Andorians - Lead Painter`s League round 1

And so the LPL has started again this year. And by God, if I looked at the roster, it is going to be a `Champions League` edition of the contest, I`m going to be glad if I can escape from the bottom 10 this year.



Round 1 started with a defeat, as my Andorians were beaten by a heap of old school Slann. The theme round this year in round 1 was old metal, meaning for bonus points the entry needed to be 1) metal and 2) produced before 1991.

I managed that with these Andorians from Heritage, the blister stamped 1978 (yes, my birth year) and as such even had the oldest entry of the whole first round. Moral victory to moi lol. Still, 97 vs 327 defeat this round.

I don`t expect much for the comming rounds, as I misinterpreted the scenery and background new rulings, and as said in the BSL yesterday, the camera really has had it, it just can`t get any more `zoomed in` then as on this picture, and even then it all starts to blur even and the needed resizing doesn`t do them any good either. I really am going to need to invest in a new one for the next year...

Itsie Bitsie Spider - Brsuh Slave League Round 1

Okay, so we got trashed in the first round, loosing out 39 to 4 in a straight battle of repainted prepaints. And there are no excuses, it was a highly deserved loss as you can see here.

Favorites this round? Well, like with the Lead Painter`s League, I refuse to list three or four matches seperate, for me, every participant is equal. They have the guts to look for glory in a lot of painting pressures for some internet fame after all.



Benefit of the BSL, it is 1 round a month for 7 motnhs, so I have still weeks time to `up the ante`, it`ll be needed hehehe...

18th Century Beauty Parlour

Welcome welcome fellow Parisien to La Bastille, ze most modern beauty saloon in ze whole of France. I am Jean-Jaques le Boucher, your host and I will give you a small tour of the newest trends we ave ere in personal improvement machines

First of all, take a look at this brand new liposuction machine. You are guaranteed to loose much kilograms after only one session. Just go inside and close the door, and ze magic will run its course.



Ere we ave our newest in hair style fashion, providing a very nice and equal `aircut. All you have to do is rest your neck on the denture, and thanks to gravity and a special, razor sharp trimming blade it will be all neat and crispy in only a matter of seconds.



Finally is the newest style to give a Paris nail workover. Rest your `and on the planch and our luvelly assistant BoBo will be along to give the trimming and polishing you always wanted.



So just come along now, and I guarantee you that either of theze newest technological marvels will not cost you and arm and a leg for a treatment.

Meet... the FAR SIDE

It`s about time that I finally let all you followers meet that infamous `Far Side` I keep talking about, as it`s membership roster currently stands (along the years we gained some and we lost some as people tend to drift in and out of the hobby and club due to that boring game called real life).

So without further ado, here they are, our current batch of more then slightly insane players in the schemes for total global domination and beyond (and with thanks to Facebook where they tend to have a nack for posting stupid pictures of oneselves...). Bit odd to talk about oneself in the third person though...

The Mastermind: Tomsche `Lord Aldades` Murrath



The evil genius, the inciter of new things, he who let`s others invest in wargame models, the drama queen, the otaku... aka me

Okay, so here I am, in all my glorious radiance. A hobbyist for almost two decennia now, and proud in being able to `weight` a person on first glance (and afterwards rarely being proven wrong). Has the USS Enterprise tattooed on his leg. Others describe him as `slightly of the scale`, an anime otaku and general geek.
Pro`s: Loves to play the waiting game to pounce at an opportune moment, can get very, very involved in a game.
Con`s: Has issues accepting that not everyone is so gameclub minded / hobbyistic as himself. Due to fast paint outturns gets bored of a system as he has to wait for others to catch up and play. Tendecy to seriously stress out and not able to relativate issues concerning his hobby and club.
Favorite Periods: American Civil War, Fantasy, WW2 Naval and Naval in general, spaceships.

