Webwork

 www.chelmsfordbunker.co.uk

I've been busy the last few days working on the new website for the Chelmsford Bunker.  The old site was set up and designed by one of the ex-club presidents back in 2004 and passed over to a different webmanager a bit later on.  I took over the running of the website back in 2006 and it took me a while to get to grips with it as I'd only played with regular HMTL page based websites up until then (My old Howling Griffons website as an example)  The old site used Mambo as a back end with a phpBB2 forum - and I gradually learnt how to use both bits of sofware.  I was comfortable keeping both running, even upgrading the forum to phpBB3 at one point.  The issue was that both were still linked to the old domain name set up by the ex-president - www.bunkerassault.co.uk which is a cool domain but confusing to people who don't have any contact with the club already.

A couple of years ago, I bought the www.chelmsfordbunker.co.uk domain name and set it up to redirect visitors to the old site.  Recently though, I've felt that the existing site was looking very old and it wasn't easy to keep updating with news.  So - it was time for a new website and a switch of domain names while I was at it.

The are lots (and lots!) of available software packages for building websites but it seemed that Wordpress was a decent choice as it's a) free and b) easy to install and keep running.  All I needed was some webhosting space and a spare mySQL database to install it into.  Most webhosting packages come with at least one mySQL database as standard but they also allow you to buy addons - and I knew I needed one database for the website and another for the forum - having two mySQL databases only cost an extra £5 a year so it was as cheap as chips really.

When it came to it, installing Wordpress was a doddle.  All you need to do is download the software, unzip it from the compressed folder it's in, then upload the contents to your webhost using an FTP program such as Filezilla.  Once you're done, you configure your mySQL database using the cpanel software that comes with the webhosting - it takes about 5 minutes.  Finally, you go install Wordpress using the easy to follow instructions.  It took longer to upload the software to the webhosting area that it did for Wordpress to install - amazing.

The cool thing about Wordpress is that there are hundreds of free themes to change the look of your website so you can choose exactly what suits you.  It's easy to configure and you can install lots of free extra plugins to give you more functionality - such as an event calendar or a contact form.  When you make a post, the software automatically handles media files or youtube links so you don't have to mess around trying to format it.

So - the new club website is ready to go.  I still need to move the forum from the old site to the new site though which I suspect will be more challenging!

Last March of the Ents

It was my final league Blood Bowl game for my Halflings on Wednesday, facing off against an experienced Skaven coach.  Skaven are difficult opponents to play against as you just can't predict where the gutter runners will end up - the agile little buggers are so fast and nimble, they make a mockery of any kind of defence you attempt.  What worked for me was that I'd given lots of my hobbits the Diving Tackle skill and even if the skill doesn't work, just having those guys marking a gutter runner makes their coach nervous.  The game went well for me though and I won 2-0 although I did have a few injured and dead players along the way.  Not a big issue as it was their final game anyway.

I've really enjoyed using the Halflings this season.  My final tally was five wins, one draw and four losses which is pretty good considering my team is rubbish at most things.  They can't pass, they're really weak, they can't run very fast and they can't take a punch!  Fielding two treemen has been great though and although they didn't gain many star player points (my trees only managed to get one skill each) they are a threat to anything on the field.  Fielding Puggy Baconbreath whenever I got the chance was fun too - people fixate on trying to kill him as he's so annoying to them.  A ST3 hobbit with Dodge and Block - he's the one Halfling on the field who can take a punch.  I had so much fun with him this season, I had some D6 made up with him on the 6.

With the Blood Bowl season ending, I need to start getting my Firestorm Armada toys usable so I can play that again.  I moved house a few months ago so all my hobby equipment is in plastic storage bins in the garage - and I'm going to sort all that out this weekend so I can start painting again.  I used to store my hobby stuff in a utility room and I would carry the paint station to the kitchen table, set up my magnifying lamp and I'd be up and running in no time.  I can't do that in the new house as there's nowhere to store the stuff - so everything will be have to be carried from the garage when I want to paint.  I've bought a new paint station (the Laptop Paint Station made by Warlord Games) as my old GW wooden paint station is going to be too big to carry through the garage back door.  I'm sure I'll be able to get myself organised at some point!

