Well, that went by a bit quick.........

I didn't realise how long it had been since I bored you all with the inane and dull crap I get up too.  I'm STILL waiting to hear from the hospital about the operation, I'm still on a mainly soup diet and I'm still feeling like crap.  Apart from that it's all hunky-dory.

Gaming has still been limited, I have managed a few board games and I did get a trip in to the Devon Wargames Group last month, although I didn't last too long.  It was nice to get out for a bit though.  We have played a bit of Zombicide:Black Plague now, having finally got our kickstarter package through.  I also received my copy of Shadowstar Corsairs, which is a fun game and plays nicely.  At least it did the one time we played it, second try tomorrow night.  In fact it's been a good month or so for kickstarters, I have received the two mentioned above, plus some 28mm German trucks from Anyscale Models and some lovely 15mm Cold War British from Armies Army.  It's been like Christmas and birthday all rolled into one. ;)

The 15mm British are beautiful figures and vehicles, I really cannot express how nice they are.  I am planning to start painting them up as soon as I can find my mojo again.

 My pledge was for an Infantry Platoon in 4 Fv432s, plus 3 Chieftains, a Spartan, a Landrover and some support weapons.  The vehicles are as nice as any I have had, nicer than Battlefront's latest efforts and easier to assemble as well.  Hopefully that will enough for the level of games I plan to do, but as usual there is bound to be more I end up with.......Scorpions, Scimitars etc

 To face off against the Brits I was planning to get some Team Yankee figures and vehicles, but did a quick internet search as £30 for 5 plastic models seems a bit pricey to me.  I found a little gem of a trader in Butlers Printed Models, who do printed vehicles in scales from 6mm to 28mm.  They do a small range of modern Soviet types for £3 or £4 each.  So I plunged in and ordered myself some, 4 BMP-1s for £12 and 4 T-64s for £16, enough for a platoon of each for less than the cost of one box from Battlefront.  Happy days indeed.

 This is how they arrived, which at first glance is a bit disconcerting. 

 From underneath they look even worse.





However the extra bits are very easily removed and it takes only a few minutes to turn them into a much nicer model and I am very pleased with how they look.  They are also surprisingly strong, none of the gun barrels broke or bent, which is more than I can say for a lot of other 15mm vehicles I have had over the years.  There is also a lot less glue needed, ie none.  No fingers stuck to little bits of metal with these.  I did use a file to clean up some of the edges though, it took all of about a minute for each vehicle.


 
As an idea of how they look compared to the Battlefront ones, here some pictures of a T-64 next to a T-55 from the Vietnam range.  The T-64 is longer, wider and lower, which seems to be about right. 






Another pair of vehicles snuck into the order, although not for me.  Nathan and Andy have Winter War Russians on the go and each wanted a T-28 to support them against the nasty Finns.  So here it is in all its glory.  Really nice and a bargain at £20.  The three turrets are all removeable and there is no glue needed again.



Anyway, that's it again for now.  I am off to do something less useful.  Catch you all later.

Happy 2016 and all that Jazz

Happy New Year, yes I know it's a week late but I have been busy.  Well, sort of anyway. 

So Christmas came and I got what I had bought for myself and then given to the family to wrap up for me.  So a couple of Airfix 1/48 modern kits joined the "to do" pile, a couple of rulebooks joined the ever increasing shelf of rules and some figures joined the painting list.  The surprise was my Secret Santa and I can only say a big THANK YOU to whoever it was.  I received four extremely well painted WW2 28mm figures which will join in the forthcoming Chain of Command games. So here they are in all their glory, sporting an apparently "modest" paint job.  Puts my work to shame.








The rules I got were a physical copy of Kings of War to replace the free set from the Mantic website and a copy of Dan Merseys Dragon Rampant.  The plan is to inspire me to paint some of the hordes of Lord of the Rings figures I have here.  That was the plan anyway, but the "ooh, shiney" syndrome has kicked in already and buggered up my plans for 2016 within a week.

Anyway, we gathered for our annual all day game at Zob's on the 28th and played a cracking game of Zulu.  More information can be had on Nathan's blog, but fair to say a good time was had by all.  After tea and biscuits we finished the day off with a game of Zombicide:Black Plague and just managed to win it, which was nice finale.

