Year End Post

Here's my ego-centric and totally me-focused year end post!  Think of this as Cliffs Notes for my blog this year.

The High Points of 2011
The biggest highlight this year was the rebirth of this blog and the general rebirth of my miniature gaming hobby.  For about three years I was in "maintenance mode" and not doing much.  Actually I was playing World of Warcraft in all my free time.  I saved a ton of money, though.  Being "reborn" in miniatures gaming means you just lost a few bills to get caught up on everything.

A few happy things I didn't expect going into the year:

• My wife letting me take over the front room and drop a gaming table into it.  Pure win.
• Building up three 28mm WWII armies over the summer.  Gotta remember how I did that.
• Discovering a love for smaller games and non-GW games like Song of Blades and Heroes and a bunch of the THW games like Nuts!
• Not burning out by July

My top game in 2011 was still LotR SBG.  I played in the Gathering in the Desert.  I also played a lot of games over the year.  I completed 700 points of Elves for The Tale of Four LotR Gamers challenge.  I also filled out my Far Harad army from about 275pts to a full 700pt force.  Overall this game got the majority of my focus. I still enjoy LotR as much as I did when I first started playing it.

The Low Points of 2011
Nothing really was a low point.  There were a few duds this year:

• Infinity: Everyone's absolute favorite most best-est game of all time.  For three days.
• Heavy Gear: Blitz:  A classic game beloved of fans.  Starter set includes two rule books: one that advises you to ignore the other rule book included with the starter set.  That should be a sign of something.  Starter set was missing parts for three models and assembly of the other models has given me a nervous twitch.
• World War I:  At least I liked the rule books and they were on sale.

Other Thoughts
This section is here because I thought ending the post after "low points" was too abrupt.  I don't have many other thoughts.  I enjoyed the year, got in lots of games with good friends, and found my own gaming preferences.  Also, I was not maimed or diagnosed with a horrible disease.  Overall, this was a good year.

Here's looking forward to a wonderful 2012!  Thank you to everyone who has visited my blog this year.  I especially appreciate those who left comments.  I look forward to reading what people have to say.  Let's do it again next year.

Arcane Ruins -- Curses Included Free!

At long last sick and tired of piling things on top of my box of Arcane Ruins, I assembled and painted them.  They went together easily and painted up quickly.

Here are more pictures of it than you really want to look at:

I must warn you that there are special curses reserved in this box.  GW apparently included them for free.  Do you think I'm making it up?  Consider this:

• Shortly after opening the box and beginning my assembly, I knocked over a new bottle of liquid cement.  It rushed over my glass table like a Testor's Tsunami.  I dove on top of it to absorb the glue with my body, saving the arcane ruins. But my Sisters of Battle bases were melted!  Emperor preserve us!
• In the final stages, I unknowingly got paint from my fingers all over my Kindle.  I thankfully got it all scraped off and was glad to have avoided the problem --- until I found the paint all over my pants!  Noooooooo!
• The contents of the box exude a faint evil.  People left me alone while I painted.  But more importantly, long term exposure to this model sapped my intelligence.  You see while I left all the dolmens unglued for easy storage, I stupidly glued the main obelisk in place.  Now I can't store it flat.  The horror!

So what do you think?  Too many coincidences?  I think so.  Work with this set at your own peril.

Sisters of Battle Redux

The absence of faith is the mark of the weak.
The absence of faith is the mark of the heretic.
The absence of faith is the mark of damnation.
- extract from "The Stern Codex"

 I have been very fortunate to come across more Sisters of Battle at reasonable prices.  I found six blisters of Battle Sisters at the Chaos Orc's Superstore.  I have no idea how often they restock.  But I will certainly be watching for more deals.  My only complaint is that all six blisters had the same three poses.  

I added a few more models to round out the force.  This adds twenty more Sisters, bringing my grand total to a whopping thirty one models.  That's one full squad plus a minimum sized squad.  Fortunately I'm not planning to bring this up to a 1500 pt army, at least not initially.  I just love these models and have enjoyed painting them.  Here they are all together. I threw in some background stuff just to break up my desk top.

