More DAK and "What's Next?"

OK, so here are some more (poor) pictures of my 15mm DAK Flames of War army. It's playable; I just have to finish up the detailing on all of the softskin transports. Infantry are Battlefront, Tanks are Old Glory and the guns are from both manufacturers.

So, now that I'm pretty much done with that, "what's next?" Well, I'm working on another Lord of the Rings army that I'll be using in the February Gathering in the Desert (pictures of that when I get further in the project). I also want to do some terrain for the event; I like having deadlines in some cases because it motivates me. I've also started collecting up models for a 40k Space Marine Army I want to do.

Until next time...hopefully it won't be 7 months!

Busy, but not dead...

So it's been forever since I posted to this blog...I've just been busy with "real life" for the most part. Work has been "interesting" since April when I got a "temporary" promotion due to a manager leaving; after doing the job for 3 months I had to interview for it and luckily I got it...promotions from people leaving are the only way people working for the State of Arizona are going to get raises in the forseeable future. I also had a busy summer due to my oldest son playing on a club basketball team, including a trip to Vegas.

In addition to "real life" time commitments, I've strayed into another hobby and started collecting sports cards again. Right now I'm working on some sets and also collecting players from the teams I follow (Red Sox, Falcons, Suns and Syracuse). That "hobby" certainly has changed since I was a kid and there was only Topps to deal with, that's for sure!

As for gaming, I had the wind knocked out of my sails in the spring when it was announced that Warhammer Historicals editor Rob Broom was made "redundant" WHW would become part of Forgeworld. At the time WAB 2.0 was looking good and was on trackI thought; since then...well, nothing. From what I understand from talking to various authors and testers that were working on various WHW projects non-communication from the new powers that be is the new "norm". I don't know when, or if, 2.0 will see the light of day, and even if it does if there will be any follow-on supplements released. I am helping a friend on some ACW rules that are supposed to be done by WHW, but that's the extent of my involvement. The saddest part of this is that after years of no real releases and all of this crap going on, WAB, a game that I really enjoy and a game I've supported with endless hours of testing, emailing, proof-reading, and defacto editing is pretty much dead locally and even if 2.0 come out I'm not sure it will ever get back to where it was. I'm even looking at other rule sets now so I can use my 25mm armies and have some opponents.

Well, enough about the negative...time to focus on the positive...I have managed to finish up most of my 15mm Afrika Korps army for Flames of War (tanks are from Old Glory and infantry from Battlefront):

DONE!!!!!!!

Well, I can FINALLY say it...MY ROHAN ARMY IS DONE!!!! (actually shouted it...sorry!). I've been working on this army for a while now with the aim of getting the entire army done in time for the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament which is this upcoming weekend. I took some time on this army with some extra highlighting that I normally don't do when I'm painting "assembly line" style. I also didn't just do the figures that I needed for the tournament...I did every single Rohan model I had, including extras that I won't be using this weekend, so that's good. Oh, and I did up a small display board which blends in with the figure bases and I can use to carry the army from table to table with. Each of the mounted models in the entire force has a dismounted figure...some of the shields are not the same, but the entire force comes out to be: Theoden, Gamling, Eomer, Eowyn, Captain, Standard, 6 royal guard, 10 bow armed riders, and 20 throwing spear armed riders (again, all of these have dismounts...oh, and I have a dismounted Merry too).

Sneak Peak of my GITD Tournament Army:

Another view of my GITD Tournament army:

Yet another view of my GITD Tournament army:

The entire Rohan Army:


It feels good to "finish" something...as with all projects, I'm only done with them until the urge hits me to add more to them!

Late Roman Infantry

OK, so here are the Late Roman infantry for my WAB army. I haven't had good success with the army as it's hard to be successful with it without using the Warlord list from the Fall of the West book; a straight up Late Roman army as I use it just doesn't pack too much of a punch. That said, that makes the victories that much sweeter!

Late Roman Infantry - Mixed Pedes and Archers

Another Mixed unit of Pedes and Archers

Armored Infantry Unit

Another Armored Infantry Unit

General and Army Standard Bearer

Well, that's it for now...take it easy...

Excuses, babbling, and Late Romans...

Well, if I want to average one topic posting a week for 2009 I better get to it. I've been busy painting and had a slight distraction with the Superbowl (and all of the cooking for the mandatory party of course...pulled pork, brats and wings!) and eventhough I'm a Falcons fan I was rooting for the hometown team...it was a great game! To top it off I'm also getting into a good painting groove working on finishing up my Rohan for the Gathering in the Desert which gives me 17 days to finish the army up!

That said, I haven't had a chance to take any good pictures of stuff, so here's an army that I've had done for a number of years, my Late Romans for WAB.

Roman Cavalry and Infantry Command Figures: Gripping Beast
Hun Cavalry and Infantry Archer Figures: Old Glory
Roman Spearmen: Wargames Foundry
Shield/Standard Decals: Dark Age Design
Painting: Tom O.
Basing: John G.

I put this army together after getting a good deal on some Foundry Late Roman Spearmen. Though not the best supplement for WAB IMO, I used the Fall of the West army list to create this army. The mixture of figures from Foundry, Gripping Beast and Old Glory fit together nicely, even within units. And kudos to Darren at Gripping Beast in the UK who allowed me to mix and match packs in the Late Roman Cavalry package to get the mixture I wanted…great company to do business with and I highly recommend them.
I also have to give high praise to Dark Age Design for their shield decals. They look great...too bad they are no longer available... And lastly, thanks to John G. for doing the basing...I hate to base figures as I find it tedious so I bribed John to do it for me as he does a great job.
The army consists of: 10 skirmishing infantry, 2 units of 24 infantry (18 spear, 6 bow), 2 units of 16 infantry (I usually upgrade these to light armor, drilled, and heavy throwing spears as the Veterans are too expensive IMO), 2 units of 12 archers, 10 Hunnic light cavalry, 10 Roman horse archers, 10 Roman light cavalry, 10 Roman heavy cavalry, 12 Roman Cataphracts, a General, and an Army Standard Bearer.

