Painter's block

Having painted 1000's of points worth of armies for commissions I have completely burnt out.
I cannot face the 8 units of albion warriors on my bench :(
That said I am seriously back into nerf with our arsenal now totalling 13 guns.
So hopefully have an update on the painting one day soon :)
Just have a 2k high elf and a 3k empire army to shift now :)

Playing another round of castle ravenloft tonight though.

More commission work

Well long time between posts again.
But this is due to the fact that the bloke who bought the 4k chaos force then went on to buy another 2k of chaos followed by 3.5k of high elves.
Pics can be seen here http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=190.75

So continuing on this thread, I have bought a 3k empire army and 2k of high elves.
With a view to sell on as is or paint up if their is interest.
Hopefully this will pay for my araby army.
I will be using it for both the araby list and the 2 fan lists.

Currently I have just painted up the remaining heroes for the Albion force, that leaves 8 units of warriors and 8 units of cavalry.
But the exersions of the past few weeks have caused me to slow down a bit.

So if anyone wants any of the afore mentioned armies drop me a mail and we shall try to come to a deal.

Now off to sort out what I need for my Araby force.

Later
The Oracle

Definition of a 'PRO' painter

Another long gap between posts.
But I have been busy.
I am half way through my Albion army and then I got distracted by a piece of commission work doing some warmaster wound counters.
This work absolutely revitalised my enthusiasm for the hobby side of warmaster.
I was well paid (in rare alt units) and the customer was happy with what I had done.
So I sold on half of what I had been 'paid' and with the proceeds bought a 4000 point chaos army.

As regular readers will atest, I already have an obscenely large chaos force so this was for sale only.
The army arrived, not quite as described, but still a very good price.
I got on with painting it and the entire 4000 points was done in 2 weeks :)
I split them 50/50 nurgle and khorne and advertised them on forums rather than eBay, as I find it good for buying and not so good for selling :(
Within a few hours both armies had gone to the same buyer for a very handsome profit, so down to the title of this post:
At what point does someone consider themselves a pro painter?
I don't, even though people ask me to paint for them and I sell armies specifically painted for that purpose, yet I see items regularly described as 'pro-painted' on eBay just becaus e the bloke selling them has sold a painted model on eBay!

Anyway, work is getting hectic so my evenings will be taken up more and more.
I have just knocked up 4 units of pegasus knights and 2 kings on a hippogriff for the bretonnian army I am doing next and there is the last half of the Albion army to do.

I am also working with Draxion on a new Amazon list and he is going hell for leather painting up his amazons, a new norse army and even mentions of a nippon or ogre kingdoms force WTF!

I am also trying to touch up my existing armies as well as painting a new 2000 point chaos army (possibly slaanesh) with a view to funding a new Araby army to cover the official list and the 2 trail/fan lists :)

Anyway, happy painting.

Holidays

Well I have been doing a bit of commission work recently.
16 wound counters to be precise.
I have loved doing them.
The whole process has revitalised my painting mojo :)
Pics can be seen here http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=190.msg9770#msg9770

I am also over halfway through my albion army with just the warriors, characters and cavalry to go.
But I am taking a break and concentrating on sorting out a 4k chaos army I recently picked up.
I will be painting this and selling it in 2k chunks on eBay.

That is all for now.
Happy paintning.

Albion here we come

Bit of a slow week for finished units.
I have only managed to complete one unit of Albion Slingers/Archers





But the other 7 units have their hair and skin done so they are about 50% done.
I have done 7 units of warhounds just needing teeth, eyes and basing so around 80% complete.
This is in addition to me trying to sort out the army into reasonable units.
Hopefully, RL permitting, I may just get the majority of these finished next week.

Also started prototyping my pegasus knights and hero on hippogriff.







The peg needs some GS work and he is ready for production.
The hippogriff needs a lot of GS work and I cannot get a decent pic of him at the moment, so I will post one when this is not the case ;)

Also been asked to undertake some commission work in regards modelling and painting.
So that is quite cool.
Also looking to paint up a 4k chaos army and split it to sell again.

