They're only 5 months late

Finally finished the first group of my Pax Arcadians. There are still a lot more to be done though. Though now I can focus on some mass painting techniques more than I would've been able to before when I had them on what was supposed to be a regimented schedule.

Anyway, the pics

The obligatory group shot

From DRM

The Supreme Commander and subcommander stands (I haven't worked out a TO&E for these guys yet so nomenclature isn't quite there yet)

From DRM

And the infantry

From DRM

Weapons teams

From DRM

Chupa-thingies

From DRM

and four Jackhammer IFVs

From DRM

Here are some Silent Death ships finished a couple weeks ago

Spirit Riders

From Silent Death

Darts

From Silent Death

And finally, blatant theft from another gamer. These are storage/shipping containers made from bottle caps. Here we see the Imperial Guard showing what is probably not the best decision making in regards to choice of cover.

From Terrain

Crappy Pictures

I'm going to need to set up the light tent for these as the colors do not want to photograph very well. On the Glad II the green is too close to the gray and the fighters are mostly metallics. These will give you the general idea though.

Gladiator II

Djinn

Jambiya

1 Down, 38 to Go

Here's the test stand for my marines. The colors aren't 100% correct because I didn't want to set up my light tent for one stand of 6mm infantry but they're close enough. The highlights on the helmet aren't quite so strongly yellow.

I was going to use RPP Stained Olive for the shadows, but it ended up being lighter than the Field Gray and gave them too much of a "Nurgle-y" appearance. So they got a black wash. These are to be from 2nd Company, but instead of straight gold on the shoulder pads I went with a subdued Desert Tan as I thought the gold would be to jarring visually against the drab greens, than and it was the same color used to highlight the sand so it ties the minis to the base. Turns out it's a good color for highlighting the green too. :) Weapons are black though I painted the magazine on the missile launcher a MSP Shadowed Steel (similar to Boltgun Metal but a little more blue/purple tint to it I think, need to ask Reaper's painter about that) to give them a little "bling" without going over board like my 28mm Marines (see the Photobucket gallery).

First FWC Game

So while I was recovering from the eye surgery I couldn't sleep at night. One night I decided I might as do something enjoyable so layed out a quick town for some for CAVs to fight over. Except I wasn't playing CAV :O

I decided to finally give FWC a spin and see how I liked it. So I set up a town with a park in the middle and an industrial complex in one corner. The basic scenario was the Rach (the colorful force), were defending the industrial buildings from the Terrans (the camo'd force). I set up mirror infantry formations and picked out some models I liked for the Terrans and picked out a force of relatively equal points. Ended up looking like this:


Both sides had the following:
CO, CV10
2 HQ CV9
3 Regular Infantry Save 5, w/ smart missile upgrade

The Terrans also had
1 Czar dropship
2 Wolf tanks
2 Starhawk VI
1 Thunderbird

The Rach had
1 Emperor
1 Dictator 70
1 Specter
2 Despot

Here's what the town looked like:


Basically anything that wasn't road was either a Built Up Area (BUA) or High Area Terrain (the woods). The defenders used static deployment and the attackers used mobile deployment. The defenders took up positions inside the compound behind the wall to take advantage of cover. The attacking HQ elements took up their positions on the opposite side of town. I know the field was short, but I wanted to get into the game quickly to see how it goes.


The attackers had a bit of a time getting onto the board first turn. They managed to deploy the Wolf tanks and that was it. They advanced down the street and the lead tank took a shot at the Specter, but only winged it. After the other command units failed to do anything useful the HQ for the tanks moved forward.


The defender's unleashed an artillery concentration and the CAVs were ordered to mobilize and engage the tanks. They put a few points on them, but it wasn't quite enough.

The attackers failed to do anything useful again and when the defender's turn came up the HQ for the CAVs rolled snake eyes. This led to the prompt demise of the two Wolf tanks and left the attacker's CO in a somewhat compromising position.


When the defending CO came up he reactivated the Dictator 70 to overrun the attacking CO. After the attacking CO fell back, the defending CO promptly failed his next command roll.

In the attacker's next turn, he finally managed to get his CAVs on the table. The Thunderbird lost his shields when it's HQ rolled a 12 and got it shot up a bit. The infanty tried to finish it off to no avail as they couldn't seem to score a hit with their missiles.

The attackers moved forward and one of the Starhawks moved to engage the Dictator, but not much else. The defenders managed to fail every single command roll.



The attackers stood and targetted the defenders and where able to take out an entire whole stand of defending infantry. The Starhawk fired at the Dictator 70, but was unable to fell the beast. The Czar was finally able to get on board and advance, but not for long...


After failing every command roll in the previous turn, the defenders couldn't seem to fail one this turn. The infantry and tanks destroyed the Thunderbird and one Starhawk with at least one 2 rolled and several successful command rolls. The CAVs had similar successes, themselves rolling a 2 and more successes, and where able to take out the remaining Starhawk and the Czar with all hands on board. The attackers went from being down two tanks to only having their command units left on the table in a single turn.




Overall I enjoyed the game. I know I messed up a few things, but that's probably more due to me being used to using these models with CAV rather than FWC. A good example would be opportunity fire, kept forgetting to use it. I think from here on out though I think I'm going to use the persistent damage variant of the damage rules if I'm going to be using a lot of massive units like in this game. Now I'm that much more excited to get those 6mm projects done and ready for the table.

Speaking of which, here are the Space Marines:


And here are those JR Miniatures buildings I've been babbling about:

I'm Getting Better

My eyesight is slowly improving. Nowhere near ready to paint minis yet, but getting better.

Anyway, the real reason I'm posting is that I've found the inspiration for my Pax Arcadians.

They will be painted in a camo pattern to match that, arctic tundra in spring time. Will also give me an excuse to buy all sorts of new basing materials as well.

