All going to Slann so far

 With all the time on my hands it has to be said I am making great headway into completing my 6mm Slann army, but first:

3 angry nerds and a drum machine, what's not to like?.

My 6mm  Slann army for my

Project are coming along at a fair old clip, today I managed to complete all the forces skirmishers as well as a bit of a skinthammer piece I have been planning since I ordered the minis for the force (and I nicked it from the Sprinklings sssshhhh). Heres today's output:

 How I spent my Sunday.

4 bases of slingers.  

Slann are only known for one missile weapon in Warhammer, namely the blowpipe. However as I am using historical minis to build the army I am using what's available. So my force is using slings instead. So there!.

 Venom tribe warriors, described in canon as 'distinguished by their slightly smaller size and by their red and black patterning'. 'By an adaptation of nature these Slann exude a poisonous mucus which enables them to poison their weapons' ( taken from Warhammer armies)

they seem like a fun troop type to use in the army. On a practical note the figures were a pig to work with. I have heard negative murmurings about irregular miniatures 6mm range but have found it to be fine and rather charming. However these sculpts seemed to be really hard to decipher the details on, making painting a frustrating guessing game at times.

When I was planning the army I decided I had to have a big beastie or two , luckily being a parent there were loads of cheep plastic dinosaurs knocking around the sprinkling toy boxes they would never miss!. This army is loosely based around 1st to 3rd edition Warhammer Slann army lists, however I have always had a soft spot for these fellas:

Not the lizard men types, the ruddy great Dinosaur!!!!. So I had to have one in the army. I was going to build a howadah but in the end couldn't be arsed.

 Aawwww, ain't he cute!!!!.. here's a picture of the repainted Dino (I've named him Clive) next to the original toy.

And finally a picture of the force so far, just some elite units and the force commander to do and the army will be done!.

As ever stay safe and make the best of the extra gaming time.....

.....'till next time......

2019....odd.....

Well then, this is the first time i have felt compelled to look back over the blogging year that was. Normally i'm content to keep moving on with whichever project i am mucking about with at the time, my focus is rarely on the stuff i have done, more on the bits i plan to do, this year has been a little different.......





......but first!

                                                              'Punky art wank' as a friend once described it.......


So 2019, to review:

   The year started with without doubt the THE WORST BATTLE REPORT I HAVE EVER WRITTEN!. Looking back i cant believe i actually thought it was o.k. to post on the net...it was and is bollocks of the highest order.

Crap, moving on.....

   The start of the year was not all bad. I fleshed out my Olde Albilande setting by coming up with some adaptations for these fine rules:

 And fluffed up the background for two of the shires within the setting. 

 I failed to realize at the time but i was rapidly entering a short period of what alot of peeps have called a loss of hobby Mojo, a general feeling of fuggishness snuffing out my enthusiasm for gaming and blogging....'twas well shite. I spent the rest of the winter under a cloud of notbotheredness not even picking up a mini until a family trip to:

    came around, cue several roller coasters, pool days, theme parks and general R&R and i have to say i returned home with a fair amount of 'pep' in general. Which lead to the impossible.....

a miniature?......with paint on?....wait a mo.....

  Thats right, Wronghammer went technicolour!!. My new found vigor found me trying things i had never considered before, such as painting figures. I had never enjoyed painting before but i found the new more relaxed, more enthusiastic Sprinks actually kind of liked it!. However it was almost derailed by my natural cheepskatery butting heads with the price of miniature paints but that was soon fixed by a quick Google and a Video by some bloke called Luke.

 Thank you Sir , you proud son of the north!.

Which resulted in me going from never painting to mixing a whole home made paintset!.

Another happenstance from the return from the sun was the birth of the newest Wronghammer institution:

 An excuse for me to inflict my poor taste in music on you all EVERY TIME I POST MWAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!!!!!!. You're welcome internet!!!!.

  With me painting again i felt a new project was in order. This was soon almost scuppered by an exploration into the pricing of modern miniatures and the frankly BLOODY NOBBING ASTRONOMICAL cost of getting into 'official' minis for most companies game systems. Cue a challenge:

 The gauntlet was thrown down and duly picked up by some fine fellows who all put their own inspired spin on the completion of said task. Check out the amazing efforts by Maudlin Jack Tar , Springinsfeld and Peter. For my part i made an order to the fantastic .kallistra and over the course of a few months (and for the princely sum of £22.40)  the Black Rats mercenary company were born:

Boo, Hiss....eerrr etc.

  This was a real milestone for me as they were the first army i had ever finished painting! I then failed to start a pastry based fantasy medieval campaign with them...ho hum....(more on this later).

