A Merry Christmas to All and to all a Good night.

It's Christmas Eve and the paints and models have been tidily packed up away out of sight so the dining table can be bedecked with Christmas cheer. My beautiful supportive wife allows me to normally leave out a permanent painting tray of current projects on the go in the corner of the room that I can just grab and put on the table ready to go. There's nothing more off-putting to any hobby than it being packed away out of sight. The hurdle of unpacking your paints each time can really be enough to slow you down.

This means I haven't really got anything to show and tell I'm afraid, but I'm sure you all don't mind. I made a couple of last minute Pre Christmas orders not expecting them to arrive by now but they already have. So I have January's Wargames Illustrated to read over the festive period which includes a sprue of 13.5mm (I know, the conversations I have seen online about the scale have gone on and on.) American Civil War soldiers from Warlord Games. I predict a lot of drybrushing happening.

I was super excited when I heard about this little Kitty from Bad Squiddo games was coming out, but I really didn't expect to get hold of him before Christmas.

He doesn't fit in with anything else in my collection at all but I really don't care. Annie has promised to do more similar models if he is successful so fingers crossed I can end up with a small warband of animal warriors. I'm sure I can fit them into a skirmish game somewhere or come up with something.

We're in tier 4 here at Chez Lead so small family Christmas tomorrow, (For non UK readers that means we pretty much aren't allowed visitors), but our spirits aren't dampened. Our annual Christmas get together to the pub with my wargaming friends couldn't happen this year so a drunken Zoom quiz was in order instead. I have concluded that they may know an awful lot about military history, but ask them to name top ten Broadway musicals and they will look at you blankly.

It was good to catch up with the chaps, some of whom I realised over the last decade I haven't really not seen in person for longer than a week or so, now it's been over six months. It's been a tough year but others have had it tougher. Christmas is a time for giving, so if you can, maybe go make a donation to Shelter over here.

Before this blog, I didn't spend a lot of time chatting to strangers online. This year it has kept me sane reading blogs, watching live YouTube videos and just general joining in with the hobby chat online. In a year when people haven't been able to get together I feel like our community have become closer in some sense.

Special mention and seasons greetings to Carole from Hippolytas tiny footsteps for her blog, Annie from Bad Squiddo Games for the fun Sunday morning coffee chats, Soren from Bloodbeard Garage for his excellent blog and encouragement, Neal from Wee gamers and Karl from Crooked Dice for their Saturday morning talking nonsense on Youtube.

Finally, a special Happy Christmas to the Brother in Law and the Illustrious Opponent who have both been sources of inspiration for this blog, possibly against their will and to my wife, for having to make suitable impressed faces at everything I paint for the last year.

And to everyone who has commented on the blog or clicked the like button on Facebook, or just read the blog. Take care and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Additional. I love Die Hard as much as the next person, but Christmas Eve is all about Muppet Christmas Carol. If you start the film at 10:47:04pm, you can start Christmas day as Scrooge pushes Gonzo and Rizzo off the window sill on Christmas morning and then shares the joy of Christmas.

Make your own paper hat

My son came home from school today with a handmade Christmas hat on his head he had made at school to wear for his school Christmas dinner. I had a sudden memory flashback to childhood when we used to do the very same thing back in school for our celebration. I particularly remember being very competitive about making mine. Especially as one child was announced as having made the "best hat" each year. I remember considering myself to be particularly crafty even back then and very serious each year with more and more elaborate constructions.

Obviously the teachers made a massive fuss of us all, rightly so, so I can imagine my memory of how amazing these hats were far outweighs any actual achievements we made in papercraft haberdashery. My point is, we were encouraged in our craft. No-one was told they shouldn't have done their hat that way, or why bother making a hat at all, its not going to be as good as the other kids. Everyone joined in. 

My little corner of the internet is tiny and I just scrape the surface of the hobby world, so I mostly see hobbyists like this. We all admire each others paint jobs, praise others work, give useful tips and answer multitudes of questions mostly in the spirit of sharing knowledge without belittling others. 

