Who Watches The Watchmen?

I do! After months of pestering and sad face, Kieron finally persuaded me into the Batman Miniature Game!

It didn't take much persuading to be fair. I just baulked a bit at the rulebook price! I stopped being a tight wad however and just bought it! The free Alfred model will be made use of when I start the inevitable Batman gang...

I loved the Watchmen film and comic so I thought I'd start off with them as a gang! And above is my first model, Ozymandias! Really enjoyed painting this and think I've made a decent job of it. I also have Rorschach but when I started to paint him I realised the brown I wanted to use had dried out...

Nite Owl is on his way to me and the final pair will be purchased when the models I have are finished. Then the dilemma of who to do next!

Woosh! Fzzzap! Kapow!

Greetings! Between work and the continuing decaration of the house I managed to get a fair bit of painting done! We've also managed to get in a handfull of games and are now starting to get the hang of the mechanics of the game and how our individual armies work.

Both Mike and I have expanded our forces beyond the starter set and as expected this has only added to the game beyond its basic level. That and I keep winning! So, onto what I've painted to date:

Infantry! And their Bear APC transport. These are the least good models our of the starter set, being quite flat, but they look ok. I got these out of the way quite quickly as I so love painting infantry... These troops are also quite vital in the game, as the missions we have played so far call for searching buildings for objectives and intel, and infantry is the only way to do it.

 

Tanks! On the left Rapier AA tanks, and on the right anti-tank tanks, with their Condor dropships in the background. I've got for a grey military look, with the red panel markings thrown in for a bit of contrast. I also picked a fairly basic paint scheme as I didn't want painting the army to turn into a boring slog!

  

Commander! In his Kodiak! This is the first addition I bought. Commanders add command cards to the game which are an fun way of annoying your opponent! He also comes with a Tactical Orbital Strike, which is nice...

 

Scouts! Wolverines! These are fast units that come with 2 different turret options, so they can either be AA, or have missile pods and pack a bit of punch against armour. They can also act as spotter for the commanders TOS. 

 

Small dropship! Raven A, which I added with some more elite infantry called Praetorians, but I haven't painted these yet so you'll have to wait and see! 

All in I'm glad I started this new game, have enjoyed playing it and the more we build our forces the more it adds to the game. Not sure what to add yet. Mike has quite a mobile army so some more AA would help, but with Wes buying the PHR starter set I may wait and see how my stuff works against his before deciding.

I've also discovered a Batman miniatures game which no one I know has ever mentioned at all. Ever. Especially not Kieron. And to weird it up a bit, the first model I've ordered is Ozymandias, one of the Watchmen! I'm still a bit miffed that the rulebook is £35 but a localish workgames shop does a decent discount so should be able to pick it up for around £28.

New year, even newerer project!

Before I get to the even newerer project, I managed to fit in a small amount of painting between doing coursework and decorating the living room...

And here they are:

Boom! A light mortar made from the plastic infantry sprues and a commander.

He has a rather splendid moustache, ideal for twiddling whilst pointing with his pipe to a spot on a map where my troops and guarateed to be being cut down in their droves....

I also accidentally ordered the forward observer blister as with the British special rule giving me a free artillery observer, it would be rude not to take 2 in some games!

Having completed my course work, an information poster on "Assessment of delirium in a critical care environment" (fun times!), I decided to treat myself to something I've had my eye on for a while:

Dropzone Commander! Having read a few online reviews of the game it always seems to get a good write up, and is not in the Games Workshop realm of pricing. Its quite cheap really! I managed to pick this 2 player starter box for £48. And below are shown the contents:

Rulebook, UCM and Scourge plastic starter armies, 2 A1 posters that have art work on one side and a cityscape on the other, 10 cardboard buildings, a sheet of tokens and the obligatory 10 free dice and small tape measure.

