Firestorm Armada - The up and coming Dice Devils Campaign.

Recently the Dice Devils have moved their gaming night from the Thursday to a Tuesday meaning that depending on my shift I've an additional night to get my geek on.

In the last couple of weeks I've had two great games of firestorm and Dystopian wars and Dave has come up with a great idea in the form of a Firestorm campaign and as always that's an excuse for me to collect something new and shiny,

So in the deal of the century I obtained some Ba'Kash so these should be a good start point for the campaign fleet with the added bonus that I can use my Dindrenzi that I did a few years back.

As its been an awful long time since I used the Dindrenzi no doubt spartan have released some cool funky stuff since then however I'm trying to stay away from expanding on a already reasonable sized fleet!

As usual the golden question came up of how to paint them as I'm not really feeling the gold look that is suggested by the box art

One suggestion that I got from Ben was orange with pink! but that got me thinking and after a quick brain storming session with Grant I'm going with orange and purple and I night throw something else in there for good measure, It's gonna be razzle dazzle space camo!

Next week we've a 500 point warm up game to lock down some of the rules for our fleets then the campaign kicks off shortly after that, one of the things that we've agreed on is to have painted fleets for each game so as the campaign goes on and the points increase it'll help us all keep the motivation to keep on going.

If you've been tempted by firestorm for a while or never heard of it wander over to spartan games as they are doing free down load for the rules as well as the fleet guides.

www.spartangames.co.uk

also add the fact that they have just announced the HALO line its going to be certainly one to watch for the future! 

I'm not a huge fan boy of the HALO games, they are good and a laugh on multi player from back in the day but story line wise I'm not overly bothered, One thing that was bought up on my facebook page is the limited forces that could be fielded as it stands at the moment I've been told that you've got 4 factions but would this be enough the keep the game fresh?

I've similar concerns with the terminator game with skynet and the humans but then if you look at x-wing that's only got the rebels and the imperials and only recently have they added the bounty hunters, so if the rules for the HALO and terminator systems are rock solid then it can be done.

What are your thoughts?

Firestorm Armada, deploy the fleet!

A month or so ago Dan from the Leicester Phat Cats organised a game of firestorm armada adeptly named the Battle of Anton's length (cue the homophobic jokes) and people jumped on to the play list like nits onto freshly washed hair!

I fancied a change to the Dindrenzi and I had the hawker fleetbox kicking around after buying it back in January! So after some musing about the colour scheme and so I broke out the airbush and had some fun.

I undercoated the models with halfords grey, then used an off white as an initial coat,

I then gave a watered down soft wash to pick up the detail of the panels and the like,

I then applied another rehighlight to the panels,

it was then simply a case of doing the metal and applying a wash, then the jade colour for the detail colour,

and in traditional Anton fashion the rest of the fleet was finished in time for the game,

As we were setting up for the game I took a snap of Dan's beautiful painted fleets,

The hawker fleet leading the way...

an orgy of geeks getting it on

and funnily enough the dindrenzi leading the way!

the gunline all nice and pretty,

flank speed and intercept....

the rest of the "heroic" fleet

Overall the game was a draw and as I moved at flank speed towards the gun line I sustained heavy losses but it was a good way of sussing out how the fleet worked, I'm now looking forward to my next game of firestorm, who knows when that'll be though!

with regards to the pledge it's currently on hold as with my old rig going down and the new one failing within 24 hours I'm still hunting a new one down but more than likely will get it after crisis in Antwerp, I'm really looking forward to that show and I'll be taking plenty of pictures and looking forward to seeing new European plastic crack dealers!

Month end update April & WIP

Well that one went by fast!

so what did I manage to get done in the "hours & days" leading up to the end of the month???

Well I finished the third squad of noise marines, and then promptly went on ebay and got a shag load more bits for the "children"

and what I've done so far, I'm going to do an "assault" unit so the same heads and paint scheme to be lead by Lucuis mounted in a rhino, maybe... who knows!

After a sound kicking from Jack at warmachine a couple of weeks ago I decided to paint tartrus aka tartar sauce, well if I carn't beat him on the table at least I can show him what a fully painted army looks like ;)

he was painted using the same technique as the bane knights and the bane thralls, the washes make the painting of metals so easy now, it feels like cheating but nice guys finish last!

Whilst I was on a roll I finished off the firestorm armada escorts so there ready to get the bejesus shot out of them, well according to Ross anyway but we'll have to see on that on, hell I might even do a battle report showing my glorious win or crushing loss!!

So onto whats coming up.....

Getting ready for the steamroller torney at expo in a couple of months time I decided that tartus needed some more mates to wander around the table and ruin peoples day!

so a full bane thrall unit with the new unit attachment, I forgot how expensive it is to have full metal models!

