Reset!

OK, I'm already glad I'm on the Interwebz. Thanks to Dave Ripperda, a fine upstanding fellow Finn player from Sac, I now know that Battlefront screwed up its colors in the painting guide in the Blitzkrieg rulebook. I need to buy some paints, specifically Vallejo German Uniform 920, since while the color was called feldgrau the actual composition of it changed over time. It was a fairly deep green in 1940, while by 1943 it had become almost a grey-brown. The Vallejo color of the same name is closer to the latter. So I'll be picking up the actual paint later today. For one thing I like the new color because it is brighter, so my troops will look more interesting on the table. The helmets I'm a little less clear on. I might go with more of a dark grey highlight, like Chardon Granite, but I'll have to see how it turns out with the new uniform color. In the mean time, I'll get started on the pants if I have time while I'm taking care of Maike this morning.

Test painting done on basics

So I tried it out, and first off, DANG these guys could end up being dark. I definitely want to avoid that. So here they are with just block painting.





I left the helmet, boots, and webbing the German Grey Armor, painted the tunic Feldgrau, the pants Adeptus Battlegrey, the bread bag and mess kit Vallejo FoW Khaki, the metal Vallejo Gunmetal, and the rifle stock and bases Cathayan Brown. I mostly did the base to contrast the model, since they were so dark.

However, they were SO dark I decided to try lightening them up, so I went a step further and did some highlighting and a touch of detail.





I did the collars Orkhide Shade (they are described as being "bottle green" in the reference materials I've found), and highlighted the tunics with Vallejo FoW Grey Green. The pants were highlighted with Codex Grey.

After doing this, I can see a small amount of wash, but I don't think dipping these guys is a good solution. They're so dark already, unless I'm going to really go overboard on the bright colors I'll just end up repainting them. I'll wash the faces and khaki bits, but otherwise some highlighting should be plenty. I'll just leave the darker colors showing for shade effect.

Infantry prepped, ready to start painting

I've got my infantry filed and put on the sticks, and about 2/3 of the models primed and base coated. Boy, the "German Armor" is almost the same as black, but when viewed under a daylight lamp it IS actually a grey instead of black.

I still need to build my armored vehicles, but that should go pretty quick. I'm now ready to start doing some painting. I figure I'll do my anti-tank rifle team as a start since I have additional models if I screw it up. Time to get painting!

Second Schützen platoon done

My second Schützen platoon is cleaned, along with my MG platoon, and man was that a pain. The trucks were a snap (even if with the resin sculpt you can see where the drivers legs should be, so the entire company will be driven around by dual amputees...), but the casts of the infantry were abysmal. Tons of gloopy flash, semi-lined up molds, just a mess. I also got it all done this morning, which I had slated for priming. Ah, well, I'll probably just prime all of the infantry and the like at the same time, that's not a major time consumer.

Next up: mortars and AT guns. I'm kind of dreading the mortars, since they're from the same batch of casts as the Schützen, but my AT guns are all Old Glory, so there shouldn't be the same level of suck. I'll start my tanks once I've gotten my infantry to a basic level painting wise, then once everything is based I'll work on details. With luck and effort, I'll be ready for the tanks next Monday.

First steps

Well, I'm a little behind by not by much. I spent a lot of time last night planning, so ironically I didn't get done what I had planned to do. I figure I've got two times to really get stuff done: before I go to work (I leave around 11:30) and after Maike goes to bed. Anything involving drying or spraying I'm going to do in the mornings and let the summer heat take care of that for me, and building and the like I'm trying to do in the evening.

Or that was the plan. Instead, the fiddly bits slowed me down considerably. But as of 10:30 this morning, I have this done:



The field cars and motorcycles are built, and the first Schützen platoon is ready to paint. I decided to try a different technique for painting and basing after some research. I'm putting the cleaned infantry models onto popsicle sticks with a dab of superglue, and I'll prime and paint them there. After they're done, I'm going to mix up some concrete patch with some brown house paint I have left over from terrain building I did a while ago. Put that on the bases, stick the models in, cover the bottoms of the models, and there you go! After that dries, I'll cover it with static grass instead of my usual drybrush and bits of grass.

The biggest issue I had were the fiddly bits. Specifically, the motorcycle drivers were a PAIN to put together. I'm still probably going to have to clean up around their arms once they've set. It took me a lot longer to get that done than I'd thought. Secondly, I was really disappointed with the quality of the casts of the Schützen platoon. There were a lot of heavy mold lines where the mold clearly didn't completely match up, plus big boogers of flash that would obscure some of the detail. When you've got to file off mold lines that heavy in a scale like this, you're losing detail, period. I actually can't use one of the MG loaders because the entire front of the model is only semi-cast, with no face and the arms melting. I sent an email to customer service about it - they've been good about replacing stuff like that. Sadly, I don't know if it will come in time to do any good.

I finally just figured I'd do the obvious and easy stuff like the helmets and the larger glops and leave the small mold lines alone. I had hoped to get all of this primed today, but I'll hold off and prime it tomorrow with more of my infantry. That's it for now! Off to shower and go to work.

Gotta get motivated again

It has been way too long since I've updated this blog, but I figure this is a time to do it. I've got two weeks until I am in Pennsylvania for Historicon 2011 and the Early War Nationals for Flames of War. I figure I'll completely get my butt kicked, but I really want to play, and that means I need to get my army ready! And here it is:



Yep, it is almost completely in blisters. Nothing is built. It's a German Schützenkompanie, and I want it playable by the time I leave. Time to get cracking! I'll track my progress here.

