Pages

Wednesday 17 July 2013

Cleaning off the desk.......

Wow, 3 posts in a week? Don't get too excited, it probably won't get any better. Might even get worse.


The wonderful British weather has well and truly buggered me the last few days. I'm very sensitive to heat, and being a grumpy sort to begin with my fuse gets a bit shorter the hotter it is. It also means that trying to paint anything is an absolute nightmare as the paint decides to dry up before you get it on a brush, let alone on a figure.

I did however manage to finish off a unit of Forge World Tartaros Terminators to add to my growing Minotaurs Space Marine army (i'll show that off in another post). They were an impulse buy at the 2012 Forge World Open Day and hadn't been touched since. I had a look at the parts and made an immediate call to Forge World as the castings were disgusting to be frank. The replacements weren't that much better but workable.

I'll be the first to admit it's not my best paint job, I just wanted to get them finished and off my desk. I did however have a bit of a brainwave - none of the figures come with any kind of purity seals or scroll work sculpted on, something I didn't spot until they were practically finished. Enter the Grey Knight Terminator kit and a handful of long flappy purity seals later the unit was complete.




Minotaurs Chapter Tartaros Terminator squad





On the subject of cleaning off my desk, my next project presented itself - a 10 man Heer Infantry squad for my Bolt Action German army. Bit of a departure for the blog as normally I'm a 40k guy, but I was really captured by the mechanics of Bolt Action. Also lets me dip my toe into historical gaming.

Instead of the 'you go, I go' system that 40k uses, Bolt Action uses a container that holds a selection of counters for each player. A counter is drawn, and the player who's counter was drawn completes an action with one unit - whether it be move/shoot, run, overwatch, ambush or similar. Once that action is completed, another counter is drawn and the process followed again until there are no more counters in the container. At that point the turn is over and the counter is re-filled. Doesn't sound that exciting now I've gone back and re-read that but it's great in practise and well worth checking out if you fancy a break from 40k or other GW games.


German Heer Infantry Squad by Warlord Games



I've had the above squad sat on my desk in that state for at least 3 weeks now, think it might be time to get them finished. My Germans tend to get a pretty basic paint job as it's more a gaming army than anything else, though i'll  make sure the vehicles get a decent job with some weathering and other effects.



How my Germans look in the basic uniform. Very basic paint job but they look good on the table.





With any luck the next update should be some more work on the Germans, really does depend on the weather. Thinking the evenings will be the best bet.

5 comments:

  1. Great to see the Minotaurs still getting some love.

    The Germans, although not my thing, are looking pretty good for table top.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers fella. The Minotaurs will be around for a while yet, got a few more plans for them.

      The Germans are by no means my best work but when there's 570-80 to paint then they look the part. It's the same principle to painting Guard armies.

      Delete
  2. Looking good Steve, the purity seals are a nice touch, as is the scattered pieces of broken lamenter armour.

    The bolt action mechanic sounds interesting, and could be potentially one sided, but rarely. Is it like flames of war where the German players out number the allies 3 to one? I've got some fallschamjager on my desk somewhere for bolt action that would be fun to paint I think, but they are metals which I detest painting now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It can seem a touch one sided if you do get unlucky with the draw but then you remember that you'll have more orders to use at the end of the turn which is potentially the place you'd want them to be able to better react.

      As for Germans outnumbering Alies it really depends on the lists. You can have über elite German armies being vastly outnumbered by Brits and vice versa. The army lists have plenty of options for forces.

      Must admit im not a fan of metals myself but the Bolt Action stuff is ok to work with. The Fallschamjager would make a nice change from what your already doing and be an intro to a decent system.

      Delete
  3. Very nice minotaurs unit, man, specially the shading of the bronze!!

    ReplyDelete