Another bottler!

The first of the new Man Cave brews was bottled today, while listening to Alestorm of course! Another 2 weeks until a sampling can take place...

CnC Tool Holder

You may recall that I bought this last weekend at Arcanacon. I had been thinking about one for awhile, and that I could make one myself. Yes, I could but for $20 this was worth it in saved time if nothing else.

Anyway, about 2 hrs and some wood glue later and she is ready to go! Easy enough to construct and already paying dividends.

http://www.miniaturescenery.com/ProductPage.asp?Code=RKT

Aeronef over the Aegean!

The Man Cave is proud to announce the publication of a VSF supplement- Aeronef over the Aegean! Proud authors have wet the baby's head with Gin and French bubbly! Well this one has anyway...

Find out more at my VSF Blog here:

http://pauljamesog.blogspot.com/2010/01/aeronef-over-aegean.html

Happy Australia Day!

Man Caves across our Great Southern Land paused today to celebrate our wonderful country's 222nd Birthday! In true Aussie fashion, BBQs and some beers were the order of the day...and check out these cracking burgers SWMBO got for us!

The ever faithful Cave Hound wasnt left out either!

The new BBQ spot - about to cook those awesome Aussie burgers!

Evolution of a Firewarrior

Way back Owen asked me for pics of my Tau being painted...this is the first squad I've tried to paint from scratch so the quality is what you would expect :) I'll include some pics of the almost final version shortly. Colours were Codex Grey undercoat, Catachan Green for the uniform and Rotting Flesh for the armour. I then washed the whole model in Gyphonne Sepia , which gave it a nice 'been in battle' grunge look to it...based with GW basing sand , washed in the old Chestnut Ink and drybrushed Bleached bone..representing the arid planet from which this particular sect (Vior'la) comes from.

The other pic shows the effectiveness of Simple Green to strip the original paint job off these eBay-acquired Crisis suits....the icky blue scheme on the left was the original colour scheme, the neon orange in the middle was what lay under one even after simple green, and the greyish white one on the right is a totally stripped model after about a week in Simple Green...not necessarily what I would recommend given it does make the plastic a bit softer by the end..:)

Tau vs Space Wolves BATREP-AAR

View from the trenches..... Turn 1.....Death From Above..... Scratch one Drop Pod...... Situation on second last turn, right flank..note THIRD drop pod arriving as reinforcement to claim 2nd objective

Situation on left flank on 2nd last turn...note the alternate models for Fenris Cav

BATREP Finally got my act into gear to write a snappy BATREP for a Warhammer 40K game. This game was game 3 in an ongoing 5 game campaign straight from the 5th edn rulebook. Jase (of painted figures fame) was using his Space Wolves and I my Tau. The mission was pre set as a Sieze Ground (we rolled 3 objectives) with Pitched battle deployment. Jase has won both the previous games in this campaign, the 2nd fairly convincingly so I thought it was time to change my tactics. I dropped my Devilfish transports that had zoomed around the battlefield full of infantry the last two games (usually only to be smacked down by turn 4) and instead took an almost fully infantry gunline force of 4 squads of Firewarriors and 1 squad of Kroot, with two Hammerhead tanks and a pair of Broadside battlesuits for support. Two squads of Crisis battlesuits rounded out the force. The pics show the evolution of a Firewarrior, only one squad of which is currently painted :) I divided my force into two equal fireteams and deployed them in a straight line behind barricades on either side of my bunker to await the inevitable Space Wolf ground assault......

.....except it came from above....first turn 2 Drop Pods smacked into the ground right in front of my gunline and out clambered his elite assault troops led by his General straight at my non-assaulty Firewarriors...my Kroot attacked first and all 20 , together with their 3 Kroot hounds, were soundly thrashed and run down, due mainly to failing to score wounds on his lads, whilst his power fist armed lads cracked skulls and caused at least 7 casualties to my 1....the Kroot fled and were run down...

On my other flank, Jase charged his newly acquired Fenris Wolf cavalry (thanks to Comrade Owens' post about alternate models for these, Jase bought 3 from some Russian dude...) and to cut a long story short, they made it across the killing ground with one wound a piece, dispatching a Firewarrior squad, a Hammerhead and one squad of Crisis battlesuits by games end.

