Sculpting Spirit Host wip

I have started on yet another project. I picked up a pack of the finecast spirit hosts and I was disappointed. The amount of work I will need to apply to them is going to take me quite a while to get them ready for the table. I have decided to sculpt my own Spirit host master, so I can cast it in resin. It is another slow burn project but eventually I will finish it and cast up a pile for my Vampire Counts to command.

The start. I used a piece of plastic sprue, a brass wire and a roll of milliput to get it going.

Much more milliput and a skull added

A hood added

 I trimmed off a bit to shape it better and then added some green stuff to form the arms and the basic form s of the hands.

So far my plan is to use greenstuff sculpt a flowing robe covering the the hands and hanging down under the arms. the cover the rest of the model with a greenstuff robe. A lot more to go, just adding a little bit at a time.

ColKG

Empire Flagellants wip

I picked up a big bits lot at the last GameOnGw Gamesday at Gaming Underground. Part of the lot included a bunch of the empire flagellant torsos and heads but very few arms. I had many ideas to use them as conversions for a bunch of different models, ghouls, zombies, chaos cultist, empire militia, etc. I put them in a bits box to wait for the right time to start working on them. Not long ago I saw an auction on ebay for a different model but it included some partially built flagellants and a stack of the Flagellant sprues. I bid and won the auction. Once I received the package I had almost enough arms to build all the models. I trimmed the sprues and organized the bits but once again they would wait for another day.

The day came sooner than I thought. I have been working up my Ogre Kingdom army for an upcoming Warhammer Fantasy league. The organizer is planning on using some cool rules including baggage trains.  I have some celtos chariots and I plan to build a few of them to make some carts for the Ogres loot but then I remembered the flagellants in stocks bits. I hadn't planned to use them but them I though about using them as prisoner models in the baggage train.

The five prisoners/ slaves / surplus food for the ogre baggage train.

Along with the flagellants in stocks I assembled a few others just for fun and to see how well they go together. So far I like the plastic flagellants and will get them painted up soon.

ColKG

Rebased Rogue Trader Sentinels

Recently I used my Adeptus Mechanicus Imperial Guard army in a local 40k tournament. I wanted to use my old Imperial Guard land speeders with plasma cannons as armored sentinels with plasma cannons. I asked the Tournament organizer to decide if I could use them before the tournament and because of their smaller size he said no. In hindsight I have determined it was a good call on his part and I would have had problems against some of the people I played if I had used them.

After the speeders were disqualified I tried to figure out how to get a couple plasma cannons sentinels to replace them. My plan was to dig out my old Rogue trader Imperial Guard sentinels and use them as scout sentinels with auto cannons and magnetize two plasma cannons to go on my scout sentinels. The old sentinels were on 40mm square bases and I knew this wouldn't float so I decided to re base them onto 60mm round bases. While I was at it I decided to re position the legs to better poses than they had. So I started breaking them apart. I clean up some mold lines and a few other odds and ends and then started gluing one back together. In a instant the memories of years ago flooded back and I remembered why they had badly posed legs, it was the only way I could get them to go together. After fighting with them for far too long I decided to drop the armored sentinels with plasma cannons from my list and replace them with two armored sentinels with las cannons instead.

Since I had already broken the sentinels apart I decided to continue on and rebuild and re base them to use with my Adeptus Mechanicus army.

The four rogue trader sentinels re based and flocked. I based them on some 60mm round bases I cast in resin.

Here is a close up view of the standard pilot wearing a helmet. The helmet is the same as the original plastic Imperial guard from back in the day.

Here is a close up view of the sentinel pilot wearing a soft hat.

Last is the little sentinel that could. I picked it up in a lot or a trade but I don't remember from whom or where. I didn't break it apart because I need to add a section to both of its legs to get it closer in height to the other four.

I will probably base coat everything in shadow grey when I repaint them to match my Adeptus Mechanicus Imperial Guard army.

