40K - Imperial Guard Reinforcements

A whole bunch of new stuff for my 40K Imperial Guard detactment today.  Starting with this chimera APC.  This came second hand off ebay, and needed a bit of work to make it bearable (thats what I get for being a cheapskate), but it's come through in the end I think (even if I still don't like the dozer blade), and will proove very useful.

Next we have a squad of 6 ratling snipers, very useful and very characterful models, this is the third time I've painted this squad and I'm finally happy with it.

Next a catachan captain, this has always been one of my favorite models ever since it first came out.

Next we have a random ebay purchase.  Mantic have never said as much but these enforcers are clearly their take on space marines, jolly nice they are too, in fact when put next to a space marine the enforcers realistic proportions make the space marines look cartoony and a bit silly.  These won't be joining my space marine army but I'm planning to use them as count as storm troopers for the Imperial Guard. I might see if I can pick up another 5 cheap off ebay as well to complete the squad.

The detail on these is really great, they're made from mantic's plastic-resin material, which I'm afraid I'm going off of.  Sticking them together was a giant pain, and they lack the options a hard plastic sprue would provide.

And finally not technically Imperial Guard, but we have this rogue trader era Inquisitor, who I feel would make a nice 'counts as' for a HQ choice.

The Hobbit - Hunter Orcs

Just a quicky today, a few pics of my newly painted hunter orcs from GW's Hobbit range.  Not a lot else to say really, comments as always welcome...

Dreadball - Season 2 Arrives

 

I have only 3 models left to paint from my Dreadball season 1 shipment and what do you know season 2 shows up on the doorstep!  This time we have the season 2 book, 4 new teams (robots, female corp, judwan and Z'zor), some new MVP's and the pack of 4 coaches.  The book is of the same style and format as the first one, and contains a mismash of bits as well as rules for all the new models.

 

The models are much better this time round, both in sculpting, conception and production.  One thing that didn't sit well with me with season one was the reliance on fantasy sterotypes for what is supposed to be a science fiction game, thankfully all of the new teams move away from that and add a nice bit of extra complexity.

 

 

 

It's not all sweetless and light though, I've got two problems with my package (as the picture above shows).  The first is a headless 'bonus' female corp guard, this is actually only a small disapointment as the female corp are my least favorite team and I'm unlikely to run them in a league and still have enough for a starting team for one off games.  The second issuse is with the Z'zor team which came with 3 guards and 4 jacks, and as a starting team has 5 jacks and only 1 guard, which means a third gaurd can never be used and you don't get enough jacks to even start playing with them!  Well I've e-mailed mantic and await to see how they deal with these issuses.

 

Below are a few examples of the 50+ models that have been added to the painting queue! 

 

Warpath - Fate Of The Forge Star

 

A look at a random ebay purchase today, this time the warpath starter set fate of the forgestar by mantic games.  I've been buying stuff from mantic ever since they first appeared, and have generally been happy with what I've bought, this is my first foray into warpath though.

Apart from the models the set includes a rules booklet, which have the basic warpath rules on and some green dice.  The dice are great actually and it was nice to get a few of a different colour rather than just another bunch of white ones.  The rules booklet is less good, it's a bit to basic for a large scale battle game and just doesn't seem to provide that fun a game.  One thing lacking is any instructions for assembling the models, I've been doing this for a long time and had no issuses, but this is supposed to be a starter set and I can imgine a beginner being very confused what they're supposed to do with the giant pile of sprues. 

The main part of the box is of course the plastic models, you get 40 orx marauders and 15 forgefathers (only 10 forgefathers in later versions).  I like the style of the orxs quite a lot and although I've moaned about the plastic forgefathers in the past I like them a bit more now that I've actaully seen them in person.  The only problem really with these is the lack of variety, they come on either 2 or 3 man sprues, which leads to few options for making the guys look different from each other.

The set also contains a few 'premium' models made out of mantics 'restic' material. A squad of 5 forgefather stormrage veterans, a forgefather artillery piece and an orx trike.  The stormrage veterans are the highlight of the set and really rather nice.  The restic doesn't work so well for the two vehicles, the moulding seemed to be slightly warped and sticking them together was a real pain, these really should have been in hard plastic.

 

So now I've got these guys do I have a plan? Well of course I do, the forgefathers will be painted up in the same scheme as my squats and be used as counts as imperial guard to ally with my space marines, the cannon thing will then be used as a counts as thunderfire cannon.  The orx I'm going to paint with normal human flesh tones and use them as mutated chaos cultists for my alpha legion army.  I'm not 100% sure that it's going to come off but I'm going to give it a go.  I haven't thought of anything to do with the trike yet, it might go off to ebay to raise a couple of quid, or possibly get turned into a wreck for a terrain piece... suggestions welcomed.

