I wonder why I sometimes can't find things in my gaming room...

 

Actually, I wonder how I ever find anything!

So, my desk and room are never the neatest, but after 5 weeks of the painting challenge my room has massively deteriorated. Every week I am in a mad rush to get stuff painted, based, flocked, photographed, upload to the blog and words added to describe what I have done. Four out of five posts have gone right to the deadline on Tuesday, before 6 pm. The minion that oversees my posting day lives in England, and given the 5 hour difference I try,  to get my stuff up early so that she does not have to stay up too late. As a result I just keep plugging away at that weeks projects letting other things lie where they drop, literally! 

Outpost fort 4ground

 

So, this arrived sometime before Christmas and was quick;y assembled.  It was an easy build, and despite coming from 4ground will require additional painting, and 'sanding'. While it has some texture on it and some colour it is less than what one normally see from a 4ground product. Now to be fair it is a line of products sold through 4ground so is different. What is also different is it comes with several packs of powder that one is expected to apply to the surface of the model.  

Oh how I look forward to that!

However this project is on the back burner for now as I continue to work on the Analogue challenge. Then again,  it would be worth 80 points...

 

 

 

Analogue challenge update March 16th

So far so good!

This challenge has really got me painting stuff, maybe not so well but certainly quicker than I normally do, and are, at least, tabletop ready.  Four weeks in and I have almost equaled my entire output for all of last year. Further more I am, mostly, enjoying it. I say mostly as there have been late night sessions to push myself to finish off stuff before the posting deadline of Tuesday, so those moments maybe are not the best times. However even the pressure and the late nights ultimately leave me elated as I see the results!

My gaming room is a disaster zone as I keep pulling out more and more stuff to potentially paint. At the start of this event I had laid out a selection of miniatures that I hoped to tackle, however this has not entirely worked out as planned. While I have worked on some of this stuff, I have pulled out far more items covering a wide selection of genres. Right now on my table [Friday January 21st] are at least 100 figures, while surrounding my work area are maybe another 100 or so figures. 

All these figures are in various stages of completion, which is normal for me. Sometime between now and Sunday night I will have to narrow down my focus to what can be done for Monday/Tuesday. My target day is to have stuff done for Monday night, my actual deadline is Monday before 6pm (at the latest) As I said I have quite a few items nearing completion so I hope to have another good 300+ posting. 

Amazingly I am currently sitting with the most points, but it is a staggered event, with posting dates throughout the week so it is a very ephemeral thing and not a focus of mine. What I really want to do in this challenge is not only to paint as much stuff as I can but to also establish a painting habit that I can maintain after the challenge is completed.  

Stuff in the pipeline:

1. 70 points 14 Women's naval unit
2. 180 points 4 islands with 17 add on buildings
3. 80 points 4 Dystopian wars landing barges
4. 165 points 33 Sanwar Martian warriors
5. 70 points 14 Martian female fighters
6. 85 points 17 Female Nazi she wolves
7. 135 points 27 Spy-fi Henchman 
8. 75 points 15 Super alien host figures
9. 25 points 5 super alien host figures
   
10. 100 points 20 Spy type figures
11. 25 points 5 Jack o' lantern figures
12. 80 points 4 out of 10 tanks/armoured car
13. 25 points UNIT troopers
14. 100-200 points 20-40 super figures 
15. 75 points 15 Ice warriors
16. ? points for assorted polar explorers.
17. 8 Eldar titans
18. 200 points 40 Chaos in Carpathia
    

Waterloo Solitaire Bookgame

 

 So, new year, new game, actually played!

Picked this up after Christmas on a whim with no knowledge of what to expect. Well there is not much to the game, simple rules, needs only a pencil and a single 6 sided die and you get to play either the Allied armies or the French.

The book is laid contains 24 maps, 12 with you commanding the French, and 12 where you control the allies. There are 3 levels of difficulty for each option (4 maps each) with a 'bot' controlling your opponent. As you play the game you mark off items on the map in play to keep track of what you have done in each turn. There are limitations on how many times you can command a unit to act, and units cannot act two turns in a row. Should you run out of activations for a given unit, you may still activate the unit by using your commanding general. You also have access to a limited number of combined actions that allow you to launch an attack with infantry or cavalry in the lead, and include support from whichever arm you did not use as the lead, or artillery.

Throughout the game random events may happen such as the arrival of the Prussians. When enough of them arrive they will attack the French right flank.

Bad image here, but this would be the view from the Allied side. At the bottom of the page are your command options, the small white boxes indicate the number of time that you can command the unit to activate. Each unit has a limited choice of options all related to their placement on the battlefield. You do have reserves that you can deploy to either flank and the French have the Imperial Guard who have more flexible options, but fewer troops. 

As your corps take damage you mark off one red or blue box/unit. Mark off all boxes and the Corp is eliminated. Lose two Corps and you lose the game. The elimination of enemy Corps offers new options. For the French, should they eliminate the British right flank they can then attack the British reserves. If the French attack the British right wing without first taking Hougoumont they will do so at a disadvantage. Taking Hougoumont can be done, but is not an easy thing to do, much like the actual battle. 

Overall rating

The game does not take long to play, so for me I did not have that empty feeling that I had wasted a lot of time for nothing. It is deceptively challenging, the limitations built into the game can frustrate (in a good way) your plans. A single die to roll gives you a randomness that can be frustrating (in a bad way) or maybe that is just my bitterness over a series of attacks that I launched as Napoleon that saw the French lose unit after unit without causing any damage to the British.

It certainly has re-playability, at each level, just make certain you use pencil to mark your maps. The bot worked well enough to cause me problems. I suffered from counter cavalry charges against my planned cavalry charge, and I had Wellington retire behind slopes just as I opened fire with my artillery. Certainly there were times where the bot did not stymie my plans, but the times the bot seemed to react to my moves were much more memorable and adds to my positive feeling for the game.

In closing, I enjoyed it, the game did what it was supposed to do and I had fun playing it. I am not certain it is worth the price, only time will tell if I get my moneys worth in play time but I do know I will play this again!

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.