Rab's Geekly Digest

Happy new year

2012-01-20T15:45:00.000Z

It seems traditional to begin the new year with an outline of the plans ahead, and for geek blogs this is no different. Not being one to break from tradition, here goes, although the list is somewhat aspirational:

Ongoing Projects

Quest

Finish Bestiary and get some play-testing in
Paint up knights, dogs, brigands, trolls, giant, gryphon, demons, human guardsmen...

Bloodbowl

Paint the rest of my Chaos Pact team for the NAF Cup in Nottingham at the end of May

Elfball

Finish rebasing and touching up my valkyrie team (low priority, more of an optional extra)

New Projects

VSF
How awesome is Victorian Science Fiction, eh? Now I've gone and bought the GASLIGHT rules and a few packs of figures to get stuck in...

Finish naval landing party unit
Design and build a 28mm scale aeronef (or two!)
Paint a unit of redcoats
Paint Her Imperial Majesty Queen Victoria (Gawd bless 'er) and other civilians
Paint some period policemen
Convert and paint three mechanised walkers

Space Hulk

Paint marines
Paint genestealers and broodlord

Now, that's a heck of a lot for me, especially considering my low output last year. However, my overall resolution is to paint at least one figure per week on average, ie have 52 figures painted by 31/12/12. Wish me luck...

The Quest begins

2011-11-13T20:42:00.001Z

Evening Blog-readers!I've been very busy, geek-wise (as my wonderful and long-suffering wife will attest), over the last few weeks, but I will plead guilty to neglecting this blog. I have been keeping track of my progress in this thread over on the Lead Adventure Forum which is a great forum for those of you not yet members.

The main focus has been my high-medieval, low-fantasy project, Quest. The basic idea is a sort of Arthurian take on a modular 'dungeon crawl', although that dungeon may sometimes be a forest if you see what I mean. My rules have now had their first ever playtest, and much fun was had by all.

The quest the four squires had to undertake was the simple task of escorting Lady Eleanor, along with her two faithful hounds and her maidservant Ceridwin, to her wedding. The sun glinted through the trees, warming their backs and their spirits as they talked of love and honour, walking to spare their horses and to prolong the pleasure of the journey...Then the brigands ambushed them, slaying the groom and whisking their horses away into the forest and then trying to steal away the ladies as well:

The squires hurled themselves against the cowardly ruffians...

... and made reasonably short work of them, suffering only a few flesh wounds (and some embarrassment at their comically bad swordplay).

Horseless and tired they set off into the woods to find somewhere they could stay for the night to rest, only to encounter a knight undertaking a pas d'armes - "None shall pass". Desperate to prove himself, squire Barnabus (responsible for the best one-liners of the evening, including some genuinely witty running jokes about the likely political affiliations of the bandits) took up the challenge to fight until one was knocked down. If he won, the pas d'armes knight would guide them to a nearby castle. Barnabus was promptly killed outright in a freak dice result that made me wonder if I should have some kind of divine intervention. I chose not to, partly because it seemed so Mallory-esque, but mainly to give the rules a proper test before tweaking them.

Ashamed, the knight showed them the way where they were welcomed by a beautiful woman in red and feasted before retiring a little drunk to their chambers.Awoken by screams, and finding the door of them chamber locked they armed themselves, the door was opened by Ceridwin; Eleanor had been taken. They followed the dogs who were on her scent, encountered the lady in red (cue for a song?) who explained that the castle had fallen under the control of a giant who would take any noble woman who stayed there. These women were never seen again.

Hurrying after the frantic dogs, they came face to face with the giant. Squire Eridor charged the giant, increasing his chivalry as he did so, and with astonishing dice knocked the monster off his feet with his first attack. Squire Eenit kept on after the dogs and went to break down the door that they were howling at:

Sadly for the game, the parent who was giving them lifts arrived at this point and we had to break off.

Thoughts on the game
For a first test it went really well. The combat system in particular went just as I hoped, with each fight bringing the risk of ignominious death, but the heroes having the slight upper hand.I found I was horribly rusty as a DM, and made the storyline so linear as not to give much opportunity for them to wander off into the forest etc, but they hugely enjoyed themselves and want to make it a weekly event. While I can't spare the time for that, I took it as an endorsement.

Everything is better with lasers...

2011-09-17T19:04:00.000+01:00

... right?I was admiring the laser-cut buildings from the likes of Sarissa when I had a thought (it happens occasionally) - we have a laser-plotter in the technology department at my school. So, a little playing with 2d Designer later, and I had a virtual copy of an earlier building I'd made (very slowly!) from foam-core and balsa splints.

Then I wandered over to the technology dept. and, ten minutes later (okay, thirty - I screwed up the measurements for the joints on the first trial) I had this in my excited little paws:

It went together pretty well:

The best bit about the whole thing was my Cunning Plan (TM) 8) I run the science/tech club so I'm going to get the kids to build lots more (for their own good, you understand) so that they build a whole town. This will allow me to indulge in a bit of geek-design, and a little bit of subtle evangelising about gaming.

And if they don't want to keep their creations, I'll look after them. It would be rude not to, eh?

Note to self...

2011-08-29T20:54:00.001+01:00

... strong alcohol plus failing light does NOT make for well-painted miniatures.

Now, where did I leave that bottle of nitromors?

A spot of DIY

2011-08-28T19:52:00.003+01:00

As the long summer holidays drift into their final week, I'm getting round to a couple of niggly little jobs that have been cluttering up my painting/modelling corner.

For the few of you who don't know, 'Sharp Practice' is a Too Fat Lardies game that allows one to play out the adventures of small groups of men and their charismatic or nefarious officers during the Napoleonic era. I really like the hinterland they occupy between skirmish gaming and roleplaying, and the game mechanics are satisfying. There is a strong card-driven mechanic which provides 'friction' in that your Groups may be able to act exactly as you wish, or, if the Turn ends before you get to them, they only have limited actions available. Do give them a try if you haven't yet. They're cheap, too! I've only played solo with chits so far, but hope to correct that at some point in the next eighteen months; the locals seem more interested than in Impetus, so I'm hopeful.

Anyway, this thread on TMP reminded me I had bought some printable perforated cards from plaincards.com to make my own Sharp Practice and Bonus Card decks.

The sheets are a good thickness of card, very close to standard playing cards, and are US letter size. They fed through my Canon Inkjet MP800 with absolutely problems at all, but I did take care to print just one side at a time, then feed them back through as I thought them being bent over for duplex printing might make the cards pop out.

plaincards have their own design software on their site, but I was too stingy for that (the demos don't allow you print) so made my own template in MS Publisher, filled it in with the text I needed, and Robert's your mother's brother!

The printed cards popped out very easily with a little back-and-forth bending along the perforations:

I was very pleased, but then realised I should go the whole hog and make boxes for each deck. So I did! I found this nifty site which allows you to enter the dimensions of your deck of cards and then print off a pdf of the 'net' to make an appropriately sized box. Simply cut, fold and stick, and taa-daa!

I may yet make some stickers to go on the outside of the boxes to label them up. Finisher-completer characteristics to the fore! I also made a box to hold my fan-made BloodBowl cards, which are in the completed box above.

Hope that's of use to someone.

Elfball - Bedford 2011

2011-08-08T09:59:00.008+01:00

Summer holidays are here again... :)

I've been mostly (geek-wise) tidying up, flogging off some of the lead-pile on eBay, and mulling over the rules for the chivalric quest game I'm slowly writing.

I did also go to the Elfball tournament organised by Chris last Saturday. I had a whale of a time, but only managed two draws and two losses. I'd like to blame the fact I've not played elfball for about three months, but I suspect it's just as much that I'm not that good at the game, even though I really like it.

There are photos taken by Steven at this link.

..and here's the terribly unflattering one of yours truly:

First foes finished

2011-07-05T20:11:00.003+01:00

A very quick update to show you the first batches of goblins (from Rhoninstorm Miniatures) and skeletons (from Mantic Games) that I've tested colour schemes on. I'm pretty pleased with them and will be continuing the theme through the remaining ones in my plasti-lead pile.

MORE gaming with #1 Son

2011-06-19T19:56:00.002+01:00

#1 Son - "Daddy, can we play with knights in a dungeon?"
Me (pleasantly surprised) - "Of course!"

Now, it turns out that Sophie the cat had got lost in the dungeons under King Dougal's castle and the knight and guards had to go looking for her, especially as the king had already been looking for ages:

Some of the doors in the dungeon were closed, and creaked heavily when opened (he did the noises unprompted):

You'll be pleased to know that both cat and king were found safely in time to get back to the kitchen for marzipan cake.

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures, derring do... and cake!

Gaming with #1 Son

2011-06-13T22:10:00.002+01:00

Well, I finally did it - #1 Son and I had our first 'geek game' last night, and repeated it this evening. He's a mean dice-roller, far luckier than I am; I may have to take him with me to roll my dice on future geek-days!

