The Men that will not be blamed for delaying posts

Yes, another gig, this time The Men that will Not be Blamed for Nothing. Thought that it would help shake off my flu (it was day 12 and I was fed up, and I’d missed the previous gig on day 2).

Last gig of the tour so they threw everything in to it, as did the support bands. Didn’t get back until 1am Monday so cream crackered for the next couple of days.

But then there aren’t many bands that do songs about Marie Curie, Charles Darwin and Cholera. (And who doesn’t like a good song about cholera ?)

However, I did start another clear out of figures and re-organising the keepers.

As some of the Byakhees know, using old take away curry plastic boxes is dead useful for posting stuff you’ve sold and keeping ots of flock, bits and so on. Unfortunately I’ve either posted all of mine of the boxes and lids don’t match up.

So I asked a few months ago at the curry restaurant for the supplier’s details…

So I got a box of 252 of the blighters for about £40.

My e-bay sales are now going to arrive in luxury, and the remaining piles of lead will be properly sorted.

AVBCW: 6th Anniversary Big Game (Part Three)

This is for all the info I have on the other tables, so its a bit of a hotch potch.

Table 3, the Commies form a traffic jam, typical, getting in the way of other road users.

Whilst other desecrate the farmland trampling the crops, including their new hedge busting monstrosity that is busy looking for a hedge to dismember.

The urban proletariat clearly have no idea about the countryside they are so eager to liberate.

Meanwhile the Anglicans are also doing exactly the same clogging up the roads with their foul polluting vehicles trying to intimidate farmers going about their business. Bunch of wish washy liberals.

More traffic mayhem reported on Hereford BBC Radio.

The Anglicans brushed the skirmish line of the LDV aside.

But not before a report came in of a RTA involving a tractor and some geese.

Anglicans finally getting stuck in with the LDV defenders.

LDV defenders swarm around the lone Communist car having shot its occupants for talking strange.

Communists get bored of waiting in traffic jam and disembark, just as the BUF turn up.

The cricket pavilion goes up in flames. Storing all that alcohol and linseed oil was not a good idea.

The LDV newly emboldened with Royalist and BUF allies, counter attacks against the Reds.

AVBCW: 6th Anniversary Big Game (Part Two)

My general advance began, into the corn field where I slowed down.

And came under fire from the defenders (JP) lurking in the woods.

Major Strait Jacket’s (Alan) troops advanced more easily at first before they encountered the so called Police (Doug of em-4).

I was not sure how I was going to breach these defences !

General advance, Strait Jacket set his engineers to work clearing the unexploded bomb by the road side.

My HMG opened fire on the lurkers in the woods, and in an exchange of fire whittled them down and pushed them back, alas the HMG received as good as it dished out and was destroyed.

To make matters worse, reinforcements turned up for the defenders, like this field gun.

BUF and Police shoot it out.

Bomb disposed of, my armoured car nips forward, shoots and is shot at ending up “Jumpy”.

BOOM !
Major Strait Jacket is felled by an explosion targeting his HQ section.

His 2-i-C opens negotiations with the enemy shortly afterwards.

Whilst my armoured car is assaulted by a bomber, which immobilises it. the crew stunned to survive the attack, realise they’re in an armoured pill box and recover their nerves.

Unlike the defending lDV in the wood who are now caught in across fire by two of my sections, and continue a slow retreat.

They even have to call up some rusty old contraption of an armoured car to help them out. Good job I moved my Oikerlin Anti-Tank gun up !

Strait-jacket’s men whittle down the so called Police whilst negotiations continue.

The defenders must have been rattled, as another section of reinforcements was summoned.

The Communists beat the traffic jam and finally get through to the hall.

Three tables pushed together to make one big table.

Negotiations are completed over lunch, and the LDV accept BUF/Royalist help to protect them. In exchange for territorial integrity in the future.

Strait Jacket’s forces bring up their own vehicles to get to the scene of the fight, and promptly cause a traffic jam, meaning my troops have to let them pass as we are nominally meant to be slower. 😉

The Hockey girls get stuck in with the enemy.

