The poor bstards of bastogne

So a few days older and no wiser.
My stuff arrived from Artizan and has been added to the warlord stuff.
Much filing, gluing, swearing (if you have ever assembled a mortar you will understand) followed.
Then there was pondering, humming and harring as i looked over the various models, poses, weapons etc.
Finally the eureka moment was reached.
Models were arranged, squads set out. Models shuffled and swapped about.
And finally.

Working left to right.

Left side.
2 Paratrooper squads. Both with 4 rifles, 2 sub machine guns and a NCO with sub machine gun.
Front left my medic team with a wounded Para.
front right  2 man bazooka team.

Middle
M18 Hellcat tank destroyer. Upgraded with recce ability and pintle mounted heavy machine gun.
Airborne Jeep for transport purposes, so unarmed.
Command team. Richard winters historicon model along with an extra man who is looking down at a map.

Right side
8 man Paratrooper section with 5 rifles, 2 sub machine guns and NCO with sub machine gun.
Middle - medium mortar team with spotter
front left 2 man sniper team
front right  3 man medium machine gun team.

994pts of men and machines from the 506th parachute infantry and 705th Tank destroyer battalion.

Now just 5 months and 3 days to get it all painted.

Curahee

Welcome back, the emergency exits have been sealed to prevent your escape.

So following on from my previous post about the decisions to be made...and the astute amongst you having seen the title. You can guess how the process went.

Or possibly not.

You see, simple as it sounds...life is anything but.
Shortly after posting, my long suffering fiancee offered a deal. Now anyone in my situation would know deals involve IF's or BUT's. Anyone with a gamerchick for a fiancee also knows there is no pulling the wool over their eyes regarding purchases.
But i digress and must go back to the point.
Carol pipes up and says 'I will make you a deal. I will buy your entire US Airborne army as a very early birthday present (5 months early)'.
This was then followed by the dreaded 'BUT'.
Now i don't know whether Panic had kicked in here, or self preservation or some primordial instinct. But like a fly in the spiders web i waited with baited breath for the clause.
Then it came.
'you can't buy anymore models or games until after the tournament' (6 months away).
Now anyone who follows this blog knows that i have incurable ADOSS (Attention Deficit Oh Shiny Syndrome).
Sweat beaded on my brow, the nervous twitch of the eternally slow painter battled with the magpie gamer in a war of time. Turn the offer down and face less time to paint the models, but have more shinnies or take the offer and start longingly as the new toys i will not have.
Well the painter won. Concessions were made to things like paint, scenery/materials for the army display board.

So what followed was a frantic working of a list, some fluff chasing and then a trawl of several games companies for the right miniatures.
In the end the £120 cost of the army was split between Northstar Games (Artizan) and Warlord Games.
Order placed i waited with glee....well actually it was more like the death throes of a 100 a day smoker as a virus has the better of me. But again i digress.

Now at this point i am going to wax lyrical about the games company Warlord Games. I have done it in the past and I'm going to do it again. Not because i have any endorsement or affiliation with them. It's purely because i believe good customer service deserves a mention in this day and age.
So why you may ask.
Well the army was ordered at 11pm Thursday night. At the same time i was chatting on facebook about the lack of a Airborne 81mm mortar, a fact that meant i had ordered a standard US army one and intended on mocking up a crew.
Well about 2pm friday an email notification pops up with 'order despatched'. Now anyone can agree that's pretty darn quick, what makes it faster is that the order had a warning 'some models are cast to order and this may cause a short delay'. So to see such a quick dispatch was a surprise.
Not content with this small achievement though. A certain David Mathews who works at Warlord, (i should mention has great community interaction) pops up in my facebook chat. We had spoke about the 81mm mortar situation on the boltaction page on fb and he had pointed out the US Army one to me.
David then proceeds to inform me that 'he has picked out a scratch crew of US airborne models from other airborne weapons to make up an 81mm mortar crew and put it in with my order for free'.
I can't really say how much gestures like this make me feel appreciated by a games company.
It's above and beyond the call of customer service in my book.
Of course many thanks were warmly extended to David, i would have offered him my Mrs for the night, but i could sense the impending slap lol.

