Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015!

Well, with customary bloggers aplomb it seems de rigeur to offer an end of year summary, and offer some prognostication into the year ahead...

For me, the story of 2014 was a welcome return to Middle-Earth, and a solid return of the painting and modelling mojo. But it wasnt all paint and models, there was inspiration and gaming too, and a groundswell of growing interest in the game...

Last year started off with me rounding out my entries in Curts painting challenge... trying to finish off some Empire of the Dead building work, and then starting off a little LOTR gaming with my son, having been inspired, back then, by the second Hobbit movie... It was shortly after this that my son started to read the Lord of the Rings, which then in turn inspired a play through of the Fellowship scenario games for the LOTR SBG game... which in turn led to some somewhat bigger than first planned, terrain pieces, being built... The Watcher in Water board and the Durins Causeway board...

This in turn led onto more work on the LOTR figure backlog, as I churned out the figures we'd need to play through the scenarios, and looked ahead to the Two Towers scenarios...

As this was progressing, there was also some left over matters of a piractical nature that needed finishing, and I managed at long last to complete my pirate brig, The Temptress, and made a sea scape for her to sail on, and a Desert Ilse to explore...

Back to matters of a Middle Earth nature, and thanks again to the connectivity of the internet, with local  Facebook groups and local games clubs, and local stores, connecting, we saw the emergence of a group of players for LOTR, come out from the wood work, both new and old, and games start getting played again on a regular basis...

I met new folks like Andrew from Wello, and Ste who migrated from the UK... and touched base with the 'Wellington crew', thanks to hosts at the Warlords, and got games in with mates like Bryan and Brett too, and perhaps planted a little LOTR seedling with players down at the KWC, who knows, with a little care and TLC it may yet germinate... fingers crossed.

I'd also like to offer a little thanks for the on going inspiration from the folks who take part in the GBHL... it may be the other side of the world to me now, but their enthusiasm is infectious, so thanks guys...

In summary, I painted something like 250 figures, made a pile of terrain, blogged 120 posts, my most yet in a year, and played a great many games, at home, at mates houses and down the club. Probably not as many 'formal games' against adults, as the previous year, but more on the home front with my son, and thats got to be a good thing too :)

This also was the year of the radical shake up in hobby focus... as I decided to clear the decks of projects that were old, unloved, or never realistically going to get off the ground, or whatever... and this saw a load of unpainted stuff sold off from the lead mountain, and indeed painted stuff too was dispatched in the realisation that if it hasnt been played in more years than I can remember, it didnt seem likely to again... so out went 40k orks, WFB dwarfs, Dark Ages, Romans, SYW, ACW, Zulus and colonial Brits, and napoleonics, and some odds and sods too of FoW, cowboys, old RPG type models and more besides... and there is still more to go...

I am focusing on LOTR/Hobbit as my core game, and much of what was sold above, funded more purchases to fill gaps in my LOTR/Hobbit collection, and there is more new Hobbit stuff being churned out as we speak, including a certain large red Dragon... which I will need to source over time...

I am also hanging on to the Pirates stuff as I love the setting, the LotHS rules are still enjoyable, and experiments adapting EotD rules for the setting were very effective... and Empire of the Dead as again the setting and models appeal, even if the company's support for this game has been temperamental at best, (more models continue to slowly filter through), despite what appeared to be a successful Kickstarter... I would still like to see a formal rules update - the kickstarter folks received a Requiem Pdf... but I think it needed a few tweaks before being released... and this ongoing wait has been my frustration...

I have oddly hung onto the majority of my FoW stuff too... I dunno, I invested a lot in it, time and money, to see it all flogged off... I do sometimes miss the march of my Wehrmacht troops over the board, even if their Mechanised exploits seemed more akin to the 'Wacky Races' than anything else... I am pondering using them for the BattleGroup series of rules... or may try the odd game of FoW again, preferably in a 'non-competitive' setting, if such a thing is possible? Who knows...

So on the whole I would say 2014 was a very successful year on the hobby front... not that I set out with any specific goals in mind, just enjoyed riding the wave...

So what does 2015 hold in store?

Well we have witnessed the last chapter in the Middle-Earth movie saga, and I expect we'll see more wonderful models from GW, at their usual eye watering prices... so I hope for continued LOTR/Hobbit gaming obviously, and a solid continuation of the painting of the 'small matter' of the growing LOTR/Hobbit "Lead/Plastic&Resin" Mountain... ;-)

But I am also open to other games too, depending on what transpires... there are some possibilities out there perhaps... SAGA, Bolt Action, BattleGroup, ??? and maybe still FoW???

Time will no doubt tell...

