Comm-link Guard, More Sorting, and Finding More Work

 

I've finished assembling the comm-link troops I need for my Imperial Guard update. I'm not painting these immediately as I've got Too Much On right now, but they'll be an easy quick paint job in a free moment.

While searching my boxes for plasma gunners I found that I actually had one more than I thought I had. After I'd bought a metal Cadian plasma gunner from eBay as an inferior substitute, obviously. At least it was before I'd painted things.

As a first pass of getting these ready for undercoat, I dropped them into a sonic cleaner bath with hot water and washing up liquid. This didn't get much paint off, but did clear off the basing sand and broke down the basing glue enough to get them separated easily. Next step will be an acetone bath, but I need to find a good container for that so awful fumes and stuff don't make my tiny flat sad.

On the subject of making me sad, I found three more baskets of part finished projects that need sorting. Oh bother. I haven't even fully gone through this basket. There's a couple of Inquisitors in Terminator armour that need a little more assembly and can then go in a box, much like the Comm-link Guard I just finished.

There's a bunch of Deathwatch repairs in another tray. This should be one of the easier jobs on the "to do" list.

There's also a tray of "stuff that's difficult to fit in things" that need putting away. I should do that. I have put away two trays of minis already, but that heart warming feeling of tidying up isn't particularly photogenic for blogging purposes.

I got a little more base coating done on the Conquest Druid. It's not a finished thing, but it's progress.

In the coming week I have my Infinity campaign game and the finale of our 40K campaign as well. That might mean I don't get a huge amount of hobby done, but we'll see how it goes.

Infinity Battle Report: Mindwipe, Shasvastii vs Ramah Task Force

 

This week's Shasvastii practice game pulled up "Mindwipe" on the random generator. This isn't a popular mission, but I was up for giving it a go. My opponent was bringing Ramah Task Force.

I'd won the first turn, so wanted to set up pressing the button on a console securely. I had my fancy hacker (a Shrouded Killer Hacker) hiding near the button, with a Speculo Killer tucked into a nook where she could see the console as well.

This plan worked very clearly. The Speculo threw smoke over the console then re-impersonated, then the Killer Hacker came up, pushed the button within the smoke, then re-camoed and headed off to a new hiding spot.

The rogue AI was hiding in the most defended console, in the centre of my opponent's deployment. I used my remaining orders to walk up the Speculo Minelayer to drop another mine in the most awkward spot possible, then again re-camoed.

My opponent sensibly and efficiently cleared the mine, discovered and killed the Shrouded Minelayer, then went to focus on the mission. He brought up a Hunzakut who cleared a Taigha creature before making his way to the console, crawling the last part of the way to stay out of sight of the mine laid on the other side of it, while smoke kept my Q-Drone from impeding the button pushing.

Leila Sharif decided that E/M mining the entire console building was a reasonable and proportionate thing to do. It was a good way of stopping any sneaky rush for the server.

I decided to send my Paramedic Seed Soldier to do my classified with my opponent's HVT. Pesky repeaters got him targeted, then I just couldn't pass a WIP check! At the time, I thought I'd got my classified, but as I was heading home, I realised I'd counted an order in the wrong pool, so texted my opponent to Correct the Record.

I sent my Uberhacker to try and get the console, but hadn't noticed a model who could discover them, which proceeded to leave him sitting in the Repeater network. Checking the Mindwipe special hacking programme, it's burst 1 and D/A, so I was certain it would be multiple orders to clear it - so I went after the hackers first, and the Shrouded got melted.

My opponent made some consolidating moves, then brought on a Hakim, who was able to take out the Q drone, but there weren't quite enough orders for him to get back anywhere safe, or reach the console. That said, it took me some orders to bring my Mentor around to clear the Hakim and for my Med Tech to repair the Q Drone.

I sent Sheskiin in to try and score some servers. Not able to fight through to the main server, I decided on taking out one of the others - I did so, but she got Flash Pulsed as she did, meaning I put my remaining orders into defending my own servers.

The Ramah fireteam was able to make their way up and destroy my centre server, which was also a decoy. My opponent had gotten muddled after picking the server to my left, but we looked back and determined that he wouldn't have had the orders to successfully hit the Rogue AI server.

With my classified actually unscored, this left us both scored with one console and one decoy server apiece. This felt right for such a close, cagey game. I don't hate this mission, but can see how you need to design your list a lot for it, and it favours the player going first heavily. In particular, locking out a console for your opponent is incredibly tough on whoever is going second.

Still, I feel like I'm getting a good cross section of Shasvastii units, and am starting to get a good idea of what I get on with running in this edition.

An elegant handbrake turn

 

There's nothing new on the paint table this week. For once, this is mostly deliberate-ish. We've started planning our upcoming house move. Looking at the time we have left before I need to pack up the hobby station, it's not long. There's a whole pile of part assembled things I could really do with finishing up before I pack them.

I'm keeping the Templar for Frostgrave out in case I get a moment, but I'd rather complete the Druids and the assembly as a priority. But no paint was applied this week, as packing up the eBay sales took up a whole chunk of my free time.

