End Of The (Hell) Week (0)+(2)

This has not been a fun week. The world seems to be out to get me. There was a significant extension to the stay of a high maintenance visitor. The police doing a safe and well check in the early hours of the morning for someone I have never heard of. Having fought my way around town during a local run day, finding the mobile phone of a much loved relative in my car, causing me to have to travel back through the aforementioned mostly closed town centre. My guest then also left their phone, actually two phones, and their glasses in my car. This was a bit of a bind as I dropped them at the airport to go home. I have forgotten how much fun it was to organise an international delivery of something valuable. Then a somewhat valuable package (well valuable to me) failed to arrive.

Some good stuff too. I've spent a couple of afternoons with friends. Talking shite, but entertaining shite. Then there was some time with the much loved relative.

This was always going to be a bad week for painting. I have looked at brushes but haven't actually picked one up. I decided that instead of painting I would do some prep. The plan did not get as far down the road as I originally hoped. Not the end of the world.

I did a bit of comfort purchasing. My guest did most of the shopping last week so there is a bit more money to spare. For my money I got a couple of Imperial Assault villains at a very reasonable rate.  So I now have an angry jawa and and angrier looking tusken raider on a bantha.

An order arrived a few days ago, massively overdue but not a bad price.  Most of this was Quar related. More infantry, cavalry and specialists for the Crusade. On the picture these are next to the ones I've already painted. I need to remember which gaps in the TOE should be filled.

Some twenty foot containers and finally some elf and dwarf villagers. I need to figure out what I am going to do with them. Perhaps I need another frame of the regular villagers for a bit more variety. All of these and the Quar Crusaders out of the box and attached to a base with heads and arms needing to be attached. 

The plan had been to base prep and prime, so texture on the base before I get the rattle can out. I feel like I have been at it all day and got nowhere.

Going forward I still want to finish the Soviets. A similar ideology to my Americans, whereby if I lose I don't feel bad. This is really a nice to have. As I am halfway through the the extant project (I probably need some more to cover my options, only one more box, and half a dozen weapons, and some trucks, and tanks, and armoured cars).

I now have a lot of Imperial Assault minis. This is the new shiny and will probably be the first out of the traps next week.

Quar was the previous shiny. There are twelve dismounted cavalry and probably another twelve mounted cavalry by next week along with about thirty moee infantry. 

Looking at what's on the table there is a lot of random crap. In general the plan is to finish the prep and prime process ready for winter. This is already a lot to work through but the plan calls for more. A lot more.  So I think the week ahead will involve more glue. texture and primer. Maybe I will get to painting mid week and I will aim to finish another ten Soviets. This may morph into stormtroopers.

I am now going to wind down and raid some more chests in Skyrim.

Start Of The Week. Insert Eye Roll Here

I am kind hopeful that normal service will resume. My recent house guest is now on his way out of the country. I've only just got back so its not going to get there tonight.

With a bit of luck I will have another batch of Soviets completed. I have some more to prime but I also have some more Star Wars Imperial Assault stuff to prep and prime. Imperial Assault is the current Shiny and I may have to put the Soviets on hold. There are still quite a few Soviets to finish.  Indeed there are some more still to buy. I remain hopeful for another freebie. I've gotten hold of a box set and a couple of villain packs for Imperial Assault. I was expecting another set with some extra minis for a knock down price, but no luck so far. Despite it showing as being delivered.

A few weeks back I put in an order for some more Wargames Atlantic stuff. Not from WA direct but with a really nice deep discount. I wanted to finish off at least one of my Quar forces. Well finish for now as I need to stuff I cant get hold of or print. So another box of infantry, another cavalry and a single frame of specialists arrived. I've also got a box of Dwarf and Elf Villagers which I think are for Guards of Traitor's Toll. 

There is a single box of shipping containers (which is odd as I ordered two). I made some of these a few years ago but could never get the paint to look right. These will have a multitude of resources. Right now I am looking at them primarily for XCOM. Eight seems like a lot and I suspect there will be few times when they all make it onto the table together but I still want to use one or two on multiple boards.

Kobolds: There A Little Bit Like Gremlins

Kobolds. I love Kobolds. What they lack in strength and resilience, they make up for by large numbers, being small target and being sneaky, tricksy little gits. They are, in my opinion, one of the best bad guys in D&D (which may not be saying a lot as I am not a fan). Not powerful, but good enough to keep the players thinking.

I was doing some tidying up I found the box with them in. They are very old Citadel minis from back in the days when they were a fun company to deal with. I saw some pictures of them in a flyer I got in my first Citadel order and wanted some. I could only find two at the time and the poverty of being a teenager meant that I didn't get any more. I got a single kobold in a box of D&D plastic figures. One badly sculpted kobold was not going to be enough. Then I found five resin ones from Reaper. Nice, but very D&D and something totally un-Viking, which is my particular flavour. Then I managed to order a load more on eBay. So now I have just short of fifty. So I painted them up a while back.

