Red Barons convention Gent

Today, the yearly trip to the small, but extremely cozy convention in Gent of the Red Barons took place. With about 10 traders and 20 games, this show is for me a blast to the past, when shows and conventions used to be smaller regional affairs with the odd foreign trader or club.

This year once again, I had the opportunity to spend a heap of money (clocking out around 200 euros in the end, not bad for a small affair), get some whacky ideas going, and meet up with some familiar faces, as well as adding fresh ones.

The trade halls:





Our own club was present with a 28mm Vietnam game, focussing on the liberation of Erio di Lupo




There where a lot of nice games present, eye candy galore for the budding plans forming in my mind.

My personal favorite was this colonial game, a fictional scenario in which Leopold II and mistresses where visiting a settlement at the wrong time.





This was also the only game in which one of the (french languaged, but making a great effort to speak dutch) players interrupted his game just to tell about what they where exactly playing, how the terrain had been made et all. Bit pity as this is more the exception then the norm these days on shows all around though...

Another great piece of eye candy was the Stipsicz Hussars table, the camel corp in particular was really cool looking.




Paper terrain seems to be a new trend catching up, though i admit it looks cool, it just doesn`t `do it` for me though. Especcially not compared to `normal` terrain.




Mainstay traders of most shows in the Belgium, top to bottom, Dax magic with his, well, everything you want to build your models, Dave Thomas`s transportable wargames supermarket, Worean from Germany and Millenium Books for all your Osprey needs.






And some traders from France / Wallonia provided a range of well, like everything, whilst The Gamestore was there with some discount boxes.






But a personal winner for me every year is the Bring and Buy, really great deals at ridiculous cheap prices are to be had there, every year again. My `top find` this year was a bag of almost 100 metal Foudnry Saxons / Franks infantry (who will join my ranks of the Hibernians for WAB) for... 50 euros!



And then for the remaining gaming tables (I forgot one of 15mm nappies, but they weren`t set up yet when I was on my `personal walkabout`)

Murphy`s Heroes ran a naval game of barges and the likes in scale 1/600, a table heavily played by attendees all day.




De Witte Ridder brought along a 6mm world war 2 Flames of War game



A literally massive ancients game, with 54mm armies battling it out




Two of my favorite periods where also present, the ACW and the ECW, needless to say I drooled over the battles to much to remember to take much pictures...





And then the remaining games, in no particular order, but a lot of pretty tables around here again (the afghan game, the napoleon armies...). The show may not have had the most spectacular tables scenery wise or concept wise, but heck a LOT of good looking models on the tables (and EVERYTHING was painted).
















A highly enjoyable day, the only downside being me and my cheese for brain forgetting my jacketon the venue, maybe I`ll see it again, otherwise I only have myself to blame for that.

So to close the day of, the `loot picture` of a day at the Red Barons



Ciao ciao and see you at Salute

A Tour through the Scrapyard

I did it, I finally did it. My to paint list dropped under 3000 models last night, the LPL is doing her work!

In order to celebrate, I ordered over 200 pounds of models from Maelstrom Games (well, I `planned` only to order two bottles of Vallejo Goblin Green and a FWC rulebook for a clubmember... adios good intention of 2011)...

Last week, one of my clubmates asked me in what kind of scrapyard I would be living in, since my `obsessions` like dvd`s, anime models, wargames etc etc etc... and they are absolutely right, it`s Cluttertown here. I wouldn`t even be amazed to one day find out I actually HAD a girfriend but she got lost somewhere in there.

So here we go, just for fun, a Tour through the Scrapyard...

First stop, the paintdesk, where many upcomming LPL 5 projects are lying around, but the painted ones cleverly disguised as a diamond lamp



Next to that, the paint car, mostly Coat D`Arms paints. Botsbox and scenery materials are in the trays beneath the paints



The old Wood Elf army, slowly restaurated in the Project Asrai errrm project.



Even the floor is used as a place of storage for WiP`s



Everywhere you look, boxed sets can be found



Or spaces to display armies to be are invaded by blisterpacks



And more boxes, though the cardboard KR cases are my salvation to be, slowly all will get painted and put away in many of those things.



Boxes of despair, also known as Treasure Trove alley. I actually have no exact idea what is all inside that heap of models, clipbags and blisterpacks.



More scenery and models invading `reserved` places



A `few` blisterpacks as well as a `few` boxes of Gundams. *EDIT* The large cardboard box of `to repaint prepaints` stands on top of that shelf, but I see now that she didn`t make the picture.



