A Big Day of Tiny Battles

On Saturday, I played my first one-on-one game of Warhammer 40,000 in perhaps 8 years.

40K, as it is sometimes known, has been a part of Gaming & Guinness up through G&G IX, in Ottawa, but these are group games, usually involving 4 or more players. I played a smaller scale game with my friend Jeff and his son Connor some years back, but I just checked the date on my blog, and that is going back 5 years this March. Half a decade, already? Surely not.

I spent almost 12 years working for Games Workshop, the manufacturers of the game, playing it at least a couple of times a month while I did. But I played it before I worked there too, and afterwards as well. What the hell happened?

In preparing for this week's match-up, I may have found my answer.

Scott's wife called back in November and said that instead of getting him more models or paints or rules for Christmas (as he already has plenty; most of us adult hobbyists do!), she was arranging play-dates for him with friends that she knew had armies.

I thought this was a fantastic idea, and agreed, staking out the 21st, knowing that Glory and Audrey would be out of town at a feis. This week has been a frenzy of re-learned rules, uncrating of various armies and models, and no small amount of repair and touch-ups. Even digging up my old army lists and determining what to field took me a couple of hours.  

We had initially planned on a massive, all-day, 5,000 point Apocalypse-sized game, but layering those massive rules on top of a system I was already a couple of years rusty on seemed a bad idea. Thankfully Scott found the idea of 2 x 1500 point games just as agreeable.

Dusting off the wargames scenery, unpacking old models, selecting my forces; it all felt pretty good, but it underscored the primary reason that I don't play as much. This was probably 3-4 hours work spent just preparing for the game, outside of the hours spent buying, building and painting the models themselves.  And while multi-player games are possible, and even enjoyable, most miniature wargames are designed as a head-to-head, one-on-one pastime, so all that effort is spent on entertaining just two people, in the end.

Comparatively, I might spend the same amount of time preparing for a game of Spirit of 77, and that falls on me as the gamemaster. I have to pay a lot more attention while we play as well, since I have to direct the narrative (to some degree, at least). But that same amount of effort goes into entertaining a half-dozen people, including myself.

As I prepare to turn the page on my first half-century later this year, I have to wonder how much of a factor that this effectiveness plays in my gaming choices. Even if more of my friends played 40K, we are lucky to get together once or twice a month, and almost never in December. Spending gaming time with a single other person feels kind of like...splurging?

But let me tell you, there is a tremendously positive feeling to be had in splurging, so Saturday ended up being a hoot!

Scott brought his Orks over and we were ready to start gaming by mid-morning. His first opponents were my Tyranids: a ravenous alien swarm, ready to pit selectively bred troops and bio-engineered weapons against whatever the 41st millennium could throw at them.

The backbone of Scott's Ork army is an incredibly tough unit that I don't believe I have ever bested: 30 Ork Boyz, kitted out for close combat, led by a character called Mad Doc Grotsnik. Now, that many Orks running across the table at you is already a terrifying prospect, since you would need to kill 8 of them just to force a panic test, which they will automatically pass until their numbers dip below 10. When Grotsnik joins them though, he shoots 'em up full of fightin' juice which a) makes them fearless and b) makes them feel no pain, giving them the ability to ignore almost any wound on a dice roll of 4+. That's right: Orks on steroids.

My hardest battle when facing this particular mob is overcoming an ever-growing sense of futility.

But knowing they were coming, I could build my Tyranid list appropriately, stripping out the weaker, more numerous elements and making a list composed almost entirely of Genestealers (arguably the best hand-to-hand troop choice in the game) and Carnifexes (lumbering monsters that work like living tanks, able to shoot and melee). Against any other force I might have felt a little dirty, but as soon as the Doc hit the table, a feeling of justification settled over me like a cozy blanket.

