Monthly Archives: September 2012

Beighton’s Shipyard Blog

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HMS Surprise takes to the waves

Mighty Albion needs all the ships she can muster to hold the French tyrant at bay.  This task for the Royal Navy has now become easier thanks to the laying of keel at Beightons Shipyard blog run by model maker Mark Burgess. Mark has come to my attention this last week with his impressive skill in assembling wargaming scale Napoleonic ships of the line.  He has but one vessel at the moment but do go and read the postings as they are very interesting and his approach is to use paper, wood and more to make these unique models.  Keep up the great work Mark!

Three Huzzah’s for the King!

GBS

Odeon Cinema – Epic Fail!

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Can't see this properly...you ain't the only one!

Can’t see this properly. Annoying ain’t it.

I had planned on seeing Resident Evil 5 at the Odeon Cinema in Kilmarnock on Saturday late afternoon.  But it was not to be.  After an enjoyable morning in Wigton at the book festival (more on this in a later posting) I drove the sizeable distance from Girvan and bought to tickets.  You might remember from my two previous film reviews at the cinema that it was this venue I travelled to for Total Recall (1st September 2012) and Dredd 3D (9th  September 2012) that there were problems with the showing of each film.  While I mentioned it (and blamed it on Eve Hallow!) for Total Recall where the screen went blank and the sound cut out I did not mention that the first five minutes of Dredd were out of focus leading me to miss the overfly of the city and its environs.  Well this time is was far worse.

My good lady and I sat waiting for the Undead carnage to begin and sure enough the sound started and then..no picture.  Ruddy Nora says me to the lady, three times in a row that is something.  Anyway twenty minutes later the six people trying to fix it gave up and the film was cancelled.  Being the only screen showing the film it was completely cancelled with no further showings.  After then standing in a que I was given a refund and two free tickets to any showing for the next four weeks.  I will not be taking this up personally as work commitments mean no cinny trips for me in October but it does mean that my eldest ‘The Thinker’ can go with his mother to see Paranorman next week.  So some good from it does come.

My point being that I accept technical failure in this day and age but I do have trouble with staff members having no clue as to how their projectors actually work and being unable to do anything about it except stand about slack jawed.  Three failures of varying degree for my personally across a month must mean that Odeon Kilmarnock has a big issue with its staff and or screens.  I hope they work it out before it really comes back to kick them in the ass.

Besides who needs cinema when you have wargaming!

GBS

I Can Feel the Burn!

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Maj. Diz Aster over on Firebase Aries 15 blog is getting set to unveil a new adventure in miniature wargaming.  I was intrigued by the image above and the cryptic clue and asked him for more details…to my delighted surprise I have been offered and have accepted a senior position in the new adventure which will feature USE ME heavily.  More on this when the time is right…but I can feel the burn!

GBS

Happy Birthday my Dearest!

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Edward Jackson’s birthday card to my good lady

Should I compare ye to a rather soggy and windy autumn day?  No I should not.  I should compare you my darling to the greatest of things and the best of me.  Happy Birthday and I hope you had a super time even if you had to put up with me for a whole weekend (see previous posting).  The day showed how adored my kind and loving wife is with so many messages online she took hours to reply to them all and dozens of cards and small gifts as well as those presents from myself and immediate family and close friends.

Eve Hallow’s birthday card to my good lady

While her birthday was only one day (Her Majesty is the only person allowed two birthdays of course) I had purposefully extended the experience to nearly a week with little treats and adventures all the while.  I did what I could and I think it was appreciated.  When the kiddies returned from their weekend away I got the picture below and that sums up the mood better than any words.

A fly kiss for the Poet and the Warrior

Happy Birthday my Dearest!

GBS

September Holiday Weekend Fun!

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What do you mean that is all the beer there is?

The September Holiday Weekend happens every year (duh!, you might say) in Ayrshire but most years upon its occurrence I am working so no fun comes my way.  But not this year.  This year I had four days off and I made the most of them with some ale house adventures and late lazy starts to do the say.  Debauchery you say…well not so say I.  Well deserved I say since I do (and many will tell you this) work rather hard almost all of the rest of the year.  The image above is actually a shipment of empty whisky casks waiting to go back to the Girvan distillery but it suits my purpose and implies the copious amount of ale consumed!

