Monday 30 January 2012

Back to Black

Final post of the month and EVEN MORE progress!!!

VBCW

With a three-way game lined up this week, I returned to the B.U.F. infantry to try to match the horde of socialist sailors (seriously) that are heading my way. I've added a couple of riflemen, a five man assault squad armed with sub-machine guns and an officer.

These are the last of the Plastic Soldier Company Russians that I'm painting, partly because I've run out of models in forage caps, but also because painting a drab colour scheme onto less than brilliant models is no fun. However, I am rather pleased with how the officer has turned out and I need to come up with a suitable name for him...something appropriately caddish (suggesstions welcome).

Which leaves me with a picture of the final force. The more eagle eyed amongst my readers will notice that not only have I sorted out their bases, but they've not been done with my usual boring basing technique. Admittedly, all I've done is add another type of basing material to contrast with the static grass, but I think it looks better than my usual efforts.

So there we are, a complete squad of the South Yorkshire Cohort of the B.U.F. This squad has been tasked with blocking one of the passes across the Pennines to their stronghold in Manchester. They struck lucky recently and intercepted a socialist convoy smuggling Russian weapons to the reds in Sheffield. Being practical fascists, they've armed themselves with the Russian armaments with the intention on turning the guns on their intended recipients as soon as possible.

My royalist faction is going to grow, however, I'll be stepping away from the B.U.F. to add some more characterful militia units. More later...

Blood Bowl

Slann Frogcisco 49ers 2 - 2 Bugman's Bar Wenches (Casualties 1-1)

The game opened with the Slann team catching the Dwarfs on the hop (so to speak). A well aimed rock from the crowd flattened a Dwarf Blitzer and the 49ers leapt to exploit the opening, bursting down the flank towards the end zone. A spirited pursuit from the surprisingly nimble Dwarfettes briefly halted the drive as Pascal the Catcher went sprawling. However, his was able to hop up and away with the ball and bounce in to score. 1-0 to the 49ers.

The Bar Wenches received the ball from the kick off and set about defying public perceptions of Dwarfs, moving quickly, passing and even selling the Slann a dummy as they deftly crossed the pitch. However the frogs proved difficult to outdistance as a series of brave leaps knocked the ball from the Dwarfs' hands twice and the 49ers were able to steal the ball. Bugman's girls only chance was for a Blitzer to dodge past her marker and sprint to plant one on the Slann with the ball. She succeeded but was only abe to push the Slann back. However, it wasn't over. The Slann fluffed an attempt to block the Blitzer (double skull) and gave her a second chance. She flattend Antoine, scooped up the ball and trundled in to score. It was 1-1 at half-time.

The Dwarfs looked to be in control as the second half began, however, a rush from several Slann players hopping over their lines really put their Runners under pressure. However, once again defying convention, the Wenches completed a pass to safety and began to drive up field. The 49ers hopped, skipped and jumped all over the place in an attempt to slow the rumbling cage but were unable to halt the drive. 2-1 to the Dwarfs, two turns remaining.

The clock was running out and the Slann were running on empty (no rerolls), but there was still a chance to score. Two catchers leaped into the opposing half in an attempt to get within striking range of the end zone, whilst the third scooped up the ball and ran up to the half way line, the linefrogs forming a rough cage. Knowing that they had to stop the catcher, the Dwarfs caged one and then knocked the other into the crowd in a frenzied attack. With nothing to lose, the caged Catcher, hopped and dodged to the endzone to await the ball. Slann forced a passage for Pascal to close the distance for his pass. He ran, he threw, the ball was caught, touchdown, game over!

A very tight game. I made a mistake blocking rather than dodging at the end of the first half. Tom made a mistake by sportinglty not castling at the end of the second. There's nothing between these two teams. We're currently third and fourth in the table and separated by a single casualty.

My next game is against the runaway league leaders, Stu's Skaven team, Crouching Rodent, Hidden Vermin. He's demolished everybody he's met so far and even with the return of my dodging Catcher and the development of a passing Catcher, I'm not holding out much hope that my inconsistent amphibians will be able to do what every other team has failed to do.

Progress

It's the end of the month and time to show off my progress to my fellow Tale of Gamers bloggers. Amazingly this month doesn't involve just a single picture. What follows is all the stuff that I've done some work on this month (not including the fascists above), from basing to full painting:







This not setting targets lark seems to have suited me...

