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Yeah, they are looking great even as wip.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To bring over the page:

 Sigur wrote:
Back to business and that means: Star Wars - Imperial Assault. Here's the latest batch, all WIP:



IG-88 is finished, same as the Probes. The Royal Guard dudes in red maybe need some minor additional work, but are mostly done. Han Solo (ohmigawd, I'm painting Han Solo!!1) at least got the base colours in place and the skin and hair mostly done, Luke Skywalker (ERMERGERD, I PAINT LUKE SKYWALKER!!!!12) needs a bit more work.

The Scout Troopers with the heavy weapons are very WIP at this point. Lateron I'll add a champion of the Royal Guard, Two Nexu (of Episode 2 .. fame?) and three imperial officers. Hope you like the dudes so far.

They are very cool indeed, its great to see some painted Star Wars minis.

The minis are nice but the commentary on them is even better

@Carlos13th: Thanks very much, mate!

@Dr H: Thanks for the service.

@GiraffeX: Yar, they're rather fun to paint.

@RiTides: I aim to please.


New WIP:



Han Solo is finished, same as Chewbacca (although he might need some more licks of paint), just a little bit of work on the white on the heavy weapons. Not sure why the Nexu don't look as nice in the picture as they do in real life. But they'll get better.

Those are looking really nice man. I'd say the models paint up surprisingly nicely, but I suspect it is more "Sigur can paint up models surprisingly nicely"

@Wehrkind: Thanks anyway. The models are a bit inconvenient to work with, but paint up alright once they're cleaned and all (which takes very long).



Done!





Hope you like them.

They're really cool.

How come some models have a red rim and others don't?

D

Thanks for the comment, evildrcheese! That's gameplay stuff. As far as I know Imperial Assault is based on the Doom/Descent rules in which enemies have a regular level version and a champion version which usually has slightly higher stats, additional special abilities or both. In the likes of Descent these were cast in a different coloured plastic. Of course that's of no help if you intend to have your collection painted by a paintmonkey such as myself. So the base rims are painted red to differentiate who's a regular dude and who's a souped-up dude.

Great job on them all.
Love the fabrics.

@Dr H: Cheers, much appreciated!


Heyhey, a new Fantasy mini.



A new Freebooter's Fate release for one of the Brotherhood gangs I'm doing. Hope you like her. Not sculpted by Werne Klocke and on a computer I assume. (meh)


In other news, here are horses:


...and the rest of the Imperial Assault photos (uploading then didn't work for a while, but I fixed it):




Imperials:


Nexu:


Rebels:


Royal Guard:



Hope you like them.



Right, now for the blogger-y stuff: I've been to Vienna's model fair again this year. Same procedure as every year. I hope to post pictures after Monday when I go there again.

Apart from that I played Space Hulk for the first time. Proper Space Hulk that is, not a computer game. (in the past I played two SH-based computer games: Space Hulk - Vengeance of the Blood Angels, which looked amazing. Seriously good stuff. Decades later I played that latest game which is a 1:1 port of the 3rd editiojn rules from the 2009 release.)

We played 3rd edition in celebration of my friend having finished painting most of his SH set. We played the first scenario from the book. First I played Genestealers, then we switched sides and had another go.



The general mission was "go there, use flamer to set control room on fire. Once that's done, Space Marines win. If the flamer should run out of ammo before that or get killed the Genestealers win".



The first game was kinda close, but Marines won.




Then we switched sides, I got to play the Marines and lost badly.




According to a bunch of people Space Hulk, along with Blood Bowl, is GW's best and most playable game. That might well be the case. Very solid, tight, well thought out rules sets. There is little of the stuff others think of when GW (board) games are mentioned (random, but cute stuff).

Good game, that Space Hulk. Very tactical. Of course dice can still ruin your day if you play very bad, but that's always a possibility. I looked through the later missions and I'm sure they can wrinkle your brains trying to get through.



The minis of course are really pretty. Painted the set three times, always an experience.



I assume you can still pick up the 2014 version for a less insane price than the 2009 version (virtually the same thing) went for shortly after it was sold out.



