Imperial Assault - a small update

Howdy everyone,

I thought I'd throw up a quick post...keep up the current momentum and get my progress documented and up.  I'm still making my way through the Imperial Assault core box as well as random expansions and blisters.

I had not tackled an Imperial Officer yet, so I thought I would give it a shot along with a couple more Stormtoopers.  I only have a few more to go through, so it's pretty nice to be see that part close out...as I posted before, I currently have my Stormtroopers based according to 2 distinctive basing schemes...with these last 2 done it is the final troop for the dried out mud flat scheme...my next few will be the other scheme and then I'll move on to a couple of heavy troopers per section.

I elected to paint up the Imperial Officer as if he was on a ship or installation with the stereotypical Star Wars highly shone floors...I did a little research into uniform colours and rank structures...my senior officer is suitably attired for service on a ship...I the next 2 will be painted up as Stormtrooper Officer (black) and Intelligence Officer (white tunic, black/grey trousers).

Anyway, as I said a quick one...you've heard me type the words before on the Stormtrooper guys...so enjoy the pics.

I was still having troubles with camera stuff and me...so I only ended up with one salvable pic of the officer...but the others look pretty good.

Painting so far in 2017:
Painted:

28mm - 82 (+3)

15mm - 69

Bought:
28mm - 108
vehicle - 1

15mm - 132
vehicle - 7

 

Overall PROGRESS: -97

FoW - Soviet Rifle Battalion - Assault Guns support

Hello everyone,

Taking advantage of some picture and internet time...I thought I'd toss up a few more pics of my progress with my Flames of War Soviet force.  Be it as a Penal Battalion or Rifle Battalion, each of these formations needs solid Corps level support to charge into the German guns.

To support the final 'couple of hundred yards' towards the objective, I have a 5 gun Assault Gun Company for support.  The best thing about these guys is their ability to mass fire or fire for effect (the exact rule name escapes me tonight) which allows them to reroll failed to hit rolls if they did not move in the previous turn.

Basically drive like stink to get to within gun range, sit tight and hang in their...survive a round of fire...and then you get to unleash round after round until whatever is in front of you is pulverized and gone...for about 150 pts...not to bad!!

Again, these are models that I had purchased some time ago, slapped some initial paint on them and then put them aside when the club moved beyond the Eastern Front...so with our recent retackle of Bagration, these guns have come up from the minors and gone to work.  I played in turn 1 of the campaign with a Rifle Battalion with tank and Assault Gun support...I was happy with how this unit fared...I wasn't nearly aggressive enough, but it was also my first go as a Soviet player...

Anyhow, here are the pics...let me know if there are comments, advice, or questions.

Cheers.

 

 

 

Painting so far in 2017:

Painted:

28mm - 79

15mm - 69 (+5 vehicles, +10 figures)

Bought:
28mm - 108
vehicle - 1

15mm - 132
vehicle - 7

 

Overall PROGRESS: -100

Reaper Pathfinder - some new recruits

Howdy folks,

Not having had a consistent posting schedule these past few months has meant that a lot of my painting projects end up reaching completion and then wait on the work bench in the picture queue.  While I haven't kept up the pace, blog-wise, I have tried to keep consistent with my painting nonetheless.

Amongst the juggle of ongoing painting projects and larger force development projects I have had a warband project for Frostgrave subtly brewing over the past months.  The sole reason I started collecting from the Reaper Pathfinder line of figures was to assemble an 'iconic' looking band of adventurers for exploring and battling in the Northern City.  I definitely want the figures to stand out and look grand on their own rights...I'm not just looking for a stellar wizard or apprentice...my goal is to have all the figures of the company to project a lot of character.

So far, I think I'm achieving that goal...

I hope you enjoy the pics...any comments and advice are always welcome.

The Dwarf Ranger

the whole reason I picked this figure was the monster axe and dynamic pose of the figure...getting into the painting I realized just how many different elements were in this figure.  It took me a while before I had a cohesive colour plan going...my main requirement was to have green showing somewhere...

