Anima - Black Sun Type 12 Hunter

As pretty as Anima Tactics models can be, they can be an absolute dog to build.  A couple of models have been lanquishing in the 'To Do' pile as a result.  I finally got around to building one, another undead automata for the Black Sun corporation.

This little sod has about 13 parts, and not one decent join amongst them!

Not even particularly suited to being pinned.  Just getting it to the state above took two hours of struggle.

Conversely, the painting was a breeze:

Spot the difference between the unpainted and the painted version?  The front right leg snapped off during the painting, proving how weak the joins were!  

The creature is clearly based on some form of bull or oxen, a nice change from the usual.  How it'll play in the rules will remain to be seen.

The Empire Strikes Back

After a while away from the Thursday club, Neil made a return the other week and we arranged a game of Anima Tactics for the week after.

I scraped together all my Black Sun faction for 400 levels:

Meanwhile, Neil had his usual tight formation of Empire.

The battlefield was one of those hideous modern estates made of identikit buildings.  I'm joking of course, we used some of the club's excellent new laser-cut buildings bought mainly for Infinity:

We advanced on one another, and straight away, Neil used one of the devilish abilities to Drag Tsubasa into a suicidal combat with part of his phalanx of fighters.  Straight off the bat it was looking like the usual tough fight!

However I was able to use superior mobility and tactics to get Clover into combat with his devastating Prometheum charge.  However the dice gods betrayed me for the first of many times in the game and his attacks failed to do any serious damage.  The Empire stood around healing themselves and readied to attack again.

In with the undead then, mabe they could break through.  The Raziel NK-X waded in, and the dice failed again.  The only good thing was it weathered the damage the Empire were able to dish out, and the Type 5 next to it was scheduled to explode in the midst of the enemy.

Sadly the Empire were able to pick of my mystic, Promethea, with the same dirty trick that did for Tsubasa, and without control of my undead it was clearly time to withdraw; the battle being lost.

Next time we agreed to try a mission that required the sides to take and hold objectives, as in a straight fight it was far too easy for the Empire to stick together and smash through whatever was in front of them.  If they were obliged to choose between sticking together or splitting up to have a chance of winning the game would be more balanced.

In the meantime, I probably should assemble the two new models for these I bought months back!

Les Jaeger on the Hunt

My most recent game was an Anima Tactics rematch with Paul.  I swapped from Black sun to the Azur Alliance, thinking this may give him more of a chance in a hand to hand battle; and as I had only had one or two chances to use the team so far it seemed like a good opportunity to get them out again.

Left to right above I used Kirsten with Piercing Weapons, The Colonel, Kyler, Reinhold and Tsubasa Kurokami with Supernatural Armour.  With plots and equipment a 250 level force.

Paul by Contrast used the same 250 levels as last time, barring some minor changes to their equipment.

The field of battle was mostly ruins, with a small wood into which Kirsten deployed well forward of my main lines thanks to one of my special abilities.  This at least encouraged Paul's Church team to stay together and stay away from her at first at least.

In fact Paul played defensively from the start. using his powers to make characters invulnerable to all normal damage on a couple of occasions, in the hope that they could deal it out while the going was easy.

Tsubasa got tangled in one such combat with Romeo, supported by Damien - who made it impossible for my team to lock multiple charges on to Romeo.  The fight would leave them both wounded, but Tsubasa, as seems his perennial role, was cut down early.

But it was a fight that Romeo was now trapped in, and it proved easy for the rump of my force to deal with the female support troops in the Church force; one by one Kirsten, Reinhold and Kyler picked them off.

Still Romeo was close to defeating the Colonel, but in a fiendish manoeuvre the Colonel used one of his sinister powers to drain the life of Reinhold, revivifying himself; whilst Kyler used a healing potion to bring himself back to fighting fit, having previously been shot a couple of times.

Surrounded and almost alone, the gig was up for Romeo, again.

In deference to Paul, it'll need to be a 300 Level game next time, so that he can get another big combat hetter into the frame, which his force needs I think.  Personally it'll give me incentive to get my High Arbiter painted too.

Elsewhere in the club it was a busy evening; for some reason the Headingley club has also come back to life in the last few weeks, with well over twenty attendees.  The game of interest to me was Mark and Andy's micro armour game, using the GHQ rules:

Mark fielded a scale Brigade of Soviets swarming across the German countryside against a USMC battalion.

It looked a pretty game despite being too tiny a scale for my usual tastes.