Monday 23 January 2012

I'm feeling justifiably proud of myself this week. I've made another significant lump of progress towards my secret target...more on that when I've actually achieved it. However, on this weeks blog there's the staple diet (for January at least) of Flames of War, Blood Bowl and a Very British Civil War. So, on with the show...

Flames of War

Following on from completing my two platoons of Panzergrenadiers last week, I've painted an entire platoon of Pioneers including a 3-Ton Supply Truck, a Flamethrower stand and a Goliath Demolition Carrier.

This platoon will be representing 11 Pioniere Kompanie who fought alongside SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 26 just outside Fontenay-le-Pesnel in Normandy, 25th June 1944, when General Montgomery launched Operation Martlet just prior to Operation Epsom. This is the action I mentioned last week and these units fought against (and severely mauled) the Hallamshire Battalion (a future project). In creating this force, I'm doing what Battlefront always seems to do in their scenarios and having each platoon represent a company. For the initial force, I still need to add a Mortar Platoon, another Infantry Platoon and some PaK40 Anti-Tank Guns.

Next up will be the PaK40's due to the fact that I got an Amazon voucher for Christmas and discovered that I could get reduced price Flames of War stuff from there. I've also noticed that with a bit of luck, I might be able to squeeze enough extra models out of the PaK40's to enable me to bring my two Panzergrenadier platoons up to full strength.

Painting this unit also involved constructing a 3-Ton Supply Truck to allow me to field Barbed Wire and Minefield when defending. The model I used for this is a Zvezda Opel Blitz German Truck. Although not as detailed as their Battlefront counterpart, this is a plastic model that costs the princely sum of £2.75. It's a bit fiddly to put together, and the rear wheels don't seem to fit the axle at all (I had to do some cutting and gluing), however at fraction of the cost for something that will be sent to the rear on turn two (if it isn't blown up on turn one), this is a bargain. With FoW3 apparently making transports better, Zvezda could be sitting on a little goldmine. I will certainly be buying Zvezda trucks should I decide to add transports for my platoons.

Finally on the Flames of War front, some good old-fashioned Cheaphammering. My funds are severely limited at the moment and I wanted some HMG's for my Germans. However, the list I'm using allows for HMG Nests to be purchased even when not playing a Fortification mission and given that the Germans were dug in and defending during Operation Martlet, I thought "let's make some!" These were simply made with cocktail sticks cut up and laid around a GW 20mm plastic base. A bit of wire for the HM sticking out and Bob's your uncle. I think that they still need a bit more in the way of camouflage (some static grass and suchlike), but I'm wary until I have a clearer or how not to ruin them. However, I'm really happy with them and they should play merry hell with the screaming hordes of US Paratroopers I've been plagued with in the past.

Blood Bowl

This week saw the Slann Frogcisco 49ers take on Aneurin's struggling Bite 'Em All Ravens Vampire team. I knew that I'd got a bit lucky in the last two games and was due some payback. And boy did I get paid.

The first half seemed to go well, despite my star Catcher (the only player with a skill so far) getting injured and missing the next game, I was somehow able to keep the Vampires out of the end zone. I was severely helped in this by the Vampires' propensity to fail their Bloodlust tests and have to knock out their own players rather than move where they wanted to. However, a few daring blocks helps affairs and I even got the ball at the end of the first half but hadn't left anyone in strike range of the opposite end zone (I needed them all to defend) and the half ended 0-0.

The second half began with me receiving the ball. Here's were I screwed up. I should have caged around the Catcher with the ball, however I was too busy failing to wound thralls and so ended up with a thin flat line defence. When not succumbing to Bloodlust the Vampires are scarily good and with deft use of Hypnotic Gaze they were through my lines. This was where the Slann revealed their big weakness, in a key moment, I succumbed to bad dice without re-rolls (no Dodge, Pass, Block, Catch or Sure Hands) and was unable to clear the ball. A Vampire grabbed it and scurried in for a touchdown.

I then had to go through the same mess again, but this time with only one Catcher. This time I did it right. I caged up and began a slog up field. The Vampires were impossible to keep away from my ball carrier (damned Hypnotic Gaze) as I didn't have enough players to run interference, but I was burning re-rolls like there was no tomorrow. I did managed to get into range of a touchdown on the final turn, but with no re-rolls left I was asking a lot to try to get a Leap, a Dodge, a Pass, a Catch and two Sprints off in one turn. Needless to say, I failed.

