Darren's Hobby Blog

Bunker Bowl III

2012-01-30T15:15:00.002Z

I'm happy to say that the Chelmsford Bunker is again running a Blood Bowl tournament this year - the Bunker Bowl III.

The event has already been aprroved by the NAF so I can start advertising the tournament. It's a two-day event taking place at the regular club venue - the EPSA Sports and Social Club in Chelmsford. Tickets are £20 each (£25 if you're not a NAF member but the extra £5 goes towards giving you membership) and for that you get two days of Blood Bowl action with tea / coffee / doughnuts in the morning and pizza at lunchtime. There's a bar on site and we have the venue all day, both days to ensure we don't have to rush to pack up.

The first year running the tournament, we had twenty-four people take part; last year we had thirty people taking part - let's see if we can get a full house of forty people this year!

More details on the club website for those interested :

Bunker Bowl III

Forum Fun and Games

2012-01-29T13:45:00.001Z

Part II of moving the Chelmsford Bunker to a new domain name was moving the forum - which really isn't as easy as it should be.

The forum is a phpBB3 board and they offer a guide on how to do it :

http://www.phpbb.com/kb/article/transferring-your-board-to-a-new-host-or-domain/

I worked my way through this but I still couldn't get the forums to work on the new link - so I worked out a new way myself by installing the software from scratch on the new domain, running a backup on the old domain then importing the backup onto the new domain. I also moved all the forum data from the old website to the new one via FTP. I had to adjust some board settings (such as the mail and cookie settings) but all the users, forums, permissions and posts seem to have all moved over perfectly.

Overall, it took me the best part of a morning to get it working but at least it's all done now!

Now - back to painting spaceships!

Webwork

2012-01-28T16:04:00.001Z

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

2012-01-13T11:20:00.000Z

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

2012-01-03T11:41:00.002Z

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...

2012-01-02T21:20:00.000Z

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!

2011-10-31T23:05:00.004Z

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

2011-10-27T14:53:00.004+01:00

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

2011-10-07T14:54:00.001+01:00

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!

Plain Sailing

2011-08-04T09:43:00.004+01:00

Game two of Firestorm Armada at the club last night. Again, I used my Aquan starter fleet but I was facing a Directorate fleet played by Graeme who was playing his first game of Firestorm. In my last battle I found out that I'd got some of the rules wrong so this time I paid attention to what we were doing and got the game mechanics right; although we still left out the rules for wings and mines - we'll save those for when we're all comfortable with moving and shooting

It's clear that when your ships start taking damage, it's very hard to start putting a decent attack together and you need to position your ships correctly to get them in the most effective firing soloution to help reduce the effects of damage on your ship's guns. Torpedoes aren't affected by the damage your ships takes - but opposing ships all get some kind of point defence to try to shoot them down before they hit. At one point, I managed to hit Graeme's battleship with eleven points of torpedo damage which would have been enough to cause a critical hit - but that ship has a point defence of 5 which meant Graeme got to roll five dice to try to reduce the number of torpedoes getting through the defence batteries. They shot down six torpedoes and there weren't enough hits to even damage his ship, let alone to it critical damage.

As we were still learning, the game took a couple of hours but we were both fairly comfortable with how things worked by the end - and my Aquans finally won the day by some crippling strikes on Graeme's battleship. Next time we play. we're going to start using the rules for wings and mines - which will be important as I've got some more ships waiting to be painted for the Aquans; a carrier, six escorts, a heavy cruiser and the fantastic manta battle carrier which is a real beast of a ship. I'm also hoping to get some planets, moons and asteroids made so we've got some scenery to steer around.

First Firestorm

2011-07-29T08:08:00.001+01:00

I had my first game of Firestorm Armada at the Bunker on Wednesday, using my starter Aquan Prime fleet against a Relthoza force commanded by Chris who's new to the club. He's been a Warhammer / 40K player for years but wanted to find a place where he can try non-GW games - and the Bunker is perfect for that as there's always someone who's willing to try a new game system. Chris already has three starter fleets and, like me, wants to own the all at some point so it seemed fitting that the first game of Firestorm at the Bunker would be between the two most addicted nutters...

We decided to just concentrate on getting the game mechanics right - so we opted to ignore things like mines, boarding actions, etc and just focus on shooting things up to see how it all works. We quickly discovered that you can't just charge in on the enemy; you need to plan your ships movement so you get a chance to present the best option for a broadside at the optimal range. We soon got into it though - and found it's not a game where you can just sit on either side of a table and roll dice as you need to be on your feet moving ships round each other to get the best firing solution. We had great fun despite making a couple of mistakes - the most obvious to us was that we had been using the Point Defence against broadsides as well as torpedoes instead of Shields. No wonder it took so long to damage anything! Still, even despite our noobish fumblings, lots of people at the club saw us playing the game and wanted to see how it worked. Just with Chris and I chatting about it on the club forum has meant that a bunch of the members have bought starter fleets so they can join in. Hopefully we'll see Firestorm become a core game at the club and we'll get lots more space battles taking place over the next few months. I certainly hope so as I've already received my additional models for my Aquan and Dindrenzi fleets and I'm halfway through painting my Dindrenzi starter fleet. After those are done I'll get to work on the extra Aquans which I can't wait to start on as the Aquan Battle Carrier is a real beast of a ship and I want to use it in some games!

Although I didn't get it in time for Wednesday's battle, I have received my order from Hydra Miniatures which had my War Rocket rulebook, Galacteer and Imperial starter fleets and my Hotz Mat. I've wanted a Hotz mat for a long time but the sale at Hydra gave me the cheapest way of getting one - and it's seriously cool. I must admit, I would have preferred to have one with 2in hexes as that would have made it adaptable - but the no hex version I got can be used for both War Rocket and Firestorm Armada and it looks great. Next thing I want to do is get some planets and asteroids made so expect to see that hobby project on here at some point. Until then, I'll leave you with some pictures of my Aquan fleet on my new space mat...

Aquan Prime

2011-07-17T22:32:00.005+01:00

Spartan Games make a number of cool games but the one that's really caught my eye for a while now is Firestorm Armada. I've always liked the idea of space ship combat games but I never got into Battlefleet Gothic mainly as no-one I know ever played it. For Firestorm, my plan was to get the rulebook and a couple of starter fleets and use those to learn how to play the game whilst encouraging my buddies to give the game a try and hopefully persuade them to join in. As it happens, a number of them have already been intending to start the game themselves so it looks like I've got some opponents to learn the game with without having to bend any arms...

For the two starter fleets, I chose Dindrenzi and Aquan Prime although I like all the fleets and do intend to own all of them at some point. Today, I built and painted the Aquan fleet - it was fairly easy as the models are all one piece with the larger ships in resin and the small ships in metal. The Dindrenzi are multi-piece models and now I've got one fleet painted, I can spend some extra time building those. Anyway - I painted the Aquans with a fairly easy metallic blue scheme. Nothing too complex and quick to complete.

I'll get the Dindrenzi built and painted next, hopefully before the extra models for both fleets I've ordered are delivered.

Although I'm just starting with Firestorm Armada, I've also just recently ordered another space combat game called War Rocket, made by Hydra Miniatures. War Rocket is a pure pulp sci-fi game, with ships themed like Flash Gordon so I have wanted to have it ever since I saw it was being released. Hydra were having a summer sale and all their rulebooks and models were 20% off - and as you can't order them anywhere in Europe, I thought I'd finally get the rulebook, a couple of starter fleets and a space gaming mat as it worked out I saved enough cash to cover the postage from the US. I can also use the space mat for Firestorm Armada so it's all good!

*edit*

I found a great intro video on YouTube which shows how the core rules work on Firestorm Armada - watch it now!
Intro to Firestorm Armada

Crunchtime

2011-07-04T15:04:00.001+01:00

First off, I should say that the Carrot Crunch tournament, run by Rodders and Magic Dave, is one of the most relaxed events I've been too. £20 for six games of Blood Bowl over two days against some of the best tournament coaches in Europe - with free drink and food into the bargain. It really helped that it was a lovely sunny weekend too! If I can make the Bunker Bowl half as good as their tournament, I will be happy.

As for the games...

Day 1 kicked off okay - I was drawn against a nice guy with a Pro Elf team. I got lucky on that game as I managed to stop him winning on the last throw of the ball - my gutter runner intercepted it to keep the game 1-1. For game two, I was up against an unusual Undead team, with no mummies or rerolls! He did have a lot of ghouls and lots of his players had been given extra skills (hence being unable to afford rerolls!) The lack of rerolls really hurt him despite his faith in the pro skill - I won 3-0. For my final game of the day, I found myself facing Lycos, president of the NAF and the man who's played more ranked tournament games than anyone else in the world. Bugger... Dave is a top bloke though and it was really nice to have a chance to chat to him face to face for once. I did my best not to make it easy for him but his Dwarfs crushed my poor little Skaven bones and he won 2-1. There's no shame in losing to Lycos so I was happy with my first day.

Day 2 and I was at the event nice and early, eager to get going. As it happened, I was drawn to play my mate Paul Winter, fellow Bunker committee member and another Skaven player. Paul will want to forget that game. I won 4-1 and caused 6 casualties to his 2. My best result of the weeknd and Paul's worst! With that win under my belt, game 5 saw me facing Jim Slater who won the Bunker Bowl last year. Jim was using Wood Elves so with me using Skaven, we were expecting a high scoring match - but it didn't happen that way and it turned into a tense tactical game. Jim won the game 2-1 with him scoring on his turn 16 so I had to be happy that I'd had a decent game against a very good tactical coach. For my last game, I was drawn against Tom Simms, another Bunker member and someone who'd given me a tournament test game a few weeks back. That day I managed to beat his Norse team 5-0 - but today was the day he got his payback! His team blocked and blitzed by Skaven out of their socks and I couldn't do anything to stop him. He won 2-0 and crushed by rats utterly - I only had two left on the pitch at the end of the game, both of them flat on their faces! Tom played a great game and deserved the win so I was chuffed for him.

My final tally for the weekend - two wins, one draw and three losses putting me in 21st place out of 39 players. I had a great weekend though and will certainly attend again next year.

Carrot Crunch V

2011-06-28T20:33:00.001+01:00

This weekend I, and a number of other guys from the Chelmsford Bunker, will be heading to Sudbury to take part in the Carrot Crunch V - a two-day Blood Bowl tournament. I missed out on the NAF Championship earlier this year so I was really keen to try to get to this one. The Crunch is infamous in the Blood Bowl communitity so there will be a lot of really expert coaches there.

I thought I'd take my Skaven team for a spin on this one, mainly as it's a resurrection style tournament so however many casualties I suffer, I'll have a full team again for the next game. I've only ever tried my Skaven in league play when they get injured in droves! One other reason is that the rules allow a 1.1 million GP team to be selected which means I can afford a rat ogre in my starting lineup - and I love using frenzy players!

My team selection for the event is going to be :

1 x thrower
2 x blitzers
3 x gutter runners
5 x linemen
1 x rat ogre
3 x rerolls
3 x assistant coaches (as I've already got these painted...)

So - I'll give you an update on how things go after the weekend along with any pictures I take.

Fergus Alecsson

2011-05-03T22:50:00.000+01:00

My Middenheim Mustangs needed a team coach and I had just the model for the job - I just never got around to painting him at the same time as the team... I've done just that now and he's ready to lead them to glory. This is the Fergus Alecsson model made by Heresy Miniatures.

Griff Oberwald

2011-05-02T23:31:00.000+01:00

I've been out and bought some more paints which I feel is an encouraging development in getting my hobby mojo back. I was close to buying new toys too but then sense prevailed and I remembered how much I've already got that I've already bought and not built or painted yet. So - I decided to crack on and get another Blood Bowl model painted, this time an old Griff Oberwald model for my Middenheim Mustangs team.

