Gladiatorial Battles (with Playmobil)

Bit of an image-dump post, some pictures from a recent games night using Playmobil gladiator figures! We used the wondeful Song of Blades and Heroes ruleset with some modifications (particularly taking into account the fact that we could remove shields and weapons, so for example, a combatant with a shield ignores the first "knocked down" result, but loses the shield...this can then be recovered with one action when out of combat).

 "We who are about to die, salute you!"

 Two fairly matched gladiators go at it, with a fallen velite in the background...

Winner of the first round

My barbarian from Gaul takes on an Egyptian Warrior.

Things get interesting with the introduction of a bear...

And they don't exactly turn out well for the Dimachaerus

All in all, a fun evening!

2015 Plans

So, my plans for 2015...

Dark Ages

• Complete another 2pts for my Vikings, plus a couple of the character/leaders I have
• Build a small Dark Ages village and paint the villagers/animals I have - I love the look of the Song of Shadows and Dust rules and I'd love to re-purpose them for disputes between rivals in a Dark Ages town
• Build a 4pt Saxon force - I got a box of the plastic Saxons for Christmas, plus I have a bunch of plastic Dark Age Warriors left over

Judge Dredd

• Build 2 rival Citi-Def gangs - these are inspired by the wonderful Citi-Def over on The Leadpile - I requested a couple of the sets he's used from Copplestone Castings for Christmas. 
• Assemble the Angel Gang - I got the new version of these from Warlord Games/Mongoose. I also want to have a scout through my misc. figure boxes to see if I have any other wasteland scum to join these, and will also be sprucing up some of the post-apoc figures I have to run a campaign in the Cursed Earth
• Assemble the East-Meg Judges - another Christmas present

Lovecraftian Mythos - this is a pretty new project...

• Lovecraftian creatures - these will be done in the same basing style that I use for the majority of my collection, meaning the creatures can be used in multiple genres. Creatures planned are Deep Ones (from Reaper Bones figures), a Shoggoth, Dimensional Shamblers and this creature from Pure Evil Miniatures
• Cult leaders, cultists and madmen - a mix of miniatures here, with the cultists coming from the Artizan Designs Thrilling Tales range
• Agents and misc. helpers - figures from Artizan, Copplestone (the Gangsters range) and Statuesque Miniatures

Darkest Dungeon - a planned fantasy skirmish/RPG based on the Kickstarted PC game - using all manner of figures from my Fantasy Skirmish stuff, with added characters from the games Player Characters:

• I already have a bunch of figures built and basecoated for this - it's just a case of getting them finished!

Phew. This barely scratches the surface on my plans! But these are some of my focuses for the next year...

2014 Re-cap

Well, this blogpost is a bit late, isn't it?

I've been meaning to write this for the past couple of weeks - a round up of the past year...

2014 was filled with the most gaming I've probably ever done - Hordes of the Things, Song of Blades and Heroes, Flying Lead, Pulp Alley, Munchkin and Munchkin Cthulhu, Kingslayer and Zombies!!! I've never been very concerned with the playing side of the wargames hobby - it's always been planned for a later date. That mindset changed this year, with the foray into various board and card games, with more games purchased for play in 2015 including Settlers of Catan and Cards Against Humanity. I've also joined a Dark Heresy group and my friend is setting up an introductory Dungeons and Dragons game.

At the start of 2014 I purchased a large amount of Warmaster figures from one of my gaming friends which lead to a couple of months of Hordes of the Things painting/modelling/gaming. I did get a nice horde of undead built up for this, with various forces left to complete.

I also attended my first non-GW wargames show, Vapnartak in February and added a few select figures to my collection and seeing some lovely display games.

Around the middle of the year my gaming circle had a number of games of Song of Blades and Heroes, using some brilliant scenarios that can be found at the Hour11Gaming blog based on the old Warhammer Skirmish scenarios.

I also started to pick up some miniatures for a Dark Ages/SAGA project, particularly a large collection from a friend who decided that he was going to concentrate on Warhammer 40k - I traded a bunch of Space Marine vehicles and got myself a Viking force with a number of characters.

Towards the end of 2014, IrishJaeger Dave and I decided that we needed to get the lead mountains under control and created the 6 Month Mountain Reduction Painting Challenge and invited our blog readers to join us. This has been pretty successful and it's great to see people posting up their completed stuff! October saw my annual participation in Zomtober, with the completion of my zombie horde getting ever closer:

My collection of survivors face off against the combined might of the horde!

I also went to the Leeds FIASCO wargames show in October, where I picked up a box of the Wargames Factory Male Survivors and split a box of the Female Survivors with one of my gaming friends.

Things slowed down towards the end of the year (I potentially had a bit of painting burn-out from Zomtober! Oh no!) and then I received a bunch of
wargames-related stuff for Christmas from family and friends!

Lead mountain replenished!

So, I leave you with an interesting method of finishing projects that you've started before moving along to the new shiny figure you just bought (Hobby Butterfly Syndrome)...

Inspired by Ninjabread, it's a simple way of keeping a tally of your miniatures, with the aim of keeping up a 2 to 1 ratio of finished to started figures. It's worked for me so far, prompting me to finish a bunch of figures from my drawers of painting-in-progress stuff. The board is one from a £1 shop and I'll alternate the colour of the drywipe marker at the start of each month, to keep track of how much is being finished/started each month!

Thanks for reading and thanks to those who have commented over the past years!

So, boardgames and card games...

Here are some things that I've been playing lately...

Zombies!!!

