What I painted in June 2017

Well, two regiments to be precise, tallying for 48 miniatures.

Not bad at all for a month devastated by a heat wave, making painting not that enjoyable...

The first unit that was completed is a 38 strong ACW regiment of Perry Plastics, the 63th New York, which I`ll be fielding in skirmish formation.  Flags of War provided the flags for the regiment.

The second unit is this 10 strong Teutogen Guard (who count just as Greatswords in the new Age of Sigmar rules).  Initially, I would be doing fantasy on and off, but I enrolled for the TSA`s big fantasy battle on the 20th of august... and at that moment I only had 200 points of Daughters of Khaine painted.

So now I`m pulling open the registers to get more troops for that event ready, as I need to get to 1.000 points that I pledged to enter. 

Time to work on those state troops it seems...

A Wargamer's Nostalgia

While most people associate my Warhammer days as that "fanatic Chaos Dwarf" player, or the occasional Wood Elf bowline... those weren`t my first loves at all actually.

Back when I started, it was 1994 I believe, as 4th edition had just been released (the box with the plastic elves and goblins), my army of choice was something completely different.

It was none other then the The Empire, because they had a tank!  Well, amongst others, the figure that really drew me to them was Karl Franz on his griffon Deathclaw.

He was my first purchase ever for Warhammer, together with a box of White Wolves, an Amethyst wizard (still LOVE that model), some plastic halbers and a mortar.

Oh, and of course the army book.  Now, recently I came across that book on eBay for a single pound, and I picked it up without second thought.  Pure out of nostalgia reasons, as you can`t use it anymore in current incarnations (wether it being 9th Age or Age of Sigmar), and yes, you can find those colour plates for the state troops all over the internet.

But just the sheer smile of looking at those old rules, at how some things are no longer "around" (the War Wagon and the Hot Pot come to mind) and how the fluff "began" for this army back then makes you feel old... in a happy way.

With my return recently to the GW hobby and the Army of Order I`m putting together, I`m actually thinking of re-including those old units into my force.  I still have most of the figures (only the wizard and the mortar seem to have gone) and those few I lack, or with whom I want to expand my forces, will be looked after on second hand markets then.

I know some eBay channels ask ridicilous prices for the Oldhammer figures, but on the other hand some are real bargains (I`m for example awaiting the delivery of 20 bases of old epic Slaanesh steeds, which I paid including shipping5 pounds instead of the ofter 30+ you see them lised for).

I`m also compiling a list for myself of stuff I`m going to look over the coming months for projects "in the pipeline", like some more old metal Witch Elves, preferably the big hair ones of the 90s (need to get about 11 of them still), the said Mortar and Amethyst wizard, a squad of the old, first incarnation Noise Marines, and the epic Fulgrim primarch for example...

Fun nostalgic times ahead for an old geezer!

Legion season 1

Finally, the first series of the "X" universe has arrived this year, and to be honest, it blows all superhero mainstream shows out of the water.

If this is a taste of things to come, we are looking at some great genre material on the way...

David Haller (Professor X's son, though this is only hinted, but not confirmed in the series) is diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age, and resides in a mental hospital.  However, the truth is that a psychic parasite, called the Shadow King, has attached himself to David at birth, and now he fights to free himself of it's influence with the aid of other mutants.

Now David (or Legion as his superhero monikker is well-known) is one of the strongest mutants in the world, possessing telepathic and telekinetic powers, as well as the power to actually bend reality, so this makes him a prime target for both those wanting to stop the mutants from becoming the ruling race on the world, as for mutants fighting to prevent this.

Taking a trip over the astral plane, David and his team manage to overcome, but not defeat, the Shadow King in the end, in what was a truly great series, together with an awesome "psychedelic" feel and absurd humour and easter eggs at times.

And personally, I was happy to finally hear the word "mutant" onscreen, instead of meta-human, inhuman, powered person and whotnot`s...

Highly recommended!

The Haul Report 87: the Steam sales are here

It`s that time of the year again, when Steam does it large sale weeks, running from the 22nd until the 5th of july.

