Finished Second batch of Kabalites and Archon

Nothing much done on Saturday night as my team had a fantastic win over Liverpool (Stoke City 6 - 1 Liverpool) so I had to watch the match in full again in the evening!

I did manage to get the second batch of Kabalites with the Archon finished on Sunday/Monday evening though and it feels good now that at least I have a minimum CAD painted up! (I do have 8 Wyches painted too but the less said about those the better...)

I'm not sure about the Archon, I'm kinda happy he's done, but I'm also regretting just lumping him in with the Kabalites as a batch paint job rather than spending some extra time on him.

Maybe at some point I'll go back over and give him a little more love but at least I can put a painted HQ choice down on the table for now.

I've a 1000pt game on Friday evening for which I'm going to try and field as much as I can painted so will try and take some pictures of everything I have together at that point on my new board.

At the moment then my painted Dark Eldar list looks like this:

HQ: Archon with Shadowfield, Huskblade, Soul Trap
Dedicated Venom with 2 x Splinter Cannon

Troop: 5 Kabalite Warriors with Blaster
Dedicated Raider with Dark Lance and Enhanced Aethersails

Troop: 5 Kabalite Warriors with Blaster
Dedicated Raider with Dark Lance and Enhanced Aethersails

Troop: Troop: 8 Wyches with Hekatrix (Agoniser and Haywire Grenades) and Wych with Hydra Gauntlets
Dedicated Raider with Dark Lance and Enhanced Aethersails

Fast Attack: Razorwing Jetfighter with 2 Dark Lance and a Splinter Cannon

Fast Attack: Razorwing Jetfighter with 2 Disintegrator Cannon and a Splinter Cannon

Fast Attack: 3 Reaver Jetbikes with 1 Blaster and Cluster Caltrops

Games and Gears Urban War Battleboard Review and Painting

Hi guys,

So you may have seen my previous posts in which I raged about the lack of honesty from Games and Gears during the Kickstarter regarding shipping (Not going to touch on that at all here, but if you're interested then please read HERE

I eventually received my boards yesterday and thought I'd share my initial thoughts as well as my poor attempts at painting it.

I will try and be as unbiased as possibly and try not to let the bad experience during the kickstarter affect my judgement.

To set the scene, this is the info we received during the Kickstarter campaign, and what I thought I was pledging for:

Along with the following: ALL BOARDS COME BASED PAINTED AS IN THE PICTURES!!

For anybody who wants to see the original kickstarter page you can find it HERE

Now before I get slapped down, I now that they did clarify later in the kickstarter before delivery but I am pretty sure, after we'd paid, that the boards in these graphics were demonstrating what you could do with the boards, rather than what they came like. 

As you can expect though, given that we were expecting them to come "Base Painted" I was a little upset to find that actually, only the roads are painted, and I needed to prime the rest of the board prior to painting.

Anyway, some pics of the grand arrival:

Pardon my pregnant wife's belly!

Boards unboxed with Clips

Laid out

It's worth mentioning that it was not easy to get to this point. Due to the design of the board/clips, you have to put it together upside down and then flip a complete 6 by 4 foot table over. This would be difficult but possible if it was a solid piece of wood or plastic for example, but with the pieces clipped together it simply wasn't possible without the boards snapping off. 

I had to drag my wife in at this point to help me flip the board, and even then there was some nervous moments, having to ensure the boards were supported properly as we flipped it.

You can also see the areas that aren't the Road are not base coated, they are exactly the same colour as the reverse, and wouldn't take paint at all. No point getting upset about it though, I've ranted enough already, so I started to mask off the roads ready for spraying.

Frog Tape and Paper

Spraying took me about an hour I guess, including masking them off and then using a rattle can primer (Rustoleum Grey Surface Primer from Homebase in the UK) to spray over the tiles, I was a bit sparing with the Primer as I was worried I'd run out halfway through and this came back to bite me a little later as in areas I had obviously missed spots where the wash later wouldn't settle. If you're doing this with a colour that's less similar to the plastic's natural colour this would be much easier to spot..

After leaving the Primer to dry for a little while I then mixed a basic black wash using some Black Acrylic paint and Water and sloshed that over the whole board to try and make the detail pop a bit more and have it look less uniform. 

Bit of a photo dump now as I took a few pictures as I did it, and as it was drying for those of you who're interested. Please bear in mind in many of these the wash looks terrible as it's drying, the end result is only... mostly terribad ;)

You can see a few tiles I tried to deliberately clear of wash to vary it a little, not sure if this was a good idea or not...