The long delayed "Leshy Window Box" for Pathfinder Battles finally made it to the UK, which I'm very pleased to have picked up. I'll hopefully get some proper pictures and maybe a review done in the next week or two.

My mini Guard project has been going well. I've picked up two plasma gunners from eBay, and need to dig one existing plasma gunner I have out from the cases and get it paint stripped. There's one last comm link trooper to go. Then it's just a case of some basing paste and some undercoating. Properly painting them can wait to the new place.

This tray of "ready to paint" miniatures just needs to go back into cases. These are still good models if I want to do a casual paint alongside a project, but that can be a new house problem.

The Bretonnian Men at Arms need to get done. Right now their sprues are sitting loose without a box and I really don't fancy sorting that out at the other end of a house move. This is probably the biggest job that needs doing in terms of straight up time, though it's mostly pretty simple.

The Exrah from the Combined Army Reinforcement Box, however, are the exact opposite of simple. These are absolute bastards to put together, and I've been putting them off. But I got them all out of their packaging so it's essential they are together and in a KR case before the move.

Various repairs and half painted models are on this tray. There's a couple of "to be painted" models also sculling about on this tray too, so I need to grab those and put them away. Going through this tray will probably have a bunch of "quick wins" where a little work will get a miniature to the point where I can put it away...

Considerably more cursed is this box of Infinity bits - whether repairs or miniatures that need assembly. These are more "transportable" than the Exrah, so are a lower priority, but ideally I'd like to get them done before we pack.

With all this catalogued, it's pretty clear why I need to park things in the interest of getting things transportable. Wish me luck...

Infinity Battle Report: Firefight, Shasvastii vs O-12

I've been playing quite a few games of Infinity to "get my eye in", as it were, with the new edition. With the Tinbot tournament in the past I'm focused in on Shasvastii now. I had a game arranged with one of the club, running O-12, and our pick of mission was Firefight.

I decided to try running the Sphinx this game. It did mean I was a bit lacking in other attack pieces due to a lack of points. I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem...

I snuck a Shrouded Hacker up the field to tuck into a nook in a building and complete the Mapping Classified.

I then sent the Sphinx up to clear some ARO pieces

However, I over-reached a little bit and got caught in the open in a crossfire as the Sphinx moved up, taking two damage. With my engineer in the same group, I didn't have the orders to bring it up to repair this turn, so I needed to get back into cover and survive until next turn.

Unfortunately, I managed to catch another damage as I tried to move out of sight, falling unconscious. In the hope of keeping it alive, I moved my Q drone over to defend it.

My opponent proceeded to drop their speedballs on my right flank to enable his attack there.

The Shrouded who'd completed the Mapping objective was hunted down by an angry Varangian.

As the O-12 forces advanced, my Taiga started dodging towards them. They picked the speedballs, but managed to glue Victor Messer in place. Inconvenient.

Still, the Taiga got into the attacking piece to hold up it's attack run.

To keep me from repairing my Sphinx, a Crusher arrived and took out my servant remote.

The Crusher then moved around and took out my T-drone guided missile remote as well. I was really starting to run out of attack vectors!

The other Varangian came up to help out the O-12 unit my Taiga was pinning down, and managed to take it out with the extra dice from their buddy.

The Crusher went to take out my R-drone, but got stunned.

That was about all my luck, as my Q drone also got mushed.

I ended up needing to use my Mentor Lieutenant to clear some turrets in my turn, but with all the casualties I'd taken, didn't manage to get much else done. Including "get my Lieutenant clear" - he went down to the Varangian who'd killed the Shrouded, meaning I spent my third turn in Loss of Lieutenant.

Victor was still glued, so was picked off...

I managed to use command tokens to get my Doctor Worm up the the table to Gizmokit the Spinx, and score me a classified. But I didn't really have the orders to do anything else. A Varangian came up and tried to punch out the Sphinx, but it turned out it could punch pretty hard, got lucky, and managed to take out the Varangian.

In the end, it wasn't enough - I'd scored a couple of classifieds but had lost more points, more specialists, and not scored Panoplies.

So, I certainly mis-used the Sphinx here and tried to fight multiple things at bad range without enough orders to get away again. I also probably had the wrong support package for it. I'm still not sure if the Sphinx has a good place in Shasvastii right now. I'll probably try a few other bits and pieces before coming back to it.

Astra Militarum 10th Edition Plans

 

With the new Astra Militarum Codex released for 10th edition, I needed to take stock of my Guard army and work out what I'm doing. While I had a short period of considering selling them off entirely, I've enjoyed playing them in the club campaign, so decided to get them up to spec for the new edition.

