My year 2016 in miniature

It's once again time look at past year 2016 in terms on my beloved painting, modeling and gaming hobby. And maybe look forward into year 2017, what is to be come from there.

Last year has been quite buys and productive year. I've been painting a lot and have started few new eras of war gaming. Also have participated the usual local conventions with some nice demo/participation games. And one of the highlights of last year was once again trip to Hamburg Tactica.

The only thing I noticed is I've been lazy with my blog. There's not that many articles or battle reports published as previous years, and the reason is that I haven't had that many games last year. I have painted more and tinkered with all those nice models. Maybe I'm becoming more choosy in terms of games I want to spend my time.

Painting

As I said before, there has been fair amount of painting in year 2016. I have continued to build my ever growing collection of WWII miniatures for Bolt Action. During last year I started and completed British and German desert armies with good choice of support weapons. It was nice to paint loads of sand brown vehicles and those iconic adversaries in desert war, DAK and Desert rats.

And when we talk about iconic units I added also small but very powerful team of LRDG jeeps and lorries in my collection. More on these nice  models here.

Unfortunately I haven't had chance to field them but once, but where their firepower scary. Report of that desert incident can be found here. 

Desert wasn't the only new WWII project during last year since I also started Imperial Japanese army for pacific and kit bashed some US infantry for Pacific to fight along the Marines in island hopping. With these US reinforcements I also acquired some Higgins boats to ferry troops on shore. I'm planning to re-run the Tarawa mini campaign once again this year and now with proper equipment and enough troops. I kinda like Pacific theater.

Year 2016 also saw start of not one but two new war gaming periods and massive army building with that. First one was when I agreed to join in AWI starter army deal with my club mate and volunteered buy and paint Continental rebels. This was very intensive painting project when I painted some 130 + Continental miniatures on period of one month. I didn't painted anything else as you might guess. Sounds tedious, but was really quite interesting experiment of how much one can produce on certain period of time.

And if that wasn't enough I went in a another massive painting venture after summer. Some club mates started talking about ECW and TYW project and I was in. So from August I've been painting ECW parliament army for coming ECW campaign which is to start on early 2017 with Edgehill fight. Somehow ECW miniatures have been most joyful to paint. They are full of character and actually quite colorful too. Even the amount of painted ECW figures has been quite substantial I haven't reached the same numbers with that project than in AWI, maybe the year is taking it's toll.

Addition to these main painting projects, i tinkered little this and that, building mainly terrain
piecesand objectives. And yes had two very productive and good table projects with my club mate Kalle. First one was desert table which is featured in many of my Bolt Action AAR's in my blog. The second one was build of modular river table with interchangeable center piece. After having had some mishaps with water effect we realized one of the greatest tables so far.

The whole idea of concentrating on terrain and tables was brought home from last years Hamburger Tactica, where we decided our focus for the year to be a good quality terrain.

Wargames

If I've been quite busy on painting and building, gaming has been little bit slower. Not that many
games a month, maybe only one or two maximum, but that seems OK. Some years ago I decided to go for quality that quantity in gaming. Bolt Action has been on to my list in gaming as in previous years, its' just so good game and interesting theme. In Bolt Action I have had roughly a game in a month which is quite enough. With new V2 rulebook it saw some more gaming activities during autumn. In Bolt we have had traditional gaming days and demonstrations in our Club and in some conventions.

Black Powder was once again activated when we started the AWI gaming after summer holidays. We
started loose campaign and started playing games from Warlords Rebellion campaign book. we started with the first fight and went on until the size of the games exceeded our supply of miniatures. Now the campaign is on hold until more troops will be painted. The Rebellion book is very good campaign book and the scenarios give nice and relaxed games. I really have enjoyed playing them. We also had a participation game of AWI in local gaming convention Ropecon, where our new armies were on display and the game was introduced for interested. We had fun and people had fun, it was all fun.

And them at late last year we had our first ECW fight just to field new troops and take first tasters of the new period. We gathered figures from four gamers and had fairly nice looking fight where Parliament troops met the kings men on the field. The table was bit cramped but the provided quite intense game. And it was true eye candy with all those large blogs of units and flags flying. This we will go back in year 2017 big time with ECW campaign and then TYW battles.

For this I will definitely paint way more figures too since I really enjoy the look and feel of these men with feathers in their hats.

And yes, and one of my oldest gaming involvement continued also last year. Traditional WH 40K games during summer had some 40K games in the Club and then just before Christmas great day with my special War Head friends. Our Civil war inhouse tournament is new classic. Intense day of friendly but unforgiving gaming for bragging rights.

My hobby year saw also traditional weekend in Hamburger Tactica with friends. Tradition that will repeated also this year of 2017. Our Club also participated in PoroCon gaming convention in Helsinki. I promising new gaming con that combines nice all sorts of table top games. This also will be on my schedule for next spring.

Plans, plans... 

My painting plans are quite clear. More Bolt Action armies aiming to have them all! And then the previously mentioned ECW/TYW painting project. And then some more AWI Continentals. And off course something I haven't even noticed yet, but will most likely to venture in...

I have some plans and ideas of some Bolt Action events for next year. Maybe the first will be re-run of Tarawa campaign from two years back. Three game mini campaign of three fighting days in Tarawa. Now with reviewed scenario  rules.

Then on June Normandy D-Day mega game. Game set up I spotted in one of the British gaming blogs which I would like to repeat in some way. It will be D-Day landing on four joined tables spanning from airborne landing until first wave fights itself through the defenses. Involving some six players having the same game. This will test Bolt Actions limits, but would be great fun.

And maybe the year 2017 sees Napoleonic 1813 campaign start in the Club. Which I'll be participating.

and maybe something more...

