I'm sitting waiting for Steve to turn up so that we can play Dirtside 2 at last. When did we paint our 6mm sci-fi stuff? It feels like yonks ago, as if we have been putting off playing the game for years.
In the meantime, July seems to have gone slowly as far as painting goes. I did manage to paint my 6mm Border Kingdoms army and posted about that on the Talomir Tales site. I have been slowly working on painting my Totanem for Wargods of Aegyptus and have just completed them today. I need to varnish them before I can photograph them though. Pray for a sunny start tomorrow to give me time to varnish them then lots of rain to water our new lawn!
I did paint 130 15mm figures for my brother. I guess that took up some time too. Boy did I curse those Carthaginian figures with their nasty little overhangs. Still, they got done and I am being paid in lead. Thrift at work, or something like that. I paint his figures, I get new toys and the balance is maintained.
The Wargods figures mentioned in one of my recent blog posts sold, creating another opportunity for spending without upsetting the thrift balance.
I have also spent a lot of time editing and revising the Warrior Heroes rules for Ed Teixeira at TwoHourWargames. This seems to have taken rather longer than I anticipated. It might well have been easier had I just ditched his text and re-written it instead of trying to make his text conform to my ideas of how it should be written. I shall have the battle rules sorted out by the end of August at the latest. I promise (barring personal crises, existential angst and global apocalypse). I think they will be considerably easier to refer to than the old set. I hope so anyway, after my comments on this forum about the original version of the rules. Time to put my money where my mouth is!
Speaking of money, one of the goals of this blog was to chronicle my progress at reducing my lead mountain. Hmm. I seem to have slipped off the wagon a bit. If you have seen my posts on various forums, you will know what I am talking about. If not, all is explained on the Rather Large Towton Project Blog. It is clearly not thrifty to start such a large project, and yet, in some senses it is. Am I spouting nonsense? I don't think so. I am committing to buy for this project around £350 worth of figures. That's rather a lot of dosh. I plan to sell stuff to pay for it, which will probably double my workload but will result in clearing out things I do not need, while helping to build the new project. The other advantage of this project is that I am actually very interested in this period of history (mid- to late-15th century). It's not as interesting as Vikings or Scandinavia, but it is pretty interesting for a modern period. More on this later. Time for a game.
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Thursday, 30 July 2009
Saturday, 6 June 2009
End of May Update
Well, it has taken me longer than I expected to get around to photographing the last of my Khemru. Here we see a unit of mace-goats, which was my final unit to paint in May. Victory! Remember to click on the pictures if you would like to see larger versions of them.
The mace goats are the main melee arm of the Khemru. Armed with sturdy bronze maces, good armour and a stout shield, they are able to wade into battle and get slaughtered by their enemies, while the slingers evade like mad and try to stay away from the enemy's archers, who outrange them.
The next picture is of an approximately 1000 point warband for Wargods of Aegyptus. As you can see, it comprises two units of slingers, one unit of mace goats, the harbinger, a beastmaster, a hero, a master of words and a priestess. I have put together this warband as a pure Khemru force to play in our game next week.
Although I have designed this force using solely Khemru figures, Wargods does not insist on uni-racial warbands. In fact, you can mix and match to suit your preferences for the main part. Some races will not permit others into their warbands, such as the Typhon (followers of Set), who hate the Heru (followers of Horus) with a vengeance. Because Set slew Horus, neither will work with the others. This mix-and-match mentality is brilliant because it allows you to use all the cool figures in your warband. I should point out that Wargods warbands are mostly governed by the need to have figures that look cool in them. Often these figures are not particularly effective, but that is beside the point. Some munchkins and beardy wonders do try to min-max but they are the exception rather than the rule and we do not share our Jaffa Cakes with them. Jaffa Cakes are the food of the gods!
The mace goats are the main melee arm of the Khemru. Armed with sturdy bronze maces, good armour and a stout shield, they are able to wade into battle and get slaughtered by their enemies, while the slingers evade like mad and try to stay away from the enemy's archers, who outrange them.
