Wednesday 31 May 2023

'nids part 342 - Parasite of Mortrex and Zoanthrope - chitin highlights

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my #Tyranid Parasite of Mortrex. Blogging is taking somewhat of a back seat at the moment, which is frustrating, but I'm progressing so much with the hobby I guess something has to be sacrificed to fit it all in.


The reality is that this model is well finished now, these pics were from April 23rd! Not only is it finished but I've finished other models and moved other things on significantly too.


But my son is due back from Uni in a few weeks so I need to 'make hay while the sun shines' as I will have less hobby time when he gets back. Don't get me wrong I look forward to our time together, I love it, but it often feels like I have less time to paint.


I'll organise things better this time as he may be studying from home/Liverpool next year so better to get things structured so we know when we're going to do stuff. Anyway, I painted the chitin highlights on the Parasite... 😂



And I did the highlights on the upgraded Zoanthrope.


I'm still uncertain about the glow on the brain bits. As all three Zoie's are now boxed away I don't 100% remember what I decided, I'll have to wait till I look at the TO DONE! pics in the next post.


This is such an awful model in metal, the Finecast one I have isn't too bad but they're so top-heavy in metal.


Anyway, one set of highlights to do, the claws and then the glow and he's TO DONE!


Hopefully I'll get some more posts cranked out, I don't think I've even finished all the WarhammerFest pics yet! I'll do my best, but rest assured I'm as frustrated as you that I'm not keeping up with this -having a record of my progress and achievements is the primary goal of this blog. The fact people even bother to check it out still is just an added bonus. But if I'm not recording my progress I begin to feel real antsy, and the failure to document my bottle reports is equally distressing, moreso in a way. Must try harder! 

Friday 19 May 2023

Battle Reports #Turnip28

Afternoon, I've been a fan of Max FitzGerald's Turnip28 for ages. Although it's not like I need another game to get into or have the time the aesthetic fascinates me - Napoleonic/Medieval root based vegetable warfare with funny names. The colours are so unlike how I paint, not high contrast saturated highlights so the challenge of total grunge and browns rally appeals. That said it was Otty who had the spare figures and time to make not one but two armies to play with his son. They're a bit brighter than I'd do but he was doing them the way he son wanted them. Anyway, he suggested us having a game, which although I was intrigued I'd had such fun with Middle Earth Bolt Action I doubted this could live up to those heady heights... but I was wrong. I was so excited I had to write the reports up, although if I was a true 'content creator' this would probably nose dive my algorithm, but I don't care about that nonsense 😁

OK, simple setup, 5 objectives - the pigs and 2 wagons in my half and two wagons in Otty's son's. I had a stump gun and he had brutes and chaff's [skirmishers] instead but it seemed like a balanced force.


My Stump Gun got an early kill in a preliminary bombardment.


I'd pushed forward with the super-fast moving Whelps and charged his Whelps. I was really successful with hitting but he saved more. He hit badly but I saved badly and ended up losing with only one Whelp legging it.


This allowed my Fodder pikes to join my Toff on the right. My Stump Gun fired properly and decimated his crossbow Fodder, who ran away.


My Pike fodder got into the trench and took out the Whelps. The Stump Gun totally obliterated the opposing Toff - everything hit, everything wounded - it was like he'd been in a nutri-bullet!


I think Otty's son made a tactical error he. We realised his Chaff were untouchable - skirmish and in cover I just couldn't hit him in cover, but instead of using that to his advantage he marched out of the ruins to secure the pigs. This put him in charge range of my musket Fodder who killed all but one of the Chaff.


Brutes shambled out of the cemetery.


And slaughtered my fodder in the trench. But then they were exposed to the stump gun who blasted them to pieces


All that was left was the black powder smoke and the taint of burnt veg. But my Toff got killed by some crossbow fire and suddenly my advantage was in doubt. Otty's son had secured 2 objective. and now I only had the 1.


I could move to secure a second, to draw or I could charge the Toady in the wagon top left, with Whelp to capture the objective. But I needed to pass a blunder, get a high 2D6 charge, survive a dangerous terrain test hurdling the trench and then win the combat. Draw or gamble a win/loss. I went for glory, passed all I needed to and cut the Toff down with ease.


