Saturday, February 8, 2014

1/600 Scale Cactus Air Force

I finally got my flight stands from Litko, which took over a month to arrive. I guess they're the only game in town, but that shouldn't mean something as commonplace as 1" hex stands should take so long to ship.  Well, now that I've got the bases I can start painting my Guadalcanal 1/600 scale planes.

Here's my US squadron that will last the campaign. These are all the US planes needed to play through the Check Your Six Guadalcanal Campaign. I'll be playing this with a friend, but will supply all the planes for it.

Click for a larger picture.

There are 18 planes total, a bit more than necessary for the campaign. The blue planes are F4F Wildcats and the green planes are P-39 Airacobras. They're on a 6' x 4' felt hex mat made by Monday Knight Productions.  I highly recommend MKP for their fast service and inexpensive prices. They have a lot of different mats from oceans to deep space. It's amazing to me that they made and shipped this mat four times faster than the stupid hex bases took. Ok, no more whining.

You will notice that I hand painted the US stars on the planes. I did order 1/600 scale decals but since these are coming from the UK I figured it'll take forever. Also, these things are so small that I'll probably give up in frustration anyway!  The painted "stars" look like crap up close, but of course on the gaming table both the stars and the overall paint job looks much better. These photos really highlight any mistakes I made.

So, up next are the Japanese squadrons, which will be Betty bombers and Zeroes. Then it's off to battle for these planes!

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Big and Bad: More Reaper Bones

In an effort to put a dent in my Bones collection, I worked on a few of the larger creatures that came with my Kickstarer. I haven't got around to the giants and dragons, but I've been thinking about getting them together soon.

So here are the big and bad boys: a gnoll archer, ettin, and ogre. Click for a larger picture.



These models had an amazing level of detail and were very crisp castings. I think they were all Tre Manor sculpts, but I could be wrong. The blue stuff hanging from the ettin's belt are two fish, which I though was a characterful touch. The ogre's shield is interesting, and I imagined that he covered it with tanned hide, probably human!  The gnoll is a nice addition to the other Reaper Gnoll.

I imagine these guys could serve as bruisers and tanks for my orcs and give a little variety to the force. I'm looking forward to trying them out together in a game of Savage Showdown.

After completing these models, I wanted to keep going. I have so many other projects in the pipeline, I felt a little guilty for it. However, I couldn't resist giving these bruisers something to beat on. So, here are three models that I'm planning to use as rangers.

I've actually painted these models before in metal, except for the middle one which was a new sculpt for Bones. Painting them again did not bother me, and provided a chance to re-base them and do a different color scheme. I did these in analogous forest greens and browns, trying to make them look more like a "unit." These will serve as leader and hero figures for the "good guys."

To give a sense of scale, here is the group all together.

Now you can see how meaty those big guys are! I'm pretty satisfied with these models. However, I've got to get moving on other stuff. I'll come back to my Bones collection soon.

Up next will be 1/600 scale planes for an up-coming Guadalcanal air war campaign. Check back soon for the first installment of US planes.