ColKG

7th Panzer / 4th North African Smackdown: Disposable Heroes in 1940 France

 Hi Kids,  I'm reading Alistair Horne's "To Lose a Battle," the story of the 1940 French campaign and it dynamited me out of my rut and into the mood to do some gaming!  So what would be more natural than an encounter from northern France?  The situation is 14 May 1940, Rommel's 7th Panzer Division has crossed the Meuse River and is pushing outward from its bridgehead, running into the crack 4th North African Division, the best division in the French 9th Army.  It's one of the few encounters the Germans had where the French put up a determined fight.  Here we have some shots of the opposing sides:  The German infantry; I think these guys are 25mm Battle Honors, but its been so long I can't be sure.  They are backed up by some Westwind AA guns; 2 Quad 20mm and 2 37mm.

 The Hun armor; 2 Westwind Pz4, one Company B Sdkfz 231, and 3 Army Group North Pz 38T's.  Yeah, I painted the 38T's way on back when I thought that dark german grey was all the rage.

 And facing them, some Artizan FFL with some Brigade Games WW1 Sikhs to bulk up the numbers.  Providing heavy weapon support are the recently painted Crusader ATG's, HMG's, and mortars.

 The French 1:56 armor; 2 Company B P16 halftracks and 3 Army Group North R35 tanks.  I spent the extra points for the long 37mm gun, hopefully it'll be enough to deal with the panzers!

 The French set-up, I used a scenario out of  "Go Forward Together," the British book for Disposable Heroes.  There is a roadblock near the dice pile. The Germans must capture either the roadblock or two buildings in the village; the church and the far building. The forests on the left foreground are on top of a large hill which would provide cover for the Germans as they approach.

 The Huns deploy, massing the armor and infantry on the north end of the table.  The flak guns are set up covering the wide area on the south side of the tree-lined road.

 At the end of turn one the French are starting to take some hits, especially their 25mm AT Guns are a high priority target. The French armor move into position to resist.

 The Huns approach through the fields, stopping under the cover of a hedgerow.

The Huns move into the lee of the hill, while the armor trades shots with the French. The small beads are acquisition markers.

 The first of many, a P16 brews up!

 A Pz 38T runs out of luck, while the others provide cover for the infantry.  The 25mm ATG is more dangerous than it looks!  But then again, this is 1940.

 The Pz 4's creep out of cover to get better fields of fire.

 Holy Cow, the French are getting crushed by the fire superiority of the Hun hordes approaching!  The 25mm ATG, an HMG, and two LMG teams have all be killed, while an 8 man rifle element is reduced to 4 men!  The second P16 has approached the road block while the third R35 uses the wall for cover.  The French armor demonstrated the mysterous ability to roll minimum damage to all German targets; bouncing shots off tracks, license plates, and sideview mirrors with chilling regularity!  I think one 37mm shell ricocheted off an armor driver's gold tooth.

 The end is near, the second P16 brews up and the churchyard has been cleared of French!

 One squad of Germans crests the hill to see two 81mm mortars, a rifle squad and an R35 in cornfields. The R35 in the background cornfield has an awe-inspiring collection of acquisition markers, most of them unfriendly.

The French are looking mighty thin as the Pz4's close the distance.

 The R35 at the corner of the churchyard finally scores a deadly hit on the nearest Pz38T! The Pz4's shift for better angles while the remaining Pz38T discovers he can't provide cover for all the swarms of Hun infantry by himself. It's a crying shame there are so few French to shoot back!

  The R35 on the other side of the wall has been destroyed.  The sole remaining French tank desperately tries to slow down the Hun juggernaut!  The French infantry has been shifting towards this side of the battlefield for practically the entire game, but are not arriving fast enough to replace loses.

The final moments!  The Huns advance to claim the roadblock, winning the game.  Very few French are left to tell the tale, the largest French unit still alive is a 4 man mortar team!  About 15 French elements were killed.  Not much happened on the southern half of the table, the only German units to advance were held off by the French without too much trouble, although it did take the majority of the game to kill off all the Flak guns and HMG team.

So I'm thinking of running this one for the Catawba Gamers' Feb game.  I think the situation needs some changes to give the French a better chance.  I'm considering making the hill smaller, letting the French set-up further onto the table, letting some of them set-up hidden, and giving field phones to the officers and mortars so the mortars actually can hit something.  The entire game only one mortar hit its target, although it did kill about 4 guys when it did!  I might also alter the tree-lined road so it does not block line-of-sight, that way the other half of the French defenders might not have to spend most of the game running to the other side! Or maybe I can just paint up more French!  I still have about 20 Artizan Gourmers!  Although I should paint them anyway just to replace the Sikhs.

