Still here. . .

. . . Just not been up to posting anything lately.  Apologies for the long absence friends.  Life has been fairly stressful lately and that, coupled by a wee break to Spain, hasn't had me in the frame of mind for blogging or painting lately.

Things haven't actually turned the corner yet, but I'm at the point now where there's not much to actually do, just a case of waiting for things to happen.  Realising that, I'm actively working to get into a settled routine and resume doing the things that make me happy.  That sounds a bit flakey, I know, but hey, that's how I've been feeling lately.

Still a bit of gaming going on.  Had a few games of Netrunner this week; still my favourite game full stop at the moment, just wish I was a bit better at it!  Also had another outing for Dreadball the week before. Still oodles of fun, but I want to try another team for variety; robots, bugs or rats.  Can't decide.

Naturally, some retail therapy has been needed lately and I picked up two boxes from Fantasy Flight Games; the Elder Signs expansion; Unseen Forces and the new Star Wars RPG beginner box.  The RPG looks very entertaining, it's based on the WFB system (which I've never played) and has a ingenious dice pool system.  The artwork and writing are top notch too.

Frustratingly, I've not tried out the Unseen Forces yet.  The box FFG have used for the expansion is slightly too small for the cards Elder Sign uses, meaning that the large cards are all bent out of shape.  They've spent the last two days under a pile of the heaviest books I have, trying to straighten them out.  Still, reading the rule sheet, the expansions seems to add a welcome degree of difficulty to Elder Sign and the new Blessed and Cursed dice seem fun.

After moving house last month, I've managed to create a little space for modelling and painting.  No painting done yet, but I have managed to finish basing my 28mm Viking warband for Saga (wow, reading back I'd planned to have these finished in May.)  Hopefully I'll get these undercoated over the weekend, providing the rain eases up.

Lastly, we're finally getting to try out In Her Majesty's Name at the club next week.  Sholto has been beavering away creating factions for us to use.  Looking forward to it, pics if I can take anything decent.

A Quick Update

Hello peeps.  Sorry for the recent inactivity on the TMFT, but things have been fairly busy lately and not left a lot of time for blogging!  Short story; being single for the first time in sixteen years is taking some getting used to!

First things first, a big thank you to Tamsin for her recent giveaway.  Her generosity means I've now another nine spaceships from GZG added to the painting pile.

This week, we finally managed to squeeze in a couple games of Dreadball.  I'd delegated painting the box set to Adam from the club.  He'd obviously thoroughly preparing himself for the task as they've, as yet, no actual paint on them.  I'm sure he'll do a great job though. . . . . . eventually.

To the game itself.  I'd had a read through of the rules before we played, but couldn't honestly remember much at all. Adam guided me through the first game and, although we made a fair few mistakes, were impressed enough to have another game.  The core mechanic is success based dice rolls (aim to roll more successes than your opponent) as opposed to rolling a higher dice score than your opponent.  There are several skills and stats you roll against, usually with three dice, but with a lot of modifiers.  A bit confusing at first, but once you get the mechanic, the game becomes massively enjoyable.

It's generally a good sign of a game when halfway through your first play, you're already thinking "I'm going to buy this and this next week."   We played one game each with the two starter teams, but both games generally dissolved into the Orx player thumping the humans at every opportunity.  Great fun.

I also sat in on a game of Bolt Action, hosted by Tom and a couple others (whose names escape me just now.)  I've read the rules and have a couple of the supplements, but haven't gotten it to the table myself yet.  My biggest concern was the random activation sequence (blindly drawing dice from a bag,) in that I worried that tactical decisions would be overruled by unlucky dice draws.  Based on the game I saw, that doesn't seem to be a concern.  I've some 28mm Soviets in storage so I'll try and get a few painted up in time for a game.

Lastly, away to Spain for a week next week.  The old man has taken pity on me and paid for a wee break there (it helps that he owns a house there.)  Nothing planned except some reading and relaxing, but I do fancy a day trip to Cartagena for a wander round the Roman ruins.  So, if nothing appears here for another week or so, you can assume my pasty Scottish skin is getting gently roasted by the sun!  Have a good week everyone.

Dunnottar Castle

So there's been a fair but of upheaval in my personal life recently, as a result I've moved back out to my home town, Stonehaven.  This, coupled with the (for NE Scotland) great weather, means I've been spending a fair bit of time outdoors.

One of my favourite haunts when I was younger was the cliff side walk from Stonehaven to Dunnottar castle.  Sticking out on it's rocky promontory, Dunnottar is one of Scotland's iconic castles.  And, like all our best castles, it's ruined and, hence, not covered in ghastly modern restorations of nineteenth century additions.

The site itself has been occupied for thousands of years in some form or other, while the castle itself has a proud heritage of being sacked by many notable peoples from our isles history.  Although it looks magnificent, the pictures I took don't convey just how exposed to the elements it is here, the wind was ferocious.  This was on a nice day too!  Quick personal anecdote: my first proper girlfriend and I once did the "dance with no pants" in the castle here - I think I was much more adventurous back in the day!

Infuriatingly, the local council have marked the cliff path as closed due to erosion.  Despite being a little concerned about the path, I headed round with the expectation to be forced back.  It turns out a two-foot wide trench in the path, caused by some falling rocks, was the only damage on the whole trail - oh, and it was on the flattest bit of the path, nowhere near the cliff at all.  Talking to the attendant at the castle, it turns out that the council decided to close the whole path due to health and safety worries, rather than take a little effort to repair the path.   This country...

