Getting Ready for Bolt Action

So it's going to be a bit before any of my paras are ready for the tabletop.  but I still want to see about some small practice games to get use to the rules and game system play style.  So even though they'll be a bit over sized at 28mm heroic instead of 28mm, I've raided my 40K Imperial Guard 4th Naval Infantry Regiment.  This gives me a 500 point list (494 points actually) of counts as British Paras.  This will be part of 2nd Battalion's 11th Platoon under 2nd Lt. Vincent Marlowe with A and B Sections and attached support.

2nd Lt. Vincent Marlowe with two aides/runners, all with Sten SMGs

A Section under Sgt Oliver Crowe with SMG, section includes 8 Enfield rifles and Bren LMG with assistant

B Section under Sgt Andrew Jamieson with SMG, section has  4 SMGs, 2 Rifles, and Anti-tank grenades

Vickers Medium Machine Gun with 3 crewmen

PIAT Team of gunner and loader

Artillery Observer with two aides, all three with Sten SMGs

This gives me a nice small flexible force for some test games while I get my paras all put together and tabletop ready.  If there are any Bolt Action British Para veterans out there with some advice, please post up.

 That's all for now and thanks for reading.

Battletech Progress

So I had an extra day off work this week for the last of my comp days for the holidays.  It was nice being able to spend a whole day napping, resting, and then another nap.  Normally I spend one day off on errands and such and one day off on laundry and dishes.  One for nothing but lazing about was a nice change of pace.

So on to the hobby front.

First of all, I got the last 5 Battlemechs for the 21st Striker Regiment finished on the painting front.  They would be a pair of Stingers, a Panther, an Awesome, and an unseen Griffin.  I still have loads and loads and loads of basing to do though.

Next up, I finally got started on the aerospace fighter component of the regiment.  I've applied the first layer of green to the topside of two Shilones and one Cheetah.  I'm using the same green that I used on the battlemechs to tie them into the unit.  Then I'll do the undersides of the fighters with a blue like WW2 fighters were done.  I'll give them the same style basing as the rest of the regiment.

Last of all for the progress this week, is Sovetski Soyuz-class  heavy cruise Gyrefalcon.  It is a dark gray base with lighter gray panels like the descriptions I've found and then it has blue panels to show it was built in a shipyard in Lyran space.  This is the first time I've used a light colored wash on a dark model and I think I'm ok with the results.  I still need to do a few details like dry brushing over a few details and figure out what I'm doing with the bases.  I'm starting to lean toward solid black bases and just hope they look invisible on the table top.  I need to do an engine glow effect as well.

That's all for now and I'll see you all later.

Getting Organized With Bolt Action

So I've been studying my Bolt Action rule books and starting to get some models collected.  I've decided that I'm going to be playing British Paratroopers and have started doing my research into their organization.  I like the fluff of game systems.  I like to have organization lists of who is in what role and in charge of what.  So I started looking for how a Battalion of British paratroopers was organized.  It took some doing, but while unable to find a nice simple chart, I did find a site with a good description.  It also mentioned a Ghurka battalion that was converted into a paratrooper battalion.  Can you imagine those scarey fellows coming down out of the sky at night at you?  Talk about a nightmare scenario.

 So I didn't want to use real life names on this, that just seems ... wrong for a game when the men gave their lives in a real war, so I've changed all the names from the real life unit to fictional names for my formation for the game.  If someone reading this sees that I have something wrong in the organizational chart please let me know.  I'd like to get this as right as possible.


2nd Parachute Battalion
Battalion HQ (5 Officers, 22 Men)
Lt. Colonel David Cromarty
Major Jeffrey Brackhaven
Captain Dennis O'Cleary
1st Lt. Elliot Pierce
1st Lt. James Tierney, Medical Officer

Headquarters Company (1 Officer, 10 Men)
Major Peter Abernathy
Intelligence Section (1 Officer, 10 Men)
1st Lt. Ralph Sherbrooke
1st (Signals) Platoon (1 Officer, 26 Men)
1st Lt. Simon Bryce
2nd (Support) Platoon (2 Officer, 36 Men)
1st Lt. John Moore
    A Section (Mortars), Sgt James Watson
    B Section (Mortars), Sgt Duncan McGuire
    C Section (HMGs), Sgt John Cooke
    D Section (MMGs), Sgt Tom Meares
Protective Section (6 Men)
Sgt Ross Osbourne
3rd (Administrative) Platoon (1 Officer, 76 Men)
1st Lt. Nigel MacIntyre

A Company
Company HQ
Major George Foorgate
Captain John Woodson
    9 Aides/Runners
    3 Medics
4th Platoon
2nd Lt. Arthur Forsythe
    A Section, Sgt Charles Winston (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    B Section, Sgt Patrick Fisher (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    C Section, Sgt James Owens (1 NCO, 9 Men)
5th Platoon
2nd Lt. Kevin O'Donnell
    A Section, Sgt Michel Hughes (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    B Section, Sgt Alister Stanley (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    C Section, Sgt Reginald Conwy (1 NCO, 9 Men)
6th Platoon
1st Lt. Peter Covington
    A Section, Sgt Ian Jacobs (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    B Section, Sgt Edward Price (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    C Section, Sgt Thomas Holmes (1 NCO, 9 Men)

B Company
Company HQ
Major William Howe
Captain Donald Welton
    9 Aides/Runners
    3 Medics
7th Platoon
1st Lt. Alexander Gatesby
    A Section, Sgt Lloyd Bancroft (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    B Section, Sgt Jonathan Hastings (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    C Section, Sgt Stephen Powys (1 NCO, 9 Men)
8th Platoon
2nd Lt. Frances O'Malley
    A Section, Sgt Mark Haig (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    B Section, Sgt James Prescott (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    C Section, Sgt Daniel Asheford (1 NCO, 9 Men)
9th Platoon
2nd Lt. Franklin Sands
    A Section, Sgt Tobias Finch (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    B Section, Sgt George Hearns (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    C Section, Sgt Sean Baird (1 NCO, 9 Men)

C Company
Company HQ
Major Todd Mosely
Captain Owen Hydesmythe
    9 Aides/Runners
    3 Medics
10th Platoon
1st Lt. Alfred Hennesy
    A Section, Sgt Paul Sheffield (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    B Section, Sgt Martin Ridgeway (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    C Section, Sgt James Houseman (1 NCO, 9 Men)
11th Platoon
2nd Lt. Vincent Marlowe
    A Section, Sgt Oliver Crowe (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    B Section, Sgt Andrew Jamieson (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    C Section, Sgt Paul Halstead (1 NCO, 9 Men)
12th Platoon
2nd Lt. Brian Harrington
    A Section, Sgt Byron Lowe (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    B Section, Sgt Sebastian Dempsey (1 NCO, 9 Men)
    C Section, Sgt Albert Trevayne (1 NCO, 9 Men)

One odd thing that I learned that the Intelligence Section was also the snipers of the battalion.  Quite unusual and I didn't expect that.  The recce jeeps will be in the motor pool part of the Administrative Platoon.  Signals Platoon is where you'll find the paras on bikes.  Artillery will be on loan from the Regimental level.  Like I said in an earlier blog post, I'm planning on collection about 1300 to 1400 points at this point to have plenty of options for a 1000 point list.  There are no plans on having this entire list collected what so ever, it's merely so in my mind everything I do have will have a place.

I should have a post up by the end of the week with some progress on my Battletech warships.  Until next time, thanks for reading.

Battletech, Aerotech, Bolt Action, and almost some X-Wing

So, this blog post was originally going to be a battle report on the two versus two X-wing game from last Friday night.  It was Murl and I against Cheef and Vortil.  Vortil got to debut his Decimator and I was trying the Rebel Transport for the first time.  Cheef was first up for taking pics for his blog .... and had a camera with no battery in it.  So that put me up next .... and every single picture I took of the game didn't save on my phone.  No idea why, so the whole thing was crash and burn.  While the rebels took a pretty big beat down, it was fun running over the Decimator and a Lambda shuttle at the same time with the rebel transport.

So, with that out of the way, we'll move on to my Eridani Light Horse.  With the arrival of two Chippewa aerospace fighters and an unseen Griffin in the past few days, I'm now just 4 Aerospace fighters away from completing the 21st Striker Regiment.  The last five mechs (2 Stingers, a Panther, an Awesome, and the aforementioned Griffin) have all got their basecoat green and I'll be working on finishing their paint job this evening.  Once I get the regiment done, I plan on turning some of the unused mechs into an opposing force .... maybe some Kurita Sword of Light scumbags though I've never paint almost all red models before, so might turn out interesting.

Moving onto the next topic, one thing I've never been accused of when it comes to getting into a game system is not going all the way.  So in that vein, I have started an Aerospace force to transport and cover my Eridani Light Horse.  There will be part of the 161st Line Squadron and the 164th Escort Squadron, both part of the 16th Fleet assigned to the 16th Army which the Eridani Light Horse was attached to as an independent brigade for trouble shooting in Kurita space near the Lyran coreward border.

The 161st Line Squadron is represented by the Black Lion-class battlecruiser Fisher King, the Aegis-class heavy cruiser Kearsarge, the Sovetski Soyuz-class heavy cruiser Gyrefalcon, and the Sovetski Soyuz-class heavy cruiser Stormpetrel.  They've gotten their dark gray layer and still need to get some lighter gray sections and a color panel to represent where they were built.

The 164th Escort Squadron is represented by the Essex-class destroyer Oberon, and the Lola III-class destroyers Bellicose, Intrepid, and Royal Oak.  They're at the same level of progress as the 161st ships.  I still want to add another Essex destroyer and a pair of Whirlwinds to round out the force.  In both sets of ships I'm using the clan versions of the vessels due to the fact that I can't stand the cigar with stuff strapped on look of the star league pre-Exodus versions of the ships.

