Star Wars: Armada Repaints

I'll start this post with a swift public message:

THE BLOGGER APP IS A PILE OF CRAP

*this message was brought to you by a disgruntled Dai who'll not be using the listed phone app again. Ever.*

Ahem. But I digress.

The reason for this mild outburst is from when I attempted to upload a new post using said phone app, it instead deleted my previous post (Apologies to those kind enough to add comment) and the full post I had laboriously typed up up til that point.

Enough whining about the past though.

Here are my repaints of my friend Gregg's Rebel ships so that they look better on the tabletop and also can be more easily told apart during games.

Kept one in it's original colours so the classic Tantive IV ship from Episode IV can be represented. Just gave it's markings a sprucing up and the general body-work some highlights.

Engine Glows got a touch up on all ships.

Switched the red markings on the 2nd Corvette to blue. I like it.

Complete re-paint on the 3rd Corvette. Saw one like this on the internet and decided to copy the scheme.

Blue glows on this one as orange would have blended in too much with the red. 

Gregg's 2nd Nebulon-B repainted green with orange stripe. 

So now Gregg's fleet at least looks boss, even though it's yet to win a game...

I also got these two Confederate Officers done for ACW games. I intend to use them as Brave Colonels in Regimental Fire & Fury and as Heroes counters for when I play Sam Mustafa's Longstreet rules set. Simple paintjobs on some characterful sculpts.

Blue Moon 15mm sculpt on the left, unknown manufacturer on the right.

Late last night I also started getting paint on my skeleton warriors that I intend to use in my rpg campaign. Still 6 archers to get started on too, but I'm going to let my son do those.

A Disapproving Pair

In my last post I presented the Serving Girl for my rpg tavern scenes so here are her parents, also by Reaper Miniatures. Easy to paint and given a quick and dirty paint job so they're off my painting queue.

The bloke actually has stubble painted on his face, but the light washed it out, which is annoying. 

The yellow for the barman's shirt is some freebie paint that Reaper stuck in with my last miniatures order from their website. I really like the colour, but the paint itself went on somewhat thinly and needed 3 coats before I was happy. Can't complain about free though!

Per usual, these pictures are from pre-varnish stage.
Nice to have some non-combat NPC's in my collection to be honest.

This evening I'm demoing a game or two of Star Wars: Armada for my mate Densmol and on Sunday I am playing again with another mate, Stew who has also yet to play. Will try to get some AAR's up if I remember.

Keeping it in the Family (Part - 2 Done and Done and an Armada AAR!

The second week of the 6MMRPC has had me working on the Saxon brothers (And brother-in-law) and also a pair of Viking Hirdmen that will be raiding the Saxon’s lands.

Still not decided what I'll do for a banner, but I'll worry about it another time.

Kept the shield design simple quartered effort. I think the green works well with the yellows on the model.

These are from the Jomsvikings/Rus ranges. I felt that elite warriors deserved some flashy togs and so the beardy fellow got some striped trews and  chainmail-face a classy red dress/tunic. 

Only complaint on these are the beardy sculpt's axe was far too fat and the armoured chap has a nice belt pouch, but no belt?

As far as hobby for the 3^rd week of the challenge, things will be rather minimal as my mother is coming to visit from England for a bit and then on to my sister’s in Texas. But I have another 8 Saxon Thegns that I reckon I can kick out before she arrives!

Was lucky enough to get in a game of Star Wars: Armada with my good friend Gregg as well. This was only our second game of Armada and so we were still a little rusty on rules, but the game went along nicely regardless with an emphatic Imperial victory (Huzzah!) and the Rebel scum slinking back to the wretched holes they typically skulk within. (A Death Star Laser blast should take care of that vermin problem at a later date no doubt.)

Two Victory Star Destroyers with some upgrades for me along with 6 squadrons of  TIE's, one of which was Howlrunner, a special character

Grand Moff Tarkin was my force commander. He costs a lot of points to include, but damn his abilities make for some fun times.

Gregg's Rebel fleet consisted of the new Assault Frigate and two Correlian Corvettes stacked full of upgrades and some mixed squadrons of X-wings, A-wings and Y-wings. We both forgot many special rules that our add-ons offered up every turn. Yes, we are very new to this game.

Flying through the Cheerywood Nebula, these Rebel ships had no idea the Empire was lying in wait.

Both fleets move to engage. The Rebel fighter squadrons leading the way, A-wings engaging TIE's.

A squadron of X-wings, two of Y-wings and the pair of Correlian Corvettes move in to support.

Tarkin's ship unleashes a broadside into the closest Corvette, punishing the smaller Rebel ship for venturing too close. The Critical Hit taken would later prove to be it's doom.

The Assault Frigate likewise unloads against Tarkin's ship in revenge and wipes out shields on the Starboard side.

Meanwhile the fighter melee hots up and everyone starts to take hits.

Tarkin's vessel finishes off the limping Corvette. 

The Frigate's captain miscalculates his move, not speeding far enough away to get out of the 2nd Victory's front arc....

.... leading to next turn where the 2nd Victory showed it who's boss.