I was really annoyed with myself after the game as not only had I played stupidly at the beginning of the second half, but I'd also gifted Aneurin an additional 60,000gc to his inducements by forgetting to deduct my missing Lineman from my Team Value. Anuerin played the game well, and actually coped with worse dice than me. He used Hypnotic Gaze to make sure that he always had the initiative.

The most annoying thing? I didn't get a single SPP from the game beyond my MVP (which of course went to a player who didn't have any points already). Next week I'm playing Tom's Dwarfs with only 3 Catchers. It's small comfort that by having the Catcher with Dodge out of action, he won't get to use the Tackle skill at all. How do you like them apples beardy?

VBCW

Just a quick update here to show off another vehicle for the B.U.F. This is a fuel tanker which, although not tactically useful, could find itself being an objective in several games. Really easy to paint and quite effective looking.

With one more week to go in my record breaking month I'm feeling quite chipper. This painting on a whim thing is working out for me. I find that the key thing is to not let painting become a chore. This week I might be doing some more Fascists for an upcoming VBCW game (and this could include another vehicle) and, depending on the post, could see me get started on the PaK40's. It will also see a very tough game of Bloodbowl as Tom and I are sitting joint third in the table, I'm pretty sure that I can't stop him scoring, however, can I score twice?

Sunday 15 January 2012

I can see clearly now...

I've just been sent some pictures of my Saga warband during last November's 'Winter Is Coming' and they look rather spiffing. It's clearly to do with the quality of my photography and it raises the question of whether I've been judging my painting through the lens of my dodgy photographs...discuss...

Anyway, here they are:

Another Week, Another Lot Of Progress...

I think I must be ill. I'm posting for the second time this month and for the second time I've done a significant amount of painting (note that 'significant' for me is the same as 'a little bit' for other people). Not only that, I've played another game.

Flames of War

I have a funny relationship with Flames of War. Even when others at the club were playing it a lot, it took me a long while to dip my toe in the water of this game. I have to admit that this was mainly to do with the fact that WWII just doesn't interest me as a gaming period that much, and I also didn't have the knowledge to know where to start.

This all changed when we had a club swapsies night a few years ago and I swapped the Dwarfs from the Battle of Skull Pass set (unpainted), the Dwarf Army Book, and some Star Wars Miniatures spaceships for 8 painted Panther Tanks. Suddenly I had a full (very full) Flames of War army and so I started to play, and I actually found that I really liked the game - it plays better that it looks.

However, this still left me with a dilemma. It turns out, rather unsurprisingly, that 8 Panthers does not a balanced force make and I repeatedly got smashed to bits by artillery or swarmed by infantry. However I didn't know how to expand the army as I'm a bit funny about building optimised historical lists. Although I did some more swapping and painted up a single platoon of infantry, I just couldn't find a direction for me to hook my interest in to.

Fast forward three years and shortly after our excellent Christmas game (reminding me what a good game Flames of War is) I'm doing some research into VBCW and I come across the Hallamshire Battalion (a local Territorial Regiment) and their actions in Normandy and I discover that the Hallams ran into SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment-26 in June 1944 and that the German unit and its supporting tanks could be represented (in part) by the models I already owned. An army had finally picked me (see Cheaphammer Rule #1).

I little bit more digging revealed that Battlefront had kindly made available a free PDF Briefing on their website that would suit my purposes perfectly and so without spending any money, I suddenly had a project.

I already had my tanks (of which I probably won't use more than three) and six stands of infantry painted, and so my first port of call was to paint up two more infantry stands and three command stands so that I can field a Panzergrenadier Company at its simplest level.

Following this I also needed to finish off the basing on the rest of the infantry stands, which was little more than adding flock in some swirly patterns.

A HQ, two platoons of five stands of Panzer Grenadiers, and three Panther A tanks suddenly gives me a force of 925 points. A couple of Panzerfausts makes it 945 points, and finally a Sniper gives me 995 points of painted troops.

I quite pleased by this as I've never been able to field a 1000 point army before as the Panthers' cost is too prohibitive. I've usually been restricted to games of 1750 points. I'm looking forward to a different dimension to my games of Flames of War and I can now expand the force one unit at a time according to the historical OOB. I suspect that next will be a platoon of pioneers from the Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment-901 who were stationed alongside Regiment 26 in the action at Fontenay-le-Pesnil. This is mainly because I've already got the makings of a Pioneer platoon.