For the Viking game, kobolds are perfect. My arch villain needs needs minions and I could not have made these guys any more minion like if I had painted them yellow and given them goggles and dungarees. In Savage Worlds they are small, swift rather than sneaky but sneaky is all down to the referee anyway. They are skilled at hit and run which always annoys the players. Which is fun.

I

Playing The Walking Dead: All Out War

I found myself with an afternoon free a little while ago so I thought about what I could do. Accidently I had watched a video about the game on YouTube about its reissue, so it was sticking in my mind. Since I bought the game mainly for the figures, the game was more or less an afterthought. From the first time I saw it online, the game game seems to have some nice ideas and and playable mechanisms.

Until the point this game out I felt that a lot of games like this had produced fairly low par minis. Whilst not the best I have ever seen, these are still pretty good. There are plenty of them. Like a lot of games, I continually think I should rebase them so that they fit with everything else I have.

As a way to get the game going, Mantic created The Road To Woodbury as a solo experience of the game. It's a game for one character that helps teach the mechanisms. It is a little dumbed down but not too much. The idea is to see whether you can get past the three zombies (and any friends they might acquire along the way) to recover the three potential resources. 

On the face of it, this is a game of three against one. Not such great odds. The way the zombies operate (the A.I. if you like) means that although it is a challenge you can win as long as you don't do anything stupid or get really unlucky.

I went on to play a couple more games. The original plan was to use these for other games. I haven't found anyone who wants to play with little toy zombies recently. Big sigh....

If you want to have a look at the figures for the game I painted them previously as part of Zomtober.

Start Of The Week

So it's Tuesday. I am still trying to figure out what happened to Monday. Sounds like a good title for a film. Yesterday was a bit of a wash. Today is not looking like it will be much better. It is all about. the Soviets. Still. So I have put another twenty Soviet infantry on the bench. I haven't got a picture of them yet as I can't get to the bench. There is no prospect these will get finished this year. It will probably be Friday before I even start them. The queue expanded last week with a couple of bargain purchases.

I got a few more bits over the weekend. There are some Robot Friends from Bad Squiddo. Although a little on the small side, I figured that they would work with the Paranoia game I am working on. This is still a ways off but I guess they have all sorts of sci-fi uses. I also got some ATS and a Scots Officer by Bad Squddo. The plan here is really for sUnderDground but I still have a Weird War Two project somewhere in the deep background. 

The immediate future is still looking fairly Soviet. I have all these shiny new Imperial Assault minis to paint. There are a number of duplicates but there are at least twenty that need painting and probably closer to thirty. There may even be a few more Imperial Assault minis coming. 

It occurs to me that I really need to up my game again. Whilst I am happy doing ten minis a week, I will get to where I want to be at the beginning of 2028. That assumes no more purchases, which, lets face it is a fairly dumb assumption. I also need to get back into the terrain building side of things.

Right now though, the week is all about family. So I better go and concentrate on that.

End Of The Week (12)+(Lots)

So I finished another twelve WW2 Soviet. It's a good job they are easy to paint. I've been board  gaming over the weekend. So not been a huge amount of time.

I made a couple of games purchases. The first was Star Wars Imperial Assault. Been after this for a while to finally found the right deal. It cost about a third of the retail price and I got a lot of extra figures too. Almost a double set with five boxed sets and a load of heroes. This may lead to a few extra purchases.

Mandi got me Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion a while back. Played it a couple of times and had a plan to buy the other boxes. This was about a sixth of the retail price. I can see a campaign coming up.

I think Imperial Assault was unsealed and aside from some of the minis being painted, it was completely unpunched and in mint condition. The Frosthaven box was a little scuffed but it was still sealed with the silica packets still in the box. This means a few more weeks have been added to the queue.

I've put a few small bits of plastic kit terrain together. Nothing major, but more is always better. Then there another batch of green stuff bits.

A good week all round.

Looking forward, next week is also going to be a bit busy. I have family staying for a few days. Not sure what impact this is going to have on the queue but I think it might be catastrophic. Well a first world catastrophe.

Midweek Mildness

I've not got much done today. Even with a plan,  the plan has gone all to cock. Not really my fault as everyone else seems to have got times wrong. So now I am having to push stuff into the one hour I have tomorrow.

Still, I got some more stuff done yesterday. I've green stuffed the joints of the last of the Athena Miniatures minis. Maybe I can get through the priming process.

Then I am working a couple of projects that need a few more bits. I have a plan for the Quar Crusader cavalry. The pack doesn't have enough rifles to attach to the ",horses". So I thought I would mould a few more. Whilst I was at it,  I thought I'd do a few more for the Sludge cavalry I have planned.

I made a little more progress on the Soviets for the week. These are not finished. There are four more colours to do. These are not big coverage areas and aside from the flesh are mostly fairly simple. There is a good bet I won't get them completely finished as the next four days look like they will be manic. In fact the next week is looking a bit manic.

Today has had a fun afternoon though. First day of school. So things, in the week after next should get back to normal.