Painting - Abyssal Dwarves from Mantic

Here are three more models from Rhys' Abyssal Dwarf force for Kings of War. He got the starter army for his birthday, in December. I was able to get the unit of slave orcs painted before his birthday, but the task master and his "dog" had to stay hidden since he would have known what they were.

Gaming - Rangers of Shadow Deep - The first scenario

Last weekend the boys and I played our second game of Rangers of Shadow Deep, though we just played the first scenario a second time. We each had a ranger and two companions. There were a couple of times things got tense, but nine of us seemed to make short work of the zombies, rat swarms and giant bugs that had infested the village.

Starting positions

Painting Progress

This group of models is the last of 2019. They are the Abyssal Dwarf Slave Orcs from Mantic that I painted for my son's birthday. I still need to do the slave master and his ugly dog to finish the unit off, but his was eighteen orcs completed. The keen eyed among you will notice that there are not 18 orcs on the base. I saved off four to make the next unit that much faster.

14 Orcs, ready for the battlefield

Kings and Things

I was digging through more boxes from my parent's house and found this old gem in one of them. My sister, cousins and I played endless hours of this game as children. I bought it 1983 - I think.

The gaming effect.

I'm sitting here after a long day at work. I'm an introvert who doesn't get enough time to recover between days. I've fed the boys, cold cereal tonight; sometimes it's all I can manage. Rhys is at his desk next to me. He's got his head phones on as he watches a minecraft play video. That means he can't really hear himself as he plays.

His desk is covered with Lord of the Rings models and Star Wars models and 15mm Sci Fi. He has a drawer full of d6. He's playing a mixture of miniatures and role playing with rules of his own design. I'm not at all clear on how it works but he's describing each model's actions, "He uses his shield" "He swings his sword". The dice rolls have some hidden significance that escapes me.

 An hour of this is worth ten hours of introverted recovery.

X-Wing with the boys

The boys and I have gotten some more gaming in. This time around they both wanted to play some X-Wing. All things Star Wars are popular in my house right now.

The boys plotting their nefarious schemes.

Gaming with the boys

I've been playing a few games during the last few months. My main opponent for X-Wing moved to New Zealand. I haven't had a lot of time to get down to the shop. My main opponent has been Rhys.

Rhys, prior to deployment. He set up the terrain.

Entry 8 - Vth Analogue Painting Challenge - 1 15mm Sci/Fi Vehicle

This next entry is for my son Rhys.  He's been getting 15mm Sci/Fi models as rewards for doing well at school.  He and I play Gruntz together.  Part of the deal is that I'll paint them for him, though he likes painting his models as well.

Light tank for Gruntz.

28mm Barbarians

These are two 28mm Celtos barbarians that were given to Rhys years ago.  There were three in the package.  He asked me to paint two of them while he did the third.

Two barbarians, ready for action.

Gruntz Batrep - Patrol action on Malvee

Rhys played his first game of Gruntz the other day.  He has been collecting his army slowly over the last couple of months and I've been painting them for him.  He gets units or vehicles as rewards for being good at school.  As I've mentioned before, Rhys is special needs and having that goal helps.  I print out a picture of the model he's aiming for that week and put it in his folder so the teacher can remind him of his goal when necessary.

The buildings are from the Ion Age line.  I need to take a moment to gush here.  I've seen them online, and they look good, but I was not prepared for the quality of what I got.  These are on a par with the best in the business.  Sharp, clean and clever.  Buy some.  You will not regret it.  the turrets that come with these fit on their vehicles as well, giving you a huge number of options for both vics and buildings.

The following battle report is a squad level game between Rhys' Raiders and the 47th Infiltration Company.  We played on a single 2ft x 2ft table tile.

15mm Sci/Fi - Rhys' Raiders Bug APC

The Raiders are well known on the battlefields of the Fury March.  They are masters at combined arms, using tanks, infantry and mechs in close cooperation.  They use a common hull for both tanks and APCs, simplifying their logistics and maintenance.

The Bug APC is the standard model APC for the Raiders.  Able to carry ten fully equipped infantry/scouts it is fast and nimble.  

Bug APC of Rhys' Raiders.

Gruntz 15mm - Earth Force APC

I buy a lot of stuff from Rebel Minis.  They are located in the US, so no extortion from the Royal Mail.  They have great service and good sculpts, including my favorites, the Viper mechs.  I've built quite a bit of my 15mm collection out of their models.  They boys both want their own models and due to all of the above factors I ordered theirs from Rebel.

