FAIL!

As anyone who followed the comments section in the last post may well be aware I did not manage to get to Donnington for the second day of the con. Quite possibly this was much for the better given how much I was limping by the end of day one and how utterly crap today has been! It seemed like we have picked up two punctures in the last week. Well I am glad to say we have not, well I would be glad if not for the fact that the whees themselves are knackered and need replacing! So this morning was spent trying to get that sorted,  yes Fail two in two days. Well they say they come in threes so this afternoon I went for the two weekly blood test only for the post needle cotton wool ball to yep fail. Off down the corridor back to my sisters car when I noticed blood on the end of my finger. Looking up my arm was a steady stream of blood. back to the nurse and after rather more fuss than it required I was on my way with a bandage around my arm wondering if she was joking about the sling?

 

Anyways having had enough of Fails I went to my daughter's parents evening and happily she received a good report. So a proud Dad am I. I also have just finished painting up some of the figures I bought on Saturday which all things being equal will be posted tomorrow. Having spent scant attention to the rest of the convention on Saturday and taking zero pictures I can't really do the planned It's all about everyone else post so instead I will try over the rest of the week to post more in depth on some of the items I purchased. I also have a game booked with Matt for tomorrow night so will have that to write about as well. Until then  guess I had better get cracking with some more painting.

Donnington Wargames Show, It's all about Me.

Well I survived day one of the show, somewhat humbled by finding out this morning that Tamsin was too ill to make the show. Get well soon gal. Today will be a bit of a grind as I could not get comfortable till well past midnight and have been awake since 5 and up since 6! Well I should be ready for the lift then. Will I make sense? Probably not so Barry should not notice the difference.

 

Saturday I was given a lift by Lee (AGAIN) who arrived at 9 as planned and as it's only twenty miles from my house we arrived nice and early so took cover in the cafe. £6 lighter and two coffees and a bacon bap later Lee staggered out of the cafe to sit down. At least I had paid for his entrance fee but damage had been done under the water line that did not become apparent for a few hours, maybe Lee's cargo was rice? (points awarded for the first person to connect the reference to the book). This s where we met Andy M from Another Slight Diversion. We had a couple of trades to do so I wasted no time getting rid of some paper stuff in exchange for this.

These are 6mm Timecast buildings Andy had professionally painted and based. When I have daylight and an opportunity I will take pics of the ones that remain in my possession to give you a better look at them. They really are great and based to a very high standard. It has given me pause for thought on how I will base up my other buildings. Here is another shot.

Half of these will be mine, the other half going into the collection of another friend. Really the pictures just fail to do them justice.

 

The other part of the deal was the prior mentioned TBM terrain tile of the Spanish Hill Village. Andy also had packed away with the buildings the figures I will be painting in exchange for the buildings. This method of funding my hobby may well become a standard as I paint figures for other junkies and get paid in wargamer dope. In fact if anyone in authority actually saw the looks of some of our faces as well pass over money for goods they may well ban it! Anyway this is what I got from Andy.

and another view.

So a few buildings to paint. Add these to the three Spanish TBM buildings I already had, the other ten I bought yesterday I think you would agree I have a production line to set up. Er well then add the four ECW buildings I bought yesterday to the two large ones I got from TBM and you could say I went a bit OTT on buildings. At least they are all 6mm and for three different periods (two will have some crossover).

If only I had stopped there, but after picking up the cash for the half of the Russian buildings I was nicely reloaded and set off in search of more swag. I had a few packages already pre-ordered such as some very very nice Adler French. Not much, more a dip of the toe in the water to see what they are like to paint and how they look mixed in with the Baccus. Well I really liked what I saw so will I am sure be spending more with them next year. I failed to get the 28mm giraffe as Irregular had sold the two they had bought already (this is for Child number one). I also got the 28mm sheep that will be the subject of a little conversion work, more on that at another time.

 

I picked up a few bits from Essex, finishing off the Persian Cavalry, though in reality I would have to buy about 8 more packs to fully finish them off. I also picked up a pair of heavy bolt throwers that will pull double duty for several armies.

