And its all over for another year

 

Saturday the 14^th of September saw this years Colours Wargames show hosted by Newbury and Reading Wargames Society. This being the club’s 50^th year we wanted to put on a great show. The club are not specifically a historical society as we have had to change with the times to keep up membership. Three floors were taken up at Newbury’s racecourse main grandstand, two floors crammed with traders and a third floor full of excellent demonstrations of recreations of battles from history in various scales. Battles included Salamanca in 28mm, Abbeyville in 3mm (a crazy scale if you ask me) and the Battle of Downham Station pitting the Prussian ArmyKorp against the home Brits. The overall winner of best in show however went to Magrathea group and their Burrows & Badgers game, Siege of Lunedin.  The Leggatts, father and son, came second with Salamanca.

Attendance numbers were significantly up from last year, to where finding a space to park a car nearly became an issue. The club have been making a pointed effort to make sure the day has something for everyone, including a board game café where families can sit for a spell and maybe build railways across Europe. This was a brand new idea last year which I admit was under used in its first year, but this year it was super popular. In this authors opinion I think clubs need to start thinking about the changing trends in the hobby. Yes it would be great to have a show that was entirely focused to just historical gaming, but I think it would be tricky these days to maintain that. If we want enough people to come and support the show, things like the board games café can encourage a wider demographic to attend, we can then show them the virtues of the more traditional tables and keep the hobby going. It isn't just wargaming, a lot of hobbies are in danger of ageing out and not appealing to younger people. I'm not saying we have a bank of XBoxes and Nintendos set up at the show, but a bit of sci fi and fantasy at the show won't do any of us Grognards any harm. The weather was on our side for the day, sunny but not too hot. Feedback from traders and attendees alike was mostly positive with everyone seeming to have a great day. 

Traders of note included Perry Miniatures, Empress Miniatures and Warlord Games. Plenty of choice for someone to obtain some brave redcoats in whatever scale your eyes will allow you to paint them in. David Lanchester books also had the largest selection of military history books you will see anywhere. (Apart from maybe in the private collections of some of you dear readers.) We had a couple of new traders as well, one of my favourites being Beowulf Miniatures. I grabbed one of their wizards towers which will look great on a Mordheim or Oldhammer table. I did manage to grab a couple of other purchases, some Lord of the Rings models for a recreation of Weathertop and some very old school Space Orks that I am looking forward to getting some paint on soon. (Once they are out of their strip bath.)

This author spent most of the day on the Bring and Buy stall, so I did not have a huge amount of time to wander the show, what I did see looked brilliant, and I did get some time away to chat with some friends (including one that came all the way from Norway!) and I also managed to go and play a game with Mrs Lead and the youngest offspring. We had a great time playing a card game called Splendor with a fellow club member and his son. It was a great game that was just complicated enough, but the boys picked it up very quickly. I have orders to add a copy to our wish list for home.

A big shout out goes to the other club members who all gave up their time the day before helping set up and on the day. Some of them have been doing this a lot longer than I have and a lot of work goes on behind the scenes beforehand as well by a few hard working individuals. Shows like this and many others keep the hobby going and allow thousands of hobbyists to have a day out and get a proper close up look at lots of cool toys. Ordering on the internet may be convenient, but nothing beats the fun of getting your loot in person.

 

Overall then, an awesome day was had by all. There is probably one or two people who weren't happy, but you can't please everyone. Now we all just need to find somewhere to stash all our new toys.

Nb. Grumpy comments will be ignored and definitely not published. Go write your own blog.

Getting ready to fly the Colours

 Boy did that summer fly by. Lots of games played at the club over the weeks, lots of Old World Warhammer. (My Orcs and Goblins army is pretty fun, for some reason whenever I successfully cast any spell it always seems to backfire on me). I still have problems dealing with pesky flying models, although my last game, my Doom Diver was man of the match, killing an Orc War boss on Wyvern in two turns of firing, so sometimes the plan works.

The army is growing and growing.

My character riding a giant squig (or rather riding in) isn't really effective in the game, so I have started using the model as a Mangler Squig instead, much more effective. I have been watching various YouTube videos on converting/sculpting your own crazy creature models, so I might have a go at making a bigger squig too.