New Year bargains

Play.com was having a New Year sale and I picked up the Space Marine game for my PS3 for just £12.50.  It's been mildly amusing lumbering around killing Orks with abandon so I tried multi-player.  It seems that there's very little balancing for new players - you're just lambs to the slaughter for the experienced players who decend on you via jump pack with a thunder hammer.  The best thing about multi-player is that I could do this :

Not sure the game will hold my attention for long but I can recommend it for £12.50...

New Year - same old guy...

So - here we are again.  Another year and it's time to look back on my hobbying achievements in 2011.  It shouldn't take too long as I didn't have many...

2011 was a write off for me really.  All I wanted to do last year was build and paint my Middenheim themed Empire army for Warhammer Fantasy - but I didn't like the way Fantasy was developing.  Large units are fine but when they're mixed in with GW selling only small boxes of expensive models (such as Greatswords) and the sight of lots of large monster sized models being sold just left me cold.  The Storm of Magic release seemed to prove that GW only really wanted people to buy lots of toys for whatever army they had - and seeing army lists in White Dwarf where Teclis was fighting alongside Khorne forces just finished me off.  Added to this, I wasn't happy with GW swapping from metal to resin with the Finecast releases - it definately seemed to be driven by higher profit margins.  So - I totally lost interest in Games Workshop and it's meant I've stopped subscribing to White Dwarf which I've been collecting since 2000.  I also binned (literally) every copy of White Dwarf I owned - it took me two car trips to the dump to be able to ferry them all to the recycling centre...  I still am playing Blood bowl and I did spend over £200 on GW BB models - I bought the Elf, Vampire, Nurgle and Khemri teams including cheerleaders.  I did that as they were the last four teams I needed to finish my collection - and I wanted to get them before GW either stopped selling them completely or changed them into Finecast.

On the plus side though, I have enjoyed collecting and playing Firestorm Armada.  I have bought more Aquan and Dindrenzi models so I will aim to get those painted and get some more games in on that system.  The club's current BB league is drawing to an end so I'll have a while before the next one starts to get another team painted - plus I will be running Bunker Bowl III in October and hoping to go to a couple of other BB tourneys as well.  I will try to get a new team painted for those - maybe Dark Elves.  I've also got a lot of other side projects that could do with some attention - I bought the rulebook and some models for Gladiator by Warhammer Historical and I'd like to play that.  I also traded a lot of old Mordheim models with Alex Bews who runs the Lead Adventure forum; he sent me a bundle of SuperFigs models which would make great additions to my existing collection of super hero models for SuperSystem.  Let's not forget the Hydra Miniatures War Rocket for which I have two fleets - Galacteer and Imperial.  I also just got the Star Fleet: A Call To Arms rulebook just out made by Mongoose Publishing - that looks great.  So many projects for 2012 - but none of them will be GW related except for the Gladiator or Blood Bowl minis...

So - let's hope 2012 is a bit more productive for me on the hobby front.  I just need to get back into my hobby mojo now that the house move is over.

Stunty Cup Victory!

There we go.  The famed Stunty Cup!  Puggy Baconbreath brought the cup home to the Moot...

As I mentioned in my previous post, my club's annual Blood Bowl tournament took place this weekend; the Bunker Bowl II.  We had thirty coaches taking part ranging from multiple tournament winners right though to first timers in their first tourney.  We even had three guys who came from Australia to play - they are doing a European tour working towards the NAF World Cup taking place in November.

Out of those thirty coaches, only two of us were using stunty teams so I would be battling against my old mate Rid to see which of us would lift the Stunty Cup.  Rid was using his Goblin team - the Crap Town Sods.  It was all to play for!

As the games kicked off, I was randomly drawn against my friend Tom who's an excellent Lizardman coach.  My cunning decision to load up on fan factor and cheerleaders / assistant coaches in addition to the Halfling Master Chef meant he had far less rerolls to use that he would have liked.  It also meant that when the kick offs resulted in the "Throw A Rock" result (which happened four times!) that my hobbits had far fewer standing opposing players than normal.  It was looking like the game would end 2-2 but a sneaky skink managed to get a last gasp touchdown to give Tom the game.  A very close game but still a loss.

