Road to Corrivalry pt.3

Phew.

I remember decals from my model aircraft days, but the sheer number of them required for this is a little crazy, especially as I'm against the clock. But still, here they are, ready for tomorrow:

I ended up electing not to decal the full platoons, but instead only focus on the teams actually in the list. I normally used Mico-sol for fixing them, however ended up with the Vallejo 'decal fix' and 'decal medium'. I initially assumed that the medium would be used first, and then the 'fix' to set them in, however after a quick google (What did we do before teh interwebs?) it turned out to be the other way around: http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/en_US/applying-decals/blog/1/35 

The Vallejo stuff worked quite nicely, with the only issue being the bonnet star on the RAF controllers white scout car - I had to cut some gaps on the decal to get it to lay flat, which I'll touch up with a spot of white paint tonight.

The decals were a mixture of the BF British late war pack, and some extra stars from Doms Decals, which I thought would be enough - Although I was wrong!

"Are you in command today or am I, Over?" The ringed turret top star indicates 1 IC.

Once I had the numbers and guard icons applied, I then wanted to apply the squadron markings, which for the Irish Guards, being the 'junior' regiment, would be the blue shapes. Then I found that the BF decal pack only came with the icons for the B and C squadron, but not the A. Not a big problem, but after 4 hours of messing with decals, it was enough to make me rage quit. If I find time tonight, I'll apply the weight circles, as well as the squad markings - Although I may wait for the complete set from Doms Decals first.

I'm quite chuffed with the way the Typhoon turned out. Its the plastic Revell kit, with the blades chopped off and the canopy painted over to make it look more like the battlefront one. I picked this up for a £1 from HobbyCrackCraft before Xmas.

The wrecked BF typhoon objective is simply phenomenal for a once piece casting. The level of detail is immense, I really love this, especially as it is true 1:100 scale.

The Guards and Motor company platoons took a while to paint, but I quite like these sculpts. I wish I had some more Natur/silfor tufts for them, might ret-con them when I get the chance.

So there you have it, some 2000pts of Irish Guards 99% finished. Once I've gone back and touched up the odd bit, and maybe dirtied them up, I'll take better photos of the units. 

As it stands, I'm quite proud of them as a table top unit. Well, that was until I saw Winner Daves post over Breakthrough assault: http://www.breakthroughassault.co.uk/2014/02/winner-daves-charge-to-corrivalry.html

Not only do his soviets look better, the list scares the crap out of me and he has a better blog post name. Whilst I'm on the road to Corrivalry, he's already there having bloody charged! 

Good inspiration to do better however, so hats off to him.

Looking forward to Corrivalry tomorrow!

Fez

Road to Corrivalry pt.2

Phew. Got all the painting done:

The PVA is still wet in this picture, so the grass will blend in more once its dried. Tomorrow night is decal night!

With only two weeks to sort out my list for Breakthrough assault, I'm starting to think that an infantry list is a step too far, at least a German one with camo. So the Train list might have to wait. Instead, I'm thinking of taking a Random Kampfgroup rolled up using the table from the Flames of War site:

I really like what I rolled, it has enough to be interesting, as well as having Recon! The only think I would have like was Rudel, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, especially when the Reds are knocking on the door.

We'll see what happens next week.

More pictures when I've got the Decals done....

Fez

Road to Corrivalry pt.1

Sorry for the lack of the updates recently, its been a busy time in the land of the Fez!

Having already booked for the Breakthrough Assault tournament, I somehow got roped into attending Corrivalry too. Given the number of points I am behind on the pledge, I decided that I'll use a different army for each tournament.

Corrivalry (www.corrivalry.co.uk) is on the 8-9 Feb in Daventry, UK. Its a 1650pt tournament, with the option of having two lists with up to 450pts changed between them.

I've been looking forward to running the Irish Guard since Open Fire came out, and it makes a nice change from Axis.

Joe Vandeleur gives re-rolls for the Shermans at short range, so this list is all about taking the fight to enemy. Having the RAF Forward Air Controller gives a wave off range of 12" for the typhoons, as well as re-rolling range in attempts, so I can get some danger close missions in. This first list has more infantry/anti infantry recce. The Bofors have been training at shooting down Rudel.....

If the opponent has a tank list, I'll swap it out for list B:

I lose the Stuarts and the Motor company, but gain universal carriers and those lovely AT15 M10's.

Talking of M10's, they were the first models I tested the new Vallejo Wash's on. They flowed lovely, and even though it looked like it had pooled massively, dried without tide marks. The green really gives a warmth to the PSC British green spray:

Not tried the yellow yet. Review to follow!

