Flying High

Just a quick one as I managed to find some time this afternoon to get some paint on my DW French Voltaire heavy flyers. In the end it was much easier to follow the tiny flyers scheme through than I thought it might be.

Possibly a little bit simple but I'm more than happy with them and the contrast that the whole air aim provides against the surface fleet. They need a bit of highlight and the bases sorting out, along with the Marseilles cruisers, but they're almost there.

Meanwhile the final six destroyers have just been washed and I've built and sprayed my Ecuyer squadron. Very keen to get this project finished before the enforced break that will be brought by moving.

Bon chance as some might say :)

Vive La Difference III

Well I think its part III but it's taken so long that I honestly can't remember.

More importantly I've finished the Masrseille Cruisers the Epulard Submarines and the last five stand of tiny flyers for a total of 15 Painting Points and seem to have got back into a bit of a rythem with the brush.

Same scheme carried through, which I'm now more than happy with, though basing reared it's head with this batch. TO be honest I made something of a mess of the cruiser bases during construction so I've resorted to a coat of black which I'll now have to carry through the rest of the fleet.

The subs came with contoured bases which I've left simple rather than going for the apparently fashionable extreme higlight "A Perfect Storm" look. I did drybrush up through a few mid blues over a base of Regal finishing with a touch of Shadow Grey. A wash of Green and then thinned Blue found the result that I was after :)

Should probably do the same for the crusiers eh?

Back a la Brush

Baton down your hatches I've actually painted paint to something :)

No painting points but more progress than I've made in several months as I've finally settled on the scheme for my DW French Fleet. As is often the case the scheme morphed a touch as I was applying it. Originally I wasn't looking at a camo scheme but it just looked to plain otherwise whilst tricholore smoke stacks suddenly became too busy.

Anyway, wash and highlight is still required before I can rack any points but I'm happy that this particualr old girl seems to exhibit the certain gallic flair that I was looking for.

Bon chance!

You sank my Battleship!!

Somewhat delayed but I have wrested control of the stand alone PC! It's a tea break for those of you that need to know!

So back to last Saturday night and a far more successful attempt at playing through a game of Dystopian Wars. This time we upgraded to a couple of islands and the use of tiny flyers i.e. playing the game as designed and even manged more than a couple of turns, in fact we managed a whole game in about 3 hours.

This time we upgraded to islands!!

Second proper game out with starter fleets and things flowed a lot better just remembering fleet and ship special rules as well as the different types of ordnance and their effects. We had quite a few more flyers on the table this time round which did mean regular reference to the rulebook but generally their was a lot less page turning and more dice rolling involved.

We still did a few bits wrong, obviously, and we weren't playing with the event cards, as neither of had got round to ordering any.

Having had my battle-ship viciously battered by flyers last game I was determined to get stuck in with her this time out and organised my deployment around her and my wish to engage the Tommy-Tanker as soon as possible. Stewart went for a split deployment so I gratefully piled in after his "Old Gal's" group with all haste.

One shot....

......one kill!!























Early doors the Brits had the marginal rub of the dice but it soon became clear that this was an engagement that was going to be decided by the sheer number of 6's that either of us could roll. Once again my Battle-ship came in for some long-range torpedo punishment from the Brit heavy rotors and it all felt a bit overly familiar as I pushed on.

I concentrated my fire on those Brit ships escorting the "Old Gal" until she nosed out to unleash herself. Fortunately it was more of a tizzy than a full-on tantrum and then it was time to power up the the Death Star / Heat Lance and have a poke back.

DR of 6 x2 = 12 dice minus 1 for 3 damage halved by Redoutable = an 11 dice shot.
Blizzard of sixes = 23 hits = 2 criticals one of which was a double 1 Magazine Explosion = KABOOM!!!
KABOOM!!! = game winning advantage!

Magnificent men in flying machines

After that we then went on to find out exactly how destructive wings of Tiny Flyer fighters can be against medium and heavy flyers. By then the dice had turned in my favour so the answer was VERY! Stewart did finish off by gleefully dispatching a good number of my destroyers by air-dropped mine but with the guts Death Star-ed out of his fleet it was a case of mopping up whilst his last stand bombers fled from the scene.