Rhys got his first, which is what drove Owyn's "need" for models of his own.  They both earned infantry right off the bat.  They had to be good at school to get their rewards, and one bad day cancelled the whole week.  Rhys' infantry can be found in this post.  He wanted them to look like clones.

To sweeten the deal I also bought them each a couple of vics.  Just like the infantry I queued up all of the various vehicles on the web site and let them choose what they wanted.  Rhys chose the Earth Force APC.

Turtle Mk 1 tank.

Rhys' 15mm army

Rhys has desperately been wanting his own models.  The problem is that the few he's had he has played with like they were lego or army men, and they've ended up broken and lost.  He has also been known to play with mine, almost always with catastrophic results.

Rhys has been having some behavior issues at school.  They were talking about putting him on a behavior plan, the first step in their kicking him out of school altogether.  We are fairly certain his issues are all to do with his SPET teacher, since he has been fine in the past and is fine when he is not under her care.  Pondering ways to keep him motivated to behave until the old bat retires I decided that it was time for Rhys to start his first army.

Rhys' clone troopers.

1st Game of 2014

Rhys and I played our first game of 2014 on the 1st, which bodes well for the year if you believe in such things.  One of the presents that Santa brought was a copy of Battles of Westeros by Fantasy Flight games.

Image from Fantasy Flight games.

More Roads

The roads are coming along.  A couple of coats of dry brush and some flock and such and they'll be finished.
In the last installment the roads were coated with textured paint and then painted with my standard basecoat of brown house paint.

The next step is very much similar to how I do bases for my models.

A road base, ready for sand.

Battle damage. It's a dangerous world

I was sitting at my desk the other night, cruising through my blog roll.  I dropped my eyes below the monitor and saw what looked like a mech leg under there.  I dug around, moved several pictures and found the scene of a miniature massacre.

Dead Mech.  Good for salvage.

In addition to the Mech, above, there were two 15mm infantry that had been broken off at the ankles.  Clearly Rhys had been playing with things he was not supposed to.  The infantry were un-salvageable and went in the trash.  The mech can be made whole.  I'll have to find a base for it as the leg will need another point of contact to be strong enough to stand up to gaming.  The left arm weapon will get pinned for the same reason.

Rhys and I had a talk.  While I reinforced the idea that this is why he doesn't get to have models yet, my real concern was that he tried to hide what he had done, rather than coming clean and telling me he'd messed up.  I have the same problem with a couple of my grown up employees, so it's hard to hold it against an eight year old.  At least it's just stuff.

X-Wing with the boys

There has not been much hobby action this summer, as stated before.  The boys still love their two main game pastimes though.  The first is D&D, which they have only just discovered and which is good for a quick hack and slash session before bed.

Their long term passion is X-Wing though.  We hadn't played in a few weeks and Owyn has been badgering me to play ever since we got back from camping last weekend.  I promised him we would play this weekend and that he could fly the "Million Falcon".

The big boys passing in the night.

Gaming with the Wee ones

It's been a long hard month since I last posted.  Summer is always rough but this one was especially so.  I'm looking forward to a nice slow fall and winter with no drama.

I've been doing a lot of assembly, mostly more commission work putting together 90+ Cryx models.  That work will fund my Dux Brit army, so worth the pain.  I've also plussed up my 15mm Sci/Fi with my CMG Kickstarter, more models for my Sahadeen army and some Khursan vics to mechanize them.  I'll be covering the Khursan models in a post all their own but let me just lead up to that with "WOW!"  These things set the bar for awesome.

I've also been dabbling with painting my company for In Her Majesty's Name.  I have four of nine models painted, though not based.  I'll get a picture of them up soon as well.

The big news though, and what this post is really about, is the latest gaming with the boys...

And now for something completely different...

I have not accomplished much on the hobby front in the last few weeks, but this weekend has been very productive.  For four years I've been planning the game table I wanted to build in the basement.  Something has always come up that stopped me from working on it.

The table, nearly complete.

2012 In Review and 2013 Plans

How's that for an inspiring title.  I love seeing what everyone else plans for the year, and how last year's plans panned out (or more often did not).  Since a large part of my keeping this blog is to keep track of my hobby, I also look forward to seeing what the last year held for me.

This was the biggest accomplishment of the year.