Here is a close-up shot of the Veteran Superior and a few Battle Sisters.

I picked up a Canoness and an Inquisitor model to round out the leadership needs.  I know Inquisitors are now under the Grey Knights and no longer with the Sisters of Battle.  But I don't care about what the books say anymore.  I just need stat lines.

So that does it for this update.  I've been on a roll with the Sisters of Battle between painting the models and reading the book. I was ready to put them aside for a bit.  But last week I found an excellent deal on Seraphim models on eBay.  Unbelievably, there was a "buy it now" price which was great.  So I picked them up.  Chaos Orc had three more for a great deal, but they lacked jump packs.  I was able to find those on eBay as well.  So now I have ten Seraphim that I can split into two 5 Sister teams (I have two leader models in the mix).  It was still a pricey deal at about $70, but that's half price!

One of the Sisters even came pre-painted.  Just check out this pro job:

Really?  I'm afraid so.

The former owner even puttied over the armor lines on the legs. Oh baby. Sexy. I got a good laugh out of this.  But she's going to take a bath in Simple Green today.

Faith and Fire

Faith and Fire by James Swallow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I liked this book.  If you are a fan of 40K, particularly of the Sisters of Battle, then you should find it an enjoyable read.  If you didn't understand that last sentence, then stay away from this book.  You're going to be confused. I'm a sucker for the Sisters of Battle "fluff", and so I am the target audience for the book. 

A lot of people have criticized this book.  It had its problems, but nothing detracted from the entertainment value.  Sure, the plot is predictable and the characters a little bit lacking in depth. The story lulled in spots.  But overall it was just great fun and met all my expectations.  Check it out if you have the chance.



View all my reviews

Inquisitors, Heretics, PDF, You Name It

My friend, Tim, donated a lot of his old Void figures to me.  He has had them for years and never found a use for them.  I eyed them as generic Sci-Fi models in 28mm.  But as I looked these over, I thought they'd be right at home in 40K.  I know Tim uses Void minis for some of his Inquisitor-themed forces.  I hoped to do the same thing.

As I painted these minis, however, I started to feel like these models would make great adversaries in 40K scenario based games.  The looked just left of "Imperial standard."  So maybe they're a heretical sect of the Imperial Creed, or maybe they are a rebellious planetary defense force.  Some of the models could pass off as Inquisitors in their own right.  Maybe they've succumbed to chaos?  There's lots of cool ideas when you let go of Codex rules and force org charts!

Here are some pictures of the models.  I like red.  So you will see that in full force here.

This guy is probably the "big boss."  The two chicks reminded me of Death Cult Assassins gone wrong.  They could also pass off as "Mad Max" types.  At any rate I got to paint purple and violet hair, which was cool!

Here's the "spiritual leader" as I see him.  The dude with the big weapon was neat.  In 40K games, that might be a plasma or melta cannon style of weapon.  In other systems, like 5150, I think it qualifies as a "Big Ass Gun."

Some regular dudes shown above.  The guy with the impossibly huge sword reminded me of some sort of "champion."  I gave his armor a different color with red tie-ins to the main theme.  I figured he must be special to be able to carry a big sword.

So there's the group shot of the collection to-date.  I actually have twelve more to add to this.  But my Sisters of Battle just came in and I'm anxious to start those.  I'll return to these guys shortly.  These were a blast to paint and to think up little stories for them as I went.

Return of the Tau

I sure am painting a lot of GW figures for a guy who's claiming to be "post GW."  I had last week off for Thanksgiving, but paradoxically didn't have much free time.  The time I had, I put into painting up more Tau.  Here are my Stealth Suits.

I would've had them done faster were it not for having to slop on three coats of Graveyard Earth paint.  Why are all my favorite colors so transparent?  Oh well, they are done now and ready to join the others in the big box.

