You've got red on you.

I've been busy with all things life (work, kids, non-miniature related fun stuff and just plain boring stuff), but I have plodded along with the Caproni I started earlier. All the major sub-assemblies (wings, interior bits etc.) are done, but I have to paint the interior before assembling them. Curse the designer who put so many windows on the cursed airplane.

So when the Guild of Wargamers announced a Speed build with the theme Red I jumped at the chance of doing something different. I decided to paint up one of the Killa-kans I bought off a friend in a bright red sceheme.

"You've got red on you"

Wedge saves the day!

Me and a couple of friends played an exciting game of X-wing recently. We wanted to try out the new Wave 3 ships and introduce a new player to the game. At first we were going to play two separate games since we were four players, but decided to play a big multi-player battle instead. Each player could choose 75 points of ships, making the game 150 points in total. Me and Håkan played the peace-loving galactic Empire while Mats and rookie Dave played the terrorist Rebels.

I chose Colonel Jendon in a Lambda Shuttle with Heavy Laser Cannon, Anti-Pursuit Missiles and the ST-321 title, along with Major Rhymer in a Tie Bomber with Advanced Proton Torpedoes and a Proton Bomb. The tactic would be for Jendon to aquire target locks early and then pass them on to Rhymer, who would be able to fire the Adv. Proton Torpedoes at range 2 because of his special ability (they are normally range 1 only). Hopefully I would be able to pull off the sacred Target Lock/Focus combo for maximum carnage.

Meanwhile Håkan chose three TIE Interceptors led by Thurr Phennir, all from the elite Sabre Squadron. He gave the Sabre Squadron pilots the Veteran Instincts upgrade making them Pilot Skill 6. I don't remember what other upgrades he chose, I think Thurr got a pilot skill as well but it didn't come into play during the game.

Mats naturally wanted to play with his B-wing so he chose Ibtisam, tooled up with Heavy Laser cannon and Advanced Proton Torpedoes, along with an Outer Rim smuggler in an old beat up YT-1300 freighter as bait. Mats also gave Ibtisam a Fire Control System allowing her (yes, Ibtisam is female) to gain a Target Lock on a ship she has just attacked. The plan was obviously to fire the Heavy Laser Cannon at long range getting the Target Lock for free and then swoop in for the kill with the Advanced Proton Torpedoes.

Dave was a bit star struck I think as he chose Wedge Antilles -- the best pilot on the rebel side -- along with a Rookie Pilot in an X-wing and a Gray Squadron pilot in a Y-wing. He also bought an Ion cannon for the Y-wing which could potentially wreck the best laid plans if used at the right moment. A solid squadron rather straight forward to use, the biggest problem would be for Dave to keep them together, always tricky to pull off the first few times you play.

Dave and Mats mulling over the set-up.

Find out how the game went after the break. Warning, the page is quite pic-heavy.

Chain of Command Morale tracker

I should be building and painting stuff for our LRDG convention game in november, but it seems such a long way off that I'm constantly drawn to other projects. I started to build the Caproni bomber that will serve as a target for the good guys, but building planes is such a bore. I enjoy looking at planes, but not building them. Even worse is painting them, and by coincidence, a large part of the Caproni fuselage is taken up by windows -- which means I have to paint the insides before gluing the fuselage together. Boooring!

The cockpit interior and the two bomb racks that will fit inside the Caproni. And I can't be arsed to paint them.

Receiving the Chain of Command rule book last week didn't help, as I got inspired to do some more 28mm painting. I really enjoyed painting the Crusader British figures earlier, and yearned to paint some more. In the rule book I saw a picture of a rather camp German officer, and remembered a set called "The St. Albans Four" that the renowned sculptor Richard Ansell did as a tribute (or perhaps joke) for Richard Clarke. I got the idea to use two of the figures for morale trackers, mounting them on casualty markers from Warbases. I highly recommend Warbases by the way, great products for good prices, and very good service.

Sid and Rich in metal versions.

The figures depict the four main culprits of the St. Albans wargames club, which was the spawning ground for TooFatLardies. Both I Ain't Been Shot, Mum! and Charlie Don't Surf! started out as their club rules. (Much like Bolt Action started out as a WW2 version of second edition 40k that Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson used when gaming at the Perry Twins' house.) The figures were included in the Bolt Action range, since Richard Ansell also sculpted their french line. Richard is a very talented sculptor and has done work for a lot of companies, including sculpting a 1/48 scale WW2 range for North Star Miniatures, now available from Scarab Miniatures. Ironically, Bolt Action got sold to Warlord games who then produced the Bolt Action game in cooperation with Osprey. The St. Albans Four were then re-released as a Christmas Truce pack! (If anyone fancies them Warlord Games is having a free shipping campaign until the end of August.)

The dial spins around to reveal the numbers 12 to 0.

I painted Big Rich the same way as I painted the Crusader brits, in fact I had my blog post up on an Android tablet while painting to see which paints I had used. The only difference was that I needed some red and gold for his hat and that I painted the boots brown instead of black. The bottles were painted green and washed with gloss black paint.

Big Rich toasting his great find!

The base was textured the same way as the rest of my brits, but very carefully to avoid jamming the dial.

Hugh Jarce? Nah, I'll paint him later.

The figure is a good likeness of Rich, but apparently has too small feet.

Oh well. Back to the Caproni again...