New gaming mat

 

So, on an impulse buy, I purchased yet another 3' x 3' gaming mat, in this case a double sided mat. One side is 'mud' or more like swamp. It is a nice image that I suspect will get some use. I placed some scenery for an upcoming game of Devilry Afoot to see how the items will blend in. 

 I think it works well.

The other side is cobblestones.

I do have some cobblestone mats already, but this is far more portable. Again this should do the job. 

Close up of the mud

So, a silly impulse buy has, in my mind worked out well! There is a bad lesson to be learned here!

Last last Hotlead treasure post (a follow up to an earlier post)

 

So, I finally cleared some space on the gaming table to set up the Napoleonic troops that I bought and to find out how many I have. Well it is quite the haul! While I set them up as best as I could, I was not certain about some of the cavalry, no banners and similar uniforms meant that I had to guess which side they belonged to. 

I believe they were based for Napoleon's Battles, and some have small slips of paper to indicate the unit, but very few. Since I plan to use these for General D'Armee it does not really matter that much beyond indicating which army they belong to.

The French

The Russians

Last Hotlead treasure post

 

So, not everything that I bought was on sale, just the vast majority. The six boxes on the left came from centuries. Kamal has a lot of stock and it is a real challenge to not find something of interest.  In my case, and for no good reason, I decided to pick up some Oathmark Elves. I also got a package of mounted Halflings which is fine as I am occasionally working on a Halfling army. He also had a box of Perry's mixed Spanish/French skirmish troops and since the club may do some Peninsular war skirmish that too was fine.

Now for some of the deals.  This Quar's war was less than half price! 'Crazy' Lee was having a clearance/getting out of business sale. He also had a number of blister packs at $10.00 each (regularly around $25.00)  an offer I could not refuse. So I picked up a few packs for Silver Bayonet and a pack of back of beyond hunters.

The other pictured packs all came from the bring and buy. Prices ranges from $15 to $20 as opposed to the retail price of around $47+.

I also picked up three board games, History of the World, Quartermaster 1914 and a nostalgia game, Waddingtons Campaign, a game that I have not played in 40 years. All these games were less than $10.00 each.

More treasure from Hotlead

 

So, I went a little crazy, and picked up twelve 3D print buildings and a bridge, 1 old school (heavy) resin buildings and a bunch of scatter terrain last weekend at Hotlead. The 3D print buildings came from BEAVER AND BROADSWORD while the resin building (lower right) was from the bring and buy. 

Treasure from Hotlead

 

So, I came back from Hotlead with quite a few items, so much that it will take a few posts to cover everything. The bring and buy was excellent as usual, plenty of great deals on a wide range of stuff. John got a massive East Africa WWI lot of painted troops, civilians, objectives etc. For my part the only painted figures that I found were two 28mm well painted British Napoleonic to be used in Silver Bayonet. 

I did find a lot of 20mm WWII resin vehicles for the Germans, Russians and Americans. I also picked up some boardgames. I also bought a lot of 3D printed buildings and scatter terrain, more on that later.

The highlight of the convention for me happened at the last minute on Sunday, just as we were getting ready to return to Ottawa. 

A lucky find

 

So, I walked into a hobby store not expecting to find anything and instead I found a treasure trove of Plasticville buildings! Now I view thus as a bit of a mixed blessing, you see I already have plenty of buildings for my Pulp Alley games, but I also believe one should buy things like this when you see them as you are not likely to see them again. 

Now these are very nice models, well built, very clean and in good shape. They also are building that I have not seen before, how could I say no? 

Cangames finds

 

So found some stuff from various vendors at Cangames. Apparently I am going to be working on a centaur themed Fantastic Battles army. I found these at Crossed Swords. Seventeen centaurs and 1 big monster/Minotaur/centaur thing. While I did not go looking for them, they were a fair price and I figure I do something with them. Apparently they are Bob Murch sculpts from the early 2000s. I already had some very old chaos centaurs painted a few years back. Combined this will be a force of 27 centaurs, roughly 12-13 companies and a couple of leaders. The big guy will be built as a dragon. The winded figure in the picture will be used for another project. 

