The Last of The Warm Jets

King of Lead Hats

Yay!! I had some time to myself! Knee deep in plastic toys and discarded battery packets I managed to get the paints out an finish the last member of the Psyker gang and I've dubbed him the King of Lead Hats (which is nearly the title of and Eno song paying tribute to a famous group that he went on to produce...I'll let you figure it out).

The Warm Jets

Technocality

As I was trawling around eBay trying to find the last figure for the marauder Tech Gang I go to pondering about them and what they get out of being 'gangers'. Tech gangs are unique to Confrontation and never made the leap to Necromunda or any of the other GW games. I suppose you might suggest that Van Saar are their inheritors but they don't quite have the same pull for me.

Who are the people that make up Tech Gangs and why do they become gang members? As I'm on my way to owning two different Gangs. I suppose I should explore these questions a bit shouldn't i?

First up, what do the confrontation rules say about the Tech Gangs?

Seadogs and Spaniards

I kind of feel that I've neglected my Dutch revolt/ Elizabethan Gothic project for some time and I feel the itch to do some more. I've been hunting round the house to find pennies to mount more figures on and I've been deliberating (i'm not sure this is the right word - you know that thing we all do when we have a project in mind, we read books, look at google image searches, organise miniatures, consider rules sets etc. It's like being pregnant with an idea. You go around dreaming of what it'll be like when it's all grown up and you get ready for it's arrival, building a little hobby nest and making sure it'll have everything it needs) about the different areas of the project, terrain, rules, scenery etc.

It's mostly the fault of Osprey I think. As well as Dragon Rampant coming my way I also gave in and ordered Frostgrave (as well as Black Ops last month!) but what has me excited is En Garde! which is a swashbuckling skirmish game based on the Ronin rules they released a year or so back.

Old hammerers doing their bit

One of my fellow Wipsters, Captain Crooks, has a brother who has been struck down with a Brain Tumour. As you can imagine this has had a massive effect on his life and Family and although he has come through the operation to remove the tumour his recovery is going to be long and difficult.

In order to help him and his family cope with this period a bunch of us Oldhammerers have donated bits and bobs to an ebay sale to raise funds to help keep his family afloat through his long recovery.

Being Oldhamerers and Wipster the donations are of the miniature variety and some of them are very rare pieces indeed. Have a look at the auction of goodies at the Love a brothers, brother eBay auctions.

If you'd rather just donate some cash then you can go to Tom's GoFundMe page and donate there.

Cheers

The scavvies who tried to steal Christmas

Up on the hill Sir Chuffingthorpe looked down into the ruins of Happitoon and wondered where his contact was. The jolly chap on the end of the Vox had said that he was in bound but that had been some time ago. He had all these lovely gifts waiting to be picked up and all he asked in return were some of the bits and bobs that had been left lying about in the ruins. He certainly wasn't going to waste any energy looking for the damned things when there were plenty of other idiots only too happy to go scrabbling around in the ruins. Besides he might bump into that hoighty-toity elf. Nothing worse than a bit of competition to ruin ones afternoon Gin session.

Scavvy Porn - Mobile friendly version 2

Just because some people seem to be unable to view the previous post I thought I'd try again so that folks can see the pics.

Virgin unopened blister

Scavvy Porn

My heart belongs to the Black Hole

1987. I go to high school. Simon Bisley draws the above image and sends it to 2000ad. He's a self taught illustrator who's done an album cover or two.

Oldhammer and it's attitude to work!

Oldhammer doesn't work

A gentleman wrote an article on BOLS. In this article he tells us all about his opinion of Oldhammer. Read it. Go on. I dare you. 

Ok, I'll do a TL:DR version of it for you.

Oldhammer is boring cos you'll never get any new toys. Oldhammmer is dull cos your army will never be the newest one with the newest codex. Oldhammmer is a dead end because you'll never be able to find a stranger to beat in an FLGS. And most importantly of all....the author has done fuck all research, listened to something his mate has said, jumped to a conclusion and gone running with it to write an article of spurious content.

Now of course, this being a free world he has every right to air his opinion and I will fight your 3rd Edition Orc army to the death to defend his right told do so. This article and the comments following it and indeed the conversation on the Oldhammer Facebook page do bring up some interesting points.

Confrontation from around the web

You may have noticed that myself and some of the other Wipsters (yes it's a thing! Click on the badge over to the right and see where it takes you!) are a bit obsessed with GW's infamously abandoned game, Confrontation. I've no idea why we keep coming back to it but we do. It's probably the heady mix of rare figures, rose tinted spectacles and self flagellation that makes want to try to use a system that is ostensibly too complicated for its own good but we see it as a root. From this spiky little tuber grows so many things that we loved and continue to love about the 40k universe. It grew into Necromunda and Inquisitor. It shaped hive worlds and gangs and allowed a move away from playing space marines and bigger and bigger battles. It was the first real delve into the reality that everyday humans had to survive within the imperium of man. It was designed so beautifully by so many of the legendary names with the golden age of GW, Jes Goodwin and John Blanche contributing sketches and designs and guiding the style of the game that captured our young imaginations.

