Painting - Variety

Hello Folks,

Time for another painting update. Well at this point I have lots of stuff that I really want to work on so I am getting pulled in all kinds of directions. So all kinds of variety is going on.

Swedish Dragoons:

First up I have some dragoons I did to add in to my Swedish force. Different models from the ones in the starter set, they are in a shooting pose. I like these a bit better personally, but not a huge difference.

Kingdom Death Monster:

I also finished the two female starter survivors from the Kingdom death set. Pretty happy with how they turned out. Lots of flesh to paint.

Next up I have some spies that I got from hasslefree. The idea is to use them as a team of survivors for the Zombie stuff that Duncan is doing, but I am not really sure how appropriate they are for that. But really this was just an excuse to paint some models I found cool.

Spies:

Here we have Sterling Archer the most dangerous spy in the world, and his associate Lana Kane. They are more in the loud type of spy as you can see with all the machine guns hah.

James Bond (Craig):

Next up we have of course 007 with his Walther PPK. Ready for dinner even during the apocalypse.

Felix Leiter:

Then we have Felix Leiter of the CIA, checking on the time. He has a much bigger gun which is probably smart all things considered. I painted to look like the Felix from the newer movies which was kind of a stretch if I am honest, mainly due to no beard.

Agent Goodnight:

Then I have agent Goodnight, am the least happy with this one. It wasn't part of the spies pack I just wanted a spy lady. This model is a bit short (looks worse in picture due to leaning forward). But I dunno just doesn't look like any of the Bond ladies, which I guess it wasn't supposed to so fair enough. Will keep an eye out for a replacement maybe.

Hazmat Team:

Finally I have a hazmat team, because why not! Flamethrower, Geiger Counter, and computer. Would have got some with guns also but they were sold out. But on second way I like it this way.

Full Government Services Group:

So here is the full group of the improbable alliance, a 2 MI6 Agents, a CIA Agent, and 2 Independent spy agents, along with some Hazmat guys, ready to solve the Zombie apocalypse. Or possibly make it worse by blowing stuff up, and getting drunk.

Actually I find these to be quite fun to paint, so now I am wondering if I could do some kind of a pulp type game, but set in modern times basically. Spies and all that, maybe can use the Batman game rules and modify or maybe something else. But could be interesting. An excuse to do some fun weird stuff anyway. I still have an alternate Archer sculpt and a Captain O'neil from stargate as well.

Heavy Gear Blitz Terrain:

I also got in the Heavy Gear kickstarter stuff last week. There is a possibility that I will try out a game this week so I was inspired to paint some terrain I have had lying around for years. Have some of the models put together, but no painted yet.

So that is the random bunch of stuff I have gotten done lately. Moving around all over the place really.

Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 266 (+1- Spies)
Painted: 312
Total: +46

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - By Fire and Sword - Swedish Detachment - Polish Skirmish

Hello All,

Time for another battle report. Once again we are playing By Fire and Sword, since I just finished painting the Swedish Detachment I was excited to try it out, so Serge agreed to go along with that. We based things loosely on the Battle of Drischau, where before the battle the King of Sweden was scouting and got surprised by some Poles and had to flee back. So we did the 'Delay the Enemy' scenario, so as the Swedes it is my job to escape units off the Polish table edge, and also capture 2 hills, which start the game under Polish control.

Here we are after the first moves. The Poles had to set up first and stuck most of their stuff at the halfway mark, but also could put a unit on the hill forward and put the Panceiri up there. To counter I put my dismounted dragoons and a regimental gun 24" back from them so I would get a nice shot before their charge completed, put my other dragoons to busy the main cavalry, and my big unit of Reiters to slip by off the flank. My hope is to capture the front hill with the infantry, and get the Reiters off the board, that should be enough to eke out a victory.

Of course the Panceiri were not interested in my bait unit so they charged my dragoons instead! Crap

Well discretion being the better part of valor my dragoons decline the invitation from the panceiri and just moved straight ahead just out of reach of their charge! Hah take that. My gun line was able to re-position to get some shot in. They have to disorder the Panceiri or my dragoon and in big time trouble. The Cossacks in the back and my Riters just moved around, and the Polish light cavalry began to shoot bad things at my dragoons.

Seems like I missed the pictures for a turn. Well the Panceiri were disordered which saved the dragoons for a bit, and the Cossacks and my Reiters are about to meet. My Colonel now commands the top of the hill! So no my Dragoons were about to be charged by the Panceiri again, so they just about faced dropped to single file and came back through. Sadly the light cavalary has been able to keep shooting them, so they are about to flee. Up top the Cossacks and my Reiters shoot each other, and the Reiters loose a base and have to test, and flee! crap I was so close.

