Mitchell B-25J

The bomber was done nearly on time, the day after my set date so that would have been this past Monday. It has taken me this long to get a photo taken as I've been very busy and the photo isn't even that good. It is enough though to verify my completed project and i'm pleased with that.

I had some small difficulties in completing it and even in posting this picture which wants to load vertical instead of horizontal regardless of what I try. In it's completion even it fell and broke several of the guns creating a damaged final product.

Well, these things happen.

Next project with a due date of Sunday the 23rd is a set of Atalan Jackals from Games Workshop for my friend's Genestealer Cults army. See you in seven days or so!

Last Week's Plan, This Week's Plan,

Okay so last weeks plan went pretty much okay. I got the soldier done, I got the terminators done, and I got the wraiths done. Below you can find some poorly photographed pictures of these things...

These were completed by Sunday I've just been too busy to either paint more or take pictures of them. The terminators have no basing because I cannot find my blessed glue! This week has been a no model week and it will likely continue to be so. But for next week I have a project in mind: A B-25 bomber scale model. It's about 30% done and I plan to finish it between now and the following Sunday which would be the 10th of November. If I get it done quicker I'll let you know :)

Hobby Goals

I'm making a list.

I have a lot of models and lately I've been able to make accomplishments in painting. This is good but the bad is I kind of get sporadic just grabbing models and painting whatever I get my  hands on and the result is projects I want to complete don't move very quickly towards done.

That was a long second sentence.

ANYWAY I am going to imitate a practice many hobbyist...er...practice...and begin making a weekly modeling plan. This way I can get my projects completed.

The following is this weeks plan (the week of October 21st through the 27th, 2019).

1. Complete 54mm Wehrmacht soldier carrying ammo box. 
2. Finish five model Horus Heresy Ultramarines Terminator Squad
3. Paint 3 Wraiths from the Forgebane Campaign Box

It's a humble list, should be very doable. As of the writing of this blog I am finished with the Wehrmacht soldier and the terminator squad just needs based, also one of the Wraith's is 90% finished. 

I'm certain I can do this.

Ideally my next post should have photographs (even bad ones) of the completed model so that I may share them with you as well as the plan for next week. 

Until then enjoy this fantasy artwork...

Some DELICIOUS golden era Dungeons and Dragons art work for you.

Also have this, my favorite scene from Fury Road. Until next we meet may your dice always roll in your favor. 

Strike Forces, Character Changes, and Collecting

My name is Adeptgamer, and I have a model buying problem.

Miniature wargaming is a hobby that is so hot right now everyone's credit cards, bank cards, wallets, purses, hand bags, back packs, hell even ATM cards are burning. The companies that produce miniature for everything from 15mm World War 2 to grim dark sci fi are making better and better models with great offers to entice you. It can be a little overwhelming. We all have to find a way to cope. Some do this through focusing on one company, one collection, one faction/nation, a budget, or other strategy. Other do this through making arbitrary, but valuable, rules that monitor their purchasing such as painting a kit before getting a new one or selling old models to buy new. These are all admirable and I think it's great. We each have to find out path.

I love collecting and I love painting and I love battling. I have models made by King and Country that are fifty dollars a piece, 54mm tall, professionally painted and excellent to display. I have Gundam models (Gunpla) that I've built myself and fidgeted with panel lining and mild weathering. I've got scale models I've painted from a mediocre standard to my best ability. Also I have something between 110 and 140 painted Ultramarine models which is my favorite grim dark army.

Not mine, I wish, but not mine. 

I want to expand my collections always though. There are new armies to collect, new forces to display, new models that would be cool. I lack the financial or chronological means to do this but rather than see it as a depressing loss I choose to see the ample bosom of hobby potential as a candy store full of delicious yumminess. I have only a dollar, and that means I can't buy the big candy bars and have to settle for the nickel candy. This is fine, it's still delicious and still fun.

One of the strange occurrences related to this is sometimes I collect more of a kind of model than is needed like Space Marine Captains. I have three of them for my Third Company; the first captain I used was from the Assault on Black Reach starter box an excellent model with a kick ass back banner. Then he evolved into a captain from the kit that fought with a lightning claw and combi-metla, super metal! BUT NOW, now he has evolved into the Captain in Gravis Armor for the Dark Imperium starter set; a fierce looking model  with rippling cape and holding his power sword aloft valiantly! All of these models are the same captain, Artemis, and as I get new models he evolves and the old captain moves into retirement. This lets me get cool new models to replace cool already owned models but have some form of inner chronology and procession.

Of course I also started painting a Fourth Company so no judgement please.

This discourse has led me to what I have kind of started seeing as a sweet spot for my personal collecting with 40K, the fifty point limit. I like having a variety of model because I'm a hobbyist but it's a problem to go "I collect Necrons now!" because often this leads you to be mentally investing your finances more than you may really want to or frankly should. So instead I'm going to limit collecting of a faction to no more than 50 power points, or in other games a rough equivalent of points. Lets go back to the Necron example. I recently obtained the Forge Bane box set of Necrons and that has given me a good starting point of a Cryptek, a unit of Immortals, a unit of Lychguard, and a unit of Wraiths. Also I've got a unit of Warriors in the stash and together this gives me a nice 32 power of a collection. I've got room in point for another unit or two and really I've already got that kind of planned bringing the total to 49. This will give me a nice playable collection, nothing for large battles, but good for afternoon fights. This way I can have a nice collection, get to play with them, and control my spending.

