A Year of Frugal Gaming

The End of the Frugal Year(s)

2011-12-19T23:13:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed I haven't been posting on the blog too much recently. This is, in part, to it's success; I've been playing too many games and getting too many models painted to actually blog about it!

As I don't have as much time to dedicate to the blog as I'd like, I'm going to close it. What this means is that no new posts will be be added, but the content will still be up for all to view. I'll also still be out on the streets; gaming, painting, modelling and generally geeking out.

The blog has proved to be very successful and I'm certain that it wouldn't been any good without the fantastic input from Von, Pete and Arabian Knight who all produced great articles and helped make the site very successful.

All the feedback and input I've received from you, the readers, over the years has been invaluable and has really made me part of a wide community.

Since starting the blog, my gaming has increased and my painting has improved in both speed and quality, I've also made some good friends along the way. I've probably spent a bit more than I planned, but hey, nobody's perfect.

Happy Gaming!

Dave

V for Vondetta

2011-11-07T00:12:00.000-08:00

Oi!This is the final week of the HoP Idol contest over at the ol' House of Paincakes: last week I managed to creep over the horizon by the skin of me wossnames and a similar performance this week will spell triumph, readership, modest acclaim and a cessation of interruptions to your regularly scheduled bloggery.

VOTE FOR VON

2011-10-23T02:20:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I've been neglecting you. I've spent the last couple of months actually, y'know, being Frugal. It's the not having any money that does it. Most of the hobby I've done has been other people's, for money, although I did find the time for a quick Warmachine tournament and I do have a NEW PROJECT on the go too. Incidentally, if you happen to have some models that you want painted and can't be bothered with doing yourself, drop me a line here or via GAME OVER and we'll have a chat. I'm no Marike Reimer, admittedly (she's better looking), but I'm cheap, quick and tabletop quality.

Anyway.

I'm doing a thing, over at the House of Paincakes blog network, sort of a contest thing where the winner gets a weekly series in front of a larger readership than I have ever dreamed of amassing. Have been for a while now. Didn't want to talk about it on this blog because Posting About Blogging is something I try not to do. Content uber alles, and all that.

On the other hand, failure to leverage available resources in a competitive endeavour is the mark of a nebbish who shouldn't have signed up in the first place. And I do have a credible shot at winning, which was... unexpected.

AND, AND AND AND, if I win, I'll never write a post about 40K. Everyone bar Loquacious on the ol' HoP does that, as do most of the blogs on the roll, and it's getting boring. I won't cheat and do Warmahordes either. Vote for me, and be guaranteed a shot of something different every week - might be WFB, a historical, a Specialist Game, an RPG, a board game, a book review, something that isn't 40K. A vote for Von is a vote for diversity - and that's not something this straight white able-bodied British bloke ever thought he'd be able to say with a straight face.

So I suppose you should pop over to the International House of Paincakes and vote for me in this week's HoP Idol, so I can say more things like this, this, this, and this. No SPESS MAHREENS, ever. Promise.

The Giant’s Lair

2011-09-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

Rejoice, rejoice!

Good news people, your prayers have been answered and the Gods havefinally smiled on the South West of England. This Saturday will see the grand opening in Plymouth of ‘The Giant’s Lair’ the South West’s Premier Gaming Venue.

From the venue's website:

Opening 1st of October2011

The open day allows players and potential players tocheck out the Lair and to see what all the fuss is about.
Throughout the day we will be running:

Apocalypse sized 40k madness
Warhammer monster mash up
Space Hulk missions on giant 3D board
Demonstration games of WWII tank battles
Talisman board game bash
Tables set up to come and play on
Raffle where you can win some great prizes
Membership sign up with the chance to win a massive replica sword!
Spot prizes on the day
Food and drink available in our bar and kitchen area

Come and get involved in the mayhem or just pop by fora coffee.
Open from 0900 onwards.
We can't wait to see you at the Lair.

Having been for a sneaky look around last weekend, I canconfirm that it is officially awesome with loads of purpose built gaming tables, a bar and even a working toilet. If fact, I would give it my seal of approval,if I actually had one.

You can look at some of the photos of the Lair being prepared on the book of faces, and you can find directions here.

Anyway, make sure you get down there this Saturday for thegrand opening, and make sure you tell them Frugal Dave sent you!

Happy Gaming

Haterz an Fanbois FTW. LOL!!!!!!1 B-)

2011-09-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

You can tell if a person is racist, they generally starttheir sentences with ‘I’m not a racist, but…’ before saying somethingracist. It was this thought thatstopped me from starting this post with ‘I’m not a GW hater, but…’.

I would like to make it clear that I’m not a GW hater (or aracist for that matter); I love loads of their games including the 8^th edition of Warhammer Fantasy, I’ve been buying GW products for years, I paint their miniatures usingtheir paints and I play their games in my spare time. I’ve joined a club where I can play GW games with other GWfans, I’ve even spent three years of my life writing a blog mostly dedicated toplaying GW games. To me GW is oneof the best games companies out there and I even divert my journeys up and downthe country to pop into Warhammer World on occasion. I am not a GW hater.

This brings me neatly onto Dreadfleet, and why I’m not goingto buy it.

In case you weren’t aware, Dreadfleet is the new GW boxed,standalone, limited edition game, recently made available for preorder. There has been a lot of love and hateon the internet about this, but one thing that is clear is that people arebuying it. I’m not going to, for anumber of reasons, but the main one is:

I haven’t seen any reviews of it

Sure, there are videos out there, lots of pics of thecomponents, even promises of gameplay descriptions. But no independent reviews. To me this means that I am being asked to part with my moneyfor a game that could turn out to be rubbish. I’m pretty sure it wont be rubbish, but why should I buy itwhen I could spend the same amount of money on a boardgame that has got ravereviews? If I had £70 to spare(which I don’t) and I had lots of gaming time going free (I don’t) then I’dlook at some of the following instead (all available for £70 or less each; alltext and photos from BoardGameGeek):

Mansions of Madness:Horrific monsters and spectral presences lurk in manors, crypts, schools,monasteries, and derelict buildings near Arkham, Massachusetts. Some spin darkconspiracies while others wait for hapless victims to devour or drive insane.It’s up to a handful of brave investigators to explore these cursed places anduncover the truth about the living nightmares within.

Horus Heresy: In the Horus Heresy board game, the most legendary battle in thehistory of the Warhammer 40,000 universe unfolds across the razed plains ofTerra and in the frozen orbit above. Deadly fighting ranges from the Emperor’sgolden Inner Palace to Horus’s flagship, the Vengeful Spirit. Taking the side of traitor or loyalist,two players control either fearless Space Marine legions or deviant Chaos SpaceMarines, mighty Titans, Imperial Armies both loyal and traitorous, and afearsome array of other units, including the Emperor and Horus themselves.

