Pooch's April- More bugs, but this time Vikings too?

Another month down, and more progress to show for it, and yep, there were more bugs. Because of course I painted more bugs!

1. Paint something bought before 2024

Starting with not bugs. I picked up these Vikings nigh on a year ago, and I'm not even sure what game I was planning to use them for. Regardless, when one of the locals suggested we played some Tribal, I took the opportunity to paint up a warband of Vikings ready to play the game.

The miniatures all come from Gripping Beast, and are finished off with the gorgeous shield decals from Little Big Man Studios. Also coincidentally, you can pick up the rules for Tribal from Potbelly Miniatures!

Warlord and Champion with flag

First batch of Viking Warriors

Second batch of Viking Warriors

Third batch of Vikings, this time some Berzerkers!

I also had a few small pieces of terrain, which will help have a cool looking table for the game too. These are all from Renedra Miniatures

Houses with scattered pots

Many fences!

I've already got a game of Tribal scheduled for May!

2. Paint something bought in 2024

It wouldn't be a month of this blog without me posting some Tyranids, would it?

Another big bug, this time a Malceptor

A big brain to cause big psychic damage!

Little flying bugs- great for capturing objectives!

Showing off the wings!

It's a unit of ten, so this is the other five!

I'd say next month will be something different. But you know it's going to be more bugs...

3. Play a game of 40k each month

I didn't just play one game of 40k this month, I played a whole tournament of it!

I took the Tyranids out to our club's Valleycon competition, playing five games over a weekend, and I had a blast! Visually, the Tyranids looked brilliant, and I got a number of really nice comments about them. In terms of their performance in the games, overall they won 3 lost 2, and the two I lost were really poor match ups for me, but I kept my player morale up, and didn't let them affect my enjoyment over the weekend- which was my goal.

I got far too engrossed with the games to take many photos, so here is just two!

An Ultramarine Repulsor getting eaten by a Psychophage.... pity about the Terminators inside it.... 

Maulerfiend doing mauling. Fiendishly.

I'm really enjoying my 40k resurgence, I might need to find a different style to play for May tho!

4. Play a game of not-40k each month

I FINALLY got my 15mm ADLG Celt army out for a game, taking on a work in progress army of Successors.

The Celts.... did a lot of charging. And got some good dice. Including a very rude set of 6's when attacking with chariots into Elephants, which meant that I came out on top. Having spent so much time on them, it was great to get them out on the table and actually play a game with them. Given the rest of the crew has been really enjoying their ADLG, I feel like many more games are in my future!

Chariots vs Pike. The chariots EXPLODED.

Medium Sword vs Cavalry however was more swingy....

And that's it. I know some of what May will bring (and yes, there will be more Bugs), but I'm sure there will be some suprises in there!

Pooch

What the Mycenaeans called 'iqiya' in Linear B

Chariots! The lexicon for words associated with chariots alone in Mycenaean Linear B script is very long but a bit of casual googling and some research paper reading later, I have learned the Mycenaean word. And here they are:  

I finished up painting the last of the infantry this weekend. The Heavy Spear were a real challenge to get based as they're SO close-formed but they worked out in the end. I have a funny feeling that when I have played a couple of a games I'll get a really good look at all the mistakes there are from working polyfilla and paint inbetween the spearmen and I'll have a few shields to fix and gaps to cover in the basing material. 

Overall, the palette is fairly limited which made getting it painted easier and is probably a lesson for future projects in 15mm. The black and white cowhide has definitely given the army some pop and presence and I'm stoked with how that came out across the army. All told though, super happy and can't wait to get it on the park in three weeks or so. Still really unsure if it's any good but that's a future me problem.

And a random single model

My roleplaying group will be finishing up our Dragonlance DnD adventure fairly soon and the plan is to give the 40K version of WFRP, Imperium Maledictum, a burl. I'm going down a route where I don't tend to go and trying out a sneaky rogue character. This chap: 

will be my Ordo Hereticus Penumbra - an Acolyte of an Inquisitor who sneaks about the place looking for evidence of heresy. Quite why he's off doing this thing for a patron outside the Ordo is currently a secret between the DM and I but the party members will discover it relatively quickly I suspect. He does not yet have a name but I'm pondering that at the moment.

Our DM has intimated that life is fairly cheap in this game and the possibility that we're going to lose PCs is very real so I am going to use this as a motivator to paint the Inquisition Kill Team box. If this one dies, an increasingly unhinged series of Acolytes will follow, each time radically altering the play experience.