Wash on left, bare PSC Brit green spray on right

With flash, if that kind of thing matters...

Back to the paining, more complete pics to follow, once I've gotten the Dom's decals on.

And all the German armour in the world.....

The work pile

The 'Coming soon' pile

Thanks for reading!

2014 begins

Hello, and a happy new year to all!

Its been a rather busy festive season here at the Fez-cave, with many a glorious box unwrapped to find yet more awesome hobby goodness.

So...Many....Toys

A big thank you to all my family and friends who have spoilt me rotten this Xmas. With my birthday a few weeks away, I was pleased when it was suggested that gifts don't count towards the Pledge. Then I realised that painting them wouldn't count either, and the point of the pledge is to reduce what I have, not game the numbers. so here is what it looks like now:

The Hobby Pledge ledger
Conversion rates
28mm fig	1			Total Bought:		208
28mm Vehicle	10			Total Painted:		49
15mm Infantry	2.5			Total:		-159
15mm Vehicle	2
15mm Gunteam	3
PAINTED							BOUGHT
Name	Type	Scale	Amount	Plege worth	Uber pledge		Name	Type	Scale	Amount	Pledge worth
FoW EW FJ	Infantry	15mm	22	55	27.5		FoW easy company	Infantry	15mm	10	25
FoW EW FJ	Gunteam	15mm	8	24	12		FoW Hellcats	Vehicle	15mm	4	8
FoW EW Objective	Gunteam	15mm	3	9	4.5		BA Finns	Infantry	28mm	30	30
FoW bikes/truck	Vehicle	15mm	5	10	5		FoW Grilles	Vehicle	15mm	2	4
					0		FoW 8-Rad	Vehicle	15mm	3	9
					0		FoW 88's	Gunteam	15mm	2	6
					0		FoW Graubner	Vehicle	15mm	2	4
					0		Matildas	Vehicle	15mm	18	36
					0		Churchills	Vehicle	15mm	13	26
					0		Train	Vehicle	15mm	6	12
					0		Zvezda kits	Vehicle	15mm	5	10
					0		LCVP section	Vehicle	15mm	3	6
					0		Winter Fins	Infantry	28mm	32	32

-159

Ouch.

I've not been doing nothing towards this however (the Churchills are all built, sprayed and washed for example), although I have not 'Finished' any particular unit in total, so the numbers are quite bleak.

Having enjoyed the incentive that Warfare tournament gave me to complete an army, I've signed up to not one, but two in February, Corrivalry and Breakthrough Assault. As a sucker for punishment, I'll be using two different armies for these!

This segways nicely into my next topic - 2014 Army Plans

I'll be finishing off my Market Garden Brits and German lists, including the crazy 88's company. With desperate measures likely to feature heavily as well, I'll balance the late war out with Early war German Infantry, Mid Tank, and of course, Brit desert Matilda lists.

For Bolt Action, its Normandy Germans, east Front Estionian SS and Fallschirmjagers, and of course, Winter War Finnish.

Couple that with Dystopian Wars (and Legions!) Prussians, Dindrenzi Planetfall, Infinity Ariadna and 40K Guard/Marines/Nids/Eldar, its going to be a hell of a busy hobby year!

What does this mean for the Blog? Lots of content - I'm hoping to keep a track of all the progress I make, as well as take a closer look at the suppliers and clubs in the Guildford/Surrey area. I'm looking into methods of improving battle reports, as well as better pictures and event coverage.

I hope you'll tag along for the ride!

Fez

A Spot of Dystopian Wars

During our games night at the club, we decided to dust off our Dystopian Wars, and throw some exploding dice in anger!

Rather than settle for another 'boring' slug-fest of sinking, we put the new (to us) troopship/titanic model to good use, and have it carrying a scientist who is defecting to the Antarticans. As such, the Antarticans/Australians had to keep him safe, and the Prussians had to board and seize the ship.

New models, so please excuse the 'Ghost fleet' bare resin!

The Australians deployed in convoy around the Troopship, with the Prussians along the long board edge, with the Antarticans rushing to the rescue from the short edge that the Troopship needed to escape across.

The game was full of the usual (for us) Spartan silliness, with mass boardings, accidental ramming (Both Dave and I managed to park in front of the troopship, sinking one of my frigates!).

Das Boot!

Other than looking forward to a V2 rulebook, without the oft documented errors (its a jumble, hard to use tome that its very easy to get lost in!), we all enjoyed the variety provided by the new models - the Speershelere-er-er-rour (that's how we pronounced it anyhow) bombarding crash diving sub was a lot of fun - Until it met its demise at the hands of tiny bombers!