 

Warbases will be doing 10 custom bases for me that was priced lower than expected and will be a great upgrade on what I had put together myself as a mock up. That almost got me to critical mass but Lee spotted a Baccus starter set for ECW that I had passed up at Derby last year and ever since I have been kicking myself. It was there again this year and so Lee suggested splitting the boxed set. In now retails at £95, we got it for £25 between us. £12.50 well spent, and when we got back to mine it was split up with me taking the rules whilst Lee got all the bases. Other than that it was straight down the middle.

 

Talking of Lee, by his point he was listing hard to port and it was looking like he would not manage to spend his shilling on some dark green static grass. Now traders have gone bus when Lee has failed to turn up at a show and I know for a fact that tension in the trading hall was broken once rumours of Lee's presence was confirmed this year. Well it was looking very very very dodgy for the show when after five hours all Lee had to show for such a long time in temptation land he had to that point spent £50 for a mate, along with the two coffees and that bacon bap, but in fairness to Lee by this point he had added a second bap to his wallets release (I got the coffees this time). All that could be heard from him was "I will be bringing my own tomorrow", over and over like some strange mantra. Yes he had bought the ECW stuff but that's a saving of £70 between us right? I mean we were in pocket. Well finally he decided to buy 4 guns from Adler, oh and limbers, you have to have limbers. Before he had finished he had bought the whole of the Young and Old Guard and that nice Lady from Adler was on the phone to Thompson booking that cruise she had always been promised by he Hubby. Balance restored and like a dervish Lee managed to ensure the future of a few traders in the matter of 90 minutes. I am not so sure it's a good idea for him to go back later today, after all he sent me an e-mail at 11.30 last night requesting a rule change that will allow us to "do arty proper". I just know he has been at that Adler catalogue all evening!

 

So as this is all about me, I will only give a very basic run down on the con. Like Andy over at the Diversion I am not 100% sold on the venue, for me it needs more sit down space for checking out the swag or just plain resting, and something that is comfortable! Overall it was a good day, well I had a very good day. I did not get to look at all I wanted to, so today will get that done. I will be back next year, yes it is noisy but I did not mind that at all. The floor being concrete has taken it's toll on me, hence the late to bed early to rise but that's what you get playing in big sheds. A better run down on the show tomorrow, oh and I guess some pics.

Secret Santa

Bumping the post. Any more takers for this? Can all those interested in the SS please post a wish list on their blogs. If you also do a link post back here we may get a few more interested. I plan to run this again next year as well so if we can show it works I am sure we will get more interest next year

OK I am throwing this out there in case some of you lot would like to get into this. I used to be involved with an ASL one that was ran up to year before last and really missed that one package that had come from another ASL fanatic that I really had no clue as to what it was. Well it got me thinking to a wider part of the hobby and so I open up the idea to the rest of us to be taken up or cast to one side based on the response. Below is a quick outline of how I would see it working, nothing cast in stone and all open to change and improvement.

 

1. The spend plus postage should be no less that £10 or more than £15 or equivalent.

2. All interested parties to register their involvement via the blog and then send me an e-mail with the address.

3. I supply each player with the address details of a participant who they are to give a gift.

4. Gift can be sent direct from you, or ordered from a supplier (if in a different country to you, ordering via a supplier in their country can save a packet in postage)

5. Each player lists on their blog a wish list which can be anything, either books, figures etc. for the buyer to freely pick from.

6. Only if you run a blog can you enter.

7. No opening before Christmas to keep Santa from being cross.

8. Blog your present sometime after sobering up

 

So yell if I missed something, yell if it's a crap idea etc etc.

FUBAR Free Rules

Barry has been building the forces for a quick fun Si-Fi game using the freely down loadable set of rules called FUBAR. These are one page rules so nothing fancy. However could they make a good game. I have to admit when the guy with the rules, figures and scenario said something like "I hope I got the balance about right" I did start to worry. The rules were sold to me with the promise that the games would be short sweet and quite brutal and as such Barry had prepped two scenarios for the session. As it was the game played longer than advertised so we only got the one game in, though I can see that it could have played faster than it did.

