Tyranid Army

I recently put all of my painted Warhammer 40,000 Tyranids out on the table, packed in as tightly as possible, and snapped a few pictures of my entire painted army. Just like with my Vampire Counts army, the models in this army were painted over a huge time span. The Genestealers were some of the first models I painted. However, even the most recently painted of my Tyranid models (the Trygon/Mawloc and some of the Termagants) were painted almost four years ago at this point. Have a look at the pictures below and let me know what you think.

Horse and Musket version of Bolt Action

I was thinking lately that I don't want to have to learn a lot of different sets of rules for playing different historical periods at the same scale/level of game. That will only discourage me from getting miniatures in new periods that I don't have rules for. So I'm thinking about adapting the Warlord Games "Bolt Action" World War 2 rules to earlier periods, such as the "Horse and Musket" era, approximately 1700-1900 AD. Before getting into my specific modifications, here are some things in Bolt Action that I think need to be addressed.

1. The long reload time of muzzle loading weapons needs to be represented.
2. Rifled weapons should be more accurate than smoothbore.
3. In Bolt Action, the roll to cause damage is based on the training level of the target, which I don't think makes sense for Horse and Musket periods. Aside from being behind cover, which is already represented by cover modifiers, I don't think soldiers were trained to avoid being shot.
4. I want to be able to represent some troop types being slightly better or worse at shooting, or slightly better or worse in assault. In Bolt Action, most individuals are pretty much equal in offensive ability, but I want Grenadiers to be better in an assault than Militia, for example.
5. Assaults should probably be less instantly decisive. With the need to reload most weapons after one shot, there wouldn't be as much shooting at point blank range to end things quickly. Having to beat each other with rifle butts might cause an assault to drag on longer.
6. There needs to be some detailed rules for cavalry. I don't think cavalry is addressed in the Bolt Action rules, though there may be rules for it in one of the army book supplements. Even if there are some cavalry rules, they probably aren't to the level of detail that would be desired in a game where cavalry would be more important and prevalent.

If you can think of other areas where the Bolt Action rules might need to be altered or amended, let me know. I think those six points cover most of what needs to change, at a minimum. With the exception of cavalry rules, which I'm not sure about yet, I think all of those points can be covered with a few simple rules change, a few modifiers, and some new weapon and unit stats. My proposed changes are listed below.

Vampire Counts Army

I got all of my painted Warhammer Vampire Counts miniatures out on the table and took some pictures. Take a look below for the pictures of my entire painted Vampire Counts army, in its current state. The Mantic Games skeletons are some of the most recent things I've painted (before I started working on the Warhammer Quest miniatures), while the Games Workshop skeletons, Vampire, and Wraith are some of the very first things I ever painted, probably close to 15 years ago.

Warhammer Quest Doorways

Seeing some painted doorways for Warhammer Quest may not be all that exciting to you. However, it does mean that everything from my Warhammer Quest boxed game is now finally painted! It looks like Warhammer Quest was released in 1995, so it only took me about 19 years to get it all finished. Anyway, it is still a noteworthy accomplishment for me. Have a look below if you'd like to see the pictures, with a cameo by the well-worn Warhammer Quest box mentioned earlier.

Warhammer Quest Mantic Ogres

Here are some pictures of another finished group from the Warhammer Quest level one monster table: three Ogres. The figures are the Mantic Games ogres, which I got as a free bonus from the Mantic Kings of War Kickstarter project. After working with them, I don't think I would buy any of the Mantic "Plastic Resin" models. These were a pain to work with. It was difficult to remove the mold lines, and all three of these figures required heating some parts to bend them into the correct position, and even then there are large gaps at the shoulders and necks. They are good sculpts if you don't mind the freakish proportions, and the end result looks pretty good, they just required a lot of extra work. As always, let me know what you think of the paint jobs on these.