Updates

Wow, I got an email today telling me that Brigade games has just shipped my order today! 

Great news, a little startling considering my order was placed November 28th!!!! Not the quickest dispatch time. Oh and I almost forgot the best part, to take advantage of the maximum possible discount of 20%, everything I ordered was from the, apparently, inappropriately named "Ready to Ship" line!

On the other hand I did receive two parcels today the big one, and the one I was looking forward to, is my order from Alternative Armies. It contains a few infantry packs, but the bulk of the order is a large installation/base. It contains towers, and connecting passageways and some weapon mounts. I have already washed the parts both soap and a degreaser, and will hopefully find an opportunity to prime them tomorrow. They will then be added to my items to paint for the painting challenge.

The other parcel came from Caliver/Minifigs and contained a few minor things, but the feature item is a nice VSF submarine. It too has been washed and will see some priming  soon.

The painting challenge plan of attack!

So, as mentioned in my painting blog, I have signed up for the 12th annual Analogue painting challenge. I will be updating the painting blog with progress reports over the next 3 months. Now, the main goal of this challenge is to get stuff painted, it is not a competition per se. (at least that is how I view it) It also does not involve judging the quality of the paint job, the only judging is how many points a given project is worth. For the most part, the points per figure is pretty clear cut, but some miniatures do defy classification, or at least stretch the boundaries. For instance while certain models might have been designed for 15mm, the actual size of the miniature, say a giant robot, might well be the size of a 28mm or even 54mm figure. In those cases they are often judged at their actual size not their scale size.   So it will be interesting to see what my 1200 scale Dystopian war vehicles get rated at as they are ridiculously over size for that scale, with many being more in line with 15mm or 20mm. At some point I will review old posts to see if I can find some comparables. 

Again the point of this exercise is to tackle my ever expanding collection of unpainted lead, plastic and plastic. But, I did set a goal, and I would like to achieve that goal. To that end I plan to make use of the bonus points available for theme related entries. So far, any theme that I plan to submit figures to, involve figures that I already plan to paint, so why not take the extra points.

So the plan, there are three planetary rings surrounding a mysterious core. We get to pick our starting planet, and can then move about to adjacent planets or by painting a female character we can move to a non adjacent planet. There are also warp points that allow you to move between rings. Each themed submission gains a person 20 points. Well as I look at the options I can see a number of existing projects that would fit one or move themes. So better map out what will be for each planet.

The Outer Ring  (TBD)

Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 4/ Week 5 / Week 6 /   Week 7 / Week 8 / Week 9 / Week 10 / Week 11 / Week 12

 
1 Vulcan: Something Logical; Pointy Ears 10 Martian cavalry 100 +20 points

Solaris: Deception; Illusion

Arda: Fantasy; Tolkienesque Dragon(s) ?

3 Caprica: Doomed; Ambush Fenians on Mars

1 Death Star: Hubris; Of Questionable Design Vickers Independent tank (20+20) 40

2 Skaro: Strange Doctors; Weird Robots 4 Hydra robots + queen

4 Klendathu: Bug War; An Invasion Gone Bad Martian tripods4 tripods + 1 large tripod

Glorantha: Quest; Runes; Heroes 

Istvaan V: Betrayal; Heretical/Heretics or Loyalty/Loyalists Cultists?

2 Babylon5: Operatic; Low Budget Fun Cyclops

 The Middle Ring

5 Perelandra: Venus; Oceanic; Temptation Dystopian wars landing craft, fort & islands

Noel’s Comet: Friendship described miniature, along with a loquacious story (You know, as Noel would say, 'Why use 10 words when ten thousand will do.')

6 LV426: Aliens; A Really, Really Bad Idea Old Glory Super hero aliens

5 Arrakis: Desert; Worms; Spice; Machiavellian Ironclad Desert nomads

7 Cybertron: Giant Robots, Transformational/Transformative Dystopian robots

Vlogsphere: Bureaucracy; Black Comedy

4 Corsucant: Imperial; Good vs Evil Queen Victoria vs Martian queen

 The Inner Ring

8 Altair IV: Forbidden; Old Robots Robbie, 5 of 13 old glory robots
9 Gethen: Ice; Cold; Androgyny Dr Who cold warriors 2 arctic tracks penguin sat

7 Krypton: Weakness; Superhero More Old Glory superheroes

10 Terra: Earthbound; Home Planet of the Apes

Lune: Witchcraft; Changing Tides; Moods, Sorcery Chaos in Carpathia gypsies etc

Xanth: Never Ending; A Unique Talent

11 Mars: God of War; Barsoom; A Mysterious Neighbour Space 1889 High Martians mesa

That is my thinking so far, some details, some things that I will have to gather together to see what I have number wise. 