We rolled a scenario that required us to designate an objective in our starting table quarter, and defend it while simultaneously trying to conquer that of our opponent. I placed a nest-looking piece next to the power station scenery we were using (a la sub-level 3 in Aliens), while Scott placed an Orky icon on the ground behind a hill he had covered with his shootiest Orks. 

After he deployed, I put a squad of Genestealers in the station itself, another by the nest, and Old One-Eye, a legendary Carnifex, behind the station to help guard it.

One lesson I have finally begun to apply to my wargaming is this notion of timing. Too many times have I run a unit out of cover, eager to get them into the fight, worried they might be left out, anxious at having paid precious points for something not providing an immediate return on investment, only to have them annihilated in due course. 

For this game, I not only deployed my best unit of Genestealers behind the crest of a hill, I actually held them back and left them there for the first turn, a degree of subtlety and nuance in my play that I found almost off-putting in its unfamiliarity.

Rather then waste time making his way toward the bridge or the ford in the river, Scott charged Grotsnik and his boys directly into it, losing a couple to the current, but saving himself at least two turns in getting to his objective.  It took me a turn or two to get my Hive Tyrant (the boss bug) and two of the shootier Carnifexes to the crest of the hill, but the mob was so big, I was actually able to shoot at it as I went, for all the good it did.

Meanwhile, Scott's Dethkoptas flew in from the flank and shot at my hidden 'Stealers, but the dice conspired against him, and he only managed to kill a couple of them. Furious at this failure, and well aware that the 'Stealers were holding up the rest of his army on that flank, he charged them into hand to hand to finish me off.

Well, given his target's specialization in this area, the assault phase didn't go that well for him. After dispatching the rest of the 'Koptas, the Broodlord and remaining Genestealers were able to dash across the river, engage his bike squad the following turn, and see them off as well.

On the opposite flank, another group of Genestealers made their way across the bridge, hoping to destroy or delay the light armour Scott was marching around in the form of three Killer Kans, miniature dreadnoughts. And although they all eventually perished, it took long enough that the two remaining Kans were effectively out of the fight.

No, the heart of the battle was at the heart of the table, where Grotsnik's PED-enhanced hooligans were frantically swimming through a raging torrent under heavy fire from the largest models in my army, relentlessly pushing forward.

As soon as I was able to, I charged my three monstrosities into the fray, thinking I could carve my way to the Doc and eliminate that Feel No Pain rule, and failing that, at least whittle them down to a more manageable number. Either Grotsnik would die, or nearly a third of my totals points value would!

Grotsnik wouldn't die.

I couldn't believe it! His Cybork body saved him from my Hive Tyrant's bonesword, and his frenzied Orks dragged my larger, tougher models down with their superior numbers and tireless choppers. True, there weren't nearly as many as there were before by the end of it, but he was still in a position to get to my nest and claim that objective.

As the Broodlord and his crew were joined by Old One Eye around the Ork objective, I threw my largest remaining Carnifex at the mob, and the Genestealers surged out of the power station to support him. But in my zeal, I ran the Chatterbug forward instead of shooting, which meant he was unable to assault! He was subsequently charged by the Orks, and Grotsnik's power claw demolished 192 points worth of bio-warmachine. 

My Genestealers whittled him down some more, but the Mad Doc and his now tiny retinue powered on towards the nest, and to victory if my sole remaining Genestealer squd couldn't stop him.

Grotsnik died within sight of the objective, pulled down by Genestealers, in a frenzied final clash I expected to find more satisfying, but I was too busy feeling relieved. A rare victory over the Mad Doc's boyz!

Then in our second game, he took my Valhallans to the 41st millennium's equivalent of the woodshed and tied a gawdawful whuppin' on 'em.

This, despite having the same deployment setup, despite having a river to impede movement and a diagonal axis along which to pour prodigious amounts of artillery fire. 

He walloped my Imperial Guard force something fierce, with a final score something like 10-3. 

Three of his points came courtesy of my doggedly committing subsequent waves of Conscripts to the fight in a futile effort to slow his advance by using Commander Chenkov's special rule,"send in the next wave". But he slaughtered them upon their appearance for three consecutive turns.