I've made some custom dice with either swords or shields on them (to help with his numeracy, you understand - he has to count up the totals and we're working on subtracting). I placed the two knights in May's posts toe-to-toe in the middle of a large dungeon room tile and we both rolled attack and defence dice, the loser being pushed back the resultant number of spaces. You won the 'tournament' if you pushed the other fellow to the back wall. He loved it, and forewent a story tonight to play again, but this time with his knights that go with his huge wooden castle:

Giant and knight

2011-05-30T15:14:00.004+01:00

On a roll! A couple more fantasy figs to continue my project; a Metal Magic giant and another 5th Ed. Bretonnian knight:

Knight and Dragon

2011-05-24T20:11:00.003+01:00

Not dead and not given up gaming, but having two little 'uns is proving fairly all consuming...

Anyway, here's the first painting I managed this year (!) - I've been drawn irresistably towards 'old skool' medieval fantasy figures of late so I'm painting what I want. So there!

The knight is actually a conversion - the head of an old Bretonnian knight on a Black Tree Design figure from their early HYW range. The dragon is a lovely old Citadel figure marked 1984, and by the wonderful Tom Meier. Nostalgic goodness :)

Blood on the streets of Thorncreek

2010-08-04T19:24:00.013+01:00

Alright, alright, one last time for the latecomers and then I'm a-headin' for mah bed. Summa this Ah had to git from the Sheriff, 'cuz it happened after Ah got plugged in the shoulder here, but this is how it went when those darn cowpokes turned nasty....

The streets of Thorncreek were deserted after word had spread that some of the ranch-hands taken on by the Claytons were heading into town with mischief on their mind.

It wasn't long, however, before the Civic Patrol were out in force and ready to defend their town.

Sheriff Nathaniel Crawcrook and the Harris boys (Joshua and Daniel) headed North up Main Street, while Johan 'Jonah' Meier edged off round through the trees, and Deputy Jeremiah Ainsworthy led Patrick Flannegan and Charles Vickers over the fences and round to the West of the row of shops.

Up at the other end of Main Street, the cowboys were starting to throw their weight around, whoopin' and hollerin' and shootin' into the air.

Heading straight at them, and cursin' at them to mend their ways and clear out of town, the Sheriff and the Harris boys showed no fear.

Gunfire broke out along the side streets now, as it became clear that the trailboss and his nastier cronies were trying to outflank the Patrol. Yellin' and cursin', and then quiet told Sheriff Crawcrook that at least some men were down - he hoped they weren't his. "Joshua, Daniel; you boys go and see if Jonah's gone and got hisself killed. I'll be fine here with Ainsworthy over there" With that he calmly gunned down a cowboy with a fine piece of rifle-shootin'. He spat. "Lawbreakers. They sure do vex me somethin' dreadful."

Through the heat-haze of midday, and the lingering gunsmoke, the Sheriff could see his Deputy charge into two of the uninvited visitors and start layin' into them with his fists and the butt of his rifle. Crawcrook grunted in approval and then, cold as a mountian stream in spring, put a second cowboy out of the fight with a bullet in the gut that would prove fatal.

Round in the East, the Harris' had found Johan hurt but alive, and closed in on the culprit, gunning her down in a hail of lead.

They then headed over to Main Street, just as the rest of the cowboys did the same after dealing with Patrick and Charles. The Deputy was down in a crumpled heap and Sheriff Crawcrook was sluggin' it out with two ne'er-do-wells. As they rushed in to help him, the trailboss stepped out from behind the scrap and shot Joshua right between the eyes. Screaming in fury and loss, Daniel ran at him, but the man in the long pale coat calmly clubbed him to the floor and turned on the Sheriff.

Nathaniel did not have his reputation for nothin', however, and soon it was just him and Joshua's killer left standing. Toe-to-toe, and blow for blow they fought.

Neither giving way, battered and bruised, it was many minutes before the Sheriff finally toppled his foe with a blow that would have poleaxed a steer. Save fer burryin' the dead, it was over.

Post-game chatter
Phew! It came really close at the end with each of us (Me and Chris) gritting our teeth on every Head for the Hills check, but our posse's leaders were just too stubborn. In the end it came down to the Sheriff having a second attack that swung it, and it seemed fitting that it was the two bosses who faced off at the finale.

That was our first game of LotOW, despite it having been ages since I started on this project, but we'd both played GW's Lord of the Rings game in the past, and Chris has done a fair bit of Necromunda gaming, so the rules were familiar. I did nearly blow it early on by forgetting the Heroic Actions that could be called, and did lose two of the posse as a result on the left of the board.

We thoroughly enjoyed it, though, and I think the bad blood between the posse's after Daniel's death will add a certain frisson. Joshua was raised to Hero status for taking out two cowboys, and this seemed fitting. The Sheriff picked up two new skills (Trick Shooter and Pistolier), but we didn't get enough loot to replace the dead vigilante. Chris has his boss out for two games, and couldn't afford to retain his Gunslinger or replace his dead chap, so I reckon the Civic Patrol came out on top. Don't mess with Thorncreek!

PS
I'm not going to mention the game of Elfball we had after lunch, except to say I was outplayed by Chris and destroyed by the dice. Yikes!

Back... with a win!

2010-07-19T20:12:00.005+01:00

Hello again. Life with the (generally wonderful, if somewhat tiring) baby Edmund is now reaching the point of a stable routine, and the geeking may begin again, albeit at an even lower level than usual.

A couple of weeks ago I got a Full Day Pass (!) to go and play silly games. My good friend Chris had organised the second ever Elfball tournament in the UK at a nice pub just down the road, so it would have been rude not to go along. I elected to take Thunder Hammer Dwarves as my team, which I finished painting, oooh, hours before the first dice were due to be rolled. I haven't taken a picture of them myself, yet, but here is one that I found among the photos posted by other attendees:

The team ('The Iron Bruisers') before their first game
Photo by 'spikey'

There was also a beautiful custom board that served as top table for the day's four games:

The day was great fun with plenty of banter (geeking, family, random stuff) and a couple of beers. Even better, I won my first two games which bumped me up to first table, then won game three against Chris (who had a moment of abysmal luck which allowed me to waltz in for the winning score in a very short game). Game four was against Mike from the Swindon lot who came up for the day. He'd won the first tournament and was good. He knew the newly released 2nd Ed. rules better than me and completely flummoxed me at one point with a change I'd not noticed to the Dash rules. Still, I ground it out for a draw........

..... and finished the day as Champion!

A particularly fetching picture of yours truly on the left, there - holding a pose reduces my photogenic-ness even further!

There are further pictures at Dan's album and Spikey's album, and always loads of stuff over at the Impact forum.

TTFN

Baby Edmund

2010-04-20T20:00:00.002+01:00

Taa-daa! Baby Edmund was born on Friday night, 7lb exactly. Everyone is well, and we're all rather delighted.

Tartan in 28mm

2010-04-09T22:33:00.004+01:00

So, like I've been moaning about for a while now, I basically have no geek time. In true Rab style, therefore, I've decided to start a side-project (an elfball team so that I can enter Chris' tournament in June) and, in addition, try my hand at tartan for the first time, too. I am a sensible planner of my time, NOT!

Anyway, here you go:

The green around the base indicates that this player is a Defender, and the narrow line shows the rear facing. Facing is a vital tactical aspect in the game, which is by Impact Miniatures and is rather groovy.

Thanks for reading,
Rab

Hanging on in here

2010-04-05T19:28:00.002+01:00

Hello reader(s). I haven't abandoned either geeking, or this blog, but with baby number two due, well, now, I've been somewhat distracted. I've been doing some bits and bobs, but in such tiny snatches of time it's not really been worth sharing. As soon as baby is here and all is well then I'll get back on with things. Hope you all had/are having a happy Easter.

Rab

My new favourite comic

2010-03-06T20:14:00.003Z

For those of you not familiar with Sydney Padua's amazing webcomic about an alternative history steampunk version of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace (first computer designer and first programmer), do yourself a favour and check it out on 2dgoggles.com. This had me snorting with geeky in-joke-satiated hilarity. Man, I'm a nerd!

Land Office open for business

2010-02-28T21:19:00.006Z

Whoopee! I got my first building for Thorncreek finished today.

I'd been dithering (how unlike me!) over how to paint the wood, and had done two rather labour intensive (multiple layers and washes) test pieces which I was fairly pleased with, but knew would be mind-numbing for a whole building or town:

So when I was out yesterday picking up some Master's Brush Cleaner (very highly recommended for bringing even nasty old splayed brushes back to life, btw) from the art shop in town, I also picked up two pots of craft paint (Chocolate and Coffee - I guess I was getting peckish!):

Some heavy drybrushing (more like wetbrushing, really) later, and taadaa! A finished building:

The Thorncreek Patrol, ever vigilant...

Quick and dirty pictures, as usual, but it keeps the impetus of blogging going and boosts my feeling of accomplishment if I post straight away I finish something. All the usual excuses about flash washing out layers, funny business from Photoshop when auto-levelling the contrast, but I'm pretty chuffed with how this turned out. The best bit is, the most time-consuming part of painting it was the couple of layers of blue on the windows!

