Brush your Teeth…it really does pay off!

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Its the one on the left…that on the right is typical size.

I wanted to share a little story with you all which has just been relayed to me by my Good Lady.  It concerns my eldest son The Thinker and his visit to the dentist today.  A visit to have a tooth removed…but before you begin to tut and chastise be aware that this tooth was being removed due to its desire to stay rooted into the mouth of a lad approaching eleven years old.  I shall inform further.

My children do not get to drink fizzy drinks of any kind.  Now I am not harsh but its for their own good for you see I am child of Glasgow in the early 1980’s where virtually all children had missing teeth due to such drinks.  Sadly this is still the case for many in Scotland despite the evidence of tooth decay these drinks cause.  So its a diet of milk, squash, water, fruit juice and the odd lemonade for a special treat..no caffeine either!   Here in Girvan like elsewhere I regularly see idiotic parents giving toddlers or older children bottles and cans of fizzy drinks which they tip into blackened mouths and then howl from the sugar and caffeine rushes.  None of that for my dearest three.  So the teeth in the heads of my three sons are white and bright just like they are.  This is literal proof for this science being correct.  Take it from me.

The dentist removed my son’s tooth because it was so healthy and well grown that it did not want to come out to make room for the adult tooth coming in behind it.  She remarked that not only was it one of the best mouths she had the pleasure to work on (mine is not too bad too, we all have the same excellent dentist) but also that the total lack of decay was astonishing.  But what was really remarkable was the super size and strength of the tooth, which you can see above, twice or so the length of average.  My lad did very well and not even a whimper when the pliers did their work.  When he becomes a man his mouth and his mind will thank his parents.

Brush your teeth..better to have healthy ones pulled than a mouth of rot!

GBS

A Day of Photography…painful on the eyes!

Its not often that I spend an entire day on one central task but today was such a day.  Today, with the assistance of my good lady, I photographed all of the professionally painted releases for the next three months for 15mm.co.uk.  This came to more than three hundred images of roughly seventy unreleased miniatures from the HOF, HOT, SHM ranges crafted by six different designers.  We take photographs very seriously with the aim of showing the actual miniature in the best light and with no software trickery involved.  So many hours of thousands of watts of light and positioning figures resulted in some great shots but left me with eyes like a Blood Hound!

The vast majority of the new miniatures are in the HOF 15mm Science Fiction range and all but a handful were painted over several weeks by Eve Hallow.  He is an excellent miniature painter with an eye for colour.  Its also his birthday this weekend so I will be standing him a Lady Juniper or two at the local hostelry and giving him a wee gift but for the moment I will tell you of his first gift.  He is not only a miniature painter but an aspiring sculptor too and his first miniature will be hitting the SHM range this week… coincidence or what…on his birthday weekend.

I am not allowed to show you all the images I took (don’t even ask…you would burst with the thrill of it!) but I will sneak out a few in the coming weeks and for now I give you what is coming out this week.  The Jelly Cube by Eve Hallow, the Criat Mercenary by Will Grundy (another first!) and the icky Biomorph by the excellent Eli Arndt.  Enjoy!

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The Jelly Cube

Jellies Cubed!

Jellies Cubed!

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For Scale. He’s Jellified!

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Criat Mercenary…gurr!

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For Scale with Human Cultist

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Eli’s Biomorph from the front

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And the Rear…urgh!

GBS

Richard III found!

Is this a Skull I see before me…

Aside from a liar of a politician finally being exposed today the big news is that historians have proved beyond reasonable doubt that a skeleton found under a car park in Leicester is indeed that of King Richard III who died in 1485.  This is excellent news for me as I love the War of the Roses period of English history and this really brings it up to date and may mean some revision of books held up to this point to be correct. You can read the detail on the Guardian’s Blog but this does solve one of the big mysteries of English history and its also amazing that they found the body at all.  Really long odds against it.   Hunchback and Murderer or a victim of Elizabethan spin doctoring?  You decide.  Got to love Olivier!

