C3 Strike troopers -BtGoA (Part 3)

I have completed the painting on these first 5 Concord miniatures. And here they are:

Ready to hunt more Ghar.

Continuing on from the last post on these guys, I decided to use a thinned wash of Agrax Earthshade over the English Uniform. I then layered the edges again with English Uniforms.

Agrax Earthshade and English Uniform layer.

It needed a bit more of a highlight so I mixed a bit of White Scar with English Uniform and applied it to the edges. I also turned my attention back to the bases. They too needed a color kick so I added a highlight of Blood Angel Orange (it's a very old color, from the '89 Space Marine paint set -and it still works great!). I thought this worked out nicely as well. Very "martian".

White/English Uniform highlights.

Next up I painted the guns and visors. The visors were painted simply with a Chaos Black base layered with Dark Reaper. It was then washed with Nuln Oil. I wanted more of a highlight though so I added a thin line of White Scar  and added an additional Nuln Oil wash over it all.

Visors and guns.

The guns were painted in a way that I thought would give them contrast from the uniform colors, yet somehow still manage to look 'right' with them. I painted them with Ushanti Bone, then washed them with Thraka Green and finished them with a highlight of Ushanti Bone. 

Guns finished.

The blue plasma colors were painted using Macrage Blue then Russ Grey with subtle highlights of White Scar. This was washed with Guilliman Blue.

View of the Plasma Lance's blue energy coil.

I thought I was done when I took the pics above but while I was writing this remembered a crucial detail I had overlooked: the red button! So I took a moment to quickly add these details to their weapons. The red button stands out particularly well on the Plasma Lance.

And that is a wrap!

Well, on these 5 guys anyway.

Got 15 more to do...plus their buddy drones...and support drones. But at least I now got a color scheme down that I like.

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C3 Strike Troopers - BtGoA (Part 2)

Hello. One of my December goals was to get my Concord guys assembled, which I was able to do, and you can read about that in part-1. Due to the wonky weather,  and no good ventilated areas in our humble little abode, I had to wait for the right opportunity to prime these miniatures. I decided to prime them with Testor's Red Brown spray paint.

One of the primed units.

I had been pondering a paint scheme for these guys for ages now and since these guys kind of remind me of the Spartans from Halo,  I was going to paint them based off of my old Halo 3 multiplayer character. But after seeing how nice The Bob's C3 Strike Team paint jobs turned out I was swinging back to just following the standard paint scheme that Warlord tends to go with.  We played our First Antares game recently and I got to see his models in person. I have ultimately caved-in and decided to proceed with that scheme. Well, sort of...

What follows will be my step-by-step, stage-by-stage process for painting these guys. Since I am making this up as I go I have found it prudent to record these steps for (my) future reference.

British Uniform painted on.

The 'green' areas were painted using Model Color English Uniform.

Country Tan

Apple Barrel Color Country Tan was painted on the 'white' areas.

Desert Sand

Americana Desert Sand was dry brushed over the Country Tan.

Black spots.

Black was used to pick out the joints and a few other areas.

White highlights.

White highlights were applied over the Desert Sand. This essentially could have finished these areas as this fits the Warlord color scheme rather well. But I have something else in mind...

Agrax Earthshade and Bloodletter.

I washed Agrax Earthshade over the white areas. This really picks out the details and kind of 'dirties' up the whole model. I worked on the base next. Painted Apple Barrel Indian Red over the brown base coat. I followed that up with a wash of Bloodletter Ink over this. I like how that turns out, as it reminds me of some of the Adeptus Mechanicus bases I have seen people do.

Sadly, something has come up in the real world and I have to stop here. What I plan to do next is to ink and highlight the 'green' area, paint the faces on the helmets and paint the guns. I have been thinking about making their guns a color similar to Zorn's guns from the 5th Element. Something about the plasma rifles design gestalt in the Antares game reminds me of that. 

Every gun will have to get a Red Button according to Cheef.

Something to ponder until I can work on them again.


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The First Antares Exploration.

Greetings.

The Bob and I got together to finally play through Beyond the Gates of Antares and it only took two years from when I got the starter set to get minis onto a table! We just basically ran with the stuff from the starter, no lists or anything pre-planned, and simply tried to kill each other. Seemed like a good enough reason if any to test out the mechanics of a game. We roped in Jim and Chyanne and got them to play a bit with some Concord units.

"I hear them coming!"

It has been a very long time since I played a unit-based 40k game with range modifiers and specific weapon settings. Probably not since 40k 2nd Edition ('97?) so I found this to be refreshingly old school. The weapon mecjanics are all very interesting and fairly easy to grasp. The d10 system works very well for this system and gives BtGoA a level of detail and weapon/armor diversity that 40k simply lacks these days.

Cover and high ground.

Close Combat was so incredibly easy that it took us a while to figure out if we were doing it right. In the end, we found it to be refreshingly simple and fun.

Especially for the Ghar.

