This week in my 'out of left field' category...

 o/

My favorite sculpt of the handful that I have, making her the squad's leader by default. 

On Christmas day I started painting up some of Hasslefree Miniatures' Modern Adventurers. I've always wanted to just chill and paint minis on Christmas. Ya know, just relax after the family gatherings, gift exchanges, food and other fun stuff. I never had the chance to do so as my mother always made Christmas into a big production where everybody had to spend all day together in a 'forced-fun' scenario (yes, even all the way into my late 40s). 

This year however, aside from making dinner for Grandma at her house, we did our own thing and we rather liked it. Am pretty sure this will become our default Christmas plan from now on. 

These four are all female, of the remining three to paint there is one more female (the driver) more or less flipping the male-to-female ratio in a typical mixed gender unit.  

Anyways,  I've had most of these for years, with only a few recent acquisitions. I have seven total minis in this collection, a squad of six, a driver and their APC. I will of course post a final group shot when I get the rest painted up.  

The (literal) rear view, more to show their varied kit rather than their tiny little butts. Personally I've never been a fan of the sexy soldier sculpts that sadly populate so many sci-fi-female miniature ranges. 

A close up of the squad leader on the left and one of her subordinates. 

They're basically 'near future' fighters, equipped with similar though not really standardized body armor. All are armed Heckler & Koch G36c carbines, as well as holstered sidearms. These could easily be used as Ariadna troopers of some sort for Infinity (not that I was ever able to wrap my head around that maddening ruleset). 

Close up of the other two troopers. 

In all likelihood they'll just find a little spot in which to reside in my display case. Though if we were to come across a decent near-future skirmish ruleset I wouldn't mind using them on the table top at some future point. 

Rogue Stars, the 2nd round...

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My grumpy little alien Bob.

We interrupt all this Space Marine goodness for a game of Rogue Stars with my Beloved Wolfy and our buddy Hoss. We were all using the same crews as we did in our first game, though in between this game and that one, Hoss and Wolfy's crews had another, separate skirmish which she won handily.

The objectives were six randomly placed, and unmarked loot tokens. Three were duds and three were worth VPs if they were hauled off of the board by a player's character. So two rival pirate crews trying to steal stuff and a Star Cops crew trying to stop them and recover the soon-to-be-stolen goods. Well that sounds about right.

This isn't really a battle report, just a few photos and highlights. 

The battlefield from Wolfy's point of view.

Taco's typical run forward and shoot something! In this case, Hoss's 'super stealthy ninja chick' near the shuttle in the background, putting her out of action. Whilst Hoss's Star Cop Sergeant skulks around in the background.

Wolfy's Bruuna. That's such a badass looking mini, though I'm a little less fond of her after she gunned down my crew's leader Catalina and then tried to shoot my medic (Bucket) as the robot was administering first aid!

Wolfy's Malakite as she pumps yet more rounds into my already bullet riddled Taco. Taco did manage to graze her with a shot, but didn't stop her from grabbing that loot counter that she's standing on and fleeing the field with it.

Over the course of the game, I managed to successfully steal 2 loot counters via Bob and ZOTT! (my minion bot who I didn't manage to get a pic of) and I took 1 enemy model out of action (shot by Taco) for a total of 9 VPs.

Wolfy managed to steal one counter as well via Malakite, and she also took 2 enemy players out of action (including my leader, Catalina) also for a total of 9VPs, so the game ended in a tie.

Hoss's Cops didn't recover any of the loot or capture any pirates, but did take Wolfy's leader B'Yonsae out of action for 3VPs.

All of the wounded were either carried off or (in the case of my robot Taco), managed to limp off of the field. The recovery of wounded crew members is quite necessary, as those lost on the field of battle could potentially die afterwards.

Likewise, as we keep using the same crews, the end-of-game VPs turn into XPs to improve the crew for a later games. Rogue Stars is a fun little diversion from the other games we play, and the closest we've come to finding something akin to RPG campaign (well, in the vaguest of terms I guess).

As you might expect, fun was had by all, and we're hoping to play again next weekend.

Rogue Stars: Our first game

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Scott vs, Hoss...