His Blood Claw assault squad also made it across no mans land with enough lads to hack up the other Firewarrior squad on that (left) flank and assist the Cav in dispatching the hammerhead.My right flank fared little better, with a Lone Wolf suicide charging my last remaining Firewarriors, killing them to a ...Tau...Previously,Jases' General, fresh from his slaughter of the first Kroot and then a firewarrior squad, braved intense point blank fire from my other Hammerhead and the Broadsides to engage the Broadsides in hand to....gun combat....which left only the hammerhead and my generals Crisis team remaining....The Hammerhead fell to concentrated fire from the Long Fangs, (Space Wolf Heavy Weapon squad) which had fired off over a million shells, resulting in a Kroot hound with a slight limp....actually they immobilised the left flank Hammerhead which enabled it to be caught by the Fenris Cav, and then destroyed outright the second Hammerhead ,so they did all right....

On the last turn, (turn 5), my sole surviving unit, the general's crisis team, fought an heroic last stand in the bunker against Fenris Cav, Blood Claws, and the Space Wolf general...an outright 3-0 victory to Jase, giving him more veteran units and the pick of deployment type for our next game, which is a Cities of Death scenario.

Arcanacon XXVIII

Yep- we made it! In fact, here is a pic of Owen with Syd the Arcanosaur to prove it! It was a convenient half way between our Man Caves and while we didn't participate inthe games, we did have a good walk around and look through the various venders. Lots and lots of 40k, but unfortunately the FoW, Wamachine and Space Hulk events werent on that day. oh well... There was some very nice terrain ,but for my part these two were the best- a very nice resin river delta style setup (which had me itching some some Vietnam Brown Water Navy figs...) And this great Urban table

And this great set-up gave me a good chuckle too!

Army wise, I really liked this IG army, extensively modified with greenstuff to be WW1 era ANZACs - sweet! Finally, multiple puchases at the stalls of course- noting too major for me, but I did pick up a Cnc Workshop tool rack which should help setting up the new Man Cave: http://www.miniaturescenery.com/ProductPage.asp?Code=RKT Now get an engineering degree so Ican figure out how to assemble it!!!

Brutal arrives - Part II

Yep -its here at last! Forwarded from Owen's Man Cave to mine, this is a god send of gaming goodness at the end of a hectic first week back at work. Review to follow shortly but in short - beautiful minis!

Brewery Back in Action!

The first brew in the new Man Cave went on today - one has to have priorities after all!

This time its a Cooper's Canadian Blonde using Maltose (and Victorian rain water!), which in a few weeks should provide a nice light beer for these hot Summer months!

Brutal arrives

But sadly not at the man cave quite yet...
Instead it is passaging through Oberst Owen's lair as you can see:

http://predatorlair.blogspot.com/2010/01/brutal-goodies.html

More unpacking today...

But I'm not as worthy as this guy...yet!

Cave unpacking today

Nuff said!

Dipping Genestealers

A dipped speed solution to the Genestealer painting problem perhaps?
http://www.tabletop-terrain.com/archives/2010/01/06/969/space-hulk-dipping-genestealers/

Man Cave southern annex established!

That's right- I'm back! A hectic week, 500 odd boxes and a thousand kms later and we are back online.

OK, the Man Cave is still a disaster of boxes and a full casualty count from the move is yet to be done, but we are now in residence at the new Man Cave. A new Man Cave Brewery product will be commissioned shortly to commemorate the event!

Shut Down...

The Man Cave will cease updates tonight.
Broadcasting will recommence from the new Man Cave soon! EDIT - the last thing I have done before packing up the PC is placing an order with Maelstrom games...the first shipment to the new Man Cave - Bwahahahaha!

How cool is this?

German AT-AT! http://gladiators.wordpress.com/2006/11/09/uberschwerer-kampfschreitpanzer/

yes, yes...back to packing....

Happy New Year!

Man Cave dwellers across Australia are now awakening in various stages of hangover- may it be the worst you feel all year chaps!

May everyone's gaming 210 be filled with fun, excitement and the occasional sweet Victory too!

In that vain, Oberst Owen and I have made out first purchase for the New Year! Yes, we have succumbed to the lovely looking Brutal miniatures by Dark Arts Miniatures. At 32mm its another scale, but I'm really looking forward to trying my hand at painting these larger guys in the new Man Cave.