Star Wars X-wing miniatures game

(Me coming third at a recent event - although in Loughborough I'm still 5 wins 8 losses for X-wing!)

So long term readers of this blog will remember project far far away (where I converted and made a full Star Wars imperial guard army, including X-wing vendettas! Check out the far far away tag for more on that.) so it may only come as a surprise to me that I now play the X-wing miniatures game. 

As a kid I have to confess it was Star Trek, Stargate and then Star Wars in that order. But as I've grown up Star Wars has become much more prominent in my mindset. I still love the other two, but it's funny because I think Star Wars is probably the most socially acceptable. 

My #1 favourite thing about the game is how tight the ruleset is. They are constant evolving it, but the original ships in the original boxed set are still viable options. There is not a lot of room for misinterpretation or rules abuse, and when there is something I've noticed that FFG fix it reasonably quickly. 

My #2 thing is that it's so easy to learn and play. For a 40k player, it's almost like just playing settlers or something like that. There is a lot less to keep track of than munchkin for example. You're literally picking the template that corresponds to the thing you pick on your dial. No moving. That extra inch, or debating what's gone line of sight. 

The #3 thing that a lot of people mention is the fact that the ships are pre-painted! For me, I'd agree but u actually really enjoy painting them :) check out the blog later this week (probly the weekend) for a vlog showing some of them off!

There are a bunch  of other things, but to be honest the main one for me is the players. Even at the most competitive levels I've experienced, where prizes dished out by the manufacturer are stake (unlike 40k I hasten to add) there is never anything like the bad manners that I've experienced in 40k. It's so much nicer. Even thou it's a high standard of play, it's a high standard of sportsmanship as well. How refreshing. 

I'm taking my new, force awakens core set to blog wars to intro somebody, but should have a 100 point fleet with me as well. If you're around the night before and up for it, then let me know. Happy to run a larger intro game, or even get in a game :)

Blog Wars Three Round Up

WARNING... this is going be a long, and texty post.

So, Me, Pete, Dan and Ian went to Blog wars 3 today. Awesome tourney, I think I actually preferred it to throne of skulls. The guys at Malestrom were excellent, and Alex Brown who runs From the Fang was a great host/organiser. Kudos to him. Check out his blog, for everything, ever. http://fromthefang.blogspot.co.uk/

The Games, in Summary. So, of the four of us, I placed last. Good stuff. I finished 20th out of 26th, with loss, draw and draw for 28 points. Pete got Loss, Win, Loss for 30 points (I think) Dan came 5th with Loss, Win, Win and the Mr Ian King placed 6th with Win, Loss, and Win, only three Game points behind Ian. Pete faced big bugs twice and got a bit frustrated, Dan got run over by the defending champion on the way to his victory, and Ian continues to punch very hard, and very fast at tourneys.

My Day.

First Game, I faced James from Sheep of war. An excellent opponent, he had a Jokaero themed list, with purifiers. Despite the fact that it was completely monkeys, he had a pretty hardcore list with three psyfldreads, Coteaz and lots of rending Lasscannons. I ended up going down 9 – 11 bottom of turn 7. I was winning bottom of turn 5, and drawing bottom of 6 I think. Highlight for me was charging Luke Skywalker into Coteaz, chopping his head off with a lightsaber and eating a Deamonhammer. Only to get back up in my go.

So I strolled back to where I belonged, in the bottom half. Game 2 saw me face a really cool guy (who I am really sorry but can’t remember his name! It may have been James I think) they were very pretty Tyranids. Lots of BIG bugs, including two Trygons, Swarmlord, Two Tervigons and 4 Hivegaurd. Highlight would have been blowing away two Trygons with the right amount of shooting. Yes, it was a lot of plasma and Lasscannon, but it was nice that it works! I should have lost this game. I know this feeling so well from the other side, you are all over your opponent, then they just realise that actually they can still get something out of the game. About my turn 4 (of 7) I realised that a draw was the best I could probly get. Whilst I was winning on 1 table quarter bottom of turn 5 (love love love going second with this list!) it ended in a draw, and after a couple of crucial roles I was able to get a draw. Which was very hard earned, and in some respects felt like a win. Total respect for the guy I played, he was brilliant with everything and I couldn’t fault him.

My Third game saw me jazz dance one table down despite my draw to 10 of 13. This time I faced a chap who I believe may have been called Scott, friends with Alex. His painting was simply beastly, total respect to him for that. He had three Predators, Mephiston (my auto loose choice) and land raider (can’t hurt those) and some other mech MSU stuff. He was I think, expecting me to outflank, but I don’t think he was expecting me to spend literally every turn chasing his predators around his back field. What units did I use for this you ask?

