Beginning of the BA League/Infinity Painting

Ahoy, it's time for another update! I'm fresh from kicking off the NAG Bolt Action League and I managed to hold onto a draw against Jim's Veteran British. I've only defended a couple of scenarios now but I hate it, prep bombardment is really annoying especially with the British rolling two dice and choosing the highest. It can instantly put hurt on your army before you've even activated an order!

We rolled for point defence and had to cut down the distances of the 3 objectives due to playing on a 4' x 4' board for the 500pts. We used three of my 15mm StuGs as objective markers (really need to build some 28mm WW2 objective markers now) and I had my lieutenant, a regular squad and Zis-3 defending the far right objective, left the middle objective free and defended the left hand objective with a Medium Mortar, AT Rifle and Sniper team. I left an inexperienced squad and regular squad in reserve to bring on from turn three depending on where Jim's reserves came on. My regular squad I brought on easily on the left to support the weapon teams, but my Inexperienced squad refused to come on (needing a 6 on two dice) until turn 6 where they rushed the middle objective and reclaimed it from a two man Brit team left taking that objective.

Zis-3 and Lieutenant Defend The Motherland

Regular Squad Defends the Left Objective

Pinned Squads with Reinforcements Coming On

Pesky Heavy Mortar Wouldn't Die

The Brit Vet Squad Moments Before They Were Killed by the Zis-3

As the game ended I held one objective, Jim held one and we were contesting the other. A draw. Not bad for our first league game. Jim took more points than me, I learned killing vets are a tough job to do and can see why the majority of people use vets in comp lists. Going from killing people on half of the dice rolls (4+) for my Soviets to killing them on a 1/3 of dice rolls (5+) for Jims really makes a different. Sure I can hit them easily enough to cause a pin but trying to kill the buggers well that's a different thing. Thankfully the Zis-3 luckily landed a shell straight on the Vet squad coming up the right. The +2 Pen really helps against Vets as you're then killing them on 3+, alot better!

I ranged in on his heavy mortar knocking it down to one man, but then my Medium Mortar couldn't finish it off for the full game, to the point the Heavy Mortar took a pot shot on my Lieutenant (needing a 6+ to range in) and managed it in the very last turn! This left the contested objective on the right was now easily in Jim's control. It was a great game but I cannot wait to attack in a scenario with prep bombardment! Jim went onto play a second league game against Dom's Italians and managed a marginal victory so leads with 4 points. We've already had a couple of extra guys sign up and another couple are showing interest, hopefully we can have even more people join!

So the progress of my Japanese for Bolt Action has been halted for a bit, I was burning myself out doing the same paint scheme over and over! I want to get them finished soon (just 10 men and the weapon teams left) but I needed a bit of time away from them to not get completely bored.

In light of this I've been painting my Infinity Combined Army! I've got another couple of training games with my Morat on Sunday going to be taking 250pts with me so I'm really looking forward to that. I really enjoyed my training game against Mike in June so looking forward to learning the more advanced rules on Sunday. I should be having a couple of games so hopefully I can learn from the first game and then implement it in the second game. Earlier this week I had the Yaogat box set delivered and I've built them along with my Morat Vanguard Boxset. I'm waiting for my bases to be delivered from Element Games which should be tomorrow so I can base everything on the bases and get them all primed grey for Sunday.

So far I've finished two of the Morat Vanguard with Combi Rifles and almost finished the big Suryat beast and got another Vanguard with Combi Rifle as a WIP. I'm not the greatest painter and still learning but I really enjoyed painting these guys. Hopefully once they're all finished and completed and look uniformed together they'll look ok for tabletop. I'm hoping with the others being primed I might be able to make some more progress on them but it all depends on time and whether the weather holds out.

Beginning of The Vampire Counts

So as well as my Japanese Bolt Action I've also made a start on my Vampire Count army. I ended up buying quite the backbone of my Vampire Count army from one of the lads at the club for just over £100. He tried getting into Fantasy but it wasn't for him so it was a great piece of timing to start my Vamps army.