Painting wise, I have had a rest from my own models. I did do a commission job of some Skaven for a Mordheim gang. |These are 3D printed models and so quite delicate. Combined with the delicate design of some of them, I spent the entire time when painting, paranoid something was going to snap. Luckily they all stayed in one piece and the customer was super happy with the final result.

Next up for a club night, my copy of Worms the board game from Kickstarter finally arrived. I am very excited to play this. The Collectors edition can have up to six players, so it is a great game for our club to play. The rules are pretty straightforward and seem pretty fun. My only slight bugbear is one of the rules involves flipping a coin for a 50/50 result. I have found in other games that there can be an issue with this kind of rule. Some people struggle flipping a coin (especially younger players) or there can be accusations of coins not being "flipped properly". I think it is easier just to replace with a D6 roll, 1-3 or 4-6 for either result. This edition does come with a nice heavy metal coin rather than the cardboard one the basic edition comes with, but I think I'd rather go with the dice. 

The included models are great though. With lots of character and variety, the weapons they are armed with have no game effect, weapons are chosen by cards, but they do look cool.

I think they definitely need some paint, worms definitely have to be peachy, not grey. 

Talking of club business, we have our annual show coming up this month. This is always a welcome day to counter the sadness of the end of the summer hols. Saturday the 14th of September is Newbury and Reading wargames Colours show at the Newbury Racecourse. I shall hopefully be helping out on the Bring and Buy stall again this year, it gives me a great chance to chat to lots of punters and see lots of cool models. I will also be able to catch up with some wargamer friends I don't see regularly enough too. Repeat readers will know that I like to peruse the web pages of some of the traders in advance to see if there is anything I might seek out. I have not had the chance to go through them all yet but some have caught my eye.

Beowulf miniatures look cool, they have some nice looking "Blood Ball" miniatures. (No prizes for guessing what game those models could proxy in to.) The Fiends of Chaos team look particularly cool. Black Scorpion always have beautiful sculpts (I have most of their Tombstone range) their new Foot Knights look awesome. Rok minis seem to be growing their range every year. They now have a five army battle set that looks cool. If you are really feeling flush they can include a giant dwarven fortress in the same scale that looks awesome. For those of you that wish to peruse the web pages like myself I have made a handy list of hyperlinks for you to use below. Full disclosure I cannot be held responsible that they are the correct link, or that they are secure for purchases. These are just the links I found with my google fu skills. A couple of the traders I could not immediately find a site for, so left them out. Nevertheless I hope this list helps you out. If you are coming to the show, please feel free to come say hi.

https://www.1-72.co.uk/

https://www.abcbrushes.com/ 

https://anschlusswargames.com/

https://www.athenaminiatures.co.uk/

https://www.baccus6mm.com/

https://www.battlezone-miniatures.co.uk/

https://www.beowulfminiatures.com/ 

https://www.blackscorpionminiatures.com/

https://blotz.co.uk/

https://brigademodels.co.uk/

https://www.charliefoxtrotmodels.com/

https://crooked-dice.co.uk/

https://www.culverin-models.co.uk/ 

https://www.davidlanchestermilitarybooks.co.uk/

https://www.debrisofwar.com/store/

https://www.deepcutstudio.com/

https://www.disainstudio.com/

https://www.forgedinbattle.com/

https://eaglefigures.co.uk/

https://www.empressminiatures.com/

https://entoyment.co.uk/

https://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/

https://www.greatescapegames.co.uk/

http://www.gringo40s.com/

https://www.grippingbeast.co.uk/

https://www.grubbytanks.com/

https://headbunny.games/

https://www.heroicsandros.co.uk/

https://www.imperatormodels.com/

https://ironcladminiatures.co.uk/

https://irongatescenery.co.uk/

https://www.krcases.com/

http://www.lastmanlastbullet.co.uk/

https://www.magneticdisplays.co.uk/

https://www.mammothminiatures.com/

https://www.mcmodelpainting.uk/

https://www.model-army.com/

https://newlinedesigns.co.uk/

https://www.oakbound.co.uk/

https://www.parkfieldminiatures.co.uk/

https://www.paulmeekins.co.uk/

https://www.pendraken.co.uk/

https://www.perry-miniatures.com/

https://www.peterpig.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/paintspirate/

