Stargrave "Misery Cluster Campaign" Mission 01: Botched Deal at Lonely Jack's

Despite being situated smack dab in the middle of the galaxy at the crossroads of numerous trade lanes the Misery Cluster was considered a bit of a backwater.  Home to numerous agricultural worlds and mining operations the worlds of the cluster are home to numerous tiny settlements with only a few larger cities.  One such outpost is "Lonely Jack's" situated on a small moon orbiting a gas giant of Johnson's Star.  

The mercenary crew of the "Hellhound" and the spacer crew of the "Cometary Blaze" have both been invited to bid on some valuable data and other goods but instead of the smugglers they were expecting the town had been taken over by the Bloodborn pirates.  Instead of a bidding war a desperate shootout breaks out.    

One of the Pirate ruffians is taken out early as the crew move in.  Another of the "Bloodborn" rushes into the streets and fires at the captain of the "Hellhound" crew but misses.  

More "Hellhound" crew members move into the outpost talking up a strong position behind a wall with their carbines laying down covering fire.  

Viper Eyes captain of the "Hellhound" crew cuts down a pirate quickly and efficiently before the drunken bastard can get any more shots off.    

As the crews move towards their objective a Grenadier from the "Hellhound" is stunned by a shot from a Pathfinder of the "Cometary Blaze".  Another pirate is shot and stunned by the Troopers from the "Hellhound".  

Angel the first mate of the "Hellhound" advances to cover their stunned Grenadier.  The manage to shoot and stun the Pathfinder that injured their comrade.  

Moving from building to building to avoid the carbine fire of the mercenaries some of the spacers move in on a location they believe has some data to be retrieved.  

Two more crewmen of the "Cometary Blaze" move in on the communication station where the deal for the data was to take place.  

                                      

Two spacers drag their crewmember into a nearby building after the Pathfinder was shot by Angel and his mercenary comrades.  

Kole of the "Cometary Blaze" and Velma of the "Hellhound" surprise each other inside the com station where they were suppose to meet up with the hacker who offered both crews the data.

 

Responding to Velma's distress call Viper Eyes burst into the com station and attack Kole.  The Tekker first mate manages to deploy a drone but get's cut up pretty bad by the mercenary captain.

Another spacer is dropped by the accurate fire of mercenary carbines.  Lying unmoving in dirt it doesn't look like he will be making it back to his ship.  

A Code Breaker from the "Cometary Blaze" enters the clinic to retrieve some data and kills one of the pirates wounded by the mercenaries.  However another pirate guards the clinic.  

More crewmen of the "Blaze" enter the clinic and a shootout ensues over the medical data stored there.

With Cole stunned Velma is able to download the data in the communication station's main computer.

Angel and his troopers secure another data station and download it's contents for the mercenaries after taking out a crewmember from the opposing crew.  

The spacer's manages to secure a recipe for combat drugs from the clinic's medical computer.  

Instead of downloading the data that the crews were looking for Velma manages to download a fat stack of credits instead.

After driving the spacers into cover Angel and his mercs are able to easily download data from the salvage station computer.  

Things were not looking great for the spacer crew of the "Cometary Blaze" so they decided to bug out with their stolen data.  The mercs managed to gather the rest of the loot before heading back to their ship with no real casualties.  

All in all the day went better for the mercs than the spacers but neither crew got away empty handed.  

Creative January Warhammer 40,000 Commander's Edition Space Marine Force

I managed to get my project in just under the wire for Creative January.  This is the Space Marine Force painted as Dark Angels using some pretty quick techniques and oil washes.  I'm really happy with the way they turned out.  I was going for an advanced tabletop quality for this force and I think I managed that.  The Ravenwing Outriders have the simplest paint jobs but I had to fully assemble them before painting and the legs of the bikers were molded into the piece with the exhaust so it was harder to get to the seat of the bikes.  They remained black which worked out okay.  

I was most happy with the way the bases blend into the red clay side of the battle board.  I think the color also provides a nice contrast to the Space Marines armor. 

  

The commander was definitely the hardest miniature in the box.  It took me nearly a full weekend to paint him.  My wife has been working on the Necrons that came in the boxed set so we will hopefully be able to play out the starter Scenarios soon.  

I managed to snag a box of Dark Vengeance from my FLGS for about $100.00 so I'm going to have several more Dank Angels to paint up soon.  The nice thing about this set is that all of the Dark Angels have their iconography molded on so I won't have to deal with fiddly decals.  

 When I painted the Outriders I also painted this old Chaplain.  I think he is from 2nd Edition.  He's metal and has a small base but I'm going to use him with my Scout detachment so he should work well for them.  I've found several other sets of Space Marines but my son is also working on his own chapter so we are splitting them between our forces.  I have "Kill Team" on order which I'm actually looking forward to playing than the full game.  I have a lot of 40K miniatures from the past from several different factions so I should be able to make several small forces.   

