Sci-Finally

The lockdown continues, in-person gaming is suspended, and I finished my secret Japanese project recently. This left me at something of a loss, in the mood to do some painting, but not quite mentally ready to start the next big queue.

The result was that things went a bit random, so here we go. I kicked off with...

Remember, Genisys is Skynet! Also, none
of this will matter when the next film starts.

Kyle Reese from Terminator Genisys! This is the metal "freebie" from the miniatures game box.

Since I still have the board game to go at I also have a less-well-cast plastic version of the same model to do as well, and I'm probably insane enough to actually paint that even though I have a better version of the same thing already done.

Anyway. It's a nice model and a fairly good likeness of Jai "clearly too beefy to be Kyle Rees" Courtney, which has been slightly lost under my ham-fisted painting. But he's done, he'll turn up on the table occasionally, and he's been sat in the paint station for ages so it's nice to have him done.

One thing I did find odd about this is that the base is part of the casting. Which is such a simple idea that I wonder why it's the first time I've seen it since some Lord of the Rings models I had about 30 years ago. I'm sure there's a reason. Anyway.

Next, I went for...

Stompy, stompy, slashy stabby

Some Shaltari Firstborn!

These were a secret Santa gift from Pete, I think from 2018? It might even have been 2017. They're part of a big pile of Shaltari stuff for Dropzone and Dropfleet that I never seem to quite get around to. I'm not actually sure how effective these will be in the game, as they are very close range fighters and getting anything close enough to the enemy to attempt that sort of thing has always resulted in lots of gates being destroyed. Still, got to be worth a try, and at least it adds variety to the process of losing.

And finally, these...

Dug in like an Alabama tic

Wait, they seem to have changed colours, like a chameleon, using the jungle. They're always doing that. I'll try again...

Not sure about the spear things to be honest

There we go. These are a set of Predators "Alien Hunters" from Copplestone Castings. I'm pretty certain I've had these for at least 10 years, and it might actually be more like 12. I honestly couldn't say why I suddenly rooted these out, but I went at them with contrast paints and I'm pretty happy with the result. 

No immediate plans for these really, but at some point I'm sure they'll turn up in a 7TV cast or something.

Right then, pictures displayed, time for everyone's favourite part, admin! Let's see what all that has done to the all-important numbers...

Painted: 90

Acquired: 77

So that's looking good, but I have just ordered some more so I need to keep at it if I'm going to stay on track. I'm sure you'll be able to watch me attempt that here, so you can look forward to that.

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...