When I said post-GW, I guess I mean I'm not buying into playing their games the way they want me to, or even using their figures for their games.  I played a solo game this weekend with 40K figures but using the 5150 Rules.  I really liked it.  I will probably do more of that.

Also, I'm not doing the "huge army" build up that GW wants me to do.  I plan on playing small, skirmish or scenario based games.  I'm not worried about force org charts or squad sizes (both which are designed to sell figures more than provide game balance).  I won't even touch Warhammer Fantasy, as that's just beyond ridiculous.

Well, that's probably the topic of another post.  In the meantime, I'll just keep painting whatever grabs me that day.

Sisters of Battle

Sisters of Battle is one of those armies that I always said I'd get around to doing.  I love the sculpts and love the fluff.  I just always had something else that took priority over starting on Sisters.

That was back in the day before Sisters were cast in pure gold.  These days I cannot afford to play in that rarefied strata of society, and plans of a Sisters of Battle army are long gone.  Even eBay sellers have gone mad with SoB greed.  Slop some paint on a single Sisters model, call it "pro painted", and then ask $20 for it; that seems to be the operating wisdom these days.

Were it not for the generosity of a friend, I would not be able to show you my new and tiny collection of Sisters.

These models were as fun to paint as I had expected them to be.  I went with the Order of the Ebon Chalice paint scheme, as given in the old Witch Hunter's codex.  (The codex was sadly my only step taken in building this army.  I think it's one of the best GW codices that I ever saw.)   There are 11 models total, not likely to grow much beyond that count.

I will use SoB in skirmish or scenario play 40K games.  I can add in an Inquisitor and some Imperial Guard to round out things.  Honestly, I'll probably draft them into service for other non-GW games.  I'm already thinking of other meanings for their iconography and gender bias.  I can shove them into some 5150:SA games.  I'll find a way to make use of them and have an excuse to get more of them.

However, I won't be buying Seraphim models.  At $14 per model, a "codex legal" squad costs $70.  That makes Seraphim the one of most expensive squad in 40K.  I really have better things to buy for that price than five models.

15mm Sci Fi

I've had this itch for a while, and decided to scratch it several weeks ago.  I've had my eye on these 15mm Sci Fi models from Rebel Minis.  The Earth Force models remind me very much of some small models I had as a kid.  I'm not sure what the size of those models were.  I had bought them for use in the Traveler RPG that I was in at the time.  But it was short lived and I was stuck with the minis.  Long gone, I thought I'd never see anything like them again.

Well, now I have a whole Earth Defense force that look just like them.  Here they are.

The picture color is a little off.  They are more of a terracotta color rather than the orange you see here.

It wouldn't be right if they didn't have someone to fight.  So I picked up another army from Rebel Minis, the Sahadeen.

The great thing about these two armies is that I have over 20 soldiers, two MG/Heavy Gun teams, and three specialist weapons for each army.  The grand total outlay was only $35 for two complete armies!  That's like two blisters of GW models.  Cost wise there's no comparison.

Few people in my regular gaming group play at this scale.  So I'll use these figures for solo games of 5150 from THW.  I think 15mm scale might be the perfect scale for solo games.  Since you need at least two forces,15mm is a lot cheaper and paints up quick.  Also play and storage space demands are reduced.

All I need is a few vehicles to spice up things.  While I probably won't invest heavily in this scale, it's a nice change of pace and worth keeping in mind for future projects.

There is Unrest in the Forest. There is Trouble with the Trees.

Pursuing my quest to find the most difficult ways to make trees for war gaming, I picked up two boxes of GW's Citadel Woods.  I'll be honest with you.  I bought these thinking they would be easier than Woodlands Scenic trees.  But you'll be pleased to know these trees were every bit of a bitch to put together as Woodlands Scenic.

I guess I like them well enough.  They will help fill my table with terrain, and trees work for any type of game.  Here's how they came out.

These models look tree-like to me.  I painted one set dark and one light.   But you probably noticed that for yourself.  What else can I say about trees?