I'm already over half way through another model for this team; this time a head coach to lead them. He'll be finished in the next painting session so hopefully it won't be long before he appears on here.

Zara the Slayer

2011-04-25T22:55:00.004+01:00

Well - it's been a while. I've had a hiatus from the hobby for a long time now which came about purely because of my feelings about Games Workshop. As you can see from the previous blog entries, I've spent a long time collecting a Crimson Fists army for 40K and have bought a stack of stuff to start an Empire army for Warhammer. I just couldn't get motivated to get any more painted and GW's focus on releasing new expensive models with less thought about balanced rule books just did it for me. So - I took a break until I could get back into the hobby mood.

I still can't say that I'm totally motivated about a new project although I have recently bought the last few teams to make my GW Blood Bowl team collection complete. After spending over £200 on toys, I thought I should at least try to get some models painted and hopefully my motivation will follow.

This Zara the Slayer model was started with the idea of her joining my Amazon team so I've given her a matching red uniform and dark skin tones (although not as dark as the Amazons themselves).

I'll try to put some more models up on the blog soon - probably some more Blood Bowl star players until I can get a full team together. I've been using my Dwarf team in my club's league this year and I've been organising the Bunker Bowl tournament for this October - I've got a hankering to use an Orc team for that and that will mean I need to get my team painted...

Slight diversion

2010-11-21T22:34:00.000Z

A slight diversion from the Empire army planning here - this is a resin "Vanessa" model from Rolljordan which I've painted to donate to the TalkFantasyFootball legacy team for 2010. I've submitted her to be the model representing the star player "Zara the Slayer". The team colours are blue and orange but I added some white into the mix to act as a spot colour.

Fist shaking

2010-11-07T23:23:00.001Z

My main hobby project over the last year has been an ambitious one - to paint a large Crimson Fists army for 40K. I think I've accomplished that as I've now got more than enough nicely painted Sons of Dorn to field a 3,000 point army. As you can tell from the last few months of inactivity, however, things haven't gone as well as I'd hoped with them. I still have enough Space Marines to add to the force to make a 2,000 point force on their own - and most of those are elements that are drastically needed to make the current force more combat effective. Things such as Sternguard, Drop Pods, Terminators with thunder hammers in Landraiders... those kind of things. The problem is my motivation has waned - and that's mainly because of how poorly both the army and my generalship have fared in recent games. Rather than keep painting an army I'm not in the mood to complete, I've decided to put them on hold for the time being and return to them when I'm inclined to getting the rest of the force up and running.

With the Fists being put into storage, I felt I needed a change of pace to get my mojo back. I know that in the new year, I'll be starting off a new Blood Bowl league at the Bunker so I will want to paint a new team to use for that - probably either Dark Elves or High Elves. Twenty or so models for a team aren't a decent hobby project in my mind though - so I've opted for something totally different; something I've wanted to do for ages:

That's right - an Empire army for Warhammer Fantasy.

From the start, I should say that although I've not played Fantasy much, I've always like the background to the game and the style of the models. I do have the start of a Tombs Kings army already but I've read on lots of forums that Tomb Kings aren't a great army in Warhammer 8th edition - so I didn't think they'd be a good army for me to learn to play with. I've always wanted an Empire army though so, as I saw the old Empire Brigade set on sale in my local GW store, I decided to go for it £100 for £160 worth of models plus there's enough diversity in Empire models to keep my interest up. I'm looking at this army as more of a hobby project than a gaming exercise - these will give me a project to work on while I'm playing Blood Bowl at the club. So - there we go. My 2011 hobby project. A Middenheim Empire army...

They think it's all over!

2010-10-17T22:43:00.004+01:00

Two days of non-stop Blood Bowl action and we have a winner! Jim Slater won the tournament with his Wood Elf team "Thetford Forest Celtic".

In the end, we had 23 people sign up for the tournament so I needed to step in and be the spare player - so I got to play using my Human team (The Middenheim Mustangs). The first day went as normal for me, with a loss against a fellow Human team, a win against a Skaven team and yet another loss to an outstandlingly coached Ogre team (damn snotlings!). Today's games went slightly better with a draw again a Norse team, a win against some Dark Elves and lastly a win against Wood Elves. So - three wins, one draw and two losses and 8th position out of 24 at the end of the day.

Organising an event like this takes a lot of planning but I'm really pleased that all the hard work paid off as I think everyone had a good time. I definately want to run in again next year.

Here's a short video showing the guys taking part in the first game of the weekend :

Here's some pictures from the event to finish things off nicely :)

Trophies!


Luke Henderson - Wooden Spoon


Steve Chambers - Stunty Cup


Darren Lysenko - Best Painted


Shane Davey - Most Casualties


Paul Owen - Most Touchdowns

Paul Owen - Runner Up

Jim Slater - Winner

Bunker Bowl

2010-10-08T14:30:00.000+01:00

The final preparations are being made to next weekend's Bunker Bowl tournament. If you've been following this blog for a while, or even just looked through old posts, you'll see that the Chelmsford Bunker club has an annual Blood Bowl tournament call ed the Bunker Bowl. In the past, these events were a one-day tournament for club member's only, however, this time it's different. We've opened it up to being a public and it's now a two-day event. It has also been accepted as being a NAF registered tournament - so any NAF coaches taking part will have their team stats updated on the NAF website.

This updated version of the Bunker Bowl is something that I and a number of the guys at the club have been working at for a while now; a good nine months or so. It's always been a desire of mine to put on a NAF registered tournament at the club and I'm really pleased that it's finally going to happen.

I'm down for being the tournament referee and the spare player (in case there's ever an odd number of players and they need a spare player to stand in) but I'm hoping that I will get a chance to play as the likelihood of me being able to go to a two-day tournament somewhere else is mininal! Anyway - I'll update the blog with the results of the tournament and will put up loads of pictures.

Skaven, Supers and Sheriffs

2010-08-21T21:36:00.000+01:00

Well - that didn't go very well. I did paint one Mordheim nightrunner but just couldn't get into the mood to finish the rest of them. I have got a batch of Pulp Figures "rocketeer" models ready for priming but in the meantime I've painted a couple more Superfigs models.

While I was taking some pictures, I thought I'd take some photos of my Legends of the Old West lawmen posse which I rediscovered the other day. I can't remember ever using them in a game so they deserve a bit of attention...

AWOL

2010-08-09T19:41:00.000+01:00

Well - I've not been painting very much at all since May which seems a very long time ago indeed. I have taken part in another 40K tournament recently though - 4Tk gaming store in Colchester put on a "Clash of Generals" event where seven of us from the Chelmsford Bunker took part. 1500 points of Crimson Fists marched to battle fighting three games over the day. It wasn't my best result - I came dead last! All three games saw my brave Sons of Dorn crushed mercilessly underfoot by a Deamon army, some Salamanders and some Tyranids which starred the dreaded Doom of Malan'tai. That 90 point monstrosity butchered half my army on his own... The only bright spark of the event was spending the day with my gaming buddies - and picking up another "Best Painted Army" award which was pretty cool.

As I've been out of the hobby for a while, I thought I'd ease myself back in gently by painting something different - so I've started on the Skaven Mordheim warband that's been sitting in my "to paint" pile for the last few years. There's only 13 models so it shouldn't be too taxing. I'll post pics once I've taken them...

Essex Eagle - 6th June 2010

2010-06-06T21:06:00.003+01:00

As mentioned in the previous post, I helped put on the 40K table for the Chelmsford Bunker at today's Essex Eagle event. Hylands House is a wonderful estate and has a colourful history - it was the headquarters for the SAS during WWII. On one occasion, Captain Paddy Blair Maine (who went on to become this country's most decorated soldier) attempted to drive a Jeep up the Grand Staircase for a bet. The incident caused much commotion and the owner of the house dispatched the men to bed with instructions to remove the Jeep in the morning when they had clearer heads. The Jeep had to be dismantled before it could be removed.

There were a lot of extremely nice tables there but I forgot to take my camcorder with me when I went on a tour of them. I have, however, uploaded a couple of videos of our game to show how we got on.

Essex Eagle

2010-06-04T10:27:00.002+01:00

Just a quick update - no nice pictures to go with it unfortunately this time though :(

Since the last post, I've played a couple more games with the Crimson Fists, both 2000 points in size. The first was against Tom Pugh who has a very nicely painted Untramarines successor army. Everything seemed to go wrong for me in this game as I just couldn't do anything effective the whole game. The only satisfying part was when my Terminator Librarian moved within 6in of a fleeing unit to force them off the table edge whilst casting a cheeky Avenger psychic power at a nearby combat squad, killing them all. The game ended up as a draw as we managed to kill each other's troops units and we were playing an objectives game. Good fun though.

The second game was against Dennis Symeou's Khorne deamon army. Having played against daemon armies before, I set up my army a a very defensive castle formation so that he'd be forced to run into my bolter range. The only units I didn't set up in formation were a couple of spare Rhinos that I left in the middle of the board (to mess up his deep striking units) and a unit of shotgun Scouts who camped out on the 2nd objective (the first buried deep within my ranks of marines at base!) Dennis' first unit on the table landed on some of my marines and the deep strike mishap chart allowed me to place them at the opposite end of the board. Not a bad start! Soon after though, he got a unit of Juggernauts, a Bloodthirster and a winged Daemon Prince set down safely. I tried tank-shocking his Prince with one of my Rhinos for the hell of it and, as he was a Khorne daemon, it seemed only right to Dennis that he stood his ground and tried to smash the tank. He did hit it - but only enough to disable it's storm bolter! The tank rolled over him and crushed him utterly. My further attempts at tank shocking his units met with some surprisingly agile daemons leaping out of the path of the vehicle approching! As the game went on, my defensive approach worked well in thinning out the numbers of daemons, eventually leaving him with a few half units of Bloodletters. I left it too late to get within range of contesting the objective the Scouts had been holding (A Bloodthirster had snacked on them in an earlier turn) so it ended up as a draw. Still good fun though.

The last update is that the Bunker is putting on a couple of games at this weekend's "Essex Eagle" event at Hylands House in Chemsford. The event has been organised by the Southend Wargames Club and features a lot of historical wargames from various local clubs, a bunch of wargame traders and some re-enactment groups. We're putting on a WWII Rapid Fire table showing the Invasion of Crete and a 40K table where people can have a go at something slightly less serious. I'll be digging out my Howling Griffons for that one so I'll try to takes some pictures - and maybe even a video or two! The link to the site of the event is here:

http://www.southendwargamesclub.com/essexeagle.htm

By your command

2010-05-08T16:27:00.004+01:00

After last week's outing to the 4TK tournament, I've been busy painting some models that have been on the paint station for a while. When I started building those Captains back in January, I also constructed a Command Squad to keep them company and it was those that I have been working on over the last few days. I'm fairly pleased with how the standard came out - I've not tried painting freehand before so I was a little anxious that I'd mess it up. I've opted for two plasmaguns in the squad purely because the "Feel No Pain" from the Apothecary should give them a 2nd chance at staying alive.

4TK Inter-Club Tournament

2010-05-01T22:13:00.006+01:00

4TK games store in Colchester put on an Inter-Club tournament today for four different teams, two from Ipswitch, one from Colchester plus the Chelmsford Bunker. Rich, Steve and I went on behalf of the Bunker and, as we were a man down on the day, a spare man was found to give us a full team of four. Here's Rich and Steve outside the store!

