Druze Bayram Security Expansion Painted

Alongside the Dahshat Company models I sent to Thunderbrush Studios was a pretty extensive update to my Druze Bayram Security. Druze were my first commission painted army and I played them very extensively a couple of seasons ago. Unfortunately, their limited unit selection and unforgiving playstyle meant I eventually gave up to avoid falling out of love with the game and moved over to Dahshat Company.

With the new edition, Druze have had a bit of an overhaul, and a whole bunch of new units to try out. First up are Kunai Solutions Ninjas. These masters of close combat are armed with long range rifles they're mediocre with. In keeping with Druze Bayram Security's high quality vetting and hiring processes, you can even take two. I picked these up for completionist reasons, and am not exactly expecting them to shine.

Next up is Aida Swanson, a smuggler and secret alien infiltrator. I suspect Druze Bayram Security don't so much have an HR department but rather a creepy guy in a dive bar picking up anyone who's willing to kill people for money and is good at it. The vetting is more "are you a narc?" than checking for war crimes...

Aida is a profile I'm really rather curious about. She forward deploys with submachine guns and viral mines, so is quite capable of messing people up. Lacking a market state, she's not well placed to defend and is more a short ranged attack piece who will kill lightly armoured targets super dead and disrupt the midfield.

Taowu, Mastermind and Schemer is a criminal mastermind who has a side hustle as a futuristic sports star. As you do. With the ability to disguise himself as another model, some nasty close combat tricks and brutal short ranged loadout options, I think he's probably a back-field sweeper model who waits for attackers to get close, then leads an unexpected counter attack.

Security Chief Arslan was available in N3, but the model came out pretty late in the edition and I hadn't gotten around to picking him up. He's a character from the Outrage graphic novel that Corvus Belli published, which is well worth a look if you haven't picked it up.

He's in a weird place as a unit profile. He's got across the board good MI stats with a solid middle of the road weapon load out - MULTI Rifle, Light Shotgun and Viral Pistol gives you solid options for killing most targets, especially with +1 Dam on his shooting. Dodge +3 and No Wound Incapacitation ups his survivability, but the lack of Shock Immunity means he's not as tough has he could be - he's well placed to survive a lucky shot back but shouldn't be trying to defend in the Reactive Turn. The Multispectral Visor L1 rounds him out, meaning he's got gear for pretty much every circumstance.

I kind of love Arslan in N4 because he's such a good example of a character's rules exemplifying a faction's theme. Druze are a criminal organisation with a paramilitary arm, not professional soldiers. They're well equipped veterans despite that, and have a wide range of gear. But they lack some of the top end military options that full armies can deploy.

Mechanically, the biggest deal in terms of new units for Druze Bayram Security is the ability to take Bulleteers. Pan Oceania has clearly decided to sell more of their higher end tech to mercenary companies, probably because they like money. These cheap and cheerful Mimetism -6 gun platforms are super hard to hit, meaning that they can get into a whole bunch of gun fights quite happily.

I have also had an Anaconda painted, but photos will have to wait as she took a small ding in the post and needs some repairs. Once that's done I'll get her up on the blog.

The post shouldn't be taken as a commentary on the overall changes to the faction. The increased fireteam flexibility around Brawlers and Bounty Hunters is in many ways far more of a boost, I suspect. Limiting armies to fifteen models will also help the Druze avoid getting swarmed, which was historically a risk for them. They've also gained the Wulver mercenary Wolfgang and the trans icon engineer Fiddler, but their models are only just coming out now and I've not got them painted just yet.

I'm not planning on diving back into Druze immediately. I've been focussing on the Shasvastii as I get them painted up, although my Defiance Pledge not having turned up means that my first few in person games are going to be Dahshat Company. Still, they're basically a ready to go army and I remain deeply fond of them, so I will certainly get back to them in time . . .

Dahshat Company Expansion Painted

 

With my old commission painter having sadly hung up his brushes, I decided to give Thunderbrush Studio a go at my neon Infinity scheme. As you can see, he's done very well with it! Today I'm showing the models he completed for me for Dahshat Company.

First up is the Motorised 112 - an Ariadnan doctor on a motorbike. The model had a high SWC cost in the last edition, but his N4 update removed that, meaning I'm likely to be quite tempted to take him in lists now.

The Dozer was a more common pick, as it unlocks Traktor Mul remotes, which are super cheap orders. I already have the old model for the Dozer, but she technically has the wrong weapon load out to take Traktor Muls. Having the ability to be clearer on the table for my opponent is a good thing, even if it isn't strictly required.

