Sunday's game wasgreat fun,  played with three players and a referee.   The Royalist squatters carried the day, but fun was had by all.   The locals and sundry Parliamentarian troops led by Master Gropecastle, literally flash mobbed the bridge, but the trained and veteran Royalists defended it with applomb, a flanking move by the Marquis of Fantail was both dashing and lethal. Several lives were lost when both sides attempted to cross the narrow, but deep and heavily silted 'Scruttock Drain', causing the main point of friction to be on the bridge, as you can see.   Let the record show, that the first casualty of the day was Goodwife Hempknot, who, following her husband Preacher Hempknot, raised her hastily grabbed musket, aimed, and was shot by a Royalist piquet from over the Scruttock Drain.  On Monday, Pete Berry, the author of the rules, kindly addressed a couple of questions we had, as we were playing from the original small press edition rather ...

I'm really looking forward to Sunday morning.   Apart from the fact that it's a public holiday here in the UK, which doesn't bother me as I'm already on holiday, I'm hosting a game of Once Upon A Time In The West Country, the venerable and excellent ECW skirmish rule set written by Pete Berry, back in the day. I used to play this a lot and having given up on large scale Renaissance gaming, it seemed a nice way to feed my need for some pike and shot action. I don't normally play small games, because for the most part, I'm just not interested, but OUATITWC is one of those exceptions which disprove the rule. I set the terrain up yesterday, and had to really restrain myself from using the whole table. I could have easily filled the entire table to the same degree as I did the skirmish sizewd set up, and as I said, I really had to stop myself scratching the itch to do so. This is the battlefield for a 4 player game: The scenario is set a short time after a major ...

 Oh how frustrating... I am waiting for 6 Wolf Riders to aarive. Once they have, the planned fantasy project has all it's parts in place and ready to rock.  Then, I can tick off another Bucket List wish and wait for the return of the models from the painter who, has been busy since returning from his own Summer break, cracking on with the 15 kilos of figures in the first tranche I sent over to him. I've been making a few changes to the Satanic Panic Universal Rules System over the last few days and have tweaked a few things and added others, so that it looks as if it's a really viable system. Independent play tests have yielded a few comments, but all have been positive and/or constructive, which shows that I am heading in the right direction. This is not just another Warhammer, but is a way to play stupidly large battles to completion using potentially thousands of models with a single number abstractly defining each unit. As a general, you should be focussing on big pictu...

 Well, my plan was to get my 114 Ral Partha CS series wolves finished over my holiday. And, only 7 days into said holiday, all of them are done. It's taken 9 hours to paint 114 models, from start to finish. I decided to interpret them as I would have when I fist saw them, using varied browns rather than the en vogue 'Husky' style models you see. I was always inspired by the pictures of Joe Dever's games with packs of these little buggers swarming ahead of Orcs and their kin.   I used a series of brown spray paints for the base coats along with white and black. I then used a number of Rowney F.W liquid acrylics to shade them before adding a couple of drybrush layers, adding the eyes and teeth. When these are based and all mixed together they'll look splendidly savage in an old school style. As I type, I've just had the final box of figures delivered to complete my fantasy project and so they can go to my painter later today. I'm working on a couple of bits my...

 Well, today I have reached 55 years of age, and true to form, the weather report was great either side of the 18th, but piss poor for the day itself. With that in mind, a few days ago, I decided to call of my planned trip to Manchester Art Gallery followed by a decent lunch, and just skulk up in my studio, whilst bloody-mindedly slipping a finger to the heavens whilst simultaneously accepting my defeat once and for all. Let the Universe have it's sick bit of fun once again. I decided to instead start work on 114 wolves for my fantasy project. As I type, they are all sitting on my desk drying, after the initial washes over assorted base colours were applied a couple of days ago.  Yesterday saw me visit the crematorium to leave flowers in remembrance of my father, who would have celebrated his birthday on the 16th. As a kid, it was great fun. Between the 16th and 18th, three family members had birthdays, so there was a string of parties and treats to be had. I was usually on ho...

 Firstly a little sad news... R.I.P Charles Cameron McWoof. The Mong, The Professor, The Last Of The McWoofs. He was a Scottie X Shi Tzu, son of our first Scottie, Dogal D McWoof. We had to have him euthanised yesterday at age 13 and a half. A hard day, but it was his time and so although missed, we were prepared for his leaving. There's a Charlie shaped silence here, but he is to be remembered with grins and not tears. We were prepared for the loss, but it's those hours of uncertainty that are worse, when you have to make the call on the continued existence of another living creature.     Now, our holiday continues, and yesterday, having managed to get some sleep of sorts, I took delivery of 4 elephants, from HCH Figures, and stuck Haradrim archers by Black Tree Designs in the Howdahs: I'm more than pleased with them. They will add that 'third dimension' which lifts fantasy out from historical gaming, with larger models and magnificent beasts of war. I also began t...

I've been awake since 2AM with truly excruciating pain in my left hand and armwhich even my various pressure gloves and a heady mix of ibuprofen, codeine and muscle rub isn't touching, so I'm in my studio listening to Smooth Jazz New York City, and the stead light rain which broke out at about 2:15AM.  Britcon was a fun morning, yesterday.  We met up with a few friends and chatted for a while, before having a look around the show itself, which is always a fun experience. I'm really warming to the new venue, as it is 3-4 minutes walk from our favourite parking place as well as our favourite Chinese buffet, so we can have almost as much fun as we did when it was in Manchester. I was tempted by a few things, (you can always find dirt cheap 15mm armies at Britcon) but clove to my path and bought 6 of the 7 boxes of ripping Beast figures I needed for my fantasy project to add some Riders Of Rohan types and to beef up my Easterling style cavalry. I need a single box of the Go...

 Well, yesterday was very productive. I managed to sort, stick down and apply both the gloss and matt varnishes to over 400 figures. So, 'YAY, ME'! Here's a few quick pics before I scoot down to Britcon for the morning. Excuse the shine, but this was before I applied the matt layer...