"The Games Workshop Hobby"

Just received a link from the GW newsletter to a survey, with prizes.

I find myself both amused and a little disturbed that the questions all ask, not about wargaming, but "The Games Workshop Hobby". It's like the WWE not calling it "wrestling", but rather "sports entertainment".

Let's have a look:

1. How important is the Games Workshop hobby to you?

See.. the Games Workshop hobby isn't. I have a small LOTR Rohirrim force, and two sets of rules (WAB2, Gladiator) from a part of GW that they seem to be desperately trying to disown and don't play in the shops because it doesn't sell figures. How do I answer that?

2. What other hobbies do you have? Tick all that apply.

"Wargaming"? Not an option. 3's a followup.

4. What was your main hobby/hobbies before you got into the Games Workshop hobby. Tick all that apply.

Uh... I'm not into "The Games Workshop Hobby"? Again, 5 is a followup.

6. How important are the following aspects of the Games Workshop hobby to you?

List includes most of the things us wargamers do - painting, collecting etc.

7. How important are the following aspects in making the hobby enjoyable to you.

List includes things like being creative, actually using physical models, hanging out at the store[!!], socialising, etc. Again, things I do but not within the WH/GW setting. 

8. Imagine you couldn't do the Games Workshop hobby any more. What wold you do and why?

Wargame :D

And so on for about 20 questions. You get the idea. 

Hard to answer, and I suspect they won't like the answers they got.

Battle Report - 28 Feb 2011

Having flipped another coat of Army Painter anti-shine on the Rohirrim at the last minute (literally, it was just about dry when I boxed the figures up for transport), I made it, somewhat late, to the club to take on Carl's Norman's at the rather fun Pig Wars Dark Ages skirmish rules.

We set up on opposite sides of a village, each with 5 cavalry, 12 spearmen and three bowmen. Carl set up clustered in the middle, whereas I sent four spearman up the right flank and through the village with the bowmen. Things started badly - we converged just outside the village gates, and I declared a charge with my cavalry on his spearmen. Distance, no more than 14". Charge move for the cavalry? 12" + d6. And I rolled a 1.

"Axe Bloke" and Carl's leader duke it out.

Result, rather unpleasantly, was me getting charged in the (fortunately shielded) flank by his cavalry, and in the front by his spearmen. The resulting dustup consumed most of the battle from there on, to be honest. We both lost standards early on, and both passed morale checks (Pig Wars uses a deck of cards, not dice). I really thought I was done for, losing three horsemen early, but my leader (aka Axe Bloke), proceeded to stand firm when surrounded by Normans and lay waste to all about him in a manner which will without a doubt go down in the sagas. Were I better gifted in alliterative verse, I'd give it a go!

The flanking spearman finally get stuck in.

I was cursing my decision to send four spearmen up the flank, as I was sure the cavalry would be toast by then, but, as you can see from the picture, they and the bowmen did eventually make it across the village square in time to lend a hand. For a while, it looked like my RoSaxons would actually carry the day, but my pack of cards was stacked against me, and his leader was lucky enough to survive and knock the final wound off Axe Bloke. After that, it was just a mop up job for Carl.

So, thoughts on Pigs Wars?

Great fun, very fast paced. The game mechanic of using the cards works really well. Technically, you can get away with odd base sizes (like mine on 25mm and 40mm rounds) as figures meet 1 on 1, but WAB-style basing is probably saner all things considered. I wonder if archery possibly isn't deadly enough. There are no real command rules (which I'm starting to enjoy in games like Blitzkrieg Commander and Prinicples of War), and not enough morale checks to prevent the other issue - it's lethal. In a campaign context, you'd have to roll for casualties to see if they were dead or incapacitated, as between Carl and I we had 5 figures left out of 40 at the end of the game.

All in all, though? I had a ball.... Big thanks to Andy from the club for introducing us to the rules.

That sense of 'done'.

It's funny how much certain steps of painting a figure bring it alive - hands and face is one for me, for example - I've always found that, even back when I was painting figures in ones and twos for D&D.

But now I've taken to basing figures, the one that for some reason puts that stamp of 'done' on it is the band of brown round the edge of the base: partly because the base is till then usually still mostly black or the primer colour, and it does set off the scatter and static grass.

So - I can happily report that the 20 Rohirrim (5 mounted, 12 plastic spear/sword/axe, and the Gamling, Hama and Eowyn hero metals) are dipped, based, varnished and ready for tonight's go at Pig Wars, along with the 8 bowmen I painted last month.

I guess I better get my skates on...

I need the rest of the Rohirrim-masquerading-as-Saxons painted by Monday for a club Pig Wars game....

