Friday 18 January 2013

Look - lead!

"Oh," I hear you say. "You're back, are you? I know we hadn't agreed anything, but it seemed fair to expect the next turn in the ongoing saga of The Bridge Over the River Chai oh, you know - sometime soon after the last one was published? A week seems reasonable?"

"And now you tell me you still don't have it? You've got a lot of nerve showing up here, let me tell you!"

Yes, I suppose you're right. Nearly a month has passed since the last report on those crazy orcs and dwarves. It may gall you to know that the contestants are now busy on their eighth turn, but I have yet to even start writing up turn five.

Lets explain: its all to do with New Years resolutions, you see. Having spent the year week after Christmas firmly ensconced in the bosom of my family, I wasn't able to do much by way of hobby work. I was only able to return to the business of modelling work on or about the time of the New Year - a time rife with idiotic promises of life improvements. I decided to pledge to myself that I would not assemble/strip/prepare another figure until I had finished painting everything that was 'hanging around' on the desk.

Now, you may recall at some junction that I was planning to proceed into some sort of Chaos army, possibly based on Nurgle. That wasn't going to happen with my desk in the state it was at the end of 2012. I would have liked to show you a picture, but so taken with my cause was I that I didn't even hesitate  to get to work. So you'll just have to believe me.

The next part of the story is this: I now I have a nine month old living in the house. That's not a surprise - I've was here when she arrived, but far from becoming less demanding, it appears that little girls require more and more time as they get on (and, according to my experience of women, the increment is exponential...).

I mention this because it means I only have a small window of hobby opportunity available. As far as I am concerned (and you, no doubt), the business of hobby work - the actual stripping, gluing and painting parts - are different to the writing about the stripping, gluing and painting parts. I lost that argument - as far as my wife is concerned, its just hobby time - if I choose to spend it writing about the hobby as opposed to just doing the hobby, well - that's my own stupid fault.

So, in order to satisfy me new years resolution, I was required - nay - forced - to paint, leading to Turn five just falling by the wayside.

See - not so judgemental now, are we? I'm the victim here!

Anyway, rest assured, I'll get on with Turn 5 (and the rest) from this week onwards.

Still, I ended up painting some stuff.  A ghost (spectre/wraith/ethereal of your choice), a skull chucker, a corpse cart, a chaos dwarf bazuka and thirty two goblins. Also, I repaired Onowitz Mann'fluh - cos I broke him.

A brief note on the goblins. You've come across the terms strategic and tactical. You are reading a blog about wargames, so of course you have. In information technology, these terms are used slightly differently. Strategic describes the right thing - the correct approach, the gold standard. Most of my modelling work is strategic. Tactical describes quick and dirty - its not great - it just gets you over the hump, as it were. The thirty two goblins were tactical. I had purchased a bunch of goblins a long time ago. They were painted, but not especially well, as I thought. I stripped the metals, but the plastics I had just left. They just happened to be on the desk (due to reorganising). When I looked at them, it occurred to me that if I just gave them a black wash and rebased them - well, they would do. So that's what I did. I'm not especially proud of it, but as you'll see, this move has launched my meagre forces into 'army' status.

Now, there are pictures. And some more explanation.

Right, so on to the payload. Today started like this:




Given that going to work would have resulted in instant death (you know - health and safety and all that), I stayed home.

Much better.

With this sudden injection of time, I decided to take all of my painted stuff, put it on a table and take pictures. For you. Apparently, pictures are worth thousands of words. Here are thirty two thousand words worth of pictures:
















It feels appropriate at this junction to highlight that I had no access to special lighting, which accounts for the fact that the flash managed to darken (romanticise?) most of the pictures.

Sorry.

Now I ended up in this situation where I had all these figures on the table. Having looked at them, it occurred to me that I might be able to split them all into two different forces - opposing forces.

Risking the wrath of The Minister of the Interior, quickly laid out a potential battle - between the Undead and the Goblins (with friends!):

















So that's what I've been busy with.

Friends?

Oh? What now? You saw some modern figures? Okay, okay - you got me. There are some current edition things in there. Specifically, the goblin bolt thrower? Yes, and the crew? Sure, okay.

As I said:

Tactical.

9 comments:

  1. Welcome back!

    That's a nice little set up on yonder table and good move with the Gobbo's.

    Now back to your keyboard and don't spare the fingertips - I've worked hard to provide you with much shambolic and comedic antics from my Orc "Army" that will amuse and entertain the masses! ;)

    My commiserations once more - I know where you're coming from in terms of the daughter/time interface!

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  2. Nice looking setup indeed, this is starting to look like a real army. Must be great to paint again, I wish I could, but there's standing a 2x3 feet table in front of my painting table...

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  3. Gaj, the army is looking good, when will grace my table again?

    Looking forward to our next game (number 4.... I believe) let me know when you are free.

    Andre

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  4. The grand review look awesome. I especially love the skeleton with the purple sword. I'm gonna have to steal that look.

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  5. Cheers for squeezing in time for your public! ;-)

    It's all looking great, I especially love the eerie glow of the ethereals riding the corpse cart.

    I like the strategic/tactical division, though as your tactical is obviously akin to the average persons strategic, I wouldn't worry overmuch!

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  6. Don't think you can distract us with loads of images (as nice as they are)! Get back to work and finish up The Bridge Over the River Chai. We don't pay you nothing for nothing you know!?

    I have been working on my Orc force as well. Lots of buying and little painting.

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  7. Thanks for the comments (which appear to be hounding me to stop painting and just write...). Its nice to be able to present 'an army' - 110+ figures in there now!

    @Andre - a time has been set - and you're right - go number 4!

    @Mark - thanks of being a public - its nice that someone cares :)

    @Jonathan - Yeah - I get that at my day job too. Had a look at the orcs - you've got a lovely line up there - not far at all from a nicely painted horde.

    @Contestants of River Chai - yes, yes, I'll get back on it right away...

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  8. Hello, your blog is excellent !

    I like it very well. Sorry for my bad english... I am french.

    The battle ground tabletop is very nice.

    We have the same hobby. My blog : http://jeux-de-plateaux-et-roles.blogspot.fr/

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  9. Cheers, Alain! Thanks for stopping by. Looking at your painting on your blog, I'm glad you could derive some pleasure out of my dark and underexposed photo's - soon, however, I'll get some better pics!

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