The Library, source of inspiration. As with the DVD`s later on, this is `double layered`, so behind each row of for example Star Trek novels... is another row. Same will be seen with the scifi DVD`s.



Which can be seen in the following pictures, and also here, models are making their way slowly inside that cabinet...
These are only the pure scifi though, most other `more mainstream` DVD`s are in another room.







And then the anime statuettes, especcially those on the second pic are bloody expensive, the book supports (left and right with the Athena head each) knocked me back a slight tat over 400 euros. Oh well, fanboyz, they never have it cheap...




And finally Librerica Rulebookia, yes, with Strike Freedom work in progress. Future War Commanders at TSA be warned, the Gundam army is nearing completion...



What have we learned today? That I either urgently need to break a leg or so in order to be able to paint a lot more, or that I should really pay some sexy cleaning lading a LOT of money to even DARE enter into that place....

Ciao ciao

Let This Be Our Battlefield

Well, about one third of the houses our gaming group bought about two months ago has been painted in the meantime by my minions, and this is the result:





For now we scattered them just over the table, as we need to empty the monstrosity (again read: I) for the ACW battle weekend, but after that we`re going to build it with city blocks, pure industrial terrain and a suburb style setup.
One thing did show though yesterday: you bloody well needed to think damn hard now...

Lead Painters League

And so it comes that season 5 is upon us, kicking off half of march...
The concept of the whole League is to reduce the amount of lead (white metal, resin, plastic...) in a painting competition of good fun, and when I joined the LAF last year, I enrolled into the 4th season, taking two clubmates of mine, Andy and Sven (of the Creepy Corridor and Mechaniak blogs respectively) along for the ride.

My goals? Considering my average painting skills and below amateurish photography skills, to not enter last, and enter all three of the bonus rounds with adequate entries. Also, as resident scifi buff at TSA, I was obliged in my own mind to enter at least one space ship related entry...

So for the sake of archiving and closing off the Season 4, the 10 entries I competed with last year, resulting in a decent 21st place out of 46 contestants (above half of the field even wieieej) with 3 wins and a draw (and a heavily negative voting points factor, yet still ended above a lot of others due to the bonus points scored).

This year, I`m aiming again for not ending last, but the more ambitious plan is to grab each and every bonus point around (aka, 10 new entries not shown before, and the extra points for the season 5 bonus rounds 1, 5 and 10).

The movie scene bonus round was a headbreaker but after hours of brainstorming I think I have it covered... what it will be? Time will tell hehehe. Round 5 will be 15mm Colonial Sudan I have lying around here, those models can then later be integrated in another sideproject I haven`t quit given up upon, VSF, while round 1 will have a heap of Celtic Irish models finally painted.

The warriors of Season 4...

Round 1: Celtic Irish



Round 2: Starfleet



Round 3: The 5th Doctor`s Company



Round 4: Jaffa!



Round 5: The South has Risen Again!



Round 6: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen



Round 7: Ragruppamento Artiglieri



Round 8: Requiem for a Hunter`s Moon



Round 9: Archers of Heru



Round 10: Avanti Savoia!



So that where the models that did my bidding last year. I`m not commenting on individual rounds, degustibus en colorbus and the likes...

For Season 5, I will stand once more by my personal principles:

1. I will not vote for myself, always for my opponent!
2. Please do not vote for me just because you know me, but if you do, because you find it the better entry!
3. I will enroll at least one small scale entry (6mm or 10mm)!
4. I will enroll at least one spaceship entry!
5. I will do my uttermost best to enter 10 new entries!

Ciao Ciao

88th New York (2nd Irish Brigade)

And to follow up on my earlier ramblings from today (does it show I have time off from work?) my very first completed, hard plastic, historical regiment: the 88th New York, the second regiment of the infamous Irish Brigade

Come join the Irish Brigade m`boys, come join the Irish Brigade.
You`ve seen those Southerners tremble, when they met with the Irish Brigade.

First, I must admit when i started the road to hard plastic historicals, i was very sceptical, and that was mainly for the following three reasons:

1. Ieuw, plastic models, that never can look as varied as metals
2. Individual bases all the way
3. Paper banners? I paint my banner myself thank you...