https://productsforwargamers.com/

https://www.valiantminiatures.com/

https://www.rokminis.com/

https://sarissa-precision.com/

https://sheppeymodels.co.uk/

http://www.tablescape.co.uk/

https://www.tangentminiatures.com/

https://thepitgamingshop.co.uk/shop/

https://tumblingdiceuk.com/

https://voidscarminiatures.com/

https://warbases.co.uk/

https://store.warlordgames.com/

https://warpaintfigures.com/

https://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/

Post number 100

 Its been a while, I've been busy. You play a few wargames and paint a few models and all of a sudden a couple of months have flown by. I've also been mulling over what to do for this post as it is that milestone. I have now written 100 posts on this blog. My first post was back in May 2018, so I have kept this up for over 6 years now. Still no offers for a book deal, one can continue to dream. I couldn't decide on anything specific for post 100 in the end, so maybe just a shameless throw out of some statistics.

Almost 68,000 views of the webpage since inception, my most popular post was a review of Salute in April 2019. It's tricky to see how many views individual posts have as sometimes blogger just flags it as a page view not an individual post read. The most popular set up to read the blog from is Chrome on Windows. The most popular location to read from is Singapore, closely followed by the United States, I suspect that is just due to larger populations. Most people find the blog from Facebook and Instagram although I did enjoy the brief period of time when people were visiting via a story from Beasts of War site where some of my painting appeared. 

Since last post I have been busy painting and gaming. At the club we are looking at the possibility of starting a Mordheim campaign, so I have been building a Carnival of Chaos gang. In the rules it is a warband that follow Nurgle the god of Pestilence, but I thought it would be fun to model them as followers of Khorne the blood god instead. Using the same rules, just painting the models a bit more red.

The Pirate with the Monkey is from Bad Squiddo, the Bear and Clown from Crooked Dice. The others sadly I cannot remember the manufacturers

The carnival has the option of a Plague cart as well, instead I have converted a cart to hold sacrificial prisoners, although you can't see the prisoner very well now it is completed. I can assure you, there is someone trapped in there.

Instead of nurglings, I found these great little devils from Alternative Armies that make awesome Khornate equivalents. They were doing a great deal where four of them were given free with every order, although as of writing this offer ends tomorrow on the 5th, so you may have missed it.

Also on the painting table is this awesome Lumpy Toad from Trent at Miscast, if you are in the UK you can order it from The Still Tower here. If you are ordering from them, get some of these stickers too and stick em on your miniatures case, you will be the envy of your club when you turn up rocking the retro look.

He is painted red to fit in with with my Night Goblin army,  he will fit right in with the Squigs I am sure.

Regular readers will remember the "Thundercats" from Crooked Dice I have been painting, well they have their tank now. 

It is a 3D print and comes with alternative open canopy and lowered "claws". I might paint those up too, but I haven't yet worked out how I am going to magnetise it. The kit is hollow, so adding magnet holes looks a bit tricky. I have no use gaming wise for any of them yet, sometimes you just have to paint models you like just for the sake of it. No longer do I go around shows thinking, that's nice but I have no use for it. If I want to paint something now, I paint it.

Finally I have painted up some Ghouls from Bad Squiddo games. These were from an earlier Kickstarter and I felt I should get them done before the next Kickstarter models arrive! I shall probably use some of them in a Mordheim Undead Warband. It is a common fact, no Mordheim player can ever stick to one Warband, there are just too many cool ones to choose from!

That's it for now. I need to get back to the painting, it's too warm and I need to get the paint on the models before it all dries up!

Tidying up the Old World

 

We have been playing Old World at the club recently. Readers may remember I finished off a Night Goblin army recently. (Well, wargaming recently, so like a year ago probably.) I have been enjoying the game, learning not to just charge forward with everything and trying some tactics. Now I have the Old World bug I thought I would fish out my Warriors of Chaos army, an army that you do just charge everything forward. Back in the nineties I had great fun with these models, but I hadn't really painted them well. They were all just painted brown and dry-brushed red. The need to get them on the table quickly meant little regard was made to making them look nice.