Next Time

It's our games club's annual competition weekend so I'll be blogging late on Sunday or Monday. It'll probably be a bit of an album of the weekend and a quick review of how my Italians go.

Well, I was *going* to finish the painting...

 But I didn't. I have finished some more spearmen though:

 

These are the first three bases of Heavy Spear for the Mycenaeans. I mixed through three different angles of spear to keep the silhouette (for want of a better word) interesting and on the right-hand base is a leftover chariot crewman who's still in full Dendritic panoply so just dropped in to change the look. In the middle is the first Heavy Spear general - behind that big bronze shield is Ajax! 

 

The last three bases of spear are primed and laid out for painting with a few block colours done so other than the awful experience that will be basing these units, I'm really close to finishing. Quite excited.  Also, the last piece for the Mycenaean camp arrived yesterday so that'll be coming together in the next wee while too.

GAMES!

I played my first "proper" game of 40K yesterday with blogger Scotty. 1000 points on an absurdly small board and, had I realised this is what we'd be doing, would probably not have gotten the Knights out.  But I did... 

As it was, it was a glorious victory to the knight lance, I learned some useful lessons about turn timings and a very handy side conversation with a spectator about critical hits. Highlights for the game were here:

where two Armiger Warglaives went into battle against some Pink Horrors, did almost no damage thanks to Scotty's absurd ability to roll 4+ invulnerable saves and then in his turn they Fell Back and the Soul Grinder rolled in and did 24 points of damage with it's giant claw, deleting the right hand Armiger without even spending it's remaining attacks. In response? I sent in the big boi:

 

The Armiger Fell Back and the Errant, having come fresh from dispatching the Tzeentchian Daemon Prince with his Thunderstrike Gauntlet fired the Thermal Cannon into the Soul Grinder. I did 22 damage and the Soul Grinder went away. The end of the game was me trying to kill the Changeling with a Callidus Assassin and singularly failing to do so.  

It was good to get a run through on the mechanics writ-larger than Combat Patrol but I think I'd like to play 1000 points on a full size table maybe? This felt a bit close quarters to me...

 

I also played a game of Star Wars Legion with Blogger Pel and his "Late Rebellion" force with Ahsoka Tano and all the Clan Wren! I ran a fairly conventional Imperial force although I tried double mortar and found that it's still not to my liking. 

The highlight of the game for me was Boba Fett jetpacking out from behind that barricade, wrist-rocketing and carbine-ing the Rebel Officer to claim his bounty and then wrapping up Sabine Wren in anti-Jedi whipcord. I made the glib remark that this was him proving who was the better Mandalorian:

 

Immediately following that, Tristan and Ursa Wren promptly blasted him into next week. Better Mandalorian my butt. 

In the end, it was a close game, a 3 -1 win to the Empire (thanks to that cheeky extra bounty VP) and a round of combat where Ahsoka Tano rolled six hits (out of 10 attack dice?!) against a unit of Shore Troopers and I saved all six, losing two models to Pierce hits. Had she just demolished that unit as anticipated and takenfewer turns to hack down Iden Versio, she could have caused me no end of problems...

Next Time

The end of the Greeks is in sight and I think I'll pick up some other painting projects too. Gotta do some repair work on my Italians for our upcoming comp and I have some things that really just warrant getting painted.

Almost there!!

 It's been a solid weekend of hobby time this weekend and I've taken fullest advantage of it to really break the back of my Mycenaeans. 

I started with the second batch of chariots - these are the ones that will be in both armies. These are Light Chariot Javelin Elite which will fill as close a role to light cavalry as I'm going to get in this army. I've got some very low expectations of their effectiveness but they look cool:

 

Once again, cowhiding the chariot skins has given them some pop and in a success of mathematics, I'd saved enough javelinmen to swap out the supplied Dendritic crew for something that makes them clearly different. 

 

Then the bigger job, grinding through all the spearmen:

These proved to be a bit of a challenge due to some mathematics failure on my part when I ordered the models from Museum but there were enough spare and relevant models that I could kind of fill the bases out with some spare Myrmidons and, if you look super closely, Aeneas from the Trojan Heroes pack! The base on the left of the front rank is my Medium Spear general for the Trojan War army with Agamemnon and Odysseus on the base. Ajax and Diomedes will make appearances as the Heavy Spear generals in my Minoan / Mycenaean army.

