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?

Happy New Year

Yup.

Happy new year, everyone!

Into the West

So in the morning Mrs Rab, the two mini-Rabs and I will be starting the seven-hundred-and-twelve hour drive down to the far tip of Cornwall (leaving Castle Rab well guarded, naturally) for what I hope will be a fabulous holiday. Sun, sea, cliffs, stone monuments both ancient and industrial, maybe even a dolphin or two. Plenty of Clannad and Show of Hands for the car, because folk. Lovely.

But, I hear you cry, what about geeking? Fear not, I have packed some Stuff for evenings or wet days. Taking a leaf out of Asslessman's book, I've got tools and bitz for making up another couple of chaos centaurs, as well as some medium-sized models that will probably need filing and gap-filling. If the putty mood doesn't take me I've also packed some squared paper and my notebook to extend Averaigne for a September restart.

On the other hand I might just eat fish and pasties, drink wine and beer, and skim stones into the ocean at dusk. Decisions, decisions...

Chess

So this has happened - the ankle biters decided they needed to know how to play. Excellent!

The lovely folding set Mrs Rab got me many moons ago from The Shambles in York

I had a really cool how-to book which, along with my dad, taught me the game as a boy

Fortunately, I rarely throw things away so they are getting the same introduction. Happy days!

Pre-apocalyptic wasteland

Sorry it's been so quiet around here recently. Truth is, recent events in the UK and my rage/grief over them have rather taken over my free time as I've thrown myself into whatever avenue I can find in order to try and keep my country outward-looking, positive, and not heading towards a self-inflicted financial crash with racist mood-music. I swear, it's like half the country and most of Parliament has gone mad!

However, this blog is not the place for all that, it's for geeking and escapism. Being in need of both, now that I've found a good outlet for my political inclinations, normal service should resume shortly.

TTFN, comrades,
Rab

The restless dead

No, not a miserablist prog band, but an impulse buy that arrived over the last couple of days. A little late, but worth the wait...

Thursday roundup

Yeah, Thursday roundup! It's definitely a thing. Here goes...

This week I have:

• played Keys to the Kingdom once (escaped but wasn't the player with the Key)

• played three games of Hurry'Cup (a win and two 3rd places)

• become a patreon! Specifically, I've dropped a few copper pieces into the online hats of two very creative chappies, Dyson Logos and Matt Jackson

• started to learn to use watercolours

• written one-page DM summaries for two major deities (one which the players don't know about yet muahahaa!) and one now-minor deity

• written a one-page DM/player summary for the big town that will prove... important in our campaign

• started a map of said town

• not painted any miniatures or played the next episode of Knights' Quest - can't do it all, I guess!

I hope your half-term holiday offspring aren't being as mental as mine,

Rab

Keep out!

Getting myself in the mood for DMing on Friday for the first time in TWENTY-FIVE years (goodness, I'm starting to pile on the birthdays...), I was pointed in the direction of this fun little browser dungeon-crawl by Billiam Babble of Inked Adventures fame.

It's called "Keep Out!" and can be found >here<

Enjoy!
Rab

Welcome

I noticed that my follower count has crept up over the last month or so and thought this would be a good point to welcome you. I'm glad you have enjoyed my recent output enough to let me clutter up your news feeds. The picture below is a good example of the sort of feel I want in my fantasy games - mostly medieval, with a hint of the wild and magical (for good or evil!). It's from the short-lived Red Giant magazine by Gary Chalk and comrades. Most of the figures are early 80s Citadel as far as I can tell; I know I've painted some of them myself!

What perils await them? Or indeed, you, new readers?

Wait and see,
Rab

The Mysterious Cities of Ulysses 31 the Barbarian

To misquote Gaj's Warhammer for Adults blog's strapline, do you remember when cartoons were inspiring fiction and not just extended adverts for toys?

I do, and they looked like this:

Ulysses 31

(plenty of RT inspiration)

Mysterious Cities of Gold

(for planning expeditions to Lustria)

Thundarr the Barbarian
(Realms of chaos? Skirmishes on low tech worlds for RT?)

I thought about analysing style, storylines, theme music, characters, international collaborations of animators... but like so much of the nostalgia-rush that is Oldhammer, I am chary of spoiling the magic by peeking behind the wizard's curtain. So I shan't! Are there any other cartoons (apart from Dogtanian, naturally) that should also be included? I nearly included the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon but my recollection is that the stories were a bit cheesy, and the characters fairly irritating. I still watched it, of course!

Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the magic. That is all,

Rab

100,000? Blimey!

Logging on this morning I was rather gratified to see that my various witterings and pictures have garnered 100,000 views! Extraordinary!

Thank you for reading, twice thank you if you comment, and thrice thank you if you've contributed in any way to the ongoing development of Knights' Quest. You're all wonderful :)

Rab

Um, hi!

picture stolen from the internet

My followers count has suddenly leapt up to 95! I'm not sure whether that's a blogger update glitch and some of you haven't been showing up, or I was being horribly unobservant - last time I noticed it was somewhere in the 60s. So, to all of you however recently you thought my bletherings worth keeping a regular eye upon, thank you and welcome!