Adeptus Mechanicus verses Squat Marines

After three tournament games you would think I was gamed out but apparently not. Jim one of the resident Dark Eldar players has been building a Squat army based on the Space marine codex. He is using many of the old Rogue Trader vehicles and scratch building or converting everyone of the infantry. I picked unit out of my Adeptus Mechanicus army and we played a 1015 point battle.

He moves out his tactical squad in a rhino and a convert old Rogue Trader dreadnought.

The Ratlings hold the high ground while the Blob squad runs through the ruins.

Squat vindicator

The Squat Vindicator.

Squat Storm Raven

 Squat Storm raven

A plasma gun gets lucky and destroys the vindicator.

"Papa Smurf" The squat terminator librarian drops in and gets swarmed by the blob squad. He challenges a sergeant and kills him.

"Papa Smurf" goes down to the second sergeant's power axe but the tactical squad joins the fight. The sergeant takes up the sergeants challenge and is killed.

The Commissar takes up the challenge and the two duel.

The Platoon commander joins the fight as the Commissar finishes off the tactical sergeant.

The Rhino moves onto the objective while the squat storm raven strafes the ratlings.

The last Tactical marine runs but regroups.

The Marine moves into the ruins and charges the Ratling sniper survivors. They fight and the Ratlings hold the line again.

Things I learned is ratling snipers shooting marine scout snipers in the ruins is ans exercise in futility. Jim won the game but I had a great time and look forward to playing his squat army again.

ColKG

Adeptus Mechanicus verses Tyranids

I recently took my Imperial Guard Adeptus Mechanicus army to a 40k tournament held at                 Gaming Underground in High Point NC. My third game of the tournament was against one of the store owner's Tytranids.

I set up the Adpetus Mechanicus army to try and make a run for the center objective.

The tyranid swarm approaches.

The Hive tyrant was on the platoon turn one, so much for my plan to go for the center.

The Harpy heads for the troops bunkered down in the ruins with the friendly objective. I rolled the Conqueror of cities and every unit had stealth ruins and that would end up playing  a big part in the game.

The rest of the swarm moves out. Two of the tervigon rolled doubles so they were done breeding gaunts.

The Mawloc appeared and made a bad day for the Enginseer.

The sentinels arrive on the tyranid deployment zone to try and budge the tervigon and a gaunt brood off of their objective.

The only guardsman left from the infantry platoon made an end run to shoot up a spore mine cluster. The armored sentinel in the background is immobilized from from a hit from the mycetic spore that dropped behind the building with the Doom of Malan"tai. The Doom burned up a bunch of my other infantry platoon and had built up ten wounds when he failed his save against a lascannon hit and was instant killed. Then the plasma platoon command squad destroyed the mycetic spore.

The lone guardsman holds the line, but not for long. The last tervigon rolls doubles so no more new gaunts. I dropped Marbo in and he dropped a demo charge on the death leaper and killed it. The next turn a bunch of gaunts gunned him down but that is how it normally goes.

The Hydras manage to bring down the winged Hive Tyrant. The infantry squad in the back is one that ran from the Doom before it was taken out. The lone plasma cannon servitor is in front of the Griffon mindlocked waiting for the mawloc to finish it off.

The Plasma platoon command squad spreads out to avoid a large blast.

The Tyranids last hurrah. I had forgotten to fire the griffon one turn and that allowed the swarm of gaunts to get in range of the tower. They fired on the camo cloaked company command sniper squad the primaris joined. All the veteran sniper were killed but I look out sired all the hits on the Primaris over to the Company commander with a camo cloak and stealth ruins. Both ended up taking a wound but they survived.

The game was a lot of fun but the Tyranids won it five to two. It ended up a much better result than I thought it would be when the first Infantry platoon was burnt down turn one. It was the first time I had played against the Doom of Malan'Tai and I now understand why tyranid players love it so.

To sum up the day I had an overall good time with two fun games. Much better than the last one I went too that put me off tournament for years. If I bring guard to the next one it is going to be with a brand new plan. what is more likely is I will delve into the Chaos collection and bring either a Chaos Daemon force or Chaos Space Marines.

ColKG