Saturday night, my beloved Wolfy, myself, Hoss and Scott got together for our first ever game of Rogue Stars. Hoss, was really the only one who had a firm grasp of the rules, as neither Wolfy nor Scott had read them, and I generally fail to comprehend rules without actually using them in a game. Hell, just trying to figure out stats for my crew was something of a nightmare till Wolfy took the book away from me and figured out what I was doing wrong in short order.

"TACO ATTACK!!!" 

As for the game itself, turning what is supposed to be a 2-player game into a 4-player free-for-all on the first ever attempt of playing it, is generally not recommended and as I'm sure you've guessed by now, that's exactly what we did. The ability to steal the initiative from the opposing player is a pretty cool mechanic. However when it involves three opposing players, chaos ensues! That said, after 20+ years of 'you go, I go' games and small variations thereof. That absolutely chaotic pace to the game was probably the most accurate representation of what I would imagine an actual battle to be like.

Scott closes in on Wolfy's troops.

About halfway thru the game, Scott's dice went hot, he started racking up kills and there was no stopping him. Hoss eventually stabilized his casualties and fled the board, Wolfy's crew suffered 2 casualties, and could do little to slow Scott's rampage (aside from vaporizing one guy's head with a well placed plasma pistol shot).

...and despite her best efforts it went badly for her...

As for my crew: my leader managed to fire two (non-connecting) shots all game, and the rest of my bunch accomplished little aside from managing to get away from my table edge (to spare them from the tragic death resulting from being accidentally knocked off of the table by my arm). Actually, the only mini I had that did well was 'Taco'. That little bot beat the hell out of a few Hoss's troops before hauling ass across the table and doing the same to one of Scott's power armored guys. Then...he took a shot thru the head and went out of action. Sad face, he was only a soft taco...

TACO ATTACK!!! (yes, again) He beat the hell out of that kick-ass looking mini of Scott's up before going down to a head-shot.

Here's a close-up of said kick-ass looking mini which was painted by a different Scott in our group.

In the end, we called it as it was late. Still, much fun was had and we are all looking forward to more games of Rogue Stars in the future.

Antenocitis Workshop Anomala Car

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As I said in my previous post, I did some painting Sunday just not on any spess mahreenz. No actually I finished my Anomala car terrain piece for Infinity (ya know...that game I don't play). In hindsight, I ought to have sealed it with semi-gloss rather than matte varnish but oh well. The Ariadna are kinda like the rednecks of the infinity universe anyways, so oxidized paint on their cars is probably more of the norm than not...

No pics of the front, they all came out blurry and I'm too lazy to take more.

While its certainly not my best painted model, it came out alright I think. I need to give the stencils another go and hopefully it will work out better on the 2nd try. I did get a suggestion on my last post on this subject to not wait until the paint was dry before removing the stencil. Perhaps that'll work...dunno, guess I'll find out when I get around to painting the 2nd car.

Yuppie-flage? (WIP)

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I made my first attempt at using Fallout Hobbies' airbrush stencils. First off, I don't have an airbrush but figured that simply painting over them as normal would work fine. For the most part the stencil did except for when I peeled the it off, on several places it pulled the underlying paint off with it-all the way down to the bare resin!?!

Those gray spots are the bare resin...

They're mostly small spots that are easily covered, though on the other side of the car there was a big one that luckily is on a window which will be painted over in black anyways. Its still annoying though. Next time I'll clear coat the mini before applying the decal to see if that helps.

The stencil is something new for me and I'm not using it exactly as it was intended, so I'm sure there's a little bit of a learning curve to work thru...

New Toys!

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As I mentioned previously, I sent a bunch of minis off to Noble Knight Games for trade-in credit, and I received my credit just in time to buy some goodies on the last day of Noble Knight's spring sale! As you'll see, I got a bit of a hodgepodge of stuff for a variety of games:

Runts for the Runt God!