"Forward, you dogs!"

There were a couple of bright moments: I finally got to use my Chimera APCs often forgotten amphibious ability, and my Bom Squad Veterans piled out and took Scott's Ork Kommandos out in close combat! The same squad, aded by Konfessor Grigori, a Ministorum priest with an unremarkable profile but a double-handed chainsword to make up for it, almost managed to killed the Ork Warboss as well! 

Almost.

But his gobliny Grots wrecked my Leman Russ tank and his Dethkoptas blew up my Basilisk, and by the end of the game, not a single human was left alive, and the future truly was green. Well, whatever; my army still looks better. ; )

Still, one win each was a pretty good way to spend a Saturday, and a great return to full-scale battle games after a long absence! Long enough for us to notice how much sorer our feet and backs were afterwards, sadly...

Best of all though, Fenya had asked earlier in the week if she could have a game with me, since everything was already unpacked, and I was only too happy (ecstatic, really) to accommodate her!

I dusted off my Space Marines army, picked 1,000 points for her and a Tyranid force for me, and we started this afternoon, finishing up after supper. Some of those Dark Angels models have seen better days, and I bet it has been 7-8 years since I have played with any of them as well, having three other armies I use more often.

It took a while for her to wrap her head around it, and I had to make an effort to tell her where to find all the numbers I was referencing, in contrast to years of shorthand and memorized statistics and tables. She was diligent about wanting to know, to her credit.

Breaking for supper really seemed to help, and before too long she was moving through the sequence quite comfortably, needed only the barest prompting from me, and managed to have all my Tyranids off the table by the end of turn 5.

As we packed up the models and dice afterwards, I asked her what had made her want to play. She said she had always found the models and background intriguing, but mostly, it was because she wanted to see what had been such a big part of my life, both personally and professionally, for so long. 

I found this gratifying and a little ironic, since I had clearly taken it for granted and very nearly made it into something that I used to do.

She had a great time, and surprised me a little when she said she would like to get another game in at some point.  It appears that our basement may not have seen the last of Warhammer 40,000's grim, dark future. And that's no bad thing, I figure.

G&G IX: Doom in the Dunes (40K Day)

This ninth iteration of Gaming & Guinness came with some bittersweet undertones, as our host is selling his lovely Ottawa home as a result of splitting up with his wife.  I  am saddened we won't have the opportunity to return to this venue for a future G&G, but Rob did an outstanding job juggling his roles as host, home-seller and attentive dad to his off-site daughter!

Rob was also one of the original Warhammer 40,000 players back in the early 90s in Edmonton, but hasn't had an opportunity to play a battle with his own Eldar models since moving from Vancouver in 2001.

He was also quite concerned about the lack of scenery he had available, but printed out a papercraft hotel, some barriers and a handful of shipping containers that we dutifully cut and taped together that morning.  After throwing the sandy-coloured pool table cover over the ping-pong surface, and throwing some books and pool cues underneath to create some topography, we had a perfectly passable battlefield to work with.  Flipping over a wooden fruit bowl from upstairs to create an organic looking mountain or structure was the final touch.

Despite a lack of familiarity with the rules, Rob threw his Falcon grav-tanks, jetbikes and Vypers fully into the battle, led by his Avatar, a war-god behemoth with a molten heart.  Scott's own Eldar took up position close to the objectives, and the conflict began.  Island Mike's Catachan Jungle Fighters and my Valhallan Ice Warriors did our best to uphold the name and reputation of the Imperial Guard (or, as they are apparently calling them these days, the Astra Militarum).