WH40K - Hot LZ on Ghondar

I went once again back into WH40K. The game I started all this miniatures wargaming back in the day. I was drawn in when I got invited to take part into a big thematic game. This was also starting game of our clubs WK40K summer campaign. The game was about planetary defense force battling against Tyranid invasion. One could say, classic and epic WH40K stuff. The game was two vs. two players so we managed to gather some 4 000 pts. per side and had the game in double sized table, just to get enough room to move and create clear lines of defense. I was once again commanding my brave Elysian 77th drop detachment which came to aid and support local Gronos PDF and hastily gathered militia. Imperial troops were facing wast hordes of Tyranid bugs of all sorts. They came in all forms, from man sized into big and even more huge. They even had something called Bio Titan. Scary but fortunately slow one.

Before the battle local PDF had set three defensive lines which were to stop the attacker. First line
was mainly formed of dug in infantry. Second line was more infantry and with some tanks here and there and third line was mainly armored line. Other Imperial troops were left into reserve and came in later. This line now waited gripping their guns looking through the sights to see the feared enemy. And short wait it was...

The Tyranids started pouring in. At point the small and fast ones seemed to fly over the ground when they ran and bounced over ruins and obstacles on no mans land. Bigger ones came after slowly but still fast enough. There was even one big one flying and even bigger one coming in soon after. Defenders started frantic shooting as soon as they got first wave on their sights. there was seemingly a wall of lasgun fire backed with rumble of heavy bolters and las cannons. Mortars and cannons joined the fire and it seemed that nothing could survive the fire storm. Some creatures were moved down but still they were too many and just came forward taking cover from ruins and craters. The distance to first lien was getting very short.

As Imperial officers observed the fight Tyranids seemed to attack in two pronged form, one from right and one left. Both waves were led by small and fast Gaunts. Tyranids from fight were faster and they also had better cover so they reached Imperial lines first. They were also followed by big hovering Hive Tyrant which probably inspired Gaunts to push on. The ones approaching from left came over more open field and got more fire which felled leading Gaunts. But still they pushed on seemingly fearless.

Then the monsters reached first defensive line and all hell broke loose. Imperial troopers put up a pretty good fight but still they were no match for the chitinous claws and teeth and all that venom. Defenders were devoured in no time and Gaunts readied for the attack on the next line.

As the first lien of defenders were fighting hard the Imperial officers registered worrying sight. Over the chitinous horde loomed massive Bio-Titan approaching slowly to Ghondar hive. Experienced officers new they had nothing to stop that monster. The request for further fire
support from the orbit was refused, they were told to hold on what they had.

Quite soon after that Imperial reserves started to arrive and Valkyries swooped down from the orbit and started murderous fire with rockets and gattling guns cutting Gaunts like lawn mowers. Artillery and mortars did their job as properly and the attack seemed to stall. Then once again situation changed when Tyranids appeared from nowhere and attacked back lines of defenders. Now the monsters were everywhere and fighting lines got all mixed. There was lots of cross fire and bugs seemed to be running every place. They even dug out from the ground. The battle was at chaos in this stage and all sensible lines of command seemed to lost by Imperial troops. More Elysian Valkyries dropped down joining the fight, but since every sensible LZ were compromised there were no good point to set defensive positions. So the planes remained airborne and poured fire on the big bugs. Frustrated the Elysians troops were watching as their comrades were slaughtered down unable to do anything to help.

The devouring went on and whole company of Ghondar rifles was lost on that unfortunate sector. But the brave boys took some amounts of monsters with them and Tyranid attack was also loosing it's momentum. At his late stage of the fight lonely Chimera troop carrier rolled in and grey roped Imperial agent jumped out of it followed by grey clad troopers, all wearing Inquisition emblems. Quiet agent was looking around scrutinizing the situation and soon after jumped back into Chimera which left the scene.

The battle was about to end. Almost all the defenders were lost. Vast numbers of the Tyranids were moved down into point were the attack seemed to stop. At least for a while. Remaining defenders started withdrawing to new positions in Ghondar hive.

Some AAR shots.

Massive Bio-Titan moving in.

Brain bugs hovering on.

Horde of Gaunts leaping towards the lines.

Imperial defenders prepare to fire.

Local governor having uplifting speech for the troops.

Fire at will!

Fast and deadly Gaunts.

Lictor appearing from nowhere.

Ruins provided good cover for the attacker.

Tyranids dropping in from the sky. Totally surprising last line of defense.

Hive Tyrant leading from the front.

First defensive line under massive assault.

Elysian Valkyries swoop in.

Coming in hot.

Clear battle lines were lost when the monsters dug out from the ground. 

Elysian Sentinels dropped in and joined the fight.

Big monsters roam among the lines attacking everything at sight.

The Tyranids broke through the first line of Ghondar defenders and too a foot hold on ground. God knows what machinations they cook up now when on the ground. The defenders moved back deeper in the hive city getting ready for another nightmarish fight. The Imperium has turned it's eyes on Cronos and Ordo Xenos has arrived. The plot thickens.

This was nice and very good thematic game just what 40K should be. Thanks to all mates for this! 

WH 40K - Storm of Vengeance with style!

When you do 40K you should do in style and feeling. 

Late last year we had great weekend campaign of WH 40K with War Head crew. Here's the AAR from the last deciding fight of the campaign from War Head blog. 

We revitalized age old Storm of Vengeance campaign from nineties into modern age and fitted it into recent 40K rules. The fight was two day mini campaign with five escalating battles altogether.  I did small feature of it previously and this can be found in the post Through the Storm of Vengeance. The whole campaign was one of the best gaming experiences of last year. Starting from a weekend of building themed terrain and preparing some new fluffy units for the games. War Head main man Teemu adapted the old campaign rules into 7th ed. 40K rules. Should do more of this in the future.