Anyway back to painting 10mm tartan kilts ;)

WW2 Brits are finally done

After taking a lot longer than I should, my Blitzkreig Commander 10mm British are finished.
Here are a few pics of the army.









































It almost took me as long to paint as it did to upload them here :(

That project finished, I am starting my Albion army.
Hope to get it done by the Autumn.
As I am also toying with the idea of doing some commission work as well as 2x2k point warmaster mortal chaos armies for ebay.

As my next/current army will also be Bretonnian, I have been looking how to do my pegasus knights. I need to order some parts from Eureka (fighting 15's in the UK) who have put their prices up in line with GW's for no apparent reason.
Now don't get me wrong, I love Eureka's 10mm stuff and it definitely fills a void that GW have created through their negligence, as can be evidenced by a number of my armies being based on their range. But this just smacks of profiteering.
That and no free postage is almost forcing me to go with GW as a cheaper option WTF!

If anyone is interested I may be in the market for making hippogriff mounted heroes and units of pegasus knights.
Just drop me a mail and we can discuss costs. I am only looking to cover my costs, not to make a living out of it ;)

Anyway got to go, Nerf wars to fight, RL work to do and 8 units of Albion archers to drybrush(colour schemes would be appreciated).

Later
Mick

Beans, what good are beans???

Evening all,
Today was my 39th birthday.
Haven't done much during the day.
Managed to paint around 24 stands of BKC with just 18 more to go they may be done this week TF.

I played our 3k warmaster game on Tuesday and it was a blast.
So much so that we will be playing 3k for the forseeable future.
The lizardmen lost but not before a unit of terradons creamed his dragon rider :)
On Friday I am playing 1k daemons and 2k mortal chaos against 3k of empier with at least 3 steam tanks and probably more artillery than the city of nuln can field.

Back to today, this evening I went to the ROSCARS which is how my local town encourages the schools and students to better themselves through film-making.
My eldest played jack's mother.
As you can see in the embedded video, you do not mess with her :)
She is also a very good wargamer.
Along with her sister and my beautiful wife they are my pride and joy.
They are what give real meaning to an otherwise drab existence.

Anyway enough soppy bullshit.
I am still on the hunt for my 3 remaining rare/alt units.
I nearly got my hands on 2, yes 2, units of dragon princes this afternoon, but due to not being able to login I missed out to a mate of mine in the US.
So the hunt goes on.

Enough rambling, I am off for a glass of wine to celebrate my last year in my thirties.
Probably the best damn, decade of my life.

Laters.

On Holiday :)

I am off work all week as is my mate so tomorrow we are having a large (for us) 3000 point game.
High Elves versus Lizardmen.
Anyway, my mate asks if he can use a few of my HE as he is short a few units.
Can I let him know what I have?
SO after a cracking walk this morning with the wife and the mutt I got down to inventoring most of my warmaster stuff (main armies not add ons like emperor dragons and zeppelins).
Turns out I had a lot more than I thought with most of the 23 armies coming in above 3000 points and a fair few coming way over 7000 points.

Obviously stuff like goblins and nomadic orcs use the core official army, but even still 22 units of goblins backed up with 11 units of squig herds is enough for most games :)

One day I may do a proper inventory and actually list them all here.

later dudes.

Warmuster Issue 2 released

Great news, the latest edition of warmuster is out now!
You can find it here.
It is chock full of siege rules and clarifications, scenarios for siege games along with an excellent modelling section on how to make your own fortress and siege equipment cheaply.Download it now, you won't be disappointed.

The worst dungeon party EVER ;)

Well just played the first 2 quests of HQ.
A great time was had by all, but the group was a little uncoordinated resulting in the wizard and dwarf dying in the second quest.
I helped out with a couple of revive potions and all was well.

Once they get a their gig going it will turn into an even better night!
The wife didn't manage to join in and there was an argument as Gaz had played using her barbarian :)
So the next session looks like being a barbarian fest!!!