I wish you all a very fun filled, successful and prosperous New Year, and if 2014 was a turd for you, lets hope 2015 is the Golden Egg!

Cheers!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, to one and all!

Traditionally, a time for reflection on the year past, and looking forward to what the new year may bring...

However, I don't actually feel like doing a review as such, but prefer to think about plans for this year...

After the end of year frustration and disillusionment I felt with Flames of War back in December, and then enjoying the The Hobbit movie, I feel my focus has shifted significantly for the year ahead...

I have not had a game in about a month now, and my Jekyll & Hyde styled alter ego; "Mr Grumpy", has not been seen here abouts for the same time period, and frankly I haven't missed it, or him...

'Mr Grumpy' -  thankfully not seen for one month!

What I have been doing is plodding along with ongoing terrain projects for Empire of the Dead; the base board and Corner Tavern. I would have got further on with the base board etching, but manged to drop my Dremel, snapping the end off the 0.8mm etching tool (105), and of course my local suppliers are out of stock, and with the festive season still in full swing, their suppliers are still out of action. I managed to find one online and ordered that but am still awaiting delivery...

The Corner Tavern has had its windows put in and bottom layer net curtains added...

And along with terrain I have had Curts painting challenge to keep me pottering on with the paintbrush... but must admit I am just going steady and not rushing anything, and am just working on items mostly for the themed fortnightly entries, which has been a little refreshing, digging out old figures that probably would never have got painted otherwise... and yet I get to score some decent points - feels a bit like cheating but hey, they're the rules!

Some MDF 'off-cuts', from the 5mm MDF sheet used to make the Victorian base board and under games-table storage units, have been pressed to good DIY use too, making a utensil organiser for the main kitchen drawer, and thus earned me some brownie points from SWMBO, so that has been a fun little project over the couple of New Years Stat Hol days... the paintbrush has also been lashed round the house too here and there, sprucing things up in time for fathers visit later this month... jeez, its like a visit from the Queen... I always recall that Billy Connolly sketch where he joked the Queen thinks the world smells like fresh paint... as there's always a bloke with a paintbrush, and tin of paint, frantically lashing away 20' in front of her ;-)

So things have been busy in general in Bowman Towers, but with little outward hobby output...

I did mention The Hobbit above, and have found time to enjoy starting the campaign scenarios from the The Fall of the Necromancer(FOTN) LOTR SBG supplement, with my son. This has put my recently(ish) made bottle brush trees I made to good use along with the lichen clumps I recently bought, and we have had fun with orcs, spiders, bats and wargs doing battle with wood elves defending Mirkwood.

Fall of the Necromancer - nicely in theme with current Hobbit movie

Enjoying this simple gaming with my son has been wonderful, and has motivated me to continue this skirmish game with him for the coming year, and beyond. We'll throw in some EotD too for variety...

My son also starts 'Big School', this year so more home organising has been in order, sorting him a desk for his room, putting up shelves and tidying and sorting; more conducive to studies. Big School is also going to mean school fees, which will dent my available hobby budget significantly, and this has made me realise, the simple answer to hobby nirvana this year, will be to dive into the lead mountain, and paint up the hundreds of LOTR miniatures I have stock-piled over the years... and thus be able to play more of the various scenarios from the LOTR SBG Source and Journey books with him...

So that's the plan:

Clear the painting table of current items scheduled for Curt's Painting Challenge; Some FoW stuff for completeness sake, all the Requiem EotD figures, and the dwarves of the The Hobbit starter set.

And then crack on with the LOTR/Hobbit lead/plastic pile... first up from the lead pile may be some Castellans I need for the FOTN campaign games... wonderfully creepy looking figures...

If I feel so inclined I may break out some of the figures that are backlogged also, for Black Powder duty; Perry ACW and Naps, and some Wargames Factory SYW stuff... I have so  much stuff awaiting paint its not funny, so 2014 will be a year of buying little and painting lots, I hope!

I will continue my terrain projects including more Victorian buildings for my city-scape, and I am also feeling inclined to make some LOTR terrain, both Hobbiton hobbit holes and Dol Guldur fortress/ruins... I quite like the look of a lot of the digitised terrain that appears in the Battle for MiddleEarth series of computer games, so may use some of that for inspiration too... I might even finally get my Mumak painted!

I will indulge these in no fixed order as whim takes me... less pressure that way...

I hope also, that in my fortnights summer hols here at end of Jan, I'll be able to get down to Wellington and grab some of that dry-ice to try out the foggy board effect...

Hope you all have a good 2014 and enjoy whatever gaming, painting and terrain modelling you like doing best!

It's that time of year...

... where we look back over the last year, and look forward to the future...

So what did 2012 do?

Well for me it was quite a bumper year as it turned out!

