'Toy Story' from DavidB - Star Wars

 StarWars-Bohemian Rhapsody

I still remember when Star Wars was first released. I was just starting American Football practice and the internet and viral was school gossip and actual sickness. Summers were spent outdoors with swimming and movies being an escape from the heat and as a 9 year old boy in the summer of 1977, Star Wars left an impression.

I still love that galaxy from far away and a long time ago. I have no idea how many times I have seen the movie now. Luke, Han, and Leia with all the plot armor then future Christmas and birthdays where Star Wars toys topped my list. I never did get all the toys I wanted from that movie. I have a nice collection of action figures, but never did keep them locked away and my children were able to have adventures with them as they grew old enough to understand to be careful with them. Now they are back on the shelf or in boxes waiting for grandchildren to have new adventures with them.

I used to collect anything Star Wars related until I seen an article on a collector that has spent over 300,000 USD for Chewbacca only collectables....Since Vader inspired more fear and awe in a young boy, Darth Vader and Stormtroopers are where I decided I would focus. Honestly the best part of Rogue One was seeing just how terrifying Vader could be, and his Storm troopers were relentless.

I was very excited for Star Wars Legion as I could amass a force of Stormtroopers that would be very envious of my 9 year old self. I have purposefully avoided the clone wars as that would be too much and with 3rd party and official releases I can have that massive force of action figures I never did get as a child and now use dice to game with them

Annnnnnnnd boy is painting storm troopers very rough!

besides the shore troopers, the scouts are my favorite...and very ironic as I became a scout as an adult.

They were primed white then hit with apothecary white with Army painter white triad to tidy them up. I used black, blueblack and grey on the black undersuits.

I still want a real jetbike and as an adult I am horribly disappointed that we do not have them yet

However, since like the fellow aiming behind and as Return of the Jedi shown, traffic accidents and tree fires would rise!

Hopefully they will do better than the movie counterparts on the table.

The true pain of this post...16 stormtroopers is a lot of same same.

One Squad was primed black and the other primed white

They are hard to pick out except the black wash on the apothecary white made wider grins and the layers of white and grey paint was exhausting on the black primed models. they also seem to be a tad yellow, but not as yellow as the limbs on those old action figures. They just seem off white when compared to the squad that had apothecary white and the white triad paint.

Unless you look very close, they are hard to determine which is which, but the apothecary white over white primer was way faster as that squad only took a day. 

the errant scout joins an officer and heavy weapon specialist from the stormtrooper expansion.

I had to add color to the backpacks to keep my sanity.

 So I have twenty-three new troops and 2 biker scouts to add to Vader's 501 They will join the other two squads of stormtroopers and the two squads of shoretroopers. I have completed them just in time to determine if I will get the new addition and new sculpts of stormtroopers...but this time I will start with white primer...It is cheaper than buying more star wars collectables and more action figures, but I am still looking for the Ralph McQuarrie Samurai inspired stormtroopers and Vader.... If you can find it, besides the x-wing books there is one called the Band of the Hand in which some Stormtroopers quit the Empire to purge it of corrupt Empire officials, they encountered Mara Jade who was a little miffed about their name as she was the Emperor's Hand.Hopefully the new Star Wars boss will look at the good books for new scripts!

23 troopers for 115 points

2 bikers for 20

then 50 for the theme round -May the Force be with You

'Water Feature' from DavidB: Fisherman's Guild

I seriously considered omitting this bunch from the bonus round, but I finished them today. They are a gift for my oldest daughter, Valerie. She does paint miniatures and has been in AHPC before, but she was really intimidated by these models. They are from Steamforge games Guild Ball line and are the Fisherman's Guild. I was thinking of water as I painted them and thoughts today drifted towards my tribal gods and spirits. Michabo the trickster, shapeshifter who taught the Potawatomi to fish; the Nambiza (a dangerous cougar snake<dragon> that lives in the water), the Mnito(a huge water snake that hunts people on the water) and the Nikanabe(merfolk who are villainous or friendly).

I chose blue for water on sunny days, grey for the storms and driftwood, brown for the sediment heavy water, and green for the algae and water weeds. The bases are molded clay on happyseppuko bogmire mold. I added some features in the casts and gave them a floodplain/ tidal flat look. I used the GW technical paint Soulstone Blue to shine up the draining water and puddles and coated the octopus in the same to make him glisten.

