Hibernating

Well my short time blogging has come to an end. So many projects left half finished, some not even started and some failed. I ship out this weekend and the pre-deployment "funk" has set in so I don't even want to do the things I have to.

  It has been fun and I intend to start up when I can in the new year. This has given me a new found respect for those that write the blogs out there as they are time consuming and crave your attention. To everyone keep writing and painting so I will have lots to read when I get back.

Later then.....much later!

Random Stuff

Last week I got my orders to ship out so I spent the day getting my affairs in order and ignoring all my poor troopers. So I thought I would put up some of my old stuff. Some random 40k, Dust and Vampire Pics.

Death Company for my Blood Angels Successors

Size comparisons - Spartan v Werner Klocke v Dust v 40K v Kingdom Death v Epic

This an entirely unscientific ( Is that a word? It is now) look at the size comparisons for Dystopian legions against various other miniature makers. I have just intended this as a guide and that is all. The bases are slightly different and I am sure you will be able to see the differences.

Above we have from left to right a Dark Vengeance space marine, an FSA trooper, a DV cultist, A Werner Klocke and then another FSA trooper.

   Here are some more...

Dystopian legions - FSA WiP

After cleaning them up and base coating the guys I thought I would put up my thoughts so far on the FSA models and which is my favourite.

   First off quite a bit of flash had to be cleaned away and some mould lines. The mold lines were not too bad but with the detail on the model could run into some awkward places.. Now the models come on 2 different sized bases, 30mm and 40mm, and as you can see above not all of the models just slot in. Some do but others need to be trimmed, I have not done this properly as I intend to put them on other bases so they are just lightly glued in for painting.

Dystopian Legions- Unboxing the FSA

Just got a nice parcel from Spartan. Inside I have got a load of Dystopian stuff. Legions and finally the expansion books for DW. This is just a quick look at what is inside those boxes. I will get more detailed pictures up when they are cleaned up.

I guess I could have tidied up the wires from the picture

Gunboat Politics - John Henry

And so to the flying robot, which always reminds me of Liberty Prime from Fallout 3.

"Embrace Democracy, or you will be eradicated!"

So what does our flying metal friend do?

Gunboat Politics - Lee Scoutship

This is one of the first units I painted as I loved the model. It looks good and has good stats too. It even survived being played with by my nephew so must be a solid model.

  Lets have a look....

I need more Pusser's Grey

I only have one painted unit left that I can review. So I thought I best get on and finish the fleet. I can feel all those tiny eyes looking at me from inside their box. Not angry at me but so very, very disappointed.

  So much grey. Good job I had Hardcore Pawn (In the UK on The BIO channel, it is about a Detroit pawnstore and it is pretty mad.) on record to liven things up.

 

   Here is a bit of bronze just to break things up a little. The pride of the FSA and actually seams to be one of the easier ships to paint.

 Thats about it really for now. Next up is the Lee Scoutship. One of the iconic blimps and a great looking model.

Later.

Gunboat Politics - Tiny Flyers

A tiny post to go with tiny flyers.

What to say?

Gunboat Politics - Augusta Frigate

The last ship from the starter set and the smallest. The Augusta frigate is a little power house.

A quick look then......

Sturginium Wessel Reinforcements

   Got the Rest of my RC fleet through the post yesterday. And I am very happy with  them. Don't know how they play yet but the models are nice.

    Lets have a look then....

Gunboat Politics - Lexington Cruiser

So onto the cruiser. These are the red headed stepchild of the fleet. They don't fit in, yet they have their place and uses.

  So what do they do.....?

Great atmosphere, shame about the game

  Well at least the Patriots turned up. The Rams did but only in their physical form.

 
   If you where a Patriots fan this was a great game but for the nuetral and any Rams fans it was too one sided really. We had a Rams fan who had come all the way from St Loius to watch this and I felt sorry for him, That is a long flight home after that game.

   
And it looked so good with the Rams scoring first. Ah well, next year it is Jacksonville and they are coming for a few years in a row. So hopefully they can get some real backing here and it will be like a proper home game. As my wife was constantly telling me the fans where being noisy at the wrong moments. Nevermind.

 

    Back to normality now.

Pitched Battle - Rams Vs Patriots

Not gaming related but an adversarial encounter by 2 men with players on a field.

  In London this weekend to watch large blokes smash into each other in the gladiatorial arena of wembley.

Gunboat Politics - FSA Battleship

Lets have a look at the FSA Battleship the "Independence" Class. This is the biggest ship in the naval starter pack. So it should be the centre piece of the fleet until you get your Dreadnought. But I have yet to paint mine so I am starting here.

 FSS HYPERION

   So what is it like.....

The Mighty FSA

I thought I would take a step back and look at my first fleet the Federated States of America (FSA). This is one of the original fleets released by Spartan for Dystopian Wars (DW). I love this fleet and the way it operates and have led it to victory many times however I also carry the burden of many brave American sailors and airmen lying in watery grave after defeat .