Now, on to Bolt Action and the progress there.  I'm slowly starting to acquire some models for this force and have a Red Devils box, a para recon jeep box with it's two jeeps, and a para medium mortar blister.  Also, I found a nice set of reasonably priced pin markers to use from a place over in North Carolina so they arrived two days after I paid for them on eBay.  They're nice nickel sized metal tokens with a bottom that raises them slightly to make them easy to pick up.  I'm really happy with these and got 3 sets of 10 for a bit over $20 including shipping.  The company is called Battlemarkers and can be found here as well as on eBay.  In addition to Bolt Action, they make markers for a variety of other game systems.

So that's all for now.  The next blog should have see the last 5 mechs finished, some progress on the naval vessels, and possibly some Battletech terrain.  I found about 15 trucks for real cheap that are sized for Battletech on eBay and am planning a sort of supply dump/support battalion base that can act as terrain as well as further build out my Eridani Light Horse.  We'll see how it goes as I'm still figuring that project out.  Talk to you all later.

A Fairly Productive Week

So I had a couple really productive nights painting on my Battletech this week.  All the base colored models from the last two posts got secondary color and their wash layer this week.  The first batch is the 12 models that are from the new Robotech line.  This is 4 Warhammers, 4 Riflemen, 2 Archers, and 2 Longbows in game terms.

Then there is the batch of doubles.  I ended up doing two of each of these this go around.  This includes Awesomes, Assassins, Cicadas,  Panthers, and Commandos.

Next up is a mix of mechs and a few vehicles. 

The mechs are a Dragon, Dervish, Flashman, Urbanmech, Thorn, Locust (need the little pods that go on it), Javelin, and a Shadowhawk with the main gun a replacement bit.  Then there are a pair of Demolishers and a Morningstar Command Vehicle.
Up to come still are another each of Awesome and Panther, a pair of Stingers, and then a Griffin which is still enroute.  Then there are a trio of vehicles of unknown origin which will be getting radar dishes added to turn them into communication vehicles.  Once the Griffin arrives I'll only be missing 6 Aerospace Fighters to have the entire TOE of the Eridani Light Horse's 21st Striker Regiment complete.  Still need to paint what I mentioned, a dozen or more aerospace fighters plus the missing ones, and then base a metric crap ton of battlemechs.  It's a long way from a finished project but at least the end of it is visible which is pretty cool.

I'll be participating in a mega game of X-Wing tomorrow evening, so I'll try and get a write up in on it on Saturday or Sunday evening.  Also I'm looking for some TOE type stuff on WW2 British Airborne.  I'd like to know how they named the companies, battalions, etc as well as how many squads in a company and so forth to use organizing my Bolt Action British paras which are starting to be more than a pipedream and becoming a slow reality.  Please leave any comments with links if you know a good site to find this stuff out.  I've been able to find snippets but no good one organization chart.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you all next time.

Battletech, X-Wing, and Bolt Action Oh My

So a bit more hobby progress over the last week.  First of all, I got my last six Robotech minis assembled, 2 Warhammers, 2 Riflemen, and 2 Archers.  Next I got restocked on paint with a run up to Johnson City yesterday with RTVortil or Imperial Recruitment or Archon Vortil or whatever his new blog commenting name is this month.  This let me get a green basecoat on another batch of Battletech.

I got a couple trades worked out on a Battletech Facebook group so the first part of the week I'll be getting the unseen Griffin and 2 unseen Stingers to finish off the battlemech portion of the 21st Striker Regiment.  I still need to acquire 6 aerospace fighters to completely finish the regiment.  I've started messing around a bit with nonRegimental asset ideas to be able to build a base for the Regiment as terrain such as command center, storage bunkers, repair bays, MASH vehicles, coolant trucks and such.  It's still just in the starting idea phase and we'll see how it goes.

Next up is that I went through the last of the Christmas money and finally got the Rebel Transport.  The extra X-wing pilot cards and astromech droids offer some interesting possibilities.  The fact that you can make the transport a 10 hull 5 shield beast at 40 points and then add some passengers and upgrades also gives some interesting possibilities.  It doesn't have any attacks but it sure can be a rock hard place to put a lot of large area boosts and effects into play from.

Last of all, I got my two Bolt Action books in the mail on Friday that I ordered with a Books A Million egift card I got for Christmas.  I also picked up a box of British Airborne yesterday to start getting ideas on how I want to paint and base them before I do my big order with my March bonus check.  I already know I'm going all berets and no helmets so there will be the bit of red on all the miniatures to tie the army together.  Basing I'm torn between fall forest and urban.  I just haven't been able to decide which so feel free to post in comments with suggestions or ideas on this.

So that's where we're at for now and we'll see about getting with you all again next weekend.  I think it sounds like I'm going to be in a major mulitplayer X-wing battle on Friday night so there will be that to discuss no matter what.  Have a good new year all and I'll see you next time.