Tamiya 1/35 German WW2 Panzer Kampfwaagen II Ausf. F/G

A couple of months ago when I was off work for a week I popped into my new local Hobbycraft store to see if it had anything worth keeping an eye on for a hobbyist like me.  Most of the store is full of stuff that was no good, but tucked at the back they did have a model kit section.  It was dominated by Airfix, but had a few kits from other brands as well and I came away with this kit of an early WW2 German tank made by Tamiya. 

This was my first kit from Tamiya and was at a much larger scale than my normal 1/72 or 1/76 vehicles, so I didn't know exactly what I'd be getting until I opened up the box when I got home.  The kit was your standard hard plastic, but very well produced with sharp hard details, it was pretty easy to put together, with mostly large parts with detail already moulded on, rather than the adding of fiddly details as separate parts, like on most Airfix kits.  I'm not sure which approach I prefer.  This is also the first kit that I've ever managed to make where the tracks can actually rotate after construction.  Weather that says more about my abilities or various kits I'm not sure.

It also came with five figures which surprised me (although if I'd have read the box properly it shouldn't have!) a tank commander and a few Germans in desert gear.  These are the first 1/35 scale figures I've ever had and they're huge.  I've only stuck one together so far and have yet to paint him, not sure that I ever will.

The main reason I'm not fussed about painting these figs is that I decided to paint up my tank not in the desert scheme, but in one more suitable for northern Europe.  It was a bit odd painting a tank in this scale as well and I tried a slightly different approach, with more shaded areas, you can see the results below.

Mantic Crazy Xmas Box 2014

Another year and another 'crazy xmas box' from Mantic games, you never know exactly what you're going to get, but I've always been pleased with what I've received in the past.  Mantic went and confused the issues this year though by releasing two varieties, a 'normal' one and a pure sci-fi one.  I was tempted to get one of each but in the end I restrained myself and ordered just the normal one.  I did this as I've just pledged on the Kings of War kickstarter and was hoping for a few bits to add to my currently small Kings of War collection.

 After a lot of work this became....

This

Like last year I'll break it down by system;

Kings of War

- 10 x Basilean Panther Riders
- 10 x Elf archers with command
- 1st ed mini rulebook and poster

Pretty pleased with this overall, the panther riders are especially welcome as they will make excellent allies for the forces of nature army that I've got coming next year.  Even the old elves are surprisingly welcome as I currently have the 10 elf archers from last years box (without command) on the painting table also for inclusion in my forces of nature army.  The 1st ed rulebook is also welcome, we played our first game of Kings of War last weekend, a 4 player game using the beta rules from the Mantic journal, this will allow us to use a slightly updated version until the kickstarter rulebook arrives.  As a quick aside on first playing we liked Kings of War a lot, I can see a lot more of this being played than Warhammer in the future.

A lonely, but useful Dreadball mini

Dreadball

- Void Sirens Keeper

I have avoid Sirens team, but I didn't have a keeper so a useful mini for me.

Some more stuff for mt Deadzone collection

Deadzone

- 2 x rebs humans
- rebs yindi
- 2 x marauder mawbeast bombers
- marauder captain
- Chovar pyshic merc
- 2 x battlezone accessory sprue

I have a lot of deadzone stuff, but, excepting only the captain, I'm glad to get more of the rest.

Any ideas on possibilities for the giant flea rider?

Mars Attacks

- General Jaret
- Henry on Giant Flea

I have both of these from my kickstarter package, so it will be conversion time, the general will I think find his way into my Imperial Guard army, but I don't have any ideas yet for the giant flea.

For the first time, nothing from warpath, not that I'm fussed, I suppose it would replace the kings of war stuff in the sci-fi version of the box. but that's just a guess.

This is available at £25, although I got it cheaper on the Black Friday sale.  I'm pleased with this years box, the value on it really does ride on weather you want the panther riders or not.  Of course not all boxes may include the panther riders, but that's the gamble you take...

Mars Attacks - More Martians & Heroes

Just a quickie today as I've finished painting all the minis now from the main Mars Attacks boxed set and a few of the bonus minis from my Kickstarter package.

Starting with the kickstarter bonus minis the Gorilla Tunga and his handler Craig, I think these are pretty cool, Tunga is a mean fighter in game as well.

The last three human heroes from the boxed set; Phil, Joe & Deke.

The second squad of martian Grunts

A kickstarter bonus martian Flag waver and the Master of Science heavy (with a minimalist paint job) and in the middle General Zar from the 'Attack from space' set.

Old School Silliness: Warhammer Arena of Death

Gaming and drinking only goes together so far, and after a few beers the other night me and Mike were fully aware that a proper wargame was out of the question, but we still needed something else to play.  Mike came up with an idea and suggested we play an 'Arena of Death'.  For those that don't know 'Arena of Death' was an article in an old White Dwarf (must be well over 10 years ago) that pitted the greatest lords in the warhammer world against each other in a knock-out tournament.  Idea accepted off we go to look at my collections to select 16 candidates.

