Watching the deniers, and the twitchers bathe in the Lake of Hali
30/12/2014
Another couple of pieces I knocked out during the “festive” season.
Again, from the Garden of Morr set.
Lots of Skullz(!). More to follow once highlighted. These two items got used for the last game yesterday. A third was ready for the table, but needs a bit more work before I am happy with it.
30/12/2014
Right no substantive posts for 7 whole days:
Now the dust has settled:
KIY found a pile of scenery and other gaming supplies in his stocking from Santa on Xmas day. So whilst awaiting the “festivities” with the family, set about painting and flocking them – light levels not needed to do this.
Three plastic vacc formed hills from Kallistra, done up for AVBCW, and four hedges from Peco (ditto). All finished off by the 28th before the Byakhees descended.
And on the same day I went shopping to get Pizzas, and found that the local Tescos was flogging off kebabs, spring rolls and other party food that can simply be bunged in the oven to heat and require no preparation which is a key issue for wargaming food – so for the second day that is what got served up. It went down well (nothing left), and so I’ve stocked up with more of the same…anything to avoid more bleedin’ Pizza…
Anyhow, I now have to edit loads of photos for the THREE WHFB games we played over the two days, so stand by !
30/12/2014
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 21,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
21/12/2014
So this was Byakhee Roo and my fourth border patrol, up until now we had not used much magic and or scary large monsters, so I thought it’d be time to field some Dark Elves which have all of that in Spades (sorry Spades is also one of my cats and played the Clever Game three times this morning thus xcoring a Cat-Trick).
Yes, I crammed in:
The Silver Talons (spearmen, cut down to 10 models) got stuck in with the Swordsmen. I’d squeezed in a very much cut down version of Samartik, and carried the day.
Whilst the RXB whittled them down on the way in, and then turned their attention to the Handgunners.
The Siulver Talons prevail, and AGAIN I fail to over run the fleeing enemy – obviously they have been hanging around stunties too long !
In the background Hisdsy the Hydra munched on the cavalry and saw them off the table (again).
The Dark Riders and Birdmen duked it out, but even when Roo had won that, he was left with an untenable position and at 9.50pm he had to do a runner. Still a great game was had by all.
More enjoyable by the fielding of some old but much loved figures from the Regiments of Renown/Dogs of War ranges now sadly OOP.
21/12/2014
Byakhee Anthony came round yesterday and we went through a pile of stuff he had left in my garage. After removing the live spiders, he took home a load of goodies he’d forgotten about and left a few decisions for after the Xmas period. This also prompted me to go on a hunt in the Playroom for some of my left over bitz (steady).
Instead, I found this, a box with a box inside of bitz and other odds and ends.
Well, only containing ~30 WW1 Russian Musketeer figures I’d “lost” for the last couple of years !
And a female GW Vampire that I can’t find in any of the catalogues (are GW all Vampires, answers on a postcard ???!!!).
Along with various hairy head, skaven, Ogre, undead spures and a load of flying stands.
My current w/e goal is to get all of this softed and handed out to the flock of Byakhees and to flog the rest.
And in the meantime, the Garden of Morr continues to be painted, albeit using a prodigious amount of brown wash !
20/12/2014
Tutoring Byakhee Roo in the ways of righteousness continues:
1k points, Oldhammer Dwarves vs Dogs of War (DOW)…almost an Oldhammer army.
I set up my Rangererers in the woods (1st edition Bugmans! Only 10 of them).
Roo had bulked up his Cavalry and Swordsmen though.
We were also jusing Magic for the first time.
The cavalry got hit by my canon, and immediately failed their LD test and scarpered.
The Rangererers got stuck in against the hapless Handgunners
Hmm, this didn’t look good, 9 Pony Express Ridererers versus 8 Swordsmen having been whittled down by Cannon and X Bow fire.
meanwhile I was getting it handed to me on a plate as One Eyed Sally’s Warriorererers were whittled down by Roo’s firepower !
Crunch! The Pony Express ambles in after a “charge”…
But fails to over-run the Swordsman and Wizard, but by this point Roo had lost.
Next game to follow shortly !
