Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Trip back to the old Country, Part II

Earlier this month, I had a second trip back to the UK in almost as many months, this time for a happier occasion (more weddings, less funerals, but you'll have to look elsewhere for the pics of all the kilts).

I will however use this picture from my visit. It will of course be clear to you all why this Glaswegian relic of a former age has geek cred.

This time, a much shorter time spent in my parents attic, but with more space in my suitcase. Fortunately I had put things in order on the previous visit, so only had to pick up a couple of boxes and stash them. I also found out that there's a new games cafe opened in Edinburgh, right next door to the flat I sold there not a year ago! Why couldn't that have been there at the same time as me? Anyway, on with the haul.

First off, the things I picked up from storage:

Urban War rules (in magazine form). These were too heavy for the last trip, but with all the UW minis I have brought over, I figured it was time to have the rules to hand. Of course, I have access to pdfs (downloads here), but I do prefer paper versions, despite the space they take up.

Void TAV MKIII resin kit. This is more for Void than for UW, but I do so love the mini, and I intend to use it in some fashion for UW even though I don't think vehicle rules for the game exist (I'm sure it won't be too hard to house rule something). The kit i have differs slightly from the one pictured in the link.

Empire Army. Lastly I picked up 2 boxes of old school WFB minis, mostly metal, with a few plastic pikemen in there for good measure. These will be used for my Bretonnians, and/or Empire, in the case of any local WFB gaming. I say army, but really it's all infantry, as I left my few knights and artillery pieces. There will surely be more pictures of these in the near future, especially as there are some nice oldhammer minis amongst them.

Whilst there, on a quick visit to Static, I also bought:

MacBeth. I have had one eye on SAGA for a while, even going so far as to painting up some Vikings, but the release of a Scots faction, with a leader as infamous as MacBeth at the fore could not be passed up. Of course the real MacBeth and the Shakespearean version are not to be confused, as it seems the original version was actually quite good at the king thing.

Napoleonic British Peninsular war Officers. There's always room for more Napoleonics. I'm sure these can be used to back up various of the rank and file figures I already have, be they riflemen or highlanders. Planned for use in Drums and Shakoes or Sharp Practice.

Highlander Missile Troops (bow and musket). From Warlord, these are kind of multi use,

I also bought and had posted to my parents house, some Prussians from the war of 1866, when North Star were selling off their old stock to make way for new sculpts I think. I'm sure I can put them to good use in something Victoriana, for example, as troops for IHMN. The Jaegers from this batch are already prepped and primed and in the process of being painted, so more on them soon.

A visit to WH Smith's meant I picked up the trio of magazines (Wargames Illustrated, WSS and Miniature Wargames). The first two I can get here, eventually, but the third is not an option. I was less impressed with Minature Wargames this issue (I have only read two issues), as it held less of direct interest to me.

To round out the wargaming related purchases, I picked up another book on Churchill at a discount book store (there's not enough of those over here), this time more on his political career than his military career, but it fit with my other current reading. Be on the lookout for a review of Young Titan soon.

My my, the summer just got a whole lot busier with all this stuff to work through!

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Dystopian Legions: Mercenaries, Black Wolf Raiding Party

I finally got my hands on this unit. It saw general release in April, but it only arrived in my FLGS last week. I hope to actually have them on the table soon, but in the meantime, here are my impressions of the minis.

I must say, overall I'm impressed with these guys. The flash that is there is easy to remove, the arms , for the most part, are easy to assemble, making for good poses, and 6 individual miniatures (which, for a one off unit is really to be expected at this price point, but other companies don't always deliver on this).

Box Contents:
The non-mini contents of the box are as follows. 6 basses, 5 30mm and 1 40mm. The 40mm base being for the Officer, as he is Tier 1, thereby adding Command Points to your army total. The larger base then lets you see this, so as you don't forget when adding up, and also to remind you not to add the CPs if you lose the Officer. A nice touch. The box also contains one special activation card for the unit, that may be inserted into your pack to be used in play, and lastly a selection of 4 activation cards, one for each faction, thereby allowing this section to be fielded with any of the four factions. A nice touch.


