I've got a bad feeling about this...

The bad feeling? Not that there'll be another set of abominations like Episodes 1 to 3, because this looks absolutely, hysteria-inducingly, excellent. No, the "bad feeling" is like every penny in my wallet suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

You see, as well as focussing my oldhammering on a few specific models (Got a C31 hill troll spare? Send it my way, there's a good fellow!) to round out warbands I've accrued the lead for already, I've been captured by the idea of the Star Wars: X-Wing game and will hopefully be getting it for my birthday in a few weeks time.

Tokens! Dice! Pre-painted ships! Star Wars!

Like a GW boxed set, however, there's only so much you can do with the included models (an x-wing and two ties) and I've been pricing up gaming mats, more fighters, the Falcon (of course - duh!), and possibly a larger ship or two. I blame two things for my fall into a new game, aside from that trailer above. First, my dad took me to see the whole trilogy as my first cinema trip, aged about five. Second, the amazing LucasArts fighter sims for the pc, X-Wing and Tie Fighter. What chance did I have in overcoming the Jedi mind tricks after that?

May the force be with you,
Rab

Shield quandary

Last night I got this fellow from "initial drybrush for metals" up to this stage, and fairly pleased I was too. Black and white checks, stripy trousers, and go-fasta-red all included for maximum orciness:

Stickas!

The sun is shining, the neighbourhood is quiet, my marking is all completed, as are all the DIY jobs I planned to do this fortnight. Life is good! The only downside is that I haven't been able to organise any gaming time due to (enjoyable) family commitments, but to make up for this I have been getting a good bit of painting done.

I posted last week about the "one hour challenge" and my enjoyment of the focus it inspired, along with my surprise at how well the figures turned out. I've tried to keep hold of some of that "just get on with it" mentality for my evening painting in front of a film or suchlike with my wife. I say some of that focus because, for me at least, getting a miniature finished in an hour took total concentration. Which isn't very sociable! Nevertheless, I've now painted all the goblin archers ("stickas" in WFB 3rd Armies nomenclature) that I own. They are all from Kev Adams sculpts from Crooked Claw and include the two that were part of their most recent crowdfunder (the two on the right in the picture below). When I've made a more significant dent in the heap of unpainted lead I've accumulated, I'll either wait for more archers from them, or expand the unit by picking up some of the other post-GW sculpts that Kev has done - I don't want any duplicate sculpts, that would just feel wrong for a horde of gobbos!

So, pictures...

I rather like the variation in size of the sculpts, a nice nod towards a Froudian mentality for goblins

 And then in close up...

Bad dogs!

The dogs come later, but let me start with colour, and our perception of it, which has always been of interest to me. I currently teach two students with extreme red/green colourblindness, one of whom also has trouble with shades of brown. Strange, but that's more of an aside than anything else.

Perhaps, as would seem appropriate for such a post, I should illustrate my point. Which of these looks "right"?

Stuff from the interwebz #7 - bood wargames

Every now and again, a crowdfunder comes along when I think "wow!" - but usually my inner Scrooge steps in and stops me from indulging. Or I catch sight of the, by my standards, large pile of unpainted lead in my basement and the cold hand of restraint firmly clutches the purse-strings closed. Fantasy cavalry tends to overcome both these purchasing blocks. There was the Crooked Claw indiegogo for their wolf riders, and now there are dwarfs on ponies from Bood Wargames (no, I'd never heard of them before either!).

Photo taken from their website

An hour (and no more)

Second time round I managed it! A 28mm figure, from undercoat to finished in one hour*. Hurrah for me!

An hour (and a bit)

There is a "speed painting" challenge going on over on the Oldhammer Forum and on the Oldhammer Community pages on Facebook, inspired by king of the 3rd edition bestiary, Orlygg (James Taylor). The idea is to just get some paint on lead, rather than pootling about on t'internet. Being in dire need of turning my covetous acquisitions into gaming pieces, I took up my brushes last night in a sudden burst of insomnia and.... failed. Sort of. I didn't make it within the hour, taking about an hour and twenty minutes instead, adding the basing bits before taking the photos.

Capra Sapiens

Caprids - capra sapiens

+++ Almost indistinguishable from the abhuman homo sapiens variatus (the "beastmen"), Administratum researchers have nevertheless shown Caprids to have evolved independently and should therefore be classed as xenos. Thorough Inquisitory investigation has shown none of the expected taint of Chaos that their visages might suggest and that, accordingly, they may be taken into the service of the Emperor, subject to standard xenos protocols. +++

The costs of gaming - March 2015

After a rather abstemious start to the year, when I naively entertained hope that I might keep my net gaming expenditure to under £150, I got rather carried away this month...

Jan 2015  -  £0.00 (0/0/0)
Feb 2015  -  £24.99 (5/5/0)

Mar 2015

• BOUGHT - pair of old pink horrors (Oldhammer trading FB page) - £8.00
• BOUGHT - Olley Ogryn (ebay) - £8.61
• BOUGHT - seven Future Skirmish figures to use in Necromunda (Forlorn Hope Games) -  £10.50
• BOUGHT - three chaos dwarfs, a sorcerer, two aliens, four bitey little monsters, and some bird heads (CP Models) - £19.00
• TOTAL for March - £46.11   (20/7/-13)

Total net. expenditure for 2015 to date     = £71.10
Remaining planned expenditure for 2015 = £78.90

I also thought I'd add in something similar to the LAF lead-hoarders vow, recording the number of figures purchased versus the number painted, which is what the numbers in brackets after each month's total represents - (purchased/painted/net total for the month). So, here you go:

Figures purchased in 2015  = 25
Of which, painted to date    = 0
Total no. figures painted     = 12

Net. hoarding status = -13

Hmm, not such positive numbers. I hope I'll get some green numbers up there soon, for the painting and hoarding at least!

Rab