A regiment a month part 10: Galaxy Quest

Well, not so much as a regiment but a small fleet of Soryllians for Fire Storm Armada.
I simply could not resist painting them in a Narn pattern from the Babylon 5 series, still one of the best Sci Fi shows ever in my honest opinion.
Last to be painted today was the carrier on wich I competely forgot to put a bright red highlight so hence the reason it's a bit darker than the rest.
I don't really care about it, it's ok for some ships to be of a different hue and I spend most of my concentration on painting the yellow/black pattern on the doors.
These are older models wich I had lying in a box somewhere, originally they were blue with Australian Aboriginal dot art all over them.
Fire Storm: Armada isn't a bad game, most of the Spartan stuff ain't, but I only played it once.
No other people seemed to be interested so they sat on a shelve gathering dust.
Why I suddenly decided to repaint them I honestly can't tell but I did it anyway in favour of the Celts I should be doing.
I sat discussing the game with the bloke I played against years before earlier this month, to give it another go at some point, so I guess that's why I changed them.
Briefly I was thinking about bying a few more models but decided against it in the end.
The ships are easily assembled, they're not hard to paint but a game's just no good if you have no opponents so after this the fleet will find a nice place in a cabinet.

The fleet, just the starter box and a carrier but value for money nonetheless and a nice thing to start a fleet with.

The 3 Cruisers

6 Frigats, these things can have a high 'piss oponent off' score in greater numbers.

The Battleship, it's a whopping big model (around 15 cm in lenght) and thankfully lightweight since it's made completely out of resin.

The Carrier, when I bought this one Spartan Games didn't have fighters yet (they still don't I think) so I got mine from Brigade Models cheap.
The larger ones are bombers, the smaller ones fighters.

So will I buy more Sorrylian ships? I don't know at this point, not even for collector's sake.
All in all I'm not to happy with how the painting turned out and this brings me to another point.
Regular visitors of my blog will maybe have noticed that a/ this isn't my best work and b/ it are the first completed miniatures I show this month.
I've been suffering for a few weeks now what most painters suffer from at some regular interval: painters block.
It seems like all of a sudden the joy of building up models from bare metal to something nice's just gone.
The fact that I'm on the verge of loosing my job due to health issues may have a hand in it too this time.
It's not the first time this happens and I know it'll come all back like a tidal wave of inspiration sooner or later, All I need is something wacky to trigger it.
Also I've been thinling lately of starting oilpaintings again and to even start studying art again in eveningclass, I went to art school once for a year and even though it never got me anywhere on a proffessional level the interest never left.
See you agian soon and I hope in a better mood

Thalla a chluiche le do deideagan

Yup, that's genuine Irish in the title in case you might ask yourselves that.
If you want to know what it means: Ctrl+C and then Google it :-p
So here we are at the start of a new army, an unofficial one this time: Albion.
I've always had a fondness for Celts and Celtic art, so much in fact that I've got some Celtic tattoos done.
I was thinking on starting a Norse army first but I had already a few Britons miniatures from Warlord Games lying around the house so the choice was quickly made.
Now normally I'd wanted a huge 30 man Warbandunit but when I started assembling them yesterday I found out that half of them had swords in their hands and they can't be swapped, they're just to tiny for that.
Luckily the box contained the 'spicky haired heads' too so a small Woad Raiders unit was made too.
Early this year Brigade Models did a 25% discount on their Celtos range, a unit of Swordmaidens was therefore shipped off to Belgium as was a small unit of Pixies from Black Cat.
To lead these 'Hooligans' into battle my eye fell upon a model from Hasslefree: Barbarian Libby.
All things magical will be provided by one of my impuls buys from Crisis, another Celtos miniature.
The Swordmaidens were painted black before I took this picture so they don't show clearly, I seem to have failed a stupidity test at some point.


                                          Top left to right: Swordmadens - Pixies

                                Bottom left to right: Warband - Chieftain - Druid - Woad Raiders

Chieftain: She's sitting on a Kelpie and at 25 pts it may seem expencive but it causes fear, dishes out more hurt than a normal horse and treats water like it was normal terrain.
Also it's a typical creature in Irish folklore so it simply had to go in.

Druid: No Albion army without a Druid, these fellas can handlethe lores of Heaven, Life and Beasts and true to Celtic customs have a boosting effect on morale, Druids didn't only have a magical or religious part in Celtic society.