My nephew (whose blog can be found here) is going to have the Scourge and I'll be starting the UCM. The models in the set provide you with enough for a 500 point game. The rulebook is very nicely presented, also containing a large selection of different scenarios to play, some for up to 4 players, and the army lists for 4 of the 5 available armies.

After a first read through of the rules I'm really looking forward to start playing!

Tally bally ho!

New year, new project!

I've been planning this for a while and the lovely folk at Warlord had one of their "half price plastic sprue" sales just before Christmas! So I took this opportunity to start my Bolt Action Brits.

The project had a stuttering start, as the infantry sprues I'd ordered arrived quickly as always, but only when I started to assemble the models did I realise I'd been sent American sprues by mistake! A quick email to Warlord resulted in my correct sprues arriving a few days later. This also mean I now have to decide what to do with 20 Yank infantry. Ebay or 3rd army?! I'll hang on to them until I decide.

Anyway, here is my current progress:

1 infantry squad with rifles and an NCO with an SMG. Weighing in at a massive 68 points! I've planned out 500 points as a target, all of which will be veterans, this may change as I paint more and see how an all veteran force works in the game.

The squad will be transported into battle in a Bren Carrier that secret santa delivered! I also purchased a command blister so that's next on the painting table. I do like the newer infantry sprues as they give you extra options. For my Brits I'll also be able to make a light mortar team and a PIAT team!

Taking further advantage of the half price sprues offer I also purchased some more german infantry to fill out my existing squads.

More updates as painting occurs!

Filling out the Germans!

Well, I've recently been back in the painting groove and here are my newest:

These are sold as pin markers, but as a group we use tiny dice for this, so I came up with the idea of splitting a pack and using them to signify when a units NCO has been taken out!

Kettenkrad! This will provide transport for a small team or a tow for some artillery when we get round to playing some tank wars. Or cheap bomb fodder for when I'm playing Matt and his partizans....!

And finally a unit of SS! I bought 10 originally but then ordered more so I can either have 2 smaller squads or vary the equipment they carry. The camouflage isn't 100% accurate but I'm happy with it and they'll stand out from my regular troops. Having veterans will give me a nice offensive unit or something that can hold an objective. Plus, give them the fanatic rule and they'll be a bugger to kill!

That's it for now, warlord had a 50% off plastic sprues for black friday so I spent some pennies! First on the list was some more German infantry. Second was the start of some Brits! Looking forward to getting started on them when they arrive.

Zomtober!

I thought I would join in with this months "Post pictures of stuff you've painted either recently, or within the last decade, and make up some wacky background story where you claim them to be 'survivors' of a zombie apocalypse".

So here goes!:

First up is...err....Dave. Dave was on a reenactment day with all his mates, in full WW2 German uniform when the apocalypse kicked off. Luckily he has his trusty Luger with him! Unluckily, its made a rubber.

 

Secondly, at near enough the same time Dave was firing pretend bullets at his mates, 13 dwarves, all dressed as a bloodbowl team got caught up in the apocalypse as well! I know! How cool! Luckily for them, they're covered in armour! Unluckily for them, its all made of rubber as well....

So there you have it. I was going to post a picture of Daves mates in there authentic WW2 Zomblewagon, and a load more Zombaginians and Zomidians from a Punic War reenactment day, but I feel by this point I may be over doing the sarcasm...

Confederates preparing for war!

Steady progress is being made! I'm starting to enjoy painting these now! There's enough variety in the clothing to mean its not getting boring, but probably takes a little longer than painting the uniformed Unionists.

Hot off the production line are:

Another ranked unit and a command stand.

I'm told this is now enough for us to start some small games so we can get to grips with it. I'm hoping to have another ranked unit and an overall command base done before we do however.

But then we go to Derby World tomorrow and there was talk of buying cavalry and artillery.... Not sure what I want to purchase there, apart from a KR multi case for my Bolt Action stuff. I'm sure the usual amount of goading will occur and we'll all come back with something we hadn't expected to buy!