 

 

The Low Templar

 

Another great looking figure with some large hand weapons, the Templar was an interesting looking figure...not necessarily in a dynamic action pose, I thought it really captured the traveling adventurer really well.  These were also the first couple of figures that I had chosen for the company that I elected to have green be more than just a peripheral colour...I really wanted it to stand out...

 

I had some difficulties when painting the flesh and had some trouble with getting the face tones to my liking on half of his face...given the lines that were popping up, I thought I would show some experience in his face with some battle scars and utilize the lines that were making themselves dominant...and to be honest were getting in the way when I tried to give them an unblemished tone.

 

The trio presented a fun addition to the figures...painting them roughly at the same time gave me a bit of pause as I tried to make sure there was cohesiveness between them and with the other figures, BUT, to also make sure each figure had some character to them.

 

Thanks to google, and Reaper's image gallery, I can say there are some pretty amazing paintjobs out there and I really hope that I've done these figures justice.  It certainly was not my goal to try to directly emulate any of the paint schemes, I nonetheless want them to look appealing when compared with other examples...

 

Salim Ghadafar

 

I found this figure to be very challenging...I think I must have repainted his base colour at least 3 or 4 times...each time I was trying to stay as dark as possible...in this case I was hoping to more closely emulate the image from the Reaper gallery, Salim G.  I thought that the colour looked pretty sharp...however once I got started I ended up going with a darker/navy type blue that more closely resembled my Merisiel paint job...

 

The figures work well together and I like the paint scheme I ultimately stuck with.  Again, I was having some trouble with face tones as well as some residual metal on the face...there was a 'dot' of metal stuck near the left eye of Salim, I couldn't get my eye colour technique to work well and I was really reluctant to carve the eye socket out and have to repaint the face...so instead I painted a battle scar slashed across his eye...

 

I like the end result and am really happy with the adventurer look it gives him... 

-my camera was giving me troubles and I couldn't get any decent pics...even after switching cameras I only ended up with 1 usable picture...sigh-

 

So with a half dozen figures to work with, a few more still to come, I give you the beginnings of... The Rhino Company of Adventurers... 

A few or many years ago, I was working on some fiction that involved a reference to a mercenary unit...I'm not sure why, I must have been subconsciously inspired by 'The Wild Geese', Mad Mike, and stories of African adventure...I ended up settling on the name The Rhino Company...it has since stuck in the back of my mind in many of my gaming adventures and backstories...so here I give you the first official history of the company and their auspicious beginnings as a collection of Felstad and Northern City explorers.

  

Painting so far in 2017:

Painted:

28mm - 79

15mm - 54

Bought:
28mm - 108
vehicle - 1

15mm - 132
vehicle - 7

 

Overall PROGRESS: -115

Flames of War - WW2 Soviet Rifle Battalion

Howdy all,

I thought I would post some progress pics of my Soviet Rifle Battalion...I'm starting with the headquarters element for the Battalion and headquarter troop elements.  I've always toyed with the idea of fielding a Soviet force for World War 2 Flames of War...I've taken my time over the past few years and collected a few models here and there.

The club is running a Firestorm Bagration campaign, and I thought it would provide me with some motivation to get these fellows up and painted.  Now admittedly, I have opted to be a filler player for the campaign, so I can equally be Russian or German...but if I play my cards right I may be able to field some freshly painted troops.

Ultimately, my goal is to have a Penal Battalion...which with a few subtle changes can become a Rifle Battalion for mid or late war with very little effort.

Anywho, I hope you enjoy the pics...take care.

Funny enough, I had bought this pack of Flamethrower troops several years ago now...I think not long after the River of Heroes book came out...I had visions of a Sapper battalion...

 

Instead, here I am today, opting them in as Battalion HQ troops in a Penal Battalion...I have decided to go with a Stalingrad-esque setting for my bases...it should work with nearly anywhere in the East Front or Berlin...

