Gifts

Here are the two figures from Crooked Dice that I have painted for Relfie and Kev I mentioned 2 days ago. I have really struggled to get a decent picture of them, and this was the best I could do. It's not that bad, but you can hardly make out the skin colour changes on the fembot. I decided on a "Black" fembot just for variety and because the blue really pops next to the brown. Not getting into colour theory but as they are opposites on the colour wheel I always new it would.  You can just make out the lipstick and the white stripe on the boots which I think gives it a very 60's gogo dancer feel. I had to shoot it against the yellow background as the scientists coat bled into a white background. I gave the scientist grey shoes, and brown trousers as it reminded my of the Open University programmes you used to get on in the telly in the middle of the night. The shirt and tie was obviously something he saw a younger college wearing and thought "Wow that's style".  Still as figures they don't look to bad, and I am sure the two guys will appreciate them. I have a secret (no longer) fembot that I am working on for myself, same pose. I'll try to get a shot of them both together before I pass this one on to Kev. Not sure what colour to paint her clothing, but will try lilac and see where that takes me.

BROADSIDE NEWS: My work at Cavalier has already paid off as another club sent their form back yesterday. Southend wargamers will be putting on a SAGA game for us. The Rejects also handed their form in at the show as well, straight to Alan the main organiser so no idea what they'll be doing but I know they are booked in now. A couple of extra traders also got back to us with forms as well.

Additionally the DBA tournament  will be taking place there (I have nothing to do with that this year) but am lead to believe it's filling up with players and all going smoothly.

Lastly for BROADSIDE 2012, We have the first booking for the flea market. Being a small club there is just not enough of us to man a bring and buy. Also I am aware that there was a number of thefts from the bring and buy at Cavalier this year, not on the scale of the London Riots of course. I am told quite a lot of osprey books were purloined among other things. Theft of any type is of course disgraceful but I am pleased to say seems to be minimal among our hobby, and this appears to be the exception and not the rule.

Anyway back to the flea market. At BROADSIDE we plan to have a flea market where the seller who mans the stall will sell their own items and thus be responsible for any loss or damage. As a new show we don't know how well this will work, if at all. To me this is best suited to clubs as opposed to individuals if only because they should have more "stock".

Back to the paint table: My plan is to finish a few things off  today and Saturday ready for painting the MJ figures (Taliban) I purchased at Cavalier. As these will be for my Club game at BROADSIDE I really need to get a wriggle on as we are 3 months away. using Force on Force and being 20mm scale I don't think I'll need masses to cover everything I want to do. 20mm don't take too long to paint so the main focus need to be the scenery. To-wit I have settled on 2 foot square boards, 4 in number. I plan to make them modular so club games can get a variety of uses out of them, although there will be one setup for the show. We don't want to be changing things half way through the day. I plan for the boards to be a mixture of village and fields in some isolated area. The obvious advantage of taking an isolated village is that the architecture should not have greatly changes for hundreds of years so the boards could be used for other settings, still time will tell and talking is not doing so I shall leave that there for now. I have checked in the shed and have enough raw materials for this so nail hits Wood tomorrow.

Bit longer post than I thought it would be. I'll post again Sunday. Cheers Guys!

Post Script: Thank Goodness for spell checker!

Zombie Tank

Only managed to "Finish" 1 figure off since Cavalier. However I am not totally unhappy with it. I have placed it next to a couple of wargames factory zombies to show the difference in size. I included the biker girl so you'd not forget that I paint all my zombies in monotone. The figure is from Ironclad miniatures www.ironcladminiatures.co.uk Victorian science fiction range, "Mr Hyde" and currently retails for £3. The Molding and casting was quite clean and I would be interested in getting some more from the range. They don't seem to make anything else I could use as a "Tank Zombie" but the armed British police and Thugs could work for a few games. Although I can't see I will need too many "Tanks" for Zombie games I wish they did another version of Mr Hyde as well, just for variety. The fact that he is sculpted in torn clothing was is an obvious advantage. Overall I think he'll fit very nicely and help to round out the "Left 4 Dead" special character types. Thinking back mongoose do a Fattie with a belly wheel in their Judge Dredd ranges whom might become a "Bloater" in later months.

Other painting : I have nearly finished the Crooked dice Fembot for Kev. I have got to say I really like it it was a joy to paint and I only have the base to finish so I can show that next time. I have started the scientist for Relfie, but only in very base colour at the moment. I know these two figures will at some point be used against me and I imagine some reluctance in targeting them on the table top but I'm not too soft to care about it enough to pick a less appropriate target.

I have 4 more stands of 15mm US WW2 Infantry for the PBI game on the way as well. So these figures will be the next out of the paint cue.

Game Projects: I have had a setback with the Cutlass scenery to the extent where I can't see it being finished to the standard I want in the time I want. It is therefore going on the back burner for the time being. I have bought no figures for it yet so the outlay has not been too big and I think it's best to quit at this stage and move on to other game ideas for the Broadside show game for Rainham club.

