Friday, June 5, 2015

Yme-Loc Eldar

I haven't play 40K in over 5 years, and I've never played it seriously.  But that never stopped me from building armies.

My Eldar army started when i found a big old blister box(the kind that held 10 blisters) of rogue trader Eldar aspect warriors at a  Five Arrows Fine Figures & Art , During a trip to  Hotlead 6 years ago. The Owner, Donald Cameron, was handling an estate sale for an old friend.  he gave me a good price and  that was that.  that Same Day I  found a bag of Guardians in the Bring and Buy, and that was that. 
Yme-Loc Farseer and council.

I set about creating my Eldar army. I picked up a Wraithlord, Farseer, and a box of Dire Avengers(back when Dire avengers came 10 to a box) to compliment what I already had.   a year later i found an OOP Cloudstrike Squadron box(3 falcons). Almost everything else in the army was  bought 2nd hand or at a significant discount. the 3 forge world tanks were payment for painting a Friends Forgeworld items.

Extra Dire Avenger Exarch and Autarch
The Army i decided to do was Yme-loc. they are one of the non-mainstream craft worlds mentioned in the codex at the time. they were red and grey, although i decided that the weird green-blue grey i had kicking around form a previous project would suffice.  the Brief bit of fluff on the craft world suggested that their armies were backed up with signifcant armoured and titan support. and this the strange eldar tank army was born(before 6th edition when serpent spam became common.

Custom Jetbike Farseer(or autarch) to lead my never-realised Windrider host.
 I had always intended to build a windrider host.  I always like jetbikes.  I may build it using the new jetbikes GW jsut released.

my Old school Fire Dragons.  some new ones mixed in on the right with Old rogue trader ones.
Old-school Howling Banshees
Old school Striking Scorpions
  so as you can see my Eldar do not follow the typical paint  Scheme.  the head and shoulders are usually the colour that is associated with that particular troop type.  so so the howling banshees are washed deneb stone head and shoulders with bluegrey bodies.  Dire avengers are blue head and shoulders with Bluegrey bodies. etc.  the exception is the Striking scorpions.  I decided to invert them, as I like the green. The result is a more uniform look then your typical aspect-focused eldar army.
Wraithlord and Wraithguard.

Dire Avengers. 

Serpent spam.
  I have 2 more Wave serpents waiting in the wings to be painted.  Unfortunately they won't get done any time soon as i am moving cross country from Ontario to  Edmonton, Alberta later this summer.
Guardians.

Modified Vypers

Forgeworld Warphunter(back) and Horners(front)

 Yes, I have a lot of tanks. including the Vypers and the 2 unpainted Wave serpents, i have 13 vehicles.
my Cloudstrike Squadron

As mentioned I'd like to add some jetbikes and a wraith knight to the army. they are expensive, but this army is more of a modelling project now then anything else. and that Wraith knight is definitely deserving of some serious customization.

 I actually have begun writing my own set of rules for sci fi.  I've been waiting far too long for someone to write a set of customizable sci fi set of rules i like.  I waited like 6 or 7 years for one company to released but it never seemed to get published.


Thursday, June 4, 2015

A Robotech Oddyssey

At Hotlead  back in March i bought the Robotech RPG tactics boxed set.  this game has sentimental value for me two-fold.

1)  When i was 6 (in 1987) my family was shopping in Toronto.  now shoping in my family was always a big deal becasue i have 2 older sisters, and they were 12 and 14 at the time. because I was  well behaved my mother bought me this cool toy.  it turned out to be a Robotech Zentraedi Tactical battlepod with a 5" pilot action figure.  It was really cool.

2)  when i started gaming what I was 12, my first game was battle tech.  I got the 3rd edition battletech boxed set and the 10th anniversary Compendium for Christmas.  the 3rd edition box is the one that came with 16 mech, all of which would later become the Unseen mechs (a good deal of which were actually directly lifted from Robotech).

 Robotech RPG tactics, as a purchase, was mostly fueled by nostalgia.  however I found the models to be great fun to paint, and the rules are delightfully good.  I missed the ongoing trainwreck which  Kickstarter  is apparently turning out to be.

As almost everyone knows by now, Palladium made some bizarre choices as to how to split up the models on the sprues.   the Zentraedi models, so far are not much more complicated then your average GW plastic model.   the UEDF destroids  range from about as easy as the Zentraedi to a little more complicated.   but the UEDF Valkyries are just silly.  each Valkyrie ash 3 models to represent the 3 modes you can transform into.  only the fighter mode is straightforward and simple.  the Guardian/gerwalk mode has some serious arm issues, and Battloids are between 15 and 17 pieces depending on which variant your are assembling.  The only good thing about the battloids being in so many pieces is that it's easier to convert new poses.

I decided i was going to do my UEDF forces in a Israeli theme.  I love the Israeli 3tone camo.  So i modeled my Valkyries after the  IAF 106 "Spearhead" Squadron.  I have yet to print off the squadron decals and apply them but i intend to.

VFA-106 "Speahead" Squadron
 the UEDF ground forces(destroids) are useing teh IDF armoured markings.  I decided to Model the 71st Armored Battalion, of the 188th Armoured Brigade. I've taken some liberties with the nicknames. Each battalion in the brigade is named after some sort of weather phenomena, so I've dropped that down the the company level(since my game "squadrons" are going to be companies). 
1st "Tornado" Company of the 71st Armoured Brigade
At the moment I have 4 of each destroid, but no Defenders(Riflemen) or Phalanx(Longbows)  painted yet.  they will be arranged into 3 companies.  th 1st "Tornado" Company will be 2 tomahawks and 4 Spartans. the 2nd "" Company will be 2 tomahawks and 2 Defenders, and the 3rd "Monsoon" Company will be 4 Phalanx and 2 Defenders.


My zentraedi will be fairly vanilla.   I have not come up with a theme for them yet.  I'm thinking I may not come up with one at all, since they are Zentaedi.  They don't strike me as particularly individualistic or as having a great deal of character.

2 Glaug Command Pods and a Recovery pod.


2 Recon battlepods and 2 tactical battlepods.

I have 18 Tactical battlepods  4 artilelry battlepods, 2 Recon battlepods, 2 GlauG command pods and 2 recovery pods.  I have to really work on painting more battlepods to get a solid game in.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Introductions and a few pictures

Hi there,

My Name is Stephen Thomson and I've been gaming for 22 years(since I was 12). I started gaming with Battletech.  before I even played my first game I built my own terrain table.  I used the "table top" conversion rules.  I never liked hex maps.

for teh last decade I've mostly played Historical games, and you can see that on my other blog, Adventures in Miniature Gaming , which is listed as a "page" of this blog(and vice versa).  Recently my interest in Sci-fi and fantasy gaming and re surged a bit. and now I'm balancing both instead of going whole-hog into one genre.

Over the years I've played many Scifi and Fantasy games, including:
Warzone(all versions but Prodos one)
Warhammer 40K
Void
Battletech
Epic Space Marine/40K/Armageddon
Starship Troopers
Full Thurst
Babylon 5 a Call to Arms
A Sky full of Ships(which my gaming group playtested and Published)
Dystopian Wars
Warhammer
GW Man O'War
Crucible: Conquest of the Final Realm
GW Lord of the Rings SBG,
GW War of the Ring

Here are a few bits and pieces of stuff I've done in the past:



A lot of my older pictures are garbage, so I'll be retaking photos of stuff  over the next little while.

Cheers!