Week 2 of League and spray primer

So today is the start of week 2 of the league. The points ramp up to 750 and this time no extra restrictions on your list. So, extra toys? Or just a small boost to what I brought last time? Part of me just wants to keep things simple and add another 100pts to my previous list. It seemed to do okay. This time around it will have five more fliers (since we forgot the free 10 and only brought 5).

So with that 100pts, I could simply add another cruiser, frigate, and corvette to the list. The small ships are easy to justify. The fourth cruiser though? Does that make that squad a bit unwieldy? Not sure. But thinking about that rocket spread sure has me smiling. We'll see how it goes. The other easy thing I could do is just bring an Ika. While that sounds tempting, not sure if I want to add such a change in dynamics to the list. Those beasts have a fairly single style of play and not sure if that will work for me.

Next up, painting. So no update on the Empire fleet. However, I did bust out the primer on the Prussian land starter:

I used AP's desert yellow and I really like the way it looks. I added the blimp there to show the color matching to the normal paint. You can see it better here:

I am really tempted just to prime that blimp with the spray primer. Seems a bit silly to do so much brush work. The second blimp I have will definitely get primed over.

So that is it for this week so far. Busy week ahead, so not sure what other progress I'll get in. Any painting done will be on the EotBS though. I'm done with the PE until the land starter for the Empire is finished. Vanguard here I come!

My problem with Army Painter paints

So the other day I was talking about my issues with the Army Painter line of paints. It could be that my expectations are different than what they are selling. But I would hope that a line that boasts that its about speed painting, would not require you to do multiple coats in order to get the coverage you need. So in this brief update today, I wanted to show you an example of what I was talking about.

So, here we are with the Prussian Carrier model. I recently got this in a trade and it was already primed grey. Which to me is fine because I really like using grey primer on models. Typically grey is forgiving to the lighter colors, and just provides a nice foundation.

So therefore, I pulled out my AP desert yellow color and went about painting this thing by hand. As you can see, the results are not fantastic. The middle section has two coats on it already. Looking closely, you can still see variations in the color as the grey primer is sneaking through. To the left and right of the middle sections are single coat areas. Clearly these are unacceptable in terms of coverage. I have emailed AP and they were great in giving me some suggestions for handling the thin paint...but none have really worked out for me.

So again, maybe it is my issue with the expectations of the paint. Overall, I like them. And the color primers are great. I guess I will just need to make sure I primer the models the main color first and then do multiple coats for the rest.

1st Battle Report - Blazing Sun vs Prussians

So, got my first game in last night! Whooo! As I had previously stated, there is a local guy, Jesse, who is running a league. We met up last night at one of my favorite stores, Guardian Games, and threw down as they say.

We did 650pts, with the majority of your models must be from the starter set, and this was a naval game. So yeah, didn't involve any of my cool land stuff. But that is okay...because the naval game is a blast too.

My fleet looked like this:
Assault Carrier - Com.
Battleship
3x Cruisers
3x Frigates
3x Corvettes
5x Torp. bombers
2x 3x fighter wings
(yeah, we messed up and only gave each other 5 free TT).

His fleet was:
Battleship
Air Carrier
2x Bombers
2x Cruisers
4x Frigates
5x Dive bombers
2x 3x fighter wings

Due to time constraints, we only got in two turns for the hour and a half we played. Not fantastic, but not horrible either. It was a learning game for the both of us so lots of book browsing.

I will also state here and now, my dice were hot, H-O-T hot! It was insane how often I criticaled his boats. He was not so lucky. As you can imagine, I'm not even going to try to give a turn by turn recap. Instead I'll just go with the highlights.

Here we are facing off. As you can see, my fleet was apparently going to squish the carrier between the BB and the cruisers. Actually, my plan was to use rockets as much as I could and hopefully burn off some of his AP before he closed. My AC was kind of in a dumb position, but it worked out.

Opening salvos saw me actually put down rockets on his BB and give him a nice burn token. Also, I took out two frigates with some really lucky firing. I did not link turrets with the frigates and criticaled one ship and damaged another. Then the corvettes came over and linked to finish off the wounded duck. If you look closely at his BB, you'll notice a hit token and some fire where my cruiser rockets got through.

