Pair of Avengers Complete

 

Pair of Avengers

Easy update this week, finished off a pair of Avengers to support the Valkyries and Vultures.  The model is fun and has some natural lines to it, making painting it straight forward.  This finishes up my Imperial Navy aircraft, at least until they add more.

The Avenger and Vultures are the first Imperial Navy aircraft at this scale that were not in the first Aeronautica Imperialis iteration.  I like them as a niche aircraft, but that makes them very scenario driven.  In generally that is something my games have missed - reasons to take aircraft other than primary fighters.

Up next, not sure.  The Ork Megabommer is sitting in front of me; I have Titanicus terrain to continue to work on; 4 aircraft support Adeptus Titanicus in various ways, and a slew of unbuilt plastic and resin.  Not sure yet.

Knights Completed, Aircraft in Work

 More full update, since it has been a few weeks.

Last weekend, I completed the 4 additional Questoris Knights for my House Vornherr Lance banners.  With these knights completed, I can now field 3 painted Questoris banners, 1 Thermal Cannons, 1 Gatling Cannons, 1 Battlecannon and Missile Launchers.

Long Range Banner

Rapid Fire Banner

Following up from these guys I am working on some Aeronautica Imperialis.  I have assembled my Ork Mega Bommer and it is definitely a big model.  IN addition, I am going to paint up 2 Avengers in support of my Imperial Navy Valkyries.

Mega Bommer is big!

Avengers in-work

When I finish up these aircraft, I think I will also paint up a second pair of Avengers and a second pair of Arvus Lighters.  These two pairs will be painted up using traditional paints and are aimed at being used in Titanicus instead of Aeronautica!  I think I am going to eventually integrate the flight of Avengers into Titanicus, as they might fill a similar niche as some Knight Banners but in a very different way.  More to come on that front.

Griffon Squadron - Valkyries and Vultures

 A late post this week, but a post!

I am taking two weeks of downtime over the end of the year/holidays.  One of my goals is to do some hobby work each day.  I am also at my brother's home for the two weeks - trying to work on me.

Last week and yesterday, I worked on and completed my Aeronautica Imperialis Valkyries and Vultures.  I decided to use some of my Titanicus transfers for Legio Gryphonicus for Squadron heraldry.  I like the idea of a Navy Air Wing's ground assault group/squadron thinking of themselves as Griffons.

Valkyries 1 to 4 and Vultures 5 & 6

Front View

Next project is getting the Blood Bowl Season 2 Box built, maybe even painted.

A Pair of Lighters

This past week, I painted up a pair of Arvus Lighters for Aeronautica.

Arvus Lighters on their stands

I tied them into the rest of my Imperial Navy Air Wing via the blue sections on each wing and yellow lambda and mu markings.

Arvus Lighters from above and the rear

I own another set of Lighters that I plan to paint up as being part of the Ultramarine Legion's administration of the 500 Worlds of Ultramar, but that will be a little bit before I get to them.  I have not yet settled on what I will paint next, either dive into Imperial Navy Air Wing attached to Astra Militarium, ie Valkyries, Vultures, and Avengers or paint up my Warbringer-Nemesis.

Lightning's Complete

Simple update after two weeks of not much progress.  Two weeks ago was very much an end-of-summer cleaning in the apartment each evening and last week was finding the motivation to not just hang out on the couch.

This weekend, I finished out the 4 Lightnings and 2 Lightning Strikes.  Only today as I was selecting the pallet for some Aquila Landers did I realize that I could've/should've used a color other than yellow to differentiate the Lightning colors from the Thunderbolts.  It still very much works.

Four-Ship of Lightnings

Two-Ship of Lightning Strikes

Four-Ship side-on

Two-Ship side-on

Not the Blue Angels

While I am clearly using colors that line up very closely to the Blue Angel's colors that was not the intent, blue and yellow do look good together.

I initially started trying to paint the Lightnings a purple and off-white, with blue accents.  The initial attempt did not look good, the purple and blue too close in "value."  Thus I have chosen to go the same color pallet I used for my Thunderbolts.  A bit more yellow this time around, with the core of the lightning being the bright yellow, along with the wing tips.

Another Wave of Aeronautica

 

The Next Wave

After finishing up the Knight Household, I am returning to the most recent wave of Aeronautica Imperialis.

I plan to paint the Lightnings in a deep purple, giving them a more royal color scheme.  I need to decide how to fit in the deep blue as well on them to tie them to the rest of my Imperial Navy Air Wing.

My current plan for the Valkyries and Vultures is to have them match my Marauder Destroyers.  The Arvus Lighters will be more utilitarian, a grey pallet with the deep blue as an accent.

