Payday Bo-Nan-Za

It's a Friday, it's a Six Nations weekend, i've been paid and I blagged off from work at four this afternoon..........HUZ-ZAHH!!!

I've also finally finished off the Japanese marines, all 75 of them.......... muchos PPs, possibly too many for the effort put in to be honest. I think i'll just call it the 50 plus the 6 for the craters this month.

At the end of the day it's been more of a "bulk" project and I think that the PPs should reflect that. Something to muse upon for the future.
So, five rifle platoons with a couple of HMGs and a pair of small calibre field guns for support. Feels like the Banzai charge may well be a prime weapon, especially if the off-board arty fails to do it's job.
Plenty of hot lead and an inscrutably honourable chap in a grass coat. The bloke with the stick could still do with a flag though really.
Very light on the anti-tank there lads and that's some sort of strange deciduous pacific island that you seem to be marooned on isn't it?
Almost as bizarre as a later series of LOST that :)
Enough to strike the fear of the god-emperor into the saltiest of USMC leather-neck. Not sure that the Grants, Stuarts and Shermans will be too worried though.
Where's that bloke in just a loin-cloth with an HE charge on a long piece of bamboo?

Back into your case for moment lads, you'll just have to sit and wait for the USMC. Le' me hear an "Ah-So Seargent!"

Balls of Iron

I have to admit that I didn't really fancy Wasp's chances against Sarries on Sunday. Our pack and scrum has been an issue recently whilst there's has been the basis of their game.

The short story is that we won 9-0 and it was a far more entertaining game than the score-line suggests!

Adams Park was full and the crowd in particuarly good voice. We got well stuck in from the off and both teams had a good crack at each other.

What satisfied me the most was the dominance of our pack bullying thiers all over the park. We won a host of penalties at the scrum including a penalty try that wasn't given.

Brendan Venter had this to say:
"It's a tribute to their discipline in defence, but I do find it amazing that not once did they stray offside, put a hand in a ruck, commit any penalty offence."

Whatever mate, talk to the hand!!

Club night last night and a couple of us got in refresher games of Uncharted Seas whilst 40K made it's regular opinion plus a blast from the past with Dark Future with original tracl pieces!

My Bone Griffons took on Aaron's Bone Griffons on a brown sludge sea as we wrestled with our mutual vague recollection of the rules.
More by luck than judgement it was Aaron to utter the phrase "You sank my Battleship" whilst he shot up my cruisers and we tried to find a use for our Orci (undead whales).
Meanwhile Charlie's Human's took on MrC's ghostly (unpainted) Bone Griffons, lots of them about it would seem, on a very dark sea...... possibly at night.
Mutual destruction saw just rather leaky Battleships left at the end.
At the end of the night our objective had been met. Rules have been refreshed along with enthusiasm. Good stuff!

Aaron's white whales sparked MrC into talking about painting up his ships as a ghost fleet which I think could be doen really nicely. I recently picked up a second BG starter fleet for the upcoming campaign and am tempted to be "inspired" by the guy's paint schemes. Best build them first.

Meanwhile, i've been reading through my Oni army-book with vigour and the army box-set I ordered has been dispatched :)

I've also worked out that my laptop doesn't have a DVD drive, which is why the game won't work.... oops!! Might just invest some of my pay-pal money in a download or a DVD drive....... decisions.....

The Scattergun - Part Deux

Ta-Da!

Like any poorly written script, the second installment is hot on the heels of the first. Steven Seagel eat your heart out!!

Give in to the Dark Side:

T'was the finale of the current Star Wars mission on Tuesday night and I finally go to use some proper bad-ass evil types.
Fighting through the lower levels of the mines to the HIDDEN ANCIENT TEMPLE, a-hem, the guys fronted up a bit more than I thought they would and my plan quickly stalled.

We did however manage to roll out a lot more of the rules, following on last session's theme, and presented one of the toughest fights that they've had to date :)

This was mainly provided by a quartet of dark side marauders. It took me a little while to get a handle on the strength of thier powers but my aggression soon increased and I opened a decent sized can of whoop-ass!

I did decided that the LT's Froce Lightening was a bit too keen and went for Mind Tricks instead. Jon's Jedi was being particuarly effective so I managed to "cloud his mind" and turn him on the rest of the group.

Great fun was had...... mainly by me, until the guys finally stunned him to the floor..... boooo!!

Once Jon had been neutralised the HIDDEN ANCIENT TEMPLE had been successfully defended as the remaining eviler dudes legged it leaving our sort of heroes battered and bruised.

