31 August 2009

Excuses, excuses....

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.