Dystopian Wars: Rockets, Forcefields, and Robo-Squids. OH Myyyyy!

     Here is a family photo of my Empire of the Blazing Sun starter pack on my water table. I wanted bold colors for my little anime water trains. In the fluff, the boats are literally modified trains being driven by Steam punk Samurais with jet packs.

     Dystopian Wars is a naval/air/land wargame made by Spartan Games. The models are beautiful and the game mechanics are fun. I would venture to say that it is more of beer & pretzels game, than a serious, tournament worthy system. My reasoning is that it can get really random with the Exploding Dice mechanic. Roll dice, and reroll any 6s until you stop rolling 6s! It's fun, but more like Las Vegas than "The Art of War."

    
     Over the weekend, I finished up my Ika Squid and Floating Air Carrier, which have been languishing on my desk for sometime.

I hate painting those tiny planes....

     I tried my hand at wet blending the water effects on the Ika Squid's base. It is a mix of watered down GW Enchanted Blue, PP Trollblood base, and Vallejo Ivory. The squid is just GW Boltgun Metal and GW Devlan Mud.

     I was watching the episode "Blink" of Dr. Who with the wife while painting the squid. The weeping angels made her jump once, which almost resulted in my dropping my palette on the carpet!

     The squid comes with a submerged and breach token for when he is traveling underwater.

Team Fortress 2 Orks: "Spahz krumpin' mah sentrah!"

    SANDVICH!!! My game-bro, the Viking Librarian, finished converting up my Team Fortress 2 Orks. I love em! They got a lot of style and they capture Steam's flavor, while still being Orky. These figures will be a blast to paint up.
     My only conundrum is what to count the squad as. They are too diversely equipped to represent Kommandos, so I may have to spread them throughout my army. They can always represent a Nob squad, but that is what my Marvel Super-Herorks are for. I like having the problem of too many Orks.

     The Heavy standing large and in charge. He will most likely be the Nob of the Kommandos.

Pyro ork making gits do the "Burney Dance."

Spy Ork is going to get a Space Marine helmet painted on his mask. What chapter?

Soldier Ork makes me laugh, but I have a weakness for silly hats.

Snippa Ork also has a dapper hat. Thankfully, no Jarate!

Engineer Ork has an impressive wrench. He is my buddy's favorite. ZE GOGGLES!

Medic Ork is dealing out the feel-no-pain. I dig the Medi-Saw. Supposedly, no blood was spilled making it, too!

Ingenious use of bits for the Medi-Pack. Bravo!

Demo Ork is chargin'! I hate the Charging Demo in TF2!

Scout Ork is speedy with his cap. The cybork part will be painted like a Bonk Cola to fit the character, too.

Group shot! Now, I just need to decide which team to paint them as, blue or red....

Gorken Morkann: Drill, Baby, Drill.

     The drills came in from a Lego Rock Raider set for my 40k Orks Deff Dread, which is actually a Mega Dread if you go by size...Anyway, I threw some more gubbins on the big guy to round him out. He is built out of the following components.

++ 1 Deff Dread
++ 3 Killa Kan bodies (1 for the head, 2 for the legs)
++ 2 Lego Rock Raider Drills (not pointy enough, but I may change that)
++ The driver from a Trukk kit for the pilot

Look who got some plasticard shades like his little buddy.

 Are the drills big enough? I gotta open up those Razorbacks for their creamy centers...

See the magic here? It's literally a Deff Dread standing atop 2 Killa Kans hulls, Voltron-style.

 I filled the gaps in the back of the Kan hulls with glyphs like a good Ork Mek.

Here you can see how the pilot sits atop a Kan as well. Also, covered with glyphs and the grill of a Trukk.

Back view aka the "money maker."

True Line of Sight can suck an egg. I guess I have even more reason to run a KFF now, huh?

Starfleet Battles: To Pew where No Man has Pew-ed before.

I played a game of Starfleet Battles with my crew at the FLGS. We played a 4-way battle where one group had to escort a damaged ship against the other 2 players. We had Federation, Klingon, Andromedan, and Gorn (Me).

I love the way the game works, but I am not so good at playing it. I chose the Gorn as my race because I love reptiles. Sadly, their ships are slow and clunky compared to the rest. I've yet to come to grips on how to effectively use their main weapon, Plasma. You can either charge it up for a powerful seeking shot or release it in rapid, shotgun bursts. In the end, one of my ships ate a bunch of missiles and exploded.

The models for this game are not the best, as well. Annoyingly, I shaved off part of the details to my ships (pictured above) since I thought the odd bumps on the wings were mold lines. Wrong! They were my phasers! My paint job is also lame since one cannot even tell that I painted them. This issue seems to be a theme with my grey Space Sharks. Note to self: basecoat a color that is not similar to the model's material.

In closing, I want to test out some of the scenarios. The game is great because the rule book is concise, organized at an OCD level of clarity, and is only $12.

Link to the company website: Starfleet Games

Grotesque: Glamour Shots!

Here are the in-focus shots of the Dark Eldar Grotesques. I enjoyed kit-bashing these guys, even though my heart still waaaaghs for Orks. Picture above is my Aberration with Flesh Gauntlet. I dub thee "Captain Bad Touch."

"Clamps" with possible Scissor-hand. Too cool of a wargear name not to represent.