 

 

Overall a bargin for £20, not so sure if I'd recomend it at full retail price though.  Compared to the Dark Vengeance boxed set this comes off poorly and feels like the budget set it is, still if you can get it at the price I did it's cheaper than a single space marine tactical squad!  I'm not going to start playing warpath though, these are definatly going into my 40K armies.

40K - Alpha Legion Chaos Space Marine Reinforcements

A few additions to my Alpha Legion Army today, the most impressive of which is this old style predator below.  Based on the origanal rhino chassis with metal add-ons.  I've added a couple more chaos bits too it as well.  Armed with an autocannon and two heavy bolters, it saw action for the first time today and performed well.

 

Next we have the chaos lord from dark vemgeance.  Like al the dark vengeace stuff is a good model and this also means I've finished the chaos side of the boxed set.

 

And finally two of the first models I ever bought way back in the early 90's.  These are two classic renegade space marine, there was origannly a third one with horns, but I'm not sure where he's got to.  They're a bit small compared to the current range of models, but do add a nice bit of character to my force.

 

Dreadball - Marauder Team

I've managed to finish painting the last of the season one teams ahead of season two arriving, this time it's the marauders, or as they are more obviously called the Orx and Goblins.

I've left them till last as although I like the models I find them hard to play with.  It's always fun to bash people with the orx guards, but trying to score with the goblin jacks is not fun.  That's balance for you though.  As will all my dreadball figures they've been given a coat of gloss varnish to help them survive the rigours of play

I've still got the 8 MVP's from season one to paint, but as I've not even used one yet they're not a priority.

40K Chaos Space Marine Alpha Legion Hellbrute

It's finally warmed up a bit and that means it'll soon be the season for full on wargames (since my big table had to move to the garage it's been board games in the winter) and I've been inspired to start finishing off some 40K and warhammer projects thats have been languishing at the back of the painting table. 

The first of these to be completed is the Hellbrute from the dark vengeance boxed set.  It's a great model and a nice improvement on the old chaos dreadnaughts, it actually looks properly chaosy now, before they were too Imperial.  Unfortunatley I've never had any real success on the battlefeild with dreadnaughts of any variety, I find they're just not worth their points, still it's a nice model for the shelf.

Fishguard Fort

It's been a bit quiet around here lately, and thats mainly because I've been off on my Travels again, this time to Pembrokeshire in south wales.  The first military site we visited we actually found by acident as we drove through fishgaurd.

Fishgaurd fort was built around 1780 in response to a pirate raid and was maintained until the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. It origanlly had 8 guns of which 4 remain today, and was crewed by three 'invalid gunners' from woolwich. I'm not sure what invalid gunner means and how effective they would have been at defending fishguard!

As well as the gun emplacement one building, which looks like a magazine remain mostly intact and there are two walls of another building remaining (possibly the barracks).

Army Focus - Star Wars Miniatures Imperials

A few weeks ago I posted a couple of silly pics of my star wars minis AT-AT in the snow.  It generated a lot more interest than expected so in the latest installment of my occasional 'army focus' series we have my Imperial army for Star Wars Miniatures.

Army might not be the right word actually, as actually playing with all this is one battle would be practically impossible, collection might be a better word.  SWM was very much a skirmish game and got clunky at anything more than about 20 minis per side, we did play a few larger battles, but they never seemed to work properly.

Too many Stormtroopers? No such thing!

 

The Imperials are very much the grunt force of SWM's and you find yourself feilding a lot less named characters than you do in the other factions.  To play really well you also need to combine the right commander effects to make your somewhat useless grunts become less useless.

Which Vader shall we play with today?

The Imperials do have some (anti)heroes, it's just that most of them are different versions of Darth Vader.

SWM also makes full use of Star Wars expanded universe and timeline, which means the Imperial faction can conatain poeple several hundered years apart, as well as various dark side force users and specialist troops not seem in the movies.

The future of this force? well there isn't one really, SWM is pretty well dead, and although I still enjoy playing I just don't get as much gaming in as I'd like and SWM's seems to get pushed to the back of the queue behind more 'current' games, which is a shame, it's a game I miss. 

Dreadball: Forgefather Team

Team no. 3 rolls off the painting line, this time the forgefathers.  These are lovely models and by far my favorite looking of the season one teams.  I've played only a single game with these so far and they also provided an interesting challenge, a little bit slow, but rock hard and in contrast to the marauder team you thankfully still get a couple of strikers.  These guys are my current favorite.  As with all my dreadball stuff these have been given a coat of gloss varnish.

And finally here we have 'coach renton' a kickstarter exclusive model based on mantic games CEO.