GBS

Slaughterloo is Here!

My own copy of Slaughterloo

My own copy of Slaughterloo

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Look at the thickness of that spine!

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Having a flick through the pages.

The day is here (well it was yesterday but I do have to sleep) Slaughterloo Redux is in print, in boxes and being sent out to all those who ordered it from Alternative Armies.  You  can find out all about the book on the website and I will not repeat it here (there is also a folder of free files you can download too) as this is my personal blog and I just want to talk a little about the process of the book and the joy of its publication.

Back in the autumn of 2012 when it became clear that the original print run of Slaughterloo 2nd edition was going to run out the decision was made to update it and put it into one book instead of a boxed set.  The process of making one book out of three was larger than I originally though as not only had it to be combined but it had to be updated.  The rules mechanics did not change but the army lists and statistics tables had to be expanded and tidied up along with more new material added.  On top of this there was a new scenario to write and a new way of writing it (based on the Flintloque 3rd edition model) required.  Page after page all the way up to one hundred and sixty eight pages.  The biggest book I have ever worked on.  The authorship is of course split between myself and Alex Draper but I oversaw the digital layouts and artwork editing myself.  Over a hundred and fifty of Edward Jackson’s great ‘world of valon’ images are in the book and each of them had to be sized and rendered.  Topping out at 175,000 words the editing and proofing took three weeks to complete.  Hundreds of work hours but it was more than worth it as the book is a beautiful object in its own right.

You can see from the pictures in this posting, I wanted to show an actual copy instead of digital copy as normal, the quality of the print work and of the paper stock.  The book has a great weight and is a joy to flick through and read at leisure and that is before you get to the actual game (Alex’s rules are superb!).  You can read it as a reference book too.  In a time when prices go ever up for wargaming material and the content gets ever slimmer and font sizes ever bigger this bad boy gives you the works for just twenty pounds.  I believe in giving people a damn good read as well as a good game to play.

Unfortunately the weather in the UK did delay release and shipping by two weeks and by consequence this posting too.  Obviously I did not see this coming but the company has not had a single grumble never mind complaint about the delay.  Alternative Armies has many loyal gentlemen for customers, let me tell you.   Snow and wind did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm though.  Slaughterloo woohoo!

GBS

p.s. you might now ask how I am going to top this book…well 2013 is a long year and there is plenty of time.  Just you all wait and see.

Craig Andrews kicks it up a notch on Barking Irons!

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The Latest on BIO as of the weekend…its updated already since then!

Back in December I took part in the now annual Alternative Armies interview for the Orcs in the Webbe advent calendar.  In that interview I was told that Craig Andrews, owner of Orcs in the Webbe and editor of Barking Irons Online, would be making a planned effort to kick the volume of content on Barking Irons up a notch.  Well its now late January and Craig has certainly met his goal!

I contribute content to Barking Irons when I can.  A lot of this is done in time time off work or at the weekend (yes, I don’t sleep much!).  Now its not as much as I would like but I am only human.  Craig has taken my work along with that of a dozen others and planned out news, reviews, articles and scenarios for half a dozen game systems published by Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk.  My latest was a HOF Fire-Team scenario you can find notes for on TTWG blog but only yesterday an excerpt from The Trolls of Valon from 2012 was put up too.   I am very impressed with Craig’s dedication to wargaming and to me as well.  Add to this that he holds down as full time job and has just successfully moved from Birmingham to Bristol and you have a chap who can spin a lot of plates while also maintaining a formidable online presence.

There is no doubt that Craig Andrews is the soul behind BIO and that I among the hundreds who regularly look to Barking Irons for their gaming material each week are looking forward to what will happen in the rest of 2013 and beyond with this online magazine.

Craig is going to be looking for voluntary funding for OITW to cover his costs.  I have told him privately and will now state it publicly that Alternative Armies will contribute largely to this in supporting OITW.  OITW now also covers other game systems in the ‘black powder fantasy’ wargaming genre created by Flintloque so I hope those other brands will also assist Craig and that this will meet his needs.