4TK is an independant store and they stock lots of different gaming models and hobby equipment, all at a discount. They also have a load of gaming tables covered in very well painted scenery so it was a pleasure to take part. The tables all have built in shelves so you can store your undeployed models and rulebooks under the table which is a great idea.
I obviously used my Crimson Fists with a balanced list as follows:

Librarian in Terminator Armour + Storm Shield with Might of the Ancients and The Avenger
5 x Terminators with a Heavy Flamer
10 x Tactical Marines with Plasmagun, Missile Launcher and Rhino with Power Fist and Storm Bolter Sergeant
10 x Tactical Marines with Meltagun, Missile Launcher and Rhino with Power Fist and Bolter Sergeant
8 x Scouts - 4 with Shotguns, three with Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons plus a Power Fist Sergeant with Teleport Homer
1 x Dreadnought with twin-linked Autocannon, Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon and Storm Bolter
1 x Predator with Autocannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons and Extra Armour

We were due to play three games each, one game against our opposite number in each of the other three teams. In my first game I was match up against a Ravenwing player - something I'd never faced against before. The game went okay but we both destroyed each others Troop choices so we had no chance of claiming objectives. It was a draw but he won a moral victory though as he killed my Librarian with his HQ unit - Sammael! Game two saw me face up against another army I've never played against, this time a Deamon army. This army was later awarded the Beardiest Army award - mainly as it featured a winged daemon prince, the Soulgrinder plus every flavour of daemon going. He started the game by leaving his entire army in reserve and deep-striked them onto the table in turn 2. They were on me before I knew it and it didn't take him long to mince my army up into little pieces. At total massacre to him. After a very pleasant lunch in the pub opposite the store, we returned for game three - this time for me to face another Daemon army! Again it featured all flavours of daemons but was led by Kurgath the Plaguefather - an unholy terror with five attacks that wound on 2+ and ignores armour saves. I put up a better fight on this game but it still ended the same as game two - total massacre for my opponent!

So - three hard games, two of which were total whitewashes! I still had fun and met a lot of nice guys so I'm sure we'll be heading back to 4TK before long. I did get something out of the day though as I was awarded the Best Painted certificate which I was quite chuffed about! Steve also was awarded a certificate although his was for Most Sporting Opponent. It was an excellent day out and I'm looking forward to getting more games in with this army so I can do better next time. I've only played one game of 5th ed. 40K before this tournament so I can hardly complain for not doing so well!

Psykana Librarius

2010-04-30T23:22:00.002+01:00

The Librarian in terminator armour is ready for battle - which is handy as I'm going to use him in a tournament tomorrow! As you can see, I converted him to be holding a storm shield - that's so he gets a 3+ invulnerable save for the loss of no attacks in close combat plus he can still "shoot" with his psychic powers. I'm planning to deep strike him into battle leading my Terminator Squad when he can then unleash his Avenger flamer template on nearby targets. I'll let you know how it goes!

Predator II

2010-04-20T23:17:00.004+01:00

Here's another tank for the Crimson Fists - this time a Predator Destructor. This model was originally built for a Dark Angels army I was building but I removed all the DA iconography so I could re-use it for this army. The bullet holes in the front armour plate of the Predator were to help hide some of the scarring to the hull where I had to use clippers to remove the old icons! I also had to do some emergency surgery on it when I was painting it as the left weapon sponson glued itself completely immobile. I cut off the top weapon sight and cut the sponson mount so I could drill a hole though the plug and use brass rod to recreate the spindle. It seems to have worked a treat as the heavy bolter still turns and you can barely see where I fixed it.

I'm going to take this army to a small tournament on the 1st May - at 4TK which is a independant reseller and gaming club based in Colchester. I've been meaning to go along to the store for ages but never had the chance. Hopefully I'll get to do that more after the tourney. In the list I've written for the 1200 point force (purposefully small as we're playing on 4ft x 4ft tables) I need a Terminator Librarian to lead my Terminator Squad. I'll be building and painting him over the next week or so.

Wings of faith

2010-04-16T15:40:00.002+01:00

I know two blog updates in a week is unusual but the Chaplain below didn't take that much time to paint. Having mostly black armour makes him even faster to paint than the normal blue Crimson Fists - I can see why people opt to paint Black Templars as you get them done in no time! The only concern I had with this model was that I was unsure whether to give him two red gauntlets the way I have with all the veteran sergeants and characters in the rest of the army. I thought a red gauntlet on the right hand might clash with the grip of his crozius arcanum so, in the end, I decided to leave it black and just paint his left fist red.

At least I now have a suitable character to lead my Assault Squad into combat. Chaplains excel when added to a close combat unit thanks to them allowing the entire squad to reroll any failed "to hit" rolls. It was one of my favourite units in my Howling Griffons army so I had so make another for this Crimson Fists force.

For the high jump...

2010-04-13T19:10:00.003+01:00

I finally got back into the swing of things by finishing these Assault Marines that have been on my paint station since January. I opted to break from tradition and give the sergeant a thunder hammer instead of the habitual power fists that are liberally dotted around this army - mainly as I wanted to try something different for once. I also chose to give a pair of flamers to the squad instead of plasma pistols as the number of wounds caused by flamers outweighs the instant kill option the pistols afford. I have found those instant kills tend to be the marines holding them.

Next up is probably going to be a Chaplain to lead them...

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2010-03-30T08:31:00.005+01:00

On Sunday the Bunker held the 3rd or 4th (depending on how you look at it) Bunker Bowl event at the club. This is the now traditional one-day Blood Bowl tournament open only to club members.

There's been a lot of Blood Bowl played at the club this year and a lot of the existing coaches are soon going to the 40K campaign weekend at Warhammer World so a number of them opted to spend the day painting rather than playing. As such, we had only eight coaches fighting for glory in the tournament this year - enough still for a decent game though! I had been persuaded to field my Halfling team (the Bluebay Crammers) whilst Paul had opted to borrow Sherwin's Goblin team for the day - so we were each hoping to win the "Stunty Cup"!

Tom Pugh fielding his new and nicely painted Lizardman team and we had a new joiner Darren Lysenko join in. Darren came to the club looking for some assistantance with getting up to speed with the game as he's not played for 10 years and, rather bravely, has bought a ticket for the Blood Bowl GT on 1st May!

As soon as everyone arrived (a harder task than normal thanks to the clocks going forward!) the gaming got underway. The Crammers were up against Erik Cooper's Necromantic team, the Drakenhoff Ravens. Erik won the first Bunker Bowl so I knew my Halflings were going to be tested - and they certainly were as despite my best efforts I lost 2-0! Looking over at Paul's game, he'd also lost although he managed to at least score a touchdown. So - after the first round, Paul's Grinning Moons had edged ahead in the Stunty Cup stakes.

For the second round, I was drawn against Paul himself - the classic Halfling VS Goblin mayhem imminent! For my team, I'd opted to induce Deeproot Strongbranch to give me three treemen whilst Paul had opted to go for secret weapons over Ripper. At he was kicking, Paul sensibly kept all of them off the field which was handy as the Crammers managed to get the ball to a halfling, have a treeman lob him up the field and then see the halfing make a perfect landing and scurry home! So - with a one turn touchdown under my belt, I set up to defend against a lot of secret weapons! Paul had two fanatics (one being Fungus the Loon), a chainsaw and a po-goer and they happily carved their way though the field. It didn't help much when the chainsaw fouled a prone treeman and took him out of the game! With halfings and treemen being blocked and blitzed every which way, the goblins equalised and we headed into the second half. My Master Chef stole all of Paul's rerolls and with just basic goblins and trolls left on the field and with me with only two treemen, the game pretty much just descended into a flurry of punchups and fouls. The game ended a 1-1 draw which we were both fairly happy with.

Third round and this time I was facing the Human team of Graeme Johnson, the Marienburg Pirates. Graeme came to the club last year and has been playing Blood Bowl and 40k with us for a while now. His game has dramatically improved over that time and he's a canny coach now. His team had four blitzers, a catcher, a thrower, six linemen and four rerolls - I really expected my Halfings to take a solid drubbing. Graeme brushed my team aside and scored but I managed to scrape an equaliser with another lobbed halfling. In the previous games though, the treemen had thinned out the opponents by knocking them off the pitch but they were not as effective this time. Graeme scored again in the second half and I made a pigs ear of things so he was soon threatening to score for a last time. Someway, somehow, I managed to get the ball carrier down and have a halfling grab it and scarper back up the pitch. On the final turn and despite being marked by two defenders, the little hobbit managed to dodge into the endzone to draw the game at 2-2. Paul's goblins hadn't been so lucky though so, with them losing 1-0 to Darren Lysenko, it meant that my Crammers had drawn two games and lost one as opposed to Paul drawing one game and losing two. Stunty Cup victory!

The Bunker Bowl itself was being decided by Tom Pugh's Lizardmen and Neil Cooper's Dwarfs. Of all the teams capable of dealing with Lizardmen, Neil's team was the most suitable so we were all surprised, none more so than him I would guess, that Tom's team beat him 4-0! To add insult to injury, quite literally, Neil had three casualties scored against him with only two in return. So - congratulations go to Tom for winning all three games over the day!

Here's some pics of Tom receiving his trophy and a shot of his rather nice looking Lizardman team.
It was a good day of gaming and it's good practice for the public Bunker Bowl on the 16th and 17th October this year.

AWOL

2010-03-23T14:24:00.003Z

Well - it's about time I started updating this blog again. I've done nothing hobby related for quite a while now for reasons that I'm not going to go into but I am going to try to get back in the hobby groove from now on.

What I can say is that this coming Sunday is the annual club Bunker Bowl tournament at the Chelmsford Bunker. This is the one-day, three game tournament for club members only. I'm running the event as well as taking part myself, although I don't expect to win too many games as I've been persuaded to give my Halfing team an outing. I'll post up some pics of the event next week.

Rynn's World

2010-02-03T00:52:00.006Z

I picked up the new Rynn's World novel by Steve Parker the other week and finished reading it tonight. It's a cool book as it really helps fill out some of the background for the Crimson Fists chapter and gives some character to them - rather than they just got splatted on their home planet...

Lock, stock and...

2010-01-22T13:08:00.004Z

I played my first game with this army earlier this week against Luke. Luke couldn't find his Orks so he used a Tau force with a couple of Devilfish with Tau Warrior units inside, some Battlesuits (HQ), Stealthsuits, three squads of Kroot and two Hammerheads. Surprisingly, I won the game fairly comfortably with my close combat scouts performing admirably - they fought off some Warriors, survived two units of Kroot shooting at them, helped my Terminators land on target, killed a unit of the Kroot and still held on to an objective.

So, with my faith in Scouts restored, I have finished painting my second unit of them, this time with them armed with shotguns. In future games I might try mixing these with the close combat scouts so they get more chance to kill before they assault.

Crimson Fists so far...

2010-01-18T19:56:00.003Z

Here's a picture of the entire army as of today - just over 1500 points worth. There's lots more that needs painting though so I'm not going to get complacent!

Twin fists of fury!

2010-01-17T23:32:00.002Z

Here's the twin power fist Captain I mentioned in an earlier post. This model is based on the Gamesday 2008 model but I switched the thunder hammer for the fists, one of them being from the Crimson Fists assault pack. I know the only benefit to having twin power fists is getting one extra attack - but I had to do it :)

El Capitán

2010-01-16T00:54:00.003Z

Here's some pics of my new Captain. He's one of the great models from the Masters of the Chapter set although I used some bitz from the Crimson Fists Command pack to theme him. I'm really pleased with how he came out and I think the relic blade / storm shield combo should work well in the game too. I normally have a difficult time painting robes but I tried using Scorched Brown as a basecoat, Red Gore as a main layer and Blood Red as a highlight which worked a treat.

MkII 'Mars' Pattern

2010-01-12T22:48:00.003Z

The second Rhino is now ready to roll - hopefully it will give my Tactical Squads some mobility. As you can see, it's been liberally plastered with some of the new vehicle icons that GW recently released which are really nice. I've got some of the other Fists bitz packs they sell and I'm going to be using those on the Command Squad which I've started building. I'm also going to be building a Captain or two to use so I'm working out weapons combos for them. I'm sure one of them will be sporting a pair of power fists - not a fantastic choice rules wise perhaps but if Marneus Calgar can do it, I'm sure a captain in the Crimson Fists can...

