I'm back!

Well, it's been some time since my last post and a few things have happened. I had some health issues recently which saw me sidelined for awhile but I'm now home, continuing therapy and improving each day.

Which brings me to my second point: I finally felt like trying my painting skills again. I was not sure if my illness would affect my fine motor skills but everything seems fine. So, after painting one model to compare with my earlier Haradrim I was inspired to finish some more. No where near what I need to do to have any army but it's a good start I think.

So stay tuned and hopefully they'll be more LotR, Flames of War and British Line Infantry in the future.

Happy Holidays!

Haradrim: Day 1

So here is where it begins. Although I failed to complete anything close to my required models for month 1 of the Tale of Four Gamers, I did do SOME work. The two painted models above were my test models for my Haradrim army from before the start of the project. So, technically, I have two models done! Below is the actual initial models I slated to finish in month 1. I still have a few bow strings to add and need to base my captain but this will be my initial group of models when I finally get some time to paint them. The bow strings are thin jewelry wire from a craft store. I cut and wrap these around the bow and then use super glue to hold them in place while I attach the other end to the opposite side of the bow. For the bows pulled to the ready, I cut two pieces, wrap each around the bow and then glue to loose piece to the hand. Once primed and painted it all looks pretty good.

So, although I have a lot on the hobby plate at the moment, I still hold out hope that I can finish my army by AdeptiCon 2012. If not, I'll certainly have a head start on my force for Bilbo's Birthday Bash 2012.

The Guns of April

I've always been intrigued by the Napoleonic era and particularly the uniforms of the period but have never really know much about the conflict. I've toyed with painting a few figs for fun but the thought of painting the required numbers of models in 28mm scale always put me off from any real endeavour into the period. Well, my friend Dave Pauwels knows me to well so when he started tossing around ideas for a historical big game to run at Adepticon 2012 he of course brought up the idea of a Napoleonic battle. Not only that, but he suggested teaming up with the likes of Joe Krone, Dave Taylor and Brien Dulaney to do this project. Well, he had me at "You have to paint the British".

The result of this crazy idea has now taken virtual form in our new project blog "The Guns of April" (http://gunsofapril.blogspot.com/). Put together by the capable hands of Dave Taylor, the blog will detail our efforts to assemble and paint models to represent the 1812 Battle of Salamanca which we will re-play at Adepticon 2012. You can find more details at that blog along with updates from all sides. For my part, I will be working alongside Mr. Taylor to add to his already significant British force. As I do my part, I will make sure to post updates here on my blog along with posts to the Guns of April blog as well.

So stay tuned for some British Line Infantry soon!

Tale of 3 Gamers?

Well, October has rolled around and I managed to get my figures together with the exception of a few bow strings. But, I failed to even prime my models! Epic fail on my part, which thus explains the title for this post. As if September wasn't a bad painting month for me, the next few don't look promising either. Add to this the fact that I have some other projects that are calling which may further put my Harad on the back burner. So, keep checking back as I will post pics of the Harad stuff I do complete but I'm pretty sure I know where I'll finish in this race. :)

The Great Eye Calls!

Here we are, September 1st and it's time to get going on the Tale of Four Gamers project. For me, that means assembling my first 150 points(148 to be exact) which will be made up of the following models.

11 Haradrim Warriors w/ bow = 66pts
2 Haradrim Warriors w/ spear = 12pts
1 Haradrim Warrior w/ horn = 25pts
1 Haradrim Chieftain = 45pts

Stay tuned for shots of the assembled models and the final product for this month. The men of Harad will not fail their master Sauron.

Tale of Four AWC LotR Gamers Begins!

What have I got myself into now? A week or so ago I got an email from my friend Brent Sinclair asking if I'd be willing to participate in an Adeptus Windy City Lord of the Rings Club version of the Tale of Four Gamers. Tim Kulinski and his crew out in Arizona had done the same thing earlier this year and it looked like a lot of fun. Well, I'm not one to rush my painting projects (which sadly explains my lack of armies!), but after some soul searching I decided I couldn't pass up the chance to participate in this project. Not only would it help me get a new army finished, but I'd be competing along with some great LotR hobbyists: Chris Balke, Brent Sinclair and Jeremy Williams.

The plan is to complete 600 points in 5 months. At the start of each month we will plan out 150 points in models and then complete these by the end of that month. The 5th month will be set aside for finishing touches like bases and display boards. Each of us will be responsible for posting our plan and completed work each month on our respective blogs.

Chris Balke: http://galadriels-mirror-cbalke.blogspot.com/

Brent Sinclair: http://thereandblogagain.wordpress.com/

Jeremy Williams: http://chefofwar.blogspot.com/

To keep score we plan to use the following point system:

Models painted on time: +5pts
Models painted late: +3pts
Models not painted: +0pts

And to encourage some gaming we'll score our wins and losses as follows:

Major Win: 5pts
Minor Win: 4pts
Draw: 3pts
Minor Loss: 2pts
Major Loss: 1pts

Games can start anytime after the second month when we have reached a 300 point level for our armies.

So there you have it. Should be a fun project and if I finish with any points by the end I'll be happy. Good luck to Chris, Brent and Jeremy. Can't wait to see the finished work from these guys.

Fallschirmjager vs. US Infantry

This past weekend I had the chance to take my Fallschirmjager out for their first game of Flames of War against my friend Tyler's Americans. It was a great game and we already have another planned for this week. Below are a few pics of the action. I found that, not really understanding all the rules, I played my Fallschirmjager pretty defensively and when I did assault I was to spread out to be effective. The air support I had was fun but failed to really do much of anything. My standouts were my armour, especially my Marder II's. These guys took out a whole platoon of tank destroyers. I'm definitely getting 2 more of these! My Tiger did alright but I realized by the end of the game that I should have just kept him in place to fire as he would have been more effective.