Late Roman Heavy Cavalry

Late Roman Cataphracts

Hun Light Cavalry

Roman Light Cavalry screening the Heavies

Roman Horse Archers screening the Cataphracts

Next post will be the Infantry...

Lord of the Rings Rohan

Well, I have just over a month to go before the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament. The only other LOTR tournaments I played in I used my Minas Tirith and had a blast; for this event, not only did I volunteer to do a terrain table of Osgiliath ruins, I decided I'd like to use it as motivation to finishing off one of the armies I had. I chose Rohan. As you can see from this first picture, I stll have a ways to go! I'm not just painting up the army I'll use in the tournament, but I'm painting the entire force. So there are more figures here than I'll be using in the event, but I won't have to worry about adding figures later to the army...though that may change when/if a Rohan book ever comes out. The "In Progress" figures include 10 archers, 10 hand weapon, 10 spear, dismounted Merry and both mounted and dismounted figures for: Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn, Gamling, Captain, Standard, and 6 Royal Guard.

The good news is that I'm done with the regular Riders of Rohan! I have 10 mounted archers and 20 mounted with throwing spears complete! I also have the horses done for the other mounted figures (except Gamling, Theoden and Eowyn). I oiled the horses and think they came out quite nice.

I did do some converting as I didn't have 20 throwing spear armed figures. I made spears out of brass wire and used them to replace hand weapons in some case, or to place behind shields on other figures to indicate they do indeed have throwing spears. I also did some other minor conversions like switching this figures sword for a hand axe.

Though this last picture didn't come out too well, I hope you can see that after the figure was done I went back and highlighted some of the cape, shield and metal. This added some nice contrast and it looks better in person than in these rushed pictures (I didn't take the time to set up my photobox today)...well, back to painting!

Pegasus Hobbies Terrain

OK, here's the last pictures of the Osgiliath terrain that I'm doing for the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament. This first piece is by Pegasus hobbies and came all ready finished. I mounted it on the display board, rubbled it, repainted the small roof sections, and gave it another dry brush to help it blend in with the rest of the pieces I'm doing for this project. Each of the corners in this building come with 2 removeable floors which are not in place for these pictures.

Now this Pegasus hobbies piece was is a plastic kit that had to be assembled and painted; this is the only plastic kit I'll be using...everything else is resin. I didn't want another building ruin with the center collapsed like the one above, so instead I decided to set this one up with 2 adjacent corners still standing and make it a longer piece.

Crusader29 Terrain

Here are some pieces I put together using resin Crusader29 terrain. This stuff started out as completed wall sections provided by Tim K (thanks Tim); Tim said he never thought he'd get around to using this stuff so he donated it to the Osgiliath project. I had to break apart the full wall sections and damage them some to get the look that I wanted. I also took modeling putty and filled in the inner facing of the walls; the outer facing has great detail, but the inner facing was recessed in the center and the edges were raised...this was due to how the molds were set up by the company. Using the modeling paste allowed me to give a stucco looking finish to the inner walls. Overall I am happy with how they turned out. Here are a couple of pictures of one of the ruins...there are more, but I only took pictures of this piece.

Armorcast Ruins

Well, I've gotten some flak recently about not doing anything for myself except purging stuff from my collection...so to prove my nay-sayers wrong, here's some terrain I've been working on in support of the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament which will be held in February. I'm going to provide the terrain for a 4x4 ruined city representing the beaten and battered city of Osgiliath. I'm using terrain pieces from Armorcast, Pegasus, and Crusader29. I would like to thank Tim K for cutting the bases the building ruins are on. So, here are some of the pieces:

Armorcast ruines and ruined walls

Armorcast ruined cathedral
Another view of the cathedral

Armorcast ruined building

Another set of Armorcast ruins

2009 "To Do" List

OK...I know...I know...it's been several months since I posted last...been busy, but that's no real excuse. One of the big issues for me is that I want to take decent pictures, but I have no conveniant place to do so...that's one of the things I'll work on this year. Here are some others:

1-Finish my Lord of the Rings Rohan army in time for the Gathering in the Desert tournament in late February. I have 30 riders complete...now I just need to do the characters and dismounts.

2-Post an average of one post per week on this long-neglected blog, so 52 posts for 2009 is my goal.

3-Finish the 17 chariots for my 28mm Mitanni army for WAB; this will complete the army.

4-Finish my 15mm WWII Afrika Korps. Fernando painted the infantry, but I have to do touch-ups and base them. I also have to assemble and paint all of the tanks, trucks, and guns.

5-Finish either the Babylonian or Andalusian armies I have for WAB. In this case Philgreg painters painted all of the infantry and cav riders, but I have touch ups to do and also have to paint several dozen horses for each (and a few chariots for the Babylonians) and do all of the basing (which is a tedious chore for me).

6-Finish up Mike's 28mm Flanders army for WAB.

7-Undecided. I will either do a 15mm army for Might of Arms or some 28mm ACW or who knows...maybe just a combination of things and start some new projects as the items I have listed previously make up the majority of the started projects that I haven't finished yet.

If I do anything "new" it's likely to be 15mm Napoleonics as I've been kicking that idea around for a while...though there are some other areas/periods I'm interested in as well.

Well, that's it for my 2009 "resolutions" for gaming I guess...of course, this list is subject to change based on my ever changing interests!