Hope you like it,
Rab

A bloodbowling diversion

2010-02-21T19:35:00.007Z

The new league season having started (see last post), a little bit of Bloodbowl has snuck in to interrupt my LotOW preparations. Because it usually takes a fair bit of organising to get us together for a day's gaming, we have a fairly relaxed approach to fielding unpainted miniatures. This also means we can use new teams on a whim, but can detract from the visual appeal of the game. I was too ashamed, therefore, to photograph my two games (results in a moment) as I had decided on fairly short notice to use a new team (Chaos Pact) and they had to face their opponents clad only in a film of black spray undercoat [buries head in shame].

For those not au fait with the miniatures from the Chaos Pact team, my understanding is that they were originally a team converted by one of the old GW sculptors and painted by Phil Lewis back in the day for a spread in the White Dwarf magazine. They were then used as masters for a limited production run given as prizes at the Chaos Cup tournament over the years in the USA. Tom Anders ("Galak") was able to do a 500 figure run of each one as part of some highly complex deal with GW which seems to have been a victim of the latest round of C&D letters from the GW attack-lawyers. I'm not privy to any of the details, and I'm so fed up with GW's approach (see earlier posts) that I've no interest in finding out more. Anyway, I got a set of the figs when Tom was selling them, before the onslaught. This is what they looked like in the old magazine article:

After the games (one draw, one loss), I had a quick go at painting up the minotaur:

I went for a brighter and more lurid version of the original paint scheme - in homage, but without slavishly copying.

Anyway - the games. First game was up against Chris with his Slann (think psychotic humanoid frogs). They have the Leap skill across the whole team allowing them to bound over defensive lines and into cages around the ball-carrier. With Chris' positional play abilities I knew this was going to be a challenge. A bit of luck at the beginning of the second half (I pulled off the classic 'throw the goblin with the ball and hope' score - haha!) allowed me to draw level and the game finished 2-2, although he inflicted more casualties on me leaving me a player down for the following game with a permanent reduction in his Armour Value. Boo hiss!

The second game was against Mike and his Orc team. Mike plays a fairly... aggressive... game so I was expecting to lose many many players. As it turned out neither of us managed to inflict a single casualty, but the weather result (Blazing Heat) meant that after each touchdown a whole slew of players would troop off exhausted. It seemed to affect us each in turn, so one of us would be two or three players down at least. This led to a good-natured but unequal contest between us. It turned out 3-1 to him (as opposed to 2-2 which might have been expected) as I couldn't stop him turning me over on the deciding drive.

The other games were such that Chris was crowned the day's victor, but not by so much that the league look unbalanced for future league fixtures.

Phew - a long post! Back to school tomorrow...

Blighty BB day coming :)

2010-02-12T14:53:00.003Z

We (that's the Blighty Crusaders, which has sort of become our club name, after the team name we took for the Bloodbowl Worldcup in Nottingham in 2008) are getting off to a good start in our league for 2010. Our second gaming day will be next Friday - half term and teaching is luvverly :)

The rest of them have already played their first set of games, so my team may be a little underdedveloped in comparison. I'm taking a new team to me, Chaos Pact, which is a little temperamental with THREE Big Guys who may go 'stupid' and ruin my masterplan. On the other hand, they may cause absolute carnage. I have played two practice games total with them so far scoring a draw and a loss, so we shall see...

Wish me luck.

Can't see the wood for the trees

2010-02-10T21:29:00.004Z

Almost no painting undertaken this week, except to finish off another outlaw for my bad guy posse:

Mostly, I've been doing a little rooting through a box of trees I inherited, picking out the ones that are still serviceable and mounting them on washers:

A couple of pieces of street furniture to shelter behind:

And finally, the three-shops-in-one is nearly done. I'm just waiting on some model railway sheet tiling for the third roof and it'll be all ready to base up:

The purple-looking roof is some corrugated modeling card I found in a cheapo shop; far quicker than preparing the cat-food-box as I described in an earlier post - life is too short! The right-hand roof is overlapped strips of masking tape that I hope will paint up like tar-paper. We shall see.

Happy geeking,
Rab

State of play (ing with toy soldiers)

2010-01-24T20:46:00.004Z

Before I get stuck in, I thought I'd give you a quick tour of the workbench as it is now, and please forgive the hurried snaps.

First up, the boss of my Outlaws for Legends of the Old West (just finished, I thought, but I've obviously missed putting a wash on that bit on his right sleeve):

Next, the rest of the boys, in various states of preparation:

There's also another shop, or rather three which I'm doing in one go to speed me along:

On a completely unrelated note, the gang are getting back into another fantasy football game, Elfball from the rather fabulous Impact miniatures. This is my ancient Eqyptian themed team in progress:

And finally, I couldn't resist putting together the first of the 135 (!) mostly plastic Napoleonic figures that Ma and Pa got me for Christmas. I shall paint them with the nice new brushes that sister number one got me. They've finally given in and decided that geeking stuff is a valid present :)

Write on

2010-01-21T08:49:00.003Z

After a rather hectic six weeks or so (recurring bouts of family sickness, some serious, a funeral and pressures of work), I've not done much painting or western town building. Things seem back under control, however, so I should be back to a roughly weekly posting level by the beginning of February. I'm also doing a bit more fiction writing at the moment, so some free time will go on that.

Painting disaster

2009-12-01T21:29:00.002Z

Last night I was daubing away (for the first time in a couple of weeks) on some half-finished 15mm Hobilars, finishing off their straps and saddle-work. For some reason I couldn't work out it wasn't going well. The paint texture seemed wrong and the paint was clumping slightly as it dried, but only when using my really fine detail brush. I gave up as being 'too tired' and came back to them tonight. Oh dear. I decided I'd strip and restart, but still couldn't work out why - the same paint and same brush were fine tonight on some Outlaws for LotOW.

Then I packed my stuff up tonight and worked out what the problem was - I have a couple of DIY brushes sitting in a jar beside my workbench. They are soaking in White Spirit. I had dipped my brush in the blasted stuff before starting last night and ruined seven cavalry that were almost done. My comment on that mistake was not very polite, but at least I'd rinsed my brushes carefully when I'd put them away last night so the small amount of white spirit had obviously come off and not ruined tonight's Outlaw painting.

Note to self - BE MORE CAREFUL. Sigh!

Et maintenant pour quelque chose complètement différente

2009-11-29T12:45:00.005Z

Oui, c'est vrai, j'ai succombé à l'attrait du jeu napoléonien!

(Which my rusty memory, and a bit of help from Babelfish, assures me means I have succumbed to the lure of Napoleonic gaming!)

Yes, too much watching of Sharpe, reading of Aubrey/Maturin, and too many banner adverts from the Perrys and Victrix over on The Miniatures Pages, has led me inexorably to a New Venture, in which our Hero valiantly struggles against Tyranny, the Frenchies and the Corset Fastenings of Dusky Hispanic Maidens.

I had been instructed by the parents to give them a Christmas list, and I was having difficulty. I do need (!) some street furniture for Thorncreek's continued expansion (carts etc), but I rather fancy having a go at making some of it myself first. So I was idly trawling for a set of skirmish rules for Napoleonics in 28mm and discovered a company that was new to me - Too Fat Lardies. They produce a .pdf ruleset specifically for Sharpe-type gaming called Sharp Practice for the princely sum of Seven English Pounds.

They read like it's an absolute blast to play, so I've asked for a whole bunch of Victrix and Perry figures to allow me to do so.

I shall be tackling this project alongside my existing ones once I've got another 3 bases painted of HYW English for Impetus, my Outlaws are finished and I've constructed six buildings for Thorncreek. I've got two done so far:

Obviously this means other Unfinished Projects will suffer, but a couple of them have basically already been put in a box for a few months until enthusiasm for them returns.

Please note - this does not break the Pledge, as it's not my money.

Happy Advent Sunday, all.

How cats helped win the West

2009-11-08T20:24:00.006Z

I hope you'll be pleased to know that I haven't been just been sitting sulking about GW for the last few days, I've also been beavering away on the first building for Thorncreek, which I think is in the southern part of Colorado. This should allow mountains, plains, and (at a stretch) the occasional gang of Mehican bandidos that are on the run from down south. Well, quite a big stretch...

In case any of you would like to see how I did it, I've laid out the in progress pictures below. The method is very heavily based on this set of articles over on Geektactica, and using Gungnir's sterling work as inspiration as well.

First off, I measured out some templates (sorry, can't find the picture, but it's not that exciting anyway) for the walls, cut them out of 5mm foamcore and glued them square. I then started cladding the walls with the splints/spills/little-bits-of-balsa-like-wood-for-lightning-bunsen-burners-with. This took quite a while!

The elastic band was to hold the end piece in place while the glue dried. Use lots of glue!

More cladding in place...

I realised I had to add a pointy roof bit on the back of the false front to support the roof - lesson learned for next time, when I'll just make two of the back end pieces and stick one on the back of the false front.

