A gigantic giant

Several months back, MarkH (or MeierElfFanatic, depending on which forum you know him through) was having one of his collection refocusing sales and I snapped up some ex-Citadel Foundry handgunners, ten of whom will be seeing action in defence of Thantsant's and Erny's town walls in the BOYL siege in August. Having repeatedly missed out on the Marauder giant on ebay, I also picked up from him a wonderful Larry Elmore giant produced by Darksword miniatures, still sealed in its box... where it remained until today.

Look at that - signed and numbered! Does that make it more valuable/desirable? No idea!

The great cattle raid

All was quiet in the early evening mist of late summer around the village of Frith. Birds were singing lazily, the cattle were lowing gently as they ambled back towards the safety of their barn, and even the metronomic thock-thock-thock of Jerome the woodcutter's axe had lapsed into an irregular beat before stopping. In fact there he was, running from the woods, straight to the Seigneur's house and barging in through the door. A pause..... then shouting, lots of shouting, and the tolling of the bell.

The monsters had returned, and they were hungry....

As a break from the normal order of things, mini-Rab #1 (CJ) and #2 (EM) took on the role of the "baddies" today, using the models from my Tzeentch warband to raid Frith for cattle. I had to hastily assemble a force of peasants, and hopefully a hunter or two or even a questing knight would be attracted by the  and come to their aid. Without their cattle the winter ahead would be a hungry one!

We used Song of Blades and Heroes, without any consideration of balanced forces (except roughly in my head). To take control of a cow, a model had to move adjacent to it and use a success to grab it, with any extra successes to move the mobile burgers along. An uncontrolled cow would, at the start of the villagers' turn, move directly away from the nearest model on an even number or remain stock still on an odd number.

Would right prevail, or would the spawny dice of my children leave the village a smoking, desolate and cow-free ruin? Place your bets now!

It begins - EM charges in headlong to snatch a cow before the villagers can react

Stuff from the interwebz #3 - Trees from the green man

First off, for those following the ongoing saga in glorious, high-definition bloggovision, the consensus is to stick with the etched dice, even if it means the BOYL dice arrive after BOYL. The best of a less-than-satisfactory set of options, I feel.

With that out of the way, here's the post I want to share with you. El Senyor Verde of blogging and G+ and doubtless other online outlets has posted a rather snazzy way of producing good-looking trees for wargaming with. Now, I have buildings, a modular river, and even a hill or two but I am seriously lacking in arboricultural terrain around which and through which all manner of derring-do and dastardly villainy can take place in my own pretendy-fun-time elf-games. What I particularly like about this method is that it fits an aesthetic that appeals to me, one which drew me into the slightly over-enthusiastically goat-themed arms of the Oldhammer sphere. Something that looks top notch, but also one which I can imagine being able to achieve. Even more important to me is my hope that my proto-gamer progeny could play an active part in constructing them! Childcare and geeking in one easy package - result!

Here's a picture of the trees:

Houston, we may have a problem

A problem with our dice. The BOYL dice (goats and so on) that are on order have hit a snag in that the laser engraving machine they were due to be engraved on has, well, blown up. Or broken. Something that can't be fixed by turning it off and on again. The replacement machine, even with us bumped to the head of the queue wouldn't be able to churn them out for us until mid/late August. Too late! They can print the image rather than engrave it, and at a few pennies per dice cheaper, but that may not be what the fine folks who placed an order will want.

If you are a dice orderer for the BOYL 2014 dice, please go to this thread on the Oldhammer forum to let me know how I should sort this out.

Thanks and sorry!

Rab

New spacelords sighted

That lovely man, Doug, from em4 miniatures has been slaving away over hot moulds to return the sadly departed Spacelords range into active service. Well, there is actual lead you can buy from him now. This needs to be done directly by email, rather than through the website (enquiries AT em4miniatures DOT com).

As an appetizer, here are some ship's crew:

A spot more recruitment

Blimey it's quiet around here! Almost as though every single waking moment recently has been filled with work (boo!) and family things (yay!)...

Still, I put the finishing touches to my unit of handgunners for Whiskey Priest's "How to do Oldhammer" challenge, the Muster challenge, and the "oh dear, I need some painted figures for BOYL" challenge. Triple use, so I reckon that makes them worth thirty figures, right? Suit yourself.

Here's a pretty crappy phone photo as proof:

Keeping myself a-moo-sed

I'm afraid that's the only pun I've got for you today, comedy fans, but I do have a spot of painting progress to report.

First up, some dirty old cows:

Spacelords

Several of you, dear readers, may be well aware of the (mostly) excellent line of miniatures that formed the Metal Magic Spacelords line. Some of them have been available, quietly, from em4 miniatures for quite a while. Indeed, it's where my brilliant Phagon beastmen came from not too many weeks back. Doug at em4 is a good chap to trade with, by the way, so give him all the custom you can... not least because he's gradually bringing back the rest of the line! Woo-hoo!

There's a pretty lively and enthusiastic thread running over on the LAF where Doug is taking votes on the next codes to reintroduce. Vote for your favourites to get them made again! I'm particularly hopeful that some of the S.E.C.S. troopers make it back into the lead as they may be just the ticket to solve my RT imperial guard conundrum...

I'll play you out with some of the fabulous pictures that Viruz from the Metal Magic Forum has kindly made available from the collection of images that he and others have painstakingly built up over the years. If you want higher resolution pictures, you'll just need to join that forum as well!

BOYL is coming...

Sean Bean will be there*

That's right, gamers with good taste and sophistication (and the rest of you goat-loving weirdos), it's time to sign up on Gaj's form to make sure Foundry know you're coming and save you table space in their new place in Newark..

Go on, go, sign up now!

Oldhammer blog post:        here

Oldhammer forum thread:   here

Online sign-up form:           here

Maybe I'll see you there?

Rab

*Well, perhaps in spirit, certainly not in body. Sorry.

Dice!

I got two great parcels in the post today, one was lovely lead from phreedh, and the other was the sample for the BOYL dice. I have to say, I'm quite pleased with them!