Soviet Spetsnaz Platoon. More painted FOW units.

I'm in a FOW painting Mood recently so I spent some more time painting up more soviet infantry.

This time I focused on the soviet Spetsnaz platoon. They are the most elite warriors within the Red army. Think of it as the SAS special squad of Russia. Only with even more tenacity!

And more importantly they are a recon unit, and in my tank army they will be able to make a free 16" move as well as pull along another tank unit with them. This effectively gives that one extra tank unit an additional 16" deployment. Very vital especially in Version 3 Flames of War where the soviet tanks are seriously nerfed with the new "Hens & Chicks" rule.

And yes, the platoon moves around in captured German Halftracks. Making them move around undetected. Sneaky bastards indeed!

Painted up more SMG Russians for flames of war.

Been using unpainted infantry stands in the past few months of gaming and it certainly did not feel proper!

Finally got time to finish up the important SMG infantry to use as my Tank Rider Company.

Quick look & review - rural church from battlefront

You've got to love a great piece of terrain on the tabletop. And no other game needs it as much (ok in exaggerating here) as flames of war.

I ordered this rural church as soon as it was released as I wanted to collect all the new terrain pieces from battlefront this year onwards.

When it arrived my heart broke as I saw that the packaging was destroyed. But upon opening up the miniature I'm glad to say that the styrofoam packaging inside the actual product protected it thoroughly. Unlike the previous rural farm houses, which came in a million pieces.

As you can see in the pics this is a huge building. Complete with space for an observer team and many units to hide within the confines of the walls.

Another great terrain lot from the makers of flames of war. Definitely worth the £19. Preprinted terrain at its best Value : quality ratio hands down.

Super Dungeon Explore completed Spawning Points & WIP monsters

Picked up the great board game super dungeon explore recently and my what a fun game it is!!!

I also went ahead to make full use of my airbrush to try and paint as much highlights as I possibly could with my limited experience.

The monsters had a large area of skin therefore it was easier to try airbrushing them first.

I also sprayed the highlights for the spawning points with dark grey and light grey. All paints used were Vallejo Air Model series.

Dust Warfare: Easy Tokens

We have been playing Dust recently and those play it know that tokens feature quite heavily in the game. And although there are not many different types of tokens. Keeping them properly represented certainly helps keep the game flowing smoothly. So today I am showing how I did mine and how I use them. 

There are many types of tokens that have already been created, namely printing out the official token counters provided at the back of the core rulebook. As well as many other more fanciful types that make use of the small plastic pieces found under all Dust miniatures. Some even combined for a great effect! However for those without the luxury of access to printers or those who do not wish to fiddle around with paper counters. I have some suggestions. 

In this post I only have tokens that represent the 2 most frequently used counters in the game. The Suppresion & Reaction Token. I have not played enough games to fully utilize the Camo & Blind tokens but those will probably be addressed in a future post. For today lets see how I approach Suppression & Reaction. 

Like I mentioned I have opted to use the small plastic pieces which I removed from the bases of all my Dust miniatures. I have using fiddly and easily crushed paper counters. The small plastic pieces come printed on one side a nice Dust: Tactics logo. And I'm planning on using them as "Reaction" counters. Since the reaction counter is officially represented by a running figure (not idea why as a reaction does not necessarily mean a running action in the game) I figured using that would work without a hitch. After all we just needed a token to signify that the unit had reacted to something. For the suppression marker, I replicated the "Blast" icon which is shown in the official tokens. I opted to simply use red paint rather than print it out and sticking it like I mentioned above. Here they are.

Like I mentioned the counters work both ways. Flip it over and its a reaction marker!

Let's see how it looks like in game terms shall we?

Here we have a unit of Grim Reapers being Suppressed and Reacted. 

And here we have a Walker with a Suppress token. Note that Vehicles cannot be suppressed so this is to remind us that we need to roll on the vehicle damage table and remove it shortly after. Notice the die there? Since Dust Warfare does not use D6's. I figured it would be easier to use them as wound counters rather than stacking a number of vehicle damage counters and having to lug around so many counters (and having to count them) each time it moves or gets damaged. This also effectively negates the need for making any wound counters for both troops and vehicles. Just simply use dice!

I'll try to see what solutions I can come up with for the other tokens to be used within the game. But in the meantime I guess this will do while we try to get more games in.

I hope that this provides a quick and easy way of getting those mandatory suppression and reaction markers into your games of Dust Warfare!

Completed PSC soviet Decoy units.

Got my airbrush compressor back from repairs last weekend. And decided to finish up some captured German vehicles for my Soviet FoW army.

As always PSC plastic models are an absolutely joy to work with. And the details and "clean-ness" of these models never fail to amaze me.

Should I start a German Panzer Kompanie? Hmmm....

Sporecon 2012 - Singapore's Annual Gaming Convention

I just got back from the madness of Sporecon 2012! This year's gaming event saw more tournaments as players begin to establish their player base in various gaming systems other than the usual Warhammer Fantasy, 40K and Warmahordes. 

Lots of things to see and many models showcased. At the bottom of the display is a very impressive looking Heavy Gear game. With lots of cool N-scale terrain bought from a Japanese toy/model maker. Sure looks great! 

The terrain all comes pre-assembled and painted! Reminds me of the days when we were younger and simply opening action figures and toys. Instant gratification. I'm gonna try to get my hands on these!

There was also a table where they had games of the old skool Subbuteo soccer game. Sure brings back memories. I heard they are re-releasing a new edition. Can't wait to play it with my friends and relive the old schoolboy days!