We tried to spread the competing minis from different armies, and didn't have any specific requirements except the 'rule of cool' and which minis from my collection we thought we the hardest. The rules used happened to be the latest that I have in my collection, which are not necessarily those from the latest editions of the books (since the move to hardback I've not been keeping my library up to date) with a lot of the monster rules being taken from the Storm of Magic expansion.

The competitors are;

1.    The White Dwarf carried by Gotrek & Joseph Bugman
2.    A Keeper of Secrets
3.    A Lord of Change
4.    The King of Bretonnia
5.    The Green Knight
6.    Orion, King of the Woods
7.    Vampire Lord
8.    Archaon
9.    An Emperor Dragon
10.  High Elf Lord on Griffon
11.  A Manticore
12.  Black Orc Warboss
13.  A Giant
14.  A Slann
15.  A Treeman
16.  Thorgrim Grudgebearer

Round One

The first battle, I had high hopes for the White dwarf and mates, but an initial draw against a greater daemon made me a little wary.  I shouldn't have been though, short work was made of slaanesh's servant and the White Dwarf progresses to the next round.

The second greater daemon this time vs the King of Bretonnia.  A bit of a surprise for us both and partly due to Mikes famous inability  to roll dice the King sailed through with an easy win!

The poor Green Knight really did not stand a chance here and the avatar of the elvish God tore him to shreds.

Generic Vampire lord vs the everchosen of the Chaos gods?  Win for Archaon of course!  After the defeat of both greater deamons Chaos look to have a contender here!

 Another foregone conclusion here, the valiant Elf prince soon met his doom down the throat of the Emperor Dragon.

 The closet match of the round this one was going down to a single wound on each side, but ultimately the Manticore got the win.

Well this was short, the Giant clubbing the Slann over the head and making mincemeat of him, in retrospect the Slann probably shouldn't have made it into the competition.

Two of my favourite minis fighting each other here, it took a couple of rounds due to the Treemans toughness, but the Dwarf High King wasn't going out in the first round, no way.

Round Two

Although the King got lucky in the last round he was totally outclassed here, the three dwarfs made epically short work of him and his mount.

Another close one, we favoured Archaon before the fight, but Mikes dice rolling interfered again and the mighty Orion took the day and a surprise place in the semi's.

 Ha, this didn't last long at all, the Emperor Dragon sails into the semi's

The end battle of round two and no surprises here either, the second Dwarf makes the semis.

Semi-Finals

 The first semi then, getting serious now.  Despite a good start from Orion he just wasn't tough enough to weather the torrent of attacks the three dwarfs put out and finally met his match.

We really weren't sure which way this was going to go, sheer brutal stats or fancy magic items?  It was a close one, but Dwarvish awesomeness won through in the end.

The Final

The final then, Dwarf vs Dwarf (see I knew Dwarfs were the best that's why I have so many of them), it took a few rounds but ultimately the White Dwarf and friends struck down the High King and claimed the throne for himself.

There we go incontrovertible proof that the White Dwarf is the hardest character in Warhammer fantasy.... Well at least when he brings two of his mates along....

P.S. please don't be too harsh on the paint jobs some of them are 20 years old!

Army Focus - Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures

OK firstly be warned this is a big post, with more pictures than I've ever put in a post before.  This is a return to my surprisingly popular series of posts where I put up a bunch of pics of one of my armies or collections of toys for everyone to have a look at, today featuring my collection of Dungeon and Dragons Miniatures from Wizards of the Coast.

This was a game very similar to the Star Wars miniatures game that dominated my gaming for a couple of years, and like SWM these come prepainted in randomised boxes, with vastly varying quality.  In a lot of ways this was the more serious and tactical game out of the two, but I never developed the same love of it as I did for the Star Wars variant, mostly due to my lack of knowledge of the background.  D&D minis contains figures from various different realms supported by the main D&D game split into factions based on temperment, which lead to most reasonable powered warbands looking very bitty, and almost all theme squads being very unviable.  Unlike SWM which I still come back to from time to time, this collection hasn't been used in six years and it's essentially dead.

Lawful Good

Lawful good contains amongst other things, dwarves, angels, human guards, celetstials and warrior monks.  Generally slow and well armoured, and for me a bit boring.

Chaotic Good

The home of the elves, forest spirits, halflings and air elementals.  Generally fast and hard hitting, but fragile.

Chaotic Evil

The most fun faction for me and the largest in my collection, includes orcs, drow, bugbears, gnolls, fire elementals and all sorts of crazy monsters.

 Balrog Balor, my favourite D&D mini

Lawful Evil

Home of goblins, hobgoblins, duergar, undead, beholders, devils, kobolds and water elementals.

Others

Some stuff can be used by multiple factions, which made a mess of both my miniatures and card filling systems I can tell you!

And finally a group shot of Drizzit and some of his allies and enemies, these are the few characters I have any knowledge of from the D&D background and that comes from a couple of average novels I read quite some time ago.