So lets have a quick overview of the mighty FSA....

Sturginium Wessels Part 1

Moved back to do some Dystopian wars and finish off my Russian Coalition (RC) Ships. Here I will talk about and show the RC Battleship.

I should really clean the cloth of flock!

So lets have a look at it.....

Old Stegadon, New Base

I painted this Stegadon a few years ago just because I liked the model. I had no Lizards to support it. Now I have the lizards it was time to rebase it.

Skrox Unit done

Hah inspite of an alien invasion, soundly defeated by the heroic Xcom troops led by Colonel Fox "Spooky" Mulder I may add, the Skinks and Kroxigor are done.

They don't look too bad and have a good light blue colour to them and fit in well together but.....

Fantascape bases with added Skink

Nearly finished with my skinks as I have finally got round to basing them up, damn you Xcom.

   The bases are from a company called Fantascape. They produce round and square bases in a resin so I went for Ancient Necropolis, these lizards have come to the desert for a bit of undead bashing.

Relapse - Battle for Armageddon

  I tried Honestly I did! I was just checking EBay for some reason, definitely not for more Epic 40k stuff oh no, and I saw something that would was missing from my collection. I already had Battle For Armageddon (BfA) so Chaos Attacks was missing and there it was.

Skinkaggedon

My escalation league is going to 1000 points tomorrow. So with that in mind I have to come up with a nice small list. My previous idea was really to add saurus warriors, a saurus hero and some skink skirmishers, with a upgrade to the priest. As I cannot add a Slann yet I am stuck with my little priest so a lvl 2 with the extra spell upgrade should allow me to have a good magic phase and a better chance of Comet of Cassandora.

Skink Skirmisher Base pt 2

After a small break I decided to get the Skirmisher base finished.

A Quick look at X Wing

When this turned up at my FLGS I knew I had to have it. The models looked nice and the previews of it showed a simple game mechanic.And at £26 for a starter set this is a nice and cheap out of the box game.

Mortis Engine with Kingdom Death

One of the Units from the new Vampire book that I really enjoy using is the Mortis engine. It has consistantly worked for me in the games that I used it. And the model is great. So I added a Kingdom death model to it. 

Skink Skirmisher Base

This is one idea I have shamelessly stolen. At my local club I have seen two different skirmisher bases and actually liked the way they look. So I thought I would make one for my beloved Chameleon skinks. The bases the army will be on are ruins with a scrubland look. I have ordered a load from Fantascape, hopefully here next week so I can finish off my skinks.

Two Possibilities

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
   Arthur C Clarke

The new XCOM demo is out on steam today!

Getting Schooled

Not sure if that is actually English but thats how I felt today! Had another 500 point game, one more to go. I got destroyed by Ogres. This is the only picture I really need to show:

I am Skink Hear me Squeak

Getting some lizards painted as they have 2 more games at 500 points and I would like to have them done before we get to 1000. They are base coated and washed now. I have also given them a quick dry brush with Skink blue.

Micro Management

I cannot work under your constant scrutiny!

Leave me alone!

The Midnight Mystery

In the giant package below there is quite a bit of randomness. So can anybody tell me what these are from:

   They look a bit Mad Max. But i cannot remember a game from that. So I am stuck. They do look quite cool though. Any help identifying them would be appreciated!

Thanks

In need of an Intervention

I have a problem. Its name is Ebay.

   I have been trying to build up an Epic 40k collection and have found my love of all the game I used to play when growing up. So to supplement what I found in my parent's garage I began to go onto Ebay to get the stuff that is missing or the stuff that I never got.

   However I have gone overboard and now hav unopened boxes of old epic, stuff still on sprues and more boxed game sets than i know what to do with. This weekend I bought a job lot with random stuff in it, someone else's garage find I expect.

Operation Zverograd Miniatures

   Along with the Hero Pack reviewed earlier the Postman brought me the Dust Tactic Operation Zverograd Set. This includes the new rules for Tactics bringing the SSU and Fliers into Dust.

   I will just be looking at the models here as I do not have the requisite experience under my belt to say if the units are any good. I could theorise but I have absolutely no experience of the SSU, only the Axis and Allies units. Sorry.

Woohoo I'm in the Club!

Little Things That Make You Happy

   On my way to buy a rice cooker, I know contain your excitement, I passed my local ModelZone shop. Which I cannot resist popping in. Usually I only buy some super glue or a bit of paint. However this time I saw something that made my heart race and pulse quicken. Natalie Portman was not in the shop but a beautilully formed spinney thing with just the right curves was! A Tamiya painting stand set. 

   Purchasing said stand I am now energised to undercoat everything. However everything I need to paint is undercoated. But buying this small object has made me so happy because spraying is going to be so much easier and is going to make my modelling life quite a lot smoother. It just feels so wrong to be happy over a piece of plastic!

I love you so much, just don't tell anyone!

