All Quiet on the Cat Front

06/03/2016

Yes, a long time no update.

I’ve piled up a huge backlog of gaming sessions, but due to my council work have not had time to edit, upload and post stuff.

I’ve also got a load of film reviews to do, so maybe, maybe this week I’l, start to post some more Content, because on a vibrant blog or web site Content is King.

Anyhow, I got home yesterday (Saturday) from a training course for my Council work (Planning & Consultation…yay) to find the above poster, and two screaming cats, one of whom had dashed out first thing and not even had breakfish so it seemed appropriate.

In addition, I have also received the obligatgory Court Orders from the US about the bankruptcy of Robot Peanut Studio which gave me a shcok when seeing the covering enevlopes (I might scan them later). They’ve gone bankrupt so all the excellent “All Quiet on the Martian Front” stuff is now OOP, and likely to remain that way until the courts dispose of the assets and IP. Which is a real shame as the product I received was very good quality.

Filed under 15mm Sci-Fi, Cats Tagged with ,

WHFB: Conclusions, Pizza, & Cats

22/07/2014

So this is how it stood at the end of the game.

My COK were slightly harmed, my Silver Talons returned to the table, Spitty the Hydra was stil around as were a residue of RXBs. But the Empire artillery was intact as was a substantial number of Halberdiers and Hippygryphs.

So it was a marginal victory to Richard:

  • My set up was great, his sucked;
  • My first flank move was very good;
  • I failed to capitalise on that by throwing in the rest of my army;
  • Which meant in the second turn onwards his artillery became more important, probably decisive;
  • His dice rolling started off bad and got better, mine was the reverse;
  • By having my COK and Eric stand still, I sucked up his PV for his knights, BUT his artillery could, and did shell me to bits.

So, as usual, caution got treated with contempt.

I should have gone hell for leather and stuff it all down his throat ASAP. As advocated by Black Jack.

Rich brought me some of his home grown chillis, small, butI thought they might be potent.

The chicken and chilli pizza. I ended up putting 4 of Rich’s chillis on it, just as well I stopped there. It made us go bright red and sweat a lot.

BlackJack obviously wrote me off and simply fell asleep.

Filed under Cats, Warhammer Tagged with , ,

WHFB: 2014 04 12 A right old set to ! Part Two

13/04/2014 1 Comment

The Phoenix Guard crushed the Gors, taking their BSB with them and pursued across the battle field towards more foes.

Meanwhile, another unit of Gor ambushers erupted behind our lines, trapping the Dwarf line front and rear. Luckily, Anthony’s army list for me had ganted me Stubborness so whilst locked in combat with numerically superior numbers Shambles held the line. Several challeneges were declared and accepted, but each took two turns to resolve ! Eventually stouter Dwarf skill held out and the gobbos lost their BSB and hero.

Shambles’ unit got charged in the rear by the Gors and took casualties.

But the Longbeards defeated the other gobbos and chased them across the battlefield not quite catching them.

Having wiped out the goblin trebuchet crew, the War Eagles swooped onto a lone Goblin Shaman, as overseen by BlackJack who ensured Anthony’s measuring was purrfect. 😉

The Phoenix Guard caught the gobbo archers (about 30 of them) whislt the Eagles swooped on the hapless shaman.

The Longbeards caught up with the fleeing gobbos…

The goblin army fled across the centre of the board away from the rampaging High Elves and Dwarfs.

Meanwhile, Shambles’ unit had held the line fighting off the gobbos and the Gors despite casualties (stubborn is a great rule !), allowing Bugman’s Rangererers to charge the gobbos in the rear and the Long beards and Eagles to come to the rescue. Against all odds, the Organ Gun crew withstood (by one beard) the attack of the second Gor unit of ambushers, and held them there !

Phoenix Guard mopped up the last of the gobbos completing their slaughter.

Whilst Bugman’s Rangererers slaughtered the gobbs, crashed through into the Gors and drove them off.

At this point, the game was won with only one unit of Gors left to take on the virtually untouched Lothern Sea GUard, Phoenix Guard, War Eagles, Long Beards and Bugman’s.

Victory for the good side.

Just as well as BlackJack was found to be cat-napping Anthony’s bag underneath the table. 🙂

Filed under Warhammer Tagged with , , , , , ,

RIP: Clawed

07/01/2014 5 Comments

Sadly, I had to take Clawed to the vets today as his condition was deteriorating.

clawed 11

He had ceased eating much just before Xmas and lost 1.5Kg weight. Last week the vet after checking him over gave him various injections to re-hydrate him, stimulate his appetite, and general antibiotics. By yesterday he was clearly distressed and crying having lost more weight.

