progress through the Challenge. I had to kick the recap off with my favorite game. Battle Fleet Gothic!

These are the Chaos ships that my wife gave me. They finally have proper paint applied and shall soon aid the ork ships in smashing the Imperial Fleet.

I divided them up into two sections of three cruisers with an escort squadron apiece. One is dedicated to Papa Nurgle while the other is more esoteric in devotions. All the ships share grey to unify them and pay homage to my traitor guard units.

These are the nimble escort for the undivided chaos arm. The blue denotes their devotion to the Lord of Change.

They will primary shield this cruiser which is only armed with a couple of lance batteries. It does have some launch bays for chaos fighter/bomber craft.

Slannesh is represented by this cruiser that has banks of turrets.

Khorne has a more powerful version of than the Lord of Pleasure's craft.

The addition of the dorsal lances increase the fire power.

Of course the Blood God's followers were a bit exuberant in applying the red paint!

They did begrudgingly allow the belly of the cruiser to have grey plates.

I have a solid representation of Death Guard Marines, so Nurgle is well represented with three cruisers.

The Plague Lord has a heavy cruiser(2 dorsal lance batteries) and four launch bays for fighter craft.

This is the flagship for this wing...I'm sure it is well stocked with virus bombs! ;)

Dingy green and mottled brown over the grey plates and another fighting cruiser for nurgle.

The Nurgle wing can cruise on it's own...

I do envision the Khorne Cruiser as the Chaos Flag ship...Pride of Place. The blood thirsty admiral abord that vessel should be able to kind of keep them all in line. Then again he may also give the Nurgle ships a long leash, like their success or failure was planned. ;)

I still have to complete the Imperial ships(Task Force Black). I've been working lately in NMM.

I like the effect and the less stress on my brushes! Unfortunately, my other Imperial ships used metallic paints. At least some of my brushes are wrecked enough that I may briefly go back to my metallic paints to complete them. I'll have to decide soon as I cannot get more ships till these are completed.

The longer I wait, the more expensive they get on Ebay. There are some other ships that I can proxy, but it would be nice to get some GW ork and chaos ships including the battleship classes.

That will be all for this week, I'll try to be back BEFORE 2016! ;)

No promises as Spring has sprung, training is ramping up, and the woods are calling. Plus kids sports, honey-do's, gardening, 3-5k runs, bikes.......;)

Imperial Guard 40k

Good morning! I think I am adjusting well to being a day-walker. I have completed the East Essex Regiment and the first batch of zombies... well completed save basing! I have to paint the bits added to the infantry bases and flock them. I should get that done in a few weeks or next week if lucky. Military Ball this weekend, Christmas decorating only 2% done, holiday shopping, plus my mandatory exercise regime does take a lot of slices from "free" time. My oldest daughter and youngest daughter both have birthdays this month and all four kids still have holiday programs in music and celebration as well as the errant sporting venue! It is a shame I am not wealthy, an assistant would be a huge help to organize my daily schedule. It's supposed to be my wife, but she has that peculiar glazed look she only gets during the holidays. It's that 50 yard stare promising dismemberment/ death if I forget to be somewhere that I should already know about! Thus I shall have to be wary this Yuletide. Now onward with hobby goodness!

The following is the newest addition to my Cadian 7th Cavalry. They are my oldest army with minis going all the way back to the mid 80's; they are also the litmus test that gives solid evidence that even a completed host is never truly done. I do dart about like a madman, flitting from project to project( Germans and Tau are 1/2 painted and dusty from before I deployed...2yrs in wait!) I took the Sash and Saber spare ACW heads and test fitted them to check feasibility in adding some more rough riders to my army. Not only did they fit really well, but I also discovered that I have scores of plastic guard bits. Scores, as in, enough to build another 2-3 platoons. I scrounged up some parts for a new veteran squad and then I snatched a few more bits to make a Sgt Major model. With 5 platoons all with chimeras and the squadrons of tanks and batteries of artillery, it was past time for a Sgt Major to terrorize junior officers and enlisted alike.

my new vet squad

My painting style has changed a lot, but I still use the same spot colors.

