493 - 28mm Painting Help Needed, Please!

Hullo, All.

Much to my surprise I've been enjoying the process of painting my Bolt Action British troops, but I have a worry: they appear rather dark.

In my ongoing bid to 'grow up a bit' and try paints other than Citadel (which are excellent, but which keep changing!) I thought I'd try some of the well-regarded Strong Tone. It seems more-or-less on a par with GW's Sepia anyway, BUT now I've used it, I'm a little worried that my minis look a wee bit too dark even for me...and I like 'em grimy.

My question is: what can I do, please, to either lighten them up a little or bring them a little more dynamism.

I do realise that once the bases have some greenery on them they'll look less severe, and I love that they look infinitely better than they did before Strong Tone, but I'm still a little frustrated. I suspect one of you might advise me to repaint the lighter colours, but I don't want them to end up looking like the Warlord Games Studio Brits - as if they've just Blanco'ed all of their webbing and khaki [see here: link] - so I thought I ought to ask for your help first.

In case you can't see it(!) I've used the dreaded 'autocorrect' to adjust this next picture a little so that you can just about see the red details above and below the Black Bull: the curved red regimental title and the red 'arm of service' stripe [excellent research notes on these, incidentally is to be found here: (link)]: I painted these an appropriately muted red before, but now they seem too muted.

Likewise the NCOs' stripes: I'm fairly pleased with them, but ought I to have painted them white in the first instance, rather than 'biscuit' (Bleached Bone)?

Any help you can offer, Dear Readers, will - as ever - be gratefully received.

Yours hopefully,

- Drax.

PS: I'm rather worried that the chap on the left rather has the look of Nigel Farage about him...or should that be 'on the right'?

492 - EXCITEMENT! First X-Wing Tournament - Part 2

Time, then, for Part Deux of my Exe-Wing tournament write-up. 

I left you at the halfway point:

Game 1: Modified Win - 12-0
Game 2: Match Loss - 0-100

Next, Game 3

Game 3: Tim with Empire: a Decimator List
Notes and Result:

This Tim also seemed fairly well matched with me in terms of experience, and was a very helpful chap to boot. Plus, he wooed me with a generous offering of Fox's Glacier Mints on the sidelines. Yay! He brought with him the kind of list I'd been fearing: the Decimator was captained by Capt Oicunn and packing proton bombs, flanked by Howlrunner and Backstabber with another Academy Pilot making up numbers.

Me deploying first meant that Oicunn set a course to overrun me, and - not being sharp-witted enough to avoid this fully - I sacrificed the Z-95 to take the hit from the terrifyingly pointy ship. So far, so inevitable, but what I'd completely forgotten about was the proton bomb just about to drop out of its pointy backside. Rats. I've never played against bombs before and was caught out utterly: both the Z-95 and the X-Wing took a hit.

Bugger. 

Tim was also kind enough to remind me before the game about how the bombs work.

Bugger.

Pointy nastiness

Still, I rallied my forces, managed a sneaky wee bit of K-turning and some cunning manoeuvring, and started fighting back. First to fall was the Decimator itself - I stripped its shields, crippled it with some lucky rolls and finished it off soundly by managing to steer most of my ships to have it arc. Rather pleasingly, it was the sturdy old Y-Wing that finished it off!

Gritty survivors!

At this point, Tim's defences sadly crumbled, and to my surprise and delight his other three ships soon went too. He was kicking himself that he hadn't focussed on destroying my Y-Wing when it was limping, but honestly my Mutts and Mongrels were on a roll in this game, and astonishingly they all made it through.

Result: Match Win (99-0)

Game 4 - Tom with a 'Phat Han' List
Notes and Result:

This was one match-up I was really interested to play - I was quite excited going into my last game! 

I was playing against Tom, who knew his Star Wars fluff inside-out and really enjoyed the construction of my list, noting how typical it was for the rebels to just cobble together whatever ships they could find for a sortie. I guess that's why I was fielding a 'Prototype' A-Wing, right?

First, a brief note on the tactics I'd been using through the day:

- None.