This is where the cats come in! The corrugated iron roofing is made from the box my cat's food pouches come in. I just peeled off the outer layer and was left with the beautifully even corrugations you can see :) It took a little while to find the best way of removing the little bits of 'outer' that stuck to the bits I wanted, but I found that a sculpting tool scraped down each corrugation allowed me to clear the stubborn bits off in about ten minutes. Free and reused - bonus!

The finished building! I trimmed the scrappy bits of foam core around the windows so that they were smooth and stuck bits of splint to form door/window frames. I stuck the whole lot onto some thick card, put a ridge-cap over the tin roof, backed the door/window holes with thin card and used some more of the base card to make a front door. I cut two pieces of thin card rectangle to make the sign, removing the central section from one and sticking it over the other to make a frame. The boardwalk was made by gluing a few modelling matchsticks (from a massive bag I picked up for a song) at right angles to the direction I laid the planks which were more splints. I'm pretty chuffed with it for a first attempt, and now that I've done it once I reckon I'll be much quicker next time.

What will I use it for? As I hope my future buildings will be less crude, this should really be the oldest Thorncreek building. The Land Office, perhaps? Suggestions on a postcard...

TTFN

GW helps me reach a decision

2009-11-05T15:12:00.004Z

One of my favourite websites out there (which has given me great hobby inspiration, advice and enjoyment over the last few years) is www.talkbloodbowl.com

However, if you're reading this entry after the 11th November then the above link will probably not work. This is because Games Workshop, in their wisdom, have sent a Cease and Desist letter to the website manager because it contains the word 'Bloodbowl' in the URL. Now, I can understand protection of Intellectual Property etc, but the manner in which it was done (a week's notice after operating for nine years as the premier fan-site which was heavily used by GW employees to test and produce the last couple of manifestations of the rules) was incredibly heavy-handed and angering. I do not see how it would have been any less effective to politely request that the URL or sitename were changed.

Which is the better way of doing things? To say 'Excuse me', or to roughly barge past, shoving aside the person in your way? Which leaves a better taste in the mouth? Quite.

So the decision? I will not be attending the Bloodbowl Grand Tournament in May (I've been to three of the last four) and I'm right on the edge of a total boycott on future purchases from the main GW. (GW Historical seems to be much more by gamers/for gamers, something I approve of wholeheartedly, so they escape my ire). I will be writing a letter to them to explain the reasons for my decision.

Pledge

2009-10-29T21:00:00.002Z

No, not a type of floor polish, but a Pledge! I've said it out loud twice now (to wife, and to oldest friend) so I guess that means I have to stick to it:

I, Stephen, sometimes known as Rab, will not buy any new miniatures that go on a roster for any games I play or want to play until my next birthday, being the 26th May 2010, except with any money given to me specifically for that purpose.

Now, I was originally going to be more strict than this, but I know my own (lack of) willpower. The above Pledge will still allow me to buy painting/modelling supplies. At a pinch, it will also allow me to purchase, e.g. bystanders for LotOW games. Not so strict, really, but it's a start.

Out and about with the Civic Patrol

2009-10-26T21:43:00.003Z

A quick burst of painting tonight after a day filled with guests and their lovely, but very active, children and... I've finished painting my starting lawmen posse for Legends of the Old West. The new additions (from left to right) are: Charles Vickers, Sheriff Nathaniel Crawcrook and Deputy Jeremiah Ainsworthy.

And without the sepia to hide my hurried brushstrokes on the last three members:

So, now I've got:

- Sheriff (repeating rifle, sixgun)
- Deputy (shotgun, sixgun)
- Vigilante (sixgun) x 3
- Vigilante (sixgun, shotgun) x 2

Now, I've chosen their armaments entirely on what the models are sculpted with, so I may make some adjustments with a few games experience!

Yee-ha!

Johan Meier

2009-10-18T19:26:00.005+01:00

Johan (nicknamed 'Jonah' because of his dreadful bad luck) is the veteran of countless failed business (and romantic) ventures. His popularity is based evenly on his predilection for long, hilarious, self-mocking anecdotes about his latest misadventure, and his open-hand and open-wallet to those in need. For all his apparent foolishness, he is no imbecile and will not get taken advantage of. He's also pretty handy with that shotgun and is an active member of the Civic Patrol.

I'm actually a bit disappointed with this figure; there's something just not quite right about the way he's come out, although the funny shadow near his eye isn't there in real life. Ho-hum, he'll do - I'm not so unimpressed that I'll strip him and start again, and I want to keep up the momentum I've currently got. Here are the Thorncreek Civic Patrol so far:

Now, while the temptation is quite high to give them somewhere to patrol (i.e. Thorncreek itself), I'm determined to get the starting lawmen posse (sheriff, deputy, five vigilantes) complete first.

The Harris boys

2009-10-17T17:13:00.003+01:00

"See over there, yup - there on the table by the stairs? That there's Joshua and Daniel Harris. They and their Ma and Pa farm out East a little way. They're on the Patrol, but I still would be careful not to cross 'em! Polite and gentleman-like, a credit to their Ma, but talk down their family, or try and cheat them at cards and they'll knock you down. Do it again and they'll like as not shoot you where you stand! Good lads to have on your side when the lead starts a-flyin'. Patrol's lucky to have 'em"

The founding of Thorncreek

2009-10-13T21:15:00.004+01:00

"Pull up a chair, Pardner, and I'll tell y'a tale. Fifteen year ago, I bought me a patch o'dirt out here. Me an' a few other fellas, families, couple o' ranchers; you know, the usual. We were doin' well, building' up, bein' respectable folks. Then a couple o' years back the trouble started. A disagreement over a fence or two 'tween the Harris boys and the Claytons turned pretty nasty, been rumblin' on ever since. So me an' the town gents got ourselves together, formed the Thorncreek Civic Patrol. You gonna play nice in town? I hope so cuz we finally got ourselves a Sheriff on the way and I hear he's awful fond o' the noose."

Patrick Flannegan, Civic Patrol member, town founder and hotel owner

Finally got some painting done - whoop! I've also got a whole bunch more primed and ready to go. Cowboys and Space Hulk have got me pumped again, so I'm going to stick with them, and then go back to Impetus when the feeling grabs me. Surely I'll get more done that way.

Below are a couple of workbench snaps to prove I really have been priming away :)

"Begin the litanies, brothers"

2009-10-03T11:20:00.005+01:00

While the whole "I am more gothic than you" way the 40k universe has gone just makes me want to snort with derision (has it got worse, or have I just grown up?), I do like the idea of orders of warrior monks - templars, hospitallers, and, erm, adaptes astartes. Yeah, I've always kinda liked the idea of space marines, if nothing else.

So, as I explained in previous posts, I'm putting together a retro Hulk; the new board and pieces (except with a replacement timer that actually works - £1.49 from a cheapo store, btw, right next door to the local GW who couldn't offer me a replacement 'that day'), but with 1st edition genestealers and '89/'94 terminators. I'm basing them on really nice resin bases from Fenris Games.

This morning I got to sit down and do an hour's geeking for the first time in ages, and here are a couple of 'in progress' shots:

The Battle Brothers

The Xenos threat

Obviously I had to clip the slotta-tabs off the figures, then file, pin and glue them onto the resin bases (I may have mentioned how much I like them - they were great to do business with, as well, sorting out my messed up order in minutes over email). I may glue some washers to the bottom of the bases for extra 'heft', but, although light, they don't need it for balance.

Anyway, if the wind drops a bit, I'll get them undercoated later today.

TTFN

The main reason

2009-10-01T20:24:00.002+01:00

Ok, time to come clean (I have permission!) - the main reason I've had no time to paint or game is:

Darling wife is 12 weeks pregnant (baby due on 13th April) and has dreadful morning sickness, so my mind hasn't really been on little toy soldiers. Fear not, Geekly Digest fans, normal service will resume shortly.

In the mean time, I'll be doing a little jig for joy :)

A painting plan

2009-09-17T10:18:00.003+01:00

Right, still no painting, but I've found another blog (here) which has a nice and straightforward regime for getting the 'stealers done very satisfyingly. Maybe this weekend...

Into the Hulk

2009-09-14T10:50:00.003+01:00

Yup, I gave in. I bought a set off ebay that was without the miniatures, which was fine as it was a [i]lot[/i] cheaper that way and it means I can use the luvverly Rogue Trader terminators I snagged as a bargain recently. I also got some 1st ed genestealers so the Emperor's finest have someone to righteously smite. Cool :)

What is less cool is that I still haven't picked up a brush - total painting block :(

Oooh, shiny

2009-09-03T00:24:00.002+01:00

I went over to Chris' tonight as his pre-order of Space Hulk had arrived. It took us quite a while to punch out all the board sections, counters etc and to get the figures off the sprues. What a lovely box of toys it is! We played one of the early missions (Cleanse and Burn, I think) both ways - he played the terminators first, while I commanded the genestealers, then we swapped over. Chris won both games, testimony to his greater experience of the game (he didn't miss this game first time round) and some astonishing dice rolling. In particular, the sergeant armed with thunder hammer and storm shield was (for Chris, not me) absolutely monstrous - a one-man swathe of destruction, utterly invulnerable and quite deadly. The game plays so well, I love it!

