Pleasant Surprise 2015

I took part in the miniatures exchange on the Warhammer Empire Forum this year again, and by chance was assigned the same person I was assigned to 2 years ago.

Coincidentally, he has started playing another forum RPG, in which he plays a space pilot. I had a suspicion he based his character on Peter Quill from Guardians of the Galaxy, and found this Reaper figure which I thought bears a resemblance to the character. I have no idea what the rectangular object in his left hand is meant to be, but I tried to paint it to look like a Sony Walkman.

The figure itself was painted "as is". The base is made up of an MDF base glued to a metal disc, and the "space corridor" made from Tehnolog bits.

Warriors of Rohan unit 1

We have had the Warriors of Rohan figures for years - I say "we" because I can't remember who these figures belong to; I know for a fact I did not buy them, so they are either from wahj or fg, and were passed to me as part of some gaming plans we must have had many years ago...

Anyway, after our last Strandhogg game when Martin brought some of his Gripping Beast figures, fg decided to buy some Dark Age figures from Footsore Miniatures and Saxon Miniatures, and Martin and I naturally tagged along. I figured this was the push I needed to finally paint up the Rohirrim.

My order was very small - just a few figures to allow me to build three "squads" of troops together with the plastic LOTR figures I already have. The unit shown above is the first of these. The leader figure is from Footsore (ex-Musketeer) Miniatures. He is visibly larger than the LOTR plastic figures (which, although excellent figures in their time, do show their age compared to the plastic figures available these days), but painted in the same limited palette and based on a slightly thinner base he blends in. The standard bearer is a quick conversion - a hand swap on a Rohirrim swordsman - and the image for the banner came from a quick google search. I have put red flowers tufts on the bases to identify them as one unit, as I plan to paint the whole warband in the exact same few colours.

Over the next few weeks I hope to paint up the remaining warbands, after which a couple other new projects will await my attention.

Dungeon Crawl Game 4

fg and I played the fourth game in the Dungeoncrawl campaign on Sunday.

Acting on the information from the lich and the villagers, the party decided to mount a raid on the goblin's lair to try to recover the phylactery. A couple of doughty villagers join the party in the dangerous quest...

The party attempt to set up a perimeter around the fleet-footed Halfling while he grabs the treasure tokens.

A brave villager falls afoul of the goblin chief (mounted on a giant gecko).

The goblin chief attempts to run off with the phylactery while his bugbear bodyguard covers his retreat. The bugbear is cut down and the party manage to recover the phylactery.

We also watched Mad Max: Fury Road for the purpose of "research" for our planned "Mad Max" type of game. After some googling the current plan is to use Axles and Alloys 2 with the vehicles from the Dropzone Commander Resistance faction. Some of the vehicles in this faction look like they are designed for Mad Max, and at 10/12mm scale we can probably change the ground scale and have a bigger area to play on.

A Wargamer in Melbourne

I spent last week in Melbourne with my family, and managed to see the very good WW1 exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. Here are a few photos from the exhibition.

An ambulance

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A selection of melee weapons and helmets

A piece of the Red Baron's plane

Original scale models of ships painted to test the various dazzle camouflage schemes

July Giveaway

(Photo taken from ebay as I didn't take one of my own before packing the books.)

This month's giveaway is copy of the Johnny Reb rules and the scenario booklet To the Sound of the Guns.

Let me know if you are interested by leaving a comment, and I will draw a recipient on the 15th of the month. This is not a first-come, first-serve offer.

The offer is free; once I let you know you have been drawn, do let me have your email and mailing address and I will mail it off to you. You don't even have to pay for the postage. I am doing this not to get some money back, but to give these rules a good home. If you want to pay back somehow, I ask that you make a small donation to a local charity, or consider doing the same thing I am doing and give some rulebooks that you no longer use a chance for a new lease of gaming life.

Good Luck

Also, will Robert Hingley and Michael Mills please contact me to claim your prizes from the March and June giveaways respectively please?