Desert Rats in Normandy

Over the weekend I got to head to my second NOVA open. And, much like the first, it was a total blast.

More awesome? I won best painted with my RV Desert Rats Cromwell Army. I got a full new set of Windsor Newton brushes and a nice plaque among other cool prizes.

So, I thought I'd show the army off here.


HQ:

More after the break!

Historicon Top Pics

H-Con is done and I'm still hungover.

But, I put my carcass into drive and cut 1200 pics from the weekend down to the top 30 or so. We've got Steve's last News From the Front podcast, army pics galore and all sorts of other bits.

Come on in and enjoy the pics.

We start with the Tale of the Suicide Chaffee's:

Round 2 of the double tournament, Ben and I face off against KV-88's, IS-2's and a horde of tiny little Russian tanks. Knowing there was know way we could take out the big boys from the front and only sporting 3 Priests for arty support I decided to go insane. Noticing that one of our opponents had to double time the IS-2 platoon command to get up to the rest of the platoon I zoom a platoon of Chaffee's around the flank, assuming that I'd loose the platoon, but knowing his was way more valuable I decided the trade was worth it.  

I kill 1 and bail 2.

Next turn he kills 2 of those plucky little light tanks then I take out another of his IS-2's. 

I take out a 3rd and he does the same. He's down to 1 tank and I'm down to just one and a bailed. His fearless dudes fail their morale check and run off the board. VICTORY! 

More after the break

Morning table porn, day 3

Non Flames of War edition.

Quick technical note. The reception here has been super shoddy and so I'll be keeping pics to a minimum for most of the day. But I'll keep updates coming.

Now on to the porn.

Your early morning porn

Matt varnish and Jesse from Showcase put together a couple of just amazing boards. 

Matt brings us an awesome 21st Pz Div and Jesse the D-Day weiderstandnest

Hello from Historicon!

Good day fine people. I'm trying a new thing here at the Giant convention of doom.

Micro - blogging!

That's right, before our rounds and after I'll be posting up pics and a quick synopsis of the round.

Today Ben and I are in I-95's mega doubles tournament running some 14th cav light tanks. I'll give you more info a as the day goes on!

Chaffees! And my first go round with pigments.

(EDIT: The original pics I posted were actually from before the binder and varnish dried completely apparently and boy what a difference it makes. Now updated with the "dry" pics)

Historicon is coming up and me and my homie Ben have brewed up an insane doubles list.

As part of it I finally got a chance to paint up some Chaffee's. I really think these tanks are the coolest looking American tanks of the war and I've been looking for an excuse to paint up the big Reccee box of them I bought a while back.

So, I painted up 12 of them. MUAH. I'm only showing off five of them today. Why? Because I've also been looking for a good excuse to play with the Mig Flames of War pigment set. I'm not sure how they turned out as I don't really have a frame of reference.

I think they look pretty darn cool, but I'm hoping to get some more opinions on this as well.

I took the instructions WWPD forumite and fellow blogger SonBae put up on his awesome blog which essentially comes down to: Matte varnish the tanks, apply pigment binder (I used Vallejo Pigment Binder), tap on your pigment to taste, apply another layer of binder and then varnish to lock it all down.

My goal was to go for a platoon of 5 Chafee's that looked like they had been through some serious urban combat ala Metz.

Let me know what you think!

I got a new phone and while the camera is far better than my old one in terms of spec's I'm still figuring out how to get it to take good mini shots. Bear with me as I re-calibrate.

As always, way more after the break.

Market Garden Madness!

Yesterday my friends at Eagle & Empire (now with facebook page!) in Alexandria, VA hosted a massive Operation Market Garden refight.

Sadly, I didn't get to play due to some other obligations. But I did get to drop by and take a peak, and some photos, of the action

It looked like everyone was having a blast, and got to put tons of toys on the table. Including an incredible 14 .88's!

That's huge. Some one is going to catch those full in the face! 

Here, have some pics!

It all started one sunny afternoon...

WAAAAY more after the break

Infinity. Yes, Infinity

Cause... It's Infinite I guess?

Third one down! So, one of my gamer homies has been preaching the gospel of Infinity as the bestest most awesomest skirmish game that ever happened to a table top. Now, I'll admit, my first experience with the game was less than optimal. In fact, it was so bad I thought I'd never come back to it.

However, the models are sweet and you only need 10 to 15 of them and the rules are free. So I said what the hell and had him run me through a second learn to play. This time around I liked it. I liked it at least enough to pick up some models to round out the ones I bought originally and start putting paint to lead.

That, by the way, is a monkfish.

Now, if you don't know anything about Infinity it's set about 175 years in the future, we've found wormholes and many countries have come together to form just a few human factions. America, I think because this game was written by Europeans  sucks and plays very little of a role so far (like 5 models for one of the factions). I kind of think of it like Shadowrun the miniatures game in space with your crew going up against the other guys crew, and then the aliens attack. Stupid aliens. So now you've got the human factions fighting each other and the aliens.

I won't go in depth in to the rules today (cause I'm tired and it totally deserves an article of it's own) but for a quick break down: The thing that makes this game unique is that even on the acting players turn the other player gets a chance to react to moves. Like if one of my guys saunters around the corner, your dude gets a chance to take a pot shot at him. The other thing that's a bit different is that, instead of activating each unit once, you get a pool of orders equal to the number of units you have and you can (pretty much) distribute them how you like. Thus, one dude could end up acting 5 or more times in a turn if you so choose.