Warhammer 40K Dark Angels first squad finished for Creative January

 

I finished the Assault Intercessor Squad from the Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition Command Edition boxed set.  These guys were a lot of fun to paint.  I finished them off using some oil washing techniques.  Oil washes are a lot easier to use than most people would think.  They are easier to use than acrylic ink based washes in fact as long as you take a bit of care with your work space and gentle enough with your application.  I may make a post showing the difference between the two sometime soon.  

I had intended to show the rest of my process in painting these as I did in my first post but I've got a lot of miniatures to paint and not a lot of time to edit the images required for a step by step.  I didn't really use any exotic techniques.  Mostly standard dry brushing and highlighting.  I did use makeup brushes for the drybrushing which I have just started using.  I would highly recommend those for drybrushing and I'm looking to get a larger and better quality set soon.  

Next up on my paint table is this Primaris Captain from the boxed set and an older Dreadnaught I've had laying around for a while.  

 

Creative January Project Dark Angels Space Marines Assault Intercessor Squad

So a largely photography based creative group I belong to on Facebook just issued a Creative January challenge so as a non conformist I am submitting some Space Marines.  I've just picked up the Commander's Edition for Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition and these miniatures were included in the Space Marine Force.

Assembly was interesting.  I have not played 40K in several editions although I did have a few 8th edition miniatures.  I'm not a big fan of the push to fit assembly but these went together pretty well with only a few mold lines to clean up.  I like the size and dynamic posing of the newer Games Workshop models but I miss the utility of the older multi part kits.  

First base coat was in black automotive primer.  For rattle can primers I prefer automotive primers because they tend to be pretty thin and therefore don't obscure detail too much.  I make a noob mistake and started painting a bit too far from these minis so they got a tad bit grainy from some of the paint droplets drying before the hit the mini but I'm just gonna press on and work with it.  

Next I grabbed some kind of random dark green and sprayed from above and at a 45 degree angle which left black in the lower recesses and undersides of the figures giving me some quick and dirty shading.  I've seen this technique used but outside of a few terrain projects I have not used it myself.  

Next I did some highlighting using a makeup brush for my drybrushing.  I used a pretty cheap brush but it worked pretty well.  These are really bright for my intended Dark Angels color scheme but I'm going to used some oil washes to finish these models so that will darken them considerably.  I know I use craft paints.  Deal.... 

Because these models are so dynamic I decided to pull some of the parts off to get at the miniature better.  Unfortunately during assembly I had decided against this so I glued a couple of the looser bits in place.  I almost always paint fully assembled miniatures but I think one models like these I may start taking advantage of this newer assembly method.  

Whenever possible I like to paint in one setting or I try to pick projects that I can finish in one day but I've just started a new supervisory position at work and I'm only getting about an hour or so at the paint table before fatigue sets in.  I plan to make more progress over the weekend.  I will almost surely have these done but Sunday night.  

 

My new favorite bases!

Recently I've started basing most of my miniatures on wooden bases instead of metal or plastic ones.  Wooden bases take glue and paint very well so my bases don't get chipped.  I've had a lot of problems in the past with the edges of my bases chipping even when I sand the sides to get the metal and plastic bases more grit.  I've also had sand and even flocking and static grass chip off the tops of minis from time to time when the glue chips off the plastic bases. 

For standard 28mm minis I've been buying these 1 inch wooden bases from Woodpile at Hobby Lobby.  They come 12 to a package for $2.00 a package.  I really like the finished rounded edges.  They are about as thick as a Games Workshop round base although not quite so these Reaper Miniatures figures don't gain too much height on them compared to the other miniatures in my collection.  The wood grain edges even look kind of nice.  I like having some texture to the sides of my bases but I usually don't like to have a lot of texture overlapping onto the sides so these give me a nice amount of texture which as I said earlier also helps hold the paint.  I've found them to be far superior in every way to plastic bases.  

Giant Killer Robots!

I just stumbled across "Giant Killer Robots" a new game from Weta Workshop and it looks amazing!  I'm probably going to go broke.

Battletech City

We've made quite a bit of progress on our Battletech City in the last few days.  The buildings in the middle of the picture here are the ones we have built recently.  The more basic skyscrapers are made from Dollar Tree gift boxes while the others are scratch built from various objects.

We've got a lot more buildings in progress but I think things are looking good so far.  My goal is to have enough to make three 4x4 foot tables which I will need when our Port Krin campaign kicks off.

More Solar Empires Pirates. The Ex-patriots!

Here is a WIP shot of some new Pirates for my Solar Empires setting.  These guys are former Jovian Imperial Troopers who went renegade during the last System War.  To distinguish them from other Imperial troops I have painted a crude X on their right shoulders and helmets.  Hopefully I will have them done soon.

Back from outer space with new easy tables and stools!