Objective-wise, there is no disputing that the day belonged to the Eldar;. by game's end, they held two of the four objective points on the field, compared to zero for the Guardsmen.  Still, we mon-keigh took pride in a few highlights, like our company commanders, 'Iron Hand' Straken and Marshall Kratten, taking out Rob's Avatar in hand to hand!  Or when my troop of conscripted troopers rolled a 5 in order to stay in their fight with a squad of Swooping Hawk Aspect Warriors, and then not only breaking them next turn, but wiping them out before they could make their escape!  Good times, good times.

In the end though, our men and armour were not enough to overcome the Eldar's potent combination of mobility and firepower; congratulations, Scott and Rob!  

I maintain part of the problem may have been our use of jungle fighters and troops in winter camo in a desert environment, but that seems more and more unlikely as I consider it.

It was great to have these two armies meet for the first time in G&G history though, and who knows, there may be the opportunity for a rematch at G&G X, even though I could probably go another decade without facing that Avatar again.

G&G VI: Six Appeal!

For six consecutive years this motley assortment of iconoclastic nerds has gathered to play games, drink beer, and generally carry on in a completely immature but totally awesome fashion.  A weekend spent cursing, belching, and breaking wind, but mostly just laughing and enjoying each other's company.

Previous entries have expressed at exhaustive length both the rationale and the purpose behind this convocation of the Fraternitas Sub Terra, this "Brotherhood of the Basement", so I will not belabour those points further.  Suffice to say that an entertaining and only semi-debauched time was had by all, but that still leaves a little room for some specific recollections, and a few photos, courtesy of Earl and Mick T.

A critical part of 'setup'

Pete, Mick T and I commenced unpacking and setup at Belongamick in South Edmonton Wednesday afternoon, and others began to drift in that night, as Island Mike arrived after supper and Bytown Rob and first time attendee Peace Country Dave showed up later in the evening.  By happy coincidence, this also happened to be my birthday, so a number of exotic beers were deployed (premier among them, in my opinion, being the Killer Bee dark honey ale from Tin Whistle Brewery in Penticton), and we got a few card games in as well.

Peace Country Dave: welcome to th' club, brah!

Island Mike brought along a new card games; I quite enjoyed Guillotine, wherein you collect the heads of nobility in post-Revolution Paris, and your only real ability is using cards to change the order of the line so that the really pompous ones that are worth the most points are at the front of the line when it is your turn to pull the string.   Burn In Hell! is a Steve Jackson Game that has players competing to collect similar sets of the souls of the Damned (all drawn from history!), before the game ends when Hell freezes over.  A great game, but given the archetype we attendees tend to represent, we spent almost as much time discussing the historical factoids on the backs of the cards as we did playing.

We also introduced a new tradition which everyone seemed to enjoy: The Quote Wall.  I brought a couple of large, lined pads of Post-It notes, and tried to keep them handy throughout the various games.  Whenever anyone said something particularly funny, memorable, clever or just plain tasteless, someone else would use a Sharpie to jot it down and stick it on the downstairs cupboards.  By the end of the weekend there were about 45 of these notes adorning the cupboards, many of which were still provoking chuckles a day or two later.  Looking at it now, it's clear that neither "You put the 'bitch' in obituary," nor "Easier than shooting Timmies in a well," are going to have anyone comparing us to the Algonquin Roundtable anytime soon, but it still puts a grin on my face.  And no, I shan't be posting any larger pictures of the quote wall, because it is both highly contextual and somewhat incriminating.

Approx. 1/3 of The Quote Wall

We also got our first of many sessions of Bang! in, a spaghetti western card game I picked up at Mission Fun and Games' Birthday Sale (turns out this is just the kind of crowd to appreciate a game that comes in a giant bullet), plus some Zombie Dice and Cthulhu Dice.  Lots of gaming, and G&G VI hadn't even officially begun yet!  After this auspicious beginning, we finally packed it in just before 4:00 a.m., and Island Mike was heard to muse, "I'm grateful to discover that I can stay up to ridiculous hours just because I want to, and not because I have to."

Pop Tarts and Sap Vampire; a helluva breakfast!

