Blog URL change

Just a quick technical update... After a friend changed his blog's URL (which I didn't know you could do), I decided to look and see if any of the names I initially wanted for this blog were available in the year or two since.  While the "mecha" related names were still dormant for a decade or more, the simple "sitzkrieg" blog name was now available and I decided to snap it up.  I left a quick change of address post at the original "scifisitzkrieg" blog address but all the content that I've been boring you all with will now be at this simpler address.  I'll be changing the occasional dead links to the old URLs in various posts but feel free to comment if I miss one.  Thanks for reading and additionally for bearing with the changes.  And if you don't like them, comment on Brandon's Heavy Gear Thunder Run blog (link to the right) as it is his fault that I know the possibility existed!  :)

SITZKRIEG.BLOGSPOT.COM

Thanks for reading!

 

Riptide ready to roll out!

Just a quick update... I finished the riptide y'vahra conversion's decals and took a group pic with the rest from the small force.  I decided to name the mech "lil' joe" and put a snarky anti-imperial comment on the shield.  It isn't It was still a bit glossy so I did another flat coat after this picture was taken.

While there were a few bumps in the road, I'm rather pleased with the final results.  I had an idea of what to do next and came up with a few ideas for the drones.  Normally, they're on separate bases but I was thinking of mounting them where the wings are (which are magnetized to prevent breakage).  The small end of the drones fit nicely in the groove.  I was trying to think of how the drones that accompany the much faster Y'vahra mech would keep up with it and I came up with "docking" idea similar to how the devilfish transport works.

I'm not sure if I'll work on my remora drones (much bigger "predator" drone style models) or the small missile drones next.  I'm leaning towards test fitting the smaller drones as a proof of concept but actually modelling and finishing the bigger remoras next. 

Y'Vahra in final prep for D-Day

I'd gotten a decent amount of work done in the past two weeks on my Riptide conversion.  It's not completely done yet though as the pic above was taken as the Elmer's glue was drying right after the base flock was applied.  I've still got to do the multiple overcoats of varnish (which then take a half day to fully dry in the summer heat and humidity) along with decal application in between.  I'm still figuring out exactly what decals to put where though.  I had initially planned to put a larger Allied white star on the arm shield generator but I don't have any large enough from my FOW decals and the only offered one from a fellow gamer into Bolt Action is a bit too big sadly (but thanks for the offer, Judgedoug!).  I kept largely the same scheme on the larger mecha with the faux D-Day stripes on the leg, various blues for the plasma weapons, and the white armored shoulder pad on the left.  I wasn't sure where to add the splash of red initially as I didn't want to add a giant mecha bonding knife to the model.  Even though it is largely ceremonial, it felt odd to have a weapon on the hip when neither arm would really be able to use it ever (unlike with the crisis suits).  I've been going back and forth on that one but I'll likely skip putting the old farsight sword (the one I used temporarily for a dual wielding sword commander earlier in a blog update) on his hip.

Since I'm always bugging others to put up scale shots, I put in a couple of figs from various games into the progress shot.  From the L to the R, we have a WHFB ogre (converted to a shadowrun troll RPG pc fig), a space marine, a Robotech scout pod, a Heavy Gear Cobra (made unusable by their most recent southern field guide), and my Tau Commander Farsight conversion.  I hope to have the final shots of the done model up by the end of the week.  Hopefully I'll be a bit more accurate with my completion assessment this time around.  :)

Finally, my apologies to any subscribers that got a phantom new post update last week.  Since I didn't have too much to report regarding painting progress (just the base coats for the main colors), I decided to finally add tags/labels to my blog posts.  When going through the entire list of posts, I accidentally republished an old update again but corrected the mistake soon after.

Back to the Tau

After some work on my VOTOMS 28mm models, I'm back to the Tau.  What prompted my VOTOM work was that I could do it while listening/watching Infinity N3 battle reports on youtube.  I plan on using my Scopedogs with the Infinity rules but I finally got my hands on the silhouette templates that are used for LOS in that game and the VOTOMS are much bigger than almost every TAG (their version of mecha both manned and unmanned) in that game.  Since LOS is incredibly important, I decided to take some time to reconsider how I'd use them in that game (as well as eventually using them for a 28mm Heavy Gear Blitz/Flash game).  I also plan on doing a little bit of touch up work on my newly acquired Robotech minis as well (mainly putting them into a single coherent color scheme as well as adding some decals) but I'd like to get in a game first before doing that.

Luckily (and unluckily), the parts that I needed for my Riptide Y'Vahra conversion finally became available.  Sadly, none of the pieces I had planned for my conversion actually fit the shoulder and I'm decided on using the original riptide shoulder piece for the shoulder instead.  It's still an improvement over my earlier kitbashed attempt IMO and matches the thigh armor style so I'm ok with it.  I'm still not happy with the pose I chose (except in the full frontal view) but I'd likely snap resin instead of glue if I tried to reposition it.  My plan is to finish up the Riptide Y'Vahra this week.

And to cap this post off are the newly released pics of the upcoming Tau mecha previewed today at the Forgeworld Open Day at GW HQ.  The reception seems mixed overall but I'm definitely a fan of the gun hedgehog look of this mecha.  It reminds me of a Tau version of the Robotech MAC II Monster.

Tau Supremacy Armor