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Belfast, Antrim, United Kingdom
Gonna have to think of something humorous to put here, knowing me this could take some time. So take a seat and remember the walls have been padded for your safety.

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Kraskian Marines

*Warning very picture heavy.

I've finished everything bar the Micro Panzer battlesuits and the Old Crow gunship.

I'm quite proud of these guys and how they turned out, though I plan to add some stencils to the tanks to mark them.

First up is the Company commander:



You can see the camo scheme clearly on the back of the model, it took a while but I am happy with how it appears.

Next is an engineer assigned to the company to repair the vehicles:


Here is the company medical technician:


The company snipers:


Here is the attached Recon team with its Puma IFV (Khurasans Caiman, renamed).


1st Platoon with its attached Jackal heavy APC's.


2nd Platoon in all it's glory:


There are two Leopard medium tanks assigned to the company:


The company currently has one Raptor main battle tank, this tank is the mainstay of the Kraskian Marines:


Because of the requirements placed on this company in its retaking of Oriel II they have been granted the honour of taking a Vulcan heavy tank into combat with them.  These tanks are incredibly rare as the process to make them is long and some of the materials are scarce since the war began.


I'll be adding a background and some information on the marines shortly, but in the meantime you can view more pictures here.

As always please let me know what you think.

Looking recommendations

I have just finished the Kraskian faction (pics up shortly).  However, I'm looking at a 3rd faction, a Russian themed army so I ordered a pack of Armies Army RUSK troops.  They're lovely models and I aim to build an army that is troop centric.  Lots of infantry, 6 x 8 man squads and 2 x 6 man squads, tanks will be medium only provided by the excellent Khurasan Red Eagle tanks.  I'm looking to add some tracked transport, something that looks future Russian, preferably an APC of some kind.  I would like to add some small humvee style vehicles for scouting and some kind of armoured truck for the remaining troops.

Any recommendations?

Tuesday 24 April 2012

New shiny

My order from Micro Panzer arrived and boy are they gorgeous.



They may not have the same level of detail as a space marine but they are perfect as a 15mm mech.

                                                          *next to a Khurasan fed for scale


As with any metal model there are going to be mold lines and excess flash which cleaned away easily enough.  There are some gaps at the back where the hood joins the body which will be tidied up once I find my green stuff (mental note never tidy things up you lose them).



These are gorgeous models and will look great painted up and part of the Kraskian Marines.




I've finished all the old crow vehicles and once I get access to a decent camera I plan to stick some photos up.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

New transport

My new transport for my Khurasan Seals just arrived.  I've to get it cleaned up and painted (pics later).




It'll need washed and based but it's an excellent model with very little flash/excess resin with the exception of the underside, but I doubt it'll actually be seen however I'll still tidy it up.


The Caiman has a lot of detail and has been worth the week wait from order.  Seriously does Khurasan have a transport to get items over to the UK that quick and at a reasonable postage rate?  I know UK companies who charge more for posting less.  They should maybe take a look at how Jon does business.

I'm off to get this thing prepped.

*edit:  I used GW's Chaos Black spray and it settled quite well onto the Caiman.  So feel free to use that but please make sure you give it a full clean and have a full can of black spray unlike me.

Friday 13 April 2012

New shiny stuff

After a bit of a wait (almost 4 weeks) I finally received my Old Crow models.  I have a couple of APC's and tanks along with a gunship.  They're really nice models and I had planned to use them with the Khurasan federal troops I own, but since they are releasing new vehicles soon I'm going to have to get a third army to go along with the Old Crow stuff and I can't decide what to get.  I'll have to let my wallet do the talking, which means very little.

I finished the first platoon of Khurasan feds and after receiving a second platoon Jon did a very heinous act.  He released the Caimon.  I had to have it, so it's currently on the way to me.

One of the big problems I face (as I know most gamers face) is lack of motivation.  Yes I just spent X on a shiny new army and it's arrived but I didn't realise just how many figures I'd bought, oh and the paint scheme shall be overly complicated just cause I hate myself.  I've based 30 figures and gave them their first coat of green, but they've sat on a shelf since Monday gathering dust (damn you Bioware for making me replay ME1&2).  Then you go looking on a forum for inspiration and you see a brand new set of figures or something that just tickles your fancy.  Take for example Micropanzer Russians, I'd originally planned to order some at the start of the month but the store was closed but decided against them telling myself I don't need walkers.  But the more I look at them I think that they are gorgeous models that deserve, nay need to be in my collection.  I just fear that they'll sit unpainted gathering dust.  It's an issue I had in GW, I think in nearly 3 years with them I manged to finish 6 armies.  One for Gothic, one for epic, two 40k, one LOTR and one fantasy undead army.  I had at one stage one company of Steel legion and a company of Praetorian Guard in various stages of painting, basing and filing that eventually was sold to free up space (I regret selling the Praetorian Guard, oh the plans I had).