The vet found a lump in his guts, suspecting a fast developing cancer as it had not been there the week previously. She assessed that he would be unlikely to survive surgery to remove it due to his age and current health. He was clearly weak, not focused on what was going on, unable to hold his head up, and so there was really only one way to cease his pain.

I said this blog would not be about everyday events in my personal life, and it won’t be, but the three cats I have have in their own way enlivened some of the games we have and provided comedic pictures/interludes.

Black Jack 03

Not least when talking to your neighbour in her house and BlackJack nonchalantly turns up and enters the neighbours’ house…

clawed_dead_sunbeam

Anyway, hopefully Clawed has found a celestial sunbeam for himself.

Filed under Cats Tagged with

Crunchy Frog Pizzas and Progress

21/12/2013

Right, I have been busy hence a paucity of updates here.

Firstly, the builders have been in and out again. The tiled floor they laid is cracking up, so I have a parade of builders, tilers, and suppliers in and out of the house trying to work out what is wrong and shift the blame. Basically its a crunchy floor I have as the tiles shift round. Seems like the adhesive is to blame. Now, this is important as in the run up to Xmashammer we have to have a theme, so crunchy floors have turned into crunchy frogs.

Obviously.
Just nod, and phone the doctors….
Luckily for the Byakhees, I have promised not to cook a crunchy frog pizza.

Secondly, Peter O’Toole never produced Lark’s vomit, but he was very good in films like Lawrence of Arabia.

So that got watched as homage to a great actor who passed away this week. Plus it has Rolls Royce cars and all manner of WW1 shenanigans.

It also helped pass the time whilst ironing. This is Spades, who insisted on siting on the ironing pile but got more than he bargained for.

Thirdly: In the meantime I have virtually finished off the Sister of Spears including new standard, the extra Silver Talons, and have got Great Wing along with Dark Riders well advanced so I still hope to achieve the end of the year aim.

Xmashammer 2014 is now planned, so I should have lots of photos before the end of the year.

Filed under Cats, Film, Painting, Warhammer Tagged with , , , , ,

WHFB: The next test of the new Dark Elves

24/11/2013 2 Comments

Another day, another game, Byahkhee Rich and I had a game yesterday…3000 points Dark Elves vs Empire. I expressly treated it as an exercise in learning about the new units, in particular the Warlocks that I had assembled and base coat painted.

The Empire set up, lots and lots of k-nig-its.

Compared with my set up of: “let’s try it out”.

His main unit of knights, which he buffed with BSB and various magic spells.

Luck was not his side, as though winning first move, he started rolling a lot of misfires on the artillery dice.

Mt General, Redark the Hunter, mounted on Great Wing the Manticore.

The inevitable feline supervision !

Having botched my set up, and boxed in some units, the artillery hunting fell to my general…an expensive artillery hunter but very effieicent, he destroyed a cannon and distracted the mortars before destroying one and allowing one to go pop in a puff of smoke.

Big and scary, but not good against hippy-gryphs – as discussed afterwards they monsters should have been supported by infantry (or cavalry) units to finish the hippies off, as they lost combat resolution despite dealing out a lot of pain. This allowed the hippies to…

…get into combat with the Warlocks, who did surpisingly well, and last two round before being defeated.

Meanwhile:

Ten RXBs hold up a unit of cavalry for several rounds much to both of our surprise.

If the dice Gods did not favour the Empire artillery, they also didn’t favour my Leadership tests, with a single casualty the Cold One Knights turn tail and run…again…

Crunch, the knights and the Silver Talons go head to head. The knights win, and I again fail my leadership test and they run away despite the BSB.

Having chewed his way through the artillery, my generalattacks a unit of knights, and defeats them.

More feline intervention.

The CoK, rally, and charge the hippies, and defeat them in combat, making them run away, but curses, whilst I can roll lots of 6s and 5s for Leadership, I can’t do the same in pursuing the enemy !

SWe ended the game at about 8.30pm, with me conceeding. The late burst of success of the CoK and General, would not have offset the other losses and the disruption of my line.

