20th January 2012

Not a great start to 2012 for me with three weeks of gaming and three losses.

Location: Woolf College, University of Kent

Opponent: Paul

Game: Warhamer: English Civil War

Fielded a Scottish Coventer Army:

• 10 Irregularly Army Milita
• 12 Steady Pikes with 10 Steady Shot attached
• 12 Steady Pikes with 10 Steady Shot attached
• 12 Steady Shot
• Major General

Highlight – My one steady shot unit who decided that fleeing from the charging cavalry was a good idea, only to watch them move 2″ and get run down.

Unit of the match: All of them played as badly as each other so, I’m going with Pauls Lifeguard Cavalry who managed to destroy one pike block, one shot block and scare another shot block into running for the hills.

CD Terrain

Well back on November 25th I posted to the Friday Night Fire Fight Club site the following “OK I offer a challenge to all of you (Paul is excused) to build a single piece of terrain that will fit on to a CD/DVD. I don’t care what it is for what era or whatever just build something. Let’s start the new year off with some new terrain so build it and paint it and bring it along in January.”

I got on with it and built 4 different pieces although I thing the one attached here is my favourite.  The figure that is being used in the pictures is a Capitol Light Infantry Light Machine Gunner from Warzone and helps me mark the varnishing of 19 figures so far this year.  The structure comes most from the Hirst Arts Fieldstone molds with some wood planking and a bit of roof tile.

13th January 2012

Firday 13th doesn’t sound lucky for most and certainly wasn’t lucky for my army tonight.  I forgot to point out that I lost last week, and I’ve lost again this week so not a good start to the year for me.

Location: Woolf College, University of Kent

Opponent: Darryl

Game: Flames of War – 1405 points

Fielded a British Rifle Company in Italy, from the Fortress Europe Book (1500 points):

• Company HQ (Rifle Company HQ)
• 2 Rifle Platoons of 3 Sections each
• Armoured Platoon (3 Shermans)
• Tank Platoon (3 Churchill IV NA75)
• Machine-gun Platoon (1 Section)
• Anti-Tank Platoon (upgraded to 17 pounders)
• Priority Air Support

Highlight – Watching my opponent keep rolling for reserves (a total of 10 dice) and not getting any, it made me laugh a lot.

Unit of the match: Darryl’s Fallschirmjager who spent the entire game dug in round a farmhouse and rained destruction on the British army that tried to force them out.

6th January 2012

First game of the New Year.

Location: Woolf College, University of Kent

Opponent: Joseph

Game: Flames of War – 1405 points

Fielded an 8th Army Heavy Armoured Squadron (Africa):

• Company HQ (3 Sherman III’s, 340 points)
• Heavy Armoured Platoon 1 (3 Sherman III’s, 340 points)
• Heavy Armoured Platoon 2 (3 Grant’s, 280 points)
• Anti-tank Platoon, Royal Artillery (2 6 pdr Portees, 95 points)
• Royal Horse Artillery Battery (4 25 pdr guns, 245 points)
• Limited Air Support (Hurricane IIC, 140 points)

Highlight – The RHA Battery landing a barrage of artilley on top of the command Panther and destroying it.

Unit of the match: A toss up between the RHA and the Hurricanes.  The Hurricanes managed to keep my opponents HS129′s off the field of battle, unfortunately when they did show they failed to harm the Panther Tanks.

New Year

Well the New Year is approaching quicker than a Cryxian Warjack on a battlefield. So I wish everyone who pops by a Happy New Year and hope you all get some more gaming in. At this time of year people tend to make resolutions (you know the type of things that people think they will do in the Year ahead and then fail inside two months. The Gyms make good use of this by offering three months for the price of two etc, knowing full well that the majority of people will never be seen again. So I’ll be skipping the gym in my resolutions, so here we are 4 resolutions this year (hope I can keep some of them).

1) Keep a record of the games that I play and against who I play them. I did a good job of this two years ago, but failed miserably last year. Still a New Year and new gaming opportunities arise.

2) Finish off all those figures that are half painted. I’ve no idea how many figrues I’ve started to paint and then moved in as Paul introduces me to a new game leaving the figure half of less done. So I’m going to start by clearing the figures and terrain that are part done in my office/study and then start going through the bags. This could take a while so I will try and keep this blog updated.

3) Ok so the usual suspects start here, loose some weight (of course as a Physicsist I should say Mass but half of the people out there wouldn’t understand me.

4) Keep looking for a new job, I need to move on I’ve been at NKS 10 years or so and although the job is generally still good it’s not what I signed up for 10+ years ago. This is probably the easiest one to keep as I don’t swear to do anything other than look.

Anyhow here comes 2012!

“Back to School”

Ok I get really really annoyed about “Back to School” notices and sales going on in the summer holidays as it is, but this is starting to take the biscuit.  Today I get an email from Staples entitled “Up to 80% off Back to School Essentials!”, hang on a minute we haven’t even broken up yet!  Kim then points out that when she went in on Monday the banners were up in the store, enough really is enough shouldn’t they at least wait until we have broken up and had a couple of weeks off before pushing the “Back to School” promotions.

Shabbmeister

The master of the shed Councillor John declared me the Shabbmeister after Friday’s game of Malifaux.  Whilst I of course object to the title, I did make rather good use of the various combo’s that my characters had.  I get the feeling that John really doesn’t like the Guild and by now really dislikes the Ortega family, shot gun weddings included!

Anyway I looked up Shabby:

1.

a. Showing signs of wear and tear; threadbare or worn-out: shabby furniture.

b. Dilapidated or deteriorated in condition, especially through neglect; seedy: a shabby little park.

2. Wearing threadbare clothing.

3.

a. Despicable; mean: a shabby trick.

b. Not generous or just; unfair: shabby treatment.

c. Of mediocre or substandard quality: a shabby performance.

I assume that John of course was using reference 3a of course 3c may well have been used instead.

Reflection

Ok so after I decided to assembly some figures tonight I realised that it makes some kind of sense to actually have a listing somewhere of what figures I have, if only to stop me buying more of the same figure.  So I have added a listing of my Viridian figures for Urban War, I assembled a third bazooka team tonight (I doubt I’ll ever field three) and a second Heavy Machine Gun Team (probably more useful).

So as I move through and assemble more figures I’ll add an extra page.

You’ll also notice that I have changed the theme of the blog just to make it look prettier.

Fully Painted

I had intended to write more yesterday however I spent too long with the pressure washer cleaning the block paving and my wrist didn’t like typing.

Anyhow “Fully Painted” I’m sure those of you who move around different forums have seen these little things in peoples signatures that are a “Countdown to fully painted”, finishing off the Retribution figures (well apart from one) got me thinking about that concept.  The ideal of being fully painted sounds good, after all it does look much more impressive at a tournament to see an entire army set  out on the table that is fully painted then the one in silver/white/black camo pattern does.  So I thought about doing a countdown to fully painted myself, and then realised that I’ve been purchasing miniatures at a faster rate than I’ve been painting them!  Ok so I’m not planning on cutting down further than I have already after all a budget is only good for one thing.  Basically I need to find time to do more painting then, so how about a countdown – well I have three lists on here, Operation Orboros (still going), Uncharted Seas and Warzone – Capitol, and none of those are completed.  Writing out the lists of figures that are still awaiting painting will take me longer than painting most of them (although having a list of figures might be good for insurance purposes!), I think I’ll stick to painting them.

Countdown to fully painted – not enough time to bother!

Retribution Finished

Well almost.  My entire collection of Retribution celebrated the Easter Holiday by finally being finished off and put away.