Hiding behind the objective - pitiful!

The end result? After many explosions and dead marines floating on the water, the troop ship was successfully claimed for the Prussian Navy (along with a few other Antartican ships too!). The game cards were used for the first time too, and really gave a new twist to the action, prompting boarding actions that would otherwise have been ill advised, or getting an extra round of shooting in before leaping aboard.

We're all excited again by DW, and will be getting more paint on the models soon!

Fez

Return to Warhammer 40k - 6th Edition

Apocafez re-kindled my joy in Warhammer 40k, reminding me of the fun I had as a staffie in the Guildford store. Since the new ruleset came out, I've not made the effort to learn it - I knew 5th Ed like the back of my hand, and all the changes seemed like too much effort at the time, so I moved on to pastures new (Flames of War, Dystopian Wars, Infinity).
Still, having far too many armies (50k+ of Imperial Guard, Marines, Eldar, Orks, Tyranids) that I've invested time and alot of money in, I thought it was time to dip my toe back in the 40k pool.

So it was last Monday night that 1000pts of 'Da Bloody Fistz' squared off against the finest the pointy eared Eldar could bring, ably commanded by Alex 'Axle Foley' Foyster. His beautifully painted army contrasted with my foundationpaintandbadabblackwash speed painted orks. You can see more of Alex's Eldar at the HobbyBrush, here.

We rolled corner to corner deployment, with multiple objectives (I finally got to use the objective token set I bought when the rulebook was released).

Shock-attak!! Who doesn't want to teleport snotlings inside people??

Alex got the first turn, but luckily his shooting was rubbish, with his shots either bouncing off cover, or failing to pen the AV10 vehicles.

Then the objective I was sitting on with grotz and my Big Mek with shock attack gun exploded. It was a booby-trapped objective. This caused me to fail the Ld test, and off ran my Grotz and big mek. No shock attack gun for me turn one. Grrr.

Stomp Stomp Stomp

The rest of the game played out with massive swings of luck both ways - The shock attack gun finally hitting some juicy squads, causing them to flee off the table, and the Eldar shooting killing ork unit after ork unit.

Deff from da skies!

The rules themselves seem a tad smoother than 5th ed, although the sheer number of 'universal rules' got a bit overwhelming, and I'm sure we forgot some of them. It certainly felt a lot more 'cinematic', if more random - I could have lost my warlord turn one if the objective was closer to my board edge.

Would have rammed him too - if I had paid for the red paint.....

It was a lot of fun, although the old style Apocalypse games (with 175K+ a side) feel like they are no longer viable, as there is just too many rules.

Shock-attack-and-flee..... again!

The game swung either way turn after turn, with the final run move of my Ork boyz failing to move them into capturing range of the primary objective - this meant that neither of us had captured any objectives, so it was on to the secondary objectives - at this point both our warlords were dead, Alex had scored first blood with the war buggy, but I had a scoring unit in his half of the board, meaning it was still a tie!

The Burna Boyz mess up the green onez dat smell funny

Lotz choppin - a propper scrap!

We both had a blast, but with the constant release of new lists/codex/units in multiple formats, competitive tournaments will be a nightmare. Is this a bad thing?

Game ends!

I think sometimes people expect too much of game systems. Games Workshop has taken 40K firmly into the 'fun' game category, where you cannot get too wound up if a few dice rolls swing the battle against you. I'm looking forward to dusting off more armies, and playing different scenarios. How have you found 6th Edition 40k? Comments always welcome!

Fez

Road to Breakthrough (Assault 2) pt1

Well, once I heard those guys over at Breakthrough Assault were hosting their own tournament in February, and it would be down south, I had to join in the fun. But what to take!?

1750pts late-war. So many choices!

• U.S Airborne Easy Company (using those plastic openfire guys)
• Estonian S.S 
• Schwere Panzers (king-tiger-riffic)
• Kampfe groupe Brinkman/Swoboda/Graebner/Hummel
• Pieper SS
• East Front Grenadiers
• Panzer Lehr
• Fallschirmjager
• Irish Guard Shermans 
• Brit Churchills

Hhhmmm. 

Then my amazing girlfriend told me that she was getting me the BP44 Armoured Train for Crimbo - problem solved! 

Add the train with the plastic grenadiers from open fire, a looted T34-85, a cannon welding Stuka, some Flak36's, King-tiger and Tank Escort Stug's - and you have a list with a combination of all my favourite things. Maybe not the usual min-max list of doom, but a fun painting challenge to get the train done in two months.

Pew Pew Thomas!

I'll be blogging the journey as I did with my FJ's for Warfare Reading, hope you enjoy!

Fez