Now I follow a chap called dave taylor over at Dave's Blog and drool over his conversion work and scratch building this guy really does have some skills and inspired me to do some that has pushed me outside my comfort zone,

and after "discussing" with Spencer various things about oblitrators from the chaos codex I decided to give them a crack, I'll happly admit that on paper they didn't really appeal to me and I don't really field that much heavy support apart from vindicators I love them combined with the lash of submission makes me smile just thinking about it!

So this is where I'm at with them so far, still got some green stuff to put on them to give them the man/machine melded togeather look, and the powerfist on the "las cannon" one needs finishing off but they are about there and so far I'm quite chuffed with them, I've not done this kind of conversion work for years!

So onto "the pledge"

I knew Salute was going to be a killer, combine that with that I managed to get some emperors child bits and bobs cheap I only just managed to finish in the green!

Bought         Painted
   29                35
 
So comments welcome as always thanks for you time, 

One Dindrenzi Fleet Done!

Well I've managed to get the firestorm armada fleet that I picked up a couple of weeks ago finished, so I'll let my pictures do the talking....

And there you go...

I've gone for a dirty looking fleet that is based on the paint scheme on the main rule book, its not going to get me any painting awards but they look good enough for table top standard.

Month end update March,

Well where did that bloody month go!!

in the last few days since the forge world open day trip I've managed to paint some of the firestorm armada fleet that I got last week after blasting out the test model,

I always get people asking me how do I manage to paint stuff so quick, well music calms the savage beast, in my case its stuff like this... boom boom boom tisk tisk that gives me my pace ;) 
 
So the 6 Frigates....

I've not decided on squadron marks at the moment, I might just mark up the bases?

Anyway onto the carrier how this was quite a lot of expermentation I tried to get the "white" ship look but also the weathered look but like the enterprise but with a grimy look, now the front of the rule book has the following art so thats what I've based my fleet colour scheme on...

now I've used a watered down black GW wash to create the streaky look, and I'm quite pleased with it, a fairly simple technique and 2 foot away look nice on the table top,

A close up of the huge flat area that I'm assuming makes up the landing deck? who knows lol

any way on to the "pledge"......

so quarter 1 summary,
               Bought    Painted  Differance
Jan             41           58          +17

Feb            22           16          -6

March        22           30          +8

so going quite well me thinks!

Comments welcome as always,

Cheers,

Forge World Open day pic's (lots of pic's big post!)

As your warning this is a big post, go for a wee now....


So thinking I'd be crippled after a day of airsoft I was surprised to find my legs were still functioning so I wandered over to Lenton for the forgeworld open day, and boy it was busy!

Loads of cool stuff however bad news if like me your waiting for them to show some love to Tzeentch or Slannesh its not going to be happening for a while!! i.e. the chap who runs the development team ( a nice American bloke) told me this but if your an ork player or a loyal marine player then your gonna love it! 

But before that...

My first squad of emperors children are done painted to the colour scheme that won the poll

I also did the usual test model for the firestorm armada fleet,

So onto the forgeworld pics...

This is a mock up of what they are looking at doing, and intrestingly enough with the titans the actually make them bigger than they should be to fit in with the vechicles as they are oversized (but we knew that anyway!)

and the expression on Ross face was golden!

And some up and coming raven guard stuff, great if your a loyalist scum lover ;)

But then again.... Pre-Heresy.... Ummm.....

Some bloke with a jump pack

Some cool looking bits for the stompa kit.....

Now the lifta droppa on the left is for a battlewagon, Kult of speed anybody??

Mega dread variants

Some Tau Battle suits that sent Spencer over the edge and he frothed about these for ages!!

Then I found some more orky stuff, this did make me smile....

So now we can really play a scenrio called "Black 'ork Down" I might nickname this super six four.

 And now onto the tables....

A huge titan battle that was going to be played, A shag load of stompas on one side

Verses a shag load of imperial on the other side!

And they were nicely painted!!

The "mastercard" moment!

A siege of bla bla bla table,

The table was that big I had to use max zoom for some pic's and are a little whobbly...

Still carn't decide if I like this, something missing for me...

Putting is simply, yup I'll have it!

An orky style table that took my eye....

So over all the day was pretty good, some luck chap won a Reaver titan from the raffle with all the cash going to children in need, and some guys were dropping up to £20 on tickets!

A little dissapointed that the chaos is off the radar for the time being and the Orks (which do need it) are getting some nice treatment, but to do the Raven guard as well, I think the amount of marine players out there will get quite excited but for me I'm not...

Any comments welcome as always cheers,