They're primed, and started. And I'm out tomorrow night.
So. To be ready on Monday, they need to be based and varnished Sunday (better pray it doesn't rain for long enough for me to get outside and spray!), and therefore Quick-Shaded at the latest Sat am or Friday night...

Which means I need to make a pretty decent stab at finishing the blocking of colours by the end of tonight.
Eep.

In other news - I have my first follower (which is good, cause I was starting to worry if Google Friend Connect was broken!). Hi to Paul from the excellent Paul's Bods, which is giving me serious nostalgia trips on a regular basis.

Basing, and dip redux

Really wasn't totally happy with the Balearics after I'd dipped (well, brushed) them - the dip had pooled in a few places on their tunics that just looked wrong. However, I persevered, cause, frankly, life is too short to repaint everything :D

So - on with the show.

Some priming experiments - I undercoated a bunch more Rohirrim, this time in green to save time on their cloaks, and their horses in black. We'll see how that goes this weekend.

On to basing the Balearics. I think I have a process now, which seems to work. First off, apply a layer of Tamiya dark earth diorama paint. It's a little bit pricy, but a £8 jar claims to cover a B4 sheet (which works out at around 200 or so 20mm square bases. Basically, it has resin particles in it, and can be formed on a base - you apply it with a spatula, or in my case the end of a coffee stirrer liberated from work.

On top of that, once it's dry, I brush on some neat PVA, dip the base in Javis Moorland Scatter and shake off immediately - I don't mind if it doesn't stick everywhere, since the dark earth underneath looks just fine.

Finally, I let that dry, dab on a few blotches more of PVA, and apply some static grass (don't ask me whose, I think it was Hornby!) using a Noch puffer bottle from Gaugemaster. Job done, and now to apply the (Army Painter) matt varnish...

Which was a bit of an eyeopener - the effect wasn't as obvious on the Rohan foot I painted the other week, but it really does soften the look of the dip, kill the in-your-face glossiness, and makes me look a half-decent painter. The moral of the Army Painter system really does seem to be to take your courage in both hands and not give up!

Pictures to follow next time: I'll do a step by step of the next batch of Numidians (probably as archers).

Sorting out the collection...

Took an hour to sort through the Battle Games in Middle Earth figure stash, which is... scary. As far as I'm aware I have the complete set. Considering keeping the Rohan metals (if I can figure out which are which!), the orc and Rohan plastics (half of which I've painted already) and maybe the 3rd age Gondor plastics, and eBay-ing the rest. There's quite a few rarities in there, judging by some eBay prices, so that should raise some funds for ... gee, I dunno. Some Napoleonics....? :)

Dip revisited

I have a bunch of Balearic slingers painted up from the WF Numidians box. This time, I tried applying the dip with a brush, and I'll give it 36 hours or more to dry, If that goes OK, I'll move on to the legionaries.

On the LOTR side, I have 8 Rohirrim done, another 8 undercoated, and a standard bearer - made from a swordsman with a broken sword, with the hand drilled out and a length of florist's wire inserted. We'll see how those go, I guess.

Current projects

Two things on the go at present:

28mmm Early Imperial Roman army for WAB 
I seem to have been collecting figures of late, starting with a Warlord Games Imperial Roman Starter Army and adding a bunch of Wargames Factory stuff off eBay. Painting has started! The end line up (which is an insane amount of points I'll never field all at once, I guess), will be....

• 18 Praetorians (Warlord)
• 18 Veteran Legionaries (Warlord)
• 3 x 18 Regular Legionaries (Warlord) - lorica segmentata
• 3 x 18 Regular Legionaries (mostly Wargames Factory 'Caesar's Legions' with Warlord rectangular shields and no helmet crests) - lorica hamata
• 12 36 Auxilliary cavalry (Wargames Factory, and boy were THEY hard to find)
• 12 Allied Germanic cavalry (Wargames Factory)
• 12 Allied Celt cavalry (Wargames Factory)
• 2 x 12 Auxilliary infantry (Warlord)
• 9 Balearic slingers (Wargames Factory - painted from the Numidian set)
• 9 Numidian archers (Wargames Factory - painted from the Numidian set)
• 10 Allied skirmishers (Wargames Factory - painted from the Numidian set)
• General, Aqulifer.

28mm Lord of the Rings troops

These are my 'break from the Romans' painting job. Foolishly, I bought the whole of the "Battlegames in MiddleEarth" partwork, so I have loads of sprues of various things to paint. First off, enough Rohirrim to pass as a Dark Ages warband for a club session, then we'll see what I fancy, I guess.