Finally, I polished off the camp:

Nothing too complicated but a beached trireme on the shores of Asia Minor, accompanied by none other than Helen of Troy. The clever idea of the day was to steal a couple of transfers from an Adeptus Titanicus transfer sheet to put the necessary eyes on the trireme. I tried free-handing them but did such a terrible job I decided I'd run with this.

Where does that leave me? Six bases of Heavy Spear and a second camp for the non-Trojan War version of the army to do. Kind of excited to get both versions of that list out for a run. 

Next Time

I've lined up a game of Star Wars Legion with Blogger Pel that I'm really really looking forward to. Also some progress on the Heavy Spear and my last practice game with my Italians! 

Pooch's March- wait, what do you mean we are a quarter done?

So, here we are. Already a quarter done in the year, which I have not yet come to terms with. My progress towards my goals has continued well however, and it's probably about time I painted something for myself that wasn't a Tyranid....

1. Paint something bought before 2024

Tada! Look, it's not a Tyranid!

The Wurmspat are the last Warhammer Underworlds warband that I own, themed all around the gifts of Grandfather Nurgle. I decided to paint these as a palatte cleaners, I was getting really sick of the tyranid colour scheme, and a big commission that I had been completed. I just needed somethign that was small, contained and would be a chance to use a bunch of colours that I hadn't been using.

The three Wurmspat

So much tiny detail!

The first close up....

The second close up....

The third close up....

But not only that, over the Easter weekend I got my airbrush out and finished off some DAK tanks for the first time in..... months. This was to make sure I had the tank options that a friend needed when they borrow the army for an upcoming tournament.

Two Tigers, looking swish in the weathered desert scheme

One of them brought a Panzer III along as a buddy!

And two StuG D for good measure

The Tigers and Panzer III come from Battlefront Miniatures, the StuG Ds come from Zvezda.

2. Paint something bought in 2024

You didn't really think I was going to not paint Tyranids this month right? 

The Harpy. Such a great model, so very bad in the game

I'm super happy with how the wings have worked out on this!

More Barbgaunts!

Even more Barbgaunts!

Trygon!

Back of Trygon!

Norn Emissary

"Do you have a moment to talk about the Great Devourer"

I'm VERY close to the 2,000 point list that I'll be running at Valleycon in a month or so (eeek!) 

3. Play a game of 40k each month

I managed a couple of games this month- it saw the Tyranids fighting the combined forces of the Black Templars and Imperial Knights....

Canis Rex killed many, many bugs

But once the Psychophage peeled back the armoured shell, Sir Hektur didn't last long....

And then the Tyranids decided to munch on some living metal Necrons....

The Norn spreading the good news

Many Necrons!

Imhotek the Stormlord got eaten by a Psychophage. Nom nom nom

The extra special bit about fighting the Necrons was that the army was painted up by McB and I, meaning that this game was the first time they had ever been used, and was a great way to share the brand new army with the person who commissioned it!

Plus, I'd never played vs Necrons before, so it was a blast!

4. Play a game of not-40k each month

The initial plan for this was to play Underworlds, but timing didn't work. So instead, over the Easter weekend the kids and I played Gaslands! 

The kids did some extra paint jobs to some Gaslands cars I had already completed, and we played a slightly simplified (but admittedly not by much) version of the game.

The cars racing!

Missile vs Police Car was.... unfortunate for my police car.....

And that's it, on to April. Yes, April will still have more Tyranids...

Pooch

Workbench Greeks

 Progress once again rolls along for my Mycenaeans. 

Fist big job? Add the cowhides to the outside of my Impact chariots. Blogger McBeth made the recommendation after my umming and ahhing about it to do it and, given he's a very good painter (see his and Blogger Pooch's work at Staghound Gardens), I have done so and it is awesome: 

I like the pop of brightness in amongst the otherwise tan base coat of the wider army. It's definitely given me the nudge to do it for the spear bases and the second set of chariots. It keeps the Mycenaean / Minoan / Achaean bits together while the multi-coloured shields belong to Myrmidons and other similar lunatics!

I've also started work on the Medium Spear and, having done the first couple of sets of cowhide shields, I love how these are coming out:

This is the first three bases in various stages of done and the second three are in the primer. I like the way the looser formations are coming out - it makes them still visibly Spear but very much looser order than the heavier ones in their Dendritic armour.

I think I'm going to slog through this lot, then do the second set of chariots, then finish up with the Heavy Spear (which is mostly bronze so should be fairly quick, although there are 25% more models!)