So here's where these trees are not so cool.  First, the foliage pieces don't stay attached very well.  Ironically, they fall from the trees like leaves.  Go figure.  I thought I could avoid this by completely drilling out the holes and pushing the branches through them.  No dice.  They still fall off.  Also, the foliage pieces have a definite up and down facing that you don't realize until you've started to paint them.  One side has more detailing and depth, clearly meant to be the topside.  I didn't figure that out until about five minutes ago.

The bases are a nice feature of these sets.  I don't have any good "forest area" pieces and thought these would work for that.  The bases even fit together to make a continuous forest section.  The allegedly cool idea is that you can remove the trees from the bases when you put models in the forest.  Well, the trees are removable.

The trees actually remove themselves for you.  All the time.  Every time you touch them, and even sometimes when you don't.  You see, unless you precisely balanced your limb and foliage placements your tree is going to be unstable.  Heaven forbid you did something vain and stupid like arranging the trees in a way that looked cool to you.  The good news is there appears to be definite ways to put certain trees in the base.  Figuring that out is practically a mini puzzle game in itself.  Well played, GW!

So now I have more trees.  I don't look forward to making additional trees.  But I know I need more to fill the table.  I'll save that for a future date when I'm having such a good time that I need something to bring me down.  Fiddling with trees always seems to do that for me.

28mm WWII: More US Reinforcements

Time for the Saturday update.  This was another slow week in terms of actual production.  I jumped around a lot and worked on a few different things.  I'm currently fiddling with the GW forest models.  Good lord those things are a pain.  But I'm tired of Woodland Scenic trees shedding all over the place.

I think I'm done for now with my US Rangers.  I've added in more figures, bringing it up to a full strength platoon of two rifle squads, a command squad, tank, and several support weapon options.  I might buy another tank and an infantry gun to really call it complete.  Here's what I added this week.

Here are eight more riflemen.

Four more Thompson SMGs

Two more riflemen with grenade launchers.  These are both Victory Force miniatures.  I show them here with a Crusader rifleman for size comparison.  They really mix in nicely and the models are outstanding.  I really like these miniatures.

The Rangers used to share storage space with my Germans.  But the US forces have grown so numerous that they've graduated to their own storage box.  Now the Germans look really anemic in comparison.  I guess I'll be beefing up these guys next.  Where does this end?!

Female Armor Sucks!

I've been painting up some of my female elves for my Song of Blades and Heroes warband.  This video is absolutely hilarious and so true of the models I'm working on.

Back to the War: 28mm WWII Japanese Infantry

I've jumped back into my 28mm WWII project over the last two weeks.  I've been interested in trying out War Against Japan, and I can't do that with all my Japanese infantry stuck in bags.  So I busted them out of their plastic prisons.  Here's a full rifle platoon all completed.  Click the picture for a better view of them.

There are three squads, each comprised of a squad leader and assistant squad leader, Type 99 LMG and loader, and nine riflemen.  Off to the far right of the picture there is the Platoon HQ with one officer and one man.  The other man is carrying a flagpole.  I've got to figure out what to do about that.  I guess I could go with a crappy paper flag.  But I'd like to find another way to do it.  Any ideas are appreciated.

So totally that brings me a full strength platoon of 41 Japanese infantry.  Here is a detail shot of some of the men, and one of the leaders.  I gave leaders red headbands for their caps to distinguish them from rank and file men.

These are all West Wind models.  I still have more models to add.  I have three mortar teams, two HMG teams, as well as 8 "Jungle Fighers/Snipers."  Once those are completed, I could pick up a tank and call this completely done.

But right now I'm filling in gaps in my US and German forces.  This week I managed to complete three German Riflemen with grenade launchers, as well as a one Panzerfaust and a German NCO.

