30 June 2014

Japanese


So after the games on Saturday, I've built up a new list for 1000 points of what I have. Thought I'd try a mainly Veteran list as I don't have any tanks or vehicles as of yet that soak up the points.


29 June 2014

Russian Invasion

Yesterday I got in my first game using my new Japanese army for bolt action. I ran a random group of squads of 1000pts at Kevin's Russian horde. My idea was just to get a feel for the rules and what each squad does and how to use them, so I could then build a better list for the next club day.

 It started out really well for me as my sniper kept killing NCO's and my MMG was flinging out death rather well. But the numbers of Russian began to take its toll. Then by turn four we were into buildings and close combat. With my lack of numbers and facing SMG's, it was my doom. In the end of turn 5 my sole surviving sniper surrendered.








It was a really fun game and I picked up a lot on how to use my Jap's. Marks new Sarrissa buildings are already starting to look awesome on the table and he hasn't finished them yet.

After that I joined Kevin with his Russian horde and took on Jason and Mark running there British. All 1600 points of them. Since I have a bunch of Russians to build and paint it was a good learning curve for me as well. I learnt that Gurkha's are just down right evil. I watched them butcher a squad of Russians without breaking a sweat. Also learnt that I quite like BBQ machines... A.k.A. Vehicle flame throwers.  We lost track of time with such a large game, and by the end of turn 3 we ran out of time so had to call the game. It was still pretty close but I think the Russian were ahead on points.

All in all a great day and lots learnt, looking forward to club day and some more games.


24 June 2014

Mission success

Yep, I can safely say I have achieved my mission to speed painting all of my Japanese army for Bolt Action, just over 60 miniatures completed in under three weeks. I only have four more to finish off tomorrow night, and that's only the bases. 

I have really enjoyed painting this lot, not worrying about all those little bits of detail, and little mistakes, just blasting through them all. The end result I'm very happy with, overall I think they look pretty good for table top quality fast painting.

Just realised I still need to add a few Japanese flags in as well to rally finish them off.




21 June 2014

Mass painting mission.

So I've managed to do quite a bit more work on my Japs over the week. I got the production line going and have achieved a lot more than I had expected in the time, especially with my bad neck. 


17 June 2014

Stitches and super glue.

So today I had a BCC (Basal-cell carcinoma) removed from my neck, a minor slash and hack removal of a bit of skin... Several stitcher later and $1500 less in my wallet the doc says all is good. So feeling rather weird with my neck and half my face numb I managed to finish putting the rest of my bolt action models together tonight, including super gluing my fingers to one model. Must be time for a scotch.





14 June 2014

Dust

Whaoo, Club day, and what a day of carnage it was. Dust Warfare was the game again this month. We stepped up from last months 300 points to 400 per side and ran some scenarios as well. I ran my SSU at Bryan’s Americans first up, playing the secret mission scenario. Having never played against the Americans I wasn't sure what I faced, other than two huge turtles of destruction. So I secretly choose the “Breakthrough” option. Bryan ended up choosing the “Capture Strategic point”. (revelled at the end of the game)

The game started out pretty even with us trading blows and moving about a bit. I hung back for two turns taking cover and seeing what Bryan would throw at me. (mistake one…I should have run forward to gain ground) My steel guard snipers were awesome taking out things left and right. I shot everything I could at one of the turtles (Heavy Assault walker) and managed to destroy one by the end of the game.





Bryan’s “Hammers” (the jump pack guys) surprised me and smashed one of my units to bits in one go, then subsequently got left in the open….and very quickly got taken out.  I then ran for the opposite table edge to try and score extra victory points. Unfortunately it was to late in the game and I only got half of my squads close enough. So I missed out on the points. By the end of the game I had killed all but 1 of Bryans troopers so Bryan also missed out on scoring any extra points. The game came down to the number of kills, which left me well ahead on points… basically thanks to Bryans black dice, which refused to hit anything other than the table….(I’m still laughing at some of his rolls)







Game two I ended up facing Phil using my other SSU army in the Assault mission. So Russians against Russians. I ended up being the attacker and we went to setting up the board. My secret objective was to take one of the buildings that Phil had very well placed to defend. Then on deployment Phil pulled out a very smart move as I left one of my flanks open and he walked on a couple of medium walkers straight into my flank. On top of that Phil had also placed a bunch of mines extremely well which put me on the back foot. I never really recovered as I got bogged down in dealing with the mines and the walkers. The end result was I got smashed and was well out of even getting close to the object by the end of turn five. A fun game and well played by Phil.

So another awesome club day as usual. (Photos are pretty crap, as I was having to much fun playing the games and forgot to take shots as I went)

Friday the 13th yesterday and we had a very large full moon, so all the crazy's were out., including me in the cold taking this photo. I first thought my focus want working on my camera, but it's actually the mountains and terrain on the surface around the top right side. crazy that I can see that on the computer when I blow up the image on my screen.


09 June 2014

W.I.P Bushido

Work on my Bushido models is coming along nicely.

Temple Bushi

Bushido - Ito Clan - Temple BushiBushido - Ito Clan - Temple Bushi

Akimoto

Bushido - Ito Clan - AkimotoBushido - Ito Clan - Akimoto



08 June 2014

Reading the manual

Oh, bugger .... busted.
Yes I have been reading my camera manual after talking to a friend about his camera setup. So I've completely changed the way my button setup on my camera works for auto focus and shutter release. I managed to shoot a few frames today on the way home and try it out.

Not the best day for shooting, but the tracking and focus was working pretty good. I'm going to stick with my new setup for a week and see how I go.

Kite Surfing - Random dude

Kite Surfing - Random dude

Kite Surfing - Random dude

05 June 2014

04 June 2014

Ardmore D-Day 70th Anniversary

So on Sunday the boys went out as usual to Ardmore to see the air show. It turned out to be a fantastically fine day. But for photography it was a pretty hard day to shoot. the hard lighting conditions made for sharp shadows and bright highlights.
I knew it would be difficult, so I spent a lot of time messing around with my camera settings and trying out new things…. the result was 3500 shots… most of which are ordinary to poor. Some good ones, but I’ve managed to get better ones over the past few years. So photography it wasn't that much of a success, but it’s always fun to see the birds in the sky and for $15 entry for a days entertainment, you cant go wrong.

So I’ve been playing around with adjusting some of the shots, trying not to do to much and cook the photos with too many adjustments. This is the sort of comparison of what I've changed, so not a lot.

image

Basically I enjoy being out shooting, and don't really enjoy playing with photos..guess that comes from being old school. Yes I know what  Film is, and I use to developed my own and print my own shots way back in time ..“shoot it in the can” as they use to say.








Something a little different was a large group of bikers going flat tack down the runway, they sure looked like they were enjoying the ride ... no speed limits.








Bring on Bushido


I have finally gotten around to putting my Bushido models together after an epic fail of my glue. The first model fell apart after I left it in the window, not sure how or why, other than, the glue is about six months old. Maybe something to do with the overnight winter cold and the the direct sun during the day. That glue has been binned and I've just tried out using a new brand which is working a treat. In fact I think I'm now a convert after having some rather small parts stay nicely cemented together on these models.

With the rule book on the way and the terrain almost ready, I think we should be ready to play in July.  So that should give me time to get the models all painted up.




Now onto look at my 3500 photos I shot on the weekend at the Ardmore Air show.