Predator vs Aliens

2010-01-10T20:23:00.002Z

With this Predator Annihilator, I've now got a 1500 point army ready for my first full game which will be up against Luke's Orks. I have no expectation of winning as I've only have two games of 40K since the 5th ed. rules came out (and even less games of 4th ed. under my belt!) but I'm pleased to have a painted army ready to use for it. At least when I lose, I can do it with a fully daubed force.

I'm not sure what I'm going to add to the Crimson Fists yet but I've got lots of options. Choices, choices...

Going by the book

2010-01-08T23:54:00.004Z

My first HQ unit is painted - a librarian with a jump pack. You can't see it as it's obscured by the jump pack but he's sporting a sculpted fist shoulder pad. I mention that as that's one of the only parts of him painted in Crimson Fists chapter colours. As he is now, it's only his gauntlets that show he's not an Ultramarine...

I'm still toying with what psychic powers to give him for the first game - possibly Avenger and Force Dome as I'll probably use him in a defensive mode.

Tactical shooters

2010-01-07T00:17:00.006Z

The third Tactical Squad is ready for action. They suffered a slight delay as I managed to drop and stand on the sergeant who needed swift repair and repainting. He's up and running again now though; better, stronger, faster...

I've nearly enough models to start using this army in a 1500 point game but I still need a HQ option and some anti-armour capability. I've got a Librarian and a Predator on the way now - I just need to get them painted in a couple of weeks.

RH1-N-0 Tracked Exploration

2010-01-01T23:05:00.004Z

My first painted model of 2010 is a Rhino to provide transport for one of the many units this army is going to contain. The only adaptation from standard is that I've added some icons from the new vehicle icon pack that GW are making.

I've already got another Tactical Squad on the paint station, already basecoated and waiting for some attention. Hopefully it won't be too long before they can ride around in this...

Be prepared

2009-12-31T16:31:00.004Z

I managed to sneak in these Scouts into the 2009 painting tally as I've been on holiday. Having a few extra days off between Christmas and New Year has been very relaxing and I've had a chance to put some extra hobby time in. These are the old 3rd ed. metal scouts which I have a lot of - mainly as I've had some given to me by friends to bulk out the scouts I already had.

I wanted to put some Fist icons on their shoulder pads but knew the standard decal would never fit the smaller pads - so rather than botch an attempt at hand painting them, I opted to trim the fist decals so that only the fist itself was left. I also trimmed some of the red double-ended tactical arrows so that it was just a single arrow and used those for the scouts which seemed to fit well. I'll follow these through with all the other scouts I need to paint.

I had a delivery from Dark Sphere today (who used to be Miniatures By Post) so I've now got a Razorback to use as a vehicle for my upcoming Command Squad and three Scout Bikers so I can give them a try.

These Crimson Fists are going to be my main focus for 2010 - I really want to get most of the models painted and get some proper gaming in. Later on in the year, I will try to get back to painting my Tomb Kings and, if I get a chance, I'll start my WWI French army for Great War.

So - I'll leave my last post of 2009 with the pics of the Scouts I finished today. Here's to 2010 being as productive as 2009 was!

The tactical approach...

2009-12-27T17:45:00.005Z

With end of 2009 on the horizon, it was time to paint the last models of the year. This Tactical Squad for my Crimson Fists army marks 200 models painted over the year, something I'm really pleased about as it's more than I've ever managed before.

You'll probably notice that the sergeant is the Gamesday 2005 Captain. As he was toting a power fist, I couldn't think of a better army to put him in. The plasmagun marine is made from one of the metal bike squad members, glued to some plastic legs and the join hidden by a tabbard. All other marines are standard plastics.

The next unit I'm going to work on is some Scouts. I have three units of them ready for painting - a sniper squad, a shotgun squad and a close combat squad. I'm spoilt for choice on which to pick!

Better late than never...

2009-12-14T17:52:00.005Z

Gamesday, as usual, drained all my hobby enthusiasum for quite a while and when I got it back, work managed to get in the way. I had a lot of overtime offered to me as part of a project and, with times being what they are, I grabbed it with both hands! It meant little time left for family, let alone hobby projects, but it's over now and things are getting back to normal at last.

So - with a chance at some painting, I thought I'd finish off that Black Reach dreadnought that's been on my paint station for months. I wanted to give him extra options as well as the multi-melta and close-combat weapon so I found some spare dreadnought weapons to give to him (the twin-linked autocannon is a Forge World resin piece whilst the others are plastics.) One problem was that the arm sockets on the BR dread is smaller than the sockets on a standard plastic dreadnought so the arms just fall off. Thankfully, I had some spare magnets to hand so I used those to attach the arms, making it a breeze to switch weapons whenever I want something else.
While I was waiting for the paint to dry on him, I got on with a small side-project for a campaign my club is going to run. One of the guys has a huge Dark Angels army so I decided to paint up a Cypher model for him to use as an objective.

I think I'll get another Crimson Fists tactical squad painted next. If I get the ten of those done, I can make my target of 200 models painted in a year!

They think it's over... it is now!

2009-09-30T09:42:00.006+01:00

Gamesday was fun. Hard work and a long day but lots of fun. The "Happy Hour" table wasn't the prettiest of the five games in the Warhammer Historical section but I think it was the game enjoyed by more youngsters than the others. I caught Paul Sawyer (Warlord Games) looking over at our table - he was running an ECW game using his company's lovely plastics. We had twice the number of people playing our little game. I was impressed with the Warmaster Waterloo game put on by the 1st Company Veterans - they've done a great job adapting the rules to fit the Napoleonic era. I think there's a chance they might be getting their rules published by Warhammer Historical so good luck to them with that. You can have a look at their table here: http://www.1stcompanyveterans.net/events/gamesday09.php

Our section was right next to the "Grabbitt and Scarper" sale area where GW were flogging off old stock cheap. They had a stack of the 2008 Gamesday model (the Space Marine Captain with a thunder hammer) for just £1 each - so I bought five of them for conversion purposes. The best deal I saw was when they'd accidentally put a Planetstrike Saim Hain Eldar Wind Rider box on there. It was a splash release but the models were still current. My mate Phil bought it for £25 instead of £75! Bargain... I managed to hold myself back for a change as the Gamesday models were my only purchase of the day - I had bought some Forge World items last Gamesday and have yet to take them out of the plastic wrapping, let along use them, so my justification for buying more was unwarranted. I had a hankering for some shoulder pads and Rhino doors for my Crimson Fists but sense prevailed.

Anyway - here's some pics from the day. I'll be focussing on getting more Crimson Fists painted now as I've promised Phil a 3000 point 40K game with them as some point in December! Here's me, Brad, Phil and Mike, all looking rather pleased with ourselves (apart from Phil who rarely smiles in photos!)

Gamesday approaches...

2009-09-25T09:22:00.006+01:00

Over the last few months, the guys at my club have been busy preparing their tables for UK Gamesday which takes place this coming Sunday. We're putting on two games this year - a 40K game based on some Dark Angels scouts defending against an invasion of plague zombies and a Legends of the High Seas game based on the Tavern Brawl scenario. I've helped playtest and build both games so here's a few pics to show you how they're looking. I'll post up more pics after I get back on Sunday.

Crimson Fist Terminators

2009-08-14T09:35:00.003+01:00

I've finished the Terminators from the Black Reach set. The only thing I did with them was give one a spare heavy flamer. The models are pretty good despite being basic "clip together" starter set minis - they're totally compatible with the standard Terminator box sets although they're a little less dynamic.

I spray varnished these models to get rid of the shine on the decal and instead got a light white dusting all over them when the varnish dried. I'm damn annoyed about it but there's not a huge amount I can do about it apart from buy some new varnish - it's a little old and I think it's been sitting around too long. Even though I gave it a good shaking, I suspect the matt medium has separated from the carrier liquid.

Sons of Dorn - Crimson Fists Space Marines

2009-08-08T17:14:00.005+01:00

I have a lot of half started/half completed armies. I get interested in a new project before finishing my current project much like a lot of wargamers. With this new army, I'm trying to use up a lot of the space marine models that I've constructed for other armies that never got finished. If I have to buy some new stuff to compliment the old models, well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :)

The first painted unit are the Tactical Squad from the Black Reach box set. The only conversion I've done is to give the sergeant a power weapon instead of his chainsword.

The Mighty Zug

2009-07-15T09:34:00.003+01:00

I've been slack in painting recently as I bought the new Blood Bowl PC game. I managed to get in on the beta test earlier this year which was great even though it was only restricted to humans and orcs. I had baulked at paying £40 for the download version though and had intended to wait until September for when the retail version comes out in the UK. Too many of my gaming buddies have bought it though and I felt I was missing out so I caved in and paid the cash for the download. The game only has eight teams available (humans, orcs, dwarfs, wood elves, goblins, chaos, lizardmen and skaven) but it is outrageously good. Hence the lack of painting...

Over the last couple of days though, I've managed to prise myself away from the computer and started daubing some of the star player models I have got ready for the Middenheimer team. First up is an old model that has just recently been replaced with a new design - The Mighty Zug. I've still got Griff, Zara and Morg plus a coach to paint for the team.

Mr. Zero

2009-06-23T22:15:00.005+01:00

One of the guys in my gaming club pointed out that my Middenheimer Blood Bowl team needed a big guy model for when the team gets enough winnings to be able to purchase an ogre. As it happened, I've been getting one ready and I finished him tonight...

This is one of the old 2nd. edition ogre models that I've had hanging around for ages. He's small enough to fit onto a 25mm base really but I put him on a 40mm base to match all the other big guy models I have in my collection. I'm sure I'll regret that whenever I use him against an ogre team!

Middenheim Blood Bowl team

2009-06-15T22:37:00.006+01:00

I dug out this old project when a load of the guys from my gaming club went to the Blood Bowl GT. I was kinda peeved that I couldn't go and wasn't in the mood to paint the things I should be painting. I rediscovered the models while I was looking for something else to paint and decided to get them done once and for all.

The models themselves are from the 3rd. edition Blood Bowl set except I removed all their heads and replaced them with heads from the Empire Knight and Milita box sets. All fairly easy stuff but I knew I wanted them to be in a blue and white quartered scheme - mainly as the 2nd. edition rulebook had showed the Middenheim Marauders to be in a red and white quartered scheme and that just seemed wrong for Middenheimers! Painting so much white was a bit daunting and I think that's what had made me put the team in the "to paint" box all those years ago. They took me three weeks to finish but I'm really happy with the way they came out.

Flight of the Migs

2009-06-13T18:11:00.006+01:00

Sometime last year, I bought some 1/600 scale aircraft as I'd spotted some air combat rules in Wargames Illustrated and wanted to give them a go. I bought a few different US and North Vietnamese planes and decals from Dom's Decals - the planes were made by Tumbling Dice but buying them from Dom's Decals meant I could see pictures of them. Anyway, as is normal for me, I received the models through the post, put them in a drawer and then forgot about them completely...

Yesterday though, I found them when I was hunting for something else - and I thought I'd best get some painted! The decals were fiddy but they didn't take too long to fit after I got into the swing of it. Micro Sol really helps to make them adhere to the surface.

I'm quite please with how they came out and I hope to get around to painting the other models at some point - I've got some Mig 21's, F105's and F4's still to paint.

Orlocks completed

2009-05-26T13:58:00.005+01:00

Well, I've finished painting the last members of my starter Orlock gang. I've got a few more to construct and paint but these guys will get me started.

