Sculpting miniatures

My first attempt at sculpting is a bit bigger than 15mm. This is Ava Georgia Grace Clark was born by elective cesarian section on 7th September 2010 at 11:09. She weighed in at 7lb 9oz. Mother and baby doing well, dad is knackered.

Wargaming is taking a bit of a back seat understandably for a bit. I'm still snatching the odd painting session but actual gaming will be limited.

On 5th September I helped run the Washingtons Army participation game at Partizan with Martin Goddard. I had a great day introducing the game to new players including 3 from my neck of the woods, Rod Paul and Dave, who seemed to enjoy their game. I also picked up a load more AWI figures from Peter Pig which should keep me going until Christmas. Of course any new releases that arrvive will be snapped up in due course.

This year has been a bust one with a house move, change in role at work and now baby. All ontop of turning 40. The blog has suffered as a result. I will try and update periodically but I dont expect much content to be added for the foreseable future.

More at a later date!

Baby on board

Around three weeks until D-Day. Unfortunately at a scan yesterday we discovered baby is breech. We go into hospital on Monday to see if it can be turned using a technique called 'External Cephalic Version'. If it works Lisa can go through natural childbirth, if not she will have an elective caesarian, probably on 6th September.

Exciting times. And I turn 40 on Wednesday. Mmmmm.

Take a deep breath and ......... relax.

Martin Goddard - You Tube star

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KrPOMNoXCM&feature=channel

Martin talks about Washingtons Army rules.

Battles in the Age of Weymouth

In late July a merry band of wargamers met in a church hall in Weymouth to recreate battles from the Sengoku period.

For once I wasn't the furthest travelled. That went to Kevan Gunn seen here in the yellow.

This is a picture of my attack on Chris Cunninghams Daimyo sitting pretty in his Maku. Chris cleverly put his large mounted Hatomoto unit in front of me which was akin to a brick wall.

Not sure whose playing here but it looks like a good game!

An overview of the hall.

A nice picture of a game in progress on Peter Pigs lovely scenary board. This gives you a good idea of how a game looks.

Stewart in the red 'Levellers' shirt organised the day. For the second year running, he won. It's all down to the Ikko Ikki. Stewart is trying to look humble. Martin is still in shock from my diabolical tactics when he partnered me in the last game.

The Band of Brothers

A great days gaming which Lisa and myself turned into a weekend staying in a picturesque village of Piddletrenthide.

Stewart organised a great day with no hitches and lots of smiles and laughs. Looking forward to the next one.

Still Here

House move done.

Wargames room, known locally as 'The Office', sorted.

Episode of food poisoning now recovered from.

Nursery nearing completion.

Baby only a few weeks away.

Just back from a round country trip. Weymouth for Samurai battle day. Bristol for a night out. Luckington to see Lisa's cousin Martin and his wife Vicks. Barmouth Wales for a few days with my family. Home.

I think that covers the last few months since the last post. Not much wargaming, either painting or playing. But with everything else going on no surprise there. No presssure this year to hit targets or beat last years total. Get some in as and when and relax.

Missed C.O.W. due to aforementioned food poisoning. Cross fingers for next year now. But with bambino that may need adding to the agenda for the next round of negotiations with Lisa.

Plodding on with AWI painting having picked up some of the new figures from Peter Pig whilst down in Weymouth. Also spurred on to paint figures for Squarebashing for which playtesting is about to start in earnest. Whilst in Barmouth soaking up the grey skies I read Norman Stones 'Workd War One, a short history'. Very digestable account of the war in its entirety with some interesting points on the eastern front.

Thats all for now, but a full report of the Samuria day will follow.

More soon...

Ups and downs

Living as we do in a small terraced cottage has its advantages. In the morning we open the curtains and look out across fields, in which as I sit and type are half a dozen horses grazing away. We are in an ideal location, with a village cricket ground next door to us and woods behind. But it does come with its downside.

If I want to spray paint or varnish my figures it usually takes some planning as I have to wait for warmish weather and then dash out to my garage which is behind our house or else do it in the rear yard as I have just done. I normally wait until I have a tray full of figures to do rather than on a unit by unit basis. Unfortunately whilst doing so this evening I left the back door open and the resultant odour drifted into the house. Much to the dismay of Lisa who is now nearly 19 weeks gone with our first child. Fortunately she has gone out for a 'horsey meeting' at the local, leaving me with the windows open hoping the smell will be gone by the time she returns.

We are on the verge of a house move to a considerably larger property with attached double garage. Negotiations are at a critical phase over which bedroom in the house will be the study (read wargames room) and which will be bambinos nursery. Unfortunately the fields woods and cricket club will be replaced by other similar properties on what the estate agents choose to call an 'executive development'. Exciting times but it does mean that I need to take advantage of what time I have free as it will be in short supply come late summer/early autumn.

I am continuing to add to the AWI collection with a unit of American Light Infantry on the block next whilst tidying up a few bits a pieces across my other collections. The Sudan is calling to me at the moment for some attention.

More soon...

Imaginations and AK47

There is a current trend across the internet to create 'Imagi-nations' based typically around fictional 18th century nations as a basis for table top battles. These harken back to the like of Charles Grant and Peter Young and encouraged building units of 40 or 50 individually based figures almost in a toy soldier style. Of course back in the mid 90's when the first version of AK47 came out you were encouraged to create your own country, giving it a name, a flag and a name for the army such as the Freedom Party for Democracy and Truth. Very much in the 'Imagi-nation' theme. In fact there were tables on which you rolled dice to come up with original names and flag designs, going as far as to encourage you to get your crayons out to draw your new flag. This theme continue in AK47 Reloaded.

Spurred on by the excellent AK Day last weekend, I feel like creating my own Modern Africa 'Imagi-Nation'. I know of only one dedicated blog on a similar theme, set in the ficitional country of Bongolesia. I may create a seperate blog, or just put the occasional post on here. I'll use it to link some games of AK and explore my creative side, whilst hopefully not crossing any boundaries of taste and decency.

More soon...