Wooot! I Am The Weiner!

Big props to Tamsin over at Wargaming Girl for, this week, running a prize draw in honour of 100,000 views on her blog.  And thanks to that prize draw, I've won a wee spending spree at Ground Zero Games.  Cheers again, Tamsin!

The only thing for me to decide is what to actually get.  I used GZG almost exclusively for my light infantry sci-fi force and these guys can always use some more support options.  Alternatively, they do have some alien opponents (again from GZG) who could do with filling their ranks out a bit.  The final option is, of course, more spaceships.  Choices choices!

Carronade Loot

Earlier this month I had a wee drive down to Falkirk to the Carronade show.  The biggest wargame show I can easily get to, it was an excellent day out on a rather rainy Saturday.  Lots of great demo and display games available on the day. I really liked the look of the Dead Man's Hand game the Angus club (I think) were running and the tron/lightcycle game was very entertaining (apart from the kiddie in tears playing the game.)  

The hypercritical part of me thinks however that there were no really outlandish games on show, they were all very traditional.  Still, nothing wrong with that.  There is something wrong, imo, with an (unnamed) club running a participation game (yup, it was listed as participation) where everyone playing is a club member, sitting huddled together round a table, ignoring anyone who came near them.

There's also something wrong with a games company (i.e. not a trader) basically showing no interest in someone who, clearly, wanted to be persuaded into buying something.  Seriously, "tell me about the two Rus faction boxes" is about as obvious a buying signal as I could have given.  No interest from the guy running the stall (I take it everyone knows what company I'm talking about now?)

Both these happened in my first pass round the four halls and put me a little off the place for a while.  Not sure if it was a direct result of those experiences, but I really didn't feel like taking many photos or getting involved many games. Still, met plenty of people I know (even a couple I only know online) and generally had a good time.

Enough of me moaning, lets get to what we're all wanting to see: my LOOT!!!!

Dreadball

Yup, I knew there would be at least one impulse buy.  After a random message from a friend a few weeks ago, I was keeping an eye out for a copy at a decent price, which duly presented itself at one of the trader stalls.  The board itself is a bit meh (I really wish I'd gone for the kickstarter with the premium board,) but everything else in the box is very impressive.  The figures themselves are excellent, dynamic poses and great sculpting quality with little flash.  The rulebook is outstanding, a great mix of rules, fluff and atmosphere, images and designer notes.  The rules themselves read well, but I need to get a game in before I can really comment.  Good stuff.  I'm trying to hold off buying any extra teams before we've had at least one game, but it's really tempting (esp the new "bug" team.)

In Her Majesty's Name

I didn't realise that these rules had actually been released, so a welcome surprise.  Had a quick read through of the core rules on the drive home, and generally impressed.  There are a few fellows at the club interested in playing IHMN, so I'll certainly pick something up for them.  I've been looking for an excuse to get a couple Teutonic Knights from Spartan Games, thank you!

Netrunner

Due to the crippling supply issues affecting Android: Netrunner in the UK, I wasn't expecting to find any product at Carronade.  This was the only pack on offer from any trader, but it was the only one I was missing.  Nice.  Still, these card packs are as addictive as crack.

Warhammer Fantasy 3rd Ed

A present from my mate Adam (who is clearly after some fantasy gaming,) this is a real blast from the past!  I haven't read this in at least fifteen years, but it does give me something to aim for with those Mantic Undead I have lying around!

Carronade 2013

Anyone going along to Carronade this weekend?  I wasn't expecting to be able to go this year, but the Mrs surprised me by saying she "fancied a drive somewhere."  So down we go tomorrow morning - she's not coming in though, oh no, not her scene.  She'll disappear somewhere with her camera for a few hours (although I suspect some shopping will be involved too.)

Looking forward to seeing the boys from the RAF Leuchars group as well as some of the demo games on offer.

Naturally, I'll need to get rid of some cash at the same time.  Pendraken should be there, so a couple packs of new ecw cavalry will certainly be in order.  I need to replenish some hobby supplies too, mainly tufts and a few inks or washes.  Lastly, an impulse buy is usually in order at one of these events, what depends on what's in the bring and buy or any good deals on the stalls.

Last years show was very impressive and this years line up looks equally so.  Maybe I'll run into a few fellow Bloggers when there?

P.S.  I hope everyone has been keeping and eye on Seb's blog this week, yet another generous giveaway today.

Ice Cream Inflation and a Blogger Giveaway

As it was flippin roasting yesterday, the Mrs and I headed down to the beach for a walk.  Once there I offered to get us a couple ice cream cones, as you do.  Now I haven't bought an ice cream in a fair few years, but I was still flabbergasted at the cost £2.20 for a 99!

Tasted really good, but was it that good?

The whole idea with a 99, at least when I were a lad, was that it was 99p!  I suppose that was a fair few years ago now, but still... over £2 was surely a bit steep!  (Ok, I looked it up on Wiki, the 99 came out in the 30s, but they were still 99p when I was a kid!)

Wow, reading that back to myself makes me sound like a right grumpy old man!

So, in an effort to recoup that cash, I've entered Seb's giveaway on his Back To The Minis blog (did anyone notice that spurious segue?)  He's got some spaceships on offer today and I do love me some space combat games!  I think he's got a few more items to give away so keep an eye on his blog over the next couple days.