This is how it should be. There's no limit to how many people are allowed to take part. There's no right or wrong way to do your own hobby. Even if you are painting up historical miniatures and someone points out you've painted the buttons on the tunics the wrong colour, hell, you're doing an alternate history. 

I do however every now and then see the other side, people are told they shouldn't be allowed to join in, or they are doing it wrong. To those people I say, shush. We are all just making our own paper hats.

Read this blog! Share subscribe and Like!!!

Let me begin by saying I apologise for the cheesy title of the blog. It is really to demonstrate what I wanted to talk about today. I have recently reached the milestone on Facebook of 101 likes. Which, after over a year may seem actually a very slow achievement, but I'm okay with that. I haven't been pushy with my blog, My goal hasn't been an exercise in social media engagement, rather a personal journal of hobbying and sharing with like minded individuals that are genuinely interested.

 

I wanted to do an online version of the conversations I have with Illustrious Opponent, Brother in Law and other wargaming friends. I have since discovered that there are an awful lot of people doing the same thing. I hadn't really come up with an original idea, but thats okay. I'm not trying to monetise this, I'm not turning adverts on, I'm not trying to sell my wares.  

During lockdown this has also become a way of keeping my chums up to date with what I'm up to. Although when we can get together again for a pint I'm not sure what I'm going to talk to them about!

I recently joined a Facebook group out of idle curiosity. The group claimed to be for bloggers to share tips and tricks on getting your blog noticed etc. I thought it would be interesting to see how non Wargaming bloggers are doing this as well. All the posts in the group seem to be geared towards monetising though and their blogs are writing about how to monetise or advertise blogs. There are no blogs on just "stuff", like crafting or hobbies. It all smells of a pyramid scheme to me!

So, recent painting? Well over on Twitter a chap going by the name of Sonic Sledgehammer came up with the idea of everyone painting the same model and posting pictures of it with the same hashtag, not as a competition, just as a shared community project. You can see his announcement video here.

 

Go to Twitter and look up #paintinglathgertha, there are some lovely paintjobs. Now regulars will know I have already painted a mounted Lathgertha from Bad Squiddo for my Dragon Rampant army. The blister set actually comes with Lathgertha mounted and on foot, so I already had the model ready. Those that didn't, Bad Squiddo Annie temporarily arranged for the Shield Maiden on foot to be available individually.

So, here is my final paint job, I was inspired by the film Brave, where the main character Merida has a massive head of bright red hair, so I then looked up the tartan pattern her Father is wearing in the movie (she actually doesn't wear any tartan in the movie, just a plain green dress) and gave her a tartan cloak.

 

 

 

 

Also on the painting table I have finished my Bad Squiddo gnomes. I've based them up on three bases for a Dragon Rampant army. Surely there is nothing more terrifying than a swarm of killer gnomes sweeping across the battlefield charging at your ankles.

 

 

 

 I took a delve into my wargaming storage this weekend with the youngest sprog. We had been looking at my rule books and he wanted to see evidence that I had all the Space Marines and Grey Knights listed therein that I was showing him. Obviously the pictures in the books are a lot better paint jobs than my own, but yes I do have some of those "cool space dudes", so we were having a look to see if anything would inspire maybe a small tabletop game. (I'm thinking not 40K rules as I don't think he's quite ready for that, but something simpler.) Whilst delving a few things were kept out that needed some repair work or paint touch ups. One of of which was the following.

 

These Necromunda House Escher gangers from Games Workshop are over twenty years old now. I've always had a memory of my early paint jobs being terrible, but actually I'm pretty proud of these. Apparently my younger self was conversion obsessed. I couldn't buy a model without finding a way of hacking off a section and glueing something else on.

I'm a comic book fan as this page can attest, so I took some inspiration from Tank Girl and attempted some tattoos.

Apparently when my vision was younger and my hands were steadier, I could paint eyes! Not something I do anymore. The shotgun barrels do appear comically overlarge at this angle.

 

Apparently I decided they only wore black leather or camo. Minimal primary colours in my Grim Dark Future. 

