Update

It's been almost a month since the last update, so I feel I have to put something out.  Anyway, in the last month, I have worked on the Pendraken Stuff, but also, since my birthday is just around the corner, I have purchased some 15mm.co.uk figures just a few days ago.  When they arrive, hopefully I will get around to photographing them before painting.  Also, I spraypainted some chili cans, and with a stencil, wrote numbers on them.  They look surpisingly good!

Also, I just noticed these new "Porkers!" from ZombieSmith games, which also makes the Quar.  Basically, the Porkers are 15mm scale WW2 Germans with the heads of Pigs.  They would be an interesting addition to what I have so far.

The Last Space Marines You Will Ever Buy

I am not really a Games Workshop player.  I am a fan of the setting, and have used other figures as proxys at times.  Normally, I only check the Games Workshop Site once or twice a month to see a picture, but the last time I went on, this is what I saw.

 

We proudly present our most ambitious collection ever! Nearly 1,200 Space Marine models representing the Ultramarines as deployed at the Battle of Orar's Sepulchre 888.M41. Marneus Calgar leads his entire chapter against the perfidious Eldar of the Iyanden and Alaitoc Craftworlds.

Every Warhammer 40,000 hobbyist dreams of owning a complete Chapter of Space Marines - this special collection is your chance to achieve that dream in one fell swoop.

This Space Marine Chapter is made up of 1 Veteran Company, 4 Battle Companies, 4 Reserve Companies, and 1 Scout Company, with roughly 100 Space Marines in each. You will also receive all the codex-specified vehicles and support units that go with them. Be sure to have a look through the Company-by-Company photo guide above to see the chapter in all its glory.

We will also contact you personally to arrange a delivery time that is convenient for you, so please ensure that the contact details which accompany your order are accurate and up to date.

 That is just rediculous.  Who has that sort of money!  I wonder when we will hear the first report of some child buying this with his parents money, and then them going bankrupt and losing their house?

Anyway, I am done with Flashman and the Tiger and now I am working on the Dorsai and Two other books as well as A Small Colonial War, so I may do some 15mm Sci-Fi Stuff, considering my birthday is coming up.

Ratmen

Well, here are some pictures of the Ratmen and Beastmen.  It turns out I have one finished rat "horde", one rat horde in progress, and one Haedusman behemoth unit done.

The Finished Ratman Unit.

Rat-polean!

The Haedusmen.  They look alot better when seen from further away by the naked eye.

The In progress Unit.  I am puzzled by the Cross.  Are they meant to by a Contingent on the crusades?

I also plan on adding some artillery, possibly some of the Pendraken Desert Rat MG Teams to use the crewmen as the crew of a Ballista.  I also plan on getting some Irregular minatures rat and goatmen to mix in with the units I already have and make a new unit.  Also, with that Irregular order, if it occurs, I plan on getting some of the 6mm ratmen, then using them as hordes, by using strips of them in rows, painted white as mousemen.

An interesting thing happened it my latest Moderated Game.  In this one, called CNG: Roaring Forward, which began in 1919 after the First World War, I played a Zoroastrian Persian Monarchy.  In the interwar, it became nationalistic, and while I was gone fought a war against Afghanistan.  When the Second World War broke out, I was invaded by the Communists of Bharat (India) by way of Afghanistan.  We eventually lost the war, and the emperor, now of the Irano-Indic Empire, fled to Russia (The Holy Russian Empire, a Salvationist [super-fascist] empire).  But then, I returned and used Hungaro-Romanian and Rhomanion (Byzantine) troops to liberate my country in 1951.  Then, I asked for some investment to help my economy.  These are the two replys I got.

To: Iranian Empire
From: Colombia
We'd be happy to help you in this regard. Hell, we'll even throw in a good discount - if you'd open up and relax some regulations on oil and mineral extraction for Colombian companies?

and

  To: Iran
From: The Holy Roman Empire

We would also like to invest in your nations oil industry, if possible. We also offer you a discount on Italian heavy industrial products such as mining or agricultural equipment.

A perfect set of offers!  I can have HRE oil investment, and get cheap mining equiptment to assist in mining for Colombian companys!

Questions and Comments are welcome.

Yet another attempt to Restart

I have not posted in two and a half months.  I am not dead.  I have intended to post, but, being gone for a week on a camping trip with no internet access, and then another two weeks was not helpful.  Now, I am back home, and intend to post at least once a month.  I am now in school again, so that may not work out.

