Friday Night Games: Dr Who in Cornwall

Friday 24th October saw the latest in the Club's ongoing series of 28mm Dr Who games, in this episode we see the good Doctor and his companions in Cornwall trying to thwart a joint Sea Devil & Silurian attempt to take over the region from the 'pink monkey' humans who currently inhabit the surface loactions.

The Sea Devils and their allied Sea monsters, all from Mat's collection.

As previously noted the rules are adapted by John from a set originally published in Wargames Illustrated (link in previous post) and the figures were supplied by various club members - who get their names shouted out below. Note we didn't get any photos of the human forces painted by Mike W, John and Mark.

Close-up of the Master and some of his Sea Devil accomplices

Dispite some controversy within the club regarding the validity of Dr Who as a true historical period, we had a full house of players. The Sea Devils were played by Mat & Nigel, whilst Mike W & Steve played the Silurian faction.

Merman Squad Leader for this group of Sea Devils...

On the side of humaity wa sthe Doctor and his compaions, played by Rupert, whilst Phil & Mark played the UNIT troopers that were on table. Dave & MIke N had command of a group of Human Survivors plus some local militia. We even had Grahame pop his head in to have a look around, with a promise to attend more evenings in future! 

A Sea Devil squad with attached Sea Monsters, two giant Lobsters and an Octopus, all of which transpired to be capable of moving on the land...

The Octopus and it's Sea Devil Handlers. All figures by Mat.

The sleepy Cornish Fishing Village before the attack.

The attack started with the emergence of the Sea Devils and their creatures from the harbour, whilst on the hills behind the village Silurians appeared from the local Tin Mine. 

Silurians appear out of the Tin Mine, figures by Mike W

Siluruans advance behind the village sea front,
with allied Octopus visible in the distance.

The humans took the option to dig in and await the alien attackers, these attackers managed to cros smost of the tabletop before coming in to range of human weapons, a mix of ballistic and energy waepons.

Sea Devils emerging fomr the harbour

Accompanied by a second squad ...

Pretty much the high tide mark of the alien advance,
concentrated fire form the humans caused mounting casualties to both
the Sead Devils but espacially to the Silurians

First blood went to teh Siluruians when they spotted UNIT troopers hiding in a house, tehy let rip with blaster fire killing two of the humans. However, in return eth UNIT troopers unleashed a torrent of MG and rilfle fire that rocked the Silurian squad, killing 5 of them outright. 

The Octopus is peppered with shots at the Market Cross
but it lives to fight on a few more turns

On the Sea Devil front these guys engaged with teh bishop at the local church who was supported by various other human fighters and a long running melee and fire fight ensured. Lack of range to eth Sea Devil weaponry eventually told its own tale.

A view of the Harbour front as the Sea Devils occupy the villlage

Keen eyed viewers will catch a glimpse of the Doctor as he dashes from cover 

A Silurian squad is targeted by MG & Rifle fire,
5 of these guys fall as a result.
Within a couple of turns they are all dead....

The game resulted in a decisive victory for humanity and the aliens return to the sea and the mines to lick their wounds and maybe fight another day!

AHPC XIII: From Mike W - More, more more! Dark Ages, Landsckneckts and 40k Orks (397 Points)

 More,  More, More (How do you like it?) sang Andrea True Connection back in 1976, well I'm afrid this week's hurried posting is a repeat of many of my previous weeks with More, more more! Dark Ages, Landsknechts and 40k Orks!

Carrying the big axe

But first off we take another trip on Lady Sarah's Limo to travel from the Fantasy Studios to the Superheroes Studio, this week's fare is another Warlord Games 28mm Female Survivor, this time a motherly figure wielding a rather effective looking axe.

And from another perspective...

The visit to the Superhero Studio now makes it 5 Green and three Blue studios, need to check what I need to visit 'The Director Chair'!

The Superhero figure that I present is that of Captain Scarlett, maybe not so well known in America and the New World but certainly a mainstay of British and many Commonwealth countries in the 60s, 70s & 80s.

Captain Scarlett of to battle the Mysterons

What's his superpower? Well he's indestructible for a start and all the TV episodes were filmed in SuperMarionation, which has to sound pretty cool, find out more <here>. This is a 20mm figure, with Scarlett in his classic Spectre Uniform, I have other figures that I may well look to dig out and paint up as his comrades in arms - Captain Blue, Lieutenant. Green etc.

Series Publicity Poster

They had some pretty cool vehicles as well and I have a couple, somewhere, in Warhammer Epic Scale that I need to dig out and paint!

Back view

So now on to the main subjects of this post. You'll likely be pleased to know that this is the last of my multi figure 40k Ork batches, I certainly am! It gets quite guelling painting so much green & red. Pretty much all of the figures are now done - just a couple of vehicles and a couple of special one-off figures that I hope to get around to in the next few weeks.