I think they are all a long way off playing descent but who knows :)

Later y'all.

Another obsession, can you be addicted to foam?

Well this weekend I began a new drain on my income.
Nerf, dog, those guns are great.
We have 4 already with 3 more due in the post.
Then I am holding out for the sawn off shotgun or the sniper rifle :)

Back to gaming & robotics.
Had a party at the mansions last week and had a great time, loads of mirth to be had on just dance and then a full blown robot wars with the spybotics.
Later in the day got chatting with one the wife's colleagues son.
A young lad who is taking his first tentative steps in gaming :)
I remember being like that.
He was a very geeky (read cool) young man who got all my star wars jokes and thought our house was the coolest with all the geek gadgets we have. I liked him a lot.
So this week to help him on his journey we are starting up a Heroquest campaign.
The wife is also playing (if our kids go to bed as the eldest is already making noises in regards joining in!) along with her friend and my usual gaming bud.
So hopefully a good night all round, I will post back later.

As for painting, managed to get my ww2 officers done, so just 6 HMGs, 6 infantry, 6 piats, 6 mortars and around 11 artillery pieces and they are finished (pics later) but I have lost all motivation with them :(

Also been planning/sorting out my next 2 warmaster armies (albion and Brettonians).
Just need to swap a few grail knights for peasants, make a hippogriff, grail reliequae and 2 units of pegasus knights and I am there.
The albion force is massive and based on BOFA men, wargs and chaos marauder horsemen.

Also been working on the final stages of warmuster issue 2.
This is a great fanzine and this issue not only goes in depth into siege rules but also shows how to make your own siege equipment and fortress for very little money :)

Anyway that is all for this post, off to dust off my Morcar screen and get my HQ models out of their store.

Later Dudes!

Hooray-finsihed at last.

Another post and finally my warmaster beastmen are completed.

Pics can be seen here http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=1192.0
This army was a killer, mainly due to me not breaking up the big blocks of infantry into more managable chunks.
But they are done now.

So my next project is 3000 points of WW2 10mm British.
I prepped these last night (glued to bases and undercoated black).
I thought they might take some time, but here I am having had lunch and cut the grass with all my tanks awaiting basing and decals :(

I thought I would enjoy being able to quickly paint an army but boy is dark green boring after a while. Just need some more undercoat, bases and decals come payday.

On the upside my new WM bretonnian army arrived this morning :)
2000 points of coolness for £90 including international shipping :)

Looks like I may be moving onto those sooner than I thought.

Anyway happy gaming.

I'm Back and in a great mood!

After a very long break for illness and holidays.
I am back.
This week I am going to be finishing of the last 9 WM beastmen units (I hope).
I have already prepped my ww2 stuff so that is next.

After saying I would not buy another WM army, I fell on a 2k brettonian force for £80 so I couldn't really pass it up :)
So after my BKC exploits I will be painting up my albion and bretonnian forces in tandem as I will be using some of the infantry in both forces.

Also been playing about with wherigo cartridges.
I got into geocaching as it reminded me of the adventure books I used to read as a kid and hoped that was what it would evolve into.
Instead it ended up being a 'sport' dominated by fat fucking weirdos who can't walk more than 5 yards without collapsing claiming to be hard core!
If you criticise one of these people or their caches, Dog help you!

Shame I know where they live ;)

Anyway rant aside, the wherigo cartridge actually allows you to write a fighting fantasy adventure that you have to walk around and interact with :)
Tried building one about 3 years ago and the official builder was SHITE couldn't get very far at all, but this time I used the very good and intuitive earigo builder.
Published our first cart the other week with loads more planned.

So busy, busy especially with party season in full swing.

Smell you later.

Still no painting

Well, it has been over a month now since I did any serious painting :(
Still cannot get into it.
The doc has signed me off for another 4 weeks, which in theory equates to the rest of my beastmen, my albion army and my WW2 stuff.
But with a holiday in the middle and lack of impetus, I fear I may not have the beasts done by the end of this time.

