A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ...

Wow, didn't realise that I had left this blog to go fallow for so long!

Much has changed, though. Prince Azalea has begun wargaming again regularly - in fact not just regularly, quite a lot! Kids have started school. I've built lots of my own terrain and painted many miniatures. I'm in a different job and even my lovely spouse has gone back to do doing a little bit of work in the Azalean Imperial Libraries now the kids are a little older!

Also, I've started writing regularly and had a couple of things published by small scale publishers, which is one of the reasons for resurrecting this sadly neglected corner of the internet. Following good advice from BubbleCow and IainBroome that writers should blog regularly, I've logged back in here and I'll give it a go!

Here's hoping I can keep it up, but if anyone is actually reading this, please go ahead and post a comment of encouragement! :D And I shall attempt to keep up some regular posting this time!

Prince Azalea

Massive Hard Disk Failure

Having my hard disk die on me yesterday afternoon, the one in my work PC, is one of the worst data-related experiences I have ever had. It is a gut-wrenching emotional turmoil, as you scramble to recover your data from a dying drive. I'm still trying to recover data right now, as I write this entry, in fact.

I'm not a person who prone to feeling strong emotions, so I had to spend a couple of hours alone in my workshop last night after work, messing about with my toy soldiers and doing some tidying up, just to help me calm down. Fortunately, I have a kind and understanding wife who leaves me alone when I need to be alone, and a supportive boss who understands that these failures happen and will take a bit of work to sort it out.

I've recovered all of my essential work, and even better than that, I have recovered my collection of pictures of toy soldiers, harvested from the web over several years, so, three cheers for that, at least! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Epic Armageddon - Great Game!

It has taken me a long time to get around to blogging this! I played GW's Epic Armageddon last Saturday, with a gaming buddy. What a fantastic game! Large-scale sci-fi warface at its best! Of course, it helped that my Imperial Guard force won, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed the game had I lost, too.

My main problem now is that I am obsessing about painting up Epic-scale miniatures, instead of the stuff that is on my painting table infront of me right now. Fortunately, I have nearly finished the units of Dwarves and Amazons I have been working on for some time, so I think that they will be replaced in little to no time with 6mm Space Marines. The Storm Giants chapter looks like it has a good colour scheme for painting at the Epic scale.

My one disappointment with the game is the price of Epic Armageddon miniatures in the Games Workshop online store. They seem to be massively overpriced for what they are. I know that some people have a whole beef about the price of Games Workshop miniatures in general - a beef that I don't generally share. Let me make it clear that I think that the price of their miniatures for Warhammer, WH40k, Blood Bowl, etc. is quite fair - at the top end of the market, perhaps, but fair. However, specifically in the case of Epic, I really think you need to look carefully at your pricing, guys!

In the mean, I strongly recommend ebay, for all of your Epic miniature needs.

Fame and Glory

I am now apparantly being syndicated ... hehe, the exposure! ... on Board Game Blog, which is associated with the people at The Games Chest, who are good people I've bought stuff from before and had no problems at all. I recommend a look through The Games Chest catalogue, to see if there is anything you're after.

I hope that if you're reading my posts on syndication, you can stand my wargaming bias :-)

If anyone else wants to syndicate my blog (unlikely, I know), or just get in touch me direct, like the Board Game Blog did, send me an email.

Blog to you soon,

Prince Azalea :-)

Painting Diary

This weekend, I started a pencil-and-paper painting diary, recording what I have been painting and what I'm thinking about both what I'm painting now and what I will be painting soon. I found it really cathartic to express myself in this way, and I may post excepts from it on this blog in the future, if it is not too dull.

Has anyone else tried something like this before? I'd be interested to hear from you, if you have, and how you found it.

Natali and her Sister

I recently finish painting a pair of great miniatures that I got from Newbold World. They were great to paint. See what I did here.

Little Boat Project

As well as the big boat, I've also been working on some little boats, made by the same sculptor. I've recorded this project here.

Big Boat Project

I recently acquired a fantastic big boat that I hope to use in an AD&D game. I spent some time this evening documenting how I assembled this model, which if you're interested, you can read about here.

Ever wonder what happened to Mr Data?

I don't know if anyone has ever wondered what Mr Data is doing nowadays, since Star Trek: The Next Generation finsihed? I know I have. I found out this morning! Apparently, he has got the job of leading the British Tory party:

Mr Data	David Cameron

So, its been a while since I last blogged. I guess I'm not too good at this blogging thing :-) Still, the Triples wargames event is coming up this weekend and I am really excited. A friend is coming up for the weekend, and we're going to go together, whilst the wives and babies do something else. Don't ask what else - my head is full of miniatures ... Mmmmm ... Baccus Romans ... Mmmmm ...10mm everything!

I'll try and post what I buy after the event, if I'm not caught in a thrall looking at eveything in wonder :-)

Hasslefree Miniatures

So, as well as being a PC gamer, I am also a bit of (well, OK, a lot of!) a miniature junkie. No, not miniature bottles of whisky - although I am rather partial to that - I mean toy soldiers. I recently put in my second order with Hasslefree Miniatures, and they came through Friday. I describe myself as a miniature junkie rather than a wargamer because I do a hell of a lot more painting of my toy soliders than I do playing games with them.

I really love the figures that Kev White sculpts, and appreciate the availability of miniatures that are not just a part of a regular "army" like many other companies can supply. A good example is this Lab Technician who I am really looking forward to painting. Hasslefree's range also contains many female miniatures, which is not that rare amognst small companies of this kind, but what makes Hasslefree different is that they produce a normal range of women, who are not impossibly proportioned (even if they are sometimes heroically proportioned. Liberty and Jo are great examples - but I only have Liberty sat on my paining desk, so far!

As soon as I have finished painting a Hasslefree miniature, I'll try and get a photo of my results up! In the mean time, it is back to my 6mm Viking Hoard!

Victoria PC Strategy Game

So, being a bit of a strategy-game head, but getting bored of the standard resource gathering variation-on-a-theme that has been around since Command and Conquer, I've found myself for the last few months playing, Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun. I spend an hour (or often an hour and a half) at lunchtime going back to the 19th century in order to conquer the world again.

The main difference I have found with this game is the sheer amount of gameplay available: I've got over 100 hours out of it so far, and I still feel I've got quite a long way to go before I feel I've got everything out of this game.

OK, so I admit that it is quite a complex game to get your head around, and takes a couple of abortive test games to get your head into, and there is no tutorial - but once you've got it, Victoria is really worth the effort, if you like a non-standard, complex strategy game.

If anyone else has experience of this game, post a comment!

New Blog, then

OK, so this is yet another new blog out in there in the inter-verse. However, it is my first blog, so it is special to me, even if not to anyone else.

If you like the random thoughts that I post. Let me know. If you don't like them, let me know and then find someone else's blog to read.

I'll think of something more interesting to post shortly - at least I hope it'll be more interesting :-)