Each platoon has a colored shoulder pad to indicate platoon allocation.

my veteran squads are just plain olive drab as they are beyond platoon structure.

I am really liking the effect of the sash and saber heads.

the sgt major, a RTO, and plasma gunner

I gave the Sgt the Stetson as I only had 10 spare heads and one was obviously not a kepi.

a view of the rest of the squad from the rear, each color is the three tone method over a black primer coat. each area also received it's own color wash for blending...didn't use or know of washes in the 80's!

I obviously still need work in photographing my work, but although all is flash wiped, you can see the bling and command presence of the Sgt Major!

Not to be left out, My renegade forces ! My renegade forces use gray as a primary color then purple, blue, red, and green in accordance to power alliance. These fellows are Slanneshi, so they use purple for a second color.

I used Catchan, chaos marine, chaos warrior, chaos knight, beastman, kroot, and a whole lot of "?" to build this squad.

I used a smattering of skins and furs to instill a marading, pillaging look to them. They are not showing up to help anyone but themselves!

I gave them one bull headed troop, I tried to keep the whole skull and chaos star bit minimal

The brass was hit with a turquoise then tin bitz followed by a burnished brass drybrush

I built them way back at the start of this century and blocked in the color. They were used in the Armageddon/Cadian gate campaign. I can't remember which one was going then! It wasn't until this summer that I finished with midtones and highlights followed by washes and basing.

There is a real rebel vs. federal feel to them which is intended. The federals far outnumber them too as the Cadian7th is my favorite army to use in 40k. I like having a ton of average men armed with flashlights( lasguns are probably the worst weapon to use in 40k but 40 shooting at one squad can be brutally effective!). The renegades are a great foil for them as I do not use all the chaos worshipping extras that are allowed. I do have deathguard nurgle marines to bolster them and they were painted to match my bloodaxe orks for human mercs. The renegades were really just a theme force to confront the Cadian7th and let me enjoy troop movement and all the fun of traditional combined arms without demonic and psyker powers disruptions.

well, that is all for this week. I'll have more next time. in the meanwhile, and if this works, below should be a YouTube video or link of the bohemian rhapsody done for star wars. If it works, this old dog has a new trick! I just wish I knew how to save the videos to my external drive. Perhaps I'll ask the younger soldiers this weekend....

 

 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/oi7KPDi_yQI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

blog pimpage and more space ships

wargames and railroads

Kris @ wargames and Railroads is having a giveaway to celebrate his birthday and to celebrate 100 followers. Lot's of neat prizes and worth checking out. I am hoping to get the memoirs of a WW1 Marine and just had to use my reserve post to pimp him out and increase my chances!

 

 

So, my modest Ork Fleet! I like the Orks, Orcs, Marauders, Reavers, whatever your choice of names. For me, no matter the conflict or background, GW orks simply live to fight. There is no fear of showing up for battle and having a blue on blue battle. Orks fight anyone including themselves.

The grand days of Rogue Trader are past, my favorite rules with Mad Boyz, Shokk Attack gunz, animosity, over-the top Bioniks... Orks are still fun though. In the flavor text they like weapons "wiv lotz uv dakka" and every ork ground vick favors "a 'ard racin suzpenzion" meaning no shock absorbers. The orks don't use brakes so much as more gas, every vehicle has a big button that when pressed makes the machine go faster, then faster again each time pressed. Not a historical force by any means, but honestly the background makes me like them more!

 

 

Since the Evil Sunz like to "Go Fasta" and have the infamous Kult of Speed, I gave them the Brute Ram ships. Minimal weapon systems, overcharged engines, and heavily armored crew compartments; these ships are made for ramming and running through enemy ships. I painted them mostly red as orks believe the red ones go fasta!