It seems to have become a tradition among gaming bloggers to have some kind of prize give-away when reaching 100 followers and who am I to fly in the face of tradition? I'll have a poke around and see what I can rustle up from the lead mountain, let you know, and then roll a d100 when the arbitrary but random-table-friendly number is reached.

Better increase/improve my output if I've got an audience!

Rab

Happy St. George's day, chaps.

This year's chosen image for the dragon slayer is this rather delightful lead (apt for this blog, I reckon) pilgrim's badge from 15th century England and now in the British Museum.

Now, onward and slay a dragon! (Metaphorical dragons permitted)

Not waving but drowning

Too much marking, not enough time for geeking. Sadness....

Back in Blighty

Salve, amica!

No geeking for the last week or so because I've been leading my first school trip abroad. The wonders of ancient Rome was our target, and we did pretty well - four cities and a volcano in five days. I am officially broken!

Rab

Colosseum

Dome of the Pantheon

Temples at Paestum

Street in Pompeii

Temple of the Augustales in Herculaneum

The top of Vesuvius; can you spot the whisps of smoke?

This is your captain speaking

Perhaps the main thing that makes blogging worthwhile (alongside the diary, motivation and narcissistic self-publishing elements, of course) is knowing that people look at the photos of my "little men", read what I write and enjoy both sufficiently to pass comment. That fifty-six (!) of you have chosen to follow this blog so as not to miss a single moment of my published hobby adventuring is deeply gratifying. Thank you, and welcome to those of you who recently joined.

Rab

Chainsaw Warrior

Fire up your chainsaw: Darkness is back and you only have 60 minutes to save New York!

I never got to play this standalone, solitaire GW boardgame first time round because I was too young, although I did always choose the Chainsaw Warrior character in later years when playing Talisman using the Timescape expansion. I had no idea he came from another game, I just thought he looked cool.

The original set looked like this:

The idea was that, as the eponymous chainsaw wielding chappy, you had to fight your way through an endless tide of zombie-like creatures and destroy Darkness who was trying to suck New York through some kind of interdimensional gateway to hell. Yup, chainsaws versus zombies. Oh, and the miniatures you could buy to go with it are brimfull of the individuality one would expect of the Citadel studio of the time (1987):

If I were ever to heed the siren call of Rogue Trader-esque gaming, I'd have to include all three of these guys!

Anyway, aside from an excuse to show some golden oldies from before Grandma Wendy became a mere shadow of her former creative self, I posted this because I spotted that Auroch Games have released a fully sanctioned digital version for just about every platform you can think of. Screenshots, you say? Feast your eyes on the unfolding horror you must defeat....

Gentlemen, start your chainsaws!

Rab

Hi again; buy my stuff!

With the dreaded OFSTED apparently due any moment (I think the Headteacher has been reading the entrails of goats or something), I've not had the calmest start to the new school year. I've been managing to scratch my geeking itch by planning what to concentrate on for the next year or so and have reduced it to three projects and a determination to actually play some games.

1. Gladiators - Blood on the Sands is already a fantastic game and the slight playtest tweaks that are being put in place are bringing up to the level of an enduring classic. It really is that good! So, I need to paint some gladiators and finish off the arena for them to battle in.
2. Fantasy football - I love Bloodbowl and Elfball and have two or three teams that are nearly complete. While this will really be a filler activity (I can play with what I have painted), I want to get the full set of my Chaos Allstars painted, along with associated Star Players, reroll counters etc.
3. Oldhammer - I've always preferred the earlier style of miniatures that Citadel produced, having got interested gaming about a year or so before Fourth Ed. was released. During the holidays I picked up a nearly mint hardback copy of 3rd Ed in a charity shop for £6 - bargain! My plan is to use it as the vehicle to continue my "fantastic chivalry" project. This will be the major project by a long way over the other two.

In order to facilitate my ebay extravagances (we all know it will happen!) as I pick up classic figures, I'm selling stuff I don't use. I'll try and keep the sales page on here up to date, but I'll be concentrating on my sales thread on the LAF, so check there for updates. Anything that doesn't sell in the next few weeks will be transferred here as an ongoing thing.

Buy my stuff, you know you want to :)

Holiday snaps 4

Corfe castle, ex-royal residence, slighted during the civil war... and reached by STEAM TRAIN. I think the gleeful reaction of the heir and the spare reinforced my opinion that this is pretty much the perfect boys day out. Brilliant!

Holiday snaps 3

More neolithic marvels today - this time, Avebury ring. Apart from the undeniable impressiveness of the size of the stones, and the no-tech of those who built the henge and erected the stones, I was amazed at how much of the village is within the circle... and an A road goes right across it. I couldn't help thinking this might make a great scenario setting for Gareth the Grot's witchfinder escapades: what foul things, real or imagined, might creep across from faeire to torment and beguile the locals foolish enough to believe they could stamp out the old ways with a fancy new house and grazing their sheep in between the stones?