The stand out game was clearly Flames of War, which dominated the first 2/3rds of the year in term of gaming and painting output, not to mention terrain.

Carrying on from the 'half track horde' from the painting challenge from a year ago, endless Wehrmacht reinforcements  were rushed to the front.
The game itself saw the launch of the V3 rules and this was taken up positively here.
My local group of players also got together to set up a local FoW club, with its own blog presence, over at KapitiFoWGamers, and this blog has grown steadily from humble beginnings.

We also forged connections with the local 'GW' orientated gaming club (Kapiti Wargames Club), introduced them to FoW and WWII, and saw a spark of interest there kindled into life, which bodes well for the future.

With this new interest in FoW gaming I even tried my hand at a couple of tournaments, including FRACAS as Shannon, and CALL TO ARMS at Wellington. I didn't do too bad, and I hope at least didn't disgrace myself!? Plus it was great to meet some of the FoW players from around the country who gathered for these events. It made a fun change back to the 'Tournie-scene' which I had not partaken of for many years, my last outing being WAB at Wello CTA a few years back...

And in simple 'getting a game in' terms, my social hobby life positively exploded into life, often with a couple of games a week, where in previous years it seemed I was lucky to get a game a month...

So thanks to all my gaming buddy's (and their respective 'better-halfs' for permission!) for making yourselves available for gaming!

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In amidst all this FoW gaming and painting, other games and models fought for their own share of my time and interest.

One such project that barely got off the ground, was an idea a few local gaming chums came up with which was to try and ride the current in vogue trend of VSF & Steampunk, and this was hoped to be done with the game of GASLIGHT.

I bought the above shown compendium, but have to say it was not the easiest set of rules to get to grips with, as its about 3-4 versions of the game blended together, with a kind of 'Chinese-menu' of an index... so for the beginner its a complete mind bender.
The other problem is that whist the game is rather 'all encompassing' its also virtually without stats for anything, (you have to make it up yourself), which again makes getting to grips with it and starting off a lengthy and off putting experience...
And finally, its far from being an off the shelf game. Just about everything has to be scratch built by the gamer. Great for the real enthusiast and skilled modeller, but again another off putting point to the beginner.

As a consequence, after more than a year, this game has yet to see action. I managed to assemble and paint about 30 Prussian troopers. Roly made up some 'Mexican French' and used some Japanese Bandai toys for some contraptions. No idea what Greg managed to achieve as he doesn't run a blog and I rarely catch up with him. Only Joe stayed true to course and churned out a bewildering array of goodies, which oddly enough for me, was almost an off putting exhibition as I knew I had no hope of matching his out put...

So this game has languished...

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But I am pleased to say, my 30 odd Prussians will not be without use thanks to...

This is a brilliant little skirmish game, which again rode the in vogue interest in VSF & Steampunk, with a Gothic Horror twist. Any one familiar with LOTR SBG, or indeed its cousins LotHS or LotOW, will adapt to this game like a duck to water....

So my Prussians became Zendarians, and all was well! I have only managed a couple of trial games but they are great fun, though sadly no one else in my gaming group has actively embraced the game. Its only deterrent is the main setting - Victorian Inner City England. Which means terrain of a brick building nature, which is not readily cheaply available, nor the easiest thing to scratch-build...

So I have amassed two basic factions for action plus a whole bunch of 'reinforcements' and back ground figures, and have managed to make a rather nice cemetery as a first piece of themed terrain, but at the moment can only really offer a rural hamlet scene for gaming...

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During all this time, was the saga of Maelstrom Games, an online supplier I had long used and to be fair, thanks to them, probably saved $1000's on hobby purchases over the last few years (had I bought the same goods here in NZ instead). Unfortunately they went tits up in the later third of the year, after grabbing a bunch of cash off people through a last minute (should have realized it was too good to be true) sale. I never fully understood the reasons for their demise, but was frustrated they went under with some of my hard earned...

... and yet, phoenix-like, have they risen from the ashes??? I was told, from an email, to sign over my customer details, to a newly formed company, who would honour my outstanding order.... So say hello to Eye of the Storm / Maunsfeld gaming? After a recent email from the new company I was told my orders should be packed and shipped by the end of the week, so we'll wait and see what transpires...

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Also during this time, the blogging Liebster award did the rounds. This seemed to add a boost to my blog traffic for which I am grateful, and also introduced me to a huge numbers of great blogs out there. I find I am now following so many great blogs, I simply cannot keep up with viewing them all and commenting on every post. So please if I haven't commented on your blog in a while, I'm still interested! Its just difficult keeping up these days!