The Panzerfaust is a West Wind model.  The four remaining models are all Victory Force miniatures.  I have to say that these Victory Force miniatures are outstanding.  I absolutely love these models!  I stumbled on them because only Victory Force sold single models with grenade launchers.  I wanted these for my German forces.  I also picked up a few for my US Rangers.  When I got them, they looked too thin and tall to mix in well.  But after I painted them, I was amazed at how good these look.  Also, while being a little bit on the tall side, they mix in with my Crusader models nicely.  I like these enough to consider doing my Russian army (which I haven't started) all in Victory Force and supplementing with Crusader.  But cost may actually prevail in that argument.

So that's all for now.  I'll polish off the fourteen or so models I have for the US Rangers and then probably move back to terrain.  I've got a lot of terrain sitting on my work table that I'd like to move to the game table soon.

28mm WWII: Japanese Infantry Test Paints

I haven't had too much time to work on miniatures or much else this week.  However, I've got an itch to return to my 28mm WWII project.  Those bags of West Wind Japanese Infantry have been staring at me long enough.  Time for them to hit the painting table.  So I spent most of my available time cleaning up the models, mounting them on bases, and then adding basing texture.  They're now primed and ready to go.  But I got stuck on the uniform colors.

I've always imagined Japanese to wear khaki colored uniforms.  It's probably a Hollywood thing.  My research didn't turn up anything in those colors.  Basically it's a few different shades of green for either the Pacific Islands or Southeast Asia.  For China, uniforms were brown gray.  So I imagined my US Rangers to be in the vein of Merril's Marauders.  Therefore, the Japanese Infantry should be painted for the SE Asia scheme.  But I plan to some day pull together US Marines for the island hopping campaigns.  I did test paints for both.

On the left is the Southeast Asia scheme.  It's Vallejo Green Ochre.  On the right is the Pacific Islands scheme, which is Vallejo Middlestone.  Both got a wash of Citadel Sepia.   Though the left side looks more like the Japanese you see in old war movies, I think the right side looks better.  So I'm leaning that way.  If anyone has an opinion, I'd like to hear it.

Once I settle on a color scheme.  I've got a full rifle platoon to paint.

That's three squads of 13 men, NCO and Jr NCO, LMG, and ten riflemen.  The HQ is a two man squad.  I still have enough infantry to do another full squad.  I also got all of the West Wind line.  So I have a lot of weapons teams to complete.  But when it's done I will have a nice sized Japanese Infantry force with different options for it.  The challenge will be finding 28mm sized vehicles for them.

Temple of Skulls, The Other Kind of Church

Keeping with my religiously themed terrain project, this week I introduce my take on the Temple of Skulls.

This is a really nice piece of terrain that will work great in any fantasy themed game (OK, maybe not LotR) or part of a WH40K game.  I really like the details that went into this model.  It really gives the feel of a decrepit, collapsing temple to some evil power.

I did a slightly different take on the colors that were given on the kit's box.  I think the GW treatment made it look too bright, like a McDonald's Playland that fell to Chaos.  Not that my take is "all that" but I liked the more muted and mysterious colors.  I was going for the look of something forgotten and left to the ravages of the elements.

As a side note, I only used Americana paints on this model.  In fact, I use Americana paints on all my terrain.  I really like these paints, and find them fairly comparable in working qualities to the "serious" paints.  They do take a few coats for even coverage, though.  But they come in giant bottles and the paint doesn't dry out.  I'm still using paints I bought back in 2003!  So overall they're still a great value.

I also completed some craters from GW's Moonscape pack. 

As far as holes in the ground go, they're nice.  I tried to give each crater a different look, as if some are newer and some older.  I don't know if that really comes across.

Next up is the Arcane Ruins set, which should go fast.  I also ordered a couple of boxes of GW's trees.  Then after that I think I'll take a break from terrain to get back to my minis.

The Other Blog

OK, true confessions time.  I'm cheating on you guys with another blog.  There, I've said it.  And I'm afraid that my other blog might be unacceptable to you, as it's only tangentially related to mini games.  Oh my.  This is getting serious.

