Restructuring and Rebuilding the Aquamarines (long and pic heavy) [Draft]

I started writing this post in 2013 and worked on it little by little over the years. 

[Chart done, in progress, and want]

A Landraider re-build with second paint job circa 1998
(click on image to enlarge)

As I have mentioned before, I started playing 40K back in Rogue Trader days--The year it came out in the US actually. I think I played a friend's Ork army in my first game. Soon after, I started collecting my own figures.

Back then for $20 you could buy a boxed set of 30 Space Marines, a boxed set of 3 Rhinos, or a boxed set of 2 Land Raiders! That was $60 for an entire army !! Yeah, yeah, inflation you say. According to DollarTimes inflation calculator, $60 in 1987 is equivalent to $124.67 in 2013.  Just for giggles, let's do a comparison. In 1987 I paid $125 (in 2013 dollars). For that, I got 30 Tactical Marines, 3 Rhinos and 2 Land Raiders. Today those models will run you... $380.25!

Over the years, I have painted a fair amount of Aquamarines-- Models pained in different styles and different levels of proficiency. Every time I got back in the hobby and started painting, much of my efforts were spent in re-painting and reorganizing models to the current codex. Still, I never managed to get a large force painted.

A long time ago, I made a rule for myself. The intention was to not assemble figures until I was ready to paint them... something I have mostly kept true. However, I have never given myself a restriction to buying models--There are only external limits like my pocket book and my wife.

My most recent attempt at reviving the Aquamarines (around 2009), was creating banner art in CorelDraw, and then adding a painterly-style shading in Photoshop. I finished the Squad banners and most of the character banners, but the chapter banner was left incomplete.

Chapter Banner WiP
(click on image to enlarge)

At the moment, I am still unable to field a cohesive and painted force. This post is the first step in achieving that goal. I am taking a que from Admiral Drax by creating a spread sheet (I love spreadsheets!) of all the models and plotting the stage that each one is in.

Blood Bowl Progress Chart

Charts! My favorite thing after tables. Well, these probably aren't actually my 2 favorite things, but I am quite fond of charts and tables. This progress chart is based of the progress chart invented by Admiral Drax, patent pending

This chart represents the status of every model in my Blood Bowl collection. I have made some progress in the last few months since my last update. Four teams painted, a new team converted, a handful of Star Players painted, and a fifth team painted to tabletop standard.

I finally renamed my last three famous teams in the Blood Bowl fluff. The Reikland Reavers, Darkside Cowboys, and Orcland Raiders became the Helmgart Broncos, Dargoth Cowboys, and Mount Gunbad Raiders respectively. Team logs have been added. I have also added a status indicator for each team (see below).

There are 4 main sections to this chart. The first one on the top is a list of future teams names (and colors), and their 'real' world inspiration. The next one on the bottom left shows my Star Player  uniform colors. The bottom middle section indicates the color of ring I paint on the base lip of the models. Finally, the bottom right section is a legend for the previous chart.

Blood Bowl Progress Chart

Did I ever mention I love charts! They help me organize data, rules and ideas. Thanks to Admiral Drax, I also use them to track painting and modeling progress for my miniature games.

The last time I posted a Blood Bowl Progress chart was about 4 years ago. At that point my teams were based on the Living Rulebook v3, and had not been updated to the current rules of the day, the Living Rulebook v6/CRP. Back then, I only had 15 teams, and grouped Star Players with a pre-designated team.

My teams currently reflect the rosters from the CRP, plus the NAF sanctioned teams, and the 2016 rules. Star players are now separate, and I have 7 new teams in various stages completeness--The majority of witch were scratch-built with models and bitz I already had. 

I am currently working on a Khemri team for an upcoming tournament After that, I will resurrect the Human team after 4 layers of paint--Primer, 2 layers of paint, and another layer of primer. This time I plan on stripping the figures instead of adding a 5th layer of paint.

I had a little fun here. I organized all of my teams into Old Warhammer World inspired conferences. The teams names in white text on black background are at least table top standard or better. The team names in black text over white background have all of the miniatures built in various stages of paint. The remaining teams in grey text are in different stages of collected and/or built.

