A Few Good 'Mechs

 Because I can't help myself, I've added some reinforcements to my Battletech Kurita forces. Similarly to what I did with the last batch of Marik mechs, I changed up the colors, this time opting for a much more traditional Draconis Combine red + gray. Basing was mixed up a bit too, mainly just to play around with colors and pigments.

Some of these will be featured in a big game tomorrow. Looking forward to that for sure!

So that's a (from left to right) Mongoose, Penetrator, Hatchetman, Guillotine and Lancelot.

and a Crockett, Crab, Atlas, Enforcer and Flashman.

This represents the contents of the Hansen's Roughriders box and the Comstar Battle Level II box.

An Actual Game!

 After what seems like forever, I finally got to push toy soldiers around and throw dice on Saturday night. My nephew is in town so he joined Ziggy and I for a game of Lion Rampant. Jason's in his early 20s and enjoys boardgames. It took no convincing for him to join Ziggy and me. I set up the same scenario I played back in July with Mark and Mike - Scenario 8, Sausages with Mustard, Spain vs Venice. Jason and I shared command of the Spanish attackers while Ziggy's Venetians defended. Forces are 45 points each, there are a total of four commands, two per side. 

Our battlefield. Besides killing Italians, we were tasked with setting the three buildings aflame.

Early turn 1... Ziggy's mercenary Greatswords move out.

The first of many failures of mine. My light cavalry fail to evade Italian heavy cavalry. Los Jinetes are very quicky a memory. Yeah, failing an Evade is painful.

After a few turns, the battle lines form up in the center. Jason immediately gets to work trying to burn the buildings. We're also in the difficult position of pikes vs pikes and similar where it's really hard to get an advantage.

Thanks to a less than fortunate couter-charge, the Greatswords and Jason's heavy cavalry inadvertently meet in the woods and an ugly melee results in both units breaking. I'm not sure a failed counter-charge would have been worse. Is what it is.

Ah, a proper fight. Heavy cav vs. top-shelf halberdiers led by El Capitan con Corazon de Leon. Both units suffered mightily and ran away from each other.

After at least an hour of trying (and I did look at the metadata on the photographs to see how long it look), we finally get the flame to take on the library! 

Into the home stretch... My commander and his halberdiers searching for that lost shaker of salt... Italian cavalry doing the same. 

After more failure, finally the orphanage catches fire and burns on its own!

The game's conclusion... Jason's halberds ran off the greatswords who would never recover. The long-quiet Venetian crossbowmen shot up Jason's pikemen and ran them off. Ultimately, we failed our army morale check and retreated, but not before also forcing Ziggy's Italians to take a morale test as well! We'd managed to inflict some real damage late in the game. Not really sure how we made it a competitive battle because it felt like we just stood there and accepted a complete beatdown by the Italians the whole evening. I'll take it! We all had a good time and as always, looking forward to another game soon,. Be well!

And Some More Mechs!

 I've actually had a productive painting run lately. Got those time-consuming Goblins + Wolves done and now I've wrapped up six more Battletech Mechs. This was the Comstar Command Level II box set. I painted them up in a new FWL (Marik) Livery. The unit is the Eagle's Talons found here: https://unitcolorcompendium.com

And here we are:

Back Row: Highlander, Black Knight, King Crab

Center: Exterminator, Sentinel

Front : Mercury

I also changed up the basing a bit bringing a bit more color to the party. I'm rather pleased with how these turned out. Who knows, maybe some will see a tabletop soon now that I have some time for gaming? Be well! 

Wuffs

 The hell month at work is officially over and the massive project is essentially complete. Praise the Lord that's wrapped up! The rest of it just reacting to end-user complaints and requests. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

I'd been slowly working on some Goblin Wolf Riders for the last few weeks and finished them up a couple days ago. Got some pics today before they went into their storage container. Models are Oathmark 28mm plastics. Easy assembly, lots of good head and weapon options. Would recommend for sure.

I gave them a mix of spears and hand weapons in keeping with the goblin horde theme. A fun addition for sure! Who knows, I might actually to get to play a game now that my weekends look a little more open. 

Bytor and the Snow Dog

 I've been in a work rut and sick since the hurricane, this the lack of blogging and hobbying. I did finally wrap up the two mounted leaders that I picked up months ago for the Halflings and Goblins. Riding dog-like creatures, could they be anything other than Prince Bytor and Snow Dog? Both models are from Mantic with minor customizations... A head swap on the Halflings and an arm & weapon swap for the Goblin. 

Be well everyone!

Will These Bombers Get Through?

 We've been without power since about 1:00am Friday. It's now Sunday morning. Hurricane Helene has been a major problem for huge areas of the US southeast. I'm posting from my cell phone. I have the fridge and a some fans running off my generator. Might be a couple more days, there have been shockingly few lineman trucks in town. 

After cleaning up the yard and checking on things at work, I got the decals done on the He 111s for Check Your 6. They're game ready! Models are Warlord Blood Red Sky 1/200 scale. 