Finally with some more comic book inspiration I present my hired gun with a head swap. Against better judgement I took him along with me on my interview for GW back in the day. (you can read the terrible tale here) Apparently the interviewer was not a fan of conversions. It's my version of James O'Barr's the Crow. If I remember correctly the head is from an Eldar Guardian, no idea where I got the crow and gravestone from. More black leather. In fact my weekly walks down to the local GW back then I would be dressed head to foot in black with my long leather coat with the Blood Angels pin on the lapel. A look I am afraid I could definitely not pull off today. (I probably couldn't back then either.)

 

Photographing him was tricky, the all white face reflects a lot of light, so I had to go for a moody lighting look.

Looking at all the models I hacked at back in my youth and now looking at what the untouched versions go for on ebay now I sometimes regret some of my enthusiastic conversions. This guy though, I'm really happy with, I would do it again in a heartbeat. In fact I have two more of the same model. I just don't have any more Eldar Guardian heads. I wonder what they go for on ebay...

Dragon Rampant Mammoth time!

So, as promised, back to me to tell you a bit more about our attempt at Dragon Rampant. Well last blog post I allowed the Distinguished Opponent to tell you about his Dragon Rampant army. Well, how did we get on? Well, often with new games I have spent most of session reading one book between two people, so ensuring both of us had a copy in advance was a great help. (The affordable Osprey price helps here.) There are some great how to videos on Youtube as well so we were both confident we could make a good start to our first game without too many false starts. The table was set up the night before, army lists were written. We were good to go.

 

 You've seen most of my Barbarian army, but here is the final result:

Yep, that is a big Mammoth in the middle of the army. Yes I did originally say my Leader was the Bad Squiddo Lathgertha shield maiden on horseback, but I wanted something with more of an impact. The model is still there and joined by some of her fellow horseriders. I've also added an old GW giant, some giant wolves and some Black Tree Design vikings that fit in really well with the Frostgrave barbarians. The wolves are led by a hammer wielding fantasy viking from Hasslefree miniatures that I am sure I have shared on my blog before.

Table from Bad Squiddo, stones are made from air dry clay.

 

I added this wizard to the back of my Mammoth and gave him the Wizardling bonus. This means he doesn't have access to all the magic spells a wizard does, you pre choose just three from the list but for less points. Don't get me wrong, my Leader is still the Shieldmaiden, I also added Lathgertha on foot to the back of the Mammoth. I also gave her Cause Fear as she was on the back of a giant Mammoth! In hindsight, I wouldn't use this combination again, it felt a waste to be both a spellcaster and a giant lumbering combat beast, you can't do both in the same turn.

 

 

I set up a simple table with a small farmstead in the middle and we agreed the field and any hills or woods would be difficult terrain to slow things down as the table is unfortunately only 3' deep. To also help with this we both deployed off table and rolled to activate for each unit from turn one to see when they actually arrived on the table. The table layout really just meant we ended up with two separate battles either side of the farm with just some scouts creeping through the field in the middle. (As scouts they suffer no penalty.)

Scouts advancing on the farm

 

 

 

 

Although we had visually two completely different armies, because we were theoretically picking from the same "army list" (to pick a traditional wargame idea) the game felt very fair and balanced. There is one magic spell that is slightly overpowered compared to all the others (I'll not say which, I don't condone metagaming) but if it becomes a problem that you keep only using that spell, you could just nip it from the list as a house rule, problem sorted.

 

Lathgertha and the shieldmaiden rally after being driven off by the skeleton cavalry. Who then get driven off by the giant wolves led by Thor Wolfrunner.

The giant happily stomps towards the undead pigs, who fortunately aren't bothered that he causes fear, being undead

It's all too much for Tiny the giant, and he loses the combat and stomps off.

Barbarian bezerkers face off against my opponents Leader (excuse the naked bottom!)

 

I love the simplicity of the Dragon Rampant system. It is easy to learn and adapt to your own choice of models. Advantage can bounce back and forth between either side as the game progresses. As units lose strength they become less effective but can still make a difference. My opponent and I happily just made two fantasy armies that made us grin and then adapted  the rules to fit them. You don't even need to necessarily conform to certain unit sizes really if you don't want to, I just found it easier to indicate 12 strength points with 12 models, but it's not necessary.  My Distinguished Opponent just used dice to indicate as such. I would also recommend having on hand a handful of tokens too to keep track of the status of your units.