On a RL note, got to say I am pissed off that the tories are forming the new government.
But that is what you get with democracy :(

Hopefully I will report back soon with a proper painting update.

All quiet on the western front

No painting or playing for me as I have damaged my shoulder.
This means that even if I could hold a model to paint it, the meds I am on prevent me from seeing straight :(
So the WM beastmen are still 19 units away from being completed and my BKC british are in a box in the garage.

Lovely and sunny here and I cannot walk the dog or go in the woods on the bike. :(

Yours
Grumpy of Sheffield

Say what you do and Do what you say

I hate it when people promise you stuff and then fuck you over or 'forget'!
This sort of crap goes on all the time where I work but in this case my rant is not work related.

Now I am a reasonable guy.
When I ask how long something will take, tell the truth, I don't mind if you say 3 weeks then I expect things in 3 weeks.
If I am not happy, I will tell you and we can come to some agreement.

So to the example in hand, I wanted to order a large army for BKC from Pendraken to pick up from Triples.
After a lengthy email discussion I agreed to pick them up and pay for them there so as to save the guy his paypal costs.
Now I would have preferred to pay via paypal but as I said, I am a reasonable guy.

The pill was sweetened with a promise of a discount.

Now I am also the sort of person who buys an army in one go.
So I pick up the army and no sign of the discount???
I thought ah well I'll email the guy, surely he will send me a paypal refund or even some models (don't really need any but it is better than nothing).
Only to be told, yes it was his fault, he forgot and the next time I buy something from him 'he will do me a deal'!!!

Is it me or does this remind anyone of those e-scams from Nigera LOL

As previously stated I have all the models I want so why should I line his pockets further to get a discount I should already have!

So if you want to use this exciting new business model, let Pendraken know as they may have patented it!

Delayed output

I hit a bit of painters block (30 units and 4 troop types from the end of an army project is never good for one's head) and other hobbies and holidays have interfered with my usual output.
That being said, my epic are looking great, my WW2 10mm british arrived today and I remember now why I love magura rim brakes :-*
My stuff can be seen here

Now just 9 units of herdkin and 9 units of beastherd and I am done :)
If anyone knows where to get small 10mm scale trees from cheap in the UK, I would appreciate the info :)

Triples visit - the horrors of living with uber-geeks.

Been to triples today, first time in three years :)
I love the triples as it is 5 minutes from where I live so I can nip in and out all weekend :)

Turns out an old mate of mine helps sort it out so it was good to catch up with him.

Also managed to blow the best part of 200 quid on a full WW2 British force, bases and paints, the FWC rulebook.

But the biggest problem I have with wargame events like this is that unlike a lot of gamers I live in a family of uber-geeks!
Yes the wife loves the hobby and serious boardgames, as do the 2 daughters.
But what always costs me a fortune is their obsession with dice!
Dad can we have a bag of dice?, can we have that lovely chest to store our dice in?
It goes on and on.

Then, whilst most hobbyists hide what they buy from their spouses, I have to drag mine away from stalls as she attempts to barter down the man to let us have dungeon lords at 25% discount. :)

One retailer was most shocked when he quipped to her 'bet you didn't think he meant this kind of shopping?' with a smug grin only for my wife to retort with her usual acerbic wit ;) bet he didn't expect that :) but it is better than her beating his head in with a bag full of dice which has been known to happen when muppets patronise her :)

The medieval reenactment was very tame.
I think they train up at Bradfield where we go for our beer.
So after watching them for 20 minutes and nearly getting chucked out, we were about to leave but tht archery started.
Now I know these people do this out of the goodness of their hearts but for F**K sake at least have a bit of a practice!!!
Most of these people could not hit the side of a barn door let alone a target.
The eldest insisted she could do better and I do not doubt it.
So we left for a BBQ in the glorious weather having to drag the kids away from the show kicking and screaming.

Now should I go tomorrow?
Wallet could probably do with a rest ;)

Long time no blog

Mmm, the wait for the horkuns allowed me time to dabble in forbidden areas.
Such as servicing my bike and buying into epic (well FWC).