Keep it up Craig!  Keep the Flag Flying.

GBS

Robo Basho – My Article in Irregular Magazine 13

Last summer I wrote a short article for Irregular Magazine for their thirteenth issue.  I was happy to be asked by a customer of 15mm.co.uk who is also on the staff of the magazine as they were looking for professional writers to create material for a ‘Mysteries of the East’ focused set of content.  My love of all things Japanese combined with giant robots (more on this next month…it will be worth the wait) gave me an idea for a piece all about a sport that replaced war in a ravaged future Japan.  Wrestling in the form of two hundred foot tall, two thousand ton machines, which shake a stadium and make a crowd of tens of thousands roar in approval.  Robo Basho 2115!

You can view and download the issue on Irregular Magazine website.

The article is part one of two with the first part focusing on the history and background of Japan in 2115 which then leads to the sport of Robo Basho and the customs of the giant machines themselves the ‘Roborikishi’ in their stables.  An account of that occurs inside the ring and the weapons allowed along with the Gyoiji or Referee too.  The Kuroboshi III type giant mecha is looked over and its super thick armour and massive muscle servo bunches compared to western war machines of similar size.  Ending with the roleplaying possibilities for Robo Basho the article explains what would be featured in part two.  A good read if I say so myself!

Irregular Magazine 13 was due out last summer and the delay is regrettable.  Here is a statement from the editor on this from their website:

First of all, we’d like to start with an apology to all of our readers and contributors. We were not able to publish Irregular Magazine in Summer 2012, which we deeply regret. We believe we’ve got through the problems that made this impossible and are now back on track with regular publications!

I do not want to get into this here but I think that the problems Irregular had are similar to those other online wargame magazines and indeed other printed monthly titles have had too.  Finding and obtaining content that interests an ever diverging readership is tough and adding to that the sheer speed of the online community and news feeds means that traditional formats are failing.  No point in putting news in a magazine these days.  Focusing on deep article content is the way forward, a more journal like approach.  This of course is hard to come by from writers and artists as it takes longer to create.  For those interested it took me eight hours to pen the article plus an hours proof reading.

Lastly I must give praise to Sam Croes my good friend who created the superb Robo Basho artwork for the article which also features as the cover of the magazine too.  His talent always makes me smile and he was very kind in agreeing to craft this piece of art in his limited free time for me.  He has also produced a blog post on how he created the superb image for Sumo Basho, check it out.

GBS

The Razak by Eli Arndt – Out Today!

The Razak painted by Eve Hallow

Today sees the release of another miniature in my very successful SHM miniature line on 15mm.co.uk.  Its a milestone as its the fiftieth release in this single figure series and its a special one too as its a miniature that has sat on my desk here for several months patiently waiting its turn for fame.  The miniature is by my friend Eli Arndt and its called the Razak Bouncer.

Something about this little chap captivates me like no miniature has since Eli’s Vergan.  Heavily muscled, tough looking and patiently waiting for action (like me then!) the Razak oozes character.  I think he would be great for a mercenary force, a bodyguard, an enforcer perhaps even a frontier world law man (with a different paint job on his armour).  I am thinking of getting one or two for my 15mm sci-fi forces in the next round of buy and paint.

Well done Eli!

GBS

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis – Review

A few quiet days for me online it seems, not due to me you understand but more my good lady’s visit to a high quality Spa leaving me with our three little tikes and the school run.  So I am here, not so much, but just as busy (I admire my wife, multi-tasking is a learned skill!) and you will have to to forgive me if my next few posts are shorter than normal.  I have to fit them around the routine of the house!  Right, with that out of the way where are we…a review of the novel Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis.