So, a highly enjoyable, though rather freakishly 6'd, game. We both learnt the true value of DW air-power and the need to play with your combined arms Admiral's hat on. Interestingly Spartan have just released air-group starter sets but to be honest I think you'd be missing out to play just air forces.

I have to admit I was somewhat sceptical when DW was mooted as a viable Land-Sea-Air game. Now I am far less so but would suggest that only grander all-day games could probably handle all three effectively though I'd be interested to see how easily it would shrink down, so to speak.

Interesting times!

Slowly slowly, catchie Frenchy

Bonsoir Madame et Monsieur,
Once again this evening real life has intervened and prevented me from working on the DW French any further. Last night however, with Tintin as DVD backdrop, I did at least re-basecoat the entire fleet and even drybrush up some of the cruisers and frigates to test the theory whilst moving on a little further.

Cest voila!.......

Only got the whites upto a light grey but hopefully you can see where it's going. Will be going for a bit of classic pine decking, remember Ground Force?, which I plan to wash read as I read on a proper historical forum that some WWII French ships had red lino sections around the gun positions.

Black tipped Tricholore funnels and white masts plus the odd bit of weathered copper, red washed again, as a bow to the necessity of steam-punk. Less classic and more fantastic than I was originally going for but I'm already much happier. Possibly add in a bit of green-grey at the waterline but I'll see.

Did actually manage a second / third game with Stewart Saturday night and I've uploaded the photos onto a potential lunch-break post as I've remembered the stand-alone PC at work!

Cest formidable :)

The Price of Failure

Just recently my hobby life has been one big epic FAIL.
I've had to cancel a long list of various gaming engagements due to real life, mainly a bit of Ick and work going mental for a fortnight or so. Until last night I'd not rolled dice or played a card or picked up a brush in a couple of weeks and was getting the Geek DTs. Worse than that I've had to blow-out on my gaming mates, apologies lads :(

As some of you may have noticed I've also not posted in a while. Some of this was having a lack of much to post about but more, if I'm honest, was due to Blogger's recent update and the work browser's inability to cope with it. So basically NO BLOGGER AT WORK!

Doesn't sound like too much of a biggy but like many of us might I often upload post photos at home and then blog during my lunch-breaks or if not blogging browse my reading list. I didn't realise up until now how important this was in keeping me inspired to go home and make the relevant effort. TGN has just about kept me going but it's just not the same :/

Thankfully I had yesterday free and got stuck in to turning recent events around :)

Stewart dropped around last night for a night of GEEK which kicked off with him running me through Mantic's latest boardgame, Project Pandora, which I'd heard about and quickly labelled Space-Hulk but not. Based on Dwarf King's Hold it was going to have to do well to impress me. I've played DKH once before and wasn't overly enamoured but that was probably because I was tired at the time and suffering poor dice which lead to a little bit of toys out of pram......my bad :/

So in short we ran through the Training Mission twice, having a go with each side, Corporation and Veer-Myn, and then had a go at a proper scenario. In short I was well impressed :)

Despite assuming that it might be a little bit "bashed out" it's a really good game. Very tactical and you HAVE to try and think a few turns ahead. It easily produces the same claustrophobic tension of Space-Hulk with a clever token driven activation sequence that forces you into hard choices every turn.

Stewart is one of Mantic's Pathfinder chaps, and does a very fine job, and though being a good mate has had his work cut out convincing me about a number of Mantic's offerings. This time I was doing the job for him and I'd really like to go back and play DKH in the correct frame of mind. Guilty of thinking that these were throw-away games quickly and cheaply produced they're most definitely not! As a plug let me point you to Mantic's first Podcast, well worth the time!

Previously that afternoon I'd invested some more brush-time into the DW French. Have to admit I'd been struggling with these and the new GW wash (as previously bemoaned) which just wasn't getting the recess detail as I needed it to. Reverting to a bit of older Asyurman Blue helped greatly but was taking me farther away from my envisaged scheme which I wasn't happy with in itself.