The Chaos Champion just needed a bit of tidying up. I had neglected to paint some of the details. It is amazing what I thought I could get away with if I undercoated in black. The belt, skull and horns were all still black. There was no highlighting and the chestplate was still black too. The helmet and the knees had some nice crisp red paint on them though.

These Bloodletters really were just sprayed black and dry-brushed red, that was it. In fact the banner bearer, musician and champion didn't even have painted bases. Its quite a small unit and I have some other Bloodletters rescued from the bits box, but they are all the plastic skinny ones. I would like to expand this unit, although they aren't listed in the Chaos army list anymore and the original metal models seem as rare as hens teeth.

This heavy lump of lead is called Archaon. Difficult to hold without spiking yourself, this model is another that I feel privileged to own. At the time of release it was considered a very dynamic model and I think it still holds up against some modern sculpts. I didn't need to do much to this model, having already paid some attention to it. I did rebase it and tidy up some of the paint where it had got chipped. I also added some red demonic eyes to the steed.  

The biggest job was the recovery of a chariot. I have two of these, both were completely broken up into their component parts, the horses were in a completely different box as well. I have found all the components apart from one whip arm and for now just made one of them up. I may fix up the other at a later date, possibly putting a character on the back instead of one of the crew. One of the reasons they had broken apart was because I never put them on a base back in my youth. The horses were on cavalry bases, but that was it. The chariot itself was therefore at the mercy of neglect. A quick order to warbases ( I needed some converting movement trays anyway to adjust the base sizes of some of the models, I'm not rebasing, no sir.) and I now have some nice 3mm thick 100mm by 60mm bases I have mounted one on.

The rest of the army will get some tidying up and I can easily field a couple of thousand points for a game. 

For anyone wondering about the WW2 challenge I have been set by the Illustrious Opponent, it does still continue. I am a little behind as I spent a month doing some commission painting for a paying customer. So, that had to take priority. I am up to date with April and I have started my May's allocation. I might make next month's post a full update. In the meantime, I give you an image of my converted demo charge team. A simple green stuff sculpt for the satchel and a mortar team without the mortar tube for the rest.

And finally, I have spent the last couple of weeks on some grim dark reading. As you may know I am fan of Dan Abnett's work, especially his Gaunts Ghosts saga. I have been re-reading them from the beginning and romping through them, I have got as far as book eleven:

Whilst back in book 8 - Traitor General, I was inspired by the descriptions of the Chaos Daemon Engines, the Wirewolves.  Daemonic entities trapped inside animated wire cages. The wirewolves are made into various forms, humanoid or animalistic. Hanging from gibbets, they come to life when the daemon that inhabits them is summoned from the warp at the slightest hint of a disturbance on the occupied world of Gereon.

I thought I would have a go at making one and took the name literally and decided to make mine in the shape of a wolf. (Although it could be said it looks more rat like). In a spot of recycling, most of the model is made from offcuts of sprue with just a couple of chains added I found in my bits box. I then added some painted wire wool to the interior to represent the daemon. I'm not sure it quite works, but I could always remove it and add something else later. I'm not sure the photo shows it well, but I used some texture paint to try and give it a rusted look. For very little cost, I'm quite pleased with the result.

Salute 51 recovery phase

 As I write this it is the day after Salute 51. What a day. It was definitely a successful day, traders are reporting they have had successful takings, the Warlords ran out of freebie miniatures for their goodie bags, demonstration gamers report having spent the entire day talking themselves hoarse chatting to visitors. The Distinguished Opponent and I spent most of the day there, I think we didn't leave until gone 4pm and I know there are things I didn't get to see. (We were both flagging however at this point and needed to head home to soak our poor feet.) I am sure the show is certainly wildly different from previous years back in the heady days of pipe smoking, suit wearing wargamers but it certainly is not diminishing. I give credit to South London Warlords for allowing these changes to occur, the show is more family friendly with certainly a more diverse crowd of people in attendance. If anything I think the show would be failing if it didn't change with the times. The inclusion of things like panel talks and the showing of the film "Art in Miniature" are a welcome change to the format. On the subject of the film, Distinguished Opponent and I did buy tickets to watch said film. (Only a pound so hardly breaking the bank.) The film did ask some interesting questions and there were some excellent personalities involved, I did find it a bit vexing that towards the end though as the focus seemed to mostly be on the theory that 3D printing is the future of the hobby and Heroforge are the best way to do this. A conjecture I do not agree with when there are still plenty of thriving companies dealing in casting metal, resin and plastic. Apart from that though it was enjoyable.

