Dark Elves at the NAF Championship 2014

The weekend just gone (17/18 May) was a beautifully sunny one. Perfect for picnics, days out and paddling pools. That's what my wife did with our kids anyway. I spent the weekend indoors rolling dice and pushing little men around a green board! That's right - actual real life gaming - a whole weekend of it!

Last year I started building a Dark Elf Blood Bowl team with the intention of going to the NAF Championship 2014; pretty much the largest Blood Bowl tournament in the world. In January I managed to persuade my mate Dan to come along with a team, so we duly bought tickets and then I broke the news to my wife.

Come the day of the weekend of the tournament, I had put the finishing touches to my team and the display base, and was ready to go. Here's what my finished team looked like:

Biker Brat WIP & Liebster Questions

I am waiting for a few extra bits so I can do some more work on my Brat hot-rod streetcar. Not wanting to waste the opportunity of a few hours modelling last night, I decided to start on an accompanying vehicle - this time with two wheels.

Here's what I've been working on:

 

Blood Bowl and the Art of Graphology

If you've read some of my previous blog posts, you will know that I have a bit of a soft spot for signed GW memorabilia. Not the everyday commonplace rulebooks or latest codex that got signed 5 minutes ago, but the old stuff (when everything was better*).

*Disclaimer: it may not have been better, I just remember it as being so.

What follows is one of life's little lessons - make sure you inspect the merchandise. The object in question is a classic 1986 boxed set of GW's game of fantasy football; Blood Bowl. This one in fact:

A classic cover for a classic game

I very much like Blood Bowl, although in reality, I've only ever played one game of 1st edition. And what would make me buy a second, slightly more battered copy of a game I already own?

This:

That's right, signed by the Blood Bowl creator himself, Jervis Johnson

 

Pimp My Ride (WIP)

I've been watching the work of whiskey priest and cheetor with much interest over the last few weeks. Not only are they putting together some bands of space pirates for some RT gaming at the Oldhammer Day in August, but they are also producing some lovely shuttlecraft.

For a little while now I've wanted to make some sort of vehicle for my Brat gang. Every self-respecting Brat wants some sort of ride, and I figured the most suitable form of transport was some sort of pimped up streetcar.

Like this.

 

Tutorial - Simple Display Bases

It's a known truth in the hierarchy of miniatures that a painted miniature trumps an unpainted one. A nicely based miniature is better than a painted green slottabase. And miniatures ALWAYS look better in decent scenery or a diorama*
*true fact

Don't believe me? Check out Eldar v Squats from p180 of the Rogue Trader rulebook.

Three Cultists or Other Peoples' Painted Models

I know there's a wide range of opinion regarding painted models. Some people purely want to game in the most efficient way possible, so basic painting or even commission painting is the way forward. Personally, I want to look at models in my collection that are mine; I built them, I painted them, I play with them. Every so often though, I come across a model that just begs me to buy it. Last year, it was a small selection of figures painted by John Blanche; the other week it was some figures by Andy Ritson offered for sale on the Oldhammer forums.

I can't claim to know that much about Andy other than what MarkH wrote in the trade thread:

Back in the day (the early to mid 80s) visitors to GW Sheffield would have seen some rather nice models painted by a chap named Andy Ritson. Andy used tube acrylics and was back then on the cutting edge of the art. Those of you who have seen the 'Mad Max' display game in recent years and in the 80s will have seen the talent of this gentleman.

Sadly, I have no idea which Mad Max display game MarkH is referring to, and I've never been to GW Sheffield, early to mid 80s or otherwise. That said, I was immediately taken by these three lovely figures:

Brattish Behaviour: The Sutter Dukes & The Magpie Dandy

I think I may have mentioned before that I have a short attention span...my cases and boxes are filled with the debris and half-completed models from discarded projects, At the start of 2014 I set out some ambitions for the year, one of which was to complete my Brat gang so I had a small warband of 10-12 models to use in pick up games of RT, Confrontation, Necromunda or similar.

Some of the Brat figures destined for inclusion in the gang