Kavil Scum Y-Wing - X-Wing Miniatures Re-Paint

This was a quickie painted at the end of my stream tonight. I'm a big fan of Kavil as a scum Y-wing pilot. They've raised the points for the veteran turret gunner crew, but on Kavil, I think it might still be worth the points.  I fly Kavil enough that he deserved his own painted ship. The card art for him is pretty atrocious. I've seen a few Kavil re-paints in dark green schemes that I liked, so I went with a variant of that for mine.

28mm Macedonian Thorakatai & Homemade Basing Materials

These two stands of Thorakatai based up as soldiers for Hannibal at the Gates. These ten figures are part of Warlord Games SPQR line and are one piece resin figures with separate shields (with spears cast on them) and metal main hand spears/javelins. I have been very pleasantly surprised at how much I've enjoyed painting the SPQR resin figures. They take paint well and are nicely detailed. Additionally they don't have all of the assembly hassle that most plastic miniatures have.

The box comes with twelve figures, but I only painted ten at this time as that's all I needed for these two units. To complete the division I'll also need to paint up three stands of Thureophoroi which I haven't even purchased yet, so they'll be done much later. These ten figures put me over 100 figures for the year. I'm on a much more productive pace than last year for sure. I think this is 100% due to my painting regularly, three days a week on my Twitch.tv stream.

I get a lot of questions on my stream about my basing process and materials. One item that I use on most bases are jagged rock pieces. These look intentionally 'fake'. I've tried all manner of real rocks and they just don't look correct on the bases. What I use is chunks of coarse cork, broken from a larger sheet of cork from the craft store.

Each piece is broken and shaped quickly using my fingernails and a sanding stick. They're lightly glued onto Popsicle sticks, sprayed black with flat hardware store spray paint, then dry-brushed in various light greys and light browns. When finished I carefully cut them off the sticks and store them in a container for easy retrieval when basing.  I can make a whole container's worth, enough for over 100 bases in about an hour's worth of work. Sometimes making your own basing materials is the best answer....doubly so when you're socially distancing yourself!

X-Wing Quad Jumper Re-Paint

This was a quick project tonight that I painted mostly while watching Luke's stream from the Gold Squadron Paintcast.

This is a simple re-paint of the Quad Jumper. There's a blue stripe on the side of the hull, so re-painting the accent panels to match is a pretty easy choice. This will be my Unkar Plutt ship for my scum squadrons where I fly Unkar and a generic Quad Jumper.

Below are some additional photos showing the re-paint next to an original version. Total painting time was about 90 minutes, although I wasn't really rushing as I was enjoying watching Luke's stream almost as much as I was painting.

28mm Macedonian Cataphracts

Three units of Macedonian Cataphractoi based up for Hanibal at the Gates. I still need to do one more stand of three figures to complete a full one-point HATG division command.

These are Warlord Games resin figures. I have to say I really enjoyed painting these figures. The sculpts are crisp and the riders and horses are each one-piece. Clean up was quite easy. The only complaint I have is the horses that don't have all four legs on the ground are flexible enough to be unsettling. I'm counting this as 18 figures in my annual painting totals - nine horses and nine riders. Painted entirely on my Twitch.tv stream over the past week and a half. Next up on the painting table is a couple of bases of Macedonian Thorakiti.

 

Serissu M3-A Interceptor Re-Paint for X-Wing

Small (nearly) instant-gratification project that I tacked onto the end of tonight's Twitch.tv stream. This is the M3-A Interceptor re-painted to match the Serissu unique pilot card art. I took some small liberties in the cockpit coloring and by adding some additional details. Besides those it's my attempt at replicating the card art. After finishing I think I could have gone a bit heavier on the panel wash and darkening of the light areas. Hindsight is always 20/20. Still for about an hour's work I'm satisfied with another unique X-wing ship for my fleet.

28mm Republican Roman Infantry Command

I've had these figures finished for about a week, but I've been busy painting other figures and neglected to base these up. I finally got some time to get them based this past weekend. These are mostly Old Glory figures, except for the Titus Pullo character figure and the Warlord 'Blood Sacrifice' figure which came free with the purchase of their SPQR rule book.

The two round stands are infantry command stands. the yellow shield stand completes my third infantry legion. The green-shielded stand starts my fourth legion.

28mm Ruin for Saga, Generic Barricades

This is a 28mm 'ruin' that I've scratch built to use in Saga games. The two larger pieces are 'Ruins B' and 'Ruins D' pieces from Renedra Ltd. The rest of the pieces are scratch built from hand-cut foam blocks, loose stone and sand. The entire piece is also over-sprayed with sand-texture paint to make it look a lot less 'plastic'.

The two larger walls are magnetized. They can easily be removed for transportation, or to accommodate figures during play. The entire piece is just over the minimum size for a ruin as prescribed by the Saga rule set.

