Insta-what-now?

Blogging has been the thing that has continued to feel like a drag since more-or-less recovering my mojo after a slump in pretty much everything last Spring. It has felt like a chore; like something I ought to be doing and it has hung over me somewhat.

Utterly daft, considering this hobby is my escapism from real-world responsibilities!

So, I've gone down the micro-blogging route for now. Maybe that's where I'll stay, maybe I'll run them side-by-side (certainly Averaigne reports won't work anywhere but here), maybe I'll end up back solely here. We'll see.

In the meantime, if you're interested in keeping an eye on what I'm up to (including my newly added interest of gaming the English Civil War in 10mm), I can be found on Instagram as @rabsgeekly.

Maybe I'll see you there?

Workbench Rampant

After a few months in which I've been using my desk for non-gaming creativity, I've has a burst of mojo. Geeking hasn't been abandoned in the interim, however, and my two sons and I are nearly half way through a 2-teams-each Bloodbowl league.

Fortunately I can fit two pitches side by side so the little Rablings can fluke their way to victory over me simultaneously... I am actually a little miffed that I've taught the older one to play skaven so effectively!

RaBBL season 1

Good afternoon, sports fans, and welcome to round two of the inaugural RaBBL league!

Last week saw a fantastic double-header with the Vantius Villains from the Northern wastes beating the pre-season favourites Moloch's Malefactors 3-1, although taking a pummeling in doing so. Meanwhile, the chaotic Beastly Bonecrunchers edged to a 2-1 win over the World's Edge Wyverns orc team.

And now we get the winners of those two matches competing to take an early lead in the championship. The weather is beautiful, the crowd of 18,000 are ugly as sin, the two teams (and their coaches!) are slavering psychopaths... perfect!

Two types of Bloodbowl

Last Thursday I finally (seriously, we reckon it must be two years since we managed it last) got over to antipixi's house to roll some dice. A lot of nonsense and school (it was results day, after all) was chatted first, but then Malc and I got down to a game of standard tabletop BB. I played Chaos Pact while Malc took Slann; the teams ran out to a massive crowd (mostly frogs) as the rain started to pour down on the pitch. Picking up the ball would be an ongoing problem in the wet weather.

Double-header

As it's six nations season, a request for "monster rugby" from the Rablings was cheerfully accepted and, as they couldn't decide who would play first we played two games side-by-side while waiting for the England-Italy match to start.

On the left we have a vanilla Chaos versus Chaos Pact showdown (I was Pact), while on the right the lure of the snow troll from Impact miniatures was enough to ensure that my WIP Orc team would face a bunch of Norse. I ended up kicking to both and, with a little gentle support and reminders about TZs and assists, it wasn't long before...

...the younger boy had GFI twice to dive over in the corner. This was repeated in the chaos showdown, with older boy having an intuitive understanding that, when your ball carrier is in reach of the endzone but well out of reach of any opposition, it's the perfect time to gang-up on, and then gang-foul the big guys. That's my boy!

I tried to play a mix of overly risky to allow for failures to get them used to turnovers, and explaining the basics (TZs, assists, cages, screening the ball carrier, the order of moves) to get them thinking. It's still a little long for the younger one to concentrate so hard (I might try sevens with him), but the older boy carefully noted down the score, turn and dugouts so we can finish our game another day - it's currently one all and his turn to receive on the final turn of the first half to do some bashing to soften me up for the second half.

Funnily enough I showed him about "refusing a cage" and stepping back so I couldn't hit him, immediately before the game in which Italy did exactly that to England over the ruck. Life imitating gaming!

Toodles,
Rab

Dice

A few weeks back, a chap from the West Yorkshire Blood Bowl League (WYBBL) asked for a spot of help on FB to turn their logo into an appropriate format for lasering into some custom dice to use as giveaways in an upcoming tournament. Having enjoyed doing just that for BOYL '14, and wanting to not get rusty using Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as helping a fellow gamer out, I volunteered.

