A project of epic dimensions: TAU Air Caste support

The Air Caste is lending its support to my Firewarrior ground units:

Manta, Tigershark AX-10, Barracuda Fighters and Orca Dropship

More air units are going to be purchased soon, I just need to get paid for this month first ;-)

A project of epic dimensions: TAU army in 6mm

The begin of yet another project: 6mm TAU for Epic 40k

It's more than 20 years since my mates and I got into the whole tabletop gaming hobby. We started with Warhammer 40,000 (which we still play today), got into Battletech, Necromunda, Blood Bowl, Force On Force, Modern Combat and many others. Most of them we still play from time to time.

The latest game we have decided to build forces for is Epic 40k. Although no longer produced and not supported by GW any longer, it has a huge and living web community that stepped up and took the place that GW left behind when they decided to drop all Specialist Games.

Finding miniatures also wasn't that hard since there is plenty of second hand stuff to be found and a growing amount of little companies that supply some really nice looking 6mm Sci-Fi stuff that can be used as a Epic "look-alike" model.

With that in mind I was aiming for a TAU army. What is shown on the pics is a mix of original Forgeworld Epic TAU miniatures and some Onslaught Miniatures "Okami Technocracy Combine" troops. They mix together quite well I'd say.

Perfect miniatures to be used as "Devilfish" APC.

Forgeworld "Tetra" recon speeders.

Forgeworld's "Piranha" light skimmer.

FW Tau Ethreal with shield drones and flanked with Onslaught miniatures' troopers that are going to be my Fire Warrior Cadre.

Onlaught Miniatures: to the left what is going to be my Shas'O Crisis Commander and a stand with a Battlesuit team to its right. I really love those - they are perfect Tau look-alikes.

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" - finished

"Fantan" and base finished

ready to fly CAS missions, using guns, rockets and two FAB-250 bombs to support ground troops

The aircraft is held in place by a strong magnet. The base can be adjusted in height.

The long painting war continues. :-D

The Dragon Rises: painting the Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" part#3

Today a considerable amount of time went into cleaning the panel lines' excess paint away. After I was done with this step, I added some weathering and dirt to the aircraft, using washes and Tamiya weathering set powders. I think I am going to leave the Fantan this way, finally adding pilot, canopy, payload and base with the next steps.

The Dragon Rises: painting the Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" part#2

Today I've painted the panel lines. I used Revell's matt black enamel paint, thinned down with turpentine. This needs to dry until tomorrow evening and then I have to carefully clean any excess paint around the recesses. Stay tuned.

The Dragon Rises: painting the Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" part#1

I have spent this afternoon with painting little details here and there, that I wanted to be finished before the gloss varnish layers are applied.

The decals have been taken from various Soviet aircraft and out of the vaccu-form kit itself. Surprisingly they went on quite easily although they were already pretty faded (probably very old). Good thing about faded colours is: it looks natural on an aircraft that is used by the Chinese navy.

The decals were applied using the Micro Set and Micro Sol solutions. I will let everything dry over night and apply the varnish tomorrow. That will allow weathering and pin (panel) wash with oil paints next week.

I am really excited how the kit turned out. I would have never imagined I am capable of building a vaccu-form model. But I can also tell you: it was probably the one and only I will ever assemble. ;-)

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #8

I have decided to give the Fantan a classic gloss white paintjob like its used with the PLA Navy air units. It just had the first layers painted on, so this is far from being finished of course. I painted the pilot (he's missing one arm, because otherwise I won't be able to fit the ejection seat into the cockpit - I'll glue it in place once he's in there).

Four FAB-250 low drag bombs that will go under the fuselage can be seen as well as a WIP of the Fantan's flight base.

This is what I am looking to achieve once completely painted:

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #7

I have put primer on ;-) All coming together now. Barely visible that it was not an injection-mould kit.

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #6

Another couple of hours went into the build and this is the current status: some more work with putty here and there and I think I really can go over with primer this weekend. *yeah!*

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #5

Slowly everything is coming together. The cockpit canopy (which I took from a MiG 19) still needs some filling with green stuff, the fuselage needs another go with putty in some places but other than that its starting to look like a proper airplane. If works continues to go on like today I might be able to put primer on next weekend. :-)

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #4

It's been a while since I last worked on my Q-5 "Fantan".

