The end of March

Well folks thats March done now, I dont think I'll be painting any more figures this month, so here's the totals.

Painted 42

Bought 142

Whoa!!!!!!!! That looks like an increase in the lead pile, but if you remember what I said at the start of the month, all purchases this month were pre-painted, so in reality that amount of painting wiped out last months shortfall and chipped a little off the mountain, so still going in the right direction.

I've been good for too long now, one of my New Years Resolutions was that I wouldnt start a new project until I had finished 2 old ones, well so far I have completed 3, Aeronef, Land Ironclads and the Andryadans. So whats gonna be my new project?????

This!!!!!!! Been doing some reading and looking and I'm liking what I've been seeing, its a platoon sized game (so no having to paint 100s of figs), its alternate squad activations (like Stargrunt II), its WW2(ish) with just the merest hint of mayhem in the shape of vampires, werewolves, zombies and Mechs. Its not that dear until you get into the big Mechs like the Tiger Mech, imagine a Tiger 1 with some legs standing about 10" tall on the battlefield. Now wipe up that drool now. Also recommends using some of the 1:48th Corgi diecasts and other "standard" WW2 minis and equipment, so no GW "yer can only play this game with our minis, or else!" nonsense. Yeah so I'm thinking about blowing some of Aprils drinking and smoking budget in the direction of a starter platoon and a set of rules.

Re-enforcements

Well my MW Age of Destruction starter pack arrived this morning and here's what was in it, meet the Gunslingers.

Yep Mechs for hire, roughly 2 300pt forces of mercenaries.

Also Graham was round this afternoon for a quick run through of the rules, what he noticed when having a look at this lot was that the blueish Mech when clicked the stats didnt line up at all on the dial. I took the base apart and found that the dial had been glued on with the "clicky-peg" lined up with the wrong stat number. Its fixed now Graham, shaved the whole peg off with a scalpel and glued in a sliver of hard plastic spear shaft in the right place.

And yet more re-enforcements, this time from the collection of Graham.

plus this Hoverbike, Graham pointed the problem out as he was using one in this afternoon's game

the observant amongst you will have spotted the problem right away,you cant actually see the bloody dial. The quick and dirty solution was, bung it in the freezer fr a couple of hours (makes the superglue joint brittle) quick press of the knife across the base and glue half of a flying stand shaft in there.

Much Better!!!

More insane ramblings very soon.

Spirit Cats have arrived :)

Well the title says it all, the Spirit Cats have landed. I'm quite happy with the missus's purchase as not only did I get just under a 1000pts worth of those guys but I found that I got as well what looks like quite a rarity.

Notice that the base isnt the usual black or Grey (rare) but bronzey-gold, thats a limited edition (dont ask me how limited) but with the pilot card that is the entirity of the Comstar faction. But looking at the points values, 277 for the Mech and another 49 for the pilot thats a large chunk of change for using in a "standard" 450pt game. So as nice as it is to get this LE Mech I dont think it'll see that much action, its just too high cost, but if I ever try out a 6ft battlefield with 900 or 1200 pt game, it'll be dusted off and leading the charge.

Easter arrives early

Whoot!!!! My overly generous missus has been at it again, she's seen me working on easing of some of the clicky infantry bases (some were so tight that I needed to use a screwdriver to get them to turn) and asked "what are those?". So long story short, these are winging their way across the pond to me.

So another small faction for the Mecha wars, to be honest when I saw what she'd paid for it I didnt have the heart to tell here that she'd paid a quid less for this lot than I paid for the Swordsworn horde, which I suppose just shows what a bargain that lot was. But when I asked her why she chose these ones the reply was that they looked "neater" than the other lots. And when my missus uses neat, she doesnt mean cool/funky/rad she means neat & tidy. But looking at the piccy I also think they look neat, but in a funky way, yes I am looking forward to these arriving.

Clickys first outing

Well I thought the missus is out, next club night is next week, so I thought I'd try out the clickys before I inflict them on Mexican Dave.

The battlefield in all its glory.

Rebellious Swordsword turn up to claim the city and all the wealth it produces.

House Davion decides to contest the claim.

Swordsworn win the "I go first roll"

and power up 4 of their 5 Mechs, since this was a 600pt battle their were 4 orders per side per turn.

the Mechs all move maximum distance forward, the order markers are flipped to red. (they've had an order and executed it)

House Davion activate a heavy tank, 2 Mechs and their VTOL.

Swordsworn decide to be conservative and only activate their remaining 2 units and not "push" the previously activated Mechs.

Hiding behind the buildings

House Davion acivate their remaining units and decide to "push" (their luck) with their main Mech

Ooooh, lots of shooting to come here.

cant be bothered going through the rest of the piccies, but here's what it looked like at "time up", well 60 mins after the start. Looks like a decisive win for House Davion.

The Clickys arrive

Well I'm a happy bunny this morning, the clicky mechs arrived about 10am, so do I think I have enough?

Well, considering that the piece of painted ply that theyre standing on is the standard battlefield I'd say that the Swordsworn (the mass on the left) are more than adequate. House Davion (the little mob on the right) I might purchase a few more for them.

Ok Dave M asked me a question about the scale of these things

Nominally the scale is about 10mm, but just for Dave here's a GW Titan, a Mech and a 28mm Space Marine, ok that IS my biggest Mech but the size is nice.

So hows the painting, to be honest, if I let Mexican Dave loose on these I have no doubt that he could improve on the pre-painted look, but its more than adequate. Here's a few random Mechs

and a few random tanks

So what's my impressions? To me this looks like a total one-buy gaming system for a mere £20, yeah I'll play this, the rules look like they'll provide just enough detail to satisfy an old Battletech player without all those awful sheets lying around everywhere. They also look very tactical as there's only so many actions that you can carry out each turn. Will I buy more of these? I think I just might, one of my wargames clubs niggles with the whole game when it was in production was that it came blind-boxed, so that you could be building say a Highlander army and your booster pack didnt have a single unit in it for Highlanders. While I appreciate the whole "collectable" thing, I much prefer it now as at least on evil-bay you normally get a look at what youre buying, so if there aint anything in the lot you want, you dont buy it.

Now to have a heavy dose of "looking-at" to decide what my next faction will be.......

Clicky Madness

I just won the auction on evil-bay for my mecha clickys, here's what I got

26 Mechs

17 Tanks

29 Infantry

Not a bad lot for £20, it was £10.50 until about 15 seconds before the end then the bids flew in, going up in £3 increments, but I suppose the dealer (or whoever) just couldnt get the bids in quick enough. I'm quite happy apart from the fact that its all one faction, well almost, its mostly the Swordsworn faction who according to Battletech fluff are loyal to House Davion. Guess what the rest consist of? Yep, House Davion, so I suppose that there will be a lot of "training exercises" at least for a while.

March starts

Well I hope I perform a bit better this month, Febs totals were 102 bought, 72 painted, so a little hiccup there. The good news is that any I buy this month will be pre-paints, so a totally null effect on the lead mountain. Why pre-paints I hear you ask (well I dont obviously, but it sounded good), I had the misfortune a little while ago of looking around for a not-Titan for one of my 6mm sci-fi armies and stumbled across some really funky Battletech Mechs. Theyre the out of production clicky variety as opposed to the white metal variety still sold by Minifigs and Iron Wind, so they come all painted up for you. Theres a couple of job lots on evil-bay just now that I'm watching and if I win one of those I may indeed have a bash at Wizkids cut down rules, failing that, I'll just be buying a couple of singles, prying them off their clicky bases and using them in FWC.