I also grabbed the newer Zhencha model, again for the alternative weapon load out. This was less "necessary" as the model usually starts as a camo token so is unlikely to cause confusion on the tabletop, but the model is just so cool looking I felt I had to pick it up.

Finally for the Dahshat company batch, we've got the absolute beast that is the Maghariba Guard. I never quite got around to trying this out in N3, so I'm looking forward to trying some builds that include it.

Here she is standing next to the Dozer Engineer to give some idea of scale. The whole model is metal, so it's really heavy to pick up. I'll definitely be packing her with a lot of foam!

I haven't really had a chance to try playing with Dahshat Company in the new edition yet - I've mostly been focussing on getting my Shasvastii game up to par. They're in an interesting place. Last edition they benefitted from taking a couple of strong attack pieces with loads and loads of cheap troops as back up.

The new edition limits you to fifteen models in a list, so that build isn't going to be happening any more. I'm also not quite sure how well it would actually do in the new edition. It relied on a lot of high burst weapons, but as the new edition favours armour a little more, I think those builds lack a solution to heavy armour. It's a fundamental rethink in terms of playstyle, and I'm looking forward to trying to solve that puzzle.

A short update

Well, it turns out that the overly optimistic tidying plan was pretty catastrophic on my blogging schedule. Things are all back in boxes now, in a bit better order. There's still some stuff to sort, but that's in one place and I'm pretty happy I know where it's all at.

I've been Outside, going to a friend's wedding. It was pretty exhausting. I'm planning on not really doing more than one tournament a quarter while I get used to human interaction again, and have signed up to a big Malifaux tournament in November.

Of course, when I did this I hadn't realised they had a minimum painting standard, and I can't just run the bare plastic I had assembled, so it looks like I've got another deadline. That's the Stormcast on the back burner and Malifaux to the top of the pile.

My neon NA2 forces for Infinity have had some reinforcements back from my new commission painter. I need to do some organising of those photos but will get them up on the blog soon. I've also signed up to an "in person" league with my Dahshat, as I don't have quite all the right pieces assembled for my Shasvastii to play in person just yet. (I mean, I have enough models painted for a legal force, but I'm missing some pieces I want to use, so am going to wait for them to get done.)

All in all, things are pretty OK, just not really interesting stuff to blog. Hopefully that'll change in the coming weeks...

White Dwarf is Pretty Good Right Now

 

As my readers in the UK will know, the other week was too hot to do anything sensible. Conveniently, I found the latest White Dwarf lying around, and thought I'd give it a read. I have a subscription, but I've not been reading them for a little bit. I was notably pleased to see that the packaging it came in was now recyclable.

The big focus of this issue was that Jervis Johnson has retired, so they were taking a look at his career. I don't think there's any dispute that Jervis has been a massive influence on the Games Workshop hobby over the years. The issue really served to emphasise that.

The J Files were an old article where Jervis was given some column space to have a bit of a ramble on whatever he felt like. It saw a final return for Jervis to talk about the importance of the hobby to people and the impact it has on people's lives. I like talk pieces like this in moderation, and they weren't enough here that it started to drag.

There was plenty of delicious nostalgia this issue, looking over loads of stuff I remember from my Yoof. Being reminded of loads of cool articles I would read at school, or in my bedroom at home growing up was a nice feeling. I keep thinking about going back to re-read this, which is always a good sign.

In a "what's old is new again", they're doing "Tale of Four Warlords" again. There was a little bit of reality crashing in as these articles were written back in the middle of full lockdown. If it wasn't for that, the new figures aside, it would have fit happily into the White Dwarfs I remember and love.

There were a good few fan / hobbyist armies articles as well. They gave me a bunch of hobby ideas and got me really enthused about painting. I kind of want to stop writing this blog and go back and look at the models again.

There was also a whole bunch of rules for stuff. A couple of 40K articles, some Blood Bowl stuff, scenarios for Aeronautica Imperialis . . . While I don't play all the small games, new content for most of them was a really good sign of support that I appreciated. Age of Sigmar just had hobby articles, but I suspect that this is due to the recently released new edition and production schedules.

I particularly felt the article for Torchbearer fleets looked excellent. This was an option to build an army around the combined fleets escorting Primaris to meet their new chapter. While I was a little sad they missed Sisters of Silence out of the models you can take in it, it gives a ton of interesting options. I'm not sure if it's legal for tournaments, but that level of "new stuff you can try" really got me excited to see what else they'll put out.