So after getting over £200 for my army I bought some new brakes for my bike and got back into that side of things full on and got out my old unpainted epic eldar force and after a read around decided to start playing FWC which looks quite good and is based on my favourite ruleset warmaster.

I did manage to paint the horkuns and now they await the crews painting and sticking in, I also managed to prep up the 8 (or so I thought) units of herdkin turns out I had 11 so along with the 9 other units the beastmen are going to be a massive horde :)

Well it is triples this weekend and I am off to pick up my 3000 point British force a copy of FWC and hopefully some 6mm space marines to match up against my eldar :)

I will try to not wait as long before my next post.

Waiting for horkuns

I have got it into my head that the next block of units for my beastmen to be painted will be the chariots (ignoring the 12 units of infantry that need doing!!!)
Since my horkuns are still in transit, I decided to paint up my dragon ogre shaggoth.

Heavily influenced by my chaos dwarf colour scheme and the original modelling idea from DaveC.

Here he is.








Not too happy with the colour of the loincloth, but may change that.

and Another

Well here is the second one decided to go for bone armour for a change and after some advice from my friend DaveC made a lot more effort on the gems, which I think paid off.

I was going to do the white part of the cloak a pastel blue but it looked naff so kept it pure white.

Rare chaos sorceror

Just started painting my 2 rare alt chaos sorcerors.
I have been after these 2 for a while so was suprised when they appeared in amongst a small army I had bought :)

Here is the first one, I am liking the dark skinned approach at the minute (not very visible on this one). Tzeentch themed.









Next one should be done tonight then it is on to the shaggoth for my beastmen.

Old habits...

Keep threatening to get my bike out of space dock and get back into it seriously like I did years ago.
Now when I first had my bike made up I had a pair of magura HS33 rim brakes on my old bike.
These are the best brakes I ever had, But was told they wouldn't fit my new frame and forks :(
So I went with goretex cables that were great but no where near the maguras.

So now I come to put some new cables on I find that goretex cables are no longer available, shall I take the plunge and go back to those halcyon days of extreme braking?

Let's see how much I make off of the chaos army first ;)

Thursday games night

Well, decided to take the chaos again after their last outing was a roaring success.
Kept with almost the same list but took out some cav and replaced with chariots and harpies.
Facing empire this time so I was expecting loads of artillery but funnily enough I completely forgot about the knights... DOH!

A couple of turns of commands saw his first brigade of knights smash into my right flank and decimate it along with the artillery ripping apart my hounds :(

But then luck swung my way, my infantry block smashed into his artillery in the middle of the table and a brigade of chariots and dogs engaged 3 units of knights :)
Then both my sorcerors manage to get off rage of chaos, the first was dispelled with a scroll but the second added a whopping 14 attacks to the hounds :)

The infantry chewed through 2 units of cannon and a helblaster before give 2 units of halberdiers a bit of chaos love. It helped that I had dropped 2 units of harpies 1 cm behind all 5 units ;)

Then over to the cavalry engagement here is wher luck left me again.
My chariots and dogs weren't as effective as I had hoped and after a few rounds had driven off my chariots and dogs. This left them dangerously close to my general who attached to a unit of dragon ogres who had a spawn and a unit of dogs with them.
His remaining 6 knights (1,2 and a full unit) plowed into their flank and whilst the 2 part units fell along with 2 knights from the full unit, the dogs got slaughtered and the dragon ogres where steadily whittled away meaning I had lost thanks to the general dying.

Exactly the same as last game but the roles reversed :)
Still a great game as always though.

Next week looks like we may be starting BKC and I am also keen to have a look at FWC as I have a massive epic eldar army in the garage just begging to do some hurt :)

To sell or not to sell?

As some of you may know I have a few OCD's.
One of these is the need to collect every army/model for whatever game I am playing at the minute.
Also bargains on eBay usually mean I end up with massive warmaster armies.
So after picking up a couple of these bargains (to enable me to get some very rare models), I decided to paint them up and sell them on.