The Nemesis: Guy `Centurion` Van den Brande



As long as I`ve been a member of TSA, this has been my most regular opponent over the years, we live within a click of each other and generally fill each other in rather well. Our characters and playstyle are complete opposites, pity he has a wife and two kids and that I`m straight our I`d move in with him ;)
Pro`s: Makes a plan, sticks to it, builds his force to execute the plan in the detail. Strong strategic player and hard to lure into a trap by playing the `psych game`.
Con`s: Always brings the exact same force to the table, because it works, but tends to get boring for the opposition after a year and a half of more of the same.
Favorite Periods: Fantasy, World War 2

The Creative One: Patrick `Patje` Lefevre



For over a decade, with periods of drifting in and out, Patrick has been the one in the Far Side up for anything as long as it is weird, wonderful, and not run of the mill.
Not the best of players (sorry Pat, but over all those years I don`t think I can recall more then 20 wins in all, and never against me?) but he looses with a smile as long as he can do something odd and he is a great bloke to play against. I have however over all those years I know him, never found out who he mugged for that sporty outfit to pose with.
Pro`s: Cheery and optimistic, up for anything
Con`s: if he`s pissed, he really is PISSED.
Favorite Periods: Skirmish Fantasy, Skirmish style historics or `alternate` historics

The Club Representative: Bjorn `Sgt Looney` Poppe



He`s a soldier boy this one, and I think shareholder of the Jupiler Tauro brewery... but oddly, no matter how fierce and ogre like looking he might be, he does have a few soft spots. We think. We don`t dare to get close enough to search him. Just kidding ;) Also very handy on crowded events to follow in his wake.
Pro`s: Decent player, always assured to launch the `viking style` surge forward army or attack
Con`s: That exactly. Play on that attack and you flank him from all sides, his force disintegrating as snow in the sahara. Sometimes dares to `loosly ineterpret` rules whoch has led to some frictions before.
Favorite Periods: SciFi, Spaceships

The up-for-everything: Wim `Mr Scratch` Cannaerts



Our other army man, he works woth the Engineers of the Belgian Armed Forces. Rather opposite of Sgt Looney, he is a calm and silent one, though he can get slightly fired up in rules discussions. Likes anime almost as much like I do.
Pro`s: Plays in a military style, aiming for precision attacks and flanking manoeuvres.
Con`s: A bit to rigid in his plans, he seems not really good in adapting to changing battlefield conditions when something really unexpected happens
Favorite Periods: SciFi, World War 2 and I`m hauling him in for American Civil War

The unlucky one: Thomas `ThoVa` Vandorse*something something*



Every group has it`s quiet yet enthousiastic castmember, and this one is ours. He can be lively at the table, but eminates a peace and calm and is an easy to go with player.
Pro`s: a good player who knows the rules well of whatever you play and builds armies that work.
Con`s: his armies rarely work because if one person has terrible dice luck, it`s Thomas. Be guaranteed he will miss the game winner roll, and gloriously succeed in failing a `this I cannot fail` roll.
Favorite Periods: Fantasy, SciFi

The `Because we get government support for having him` one: Andy `Creepy Corridor` De Bodt



He`s nuts. Plain and simple. Short a full hand of a complete deck, this bloke is one step away of having to been fed with a spoon. Also has a fixation with my ass, though seeing him doing his Krv Maga pictures, he seems to like it if guys sit with their ass on his face.
Pro`s: In for anything weird to game like Pulp, superheroes, star trek, those kinds of things. As long as he doesn`t have to learn to much rules and paint to much monotonous models. Go read his blog (see the TSA sidebar) and you`ll get the idea.
Con`s: Not the world greatest player as he tends to drift off to do things that make a funny story afterwards, even though it ruins every chance of a win. Keeps touching my ass.
Favorite Periods: everything not historical, not mass army

The tinkerer: Sven `Mechaniak` Roelants



Extremely talented scratchbuilder and painter. If you have him over for a visit, chances are high you`ll be missing all kinds of little screws and whotnots from all over the place because he can do `something` with it. Once made me an OUDF dreadnought as a present from a discarded lighter. Still have it, it`s awesome. And I love his ork trukk which is build on a kid`s pull back car. And still works...
Also has a great love for all things retro gaming.
Pro`s: Be guaranteed to face a gorgeous army, with all kinds of oddities and conversions to the max.
Con`s: Like Andy (they are actually brothers, they just don`t know that yet) minus the ass groping
Favorite Periods: anything he can build stuff for