The next picture is of an approximately 1000 point warband for Wargods of Aegyptus. As you can see, it comprises two units of slingers, one unit of mace goats, the harbinger, a beastmaster, a hero, a master of words and a priestess. I have put together this warband as a pure Khemru force to play in our game next week.
Although I have designed this force using solely Khemru figures, Wargods does not insist on uni-racial warbands. In fact, you can mix and match to suit your preferences for the main part. Some races will not permit others into their warbands, such as the Typhon (followers of Set), who hate the Heru (followers of Horus) with a vengeance. Because Set slew Horus, neither will work with the others. This mix-and-match mentality is brilliant because it allows you to use all the cool figures in your warband. I should point out that Wargods warbands are mostly governed by the need to have figures that look cool in them. Often these figures are not particularly effective, but that is beside the point. Some munchkins and beardy wonders do try to min-max but they are the exception rather than the rule and we do not share our Jaffa Cakes with them. Jaffa Cakes are the food of the gods!
Monday, 25 May 2009
Downsizing in June
June will be a month of small scale figures. We have decided to focus on 6mm sci-fi because I have been bellyaching for ages about playing FutureWarsCommander. Steve wants to play Dirtside 2. So, we have compromised and decided to play both games. I strongly suspect that each will provide a completely different gaming experience and that we shall want to play both again. The problem with 6mm sci-fi figures is that I already have most of mine painted, and I only have about 0.75 Victory Points of figures left to paint. So, what else should I paint this month? Well, I think that the month would be best spent painting the odds and ends that I have lying around from various other projects. Various 6mm options include:
Tusk - Tusk is a game of mammoth and dinosaur hunting from Irregular Miniatures. I have some 19th century types and some dinosaurs left to paint. I painted the mammoths and cavemen ages ago and am waiting for Steve's tribe to appear, now that I am an expert mammoth hunter in the solo game. As far as I know, Steve has made no progress on painting his tribe yet.
English Civil War - I need an army to oppose my ECW Parliamentarians (boo hiss!) so I should maybe crack on with the Royalists (hussah!). They are prepped and waiting to be painted but keep getting shuffled to the back of the queue.
Great Northern War - I still need to base the rest of my Swedish army and I need to base all of my Danish army. I have a Polish army to paint. I suspect that I have rather a lot of figures left to paint for my Saxon army too. Rebasing all of the Danes and the Swedes would be a useful job and deserving of victory points, even if it is not painting figures. After all, it is preparing them for use however you look at it.
Seven Years War - I have Prussians and Swedes waiting to be painted for this war and am keen to give them an outing at some point. On the other hand, they are not prepped and we have no immediate plans to play the Seven Years War, beyond those vague plans that have wandered around in my head for the past ten years.
World War Two - I have Russians and Germans waiting to be finished off. I plan to sell these armies to fund new purchases that I feel the need for, so perhaps I should focus on painting these and getting them on EBay to earn my victory points.
What does the crowd think? Any preference for what you would like to see featured on here? Or, should I jsut follow my whims and see what I can get painted in the month according to what I feel like painting? As long as I paint around £4o worth of figures then I have earned my 2 victory points, so does it matter what those figures are?
Tusk - Tusk is a game of mammoth and dinosaur hunting from Irregular Miniatures. I have some 19th century types and some dinosaurs left to paint. I painted the mammoths and cavemen ages ago and am waiting for Steve's tribe to appear, now that I am an expert mammoth hunter in the solo game. As far as I know, Steve has made no progress on painting his tribe yet.
English Civil War - I need an army to oppose my ECW Parliamentarians (boo hiss!) so I should maybe crack on with the Royalists (hussah!). They are prepped and waiting to be painted but keep getting shuffled to the back of the queue.
