Workbench: Slow And Steady To Paint The Army

I thought long holiday weekends were supposed to be relaxing but there was a lot happening for us over Easter.  Not a bad thing in retrospect but it did cut into the hobby time.  Even so I was able to get some more of my Algoryn army based and painted.

Targeter probes... The Mini Beholders of the Algoryn

I wasn't really sure how my targeter drones were going to work out but I'm pretty happy with them.  I attempted to do a bit of lens flare on their massive optic and I think it captures the effect.  Definitely something that I need to get more practice with but I don't think it's too bad for a first attempt.

Sure all I did as add some grass but I really like how they look.

My medics are also now ready to go along with at the least the x-launchers for two of my support teams.  The mag cannon and my assault squad were hiding in a different mini case so I still need to dig them out to work on it.  Still progress is progress and that is always a good thing.

Things are also about to shift gears for me as I'm out of town for the next three months for training.  I'll still be home on weekends but this will definitely have an impact on my painting time.  Even so I decided to bring along my Concord and Algoryn minis along with the paper terrain from Strike on Kar'A Nine.  While this set up is no where near as fancy as I would like for a gaming experience, it is easily portable and I should be able to get my head around the rules so I can take it to the local game store for people to try out.  Since we already have a strong Bolt Action community I'm hoping that some of them might decide to take the plunge into the gates.  Only time will tell but at least its a plan.  Until next time...

Workbench: Machine Guns, Crawlers, and Critters

After the Bolt Action games this past weekend, I decided I should break out some of the US troops that I have laying around waiting to be worked on.  The first ones I broke out just had to be my medium machine gun teams.

The US version of dakka dakka!

This was the first one that I did and primarily as a test for the basing but I like it.  Rather than having the whole team on one base, I decided to piece them out so that I can easily remove casualties.  The positioning of the ammo feeder and the gunner are a little fiddly but I'm going to finish off the other two like this as well.  Might even redo some of the completed weapons teams that I "inherited" but we'll have to see how inspired I get.

I also put in some more time with my Antares stuff, though not the stuff that I should really be working on.

So cool! Wasn't going to get one originally but I'm so glad I did!

I still have yet to finish painting my Algoryn troops but I've been drooling over the Ghar command crawler for a few weeks now so I just had to put it together.  This thing is a beast let me tell you.  Very nice model though; some mold lines but it was a pretty easy clean up and I can't wait to get some paint on it.  I need to do the Algoryn first though; really want to have both armies ready to field by the end of the month.

And last but not least I started basing some more of my sci-fi critters, by which I just mean gluing them to bases for now.

The space rhinos are gonna getcha!

I can't remember which toy line these came with but I've got about a dozen beasties like this that I picked up years ago.  I plan on painting these up and to use them for random fauna for Antares games but I'm thinking I can use them for Operation Last Train as well, provided I have enough of them of course.  I'll have to get some more glued up to see what I can do.

On top of all of that I also had my Wrath of Kings order show up from Miniature Market.  Now I have almost all the basic troops, leaders, and specialists for four of the five armies in the game.  Think I'm done for now since I still haven't played the game but I'm sure I'll be good for a bit.  There are the named character specialists and leaders but those have always been less of a priority to me.  At this point I know that I can pull out a couple of armies and play the game with someone without them having to buy into a new game, and I do like the minis so I'm sure I can find something to do with them.  Until next time...

Random Update: Bolt Action Game Day!

It's been more than a year but I finally had a chance to dust off my US troops for a game of Bolt Action this past weekend.  The last time I played was against a German force with a couple of tankettes and motorcycles so it made me really want to field a vehicle heavy force.  Given my models available this translated into two Sherman tanks with a Greyhound armored car supported by two platoons of largely inexperienced infantry.  Across the table was a human wave more commonly known as the Soviets.

