Springing into action.

Another thing I have done in the last few months is introduce my 7yo son to the wonderful game that is Blood Bowl. I used to be a big fan of the game and ran a very cheesy Wood Elf team so when I spotted the 2016 starter box at my new FLGS I had to get involved.

The starter box comes with two lovely teams at the newer 32mm scale that everything seems to have crept up to, glad to know it's not just me needing glasses as I get older, one Orc and one Human team of 12 players each. however Khaden being Khaden he decided to pick his own team and after looking through the GW website he picked Goblins. They come in a team box of 12 Goblins, but the best thing about Goblins are the players that have special rules and secret weapons like Chainsaws and Bombs. There are 2two options to get these, buy them from Forgeworld, the resin specialist offshoot of GW, or scratch build them. I opted for the latter and after buying a second team box and some bits from bits resellers I ended up with these.

A ball and chain wielding fanatic, every bit as dangerous to their own team as the opposition.

A chainsaw wielding looney, perfect for breaking Dwarfen "cages".

A doom-diver, traditionally these have crude wings but I added a rocket pack.

A Bomma, what can be more fun than lobbing explosives around?

A pogoer, the most complex of my conversions, a bit of extra mobility.

Just the 'ooligan left to convert out of the Goblins and then a few trolls are needed to round out the team, these will be converted from some AoS figures.

There's a picture of me under procrastinate in the Encyclopedia Brittanica....

...or there should be.

I have been doing wee bits and pieces now and then including starting into Napoleonics, which was sort of inevitable now that I am closer to 90 than being born.

I had a load of 15mm figures from Napoleon at War which was abandoned by its creator for some reason and traded away 1/2 of it for a big box of Warlord Games 28mm stuff. And after sorting through that, and despite preferring the Peninsular era, have decided to do the 100 days campaign and concentrate on the battle at Quatre Bras as my focus for building both sides of that engagement, only having to add Rifles and Highlanders so far.

I even got a Regiment painted, I have decided to play with regiments rather than Battalions for the time being.

I decided that speed rather than display quality painting was my goal here so have used contrast paints, I reckon I could churn a unit out a night if I get the chance to actually sit and paint, but 2 young children and a dog sort of limits me still.

Despite focusing on Quatre Bras (Is Trois Bras a garment worn by Martian prostitutes?) I also started building a farmhouse based on La Haye Saint. Using plans provided by wargames Illustrated to accompany issue 358, which I managed to nab before they went behind a pay wall...

I am planning to do a tutorial on how I make and detail the small barn which principles will apply to the whole set of buildings.

Finally....

Just finished putting some paint on my Bonnedig from my Welsh faction for Saga. Basing will be done once everything else is painted.

Not the prettiest things I've ever painted but they pass the 3' test, and believe it or not it was all done with that single brush.

My new mancave gets erected this weekend so hopefully more hobby time is coming my way, and it'll be nice to have some where to prime figures again. Though it'll be a while before I get the electric sorted.

Not doing nothing...

...just not doing anything exciting.

Hobby time has been at a premium the last 3 weeks or so, and what time I have spent has been pretty boring.

I magnetized some bases.

I rebased some 15mm Spartans.

And I got some 6mm Visigoths ready for priming.

But most exciting I actually got a game of Saga in. My unpainted Welsh, against Garry's Steppe tribes on a table with no terrain and a rising tide....not ideal for the Welsh. But this was my 1st game of Saga in about 10 years so it was good to have less to think about.

I obviously lost, an obscene set of shooting took my mounted Hearthguard out of the game very early on and with Garry's superior movement and no way for me to counter meant that he could bide his time to strike at the opportune moment. Though I did get off a successful taunt which was nice. Learnt some lessons and am looking forward to getting some more games in.
(And completing the painting of this force.)

Romanes eunt domus!

