Year 2014 on miniatures - brief look to the past

It's the time when everyone is looking back into the year lived, so I'm joining the band. And actually I have had this habit since my blog was born way back two years ago, so I feel obliged. It's been, once again, active year with this hobby of mine. Actually calling this merely a hobby feels somewhat understatement since painting miniatures is my passion, It inspires me and gives nice feelings of creativity and even those good vibes of flow.

And anyhow, it's always nice look back to the year you've been doing and when it's easy as this why shouldn't you. I think you are now convinced, so I move on... Oh by the way, this blog changed language somewhere during summer, so don't be surprised to find strange language when you follow the links (ed. that means stranger language than on this page).

About my passion - painting projects

... and some comments on gaming too


Wild frontier

The year 2104 was interesting year, because many new painting projects started and I ventured on many new ranges of miniatures. Year started working with French & Indian war era miniatures when I joined Muskets & Tomahawks -campaign in our club. Miniatures were great and I enjoyed painting them much. At the same project I painted a bunch of venerable Foundry trappers and mountain men, they are nice too. The game itself wasn't that impressive, nice card activation but in the didn't like that much It's only good for certain theater and too gimmicky to my taste, but it had it moments and was good reason to paint nice mini's.


Back to the WWII

After the glow of the war with Indians and French went, my interest turned into WWII and there was
very nice sale of Warlord miniatures on one of the local shop. So one thing followed another and I was there in the middle of a new project painting German Fallschirm jägers, Canadian infantry, German infantry and later on US Marines for the Pacific. This was actually going back to age old interest of WWII which started back in the day when I was little boy playing Airfix plastics, with what I learned how to paint in the first place. With Warlord miniatures I started playing Bolt Action game which I really like. The game is simple to learn and play but complex enough to give good "period" feel. I even devised a scenario for it and will run a landing themed campaign this year.

Modern continues

My never ending interest with modern warfare miniatures went on strong as I did quite many projects with them. I
managed to find some modern German kampaffscwimmers from Tactica. painted whole lot of Empress modern PLA marines with their funny blue camo and some modern street fighters and cops from Foundry and TAG. I also managed to have some gaming with Force on Force, which is still one of the best game systems there is.

Along with these so called projects, there was also some additional painting which I even haven't put on my blog. Some WH40K miniatures. Unsuccessful start with 6mm ACW union cavalry. Some scenery and little this and that. So I spent quite a lot time with my beloved hobby and enjoyed every moment.

Building something small

With miniatures and games there was also some gaming table projects and scenery building. With ever inspiring War Head team we built quite many gaming tables for the tournaments and Storm of Vengeance campaign. And I also ran one house building workshop on the club.

Happenings

During 2014 there was many happenings around miniatures and games that I was participating. At first, as an opening into year was Hamburger Tactica. Great show and exposition of gaming and painting. I could recommend that to anyone interested miniature games. Then there was demo games organized by a friend and fellow gamer where I once again demonstrated Force on Force game to eager newbies. It was fun and it was nice to spend some time and talk to people who aren't too deep in the "pit". Summer came and with it Ropecon 14, where we continued our tradition of Force on Force demo and table spectacle with other fellow gamer. Then there were two other expo's where I was on of our Club's grew when organizing demo table. They were Model Expo Helsinki and Suuri Snadi.

Even I don't play much in tournaments I was participating the teams organizing these during the year. These our club GW games based tournament Talvisota and War Head's 40K tournaments during the year.

Campaings

One of the highlights of the year was our Black Powder campaign in the club which I was game mastering and creating the scenarios. The Danube campaign went chronologically through 1809 war between Imperial France. The gaming went on almost for a year and some nice and big games were played Aspern - Essling and Wagram to mention few.

Many friends from the club participated the games and were initialized into 15mm Napoleonic gaming. Thank's once more for the generals!

The other, totally different, campaigns was the revitalization of the old GW campaign The Storm of Vengeance, which was nicely upgraded by War Head's proprietor Teemu. It was mini campaign where Charcharodons marines faced orc invasion. I was playing with my orcs. We had weekend's full of gaming and great fun.