Tide of Iron: (see my review here) Tide of Iron is agame of World War II tactical conflict for two to four players. The componentsin this base game allow players to simulate the dramatic struggle that tookplace between American and German forces in Northern Europe during the years1944 and 1945.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark: Descent: Journeys in the Dark is a semi-cooperative game in which twoto five players will take on the antagonistic roles of heroes and Overlord. Upto four players will choose characters with a wide assortment of skills andinnate abilities to be the heroes who will explore dungeons in search oftreasure and adventure. One player will take on the role of the Overlord andwill control the dungeon's many traps, puzzles, and monsters.

Of course when Dreadfleet gets released, it may get thegreatest reviews ever, turn out to be one of the best boardgames of all timeand I’ll have missed my chance because it sold out. But I’m not prepared to bet £70 on that happening.

Happy Gaming

Where I hide my Naughty Space Pixies …

2011-09-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

‘Conan! What isbest in life?’

‘To crush your enemies; see them driven before you, and tohear the lamentation of their women.’

‘Conan! That’s great but you need to get your chores donefirst…’

Ah yes, there are things we all enjoy, but unfortunately wehave to get the boring stuff out of the way first. For the last few weeks, I have been in the library of FrugalTowers; researching, writing and getting rather stressed as I put the finishingtouches to an academic project I’ve been working on. However, the work has now been sent off and I’m free topaint, game, generally geek out and then write about it in a mildly amusing, butultimately badly planned way.

Old School Raider with an old school finger attached

The main news of the past few weeks is that I have finallycompleted my Dark Eldar. I boughtmy Dark Eldar (or as I like to call them ‘Naughty Space Pixies’) a couple ofyears ago and left the box gathering dust on a shelf. When the new Naughty Space Pixies Codex was released lastyear, I got them out of the box, assembled them, painted a couple and then putthem back on the shelf to gather dust. Eventually I had to paint them all so went for a quick scheme ofbasecoat, wash and highlight, with minimal detail. So now I have approximately 1000pts of NSPs on the shelfgathering dust.

The (semi) interesting fact about these NSPs is my storagetechnique. I ordered some 25mm self adhesive magnetic discs from Hasslefree Miniatures, at £10 for 100 though smaller packs are available. Like a lot of gamers out there I’ve experimented with a fewdifferent methods of storing my Pixies, Gnomes and Galactic Knights, but Ithink that these magnets are the way ahead. The discs only take a second to apply, and once in place arepretty robust.

Once the figures are stickered, it’s simply a case offinding a suitable receptacle to keep them in. I’ve gone for a metal tool box that I got from a carbootsale for a couple of pounds, but for another unit I’ve used a boxfile with self adhesive steel paper in it.

Even the smell of ginger hair cannot dislodge the magnets.

For me, one of the main benefits of magnetic bases is theease that the figures can be put away, no messing about shoving the figuresinto foam holes, just stand them up in the box and they hold themselves inplace, winner!

As I rarely travel too far for gaming I think these are agood (Frugal) option for storage. Anyone who regularly flies or takes trains to tournaments may want toconsider something more robust, but then if you’re the sort of gamer who fliesto tournaments then you’re probably not the type to worry too much about Frugal Gaming.

So, I’m back, I’ve completed an army and I’ve adopted a newway of storing figures, what more could you possibly ask for?

If you're interested in magnets, you may like to check out my Blood Bowl article.

Frugalnomics: Increasing Cost, Decreasing Value

2011-09-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

Price rises, price rises, all I seem to hear about these days is price rises! Personally I think everything's more expensive these days, but Dethtron (first and second links) has a point when he establishes that GW's prices are in fact behind the rate of inflation (whether they were marked up to the point of lunacy to begin with is perhaps another matter). Still, that's not what I'm here to bore you about today.

I have, in the past, been heard to discuss the notions of cost and value; that having low point cost kits and making them both essential to building an effective force and expensive to purchase in terms of real money is the gaming company's road to profitability. Dethtron has been caught remarking that you don't want your ubiquitous and essentially mandatory METAL BAWKSES, included merely to transport models across the board and provide an additional layer of insulation against the rain of hot lead/laser/microwave death outside, to eat up huge chunks of your army's points that you could be spending on cool stuff. I say that I prefer spending my money on transport vehicles that contribute something else to the game, hence my love of anything Fast with good guns that can move and still shoot, Land Raiders and even, at a pinch, the Ork Battlewagon, but that's still not the point that I'm trying to make here.

My point is that price increases are only half of the way that gaming companies can, if they so wish, diddle and fiddle you out of your hard-earned wonga. The other way they get you is by devaluing what you already own. We are familiar, I hope, with the various justifications for new editions that invalidate your previous rulebook purchases; some of these are more valid than others but I think that by the time you're on, say, the third edition of a game you're either a bad designer or a deliberately poor designer trying to set up pendulum swings and/or release bloat for business reasons (which, as I keep saying but will continue to restate every time lest I be considered a ninny, is a valid business model and not something unethical and vile that it's worth starting a protest march over. Go on the ones to preserve teachers' pensions instead and at least do me a favour while you're there...).

What some of us are perhaps less familiar with is the really obvious under-your-nose phenomenon that I never see emerging from discussions of How Things Were Better Value In The Mid-Nineties. Stuff was worth more then. When I started playing, a Space Marine squad cost 300 points for ten lads before any upgrades. Buy them a Veteran Sergeant with weapons and wargear, special weapons and a transport and you'd be running something in excess of 400. With 1500 points established as the Holy Grail of game size, that means an 'army' might comprise three of those squads, the mandatory Captain and, I don't know, a Chief Librarian or a couple of Predators or a Bike Squadron (the New Hot Sexy Release during the month I started playing, sixteen years ago...) or something.

Third edition 40K slashed the points value of that squad - and it's interesting that we talk about 'points value' as often as we do 'points cost', don't you think? - in half while continuing to present 1500 points as the 'standard' game size. Suddenly you 'need' twice as many d00dz in order to roll up to your games night, unless you're the sort of person who asks insightful questions like "what's so special about 1500 points anyway?" The later editions of 40K have been nudging the game toward a sweet spot closer to 2000 while continuing to gently nudge point costs (Ork Boyz dropping from 10 to 8 or 9 to 6 over the course of three Codices, anyone?) to the point where your old stuff, even if still playable, won't amount to what people are conditioned to expect.

Now, lest I be accused of favouritism here, let's take a swing at a couple of other companies. Privateer Press managed to pull off the double whammy when they released Warmahordes Mark II, changing the entire points system in order to revalue pieces and change the expectations about what constituted a game. Alas, rummage as I might I can't find any of my Mark I lists anywhere to run an Edifying Comparison, but there was a lot of effort sunk into creating a formula that would unpick exactly how the points costs and values converted between the two systems, and it was at first rather tricky to establish how much you now had and whether you'd been played like a stringed instrument or not - which, a cynic would argue, is what they wanted. Wyrd, meanwhile, set out with two different game sizes and, while I don't follow the Malifaux gossip too closely, I'd npt be surprised if their first expansion brought with it an emphasis on the larger of them. Changing costs is only half the game; sometimes companies change the value of what you own as well.

