Salute 2015 (Post 3) Cogitation

Overall, my mind was well and truly boggled.  To find half of your browser history in the flesh (or plastic, resin and MDF) is breathtaking, even when you're expecting it.  I also got to see some people again (Mr Lee, The Responsible One, Col Corbane) although managed to miss a few others.  I did see Andy Foster (Heresy Miniatures) up close, but he was going to into the gents as I was coming out, so I didn't think it appropriate to strike up a conversation. 

One company's huge stand up banner.  For some reason I didn't get their name in the photo.

I ended up in conversation with Eric (in the red t-shirt with the water bottle) and Howard in the FW queue.  Howard had driven from the West coast of Wales that morning and was going to drive home again after the show.  He enters the painting comp each year, historicals I gather.  Dedicated and nice bloke.  Eric didn't come so far on the day, but originates from France and has seen quite a bit of the world to end up working in Nottingham (for Warlord Games).   They made queing a social event, rather than a chore.

Mrs Responsible One entered this Chaos Reaver into the painting competition.  The guy infront of me in the FW Queue bought one 'over the counter'.  He spent well over £800.  They had run out of the event only figures by the time I got there, but, being FW, they let queuers order them anyway (postage free) - FW customer service strikes again.

A Vickers Medium Tank.  I had a corgi one of these as a small person.

This four armed dude and the Chimera below are Darklands models, I think. There were loads of models on display from all the manufacturers and all we well worth looking at.  Big things (like Dragons) look great but what would I do with one ?

Salute 2015 (part 2) Terrain Pieces

Eldar scenery.  I did phone Forge World six or seven years ago and asked if they were ever going to make a web gate.  I guess this is the answer.

The next shelf down; a Chaos warp portal thingy.  What's sauce for Eldar is sauce for Chaos; apologies to geese and ganders for that.

Now, as I went 'round snapping terrain pieces, unfortunately, I didn't clock who made what.  The two stand out brands for me were 4Ground and Sarissa, I remember that much at least.  Possibly because there were large displays of their products as supplied (ie unpainted) showing the whole range and looking like a sweet shop of 28mm terrain.

All of the stuff presented on the tables was finished to show the product off to best effect.  There was a guy in the back corner who had loads of trees and hedges (including bocage) and his stuff looked great.

This I think is the Arkam Asylum.  There's a batman game going on there, so I think that's a fairly safe bet.

This is one of the ships from the Fort George game.  Outstanding modelling.

A really nice warehouse, although it's 15mm ( I so wish I started with Epic rather than 40K).

DZC City Scape.  Wonderful stuff.

The farm at La Haye Sainte (sp). in 28mm.  My pockets were already full.

Another one of the alien planets.  There were a lot of other games, including a couple of undersea ones (incl Stingray !).  The whole show was pretty mind blowing, but more of that next time. 

Salute 2015 (Post 1) Demo Game Tables

Well, I thought I start with some of the tables:

There was a table with Aliens (like the film franchise) facing off against the colonial marines.  Very nice presentation (as were they all) but I couldn't help thinking that there were an awful lot of aliens. Those marines will be needing an awful lot of bullets.

Next door was a jungly ziggurat with Predators on it.  Almost like someone had planned it.

Dystopian wars.  interesting how the flying hips were over the water.  This might be well fluffy for the game, I don't know.  But the game looked good flying over water, but if I had a flying battleship, I might fly over land.

Fort George - this was really impressive.  It all belongs to one man, the ships, the scenery, the figures, everything.  Great looking game.

TV7.  I think.  No idea where Mr Staypuff came from.

Pegasus Bridge.  Really nice too.

DZC.  Complete with hollow James Bond mountain.  I can see the appeal, especially with the city scape scenery.

Hell on earth war type game.  I was tempted to stuff this church in to my rucksack.

Just like shootin' wamp rats down beggar's canyon.

North Afrika.  Especially liking the stuka.  Don't fancy the Brit's chances much.

The Battle of the Bulge.  The start of the snowy bit.

The attack on the rebel base on Hoth.  Darth Vader was practically touching the Falcon.

Love the AT-ATs. If only I had a unit of four AT-ATs for my iggies...

Very late cold war game.  Beautiful stuff.  Personally, I found this very compelling.

Looking down a Harrier GR3 at the Bridging Section of a Motor Rifle Regiment and their T72 support.

I hope those of you who didn't get to go found these interesting.  I'll put something a little more coherent up soon.

Chimera Track Guards

These are the Track Guards from "Warchimera"  available to purchase from here. 

This is them on the Ratguard Hydrae I showed a couple of weeks ago.  These picts are from before they were tidied up and stuck down.

But do show what you're getting if you buy some.  They're from Poland (guess) and inexpensive compared to having to fork out for another tank accessory sprue everytime time you want track guards on a chimera chassis.