The Minis:
The box contains six miniatures in total, four ratings, or able seamen, one Officer and one Specialist. Each of the ratings are 2 part minis, with the gun and arms being separate. The Officer has both arms and weapons as separate parts, and the Specialist is the most complex of the pack, with each arm being separate, as well as two parts of ammo belt, one to be connected between the backpack and the gun, and the second to flow from the gun.From these pics it looks like flash is a major issue, but although the flash is large, it cleans up very easily, leaving little or no trace. There was a small issue with mould lines on the hats, but since the tops of the hats are flat, this too was easily resolved.



 
Ammo belt
The issue I have with these, and this is a common one to Spartan 32mm minis, and that is due to the fact the minis are very thin, especially the arms, which leads to connecting the fiddly little parts. This is a big issue with the specialist, as his gun and left arm are two pieces, which join with a very slight connection on top of the gun. This reminded me a little of the Dragoons' arms, and not in a good way. Maybe a little green stuff on the join would strengthen it, but there really isn't much space for green stuff on top of the gun (maybe I should have put it at the arm joints). There is also the ammo belt to connect, but there was no  earthly way I could have connected that in the same sitting, the glue needs a good while to cure before I go back to play with that fragile connection. In fact, I had to put a dollop of green stuff behind the belt being expelled from the gun, to ensure a strong enough bond for play. This does look a bit lumpy, but I'm sure it'll be hidden once painted.


The overall detail and sculpting on these is excellent. As with most Spartan 32mm releases. The faces are great, and their shirts even have the stripes shown in the concept art sculpted on. Of course this is only made possible by the computer aided sculpting process, but it is rather nifty. What remains to be seen is how that will translate on the painting table.

 



Sunday, May 18, 2014

Peter Cushing: Wargamer

Yes, that's right, Peter Cushing, the man who portrayed all the greats, Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes, Van Helsing, Grand Moff Tarkin (on second thoughts, with that list of credits, his geekyness wasn't really hidden was it) was a wargamer. A player of H.G. Wells Little Wars no less. The proof? Why I have it right here!


I'm fully aware that this is not news to most of you, but British Pathe making available all their old film allows this little gem to come to light.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Colore ton Monde May.

The start of the month, and another Colore ton Monde update. This month's entries can be found here. For those of you who need to brush up on their French reading skills, there are two important fact to be taken from that post. One, the lucky winner of the trimesteral draw was none other than ME! Yay, $20 to spend in my FLGS. Secondly, from now on, Club Chaos will be moving their challenge to Facebook from Blogger (their page is here). I am a little saddened by this, but not wholly surprised. They have a much larger presence on FB, as more members have facebook accounts than blogs, so the traffic to their FB page is obvioulsy higher. Also, they are building a local scene, and this is much better achieved through facebook, due to its interactivity. This allows members to post their own stuff, without the hassle of setting up and running a blog (no small effort). FB is better at local community building, leaving their blog for reviews, match reports and other tutorials

I will however, continue to post the challenge here, at least for my own interest, if no one else's!

My entry to April's challenge. is posted above. I played with a composite image this time, to get all the little parts of interest into one picture. I think it worked rather well. A full range of pics can be found in my previous post.

Onwards to May's challenge.

Joyeux anniversaire !

Le défi Colore ton Monde a deux ans, et pour célébrer le tout, nous pouvions y aller avec pas mal n'importe quel thème. C'est donc ce que nous avons choisi : n'importe quel thème.  Pour le mois de mai, vous pouvez peindre n'importe quoi !

Happy Anniversary !

The Colore ton Monde challenge is two years old, and to celebrate it all, we could go with any theme we liked. So, that's what we chose: any theme you like. For the month of May, you can paint anything you want!
Alright then, what do we have next on the waiting list!

Monday, May 5, 2014

Kingdom of Britannia: Armstrong 12lb Gun

I am finally getting round to posting this. The gun has been completed for months, but I finally got round to putting the finishing touches to the base last night. I've had quite a break from painting Dystopian Legions, but I've been working myself up to getting the army finished. Only a few (well 4.5) units to go, and a couple of vehicles. Maybe the arrival of the Black Wolf Section, being a small but characterful section with a different scheme will get me on the path again.

Anyway, here are the pics your here to see:







Close-ups of the crew here. Full review of the mini here.