This is their logo:

[BB] Rats against Chaos Dwarfs

Despite it being a school-night, I had the house to myself so Malc came round for a game of bloodbowl and to try out the review copy of Deep Cut Studios new "mousemat" bloodbowl pitches. I'll be doing a proper review later on, but you can see it in the photos of our encounter.

Malc brought chaos dwarfs and I thought I'd give my skaven (painted over a decade ago) a run out. We used vanilla teams at 1.1M and Icepelt's LRB6 rulebook.

Ready to go, Malc chose to receive:

The lure of fumbbl

For various reasons (aesthetics, and not having a block of time at home of two hours guaranteed peace and quiet being the main ones), I've always steered clear of fumbbl. This week, however, the thirst for blood bowl was too strong and I've set up the World's Edge Wyverns as a team on there. I've even found time for two games, and won them both - it's almost like they know I'm new and so the dice program is giving me a free first hit of the Good Stuff. Nuffle be praised!

It has reminded me I'm rusty, though, particularly at the league play idea of ensuring SPPs are gathered by the right players, and that I should set up in case of a Blitz (which happened against me), and that fouling to clear the last player (ogre - all the other ogres and snots already gone) off the pitch on turn 16 is less important than scoring the 2nd TD - especially when you fail and get sent off!

Good stuff.

World's Edge Wyverns - 05

After a truly awful photo that I inflicted on the Blood Bowl FB group, I thought I'd better get a more representative and less Monet-like image of the newest recruits to the Wyverns.

First, two blitzers - getting in to the eyes was pretty awkward with these but I rather like the pose, it fits with my idea of them barging their way through an opposing set of linemen on their way to the end zone.

I also had time to paint up the rather lovely Bob Olley sculpt, Grogrut Crunchskull. Initially I was a little overwhelmed by the level of surface detail to his skin - creases, muscles, curled lips, eyelids, warts. As soon as I got started, though, I rather fell in love with Olley's style and found it hugely rewarding (and surprisingly rapid) to paint

World's Edge Wyverns - 04

Yesterday, after the migraine, and post-migraine exhausted sleep, had passed, I used my sick day afternoon wisely - by painting!

Here are the three new recruits to the team, blockers. At the moment there are only three because I'm hunitng down the final sculpt (I have trades - contact me!) but, like with the line-orcs, I'm pleased with how they've turned out. I could do better, but only if I spent an unreasonably long time on them, and I'm happy with the effort/outcome balance of these.  Ready to bash heads....

World's Edge Wyverns - 03

Happy May Day/Beltane/Bank Holiday Weekend/Rogation Sunday* (*delete as applicable)!

Being in something of an unexpected sulk that I'm not off playing pretendy-fun-toy-soldier games this weekend with all the cool nerds, either in Nottingham or in Ireland, I got on with some painting instead. I think this is probably a good measure of what I'm able to achieve with a 25/28mm figure for gaming purposes, so I'm happy to share these three line orcs for my emerging bloodbowl team. In keeping with my hardcore Oldhammer online-cred (like street-cred, but even more ultimately meaningless), these are all from 1988-ish.

Close-ups after the break...

World's Edge Wyverns - 02

Still an early WIP, but the colour scheme for this team seems to be coming together nicely.

I've gone for an off-white (the Canvas triad from Foundry) and dusky red (Foundry's British Redcoat triad) for the kit. I'm using Foundry's Moss Green triad for the orcs' skin and plan to use their Spearshaft triad with a spot of chestnut ink for the leather. Other spiky bits will be a dull steel/silver, and I'll use black for anything left over to avoid introducing another colour.

Any suggestions before I crack on with them and then apply it to the rest of the team?

Rab

Can't see the bloodbowl for the trees

Busy Rab is busy! But at least I've managed to clean up my sprawl of loose flock and random junk after the mammoth terrain building of earlier this month and get access to my painting table again. To celebrate I based, base-weighted, magnetised, and spray undercoated my main roster players for my orc bloodbowl team. I haven't sprayed the stars yet, and I still need to get hold of a non-duplicate blocker and Varag, as well as stripping Morg, a goblin and Fungus, but progress is being made.