Next turn my Reiters failed to rally and fled again, I just let the dragoons go. My gun and infantry headed for the hills while everyone else got ready for some charging. The Cossacks of course ran over the the gun, but missed my infantry on the pursuit, and for a second time I was able to disorder the Panceiri with shooting, and killed a base so they withdrew.

On the last turn my Reiters now recovered tried to charge the Cassocks, but they about faced and moved back just out of range. I then faield the test for a failed charge and had to pull back out of range. My infantry was able to get a toe on the hill to reclaim it, but then got shot allot of times.

So in the end it was one hill each, and the Polish got an extra point as I got nothing off the edge. So it was technical a draw, but I don't feel super successful!

I am really finding that this game is getting to be more and more fun as we get more games in, so that is really good. Before it was mostly units lining up and charging into each other, but now there is allot of slipping just out of reach and moving around and stuff which is pretty fun! Hopefully I will even win a game someday hah.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - By Fire and Sword Swedish Detachment & Kingdom Death

Hello Folks,

Time for another painting post of what stuff I have gotten do lately. After our successful By Fire and Sword day at the club I was inspired to start working on my Swedish Skirmish set. This one is from the first kickstarter so I have had it for quite awhile, even have had a few painted guys on my desk for years from this. So finally got it finished which is pretty cool.

Swedish Detachment:

In this starter set you get 4 bases of Reiters, 4 of Dragoons foot and mounted, a regimental gun, and a commander. Bit of a more interesting mix then most of the Skirmish Forces as you can have some foot troops and a cannon. I have another blister of Dragoons I am working on to add to this, which is just 2 more. But that allows my to get to the next level of stuff as they have changed things around a bit in the newer list. It is just 2 bases of Dragoons so should be easy.

Kingdom Death:

I also started working on some of the models for the Kingdom Death board game as a side project, plan is to get enough to give it a try when my brother comes to visit in September. This is the first half of the starting survivors, so 2 more and then a couple of monsters, no big deal.

Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 256 
Painted: 296
Total: +40

Oops almost forgot to add the pledge status, almost at 300 now nice!

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Frostgrave - Breeding Grounds - Part 2

Hello Folks, time for part two of this game as we were able to finish it off yesterday.

So here is where we started things off. I have 2 treasures near the bottom, and I want to move counter clockwise up to the top, and the dirty elementalist has 4 treasures and wants to go the opposite way. I moved my wizard up to open the door to the troll room, and then moved my apprentice to cast a grenade spell hoping to blow up a couple of Serge's guys and even the numbers. But I did no damage and left both of my spell casters standing together, hmm... My templar finished off the rat man and I moved everyone along. I had a secret passage this turn from rolling a 20 on imitative. I ussed it to get my dog right into the enemy wizard, but he just died.

next turn you can see how everyone is kind of moving around the clock. The elementalist mage is securing the escape route. My 2 mages got blasted real good by an elemental ball and took some damage, and then both got locked into combat by a dog. I was able to get slippery pete over to help out, but he was wounded so no dice. I got the dog in the very end, but it wasn't exactly on my terms! My mages both had beauty up but that didn't help either.

Next round the bad guys archer had fast act so got to go first and put in arrow into my wizard, killing her. When my apprentice finally got to go I tried for a nice grenade, but failed by 10 taking 2 damage, with only 2 left that was a dead apprentice, not good! In a last desperate move I sent in my Templar to fight everyone! While my 2 guys with treasure tried to slink away as ever more monsters showed up.

I rolled another 20 for initiative, but no wizards left. Still this helped greedy geoffry there with his big chest slip into the next room. My Templar of course rolled a 4 vs a 20 for the thief if I remember right, but she died on the first roll anyway leaving me with 2 guys! I waited a week for this??

We kept it going, because why not. But it is us vs the monsters now really. I had not much to fight while a giant frog hopped around confused. The elementalist infantry man made short work of a zombie. But then Drachnok the Destroyer (major demon), decided to arrive, so maybe it wouldn't be so easy after all.

Elementalist minions with treasures running for the exit before Drachnok starts some trouble, looks close.

But no they are able to jam the small hallway with boddies, so everyone can get off. In the end it was 2 treasures for me and 4 for gandalf there with his floppy white hat.

I got some fun treasures, but then remember to roll for injuries. Both my treasure hunter died, and then even my apprentice died from wounds! So that is it for this party I think hah. Gandalf over there did much better with a tower and kennel and some magic sword trinket.

Was a fun game but really didn't go my way! I think this is a more fun game played like this thou but there are good points with both. I really need to paint the doors thou.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Frostgrave - Breeding Grounds

Hello Folks,

Time for another battle report. This time we were back to playing some Frostgrave. Trying out some stuff from the new Breading Pits book. Mainly it's about having adventures underground in cramped areas with traps and secret passage. I don't have a table for that, but I decided to set up something using the dungeon saga tiles. I just turned one of the mouse pad mats upside down to use as a base to stop them sliding. We used the rules they have to open close doors, none of them are locked, and I just put down what terrain I had to make it look a bit better. We dropped the measuring of range and said every square is 1" and just round everything up. Simple way to do it but I think it is fine. Makes all the area spells a bit bigger maybe and some things move faster but I don't see a big deal. Oh we also said that dogs can't open doors.

