If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit....

Well, still not painted anything since my last entry! But I have not been lazy, oh no!

Thats not entirely true, but I now completed my second 3' x 4' gaming table. I wasn't necessarily going to do it this soon but it now enables me to have a 6' x 4' gaming table at home which has now become almost a necessity as the wargames club I attended on a sunday night has now ended. I'm not going to say much about this as I'm still quite angry about it all...

Needless to say, I will continue to game with people I want to game with, and doing it at home gives us a bit more flexibilty to gaming nights. It also helps with work as it means I don't have to request every sunday off, and with the NHS's beloved e-rostering coming into force, this helps me no end!

The demise of the club happened so fast it was hard to believe it. Luckily I had already started with my home gaming plans so hopefully won't be restricted on the games I play. As Matt and I had arranged a game for sunday night we just moved it to my gaff, and invited Kieron along for some Saga related fun!

The above is Kieron continuing his award winning wargaming losing streak with his dirty Jomsvikings against Matts dirty Normans. In the previous game my glorious Vikings had almost snatched defeat from the jaws of certain victory but managed to heroically pull off a win agaist the dirty Normans...

As you can see minimal terrain is ok for Saga, but I do have another of the small Viking buildings you can see to paint as well as one of the larger Sarissa Viking longhouses to paint. As soon as I finish the single stand of FOW Russian infantry thats been sat on my painting table for the last few months I will crack on with these!

To enable us to play games of FOW at home I ordered some pre-painted road sections off ebay. 15 pieces for £25 ain't bad! They arrived this morning and I am very happy with them:

Above is a 3'x4' table, and this doesn't include 2 of the long straight pieces. I am going to order a few more shorter pieces of road and this should hopefully do for a 6'x4' table. Bravo! The roads are wide enough that they will also be suitable for 28mm wargaming aswell. Double bravo! The ebay shop I purchased them from also do river sections, and as I have weirdly never wargamed on a table with a river, I feel the need to aquire some of these when some more funds have flooded in (geddit!?). I have also ordered 3 ploughed fields which were only £5 including postage but these haven't arrived at the time of writing. Next I want some decent hills but will wait until we visit Triples in the middle of may.

So, next up at the club that is not a club is FOW with Kieron. Going to try out the campaign type rules for tank aces. I'm not normally one for using tanks but I'll give it a go....

Project Gaming Table!

Haven't done a single bit of painting for well over a month now for various reasons but I have managed to get one of my 3' x 4' gaming tables constructed!

Still debating with myself wether to sand and flock it or just leave it as is and buy some kind of gaming mat. The reason for this is the variety of games I play. I'm pretty sure Star Wars X-Wing isn't a space based combat game based on a meadow in a galaxy far far away....

Like the tables we use at the club i've given it legs that can be removed so it can be stored elsewhere. This is the first of 2 I want to contruct as I want a 6' x 4' table. I have the wood for the other, I just need to get my finger out and get it done! I had painted the surface of the other black for the X-wing game but as stated above this was pointless! Having seen the piece of black vinyl Craig brings to club which only cost a few quid I think thats the way forward.

Onto gaming, and the club Bloodbowl league! Well, I suck at it. I played 5, won 1, drew 1 and lost 3 finishing bottom of our division, even after bribing the league commisioner for extra points due to some very dubious play in my game against Kieron (he cheated (although he'll claim he didn't)).... Still annoyed at showboating in the game against Matt as I could have won it and how I didn't win against Kieron after putting 10 of his team out of the game I'll never know! However this was my first time playing Bloodbowl in a proper league and have learnt alot!

I think the plan is that anyone that wants to carry on after the competition is finished will be put into a single division so more games can be played.

Anyway, I plan to actually paint something soon so might have a more interesting update next time!

Small update!

Just a small update as not done a great deal of painting recently due to work and having a few days away in the lakes. Oh, and decorating....

Have managed to get 3 Germans painted now for my bolt action force. Think they look quite good. Enjoy painting them as well which always helps!

Had our annual trip to Vapnartak with Matt and Kieron. No snow this year which made it much much busier! As a result our plan to get there for when it started at 10 for the free model was scuppered as they had clearly run out long before we got there! Managed to pick up another Viking longhouse from Sarissa. Would have bought the bigger building I want as well but they hadn't brought it with them... Got a resin objective model from Kerr and King for my German flames of war army. And last of all got a small barn to go with the farm house I already have! Was only £4 from Warbases and i'm sure will only take me an afternoon to paint!

After this Matt and I held the opening game of the Bloodbowl season at my gaff. Ended in a 1-1 draw with me learning that showboating with Dwarves doesn't work... If you have a chance to get a touchdown, just get the bleedin' touchdown! Good game though with the highlight for me being Matts chainsaw goblin slicing his own head off....

