Britcon

Today I have been to Britcon. It's a smaller show with a definite emphasis on competition gaming. There are a few traders there and I was after a few things. The main reason for going was friends. Whilst it is a smaller show it does seem to have a good vibe. It's geared up for residential and these kind of events have a little more intensity coupled with some more friendly players. You get to know people. There were going to be a couple of people there, one was in a competition and the other was a volunteer on the bring and buy.

So I got a few things, varnish being the main one. Then I went on a trip the game shops in the city centre.  Did a bit of shopping here and there. Just a whistle stop tour really but as I don't get there very often it was a nice break.

Goodies wise, my main aim was spray varnish which I managed to get a couple of cans of at a good price. It was a day where I was after bits and most were not to be found. One of things I did find was some Army Painter inks. For a while now I have not been liking the sepia colour that GW do. The old one was much better so I thought the Army Painter might be okay. As I walked away with three different shades of brown ink at least I will have some variety. Whilst I nearly got some old Blood Bowl stuff I did walk away with a box of goblins because they were cheap. There a few other odds and sods but not much.

A few people were talking about Massive Darkness. Lots of figures for very little money etc. Somewhere along the line I have heard about it but I have not really had much interested. So I have come back  and had a look myself. Having listened to what what of the people I was chatting to was saying, there seem to be a lot of tentacles. Not sure that I can completely back that up but there are a lot of silly hats and implausible weapons. Like the latest Spiderman movie, I am sure that I haven't missed out on much.

Rats

Rats. Northstar rats in particular. Nice looking miniatures on line but lots of flash, so much so I still don't think I got it all and I will have to hide some of the undersides when I do the bases. These were brought because I don't have any medium sized rats I have plenty of smaller rats (which are ral Partha) which are about accurate size of slightly bigger and even the odd humanoid rat. I figure as well as a fantasy game they would do for Fallout or other post apocalyptic genres (anything that has use across multiple games is good).

Over time I have been a big devotee of the Frostgrave range. Whilst I don't own the complete range I am not that far off it. Here I went as far as buying three packs of figures because I liked the look of them so much. In hindsight, whilst the figures are nice, the castings are pretty poor which is unexpected as most of the Frostgrave stuff has been excellent.

They are still work in progress (and have been sat on the bench half painted for months) so no close up shots yet. As these get finished off. I would hope that they will improve. These are nice looking sculpts and fit my purposes perfectly although this may take a while. Rat wise I need a rat swarm and some larger ones still and all my rat needs should be taken care of.

I have had some more second hand malifaux stuff  through the post today. It wa cheap so I guess I can't complain but it did arrive a bit battered. Maybe I will move on to doing a bit more of that as time goes by.

P.S. Not sure what happened when I first went to post this but this morning I found the page full full of gibberish. A few unkind souls might say that there is nothing new there then. When I came back into the room the cat was sat next to the computer so I am guessing that might have something to do with it.

Good Service At Games Workshop, Warrington

To be honest I am not Games Workshop's biggest fan. On the pages of this Blog you will see that the only GW game I play is Blood Bowl and over the years this has been a small part of my actual game time. Whilst they have been kind enough to reboot it they are not exactly supporting it in the stores. There are a number of GW products I use it is only the paints that I really like.

Over time I have found their staff so pushy and obsequious as to be off putting even going in their stores. None of them seem interested in what you what but what you can buy. as a gamer with a broad range of interests, I find they lack an understanding of what gamers outside their immediate sphere of interest is and therefore can't help me with much of anything. The bottom line being that when I do go into one of their shops the plan is more like a snatch and grab rather than a shopping trip. All this has the upshot that I would sooner buy stuff from third party vendors or second hand on eBay.

The regular staff member left a little while back and was replaced by Tommy. He actually made me want to buy things and the first member of staff there that I have actually engaged in conversation with in two decades. He is brilliant with the customers, even the ones that would annoy some members of staff. Whilst I am personally not that interested in a lot of what he is selling, he clearly knows he stuff about their product.

Sadly Tommy is not even a permanent member of staff. He sounds like he is some sort of temp. If Games Workshop want some more of my money, they should give Tommy a permanent job.

Human Team Ogre

Now that I am nearing finishing enough players for the Human Blood Bowl Team, I thought it was time I should have a look at this figure now. What I am really doing is avoiding finishing the Orc Troll and dry brushing the Human Blitzers (not to mention the bad back I now have) that are already in the queue.

