Dead Man's Hand characters

These figures are from Great Escape Games. I don't think the sculpts quite catch the attitudes of their inspirations, but have made me consider getting back into Old West gaming. Both figures were undercoated black, drybrushed white, and then a variety of techniques to add colour.

'Maeve Newton' and 'Dolores Wood'

I used GW Sigvald Burgundy Contrast for Maeve's dress and lipstick, it was a perfect colour match. I like the red in her hair accessory.

Maeve Newton

A little something hidden away.

I like the colour palette Dolores has.

'Dolores Wood'

GF9 Badlands

Gale Force 9 does a lovely collection of Badlands hoodoos, which I have picked up over the years. It is pre-painted, scale agnostic, well sculpted, interesting, affordable, and durable.The more recent pieces I've picked up, however, have been a considerably darker tone. And some of them had a bit of a sheen, and the bases didn't really match my Cigar Box mat.

Bases don't blend with mat

Discrepancies in tone

So I pulled out the craft paints and big brushes:

Not perfect, but better than they were. I could add some tufts- maybe another day. Now you go do the hoodoo that you do so well!

Space Cowboys

I kitbashed the new-ish plastic gunfighters from Great Escape Games with some spare 40K weapons I had lying around:

I'm happiest with the cigar-chomping gunner, who has a backpack on as well. The others lack a je ne sais quois. I think they aren't quite grimdark sci-fi enough. They need a bit more greebling, and could probably lose the hats. I do have another five to fiddle with.

I do love the idea of the space western, and will continue in this realm. Here are some 3D prints from Anvil Industry:

They are a smidgen more sci-fi, and I should print some more.

Cacti

Just a quick one today. I improved the biodiversity of my battlefields with some cacti from two sources. The first was Pegasus Hobbies. I picked up two sets on special, and mounted them on 40mm MDF. Some basing, a quick overspray in green and sand, and done. I was pretty happy with them.

Pegasus Hobbies cacti

The second batch are resin 3D prints from Vae Victis, painted and based the same. These are stylistically a bit chunkier than the Pegasus ones, but you don't really notice. You can scale them up and down to add as much variety as you want. I'm a big fan.

Vae Victis cacti.
The skull is from Great Escape Games.

They're all on 40mm MDF bases. I have thoughts of doing sabot area bases. I'm also recalling the classic 40K styrofoam balls with red cocktail sticks... 

Cacti patches side by side.

Firefly

I got a copy of Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats. I painted it rapidly using mostly Contrast paints and by lowering my standards appropriately. I'm very happy with the outcome. The game comes with cardboard boxes that can double as terrain- even the box base is a big hangar/ warehouse.

Each crew figure comes in a 'Casual' and 'Heroic' pose that have different actions available to them. The 'Heroic' abilities will tend to attract the attention of the baddies!

Serenity crew- Heroic

Serenity crew- Casual

Cowboys

Thugs

Dr Simon Tam

Shepherd Book

Captain Mal

Kaylee

River

Inara

Zoe

Jayne

Wash

These were pretty quick to paint. The female face sculpts lack a lot of definition. The Cowboys and Thugs would be great for Stargrave.

I haven't had time to play it yet...

Ned Kelly and The Kelly Gang

Ned Kelly is the most (in)famous Australian bushranger. Starting with petty crime, his career progressed through horse theft and cattle rustling and on to murdering police and robbing banks. His gang fashioned armour out of ploughshares in a bush forge, and wore it for a shootout with police at Glenrowan in 1880. Forewarned of ambush by young teacher Thomas Curnow (an under-recognized hero), the police prevailed. Kelly was executed and his last words were, "Such is life." He was 25.

His iconic armour weighed 40kg and significantly impaired movement and vision, but sustained multiple hits without penetration.

Ned wore a grey coat at his final shootout

He has become part of Australian history, either as an idolised Robin Hood figure or a disaffected terrorist- Geoffrey Robertson scornfully calls him 'Jihad Ned'. If you have a "Such is life" tattoo, then I will judge you.