We played the breeding pits scenario. Basically there are treasures and monsters come in every turn. We added one stipulation only which is that you have to take the treasures off the other person area as we are trying to explore through the dungeon and run into each other. I took my Witches and a few guys and Serge had an Elementalist.

For the first turn we are mostly just getting out of the start. The elementalist party splits in half right away, but I am being a bit more careful.

On turn 2 Gandalg the white moves up with some guys going for a treasure by the well. I don't really want to charge out and fight all those guys at the same time, so I decided to play peekaboo with imps. I just get the Templar to open the door, my Witch makes and Imp and then I close the door again so it goes after him hah. I did that like 3 times. Meanwhile my apprentice heads further in but now has to fight a dog, and my archer treasure hunter and dog go for a treasure by the gargoyles and to cause trouble. The rest of the elementalists guys are spread out grabbing everything not nailed down.

Here is the last picture I took, Gandalf was withdrawing so I gave up on my Imp distraction. My treasure hunter got butchered trying to hass the guys by the double doors so I just took the treasure and brought everyone back together. My apprentice and her 3 guys are doing good killing dogs and skeletons and collecting treasures. The Templar is about to get in a big battle with a crazed monkey which is not going well. Lastly a two headed troll is about to show up in the furnace room.

We ran out of time at this point, but just left it set up. So tune in next week for the exciting conclusion. So far I am liking the set up with the tiles and small corridors, somehow it feels like it matters allot more where people go.

I was unsure about wether or not I should post half a battle report like this, but I decided eh whatever.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting + Game Pictures - By Fire and Sword

Hello All,

So this past weekend we had a Renaissance gaming day down at the club. I was organizing some By Fire and Sword games, and there was some people playing Field of Glory as well. Since there was some action for this game I decided to paint up a few more Curiassier for for Holy Roman Empire. Just a couple of packs I had picked up at Cold Wars to expand the base Skirmish force a bit.

Not a ton of guys just a couple of bases of unarmored, and a couple with armor. I also want to add some more dragoons, but Wayland games is being crazy slow about shipping them!

With all the excitement I have finally started working on my Swedes again that have been on my desk for years.

Gaming wise we had 4 people at the club plus me so I didn't end up playing just running things. But we had Polish, Ottoman, Transylvanian, and Imperial Skirmish forces.

I only took a few pictures. In the first round we played separate games with Polish vs Transylvania, and Ottomans vs Imperials. The scenario was capture the ford. Here you have a column of Household Cavalry and a column of Panceiri battling it out on a bridge!

For game two we adding it all together and played take and hold. In this one you are trying to control and hill and it's approaches (the 2 houses). Without all the bridges and rivers there was allot more room to spread out. In this game the Polish and Imperials were able to push back the Ottomoans and their Transylvanian allies.

Also big thanks to the guys that painted armies specially for this

Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 256 
Painted: 280
Total: +24


Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - By Fire and Sword - Ambush

Hello All,

We have a Renaissance gaming day coming up at the club, and I got a few people hooked in to play By Fire and Sword with me. So I got Serge to try out another practice game with me on Wednesday so we can learn the rules a bit and get out some of the kinks. I was reading the book after and found lots of things we did wrong!

Anyway it was again a Polish skirmish force with lots of cavalry vs my newly painted Outpost Defense skirmish force for the Holy Roman Empire. My group came out to 5 points vs 4 or 5 for the Poles, so we set up for the Ambush scenario. One of the big selling points of this game is that you can have games with armies of unmatched points value. So I wanted to test that out.

I forgot to get a picture before we started but this one is after the first moves. The way this scenario works is that the weaker player is setting up an ambush, so they put down a bait unit, in this case the Wallachian cavalry at the bottom by the woods. The stronger player then gets a deployment zone 40cm x 40cm 20cm behind the bait to set up. Finally the weaker players sets up the rest of their stuff more then 20cm from the stronger player. There are also some negative rules for the stronger player. One big thing is that one unit is randomly selected to be disorganized, this was one of my big units of musketeers, who were facing down the Polish Panceiri cavalry crap!

So as you can see the Poles charged avoiding my pikes, and I put down what defensive orders I could.

My unit in the woods was able to fire on the cassock style cavalry as they came in. This killed a base forcing a morale test which they failed, so one unit is saved. The other unit was caught without orders and disorganized however, so the elite Poles started killing them and forced them to flee.