OK, plenty of first game mistakes were noted afterwards but all things considered a really good game. There's still an advantage for going first but that's mitigated by activating only a toff/Toady and a unit at a time. So there is little hanging around with passive play. I really, really enjoyed it.


So much so, we had a second game and it wasn't even 10pm! Otty took the reigns this time and we swapped forces as he was convinced the Stump Gun was too good. I was lucky again to win deploying objectives first so I did take advantage of that keeping 3 of them in my half but I deployed conservatively making use of the available terrain.


This is turn 2, a lot had happened, Otty's whelps had breached the cemetery [with 1 dying on the railings], but my Chaff had obliterated them shooting through the gates [we'd later discover I should have added +1 to my Inaccuracy but the dice were hot so it might not have made a difference. But otty followed up with the Fodder Pikes. He had 11 at this stage, his first 8 dice were mainly 5s and 6's on the dangerous terrain test climbing the railing. 


The remaining 3 dice were all 1's, but one of the dice landed out of the box so he re-rolled it in the box and got a 1! 🤣 I was n hysterics at this point.


The remaining 8 charged the Whelps but they were too traumatised from the loss of their chums, got battered and clambered back over the railings - killing another 1 or 2 in the process! 🤣


My brutes charged the musket Fodder, which had been peppered with Chaff and crossbows from my Fodder. The legged it but not before doing some damage to the Brutes.


Otty's Toady killed the Brutes Toady, but I think that opened him up to be shot at by something.


I think it was my Toff, while my Brutes wiped out the last of the Pike Fodder.


Otty's Toff tried to secure the objective but my Brute got in there and we traded about twenty dice roles - each unable to get a hit and when we did making lucky saves.


But eventually The Brute pulled him down and mulched him into the dirt.


With my Toff holding the cemetery objective, Brute holding Otty's baggage train my Whelps marched to capture the barrels, casually floating over the railings festooned with dead, red, fodder. All that was left of the reds was one fodder running for the hills and the totally panicked Stump Gun


SO. MUCH. FUN. The game is simple and I know we're playing the basic version [wrongly] but the mistakes we identified make sense and I've no doubt we will mater it in time. I desperately want my own guys ot paint up but will happily wait until I've cleared some things from my TO DO LIST. Anyway, rocking up and just using the figures that are there is part of the appeal. I don't have to unpack anything, or pack it up at the end of the day. The painting is already done and even better, we finished 2 games by midnight.

I've realised, the game is irrelevant so long as it is fun. Currently, with MESBG, Middle Earth Bolt Action and now Turnip28 we've 3 systems that are tactical, fun, funny and ready to go. 10th edition 40k has a lot to catch up to this lot. But, even if it fails there are plenty of options here to expand and explore while still enjoying playing toy soldiers with my mates!

Tuesday 16 May 2023

#WarhammerFest Photodump 2 - Golden Demon

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I went to #WarhamerFest2023 and took over 250 pictures! Unfortunately that means you have to sit through my 'holiday snaps'. My next mixed bag of images, I'll probably never know if I shared all of them this way, needed a better system. Most of these were snaps I took of the Golden Demon entries. As it was Monday I think almost all of these might have got finalist pin badges. There's not much I'll say about them as I was just guerrilla photographing whenever I saw a gap in the crowd.





































I loved this spider creature, the palette in particular was so cool.









This was amazing and the pictures do not do it justice as it's hard to work out what is actually going on.


But the colours were out of this world, the kitbashing and construction that went into it...


And the painting itself was stunning.








No disrespect, but seeing this finalist gave me hope that I could one day achieve a pin. The Rhino is really well executed. I think on my best day[s] I could achieve this level but it's also small - and I can now imagine a scenario where I didn't have to paint something massive, but to this standard and it's worthy of that GD pin badge. 'I could do that' in this case is not intended as incredulity, it is inspiration and realisation. So, maybe next time...









Another inspirational entry - the Mozrog on the right. Midwinter Minis did this in a couple of days and got a finalist pin. Of course you need the talent and experience to be able to do that in such a small timescale but it again gives me confidence that you don't have to spend a lifetime on a piece. None of this is a guarantee but I can aspire to a a pin and these examples show different approaches and standards that are worthy.