Kraken is the Maori type heavy hitter for the team. I wanted to tattoo him up, but Val doesn't want him with tattoos.

His harpoon is wonderfully detailed and he is coated with fishing spoons and piercings including one hook hanging from his peck!

Greyscales is the old-man-of- the-sea, I like his dynamic pose and all the fisherman gear he has.

Even the netting attached to his coat, I still call him Ahab when gaming.

Shark came with the starter trio and fast and deadly, his shoulder pad is made from a fish head and shark jaw.

Yes, he has a fish for a bracer on his wrist.

Angel is quite petite and has a wonderfully innocent pose .

Her leggings are scale mail painted gold and shaded with a green wash.

Siren is a whirling dervish. She can entice and hypnotise opponents and is the Storm. I like how both girls on the team cover aspects of the fairer sex in polar opposite ways 

There is so much nice details on this figure with her fabric and netting skirts, the leather armour and hooded cloak. they even got an undercut on her flowing hair and kept her overall seductive, but demure. 

I altered her base to make it seem as though her spinning is drawing the water to her.

Tentacles is one of the teams mascots and can occupy a slot for active players. He has a lot of the team colours on him, but I added some purple as Valerie loves that colour most.

Salt is the other mascot and barely bigger that the team ball. I painted him more on the common otter than the white the official scheme uses.

Valerie really likes them and plans to dominate me when she takes them against the brewers or masons. She will probably do so even with my best efforts.I rather like how well the basing came out on them and that she likes them quite a lot! Guild Ball is a token heavy game and play is fast and brutal especially for dads trying to get a tactical plan while a daughter pulls out combos and wiz-bangs skipping my turns and decimating my team no matter which I play.

perhaps she'll be along sometime soon to show off work on her teams, but she seems to think I've always painted this well(not well at all but definitely better than I was in the 70's!)

She is busy for now with basketball and school being her senior year with plans for learning criminal justice and social work to help children in bad ways. She might be busy for a few years to come! ;)

'Monstrous' from DavidB: Elder God Mage and Werewolves

Back in early November/December, and when I found out the theme, I decided to delve my "mountain of neglect" for all the vile, wicked, terrible monsters I could find.  As the challenge and life progressed I was reminded that not all monsters are wicked, and some lurk very close by.

My initial thought for the final round and Curt-geld  was one of a pair of werewolves I got in the swagbag at Adepticon. My son didn't like that idea and he selected this Mind Flayer ( illithid) from our FLHS instead.

I rather like his pose as instead of idly twirling a mustache, he has tenticles.

Although he is anot apparent mage, he can easily slide into a nefarious agent of the elder gods like above. The hapless not-Indiana( Games workshop archaeologist from talisman) is about to get his cliffhanger!

Still he( maybe she- nice red shoe) is also capable of confronting warrior types in a dungeon crawl. 

But he could also use the tanks as stout minions vs the rogue hero.

I did complete both the Curt-geld and one of the backup alternates. As I stated earlier, life has a funny way of resurrecting memories of family and pearls of wisdom. In Potawatomi, Algonquin, and really all AmerIndian culture shapeshifters or skin walkers are very common. The Trickster is also very common, but unlike the Norse Loki, he usually helps the unfortunate and punishes the wicked. The wolf is a powerful protector of the people and also a bane. 

And werewolves are still pretty cool. I suffered the Twilight movies because I have daughters, wolves are even cool there as they aren't sparkling emos! ;)

My grandfather is the one who told me of an old proverb first. In each of us dwells two wolves. One feeds on fear, hate, greed, sadness, misery; the other thrives on love, generosity, kindness. The one you feed the most is the more powerful one and determines who you will be.

Because a lot of people feed the dark wolf, I've been really busy with both military and work which has put me in spots where WiFi hates blogger...or more accurately, work and government does not like me to visit any website with "game" in it! ;)

If people would feed the light wolf, I would've had more time to comment and visit each entry instead of just enjoying the emails...and able to spend more time painting too! 