Finally I thought I might show some evidence of what the Mammoth looked like when it arrived. Technically it is a Dwarven War Mammoth but the Dwarves have gone in the bitz box for another day. (Although no-one was stuck down in the howdah, I'm not buying something this cool and not using it every opportunity I can). It was fun to get really stuck into such a large project, although every time I even slightly knocked the tusks I had a tiny heart attack.

My saviour was this new product I found. The kit actually fit together really well, but with any large resin kit there will be some gap work to be done and I had recently bought it to try it out. It squeezes out similar texture to oil paint, then dries solid. Weirdly the most use I had for it was when I was looking for a base for the mammoth. I actually glued together two plastic boards together that were the right size but a little thin. I then filled the gap all the way around with the putty.

 

 So what now? Well, lately I have always said its a good idea to always have two armies ready for any system. That way you can always offer a game to any opponent and not have to wait a couple of months for them to paint the models. Well, progress with army two continues with some halfling archers:

 

 

 

 

Well, hopefully Dragon Rampant will be making an appearance again at some point. Maybe I can persuade the Illustrious Opponent to put together a fantasy force and when we can safely get together for a game give it a go.

Guest Post - The Distinguished Opponent

 

 Last week I was lucky enough to finally get in a game of fantasy with the Brother in Law. Yep, first bit of proper wargaming since March. I kind of forced his hand by basically telling him to get on with it and make an army. Enthusiasm reigned and two armys met on the field of battle.

You've heard a bit about my army, so I thought I would hand over to the Distinguished Opponent to tell you a bit about his army choices.

Greetings fellow dice tossers (maybe not) chuckers, rollers, slingers; I’ll work on it.  Allow me to introduce myself I am the Brother-in-Law.  As regular readers will know your usual correspondent sent me a copy of the rulebook for Dragon Rampant, in an effort to convince me that there is more to life than space marines which is complete heresy.   One of the things that attracted me to the game was that it’s not limited to one manufacturer’s minis, encouraging players to use models from different companies or even toys.  So with book in hand I decided to build an army.  I drew inspiration from my first ever GW army, the undead.  Braving the horrors of the internet I purchased some minis, spending what I would have done at Colours this year if it had not been cancelled due to Nurgles blessing.

 

I ended up buying minis from MANY different manufactures (the caps are necessary).  So many that this blogs normal...ish writer encouraged me to go through my army rather than just give him a list of where they came from.  Fair warning this is going to take some time so grab a coffee, I’ll wait...got it?  Good let’s begin.

 

The Leader

My leader is a 3D printed lich designed by Stanislav Kuznetov who trades as Onmioji online.  I purchase this model pre-printed as I lack the means for 3D printing myself. 

 

Giant Ghost

This is a resin knight that I got off my Dad.  He makes ‘real’ soldiers so I asked if he had a spare knight model to use as a giant.  If you are wondering a ‘real’ soldier is a miniature which is at least 54mm tall.  Fortunately for me he had this knight he found in a charity shop.  I got the idea of a giant ghost knight from an animated version of Hamlet that the BBC made many years ago.  In the cartoon the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears as a giant wearing a suit of armour. 

 

Vampires

As well as being designed to not be limited to one company’s miniatures, Dragon Rampant encourages the players to have fun with their minis.  So I present Lord and Lady Puffynose d’Pompous, two vampires who didn’t realise some battles take place during the day.  They were inspired by the Discworld character Otto Chriek and his unfortunate workplace accidents.  The ‘miniatures’ themselves are small piles of basing sand set with a large amount of glue then painted an ash colour.

 

 

 

Skeleton Spearmen

Yes I bought them from Games Workshop.  There is a reason why they have been around for as long as they have, they make really good miniatures.  The one without a head is a deliberate choice.  I imagine the poor soul’s killer regularly drinking from his skull, at least until Mr and Mrs Berserk-Bloodaxe come for dinner; then only the ‘good’ skulls will do.  The fact I’d dropped the skull on the floor and failed to find it has nothing to do with this choice you understand.  Looking back I also wish I had given them swords rather than spears, would have made putting them in the case and pulling them out a lot easier.