So finally we get to the first entry of the title: STRIKE FORCE ARTEMIS or the current 50 power incarnation of my boys in blue. I like playing games with some efficiency and many of my local players lack the ability to take what I would call "timely turns". It is not an uncommon thing in the hobby. Some people just like to take their time on their turn and that is fine. I feel the appropriate format for this though is smaller games. I've decided to put some multiples of games into a specific strike force to concrete the rules a little in my head. It will consist of the following:

Captain Artemis (Mark X Gravis armored bad ass Primaris Marine)
Chaplain Mordrus (Primaris Chaplain)
Squad Poladris (five model Intercessor squad)
Squad Apollon (five model Intercessor squad)
Squad Castian (ten model Tactical Squad with Rhino transport packing a missile launcher and flamer)
Squad Tarentus (five model assault squad)
Caelum Venandi (stormtalon gunship)

I feel this is a solid two pronged force with a secure infantry body in the captain being backed up by two squads of Intercessors and Mordrus while the strike section of a tactical squad in rhino backed by an assault squad takes objectives. The air support can go tank hunting, troop hunting, or back up either group in a single turn. As this is a battalion I'll have 8 command points to play with which for a 50 power level game is respectable I think. Obviously there are weaknesses but those are found in any strike force and you just have to do your best to reduce their impact right?

And finally, while not meeting my weekly desire I am going to hope to continue to fight for it. Photography right now is difficult for me to complete so some posts will have to do with filler images until I can get the chance to use my feeble camera.

Inquisitor 28 and 40k Skirmish

I have not really gotten to play much Kill Team which is a shame because it's good "invocation" of the Warhammer 40,000 larger game. I'm excited for what the development of Kill Team means for bodes very well for the upcoming Apocalypse rules set.

Anyway Inquisitor was an excellent 54mm table top rpg war game that didn't succeed well enough to find it's way into plastics but it left a taste in gamer's mouths. That was the taste of independence and creativity that can be used by everyone and not the vaunted few. I'm working on producing some pieces for narrative Inquisitor style Kill Team games, and if you're okay with it, i'd like to share :)

This is Gygrax the Eater a possessed Primaris Ultramarine that wields a daemon weapon. It was made from a single post Primaris Intercessor with bits from the Possessed kit, Beast Claw Raiders, and various spines from the Flesh Eater Courts. I think he turned out pretty solid with enough chaosiness to make it clear what he is but the residual blue and gold of the Second Company to see his origins.

These are a couple of Agents, the original elite veteran Astra Militarum and one of my favorite models. Not modified at all I just want to show off the paint work which is meant to be very non-committal. I could use them as Inquisitor agents, Administratum agents, bounty hunters, etc.

I've got some Primaris i'm working on that were never placed with a chapter and instead act like knights errant, also a converted Saurus warrior as an alien mercenary, and a possessed chaos sorcerer.

I hope you enjoyed my post and I hope maybe it inspired you a bit as well. :)

It smells funny in here.

I do my best to limit my model collecting to a reasonable level of purchase. I fail, you fail, we all fail but I give it my best. I am trying this thing where I have one Xenos army, one Heretic army, and one Imperial army for Warhammer 40,000. Guess how that is working out? I will say that mostly in the Heretic/Traitor area i'm fairly focused with a growing collection papa Nurgle's Death Guard. It started with the acquisition of the Dark Imperium starter and has grown with the contents of another such box, some easy to build haulers, and recently a start collecting Nurgle.

Here are some low quality, badly taken photographs for you to squint at!

This is the collection as it stands with plenty of nice disease filled selection of plague marines and pox walkers with a nice collection of daemon engines to back them up; hellbrute, fetid bloat drone, and myphitic blighthauler. As command structure we have a nice lord of contagion, a friendly malignant plaguecaster, a quiet noxious blight bringer, and a chubby daemon prince.

I took others but frankly they are so bad no reason to bore you with them. I have more to paint and I am using a pretty simple system so they should come together quickly enough. I'll practice my photo taking and maybe I can do better next time :)

I played a 700 battle versus Tyranids and they beat me soundly. We played points, but we used open play cards, then he didn't think it would be fair for me to summon daemons, THEN it was double objective twist, THEN there was no way in hell I could score either of them. LOL! I did few casualties, lost most of mine, and ultimately looked the fool. I still had fun though and got some of a read on how to play this army.

GASP!

Almost three years since last I posted on this blog. A lot has happened. A lot of bad unhappy things. This blog isn't about bad unhappy things though so I won't be sharing those things. I will be sharing other things, many of them sooner, some of them later. I have been playing a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, hell i'm swamped in it and it has spurned a lot of nice miniature painting. Also I as very pleased to see the re-release of Titanicus, a game I missed out on before but am not this time. I'm looking forward to posting again, and I hope it has some effect in improving my writing again.

Anyway that is boring, look at pretty stuff!

Shadow Keepers...shhhh.

I obtained some Custodes kits and it was evident to me that the Shadow Keepers was the faction within that was right for me. It's not a large number of models but if you are a matched play person it can calculate up to 1,750 points. I know it's kind of odd for Trajan Valoris to lead them and honestly I want to get another box of the Guardians to make a different general. But I'm not complaining, they have been fun to play.

Some kit bashing resulting in a sweet looking daemon prince, or daemon, or something. I used it for an rpg scenario and the stupid players killed it in one round. Smh.

Little tanks! 15mm tanks, one of my favorite kinds of models. I am interested in large armor battles and there is no better way to do it.

Tyranids collecting. Something I always wanted to do and finally started doing it. Hive fleet Ripley has been growing slowly and is sadly not based as I'm not sure what I want to do yet. More are under way including more monsters and some lictors!

Scale modeling. I dabble in all of it and I never really know what's going to lock me into it's thrall and require me to finish it.

I hope this preview has been pleasant, and I hope you are happy at my return. My goal is to post something weekly at the least, preferably finished models or projects under way, or even cool rpg maps I've made.

And because it's been so long; May your dice always roll in your favor!