I hate doing bigger figures and they never really seem to get finished. They seem to take me a dog's age to complete as I seem to lose the will part of the way through. This figure is one of the few Big Guys in the game that I am likely to play so I figured I should get him done.

Anyway back to the Ogre. He is a nice brutish figure and really conveys what I think of as an ogre. The model is reasonably easy to put together. The right arm is a bit fiddly to get in properly but it did get there in the end. I had a few problems seating the number plate on the front as well. However, when it does slide together it makes an awesome looking figure. It was almost good enough to get me to buy some GW ogres for my fantasy RPG games as I don't actually have any.

For now at least, I have chosen not to place the head on at the moment. The plan is to keep it separate until it has been painted so I can add some details. It is currently on the workbench and is in the next batch of figures to get done.

Chaos Team Minotaur

I am not a fan of chaos in the main. Except when it comes to my workbench, home life and Blood Bowl teams. It seems a little back asswards to be releasing the Star Players first. As I already have a metal minotaur it probably isn't at the top of my shopping list especially as the next few teams I have in mind don't need one. That said, this one looks pretty good.

There are pictures of tokens for some of the chaos teams as well and a 3D image of an elf player. Things may be progressing. There hasn't been much news on the Blood Bowl Front of late so this at least shows that the work is continuing.

Imagine Magazine

Despite doing some painting today, I haven't really made any headway with what is on the table. What I have been doing is thinking about the past instead. Nothing too dark I assure you. I've spoken to a few people about the Tunnels and Trolls since I blogged about it the other do. This has kind of taken me back to better days

If there was a golden age of roleplaying, for me at least, it was the mid 1980s. It was still fairly free and easy and even the big games companies seemed to be in it for the love of the hobby. White Dwarf lead the way in the UK and it was Games Workshop's call to arms even then. TSR wanted in on the act and in the UK they launched Imagine Magazine (and I'm talking about this Imagine Magazine).

I found it around issue no 12 or 13 and it was a revelation. The range of games covered was about the same, but it did feature D+D a lot which was fine for me at the time. Reviews were a bigger part of what was in the magazine than WD. Like it's counterpart, it looked wider than it's niches to books and computer games. A few editions in they started doing a campaign background called Pelinore. This was the big inspiration for many of game games at the time and even now. Even to this day when I do floorplans, I do them like the ones for Pelinore. Many issues had a theme which greatly illuminated the games that I was playing at the time. It was like its rival but it was more about how to play rather than scenario after scenario.

It's not that it didn't have a scenarios. The centre of the magazine was a great eight page scenario every time. A few of these have become campaigns or the germ of a campaign. One of my favourites, Round The Bend, which I ran a few times, was a group of half orcs shrunk to an inch tall by an angry wizard just so they could clean out the pipework under his sink and find a missing magic item.

Sadly it all came to an end. Big business got in the way. TSR in america decided they didn't want anything competing with their magazines which were not to my taste. After thirty issues it was gone. To me it sent the benchmark for magazines that were to come after it. It also marked the start of the end for the free and easy days or roleplaying, much like the internet today. It wasn't much later that White Dwarf became in the in-house publicity manual it is today. Things changed around this time and not for the better. This was not a facet of the gaming industry it was more that the times were a changing.

Marking Time By What's On The Workbench

I haven't done much painting for a few days and this morning I was feeling the absence. Although I have had plenty to do, I have found time to do some painting. The New Cruelty dictates that I paint five figures per week. This means finish the paint job, nothing else. Things like bases, decals and various bits of set dressing doesn't count. By this standard, I have finished eight figures this week. As a bonus I have gotten close to finishing with quite a few more.

I showed six Blood Bowl Human Team linemen earlier in the week. These are here. As I thought I might get a couple of quick wins, I started and finished a couple of earth elementals. I will take a some better pictures of these and post them next week.

I have gotten close to finishing another seven Blood Bowl Players. One Troll for the Orc Team, four Human Blitzers and two Human Throwers. There are a couple of  Frostgrave miniatures that are pretty close to being done.

When I was doing the eyes of the larger of the two elementals (one Reaper one Northstar) I spilt a load of blue paint. This sent me off on a huge side track to use the paint. There have been some chemical barrels lying around, primed but unpainted, for a while. They have now been painted and washed and a little bit of work will see them done. A lot was used on the coins used as Blood Bowl re-roll counters. I have eight from the Humans and Orcs and some more from the Dwarf and Skaven teams.  I did  bit of work on the hands used as markers and the ones for the Orc team are fairly close to being done.

Now all I need is some spray varnish.