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And finally for the year, a much longed for return to Middle-Earth, with Tolkien's The Hobbit hitting the silver screen, from director Peter Jackson, ensuring a great continuity with  the existing trilogy of Lord of the Rings.

Knowing this was coming had me grabbing the new Warband army list books, again a newbie for this year, for a return to some LOTR SBG gaming, before the release of the new game, rules and figures.

I had a huge 'falling out' with LOTR gaming a couple of years ago, in part due to my frustrations over what was to me a failed game (War of the Ring). This was compounded by GW's draconian stance, on their ban on online suppliers selling goods outside the EU. This meant I could no longer get my hands of reasonably priced GW goods. In this respect they are and will always remain utter soulless bastards to my mind, simply men in grey suits just caring for the corporate bottom line with no passion for the hobby, nor care or consideration for their customer, new or existing. I wish a thrice fold pox on their soft wobbly bits! 

I can only hope Loki and Bartleby (DOGMA) pay a visit to their boardroom some day... but I digress...

A mate of mine stated recently there was nothing in British Law that can allow GW to 'enforce such a mandate'... but I guess if they found out a supplier was flouting this agreement, they would just stop supply them with product...?

However through a little effort I have tracked down a supplier. It also helps having family and friends in UK willing to help. Even fellow bloggers, so thanks all for your offers of help. 

I will avow again, I'll be damned if I pay NZ prices for GW models again!

So we finally come to, The Hobbit game SBG... a slightly revamped game with a few tweaks, but still fully compliant with the existing game, army/journey books and figures. So that is a huge relief.

Of course GW has found another excuse to rev up their pricing, and this has further frustrated me and many other previously loyal long term GW customers and fans of the game. Some of whom have cried enough is enough, and simply stopped playing or buying new figures. I can certainly empathize.

There are plenty of other great games and miniatures out there for the gamer/hobbyist, GW no longer has the monopoly they did years ago, only their IP, and Tolkien Licence to cling on to...

I have decided to plough on with it as best as I may and can afford. The game remains fun and entertaining, and the on going movie and associated DVD releases will keep me happy in Middle-Earth for several years to come.

I just hope the new movie is enough of a pull to encourage new players to the game, despite the prices, but I doubt it...

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I have noted some bloggers have included their win / loss ratio, for their years gaming in their annual review. Well I must admit, my main failing in this hobby is actually winning games, and little changed there this year, so I will refrain from posting any win / loss ration. Lets just say it would probably read 'must try harder'!

I can paint, I can model and make terrain, but I'll be buggered if I can actually win a game! At least that's what it feels like! Oh well...

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So what does 2013 hold?

Well my Wehrmacht force for FoW is pretty much complete. Its the sort of game you can endlessly add to but I have most bases covered now, and those I haven't are in the painting/assembling queue and as such already purchased (Tigers and Half track conversion kits, and another Hummel), and if my outstanding Maelstrom/Eye of the Storm order shows up, I'll be able to add those too.

My German forces pretty much cover MidWar and LateWar, and I don't really have an interest in playing the Early War setting, so that means there should not be any major FoW purchases this year.

I have a small British force, but as much as I wouldn't mind doing the Tyne and Tees 50th, I cant see my self getting motivated to do so...

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I wouldn't mind trying to make some buildings for EotD, just to try and set the scene and be able to play a few one off fun games here and there.

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I have not forgotten my love of Warlord Games; Black Powder and Hail Caesar, and would love to try and get my WSS/SYW army assembled up and painted (Wargames Factory figures), plus not to mention a few boxes of Perry ACW and Perry Nap. Brits. I'd also like to try out their Pike and Shotte supplement rules, and the fan made stats for LOTR gaming with this rules set, after my disillusionment with the GW WOTR rule book. Whilst skirmish gaming is fun, I still feel to do Lord of the Rings justice, it should be with big armies at an 'epic scale'. I sincerely hope GW may do a revamp of these rules, especially with the big Battle of the Five Armies in the not too distant future in the The Hobbit series of movies. Again time will tell on that one... So two possible options there for LOTR.

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I still wouldn't mind some more Pirate LotHS gaming as that was great fun too, and I still need to finish that Brig...

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And of course, there's simply the Hobbit, and LOTR SBG gaming in general. I have such a backlog of LOTR figures its not funny. There's probably 5-10 years worth of painting stashed away... so some motivation to return to LOTR gaming to get it all painted up will be wonderful!

So I am busy finishing off the figures from the Hobbit starter set. After that I will probably get the set of trolls, though I see these more as a 'collectable', as they are hardly going to feature in any 'armies'.
I do rather fancy some of the new Rivendell cavalry too....

So Middle-Earth fans, stay tuned for more!

All the best to my followers and blog readers for 2013!

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