On their last outing for a while, I used Penal Legion. 240 points of Wesley Crusher, Starbuck and Daniel Jackson kept 540 points of Blood Angels Tanks occupied for 6 turns. Two squads with fleet, furious charge and counter attack plus Wesley rending for fun killed one and stopped the other two shooting for at 70% of the game. Brilliant. I have to say, he is the nicest opponent I have played probably all year. As for the result, it ended in a draw, but I think that is slightly because every single one of my units punched well above their weight. That is the stuff that dreams are made of.

So I ended with 28 points, in 20th place. Not too shabby. I wasn’t last, I didn’t win but I had loads of fun and really enjoyed a day out with guys. Congrats to the defending champ, the steamroller with nothing but a kill setting... Atreides from SoS! Are we going next time? If Alex will have us, hell yes.

Highlighting White.

How exactly do you highlight white? Let’s break that down a little. White is the existence of all colours on the colour spectrum. It is I suppose not a “colour” more an orgy of colours and light. Or something. Anyways, how do you “highlight” that? Surely making brighter something that is... brightness is a bit of a waste of time?

Yes. That's my opinion on the subject. But wait! Today’s post is on that. So how did I resolve this issue? Well, having talked to Jo (whilst on a bus) he said to use a 50/50 mix of skull white and space wolves grey. My concern was that I am trying to repaint the storm troopers ready for blog wars 3 as I really speed painted them beforehand. Their armour is completely white, and pretty blocky at that. That's basically how I've always painted white, to differing results. These guys did not look good.

What I eventually arrived at doing was washing them with badab black over the white and this evening I have worked up from that with a coat of space wolves grey/ skull white and then a coat of thinish skull white for highlighting. Dont get me wrong, I don’t think I will win a painting comp with them, but they look a darn sight better and I'm really happy. I've got some fairly grainy pics below:

These are basically of the sergeants from both squads. One of which has been done, (1st pic) and the other hasn’t (2nd pic). The wash and following layers, though you can’t see it from the pictures that clearly have really added that definition that I was craving and I'm really pleased with the outcome for amount of effort I've put in. It only took me about 90 mins for the first 8, which for me is fast!

Blog War 3

Blog Wars 3 So. The Dream Team that is Me, Pete, Dan and Ian (I like to think of us as Luke Fogg and The Shadows) are booked into Blog Wars 3. I'm quite excited, because I wanted to go last year, but was really not quick enough to the drop. So here we all are. My List is going to be Project Far Far Away, (partly because I cant be bothered to rush out 1500 points of howling griffons in two months) and partly because they look awesome. I've already started on improving the paint jobs, because I really rushed the storm troopers in the closing stages.

Here’s the Original List:

Yarrick

4 Squads of Penal Legion

2 Squads of Vets

2 Vendettas

1 Valkyrie

2 Squads of Storm Troopers

1 Leman Russ

I'm thinking about dropping the Leman Russ. My concerns stem from it does not fit in with the character of the rest of the army, and also it doesn’t look like it’s from star wars at all. Id probly replace it with a command squad with Astropath and lots of plasma in a chimera, and another Chimera for the second squad of Storm Troopers. This means I get the drop earlier (turn two with everything) as opposed to relying on luck to score what I want, where I want.

My issue with that is that I may start using my one nemesis. Tactics. This one word cripples me when it comes to wargames. Playing with what is pretty much a full outflank army nerfs that completely, as I just place them where the dice tells me works both with and against me. Regardless, I'm not going to get any games in this week as I have to work a late shift in Christian bookshop land. Just theoretical. Not yet practical.

More Star Wars Pics

Well, that pic i sent Bell of lost souls got posted way sooner that i thought (ie 24 hours). so here is a few more pics and some old ones at the top of the blog so you havent got to scroll down :)

Personal Acheivement unlocked - get models in local store's cabinet (where they still are lol)

The duel - the reason that luke is named is that every single model (80+) is named. so there are battlestar galatica squad, star trek squad etc etc.

Star trek squad - Wesley Crusher and the Crushettes. (Wesley is hard as nails)

Outflank! i lost this game....

