Pungari Pun Ross

I make no apologies for that title.

I've been back to my side project of "finally dealing with models I received as gifts years ago", and this time I've opted for some Pungari Auxiliaries for my Shaltari Dropzone Commander force.

Forty of the little blighters!

These were a secret santa gift from Kieron a couple of years ago, and they're basically apex gift trolling. They're potentially useful, but they were fiddly to paint, extremely numerous, and I'm actually not certain how valuable they'd be in the game. They are good at searching buildings, but otherwise they cost more, and are easier to kill, than standard Shaltari braves. Well played, Kieron.

As it was sat around near the Pungari, I also painted another Endoskeleton for Terminator Genisys, this time one with twin plasma rifles.

"It doesn't get tired, it doesn't feel pain,
and it absolutely will not stop until you
are dead. Or its ankles break."

This is another worryingly fragile metal model. This time I'm worried that the ankles are going to snap, as it's been leaning alarmingly and I've had to bend it back into shape a couple of times. I'm already contemplating things I could stick to the base as support when it inevitably breaks.

Anyway, robot ankle failure aside, painting an endoskeleton leads me neatly into plugging the Terminator Genisys: Rise of the Resistance Kickstarter that's running right now. It has about a week left to run, so if like me you're weirdly obsessed with Terminator, you can throw some money in that direction.

So, I've painted 41 models to include in a single blog post. That's got to have done good things to my numbers...

Painted: 66
Acquired: -6

Plagued by Value

It's been a difficult few weeks for my goal of painting more models than I acquire in 2017.

The problem has been Dropzone Commander. It's a great game, but for some time I've struggled to do well at it. Because I'm an excellent workman, the issue has obviously been my tools, specifically the lack of a solid core to base my army around.

This nagging feeling that I could do better at the game if I just spent more money left me very receptive to a series of surprisingly good offers on Shaltari models. I'm not sure why these all came at the same time from different sellers, but the upshot is I've added 41 models to the pile. On top of that, I ended up with 3 freebie models at Partizan, so all told my "acquired" total has increased by 44. This isn't exactly what I had planned.

Fortunately, I had a creative solution, made available by Hawk Wargames' other offering. As you can't miss if you've read my blog at all recently, I've been building up my Dropfleet Commander fleet, so first of all I added another 3 frigates, to round out a couple of groups:

3. That's a start

These are pretty small, but I thought I could go smaller. So I took things down a level with some bombers...

3 + 12 = 15. Getting better

This both improved my numbers, and guaranteed that people would complain that these "don't count" as models. I found both to be pleasing, but I thought I could go further with both, so I went to the fighters:

3 + 12 + 15 = 30. That'll do!

These can't sensibly be described as anything other than Very Small. Their diminutive nature allowed me to rattle through them very quickly, and I suffered only temporary blindness as a result, which was nice.

So, what's the end result of all that on my numbers?

Painted: 147
Acquired: 162

Certainly not the direction I'd have liked it to take, but I'm only 15 models away from evening things up again. I have some of the Dropzone bits on the go now, so hopefully it won't take me too long to close the gap. On the other hand, recently an excess of real life has limited my available painting time, so there's still a reasonable chance that I run out of year before I get things back on track.

Oooh, it's tense!

What time is it?

It's tiny purple spaceship time!

Yep, I've been painting Dropfleet Commander ships again. By this stage there's very little else for me to say about them, but I feel honour bound to list all of my painting efforts, so here we are. Let's all just stay strong, we can get through this.

Right, here we go. Deep breath.

First up, a couple of Opal frigates. These improve on one of the "interesting" features of the Shaltari, their ability to raise shields for extra protection, at the cost of being visible from much further away.

Ships with entirely fair special rules

When these ships are within 6" of a Shaltari vessel that has its shields up, they confer a re-roll. As you can imagine, this is incredibly well received by my opponent.

Also! I've painted some of these...

Ships with entirely fair close action weaponry

These are Amethyst cruisers. They have close action weapons that allow them to ignore enemy point defences, so although they can't attack at long range they're pretty nasty at close range. As a nice bonus, the Shaltari version of "close range" is the longest in the game. Although I haven't fielded these yet, I'm sure they will also be received in very good humour once they're on the table.

There now, that wasn't so bad, was it? Final thing to do is to look at the scores...

Sadly, there's a problem here. The Joy of Six show in Sheffield took place recently, and, well, I bought some stuff.