Conclusion

  • My set up was wrong, his was right
  • I boxed in some of my units
  • The Warlocks are GOOD !
  • The combination of ASF and murderous prowess is very rough for the enemy – even RXB units are now not a walk over
  • Hydras and Kharibdryis need support to be effective
  • I need to further hone my General and Heroes’ weapons choices
  • My general was good but really needed to be shoved down my enemies face in support of the main unit
  • Army list – need to think more about that – is it a mobile/cavarly dominated force ?
  • My spell phases were absoloutely and without a doubt lousy, I can roll three ones and a two
  • I can’t rely on his bad luck
  • Cats are a major distraction for me

Filed under Cats, Warhammer Tagged with , , , , ,

When white is not white and it isn’t alright

13/11/2013

The nearest thing I have come to painting today !

A “white door” ?

Same door with white undercoat (not even gloss)…Just goes to show the variation of pigmentation and how over time paint can absorb elements from the atmosphere such as bromine, and even tar from cigarette smoke (NB: I don’t smoke).

I’ve started so I’ll finish…the whole downstairs it might seem. The neareest I’ve come to painting anything. The Doomfire Warlocks are almost built so should post them later.

Providing I don’t paint any more Cats ! 😉

Filed under Painting, Uncategorized Tagged with ,

Cats and designing scenarios

06/09/2013 2 Comments

As most wargamers and games designers know von Moltke wrote:

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

He also did a lot of kriegspiel:

Moltke originated the use of the colors blue for friendly forces and red for hostile forces in strategy or wargaming, hence the term “blue on blue fire” in friendly fire situations.

Obviously this is a simple scenario – open the back door to allow fresh cool air into the house. However the enemy (BlackJack) has taken advantage of this and brought in a new “friend”…which is still mobile and able to get under the tumble drier/washing machine/fridge-freezer.

This scenario illustrates why I do not install a cat flap in the door as it would allow 24×7 access to this sort of outcome.

When designing wargames/role playing scenarios, treat the players as cats: Impossible to herd; and liable to act as the enemy of your intentions. KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid.

This is another disturbing outcome of opening a window or door: A Cat; A Rodent; and a tangle of wires supporting my iMac, Printer, Hub, Router, telephone, external hard drive and camera.

I’ll be rethinking this nest of wires over the w/e with a view to KISS. And its also a concept to be applied to the forthcoming Bridge Over the River Wye. With 10+ wargamers to manage along with external catering and the general nauseau of setting the game up and keeping things running, KISS is something I can recommend to many GMs ! We’re toying with the idea of some force selected rules and I’m keen to add this sort of individuality, but not at the risk of causing chaos and confusion.

Time will tell if JP and I get it right… :-O

Filed under AVBCW, Cats, RCW / BoB, Rules Tagged with , ,

Deadlife/Wildlife

03/07/2013

Last week Spades, caught his first Rabbit.

All three cats were out there busily and studiously ignoring me !

As you can see his fur coat is not in good shape – visits to vets have preceeded this photo, and since then a phone call has seen him on tablets due to stress. However, his front quarters are glossy, his eyes bright, and if he is able to catch a rabbit, bring it home and prevent the other two from taking it off him, he’s a healthy chap.

However, the cats don’t get everything, this hedgehog has been frequenting my garden most nights, and is brave enough to come up almost to the patio doors, even when I have the lights on, TV on and the doors open. he’ll also let me (just) touch him, which is amazing. After I did that once, no more, let him get on with his life.

He can’t have been that scared, as he came back the next night. Not the first time I’ve seen hedgehogs in the garden, but not so frequently.

Filed under Cats Tagged with , ,

WHFB Tournament, Moles, and Pine Cones

25/05/2013

For some time, we’ve had a WHFB day planned, and the numbers outgrew the capacity of Chez KIY especially when Byakhee Rich suggested a series of semi tournament games of 1200 PV armies on 4×4 tables.

So I hired the village hall (again), delegated the organisation to Rich, and sat back organising the BoB Big Game in June. This morning we set up three 4×4′ tables in the village hall to game on:

Lots more postings on the games as I wade through my photos and get input from the Byakhees ! We crammed in a load of games.

Warning pictures of dead critters may follow

In the meantime, the cats were busy. Today (Saturday) they brought me a Pine Cone. They must have travelled best part of a half mile to acquire said item:

Not sure why they brought this home, but hey whatever. I might be able to make it into a scenery piece. Best of all, they also delivered Mr Mole, dead, on Friday afternoon.

Normally I am agains lttle things being killed, but Mr Mole has made my lawn look like the Somme battlefield. So after two years of hunting him the cats finally got him.

They knew he was down there as they’d be seen watching the mole hills, and then going fishing with their sticky little paws….

Filed under Cats, Warhammer Tagged with , , , ,

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