February 2023 hobby update

A busy and successful hobby month, consequently this is quite a long update.  I got some units finished, played a couple of games and even got some terrain work done.  

Completed

This month I've completed the following:  

  • A regiment of 10mm Hobgoblins for my Chaos Dwarf army.  You can see them here.

  • A regiment of 10mm Ogre Leadbelchers for my Ogre Kingdoms army which you can see here.  
  • I did some work on making my terrain more usable specifically for a game of Burrows & Badgers.  I made some veg beds out of old credit cards and based all my Renendra wattle fencing.  I'll try and do a post when time permits. 

In progress

The following are on the table as February draws to a close:
  • A regiment of 36 10mm Gnoblars for my Ogre Kingdoms Warmaster Revolution army.  I've just got the details to do on these and they'll be finished early in March.  

  • I cleaned up and primed my last unit of 10mm Chaos Dwarf Axemen and a unit of Bull Centaurs.  Eight of the axemen had broken axes and I had to spend a frustrating hour fixing them, but it's good to have the last of the Chaos Dwarfs in progress. 

Gaming

I'm very pleased to say that I got my first games of the year in. 

  • I finally played the last of my Warlords of Goria trilogy, using figures from my Celtos collection with the Warlords of Eherwon rules.  You can read the AAR here.
  • I also played a cracking game of Burrows & Badgers.  The AAR is here.

Research & Reading

It's been a varied month for reading:
  • I started off with the real world and read "1066, A New History of the Norman Conquest" by Peter Rex.  I don't know a lot about this and it was a good starting point.  Post-Hastings there's lots of potential for skirmish games.
  • I then put the real world to one side and went all Fantasy rereading the classic "The Knight of the Swords" by Michael Moorcock.  Over the last forty years or so I have lost count how many times I have read the Elric and Corum books.  
  • Finally I read "Field Grey" by Philip Kerr.  This is number seven in the Bernie Gunther series and spans from the 1930s through to 1954.  I didn't enjoy the first chapter and put it to one side, but when I started rereading it I thoroughly enjoyed it as I have the previous six books. 
  • Hobby wise I've been down various rabbit holes looking at things as varied as "The Red Book of the Elf King" by Lucid Eye and also still looking at Sci-Fi games.  My interest here is solidifying more into Cyberpunk and Post-Apocalyptic settings than your 40K type.  There's so much out there and I just need to work through until I find what I want.  You could never get bored with this hobby.

Incoming!

I've spent a bit this month:
  • A set of ten treasure chests in 28mm.  These only worked out at 37p each which is cheaper than the time it would take me to make them and I couldn't have done them better.  I have the need to make my tables more interesting and these little bits are great for that.
  • I took advantage of a Bundle of Holding offer for the Beowulf RPG.  I've long been interested in this, it's a beautifully produced bit of work.  I got all the PDFs but I can see myself buying a hard copy of the core book.  I doubt I'll ever play it, it's just an excellent read.
  • I got some diorama flower tufts from Tajima.  I'd been procrastinating over the myriad of flowers that you can buy to the point that I wasn't going to be able to build the terrain pieces I wanted in time for the Burrows & Badgers game I had scheduled.  So I went to my default provider as I know Tajima are always very quick with delivery and they didn't let me down.  As it was I found them to be large enough and sturdy enough (after a spray of PVA and water mix) that I could cut round each item very carefully and leave them on the backing so they are reusable. 

  • All the following came on the same day:
    • A sprue of Oathmark Elf Warriors from Wargames Emporium.  Buying these was inspired by  looking at "The Red Book of the Elf King", as was re-reading "The Knight of the Swords". 
    • A copy of the classic fantasy novel "The Broken Sword" by Poul Anderson.  I haven't read this for possibly forty years. 
    • A 3D printed Baba Yaga figure from Badger Creations.  Really lovely, highly detailed figure that should be very nice to paint.
    • A family visit took me near to Wayland Games so I popped in and got a few paints.  My Citadel Foundation paints are finally running out so I wanted to see what the Base paints are like and I got a couple of Vallejo to replace some that are nearly done.
  • Looking at Post-Apocalyptic games made me get my Zona Alfa collection out.  To my shame I bought and painted all this in 2020 and have never gamed it, something I'm hoping to rectify soon.  Anyway I feel I never had enough zombies so I picked up some Dark Alliance ones from eBay.  They seem to scale well enough with my Elhiem ones and they are much more detailed figures and much cheaper which was nice!


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