What did happen was my 'wargamers nature' kicked in and i started another project....by revisiting one i had started earlier!:

Only this time i went all out gonzo pike and shotte meets steampunk in a made up historic period that never happened.....in 2mm scale!!.

i never claimed to be sensible!.

The project has turned out to be a huge success in my eyes, i have painted 4 forces so far, adapted an old rule set (g.w.s old epic space marine system) and launched the campaign, two battle reports  have book ended the year, hopefully making up for the crappy one it began with.....

 Crivenshire,

 Tuttinghammeshire,

 Ruckinghammeshire

And Berkshire all completed and ready to go!.

 And thats not all. Today i even managed to finish daubing paint in the vague direction of the last of my Kallistra armies (i've been keeping this one on the back burner):

This lot...more about these in the new year....big plans afoote!!.

 Other things of note from the years bloggery:

 Sniffles

 Sprinting,

 A git (crimson),

 pointing,

  fort(ing),

 flatties,

 grinning,

AIRSHIPS!!!!.......

......and a unicorn shark!.........

      .......'till next year......

Left on the shelf

If  your anything like me as a gamer you own more than one rulebook and have played a few of them. Trying out a new rule set can be a lot of fun and discovering the ins and outs, the innovations that make you wonder why you never thought of them, not to mention the rules that leave you arguing with a book due to lack of clarity and plain old common sense is part of the voyage of discovery of gaming new rules. If like me you like to 'home brew' and mash up rulesets to give you the right 'feel' often reading rule books can inspire you to fill gaps in other rules and solve problems that stoop the experience being everything you feel it needs to be.
......Also it means you have a shelf full of books you have to convince the other half you really do need and have to add to as a matter of priority!. I have 2 rule sets (well 3 really) that i gravitate towards when gaming and they have featured more than once on this blog. If i want to fight out a skirmish i tend go for Lion/Dragon rampant. If its a bigger battle its Mantics Kings of war (which i know i always say can be downloaded free here). I just like the way they play, they feel right to me so i stick with them. But what of the other rule systems i have gathering dust?, why have them, why keep hold of them at all?.
If i'm honest i will probably never play these other games if i have not done so yet. But owning a rule book is not just about playing the rules, its more than that.
  As items i love a nice rule book. I love the backgrounds (the fluff) that are often written into the system. Dont get me wrong i will never buy an army book, i feel they are a bit of rip off if im honest, just my opinion but there you go. but even if i dont like the background for whatever reason i like the fact that one is included and will try to get under the skin of it, i appreciate the act of creating a fantasy setting and the achievement of putting together a whole world in which factions cohabit and argue and....well....stab each other with sharp things!. As someone currently trying to do that exact thing in the mentally terraforming series of posts i am putting together i can appreciate the thought that has gone into the evolution of a setting. I also love interesting systems and mechanics, i love the feeling of a writer thinking in new ways to streamline the gaming experience. I love the presentation and 'feel' of a rule book. They have a charm of their own, from the old school print and paste black and white typed books of the early rule sets to the highly polished full colour stuffed to the gills new fangled sets they each have a charm of their own and give you an appreciation for the blood sweat and tears that went into building the tome you are reading.
  But the fact remains i will only play roughly 20% of the rulesets i buy, i may nick mechanics from the ones i dont from time to time but if im honest i will not actually use them to play a game. And i bet its the same for some of you guys out there!.  Its a shame so i thought i would use this post to ask a question. Which rule books do you own that you love but will never actually use to play a game?. I'll go first:

FANTASY WARLORD

By Gary Chalk and Ian Bailey

This game was from the early 90s and created as an answer to the direction Warhammer was about to go in. Its a very detailed ruleset with rpg elements for character creation and a very interesting order based activation system that almost looks too detailed!. It also has a fantastic background included that was really going somewhere. It is also full of Gary Chalks art work which is worth owning the book for on its own!. Artwork just like this:

By Gary Chalk, legend.

CHRONOPIA

A camp as hell high fantasy system from 1997 by Target games with interesting mechanics letting unit members act as individuals as well as cool fumble and critical rules. In terms of look it has high fantasy well and truly nailed. If you think games workshop did shoulder pads get a load of these puppies!

TACTICA MEDIEVAL

This one always gets my interest, its a medieval mass battle game, very old school in feel but seems very smooth as a system. Add to that detailed siege rules and very cool campaign rules that encourage diplomacy and a large amount of back stabbing. I keep telling myself i will get round to this one some day....... 

RALLY ROUND THE KING

A mass battle game that uses as many or as little minis as you want and that has an inbuilt solo play system that looks pretty tight. It has been said that it is hard to play using the rules as written but that kind of adds something to it for me, call me a masochist but the idea that it will take dedication and not a little home brewing to make it 'go' actually makes me want to try it! (one day!).

and........