I got home fully decided to buy my own copy (and then flog the included figures on ebay as I prefer the 'old skool' figures I recently acquired), all my plans from the previous post discarded, but they've sold out from the online store!!!! I may be able to snag one from our local GW store, but as I won't be able to get there for opening on Saturday I may have to ask a favour of the manager who I know a bit...

What a strange position to be in - I now want to give GW money (!), but they don't seem to want it!

Excuses, excuses....

2009-08-31T10:23:00.005+01:00

Ooooo-kay, first off - the admission: I haven't picked up a brush since my last post.

Now - the excuses: family holidays, friends coming to stay, drinking more at supper so I don't want to start painting and screw it up, more holidays.

So what's next? I'm carrying on with my Impetus painting, but I'm going to intersperse that with some larger scale stuff again, particularly some Bloodbowl star players (skaven ones for an exciting and quick-play variant that Chris has come up with), and I fancy trying a cowboy or two having caught the second half of Once Upon a Time in the West on telly the other day.

Obviously, my butterfly mind has alighted on a new (well, old but resurrected by the re-release) gaming idea:

I just missed out on this first time round (it had gone out of print before I realised what a great game it was), but have occasionally costed up getting the various bits off Ebay. Now, I can't justify ~£60 for a boardgame at the moment, and a limited edition means they'll likely be all gone before I put, say, a tenner a month aside and save up. My plan, therefore is to take it step-by-step:

First - get some 1989-edition metal terminators.
I snagged a job-lot off Ebay for under £2 each; they haven't arrived yet, but if they match up with the photos then a bit of paint-stripping and I reckon I've got a bargain :) Any spares will then be resold on Ebay or traded with James, whose son is Blood Angels mad.

Second - genestealers
Metal 'stealers are rarer than hen's teeth it would seem, but the plastic ones are not too pricey (by GW standards), and show up cheaper on ebay fairly regularly.

Third - the tiles
These are rather expensive on ebay, and I don't want to shell out so much for something that will probably be a little worn (at least with figures you can strip and repaint, or even greenstuff if necessary). My plan is to order the space corridor tile-sets from Litko. They even sent me .pdf templates of the tiles so that I can resize some Space Hulk-esque artwork I found on the net to fit. I'll then print them off onto stickers so that I can just cut, peel, and stick for instant board pieces.

Fourth - the counters
More Litko stuff, here. They do custom counters for a good price, and their quotes hold for 90 days so I can get these in a month or two's time.

Fifth - the rules
This is the tricky one. I can't see any legal way of getting the newest rules, but I know they're based on the 1st Edition very closely. These are available (or at least, until the new release) as a free download from the GW site and I do have a copy. I'll have to keep thinking on this one.

So, that's me, getting ready for school (back tomorrow ) and ready for a bit of escapism which will get me back into the painting groove, I reckon.

Henry, 1st Lord Scrope of Masham

2009-07-27T14:40:00.005+01:00

Henry, 1st Lord Scrope of Masham, was born on 29 September, 1312, in Masham, England. Henry figured prominently in all the wars of Edward the Third, and in 1350, was summoned to parliament as Baron Scrope of Masham. He fought at Crecy, Poitiers and Najera. He died on the 31st July 1932. The Scropes of Masham were a cadet branch of the Scropes of Bolton family, hence the use of the white difference or cadence mark over the Scrope arms of azure, a bend or.

Anyway, scene set (real history, by the way, fact fans!), I actually chose Henry as he had a nice simple coat of arms, and I was able to download his flag (free, gratis, and for nothing) from the rather excellent krigspil.dk website. If you want a flag for pretty much any period, then check them out before spending any money.

I based these on a 30mm un-lipped base (i.e. a slightly larger version of the bases like those sold by GW), which handily is within a gnat's crotchet of the same thickness as my standard bases for the rest of the army. I think I'll base all my commanders like this. If I'd planned ahead a little better, I'd have put the banner-bearer on the other side of him so that I could stretch the flag out to the right and it wouldn't look (to the casual or uninformed viewer) like I'd painted his bend or going the wrong way!

The main reason I did him now, as opposed to later, is that I've been finding it rather more difficult than expected to get nice horse-flesh colours on the mounts of my hobilars. However, the English summer is doing its rainy best, so I'm off for another attempt.

Archers

2009-07-22T20:31:00.004+01:00

Managed to find a few moments (i.e. it was raining) and got these fellows polished off this afternoon. As mentioned before, the green and white livery is that worn by troops raised by the Black Prince.

Next up, some hobilars:

I also came across an article in the paper today, mentioning a website www.medievalsoldier.org which carries a database of the soldiers who fought for England against the French between 1369 and 1453.

TTFN

Oh yeah, baby, it's the holidays!

2009-07-20T09:17:00.002+01:00

Nothing new to report, geek-wise, apart from a few splashes more paint on those archers from the workbench a couple of posts back. It is, however, now the school holidays :) Hopefully I'll pick up the pace a bit, but if it's sunny then I'll be down the allotment. So, anyone who likes seeing the geeking I'm up to needs to pray for rain in East Anglia.

The weather at this moment? Glorious sunshine; I'm off to get weeding...

Carrot Crunch

2009-07-06T13:29:00.012+01:00

No, not a new type of breakfast cereal but the name of the Bloodbowl tournament I went to this weekend. I had an absolute whale of a time; the Sudbury and District Wargamers did a superb job organising it. There were forty coaches - some very experienced, others at their first tourney - and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves throughout, no matter how their games were going. The continuous flow of free food, soft drinks and beer throughout the weekend may have helped towards that cheerful glow ;)

Game 1
Opponent - Amazons
Score - 0(1)-3(4)

First game was against Dave ("Lycos"), the current president of the NAF - the world Bloodbowl coaches organisation. This top bloke, aside from his other talents (gaming and organisation-wise), has the most remarkable memory for people's faces and names. He goes to pretty much every tournament running and has quite the results record, but we've never played each other before so I was pleased to see we were paired up for the first game. I really enjoyed the game, even if I was hopelessly outclassed, and I got a casualty with my chainsaw player...

Game 2
Opponent - Goblins
Score - 2(0)-0(1)

After the spanking I got in game 1, I headed right down to the bottom table where I met Emrys, another goblin coach. We were prepared for a game full of dirty tricks, secret weapons and fouling, and neither of us were disappointed - marvellous :) The picture shows the field in turn 7 of 8 of the first half when I had removed ALL of his players from the pitch. I scored in turn 8 to finish the first half 1-0. The second half was a highly entertaining repeat of the second, with poor Emrys reduced to one standing and one prone player before I scored at the end of the game to go 2-0 at the end. A win? Hurrah!

Game 3
Opponent - Humans
Score - 0(2)-3(5)

A picture of munson's human team (the lovely Greek-themed miniatures from Impact). Despite him still suffering from the night before, munson's aggressive style made absolute mincemeat of my little guys.

The roll at the beginning meant I got to receive the ball and therefore go first. Mwahaha - I fired up the chainsaw and killed his Ogre straight away before he even got to move :) This was about the best moment of the match, however, and I ended the half 1-0 down (not too bad), but with only two big (and stupid, needing to roll 4+ before they can do anything) trolls and one goblin left. As this left me no defence, another three TDs rapidly followed, with me down to one troll by the end who still managed to run, pick up the ball (!) and head for his end zone. To no avail. I have now been officially 'munsoned'. Funny though!

Game 4
Opponent - Humans
Score - 2(1)-2(2)

An awesome first half for me against Jason saw me score twice to end the half 2-0 up. The goblin on the pogo-stick (I told you they were a silly team) scored both of them, Leaping over the astonished humans and speeding towards a risky ball snatch and sprint for the line each time. The photo below shows Jason putting a brave face on things as I wound up to score the 2nd.

The problem was that for the 2nd half, all my Secret Weapon wielders got sent off leaving me somewhat reduced in numbers (down to 8 compared to his 11) and unable to defend (have you worked out the theme of my weekend yet?) as is standard for Goblin teams. He scored twice and then went for the winner. First up he cleared the pitch (including a very sneaky set of Crowd Pushes) so that I had no players for my turn 7. On to his turn 8. With the ball carrier being 7 squares for the end zone and having a movement of 6, Jason took the least risky option of the 2+ roll (with a reroll to hand) needed to Go For It one extra square. Breath held until the dice came to rest, I gasped as he rolled a 1, then I have to admit whooping when his reroll also came up as 1. The moment of his disaster is captured below, where you can also see all my players in the KO'd or Dead and Injured boxes.

Game 5
Opponent - Wood Elves
Score - 0(2)-5(3)

A game of endless misery. Sense of humour mismatch with my opponent, coupled with him managing an astonishing twenty-one succesful dice rolls in a row in a single turn, compared to me rolling eleven 1s in a row!!! Least said, soonest mended.

Game 6
Opponent - Chaos Dwarfs
Score - 0(0)-2(2)

My opponent (Val) really entered into the spirit of carnage and disaster that my dice-rolling wreaked upon my own team with great humour. By the end we were giggling like schoolchildren as we worked out more and more outrageous things that his team could attempt.

