Sink me the Ship, Master Gunner!

This week is the 420th Anniversary of the Battle of Flores.  This Armada era naval engagement saw a British fleet try to capture a Spanish treasure fleet in the Azores, but they were outmatched and ultimately unsuccessful.  One of the British warships was the HMS Revenge.   She was commanded by Sir Richard Grenville, who had fought against the Spanish Armada, was cousin to both Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh, and whose father had been the ill-fated Captain of the Mary Rose. 

During the engagement Revenge, was isolated, boarded, rammed and boarded again.  With her fighting Captain mortally wounded and with five enemy ships engaged against them, he ordered the Revenge scuttled as immortalised (romanticised?) in Lord Tennyson's poem 'A Ballad of the Fleet':

Sink me the ship, Master Gunner - sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!

but to his disgust, his crew disobeyed and struck their colours.  Sir Richard died of his wounds shortly after the battle, but the Revenge and her remaining crew did not survive him long - they were lost along with a dozen or more Spanish ships in a typhoon:

And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags
To be lost evermore in the main.

Read Lord Tennyson's poem here:

http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/726

Find out more about the battle here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Flores_(1591) ;  ; http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/renaissance/revenge/default.aspx

and more about Sir Richard here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Grenville

Thanks to Der Feldmarschall for reminding me of this event with his recent post

Three Die Block shoutout

The Lad was thrilled to get a "Shoutout" from Pauly and Chance in the latest episode of their awesome "Three Die Block" podcast today. He has been emailing them to get play tips and skill-up advice, which has been serving him well.  The guys have been awesome with their encouragement - thanks a lot guys, it meant a lot to him (and me).

Although I'm not so sure about their advice to him to "Keep up the good work, and Kill your Dad's Teams!"....

See Episode 55 (29 Aug 11) at 1h:31m:04s at http://threedieblock.libsyn.com/

Hellmouth Heroes

...being the name of my new Vampyr Blood Bowl team, which arrived this and is already two games into their first season in the Man Cave League. Previously known as the "Fallen Crusaders", these promising players were bought as is from the Ausbowl forum (so no, I didn't paint them)

Why Hellmouth Heroes? The Lad suggested it as its the place off Buffy the Vampire Slayer where all the bad stuff comes from, including the Vamps.  So the Vamps are named for Buffy bad buys: The Master, Drusilla, Angelis & Spike, while the thralls are named after exactly what they are: walking blood banks.  So meet A Pos, A Neg, B Pos, B Neg, AB Pos, AB Neg, O Pos & O Neg :-)

A bit blurry -  I'll take some better ones in the future

Team wise, I went with a starting build of 3 Vampires, 8 Thralls and 5 Re-rolls.  My first purchase with winnings was an apothecary, and now I'm saving up for Vamp number 4.

Initial thoughts are that at this early stage play is very scrappy, with neither good bash skills nor good Agility/Passing, but a combo of both.  Developing this team and mastering its unique style will really be the challenge I was looking for.

Zara the Slayer

Blood Bowl Star Player 'Zara The Slayer' wearing the NAF colours. 
Wonderfully painted by Emilio Clemente (click for bigger version)
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/439445/blood-bowl-living-rulebook

Found the How To WIP article here:
http://rnestudio.webs.com/sdpminiaturacompleta.htm

Modelling pictures to aspire to

Some amazing pics at this link, all achieved through natural lighting effects, not photoshop manipulation.
In this case star wars lego has been used, but the effects for wargames could be awesome.

http://smashingpicture.com/brilliant-photos-by-shobrick/

The Oathsworn - Part 2

I previously wrote a few words on Robert Low's first two books of this series (http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2011/07/oathsworn-part-i.html) and I've now finished reading books 3 and 4: The White Raven and The Prow Beast.

The storyline continues, following the adventures of Orm Rurikson and his warband of hardened Norse raiders and starts off where the last book, The Wolf Sea, left off.   I don't want to spoil the great storyline, but suffice it so say that its an action packed adventure with casualty rates sufficient to slake the thirst of every tabletop wargamer!