HotLead acquisitions

 

So, another Hotlead has come and gone and I have survived another mad crush at the bring and buy! So far I have had a great deal of success at the event, this year was no exception, except that I did not find as many great items as I have in the past.

The haul!

The Fluyt

The Dhow

Recent boardgame night

 

So, the other night we got together for another board game night. This time around we decided to try a new game (to us) Horrified as well as yet another game of Sentinels of the Multiverse. The game features many of the classic Paramount monsters from the 30's, 40's and 50's. 

Hotlead, a good trip to Stratford Ontario

 

So lots of fun stuff at Hotlead this year! Beyond some really excellent looking games the big thing for me, as always, is the bring and buy. It is often an expensive weekend as I often find plenty of must have items and this year was no exception.

A happy find at a flea market

 

Just the thing for a winter Pulp Alley game! This is a Matchbox Models of Yesterday. It is a 1922 Scandinavian postal truck but I feel it should be right at home in more arctic conditions. 

In all my journeys in many many flea markets I have never seen this vehicle, so it was kind of a given that I would have to buy it. So far I have not attempted to paint or weather it, but I will soon.

Some star fighters for my growing 15mm Sci-fi collection.

 

So, I found these fine Buzz Lightyear space craft at the local Dollarama. I think they are a good size for 15mm figures and should repaint up nicely. I figure I can use them as troop carriers or shuttle craft ar just have them sit there as big damn space craft.

New board game just arrived, Undaunted Stalingad

 

This is a beat of a game, not quite the geek crushing weight of a Twilight Imperium, but heavy nonetheless. It is part of the Undaunted series which includes Normandy and North Africa and possibly The battle of Britain. (so far not found it for sale) It is a deck building/counter game involving small skirmish units. Stalingrad is a massive game that has a complete coherent campaign. While I have yet to set it up it looks like it has more parts than the other two games, combined.

I do look forward to getting this game into the board game rotation!

Raventhorpe order has arived and problems with Sgts' Mess

 

Thanks to Liz Truss, there was recently something of a sale on items from the UK, so I quickly cobbled together a few orders from a number of different companies to try and take advantage of the weak pound. I have a fairly big wish list for items from Raventhorpe and the first of the boxes has arrived today containing 21 items.

In this wave we have 7 German cars, 2 Churchill tanks, 2 Shermans, 2 Universal carriers (mortars), 2 M8 HMC, a Humber IV, a Hetzer and a Daimler AC. In the back you can see 2 skoda 152mm guns and out of the picture is a Somua Multiple Mortar vehicle (some assembly required) A good haul to start with, it fills in some gaps. I have at least one more box of stuff that should be arriving soon.

I also have an order in with Grubby tanks, but there seems to be a delay in gathering up the ordered items to ship to me. 

I had also placed an order with Sgts' Mess for a large assortment of bits and bobs, tarps, weapons, limbers and miscellaneous items. Sadly that order went unfulfilled. Shortly after placing the order I realized there was more stuff that I wanted, so, I reached out to them to add more items. No response! Three more emails to them yielded the same lack of reply. In the end I was forced to escalate the problem to Paypal. They too seemed to get no response. In the end I had to get a refund instead of all the cool toys that I wanted, very disappointing. Hopefully the same thing will not happen with Grubby tanks, at least he responds to emails.

Charge to the sound of the trumpet!!!

 

 My latest acquisition, again from Matakishi (Paul) are these fine Britannia US cavalry! All very well painted and based (although I will be rebasing) The collections consists of 40 mounted troopers ans 40+ dismounted figures, including 5 dead horses. These were apparently surplus to needs, I should have such surpluses! Well I guess in this case I do...

When I bought them I had no immediate plans for them, but at the price he was selling them for, being painted already, well, I just had to have them. Now that they are here I have decided to pack them off to Mars to defend American interests. Not having any Native American figures kind of made this decision a no brainer.

