Fred’s 2022 Painting and Gaming Diary

[fred.]

The start of another year, and another painting diary thread. I'm already up on the last couple of years by starting in January!

Thanks to the new forum's improved search function I was easily able to find all the previous annals on this topic - and spent an enjoyable time re-reading 2012's ramblings. Well it was enjoyable until it dawned on me that 2012 was 10 years ago  Not quite sure how that has happened. Does this this make this edition the 10th anniversary one (or is that next year)?

One thing that hasn't changed since 2012 is that my Late Era Roman and my Orc armies are both still languishing at the bottom of the lead pile. Not quite sure what it will take to get these two painted.

Anyway, on with current activities.

Foam Cutting

For Christmas I got a hot wire foam cutter, and have already had a play and made some 'walls' to be the base of bocage sections and some more wadi side sections for the desert.



Bocage sections - from pink foam, painted brown, covered in sand, a bit more brown and then flocked. Various straight and corner sections, and one destroyed one. There is a bit of variety in width - they seemed to get wider as I made more - but I think I will aim for more narrower ones in the next batch.

When I started on these the plan was to use the resin hedge sections I have to sit on top of these - but I am now wondering if I should just add clump foliage to these?



 
Wadi sections - I made a couple more straight sections and two ends, to add to the six or so I already have. These were incredibly quick to cut with the hot wire cutter - unlike the originals which were made from two layers of foam board cut down to give the sloped edge.

I will also make some more trench sections for WWI. But am also interested in other ideas to cut, at the minute the foam I have is 10mm thick, in two large sheets (approx 2x4') so I have plenty of area, if not so much height.

Sengoku Casualties

Painted these up a little while ago, but got them based while I was working on the above



These use both the Samurai and Ashigaru figures - where the number of casualties to be recorded is quite low (per unit) then I like to use figures rather than small dice.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Good start to the year

[paulr]

Wot he sed

[fred.]

Thanks both

Some of my other Christmas loot was some MDF buildings from Pendraken

6mm Sci-Fi mag-lev mono-rail

These were very easy to build, just some basic colours added so far. Next step is to weather them up.

I've been thinking about getting these for a while, and am glad I did. I'll probably get a couple more packs to give a decent length of track and do some curves in the other direction. And probably cut one up to make some damaged pieces.


Arabic Style Buildings

[
These were a lot more fiddly to build - as the order and orientation of the pieces mattered - these could do with some instructions. 

Just an initial coat of sand coloured paint - mainly to cover the cut edges. Going to need to do a bit more filling of the joint pegs - thought I'd filled these already, but no they need a bit more filler.

[paulr]

The good start continues

[fred.]

Kill Team - Tau vs Harlequins 


Hosted a remote game of 40k Kill Team on Friday night, Harlequins vs Tau



Here the Tau have charged in and dealt lots of damage to the Tau - both charging ones had managed to kill the Tau operative they had charged then shot up another. Harlequins get 3 activations in KT, most others only get 2. The downside is they only have short range shooting (6"), but they have flip belts which let them ignore terrain when moving. Tau have lots of guns which have long range and hit hard. 



A bit later, more Harlequins have charged in - and killed more Tau - it was all very one sided at this stage. The Harlequins were dodging shooting all over the place whilst using their mobility to get into combat where they totally outclass the Tau. 



The last few Tau holed up - not only where they being killed, they were failing to claim VPs from the objectives. Final score was 11VP to 5VP

Not quite sure what went so wrong for the Tau. In fact it was so one-side I did a solo replay the next day. 

Different tactics for the Tau - moving to two sides at the start of the turn, then getting units up high, once they had targets. This made a difference as they then where able to start shooting and hitting Harlequins - Harlequin saves were still good, but there were far more shots heading in their direction. 



In this replay the result was completely reversed, with the Tau only loosing 1 figure, and killing many Harlequins. I only played 2 turns as it was so one sided! 

I'd also painted up one of the ruined wall terrain pieces by this time! Nice quick and easy paint job. 

Close up of the storage tank terrain piece - added some detailing / weathering to the basic grey

[Ithoriel]

Figures and terrain are great!

Scenario maybe not so much so?

Is that soft drinks can acting as storage?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Superb! 

[fred.]

Thanks both

Figures and terrain are great!

Scenario maybe not so much so?

Is that soft drinks can acting as storage?

The scenario is pretty basic, 4 VP locations that can be activated each turn to score a point. 1 close to each deployment zone, and the other two evenly spread along the mid-line. I think there were a couple of problems, firstly players not that familiar with the forces and rules, so missing some things to do. And also having a game with two such different forces facing off, seems to end-up with very different results. 


I've borrowed some Tyranids from a mate so have another force available. I also have a lot of options for the Tau - this was an attempt at going numbers heavy.

Yes, the storage terrain uses a drinks can - its a MDF kit from war bases, that you add your own can to. I've got another one that uses 3 of them. 

[fred.]

Pegasus Gothic Ruins

Been painting these up over the last week or so, nice easy big brush project (28mm sized). Quite pleased with how they have come out.








I've got quite a lot of pieces made from these Pegasus Gothic parts - not really sure how many sets I had to start with, at least one each of the ruins and the standard ones, but probably two of the standard sets.

I've got two fairly small buildings - 1 section wide and 2 long - which are going to get painted up next.

And this beast of a building...



It was built to be a large church type building - but given its size and lack of interior interest, it rarely gets on the table.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Very nice!

[mmcv]

Great start to the year so far

[fred.]

Thanks both

[fred.]

Irregular Wars - Volunteers

Played a game of Irregular Wars on Friday evening - Swedish vs Imperials

My leader was not best suited to battle, being Enthusiastic, Rash and Impetuous. This meant he rode forward from his troops at the start of the game, was twice as likely to die in melee and lost 1 point on initiative rolls.

His unit was rather isolated in the village - and survived rather longer than expected (at least one of those turns was down to some rule mid-remembering by me, oops) not that it made any real difference to the out come



Having played I've painted up some more troops today - 4 units in a day is what I like about 10mm 



These are to make units of Volunteers - who are locally raised units mainly shot armed but with some melee ability. They are a right mix of figures to give the look.

At the front are some WWI German casualty figures

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Looks good