Specifically, a couple of 6mm buildings (no big deal) and a couple of packs of 6mm MDF wall. Sadly, there are 12 sections to a pack, so that's another 24 models to add to the count. Ooops.

With all that in mind, here we go...

Painted: 103
Acquired: 118

Aww, dammit.

Don't sink my battleship!

Well, we're still in Dropfleet Commander territory. A weird side effect of our group all backing the Kickstarter campaign is that it's allowed for a painting arms race, as we all have a lot of ships to put together at the same time.

However, I have something of an ace up my sleeve... in that it was my birthday in January. My parents, kind souls that they are, went through the list I gave them, and followed the carefully prepared instructions. Then, due to circumstances beyond their control, they were forced to give me an IOU on my birthday, as the item they'd ordered hadn't arrived yet.

But then, after a decent interlude... one of these arrived.

Awwwww yeah.

It's a Diamond Battleship. This is the largest class of ship currently available in the game. More importantly, I'm the first of our group to acquire and paint one of these.

Or, at least, that's what I currently believe, as I write this in late February. However, due to his previous stirling efforts in this field, I have to consider the possibility, even the likelihood, that Pete also has a battleship and is biding his time in order to get a game in with it but not seem too eager.

So now I have to bide my own time, but not leave it too long or Pete really will get one (if he hasn't already) and I'll lose the advantage. Man, this is complicated.

As a bonus, the model comes with two "turret" sections, which you can swap without the need to glue them. This means that I also have the option to use this as a Platinum Supercarrier, with the ability to launch large numbers of fighters and bombers as well as blasting things with massive weapons.

Launchy launchy, shooty shooty

To make this work, the hull part includes a flight deck, which sits under the turret and is partly visible when the model is in "supercarrier" mode. It's pretty well detailed for something you can't really see, so because I'm some sort of idiot, I've painted it too.

Teeny weeny planey things!

So, there you go. I'm pretty sure I'll be fielding this against another ship of the same size, and also that it will be shot down almost immediately, but maybe it will at least draw enough fire to keep the rest of my fleet in the air, or something.

Anyway, it's painted. So that's something...


Painted: 93
Acquired: 92 (increased by one as I finally admit to owning this...)

Can't come up with more ship-based titles

I mean, there are only so many puns available.

Still, let's get on. I've continued work on my Shaltari fleet for Dropfleet Commander. For one thing, I decided to suck it up and paint the rest of the voidgates, despite them being fairly boring.

Yeah, these.

Then, I went for a cruiser, specifically a Basalt fleet carrier. This is because I'm fed up of being the only one that can't launch bombers at enemy ships, so I can do that now...

Launchy launchy.

Finally, I painted an Adamant battlecruiser.

Something about Prince Charming 

Battlecruisers are the largest class of ship to feature in our games so far, so having mine painted means I'm not left behind in the arms race, at least as things currently stand. Also, it's a nice model! 

It's not all progress though. I went to the first Chillcon in Sheffield recently, which was pretty good! Unfortunately, because it was pretty good, I ended up buying stuff. And, due to unnecessary generosity, I got free stuff too. 13 new models in total, which means I have to add 13 onto my "acquired" total. 

The microwave wasn't one of them, in case you're wondering

With that in mind, let's see the scores!

Painted: 92
Acquired: 91

Nearly blew it there! Fortunately there's more on the painting table now...

Ships of all kinds!

Well, two kinds anyway.

I've been painting again, and again have some things to show you. This will allow you all to heap upon me the praise which I so richly and obviously deserve. In many ways, this blog could be considered a public service.

Anyway, enough modesty. Let's look at some pictures!

First off, another Shaltari Voidgate for Dropfleet Commander. You may be getting fed up of pictures of these by now, but let me tell you, it's nothing compared to the tedium of painting the things.

This is a new photo, although there's no real way to tell.

Voidgates are an absolute requirement for the Shaltari fleet (they're the only way for the blue hedgehog fellas to land troops, which is the whole point of almost every mission in the game), so you have to have several. However, they're also the most involved model to paint, at least in the colour scheme I'm using.

All of which is to say, sadly, I'm stuck painting several more of these, and you'll have to look at them. Sorry.

All is not lost, however, as I've also painted something new...

...and photographed it badly!