World's Edge Wyverns - 01

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've recently picked up a 2nd Edition team of orcs for Blood Bowl who I think I will call the World's Edge Wyverns and paint them up in a dusky red and canvas-white scheme.

Yesterday the last parcel from swapping duplicated arrived and I have my team (well, almost - more on that later) ready for prepping:

Including this fine Olley troll who I believe was a named starplayer (Grogrut Crunchskull) in an earlier edition of the game.

Squirrel!

So, there I was, searching for the best product to fill my rivers with (pictures of the first flocking tomorrow, I reckon), when

Squirrel!

[BB] Rats vs Pact, 1st half

Good afternoon, holiday sports fans, and do we have a match for you today! Ain't that right, Jim?

Sure is, Bob, and made all the sweeter by the sponsor's of our match, Starblock's coffee - make sure you try it with their seasonal Eostran chocolatl syrup before the halflings get it all.

I always forget your sweet tooth, Jim, but back to the sweet sight of two teams of homicidal sportscreatures tearing each other apart for an inflated pig's bladder and a moment of glory. The Rats have the speed, but they're an inexperienced team; the Pact are wilier but I've heard that their training sessions are still full of the individualism that plagued them all last season. Which way is it going to go?

I'm not sure, Bob, but I've a fresh cup of coffee, the sun is shining... and there's the whistle. We're off!

First blood (bowl)

If ever there was a weekend to introduce my boys to BloodBowl, the one on which England take their thirteenth Grand Slam has to be it!

NAF Cup report - Part 2

Okay, with a spot of grub inside us, we geeked on into the evening. My third opponent, mark_turner, was much more entertaining and I began to enjoy myself again. He'd brought another of the NAF sanctioned, but unofficial by GW standards, teams - Underworld. This is a mix of goblins and skaven, so pretty slippery. I failed a Go For It into the end zone to score at the end of turn 4 (I only needed a 2+, ), and that was definitely where the rot set in. I got two Blitzes against me on kick-off etc. To give Mark his due, he took clever advantage of the luck going his way when it did (it wasn't all one way) which left me unable to capitalise on the good dice I got from time-to-time. That was something that really became apparent to me over the tournament - a new/underdeveloped Pact team hasn't much resilience or ability to change tack, at least with me on the coach's bench!

Mark, with his Deep Down Dodgers. They had a fabulous display stand as well, which I forgot to snap.

It all started well. This is just before I start my ultimately doomed dart down the left flank.

Game 3 (vs Underworld)
Score: 0-3
Casualties: 1-0
Result: Defeat

A good night of silly card games and a beer or two, then a slap-up breakfast of truly gargantuan proportions, and back to the gaming.

My first opponent of the Sunday was Simon, probably my favourite of the weekend. We had pretty much the same sense of humour and there was generally a good feeling of jollity not only on our table but on those nearby; everyone was having fun. My notes for the game start with "Simon rolled lots of ones" and while it didn't carry on that way (I got my share as well), I did have the better of the luck, something I needed against a well-developed orc team being handled rather well.

Simon, with one of his very short moves. Rolling ones tends to do that!

 Game 4 (vs Orcs)
Score: 2-0
Casualties: 1-1
Result: Victory

Then came lunch (weird timing, I thought, but something to do with contracted catering hours), and on to game four pretty sharpish. Opponent five was a viking, a genuine mountain of Scandinavian with the nickname netsmurf.

netsmurf using his dice tower to power his orcs into my little lead fellows

Yup, that's my minotaur in the dead box. My apothecary failed to bring him back. It just got worse from here.

This was a truly brilliant and chaotic game in the true spirit of bloodbowl. In a desperate attempt to hold on for the draw with less than half a team still on the pitch I pulled off my favourite turn of the weekend. I managed to dodge an isolated troll out of a tackle zone, run across the pitch, go for it twice through more tackle zones and into his cage. I then did exactly the same with my isolated ogre. I thought netsmurf was going to either have a heart attack or punch me. He was standing and bright red. He then managed the score and saw the funny side, congratulating me on my risk-taking.