Loose ends need to be tied up but once again a very enjoyable night :)

Return of the Pedant:

The Japanese tsunami has been more of a insistent trickle, though one pound thirty of basing has pleased me more than it should.

Looks like a few of us may get some use out of them this Tuesday, multi-player style-e. Meanwhile this lot wait for highlights and basing.
Another 24 PPs within grasp!

The Grinch:

PC Blood-Bowl turned up the other day but for some reason the drive doesn't recognse the disk. I shall have to ask a tech-nerd what to do. I just want to start a Gobbo team of Trolls and fanatics.

Maelstrom have split my Oni order as they are suddnely out of stock of army boxes despite being in-stock when I handed over my cash. Bit poor really :(

Oh well, such is life. Maybe i'll paint some figures!!

The Scattergun - Part Uno

It feels like a while since my last post which is possibly a lie. I think it's just that a lot has happened since last Wednesday.

I shall inflict it upon you methodically. You lucky, lucky people :)

Rugby / Burning down the House:

I actually saw very little of the Six Nations games last weekend, just the last 15 minutes of the Scotland / Wales game. I have been reliably informed, by a Welshman, that it was the best 15 minutes of all three games.

A number of us spent Saturday afternoon warming MrC's new house with games of Space-Munckin and Robo-Rally. We'd taken a break for burgers and turned on the telly to see what we could see.

I found myself emploring the Sweatys to finish off the Daffs just for them to push the big red self-destruct button, Schocker!!

I also got to play half a game of Blood-Bowl on the PC. Definately entertaining and I hope to find my copy in my letterbox this evening. We also ended up bouncing around the idea of setting up a club online Blood-Bowl league.
It appeals, but how geeky is TOO geeky? Does that line actually exist??
On Valentine's Day I took the jet-lagged missus to the Wasps / Sale game (i.e. an industrial estate in West Wycombe). I even bought her a Cadbury's Caramel and a cup of tea. Lucky girl :)

It was a scrappy first half with plenty of errors, including the ref, but other than offering up a soft try we controlled the game well for a well deserved win. Danny's 100% kicking did the job.
Less errors in the second half but we'll need to take our chances much better this Sunday against Sarries.

We'll be there :)

Auf Weidersehn Pet:

The listings for the FoW Germans finished on Sunday night.

One lad took the lot for £470.......... OMFG!! I really hadn't expected that :0
It did seem to be the only painted army on there and it's a fair price for the army as a whole. I have been a commission painter in the past and was cheap when you worked out £ per hour........ but I still didn't dare to expect.

So with postage that's £500 sat in Paypal as toys money for the rest of the year at £50 a month. With club gaming conencentrating on Uncharted Seas and Blood Bowl 7s for the forseeable I doubt that I SHOULD be spending anything like that much!

An Oni army box and army book have made for a good start though :)

Right, that's my lunch break dealt with. More tomorrow.

Lazy dayz....

Day off today, huzzah, so i've been doing some painting.

One of the things I most enjoyed when I worked for the Evil Empire was making and painting scenery. Not to the same scale but i've had an eye on GW's "Moonscape" preformed craters and so picked them up when I popped down to my local games shop.

For the plug its Dark Sphere literally 50 yards from Waterloo station. You could tell them that I sent you but they'd probably just look a bit confused. Nice guys though.
Straight out of the pack in a spiffing plastic grey. Good level of detail and for £12 they cover quite a bit of table space.

I added a bit more texture with some sand / gravel mix and then sprayed them black followed by some of my stash of Ogre Flesh. All in a well ventilated of course!

A couple of hours of moist and drybrushing followed by a touch of mixed flock and voila. A set of craters fit to grace any generic-green battlefield that I wish to lay out. The inner geek smiles somewhat rabidly :)

I've also got a few more of the Japs painted up, fourteen to be exact, with more on the way. Pedant that I am, I shall be popping up to the bank tomorrow lunchtime for a bag of 5 pences....... so that they can all be on the same sized base............. WIERD-O!!

Whilst I was in the shop I was pleased to see that they had widened their stock to include FoW, Privateer Press and some other bits.

PP are now careering down the GW route. WarmachineII core rulebook at £30 hardback, £20 softback. Army faction books at £30 and £25. New plastic warjacks at the same price as the metals.