BFG Fleet Reorganization

I love charts!

No pics of little painted toys today. I have a bevy of spreadsheet charts showing the progress and layout of my growing Battlefleet Gothif fleets. After quite a bit of research, I have chewed threw the original BFG and Armada rules books, the official FAQ's, and the community driven 2010 FAQ and BFG:R rule set.

Through all of that, I re-evaluated how to assign my Space Fleet collection into my Battlefleet Gothic fleets, and have updated the progress charts from about a year ago.

The Imperial Navy took the heaviest losses, shared about equally (points wise) across cruisers and escorts. I moved the majority of the over 1,600 points worth of ships to my Rogue Trader fleet. All of those ships fit better stylistically and thematically with an exotic and flamboyant space Noble.

The Pirate fleet has been re-christened a Rogue Trader fleet. Actually, I would have rather had a Rouge Trader fleet from the beginning, but I never liked any of the official lists. I am using the fleet list from BFG:R.

I have made the most progress on my Space Marine fleet. I even started to name the ships! The names are Latin names for sea creatures to play off my homevbrew Space marine chapter, the Aquamarines.

The chart looks quite a bit different because from last time mainly because I changed the colors of the final 2 status', 'Repaint in Progress' and '2nd Gen Finished' to stand out better.

I also removed three 'To Get' ships as they are out of my budget for the foreseeable future.

Defense Systems are not a fleet per se. Although I am treating them as a separate planetary defense 'ally' fleet. While the progress chart is new, I already had a number of systems built and painted.

These ships and defense systems will be primarily used for planetary scenarios. However, there are plenty of other uses too.

The Chaos fleet was one of my after thought fleets. I have some ships, but not really enough to field a usable fleet. I am looking for some inexpensive options.

The Ork fleet is the other after thought. But in this case, I already have, or have the parts to scratch-build all the ships.

The Eldar fleet are made up almost exclusively by Space Fleet figures and fit best as Corsairs. I plan on picking up some Craftworld ships to field as allies.

The last fleet in this chart-packed post is not a fleet--These are terrain pieces, or Celestial Phenomenon.

Well, that wraps up today's episode.

Salamander Tanks WIP

New additions to Deathbot's Salamander force.

I assembled a pair of tanks the other day. Both of these were hand-me-downs from Laertes from his last purge just before moving to Arizona.

Land Raider. This was my first "modern" imperial tank build. I added the quotes because(I don't think this is the current version of the model. All of my previous tank builds are from the Rogue Trader era.

I am going back and forth weather or not to magnetize the doors and sponsons. In the meantime, I need them off to prime the interior.

Predator. My second "modern" tank! The kit was actually a Chaos Rhino. I put the chaos sprue in my bitz box, and added a turret aquired from a previous eBay purchase. The turret was broken when I got it and needs some green stuff repair.

Currently, I am looking for a pair of Predator sponsons with weapons for around $10-12 or without for about $6-8 to finish up the build.

I'm not sure if the kits were missing the accessory sprues when I got them, or if I had already canalized them. Whatever it was, when I dug the models out to build them, there were none to be found. Fortunately, I have plenty of hatches in my bitz box. However, I was all out of smoke launchers and searchlights. Since taking these pictures, I found a set of 10 of each on the ever-giving eBay for about $12.

Here is the most recent Progress Chart. There is a lot of painting ahead, and Deathbot reminds me every day!

Until next time!

Talisman 2ed Figure Collection (part 1)

Talisman is one of my favorite GW games. This series will likely be 6-7 installments.

Back in the day, I managed to acquire Talisman and all of the official expansions (and figures!). More recently (15 years ago) I started to convert some figures from my bitz box for the few characters that did not have official versions. I also downloaded a digital copy of a Polish-only expansion called Talisman Cave from www.talismanisland.com.

The game is definitely dated--It suffers from bloated and uneven rules. But the charm is still there for me. I break it out everyone and awhile to rediscover the lengthy game play. Then promptly put it back on the shelf!

I keep the entire set of figures in a Plano 3700 tackle box tray (as are most of my figures). They get more use in RP games than in Talisman nowadays.