For game two, I played my only game against a non-club member, a great chap called Craig Andrews.  Craig was using Dark Elves with only 11 players and they took a real thumping in the first couple of turns with them being reduced down to only 8 before he knew what hit him (quite literally!).  Despite that, the elves natural agility and Craig's skillful coaching helped them to keep their heads and the game finished 2-2.

Game three and it was Halflings vs Wood Elves in a titanic clash against my friend Darren Lysenko.  He paints the most amazing models and he rightfully won the Best Painted award for his team.  He won the Best Painted award last year too with a diffent set of Wood Elves - he can't get enough of them!  With three treemen on the field, it was always going to be a battle of the giants - and that was a battle that Darren won when his treeman killed one of mine stone dead!  He was 2-1 up and I had one final turn left with his backfield sporting a long line of elves hoping to defend against a one-turn touchdown.  I had one reroll left ready but managed to pick up the ball, give it to a halfling next to a treeman, have the treeman lob him down the field and see the hobbit stick the landing.  All that was left was to try to get through the line of elves so I had to call over some of the other coaches to watch me try it as it was getting tense by then.  The little fellow scampered through them without needing a whiff of dodging...  The game finished 2-2 and the crowd went wild (well - they pointed and laughed at Darren...)   With that last game, my Halflings had two tournament points and Rid's Goblins were still on zero as he'd lost all three games.

After a good sleep, everyone was back on Sunday and ready for action.  My game four saw me lined up against another club member known as Shape with his Skaven team.  Well - I took a bit of a spanking on that one which was all the fault of the Master Chef.  He only took one reroll off him the whole game which was pathetic!  He should never have baked that cheesy mash pie I guess...  Shape also managed to get lots of kick off results in his favour with lots of Blitz and Perfect Defence appearing.  I just couldn't do anything about it as his team was so fast...  The game finished 5-2 and I was lucky it hadn't been more although on the bright side, Puggy had scored a touchdown.  Rid had a better game with his Goblins managing to get a draw so he had got his first tournament point...

After lunch, I was drawn up against Rid himself - it was a Stunt Off!  Rid's gobbos was heavily stacked with secret weapons and he had a fist full of bribes to try to keep them on the field.  In the first turn of the game, he blitzed Puggy with his chainsaw player and sliced him apart!  Poor old Puggy...  Still - with Puggy out of the game my Halflings had to dig really deep - before I knew it the hobbits had scored!  Rid used all three bribes and managed to keep all the secret weapons on the field but before the end of the half I'd scored again and they were out of the game.   Phew!  With that, Rid was fighting a losing battle and could only field three players at the end of the match.  We finished 4-0 to me and I was assured of the Stunty Cup.  Excellent!

Game 6 came and I was ebulliant.  I'd won a game, Puggy had got a touchdown and I'd won the Stunty Cup.  I was already happy with my weekend.  How better to finish the weekend off than a game against Barry Pittman?  Barry is someone I admire and respect - he's a great guy and it would be the first time I'd played Blood Bowl against him.  The only problem was that he was using Orcs with lots of Block players and a blitzer with Tackle.  Oh dear...  The Master Chef cooked up some tasty treats though and Barry didn't get very many rerolls to use, especially as I'd managed to get FAME +2 so when we got a Cheering Fans kick off, there was no chance he could win it.  I ended up with six rerolls at one point!  My Halflings did brilliantly, especially the Diving Tackle guys who caused Barry no end of problems.  Puggy was at his annoying best and took all the punishment the Orcs could throw at him without taking so much as a scratch.  At 2-1 to me, Barry had to try to throw a pass to get a draw but the lack of rerolls and a thrower in the dead and injured box meant that he fluffed it.  Another win for the Halflings and they were on 8 tourney points!  Rid got his sole win of the tournament in his last game so at least one game went his way.