Those are Azurite light cruisers. They have the "Vectored" rule which allows them to make turns at any point during their move, not just the start. Normally, that would only be possible using a course change order and would add a spike to each ship, making it easier to target. So I'm hoping these can be like a stiletto blade slipped neatly between the ribs of the enemy fleet (ooh, that was evocative, wasn't it?). To be honest, if they're useless I'll be somewhat irritated as they've cost me two cruiser sprues (they have to come groups of at least two) that could have been used for something more obviously powerful. Time will tell.

And finally, one last thing to show you...

Ships again, but of a subtly different type

A couple of American Civil War armoured gunboats. I got these the last time we had some interest in Black Powder, which was long enough ago that I can't remember where I got them. However, we've just had a bit of a resurgence of interest, and Pete's acquired a fort. We need a fort and these for the next scenario in the Black Powder ACW book, so it seemed like time for them to make an appearance. Reading the rules, ships in Black Powder seem to be extremely situational (which I suppose makes sense as otherwise they'd be far, far too powerful for the game) so they may never achieve anything, but it makes life a bit more interesting I suppose.

So there you go. Now, onto my scores!

Painted: 86
Acquired: 78

Still seems like I should find something to paint a lot of quickly - we're quite close to me going back into negative painting equity...

Another Spaceship

The title says it all really.

Yes, I've added another ship to my Shaltari fleet for Dropfleet Commander.

To make it even less interesting, it's a repeat of a model I've already done!

Here it is. I can only apologise.

It's an emerald mothership. The Shaltari need these to land troops, which is basically the whole point of DfC. That means that you can almost certainly look forward to further posts about these babies in future.

Still, it's not all bad, at least these numbers will change! Here we go...


Painted: 20

Aquired: 67

Admittedly they haven't changed much. I'll try harder next time.

Things are being painted!

I haven't posted for a while. In my defence, this is mainly because I haven't done anything worth posting about, but I've also just not got around to writing anything.

But I've now turned that around, by both painting some models and also turning up here to tell everyone about it! So prepare yourself, here come some photos.

First up, yet another tiny spaceship for Dropfleet Commander.

A Shaltari frigate! Don't worry, I've done other stuff...

I've been doing almost embarrassingly well at Dropfleet Commander, leading of course to insistent claims from other players that the Shaltari starter fleet is overpowered. Clearly that's nonsense, I'm just a tactical genius.

Next up, terminators!

To the left...

To the right...

And now try it without legs

These are from the basic Terminator Genesys game, so I've got the same to do again (and actually I have one more crawler that needs to go on a base) but these were, as you can probably guess, very easy to paint.

Just need to actually play the game now!

It's all good, so I have to temper that slightly - I did by a staff car from Vapnartak. Pretty restrained, but I did intend to paint it quickly and just didn't.

So, what's happened to the scores?

Painted: 19

Aquired: 67

Additional Tiny Spaceships

Well, we're gathered here once again, so let's list off what I've painted recently. It won't take long.

First off, an Amber cruiser...

Yep, that's what one of those looks like.

And then, two more Voidgates, to enable further Shaltari cheating.

Floaty!

That completes the Shaltari starter fleet from my enormous Dropfleet Commander pledge. We've been playing a few games using just the starter fleets, and so far I've beaten everyone but Pete and his confounded UCM. 

Next step is to get to 750 points with these. I don't actually know what I'm going to add to get there, but I suppose it would be prudent to include a second mothership. So maybe I'll do that. 

But maybe not!

Anyway, how's the 2017 painting tally looking now, with a month basically down?

Painted: 4

Aquired: 66

Ah.

Well, that might look better next time I suppose...

Progess! And then... not that.

After my somewhat rocky start the other day in which I acquired 57 models without yet having painted any, my quest to take more models off the lead pile than I add to it in 2017 seemed under threat.

But then, I managed this!

Spaceship!

That's a Shaltari Emerald Mothership, part of my new Dropfleet Commander force. Given my self -imposed rules, it's fortunate that my pledge actually arrived in December, so I don't have to count lots of extra spaceships against my tally.

I've played two games of Dropfleet now, and it seems like a really interesting game. The orbital combat mechanics make for something with more meat to it than other space combat games I've tried, and dropping troops onto the surface from orbit is an extra added challenge. I have loads of models for this to go at, so you can expect more posts about this game to turn up.

Unfortunately, however, Kieron's pledge has also arrived, and so when I played him last night, he gave me his Shaltari sprues... which adds 8 models to the "acquired" column.

Also, just to nudge things just a touch further in the wrong direction, I need to complete the tale of Warlord Games orders. If you're following all of this very closely (and I can't think why you wouldn't be), then you'll know that my mother-in-law gave me £100 of Warlord vouchers for Christmas.

