Regimental Reporting: Making the most of the Cadian kits

Welcome back to the Officers Mess!  The focus of my recent hobby time has been split between slapping paint on some more random fantasy models and readying the next Cadian Infantry Squad for the paint table.

It's very simple to buy a Cadian Infantry Squad kit, build all the 10 men and say "done", but unfortunately you don't necessarily get all the options you want for your squad in that box! In simplistic terms a fully equipped Infantry Squad will contain:

• One Sergeant
• One Vox Operator
• One Special Weapon Trooper
• One Heavy Weapon Team (2 Troopers)
• Five Lasgun Troopers

The Cadian Infantry Squad itself contains 2 sprues which will each build a Sergeant, Vox, Special Weapon (albeit flamer or grenade launcher only), and a varying number of Lasgun Troopers depending on how many of the other options you build.

Sarge, Flamer, Vox

More hobby time with the Contrast paints

Welcome back to the Vault! This week's scant hobby time has been spent playing around with the Contrast paints again. I've been keen both to play around with more colours and textures, and hit some of the back log of fantasy models.

Session 1: a Frostgrave Wizard, built from the new North Star plastic kit:

Regimental Reporting: Last Stand at Glazer's Creek Part 1

Welcome back to the Officers Mess! I've mentioned in previous posts that I'm participating in the "Siege of Falx" 40K campaign at the First Founding club, with my battle hardened Cadian 82nd Regiment.

The campaign organiser (and blogger) Neil is an Ork player and massive 40K fluff fan. Last summer White Dwarf published an updated version of a classic Battle Report, "Last Stand at Glazer's Creek" in which a beleaguered Imperial Guard force fight off wave after wave of assaulting Green Skins; this article was a lot of fun to read and Neil and I have agreed to play the scenario ourselves as part of the campaign.

This is a narrative, power level based game so I've decided to add a couple of units to my collection which are more fluffy than I might usually choose!

Some old Ork Boyz I painted up ages ago playing around with different schemes

Regimental Reporting: Learning From Experience

Time for another well earned visit to the Officers Mess my fellow Commanders.  I've played a few more games with the Cadian 82nd and I thought I'd re-visit my earlier After Action post to add more meat to the bone with regard to lessons learned.

The 40K games have gone well with a number of wins under my belt. However in other gaming news, I have been soundly thrashed in a series of hands of Bananagrams by my family.  Undaunted by the experience I've stolen the Bananagrams tiles and hidden them from the kids. That'll teach em.

And hopefully the following Bananagram-inspired pictures will help me remember useful stuff in future 40K games!

Scrabble Score: 14

Playing with the new Contrast Paints

There is an old adage "Use the right tools for the right job", and this is certainly true when it comes to the modelling and painting aspects of our hobby. My hobby circle has been buzzing for the last few weeks about the new "Contrast Paints" and certainly the Games Workshop PR machine has been in overdrive telling us all about them. 

There has been a repeating marketing theme along the lines of "getting models table top ready in super quick time", and regular readers will know that's something certain to get my attention!  My local store hosted a Contrast Demo day and so I went along to see these paints in action.

My first attempt was applying a grey onto a Space Marine Intercessor. The result was underwhelming; very patchy, and quite thin in places. Apparently the pot wasn't shaken well enough, and the Contrast Paints can pool on flat surfaces. Hmmm, so temperamental and not necessarily suitable for all models.

Contrast Paints are essentially highly pigmented washes, allowing a base coat and shade to be applied in a single coat; the more texture there is on a model, the greater the effect of the "Contrast". Undaunted, I've picked up a few pots to try on a few different models; these definitely aren't Space Marines.

Painting Cornelius the Wizard

Welcome back to the Vault once again my fellow Venturers. I had intended to spend this week's painting time on a couple of half finished Imperial Guard projects, but an alternative model jumped to the front of the paint queue.  My eldest daughter plays in a D&D game with some friends and was looking for a dog/hound miniature to represent an NPC in their latest adventure. Regular readers may remember the Dungeons and Doggies Kickstarter which was added to the Pile of Shame a few months ago, so we cracked open the box and chose a model.

Say hello to Cornelius the Golden Retriever Wizard. 

Regimental Reporting: Enjoying the new Tour of Duty

Welcome back my fellow Commanders, it's time for another visit to the Officers Mess. This week has been very enjoyable hobby wise; I was invited to participate in a mid-week multi-player 40K game so I brought the Cadian 82nd along to take part. Whilst victory was not to be mine, it was great fun and change of pace to the more usual one on one fare.

I'm finding the Imperial Guard army a very different beast to the Kabal of the Sand Viper (the faction I've played most often in 8th edition), and exploring different list builds, tactics and approaches to missions is stretching my gaming brain.

So with a massive 2 games under my belt what have I learnt. First up, people really don't like the Mortar Squads. Secondly I really like Mortar Squads; they are dirt cheap, and whilst not having a massive damage output, the ability to shoot with out Line of Sight is incredibly useful.

(As an aside I've been painting up the Mortar Squads. I had a single Mortar Team completed for 7th edition used as part of a cheapy ObSec Platoon Command Squad and now I have two whole squads. The models are all done bar the basing).