Before the City expansion (1988) I had completed painting every figure to date except 2. Around the late 90s, I repainted almost all of them (indicated by the light green "Finished (old style)" boxes). The dark green (Finished "New Style") represents a second repaint. Most of them were done around 10 years ago, but The Timescape figs were done here--I used them as prominent NPCs in our Dark Heresy campaign.

At the time, I normally painted the base edge in black, but my Talisman figs were painted dark green to help identify them after a late night session full of fun and alcohol! Once I had a dozen or so bases painted (and on the gamin table), I started to really like the look of a dark color that compliments the base rather that stark black. To this day, I paint all my figure's base edge with a dark color.

Unfortunately, all of the pictures in this series turned out a little over exposed. It was very bright out that day, and from the screen on my camera they looked good. It wasn't until the next day when I downloaded all the images to my computer that I realized they could have been better.

So the first up are the Sorceress, Scout, Prophetess, and Swordsman.  The most recent paint job can be identified by the 2-tone base. It this light it is hard to tell, but the newer style is richer, has more blend steps, and is more adeptly applied.

Next we have the Druid, Rogue, Monk, and Priest. All of the older style skin tones are flat and sickly. The Rogue has a livelier and richer color in real life.

[edit: The Druid and Priest pictured above are not the official minis. The actual versions of these minis will be seen in a later post.]

Hope you enjoy the stroll down memory lane and check back to see the rest of the collection. Cheers!

Tau Stealth Suit Team WIP

Couldn't wait to take a pic of this squad...

Just a quick shot of this squad. I still need to add the edge highlighting to all but 2 figures and paint the magnetized options (2 Burst Cannons and 6 Support Systems). All pieces have already been magnetized

Here is the current Progress Chart.

Salamander Progress Chart

I decided to "donate" some of the "newer" figures in my collection to my son's Salamander army. Most of my army dates to 1-2e and some of these models looked out of place. Plus, it made my son VERY happy!

• 3 Land Speeders from 3e boxed set
• Tac squad from Battle of Macragge (4e) boxed set
• Captain and Tac squad from Assault on Black Reach (5e) boxed set
• MkII Rhino with bitz to make Predator
• MkII Land Raider
• Bitz to make Chaplain on bike
• 2 MkII metal Dreadnoughts

My first post ever on this blog and 3 of the first 4 posts were all about the figures I painted for my son's first 40K army. I don't think I ever listed what the origins of those figures were:

• 24 marines from 2e boxed set
• 2 Scout Sergeants (first plastic scouts produced--cir 2e?)
• Terminator Librarian and 10 Terminators from 1e Space Hulk (and expansions)
• 14 marines from Space Crusade.

I did a fair amount of conversions to assemble the Assault and Devastator squads and on the Tactical squad's flamers and heavy bolters. Except for the chaplain, none of the new figures will need conversions.

The Dreadnoughts were a bonus in a tank lot I purchased on eBay about 2 years ago. They are crudely painted and need stripping.

Here is a progress chart for the entire army. Since Deathbot and I have been playing 40K somewhat regularly, I will likely be moving into production on some of this new lot.

I am terrible at wrapping posts up, so I will leave it at TTFN!

Aquamarine (Pre) Progress Chart

Happy Holidays! I wish the best for you and yours!

It has been quite a while since I have been able to paint or post much of anything. My wife has gone back to the hospital. Life around the Zorcon household is very stressful and unpredictable. That being said, I have taken some time to get a few posts in before the end of the year: My son and I played the largest game of 40K I have played since 2ed (1500 points); Another post will showcase giants; Plus (hopefully) a few other posts of some of my collections.

Now on to this post. I do not have my Aquamarines organized into squads, let alone a playable army--There have been too many repaints, rule changes, poor decisions over the years. What I did do was take inventory.

The bulk of my figures/models are from 1e 40K. I do have some from 2e, even fewer from 3e, and only a hand full from 4-5e.

Because of the varied load outs, and having a fairly large bitz box, I did not list every weapon combination. The only things I specified were the Mk of the vehicles and the roll of the troops.

