Tuesday 28 October 2014

Orctober Fest: Sporting Snots!


Erny's Place launched the second year of 'Orctober Fest' at the start of the month - a month-long celebration of all things orcish (or orkish). As Orctober is drawing the a close, I thought I'd share my own greenskin output; 12 of Kev Adams' finest Blood Bowl Snotlings:

Grrrrr!
 

Wednesday 15 October 2014

Very Old School - Playing With Real Toy Soldiers

I visited my good friend Graham yesterday for a day of hobby fun in his excellent games room. After a cup of tea Graham announced that he would like to try something different from our default (Citadel miniatures and Games Workshop games).

Graham is a collector of Elastolin toy soldiers - roughly 40mm plastic figures, produced in Germany from the 1960s through to the 1980s (so Graham tells me - forgive me if I'm wrong). A stack of likely looking figures was assembled on the tabletop, with some retinue sheets for us to play a game using Osprey's Lion Rampant rules - we would both be novices as I had never played Lion Rampant before, and Graham had just a single game under his belt.

 
I would be fielding a largely Saxon force led by Prince Valiant, with some allied Vikings, while Graham's force consisted of Caesar's Roman Legionaries with some skirmishing auxiliaries.
 
Prince Valiant (note, this isn't Graham's figure, just an almost identical image I grabbed from the net)
A quick note on the Osprey rules; the game works on unit activation; you roll to see whether a unit can move, shoot, charge into combat or whatever. If at any point you fail with a unit, your turn immediately ends. This is a great game mechanic for adding uncertainty and risk management into the game. It also neatly represents battlefield confusion or hesitation.

The Roman Legion had marched on the Saxon village of Dudden Leah. Prince Valiant, alerted to the danger, called his kinsfolk to arms. Asvald of the Vikings, friend of Valiant, also promised a ship's company of swords...

The battle lines are drawn, with the Romans on the left and the Saxons on the right
 

Tuesday 7 October 2014

Brattish Behaviour - Painting the Giveaway Brat

In celebration of hitting my blog anniversary last month, you may remember I ran a bit of a competition to build and paint a Brat Ganger to the design of one lucky winner. Lasgunpacker was that lucky winner. His design brief for the figure was:

Lasgunpacker wrote: "As for the Brat... I think left hand chain sword right hand carrying a bag of some sort.

Colors: dark brown leather for the vest and boots, lighter leather colors for the other webbing and holster, pants and arms alternating checked harlequin colors, hair to suit your tastes."

I converted a chainsaw-wielding, bag-carrying Brat a week or two ago, and last night painted him up:

Wednesday 1 October 2014

Onald Thern, Space Pirate

Moustaches are very much de rigueur among the Space Pirate fraternity and Onald Thern is no exception: