Out of the wilderness...again

After almost three years since my last post, I recalled that I do in fact have a blog!

It has been a busy time; in June 2013 I moved to a new job in Whakatane and moved house to Lake Rotoma with the lovely A.  Since then there have been some pretty drastic changes in our lives: we're now married, have two cats, four chooks and a baby.  I've moved jobs again and we have purchased our first home in Rotorua!  Most of which has happened over the last twelve months - we don't do anything by half!

Now that we have moved back to civilisation we can get the internet; ultra-fast fibre, in fact!  Having spent the last three years with mobile data only on 1 bar of reception, it is definitely a good feeling to be reconnected.

I also now have the space in our new place to do some gaming!  In theory I ought now to have the time, too, having lost a 90 minute return daily commute.  Baby may dispute this.

More to come soon.

Out of the wilderness

It's been roughly a year since our last update, the hiatus in posting largely due to a busy schedule and a few changes in personal arrangements.  I moved into a new flat (closer to work) in January 2012 and haven't quite managed to find as much time for wargaming; also, the lovely A shifted to Rotorua in April last year which has resulted in a bit more weekend commuting! I struggle to sit down and paint when I'm tired, and it has been a tiring year!  I suspect a contributing factor may have been a slight obsession with Football manager 2012.

So, what has been happening on the wargaming front?

Flames of War

I've refocused my efforts in Flames of War onto building an Armoured Recce Squadron from the Market Garden book.  In particular, the 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars of the 11th Armoured Division.  I wasn't getting anywhere with the pile of infantry and thought that in the interests of getting something on the table, tanks might be a better option.  This has been true so far - I've almost completed a test figure and have the rest of a combat platoon ready to go.  There was a bit of a delay due to needing to invest in hobby supplies for the project - decals, decal mediums, pigments, magnets etc - but I'm pretty much ready to go now.

Infinity - Haqqislam

I haven't made much progress here in a while.  I ordered some resin paving stone bases a while back and have started to pin miniatures to them - a lot of work to go yet.  This will be on the back burner for a while with the focus being on getting a Flames of War army to the table.

Saga - Anglo-Danes

Similarly to Infinity, I haven't made much progress with the project.  This is a peripheral interest for me at the moment, with the plan being once I have a force up and ready to go for Flames of War I will purchase everything I need for the Anglo-Danes and burn through it.  Perhaps wishful thinking?  I have a blister of Gripping Beast spearmen and some resin bases, so when I get the chance I will put these together and use them for practice in painting in 28mm scale; I'm nervous about painting the beautiful Infinity miniatures without practice!

Dux Bellorum

I've been taking an academic interest in Dark Ages wargaming over the last year and would really like to take a look at the period in 15mm using the Dux Bellorum Rules published by Osprey.  I've scoped out figure lines and would like to put together Romano-British and Saxon forces as a personal project.

Other than the above projects and ideas, there hasn't really been much to say about wargaming over the last 12 months.  I've still very much been keeping up with developments in the hobby using Google Reader, and there has definitely been plenty of ideas floating around in my head, but I simply haven't made the time to act on them yet!

More updates soon - hopefully tangible ones!  Cheers!

100pt Nomad Starter Army

Just my first 100 Point army up for next month.

I will have to proxy an Intruder for the Mobile Brigada and maybe a Zero for the extra Moderator to begin with.

I think this will be a good army to learn with. A tough Lt, 6 orders + 1 for Lt only, No camo and for the AD I will just ignore it and deploy the Tomcat as a regular.


 NOMADS
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

 GROUP 1 (Regs: 6/Irrs: 0):

  MOBILE BRIGADA Lieutenant MULTI Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife (43)
  4x MODERATOR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse (9)
  TOMCAT  Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife (19 | 0.5)

 98 Points | SWC: 0.5

ARMY CODE: eNozMFQ1NFQzVjOsMVEzwEoaqxmpGQIApZ0Iaw==
Army Infinity v.3.0. - http://www.devilteam.com





Looking forward to it.

Cheers

Infinity Painting Update

Just a quick update on where I am at with my Infinity painting.