I couldn't find any of my Evil Sunz clan boys, so now pictures of them yet!

The Onslaught is a basic frigate for orks and an average all rounder.

The Oscar prow is a hinged jaw which is a loading/unloading ramp as each ship holds an ork warband with attendant vicks and dreads.

Death Skulls or Deff Skullz like the color blue and believe it to be a lucky color.

Death Skulls are one of the poorer clans and often loot the battlefield for anything of use. The other clans do not trust them as Death Skulls often "find" another clans gear as well! Notorious thieves!

 

Blood Axes are another clan and also not liked. They favor the uniformity of the human forces and mimic them.(an earlier post has my old Blood Axe Kommandos in a lurid purple camo)

These ships are Ravagers and feature torpedoes. Ork crews are not very disciplined and will often fail at reloading ordinance. These ships may only fire once in battle twice if I roll very good! Since Blood Axes try to be disciplined, they got the ravagers. Orks use looted torpedoes as they are more reliable than the ones they make. I figure the Deff Skulls painted them blue before trading them to the Blood Axes

A basic unit of blood axes painted a long time ago. My Cadian 7th Cav are in blue, so most of my Blood Axes have a confederate look.

Here is a Goff Nob with the Savage Gunships. Goffs like the black and red colors and have a Bull as their totem. If you look closely this ork has a bull ring nose piercing. He is from the shortlived GorkaMorka game which I still play on accasion. My army is predominately Goff , so lots of black and red with the occasional white and black checkerboard.

Savage ships do not have the range of the onslaughts, but they do have a lot of short range big guns.

The Goffs got them because they like to "get stuck in" and these ships do have a lot of Dakka!

 

So my tiny Ork fleet all set for battle.

I would do the chaos ships next, but my paint table is finally clear of work and filled up with my Napoleonics. I hope to get them done quickly and have them skirmishing in small towns. I don't have much by the way of Peninsular War Terrain, but I do have a lot of trees and Dave Graffam models which will work well enough for the time being.

Have a good week and don't forget to visit Kris and wish him a Happy Birthday!

The fleet has left the shipyards!

I have been tied up with work, soldiering, and family time. A last gasp of overtime and I enjoyed a very pleasant day being spoiled rotten by my family. The kids helped my wife make lasagna and a chocolate cake for my birthday Sunday. They also gave me new ink and cardstock for printing PDF terrain, a new t-shirt for running, the dvd" hobbit", and authorization to download new stuff to build from wargame vault! I also got to vicariously view the great time many had at salute...I can only hope that I may yet make the pilgrimage to the show. For now, I have to horde my vacation days to supplement the family income when I perform military drills. I take a pay cut every time I don the army uniform, and I have to make sure my kids are covered for food, shelter, clothing, and FUN!
My 10 year old daughter smoked me in a two mile run my birthday morning. She beat me by almost a whole minute with a time of 16:35. She has been benefitting from sleep and all sorts of nutritious food my civilian pay allows no doubt! After she gloated and I got a nap in, I was awoken to my great birthday feast of LASAGNA! then I was whisked away to watch GI Joe. My son really did enjoy the movie(soldiers and ninjas), my girls were bored but excited to be with dad, while my wife was ogling The Rock just a tad much! :)

Because several of my blogging friends and a fellow soldier from across the pond(Crpl Grosse) are from the United Kingdom, I thought all of you would get a kick out of this new running shirt in hi-vis green. I don't follow futbol, soccer..I'm more Football American style and hockey, or playing Lacrosse with my cousins in two feet of snow with hockey sticks, baseball bats, and actual warclubs using a basketball as our play ball. Why? because the "ting" sound it makes when struck by a stick or impacting a cousin's face! I do gather that MU is cut from the same cloth as NY Yankees, where you love them or hate them....perhaps I'll wear this shirt if I ever get a chance to make it to Salute! :)

Being a spry 45, it amazes me that it is a lightweight material designed to wisk heat and moisture from the body...and to think all these years I have been running in old sweatpants, cotton T-shirts and gulping water only after I got my breath back. I guess I have been doing it all wrong!