My troops finally get going, top right, a bunch of Jolly Jack Tars notice the brewery is now undefended, and out of concern, decide to occupy the brewery and ensure that the contents don’t fall in to the hands of the advancing Anglicans (hic !).

At this point the flu had worn me down so I had to flee the scene leaving my remaining troops in Alan’s care.

A good day, and I sneaked in the occupation of the brewery as a farewell gift.

(Allegedly we were joined by some toffs in red later)

AVBCW: 6th Anniversary Big Game (Part One)

Yes its been 6 years since Jon and I did our first Big Game. The Next generation chose a date that both of us could attend, only slightly damaged thanks to my bout of flu (Day 11 and still going).

The full details of the back ground can be found here.

Table 1 above, scene of the Anglican attack. The radio station was the key objective.

Table 2, scene of the Royalist/BUF attack. The brewery was the key objective.

The hall, everyone’s target.

Complete with formal garden, made by Too, allegedly for his daughter’s school project.

Table 3, with the cricket pavilion the key objective.

All four tables, ready to be crunched together should the attackers break through.

The Royalist & BUF forces of WyRD Force and Major Strait Jacket’s men get ready to attack.

The lDV deploy everywhere, including their newly placed mine fields, unexploded bombs and other defences !!

Table 1-more unexploded bombs left lying around, the LDV should dom some serious litter picking exercises to tidy up the countryside !

Traditional Herefordian car park, with lots of vehicles going no where fast.

Another Herefordian traffic jam in the making.

This post was delayed due to a council meeting, where we had the newly appointed county council leader, and he even managed to crack a joke about the state of the roads in Herefordshire: “I don’t drive on the left, I drive on what’s left”.

Communists do it off road.

LDV defenders with contraptions.

Due to me having flu, I mostly concentrated on my table, so see Part Two.

AVBCW: WyRD Force

In preparation for tomorrow, and should I be capable of attending for more than 5 minutes (due to recovering from Man-Flu administered probably by Russian agents) I dug out WyRD Force.

WyRD Force is the Wyvern River Defence Force, charged with keeping pirates and ne’er do wells off of the lower ares of the Severn and Wye rivers.

Command unit, mostly Empress Matelots and inter/early war British infantry. Added to which a couple of medics from the Dice Bag Lady.

Warlord British Naval Landing Section.

Second section, again Empress Matelots.

Third section, inter/early war from Empress.
I really wish they’d do a Lewis gunner standing up, and yes I know that is starting to stretch the physical capabilities of troops lugging it around at waist/chest high.

The support – Vickers HMG and Oikerlon gun used as an anti tank gun.

the wheels. I thought if they were a river borne organisation vehicles would be rare so I don’t think I’ll add any more vehicles other than maybe motorbike outriders and the like.

Medical team, from Dice Bag Lady/Bad Squiddo’s Land Army grils range.

The hawk eyed amongst you will have noted I haven’t finished painting most of these figures – they need highlighting. That was this week’s job. 😦

But good enough to field on a large war-games table. 😛

GA: 2018 03 10 First time around

At short notice, Byakhee Jim asked for a games session, and we settled for Ghost Archipelago, which other than a couple of solo games I’d done, we’d not played before.

But barely had the pixels been sent, then I had to deal with real world stuff nd the session was truncated to just the morning.

So round to Jim’s place. He even had a boat that was the right scale.

So we bent the rules, and placed a few treasure tokens closer together than is usual.

My set up.
My first mistake.

Bottom of the picture are the cards from the accessory pack. Normally I am leary of buying these fripperies, but on this occasion because players will have two different sets of attributes (let alone all the rules for gear they have) I splashed out and think they are worth it.

Jim’s forces, I don’t think he’d yet thought up a suitable name, I fear it might be Doozelbat III.

Jim’s Warden cast a spell summoning beasties, and sure enough he got lucky and could place them where he wanted which distracted a couple of my warriors, and this was the second problem I had all game and led to my downfall. (Getting the excuses in early)

My Heriotr Vicky raced in retrieve her treasure, but was beset by three of Jim’s ship’s crew, which after spending Health points for the Sprint, lead to an untimely end before her crew could wade in.

