Catawba Gamers at PBKW

I went with Chuckaroobob and John Bays to Parker, Banner, Kent and Wayne in Cornelius for a Catawba Gamers gaming day. PBKW is a nice comic/gaming store that I have heard about but this was the first time I had ever been there. The main event was a the Sword and the Flame game GMed by Chuckaroo. It was a French vs. the Arabs game with nine players, 4 European and 5 native. After a exciting game it was called as a European win. A couple of the major points were a French Foreign Legion square sending off at least 3 units of Arabs and damaging a couple others and a unit of Dutch colonial troops firing up a native unit and destroying a European lancer unit at the same time. I think one of the contributing factors to a European win was that the Native couldn't buy a dice roll. I couldn't count the failed closing to combat rolls they made. I would like to thank ChuckarooBob for a great game.
After the TSATF game we broke up for some 1000 point Flames of War games. I took my Soviets and fielded a strekovy batalon. I team up with a couple guys splinting a Cossack soviet force. We squared off against some German players in a simple one objective "King of the Hill" scenario. First of all I need to say I should probably read the rulebook before I try to play another game of Fow. I haven't played a pure infantry army ever. They play much differently from my mostly armored force I normally field. There is a big difference in 1500 point armies and 1000 point armies and how you play them. I had fun playing but found I had a different opinion on how several rules can be interpreted.
I ,of course, forgot my camera. I had placed it on the table so I would not forget it and did, so sorry no pictures this time.
I did pick up some Africa korp 15mm Germans that I plan to convert into Handscar SS troops by turning their soft hats into Fezzes. I also traded John B some chaos stuff for some Dark Elves. Now I just have to get those dark elves onto the table.

Chuckaroobob at Historicon

Here he is The Chuckster living it up at Historicon. This picture was posted up on the Victorias Boys in Red blog and I reposted it here for your viewing pleasure.

Campaign Mega battle

A couple weeks ago I played in a campaign megabattle at Greg Downing's Battle Bunker. Originally the plan was to play a round robin series of games were everybody played each other and have a cookout. We ended up with an odd number of players so the plan changed to a megabattle and a cookout. The Sides ended up Greg with his Sisters of Battle, John Nellis and his Blood Angels and me with my Adeptus Mechanicus Imperial Guard verses Jim Barr and his Wordbearers and Shaun Parrish with his Chaos Marines. We set up a T-shaped table and placed 6 objectives. One in each deployment zone and 4 in No-mans land.
My Infantry. An infantry platoon with a special weapon squad, a vet squad, Col.Elvo (straken proxy) and Mort Brandysnap, Ratling Saint Of Killers (Marbo Proxy)

The Tanks. Two Chimeras, two hellhounds as Banewolf proxies, a Demolisher with a hull lascannon and plasma sponsons, an Executioner with a hull lascannon and Plasma sponsons and an Exterminator with 3 heavybolters.

The Battlefield

Defiler defenders

Jim's Wordbearers

Sisters and Banewolves hold the flank

Sisters protect the demolishers rear

Sisters defend the objective in our deployment zone.

Blood Angels in the backfield

The lads in cover. Too many big templates on the other side to start in the open. My plan was to keep them alive and around turn 4 run them to the objective on the other side of the building they were behind.

The Executioner and more sisters ready to move out.

Col. Elvo and the platoon commander riding in chimeras and the vet squad using them for cover.

Chaos flank as the Word Bearers move out.

The Raptor squad move toward the objective in the ruins.

The Banewolves move up trying to get a shot on the Chaos Marines and Thousand Sons before they can shoot down the Sisters.

Executioner moves up and takes some shots at the word bearer Dreadnought.

Col. Elvo and the vets move up and make a run for the objective in the ruins. Followed by the Seraphim Squad and the Cannoness.

An Obliterator with a bad scatter near the back board edge.

Wordbearer terminators arrive along with a bunch of summoned Daemons.

Daemon Prince takes out a Banewolf.

Sisters outflanked by the Wordbearers.

Col. Elvo, his ringer squad and the Vets verses the Raptors.

Terminators smoke the Demolisher while the sisters make a run for the objective on top of the hill.

The vets run and leave Col. Elvo and his Medic to finish off the Raptors.

The Khorne berserkers disembark into a crossfire.

The surviving Berserker charges the Blood Angels.

Col. Elvo finishes off the Raptors! Well, he might have had a little help from the Blood Angel Terminators and some Death Company lead by Chaplain LeMartes.

Defiler on the rampage over an objective.