It has also provided me with pages of notes for future gaming scenarios and I'll reiterate my thoughts from the last post on these books: if you like Dark Ages action and Vikings you cant go wrong with these.  Admittedly the writing style isnt as sooth as Bernard Cornwell, but you'll hardly notice amidst the axes, mead and mayhem!

Pulp German Robot

I haven't done any WWW2 modelling for awhile but this recently caught my eye.  Its a conversion by Chris Palmer, based on a fig from the Monsterpocalypse range.

http://onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-pulp-robot-for-german-army.html

Rat Ogre

Another prize winning Blood Bowl miniature, this Skaven Rat Ogre by Dave Pauwels won a Silver award in the 2009 Chicago competition.

http://demonwinner.free.fr/usa/2009Chicago/golden_demon_winner.php?categorie=7

Morituri Te Salutant

Very nice Gladiator Diorama.  I don't play or paint in this scale, but I can really appreciate the fantastic skin tones and detail in this one.

http://les3abeilles.byethost24.com/topic258.html

Mighty Zug

A GD UK entry from last year, I love the dynamic pose, detail and not over the top colour scheme.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=16700016a&_requestid=1964705

SAGA Viking Age Skirmishes Is Go!

From the latest Gripping Beast Newsletter:


We have a release date for SAGA!

We will begin shipping the week commencing 19th September, that's about four weeks time, and we are now taking pre-orders for the rules and all our other SAGA related goodies.

We've got a whole raft of releases in suport of the system. Not only do we have the rather lovely rule-book (that comes with four sturdy Battle Boards, one each for Vikings, Anglo-Danish, Welsh & Normans,) but we are also releasing the relevant ranges in SAGA friendly formats including some 4 point Starter Warbands. And then there are of course the special faction specific dice....

To make things even easier we have put together a number of SAGA bundles from simple Rule Book and Dice combos all the way up to a "One of everything SAGA" deal.

Go and take a look in the SAGA Section here.

All preorders for any SAGA related products (except the LBMS SAGA Sheets) come with a FREE figure of the young Sven Forkbeard sculpted by Bill Musketeer Thornhill and painted here using the new SAGA Dark Age Warpaints set which is also ready for pre-order!


In fact there really are tons of SAGA Products now available to pre-order so take a look now!

 

We have some new Warlord figures to release with SAGA - 2 new Viking Jarls & an Anglo-Danish Lord.

These amazing new sculpts are the work of Colin Patten, one of the founding fathers of GB, and have been painted using the new SAGA Warpaints and The Army Painters Starter Warpaints set.

Get  the Vikings here

and the Dane here..

New Heroes Of The Viking Age 

Also available now are 4 new Heroes Of The Viking Age and while they are not specifically designed for SAGA and the there are no special rules for them (as yet.....!), we think they make excellent Warlords for your Warbands.

These figures were sculpted by Duncan Patten and are straight out of the pages of the Icelandic Saga, themselves the inspiration behind SAGA.

Get them individually for £3.50 each here or as a Newsletter Offer, all four of them here for £12.

New LBMS SAGA Sheets 
Lovely
 

Steve at Little Big Men Studios has also got SAGA fever and has created 4 new Warband Sheets, one for each of the Rulebook factions, with each sheet featuring a new flag design and 8 new shield designs. Amazing value at £5.00 each, available here..

Touchdown! BB Diorama

Another awesome Blood Bowl diorama (and again not by me).  Bronze award at the 2008 Spanish GD

The entry here: http://www.coolminiornot.com/183264

BB Chaos League Champions: Diorama

Check out this "redonkulously" good BB Diorama, which got a Bronze Golden Demon award in Spain.
Just to be clear- this is NOT my work!

From: http://bbtactics.com/forums/blood-bowl-diorama-bronze-games-day-spain-t291/

My new Blood Bowl team

After years of playing Skaven (and suffering horrendous casualties), I've decided I need to start a new Team to take it to the Lad and his rampaging Orc team, The Deathstars.  Initially I was thinking of Chaos Pact but the Lad is dead keen on a Chaos team next so I had to find something a bit different.  So what team I hear you ask?