I guess I suffer from the must have it and not think about the painting till after the shinyness wears off.  With getting back into gaming I realise that this is something I need to combat and only order something new when I need to paint and in the last few months have been quite good its just been the arrival of stuff I've waiting on and the release of new items I want to complete an army.  Basically what I'm asking is, what do you guys do to keep motivated when painting?  I do all the usual stuff, lock myself in a room and play music/watch tv.  Should I hire a dominatrix and tell her to slap me about if I fail to complete a unit/tank within a timescale?  Or should I just throw my cash at someone who can paint and needs extra money?  But does that not defeat the purpose of being a gamer/modeller?

Monday 26 March 2012

Been far too long

Jeepers I hadn't realised that it has been a month since I last posted.  With ME3 being released and replaying ME 1&2 I've lost track of time.  I have managed to do some painting, mostly its been messing around with my new airbrush and working on some Old Crow/CMG buildings.  After watching a video showing the Tamiya weathering kits I bought a few and tested those out on some GZG tanks.



With the first one I brushed orange rust over some OD Krylon I had lying around and with the second one I used the snow weathering as a test to see how OD would look frosted/iced.  Despite the dark pictures I am happy with it.  A word of advice to any who read this do not use Krylon Camo spray on your models.  It is far too thick and can obscure detail, I only bought the GZG tanks to see what they were like and disliked the small size compared to Khurasan and CMG tanks.

I have also painted the Khurasan Siler tank and I'm very happy with how it turned out.  I followed the guide by Robin from Gruntz and it was really handy.  I definately wish youtube had been around when I was a kid, just imagine the models I would have saved!





Based using Chaos Black spray, then with several light coats Vallejo Tan Dark Earth.  Following Robins method I then put blu-tack in various random patterns then I lightly went over it with Vallejo Olive Drab.  I went over it with the sand colour from the Tamiya weathering kit.  It's basic but it looks like a lot more work went into it.

I also have a platoon of infantry done in camo with a second platoon almost completed.  Once they are done I'll stick up some (better lit) photos.  Just waiting on some Old Crow tanks and APC's to arrive to complete the Kraskian faction.  I couldn't resist it and ordered two more CMG grav tanks for the Exosus just for completion sake.

Once thats complete I'm thinking about Flames of War for my next project.  However, I can't decide about whether to go the popular route and build a German army or do a British one.  I'm very tempted by the stuff that the Plastic Soldier Company is putting out German wise.  Lots of cheap Panzers, half tracks and troops.

Will have to see where the dice take me.

Sunday 26 February 2012

Exosus Empire completed (well almost).

Finished the troops that I currently have for the Exosus Empire.  These are from the gorgeous CMG ARC troop range and GZG spider drones.

First up is the Grav APC platoon and troops.  There are 3 squads in the platoon (a theme I stick to for each platoon) and one officer leading them.





I've kept it quite simple, to differentiate between troop/NCO/officer I painted the left shoulder a different colour. Orange for NCO, red for platoon commander and blue for company commander.

Next up is the infantry platoon.  Again, these are similar to the first platoon minus the APC's.


Up next is the 6 GZG spider drones in two teams.  Again they are quite simply painted, I'm not nor have I ever been a golden demon painter, I prefer to keep it basic for the games.  I've added 25mm GW round bases in a simple bright colour to represent the shields on each drone.  I've kept them different colours to represent the 2 squads of drones.



The CMG jet bikes are excellent models and I wanted a squad of them to represent the Exosus' technological superiority.



I don't think one grav tank is enough and now plan to buy one more medium tank and a heavy tank from CMG later in March.  I love how they used the same hull as the basis for most of the ARC vehicles.



Finally up is the company officer and the two snipers.  I'm debating about getting/converting a medic and engineer from the models I have left over but I don't know if having a medic would fit into the theme of the Exosus Empire who use conscripts/volunteers like cattle.


Here is an overview of the two platoons and support.


The Revell Star Wars shuttle I got on ebay dirt cheap (at £3) so I plan to use it as a prop in some games at a later stage.

Now onto starting work on the Kraskian Federation Marines.

See you on the other side.

Saturday 25 February 2012

New shiny items.

Some new items arrived in the post today including my CMG ARC fleet buildings and one extra item from ebay.


For £3 on ebay its a steal!

Wednesday 22 February 2012

A quick update

I'm not very good at updating these things, but I haven't had a chance to do much painting due to work and catching the dreaded manflu.  A couple of new things arrived, some terrain from Wargames Tournament on ebay which is some very nice North Africa buildings and they'll be painted to look like slums/old buildings for my new board.  I also picked up (on the cheap) a KR Cardboard model case.  It's made of a hard cardboard and holds around 200 28mm mini's.  It comfortably fits the minis and the soft foam doesn't appear to scratch the models.  I'm quite impressed with it and with their range of cases, I'll definitely get one of the cases for a bloodbowl team or Necromunda gang.

I did manage to finish a CMG medium grav tank along with 4 CMG ARC jetbikes.  Again I kept them simple as I'm not a great painter.  But I'll stick photos up later.