Look, my goblin in a cabinet! (One of five people to paint the same model!)

Once again we had fun at the ten minute painting challenge. A great ten minutes well spent, trying desperately to put some kind of shade and highlight on a tiny little halfling. It didn't help that I also seemed to have the shakes in my hands from carrying my shopping loot around for the day. I did try something that resembled tartan on the model, but I'm not sure it comes across as such.

My other entry safe at home on display in the printer tray, next to my ten minute halfling.

I entered two models in the main painting competition this year. A competition that I am sure had twice as many entries as last year. I didn't have any success, not even a compensatory "you've made the cut" card, but that was hardly surprising considering the extremely high standard of entrants this year. I blame GW for not hosting their Golden Demon competition in the UK this year, all the good painters needed somewhere to flex their skills.(Certainly not the fact that I probably just don't paint as well.) Well, if it exposes more people to the hobby outside of the monopoly GW have, it can only be a good thing. 

There were a ridiculous number of entries in the "paint last years free model" category.

I, unfortunately missed meeting up with fellow bloggers at lunchtime, due to my ticket for the film clashing with the time, but I did manage to catch up and chat with a few people at the show that I normally only chat with online. I did see a couple of Youtubers out and about too (once again only a good thing to give the show exposure) but decided they didn't need me interrupting their day. (Especially the one that I spotted in the queue at the beginning that I suspect wasn't properly awake yet.) I will mention one Youtuber though, if you want to see photos of all the gaming tables at the show (I genuinely just ran out of time to get around them all) I can recommend once again a visit to Big Lee's Youtube channel here.

My own version of Rogue Hobby's Fishing Goblin, back home.

Overall for myself, a successful day out, for the Warlords I suspect, a successful show that has moved with the times to continue to thrive. It can only be a good thing to boost this hobby and ensure we continue to be able to enjoy this excellent pastime.

To paint or not to paint, that is the question

 This is technically March's post although I am publishing in April. March has been super busy. Well, hobby busy. I have been finishing up on the Analogue hobbies challenge, painting some more Australians for the Illustrious Opponents WW2 challenge and also finishing a couple of entries for the painting competition at Salute. I even have had to interrupt precious painting time by going out and socialising twice this week, yep twice! Yesterday I was lunching with the Distinguished Opponent (Brother in Law) and a couple of other friends and the topic of how much painting we had done recently came up. I of course then had to show them the full result of my efforts for this years Analogue challenge, one friend commented that I had painted more than he had in the last decade! 

This reminded me that not everyone in the hobby is a dedicated painter. I was recently browsing YouTube and ended up watching a video from Siege Studios. As a business they will paint your models for you at various levels of quality depending on how much you pay. I have always completely ignored their stand at shows declaring there is nothing they could do for me, why pay someone else to paint my models? But after chatting to my friend I thought again, maybe some people don't actually find the same enjoyment I do in painting. My friend commented he loves restoring and converting models and really enjoys gaming, but finds painting a chore. I personally went through a period where I really didn't actually enjoy the gaming side of things. (That's another story involving too much meta-gaming.) So I guess everyone's hobby experience is different and if someone wants someone else to paint their models, so be it. 

In my extensive research (watching lots of different chat show style wargaming channels on YouTube) it has also become apparent that some players don't even paint their models before a game. Grey plastic models on the table, how very dare they? I have also learnt to accept that too. I can understand if they don't want to paint them, in the past I have put together a great looking kit then not wanted to paint it in case my paintwork somehow ruins the model. A feeling I have less these days, but there is still the odd occasion. My copies of Space Crusade and Space Hulk don't have a lick of paint on them. I could use the excuse that they are board games and don't warrant it, but really I just don't want to ruin the models. Although my recent foray into painting second edition style 40K has given me some confidence that I probably could do it.