Making Plastic from Milk?

2011-08-30T03:52:00.000-07:00

I've just been searching the interweb and came across this hobby site. The article I had originally followed was for using pink and blue foam for terrain, but on the main site (http://www.stormthecastle.com/) this article and video caught eye - making plastic from milk. To be fair he uses vinegar as well. But that's it. Apparently the idea was from Leonardo Da Vinci.

In a hobby where resin and plaster are commonly used to create scenery how good (and cheap) would it be if we could use milk & vinegar instead? More investigations are needed...

The dreaded [War]-Jack Frost strikes again.

2011-08-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

When the pictures of my new Space Marine Dreadnought were being taken, the model had not been varnished yet, due to a period of wet weather in up here in normally sunny Scotland (yeah, I know!). Finally I looked out of the window one breakfast time last week and saw it was dry and sunny. Excellent! So I rushed out to give the piece and quick coat.

The dreaded frost

Unfortunately, it would appear that it was still to damp or cold or at least clammy, as the dreaded varnish frosting hit my smooth clean paint-job. Now I've experienced this before on my Warmachine Slayer last year, so I was disappointed but not panicked by the prospect of trying to get it back to some sort of fit condition.

After a coat of gloss Varnish

So first job - hit the effected areas with some gloss varnish. This is what I did last time, and it fixed most the problems. This time - not so good. It has improved some areas, but not all. The effect is more visible, ironically, because of my simple faster paintjob, as the imperfections show up on the simple flat surface more. On the areas with more variation (such as the scroll on the left leg) the effect has decreased enough for me to leave it. I will however try a "Plan B" for the front surface, as it is most evident there and if the need comes to repaint it's just a coat of blue!

Post nail polish remover

Plan B is nail polish remover on a cotton bud. As you can see it seems to have taken most the varnish off and some of the paint. This is why I have shyed away from applying it to a more detailed area. It's still a little rough though, so some light sanding will be needed.

Repainted

I did a small amount of light sanding (with some wet & dry paper) but the finish was still a bit rough. I stopped there anyway and re-applied the blue paint. Not as good as the original silky smooth finish, but alot better than I started out with, and should be fine on the table.

The Dreaded 6 month Review

2011-07-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

Gosh, hasn't it been quiet around here lately. "It's that time of year again" as the saying goes. Obviously its always that time of year for something. In my case it's Summer time (or at least what optimistically passes as Summer in Scotland) which means less hobby time, more garden tending time, more away days at the weekend (less hobby time), etc. So apologies for the lack of updates but here it is- the mid-term review.

We'll be quick here and move straight to the numbers:

Cash Out: £243.46
Cash In: 349.42

That's an average monthly spend of £40.58 which, if I'm honest is a bit disappointing, as I was looking for less than that. Just over £100 pounds of that was on the main painting/gaming focus for the first half (Warmachine and Space Marines) I suppose i shouldn't feel too bad. Also the spends on these two games/areas are just about finished, so a line can be drawn under that. On the plus side all my costs have been covered in sales from the hobby shed, with a bit extra (at the moment). This obviously helps me justify the other purchases of the year that haven't had any attention lavished on them (yet).

Which makes me look at the bought/painted stats:

28mm: Bought: 95 Painted: 53
10mm: Bought: 37 Painted: 22

Converse to the cash spend I'm actually quite pleased at the number of figures I've finished so far. It helps that 40k ones are all pretty quick to paint, but that's fine. I am am suprised at the numer in the bought column as I wouldn't have thought it added up to that much - funnily enought it does though. Just goes to show how your perceptions and real facts often differ (especially in accrued lead).

2 days into the year I set out my stall with numerous plans (or dreams) for the coming year. Looking over this mighty document I can see that I've failed (or at least faltered in most of these). My Gladiator campaign lasted a few months until a new set of rules derailed me. My Songs Of Blades campaign still shows no sign of starting, I've not played with my 10mm dungeon (although I have been painting it), my 2 Sci-fi scenery projects haven't been touched, and I've painted zero modern era figures for my zombie gaming. And you can you add in the fact that the number of roleplaying sessions played can be counted on the fingers of Bugs Bunny's hand!

Bug's reads up on his gaming tactics

So the year's been a complete washout then? Well, no. If we look at the gallery page we can see a clue to something that has sneeked in - Space Marines (and Necrons) and using them toboot! Sci-fi gaming has hit the Hobby Shed with a vengence the last few months. It started with Arabiansquire's birthday present of some Space Marines of his own to paint, and he's been keen to play them ever since. Previous favourite fantasy gaming hasn't had a proper look in at all. To add to the Sci-fi feel of the year there have been quite a few Pod Racing Sessions over the last couple of months as well. Warmachine has also dominated the painting mat as I try to finish off my Cryx Army. Nearly there now though. I may actually get to play with them once it's done, as the local league play has somewhat stalled.

This seamlessly leads me into the next six months. I'm going to shelve (or box) my grand WWII plans. This fuse was ignited by Halo*Star, but he's not over so frequently just now and he still hasn't picked up any figures that I will leave it for later - I've a few other pots boiling at the moment anyway. I hope to replace it with something I go WOW! for - Doctor Who. This also has great playing potential, as the wee lad is Dr Who mad; in theory I need less figures (and I already own a few); being a time travelling adventurer I should be able to use many of my other figures; it's new and shiny (which lets be honest is why we all start!) But like all best laid plans we'll have to wait and see! I would also like to see a few more warbands (fantasy and Sci-fi) painted before the year's end, especially as I've bought a couple this year and it would be nice to see some more "bought and painted" figures rather than the usual "discovered and painted" variety!

Some Frugal Alternatives To Popular Spendy Games

2011-06-28T02:29:00.000-07:00

Enough, I say! Enough!

I wrote a post. It was about increasing prices and decreasing points values and the two-way gouge perpetrated by miniature wargame companies. It wasn't bad. I'm just sick to the back teeth of doing nothing but advise people on how to negotiate with these big bad corporate entities, how to play the popular games without being played for fools. It's possible to play that game and win, but a better way to win is to not play. With that in mind, here are some of the free or cheap things I've been painstakingly hoarding, in waiting for the day when I can persuade people to play them and not something you buy in the shops.

War Games

Hordes and Heroes, by Kallistra, is a 10mm fantasy game revolving around abstract units made of several models on a single base. It uses a very clear, very clinical hex terrain system, which is probably the clearest set of rules I've seen for terrain pieces in a long while, but is perhaps incompatible with your existing terrain collection unless you're prepared to do a bit of work or invest in Kallistra's proprietary terrain sets.