So - the Stunty Cup was lifted by Puggy.  My team finished 14th out of 30 which I was very happy with and, something I didn't realise until later, they finished 4th highest for both Touchdown Scored and Most Casualties!  What an amazing weekend for the hobbits :)

Running the Bunker Bowl is a lot of work.  A LOT of work.  I think I've been working towards it on and off for about seven months and the weekend itself is especially hectic.  I think everyone who attended enjoyed themselves though so that definately makes the effort worthwhile.  Anyway - I can look forward to some time off before I start thinking about the Bunker Bowl III!

A Bit Of A Fling

The Bunker Bowl II is upon us - the Bunker's Blood Bowl tournament takes place this very weekend.  You never know how many people are going to attend an event until the morning it starts but it's looking like we'll have around thirty-five coaches taking part which is cool as it's ten more than last year.

In my last league game, my Bluebay Crammers team pulled off an amazing 3-0 win against a Lizardman team so, as they've earned it, I've decided to use them at the Bunker Bowl II.

Most Halfling coaches in a tournament setting (such as a 1.1 mil tourney with extra funds to buy your team with) would take the opportunity to induce Deeproot Strongbranch, the star player Treeman.  Deeproot is a truely mighty player - ST7 with Block means he gets three block dice against a standard ST3 opponent.  The problem for me is that in all my league games so far, I've been able to induce Puggy Baconbreath (the star player Halfling) and he's been brilliant in two of those three games.  Puggy is an especially annoying opponent.  He's as strong as most regular Blood Bowl players, has Block and Dodge (so he's harder to take down) and he's still Stunty so he can dodge anywhere on a 3+ and gets a free reroll in case he fails it.  Puggy has been my hero in the league so far so I've decided to build my Bunker Bowl team around him.

My full roster for the tournament is going to be :


2 x Treemen - 240k gp
13 x Halflings - 390k gp
2 x rerolls - 120k gp
9 x fan factor - 90k gp
1 x cheerleader - 10k gp
1 x assistant coach - 10k gp

That leaves 240k gp inducements to put toward Puggy and the Halfling Master Chef.

Yet again, I'm going against the norm as I'm buying 9 fan factor.   The idea is that when the rolls for FAME are made at the start of the game, I'll have more chance of getting FAME +1 - or even FAME +2.  If there's a kick off event that gives a free reroll, I should have more chance of winning it, especially as I've got a cheerleader and an assistant coach.  What I'm aiming for is to deny my opponents a chance at getting a free reroll - especially as my Master Chef will hopefully be taking rerolls off them anyway.  If I can force my opponents to play without rerolls, I might just be able to takeadvantage when they fail something.  Having so many spare players will also be handy as Halflings aren't the toughest of chaps and they will get injured - so replacements are essential.  It will also allow me to foul with impunity if I need to.

So - here's hoping Puggy and the boys do a decent job for me this weekend.  If I can win the Stunty Cup or Wooden Spoon with them, I'll be happy!

New beginnings

Things have been quiet on the hobby front recently as I've been busy moving house.  That's all completed now though so I'm hoping to get back to painting my Firestorm Armada fleets.

In the meantime, however, the Chelmsford Bunker Blood Bowl League has started it's winter season.  Technically known as the CBBBL IV, the winter league is a short ten game run rather than the standard fifteen games the summer leagues feature.  As it is a short league, I thought it was apt to use a short team so my Halflings, the Bluebay Crammers, have taken to the field.  Fifteen other Blood Bowl teams are taking part and, out of those, there's only one other stunty team (Erik's Ogre team which features mostly Snotlings!) so I am expecting my hobbits to take a regular heavy drubbing.  The first game on Wednesday didn't disappoint as the Crammers lost 3-0 to an Orc team but it was a fun game.

In other Blood Bowl related news, my club's annual Blood Bowl tournament is taking place at the end of October and it's looking like we'll have more attendees this year than last.  All good stuff :)

* EDIT *

Rather amusingly, the Halflings won their first game of the season playing against my friend Paul's Skaven team.  Poor old Paul only had two players on the field at the end of the game!