And now for something different YET AGAIN:

I did a most unusual thing and wrote a book review!

http://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2015/10/review-scenarios-for-all-ages.html



I usually don't do this because I'm all about miniatures on the Battle Brush Studios site, but I think that this book is a very handy addition to your wargaming library, especially if you don't want to have to rely on the (faulty) suggestion that points guarantee balanced, equal, good or remotely 'realistic' or interesting games. But who has the time to work out intricate scenarios all the time? Well, this book might be just what you're looking for. Over 50 mostly generic and generally applicable scenarios with suggested forces involved. Explained quickly and easily, just leaf through the book and choose one. Okay, the thing currently is out of print, but it's not too hard to track down.

Have a read if you're intrigued. I think that this might be useful.

Piccina is finished!














Hope you like her.

She looks very nice, thats one big ass crossbow!

@GiraffeX: Yeah, I guess if you're all out of ideas you start making up huge weapons. I feel bad for giving this mini so much flak. It's an okay sculpt, I'd just prefer a Werner Klocke sculpt for Freebooter's Fate minis.

Here are pictures of a 15mm Fortress by Kallistra:









Really nice set of modular castle walls. They're being sold as fitting for 10mm and 15mm, but really, I think they don't really fit for 10mm figures. Goes very well with 15mm though.


...and some Salamanders characters:


That's going to be the third time I paint Vulkan. First time I paint the Finecast version.



I wrote yet another review too! This time I took a close look at some minis from Brother Vinni, the man who makes it very, very, very, very clear on his website that you WILL get your minis even though he's located in Russia. Very, very useful for all kinds of Fantasy things. He also has a Fallout range and some viking ladies which are really popular (because people in German-speaking areas will throw money at anything that's remotely Saga-esque these days. It's a weird thing I might ramble on about at some point around 5am. )

Here's a link to the review:
http://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2015/10/review-brother-vinni-fantasy-miniatures.html



Hope you like the review and find it interesting!

The more I see that crossbow, the more it irritates me... it really is just long for long's sake. The actual functioning bit is not proportional to the size... it is just a normal "big" cross bow with a 3 foot stock attached. The firing bar is... ARGH! So silly.

Pretty paint though

The fortress looks nice too! I am always tempted to get back into 15mm gaming, torn between the awesome scenery and tables you can do, along with the better maneuver options, and the fact it is really hard to do characterful, neat models at that scale. I really want a way to play with larger scale figures on a giant ass table that doesn't involve suspending myself from the ceiling.

@Wehrkind: Yeah, it doesn't make much sense, does it. Oh well....

It's all about the pros and cons I guess. What would you play in 15mm?


Spehs Mereenz update:


I spent the day NMM'ing the poop out of Vulkan. :p

I used to play a good bit of ACW in 15mm (it was really popular at cons etc. when I was in high school.) Napoleonics are pretty fun in that scale too. Anything with formations is really better at 15mm... I'd like to play some big ancients battles too, but you don't see them much around here. Well... maybe you do. I am still expecting that most stuff like that involves owning all the models yourself and hosting games which is a lot of work

Come to think of it, I rather miss micro-armor games too (~6mm I think).

That fortress looks beautiful. Excellent painting all around.

@Wehrkind: Yeah, it's tricky. You either need people who are willing to pull that off with you, a club or a LOT of motivation. The problem is, even if you power though the whole project by yourself, it might still be hard finding people to play with. I think that people usually are more motivated to play something if they own minis for that game/period themselves. What you could use to lure people into playing 15mm ancients with you is DBA. Pretty much minimal investment, pre-done army packs, relatively few minis to paint, all in one book, including a campaign system. Lateron you can add minis to those forces and use DBM, big DBA (or what it's called), Impetus, To The Strongest, etc.

@Warboss_Waaazag: Thanks. There is something about castles and such that's just instantly appealing I think.






So here's the fortress all set up on a quickly thrown together "gaming table". I was under a little time pressure, so couldn't get out all the rest of the terrain and throw little bits and pieces of vegetation on, but at least it works somewhat well to get an impression of what the thing looks like on a table.







