That was the Year that Was - 2015

Well, here we are again and another year draws to a close with not a dish washed and the rubbish still hasn't been put out yet.

I don't know about yourselves out there but 2015 has been an extraordinarily quick year for me with the year end looming I feel that it should just be about mid August at the latest.

Like most people my year has had a few ups and downs with the biggest down being that I got made redundant again in the latter half of the year (lucky white heather) and it took a few weeks to get a new position. That I can say was the quickest part of the year as the time unemployed flew in with breathtaking speed. I'm sure a morale there...somewhere.

My gaming activities have been a bit sparce this year for one reason or another with easily the least gaming (tabletop at any rate) being done for a good few years. I have been distracted by other things as a poor excuse for this, but largely online gaming and Fallout 4 being the main culprits to an easy fix of evening entertainment especially towards the second half of the year. Mia Culpa!

The Necromunda campaign was run to it's conclusion with the last game of the campaign easily the most enjoyable with a multiplayer no holds barred free for all being lots of fun. No plans for another Necromunda campaign soon though. The Dux B campaign has been a slow burner with the participants only up to about July with my game for that month still to be arranged. Fairly enjoyed the games so far but I feel the rules are overall a wee bit too random with most of the games I've played or witnessed being already decided before the figures start moving due to random deployment or lateness of reaction etc, still they make for a fun bit of colour for the period.

Really the only other gaming has been a couple of trial games of Frostgrave which have been fun and would like to get some more games in soon.

On the painting progress front I've not really been in the zone for getting a lot done over the last year and certainly short of my looked for target but when I got painting done I have enjoyed it and liked the results so happy with that and not going to get hung up on needing to get more painting done (which I do).

Where my hobby mojo has been hanging out generally this year has been on the terrain and modelling front, much of it in an experimental way. Some of this has been successful, much of it not however, but enjoying the ride. A lot of this attention has been on the planned 'card-stock' modelling and where a lot of the failures have been particularly on trying to make up terrain tiles, which although look the part once done don't sit well despite much efforts to get them to lie perfectly flat, don't. So a new tack is going to be taken here to get some new gaming boards done in the coming year.

Next year, who knows what the wind will bring but no doubt it will involve gaming and modelling in a large degree, but I feel I need a gaming cause to fire me up with enthusiasm and get involved in a single project to get the fires burning again. Watch this space for updates real soon.

Hope all have had a good year up to now and that the coming one is full of games and new toys to play with and I'll see all in 2016. 

More Medieval French - Claymore Castings

More Medieval French goodness recently available from Claymore Castings are these French (or allied) Pavasiers. Aimed at the later half of 14th Century period they could at a pinch, creep into very early 15th Cent for the more lowly types

Good additions to the range of French types available from Claymore Casting which also include 3 packs of Crossbow.

Abbey Project Update

With a recent bit of extra spare time recently, I have finally gotten around to getting a bit of progress on the next terrain piece for my ongoing Abbey Project and have managed to complete the primary build on the upper floor of the Gatehouse piece which had stalled for a fair time.

Now with only a bit of detailing to finish off and to add some rubble, the piece will be able to get painted up and foliage added to get this piece finished off. That will complete the west range and I will move onto the ruined remains of the chapel and sacristy once this part is complete.

French Perry Plastics 2

More news posted on the Perry's website on their Plastics Workshop in the form of some '3 ups' of their forth coming French Knights for the French Infantry box set and they look to be a very promising addition to their Agincourt to Orleans range.

As the pics show, and their press release indicates, there will be one frame of these knights along with 3 on the French (read European) infantry as shown on my previous post French Perry Plastics and interestingly, and probably a good move on the Bros' part, a separate box set with 3 sprue's of both the French Knights here along with 3 sprue's of their English Knights.

The release of these are promised for sometime in the New Year and once again I'll look forward to their release as they promise hours of joyous assembly and conversion ahead.

Frostgrave - Enchanter and Apprentice

More figures for the fantasy skirmish front in the form of the Enchanter and Apprentice from the Frostgrave range, being sculpted by Mr Copplestone I was immediately drawn to these figures and having a penchant for the Enchanting business it was a no-brainer to go for these types for my first Wizard for the game.

Pretty much followed the Kevin Dallimore painting guide from the Northstar Magazine (more or less) and using the Army Painter paints to I ended up with slightly more muted look to the figures than I normally would but still reasonably pleased with the end results.

