More Merchant Ships And Some Shinies

I actually finished painting these merchant ships a few days ago, but have only just got round to doing the photos of them. I'll blame last minute preparations for the Challenge for not doing them sooner.

Princess Class Passenger Starliner

Errmm, yes. The right hand thruster is a bit skewed

Olympus Class Short Haul Passenger Transport

Starchaser Class Longhaul Freighter

Merino Class Livestock Transporter

On it's way to planet Clintus IV Major, carrying a cargo of camels...

Shinies!

On my way back from the shops, I went to the local Royal Mail sorting office to pick up 2 parcels which they'd left a card yesterday saying they'd tried to deliver. I knew they would be my GZG order. When I got home, there was a padded envelope from Timecast - the Old Glory 15s Korenas that had been on back order.

Koreans:

1 pack each of Ming light cavalry and Levy archers.

GZG:

Lots of lovely shiny goodness in bags (plus a discount voucher for the New Year and a Salute flyer)

The freebie bag contents - a Fort Grange class Q-Ship Tender for the NAC; an Aleksandr Tortsev class Orbital Assault Transport (LSO) for the ESU; an Ariadni class Q-Ship Tender for the FSE; a pack of NSL troopers with anti-armour weapons; and a pack of NSL power armour troopers.

15mm NSL - a bunch of riflemen, SAWs and support weapons; a pack of power armour troopers with support weapons and a couple of sprues of spare arms for the PA troops (I'd managed to lose one arm when prepping a bunch the other week and Mr Tuffley kindly agreed to send me a sprue).

Now, I had worked out the TOE for my NSL, but now I've got the extra freebie packs I'll have to revise it. Not that that's a problem of course.

Light and Heavy Carriers for FSE, ESU and NAC.

Some more civvy ships in the top row - a Pinder class tanker; a Stobart class Can-Hauler; and a Crenshaw class Penal Colony Transport.

In the bottom row are some extra ESU ships - a pair of Ural class destroyers; a Nanjing class escort carrier; and a pair of Kunlun class heavy destroyers.


My word, what a lot of shiny goodness to receive on one day!

I suppose that I'd better crack on with the Russian cavalry now before the shininess overcomes me.

FSE Fleet Upgrade

Errmm, yes, well. It has been a few days since I posted and I still haven't posted my pics of Salute games. I'll try to do that tomorrow.

The last few days have seen me paint up the extra ships for my FSE fleet. So here they are in all their glory.


All the extra ships together:

Cygne class scout ships:

Daphne class corvettes:

Colbert class escort cruisers:

Tourville class heavy cruiser:

Da Silva class battleship:

Littorio class battle dreadnought:

Charlemagne class super dreadnought:

The full mega-fleet snuggly stored in a foam tray (with space for more ships)

More Spaceships Prepped

I didn't fell like re-starting painting last night, nor again this evening, so I've been prepping some more spaceships. Last night I spent prepping a bunch of civilian ships; this evening I did the extra ships to upgrade my FSE intro fleet to mega fleet size.

The Civilian Ships

In the left rack we have (L to R, top to bottom) a Merino class livestock hauler, Olympus class short-haul passenger transport, 2 yachts, a Glow Worm class free trader, a Kestel class free trader and 2 Tradewind class freighters.

In the right rack we have 2 Tradewind class tankers, a Dallas class refinery ship and a Princess class starliner.


The FSE Fleet

In the left rack we have 3 corvettes, 3 scout ships a battle dreadnought and a battleship. In the right rack are a heavy cruiser, a super dreadnought and 2 escort cruisers.


I'll probably wait for the weekend before priming these, then start painting them next week. Tomorrow night I'll have a crack at re-starting work on the pirate dragoons and commanders.

Challenge Day 39 - Points, Progress and Shinies

Points, points, glorious points,
Nothing quite like them for soothing your joints.... 

(with apologies to Messrs Flanders and Swan)

Yes, somewhere beyond 48 hours after posting the vehicles bonus theme entries, Curt managed to calculate the points for all of them and update the league table. I suspect it would have been much sooner if not for my entry which must have had him scratching his head, tearing his hair out and hitting the bottle. So - apologies to my fellow Challengers for the delay.