As you can see I added my little 10mm Thirty Years War figures to add some life. I was also curious about how they would scale with the fortress. According to Kallistra's website it's made for 10mm and 15mm sized figures. When I saw it I thought that it's way too big for 10mm and that it would go much better with 15mm, but looking at it with figures next to it and such I think that it scales rather well with 10mm. Doors probably are a bit large, but otherwise it seems like a nice fit.








Hope you like it.

Man, that does look pretty! You are right that there really is just something super appealing about seeing big architecture on the table like that. Especially with the city buildings inside. Proper looking city scapes really are lacking in most war games I think, just because they are a bit tough to really do well at scale. Infinity or a similar game at 10mm would be awesome if you could get the models to work (and not forget them on the table )

My plan to get back into 15mm stuff someday is to take my daughter to some conventions, and if she digs the whole war gaming thing start building some armies with her. My guess is she will like the bigger, more monster laden stuff (I certainly did at her age... and sorta now) but coordinating with people to play Hordes is hard enough, much less the smaller, less popular games.

@Wehrkind: Yeah, the thing about cities in 10mm is that games at that scale usually don't use the whole 1 figure = 1 man scale, so it looks weird if buildings are at 10mm scale. That's a whole world of trouble in itself. Sounds tricky, but as long as you get your daughter on the 'right path' I guess a little detour to 28mm fantasy stuff is okay.


Last night another game of Chain of Command took place. This time it was Frank Shandy who borrowed my Brits (BLUE) pitted against virago and his German DAK platoon (RED). My job as umpiring the whole affair and taking pictures.



The scenario is Scenario Six from the rulebook - Attack on an Objective. The British platoon's job is to hold an objective, in our case here an important hill going along with control of the railway and telegraph, the Germans' job is to kick them off the objective and occupy it themselves. The attack would go on until one side is retreating (voluntarily or by means of lowering their force morale to a point at which the force is uncommandable any more).

In this scenario the attacker rolls 2d6 for their support level, the defender gets half that support.

Force Morale was rolled for and the Germans ended up with a force morale of 9, the British got 8.


Patrol Phase

Being the attackers, the Germans got four patrol markers (check out the snazzy patrol markers virago made) and a random number of free patrol marker moves (in this case three), starting at their table edge. The British got three markers, starting at the objective.



The German patrols advanced aggressively and got quite far into the enemy flank on the right side.

I also put the opposing forces in the picture. The British mid-1941 rifle platoon versus the German DAK Panzergrenadiers. The Germans ended up with 7 points of support while the British got 6 (half the points the Germans get = 3, plus the difference in platoon rating = 3). Given the relatively high level of support it would have been perfectly possible for the Germans to bring a battle tank. With this in mind the British brought a 40mm bofors anti-air gun (often used in all sorts of roles at the time, even though it was deemed 'unenglish' to use AA guns against ground targets by some officers). For the rest of their support they got entrenchments for two teams. Those would be deployed along with the teams sitting in them on pre-determined jump-off points.


German Platoon Sergeant

German support went in a whole different direction though, with a second senior leader, an adjutant, both an excellent way to make sure the troops move swiftly and where you want them to move, and a forward observer team with a battery of 81mm mortars on stand-by.


The Early Game

Jump-off points were placed and the attackers started their first phase. The Germans deployed a squad of Panzergrenadiers right away at the central Jump Off Point as well as Oberleutnant Lechner, the platoon commander. He immediately started reorganizing the squad, massing the two MG34s into one group and the riflemen into another.


Lechner, blurry dude in the bottom left, bellowing orders in his thick Styrian accent while his Panzergrenadiers scrurry around. The half-track and staffers is one of virago's scenic Jump-Off Point markers.

Then two riflemen were detached as a combat patrol and were sent off around the dune at tactical stance (slower, but cover is increased by one level) to scout the British positions. The other two Panzergrenadier sections were deployed at the other two Jump-Off Points each, going on overwatch.

A British squad was deployed to the left on the slight hill, met the German scouts with fire and send them back around the dune. The other team within that section went on overwatch because the German Panzergrenadiers on the right side had started advancing, capturing one of the British Jump-Off Points and thus making it unusable for now (greyed out).