20/12/2014
When GW released their last but one range of Dark Elf Dark Riders, it seemed to have been preceeded by a wave of tester models. The old Sorceress on foot was a good example, appearing well before the Corsairs, Black Guard and others.
Now I’d seen this fella in various GW promo literature but never actually seen it for sale.
As you can see the standard itself hearkens back more to the Aly Morrison style of “Evil Dead” iconography that preceeded the Gary Morley sculpted ranges. In addition, the RXB comes as a two part item, not the single part item of the main wave of Dark Riders.
Anyway, I had to have one for completeness’ sake, and also for variety in my army. here they are side by side – the more common gary Morley sculpt and this rarer item which seems to be a Morrison/Morley hybrid.
This was delivered on Thursday, along with some bad news from the Postie about our ex Parish Clerk, and after I’d had to take BlackJack to the vets, after which he went into Ultra-Sulk mode.
17/12/2014 2 Comments
In preparation for a now aborted Xmashammer set of scenarios, I dug out and started painting my WHFB Garden of Morr scenery set.
Starting with the centre piece – the statue of Morr (God of the underworld in WHFB).
I decided to make the statue black to emphasise it and make it stand out amongst the greys of the rest of the set which is coming along nicely and should be up on the site before the end of the week (promises, promises).
I then decided to pack away stuff from Monday evening, and picked up a case of troops on the kitchen worktop…
Unfortunately it all fell apart. One of the hinges for the lid had been broken for some time, the other had obviously given out and as you can see it exploded everywhere, amidst much animated and uncouth language.
I’ve seen several torsos and arms floating around, and have to go back and tidy it all up after posting this. Great fun, where’s the glue ?
16/12/2014
So Monday before last, Byakhee Roo and I upgraded our forces to 750 points each to expand our options and so that Roo could learn some more. Roo has played wargames for years, has his own mancave, but is a bit rusty on WHFB.
So I finally unleashed more of my Oldhammer Dwarves – all classic pre-slotta and early slotta figures.
Including as you can see, the original Dwarf Bombard, and the even more fearsome Pony Express, comprised of Dwarves on ponies !
Roo fielded more Dogs of War classic regiments, such as the Birdmen of Catrazza.
both sides’ cavalry advanced across the board towards each other…the Pony Express at M6 was a bit slower. 😉
Crunch – Roo’s cavalry get to my troops first – One Eyed Sally’s Clansmen (yes I have named all the units, which guarantees their defeat).
But the Pony Express charged the Birdmen who turned tail (literally) and fled, and then failed their LD test to reform and fled off the board.
Adding insult to injury, One Eyed Sally’s clansmen defeated the knights, and Roo faield another Ld test and his knights hot footed it ! The dwarves couldn’t catch them in the pursuit though.
Reforming, the Pony Express charged into the swordsmen, and defeated them. Obviously they pursued the swordsmen, but guess which K-Niggits had finally rallied and were caught by the Pony Express ?
Yup, the Pony EXpress wiped out the last of the K-Niggits, and it was Game Over !
So after two games it was one all. We agreed to another session the next Monday (yesterday now – its taken me that long to write this up !).
The Pony Express figures,are early Fantasy Tribe Dwarves, plus a few other bits and bobs I’ve got, and I’ll write up a separate post on them by Xmas (Fingers crossed) with close ups. I estimate building the unit of a mere 10 mounted dwarves has cost in the region of £100. Now the nurses tell me it is time for my medication…. 😎
16/12/2014 2 Comments
Finally, some half decent light allowed me to photo the finished LDV on bicycles.
Foundry British Home Guard figures (WW2014, unavailable at the time of writing this post). They come as a two part model with the arm/handlebar separate.
So a fair amount of greenstuff was used to build them.
I used GW liquid greenstuff which seemed to work well.
I chose to flock the bases to make them look like they are on a road – I don’t think 1930’s bicycles were exactly capable of much off road capability ! I mixed black (tarmac) flock, and fine grey flock both by Jarvis scenics.
Which reminded me of Queen’s Bicycle Race…NB: the video is a bit racey…
And somehow, I don’t think that there will be many such lady cyclists featuring in any AVBCW games any time soon. 😮
The Lost City of Carcosa 