Turn 2 was a bit more exciting on both sides. His cruisers advanced and took out a corvette which broke them. His BB advanced and damaged two of my frigates and killed another corvette. Let me say, CR 6 on a frigate rocks! With that, my two corvettes streaked across and sank a frigate. My own frigates zoomed the other way and put a critical on his cruiser. My AC advanced and turned a bit to engage the cruisers, and finished one of them off. Then his bombers came on and crit'd the AC. But then my BB took out both bombers! Then my cruisers finished off his cruiser, and then crit'd the BB! Like I said, my dice were hot! Oh, and his frigate finished off my corvettes. We also exchanged fighters a bit too. The final shot of the round was my torpedo bombers putting one last hit on the BB.

We had to call it there due to time. However, his field was looking thin. His BB was not going to last much longer, he was down to 3 fighters as well. But his Air Carrier was still potent and he still had a full wave of 5 dive bombers.

My loses consisted of three corvettes and three fighters. Two frigates were damaged and the assault carrier had a single crit against it. Lessons learned was that we need to look up the AA rules more and find some good examples of them on the net. They were a bit confusing to us, especially the timing.

Most of all though, it was fun and I can't wait to play again.

No pics Monday :(

Wow, what a weekend. First off, a belated Happy Father's Day to all that qualify. My weekend was filled to the brim with goodness, just not much of the painting kind. My lovely wife gifted me the day of Saturday to do whatever I wanted. So after shuttling my daughter to and fro soccer in the morning, I then spent the rest of the day playing D&D with my friends. It is my favorite pastime (yes, even more than DW) and it was fantastic. If somehow you have never experienced the joy of RPGs, I highly recommend it. I have been doing it since I was 6 and I love it now as much as I ever did.

Sunday then was mostly a day of work. We were dedicating new adaptive swings at our local park and also celebrating my other daughter's birthday. Lots of work with setup and take down, but well worth it. However, I did get a small bit of painting done...just not on my EotBS. Actually, I just got my hands on a couple of PE blimps and a dread. I love WWII Afrika stuff. My favorite setting for Flames of War. I own several armies for that period (Italian, German and Brits). I just love the desert color scheme.

So anyways, I just recently got Prussian starts for land and sea and then in a trade got a hold of two carrier blimps and the dread. So how to paint them? Well in DAK colors of course! Okay..the land starter will get DAK, doesn't make too much sense to do the boats in DAK...but who knows. (by the way, DAK is Deutsches Afrika Corp)

  

Just to give you an idea of how it looks.

Anyways, I love the color scheme. Also, I saw that Army Painter had a desert yellow color. So I went out and bought a bottle to give it a go. I figured the blimps would look really good using those colors so started out to lay down some paint on one of them. Now as it was already primered, I did not use the AP color primer, but just painted over the existing grey.

Now here I'm going to rant a bit about AP paint again. It was thin! When I get home I'm taking a picture of it so you can see what I'm talking about. I'm going to have to put two coats on this model at least...most likely a third to clean things up. Army Painter dudes...I can not be putting three coats on a model to get the coverage I need with your stuff. That is not speed painting. Argh!

So I did get some paint on...(oh, I also tried out the paint on a TT..still took two coats as well) just not work towards my Empire.

Ooooooo and in other news, locally we are having an escalation league! It will cover the next six weeks. It is a naval league, so doesn't help my land guys out at all, but it will get me playing the game and tossing paint on my Empire fleet as well. It starts tonight. I just gotta figure out how to go. I've got to fix dinner, take my daughter to soccer, and then play indoor later that evening. I'll find a way though...I will!

Brits are catching up

So apparently Robert has been on a tear lately. He's throwing paint around like crazy...some of it is even landing on his models [rimshot]. So today's picture update is more of his models. By the way, he is openly asking for some advice on them. So feel free to throw down some comments for him.

 

Also, looks like one of our local players is thinking about getting a league going. I love leagues. Great way to get excited about an army. Most allow you to start small too and give you a chance to slowly build up your force. Unfortunately for me, the league will probably be a naval league. Which means all the work I'm doing on my land forces won't mean a thing. But that's okay. Just means I'll need to get going on the ships.

Also, I'm hoping to have an update from another local guy, code name Sammy. He's a big pusher for DW around here and we are going to get together soon so I can snap some pics of his army(ies). Maybe even get some words of wisdom from him about the game.