I've spent the last couple of days sorting through it all and this is approx what I've got so far; 

Zombies x 29
Skeletons x 30
Grave Guard x 10
Ghouls x 30
Hexwraiths x 5
Black Knights x 5
Corpse cart x 1
Varghiests x 3
Flesh hounds x 1
Black Coach x 1
Necromancer x 1
Wight King x 1
Forgeworld Wight King Battle Standard Bearer x 1
Count Mannfred on Horseback x 1
Army book

Not a bad starting section for the army. I've also managed to pick up the limited Christmas run box The Restless Dead from eBay for really cheap so that'll add another Wight King (though I'll probably not really use another one), 10 more Grave Guard which were definitely needed, 20 more Skeletons which again are always needed and 5 more Black Knights/Hexwraiths which I think I'm going to make into 5 more Hexwraiths. I've also ordered from Blyth Models a box of the Mantic Zombies so that'll add a much needed 40 extra Zombies to the army because let's be honest, Zombies are everywhere in a Vampire Count list. Especialy when you can raise even more throughout every magic phase.


I've had an idea for a Vampire Lord for my army using a Empire Warrior Priest as the basis of my model. I recieved one for Christmas but already had the model in my Empire army so went to work with the clippers and knife to trim away the different parts of the Finecast model to create my own Vampire-looking model. It's the first time I've used Greenstuff on models, the only other experience of using it was with my Flames of War Volks and that was just for the basing. So this the final result of the conversion, pretty simple but effective. I'm still trying to look for a cloak to use on the back but have yet to find one that's the right length and also need to think of a Count name for him. He could very well be my general for the army.

Like a few VC armies out there I'm going to be using the Garden of Morr scenery set to create some unit fillers for my army. I've already had a bit of a play with the different pieces for units and so far only settled on the big gate for the back rank of my Grave Guard. It takes out the need of 8 men but in a future 40-man block won't look too out of place. I'm planning on having one of the Grave Guards walking out between the gates to give the unit filler a bit of life. I'm loving the magnetic tape I've bought off eBay to magnetise everything as it really keeps big pieces like this securely in place while playing the game and transporting.

With the VC army I and the huge amount of models for the army I wanted something easy and practicaly to transport everything around. I've decided to go for the Really Useful Boxes, I've got a shallow 10 litre box for the core troops (though the standards have to be laid on their sides) and then a deep 18 Litre box for the cavalry, scenery unit fillers and the recently purchased Terrorgheist and Mortis Engine once their built. I've put Steel sheets onto the bottom of the boxes and the movement trays have magnetic tape on the bottom so it's nice and secure to stick to the bottom of the box and carry around. It definitely makes the back room look a little less untidy with being able to take the whole army and pack it away in the cupboard.

As I've been getting through the Japanese for the Bolt Action Welsh Open in Oct, I've not had much of a chance to do any painting for them, I've done a couple of test Crypt Ghouls which I'm happy with. They're pretty easy to do but look rather good all together so once the Japanese are sorted I'll whip through them. My zombies will be sprayed with the Necrotic Flesh army painter sprayed, details and clothes will then be basecoated before dipping the whole lot of them. It'll speed up the painting for these no-end and the prospect of doing 60 and probably another 40 later on this year is not really that appealing.

Need to Decide on Basing

Finally I made a start on one of the Flesh Hounds as a tester. I'm not overly keen on the models but for some chaff in the army I'm not that fussed to get anything else at the current time. I'm sure over time I'll either find some different models or do something a bit more extravagant but for the time being I'm happy with the look of these. I'll be adding some Blood for the Blood God in the near future to certain areas to give them that undead feel.

Pics of the First Japanese Squad

Here's the pics of my first completed Japanese squad. Going to make a start on the the other three squads this weekend and hopefully will have the majority of the infantry finished by Sunday or Monday night. I'm getting into my Vampire Counts at the moment but don't want them to distract me too much from the Japanese which is my priority at the moment.

First Japanese Squad Completed!

10 down, 30 to go! The first 10 Japanese troops for the Welsh Open in October have been finished and based. Doing the men in batches of 10 really works well as I can put them on a production line and by the time the 10th man has whatever layer of paint applied I can return to the first man for the next layer and it'll be ready.