I'm currently working on some more fantasy skirmish types to go along with the Enchanter which I'll post once completed.

Italian Wars Update 003 - Clergy

A small update on the Italian Wars, just to keep in bubbling in the background, in the form of a couple of Perry clerical types in the form of a Cardinale and his assistant Supernumary.

Nice and easy paint job and now that these are done, I'll get the mounted versions painted up soon.

Dux Britanniarum Campaign - June 565 AD

British Warriors and their Lord
wait outside their Watchtower

The fourth month of the campaign and the third month that the Scotti of Cenel Loarn ventured to do battle, having sat things out in May licking their wounds after the ding dong fecht with their neighbours in Pictland back in April.

Back up to strength they ventured south and looked to raid into the lands of Brits of Alt Clut (commanded by their Lord, Kev).

The randomly rolled scenario was the raid on the watchtower which once read up boils down to the attacker (me) trying to capture one of the defenders (Kev) Lords before they reach the safety of their tower. With the majority of the Brits starting defending their tower and a couple of warrior units and a lord coming on at the other end of the table the Brits have got to leg it to gain safety.

The Scots again randomly come on on one of the four side sections and have to try and intercept the Lord before he gets to the tower and then capture him. The fact that to capture a Noble the captors need to overwhelm the Noble and unit/formations he is with in combat by having three times the number of dice as the defender. No small task in its self.

The dice were duely thrown for deployment and I threw a 3 and set up on the same side as the tower at the far end and Kev threw a four which meant he started at the opposite side. Pretty much the worst set up I could hope for. Curses. The Brits also get a bit of a head start by virtue that I only get to have two units on the board to start with with the rest of my force coming on on the second turn as they are activated. Double Curses.

The game started and the cavalry unit that the Lord was with having turbo charges horses and were half way across the table before I moved. Abandoning the warrior unit of Brits, the Lord and his bodyguard raced to the tower with the rest of the British standing at the tower ready to repel boarders.

The Scotti cavalry made a spirited last minute charge down the road scattering the missile troops to the wing and the Noble Raiders breaking the British Shock cavalry screen and forcing them off the table but the Raider cavalry accompanying them got caught by the British Warriors before they could get in the way of the retreating Lord, and were mobbed.

All the British Lords now safe and sound at the tower, game over with a fairly quick 3 point victory to the Brits. With light losses to both sides (as most of the troops didn't see any action or in deed even get close to each other) both sides are free to participate in July's fun activities.

Pretty obvious to both of us from the start that this game was going to just be a race of the cavalry, and see if Kev got any low dice scores for his cavalry move (which he didn't) so almost a foregone conclusion given the random deployment but easily could have been the other way round. Such is the unexpected (and random) nature of Dark Age raiding.

Scale Scotland '15

Last weekend, I paid the annual scale model show, Scale Scotland 2015 in Edinburgh, a visit.

The show was extremely interesting and of a fair size, bigger than I had expected.

A number of modelling clubs were in evidence from Scotland and England showing their wares and a good number of traders with much of interest in the way of books, paints, modelling equipment and of course kits of all shapes and sizes. There was a particularly interesting entrepreneurial gentleman from Poland who had a very interesting range of terrain accessories and weathering paints etc that are to further investigated.

There was an extremely crowded room set over to the pursuit of wargaming too and included Wings of War and Chain of Command much in evidence and all looked to be enjoying themselves in the slightly claustrophobic area. Various gentlemen attired in military costume of various era's (mainly the First World War) wandered around and there were various displays of memorabilia and militaria which were very interesting (though the gentleman on the First World War stand could have been more knowledgeable on his display pieces).

I enjoyed the talk-ins and demo's that I saw, and were very informative but the 'Make n Paint' area was avoided due to large numbers of Dad's showing their kid's what not to do.

There was of course HUGE numbers of various of modelling endeavors on display.

All made out of paper

Prestwick Airport in miniature

As usual with these things, there was the mandatory competition area and the level of entries was very high and indeed a big number of entries in most of the bewildering number of categories. Some high-lights follow;

Junior entry

A good visit was had by all and I'll no doubt pay the event a visit next year though I won't be buying the coffee there, Airport price's you know with the venue being at the Edinburgh Airport Hilton. Luckily Jaqui had volunteered to get the coffee's in this time.

The Army had a 'small' display too

Jaqui shows off 'her' Lamborgini