Has it really been that long?

New year new you......

I have been distracted by social media the last year or so. As a platform for hobby content it has grown from strength to strength and is so easy to upload content to.

Around Christmas time I made a vow to update my blog a bit more frequently and to try and use it as a record of my hobby out put throughout the year. January really did not get off to a good start, but here we are in February and here is the first new post in quite a while.

So what is the plan for the coming year?

Top of the list is the Bloodbowl league that I am running. Throughout January I managed to get my team the Altdorf Gentrifiers painted up ready for the start of the league last week.

The starting line up for the Altdorf Gentrifiers

My Skaven team got off to a great start in the league and managed to lose their opening game 3-0 and have a thrower killed at the same time. This was against a human team as well!
Still at least one of my Blitzers has gone up by a point of Agility and I learnt a lot from this first game.

I also plan to get a couple more titans painted for my Adeptus Titanicus Battlegroup, I have done Legio Ignatum and so far painted a Warlord, Reaver and a pair of Warhounds. Plenty more to get on with.

These will go alongside my Epic 30K White Scars force. More on these in a future blog post.
Also more views of my titans on my Twitter: @chellicar and Instagram: b.ellicar

The other "big" project is to write a campaign for both Napoleon in Italy with my friend and use this system as a spring board for a campaign for an American Civil War Campaign.

So hopefully should be updating with a blog post once a week.

Dead Mans Hand

Wednesday saw James and I take a break from our usual WW2 gaming to give Dead Mans Hand a good testing. We had so far played one game and found it very enjoyable, so decided to play through the first act in the Dead Mans Hand rulebook. 

This was made up of three very simple scenarios that escalated from a game involving just four figures through to using a full posse each. 

Each game was very entertaining and provided quite a challenge for both players, this was even the case where the scenario seemed weighted to one side. The random card element for priority that each figure would activate meant that the games were very tense in places and gave a good Wild West feel. 

In the End James and his band of Outlaws managed to beat my Lawmen in two out of three scenes (scenarios). The highlight was a shotgun tooting outlaw blasting down two lawmen in rapid succession with the same activation. 

Next week we will be playing through the second act from the Dead Mans Hand rulebook. I will also try and take some more photos of the games. 

The Cemertary, soon to become a little larger

View down Main Street

The Sheriff gets cornered

Work on the American War of Independence project continues. Two battalions of Redcoats have now been assembled and two more to be completed shortly. Painting will start soon as well. Hopefully I can find a quick method for getting the masses painted.
Finally finished reading through the Rebellion supplement for Black Powder and this was a great read and I will be trying out a number of the scenarios once the figures are ready. 

This week I already have the Dead Mans Hand game lined up as well as a game of Epic Armageddon. I will probably be using my Eldar again as I have been enjoying learning to use them, there is also the fact that my Chaos are still not ready for action yet. 

Quick update

The other week saw myself and a bunch of fellow gamers embark on yet another trip to the Normandy battlefields.
This time we focused on the British experience of D-Day and the fighting just behind the beaches (mainly D-day to D +7).
We finished with a trip to Villers Bocage to look at Wittman's and the later action around that now famous village. The final stop being at Hill 112 (another wargamers favourite but so often doesn't resemble the actual terrain or forces). Very interesting to be up there again and there is so much shrapnel still in the fields (bits of it had been placed on or next to the new Infantry memorial at the top of 112.

So here are a few pictures and I hope to have a bit more detail up in the next few days.

The original Pegasus Bridge

The memorial to the Infantry at the top of Hill 112.

The view looking north from Strongpoint Hillman. The coast is in the distance.

The view from the Hillman strongpoint showed why this was such a vital D-Day objective. The action here is also really interesting to follow.

On another note I have finished painting some more scenery and also some more for my Epic Chaos forces.

Sunday should be fun as SELWG has once again come around and I always enjoy this wargames show. More Vietnam stuff to pick up and may make a start on the Wild West terrain if there are any 4Ground products are there.

Black Legion update

Another short update. Having made great progress on the Vietnam front (having painted around 80 Viet Cong) and having played a game of Epic Armageddon, I have decided to have a slight break from the Vietnam project and push on with my Black Legion force. 

In the picture below is a unit of Chaos Defilers shown next to a stand of Chaos Marines and a Rhino for scale purposes. 

Defilers

Still trying to work out what I want to include in this force but along with the Defilers I have a unit of Chaos Predators and another Retinue along with Rhinos for both retinues to paint.
Then I will probably put the two Feral Titans together with one being quite converted.

The other question is do I go for Hell Talons or Hell Blades?

I hope to get a game in with my Ulthwe again this week at some point, learnt a fair bit from the last game and with talking with people on the excellent Taccoms site.  