I then managed to get an infection in the partially done root canal work the dentist started back in early December.  Typically it kicked in on New Years Eve, after the dentist had shut for 3 days.  Luckily I got in to see the emergency dentist on the Sunday and got some anti-biotics and pain killers to tide me over.  Unluckily the infection was still there when I went to have the root canal finished and she couldn't do it, so I am back there in 2 weeks (hopefully). 

So while I was in pain and grumpy I stayed out of the familys way and looked at my projects for 2016.  As I said in my previous post I have a few projects on the go.  They have now been joined by a new one, more about which can be found at the end of the post.

After the New Year we played a game of Kings of War, 3000pts a side and 3 players a side.  Opinions were mixed, the 3 "elder statesmen"(50 plus) of the group were not overly impressed while the three "young pretenders" (in our late 40's now) liked them and plan to play them again.  So that was good.

Painting wise I have done very little really.  I still find it hard to concentrate, although being up all night for a few days did allow me to get some paint on lead plastic.  So here they are, just waiting on some bases to arrive from those nice people at Warbases. 











Fireforge Games Templar Knights with decals from Battle Flag.  One box gives 12 figures which is enough for 2 units in Lion Rampant.  I have decals for the Hospitallers, Knights of Jerusalem and Knights of Ibelin as well, so things are moving in the right direction on this project.  Just a few more to do, I have plans for about 120 cavalry and over 200 infantry in the end.  Yes, I know that Lion Rampant is a skirmish, but I want enough to do big battles as well.

Finally we come to the first unexpected new project that has already screwed my plans for 2016. I have pledged for this 15mm Cold War kickstarter to give me some Cold War British.  If I can afford it I will up my pledge later to get some VDV too, but I really want the British.  I am in for a platoon so far, but will be adding some Chieftains at the least.  This could get ugly!



So, there it is.  I am still ticking while waiting on the hospital to "get funding" for a gastric pacemaker so until then I will be up and down health wise.  Gotta keep smiling though, so bear with me folks.  Have a good one until next time.

Blood Rage, insomnia, it's all go here.

It'a 01:23 and I should be trying to sleep.  However, as usual my body has decided that it's not up to me and so I am sat here wide awake again.  I remember being able to sleep for 8 hours, but it's been a long time since I got anything close to that.  Ho hum, it could be worse, at least I'm not Craig Joubert! It's bad enough that he so obviously screwed Scotland over, but to then be told by World Rugby that he screwed it up...........

Bear and Raven clan figures

Serpent and Wolf clan figures

Anyway, I managed another couple of hours of gaming this week.  Four of our group decided to go in for the Blood Rage kickstarter and it arrived a few weeks ago.  Last night we gave it a go, well the other three did while I checked the rules and adjudicated on any fights"disagreements" over the actions/events/cards etc.  The game is good, it's easy to learn the rules but there are a lot of things to make it interesting and entertaining.  Highlight for me though is the figures.  They are beautiful and I can't wait to get started on painting some of them.

Mountain Giant (Huge figure)

Here are a couple of pictures of some of the miniatures.  The sculpting is awesome and I just hope I can do them justice when I finally get to slap some paint on them.

All told there are over 80 figures in the set, including the 7 large monsters. 


We have also just gone in on the Urban Apocolypse Terrain kickstarter from Battlesystems.  We are getting enough to do a 4' square area, so a nice big table for any sort of modern/post apocolypse game.  It's going to be great to play all sorts of games on and I may finally find a use for some of these modern figures I have here.

Finally, I now have a date for my visit to the hospital.  Next Tuesday will see my freedom curtailed as I go in to have a longer tube fitted.  Annoyingly the duration of my visit has extended from the overnight visit the doc casually mentioned to a 4 day/3 night stay minimum, more if there are any "complications".  Not impressed but I am glad that something is finally happening.  Here's wishing for a lack of complications and an early release for good behaviour.

Well, that's it.  I am trying to paint some Perry Miniatures Afrika Korp figures but the mojo just isn't there.  I'll probably end up playing World of Warships instead.  Catch you all later