Christmas Tanks

I didn't get a whole lot of hobby stuff for Christmas but I did get these two nice 1/72 KVs. They're Pegasus models and come two in a box, which includes for KV-1 and KV-2 turrets! Also, Pegasus models tend to be easy builds and look great. Not much else to say, they're seriously strong early war Soviet tanks. 

 The insignia decals were pulled from aircraft red star sheets I have. East builds, easy painting. Looking forward to putting them on the tabletop. 

Completed Painting - Trench Crusade Minis

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! Mine was good, except that I've had a nasty head cold that's made me miserable.

This week I finished up the group of 3D printed Trench Crusade models I picked up a couple of months ago. Overall, I'm delighted with the results. They're dark, nasty and horrible - exactly what TC calls for. The particular "faction" in game terms is The Cult of the Black Grail. If you're familiar with the GW IP, not a far cry from Nurgle. If you're not familiar, they're minions of the devil Beelzebub and spread misery through disease and decay. The head cold I've been nursing has been ironically appropriate.  On with the pageant.

Front Row: Three Grail Thralls. They represent the actual shit end of the stick.

Back Row : An Amalgam and a Lord of Tumors. These are the high-end monsters. A walking wall of corpses and the bossman.

Hug me!

Bossman has a couple of unfortunate sods with him acting as weapon bearers.

Grail Thralls. The bullet-sponges of the crew.

Back Row: Three Heralds of Beelzebub

Front Row: Three Corpse Guards

Adding some color and weird to the gang! The iridescent wings are fun.

Working our way up the ranks!

The weird parasites on these fellows also have fun shiny wings.

Four Hounds of the Black Grail. Some speed and assorted weirdness.

The model in the leaping pose is nice.

There was a lot of base space to fill with these critters. I rather enjoyed that process.

And finally, three Plague Knights. 

These are the elite warriors of the group. I rather like their look. Kudos to the designer of these. Like the other things with wings, these are also iridescent but the photograph's angle doesn't really do it justice.

The kids have come a long way.

The bases were done up with putty, wooden bits snapped at random angles, wound wire, straws, gravel, skeletal bits from other kits, etc. Painting the models wasn't anything unusual. After basic painting, I applied a heavy but thinned black oil paint wash over the models. After 30-40 minutes of drying time, some cotton swabs are used to remove excess black, leaving the very heavy shading. Some highlighting here and there, picking out some colors in other spots and boom, job's done! Now, it looks like they could use an opponent...

It's a Battletech Christmas Game

 Ziggy and I got together for what's likely to be our last game of 2025. We pulled out the BT Alpha Strike toys and I quickly assembled a themed game to go along with the thematic scenery. 

Sitrep: One of Santa's Sledtech units was inadvertently shot down in the northern polar region of Bethlehem IV. The combatants on the planet (Fire Mandrill Clan and House Steiner) dispatched units to collect what gifts they could from the accident. Let's face it, these guys weren't exactly on the "good" list and desperate times call for desperate measures.

Ten gift tokens were placed on the battlefield, each with a different hidden value. Units could pick up one and only one gift and claim it. If the unit was destroyed, they'd drop the gift where they stood. We deployed in opposite corners.

I finally put my Elementals on the table. They're fun and interesting. I'd use them again with no hesitation.

My heaviest hitters, a Sun Cobra and a Pouncer held up my center.

My Griffin IIc keeps tabs on a distant enemy mech. Retaining loot is more important than knocking out enemy units, of course knocking out an enemy mech carrying loot is useful too!

An overhead shot of much of the table. An visit to Hobby Lobby earlier in the day was well worth it, I picked up 64 2-inch red, green and white trees for just over $20 (Christmas items were 60% off).

I had been hoping for some King-Konging and got it! My elementals ran off the filthy Steiner mech.

We ended the game after 6 turns or so. We each had snagged five tokens and magically only one point separated us at the end - my gift pile was slightly more valuable at 28 points to Zig's 27. A darn entertaining game and having the focus taken off just killing each other was a nice change for Battletech.

Merry Christmas and I hope your loot piles are wonderful! Peace and Love to all.

AAR: The Russian Revolution in Central Asia

My miniature voyage to the Transcaspian Oblast has finally arrived! Ziggy and I put Setting the East Ablaze on the tabletop yesterday afternoon for a first run. I've been collecting and painting 28mm minis for this project for most of 2025. It was nice to see it pay off with an enjoyable first outing. Of course, where the minis have gotten loads of attention, Transcaspian-specific terrain was less of a focus so I suppose that'll be a 2026 agenda item. 

The Reds (me) were defending a rail + road crossroads from Basmachi and British troops (Ziggy). The Russians started the battle with just an infantry squad and field gun on the table. All other resources would arrive later from reserves.

Basmachi infantry off to the far right and British Indian troops in the center.

More Basmachis on the left and a Godforsaken armored car. The A/C makes a risky move crossing the railroad tracks but didn't get stuck.

Ziggy chose to flank march the Bamachi cavalry which of course showed up immediately on my right flank. Well, the artillery was fun for about a second!

My infantry take a big chunk out of the Indians with a remarkable round of shooting, but that A/C fires back and suppresses the brave comrades.

The inevitable. Ah well, whatcha gonna do?

But when the right hand takes, the left hand gives. I get my first reserve unit, the FT. In an encounter like this, even the dink little FT can be the queen of battle!

The British car forces my brave soldiers to shift as the flip to the other side of the wall. The car gives my tank a wide berth. 

A truck carrying a machinegun team arrives. They set up overlooking the objective. Things really starting to look up!

Pepper gets some measure of revenge on the horsemen, blasting two of them!

And then another unit of Infantry arrives. Finally, a fair fight. The machine gun goes "Low Ammo" on it's first shot of the game. Dear God, did they really show up with just a 50-round drum?

Pepper's reign of terror continues, taking out four Basmachis. My initial squad is done and start heading home.

Heh heh. My cavalry arrives! My plan was to simply slow down the enemy cavalry and keep them from adding their weight to the firefight at the crossroad.

The first round of melee goes remarkably well for me, taking out two tribesmen to no losses! We're even now.

Yes. Three shots in and it's out of ammo. Maybe this whole Bolshevism thing has some unforeseen problems? 

My cavalry continues their remarkable success against the tribesmen!

While Pepper takes out another four enemy infantry.

But at the end of the day, the crossing had been lost and the Red troops had to fall back. Both my infantry squads were spent and I only had a tank and two horsemen left against the AC and at least 30 remaining infantry. 

Well that was a lot of fun! The game itself runs really smoothly and simply. There is pretty much no room for argument or confusion. The scenario worked really well to, considering my total lack of familiarity with the rules. I guess it says a lot about the rules that a real-world scenario can be planned out and happily played through with results that are not just insane. I need to pick up some reinforcements for both sides, both sides could use something capable of killing vehicles and the Russians wouldn't hate some additional troops and another leader-type.

Z and I are both ready for another go at this for sure and I know the other guys are as well. I'm not sure if I'll get any more games in before New Year, so if this is the last game of 2025 for me, at least it was a great one!