Next Time

More Greeks, almost certainly.

Outflank or Outlast. Options for Italians in Flames of War?

Another test game for our upcoming club event next month against clubmate Ric and his British Paratroopers in Outflanked.  

Ric defended the left objective with a Para platoon covered by 17pdrs and the right objective with the second Para platoon. I did a bit of cheeky spearheading and split my force to give me a shot at both objectives. 

I popped the ambush by pushing my L6s forward (see 6pdrs in the top left corner) and lost three in the ensuing barrage. Ric got his Churchill reserves on in turn one and his Stuarts in turn two. Immediate reserves indeed! The Stuarts pushed up Ric's left to try and send away my M14s and the Churchills pushed into the centre starting a game of cat and mouse with the Lancia da 90s!

I started noodling around the centre with my armour seeing if I could bring enough MGs to bear on the 6pdrs that sending in the M14s on the left objective could be done. Four pinned 17pdrs took out three M14s as a response to my noodling: 

That pretty much left me with one option - I ranged in the Semoventes on the 6pdrs and left my 25pdrs smashing away at the 17pdrs for several turns. Several. On my right flank, things got moving. My Motociclisti destroyed a Stuart in assault, and blew up the second one who'd been bailed by the M14s clearing a path to the contested house by the objective: 

I floated a Lancia da 90/53 out in the wind, Ric sent out his Churchills and blew it to bits. I thought that moving 6pdrs, 4+ save, and gun shield was a tolerable risk - I was wrong. In the end I passed the Last Stand and the Blitz and BOOM! Two dead Churchills and the last one fled!

That Lancia promptly ran away the following turn and all meaningful activity on that flank stopped while the Semovente 75s and the 25pdrs hammered away at Ric's gun platoons for five or six turns. I got 1 17pdr and 2 6 pdrs in that time. OOOOOF. But on my right, the brave Motocicliti assaulted and destroyed the last Para platoon. All I needed was to get rid of a couple of mortar stands but...

They would just not die! Dug in and with Fearless morale, they were assaulted repeatedly by M14s who drove into the forest and singularly failed to hit the blasted mortar or stick around for more than one round of combat. It was ridiculous.

We stopped shortly after this:

The para mortars finally got sick of being pointlessly assaulted by M14/41s and ran off the board. The remnant Para platoon shot down the HMGs and destroyed the Motociclisti CO to occupy the house on the objective. We called the game as I wasn't going any closer to that horde of guns on one objective and couldn't assault the house on the other (although it was a matter of time before the massed 47mm guns finished the job) and Ric couldn't move his AT guns knowing that as soon as they moved out of fox holes, there'd be Italian MGs everywhere! 

It was a good game and it has led me to one inescapable conclusion....

Lessons? 

I've decided to do what I would previously have considered unthinkable and downgrade the captured 25pdrs back to Italian 100/17 guns. I'm surprised by how much infantry and AT guns have been giving me problems (given the changes in last year's Dynamic Points update this is no shock) and the 3+ bombardment firepower feels like I need it more than the extra RoF of the 25pdrs to get my tanks where I need them to be. 

Also, it's been interesting to play a list this much in advance of an event for a change. I've made a few changes and had a few thoughts about execution that have all been interesting to explore.

 Mycenaean progress?

Not much this week - been spending a bit much time on work and real life and not enough time hobbying. I have just been to prime the first three bases of medium spear to paint this week so that's exciting. I've also had a delivery from Che at Potbelly Miniatures:

 One Achaean baggage with ironic Helen of Troy on the base. There's even a mast for the trireme (that's not even to scale - Che had to scale it down to fit on a camp base. I'll put some fill down as a bit of beach and then paint the boat and then add my favourite water effects (you know the ones!) to finish that base up. 

 And just a little bonus

Blogger Pel and I ran a teaching game for new Flames of War player Duncan at the club. He was an enthusiastic student running his D-Day Tigers and he definitely gave Pel's British a bit of what for in an assault despite his incredible string of 1s throughout the game. I don't think I've EVER seen a man throw so many 1s. But the treat? He's an impressive painter. Check out the oak leaf and pea dot camo smocks:

They're SO good.  The modelling and painting work on the Tigers was also very impressive.

Next Time

I've started on the first of the Medium Spear bases for my Achaeans and the process of cowhiding my Impact Chariots so those. And maybe a preview of the Mycenaean baggage if I've cracked the plan to make it work...