Gaming in our Pyjamas

For the whole of her little life, my daughter has had a daddy who plays with toy soldiers. She has known no different, but for most of her life not paid too much attention (she was taught at an early age not to touch my models without asking). However, the last year or so she has been paying more and more attention. She has joined me for some painting (which is just her slapping pink all over some one piece Skaven I got her), and she lost interest in that quite quickly. 

But recently, since her fifth birthday, she has been paying more and more attention to what I do. She is, by her very nauture, an inquisitive little soul, and this applies to toy soldiers just as much as anything else. I've been promising her a little game for a while. And since we were having a lazy pyjama day, it turned out today was the day. 

I decided not to do anything too drastic. I used what fantasy forces I had painted, and gave us each two units of ten troops and one unit of ten archers. The rules were simple:

4+ to move a unit

4+ to hit

5+ saving throw

Biggest unit strikes first (or, in the case of equal size, my daughters unit went first!)

Everyone moves 6", archers can fire 24"

I think it went quite well. She stuck with the game all the way through, and got the hang of the dice rolling quite early on. 

It was a straight forward way to introduce her to the very basic concepts of wargaming. She got the hang of moving stuff, rolling dice, and it's only going to help her counting. We already have another game arranged for next week and it gives me an excuse to buy and paint some more stuff, because what I really need is an excuse to do that! Who knows, she may become that rare thing - a female wargamer! Plus, she will provide a good test bed in how to get the boy into the hobby when he gets a lot older. 

Here are some photos of the highlights. As an aside, this is the first game EVER on my gaming table. Result!

The opposing forces. All my daughters stuff was on movement trays. 

My daughters archer unit takes first blood on the High Elves in the distance. 

Aerial shot of the closing armies. 

My daugher's forces closing on mine.

The first close combat. Victory to Evie's Skaven!

My High Elves take out the last of the opposing archers.

Evie shows no mercy to my last close combat unit.

And the end, victory to Evie!

Messing Around with a Light Box

I decided a while ago that I need to improve the photos I take for the blog. I tend to find that even with lots of lights on them they are dark, especially in the winter when there is very little natural light around.

I know that a lot of people use light boxes so after finding a cheapo one on Amazon for £7.99, I took the plunge. The light box itself is just an expanding wire framed box with white cloth over it. I didn't get the set that comes with lights because I decided in the short term that I would see if I could use my daylight lamps.

After setting it up, here are the results:

Here is a comparison shot of my recent Skaven both how I normally to do the photos (top) and the light box one (bottom):

I can't personally see a massive difference, perhaps I need some better lights? Also, ironing the back ground cloths that come with the light box wouldn't hurt. The main positive is that it doesnt matter how dark and miserable the weather is, the light will be constant.

Complete Skaven Unit

Having picked up Dragon Rampant rules just before Christmas, it prompted me to look at the forces I had suitable for fantasy. I have very small forces of Undead, Elves and only ten Skaven. I decided finishing off another 10 Skaven to make a full unit of 20 would give me a suitable size unit to use in my games. I quickly finished off these guys to achieve this:

 When put with the other ten and stuck on a movement tray they look like this:

The important thing to remember with these chaps is that they are base coat of maybe 8 colours and a wash, then basing. So I reckon that unit took maybe 12 hours all in spread out over 6 evenings. In other words I could easily sit down and do a unit in a day if I had nothing else to do with my life, which I think is a pretty healthy speed.

My intention now is to do a few solo trial games of Dragon Rampant to learn the rules and see where things go from there. I suspect, from a quick read of the rules, that I might what to house rule a few things already but they seem a straight forward stater for fantasy games. Just need to get the games table sorted with a few bits of terrain first.

In other hobby related news: I've had my first play around with a light box to get better photos, I have my first ever 20mm World War 2 inbound and I'm mulling over going in on my first kickstarter ever as well. Lots of new stuff to look forward to. 

Blood Bowl!!!!!!

As most do, I dropped out of the hobby around 18/19 years old as reali life began to assert itself with full time work, girls, beer, bills etc. I never truly lost touch (still picking up White Dwarf for example), but my actual participation in it was very minimal - I imagine I painted about 3 models in 7 years and didn't game at all. 

When I began to the slow return, my gateway drug was of course Games Workshop, and the first offering was Blood Bowl. A mate, Simon, and I picked up a copy and started playing. For us, it was the ultimate game for playing with a beer or two (or eight). Many games followed, but if died off a few years ago when my hobby took the parent hood hit. 

Anyway, the other day we dusted it all off and got our first game in for quite while:

We played our usual teams, I opted for my Skaven team, known as the Sewer Skutters, whilst Simon bought his Wissenland Wolverine human team out of retirement. Both these teams are arch rivals. We haven't kept an exact track but I think honours are roughly even over the years. The Skaven's speed often leads to two-turn touch downs, whilst Simon's humans can be quite good at squashing rats. 

Here is the table at the start of the game:

Simon was receiving and it was fair to say the dice were diabolical for him to start with. His thrower couldn't pick up the ball, all his blocks led to his guys falling over and it just went horribly wrong, leading to the Gutter Runners tearing through the lines, picking up the ball and making it 1-0. Here's the Gutter Runner receiving a handoff and about to score:

After that, his rolls got a little better and his chaps battered there way through the Skaven lines to leave it 1-1 at the end of the first half. 

