Imperial Guard (Desert), Necrons and Salamander Terminators

So it's been a while for an update here - but it isn't due to lack of activity.  Pictured here is an addition to my slowly growing Desert-themed Imperial Guard army, the start of a new necron army and another start to my son's Salamander Space Marine army.  Enjoy.  All mini's game's workshop, paints by Vallejo.  the Imperial Guardsmen Heavy Weapons unit has a scratch built base along with sand bags made by Tamiya WW2 line.  Weathering on the minis was my first use of the Tamiya pastel weathering products.

Warhammer 40K Custom Imperial Guard Units

So I've been working (slowly) on building a custom desert-themed Imperial Guard Army - hopefully for tournament use someday.  I have most all of the heavy and light units and I'll give a unit and points breakdown one of these days as well.  For the time being, I thought I'd post a pic of some of the test units for color schemes.  The idea is that the planet is protected by standard PDF Guard units (think National Guard) and are supported by a few actual Imperial Guard units as well as a unit of tactical space marines trained especially for desert combat.  Model-wise, the PDF unit is a hybrid between Warhammer Fantasy Battle Militia boxed set (Dogs of War) and a standard Imperial Guard Infantry unit.  The army will also have a unit of Psykers, Ratling Snipers, and several heavy machinery including the Imperial Guard Bombard heavy artillery (www.forgeworld.co.uk custom kit).  Without further ado, here are the test units:

The base with barbwire fence is custom built with components from Galeforce 9 (grit), Army Painter ('Battlefields Highland Tuft - 6mm), Curled Barbwire strand (custom made from small gauge wire), Fence Posts (wooden dowels).  I use Vallejo Paints exclusively on all of my miniatures.

DBA Madness! Ancient Brits (Celts) vs Imperial Romans

I've been busy with a number of things which has prevented me from posting/painting as of late.  I hope to remedy that and to begin with, I will post my most recent miniature endeavor:

So, my good gaming buddy 'mothertruckin' (his boardgamegeek alias) has introduced me to DBA. DBA stands for De Bellis Antiquitatis.  It is a historical miniatures wargame that features 15mm historical minis.  The game is by Wargames Research Group.  I'll be using the Ancient Brits (Celts) and he'll be using the Imperial Romans.  I'll detail his army as he builds it.  We're hoping to build into further armies including Aztects and other interesting ethnic units.

I purchased my set from Corvus Belli and his Imperial Romans will be made by the same company.  The Corvus Belli 15mm Ancient British boxed set comes with a complete army so there's no need to hunt and peck to piece your army together.  They are provided unpainted and unbased.  The only assembly required is gluing them to your base of choice, adding shields to certain units and also the assembly of riders to horses for cavalry units as well as assembling the chariots and riders.  The boxed set comes with the following:

2 Units of Cavalry (2 horses and 2 riders per unit)
2 units of bare-chested spearmen (2 men per unit)
4 chariots (each with 2 horses and 2 riders, 1 of which is Queen Bodica)
2 units of slingers (2 men per unit)
10 units of swordsmen/spearmen (this is an an assortment, but each units has 3 men)

The 15mm scale lends itself to retaining some level of detail, yet not so detailed as to really slow down the process.  I painted the following so far in about 3 days of several hours a day:

So the units complete so far:

1 chariot with riders

2 units of spearmen

2 units of slingers

Pictured:

Corvus Belli 15mm Ancient British

Paints: Game Color by Valejo

Bases: Litko Rectangular Miniature Bases 40x15mm (spearmen and slinger units)

           Litko Square Miniature Bases 40mm (chariot)

Basing Grit:  Gale Force 9 Fine Sand Grit

Assembled and Painted by yours truly.  More to come as the army grows! 

40k Black Templars

So here's my first attempt at a Warhammer 40K Space Marine Unit: Black Templars.  Thanks to Todd Heck at Crossroad Hobbies in Dickinson, N.D. for providing the mini's and some paint.  These will most likely be displayed at the store and hopefully used in skirmishes or possibly even a full 40k battle sometime soon!  The purple bases most likely represent them fighting on a chaos or genestealer/tyranid world.

Miniatures: Games Workshop.  Paints:  Game Color Acrylicos Vallejo, Games Workshop Citadel Color. Miniatures painted by TSN.

D&D 4e Commissioned Party

So here's the final group: Dragonborn warrior, Dwarven Monk, Human Mage, Halfling Assassin, Half-Orc Warrior all facing a Snowy Owl Bear.  This group was commissioned by a fellow RPG'er on d6d20.com.  I believe he will be using them in his summer D&D 4e campaign.  All miniatures are Reaper Brand save for the owlbear which is a Dungeon Crawl Classics line miniature from Goodman Games.  All miniatures painted by TSN.

Dwarven Monk vs Owlbear

 These are two of five miniatures commissioned by a member of d6d20.com.  I'm painting the miniatures for use in his D&D campaign.  Pictured here is a dwarven monk that is testing his meddle against a snowy owlbear.  Bets anyone?

Extreme Zombie Hunter at Fargo Core Con 2010

I was recently invited as a guest of honor at Fargo Core Con 2010 (www.fargocorecon.org).  I had a booth and gave a presentation on composing for THE CALL OF CTHULHU and upcoming THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS.  I did manage to get away to the game room and partake in a few games.  One extremely fun game was Xtreme Zombie Hunter.

From the publisher:

Xtreme Zombie Hunter is a comedic table-top miniatures game compatible with all 25mm miniatures of Zombies and the personality types that might hunt them. Set in a fictitious modern day America where Zombies are real and hunting them on national TV has become all the rage! XZH delivers a simple system, which is character driven to encourage replayability, full of laughs and can be enjoyed by 1 or more players. XZH lets you experience the hysterical nature of a B style Zombie movie with a twist.

The game began with myself and the second player both rolling snake-eyes and breaking our sniper rifles as we landed.  We got everyone's attention in the game room with our whooping and yelling with those rolls.

I was immediately surrounded upon landing on the playing field by a mob of 'howlers' represented by the zombie clowns.

I did manage to fight my way through and head towards a building where another player had already found and initiated the beacon.  Of course, the beacon not only summons the chopper (which arrives on at a randomly determined time) but it also causes the zombies to swarm to the beacon's location.  One of the players spent a good deal of his time being chased around the building as shown in the picture below.

While he was leading them around the building, we raced towards the other side where the beacon was.  He managed to outrun most of the zombies, but upon turning the corner, they smelled his brains and the chase began anew.  We managed to all make it to the beacon, save for the one player being chased.  Another player used the 'plug!' option which requires you to stop and give a plug for your sponsor (the game is being broadcast to tv viewers - think RUNNING MAN).  Despite the back-stabbing move, the plugged player managed to make it to the beacon.  We continued to fight off the zombie hoard that was gradually swarming over us and were eventually all rescued.  The GM said he had not had a game where everyone survived!

SWARM!

I'll be posting more pics and games from the 2010 Fargo Core Con soon...