Oh, and here is the list:

HQ:
CiC SMG, 2iC SMG, 2x Motorcycle and Sidecar

Combat Platoons:
Schützen Platoon: Cmd MG, 6x MG, Light Mortar, Anti-Tank Rifle, Kfz 15 Field Car, 4x Kfz 70 Truck
Schützen Platoon: Cmd MG, 6x MG, Light Mortar, Kfz 15 Field Car, 4x Kfz 70 Truck
Schützen Machine-gun Platoon: Cmd SMG, 4x HMG

Weapons Platoons:
Schützen Mortar Platoon: Cmd SMG, 4x 8cm Mortars
Schützen Anti-Tank Gun Platoon: Cmd SMG, 3x 3.7cm PaK36

Support Platoons:
Anti-Tank Gun Platoon: Cmd SMG, 3x 3.7cm PaK36
Czech Panzer Platoon: 3x Panzer 38(t) B, 2x Panzer I
Bunkerflak Platoon: 2x 8.8cm FlaK 18 Sfl

Points: 1750
Platoons: 8

Review of LOTR in Da Grand Waaagh 2009

Last year, the gaming club I belong to, Da Waaagh Mob, decided to put on an Independent Grand Tournament in Alameda, CA on the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. Originally, we were planning on running just two systems, Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. But a month ago, I was asked to add Lord of the Rings to the tournament. We’d originally thought to add it next year, but we had the space, so what the heck!

With such short notice, I knew we couldn’t get a huge turnout, but I did manage to scare up five players, which made for a very interesting tournament – every player would get to play each other. There was no Swiss system, but instead a pure round robin where the winner would be determined with almost no consideration to pairings or early/late placement. I also knew I’d be playing the ringer, since we had an odd number.

I also wanted to make sure that there was a variety of scenarios, and I wanted them to be different than other scenarios they had played. I took some inspiration from the Legions scenarios, changing them around to account for a time constrained environment and the army favoring characteristics of a few of the scenarios. I also hate random scenarios – I’ve lost games just because of a few bad rolls (the number of times I’ve failed to get a Major Victory in Domination because of that stupid “game ends!” roll…) and I know that just sucks. So I tried to limit the randomness. I’ll detail the scenarios in my battle reports.

One thing about being the ringer is that you’re there to provide a service only – make sure everyone gets to play every round. After all, that’s what the players are there for, to get in a game. The ringer isn’t supposed to be highly competitive, though they’re not supposed to be a pushover, either. I flatter myself in thinking that I’m a pretty good player, so I decided against going with one of my first string armies. After DundraCon last year with the “Oh, so it’s your turn to get beaten on by Gandalf” comment, I knew that the Errand wouldn’t fly, and I thought that even the Shadow list from Vegas would be pretty nasty. Of course, I haven’t painted a full army of anything else, so I used those armies for my basis.

To make things more enjoyable for the players, I decided to come up with multiple armies and let them choose the list they wanted as ringer. I also wanted to try playing with models that I normally wouldn’t consider using in a tournament. My first was pretty simple – I swapped Gandalf for Aragorn on a horse in the Errand, downgrading Ecthelion to a standard captain. The second list I came up with was a variant on the Shadow, where I dropped all of the Morannon Orcs and upgraded the wraith to Khamul the Easterling on an armored horse. I wanted one more option, and decided to go totally goofy. I called it “So Boromir picks a fight with a Balrog…” and took four models; Aragorn, Gandalf the Grey, Legolas, and Gimli. 600 points right there.



I arrived at the tournament in the early afternoon of Friday to set up. After my experience at the Necro, I wanted a really interesting skirmish game with LOTS of terrain, and there was a pretty good stash to raid. Only having three tables to fill made it easier. I set up three tables.

First was a small highland village, surrounded by small, steep hills. I wanted to use several buildings to get in the rules for fighting inside the fortress – doors, defended obstacles, stuff like that. The effect was that the center could be full of choke points if it was actually defended, otherwise it would be fairly easy to move through.



Next up was a pretty typical wooded area, lots of trees and areas of undergrowth with a few hills thrown on. The hills on both this table and the first one were slab sided – no slope at all. I made the call that it was WYSIWIG – lots of jump and climb checks were involved. It made it interesting for cavalry forces, that’s for sure.



The last table was inspired by the fact that several large pieces of fortress and the like were ignored by the other systems for being cumbersome and difficult to fit units onto. No units in this game! I tried to go for a kind of “ruined fortress” look with the four large pieces in the middle surrounded by a few large hills and individual trees.



So with that, I sat back to wait for check ins. As it turned out, we had something like three people actually play a game on the ship Friday night. A few other people checked in early, but apparently some of the ship security people turned some of our players away. That night cost us a lot of money for pretty much nothing. I doubt we’ll do that next year.

The next morning, I was raring to go. The five LOTR players showed up with plenty of time, and I presented the briefing and the options for the ringer army. A couple of people immediately said they didn’t want to see the all heroes army (if they drew that force on a couple of scenarios life would be very, very difficult), and the two people who voiced a preference chose Easterlings, so that was my force – Khamul and crew. The list was as follows:

Khamul the Easterling on armored horse (I think I forgot about paying the extra points for the armored horse during the games…)

Easterling Captain on armored horse with shield

6x Kataphracts
18x Warrior with shield
7x Warrior with shield and spear
12x Warrior with bow

Total Models: 45
Might: 4
Bow Armed Warriors: 12/43

I knew this was a suboptimal force when I took it. I particularly love Nazgul for their spell casting, and Khamul has the hardest time casting spells of any of the wraiths. With a Fell Beast, at least you have the chance of getting Will back to compensate for the extra dice you have to throw at spells. On a horse, the best you’re getting is usually staying at the same level of Will. I also knew there were no nutcrackers – D6 would be a major problem for me.

But hell with it, I wasn’t playing to win anyway! That doesn’t mean I’d try to make it easy for the people I would play…