Anima Tactics - Romeo must Die

My first game of the year was a return to Amina Tactics after a long break without any games; none since the LWC closed down in fact.

Picking the forces on the day, I opted for my Black Sun faction, as it allowed me to field the Raziel NK-X I painted up last year.

The rest of the 250 levels force was comprised of Clover, Tsubasa, Sophia and Promethea.  This gave me a powerful attacking force, with an effective female tactical support team.  Conversely Paul, my opponent fielded a Church force of Romeo Exxet, Justina, DamienSaint Astraega and Alis Testarossa.  Not a force I'd faced before, and Romeo presented a potentially tough target.

With Paul still quite new to the game, we just set up a simple encounter battle with a notional limit of seven turns.  On my advice we did not over clutter the board with terrain, and what there was was mostly of ruins, Paul would see why I advised this.  I deployed in a tight cluster as the Black Sun clearly work best in a close group.  Paul was rather more spread out.

At first both sides swung around one another in an arc, keeping the actual range between one another fairly equal.  Having moved up in support of the Raziel NK-X on the second turn though, Tsubasa was fired upon by Justina, whilst simultaneously unleashing a magical ranged attack on Damien.

 Cue Star Wars blaster noise

This drew the Church leader, Romeo forward, and the Raziel was able to engage him with a charge.  Damien joined the fray and soon the Lumbering Raziel was proving an imovable object to their unstoppable force, and vice versa.

Astraega stood to the rear dealing out healing.  Keeping Romeo in the fight, resulting in the NK-X looking much the worse for wear.

At this point I had gained enough ground with Tsubasa to charge Justina, but also more devastatingly, Clover was in a position to unleash his Prometheum attack.  He charged Romeo first, cutting him down, then smashing Damien away from the Raziel, and finally flinging an unfortunate Astraega through the ruins behind her.  Two kills from one charge.

By now Alis Testarossa had dropped in on the girls at the back and a half hearted cat fight had broken out.

At the main front, Damien re-charged the Raziel and was able to put the hurt on it, but it's unstoppable nature meant it would still fight to the end of the turn, and in doing so it was able to smash Damien to pulp!  Furthermore it absorbed his essential essence and came back to unholy life itself.  Paul was gutted, figuratively...

Clover joined the fight against Justina, and it signed the end for her too, as another of the Church's warriors was flung into a wall of rock, never to rise again.

Two big swords+one little man = SPLAAAAAAT! 

And so at this stage it became no more than a mopping up exercise; with a turn in hand the battle scarred but still highly effective Black sun team turned to advance on the last of the Church faction; who then had the wisdom to withdraw.

The game was closer than it at first appears, for both Tsubasa and the Raziel were close to being lost, infact the NK-X was technically dead for half a turn.  Clover did not escape unscathed either, and it was only determined dodging and the aid of Sophia that kept Promethea safe.  But it was nonetheless a clear win for the Black Sun, and must've given Paul plenty to think about.

Elsewhere at the Thursday club the usual sort of thing was going on, including DBMM and two games of Puerto Rico.  Most interesting to me though was a trial of the rebooted Mongoose version of Starfleet Battles, as a simplified tabletop game.

Deep in the Beige Nebular, known for its tree-like asteroids...

Featuring all the familiar ships from the original board game (looking through the fleets in the rulebook was like a trip down memory lane, fondly drooling over the Gorns - my favourites - Kzinti, Orion Pirates and more).  These are rules I think I will have to try at some stage, and the models look really nice too.

Anima - Raziel NK-X

Having made some wargaming money on a couple of big sales, I treated myself to a pair of big figures for my Anima Tactics collection.  The first to get completed being a centrepiece for my Black Sun force:

An undead knight and supposedly the most powerful necromantic creation to date of Black Sun, the Raziel NK-X is a seemingly unstoppable primal force.  In game terms they seem staggeringly powerful, especially as I've equipped mine with two huge weapons.

The painting of this model was a breeze, as it is really only a mass of dark armour, a little undead flesh and a few touches of black.  This hides the fact that the construction of the model was an epic however; being a kit, without instructions, of around twenty parts.  A lot of dry fitting, reference to illustrations and the pinning of virtually every joint was required to assemble this figure.  And even then, I suspect those barbed metal whips won't survive very long.  In short, it is not one for beginners; confident modellers only need apply!

Nor is it particularly cheap, but on the table it is likely to be an imposing presence, as you can see from the size comparison against a regular Type 005 above.

For now this is my Black Sun force complete, with some 300 levels available to me.  Next up for Anima is an addition to my Azur Alliance forces to build them up in a similar fashion.

