This is the Modern World....

Lots of off centre photos recently so here's one on the left rather than the right. Variety and all that.

Said photo, and that below, is of an Afghanistan 2010 game that Rich J put on at the club this week. Rich wrote the Afghan supplement for Ambush Alley, and I've enjoyed a number of games played with it, but this week was a bigger, 6"x8", game using FUBAR, primarily to see exactly how quick-play they are (approx 3.5 hours!).




As I've mentioned previously general gaming opinion is fairly split as to wether it's "Okay" to play some of the more modern periods, especially those that are ongoing.

Personally, I don't have any problem doing so but each to thier own.

One group who definatley don't have a problem was the RAF group running an Afghan game last weekend at Warfare and they'd actually served there! In fact, for them it was another way to raise awareness. I remember going to Salute the year that Black Hawk Down had been released for a glut of, highly enjoyable, Somali gaming and any number of companies releasing Somali ranges at that time.

You could argue that it was a far more limited action and /or a classic elite vs mob conflict but it seemed, to me at least, that it was more acceptable due to the lack of humanitarian fall-out transmitted into peoples living rooms a la HD.

It's worth noting that a lot of Afghan rulesets are supported and played by serving soldiers, whilst also making contributions to Help For Heroes, which has to be applauded. Whoever thought something so nerdy could be such a potntial force for real good! Personally I was busy across the hall with the Bullz taking on Ian's undefeated and greatkly feared league leading Amazons. These were my first two rolls with the blocking dice!!Mainly through the power of the Tackle skill, thank you Nuffle, the scoreboard was unbothered in the first half, despite me rolling an awful lot of pushbacks and a rapidly filling KO box, which was also shortened by a pitch invasion.

Recieving a touch-back at the start of the second half, Yusuf the potentially unstoppable actually was making great use of Break Tackle for a two turn score. I awaited the Amazon back-lash. Which fortunately, for me, never got going due to three quick female casualties, including a death, one of these from a fan-thrown rock!

4 versus 7 was never going to be easy and Ian almost got the score, ably assisted by more push-back rolls, only to be felled at the last! Rarely was a 1-nil win such a tense affair.

Thank god it's not real eh?.... eh?

Black and White or Shades of Grey?

Please don't worry I'm not about to indulge a spurious journey into the meaning of life or anything like that. It's all about the hobby!

Within said hobby there are many polarised points of view about just about everything. It seems to be a Nerd thing.
At the club last night I played two games of Blood-Bowl 7s. This wasn't the best start but I pulled through to a reasonably glorious 2-nil victory.

At least some of this was due to some very useful block dice rolls and, according to my gracious opponent, effective use of the Bull centuars.

The second game with dice honours even resulted in a rather less glorious 1 all draw.But a draw is definatley not a loss!The week before I rolled out my now fully painted copy of Space-hulk for the first time. Playing through the 1st mission three times saw the Blood Angels with little to celebrate!

Post game commentary often involves the turning points in any game and the chestnut that when your dice are having a bad session it's normally one way traffic!

Turning, eventually, to my main point another black or white subject of conention within the hobby is that of primer.Having been a possible hobby pro via 6 years employment with GW, possibly the biggest black/white topic out there, I've always considered white undercoat as being for proper pro-painters as it demands a higher level of skill and application.

For the record at least 99% of the figures that I've ever painted have recieved a black undercoat.

So with my project list short and uncertain I grabbed these little lads and lasses from the pile and thought I'd have a go at something DIFFERENT.

They're primarily intended for when we get back to Star Wars roleplaying and I want them to have a very 2000AD Hondo City sci-fi yakusa look. Lots of white robes.

The brow has been increasing deflected but the enjoyment so far has been tremendous. Always nice to add a little colour to life :)

China in my Hand?

An obsucre T'Pau reference, for those of you too young to realise, to the fact that The Brajhd-Fjord Bulls are now fully finished.