325 Space Marines (about 1/3 RT001)
          2      Commanders
          5      Librarians
          10    Chaplains
          2      Apothecaries
          18    Techmarines
          22    Sergeants
          174  Marines
          34    Heavy Weapons
          31    Special Weapons
          46    Assault Weapons
7 Space Marine Scouts
52 Terminators
          2      Commanders
          4      Librarians
          5      Sergeants
          17    Marines
          10    Heavy Weapons
          9      Assault Weapons
3 Razorbacks (Mk1)
3 Predators (Mk1)
4 Land Raiders (3@ Mk1; 1@ Mk3)
7 Rhinos (6@ Mk1; 1@ Mk3-mod as Damocles?)
6 Dreadnoughts (4 @ Mk1; 2@ Mk2)
3 Robots (Mk1)
3 Bikes (2@ Mk1; 1@ Mk3)
3 Bike + Sidecar (Mk1)
8 Land Speeders (5@ Mk1; 3@ Mk3)

With perfect utilization, I could make 30 units of Space Marines, and 9 units of Terminators.

About 2/3 of all this is assembled and about 2/3 of whats assembled is painted.

Tau Progress Chart

Doh! after scheduling 5 posts out on a 3 day interval, I lost track of when I had to come back and write up some more posts!! I will have to catch up over the next few days. This post will be a little shorter than originally planned...

Here is a progress chart for my Tau Empire army. I intended to include group shots, but I haven't made much progress beyond what has already been shown in previous posts.

Tau is my newest army. I played the heck out of my Space Marines in 1st-3rd editions. After a long hiatus of playing I started collecting Tau. But a friend and I only managed to play one game of 4e and two games of 5e at 500-750 points. So, there isn't a lot here completely painted. I also got sidetracked with scratch building and painting various Forge World units and a set of objectives.

To further put me behind, I am changing the color scheme of the Army. From a variation of the Iconic T'au sept to a white with red and black scheme. My goal is to not repaint the finished models until I get an equal mount of models painted in the new scheme.

BFG Progress Charts

I am an Old Skewl GW fan boy. As such, Battlefleet Gothic is one of my favorite games. Since I just added to my collection in a recent large loot purchase and  showcased some old pictures of my painted fleets, I thought it would be appropriate to create and share these progress charts.

The Imperial Navy is the back bone of my forces. They were originally painted purple with gold trim and a yellow prow. But over the years I have began to think this is too much like a Slaaneshi-scheme. The new scheme will be a battleship grey with a yellow prow.

I have been collecting Space Fleet ships over the years to be used as older ships of the fleet. I am still considering weather of not to paint them slightly differently or not.

My Space Marine fleet is painted up like my 40K home-brew Space Marine chapter--Turquoise with orange trim. I have 2 cruisers painted as Grey Knights in homage to my old opponent, who played chaos. I am considering painting a squadron of escorts on the same scheme and doing the same for the black ship. 

For now I am calling this my "Pirate" fleet, but I envision it like either a planetary defense or Rogue Trader Fleet. The list is currently based on the Wolf Pack list formerly available of GW website. If I choose to make this a Rouge Trader fleet, I will likely find another list to base it off of. I plan on the colors to be an an assortment of reds, whites, greys, and gunmetals--More random and weathering if a planetary defense fleet, and more structured if a Rogue Trader fleet.

Blood Bowl Progress Chart

I love what Admiral Drax does with his visual progress charts and I am going to blatantly rip off his idea! :)

To start off with, I have a chart for my Blood Bowl teams--My favorite GW game!!

I haven't made any progress on these figures for many years, although I did send part of my Orc team to a painting service thinking it would jump start the effort. (check out this article on the subject)

The Dwarf, Halfling, and Dark Elf teams are essentially done (not counting figure needed). The Chaos team's second paint job is close to completion, and the Goblin, Human, Orc, and Skaven teams have been re-primered and their second painting is underway. The other teams are in complete disarray!

In future posts I will continue to document my progress with similar charts for Necromunda, BFG, Space Marines, ad Tau. I will also post group shots of teams/units as the are completed (or for previous un-posted work) and as I make progress. I would like to chart my RPG projects, but I'm not sure how to implement that (yet).

Hopefully this will make a little more sense to the viewer as I tend to jump around a lot from project to project.