 Intruder with Combi-Rifle/Light flamethrower and Grenades

Tomcat Engineer with Combi-Rifle/Light flamethrower and D-charges 

Interventor Hacker with Hacking device plus and Combi-Rifle 

Moderator with Combi-Rifle 

Moderator with Combi-Rifle no.2

Please excuse the crappy Lighting and Photo Quality.

Still need to go around and touch up a few places, but that will be sometime in the far future. At the moment I would be quite happy to use them in a game.

I do have to say that these have been an absolute joy to paint and I am looking forward to playing a few games with them.

Cheers

P.S  Waiting on yours Mickey :P

Proto-Infinity

It's been awhile since we last had a post on this blog, mostly because there has actually been very little to post up until now.

I hope to head up north in the next month or so to catch up with Mike and a few other friends. Hopefully we will find some time to have our first few games of Infinity while I am up there. So in anticipation of that I have been doing some painting.

These are my first attempts at painting up my Nomad Infinity figures. Still not 100% finished but close enough to be playable with. 

The first miniature is a Zero with Combi-rifle and E/Mauler and the next is a Sin-Eater Observant with Mk12

Really unsure as to how to paint an E/Mauler as I'm not familiar with what it actually is.

I'm quite pleased with how these turned out as there was a lot of trial and error involved (and time), especially with using white! Still they were a lot of fun to paint.
Next on my 'to paint' list are some Moderators from Bakunin, which I am going to paint as Aguaciles.
Hopefully being able to hide all the furry bits which I'm not too fond of ;)

Please feel free to comment, any help and suggestions would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Rainy day

We've popped back up to Auckland for the weekend so that A can spend some time at home as well as to relieve her flatmate from the responsibility of rubbing Margaret's (A's kitten) tummy. The forecast is bad once again, so with a view to spending quite some time inside I packed a shoebox with miniatures so that I can clean them and wash them ready for when I get home.

I brought a Commonwealth Rifle Platoon and all of my Infinity Haqqislam miniatures with me. I'm halfway through taking flash and mould lines off the rifle platoon and I'm taking a break. I must say that I detest this job, more than any other part of modeling. It's fiddly and I don't consider myself to be very good at it. To be honest I'm not sure how to go about doing it any better with my attention span. Basically what I do is remove the really bad and obvious flash and vent holes before starting work on tackling the mould lines with the back of the knife blade. It isn't the most effective method for removing the lines but I'm not really sure how to do it more effectively within the limits of my abilities. I'm too nervous to cut with the edge of the blade for fear of damaging the detail. Consequence being my miniatures do end up being left with a few mould lines on them.

After a full breakfast at a cafe up the road I dropped A off at home to get to work on her uni assignment and headed into Modelair Newmarket to take a look at their flames of war range. I haven't spent much time at all in model shops since I was a kid due to my relative geographical isolation from retail centres and my having dropped the hobby during my university years in Wellington. Modelair was a great little store packed with aeroplane, vehicle and ship model kits, both civilian and military, as well as a small range of flames of war.

The store really brought back memories and reminded me of when I first took an interest in toy soldiers. When I was a wee chap there was a tiny model shop at the North end of Thames which stocked little tamiya and airfix models and miniatures. I had a bucket full of the cheap plastic army men (some of which I painted with Tamiya enamels, others I set on fire with gunpowder and a magnifying glass - such fun). I began to supplement this collection with better quality miniatures during our regular trips to Thames (frequently to the hospital - I broke a lot of limbs as a kid). I remember having 1/72 scale kits of British paratroops, Fallschirmjager and French line infantry. I guess a musket is as good as a bren when it comes to bagging the hun, eh?

Getting a new box of models was such a highlight and I used to love going to that model shop; Modelair really brought all of that back to me! This was really my first exposure to miniatures or of using them in games. I used to sculpt battlefields in my sand pit with a hose and then fight over them with the army men - with destructible terrain of course (often followed by a scolding when the hose washed all of the sand out of the bottom of the sand pit onto the pavers...). I had no discernable rules, and most of the action was played out in my imagination. Most of the games took the form of some kind of "Guns of Navaronne" type mission and the good guys always won. Fast forward to my teens and its easy to see how my first White Dwarf magazine had such an enduring effect on me!