For the few of you who actively read my blog, you might know that I enjoy solo gaming with a lot of my minis.  I picked up Mythic's Game Master Emulator (GME) as a means to help run the "NPC opponent"  in these games.  Of course it was only a mater of time before I used GME for it's intended purpose: RPGs.

What started as a small experiment for me with the GME turned into a full blown game.  I've been playing a series of Dark Heresy games (hence the tangential connection to this blog)  using the GME.  It has been a blast and I'm going to stick with it.  To that end, I created a blog to specifically address my solo gaming activities.

I invite you to check out my other blog, Solosaurus.  It's very new and there are not a lot of posts to read.  However, my first complete story arc of a Dark Heresy game is recorded there in a few posts.  Click on the Dark Heresy label to get all the posts.  I've written up all the sessions, really almost becoming 40K fan fiction.  I was finding my way with this at first, but have settled into a stable format now.

If you like what you find, please consider following the blog.  I'll be starting up a new story arc for Dark Heresy, and plan on doing Deathwatch very soon.  I'm also looking forward to Black Crusade, if it ever gets released.  This just opens the door to uber-geekdom, and I've done a bit of Pathfinder and am seriously considering Call of Cthulhu.  If I find a good pulp adventure RPG, I might go there too.  Anyways, please have a look!

Time for Church

I've got a lot of figures to paint.  But this week I wasn't much interested in any of them.  So, I moved on to my small collection of terrain pieces. 

One thing I really wanted to get done was my gothic church from Pegasus Hobbies.  I bought two of their sets and was really unimpressed with the size of the building.  There wasn't even room for two 28mm models in it.  So I bought one more set and was able to get a nice sized building out of it. My buddy Tim helped with assembly.  He also took some of my spare MDF and mounted the model on it for me.  Thanks Tim.  Here are some pictures.

I will say this was a bitch to paint.  I know it looks simple, but getting inside was not easy.  Also, there's just a ton of surface area to cover.  My wife made the wry comment that I was painting a gray model with gray paint.  I had to admit, I was at a loss for a reply.  "But it's not the right shade of gray," did not go over well as a sensible answer.

Tim, a dyed in the wool model converter, took some of bits from my Cities of Death terrain and added a balcony and ladder on the inside.  So now a model can sit up there and snipe out of that big window.  The interior is just a little shy of 10" x 10".  My fat hands will have a hard time moving models in there.

There were a lot of leftover pieces.  Tim and I put them in various arrangements until we came up with another building scheme.  This can be either a mausoleum or a rectory to go with the church.  Here are some shots of the building, not even primed yet.

I'll get to that one sooner or later.  I'm going to work on the Temple of Skulls terrain piece next, as well as finish out some crater pieces I have.  With my new table, I need good terrain to fill it out.  So I'll focus on that while I think about what figures I want to paint next.

Space Marine is Here!

I just got the new Space Marine game for Xbox 360 tonight.  I lucked out and got it as a rental from my Gamefly queue.  This almost never happens with new releases.  My son is actually playing it first, and I have the easier job of just watching.  Actually it's just as well, since I suck at shooters and you're really just moving through a linear story anyway.  So watching is cool with me. Let someone else press the buttons.

I've watched about 90 minutes of game play.  I will say that the graphics are spectacular..... and tremendously bloody.  This is just the sort of game that will help fuel those "video games lead to violent behavior" pundits.  I suppose the next chainsaw accident involving a teen will be tied back to watching Space Marines eviscerate hordes of Orks with chainswords.

At any rate, they've done a great job capturing a forge world under siege.  The Ultramarines are deployed to deal with the Xenos threat (Orks) and to recover a Titan that is on the forge world. The Marines are perfectly modeled, practically look like real people.  The Imperial Guard are less impressive.  The Orks are spot on, including that ape-like gait I imagined that they should have.  I do get a little tired of them screaming "Space Marines!  Kill 'em!"  over and over. 