This was Jo's Models in the best army nomination cabinet

Humming ride of the valkyries (i also lost this game)

Transformers Squad

Darth in the Cabinet

The Whole Army

Its Life Jim, But Not As We Know It

A Blog Post! (Finally)

So, I’ve finished the four squads of penal legion. And two xwings! The cool part of the army is done! The swirling vortex of geek continues as I now have a BSG, Star Trek, Stargate SG-1 and Transformers squad. Think the veterans are going to be Firefly, and maybe Babylon 5.

I have, however, worked out that I have only just over a month... which is less good. I'm currently painting the veteran squads, as rebel fleet troopers. Don’t think I’ve quite nailed the blue, but I'm really happy with the colours actually. Gotta buy a whole bunch of plastic Meltaguns and heavy flamers (I'm really trying to stick to the no metal rule if I can) anyways, here is what they look like:





Gonna try and bash out the other 5 over the next day or so, and maybe then buy my 3rd xwing. In other news, have you seen the ogre kingdom models? There is this guy: the ogre ninja. AMAZING. Whilst I'm not always a fan of new models (especially atm, some of them are really not my taste) this guy is frankly hilarious.



an ogre, thats a ninja!

sunshine, star wars and scotland

So, this is a picture heavy blog post! Recently I have been to a test match, Glasgow, and also other things. I saw stranded ninjas truescale darth vader in person, seems pretty awesome! It is hot today, and I have been painting my second xwing outside! The airbrush gun allowed me to already be on other colours that aren’t the base colour, which pleases me. There is still a lot of work to be done on it, but its on its way.










There are 3 squads now, transformers, star trek and battlestar galatica. After the second xwing, ill probly do the last squad and then move onto the veterans and storm troopers! I haven’t found a decent conversion for luke skywalker! I don’t know if I should be basing the veterans of death korps or drop troopers, but both of those are expensive!

Flying on a (x) wing and a prayer

Sorry for the absence of posting... I wanted to wait until I had something to show you... hope its worth the wait!






So, this is my first X wing! The base isn’t done yet. I did try a full snow base, which worked but didn’t look good. So I'm going for the classic sand method. This first shot is of the whole thing side on. It hasn’t got any kill markings on it, I haven’t decided on how to go about that.

The cockpit was a COMPLETE pain in the bum. It didn’t fit quite right; I’ve had to green stuff the gaps (which looks not so awesome.) The things that I'm particularly pleased about with this model are the freehand, the stability, the fact that it looks as good as I hoped it would, and that I painted the guys inside the cockpit.

The things that I’ve learnt for next time are to pin the wings, make sure the cockpit lines up properly, and to use as spray gun. Seriously, I cannot be bothered to paint that much surface area twice more. I think using a airbrush for the next two will be faster, and provide more even coverage with no brush strokes. Furthermore, if I knock all the paint up at once, it will all be the same colour!

Next I intend to paint probly 2 more squads of penal legion, just cos I'm a bit sick of painting vehicles.

The first rule of Geek club

Is that you don’t talk about Geek club. Very similar to Glee Club, Tea Club or any other club with Brad Pitt in (yes he does follow this blog). other rules of Geek Club include (but are not limited too) making sure you spend all day in your room painting Warhammer, avoiding social contact, and prioritising Geek activities over everything else. Behold my contribution to Geek Club this week:








This has essentially taken me ages to get to this point. And for some reason, the model really stinks. Think its cos I spray painted onto unset green stuff. Meh. The bits that aren’t so grey painted are going to be red squad markings. The mix is Bleached Bone/Boltgun Metal at a 2.5:1 ratio. Ive actually used so much on this guy that I had to go to GW Leicester to replenish my paints today specially. I said to the staff member in there that it was for my xwing, and he said “oh you’re the guy that's making that.” which pleased me! Whoever it is that is telling people, please keep raving about me! All for a good cause (my ego).


In other news, I was supposed to play fantasy tomorrow night. I have found (hopefully) a new group of people to play with now Stranded Ninja is going to Glasgow. I think that this blog may grow a little into a Fantasy Blog as well, even though project Far Far Away remains my primary concern. I already feel behind and its May lol.

Joining The Dark Side?

So, after a week of silence I thought I should update. Not much has happened since I built the first X-Wing, but here is a run down:

• Lost to Stranded ninja twice in the last week. Once in anhilation and once in Capture and control. He knows my dirty little tricks now, and that's how my army works....

• Have ordered all the lascannons I need of ebay, and they are on their way to me now  excited!