The first of my armored units destoryed

Things seemed to start out well but my dice quickly went cold and my opponents didn't so within the first two turns all of my vehicles were flaming wrecks.  I tried to push on and actually almost managed to squeeze out a win since all I had to do was get to the top secret package in the middle of the table and run off the board and I almost made it!  One of the deciding moments was when the remnants of the squad that had the package FUBAR'd their command check and ran away from the nearest Soviet... which is just about what I wanted to do in the first place.  Unfortunately this was just far enough that I couldn't pass off the package as I was hoping to so that I could relay race it off the board but what can you do.

Quickly followed by the rest of my vehicles

Overall still a lot of fun and hopefully I can get to my LGS on a more regular basis to get more games in.  No painting this weekend but I'm hoping to finish off my Algoryn this week which means I'll actually have two armies to bring down to the store so maybe, just maybe I can get some others interested in Antares as well.  I chatted with the store owner about the game and he had positive things to say about the game but it just never caught on locally.  Still it can't hurt to see if I can drum up some interest and at the very least I've been enjoying building and painting the models.  Hopefully I can get another couple of people interested as well but we'll just have to see.

Not So Battle Report: Wrath of Kings

A few weeks ago I had posted about the Teknes and Goritsi forces that I had put together for Wrath of Kings by Cool Mini Or Not and I was planning to post the battle report for the game.  And the game did happen... kind of.

I wasn't able to play the game the weekend after that post but I had some time off later in the week so I tried to do it then.  The rules for WoK call for a 4' x 4' table which is standard for mini games but since I was using smaller forces I thought that I would just grab my 2' x 2' section and give it a go.  It didn't quite work so I ultimately decided to scrap the idea.  There were pictures but apparently I even deleted those since there wasn't much to show.

All of this could be taken as being a negative marks against WoK but its really not.  The way that deployment works in WoK is each unit has a band that it can be deployed in at the beginning of the game.  Mobile troops or supporting units are typically deployed closer to your own table edge than the more aggressive troops which makes sense so by reducing the table size so much it made the deployment zones almost a moot point.  It also virtually eliminated any maneuvering because there just wasn't any room to do anything.

Personally I chalk this up to a learning experience and I'll give it another go when I can break out the full board and do it right.  In the meantime, I did take advantage of a sale that Miniature Market is running and I was able to grab the rest of the core troops that I wanted for four of the five armies for one heck of a deal.  This sale goes through April 15th so if you have been considering checking out these minis you might want to head over and take a look.  As of yesterday they had really good stock levels on most everything that has currently been released for the game so this is a great opportunity if you want to get in for cheap.

That's all for now but I'll be dusting off my Bolt Action troops this weekend and heading to my LGS to get a game or two in.  It's been long enough that I'm basically going to be learning the game all over again but I'll see if I can get some pictures while I'm there.  Until next time...

Workbench: Algoryn Assault Troops and Medic Team

Last weekend I managed to get most of the painting done for my Algoryn assault troops and medic team.  As I mentioned before I decided to go with a paint scheme slightly different paint schemes from my regular troops.

Algoryn Assault Troops Away!

While most of my troops are in the green armor worn by the garrison stationed on Yadrolla, I decided that the assault troops were from the core military of the Algoryn so I painted them more in line with the studio colors.  Ultimately I want to add some more troops to the unit and pick up a Defiant to transport them on the battlefield but for now I'm really happy with how they have come out.  Still some more details to add but I was too excited about how they turned out not to share.

"Medic!!!"

For my medic team, I decided to use some leftover plastic AI minis with some added bits.  The heads are from the basic sprue but I didn't use this style for any of my other Algoryn which helps them stand out.  I also took some scanner wings that I had cut off of some Concord spotter drones and mounted them on their forearms as medic scanners.  Finally I went with a similar paint scheme to the studio minis to really make them pop on the battlefield.  I am also going to try to mod a couple of the regular AI spotter drones into medi-drones so that I can have a common design like I have with my Concord drones.

I've also been plugging away at the remainder of the core troops but there's still more work to be done on them.  Hopefully this upcoming weekend I get a good chunk of them finished as well, and then its on to the Ghar!