If you see Norman, tell him!

Apologies for the hiatus, loyal readers! Been rather busy doing hobby and real-life things.  But only the hobby things are of interest here! :)

Specifically, I've recently assembled and primed 31x 40mm Old Glory Normans for the Old Glory Speed Painting competition that Sheffield Irregulars will be running at the Triples show in Sheffield next month! The Triples event is run by the Sheffield Wargaming Society and is on 17th & 18th April at the English Institute of Sport, if you're going to be in the area!

I'm really rather impressed with the figures themselves.  There was a bit of fash to clean off the five different bodies, three variant heads and four types of kite shield, but so much fash as to be annoying. Once they'd been cleaned up, they went together really quite easily with just a bit of superglue. If I was assembling them for myself, I think I might have pinned the heads, but since they're for a speed painting event, I'll take the risk as well as taking some superglue with me on the day :)  Overall they took me about three hours to assemble, although I was faffing about a lot as I was enjoying doing it. Could have done them in less than 90 minutes if I had been more focused!

The it was just a quick squirt with black primer - Boris insisted on black primer, since she's seen speed painting entrants repaint a figure with black before starting on their paintjob before now *faceplam*. They look pretty nice already and they're done and ready in plenty of time!

They're not quite as stable as I'd like them to be on their integral bases, so I think I might have to make up some simple larger bases for them using mounting board before the event. We don't want any of that great speed painting ruined by minis falling over whilst wet! :)

I'm not 100% sure which models this are as they were handed to be in a ziplock bag in a pub (an event that is becoming all too common!), but I think they are this pack on the Old Glory UK website

No photos of them, though - nearly three dozen figures just primed black do not photograph well!! So if you want to see them, you'll just have to pop along and say 'Hi!' at Triples and enter the competition yourself! :)  There will be six sessions of 30 mins, with five entrants in each one: four on the Saturday and two on Sunday morning,  Brushes and Paints will be provided - although make sure you come in plenty of time to get a seat!

The 31st figure I primed will be painted by Jason from Sheffield Irregulars in advance of the competition - although I think he plans on spending more than thirty minutes on his paint job, the dirty rotten cheat! :D

Hope to see you there!

Prince Azalea.

Black Pyramid's Tea Wars

I first stumbled across the Tea Wars site sometime in the autumn of 2009, but there was not much on there, except background information and some shots of the greens, but no actual figures to buy yet (as I remember it, anyway!).  So I was quite surprised a couple of weeks ago when the manufacturer posted to the thread I'd started on WaMP to my online friends about the neat ideas in Tea Wars. So, knowing the Tea Wars figures are now available, I made a test order from Black Pyramid, which I received at the weekend.

I'm quite impressed with the multipart figures - they're rather better than I was expecting. I've only had time to dry-fit the parts together, but they work pretty well and having seen pics other have assembled, I'm sure they'll go together no problem at all, as soon as I find some time! They do have that slightly chunkier style which is more preferred by wargamers than some of you highly skilled fine artists on WaMP and CMON ;)  But I think they'll be a great addition to my British VSF army.

The pins on the feet are a really good idea - especially when combined with the resin bases. Saves all of that time chopping down a slotta tab into a pin! I am pretty taken with the resin bases as well, because they've got detail enough to use as they are. But equally, they're not overly decorated and have plenty of space for fitting the figure and customising the base with extra grasses or bits without being constrained by what is already there. A great balance!

I should also mention the weapon packs, which are perhaps the best bits of all. I've got a something of a bits-box collection of weapons already, but these especially the auto-rifles and the special weapons, will definitely find their way into a number of different projects in the future! :D I'll certainly be using a number of the extra special weapons I ordered with some of my other British VSF figures as I expand my forces, and maybe even with a small 40k Imperial Guard force I've got in the planning stage.

Overall, as I think you've already figured out, I'm pretty impressed and am likely to order more Black Pyramid stuff in the future!

GMs Day Yesterday

Yesterday was two years to the day since the passing of Gary Gygax.  I should have posted yesterday about this, but in all honesty I spent my time after work doing gaming-related things. Which I think is the way it should be.