 

Evil Empire, not many of them but Veterans of many a brawl.

Neither of us had a suitable cloth for a barren planet with buildings made out of shipping crates so it really did not matter that we were playing on a plain table. This after all is a test game. The scenario has a group of colonists sending out a distress call with little information supplied. I as the rebel faction tries to respond first and get the political kudos of saving the defenceless people. Barry on the other hand is the Evil Empire who also responds (obviously only because thy know the caring loving rebel force would do a great job). How ever on arriving no trace of the colonists (who must be hiding) but what I do see is Empire forces landing just outside of Dodge. I set up for a ambush and await their evil designs.

Not much but it is quality.

Ignoring the landing ship Barry had a five man squad, a hover bike recon, a hover attack cyborg and a walker attack cyborg. A small force but especially the walker all heavily armed.

Barry set off down the street which was made up of metal containers converted to housing units (well a Brothel and a Bar as well) and then a collection of units made into a hospital which I was mostly defending.

Home sweet hospital.

Hospital complete with evac shuttle on the roof. I defend this building with two laser rifle armed troops and two with rocket launchers. Barry tried to flank this building going around on his right flank with his hover bike which ran into a couple of troopers. This quickly escalated until he had drawn out about a third of my force. I lost a recon drone but took out the bike after a few rounds of suppressing it.

One trapped Cyborg (the silver thing in the middle)

Barry brought his flying Cyborg down he centre and at first it swept my infantry before it with devastating fire power and mitts full of dice. Soon though I had units attacking from both sides which was frustratingly hitting it but never doing enough to take it out in any one turn.

 

Suppressed but not dead...........yet.

Three levels of suppression and the bugger keeps coming back. The rules have a initiative roll that as long as you keep initiative you can activate unit after unit. Fortunately for me Barry was not getting the first attack, allowing me to keep this guy suppressed and he was also failing to activate units. I on the other hand was managing to activate most of mine but kept failing to kill this monster. That continued for three turns but fortunately I finally managed to bring it down but by this point the walker and the infantry were in a position to join the fun.

Infantry refuse to support.

However they were not coming in together. This Cyborg was way more powerful than the last one so my plan was to keep it suppressed when I had the chance and spend the rest of my attacks on the infantry. However it took to many attacks to suppress the monster and left me to weak to do more than suppress the infantry. This was the result of two turns ten Barry got the initiative first and I started to loose units fast. Once this started I was on the road for a good slapping.

 

Grunts eye view.



Then I got initiative first and rolled for activation, nope, Barry tries, nope, my last unit (the other two were knocked out) er no. Then Barry gets one last opportunity, er no. Next turn Barrie gets to go first, activates the big boy and the rest was history? No not history, just a mix of organic slime.

 

Well the result was fairly close, I lost but it could have gone my way on the next to last turn. We will play again for sure and I would say Barry got the forces just about right. A better understanding of the rules and weapons can only add to the game next time.

 

Talking of next time we will either be back to Spain for some 6mm Naps or trying out some Roman mayhem in 20mm. I have a feeling it all depends on how fast we get some Spanish buildings painted up.

6mm Command Figures

Having done the 10mm ADC's I was not really that excited about doing yet more fiddly painting but having played all the Nap games to this point with Prussian Commanders I was starting to hear unhappy mutters coming from my French Boxfiles.

This at least for the time being is the C-in-C, yes Boney himself. All four are Baccus figures from the command pack. Problem is it seems it really comes with three Napoleon's as I can't seem to find anyone else in the French Army who wore their hats the way he did. To show it's the C-in-C I have 4 figures on the base.

This is an Irregular Miniatures single command base, whilst they are a tad small I really like the look of the whole base so I have painted it up and reasonably pleased with the result.

