My wandering eye – DUST Warfare, Dropzone Commander

I feel I may be reaching a “saturation point” with my 40K stuff. While I still want to paint things for my Rising Sun Space Marines, new games are beckoning to me. DUST Warfare is looking more and more attractive. And I have to say I’m highly intrigued by Drop Zone Commander. I’ve got enough Space Marines for a 2,000-point army now, though I do have some holes in the roster I’d like to fill. Still I can play 40K easily enough with what I have and that means I may very well head into DUST territory and see what that looks like.

DUST Warfare

I have to say, the new DUST Warfare game from Fantasy Flight just looks more and more attractive. The minis are super cool (and the range is expanding in very interesting ways) and the rules sound really good. My hobby budget has been slashed as of late and looking at DUST Warfare is making my next purchase a tough choice (more GW or DUST?) That said, I may just buy a box of the pre-primed minis just to see how they paint up.

Has anyone out there had a go at it?

Slacking but not dead!

Oooh! I been bad and not posted anything for a month now! But it’s the holidays and other excuses. I haven’t been totally away from my minis projects. Just today I was working on that pyramid again. It’s just that casting up all those damned bricks takes freakin’ forever, and I still need to do probably 4 more castings (about 184 more bricks). Anyway, here’s what it looks like now:

It’s 12″ wide at the base and 6″ wide at the top. The Pig Iron squaddie is for scale reference. I could stop here, but I want this thing to be taller, so I’m going to add another layer on the bottom, increasing the base to 14″, and another level on top. Here’s a pic with some foam layers stuck in and you can visualize the rest:

So when it’s done, it’ll be 6″ tall. I think that will give it enough presence on the tabletop. And no, the layers are not entirely made of bricks. As you can see in the top photo, there’s a square foam core in each one and a double row of bricks on the outside. Stacked up, you can’t see the foam core. Saves weight (and this is heavy already) and the trouble of making a stupid amount of bricks!

I’ve already gone through 4 (I think) boxes of Permastone. At about $6 each and $20 for the foam I bought, I’m at about $44 for this project. I think I’m going to need at least 2 more boxes of Permastone. Then there’s whatever I end up spending on finishing it – paint, detailing, etc. If I can keep it under $75 (the cost of a painted, finished pyramid by Stonehouse Miniatures that inspired me to do this), I’ll be happy.

And I’ve kept my brush warm painting some of the minis from the Cadwallon game for a friend. This bug-looking dude is called Drokan. I’m pretty happy with the verdigris effect I got on his bronze armor.

I’m probably getting into an upswing for painting, so more soon! See you in the New Year!

New acquisitions and WIP

I went to EndGame, Oakland’s 2nd Annual Miniatures Bazaar on Saturday. It didn’t seem as varied as last year – perhaps everyone sold off a lot of stuff last go-round? Anyway, only Josh had any real variety (the rest being almost entirely GW stuff), and he had some good stuff!

The first good deal I got was these Old Crow Lancers. One assembled, the other still bagged, for $15 for both (they’re normally $32 each less shipping). These will definitely be making an appearance in our Stargrunt games!

Also from Josh, I picked up a boxed set of the old Starship Troopers Cougar Exosuits, which are now quite hard to find and expensive when you do find them. $10 for the set. Unfortunately, it had 5 right arms and 3 left arms (there are 4 exosuits). Mongoose quality control FAIL! I’ll figure something out though. I really like these minis – the exosuits are some of the best power armor in 28mm ever made, even if Mongoose did make them.

And now for something completely different – I am also an avid RPG player and I picked up some Hasegawa 1/48 scale pilot figures for a game called Godlike (it’s a WW2 game with super powers, kinda like X-Men meets Saving Private Ryan). I sometimes use minis for this game, and these figures will be used to represent player-characters in the game. I’ve stuck them on their bases and prepping them for priming.

That guy on the right there is obviously not part of the set. He’s U.S. Marine by Reaper Miniatures I believe, though I’ve forgotten the exact title.

All four of these guys will see some paint in the very near future.

Finally, I bummed a couple Cthulhu figurines off my friend Wayne. These dudes are made by FFG and I’m going to put the big one on top of my alien pyramid when I finish it. The smaller ones maybe go on the corners.

And finally, I’m working on a Spug warrior from Spriggan Miniatures. Just trying to get a color scheme down. No picture yet – I’ll post one when it’s done. Painting up a force of Spugs is going to be my next big project once I clean up all these little ones.

Deathwatch

Today was Free RPG Day. I got myself a copy of “Final Sanction” the free intro adventure to the upcoming Deathwatch RPG from Fantasy Flight Games.

Finally, finally, finally, gamers have what they’ve wanting for over 20 years – an RPG focused on being a Space Marine! Hoo-ah!

Anyway, it has four pre-generated characters. A Dark Angel Assault Marine, A Blood Angel Devastator Marine, A Space Wolves Tactical Marine, and an Ultramarines Apothecary. The scenario itself has planetary defense forces, rebels and yay, Genestealers. This has become my new project!

When I run this (and I will run it) I’ll use my trusty Pig Iron Heavy Infantry as the PDF, my Pig Iron Kolony troops as the rebels, and my Space Hulk Genestealers. For the Marines, I got the individual Marines I needed from a friend. I needed to do a bit of converting, particularly for the Space Wolves guy. But when I’m done, they’ll all look pretty much like the artwork of the characters in the adventure booklet.

The paint schemes should be easy to execute. The Deathwatch are drawn from various Space Marine Chapters, and the basic armor color is black, so I get to practice highlighting with greys. Seems like their left arm and shoulder pads are a metallic color, like steel. They also wear their original chapter color and insignia on their right shoulder pad and knee pads.

Will post pics once I have them painted of course!

Incoming!

More activity as of late. I finished that SST Marauder and it turned out better than I expected (especially since I feel I wasn’t trying so hard). I’ll post some pics up tomorrow.

Also, my copy of FFG’s Horus Heresy is waiting for me at the FLGS. I’ll go pick it up on Sunday and goob about it here after I bring it home. Will I paint the whole set? Dunno. I still need to buckle down and finish off my War of the Ring (FFG) minis…oh, there’s another photo shoot I can do!

And I must tell you now… I bought some Space Marines off eBay. Just to paint and see how they turn out… (the lies we tell ourselves…)

Horus Heresy

Man, it’s been a while. I haven’t done any painting since the last post, though lately, I’ve started feeling the urge again. I should get in there and finish my Space Hulk Terminators, but, hmm, something else is calling. I played War of the Ring again about a week ago and I’m jonesin’ for more. I painted all the of the minis in that game except for the North and I really should finish those guys off – it’s only something like 24 figures. I think if I do anything next it should be that.

And then yesterday I saw this. I don’t play 40K but I have always liked the fluff, and the battle for Earth has always been one of my favorite stories (spawning, as it did, from the 4-page short story in the long OoP Slaves to Darkness). Ah, makes me wanna get my old Space Marine minis out and blow up the landscape! Anyway, this new Horus Heresy game looks like it does away with the (IIRC) shaky dice based system of the old game in favor of cards. I’ve been quite happy with FFG’s retreads of old games like Arkham Horror and Fury of Dracula, and seeing this get the FFG treatment makes me very happy.

Yah, it’s expensive, but I’ll find some way to justify it to myself (and most importantly, my wife)!