The pic above shows the ball coming to rest after I failed to roll a 3 on two attempts. The number of my players on the pitch reduced very rapidly from this point onwards. Only the truly unlikely (5+ dodge, 5+ dodge, 3+ dodge, 2-dice his choice block, pick up on a 5+) things worked for me, but it wasn't enough. My tournament ended with great hilarity, if little actual gaming success.

I will definitely be going to this one next year!

I will also definitely be taking a team that doesn't get smooshed so easily. Lesson learned.

Mustering musings

2009-06-30T10:19:00.004+01:00

Being on a real Impetus kick painting up my HYW miniatures from Corvus Belli, I realised last night after posting that I haven't shared my intended army list. I've roughed out a 500 point list, and then sub-selected a 300 point list from that. There may be some tweaking (I may swap out the Hobilars and the Levies for some Cannon), but for now, here goes:

Command:
Average CS, Fair Commander
32 pts

Cavalry:
1 x King and Household
1 x English Men-at-Arms
1 x Hobilars
82 pts

Missile Troops:
5 x Longbowmen
115 pts

Melee Troops:
2 x Dismounted Men-at-Arms
1 x Welsh Spearmen
1 x French Levies
71 pts

Total = 300 points

On a side note, I probably won't get much further on those archers for a few days as I'm off to another Blood Bowl tournament this weekend. Given the lack of a podium finish with a super-competitive team, I'm going to go for the ultimate joke team - goblins. I had fun painting these guys up a couple of years ago, and will be aiming for the Stunty Cup instead of 'real' victory.

In fact if you look here, my team is in the gallery on the Stunty Cup site. Scroll down to the seventh picture, I think.

Green and White

2009-06-29T21:46:00.008+01:00

Beautiful wife was sorting through photos of beautiful son (18 months tomorrow!), so I got started on a base-worth of archers. I've chosen a green and white colour scheme in honour of the archers raised by Edward of Woodstock, the 'Black Prince', from Cheshire in the mid 1300s.

Just a quick snap from the workbench:

"But Stephen, one of those archers has a hammer, not a bow!"
"That's right, Skippy, but someone has to drive the stakes in to keep those naughty French aristos at bay!"

I was sorting through the great pile of sprues of CB figs in my lead pile and found him in the 'Armed Peasants' pack and thought "Ah-ha!" I hope it works out...

In harness, and ready for action

2009-06-24T22:26:00.003+01:00

I'm a happy geek! I got my first base of English dismounted Men at Arms / Knights / whatever you want to call them completed and based tonight (thanks, Jet, for the basing advice).

It's late and real world work is going to be heavy going tomorrow, so that's it for now, I just wanted to show off my handiwork. Not perfect by any means, but for a first go, and as a gaming piece, I'm pretty chuffed. Just another couple of hundred to paint!

These are Corvus Belli miniatures and are 15mm scale, based for Impetus.

From the front:

and behind:

and an crossbow bolt's eye view:

A little bizarre, perhaps, but my favourite is the trumpeter; I really like the linen colour I got on his coif.

GT photo

2009-06-17T11:59:00.004+01:00

I couldn't find any pictures of any of my games from the GT, but I did find a photo of me taken by my last opponent, Frank. I grabbed it from his website, so here I am looking particularly snazzy (read: knackered after two days solid gaming and liquid refreshment) in my spectacularly geeky club BB gaming shirt:

Over my shoulder you can even see a girl!!!! She was geeking away with the rest of us. It may not surprise you that out of 170-odd coaches, there were probably fewer than half a dozen ladies. You can also see the cod-medieval way the hall is set up. I'm only gently mocking, because it does add to the atmosphere hugely.

Oh, and I fixed my last post with the proper results from my games.

Back in the saddle

2009-06-13T19:34:00.006+01:00

After all that painting (every evening for a couple of hours) to get Mike's team finished in time for the GT (more on that in a few lines), I haven't felt like doing any active geeking until yesterday. I've sent off for a few supplies for basing miniatures etc, but no more than that. So yesterday evening I got the brushes out and painted up a squig (think toothy, psychotic space-hopper allied to orcs and goblins) as a turn counter for my Bloodbowl goblin team. It's not finished, was kinda rushed, and is pretty functional so I haven't bothered taking a picture, but it's got me back in the saddle.

So, the GT. Or, to give it its full title, the Blood Bowl Grand Tournament held in Lenton at Games Workshop's eagle-clad centre for world domination. I didn't take my camera (again - I'm rubbish, sorry), and all the ones I took on my phone came out as vaguely orange blobs. There were six games, three per day, and I took a team (Skaven) that I thought would be pretty good as a tournament team. Didn't quite work out like that, but I did finish 48th out of 170-odd, just outside the top quarter. For those not used to BloodBowl, the number in brackets is how many Casualties caused. I'll put my result first, then my opponent's.

Game 1
Opponent - Dwarfs
Score - 0(0)-2(3)

A nice bloke (Simon) as my opponent, so in that sense a pleasant start to the tournament. However, all my team got beaten up or killed, leaving me no way to defend. I was down to three players by turn 5 (of 8) of the first half. My notes for the game trail off at this point and just read 'oh dear oh dear oh dear'.

Game 2
Opponent - Norse
Score - 3(5)-1(3)

Incredibly random. BB is meant to be a game of barely controlled chaos, and this lived up to that billing. Every possible random event happened at least once and we laughed our way through those two hours. On top of that my team which had proved so fragile in game 1 came back with a vengeance - take that! Kerpow! My opponent Steve proved to be a top bloke, so the tourney continued well.

Game 3
Opponent - Lizards
Score - 1(2)-2(3)

Although highly amusing, every other dice-roll I made failed and led to a player of mine being sent off for fouling or breaking their neck while trying to dodge between enemy team members. Sigh. Dan (the other guy) played the advantages the dice gave him well, and we spent a chatty couple of hours across the table.

End of day one, and 1 win to 2 losses. I tried to be grown up about it, but couldn't help feeling a little frustrated over the way the (mis)fortunes of war(gaming) had conspired against me.

Game 4
Opponent - Halflings
Score - 1(2)-1(3)

I was delighted to see I had drawn 'flings as my first game of the day. They're basically a joke team, so I felt my luck had turned for the better. Not quite. For the first half I rolled a 1 or skull on over 2/3 of all dice rolls. I've blotted the horror from my mind, but I do know it ended with me 1-0 down after having received the ball at kick-off. The second half started in the same way but, turn by turn, it swang back to me and in the dying moments of the game, when it seemed I was fated to drown in a shallow muddy puddle of failure and self-pity, there came a spark of possibility. Knocking the ball free from grubby Halfling hands as they steam-rollered towards my end-zone, assisted by their treemen, I snatched at the ball, frantically pelted across the width of the pitch before launching a last gasp pass over half the length of the field. A fingertip catch, a scamper, lung bursting, and the draw (Draw?! Against 'flings?!) was mine.

Game 5
Opponent - Orcs
Score - 6(1)-2(1)

Now that is how skaven are meant to play. Every sniff of a ball, and I snatched it and speeded away to another touchdown. The balance of that speed is a certain fragility, but the greenskins obviously had forgotten their knuckle-dusters, and so I escaped almost unharmed. It seemed so unfair, in a way, and he took it in such good humour, that we took a longer break at half time and went to the bar so I could buy him a drink. Huge fun, great gaming companionship, and a much needed victory.

Game 6
Opponent - Skaven
Score - 3(3)-2(2)

I was paired up against Frank, a rather well-known BB figure, a German who designs and produces the most incredible scratch-built stadiums for the game (and scenery for every game he plays). I was intrigued to see how a skaven-skaven game played out. In the end it was a bit one-sided (he grabbed a last turn TD which makes it look less one-sided than it felt in the game) as my bad luck from earlier in the tournament now struck my opponent, and I was (if I say so myself) 'in the zone' and seemed able to see how the game was going to play out better than him. He took it really well, and I think still had fun. I thanked him for the game, commiserating when things didn't work out, but underneath I was taking a savage delight in my triumph. Does that make me a bad person? Or overly geeky? Both?

I had umm-ed and ahh-ed over the pretty high fee for the weekend, but in the end it was worth every penny. Even in the games I lost, and the moments when I had to overcome an internal pettiness over failed dice-rolls, I loved the whole thing - the good-natured, easy comradeship that sprung up even more than in any other tourney I've been to. Hurrah for geeking, and bring on the next tournament at the beginning of July.

Da London Eye

2009-06-01T19:58:00.008+01:00

Yay for me - I finished a project! With a mere 15 minutes before I had to set off for the BBGT, the varnish on Mike's team was dry and I could pack them up to hand them over. He seemed pleased with them (and promptly played them against Malc, leading them to a crushing victory), and I was satisfied with the result.

Rush job photos, but they're gone now, so this is the best you're gonna get:

lineorcs

throwers

black orc blockers

blitzers

troll and goblins

Team photo

I promise you that the red has more subtlety than it appears in the pictures.

