Thursday, January 31, 2013

BREAKING NEWS: Death from the Skies

Looks like it is happening. Compendium style book to update current codices with new flyers or update old ones.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Painted up "Joe" from Hasslefree Miniatures


Recently I have been busy working away at my FOW Soviet Infantry minis and got a little bored. While surfing the net looking at kickstarters (I'm officially addicted to kickstarters btw) I came across this painting tutorial by James Wappel. I watched his sample video and was so impressed with his very unorthodox way of painting that I thought would be cool to try out myself.

Be sure to check out his kickstarter should you need painting guides or just want to bring your painting to a higher level.

He paints his minis like I would normally do on a canvas mixing all sorts of colors together just to get the tint and shade etc. Looks like alot of fun, and I was pretty confident I could pull it off.

So I looked through my miniature stash and came across my untouched "Zombie Apocalypse" models and decided to try it on "Joe" from Hasslefree Miniatures.

If you watch his video you will realize he mixes lots of colors and I personally feel while it may be good for painting single models, I really dread the idea of painting up a horde of minis mixing and estimating throughout my paint session.

However I picked up many painting tips and applied them to "Joe".

I started with a black basecoat and a light misting of grey from the top ( another great painting tip I picked up from other pro painters). Then worked on the skin with Vallejo Khaki Grey. From there I lightened the color with GW Dheneb stone and Ultramarine Blue. Sounds strange but that's the way to just mix the colors it still looked good.

Unfortunately I got so carried away painting that I randomly picked colors off my shelf and started blending and mixing them till I lost track. And the next picture I took was it completed. Opps.....
The resin city base was from Fenris Games. They produce very nice resin bases and lots of terrain options. Best part is that they are very competitively priced. I would recommend them anytime. Other manufacturers have resin bases going at average 1 British Pound each. That equates to $2 Singapore dollars a base, and I've not included shipping costs yet. 

These bases from Fenris were only 5 British pounds for 12 bases! You can do the math! Their shipping is also cheap to boot!
 

This is definitely a nice diversion from the usual "factory line" painting that we are all so used to and guilty of. Hopefully it will be enough to make me start painting up my "Zombie Apocalypse" range of models soon!

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Raging Heroes Von Königsmark Sisters Review



Finally I received my von Königsmark sisters limited edition box about a week plus back. Was expecting it to arrive around that time span as Raging Heroes got it shipped early January.
As I was already impressed with the Kurganova Sisters, I was expecting the same quality standard as well. True enough, the qualtity was just as my expectation, they were simply amazing. As usual, the metal cast were refine and almost no flashes or extra metal bitz poking out at all. The details were amazing as well. I was totally impressed with Gretchen von Königsmark sculpt which she had her tongue sticking out in a most refine pose and details. Definitely looking forward to painting.
von Königsmark sisters
vonkonigsmark2
vonkonigsmark3
Just as I was pretty happy with the Raging Heroes Sisters… Raging Heroes gonna have a Kickstarter! Oh no… I am still recovering my the last Kingdom Death Kickstarter… haha. Check out and follow Raging Heroes’ Kickstarter, they will be revealing more information the next few days. Cheers!

Sunday, January 27, 2013

WIP: Soviet Infantry and more captured halftracks


Building up the remaining 2 halftracks from the excellent Plastic Soldier Company range to flesh it out to a full squad. This will allow me to take the Razvedki Platoon in my Tank Companies.



Also I'm back at work to finally finish up the hordes of infantry stands so that I can finally try out an infantry lists.

P.S just in case you were wondering. I make it a point to only play with painted miniatures. This not only gives me the added motivation but also makes me think very carefully before purchasing models for my army.

Although I can't say it has always worked. I have many a unit that I felt didn't work out and I did not want to use then anymore/much.

But guess what, at least it's already painted!!!

Imagine the motivation to paint up a unit you know you won't use or like. It's gonna be almost zero and will probably never get painted if not for my self imposed policy!!!

Friday, January 25, 2013

KR Multicase Review

I walk back into my office and I find this baby sitting on the floor waiting for me. I have been looking around for a good proper case for my Tyranids for quite a long time now. For those who collect Tyranids, you would have experienced the biggest problem - transporting them. With small fiddly creatures to truly bulky behemoths to make up just 1750 points, we have a hard time getting them to games. I guess this applies to all horde armies.

Brown package for Mr Tan. Woohoo! 

So I scoured the Net looking for a solution. Finally settled on KR Multicase seeing that they are able to carry a large number miniatures for a reasonable cost. So I went home, took out ALL my miniatures and lay them on the ground figuring out how I am going to pack them.
Fly my pretties FLYYYYY
Just a quick note on how it works:

The card cases are strong and sturdy.

