Oppertunities.

Or how to turn a day out shopping for kids shoes into something to do with games. OK you probably know the drill. You are bound to if you have kids I am sure. It's the weekend and you have a stack on mini's to paint but the kids need shoes. Well maybe...... I say maybe as the last four times you took them to be checked no was the reply come back in x weeks. Now whilst I always keen to hear 'No shoes today' after all that's £40 a pair these days it starts to wear a little on the 4th or 5th visit. But I have failed to add one small detail, we go to Nottingham for the kids shoes, yep Wargames Capital of the UK, home of so many of the big names. The only issue is that none of them seem to be in the city centre and if they are I have failed to take the effort of tracking them down!!!

Well this time of course was no exception so I fully expected to come back empty handed aside a pot of Devlan Mud wash from Games Workshop. Well in truth I would have been happy with that anyway as I have plenty to keep me going but when has that ever stopped us?

The trip into GW was worth the visit anyway. I swear I have not gone further than 6 steps into that shop. I have a memory of when James was playing 40K and went in to get something small and one of the staff forced him to show him how much money he had on him and then promptly started to try and get him to buy something to that value. I was not standing with him at the time so when I then made the stupid prat take his wallet out he neither expected it or saw the funny side. So in I went (my local shop never seems to have a pot in!!!) straight to the paints (4 steps) and back to the counter after picking up one of the 4 pots in the otherwise crammed rack. A staff member comes up, is that all you need, how about brushes?, paints..... ? No thank you I said politely remembering the court order. 'How about a White Dwarf?' Sod the court order I thought. "I don't know do they have anything in that would interest me?" I asked sweetly, Well what are you interested in? "With a smile I asked in my best little voice, "anything that's not total shite such as 40K or other rip off priced kid sucking crap" Turns out no they don't have anything other than this in the White Dwarf. In fairness he took it all in part and asked me to have a nice day, I was tempted to spite him by not but you know how it is.

So having baited a shoppie my wife wanted to check out a new book shop, she found nothing but Liberation by William I. Hitchcock looked interesting. Basically it's about what happened away from the photographs of happy and saved civilians and looks at the reprisals and the effect of being liberated at the cost of your house and half your family etc etc. I have often wondered about this side of the coin. Just looking at photo's of columns of allied vehicles winding between rubbled houses has always made me question just how happy they must have been! You can pick this up for about £25 at the moment from Amazon but this shop (neither of us can remember what it was called but was upstairs in Victoria Centre) was selling it for £1.99 and a few copies at £3.99 go figure. So was a happy carrot.

Last off I went to ModelZone and on impulse picked up a couple of boxes of HaT 1/72 figures. I was planning on getting a few boxes to make up an army to base to Impetus to play against Barry's armies. Barry has been holding off ordering a few boxes until I was ready but I wanted to first paint a few before committing to a supplier. I know some of the blogs I follow paint up plastics really well but can I? So these serve two purposes, they scratch an itch and also give me a quick fast test that I can fit in between projects. Whilst technically these are two different roman periods I am not too worried as I will be doing a slight conversion and period change anyway. Not only this but they will also be swapping sides to the Carthaginians. With the Cavalry this is really easy, the Auxiliary Infantry really need changing from chain armour to general clothing but I think in fact these will just get painted up as they are supposed and end up either in Barry's collection or used as needed as that extra unit. I do look forward to getting them painted though and even more to then picking up the required forces to match Barry on the battlefield. A kind of way of showing commitment to his scale and period as he has done to mine. Mind you since he painted up the 6mm Brit Nap's we have failed to get a game in!! Soon sort that out though.