 

I also picked up these three beasties, which I had first seen on Paul's blog and had wanted them then. So they too were quickly snapped up by me. The poor unfortunate Ahmed is one of mine just there for scale.

That should be it for painted figures bought by me for a while. As I said it is just not something I tend to do despite my love hate relationship with painting figures. By the end of painting figures I really do feel good about it and tend to ignore or forget some of my complaining. 

More pictures.

 

 

 

 

A different kind of purchase for me

 

 I do not usually buy prepainted figures, but I decided to make an exception in this case. I got these figures through Lead Adventurers Forum bazaar from Matakishi. The price per figure made it worth while, assuming I can find a use for 40 ninjas. I can certainly make use of the Daleks and Davros, and many of the ninjas will become gangs in Pulp Alley. I am open to other ideas for them...

They are all very well painted and based, however I will be taking them off their bases at some point. Part of the reason I never buy painted figures (apart from the cost) is the fact that I am unlikely to paint any additional figures to the same quality. Well I certainly do not need to paint any more ninjas, but I will wok on some more Daleks using these as inspiration.

 

Just arrived in the post

 

 

It is kind of neat how Perry sends out their miniatures, it feels so old school!

These  figures are destined for some Silver Bayonet games. I went for a lot of figures from their Russian retreat section as they have a lot of unique poses, irregular clothing and a lot of charm. I also picked up a few figures for Napoleonic skirmish games be they Fist Full of Lead, Sharp Practice or some other set. So I have some more Spanish troops and some dismounted British dragoons.

 So, far more figures than I would need for Silver Bayonets but then I often supply figures for players who, while they do not mind pushing figures around, have no interest in buying and painting miniatures.

I hope nobody bet against me...

 So, just a quick update, the Spanish fleet is now mine too.

So this time last week I had a total of two, (2) Black Seas ships (they came with a WI issue). Now I have 55 ships spread out among three fleets (and two merchants) In a blink of an eye I suddenly confront:

• 3 named 1st rates
• 3 generic 1st rates
• 9 named 3rd rates
• 9 named Frigates
• 20 generic brigs
• 3 gunboat squadrons
• 6 Schooners
  
• 2 merchant ships

No rules yet, but they have been posted as of today.Also some scenery.

Madness, madness 

Oh, and that means the US fleet is still there for someone to pick up, less expensive than the other fleets...hint hint.

Water, water everywhere

A while ago (3-4 months) I walked into a local fabric shop and found a nice blue faux leather on sale. It was what I was looking for but I really was not expecting to find it so easily. Kind of disappointing I so enjoy the hunt. I requested a 9' long amount (it was 54" wide) and I figured that should do well enough even if it was going to leave a border on both long edges. I figured, a place for unit cards etc.

A 3" border, not too bad I guess

It was only after I got home that I started thinking about what I bought and what I should have done. My wargame table (really a ping pong table) is 5' by 9'. I belatedly realized/thought through what I was doing and realized I really needed a sheet that was 10' long or even two sheets 5' long each. It would allow me to completely cover the gaming table.  However I was not prepared to buy another sheet as this was supposed to be a quick cheap fix! So all I could do was hope that a little extra had been left on, that maybe the sheet would be close to 10' . However my gaming table was a little crowded (see other posts) and I could not stretch out the material to properly measure it.

Now the AHPC is over, and I have had a chance to clean up my gaming table.

A rare sight, the table with nothing on it!

So today I was finally able to spread out the sheet, and lo and behold they gave me a sheet that is 126" long. By my math that means I can cut it in half and have two sheets that are 54" by 63" giving me a small overlap along the long edge of the table. It also means I can use one on my secondary gaming table (1/2 a ping pong table) Oh joy oh bliss oh lucky horse shoe buried up my....

So here is the sheet with some models on it. I do kind of like the light blue colour, not to bright not to dark. I had thought about staining it to give variable patches of blue, but I may just leave it for now. Any thoughts?