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Restarts And Archives…

Right, back to work then!

I took some advice from you lot, and mulled over and combined your varied good ideas. I then got lost again in the myriad of options that were newly opened to me. Options I had not considered actually, so after a while, and once I had a wedge of time free, I started to get back to the grindstone and restart this blog thing.

I will keep this post short as I am writing it at midnight after spending 3 hours exporting and importing a whole 4 years of blog posts. Then deleting the older posts from the original site and finding that the media (images) were still there… They were the files that were clogging up the old site and had to be deleted individually before I managed to free enough storage to get back on line.

Needless to say I now have two blog sites. This one and a shiny new Archive Site that can be accessed from the link on the top of my blog main page. Please feel free to follow it so you have a link to the older posts but take note it will be bulk updated only once a year to keep this site from clogging up again.

Lets hope this gets me back to blogging semi regularly again…

An Investment, A Fresh New Start Or A Change Of Home? The Decisions That Have Stopped Me In My Tracks…

There comes a point in every life where hard decisions have to be taken. I am at that point now…

This blog has been part of my hobby life for over 4 years now and I hadn’t realised quite how much it meant to me until I realised that it was time to decide on its future. Some might have noticed that I haven’t posted anything new in the last few weeks.

There is a reason for this…

My free WordPress plan has reached its 3GB storage capacity and, to continue to post here as before, I would need to upgrade to a new plan. There is a personal plan available that would allow me to add another 2-3 years, at my current posting rate, to the blog. Or do I take a more drastic, but cheaper, option and delete older images and posts to free up space allowing me to continue as before.

Upgrading on the cheapest plan appears to offer another 3GB of storage but that means in 2-3 years I would again need to increase the size of the plan at a further cost. From what I can work out, the cost (with one of the regular WordPress deals) would be about £100 a year (plan+retention of domain fee+domain cost). I am not sure that I can justify paying that each year for a simple hobby blog…

I also worry that I will not be able to bring myself to delete any of the older images, however poor or unread my earlier posts may have been, as they make up the first chapters in my blogging history.

A decision needs to be made if I want to keep the blog in its normal format.

…………

Or do I start again? I can leave the current blog ‘as is’, as an archive that I can revisit and reference, and start a whole new blog.

Decisions need to be made… I would welcome any thoughts or ideas you may have… I know that others have reached this point before me and I now call upon their wisdom.

A Song Of Ice And Fire – Free Folk – What, Wait, Am I Starting Another Army

At Colours this year I picked up a new starter set for a game I had not played before. Talk about being a gaming butterfly… The rather nice miniatures from the A Song Of Ice And Fire Miniatures Game were first wafted under my nose back at Salute when one of my friends bought in to an army in a fairly sizeable way. We managed to hold off getting into it at that time but as with all things, constant exposure to something is likely to wear you down.

By the time the Colours show was due I was again tempted by a starter set. Which one to choose though… In the end, I would like to claim that my purchase was made with the figure count, value for money and the lack of expansions available at this time, in mind. The reality is I just wanted a couple of giants in my army.

It does mean I now have another 42 figures to distract me from all of the other things that I should be painting. Well, at least the undercoating of that many figures is a quick process.

We also have a game of Ragnarok (by Osprey Games) planned for 2 weeks time so what better to use than 8 of these boys and girls as a war party.

It allows me to get a few of the hero types painted and also maps out the paint scheme that I plan to use for an army of chilly barbarians.

I have used a number of the contrast paints from the new GW range and some are definitely keepers. The browns are great as colours for wood and fur types, the black and grey are also good fits for my style of painting. Some others are not what I would call effective or useful, for my style of painting at least. These new paints definitely won’t take over from normal paints, but some will certainly find a home in my regular paint stand.

WarCry – Finally A Real Necromancer Appears, Kind Of…

When Warcry appeared on my radar I was slow to become interested, except in regard to the war band from the Corvus Cabal. A crow themed warband doesn’t come along very often, so should not be passed up when you find one. However, instead of getting on with the crows I have been distracted by wanting to play the game as soon as possible. To get figures on a table it was not the Corvus boys and girls I went to first, but my old undead figures. In the rush to get figures ready for a game I have bypassed (again) what I should be focusing on.

That distraction should be over now as I have painted up my final figure for this warband. The leader for the undead faction is a Necromancer. Up until now, I have been using a suitable stand-in, in the form of a Wyrd Miniatures Pandora figure. She provides a suitably evil looking mage but is not deathly enough for my tastes.