Another win for someone with a casting kit, another loss for you know who.

If for some reason I have some kind of brain failure and increase my vehicle fleet to the point where it doesn't even fit in the garage anymore - these are the track guards I'd buy again.

btw - the tracks were tidied and stuck down and then they got undercoated straight after this.

DKK Hydrae Progress

Base coat; there are three or four thin coats of Vallejo dark sand, cunningly modulated over a several week nights (Mrs Z suddenly found a social life !) and finished with a top coat of Tamiya dark sand (actually a lighter colour).  The (what-would-ABS-or-fibreglass-IRL) radar covers are Tamiya black-green over a coat of Dark Angle Green.

Green camo

Brown camo

Decals next !  Oh and, acrylic butile styrene, in case you were wondering, like a motorcycle fairing.

And as mentioned in the comments here is a pict from Ratguard showing the active radar array from under the cover:  For more picts follow the link.

Elysian Army

So here are the "I accidentally won an e-bay auction" Elysians.  Ably painted by Raven's Nest Painting.

Here's the whole lot, the HQ Command Squad is to the left, partially out of shot.  The two small squads at the bottom of the picture are the storm trooper squads.  The Platoon at the top is three squads with ML and two demo charges.  The Platoon in the middle is three tauros and two drop sentinals.  The Platoon Command Squad will have to fly around in a Vendetta. 

Here's a shot showing the ancient symbol of Drop Troops from days of old night.  These emblems, whose origins and meaning are lost to antiquity, have taken on religious significance to certain sections of the Drop Troop community.  Note the Corcoran jump boots and unlined leather rigger gloves.

One of the Storm Trooper squads.  The observant amongst you will have already noticed that they are wearing the Mk9 Elysian Pressure helmet with integral rebreather unit.  Rather than the usual bulky helmet that is issued with the M1942 Armoured jump suit.

The other Storm Trooper squad.  These guys also wear the mystical unidentified badges.

The Tauros detachment from the heart of 2 Platoon.  I don't have sky talon models ("Whaaat ?!?!" I hear you scream) and don't have any intent to acquire any either ("Whaaat ?!?!?" I hear you scream again). Air lift assets are precious - yes these would all be deployed by air, but would be dropped far enough away from their mission location to avoid having the air assets shot out of the sky - jus' sayin'.

Drop Sentinels.  These have magnetic mountings for multimelta and heavy bolters.

2 Platoon Command Squad, just because.  Some of the guys are a bit shiny in places and will get another coat of matt varnish.

1 Platoon Command Squad.  Lt Teeve with his twin ivory handled plasma pistols.  Ivory from Elysian sky wyrms, of course.  These guys have six Valkyries already; there are four Vendettas which need doing, but hey, the weather is getting better and the garage is becoming habitable. 

IG grenade launcher.

Actually it's the USMC, not the Iggies.  A lot of people out there will be familiar with what is popularly referred to as the Grenade Machine Gun (GMG).

The Mk19 40mm automatic grenade launcher is a fine squad support weapon, but being tripod or vehicle mounted, is obviously not really that suitable for one man to tote.

But this is:

USMC Orbital Assault with jet packs.

Drop pods and assault muhreenz ?  Phooey !

Get a load of this

Ratguard Hedgehogs (Hydrae)

OK, so here are finished pictures of the Ratguard Miniatures Hedgehogs; one man's alternate after market Hydra kit.  And I like it. As you can tell, I have opted for two troops of three to support the DKK.

Obviously these will get painted, and if I can figure out how much to shave off, track guards as well.

I suspect that you saw four of them on Admiral Drax' blog just before Christmas.  Here are all six, assembled and ready for waiting around for me to do a bit more.  They are ready to prepare to standby.  A favourite activity of any branch of the Artillery, including the cloud punchers.

The turrets are, you'll appreciate, not glued to the hulls.  The guns are not linked across inside the turret, but held on by two locator lugs to set the angle and a central peg which represents the axle about which the guns elevate and depress.  Only one set of guns is glued (entirely my fault for breaking the locator lugs).  The passive air defence radar (the ones on the top of the turrets) are not glued either. 

The kit includes a pretty good (active) targeting array as well, but I asked Drax to put the cover over the target acquisition kit.  I have one experience of fighting an opponent with three flyers with out any AAA.  It didn't go well for me.  I hope that six hydrae would sort that - it'd be two elite slots in a DKK Assault Brigade list.

I am hoping for a fine weekend when Mrs Z has somewhere else to be, which'll be my opportunity to get some work done on these; As mentioned, track guards (which need shaving down to fit), painting, decals, weathering, stowage.

Hopefully the next time I post these there'll be at least one more stage completed.