As I type that I realise I COULD sort out some cheerleaders (ahem..) but I'm not even sure what what Chaos Dwarf cheerleaders would look like. To be honest I'm not sure I even want to. Rain-check!

I'm particuarly pleased with the coach, having taken inspiration from GW's Dwarf Lord. Hopefully he'll bring me a win or two come Tuesday night.

8 figures and a couple of counters. 18 painting points a la bag :)

Working the Chain Gang!

Bit of a quick one really (ooh er missus) with WIP shots of my Hobgoblin substitute Line-Slaves for the CD BB team (translation?). The shots are a bit dark but they've just been washed with Devlan Mud, which I now believe that I probably can't paint without!

Returning from hols I've been keen to crack on with them despite the eventual arrival of the Gobbo figures from Impact. They were waiting on the doormat just as I was gearing up to request a refund.

I'm sure I'll find a use EVENTUALLY but for now they are condemned to LEAD MOUNTAIN. They did however come with a pair of rather funky weather dice which I'm keen to find a use for somewhere, somehow.

I'm particularly pleased with the Coach figure I've worked up but he'll have to wait 'til the weekend whilst I work on his paint scheme. I'm probably just over-complicating again :)

It amuses me that half of them have been blinded in some way or the other and I think that they'd also do well as alternative Human or Norse Linemen........ hmmm :)

Yusuf Mehmet the (potentially) Unstoppable

Last night's meeting of Enfield Gamers saw round 3 of the Blood Bowl 7s take place and having missed round 2 whilst on holiday I was a couple of games behind. Perfectly placed to raise the Bullz from the foot of the table!

Having added Yusuf Mehmet, my 2nd Bull Centuar, to the roster I was looking to apply a little muscle and score a few TDs.

First up were "Rob's Ratz" who obligingly had a horrific game repeatedly failing to pick up or pass the ball whilst rolling double skull on a number of occasions.

The CD contingent set to work laying a smackdown which caused a couple of casualties and an awful lot of KOs. As I've, painfully, learnt myself anyadvantage in numbers soon tells in 7s and Rob did well to keep the score to 3-nil.

Flush with success I then took on Mr C's Human "Salsa Queens" (undefeated) and soon came unstuck.

Initially, as the architet of my own downfall, I was too agressive with the B-Centuars not supporting them allowing the Queens to gang up on them. No significant eye scratching though!

A botched hand of to a BC, which would have seen him in space by himself, coughed up the ball and the Queens worked a well scored TD.

Dice then came into play and it was my turn to roll pure smeg whilst Mr C could roll no wrong. Karma eh? Grin, bare and stick the boot in when you can ;)

With a few turns to go I was 3-nil down and hadn't scored a single SSP. The Queens' kick went off the pitch for a touch-back so to see how well he'd go I gave the ball to Yusuf Mehmet.

The short answer was a mucular bundle up the pitch for a 3 turn TD and some saved face. The resulting MVP gains Yusuf Break Tackle which should enhance his ball carrying abilities....... just as long as I can get him to hold on to it!

Intelligent Auto........

... that's the function on the camera that I had managed to turn off!

The difference when it's turned on is quite remarkable as demonstrated below. With my ineptitude taken out of the equation I've been snapping away with abandon of a non-wild nature.
Twas D&D last night and as you can see Jon had put in a lot of effort with floorplans for the Deurgar FORTRESS OF DOOM!!

I then promptly ruined his plans by bluffing our way in, obtaining the relevant information by deception and then arguing with / convincing the rest of the party that there was no need to take on the entire garrison.

Boot on the other foot and all that but I did, briefly, feel suitably guilty despite reminding myself that this had happened to me more than once!

So, having deftly avoided all of Jon's efforts we continued on our quest to rescue a bunch of slaves by establishing their route of march and ambushing the guards.

As shown above they were well guarded at least until a flurry of critical hits by the majority of the party saw them off in short order.

