Fred's 2016 Painting Diary

[fred.]

More Yellow Marines - they must be finished soon.



Based up the Terminators and added some texture to the bikes and some land speeders. Also detailed the red bikes.

Not quite sure what the next step with the planes is - probably some geometric splinter camo.

[Techno]

Ho....Yus. 

Those look terrific, Forbes ! 

Cheers - Phil

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Top work Forbes!

[fred.]

We played Epic again on Friday night. A Scenario called the Living Wall, with the Marines having to smash through the Tyranid forces to escape.  This was a good time for a first outing for the new bikes, Terminators and bombers.

We ended up with me playing all the Marines vs 2 Nid players - one of the Nid players had mis-read the scenario and thought he was trying to escape - unfortunately we pointed out his mistake before the first turn started - although it would have been rather Benny Hill like with his guys running in one direction, while mine went passed in the other!


This is mid first turn. My bombers made a mess of the Nids clustered in the woods, and other units piled on the hurt. In the centre 2 harridans with flocks of Gargoyles had jumped on my small scout formation - and really struggled to kill them. Then just allowed themselves to be shot up by my Titan and tanks. The purple Nids on the far side were being very cautious - as expected!


This was the end of the first turn - with my bikes streaking off the table, through a handy gap left between the purple Nid formations.
In the middle both Harridan formations were broken, with one loosing its Harridan. I'd lost a Scout formation at this time, and had very few blast markers on other formations.

In the End Phase the Nids did very badly at rallying - I think all 3 of the bone formations failed to rally - leaving 2 broken and the bombed one in the wood with loads of blast markers on it.

I teleported the Terminators in, but they weren't paying enough attention to their protocols and picked up a couple of blast markers. Or it turns out their armour - they got jumped on by a Nid formation and despite killing a lot of it were wiped out.
With a load of broken formations on the right, I was able to smash through pretty easily and get several formations off the table. The Nids did cause some casualties, but not enough. At the point we called the game I was up 6 VP to 3, with the ability to easily get several more formations off the table for a VP each.

It was a good scenario - the Marines are very mobile, and were able to cover the whole table forcing the Nids to defend in width - then the Marines were able to concentrate their force on the centre right and smash through.

Of the 3 newly painted units, the Bombers were MVP, the terminators died miserably, and the bikes revved their engines and shot off the table!

Most of the rest of the weekend has been spent with 1:1 scale painting of the kitchen (and rugby watching!) while the paint dries...

But I did managed to spray some of the Land Raiders and the Rhinos that Matt J very kindly donated to my war effort!



I suppose I better get on and think about the painting comp...

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Looks a fun game

[Techno]

Absolutely. 

(I think I've asked this before but.......How do get such good photo's Forbes ?......They're so crisp, beautifully focused and shadows are almost non existent.)

Cheers - Phil

[fred.]

I think it's down to technology now - I have stopped using my DSLR camera as it is too big and inconvenient  and just use my iPhone 6S as it seems to take really good photos.  But it is very much point and click so it must be doing all the clever stuff, I'll I try to do is hold it very still.  The game photos were taken at Dave's house, and he has several fluorescent tubes above the gaming table which give very good light.

The sprayed tanks were taken in the conservatory in a rare bit of sunshine.

[Techno]

It certainly takes excellent piccies !

Cheers - Phil

[fred.]

Each generation of iPhone or iPad has taken better photos than the previous one. The current camera takes really good stills as well as video, with the ability to take slow motion video even in fairly poor light. The only thing the DSLR has going for it is s zoom lense, but even the phone is getting better at this, as it captures so many pixels, you can crop to zoom pretty effectively.

As always more light helps, if you compare the photos from the game a week ago, taken at my house, with rubbish lighting, to this week's ones with good lighting there is a big difference. But the low light ones are ok, which wasn't always the case with an iPhone camera.

[fred.]

Painting Comp

Rather late in the day (or should that be month!) I have had a proper think about the painting comp. And think I actually have a good chance of getting an entry into each category - with only a few entries needing to be started from scratch.

Foot - Pre-20th C. - Min: 3 / Max: 16 figures, on either a single base, multiple bases, or in a movement tray.
Flodden MAA

Foot - 20th C. - Min: 3 / Max: 16 figures, on either a single base, multiple bases, or in a movement tray.
WWI British

Mounted - Min: 3 / Max: 10 figures, on either a single base, multiple bases, or in a movement tray.
Mongols or Centaur Archers


Vehicle - Single vehicle on or off base.
Decon, could be a bit dull in sand
Or a WWI tank - captured german or early British camo

Fantasy & Sci-Fi - Anything Fantasy or Sci-Fi oriented, on either a single base, multiple bases, or in a movement tray.
Lizardmen, Centaurs or Minotaur command, water elementals

Open - Single Base - Anything which doesn't fit into the other categories, with a max base size of 100x100mm.  Includes single figures, artillery bases, command stands, etc.
British WWI Arty
Roman ballistae

Open - Army! - Armies, Units, Dungeons, whole table setups, anything!
Lizardmen

Warband! - Any single base for use in our Warband rules, this can be a command stand, a unit of warriors, an artillery base, etc.
Dwarf flyers or wizards, or spiders

[fred.]

I painted some Pendraken figures tonight!!!

Actually got back to some 10mm Pendraken tonight - after weeks of 6mm epic stuff.



Some WWI British troops, for 1916+. I've gone for a bit of variety in shades of uniforms, webbing and especially helmets, to give a bit more of a rag-tag late war look.

Its good to paint some historical stuff again, and good to paint 10mm too.

After Phil mentioning good, bright photos - the above is anything but 

[Techno]

 

It's still lovely and crisp, though !

Cheers - Phil

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Nice one Forbes! 

[fred.]

Mainly un-painting this weekend - I stripped the paint from a couple of large Epic models, and a unit of WM kislev knights. I don't know what paint was used on the kislev figures, but its tough stuff. The other two models have come pretty clean, but the knights are 60% plus still paint...

Played a very dull game of Epic on Friday - IG tanks vs Tyranids - the tanks set a range and shot and the nids who hid in buildings. Fundamentally I think we had too much table for the troops - which made two diametrically different armies give a very poor game.

On Saturday managed to get in a second sneaky game of the week - this time of Irregular Wars, this was just the second game with these rules, but it was good fun again, with a swirling battle of of Steppe Khanate light horse, vs Arabian camels and spearmen. But I stupidly forgot to take any photos - which probably means that the game was so involving that it never occurred to me to stop and take photos.

I also got an email from Leon to say my order was on its way - which mainly comprises lots of European troops for Irregular wars. The only problem is it is going to arrive with 1 or 2 other heavy packages - and all during half-term week, so no sneaking any in!!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Stick them in the dishwasher...