I tried to bring my pikes into the came, and put a bit more fire on the cassocks to not much effect, and the Panceiri kept pursuing my other infantry unit. The Wallachaian scout cavalry charged into my pikes and got a bit lucky, and I got some things wrong, and they broke those guys.

The Wallachians then continued into the flank of my next infantry unit and then we called the game.

The way victory works is the casualties of the stronger played used to determine who wins and by how much. In order to win they need to take light losses. I was really into the heavy losses side of the table, so it was a good victory for the poles.

It was pretty bad luck for me on what unit got disorganized, and the pikes probably should have had a good chance at holding that unit. But it was a fun game anyway I thought. It does seem like their way of balancing forces with scenarios is workable which is cool. I also figured out some things we got wrong also so hopefully will do a bit better at the club.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - Lost Patrol (Warhammer 40k)

Hello Folks,

So I decided awhile back to get a copy of the Lost Patrol game (I assume it is similar to space hulk but in a jungle) and paint it up for my Brothers birthday. I procrastinated a but and got off to a slow start, but had it done in no time once things really got rolling. The one thing I noticed about this once I started on it is that none of the models are new, they are just put in a new box. So that is a bit lame if you ask me. The Genestealers sprue has 2004 printed on it! So I would think it is time for them to stop selling us the same things and make a new sculpt or 2. But they are not bad models or anything so it is what it is.

Space Marine Scouts:

Here are the scouts, painted as Black Templars instead of Blood Angels as per the box, to fit in with an existing army a bit better.

Infestation Counters:

Infestation counters, I am guessing that these are objectives for the scouts to kill, or maybe spawn points? Not sure I never looked at the rules I just painted the things.

Genestealers:

And finally a dozen Tyranid monsters. Seems like allot for 5 scouts to kill to be honest. I am pretty happy with how these guys came out, purple skin and blacks claws is cool. But they are maybe a bit flat if I am honest.


No it is back to finishing off those Ronin sets I guess.

Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 256 
Painted: 276
Total: +20



Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Frostgrave

Hello All,

So on Sunday I had the crowd over to play a game of Frostgrave. Stan brought along his Library terrain to use (thanks very much) and we played the library scenario (well sort of). The original plan was to have 5 players so I added on a bit of a village at the entrance of the great library, but we played with 4 so this was not used.

Now with 4 players having a laugh there is no way to really have much of a narrative to this so I am just going to toss up so pictures and give a brief overview I guess?

We modified the scenario again by having monsters show up for all treasures picked up as that is more of a laugh. Also we just picked monsters that people that were cool, including death knights and djinns and werewolves. So the monsters are way stronger then you would normally see is a game of Frostgrave. But I find this to be cool and fun. This is a 1 off game and not a campaign so thins are a bit different.

So here is our initial set up of things, library with bookshelves and books and tables, and 12 treasure tokens spread all over the place. in the bottom corner there is a Chronomancer and her warband various guys with 2 crossbow men. To the left is a Witch with his warband of 5 barbarian beastmen and no apprentice. By the door up top another Witch with a full warband. Finally in the top corner is an Illusionist and his merry band.

Things got off a bit slow with people moving in and not wanting to start trouble. The Witch in the North promised to leave the Illusionist alone, which everyone assumed was code for I am attacking you.

Here we are into turn 2. As you can see people are heading in a trolls and werewolves and starting to show up, mostly in the empty part of library.

Here we are after some more time has passed. The 2 witches are really starting to run into each other now, but still not to much blood shed. The Illusionist is staring down a big troll, and the same for the Chronomancer.

Now things have degenerated rather rapidly. The Beastmen were coming between some rows of bookshelves to threaten the Witches. So she climbed up on a shelf and put a bone dart into that guys skull killing him right out! Meanwhile the Chronomancer managed to mind control his troll for just long enough to convince it to attack the Witches. The Illusionist is still trying to deal with his troll, and has not got the attention of a werewolf as well!

A beastman has now climbed up in the stacks to try and get some revenge on the Witch so things are looking grim there. But on the plus side her apprentice and pals have took out the Troll, and are now looking for loot. Although the werewolf has wandered over to the middle. The Chronomancer is grabbing everything not nailed down, and the Illusionist is playing a solo game vs the Troll and there also seems to be an Angry Djinn.

Well here is the last photo I have. You can see the death knight about to behead the witch apprentice. The barbarians are about to fight a yeti sneaking up behind the bookshelf. The red guy with the spear is with the Chronomancer he just has to fight off the guys by the scroll. The Illusionist has finally after many turns managed to take out the troll, and then banished the Djinn with ease!

At the final tally the Chronomancer has 3 treasures so was the winner, everyone else had just 1! Except possible the Illusionist had 2.

So that is our big game of Frostgrave, lots of crazy adventures in the Great Library. Hard to keep track of what is going on, but I hope you at least get a kick out of the pictures.

Thanks;
Mike