I'm slowly saving up for the Italian fleet. Apparently my LGS already sold out of their lot. I never even got to see them come in. Booooo! But I did get a chance to see the new Chinese fleet and Australians. Wow! The Chinese have got to be one of the best looking fleets ever. Not sure how they play, but so tempted to get them. I know Robert has been drooling over them too. Could there be a race to see who buys them first?? Hmmmmmm

Paint schedule. Yeah..I really need to get back to that. I apparently need a Sturginium time freezing device so that I can squeeze in some painting between breaths or something along those lines. I will say, I've been a bit disappointed with the Army Painter line so far. Quite a few of their paints are needing multiple coats to cover properly. For a product that is supposed to speed up painting...this does not bode well. Many of their paints are coming off thin. I've even gone to storing them upside down as suggested and I do shake well. So not sure if I got a bad batch or if something else is going on. I will say that GW's old base coat line (Foundation) did a fantastic job of base coating. My problem with GW stuff is that they dry out!! I mean most of my foundation set was never even used and most of them are bone dry now. That really pisses me off. GW's bottles suck ass. I have Poly S paints that are 20 years old and still good. I think I may have bitched about this before...but it really bothers me. Ah well, I could rant on for a while. Oh yeah..paint schedule. So the plan is to finish up the medium tanks and bombards. Then tackle the tiny tanks, and then do the big walker. ETA? NFC. (no f*cking clue) Maybe I'll score some Father's Day time.

p.s. my daughter turns 10 today! Woot! Quite the milestone all things considered. But also bittersweet in a way. She has Rett Syndrome (bust out the tissues if you look this up). I had always hoped that a cure or a major breakthru would have happened when she reached 10. No such luck unfortunately. But she is with us, she is happy, and I can't really ask for more than that. Till next time.

post post post your boat...

So yeah, haven't posted in a bit...been busy. Actually I really have been busy. All weekend long I was in the Portland Rose Festival Dragonboat Races. That was exhausting. You wait and wait and wait, then hop in your boat, paddle for three minutes like your life depended on it, and then wait a lot more. It is so draining...I think its this thing the people call "the outdoors." Be wary of it my friends...it will drag you down like you would not believe.

Suffice to say, I haven't painted in a bit. Still recovering, even today. I have to figure out this whole "sleep" thing. Right now I'm getting about four hours a night. That is not enough. Makes the day a bit fuzzy. Holding a brush and getting it to do what you want is nigh impossible.

Still, prior to the weekend I got some painting done. No finished models still, but progress was made. Here, take a look:

See, the last time you saw those models, they were all red. Now they have multiple colors on them! See that pallet there, I've had that thing for over 20 years. It was just a piece of cardboard that has two shiny sides. The other side has never been used. The cup is no where near as old...its just some cup I've been using for a few years now. No where near as interesting as the pallet. ;)

Oh, and its almost Summer over here. Which means the kids will be out of school and all hopes of normalcy will be gone. So pray for me.

Oh, and Robert threw down some more paint.




I think he has "red" envy.

Well somebody is painting

Another day and another no pic update for yours truly. I did actually paint last night, for about thirty whole minutes that I squeezed in. I applied more plate mail to various parts on the tanks. I'd say they are about 60% done at this time. This whole "assembly line" idea really does work...but you do need more than half an hour to get much done.

What I do have though are progress pics from Robert's tanks. Now he decided with going with a gray for the guns and brass for the steamworks.

He's a little concerned that the grey just isn't popping out enough. However, it really is a nice color. Obviously, he has more to do. Most notably, he needs the tracks done as well as the wheel cogs. I think if he goes with a silver or boltgun on the cogs, and some form of brown for the tracks, it will help diminish the green a bit. Also, I've recommended that he expand the grey a bit around the guns. So the housing could be painted grey as well as the gun shield. That will give it a little more area for coverage and hopefully make it stand out more. Plus, once he shades with a wash or glaze, it will help define those areas better too.

Oh, I've also updated the previous post so that there wasn't such a large wall of text. As always, feel free to comment.