Back to Baccus, I really like the detail Baccus tend to add to their figures. I have the Adler command figures on order for the weekend and hope these will add some more variety to the mix.

With only four command bases I really need to get more painted up. This is again Baccus and is he last of the figures I got with the starter army. The other command figure snapping off when I fumbled the clean up roll.

 

So my French will be commanded by French on their next outing, sometime in the future. Today though I am going into space for a couple of games of FUBAR, watch this space.

Three Days till D-Day

That is Derby, er, Donnington, well what ever it's going to be called now! I have to say that being at Donnington I am not sure if I should get out an old Monsters of Rock T-shirt. On second thoughts I am not really sure anyone would want to see me wearing a T 2 sizes too small!

 

Anyway trying to escape that image, with only a few days to go I have to pretend to listen to the wife about such trivial things as Parents Evening and resist having as the kids bedtime story a rendition of my wants list. So tough luck guys and gels, you have to get it instead.

 

Well first off it's not that big, both as the kitty is shallow and because I did enough damage at Partizan. In fact given the quality of the Baccus SYW figures I have decided no more Baccus French infantry till the new redesigned French Naps come out. Not that has stopped me ordering plenty of French from Adler. Mostly mounted or casualties to add that little bit more to the bases but I did order one regiment of foot for comparison.

 

No this years Derby Donnington is going to be building themed. First up the trade with Andy Mc for the unpainted Spanish Hill Village, but I am also buying a bunch of Russian 6mm buildings from his as well. On top of this I plan to buy a few Timecast buildings to compliment the Spanish Village tile and the other TBM buildings I got from Angle Barracks last week. Of course I also need some more buildings for my 6m ECW project so will see what I can pick up either timecast or another such provider. I don't plan to paint any of the buildings I have until I have gathered them all in so I can have something of a theme.

 

I also need a couple of packs of Essex Persian Cavalry to add to the ones I had for my Birthday from the kids. Maybe a couple of waggons from Baccus to go with the two carts I already have from Baccus but they are just pick up items. Maybe some arty for my Alex army, these look to be expensive in the army lists but they do tend to help reduce your opponents will to fight so well worth a look at.  Last up it's a visit to warbases for a quote on some custom bases and some rather boring 30x30's.

 

Looking back at last years purchases I have to admit to being rather pleased with the fact that everything except some Thracian infantry, two 6mm cavalry regiments and a few 6mm guns have been painted up and all that has been painted up has been played with (if not by ME!). This is the last one for me till probably Triples next year and if so it's a fair possibility that I will get all the purchased figures done before then. No issue with that as I really want to get into the Roman Army as well before much longer.

 

So roll on Saturday but today I have the opportunity of a full day at the painting desk, that is unless it's that Parents Evening, how can  find out without letting on I was not paying attention?

Ancient Tanks Sighted

I got six 15mm Elephants as part of the Seleucid army from Martin. One was finished, another had the elephant mostly finished  with the crew still in the packet whilst the other four had the skin painted on the beasts but with damage to the paint job so  stripped them back and started again. Martin did an excellent paint job on the elephants rugs which I did not even try and copy!

All models are Chariot Miniatures or Magister Militum as they are now known. I have just showed the five I have worked on. I did rush them a little as I wanted them all done so as to have them up and running for future games. In a few cases the pikes were either already broken or broke during the clean up stage. These have wire replacements from pikes from the same army.

 

I wanted them to look individual so each has a different colour scheme. I also added a couple of escorts amongst them just for a bit of character. One is a very old sample I don't really remember getting, the other was a single figure that has been lying around for years.

 

This elephant and escort are all my work. Honestly it's the escort that is really the main reason for the picture and the two that follow.

The casts had little flash on them and I have to admit I cheated with the elephant as all I did was prime it white and wash it in GW Nuln Oil which is a black wash.

 

 

Close up of the escort, very basic paint job but I wanted him to stand out a bit so I added a chequer pattern to his cloak. I resisted the urge to join up all the lines and was rewarded with a better result.