Big points to Jon here for not resorting to forcing the party's hand as GM. It all goes a long way to creating the "illusion of choice" so critical to a well run campaign, which this is! (Abject grovel).

Meanwhile I've finished up the Dwarven element of the Bullz BB team. That's another 18 PPs in the bag! Though I've done more work than usual with construction / conversion of the figures the nature of the paint job has been fairly simple so it all balances out.

I do need to finalise names / markings but as I'm away to Turkey for two weeks on Sunday I intend to seek inspiration there. Once back, the Line-Slaves await.

A nice two week break for us all then :)

Return to Form

Saturday was Wasps' first home game of the Season at Adams Park and always like to get to that one.

Hosting Leicester we were still looking for our first win of the season and to add extra spice I was going along with one of the missus' mates, Olly, who's a Tigers fan.

To be honest, I wasn't too confident about this one and being 30-18 down at the half left the smirk with Olly, especially as the Tigers had already cliamed the four try bonus point.
I won't bore you with the details but the second half was a different game with Wasps scoring 19 unanswered points to send the stands into rapture and Olly jokingly threatening to make me walk home!

An excellent game. I just hope the The Brajhd-Fjord Bullz take some notice as, unsurprisingly, they currently prop up the league after the first round.

Paint wise, the Dwarven section are coming on very well. It was the usual slowly, slowly to work out the specific coulour scheme but the final set of pre-wash highlights did the job magnificently.Purple and red seem a bit obvious but do a good job and once highlighted up should provide a nice focus for the most important feature..... the beards!!Still having camera issues with this chap but the paint job is working out....

One out of two I suppose :)

Battered, Bruised but Unblooded

Q: How well did the first night of the Blood-Bowl 7s go for The Brajhd-Fjord Bullz?
A: A 4-Nil drubbing to Aaron's Lizardmen!

Now hold on a mo, I haven't had the chance to make my excuses yet :)

Due to the format of the league I started with my minimum 7 players, leaving a 120K big wedge in the kitty for "future development". So that's 3 Dwarves, 1 Bull Centuar and 3 Line-Slaves.

The opening turn or so was fine. This was my first time out with Chaos Dwarves and BB-7s is a very different game.

Though we expect to be getting in two games a night the lack of practice games really showed and so it was just one round last night.
A decent hit from a Saurus saw a Line-Slave badly hurt and a rush of blood saw me put in a foul with another only to get him sent off! Aaron duly scampered through the gap in my line for the opening score of the game.

I was very impressed by Aaron's large based ball marker (above) and unashamedly plan to steal the idea!

With my final Line-Slave knocked out and repeatedly failing to come round I played almost an entire half the game with just four players, all of whom had AG2In such a situation Aaron was always going to get the rub of the green and another 3 TDs followed. Game over man, game over!

On the upside, the Line-Slave returned just in time to complete a pass and claim the MVP thus gaining Sure Hands, which I'm sure will prove golden! I also generated just enough cash, the league rules keep cash tight, to recruit a second Bull Centaur.

More importantly nobody ended up dead or injured, so in all a classic "development" game. I just hope my luck improves once they're painted.

Elsewhere, I finally realised that I'd messed about with my camera and set the focal length too long. Doh!

Wierdy Beardys

Mornin' all!

It's 10:30am, so time for the 3rd coffee of the morning and a quick post :)

I was away at the weekend with the missus and a couple of the almost-in-laws around Ipswich. Get 'orf my tractor!!

Saturday we visited the Saxon boat burial at Sutton Hoo. The visitor's centre is particularly well done and well worth going round first before viewing the mounds themselves. They are after all just mounds and understanding thier background gives them a much better context.

On Sunday we went to Harvest festival at Jimmmy's Farm. Jamie Oliver's mate who has been busy saving the Essex pig at his farm in Suffolk!
Initially dubious, as a mixed festival of food and music on a farm, I was well impressed. There were plenty of different things to do and the day was pleasantly spent alternating between poking about, eating and lying about. Result!

