Old West Fighters.

I seem to be painting Bad Squiddo again.  This time some Old West Fighters. These are reasonably new sculpts from their range, a great addition to my ever growing Old West Town. I must photograph the set up one day for this blog, it is the largest set of scenery I have.

 

 

Painting these was the ideal opportunity to try out my newest tool at my painting station, a new brush, painting grip, craft knife? No, reading glasses. I have always been blessed with decent vision and never needed glasses before. However, I have been increasingly struggling with details. I have been taking photos of my models to then notice things I am missing and although I could concentrate on them to see details, it became harder as I got tired. I did consider one of these fancy sets of magnifying goggles you see at wargame shows. A cheap pair of reading glasses however has proven to be just the job. I do perch them on the end of my nose much to the amusement of my youngest son who declared I look like a librarian.

Talking of my youngest son, he has become a keen hobbyist already. For his birthday he asked for some Space Marine kits and we built and painted them together. He is a lot more interested in the gaming side of the hobby at the moment though and was keen to deploy his ever increasing army on a tabletop. Having long given up on current 40K rules I fished out the pdf of the playtest version of the new Xenos Rampant rules. (Based on Lion/Dragon Rampant rules, the book comes out in November.)

The Distinguished (Brother in Law) and Illustrious Opponents were both invited (or summoned?) over for a gaming session. My son (the Junior Opponent?) had a lovely time happily winning multiple games and quickly picked up the rules, in fact by the end of the day he would be correcting me on them. 

The Distinguished Opponents Dark Angel Space Marines bravely take on the Junior Opponents Ultramarines tank, bristling with guns.

My Chaos cultist army squeezing into the deployment zone.

The Distinguished Opponents old school style Beaky Marines.


Apologies for not including photos from the Illustrious Opponent, too much fun was being had to remember to record much of the event. I can safely say though, once the proper rulebook comes out, I think it will definitely become a household favourite.

Finally I thought I would add a photo of another quick project I did lately. Way back in the last millennium I had combined the arms from some plastic Genestealers with the bodies of metal Hormogaunts from Games Workshop. I was never completely happy with them as the heads had a clearly distinguishable face. So much more recently I have added some green stuff and blended in to make them look more recognisable and given the paintwork another touch up. I am quite happy with the finished result: 

No Salute Today

It should have been Salute today. So, a second year running I am missing you all, with you backpacks and your trolley suitcases. Getting up at a ridiculous time in the morning to catch two trains, then a walk across London, a tube, the DLR then a final walk to join the massive queue. The annual game of look at the other passengers on the DLR and guess whether they are a wargamer or a marathon runner, all good fun. To think that last year I genuinely was keeping my fingers crossed that this would all blow over by April so Salute would still go ahead, never mind still be going on a year later. On the plus side, start putting a tenner a week to one side for spending budget for Salute and you'll be drowning in lead by the end of the day by the time you get to the Excel.

So, what have I been painting this week? Well, one of the joys of blogging is you have a date record of when you obtain some items. So I know I got these models in June 2018. Painted in less than two years, that isn't too bad for a grumpy Longbeard wargamer. 

With the imminent arrival of Stargrave and Xenos Rampant, I thought I might have a little flutter with a bit of Sci-fi. 

These are Grenadier "Troopers with heavy weapons". They have a definite Aliens feel to them with what look like Pulse rifles and flak armour. I might even see if I can find some suitable Xenos for them to be swarmed by.