Warband: These guys are pretty average on the whole but they do have the benefit of being cheap and even with the extra option of having spears they come in at only 5 pts each.
The benefit of spears I've learned at my cost when I've played against elves armed as such so the extra point on having a 3th rank fighting in close combat is well spend.

Woad Raiders: These boys are pretty much the shocktroops of any Albion army and scared the crap out of the Romans back in their days, sometimes litteraly.
At first I didn't want them so soon but faith had it otherwise so they're here to stay.
You'll see that the unit champion isn't present yet, I'm getting one of those naked fanatics for that and ever since my wife found out that my army will include some nude blokes she's become much more intersted in my hobby...

Sword Maidens: What can I say, women would often fight alongside the men in a Celtic tribe and the fact that I could get them cheap was the official reason they're part of the army.
The fact that I like painting tits also greatly helped in my choice to be honest.
And they kick ass in close combat, everybody happy.

Pixies: Now I wouldn't bet money on these in a straight fight but they do have one major factor and that's their befuddling effect they have on units within 12" of them and so can be extremely effective against low leadership units, luring them into the clutches of the rest of the army.
Also they're flyers and can be handy for flanking and annoying warmachines.

Disadvantages: The Core units will no doubt die in droves since they have no armour save whatsoever so they'll have to bought in bulk and have to support stronger Special and Rare units in battle.
Also their stats tend to be pretty average and they have very few equipment options.

Advantages: Cheap as chips!!!! the most expencive Core unit are the Chariots at 45 pts/model, all the rest are way below that.
With the exeption of mounts and a few units the whole army has the Furor Celtica special rule meaning you don't want these lads to be charging you.

Overall this list seems balanced out, it looks and reads like a normal Warhammer armybook.
The author has retained the Celtic style of fighting and added a nice touch of ancient Celt mythologie without going over the top.
It's also a good thing that if I grow tired of fantasy gaming for a while I can simply drop the Giants and the Pixies and the Fenbeasts and grab a copy of Hail Cesar and go kicking the Romans back to Rome giving me 2 armies for the price of 1, bargain!!
I've ordered a box of cavalery to add to the Core units, obviously a unit of Chariots will fid it's way into the army and the 2 infantery units will be bulked out in the near future.
A 1000 pts army will be build over the coming months and will be fielded against buddy 'Gaming Old Fart' Tomsche and his Cathay, mine's a Chop Choy special and a pint of the Black Stuff!!!

For the FUN of it!!!!

Today we had the 2012 FUN tournament in our clubhouse and it was indeed fun.
After six years of absence to the tournament scene in general and Warhammer in particular it went all surprisingly well.
I had only one battle under my belt before and that was 2 weeks ago, overall my Deamons performed well despite a lack in mobility.
Initiative 1 may seem far to little but their high strenght and toughness well makes up for this.
My first battle was against Tom Degendt who fielded a mix of  Nurgle warriors with 2 handweapons and Khorne spawns, all infantery and loads of attacks.
Needless to say I got butchered and in the end only my greater deamon remained.
The runner up was Sven with a Nightgoblin army, a HUGE Nightgoblin army.
We had only 2 turns each due to a lot of looking stuff up in the rulebook but it was great nonetheless and I even managed to score a draw.
Last battle was against a guestplayer called Wim who showed up with an Araby army.
At first I was a bit afraid, he had a sodding elephant in his gang, the poor animal got pounded by my Great Unclean One for all it's troubles and in the end only his unit of Magic Carpet Riders remained, solid victory against a fun player.
So I didn't finish last nor first and the trophy for best painted army went deservingly to Sven and his Nightgobbos so I came home emptyhanded but very happy.
Lessons learned?
Yes Sir!!!
I certainly need to make my existing units a lot bigger, from 20 to 30 Plaguebearers and 15 to 20 Furies.
Said Furies performed well today but they need a second unit of them.
Swarm of the match however were my Nurglings: they took cavalry charges, pissed off elephants, shrugged most of the bow and warmachine volleys and dished out a bloody lot of hurt despite being only pint-sized.
I simply love them and I want more of these little bastards in my army.
For now however I'll leave my Deamons alone and give them some desrved rest, Albion will get all my attention for the time being and as soon as I got a 1000 points ready of them I'll be happy to field them against Tomsche's Cathay army.
Sounds fun.