Anima Tactics - Les Jaeger

Prior to moving house last month I made a start on a second team for Anima Tactics, models I'd gathered over the previous few months but yet to start.  After several large projects the idea of painting just five models in detail again appealed, and meant that there wouldn't be too much to pack during the move.

Once shifted I was able to complete the project in short order and get to gaming with them.  So swiftly in fact, that the first photographs of the models were taken at the LWGC:

 Les Jaeger are the Azur Alliance's special forces team, tuned to stealth operations.  They are a mix of stealth, hit and run tactics and mystical forces.  The team above, supported by one of their agents is suitable for 200 level games.

In command is the Colonel:

A model requiring lots of paint effects that are new or unfamiliar at least to me.  The flame came out reasonably, but I always think of it as a definitively unrealistic object to make in metal.  As for the lighting effect of the flame on the Colonel's clothes, well, it's okay for a first try but I'm not overly impressed.

Reinhold is second in command, and a specialist combat psychic:

 Like all of the models in this team, the bulk of the model is black.  Which means a fast paint job.  I highlighted each character to a slightly different theme, in this case, working up to a navy blue.

Kyler is the third of the team, and is a specialist in stealth and close up assasination:

Um, the only thing to say about this model is, that were it not part of the team, I wouldn't have bothered with it, as it just looks wrong from every angle.  Some of the very early AT models are not all that good, this being one of them.  To their credit they do seem to produce resculpts of some...

The last key member of the team is Kirsten, a long range specialist with a mysterious past:

A good model, rather simple though.

Lastly the team is filled out with Agent One:

Possibly my favourite of the models.  Being the most recently sculpted.  Incidentally, if you are looking at the bases and thinking what's going on with the untextured bit?  Well, it's actually filled with Water Effect; and clearly it doesn't show up on the camera very well!

Subsequently to taking the photos, myself and Joe had a small 200 point game, Joe has a couple of the Wanderer figures which teamed up with those of my collection.

The game was reasonably well balanced, but the advantages of Les Jaeger were enough to swing it.  In AT single faction teams are at a distinct points advantage over alignment based, mixed groups.  One of the highlights of the game was Reinhold using his psychic powers to move one of the few pieces of scenery on the board that wasn't fixed down.  Straight into a collision with one of Joe's warriors.

And the other was him blowing Joe's sole survivor apart with a final psychic blast.

Leaving little more than a puff of smoke.  Between them Reinhold and Kirsten were easily the most effective of the team, The Colonel was highly useful, but unlucky; whilst Kyler proved about as attractive a proposition as his model.

Still my first win at Anima Tactics in ages, which was nice.

Fighting on the Dock of the Bay...

I had the good fortune to pop the proverbial cherry on a brand new gaming set up at the LWGC the other week.  Notionally for Freebooters Fate it is a dockside set up with a vaguely West Indies or Mediterranean feel about it.  This was quite acceptable to our game of Anima Tactics.

Myself and Jo were to be pitted against Neil's Empire of Abel; my regular foil at the minute, and a tough nut to crack.  The first issue raised by the battlefield was the need to decide either to split our deployment either side of the dock, or to go for both sides.  As Neil could and did choose to spread out we felt obliged to follow suit, though if It'd been just down to me I'd have refused one flank and gone in heavy down the other.

Today the Black Sun Corporation had hired a large number of Wanderers from oriental lands to aid our cause.  Not strictly within our permitted list builds, but it meant we could up the game to 400 levels, a big fight in Anima Tactics terms, with both sides fielding nine models each!  Gosh.

One of Neils was an initially daunting looking suit of armour, Macbeth, and at 75 levels potentially fearsome.  Here you can see it striding towards the oriental contingent on the right.

First I unleashed the Clover killer move - Prometheum.  However, if I'm honest, I did so too early.  Although he took two minor opponents out the fight straight away, one permanently, he then got embroiled whilst vulnerable.  Sophia was just (by less than a quarter inch) out of range to buff him back to safety, which left him to get hacked down.  Must remember more restrain in future, get the Type 005's busy in combat first so that the enemy can't just jump all over Clover when he goes in.

Fortunately Neil needed to consider the same problems with Macbeth.

Our martial artists threw him around; unable to dodge as he was making him and easy to hit, if tough, target.  His 28 life points (10-12 is average) drained away to a succession of attacks from all three characters around him.  Soon he was done for, but we had ignored a little girl with a very big hammer in doing so...