Into the Underhive

2009-05-19T23:07:00.005+01:00

I didn't expect to be posting about anything other than Tomb Kings tonight but, as tends to happen with us wargamers, hobby projects tend to get diverted once your interest is piqued. At the Bunker, some of us have been talking about starting a new Necromunda campaign later this year, perhaps with the idea of taking it on to developing it into a game for Gamesday next year. With all the talk about Necromunda going on, I thought I'd dig out my Orlock gang. I got them for my birthday a few years ago, constructed them but never got around to painting them all - I completed the gang leader and a ratskin scout and drifted off onto yet another new project...

Tonight though, I dug out the models and had a look at them. Most of the gang were 90% complete and just needed a bit of highlighting on the clothing and weapons to get them fully usable for any future campaigns. It only took me a short while and I had finished painting one ganger completely so I'll spend the next few days trying to get them all done before returning to painting Tomb Kings. Here's the pictures of the gang leader, ratskin and the completed ganger.

New Amazons Blood Bowl team

2009-05-18T01:19:00.007+01:00

Back in May 2008, I sold my first painted Amazon team on eBay (You can see them in one of my previous posts...) Although I liked the team a lot, I wasn't happy with them as I didn't have enough models to make a full team so I opted to sell them in the hope that I'd make enough cash to be able to buy a full team. Thankfully I made enough cash from the sale to get enough for a full team. Getting around to painting the new team was something else though...

What's given me the drive to get them painted is that one of the girls at my gaming club is going to the Blood Bowl GT at the end of the month and she doesn't have a GW Amazon team (she uses Shadowforge models at the club league). As I had my team sitting around waiting for some attention, I volunteered to paint them so she can borrow them for the tourney - so here they are...

I decided against painting them with standard caucasian flesh tones and went for dark skin for a change. I imagined they were a team of women from the Southlands of the Warhammer World rather than from Lustria. I left the uniforms as a nice red and gold combo and gave them different colours feathers in their headresses to show what role they perform in the team (it'll help opponents see what the models are too!)

There's a few more models for this team still to be painted - Zara the Slayer as well as some cheerleaders and a coach. I'll get them done at some point but I want to get back to painting Tomb Kings for a while.

Liche Priest and Warriors

2009-04-26T14:38:00.004+01:00

I've been busy painting more Tomb Kings models and have completed my first Hero model - a mounted Liche Priest. I've also been toiling away on a second big unit of twenty-five Warriors armed with hand weapons and shields. I've painted an extra five of them so I could bump up the first unit to twenty-five as well. In total, I've painted fifty-two of them, the two spare models being for when I don't want to field the musicians.

I might take a short break from painting Tomb Kings as I promised I'd paint a Blood Bowl team so that I can loan it to someone going to the Blood Bowl GT at the end of May. I can't go myself this year unfortunately but at least I can play vicariously though somone else borrowing a team of mine! I'm keen to get back to work on the Tomb Kings though as I've really been enjoying painting them. There's still lots more to come - two Tomb Kings, two more Liche Priests, another unit of ten bowmen, another three chariots and twenty-four horsemen are all on the cards...

Swing low sweet chariot...

2009-04-13T18:07:00.002+01:00

More Tomb Kings completed, this time the first unit of chariots. These were fairly quick to paint (for me, that is...) as they were done in about a week.

Skeleton Warriors

2009-04-07T00:30:00.005+01:00

I've painted my first unit of Tomb Kings warriors with hand weapons and shields. I made nineteen of them without command add-ons with the intention of giving them a Tomb Prince to lead them but as I had the models spare, I also made the three command models so I can switch them out if I feel the need. When I get more warriors constructed, I'll make extra so I can get them unit up to twenty-five as that's probably the only time I'd use the command models.

I bought the desert grass flock from Gale Force 9. They make a nice range of alternative flock colours rather than just the summer grass. While I was basing these models, I put the flock on the bowmen at the same time (hence the updated photo!)

Skeleton Bowmen

2009-03-29T12:42:00.003+01:00

At the end of last year, I started constructing some Tomb Kings models with the intention of building my first proper Warhammer Fantasy army with which to learn to play the game. Blood Bowl got in the way though so the Tomb Kings models got pushed to the back of the painting table...

With the Skaven Blood Bowl team completed and a few SuperFigs done, I thought it was time I got back to the Tomb Kings. Here's the first couple of completed units; two units of ten bowmen. All I need to do is add some dead grass flock when I get hold of some.

SuperFigs and SuperSystem

2009-03-23T21:53:00.008Z

I've really been enjoying painting some SuperFigs models over the last week or so. I have had the 1st edition SuperSystem rulebook for ages but have never had enough models painted to give it a go. Painting them recently has made me dig out the rulebook but, after digging on the Lead Adventures Forum, I thought it was time I got an updated version. I bought a PDF version of the 2nd edition rulebook with the 2007 annual for just under £10 and it's a great read - a real improvement on the original book. I'm hoping I can get enough models painted to be able to get some gaming going at my wargames club.

Anyway - here's the SuperFigs I've been painting:

Skaven and Superheroes part. 2

2009-03-15T19:32:00.007Z

I've had a bit of a lull in painting over the last few weeks but I finally got back into the groove this weekend. I finished off painting the last of the models for my Warpstone Wanderers Skaven team so below you'll see pics of a "big hand " mutant, an old 2nd ed. Rasta Tailspike star who'll I'll be using as a "extra arms" mutant and three assistant coaches to whip the players into shape. I'm going to call the team finished now although I guess I do have some other things I can add in future - I need to convert some cheerleaders and, if I ever get one, I could do with a plague censer bearer to use as the star player Fezglitch. Those can wait though. I've been painting Skaven all year and I've had more than enough of purple and green!

While I was waiting for the paint to dry on the bases of the Skaven, I found another of the Superfigs models and got cracking. This model is known as Mindhawk in their range but I repainted her to be a traditional red, white and blue super hero. I wasn't brave enough to paint white stripes on her legs and arms but at least I manged to paint a star of sorts onto her chest. I called her Miss Glory. While I was taking pictures of her, I also took some more pictures of Pyrene who I painted a while back. The old photos didn't really show how the model is in the "up, up and away" pose so I wanted to show how she's just taking off.

Bunker Bowl 2009

2009-02-23T14:21:00.005Z

This Sunday was the Bunker Bowl 2009, the now annual Blood Bowl tournament for the Chelmsford Bunker club. We had thirteen players signed up and ready to play on the day and I persuaded Luke Henderson to join in with his Dark Elf team so we could have an even number of players (he'd intended to build some models during the day while everyone else was playing). Gareth Williams took over data entry duties on my laptop so I could get on and play some games - I just ran the even last year which meant I couldn't play. It was a cracking day of gaming though - here's how I got on!

Game 1 - Bunker Bunnies vs Altdorf Cowboys.

In my first game, I was up against Neil Cooper's human team. Neil is a very, very good Blood Bowl player and I've faced against him a number of times at the club. He's quite clinical and rarely makes mistakes. The first kick off of the game was a "Get the Ref!" which meant we could foul as much as we liked without having to worry about players being sent off. I spent the whole half knocking over his Ogre and fouling it as many times as I could! I wasn't able to get him out of the game but he spent most of the first half on the floor so it worked out well for me. I was able to block Neil's cage most of the time but not well enough to stop him from scoring in the second half. I scored fairly quickly to equal though and it ended up a 1-1 draw.

Game 2 - Bunker Bunnies vs Skaven Blackhearts

In game two, I was matched up against my old mate Phil Staines who was down from Leeds for the day. Phil's coached Skaven for as long as I've known him so I wasn't that confident that I'd do well. Phil hasn't had much practise at Blood Bowl over the last year though so there was a chance I could get a win. Phil showed me how Skaven should be played. When I'm using my Warpstone Wanderers, I tend to dodge as few times as I can but Phil did it every chance he could - and the amount of times it paid off was eye-opening! He cheerfully dodged a Gutter Runner through multiple tackle zones numerous times. I got a break in the last moments of the game and scored to win the game 2-1 although it was a hard game as you can see from the photo below!

Game 3 - Bunker Bunnies vs Dead Alive

My third game matched me up against Andrew Thear's Undead team. Andy won last year's club Blood Bowl league with an Undead team so I knew I was in for trouble and facing against two ST5 Mummies with Mighty Blow meant my poor Amazons were sure to die in droves. I concentrated my blocking and blitzing on the only players likely to score and I'd soon knocked out both of his Ghouls and swamped his Wight. I'd also killed a number of his Skeletons so I had a numerical advantage over him in the second half. Towards the end of the game, one of his Mummies intercepted a throw and trudged off towards my end zone, only to fall over on a go for it! I tried some razzle-dazzle in the last turn to try to score but it didn't pay off and the game finished 1-0 to me.

This meant that I'd won two games and drawn the third - it all depended on the outcome of the game between Luke's Dark Elves and Paul's Dwarf team to see who'd lift the trophy. Both of them had won their first two games...

Their game ended as a draw - which meant that all three of us had scored seven tournament points (three for a win, one for a draw and nothing for a loss). It meant the tiebreaker would come down to who'd scored the most touchdowns and that was Luke's team.

So - Luke was named Bunker Bowl Champion 2009 and awarded the trophy! I was very happy with my performance over the day. There was even enough time left after the tournament to get in a league game with the Bunnies against Ian's Chaos team - and the Bunnies won that 2-1 on the final turn of the game. A good day all round really :)

Four legs good...

2009-02-21T23:26:00.003Z

These Skaven mutants still only have two legs even though they are very long legs. Not to disappoint George Orwell, I painted a pair of them to take the total of legs up to four...

I'm hoping to get the last of the Skaven Blood Bowl models painted this month as, although I'm proud of the team, I'm getting a little weary of painting the same colours all the time. Even with the break by painting Helmut Wulf and the spare footballs, purple and green may be colours I avoid for a while once these guys are finished!

What a load of balls...

2009-02-21T14:36:00.003Z

I've been using the same plastic Blood Bowl balls for a few years now and one thing that used to annoy me was that they were too dark to see sometimes. Just when I'm ready for my players to kick off, the brown ball is nearly invisible on the game board, especially if it's gotten hidden behind some dice. I had a stack of Shadowforge and Heresy footballs that I'd never painted as well as a couple of spare GW plastic balls - so I painted all of them this morning to ensure I had enough for tomorrow's Bunker Bowl tournament. These are all a nice bright orange colour so they look similar to basketballs.

Bunker Bowl Trophy

2009-02-19T12:12:00.005Z

The 2009 Bunker Bowl is imminent now and yesterday I collected the trophy for the winning coach. It's a bit of a beast as it's 10 inches tall!

This is the third Bunker Bowl Trophy to have been made. The first trophy back in 2006 was quite small and rather than have a tournament, we had a cup competition for the highest ranking teams in the two leagues (one pro and one amateur). Scheduling the matches was a bit of a nightmare and the semi-finals dragged on into 2007. It was finally won by Erik Cooper's "Greenway Trackers" Wood Elf team.

The next year, I didn't want the tournament to run on the way it did before so I separated the league from the tournament. I changed it to a one-day three game tourney so everything was done and dusted on the same day. That first tournament took place in March 2008 and was won by Geoff Thirwell's "Von Erich's" Undead Team

So - only a few more days to go now for the third Bunker Bowl tournament at the club!

Chainsaw Wielding Looney

2009-02-17T23:09:00.004Z

Star players in Blood Bowl are a contentious issue for some coaches. They say they spoil the balance of the teams and that's a fair point. I've had experience of that myself when I used Glart Smashrip Jr. in a recent game and he really helped me dominate the game, something Skaven don't usually do. At my club though, all of the coaches in the league seem to enjoy using star players whenever they get the chance and I'm no exception. Star players are a huge part of the background to the game so fielding one upon occasion is damn fun!