1. Ieuw, plastic models, that never can look as varied as metals



Well, seeing is believing the saying goes. Now one must bear with me, I`m from the Games Workshop generation where you either have the very old plastics which, well, look dull in their single cast, single pose line up. Great for bulking, but to many in a unit and the unit looks bareuh. Then came the GW `model kits` which trainloads of little stuff and hours of assembly and cleaning required. One had to have a degree in architecture to be able to build them (Rhino track treads anyone?) and a world championship title in dominoes for getting them to line up nicely (reform in battle? I`ll pass thank you very much).
When I opened the box (in this case, Perry Miniatures ACW Infantry) I saw that there was not much puzzling to do, yet the models still had a variety of poses.
Point one of my reservations... withdrawn

2. Individual bases all the way



Once more, the GW background, where you sometimes loose a single model or such, rarely half a regiment in one single volley or melee round (not talking break tests or multiple unit melee, actual dead guys in a 1vs1 unit battle). So I would have no need for those green bases that come with about each and every range of plastics out there, I was planning on basing each and every model on a 2by2 cm base. Then I started playing along in some historical battles and read some rulebooks... and models tend to die easilier and with more together then in your average fantasy game.
Out came those green things then, which cater for, staying with my 2x2 base frontage intention, anywhere between 1 and 5 models. I mixed and matched the bases along (not using the 5 wide though) so I can either form into march column or like on the picture, a firing line.
Reservation two went down the gutter that way...

3. Paper banners? I paint my banner myself thank you...



As could be seen in the past halfyear with my Wood Elves, I draw my banner designs on paper in a fine pencil, then colour it in with paint. That was indeed the idea as well for the historicals... till I researched the flags. I admit, that would be above my talent to paint them freehand, so I went searching the internet and found two excellent providers, Battleflag and Flags of War. Both around the same price, both looked great, so for the Irish Brigade I ordered the well, Irish Brigade sheeth from the latter. It arrived today (and as the last models of the unit where painted this morning, I just needed to cut the flags out and attach them to the bannerpoles) and I must say I really like the quality and look of the unit flags.
It is fine to draw freehand banners for fantasy, but my limited talent can`t cope with the historical detailed flags... and reservation three happily went out the window.


Now, of to paint the first regiment of my ECW Parliament army...

Comming of Age...

It has happened. The circle is complete. I`m getting old and grumpy...

Many more of those statements can be used if one looks at the current (and, from my younger point of view) and past `life as a wargamer`.

I bought my first Osprey books on Napoleonics yesterday.

Now this might sound strange to people, and it is not intended to be any kind of insult at all, but the tale of how a young gamer slowly turned from a kid with a Warhammer army to an old grognard googling facings on British regiments...

More then 15 years ago, I rather accidentally rolled into the whole wargamer hobby. Mind you, that was an era where the internet was a stuff of legends, so together with 4 friends we played MB`s Heroquest on one of those guys attic. Of course, after blasting through the adventures time and again as you started to know the maps by heart, and the totally inbalanced homemade scenarios, dabbling in a hack and slash versions of AD&D (hey, we where like 14 - 15 years old back then) where we for some reason (well, the DM just liked the place) always ended up after session 1 in Ravenloft, we visited the local game store, The Lonely Mountain, for more material.
There we found a box with models that looked like the Heroquest ones... little did we know we bought a box of Warhammer and the path to a hobby was opened.
Al sorts of awfully inbalanced armylists where thrown against each other, models barely worth the name painting (undercoat? varnish? what are those terms?) and we struggled in the Old World for a couple of years.



Then the life of partying started, and in the end I was about the only one still really into the hobby... and found myself into the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp, a club I`m now a member from for over a decennia. I blame them! I have whole numbers of painted armies, the others have wife and kids... Hmmm, on second thought, seems I came of easy and cheap then. Okay, I don`t blame them to hard then.

Of course, the warhammer tradition was carried on, but now into a club environment. More opponents, the occasional tournament, the whole heap a cheap. But ever so slowly the transference had been started. Soon, the first Irish models for the Dark Ages where amongst my models. They where by Amazon Miniatures, a dozen kerns, and I still have them, actually, they are on the `to repaint` list very soonish.

Some more years went by, and I started to break off more and more from the whole GW scene, but didn`t take the path to historicals just yet. No, I went for my great love, spaceship gaming. A niche rarely seen on a club, it runned for years week in week out at TSA, even `scoring` us a place in some magazine around 2005 - 2006 when we where full time into A Call to Arms by Mongoose Publishing.



And so it kept on evolving slowly and steadily. Even though adventures in time and space continued, I did start to participate in the yearly TSA weekend dedicated to a large battle of the American Civil War... and darn, I loved that. I always have had a fondness for the period, due to the `De Blauwbloezen` (rougly translated as `The Blueshirts`) stripbooks when I was a little padawan for the most part.