Anyway, I have been working on painting up my ratman army, and have at least 1 unit of Beastmen and 1 of Ratman hordes done if I remember correctly.  Unfortunatly, these days, I have little time to work on them, and, when I get out the paints and set up my station, I have to take it down many weekends, and Wednesdays, so work only occurs when I really am motivated.  I dont have any pictures at this time, but will try to get some up by the weekend (or on it).

Also, this summer I have played alot of moderated games on AH.com.  I guess this is because I actually have time to devote to it (more than 5 minutes), so I am able to create updates that actually fit in, not two sentences about an important country, covering 5 years of time.  In the first game I played, I played as "The Union of the Fourteen Countys", a Boer republic based out of Michigan and the Wisconsin coast.  Basically, in that world, it was decided that there were Dutch colonys up the Delaware River, (known as the Hudson in TTL).  When Spanish forces conquered it, eventually, many of the "Amerikaners", as they were known, fled west, into the Ohioland.  At the time the game started, in 1820, they had fled to Michigan.  Since we were in areas claimed by the Basque Republic (yes, there was a Basque state in New England), we came up with a deal to move to the Ozarks to assisst the Basques in gaining control of the west.  Unfortunatly, this area was dominated by the New Caledonians, crazy militaristic Scots based out of Texas, and Pennsylvania, theocratic militarists based out of Virginia.  Unfortunatly, my people thought the ruling council was in the Basque sphere, so they headed into the Missouriland and set up a new Town, Fort Niuewland north of OTL St. Louis.  I decided to play as them, and so began play as the Niuewland Republic, and set up town guards and even began construction on a new capitol, but while I was gone for a week, the game died.  It was pretty cool because I had the Roosevelts, van Halens, and de Walles, and if the game had gotten into the early 1900s, I was planning on having a Theodoor Roosevelt as a major military leader, and later on maybe a President Eduard van Halen.

Amerikaner Flag

A map of the Amerikaner movements.

Also, this summer, I did a good bit of reading.  Some of the books I read are (and know that I write them out, I cant remember most of them):

• The Man with the Iron Heart  I liked it, but at some points, it was just kind of boring, and at others, really strange that the German partisans never seemed to get caught or make mistakes.
• Dorsai!  Pretty good book of Military Science Fiction, the idea of a dozen human states with their own speciality is intriguing.  I wish there had been more about the with the United Orthodox Church.  The book is quite short.
• Flashman on the March  First one of the books I have read.  I really liked it, though it is really quite vulgar.
• The Guns of August  I actually read this for extra credit for school, but I had it on my shelf and had planned on reading it for a while.
• The Last Kingdom  Part of Richard Cornwells Saxon Tales, it is just good all around, but especially in describing the battle scenes.

I am now reading Flashman and the Tiger as well as Three to Dorsai, which is three of the Dorsai novels in one big book (which still is only a little thicker than Flashman and the Tiger).

Haedusmen Pictures

I finally got some pictures of the Haedusmen, the Bull People I am using as Behemoths.  I do really like how they were sculpted, and easy to put in uniform ranks.

All of the "Men"

The whole army fits into a Sour Cream Carton.

The Rat Command Unit

I really like the face of the one on the left.

I plan on having the shield be red, with a white skull

All of the Haedusmen in this unit

Any Comments are welcome!

Summer

Sorry for there not being no update in over a month.  The reason is because school just ended, but only after two weeks of tests, meaning I had to do quite a bit of studying, so there was little time to paint.  But now school is over, and work was done on the Dwarves, which are almost all done, and I built a gatehouse, and, on Saturday, my Pendraken order of Ratmen came.  It was quite a heavy bag and after opening it, the whole HOTT army inside looked quite intimidating to paint.  However, I had to start somewhere, so I worked on a unit of six Haedusmen first, and as of this moment are in various stages of painting, the most complete ones look good (compared to some other things I have done).

Hopefully I will get some pictures up this afternoon.

An Update

Not much to say this week, but I felt I had to make an update.  My Pendraken Rat Army has not arrived, and I have been told it is supposed to be cast up early next week.  After "hanging around" on the internet, waiting for the Rats to arrive, I saw a set of easy intstructions on creating walls for 10mm figures, so began work on a few walls for the Ratmen to use when I receive them.  Basically, I cut a styrofoam board into 5 centimeter strips, I then snapped them in half.  After that, I painted the entire thing black with acrylic craft paints.  After that dried for about 20 minutes, I painted in light gray the individual stones.

I think the painting worked rather well.  The top one was the 1st one painted, and I think the stones are to big.  The second one was painted by me later, and the third by my brother at the same time.  I think the 2nd is the best, with the ones on the third being a little to irregular and large.  Below is a comparison picture with some of the Eagle Games/Dwarf 1/72 figures.