Photographed in the 111's natural home... The glass-top patio table! Markings are a mishmash meant to look OK, even though they're wildly wrong. Most folks won't know.  Now, to get back to normal and get a game scheduled. 

A Challenger Has Appeared...

 For the Battle of Britain, that is. Joining the Spitfires I finished painting up a few weeks ago, I have some RAF Hurricanes! These are also Warlord BRS models. I added magnets so they'd be compatible with my flying stands.

I hope you like. I think the squadron markings are actually a Spitfire unit, but one applies the decal one has. I think they're pretty nifty. I also picked up a triplet of He111s which are getting close to completion. I'm still working through the decals of those. Of course I'll post pics when they're ready. 

Tonight, we wait out on the fringes of HURRICANE Helene. Nice timing there, eh? Will do my best to keep the family safe. Be well!

AAR: Stardust Ground - Space Marines and Space Bugs

 Well, my trip to Southern Front was cancelled. Sick mom, sick father-in-law. Stuff happens, whatcha gonna do? Well, what I did was get in a game of Stardust Ground with Mark. He's played more SDG than anyone but me, so he's always a good opponent. Since I just finished up those new Space Marines, they were of course on the short list of forces to be on the table. The Bugs, Mark's favorite, were an obvious second since their abilities had been tweaked since their last outing and they had a couple new units to test out. 

The Marines and the Bug forces are searching the area for lost relics scattered from a recent dropship crash.

I set up a 4' x 4' battlefield. Forces were deployed in opposite corners with three objectives diagonally across the table. Only two of three objectives would count, but we wouldn't know which until the game ended.

My deployed forces, the bugs have begun their moves. 

And after our first moves. Man, those bugs are quick.

Blue Bugs (the basic chompers) smash into my Marine squad on the right in no time. My Rhino had managed to zot one of them with its Storm Bolter. This made the close combat quite manageable. 

I have more coming in the center though!

The fuzziness of victory on the right!

But on the right, the Fire Bugs crash into my Terminators. The Termies are tough but were outclassed by the big swarm. Stardust Ground skews close combat in favor of larger units and those bugs getting a +8 to my +5 on the close combat roll was a tough pill to swallow.

But I've got buddies! The Assault Marines arrived in a convenient location to help and the Dreadnought charged into the mess as well. The Dread embarrassed itself getting immobilized by the bugs. I also lost a Termie.

Shit's about to get real though, as the bugs have reinforcements heading up the hill... Blues and a damn Doom Scorpion.

My squad in the middle is in for it. Chaplain Charlie does his best to keep the boys motivated.

Hazzah! A second Dreadnought arrives as a reinforcement for my Marines. Convenient location, it spews rounds at the Purps. Sadly, it only manages some pins. 

Driven by whatever drives a gigantic space bug, they absolutely crush the remains of the center squad shortly after. Ugh, what a loss!

Not to be outdone, the Doom Scorpion's first round of close combat goes remarkably well, absolutely dismantling the Assault Marines. What a terrible turn for the Marines!

The crap continued as those Purps who survived the Assault Cannon fire from the Dreadnought gobbled up a Marine stand and Librarian Dan.

Super Rhino gets a measure of revenge killing another stand of bugs with its Storm Bolter.

The Godforsaken Scorpion does what the Blues failed to do finishing off the immobilized Dreadnought. 

At the end of the game, my Marines had been thoroughly whipped, but I'd managed to nab two of the three objective locations, and wouldn't you know it, they were both the "live" objectives! Mark won a military victory by all measures, but the Marines had managed to secure the relic components. 

     That was a blast, even though I got completely wrecked. I was overconfident with the Terminators and they paid the price. The Dreadnought that was with them was also a stinker, but it had cursed dice. The other Dreadnought, functionally identical, had a terrific battle. The Assault Marines were brilliant but simply overwhelmed by the mighty Doom Scorpion which worked as well as I'd hoped. The Bug "Reinforcement" rule that was added which allows them to recycle units that have been wiped out worked very nicely and didn't feel too dominating. More games will need to be played to confirm that.

     The Bugs are good. Very good. They no longer require tweaks whatsoever. When we talked about the game over lunch, Mark had a good idea that Bog enemies should be able to disrupt the Hive Mind, so we came up with a mechanism to do so, which should allow Marine, Cultist and Robot Armies to throw a wet blanket on the Bug party from time to time. The Red Guard and Dawgs will simply need to outnumber the Bugs by 2-3 units at the start of a game in order to keep up since I don't envision either of those forces having the right technology to disrupt Bug communications. 

Womenfolk

 Because my order with Brigade Games was backordered, I picked up some minis from Bombshell since I needed to have something for my game. Those Bombshell models were a joy to paint up.

The Pilot, Doctor Woolworth, Dora the Explorer and she-who-has-yet-to-be-named. She looks like an "Esmerelda."

Not to be outdone, the Brigade order arrived today, a week before the con. 

Yeah. Perfect, right? Well, either way, I ended up with some cool models. 😊