Erika turned out to have a deadly attack with a 2 inch range, which neatly took out all three of our warriors.  Damnation!  With no reserves available, it was the unlikely task of the usual suspects to hold up against the combat monster that is Neil's core Empire force.

Despite the Type 005's putting in more of a fight than normal, and Promethea surviving combat with Samiel*  It was clear the gig was up, and so whilst the last Type 005 kept the gang busy, the surviving girls, as usual scarpered.

Lovely scenery, a big game, and some learning points.  Tsubasa will from now on be close to Clovers side.  Clover needs to wait until the Type 005's are in combat, and the girls back the whole show up.  With that in mind we might just break the hegemony of the Empire!  

The game attracted a lot of attention, and not just for the new scenery, so I hope to see a couple more opponents coming up in future. 

*Incidentally, there is an annoying tendency in AT to have characters or attributes with very similar names; it makes clarity in some of these reports difficult to preserve!

Anima - Tsubasa Kurokami

After languishing on the painting desk for some time, an arranged game of Anima Tactics encouraged me to finish another Wanderer.  This time some combat muscle to back up Clover in my Black Sun team.

It was a real challenge to get both the red and bronze highlights right on the character, I didn't want to detract from the flow of the robes, and at the same time wanted to put a real polish on the armour.  Adding the glowing yellow Kanji was easier than I thought; as was the hair, which I thought would be a challenge, but actually was simple.  A base of blonde given a sepia wash then a recoat of blonde, followed by a light highlight.

In action Tsubasa should add some vital aggression to my team, being particularly good on the counterattack.  We shall see.

Don't say it's Clover...

Hmm, my third game of Anima Tactics, and I only wish I could get a few more in.  I faced up against Neil's Holy Empire of Abel team across a familiar battleground...

Neil knows the abilities of most every character in the game, but as the Black Sun are not in the core rulebooks he only knew their abilities from the net; he was wary of Clover and rightly so.  But I would say that. 

Initially I threw forwards the Type 005's as a screen, and Neil's characters happily dispatched them.

But this gave me room and time to prepare Clover's killer move.

His Prometheum attack tied with one of Promethea's magical effects allowed him to move in from outside of the Empires movement and attack range, and unleash three consecutive charge attacks, with throw effects as I want.  In an instant the Empire defence pack was smashed open.  One character dead, one stunned and one thrown well out of range.

However, it's still a gamble; as powerful as his attack is, after it he is vulnerablee, not least as he is in my present team a solo fighting force, and his charge had left him well out of range of the buffs that Sophia and Promethea could offer.

Whilst they tried to avoid getting themselves killed so they could support Clover, three of Neil's characters ganged up on him and did everything they could to bring him down.  It took them three turns, in which Neil was very nearly beaten; but in the end he was able to triumph.

A real close game despite the appearance of the outcome.  Which is something I like about the game.  Still I need to add another combatant to my team to give them more balance; in the short term it may have to be a wanderer (read - mercenary), but in the longer term an undead knight may be more value than the Type 005 zombie soldiers...

Black sun rises over Wissenschaft

Rather than watch class and privilege formalise it's breeding arrangements and monarchistic legitimacy the other week, I had my second game of Anima Tactics.  My opponent Steve was making his return to the club after several months away, and was new to the game; so alongside catching up, we took a leisurely pace through a game of 250 levels.

Steve had a Wissenschaft team comprising XII (a level 60 leader, I should add, rather obviously, that levels are the games' equivalent to a points value), Lorenzo and Rayne, all combat heavy.  These were backed up with Alessa Raincross, a ranged specialist, and IIRC a single Wissenschaft agent - essentially a rank and file fighter.

Steve deployed in cover (on this splendid little terrain board, originally made for Malifaux games), and used his advanced deployment abilities to reposition his troops after I had deployed.  In essence he bravely opted to hide from me!

Of course this was only a temporary ruse. 

For my part I had what is my new expanded force, Led by Clover (at 70 levels), backed up by Promethea and Styx, Sphia Ilmora; and two Type 005's.

Mine was, and remained throughout the game a dense formation, as the three true combat units in my force needed the buffs and upgrades that Promethea and Sophia could offer.

Early in the game, Steve looked to hold the upper hand, being more manoeuvrable and seeking to target my Type 005's, he was to finish one off in short order, shooting it with XII and then sending Rayne in to finish it off.  But he was not aware of the effect killing one of these beasts had, and was surprised and severely wounded by it when the corpse exploded at the end of the turn.