A friend up the road has twin boys aged roughly two (not so good with the exact details). I'm really really looking forward to them being old enough for me to buy them their first army men (and probably commando comics). Probably as an excuse to spend some money in modelair!

Cheers!

My attention deficit and a new year update!

It's been a while since the last post; work, energy and distractions have been conspiring against me I think. This post has been developing in draft form over a number of weeks so it is a bit of a ramble. I should really break it up into a number of posts but as I've been writing this on the blogger Android app it's in the too hard basket!

So what's been happening? Work has been pretty manic since I got back from holiday with a lot of report deadlines and presenting to Council, community boards and the local iwi forum. Fun and games really, I managed to avoid public speaking for my first 18 months in the job but recently the floodgates have really opened. Anyway, things aren't likely to quiet down at all in the week before Christmas.

I did manage to have an unexpectedly long weekend though, the lovely A being sent to hospital on last Wednesday afternoon with suspected appendicitis. Two days off work hanging around hospital with a very hurriedly packed bag devoid of wargaming entertainments ensued. Thank heavens for smart phones! Result being a very sore and drugged up A feeling like she's been whacked in the stomach with a bag of apples. The poor thing, very definitely un-fun and not to be recommended. Hooray for Tramadol! (Not the nicest of drugs as it turns out)

Along with this excitement, my adventures in Skyrim and football management heroics in FIFA haven't left me much time for painting. To be honest, around 5-a-side football and late evenings at board meetings I haven't really had the inclination to paint; a few virtual premier league fixtures or an icy dungeon of two being a bit more attractive.

FLAMES OF WAR

I have started to get back into the swing of things, though much of what I've been doing has been in the imagination department without achieving much that's tangible. I picked up a paintbrush last weekend while A was working on a uni assignment, and black primed the bases on my Mortar platoon. I'm learning things as I go, such as why its a good idea to moderate your usage of grit on bases. I went a bit overboard with the consequence that the bases sucked up paint like nobody's business and the process took about 4 times longer than it should have. More surface area and I guess it has the effect of making the surface porous. I hope to finish these bases soon - so hopefully you will get to see photos of my first completed unit! Looking forward to that post, I can tell you.

The terrain that Garth and I ordered a while back has started to arrive. I'm impressed with the ruined Italian monastery; the pre-paint is nice and I'm looking forward to seeing it on the table. We've also had two sets of battlefield in a box rural roads arrive. Equally impressed with the quality, though I fear we may have gone overboard as there are a LOT of roads! Unfortunately Waylands was out of stock for the battlefield in a box rivers set so we were refunded. Will keep an eye on availability as I do intend to purchase them.

The next step for terrain will be trees, walls and probably some home made hills. If anyone could recommend products/brands we'd appreciate it; we're not really sure where to start when it comes to trees. We're also waiting on the release of Italian buildings by www.gamesofwar.net; if their north African range is anything to go by, they look to be good quality and very reasonably priced.

I've been listening to the "what would patton do" podcast during my commute to work and the frequent trips to Auckland to see A. I've been getting through their back catalogue at a fair rate of knots; I'm currently up to episode 20 out of approximately 30 episodes so far. I'm learning a lot from the podcasts, though given my lack of experience in actually gaming flames of war it's mostly been lessons in theory. It has REALLY been getting me amped to play this game, which is certainly at odds with the lack of progress I've made in the painting department.

I'm going to try and use this as motivation to get back on the painting wagon over my three week Christmas break. We've deliberately got little planned for the break; A and I are both a bit worn out from work and our 3 weeks in America at the end of October so we are looking forward to taking it easy and not spending money! We're camping up the top of the coromandel for new years, but apart from that I think it'll be a bit of hiking, relaxation and I'm hoping a bit of painting too. New Years update: despite the forecast I reluctantly succumbed to the others' enthusiasm and pressed ahead with the camping trip. They didn't bring wet weather gear and their tents leaked. Consequence: we left after the first night while we could still get over the ford. Lesson: don't let others' enthusiasm override the weather forecast and your own experience of local conditions!