 Well it's been a while since I posted.  Guess I just got burned out on blogging.  I've still been playing all this time I just have not been posting much about it.

Anyway I found some wood bits at the local Lowles in their hobby section that I thought would make good tables and stools for some of my sci-fi terrain.  I got a package of wooden disk with some turned vases and some small spools.  I glued the vases upside down on the bottom of the disk to make tables then used thumb tack to make seat cushions for the stools.  Assembly took only a little while.  I had enough bits for 10 table and stool sets with a couple tables left over.
 

 I then primed the tables with primer grey.  Here you can see them compared with several random 28mm miniatures.

 After priming I dry brushed the tables white them painted the cushions and highlighted them.  I then added a wash made from burnt umber, dark blue and a bit of floor polish.  Although you can see some of the wood grain in the finished product I just chalked this up to the concept that this is cheap mass produced plastic furniture made with a wood grain pattern.  One thing I really like about the tables and stools is that you can still get four miniatures around each table with the stools in between which makes them look occupied without having to have sitting models.  

Here is a shot of the bottom of the tables so you can see how easy they were to construct.  In the future I may make a few tables with things on them for specific terrain sets like a diner or bar.

The Battle of Pleasant Valley: A Station 42 War Game Report (sort of)

 May 25th 3033 Hell Knight forces attempt to shut down militia recruiting operations in Pleasant Valley.  Five units of militia occupy the town supported by four improvised armored vehicles.  As the Hell Knight armored column approaches town the defenders are re-enforced by three units of renegade Planetary Guards and one unit of veteran mercenaries from the Wolfhound Freikorps and their vehicles.

We fought this battle back at the end of May and I'm just now getting around to putting it up so this report will be a little different.  Rather than follow my regular format I have put up a number of images with a brief description of what was going on as best as I can remember it.
  

 The Hell Knights began to advance into the city  The scouts have moved ahead and occupied two buildings gaining cover from the rooftops.  A few scouts were knocked out early in an exchange of fire with militia members.

 On the Hell Knight left Flank two LAGAREVs moved in to face off against more militia.

 Carson Boon and his unit as well as the Titania Hunting Club had taken up a position on a large building on the Hell Knights left.

 Fighting got pretty hot in the center of the field.  Bear's militia unit took out a LAGAREV and killed almost an entire squad of mercenary veterans.

 Another LAGAREV was destroyed by small arms fire.  The remaining veteran riflemen fled into a small building.

 Another technical was destroyed on the Hell Knights right flank and a few militia from Dutton's gang were taken out.

 The veterans from the Wolfhound Friekorps attempted to assault the Hell Knights Armored Assault squad's position.  Although more Wolfhounds were Killed in the exchange the Armored Assault squad broke and ran from it's position.

 Two units of renegade Planetary Guards charged in on the Hell Knights left and attacked a squad of mercenary regulars routing them.

 On the Hell Knight right flank the mercenary Landshark AFV laid into Bear's unit and a unit of Planetary Guard causing heavy casualties to both squads.

 On the Hell Knights Left the remaining regular riflemen are completely destroyed as the defenders advance in force.

 Hell Knight Vehicles push through the middle of the field and begin to flank around the side.  

 The Hell Knight Landshark routs the rest of Bear's unit wile the mercenary scout squad picks off most of the remainder of Dutton's gang.

 A Hell Knight Hobelar fires it's pulse laser through gaps in the buildings killing another militia vehicle.

 The Planetary Guard Badger MRAP advances behind the Hell Knight right flank.

 The bloody results of the fighting shows many smoking vehicles on either side.  Casualties mount among the infantry just as quickly.

 Bear's unit is completely destroyed and Dutton's unit is all but wiped out on the Hell Knight's right.

 The Hell Knights Hobelar is taken out by combined fire.  Due to their strong position and Boon's force field the defenders on the Hell Knights left flank have taken very few casualties.

 The Hell Knights hold onto the right flank taking a few casualties but causing far more damage to the enemy.

The last remaining LAGAREV gets revenge killing several of the renegade Planetary Guard.  Both sides took very heavy casualties but the Hell Knights just couldn't do enough damage to push the defenders out so they were forced to pull back.

Notes:  I think the Hell Knights scored more points in this battle than the defenders but they didn't really manage to drive the militia forces out.  It was close in the end but we decided the Titanian's held out.  Oddly enough the best units on each side suffered the worst casualties and proved less effective.  The Hell Knight scouts usually get slaughtered and do very little damage but in this battle they survived and did more damage than my other units.  Despite the fact that Bear's unit was taken down they did do a lot of damage to the mercenaries before being taken out including doing enough damage to the Landshark to destroy one of it's weapons and slow it down.  
Sorry again for the odd format.  I just haven't had time to post reports like I should.  We just finished another battle and I hope to finish the campaign very soon.  The Hell Knights have basically be pushed back to station 42 and the Titania forces are massing for a final assault.