From The Painting Table #19

Another collection of my recently completed minis today, lets start with a couple of randoms;

Wargames Foundry have this absolutely fantastic of throwing in a free mini or two with orders and here we have two of my recent freebies from them.  On the left we have an armoured skeleton painted up for use in warhammer quest and/or dungeon saga and on the right we have what I think is supposed to be father Christmas, but I've painted him up for use as a druid in my Forces of Nature army for Kings of War.

A bit of a impulse buy from ebay here.  These are three WW2 flames of war Churchill tanks, converted according to the previous owner into flame throwers for use in the Dieppe raid.  I don't know enough about the history to ascertain the arcuracy, but they're a nice addition to my collection and I got them at a good price.

Onto Deadzone now, starting with this Strider that has been captured by the Plague.  This is the third strider that I've painted and I'm a big fan of them, I've still got a rebel captured one to go at some point as well.

Finally we have a squad of Enforcers, also for Deadzone, based on the hard plastics with additional resin shields and guns.  I've got a lot of the Enforcer plastics and they're very good.  In fact all the Enforcers that I have for Deadzone are actually enough to make a small army, which is quite convenient as there's a Warpath Kickstarter about to start......

From The Painting table #17

Hi there everyone, it's been nearly a month since my last post, I suppose I've not had much too say, I've still been playing a LOT of Warhammer Quest, and as I write this our party has reached level nine and we've slain our first Bloodthirster.  I have managed to get a bit of painting in here and there as well and I've a few new minis to show off.......

These are the first of my four striders for Deadzone that I've painted.  I reckon these are really rather excellent generic sci-fi walker minis.  These are for the Enforcer faction so are assembled 'vanilla' but the kit also came with options to make Rebel or Plague versions as well (I have one of each assembled and undercoated but they're a long way from being finished).  As with a lot of my Deadzone stuff these have a dual-use and will also feature in my Imperial Guard army for 40K as 'counts as' sentinels.

Also for Deadzone is this merc Aqissiaq who is a Syphr who has caught the plague.

 

Now we move to Warhammer Quest, starting with these 6 Nurglings that came with the set of Plaguebearers that I'm painting at the moment.  They're designed to be added to the Plaguebearers bases to add a bit of character, but as individual Nurglings are one of the monster you can face at mid-level I left them separate.  They also worked as a nice test for the scheme I'm using on the Plaguebearers.

 

This is an old Wood Elf Wardancer model that I took out of my Wood Elf army and repainted and rebased for Warhammer Quest.  As our time with our current party is coming to an end we're starting to think about our next party and have decided to try an all elf party, which we think will provide a greater challenge.

Also for Warhammer Quest is this classic Warrior Priest mini who is in use in our current party.

 

Switching to Warhammer fantasy now we have a couple of champions for my Chaos army, a Pestigor champion (above) and a classic 1980's Slanneesh warriors of Chaos champion (below).

Deadzone Wave 3

Well we got there, a year and a half after the funding target was met I've finally received the final part of my Deadzone Kickstarter package from Mantic Games.

There's not a huge amount in this package compared to the previous two, 42 minis, for the Enforcers and Forge Father factions.  What makes it interesting is that they're all hard plastic, which begs the important question; have Mantic finally managed to conquer hard plastic?

A bit of background for those not familiar with Mantic's hard plastic history, it all started many years ago with Mantics very first releases of hard plastic elves and skeletons, these were good quality and the sprues had lots of options, the sculpting was good (although the style of the elves wasn't to everyones taste), the future looked good.  Then for the next lot of releases, the fantasy dwarves & orcs and sci-fi forge fathers & marauders Mantic kept the same quality, but made the sprues much smaller and with far less options for customisation.  This was disappointing, but not the end of the world.  Then it got worse Mantic started to make their plastics in China instead of the UK, and whilst I'm sure it saved them money the quality of the Basilean Men at Arms was poor, really poor.  Since then Mantic have hardly used hard plastic, until now that is, lets see what we've got.....

Starting with the Enforcers we've finally got the basic troops sprue, each sprue contains five minis which can be made up with rifles or pistols and combat blades.  There are also optional pieces which allow you to make a sergeant and either a flame thrower or a heavy burst laser.

The plastics also form the base of these Enforcer Defenders, equipped with shotguns and blast shields.

These are the big boys, Enforcer Peacekeepers; the kit comes with a lot of options, you can have either gun and gauntlet or gun and blast shield, plus there are options for a sergeant, a heavy burst laser and a flamer.

Finally we have the Forge Fathers, these were harder to get unique poses out of and the leader was compulsory and not an option, they also come with heavy weapon options (three this time) and have six minis per sprue whereas the other two sprues had five each.

I've only built half of my package so far, but it's enough to answer the question; They're not perfect, there's still some mould lines (down the legs in particular) and all the legs have to be attached to specific bodies, which is a shame, but these plastics are a huge leap forward for Mantic and I think the future once again looks bright.  I'll be interested to see what the retail price ends up being for these and I now have high hopes for the plastics coming from the Kings of War Kickstarter later in the year.