These figures are from Great Escape Games. I painted the armour with Army Painter Gunmetal, then a wash of AP Dark Tone, then a thin wash of Vallejo 73.204 Flesh Wash for a subtle rust effect. The final touch is a 2B pencil for edge highlighting and scratches.

Recommended reading: True Girt 

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo

Ennio Morricone died this week. The first spaghetti western I saw was A fistful of dollars, and I couldn't stop whistling the tune after that.

These figures are from Artizan, and are lovely sculpts. I painted them about 10-15 years ago, but never finished the bases. I have aspirations of doing a vignette around a grave, like the climax of The good, the bad and the ugly.

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo

Il buono; 'Blondie'

Il cattivo; Angel Eyes

Il brutto; Tuco

After diving into Sergio Leone's films I bought a CD of Morricone's classics; it is great music and I'm listening to it again now. Vale!

I've been neglecting the blog a bit recently. I have plenty of projects on the go, but I don't like doing work-in-progress posts. Regular posting will resume imminently!

Imperial Assault- Rogue Two

I attended a Store Championship Imperial Assault tournament last weekend. I last went to one of these a bit over a year ago, and got thoroughly trounced, coming ninth of nine with a Stormtrooper list. I do not play competitive IA at all, so based on that previous experience I modified my expectations and went along to have a good time and learn. I made a Rebel list, which I have called Rogue Two.

Rogue Two

Match 1- Shielded (Nal Hutta swamps) vs Ben's Scum

I was busy re-learning how to play, so forgot to take a picture! Ben had a droid list, with IG-88, HKs, R2-D2, C-3P0, BT-1, and a jawa. I split my team up and got a few VPs from objectives, going down 42-32.

Match 2- Gaining Favor (Anchorhead Cantina) vs Paul's Rebels 

This was the first time I have come across the Smuggler Box tactic, where a few key characters use passive abilities to turn themselves into a hard-to-kill defensive block. Luke Skywalker was not in the box, and I was able to whittle him down and kill him before losing 46-25.

Smuggler Box on the right, Luke at the intersection.

Match 3- Anchorhead Cantina vs Andrew's Rebels

A similar looking team to my last opponent (but no Smuggler Box), and we had an attritional fight. Luke was doing the best to replicate his daddy and murder my troopers in a corridor, whilst I was inspired by my killing of him in the last match. I almost took him down, but he played a card that saved his bacon and gave him the win 40-24. I don't know if I should have gone for the objectives, but murderous Luke was in my way regardless.

Luke won't go down!

Match 4- Spoils of Crime (Jabba's Palace) vs Josh's Scum

This was pretty cool- I got to play against a Scum list containing Jabba, in his own palace. My opponent ran around killing my guys, but left Jabba alone in his starting location. I saw the opportunity and stormed him, taking down the crime lord in a hail of fire- but it wasn't enough to give me a win and I lost 43-25.

Rebels take down Jabba. I loved the jawa conversion.

So, I had four losses, and came tenth out of ten. But I was already expecting a poor result, so it didn't pain me too much and I learnt a lot about the competitive side of IA. The games were fast, usually around 40 minutes, which is nice. My opponents were very obliging to explain afterwards just how they were able to do so well.

IA Skirmish, like X-Wing, is much more of a game than a tactical simulation. It has trends as different models come out- IG-88 and Jedi Luke are currently atop 'the meta'. I prefer the narrative campaign, but it is good to try the other mode of play as well.

Rogue Two were OK, but not spectacular. I did better than last time, actually getting scores in double figures! I know I missed opportunities to really get Rogue Two working together well and using all their abilities to the utmost, but I also feel they were a bit lacking in damage output. Something to think about for my next tournament!

Bonus game- Flick 'em up

In the skirmish arena, I also got to play Flick 'em up. This is a dexterity western game, where you physically flick 'bullets' at your opponents cowboys to knock them down. It's visceral fun- you groan when you just miss, and sigh with relief when your bandit teeters but does not fall. Much more relatable than rolling a die.

Colourised period photo of lawman shooting at bandit.

It has some clever features- you flip your cowboys' hats to show when they have activated, and the town hall clock shows the turn progression.