Happy name day, Blog!

Happy Second Birthday to Wargaming with Barks! It's been another fun year in the hobby, and I'm celebrating with you with wine, women, and song*. We're all here carousing and reminiscing about the stuff I've got done in the last twelvemonth. I think my favourite little thing was the Zulu project.

Here's a taste of some other things I got done:

15mm Russian counter-terror team

15mm African militia

Get to da choppa!

Blood Bowl Vampire team

River experiment

Larger than Lief

Hobbitses!

I painted more Lord of the Rings than I had anticipated, and less Saga. I made it to four Blood Bowl tournaments. After Blood Bowl (21 games), the most gaming I had was with a pleasantly engaging and thematic cardgame, Netrunner. I played quite a variety of other new (to me) games this year, all boardgames. I finally got to try Twilight Struggle. I've gone in for a few crowd-funded doodads, including a Jane Austen card game. Yes.

It has been a good year. Thanks for your comments and advice, it really helps. I never really see myself as a numbers-chaser, but I casually note in passing that I'm approaching 100 followers, am well over 100 posts, and have gone through the 45K hits mark.

As my birthday gift to you, I'm going to try and tweak the settings to remove the wretched Captcha gizmo, so that comments flow more freely. If I'm getting spammed, then I'll sadly reconsider.

Unfortunately, however, I'm going to be decreasing the frequency of my posts for a while because of external forces. Bitter, sinister, external forces. I'm not going away, but it will be a little quieter around here for a while. I'll pop around every now and then to dust things off and air the curtains. There is so much to be done...

* individual experiences may vary.

Eureka 15mm Bushmaster preview

I received a sneak preview pic today of the Eureka '300 Club' Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle. The PMV was sculpted by Mike Broadbent. Kosta Heristanidis is working on stowage, a remote turret, and IED jammers, and Alan Marsh is completing the infantry. Woohoo!

Nic at Eureka thinks the range may be ready for general release early 2014. You can place preorders for the Infantry here and the Bushmaster here.

• 300MOD50 Australian with EF88 (8 poses)
• 300MOD51 Australian with EF88 and LAW (2 poses)
• 300MOD52 Australian with EF88 and UGL (2 poses)
• 300MOD53 Australian with F89 Minimi (4 poses)
• 300MOD54 Australian command team, standing – 2 figs
• 300MOD55 Australian command team, kneeling – 2 figs
• 300MOD56 Australian sniper team, with helmets – 2 figs
• 300MOD57 Australian sniper team, bush hats and ghillie suits – 2 figs
• 300MOD58 Australian Carl Gustav team – 2 figs
• 300MOD59 Australian GPMG team, firing – 2 figs
• 300MOD60 Australian GPMG team, patrolling – 2 figs
• 300MOD61 Australian EOD team  – 4 figs, I dog
• 300MOD62 Bushmaster

Suggested pricing: Figures $0.80ea, AT and GPMG teams $3.50ea, dog team $4.50 ea, Bushmaster $15.00 (all $AUD, add 10% for GST).

Blood Bowl Humans- The Nuns

This will be the first in an occasional series going through my Blood Bowl teams in a chronological order, not including those already covered on my blog.

My very first Blood Bowl team was Dwarves. I got beaten a lot because I had no idea how to play.  It wasn’t just that I didn’t own the rules and had to rely on my opponents telling me what I could and couldn’t do, but also I didn’t have a clue about tactics. I didn’t take Blitzers because I couldn’t see the advantage in their (relative) agility, and because they didn’t have Tackle. I’d just line all my guys up on the line of scrimmage in defence. (Now I’m better- and I own a copy of the rules!).

A few years later, and I guess about over ten years ago, I had met a new wargaming opponent, Sangraal. He was teaching me DBA. The concept of units supporting adjacent units in a battle line and pushing opponents back sparked a few memories, and I said to him, “I think you’ll like Blood Bowl.” We then got into it in a big way, he’s run many Australian tournaments, and I haven’t beaten him in yonks (and I don't think we've touched DBA since...).

My first team in my re-finding of Blood Bowl was Shadowforge's nuns. I actually wanted to play the bunnies, but Sangraal got there first, and I’m glad he did because the nuns- The Bad Habits- were awesome. They opened my eyes to the potential of Blood Bowl to be non-GW, with conversions and customised support staff and allow you to really personalise a team. You know I'm having fun when I've got more support staff than players!

The Bad Habits

The linesisters

Sisters Patience and Goodness

Blitzers- Sisters Faith, Hope, Charity, and Salvation

Throwers- Sisters Sweetness and Light. These are some of my all-time favourite sculpts

Catchers- Sisters Chastity, Prudence, Virtue and Temperance. I really like human catchers.