Waaaaaagh Krud Kruncher

This last week on one of the Epic Armageddon Facebook groups I belong to, there has been an army showcase. There have been some fantastic Epic armies and forces shown.
I used the opportunity to take some pictures of my 3000pt Ork force. This force was initially started well over 10 years ago but never finished and in the last six months I have taken the opportunity to redo some of the units and finish others. There are still some many stands of infantry and various other support units still to be painted for the Orks but I am going to leave it at this for the time being while I finish my Ulthwe and Chaos forces.

So here are some pictures of my Ork army. The list is Ghazgull's Warhost but I have painted them as an Evil Sunz Klan.

The whole army from an orbital perspective

Add caption

Flyboyz

Stormboyz

Blitz Brigade

Stompa Mob with Supa Stompa

Big Mob (Boyz)

Kult of Speed

Big Gunz Mob

Da Boss Krud Kruncher himself

With his rentinue

Da Bike Boyz

Another Stompa mob with Supa Stompa

More Fly Boyz

I hope to get some more games of Epic in over the next few weeks and hopefully will get some pictures up. I also hope to find time to paint some more of my Chaos units as I really want to give that army a try.

The Vietnam project is coming along nicely, going to get some of the scenery sprayed up today ready for painting.

Ulthwe vs Ad Mech Defence Force - Epic Armageddon 3000 points

Finally I got to play another game of Epic Armageddon. For this game we decided that we would play a standard 3K game using the tournament scenario.

My regular opponent Neil took his Ad Mech force which had a good mix of units (don't have the list to hand I am afraid).

I took an Ulthwe force as I wanted to give the Eldar another go and also to use a different force to my Orks.

Ulthwé Craftworld (NetEA Army Compendium v20120208)
Guardian Warhost
4x Guardians
Seer Council
3x Heavy Weapon Platform 3 Support Weapon Platforms
Guardian Warhost (Mounted)
4 Wave Serpents
4x Guardians
Farseer
3x Heavy Weapon Platform
Black Guardian Warhost (Mounted)
4 Wave Serpents 6x Guardians
2x Farseer
War Walker Troupe
4x War Walker
Windrider Troupe
6x Jetbike
Swords of Vaul Troupe
5x Fire Prism
Night Spinner Troupe
3 Night Spinners
Engine of Vaul Troupe
Scorpion
Ranger Troupe
4x Ranger
Swords of Vaul Troupe
5x Falcon
Guardian Warhost
4x Guardians
Farseer
3x Heavy Weapon Platform
Avatar
Phoenix Bombers
3 Phoenix Bombers

2975 pts

I am not sure that this was the best list to take for the Ulthwe force but it felt like it had a good mix of units at least.

I would post up a battle report of all the action.....except it lasted only two turns and the Eldar got walked over without really getting to do much. The Ad Mech forces blasted various formations and either broke them or dealt out so many blast makers that the formation was not that effective.
Bad dice rolls also meant that the few engagements that I was able to initiate went horribly wrong.

This was probably the harshest game of Epic Armageddon that I have played. I had expected a bit of a learning curve with the Eldar, but this was very humbling.

Not to be daunted I am going back to the drawing board with the list and will probably drop the Phoenix Bombers and some thing else to take two revenants.

I think a few of the formations could also do with being larger. But I will have to have another read of the list and various special rules. Hopefully using the Eldar with give me some experience for using my Chaos once they are finally painted.

In other hobby related news the VC have been painted and ready for a few minor details on a couple of specialist figures and final touches added to the bases.  I hope to have some pictures up by this time next week.

Into The Woods

This week I made a start on the woods for my gaming table. I have plenty of trees that work for 28mm games and are all based individually. Recently I have been playing a lot more games in 20,15 and 6mm so needed some smaller scale trees.

I managed to obtain around 50 trees from Ebay for under £10 including shipping. They are very nice trees and really work well with 15 and 20mm figures. The only drawback is that I could not work out an easy way of basing them individually so opted to make bases that hold around 5 trees each (I have tended to prefer individual trees and then use felt templates if wanting to represent a wooded area). I have made the bases from fibreboard as it is easy to cut and shape, doesnt warp too easily and is cheap.

The fibreboard bases with trees

 After drilling the holes for the trees I used PVA to fix them to the base and then applied some filler to help hold them in place and give the base some texture. The filler also helps them look more like trees with roots etc.

The bases with added texture

 I still  need to texture the bases with my sand mix and then paint the bases. Should not take much longer to have them done. Then I will start on my river sections, also fibreboard and filler. Just need to work out how I am going to get the shade for the river. I am thinking somewhere between green and brown for the water.

Also on the work station are my Vietnam figures. Another batch have been undercoated and the basecoat is being applied. Once these are painted then it will be time to try out the rules for "Charlie Don't Surf".  Which I am looking forward to trying.

Drybrush applied to the robes and the flesh tone started. 

Hopefully I will have another update shortly based on boardgames that I have been playing and received in the post.