The Life and Times of a Wargames Butterfly

I’ve said before that my best mate Bill is a hugely talented sculptor, a brilliant painter and an all round nice guy, so because of this I believe he has a hidden secret something dark and sinister

Well I think I’ve worked it out, I believe that Bill is *pause for effect”

“The Antichrist”

Ok this may seem to be a little farfetched but let’s look at the signs and examine the evidence

There are meant to be 7 signs that will announce the coming of antichrist and they are

1- The many “false prophets” that will deceive many

2- “Wars and rumours of wars”

3- “Famines”

4- “Earthquakes”

5- “Persecutions and tortures to the elect”

6- “Many will fall away… lawlessness… the love of many will grow cold”

7- “This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed to the whole world”

I think all of them are happening now or may have happened or are about to happen, even the ones I don’t understand

But then let’s look at the physical evidence, it is said that the antichrist will be a handsome man and will be marked with the number of the beast and that number is 666. Well Bill may not be a David Beckham look alike, but he pulled Hazel and she is well out of his league also I haven’t actually seen any weird birthmark on him, but I know he likes Iron Maiden so he must have a copy of the 1982 album “The Number of the Beast” and even if he doesn’t well I bet he’s heard bits of it.

So you see it all makes sense, at first I didn’t believe it, then strange things started to happen to me.

Recently he has started whispering in my ears and he makes me do things, bad things, things that I don’t want to do, but I do them because he tells me I should.

For example:-

1) The Vraks Campaign, he made join him in the fool hardy task of buying a Forgeworld army, he knows this will put me debt, I may have to sell my house and put my wife on the streets, but I have done it because he told me too.

2) The Great Northern War, he has made me buy his figures and do this period. Ok when I say buy, well I get a really good discount and the figures are lovely. ok ok he didn’t actually tell me I should do the army it was my idea, but it was only after I spent all day selling them at salute and I was really tempted to do them. Oh that’s it he tempted me, see it’s all coming together now

And now we have my last temptation, and I think if I give into it that I’ll be damned forever, that I’ll become his servant.

The last temptation is to do the Great War in 28mm!!!!

Oh yes he is a sly one, after the horrors of this week I mentioned about having a game on the weekend and he suggested we do something different. So on Sunday we are going to meet up with Darren from Gripping Beast to play a WWI game using the new Great War rules by Warhammer Historical

In other words, we are going to the lair of the “Beasty Boys”, the self proclaimed “Beast Towers” to play a game based on “the War to End all Wars” using rules by an offshoot of “The most evil company in wargaming”, right now I don’t believe GW and the good people at Warhammer Historical are in anyway shape or form evil but why not ask the question on The Miniatures page and see what replies you get. And we all know people on TMP are as sane and fair minded as you or me.

Look at the facts people, I’m telling you he is the antichrist, it all makes sense.

Pray for me on Sunday, I fear I am already doomed but save yourselves

Filed under: Waffle

It’s been cowing lush this weekend, or to translate for all my readers who aren’t familiar with our Welsh dialect, the weather has been unusually good here.

This meant I was gardening duty again, but unlike last weekend where I was knee deep in weeds and had to hack a pathway to the shed this weekend has been a lot more civilised. I’ve spent time planting out veggies for the summer and autumn harvests and in the erection of a new Chimenea *oh no matron, titter thee not*

Our old one was just a baby and didn’t really do much, all we got was a face full of smoke and it didn’t give off any heat. But this one is the king of Chimenea’s standing about 6 foot high with a firepit that a blacksmith would find excessive. On top of that it also has a built in BBQ grill, in a word it’s superb, so we had to try it out for size didn’t we!

Out came my BBQ from its winter quarters in the shed and on went the various meat produces and soon we were munching on char grilled goodies and healthy salad then it was time to light the firepit. Well the next few hours went by in a haze of wine fumes as we roasted next to the fire, after burning anything that was in any way combustible we thought it best to retire to the house and carry on the serious business of drinking our body weights in wine after all it was 11pm and we had been out there for nearly 6 hours.

We decided it was too early to go to bed so we put on a film, as we were both a bit merry I stuck on an old favourite “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and we had a sing along and reminisced about the times went to watch the stage version. Mandy has decided that we need to go to the theatre again to watch it but she has a mad idea of getting me to dress up as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, now I’m happy enough for Mandy to dress up as a French maid, in fact I encourage her to but I haven’t got the legs for stockings so I’m trying to put her off the idea, anyway at 3am we gave in and collapsed in bed.

This morning wasn’t good, not good at all

I’ve spent the day doing a few light jobs around the garden and I finished off my squad of Grey Knights, I thought I should try and shoe-horn in a reference to wargaming somewhere on the post as that why most of you bother to read it.

Anyway here are some pictures of the squad, I’ve done both types of heavy weapons to give myself some variety.

This week I’m probably not going to get a chance to pick up my paint brush as I’m in work tomorrow and Tuesday we are off to the airport to fly out to Rhodes for a week

Woo hoo I’m off to lie in the sun and drink cheap booze, wish me luck

Filed under: Games Workshop, Waffle

I’ve had a further play with using the dip on Bills GNW figures and I’ve taken some advice from painting gurus Dave and Darrell

They both advised spending more time on the faces and going for exaggerated highlights before painting on the dip

So here is the figure before I applied the dip, note all the uniform parts have a single base coat there are no highlights applied, the face has a medium tone for the base and some heavier than normal highlights on that, oh and I tried to paint the eyes but I never get them right so he looking towards the left instead of straight on

And here is the figure after the dip was applied, I went for a light thin coat on the face and a normal coat on the uniform and I have to say it looks cracking in the flesh (so to speak)

So I’m happy with that and I think it’s way to go for this unit (although I’ll probably do an army as I am weak)

Cheers

Mike

Filed under: Musketeer Miniatures

I’m not sure if it’s the post Salute wind-down but I haven’t done much this week, to be honest I was knackered after last week’s shenanigans as I spent the first half of the week doing very little.