Also waiting in the wings, is my Warbringer Nemesis Titan.

Iaculator Vera

Barracudas Complete

Completed Box of Barracudas

Simple enough post for this past week.  I completed the box of Barracudas this past weekend.  One of them (the lead) is painted up as the Ace and is in the same colors of Red Horizon, should I or my son choose to run him as such.

Having painted these guys up, the four Tigersharks should be pretty quick.  That will easily bring the Tau force up to more than 250 pts, probably approaching 300 pts.

Top Details

Undersides & Tops

Tau for Aeronautica

In-Work Barracuda

I have started to work on the six Barracuda's I picked up. I am aiming for something reminiscent of the original Tau color scheme.  I aim amazed at the quality of just how detailed these models are.  Games Workshop's investments about a decade ago have allowed them to make amazing models and at 8 mm scale!

I am looking forward to additional Tau vehicles - I am hoping that the main studio or Forgeworld eventually produce the Orca and Manta.  It will be far off I expect, as they were not included in the core rules. I do expect Forgeworld to be releasing the Remora drone fighter.

Undersides of the Barracudas

In-Work Marauder Destroyers

A simple post this week.  Colors other than the camouflage of green and dark blue on the top of the Marauder, they are pretty close.  I think I will have them done before this coming weekend with an hour or two of effort.

In-Work Marauder Destroyers

I expect to finally play a few games of Adeptus Titanicus this coming weekend at my brother's to celebrate his birthday (barring symptoms - stay-safe - small bubble expansions here and there, talk to those that you are planning to meet with and exchange potential contact details).

Ork Air Waaagh! Complete

This past week, I finished up two more Ork Fighta-bommers.  This brings my Ork Air Waaagh! to roughly 330 points before any upgrades, aces, or crew.  It also means I have fully painted the Ork
range for Aeronautica Imperialis.

Da Air Waaagh!

This collection was a pleasure to paint.  Using Contrast paints and allowing the paint to flow some only helped with the "Orki-ness' each model.  A shout out to Le Blog de Kouzes and Da Gretchin Army that inspired the color scheme (from 2014).

Four-ship of Fighta-bommers

For the Aces, I decided to paint one as the named Black Vulture, another that can stand in for Da Big Burna (above and after the break), and a final one that is a reverse of the overall Air Waaagh, but that is so he blends in more with his Imperial prey (who are also blue).

Dakka Dakka Dakkajets! and Update

All the Dakkajets

Fourth Skwadron Boy

This past week I finished up three more Dakkajets - two aces and a fourth "normal" fighter.  I enjoyed the departure from the Skwadron Ace the most.  It gave me an opportunity to really play with the color pallet in a different way.  The Skwadron Ace is intended to be inspired by my Imperial Navy Thunderbolts and "copying" their yellow and blue scheme - so he can blend in.

 I also decided to paint up one of the Dakkajets as the named Ace - "Da Black Vulture."  I like the idea of an Ork list running multiple Aces and the scheme is an easy option as well as making it clear who "Da Black Vulture" is if I or my son decide to run him.

Skwadron Ace

Da Black Vulture

I am already most of the way done with the last two Fighta-Bombers, one of which will be a third Ork ace that will be able to stand in for the "Big Burna."  And with those two, I will round out my Ork Air Wing.  Following that I have two Marauders to assemble and paint.  At that point, I will be waiting for Taros to be available (ie once COVID restrictions are reduced) to expand my Imperial Navy Air Wing as well as add a Tau Expeditionary Air Wing!

It has been roughly a month since my family and I began self-isolating.   I think it is fair to say that I am lucky being a relatively introverted geek.  I think I have an argument that my schedule has gotten more full, between a backlog of plenty of miniatures to paint, no-more excuses from a geographically separated D&D group, and possibly adding another digital D&D game (for my son and his friends).

Thus far, the biggest negative impact for me is my kitchen-table is also now my work desk, in addition to being my hobby space.  There are some nights where I just can't stand being in the same 5 sq ft (0.5 m2) any more and land on the couch, away from the painting setup. 

Colossus Complete

 In focus, nose art of Marauder 13, the Emperor's Own

This past weekend, I finished up the Marauder Colossus.  It was a fun conversion of the Marauder Bomber.  I am not super concerned if the studio announces next weekend that conversion kits are coming.  I will appreciate rules beyond my own homebrew.

From a game-play perspective, the Colossus needs to be a one-hit wonder against ground targets.  When you get there with the bomb, it has to do something, even on a miss. To this end, I propose a rule such as Heavy Ordnance and Firestorm.

