Gifts

Posted on October 23, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

On my trip to London I was planning to stay with my old gaming buddy Seb. https://mugodice.wordpress.com/

I really wanted to make something really nice for him to say thankyou for putting me up and for all the wonderful birthday presents he has given me. For some reason I am never organised enough to get a present to him in time for his birthday.

We had both backed the Kickstarter for Open Combat, a skirmish wargame. https://www.secondthunder.com/ But neither of us had played it. I know that for Seb space is at a premium so I decided to make him a portable version. The rules are written for 28mm but the author also suggests that it can be played in 15mm and convert the measurements from inches to centimeters. This means the suggested playing area would be 24 centimeters.

Here I am measuring some canvas to be used for the play area. Obligatory kitten for scale.

Long suffering Wife hemming the edge for me.

Spreading on a mixture of silicon and paint.

I had instructions about how to make the playmat from The Terrain Tutor’s Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx_aro8CTHw7ZD5H661hC6Q

The flock instructions came from Luke’s APS Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsmD5774MOQhjYBkXqu3Jdw

The finished box, roughly shoe box sized.

Hills. I went with a stylistic approach which is easier to place figures.

Dice tray removed to reveal figure storage.

The figures came from Alternative Armies. There were some nice ones and a couple of ropey ones. That’s what comes of buying blind I suppose. https://www.alternative-armies.com/

I hope Seb is pleased with this and gets a chance to play.

SELWG 2019

Posted on October 13, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

I’m off to London in a couple of days time. I have two major objectives this year. Firstly to meet my new granddaughter Ember. Secondly to attend SELWG.

http://www.selwg.org/2019-show-1

This the annual wargames show presented by The South East London Wargames Group. Held at the Crystal Palace Sports Centre so everything is tinged by the sceny of chlorine. It is a small show, but after living like a hermit for most of the year it seems quite busy for me.

Hopefully I will be meeting some Oldhammerers and I will be going with my old gaming buddy Seb, writer of the blog

https://mugodice.wordpress.com

I am amused that the main image for SELWG has me handing out cards.

I have patiently visited all the traders websites and made my shopping list. Sadly this year the organisers haven’t got their act together and made a floor plan.

A little Renaissance fantasy

Posted on September 25, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

A disclaimer: this is totally ripped off from Wargames Illustrated 382 and David Bickley who built the original. You can read his blog here:

http://www.talesfromghq.blogspot.co.uk

I kept coming back to this article and mulling over it. I really don’t have time to get distracted by another project but it was sooo tempting. Late one night I pulled out a piece of paper and started doodling. The next day some graph paper was procured. Too late! Project started!

As Mr. Bickley had produced his model from individual parts I decided to follow along and make mine in modules starting with the front gate.

Upcock

Me being me, there have been a few upcocks in the design, but nothing that a hammer wouldn’t sort out.

The original suppliers who inspired this build are:

http://www.charliefoxtrotmodels.com

http://www.warbases.co.uk

http://www.wargamesbuildings.co.uk

Some adventures in 3D Printing

Posted on September 19, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

Last year I stepped into the exciting world of 3D with an Ender 3 printer. It hasn’t been an easy ride, it is something that needs a big learning curve. It doesn’t quite work straight out of the box, requiring some tinkering. Also having an antiquated computer doesn’t allow for the installation of modern slicing software. The whole process has been a slightly frustrating hit and miss experience.

I seem to collect rule-sets in the vain hope that my Boys might want to play with me or that someone in the area would have an interest in playing. HINT: if anyone in the Salzburg area would like to game, I have a nice gaming area and multiple rule-sets.

One set of rules that caught my eye and seemed to have a following, in the UK at least, was Dragon Rampant by Daniel Mersey. One of the rulebooks published by Osprey publishing. Osprey are producing some interesting and inexpensive rules covering a very broad church of areas. Worth checking out.

This interested me as you could play a game with nice streamlined rules and build an army with relatively few miniatures. I have enough Orcs and Goblins kicking about to make an army with zero expenditure. A friend, David Wood, scored a massive haul of Essex Miniatures Undead and sent me his spares. Some minor expenditure and voila a beautifully sculpted Bob Olley Undead army. A recent Kickstarter provided me with most of a Renaissance army.

If you are not aware of Thingiverse and are into 3D printing I would recommend that you go and visit. It is stuffed to the rafters with Arduino projects, electronics and workshop tutorials and of course 3D printer files.

http://www.thingiverse.com

Browsing through this cornucopia of stuff, this place is brilliant for gaming accessories, I came across some Mud Elementals. They looked so cute I had to print one.

And then another.

And another.

Soon an army emerged.

The Leader
I had some issues with layers so I may reprint.

