Another weekend has come and gone, so its fitting to find some more Pirates grace my blog.
Both are metal, the one on the left is I think Eureka, while the right hand is another Foundry. I made this legless fellow a Navigator.
As well, I've completed the Chief Inspector from my Scotland Yard Company for IHMN. I was hoping to have the Detective (Sherlock Holmes) completed as well, but a topple forced a re-glue onto his base
I definitely need to work on patterning my clothing. This poor bugger looks like he was splattered with paintballs.
I had a parcel arrive earlier this week, but was unable to snag it from the post office til this weekend.
The latest wave of the Zombicide Craze has landed! Now even more survivors have emerged to eradicate the Zombie menace.
Survivor Pack 3 consists of Achille the Serial Killer, Chuck 'Momma's Boy', Mack the Car Salesman, Smith - Dog of War, Mike - the Miniature Sculptor & Gary - the Misfit
The Moustache box contains Rob - The Security Expert, Frank - The Repo Man, & Don - The Civil Servant.
The individual characters are Helen the Federal Agent (Where's Mulder?), Fred the Trader, Will the Game Designer & Ross the Manager.
I also snagged 3 of I believe 4 of the Special Guest Character packs. These characters are Padre Johnson, Bones, Uncle Honk, Mitch, Angry Mary & Red Cap Ben.
Good thing the weather is finally warming up, as these will be wanted to join the painting queue!
Another good weekend of painting has seen me complete a WW1 German Armoured Car & some more pirates.
I picked up this 28mm resin Armoured Car on Ebay.
There were 2 of them up for auction, I managed to snag just the one.
It's comprised of just the 1 cast piece, as in the turret is fixed unfortunately, but hey, with all the other MG's protruding everywhere, I can live with that.
As well a couple more Pirate crewmen are finished. The astute will notice that one of the blighters is missing a foot. Eventually when I do my next batch of bases with green stuff I will work a foot into the deal for him.
Both are metal figures, I am not sure of the fella on the left, but the right hand is Old Glory.
There are a few more Pirates in various stages of painting, as well as the Scotland Yard Company for IHMN. I have also prepped the Society of Thule Prussian Company.
Last night Dave brought out another game of Bolt Action. This time we played an early war scenario from Skirmish Games.
France 1940, Crossing the Meuse. Bruce played the French, while Dennis & I attempted to get thru the defences (which meant destroying 4 bunkers). We started with 2 squads of engineers already on the French side of the river & their deployment was randomized as to which portion they would be in. Of course this was not determined until after the Germans had deployed.
As well the French had 3 bunkers containing AT guns, & 3 with MG's. These were unknown to the Germans.
The game started with a Stuka auto-destroying a random bunker. This did not count for the 4 further ones to obtain the objectives.
The Germans were surprisingly lucky, with having both Engineer Squads appear in the same quadrant, right in front of our infantry who were waiting to cross!
The first couple turns involved the engineers removing the wire obstacles & then swarming to the bunker attempting to destroy it with demo charges.
The French troops had to shift to where the weight of the German troops were located to bring fire onto them from their trenches.
As one of the Engineer squads was having disruption issues, I moved the second to assist with its destruction.
Meanwhile Dennis had surged into the trenches, resulting in mutual annihilation. The German 88 was able to destroy the other 3 bunkers to obtain our objectives.
This resulted in the Germans taking the win. With all the Germans being deployed at one end of the field, it made it hard for the French, as they were limited with what could bring fire onto the Germans.
Bruce certainly gave his best though, having rolled extremely well on several occasions. Thanks Dave for bringing it out.
Just a short post this eve, as I ended up with more in progress miniatures than completed.
Here are the remainder of the Scotland Yard Constables
I have the flesh tones done on the remainder of the Scotland Yard Company. There are also several Pirates & a WW 1 German Armoured Car in the painting queue.
As well tomorrow night I will be playing another game of Bolt Action with Dave.
Another good painting weekend has seen me complete the sixth crew for the Mayday game. As well I've gotten a start on my In Her Majesty's Name Scotland Yard company.
The Pirate Captain is a Foundry metal, while the crewman is another Old Glory.
I've started my Scotland Yard Company and am working on the Constables. They are armed with Electro-Truncheons or some such. Surely a shock to any incorrigible rogues they should encounter.
Of note is the bases I've mounted them on are the ones I used the Basius molds for.
One thing I am beginning to notice is that the dip &/or matte spray seems to create an odd sheen on certain paint colours. This seems to be the case with the Midnight Blue I've used on their uniforms, however when viewed with the eye, they do not show this effect.
It's nice to be getting started on them & as well I can take a bit of a breather working on my Pirates, as there are still a great many to do.
Thanks for reading
Last night at the club, Dave brought out a previously played scenario to give Bolt Action a try.
Whereas Fireball Forward is Opportunity Fire Heavy, not so with Bolt Action, where its more about the number of dice.
Bruce & I played the Soviets and started with 2 Rifle Squads, an Infantry Gun & an AT-Rifle team. The building was the ultimate objective, so we placed one squad in there to make the Germans fight for every brick. As seen in the image above, we are past the initial turn, where out Infantry gun was lost after brewing up a Panzer III. We had also lost our AT-Rifle team under hails of MG fire from the halftracks.
Add to the fact that whenever we did get a shot off with one of our vehicles in was invariably a blank (lots of rolls of 1 for damage. The sheer number of dice for the Germans allowed them to hammer anything we brought out.
Although wiped out to just a single Armoured Car, they Germans nearly threw the game with their cautious advance, as they had to get infantry into the building to capture it. This they squeaked out on the very last turn, having had the first dice.
One of the voiced downsides of Bolt Action, is that it is based on tournament play, using points for everything which of course is historically inaccurate. Due to the dice used though it quickly punishes a force with less, making scenario's which in many other rule sets work quite well leave one wanting. There was a lot of positive feedback on the smoothness of the system in general however & everyone seemed to like the dice system for determining actions.
One thing against us was that when the players saw that all of our units had used their dice, they were more brazen, performing actions which one would likely not see in normal games. This allows gamey players to wait their opponents out, just sitting and shooting until the dice are exhausted then rushing forward not fearing point blank fire.
Perhaps placing an odd dice in the bag for an end of turn similar to the Lardie's systems, which would then allow units with Ambush able to get final shots before the next turn, however anyone not having received a die misses out. Sure this could backfire, but it may be worth some investigation. (just my thoughts)
I do expect we will see this played again. Thanks Dave for bringing it out to the club.
This weekend was a pretty much stay indoors kind of weekend. This is great for getting stuff worked on in the basement, however not so good for priming or matte spraying.
Regardless I managed to matte spray in the crawlspace quickly before heading off to work today. Not something I want to make a habit of.
So here are the next 5 Pirates completed.
First up is a metal Old Glory & another of the plastic Weapons & Warriors figures.
Followed by my first female Pirate which I believe is Foundry, a Foundry Navigator, thanks to my parrot for providing me the colour scheme of his, & lastly another Old Glory metal.
This leaves me with the Captain & 1 more crewman to finish this crew. I am also working on the Scotland Yard Constables for In Her Majesty's Name. My goal is to complete 2 companies so that I give those rules a whirl. I also have the Pulp Alley rules to give a play as well.
It's off to the club tomorrow night where Dave is running Bolt Action.