Elsewhere Steve threw out his agent as a lure, in some sense I think he thought she was safe, but Clover used his dexterity to get around the cover she was in and executed her with a single devastating blow.

At this, Steve declared this was his plan all along and threw Lorenzo into the fray.  I think he was soon disappointed to discover that Lorenzo was no match for not only, Clover, but also for the tactical advice of Sophia, and magic of Promethea.  He ended up defeated too.  Though by this point Clover was also wounded.

I had by now lost both Type 005's as Alessa snuck around sniping at them and others.  Still feeling he held the upper hand, Steve launched XII in a grand attack Firing on Clover and then charging in.

Clover weathered the initial storm, and then received some welcome additional healing; one thing I'd learnt from my first game was that sequencing your actions is all important.  Steve had shot his bolt too early, and I was able to buff Clover with additional attack strength from both Sophia and Promethea before responding.

Over two rounds, Clover smashed XII into the ground, my second attack would have finished him off on its own.  With only a weakened Rayne and Alessa left; Steve conceded defeat.

Initially a tight game, I discovered that my Leader, properly supported, is an absolute monster!  His attack power is awesome, and his ability to self heal critical.  Steve had a well organised force, but much as I had in my first game, suffered for not sensing the subtleties of play until it was on the table.

Overall, a much better way to spend the time than watching a wedding.

April Painting Catchup...

I'll write this big bumper edition of Pledge news whilst watching the Formula One (a good race is somehow not really engaging me today).  Obviously with virtually no photo updates in April there was a lot of work that has so far gone unrecorded, but here it is in all its variety and glory.

First up I had plenty of time and motivation to finish two more Anima Tactics models, as the blurry sneak preview shot will have shown a couple of weeks back.  Here is Clover, the leader for my little force:

A charismatic, and nicely understated model; GW would never allow this through their rigorous 'skull application' stage of design work!  Such a simple model demands just as much attention in painting though if the result is not to look flat and lifeless.  I made extensive use of GW washes (which I use alongside glazes of Vallejo, as a thinner alternative) on this model followed by several layers of increasing highlights.  These were then smoothed out with another layer of wash.

 I was really satisfied with Clover, and at the same time was able to do a better job of my second Type 005.

The first model (see February) came out too vibrant a purple, and had troubling highlights on the metal armour.  This version - the alternate pose available as a blister pack, differs from the starter pack pose - came out with a paler shade that met my expectations.  The sweeping folds of the cloth, give this model a great sense of movement, that again was well served by washes.

I started the month with a mass of Goblins, jostling table space with the Germans covered last week.  These didn't get much attention until the latter were out the way; but then I was able to knock them out in short order.

These were after all, a simple job, done with the most basic of techniques.  A varnish glaze mix providing all the shading.  I like to generate a lot of variety in the skin tones and clothing of the troops, which hopefully you can see in the image.  A full tutorial can be found back in the November 2006 archive.

Along similar lines were these two Undead catapults, painted exclusively for use in Kings of War (they serve no purpose in a Vampire Counts army).  The same basic technique as the goblins, and to be fair the models below was used.

 Tiresome models to paint if I'm honest.  Too many hard to reach parts.

Once they were done, I moved on to another job for sale on eBay.  This time Russians.

 

I've said plenty about the paint method used on the infantry and guns here before.  So I will talk primarily about the Plastic Soldier Russians.

I find them an odd mix, some of the models are fantastic, the firing LMG team and the chap running whilst holding his helmet being highlights, but others are weak models aesthetically.  Not least there is a problem with anatomical proportions, that give an impression the models were sculpted by people with more attention on historical accuracy than biology. 

In particular there are many models with arms that are too short, especially the grenade throwing model, where it is laughably obvious on what is the worst pose in the set.  Still for the money, they represent reasonable value, and with PS's rapid expansion and servicing of three classic wargaming scales one can only applaud their initiative, and hope standards improve over time with experience.

Back to the painting, and I had fun with the easy job of producing this KV1; some mobile-phone browsing (the joys of technology) allowed me to research an appropriate slogan for the side of the tank.

The totals for the month were, as a result of minimal distractions, such as blogging! excellent.

36 Goblin Spears
Sophia Ilmora
Russian Platoon with 76.2mm Zis 3 and KV1-S (60pts)
Skeleton Catapults and crew (10pts)
Clover
Type 005

A final figure of 104 points, over triple expectations and including three quality paint jobs, alongside the usual rubbish, ahem.

With a return of the Internet at home, less bank holidays/leave and more social life going on, I imagine that will be a high water mark for some months.