In fact in the whole week I’ve only managed to half paint up 6 Grey Knights and a couple of stands for the Renegades so unfortunately dear readers I don’t have any eye candy for you

I know, I know you are all upset by this but I promise to post some pics of my latest work as soon as they are finished.

So what else have I been doing this weekend that has kept me away from my paint table I hear you ask, well Saturday was spent doing the garden as to be honest I haven’t touched it since last year. As we had some sun I put on my oldest clothes and attacked the grass with a strimmer before getting the mower out. After piling my way through the grass and assorted other weeds I set to work on the greenhouse, now don’t think this is a massive grass structure that dwarfs the festival hall, it’s only 4 foot square but I like my little greenhouse and it means I can attempt to grow some toms and stuff instead of getting them from the supermarket. The only downside of the greenhouse is the possibility of spiders but I was feeling brave so I went for it. Out came all the pots of herbs (cooking not illegal ones) and the other assorted pots that we scatter around the decking (oh get me with my flash decking and greenhouse eh), then I took out the bubble wrap that I use to insulate the greenhouse over the winter and then sent in Mandy to clean the glass and look for any spiders.

Next I dug out some fresh compost from my bins and did the troughs all ready to take my salad crops, so the greenhouse is all clean and ready to be filled with plants and things this year. By this time I’d had enough and we retired back into the house and cracked open a bottle of wine and stuck on the Two Towers (again)

4 hours later it was time for bed (queue me snoring and Mandy tutting and prodding me with a stick)

Sunday was the monthly farmers market in the next village, so we got up early and headed over to stock up on organic goodies, I then managed to get in some painting time before Bill picked me up and we headed over to Aluns for a big FoW game. As we are doing a sort of campaign we did an assault on Tobruk with Bill heading up the German attack and myself and Phil acting as dice rollers and junior commanders, Adey and Alun took on the role of British defenders and well the German assault didn’t go that well if I’m being honest.

We did manage to get into the city but we couldn’t find a decent restaurant so we left, and to be honest the local inhabitants didn’t seem set up for tourism and were not at all welcoming. In fact they kept shooting us, well we won’t be going back there for a while I can tell you

After that, I got home and lounged in front of the TV for a few hours before retiring to bed

Ok it’s jobs for the week time, well this week I am mainly going to try and finish off the Grey Knights squad and then do a few more renegades. If I get on a roll then I’ll also start the Grey Knight Terminators.

So till next time chaps

ttfn

Filed under: Flames of War, Waffle

Salute has been and gone for another year and once again it was a great show.

This year was Bills first time at Salute as a trader and I was roped into helping out on his stall, (well it meant I got free entry so I readily agreed) unfortunately I had to work on Friday morning which meant we had to take 2 cars instead of being all environmental and just taking the one, but I managed to get out of the office a bit early and made my way to that there London town. 4 and a half hours later I arrived and booked in about 30 mins before Bill and Hazel. So we had a few beers and a nice meal and spent the evening chatting to some wargames royalty, Paul Sawyers (ex Games workshop and now running warlord games) and the Perry Twins were staying in the same hotel so we spent a few hours chatting about all things plastic. As it was the first time I had met any of these guys I was happy to find them really approachable and keen wargames, they certainly aren’t the power hungry despots some people have made them out to be.

Anyway we departed to our rooms early as we were knackered and Bill and Hazel had a busy day ahead of them, my brief was simple, on the day all I had to do was help out and cover breaks, this meant I would loads of time to get around the site.

So onto Saturday I made my way into the arena and got ready for the opening, I had agreed to cover the first hour as we thought this would be the busy time, but then my time would be my own. At 10am the doors opened and the first customers approached, right I don’t really know what happened next but I suddenly turned into a sales man, I was witty and charming and managed to talk loads of people into parting with their hard earned cash, I was having great fun, ok I’ll admit Bills excellent figures may have had a bit to do with the ease I had at selling them stuff but I had a great time, the stall was busy throughout the whole day and I ended up only being able to get away for a couple of short breaks

Highlights of the day
Meeting Barry Hilton of LoA fame, he had his new rules out (Beneath the Lily Banners) and they were selling like hot cakes, I only had a quick look at them but they look good and I am so tempted to buy them and start a Great Northern War army (BILL can I have some cheap GNW figs please)

Other Highlights
Meeting all the customers, everyone was having a great time and I spent all day chatting to people (whilst swapping their cash for lead figures)

Low point of the day
The floor, I only wore thin soled shoes and by the end of the day I was knackered and couldn’t feel my toes anymore

Rash Purchase of the day
Well there had to be one, this year I got the new ‘Frontear’ rules from Alternative armies, which look like a lot of fun

Other purchases
None really, well other then my the order I picked up from the Forgeworld stand

After the show we packed up and made our way to the hotel, Bills mate Martin (well known painter and self confessed Fop of the first degree) joined us for post salute drinks. By 1am I had to call it a day and I made my way to my bed.

So that’s it folks, I have to pass on a big thank you to all the organisers of the event, it was a brilliant day and I can’t wait till next year when we can do it all again

Cheers

Mike

Filed under: Wargames chat