Painted Devil Dog

Finally got a chance to sit down and get some paint on this card stock Warhammer 40k vehicle.  The Devil Dog is a modified Chimera that mounts a melta-cannon and big fuel tanks instead of 10 scared and about to die Guardsmen.  This one is table-quality - you can see its a bit skewed in the full-frontal picture - but it serves its purpose and keeps fifty bucks in my wallet at a time when fifty bucks is the difference between having food on the table the day before payday and not.

The boy's next request is for a Vendetta.  Before I can get to that I need to bang out some more jungle terrain for him.  We gave the old stuff away to a friend as a birthday present, so his terrain in looking a bit sparse these days.  That shouldn't take long, and it gives me a bit of time to look at the plans for the Vendetta and see what I need to make it work.

Devil Dog Needs Some Spam

God bless the wargaming community.  They've come through in a pinch once again.

First, let me explain in 40k-ese: A Devil Dog is basically a Chimera with a melta-cannon and power plant in place of a squad compartment.  It fills a Fast Attack slot and serves a dual role as anti-infantry (thanks to a blast template) and light vehicles (due to a decent Strength and AP).

I'll translate for those of you who don't speak 40k:  This is a tank that normally costs way too much money, but can also be constructed from cereal box cardboard for less than five bucks.

Once again, this is a template you can download from the files section of the Yahoo! Group dedicated to just this sort of thing.  This is a much more complicated model than the Leman Russ seen here previously.  The body has way more than six sides, so mine wound up a bit off-kilter.  The hope is that a decent camo paint job will hide a number of sins.

The main cannon was taken from a G.I. Joe knock-off vehicle.  It was a 50-cal pintle mounted gun, but I've trimmed it, flipped it, and added a second, upper barrel to trick it out as a melta-cannon.

Big Thrust In Action

Over the last three weeks:

• The big work project blew up into 60 work weeks (brutal but we need the money, see below)
• Our sole vehicle broke down (still waiting)
• My daughter went in for an 18 hour surgery to fix some heavy duty back problems (she's creaky, but healing well)
• We found out we're going to be evicted sometime in the non-specific but not too distant future (we'll deal with that later)
• I caught the raging flu that's been sweeping the town (brought on by stress no doubt)

Despite all that, we still managed to host the boy's birthday party today, a day long battle-fest using Full Thrust with great big ships. Most of the guests never showed up, but the three that did had a great time.

Human fleet, ready for action.

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The first scenario was a straight-up slugfest in which the human fleet mauled a weaker and more aggressive bio fleet.  The highlight of the fight occurred when one selfless (or hapless, depending on who you ask) frigate dove in front of a bio-missile to save the crew of a nearby cruiser.  That decision was the key to human victory, and the next turn saw that cruiser light up multiple bio-ships like tiny suns.

The HSS Selfless takes a missile for the team.

Then it was time to eat cake.  And by eat, I mean take a few polite bites and throw the rest in the trashcan, because this cake tasted even worse than it looks.

Bleargh.  That's supposed to be a starfield.

The second scenario started out as a routine race around four pylons.  Five frigates paced each other for three turns when suddenly - a mysterious cruiser class bio-ship entered normal space and proceeded to hunt down the hapless and near defenseless frigates.  One frigate put the hammer down and blasted off, trying to put as much distance between his ship and the bio-ship as possible.  (He also never lost sight of the race finish line, determined to win the race, bio-ship be damned.)

The interloper rushing into the race like a wolf among sheep.

Two frigates went down to volleys from the bio-ship, and on the next turn, the human defense force scrambled onto the battlefield to hunt down the interloper.  (Meaning the players who died got new ships to control.)

"Dad, how come you killed me like that?"
"Be-Cause You. Are hu-man Scum."

The human cruiser realized the bio-ship was hunting down the lead frigate and set course accordingly:

Vengeance is mine! Boom!

The defense force pasted the interloper good and hard, clearing the path for the birthday boy to hit the final gate at a speed of 46 feet.

The official scorecard documenting the birthday boy's winning frigate.

Generic action shot.

Another generic action shot of the first battle.

 Lessons learned:

• Footers need to be bigger or heavier.  The ships are big sails that catch the wind and blow over in slight breezes.
• Beach sand is too uneven for this - we tested two ships before the game and it just didn't work, so we moved over to the adjacent grassy park.
• People love walking through the game, but are respectful enough not to touch the ships.  As suggested to me on TheMiniaturesPage forum, a sign or two of explanation would have been a nice courtesy to the public.  Shame there just wasn't enough time for that.