The slapping bitch: Tom `ChubChub` Steylaerts



Was a `big shot` TSA Warhammer player when he joined the Far Side, and got trashed around a lot since then. But he does wipe our asses out in Magic the Gathering big time though. He`s a very okay fellow though, and our junior member in age (Wim has that spot in `membership years`). I think he sees us as study objects though, being a psychotherapist and all...
Pro`s: Definitly not a bad player, and has catched up with the special style needed to `survive` in the Far Side rather quickly, dishing out now as much as he had take before.
Con`s: Tends to copy armies that work, by which time it is usually to late because everyone knows by then how they work.
Favorite Periods: Fantasy, SciFi

Steaming up the Mississippi

A small set I bought at Salute 2010, I managed today to finally finish the models I painted now 3 weeks ago (aka, spray varnish them) and take some pictures.



Now, like the sailing ship last month, these models are in 1/2400 scale, so are pretty tiny (averaging about 3 cms length and 1 cm width) but unlike the sailing ships, truth to be told I do not really like the sculpts themselves.

Some of the classes don`t represent their suposed counterparts, a comment I already had picked up on TMP before. Monito doesn`t look like Monitor at all for example, with a large funnel and a peaked, bend downward nose like a ram.

Still, the models where cheap and even though the boats themselves where a bit of a bore after the first 4 to paint (I mean, how many tints of a dark iron gray can one paint after all), I do love TD`s sculpted bases that come with the models.

I don`t have any direct gaming plans for them yet, but who knows they might come in handy somewhere in the future and it`s not like they take up whole shelves of premium cabinet space either...

So... 15mm huh?

Okay, adious muchachos to the New Years resolutions and good intentions, the flesh is weak, and all that kind of stuff, Vandenbrande, just don`t, don`t say anything...

I know I`m getting more and more hooked to a new scale for gaming after having been drooling over some additions that should enter the LPL later on this month. The scale is 15mm, the era I don`t care.

I actually like the overall feel of these littler fellas. The detail is good enough to work with (as 10mm and 6mm are really to tiny to do some small details on) yet small enough to get away with not painting that most horrific thing on a model... the eyes.

Now I admit, I have had a sizeable 15mm force before. Flames of War Italians to be precise, and a serious bunch of models it was




I departed with them years ago when the game ran dry at the Tin Soldiers, but I still have my boxes for my Villers-Bocage british Cromwell force, so I might actually be going to break them open once all planned annual progress is done (see blog sidebar).

But there is more. Years ago, when a store called The Lonely Mountain still existed in Antwerp and the Euro wasn`t even thought of (ECU anyone?) there always where those blister packs of a french game called Demonworld, that intrigued me. Couldn`t use them though in Warhammer (only miniature game I knew back then... so yeah, that long ago) so I never bought them.

Now however, Ral Partha Europe has re-released them and is expanding on them, so I`m starting to turn an eye in that direction again.



And it looks like a great scale to finally start assembling those historic AWI british I always wanted.



Apart from that, they have started actual 15mm sci-fi gaming over at TSA these days as I stated in the previous post, with the Tomorrow`s War rules, and if there is one market 15mm seems to offer a LOT of oddities in it`s that part.



But what are the pro and cons for myself to start doing this scale some more?

+ Storage: I can put more bases in my KR trays then with 28mm
+ Volume: You get on average 3 models for 1 model in 28mm so a force is bulked out faster

- Opponents: never saw te scale really played that much at my local club, whom consist mainly of 28+ gamers.


Decisions decisions... buying!

The Curse of the Leagues

So that time is upon us again, the Lead Painter`s League and the now running in a similar fasion The Brushslave League have begun.


And I`m rightly so being trashed at the moment in both first rounds... I`ll post entries on the aftermaths of all rounds.




Heaven and earth where moved as you could read in my older post to be able to enter the LPL this year, and even though I know I will never end in the top tiers of that competition, I just love to be part of the `community` that can force itself into presenting 10 new sets during the period.

I lack the raw talent, the patience and the photography skills and equipment, but even all those things would amount to perhaps 5 places of higher ranking, my `level` is, if one would translate it to the Belgium soccer competition, that of a team like Cercle Brugge, Lokeren or Zulte-Waregem. Mainstays in the mid-table with an occasional boost upwards or tumble downwards.

I can live with that.

I have the balls to take on the challenge.