Vampires!

So its time to grab some new figures, and the 5th edition Vamp team is really nice:

and then of course boff up on the new tactics, including how to use those skill-less, cheap snacks thralls and how to semi-control or at least manage the Vamps' Bloodlust trait. Found some great starting points here:
http://www.plasmoids.dk/bbowl/playbooks/Vampires.pdf
http://bbtactics.com/vampires/
http://bbtactics.com/bloodlust
http://bbtactics.com/hypnotic-gaze

And of course I have to name the team too.
Whatcha think: "Red Thirst", "The Blood Pack" "Bite Sized", or "Punctuation Marks"?
The team motto will be either Cupio Sanguinem (Thirst for Blood) or Carpe Sanguis (Take the Blood).

Isn't it fun getting a new army/team :-)

Blood Bowl Scoreboard WIP4

We couldn't wait to get it into action, so the Lad grabbed a brush and got to work with the numbers and letters.  I gave a bit of guidance but its his work.  We both learned a lot during this:
- The Lad learned about the perils of overloading the brush, smudging techniques and washes.
- I learned that if you tell the Lad its his project, then its his project and he'll do it the way he wants!  So while I would have done this differently and gave such advice, he went a different way.  Whats most important is that he did it and loves it.  The inner modeller in me is struggling to (rightly) let him have his freedom with this though...

Final bit of detailing still to come, but we rushed it into action.  Here is my (uncharacteristically and embarassingly unpainted) Human Catcher running in a TD to be first on the board.  Does he get extra Star Player Points for that?

Blood Bowl Scoreboard WIP3

Coming along well with the base drybrushed, and the planking completed with some streaking added.
Next step is to paint on the numbers/letters and a little bit more detailing with some blood splatters etc

Agincourt

Mssr Blease posted some pics here of his recent travels to France, including some from Crecy and Agincourt, which prompted me to dive into the Man Cave archives to find mine from there.  Unfortunately many are in an old format I cant use, but here is one I can!

10 years ago, standing in the centre of the battlefield

Dark Age Scenarios

Some nice Dark Ages Battle Reports, using Pig Wars:
Mik's "Ragnar's Revenge": http://miksminis.blogspot.com/search/label/Vikings
and "Here Comes the Bride" http://bcantwell.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/pig-wars-here-comes-the-bride/

Good stuff indeed! I'll have to nick these some ideas from these for our own battles.

Great figs - but sadly not mine!  From the bride scenario.

More Red Blok walkers

Not repaints, but small additions, fixing up the basing and adding a bunch of weathering has made a big difference to these walkers.  Good to go in either an AT-43 or WWW2 battlefield.  I have a bunch of these I'll get around to one day...
http://www.elladan.de/049%20East%20Block%20Walkers/049.htm

Some other great stuff at that website to inspire you in lots of other genres too.

Painting US WW2 Paras

A nice How-To for WW2 US Airborne figs, Kevin has gotten a nice effect I prefer over the more usual drab greens the majority of US Infantry wore in Europe.  Now I have a colour scheme for my US Para-Zombies (http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2010/04/us-paratrooper-zombies.html)!

http://mageknightkevin.blogspot.com/2010/02/painting-28mm-wwii-us-paratroopers.html
Have a look around Kevin's Blog - his 101st Airborne project is very nice

Blood Bowl Scoreboard WIP2

We've undercoated and started dry-brushing the wooden component of the scoreboard, and rethought  the plan for the number markers.  Rather than using magnets as planned, we have gone back to a more traditional approach - small wooden dowel section are now inserted and we carved out number tiles in the same rough style to hang off them.  The Lad enjoyed using the sander and drill along the way too.

The wooden dowels project out the back of the fence, and will be used to hang the markers not in use.
The markers will be labelled 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, with a zero to be painted on the fence as the default score.
On track for use in the Man Cave Bowl tourney!

Day Out at NWA

The boys had a day out on Saturday to attend the Nunawading Wargames Association Open Day in Croydon.  We attended last year too (http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-weekend.html) and again had some fun and enjoyed the trade stands.