After a hearty breakfast we got down to setting up the first big event: a 5000 point, Apocalypse sized Warhammer 40,000 game.  Two brand new, barely dry Imperial Guard armies fielded by Island Mike and myself would stand off the implacable horde of Scotty's Orks and Pete's Tyranids in a spectacle that would see over 200 infantry and dozens of vehicle models including tanks aricraft and monsters all clambering for supremacy in the nightmare future of the 41st Millennium!!

The game looked fantastic, thanks largely to the brand new tabletop Scotty had brought, which in turn was due in no small part to his rather laissez faire attitudes toward child labour and his uncanny ability to convince his offspring that gaming, schmaming, terrain making is where the real fun is!

"Lotsa armour, but all the infantry got et!"

There are probably a lot of reasons the game turned into the indisputable shit-kicking of humanity that it did: an unfamiliar army for us new Guard players, a complete inability to destroy Scotty's gargant in the first two turns of concentrated fire from damned near fifteen hundred points (!) of tanks, the surprise appearance of 30 well 'ard Orks that somehow missed being deployed with the other 70 of their feel-no-pain brethren; but in the end, I take a lot of comfort from the fact that it can only get better from here, and that this burned hand of a game taught Mike and I quite a bit about better ways to use the Imperial Guard.  At some point I will post something closer to an actual battle report, but for now, let's just let the wounds of shame scab over, shall we?

SFX: Wagner's 'Flight of the Valkyries'

No points at all for being better dressed?  Bah!

The evening saw us playing the car racing game Formula De and more games of Bang! once Earl joined us and brought our numbers up to 8.

This nasty hairpin would take two unlucky drivers out of the race.

The only drinking and driving we tolerate at G&G!

The next day got started a little later, on account of we may act like teenagers, but we are most certainly not as resilient as teenagers.  We got stuck into some Robo Rally, as it also supports 8 players and prevented us from having to break into smaller groups.  Dave took his leave of us in the afternoon to return home to Grande Prairie as we began preparing to attend the Rammstein concert, which was an absolutely pyrolicious  and sporadically terrifying experience.

"What's under that tarp I wond- holy moley!"

The next day saw us getting into various interstitial and non-consequential games like Pimp: The Backhanding (a tasteless staple of the event since G&G IV II) prior to setting up what has become, in many ways, the highlight of Gaming & Guinness: Circus Maximus, a hotly contested chariot racing game that forces competitors to balance their need for speed with their carnal desire for the utter destruction of their rivals.  Case in point: when defending champion Jeff began drawing ahead, he soon found himself not only surrounded by no less than 4 enemy chariots, but was in fact boxed in tighter than a veal calf.  When he miraculously extricated himself from that tight fix, he earned the grudging respect of the other drivers, thus was not savagely beaten by envious cohorts when he careened into first place and took home the trophy for the second year running!

"Ow! Ow!  Why isn't anyone going after the orange one?"

After a delicious chili dinner (and yes, lots of chili and beer did happen to have a somewhat deleterious effect on local air quality, what of it?), Jeff unpacked a variety of Rock Band games for the PS3, which kept us occupied long into the night.  it was my first time playing Rock Band 3, so we all enjoyed being able to crank out "Du Hast" by Rammstein less than 24 hours after having seen them live, and I appreciated having the opportunity to sing "Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas.  Many classic songs of our youth found their way onto the playlist, like "Roundabout" by Yes, but also some new wave influences like "Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen.  My personal highlight came during Scotty's turn on vocals singing "Helter Skelter" in Rock Band Beatles, and having him do a full on spit take while drinking water once he realized I was loudly whispering, "GET MRS. POLANSKI" from behind him.

"LIKE A RAINBOW IN THE DAARRRK!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for...THE UNCOMFORTABLES!"

Sadly, the recent Playstation Network hack met Jeff was unable to download some of last year's favourites like "Stonehenge" by Spinal Tap and "Gay Bar" by the Electric Six, so I might have to bring the Wii edition as well next year so we can get those in.  Still, we had all the music we needed to play late into the night as we continued to diminish the beer stocks to a shadow of their former selves.

