Crows and Some Things That Flies

So even though I was out of town most of the past week, I did manage to continue making progress on my BattleTech mercenary force Flock of Crows.  The Second Company command lance, Second Company alpha lance, Third Company command lance, and Third Company third platoon are all painted and ready for basing.

 

 

 

 The battalion is coming along nicely and I'm happy with the progress so far.  Next up is something for my Lions of Harlech.  When I was leaving town this past Tuesday, I spent some time hitting some stores in Knoxville.  One of those was the Warhammer Store out at Turkey Creek.  While there are many tempting items in there, I only ran into one that I just couldn't walk away from.  My Storm Talon now has a slightly meaner brother in a new Stormhawk Interceptor.  It's a great looking kit and so far I've managed to keep myself from starting on it until I get the Flock of Crows finished.

 

And then the last of all, I caught a sale at SciFi City the same day and grabbed one of the new X-Wing Imperial Veterans expansions.  The Tie Bomber and Tie Defender are both great looking ships and I look forward to getting back up to Johnson City and the gaming group there to try them out.

So that's the progress for now and I'll see you all next time.

RPGs and 40K Space Marines

So this past Saturday was Free RPG day, and I made it up to Dewayne's in Kingsport to partake in the fun.  I had a seat at Mike's game of Actung! Chtulhu and it's an interesting game.  Other games taking place were Frostgrave demo games, some Spelljammer, and Savage Worlds.  There was a nice turnout and plenty of free giveaways as well.

One of the cool giveaways

Actung! Cthulhu was quite interesting to play.  It's set in the period around ww2.  This particular scenario took place after the Munich Agreement gave most of Czech to Germany but before war actually broke out.  Using percentile dice, it can be pretty unforgiving as well.  After the party's briefing session, the four PC's were bundled onto a converted long range patrol bomber and dropped way behind the lines into German occupied Czechoslovakia.  Here is where the dice first showed how mean this game can be.  All the characters had a 50% chance (aiming for under that total) on the dice to land safely.  Only one managed to do so, and two were injured.  One (the commanding officer of course) almost killed himself and got to soldier on with a mere 2 hit points left.  The game flows pretty well, and combat can be nasty quickly.  One flubbed roll and you could find yourself hurt badly or dead pretty quick.  But all in all it was a fun game and I wouldn't mind giving it another go sometime.

I also managed to continue making progress on the marines in the Calth box set.  I finished two squads of tactical marines which leaves me one to assemble to finish off the box.  Both Sgts got a power weapon and a combi-melta.  The special weapon for each squad is a Grav-gun just so that I have that option to field now.  I did the Heavy Bolters rather than the Missile Launchers as the heavy option for two reasons.  First is that I'm not a fan of the Pez dispenser look of the retro Missile Launchers.  Second is that ..... well, Heavy Bolters is the only Heavy Weapon I don't seem to have around 20 of, so that option needed buffed up some.

So the plan is to get the last tactical squad assembled tomorrow after work and then when I'm off work on Wednesday, get them all primered.  By the end of the week I want to start getting some replacement posts up for the Lions as well.  The Titan and Super Heavies were all sold off to fund Bolt Action, BattleTech, and X-Wing, as were a number of vehicles as well (I'm actually in the single digits on Rhinos).  Plus there are other changes (like all the new Dreadnoughts) as well, so plenty that needs updating.

That's all for now though and thanks for coming by.  I'll see you all next time.

Space Marine 30th Birthday

So I was over in Turkey Creek, west Knoxville at the Warhammer Store there for the Space Marine 30th Birthday Celebration.  There was a pretty good turnout for the store opening at 10AM.  There was some cool swag including a couple print options (I went for the Ultramarine one rather than Plague Marines, though it was a close choice as each are pretty nasty).  There was also some buttons and a limited amount of free White Dwarves.

One of the regulars for the store brought in a bolter cake for the other attendees.  The rolled wafer cookies for the shells and the swiss roll for the gun barrel were nice touches.

A couple of the other players who have been playing since the Rogue Trader era brought in some ancient goodies to show off.

 

Mick, the store's Fabricator General, also had his Reaver Titan Hyperion on display as part of the event.  It's a nice center piece to a collection and definitely makes an impression.

I also picked up an 30th Birthday Space Marine.  I got it assembled once I got home but being me, I couldn't just leave it alone.  A dig through the bits box was in order.  He got a head swap, a banner pole, an icon/purity seal bit, different shoulder pads, and some bits for the base out of the old GW basing kit.  All in all, a nice model kit that has a very old school feel to it while still embracing the new aesthetics of the current GW models.

 

 

I also took a good hunk of my Lions of Harlech to the event.  It was fun to show them off after they've been sitting unused for a while.  I got to swap a number of gaming stories as well as discuss what we miss and don't miss about previous editions of 40K, and generally enjoy the socialization.  Mick's got a great environment in the store and there was a good stream of the locals going in and out the entire time I was there.  I wish I was a lot closer to get in there more often for some gaming.

That's all for now.  I'll see you next time and keep the Emperor's Faith fellow Astartes!