Great Northern War - I still need to base the rest of my Swedish army and I need to base all of my Danish army. I have a Polish army to paint. I suspect that I have rather a lot of figures left to paint for my Saxon army too. Rebasing all of the Danes and the Swedes would be a useful job and deserving of victory points, even if it is not painting figures. After all, it is preparing them for use however you look at it.
Seven Years War - I have Prussians and Swedes waiting to be painted for this war and am keen to give them an outing at some point. On the other hand, they are not prepped and we have no immediate plans to play the Seven Years War, beyond those vague plans that have wandered around in my head for the past ten years.
World War Two - I have Russians and Germans waiting to be finished off. I plan to sell these armies to fund new purchases that I feel the need for, so perhaps I should focus on painting these and getting them on EBay to earn my victory points.
What does the crowd think? Any preference for what you would like to see featured on here? Or, should I jsut follow my whims and see what I can get painted in the month according to what I feel like painting? As long as I paint around £4o worth of figures then I have earned my 2 victory points, so does it matter what those figures are?
Monday, 26 January 2009
The Goblins of Zog-Rot
We are nearly at the end of January and I have completed my goblins. I really did wonder if I could manage it, but I have done so. 2VPs to me. I have not managed to paint any of the Normans that were my secondary objective, because I have been distracted by our 6mm Great Northern War games instead. For next month I shall devise an alternative system for the secondary objective. Not sure what yet, but I shall come up with something (I hope).
The goblins of Zog-Rot are a mixed bunch. The majority are poorly clad, small and malnourished but with a huge appetite for carnage. The toughest of them ride the dreaded Ripper Beasts, large flightless birds with a terrible carnivorous appetite. It is fair to say that most goblins that try to tame one of these beasts wind up as its dinner instead. However, those few that succeed are well on their way to glory and fame among goblin-kind. Just taming a Ripper Beast is cause for a rise in social standing. Most goblins try to tame the less aggressive male ripper beasts, which are readily recognisable by the red stripes on their backs. Obviously, less aggressive in this case refers only to their aggressiveness when compared to the female of the species.
Some rare goblins are tough enough to tame the female Ripper Beasts, and a very few manage to tame two of them. The sight of a goblin standing proudly in his chariot pulled by two Ripper Beasts is a sure sign that you are confronting the chief of the tribe. This will be an unusually large and aggressive goblin.
Zog-Rotten society is warband-based. It relies on a regular income from raiding other groups. It is rare that a single war-leader can rise to the fore and unite the goblin hordes, although this has happened on occasion. That is one reason why Zog-Rot is ringed by Brethren fortresses. The Brethren maintain a constant watch for just such an occurrence and do their level best to prevent it reaching the point where goblin armies storm across the borders once more. Let us just hope that Steve has managed to outfit the Brethren in time for next week's goblin incursion!!
Thursday, 18 December 2008
What's it all about, Alfie?
M'buddy, Steve, and I are easily led. We both suffer from the Ooh Shiny Complex. This is when your mind alights butterfly-like on a new project and you instantly take it to heart. It is shiny and new, so you want to do it immediately. All the old projects are forgotten, possibly even discarded, in the excitement of this shiny new one. Unfortunately, newer, shinier projects appear with depressing regularity. The internet makes this worse because it gives you access to so many obscure ranges that are appealing, but which you would never have discovered if the internet were not there. A typical conversation over the gaming table might go like this:
Me: "Hey, Steve, you know what would be really cool?"
Steve: "No, what?"
Me: “What would be cool would be gaming the Gran Chaco War in 1:39 scale.”
Steve: “Hey yeah, that’s a great idea! We could even have little miniature guinea pigs as messengers.”
Two hours later, the credit cards have taken a hammering and we have bought a vast number of new figures. We begin painting the new figures with great gusto for a week or two, but then at the next gaming session …
Steve: “Hey, Ruarigh, I have had a great idea.”
Me: “Oh yeah, what’s that?”
Steve: “Let’s do a game based on a lost tribe of pygmy Vikings in central Australasia.”