First off I have to tell you all about the weather on Thursday (20th September) which came near threatening to drown Western Scotland under what I think was a rather large amount of rain.  Road after Road closed and while driving forging through ‘puddles’ which lapped the very bonnet of the car!  This was not on the scale of the 2011 or this summer’s flooding but it was amazing how fast it came on and just how deep some of the new lakes on the roads actually were.

Friday saw me twiddle my thumbs something awful as I had made a promise to myself that over the four days off I would do NO WORK and while that was obvious in as much as me not being in the office but it also mean no blogging here or on TTWG Blog and no writing wargaming material what so ever.  None.  I had decided to do this after filling out a survey in one of my good lady’s magazines about ‘how much do you work’.  My result was off the top level of the scale and put me in the ‘woman get yourself a life!‘ section.  Ever a lass who listens to tabloid crap I decided that I would give it a try.  So instead of my early morning checking and writing online followed by work preparation and then actual work and so on I sat and watched television (having decided that watching anime for later review here was also ‘work’).  Eve Hallow said he would meet me for a beer (I had already sworn off a game of Flintloque…seemed like it might also be deemed work!) so hours and hours passed.  I walked, I went for a drive…lord help me I even went clothes shopping with my wife.  A long day before an evening of fun which I enjoyed especially the several attempts at the end of it to get my key in the front door.

The weekend was given over to my good lady in preparation for her birthday (see next post) and included more shopping and eating out.  My three little wonders were away with grand parents and with my no work promise it was a wonder of open time and idle speculation.  Many of the little things I observed I have now typed up for ‘idle muse’ postings in weeks to come; all for your amusement of course.  But I do have a visual treat for you below…I believe it to be the only picture of Eve Hallow which exists anywhere.  I broke several cameras and had to settle for the image below since anything with his demonic face shattered the lens and drove onlookers to gibbering madness!

Eve Hallow…as far as the camera would allow!

I cannot recall or recount what actually happened in the darkest hours of the weekend nights but by Monday morning I was truly ready to return to work and put off beer for at least a while.  I may well do a posting about my thoughts on Man’s need for Work or perhaps the Pleasure and Pain of Alcohol but that is for another time.   The holiday weekend achieved what I wanted from it.  A break, some amusement and a change in pace.  And if you are wondering just how much time I ‘wasted’ it is roughly enough for me to have written an entire new USE ME Title.

GBS

The Poet is Pupil of the Week!

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Who could not love that little face eh?

When he finished school and emerged blinking into the sunlight my middle son ‘The Poet’, who you might remember was a couple of  weeks ago moved up a whole grade in a day, handed me another achievement!  This time he had won ‘Pupil of the Week’ at the school.  While this happened last week, just like ‘Senior Student Badge’ I have only just now got around to it as I will go into in coming posts.  To win pupil of the week for his whole year so soon after being moved up is no mean feat let me assure you.  So pride blooms once more in my chest.

Well done my son!

GBS

Senior Student Badge for The Thinker

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The Badge!

The Thinker, my eldest son, was selected for an achievement at school just before the Ayrshire September Weekend Holiday (he also had an adventure over the weekend in the south of England but more on that later).  You can see the badge on his shirt above.  The Senior Student badge infers a sense of responsibility and extra duties in class only given to the most reliable.  Well done lad!

GBS

Musings on Aquafids…why so Strange?

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HOF80 Aquafid Infantry.  Strange…but Good?

On Friday 15mm.co.uk released another code in to the expanding and well loved HOF (Hordes of the Future) 15mm Science Fiction line.  Since I took over the design command of the range (back in the region of the mid thirties  of the code listing) I have tried to base expansions mainly on wargamers requests and also by reaction to releases.  Already emails have come in about HOF80 Aquafid Infantry ranging from ‘hurrah another new race‘ to ‘these are awful, why are you not making more Cultists or Retained Knights?‘.  These emails always intrigue me so I wanted to do a little posting here on the blog to tell you all why.

