Mercs Minis- CCC faction 'the Yellow Jackets': PiP

Greetings once again InterWebs!!!! Spring has finally come to us in Colorado which of course means Spring Snows, this weekend however was nice enough to get some projects done around the house and spend some time in the hobby room. Several of my friends (including myself) are giving the game Mercs a try so I have been working on my faction/team which are the CCC faction nicknamed 'the Yellow Jackets ' because of their black and yellow armor. Yellow is not a color I enjoy painting at all and there was an incident early on in my attempt with the CCC which ended up so bad the minis had to go into a Simple Green bath to strip off the ruined paint attempt. After a few hours I was able to strip them back to metal and start over with a lesson learned! Here are some photos of the second attempt at yellow and black armor:

Starting off with a couple of thins layers of Parasite Brown:

After 2 'glazed' layers of Deep Yellow:

After a final highlight layer of Bad Moon Yellow:

I am pleased with how the second attempt at yellow turned out however the minis look a little weird at this point without the black jumpsuit showing through from underneath. I needed to continue on with the rest of the painting of the surrounding details to see if the yellow armor actually turned out OK. Here are the CCC 'Bumblebees' as they sit on the painting table:

Team Leader:

Demolition Man:

Heavy Weapons:

Team Medic (with alternate head):

Sniper:

Heavy Flamer:

Breacher:

There is still quite a bit still left to paint but I am totally enjoying painting something new and besides there are only 7 minis to paint not 100's! Those with sharp eyes might notice some Malifaux minis in the background of the painting station, guess what is next up after the CCC minis are done. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look! Take care!

Mercs: A First Game Overview

Greetings once again InterWebs!!! The gaming group I belong to (which includes the infamous Mordian 7th) has decided to try some other game systems; we had been in a bit of a rut with our gaming and need to break out of it. For some of us Warhammer 40k has lost a bit of its luster.for us at the moment. Mordian 7th and I have decided to give the futuristic miniature skirmish game called Mercs a try. I had watched a bunch of coverage about the game Mercs on the wonderful Beasts of War website. While there was a cool global campaign day being held at a game store here in Colorado our gaming group had other plans for the day and we have basically just started to learn the game. We did however get in a game of Mercs a few weeks back to learn the system and have some fun.

What I love about Mercs:

1) The rulebook and a starter set was around $100.00 USD which I thought was not bad at all. There is no way a person could get into Warhammer 40k for that amount of money.

2) Mercs being a small skirmish game the total amount of miniatures that you can field is 5. There are scenarios when you could be playing with fewer than 5. Having only a handful of miniatures on each side the games go quick! Our first game (which was a learning game) went about 1 hour 40 minutes but the games seem to be able to be played in about an hour or less.

So the first Mercs game ever for us was to be a battle between the FCC defending a book listing all of their operatives in the area from the invading Kem Var team. Here are some various views of the battlefield before the combat teams of Mercs showed up:

The ever-popular overhead view:

You will hopefully note that the play surface for a game of Mercs is very small; recommended 2'x2' or 3'x3' at most. The small play area forces the 'action' to start soon, generally turn 2 or so; the small play area also leads to quicker game times.

Here are some more various views of the actual game starting with deployment of the Merc teams:

Kem Var setup:

FCC setup:

 The book that must be defended:

The Merc Minis stat-cards which are also used in the movement phase (see next picture):

Here we have some shots of the action heating up:

Rushing the FCC Boomer before he kills everyone with a grenade (which are very nasty in Mercs):

Kem Var leader gunning his way to the doors of the chapel and the book inside:

 FCC leader drawing a bead on the Kem Var leader attempting to enter the chapel:

Gunning down the last Kem Var attacker as he tried to enter the chapel and grab the precious book:

All in all it was a great time with the FCC finally defeating the Kem Var and making it away with the list of operatives. I found the rules to rather in depth with lots of little nuances to the rules. I found the use of pluses and minsues to hit a refreshing change and reminded me of Warhammer 40k 2nd/3rd edition. I will look to do a more detailed battle report on a future Mercs engagement. Now to get back to painting up my CCC Merc team which are nicknamed the 'Yellow Jackets' and their wonderful yellow and black armor. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at something not 40k related! Take care!

6250 points of Painted Blood Angels: 'Knights of Baal'

Greetings once again InterWebs!!!! So as promised in my last post I gathered up all of my painted Blood Angels 4th Company 'Knights of Baal' and took some photos. I had to set everything up in the kitchen on the glass table due to the size of the army so I apologize for the lesser quality photos.

Here are some overview shots of the army:

 Top-down view:

Head-on view:

Here are some closer views of the some of the sections of the army:

The Motor Pool:

Land Raiders and Terminator Squads:

The Sanguinary Priests:

The Lord of Death and his brother Librarians:

Vanguard Veterans:

Last but not least, the Lord of Angels himself, Sanguinius:

Wow, what a nice feeling to have all of that done and behind me!!!!! I am really ready to move beyond the Sons of Sanguinius for a while and all of their red! I still have some Death Company models that I will add to the collection sometime in the future, but for now I am going to work on finally finishing some small projects that I have had laying around for years. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look! Comments are always welcome! Take care!