Above is an image of the book I have (in the middle), given to me by my dear friend Jim Brittain for Christmas but why show different covers.  The reason is one of them main factors for me in reviewing this book.  Put simply its terrible.  The middle cover does not tell the story at all, the one on the right is  a bit better but still not good and oddly the one on the left is the most accurate is somewhat uninspired.  Jim Brittain recommend I read Bitter Seeds and I was dubious at first as I am not really a world war two or fantasy fan but I tried and over the course of two days I was glad that I did.  While the cover fails to tell a tale the author is done a way, way better job of it.

Bitter Seeds as it turns out is part of a trilogy and I had no idea this was the case since I make a point of NOT reading online reviews or about the author allowing the book to stand instead on its own merit.  Here is a little tit bit of the plot:

The year is 1939. Raybould Marsh and other members of British Intelligence have gathered to watch a damaged reel of film in a darkened room.

It appears to show German troops walking through walls, bursting into flames and hurling tanks into the air from afar.

If the British are to believe their eyes, a twisted Nazi scientist has been endowing German troops with unnatural, unstoppable powers.

And Raybould will be forced to resort to dark methods to hold the impending invasion at bay.

But dealing with the occult exacts a price. And that price must be paid in blood.

The novel moves at the cracking pace and the settings of London, Berlin, England, France, Germany in the lead up to and during World War Two is excellently done.  Characters are superbly drawn and believable and the central idea of the book is original.  I do not want to spoil it but it mixes history with magic, the occult and super science too to give a brew that is potent and hold the interest very well.   There are tense moments and the action scenes are a delight to read.

Towards the end I realised that the book must be part of a series as there were several strands of the plot that went nowhere…but I assume that they will be revealed in the sequel(s).  My favourite character was Gretel, now that is a super power not to be taken lightly!  Warlocks and tapped Willpower are well matched…tough to say more without spoilers creeping in..so I won’t.  I will leave it at that.

I recommend reading this book if you are looking for something beyond the norm in science fantasy.  I might well get the next one this summer.

GBS

Voice of BBC Radio 4 news retires….

Charlotte Green hard at work

Today is a little sad for me as a voice I have known for nearly twenty years is retiring from BBC Radio Four.  Charlotte Green has been the voice of news reading on that most fine of stations for quarter of a century, longer than I have listen to it.  Radio Four, I think, is the finest information based station in the world and while it will continue on and there is a stack of talent still there it will not be the same for me.  Early in the morning her voice said ‘wake up and get to working’, in the day it said ‘take a break and have some lunch’, the evening saw ‘press on and get that piece finished’ and the bulletin at ten at night said ‘that’s enough, time to quit’.   Last year another loved long term voice, Harriet Casse, also left the station.

Oddly enough Charlotte was and is very camera shy and right up to lunchtime today I had no idea what she looked like!  She only appeared on screen for a few seconds but it was nice to put a face to the voice.

Happy Trails Charlotte and if they ask you back please say yes!

GBS

War in Catalucia and Zombie Dawn sold out!

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War in Catalucia and Zombie Dawn

After a busy weekend on the website of Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk I went into work to find that two of my titles had sold out their current print runs.  The first third edition game book for Flintloque and the ninth title in the USEME series too.  Both of these will be out of print for a while as I have to organise re-prints but both will come back into stock as they are core books and popular sellers.  Indeed War in Catalucia will be in its third print run when brought in again and the total number of USEME booklets sold is nearing four thousand now.

While Zombie Dawn will be brought back into print just as it was there is a chance that I will take a few days to ‘update’ War in Catalucia.  That does not mean any changes to the mechanics of the game (third edition is the most awesome incarnation of Flintloque ever as it is) rather some more background material and art taking into account the three years since release with more stats and army list information and the like.  More as and when as normal on this.

The winter of 2012 and into this year has been good for Flintloque and USEME with new players taking up the offer of a free limited miniature called Gerrrard the Wolf and the masses of content on Barking Irons and the great new Orcs in the Webbe.  USEME continues at a pace with weekly messages stating ‘release more titles!’ a firm favourite.

Thanks to all those who bought my work!

GBS