 

Skeleton Cavalry

Rather a sad story with these two.  When it comes to cavalry, Dragon Rampant’s attitude is if your cavalry are just horses, you are doing it wrong.  An example picture in the book shows dwarfs riding badgers, they are glorious.  The riders are the oldest models I got having been made by Citadel back in the late 80’s long before I had ever heard of Games Workshop. Unfortunately they were not old enough to allow me to take advantage of the ‘Honouring Your Elders’ rule which allows for two extra Glory points at the end of the game.  The fact this rule requires the entire army to use models made before 1984 was another reason I was not able to get those points.  Their original mounts were going to be skeleton crocodiles made by Dark Fable Miniatures.  This is where the story gets sad.  Sometime after placing the order it was cancelled and my money refunded, since donated to charity.  I then received an e-mail explaining that the reason for the order being cancelled.  The owner of Dark Fable Miniatures had passed away from cancer earlier this year.  Following this news I purchased a pair of skeleton raptors from Battlezone Miniatures because dinosaurs.  While this is an unhappy story there is one piece of good news.  The e-mail I received with my refund was from the owner of Dragon Bait Miniatures who was a close friend of Dark Fable’s owner.  In it he explained that he is working to add the Dark Fable’s range to his online store, although he did say this was going to take some time to implement.  At least Dark Fable Miniatures legacy will not go the way of Chapterhouse Studios and be lost to us forever.

 

Skeleton Archers

I wanted to avoid using too many Games Workshop miniatures so I looked for some alternatives for the archers.  In the end I went to two different companies.  Half came from Alternative Armies, the other half were ordered from Bear Head Miniatures.

 

Banshees

I have had these models for a while.  I got them off eBay where they were sold as 28mm Cultists, with the idea of using them as Watcher’s in the Dark for my Dark Angels.  I don’t know who made them but the casting tabs were copyright Pure Evil.  The paint scheme was chosen when I read that in Irish mythology banshees wore grey robes over a green dress.

 

 

 

Zombie Pigs

I found these while buying the archers from Bear Head.  They make a number of different zombie animals.  I chose pigs over cows, sheep and rhinos (still think I made a mistake not getting that last one) as the idea of having different breeds of pigs appealed to me.  After spending a lunch hour looking at different breeds online I chose to paint them up as a Tamworth, a Gloucester Old Spot and a Saddleback, the one I am most happy with.

 

Ghosts

We all have them, a selection of random models we have acquired over the years that we never got round to using.  Thanks to this game I have finally found a use for mine.    The large knight with the axe was made by Scibor Miniatures.  I got him to use as a Grand Master of the Deathwing but I did not think much of the model once assembled.  The man with the shield was made up of some random parts from a sprue of Warhammer parts that were mixed in with a previous purchase; I think it was for the Empire.  The lady with the totally necessary (sarcasm) lack of clothes and chest with its own gravitational pull was a freebie that Alternative Armies sent me along with the skeleton archers.  Finally the Dwarf musician I’d planned to use in my Bloodbowl team.  I cannot for the life of me remember how, or who made it.

 

Zombies

While my first army was the undead, my first introduction to fantasy wargaming was Heroquest, I even used the undead models from my original set when I started that army.  In honour of that first army I once again chose to use Heroquest models in this army. 

 

Catapult

The last unit I purchased was an old Screaming Skull Catapult.  I hadn’t intended to buy any more models, but while looking for some old style space marine arms on eBay, it showed up and I was not going to pass it up at the price it was being sold for.  I had one of these in my original undead army and I remembered it being an absolute (insert expletive of your choice) to put together.  20 years on nothing has changed in that department, although my vocabulary has expanded in that time and was used to great effect when putting it together.

 

So that was my force.  I must say that I really enjoyed putting this army together and painting them.  I did think about adding some mummies as well as a large monster, either a zombie dragon or a large dinosaur skeleton.  I decided against this for several reasons.  First Dragon Rampant encourages players to limit their armies to 24 points and mine was double that before I got the catapult, a fact that shocked me when I realised it. 