This one is almost dry at this point and started to look a bit better

Finished for now other than the Park (Middle Right) I think

I probably could have been more careful and got a better result, but I just wanted to get it to a point I was happy playing on as soon as possible given that I had hoped to receive it painted. The wash has pooled in places, and at times I was reduced to using a wet wipe to try and wipe off where the black wash had started to pool and dried.

My plan initially was to paint the various bits of brickwork a reddy/brown as in the tutorial from Games and Gears but I'm not sure now, I might just leave it as is. I don't want the board to be the focal point rather than the figures we're going to be putting on it.

At the moment I'm thinking of flocking the blank piece (middle right) to make it look like a park so I can get some Woods scenery or something similar on the board, other options would be a lake, or car park of some sort?

Any ideas there?

Pros:

• A 6 by 4 board for £62 that doesn't require additional support once it's up (I don't feel worried by the slight overhang you can see above) 
• Roads are painted, although not to a great quality
• With a little work, I'm sure that someone could get this looking great
• The Anima board for the same price actually looks really nice, when people will receive that though I have no idea

Cons:

• It wasn't base painted, that simply isn't true, I needed to prime it before painting.
• Needs two people to clip together and flip the board, so I can't prepare my table for an evenings gaming with the lads until they get here.
• There is no carrying/storage solution, this was mentioned during the kickstarter but they said it wasn't feasible in the end because the boards were too heavy, this still leaves the problem of how to store or transport the boards though
• I wouldn't ever pay £140 for this at retail

In conclusion I'm still disappointed with the service and what I perceive to be outright lies from G&G during the kickstarter, however given it's only taken an evening (about 3 hours work) to get the board to this stage I'm fairly happy with the end result. If I had paid £140 I would be livid, but I'm just about satisfied with the product at £62. (Albeit with an 18 month wait for delivery)

If anyone has any suggestions as to additional improvements I can make, or storage solutions etc. please let me know!

Assembly Progress and a Start on Painting my Eldar

Got my Dire Avenger assembly finished last night and then didn't have long left so didn't fancy carrying on with the last batch of Kabalites/Archon.

Heads are cleaned up but I'm keeping them off for now to spray separately before attaching once painted.

Models are all just pinned to the bases for now so I can remove them to paint the bases easier.

Instead of the Kabalites I grabbed the new Autarch and quickly popped a basecoat on him to see what the colour looks like on the model (Falcon Turquoise)

I was surprised to see the Autarch comes with a 32mm base which threw me as I don't have any scenic bases for that size, for the time being I've pinned him onto on a 25mm one and then magnetised that one onto a larger 32mm base.

I'm not sure whether to rebase him entirely, just run him on a 25mm, or keep the 32mm underneath it as it is and play with him like that?

The turquoise is a bit darker than I expected but hopefully after a wash and then bringing it back up with highlights it'll start to become brighter.

Don't think I'll get a game in this Wed (might play some X-Wing) but I'll pick the Kabalites and Archon back up on Thursday night I expect and try to get them finished so they're out of the way.

Does anyone else find it really difficult to go back to a project after you take a pause partway through?

More Lies from Games and Gears

So you might recall my post a while back detailing my frustration with Games and Gears Kickstarter.

At the time it was the 16th April and we'd been promised delivery at the latest by 15th April, after which those few of us who hadn't received the boards should pm the co-ordinator. (Clue: Nobody in the world had received them by that date.)

I still haven't received the boards and the story just keeps changing from Games and Gears so this is another warning to those out there to stay away from the company.

Here is an updated timeline, purely from the time the boards apparently entered the UK, if you want to view the timeline in full then please view my previous post here

Timeline from December:

05/12/2014 - Boards should be in the UK this week, then will need sorting and should dispatch January after Christmas holidays. "Even with possible port delays or customs delays it's still on it's way for us to get the gears rolling for Jan 2015 dispatch to your door"

19/12/2014 - Boards are at the UK Warehouse

17/01/2015 - Boards have ALL?!? been unpacked, quality checked, then packed back in their boxes. Should be completed early next week.

28/01/2015 - Dispatch estimate now of February 2015, hoping to make delivery 2-4 days instead of 5-25

09/02/2015 - Boards will be dispatched wc 20th February, new delivery date of Mid-Late March

09/03/2015 - Boards all dispatched, delivery is 5-25 days and everyone should have theirs by 15th April 2015

13/03/2015 - Exciting times, "all boards will be with you by or before April the 15th" Battleboard clips sent separately from China and should be here within 10-20 days.