 

Either way I will be starting with the Independent tank and the 13 robots.

 

Oh, and beyond that I will be working on the 50 Martian cavalry, the 10 French cavalry, the 10 Bengal lancers and the nearly 100 or so back of beyond cavalry. At ten points per mounted figure my goal of 1000 points is possible to reach..

 

 week 9

• Gethen ice/Mars polar and high martians
  

week 10 

• Luna chaos in Carpathia
  

week 11

• Terra Planet of the apes

week 12

 

End of year madness updated December 15th, new update on December 21st update Dec 30

 So, I went a little mad (we all go a little mad sometimes right Norman?) and got rather involved in some November sales, madness! For the most part I did not buy anything that I had not already thought about buying before any sales. The frigate was an impulse buy in that it was at a good price and though I had not planned to buy one, I had wanted to but it was always too expensive for me to actually buy it. 

Most items were on sale, but some just got caught up in my determination to finally pick up whatever it was that I wound up buying. So some rule books were items that I had looked at many times and just decided to stop looking and buy them already. That would also include the items from Empress Miniatures, they have been in my cart many times, I just never would order them. Well it is a done thing. I am not getting any younger, besides, the pension fund was just sitting there...

Most of my orders are coming from the UK, the exceptions are noted beside the name of the company/store from which I ordered the stuff. The farthest out this year was Sweden

The great spend of 2021

	Ordered from	What was ordered	Cost	Ordered	Received
1	Plastic Soldier Company	Barbarosa & T34s (awaiting restock)	TBD	Oct 30	Feb 11
2	Amazon (CANADA)	28mm Frigate	(150)	Nov 8	Cancelled
3	Ground Zero Games 16	Vehicles, jet bikes	138	Nov 14	Nov 30
4	Rule books    14	Caliver Books	173	Nov 19	Dec 3
5	Sarissa 14	Bases	134	Nov 19	Dec 3
6	Arcane Scenery 14	WI mag, Wild west figs, Gaslands figs	81	Nov 22	Dec 6
7	4 Ground 21	Diner & Airship	140	Nov 22	Dec 13
8	Alphaspel (SWEDEN) 25	Dystopian wars stuff	168	Nov 22	Dec 17
9	Caliver 10	BoB figures	66	Nov 26	Dec 6
10	Col Bills 17	ACW limbers	56	Nov 26	Dec 13
11	Litko (USA) 12	Dystopian tokens & ACW gauges	160	Nov 27	Dec 9
12	Sarissa 16	Castle tower & Gruntz gauge	90	Nov 27	Dec 13
13	Drive Through RPG (USA) 10	WWI rules, BoB rules	77	Nov 28	Dec 8
14	Brigade Games (USA)	BoB, Wild West, Pulp	157	Nov 28	Jan 10
15	4 Ground 15	Flyer, Fort	159	Nov 30	Dec 15
16	Alternative armies 22	Sci Fi settlement, Ikwen	267	Dec 1	Dec 23
17	Sentry Box (CANADA) 5	Battlecry board game	112	Dec 1	Dec 6
18	Old Glory 15’s (USA) 29	ACW troops	75	Dec 1	Dec 30
19	Caliver books 8	Minifigs 28mm VSF sub, tanks	104	Dec15	Dec 23
20	Empress Miniatures 11	Bob/VBCW tanks	215	Dec 4	Dec 15
21	1st Corps 17	WWI A/C, WWI Whippet tank	85	Dec4	Dec 21
22	Caliver books	BoB figures (awaiting restock)	137	Dec 17	Jan 4
23	Amazon (CANADA)	Osprey Undaunted WWII game	41	Dec 7	Dec 7
		Total Cost	2394  +151 2545	it was only money

Update December 15th

So, mid December and 14 out of 23 items have arrived, 1 cancelled(refunded as it never arrived) and 3 still awaiting restock. So 18 accounted for. Taking 17 items (not counting Amazon) that have arrived it took an average travel time of just over 12 days to get to me. 

The longest to get to me so far was 4Ground at 21 days for the diner and airship, while the boardgame shipping from Alberta Canada arrive in 5 days. I fear some will exceed the 21 days the 4Ground took, if they even get here at all!

Now to get ready for the last couple of year end orders to place, as some sales are still happening, but will end soon.

-------------------------------------------------

Update December 21

More items have arrived! The stuff from Sweden made it, which is great as I had doubts about it arriving this year. Let's just say the Swedish postal portal has a lot to be desired.

My 1st Corps armored cars also arrived. 

All of the new arrivals have been assembled and washed and are ready for priming, so that I can add them into the great Analogue painting challenge.

