"...and why not??"

Like many gamers, I'm a big Futurama fan... so when I saw these "limited edition" 28mm models of "Doc Lobster" and "Folding Robot" from Armorcast I had to put in an order! After receiving them late last week I painted them tonight.

"Bender B. Rodriguez" was first up... a very cool little model if a bit fiddly to assemble - it came in six pieces - head, arms, legs and torso. Painted up quick quickly with a couple layers of GW metallics and washes.

"Dr. John A. Zoidberg" was next. This model is one piece and also painted quite quickly.

Some nice detail on Zoidberg, dig those googly eyes!

"Bite my shiny metal ass!"

I imagine these models will come in quite handy as objectives in our Spacekrieg sci-fi games. A bit pricy at $6 each, but well worth the money if you're a Futurama geek. Recommended!

Some more photography - Rogue Trader and Stargrunt

 

This afternoon I thought I'd break out the Optex portable studio again (this time using the white background) and take a few pictures of some recently painted stuff. First up are some Imperial Space Marines from the Rogue Trader era.

I reckon the chap on the left will make a decent force commander for the 30-odd metal Space Marines I've got painted up as Howling Griffons. I just love the character of these old RT Marines - when I look at them I see something quite far from the current fluff of 8-foot tall death machines - I see hard nuts in power armour, but human hard nuts. Someone pointed out that most of the illustrations of Space Marines in the original Rogue Trader book featured them dying horribly, and I think that is so cool. These guys are out there fighting for the Imperium and knowing full well that the odds totally favour them dying in some terrible way. That, my friends, is grim darkness!

Here are some more GZG NAC Royal Marines for the Hammer's Slammers project. These are some heavy weapons troopers with command.

I reckon I'll add an aerial to the comms trooper on the left. This makes six troopers painted and I'm anxious to reinforce them and get the Slammers onto the battlefields of Spacekrieg.

Battle Report: Day Of The DOWA - SpaceKrieg 28mm Sci Fi

FuturKom troops plot the doom of their enemies.

Our group likes to roll out to support local gaming events here in Manitoba, and this past weekend we attended LegioCon in Winnipeg and ran a demonstration game of SpaceKrieg, our home brew 28mm sci-fi skirmish rules.  The scenario was set in the horribly abused city of Staliningrad and pitted the antagonists of FuturKom against the other antagonists, Gün Schwarm.  Here are some pictures and a short account of the game.

Table setup showing the DOWA in launch position.

(Click above to see a short video of the table)

The Kommulist Marshals have tired of the constant conflict in the city, and the occupied spaceport that is keeping the Gün Schwarm troops supplied.  So a Device Of Widespread Annihilation (DOWA) has been moved into position to, ahem, "deal with" the situation.  Gün command noted the arrival of the DOWA, and sent crack troops to capture it.

FuturKom squad manning Community Outreach centre.

The table was 6' x 4', covered with Dallas' awesome urban ruins and his outstanding 40k landing pad and strong point (known generally to us as the "community outreach centre").  The DOWA (a 1/50 scale model of a Soviet SCUD done beautifully by Dallas) was set in the middle.  The Güns would approach from either short table edge, and to stop the launch they had to get an infantry model to base contact with it by the last turn - they could not shoot at it with AT weapons as the "local incident risk" was a bit high for that.

FuturKom commander provides early interview to KNN.

"We're going to take it one battle at a time, and try to move the ball forward with each play."

The game would be eight turns.  Dallas and Mike F took the Kommulist side, while Dave V and I rolled with the Güns.  Both sides had an ample assortment of infantry and tanks.  The Güns had a Valkyrie with some heavy infantry, and the Kommers had the support of the FuturKom flyer.  For fun we also put a 28mm sci-fi media crew on the table.  They were from KNN - Kommulist News Network (a division of FuturPravda) and they had no impact on the rules, but made for some entertaining photos.

Gün recon brews up on the first turn.

"Stay tuned to KNN for more on our special report about flank shots!"

Valkyrie lands on Dallas' awesome platform, complete with flashing lights.

Gün heavy infantry disembarks, not long for this world.

Dave and I divided our forces, pushing the armour ahead with the hopes of either clearing the enemy vehicles and troops away, or at least ending up with well-placed burning hulks that would serve to cover the last minute dash of our infantry. We used the Hetzer and the Valkyrie as diversions, and sent a Panther, the SchwarmBot and the Flakpanzer down one road, hoping to clear a path for two APCs loaded with troops.