This is why I'm also going to recommend Hordes of the Things, by the Wargames Research Group. It's currently out of print (I bought one of the last paper copies, it would seem) but the WRG have been good enough to provide a download of the current edition as a stop-gap until they can bring it out again (and thanks to arabianknight for pointing that out!). Hordes of the Things is another very tight rules set with the advantage of working in a variety of different scales - the measurement distances and number of models that qualify as a 'unit' changes, but the actual mechanics don't. Both games use generic unit types that are wide open to choice regarding which manufacturer's miniatures you use, and both have a historical variant (Hordes of the Things is in essence a clone of major historical system De Bellis Antiquitatis, also by the W.R.G., with rules for dragons, gods and magicians bolted on) if that's more your bag than outrageous fantasy.

On the skirmish side of things, allow me to big up Dave King's Skulldred. Skulldred is currently in beta testing and has been for some time, largely because Dave wants it pretty much as tight as he can make it when it does finally go to a commercial release. At the moment, it's free to download, and has the advantage of being open to use any set of miniatures in the same scale (although, as is my way, I recommend 28-32mm for anything where individuals matter and 10-15mm for anything that's more about regiments). You'll need to perform some jiggery-pokery with dice, either using the wraparound template Dave provides or investing in some blank d6s to make your own. Or you could use a look-up table, but that'll get a bit wearisome if you have to do it for every roll.

Roleplaying Games

Swords and Wizardry is a free-to-download open-source 'retro-clone' of several early editions of Dungeons and Dragons rolled together (I confess to not being up on the game's early history to the point where I can tell you what's been rolled into it; furthermore, I confess to not caring). The point is that it can do pretty much whatever you want to do with Dungeons and Dragons - scale up, scale down, convert settings, make your own setting, imitate Basic, Advanced or Old Dungeons and Dragons - and it doesn't cost anything or come with the promise of splatbooks ranging out into infinity.

If you find Marxist taxonomies of characters and rolling tons of dice to be faintly distasteful, meanwhile, allow me to point you in the vague direction of Atomic Sock Monkey Press and their excellent free-to-download Prose Descriptive Quality system for diceless roleplaying. They also make a few settings for that system to be used in which, while technically costing money, come with enough free downloads for you to bodge your way through it with a bit of imagination (and let's face it, you'd need at least a bit of imagination to play a diceless RPG).

Computer Games

Battle for Wesnoth! It's free, it'll run on damn near anything, and it's a charmingly addictive hex-based turn-based fantasy strategy game. I recommend Wesnoth doubly because of an active user base that's forever churning out new single-player campaigns and offering multiplayer if that's your thing. The only bad thing I have to say about it is that large battles with three or more computer players get pretty boring; you can skip the computer players' turns but then you'll start yours with half your units missing and no idea what killed them or what to avoid when you save and reload - which you'll be doing a lot, since the AI is intelligent enough to go after things that you don't want to die and very, very cut-throat in its application of attack probabilities.

Torchlight is in essence a Diablo clone. You remember Diablo. It was a one-armed bandit thinly disguised as a fantasy dungeon crawl game where you hit monsters to see what loot fell out of them. It was single player World of Warcraft, in essence, and it was mindlessly addictive. Torchlight did not set my world on fire, but the demo's free, the game's cheap, and it even looks suitably old-school. I've just been spoiled for single-player games by the chat-to-other-players aspects of MUMORPEGGERS, I think.

Guild Wars is one of those MUMMORPEGGER things, only it isn't subscription-based: you buy it, you play it, and the only money you need to spend is on expansion packs if you want to play through those. Looks like World of Warcraft with more sophisticated graphics and less bad pop-culture jokes. The former stopped me from really getting into it, as there was enough lag to break any sense of immersion or engagement before it really had the chance to develop, and I get the impression that it's a slow-burner anyway. Not designed to addict with quite the same cunning and effectiveness as World of Warcraft - definitely more of a make-your-own-fun kind of game that relies on you interacting with other players in some meaningful way, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Champions Online is closer to WoW in terms of its early-game-hook design, although operating in a different genre, and is nominally free to play, although the free version is so cut-down that you'll probably end up spending some real money to unlock some options for yourself. Still no subscription fees, though.

Given my druthers, I would play all of these and not their more expensive counterparts, but the trouble with games and gamers is that they are in essence social pastimes and if you want to share other people's play time you often end up playing what they play. I can sit up here in my Frugal castle with my sense of self-satsifaction and full wallet but that's piss all use if everyone I know wants to play Pathfinder. That said, I still want to fly the flag for alternative games; they are cheaper than what people already play, they are often more flexible and freeform and imaginative than what people already play, and they are probably every bit as much fun as what people already play. I'd know, if I could persuade people to play them.

A gentle reminder...

2011-06-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

Hi guys, just a quick note to remind you that the 'Grand Battery' book draw finishes at midnight tomorrow. Get your entries in quick!

Warmachine On The Cheap

2011-06-17T00:55:00.000-07:00

A while ago now, arabianknight posted about his proxy Trenchers for Warmachine, and made a convincing case for the act of proxying the more generic-looking miniatures in a Warmahordes army.

Now, Warmahordes is my tournament game, insofar as I have one at all, and so the decision is largely made for me; whatever I want to take to an Official Event (TM) more or less has to be Official Miniatures (TM) as I can't rely on the discretion of the tournament organiser being in my favour. Nevertheless, I understand the case for proxying and accept that if you're never going to play in an environment where officialdom matters, th'art free to do as thou wilt.


Aleister Crowley approves of proxying. No wonder he's the Wickedest Man in the World.

This morning, I stumbled upon an idea for expanding a Warmahordes collection past the initial investment that seems to dovetail well with the proxy practice. I'll link to it in a moment, but first I want to brief the non-Warmahordes readership about a few truths. Those groin-yards among you who already know their Slaughterhousers from their Doom Reavers can feel free to skip a paragraph.

Warmahordes revolves around the one figure at the centre of your army; the warlock or warcaster. Change that, and keep the rest of your army list the same, and you change the way the whole army list plays. The pieces still do what they do, but they're supported differently and often take on different strategic and tactical roles (what was once a line-breaking destroyer of meat and metal alike can become a disposable beatstick, a screening piece or a tough objective taker, depending on context). The game also incorporates a variety of mercenary troops which can either join armies from one or more other factions or do their own thing as 'contract' or 'pact' forces with their own agendas. The nature of mercenaries is such that, barring a few excellent pieces, they tend to appear in armies of their own kind; it's very rare that you'll see a faction army including more than one or two mercenaries.

Which is odd, as Raptor of Spite for the Unblighted pointed out this morning. Building a solid core of generic mercenaries or minions and then adding faction pieces - mainly warcasters/warlocks and the warjacks/warbeasts that they control - to that affords a similar kind of variety to the change-your-warcaster-change-your-army approach described above, just on a slightly grander scale. It occurs to me that proxying that core of generic mercenaries and then adding small faction battlegroups - possibly even the discounted starter boxes, which tend to include something for free - would result in a satisfactory-if-not-brilliant Warmahordes army, certainly good enough to just play the game.