"Uncle Wiggly" I threw the tails back on his arm and placed a Tyranid Warrior arm. DE mess around with Nids right?

"Simmone" with his drill, stolen from a Killa Kan.

"Tequila" with his Liquifier gun. Reference anyone?

Back tank is a Deff Dread Skorcha with the burna end cut off.

Rat Ogres to Grotesques: "Feed my Frakenstein(s)"

I am converting Skaven Rat Ogres (WFB) to Dark Eldar Grotesques (W40k). I don't much care for the official GW models because they seem boring. I want something more how do I say...Grotesque? I was telling my brother from another mother that I've seen Rat Ogres as an awesome base for the conversion. Thus, the great Converto-Unit Swap of 2012 was born!

I'm making the Grotesques, while he is making me a unit of Team Fortress 2 Orks. I am getting the better deal in that trade IMO.

The Tools of the Trade

 ++ 4 Island of Blood Rat Ogres + 1 Screaming Bell Ogre (bought from Lazarus Games on eBay)
++ Clippers bought from Micheal's (Craft Store) Gardening section for $1
++ Razor Blade for MOLD LINES or cutting my fingers
++ Loctite Super-Glue (I've tried Zap-a-Gap and Gorilla Glue, neither impressive)
++ The Masks from the Talos kit (bought from Horde o' Bits on eBay)
++ Liquifier Gun and Gauntlet from Talos kit (see above)
++ Oatmeal Stout beer (I prefer hard cider)
++ Rocky Horror Picture Show's "Sweet Transvestite on loop (<3 Tim Curry, so Dark Eldar)

Step 1: Cut Those Tails. MAZEL TOV!

Step 2: Get Chopping and Gluing
Here is where I am at so far, I am pretty satisfied. I might slap some little bits here are there, but stick a fork in them, they are 90% in my eyes.

I will get better (non-cellphone) pictures of the little Frankenstein in another post.

Reinholdt, the Bloody Famous: "Chicks dig Gobbers"

  
  Reinholdt, here is my wife's favorite mini. No woman can resist a dapper gentleman dressed to the nines.

He is here to reload weapons for Caine2, Nemo2, and Siege.

This gobber was a joy to paint. It makes me excited for orks. We will see if I still say that after my 40k Orks.

More greenskins need to have hats.

Thunder...Thunder...THUNDERHEAD! Hooooooooo!

     I want to finish up my partial projects before moving onto my 40k Orks. Cygnar has been waiting for at least 1 year now. The Thunderhead is special to me it was bought for me by my grandfather before he died. Thus, I will be Electricity Pulse-ing fools in respect for Papa Watts.

Paints for DJ Thunder
- primed with Krylon Flat Black
- Base coat of Boltgun Metal
- Heavy wash with Devlan Mud
- Blue areas are Enchanted Blue
- White Areas: Bleached Bone -> Skull White
- Gold is Shining Gold
- Electricity Coils: Privateer Press Troll Blood base with dash of Vellejo Ivory
- Eyes: Blood Red

He still needs washes and possible highlights. I am not very good at non-drybrushing highlights, yet. I may experiment.

WoC 2200 Results: "The Middle Man"

     I ended up placing 8th out of 16 players. I ended up playing 3 games. I had tons of fun and got to eat this for dinner. New York Dawg Pound (Not in NY).

    That is is one hot dog with bacon and egg. Another with Pico de Gallo (Beak of the Chicken), sour cream, and a tortilla. Delicious.

 Here are the tournament results.

Game 1: Dwarfs - WON

Props
++ My Wizard for playing Yahtzee with Infernal Gateway, yet not miscasting.
++ Warhounds for putting the pressure on Dwarf warmachines.

Slops
++ 2 Rounds of 2 Shooting Hellcanons causing ZERO causalities.
++ The game being really one-sided in my favor against a great guy with beautiful, classic minis.

Game 2: Ogres - LOST

Props
++ Not Much

Slops
++ My Deployment. See my derpy deployment of 18 Khorne Warriors in front of 25 Tzeentch over by the hour on the right? HURRR. This cost me the game, most likely
++ Hellcannons aren't as cool without D6 stomps.

Game 3 - Vampire Counts - LOST, Oh Boy. REALLY LOST

Props
++ Sorcerer Lord flying around and Yahtzee-ing Infernal Gateway. I have yet to suck a unit into the warp and I have been playing for almost a year, :(

Slops
++ Only having one unit with a magic weapon againist TONS of ethereal units. The Sorcerer Lord.

Vampire Counts player, who is one of my favorite players, just reamed me with his list. Turn 1: A bunch of banshees and a Terrorgeist jump up to me and scream at me. This screaming causes me to lost 19 of my 25 Tzeentch warriors and the unit flees. It was pretty much game over from there. Undead units being Immune to Psych is a pain, too. It makes my Hellcannon and Tzeentch magic not as good.

Lessons Learned
++ Bring Magic weapons
++ 2 Hellcannons isn't insta-win
++ My goofy Chaos gifts aren't any help or that fun.
++ Breath Weapons go at model's initiative. This fact may have cost me my Ogres game since the Dragonhide Banner gave my Khorne Warriors ASL.
++ Run some Trolls or something since the army felt BORING without something wacky.