Last night I finished all of the green stuff on my BB Chaos Dwarves adding long top-knots which nicely balance the baldy beardys. With green stuff I've learnt to layer up as necessary and that this creates more depth of detail. Seems so obvious to say but I'm really pleased to have improved another hobby skill :)

No photos, as for some reason I simply couldn't get any decent shots last night. Its the first round of the league tonight at the club so I'll put up an update tomorrow.

Additionally, I've still not received my goblins and will have to proxy Norse linemen for Hobgoblins, ..which gave me an idea! Empire Flagellants as slave linemen!! Order duly placed with GW.

IF and when I get the gobbos I may well do a team of them.... with Heresy Cyclops' as trolls!!!

Meanwhile, with the release of Isle of Blood I've had a bit of a scout on E-Bay and the mini rulebooks are going for about £15, which is £5 cheaper than I though they might be, and I still find myself failing to care.

Oh well, cest la vie.....

Its Grim Ooop North.......

.....or so they say. Probably something to do with breeding flat capped whippets down pits,.... or something like that??

As previously threatened I've got some time in with the tools, rather than the brushes, and have completed the basic construction of all of my Chaos Dwarf Blood-Bowl players, 6 Blockers and 2 Bull Centuars. I've used OOP Confrontation slayer figures as they're simply "too cool for school" with placcy goblin bitz as required.

The lad below is my first attempt at scultping the requisite ring beards and i'm not too sure if it needs to be built up a bit more. Possibly bit of a confidence thing as its not my greatest hobby skill. I shall canvas opinion at D&D on thursday!
They are rather lightly armoured as befits their slayer status though this is where my overactive hobby fluff abilities ride in!

I present to you all the Brajhd-Fjord Bullz a Chaos Dwarf team from the Northern most wastes of the Darklands. Thier isolation and exposure to Norscan ways has lead them to abandon their heavy armour (and hats!) of thier southern brethern as part of a beserker cult.

Bareheaded Blood-Bowl would seem to be a natural progression!

I'm guaranteed a bit more time in thier company this evening but would welcome any ideas / feedback should any of you be good enought to throw some my way.

Touch.... Pause.... ENGAGE!!

Back in BLACK!!

Evenin' all.

LIFE has been busy again and TOY action has been at something of a premium, which is a theme that's likely to continue this month!

On the upside part of said LIFE was this weekend's opening games of the now Aviva Premiership and the London Double Header, which I attended with the missus and the Dawe family. Excellent company!

Ian and I waxed lyrical that it no longer being the Guinness Premiership seemed wrong, Ian quipping that maybe he'd have a pie and six month's content's insurance at half time!

London Irish vs Saracens was the first contest and I was pleased to see Sarries actually playing Rugby rather than the kick and chase of last season. Something of a niggly game, with 2 yellow cards a piece with Sarries leading at the break as Irish made a slow start.

The second half was considerably livelier with Irish running through the gears for a bonus point win as Sarries crumbled under the pressure. An evil grin was required! The main event, for myself at least, saw the return of my beloved Wasps against those split-lip fancy dans, Harlequins.

A close, tense game from the off Wasps were the second slow starters of the day conceding a soft try in the third minute before being well in control at the break as Andy Powell scored on debut.

I was initially concerned by the selection with Flutey playing as a non-kicking 10 and Richard Houghton starting on the wing as a new, 1 year, signing from Sarries. I was quickly proved wrong with both having excellent games. Apparently we're having another building year but we came out to play good running rugby, which bodes well for the season ahead. Unfortunately a nailed on third try, which would have finished the match in the third quarter, was knocked forward and the final quarter bogged down horribly to the point where the crowd entertained themselves with and impressive Mexican wave.

Ultimately our penalty and error count was too high leaving Quins to produce one of their trademark comebacks for our last kick of the game to produce a draw!