Bloodbowl

Thursday also saw me play my second game in the club's Bloodbowl league. I was down to 11 players as one of my linemen was missing the match and I was up against the league leaders, Craig's Chaos Dwarfs.

Slann Frogcisco 49ers 2 - 1 Karak Dur Bruisers (Casualties 0-1)

Travelling away to Candlestick Pond, it seemed like the Bruisers brought the entire population of Karak Dur with them to a very loud match (Craig got +2 Fame) and initially it seemed like the 49ers were overawed by the Bruisers' travelling support, slipping and tripping during the opening phases (double 1 on first roll of match) as the polyglot opposing team bore down on them and threatened to turn the ball over for a touchdown. However, some desperate hopping saw the Frogs manage to switch the ball across the field and run the ball up the field to register the first score halfway through the first half.

The teams set up again and the first of a series of extremely wayward kicks (it seems flippers aren't suited to the task) saw the ball pitch up in the opposing end zone. The Bruisers pushed forwards leaving a lot of space between the Hobgoblins with the ball and the rest of the team. Into this space hopped pretty much the entire Slann team who rushed down towards the ball carrier. The big-nosed greenskin tried to pull off a throw to his team mate up field, but fumbled allowing the Slann Catchers to scoops up the ball and rush en masse to the end zone. The 49ers were 2-0 up with two turns remaining in the half.

Another, even worse, kick resulted in a touchback and the ball being handed to one of the Bull Centaurs who proceeded to very simply power down field by himself, batting the Slann out of his way as he went. At half time it was 2-1 to the 49ers and the surprisingly free scoring game was poised on a knife edge. The Slann knew that they were struggling to stop the free ranging Bull Centaurs and the Bruisers were concerned that they had not been able to remove any of their opponents from the pitch. Things were tense...

Indeed, they were so tense that emotions boiled over in the excitable crowd and the away fans began attacking each other, with Chaos Dwarfs blaming Hobgoblins, Hobgoblins blaming Chaos Dwarfs and Bull Centaurs just enjoying a good ruck. The enigmatic Slann fans looked on rather bemused as they were used to showing their support with polite (if slappy) applause. After the riot calmed, the second half was allowed to begin, although almost half the time on the clock had been lost.

Once again the 49ers kick was sliced into a corner and the touchback was awarded. Again the ball was handed to a Bull Centaur who snorted his pleasure at another imminent score. However, the Frogcisco coach had an ace up his sleeve, and as the four legged beast powered up the wing again, a bolt of lightning arced out from a tame wizard in the crowd and brought the juggernaut thundering to a halt.

Things then got desperate. The 49ers scooped up the ball and bounced it to the other side of the other side of the field, Hobgoblins in hot pursuit. The Frogs then formed a cage by hopping into the centre of the field, and were quickly set upon by Chaos Dwarfs. The few Slann that could escape the maul then leapt over to the right to form another cage, this time incomplete. The terrifying form of a Bull Centaur came galloping around the rear and brought the ball carrier to the floor.

What followed was a series of handling errors as both teams grappled for the ball. The Bruisers failed to get to the loose ball and so the Slann again scrambled it up and attempted to throw it down field, only for the pass to go wide and bounce at the feet of a Hobgoblin. Blocks were flying all over the place as the greenskin grabbed the ball and attempted a desperate last ditch throw to the Bull Centaur, which also failed. the game still wasn't over, and the 49ers once again treid to move the ball to their man waiting for a pass to seal the game at 3-1. However, once again the pass was failed and the result remained as it had at half time.

A tough game where I have to admit that the combination of a riot, a wizard and Craig's inability to inflict meaningful damage kept me in the game. Despite the appalling opening for me, it also became apparent that when the dice are kind, Leap an Very Long Legs is an awesome combination with AG 4 as I was constantly able to get out of trouble. I think I only threw three blocks all game and without the wizard I would not have been able to do anything about the Bull Centaurs.

I got away with that one, even more than last week!

This weekend has also seen me knock up a very simple turn marker for my Slann Bloodbowl team. A simple construction using the standard from a skink unit from my old Lizardman army and a two-pence piece. All I need now is a score marker and the team will be complete.