So, in summary, White Dwarf is pretty good right now. I did give that away with the title, but this isn't really a complicated concept. They've got a good balance of hobby stuff across their different games, new rules and fun games you can try out if you're playing regularly, and stuff that could inspire you to a new hobby project. It felt a lot like the old White Dwarfs I used to read as a kid, and that can really only be a good thing.

If you can't be an example, be a cautionary tale

 

If, on the eve of a forecasted heatwave, you are looking for a very specific model to put into a commission batch, you observe that your hobby boxes are badly organised, may I gently suggest you don't start trying to sort them then?

Everything is boxes. I'm not taking a photo. Mostly because so many of those boxes have addresses on and I'm not daft enough to post my address all over the internet.

After simply lying in a cool room for several days avoiding everything, I realised I'd had a good amount of time to actually Think About Stuff, so you're getting another rambly post today. And hopefully not just because I can't get to my painting desk.

So, I settled down, filled up my amazing Fenris Games mug with the good tea, and had a think. I find these sort of blog posts super useful because it also helps me actually sort them out in my head as I try and get them organised to make them into coherent sentences.

So, I'm pretty happy with the progress I'm getting on my Shasvastii. I had my second vaccine today, so I'm looking forward to getting out to some in person games in the future. In the meantime, I've signed up to another short online league to get a bit more practice in with them.

I'm writing up a big spreadsheet of how I find all the different units, both to help remind myself and with the ambition of maybe writing some tactics posts for them in the future.

My fluorescent NA2 forces have some more models away at the painters, but I'm not sure when I'll next pick up painting them. The focus is really on the Shasvastii right now, but a couple of fun brawls with my "previous season" armies is definitely on the cards at some point. I also have White Company being slowly worked on to pick up in a future season once enough models are ready, but there's no rush. I'm also looking at the new Nomad models coming out, but they're very much for when the current project I'm painting myself is finished!

Rather than expanding the Sisters, I decided it was better I get my Deathwatch sorted next for 40K, which did lead to a revelation of quite how many Marine kits I have kicking about my house. This one is a simple "once I get out, play a game and see what I'm enjoying and what I want to do next".

The next project that I'm looking to paint myself is a Stormcast Eternal force for Age of Sigmar. With the new edition out, the Stormcast are a low model count army that should be forgiving to learn with, and will be having an updated Battletome for the new edition pretty soon.

And the thing here will be trying to just focus on the one project. There isn't a specific deadline as such, beyond "try and get a playable force by the time the Battletome is in stores". I'll still pick up bits and bobs of things as palette cleansers in between Stormcast, because I go just as fast on the project and end up with more things painted in total by the end of it.

And that said, I'm going to try and be a bit more sensible with my palette cleansers. I'm hoping to one day run an D&D campaign with miniatures, and also to try out Frostgrave and Stargrave, so that can give a little more . . . structure to models I'm painting because I like the look of them.

With all that in mind, you might see the painting speed slow a little on the blog as I put more time into clearing out the stuff I definitely don't need any more. The flat is still super cluttered and knowing what I can do when "flat out" now means that a lot more projects move from 'the future' to 'I'm really not going to get around to this, am I?'... An army box of Ad Mech has already been swapped for some more Marines to flesh out the Deathwatch, and they're all going straight back out the door to the commission painter...

So, it's really more of the same, hopefully with a little more focus and less stress. I'm pretty happy with how the hobby year is going, despite the world's best efforts. The real challenge is avoiding over-committing to things, which I am a master of...

Finished Shasvastii for Organised Play at Home

 

I'm pleased to say that I managed to get all ten models I committed to for the Corvus Belli "Organised Play at Home" painting competition finished in time for the deadline. It was a bit rough at times, but we made it!

Here's some extra photos of the more recently finished ones. I'm sure I'm going to spot all sorts of bits I missed as I go over the photos that I'll invariably need to go back in and touch up. But in theory, they're ready for varnishing!

The model on the left here is the Mentor with Shock Marksman Rifle. I already had the model with Boarding Shotgun painted up, but got some advice that sometimes the extra range of the Marksman Rifle was worthwhile in later turns. I've definitely had that come in handy from time to time.

In the centre with have Sheskiin. Her background is that she was a Cadmus trooper, whose specialist ability is to scan the physical abilities of nearby enemies and copy it - and she was able to do that to the Aleph recreation of Achilles. She was ridiculously good in third edition, but has toned down a bit in N4, while still remaining an absolute beast of a model.

On the right, another stalwart of the attack pieces, a Caliban with Spitfire. Basically a forward deploying attack piece with a squad support weapon, he can be an absolute terror, although I've not used him enough yet to really get him dialled in.