So Saturday comes.
The door rings and look whats in the posties hand

(barring the Historicon 'Day of Days' Dick Winters model) which was already owned. See i do have a 'Dick'.

So that's one very happy gamer, with the next 6 months of my life sorted out (albeit without the madness of new model purchases...but that may be a good thing).

So whats the plan you ask.
Well with the Dick Winters model.
It can only be the men of Easy Company 506th Parachute Infantry, supported by a Hellcat from the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion.
The force is solidly based and themed around the Battle of Bastogne/Ardennes. So much research of winter basing and scenery techniques will be needed (especially for the board).
I have even gone as far as including a Medic in the force to represent Eugene Roe who has probably his finest moments in the show during the battle for Bastogne.

So that's the plan. Now for some frantic filing, cutting, filling and eventually...painting. But that's another blog post for another day.

Bolt on, Bolt off, Bolt Action.

Sometimes i do wonder what on earth this life thing is doing.
Was happy painting up infinity models and a few rivetwars models. When up pops one of the head honchos from the club i attend.
Chitter chatter and many messages later and it appears i am going to defend my 'Best painted' title at the clubs Afterbolt3 Bolt Action tournament on June 20th this year.
Now that shouldn't be a problem i hear you say. You got your painted British Paras. Well it would be jolly poor form to show up with the same force eh.

So i find myself in the midst of a conundrum.
I have an almost a full 1000pts of German infantry still on the sprue. Only need the odd mortar to fill it out. But the Germans don't really do it for me.
The other option is the Yanks.
Back in the midst of last year Warlord in association with Historicon released a Richard Winters model....for those of you confused...Band of brothers Lt Winters. Apart from all the jokes about grown men playing with their 'Dicks'....I'm sure you can all work that one out. There was a general pull towards an American list for me.
I was blessed and on the Qt Carol ordered a second Winters model so that i could have one to paint and one to treasure...yeah baby i got 2 'dicks'!.

Now i don't know if or how many of you have seen Band of Brothers. But talk about a source of inspiration. Carantan, Day of Days, Ardennes. So many visual moments in episodes that can inspire.

But ofcourse there is a BUT (its the opposite side of ...ok enough with the abbreviated Richard jokes).

Unlike the German force i own.... The Winters model would be the only current US Airborne model in my possession.

Hmmmm decisions decisions.

Rivet Wars a humble gamers review

Welcome back long suffering bloggy type folks.
Been a long winter with very little update material.
Some projects got put on hold, some worked on. But amongst the chaos of unemployment a gem was found.

My long suffering fiancee sighed as i spied another new shiny on the shelves of a local wargame store. That shiny was Rivet Wars from Coolminiornot and Edge Entertainment.
First impressions of the box are that the art work is very cutesy but also a bit bizarre!!!! Monowheel bikes, biplanes, chicken walkers and trench warfare. If you want a real life sum up of the artwork...google rivet wars at gencon. The diorama says it all.

Intrigued by something that looked so different from the usual grimdark, manga or full on historical, i thought  would give it a chance.
Bam Heavy box....Something i have begun to accept when coolmini put their name on something-see zombicide.

On getting home i did what all us gamers do. I turned into a shrink wrap rending version of Freddy Krueger.
The fresh wargame smell as the box opens is always a flashback to gentler times of childhood and trainsets.
But what waited within.
High quality cardstock templates - check.
Rulebook - check.
various cards and plastic tokens - check.
Chunky mud coloured dice...different - check.
Models...lots of models and something called plugs. Say what? Now i am not talking your UK 3 pin or weird foreign plug. I'm not even talking about the more discrete, rubber moulded apparatus used by more nefarious folk and a good chunk of the #warmongers community.
No these plugs were like...little character widgets for the vehicles. Hmmmm different. (Note i have it on good reference that the fit of these plugs is similar to that of the more rubberised variety).
Ok interest piqued. Carol roped in for a playtest...of the game...you filthy minded cretins.
The rules seemed easy enough and we sallied forth into war.
A couple of games later and we realised a mistake. The rules for terrain/objective bunkers etc. We played like it was fairly normal terrain as we couldn't find any reference to it in the book. Packing up we discovered the rules...on the back page DOH!!!!!. A minor oversight on our part but also a questionable decision not to list them simply within the main rules section.