Warmachine probably affords the best opportunities for this, given the greater variety of mercenary troop types available to the steam-powered factions, and the fairly generic nature of those troops (there's not much demand for giant crocodile men or pig-headed rifle-blokes, you see, so cheap ranges are harder to find). Units of dwarfs with whacking great hammers or rifles plus tower shields aren't that hard to come by; neither are armoured infantry with polearms or firearms, matching cavalry and a mounted officer; and while the specific characters belonging to Privateer's proprietary fantasy species might be a bit tricky, pirates with cutlasses, pistols and rifles, plus a few gentlemanly character-solo-ish types are less so. Build a core of faux-Rhulfolk, Steelheads or Privateers, with all the rules synergies that having broadly the same sort of stuff implies, and then add the starter battlegroups to create up to six different armies (depending on whether you can get hold of the old Mercenary starter sets or not) sharing a core of cheap proxied troops.

Things might not match up perfectly in aesthetic terms and you'll get Privateer fanboys and tournament players looking at you strangely, but you can laugh them off as you go to sleep on your pile of scrupulously saved money. Except me. Don't laugh me off. I did tell you how to do this, after all. Just wish I'd thought of it first...

ADDITIONAL: for those who care about the viability of this approach in terms of rules, Raptor is currently running a faction-by-faction breakdown of the various mercenary options available. Go and have a look.

Chronicles Of Blood - a review

2011-06-16T01:29:00.000-07:00

Chronicles of Blood - Solo War Game

First let me get something in the open. I never play massed army battle games (Warhammer, HotT, etc) so have nothing to really compare this game to, so bear that in mind whilst reading this. I picked up this game for a couple of reasons. I won't be shy and say the first reason was that the basic rule set (looked at here) is free. Further "premium" rule expansions will be released (one to date) for the princely sum of $1 (64p in real money!), so extra rules were not going to break the bank. next on the list of attractions is that it is a simple, solo, generic ruleset. This also grabbed my attention as Arabiansquire plays more often than I do, so it would be nice for him to have a simple rule-based opponent from time to time.

I will only be looking at the frugal free ruleset here. The army composition is pretty generic, as you'd expect, and focuses on a Good vs Bad force set up. This lets you mix Human, Dwarf and elven forces against Orc, goblin and undead alliances - very handy if you don't have enough of one race to fill and entire army list (as is my case). The "Units" are of regiment size, with each regiment having attack, damage, armour, health and morale stats by way of number or different dice types. So the weak goblins have an attack with a d4, where as the stronger Human Infantry have d6 attack. There are charge and flanking modifiers that can be added as well, and some ranged troops. The basic attack is just a comparative roll-off between meleeing regiments, winner rolls damage, anything more than the losers armour stat is translated into wounds until wounds get to zero. No saving throws, etc - pretty quick.

After each armies turn, any regiment that's taken wounds rolls a morale check (again on a d4, d6, d8, etc) and on a 1 flees the battle field. The rule led opponent rules are pretty simple, basically order of activation runs with the regiment strength and engages the nearest enemy. To make things more difficult for you (considering the basic rules for the opponent) , at the start of each turn you roll on a random event table to determine what happens - anything from rain halving your arrow range to one of your regiments turning against you!

After running through a game I have to say I enjoyed it. The different dice used as stats moves along quite smoothly and the enemy actions are simple and intuitive. The brutal morale system and random event table really try their best to put a spanner in the works. A drawn melee results in a wound and hence a morale check, and when rolling on the event table you really do "pray for rain". It does give a feel of the rules being "out-to-get-ya", but as long as you realise that (and the rules are so simple you can't fail to notice) it's a quick and enjoyable game. I'll definitely being trying to induce the young lad to the rules (assuming I can tear him away from his new Space Marine fascination)

As a sub note I've bought the first premium expansion which adds extra heroes, simple magic and leaders into the fold, which should give the regiments a bit more individuality on the table.

Test Battle Report.

A quick run through the test battle for the above review. Hopefully the auto-changing gif won't be too quick and you'll be able to follow it. The eagle eye'd among will notice I forgot to apply the random event table most turns - it didn't alter the outcome I can assure you! Also you should bear in mind that I as I never play massed games tactics were beyond me!

The graphics are from using Battle Chronicler, which is an excellent free battle report program (which my first time fumblings below don't do justice to!), and GIMP (the open source graphics package - NOT the bloke in the rubber suit in Pulp Fiction)

The forces were taken directly from the rulebook:

The Golden Alliance

MaA1: 10 Human Infantry, Men-at-Arms 1
MaA2: 10 Human Infantry, Men-at-Arms 2
MaA3: 10 Human Infantry, Men-at-Arms 3
DS: 12 Dwarf Infantry, Dwarven Stoneguard
SOTS: 5 Angel Infantry, Soldiers Of The Sun
KOTR: 5 Human Cavalry, Knights Of The Realm
ER1: 10 Elf Infantry, Elven Rangers 1 (Ranged)
ER2: 10 Elf Infantry, Elven Rangers 2 (Ranged)

The Unholy Blight

OW1: Orc Infantry, Orc Warriors 1
OW2: Orc Infantry, Orc Warriors 2
GW1: Goblin Infantry, Goblin Warriors 1
GW2: Goblin Infantry, Goblin Warriors 2
GW3: Goblin Infantry, Goblin Warriors 3
GW4: Goblin Infantry, Goblin Warriors 4
BD: Demon Infantry, Battle Demons
DK: Demon Cavalry, Dark Knights
SH1: Undead Cavalry, Skeleton Horsemen 1
SH2: Undead Cavalry, Skeleton Horsemen 2

It's finally come to an end...

2011-06-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

After a couple of years of posting on the subject, I’ve decided to call an end to it. After hours spent blogging about it, I’m done. I’m finished. It’s all over.
That’s right, I’ve finally completed my Orc and Goblin army! I’ve now got 2400pts of tournament standard painted army ready to go, woo hoo! It’s been a large undertaking, it’s been a challenge and it’s been a pain in the arse, but it’s complete.

The (proxy) Black Orcs get ready to do what they do best. Hit things. Hard.

I’ve been painting for years, but it has always been figures for small scale skirmish games such as Necromunda and Mordheim, so I didn’t realise how much work would be required. It only took painting the first unit before I realised that my usual painting style was far too slow and detailed to get me through in a reasonable amount of time. I had to learn to paint a lot quicker, trying dips, all-over washes and loads of drybrushing in an attempt to get figures on the table. I learnt the importance of making sure that units rank up and I realised that when painting an army, it was the overall effect that was the most important thing, not each individual model. It took a while for me to get the idea, but I was happy when it finally happened!

