Shapeshifters, Cloud City Guards and pulp vehicles

A job lot of stuff rolled off the production line this week. First up are some more Imperial Assault expansion pack figures for this commission.

These four figures are shape-shifters from the Clone Wars movie. I don't really recall this film, but what I do remember (from playing Lego Wii Star Wars with the kid) is these shapeshifters have something to do with how Kenobi gets to the Boba Fett factory with the weird long-necked ladies.

Beyond the skin colour (green-yellow), there is no canonical look for these figures, so I went with bright and varied clothes and on two different bases. Apparently they can shape-shift their clothes as well so who knows what they might actually wear when going out to the bar or getting groceries.

I'm pretty happy with the faces (above)--this seems to match the images I could find. Then onto the Cloud City pack with some of the guards.

I'm pretty happy with these guys. Simple uniform, simple bases, nicely brought out with some washes.

I have more of these guys plus some ugnaughts and heroes drying before moving onto a Tatooine expansion. To break things up, I painted a few HO-scale vehicles I picked up at a flea market to populate the streets of Gotham.

This die-cast school bus had a crazy Monopoly tie-in paint job (???) so I had to start again. Good enough (my Gotham layout is pretty gritty) and it fits in with the HO-scale stuff I have.

I also picked up an low-rider car. It is a touch too big scale-wise but I'm not that fussy.

Next up is more Star Wars plus maybe some additional resin and 3-D printed terrain for Gotham.

More Heart of the Empire figures

I finished a few more figures from the Heart of the Empire expansion for Imperial Assault.

This week, I have two sentry droids on the rubble basing.

They are backed up by some form of chicken-walker.

Up next: More Imperial Assault figures: Some shape-shifters and then maybe some guards from the Cloud City expansion.

More Imperial Assault figures

Finished today are some of the baddies from the Heart of the Empire expansion to Imperial Assault.

First up are four figures (two sentry droids and two storm troopers in riot gear) on the simple "indoor" bases that we'd agreed to.

The droids are menacing look ( a touch Terminator...). I'm sad the highlighting I did was so muted by the wash. Oh well.

The idea of storm troopers in riot gear is an odd one. Nice figures but I'm wondering about the Empire's interest in non-lethal crowd control? Maybe these guys washed out of the Stormtrooper  marksmanship class?

There are four of these guys: two on indoor bases and two on rubble bases (bah-dum-bump).

I have a few more of the baddies from this expansion to finish up (including a walker, some more droids, and some shapeshifters) before moving onto the next one.

Memoir and War Rockets at the club

We had six guys out at the club on Tuesday. Scott hosted Chen, Dan and Terry in a game of War Rockets. This was also the club debut of Scott's Valkyrie fleet (pink ships).

The gist, I gather, was Team Pink had to subdue a freighter (maybe the yellow ship?) while the other two (smaller teams) ran interference (successfully, as it turns out). A super pretty game!

Taylor and I ended up plating some Memoir 44. We started on Sword Beach and the Jerries tried to drive Team Redwing back into the sea.

Taylor made a slow but steady advance, cleaning out the main bunker I held while winnowing down my forces. Then he played a dastardly card and grabbed a city and won the game!

A bad day for the Hun. There was some levity as a Sherman turned tail and ran and was chased by three panzer down onto the beach. This "Rommel" maneuver did not play out to conclusion before the game ended.

We then set up Omaha beach with its nasty set of cliffs.

Taylor was very aggressive with his tanks, constantly pulling my infantry out of position and threatening the towns (which were victory points).

He had no cards for his right flank so a lot of guys just hung out in the surf while we duelled on his left and in the middle.

Eventually I managed to thin out his tanks and knock off enough units for a win. So probably a draw overall on victory points.

A fun pair of games. Not the best rendered WW2 game I have ever played but it has virtually no rules to keep track of and we ran through two full games in about 90 minutes.

54mm AWI and 33mm Star Wars

So a bit of an odds-and-sods post today. I finished off a 54mm AWI Prussian General. This figure is from an old kids play set so the detail is a touch thin. And basing it (no integral base? on a kids play set? really? ) was a real hassle. That is probably why he sat on the painting table half finished for two years.

I'm moving into a small commission. A fellow I did some Imperial Assault figures for in 2015 asked me to paint some expansions to match. I started on the Heart of the Empire expansion and first up are three heroes.

I'm a bit out of the loop on Star Wars but this lady wookie had cool goggles and a lot of demolition charges.

Then there is Star Wars Wolverine with some kind of impractical hand weapon. Clearly no match for a blaster.

And finally Big Headed lady who actually seems toknow what she is doing. All are painted to match the cards that came with the expansion.

Up next are a selection of imperial troops.

Dumpsters and a library table

I made a rare trip to a model train store before Xmas and was unable to locate any of the buildings on my to-get list (including a stone church, a city hall or court house, and a bank). I did find some HO-scale dumpsters, though!

These were three for $12 and about the only accessory that didn't cause my jaw to drop ($40 for a tow truck? really?). So I bought these along with some two-part modelling putty. They painted up okay and will add some nice LOS blocks.

Back in early December I also picked up another WizKids' terrain pack from Red Claw. This included a library table and four stools. The table has a tiny bit of warping (no luck using hot water to bend it flat). That said, I'm reasonably happy with the results.

I'm not sure what will get painted next--I hav some 25mm Cthulhu figures I got from Chen that have been eyeing me from the painting table (and they have lots of eyes).

54mm AWI British Guards

One of the things I forgot to paint up from the original orbat of Tricorne were two units of British guards. I eventually settled on painting three four-man units.

These are HaT SYW Prussians but close enough. Overall, I'm happy with how they turned out.

They have a nice amount of detail. I added some cuff and lapel lace to these fellows.

Up next: A grab bag of smaller paint jobs.

Some 15mm Crossfire

Taylor invited me over for some holiday gaming and offered to put on a game of 15mm Crossfire. He modified the rules to include a card driven activation mechanic (when both sides have lost the initiative, you draw a card to restart the initiative sequence) and he'd tone down machine guns. 

This scenario saw three Polish platoons deploy hidden while two German platoons entered. The Germans needed to find and neutralize the (also hidden) Polish bunker before the German convoy came down the road (after the third time the joker was drawn).

The Germans came on board, got shot up, had an amazing series of rallies (I was facing the dreaded the von Hollywood Regiment, it seems), and then close assaulted and creamed the first Polish platoon. They then tried to cross the road and walked into withering fire as the second and third Polish platoon unmasked.

The fire fight stagnated after one German and most of one Polish platoon were eliminated. Two German assaults were also pushed back. Then the German convoy showed up (with the Polish Bunker still hidden).

Soon enough the bunker unmasked and started shooting. Alas, it could not hit anything for round after round while the infantry fire-fight got rather desperate. Finally, the gunners in the bunker got the range and in one turn lit up the two trucks and the armoured car.

Overall, a fun game with the rule tweaks Taylor has made!

A Cthulhu New Year!

I spent the holidays moving a bunch of half finished figures to completion. This included two RAFM Cthulhu figures I got from Chen (there are three more underway).

First up was this pink fellow. I really struggle to find a suitably otherworldly paint scheme. I went with pink because this figure looked rather fleshy. I choose green for the thing below as it looks amphibian.

I also finished off nine 15mm mounted figures from an old Battlelore 1st Edition box that I picked up last Boxing Day!

I did the foot troops earlier this year but struggled with the cavalry (fiddly and not that interesting). I think there are five more heroes somewhere on my paint table that need attention but that is likely all of the 15mm fantasy that I need.

Up next: Some 54mm AWI.