SU-300 draws a bead...just not very well.

Nothing says "tank country" like a city street.

Our diversionary stuff got lit up (damn Mike F and his hot-rolling) but served something of a purpose. Our main thrust was slowed by a visit from the FuturKom flyer.  We did manage to knock out the KomBot and then ram a Space Panther and the Flakpanzer right up against the DOWA. 

SU-300 performing some local community renovations.

FuturKom flyer buzzes the table.

Our efforts were greatly assisted by the inability of the FuturKom SU-300 to hit the broad side of a barn.

Gün vehicles head for the DOWA.

"So, how does it feel to be hit with a 120mm high-velocity round?"

The FuturKom BRDMs, however, were having quite a day, knocking out both of our APCs,  and we lost a lot of infantry from that. The surviving troops made a mad dash for the DOWA, and were trading blows with the FuturKom troops (who had difficulty engaging due to the blocking of our armoured vehicles) when we had to call the game.  I would Thorpishly say it was a draw, but a draw with a definite tinge tilting toward the Kommulists...

The Güns cling to the objective - but Futurkom has more troops...

"And we now go live to an opposing lackey officer. At what point did you think this game was lost?"

Thanks to Dallas, Mike and Dave for braving the inclement weather that day to join us for the game.  I would note that LegioCon enjoyed a healthy attendance, despite the weather and the best efforts of its website (inside joke).  It was great to share some Fawcett Avenue craziness with the crowd.

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One quick PS - while we have some fun with journalists in this post, we acknowledge that there are some serious professional people who do it for real, and in some cases they pay the ultimate price for it so we can have some idea of what is happening while we are safe in Canada. Check out Reporters Without Borders for more information.

Hammer Time (part 3)

As previously detailed here and here, a project for me this month has been painting some Hammer's Slammers 28mm blowers from Old Crow. When last I left the project I was waiting for lion rampant decals to finish the Slammers livery... unfortunately when they arrived they were unsuitable, as the lion was stretched out horizontally rather than rearing up vertically... no, that would not do at all.

So I ended up doing what I should've done in the first place, which was paint the insignia on freehand!

 I think they turned out acceptably well. The yellow shield was painted on in GW Iyanden Darksun (a great golden yellow from the Foundation range) and the lion with Mechrite Red highlighted with Blood Red.

Paint chips were added in Boltgun Metal to match the turret. I think these tanks are done now - ready to face whoever their employers deem appropriate!

Hammer Time! (Part 2)

This must be some kind of record... it's only mid-February and I've almost finished three Christmas present projects already! The 6mm FUBAR! army is painted, the fleet-scale Star Wars reinforcements are done, and now my 28mm Hammer's Slammers blowers from Old Crow are all-but-completed too.

Work in progress - some weathering on hull and chipping on the skirts

Badab Black washes on hull

Above, the almost-finished blowers. I weathered the hulls some more with GW Badab Black and Gryphonne Sepia washes, and applied decals (custom-made for me by Sparetime Hobbies while I waited yesterday - thanks to Pete and to Conscript Kevin H for the tip!) to the skirts, then proceeded to weather the bejeezus out of them... mainly with a "chipping" technique and mud brybrushes.

I think they came out OK, all I'm waiting for now are the Lion Rampant decals from Ginfritter's Gnomish Workshop so I can complete the Slammers livery. Oh, and I have to paint the commander for "D16". Once that's done it's "look out Gunschwarm" when FuturKom's hired guns roll out...

Hammer Time?

Four blower tanks from Old Crow's 25mm "Hammer's Slammers" range, pictured with two GZG NAC Royal Marines. They're big suckers, eh? (the tanks, that is ;-)

The blower tanks (three regular and one command blower - a full platoon) are now ready for the paint shop.  Assembly was pretty simple - assembling and attaching the pintle-mounted tri-barrel powerguns and the main powergun, and sticking on the deck stowage (a one-piece casting). OC supplies photo-etched brass components to build a turret bustle cage for extra stowage and these assembled pretty easily too. I also added some extra stowage I had laying around. 

 

There was minimal cleanup required (Jez from OC takes considerable pains to clean up castings before shipment) but I did have an issue with the turret mounting assembly. The hull has a ~40mm hole and the turret has a flat bottom, so OC supplies a "plug" (about 40mm round by 10mm thick) that you affix to the bottom of the turret. The problem is that the plug is a bit too big around to allow the turret to comfortably rotate in the hull. Problem is solved by substituting a Litko 40mm round base for the supplied plug, and relieving the hull hole a bit with a half-round file. I like the turrets to rotate easily and now they do ;-)

Anyway, further updates as the tanks progress through the paint shop...