The remaning Corvette and rebel fighter squadrons exited Stage right soon after. Things to take from this game:

1. Rebels NEED to outnumber Imperials if they want any sort of chance at winning. Even the Assault Frigate is too weak to stand up to a Victory Star Destroyer by itself. (Two Frigates though would be nasty)

2. Upgrades are fun, but missing out on extra ships (See #1) means you're not rolling many dice each activation which in turn means you're not hurting the enemy nearly bad enough

3. New fighters (Rebel) looked nice, but I didn't feel they added much more to the Rebel fleet. X-wings are still the best fighter in our games.

4. I really need more than just Victory Star Destroyers to play with.... They're cool and all, but variety is really the spice of life. 

Speaking of "variety" - any day soon my Gladiator capital ship (Smaller and faster than a Victory.) and Imperial Fighter Squadrons packs should arrive. So next AAR should feature some new toys. 

Jarl Ikea! (A very sensible, no-frills sort of Viking.)

Not much done over the long Memorial Day weekend due to health crap (again), but I did finish up the Viking Lord (From this day forth to be known as "Jarl Ikea" - thankyou Zzzzzz) and decided to spritz up my Star Wars: Armada Victory Star Destroyers a little too.

First up the Jarl himself. I looked up "Viking tunics" on Google and found some handy results to help make sure that what I painted didn't just look ridiculously incorrect. I'd already decided to make him a blondie and wanted a colour that would contrast well with his hair/beard. The green I chose was Vallejo Dark German Camo Green or something for those interested. The edging was a simplified knot/swirl taken from a far more complicated design I found, but knew my crappy free-hand skills were in no way up to the task of emulating. I think it'll do though. 

Last minute I slapped on a watered down red wash to his skin as I wanted to try to give him a "fresh-off-the-long-boat" look, with exposed skin all pink from the North Sea winds. I also painted his beard darker than his hair because really, there's not too many of us manly men who's beard matches exactly to the mop on our heads. (Assuming that one can still grow a mop.)

I also attempted to paint a simple wood grain on the shield and axe haft. I think it looks okay, though perhaps could have used a less bright tan.

In this picture you can see his scabbard is empty. I like this as it gave options as to what to do with this part of the model - add a sword to his right hand (It was sans weapon out of the box), fashion a sword grip and pommel to fit in the scabbard, etc. 

I instead left it empty and decided he had been in battle already, bending his sword over some Saxon's shield edge beyond repair and so discarded it upon the ground. 

During my googling, I read that Viking shield designs were not all that complicated in the main. This will be great going forward once I start painting up the regular rank and file. But I wanted my Lord to stand out some and so searched about for a cool design to slap on his shield. The result is a crow type icon (Originally found on a blue shield in Google images) that I think translated okay on my mini. 

This hovel is mine! 

I'm now working on the Saxon Lord with a completely different colour pallette. Updates on him to come.

Here's a quick picture of the Victory Class Star Destroyers for Armada. I picked up the 2nd one last week and added some mid-grey to random panels on one of them to help differentiate between the two. I also tried to get creative and add some depth to the engine glows for both. I think they both look far more interesting in general now. 

Interlude (Part 9)

Not much going on over here due to health issues. (again)

I did manage to get a game in with my mate Stewart of Hail Ceasar to help him prepare to demo the game at KublaCon in May. He used Dark Ages vikings and Saxons for the units, but the game was just fine regardless.

The rule as a whole were fun, lots of pushing units back and forth during combat and trying ones best to batter them down until they run away. Only thing I thought was a bit lacking was there was no removal of casualties (A whole movement tray is removed once a threshold was reached) so really the use of minis in this game wasn't even strictly required.

The two forces face off. The upper Saxons had hanged the Viking' Lord's son and revenge was required to be meted out!

Skirmishers on the left sent some helpful arrows at advancing Saxons but ultimately dissipated in a red mist once drawn into real-men's combat.

My dice were not with me this day and so the rest of my left flank ran off in the same way my Skirmishers had done previously.

On the right I was doing better, though there was a LOT of stubborn defense on both sides. 

The Viking Lord at the back of my men I think died twice in this game..... Oof. 

In the end the Saxons brushed the Viking nuisance away and the day was there's.

So after this game I was all hyped up on Dark Ages gaming and decided that I wanted my own collection to be able to play, though far smaller in scale than what you see in the above pictures. Something closer to Saga or Lion Rampant skirmish games - so I bought an OOP Gripping Beast Jomsviking 6 point starter set off Ebay on the cheap. Yep, the paint mountain just grew by 37 more warriors.... ~_~

A pic of all of them - each sculpt individual and minimal mold lines (Which I was overjoyed at) during basing. Only gripes about these figs is that I had to drill holes through their fists to be able to put spears in their hands and that their spears are cast in white metal, not more durable brass rod.

My friend and I both got cheap copies of the new Star Wars: Armada capital ships battles game starter set. More my style than X-Wing as it appeals more to my megalomaniac side. So once we get the basic game down, expect some batreps in the near future.

Lastly, for those who made it this far, to recuperate the hit my bank account took buying these latest purchases, I have some of my old Warhammer 40K 1980's Imperial Guard and Squats up for auction on Ebay. Feel free to jump onboard and help me keep my wife happy! :)

http://www.ebay.com/sch/daiharries76/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=