So the alternate and Curt-geld for the final theme round this season. Perhaps the skin walkers and the illithid are the good guys who feed their white wolf while the pulp hero feeds his black wolf and plunders and murders his way through the world. ;)

Gerry Rafferty

Right down the line

Special thanks to my wife for posting these photos up for me as she not only found the described models, but also took the photos and started this post...at least the woods are pretty and not too cold! ;)

'Childhood' from DavidB: Youth in SciFi

Many moons ago we had a decent snowstorm that stretched all the way to southern states where people were mostly "Why izit so cold, Coy? What in tarnation is this white stuff?"

It was 1978 and that November I received a snowsuit as 4X4 fever had swept the land and I was always either having 10 year old adventures in the woods of Northern Indiana, with my dad and his lifted Jeep Cherokee, or both. Unfortunately, The massive snow fall made drifts way too big for a small 10 year old boy. The only adventures I had was getting in trouble for jumping out of 2nd story windows into snowdrifts and tunnelling back to house via a side door. Apparently being told to stay in the house meant not only not going outside, but definitely not doing cannonballs into nearly 20ft drifts. Said snow and drifts would probably be greeted with an "AH, Tis Tuesday" by the Snowlord.

Christmas was very memorable as I got an electric train set, a massive set of dominoes, and 5 boxes of matchbox WW2 figures. The troops were HO/OO scale much like the Napoleonics I liberated briefly back from my son for the above picture.

I spent the bad cold days with GIs and Tommies defending that diesel train from best of the Wehrmact and Afrika Korps. The dominoes were forts and ruins and many a battle swept across the train and lumber yards with snipers duelling for the prestige spot on the water tower.

Now, I use rulers and dice to move troops. They fight over tables with cardstock, resin, and plastic terrain. (not the stool though as the battles would be too quick even in 15mm!)

I didn't get much for this Christmas, but I did have a couple of Matchbox vehicles left in my stocking. This Sahara racer is repainted and is the first vehicle and unit for my low tech horde army in 15mm.

The driver was in the same box as the pirate, Miracle Max, and his Witch, er Wife!

It is a Dark Future driver who after many years finally has his own whip!

This MATV pickup was also made by Matchbox and has lost it's factory brick red paint for a more traditional black and white. The 15mm police force I painted several challenges back now has their very own support vehicle with respectful armor, lot's of lights and even a winch.

This particular truck has no weapon systems, but it does have a pair of fuzzy missiles which can be launched at criminals from the back.

This APC is from Khurasan Miniatures. The 28mm model was in the challenge a year or two past, but this is the original 15mm one.

I think it goes without saying what movie inspired it!

I had only painted this a few tones of grey and it sat for a few years till I found it beneath some ork models. I decided I'd paint it up in Polish Armor camouflage and gave it a polish flag near the right bumper till I find some proper decals.

This is a ten man squad of Hi-tech infantry also from Khurasan Miniatures. I was going to paint them as Scottish scifi infantry with tartan plaid, but i thought that would be too difficult. Polish pea-dot in 15mm would be a breeze!

I'm not quite convinced, but there is yellow, orange, and green blotches over a chocolate base. A heavy wash of sepia helped blend it in and away from eyesore realms.

I gave them all a polish flag on the right shoulder to finish them up.

The Khurasan Miniatures Hi-tech battlesuits were done in the more pleasing(and easy) Polish armor scheme. These fellows are walking tanks anyways.

These are very nice models with lots of detail and i did have to glue them together. they were a little fiddly but not to difficult. They had weapon options, but I just gave them the biggest guns in the pack.

There is a bit of a lumbering look to them which I like, and they outclass the footslogger with the squad support weapon.

This is a Rebel Miniature VTOL, but it looks more like a drop craft with Hind characteristics. It'll serve as transport for the battlesuit squad.

It has a chin mounted cannon and twin linked machine guns on either side of the cockpit. It also has four underwing missile pods. it came with six missile pods with a weapon mount on top the wings, but I didn't like the look when dry fitting ...four missile pods it is!

a little chunky in comparison to khurasan, but i do like it's silhouette

I gave it a polish flag as well and it'll wait for some polish aviation decals.

I'm thinking of using them as the beginning of a NATO in space force. The polish troops will be the elite SpecOps of the group. 15mm is very sparse in my area, but I've also been looking at the Neo-Sov stuff available on the Internet, so the Poles may be operating solo for awhile.

Maybe a long while as 15mm is out of my comfort zone.