At last years AGM, someone at the club (I forget who) brought up the idea of having a "bring and buy" night each year, to help move some unused lead and plastic between the different club members. So we held it this week; lots of emails flying around with people hawking their various wares.
A nice haul (especially for the price - £0!) Cheers Adam.
I wasn't prepared enough to get rid of anything (still in the acquiring miniatures frame of mind,) but there was a nice enough turn out. Most members arranged trades or sales privately, but quite a few people brought along stuff simply to see if anyone else fancied them. Adam moved on a fair few things "When am I going to get round to painting these?" Lots of books and magazines, plastic minis on frames and plenty of plain lead lying around, seemed like a success for the first outing.
Me? Well I picked up a couple books, as well as Adam's redundant Khador miniatures for Warmachine. I also snagged from Ken some spare bows for some miscellaneous dark age figures and a handy dead Norman knight for the next Painting Challenge weekend. So it was a simple enough event and I wouldn't be surprised if we hold another one in the summer. It was also nice to see something agreed at an AGM actually take place for once, certainly against expectations!
A few days ago, my (replacement) secret santa present arrived, a Perry Miniatures Medieval Cottage! A big thank you to whoever it was who sent it!
A great addition to my growing terrain pile, the kit consists of the cottage itself and some fencing along with some kind of hutch or chicken coop. I think I'll end up using the fencing to make a field or some other kind of linear obstacle for Saga.
The cottage itself doesn't fit in too well with the time period for Saga, so I've been brainstorming an alternative use for it. At the moment I'm thinking of kitbashing some steampunk or fantasy gubbins to it, for use in something like Malifaux or HoMachine etc. Who knows what it'll end up as! Thanks again!
Time to draw from the biiiig book of excuses i.e. I've not posted at all or finished painting anything in the last week or so. To be honest, I've simply not been in the mood to sit down and write anything recently. On top of that, I work in retail and have just finished the busiest period in our year; Christmas, sale and stocktake. However, now that's past, my workload is a lot smaller for the next few weeks, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things. Anyway, here's how January 2014 has shaped up so far.
Analogue Painting Challenge
Well, I missed one of my personal goals and didn't submit anything for the vehicle bonus round, thereby squandering another 75 points. Two GZG mechs have been painted up, but the putty for the bases hadn't finished setting in time to get them primed and painted.
I'm still plugging away at my 10mm ECW stuff though, managing to pick up the brush most days, if only for a colour or two at a time. At the risk of being accused of sandbagging, I think there'll be a fairly hefty entry once I get round to basing them.
This week, I'm aiming to paint up my next two bonus entries (heroes and casualties) and ***ahem*** base the first of the ECW infantry units. Well. . . that's the plan anyway.
Gaming
I've been back on a card game kick this month. About a dozen games each of Android: Netrunner and the Lord of the Rings (both by FFG) have been keeping me pretty busy. Oddly enough, I now seem to be getting worse at A:NR (five games on Saturday, all loses!) but still absolutely love both games. I introduced LotR to Adam at the club, but made the mistake of playing an easy quest so I don't think he saw much challenge in the game. He's hinted that he would try it again though, so we'll try something more difficult and see if his opinion changes!
I also had another friend, Gaz, visiting for a couple days earlier this month. About six more games of LotR (we won one) and a load of X-Wing, coupled with some beers and junk food made for a very enjoyable time. Since we last played, Gaz dropped a lot of cash on X-Wing, so we had the full range of ships to choose from. I tried out my two latest purchases; the Tie-Bomber (meh, ok) and the Moldy Crow (immense!) Still an outstanding game, but I'm not sure yet if I'll pick up either of the two large ships FFG are about to release, the freighter and the frigate. Maybe.
Finally, I managed to finally run a game of Iron & Oak at the club. Adam and I played one of the set pieces of the American Civil War, Hampton Roads. Adam took the Confederates (shock) with the Ironclad Virginia, while I had the plucky Monitor on the Union side. Much like our last ACW outing it was a hideous (and ahistorical) loss to the Union! An enjoyable game though, looking forward to trying one of the larger scenarios sometime soon. This week, we're going to try out the 1863 scenario from A House Divided. Putting my foot down this time though, I'll be the Confederates and see if I can pull out a win for a change!
Writing
One of my goals for 2014 is to run more miniature games at the club (or elsewhere for that matter.) The first one I'm planning is a naval Punic Wars game. Frustratingly though, I'm struggling to find a suitable set of rules. They're either too simple (Fleets of Battle) or too involved (Naumachiae) or just not fun (Salamis ad Actium.) To fix that, I've started putting together my own set of rules based, obviously, on ripping off mechanics I like from other games! I haven't done this in a few years, but it's very rewarding so far. Assuming the enthusiasm doesn't wane, I'd like to get a game in around the end of March, start of April, but we'll see.
Reading
I've ploughed through three books so far this month. Nothing unusual in that, except for the fact that none of them were actually print books. Two audio books and a digital book on my kindle. All of them great, so expect some two minute reviews soon, but this whole no-physical-book is taking some getting used to!
Bowels
For the first time since 2001, I took a sick day off from work! I had a takeaway meal one night, seeing as I couldn't be bothered to cook anything. A couple hours later, it started coming out of one end, a few hours later still, out the other! No permanent damage, but this really wiped me out for a few days! Helped me lose some of that festive weight though, just not from the right places!
So that's been my 2014 so far. Busy, but with not much to show for it! Reading that back, there's a lot of "I" in there, so I'll sign off with what is becoming a common sight in the blogging community, hot chicks with guns! (I'm blaming you, Loki, Fran and Ray!)
Well, I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one who, over the festive season, completely lost track of the days of the week! Suddenly it was the fourth of January and I had to quickly paint some D&D boardgame bad guys for the second theme weekend! To avoid a repeat, I've had an hour or so today to quickly base and prime my entry for the 19th January. I'll like to get them finished with a couple days to spare, in order to take some pictures in daylight this time (I've only been free in the evenings, so it's been harsh lights and camera flash all the way.)
These guys are really, really tiny. Why are they taking so long to paint then?
Other than the theme weekends, I've been painting up some 10mm ECW infantry. Some guys at the club have been talking playing some small Field of Glory: Renaissance games in, but no one seems to have got very far. Perhaps seeing some finished figures could spur some of them on!
The idea with going with 10mm figures, is that it's more affordable than 15mm (by a good margin) and that they are quicker to paint too. It's not gone to plan so far though; firstly I'm cramming ten figures to a 20x40mm base and, secondly, I can't get out of the habit of base, wash, layer and highlight when painting - and it takes a bloomin' age to do! For the second unit of infantry, I'll try a simpler colour scheme and see if I can speed things up!
A night off painting tomorrow, as the club is back on. I've a couple card games arranged, the obligatory Android: Netrunner savaging (although, I have won a few times recently,) and then a intro game for a friend to the Lord of the Rings card game. Both games by Fantasy Flight Games and both absolutely fantastic. Good times.
