The spoils of war (or rather eBay)

With my first lot of eBayed miniatures sold and sent out; shockingly my thoughts turned to new, shiny toys. After paying some bills and treating my wife (she never asks for anything so the chance to buy her something she wanted was too good to miss. Suffice to say her hair  is now very straight!) I started doing some mental online shopping. The original plan was to buy a heap of KR Multicases to stash all my miniatures in. In the end I bought 3 cases so I could see what the trays were like and then buy more in the future. Also Peter Pig was having a sale due to the sad loss of colours this year (one of the best shows IMHO). So now I have all my British infantry (possibly more than I need if that's possible) waiting patiently in my hobby queue (we are good at queuing after all).

I also picked up a few things from 4Ground. I purchased the lovely Hotel complex, The Cafe Gondree and the cobblestone road kit. so far I've made the cafe and, if the rain holds off, I'm going to play with the cobblestone kit after this.

The Cafe Gondree in all it's splendour, the detailing is fantastic but only time will tell concerning it's durability.

It's a lovely kit with a lot of detail. It was easy to assemble and is going to look great with the rest of my buildings. One thing to note though is that the detail came at a price for me. Small, delicate brick corners whilst looking great, delaminated easily and that has left some patches to repair. They are hardly noticeable and certainly won't take away from my enjoyment of it on the table. I should probably take some of the blame as I wasn't particularly well whilst building it and was quite shaky (thus why I didn't tackle the hotel straight away). I've now spray varnished it in the hope that it will increase it's lifespan somewhat.

The shutters are a nice touch and I've propped some slightly away from the wall using excess from the sprue.

Not the most exciting view but it does mean that with no windows on one side any troops occupying it will have a rather large blind-spot for the enemy to approach in. Also if you look closely you can see the de-laminating of the brick pieces at the corners.

Like all $Ground stuff the roof and upper storey is removable. The roofing is more delicate than previous buildings and this may have an effect on it's durability. But for £20 you can't complain.

As well as making the cafe I've also based a few more german options for CoC, hacked up some Space Wolves and made a character for my WHFB 3rd ed. Goblin force.

WH40K is currently leaving me cold. I admit that I haven't played 7th but what I read of the codices didn't inspire me to take the quite considerable financial plunge. For 5th and 6th I had my Squats as Guard and Grey Knight Henchmen and some Space Wolves too. I really liked the previous space wolf codex as the sagas allowed you to make your own characters effectively, now all the bits I liked are gone and I'm just not motivated to do anything with the models I have left.

I stupidly sold all my carefully customised wolves to a friend of a friend, who assured me he'd pay me when his wages cleared. Sadly he didn't and I was left without models or cash. Luckily my friend managed to do some damage limitation and return my scouts, wolf priest and a terminator lone wolf. I was still missing ten termies and some grey hunters. After repairing the damage to them (how did he break them?) and reading the new codex I realised I wouldn't be playing 40K anytime soon and certainly not as the wolves. So they are being re-invented as a gang for confrontation, I see them as bounty hunters or some kind of wilderness guides.

As for the Guard codex I'm upset by the loss of artillery options (I know I can spend more and buy the relevant IA book but it's just more expenses) but it's still my best bet to field my Squats so I'll probably end up purchasing it. The division of the Grey Knights into them and Inquisitorial troops also means that my lovely Squat dreadnought will probably never see the table (as I'd have to buy it a separate codex and more models if I want them to have Objective Secured). At the moment CoC and BA are just more fun.

The vulture is from the Ogre Stonehorn kit, the horse it's stood on a dwarven pony from warmaster,  everything else is pro-create with a wire bow and arrow.

For WHFB I took the vulture from the leftovers of an ogre stonehorn commission and built a saddle and Goblin character out of Pro-create. I've got to re-familiarise myself with 3rd and work out what he can represent. The little green chap was done (or at least attempted) to match in with the Mongol styled Warmaster goblin wolf riders.

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I carefully painted the horse as a grey and then totally hid it with the vulture. not my best bit of forward planning.

That's all for now, thank you for taking the time,
BALM

Too many ideas...

Ok, so the first few posts of any blog aren't often the best. Over the next week I hope to get some pictures up of one of my first projects and get some helpful comments and feedback from the blogosphere and its occupants. Until then this blog feels aimless; so in an attempt to put something vaguely useful I've decided to post some links, with a few words of comment, about favourite sites I visit or loiter at. (Interspersed will be any more pics of past stuff I've found).