Me: “Hey, that’s brilliant. We can convert CheapMiniatures™ Dwarves to use as the Vikings, but we shall also need an albino U-Boat Crew and some wheels on the U-Boat so that they can take it overland.”
Steve: "Yeah, and we need a Doug McClure figure."
Two hours later the story begins to repeat itself. The miniature guinea pigs lovingly crafted from fur left behind by my cat now languish in the drawer beside the half-painted Bolivian army. No doubt the pygmy Vikings will go the way of all lead and find their way into the storage in the attic. The story repeats ad nauseam like the remains of last Christmas' turkey. But then suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, Dave over at A Year of Frugal Gaming posted about his quest to reduce his lead mountain on TMP and on his blog. I saw in his quest one that parallels my own needs. Times are hard (well maybe not that hard but the old wargaming budget is diminishing rapidly) and the lead mountain needs scaling. Time to cut back, methinks.
Me: "Hey, Steve, I have had a great idea. See, there is this guy, Dave, and he is blogging about his attempts to buy less, play more and paint more. Why don't we try something similar?"
Steve: "That's a great idea. How are we going to do this?"
You see, this idea, even though it does not involve buying figures, is a shiny new idea. Therefore we both became immediately attached to it. Our goals and New Year's Resolutions are:
Our first game of the following month will use the newly painted figures and preferably a rules set that we have not used before. We shall post a battle report for the battle on the blog and get on with painting the next project. Hopefully, by posting our aims on a blog, the threat of public humiliation will spur us on to complete each project and reduce the lead mountains. I look forward to seeing how it all works out and if we can sustain the effort required. Thus begins Mission: Ooh Shiny.
Me: "Hey, Steve, you know what would be really cool?"
Steve: "No, what?"
Me: “What would be cool would be gaming the Gran Chaco War in 1:39 scale.”
Steve: “Hey yeah, that’s a great idea! We could even have little miniature guinea pigs as messengers.”
Two hours later, the credit cards have taken a hammering and we have bought a vast number of new figures. We begin painting the new figures with great gusto for a week or two, but then at the next gaming session …
Steve: “Hey, Ruarigh, I have had a great idea.”
Me: “Oh yeah, what’s that?”
Steve: “Let’s do a game based on a lost tribe of pygmy Vikings in central Australasia.”
Me: “Hey, that’s brilliant. We can convert CheapMiniatures™ Dwarves to use as the Vikings, but we shall also need an albino U-Boat Crew and some wheels on the U-Boat so that they can take it overland.”
Steve: "Yeah, and we need a Doug McClure figure."
Two hours later the story begins to repeat itself. The miniature guinea pigs lovingly crafted from fur left behind by my cat now languish in the drawer beside the half-painted Bolivian army. No doubt the pygmy Vikings will go the way of all lead and find their way into the storage in the attic. The story repeats ad nauseam like the remains of last Christmas' turkey. But then suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, Dave over at A Year of Frugal Gaming posted about his quest to reduce his lead mountain on TMP and on his blog. I saw in his quest one that parallels my own needs. Times are hard (well maybe not that hard but the old wargaming budget is diminishing rapidly) and the lead mountain needs scaling. Time to cut back, methinks.
Me: "Hey, Steve, I have had a great idea. See, there is this guy, Dave, and he is blogging about his attempts to buy less, play more and paint more. Why don't we try something similar?"
Steve: "That's a great idea. How are we going to do this?"
You see, this idea, even though it does not involve buying figures, is a shiny new idea. Therefore we both became immediately attached to it. Our goals and New Year's Resolutions are:
- To spend less on figures in 2009;
- To paint more of the lead we already own; and
- To play games using our newly painted lead
Our first game of the following month will use the newly painted figures and preferably a rules set that we have not used before. We shall post a battle report for the battle on the blog and get on with painting the next project. Hopefully, by posting our aims on a blog, the threat of public humiliation will spur us on to complete each project and reduce the lead mountains. I look forward to seeing how it all works out and if we can sustain the effort required. Thus begins Mission: Ooh Shiny.
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