Cannoness duels with a Chaos Dreadnought while the survivng guard and Serephim make a run for the chaos objective.

Of course, the most important action of the end game and I didn't take a picture of it. It was when Mort Brandysnap appeared tossed his demo charge on some noise marines and contested the Chaos deployment zone Objective. This turned the game from a draw to an Imperial Win. Shaun, I believe, was scarred by this maneuver as he has commented on it everytime I have seen him since. I had a good time and look forward to more games at the Downing Battle Barn.

Work In progress shots

I went to Inquisitor Downing's Battle Barn yesterday for a Campaign Mega Battle. I will post up a report later but here are some WIP shots of what I am working on at the moment.

Adeptus Mechanicus Officer with a power fist and plasma pistol. I built this one a few weeks ago to lead an anti-Nurgle command squad in my game against John Bays. He worked out well and I have been fielding his squad in the last couple games I have played. He will eventually end up with a red paint scheme and metallic gold highlights.

With the release of the New Imperial Guard codex I have decided to increase the number of infantry squads in my Adeptus Mechanicus army.These two are going to be the sergents of two new squads. These two originally had pistols but I cut them off and gave then meltaguns. Later I broke the meltaguns off to use on other models. I painted these up with my Delaque heavy weapon platoon and left them without firearms so when the new codex came out all I had to do was add the special weapons to them as part of the Heavy weapon platoon. Of course the heavy weapon platoon was no longer in the codex so now they are promoted to sergents.

Colonel Elvo's bodyguards. A couple of escher juves I had laying around. the one with the club was a miscast missing half its head. I resculpted the head and scalp lock and I think it will be hard to notice it once I get her painted.

Three medics. Nothing like feel no pain to help a squad out. I am debating about building a fourth medic for when I field a third platoon.

A regimental standard and 2 platoon standard bearers. Again I am debating on building another platoon standard for my projected third platoon.

Oldies but Goldies, some of my old rogue trader Commissars. I stripped the old paint jobs and then rebuilt them to use with the new codex. A couple had stormbolters and all of those had to go away.

A detail shot of the power fist/plasma pistol commissar. I used and old Eldar power fist and added a little green stuff to cover up the eldar armor on the arm.

Here is a side project I have been working on, a Las Carbine. It is a cut down lasgun with a 1mm rod barrel and a couple 5mm strips of 1mm x2.5mm styrene strips glued together to make the magazine. I have some other odds and ends lasgun conversions I have been working on. I am Planning on making them a Vet squad or a Kill team. The inspiration for the conversion was a picture of an Arbite entry team conversion in the white dwarf magazine.

Italian machine gun finished.

Here is a closer view.

Here is a comparison picture on my scratch build and the inspiration, a Bolt action Italian machine gun.

More Assassins

Here are a few Assassins I rebased and touched up for my buddy Tuna. I rebased them to match the ice bases of his Imperial guard army.

More Reinforcements

I finally caught up with Patrick and traded him a bundle of trucks for a pile of Catachans. I did a few repairs and then built a few more lasgunners so I would have an even one hundred and fifty. That is three full conscript squads. It will be a while before they all get painted. I think I will divide them up and base and paint them ten or twenty at a time till they are all base coated with three colors and a flocked base. I am still figuring lists and plan to get them on the table soon.
This is what one hundred and fifty lasguns looks like.

The rest of my assembled catachans. I did have a bunch more of these modeled as ork hunters but after the last codex release invalidated their list, I broke alot of them apart and used them to add to my Adeptus Mechanicus Guard army. Until I went to field a regular catachan army and had to build some to have a legal list again.

Some new and rebuilt AMIG troops. The four meltagunners were vets with bionics and stormbolters under the old codex. So I broke them apart and added new arms and meltaguns. In the left rear is Col Elvo with his new plasma pistol and the start of a new paint job. He also has a shotgun but I have to finish painting him before I glue it back on. The other figures are three medics and 3 standard bearers.

A Flames of War box O fun. The majority of a Soviet gods of war artillery battalion and a bunch of flamethrowers. I needed something to light up all those German tanks.

Here is my 28mm Semovette WWII. It is the back up to my Italian paratroopers. We mostly have been the disposable heroes rules from Iron Ivan for our 28mm WWII games. The vehicle rules allow pintle machine guns and they don't increase the points cost but the machine gun has to be modeled. I could have used an mg34 or mg 42 and called it a Breda 8mm but that isn't what I wanted. I decided to scratch build one to go on the tank.

I still need to add a front sight and the grips on the back. It is a little larger than the bolt action machine gun I have been using to judge the scale but I think it will work fine.