I learned the hard way that close combat with the Ghar battlesuits is a situation best avoided. At the start of close combat both sides get to shoot each at each other Point Blank! An idea I wished 40k had embraced to better effect, especially in the editions without Overwatch. The Ghar disruptors are particularly brutal and we saw a few Concord models die in the Point Blank firefight. Those Ghar suits are tough, and their disruptors are nasty! The additional hits and armor modifiers are quite efficient at cutting down the Concord.

The final stand-off

 But the Concord have numeric superiority and already I see that the key to overcoming the tough Ghar armor is have lots of aimed shots. In the end we had only one Ghar left alive but it was more than capable of continuing to ruin Concord lives if we hadn't chose to stop at the end of Round 6. We all agreed that it was a fun game and quite easy once you figured out the mechanics. A bit of "unlearning what you know" in regards to other games like this helps; sort of like changing editions of a game in that sense.

So yeah, we had fun and we are looking forward to doing more!

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Celestial Lions Land Speeder (Part 4)

Work has continued on this light vehicle. Here is the latest progress:

The "edging" highlights are now done, and the antenna-thing and the spoiler have been added on.

Coming together...

Additional attention has been given to the underside guns. I am pleased with how they are turning out.

Painted guns.

I focused quite a bit on making the Multimelta and the Heavy Flamer appear dirty and sooty from all the flamable goodness that they spew forth.

Dirty and sooty.

The pilot was finally glued into position and now this thing is really beginning to feel closer to done. The pilot's body is a torso from one of the Horus Heresy boxed games. The other two torsos will be used for the gunners.

"Pilot to ground control, are we ready for cockpit check?"

This is moving along in spite of my limited free time to work on it. Next up, and this may be tricky, or it may just be challenging, but I am going magnetize the torso of the gunner so I can switch out the gun. I figured it would be better to replace the whole guy than just the gun. We'll see just how crazy this will make me next time.

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Ok, a bit of blog news. I have created a Facebook Group called Neverness Hobbies. It's intended to be a supplemental place to support this blog on social media. I hope for it to be a place were we can discuss stuff related to this hobby and other things that I just don't feel fit this blog format. I have no intent to change how I do this blog, so don't worry, I am not moving this to FB or anything like that. It's, as I said, supplemental.

So you are welcome to join us on Facebook if you wish, just search for Neverness Hobbies. As always, look for the Red Squig. (Edit: Or click this link)

Look for the Red Squig. 

Celestial Lions Land Speeder (Part 3)

Continuing on from Part-2, progress has continued on this thing. Despite some concerns from commenters regarding glueing the rubberbands to the the vehicle's hull, there was no such problem. However I did discover that I had left the dashboard out (oops), but that was fixed easily enough.

The hull is assembled.

Next up I attached the rear jets. Then I added the grav plate bumper thing that goes along the sides. And finally I glued on the doors. The original instructions suggest a way to build this thing so that those compartment doors can open, but the pegs broke off both of them when I attempted this. Not seeing any benefit in that feature anyway, I figured "screw it" and just glued the doors shut. Following that, I painted a Shining Gold highlight along all the edges.

More stuff added.

As I have shown in some other posts, I like using my pin-vice to paint heads. I feel I that do a better job painting heads this way.

Head painting the fun way.

I then applied decals to the crew's left knee pads and one of the paldrons. The Assault Icon on the paldron will be repainted to match the style on the Tactical Squad I painted for Kill Team. The Chapter Icon is going to be handled differently this time, but more on that in a future post.

Decals applied.

While looking at painted examples in some of the recent Codex Space Marine publications I was inspired by the examples showing them armed with Assault Cannons. I had a Ravenwing accessory sprue handy which just happened to have one (two, actually) on it. So I built that and added a magnet to the mounting bracket. Checkout Part One to see more on how I made this thing magnetic.

Now with Assault Cannon option.

In the background of the above pic you can see a few more bits. Most of them are going to make a 2nd gunner torso. I am making that so that I can also switch out the guns in that position as well. More of that in Part 4. See you then!

A Tale of Two Duds

Got together with the gang and we agreed to play a four-way free-for-all Kill Team game.

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I showed up with my Celestial Lions Kill Team. I decided to take a Plasma Gun this time, and made him a Specialist. I gave him the ability to Ignore Cover with his shooting attacks. Then I bestowed the Missile Launcher with Feel No Pain and the Marine with the Scope got Murderous Blow.

Celestial Lions ready for deployment.

The Bob brought out his Skitarii Kill Team. I have never faced them before and I was curious to see how they would perform.

Skitarii, radiating the awesome.

Da Masta Cheef brought along his Rainbow Warriors.  He would remark often during the game that we were playing a pair of dying  Chapters.

A prismatic assembly of Rainbow Warriors.

And finally we have Wolfy's Fem Fa' Tau Kill Team, gathered to snipe and blast those who deny the Greater Good.

(Chorus) "The Greater Good".

The field was set and the forces deployed. We agreed to a Kill Point game, with Secondary Objectives and Primary Objectives being 1 VP per Specialist killed. With our traits rolled up, the Tau and Celestial Lions had Leaders who got the Quick Thinker trait (Steal Initiative on 4+) and the Lions won that roll-off.