I've added another grass piece to the front to fully cover the base.

I'm really pleased with the long grass I purchased on eBay. It's about 120mm tall so really gets up to the models waist and gives the squad a feeling of moving through the long grass and attacking the Allies head on. I think a whole army in the paint scheme I've got with the long grass is really going to look awesome of the battlefield. I've already got visions for my gun teams being hidden amongst the grass ready to lay enemy armour to waste.

Hopefully the weather holds up until tonight so I can get close to the other 30 men all primed so I can work on them from Thursday and all weekend as the mrs is working nights this weekend. Unfortunately I won't be able to paint throughout the weekend days or head down to the club on Sunday as I've stupidly agreed to work both Saturday and Sunday as they needed extra office staff to help for a warehouse stock check.

Once I get the infantry finished, hopefully by the end of the weekend if I really make a concentrated effort, then I'll be ordering everyting else I need to finish off the army. Still trying to source a couple of bits and pieces though so until I can find them I'm not going to have the full 1,000pts to play with. For games at the club I might see whether I can either use my Chi-Ha Medium Tank or proxy one of my Zis-3s for one of the guns I'll have to find from a different supplier. It's a big pain with Warlords limited supply of Japanese models, some of the more tasty options in the army book have to be sourced from elsewhere rather from themselves.

Keep you all updated in the next couple of days with more pictures of the full squad.

I Think I'm Building Japanese, I Really Think So

So I've been pretty darn busy the last couple of nights. As mentioned a couple of days ago I really needed to make a concentrated effort on my Japanese in the upcoming weeks ahead of the Bolt Action Welsh Open in October. So Wednesday I went on a production line and built all 40 Japanese troops in one night! Granted I was still up gluing pieces at 1am but at least the four ten man squads have been built now! 

My main aim is to get the troops built and painted first and then focus on the weapon teams and guns that I’ll be using in my list afterwards. Last night I primed the first ten men and set upon getting the Japanese colour scheme nailed down. I first tried using the Vallejo Japanese Uniform colour but it’s a horrible yellow colour that looked awful and was a pain to get a consistent coat across the model. I know quite a few people playing Japanese first tried this colour, mainly because of the name but every single one has sworn off it and I can see why.

First Squad Primed

I then tried Vallejo Middlestone and it looked great, more of a greeny yellow this colour will be the full uniform colour of my troops. Browns for the boots, rifle and boxes with a Khaki colour for the bags and pouches. I wasn’t too sure on the colour of the helmet but settled on the German Camo dark green. I then did a full Agrax Earthshade wash before drybrushing Middlestone back over the uniform to bring back up the colour of the uniform. 

It’s a pretty quick scheme but I need something like that for all 40 men. I might try some highlighting if I’ve got the time but my main course of action is get the army tabletop ready and then see exactly how much time 

I have to get everything else sorted. I know what I want to do for the bases too, I want to represent the long grass that a lot of the pacific fighting was fought in. I’ve ordered some 1.2cm long golden grass tufts that should cover halfway up the legs to give this look. If it doesn’t work I’ve got another supplier where you can have a custom length. Hopefully this will add a lot more to the models but I’m going to test one out over the weekend and see what it looks like.

Still trying to sort out my 500pt list for the league game against Jim on Sunday too, I might just use my usual list that is troop heavy but I’m having ideas of adding a Zis-3 Gun so I can use it for any potential armoured cars or as a howitzer on troops. It may be picked ahead of the MMG as I’ve yet to really have much success with that. Keep you all informed on what I go with.

Hopefully another update over the weekend, time depending, on the basing of the Japanese and the list I’m choosing for the Bolt Action League game.

Cheers,

Chalmers

  

It Returns!

Back From The Dead....

Fear not I'm alive! It's been almost two months since my last post, apologies for that. Since then I've been to Morocco and back, tore up the back garden and laid turf and fitted a new fence, been to Glastonbury to work for Oxfam for the week, and been working my tits off in my job. Unfortunately with all of that happening I've had to put the blog on the backburner but I'm now back and hopefully it'll be better than ever!