I also lack a social life... or so they say. All lies! I think... I like to believe...

But what is it with that curse thing then? Well, in the weeks previous to the start of the Leagues, you tend to look around on the net and in your lead pile for suitable teams to enter the Leagues, bearing in mind not only the composition but also theme, originality, being able to manage to paint it up inside the time barrier, and that kind of things.

Now there are a few unofficial guidelines you learn over the years, and things you experience. For one, in the LPL models from the Darkest Africa, Pulp and Post Apocalyptic settings tend to do well. This mostly comes from of course the fact that this is the LAF froum`s main area of the majority of it`s members and plays in the subconcious minds. On that same note, GW models tend to have a harder time there, as a lot of wargamers in the world started with those games, but went on to something different once they got tired of *insert GW rant 541 here*.

So you just now that, if your ambitious, just live with that.

And I really should take time during the year between LPL`s to already prepare some scenery to go with possible entries...

But another part of the curse is also that you tend to find a lot of little previously to you unknown gems on the internet, and so I swayed and swooned, and started another period and another scale... namely 15mm sci-fi.

Over at TSA they have recently started this scale and era, but I was reluctant to join in. Still am, but once a few future rounds of LPL`ing have passed, I can show the start of my forces suitable for the game they use, Tomorrow`s War from the Ambush Alley / Osprey series.



No idea how it plays, but I guess it doesn`t do any harm to observe the game once I am back on my feet and rollercoaster-ish self. You do get a lot of figures for your buck though, so my lead painter`s vow got a serious smack in the face the past weeks due to them...

Ciao ciao

Join History

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Greetings from Room 205

So I'm still tied down in a hospital bed, which is a real bugger and a bore. But the good thing is, single room, lap top, and scores of anime series and movies to watch so I finally can catch up on the 'still to watch' list.

Galbladder is a gonner after last week's surgery, though complications involving it's channels and the pancreas that has an infection now makes me cluttered in this room, but heck, enough doomsy-woomsy, this ain't stopping me from my hobby, the noble art of wargaming and boring you out of your skulls with my brabbling.

For there is good news! Being in the hospital ain't all that bad, and mostly due to this:



Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but believe me, there are some close matches around on this ward. I guess 'heart attack due to testoron levels' probably will be next on my list...

But spending time here does have had me thinking... a lot... about how I love my hobby and miss my brushes.

And that I have stopped clearing out bits boxes and unused, never to be used stuff. I'm going to toss all that lead, plastic and resin of died off projects in big plastic - yes, I learned my lessons of garages and cardboard boxes with the Wood Elves and Chaos Dwarfs - containers untill

1. a project does come along in the future in which they can be used
2. I can use them to convert things
3. I just feel like painting them

I reached that conclusion when I saw that this years was 'word of Tolkien' and I had to ail order figures for the bonus points

Realizing I did at Crisis 2003 Helm's Deep with gaming buddy Jo, so here are some pictures of the old box, and that all the defenders and a third of the uruk-hai where my models... it is a bit sour that one does no longer have figures for it.






But there is more. I'm going to focus back a bit on the art of learning to sculpt decently after the hut I did about a year ago. I liked doing that little thingie, but with all those projects getting of or not, I just haven't come around to taking up the toothpick again. And I have learned the hard way now what stress can do to a body...

It's going to be terrain at first, then once I got a finished set of 3 - 5 models I'm going to look for a caster to build me my own sculpted terrain. Should be a pretty cool feel to play...

But the most important piece of news... thanks to the helpfullness of Prof Witchheimer and celphone guided work from my dad to look around in my home pc, I managed to get my pictures for the first three rounds to here and enter the Lead Painter's League again which starts the comming week.

It's turning out to be a real giant battle this year, only 2 or 3 of all the previous top contenders seem to be missing from the entry roster, so I think my 'first half of the table, win half my matches' will be a tat very overambitious, but I will fight to the skin of my teeth.

And to go for the shortest entry name ever...

So from next week on, your going to be able to read here all about my face being thrudded in the mud, but no worries on that, it motivates to paint a diversity of models and try to be original. I just hope my mail order for the round 10 large model gets sorted out or I'll have to look for a plan B

Ciao ciao, I'm back off to the