The British Bofors gun was deployed pretty early on due to the Germans' pressure. It was deployed bang on the objective and entrenched.



They opened fire at the advancing Germans, didn't do a whole lot of damage, but one might say the damage was done where it counts: The unlucky second senior leader got hit by a 40mm round and the German force morale took a hefty hit.

Mid-Game

Seeing as how the British had revealed the position of their big guns (right next to the Bofors gun a rifle section and the mortar team had been deployed as well) it was time to bring in support to silence this strongpoint. The forward observer team revealed their position with the Panzergrenadiers squad in the back and started calling the 81mm mortar barrage.



In the next phase a ranging shot was fired...



...the position confirmed and the barrage came in.



The Bofors gun team, who had taken a slight beating already, were wiped out to the man. The rifle section and mortar team didn't suffer any casualties, but were pinned until the barrage would end. In addition to that the area of the barrage blocked line of sight completely. The operation was in danger to go pear shaped, so 2nd Lt. Fitzpatrick called his men back behind the hill to rally and reconsider.



This is the sitation as it presented itself mid-game:


In the top left you can see the British squads pulling back behind the hill. Before that the bofors gun and rifle section had forced the Germans in the top left to retreat a little as well. Lechner and his reogranized squad got into firing positions along the dune.






End-Game

At this point the whole affair ground down into a bloody stalemate. The barrage ended prematurely and after a few failed connections the forward observers were informed that the mortar battery had been reassined to another mission. The force morale on both sides had been reduced to 5. Less so due to men lost but due to wounded or, in the German case, killed leaders. The British infantry behind the hill had regrouped and set up again in firing lines to fend off the Germans once more. For how much longer they would be able to effectively fight them was a different matter, seeing as how they were outgunned and ever so slightly outnumbered as well.

On the German side however the willingness for swift and decisive attack had veined as well due to the low force morale. A back and forth of largely ineffective and mostly suppressive fire erupted.



The British 2" mortar team also finally got to fire their smoke rounds, disrupting firing lines, negating parts of the German firepower advantage.

We stopped at this point and packed up as it was getting late.


Debriefing

Very hard to telling which way this situation would have ended, with both sides effectively being locked in exchanges of fire. This of course always can go either way and usually should be avoided because it usually leads to both sides suffering without achieving much at all. In Chain of Command casualty numbers usually are not very high compared to other games and games are decided on my other factors rather than who killed most guys.

Fun was had by both sides, Frank is getting a better grip on the rules now (especially now that he's got his rulebook) and a very interesting idea for a force of his own - French Foreign Legion which he'll pick up at Crisis (and yes, I'm very jealous that he's going and I'm not ).

So stay tuned for more Chain of Command. I hope that you enjoyed this little After-Action Report.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw, here are the latest WIPs of the Space Marines:


Hope you like them. It's about time I finish them. Should be this weekend.

is it wrong that my favorite thing on this page is that little 15mm herd of sheep???

very nice job on the Sallies characters...
you did well on the NMM...
i like the darker look on Vulkan...
i'll have to work with that vibe if i ever paint him again...

always a pleasure to see your posts...
keep up the good work!!!

cheers
jah

@jah-joshua: Thanks muchly for the comment. It's a 10mm herd of sheep actually, and it's perfectly understandable that you like them best. I may have 'squeee'-d a little when I found them on Irregular Minis' site.


Here are some size comparison shots:

Very nice stuff! I always like these CoC reports. Might have to grab a copy one of these days.

How does CoC compare to say Flames of War in your opinion? The latter is a lot easier to come up with around here it seems, and people seem to play now and again.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Very nice stuff! I always like these CoC reports. Might have to grab a copy one of these days.

How does CoC compare to say Flames of War in your opinion? The latter is a lot easier to come up with around here it seems, and people seem to play now and again.

Thanks. Glad you enjoy them. You certainly should grab a copy. It's a brilliant game.