With the Exosus troops practically finished (only 2 officers and 2 walkers to complete) I started to file and base the Khurasan Federal troops.  These will be playing the role of the Kraskian Federation Marines.  Much like the US Marines of today they put an emphasis on manoeuvre warfare.  With highly trained and motivated troops using the latest in technological advances they carry the fight to the enemy, attacking and harrying them before their fearsome heavy tanks and gunships pulverise them.

With my love of 2nd edition 40k I started to collect the codices (codexes?) and the 2nd ed box.  What I'd love to do is use the rules for 15mm combat.  Obviously certain things will either have to be toned down or removed, like psychic powers, characters and the abundance of wargear along with the insane 90% fire arc for troopers.  I'll have to wait for them to arrive before I start making plans.  I just wonder if anyone else would be interested?

Wednesday 15 February 2012

CMG Grav tanks

I typically do 10+ hours a day in my job so I only get to paint on my days off.  I managed to get the CMG Grav APC's done and thought I'd stick a few photos up of them plus the CMG ARC Fleet Recon troops.  I've started the spider droids and should have them finished shortly (oh the joy of night shifts).

I sometimes hate doing vehicles and I'm always wary when it comes to lots of flat areas.  To fix this and to attempt a weathered look I drybrushed the APC's.  Building up from a dark grey to a lighter grey then adding some splotches of watered down brown paint to represent mud or obstacles that the forward ramp hits.





Sunday 12 February 2012

Exosus Empire

These are to be the bad guys of my gaming universe, one of two initial factions.  As I said before I fell in love with the CMG Arc fleet troops and decided to use these as the Imperial troops.  I wanted a white/grey colour scheme and as these were to be the first models I painted in 6 years I wanted to keep it basic.

Keeping with what I know I started with a black base, then codex grey with a medium drybrush of fortress grey finally a light drybrush of space wolves grey to bring out the edges in the uniform.  Over any armour sections I put a few thin layers of white followed by regal blue then a highlight of enchanted blue on the visor.

When it came to basing I think I made a mistake by putting the sand on the penny before spraying as it left a lot of noticeable gaps and no amount of painting could hide the shine of the penny breaking through.  Lesson learnt, don't put the sand on until you have sprayed the model.  The models were painted with Scorched brown, with a drybrush of bestial brown followed by graveyard earth.  Finally it was topped off with some grass in random patterns.

As I said this is my first attempt at painting in some years so please be gentle with the criticisms.





I've finished the last two squads (in Gruntz they are squads of 8) and plan to start on the two walkers, 4 jet bikes, 6 spider droids, 2 grav APC's and 1 grav tank.  I'll start to post more images when I finish them along with the background for the Exosus Empire.

Thanks for the memories.

I started with models as a kid, painting and building some star wars kits then working my way onto airfix kits.  I had an obsession (some would say unhealthy) with WWII planes and I routinely spent my pocket money on a new airfix kit or paint.  I'd rush home and frantically build the model and paint it.  Whilst my enthusiasm was great, my modelling skills left a lot to be desired.  That all changed when my cousin came home with Heroquest and something changed, we now had games to play with the models. That changed when I saw this ad on tv.



 I had to have it, luckily Christmas was around the corner and Santa was good to me.  Although the models ended up looking like they were dunked in paint I was hooked on the futuristic element to it.  We quickly discovered 2nd edition Epic Space Marine.  I built a massive Space Marine and Guard army.  Luckily GamesWorkshop opened a store near us and we converted to 40k 2nd edition.  This was to be the staple of our wargaming diet for the next few years, a foray into Warhammer but I never enjoyed the fantasy element.  I'd built several armies (Dark Angels, Eldar and Guard) with every penny earned going towards new models, paints and books.  Then GW did something amazing and within a short time released both Blood Bowl and Necromunda.  Now we didn't have to have massive armies to control and games were a lot more competitive, especially in a league game.  These games were exciting and fast

A few years ago I worked for GW in a store and during that time I caught the airsoft bug.  After leaving GW I sold all my stuff including some paints from the early 90's (groan!) and I forgot about gaming with the occassional foray into my local GW.  Content to airsoft instead with friends and game on the PC instead.

About a year ago a friend of mine (and former GW manager) opened his own gaming store Arkham Gaming Centre.  He started to entice me with pictures on his facebook of shiny new miniatures and rules.  The geek in me couldn't resist looking but I couldn't do another GW army and not on their prices.  During my research I started to find a lot of 15mm stuff online and fell in love with the Khurasan feds and CMG ARC Fleet troops.  After finding the Gruntz ruleset I finally bit the bullet and ordered enough models for two armies along with support troops/vehicles.  This brought about a panic buy of brushes, paints, glue, day lamp and other things to help get me started.

And this is pretty much where the blog picks up from, admittedly I've skimmed over a lot of things, but I felt it necessary to give you an idea as to who I am and where I came from in regards to gaming.  I intend to document my painting and gaming along with any crazy ideas I have.