The Orks attack in massive hordes, and you only have three space marines to counter them.  In a real game of 40K those space marines would be pulped seven times over.  But in this video game, they are truly gods among men.  One chainsword  slash liquefies about five Orks at once.  Awesome.

So you know where I'll be for the next several days!  If you can, get your hands on this game and give it a shot.  It's also available on PC, if you don't have an Xbox. 

Evil Dead!

Why I'm not as productive as I used to be

Miniature painting this week has been a slow affair, very hit or miss.  I'm learning what it means to have a child involved with high school sports.  Combined with ever lengthening work days, free time is not what it was a few short weeks ago.  But I'm still plugging away, this week setting my goals on easy to do items.  Hence, I worked on completing my undead warband for Song of Blades and Heroes.  Check out the sweet zombie action.

These are Reaper zombies.  They come three to a pack.  I really liked the looks of them, particularly the female model.  Her back foot has come off and she's pitching forward.  The zombie in the middle is ripped across the midsection and his spine has popped out his back.  I can empathize with that, sitting in an office chair all day.

Next up is a Reaper ghoul from the Warlord line.

He's a little bit on the small side for me.  I painted him along with the three zombies all in one go.  He's  a pretty cool looking model.  I debated skin tones, and then just settled on the sickly green thing.  It works.

I have a vampire leading my undead warband.  I wanted to show the vampire's traditional hold over wolves, bats, and vermin in my list.  So here are a few additions to reflect that.

These are Reaper rat swarms that come two per package.  The picture came out like crap and I'm too lazy to retake it.  Since it's just a jumble of pink tails, rat bodies, and beady red eyes, I figured there's not much worth looking at here.  Moving along.....

These are Reaper's Dire Wolves, also two per package.  These look really nice, and even better in person.  The fur texture is really right on and the faces are nicely sculpted.  Also, since these are dire wolves, they stand fairly high.  They come up to about shoulder height of a man-sized model.  I'm tempted to model more of these and add in some wolves for an all animal warband.

So that was all I got done this week.  I was glad to complete the undead warband, and put these guys on the table tonight for a play test.  I actually wrangled my son into pushing the models around for a bit, which was a nice change of pace from solo gaming SBH.  He played Dwarfs, which are insanely over-powered in SBH.  At least I think they are.

I learned that painting up zombies was a waste of time.  At Q6+ they never activate.  Mine just stood at the starting line and never moved.  Though, for 7pts each, they are a cheap way to keep your army from breaking.  Just hide them out of sight and never activate them.  Cheesy? Why I agree!  The rest of my undead flew around causing terror that the dwarfs laughed off.  Then all my guys died for real this time.

We played a Legions of Middle Earth scenario, Seize the Prize, which worked great in this format.  My rat swarms actually unearthed the prize and got it off the board.  So it was a minor victory for the Undead.  I'll have to re-think this list, or stop playing against dwarfs!  Anyway, that's all for now.

More Tau

This week has been rather slow on the miniatures front.  Between long working days and my son's high school swim team schedule I don't have a lot of time.  I'm still pecking away at my Tau models, though.  This week, I decided to paint up the transport that came with the Battle Box.

I really love Citadel's Graveyard Earth color.  It's really one of my favorite colors.  Unfortunately, it has no covering power.  This Devilfish took four complete coats to get even coverage.  So a quick thing like this ends up becoming a long project.

I realize that I haven't documented my other Tau models.  So I took some pictures of these as well, though I didn't paint them this week.  I have two Fire Warrior squads.  No use to show all of them, so here's a shot of some with the Devilfish.  I like the way this picture came out.

You'll note I deepened the brown color with a wash.  I'm not going to do that for vehicles.  The troops and vehicles don't have to match perfectly!

Here are two shots of my Battle Suit Commander and an Ethereal.  The Ethereal is a nice choice since he brings an honor guard of above-average Fire Warriors.  I'm going to paint those guys in a different color, just to keep track of them on the game board.

That's all for now.  There's still a heap of models to do.  Since there's no rush, I'll just work them here and there until they are all done.