The Club

During the last year we kept running games evening called "eccentric games" on our gaming club on Wednesdays. The ideas was to play games that are not that know or popular when compared with Games Workshop big ones. So there I was spending most of my Wednesdays organizing or playing some sort of miniature game in the club. Club is nice focal point of the hobby especially the gaming side. The club has reached now the size that one can be able to find fellow gamer to play with you in most of the rules and there's always some activity going on. So through that I started many of my this years painting projects. I was also nominated as one of the first "Fellow gamer" this year for my involvement and contribution for the club activities. A title I'm proud to carry and will pursue on living the title.

One of the highlights of these evening was to able to help fellow club member to develop new rule set for modern firefights. I commented the rules and test played them and finally this ended up with rules and pack of scenarios. The rules are called Heist. Thanks for the opportunity.

Departing thoughts for the year to come

This blog is mostly for me to keep record and follow the miniature painting I do through the year. Blog entries are about painting miniatures, or to be more precised showing painted miniatures and telling about that. But along that it follows quite nicely my activities with gaming, since most my painting is for games and when I start painting project, it will eventually lead into some sort of miniature game. Sometimes I like the game so much that I will stick to it and gaming goes on regularly, more or less. Some games are even that good and interesting that I dig more deeply in those by start organizing scenario games and campaigns in our club. Fine examples of the games I've liked and stayed is recently started Bolt Action or above mentioned Force on Force. Both are the ones I have been and will be organizing scenario based games. Some games I just leave, cause they are not for me. I'm not saying that they are not good games, but they just don't support my style and idea of good gaming, so why bothering. There's only this much time in the world. And still I try to up live principle I adopted last year, maybe less games but more quality in all of its' respects.

Funny enough I still haven't counted the number of miniatures painted during the year. It's just not my cup of tea, but I believe some 300 - 500 all together.

This year starts with definite plan to run landing campaign in the Pacific, where US Marines will
attack the coral island. And during the Christmas Holiday Season I started painting new range once again. This time I'll venture into Outremer with Norman knights, but more of that later.

Let's see what else 2015 will bring. Anyway I'll keep painting, that's for sure!

Season's Greetings!

When your hobby is miniatures, you just have to have them for all occasions. You might have even this kind of miniatures in your stash, well I have. Once a year they come out from the box they live through rest of the year.

Now these guys have their season and with them I wish you all Merry Christmas!

WH 40 K - Through the Storm of Vengeance

It's been really busy November. New painting project running on high gear, weekly Bolt Action gaming, some scenario design for the fore mentioned game.  War Head's own 40 K staff tournament.

And the main event of November, 40 K campaign.  After over a half year of planning and postponing, we finally realized our vintage 40 K campaign from early 90's the Storm of Vengeance. Previously I played it through after buying it mid 90's or when ever it was published and it was nice to revisit it with War Head team. Our 40 K mastermind Teemu tweaked the venerable campaign to be played with 7th ed. rules and choose very nice narrative from multitude of games provided in campaign pack.

We prepared the campaign well before the actual gaming by building some custom table and some thematic scenery to give some nice theme for our games. We had two orc players and one who was doing the marines part. The marines were Teemu's excellent Charcharodons, award winning army. I was doing Bad Moons and Hese took the role of Chazghull Thraka and his Goffs.

Actual campaign was fought over a weekend, four games on Saturday and final very large game on Sunday, some seventeen hours of gaming all together. The games formed a narrative pretty much as in the campaign book, and the games had connection to the next and some effect on the next, so it meant something to win or lose. Since this was very fluffy game, armies were build very liberally and the troops were't balanced.

How the story went, you can read from War Head's excellent Blog where games and the whole narrative starting from scenery workshop into last game is or will be reported. So enjoy, it's all Finnish, but there's lot of eye candy of nicely painted figures and fine scenery.

And then the story of or campaign.

From the scenery workshop at War Headquarters

To actual games.

Preparation: Reaching Piscina IV
First game: If ya want sunffin dun...
Second and third game: Gut and run & Breakthrough
Fourth game: Revelations
Fifth game: to be published...

It was great campaign, best of breed and really the way I love to play beloved 40 K games. Games with fine story, nice armies, good company and  great feelings. Lots of "movie moments" in the games!

Something to remember for a while.

Bolt Action - US Marine reinforcements

Bolt Action Marine project grinds on and some more tough fighters got ready to join battle in remote Pacific coral islands. I just got ready second squad of Marine infantry, Sherman and LVT4 Buffalo amtrack.