I have added the air intakes and put together the two halves of the fuselage. As you can see, a lot of green stuff was necessary to fill the gaps. :-(

I have not sanded the model yet so the filled gaps look pretty rough on those pics. Once having sanded them and adding a layer of fine putty (even more sanding afterwards) I am sure it will be looking OK.

I have ordered a 1/72 scale MiG-19 since the Fantan and the MiG are similar in appearance and the Q-5 is based upon the famous Soviet fighter. Some parts of this kit will come handy to complete the Fantan.

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #3

Today I continued with sanding the parts of the wings and fuselage.

Here is what the wing's upper and lower half are looking like after I sanded them down:

And then glued together:

Obviously the parts will need some trimming here and there but more or less they fitting together quite well.

The two parts of the fuselage.

The fuselage was sanded down to a certain degree, too. I opened up the air intakes and cut out where the cockpit will be placed later on.

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #2

Today I have sanded the first parts of the Fantan. I started with something small to try it and so the smaller rear wings were first to go.

The first pic shows the already sanded parts for the left rear wing. Above those you can see how the parts were looking like on top and from underneath before sanding.

 After sanding them with 120 grid and 180 grid sand paper, they became really thin but to my surprise still very stiff.

At first I thought the wings will be hollow on the inside but after sanding it became clear that the two halves will have a large surface to put glue on top.

Tomorrow the sanding process will contine and I might already have a wing or two show off with. :-)

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan" WIP #1

Following a few guides on the internet on modelling vacu-form kits, the first steps I took was using a black marker and draw it around the parts in an 45° angle. I tried to mark 50% of both, the actual parts and the styrene sheet around it.

 I then used scissors and hobby knife to cut out the parts. I tried not cut too close to the parts before they have been freed of the styrene sheet left overs around it. Next step will be cutting them out very closely using my hobby knife and then the sanding process will kick off.

The Dragon Rises: Hongdu Q-5 "Fantan"

It took me ages to finally find a copy of the Warrior Model 1/72 scale vacu-formed/resin kit of a NanChang Q-5 on ebay. This one came to me from a guy in Poland.

The Q-5 is a close air support/ground attacker aircraft, currently deployed by both, PLAAF (Chinese Air Force) and the PLA Navy.

This one is my first vacu-formed kit that I am ever going to assemble. That means its going to be interesting... If you look at the box contents, you'll see that the main fuselage and wings are vacu-formed white plastic, while weapons, cockpit and parts of the landing gear are either resin cast or white metal. The metal parts I won't need for the most part since I am going to assemble the kit "in flight" on a flight stand. I am also planning on exchanging the resin cast FAB-250 bombs with plastic ones from Dragon Models' Soviet Aircraft payload kits in 1/72 scale.

Check out the pics:

Contents: decals, instructions, painting guides, resin payload and detail parts, white metal landing gear etc..

Box: includes one kit, several decals for both, PLAAF and Pakistani Air Force.

AVP: upgrading my miniature collection with exclusive kickstarter miniatures.

I am not dead. Not at all. Thanks to private life my time for the hobby was limited to Sunday afternoons of playing.

Anyway, here is an update of the things to come:

I am one of those that pledged on the AVP kickstarter that was released last year by Prodos Games. I have now completed my survey and placed my order, based upon my pledge level and additional free items. Here is what should arrive in May:

Pledge: Real aliens ain't from mars
Included & Free items ( showing amount )
A Royal Guard x1 ( 1 )
KS P Berserker ( 1 )
AVP Game (Box) ( 1 )
Facehuggers x7 ( 1 )

Picked 100k stretch item/s:
Stalkers ("Pet Hybrids") x5

Picked 155k stretch item/s:
Predator Hellhound x1

Picked 310k stretch item/s:
Half synthetic (Obj. Marker of a cut-in-half Bishop character) x4

Add ons
Extra bits (3heads, 4 guns) ( 1 )
Predator Hellhounds x2 ( 1 ) 
Female Predator  Warrior x1 ( 1 )
Crusher Alien x1 ( 1 )
Predalien x1 ( 1 )
Royal Guard x1 ( 1 )
Weyland-Yutani Commandos (whole five men squad) ( 2 )
Power Loader x1 ( 1 )

The pic above shows a pre-production test piece of how the game board will look like

Predator Warriors, Stalkers, Marines, Crusher Alien (the large one), Royal Guard and Predator as well as Predator Hellhounds unpainted.