In other news, I have done quite a bit of work on the Fantasy box, with quite a few Dwarves and Trolls now sealed, a few in the queue for sealing and others in various stage of painting.

 

I will be gone this weekend, but I hope to update you next week on the order and the Terrain. 

Questions, Comments?

New Army!

On Sunday, I purchased a 10mm ratman army from Pendraken Minatures.  The force is made up of mainly rats, but has Haedusmen as Behemoths, Night Orcs as sneakers, and Goblins as the cavalry.  This army will be quite interesting to paint, as I have never painted 10mm, Lead, or Pendraken stuff before.  The army makes a 24 AP HOTT force, with a slight emphasis on Hordes.  I have begun to read up on the HOTT rules and I have found they are quite easy.  I decided on building this army instead of 15mm Science-Fiction, so I probably will start that in the summer.

What the Rats are supposed to look like.

In other news, I finished reading 2061 last week, and have begun on Philip K Dicks "Divine Invasion" which is quite bizarre and a slow read.  I am about 1/2 way done with it.

Dwarf Figures

I have finally gotten around to taking and putting up pictures of my new troops.  In fact, it is a mix of dwarves, made by Light Alliance and trolls and giants, made by Eagle Games in their Age of Mythology Figure Pack.  All the figures are well sculpted, but the Eagle Games ones are, as board game peices, not 1/72 scale, meaning the Troll is only a few centimeters over the dwarves heads, so the humans from Eagle Games are only about the Dwarves size.  This creates a problem, meaning that I may use the humans as dwarves, as they would not be good humans, however, they are not what you would consider dwarf proportions.  I must say that they are not very well painted, possibly I did not put enough primer on.  I will only have pictures of the best looking ones on here.

A Group Shot and the Box.

All the Dwarf Poses.

A Few Troops.  I really like the red cape on the one in the center.

Some spearmen.

An Eagle Games Troll.

Some Eagle Games Dwarves, to be used as Engineers.

All the Troops, in a box.  The unpainted ones are Eagle Games humans.

In other news, having been to the library on Saturday, I picked up 2010: Odyssey Two and 2061: Odyssey Three, both of which I have already read twice, Philip K. Dicks Divine Invasion, and Edgar Rice Burroughs Pirates of Venus.  I have finished 2010 and now I believe I know why I keep coming back to that series, however old it gets and however many times I read it.  It seems that anytime you read them, you get a sense of awe and amazement at space in general.  It also seems that he makes humans really look small and primitive, or it could be that throughout the books, you feel that the human race and its people have changed.

Questions?  Comments?

Another Update

It has been a few months since I updated this place.  I keep meaning to get around to it, but never do.  Anyway, two weeks ago I picked up the book Conquistador and 2001: A Space Odyssey at the library.  I just finished Conquistador yesterday, it was a pretty good book, although it almost seemed like the last few chapters were originally three times as long, but then compacted down to take up less space.  Aside from that, I thought the book was quite well written, and I only wish that more information had been given on the outside world beyond the gate and that we learned what happened after the Gate was closed down.  I am currently almost done with 2001, having really begun reading it (past the Ape section).  It seems that I remembered alot of it incorrectly, even though I have read it twice before.

I also finally got around to watching that Spike "Alternate History" show.  It was awful.  First of all, I wondered why would there be SS troops in America after 70 years.  Then that "inauguration" scene was ridiculous, I dont really see why this nation would have technology so advanced as to track a single person in a crowd, yet could not find him until he was that close to the president.  That brought up the point of why they would even have elections in an authoritarian state.  Moving on, the idea that the usage of Me262s at D-Day would somehow magically repel the invasion was stupid, it seems that if they were that great, they would have turned the tide in the real war.  Then the part about the two German submarines going to America with nuclear missiles in tow was just crazy.  And that was about as much as I remember, due to the fact that at the second commercial I just stopped watching, because I figured waiting a few seconds for it to buffer was a waste of my time.  There were also alot of errors in the making of the show, such as showing modern Logan airport in the nuking of Boston, as well as the fact there was an African American soldier in a white unit, meaning that the directors really didnt bother to find out about the Armed Forces Desegregation order.  I am almost glad the show didnt continue, although it would be quite funny to watch the show in which Alexander the Great conquers all of Europe, yet 2000 years later, Barack Obama is elected president of the United States, the only difference being that it speaks Greek.

Yes, I am sure this would happen.

Aside from that, my brother and I have painted up some 1/72 scale dwarf minatures as well as the Norse peices from the Eagle Games game Age of Mythology.  I hope to put some pictures of them up soon.