Mother is the centrepiece of the team. She is still one of my favourite conversions, from a Reaper ogre. I went nuts with Milliput, and she always gains attention and compliments. My favourite moment with her was when I pulled off a last-turn highly unlikely play and got the ball from one end to the other and passed it to Mother, who caught it. To score, she needed to Blitz one opponent out of the way- Triple Skulls! I forgave her.

Mother

Before the operation

The Apothecary is the Reaper Angel of Light. I do better white now.

Apothecary

Other support staff from Shadowforge.

The monk is a generically useful figure for many games.

These are from RAFM.  The mad nun is my wizard, and I've had plans to change the lantern to a chainsaw. Someday.

Support staff

The reroll markers are also from Reaper.

Reroll markers

Cheerleaders are from the ever-useful West Wind and Shadowforge.

I love the cheerleader personalities.

I never went to a Catholic school, but it’s a common question I get from people who have seen the team. I also get a lot of questions about whether or not I have a nun fetish- sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t! Some friends got me a wind-up Nunzilla (she shoots sparks as she walks) to be a team mascot.

It's interesting looking back at these figures. I hadn't found my current painting style yet, and these are decidedly clunky, especially in close-up. There are a few chips I should touch-up. Still, I really enjoy the sense of uniqueness and ownership that the conversions and support staff bring to the team.

Glorfindel without Asfaloth

(For Glorfindel with Asfaloth, click here!)

As promised, here's my dismounted Glorfindel, painted for the One Ring October Painting Challenge.

This challenge stipulated you had to try non-metallic metal painting (damn!). I'd never really tried it before, and it's fair to say I haven't got the technique down yet. Probably needed more blues than greys on the sword. I shan't be trying it again in a hurry...

Painstaking research leads me to conclude that this is indeed the same Glorfindel who was in the Silmarillion.

Sci-Fi Superhero and Spirited Sidekick

These Tom Meier sculpts are from Khurasan (look for 'Sci-Fi Superhero and Spirited Sidekick'). Anyway, Allison M. goaded me into getting mine painted- so here they are.

Thoughts while painting:

• I'm really enjoying painting a few things in high-vis orange.
• He's got a crowbar tucked into his belt.
• The finesse of the sculpting is amazing.
• I'm not entirely happy with her skin colour.
• I've left the bases extremely bland, for inside and outside use.

Viking warriors WIP

I still haven't completed any of my SAGA forces. I've knuckled down to get the final two units of my Vikings underway; sixteen unarmoured warriors (Gripping Beast plastics). I gave them axes left over from the Viking Bondi. I uses slottabases rather than the flat discs provided so as to mix with my existing figures (mostly LotR- these could be Ruffians or Dunlendings, after all). I've left the shields off to make painting the figures easier.

I build up the base with plaster, then PVA sand on. Finally, Army Painter Leather Brown spray.

African militia

Moving on from Rorke's Drift in time and scale, but staying in the same continent... Fellow Blogger and Newcastle Legions member StazMatt has been putting up pictures of his 15mm Africa terrain- check it out here! He's inspired me to put up pictures of my 15mm Peter Pig militia I did a year or two ago.

My imagiNation for these guys is Bangalla, a once-prosperous nation near the horn of Africa. Destabilising internal and external influences have thrown this beautiful land into turmoil. This rag-tag militia is typical of the undisciplined warbands that roam the land, terrorising the civilians. They wear a mix of civilian clothes and jungle greens, and are equipped with old Soviet bloc kit.

Bonus points if you know where I stole the idea of Bangalla from.

First up, my leaders. The kneeling ones could be weapons crew as well. The leader in black isn't Peter Pig, but is from Blaze Away. See another pic of him here.

Militia leaders

RPGs and RPKs. There are eight of each per pack- four of my RPKs were recruited for Taliban conversions- more on that at some future point.

RPGs

RPKs

Naked fanatics. Just because.

"This is my weapon, this is my gun..."

The rest of the AK boys.

Everyone together! You can see here how the RPGs and RPKs have colourful grass tufts on their bases to help distinguish them. The leaders don't, they have more pronounced poses.

I'd like to get a few crew served weapons for this mob, and especially to make some weapons to go on the backs of the vehicles. The shanties were trial builds. I like them, but maybe they need more colour? I plan to build a tabletop-full eventually. The tyres are HO/OO railway scenery from some backyard industry in Hobart.

I've got a soft spot for those tragic pictures of bizarre African militias, offset by despair at images of child soldiers.

The film Johnny Mad Dog