The second batch include a couple of older models, whose level of detail is variable, while still having some rather fiddly to paint areas.

On the left and the right are the old and new "Spec Ops" models, respectively. Used mostly in campaigns, they're also widely accepted as proxies for other models as needed. In this case, as both have hoods similar to the released Shrouded model, and you often want two or three, I'm expecting they'll both most regularly see service as another mid field specialist . . .

In the centre is the old Speculo Killer model. Weirdly, I've already spent some time today talking about how she plays in a Facebook group as a returning player found her Impersonation skill A Bit Much. With the ability to deploy as a marker anywhere on the board, sometimes even in your opponent's deployment zone, she's a really deadly assassin piece who can absolutely wreck an unprepared opponent. Broadly, though, I find she's more commonly a disruption piece, forcing my opponents to try and dig her out before she has an opportunity to cause mischief.

With another ten models painted, I'm spending a bit of time reorganising the hobby room before launching into the next project. I haven't timed it well given the current UK heatwave, but I'll get it done. Eventually.

A pause for reflection

While I was focussing all my hobby time on getting ten Shasvastii done for the Corvus Belli painting competition, I noticed how much stuff was building up elsewhere.

Now, when thinking about hobby, I've realised I'm very bad at keeping track of how long it all takes. I end up just thinking about the painting, but not realising how much time prep, assembly, basing and undercoating takes at one end, and photographing and varnishing at the other end.

Thing is, I have shown myself that I can get a nice chunk of a painting project done in about a month and a half.

Now the rush is done, I'm planning on clearing the decks, having a bit of a tidy up, maybe doing a couple of simple figures as a change of pace, then settling into a new project.

Forty Percent there isn't quite as catchy

 

With the Corvus Belli Organised Play at Home painting competition deadline bearing down on me, I've been focussing in on getting my entry finished The good news is, I've got four of the ten models totally finished with three days to go!

So, as a bit of a preview, here's what's finished so far. First off is the M-Drone. This is the utility remote for the Combined Army, getting the usual suit of Sensor and Forward Observer that all the similar models in other armies get.

Meanwhile, the Combined Army's Total Reaction remote, the Q-Drone, is a little infamous for gaining Mimetism -3, and a second profile with an option for a Plasma Rifle. This is an excellent piece and I've been using it extensively online. In fact, I think I need another one . . .

Less commonly used, we have the Haiduk. Which is a shame, because it's a lovely model. With a combination of a Multi-Spectral Visor Lvl 2 and the ability to dig foxholes, it's a fascinating profile I want to play around with a bit more to get used to how it works.

I love how the model is crouching behind a ruined bit of wall. It was great fun to paint.

Meanwhile, in the category "definitely good but I don't know how to use yet" is the Malignos with Boarding Shotgun. With Hidden Deployment meaning I can just write down where it's hiding until I want to move it, rather than deploying the figure, it's got a lot of potential for the deception games that Shasvastii do so well at.

He's just quite a few points and I've not found the space for him in many lists yet. I should fix that.

Anyhow, I'm writing this post on Sunday evening, scheduled for Monday evening. The other six models for the competition are all done, less their bases, and I'll be blitzing through what's left to do on those on Monday night so I complete the competition goal with a day to spare.

Wish me luck!

Looking back on June

 

While most of this month was hijacked by the Corvus Belli painting competition, it turns out that a ton of other things got painted at the same time while I was sitting at the hobby desk. Definitely a lesson for making sure I spend time at the hobby desk because tons gets done.

First up is the Kickstarter preview I got sent by Bad Squiddo Games. I've not yet heard when the Kickstarter is, but I definitely promise to let people know when its announced...

I also managed to get the Pneumarch HVT model for my Shasvastii off the "half finished" pile. It definitely made me feel really positive about finishing anything for my army, which is good, because I'm trying to get a whole bunch done!

I am super happy with how Brath the Stag came out. It's such an excellent sculpt and it was remarkably easy to make him look this good. You can get your own from Fenris Games in the UK or Barbaric Splendor in the US.

I also knocked out a quick "Sheriff Drumfasser" which is a Reaper Bones Black model. Not super in love with him, but he is another finished mini.

And finally . . . finishing the month as I began with a Bad Squiddo miniature. This was an impulse purchase at a show. No, still don't know what I'm doing with them . . .

Looking forward - I'm trying to get my Shasvastii done for the Corvus Belli painting competition. Also, Age of Sigmar 3 has now been released, and I really really need to get a playable force for this edition, having missed the first two editions without managing to get a game in . . .