The faction I'm starting with is Haqqislam. A humanist, focused greater islamic state that acts in some ways like the bio-technological backbone and mercantile powerhouse of the human space territories. They've got some sweet models (most of the factions have amazing models actually, except for nomads, I just don't get them at all) and the great thing about the game is that you can pretty much choose the models you like and build an effective army out of them. The mantra on the Infinity message boards is "It's not your list, it's you" an attitude I admire.

Now, I've only knocked out 2 models so far. But because of the level of detail on these guys it feels like an achievement. So here they are!

An Odalesque, essentially beautiful bodyguards wearing special makeup that makes them hard to hit in close combat... The Future is weird... But it kind of turns me on.

More after the break!

SAAAAGAAAA

Number 2 post on the night! Recently I got the Saga bug, even more recently WWPD held a most excellent fundraiser for veterans. I was offered a dollar for every Saga fig I painted in a week. I got through 16.

WOOF! That, for me, is a serious speed painting success! And it also knocked out 3 of the 7 points of dudes I have for my Anglo-Dane/Saxon army.

First up will be the warriors which are armored Saxon Theigns by Wargames Factory from the Hammer of the Gods line. The good thing about these mini's is that they're cheapo! It's like 36 mini's for 20 bucks. The bad thing about these mini's is that they don't come with bases, the swords break quite easily and the shields don't look like the ones from the gripping beast lines. The good thing is, it's Saga, so it doesn't really matter, my dudes with axes will attack your dudes with axes and much fun will be had by all.

The second set of images, with the long (Danish) Axes are my Hearthguard. These are the big beefy dudes in your army. You buy them in sets of 4 and get twice as many attacks per model as the warriors. The 8 warriors I chose to paint are 5 from the Anglo-Dane starter set plus Harold Godwinson (Of 1066 fame) and his two brothers. Gripping beast makes some great mini's and I had fun painting the shield designs on these guys. However, I will be using decals for the 36 levies (weak line troops) I'll be painting up. I like painting shields, just not that much. Natch.

Now, on to the pics!


Harold Godwinson, King of the Anglo-Saxons

More after the Break!

French. Finished.

Can you guess where I am?

I'm on the road! So I thought I'd post a quick trifecta of blogs this evening covering some of the work I've done over the last month or so.

First up, my early war French. With which I got 5th place a recent tournament, not bad if I do say so my self. The only dude who beat me was the illustrious Scott from Itty Bitty Soldiers and WWPD fame. I'll get you next time.

As my internet is crap in the hotel room and it'll take some time to up load these I'm going to keep it short and sweet. I'll just say the Panhards and Somuas were a joy to paint. Infantry is always a bear though. But, i think everything turned out quite nicely.

A note on the pics, it appears I had a crappy color correction going on so it's a bit blue shifted. I'm going to try to get some cleaner pics when I get some gumption but I think these will work for now :)

Constructive Criticism always welcome. Now, on to the pics!

More after the break!

GUNS! GUNS! GUNS! French Arty in Early War

Boom.

French Arty for tourney next weekend?

Check.

These fine 155mm howitzers were a key part of the defense of France (snicker).

All pieces and parts here are BF and are for the most part quality. The single trail on the cannons makes them a much easier build than the dual trail versions.

Although I retain my hatred of most faces sculpted for this line. I mean... Is it something with the mold that makes most of the faces look like formless blobs of hate? I know you can do this! The command figure wearing the shako has a great grumpy look on his face! Why can't you replicate similar human looking features on other models?

Two modeling painting notes. First, I've continued the tree theme on the staff team and the observer but I just couldn't conscience putting trees on the arty stands, it didn't really make sense. Second, the shako worn by artillery officers was dark blue with gold braiding (thank you Osprey books) so I did my best to replicate that here.

Off to the pics!

The Battery.

More after the break!

Baguette Bearing Bastards, EW French Infantry

Tamiya images, always great for inspiration. 

Hey ya Soldats. In pursuit of painting up a full EW French army by ohhh... next weekend I finally decided to tackle the infantry platoon.

It's been a little while since I knocked out a platoon of infantry so it was slow going to start. And the French EW infantry are of mixed quality, so it was a bit of bear.

But I also totally love a well based infantry platoon. It really does add something to the table when you play. For this group I decided to go a bit bigger than I did with the Germans. These dudes are hanging out in a forest. Or, at least, a copse of small trees.

BF had some issues with models, some of the faces are just awful (a recurring theme I'm noticing in the EW stuff) and the legs on some of the models are flat, oddly shaped and pock marked, blerg. But I will always take the chunky style BF dudes over the smaller, more properly proportioned PSC ones because I think they pop better on the table and there's more "space" for me to work with on each dude.

This is also the first infantry platoon that I painted that lacked either camouflage or winter bits. So on that level it was both interesting and a little boring. Probably why I put more effort into highlighting them and putting together the bases.

Well, that was all the exposition I had :) Enjoy the pics:

Awww yeah trees.

Way more after the break!

Laffly's and Panhards (French Early War Painting)

The worlds first Technical? Brilliance.

Laffly's are sweet.

I mean, it's an armored truck with a giant gun on the back. Not like Bunkerflak big or anything, but still this little guy got more than his fair share of tank kills during the invasion of France and the low countries so it simply had to go into my army.

Also, it's a great piece of kit on your gaming board as well. It's speedy (but wheeled, so be careful), has a solid gun and an MG for when you need to focus on those squishy infantry dudes. In combination with Panhards, for lifting gone to ground or putting additional pressure on those lightly armored targets, this guy really sings.

Today I bring you a unit of 5 of these guys, along with 4 Panhards I just painted up as well. They end up looking like this:

And this:

For more glorious full color images (and some more historical ones of the Laffly's) get past the break!