Light Foot I have another unit of these guys waiting for arms

These all came from a creator called Dutch Mogul

http://www.thingiverse.com/dutchmogul/designs

Check his designs out it is a one-stop-shop for gaming goodness. he also has a Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/IllGottenGames

Now I’m off to check on my printer and maybe do some painting. If I don’t get distracted by kittens.

Transport skiff

Posted on September 4, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

This model was loosely inspired by a model I saw in the Trash Bash Bits group on Facebook. The original was made from a fly-swatter. It wasn’t quite what I had imagined but it sparked an idea.

The first iteration looked like this.

Standing figure from Moonraker Miniatures and the seated figure is from a batch of “O” Guage model railway figures sourced from eBay.

There were some issues, some of which I addressed in the next iteration.

The next iteration was like this.

Correction required.

Comparison shot of the two. You can see I have added some extra detailing to the cabin roof.

Iteration two with cargo and kitten for scale.

Iteration three will elimate these issues and hopefully be the final model.

I made a thing

Posted on August 26, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

Tired of taping bits of paper to books in order to photograph figures I made a thing.

It is big enough to hold a piece of A4 paper and the paper is held in place with magnets. There is not much more I can say about this. Once I’ve painted more things you will be able to see how useful it is.

What I did in my holidays

Posted on August 22, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

Every summer my Wife and the Boys drive down to Croatia for a holiday. Well somebody has to stay and tend to the chickens and cats. My chance to have a bit of time to myself and spread out and finish any projects that have been on hold for a while. I was a bit ill with a virus that made me very tired and demotivated so I didn’t do as much as I wanted.

Way back in 2011 I was approaching my redundancy at St. Martins and I used the time wisely. I made a whole load of these.

A plastic base, wire looped and glued into position, sand and PVA applied and primed in black. I didn’t do anything with them until now. This was the base build for some hedges. Following Mel’s videos on his YouTube channel I made a load of foam clump foliage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN16RxVNrvc Then following Luke’s videos on his YouTube channel I hade some flock. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsmD5774MOQhjYBkXqu3Jdw Using Luke’s videos I purchased some Tacky Glue, I must find somewhere here in Austria that stocks it because the postage was a killer. At my local DIY store I purchased some spray adhesive.

Stage One: paint base brown. Stage Two: drybrush base. Stage Three: apply Tacky Glue to wire and press on clump foliage. Stage Four: spray on adhesive and sprinkle with flock. I didn’t bother photographing these stages as you will get a better idea from the videos.

What I managed to do. There are some still to do but I had run out of clump foliage and the blender used for making it was awaiting a part from the UK.

Figure for scale, available from Heresy Miniatures

I must mention that Mel has been hard at work and recently had a Kickstarter to promote a book all about making wargaming terrain. If you missed it, or like me don’t have a form of money that Kickstarter recognises…. you can get on board herehttps://terrain-essentials.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

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Updating

Posted on August 20, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

So that’s the Summer done and dusted. I have been a little slow on the progress reports. A combination of laziness and the Black Dog.

Look forwards to a flurry of updates, well maybe one or two. Let’s start with the painting done before Electric Love.

These two are from the Old School Miniatures range. “The Circus of Corruption” Jamie sent them to me and it seemed rude not to paint them up.

https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/circus-of-corruption-15-c.asp

More from Jamie. These are from the abolutely gorgeous Gnomes range. This is part of the Baggage Train. I swapped out the goat and replaced it with a snail which I thought was more appropriate.

https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/alpine-gnomes-3-c.asp

As you might have guessed I love this Gnomes range of Jamies. Some scenery is forthcoming from me and this is the first.

Next up is from Alternative Armies. This guy will be used in my Beastman unit in my “Not” Imperial Guard Army.

GRN53 Zarglain High Prefect

I couldn’t get (rather couldn’t afford) the Beastman Squad Leader, so I settled for this guy from Forgeworld.

More updates on the painting coming soon. KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES!

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Tabletop Knights Gaming Day 2019

Posted on May 3, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

I really should have written this much sooner, as always laziness overtook me.
For a far more eloquent account of this event I will direct you to
https://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2019/04/show-report-tabletop-knights-games-day.html
I decided to forgo Walter’s Austrian Salute this year. Walter has no intention of expanding and with last years event with a lack of sales and culinary disaster I wasn’t keen to attend.
Christoph’s event, Tabletop Knights, was a bigger event and he is keen to expand.
Preparing for this event has taken a couple of months making two display boards, Nessus and Gone?
Two days beforehand i was struck down with the lurgy, cold, tired runny nose. Great!
First day of the school holidays, which would normally be spent sleeping in, we got up extra early so we could drive to Germany and set up for nine.
There were a couple of traders there.
Obviously Christoph with his lasercut Roostermodels products. Which reminds me to get a banner made up.

