Joker #2 Claimed!

I missed last week for blog updates, so now you get lots of Shaltari all at once. I imagine you couldn't be more excited.

That's right, it's more Shaltari, as my one-track mind continues to push me through dozens of tiny purple models. I've now completed everything from the starter set, which was my goal for my second challenge joker.

This includes the "spare" Haven Terragate, and an extra unit of Braves. These aren't counted in the starter set force, presumably to keep the starter sets at a similar points level, but you get the models, so I've painted them up. The Braves are actually on non-standard bases (generously provided by Kieron), but this doesn't really matter as infantry in Dropzone Commander is rarely on the board anyway - it's normally being transported or lurking in a building - so the bases don't matter too much.

So, the final bits painted for this are the super-fiddly Havens:

Wes calls these "bear traps". Can't think why.

And a unit of Braves:

Poor lighting strikes again.

I do still plan to make these bases look nicer later, but I'm going to keep getting more stuff table-ready first.

Stuff like these Yari scout vehicles!

Pew pew pew!

These were quite nice to do, as they were small but pretty heavily detailed.

Since I'd earned a Joker, I immediately spent it on more Shaltari, so once I have it all ready I can do a 1500 point force (or just have more choice at 1000 points). More on that to come no doubt!

Once more, let's look at my stats...

For 2015 so far:
Painted: 107
Bought: 59

And for the Challenge:
Painted: 50
Jokers Used: 3
Jokers Earned: 2

More tiny purple tanks

That's right, I'm continuing with the Shaltari! If it's any consolation, the smaller models and the fact that there are less of them will hopefully prevent this from going the same way as the seven month "I-only-paint-world-war-2-French-and-you-will-look-at-them" period I've just come out of.

With that introduction to get you really keen to see these, let's have a look at more Dropzone Commander Shaltari models.

Hover hover, pow pow

These are Kukri skimmers. They have anti-aircraft guns, which are pretty important in a game where most units are carried around on big aircraft.

Not much else to say about them really, so if nothing else this post is mercifully short.

It's numbers time again...

For 2015 so far:
Painted: 94
Bought: 54

And for the Challenge:
Painted: 37
Jokers Used: 2
Jokers Earned: 1

More Shaltari - infantry this time!

A quick post for once! I've continued my Shaltari-painting for Dropzone Commander, and now have these ready:

Tiny people!

They're Shaltari Braves (space hedgehogs in 8 foot tall battle suits, obviously). I'm going to go back and make the bases more interesting later, but the priority is to stop playing with unpainted models as I'm sure it's offending the dice gods.

Anyway, that's done stuff to the scores...

For 2015 so far:
Painted: 91
Bought: 54

And for the Challenge:
Painted: 34
Jokers Used: 2
Jokers Earned: 1

The Shaltari get started

Having completely exonerated myself regarding any suggestion that I should be posting more often (see the entirely reasonable explanation for more details), I can now move on to some details of my recent painting.

Before the Great Failure to Post, I intended to show you this, my first painted Shaltari model, a Tomahawk skimmer tank thing:

Thank you to the people suggesting I use a white backround!
This does definitely look better, even though I painted it.

It's got a back too. Don't listen to Pete when he complains
that I haven't highlighted the underside. There's no light under there!

I was after a bold, simple to replicate colour scheme that I could use to paint an army quickly. I've sort of managed that. It was quick enough to finish the unit of Tomahawks:

Now there's three of them!

But then I moved onto the big stuff, the Eden gates. These are biggish flying units, and I wanted to get them done (mainly so I could glue the bases together) but they ended up taking ages, despite my "simple" colour scheme...

I need a bigger white background!

Ominous, aren't they?

Still, they're done now, and I can move onto the rest. I have some of the infantry about halfway to being done (4 bases of them. This should be all of the infantry from the starter set, but there's actually another 2 bases' worth in there - it's just that they don't come with bases. This is presumably just so the points value of the Shaltari set isn't loads higher than the others, but it's a bit irritating as I really want more infantry. Alternative bases have been acquired (thanks Kieron!).) and have started the Kukri AA tanks as well.

Which is just as well, as I've got excited and bought some more bits - a Gharial command tank, some Yari scout things and some Spirit light gates. This uses another joker, but I'm hoping to finish the starter set and claim another one quite soon! This is good, as Partizan is next week and I might be tempted by something there.

So, what's that done to my scores? Let's take a look...

For 2015 so far:
Painted: 79
Bought: 54

And for the Challenge:
Painted: 22
Jokers Used: 2
Jokers Earned: 1

Unblocking the pipe - some new games

Ok, that about does it. I think that's clear now.

You see, since my last post about a month ago (whoops) there's been a problem here - my spectacular thoughts have, of course, been studiously collated, and then I've put in the effort to polish them into the little pieces of poetry that you're used to finding here. Then, as usual, I've chucked them into the blog receptacle and pulled the chain, heard the satisfying "whoosh" as they disappear from sight, and then assumed that they were appearing here.

But no, as it turns out, there's been a severe blockage in my blogtube, and nothing's been getting through! I only discovered the problem when I tried to flush the latest offering and ended up with a backflow, getting pithy photo comments and bits of painted model scores all over my shoes.

So, I've been at it with a plunger and I think everything's back to normal now, so I'll carefully recreate the stuff that got stuck and get that posted. I'd hate you all to think that I just didn't bother to post for a month and then tried to excuse myself with a nonsensical cover story!

Right then, here we go.

A couple of new games have popped onto the radar for our merry group recently. I've played "a few" of each so here are my thoughts.

Dropzone Commander
This is the first "proper" wargame I've started for a while. If you don't know, DzC is a 10mm scale sci-fi game, which relies heavily on the use of big flying dropships to move troops and vehicles around.

I don't have pictures of our games, so let's say they look like this.

It's actually a really nice game to play! The rules are simple, but different enough from anything else I've played to be interesting, and the need to use dropships makes for some interesting challenges - units just don't move fast enough on their own to be able to achieve much, so you have to keep an eye on where your transports are and decide when to forgo shooting in favour of being flown off to a better location.

I've played 4 games so far and only won one of them, but I'm still enjoying it, which must be a good sign. I'm playing the Shaltari, on which more will follow in a future post.

It is also quite nice that we're all just starting with this. Pete and Mike have put more time and effort in than the rest of us, but generally no one is miles ahead in terms of what they can field.

Frostgrave
This one is pretty much completely different to Dropzone Commander. Frostgrave is a fantasy skirmish thing, in which you control a warband based around a wizard, trying to find artefacts and wield bigger and more powerful spells.

I've played this three times, and won each time, so that's nice. It's also a very simple game to pick up, with everything resolved on single d20 rolls.

We've yet to start a campaign for this, and that's something I want to do soon - the "starter" games, especially with more than two players, are perhaps a bit too random and just descend into battering each other quite quickly. The campaign rules seem to me to add a lot more depth, so I'm keen to have a go with that soon.

I have played a couple of two player games with Wes, ensuring we had a lot of terrain, and that seemed to work better.

Ok, we were using "whatever is lying around" as terrain. Clearly, this needs work.

I really want to build some nice terrain for this game, and I have a few bits already that will fit the bill. At the moment though, DzC is winning the popularity contest for us, so that's likely to be the focus, at least for a while...

Right, onto the next post! See you there!