Due to real life about this point, gaming kinda ground to a halt.
Fast forward to today.

I managed to arrange a couple of games with a fellow riveter.
Now with a clearer understanding of the rules, the game made more sense and went much faster.
2 games in 2 hours. Mayhem, mortals dying, heroic grunts and pathetic pilots all featured to the staccato crash and thump of Pounders and monowheels.
Yes fun was had, blood was shed and laughter rang out.
But more of a feel for the game was gained.

Yes its got a cutesy chibby look to the figures.But it also has secret missions and a nice touch that you can never get tabled combined with the fact that the player who goes second always gets his last turn even when player 1 has achieved his victory point total.
An example of that would have been todays second game. I was player 1. The target number of vp's (completing secret missions/capturing strategic points) was 10.
Happily i hit the target and looked over at my opponent with a 10-5 lead. Thought to myself. That's not gonna be easy to overturn (even if you get to the 10 as player 1. Player 2 can try to tie the game up for an extra turn or even steal victory by beating the tally himself).
My opponent scratched his head, deployed his rivets and pondered his special action and secret mission cards. Smiled and murmured 'this might just be doable'. Dice clattered across the board, men died and infantry charged forward. Alas 1 dice betrayed him and from the jaws of the tie up, victory was mine (trust me i was sweating a tad, but laughing my butt off).

All in all though, what struck me most was that the game really could appeal to all. Kids will love the look of the game, It's got enough 'Board game' feel to make a simple beer and pretzels night in and it offers enough tactical challenge (especially the latter missions and adding in more variant characters etc) that the most seasoned gamer will have a few head scratch moments.

So if you can. Give the game a look. The core box is expensive at nigh on £80. But you won't regret it.

Overload, overlord, overrun

Welcome back, feels like its been a while.

I don't know what got me thinking today. But something triggered in the dormant thing i call a brain.
I was off into Norwich for a job interview (fingers crossed on that one), and my brain was flitting around a virtual GW with thoughts of my High elves, wanting lizardmen and craving the stomping feet of knights and titans.
In truth it was probably a good thing GW were closed as no doubt another impulse buy would have happened, much to the chargrin of my long suffering fiancee.

But thoughts of hobby just would not rest.

You see i find myself at a moment in time. Since i moved to Norfolk, gaming has been at a premium and suddenly i find myself a member of the 'Aftermath' wargames club.
It's fantastic, but to a hobby A.D.D sufferer it brings up all those shiny moments.

I recently bought a copy of operation icestorm for the infinity game, luck would have it that it then got followed up by another copy won from Corvus Belli, the makers of infinity. It's a great game, has great scope and will allow me to unleash the sci-fi/Manga maniac. I am trying to push my hobby limits with the game and last night experimented with Zenithal highlights. I don't know if it will work, my first and usually overly critical reaction was FAIL. But, I'm going to forge on and see what it looks like with the full model painted.

Aside from that i can see games of Bolt Action in the future and maybe a possible return to the dust covered streets of Malifaux.

But it leaves me pondering my other Games/models.
There is a 2400 high elf army waiting for paint, most would scream beard staring at it with its 20 phoenix guard totting the banner of the world dragon.
There is my dropzone stuff, UCM and Scourge painted starters and a 50% painted shaltari army. All waiting for wars they may never see.
Then it gets more obscure....
Firestorm armada, deadzone, dreadball, kings of war, dystopian wars. There is even a on the sprue German bolt action army. Games craving to be played and games that may never see the light of day.

