Shot through the face - and you're to blame...

We kicked off our Necromunda campaign - Killericsgangomunda (because Dave has a sense of humor) - this past weekend. Four gangs are involved at this point - Orlocks, Delaques, Scavvies, and, of course, my Escher.

We're still getting the rules down, and had a couple of speed bumps along the way, but we all had a good time. Sadly, I lost a ganger in each of my two games, but I was lucky enough to pick up a free Juve in a Settlement in the post-game.

The play of the day for my games came when Pop-Top ran over to a blasted-out window to take out an in-cover Orlock that had been sending out harassment fire for the last couple of turns. Pop-Top shoved her bolt pistol through the window and opened fire, taking the Orlock out of action. Unfortunately, her weapon had a misfire, and exploded - ultimately killing her. As someone commented "If somebody somehow caught on fire and fell off a walkway" in addition to the bolter-in-the-face action, it would have been the most Necromunda thing ever.

RIP Pop-Top - you will be missed...

Too bad none of us remembered to take any photos of any of our games...

Are you ready to rumble?

"Take the refinery - we need that styling gel!"

I've just added a page with (somewhat) decent photos of my Necromunda Escher gang, The Purple Skulls. Check them out using the link at the top of the page or here - or are you scared of a bunch of girls? (You really should be - they're pretty vicious.)

We're going to start a little campaign this weekend as well - hopefully my dice do a little better this time around. Nobody in my gang ever seems to pack enough ammo for a full gang war...

It's not just a job, it's an adventure!

My Bretonnians had a bit of a brush-up with Admiral Dave's Empire fleet this weekend. The Bretonnians started out with a fire in their bellies, but unfortunately, they drank a lot of wine prior to the engagement and wound up putting those fires out.

Buccaneers make great shields, but they did not do a good job aiming with their catapults - a lot of ones were rolled this game (which is typical of me, so why be surprised?)

The Empire won the day, and the remainder of the Bretonnian fleet sailed back to their home port to grumble and pout.

The fleet awaits battle

The Empire fleet comes over the horizon...

 More photos after the break.

Sailing, takes me away...

Progress on the Bretonnian fleet continues:

Make sure your yards are straight before you attach your sails. Sigh...

Actually, I'm a little further along than the photo would lead you to believe. All but one set of Corsairs have sails and the only things remaining are to add pennants and attach to the bases and touch things up.

I drew up new sails in Photoshop and added a nice gradient to them for a little visual pop. Sadly, you can't tell that in the photo, and it isn't too noticeable in real life either. Bummer.

On the Buccaneers are some masts I had printed up at Shapeways. I think they came out pretty well - they're a little rough due to the material selection, but I think they are a good replacement for the impossible to get original masts.
All in all, I will have two Galleons, two squadrons of Corsairs (6 ships,) and four squadrons of Buccaneers (12 ships!) That's a lot of sails and pennants...

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner!

Best 13 minute 40 second song ever?

Well, due to various issues, it's been a while since my last post. I decided to get back into the swing of things by working on my Man O' War Bretonnians. I primed them, basecoated the yellow, did a Reikland Flesh wash and added the blue. Next up will be the cannon and minor details - I'm not sure if I'm going to paint the trim, though. I think the models look pretty good as they are, and I'm afraid that if I try to paint the fine lines, I'll wind up screwing up the yellow (and we all know how much of a pain yellow is...)

"Yellow, yellow, everywhere, and all my washes stink..."

I've also go the masts and sails to do - the masts should be easy to knock out. In the old days, I printed black and white sails and hand painted them - this time I may just print some high resolution sails out and save myself some time. I've got a little work to do on the bases (mostly ship placement,) but everything is coming along nicely. I think the yellow will look pretty spiffy facing off against Dave's Empire fleet.

There is currently a small craft advisory in the Sea of Claws

I'm hoping to have the fleet completed by the 15th, as we're planning on another gaming day. One of the things I need to do is head over to Headless Hollow/The Esoteric Order of Gamers and print out some ship cards. I'm thinking about redoing all of the magic and Man O' War cards and having them printed on playing cards, being as I sold my sets years ago. Maybe I'll add some new art?

Proposed box art for the Man O' War 2015 Limited Edition re-release

Warhammer Sale on Steam

ANGRY!

This week, Steam is having a sale on the Games Workshop related properties, including:

• Dawn of War Series (which I highly recommend)
• Dawn of War II Series
• Space Hulk Series
• Blood Bowl (Legendary and Chaos Editions)
• Dungeonbowl
• Chainsaw Warrior
• Talisman
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

I would recommend purchasing the complete or master editions, as they are complete collections containing additional missions and whatnot. They're usually only a few bucks more than the standalone game, and you get everything in one, nice package.

This is a great opportunity to get your miniature gaming on even when you can't get together with your buddies!

I've got wood!

What's this? A 12"x9"x3" box has arrived from the Isles of Britan!

What could be inside? A cake? A puppy? A puppy cake?

Necromunda-ish platforms!

In glorious technicolor!

Instructions!

Pages and pages! Well, four pages, anyway.

Wonderful smelling laser-cut wood!

I'm sure it's known to cause cancer in California.

More to come once I start assembling and painting (not necessarily in that order.)

I was kind of surprised the box was as small as it was. I guess I really shouldn't have been, since it is all flat-pack and doesn't take up much space in its unassembled form.

It is a little expensive - freaking shipping is atrocious at $42 USD. I can't blame the seller for that, as I know international shipping is out of control. I was able to "Make an Offer" though through Ebay, and paid $100 (plus shipping) versus $127 (plus shipping.) I should have made a lower offer to see what I could get it for...

For painting, I'm torn between "realistic" metal or trying to replicate the blue-ish silver from the original Necromunda set. We will see if I can get a good color match or not.

