Pacific Gravity

I'm certain that there's a better pun available for a title here, I just can't work out what it might be.

Anyway.

All the way back in January 2018, Warlord Games sent me a box of Japanese tanks by mistake, and told me to keep them when they sent the replacement.

At the time, I thought that this was great customer service, but I now realise that it was, of course, the old dealer's tactic - the first hit was free, and so this was inevitable:

Yay!

Yep, that's a full Japanese force for Bolt Action.

As a devious sort of fella, I've basically been planning this for about two years, while all the time pretending I wasn't. This basically consisted of issuing denials while doing things like using Japanese machine guns on other models, suddenly buying palm trees for flimsy reasons, and adding loads of models to my "acquired" total without explaining why.

Chi-ha - from the packing error that started it all

I picked up the army book early on, then got a few bits and pieces over time, but never really committed to the project - the Japanese force for Bolt Action benefits from large numbers of big squads even more than other armies, and I could never quite face starting the job.

Suicide anti-tank troopers - from the plastic sprues

This all changed fairly recently with the arrival of the Citadel Contrast paint range. This looked like a way to tackle an army without it taking me years to wade through, so I decided to give it a go.

A squad!

I started with a couple of models and straight away was impressed with the speed I could manage - finishing two models in a night doesn't sound like much, but realistically a night's painting for me is about an hour, so I was very pleased with that!

Medic!

I was deliberately aiming for speed over a beautiful finish - so in places I've just ignored details. Part of the advantage with the contrast paints for me is that you're getting an ink wash with an appropriate colour at the same time, so you sort of get away with it. Certainly, to my eye there's nothing glaring, so for gaming standard I'm perfectly happy.

Another squad, having a lie down

The drive to do these quickly also led me to make a couple of decisions that I'd probably not make with other projects. First, on the banners for the squads - I'm never 100% happy either way, but tend to come down on not using pre-painted banners as it's so hard to get them to line up and they look a bit "printed".

The third squad, printed banner to the rear

This time though, I figured that making my own banners would take longer, and the printed ones from the boxed set were fine, so I've stuck with them. We'll see if I eventually get fed up and replace them! I'm thinking of using the banners as loaders for machine guns, so they'll definitely be used.

A pair of Chi-Ha Shinhoto variants - in flat green

Second, I decided against doing any shading or highlights on the tanks. I can never get these to work well on 28mm tanks anyway, and anything I might do takes precious time!

Kempetai officer

I also decided not do a camo scheme for them, sticking instead with a simple flat green colour scheme that was listed as an example with the instructions. I'm expecting that at some point I'll want to add other vehicles (I normally do) so having that be as easy as possible will help.

Sniper team

For the infantry, the colours I went for were:

Undercoat - Grey Seer
Skin - Darkoath Flesh
Uniforms - Skeleton Horde
Webbing, puttees etc - Aggaros Dunes
Boots, gun stocks - Snakebite Leather
Helmets - Militarum Green
Gun barrels - Basilicanum Grey

Officers

Not that anyone else will care, but writing that down will enable me to add new models in the right colours when I suddenly decide to add a second platoon in a year or something.

Flamethrower team

To be honest, I think this probably needs another box of infantry - the maximum size for each squad is 15 and I'm not there yet, plus at the moment I can only use one of the three tanks in a standard game!

Observer

This is definitely enough to let me start playing games with a new force though, and it'll hopefully spur on the creation of some Pacific-themed opponents (come on Kieron, get those Chinese started).

So, that ought to have helped out my painting scores, so let's have a look...

Painted: 73
Acquired: 77

I've still got an entire board game full of terminator endoskeletons to go at, too...

Getting Terrain Locked Down

I've given it some thought, and I'm of the opinion that this whole "global viral pandemic" business is a right pain in the arse.

One of the more minor ways this has manifested is in the Wargames Illustrated 7TV day in July being cancelled - scarcely a surprise, but still an embuggerance. That's particularly the case as I'd been beavering away on terrain for the event.

Still, there will, of course, be other 7TV events at some point. So, eventually, all of this will be worthwhile again and I'll be able to break out the insane table I have planned.

Right, that's enough of that - the world already has an abundance of Coronavirus commentary, but at the same time is woefully under-supplied when it comes to pictures of terrain that I've painted. So let's attempt to redress the balance with this...

First of all, a ruined factory!

This is a Sarissa Precision kit I'd picked up about 18 months ago and never got around to, so it was particularly nice to get this done at last. Part of the challenge was finding somewhere to keep it - it's pretty massive.

Then, a satellite dish!

 

I really like this model. It's a Crooked Dice resin job, and in my experience those are always really nice clean casts. As I write this, I realise I should have taken a photo of it with a figure for scale. It's big!

Wow, that was informative.

Both of these things were big, but they only count as one thing each. Thus, the impact on my scores has been limited...

Painted: 19
Acquired: 77

Anyway. Since the 7TV thing has been cancelled, I'm going to do something else! So, watch out for that, whenever that happens. There's every possibility that the next post might make considerably more sense than this one.

Slow Motion Car Crash

Another quick post for a quick paint job.

I'm still working on terrain bits and pieces for the Wargames Illustrated 7TV day in July, on the possibly overly optimistic assumption that it will still happen despite global pandemics and WI staff changes.

So, in that vein, here's a crashed car!

This is, like the crashed pickup truck from a couple of posts ago, from the Walking Dead scenery pack.

Given that there's very little detail to it, it took very little time to paint! Still, every little helps, so here's what that's done to my scores...

Painted: 17
Acquired: 77

Barnstorming

A quick post for a quick paint job!

