Project: Der H's October Pledge - Blood and Plunder ships

Behold we are back!

It has been a bad month - loads of real life stuff and work has been a NIGHTMARE.

Brother Handro & I have managed some progress and, more importantly, we actually had a game of 8th Edition - more thoughts on this another time!

For now, I present to you my completed Brigantine!

I went for a fairly clean, almost English Navy colour scheme with white and yellow. The accuracy of the ship's livery isn't that important to me, but I wanted to have that theme there in this ship.

The sails, as always, are made from paper foam - it holds a shape pretty well and is sturdy.

As usual I go pretty heavy on washes to make the ship appear worn. The finish is also slightly gloss as a result of the Halfords car laquer - great stuff!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the last bits done on the Frigate and then I can call this month done!

Der H

Life is tough...

Hi guys, Der H here for a quick post! 

You’vr probably noticed that it’s been a bit quiet around here. Life is tough, real life shit gets in the way; work, relationships, mortgage and all that jazz does take priority...it looks like nothing is happening....

What what can you do! 

Stuff is happening, pledges will get finished, toys will get played with but, at the end of the day, they are toys.

Watch this space! 

Der H

Battlefleet Gothic - Emperors Children Escorts

Time to look at some Emperors Children Escorts (Der H: "no, not like that...")

Escorts get mixed reviews in the BFG community. Some people love them, some thing they're a waste of points vs cruisers and ordinance. I like them a lot, not necessarily in game terms where they can be quite weak and ineffective if not properly supported/deployed en masse , but in terms of imagery and to build a cohesive looking fleet.

You might be able to tell that I really quite like firestorms! I had an eBay binge several years ago and got hold of loads of firestorms, some sword class escorts, and some cobra class destroyers. The Swords and the Cobras ended up supporting Brother Handro's fleet, but the Firestorms, they're mine!

Firestorms have a prow lance and a front/left/right strength 2 weapon battery. On their own...quite weak, but when massed together in a squadron they really pack a punch. 9 together can put strength 18 weapon battery salvos and 9 lance shots into a target and that really helps on that pesky gunnery table. The issue, of course, is that fewer swords can put out a lot more WB hurt than these guys, and I am notorious for failing to do anything with lances....this is a problem later.....

My next group of escorts gives away my secret love - the Voss pattern prow! These little guys were snapped up with their bigger brother shortly before G'dubs stole away their BFG line for good. The Falchions are a nice little escort, 3 front/left/right weapons batteries a piece and a prow torpedo to boot. Another example of good en masse, but three torpedoes doesn't strike much fear, and the swords can often mop them up in similar numbers. More on these little fella's another time.

Brother Handro will show off his Cobra and Sword escorts in due course, but for now, watch this space for an overview of my favourite prow, the Voss pattern!

Der H

Battlefleet Gothic - Emperors Children - Cruisers

Welcome to the first of a series of articles looking at my BFG Emperors Children fleet in more detail.

I managed to pick ups. boxed game of BFG, minus some of the ships, a number of years ago from eBay. The box was a little tatty, but inside were all of the counters. Brother Handro came to the rescue with some plastic cruisers, some more fleet roster cards, and some weapon sprues, and before long we had ourselves our starting fleets.

Back in those days (Brother Handro: "did you really just say that...") you could buy ships from GW still, albeit from a limited range. Having just started work, and desperately trying to clear an overdraft, I didn't dive in with as much as I (in hind sight) should have done (Der H: "look at how much fleets used to cost" [shows picture of BFG magazine sales page] Brother Handro: {quiet sobbing}).

To start off, lets look at some basic ships from my fleet...

The eagle eyed/keen/interested of you might recognise this as a dictator class cruiser. This is the Gloria Tertio. She is the first cruiser I fielded in a battle, and has seen multiple combats since. Ordinance mixed with weapons batteries make her a good all-rounder, but occasionally lacking the heavy hitting of a pure line ship.

The background for the dictator lists the ship as being originally based on the versatile Luna pattern cruiser, with lance bays replaced with launch bays. This modification was later used more frequently to produce the Dictator class which, unlike the Luna, tended to operate as a fleet support vessel.

The Gloria Tertio acted in this way to support the strike cruisers in her first engagement in our Grandia campaign, and her ordinance proved invaluable. One of the things I enjoy in BFG is the ship upgrades system. Following her first engagement Gloria Tertio rolled well and was refitted with a reinforced hull. This increased her hit points by 25%, from 8 to 10, and reduced her speed by 5cm. She now operates as a slightly slower, but formidable fleet support cruiser, pumping out torpedoes, attack craft and supporting the rest of the fleet.

This ship, a standard Tyrant class cruiser has, to date, not seen battle. A pretty standard stat line, but in addition to the 6 strength 30cm weapons battery, she also carries a 4 strength 45cm weapons battery. At close range I hope she will be able too pack a serious punch and provide support and protection for the Dictator class.