Kingmaker

Munchkin Cthulhu

And here are some of my latest purchases:

Cards Against Humanity (UK Edition) - I've wanted to play this with my friends for ages, finally caved and bought it!

Settlers of Catan - another game that was recommended by a friend - I thought I'd pick this one up as it seemed very cheap on eBay!

One of my few New Years Resolutions each year is "play more", whether that's with the figures and terrain I lovingly craft and paint, or the brilliant boardgames out there - I think I've really done that this year!

New Project - Post-Apocalyptic Gladiatorial Combat

I've recently started new project that I've been thinking of for a while - post-apocalyptic gladiatorial combat. Inspired by the brilliant gladiators of Carmen's Fun Painty Time, I bought the fantasy gladiator Red Sand Black Moon rules from Two Hour Wargames and downloaded the free Red Sand Brown Sky post-apocalyptic add-on. 

The add-on actually uses Carmen's gladiators, and rightfully so - they're brilliant post-apoc savages! The first of my gladiators are from Urban War's Junker Gladiator range - I've previously bought and painted one of the characters from the range, a portly brute with long hair and beard, who is the current leader of my post-apoc raiders. He'll work well against these too. My plan is to link the warbands I currently game with into the fighting pits - with them betting on matches or even entering their own fighters.

Feel more than free to comment - I regularly post on Instagram (easy from my iPhone) and I'll get around to posting up the various other bits and pieces I've recently finished/been working on shortly! Still getting in lots of games of Flying Lead!

Newsflash - Actual Games Being Played!

Since getting back into the miniature wargames hobby about 6 years ago, I've always been planning to run various games in a post-apoc universe (or fantasy, or Necromunda, or a Firefly-esque...) with my circle of friends. I've always put it off - it's always been too much hassle to set it up spur of the moment, or I've always wanted to "just finish off this last [piece of terrain, miniature, objective]" - I'm sure that anyone that still reads my blog will be happy to hear that I've finally started gaming!

These are some snapshots from the bunch of test games I've run in the past couple of weeks - I'm so happy with how things are looking all set up! It's also spurred on a flurry of painting and planning! This setup was the first game - an outpost of the shanty town being attacked by raiders and the scavenger militia responding.

This game was somewhat evenly matched with no true victor...

The rules we're using are Flying Lead from Ganesha Games - I've now got a good handle on the rules and I've began importing some scenarios from Necromunda and other sources - we started a Scavenger Hunt scenario last night and I'm planning on drawing up a map of the main town and surrounding areas. I'm also going to use some rules from Fear and Faith to represent rad-ghouls and other beasties. 

A ruined suburban setup. 

Another shanty outpost.
The main inspiration for the choice of Flying Lead and my plans for a co-operative setting for my friends is Dawn of the Lead - a great blog, whose author is running a great narrative "warpg" setting, combining the likes of Aliens, Predator and Terminator into one epic sci-fi setting. This would be my future plan for my setting, but instead of the above sources, it'll be closer to Fallout, Borderlands and Firefly...

A belated Goodbye to 2011...

Time for a look back over 2011 and whether or not I've achieved my aims from the start of last year...


First, a recap - this post from January 2011 summed up what I had planned for the year.


In general, I had a few different real-life aims;

• Move out of my parents house - done. I moved into an apartment with a friend at the start of 2011, so this one has worked out rather well!
• Build some self-esteem/be more healthy - this has not really progressed over the past year. If anything, I have more access to rubbish food in the town I've moved to. Definitely one of my main aims for 2012. It's about time.
• Get a social life - if I'm honest, I've just about maintained this from the previous year - I had thought that moving into my own place would mean that my friends could visit more often, for Xbox, films, food and drink, but this was not always the case. I'd moved for work, which meant I was slightly further away from my main group of friends. This has highlighted my desperate need for a car - a new aim for 2012. Being out of work for a few months of 2011 and changing jobs a total of 3 times in a year left me feeling slightly isolated (brought about by self-imposed hermitage...). Thankfully, this began to change in the last months of 2011.

Wargames-wise;

• Play more games - this was dismal. That changes this year though, with my main Resolution of 2012 - PLAY MORE. Be it Xbox, Monopoly or Warhammer 40k, I want to play more, have more fun!
• Plan armies before modelling - this is something I explored slightly in 2011 with the 500pts Imperial Guard list I built from the scrap Catachans. I quite enjoyed writing the list and converting figures with a sense of purpose - definitely the way forward in the new year.
• Sell what I don't need - I did sell a few different things during the year - to be honest, I'll probably always be a hoarder (although, I bloody hate mess/clutter!) and my head is always brimming with ideas for multi-purposing miniatures, or recycling them into new gangs/warbands/forces. Definitely one of my favourite parts of the hobby!
• With regards to painting, not a lot has changed. I do tend to use the wet palette that I picked up at the start of the year - that was interesting to work with. I can think of a few things to work on over the next 12 months...

So, overall? I'm fairly happy with that. I absolutely HAVE to finish learning to drive, pass my test and buy a car this year. It's an imperative. I just don't see my family (parents, sister and grandmother in particular) and friends ("The Scooby Gang") enough - I can also think of so many museums and interesting places I'd love to go once transport is better available! So, my main resolutions - PLAY MORE - LEARN TO DRIVE - SEE MORE.

Thanks to everyone who reads my blog - it's been a quiet couple of months, but the next few months will be more interesting! I'm actually planning on going to the local games club tomorrow, for the first time since moving to this town - should be rather interesting!