It wasn’t all hard work though, I had great fun making some of the pieces; the rocklobber, the maggot hoppers, the spider riding boss and my own personal favourite; the snotling pumpwagons.

Some of the rough sketches for my Rocklobber

This is the first full army that I’ve painted so I’m feeling quite proud of myself. I’ve learned some good painting skills, and probably picked up some bad ones as well. I’ve already got plans in place for my next fantasy army, and I’ll be using what I’ve learned on the greenskins to great effect.

Of course, I know that no army is ever fully ‘finished’ I’ll be repainting some of the units and adding the odd piece, but the rush is now over and I can focus on actually playing with it. I’ve got my first game with a fully painted full size army at the club tomorrow night (appropriately enough, against Dwarfs!) so I’m looking forward to seeing if fielding a finished army improves my luck at all.

I’ll add a few photos from the battle in the next couple of days and let you know the result :)

Happy Gaming

P.S. You can find all the stories of my work completing my army by clicking on the ‘goblins’ label.
P.P.S. A big 'Hello' to all my fellow greenskin generals who may be visiting from 'Da Warpath'. Check it out peeps!

Tide of Iron review

2011-06-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

After weeks of planning, phonecalls and emails it finally happened; I got three friends together for a full day and we sat down to play a game. The three friends were Paul, Neil and Andy… and the game was Tide of Iron.

Tide of Iron is a World War 2 boardgame, focussing on tactical level combat in pre-set scenarios. It is designed for two players, but rules are included for four-player games (two per side). The game is complete in the box, with hundreds of plastic miniatures and cards, 12 double sided map tiles, loads of counters, a rulebook (also downloadable from the Fantasy Flight website) and a scenario book with a variety of missions.

The game features a variety of units; standard infantry, elite troops, officers, mortars, machine guns, trucks, transports and tanks; each with their own specific rules, and very nice models. The scenario determines what troops you receive (which you then form into squads of your own choosing), the map tiles and card decks used and the victory conditions.On your turn you have a range of options for each of your troops: Move, Fire, Concentrated Fire, Opportunity Fire, Assault or Special Action (activating one of your Strategy Cards), alternating actions until every unit has moved. It is the card decks which provide the best variety in the game, the scenario determines which deck each player gets (Reinforcements, Air Support, Morale, etc) and these give specific bonuses during the game. Cards are activated by using Command tokens, earned by occupying specific tactical locations on the board. For example, in the scenario that we played, there was a hill with a sandbagged emplacement at the top; the side that held it earned two command points every turn, which allowed us to purchase from our respective command decks, to represent the tactical advantage of holding such a position.

Combat is via opposed dice rolls (attack vs defence) and is generally bloody. The only exception is mortars which can choose to give suppressing fire which doesn’t destroy your opponents troops, but pins or disrupts them for a turn or two.

(Even if you don’t fancy the game, check out the video below, it features some remarkable head/facial hair combos...)

Paul, Neil and Andy are friends of mine who I’ve been introducing to modern boardgames over the past few years, so have played games of varying complexity. Tide of Iron is by no means the most complicated game out there, but it does require a bit of thought and there was frequent checking of the rulebook to make sure we played certain situations right, but overall the guys picked up the rules pretty quick. I went over the main points as we set up and then we talked through the riles on the first turn before the game got into full swing.

In our game Neil and I took the side of the Germans and Paul and Andy assumed the role of the Americans. The Germans were in a strong defensive position and it was up to the yanks to prise us out. Neil and I made great use of our cards (from the ‘Morale’ and ‘Reinforcements’ decks - mainly the latter!) and managed to hold the Americans at bay until the end of the game. There were a few hairy moments, and we only just got away with it at the end, so a good time was had by all. Our game took about six hours to play, but that was at a relaxed pace with plenty of chatting and discussion. The next time that we play, I can’t see it lasting more than four hours, even allowing time for name calling and trading of insults in a variety of comedy accents.

The rules provide a great balance of depth and ease of play that will suit most gamers, and provide a rich, deep gaming experience that all can enjoy.

As always I must ask one single question: Is it Frugal? Well, it’s £55 (or crazy foreign equivalent), it’s fantastic quality, it’s great fun and it’ll provide you hours and hours of gaming. I can’t think of many other gaming products that will give you a complete system with such potential for the same price. Go and buy it now!

P.S. You may know that when I review a product I give away my review copy if I received one. As this is my own personal (paid for) copy of Tide of Iron I’ve sent Fantasy Flight Games an email asking for a copy to give away to one lucky reader. I’ve not had an answer yet...

Grand Battery book review and competition

2011-06-09T00:04:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love about wargaming is the idea of total immersion; not only learning the fluff, and spending hours painting the models; but playing a long game and getting deeply involved in every move, discussing the tactical aspect of potential moves with my opponent, as well as trading the occasional piece of ‘trash talk’ or gentle mocking.

I have always been attracted by the idea of larger and more complex gaming, with orders, chains of command and lots of cross referencing on complex charts. This is the territory of the ‘old-school’ historical wargamer and, dare I say it, the Napoleonics wargamer.

Recently I was sent a review copy of ‘Grand Battery’ by husband and wife writing team Jon Sutherland and Diane Canwell (who you may have seen writing an excellent column in Battlegames magazine).

The book is a standard (novel sized) hardback running to nearly 200 pages, with lots of photographs of models, mostly being used for games. As with all the Pen and Sword titles that I’ve seen, the book is well laid out. My only criticism is that there seemed to be a few spelling and formatting errors, which distracted from the content from the book a little. Anyway, with my history of spelling and grammar errors I’m in no position to get too upset.

The book starts with a very warm and friendly introduction, which immediately puts the novice gamer (or n00b) at their ease, before getting straight into the good stuff. The first half of the book provides the background (what we modern gamers refer to as the ‘fluff’), discussing the history and main battles of the period, followed by a breakdown of the composition and armament of the various forces involves. The second half of the book introduces the rules.

The rules are primarily designed for 15-28mm scale miniatures, but there is discussion of using smaller and larger scales on the table, and I don’t believe that this would impact on gameplay. The game is based around an orders driven system, assigning actions to units in advance, and ensuring that the chain of command is maintained (or else having to send couriers between units to pass orders!). This leaves players having to plan well in advance, fighting against the fog of war which will frustrate players as much as it did their historical counterparts.

There is an unstated assumption from the authors that the two generals reenacting the battle are there to enjoy the gaming experience and discuss potential historical events rather than focus on winning at all costs, or using definitions of the rules that take away from the spirit of the game. The rules are clearly to be played for enjoyment, rather than in a competitive environment, the spirit of the game is on an enjoyable gaming experience, rather than smashing your opponent.

The rules provide a great degree of flexibility which will allow a large number of historical battles to be refought with ease, a number of scenarios are included at the end of the book for this very purpose, though you could easily refight you own particular Napoleonic battle (if you have one in mind).