These are the Battlefield in a Box Wartorn Village Barricades from Gale Force Nine. These come pre-painted, and to be honest, can be easily used as-is out of the box. I took a little bit of time to re-dress some of the pieces. These come factory painted in four basic colors with a white dry-brush over nearly the entire piece. I over-brushed this white dry brush on all of the wood pieces using varied colors. I also re-painted the fence piece and put a wash over all the stone pieces to tone down the over-done white dry brush. Easy job, to turn a piece that was a solid 7/10 to 9/10. I didn't have good barricades in my collection and these easily work from dark ages all the way through WWII. Since this was only a touch-up job, I'm counting these four pieces as one 'terrain/misc.' in my annual totals.

28mm Roman Cavalry (2)

Two units of 28mm Roman cavalry for my 'tan shield' allied legion. Old glory figures based up for Hanibal at the Gates rules.

These were painted on my Twitch.tv stream over the better part of three streams. I'm counting this as twelve figures in my annual painting totals: six riders and six horses.  Next up on the painting table are some command figures to finish up this legion and start the 4th and final legion.

Trying out my new photography turntable. Probably a silly gimmick, but what the heck right?

X-Wing Miniatures Fireball Re-Paint

Final photos of the X-Wing Miniatures Fireball expansion ship that I've custom painted as a prize for the Gold Squadron Podcast. I've been blessed to have won not one, but two of the painted ship giveaways on GSP streams this year. I thought it was appropriate to give back a little.

The Fireball is one of the ships in the most recent release wave. It's name is appropriate. This clone wars ship can choose to do a slam maneuver at the cost of revealing one of its damage cards as a critical hit. The stock paint job is quite nice, but I chose to go a different direction opting for a 'keep it cool' blue fading to white theme. Engine glow is green with a nice red cockpit interior color showing through the glass. Hopefully the lucky winner who receives it will enjoy it as much as I'm enjoying the ships I've received as prizes from GSP.

This ship was painted on my Twitch.tv stream over a couple of Thursday night streams. I cast prior to GSP painter Luke Carrington's paintcast stream on Thursday nights. Stop by the GSP Twitch channel on Thursday nights to watch Luke do some amazing X-wing re-paints.

Returned to it's original packaging, and on it's way to Dion Morales to add to the GSP prize pool. I wish everyone luck in winning it!

Thanks again to Dion, Luke and the whole GSP crew for making some great Twitch and YouTube content.

Northern Conspiracy February Game Day

Saturday the Northern Conspiracy got together for a HUGE ACW game of the Union approach to capture Richmond after taking Fort Monroe. I was the Confederate commanding general and fellow Blogger Ed M. was the Union Commander. Ed did a great job of preparing the Union troops with a concise battle plan and thorough supporting documentation. Having some life issues getting in the way, I relied on a council of war and solid support from my Admiral George, and wing commanders Byron and Rob. The rules used were 'Steady Boys!' a home brew set created by Ralph of the Northern Conspiracy.

The table for this game was an epic representation of the entire peninsula including Ralph's scratch built 28mm ACW ironclads and paddle wheel transports. Naval rules were simple, but allowed for the union to attempt to land a marine force behind the Confederate lines. Good fun.

The day started out with Charlie giving the general objectives of the battle, with additional information about the naval rules and special scenario rules that aren't part of the base Steady Boys! rule set.

Ralph followed up with a quick overview of Steady Boys! including going over the QRS.

Initial deployments are set. my Jonny Rebs deployed in a thin line with successive reinforcements ready to take up secondary and tertiary positions as the battle progressed.

The Union plan - rolling thunder. Their divisions in columns with artillery leading the way hub to hub across the battle line their attack advancing at the speed of the artillery.

Shameless selfie as the initial turns are started. The Union plan, cohesive and well executed worked to obliterate our first line. Our 'forlorn hope' line did well taking up a good part of the day and eliminating a large amount of the Union artillery, being given little else to target. Concentrated fire also took out 25% of the Union siege artillery train which was pushed aggressively too close to the front. 

As the first line has its last attacks and defenses, the Confederate's second line of defense is brought up to prevent the Union from using the train station. The Union's left flank, backed with a full untouched cavalry division looked strong. Their right flank while solid, was not as thick, but dust clouds filled the road behind the union lines.

On the river things finally heated up after a long stalemate. Ross rammed the Confederate with a Union side-wheeler that was supposed to carry troops. This eventually ended up as a major contributing factor to both being sunk. The Confederate navy moved in to land their marines....

Lunch break. Neither army can fight on an empty stomach.

The marines land under the guns of the Union ironclads. The Confederates counter this with a division of infantry and a division of cavalry. The latter awaits atop a larg hill outside gun range from the Union gunboats.

Unable to secure a dock and with one of their troop transports under water, the marine attack is a 'rail station too far'.

At the main battle line, the Union artillery is thinning out, but so are the field pieces for the Confederates. The photo to the left is the 'high tide of the Confederacy' for this battle. Kevin's confederates clear a path to the Union siege train, only to have local reinforcements pulled in front of it just in time. At the rear a fresh Union division arrives. Unable to use the train station, they instead marched to the front double-time on foot.

As the battle wound down, casualties on the Confederate side and the Union's disposition brought this to a Union victory. Costly in terms of artillery lost, their manpower losses were otherwise slight in comparison to the Confederates.

Fun day. Thanks to Charlie, Bob and Ralph for hosting a great event. Club participation for this was exceptional as well.