Thankfully, for a warband made up of very old skeletons, a suitably old Chaos Sorcerer was found to play the part of their leader. This chap is from about 1985 and back then I may have had a few figures from this section of the range. Sadly all those miniatures have been lost to the sands of time, so its nice to have one back in the collection.

A short run at Google shows me he was called Sli’th Iron Lung. I really should get these boys together for a warband group shot soon.

WarCry – Undead Upgrades

After a short break I am back with one more update on the undead for my WarCry team. This post was started 2 weeks ago, along with the last few posts, it never made it to completion though as I went off on holiday before getting it finished. These guys are the last few skeletons for my Legions Of Nagash team. (Although I still need a better figure to use as my Necromancer).

Grey Seer undercoat, plenty of bone coloured contrast paint and and a few other carefully selected colours (quite a bit if silver/ boltgun metal was used as you can see).

These are all older metal sculpts from the bits box or from eBay (Oldhammer – the collecting and painting of older ‘classic’ Citadel sculpts – seems to be increasingly popular by the looks of the prices on eBay).

Anyway, now that I am back, lets see if I can get this team completed (new Necromancer incoming), or maybe that 15mm Tank game will get played soon.

Worryingly, I went to Colours wargames show just before I went away on holiday, so the purchases from that day out will likely start to steer me off course again.

WarCry – Undead Is Easier Than Anything Living

As I have run out of small tanks to paint I have been working to get a few more Skeletons done.

I started with a few badly based plastic skeletons and a Malufaux magic user. After rebasing most of them, I had a workable force for my first game of WarCry.

I was always going to need some heavier skeletons, Grave Guard. So a few neglected old school metal figures were called up for service.

I do need a proper Necromancer to lead these guys but this little lady will do for now. I am thinking an oldhammer Chaos Sorcerer might fit the bill if I can find one under £12… eBay seems to be slightly over priced at the moment!

A few spare skeletons with scythes (I know. Its unlikely that anyone could swing that weapon with a shield in the other hand but I didn’t have any spare spearmen, so these guys got the new shields…)

Quite a nice little starter force. So, whats next?

Tanks – If I Am Not Playing Then I Might As Well Paint

Well, back on the Tanks thing… Gosh I am a real gaming butterfly when it comes to things at the moment…

The main reason for the flitting about so much is my lack of game playing at the moment. Both my regular opponents are ever so slightly distracted by real life issues at the moment, and my last few game have been cancelled. Although it does leave me more time to paint and build, it also leaves me without a clear focus. You may relate to the fact that my next game often prompts the next painting table mini project.

Anyway, back to the tanks. Tigers and Skirted Panzer IVs. Iconic and almost pretty as tank designs of that period go.

3 tanks in 2 hours… (With another skeleton or two started while I wait for the inks too dry.)

That looks more like a small starter force. Now, where did I put that copy of Blitzkrieg Commander?

WarCry – Still Not Doing What I Should Be

Oh dear…

I am still not getting these finished as I have again been further distracted away from finishing these boys.

And this is the culprit. WarCry the new skirmish game by Games Workshop. A rulebook came my way, then a Corvus Cabal warband.

Then some Savage Orc profile cards. So I really did need to buy myself some Savage Orc figures I guess.

Luckily I had some Undead figures (who doesn’t have a bucket of old undead in their home?) so I guess it was fortunate that GW were selling some Legions of Nagash profile cards (skeletons to you and me) too.

As the Undead were almost all painted, and as I am never one to pass up an easy win, these would need to be finished first.

But because I have them now it would be wise to build a few Savage Orcs. Just to see how they go together.

Oh dear… Am I sidetracking my sidetrack…

Tanks – The Little Things That Are Distracting Me From What I Should Be Up To

Guess what?

I am in the middle of something and I got side tracked again.

Blame Coronasan… He suggested we try a game we have neglected for over a year now.

The Gale Force Nine – Tanks Skirmish Game.

So here I am painting 15mm tanks. Varied German vehicles, as that way, I might someday have a small Axis world war two force I can use.

My first German tanks were done in a poorly applied camouflage. These I cheated and did in German uniform grey. Maybe not too authentic but nicely cinematic.

There is something about the Stug that just appeals to me.

Against my bad camo they make the bad camo look even worse (I might be tempted to repaint a few tanks…)

All ready to go with my limited 15mm scenery selection…

Warhammer 40,000 – Gellerpox Update

Well, its been slow progress since last time, so not a huge post today.

The smaller creatures are all now done and appear suitably gribbly. Is it normal to develop an itch when playing with so many insects…?

Next batch will be the four little Glitchlings and a the trio of Vox-Shamblers. When they get done its on to the last, and biggest, of the figures.