Wargaming Girl

I actually finished painting these merchant ships a few days ago, but have only just got round to doing the photos of them. I'll blame last minute preparations for the Challenge for not doing them sooner.

Princess Class Passenger Starliner

Errmm, yes. The right hand thruster is a bit skewed

Olympus Class Short Haul Passenger Transport





Starchaser Class Longhaul Freighter





Merino Class Livestock Transporter

On it's way to planet Clintus IV Major, carrying a cargo of camels...






Shinies!

On my way back from the shops, I went to the local Royal Mail sorting office to pick up 2 parcels which they'd left a card yesterday saying they'd tried to deliver. I knew they would be my GZG order. When I got home, there was a padded envelope from Timecast - the Old Glory 15s Korenas that had been on back order.

Koreans:



1 pack each of Ming light cavalry and Levy archers.

GZG:



Lots of lovely shiny goodness in bags (plus a discount voucher for the New Year and a Salute flyer)



The freebie bag contents - a Fort Grange class Q-Ship Tender for the NAC; an Aleksandr Tortsev class Orbital Assault Transport (LSO) for the ESU; an Ariadni class Q-Ship Tender for the FSE; a pack of NSL troopers with anti-armour weapons; and a pack of NSL power armour troopers.


15mm NSL - a bunch of riflemen, SAWs and support weapons; a pack of power armour troopers with support weapons and a couple of sprues of spare arms for the PA troops (I'd managed to lose one arm when prepping a bunch the other week and Mr Tuffley kindly agreed to send me a sprue).

Now, I had worked out the TOE for my NSL, but now I've got the extra freebie packs I'll have to revise it. Not that that's a problem of course.


Light and Heavy Carriers for FSE, ESU and NAC.


Some more civvy ships in the top row - a Pinder class tanker; a Stobart class Can-Hauler; and a Crenshaw class Penal Colony Transport.

In the bottom row are some extra ESU ships - a pair of Ural class destroyers; a Nanjing class escort carrier; and a pair of Kunlun class heavy destroyers.


My word, what a lot of shiny goodness to receive on one day!

I suppose that I'd better crack on with the Russian cavalry now before the shininess overcomes me.

Late last year, I painted up the NAC intro fleet I'd won in a prize draw on Seb's blog. Moving on a few months, my final final entry to this year's Challenge were the extra ships I'd ordered to upgrade it to a mega fleet.

With the intro fleet I'd made a bit of a booboo at the early stage (I was a bit too heavy with the wet brush stage) and had to go back and do a wash step to add some depth to the base colour of the hull. With these ships I learnt my lesson and the wash step wasn't needed (nor the preceding gloss varnish step) - quite handy really, as otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished them before the deadline!

That's enough blather from me though - you want to see the pics.

The Fleet:




Scout Ships:



Corvettes:



Heavy Cruiser and 2 Escort Cruisers:




Battleship:



Battle Dreadnought:




Super Dreadnought:






Tomorrow I'll be posting a review of my Challenge with pics of all my entries (and my hall of shame).

OK, so this is going out a few minutes into Day 96, but I've been rather busy this evening.

Curt has finally caught up with the backlog of submissions and my Mongols are now posted.

I've just sent off my final final submission, which is the NAC fleet.

I'm currently sitting in 5th place, just 18 points ahead of Miles. I'm hoping that I'll get enough points for the spaceships to counteract the points he'll be getting for his bonus round entry and keep me ahead of him. Unfortunately Ray has infected Fran with the Sandbagius budgiesmugglerensis virus which became evident with his completely bonkers entry to the final bonus round - about 250 15mm zombies, survivors and some vehicles. When the points come in for that entry he will jump straight ahead into 5th place.

I had been hoping to post my Mongols tonight, but it seems that Curt has a backlog of entries and they haven't been posted yet.

Yesterday's multi-player FoGAM game was great fun, even if things went very badly for my command. We were doing a refight of Alarcos 1195, which saw the Kingdom of Castille fighting the Almohads in central Spain in the middle of July.

My command was the Andalusian contingent on the right wing (mostly light horse with some rather crap infantry). My aim was to hold up the Castillian left wing and if things went well to try to turn their flank. However a couple of silly mistakes with positioning combined with an unexpected charge by some crossbowmen into my light horse saw me in trouble from quite early in the battle.