Skeletons. Again Jim rolled high and placed them where he wanted them, cutting off my escape route.

Having lost my Scout, a wounded Savage, and unwounded Crewman waded in to try and get the treasure.

By more beasties were turning up.

Then my Warden Chardonnay got zapped after injuring Jim’s Heritor.

My crewmen were still being distracted by a never ending list of beasties, and whilst killing them, were also taking wounds.

Ground Sloths are no fun either.

My only ray of sunshine – my crewmen put down no leas than FIVE of Jim’s crew. But had to flee before picking up the treasure because…

Yup a Saurian Monarch turned up.

By now my Herbalist had acquired one treasure piece.

It was agreed it was time to call a day, with me coming off very much the worse.
My Heritor Vicky was Badly Wounded so starts the next game at -5 Health.

Quite a different set of abilities to Frostgrave, and the campaign system is still to be bottomed out, but most importantly we had a good time.

So what went wrong for me ?
– Hubris, I’ve got too used to playing high level wizards in frostgrave
– dividing my forces at the start of the game
– failing to pick up the treasure under my nose
– the summon beasties spell that then hemmed me in, trapped my crew into pointless battles.

The Office of Saying NO

So ten days after my last osting, things have gone awry with my plans.

Free badge given out at Sarah Millican’s gig on Sunday, one of the few highlights of the last week.

I’ll be wearing it at council meetings I think.

Another highlight, Rangers as done by Richard – the antlers are separate from the heads which are separate from the body. I have been told not to buy anymore of them.

Couldn’t decide which base size to put them on. 32mm or 23mm ?

Asking the College of Wizards on the Frostgrave LAF forum, the feedback was 25mm.

Citadel C05 Ranger, just cannot photograph this guy sharply, mainly because he is leaning forward.

I love the detail on these, several of them come with bunnies attached to belts, or stuffed into bags.

More to come including my first proper Ghost Archipelago game (from last Saturday with Jim !), AVBCW Ward Force, and later after tomorrow a write up of another AVBCW Big Game.

Shazzam, is a word

Finally now the gloom of snow has lifted I’ve finished off a few more items, not as many as I’d like, and not all photographed due to running out of time.

The eponymous Shazzam ! that I played in the last game of Frostgrave with Jon.

Actually a C03 Cleric, but look suitably magical anyway.

An Ali Morrison sculpt with suitably weird ice cream cone style head gear. 🙂

His apprentice will be along shortly.

Foundry medieval knight, does what it says on the packet.

May not say “Ni”

Another Foundry medieval figure.

Better light levels caught this back shot of the figure.

Infantryman for Frostgrave.

Again a Foundry figure, this time a Ribauld. The original shield long missing was replaced with a small round GW plastic shield.

And the final CP Models treasure item – a bag of potions. So now I can set up a scenario where players can chase after specific types of treasure for better or worse.

And as for the title of this posting, Pantene Pro-V is not a word…

More to come tomorrow light levels and Highway Agency staff permitting (Council matter).

Block Painting & Bison

Dreadfully slow progress on the lead mountain due to the inclement weather here in the UK.

A male Bison – a freebie from Foundry earlier this year. Quite a nice big model, so I didn’t feel like giving it away. No idea what I’ll use it for, but seeing as I’ve used Lions in AVBCW something will come to mind.

An easy paint in these low light levels.

These three fellows were painted before the snow, and then took a day to be photographed, again due to rubbish light levels.

I now have all but three of the Chaos Familiar models – another unexpected project. I find having the Familiar Spell for Frostgrave wizards almost mandatory to give those extra 2 health points.

So with the poor light levels, I thought what could I do ? Well these guys have been loitering undercoated for over a decade, so I decided to start block painting them as that can be done easy enough.

I have another 6 figures including two wizards awaiting highlighting, and am working on another 6 or more so it’ll be bonanza time if the weather is lifting as they forecast in the next few days.

It also means I won’t have two cranky cats sitting in front of me angry I have not turned the weather off !