For some reason though, she wasn't confident that the voucher would work when she gave me the code. Don't know why, since she's given me the same vouchers before, but she emailed Warlord to check, and for reasons I don't really follow, got more confused and ended up calling them, at which point she was assured that all was fine. There it would have ended, but on boxing day she checked her email to find an apology from Warlord for the confusion, and an extra £20 voucher as a goodwill gesture - which she also passed onto me, since my mother-in-law unaccountably doesn't buy much from Warlord herself.

So, kudos to Warlord Games for their customer service, but all of this is a long-winded way of saying that I need to add yet another model to the pile, as I used the voucher to get a Char B1 bis to add to my Bolt Action French.

Mmmm... unassembled...

 So, I am at least off the mark in terms of painting, giving me a new tally of:

Painted: 1
Acquired: 66

My birthday is in two weeks. I fear the worst.

The Obligatory New Year Post

It's 2017! Well, it will be tomorrow anyway.

This would be the point at which I review how I did against my plans for the year, but looking back I've dicovered that I never posted about my plans for the year, and have no idea what I was trying to achieve. So, er, mission accomplished?

I've also failed to keep track of how many models I painted and acquired this year, apart from a lone post in February with a counter on it. So, adding up quickly, it looks like I got through 158 models. That sounds good, but they're largely 6mm, and I don't have a clue how many I acquired (but the Dropfleet Commander pledge on its own will have added a fair bit to the total). So I have no idea whether I came out in credit or not for painting, but it's safe to assume I didn't.

I did however get one last model ready to sneak in under the wire, so here it is!

It's got tracks!

It's got a trailer!

It's a Lorraine carrier for the French. I'm sure you're all sick of me posting about WW2 French, but that's just tough. I have more of these to paint too, so you can expect some very similar photos to come at some point - almost certainly after some Shaltari spaceships.

Right, so what am I going to try for this year?

Well, it's simple. I'm going to try to make a dent in the lead mountain, for real this time.

My plan is twofold. First - make sure I paint more models than I acquire in 2017. "Acquire" is a deliberately all-encompassing term, so I don't get to add freebies just by not paying for them. If I go to a show and get a free model on the door, then I'll have to paint something to cover it. When the big order I placed with Warlord the other day arrives, that's going to hurt my score immediately.

Second! I'm not going to start any new projects that require me to buy models. What that means is I can still start games I don't already play, but only if I can use models I already have. Ideally, it would mean painting something I already own, and thus reducing the pile.

Now, I'm a natural hoarder, so I do have a vast array of unpainted stuff. There's no chance that this policy will result in my lead pile being wiped out, but I'd settle for a decent reduction. Let's see what happens.

Happy New Year everybody!

More Dropfleet Commander Shaltari

Alright, that title is a little utilitarian, but I've painted some more Dropfleet Commander Shaltari!

So let's have a look at them then.

First up, we have, er, some frigates.

Pointy!

Accompanying these is, erm, some other sort of frigates. I've forgotten what they're called.

Also pointy, but somewhat flatter!

So now I have a very small fleet! These are all of the models I have so far since I'm still waiting for my Kickstarter pledge to arrive, but having these done already means I'm slightly ahead of the curve when everything else finally gets here.

Things of various descriptions!

Also notice that I don't have enough bases yet! I'm sure that will be rectified at some point, but since I can't actually play any games yet, it's not really a priority.

Right, now what?

A new project!

As a man in possession of approximately 4 tonnes of unpainted models in his garage, the last thing I need is a new project that adds more stuff to the pile.

So, of course, that's exactly what I've got.

Last year I, along with the rest of our little gaming group, backed the Dropfleet Commander kickstarter, which is now shipping. I'm still waiting for my box (which will contain way more models than I need), but Wes has his, and has kindly handed over the Shaltari ships so I can get started with painting.

And start I have!

These turn out to be a bit easier to paint than I was expecting - as they're plastic, the details aren't as deep as on resin models. Normally that would make things harder, but I've been finding that with the Dropzone Shaltari the most time-consuming part is basecoating the vast areas of intricate detail on each model. So, weirdly, it's a relief to have less well-detailed models to paint for a change.

I have another 4 ships to paint at the moment. As far as I know, not having any rules yet, that's not enough for a game, but at least I'll not be starting completely from scratch when more of them turn up...