Battlefleet Gothic fun times

My friend Kenny and I have stared to play Battlefleet Gothic and I have to say that this game rocks. It baffles the mind to think that GW do not support it anymore. Its fun and easy to play. The learning curve is fairly gentle and the rules are simple and easy compared to games like Heavy Gear and Flames of War.

All in all we are having a blast and are now doing our utmost to get other people to play.

We have played 4 games thus far. All have been between my Imperial Navy and his Word Bearers Fleet. The first 2 of them are recorded for prosperity over on Kennys blog "The Lead Cotillion". Sadly, the third game went unrecorded as it was a brutal thrashing and victory for Chaos.

For the fourth game I actually remembered to pull my thumb out and bring my camera. Got so caught up in the game I didnt take that many pictures but did get some.

Scenario was "Suprise Attack" played at 650 points. I was the defender. All but one of my ships was caught napping with only the "Neptune", my Lunar Class on alert.

The Warmasters fleet bears down on an unsuspecting world.

My orbital defences were the minefield (represented by the red tokens), an orbital laser battery (the orange token) and 2 orbital mines (the blue tokens). The Neptune is the green ship. Kenny chose to bring his whole fleet in from the side of the board.

The first turn did not go well for me. He brought his ships into range and crippled the "Superb", my Gothic cruiser as well as destroyed its thrusters so it could not turn. On my turn the Superb and the escort squadron woke up and started to manouver. The Superb headed off in a straight line and was not in range of any of the enemy. The Neptune fired its Nova cannon but missed.

Kenny's second turn started where his first left off. He destroyed the Gothic, turning it into a burning hulk. and landed hits on the still stationary "Scylla", my Dominator Cruiser. He also moved his fleet up.

My next turn was a good one. The "Scylla" activated and started to manouver. The Neptune reloaded his Nova Cannon and once again the escorts manouvered for position. The burning Gothic also drifted quite nicely almost into the center of his fleet where it exploded, taking out one of his escorts. The Nova Cannons on the Lunar and the Scylla opened up, crippling his carrier.

On Kenny's next turn he opted to disengage the carrier and move his forces closer. However at this range he was not able to turn enough to bring his full broadsides to bear and inflicted no damage to me.

The Chaos Dogs get a taste of Imperial steel.

My turn saw me manouver for affect getting in behind his forces with the Lunar and the escorts. My orbital mines also managed to close the distance. Punishing fire saw his one cruiser destroyed and his other crippled.

On Kennys last turn he chose to disengage his last crusier and sacrifice his last escort, moving it in close to my fleet to distract my gun captains. My turn saw his escort gutted by the Orbital Laser battery. A convincing win for me.

The aftermath of Victory

What I like about this game is that nothing is certain. After the first 2 rounds I was fairly sure I was going to utterly spanked but some lucky dice rolls turned it all around. This is in direct contrast to some games where if you dont get the first turn you may as well pack up and go home. A really excellent game system and I cant wait to get me some more models and play some bigger games.

8.8cm Flak 36 and friends

It has been  rather productive week model and painting wise. I finished up 5 different units of models. 2 units, a set of Pz III's and PzIV's from command decision where for my buddy in the Paint for Panther scheme (though now its a paint for anything sheme really). The rest were for myself.

My main focus was on a pair of 8.8cm Flak 36's. The infamous German AA/AT gun from WW2. I really love these guns. I bought a Tamiya 1/35 scale version about 21 years ago (I was 9 years old at the time)which sat proudly in my room for almost 2 decades.

These guys are quite a lot smaller at 1/100 scale but they just look phenominal. I also took my time with them and made some scenic bases out of greenstuff and some straw I found outside.

I think these came out really really well considering its my first attempt at this kind of scenic base.

A bit of paint and the application of the actual model and Bobs your uncle :)

Crew are not the actual 8.8 crew as I got the models without. These are from the 105mm artillery set which is why they are not quite right. Still, they do look good.


Next up is a couple of Panzer III G's. These are the Zvezda models are are really good considering the price. Sure, they dont have much individual detail and yes, the detail it has could be more pronounced but at $5 each they are perfect. I did add some detail in a jerry can, extra tracks on the front of the commanders tank and I adapted a commander figure and hatch from a Plastic Soldier Company Panzer IV. Doesnt look 100% right but still looks good and at this scale and looking down at it from the table top no-one will notice anyway.

Paint for Panthers

So given my current financial situation I have had to resort to alternate means of aquiring the minis that my hobby addiction craves.

With that in mind I reached an agreement with a buddy of mine who had some spare mini's but not the time to paint some of the plethora of models he had. So thus came about the "Paint for Panthers" scheme. I would paint up some of his FOW Hungarian army and I would recieved some of those spare minis.

The green BFG cruiser and the 3 sword frigates were part of that deal as well as a FOW panther. For that I painted 3 Hungarian Toldi 1's, 2 Nimrods and 2 Pz38t's.

Toldi 1's - White balance was all off so these dont look as good as they should.

Nimrods - These were interesting to paint due to the crew members being crammed into the small turret.

Panzer 38t's - Fun and easy little tanks. I really like these tanks a lot and if I can figure out how to fit some into my list I will.