All in all a very productive week for me. If I keep this rate up this is likely to be my most productive month since I started the blog. I've got another game of Bloodbowl too, this time against Aneurin's Vampires. Aneurin has been getting soundly stuffed in his opening games and has been complaining about a lack of Team Value. I suspect that my purchase of a Blitzer may present him with a significant amount of inducements to spend and so I'm not overly confident.

Monday 9 January 2012

Flames, Frogs & Facists

Happy New Year!

After another hiatus due to excessive festivity, I'm back again with a mahoosive post about my doings in wargaming. Be warned, this one includes bucketloads of photos, two game reports and two (count 'em) lots of painting progress. Yup, I've got my mojo back.

First, I'll begin with the club's big Christmas bash, a six player game of Flames of War. Later one I'll introduce my now completely painted Slann Bloodbowl team and the opening salvo of this year's league campaign. Finally, my VBCW B.U.F. unit have now received some motorised transport.

Flames of War

We decided to play a big game of Flames of War for our Christmas all day bash for several reasons. Firstly, it's a game that most of the club have armies for, secondly we had enough suitable terrain to fill a big table and thirdly it's a game that many of us haven't played for a while.

We were playing the Total War (is that correct?) scenario from Das Book and each fielded 1000 points. The setting was late war on the western front, with the Germans facing down a combined command of British and Americans. As you can see below, the terrain was fairly open with lots of fields roads and hills in the centre, and woods and marshes on the flanks (out of picture). The objectives were spread across the table but there was a concentration in the vicinity of the ruined church and so we were all pretty sure that this was where most of the action would be.

The forces were as follows:

Allies: U.S. Paratrooper Company (Matt), British Para Tank Company (JP), British Armoured Company (Trev, CinC)
Axis: Heavy Panzer Company (Me), Grenadier Company (Stuart), Grenadier Company (Craig, CinC)

With the concentration of objectives around the ruined church, both Stuart's and my commands were deployed opposite it. Facing us were Matt's paratroopers supported by some British light tanks. Our centre and left flank were manned by Craig's hodge-podge force and he was going to go toe to toe with both Trev's tanks and JP's paras. To our rear was our only artillery, a detachment of Nebelwerfers. However, our major advantages were the fact that were had armoured superiority in the form of my four Panthers and Stuart's King Tiger, and also for some reason the airborne allies had been deploy without air support and so our Stukas could run amok.

The game began with Stuart and I making a big push for the church and capturing the objective there (something we wouldn't release all game). My Panthers managed to snipe Trev's HQ tank and so began the great duck hunt as I would look to shoot at any armour that revealed itself, in full knowledge that I was immune to anything but the M10's to the front and my guns would mash anything they hit.

Although he initially didn't advance his infantry, Matt began a flank attack with the tanks the British had loaned him (something I had feared) and so I had to send my StuGs after them. In combination with the Luftwaffe, I made short work of the medium tanks (please don't ask me to name them) but didn't realise quite how fast the pesky little Tetrachs were, and I was quickly flanked and savaged by the nippy little buggers. Matt's tanks actually succeeded in their flank attack and managed to capture one of our objectives by the end of the game, but took too long for the Allies to amass many victory points from it.

Matt then began his assault on the church with his Fearless Veteran Paratroopers. I've faced these fellas before and know how difficult the are to stop. However, I'm usually playing with tanks, it turns out that infantry supported by Panther MG's can actually pin and whittle down the toughest of troops over time. I was worried for a long time, but Matt's assault never hit home and eventually they were driven away from the church.

Over on the left Craig assigned his Marders and infantry the task of battling the Paras in the marshes. Although the Para infantry are good, there weren't many of them in a tank company and weight of numbers eventually told and Craig was able to capture the objective he was after.

In the centre things initially looked bad as we were heavily outnumbered and an early barrage from the British artillery and tanks took out an entire platoon of Panzer IV's. However, after machine gunning the U.S. Airborne for a couple of turns, my Panthers turned their attention to Trev's tanks and swept one of the two central hills clear of tanks.

This not only allowed the King Tiger to begin a slow advance to capture the central objective, but also destroyed the tanks that were close enough to hold it and so reduced the amount of points the Allies were getting per turn. The King Tiger was eventually popped by the M10's (not sure of this detail) but they in turn were bitch-slapped by my Panthers.