The other good news is that Caliver has put through two charges to my visa card. Caliver you see, only charges your credit card when the order ships, so that means they are on their way (Caliver does not send out an email to say that the order has shipped, go figure) 

So, 6 items still outstanding, with the Plastic soldier reprint going to take the longest time to be fulfilled. Disappointed but not surprised that Brigade order still has not arrived. Still 3 days left this week, so maybe the Alternative armies stuff will make it before X-mas.

Average shipping time  13.56 days

-------------------------------

Update December 30th

Items from Old Glory have arrived, 29 days after ordering and intercepted by customs. So far 4 packages have had HST applied, the two from 4Ground which were sent by courier, one by Litko that prepaid/collected the HST in advance and one order from Old Glory sent by USPS. 

The OG order from the states was not as big as some orders from the UK (or Sweden) yet it was intercepted. It leads me to suspect that where an order originates from (the US) has an impact on customs, oh how I look forward to the arrival of my Brigade order!

Average shipping time  15.33 days

Last update as the last items finally arrive two weeks ago on FEBRUARY 11TH.

A bit of a blast from the Games Workshop past

 

 This just arrived today. A little bit of extravagance on my part but for some reason I have always wanted this ever since I did not buy it when it first came out ?!? It is kind of idiotic to shell out money for something that I could (and indeed planned out how to) build myself. Nevertheless it is an item that I have casually been looking for on and off, for a few years now. A couple of years back at Hotlead I saw one behind the bring and buy table, but I believe it had been scooped up by one of the volunteers, so close but so far. This one came from a store in the Netherlands, not eBay, not an auction and was at a reasonable price all things considered. It has arrived in good nick, and should paint up nicely.

It will go along well with my collection of crypts and tombs and also adds to my collection of Games Workshop foam scenic bits.

Nostalgia is a terrible thing, makes one long for too many things that one does not really need.

Update 8

Well, still no gaming, but I do see a light! I think that at very least I shall start doing some solo gaming, Pulp Alley, Walking Dead, basically some skirmish gaming. I am also hoping that I may get a chance to play some board games soon, this would be good.

I have been painting a lot of Dystopian Wars stuff, a random mix of nations, basically whatever come to hand. Right now I have 20+ models in various stages of  completion, that I really really just have to get done if for no other reason that they are cluttering up my work area. 

 
I have also been building, cleaning and priming my entire DW collection. It is a tedious task, and one that I dislike doing, but my breaking it down into small sections I am eating away at the baglog. It also has given me a chance to start an inventory of what I own. As I finish off each nation I will be posting the inventory/army list over on my VSF blog.

As well as painting all the DW items I have also decided to branch out to other stuff. These items are for my 28mm VSF collection. The little guys are a challenge as I am trying to mimic the style that I used a few years ago for the same type of figures. The big guys are going to be used for Ruumet Breehrs, which are beasts of burden found on Mars (according to Space 1889) These figures came with high tech howdahs but I will be making more primitive howdahs as befits a more traditional 1889 style.

Sadly, I have also been shopping, and the recent spate of November sales has not dissuaded me from buying more stuff. I just finished putting a small order in with Ground Zero Games, at 20% off the listed price, then further reduced by another 20% VAT made it very worthwhile. (cost wise4, not accumulation of more stuff wise)

I have also managed to locate some old Dystopian Wars stock, some at Wayland games and some from a Scandinavian store. Over the years it has been a running gag that I have too much DW models, so why buy more. Well, because despite all the stuff that I own there were gaps, and weak spots. Of course the stuff from Wayland games does nothing to fill any gaps, but it brings me up to 6 Washington amphibious tanks! Okay, that is too many, but it will make for a big invasion game, some time. The other store appears to have stuff that actually will fill out a gap or two.

I am also looking at Foundry (for a too large order), and a couple of items from 4ground.  Oh yeah, there is also the long delayed orders to Warbases and Sarissa. My planned Warbases order has taken a hit courtesy of Sarissa having a 20% sale, I just cannot say no to 20%.

Also on my desk is an old GW Ork village scenery from the 1990's? Bought this the last time there was a Cangames convention. I always kind of liked it, no good reason, and when I saw it I had to get it. Now it is really just a primed model, pretty much just a two tone paint job with some very bright graa flock. So now, I am finally taking steps to pimp it out. So far I have used Vallejo surface primer to cover up some scuff up areas, and to lay down a better base for the paint to follow.

I think some contrast paints may fix this up, and I am guessing I will be painting over the grass, maybe scraping it off first.

Beyond that life just continues. From time to time I will build a new model, or pull out some RPG games to work on. Also trying to catch up on some reading, and of course some movies.

