Terrorgheist compared to Reaper Bones Clockwork dragon

A regular opponent Jim B picked up one of the Reaper Bones Clockwork Dragons. I used it in our Round 10 40k league game as a proxy Heldrake. My second Heldrake in that game was the Terrorgheist from my Vampire Counts army.

Jim has since based it and started painting it. I took a picture to show the comparable sizes of the two models. With the much better price point I might have to pick up two Clockwork Dragons for cheaper than one Heldrake. It also has an added bonus for use in other games, win win.

ColKG

The Last Valley by Martin Windrow book review

Hi Kids, Some of you might know that one of my favorite units of all time is the French Foreign Legion, and I tend to buy most of the books in English regarding them.  (Well, if I can afford them!) Martin Windrow has written quite a few of those books, and naturally the battle of Dien Bien Phu crops up every once and awhile.  "The Last Valley" is about that battle, and it is an absolute masterpiece!  It has replaced Jules Roy's "The Battle of DienBienPhu" as my favorite, and that's saying a lot.  If I had to have just one book about the French in Indochina, this would be the one.  Even if you have no particular interest in the battle, some of the descriptions of the military action are worth reading. It's been out in paperback for awhile now, so you kids should rush right out and pick one up!  I bet www.abebooks.com has 'em cheap!  If John Keegan digs it, its got to be good!

Flames of War sans arguing: Will wonders never cease?

Hi kids,  After six months in the wilderness Bryan and I decided to go ahead and play a game of Flames of War!  It seems gaming opportunities are getting fewer and farther between here in the booming metropolis, this is one of the few games we've been able to play since Historicon.  We decided on a 1250 point game of late war, Bryan took Huns and I played the good ole USA.

 Here's my army of the 3rd Infantry Division, can't remember the specific book.  HQ, 3 platoons of infantry, one HMG platoon, one recon platoon, one platoon of 5 Stuart light tanks and a tank destroyer platoon of 2 M10's.  One of the special rules for the 3rd ID is the TD's don't get the TD special rules, but can operate as arty if they feel like it. 15mm infantry and some vehicles are Old Glory Command Decision (rules can be summed up as "ugh'), while the remainder are Quality Castings from 19th Century Miniatures.

 The dreaded Hun horde.  Not sure if I've even seen such a large concentration of German troops.  Maybe it's the lack of Tiger tanks.  Buckets of infantry, mortars, HMG's, Pak 40 ATG's and even a fistful of StuG's.

 The American set up.  Jeep mounted Recon are out of frame under the camera.  Objectives are black bases.

The huns deploy.

 

 
Turn two and the Chuckster takes a chance, popping over the hill with the Stuarts to MG the crud outta everything on the other side.  Keeping a beady eye on the ATG's....

 25 dice worth of Stuart MG's crush the Hun platoon and the few pitiful survivors are pinned for the next three turns.  Trauma!

 The Stuarts move further towards the center hoping to stay lucky, the ATG's had missed every shot!  Meanwhile the Huns move in on the right, towards the objective next to the burning M10.  The US HMG's are pushed below 50% by an amazingly lucky mortar barrage.

 Unfortunately, the dice can only do so much.  The Stuarts did manage to beat up two German squads before they broke and ran, destroying the bailed out tanks.

 The Huns reach the objective but have taken some losses in the process.

 Melee takes out the final defenders, including the surviving M10.

 Meanwhile, on the other side of the map the Americans take out the last StuG with melee.  The way to the objective is clear!

 Rushing across the board to contest the German objective, a lonely command squad gets smacked around by the Huns!

While the US fails to take the objective behind the StuG's!  It looks like a German win!  Another 1000 years of darkness!  Oh the humanity!

20mm Vietnam model count

Some of the local lads have been talking about gaming the American involvment in Vietnam. Foe once I am almost ahead of the curve miniature wise. Back in my Army days a group of my buddies started playing some Vietnam games using the Phoenix Command rules. We used many of the extra add on rules from the advanced agme and had a great time. The rules were more suited to a skirmish game and we only had a half dozen players.

The painted US troops. Two M203 grenade launchers, one M79 grenade launcher, one M60 gunner. one 12 gauge shotgun, one sniper with a suppressed m16 with a nightvision scope and four M16s. Enough models for a sniper and two fire teams.

The painted NVA/Viet Cong..Ten Ak-47s, commander with Ak-47, 2 SKS rifles, two RPD lmgs and a single RPG launcher. That gives me enough models for two squads. Once again not enough for a larger game but plenty for any number of skirmish scenarios.