After painting most of my Marines with green-grey dungarees I wanted little variety and painted some five Marine scouts in P24 camo suit. These guys are from second Marine recon battalion, which was one of the first incarnations of now famous Marine Recon, called Marine Raiders back in the day.

And finally, I dusted old Thunderbolt fighter-bomber plane. It was painted 2003 for other WW2 games, but now it joins the fight again.


Here are the reinforcements.

39 cal. team shifting position.

Flamethrower of course.

Marine recon in camo, mixing it well to the background.

Raiders with lots of assault weapons.

More raiders.

Second infantry squad.

One of the BAR gunners.

Riflemen.

Bazooka team.

Sniper and spotter taking five.

Buffalo amtrack.

And ubiquitous Sherman tank.

P 47 Thunderbolt.

Next there will be more heavy metal, maybe one more Sherman and one of those landing crafts to ferry my Marines ashore. There will be more, stay tuned...

Bolt Action - To Pacific

While my Marine painting project marches on we have started playing games in Pacific theater between Imperial army of Japan and US Marines. Few first games have been fairly small in size, only few squads of infantry and some support weapon teams. We have added freshly painted units when they get ready, so last time I got to field Sherman support for my Leathernecks. Little gaming during armies are building up keeps up painting heat and gives nice boost for new phases of the projects. Today, I started planning ordering some landing crafts, just to have some landing and beachhead scenarios to give some spice for normal scenarios. Yes the order will be done soon.

Pacific theme sets different gear for Bolt Action games, when compared to ETO games. The scenery tends to be more dense, so there's a lot of movement and fire fights happen at close range. There are tactically very different armies facing each other. Japanese are very aggressive and good at close quarters, so Marines should be very careful not get attacked suddenly from the bushes. On the other hand, Japanese should avoid prolonged fire fights with Marines, who pack quite respectable firepower, with their automatic weapons. At first, US tanks seem to dominate battle field, but after meeting suicide bombers from Japan, you have to reconsider. Human bombs are so powerful. And off course, there is those interesting landing games ahead. So after fielding Germans for some time, it's good command tough Leathernecks against fanatic warriors from the land of the rising sun. I'm inspired!

Here's some combat shots from our first fights.

Fire fights happen at close range.

Marine sniper and spotter.

Japanese infantry moving through dense cover.

Japanese sniper in position.

US command advances.

US heavy metal.

Japanese excel in close combat.

Who's that guy with that package?

And they learned quickly, don't let suicide bomber close!

There will be more painting and I have also started devising mini campaign about US landing on small island and hard fighting for beachhead. More new miniatures to be presented soon...

Bolt Action - Semper Fi

My new painting project has been mentioned few times before and now the first batch of Bolt Action US Marines are ready to be introduced.

Just finalized few heavy weapons, so now I have a squad of infantry, few officers, FO, two machine guns and two mortars and medic ready, painted, based and varnished ready to face some Japanese opponents.

And this is only beginning of and there is more nice toys to be painted. Next in line LVT 4 snipers and more infantry.

And here are my new Leathernecks. I really do like these miniatures, nice sculpts and full character as Marines should, enjoy, Semper Fi!

Squad 1.

With various weapons including combat shotgun.

And BAR's many BAR's.

F.O. and scout.

Corpsman and strecher party.

Radio operator and Chesty in person.

Company commader and gunny.

81 mm mortar.

Browning 1917 MMG.

Stowe pipe boys with 60mm mortar.

Browning 1919 MMG.

This is really inspiring new project as I may have said all ready. Marines, my favorite unit, nice models for good game.

WH 40K - Storm is rising!

Next weekend we will be having 40K weekend extravaganza! I haven't been playing 40K for a while, so It'll be nice to meet 7th ed. too. The campaign is based on GW campaign booklet Strorm Of Vengeance which was published way back in 90's for 2nd. ed. Our 40K master Teemu, read it through and picked some appropriate scenarios and tuned them for 7th. ed. There will be two famous orc warbosses Nazdreg and Ghazgull clashing with Charcharodon Chapter Marines on Piscina IV.

As a preparation for the campaign, we had scenery project, in which we made custom gaming table, with some nice new scenery and buildings. During two sundays War Head construction team worked hard on cutting, plastering, painting and weathering tables and buildings. This is actually as inspiring as the actual game! More on our scenery project on War Head blog. (all Finnish).

There is a storm rising and soon it's upon us!