As much as this is Fantasy Steam-Punk I want to my ships as ships. By this I mean an absolute minimum or no bare metal. In the real world, rolling around on the briney deep, it just didn't happen. Suspension of disbelief is fine but assuming that nothing will rust is just not on, at least not for me!

Envisaging gleaming white hulls and superstructures it's just a bit too boring for the figures and the setting while I  also want to stay away from any wazzy camo-schemes, just not doing it for me. Chatting through with Stewart, okay whinging at him, I realised that the extra washes were taking me towards a nice mid-light blue that could be worked up from a black undercoat which would save me time and wash-rage.

I had been thinking of blue accents against the white but why not white accents against the blue! Why not white turrets, weapon systems and bridges which would also mean no bare metals? I can still keep my tricholore smoke-stakes and it wouldn't take anything massive to colour code the Frigate squadrons should I feel the need!

So, first-ish thing this morning I've re-sprayed everything black and this evening will work up through Shadow Gray and Ice Blue to wash back down and see where I am. I shall update you later as to results, including state of mind.

Sometimes the price of failure is well worth paying :)

Steady as She Goes

Brace for Impact, Baton Down the Hatches, Prepare to Repel Borders and other such phrases for after many weeks of abject failure to do so I have FINALLY applied paint to a figure :)

Not much I'll grant you but SOME at least and while I was at it I've tried out a couple of GW's latest water based offerings on a couple of Spartan's water based offerings.

Continuing the rather tenuous theme I was in Bluewater over the weekend and dropped into GW to have a chat about and pick up a couple of the new paints for this specific purpose. The guys in there were happy to chat and set me up to have a go with the base layer white and also the new dry compounds.

Two quick coats of base white went over black impressively well though I was less impressed with the dry compound as my Boy in Blue still had to wipe most of his load (ahem!) off the brush which seemed self defeating.

Making my excuses I quickly picked up a couple of seemingly relevant bases and layers along with a blue and purple / violet shade and disappeared off with the missus before I let on TOO MUCH! (no need for me to explain I'm sure)

So over Saturday evening I sprayed my frigates and subs white and applied a liberal coat of Drakenhof Nightshade and watched with interest. Initial coverage seemed pretty good but coming back Sunday I was disappointed that some of the finer detail hadn't been filled at all.

Going back over these little voids the neat shade seemed to have a little too much surface tension for the task at hand so a touch of water was called for. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that it should have been :/

Steaming along last night (apologies, couldn't resist) I drybrushed up through a couple of blue-grays before flattening out and finishing off with a drybrush of base white, Ceramite White. That I was far more impressed with as it gave a good solid colour very easily.

For context I've basecoated in a light wooden deck and the tricholore funnels that I wanted to try out. Fairly happy so far, just need to sort out remaining detail and get on a bit of magic Devlan Mud to some areas at least.

Still not sure quite how WHITE I want the hulls and superstructure to but one thing at a time. Slowly, slowly, catchy surrender-monkey :)

Vive La Diff-er-ence

On Sunday I made another pilgrimage to Adams Park to scream bloody murder whilst Wasps took on Toulose in the Heineken Cup. Unfortunately results previous in the day meant we couldn't go through to the quarters but a good result would see us into the Amlin.

For a translation and a match report I suggest you try BBC Sport as that isn't the point of this post. The point is to give all possible credit to the Toulose fans.Now I can be a liitle bit Al Murray as far as Europe is concerned, all tounge in cheek I promise, and on the train up I was surrounded by French. Slightly intimidated I was impressed as to how many were making the trip and it all added to the build up to an excellent hard fought game.

Sat next to a big block of French I was really impressed how well they made themselves heard and how they went out of thier way to get on with the Wasps fans. Plenty had bought hats and scarves from the club shop as a memento of the trip and happily sat wearing them.

There was plenty of "banter" throughout and after a shaky first quarter Wasps settled down to a good, hard performance and we won it with a try in the last minute. Lots of handshakes all round and applause for both sides. A few of thier guys had even brought a banner thanking Serge Betsen, now a Wasp, for his years in French Rugby and he was pretty much mobbed when he went over to them.

On the trip home thier fans were still singing and surrounded by them for a second time I couldn't stop grinning. Best away fans I've ever met!