With the Bunker Bowl coming this Sunday and my recent decision to play Amazons, I've been trying to think of a way of dealing with some of the tough teams that I'm sure I'll be up against. Then I remembered that Amazons can, for some unexplicable reason, hire Helmut Wulf. He's a great star player as he armed with a flipping great chainsaw! Amazon players and rerolls are fairly cheap so I should be able to work out a roster that allows me to have enough spare players and still afford the hire fee for Helmut. He'll be sent off at some point during each game (it's hard to hide the chainsaw from the referee the whole game...) but hopefully he'll have trimmed the more dangerous opposing players down to size before that happens.

This model is the 2nd edition Chainsaw Wielding Looney from way back in 1988. I've only got one copy of this model though and, although I like having a star player for each team in team colours, I didn't want to paint this model in the pink scheme of the Bunny Girls - so I opted for a slightly more macho blue and white uniform for him. That should allow him to fit in with any other teams I use him for in the future.

Bunker Bunnies

2009-02-16T00:55:00.007Z

I have been trying to decide which team I'll be using in the Blood Bowl tournament at my club and I finally decided that it would be Amazons. I sold my painted GW Amazon team last year at the end of May so I'll be using my Shadowforge team of Bunny Girls to represent them (a team I usually play as Humans). When I dug them out of their case, I found some of them were slightly chipped through being stored in some rather tough foam. I spend tonight retouching the chips and getting them ready for next Sunday. While I was doing that, I also found the Hasslefree "Kalee" model - a female gridiron player wearing a distinct lack of clothing. I'd only semi-painted her at the time I painted the Bunnies so I finished her off too.

Forewarned is...

2009-02-15T12:32:00.004Z

...four armed. Yet another Skaven player for my Warpstone Wanderers team, this time a mutant with extra arms.

As well as painting Skaven, I've been getting ready to run a Blood Bowl tournament at my club next week. I've organised a great trophy for the winner and, so far, it's looking like there's going to be something like sixteen people taking part. I'll post a write up of the day along with photos after the event.

Nothing can stop the Clawwww!

2009-02-10T23:30:00.005Z

Yet more Skaven, this time is the start of some of the mutant players.

In the experimental LRB6 rules, there's a whole host of new star players and one of them is based on this model - the blitzer with a claw. Just before I finished painting this guy I used him in a game, something I rarely do as I really don't like using unfinished models. In his star player guise, this model represents Glart Smashrip Jr. who's a fantastically impressive Skaven. With ST4, Block, Claw and Dauntless he's a real threat to teams with high armour players. I was, therefore, desperate to get him into the game as I was facing an experienced Chaos Dwarf player. Glart really did help dictate the game as, for once, there was a Skaven on the pitch who really could hurt a Chaos Dwarf Blocker or a Bull Centaur. As it happened, he didn't cause any injuries but just fielding him was enough for my opponent to have to be cautious. It meant that when I had a lucky break with a loose ball, one of the other rats could pounce on it and run for the endzone. He's definately a better asset to the team than a lot of the other star players that Skaven have access to.

Rat Ogre a Go-Go

2009-02-04T23:30:00.004Z

Another player for the Warpstone Wanderers, this time the star player Headsplitter. He's 340,000 gold crowns worth of Skaven goodness so, if you're doing things right, you shouldn't often get a chance to use him in a game. I'll be fielding him in my next game though so that tells you something...

Mickey da Rat

2009-02-02T22:43:00.006Z

My Skaven team hasn't been doing that well so far in my club's Blood Bowl league. So far they've won once, drawn twice and lost three times. The players have been dropping like flies. I've never used so many Journeymen! I managed to get a Gutter Runner to be capable of a one-turn touchdown and then he got crippled in the next game. It is time for a change of management. So - Mickey da Rat is now the team coach.

Mickey da Rat is a tournament model for the West Coast Quake event in California. After the weekend, they started selling some of their spare copies of the model so I ordered one for my Skaven team. If you want to get one for yourself, have a look here:

http://www.wcquake.com/goodies.htm

Anyway - here's Mickey in my team's colours.

Rodents of unusual size

2009-01-19T21:02:00.002Z

I've painted yet another player for my Skaven Blood Bowl team - a rookie Rat Ogre. I didn't add a Rat Ogre to the starting line-up as I felt they can be a bit hit and miss although the added strength can really boost a team. In my first three games with the Warpstone Wanderers, I've lost two games and drawn the third - suffering two deaths and a couple of crippled gutter runners. I think this big guy may well be purchased sooner rather than later...

Skaven and Superheroes

2009-01-11T18:02:00.006Z

I've painted some of the extra Skaven team models I mentioned in my last blog entry. Here you can see some journeymen linemen, star player Hakflem Skuttlespike and the team coach (who I've named Skaabwrath the Deluded...) Having spare journeymen players for your team can be handy, especially for teams that have low armour values like Skaven as you can be sure that a fair number of your players are going to get injured! When you can't field enough to make a full eleven player team, you're loaned enough rookie players to get you up to a full team. They aren't as useful as normal players as they can only use rerolls of you roll a 4+ beforehand but at least you're not undermanned from the start. After a game, you can buy the journeyman as a full player for your team if you wish - something you may want to do if they gained a skill. Most coaches just uses them as cannon fodder for the line of scrimmage though!

I do have more Skaven players for the team but they're not undercoated at the moment and it's far too cold outside to spray them. So, as I was at a loose end, I dug out a random model to paint to keep myself busy. That random model ended up being one of the SuperFigs range of superhero models that I bought ages ago from West Wind Productions. The SuperFigs models just appealed to me as I'm a superhero genre fan and I bought a load of them just for the sake of painting something "different". I've only painted a couple of them since I bought them but hopefully I'll get enough painted this year to be able to play some games with them. This model is "The Wisp" but I decided to paint it as a kind of "Human Torch" hero. So - here's Pyrene...

The Rat Pack.

2009-01-07T09:41:00.007Z

As I mentioned previously, I've been trying to get my Skaven Blood Bowl team completed so I can use them in my club's new Blood Bowl league. I've completed the core of the team but I've got a few extras to add still - some journeymen linerats, some more stars, a rat ogre, some mutants and a few coaches. So - I'll wait until they're all done before doing a team shot. Until then - here's the Warpstone Wanderers.

The last photo is of my cat Jenny who decided to stage a "sit-in" in protest of me painting rodents...

Tomb Kings and magnets

2008-12-30T23:54:00.005Z

I've recently started building some of the plastic units for my new Tomb Kings army. I'd bought some of the modular movement trays for them as I was keen to have the models nicely ranked up while I move them around the battlefield. One thing I noticed was that the skeleton models are incredibly light and they easily fell off off the movement tray. So - it was time to get something to keep them where they were supposed to stay!

I ordered some steel paper and magnetic tape from www.productsforwargamers.com as they seemed to have a nice selection of different pruducts to choose from. It arrived very quickly so I set to work. Both the steel paper and magnetic tape are self-adhesive; you just need to cut it to size, peel off the backing paper and off you go. So far I've built a couple of units of bowmen, a largish unit of warriors and a couple of Liche Priests. I've still got a lot more plastics to build but I thought I'd put up some pictures of how the magnets work. It can even cope with metal character model.

Mistletoe and wine...

2008-12-20T10:17:00.005Z

It's a few days before Christmas and I'm looking forward to taking some time off work to enjoy being with the family and to catch up with some hobby activity. I've been trying to complete a Skaven Blood Bowl team for the last couple of months but I've not always had the time or inclination to get them finished. I'm hopeful I can get them ready for use before the new year - I'll post pics when they're ready.

The Skaven team will be my team for next year's Chelmsford Bunker Blood Bowl League. I had been intending to use my Halfling team but, after lots of practise games with them, I seem to be unable even to get a draw with them. I thought I'd get a bit frustrated with losing all the time so I decided to switch to the Skaven, a team who can hopefully dig me out of any tactical holes I get myself into! The league is going to be interesting this year as there seems to be a lot of club members interesting in taking part. I've even set up a website so that the league can be run online - www.cbbbl.co.uk - something that should make the book keeping easier.

While the league is being played, I've signed up to take part in a "Tale of Four Gamers" project with some of the other guys in the club. What's going to make this different for me is that it's to collect a Warhammer Fantasy army. I've tried collecting a Fantasy army in the past but I never got to grips with it. I galled me a little that I'd paint up twenty or so models and they'd only get something like four attacks in the game before they ran away and were slaughtered! Anyway - I thought it was time for me to finally get into Fantasy and I opted for an army that should be easy to paint. Tomb Kings. I'll going to paint them as quickly as I can so it'll be washes and drybrush time for sure.

One last thing to mention here - I attended the GW "Thank You" Day at Warhammer World last Sunday. GW invite people who help them out at events to take part in a special day at GW HQ. They book the gaming hall out for the attendees to use, provide a very nice roast lunch and they even got some of the staff to give presentations about new stuff on the horizon. They even had Gav Thorpe there signing prerelease copies of his new novel. So - not a bad day at all really! I played Legends of the High Seas with Mike and Barry from my club and we were lucky that Tim Eagling had brought his fantastic scenery and ships for us to game on. It was a really good day...

Here's a shot of all the Chelmsford Bunker members that attended the day - Barry, Mike, Me, Paul, Richard, Andy, Luke, Brad and Phil.

I hope anyone reading this blog has a great holiday period - eat lots, drink in moderation and enjoy any wargaming goodies that Santa might bring!

Blood Bowl Orcs

2008-11-09T20:52:00.005Z

It's been quite a while since Gamesday and a bit longer than that since I've painted anything. I think the rush of having to paint models for that day plus having to go over to the U.S. for a while kinda knocked the wind out of my creative muse. Thankfully, the Chelmsford Bunker club is starting to get into Blood Bowl mood which has got me interested in painting again.

These models are the plastic Orc team from the 3rd edition Blood Bowl set which the club bought to keep on site in case anyone turned up and wanted a game. I volunteered to paint both the team - these Orcs are the first I've gotten around to finishing though! They're painted in blue and yellow (the club's colours) and are the first orc models I've ever painted. I feel like I've broken though some kind of barrier! I've been a wargamer and hobbist for such a long time and have never had the slightest inkling to collect orcs of any kind. Now I've painted these, I would like to have a go at getting my own Orc team painted up for use in our league or maybe for the Blood Bowl Grand Tournament. Anyway - here's the models...

They think it's all over! It is now!

2008-09-15T13:03:00.010+01:00

Well - Gamesday '08 is over and our Legends of the High Seas game seemed to go down very well with the people who played it. It was quite a fast-paced game and despite having four people playing per game, we got ten games of it in over the course of the day - so that was about forty people introduced to the game system. I've posted some pictures of the islands that were taken on one of our play-test days to give you an idea of what it looked like - and you can see some in-game shots plus some of the Bunker crew from the day itself.

Pirate play-testing shots

Shot of the table ready for the first game...

Mike White - Chelmsford Bunker President

Mid-game action

Our only shark attack of the day. The Tribal Islander pushed a pirate into the sea and a shark ate him!

Barry Arnold - last of the trimuvirate of High Seas nutters at the Chelmsford Bunker (myself and Mike White being the other two!)

Mike Frith - stalwart Gamesday helper for the Bunker...

Some of the Chelmsford Bunker crew

Gamesday approaching

2008-09-12T20:44:00.007+01:00

I've painted the last few things that I needed for the club's Gamesday table - some "X marks the spot" markers to show where the treasure is hidden on the islands, plus some treasure chests that show the pirate crews have found some. I've also painted some of the Crusader range of pirate models that I got earlier this year. We've using four different pirate crews so we thought it would be nice to use models from different ranges to show people what's available - we're using Foundry, Black Cat Bases, Black Scorpion and the Crusaders.