Schwarm Tiger

The Schwarm Tiger out for some preliminary maneuvers on the dining room table

In the annals of the wargaming hobby, what could possibly be less original than doing up a German Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B, the notorious "King Tiger"? Well, how about a Schwarm Tiger?

Up there with the French Old Guard Grenadiers and the British 95th Rifles of the Napoleonic era, and any  40k faction(s) involving input from Gav Thorpe, the Tiger tanks of the German WW2 panzer lineup are one of the great paradoxes in wargaming.  There were not very many of them, and compared to the other weapons in the arsenal, they saw very little action.  Yet every wargamer seems to have them, and every rules system that makes an accommodation for them bestows them with a table-dominating prowess that belies the numerous actual problems and challenges that dominated the day-to-day action they did see.

Left to their own devices, I'm sure many hard-core Flames of War gamers would roll with an "army" where the King Tigers are so prevalent they might as well be staff cars, and the non-Tiger support choices are all direct-firing Hummels with a few Jagdtigers thrown in for variety.  They would smile and tell you it's all good, because they "paid the points".

I like to laugh at this, but in truth I am a hypocrite. I am as stuck into it as any gamer. I may not do the "all King Tiger army", but I still like to roll with the heavy kit. Big guns are fun. I've got a Death Wing force for 40k (although ironically this not actually powerful on the table, but anyway).  I have super heavy tanks for my Imperial Guardsmen in 40k. We've played spearhead scenarios pitting the big cats against the Soviet hordes - and in one funny instance, they didn't even need to engage. We've also used the King Tiger in the odd 28mm WW2 game, either as an objective or as a participant (last stand in Berlin - that was a fun game, although I recall Brian H knocking the King Tiger out with a bit of an iffy shot that left me doing a bit of a sulk).

These are fun games, and as long as the scenario is sensible, you avoid an actual 40K-i-fication of a historical encounter.  Pushing tanks around is fun - and using the toughest tanks with the biggest guns out there is lots of fun.  Knocking them out of action is even more fun (well, for the other players)!

And so the Gün Schwarm. The Güns already have Panthers, and a pimped-out Hetzer. In this context, the Schwarm Tiger will fit right in.  Besides, we face the deadly T-640.  Time to embrace the enjoyment of the big tanks and big guns, and get one for the Güns.

Hobbymaster had put out a 1/48 Scale King Tiger, so last year I acquired one on EBay and took the old hatchet, some tank sprue bits and tried to see what I could come up with.... then I moved, etc. etc. blah blah delay etc. I finally found the thing last week, and thought "what the heck, let's see what I can come up with..."

"Before" - a Hobbymaster 1:48 scale King Tiger tank

First off, just a quick acknowledgement that the Hobbymaster model is quite beautiful.  It felt like sacrilege to hack it.  But once I had cut the barrel off, I was kind of committed....

I mounted the requisite absurd smooth bore cannon and a co-axial laser. I hacked off the cupola, and replaced it with a cupola from a Space Marine Predator/Rhino kit.  I wanted the model to have a bit of eminence, so that called for a tank commander in the hatch. I opted for a Death Korps tank commander and heavy stubber combo from Forge World.  I popped a couple of technical-plate looking things from assorted GW kits on the odd open spot - and there were not too many because the model already has a beautiful bunch of stowage, cables etc. A heavy bolter went to replace the MG on the hull.

The GW tank search light is mandatory on all SpaceKrieg vehicles, no matter the faction

And of course, we needed the standard issue Future War searchlight.

Gün Grenadiers on propaganda maneuvers with the Schwarm Tiger

So far my Gün Schwarm vehicles have all been a single colour - a dark mustard-looking yellow.  A heavy hitter like this tank should stand out, so I bucked up and decided this would be the model where I would try a bunch of different stuff - the Battlefront spray paint, the airbrush, pigment powders.  What the heck?

Rust splotches courtesy of Forge World pigment powders

I primed the whole thing black, then sprayed a coat of "German Armour (Mid/Late)" paint from Battlefront.  This was actually a big change for me - I only spray black, and then paint everything else, as it seems to be the only way my painting approach can cope.  But several people have recommended these sprays, and they were right.  I can see how people can crank out FOW tanks by the platoon using them. I'm glad I tried them, and look forward to using them on other models.