I'm still working on bits and pieces of terrain for the 7TV day in July, and the latest is this cheeky little number:

A "ramshackle barn" from Renedra. This was a very easy thing to build, and possibly even easier to paint!

True, the doors don't open, and I've glued the roof on. I think this will be needed to hold it together, but it does mean that putting anything inside is a bit trickier than with MDF buildings.

Still, nice easy model, looks decent, so that'll do.

Right, tedious accountancy time...

Painted: 16
Acquired: 77

Back in the Saddle

An incredibly short time after my last post, I'm back again.

This time, I've brought horses!

clip clop clip clop

These are Warlord Games French WW2 cavalry. I've had them lying around for more than a year, so getting them done really is taking stuff off the pile.

These have already been used, but I'd not done the bases at that point so they weren't ready for the big screen.

As is traditional for a new unit, they were wiped out without inflicting a single casualty. But I think they did at least distract some Germans from the objective, so that's probably something.

To be able to use these (or at least, to be able to have them dismount), I also needed to paint these...

These came with the mounted models, and when I bought them, Warlord had a weird sale on where this pack was half price, but the alternative sculpts were full price. I therefore bought three of the same set, and since they're one-piece metals, you end up being able to do this...

Battle of France: the musical

So I can now field the start of a chorus line in Bolt Action.

Painted: 15
Acquired: 77

Getting on with it

We're more than a month into 2020 now. Given that I'm trying, yet again, to paint more models in the year than I acquire, you would expect me to start out by painting a lot and being restrained about gaining new stuff. 

I've not done that. 

Still, I've managed to get off the starting blocks, so let's have a look...

That'll probably buff out

It's a truck! Specifically it's a truck with a big dent in it. This is part of a Walking Dead scenery set that I got thinking it would be useful for post-apocalypse purposes, so it's slightly odd that I'm not using it for that. Instead, this is going to form part of my planned table for this year's Wargames Illustrated 7TV day in July. So will lots of other things, so I really need to get on with it.

Ok then, so I've only painted one model so far. That's ok so long as I didn't get loads of new ones, so it's something of a shame that I've received a few things I've ordered recently, and ended up with 77 models going onto the pile.

Still, it's a start, things can only get better from here, et cetera.

Let's kick off this year's scoreboard then, just for the look of the thing:

Painted: 1

Acquired: 77 

Best get back to it then...

Finally Returning to the Blog

Errr... hi.

Yeah, it's been months. But I've come back, yet again, so here it is - another new year, and another attempt at self-justification as I realise I failed to achieve what I was trying for.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, here's a series of things I've painted since I last managed to get myself sufficiently organised to post here.

Starting with...

Post-apocalyptic cultists!

I really like these models - they're from Crooked Dice, and I got them as part of the 7TV Apocalypse kickstarter. The detail on them is great, which made them very easy to paint. I've gone for greens and browns on them so that I have the option of using them as Nurgle cultists for my vaguely planned 40K 7TV adventure at some point.

Next, it's...

Probably going to be used as a panzerschreck...

Last Levy Germans! 

I had these on the painting table from the 7TV games day - I'd had the idea that some of them could work for Pulp, then did other things anyway. But they were still sat there, and it was easier to paint them than to find something else, so here they are. 

There's the multiple rocket launcher thingy above, then the "shooty round corners" krummlauf:

Probably use this as a sniper or something...

It can shoot this way too!

Then a couple of Volkssturm for good measure:

It's not easy to see in the picture, but the one on the left is in a firefighter's uniform.

Clearly, inspired leadership will be needed here, so let's throw in an officer for good measure!

A nice model, and I'm actually fairly happy with my paint job on him, so it's a shame that for some reason I couldn't manage a decent photo. 

Last among the defenders of Berlin are the Hitler Youth:

Sometimes a miracle occurs and I manage a photo you can actually see

Always good to have a unit I can feel guilty about any time it takes to the table. Possibly the worst part there is that the Bolt Action rules only let the NCO have an SMG, so the little guy in a sort of scout uniform must be the NCO... ugh. I have a vague idea that these might also work as some sort of pulp kids... thing as well. 

Anyway, moving on...

It's Terminator time again. Black Friday threw up a few Terminator models for dirt cheap at Wayland Games, so I grabbed what I could. So there's the T-1000 you see above...

...and John Connor, leader of the worldwide resistance, and last best hope of humankind. These are actually pretty nice resin casts, so it's a shame that my painting has done them no favours whatsoever.

I also got Arnie on a bike, but I've yet to do anything with him.

While I was at it I also painted a resistance soldier with a grenade launcher - he'd been sitting in my paint station for months for some reason, so it was nice to get him finished off.

I've also managed to paint a random apocalypse survivor that was hanging around my paints as well, but for some reason I've failed to get a picture of her. 

I also thought I'd already blogged about the tyre barricades and ammo boxes I painted a few months ago, but I can't find any evidence of that - you'll have to take my word for it.

So, I've basically lost track of where I've got to since I've been failing to post here for such a long time, but let's try to figure it out.

*counts on fingers*

*takes off socks*

Right.

I think this is what I've ended up with:

Acquired: 164

Painted: 81

That's... not great. I mainly blame Fortnite - my son got obsessed with it over the summer and I was forced (forced I tell you) to spend most of my free time playing that in order to win him stuff rather than paint things.

Also, I really do want to get better at posting on here (as I said a year ago!). I think I need to come up with a way of taking decent photos at the point when I finish painting, and then get a post up sharpish while I can still remember what I've done. 

Will any of that actually happen? Probably not, but it's good to have goals, or something.

Happy New Year!