First up, some more (and much needed) Grymn for my 30k Outremar army. I can now field legal army with 1 HQ and 2 Troops choices in the primary detachment. These little guys and girls will flesh out my Grenadier squad to the 10-strong minimum. They're armed with bolters, and the Sgt.'s 2 pistols will count as a blast pistol which is twin-linked, STR: 5, and of such short range its liable to only ever be used in overwatch…but still looks cool which is the important part, right?

Right.

Next up: A TIE/FO Fighter for X-Wing. This gives us a trio of the new TIEs, only now we have all of the pilot options available. 

Vroom, vroooooom!

Next on the list is a pair of Antenocitis Workshop's Anomala car terrain pieces for Infinity. Aren't they adorable??? One of the Scotts (in name not heritage) at the FLGS who play Infinity (of which we have at least 3) has a bunch of these of various designs. Both my beloved Wolfy and I have always wanted some of our own even though she rarely plays the game and I don't. Infinity still intrigues me though and I'm liable to give it another go at some point.

Speaking of Infinity, I've always liked this Bombshell mini, and am thinking that I could use her for Infinity. Whilst she looks a bit top heavy (and not in the usual buxom manner), once painted she'll look better with her space suit's clear acrylic dome attached (and probably look even more off balanced too!). I was thinking she'd make for a good Mercenary Wardriver Hacker stand-in, as currently Corvus Belli doesn't make a mini for the Wardrivers. I guess she's hyper-allergic to the rest of my little Ariadna force, and is stuck wearing the bulky enviro-suit as a result…or something.

Last up is another Bombshell Miniatures mini: The HOpR Bot. I have no idea what I'll use this for, maybe Gruntz (not that I'll ever apparently play that game) or something. Who cares though, as again its kinda cute even if only as a shelf decoration.

….aaaand with that I had just enough of a credit left to cover the shipping cost.

The Rise of Infinity's Yu Jing!

o/

Sorry about yesterday's post, I simply ran out of time (I'm just squeaking this one in too!).

Anyways, last week on our FLGS' FB page, our friend Scott asked if anyone wanted some Infinity minis, because he was getting out of the game (he plays too many games apparently...). Now, my friends often lament the continuous cycle of me selling my armies, however I have nothing on Scott. Really what he needs is an army rental service (an idea to which his wife readily agreed!).

Now, as I'm sure you'll recall, I recently posted a rant on here about how Infinity hates me. Wolfy however, likes it a lot. She's even commented to me that D20s are her favorite kind of dice. I inquired to see if Scott would want something in trade (as our finances are always tight), he replied with Do you have any Imperial Guard? lol, whilst there may be too many games in Scott's repertoire, model count apparently isn't an issue.

I haven't fielded IG in quite some time (and well before the name change which I still don't use), and only had a pair of Chimeras left (one of which was a piece of shit wreck, and the other a Chapterhouse conversion). I also threw in a pair of Imperial Bastions, one painted and one unassembled half-bastion (it was sans the middle section with the Heavy bolters).

In trade, Wolfy got all of these (plus templates and tokens):

I posted the one on the left in this post previously.

The two female Samurai  in back have already been dubbed the 'Femurai'.

Aside from knowing that these four are Japanese 'cheerleaders', I don't know what any of these minis are. We're going to have to figure out what they are on CB's website.

All of them together.

In addition to all of the above, our buddy Hoss acquired Scott's Nomads (all unpainted) as well.

Scott said he'd paint the last two primed minis above to match the rest which is a good thing as his painting style is totally different than mine. Scott said he wouldn't rule out ever playing Infinity again, and I asked if he thought he'd get the bug again when he got around to painting those two minis. He just shrugged and said maybe, but it would be Pan-O next time around (not that he's thought about it...lol).

My first official Infinity rant...

...and only 3-4 games in, it sounds like one is due.

That D.E.P. (a bazooka essentially) is already pointed at your feet, just pull the trigger and get it over with buddy, your chances of survival are just about nil anyways...

Our buddy Hoss, local Infinity extraordinaire,  offered to give us another infinity demo using copy-cat Ariadna forces to myself, my wonderful, amazing and beautiful fiance Wolfy, and our opponent: Screech. Now...in every game of infinity thus far, it feels like no matter what I do, whether on offense, defense, whatever it doesn't matter, I'm always at a disadvantage. No one else has this issue, just me...trying to pin down just why that is, has left Hoss feeling quite perplexed.