 

The figures painted up quit quickly and I am using Citadel texture paint for the main layer for the bases...I'm using sprue cuts and Astrogranite Debris to build the rubbly looking bases...it takes a bit more Citadel product than I would like...but it does make basing go quicker for me...

The only issue I had with the figures was that I found the sculpts to be somewhat 'wonky'...the faces and body proportions looked rather small compared to other battlefront figures...I think they come from the same era as the PAVN infantry...a little 'truer' to 15mm but a little emaciated at the same time...

 

I recently purchased the 'all plastic' Strelkovy Company box and after painting up some Battalion troops, I though the command teams should be next...the Battalion headquarters group is 2 x command stands along with 1 x kommissar stand.  To signify the Battalion HQ, I included some brickworks on the bases and painted them up red... 

 

For the first Company, I elected to include some 'stovepipe' type cylinder pieces to differentiate the troops on the table...

 

Overall, I like how the plastic troops paint up...prepping them while they're on the sprue helps save some time, there are some clumsy/clunky pieces to the figures from the molding so you end up with oversized arms and thicker than normal tool handles and odd shaped puches in areas that would be considered 'under the shadow'...I'll try to show some solid examples in future...however, the cost for the box and ALL THE FIGURES that come with it are pretty awesome...so, tradeoffs...

 

To round things off, I thought I'd include a couple of sniper teams...just in case I go with the Rifle Battalion structure...so, I had the Zeytsev pack kicking around and thought I'd paint a few teams up...

 

 

Painting so far in 2017:

Painted:

28mm - 76

15mm - 54

Bought:
28mm - 108 (+11, I bought some scatter terrain from Fandom II and FDB...a couple of Reaper bookshelves and some HD printed terrain, IIRC)
vehicle - 1

15mm - 132
vehicle - 7

 

Overall PROGRESS: -118

Warhammer, the Hobbit - Battle Report

Evening folks,

Another catch up post...

A few weeks back, my buddies Mike and Serge were gracious enough to save me a spot at the gaming table...and considering I was available at the last minute, I thought the least I could do was to go with the flow and game whatever rolled my way.  I hadn't played any of the Warhammer inspired Lord of the Rings or Hobbit series, so it was a nice surprise to give it a go...with, thanks to the movies, something that I was somewhat familiar with. 

As usual, Mike has beaten me to this punch a while back, feel free to see the table from his side here.  Also, you can see Serge's painting of the Dwarves here.

So, kind of my last experience with Warhammer, I didn't have any of the rule books and was just happy to sit there, move some great looking figures and throw bucketloads of dice on the table...sometimes good things happened, lots of times not so good things happened.  The overall look was familiar, but I really do think that is owing to the movie/literature background.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pics and random comments/thoughts.

Take care.

Overall setup...I'm leading a bunch green blooded goblin retches...from the bottom of the table to the ville...Mike has bad-men on the crest of the hill at the top and Urak Hai from the road just off-frame on the right...

 

my batch of awesome bastard goblins...painted up by Mike...they look great, nice banner...I didn't have to put much thought into running these guys...

 

Serge is leading the Dwarves...somehow sensing bad-ness around him, he sets up his small band between a couple of buildings almost forming a defensive hollow square...

 

My guys roll in a turn after the bad men have made contact...

 

The Urak Hai running in from the roadside...they also looked pretty awesome and intimidating...I love the random dude running on the hillside...he looks very LOTR meets the bloody Sound of Music...

Another pic of my homeboys charging in...nice little furball developing here...the banner dude gave me a re-roll on my attack...the long spears allowed me to support the guy at the front of the file...worked out not too bad...lots of dice thrown, I kind of just listened for Mike to tell me what the roll meant...

The Dwarves get a taste of a goblin/badman sandwich...doesn't taste good they said...not good at all...

Overview shot of the carnage...although there are a lot of baddies about, the Dwarves have an incredible ability to soak up damage and have some pretty amazing stats...

More overhead shots...

 

These green blooded bastards were fun...didn't really accomplish much...they left some pretty ghastly looking corpses...

 

Take care.