Geiers and third Ragnarok

Pair of Geier bombers, Top & Bottom

Over the past week and Saturday morning & evening, I painted up the pair of Geier bombers and my third Ragnarok pocket battleship.  Finishing out these three models completes out all the Danish and Prussian lend-lease ships I have.  I have been playing at least a game of Dystopian Wars each month, which helps with the motivation to paint stuff up.

I still have a few Dystopian Wars models I can paint, 2 or 3 Korsor corvettes and 5 mine markers.  When my brother's Kickstarter box shows up, I will have a box or two of "new" Prussians to field.  I will need to decide if they are actually Prussian, lend-lease, or maybe something else.  I doubt the Danes would sit out a Baltic war, maybe they are working to prevent the British from pushing through the Danish Straits.

Third Ragnarok pocket battleship

 I am now pivoting back to another project, partially inspired by the coming update to 40k.

DRN Dannebrog

Profile of the DRN Dannebrog

 This past Saturday, I spent afternoon painting up the DRN Dannebrog for my Dystopian Wars fleet.  The model is an Scandinavian Teutonic Order Aufseher, which I run as a Gewitterwolke in my Danish fleet.  In the rules (currently) the primary difference between the two is that the an Aufseher brings six small robots to the fight.  In terms of game-play, it is my third large ship and is a great and now striking center piece to my fleet.  I enjoy diving it into the enemy fleet and throwing its broadsides left and right.

A Second Ragnarok and Korsor Squadron

As a break from painting World Eaters before painting Kharn, I painted a second Ragnarok and a squadron of three Korsor Corvettes.

Danes do like to fly the flag

Assembly Line & 3 Fleet Engagments

Squad IV in work for my World Eaters

Another quick update on hobby efforts the past week.  Got back from vacation Monday and started to slowly assembly line the World Eaters of the second squad (at right).  I will hopefully get them all done in the next week or so with steady progress on painting each step every evening.

Most of the weekend's hobby time was spent playing 3 games of Dystopian Wars.  I think I came out of the games 1-1-1.  My win was a hard fought game against a Polish-Lithuania skimmer force, my tie was against a Chinese fleet, and my loss was to an Italian force.

Against the Poles, we were very much mirror force choices, but made different selections.   It was interesting to play against a fleet that was only slightly different.  Against the Chinese, I found myself outgunned and was glad to come out with a tie.  Overall the Chinese seemed overpowered and just difficult to come to grips with.  Against the Italians,  I made a poor choice on flanking around 300 points (all my airships in the list), which did not arrive until turn 3.  This left me undergunned and out-activity (a rarity for my Danes).  I came close to a win and was ahead on overall points, but his Commodore escaped my grasp.

Another Squadron of Fafnirs

Fafnirs 5 & 6 and their attached  air wings

Last Thursday, I finished up two more Fafnirs and the supporting SAS for my Kingdom of Denmark Dystopian Wars fleet.  These are the last two capital ships I had to paint of my collection and enable me to deploy my latest fleet list (2 x 2 Fafnir Squadrons) fully painted. I still have 5 mine markers and 6 Korsor Corvettes I can paint, but I currently do not have a list that leverages my 5 painted Korsors. The mine markers have a bit more variance to them.  Either way, I like the idea of having those as an alternative quick project if I am feeling unmotivated about the next project(s).

I really wanted to finish up this squadron ahead of my vacation (which I am on currently).  This means that when I get back, I can dedicate most of my hobby time to the 1,000 point World Eaters Zone Mortalis army.  If I need a break from that effort, I have numerous other side projects available, like Execution Force, the remaining Danish corvettes, Space Hulk, and Betrayal at Calth.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tyr-Assault Boats and Mines!

DK Aegir with Assault Boats

 Last week, I updated DK Aegir with a few more details to match the rest of the fleet and painted up the 6 Tyr-Assault Boat markers.   In addition, I painted up 5 of 10 mine tokens I have (after the break).  For these bases I used George of Full Spectrum Dominance's water effect technique as a guide.  His are much better than mine.

Close-ups after the break.

Asgard-Class Heavy Battle Carrier

DK Aegir, Asgard-Class Heavy Battle Carrier

Nothing particularly spectacular about painting the Asgard model.  Its size made for a lot of nooks and detail.  Overall the process was similar to painting the other ships.  More pictures through the link.

Magni Assault Airships

Squadron of Magni Assault Ships ready to prowl

After I got into it, painting these four ships up was straight-forward.  It followed the same style as my previous ships.  These ships lack ranged weapons, other than Ack Ack (Anti-Air fire).  This makes it hard for them to have an impact unless they can get on-top of a hostile ship.  I have played a few games with these, but I am still learning how to appropriately field them.  In the first game, they were quickly destroyed by my opponent.  In the second game, they were out of position due to coming in on my flank, far enough away to be rather useless for the fight in the middle of the table.

More Danes Coming

KoD Surface Assault Group

I am glad I delayed ordering more Dystopian Wars.  As I mentioned in my last post about Dystopian Wars, I was going to expand my Danes with some Prussian Lend-Lease units.  However, with the announcement of the new box pictured here, I am happily holding off to pick it up instead.

The addition of the Asgard Heavy Battle Carrier with its Tyr Assault Boats and four Magni Assault Airships will be far more interesting than any Lend-Lease units I might have acquired.

Rebellious Danes

Completed pair of Farnir Class Airships

I have played two games of Dystopian Wars thus far; both against Prussian Empire fleets at 1,000 points.  The first game I won very well, despite not having a good understanding of the rules The second I lost because of my starter list put me in an untenable position.  I have been trying to get a better handle on my fleets rules and the rules in general.  All of this has led to a "next acquisition" plan and the development away from the Lindisfarne Battlegroup to the Jylland Battlegroup.

Korsor Squadron

Korsor Squadron 1

On Sunday, I spent the afternoon painting up these five ships as my test of the fundamental scheme for my Kingdom of Denmark Naval Battlegroup.  These first five have the basic scheme.  I have gone without metallic paint in thus far.   These ships are mix of wood and metal all over, so everything is painted to minimize the impact of the sea (water, salt, etc lead to rust).

I have yet to seal them, but other than maybe marking them with a bright green strip to indicate their Battlegroup, they are complete.

Below are the steps I took to paint them.

Danish Fleet & Magnets!

The box.

Everything that came in the box!

Before the start of last weekend, my Dystopian Wars Kingdom of Denmark Naval Battle Group arrived.  Over the past roughly two weeks, I cleaned up the miniatures, primed the small ships and aircraft, and made most of the turrets attach via magnets.

This was my first experience using magnets and thus I messed up on a ship, causing its turret to be "fixed-forward."  This is likely how most people model their ships.  Magnets allows the turrets to rotate through their full-fire arcs.  Lastly, for ships which are largely static, it adds to the model allowing it to better show what the ship is doing (should the player choose).

Dystopian Wars: Kingdom of Denmark

As my local Games Workshop closes, I have been encouraged by other local gamers to look beyond the GW ranges.  The group I play with is getting heavily into both Dystopian Wars and Firestorm: Planetfall.  I asked which game they suggest starting with and they recommended Dystopian Wars (or Boats).

Looking through the list of potential fleets and what others were playing, I quickly settled on the minor-power of Denmark (surprise)!  The starting force (see picture) is roughly 1,000 pts, a good starting point.  The rules are free to download and based on watching a game of Planetfall Saturday night, the mechanics similar to Epic: Armageddon, a GW game I really enjoyed. More to come.