Recruitment drive gathers pace

2009-05-18T12:07:00.002+01:00

I got the remaining three blitzers painted for Mike's team last night, they just need their team 'eye' transfers adding - I'll varnish the whole team in one go once they're finished. We're heading up to the Blood Bowl Grand Tournament (BBGT) a week on Friday and I hope to have the whole lot done by then. Apart from anything else it means I'll be able to afford to pay for my room!

Once they're all done I'll put up a team photo and then I'll actually have completed a project!!!

New recruits for Da London Eye

2009-05-11T18:51:00.004+01:00

Mike's team (currently known as Da London Eye) got its first regular players completed yesterday. Not varnished yet, but everything else is finished on them, I think. I won't varnish them until all figures are finished in case any touching up needs to be done.

I'm still playing with camera settings, and these have come out with the red looking a bit funny, and the rest a little dark. The quest for decent photos continues....

Black Orc Blocker, Thrower, Blitzer

Lineman, and the two goblins allowed

BB Skaven

2009-05-11T17:22:00.003+01:00

I got home early from work tonight (it was too windy for the kids to do any archery, so I cancelled the club shoot), and knocked up a crude light tent out by cutting windows into a cardboard box and covering the holes with tissue paper. Here are the pictures of my initially victorious, but now a little battered, skaven team; the Cheesemongering Vermin...

Score marker, Apothecary, Turn marker, Reroll counters

Linerats (aka, cannon fodder)

The Gutter Runners - super speedy scoring machines

Thrower, Rat Ogre, Blitzers

I don't like the way I've done the bases (I painted these about four years ago when I was just getting back into gaming after a long hiatus), and may at some point strip and repaint them all. I do love these models and think I could do the sculpting much more justice now.

The bitter dregs of defeat

2009-05-02T21:16:00.002+01:00

Like that last mouthful of coffee from a cafetiere with a dodgy plunger, today's gaming was a bitter pill to swallow :(

The Cheesemongering Vermin were confident after their triumphant last outing, but today was a different story. It turns out that relying on your opponent to fail the rolls needed to dump-tackle your ball-carrier is not a sufficiently tactical approach and I was punished for it, losing two of the three games and only just edging the third. Hey, ho.

Pictures of my team (not the games - left camera at home again) to follow.

Who are you calling a chicken?

2009-04-26T20:29:00.007+01:00

Um, the chickens, actually.

Don't worry, I'm not going all surreal on you, and this isn't going to become a farming blog, but we've finally got some chickens. Three, in fact. They are ISA Browns and came from a battery-farm rescue run on Saturday. It was all very cloak-and-dagger, with texts telling me where to meet and when (the Carphone Warehouse car park at 1pm, in case you're interested), and what car they'd be driving. When I got there, there were little huddles of vaguely do-gooder looking middle-class folks (me included, despite the new thug look - see photo later) who would glance at each other and mutter "Chickens?" before the groups would coalesce.

Got my three 'girls', all moth-eaten from the cages, and brought them home to their new and freshly finished palace. They settled in straight away and have given us our first two eggs. I'm a happy hen-keeper :)

The palace, inhabited at last, and all my own work

Me (newly and mistakenly shaven-headed) introducing son and heir to layers

The first egg; beautiful, isn't it?

No rest for the geeky

2009-04-23T13:52:00.003+01:00

Just added my 'Unfinished Projects' list to the sidebar on the right. Blimey - that's a lot of painting still to do!

I have to get that one remaining pesky skaven finished by the Blood Bowl Grand Tournament (BBGT) on the final weekend of May, and really want to get Mike's stuff finished by then as well.

I think I'll add a 'Painted Mininatures' bit as well to cheer me up!

Carcassone

2009-04-18T20:06:00.004+01:00

I managed to get a full refund in vouchers for a duplicate copy of The Great Warbow by Robert Hardy that I got as a present, so today I snapped up a copy of the award-winning Carcassone. It's been like one of those films you know you must see, but never have: a game I've never played and always felt I should.

It looks really good. Lots of beautiful tiles, and on a first read-through it would appear to have fairly simple gameplay, but room for cunning thought.

Cheesemongering vermin

2009-04-12T12:50:00.007+01:00

Before I start, apologies that there are no photos of the games for this entry - I forgot my camera.

The day began dark and wet, but thanks to Chris', erm, "assertive" driving we were soon over at Dan's for a hot breakfast to set us up for Fenbowl II - a full day of league Bloodbowl play. We're running the league standings on percentage win, with a draw counting as half a win, and a minimum number of games having to be played to be in for a chance at the league title.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I missed the first league date because of my mother's 60th, so I was keen to get a couple of good results under my belt to catch me up. Having chosen the speedy but fragile Skaven (think bad-tempered, short rat-men), I was also hoping not to lose too many players. I was successful on all counts :)

Game 1:

I drew Dan's Wood Elf team first up. I knew this would be a potentially high-scoring game, with both our teams being quick and designed for ball-handling, not bashing. Dan's also got plenty of Woody experience. I was glad I'd chosen all four available Gutter Runners (the fastest players in the whole game) to boost my attack as it was end-to-end play for the whole match, with me edging the win at 4-3 by pulling off a ridiculous move that involved about twenty dodge rolls, picking up the ball in a tackle zone, passing the longest pass possible needing a 5+ (on a d6), catching, dodging a bit more and then having to Go For It (sort of like an afterburner that lets you go up to two extra squares dependent on a dice roll) to score. I like speed, especially after playing a couple of slow teams recently.

Game 2:

Mike's Humans. Mike plays a determined, driving game; a bit like a rolling maul in rugby union. I knew this would be tricky, and after I lost the ball immediately after having been kicked off to, I figured I'd thrown it away. Fortunately, by continuously chucking expendable linerats under the feet of his maul for the remaining seven turns of the first half I managed to shut him out. 0-0 at the half. I kicked to him at the beginning of the 2nd half, and prepared for another desperate 8 turns of defence. Luckily, forcing Mike to pass from an awkward position spilled the ball for me to very quickly counter and score. It's what Skaven do. Lots and lots more defence later, and a bit of unlucky dice for the Humans kept it at 1-0. Phew!

Game 3:

Chris and his Amazons. An unusual team in that they all have the same basic stats, all can Dodge but only have average Agility, are all moderately fragile, none are particularly quick. I've only played against them once before. It was at a tournament, when I smashed them, so was feeling fairly confident. It started evenly enough, but a couple of turns it all went my way, dice-wise. I didn't really have to do anything tactical - just pounce whenever the ball came loose, rely on being able to pull off ridiculous strings of dice-rolls to dodge anywhere I chose, and then score. 4-0.

So, I now have a 100% win record which puts me top of the table and two of my gutter runners rolled Movement stat increases, making them MA=10. Nice!

The only downside to the whole day was giving myself mild concussion getting back into the car by smacking the back of my head into the door-frame hard enough to make the whole vehicle rock noticeably. I've never been concussed before and it was a bit like being seventeen again and trying desperately to hide from my parents that I had been to the pub on the way home from school for a beer, only without the pleasure of drinking the beer. Ouch!

Team (very small) update

2009-03-29T15:50:00.004+01:00

Okay, not so much an update on more painting, but slightly better photos:

Real life, plus a bit of geeking

2009-03-29T15:31:00.004+01:00

Been quiet on here for several days for a whole raft of reasons: work, ebaying a bunch of stuff, my wife's birthday (lots of chef-ing gained me many brownie points), and some 1:1 scale construction -

The peaked frame you can see buried at the back of my landlord's untidy barn will soon be a palatial residence for some ex-battery hens that we're getting just after Easter. Eggs/Easter, it all seems pretty apt. I'd also be a smallholder if it were financially viable, so this is at least a step in that direction!

In amongst all that more important stuff, I've also managed to finish off Mike's Trollslayer miniature that he needs for the BloodBowl Grand Tournament in May. It's being held at GW's fascist looking headquarters (all those giant eagles!), and they're pretty unforgiving if you use any other company's miniatures, so I painted this up to fill the spiked 28mm boots of his usual, (gasp!) non-GW positional player.

I'm pretty pleased with him, and using the new lamp has given me plenty more light to take the photo with. I think it's an improvement, but my photos still aren't quite what I'm after; perhaps I will have to make a light-box after all. He's standing on the beginning of the other thing that's been getting in the way of my painting - the start of my town buildings for Legends of the Old West. I'm basically using the method shown at Gugnir's site, along with inspiration from Geektactica, and Imelda. I've got the first floor/base built and will be getting started on the walls as soon as I finish this post.

Love is a magnifier light

2009-03-05T12:32:00.007Z

As alluded to at the end of a previous entry, I've got a new light:

It was my Valentine's Day present. None of your overpriced set-menus or cliched roses - a present with real affection, especially as now my dear lady will be in danger of becoming a painting widow again.

Hopefully it will also give me the eextra light needed to take some decent photos. I used it to snap some shots of the OOP early '90s warhammer dwarfs from my parents' attic to illustrate my ebay auctions. Why not check them out for a bargain. And to help me fund the Old West project that is taking shape?

Treasure!