01/04/2015 - Quote: "As per previous update please allow your Urban Wars to get to you by the 15th of April 2015. We understand there is a lot of excitement and frustration in getting your boards now but they are coming to you, all shipping is prepaid so they have to get to you :P by the deadline date at least. "

 16/04/2015 - If you haven't got your Hawk Urban War battle board,  Don't Panic, they are in transit and will be with you. They are on their way and we have a tracked record of fullfilling gears 100% once they have been dispatched.

21/04/2015 – PM to me to advise of my personal delivery time 12-18 days, final day of 14th May, there is still nobody in Europe that has received their boards.

12/05/2015 – “Tracking numbers to be issued out to all EU Hawk Urban Wars backers who did not get their battle board by this Friday (15th of May).” We’re also kindly informed that they are no longer reading or replying to the comments on the kickstarter project page as they don’t have time

15/05/2015 – As a reminder, so far we’ve gone way past the “FINAL delivery date of the 15th April, and no-one in Europe has received them yet a MONTH later. I now receive a message this morning as below:

Hello Rich! 

How are you??

Tracking number to be with you Friday from anywhere between 6am to 7pm UK time.
It is coming from Germany as you will see via your tracking number. If you do not get it on Friday it is probably due to the National holiday the Germans had yesterday (14.05.2015). Which means you will get it Monday or Tuesday as you will see via tracking number
We are going to dispatch all the grid sheets with the next huge shipment we are planning to do. I am working on that right now and making sure I only deliver confirmed info.... so I don't get things wrong.

Trays, as soon as we ship them. looking to ship them separately... waiting for some confirmations. Because one length is 24" long some couriers of iffy as they say they will post it then class it as abnormal and return it back to me. So I just making sure we don't go through that and make sure when it is sent out it all happens smoothly and quickly. working on it.

So basically, they’ve been in the UK since the 19th December, have been shipped twice FROM THE UK, but are now, somehow?!?! In Germany and have been shipped out from there.

If ANYBODY can give me ANY plausible explanation of how and why this has happened that does not involve them consistently lying to us about shipping, then please feel free to enlighten me.

I text Sam again, who I believe owns the company this morning to ask for an explanation of how the boards are now being shipped out from Germany but was asked not to text him again, and to feel free to raise my perceived mistreatment to Kickstarter.

For me, I’m absolutely livid with the treatment received and will be reporting the company for breaching kickstarter terms and conditions which detail that as below:

Don’t lie to people. Don’t post information you know is false, misleading, or inaccurate.

Don’t do anything deceptive or fraudulent.

Throughout the process, creators owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life

Obviously this will have very little effect on us as backers for this project, but hopefully it will stop the company doing any further projects and duping further customers.

1000pt First Week Results // Further Eldar Assembly // Imperial Assault Frustrations

1000pt Results (Maelstrom)

2 Games last Wednesday to tell you about, my list was as per last week's update:

Medusae
··Raider [Dark Lance]

Kabalite Warriors with Blaster
··Raider [Dark Lance]

Kabalite Warriors with Blaster
··Raider [Dark Lance]

Scourges with 4 Haywire blaster

Scourges with 4 Haywire blaster
Solarite with Power Lance (Warlord)

Venom with 2 Splinter Cannon

Ravager [3 Dark Lance]

Ravager [3 Dark Lance]

Ravager [3 Disintegrator cannon]

First game was Cloak and Shadows against a mechanised Imperial Guard army with a HQ Tank, 3 Troops Tanks and a Tank Destroyer thing with a massive gun, plus a Vendetta

Took out one of the tanks early on and the scourges dropped in turn 2 and over 2 turns took out another tank each, Lost one of the Ravagers and the Scourge units both died once they'd done their job but generally I flew around and claimed objectives whilst firing off lances and haywire at tanks.

I felt a bit bad for Chris as he's a nice chap but my army is pretty good at taking out armoured targets, and even with the Venom and Medusa being useless in this matchup I had plenty of tools for taking out the tanks. The Vendetta did cause a bit of a problem but my Ravager with DC's got behind him the turn after he showed up (Turn 3) and then followed it around firing shots into it's back armour and forcing him to jink, making it pretty ineffective.

Ended up winning the game 13-2, the mobility of the army really helps for Maelstrom missions!