That's not strictly true. I was trying to use the A-Wing as a flanking outrider, but that was about it, and now I was facing an actual outrider: the beautiful YT-2400 'Outrider' piloted by the marvellous Dash Rendar and escorted by Chewbacca in the YT-1300 Millennium Falcon, helped out by his crewmates R2-D2 and C3PO. The crew choices were a wee bit beardy maybe, but the two ships together look amazing - and how very cinematic to see the two smugglers zooming round the board together!

And for this game, I genuinely planned and played tactics: The A-Wing was deployed in a feint to swoop by and strafe the Falcon before zooming off to run interference with the Outrider. This worked. Whilst the A-Wing stopped Dash Rendar doing what he should do best by flying annoyingly in his way, the others systematically swarmed round the Falcon and took it apart. Rather poetically, after my Mutts took it in turns to get in Chewy's way, it was obstructed by the X-Wing, ion-ed twice by the Y-wing, then finished off by the Z-95.

Then it was just a matter of chasing down the Outrider - cue 'Benny Hill' music as my ships bumbled round the board in the last minutes of play, crashing into each other and trying to head Rendar off at the pass. The B-Wing was on its last hull-point and bound to die, but as it happened, my rush to manoeuvre meant that all of my ships ended up crashing into each other within Range 1 of the Outrider - meaning that he couldn't actually shoot me: Woo-hoo!

This time, the X-Wing took the final shot. Nice. The tactics worked.

The dying moments - a portrait in three parts.

Result: Match Win (100-0).

Endgame:

To my surprise and utter delight, it turns out that I finished sixth out of twenty-two!

Top-eight! Woo-hoo!

I got as a prize not only the special character card we all received but also a shiny new (literally shiny) X-Wing dice bag. Bolt Action here we come!

It really was an absolutely smashing day, and the X-Wing system - if not too roughly abused - is genuinely a great leveller for newbies. Thanks go out to all the organisers.

Here's to next time, eh?

Fly Casual...

- Drax.

491 - EXCITEMENT! First X-Wing Tournament - Part 1

Hullo, Friends!
I've actually got a couple of posts in the pipeline for once, but first...NEWS!

This last weekend I had the singular joy of attending my first official X-Wing tournament - it was co-hosted by Kirton Games (of Col. Gravis/Curious Constructs fame - see banner, above) in Exeter and it was an absolute blast!

Yup, 'Exe-Wing' (for what else could they call it?!) was a four-round, Swiss-style tourney, and on the off-chance you're vaguely interested, I'll give you a quick run-down of my trials and tribulations here, in two parts.

The 'Mutts and Mongrels'

You know me by now - I'm not particularly competitive, and I haven't even played X-Wing since before Christmas, so I went for a squadron that was suitably in keeping with the canon - it would also be simple to use and not 'gamey'. It was as follows:

As it turned out, there was a fair bit of list variety in the room - from the beardy net-lists to the rather fun ones. There was also a 'Scum and Villainy' list, although I didn't get to play them. Rather pleasingly, I did get a couple of compliments on the fluffy/canonical nature of my squadron - I'm glad that folks noticed!

Game 1 - Tim with an Empire 'Mini-Swarm'
Notes and Result: 

In Tim's own words a little later, "This was a tough list a couple of years ago!" Tim's pretty new to the game and was an absolute gent to play against: we were both bumbling through a lot of rustiness with the rules and I lost us at least two minutes as my bottle of drink sprayed all over the floor, but our ships finally clashed and eventually - in the dying seconds of a slow game - I managed to kill (for no loss) an Academy Pilot. That was the lowest of the low in terms of kills, but it was enough to scrape me, at twelve points, a 'modified win'.

This mat looks amazing...This mat, though, prevents you from seeing absolutely ANY playing pieces - it's a right pain in the Wookie!

Result = Modified Win (12-0)

Game 2 - Rich with Empire: the 'Royal Guard' - 4 Interceptors
Notes and Result:

Since this match I've been scratching my head, wondering just what - if anything - I could've done to maybe shoot down just one of his ships...but I can't think of very much. As it happened, four Interceptors with 'Push the Limit' are enough to run rings around anyone! My only consolation was that my plucky little A-Wing didn't shy away, and upon finding he was the sole survivor of my squadron he charged headlong into the enemy formation - staying bafflingly alive for two more rounds before succumbing. I was tabled.

Valiant death of an A-Wing.

Result = Match Loss (0-100)

Tune in next time for Part Deux and the final placing...