I guess the other big news is that this Tuesday I will finally have a replacement tooth implanted into my mouth. This too is a good thing.

Shoring up my Orcs and Dwaf units

 

 My order from Italy just arrived!! These are the old Grenadier miniatures now made by Mirliton. Back in the day I was unable to pick up enough figures to make large (20 man) units, all I could firld were 12 man units. Now in my old age I have said what the F**k it's only money, I better get them before I am too far gone to paint them! 

So this will bring a couple of Dwarf units up to 20 figures, and 2 existing, and 1 new Orc units up to 20 strength. Just for the heck of it I also picked up 2 packs of bats, kind of like the style of them. Now I know I carefully plotted out what I needed to order, but I confess I see 4 packs of 5 Dwarfs, so 20 figures, not certain I needed that many for what I planned. I will have to look into that, but cannot risk getting distracted away from all the Dystopian Wars stuff that I have been painting.

Update 7

Where the hell have I been one might wonder. (hopefully someone wonders that) Well I have been here doing stuff, not much stuff, but some stuff. What I have not been keen to do is go anywhere near my computer. I do not know why, but I seem to have an aversion to it. This situation is not helped by my usual procrastination when given a task to perform, in this case Blog updates. But here I am back again with some items to discuss.

First up, what I have not been doing very much, role playing. I am down to one game now that the 1920/30's game has been in hiatus. Even that one game has seen some weeks where we did not get together to game.

My focus has shifted to miniature gaming, well painting as I have not played any games in quite some time. But I am working on the backlog of items that need my attention, and I have continued to buy more figures, faith and confidence that I will one day game again. (see my painting blog for another talk about faith and confidence) 

I cleared out Sentry Box in Calgary of any Back of Beyond figures, adding to the unpainted hoards that I have already been collecting. I also picked up a reaper mamoth, that I have actually already painted. Now that mamtoh was painted start to finish within a week, with few distractions or shifts to other figures. Not so the 60 or so back of beyond cavalry, whose horses have for the most part been primed and base coated, and then put up on a storage shelf as I flitted off to another project. The same has happened to three hansom cabs that are so close to being done that it is insane that I have not put paid to them!

On the VSF page are photos of a giant steam walker that has not been worked on for a week. It too is very close to being finished just have to push past the inertia and get it done. It is in good company as I have a Dragon lich 95% done, 95%, c'mon just got to do it.

I have had some successes of late. I have joined the wet palette set with a wet palette of my own construction. Well really just a tuperware type container with a very thin sponge that I bought at Walmart. I have had it around for more than a month and the paint smears are still moist and usable!

I have assembled a couple of WWI 1/48 airplanes for BoB. and I have based a few hundred figures ready for painting. I also have been organizing the items in my cabinets. I have gone through my Dystopian Wars shelves to consolidate what I could, and done the same to mu Pulp and VSF stuff.

I have also tackled a great reorganization of my gaming room. Initially it started with a cleaning up of stuff in an attempt to allow me to walk across the floor without tripping or crushing stuff on the floor. It got to the point that I would move like someone crossing a mine field, or at times like a classic jewel thief trying to avoid laser beams (in this case I was twisting and turning like a pretzel to navigate even short distances!)

So now that I can once again see the floor, and items no longer tumble down like an alpine avalanche I decided to relocate some items and switch around some shelves. A big idea was to yank out a whole mess of Dystopian War tokens (fighters) that were needlessly occupying shelf space. That freed up 3 large glass shelves. These were then relocated to other cabinets, with greater space between shelves granting me more room to store my figures. Yippee!

I also cut down on some of my non military history books, sneaking them into bookshelves well away from my room. (hopefully no one will notice these additional books) I also shifted my various miniature game accessories to a more useful location while burying some of my military history books farther away.  

Still work to be done in cleaning up this room, but I can really see a difference, now I need to keep it clean, something I have never excelled at in all my 60 years.

Undaunted by Osprey arrived this weekend

 

Picked these game up this week, gotta say they look pretty good. Really the same game but in two different theaters, and with some slight modifications of scale. It is a small unit skirmish game, using cards to activate your forces. You have a hand of four cards in any given turn, 1 card must be played to bid on initiative,leaving you 3 cards to activate your forces. A deck building system allows you to modify your draw deck, to remove or add cards as required. Fog of war cards can enter into your draw deck and these cards are a hindrance when drawn into your hand as they cannot be played in your turn, they only operate to restrict useful cards from entering your hand. Fog of war cards can be discarded, but only by certain cards and it will cost you an action. Nice mechanic that. 

Overall it looks like it will be fun to play, looking forward to it...