"To crush your empties, see them drunken before you..."

The next day meant saying "Aloha" to our out of town visitors, and afterwards Pete, Mick T and I took a stab at Cosmic Encounters, an elegant card and board game which we (understandably) figured would have presented an educational challenge once G&G had gotten underway.  Perhaps next year.

The final assessment?  Another roaring success, even with a brand new attendee.  As our lives seem to become busier and busier, it is critically important that we make time for our friends and the things that are important to us.  We may joke about the criteria being how much beer gets consumed (96 Guinness, 24 Innis & Gunn, 24 Sap Vampire, at least a half-dozen Sleeman's Honey Brown, probably two dozen Strongbow, 12 Kenmount Road Chocolate Stout, a handful of Alley Kat Coffee Porter and about a dozen Glenn Sherbrooke), but the more important thing is how much time we spent together, and what we got for that increasingly valuable currency.

"We can add Earl in post..."

I'm already looking forward to next year!

The Valhallan XXII - Ready for Deployment

I bought the first piece at Baltimore's GW HQ in 2001, most of the rest in my final staff purchase in 2007, and the remainder last fall.

I finally started gluing the Basilisk together last spring when my nephew Mark was visiting; I showed him how to build a plastic kit while he worked on a 1:144 scale bi-plane.  I put the half-finished kit away over the summer and didn't finish it until October.

From there it was pretty much a constant state of production until, well, this afternoon, when I finished the stormtroopers.  After that, I simply had to see what the army looked like all together.

Since most games involve armies around 1500 points, this is actually closer in size to two armies, so I am pretty pleased at having finished in time.  Most importantly, all these models aren't languishing in a box in the closet any longer.  I probably won't get too many chances to field the XXII in its entirety, but my first chance is only 5 days away.  Holy crap, I guess I had better find something to carry them in...

Obviously toy soldiers aren't everyone's cup of (tanna leaf) tea, but hopefully the interstitial posts kept you from getting too bored.  Thanks to everyone who has followed my progress on these Valhallans, and for your comments and support!

Valhallan Infantry: Stormtrooper Squad

At long last, the final unit of infantry are finished: a squad of elite Stormtroopers.  Raised in the halls of the Schola Progenium, the orphanage schools for those whose parents have died in the service of the Imperium, they are loyal, tough, highly skilled, and well equipped.

They are shielded by carapace armour and armed with hotshot lasguns (nicknamed 'hellguns') which are capable of breaching even Space Marine power armour.  They are flexible in deployment, and can start out behind enemy lines, surprise the foe by appearing on their flanks, or use grav-chutes to drop in just about anywhere on the table.  The good armour save and hellguns make them a good choice for taking and holding objectives, and the meltagun and grenade launcher means I can task them for some anti-armour work as well.

I wish I hadn't been so tired when I attempted to put danger stripes on the krak grenades on their backpacks, but I think the idea will still be clear, even if the lines aren't straight.  I'm not at all sure what is in those enormous backpacks, but I'm pretty confident it isn't a hot lunch.

This is another choice that started out as a theme inclusion; the bulky bad-assedness of them is reminiscent of modern Russian paratroops.  When the new hellgun rules made them capable of taking down Space Marines, they went from maybe to must-have.

Most importantly, after more than seven months of painting and building, the last unit is done!

Making Tracks: Valkyrie Assault Carrier

(Before you say anything, I am fully aware that this flying vehicle has no tracks to speak of, but I'm a sucker for consistency, and all the other vehicle posts are called Making Tracks, and this should be the sole exception.)

Last fall, I went to Games Workshop with a bunch of kits I had in the closet that didn't have a high likelihood of getting constructed int he next two years, and traded them for things I could use in my Valhallan army, and a handful of Black Library books.  One of these things was the Valkyrie Assault Carrier, a flying troop transport halfway between a Russian Hind-D helicopter and the dropship from aliens.  I started building it last Sunday and finished it last night.