My WHFB 3rd ed. homemade giant: using a catachans face and arms, skaven legs, miscellaneous bits and a good lump of green stuff and procreate.

Concept minis for my WHFB Half Scale project. I just picked a range of different models, based and painted them to get an idea of how they'd look. I was happy.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd ed.

First up is Realm of Chaos 80's blog. This is an excellent blog following, in general one persons re-immersion into the true spirit of warhammer: Orlygg. Orlygg's approach and reminiscences about the Oldhammer gaming experience (using older rules editions of WHFB, mainly 3rd, to play the game as it was initially envisioned) are insightful and he deftly provides some interesting articles about the early GW artists and sculptors, background and thoughts behind what I loved so much as a child and ultimately became a goliath of the gaming world. It's a characterful read and will put you into contact with one of the key people in the UK oldhammer scene.

Elven Champion on steed. Needs a final detail.

Shield emblem and horses bum.

If you're interested in Oldhammer then check out the Realm of Zhu another key blog which includes the Oldhammer contract: a document detailing the spirit and intention of oldhammer gaming. A brilliant resource for all things oldhammer is the Oldhammer Forum. Through this you can get in touch with the movers and shakers of the oldhammer revival scene (and some truly excellent artists).

My finished giant with dragon skull, horse barding and small hogtied pig on rear. All started because I had some spare putty and bits in front of me. One evening later... seems very shiny but has since been dullcoated.

I'm not likely to play alot of Warhammer Fantasy Battle in 28mm. Even with 3rd being comprised of smaller forces with a more maneuverable, skirmish feel. I do a variety of fantasy stuff - mainly lovely old school dwarves but these will probably be based for Advanced Heroquest. The bulk of my 3rd WHFB battles will be played in half scale using 10mm individually based warmaster miniatures and a few lovely additions by Copplestone Castings.

Orc Boar Boy - Individually based and sadly now OOP GW Warmaster model. 

The oldhammer chaps organise a tournament day (it's not a tournament though as the games don't really play that way) at the headquarters of the excellent Foundry Miniatures in Nottingham. Whilst I was unable to attend the first event, I have every intention of cobbling together something interesting and trying to get up for the next on the 9th and 10th of August this year.

Really nice Copplestone wizard in familiar garb.

Warhammer 40k

Whilst my comments above will lead you to some excellent old school Rogue Trader painting and gaming not everyone is stuck in a time vortex like me. I have tried 5th edition and found it ok, I was put off by the amount I'd have to spend, some of the gamey players/features and to be honest the daunting amount of work to get my squats to a useable state. I've got 6th and simply wait to see how GW present the new Imperial Guard (sorry Astra Militarium accordingly) codex. If I can make a playable force that has charm and character then it may be the boost needed to motivate me back into 40k gaming.

Some (very few) of my expansive heavily converted squat 40k force.

Until then I regularly stare at Bell of Lost Souls (not the forum, just the articles/comments). Be warned this site feels very commercial, and is primarily patrolled by some zealous american tourney players (they're not all like that just be aware) and can be very WAAC (Win at all cost) and off-putting. This doesn't mean it doesn't have some useful articles; just that they need to be sifted and sieved mentally to remove the sometimes exacerbating bias of some the writers. If nothing else I always check it out on a friday for the invaluable Outside the Box articles by Table Top Fix covering a great range of recent releases for a variety of systems.

Storm Raven gunship converted for the vertically impaired.

Other things

Just to finish off a quick run down of some other worthwhile sites:

The Miniatures Page is a great resource of news and forums covering all niches of gaming and is well worth a look.

Board Game Geek is an excellent site covering games of all types but predominantly board based action. I've used this to research whether games are worth getting, get reasonable valuations as guides for eBay purchases and buy things. Full of lots of helpful and informed gamers.

Warlord Games forums are a brilliant resource for all their games but my particular interest is in Bolt Action. I'll be playing in 15mm and expect my first proper posts to concern this. 

Battlefront miniatures is the Flames of War publishers website and even if you ignore the option to purchase here, as cheaper vendors are available, the site holds a wealth of knowledge about each miniature and gives newcomers a good insight into WW2.

Peter Pigs miniatures is the UK 15mm miniature company I'm predominantly using for my Bolt Action forces and Martin's site is well worth a visit. 

It should be noted that I'm not affiliated with any of these sites and all opinions are simply my own, and thus dubious. Thanks for reading and hopefully I'll put up a post with some progress in a couple of days.

Thanks

BALM