Into the flames

The first unit of my Flames of War army rolls in. I've chosen the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps as the theme for a late war Tankovy battalion. At the moment this is only visible in the Czech/Czechoslovak flag on one of the tanks. Later on I hope to add the appropiate roundels, numbers and slogans. I'm still looking for pictures of tanks in this particular army and for fitting decals in this scale. Main force will consist of T34's (what else?) in /76 and /85 versions, with support of infantry and some SU-85 tank hunters or even IS-2 (in pink?)



Painting 'historical' instead of 'fantasy' vehicles and figures was something to get used to. Many, many years ago I used to be a 'serious' model-maker and I had to rediscover some of the skills involved. And despite that the Battlefront miniatures are very nice and all five have their own distinct stowage and details, it's quite hard to create a nice paint finish for vehicles that basically were painted in one color.


Anyway, the first batch is finished, 10 more are waiting! Any comments and tips (especially on weathering effect on this scale) are welcome!

Malus Darkblade

And now for something completely different. I've been painting a lot of dwarfs recently. All the more reason to paint something different in between as a sideproject. Actually I'm still painting dwarfs but when paint dries it is nice to have a different paint object to do some painting on. I took some quick pictures just to get the idea of the finished product. I'm quite content with the cold one!

After reading all stories of Malus Darkblade and a discount at the local hobby shop on metal blisters I had to get Malus as a model. The cold one really makes this model. It comes with two heads. A rather blocky squarish plastic head and a vicious looking multipart metal head. The latter being much cooler for the model but a bit more difficult to paint and assemble. I painted the total model in separate parts for once: two sides of the cold one were glued together but that was it, the jaw, upper part of the head, torso of Malus, the sword arm and the cape were all painted before assembly. It makes for a much easier paint and gives much more detail in those hard to reach parts when painting a pre assembled model. Only the coloring on the joining parts was more difficult to get right.
I stayed with the blues for this model. The cold one being blue, the armour of Malus having a blue sheen on it and Malus' cloak is blue, even the inscriptions on the blade are a bright blue. All in all very inkeeping with the model. Malus' cloak however could have been better with a contrasting color in the end being yellow or red or something.

BTB: Mordheim, The Siege

After playing the border town burning campaign for a while, it was time for it to come to an end. We wer playing regularly (once per 4-6 weeks), but to reach the 40 campaign points is taking just to long. The campaign was good while it lasted but it was time for the final battle. The three most regular players (in this case, dwarfs, chaos and halflings) got together for this epic battle.

The dwarfs took the defence and the halflings allied with the Nurglings. Fortifying themselves behind thick walls and a big gate, the dwarfs took position. The thunders (5 strong) took ther aim from the top walls along the gate and the rest (2 slayers, one hired slayer, 4 beardlings) stood behind the gate.

Outside a blizzard was blowing strong, visibility reduced to 10 inch the dwarfs couldn't see the Nurglys setting up and the row of halfling bowmen taking position. On the other hand the evil allied forces couldn't make out a dwarf as well so all was even.
The alied forces advanced at the gate. The Nurglys sending the cheep troops up front and letting the expensive hero's do a sneak climb at the far side of the wall. A warlock flew over the wall into one of the buildings in the castle. The dwarfs started to let loose volleys of led. Blackpowder smoke obscuring the gate even more in the blizzard. They did not that much damage in subsequent turns. This could also be said for the halflings. THey were shooting flights of arrows to the wall but failing to damage a single dwarf. Turn after turn the shooting continued and 2 dwarfs went down.

Meanwhile the warlock was trying to set fire to a building with some magic. Probably the flying consumed all his energy, because he fumbled and failed epically! The rest of the Nurgly heroes were scaling the wall and the dwarfs behind the wall were doing some patroling but were too far away. The Nurglys were setting fire to a building with the three of them and clever enough trapping themselves in the fire! They were pinned and taking damage here! Finally the warlock managed to set fire to a building and it burnt down to the bottom in minutes.

The dwarfs managed to kill a thieving halfling that had hidden within the Castle walls; one of the slayers that is. The rest of the dwarfs not shooting at the horde at the gate (that was having much difficulty with the gate since only 1 member of the warband was strong enough to damage the door: the pitfighter), were running to engage combat with the Nurgly heroes. The slayers were really going down on Ticky and ShyShy, in moments only pulp was left in the hallways of the castle. The warlock didn't stand long as well and the Nurglys were thinned down.

Outside the gate the Halflings wer sick of waiting and wasting arrows and started pumping arrows in their allied Nurglys in front of them. A massive onslaught continued. After a couple of turns the halflings and Nurglys were halved. All warbands were now taking route tests each turn and it was inevitable that one warband should leav the game. When some earthquakes started to shudder the castle and surrounding grounds it was too much for the Nurglys. They ran of the battlefield. The Dwarfs were taking this bad as well, the Noble could reroll a failed route test one time (he failed the roll with a double 6) and failed the reroll just as badly (again a double 6), leaving the few halflings that were left with the victory!

What an epic battle it was, this was no doubt the biggest onslaught for all warbands. All the saved fundings were put in to expand the warbands to full capacity, resulting in this epic fight. A worthy ending of the Border town burning campaign. Now only to start searching for the new campaign setting...