Life... and lots of things...

Hi gang.

First I'd like to apologize for my absence, it's been a long while since I wrote anything. This is because my personal life is going through some changes, and therefore my hobby time has been quite limited. When I have had some spare time I have used it for hobbying and to a some extent gaming, not writing on the blog.  Here, have a kitten as compensation.

Anyhoo, I'm still buying stuff in hope of better times to come. Here's what I have been up to, in no particular order.

I bought some Renedra Ruins for Frostgrave, of course they can be used for any fantasy game that calls for some ruins. At 5 pounds a pop they are not dirt cheap, but still good value. I ordered them from Annie the Dice Bag Lady who stocks Frostgrave and a lot of various fantasy figures. Highly recommended with great service.

I bought sets A, B, and D. I didn't see the point of set C, to be honest.

All ruins feature a base and two halves that are glued together, and a small extra piece that can be left separate or glued on.

The three ruins together. They are larger than they seem, the bases are an inch wide and the arch is over 40mm high.

In an effort to bring some sense into my figure collection/lead mountain, I assembled, based and sorted enough early Germans for both a 1939 and a 1940 platoon, based on the headcount article I wrote last year. To celebrate I then ordered a 75 Le.I.G 18, built a couple of extra crew for it, put all figures (sorted into squads) in a box and procrastinated the heck out of them. Still, if we are going to play early war I can just open the box and start painting them by the squad.

I used the sorting hat from Hogwarts. Gryffindor on the left and Slytherin on the right.

For Barbarossa I only need to drop the fourth squad, but I also assembled some extra MG teams and squad leaders with soviet submachine guns for that proper Barbarossa look. This means I have enough figures for 1941 and 1942 too, probably. Now, where can I buy a Cross of Iron personality set?

So I need an overaged German squad leader with uncut hair, soviet SMG and unbuttoned camoflague tunic.

I went to Gothcon with Koen, Jocke and Thomas to support their CoC Indochine game. I mainly built some terrain and tried to confuse the others by mixing the rules up with the WW2 version. Here are a couple of pictures, but you can read more about the event here and here.

A lot of people were curious about the terrain and the rules.

Koen helps a player set up the initial French forces.

The "enemy" shared our room! To be honest we like their figures and the rules are ok too.

The two forces apprach through the jungle. Bottom Viet-mihn, top French.

Almost within spitting distance. Most of the table was designated jungle so LOS was very short.

What's that rumbling closer?

Speaking of Gothcon, I played Open Combat with my other mates Dennis, Mats and Håkan at the hotel room in the evening. I used some of the Frostgrave cultists as mindless mooks controlled by a not-so-living mage. It was great and when I got home I started to paint the figures. I actually put some paint on them during Gothcon, but as they only paints I had with me were intended for emergency repairs to the terrain, I had only browns and greens. Back at home decided to repaint the robes purple and added various colours like flesh, bone and metal.

Almost finished. The leftmost figure has a metal plaguebearer head, all other parts are from the Cultist set.

As Open Combat is a generic skirmish game I can use whatever figures I have and the cultist will do double or even triple service in Open Combat, Frostgrave and maybe Kings of Wars chaos followers.

I also bought the Deathwatch Overkill -- quickly dubbed Death! Kill! Overwatch! in our gaming group -- mainly because of the figures. I am a proud owner of a (very) dormant and ancient Genestealer cult which has been waiting for an opportunity to be fielded in Warhammer 40k since 2nd edition. 

As a bonus I also got a simple little boardgame I can play with my kids. Can you say "Suffer not the alien to live, little fella? There's a good boy!"

Lots of beautiful hybrids! With a little bit of cutting you can make each one unique.

The figures are beautiful. They have used the old concept sketches so the hybrids have protective mining gear just like the old metal hybrids, but with modern GW sculpting technology. They are simply put some of the most impressive plastic sculpts I have seen. Scale creep is not so bad, although you can tell which are new and which are old. I haven't yet had the time but I plan on converting my old metal hybrids using new Forgeworld arms and weapons to get a more unified look to it. Here's hoping for a Codex soon!

Comparison with new and old Genestealer maguses... magii?

My WW2 brits will also be receiving some love in the form of an M10 Achilles and an AA Crusader, both from Rubicon models. I will do a post on these later.

Always a sucker for limited figures I also bought this 28mm version of Colonel Frost from the movie A Bridge too Far.

My latest purchase is the Horizon Wars book from Osprey. I will do a review a bit later, but on the first read through it's a nice little system for putting 6mm sci-fi tanks and mechs on the table, and I'm right now awaiting my order of "dirt cheap" plastic mechs from EM-4 miniatures.

Phew, I think that was all. Here, another kitten for reading this far.

Happy gaming!