Random Post of Stuff

My workstation is currently littered with WIPs in various stages of completion: 4 Deathskull Orks ( the last of them!) awaiting painted arms and armaments, a handful of Escher gangers, a basecoated Chaos Warrior and Goff Rockers that have been languishing for 6 months, plus a Blood Angel Devastator Squad, Terminator Squad and a Predator.
Then there's a Stone Troll and some Night Goblins too...agghhr.

In that boom or bust fashion, I recently belted out a heap of Space Marines in a short amount of time and now can't seem to finish anything...well, almost anything.

When stuck, I pick a nice Fantasy miniature out of my little collection for dungeon crawling/no real use at all and recharge the batteries.I had only just received this Ral Partha in a trade from Just John on the Oldhammer forum and she seemed like a good candidate.
I had no idea who she was what she was or what she is supposed to look like until after painting her- I believe it's Alustriel Silverhand from Dungeons and Dragons: Forgotten Realms.

Those of you familiar with the Oldhammer forum may know of the fantastical D&D adventure a few of us have going there- my character is a good natured, unlucky in love, bumbling pants wetter who has mummy issues as well as being rather brave and foolhardy- his name is Rambulge Dungaree Pastorious and he is a fighter/mage with a toad familiar called Lemmy Wurzel.

Fellow adventurer Asslessman ( AKA The Paladin Sir Seu Antheus) recently painted up a fantastic representation of both Rambulge and Lemmy, as seen here.
Sneakily/awesomely Assless sent this miniature to forum member Captain Crooks, DM/fellow Aussie/adventurer "Bufo The Black Hood" to give to me when we met up for a game.

But tragedy struck the erstwhile Devout Cleric in transit, and his paint job was chipped and damaged when he arrived...so with advice from Asslessman administered via Skype, CC put in a late night to do a repair job on poor Rambulge, adding his own touch:

A red raw nose, because if Rambulge isn't soiling himself the poor bastard is crying.
I was blissfully unaware of all this until CC presented the mini ( and BOYLdrick) to me, well played guys and again a massive thank you!

Finally, this guy was in my top ten miniatures and I've slowly been chipping away at him for yonks now, and he's just about finished

BOYLdrick the Oldhammer Miniature

Being both in Australia and ( more disappointingly ) in a relatively poor financial state means that attending the Mecca of Oldhammer that is BOYL or Oldhammer day at the Wargames Foundry in person is something that isn't going to happen any time soon, as much as it pains me to admit.

But there are no tears in the beer, the excellent blog coverage by those in attendance was almost like being there...almost.

Anyway, not gracing the event also meant I wouldn't have the chance to get my grubby mits on the wonderful Kev Adams Gobbo the folks at Foundry gave to those in attendance...or so I thought!

On our Sydney Oldhammer Forum meet up on the weekend, Captain Crooks produced a Space Marine Chaplain that Asslessman/JB had sent ( along with the Killdozer the Captain had lent him for the Wacky Race ) to him to pass on to me- this I knew about.

What I was totally not expecting was the Oldhammer mini that was there with it!
So here is my rendition of BOYLdrick:

 

While I wanted to do my own thing with him as much as possible, I've already seen a few painted examples and the use of the red and yellow Foundry Colours ( by whoever that was, all apologies as I can't remember! ) was too good a scheme not to make use of somewhere on him.

Many thanks to the Ansells for their kindness in not only giving away the miniature to attendees but supplying extras to distribute to a few geographically challenged tragics like myself and many thanks to JB for deeming me worthy- may the road rise to meet you!

Saturday's Ye Olde Gaming

My brother and I met up with Captain Crooks and littleleadperson from the Oldhammer forum for a good day of gaming in Parramatta this past Saturday- as I very rarely get to actually play any tabletop games I relish the opportunity to get the plastic and tin soldiers into action!

First up was a game of Gorkamorka (my second time playing this game) where myself and LLP were pursued by Crooksie and a cohort in a Mad Max style race to the table edge- a great scenario and a lot of fun. I was pleased to survive the encounter relatively unscathed, the polar opposite of the last game. I even made it out with some loot!

After lunch we got stuck into a game of second edition Warhammer 40,000 with four players commanding 1000 point armies and forming two teams.
 Road testing my newly painted Blood Angels, I paired with Captain Crooks ably commanding a force of Squats- while my brother adopted the guise of a Goff Ork Warboss leading the boys in an uneasy alliance with littleleadperson's Chaos warband, the Devotees of Effluence and their Black Legion cohorts.

The Imperial set up

The Chaos Warband

The Ork line

The Imperial force's mission was to take and hold the hexagonal building seen here, while the Chaos and Orks had to engage and destroy their opponents where possible.

On the right Imperial flank, LLP's Chaos warband decimated the Squats in the ruins before suffering the wrath of the Squat Thunderer squad that bristled with heavy weapons.
In a string of mishaps, the Chaos Commander was turned into a Plaguebearer when the "plague wind" psychic power was reflected back and the Nurgle marines lost their Hero level leader heavy weapons fire.
Making good use of his Magus' psychic power "the gate" LLP began sneakily began funnelling the Devotees Of Effluence right onto the ruins on the edge of the Squat gunline.

Veteran Sergeant Lucion's squad had to abandon shooting up advancing Cultists and Gretchin to support the Squat Ancestor Lord against the overrunning Chaos Marines and Plaguebearers.
Unfortunately I forgot to pack the Squat Psyker Lord miniature, but a completely unexpected, surprise proxy was on hand to do the job, having covertly travelled from France to save the day.
( more on that in another post)

 

The Gretchin advance as the Chaos Forces sneak up the side of the battlefield.

Warboss Muglurk oversaw a mob of boys as they rushed the Imperial objective, while the other mob made to rush around the side of the ruined Imperial building to meet the Blood Angels and Squats lurking on the other side.

Coming under heavy fire from the get go, Squad Mephiston attempted to stop the advancing Ork Dreads. Their missile launcher hit one of the lumbering Ork machines with two krak missiles but failed to damage it either time and they were wiped out by the end of the game.

 

With Techmarine Baccio in tow, Furioso strode onto the objective and began unleashing hell.
One of the Ork dreads peeled off to face the old one down and was all but destroyed by Furioso's multimelta, while the mob of Orks below suffered the wrath of it's auto launchers.
The Squat Warriors at the corner bravely faced down the advancing Goffs, their melta gunner managed to cripple one of the last functioning dread's weapons before the game drew to a close.

Brother Captain Valerio, the Apothecary and Squad Paulus lurked behind the objective- the flamer unleashed burning promethium on the Orks further thinning them out.

The game ended ( as we ran out of time) on turn 3, with the Imperial Forces on 9 VP and the Chaos/Greenskin alliance on 4 VP.
Furioso holding the objective gifted us with 5 VP, scores were otherwise even.

Things would have been very interesting on the next turn though, as the Marine Captain and Squad Paulus were about to engage the Warboss and the remnants of the Orks around the objective, while both sides of the Imperial line were being flanked by overrunning Chaos Forces on one side and Goffs on the other.

I had an absolute blast, hats off to littleleadperson and Captain Crooks (and my brother) for being good blokes and great gamers.

Cowabunga!