Also on the table, we've got some "killer monkeys" as one of the encounters the pirates will battle against to get the treasure. These are baboons made by Obelisk Miniatures and they were painted by Matt Ashworth.

Next post on here will some pictures from the day itself - it should be fun!

Pygmies

2008-08-12T21:27:00.004+01:00

I've painted some more models for the club's LotHS table for Gamesday - this time its some pygmies. These little guys were, like the Tribal Islanders, made by Black Cat Bases although they call them the Bebelli - they have pointed ears so they're useful as goblins if you wanted them for a fantasy game.

Tribal Islanders

2008-08-04T22:23:00.004+01:00

Just a couple of pics of some of the tribal islanders for one of the club's Gamesday tables this year. These models are made by Black Cat Bases who make a decent range to support the Legends of the High Seas game - a lot of their models are featured in the rule book.

Pimp my ride 40K style...

2008-07-27T18:06:00.003+01:00

I've painted the first Rhino for my Word Bearers army. I went to town with the scribing all over the hull of the vehicle, as you can see!

5th Edition

2008-07-22T11:34:00.003+01:00

The new 5th Edition version of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook was released recently and most of the 40K players at the Chelmsford Bunker are either changing their old armies to suit the new rules or are building brand new armies from scratch. I've played a couple of games of 40K recently and it reminded me how much I enjoy the game - so I've decided to knuckle down and get a new army built. I've chosen Chaos Space Marines, specifically Word Bearers.

I've painted the first unit - I'm going to add a couple of extra marines to the unit so I can give them a second plasmagun as well as giving them a Rhino transport to ride around in.

Howlinggriffon? What's all that about?

2008-06-29T11:56:00.036+01:00

I was looking at this blog the other day and realised that anyone viewing it probably wouldn't understand why the weblink to it was http://howlinggriffon.blogspot.com/

My first foray into the wargaming hobby was way back in the '80's but I only got into it seriously in 2000. I'd been out of the hobby for years but got interested again after playing some 40K related computer games (Chaos Gate and Rites of War if you remember those!) I'd bought a Space Marine codex and wanted to try painting some - but wasn't sure what chapter to aim for. The guys at my local GW store said "Just choose something that isn't Ultramarines or Space Wolves - that's all we see!" Something different was called for - so I chose the Howling Griffons chapter! Famous for having a red and yellow quartered colour scheme, they seemed like they'd stand out on a tabletop.

After painting a few units, I thought I'd try creating a website about them to show them off. After a year or so, the website became more popular and kept adding to the army. Eventually, I got an email from Tim Huckelbery who was head of the GW forums and I was asked to become one of GW's moderators. I did this for a few years which was good fun - I got to chat with a lot of GW staff and made some friends on the boards along the way. When GW closed their forums, I decided it was time for me to hang up my spurs and retire the Howling Griffons army - I'd used them for several years and it was time to move on. I recently closed the Howling Griffons website but I thought the army should still be on display somewhere - so I've taken these pictures of them for the blog.

So - that's why the blog is called "howlinggriffon". It's my regular username on a lot of forums!

Onto the models then. I'll put them up in order of their 40K classification...

Chapter Master Alvaro is the leader of my army, sporting Tactical Dreadnought Armour (Terminator armour to you and me!) It's still one of my favourite models as I really like the dynamic pose, something that was lacking in the old metal terminator HQ models at the time.

Captain Tiberius is another classic metal model from the old Command Squad set (now replaced by GW with a plastic set). This is another great pose and another classic model. I think this model looks better than the current plastic Commander despite not having the choice of weapons the plastics allow.

Librarian Balthasar started off as my first painted HQ model so he saw a lot of action in the early days. Although he was later superceded as leader of the army, he became more popular when the "Fury of the Ancients" psychic power was put into the 4th ed. Space Marine codex. I stopped selecting that psychic power though as, for the point cost, it was seriously broken and I hated using it as it annoyed my opponents.

Chaplain Titus, another Jes Goodwin classic metal model, was used regularly in my army for a number of years when played using the 3rd ed. Space Marine codex. When the 4th ed. codex came out, I needed a Chaplain with a jump pack, which lead to the creation of Chaplain Castus.

Chaplain Castus has been used in nearly every battle I've played using the 4th ed. codex as he's the perfect leader for my Assault Squad. He makes the whole unit Fearless and, with his Litanies of Hate skill, he makes them reroll any failed attacks on the turn they charge. He's been one of the most important models on the table because of this.

Emperor's Champion Athos was a 3rd ed. codex model. At the time, only Black Templars were allowed to field an Emperor's Champion but a "Chapter Approved" article was released that allowed all chapters to take one, hence this model. He was my most ambitious conversion at the time as he was made from eleven different parts included the helmet from a Reaper knight. Recently, he's been used as a a replacement Captain.

ELITES

Terminator Sergeant Brutus leads my Terminator Assault Squad into battle. Well, he did. When the 4th ed. codex came out, I had to pay extra points to arm him with the storm bolter/power sword combo so the unit was retired from battle until I could make a new metal sergeant armed with a pair of lightning claws.

A pair of terminators armed with Thunder Hammers and Storm Sheilds

Two terminators sporting pairs of Lightning Claws

Terminator Assault Squad. When I first painted them, I used them a few times but found I'd make a mistake with them. If I started them in my deployment zone, they walked slowly across the battlefield being shot at by every heavy weapon my opponent could muster so they died before they could get into battle. If I tried deep striking them into the heart of the enemy battlelines, they were rapid fired to death before they got to attack! Either way, dead. What they really need is a Land Raider to carry them safely into battle - so until I paint one, these guys stay in the case!

Terminator Sergeant Marcus is one of the fantastic plastic Terminator models. The dynamism of these is great, far better than the very static poses of the old metal Terminators.

Cyclone Missile Launcher and Chain Fist

Assault Cannon and Chain Fist

Terminator Squad Brutus. One thing I realised after building these is that it's best to put Chain Fists onto the models sporting Assault Cannons or Cyclone Missile Launchers. Ah well...

Veteran Squad Decimus. Another unit of classic metal models mixed with plastic arms. These guys used to ride around in a Razorback along with Chaplain Titus but once the 4th ed. codex arrived, the weapons on the Razorback were no longer legal (Lascannon with twin plasmaguns) so the Razorback went into storage. It was the only vehicle I ever painted for the Howling Griffons too!

Dreadnought Mort armed with Assault Cannon and Dreadnought Close Combat weapon.

Dreadnought Mort armed with twin-linked Lascannon and Missile Launcher.

A favourite model of mine, this Dreadnought has been in nearly every battle I've even fought since he was built. I left the arms unglued so I could swap them over whenever I wanted to.

TROOPS

Tactical Squad Gaius was the first unit of marines I painted for my army - they're sporting the default weapons that were in the box set at the time (Missile Launcher and Flamer). I dabbled with painting the sergeants armour a slightly more orange colour but never carried it on with the rest of the units. I was pretty pleased with how they came out though.

Tactical Squad Hastus. The second unit I painted for the army but with some alternative weapons. The sergeant model was a metal Assault Squad sergeant. I put metal tactical shoulder pads on this unit but you can't really see them the way I painted them - doh!

A couple of metal models sporting Plasmaguns - used to switch out models in the Tactical Squad when I need something other than Flamers or Meltaguns.

Sergeant Falco here was made from another classic metal model. I use him to lead one of my Tactical Squads if I want just a regular bolter armed sergeant.

Sergeant Severus here is another "bolter" sergeant I made for use as an alternative. He was in the old metal Command Squad box as a standard bearer - I just chopped off his standard and swapped it for a chainsword.

Scout Squad Regulus was built for a tournament - seven metal models including a Missile Launcher. I wanted the sergeant to look a little different so I chopped the head off and swapped it for a head from a Deathwatch sprue - as it happened, it was such a successful swap that you couldn't spot it was different at all! I had to paint his hair grey to make him stand out. Later on, I added some more bolter scouts to take them up to a ten-man unit, this time using some of the newer plastic scouts. A decent unit in combat - it's been surprisingly effective.

FAST ATTACK

Assault Sergeant Verix is another metal model, this one sporting a Bolt Pistol and a Power Fist. Perfect for bringing righteous justice to his enemies!

Assault Marines with Plasma Pistols

Assault Marines with Flamers

Assault Marines

More Assault Marines

Assault Squad Verix. You can't actually field a 12-man unit but I built that many so I could have alternative weapons - either Flamers or Plasma Pistols. This unit gets led into battle by Chaplain Castus and they wreak havoc when they do so! With so many attacks with rerolls, they kill most things they hit on their first attempt. They became so deadly that I stopped using them as the game was pretty much over once they got into combat. I switched to using the Bike Squad to give myself more of a challenge.

Land Speeder armed with a Multi-Melta

Land Speeder Squadron. Every Space Marine army I ever saw always seemed to have nothing but Land Speeders armed with Assault Cannons. I built three armed with Multi-Meltas so I could go tank hunting...

Close up of the base on one of the Land Speeders. I painted this dead Chaos Marine as a Night Lord - that legion has a lot of history with the Howling Griffons so this was a little tribute to their enmity.

Bike Squad Sergeant Collix sporting a Power Fist.

Bike Squad marines armed with Flamers

Bike Squad marines

Attack Bike armed with Heavy Bolter

Bike Squad Collix. I built this unit so I had an alternative Fast Attack choice instead of the Assault Squad and Land Speeders I regularly used. They can pump out a huge amount of rapid-firing bolter death while still moving pretty fast - and if they do get into close combat, the sergeant can do some damage with his Power Fist. The Flamers have been amusing. I once killed sixteen Dark Eldar with just those two Flamers. Righteous!

HEAVY SUPPORT

Devastator Sergeant Marius is another classic metal models from the old Command Squad set. No need to adapt his pose - he was perfect as he was...

Four Missile Launchers made from classic metal Space Marine bodies with plastic Missile Launchers.

Devastator Squad Marius. All but one of this unit were made from old metal Space Marine bodies. This has been a particularly effective squad as there's little four Missile Launchers can't kill. Having so many extra marines in the unit means that the marines armed with the heavy weapons tend to survive until the end of the battle. A favourite unit, for sure.

Devastator Squad Quarto was a bit of a mistake. At the time of building them, I mainly played games at my local GW store on 4ft x 4ft tables. I thought the Plasma Cannons would be effective at that range and anything getting closer would fall to the 24" range of the Multi-Meltas. The problem was that these had the name "fire magnet" painted in large letters above their heads! A big points sink, they were an easy target that soon lost effectiveness once they took some casualties. These guys have spent more time in their case than on the battlefield, for sure.

Well - that's the army that I'm probably most famous for using. I don't use them anymore as I needed a break from painting red and yellow all the time - but I may break them out of storage at some point and get some vehicles and tanks painted. Maybe when the 5th edition Space Marine codex comes out...

Dwarf Warhammerers

2008-06-20T10:36:00.008+01:00

I painted this Blood Bowl team for use during the 2007/08 league at my club. I was taking some photos of them last night so I thought I'd stick them on here for the hell of it!

Test model - Veteran Sister Superior

2008-06-17T22:24:00.006+01:00

I've been thinking about making a Sisters of Battle army for a number of years now and I've got enough models to make a decent army - the only thing that's been holding me back is that I just couldn't decide what colour to paint them! Out of the six main Orders, none of them really made me want to paint them so the models have sat waiting for me to find inspiration.

After recently re-reading the Witch Hunters codex for the upteenth time, I decided to dig out the Sisters of Battle models and take stock of what I had. One thing I realised is that I had a fair number of one particular veteran sister - so I threw caution to the wind, got it based and undercoated and tried painting a test scheme. This test scheme is copied from the cover of the Witch Hunters codex.

