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).

MEEPLE FORCE: The Play Test!

Welcome back to the Vault my fellow gamers! I am very lucky to be part of an active and creative gaming community and Wartorn Games recently hosted a play test session of their forthcoming MEEPLE FORCE game at my local hobby hub, the First Founding Club.

I'm always intrigued to see what the Wartorn Crew are up to and so I jumped right in with a band of fellow heroes to save the Planet!

It's immediately apparent that the basis of the game is a "flick the playing piece" mechanic, much like Subbuteo (football, meh) or Pitch Car (which I love loads).  However, there's a lot more depth to MEEPLE FORCE than simply "push the piece" and there are some very elegant rule mechanics.

Regimental Reporting: Cadia Rises Defiant!

Welcome back to the Officer's Mess! I've been enjoying the lazy Bank Holiday weekend, and that's meant plenty of time to get some games of 40K played. Friday evening started with a slug fest between the Deathwatch and Dave R's completely ridiculous Nemesis Dreadknight / Bane Hammer mash up in which pretty much everything died, followed by a much smaller 1K game where the Cadian 82nd faced off against Paul's Salamander Successors.

Regimental Reporting: Introducing Commander Vasquez

Welcome back to the Regimental Mess my fellow Officers! I'm still riding the post-Mayhem wave of hobby enthusiasm and have been thinking ahead to Octoberfest. I'd like to take one of my other armies to the table top, and I'm realistic enough to know I probably won't paint a whole new force before the event.

I've come up with a cunning strategy; play my Imperial Guard force (the mighty Cadian 82nd) in them mean time as they are pretty much painted, and work on the Space Sharks in slower time. If the Carcharodons Astra get finished then I have another army to choose from!

There is rumour of a 40K campaign starting at First Founding (all the work of Neil @ Table Standard) and the rules pack includes an option for Characters to "level up" using a variation of the Custom Character rules from Chapter Approved 2018).  This was all the excuse I needed to start the Imperial Hobby Machine once more and kit bash a new HQ model.

Commander Vasquez reporting for duty!