A turn or so in and after nothing but abject failure on my part (as usual), I got frustrated and just walked the fuck away from the game leaving Wolfy to it. I came back after a little bit, and in my absence she had Screech on the ropes, having cut his force in almost half. I rolled a few more dice, succeeding in nothing more than splattering my Medic's guts across the sidewalk, got pissed again (and walked away again).

On my return, the game was just wrapping up with Screech's 'MVP' (i.e.: the last man standing) hiding behind a cargo container and saying nope, not coming out! So what's my problem. Were my fiance's dice rolling hot? No. Good? eh, maybe. Average? Yes, definitely. However from my point of view, average would be just awesome!

Ya know, everybody has to suffer thru a game now and again when the dice just say: Fuck you pal! You're not going to win today...and you don't. It sucks, we all know this. At worse, you have to slog thru 2 back-to-back games of this (unless of course you insist on using GW's shitty D6s, and make a career out of dice failures).

However it finally clicked Friday that that's my problem with Infinity, the dice have been in Fuck you mode in every game that I've played of it, what the actual fuck?!?! I need to roll high; I roll low. I need to roll low; I row high. I actually manage to hit (via some small miracle), and I lose the face-to-face roll. What. the. Fuck.

Its kinda hard to have fun when nothing works for you, ever! So far the only fun I've had with infinity is painting the minis. I can see the game's potential, I want to like it I really do, but thus far Infinity apparently hates me. Sure I could trash the dice and get new ones, but they worked just fine for my fiance this past game, and the one prior to that she was kicking ass and taking names with them!

...sigh...

Fuming on the way home she commented that: you're having fun with Bolt Action and X-Wing, why don't you just stick with those, and I'll play Infinity. Once I get the rules down better then we can play at home and you can try it again maybe...

Sounds like a plan as right now I don't want to play the fucking game at all!

My First Bolt Action Platoon

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I was hoping to get in a game of Bolt Action this coming weekend. However after inquiring on our FLGS' FB page, there were no takers...for this week anyways. Bob isn't able to make it this go round, but we have a 500 point get set up for next week.

What set this all in motion was I sat down to determine just how many points I could field earlier this week. I have a rules query sent into Warlord regarding the Dad's Army  list. It says that no units in that particular list can be veteran, however the Dad's Army can have up to 1 unit of Commandos-which have no option but to be veteran. Nothing in the FAQ mentions this conflict in rules, thus I await a response.

Rather than leave a squad out, I though 'Fuck it! I'll fold them into the other squads and make the all Home Guard.' The Commandos and their SMGs will instead fill in as Home Guard with Shotguns. Problem solved...for the time being.

Behold! The Aardvarks of war...

As always finances are short, but I do think I'm going to splurge a little bit with my income tax return and add another squad to this bunch. Probably Rhyflers (regular grunts) and another LMG gunner (BAR Automatic Rifle in BA terminology), some more bases, a new foam tray and a few extra Quar heads (well, and X-Wing's Most Wanted set assuming that FFG gets off their collective asses and finally fucking release it!), but I digress...

The Quar heads are needed because my troops appear to be missing a few. I guess before migrating to Bolt Action, a few of my Quar fought in a French Revolution game and didn't fare too well. Technically they are Royalists after all... lol.

For this weekend, I'm going to see if I can scrounge up a game of Infinity, and if not...then hell, I don't know what I'll play. Maybe I'll take command of Wolfy's Kroot in her 40k game...

Edit: Infinity is out, so the Kroot it is! Also, I found a bag o' Quar bitz with the missing heads, all sorts of other bitz, and even a few more Quar! So don't take the above photo as a guarantee of what I'll field Bob...

Awesome paint job, but kinda blah...

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lol, the title is how Wolfy described my Moblot's paint job! I like the grimy, frontline combat feel of them, rather than the pretty/anime look you see more often (and as she prefers). Their uniform camo and colors look like they're station in a semi-arid environment. I'm not sure if there are deserts on the Ariadna homeworld, but certainly there are plains/savannahs of some sort. No doubt my troops are stationed there.