If I had a friend or older child who fancied getting into historical gaming, or an interest in learning about the period, this book would be an excellent starting point; steering clear of the ‘rules lawyering’ that is present in other systems. Though I wouldn’t attempt to take this along to my local club or try to win over some hardcore 40k players, but that's just me and my group and is no way a reflection on the book.

But the most important question; Is it frugal? Well, yes. If you fancy learning a bit more about the period or historical gaming, this book is reasonably priced and well presented, and will undoubtedly provide hours and hours of enjoyment. Combine it with a couple of boxes of Perry Plastics and you’ve got yourself a fantastic starter set for a really good price. If this sounds like something you'd like to try, I’d certainly recommend picking it up.

The book also hints at future wargaming titles from Pen and Sword, and I’m looking forward to other titles in this series. The website already has ‘Blood, Bilge and Iron Balls: A Tabletop Game of Naval Battles in the Age of Sail’, promising both small and large scale fast play battles, on pre-order and if the quality is as good as Grand Battery, it’ll be a great read.

As is becoming the custom, I’m giving away my review copy of ‘Grand Battery’, no matter where in the world you are. If you’d like to go into the draw simply send me an email with the title ‘Grand Battery Book Draw’ by midnight (British Summer Time) on Thursday 23rd June.

Happy Gaming

EXPO-say: Von's Frugal Picks from the UK Games Expo

2011-06-08T00:28:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite like attending a gaming convention with no money to sharpen the old critical faculties and make you consider the value of the beautiful, shiny objects being paraded about before your eyes. I'd recommend it to anyone. Leave your wallet at home. Take your ticket and a packed lunch. Just look at things and think about them. You might notice, as I did, that many contemporary RPGs are needlessly bloated behemoths that attempt to meld the best of four or more existing systems and disguise the stitches with glorious full-colour and glossy paper; you might notice that those very nice lizard-persons are glorious but at £10 for two owning sufficient numbers of them to use them in any sensible context is ludicrous; you might play and discuss the hot new skirmish game in town and finally work out how the design principles generate sales past the buy-in. I will talk about all of these things later in my usual meta-contexty way but first I want to talk about the bargains that you might find and endorse at such an Exposition, because I told these lovely people that I would.

You might, at this hypothetical event, have a nice chat with the lads from Arkenstone Publishing, whose names are too Finnish for me to remember or spell (sorry chaps) and who are pimping out the Nordic approach to Old School Roleplaying and the rather curious Inquisitio, which reminds me of the party game Werewolf, complicated by the idea that everyone is guilty of something and some amount of guilt will come out. They described the game as 'a race to not lose'; it sounds like it requires a lot of concentrating but apparently it's possible to play fairly randomly without paying much attention and still end up somewhere in the middle.

You might encounter the excitable Benjamin Dale of Tied to a Kite Games, who produce the marvellous old-school D&D clone Blackswords and Bucklers, which strips out the hippy fantasy nonsense and replaces it with a grubby, low-fantasy Elizabethan English vibe that's pitched halfway between Call of Cthulhu and Blackadder. The core rules are fifty clean, accessible pages with a heavy emphasis on making the details up as you go along and not burdening the system with unnecessary personalising-my-special-snowflake cruft - the first of a range of supplements adding further classes and mechanics (usually one new class and one new mechanic per book, delivered in detail) is already out - and did I mention it's a fiver? Five quid for a roleplaying game that won't put your back out. Bargain.

On the subject of bargains, they also make a came called Numerix, an 'abstract chance strategy' game that reminds me of Go with dice. It's easier to play than to explain and an explanation is helped by a picture of the board, thus:

Action shot!

Basically, the dice give you three options in the placement and moving of pieces (either place one piece on a square with that number, or move an existing piece into an adjacent square with that number). It's up to you which of those options you take, and the objective is to enfold the other player's pieces on three sides to remove them from play. There's a lot of control over what looks like a very random mechanic and the minimal number of pieces means it should be fairly quick to play. Again, it's very minimalist, without any unnecessary context of the sort that gets Coop so agitated and drives up the cost of everything with the need for pictures and stories and suchlike woven around it. The wooden one is a cautious £16, the laminated card and plastic one is a trifling £2.10! Lovely.

In the act of endorsing Tied to a Kite, you might be noticed by Oliver Piotrowski of Table Warfare, who present themselves as the ultimate frugal miniature manufacturer. After a good whinge about How Those Other Companies Think They Can Get Away With This, the chaps might present you with the notion of a free rules system with an open-ended time travel narrative that allows more or less any miniature or terrain to be slotted in around the Table Warfare factions.

Now with 100% more reflections of your intrepid reporter!

They also make some rather nice fantasy figures which picked up the Best New Miniatures award, and well deserved it is too. Photographing them was a bit hard what with all those mirrors and Mr. Flash not being my friend, but I did my best.

Trust me, they're pretty.

Oh, and they price the whole lot at around £2 per infantryman and sell them in single blisters rather than the 'buy one for lots or buy more than you want' straitjacketing engaged in by other firms. It's a small range but it's definitely one to keep your eye on. Again, endorsed heartily.

You might, finally, pass by the Mantic Games stand and see Jake Thornton, author of Dwarf King's Hold, doing demos and explaining the future for what looked at first like a rather closeted little game. I like the idea of Dwarf King's Hold, but I frequently find myself needing games for more than two players; while team play seems like a viable option, it's always nice to have a sense of ownership over what your little mens are doing. Fortunately, it seems that Mr. Thornton agrees; after a similar start-up set involving Orcs and Elves, he has plans for a pseudo-roleplaying approach with named heroes and a multiplayer option involving multiple factions, all on the same dungeon-tile-based grid - part Warhammer Quest and part Song of Blades and Heroes or similar skirmish endeavour, it would seem. Interesting stuff. At £35 it's a little steep for a board game, and I'm not sure about replayability with six fairly tight scenarios and not much apparent randomly generated fun to be had, but I'd be interested to see how it develops and how it might synchronise with other Mantic releases (for instance, it could top up the armies from Mhorgoth's Revenge, and adding another game to your collection and adding miniatures to your armies with one purchase seems like it might have some merit).

Also, the 3:1 scale demo figures Mantic take to shows are fit.

A Year of Open Accounting - May (with a bit of April)

2011-06-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

How Frugal is this - 2 months for the price of one. You didn't even have to pay me for the first 10 months either to get the first one!

The numbers:

I missed the April report as it was a quiet month and I got carried away doing other things so didn't get round to it. Money wise nothing was sold as I was looking to sell my wares at Carronade at the start of May (rather optimistically as it turned out). Purchase wise I kept it pretty tight, but managed to fall to a couple of naughty impulse buys. Well one, as "grass effect" mat was more of a chance discovery than impulse, but it's been a great bargain buy and I have no regrets. The other was an Ebay lot of 31 vintage figures. I'd just finished painting an old Ral Partha Ogre and was swept away in a fever of old school mini's. For the price they were still good, and although a few (most!) are unremarkable (elf archers, dwarves) the two Tree Shepherds and the Giant are great. I've been looking for some old Tree Ent like figures for a Forrester themed warband I've planned so very happy. I may even try to sell off some of the other figures to recoop some of the cash (and decrease that lead bought number as well!)