Hoping to get some more painting done this week as well as finishing the decorating. This will mean I have a room where i should be able to finish my gaming boards and have a place to use them!

My Flames of War tactics aren't up to scratch...

The title relates to 2 games I played recently at club. The first was the shortest game ever against Kieron who will from now on be known as "Panther Bastard". To start with he cheated by making the Russian Tank company defend! This completely threw me from the start and I made a cock-up of placing my objective meaning they were too far apart. Then my reserves turned up late and were too far from the objective Panther Bastard was holding to contest. All in all it lasted about 20 minutes...

The second game was against Matt. He cheated by knowing the rules. And again my lack of experience using germans did for me. I did manage to mow down endless infantry but apparently 5 Shermans are an invincible wall. Also I placed my Tiger wrong at set up. Must pay more attention at the start.

Anyway, on to painting progress for this update!

First up was air support for my germans. Love the Zvezda models. £2.75 is a bargain! Don't think I've made too bad a job of it either.

Next up was the last 5 of my Russian T-70's. 10 fully painted now and ready to roll. Was going to apply transfers to all of my Russian tanks but got a bit put off by the general consesus that "anything goes" when related to Russian tank markings! I like uniformity dammit! I'll have a go at some point as it'll finished them all off nicely.

Another stand of infantry is going to be done at random intervals to keep other stuff interesting. Like a reward basis! "You can paint the cool thing when you've done the boring thing..." I find this scheme works for me. Plus, one more base of infantry and I'll have 10 and can take them as a decent sized sapper platoon. Then another 4 and I can take an infantry company!

Painted a couple of Zis-2 guns as well to try and fend off tanks! Still have another 2 of these which will be done as some point. With AT 11 these should make short work of most tanks. Except Panthers. Bastards!

And so on to a reward! My first Bolt Action german! This will be my 1st/2nd Lieutenant. Was delayed painting this by my inability to order all the paints I want in one go.... There's always one I forget! Did enjoy painting this though. Don't think it will take for ever to paint these up. Shall get the 2 basic 5 man squads painted up before thinking about expanding on to other stuff.

And finally a picture of the main thing that distracts me from painting. It is cool though! Although I may have to start selling kidneys to keep funding it...

This sunday sees the 3 Amigos annual trip to Vapnartak at York. Not sure what I'm going to purchase here but the most fun is seeing how much we can goad Matt into spending on the Ainsty Castings stand.... If Matt and Kieron are lucky it might have snowed and we could relive my heroic parking manouvre from last years event!

Death or glory!

1cm of snow and the country freaks out!

Shock alert! The apathy wore off and I managed to finish my Dwarf bloodbowl team in just 2 days! Thats 12 players done and a dirty death roller....

I purchased, many years ago, a blister of extra linemen to make the numbers up so these may get painted as I need them. Once I started I remebered how easy dwarfs are to paint. Drybrush armour. Paint beard. Do fiddly bits. Done! It was possibly the delivery on the Bolt Action Germans that spurred me along as well as I was determined not to paint them until the All Blocks were finished....

Speaking of which:

Have made a small amount of progress on my first Wermacht troops! First on left is going to be my lieutenant, the middle one is a normal guy with a Kar 98k rifle, which seems to be the standard rifle for the Germans. And the last guy, kneeling, is toting a STG44 assault rifle. The models look good, have just the right amount of detail that I won't go mad painting them, and assemble fairly easily. The arms match up with the gun you are giving them and are so well done even the trigger fingers are in the right place!

The only issue with these, and the reason I haven't done more is due to the Wargames Emporium in Sheffield being sold out of the main paint I needed! German Field Grey. Bugger! Have internet ordered it though as well as some fresh paints for doing flesh.

As a result of the delay I decided to get my Russian FOW unpainted list down a bit. First up was finishing off my air support:

This was fully painted but I still needed to add the transfers and give it a wash. Voila! Also started to work on the last 5 T-70's I have left to do. These are a Plastic Soldier Company set and as with PSC's other sets go together really well and have crisp detailing.

Made the decision last weekend to ebay alot of my unpainted Fantasy stuff that I'm never likely to paint. Also my mini rulebook and dwarf army book. Bit sad doing this as it means I'll probably never use them again for Warhammer, or for the foreseeable future anyway with Kings of War being my preference. All in made about £140 so not bad. Will have another scan and see if theres anything else to go. Can't see the point in having the big rulebook if i'm not going to use it!

Word up!

Boom! Blog entry 2!

Ok, so, getting on with my to-do list then. As I knew I would, like writing an essay, I managed to mostly avoid painting my Dwarf blood bowl players. I just can't get up the motivation to do them at present! I think my anger at GW has sucked all my will to live regarding fantasy in any form....

I'm sure this situation will be rectified as we get closer to the start of the clubs league and I start to panic that my team isn't finished yet. Again, much like I do when I'm writing an essay for a work course! (It'll be fine, I've got ages! What, its due in in 2 days and I've got 4000 words to write?! S***!)

I have however completed the 2 buildings that were on my list! Hurrah!

As you can see I now have the start of a small 15mm WW2 town. The new building is the second from the left. Its the farmhouse building from Sarissa Precision. Love their buildings! Go together very well and have just the right amount of detail that I don't go blind painting them. The first on the left is also Sarissa and is their small shop. The other 2 are from Warbases and are my second favourites. They go together just as well but don't have as much detail as the Sarissa ones. This and the fact the roof on them are plain and you buy different types of tiling on laser cut card, which is glued on in strips makes them just that little bit more work!

The third type I have purchased is not shown here as I have given it to Matt to see if he can do anything with it as I couldn't get along with it! Its was a 4Ground building and each floor of the building is a different layer which makes for longer contruction time. Plus the top floor being the roof, the way it goes together isn't very stable, and the roofs don't fit as well as the other 2 companies do. Also, the peg/tabs on one of the roof pieces didn't match up and i have to do some cutting, glueing and swearing to sort it out. Shame as i do like some of the detail freature of these and they have a good selection and sell pre-painted versions of each one. May still buy the church at some point.

This is my Sarissa Precision Viking house! Had fun doing this one as it involved messing about cutting out scouring pads in a Blue Peter kind of way. A simple building really, easy to assemble but was only about £7. Another one of these and then one of the bigger Viking Longhouses and I'll be able to Saga at home! This will mean completing my games boards and if apathy hadn't kicked in midweek it would be well under way. I know what I need to buy, I just couldn't be arsed to go!

I have bought another black tester pot to give the space/urban board another coat and also some matt varnish to toughen it up so hopefully it won't scratch to bits the first time I use it!

As for my "not buying new stuff until the old stuff is painted" effort, I think we all know these resolutions don't last... So I've bought myself some Bolt Action German troops. £19 for 25 28mm troops is good value I think. Even if I don't find anyone to play they should be fun to assemble and paint!

Message ends.

Losing my blog virginity...

First post, yay! Can't think of anything to write, boo!

I suppose I'd better start by explaining why I've decided to start a blog. Matt made me do it. I don't normally listen to him but sat on the sofa with nothing to do its seems like a good idea. I'm not entirely sure how well or how often this will be updated but since joining Wargamers Free Company my all round gaming world seems to have become more consistent.

I put this down to a number of factors which I will now bore you with!

1. Wargamers FC is a fun group! No powergamers and free to play whatever games you want without pressure.
2 The group has a "Painted models only" philosophy which is self explanatory but means if I want to use my shiny new toy, I must paint!
3. Games workshop. I won't moan much on this subject as it gets me really angry, other than to say that they're slowly ruining the universes which I love in their pursuit of money using large chunks of unkillable plastic. This has however forced me into other gaming spheres which I now realise to be as good as, if not superior in many ways. Saga, Flames of War and X-wing being some of my most recent addictions.
4. Being a bit more sensible with any spare cash I have. I mean, that strobe light I bought was cool, but I don't know any epileptics I dislike enough to use it on.... But also not buying piles of models I will never get round to painting.

With it being a new year many at the club have written new years resolution to do lists, so i decided to do my own! I have also purchased a couple of pieces of 4' x 3' MDF so I now have my own home gaming board. This means I need to get organised and paint them up and also to sort out terrain so that every battle isn't fought on a lovely flat meadow....

Gaming board:

Give space/urban side another coat of black.
Varnish painted side.
Sand, paint and flock one side of the other MDF piece so I at least have a home Saga board. (The other piece will be done once i've finally finished decorating the spare bedroom and have somewhere to set it up as a 6' x 4' table.)

Terrain:

FOW farmhouse
28mm Viking house

FOW Germans to paint:

Stuka

FOW Russians to paint:

5 T-70's
4 Zis 2
4 Maksim HMG
6 PTRS teams
More infantry

Fantasy:

Finish bloodbowl team

Main priority off this list is to finish my dwarf bloodbowl team as the clubs league starts at the beginning of Feb. Its half done so once I get my head down it'll be finished fairly quickly. Thats probably why I started painting the 2 buildings the other day....

So there you go. Once I've figured out how this blog stuff works a bit better and also how my new phone works I'll start to post some photos of my stuff as I go.

Word up!