Also on the 6mm front, I've made a trade with Legion4 over on Tactical Command and am receiving 39 stands (just shy of two companies worth) of Space Marine infantry and four Land Raiders. Obviously I'll need to get some stuff to round them out, but I'm thinking that they'll get a nice green paintjob. Specifically, something that'll airbrush real easy. Vehicles may get masking tape two-color camo jobs. I'm also working out how I want to round out my Andrayadan forces and have been eyeball the Skyth from DRM as well as some of the infantry from Exodus Wars.

A Couple Buildings and What's on the Bench

OK, so the whole prioritized list thing went all topsy turvy. I ordered Sara the Seeress with a few CAVs earlier this month because, well, because I had a few extra bucks in my monthly allotment. Sad isn't it. Anyway, I got that for Aprile on the condition that I actually paint it. The impending arrival of a bunch of DRM minis for use with FWC will most likely also affect things, nay, already have affected things.

In the last week I've finished up a couple of my JR Miniatures 6mm buildings. The paint jobs aren't fantastic, but they match the casting of the pieces. I've also managed use colors other than gray as well on them. :gasp: I'm trying to figure out why all sci-fi buildings are painted gray. So my goal is to have a colorful down in sandstones and blue and steel and other colors.

I've got a start on the Gladiator II and the Centurion. The legs to the Centurion need a touch up though as the gray is nearly indistinguishable from the green. I used the airbrush on them and I have to say that I have to be careful to not obscure detail with the ProPaints when using it or thin them even more than I have. I've managed to add three projects to the CAV list. Mainly a Black Lightning Dictator with the arms having been donated graciously by Lanse (Froggy the Great on Reaper's boards) and two Moguls (Kahns with Gkw-12y Gauss Cannons). Unfortunately the Dictator I ordered has some bad mold lines and soft detail. I'm very tempted to request a new one but don't really want another pair of Dictator arms. Maybe if one of the Kahns aren't up to par I'll ask for new pieces.

And then there's Sara. When asking Aprile about the base she said she doesn't like my flock. And that she just wanted a sand base. Well, I didn't feel quite like cutting off the integral base because it's a horrid pain in the butt. So I got out the greenstuff and filled around the edges out to the edge of the washer that she's glued to. Then it had the standing on the pitcher's mound look. So using my immense sculpting skills added a rock outcropping. Aprile's out of town till tonight so I have to get design approval before moving on, but the plan is to have Sara done tomorrow. The upside is that if I count the two buildings (which I probably shouldn't) I've averaged a mini a week so far this year.

Wednesday I get laser eye surgery so next weekend probably won't be very productive. Hopefully it doesn't screw with my ability to paint minis. I doubt it will, but I'm concerned about a reduction in clarity when looking at small details...like on miniatures.

Depending on how things go I may take some pictures tomorrow. But I've also got to start getting ahead on my college homework so I'm not trying to do it during my various holiday vacations that are planned.

The Pax Arcadians Are Coming! The Pax Arcadians Are Coming!

So I submitted a wishlist of miniatures to my wife yesterday for Christmas, and apparently she ordered every one. They're all Pax Arcadians. I'll be using them with FWC. This initial force will be mostly infantry with a dropship, 1 blister of each of the buggies, and a small handful of tanks (1 blister of Chasseurs and 1 blister of Tigers).

So, obviously I won't be able to start working on them right away as I won't be receiving them until Christmas and I'll be out of state then, but I can start planning. A few things I'm debating though:

1. Base size: in FWC base size doesn't matter. I'm struggling between 20mm squares or 10mm x 40mm rectangles. The handful of Andy's I have are on poker chips which have roughly the same area, but I'm thinking that won't look as good for the humans for some reason.

2. Figures per base: I know the usual standard is 5 per base. But I'm thinking I can stretch things out a bit if I go 4 per. Though then I run into problems with the number of sergeants. However, the Reg Command blister has more command groups than I'll probably need, so I could conceivably raid that for more sergeants. I'm going to have to run the numbers and see what I can come up with. May have to order another command blister though that would seem to defeat the purpose of putting fewer figures per base.

3. Basing vehicles: to base or not to base? I prefer to not base vehicles, however, 6mm vehicles are much smaller than the N-scale ones I'm used to and I'll be the first to admit that I'm clumsy. If I do decide to base the vehicles, what size would work best?

4. Color: Ahh, the bane of miniature painters, color selection. I want to something suitably tactical, but not desert, urban, or woodland. I have too many other forces in those schemes. Hmmm, tundra maybe? Suggestions welcome!

Oh, my ordering and receipt of FWC has effectively killed my "Beer & Pretzels 6mm Sci-Fi" project. This will most likely have an effect on the sequence of my To Do List.

About Bloody Time

FWC arrived today. I like what I see. Hopefully this weekend I can give it a whirl.

Almost Here

My wife received an email today from The Warstore stating that my book is on it's way!

Impatiently Waiting

My wife (who has to endure many trials and tribulations living with me) ordered Future War Commander for me last week. :) Unfortunately I'm still waiting for it to get to Neal at the Warstore so he can send it to me. :(

I'm pretty amped about it. I've been trying to find something to use my 6mm minis with. Dirtside had most everything I wanted, but I found that it just didn't work for me. I even went so far as to write my own rules, but the build and point systems stymied me. The rules worked well, just couldn't make up my mind on how to design and cost the units. From what I can tell this will be up my alley, fairly abstract, good game mechanics, and a unit design system. Unfortunately though the cost has be bit anxious. That's $48 I'm out if I don't like it and can't shift it on eBay.

Haven't gotten crap done for painting since finishing Sophie. Been so busy that I'm just plain exhausted when I come home. The Force Unleashed has not been helping matters.