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

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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.