Insert catchy title here

Okay, so no pics for today, well unless you want to see some of my daughter's artwork (she's 12). I am working on my models. I busted out the plate mail last night and got a few of the models done. However, I have a lot more to do, plus I need to go back to the tiny tanks and hit them up with monster brown again.

I'm currently on a trading spree though and have been gobbling up all of the loose dystopian wars models in the area. I recently secured a KoB starter fleet with a carrier and escort group. I'm also looking at expanding my Prussian fleet a little be more as well. So fingers crossed that all those go well.

To add a little more meat to this post, I can go a little more in depth with my gaming history. A long time ago, in a state far far away...a gamer was born. Who knew? Six years old when Star Wars came out. Saw it 11 times that summer. Yeah. Which was really around the time I first starting playing D&D too. I played with my older brother and the Bratton brothers. Those two events really set the stage for my gaming career.

I was there when the Atari 2600 came out. Had some sixty games for that sucker. Rolled right into the NES years later. My first wargame was Battletech. I was a teenager at that time and just thought it looked really cool. I still remember my first game of it. My friend and I played a stinger vs a wasp. For some reason, we didn't realize that when the internal structure was gone, the mech was toast. We kept playing until we died from crits. That was a long game. But it really opened me up to miniatures when they came out. It was instantly better to see full 3D models instead of cardboard cutouts.

Middle school saw the introduction of Car Wars. Then around high school, discovered Rogue Trader. I got the marines, my friend bought orks. Those were the days, using tape cassettes for hills and Styrofoam for buildings.

College was mostly RPGs I have to say. I did a little bit of mini gaming then, but yeah, most of friends preferred RPGs. Still though, I have to say my mini collections were quite small all the way until around '97. I had just started getting into warhammer fantasy with the new wood elves when I moved from the east coast to Portland. For a few years, things were pretty stable. I was introducing friends to Warhammer, but had pretty much kept to just the one army and my old 40K stuff from HS (which consisted of the beaky marines and a handful of eldar).

And then, as they say, the sh!t got real. It is all kind of hazy (which is odd since I have never done drugs) but pretty soon my collection grew exponentially. There was a lull when Everquest first came out. Wow...I was in the beta of that game and man did I sink hours of my life into that thing. I did still play warhammer regularly though, and got pretty heavy into the tournament scene for a while.

Hmmmm I have to say, I think the miniature explosion happened after my wife and I moved into our house (yes, despite being a gamer, I was still able to find, court, and marry a woman). There was an office space in the basement which I took over. Yeah, that was the moment. It was like there was a void, and it needed to be filled....and filled with miniatures. I have had armies for every GW game ever produced I think (fantasy, 40K, epic, warmaster, necromunda, mordheim, gorka morka [not Man O' War though) and multiples for most. Then I got into Flames of War and must own at least six armies for them now. And now the Great Eye has turned its gaze upon Dystopian Wars. I just need to make some shelf space.

Oh what the heck, check out this awesome chalk art my daughter busted out:

I find your lack of progress...disturbing

Yeah, Darth would totally be choking me out right now. So despite me having time this weekend to paint, I didn't get as much done as I'd have liked. Part of it was due to the fact that I had to dig through my piles of minis to find all of my dark elf stuff so that it can go on the chopping block. So the good news is that the army is one step closer to getting sold. This is what $900 of GW stuff looks like (pitiful ain't it?):

Paint wise, I did work on my land ships. I went into the assembly line mode and started out with the bleach bone for the decking. First off, a little miffed that it took two coats to get solid coverage over the red primer. Second, man am I sloppy when I go into assembly line mode. I'm going to have to go back over these models with the red to clean up all the mis-hits.

I think wrapped up the evening with doing the tracks with the beast brown color. At first I think my brush was a bit wet because the paint wasn't covering well, but after a few minutes it seemed to finally thicken up to where I was getting the coverage I needed with the first application. I even went to a big flat brush to do the job on the treads which helped cut the time down. Not as sloppy as the bone though.

So this week I'll be painting the silver to the guns and hatches, and then cleaning up with the red paint before hitting it with a wash. Also, I just realized I could have done all of the treads on the TT last night, especially since I had left over brown on my pallet.

Once the assembly line is done, then I get to tackle the final unit of the land set, the walker! Can't wait to paint that model. I just love that thing. I also need to bust out the alternative turret for it and get that primed too.