Alternative Armies

The extra-ordinary seems increasing more mainstream these days, especially within gaming as a wider genre.

Personally I've noted something of a Zombie uprising, with barely a week passing without my attention being drawn to another set of impressive, wallet threatening, undead figures. A recently viewed modern "Scrubs"set entertained and tempted me greatly.

Alternative WWII also seems to be on the march with occult Nazis of every shade, shape and size unleashing barely controlled monstrosities from alternate dimensions.

These thoughts snuck up on me last night whilst reawakening the X-Box via Wolfenstein.

I spent the evening eventually taking down a Queen Geist end of level beastie (twice!) and then unsuccessfully battling a platoon of Wehrmacht led by a pair of demonically enhanced Fraulein that you wouldn't want to take home to Mother.
All good fun and despite setting up a good hobby "rhythm" over the last some months, which has been very productive, it was nice to take a break :)

With the pending arrival of Chrimble a semi-related project, previously lurking in a darkened alley, shall now be brought to the fore to be christened Zombie Village [dramatic jingle]

I've been keeping my virtual eye on a relatively new scenery company, Architects of War, and their impressively excellent offerings;
These two will go on the Chrimble list, to be received from others and / or myself, along with a Perry's North American Farmhouse and 30 of Mantic's incredibly fine zombies.

This will provide me the basis with a rather nice setting for all sorts of Zombie gaming including, but not limited to;

- French Indian /AWI / War of 1812 with Zombies
- Wild West with Zombies.......... Zombie Indians???
- WWII: Invasion of America (occult or otherwise) with Zombies
- Mid West B Movies (60s / 70s) with Zombies
- Mid West present day Zombie survivalists
- Mid West Pulp City with Zombies
- Star Wars RPG with Zombies

So, All Things Zombie then and Ganesha / Two Hour Wargames for the rules most likely.

P.S: SOME progress with the Falcon but not a lot, POSSIBLY over the weekend but there's a lot of rugby on :)

The Will to Win

Not too much achieved recently as it will all be bits and pieces for a while so instead you get a bit more filler / witty insight. The choice is yours :)

Rugby Union: England went down to to the All Blacks but they played well and put up a good fight. McCaw's boys were pushed in to committing a number of infringements in the last 10, and got away with the majority, but that's just top level pro sport.

At the end of the game what cheered so many fans of the red rose was that it was a COMPETITIVE performance and, as a fan, you can't honestly ask much more. It's why you watch. At the top end its often about "who wants it more".

Competitiveness within the gaming community is often a far more divisive issue. Specifically, where is your line, how much do you want to win?

Obviously this is a matter for each individual gamer, but one that many can get particularly defensive and / or vociferous about.

Personally, I LIKE to win, who doesn't, and always TRY to take a loss with good grace. I can find it harder to take said losses when, for whatever reason, I take a proper shoeing but I always TRY to have the same good grace when, for whatever reason, I dish one out.

Over the years I've irregularly attended plenty of campaign and tournament weekends, with varying results. The investment in time, money and effort for such events is substantial and I've found that taking a shoeing at such an event REALLY sucks.

Having always considered myself a "casual", yet regular, gamer playing and painting, a significant aspect of the hobby for me, primarily for FUN this was when that I decided, for myself at least, that there is nothing wrong with playing competitively.

Competitive games are the best and most enjoyable that I've ever played. Competitive for all involved that is!

These days I tailor my play to whoever may be good enough to give me a game. Push rules at me and I'll push them back, assuming that I can, show me latitude and I'll actively seek to return the favour.

Personal choice but for me it really is only a game :)

Reaching for the Skies!!

Do you remember either of these?

If you then, ermmm..... well done? No, really, well done they were two of my birthday presents, from July, and with a bit of a project gap it was they were the first of the many, many, MANY reserve items that I reached for.

I've always had a "thing" for he English Electric Lightning, my ultimate cold war jet and GB's premier suspersonic interceptor previously described as a huge engine attached to a fuel tank with a seat

Anyway, all built and awaiting paint. I'll be picking up one of GW's flying stems so that I can have it in a climb.... reaching for the sky! Big kid points :)


Another of Revell's pre-painted clip together kits, Mr Solo's pride and joy went together in a longish evening and isn't as big as I feared it might be.

I've left the top plate loose so that I can paint it in too parts. Not a full respray but I'll be adding some dark red sections and attaching various Future-Punk Tau transfers before a strong wash of Ogryn Flesh prior to drybrushed highlights / weathering.

Not sure how well the washes will take to the pre-painted finish so I'll need to mis up a big-ish pot of magic soapy wash.

May the farce be with me........ yet again!

The Kids are Alright!!

Evenin' all!

This is the lad Simpson, Wasps' scrum half. His excellent solo try from the base of a scrum on the halfway line saw an ugly win away at Leeds. After recieving a sound thrashing at home from Northampton last week it was a very neccessary win, especially given the ever growing injury nature of our injury list. Meanwhile, after digging a large hole for a composter at lunchtime, I managed to grab a bit of brushtime this afternoon and finished off my white undercoated Ninja Kids :)

Overall I'm rather pleased with thier outcome and feel a lot happier about painting onto a white undercoat. It took a bit more effort and fore-thought than I've been used to but I feel that a good result has been achieved and the white robes were much less of a struggle than normal.

As they're only tiddlers, those are pennies they're mounted on, I'll claim 6 PPs for the four of them to round off the monthly total at 24.

With just one project left on the active list, for the moment at least, I'll be doing a bit of teeing-up for the rest of this week and whilst the missus is out tomorrow night I'll be reconnecting to the X-Box, though not literally. Wolfenstein or Fable II.......

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 :)