I did manage to finish my fleet for the second time.

Here is a better shot showing all the various classes of ships I own.

the large battleship with the red prow suffered another break courtesy of my kid's kitten who is too curious for his own good! Mr Fluffybottoms only lives because I do not want to emotionally scar my kids. The listing to the port side will just have to be chalked up to previous damage to port side engines and stabilizers.

It is a battleship with all sorts of prow weaponry and launch bays for scores of fighter craft.

Task Force Gold firestorm frigates

Task Force Crimson Firestorm frigates

a heavy cruiser from task force gold with fighter craft launchbays and a pair of dauntless light cruisers. The dauntless class trades armor for speed and hits like a standard cruiser

The heavy hitters of task force Gold

The gun line of Task Force Crimson

I'm glad I repainted the smaller ships prows to match the task force heavies. I think it really brings out the distinctive form of the ships.

Some of the keen eyed may have noticed these merchantmen lurking on my paint table. Before the incident, They shared the camouflage of the fleet. A friend of mine used to mix them up with my escorts and target the wrong ships when we played the convoy scenario. I figured I'd make it easy for him to spot the merchantmen this time. I gave them a light brush of black with a wash and repainted them in simple colors. They also are not blue, but I distressingly have noted that I did paint one gray!

 

That will be it for this week, The weather has not been kind so I haven't been able to prime my Napoleonics. I still have to build the French yet anyway. It'll be a bit before my skirmish forces for the Peninsular War are ready for the spotlight. I should have the 28mm Pinzgauer up by next week, It's only a month late from the game it WAS supposed to feature in.

And with that, I'm off to bed before I have to work tonight! 

Task Force Gold ready for shakedown cruise!

It's been a very short week again as I'm just a sleep time away from going to work. I wasn't able to get too far in hobby time this weekend either. Projects with my kids, running, and saying goodbye to my best friend a fuzzy companion. My St Bernard mix had to go to a better place as the tumor in her mouth removed all the teeth from her right side of her face and began to fester. It seems the bigger the dog the more of your heart they take, and I'm still missing my faithful companion. It's not the same running or hiking through the woods without her loping besides me. Still I'm thankful that I got to see her when my deployment ended, and we have made a lot more happier memories since I've been back home and before she got cancer.

So, Task Force Crimson is still broken, chipped, and generally roughed up. I still have to repair them; however, I did get Task Force yellow repainted(except for metallics and engine-glow). I also ran into a problem as not only am I using P3 blues since my GW blues are gone, but I also have changed my painting style.

A very rough photo, but the cruiser with the red prow was dry brushed with an off white where now I use an over brush of a color specific highlight such as a light blue, light gray, etc.

I also decided that the smaller escorts would look much better with prows that matched the larger ships.

Another comparison shot of the cobra destroyers. I now have 20 of these ships which will form 5 squadrons of four ships.

I used red for the weapon batteries and yellow, red, and green for the running lights. The red and yellow are really good spot colors for the fleet. Yet, I want another Imperial battleship and some more cruisers; therefore, at least two of the new cobra destroyers and all four plastic cruisers from the "new" game are going to form the smaller(for now) Task Force Black.

The Retribution class battleship is the flagship of Task force Gold and is flanked by it's subordinate cruisers. The two ships to either side are Gothic class cruisers. The large turrets painted red are lance batteries which cause lots of damage and are also why I like the cobras so much. A broadside from these two cruisers will knock out shields and perhaps cause significant damage, without shields a squadron of cobras can usually put the enemy craft out of the fight.

the name for these destroyers is very apt!

All the ships ready for battle, after a few more hours work.

Hopefully it will be of decent temperature next week. If so, I might be able to get the chaos, ork, and new imperial ships primed and ready for the brush. I gotta go and get the kids ready for school, so we will see how far I get next week!