From The Painting Table #16

Another showcase of my latest eclectic selection of painted minis for today.  December was inevitably a busy month and I really didn't achieve much on the painting front at all, but what I did manage to do somehow was play a lot of Warhammer Quest....

Which leads me nicely to this chap, who is of course a classic citadel Chaos Warrior who has had a repaint and a dedicated Warhammer Quest style base rather than my normal green flock.  The party also contains a pit fighter, a wizard and a warrior priest.  Both the pit fighter and wizard have dedicated Warhammer Quest minis already so expect to see a warrior priest in the near future.

Next we have some additions to my Darkest Africa collection courtesy of Foundry, on the top a couple of British NCO's from their Boer War range and on the bottom an explorer both on and off a donkey.

 

Staying with Foundry somewhat randomly we have here two ancient Greek Hoplites, why? I really don't know except that I fancied painting them.

 

The last Hobbit movie was an enjoyable movie if admittedly not a masterpiece like the Lord of the Rings movies were, and it gave me the urge to paint a few more middle earth bits starting with this Tauriel.  I was quite pleased with the result until I photographed it and now the hair is looking way to bright so I will have to try and tone it down a bit somehow.

 



Not going far from Tauriel at all we have these wood elf archers from GW Lord of the Rings range, but who would of course happily work fighting along side Tauriel and Legolas in a Hobbit game.

Now to the first finished minis from my second wave Deadzone kickstarter package.  I started with a few Enforcers, which for some reason I really enjoy painting, from left to right we have an enforcer captain, Sgt Howlett and an enforcer with fusion gun.

 

Finally we have these two plague corrupted enforcers.  I've a veritable mountain of Deadzone stuff still to paint and of course I am eagerly awaiting the imminent arrival of wave 3.

Deadzone Kickstarter Wave 2

All my new stuff!

After what feels like a very long wait my second wave shipment from Mantic Games' Deadzone Kickstarter has arrived.  It's just possible that I've ordered too much stuff, with this box containing over a hundred new minis that need painting.

Asterians

Overall there's a lot of great stuff in this shipment, and I had a lot of fun sticking it all together, the core of the delivery are the two new factions, the Forge Fathers (space dwarves/Squats) and Asterians (space elves/Eldar).

Squats Forge Fathers

 The Forge Fathers are well sculpted and characterful minis, but aren't that original, the Asterians are a slightly different take on the space elf model with each strike team only containing a single elf leading a group of cypher robots.

Pathfinder on bike and on foot, in multiple coloured resin for some reason

Iron Man meets Wolverine

Each of the original four factions received some reinforcements as well, a single mawbeast for the marauders, plagued enforcers, sorak swordspawn and an enforcer pathfinder and enforcers with special weapons.

Enforcer, Plague and Reb Striders next to a GW Dreadnought

I've also got four striders, which are a big walker which can be used for the enforcers, rebs or plague.  I'm really pleased with these and I think they compare favourably with the styling on GW's dreadnoughts.  The kit nicely makes the three different versions look different as well.  I've not built the fourth one yet, can't decide which of the three options to use, I'm also considering trying to convert it into a counts-as stuntbot for use with the marauders.

I Will Eat Your Brains......

This delivery also contains Mantics new sci-fi zombies, made in nice hard plastic.  I think the quality of these is frankly brilliant and they look great.  The sprue is slightly limited though, not as many options as I would have liked, it really could have done with another couple of heads and another couple of pairs of arms.  As I was looking at assembling my fifth sprue I had a bit of a brainwave and went and found my spare kings of war zombie parts which I used to add a bit of variety, I also remembered the base plugs that represent zombies dragging themselves across the floor, which means I managed to get another 5 'floor zombies' out of my sprues.

Marauder commando stand-ins

This mixing in KoW parts to the zombies also made me have another idea of using some of my spare warpath marauder sprues to make a few counts-as minis to represent the cards of the commando upgrade pack, which I didn't get.


The last thing I got was all the expansion books both in normal softback version and awesomely fancy hardback which was provided with a personalised book plate signed by Ronnie and Jake.  The new rules add a huge amount of playing options with all the rules for the new minis, plus multi-mat, multi-player, solo, zombie games and a whole campaign.  I can't wait to try some of it out.

personalised book plate

In a nice change for a Mantic kickstarter everything that was due to be in wave 2 actually arrived.  Still another wave to come though, hard plastic enforcers, enforcer peacekeepers and armoured forge fathers.  The basic enforcers being delayed again is getting frustrating as the enforcers were one of the initial 2 factions and still lack most of their support options, but whilst it is frustrating in the end I think I'd rather wait and get better quality product than a rushed bodge-job, which mantic have said was the alternative.


Right, I'd better get painting.

