My First Air Brushed Camo

I finished these up a few weeks ago but I'm just now getting around to posting them.

My wife gave me an airbrush and compressor as a birthday/anniversay gift. Awsome girl. It took quite a while to get the hang of it, and I must say, an air brush is the manlyiest artistic tool on the planet. You can do artistic things with manlier tools, but they are tools that you are using artisticly, not artistic tools. Shit, you gotta do alchemy just to fire the thing up and shoot paint!

I did a good bit of practice work before I painted these tanks. I started just spraying the thing at card board, and graduated from that to plastic scraps. The final practice runs were shot at crappy plastic Axis and Allies miniatures. I finally found a decent use for these pieces of collectable shit. They served well as tank-shaped test pieces. After about a dozen of them, I felt ready to try something real. Here're the results:









Technically, these tanks arn't done yet. They still need their unit markings and other decals and a good coating of mud sloshed onto them. But I had so much fun with the airbrush and was pleased enough with the results that I wanted to go ahead and who them off. Besides with all the other stuff on my modeling table, it may be a while before they get finished...

Qin Chinese -- 2nd Order

This force was going to be 100% Magister Militum figure, but you always find that one little accent piece that you've gotta have, so there is going to be just a dash of Irregular Miniatures . They are pretty much the only other maker of 10mm Chinese, and they have a rocket launcher. Gotta have that! Since they only website I've been able to find to order their stuff is Eureka Miniatures, which entails shipping from Australia, I figured I'd have 'em throw a few other things in the box. Here's the order I just placed:

Products (Edit)
1 x	Peasant pack (10 figures)	AU$6.00
1 x	Chickens	AU$3.00
1 x	Pigs	AU$3.00
1 x	Sung Chinese/Mongol Rocket Launcher	AU$2.25
1 x	Sung Chinese/Mongol Subject Infantry Standard Bearer	AU$0.70
1 x	Sung Chinese Cavalry Standard Bearer	AU$0.70
1 x	Sung Chinese/Mongol Subject Infantry Officer	AU$0.70
1 x	Sung Chinese Cavalry Officer	AU$0.70
1 x	Mongol Cavalry Standard Bearer	AU$0.70
1 x	Mongol Cavalry Officer	AU$0.70
1 x	Halfling Personality	AU$0.70
1 x	Mongol Light Cavalry, holding sabre	AU$0.70
1 x	Wizard	AU$0.70

Sub-Total:	AU$20.55
Zone Based Shipping (Air Mail - North America):	AU$15.61
Total:	AU$36.16
Total in AUD:	$36.16

Normally, the whole "ya, but I was paying shipping," logic only goes so far, but in this case, I feel like a schmuck for not ordering more shit.

Qin Chinese -- On Order

So, the gang has talked me into a new game: Warmaster Ancients in 10mm. This is about the first time in 10 years or so that I was the guy getting pulled in. Usually I'm the only doing the pulling, so this is kind of irrisistable. I would probably have done it in15mm, but hay, the gang says 10mm. It should give a nice look, with that "more spears than I can count" effect. 6mm would just be too small, and 15s too expensive and big for that many troops.

I'll be playing the Chinese. This should be a lot of fun to paint -- COLOR! I'LL HAVE COLORS!!!! -- and interesting to play. Different, at least, since everyone else is rolling Romans, Greeks, Huns, stuff like that.

I just placed the initial order via Great Hall Games. I decided to just bite the fucking bullet and order the entire army all in one lump. OK, so I'm still gonna get the rocket launcher from Irregular. The troops are comming from Magister Militum. Here's the order list:

• 1 x ADW61 Qin Chinese Army, 1000 Points
• 4 x QIN02 Halberdiers
• 4 x QIN03 Spearmen
• 2 x QIN05 Archers
• 6 x QIN04 Impressed Troops
• 3 x QIN09 Wu Hu Cavalry
• 1 x QIN10 Four Horse Heavy Chariot
• 2 x QIN11 Command with Chariot
• 1 x SAM009 Ninja
• 1 x NWK011 Elite Archer, shaven head
• 1 x VIG004 10mm Egyptian Scribe and Soldier
• 1 x VIG009 Samurai Commander with attendants
• 5 x packs of metal bases
• Warmaster Ancients rule book
• Warmaster Ancient Armies book

I hope I didn't over order on anything. I don't need a bunch of lazy chinamen layin' around. All that only comes to about $340.....

Mighty Air Bases

With the upcoming release of Mighty Empires, Games Workshop included a pair of demo tiles for the game as an insert with this month's issue of White Dwarf. The plastic map hexes have really sparked my eye, more to come on that later as it develops. But in the mean time, I had these random little tiles sitting around, but wasn't sure what I'd do with them. Then I found three cheap, plastic, preprinted Messerschmitts with matching paint schemes on sale at Hobby Lobby for $6 each. Bingo, now I've got air support! But they would need bases that looked better than the little black stands.... how would I model very small terrain.... you see where this is going, right?

I give you the Mighty Air Base:



The town in the center of its base is a stock GW city element for Mighty Empires. The other towns were made by cutting up the Dwarf Brewery and Wizard's Towers for all the little shapes.



I painted them up more or less like I would any infrantry base for my Panzergrenadier force, using the same dirt, rock, and base edge colors. Then I went through and picked out the farms, buildings, etc.





I painted the river in successively lighter shades of blue, then covered it in a thick layer of Krylon Krystal Clear (at least I think that's what its called...). The swamp got a quick wash of breen and brown in, and then Krystal Clear with a little brown ink on it was dabbed into the low spots. Two quick passes with different colors of flock gave me grass and woods.

I had to enlarge the holes slightly to accept the clear posts from some GW flying bases, and then glued the posts onto the aircraft. This way I can use these bases with any little planes I pick up, so long as I mount them on the same size post. To make this set, I had to purchase one copy of White Dwarf; I got the other sprew off my boy Breakdance's copy.

Assault on Kiev Campagn COMPLETE

The fighting is over, and Germany has been victorious! My glorious co-commander Caesar has taken the fight to the enemy and beat him on his own ground. As a win on either track ends the campaign, its a team win for Germany. As a final installment of our coverage of this titanic struggle, I'm going to post Caesar's write up here... In his own words...

FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, WE'RE FREE AT LAST.

5-2 German victory results in Liberation of Kiev. Ukranian Front Commander General Kritikal Kritikalov found lifeless in apparent suicide surrounded by the bodies of his troops as well as piles of dice curiously marked with only ones and twos.

Peace Returns Forever.

The Blonder, More Attractive Local Women Are Issued to our Troops in a Generous and Merciful Effort to Repopulate this Shattered Country with Nordic Children.

General Walther von Kaiserstein heard to remark "Now we can get back to real soldiering-- small random forces bumping into each other in generic landscapes devoid of context or history!", and is cheered by weary troops.

KIEV-- THE FINAL BATTLE




Soviets prepare to defend Kiev to the last man:



The Factory-- graveyard to half of each army. By the end of Turn One, most of the troops in this photo, German as well as Russian, would be dead:



On the other flank isolated assault guns tore apart buildings but there were always brave Russian infantry ready to fill the gaps left by fire:





Getting ready for the third or fourth Russian assault:



I was prepared to ram this captured tank through the factory wall if need be:





Meanwhile, a Soviet flank attack, beaten off after heavy losses:





Only the little pewter casualty figures have seen the last of war:

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Larger versions of these pictures are available on the Crucible.


So, now I guess its back to random games. I think I'm going to let my Germans get a little R&R and roll my Kiwis out of retirement for a while, see how bad it hurts to loose with them.