It was as good as always to catch up with the effervescent Nic Robson from Eureka Miniatures, and I enjoyed an up close view of his mighty Flakosaurus (http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-dinotruppen.html).  We also caught up with Mike from Battlefield Accessories (who made the trees I did earlier this year:  http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2011/06/man-cave-revegetation-project.html) and Martin from Little Soldiers in Adelaide who again sold me more WWW2 stuff.  The Lad was sheepishly chuffed when Martin recognised him from the blog and greeted him with "this must be the famous Lad!".  Martin had lots of goodies as always and I particularly liked his unusually coloured Pazergaffe, shown above.

Also very eye catching was the SOTR demo table by Benny and TheHatGuy.  Their table and its wonderful detail was a source of wonder for many trying to find the various details (including Green Lantern Dr Who, Zombie Where's Wally, Predator, just to name a few).  Here are just a few glimpses of the awesomeness:

The Lad and I had a chance to play a Quick game of DBA, him with Egyptians and me with Hittites.  Here is the game...

Until those Egyptian chariots slammed into my flank, killed my General and the Lad was Victorious!

Other nice tables abounded, here are some I got pics of before my camera decided it had had enough for the day...

Shopping acquisitions included:

- Incursion SNAFU expansion book

- a boxed set of US A.P.E. figs for Incursion

- 7 Blood Bowl Dwarf figs

- A set of resin palisades for  my Dark Age village, from Battlefield Miniatures

- a set a Rendra plastic gravestones

- some trees and flock bits

- bits and bobs of spare bits for modelling projects, including the makings of the new "Man Cave Bowl" trophy!

- the Lad was thrilled to grab a GW Minotaur for his planned Chaos BB team

- went home with a lonely 50 cent piece in my wallet, so it must have been a good day!

I have updated by 2011 Purchases summary here:  http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/p/2010-purchases.html

Thanks to all at NWA for a fun day out!  You can see more pics of the day here:

http://www.nwa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=302:games11&catid=63:past-open-details&Itemid=214

Blood Bowl Scoreboard WIP1

After much procrastination, I have started building a Blood Bowl scoreboard for the upcoming 4 team "Man Cave Bowl" in a few weeks time.

I was keen to get the Lad started in the modelling side of the hobby so we started with an Orc themed scoreboard, and he has been carving away merrily at coffee stirrer sticks and sticking them to some foamcore.  In the meantime, I am building a more finished version for my forthcoming Human Team.

Here we are just prior to undercoating

We are using the lid from a Bionicles toy as a stand

More to follow!

Fortification

Hobby Worker's Roman fort is wonderful work and well worth a visit
http://hobbyworker.blogspot.com/2011/07/roman-fort-part-3.html

I'm getting my inspired to do some Dark Age palisades, but I must first focus on my Longship... or must I????

Blood Bowl Playbook

Many, many very useful articles here, some out of old issues of White Dwarf: topics include starting builds, team development, and both offensive and defensive strategies and team dispositions.  Well worth some of your time if you are into BB.
http://www.bbpb.de/

The Arthurian Dark Ages

This is a link to Guy Halsall's site in which are re-printed his thoughts on the 'Arthurian' Dark Ages period, first published in Wargames Illustrated in the late '90s.  Great to read the thoughts of a man who is both a renowned historian as well as a passionate wargamer.  And of course while this is set earlier than the Viking Age, the ideas are very portable a few hundred years

http://darkagewargaming.wordpress.com/category/age-of-arthur/

http://www.grandmanner.co.uk/shop/uploads/images_products/563.jpg

Another Awesome Man Cave!

Another fantastic gaming cave- I love the wall storage units behind the table.  And of course who wouldnt love to play with terrain and figs like these...

http://olicanalad.blogspot.com/2011/07/crusades-campaign-update.html

EDIT:  An update has been uploading providing a 'tour'm of this awesome den of gaming!
http://olicanalad.blogspot.com/2011/10/short-guided-tour-of-my-war-game-room.html