It's a bit hard to compare CoC to FoW. First and foremost - I haven't played a single game of FoW in my life. I'm not very eager to do so, mostly because I haven't heard all that much good about it and I've got alternatives (I Ain't Been Shot, Mom). Second, Chain of Command is of that popular "platoon+" level of ww2 games whilst IIRC FoW is kinda in a way and pretty much a company-level game. With some weird extras like on-board artillery and such, but oh well.

The thing is - if people play FoW they got the minis to play Chain of Command or IABSM. All you need to get is some wound markers for those multi-based infantry sections. In general games by Too Fat Lardies (who made Chain of Command and IABSM) have two big focus points: Command&Control and friction as per Clausewitz. Men in the field don't do what you want them to do on their own, you have to get them to do it and you have to communicate to them what you want them to do. The whole friction thing is the old "many things are beyond the commander's control" and "things can go wrong". I suck at explaining it, but if you want to know about the games you definately should listen to Episode 80 of the Meeples and Miniatures Podcast in which one of the authors of the rules tells us about the design process and the intentions behind IABSM 3rd edition (which is much more comparable to FoW than Chain of Command is): https://meeples.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/review-i-aint-been-shot-mum-3rd-edition/

... and episode 106 which is about Chain of Command: https://meeples.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/meeples-miniatures-episode-106-chain-of-command/

Both really good games, and of course the podcast is very interesting and entertaining to listen to. .)

Greetings, I hope you survived Halloween night well. Did I have a good time?

Before I took off last night I even managed to finish those two Space Marines:




Vulkan:







Xavier:









...and because I know you just can't let go of the white background, here they are again.




Hope you like them!

You know what you're problem is Sigur?? You are so damn prolific, and so damn good... and so damn diversified... that half the time even though I love what you're posting I don't know how to respond it. "Wow" and "Cool" usually are the first things that pop into my head.... but I can't actually POST that.

Just quit being so awesome... it's starting to really get annoying!

ditto

Wow....Cool!







See, that was easy!

What Gits said! ^

@Gitsplitta: Thanks mate, that's a very nice thing to say. Much appreciated. It's really silly, but comments on these plogs help me stay motivated tremendously.

@Camkierhi: Cheers.

@SlavetoDorkness: Exactly!

@nerdfest09: Thanks muchly, Sir.


Right, after a little pause on the Waterloo project I had a look at the calendar and realized that it's just 10 days until VIVAT III, the day of the big Waterloo thing. So I better get mon cul in gear and get the 27th line regiment done.

True to their name, here they are arranged in line:


In this close-up you can see one of the fellas turning to go home, but the officer, who always has to have more eyes in the back of his head than in the front, yells him back in rank.



There's still so much to do. In fact, not much got done since the last update. Okay, the colours sergeant, drummer and officer are mostly done now (even though the Officer especially still needs a lot of work). I noticed that I made a mistake on the Voltigeurs (six dudes in the far right with the yellow pommels) and for some reason painted the cuffs yellow even though that was just a very rare variant. They should be red, as on the rest of the men. I fixed that now. At least they got proper pommels on their shakos now.

The most appearant thing which changed of course is the bases. I put them on 20mm square bases. Of course this makes no sense what so ever for the upcoming game, but as I won't be doing Napoleonic battles in 28mm (because I'm just unwell, not insane :p ), so I based them for skirmishing. After all, there's the excellent Sharp Practice for which we have some plans (which should be really cool if they are to be.). By the way, they're playtesting a new version of Sharp Practice now. Very exciting stuff. And even if that shouldn't happen, I still got Songs of Drums and Shakos lying around. So I still could set up a game of these Frenchies playing catch with the few Austrians I painted before. Poses aren't very fitting, but oh well.

I also started writing the comparative review of the Late French Line Infantry boxes by Perry Minis and Warlord Games. Not sure if I mentioned that before, but that's going to happen pretty much as soon as I'm done painting these gentlemen here.

So yeah, fingers crossed I get the 27th presentable and on the table by the 14th of November. You can then see them live along with a bunch of their friends on a huge table.

By the way, I reactivated my twitter account a few weeks ago, so if you want to stalk me there just look up Battle Brush Studios.