I don't think I really need to big up the influence that Mr Gygax has had on my life - there are lots of other blogs and web pages out there that do that a lot better than I can, but I would just like to encourage anyone reading this to play some kind of game in the next week - whatever it is!

As for me, two days ago I took part in a Call of Cthulhu adventure, yesterday evening I was building terrain boards for wargaming and role-playing. Tonight I shall be printing out and building card-stock scenery and this weekend I plan to try and talk my wife into a couple of games of Munchkin. I've also got a game of Warhammer 40,000 scheduled for the middle of next week.

The anniversary of Mr Gygax's passing is becoming known as GM's Day - a time to celebrate your GamesMaster or whatever you call the person that organises your games.  To celebrate this a number of publishers at RPGNow are offering 25% of their games. I should say I'm just a happy customer of RPGNow, not linked with them in any other way. I took advantage of the sale to fill up on some more card-stock PDFs from Fat Dragon Games and I'm really looking forward to building some of them tonight!

God Bless You, Mr Gygax, and I hope you're rolling in your grave in the best possible way! :)

Prince Azalea.

Games that help you Game

I've just finished writing a review of the Victory At Sea rules by Mongoose Publishing that I hope will be included in issue 4 of Irregular Magazine.

Whilst I do not want to preview that review here, I do want to say how impressed I am with a Victory At Sea in the specific of being a wargame rulebook that includes a comprehensive set of counters at the back of the book that can be photocopied.  This allows you to copy the counters, then dive straight in and give the rules a go without having to assemble miniature fleets in advance. Its a game that helps you game! I like any game that helps you play, rather some games you come across that seem to actively hinder your ability to play!

If you know of any other wargames that are as easy to get straight into, I'd be interested in hearing about them, if you'd like to comment.

Prince Azalea

Super Tiny Speed Paint

I like to try and enter the Sheffield Irregulars monthly painting as often as I can as I think it has helped me improved my miniature painting, but circumstances have prevented me from doing so for the last few months. So, I was determined to enter this month; even having managed to select a suitable miniature for the current contest theme: 'Duel'. Other things just kept coming up, though, that I had to get done and it wasn't until I attended the Sheffield Irregulars session today that I could even start it!

Needless to say, undercoating a miniature after 1:30pm when the deadline for a competition is 6:00pm the same day is less than ideal. However, never being one to be deterred by adversity, I pressed ahead and at the end of the session about two hours later, I was pleased to see that I had just about finished the piece. Now, this is not quite as impressive as it sounds when I let you in on the fact that the miniature I painted is The World's Smallest Wargame which was the givaway miniature at the Newark Irregulars' 2007 Partizan show (previewed here). It was sculpted by Baccus6mm.

So, all I really painted were two 6mm tall wargamers and a suitably sized wargames table in a couple of hours. But you know what? I'm really pleased with the way its come out :) I hope you agree but go ahead and comment, whether you like it or not!




Prince Azalea

When does 'many' become 'too many'?

I met up with a gaming friend last night who moved away from my city at the beginning of the year to study for an MSc. Apart from having a good chat and a catch-up over a cup of tea, he had decided that he needed to reduce the amount of things he'd left at his parent's house and wanted to pass onto me all of his 1/72 minis that he's collected over the years, because he knows I'll use them and play with them. Which, to be fair, is quite true.

Now that is quite a lot of 1/72 minis! I was flattered and pleased and of course I insisted he accept a fair amount for them to at least help a litle with his studies. I was also really quite pleased that when I got home my wife was already in bed and I was able to quietly secrete these minis in the garage!

But for those who are already familiar with how full my garage is (part 1 and part 2) I had to wonder if my garage could cope with this influx. After stending a few hours tidying up today, I now think my garage will be fine this time, but it got me thinking about how many miniatures are 'too many'? I have plans and projects for everything in my garage - and for everything that my friend passed onto me, too, now. But will there come a point where I will really need to do what he's done and cut down on my collection?

For now, I think the answer is no. But one day that day might arrive and how will I chose what to pass on?!

Prince Azalea

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 :-)