So I jumped on it, and purchased myself a 20 euro charge card, so that I could go crazy on the items on my wishlist and purchase a heap of older games for next to nothing.

The "big one" was the Total War: Warhammer game at -66%, even though I still have to find the exact configuration of my grpahic card and more importantly DivX to get it to play beautifully, but it works and the Empire can begin it's virtual expansion.

I also grabbed all the free expansions for it in one go, Bretonnia, the Grey and Jade wizards, Isabella Von Carstein, Wurrzag and the White Dwarf himself.

The next game I picked was Civil War: 1865, at 50%.

Hidden Mysteries: Civil War was picked up as I had a few euros left, and it was -80%.

Imperial Glory is offered at -85% at the moment.

Ironclads and Ironclads 2 both deal with the naval aspect of the ACW, and came respectively at -90% and - 75%.

Praetorians, which was also -85%

Two more titels from the Total War series, Medieval and Napoleon, at -75% and -70% rounded out the Steam purchases for this year, and giving me a lot of gaming to go the coming months.

Now, this wasn`t all I got this week, with some other nice things added to the collection.  The first was wednesday, as I picked up the Chaos Index for the new 40k.  See my Emperor's Children post from a few days ago as to why I decided in the end to begin playing this game again.

Together with a paintpot of Ulthuan Grey, to serve as the basecoat for my white parts on the figures.

This was something I`d forgotten about, my Hexibricks stands from BrickForge arrived, a Kickstarter I backed well over a year ago.  Oh well, I`ll see what I`ll do with those now...

Saturday I returned to the GW store, to get a birthday gift for Nemesis, and I picked up some more State Troops and a pot of Leadbelcher for myself.

The final haul came from Nemesis himself yesterday at his bday drink.  A wooden "hold" to which I`ll be nailing a small plate again to better hold figures for painting, and some metal plates to 'magnetise' bases of certain topheavy figures.  he also had brought along three pots of black from Vallejo, as there was a paints sale at TSA friday (but I couldn`t attend), and as I undercoat manually, these tend to go swiftly.

A pretty big and impressive list for sure this week, and see you all next week!

White Dwarf May 2017

A month late, as I only recently snatched up my copy from the local GW store, but nevertheless one heck of an issue.

Of course, the central theme in this issue is the fact that the White Dwarf turns 40, and this is shown by a band containing all issues produced at the bottom of the pages.

It was kind of nostalgic to see those old issues from my youth again, and fondly remembering some of them...

Of course, that isn`t everything in the magazine, as it has a lot of nice content outside regular features like Blanchitsu of Planet Warhammer.  Like the second episode of the new series of Tales of Four Warlords, in which the participants grow their 40k forces some more.

It also features new rules, for Blood Bowl this time, as on how to include the White Dwarf and his nemesis the Black Gobbo on the pitch, and for how to fight on top of a Mumak in Lord of the Rings.

There is a large interview with John Blanche, as well as history strolls through the 40 years of the magazine.  Also included is a huge battle report (well, three battles actually) for Age of Sigmar, with Grombrindal himself taking center stage.

Now, and article I found very intresting was the one by Jervis Johnson on how to be a gamesmaster in Warhammer Quest (or other games of course), and what to do to prepare for the "role".

A fine issue indeed, and onwards to the next 40!

Warhammer Teutogen Guard

As I prepare for the big battle for Age of Sigmar in august, I need to (kuch, urgently) restore some units to battleworthy status for my 1000 pts Order force I pledged.

So today I finished the second battleworthy regiment, in the form of the Teutogen Guard.

This elite unit counts in the new rules as a Greatsword unit, and this bunch of 10 counts for 160 points on the warscroll. 

Now, the models have two dominating features to paint, being on the one hand their metal, full plate armour, and on the other the white wolfpelts typical to the Knights of the White Wolf knightly order.

Now onwards to the next regiment for the force, which will be a state troops unit of 10.

I blame the Nemesis! The Emperor's Children return...

I wouldn`t start playing Warhammer 40k again.  I never liked the game as much as "regular" Warhammer.