The rest of the unpainted figures. The Americans have another M79, a couple more M203s, eight or so M60s, around twenty M16s and one more 12 gauge shotgun. For the NVA, I have another RPG, three RPD lmgs, a few more SKSs and around ten or so AK-47s.

I have enough Americans for a decent sized platoon but will probably have to pick up more NVA if we play big games. They all need to be based and I will probably touch the models paint up a bit. They are discussing different rules to use but I would prefer to stick with Disposable Heroes and use their Vietnam supplement The Long Road South. More when the decision is made and we get to work.

ColKG

Zomtober third Ghoul

Here is the third Ghoul for Pulp Citizen's Zomtober Painting challenge.

Another oop metal Ghoul.

skin base coated

Skull and loin cloth scorched brown.

loin cloth and skull inked. The knife was dry brushed with tin bitz and then a drybrush with boltgun metal.

Another finished ghoul.

One thing to be said about keeping a journal when you are painting. The model on the left is one I painted back in 2005 and the right the new addition. I used my journal to match the colors and they look really close. The main differences are the knife and the skull. In 2005 I just painted the knife boltgun metal and used a chestnut ink wash. I think the tin bitz and boltgun drybrush adds more to the newer model. The skull on the 2005 I went a bit heavy with skull white. I like the aged look of the newer model more. The washes are slightly different shades on the bases but once they are all mixed together I doubt it will show.

ColKG

Iron Warriors verses Eldar, 40k League Round 12

We come to the last 1500 point game for the 40k league. The Iron Warriors face Mike W's Eldar once again. I played Mike earlier in the league but SWMBO had the family camera so no battle report for that one.

The game was Crusade with Vanguard strike deployment. We rolled light for terrain but only three objectives. We rolled off and I placed two.

Area terrain for the chaos gods. Nurgle daemon prince, khorne lord on juggernaut with his spawn escort and the Iron warrior chaos marine squad. The Khorne lord and Daemon prince line up to cross no mans land while the Iron warriors can hold the line.

The Iron Warrior Havocs camp on an objective in a crater in my back field.

Mike's Eldar consisted of Two Warp Spider squads, a Jetbike squad with a warlock, Farseer and Autarch joined, and two dire avenger squads in wave serpents.

The Eldar take first turn and move out. They shoot down two of the spawn and put a couple wounds on the Daemon Prince.

The Khorne lord splits out from the Spawn to charge the warp spiders and is gunned down. Once again I rolled unworthy for his chaos mutation and then took a wound as he left area terrain. Then the Warp spiders had the snap shot with normal ballistic skill which finished him off.

The Daemon Prince made the charge and challenged the Warp spider exarch and put him down. The Black Mace made the exarch explode and kill another WarpSpider. I hindsight I finally managed to fight a challenge and then forgot the chaos boon roll for winning it.

The Warp Spiders did a hit and run so the Daemon prince consolidated into the ruins.

The other warp spider squad and both wave serpents fire up the daemon prince and takes his last wounds.

The exarchless Warp spider jump around and then assault into the Iron warriors. The Iron Warriors win the combat.

Then the Warp spiders do the hit and run two step .

The Jetbikes move in and fire up the Havocs. Around this time is when I failed to bring on any of my reserves.

The Warp spiders move back up again to fire on the Iron Warrior squad.

The Warp spiders charge in and the combat is drawn.

I finally managed to get a Heldrake and an obliterator squad in from reserve. I dropped the Obliterators in danger close and mishapped them back to reserve. This left me with a Heldrake and two Iron Warriors on the table. I still had more units in reserve but at most I could control one objective and contest one but I had two game turns yet to go. I decided to concede the game, if I was able to contest all the objective he was still going to win by two.

We are going up to 1850 points for the last four rounds of the league. Some things I learned is, I can't depend on a save no matter how good. An assault oriented chaos lord isn't the way to go in 6th edition. This edition is definitely the shooting edition of 40k.

ColKG

PS, I just heard from my round 13 opponent and he can't make the game so I will get my third default win. This leaves me at 3 wins, 2 draws, and 8 losses. A win is a win no matter how you skin it. Three more games till the league ends and maybe I can bring the numbers up for the last hurrah.

More Iron Warriors wip

The 40k league has gone up to 1850 points and I needed more Iron warriors with bolters to round out my list. I took a group of my Generic Terracotta Chaos Marines cleaned them up to paint as Iron warriors.

The new Iron Warriors heading into the painting assembly line. The majority of the models are the third edition chaos warriors with a bit of Khorne berserker and loyalist bits mixed in. Once I get them finished they will blend in with my original Iron Warriors almost seamlessly.

ColKG