A Rare Victory at Glucken Ridge

   I played a game of Team Yankee a few weeks ago with my friends at this local club called Board and Brew. I say "local" but it's a good 30 miles from my house, forty five minutes with traffic on a good day. Anyway, it's a pretty good place with plenty of tables and they have beer. So its good.

   I played a fellow I have known for several years but rarely get to see, named Anthony. I was his first opponent ever in Flames of War. He plays Italians, I play Indian Army British. Anyway, in this game, I played a Czech Force with Soviet allies and he ran an American force.

Soviet T-64s advance on the left flank - daring the Yankees in their flashy M1s to attempt to do something about it. One Hero of the Soviet Union is made.

Minefields slow the Czech armoured advance, but a few turns of rocket artillery have softened up the American infantry defenders and the T-72M assault drives them from their foxholes.

All of my scouts are killed. Because I stupided. And my infantry never disembarked.

Beyond the trees in the background to the left, T-64s keep reinforcing M1s occupied.

Burning platoon of M1 Abrams. A sight sure to please any Warsaw Pact player.

In fact, I got very lucky and took them all out in one turn.

   In the end, I won by pushing the American infantry off the objective. The Americans did destroy enough of my units to make it a 5-2 victory rather than a 6-1 overwhelming victory. But I will take it! Anthony was a great sport about it all and a lot of fun to take on as an opponent.

Some Big Boys

Hello friends!

Here are the images of the larger monster-type miniatures I mentioned previously. I finally got around to loading the photos up on the computer and now sharing them with you all. All of these figures are Reaper Bones. The giants came with the Kickstarter; the worms I bought at MillenniumCon in November 2017.

Female Stone Giant

Rear view, Female Stone Giant

Male Stone Giant

Closeup of ivory plaque and boulder

Rear of Male Stone Giant

Classic Purple Worm

Rear of Purple Worm

Same worm, painted for Frostgrave as an Ice Worm

Rear of Ice Worm

Hill Giant

I am particularly happy with his skin tones.

Heck, I even painted in his eyes.

Recently Finished Minis

   I haven't done a lot of painting this past month, because of other projects (more on that later), but I did finish a few things a week or so back that I haven't shared, so... here they are, I suppose.

WIP Shot of a piece of jungle terrain. Also the Velociraptors

And the finished piece. I quite like the weathered detailing that was sculpted on it.

This piece is from Fenris Games, along with some of the other bits of stonework in this post.

Terrain for Frostgrave

 The statue is a Bones mini of Ezren, the Iconic Wizard from Pathfinder.

The plinth is from Fenris Games.

Just painted in my usual stone method and added some Valhallan Blizzard.

(That stuff is the bomb. I need more pots to save for when GW inevitably discontinues it).

Reaper Bones Velociraptor and Spike Shells; Fenris Games Runestone

Closeup of the Spike shells, really ought to take better photos.

Another runestone from Fenris, and the ancient Toad from Talisman. 

I've had this mini for probably 20 years, maybe longer. Finally just did it.

   I have some big pieces that I finished this week that I will take proper photos of and post later this week. Maybe. You'll know why I have been so distracted soon, I promise.

Works in Progress

  A few shots of some of the things on the paint table right now. The giant mammoth man is from the Reaper Bones IV Kickstarter. The Van Saar gangers are from the boxed set by GW. The Pathfinder Goblin pyromaniacs are also Reaper Bones but not from the Kickstarter.

Barely started...

Still a good ways from finished.

Not really happy with the wash I chose so I am going to go back and redo that bit.

Plan to do the tusks last.

Closeup. Going for a black bodystocking with light gray armoured plates.

Energetic items are blue-green (eye lenses, power sources, high tech pony tails, etc.)

Some metals will be bronze, most weapons will be matte black.

Working on these not-really-all-that-little guys I realize how bad my eyes are getting.

A bit sad about that. Oh well, that's why I have a magnifier visor I guess.

End of Campaign: Dark Heresy

   We finished off our Dark Heresy campaign on Monday night. We had all sort of lost our interest in the game after almost a year of play. The last few months we have also had several challenges with getting together as a group to play, and that certainly didn't help things.

   So, how did it end? Well, we had just captured a dangerous psyker named Molokoff from Hive Tertiam on Fenk's World and barely managed to escape the planet before it was pulled entirely into the warp. Once aboard our vessel, the Cudgel of Drusus, we turned the prisoner over to the Inquisition. That's when things went to Hell.

   Literally.

   As our ship entered the warp to travel to our next destination, something went wrong. Horribly wrong. Demonic creatures began to pop up all over the ship. We fought like heroes, but watched our companions go down one by one.

   First to die was our 'tame' psyker, Volk. The power of the warp invading the ship began to overwhelm his mental defenses, and I was forced to put him down with a bolt pistol shell to the back of the head. Next was our favorite pilot, "Mad" Murdock (an NPC). On the hangar deck, as we were making our way to the main engineering area, he was dragged down by a horde of smaller demons.

   Third to fall was our chirurgeon, Sister Scythia. She burned down a few demons with her meltagun before a flamethrowing fiend doused her with a barrage of unholy napalm. Probably for the best, as she was not very careful with her shooting and a meltagun firing off in the engineering spaces would have been catastrophic.

   Fourth was our newest recruit, an Imperial Guardsman from the 24th Canopus Heavy Foot. Corporal Jones ran out of ammunition for his heavy stubber - which he toted about with his Bulging Biceps as if it were nothing more than an autogun. After spraying hundreds of rounds into the enemy, he heard that fatal 'click.' Before he could locate any more ammunition, he too was torn apart. Thankfully, he died before they began eating. I think.

   Adeptus Arbites Belisarion Graecus was the last to fall. Using his skills with a bolt pistol, he took out demon after demon with precision aim. The holy inscriptions on the sanctified weapon glowed brighter with every shot, and the Emperor's wrath flowed through the explosive shells, overcoming many a demon's unnatural toughness. But all things must end, and Graecus finally ran out of shells as well. He met his fate, praising the Emperor and pistol whipping a final demon into death as the hordes tore into his armour.

   The Cudgel of Drusus is marked as lost in the warp on Imperial records.