Russian Hussars

Here is my regiment of russian hussars. They are Zvezda, such beautiful models, the only issue I had with them was making up my mind on what colors to paint them, since the russian hussar regiments have so many gorgeous schemes.

I ended up choosing the Akhtyrsk colors, but there are a couple others I also really like, and may eventually do another regiment just to paint a different scheme.

Russian Cuirassiers

My first unit of russian cavalry is finished. These are Russian Cuirassiers, from Zvezda, and as usual for this company, the quality of sculpting is outstanding.

The observant eye among you might notice that there are a couple models there that don't quite match the rest. 

The thing is, the Zvezda kit only comes with 16 cuirassiers, and my large units of cavalry are built with 18 models (I sometimes make due with 17, leaving one of the bases with only 2 models, but 16 is no deal).

Lucky me, I had a sprue of Hat Russian Cuirassiers lying around, a mispack from a set of austrian cuirassiers I bought last year. Who would have thought that my initial annoyance with that occurance would turn into satisfaction in finding in them the solution to fill the ranks of my russian heavies. The gods of wargaming truly work in mysterious ways...

The Hat horses are a tad smaller, but their main distinction are their helmets, whose crests are considerably shorter than Zvezda's. Still, they fit reasonably well among their comrades, I think.

And the rest of their sprue (it comes with 4 models) is also going to find purpose on my russian army, for I intend to add another regiment of cuirassiers to the service of the Tsar later on.

Battle of Teroga System

We recently played a space battle on our game club using my ruleset Pax Stellarum. The game was set on the universe of Beyond the Gates of Antares. The fleets involved in the action were the Panhuman Concord and Isorian Senatex.

Accross the countless travelling routes within the matrix of the Gates of Antares, goods are transported back and forth, aboard the trading fleets of the Great Houses of Freeborn, to feed the needs of many civilizations. Such goods can take many forms, and to rivalling superpowers such as the Panhuman Concord and Isorian Senatex, one of the most sought after is information.

Recently, the Senatex received intelligence concerning Concord activity on the Teroga solar system, whose gate lies disquietingly close to its own gates. Apparently, the Combined Command was in the last stages of building a space dock on the orbit of a moon there. Such dock was believed to be capable of assembling and repairing large capital ships of the C3 forces, thus greatly increasing their capacity of projecting power over that region of antarean space.

The Senatex answer was swift and decisive. A battlegroup of the 5th Order was immediatelly dispatched to Teroga, with the mission to search and destroy such installation, should there be one indeed.

Upon arriving at the system, the Isorian forces caught the Concord fleet by surprise. Apparently, the Panhuman authorities believed to be still operating in perfect secrecy, unaware that the news of their activity had already travelled the gates and found its way to the seats of power in Isoria.

The deployment:

The Isorian forces sent probes ahead of them to scan the depths of the system, which quickly confirmed their Intel. Lightpics of the rumored space dock soon started flooding their holo screens, and the presence of a Gal' Neveg Battlecruiser attached to the dock seemed to indicate the installation was already operational.

The Concord forces in the region quickly mobilized their ships and maneuvered to intercept the elements of the Isorian battlegroup.

The fleets exchanged long range fire with their plasma cannons, the Concord relying on their superior shielding capabilities for defense, while the Isorians deployed their obscure Phase technology to confuse the enemy's targeting systems.

A couple escorts from both fleets were blown apart by enemy fire, while advancing into position to lay clusters of space mines on the path of their foes. Some succeeded at diverting extra power to Shields, and managed to survive the relentless storm of fire coming from every side.

The Isorian Alterak-Class Battleship Selgur closes in and unleashes it poweful Compressor Cannons and Bombards at the Concord frigates, which doesn't resist the concentrated firepower of these mighty weapons at this close a range.

Squadrons of Concord light cruisers concentrate their fire on the seeminly unstoppable enemy battleship, in an effort to penetrate its Shields.

The Concord battleship Iansus maneuvers to bring its broadside to bear at the advancing enemy battleship.

At this point, after 3 game turns, we had to call it a day. My opponent's better-half-issued license expired, and he was out of time to follow on with the combat.

These were the casualties so far:

We can assume the Isorian forces encountered greater resistance than expected, and fell back to reform and call in for reinforcements, and we have every reason to believe the Concord is out to do just the same, which means the fate of the Teroga space dock remains completely uncertain.

Battlefleet Gothic - Eldar Fleet

Another fleet finished for Battlefleet Gothic, this time the Eldar, one of my favorite races in the Warhammer 40k universe.

It's a shame that the pics don't show it very well, but there is a beautiful gradient of blue on the sails, much more vivid in flesh (metal?). I blame it on the lighting of the photos, so you're gonna have to thrust me on that.

Hemlock Class Destroyer:




Hellebore Class Frigate:




Aconite Class Frigate:




Nightshade Class Destroyer:




Eclipse and Shadow Class Cruisers:






Solaris Class Light Cruiser:




Void Stalker Class Battleship: