A Quick One Before 2019

Merry Christmas, Happy new something etc. Have a blog post for Christmas. I've got plenty of things 'almost done' so I thought it would be nice to show some works-in-progress for a change as I haven't done that for a bit.

I'd also like to mention the recent Meeples and Miniatures podcast where they are brave enough to discuss their mental health issues in detail. I thought this would be worth a mention as I've mentioned my (still ongoing) mental health stuff before and men need to talk about it more.

Peltasts almost finished, including two spare bases to fill out a 100 mm x 40 mm unit for Kings of War. Lovely uncomplicated miniatures from 1st Corps.

CoK Loot and Plans for Next Year

A morose air hung over the camp after the tournament. Two figures sat by a campfire, one a human with both arms in enormous plaster casts and the other a great beast-man with a bandaged lump on his head as large as an extra horn. One turned to the other and said: 

"It's no good. Next time we're going to have bring a competitive army list."

Gaming paraphernalia freebies. Tape measure not included as I'd lost it down the sofa by this point. 

Clash of Kings 2018: The Other End of the Score Table

Very late to the party on this one, but I've finally collected my pictures and consulted my notes on Mantic's Clash of Kings 2018 (held on the 13th & 14th of October). I think my perspective offers an excellent contrast to the (comprehensive and informative) account from Andy Ransome, mostly because he finished 6th and I finished 79th. Oh yeah, spoiler warning for poor performance.

I call this picture 'oh dear'. Other names removed for privacy.

Mordheim: City of the Damp

I am very fortunate that the Wolverhampton housemate crew, including Merlin and Matt, have started up a Mordheim campaign and I was only too pleased to stick my oar in. One fateful day in August we managed two battles AND stayed up until 4 am doing the post-battle admin. Now why can't I give that sort of passion to my real job?

The set-up for game one. Didn't get any pics of the second one, sorry.

Chain of Command Part 2: The Best of Times, The Wurst of Times

Again, no apologies will be made for the pun.

Game 1 ends, for details read below!

I started my summer hols on Saturday with a CoC wargaming weekend with Suzanne, where we finished our last game and had time for another, both of which are recorded here. I never take that many photos when playing, I get too caught up in the excitement.

We left off last time at an exciting juncture,with my platoon sergeant holed up in the woods on his last command initiative accompanied by the remains of first section and the rest of the men sitting tight in a field after a very successful round of hand-to-hand combat. The Germans were down to two effective squads, with one boldly leaving cover to get into a close range firefight and the other working their way around the hill near the British Jump Off Point.

StuG Life

Markings are entirely fictitious to remind people that wargaming isn't real.

I didn't chose the StuG life etc. etc.

Biege for the Biege God!

Today's blog post is brought to you by Bad Squiddo Games, purveyors of fine teas and witticisms. Oh yeah, the models aren't bad either.

Recently ordered some dry-looking tufts to adorn my Western Desert bases.

Chain of Command Pt. I (It's better than sausages)

As I might have mentioned, I not only dug out some old Airfix Desert Rats from my Uncle's and my collections, I also found a victim opponent who had no previous experience in wargmaing. I'm not sure if Chain of Command is the ideal introduction to the hobby, as it is markedly different to other games I've played, but there we go.

The battlefield at the game start, complete with 'jump-off points', from which troops are deployed. You can only see one of mine, the others are in the nearest ploughed field and  wood next to the junction.

Pre-Havoc Blogging

European Data Thingy preamble: Blogger and Google are using analytics, cookies and other data to spy on your house and plan the kidnapping of your dog. I do not personally store any of your personal information. I hope this message is legally watertight.

These are amongst the first models I ever owned, finally given them a proper paintjob.

This post was planned to go up before the tournament report, but it hasn't.

... and let slip the dogs of war!

Image description: a scoreboard. Your blogging hero is placed 24th out of 26.

It's not the winning, it's the taking part that counts. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Almost, But Not Quite

Today's theme is that I have a lot of models that are almost finished, but there remain important details which should not be left undone. Such as the basing.
 

Perry-sculpted GW Lord of the Rings elves, featuring conversion wielding a spear. I've just realised that I forgot to do the mail on the armpits in a steel-tone (hence the title).

Base-ic Instinct

With the new models, I decided I needed some new bases to mount them on. Unfortunately, I underestimated the size of a peeg, so now I have 32 15 mm MDF circles and nothing to do with them, as well as an absence of 25 mm rounds and the suspicion that 30 mm might fit the fast attack options perfectly.

This picture doesn't really do it justice, but the bases are too small

Christmas Comes Late

Met the lovely family for the first time since Christmas. I had a lovely catch up and so on, but more importantly I picked up the parcels I've been waiting for for weeks!

Gunny Peegs [sic] by Bad Squiddo games, with 28mm 'human' for scale purposes.

I Need a New Spray-Varnish

Unlike many of my photos, the poor quality here is due to too much varnish blurring the models rather than shoddy camera work

My spray-varnish broke a nozzle late last year, and I thought I could use up the remaining varnish by holding the nozzle bit over the can and pressing down. This was good enough for the last round of varnishing, but this time I massively overdid it on a couple of models and ended up with fuzzy grey patches. Argh. Now I have to not only spend money on more varnish but also repaint these chaps to fix the harm as best I can.

Keep reading, there's more news under the break.