Same for 6mm sci-fi, aka Future War Commander, and as such when I "got out" years ago, I sold both those ranges from my collection.

In all those years, Nemesis continued playing FWC though (my scenery was still at the club it seems, even I had forgotten mostly about that over the years), and I planned on facing him with my AWI british one day (basically, I`d use a Guard list with only infantry, cavalry and cannons).

Then I found a few ziplocks of figures, not enough for a full chaos list of 1000 points, so I`d put them aside again.

However, the new edition of 40k is upon us, and Nemesis has decided it`s the right time to hop back in.  I`m not going to miss this train, to prevent the steep learning curve perhaps afterwards. You can get the core rules for free from the GW site, but unlike the warscrolls for Warhammer, the datafiles are bundled in compendiums. 

I doubted for a long time (like, half a week) to either restart my Dark Angels, or my Emperor's Children, but in the end I decided on my Slaaneshi legion again, you know, RL intrests and such ;-) .

The plan for "the first thousand" will be a mainly infantry force, in which I`ll be painting all the regular non Noise Marines in the purple and gold livery pre-Heresy, as I always loved the look of those.  The specialist troops on the other hand will get the pink and black colourscheme.

Now, I must say that flicking through the rulebook, the points system isn`t really that handy imho to quickly gather a warhost, so I guess I`ll aim at the far quicker (and yeah, like points, it can be abused, but then you just quit playing those abusers) Power Level games.  I already saw I can combine Marines with (summoned) deamons like in the last edition I played the pinky marines (aka, third edition, yeah it has been THAT long for me) so I can once again match guitar guns to naked chicks...

Heck, that sounds like your average Rammstein gig...

Of course, this also means I WILL do something with those 6mm figures then after all, as I`ll be trying to expand them into a small 1000 points force, and see if I can find a FWC rulebook left or right (I have lead currently ;-) ).

So yes, it wasn`t my fault, Nemesis made me!

Logan

The latest in the X-franchise, and the closer of the Wolverine series, Logan puts us forward to 2029, and it isn`t Wolverine playing the lead, it's Old Man Logan.

The future has changed, as there are no Sentinels around, so that movie was a plot success... but also barely any mutants.

Logan is a low by the ground, sick and dying limousine driver.  He also cares, together with Caliban, with a Charles Xavier who has mental problems, and suffers seisures that attack all of those around him mentally.  Logan is basically working to give Charles a burial at sea...

But then he is approached by a mexican lady, who brings with her Laura, a teenage girl cloned from the DNA of Wolverine.  As there have been no new mutant births over the last decade, this girl, who was genetically created, and her friends might prove the only future mutantkind has.

The story is a good roadmovie style as Logan and his group are trying to escape the creators of Laura, hellbent on recovering all the escaped mutant children.  Even the inclusion of an adult, Logan look-alike assassin (who means the end of Professor X), forces Logan to overcome his growing limits one last time, as he is slowly dying from adamantium poisoning, making his healing factor fail.

An enjoyable movie, if not to say actually a rather good one, that puts a nice closer on Jackman`s portrayal of the Wolverine.

Chosen Men - Mark Latham

Part of the Osprey line of wargame rules, Chosen Men is meant for skirmish battles in the Napoleonic age.

And these rules aren`t to difficult at all!

The base system is the use of action points, the TAC, of which every figure in your band has 2.  Now, bands are aimed at around 450 points, though for introductionary play they advise the use of 150 points, usually buying you an officer and 2 units of 5 figures.

With these TAC, the figures can undertake actions like moving, or firing (not twice mind you), as well as some more specialised actions.  The to hit table and all follow a rather logical system with the regular wargame modifiers like being in cover etc. 

The game contains some variety in weapons, and even some smaller cannon, to field, and you have the choice of three major nations: France, Great Britain and Prussia.  Add to this the "allies" lists (Portugal, Spain, Brunswick,...) which can either be allied or listed on their own, and you have some nice starting choice of forces.  Mind you, they are centered around the Peninsular and the Waterloo campaigns.

A nice little ruleset, and one I might try out in the coming year.