Hernandez the navigator

The wonderful Oldhammer forum continues to blurt great little projects for folks to join in with and I've managed to get a figure painted for the latest one just before the deadline.

Full Tilt and the Battle of the Kings Tree

The offending pamphlet

Many moons ago (and many moons after I'd abandoned mini's for other teenage pursuits) a free game was published in the GeeDub's house publication. Based on the medieval knightly tournaments it pits noble bretonians against each other in the most noble of sports. Jousting!

So a couple of decades later, in Erny's kitchen the OGRE's decided to give it ago as part of a days knightly pursuits.

Sir Erny of Roamershire (in red) prepared to defend the honour of all of Bretonnia against the dastardly Count Johan von Poomfickel, an upstart imperial knight who had little idea of the meaning of chivalry.

The combatants prepare for the first pass

Here come the warm jets

Taking Tiger Mountain by strategy

Spurred on by rampant miniature envy when Axiom actually painted one of the Marauder Psyker Gang figures I dragged the brushes out slapped the pigment on two of the gang.

Orcmember

Fnar Fnar! I missed orctober again but I have managed to complete an Orc regiment just over a week late. You may recognise these sneaky pigstickers as Harboths Orc Archers, one of the classic old school regiment box sets. 

Hobtober

Yet again, I've failed to paint anything Orcy or Orky for Orctober so I thought I'd adopt my own new month and paint up some of my long promised Hobgoblins. I won't talk about the figures much as I've already done so here and here. 

Instead I'm just going to show of some pictures.

Swing low shitty chariot.....

My inablity to get anything painted due to massive amounts of procrastination was inspired by the Chaos Marauders, mixing various green skins with other nasty types in order to make a mixed up mongrel of an army. Hopefully my next post will show some progress in this area but while I was pondering (I do a lot of that). I started doing a bit of research about which one (who are we kidding, the concept of an all chariot greenskin army were only a short day dream away) I might like to purchase.

It turns out that citadel have made a fair few chariots for the goblinoid fraternity over the years. What follows is a little meander through the two wheeled mayhem that is the Goblin Battle Chariot.

FTG13 Gnoll / Goblin Chieftain's Chariot

The first example is from the very early '80s. These guys were originally known as Gnoll's and there was quite a substantial range of them. They were later renamed as Fantasy Tribe Goblins and then later again as C12 Great Goblins.

Gorkanotta

VROOOOOOMMMM!!!!!

Da boys had heard that some stoopid 'umies had dared to come out of their fortress and had been chasing each other all over the dunes. It was time for some mobile crumpin!

Two trucks and a buggy raced through the cracked mud wastes looking for easy meat.

Fantasy Warlord

So. It's 1990. Games workshop are at the height of their powers. They are still run by the Auteur-like Bryan Ansell and are still producing material for Rogue Trader and WFB 3rd Edition. So if you are one of their Illustrators or an ex-head buyer and Financial Director what makes more sense than attempting to launch a rival game in order to steal away their custom? Thats exactly what Gary Chalk and Ian Bailey decided to do. Fantasy Warlord is a set of Fantasy mass combat rules that was intended to rival GW's behemoth. They even launched a magazine to support their new game. I think the name they chose adequately illustrates their attitude to their competition.

 

Dirty Chaos Warriors

I actually found myself painting again last night. Inspired by experimenting with washes I started on a unit of chaos marauders.

Dredd mob!!

Stomp, stomp, stomp...dakka, dakka, dakka!!!!!!!

Dirty little hobbitses!!

GNNNNNNggggggg!!!!

This dirty little guy is the result of an online challenge on the Emporium (a Facebook group). The challenge was to convert the Aenur mordhiem model, cos, lets face it, he's a douche!

the Metabarons

A long time ago I posted about my adventures reading Jodowrosky and Moebius' The Incal, the expansive space opera revolving about the calamitous life of John DiFool. Or rather a Galactic adventure in which he is accidentally involved. He spends the story being grumpy, selfish, cowardly and argumentative. He's a right pain.

One of the other characters featured in the Incal handle's the twists and turns with far more aplomb. He is the Metabaron. The universes ultimate warrior. The Metabarons takes this one man army and discovers the reason for him being such a mutherfucker (at least one of his ancestors was one quite lierally). To do this the book explores the current Metabarons ancestors and we discover a whole host of very clearly messed up forebears.

Questing for Runes? Couldn't you just draw them yourself?

Way, way back, through the mists of time. Lunch times were dangerous. 

Going to the canteen was a positive hazard to your health. And not just because of the packet custard served at the melting temperature of steel. 

There were far more dangerous foes lurking there, sharp elbowed 4th years and the 3rd year smokers viciously queue jumping to get the most out of their fag time.

Not to mention the possibility of having to spend time in close proximity to the most mind bendingly fearsome of all the food halls inhabitants - Girls!