Game 5 (vs Orcs)
Score: 1-2
Casualties: 0-4
Result: Defeat

And then onto the final game, desperately hoping to get a victory to balance my weekend, only to find I had chaos dwarves at the other end of the pitch. el_afable was a top bloke and it was a very pleasant way for the weekend to finish.

A rather demonic picture of a thoroughly nice chap.

 More silliness in this game. I was being rather reckless by now, and the same story as last game (conceding five casualties) meant there was little else I could try after about halfway through the first half. I managed a pretty good score, linking players and even with a dummy run but that was it and he got a well-deserved victory. As a sop to my pride I'd like you to know that I had the ball and was on my way deep into his half at the end of play.

Game 6 (vs Chaos Dwarves)
Score: 1-2
Casualties: 1-5
Result: Defeat

In the car on the way home the four of us chatted and pretty much came to the conclusion that, although there had been some great moments, we enjoy gaming time much more where we're actually playing against/alongside each other so will put more effort into organising days where that is possible.

Happy geeking,
Rab

NAF Cup report - Part 1

First, welcome aboard to Paul of the Man Cave as the latest follower of this blog.

Now, the long-promised report of my team's (less than) glorious outing to the NAF cup a couple of weekends back. For those unfamiliar with bloodbowl tournaments, it's a six game affair; three on the Saturday, three on the Sunday. Teams are chosen to a set value, as might be expected, and then before each game (having seen one's opponents) one player on the team is given one of the standard range of Skills they are permitted. Then it's two hours of frantic dice cursing... ;)

The calm before the storm - Warhammer World as we start to set up.

My first opponent was a nice chap called Rez who had brought Wood Elves. I wasn't expecting an easy game, tbh, as they're so damn fast and Chaos Pact, well, aren't. I'd been hoping to mash them up a bit, though, with a paltry Av7 across most of the team. Nope. Suddenly either Av7 had become impenetrable, or my little monsters were just weaklings. I enjoyed the game, honestly, but it was a bit of a shoeing. The pics below show the build up and then the scoring of the first I conceded. One of the nice things about tourneys is that you catch up with previous opponents to see how they're getting on and congratulate/commiserate as appropriate, which is what happened between me and Rez.

Opponent number 1 - Rez with his wood elves, Wyld Stallyns II

That'll be my defence ripped apart like soggy paper, then!

Touchdown! Hurray! But for the other team! Boo!

Game 1 (vs Wood Elves)
Score: 0-3
Casualties: 1-0
Result: Defeat

My second game wasn't quite so enjoyable. It dragged more than a little and my sense of humour and that of my opponent didn't match up at all. I won, which was nice, but I didn't bother taking any photos. I also felt I was using my team better and not making some of the silly positional errors that I had in the first game.

Game2 (vs Goblins)
Score: 2-0
Casualties: 5-2 (mwahahaaha)
Result: Victory

More results soon.
Rab

Hey! Ho! Logo!

(With apologies to the Ramones)

I'm getting so psyched about heading off to Nottingham for the NAF Cup tonight. Home by four, freshen up and change, collected by Chris at five, then we hit the road. A couple of hours of increasingly uncivilised banter later and we'll be there. Curry. Bugman's for a pint or two. Bed. Slap up breakfast then GAMING! Woohoo!

Bag of clothes packed? Check!
Bag of miniatures packed? Check!
Let's go!

Oh, and in my pre-gaming geeky trance, I even knocked up a team logo (based on the Houston Texans' logo), printed it, cut it out and stuck it on my carry case - how sad am I? What do you reckon to the logo?

The pink and green are the team colors, the white star eye of the original I've replaced with the chaos pact team symbol, and the bull's head seemed apt for a minotaur-captained team (he is the Moloch of Moloch's Malefactors).

I hope your geeking is keeping you as entertained as mine is me,
Rab