My Spec Ops team thus far ('Army' doesn't sound like an appropriate term for Infinity).

Side and rear views of my Moblot, the frontal pic sucked, so you'll just have to view that in the pic above.

My Dozer Combat Engineer. As he's technically from a separate unit, his uniform is a bit different from the Moblot. No doubt my other units will also vary a bit as well.

This will be the only post for this week as my folks will be here tomorrow. So I'd like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Winter Solstice/and whatever else holidays I've missed!

Infinity Demo #2

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First off, what the hell happened to Thursday's post? Well...to be honest, I just plain forgot about it till after it should have been posted. Not having accomplished a whole lot on the hobby front aside from base coating an Ariadna Moblot I decided to just skip it all together.

Skip forward to this past Saturday in which we played a 3v3 Infinity demo game, and jeez, you'd think I'd have thought to take a photo or two. Nope, not a chance. In truth there was only one fully painted mini on the table, so even that wasn't all that photogenic. Well, aside from that one painted model. Scott's Yu Jing Zuyong Incinible in power armor is just fucking beautifully painted! I was completely blown away by it! Thanks to the interwebz' instant messenger though, Scott was able to send me a pic of it. Check it out:

So awesome!

Anyways, we had fun (and we won). Wolfy's contingent suffered no casualties, and as expected, her Wulver was kicking ass and taking names (and she never even made it to combat)! I still can't wrap my head around the face-to-face rolls and armor saves. Our friends who were giving the demo explained it a dozen times or so, but always in the same way. Repetition does not equal understanding if its not understood to begin with and it was quite frustrating.

This Hasslefree mini (Wolfy's is primed black, which is why I used the pic from the HF site) was what we were using as Wolfy's Wulver, named: Beyonsey (resembling but not to be confused with the singer Beyonce).

My Lt., the Moblot (again, the official pic).

 Still, the game has potential, especially as there is as much attacking in your opponent's turn as you own (which initially was also infuriating as I couldn't make any advance w/o getting lit up by 3-4 opposing models). I lost 2 of my 4 models in the first turn! That said, i found out really quick that I really like my Moblot's mimetism skill! That made up for (or at least balanced out) the Ariadna's lack of effective shooting at range! lol, as soon as I said 'mimetism', there was a volley of profanity sent my way from the other side!

I also got to see the size of the circular template in the game (apparently there is only one, and is about the size of a large blast in 40k), and damn! Our Traktor Muls are gonna be disgusting to play against! Who needs to worry about accuracy when you can just carpet bomb someone (whenever I figure out how to use it and considering the above, its probably not high on anyone's list to teach me)!

Infinity: 1st Traktor Mul finished!

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I'm not sure where the time goes but after another week, it seems there was little hobby time for me. I did get in a good game of Battletech at the FLGS (and was victorious!), but not much more than that. Squeezing in time here and there I managed to finally  finish the first Traktor Mul for my fledgling Ariadna force.

Per my norm, rather than going all anime-looking with it, I instead opted for dirt, grime and battle damage (including a brush guard that looks like its hit a tree or two). I still need to clear coat the camera and light lenses, but this is essentially the finished product.

I had to prop up the model with a rock underneath, due to it being so back-heavy. Without the rock, it kept tipping over, even popping up from being glued to its base! That's partly why I also added another 'decorative' rock to that base. I say partly as I realized that after I reglued the Traktor down, that it was off-center. Damnit. Thus, it looks as though the Mul just drove around the offending rock...

Hrmm...looks like I screwed up the color a bit in my photoshop tweaking...

This was also my first use of the Secret Weapon Miniatures leaf litter that I'd purchased several months back. I have to say that I really like that stuff. The base needed something...and that fit the bill nicely! It struck me as appropriate to put some on the traktor itself, since leaves like to collect between the hood and windshield of my car.

I still have no idea on how to use this thing, but hopefully I'll get a chance to use it this coming Friday.

Quonset the Hutt!!!

lol, actually there's only one 'T' in hut, but I couldn't resist.