Initially I ordered the Kaiser4 which carries 4 of the card cases but found it a little heavy as I walk between the MRT station to my gaming stores. I used the Kaiser4 for 2 different sessions at 2 different stores. My shoulder just couldn't take it. I would recommend you either get wheels for this or KR build wheels into their Kaiser series.

Here's what it looks like filled:




So, I needed wheels because the weight was taking a toll on my shoulder.

I wrote back to KR and asked if I could get a swap. KR has been really supportive so I got it replaced with the Aluminium 800. I had to top-up to get the newer case but it was alright considering it's aluminium and man does it look sweet. 

The new Aluminium 800 case
Made me feel like a badass with guns. Big guns
Quick note: customer support is top notch with KR. 10 out of 10. No, wait, 20/10. Most awesome.

My contact point was this lady named  Anita. Anita was helpful throughout the process. I actually emailed KR my complete collection and she came back to me with some suggestions. We had close to 60 emails going back and forth tweaking and rejigging my combinations and throughout the process Anita was pleasant and helpful. I tip my hat to her. A wonderful experience. Never once I felt I was pushed into anything. Thank you Anita.

So now, I am the proud owner of the new Aluminium 800 KR Multicase. It's big but it does its job. When I am on the MRT no one comes near as this case looks like it will crush their toes. When I move about, I look like a DJ or a Audio guy with really cool speaker protection equipment. Mind you, I work in Raffles Place (it's our Central Business District) which has thousands of people passing by each other and everyone looks at me thinking, "this dude must be in music or is a magician".

I will wheel this baby out shortly for a game or two and will give you my thoughts on its weight, ease of getting around town with it and even going on an overseas trip.

Here are a few pictures of how it looks like fully loaded with the 4 card cases I have. I have in total 9 card cases so having the option of swapping out easily makes it so much easier for my sanity. Again, the combination of foam will allow you to change the card combinations too making it infinitely flexible.

Filled to the brim, books tucked on top.

How it looks like from the front

When laid on the floor it sits

Separator letting you remove lower case

Big and small all in one

Space for other gaming peripherals

Gargoyles-most tricky to transport but all sorted! On stands too!

My actual combination with L, M and S minis
It's inevitable that we compare and I compared this to my local (Singapore) solution and another American solution. I know a big bunch of my guys swear by Battlefoam but both the cost (please remember to add shipping) and harder foam were major turn-offs for me. KR hits the middle ground. Quality soft foam at reasonable prices. I find it hard to beat. I have kept all my old Intersponge (Singaporean brand) for my skirmish games like Dust Warfare.

The sponge is of course the most important element in this whole puzzle. Soft foam is honestly the best way forward. I was initially sold on hard foam since most of the cases used them until I saw my cousin, Joash use his KR foam. Soft foam is perfect for miniatures.

Consider this. Your minis have really sharp and fiddly bits e.g. Dark Eldar Wyches or Gargoyles which could easily snap off. The softer foam cushion and allow you to shape the foam to allow these oddly shaped units to slip in and out without damage. For your heavier minis, the softer foam help grip them in place and when you move the case around distributes the impact thus preventing damage to your preciousssssssss. Just go to their webby and checkout the insane Egg Drop clip or just Google it.

I hope you guys find this article helpful and please let me know what cases you are using. It would be great to hear from other gamers out there.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

FOW quick AAR: Soviet Forward Detachment Mech Company VS German Volksgrenedier

Got back into a gaming mood after a long dry season which always happens towards the year end holidays!

Last weekend Tim Miller came over to my place for a game of FOW. I was still tweaking my Forward detachment list as the Soviets have been seriously hit by lots of special rules and the such in Version 3.

Tim on the other hand brought along the latest Volksgrenadier list from the latest released Nuts: Bastogne book. And is looking set to spam cheap "reluctant trained" germans with their panzerschreck & panzerfausts! Not very good for my Tank heavy list.....

Here we see the big man looking up on our mission. We rolled the random mission generator and came up with "Hold the Line" which was played along the long table edge. Being a Mech company I am always the attacker so I had to wait while the Germans chose the table edge to defend and deploy. It's a long way to the end of the table for the objectives and the Germans are all nicely dug in. It was gonna be hard to root them out and get the objectives. 

I had to get any objective before turn 6 to win the game. The Germans had to hold or contest to bag it.

Naturally the Germans capitalized on this and chose the end with the dense town. Lots of buildings for concealment and ambush. Lots of hedges and obstacles to hinder my movement.
Our terrain setup for the battle. A really tightly packed table. The germans deployed on the bottom half of the table.


 Despite pulling up a large platoon of T-34s with my decoy Panthers unit. I was unable to get any shots due to the Germans being comfortably dug in and gone to ground.

I moved up along the road but was quickly halted by the Anti-Tank Guns. One lucky turn saw all four of my Heavy IS-2 tanks go down in flames......

This led to a large platoon of German infantry being stuck in the houses with very little targets for the rest of the game. But I guess they already served their role well in taking down my heavy tanks.

With the company HQ and almost 15 stands of infantry holding the objective. I was not going to be able to root them out. And once the Germans dig in and hold the objective it's gonna take a lot to clear them out.

I had to rely on my T-34s to rush down the relatively unprotected right flank and try to get the objective quick to seal the game.

Tim was really unlucky that upon reserve roll none of his units arrived to lend the much needed reinforcements as my T-34s looked poised to steamroll their way towards the objective. 

However Tim was lucky enough that my T-34s failed to destroy his small Stug unit tasked to defend that objective. Once again Tim failed his desperately needed reserve roll the second time on turn 5!!!

I was almost certain of victory as no reserves meant that his 2 remaining Stugs could not have withstood the advance of my T-34s. But alas my tanks all bogged down during that vital assault toward the objective, which meant that Tim would definitely get his reserve reinforcements on turn 6.

My infantry were too far behind to do anything. And with reinforcement arriving along the German edge would mean fresh German units contesting the only objective I could possibly take. We ended the game as it was a certain German victory as they held firmly onto both objectives.

I was so close! Darn those tank mechanics, if only they had done their job better! 

Friday, January 18, 2013

Breaking News: GW February 2013 Releases

Rumours had it that it was going to be 40k and Fantasy Daemons but looks like we have something super concrete. It's actually the Warriors of Chaos and they are getting all the love this February. Fantasy anyone?











I love the look of all the minis for this range. Chunky and just very Chaotic. Amazing stuff GW. Just look at that chariot. It is so distinct from the other chariots from the other races. Just brilliant work. 

Quickie Post: Parasite of Motrex

Came across this awesome conversion of the Parasite of Motrex. Loved it so much I thought I would put it up on our blog so that I can inspire myself when I need mine!

Hopefully I have inspired you too!


Thursday, January 17, 2013

GW Releases January 2013 FAQ's for Both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K

GW has been doing quite a good job recently of putting out FAQ's and I am glad. Just wish they had that high level of QC before releasing the books.

Check it out over at Games Workshop.

So if you are using chariots, read it! If you are using other stuff, read it too. Cleared some stuff up for me.




Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Dust Warfare: 250AP Axis vs Allies

Managed to get a game of Dust Warfare in yesterday with a Shum at our LGS. Played 250AP. From the Battle Builder, we generated the following:
Mission: Key Positions
Deployment: Advancing Lines

So it's the first game after about half a year of not playing Dust. 40K was in my mind so here we go! 

Deployment
Saw his army list and it included the Punisher so I kept my army quite tight in the centre to allow me to send my CC specialists (Apes and Zombies) to counter it if he chooses to drop either side of the table.


1st Turn Unit Phase
First Turn Command I shot both my Snipers to take out his Sniper. One of my Snipers missed. Wow. However, I now had the long range game and I was going to capitalize on it. Shum moved all his units behind  cover. I advanced my army up, most of them Marching where possible. Since this was an objective based mission, I wanted to fight in his table half. Punisher dropped in and threatened my left flank. Phew. The other units all entered buildings as far as possible.

1st Turn  unit phase
Shum moved all his units behind the building to shelter from my shooting in my unit phase.

Turn 1 Unit Phase
Sent in my Gorilla and Zombie unit to deal with the Punisher but took a lot of fire in return during his Reaction phase of Turn 1. Diminished both squads down to 1 and 3 respectively.

 
Turn 2 Unit Phase
During Shum's Turn 2 Unit Phase he moved his BBQ squad up and I Reacted. Managed to take out 3 of 5 of his men. That was a show of good luck.

Turn 2 Command Phase
I took 2 damage points on my Ludwig from the Allies Turn 2, lost both my Battle and Recon Grenadiers in Shum's Turn 2. I then moved most of my units up except for the Ludwig who hid behind the rocks on the left. Snipers activated in the Command Phase Turn 2 and took out one of the Heavy Rocket guys on the building.

Turn 2 Unit Phase
Fired off a few shots and removed his unit of Heavy Rocketeers on the roof. Other shots just added Suppression on his units.

Moved my Gorilla into BSB of his tank

Turn 3 Command Phase
Shum reorganised his force and moved them further behind the buildings to shield them from shooting.


Turn 4 and Game End
I was about to take out his remaining BBQ squad with Joe when Shum asked to call the game. He had no other units to capture the Positions and I was already in his table half. We both agreed and called it game over. A little bloody but at 250AP, I would not consider taking such a heavy walker. It just sucks up too many points and is not able to do much damage in return. I could not best it so I chose to ignore it.

In all it was a good reintroduction to Dust Warfare for me. Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did playing it! 

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