We called time at that point but the Allies were not only behind on victory points, there were also close to breaking properly as all three companies had taken a mauling. In contrast, although I'd lost one of my platoons, the infantry companies were still strong and had the game continued we looked good to sweep them from the field.

All in all a great game, mainly for the company. Flames of War is a funny game in that it plays more exciting than it looks. It was nice to get a game again (it's been over a year since I last played) and it was interesting to see just how powerful my Panthers can be when they are in support rather than having to do the attacking themselves. It's actually got me looking at Flames of War again and you may find me blogging about it again soon...

Bloodbowl!

I love this game. It's the single most tactical and engaging tabletop game I've ever played and it stirs the deepest reactions in me (I've been know to be a bit of a whiner when the dice go bad). Therefore the start of a new season required a new (well, almost) team. And so I sat downto do some painting this weekend to finish of a team I began two years ago: my Slann team, the Slann Frogcisco 49ers (I'm congenitally required to use bad NFL puns to name my teams).

I first used this team in an abortive league two years ago and I found them difficult to use due to their lack of the core skills of Block, Dodge, Pass, Catch and Sure Hands. This means that they are very vulnerable to bad dice and bur rerolls quickly. Last time I got the wrong team set up and was struggling from game one. This time I've ignored the expensive Troglodyte and Blitzers for know and focused on playing a fast strategy that prioritises my Catchers.

So I needed to paint two more Catchers and so I got the remaining six models painted this weekend. Two Catchers, two Blitzers, a Lineman and a Coach (who'll be used as a reroll marker). here they are:

Last week also saw me play my first game of the season against Matt's Chaos team, the Shadowlands Chargers. I forgot to get a picture of them (something I want to do for each report), but I'll get one when I next see him.

Slann Frogcisco 49ers 2-1 Shadowlands Chargers (Casualties 1-1)

A clumsy and nervous first half from the 49ers saw the ball dropped or fumbled four times as the Chargers bore down on them ominously. However, despite their slippery fins, the frogtastic fellas in red were able to stumble the ball up the pitch and score almost on the stroke of half time.

Despite an early error almost allowing the 49ers to steal the ball, the second half saw the Shadowlands boys behave completely unchaotically and follow the rather predictable drill of forming a cage and marching up the field, splatting frogs as they went. Some rather inept defending resulted in Slann players literally throwing themselves on in front of the cage in a futile attempt to slow it down. The Chargers took slightly longer than they wanted to score (nothing to do with the other team), but the match was tied with three turns to play.

With the ball back in their flippers, the 49ers knew that they had to go for it. Sending their catchers forwards, the Slann team loaded the flank and did their best to drive up the wing. Pushing back Chaos Warriors enough to allow the ball carrier through, the 49ers once again fumbled an attempt to move the ball to another player (four times in one game), and it looked like a draw unless the Chargers could pull off an outrageous long bomb.

They couldn't; and the ball was dropped.

With moments to spare, the 49ers managed to push a Beastman away from the ball and another catcher scooped it up to hop into the end zone and steal the game.

A hard fought an scrabbly game with little to write home about in terms of exciting play. Both teams suffered from a host of handling errors, I think I held it together well to not concede in the first half (it was touch an go for a couple of turns), but I was a bit lucky to not take more of a battering and be men down in the second half.

A Very British Civil War

I have to say that this little project has really got my interest. I've found myself reading up on lots of little details about the local area and have coincidentally been led on to a few little bits of history that will also inform my renewed interest in Flames of War, more on that later.

Back to VBCW. I've donae a simple repaint on a Matchbox Model T Ford to turn it into a B.U.F. recruiting van. A simple colour scheme is lifted by the addition of some fantastic posters kindly made available from the blogs of 6milPhil and Port Sunlight 1938. Great stuff.

I decided against adding any armour to the van for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I'd seen the posters and had the idea of a civilian vehicle. Secondly, according to the VBCW background sourcebooks, the B.U.F. would be well supplied and so would have actual armoured cars rather than having to cobble them together. Finally, my opponents in this period are all just getting started and turning up with an armoured element at the moment just doesn't seem like cricket. I know my boys are a bunch of rotters, but there's a limit.

That's it for now. This week holds another game of Bloodbowl and maybe some more painting. I've decided to not set any targets as I'm in a good mood and feel like painting on a whim for a while - I suspect I might be more productive in this month than I have been for the last three!