Things also went rather badly on our left wing, although they did manage to destroy a few groups of Castillian knights. In the centre things were less certain as the lines of infantry hadn't made contact by the time we called an end. The result was a narrow victory for the Castillians, mostly aided by their use of ahistorical tactics!

I forgot to take my camera with me which was annoying. Hopefully some of the other players will send me pics they took which I will post here.

Thanks to Gordon for hosting the game and for the most delicious lunchtime repast.

NAC Fleet

I've made good progress since Saturday and have very nearly finished painting all the ships. I've just got one bit of detail painting left to do (black stripes on hazard panels) and some touching up, which I should manage to get done tomorrow evening. On Wednesday I'll spray them with satin varnish to match the ships I painted at the end of last year, add flight peg toppers, take photos and send the pics off to Curt as my final final entry (there won't be time to get anything else painted before the closing deadline).

Quick pic of the ships as they are right now:

Having skipped the last couple of these, here is my contribution to

Click pic for link to Sofie's post

The last time I took part in this, I had just started work on my buccaneer commanders and dragoons. I'd also made a start on my entry fee figure for the Challenge.

The latter did get finished and entered for the Favourite Character bonus round. Before I send him off to Curt I need to do a little bit of touching up and give it another coat of matt varnish as some parts are still very shiny. The buccaneers, however, have only seen some progress. Painting these has stalled for now.

With only a few days left until the end of the Challenge, I decided today to make a start on painting up some more spaceships as these should give me some reasonably quick points to (hopefully) keep me in 5th place. These ships are the extras I ordered to upgrade my NAC from "Intro Fleet" to "Mega Fleet". There are 3 scout ships, 3 corvettes, 2 escort cruisers, a heavy cruiser, a battleship, a battle dreadnought and a super dreadnought.

So far, I've done the base colours and drybrushing of the hull. I'm hoping to get a couple more steps done tonight leaving just detailing to be done over the next few evenings.

I was a little surprised when I posted yesterday to see that it was my 499th post. It's a bit scary to think that I've reached that number of posts in just over two years.

I haven't planned anything, but I guess it does warrant some sort of giveaway to celebrate. I'll have to think about it over the next few days.

I wasn't feeling too great this morning, so I decided to skip the game today. It was a multi-player refight of Hydaspes, so my absence wouldn't be that much of a problem. It was a shame to miss it though.

However, it did mean that I've had time to work on the pirates and the spaceship, as well as doing a little bit on the NAC ships.

Pirates

Last night I brushed off the loose sand and gravel. This morning I drybrushed the base texture. This afternoon I gave them a spray of matt varnish and I've spent the last hour or so flocking them. As they are now ready for submission to the Challenge, there are no photos of them today. I'll be taking pics to send to Curt this evening.


Lady Christina Recovery & Repair Ship

Today I've finished this one as well. Company logos have been handpainted followed by a spray coat of gloss varnish. The yellow parts then got an ink wash of brown yellow, followed by a drybrush of the panels. I then gave the ship a spray coat of matt varnish, then brushed gloss onto certain parts. No pics of this either as it's ready to be entered in the Challenge.


NAC Spaceships

I assembled these (with some swearing) last night. Today they got a spray coat of grey primer. The super dreadnought is a real beast of a ship. You can have pics of these!



I'd prepped and primed a heavy cruiser a while back and that has been included in these pics as they'll be painted up as a batch.

It's that day of the week again, so it's

Click the pic to go to Sofie's blog to see other participants

Well, what's on my paint table today?



Recently prepped, drying out after washing to remove any mould release agent


Prince Rupert of the Rhine with his dog Boye from Warlord Games; some NAC spaceships - 3 scout ships, 3 corvettes, 2 escort cruisers, a battleship, a battle dreadnought and a super battle dreadnought. I'll probably do the assembly of the ships that need it this evening.


Pirates! Aaarrrr!


The two batches have now been mixed up, sorted and stuck onto bases. There are 82 bases in total, 2 with 4 figures; 80 with 3 figures - 248 pirates total. This pic was taken earlier today. Since taking it I've added basing  texture. I was going to finish these off tomorrow - drybrush the base texture, spray with matt varnish, add flock - but then I remembered that I'm going to be out gaming at a friend's place. I guess that means I'll have to do that over the next few evenings instead.


Another spaceship!


This is a Lady Christian recovery & repair ship from GZG. I've almost finished it, just a few final touches to go.