This week's 'final' Ork batch

This week there are just 9 x 40k Orks & Grechin, all produced in the same style as I have done since the beginning of this year's challenge. The first two are a couple of additional Grechin Herders, though anyone who has been following the development of this army will be aware that in this army it is the Grechin who are the brains and the Orks the muscle - in this case the Grechin Herders should be thought of as Grechin Minders or Bodyguards

Two Grechin Minders, guy on the right has the
Hyperaemic gun taken from the Pain Boy below.

Next up are two Bosses, one with a pet Squig on his backpole, the other with a Rising Sunz motif

Left A Boss with a pet Squiq, note skull on left shoulder.
To the right is anther Boss with a huge Blasta / Burna Combi Weapon

Another two Bosses, with assorted weaponry

I did a coupe of conversions in this batch, I really didn't want duplicate Grechin Herders - so converted his fella into a Boss with a diabolical prosthetic hand (taken form the Pain Boy model). I added a large Fantasy Goblin head to this figure - to make him appear to be a 'young' Ork that has just stepped up to the Boss role.

The second conversation is that of the Pain Boy, again I wanted to have a different looking second Pain Boy in the Army. Obviously his hand has already been cut off to do the first conversion, so I scoured the bits box and found some ancient 1980s parts for an old Rogue Trader Robots and found a pincer arm from an Ork Killa Can plus a power fist and an other limb.

A converted Grechin Herder, now given a new left arm and a Hand Blaster,
whilst his other hand has been replaced by 'Orky Scissor Hands'!!

Last Grechin in the box plus the new Pain Boy,
 complete with power fist, claw arm and a hydraulic crane.

The power fist nicely replaced the donated arm, I cut off the figure's left arm (a Hyperaemic Gun, which was donated to a Minder seen above)  and replaced this with the claw arm and then fitted the other limb to the Ork's back, so it can be used as a Hydraulic crane or similar - in doing this the Grechin on the Orks back, now uses a hand pump to activate the Hydraulic arm.

Next up we have a mix of Landsknecht foot, 23 in all with 6 x Pikemen, 6 x Crossbow and 11 x Handgunners. All have been painted in the same way as I have described in earlier posts and so I will not repeat again here. I have, however, been experimenting more with Army Paints' Speed Paint and I have used this on a number of figures in this group.

Latest batch of Landscknects, Pikemen, Crossbow men and Handgunners

Focus on the 11 x Handgunners 

And with the rear ran moved forwards for a better view

I have had mixed results with these - some are good, really good, but others have left me cold and so I will not use much more. I see a lot of value in the browns and greens that are available - it would be great to find a speed paint that can be used to paint musket woodwork !

Six Pikemen, the start of a second Landsknecht Pike Block for my collection.

And a front on view.

The Pikemen and Handgunners were pretty much straight out of the Box. To make up a group of six crossbow men, I have had to do a few conversions, taking parts fror the Wargames Atlantic Conquistador set to mash-up with Warlord Games parts to get the figures I wanted.

Focus on Crossbow men, center is a Captain, armed with sword in his right hand and crossbow in his left hand. Right is a musician, blowing trumpet and again crossbow slung on his back. Trumpet arm is from Perry Miniatures War of The Roses Infantry set.

Another view of the crossbowmen

Last but not least are this week's Dark Ages figures, a mix of Normans, Vikings and Anglo-Danes / Saxons. These are almost entirely metal figures and of these I think the majority are Gripping Beast.

This week's group of mostly metal Gripping Beast Dark Ages types

Again these figures will be pressed into the shield walls of my forthcoming 1066 mini campaign.

At time of the photo being taken,
I thought that this was all the Norman types ... 

I opted to paint most of the shields on this group as I struggled to get any transfers to fit the slightly odd shaped shields properly. As these completed figures will be distributed between the existing armies they'll fit in fine.

Rear Rank has moved forwards to get a view of them

Mostly Vikings & Anglo Danes / Saxons.
But as can be seen here, there were a couple of Norman types
that didn't make the original photo shoot. 

Rear ranks move through again, note the casualty marker in the front

Another view, pretty sure all above figures are Gripping Beast

Just behind the casualty marker can be seen
a single plastic Victrix Anglo Dane Huscarl

Three mounted metal Norman figures, left a knight, centre I have made -up to be a Standard Bearer - carrying William's Personal Banner and right is what I seem to remember as being an old Citadel figure, that I have painted up to be Bishop Odo - William's Brother

View from the other side

Finally sorry about the quality of some of the photos, I ran out of time this week and was snapping many of these after dark with eth flash on, always makes the colours much brighter and the photo starker in my opinion, will try and do better next week.

AHPC XIII: From MikeW - 28mm Scots Renaissance, Dark Ages, Lizardmen & 40k Orks

 With my 'production line' stalling last week due to other commitments, there is definitely a knock on effect this week, as I restock many of the work in progress items that I have on my workbench. Thus a smaller output go finished to post this week, in the expectation that there may be a bumper next week. Also what I lack in numbers hopefully I give back in such a weird mix of subjects, although unfortunately the 4 Lizardmen do not register for the Squirrel challenge - which requires 4 figures!

28mm Female Survivor and fare for Lady Sarah's Limo!

Once again I will open up this post with a fare for Lady Sarah to take me to the Fantasy Lot, this is in the form of a 28mm female survivor armed with a bow. Not just any old bow but what appears to be an Olympic specification target bow! The figure is from Warlord Games, via Wargames Factory.

Another view of the 28mm Survivor

At the Fantasy Lot I have painted 4 x Warhammer Mounted Lizardmen, this is a lot of figures that I obtained from eBay and these will be used to supplement a similarly painted unit I did some time back as part of a previous Challenge, this will take the unit strength up to 9 figures. 

The Four Lizardmen of the Apocalypse!
(Arguably there are eight of them!)

Another view

Whilst the new figures are certainly more dynamic than the older ones and I suspect there has been  little scale creep, they do fit in well together. That said, I think I actually prefer the older figures to these new ones, as the quality of the sculpt of the 'mounts' are much better n my opinion.

Close-up of the Standard Bearer, with skull on the banner

War Axe armed rider

For the mounts I went with a blue under side and a green scaly upper body, the riders had yellowish underbelly and a similar green scaled upper body.

Spear armed rider, with skull on the saddle

Club armed rider, with skull on the saddle

Final shot with one of my existing Lizardmen riders (far left),
this nicely compares a older figure with the newer ones.

Next on my list of output this week are 10 x Scots Renaissance Billmen / Halberdiers. Once again sourced form eBay, where originally converted Wargames Atlantic Conquistador figures, glued to square bases and with some kind of 'ancients' head affixed, then marketed as City Guards!

Unit of Wargames Atlantic Renaissance figures decked out as Billmen / Halberdiers

Close-up of the Rear Rank

Same for the Front Rank

I have removed the bases to replaced with nice round MDF counterparts and I replaced the heads with some more appropriate Renaissance versions from my spares box. The figures were already undercoated in light grey, I simply added the same to the heads and then painted and based these little guys in my normal manner

Four Dark Ages figures found in the lead (ad plastic) pile

Another view

And another view

It wouldn't be right not to have a batch of Orks to present, however, as it stands this is the penultimate batch to share. I have a group of these little green guys to get completed next week an also some Killa Koptas for the future, after that the basic army is done. Yippee!

This week's 40k Orc Batch!

A large number of Big Boyz / Boss figures this week plus a great looking WarBoss, as well as some finalBoyz and a few Grechin.

Closer view from the left

And from the right!

The WarBoss was a real pleasure to paint, I use my usual methods to paint but was really pleased with the colour and finish of the loincloth on this figure. On top of that the finish on the Power Claw also came out well in my opinion.

My favourite figure of the batch, a plastic WarBoss,
with skull on his left shoulder

I added exhaust fumes on this figure - as he has a fuel driven power Claw, I've finally decided that I like this as a finishing touch but will not go and refit all previously painted figures - or for that matter any I do in the future. Practicalities mean that the ;fumes; pull off during game play, so I will limit it to a few stand out figures.

And the rear view, note skull on the ground.
Also see exhaust fumes coming form the Power Claw

An a final view of his weaponry

There is a group of Six Big Boyz / Bosses in this week's batch. These form the WarBoss' Bodyguard but can also be used as unit leaders in their own right, as needed.

Three Big Boyz with Hand Blastas and Choppas.
Centre & right hand guys have skulls on their back banners.

Three more Big Boyz with a variety of weapons

A quick conversion here was to add a Jet Pack to the back of one of the Boyz, this is a metal sculpt that I've had knocking around my bits box for 20+ years now, finally I have put it to use. I'm pretty sure that there's one more, if I can find it! 

My other favourite figure, one of the Boyz with a looted Jet PAck

He obviously was somewhat careless with his right arm at some time in the past!

Only four Grechin this week and one final guy next week - I unexpectedly found him in the ready box yesterday.

Interesting comparison of two Gretchin figures,
to the right an older metal figure and to the left its modern plastic counterpart.

Another two Gretchin, both plastic

Also another Grechin Herda in the batch, added to the done pile!

An Ork Grot Herda, with Power Whip.

Just a few Boyz, this week - 9 in all and finished in usual manner.

Four more Boys with Choppas and Hand Blastas.

Another four Boyz with various weapons, skull on hilt of guy second from left.

Finally an Ork with Tank Busta Mine

Next week? Hopefully 40k Orks, Dark Ages, Landsknechts and the 17th Century Officer I didn't bother with this week.