Roll The Dice. I had made some little give-aways for them and Martin appreciated them. I had hoped that he would bring some paint along as I have a few gaps with need filling. Sadly no.
Spiele Cafe had a tombola, which my Son’s happily indulged in, and some demo games.
Spellebrette (can’t read my writing) had discount GW.

My table set up

The day was started by and address by Korbi.

View of the hall

There was a 40K tournament running downstairs

So on to the tables and games.
Roll the Dice had two demo games. Wild West Exodus and the Warlord Games ripoff of Wings of War.

GW Night Vault.
Unpainted figures.

Summoners
Interesting models.
But not another rule set?

A Song of Ice and Fire

Gates of Antares
Interesting cardboard scenery

Last Days
Yet another zombie apocalypse!

Test of Honour

Frostgrave
With Christoph’s scenery

Dead Man’s Hand
Something that potentially of interest to me.
Christoph’s scenery

Freebooter’s Fate
Nice scenery from 4Ground

Guildball
Bloodbowl anybody?

Age of Sigmar
‘Nuff said

WH30K
Nice scenery from Deathray

WH40K
With added Tyrannids, a lot of them!

Walter playing Saga

The usual Star Wars
Legion and Armada

Painting competition

Trade was very slow. Until lunchtime my biggest sellers were some coffee mats that I’d made with scraps of wood from the Happylab recycle bin. I managed to sell my entire box of scrap off-cuts from laser cutting. I had a couple of enquiries about making some custom token trays. Sadly nothing has come of this. Martin from Roll the Dice bought some of my static grass to test out the waters.
I did enter the painting competion, and got a third place in the single figure catagory with my Earth Warden.
There was no culinary disasters and the food was hot, plentiful and reasonably priced.
Overall the day was a bit of a disapointment. Low sales, a supposed gaming opponent didn’t show and a long wait due to the 40K tournament for the awards ceremony. If I do attend next year I will not be putting such an effort into a display board.

Nessus

Posted on April 20, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

This is the second board that I made for the Tabletop Knights gaming day. My kind Daughter gave me a copy of Destiny 2 when she gifted me her old PS4. One of the worlds you visit is Nessus.

This is not my image and it is used without permission

I fell in love with the visuals and wanted to recreate them. In the small space of a Kill Team board I wouldn’t be able to do it justice, but maybe I could give a taste.

First up was to make flocking, My local DIY store gave me a small piece of pure white foam and the poundshop provided cheap paint to colour it.

Planning out the board

Laying down 10mm of foam under the “metal” floor plates. I wanted them raised so there was some variations in the floor level.

The buildings

Adding the sides for extra strength.

Glueing parts into position

The crane

Adding colour and weathering.

More details.

Some of the columns in place with vegetation.

Set dressing.

Over all I wasn’t so happy with this board. There were a few tiny mistakes. I didn’t like the colour scheme on the buildings. I would have approached it differently next time. I have no idea where I am going to store it now. I did offer it up for sale at the event, but no interest.

Picture this

Posted on March 5, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

One day I will learn how to take decent photos of my painting. Maybe if I stop gadding about from project to project? One thing that I have seen has been a little photographic scenic corner made by one of the Oldhammer Community. That would be useful and wouldn”t take up too much space. So I set out to make one. This is my work in progress and I’ll post when finished.

Basic shape cut from MDF and steps from foam

Detailing of door using coffee stirrers from your favourite tax avoider

Arial view of lentils, foam blocks and roof tiles

Windows and woodwork. When was this taken?

Part Deux London

Posted on November 12, 2018 by grumpyoldtin

SELWG itself.
The memories are now hazy, blurred by a trip to Legoland and a week in Vienna setting up an eSports event.
Laughingly called a sport, in my opinion, as most of the contestants would have problems touching their toes let alone running for the bus. I did leave the event feeling slim and socially capable. So that was a nice plus.
Anyway I digress.
Again it was a beautiful autumnal morning and I arrived in time to hand out some of my business cards to the queue. It did result in a spike of viewings but not a lot else. After that I got a little overwhelmed by everything.
I looked at all my indicated places of interest and said, “Hello” to a friend from my reenacting days. He now runs Early War Miniatures, specialising in 20mm World War One.

Home

Luckily I was rescued from my bewilderment by two Oldhammerers. There was a loose plan to meet at the Foundry stand at midday. Mark Stevenson of Asgard Collectors.
http://www.deartonyblair.co.uk/2017/03/asgard-miniatures-1979-catalogue.html
And Ian Smedley. They took me to a nearby hostelry and regaled me with tales from the early history of miniature gaming over a nice pint.
I wandered back, slightly more relaxed, and made a few purchases. Not as many as planned though. Some of the figures were a little disappointing to view in the flesh and some bits I should have preordered as traders don’t always bring their full stock. Then I got into a fluster about what I should or shouldn’t buy. Probably the best plan is to make a plan and buy as I go.
I did manage to get in a game of Gaslands. Another interesting set of rules from Osprey. This one is car combat set in an apocalyptic background.