Setting myself the rule of "use what you already have wherever possible", I've come up with the following starting list:

Astra Militarum - Combined Arms

Strike Force (2000 Points)

CHARACTERS

Cadian Command Squad (80 Points)

     ◦ Enhancements: Reactive Command

Commissar (40 Points)

  • Enhancements: Death Mask of Ollanius

Gaunt’s Ghosts (110 Points)

Ministorum Priest (35 Points)

Primaris Psyker (60 Points)

Sly Marbo (55 Points)

BATTLELINE

Cadian Shock Troops (65 Points)

Cadian Shock Troops (65 Points)

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Chimera (85 Points)

OTHER DATASHEETS

2 x Armoured Sentinels (130 Points)

Armoured Sentinels (65 Points)

Basilisk (140 Points)

Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (65 Points)

Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (65 Points)

Hellhound (125 Points)

Hellhound (125 Points)

Hydra (95 Points)

Leman Russ Executioner (170 Points)

Manticore (165 Points)

5 x Ratlings (60 Points)

5 x Ratlings (60 Points)

10 x Tempestus Scions (140 Points)

There's a handful of things that need fixing here. The two "Cadian" (Tallarn) squads and command squad still have heavy weapons, so they're gaining three plasma guns and three comm-links. With a mix of bits from eBay and existing stash, I've started putting the latter together. The plasma guns will be a later update...

Beyond that, I had Sly Marbo and Gaunt's Ghosts in my stash needing assembly, so I've dug those out. One of the Hellhounds and five of the Ratlings are also currently without paint, so they're going in the queue.

Quite a lot of my older tanks don't have sponsons and so on, so by and large I'm taking that as an opportunity to sell them, and buying new tanks to paint up to my new skills / standard. I'm not buying anything new for the Guard outside of fixing the squad load outs until the test list is painted. I'm pretty sure it's lacking in armour and anti-tank, and a Rogal Dorn tank is pretty high on the purchase list once this lot is done, but I reckon given the move and other projects, this is plenty to be getting on with...

Aenor Goblins Finished

 

I finally finished the goblins by Aenor Miniatures that have been stuck on my desk forever. I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, and a bit annoyed that the passage of time has meant I forgot a few bits of how I did them, which meant when bits needed fixing due to overpaint, I struggled to get the right colour match.

This does remind me that I really need to work on getting half done bits and pieces finished before I move house. Not just because half finished projects are harder to move and you're more likely to miss things, but the delightful feeling of Just Finishing Things is probably going to be needed for morale purposes in the run up to the move.

I still need to finish up the new Conquest Druids, but the new item for the paint table is this Dwarf from Otherworld Miniatures. She's going to serve duty as a Templar in my Frostgrave warband, so I need to get her painted up before my next game.

Updated guide to starting Infinity

I've updated my guide to starting Infinity to bring it up to date with the new edition. If you've been thinking about getting into the game, hopefully you'll find it helpful.

First Ever Frostgrave Battle Report: The Keep

 

I recently got to try Frostgrave for the first time. My witch, Hannah of the Owls, led her warband to explore a magical keep to try and recover magical treasures and knowledge. As her warband approached the perimeter of the keep, they spotted a rival band, led by an experienced elementalist. Both sides drew weapons, preparing for battle.

There were five treasures, one in the centre of the keep on a raised area, the other four in the centre of magic circles spaced around the edge. The warband split up to gather the treasure before they engaged the opposing warband. As warband members on both sides started entering the circles to retrieve the treasure, there were fizzles of magic, but nothing happening . . . 

. . . until one of the warband thieves walked into a circle and in a flash of magic teleported across the keep to another circle. Unfortunately, the circle where the other warband's barbarian was standing.

Several of the warband jumped into the magic circle to try and rescue the thief, but to no effect. Our little gremlin thief decided to "waste not, want not" and grabbed the treasure from the circle.

Meanwhile, the magic circle on Hannah's warband's side was suddenly full of rival warband members, who quickly grabbed the treasure there and started planning their escape route.

The warband thug ran into a magic circle and was pulled over to the magic circle with the barbarian, and the two of them together managed to push the barbarian away, even though they weren't able to take her down.

As the rival elementalist saw my warband starting to head towards the central treasure, he summoned up a gigantic stone wall to block access to the treasure.

Still, it turns out that you can climb, so my woman-at-arms spent a couple of turns climbing over the wall, and engaged the rival man at arms while another warband member was fleeing with the treasure.

A portal flashed, and a giant worm arrived, drawn by the sounds of conflict.

Hannah's archer was overwhelmed by two of the rival band making off with one of the treasures.

The warband's crossbow-woman was chased by the worm, and chose to flee to get away from it.

A hostile construct then arrived, probably following the worm as a threat, but then identified multiple "thieves" in the keep, and moved to try and stop them.

My woman at arms was magically leapt to chase after the treasure, but was caught up by the rival warband and overwhelmed.

Hannah's apprentice ended up caught by the worm after a cunning plan to lure it across the teleport circles to move it elsewhere failed.

A desperate scuffle was breaking out over the last treasure, as both sides had, by now, escaped with two.

The back and forth continued a short while, but soon, Hannah's warband was overwhelmed, and the elementalist's band escaped with the last treasure.

In the aftermath, Hannah's warband took stock. Our woman at arms had been killed outright, and the party apothecary had been injured badly enough to miss the next expedition. No-one else suffered significant long lasting effects. Checking the recovered treasures, Hannah discovered a Staff of Power that would help with her casting, and a significant pile of gold, which was enough to hire a Templar to replace the deceased woman at arms with a little spare.

With my wizard having also gained two levels, I enjoyed my first game of Frostgrave. I'm still learning the rules, and now need to paint up a Templar before my next game.