Four corners claimed and held.

Turn 1.

The Celestial Lions sally forth and the Missile Launcher begins his streak of epic uselessness by missing with his shot at the Skitarii walker.

Perfectly lined up to miss.

Likewise the Skitarii advance as well, but one Lion failed to take advantage of LOS blocking cover and was the first casualty of the game. The Lion Missile Launcher was struck by a weapon that inflicted two Wounds and I rolled two 6's for the save!

A tense stand off.

The Rainbow Warriors pranced forward into the waiting pulse rifle sights of the Fem Fa'Tau...

Chasing the Rainbow (I know, couldn't resist).

The Rainbow Warriors have a sniper scout that took a shot at the Celestial Lions Missile Launcher but it was ineffective. Then, from out of a bush, a missile streaked out to strike the Celestial Lion Missile Launcher with a dud missile. I was surprised by this, and did a double-take just to try to see the guy...

Has mastered the art of not being seen.

The Tau shot at the Rainbow Warriors. I think she killed one too but I don't recall.

Turn 2

It was another round of futility from the Celestial Lions, they only managed to shoot a Rainbow Scout to death. The Lion's Missile Launcher traded unexploded ordnance with the RW Missile Launcher, but nothing else of note happened.

The Lions, thinking that they have a strategy.

The Skitarii however was here to kill. A guy with a plasma rifle thing totally fried the marine that was on point before the walker ran up and turned another marine into the dust.

Two hearts replaced by one foot.

The Rainbow Warriors and Tau continued to move and shoot against each other. The RW Missile Launcher exchanged the unexploded ordnance back to the CL Missile Launcher, and his combi melta guy slagged another Lion. The Fem Fa'Tau was beginning to maneuver against the Skitarii also, as it was clear that they were a threat to every faction. She managed to take a wound off of the Walker.

Turn 3

I found myself quickly running out of models. At this point I was getting worried about my prospects. I threw Krak Grenades at the Skitarii Walker and they either missed or failed to penetrate it. The Plasma Gunner walked up, rolles a 1 and a 6. The 6 wounded and wrecked the walker. But the 1 resulted in him killing himself and breaking my own army!

Imagine a big ball of plasma in the open space

The Skitarii pressed on, killing more marines and they killed the Fem Fa'Tau Battlesuit earning another VP.

The Skitarii sweep in.

The RW and Tau let fly with a lot of shots. When the smoke cleared I had only two models left, and the other factions were all starting to see a significant bodycount as well.

Turn 4.

Yikes, only two guys left! The Missile Launcher and the Vet Sgt. I decided to focus on the two Skitarii coming up on the board edge. With surprising success, the ML hit and eliminated a skitarii guy with a Krak Missile! The Vet. Sgt closed in on his partner and they ended up locked in combat.

Locked in radioactive combat.

More combat errupted around the field. The Skitarii press forward to engage both the Rainbow Warriors and Tau. During the Skitarii Close Combat phase the Celestial Lion Vet Sgt defeated his foe and boldly advanced towards the Skitarii.

Scout Season is now open. 

This guy took a Wound from Overwatch fire before killing the Pin-up Tau in the Close Combat phase.

Wounded by Overwatch. 

The Rainbow Warriors retaliated. Of particilar note was the Sniper Scout who had moved forward and actually managed to hit with a snapfire shot and killed a Skitarii. We laughed as  it seemed he had to snapfire in order to hit anything!

"Maybe if I hit with a snapfire I get that new paint job..."

In the Tau turn, the xenos scum took their revenge on the machine men. They also tried to deal with the Rainbow warriors as well, but it seemed the Tau were having difficulty bringing them down.

Turn 5

Things are going fast now, with all of us having so few models left. The CL Missile Launcher  reverted back to 'useless' status by shooting another dud rocket at the RW Missile Launcher marine. My Vet Sgt advanced toward the remaining Skitarii survivors. However the Skitarii, eager for maximum VPs, proceed to shoot the Vet Sgt off the table. That karma was quickly cashed in as the Tau would table the Skitarii on their turn.

The picture below shows a stand-off that took a few rounds to resolve, but the Rainbow Warrior scout would win it only to then be vaporized by another Tau on their last turn.

A close quarters stand-off.

Turn 6 and 7 came and went with a flash. The game ended with my Celestial Lion Missile Launcher still trading dud missiles with the Rainbow Warrior Missile Launcher who was still in his bush.

Celestial Lion Missile Launcher view.

Rainbow Warriors Missile Launcher view.

Final VP tallies, as best that I was able to keep up with them:

• Skitarii 9 VPs
• Tau 3 VPs
• Rainbow Warriors 2 VPs
• Celestial Lions 0 VPs 

It was a fun game, with the Skitarii clearly being the foe everyone was fearful of. I performed poorly in the game, the dice dicked me over each chance it got. Even the victorious moments had a price. In hindsight  though I can't say that the Tau and Rainbow Warriors faired too much better...

And what the hell was up with our Missile Launchers?!

"Dude!" "Doooode!"

Hah!