Later

Russian Coalition

So after Collecting my FSA, although I have yet to finish the painting, when i saw the Russians (RC) I knew i had to have them. They are the opposite of my FSA in that they are up close and have lots of big guns. They seem an easy fleet to use as well, point forwards and get there as fast as possible.

   The models as with all spartan models so far are excellent. Made of a hard resin, the only thing I found you must be careful of is the flash on the base of the ships. If you are a bit rough breaking it off it can take a small piece of the ship too. 

   The Small frigates are a bit wierd but are groing on me and the more I see of them, especially when painted, I like them. The RC has some nice little toys and it will be fun playing them after the long range fun of the FSA

   However i am not impressed with the stats of the bomber. It seems like a bit of a suicide bomber as its stats are not impressive. Maybe it will play better than they suggest or as a threat that need to dealt with by the opposing player drawing fire to stop them crashing into his big ships.

 
   Painting wise I am going for a dark grey on their ships with wooden decks. All the base colours are now on I just have to wash and detail.

   However that is the fiddly bit!



Later!

  

   

  

First Games with Lizards

After having my first 3 games at 500 points of lizards my army held up quite well. Even with 3 games i only took one photo and even that is blurry! so i will just do a quick synopsis. Ithey are only 500 points so last about 30 mins each, with only 3 units to push around it is quite quick.

Game 1 Vs Skaven

2 units of clan rats 

2 warpfire throwers 

1 warplightning cannon

This is a lucky draw by me really at the end all I had left was 1 chameleon skink and he had one clan rat unit. The chameleon skinks had killed the cannon. My Skrox unit had been killed by warpfire and run down in combat. One unit of his clan rats ran off the table after being burnt by the salamander. 

    It all came down to the last turn where he charged my loan skink with a warpfire thrower hoping to get an easy kill, I was too close to shoot. However my brave skink killed the thrower in combat. Leaving us with only his cheap rats and my expensive skink. A draw!

Game 2 Vs High Elves

18 Archers

10 spearmen

Boltthrower

Lvl 1 wizard

Bolt thrower was shot up by my chameleons. Archers killed all the handlers from the salamander and monster reaction was stupid, at leadership 4 I was not going to get much use from him for the rest of the game. Ther archers were eaten by my skrox but this allowed a flank charge by the spearmen who beat me in combat as I could not get the kroxigors into combat. So they ran taking my chameleon skinks in panic. Next turn my skinks rallied but the skrow kept on going off the table. So it was basically my stupid salamander and Kinks vs the spearmen and his Lvl 1 wizard. However he had no offensive spells and i shot him to death and he paniced and ran off the board. A win!

Game 3 Vs Warriors of Chaos

Lvl 1 fire Sorcerer

2 x 5 Marauders

16 chaos warriors 2 hand weapons

Skinks attempted to shoot up his sorcerer 7 hits but he had a 4+ armour and ward save! 1 wound only. He then charged me with his sorcerer and i had positioned my skinks very close to him so could not stand and shoot. I decided to hold, which was a bad decision in hindsight. He won and ran them down.

  As shown in the phot above the skinks panicked the left unit of marauders  by shooting with javelins. The chaos warriors failed their charge so charged them. The salamander had died to a fireball. The combat went well for me, however they did kill my priest, and the warriors ran. However I could not catch them. At the end all I had destroyed was a unit of marauders and he had killed my general , salamander and chameleon skinks. A loss.

 Here are my initial thoughts

1. With a leadership of 6, even with coldblooded, I cannot loose a combat.
2. Skinks are very soft and kroxigors are very good. The unit works well but if the krox are not in the combat as happened against the elves I will lose.
3. Taking a lvl 1 at this points level with only one spell is practically useless. Too many dispel dice.
4. Chameleon skinks are great. But need good positioning as they will lose in combat, most of the time.

I have 2 more games at this level so hopefully I will have learnt  a bit more and be ready for 1000 points!

Later

Allies Hero Pack Model review

As a test for my lightbox I thought I would put up a review of some dust models that was just handed to me by my ever suffering postman. Fist impressions are that they are of the usualy good quality of all dust miniatures. On looking at them a bit more objectively 2 of them are great and one is ok. 

   First up is the Priest. He is a great model with a nicely dynamic pose which encapulates his secret agent vibe nicely. He is detailed and willl look good painted.

Next up is Action Jackson. Another great model which i really like, the Paratrooper cool with his Hannibal cigar gives off the idea of a calm leader in the thick of it all. 

 In my opinion one of the best Dust models so far which is better in the flesh than in the pictures that FFG supply.

Last is Johhny One Eye which i am disappointed in as the undercoating provided by FFG has just about covered all the detail on his face. The model itself and the sculpt are fine just not up to the quality of the 2 previous models. 

The set purchased for £15, from Arcane miniatures, is good value as you are provided with nice models and they are ready to go. So generally a good set. And they dont have bad stats either!

The light box itself seems alright. I will just have to keep fiddling.

Later