Bolt Action & Battle of Kursk at Adepticon

I wanted to take a sec to share some recent Bolt Action activities that I’ve been involved in!

 

Rich at Chicago Terrain Factory and I ran our 2nd year of the Kursk battle at Adepticon. Check out his coverage of the event, it is excellent. We had a blast this year and I think the folks who played had a great time.

Soviet T34s burning all over the place.

We limited the game to tanks and had a good turn out for each side. Over 20 tanks lined up and going at it. The Germans really held out this time, burning T34s everywhere!

 

Cassino Display for 2017 Team Tournament Army.

The Fallschirmjager also made an appearance at Adepticon in the Team Tournament. We got stomped by our opponents but had a great time.

I am revising and doing some updates to the Fallschrimjager for Operation Sting 2017. I took them last year and had a good time running them. This year I am building the list around the paratroopers who fought the Canadian 3rd Division in the ruins of Ortona. The list will see a few changes including potentially adding a vehicle to the army, which wasn’t the case with the Monte Cassino version of the army.

RAMPAGE! (xenite’s ramble page)

I may have mentioned this before, but I am trying to turn on the hustle for my Warriors of Chaos army for the Midwest Rampage tournament! It will be my first tournament for WHFB! I am pretty stoked about it in general. I have a list that I am excited to run, even though I have been told it is a bit soft… I’m cool with that. Mostly I will just be happy to get the items in my list painted to the level that I am hoping for. I am rolling down there with two of my warhammer mentors John, and Chris*.

The chaos warriors of Slannesh are really starting to come around. They are different than I originally envisioned, but not in a bad way. There is an evolution to the way the army is looking, and I believe that is partially my vision, partially constraints of the medium, and also random bits of data, and inspiration that adds to the final result’s DNA. It is best that way.

One of those inspirations was the rediscovery of one of the most talented artists out there, Allan Carrasco. Check out his amazing work, you won’t regret it. Some of the latest additions in putty to my chaos warriors were seriously influenced by his work. Brilliant stuff.

I will be posting some more WIP shots very soon!

*They beat my ass at the game and say… “see, that is how it is done!”

Indecision, and learning how to paint again.

FINALLY I’ve begun painting some miniatures for my Chaos army. I got going with the chaos cultist unit, and while things have been progressing fairly well, I have run into some snags. I haven’t done any painting in over a year*, so my skills have become a bit rusty. To add to that issue, I decided to change the skin-tone on my chaos cultists halfway through painting the unit! Actually this last part is a blessing in disguise. I initially viewed this army as one part dark cloth, or metal, with super pale, purple tinted skin. What I’ve just come up with is that having the skin be pale, but with different tones here and there to break up the scheme a bit would be really cool. If I can pull it off in the end, I think it will be very cool.

Some of these shots are pretty blown out thanks to using a flash. This pops the contrast of the paint scheme a great deal, and as that I shot them in RAW, you can really see the paint transitions, so my fades look like hell. They look far better in person. I probably do need to use more light when painting. 😛

This is how I started the paint scheme. It was supposed to be a bluish tinted skin. Instead of a weird Slanneshi look, I ended up with something that looks a bit more undead than anything.

Here I’ve switched to a purple color, and didn’t use washes as much, so the skin looks cleaner. I feel like the highlights need another pass on the skin, and some pronounced shadows. The camera flash really flattens these minis out, and makes the highlights look more drastic than they are.

I was pretty happy with the way that the unit champion turned out. His shading/highlight is about the effect I would like for the whole unit.

“OMG! I love Blueman Group!!!!” Yeah, um – this guy isn’t going to be a Smurf or anything. It is essentially the base coat for the blue ones. The highlight will cause these guys to blend in with the unit a bit more.

On these I’ve painted the blue as a retrofit over the skin-tone. I use quite watered down paint in thin coats which allows me to get away with this kind of thing. Its easy to paint straight out of the bottle, but I don’t recommend it. The extra work that thinning your paint creates is totally worth it to get a smooth finish.

*Not entirely true: I have painted a good deal of Flames of War miniatures, but those I am doing to a lessor level than that of my 28mm+ miniatures, so all those show is that I remember which end of the paintbrush to dip into the paint.

Slanneshi Giant & Warrior Prototype Work In Progress

Over some time off that I had for Thanksgiving, I was able to put some time in on the giant, and the Chaos Warrior of Slannesh prototype as well. I am starting to mix some press mold casts I made earlier in with the rest of the sculpting. I like the look, and efficiency of press-molds for things like the Chaos Warrior. I will be able to mass produce some of the armor plates that the rest of the unit will need.

I am very happy with the way the Chaos Warrior design is coming together. It will look very slanneshi once painted. Very little of this model isn’t greenstuff at this point. The torso, and arms are from a GW beastman Gor, and the shield was made by Gorgon Miniatures.

New project shots coming soon!

…most likely tomorrow.

I have been making some fine progress on my Chaos army of Slannesh. As usual, I seem to have made the models for this project more complex than I probably needed to, but I think that these are going to be sick when they are done.

On the workbench now is a unit of 10 (soon to be 20) Cultists of Slannesh (my interpretation of Chaos Marauders), 30 Chaos Warriors of Slannesh, 2 chaos spawn, and 10 chaos puppies. The dogs are finished, and ready to paint. The cultists are next up, and I will be posting images here as they progress. Stay tuned!

Fallshirmjager WIP quick shots

I am getting near the end of the work on the main body of my Fallshirmjager army. I have learned a lot from painting these models. If I were to have the opportunity to re-do this army, I would have made some color changes, and would have worked on fixing up some of the models that have casting issues. Painting 15mm infantry requires different techniques than larger models. Blocks of color that define the details are more important that getting tones to blend well for example. I think that I am going to try some new techniques when I paint my US troops. All things being equal, I am happy with the way that these turned out, especially for table-top use.

Here are some quick and dirty photos that show where the army is at the moment. I still have some basing to do, and some touchups on some of the paint. The 4th MG 42 team needs to be finished as well. I am excited to almost have this army wrapped up.

Combat Platoons

Whole army not including Armor Support

Light Artillery Unit with recoiless guns.

HMG platoon

Combat teams

Combat Platoons

There are a few units that I would like to add to this army in the not distant future. I have some Pak 38 (or 40… I can’t recall) guns, and I would like to expand the Light Artillery battery to 4 guns. Some Panzershreck teams for the command platoon are in the works as well.

War is hell, and Tanks are dirty

These are the first examples of completed armor for my late war Germans. This collection originally started as simply a StuG III platoon that I wanted to use as support for my Fallshirmjager army, but as I am a true tread-head, I decided to branch off into creating a Panzer Company as well. The panzer IIIs are the first proper tanks that I have done in this scheme.

Finished late war armor to date

Panzer III N tanks

StuG III Platoon

These are several of the StuG IIIs that I originally picked up as support for my paratroopers. They will still serve that purpose, but ultimately turned out to be a stair-step unit for a full blown Tank Company.

StuG III

StuG III

StuG III close up

The dirt layers were built up on top of the camouflage initially in addition to the decals. Once the these layers were done, I applied another dirty gray/brown wash, and added white lines to cause scratches and chips to pop out. Small amounts of gunmetal paint and rust drips were added at the very end before sealing with flat-coat.

Next up, after I finish basing my FJ company, I will be getting into two Panzer IV platoons, and a Panther platoon.