At the start of the second half, the Skaven team received the kick off, but despite making a run for it, the gutter runners got smacked down, and Simon managed to turn it around and go 2-1 up:

The Skaven then got to receive the kick again. This time I managed to pull off a two turn touch down and even the score. You can see here that my team have made a hole and got three gutter runners through with plenty of support:

Getting at them would prove troublesome and marking/blocking all three is near impossible. Even when I am defending I try to get at least two gutter runners into the opponents half as they are dsitracting and can cause mayhem.

The last section of the game was a propper scrap. With Simon receiving he was able to batter a couple of my guys off the field and force his way into my half. I realised at this stage I was playing for a draw so used my speed to surround my his blitzer:

This left the whole fate of the game resting on a single roll. If he got a natural 6, his throw was accurate and he would just need a 2+ with a reroll to touchdown. To both our surprises, the dice came good for him when it mattered and he took the game 3-2!

The whole game was great fun, and I think it's fair to say the Blood Bowl bug has bitten again. It's a real shame that GW canned the whole specialist game range a few years ago as otherwise I would pick up another team in a heart beat. Oh well, I have already found a couple of alternate sources for teams that I think I will be investing in soon.

To keep up with all my Blood Bowl shennanigans, visit my facebook page: A Cardboard Fortress

High Elves and Skaven

Despite my main focus being historical stuff at the moment, I still have a massive back log of Games Workshop models. In order to try to keep on top of the painting pile, and to justify buying new stuff, I like to clear some of these in between other things.

So this week I have caught up with a couple of items. First off were another five Skaven. These are from the Island of Blood set and are very quick and easy to do. I only did five as I find that number to be manageable as a side project. They are also a good illustration of how effective washes can be for a table top army. This is before the wash:

And after with the basing done:

I am a big user of washes simply for speed. These Skaven are literally base coats and a wash and done. Up close they look average, but a unit of 20 of them on the other side of the table looks the business.

Next up was High Elves. I had five archers done and added another five to bring them up to this state:

Again,  these are a relatively quick paint job but no washes and a few highlights to make them a bit better than the Skaven. High Elves are my "try harder" army so get a slightly better paint job.

It's another 10 models off the painting pile. I've developed a system recently of having four or five projects on the go at any one time. I like this as it seems to mean I am always close to finishing something, and gives me a steady stream of complete models. The Bolt Action British are the main block of these projects, but there are others overhead block as well that should feature soon.

As always, check out my facebook page: A Cardboard Fortress

Projects, Projects, Projects.

I often consider it to be the curse of wargaming as a hobby - it's sheer variety. Of course, with most hobbies there are always more things you want, more kit, the latest gadget etc. But think about it. You don't have a totally different set of kitting needles for doing blue clothes to red clothes, for doing scarves over gloves etc. Nor does a golfer have a set of golf clubs for a sunny day, and another full set of clubs for when its a cloudy or a set for when he feels sad and a fourth set for his happy days.

Wargaming is different. What mood are you in today? Ancient greece today sir? How about a bit of English Civil War this evening? Micro scale tank armour anyone? Giant space ship battles? You get the idea.

We in this hobby are totally spoiled. Not only do you have different periods, you have the fantasy/sci-fi element (hereby lumped into made-up-stuff), the different theatres of war, do you recreate specific battles or do your own? Then throw in scale and the number of companies and you have a near enough infinite number of options. And of course, being greedy human beings, we want it all.

And that's why the other day I turned to one of my many projectgs and painted these:

Do I play Warhammer Fantasy Battle/Age of Sigmar? Nope. Would I like a couple of armies for it? Yep, sure why not. I have the beginnings of a couple of forces from a half formed idea some time ago to get into the game but life defeated me, as it is often does. My main problem is that the scale of my amibitions does not often match the time I have to realise it. A good illustration of this is if I list all the armies I have at least one model for and that I would like, one day, to have as an army:

Bolt Action Late War Germans
Bolt Action Late War Brits
40k Imperial Guard
40k Renegades
40k Tau
40k Space Marines
40k Orks
Warhammer High Elves
Warhammer Skaven
Epic Imperial Guard
Epic Orks
Epic Space Marines
Napoleonic 28mm Penninsular British
Napoleonic 28mm French
Battle Fleet Gothic Imperial Navy


Some of these are literally one model and an idea, some are hundreds of painted minis. I never say complete becuase I don't believe an army is ever complete.

On top of the above, here is a list of projects I will probably start reasonably soon:

Hail Ceaser Dacians
Hail Ceaser Late Romans
Bolt Action Early Germans
6mm Napoleonic Brits
6mm Napoloenic French
Modern Brits in Afghan/Iraq
Taliban/Insurgants
20mm Germans, World War 2
20mm Brits, World War 2

Why will I buy more when I am already surronded by half finished projects? I don't honestly know, I just realise that it is inevitable that I will.

So there we have it, the eternal curse of the wargamer - to have way too much to paint, but not able to stop yourself buying more. How do you guys cope? Do you always complete a project before moving on or are you in the same bracket as me and just keep buying?

As always, pop along to my facebook page The cardboard fortress,and give me a like for more updates.