This ship, also untested, is strictly speaking a Hades class heavy cruiser (denoted by the dorsal lance batteries. She can be used as such, or can represent either a Murder or a Carnage class cruiser. The joy of the chaos fleet is the flexibility they can provide. Whilst they struggle with charging head long into battle, they excel at manouvreability, long range fire and speed. The Murder and Carnage differ only in the arrangement of their guns. The Murder packing 45cm strength 10 weapons batteries with some prow lances, and the Carnage 45cm strength 6 and 60cm strength 4, giving a longer arm, but less punch at that distance. Of course, closing to 45cm gives you that punch back, and coupled with a prow Front/left/right strength 6 weapons battery which can reach to 60cm also, if anything it can out gun the Murder and even the Hades in terms of Weapons battery output. A well positioned Carnage class can easily spell doom for most ships it encounters.

Next time we'll go through my escorts, and hint at my favourite prow!

Der H

Project Progress - Konflikt 47 Soviet Heavy infantry

Sorry folks...It's been a busy week!

Work/sickness/real life all get in the way some times but, after all, for a grown man playing with little metal men should come after such things! (Brother Handro: "never!")

Today I give you what little progress has been made - assembly of my Soviet Heavy Infantry for Konflikt 47.

I tried to ensure that there were no identical poses/combinations. The sculpt is clearly uniform, with two hammer wielding, and the rest split between two dual weapon systems and one dual weapon system.

These guys have since been primed and will be painted green. I may use a muted white stripe to demarcate the NCO, historically identifying your NCO too clearly wouldn't be wise, but historically your NCO wouldn't be in a rift powered armour suit fighting undead Nazi's, werewolves and weird bat things....

I plan on basing in a winter/rubble/blasted terrain theme - to match with my current winter Bolt action terrain and the, soon to be started, winter Stalingrad/urban/ruins board.

Stay tuned for some more articles over the next few weeks!

Der H

Bolt Action, AKA Shame, Part III

In which Handro finally receives the final part of his order/descends into hobby madness...

At last, the final (who am I kidding?...) part of my recent Bolt Action splurge arrived, very tardily. - The new British Tank War starter set (Tank War supplement, mini V2 rule book, templates, damage/pin markers, dice, stat cards etc), 3 Churchills and a Sherman troop (2 Vs, 1 VC Firefly). Additionally some paint, dismounted panzer crew (just for fun, but actually useful in Tank War) and the new Opel Blitz/Maultier kit - expect a review and comparison to Rubicon's offering soon!

Lastly some 11th Armoured Division decals. I went with this outfit as they were pretty busy post-Normandy, allowing for themed games around Market Garden (Neunen, Band of Brothers style), Battle of the Bulge and into Germany. You can also run with Shermans/Fireflies, Cromwells and very late-war Comets, allowing for flexibility of models. 

I've had a fair few head-scratching moments regarding British tank markings, squadron colours, senior/junior regiments, etc but think I've got a handle on it now. May be the subject of a future article, stay tuned!

Handro 

Thought for the the day; 'Heresy grows from idleness'.

Handro - Pledge complete - TX4 Piranha

The crusade against the legions of grey continues! Our second pledges are complete, so here's some pics of the Piranha...

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I've pretty much just copied the box art Vior'la scheme, almost exactly. If it ain't broke...

I attempted some OSL effects on the faceplates, which seems to work, from a distance...you can also see the horrible graining on the torso from a shonky priming...I used the model as a test run for my newly-bought Micro Sol & Set kit.  Although there aren't any really difficult angles on this model to get a decal to conform to, the softening effect really makes the decal 'blend' into the model, as you can hopefully see above. The Sept markings on the helmets probably benefited the most from the Micro Sol, quite the curvy shape!

You can also see the 'numerical' on the hull to the left of picture is the only one that has silvering/looks like a decal. This is because it was the tester, no gloss underneath to see if Micro Set would do the job on its own. No is the answer. Always have a gloss base!

Handro

Thought for the day; 'Against the Alien and the Traitor there is no fair way to fight'

Project Progress - Konflikt 47 Terror Squad

Some progress today - I actually built something!

Recently we showed off the Bolt Action Soviet Terror Squad for Konflikt '47 - The blog post can be seen here.

Since then, I have been a slightly busy bee and have built the kit (Brother Handro: "you remember that they're basically finished already right?....")

As with a lot of my kits, I have added some conversion work to vary the sculpts.

Nice and simple, with a slung PPsH and right hand holding a grenade.

Simple Molotov conversion!

Why stab when you can bludgeon with a chain...

Simple weapon swap....why not!

I did have to keep one standard!

What do you guys think - Im quite pleased...now if only I painted things...

Der H