So what have I been up to in the world of wargaming in the past two months? Well the Soviets are fully finished to a 1,000pts on the dot. Me and Jim had a game with his finished Brits a couple of weeks ago and while I took a very early lead by the end of the battle Jim had beaten me by about 2 points mainly by getting his units off the board. I'll get some pictures sorted out in the next week or so, at the moment they’re in a case and with another 1,000pt game on Sunday I don’t want to take them all out to then put them all back in.

Despite having the Welsh Open at the beginning of October I’ve made absolutely no progress on my Japanese, I’ve put the next couple of weeks aside for getting all the squads built and primed, weather permitting. I’m still trying to source a couple of the models as unfortunately Warlord doesn’t seem to have a lot of the artillery and anti-tank guns for sale yet. I’ll be trailing through the other companies of the web to try and source what I need hence why I’m going to focus on the troops first.

I’ve organised an Escalation League for Bolt Action at NAG, we’re going to be starting at 500pts before moving to 750pts and finally 1K. A couple of people haven’t exactly been happy about some of the rules but at the moment we’ve got five people signed up with a couple more showing interest so hopefully it’ll garner so more interest once a few of the games have begun. Full details and rules for the league can be found here.

Outside of Bolt Action, I went to the midnight launch of the 7^th Edition Warhammer 40K. Granted I was coming back from Morocco at the time but why not, I’ve still yet to play a game of 40K due to my recent time constraints but having read the rulebook quite a bit it seems like it’ll be decent once I pick it up and I get playing a bit more.

Warhammer Fantasy-wise I participated in the first tournament of the year a month ago, we had a no-comp 2,000pt competition and I decided to take my Ogres as usual. Two 20-0 losses and one 14-6 win wasn’t really what I had planned but I’ve finally decided to box up and store away the Ogres for the foreseeable future. After a little while they get a little boring and stale. I’ve started the process of clearing out some of my failed armies (Lizardmen will be the first to go, my Empire will either go into storage or be sold too), once I’ve cleared those out I’m going to be starting a Vampire Count army. They were my original choice when I returned to Fantasy last year until I was drawn into the Ogres because let’s be honest what’s cooler than; Vampires, Zombies, Ghouls, Skeletons and everything else that goes bump in the night? I know I’m going to need a big bunch of Zombies (thankfully Mantic Games do pretty well priced undead) and the thought of painting every one is a little daunting but I’m hoping the Army Painter Necrotic Flesh Spray will give me a decent basecoat to then give the skin a wash and colour the clothing. It’ll be a long project for sure to get done but I have a feeling the army is going to look pretty cool once they’re finished.

Gorgeous Models

A couple of weeks back I had my first training game for Infinity. Mike, one of the main advocates of Infinity at the club is now a Warcor who can teach players the rules. I used his beautifully painted Ariadna against his Toahaa army and loved the game. The small model count really helps the game flow especially with the reactive orders meaning that no player is ever sat twiddling their thumbs because everyone is always involved. Check out Mike’s great blog here for all things Infinity. I’ve bought the Morat Sectorial Starter Force and the Vanguard Infantry box, they’re two of the newest box sets to be launched and they’re beautiful sculpts. I’ve already got the Starter Force based and grey-primed with the Vanguard waiting in the wings for a spray. Once I get these all started I’ll be having another training game to learn some more of the advance rules of the game and I really cannot wait for whenever that will be.

Finally I’ve signed up for a Judge Dredd Campaign at the club! The models and rulebook is produced by Warlord in conjunction with Mongoose Publishing. I’ve started a Cursed Earth Desperadoes gang but I’m still working out what equipment to give to each person in the gang for the campaign. I originally had an idea of two heroes and multiple goons but after kitting out two heroes with all the bells and whistles it really limited my choice for how many men I could run. We’re kicking off the Campaign August 10^th so hopefully by then I’ll have a couple of games under my belt and the initial guys for my gang all painted and sorted.

So yeah it’s been an eventful couple of months, hopefully now I can settle down and focus on getting the Japanese in some sort of recognisable state and make a move on with everything else. More updates later this week once I have Banzai’d straight into my Japanese models.
Chalmers