I do like the way this model came out - but it took me quite a long while to paint it. I suspect that I'm lacking the dedication to paint an entire army this way. So - I'm going to try painting another model in the black armour and red robes of the Order of our Martyred Lady to see how long that takes me. If it's much faster than it took me to paint this model, I may well go for that scheme.

Swallows and...

2008-05-29T21:20:00.007+01:00

I've been in a quandry for a while now.

The first Blood Bowl team I ever painted was back in 2004/5 when I got some Amazons to use in a league being played at my local GW store. They were the first models I painted using a layering technique rather than using ink washes to shade. They came out pretty good and I was proud of the way they looked, especially as they took me quite a long time to paint.

The only issue I had with them is that I'd just painted the twelve models that came in the box. I didn't know Blood Bowl well enough at the time. When I construct a Blood Bowl team now, I ensure I have every possible model that I might need in a league before I start painting any of them.

So - my quandry was this.

1) Buy extra models and paint them to look the same as these Amazons to make a full team.

This isn't as simple as it sounds as, I like to think, I'm a better painter now so the new models wouldn't look the same. I'd also need to rebase the old team as I don't really like the pitch markings I painted on the bases - and they'd need renumbering to fit in the extra players.

2) Put the models in paint stripper, then repaint the team with new players.

I don't honestly think I could bring myself to put models I've painted in paint stripper. I do buy pre-painted models on Ebay and then strip them - but I spend so much time and effort on painting models, I think it would be a callous thing to do.

3) Sell the team on Ebay and then use the proceeds to buy another team of Amazons that I can paint from scratch.

I think option 3 will be the choice I go for although it is risky. If the auction doesn't go well, I could end up selling the models for less than the price of a new team. I'm hopeful that they'll make more than that though and I'll be able to buy a fresh new Amazon team plus extra players to make a full team. I'll have to wait until the weekend to auction the models though - I've learnt that auctions that end on a weekend get more viewers than auctions that finish at other times. Timing is the key for Ebay.

As the models are several years old and they have been used, they needed a touch up of paint here or there. I did that tonight and I've also taken some photos of them for use if I do decide to sell them. So - here are the pics of a team that I might not own for much longer!

Team photo
Thrower and Catchers
Blitzers
Linewomen
More Linewomen

* edit *

These Amazons sold for just under £75 in the end which I was very happy with! It's meant I can order a replacement full 16-player Amazon team with cash to spare.

The whistle blower...

2008-05-20T23:48:00.006+01:00

I found myself at a loose end tonight and was looking for something to paint. After poking around in my "to paint" pile, I found this Blood Bowl human referee. Three hours later, he's looking like this...

He's of no actual use when playing Blood Bowl - he's just for a bit of fun! If you're wondering what he's hiding behind his back, look below and see how he keeps the players in line...

Project completed!

2008-05-18T23:32:00.011+01:00

After all the fun and games last weekend at the Blood Bowl GT, this weekend it was time to knuckle down to try to finish the last of the models for my Middenheimer warband. Here's three marksmen with crossbows and three warriors with hammers.

The last thing to do was to find where I'd stored the female Middenheimer, repaint her base to match the rest of the models and take a picture of the entire warband. Here it is!

Blood Bowl GT

2008-05-11T23:52:00.004+01:00

Well - that was a busy gaming weekend. Six games of Blood Bowl over two days is hard work!

The first day went really well for the Crammers - a lucky draw against an Orc team, an amazing win against a Skaven team and a hard-fought draw on the third against an Amazon team.

Day two was oh-so different! A feeble 2-0 loss against a Norse team, another feeble loss against another Amazon team and a tough 2-1 loss against a Human team. Ah well. They're only halflings, after all! I finished 149th although I'm not sure how many teams took part.

I did enjoy using the team though - and my line up of two rookie treemen, nine halflings, Deeproot Strongbranch, Puggy Baconbreath and the induced Master Halfling Chef was a tougher prospect that they seemed on paper. Puggy was my player of the weekend - he caused a lot of casualties on opposing players. I'm seriously tempted to use this team in the club league next year although probably with a different lineup.

Bluebay Crammers - Blood Bowl Halflings

2008-05-03T12:40:00.006+01:00

I think Blood Bowl is probably my favourite GW game. I love the inherent silliness of it and I like the team development aspect. This is why I've been running a Blood Bowl league at my club for the last couple of years; something that has sparked a lot of other club members to appreciate the game.

Next weekend, I'm heading off to my first ever Blood Bowl Grand Tournament at Warhammer World in Nottingham - GW HQ. There are lots of tournaments around the world but, for Blood Bowl, this is the biggie in terms of importance. As there are so many coaches attending from all over the world, there was no chance I'd manage to win it as I'm a competent gamer but I'm not brilliant at it the way a lot of the top coaches are. So, I decided to register my Halfling team so I can just play for fun and enjoy the weekend.

The Halfling team was painted for me by my friend Tom Farrow. Tom is one of those guys who paints extremely well with little obvious effort - he's just naturally talented. This is the second team he's painted for me now and he's done a fantastic job on them.

Puggy Baconbreath - star playerDeeproot Strongbranch - star playerTreemenHalflingsMore HalflingsYet more HalflingsEven more HalflingsHow many halflings?Ahh... more Halflings!CoachesScore markerHalfling Master Chef

Last comment here - I just had some halfling dice made! They have Puggy instead of a six :)

More Middenheimers

2008-04-27T22:30:00.005+01:00

This has been the first free day I've had to be able to get some painting done and, as I promised myself I'd get a project finished before moving on to the next, I returned to painting the Middenheimer models for my Mordheim warband. This time, I've completed some of the marksmen - three bowmen and a blunderbuss.

Blunderbusses are an expensive weapon in the game and are a one-shot wonder, but the potential damage they can do really can swing a game if you fire one at the right time. Even if you don't get to fire it, just having one in your warband can help force your opponent to change his tactics as they will not want to get on the business end of one of these guns!

I've already made a small start on the next three models for the warband; this time it's the turn of more marksmen although these are armed with crossbows. Hopefully I can get some more work done on them over the next week or two. Until then, here's the models I painted today...

Salute 2008

2008-04-20T11:03:00.003+01:00

I went to Salute 2008 yesterday along with a bunch of guys from the Chelmsford Bunker. I've been once before back a couple of years ago and it was just as good as before, if not better. The main benefit of a show like Salute is you get to meet all the manufacturers that make the hobbyists purchase and you can see what new stuff they've brought out and previewed on the day.

My main intention this year was to get some more models for Legends of the High Seas, especially Hired Hands - so Black Cat Bases were first on the list as they made most of the models specifically for use with the High Seas. I also wanted to get some of their Tribal Islander models for use as NPC's. In the end, I bought all the Hired Hands and Islanders I wanted as well as some of their Navy crew - they sell a pack containing three marines and a captain along with a resin longboat for only £12. That's something they don't have on their website so I couldn't say no to that! As I'd spent over £30 on pirate models, they threw in a small model carry case as well!

After that, I headed over to Black Scorpion who make some lovely pirate models and who'd just got some new models out for the day. I bought a set of their Navy models to give me some diversity and also one of their new weapon sprue packs so I can convert some models to hold whatever weapons I need them too. I also bought some of their fantastic female pirate range for my friend Phil - I'm sure he'll be happy with them. If I'd had any of my own cash left, I'd have bought some myself!

Setting sail on the seven seas...

2008-04-13T21:24:00.005+01:00

Hobbycraft really is a great store. I visited the branch in Basildon today and picked up lots of bits that I needed to get some of my pirate ships ready for action for the new Legends of the High Seas campaign at my club.

Mike White (club president and all-round nutty hobbyist) recently bought a load of cheap toy pirate ships and brought them to the club for us to buy off him. I bought a £3 ship off him that although a little small in scale compared to the 28mm models we use, is not that different to stop me using it in the game. Here's a pic of it in the box...

As you can see, although the basic shape was okay, it needed some work. First thing I did was to remove all the masts, sails and rigging - all those bits would get in the way when playing with models based on 25mm bases. I also trimmed the gun barrels away from the sides of the ship and cut away the wheels underneath it.

Thanks to the bits I bought from Hobbycraft, I could then set to work. I covered all the gun ports with bits of balsa and replaced the masts with wooden dowels. I also filled in the holes on one side of the ship that were there to allow the two halves of the ship to be screwed together. The last thing I did was to glue the crow's nest to the top of the centre mast. This is how she looks now:

All I need to do to it now is spray it with a black undercoat and get it painted ready for the 30th when the campaign starts!

Pirates and gangsters

2008-04-07T23:01:00.005+01:00

I got a parcel from North Star Figures today - my order for the full range of Crusader Pirates arrived. I managed to get in on the special deal that Nick had given for orders placed before the 1st April - all seven blisters of models for just £28 which worked out £7 off. There's a wide mix of models, all of which are perfect for Legends of the High Seas and most of these minis are shown in the book itself.

Along with the North Star parcel, I also received a package from play.com - they were running yet another sale and I managed to pick up a 2-disc dvd of "Gangs of New York" for just £4. It's a great film and I like listening to the commentarys from the directors and actors as it gives you a lot more understanding about the film and how it was made. One thing I did discover after I first saw the film was that Brigade Games make models that tie in with it, even having minis to represent Bill the Butcher and Priest Vallon. Check their range of Victorian Age Gangsters. I doubt I'll ever get around to buying the models myself - and if I did, I doubt even more that I'd ever get around to painting and gaming with them. They're cracking models though so you never know...

Averlanders

2008-04-04T14:45:00.001+01:00

I had intended to finish painting my Middenheimer warband before starting to build anything else but I don't always have the opportunity to paint. My painting area is a GW paint station that I move onto the kitchen table - so when I'm in the mood to do something hobby related but it's not convenient to set up the paint station, I tend to build models. That's how I came about to start doing a little work on a new warband that I've wanted to collect for ages - some Averlanders.

Averlanders have some nice skills and are a nice twist on the standard Reiklander warband. GW used to sell some nice Averlander models for Mordheim but those are very hard to get hold of now so it was necessary for me to find suitable alternatives. Averland of Mordheim times was supposed to be a rich province which is why their soldiers wore such flamboyant uniforms; it meant that I needed some models with fancy clothing and some really big hats!

Thankfully, the latest range in Empire plastic models suit the bill admirably. The Empire General is perfect to use as an Averlander Captain whilst the State Troops and Handgunners make superb models for heroes and henchmen alike - so I bought a box of all three. Bergjaegers are rangers so flashy uniforms wouldn't be apt for those - but I have enough Empire Militia models spare to use for those (perhaps with a feather or two in their hats...). The thing that I was missing were suitable models for the Halfling Scouts. GW's current range of halfling models is pretty much limited to the Lumpin Croop range of Dogs of War - and I didn't think they looked the part. Then I remembered that some of the very old GW halfling models had large hats; a quick scour though Ebay found me the models I needed.

So, as I was at a loose end, I started building some of the Averlanders. Using the Empire General and State Troops boxes, I constructed the Captain armed with a sword a duelling pistol, Sergeant with a double-handed sword, Youngblood armed with a spear and a couple of Mountainguard armed just with swords. When I find myself at another loose end, I'll crack on with building the rest of the warband...

First post

2008-04-02T10:36:00.010+01:00

I thought I'd start off this new blog with some pictures of my latest hobby project - some Mordheim Middenheimers. I've been a fan of the game since it came out and although I've got pretty much most of the warbands, up until now I've only had two of them painted; and neither of those are what are classed as "official" (Pit Fighters and Outlaws of Stirland Forest if you want to know!). I recently rediscovered where I'd put these models and decided to finally get them painted.

I've got a few other models that I'm still painting for this warband - a few Marksmen and some Warriors. I'll post pics of them once they're completed.

Captain

Champion

Youngblood

Swordsmen