Anyway, my NSL fleet scored 218 points for the ships themselves plus the 50 theme bonus points. This has taken my score to 960, a welcome boost. It also means that my next entry should see me safely past the 1000 point mark, thereby winning the side challenge. Unless of course Ian has been secretly working on a huge entry of 28mm figures and gets them in before me.


Progress

The PyRats are very nearly finished. I've just got to drybrush the bases, spray them with matt varnish and do the flocking.

My Hero figure - Egil Skalagrimsson - will be sprayed with matt varnish at the same time. Tufting and flocking will be done alongside the PyRats, so I should be able to get both entries submitted before I go to bed.

I've decided to abandon work on the berserkers for now, which means that I can focus on the rest of the pirates straight away.


Shinies

The correct bits from Warlord Games finally arrived yesterday. So now I can (and already have to an extent) set to work on my entry fee, which will also be my submission for the favourite character bonus theme round. This will involve a bit of hacking, drilling, filing, adding bits of Milliput (I don't have green stuff) and sculpting. I want to make the base special for this one and have a good idea of what to do, but I need to get a couple of bits and bobs. I've got almost 6 weeks left before the bonus round, so there's no great rush. I'll be able to do a lot of the work during my lunch breaks.


Along with the small package from Warlord Games was one of those little red cards from the Royal Mail which we all love so much. I knew what it had to be and wasn't disappointed when I picked it up this morning.

That's right - my rather large order of spaceships from GZG. So, what's in those bags?

Extra ships to upgrade my NAC and FSE into fleets to mega fleet size
An ESU mega fleet
Some more NSL ships for the 5th fleet (including Big Poppa - the super dreadnought)
A bunch of civilian ships
2 packs of 15mm Kra'Vak warbeast riders

The last bits are to try out a silly idea I had for a participation game. I won't have time to work on that until the Challenge is over though.

Thursday Update

Grottyness, grottyness, grottyness. The cold I've had for over a week finally decided to wipe me out yesterday. It probably didn't help that since I caught it I was rushing round at work like a mad thing when the cold was at it's worst for snottiness and coughing. Anyway, yesterday saw me with sub-zero energy levels and today I was only just into positive energy territory so I've been stuck at home. Hopefully tomorrow will see me back at work.

I did get quite a bit done since Sunday's post though:

15mm Grav Tanks and APCS

These were all assembled and primed by Tuesday night. Today I've given them a basecoat of yellow ochre. Once that had dried, I did the first layer of camo (3:1 burnt sienna/yellow ochre) applied using a sponge. I've given the stands a base coat of burnt umber. Later tonight I might do the second colour of camo (3:1 sap green/burnt umber). Then it will be a wash of burnt umber and doing the detailing (crew, weapons, grav modules).

NAC Intro Fleet

I missed out one fact from my post on Sunday. While drilling out the holes for the flight stand pegs I made a booboo on the heavy cruiser and accidentally drilled too far through. I've plugged it with squadron green putty and drilled a new hole just to the side. The ships have all been washed and the battlecruiser assembled (which only involved gluing the bridge section to the main body) and they are ready for priming. I'll try to get them painted up this weekend.

15mm Seleucid Nellies

Having stripped the paint off these last week, I've now reassembled and primed them with the howdahs left separate for now.

15mm Buccaneer Standard Bearers

I've prepped the 4 standard bearers I bought for my Buccaneer army and washed them. I still need to add some wire for the flag staffs and then prime them.


15mm Swiss Halberdiers

I started prepping these at work this week and they are sat on my desk at the moment waiting for me to finish prepping them.


NSL Fleet

I've begun prep on these. Holes for flight pegs and the engine exhausts have been drilled out. Unfortunately all my needle files are at work so I won't be able to prep them for a few days.



Pre-Christmas Spending

I've been on a bit of a spending spree. I've placed orders:

GZG - more ships for my NSL fleet and some 15mm NAC power armour troops.

Tiny Tin Troops - a whole lot of magnetised bases for my 6mm ACW project.

Baccus - casualties, commanders, dismounted cavalry, some heavy ordnance and various oddments (tents, wagons)

Figures in Comfort - some pick'n'pluck foam trays for storing and transporting my Full Thrust fleets and a load of Litko tokens and bits for Full Thrust.