Yeah.....i know!

Now dont get me wrong i have a special place in my heart for games workshops behemoth of a fantasy game. I love the early editions that allowed and encouraged you to not only get involved with building the game in your own way ('here's a point system now buy some minis a get on with it!'), i even have a soft spot for 4th and 5th edition even though the game was becoming the wallet draining black hole of army books and 'meta' gaming (uurghh!), breading a generation of list building champions that could beat anyone with just a few loopholes and a calculator ( but oddly not a girlfriend!). It was a brilliant, massive, living, breathing entity that sucked you in and made you part of the world it was building!. So why dont i play it?. Well, its not as much fun as it thinks it is....its clunky, its bloated, its obese and it contradicts itself. There are more fun games out there, not many better settings, its worth buying the rulesets to explore that but on the table it no longer stands up in my opinion.

So its over to you, what rules do you own but will never actually play?.....

Where it all went wrong!

Hi all, i always find it interesting how people found their way into this hobby we all share. When you think about it its quite a small group in the grand scheme of things, compared to some hobbies burring yourself in a pile of lead/ plastic toys and pushing them round a table at the whim of some dice occupies a tiny minority in the world of procrastinates. So its always fun to ask what got you into the hobby?, where did it all go wrong?!?. For gamers in my age range (35-45) some commen threds do tend to be in evidence. The names Games workshop and fighting fantasy tent to feature as well as the influence of older siblings of either the toy solder infected host or of one of their childhood friends. For me the first exposure came from that route. So i thought i would throw it out their with 5 simple questions for you all (both of you), and i will answer for myself as i go along.

1) What is your first memory linked to what would become the hobby you would go on to have?.

 For me i remember my mate bringing in a plastic goblin head to school and being blown away by it. As i type that i realize just how mental it sounds but its stuck in my mind to this day. It was a head taken from citidels fantasy regiments boxed set. He 'borrowed' it from his older brother (risking his wrath) to show us all. Odd i know but it all went down hill from there!



     Bottom right on the head sprue, thats the culprit officer!. (picture from 'stuff of legends')

2) What was the first piece of gaming/ modeling related 'thing' you ever owned?.

For me it was this:

One trip to the local news agents and it would never be quite the same again (pic from 'relm of chaos 80s' a blog you need to check out!).
I cant remember much from this but it had a feature on what would be my 'big prezzie' that christmas....HEROQUEST!. I went on to barely miss an issue till i was in sixth form and had a massive pile of them under my bed (who said weird teen!?) until i went traveling after my exams and my mum 'tidied them up' never to be seen again!.

3) What were the first miniatures you ever owned?
 Im not including the regulation green army men in this. Aside from the magnificence that was heroquest my first propper minis were a gift from an aunt and uncle one birthday. We had visited them months before and i had discovered a bucket of 20mm ww2 soldiers owned by my uncle. We took them into the garden and had a blast playing 'war' (complete with gun and explosion noises). On my birthday i opened a prezzie from them and discovered  these:

(picture from sunnys models)

(picture from bat-hor.com)
These would become the gateway to a life of 1/72 plastic abuse. The amount of times these ninis faced off must be in the hundreds!.

4)Looking back what was the biggest influences on your future hobby activity?.

 For me growing up in the u.k. Games Workshop was the true giant of wargaming, it was so vibrant and alive back then and still in the cycle of developing and releasing the games that would go on to be re-hashed for years to come. Back then they were truly king with me and my mates. Second to them were the Fighting Fantasy books, these dumped you in the action in a way nothing else at the time ever could (remember that computer gaming was only just establishing 8 bit at that point). If you liked your fantasy and were a lad of the 80s they were too good to be true. Games Workshop sold you the dream and fighting fantasy gave you a way to live out the stuff the big boys filled your little head with each month in White Dwarf.

5) Is there anything from those early years you look back on with special fondness?, anything that captured the imagination in a way it has never been captured since?.

The thing that made the penny drop for me and will always stay with me is from White Dwarf 117

(picture from terapeak)
 It contained my first exposure to battle reports, something that would go on the be the thing i would most look forward to each month. It was a simple affair done with black and white sketches in the place of photos but where i had heard of playing out battles with figures this was an actual example of a game in progress, this was  how it was done!. Que one pre-teen mind melting!. The army lists, the tactics discussion, the ebb and flow of the turns and the sheer scale of the battle sparked a love affair with gaming, rule sets and getting minis on the table. I think the reason i love tinkering with rule sets and playing with mechanics as well as the gnawing desire to write scenarios and roll dice comes from reading and re-reading this. You can keep your 'Eavy metal and vintage minis adverts, those old battle reports are the thing that makes me excited about gaming like nothing else in this world!.

So what hooked you in?. Till next time