My warmaster mortal chaos army currently stands at 12000 (yes thousand points).
Now when a normal game is between 1000 and 2000 points you can see I may have overdone it.

It turns out my resale army is running at just over 3000 points, but as this is some of the latest stuff I have painted, they are also some of my best models.

But how can I possibly justify 15000 points of chaos???

Looks like a weekend siege is in order :)
Either that or ebay beckons :(

Anyway off to paint my rare alt chaos sorcerors and a 10mm dragon ogre shaggoth.

Desperately seeking warmaster

No real updates.
This weekend been painting my centigors.
But I have been trying to start the ball rolling towards getting some of the rare alt models re-released.
But uptake has been REAL slow.

I nearly got my hands on a unit of dragon princes, only for the seller to realise that they are phoenix guard :(

Wrong heroquest

:( not the mb version.

Hero Quest now owned by Armor Cast.

Hero Quest now owned by Armor Cast.

Great news :)
Let's hope they release the much sought after elf/barbarian expansion models :)

NXT-G 2.0

Just received my copy of this new version of the IDE for NXT2.0
It looks cool and I am really interested in the datalogging side of things.
Now to find out how to get it to use all of the old legacy sensors I have for logging rather than the pre-defined ones :)

We will see if it is worth the extortinate price for what should have been a free upgrade or for nominal fee.

Warmaster night

Just had a great game this evening.
Played 2k of my newly painted chaos against 2k of dark elves.
My mate always takes the 2 hydras and does very well with them, so I decided to counter by taking no knights and 2 units of dragon ogres, fronted by spawn in 2 seperate brigades.
This worked perfectly with the first hydra being driven off by the spawn only to be mowed down by a chariot unit.
The second one came unstuck after the dragon ogres charged into the flank of some cold ones and over running the general, who attached to the nearby hydra (can you see what is coming). These were destroyed on the first turn. So the unscathed dragon ogres advanced into the hydra, killed it in the second round of combat along with the Dark Elves effeminate leader :) game over, turn 2.

Next week I am thinking of taking a similar build against whatever my mate chooses to field.

Warmaster paint work

This is what I have been working on this week.
http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=1192.0

Along with a 1500 point mortal chaos army that I started painting to sell, but now I don't know.
Some more pics here http://www.sg.tacticalwargames.net/forum/index.php?topic=1127.msg6602#msg6602

I am also drawing up an inventory of my sensors.
More to follow.

Hello

This is my first post of many I hope.
I am going to use this blog to document my activities within my hobbies along with some of the 'fun' that goes in during my working day.

So what are my hobbies?

I have loved robots since before I can remember, so when lego released the original mindstorms set I purchased everything I could get my hands on.
I also indulged in the making of new homebrew sensors and even though I am a clutz with a soldering iron managed to make some interesting units.
I then bought every lego robot ever made (cybermaster, spybotics, scout, microscout and NXT) and have a couple of the sensors made by the great hitechnics.

In regards gaming, I love boardgames of all sorts from monopoly all the way through to Arkham Horror. I try to get a boardgame session in once a week.
This week we purchased star wars guess who? (Yes another obsession).
We cannot stop playing this game it is great and is actually a very good challenge when played how we do.
That and my daughter seems to be the chosen one as she can guess what my character is after a couple of questions :(

As for wargaming my first love is Warmaster, I have massive collections for all the official armies apart from araby, brettonian and kislev. As well as a number of the unofficial ones.
I will post some pics later.
Currently I am involved in painting a 3000 point beastman army which I am about a third of the way through.
As for actual gaming I play against my mate every week, but opponents are very few and far between, which is a shame as it is THE best ruleset GW ever released.
We are looking to move towards BKC this year as well.

So that's me.
I am hoping to do an overview of the sensors I have made and how they now integrate with the new NXT along with some of my building projects.
I will post an update of my gaming exploits, may even do some bat reps.

So that is it.
Look forward to comments.