Together with my existing Aliens, Marines and Predators, my Drop Ship and APC this should one day lead to a fantastic tabletop wargame of AvP.
I also couldn't resist in ordering these:

http://www.rogueminiatures.co.uk/index.php/gun-miniatures/dogs-of-war-7set-miniature.html

I can already hear somebody crying "Get to tha choppa!" ;-)

Tomorrow's War meets Battletech: House Kurita's "Stalker" arrived

Finally... the Beast has arrived! 85 ton "Stalker". I got four copies of this huge Mech, this one goes into line with my 1st Sword Of Light Kurita forces, one will be 3rd Crucis Lancers RCT (Davion), one 1st TYR Regiment of Rasalhague and one is going into House Steiner's service. *evil grin*

More Alpha Strike!

Me and the best mates were meeting again today to have our usual Sunday-afternoon battle. Since Alpha Strike was well received, we picked to play with our Mechs again.
One of my friends hasn't played AS yet so he was eager to give it a try. I decided to let the boys handle my two painted armies and acted as advisor/referee - in other words, I had to flick through the rules if we didn't know something :-)
Anyway, the same figures as last time were used and Kurita once again kicked Davion's a$$. I did not take pictures throughout the whole match but here are some for fun anyways:

Alpha Strike!

Kurita vs. Davion, bringing all IS units that have been finished so far

Best mate and myself have enjoyed our first game of Alpha Strike today. We love it. We already like CBT very much but this is just awesome. Alpha Strike enables us to play with large quantities of Mechs (even in our bigger scale) without too much book keeping.

We brought all units that I had painted up so far, in total 135 vs 136 points.

Kurita:

Kanazuchi Battle Armor
Locust
Stinger
Wasp
Mongoose
Hatamoto Chi
Dragon
Archer
Scorpion
Rifleman
Longbow
Warhammer
Atlas

Davion:

Stinger
Raven
Locust
Wasp
Banshee
Zeus
Archer
Crusader
Goliath
Warhammer
Longbow
Rifleman

 

 

After two or so rounds: both sides closing in on each other

Davion's Raven spotting for Longbow indirect LRM attack: my Kurita Locust gets a shower of high explosive love :-(

My Warhammer gets if from all sides. Banshee, Goliath and a recon lance pounding it with fire.

Zeus and Warhammer get into position to await my Atlas' assault on the center frontline.

A Davion Stinger jumped over the building in an attempt to kill the Whammy (one inner structure point remaining) but missed its shot! My Warhammer returns the favour and blasts it to pieces.

My attempt to stop the LRM fire attacks of the Crusader end with my recon Locust being shot to a burning wreck.

My assault and heavy mechs keep up the pressure, steadily advancing.

The city turns into a scrapyard: my Rifleman gets shot by the Banshee but in turn headshots (rolled 12 on critical hits!) the Zeus :-)  A little later the Banshee gets wasted by the Atlas.

Having taken out the Banshee and Zeus on the right flank, my center force is backed up by Hatamoto and Atlas. Ready to steam roller attack the Davions.

Kanazuchi Battle Armor got casualties by Raven fire and is wiped out by Crusader missile strike.

The Atlas walks through the Davion line and leaves behind burning hulks of twisted metal. My Archer got missile bombed by Longbow and Crusader and killed with the final shot: by a Locust!

The game ended with a Kurita victory. Last Mechs standing on my side: Atlas (nearly fresh), Longbow (heavily dented), Warhammer (only held together by sheer willpower), Stinger (only one point of structure). Mechs on Davion side still standing: none.

Can't wait for the next weekend for another match!