This game was a Zombie Bash presented by Essex Warriors
http://www.essexwarriors.org/
As I was overwhelmed by everything I didn’t manage to take photos of the event. However this blog did.
https://wargaminggirl.blogspot.com/2018/10/selwg-show-2018-games.html
Afterwrds back to my gaming buddy’s place and up at sparrow’s fart to get the early plane back home.
https://mugodice.wordpress.com/

Off to London

Posted on October 30, 2018 by grumpyoldtin

Spoiler alert, this doesn’t contain much about SELWG.

It is a beautiful sunny morning here in Austria and it is hard to take in while I do my walk to the farm to get milk and gazing at hazy mountains that in less than five hours I’ll be in London.

The main purpose of this visit was to attend SELWG. The South East Wargames Group annual show held at Crystal Palace. The show is far smaller than the London Salute but much bigger than the Austrian Salute. I’d looked at the list of traders and there were a few of interest. I then went to each trader’s website and made a note of anything that interested me. Then I downloaded a plan of the venue and highlighted anything of interest.

selwgplan As the show is so small I plan to walk around first and then decide what I want to spend my money on. I did a couple of jobs recently where cash was “in hand” and this was to be my spending money. So I have a plan and a budget.

I’d packed a few bits and pieces as gifts for people I was seeing. One, a jar of mustard, was not allowed. I had mistakenly misunderstood that Ryanair would take my hand luggage at check-in, not after security. Luckily my Wife was on the other side of the barriers and was able to retrieve it from security. While I was waiting for boarding I spotted a bag with an Electric Love lanyard. I got chatting with the owner, Chris, and found out that he worked in the media side of the festival. He was going to London to see Chelsea play. The first thing he had planned to do when he hit London was have a pint.

The plane was late and we arrived after an unevenful flight forty five minutes behind schedule. I met Chris again as we waited almost an hour for our luggage. The coach into London was clean, such a relief after my last trip. There was a beautiful autumnal light shining through golden leafed trees and it made me quite homesick. Of course being behind schedule I didn’t have the time to eat at C&R Cafe which I had been looking forwards to.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/15/c-and-r-restaurant-review

I managed to get issue 2 of Warhammer Conquest magazine at Warhammer. Sadly no copies of issue 1. They evaporated the minute they hit the shelves, mostly to scalpers. No wonder, for £1.99 you got three space marines, three full pots of paint, a brush and a magazine. I had hoped to pick up a couple of copies for the Boys. Warhammer was pleasant, no hard sell and a chatty Red Shirt. A nice change from a couple of years back when it was sell, sell, sell.

I swung by 4D Models to pick up a few things that I couldn’t get cheaply in Austria. Then I hit Poundland for superglue and epoxy glue. Something I found was a halloween bird skeleton which might come in handy for scenery.

Then on to my old house where I spent a pleasant hour or so chatting to Simon, the new owner.

https://shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/XB639

https://forktail.bandcamp.com/music

Finally off to spend the first night of my trip with an ex-student and her architect husband. Their garden was full of concrete castings for the house they were building.

We ate at Vijay’s Chawalla

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/21/this-weeks-best-food-and-drink

and it was as good as I remembered.

plural My friends good news was that she had got Arts Council funding so she could work on her graphic novel.

https://issuu.com/sabbakhan/docs/pluralism_preview_issuee

Saturday was a bit of a panic as the cashpoint ate my card. Aaaargh! Another full day of running about and meeting my Daughter. Forbidden Planet for the final book (no it isn’t!) of the Expanse series and a look around. The London Graphic Centre, a traditional sweet shop and something I had been looking forwards to for a very long time, traditional fish and chips.

https://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/fryers-delight

Gorgeous.

This will be concluded in Part Deux. I’ve jost got a phonecall asking if I want to spend a week in Vienna working on an eGames event. Starting in a couple of hours.

https://www.redbull.com/at-de/events/planet-one?utm_source=Revolution+Event+Jobb%C3%B6rse&utm_campaign=e0742d0c21-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_04_11_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ddd37678af-e0742d0c21-297104985&mc_cid=e0742d0c21&mc_eid=c274541db7

SELWG 2018

Posted on October 18, 2018 by grumpyoldtin

I really do have stacks to talk about, but the prevarication beats me. And of course the longer you leave it the worse it gets.
Anyway, I’m flying off to jolly ‘Ol Blighty tomorrow to attend this show.

I’m hoping this will be a better trip than when I last visited the UK. Sadly my gaming buddy Seb, https://mugodice.wordpress.com/ can’t visit with me due to work commitments.
Lots of photos and news when I return on monday.