So much fun, so little time.
I don't really know the reason for this post. I guess i just needed to throw my thoughts down and put them out there.
Aside from the Bolt Action Brits and inevitable Infinity stuff. I don't have a clue where my hobby is headed. I know i tried Kings of War and enjoyed it even though i detest restic. I also crave (along with carol) a return to Malifaux. Though my Mali days ceased in m1.5 and the game has swept along into a much different looking m2e.
I guess the futures a bit muddled. Games for sure, painting and frustrations aplenty and somewhere in amongst it all a plan for a new tattoo.

Wish me luck folks. Got a feeling I'm gonna need it.

too much time is a bad time.

Morning long suffering bloggies...
was that even a word...well if your reading this yet again, you will know nothing is 'normal' on this blog. I mean it's all there, right in the name.

But anyways...enough of that.

Ever noticed how the weather can affect your hobby and i don't mean in a 'oh bugger it's raining and i can't undercoat' kind of way.
I set out with the intention of getting some serious painting done over yesterday and today. But the weather rolled in and it's been dark, dull, wet and windy...kinda like a really bad girlfriend/boyfriend.
The knock on effect has been no hobby thus far. I just want to curl up on the sofa, ipad in hand, heating on and drink tea.

It's not a bad thing i guess, well unless you want to paint etc. Or like me, you have too much time suddenly.
Then you kinda get the itch to surf twitter. See beautifully painted Pan O Infinity models painted by Mark Sheppard aka gorillawizard.
That stuff is not good for my health and half hour later there i am pondering ordering Infinity Operation Icestorm from 'the wargaming trader'.
Well you know my resistance to these things.
But i did try and i did really ponder as i only knew of 2 other players in the area.
But a short conversation on the Infinity facebook page and it turns out there is more like 8 or 10.
Bugger. Ordered. Oh and Aftermath wargaming club joined.

Much like Mario Ballotellytubby i have to ask. Why ME?

Oh yeah i am a wargamer.

So yeah...me+time=even more poor than before.

But i will finally get to scratch that Dominion Tank Police/Akira/Venus Wars itch.

Now i just need the effects of this bad weather to clear off, so i can stop wanting to be an OAP who wraps up in thermals and slippers drinking tea and get back to the wargamer armed with an airbrush and absolutely no idea what i am doing.

Have fun folks.

all good clogs come to those who wait.

Somethings never go as planned.
Sons of horus pft...

But lets go back to this morning.
For some reason i woke up with the urge to crack on and paint my Dropzone Commander Shaltari force, i also wanted to get the basecoat down on my Sicaran as well.

It started out well, good intentions and all that. I thought a few days the sons of horus were the way forwards, then changed my mind to imperial fists and purchased the vallejo model air paints to paint the sicaran up in fist colours. Then 2 days ago i started reading Angel Exterminatus. Oooops Iron Warriors it is then.
Today also started with me intending on a new easier scheme for my shaltari. Maybe making use of those extra yellow paints.

So off i went to the hobby room. I happily laid down a full coat of metallic black on the tank and aside from a few clogs on the airbrush all went well. (The airbrush im using is my back up brush and a suction feed and it clogs up no end, no matter how well you clean it and thin the paints).

Then i turned my attentions to the shaltari. Picked up a model and looked at one of the earlier painted models and a random and unusual though hit me. It went something like 'actually these look cool'. So a few colour swaps for the pallet and off i went into the merry go round of airbrush clogdom.

A good few hours passed with me hidden behind my respirator mask...the mask was probably a good thing, as was the loud music as it blanked out a large portion of the interesting swear word combinations i was muttering as i cleared another clog.

But at the end of it. I had this to show for it.

And my full 1500pts of Dropzone Commander Shaltari

Not a bad days work, the shaltari are coming along and i am really happy with the silver on the Sicaran Venator so far.