And then it took a rollercoaster ride... plastic historical boxes for no money at all. Victrix, Perry Miniatures, Warlord Games... you know the drill. We had dabbled a bit in historics by then with a year long Flames of War campaign, as that was now readily available, but it died down after the campaign and armies where sold. We returned to the spaceship games, mainstay of the little clique we formed at TSA infamously known as `The Far Side of the Galaxy` (due to our regular table being placed on the far side of the compound and having galaxy mats on them... nothing fancy actually behind the fancy name).
I also learned some valuable insights in the whole plastic scene compared to some of my prejudices, but that`s for another rambling.

I bought a box of Perry ACW infantry cheaply of ebay about two years ago, and they just, well, lingered around. They first reappeared last year with the Lead painter`s league round 5 where the theme was `zombies and opponents`. Don`t ask, though it did for some obscure reason win me the round, as can be seen here, against another clubmate of mine, Creepy Corridor Andy.
And the rest went back on the leadpile.



Until... something started to change this past Crisis show. We decided on going to play a campaign for 6mm science fiction with the Future War Commander rules, but in the back of my mind was this nagging little voice, repeating `your grown up, buy historics ya fool`. I ignored it. For like a month, then placed an order for the massive ECW army deal of Warlord Games, due to some end of year promotion and all, and the Parliament army was planned out.
I found the Perry plastics again during a clean up... the long planned Irish Brigade sprang back to life.
I bought 6mm ACW forces for both sides from Baccus about a year ago to try and lear my gaming mates Johnny Reb 3 to get more players for the ACW weekend. They are being dug up as we speak in order to get a coat of paint.
My Dark Age Irish, though completed for Warmaster Historical, are being assembled and inventarised even as you read this. An army for both the Age of Arthur AND the about 100 year later Shieldwall. My surname is Murrath, which apparently is derived from Murchad, which comes from Mael el Muchada... yeah, that guy that got his ass handed over in the Battle of Clontarf by Brian Boru. Still, maybe I should check if I ain`t a inheritor of the back then Kingdom of Leinster...

And now I bought those Osprey`s. I always had a personal admiration for 3 commanders over all of history, namely the Duke of Wellington, though Napoleonics didn`t intrest me as I looked up to painting all those correct facings and all, Bernard Law Montgomery (I personally really loved his Ardennes tactic, but I`m rather defensive in my playstyle so I`m prolly leaning more towards him then to say, Rommel or Patton in `moving my toys`) and Ulysses S. Grant.

It has happened... I`ve evolved from a young guy with a fancyful fantasy army towards an old geezer researching his forces general uniform colours before painting them...

Jurassic Parc Unleashed!

I finally finished my second project for 2011, namely an `alien invader` army for our Future War Commander campaign. The force, Lizard Riders, have been produced by Micro World Games and are from their range with the same name.



I personally like the flavor of the army. Saurians riding gun-toting dinosaurs, how cool is that to put onto the field of battle. Now rulewise, they are everything but a strong force, their `heavy tank`, the T-Rex netting 225 points yet only comming with a 5+ save and not an immens amount of firepower. HOWEVER, it IS a T-rex, you don`t want that bugger amidst your infantry with his Stubborn rule and high melee attack value, it`ll, well, eat them.



The sculpts themselves are for the dinosaurs pretty nice, great detailing on musculature and teeth and claws. My personal favourites on that part are the Para-unpronouncable-saurus`s with either the lance or missile launcher.



The Stegadons and the Ceratops are `good`, not the most awe-inspiring models but great looking things, and my vaerage painting skills and lousy camera handling don`t do them credit. Same goes for the Raptor riders, but they suffer from the woe below...




... and that is the basic infantry. Okay, faces on 6mm models, not the easiest of things in the world, but these guys seem to have some sort of deathheads skull (you know, like on the Jolly Roger flag) / squid like face (like Dr Zoidberg from Futurama), perhaps not the best choice for saurian like infantry. A bit more of a `pointed forward` snout like the Kraytonians from Dark Realms would have done a better job in my opinion to blend them into the range, but bottomline, a great line of models and very good value for money!

Oh, and the artillery and airplane saurusses, they are conversions, the post is somewhere in the archives of this little blog, but they are basically 10mm Magister Militum dino`s mixed with Flames of War 15mm weaponry...


So, off now to the next army to try and complete. I think that is going to be my EuroFed army from Brigade, as they are closest to being all done. To quote Warehouse 13 on my residing lead mountain... `Snag it, bag it, tag it`