Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Progress on Blod Orn Campaign


So some progress on the Blod Orn campaign in the Talomir setting.

I have been rolling up the Armies here they are.

Altengard:
Army:
2 Knights, 3 Archers, 2 Inf, 2 Merc Arquebusiers, 2 Merc Pike, 1 Merc Horse Sk, 1 MU
Fleet:
5 Rate 2, 2 Rate 4

Capalan:
Army:
1 Knight, 2 City Knights, 1 Guard, 2 City Spear, 1 City Xbow, 1 Contadini Inf, 2 Contadini Archers
Fleet:
2 Rate 2, 2 Rate 4, 1 Rate 6

Mirholme:
Army:
1 Death Dealer (Berserks), 2 Vet Warriors, 12 Warriors, 1 Skirmisher
Fleet:
5 Rate 2, 2 Rate 4

Tereken:
Army:
3 Hirdmen, 2 Select Fyrd, 7 Fyrd, 2 Skirmishers
Fleet:
6 Rate 2, 2 Rate 4

I also purchased some paper chit armies from Two Hour Wargames. I could have made my own, but I have been dragging my feet for so long I figures this would get me going.

On a side note I was reading M.C. Monkeydew's blog here and noticed that the Orcs in the pictures looked familiar. I'll have to post my version of them.

I also couldn't resist posting on Feb 29th.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Taking a new tack

Hi All,

I had originally been preparing a post that had a sort of whining poor me quality to it so I decided to be a little more extemporaneous in approach and debut my new 30 minute approach.

It's very simple, set a timer for 30 minutes to do whatever it is you are doing. Take you less time? Well done. But in 30 minutes get off your ass and move on to something else. I'm hoping that this approach will keep me from going down the rabbit hole on my various projects.

First off, I bought several 1/72 kits:
So for the Mercenary Pikemen we have the MiniArt Swiss Infantry. The Zvezda Medieval Peasant Army for the Capalan peasant soldiers. The MiniArt German Knights for Altengard and Capalan Knights. I think the only thing I'm missing is funny hats for the Condottieri. The Zvezda Vikings for more Mirholme units, I was particularly looking for berserks. Strelets Turcopoles for mounted skirmishers, Strelets Medieval Levy 2 for more rank and file. Strelets Military order Warriors for the better armed infantry (Capalan  city guard?). Strelets Medieval Xbow for Xbow. Airfix Robin Hood for Peasant Archers (and Friar Tuck). Dark Dream Studios (Orion?) Landsknechts for Merc Arquebusiers  and the Revell Anglo Saxons for more and better armored Tereken soldiers.

I can't recall exactly where I got all of them but I spread it around for pricing and availability reasons. Mega Hobby, Hobby Bunker, Hobby Linc and ebay were the suppliers. All were great, some took a little longer than others but I have no real complaints. Hobby Bunker gets a special mention because they helped me make an addition to my order after I had forgotten to purchase one box (the pitfalls of ordering so much at once from so many different places).

Any who, I'm itching to play Warring Fleets, a defunct THW product; Micro Space Empires, a PnP solo game that I heard about from Solo Nexus; and of course Rally Round the King which has just put out a new  Historical Sampler for RRtK for free at their store. (Down at the bottom). You have to fill out some personal info, but stick with it and you'll get a button for a free direct download of a 14 page PDF that has a pretty nifty little mini campaign system.

Also remind me to go into node maps soon. After reading Cor Blog Me and Olicanalad I went off on a tear thinking about maps and map making again. Really need to get back to that Talomir map

With just over 2 minutes left I'll leave you with this:

My mind is a raging torrent!!!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Let me be the first to welcome our new Robot Overlords.

In response to rants from Ray of Don't Throw a 1 and Fran of The Angry Lurker I am shutting off the Captcha thing. I have not had as many problems to date, but since my audience definitely skews toward the bifocal crowd it behooves me to make things as easy as possible to interact.

Here is a video of Flight of the Conchords performing "The Humans Are Dead":


And the music video version:


Maybe this will boost my readership in New Zealand.

***Edit:

If you can't figure out how to do it at first, like I couldn't, here is the link. Or just the text of the best answer:

"Unless DarkUFO knows of a way on the new interface, there isn't one. You need to go back to the old interface to turn off word verification. From the new Blogger dashboard page, click the gear symbol under your profile picture and select "Old Blogger interface." On the old dashboard page, click on "Settings" then click on the "Comments" link below the tabs. That will get you to where you can unselect word verification. Click "Save Settings" at the bottom of that page when you are done. there is a link in the upper right hand corner of the old dashboard page so you can get back to the new interface. I hope this helps."


***

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Viking figures - WIP

So finally I started cutting out and assembling some of the IMEX Vikings. I decided to go with six to represent the characters of the first encounter I have rolled up for the WHAA portion of my campaign.

Leif Yngvarsson, Gunnbjorn Yngvarsson, Yngvar Ormsson (background), Oleg Vikarson, Fafnir Svafrlamirson, and Hemming Wulfgarson.
You may recall that Hemming and his cohorts were named using the Age of Blood naming tables. Yngvar and his sons were named using a list from Medieval Total War: Viking Invasion. Both can be found as Inspiration Pad files (.ipt) here.

I have glued them to fender washers using PVA and used Loctite Gel super glue to attach the fiddly bits. Using fender washers sort of nullifies the savings of using plastic figs but I did it for two reasons. Firstly, I can't bring myself to use legal tender as a base. Second, I hope to make magnetic movement stands for use in non skirmish situations.

A little  20 year old Flex Paste
Next was a coat of Flex Paste, still good after it's last use circa 1991. I wanted to build up the base slightly and help the PVA hold the figure down to the washer. I already had popped Yngvar off his washer when I tried to glue the shield under his hand. I went with PVA because I want to be able to rebase if I hate my basing scheme.

Next is some base texture, then undercoating. I'll let you in on the gory details of trying out a twenty year old can of GW spray primer for the first time. I used to brush on primer in the old days.

I've also got to get cracking on some Saxons, I'm just not sure if I want to roll up the force first or just paint a bunch up. I also put in some multiple orders the other day, but more on that later.

Welcome to Ernie of Ancient Miniatures, a nice blog about Ancients in 1/72. He has been painting up a storm and getting quite an army. His friend profile doesn't have a link to his blog, but I recognized his avatar. Also welcome to winttrix of The UltraModern Warrior, a very talented young modeler and painter. Keep up the good work.