Some pictures of the 40k tournament and the tables with games going on.

Really nice terrain this year!

There was also a Deathwatch section.

This was what I was largely involved in during the event. FoW tournament. I hardly get involved in tournaments, as I'm mainly a casual gamer who would rather laugh my head off as my troops run off the table and lose the game dramatically. Rather than trying to lob the head off my opponent in a competitive deathmatch. However the FoW community (although small) in Singapore are a really great bunch and we are all doing it in hope to create a positive experience and to hopefully provide more exposure to this otherwise unpopular (unfortunately) game system here in Singapore.

A shot of the table for FoW. I felt the tables were a little to sparse though. 

A shot of my Russian Tanks in battle.

And a German Panther army ready to deploy.

And here is my Russian Forward Detachment Tank Company. All displayed out for the painting segment of the tournament.

Which I proudly bagged the Best Painted Army award!

Took a picture of the Malifaux table before the tournament began. Unfortunately I did not manage to take pictures when the games where going on because I was busy playing in my FoW games.

However one of us managed to snag the 3rd place in the tournament for that! Yeah!

Congrats Defeng!!!

Overall it was a good experience, as with all Sporecons. This is the only gaming convention in our little nation and brings us all together for 2 days yearly. But its good enough for me. 

Completed: Dust Allied Medium Walkers

I am currently in a DUST: Warfare painting frenzy. And that can only be a good thing as this means more painted models! As with my already planned color scheme of Team America. I wanted my walkers to have a white washed look. So I sprayed a heavy coat of White over a black undercoat and went to work painting in the colors and stars. Vallejo Game Color Ultramarine Blue and Vallejo Model Color Scarlet red respectively. 

Unfortunately I was so caught up painting these guys furiously that I did not manage to take any pics of the process. In short I gave the colored areas a wash of GW's Badab Black. Then using the torn sponge technique of weathering I applied GW's Adeptus Battlegrey liberally over parts that worn see most wear and areas that would be first to scrape off the white wash and reveal the paint underneath.

Here they are completed and based.

I painted all four different turrets to utilize in the game.

A side shot.

Another one.

And this is my army as it currently stands. I'm awaiting my large-ish order from Maelstrom to arrive. As well as heading down to my LGS over the weekend to pick up the revised core set I reserved. I should have a sizable army in no time!

Crushed glass bases & Completed DUST: Rangers Command Squad

Just finished up the HQ squad for the allied forces. Painted them up in the red,white and blue scheme. I think the army will look great when all amassed.

Also I decided to do my bases in a dirty melting snow cum urban theme. I saw how most snow flock simply looking very white and clean. So clean that nothing shows through. However secret weapon miniatures had a set of crushed glass flock. Which makes snow look extremely convincing along with its wet look and transparency. So I got an extra bottle of glass and went outside to smash it up. Wrapped in a few layers of plastic bags.

I then applied them with PVA glue. And once dried I applied a thick coat of Vallejo gloss varnish. I think it looks the part. Dirty, melting and convincing looking ice.

Hobby: Making Smoke & Flame Markers

Smoke & flame markers are an essential part of wargaming, for most part of my gaming I have used the simple white cotton wool to represent them. While this would be sufficient and simple enough (actually it required no work at all apart from buying it). Visually it did not have the impact of blown up vehicles. And sometimes it gets mistaken for just smoke markers. Which happens quite often when I play Flames of War. Therefore I told myself that I would make some for my Tankovy. Once again this has been done before many times and blogged by many others before. So here's just another version of my take to add to this library of Smoke & flame markers construction.

 Upon my net-research I found out that almost everyone who did their markers used Clump Foliage. I had this material at hand, but most of them required quite a number of steps to achieve the final outcome. I wanted something quick and simple. As well as cheap. As always I would check out my local dollar store (Daiso) and I found these steel scrubbers. I thought these were the perfect base so I bought a pack. I only used 2 bunches out of the 18 in a pack. So these definitely go a long long way!

As you can see the material has the properties of cotton wool, being able to simple pull them to reshape them was great. The added bonus was that they were steel after all. Therefore they held their shape perfectly without the need for an additional wire in the middle to hold them up. Something most other hobbyist need to use while making their markers.

One thing that I did was to follow Big Lee and spammed super glue all over the "wool" to harden it and make it super sturdy for the rigors of gaming. As he has already pointed out, this super glue spam will get messy no matter how careful you are.

To weigh them down I went the conventional way of putting them onto steel washers. These are just the right weight and best of all they stick to the already magnetized tanks in my Flames of War army!

Once it was all hardened and stuck to the washer bases I went outside and gave it a quick dose of black spray at the base of the marker. The silver color once stretched looks just the part for the smoke at the upper part of the marker.

I then cut off the strays. This step is totally optional as I just wanted my markers to be a neat solid piece instead of having to many strays flailing around like a bad hair day. (p.s I later discovered this step to be quite crucial when I had to paint the colors on as it would definitely hinder the coloring process no end, so I would strongly advise to do it!)

After which I simply wet-brushed red at the bottom most area, followed by a light dusting of yellow to highlight the flames. 

Here they are completed and eager to burn some tanks!

I even tested it out with some 40k miniatures and they look the part. Shower a certain area of the table with these markers during a 40k game to make the area impassable maybe? Definitely could add a nice dimension to the table, if not just purely for the looks.

Let the galaxy burn!

Hope this article helped. Those that have been putting off making them, go ahead and try it! It's simple and quick. Most importantly, even when your tanks die in battle, at least they go out in style!