The famed Luftwaffe seemed off their game this time around....but they still looked cool trying!

My Tiger I E taking out some Shermans.

The stars of the game, the Marder II's!

My Fallschirmjager hiding from the American tanks.

Supporting my Fallschirmjager

Since my last post I've been busy with summer trips and other non-gaming activities. But, with my first game using my Fallschirmjager coming soon I got back to finishing up my force for the big debut game. With my Fallschirmjager company completed it was time to move on to some armoured support including two Marder II's and a Tiger I E which is pictured here. The Marder's are getting their final touches and I'll get some pictures up soon along with a battle report from my first game with the new force.

Now for something completely different: Part II

After a couple of weeks of work I finally completed my Fallschirmjager Company! The force consists of an HQ with attached anti-tank gun and mortar sections as well as two Fallschirmjager Platoons. Even though I did not spend as much time on details like shading and highlighting as I might have liked, I'm pretty happy with the outcome. As I stated in the last post, I'm sure I'll be getting more detailed as I paint future FOW projects. I did take some step-by-step pictures and will put together a short tutorial on the painting process for these in the coming weeks.

Below you can see some pictures of the force:

Platoon I
Platoon II

HQ platoon

HQ command section

Mortar section

Anti-tank section

So, with my first full company completed it's time to get back to work on some 28mm projects. First up on the list are a couple of Gorgon Studio models. Then it's back to Lord of the Rings to paint a Dragon and build a Durin's Tower table for GamesDay Chicago. But rest assured, I'll be back with more FOW as soon as possible. There are two Mader II tanks and some Luftwaffe air support waiting in the Que.

And now for something completely different.

Well, I finally started on a project that has been on my to do list for sometime. Flames of War Fallschirmjager! Thanks to my good friend Dave I managed to score a nice sized collection of models to get this army started. I managed to play a couple of games and loved it but just never had the time or motivation to get my own force painted. I think some of that was my own fear of the great unknown (to me at least) in the form of 15mm models. As you can tell from my blog I pretty much exclusively paint 25-28mm stuff. Anything smaller has always scared me a bit. But, after much online research I finally started my first stands this morning. Here, they are in all their glory.

I basically followed the Fallschrimjager color scheme out of the old Ostfront sourcebook along with the color codes from the newer Eastern Front book. I definitely had to rethink my normal painting when it came to these guys. I found myself wanting to do multiple highlights and even eyes! Well, I think I've convinced myself that there was no reason to go to these extremes so I did a slight flesh wash and left them as is. I think the final result looks fine. I'm sure as I paint more I'll get more detailed. Considering the stuff I've seen for FOW I know I could go overboard if I wanted.

Before I go back to the painting table I wanted to share some of the online resources I've been scouring over the last couple of months. I haven't ventured far so I'm sure people can tell me of lots of other places I can check. But for me, the first stop was the FOW site and their forums. You can find them at http://www.flamesofwar.com/. In the process of getting their newsletter each week I found a link to their podcast as well as an independent podcast called "What would Patton do?" (WWPD). I now listen to both shows but I really enjoy the show the guys at WWPD put together each month. They do a great job of talking about tactics, armies and hobby stuff plus they are so enthused about the game that you can't help but get fired up to play. I strongly encourage anyone interested in FOW to check them out at http://www.whatwouldpattondo.net/.

So stay tuned as my force grows and I'll add plenty of new photos, painting guides and maybe even some battle reports in the coming months. Plus, for you history buffs I might even try and come up with a short overview of my force and the history behind it.

Adepticon 2011 in the books!

Well, it's been a few weeks since Adepticon 2011 and I'm finally feeling like I've returned to normal life. The excitement of Adepticon always takes me a few weeks to recover from. Below are some pics of the LotR Championship event including some of the new table surfaces we added this year. You can find the full set of pictures from the event here.I had a great time playing in my first ever Adepticon LotR event. My thanks go out to Brent Sinclair for taking over the event for me this year. And I should also thank Frank Brown, John Humphrey, and Tim Cornstubble who helped in various ways both before the event and during the event. Without folks like these stepping up to help I wouldn't have had the chance to play. So thank you guys!

I managed to finish my new Dwarf army for the event and was making a run at the best appearance award. But I knew this would be a challenge as great painters like Ty Finnochiaro and Marc Raley would be in attendance. Ty walked away with Best Appearance for his AWESOME Black Numenorian force. You can see some pics of his army along with Marc's Dwarves and my own Dwarf army. I was surprised to find that I had won Best Sportsmanship by tie-breaker (i.e. lowest battle score). So really, I won for doing what I do best....being not so great at playing this game I love. LOL!

Ty's Black Numenorians

Marc's Dwarves

My Erebor Dwarves With Adepticon in the books it's time to move on to new projects including a new LotR force for Bilbo's Birthday Bash, also know as B3. This great event is held in November and you can find more information or even sign-up here.

Adepticon 2011 fast approaching!

Adepticon is just about a month away and I've recently kicked my painting into high gear to meet the deadline of April 1st for the Lord of the Rings Championship. Here are a few pics of some work in progress models along with what the completed bases should look like. Thanks to my friend Brent taking over the coordination of the event this year I will finally get to play in one of the Lord of the Rings events at Adepticon for the first time!

As you might tell I'm very excited about this. Having run the events at Adepticon for the past four years I've watched some great games and even greater players playing the game. Now I get to join this fantastic group of Lord of the Rings hobbyists and compete against some of the best players around.

So stay tuned for updated photos and information. And as always, check out the Adepticon forums at www.adeptuswindycity.com for more information on Lord of the Rings and Adepticon.