Work in Progress - Epic Death Korps of Krieg

I'm hoping to have the army done by NEAT on June 14. I still have to base the light artillery, paint the troops, and base everything up. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get a formation of Leman Russ done as well, but those might wind up being on loan from Cadia if my time runs low...

Macharius and Gorgons

Command Macharius with Twin Vanquisher Cannons

The color is a bit more blue than I had planned, but I found that Drakenhof Nightshade tints more than the previous blue wash. Just gonna roll with it...

Adepticon 2014 Part 2 - Warmaster, Epic, and Loot!

On Friday, we arrived to the Warmaster tournament- we had armies representing Chaos, the Empire, Orcs and Goblins, Dark Elves, and High Elves. My Chaos army did well against the Orcs and Goblins, but were crushed against the might of the Dark Elves, and later, the High Elves. In fact, the battle with the High Elves was so bad that I couldn't take it any more and wound up calling the game. It was really a pathetic showing by the Dark Gods...

As with last year, I won best painted with this army - I got a set of the Badger Minitaire Ghost Tints this time around, so I need to figure out how to use the things. I think I'm going to try for another army next year - maybe Khemri Undead or Orcs and Goblins. Hopefully I can get them painted in time...


And because they were so good, we went back to Burrito Parrilla Mexicana for more tacos and lovely, lovely horchata.

Sunday (I didn't play anything on Saturday,) we had the Epic tournament. Again, a decent showing, though a couple of guys didn't show up. We had Orks, Feral Orks, Space Marines, and Imperial Guard make a showing. It was pretty fun, though the Feral Orks are really tough with the Orkeosaurus units, and I had some really bad rolls against the Space Marines.

While at Adepticon, I was able to score some good deals - I got a Warhammer Khemrian Warsphinx/Necrosphinx kit for $20 and a 40K Ork Battlewagon kit for $25. I also managed to find some of the older Ork Kommandos in gasmasks (sekret Orky side projekt!) and two of the Warmaster Albion character sets, along with some cheap Badger Minitaire paints. Fortunately, I brought a suitcase this year - if I hadn't, there would have been no way to get all my stuff home. At one point, I was zipping up the suitcase and the zipper popped because it couldn't contain all the models, Secret Weapon terrain, and paints.

Unfortunately, the swap meet wasn't as good as last year - apparently people decided to hang onto all their stuff this year. I guess it's for the better though, as my suitcase would have exploded otherwise...

Adepticon 2014 Part 1 - Legends of the Old West, Necromunda, and Cake Shakes!

This year's travel to Adeption was relatively uneventful - the entire state of Illinois wasn't underwater this time around, so that meant that the flights were on time and there weren't any issues to speak of.

Illinois last year

Illinois this year

I arrived at Midway Airport on time and met Dave at baggage claim. We got our things, picked up our car, and we were on our way!

Lt. George Zip's SBD Dauntless - recovered from the bombing run over Daiquiri

Arriving at Adepticon on Wednesday evening, we checked in and received our swag bags. Victoria Miniatures gave out a not-Cadian female standard bearer and Black Library gave out a copy of Angel Exterminatus. I had already read the book, but Graham McNeill was there signing, so I had him sign my copy. Andy Smillie was also there signing - BL didn't give away any of his stuff, so he was sitting there twirling his pen. I felt bad, so I bought a copy of the Black Library Weekender 2013/2014 and

Currently on the Bench...

I'm desperately trying to get my Epic Orks and Necromunda Escher finished up for Adepticon next week. I'll probably have paint drying as I'm running to the plane...

Escher Ganger

View of the base

I used the Forge World Zone Mortalis brass etched base toppers for the bases. My original intent was to steal borrow Ross' idea over on Yakromunda/Yaktribe. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time or the original Necromunda deck plates to do paint checks. As a result, I went for a more gritty look. This was my first time using rust powders - the effect came out alright, but spread out a lot more than I intended. Gonna have to practice more with those suckers.

At any rate, the Escher are pretty much complete, so the remainder of the work is with the Epic Orks...

One Stompa, Two Stompa, Red Stompa, uh... Three Stompa?

Da Vulcha has landed!

I ran Orks last year at Adepticon, but this year I really didn't have time to do a completely new army. I am changing things up a bit though with the addition of a Stompa Mob, a Landa, and some Big Gunz (not shown.)

The Stompas need a little work on their bases, but they are essentially done. The Landa (actually an Ork Heavy Bomma) is also mostly complete - I just need to do some touchups and add the bay door with the Ork rolling out the bombs.

I just started the Big Gunz last night, and hopefully, they won't take too long to paint. I was trying to decide if I wanted to use actual Big Gun models or the Ork Heavy Weapon Boyz, and I went with the Boyz route. My Big Gunz are pretty poor casts, so I figured that the better sculpt would win out for this army.

The road to Adepticon continues!

WIP - House Escher is in the... um... house...

These ladies are ready to pop your corks...

The lighting's terrible, but you get the idea. Those nice, young ladies from down under (the hive, that is) are my current WIP. The plan is to get them ready for Adepticon in April, and I'm hoping to have them done in the next week or so.

I'm working from Stahly's recipe over at the Tale of Painters blog. Unfortunately, I don't believe mine will be anywhere near as good as his, but what are you gonna do? I made the mistake of priming the models white, so I've spent a lot of time painting black  - it would have been considerably easier to prime black and paint white where needed. I'll have to keep that in mind for next time.

As you can see, I've also mounted the models on corks, in order to paint them easier (I've got a secret plan for their bases,) but it isn't working out so well. The pins I mounted in their feet aren't long enough, so the models don't secure well to the cork. Again, lesson learned.

Hopefully I'll be back in about a week with an update on them!