I imagine that the environment on FuturKom worlds would be hard on paint coats

Up next was the air brush.  Oh man, what an adventure that was.  I wanted to replicate some variant of the infamous German "ambush" camouflage pattern - aka the pattern that was already pre-painted on to the model (don't get me started - I like to paint things, or try to, myself - it's a hangup). I have always been wary/afraid of airbrushes, and envious of those who are not.  I like to paint camouflage on to troops and vehicles, even "sprayed" patterns, and will try every trick I can think of just to avoid the airbrush.

Why don't I like airbrushes? To me, adding a mechanical element with all sorts of variables to painting just seems like a big pain in the *ss, and minimal value for the effort. But now was the time to be bold! So off I went...

The Hobbymaster vehicle had great stowage already on the model

Let's just say it was a very messy process.  I hate a lot about airbrushing.  The airbrush is so needy. The paints have to be thinned - or at least some of them do.  The containers involved all seem to be designed to preclude the notion that you would ever be pouring the paint or the thinner into yet another container, so it's a frigging mess. 

The results were uneven, to put it mildly.  The brown and the green worked out OK, but I found that I had covered too much of the yellow.  So I tried some Tamiya yellow-green, and I think it had too much thinner, so it went on kinda funny.  And the whole time I was not really protecting my tank commander from the paint, so he was acquiring many layers of paint for no reason. My summary of using an airbrush - @#$@#$@#$@#$!!!!

I tried to put a lot of rust coloured pigment powder on the vents and exhaust

Thank the powers-that-be for GW's Devlan Mud wash!  A wash of that stuff served to bring a useful tint back to the yellow.  I followed up by using a sponge to dab spots of GW Desert Yellow over the airbrushed Tamiya yellow-green.  I concentrated on some areas where the border between the yellow and the other colours had turned out really runny-looking.  I then dry-brushed the whole thing with the same GW Desert Yellow, and found the pattern had become serviceable, if dark.  But that is one of the advantages of an imaginary sci-fi setting - any camouflage you apply will be appropriate for some place.  It's a terrible rendering of German WW2 ambush camouflage, but fine for Gün Schwarm.

The Templar decal serves as an air identification marker for the tank, to try and keep the SchwarmWaffe from strafing its own side on the battlefield...

I used an Americana black paint to cover the stowage, tank commander, treads etc and go down to some more standard painting for these elements.  Finishing the tank commander was tricky, as he had many extra layers of paint already on him from the priming and various airbrush coats, but here didn't turn out too bad. I painted the tops of the open tank hatches with GW Kommando Khaki to mirror a different internal paint colour for the vehicle.  A layer of gloss was next to prepare for the decals, which were a mix of tactical numbers from the excellent "Company B", and Black Templar decal from a GW Space Marine sheet.  The model then received a hit of dullcote.

The suitably absurd-sized main gun; advanced tech on the turret prevents decapitation of the gunners due to recoil on the gun mount...

Weathering was up next.  I tried to get all clever and mix some rust coloured weathering powder with an acrylic medium.  I hoped to get the pigment to wash into crevices etc.  This didn't work - as opposed to some kind of wicked IPMS-style rust effect, I ended up with a dab of brown-looking acrylic paint.  Oh well. Plan B - a dry application of the pigment powder, and this worked much better. I went really hard on the spare track sections hanging on the turret - I wanted those to have rusty finish, to show the vehicle has seen hard service on some FuturKom industrial planet. I used some black pigment powder on some of the exhaust areas and the muzzle of the main gun. I also painted some chipped areas using GW Dark Flesh and GW Boltgun Metal.

Propaganda maneuvers with Panzer 2050 Ausf. F

And so we have a Schwarm Tiger, ready to join the fight against Kommulism.  I imagine this will operate much like its WW2 inspiration - dispatched to the front in a battalion-sized unit that was worn out by the FuturKom hordes to platoon-sized detachments in no time.  The tank is slow and prone to breakdowns. The Gün techs struggle to perform the maintenance needed on the vehicle's complicated systems, including its insane 135mm smooth bore high-velocity cannon, even as the commanders clamour to keep the thing in the front line.  I'm looking forward to putting this thing on the table, and watching it get knocked out on the first turn...

As for the airbrush, at least I've tried it.  Like anything, I'm sure it will get a bit better with practice.  But I remain envious of those folks that know how to make them work properly.