Second the army I built fits completely into a second hand carry case I found really cheap online.  Any more models will require buying a new case.  Finally as much fun as I had painting this army, this army is intended for a small game and I felt that if I added any more models then I would be moving into large Warhammer sized army territory and away from what Dragon Rampant is all about.  

 

So that is it, hopefully you enjoyed me talking about my mini’s, maybe I will be allowed back in the future. Until then I will leave you to your regular writer.  

 

Well there you go. I gotta say it was a fun army to play against. Yes we both got carried away and went way over the 24 points in the end, but Dragon Rampant does still work really well even well you multiply up the points. We managed a 51 point game on our first learning attempt in the space of a morning. But I'll tell you about that next time.

 

The original Hulk buster

Once again its been a while. Apologies, but hobby wise its been a bit thin on the ground. Things have been happening, but nothing of note to write about, until now. Readers will remember my recent disappointment at the revamp of the original dungeon crawler Heroquest. Well, all is forgotten as I have moved on to something far superior with guns, Spacequest. Sorry, Space Crusade.

Yes, Space Crusade, just as good, but with guns and a giant stompy robot. People rave about the artwork on the box of Heroquest, but just marvel at that Gigeresque trim around an image of Dolph Lundgren in the whitest of white power armour you have ever seen. It's a perfect example of eighties scifi artwork. Heroquest may have had Conan on its front, but Space Crusade has Red Scorpion.

A work colleague contacted me recently as he knew I had been after a copy and he was looking to sell his on. So, a quick suspicious looking transfer in a pub car park later (mainly due to my postcode being terrible to find on satnav) and I am now for the first time the proud owner of my own copy of this legendary game.

The game involves squads of Space Marines breaking into floating Space Hulks and dealing with the indigenous alien menance currently there. Or if you are the Alien player, defending your home made up of a ragtag mix of different races from invasion from a self important superior master race. 

In the box you get three squads of five marines with interchangeable weapons. The sculpts are pretty good even by todays standards.

Each player also gets this amazingly oversized "scanner" to keep track of their Commanders lives, points and any re-rolls they get on their weapons.

The player that controls the aliens gets this handy control panel to show the dice they need to roll for each creature. It is made vaguely 3D by popping on these plastic things on each end.

The frustrating part was assembling the board. Putting the four upright walls in a cross formation with these tiny pieces of plastic to hold them in place is not easy. 

The Gretchin are almost as tall as the Orks. They are all slightly jumping for some reason, and they are armed with blunderbusses and old fashioned rifles. They are still slightly cooler looking than the 2nd edition 40k plastic Grots though, so that's something.

The Chaos Space Marines are pretty cool too.

The Genestealer models are very familiar. In fact you could drop one of these into the newer Space Hulk box set and you wouldn't know the difference.

Finally there is the Android and the Dreadnought. The Dread comes with three interchangeable weapons, none of which I got to fire in my first game with my son. First game he attacks it in close combat, with Power Fist and Melta bombs and takes all three lives in one go. Now I did think maybe I should try stripping the Dread, but I really don't want to risk damaging the old plastic with any paint stripper, so I might leave as is for now.

Finally as a little bonus, ten of these little guys were included in the box too in a rather fetching light blue. Note the crazy position the Exarch is holding his sword, meaning he can therefore interchange his weapon too. They are part of one of two expansions to the game with a whole set of extra missions.

I never actually owned a copy of this game until now though, but I did however have plenty of experience of this:

Yep that's right, one of the few GW licenced computer games that worked. This and Bloodbowl basically. It works best when they just directly ported the rules into a video game to be honest. Many an hour was spent playing this. In fact, I recently got it up and running again on my computer and it still holds up.

The game plays in an overhead view for taking turns.

Then shows a 3D view for basic mini animations for combat. Then you can see the Dreadnought in all it's primary colour glory.

 

When something dies, you get a lovely little explosion.

The PC game follows the same format as the board game, you can work your way through the same missions. The first mission being kill the Dreadnought. The only difference being for some reason the programmers neglected to read the bit about the Dreadnought can't stop in a doorway. Yep, you can shut a door on the Dread.