Still. At least there were staff on duty in the canteen. You took your life in your hands in the corridors. If you were caught at the wrong end of the French corridor then you could risk being ripped to shreds by some surly teacher who has spent their life having their subject ignored by hordes of uncaring little arseholes and decides to take his fathomless dissapointment out on you.

If you go outside there is no telling when the horde of rampaging Brosettes will appear to boot you to death with their Doc martens, or the amount of money you'll lose when being force to play pitch and toss or the terror of breaking bones when caught in the middle of a game of British Bulldog.

Let's not even mention the forbidden zone that is the A-wing toilets!

The safest thing to do is to ask a sympathetic teacher if you can use their room at lunchtimes. It may be a history teacher or a technology teacher but some kind hearted soul allows you and your friends to hide, quivering, within their room for the hour.

And it's in that room, with those friends that you start playing roleplaying games.

And the one you play for ages is..... Runequest.

Mostly Armless

Recognise these? These inconsequential little sprues of plastic? All these tiny grey limbs that we used and discarded with such carelessness in our youth? 

The rescue of Sir Thomas Cocksure

We return to our fantastical adventures during the revolt of the dutch against the imperialist Spanish! 

In our last episode the Heroic Sir Thomas Cocksure attempted to stop the evil Lady Giselle from getting her hands on a relic of some unknown power. He failed and was captured in the attempt. His good friend Sir Jack Falstaff was wounded by a magical bolt to the chest. He has spent time convalescing and through his network of informants has learned that Sir Thomas is being kept in the town of Fooertparp. But Giselle and her minions are about to move him so Sir Jack and his brave lads must move quickly!

The town of Fooertparp, occupied by the nefarious Lady Giselle and her Spanish allies and Monstrous minions.

Lady Giselle had been up to her old tricks again and had resurrected some dead landsknechts to do her bidding, she also had two units of 5 Spanish arquebusiers as well as her bodyguard, Hurtz, the ex-family goat and her apprentice in the dark arts, The Mad Monk.

Adding lots of character

As threatened a couple of months ago, I've gotten round to adding some more monstrous types to my casts for the Elizabethan Gothique games. First off is Rabbi Costinov and his Stone Golem. The good Rabbi was given the secrets to creating golems by a cousin in Prague and he has used it to defend his home from the rampaging Spanish. He has been convinced to come to the aid of the English forces.

His help will come in handy.

Mistress Giselle has been experimenting with the magic items that she gathered in the last game. They have given her the power to transform normal humans into monstrous forms. In this case she has created two Ogre's to bolster her forces. These old Marauder Ogre's are are perfect for the timeframe and add another level of menace to Giselle's forces.

Proof of beastly progress

Just a quick post to show some work on the Chaos Beastmen. I've been back and forwards to Devon and Scotland visiting relatives so I've not had huge amounts of time to get stuff done. We're back at home to stay though so hopefully I'll get more done soon.

I have another plan.....

While I get my head down and get on with painting fantasy stuff (4 beast men done since the last post, the rest of them undercoated. I just need to get into the painting habit a again and I'll be copping along!) my head has been churning with ideas for games for next years BOYL. Yep, I'm that excited. I fancy running a game next year and I've gone through a couple of different ideas, one of which was a dinosaur hunt on a death world with eldar hippies protesting (quite violently) about all these big game hunters killing of the precious little lizards. 

What I have settled on though is classic Rogue Trader setting.

Any of you that are familiar with the RT rule book will remember the Logan's world section illustrated by Carl Critchlow (he of Thrud fame). It was little portrait of a world that only occasional comes under the control of the imperium and most of the time is a place of hard lives and hard knocks.

Ideal for setting a game in. Ideal for setting a game at next a years BOYL in!

Let's do this!

I have admitted to being poop at getting fantasy stuff painted. So it's time to do something about it.
This autumn I'm going to try and get as much of my Chaos army painted as possible. It's time to stop collecting stuff and actually get it ready to be placed on a table and used in anger.

I've already started for gods sake! The above unit of Mounted Chaos Thugs were done as part of a painting challenge that failed miserably. It's time to do some more. In order to collectively shame me into into getting stuff done I thought I'd show what I've got to paint. In a moment of toilet based calculations I worked it out to round about 5000 points if I get it all painted. More if I add magical banners and weapons.

I've also started some beastmen. I've painted 6 for a war band and a Minotaur to lead them.

Inquisimundan clusterfuck!

The Friday before BOYL we were invited for a game at Warhammer World by Axiom. The idea was that we all go and have some games with Andy of the Tales from the Maelstrom crowd, but he couldn't make it. He did, however, send Gadge along as super-sub. Also in attendance were Cheetor, Asslessman, Antipixi, Just John, Graham and Paul. Captain Crooks wandered around in the background looking like and excited puppy and stalking Jes Goodwin. We ended up blethering loads and only got a single game in but it was a cracker of a game.