So last night I decided to put off finishing painting my Welsh Bonnedig unit that's taking far too long to complete by digging out the Early Imperial Roman army that I bought back in the days before there was even any Northern Wasters. ( A gaming group from N. Ireland that liked to travel to Warhammer world for WFB tournaments.)
These had been bought via Wargames Foundry and their "Collections". In fact I remember their packs being £8 for 8 foot or 4 mounted figures, this is now £12, probably still not as good an investment as Lego. (Seriously 80s Lego was a better investment than gold, if you didn't play with it.....)
I had originally built this army for Warhammer Ancient Battles in their 1st incarnation using the sample army from the back of the book as the base. A small part of me regrets selling on all the WAB books that I had, and I had them all, but then I remember how much I sold them for and what I spent the money on so it's not to big a regret, and I probably still wouldn't have any opponents.
My rule set of choice is now Clash of Empires from Great Escape Games and true to their WAB inspired roots the EIR list is presented in the core rulebook, though of course I also posses the 3 source books they also have produced.
So armed with the old school pad of paper, pencil and calculator. (But not that old school as my smart phone stood in for the latter.) And only using figures I already possess I beefed up the small looking units from the WAB list and ended up with the following.

• General
• Sub commander on horse
• 24 Legionaries
• 20 Legionaries
• 20 Legionaries
• 24 Auxilaries
• 10 Archers
• 8 Javelinmen 
• 2 Scorpio
• 5 Equites Cohort
• 10 Allied Gallic/German cavalry.

Though if I drop 2 archers and 3 auxilaries I can afford a 2nd sub commander, or one to join the Gallic cavalry.
I would like to pretend I built this army around a battle plan, but those who know me would know I don't play games that way preferring to fit my plans to my armies but I feel this list is pretty solid if a bit light on skirmishers.
Now to get the Ancient Britons out and see what I can come up with for them.
(And virtual cookies for anyone correcting my Latin....)

Fixing Ikeas Detolf.

This was originally posted on an older blog of mine.

Ikeas Detolf display cabinets are almost flawless arn't they?  I have looked and found nothing that even compares in that price bracket, but yet flawed they are.  (At least for those of us that want to display wee fighting men.)  Coming with only 3 shelves they do leave a lot of unused space, space that can be filled with more wee fighting men, one very popular method of getting in extra shelves is the cable grip method, this involves buying some 6mm cable clamps and a bit if fiddling, I would also recomend buying the extra shelves a little deeper than the originals if you do go this way.  For those of you unfamilier with this method you can find it here.

Not bad, but it does look like a cheap fix, I wanted something that would look a bit better and after shopping around I discovered I could get 6mm drawn steel rod for not much more than the cable clamps would cost me, so measuring the existing glass supports I bought enough 6mm rod to add 3 extra shelves per case.  (I picked up 2 really cheaply from a place that closed down.)

I only added 3 shelves and did not put an extra shelf in the bottom section, this gave me a larger section for anything big I may end up with.

I cut the rods to the required length.

But forgot to take a picture.

I then decided a simple jig would help position the rods a bit more accurately so constructed one from some spare wood, this would help prevent wobbly shelves.

Then using the jig to position everything welded the rods onto the existing uprights.

Then primed and repainted the frames.

And assembled the cabinet as usual.

No picture yet.

I got the shelves cut at a local glaziers, you can use the dimensions of the original shelves in this case, and I would recomend a pencil grind to finish the edges. 

There we have it, one modified and neat looking Detolf cabinet, next thing would be to add lights.

A place to hide. Part 3.

A post originally found on my Burning my Fingers blog.

While deciding how to do my woods I nearly landed on the idea I am presenting here, I spied it on another gaming blog but unfortunately I don't know which one, and no doubt it is not a wholly original idea.

I haven't actually assembled these just laid them out to show you all an alternative idea.

I started by buying some hexagonal bases from Warbases (Worth checking out anyway.) I think these are 40mm.  Then going back to part one of this tutorial I replaced the washers with the hexagonal bases.

Then it is just a matter of arranging the hex based woods as you see fit on the table top.

Probably a lot simpler than the method I settled on, and far more modular enabling you to make wooded hills and follow rivers etc a bit easier, but maybe not as aesthetically pleasing.

A place to hide. Part 1.
A place to hide. Part 2.