• I now have two fully painted squads of penal legion / Rebel pilots. One Star Trek squad and one Battlestar Galatica Squad. I did some nice freehand on the sergeants shoulderpad. Unfortuantly there is no pic to go with this at this time. (I will try and update that shortly)

• I've realised that I love Lego



Essentially my plans now are to really try and being to nail the models. What with Stranded Ninja moving to Glasgow in just over a week I'm loosing my gaming partner and my best friend. Both of these things suck, but its gonna leave me with loads more time. Some of this will be taken up by the Bible Group Leadership that I'm starting, but I intend to try and paint loads now.

Other exciting news is that I may have found another gaming outlet. There is a club called the Leicester Sabres that meets near me at a time that I can go to. Plus somebody I met at church actually goes, so I'm hoping that that's a way in. As ever, the road to every epic fail will be covered right here......

In A Cage Of Emotion

Ok so, little update from my world of Warhammer! This week I finished the 10 models I had (pics below, ordered some more bits for my xwing conversion from America (they haven’t turned up yet) and played Stranded Ninja.



So, these are the finished models. They are from 2 different squads because I realised that I had forgot to model a sergeant so I painted the last 3 up as green squadron. Furthermore, I realised that I hadn’t used any pilot helmets. I intend to use the spare helmets from the Valkyrie to make it look like some of the models are actually pilots. At least that's the master plan. I have actually run out of stuff to paint, since Im only painting project far far away at the moment.



Every model has something interesting going on with the base; this guy is supposed to have one of the storm trooper helmets on his base. Furthermore, ive decided to name each of the squads after something Geek centred. These two are Star Trek and Battlestar Galatica, with squads to follow of Star wars, Babylon 5, Stargate, etc etc. I intend to create a swirling geek vortex that will cause such a nerdgasm the people playing me have no choice but to concede....



In the game against stranded ninja, things did not go according to plan. Some things that normally happen took place (we played pass the baby with his daughter – i.e. I hold her in his go, and he in mine) but aside from that things did not. He used a DOA blood angel’s army, at which point I kinda lost the plot. I’ve changed my list a tiny bit, and managed to squeeze in two squads of veterans who wield Meltaguns and heavy flamers. So it now looks like this:

Yarrick x1
Penal legion x4
Veterans with Meltagun x2, Heavy Flamer. X2
Storm Troopers with Plasma gun x2 and Plasma Pistol. X2
Vendetta x2
Valkyrie with Rocket Pods x1
Hydra x3

I'm actually pretty happy with this list (thou the proxying is getting confusing) but I think it gives me more tactical ability whilst only mildly taking away from the “wing and a prayer” aspect of the army. It means that one of the Storm Trooper Squads Outflanks with all my Penal Legion whilst the vets ride with the other squad in my Air Cav. It does take me to higher number of kill points, but I don’t mind that.

So the game in hand did not go well for me. We got kill points and spearhead. I elected to go second (this army really likes going second) and promptly castled in a corner, about a foot square. Bad idea. It meant when his drop pods, storm ravens, dreadnoughts and Mephiston came down I was in a glass cage of emotion of my own design.



Having said how much I like my vets squads, they did sweet nothing. When the first and second Talon Dreads came down, I promptly blew all the arms and legs off the pair of them, but took until TURN 5 to kill them both (and even then the big toy boys had to pitch in!)

Essentially, I wasn’t really able to play keep away and was behind from the very start. I ended up losing 4-6 of KPs at the bottom of turn 5. I think I probably should of castled in the centre (the terrain was pretty meh for the whole board) just so that he couldn’t box me in so easily and then my outflanks would have been nearer to help, as lot of the time it really was eggs in one basket that turned out to be more like a wonky sieve.

And the X wing Conversion? well... hopefully thats what im going to be working on next. stay glued to this space.

Im not dead!

So yeah, getting a bit lax on the updates of late. “real life” or whatever that is, is beginning to try and take over for me. Standing for election does that you I guess. Anyways, just wanted to share a few pics of the rebel troopers that I’ve nearly finished!






As you can see, they aren’t based yet. But you can kinda see the rebel alliance icon on the side of their heads. These guys are red squadron, still need another 4 manly colours! Any ideas? Obviously they can’t clash with orange jump suit, or the red rebellion logo.

Dont Let The Sun Go Down On Me (or the rebellion)

So, just a quick update with a few pics. These guys aren’t sprayed, just got the scopes today and have been gluing them on. Trying to mimic the rebel rifles (badly). I've been considering getting some Elysian’s in for the storm trooper models, but that’s EXPENSIVE. In other news, the feedback ive been getting (mainly from will) is that the grey knights cant take loosing models. This doesn’t suprise me. Look out for a stupid henchmen list on here soon :)