My pace so far makes me regret somewhat opting for infantry as my starting army - there is so much to get through! I just need to keep my eye on the prize and get to it I guess! Unfortunately Garth won't be making it up over the summer so we won't be able to have a game together for quite some time. He has done a lot of painting and really is in a position where he can start gaming. I'm going to try and encourage him to pick up a game or two down in Wellington - he might as well receive some benefit from the hard work he's put in while he's waiting for me. The happy side of it is that it buys me more time!

One of the advantages of my army selection (NZ rifle company from the Cassino book) is that the miniatures will to a large extent ( subject to varying support options) be interchangeable with the early war source books such as hellfire and back and burning empires. This means that with some additional effort ill be able to play late war Cassino as well as early war Crete and Greece. Crete has got me particularly excited - I'd love to sit down with the hellfire and burning empires books and Anthony Beevor's 'Crete' and work out some historical scenarios. Kiwis vs Fallschirmjager! Perfect!

Lastly, the terrain mat from theterrainguy.com has finally arrived. We ordered it at the start of November and it just happened to arrive at the family business on the Saturday of Christmas Eve. After another attempted delivery after boxing day I went into panic mode a bit and left a note on the door for alternative delivery. At roughly $50 USD shipping wasn't that keen for it to be returned to sender! I must say that I think it's worth every penny it took to get it here. It looks great, appears to be very hardy and should be a much better and in-theme option than the old flimsy GW flocked-paper mat I have already. My only regret is that we didn't opt for a mat bigger than the 6'x4'. Oh, and that we didn't wait with basing so that we could match colours to the board. I definitely think that I'll go to them again for similar products. When we eventually make it to playing north Africa I reckon a large desert mat would be awesome!

INFINITY

Well I haven't got anywhere yet with infinity other than acquiring a starting force of miniatures. I bought human sphere recently and I've barely had the chance to open it! It's a pity really as the mechanics of the game excite me; I just can't quite see myself getting a force painted any time soon with so many flames of war miniatures at the front of the line. I have set myself a small goal for the summer, though, and that's to get the miniatures cleaned, prepped and primed. That way I can even have a go at trying the rules out on the table if the opportunity presents itself! While I haven't played it yet, I do see Infinity as a great game for my circle of friends (none of whom have expressed interest - yet) given its low buy-in cost, aesthetics, flexibility and cinematic mechanics. The sooner I get some form of miniature on the table to demonstrate the better!

Unfortunately, I'm not realistically going to be able to participate in the infinity tournament that's being organised as a part of a larger tournament in Auckland early next year. There has been some discussion of it amongst kiwis on the infinity forums for some time now - in fact (and a bit embarrassingly) I think it was my discussions with community members about starting infinity that partly prompted the discussion that lead to the idea to include an infinity segment in the tournament. Feel bad for not making it, but unless I have a painting epiphany in January I can't see it happening!

In other Infinity news, I read on the interwebs that a campaign/scenario supplement may be released in early 2012. I waxed poetical on the matter in an earlier blog post, and I must say I'm still that enthusiastic. I may not be close to getting infinity on the table, but I'm a sucker for rules books!

WARHAMMER-HISTORICAL

Well I'm still waiting on the warhammer historical books I've got on order - Trafalgar, two old west supplements and the two warmaster ancients rulebooks. Bought and paid for might I add. They hadn't arrived after a good 6 weeks, and after a few weeks of not having my emails replied to I sat up late so that I could telephone during UK opening hours. The guy on the phone was apologetic and polite, and arranged for new copies of the books to be sent by priority courier, the tracking code for which he would email to me. Well I haven't yet recieved an email with the tracking code, and three weeks on the books haven't arrived. Understandable perhaps given that it is Christmas time, but I really don't think there is much excuse for the poor customer service. Frustrating! I guess I'll sit up late this week and make another phone call. New Years update: still no sign of the books and no contact from them. Looks like I'll be making another phone call in a week or so. Really, deeply disappointed in their performance. In this day and age it just isn't acceptable.

That's probably enough for one post - I've other things I'd like to post about but this has been languishing in draft long enough! And sorry to ignore your advice re: aesthetics on this one Frontline - I'll make more of an effort when I'm not posting off my phone!

I hope to talk about my historical gaming interests, board games (of the wargame variety), video games and blogs that I've found particularly interesting and inspirational during 2011.

Happy New Year and cheers!