Yep during the Analogue challenge I had great fun painting Orks and Space Marines, I think I may have removed my fingerprints with all the Biostrip I have been using to clean up old models, but I am proud of the results.

It's a bit of a photo dump, so I might save the Orks for another post. I embraced the use of another hobby product for these, Micro-Set and Micro-Sol. They really do help with adding transfers (and keeping them on the model) and a layer of clear acrylic paint on top helps too. 

April I will be attending Salute again this year. I have been trying to persuade Illustrious Opponent he wants to come but we will see, I will however be attending with Distinguished Opponent and possibly a couple of chaps from the club.  The necessities will be of course, speed painting and seeing if any of the other bloggers are getting together for a chinwag. I am once again braving the painting competition, not expecting to win any awards, but its fun putting stuff in the glass cabinets.

Me, last year at Salute, my entry circled. (I swear I do own other hoodies!)

One of my entries this year is a bit delicate, a 3D print that already I have had to sculpt a part of myself to replace some damage. I shall have to pack it delicately and hope nothing happens in transit. 

Shopping wise, there are already a couple of items various companies are teasing on the internet that may be limited in number too that I think my first half hour of the show will be running around grabbing those items. I'm not planning any new projects though, so any other purchases will just be whims I'm sure.  I have a copy of the show guide already, so I might do a little research beforehand to see anything worth investigating. Watch this space...

Double hobby challenge update

 I know, I know I missed January. I was busy though, busy posting on the Analogue Hobbies Challenge over here. (I go by the label PeterB, the link should take you to a list of my posts). I have just about managed to keep up with the self inflicted target of posting at least once a week. I have managed to kill at least three brushes and had to buy extra paint on numerous occasions. Yes, February is almost over too, but thanks to it being a leap year, I have an extra day to get this blog posted! 

I have been using the Analogue Challenge to encourage myself to continue with the plan of recreating a second edition style 40K tabletop game. Only in models though probably, more than likely I will use Xenos Rampant rules. I have not been able yet to find a reasonably priced period Ork Dreadnought though, so in true cheapskate style I recreated a copy of the cardboard standee Dread that came with the 2nd edition starter set. I made a base for it out of an old slotta base and added some bits of sprue offcut to make a raised slot for the card to slip in.

The project is not yet done though, I have a period Ork Warlord model to paint and I am looking for some kind of battlewagon proxy. I will probably also paint up a Rhino and some Devastator Space Marines, both of which I already have. They just need a strip and repaint.

The Illustrious Opponent has also announced a Hobby Challenge for the beginning of the year that I couldn't say no to. A version of a Tale of Four Gamers, each of us has an equivalent of £30 each month starting January to buy models for a 20mm WW2 force. Once we have enough, the Illustrious Opponent intends to host a gaming day with scenarios designed to test them. In honour of one of our number having emigrated to Australia, I declared I would try an Australian force. 

They have been fun to paint, mainly because most of the work is done by the Sepia wash they all get. I paint them a base white, the webbing tan and the socks brown and tan. Then the model gets a wash and then extra details are added. 20mm is a new scale to me, large enough that I can manage to paint them without squinting, small enough that I don't get lost in painting loads of detail. (In fact I basically paint them with the level of detail I used to paint 28mm!) 

In other news the local club has been dipping a toe into the new Warhammer the Old World rules. Obviously getting hold of any models for said rules is like finding hens teeth. Luckily regular readers with good memory will recall the Night Goblin army I painted up back in July 22. It's almost like I predicted the rules would come back! I decided to paint up one more unit for them to add that extra character and will be giving the army it's first outing next week. I expect to get a proper drumming of course, newly painted model syndrome will most likely be in effect. (Plus I am a terrible Warhammer commander)

I have also been playing a fair bit of Masters of the Universe at the club. Its nice to actually get the models on the table after all that painting, especially with all that terrain I had to paint. I'm looking forward to Salute in April when I can hopefully get my hands on the Princess of Power herself, She-Ra. With Swift Wind obviously.  Finally, in a similar style I have been painting some models from Crooked Dice. People of my vintage may recognise them...

These were super fun to paint. The sculpts from Crooked Dice are really high quality. It's nice that you can still get good quality metal models.  It isn't all plastic or 3D printed yet.