Two points at least but, debatably, had we been more clinical it would have been four! Twenty one matches to go though!

Meanwhile, back in Toys-World, i've started work on converting up my Chaos Dwarf Blockers and Bull Centaurs. Mainly troubleshooting so far and finding some round bases but a couple of clear evenings should see a good result.

No gobbos through the post yet so proxies may be a necessary evil :(

Sweatin' to the Oldies

Well not literally you understand but it was proper "Old Skool" roleplaying last night, with requisite ROCK bull-fists and possibly a bit of AC-DC going on......

...... "For those about to ROLE, we Salute You!" :)

Overly fastidious character sheets.. Check!
Ornately crafted many sided dice.. Check!
Dungeon floor plans.. Check!
Lardy snack foods.. Check!
"I hit it with my sword".. Check!

A good old fashioned D&D dungeon hack... get in! Straight back to my youth, though we seem to have traded cheap, weak beer in for tea. Don't seem to mind :)
Having previously played 4th edition and been somewhat non-plussed by some of the newer bits, mainly those involving lots of cards and chips i.e. stuff you need to remember, Jon has done an excellent job of producing a D&D 3.5 variant that we're all much happier with.
I tend to remember this as session three and our second within the "Chamber of Eyes". I've not always been the greatest fan of bought pre-planned adventures but delivery is all and Jon has done an excellent job.

Any adventure is going to be relatively linear and during my recent stint as DM I always tried hard to create that all important "illusion of choice", forcing the players to make "real" choices. Hopefully I did as well as Jon is now.
This session went much better than our last. Pretty much all of our plans came off and we were a much more effective "combat unit".

Admittedly i'd forgotten that last time round I'd decided to take an Orc boss on toe to toe. Ian's support was greatfully recieved and I quickly decided, as scout, to go back to the sneaky stuff with plenty of back-stabbing and missile support.

Mr C, paladinic tank, had earlier bravely held up the big beastie, which he steadfastly refused to harm, for others to take out.

At least that was his explanation for his extremely poor dice!

At last knockings we cleared out the final gaurdroom and got down to some full-on looting before heading back to town for a bit of diplomatic endeavour.

Thankfully Jon's bluff rolls were just as poor as mine!

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the bits for my BB Chaos Dwarves have been arriving. I'd forgotten that centigors were almost one piece so the heavy clippers will have to be brought to bear. I also need to try out my hand at sculpting the big persian style ringlet beards.

But first, I MUST remain firm and finish off the Termies (so close!) before allowing shiny newness consume me.

Why must I spoil things by being, an apparant, adult!?

Work In Progress

Having had the day to my self I've made a fair bit of progress with the Terminators :)

I had broken them into 3 groups of 3 for painting but ended up painting them as a 9 to be able to co-ordinate their overall look, which has been important to me, in terms of the whole retro thing a la black and yellow stripe.

So currently they've all been basecoated and washed down. Devlan Mud continues to be a winner though my fortnight prediction will be about a week out!

As the figures are currently a bit dark and it's a night shoot I've left the flash on for the camera as a bit of an experiment. Fairly pleased.


Elsewhere, I've ordered all of the various bits that I'll be needing for my Chaos Dwarf BB Team.

After putting in some serious I-Surfing I gave up on legit hobgoblins and gone for a set of Neomic's excellent goblins through Impact Miniatures. After ordering I was less than impressed to get a confirmation e-mail telling me to allow 4 to 5 weeks for delivery! The figs are worth the wait but that's the wrong way to tell people :(

As a result the PayPal account is suitably dented so my Human travelling freak-show team are being E-Bayed. All of them are very old OOP chaos figures that i'm rather fond of but I never got on with the team, or thier dice! I learnt years ago that i'm a bit of a basher when it comes to Blood Bowl.

To top things off I've finished off Season 4 of BSG. Just need to find where I've left the finale.