I did contact Ambush Alley Games about getting one of their "Pointmen" to put on a game for the show. Got a great reply from Ambush Alley Games, but nothing from their contacts this side of the water. Therefore, and knowing some of the club have gotten rules already and to some extent have read and played them, I see this as being the new way forward for the show game. I know I may sound fickle, but I can't see the point of fighting against the scenery problems for a Cutlass game, it was just becoming hard work. Force on Force in 15mm can be played on a  foot square area. Therefore a well made and painted 4 foot square area should be the way to go for a 20mm scale game. I'll start to work on this BEFORE the weekend. At the moment trying to decide if I should make it on 4 boards or just 2.

Anyway talk soon, cheers Clint

Cavalier 2012

I did manage to get to the Tonnbridge show Cavalier yesterday (Sunday 26th Febuary). Sorry no pics of the actual show as I had a camera issue on the day. The issue being I left it at home opps! Since Broadside last year I have a very different attitude to shows. They used to be supermarket sweep type affairs and I would look round all wide eyed and mouth open taking in every detail like a junkie searching for a fix. However now it's somewhat different in my mind at least. I have a purpose and not just to get as much lead in as short a possible time as I was capable of. For this show my task was to talk to the various clubs there and encourage them to come to Broadside either as members of the paying public OR to host a game either demonstration or participation. Firstly let me say I did manage to speak to all the clubs putting on games with the exception of two. By talk to I don't just mean an aimless chat with a random member, although there's nothing wrong with that, but a serious and focused chat aboutr the game possibilities with either thier chairman or their club secretary or whom-so-ever I need to twist the arms of. (Pleasently for all no arm twisting resulted from the day). Genuinly got some positive feedback and suspect we should have another four clubs putting on games for us.

Clubs putting on games serves 2 functions at a show, firstly they supply eye candy and such but they also being wargamers themselves inevitably end up being at the show all day end up putting thier hand in thier pocket with one or more traders. This may sound a little mercanry but it is a symbiotic relationship, as the chances are they or some of thier club would be comming to the show anyway and this way they at least get in free and get a day doing what they want.

Other than the entrance fee I was about £45 down before I actually bought anything as one of my friends failed to turn up with enough cash. SO Bank of Clint lent him some and I got a cheque in return, which he promptly spent at the Crooked dice stall. Although I had not bought anything at this stage Tim from Frontline did give me a bag of goodies. (Top centre of the pic) He has made some quite nice resin modern dead figures, the laying down on the ground type and not the walking about type.) I'll start to paint a few later this week so you should get a better idea then. I am not sure if they are on his web site yet or even his FB page.  (http://www.frontlinewargaming.co.uk/)
I also bought from him some market stalls for the planned 3 musketeer game. Again I shall sling paint at those as well in the next week or two. So that ticks the scenery bought box.

The book the revenge of the 47 Ronin is indeed an osprey publication and although I knew I wanted a book it was an impulse buy. Another tick from Saturdays list. Also another tick is the single pack of peter pig BAR US infantry. Unfortunatly he does not carry Wild west range to shows unless asked to in advance. However the nice bloke serving has taken my contact details and has promised to send a couple of samples which I thought was fantastic and I am really looking forward to them now. I did get a KR figure case (not shown) and speaking to the guy he has a good source for printed carrier bags which may work for our June show, time will tell where we are with costs and practicality closer to the time. So that's another tick. I did get a CROSS from Wargames Emporium, when I wanted to see some Hydra miniatures though as they had sold pretty much everything the shop had the day before the show. They did have the rules which I had a quick flick through but am not sure about yet. I would need to sit down and read them before I commited myself. The guy were really nice to talk to and have prommised to bring Hydra figures to our show when they come and offered me a discout as show host should I pre-order them, again which is all good as far as I am concerned.

I also got some CROOKED DICE stuff, the summer special and a couple of figures. So that counts as the rules purchase. So I did very well fulfilling the majority of the wish list. Which has made me very happy. Now on to the IMPULSE buys.

I always have impulse buys at shows, but this time I mostly got useful stuff. I picked up two packs of Ironclad miniatures. I Bought the MR HYDE figure for the sole purpose of painting up as a Zombie character, being larger than your average zombie and quite muscly I hope he'll make a decent repersentation of a TANK. I also on a whim bought two figures who reminded me of sand people from star wars. These are the only 2 things I can't see myself using in the near future.

The real isnpirational purchase for me was the packs of Taliban (20mm) from MJ figures. They are well animated well proportioned and well cast I shall enjoy painting them. I nearly bought som of his other ranges as well, but was determined not to have the lead mountain grow too much more.

Overall it was a good day out, I did feel that numbers were down on last year as it did not seem too crowded. The games were nice the traders varied and I would look forward to going next year.

I'll post again Wednesday, talk soon cheers Clint.