About two weeks or so back, BoLS posted an article about Fantasy Flight's end of year sale. Most of it was RPG stuff, and whilst they were all good deals (if you played those RPGs), they were still too costly for me to buy at this point in time. All the more so as my RPG group has fallen apart with little hope of recovery. 

Idly perusing thru all of the sections, I clicked on Dust Tactics more out of boredom than anything else (I've never had any interest in the game), and stumbled on their Quonset hut 6-pack terrain set listed for a mere $4! 

lol-wut?!? 

Why do the boxes always look so much bigger on the webstore than when you get them at home?

Well, there's no wasted space at least!

I checked online for any reviews, and all were positive so I bought a set which came to $13.15 total with shipping. That translates into: $2.19 per hut! Hell, card-stock terrain costs more than that!

Total time of assembly: about 5 minutes, no glue or trimming required (meaning they still store conveniently in the box).

The scale is perfect for 28mm gaming!

My initial idea was to use them for Infinity. True, these are anything but anime-ish…but I'm going with the Ariadna, who are low-tech/3rd world-like anyways. Besides, these are cheap line-of-sight blockers that aren't my cityfight ruins. Especially as 40k's stereotypical SKULLS ON EVERY SURFACE design philosophy is also quite unanime-ish, not to mention a bit tiresome to look at after 2 decades of gaming in the grim dark. 

To me, Quonset huts scream WWII! Well that and cheap post-WWII housing. In the latter case, I know of 3 in my area, one of which I drive by every time I go to work. So for Bolt Action (which is Weird War II in my case), these will be perfect for terrain. To that end, I pulled my long hibernating (in their miniature cases) Quar out for a quick sweep and clear of the new huts! 

Note: My Camera-Quar is on hand, to photograph the event for propaganda purposes...

ALL CLEAR!

They line up nicely for a longer, multi-room hut as well.

My (futile?) hope is that my so-called opponents will get off their asses and actually build their armies after what…1-2 years? I'm not gonna hold my breath on that though. We're this far along and Rob still can't make up his mind on an army (his latest: I like the look of the Finns...kinda like he said for the Japanese and the Russians before them). My best hope is Bob who just recently picked up the Bolt Action rulebook. 

…sigh… 

I guess my over-weight Aardvarks (of a sort) still rule WWII...quonset huts and all. 

...and so Infinity begins...

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With my 40k minis going out the door in droves these days, I'll admit that very, very few minis are coming back in to replace them. Indeed, in exchange for the 100-200 or so minis that I've sold on ebay, only 5 new ones have been purchased with the proceeds (maybe 6...I think I bought a Battletech mech a month or so back as well). The rest of the $$$ has been dumped into the checking account and thus spent via the usual daily living expenses.

New toys, yay!

Of those few new toys, all (one mech aside) are for Corvus Belli's Infinity. I've purchased for myself an Ariadna Dozer-Engineer (below on the left) to go along with a pair of Traktor Mules (above), and a Moblot to use as a Lt. Only one of the Mules will be for me however with the other going to my GF Wolfy. I also bought a Dozer-Engineer for her as well, though her's is a Hasslefree mini rather than the Infinity model.

Her small collection of HF minis are all female and I figured we'd continue with that theme. However, Corvus Belli's female Dozer-Engineer is a ridiculous pin-up poster-like model with an RPG on her shoulder….because that's typical of even a sci-fi combat setting right? Bikini Battle Armor for the win! and all that nonsense. Instead I got Hasslefree's Modern Trooper: 'Harlequin' pictured below, who as you can see in the side-by-side comparison, looks badass while still being equal (equipment-wise) with her Corvus Belli sculpted male counterpart.

Copyrights of Corvus Belli and Hasslefree Miniatures.

Since we're just starting out, we'll both use her HF minis as stand-ins for: Metros, Line Kazaks and/or Caledonians, and one as a Wulver (who I've already decided is a: shoot that one first!!! model). These, along with the minis above clock in at a 100 point starting force for the each of us. After we figure the game's rules out more, we can decide then as to where we want to go with our troops from there...or if we'd prefer a different faction, etc..