From The Painting Table #13

I've had two quiet months in a row now on the blog, and although it wasn't planned I often find gaming and painting takes a back seat in the summer as my life fills up with other things.  This time the main culprit is the fact that I bought a second hand Xbox 360 which came with Skyrim, and I've got a little bit addicted to it, couple this with holidays, family stuff and a new role at work and I've found it difficult to find much spare time.  All this aside I have painted a few bits over the last month or so...

First up we have this addition to the Eldar army for 40K, a squad of wraithblades, great models, not so sure about the rules, a mere one attack seems to limit their potential.  I tried a bit of an experiment with the energy shields and gave them a coat of gloss varnish , I think it works.

This is a bit of a random LOTR figure I dug out from the pile, mainly because I wanted a Legolas for my Hobbit collection, but didn't want to pay the price of the new one, this one does the job nicely.

Next we have one of the new dwarf Gyrobombers for my warhammer fantasy dwarf army.  It's not a bad piece at all but I was a bit disappointed when the new Dwarf book came out that the dwarves didn't get one of the really big impressive kits that absolutely every other release seems to come with at the moment, where's my dirigible GW?  having had that little moan overall I'm pleased with the new book, nothing radically changed, but lots of little tweaks that make the army that little bit more competitive and also fun to play with.

This is what I really want!

The Gyrobomber was a pain to paint with lots of intertwining runic decoration, and another big thing for me was that this was the first time I'd seem a new style GW flying base with round attacher.  You wouldn't believe how happy I was when I first saw this piece of plastic tumble out of the box!

The joy this piece of plastic bought me is indescribable

Finally we have the last two mercenaries that came with my first deadzone package, the forge father woman Freya and the psychotic Judwan assassin Wrath.  They're probably the worst models out of the set, which is why I left them till last.  The second package from the deadzone kickstarter is due soon and I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Deadzone - The Rebs

I've finished painting the third faction for Deadzone now, the Rebs, who are an alliance of rebels (but definitely not the rebel alliance) of various species who have rebelled against corporation rule.

This means you have a big mix of different models all with widely varying abilities, The Rebs are the faction of the specialist, pretty much everyone is good at what he/she does, but not very good at anything else.  You have to really concentrate on the mission whilst playing the game, it can be difficult to win with the Rebs, but I find it more rewarding when you do.  It also means you have a big variety of interesting minis a well, and although there are obvious influences from serenity/firefly, star wars and star trek amongst others they do tie together nicely into their own unique faction.  I've tried to tie my minis together as a faction by using a palate of browns and greys (unashamedly inspired by firefly) for the cloths and armour.  This also results in them looking a bit dark, dingy and grubby which I think suits the whole Rebel thing.

Rebel Commanders

 

There are two leaders available to the Rebs, these lovely ladies and a Yndij sergeant, I find myself using these most often as they combine reasonable leadership with a reasonable sniping ability.  I've painted them with different hair colour as well just for a bit of variety.

Kraaw warriors and Judwan Medics

 

Two specialists, the flexible Kraaw (glide and one of those pesky blast weapons) and the Judwan medic, which so far I've found overpriced.  The Judwan are pacifists and won't attack at all, and I normally find that once someone gets injured it's rare you have a chance to heal them before they get killed.

Survey Drones

Yndij

Rebel Human Troopers

 

The grunts of the reb force, not very good, but at least they are cheap.  The drones and Yndij at least have their uses, anyone know how to pronounce Yndij?

Grogans with Onslaught Cannons & Desolators

 

Grogans carry the heavy weapons for the Rebs, the blaze away onslaught cannons and the anti-armour desolators.  They're not the best shots, but usefully can move and shoot and hence aim and shoot.  So far I've found the blaze away option to be the best of the two, but that might change when the light vehicles appear in the game in the summer.

Rebel Soraks

 

These are reminiscent of a certain pod racing alien and armed with an interesting blast weapon that rarely does any damage, but is infuriating to play against. 

Teraton Brawlers

To teraton or not to teraton that is normally the question when selecting a Reb force.  Teratons are nasty scary teleporting combat beasts, but they are expensive and I think ultimately slightly overpriced.  But having said that very little else in the Reb force will last long in combat with just about anything.  They are also simply fantastic minis.

Zee Scavengers

TK-Zero Weapons Team

 

I had a bit of an accident when building these, if you look closely at the sphyr loader on the left, you'll see his head is different from the one on the right.  That's because I managed to loose his head on the floor somewhere after what seemed like hours of fruitless searching I gave up and used a spare head from the dreadball asterians, luckily I didn't loose the 'hammerhead' part so in the end I don't think he looks too bad, honest.....

Dreadball Conversions

 

These last three minis were of course designed for deadzone, but I have inducted them into my rebel warband.  The Zee MVP Riller (in the middle) came with my deadzone package for the rescue the MVP scenario in the Nexus PSi campaiagn, I figured he could satnd in for a normal Zee as well.  The other two were also dreadball MVP's that came in the mantic crazy Christmas box, but as I already have copies of both for dreadball I have added guns and given them a grey paint scheme and they now take to the battlefield as a teraton brawler and a human trooper.