I was very excited for this team as soon as it was announced. Thrilled to knock them out as soon as I could: and in about a week. Used the same technique I used on my Leviathan Tyranids, but I did punch highlights up by an extra step. I think the glowy green and wet pink parts are the most effective.
I took a crack at these thinking they’d paint quickly: I was right! Something’s up with the Dullcote I have that makes it less satin than I’d like: I’m trying out some AK Ultra-matte here, and it’s definitely WAY more matte than I’d like.
The Fireteam changes to N5 made me really excited to return to ISS – a huge difference from N4, in which the rules seemed actively tuned to punish the sectorial.
So, I was delighted to grab the action pack and get it painted up. I skipped the models I already have painted (Celestial Guard, Crane Rank, etc)
The Bayara Palace Guard is a unit I don’t know I’ll ever take! But it looks so cool, I’m really glad it’s done.
I was weirdly cool on the Longwang until I assembled it. The unicool material is great… and there’s something about its relatively small size that just makes it neater to me. Very pleased with my freehand unit logo there.
I’m pretty sure “Jinyao” means “difficult to assemble” but once it was assembled: thrilled with the results. Not shown: another freehanded unit logo.
I also knocked out the Koga and Kunai Ninjas (the former’s been in my pile of shame since N4) and a printed turret for my Sophotect Shenji.
Finally, I printed off and painted a Waldo mini from Skullforge to use as an HVT because it seemed fun. And, as I’ve had to print and paint dozens and dozens of Critters for the NOVAOpen Narrative, I decided to run one off for myself and give it a bit more attention; it’s a QAZ Creature.
Painted the Kill Team Equipment because that seemed like the thing to do. Went quickly, no complaints!
Spearhead sees some action at the game store so I was eager to hop on the new box. Very, very happy with how these game out.
I threw this weird, seasonal Cyberpunk Combat Zone merc on the painting table and knocked him out pretty quickly.
I’m really satisfied with how these models came out… but something about them photographed kind of poorly. So poorly, in fact, that frustration over it kind of killed me posting here. I’m pushing through, posting them, and moving on, though.
The special characters, who aren’t just Gunners/Heavy Gunners took 3 weeks to get done… the gunners too a week. :sigh:
While Dead Moon’s Hand was on my brain a few months back, I knocked out all of my Lunar backlog. I put more effort into these (Freelancers in desaturated blue, JAXA in orange) and I’m really in love with them. So much so I went back and painted the reflection on the faceplates of all of my previously painted Lunar models.
These guys are from Skullforge, more on the later. Me being me, I’ll take whatever goofy moonshit I can get.
These aren’t so much Dead Moon’s Hand, but I worked on them at the same time. I’ve got a half-doodled PAC-MAN game written up using these. Clearly I love the space ghost models.
These aren’t Dead Moon’s Hand, Lunar, or PAC-Man: they’re Arsenal models. I think they’re pretty sick. I need to wrap up the MCVs for them to have a playable force, though.
Back in :checks notes: early January, I made the following series of comments:
[Lunar] would be better if it were Dead Man’s Hand… in Space
Cowboys on the Moon:
– DMH rules
– Every weapon gets a piercing/bludgeoning stat.
– Piercing weapons work as is
– Bludgeoning weapons get a different table: get a distance in cm they push the target back but can’t do anything but confer Under Fire Markers. Oh, and mass effects the table.
– Done?
Dead Moon’s Hand
Dead Man’s Hand remains what I want out of any game that isn’t Infinity: rippingly fast to play, interesting enough to play a lot, every decision meaningful but not weighty enough to introduce analysis paralysis.
Lunar is neat, but… far too fiddly for me to love.
Then, in late February, I saw a Wargames Illustrated video where they reskinned Dead Man’s Hand for Medieval period (calling it “Dead Man’s Sword”). They tweaked the rules “as little as possible” to do so and it looked like it worked really well.
That was my motivation to finally get Dead Moon’s Hand written up. So, here it is!
I’ve playtested it a couple of times, and I think it works pretty well! It’s a lot of fun, moves quickly and yeah: decisions are meaningful.
It’s as much core Dead Man’s Hand as possible: I think the biggest change is pushing and close combat – shooting results might look like the biggest change, but it’s an unpacking of the existing DMH approach to weapons having different sets of results.
I’m pretty grouchy about a local store’s prices, so I’m going to complain about it here.
I’ve brought pricing issues up with them a couple of times – not this specific purchase, but enough other purchases that it’s clearly 1) pattern that 2) isn’t going to be fixed.
(I don’t want to put them on blast, so I’m redacting the specific store from the below. It’s not a big secret, but although I’m extremely frustrated I’m too much of a chickenshit to want to burn any bridges.)
Anyway: everyone knows that most GW products are trivially available at 85% MSRP (15% off) online. It’s extremely rare to find it from a retailer for less, but a 15% discount online is standard. Many? Most? FLGSs charge full MSRP – and I believe they’re right to do so. A local store, with space to play, provides a value and a community that an online retailer cannot. A good member of a store community is one who buys stuff from their FLGS to support it and ensure they stick around. You spend more in the store because you get more from the store.
I am, to be absolutely clear, perfectly content paying MSRP for things at my FLGS.
That’s not what’s happening, however. As a specific example, my most recent purchase has been such a negative-feeling, bad-vibes experience I can’t get over it. I ordered one of the new FOMO Gitmob Army Sets through them. This box is $230 MSRP, and the sales tax in Manassas Park, Virginia is 6%.
They’ve managed to rip me off three ways with this purchase:
Wild, right? Here’s the (redacted) receipt for mmy purchase, with a comparable order (not actually purchased) from both Warhammer.com and a reputable eBay seller.
Like, let’s just compare these costs:
| Online Retailer | Warhammer.com | Store in Question | |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSRP | $230 | $230 | $230 |
| Discount | -$34.50 (15%) | $0 (0%) | +$5 |
| Random Surcharge | $0 (0%) | $0 (0%) | $8.22 (3.5%) |
| VA Sales Tax | $11.73 (6%) | $13.80 (6%) | $17.62 (7.5%) |
| Shipping | Free | Free | N/A |
| Total | $207.23 | $243.80 | $260.84 |
| Δ from GW | -$36.57 (-15%) | – | +$17.04 (+6.53%) |
It cost me $17 more to buy this box from this store over Games Workshop! (More than $50 compared to going online!)
I don’t need a discount. I don’t need them to compete with online retailers. I mean it when I say I’m perfectly content to pay MSRP: but this isn’t MSRP, is it?
I like the store! (Or, rather, I really want to like the store but this makes it very difficult.) I’m grateful to have a store with a nice play space so close to my home. I’m grateful that there’s a store in what’s been a mostly abandoned retail space since we moved in.
I’m also deeply frustrated by this, however. Frankly, I feel like an enormous chump for buying this stupid box from them. I have such a viscerally negative emotional response to this purchase: I don’t think I could make another large GW purchase from them. How could I?
I’ve been playing in the store almost every week for months; it’s the most “outside” I’ve had since 2020. I like playing in the store. I want them to succeed. I want them to persist. I don’t want to feel like a sucker. That means I need to figure out how I can support them going forward because I don’t think it can be “by buying minis from them.”
I painted up a Minotaurs Intercession Squad for Kill Team two years back, but with the new Kill Team edition conflating the Intercession Squad and Strike Force Justian into the single Angels of Death list… I had some gaps in option coverage. So I knocked out the three models I needed: a Captain, an Eliminator, and a Heavy Intercessor.