Second game was Cleanse and Control against a friend's Scout army (Sentinels of Terra)

He ran something like:

ML2 Librarian
5 Bolter Scouts
5 Scout Snipers
5 BP + CC Scouts with a Heavy Bolter
3 Scout Bikers with Grenade Launchers
Mortis Dread with 2 x twin Auto Cannon
Dread with Assault Cannon and Heavy Flamer Power Fist
Vindicator
Landspeeder with Heavy Flamer and Multi Melta
Landspeeder with Heavy Flamer and Multi Melta
Aegis Defence Line

Good fun game and really close until turn 5 as I had to jink less and less as threats were taken out I was able to take the game away a little and ended at the end of t5 with a librarian and a couple of scouts left. Ended up winning 7-4.

Overall I was fairly happy with my list, I think the Ravager with Disintegrator Cannons definitely has a place and came in useful both games. There was plenty of anti tank whilst still retaining some decent infantry killing between the kabalites / venom (28 poison shots and 2 blasters in close range) plus the Disintegrator Ravager and the Ap3 Flamer from the Medusa. I'm not sure how I'd cope against a horde army like Nids or Orks but I think I'd still give it a good game.

Scourges I don't think I'd deep strike again, both games they came in and did something but they were pretty much suicide squads which is potentially fine, but if I can take out their targets without getting them killed then even better. Nice to have the option though I suppose.

I think two games in a night is starting to be a stretch now though so I'm likely to only get one game in a week from now on.

-----------------------------

Assembly

Just to keep a track of progress here, I managed to get 6 Striking Scorpions and a Support Platform done over the weekend, the Striking Scorpions took ages as the finecast was pretty bad and had to be very careful cutting bits away, will need to go back over these with green stuff at some point.

The Support Weapon Battery I enjoyed making and I really like the figure, nice to have the options without having to magnetise as well as they just slot on top.

-----------------------------

Imperial Assault

Had another game of this on Friday and we're now on about the 7th mission I think? We played the "Sorry about the Mess" side mission and it just felt impossible for the Imperial Player, I think the Story missions are balanced fantastically well but the Side missions just don't seem to have had that same thought go into them, much less detailed and they don't scale.

If we'd have played this Side mission as the first mission, the Rebels may have had a challenge, but as the 5th? Side Mission they just blew through it.

We'll need to think of a way to balance out the Side Missions I think, or I'll have to play more of a GM type role and add in things randomly to provide that challenge.

Oh well, I'm just a bit disappointed after my initial enjoyment of the game, I still hold high hopes for the Skirmish version though as that seems to be balanced well with a good variety of missions and the deck building element of it looks great too.

Assembly Progress // 1000pt Dark Eldar list

Hi guys,

Apologies I haven't posted for a while, been busy trying to get everything finished for my 1000pt list in the Escalation League and reading through the new Eldar Codex.

Some quick assembly pictures below for my Scourge and final Ravager

Scourges:

The plan is to do 4 with Haywire and 4 with Blasters then make the other 12 with Carbines and I will use them as two units of 6 Swooping Hawks in my Eldar armies for now as I prefer the Scourge figures.

Trying to therefore do all the Swooping Hawks with the Hawk Wings and the Special Weapons with the bat like wings but sadly I'd already made one of them up with Bat Wings so that one will look a little out of place for now.

Ravager:

I probably should do this with Lances but I do like the Disintegrator Cannon version (9 S5 AP2 shots) and I hopefully will have anti tank covered at 1000pts with 2 other Ravagers, plus the Raiders lances, plus two units of Haywire Scourges. This one is therefore my MEQ and TEQ hunter, going after elite infantry and wreaking havoc hopefully.

For those of you interested, this is my current thoughts for a 1000pt list.

Court of the Archon (85pts) [Medusae]
··Raider [Dark Lance]

Kabalite Warriors (120pts)
··Kabalite Warrior with Blaster
··Raider [Dark Lance, Enhanced Aethersails]

Kabalite Warriors (120pts)
··Kabalite Warrior with Blaster
··Raider [Dark Lance, Enhanced Aethersails]

Scourges (120pts)
··4 Scourge with Haywire blaster

Scourges (120pts)
··4 Scourge with Haywire blaster
··Solarite [Shardcarbine]

Venom (65pts) [2 Splinter Cannon]

Ravager (125pts) [3 Dark Lance]

Ravager (125pts) [3 Dark Lance]

Ravager (110pts) [3 Disintegrator cannon]

Finally a small update with a start on assembly for my Eldar: