Rebel Troopers for Imperial Assault

As some might have noticed, some friends and I have been playing Imperial Assault for a while. For a certain amount of time I had the idea to follow the releases to bring the whole Star Wars universe to live but luckily for my wallet Fantasy Flight Games (and in Germany Heildeberger / Asmodée) were too fast for a slow painter and volatile hobby fellow like me. Thus my efforts ended with those sets which are represented in the Imperial Assault app meaning the first wave at the moment.

Therefore I had a set of three rebel troopers lying around and somehow I felt it was time to splash some paint on them. Rather soon we want to continue with our campaign and we might need those allies to fight the fierde forces of the Galactic Empire.

 

The set contains of three troopers in the well-known uniform featured in the iconic opening sequence of episode IV. They are all nice and clean casts although all three figures are identical.

Colourwise I left the greyish 1970s schene a bit and went for the more colourful blue and khaki scheme wich the computer game Star Wars: Battlefront delivered.

After all those models were truly fun to paint. The details all crisp and clear, the facial expression easy to follow and a simple uniform which allowed a quick painting style.

As usual I used Vallejo paints for most parts of the figures and the Wargames Foundry skin coulours for face and hands.

Only the bases are bit of a problem. Imperial Assault may be set in various surroundings from the wooded areas of Endor to the dark and grimy hangars of an outer rim space port. Therefore I didn't find a good solution for shaped bases and left them greyish. So I applied some dark grey and added a series of lighter splashes.

 

Nevertheless I'm still pondering about changing to clear acrylic bases but I haven't brought myself to re-basing my whole Imperial Assault collection yet.

Cruel Seas: Schnellboote ahead !

Lately I presented a some Vosper MTBs for Cruel Seas and of course they need some enemies to fight with. Although a friend of mine started to collect some German navy boats I had a couple of E-boats lying around from the starter box. So why not paint them to have some stuff for both sides ready...

The starter set comes with two sprues with two E-boats each. One S-38 design and one better armed S-100 version. Firstly I painted the S-38 boats in a standard greyish colour scheme. Somehow I wasn't in the mood for fancy camouflage. We had a game scheduled two days later so time was precious.

The boats are armed with a 20mm gun forewards and a 37mm gun sternwards. Pretty heavy compared to the British Vospers which are employing a 20mm gun only (besides some machine guns which have the German boats as well).  In addition the boats are faster than their British opponents. But more expensive in points as well.

The later S-100 version has a armoured bridge section and is better armed since it comes with an additionol twin 20mm gun midships. In addition it has the option to mount either the 37mm gun or a quad 20mm gun sternwards. But here Warlord really blundered. The E-boat sprue comes with only one 37mm gun which you tually need to equip the S-38 boat with. But then there's no 37mm for the S-100. Looks like somehow hasn't thought really deeply while designing that sprue...

Nevertheless those boats are as nice models as the Vospers are. As you see I painted the S-100s with a darker deck based on a picture I found in an Osprey book.

Torpedos los!

Cheers

Stefan

Cruel Seas: Armed Trawler

The fleet boxes for Cruel Seas really provide a nice selection of models. The Royal Navy for example come with the mandarory Vospers, some Fairmile MTB and an Armed Trawler. After rushing through the Vospers and E-boats I took the trawler as a more special model and painted it during the last days:

It's a large ship (though 'large' in 1/300) that comes in resin with metal parts. Overall the parts fit very well. Only the masts needed some deeper holes to fit in the hull proberly. A really nice add-on is the metal crew. They come in strips of three seamen but can be cut into single crewmembers or pairs easily. Since there were more then enough seamen for the trawler I transfered two of them to one of my Vospers to man the bridge appropriately.

The flag is again from the generic Royal Navy flag sheet by Warlord Games. But this time I used the Red Ensign instead of the White Ensign. Although I know that the Red Ensign is appropriate for British merchantmen I didn't check it on historial material. I just followed Warlord Games example...