I added the Valkyrie to my army for two reasons, the first being that it is handy to have something swift that can ferry troops around and perhaps seize an objective or secure a flank, and the second being that it does kind of look like a Russian Hind-D, especially with the big rocket drums under the wings.

In just about every way, this is the coolest GW kit I have ever built, and I don't mind telling you I have built a few of them over the years, especially while I worked for them.  Having been designed on computer (as opposed to building a larger 3-up prototype and creating the steel molds by means of tracing it with a pantograph machine), there is a great deal of detail, especially one the interior. 

Island Mike has already built one-and-a-half of these, and told me he regretted how little of the interior was visible after he was finished, so I was fully prepared to do very little to the inside.  Until I actually saw it.  Then it was, "well, I'll drybrush the interior with Boltgun Metal and pick out a couple of details."  And then it was "well, that looks dumb without paint, I'll get some colour on that too."  And then, "Well, if this gets some colour, that clearly has to have some too..."  And then suddenly it was kind of late Sunday night, but the interior was pretty much done.

Normally I have finished or nearly finished building the complete model before I put on the primer, but obviously that was impossible here. I primed the insides of the fuselage in black, painted them separately and then assembled them. Then I disassembled them and re-assembled them as I puzzled out the best order in which to join the walls, floor, roof and assault ramp.

I love the idea of the door gunners (and they are a brilliant fit with Island Mike's Air-Cav themed Jungle Fighters), and the sculpts are pretty good, giving you 5 different heads to choose between for 4 bodies.  I snapped these pictures with the understanding that once the roof and wings went on, it would be pretty hard to see in there.

I also needed to assemble and build the cockpit interior prior to building the rest of the model.  I haven't painted a cockpit since I was about fourteen, and that was probably a WWII era plane  (AT-6 Texan maybe?), so blinky lights and a video display were a new thing to me.  In the end, lots of colors, and a display that is maybe a little reminiscent of a certain arcade game I might have played at fourteen seemed to fit the bill.

Once these were done, I could construct the rest of the model, but before using the spray primer, I had to mask off the cockpit (no way in hell was I painting all those lights again) and put Post-It notes inside the sliding door so spray couldn't fly in through the viewport.

After the white primer had dried, I used Silly Putty to Mask out some areas for a camo scheme.  The green putty I had used on a number of my tanks ran out, so I had to go to the back up purple putty, and the result was a vehicle that would look right at home in either an Easter or Pride Day parade.

When all was said and done, no primer crept in through the windows, which is good, because the interior is more visible than I anticipated, although the lighting is pretty poor.

In all honestly, I am not very happy with how the ink wash turned out, as I think it makes the Valkyrie look less weathered and more just dirty.  It's not irredeemable, but the camo scheme is not as impressive-looking to me as it was prior to the ink wash.  Still, un-shaded white just looks stupid, so I am not sure what I might have done differently short of painting in every water channel and shading point by hand, and that just was not going to happen with the time constraints I had.  I did add a couple of details where I could, like pilot and backseater (RIO? Navigator? Weapons Officer?)call signs under the cockpit...

Not-quite NASCAR levels of decal usage...

And a safety stripe on the edge of the assault ramp (which it turns out, is a lot easier to paint at both larger or smaller scales):

Only after everything else was painted and varnished was I able to finish the model by gluing on the cockpit, which I have to say was a total chore, and end up requiring extreme measure in the form of superglue and accelerator, which I am praying will not end up fogging the cockpit glass.  (24 hours in, so far, so good!)

I wouldn't want to paint another one anytime soon, but if you have the opportunity to add a Valkyrie to your force, I heartily recommend it as an excellent modelling and painting experience.

With only a week of painting time left, the only question remaining is can I give this warbird a payload of elite soldiers before G&G VI?