2009-02-26T19:50:00.003Z

Having resigned myself to missing out on the new BB season opener to go to Mum's 60th (which was great and she really enjoyed it), I was geekily rewarded. She and Dad gave me a bin bag of my old gaming stuff from the loft that had been up there for over ten years. It was full of nostalgic gaming treasure from the early '90s:

- Talisman (main game plus four expansions)

- TSR's War of the Ring (the one with millions of tiny card counters and the massive map of Middle Earth)

- 4th Edition Warhammer and Battle Magic (pretty much pristine and complete except for the miniatures)

- some early '90s dwarfs, including a few cannons and two gyrocopters

- a D&D starter box from about 1990

- and (my favourite!) Man O' War (again pristine but without the starter ships)

- seven Dwarf ships for MOW

My wife was fairly kind in how little she laughed at me in my unrestrained boyish delight. Now I just have to decide whether it all goes on Ebay, as I have no storage space or finances for another gaming system. Although selling MOW would be a wrench....

Finally - dice rolling in 2009!

2009-02-19T21:38:00.011Z

Woohoo! I got my first games of 2009 in today over at Chris' place. His wife and baby were away so Malc and I went over for a few hours for a bit of BloodBowl. We actually played a variant called StreetBowl which I'd heard of but never played before. It's a streamlined version of the game with fewer players on a smaller pitch, set in the narrow alleyways of a crowded city rather than a proper stadium. The random events of the game are a little more low rent and humourous - we had three kick-offs during the day that were interrupted by donkeys runnning through the line of scrimmage!

Game 1:

This was me against Chris (I'm at the near end with my Nurgle team against his Humans). We were (okay, I was) a little slow getting on top of all the little differences with the usual game, but the increased level of anarchy and violence was entertaining. It ended with me snatching a last minute equaliser with Chris' team reduced to a mere three - the others either having been injured or snuck off to the local tavern (no, really!).

Game 2:

Here's Malc's Lizardmen team in all their purple glory. A combination of heavy-hitting from the larger ones and incredible dodging ability from the little ones (and a small imbalance in dice rolling) led to my team rolling over for a soft 1-0 defeat. I was very good and only sulked a little bit.

Game 3:

Malc and Chris faced off. I was kinda distracted during this game reading through Chris' Legends of the High Seas rulebook and planning a Naval crew, but I think it ended with Chris delivering a bit of a kicking to Malc. Served him right :)

Game 4:

Me and Chris again. We were playing a bit quicker by this point, and the game became a lot more violent. This was partly due to some extremely jammy dice rolling from yours truly, but also because we were getting the hang of lining opposing players up for a good smash against the alleyway walls. Like I said, my dice were good, and it was a bit one-sided (although games against Chris are never that one-sided as he's quite the veteran). Full time saw me win 2-0, having caused twice as many Casualties (not a random capitalisation, an in-game term) as him.

All in all, a good fun day's gaming. Nice to be doing more social geeking again.

Ah-harr, pardner!

2009-02-10T19:43:00.003Z

So, there's this friend of mine, Chris, who basically lured me back into gaming a few years back after a decade or so on the wagon. Anyway, he's usually the one to find new projects that he tries to get us involved in, and yes, I'm usually the first to submit (which is why I have a bunch of Aeronautica Imperialis planes sitting half-painted in a box somewhere). He has been trying to get games of Legends of the High Seas going - "It's only a few miniatures", "Pirates are cool", "You can borrow my figures to begin with". I swear he'd have been a fantastic crack-dealer in another life!

With a few extra quid in my pocket this month, and with a bunch of stuff about to get flogged on ebay, I thought I'd take a look at the Warhammer Historical site and see what the fuss was about. Looks ok. So I had a look at the Black Scorpion site as I'd heard they make nice pirates. Big mistake. They do make nice pirates, but they also make luvverly cowboys, varmints and lawmen. Instantly I think "If I get some gunslingers and Legends of the Old West as well as the pirates I won't have to pay shipping; that would save me money!"

"Hi, my name is Rab, and I'm a miniatures addict...."

Blood Bowl is back!

2009-02-07T13:54:00.007Z

Our local BB (that's Blood Bowl to the uninitiated - a sort of fantasy races rugby or yankee football) league is about to kick off its new season. Actually, we have two; one in which you can play whoever, whenever, and one in which we all try to get together at someone's house and play all day about once every two months. It's that second league that's just about to restart. Frustratingly, I'm going to miss the first day of games as it's my mother's 60th birthday, but that hasn't stopped me getting excited about it as well.

The most exciting part of it all, in painting terms, is that Mike has commissioned me to paint him an orc team based on The Gouged Eye team mentioned in the 'fluff'. Now, you mustn't let the fact that he lost an eye (yes, I know, ironic choice of theme for his team!) make you think he's so desperate for someone with depth perception that he'll take even my painting; he assures me it's because he likes it, which is very flattering.

Anyway, I'm determined to do as good a job as I can, and have already finished the star player for the team, Varag Ghoulchewer (who comes up with these names, eh? As if our hobbies didn't sound geeky enough...). I'm pretty pleased with it, and I hope you believe me that it's my poor photography that makes it look like it's been dunked in yacht varnish.

I really struggle with getting good photos of miniatures, I end up having to faff around with the brightness and contrast in Photoshop which makes them look really glossy and steals the top highlight and bottom shade. I think it's because I don't have enough light on my painting desk - more on that in a week or two, I hope - suffice to say that my wife is a pearl beyond price!

Smile - you're on camera!

2009-01-31T20:41:00.004Z

Here are the two photos I failed to upload the other day. Unbloodied and unbowed, I struggled with HTML for the first time until I understood what was going wrong.

So, from the back and front, ladies and gentlemen I give you some English nobles. Dressed to kill and ready to fight for God, England..... and if a ransom or two should come their way then, well, it would be rude not to :)

I have done a bit of tidying up (particularly on the cadence mark on knight second from left) since taking these shots; that electronic eye is pretty unforgiving of a slipped brushstroke, eh?

More painting, but no more pictures

2009-01-26T20:51:00.002Z

I got a solid hour of painting in on Sunday afternoon. It went pretty well and I got a few more of those foot knights finished, as well as a bit more progress on my Nurgle team's beastmen for BloodBowl.

Like many other gamers/geeks out there (I think), I rather enjoy the planning and cataloguing of whatever project I'm undertaking or planning. This meant that I had a very pleasant time sketching out the coats of arms I've already painted and planning some extra ones for knights that are as yet bare metal while entertaining the son and heir by making silly faces and playing catch with him at the same time. Multi-tasking? Ha! It's easy ;)

Second time lucky?

2009-01-22T17:40:00.014Z

I tried to put this picture in my previous post, but no joy; maybe I was doing something wrong? Anyway, I've got a couple of those knights already painted (gold star for me!):

Edit: okay, I've got the picture uploaded but it only accepts the uncropped picture.

The painting is under way

2009-01-22T17:08:00.006Z

Not being a great photographer, the pictures I'm going to post mightn't be the best (any tips that don't involve buying fancy kit would be gratefully received). I did promise to share, though, so here goes:

A mixture of undercoated Corvus Belli foot knights, along with a monk and trumpeter from the command packs. I've used GW's 'Chaos Black' spray undercoat, more from habit than anything else.

I love the detail on these figures and, at about 34p/fig, perfectly reasonable to my mind.

Swelling the ranks

2009-01-22T10:52:00.008Z

Although I mainly play fantasy games (Bloodbowl, Elfball and occasionally Aeronautica Imperialis) because that's what the locals play, I'm a historical gamer at heart. I just love the medieval period in particular - all that chivalry, heraldry, castles, courtly love, peasants being kept in their place... And of course, lots of Frenchy-bashing ;)

The rules that I've settled upon are called Impetus, by Dadi and Piombo. They're for large-element based miniatures, so each unit can be a mini diorama. I've never quite got the hang of more than simple basing, but I'm hoping to work on that as I get stuck in to {drum roll} my major project for 2009!

This will be to paint, base (and get to play with, dammit) two 300pt armies (one English, one French) for the Hundred Years War. I figure if I do both sides then my gaming buddies have no excuse not to give some proper historical gaming a go. I'm going to use Corvus Belli miniatures throughout, except for one base of welsh spearmen from Feudal Castings (an idea I nicked from Jet's top-notch 'Geektactica' blog) and the final figures arrived last night, which was a real geeky pick-me-up after an incredibly long day teaching followed by parents' evening.

Now all that remains is to paint all couple of hundred figures! Oh, and to make my task 'easier', I've never painted anything smaller than 28mm figs before; the gallery I plan to put on here may end as more of a reassurance than inspiration ("At least my painting looks better than this guy's - what is he painting with, a toothbrush?").

Begin

2009-01-21T11:55:00.000Z

I've found that the blogs of other gamers can be a source of great inspiration - painting, new games, reviews, modelling techniques. Really useful and interesting stuff.

I'll be posting the progress of various painting and gaming projects here to keep me on track, act as a personal record I can look back on and, hopefully, someone else will find it useful, too.