Designed by Elton Waters these latest miniatures added to the range were in response to r requests for a ‘fish man type of infantry’ and as normal I took the top three off the list of requests every few months and had them created.  I will not discuss the other two at this time but one was a Human pack for pulp and near future gaming and the other was a Human medical pack for primary use with HOF Fire Team and other systems.   The name Aquafid combines a word for water and one for fighter for a title that confers the right meaning.  So the system I used created the Aquafid like it did the Grey Aliens, Automatons, Cultists, Octopods, Triorbs and others.  But why the response by email?

I think that is comes as a shock (sadly) to a lot of wargamers now that a company will create miniatures by request and not just make more and more soldiers with spiky bits and big guns.  No civilians or support staff, only warriors.  I believe that codes such as the Aquafid are vital to the soul of the whole wargaming hobby.  We are a hobby of intense creativity and diversity and no where is this more clearly seen at the moment than in 15mm Science Fiction which is in the midst of a golden age of expansion.  New Races and Oddities are central to maintaining this just as they were in the 1990’s and 1980’s for 28mm and 25mm Science Fiction.  If makers only releases yet more human troops what would be the point?  Eventually we would all just be fighting ‘Ultra Modern’ without the sci-fi element using miniatures so similar to each other they all came out of the same cookie cutter (does this sound familar to you at all?).

There is a very good reason I listen to customers…they know what they want as individuals and if you list their feedback by hundreds you see a pattern.  Each time a new release is made in HOF (and in SHM for that matter) feedback comes in, orders come in and opinions are shared.  Sometimes new races and oddities fall on their faces and go no further and in other cases they sell so well that they warrent expansion.  Two good examples of this are the HOF Cultists and the HOF Octopods.  Both began with one pack of infantry poses and now have three or four (with more to come!) each for a fuller force.  Without the system I use neither of these would exist at all.

Will the Aquafid spawn a support pack, a command pack or others?  Are they too strange?  Only time will tell. But now you know my thoughts and perhaps now they are not as weird as they first appeared.

I welcome comments and feedback on miniature design ideas and I always will.

GBS

Mail Chimp for Alternative Armies

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Mail Chimp Logo

Back in June 2012 I put up a posting that 15mm.co.uk would be switching over to Mail Chimp for its email marketing.  Well since then the company has enjoyed using Mail Chimp and has built up a large mailing list which is responsive to weekly or fortnightly messages about new releases, special offers, support materials and more.  The time arrived this week for Alternative Armies to do the same and move across to Mail Chimp for its email marketing.

You can see my motivations for switching in the previous posting and I stick to them.  It is an excellent service.

So if you are a customer of Alternative Armies expect your inbox to feature some shiny new messages soon.  In addition to product news I intent to feature links to Barking Irons for scenarios and such that are related to releases and also links to featured blogs for hobby and painting and so on tips.  Plus some special offers too of course!

GBS

Headless Undead fun over on Barking Irons!

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Tony’s Headless Zombie conversions

Craig Andrews has posted the last of the three parts of Tony Harwood’s ‘Headless Undead Fun’ arc for Flintloque over on Barking Irons Online.  I have been wating for this for a wee while and indeed both he and Tony have put notes on the final scenario explaining the delay and what was going on.  I am more than excited on this and have been patiently await it.

You can see scenario three entitled Getting Ahead Part Three – Just Get me the Hell out of Here! now.  It is a cracking ‘steeplechase’ format scenario that sees Acting Captain Margahrah and his section try to cross several boards while the Undead try to stop them and prevent the wretched Halfling Posco from escaping their clutches.  From there you can follow the links back to parts one and two.

The fiction in part one is well worth a read on its own and it explains why these Headless Shamblers exist and just what is at stake as the Ferach Grande Armee tries to retreat from the flaming hell of frzon Moskova and the Witchlands.

The first Headless Shamblers

Sometimes it takes time for elements to come together and for articles and material that wargamers are waiting on to be completed (I know this I think better than most!) but it is worth the wait and once more Tony Harwood with a little help has given us all some Flintloque gold.  I hope he keeps his head!

GBS