Anyway, the ship comes with two 3" guns and appears properly armed to scare some E-boats. The guns are nice metal pieces as well and have crew figures on them. Very nice little bits. I'd wish to see them available individually to have them available for the plastic boats. Making the guns available individually would - by the way - solve the problem with the missing 37mm gun in the German E-boat sprue...

As usual I used mostly my trustworthy Vallejo paints. Starting with a basecoat of Uniform Grey spray primer (by Armypainter) I applied VMC 70.924 Russian Uniform WWII. It's a rather light greyish green because I wanted to try a different colour scheme on the trawler. On some Warlord Games pictures their trawler looks slightly greenish so I chose this colour. Anyway the result looks even greener then desired but I'm happy with it anyway. After the colour was dry I applied some of the AK washes to get some shadows. Then drybrushing with VMC 70.821 German Camoflage Beige and VMC 70.884 Stone Grey. Finally some more AK washing for weathering especially on the lower parts of the hull.

That's it for now. I hope you like it.

Cheers

Stefan

Cruel Seas: Vospers and eels

Ahoi Jack Tars and Landlubbers,

finally my first entry for this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge:

Vospers and eels

Shortly before Christmas Warlord released their new WWII naval skirmish game Cruel Seas. Frankly for a long time their wasn't a release that I was so much looking forward to. Anyway my pre-order didn't arrive in time and more than two weeks of desperate wainting overshadowed my december. Anyway shortly before Christmas the starter set arrived and I couldn't resist painting enough boats for the first couple of scenarios. So here we go with the Vospers first.

Actually the basic games comes with six Vospers but until now I've painted only four of them. They are all in 1/300 (6mm) scale but very detailed. Due to the thick plastic they appear a bit bulky but nevertheless really nice models.

9th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.... I'm in!

Nearly a years has passed with no noticebly activity on this blog. So actually there are two possible ways for 2019:

Monty, get off your backside and bring up content again!

or

Desert your colours and delete the whole thing!

To be hontest I've been really undecided what to do. But when I visited Crisis last month I met a couple of the finest wargaming fellows again and was reminded of the circumstances of our acqaintance namely the bloggo-sphere. Thus I realised that I'm not able and willing to throw this all away. 2019 I'll give it another go and try to get back on track.

To support that I decided to throw my hat in the ring of Curt's ingenious yearly painting challenge again:

Last year I skipped the challenge but this time I was lucky enough that Curt reserved a slot for me and welcomed prodigal son with open arms. I enroled with my usual 500 pts and I'm curious whether I'll be able to fulfill that goal. Currently my plans are as follows:

1. Bring forth my ACW project for Tactica 2019 in Hamburg
2. Paint the ships from the Cruel Seas starter set
3. Pass as many bonus rounds as possible

So #1 is already running of course but several pieces of artillery and a couple of command vignettes are to be painted during the AHPC season.

#2 must take its place behind #1 but is seductive beyond comparison. Currently I'm still waiting for my set to arrive but I'm confidant that the postman will drop it on my dorstep today or tomorrow. Additionally the play through video by Warlord Games looks stunning and I cannot wait to lay my hands on those nice little ships and lead them into battle. But our ACW presentation in Hamburg must stay at top priority.

#3 will depend on my progress with #1 and #2. For some topics I'm on a good way but for some I have no idea what to contribute. The ideas:

1. Reconnaissance -- No real idea yet. Maybe a pair of AT-RT-Walker for Star Wars Legion
2. Sport -- Perhaps a six man team for Blitz Bowl
3. Mercenary -- No real idea yet.
4. Water Feature -- Cruel Seas
5. Fellowship -- I have a couple of Holmes/Watson-Sets. Maybe one of those.

That's it for now. I'm looking forward to the AHPC. If you haven't taken notice of it yet please have a look at Curt's page. It's packed with sublime contribution from former years and it'll get lots of new input as soon as the next challenge starts. On midnight of December 21st it's time!

Last but not least the link to the Cruel Seas video I mentioned earlier:

 

It's nearly 80 minutes with designer Richard Carlisle and Warlord Charlie Monaghan playing one of the default scenarios from the basic rulebook. It's packed with explanations and inshore action. Frankly I cannot wait to get my copy.