A lot of us got into Warmachine when it was still very new and really enjoyed thier independant staus and "feel". This all just makes me wince :(

But, on balance, that was 4 or 5 years ago and maybe i've become something hobby-snob middle-aged gyt. That makes me wince to :)

Painting points added. One for each crater is honest.

Making the hard yards

So, Brand Haskell showed it's full value this weekend. Good-o!

Something of a traditional 6 Nations opening weekend with three fairly scrappy games. I watched all three and was most entertained by the Scotland / France game.

Looks like the Ireland / France game in Paris next week will be pivotal

Not that I was unhappy with England beating Wales. I felt we deserved the win, taking maximum advantage of THAT trip.
That's three time this weekend with the women's team completing a whitewash!

Meanwhile Wasps got back to winning ways despite an injury list growing to almost epic proprotions. 3 penalties to 1 in an LV Cup dead rubber isn't the point. A return to winning ways and momentum for Sale next week is!

Having spent a lot of this weekend working, around the rugby OBVIOUSLY, i've still managed to finish off the first few Jap Marines.

Just the extended command squad so far and yes I need to sort out a flag!

Apparantly late war Jap Marines had ditched the blue, I can see why, but I like it ...SO... my lot have been marooned on some remote island for a while until the USMC have come calling. Bloody yanks!!

I also put the FoW Germans on E-Bay thursday night and, scarily, despite a 10 day listing I was picking up bids before i'd finished listing everything.
My 14 items are currently up to £240.
That's an awful lot of Oni and rugby tickets :)

All work and no play....

......... makes Steve tired and irritable apparantly. But I have also got "The Ick", that thick headcold, which probably doesn't help :(

Rather a busy week at work, with a bit more lined up for the weekend, plus Ick, so no painting yet again! The balance is next Wednesday off to sit and paint all day long!

I'm currently sat watching England giving Wales a good shoeing in the opening round of the Under 20s Six Nations. 41-14 with 5 to go. Get in!

I feel great optimism going into senior tournament this weekend. It looks to be a very open competiton this year but we shall see. England game at 5 tommorrow at which point tools will be downed.
The other highlight of my week was Tuesday's Star Wars session featuring the big shoot-out at Red Dog Zeta that we'd built up to previously. I blagged a 6x4 form the club to lay out the various sections of the mine and discoverd that my lounge isn't that much bigger!

The chaps had a decent plan and arrived in good spirits. A shaky start by Team 1, the advance force, who just managed to infiltrate the lower levels of the mine soon descened into a full blown firefight once Team 2 arrived and lacked any subtlety, though Mr Cock-Up was just about kept at bay.
The Jedi lead Team 1 and really came into his own, discovering his full Force Adept powers and put them to VERY effective use. Just as ontrol was being established Mr Friendly Fire suddenly gate-crashed and Mormar, our rogueish leader, took a shot in the back!
With the Temple secured, for the moment, the final episode of the mission is set to play out. Everyone expects a few aces up my sleeve.

I would so hate to disappoint :)

Bark vs Bite

At the end of last week I picked up a copy of Brian "Pitbull" Moore's autobiography. Today I read the first 20 pages and already it's a thouroughly absorbing read and I haven't even got to anything Rugby related yet!

Also highly recommended, by me, is Confessions of a Rugby Mercenary by John Daniell which concerns his time in the French Top 14. An excellent page turner.

Meanwhile, away from literary corner, January has netted me a mere 3 painting points. Not so great, but a good deal of prep work has been done to provide a bumper February....... honest!

As previously stated this will come in the form of my reinforced platoon of 15mm Japanese Marine. The fact that the missus is away with work for more than half the month will also help the tally. An obvious way of dealing with all that pining stuff that i'm sure i'll be doing..... obviously.

Twas the Club's first open day of the decade on Saturday and I was responsible for the running of our first ever Blood-Bowl Sevens tournament. A great deal of thanks is due to Jon to making up four sets of board surrounds to accomodate the suitably reduced pitch layout, as shown below.
Eight of us entered teams into the East / West confrence format playing the three teams within your conference before a swiss style inter-conference game to decide final standings.

Mr Christian's Humans remained undefeated in the Western conference only to be "gutter-runnered" by Mr Burn's Skaven, who lifted the Cup.
Overall a good days gaming and all of us were chatting about running a full pro-Sevens league making full use of Blood-Bowl's excellent campaign system.

With the Six Nations impending i've signed up to the Metro's free fantasy compo. As much as i'd like to, I don't see too many England players featuring in my team.

What would Brian say to that??