Heavy Ordnance: On a hit, it lands on the intended target see Fire Storm below.  On a miss, the bomb still hits the ground and explodes!  Roll a d6 numbering the hexes surrounding the target hex clockwise.  The bomb lands in that hex!
Firestorm:  The Colossus Bomb creates a massive fire storm around where it hits.  The surrounding hexes suffer Bomb Creep on a 3+.

A view of the Colossus Bomb

Marauders 7, 9, and 13 in flight

Distancing

Today's post is more of an admin update.  Similar to many people throughout the western world, I am operating under a COVID-19 driven government "lockdown" order.  In some ways I am fortunate as much of my work is digital and can be done from my kitchen table.

The biggest impacts are that I am now spending 9+ hours per day in the same 3 m2 space, even if I context switch from work to hobby time.  It is why I bring it up here.  I am jealous of those who have been able to take a few closed in days and spend them diving into modeling and painting.

Last week's progress on the pair of Marauders is below.  They are excellent at maintaining appropriate distancing.

The big difference is what they carry

A Better Colossus Bomb

After a discussion about my previous design for the Colossus Bomb did not look good.  I brainstormed possible bits.  I initially considered the bombs from the Ork AI range, but they were too large a diameter and not long enough.  I considered the 40k range of space marines, but not many of them are not complete bombs or missiles.

New Colossus Bomb

On Sunday, I realized that I had Imperial Guard Cadian Missile team a nice large missile.  I spent some time on Sunday converting a new Colossus bomb!

Starting Marauder Variants

The replaced bomb-bays of variant Bombers

Since I bought a second Wings of Vengeance box, I decided that I did not need a flight of four Marauder bombers. There are two variants of the Marauder and I think having one or two could be interesting for scenarios, the Marauder Vigilant and the Marauder Colossus.  The Marauder Vigilance is a reconnaissance variation.  The Marauder Colossus carries a single very large bomb.

An important piece is that they both only carry a pair of Heavy Bolter turrets fore and aft.  I have decided to make them magnetic and rotate.  Eventually, I will develop basic rules for them.

Championing a Game or Range

I overreached on planning and running the Rynn's World Campaign event day.  What I had hoped would be at least 9 to 18 games of Aeronautica Imperialis by six people across a Saturday day of gaming ended up being me playing 3 games of Aeronautica Imperialis against 3 different opponents.

New Rynn City during the Blitz

The first game was notionally just an early game of the intended event.  My son played the Orks and I played the Imperials.  He tried to bomb targets in New Rynn City and I defended them.  We set it at 150 points.  Biggest learning piece from it is working out how to deploy ground assets (still not sure).

Preparing for Rynn's World Event

Staged shot of the battle at Scar Lake

 Next weekend, I am attempting to run an Aeronautica Imperialis event at my FLGS - specifically enabling folks to play through all six of the Rynn's World campaign book scenarios as possible.  My biggest concern is either 1) not having enough players to really make it interesting or 2) being hugely successful and having too many players!  I think a good result will be if about six are able to play several games on cool maps I bought and I have good confidence to try and push for a similar event in the summer tied to the release of the Taros Campaign book.

Adding Thunderbolt 1 and 3

In the build up to it, I am working on adding more Thunderbolts to my Imperial Navy squadron and maybe a uniquely painted Ork Fighta-Bomber ace.  A long-shot is getting another Dakkajet added to the Ork skwadron.  We will see where my painting motivation takes me after this weekend.

Prep for AI Event

At the end of the month, I am planning to run an Aeronautica Imperialis event at my favorite local gaming store.  In preparing for the event, I am planning to make an investment in some additional maps for the event.  I have prepared images for four additional maps to make scenarios more themed.  This took up my Saturday morning.  Need to put in the order/get bids this Friday/weekend.

Mountains for Ruins of Arx Tyrannus

River Valley for Desolation Valley

Ocean with an Island for The Long Flight 

Airbase next to a dry lake bed for Assault on Scar Lake

Painting is continued progress on the gift gang.

Grot Bombers Complete

Grot Bombers from Above

Being sick mid-week really cut down on my progress miniature wise this past week, really only ending up with completing the Grot Bombers by Sunday evening.  I did get some small additional efforts in on two Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Knights.

After painting up a second set of the Ork bombers, I have decided that Orks are more difficult to paint than Imperial Navy planes.  The Imperial Navy planes are fairly flat and uniform and lack the exposed detail of the Orks.

Grot Bombers from ahead

Up next: Cleaning some Necromunda Van Saar gangers and diving into another gift project over the next few weeks/weekends.  I am aiming to have it done for a February birthday!  This also includes having two complete forces of Aeronautica done by the end of February for a campaign day event I am running.  A busy next eight weeks of assembling and painting, not to include getting back to work.