May began with one of my highlights of the year: Carronade in Falkirk (Scotland). Something different this year, as I had along not only ArabianSquire, but also a non-gaming friend of his, so the pressure was on to find the entertaining games. I still wanted to shift so of the Hobby Shed surplus, though. So I booked a Bring & Buy table for the first session to get it out of the way and provide maximum flexibility during the rest of the day for game playing. The sales were not too forthcoming. Having just the first hour of the show to sell was not the best, as most people show up 30 minutes or later after the doors open, look round the halls and traders, THEN have a peak at the B&B hall. Really the 2nd or 3rd slot would have maximised the single hour of selling (I noticed a quite few people have tables for at least a couple of hours). A grand total of £14 was raised which at least paid the modest table rent, my unplanned purchases at the show and cleared a (very) little amount of shelf space.

Bargain Beastmen

After the stall was packed up we had a proper look round the halls. Now ArabianSquire's friend had previously played Heroscape a few time (which had been very much enjoyed) and was the basis of his attendance. He managed to highlight a couple of things that make our hobby confusing to the uninitiated. The first was the statement in the car on the way "I want to buy a game". I had a bit of difficulty explaining that most games there didn't work in that way. Relative expense was a second problem, as the £5 he'd pulled from his piggy bank wasn't going to go too far. I did of course just try to get him to hold back his spend. He ended up with a bag of Halo Clix figures that I didn't sell as a gift as he was so keen, and the generous man at Gateshead Gaming didn't charge him for the 3d6 he wanted to buy. A very generous gesture to a young lad new to the scene that didn't go unappreciated. It meant that his carefully folded blue note went back home with him as well.

As for games played, all 3 of us enjoyed a Great Escape game from RAF Leuchars and trying out Full Thrust, from the Glasgow Wargames club. Despite the fact we arrived 10 miniutes before opening and finished rolling dice 10 minutes after closing everyone had a really enjoyable day. I big thanks to all concerned at Falkirk for their efforts again. Even the new boy was happpy at the end after over 6 hours in an unfamiliar setting. I'll have to come up with some simple rules for his new soldiers, and we'll have a new gamer in town - hopefully.

Bargain Orcs

Now obviously this is a Frugal Accounting post, not a show review, so let’s get down to spends. The bulk of the spend was taken up by a show pre-order from Pendraken Miniatures in the form of a 10mm dungeon booster pack and a couple of figure booster sets. The Bring and buy threw up a few bags of excellent old Orc and beastmen figures (which were marked down 25% on their already bargain price) and a bag old Space Hulk Genestealer pieces for 50p - enough to make a few 'stealers to add to my horde. To cut down on cost (and fussy 9yr old eating habits) we'd taken packed lunches - which was a nice break outside in the sun away from the claustrophobia of the show. My other wish list items never came up (or at least not within my price range) so that was it (barring entry, fuel & a quick snack).

With a purpose I fell upon Ebay to fill the gaps in my want list. And a reasonably priced Dreadnought and fix-up Rhino both were in shed before too long. In fact I enjoyed my Super Smurfy marines so much I picked up some shoulder emblems (and a nice captain figure) to round off the force. This pretty much takes me where I want to be with my Space Marines (which are just really a pleasant quick distraction), bearing in mind I have at least another half dozen old Terminators in the Shed waiting for paint.

Bought and painted in the same month.
We may never see its like again

So to sum up, May was costlier than usual, but not unexpectedly so. My net May bill still came to less than £50. Sales were a bit disappointing, but mostly covered the purchase of 2 fantasy warbands and a 40k Rhino, which isn't bad when you look at it that way. The "figures bought" column took quite a bashing with the vintage lot, a load of 10mm and the fantasy bargains, but in the run up I'd painted a bunch of 10mm (to justify buying the booster pack) and quite a few 40k quick paints, all of which have seen table time.

In the coming months I really must extract a digit from my posterior and get some more of the dwindling Hobby Shed surplus out for Sale to get some more cash in, before the buying urge happens again...

You am an Winnar!!!!

2011-06-01T23:31:00.000-07:00

Well, after the debacle of me being recognised as ‘Not Too Bad at Blogging', by some other internetters last week, I was pleased to receive a number of compliments from others out there who admire my work and appreciate my award:

An Internetter: Laughable. I'm mighty tired of it being the latest post on every damn gaming blog I visit. Sure is exclusive and prestigious.

The sooner this idiotic chain letter has worked its way through all the gaming blogs and has nowhere left to go the better, as I far as I'm concerned.

Frugal Dave: I did mention in my blog post that it was '…a chain letter with flattery'

An Internetter: While the gaming blogs continue to propagate this Stylish Blogger drivel, I'm afraid not reading them is the preferred option.

And while yes, you did mention that, you also decided to jump through all the Stylish Blogger hoops like a good little doggie anyway, and keep this crap going a bit longer. So it wasn't really worth mentioning it at all, was it?

(extract edited to ensure I look good)

It’s great to know that word of this blog has spread so far, that even those who have never read my work are familiar enough with it to give me the benefit of their wisdom.

Such priceless publicity now means that that the blog has reached the mighty pinnacle of over 200 followers. Once again, I would like to thanks the sterling work of Pete, AK and Von for all their writing efforts, and assure them that the cheque is in the post. I’d also like to thank all of you out there for being too lazy to unsubscribe. Thanks!

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I have decided to hold another of my ‘fabulous’ quizzes, this time with wonderful free gifts for every reader. Yes, you can claim a sheet of ‘Frugal Gaming’ stickers. Details are here, or just click on the 'Free Stuff!' link at the top of the page.

As with the previous quiz, read the question, think about the answer and click on your best guess (no hovering!), if you’re right, you’ll be taken to the subject area (go back in your browser to return to the quiz). If you’re wrong you’ll see my namesake Dave Elsewhere dancing for your pleasure. Enjoy!

Question 1: What kind of 40K monstrosity did I create using spare tanks parts, and the head of a giant?

Question 2: Von suggested that playing the same opponents with the same armies could become 'stale and unfulfilling, like...'

Question 3: Which famous singer was spotted among the ranks of Chaos Warriors at Exeter Legionary in May?

Question 4: Von wrote a very well received article entitled ‘50 ways to leave…’

Question 5: Pete reviewed the 'Order of the Stick' Game. But what is 'The Order of the Stick'?

Question 6: Arabian Knight recommended some 'Free Reads', but what magazine did he NOT recommend?

Question 7: Arabian Knight wondered if it was possible to paint 3 terminators in the time it takes to watch a period drama. Did he manage it?

Question 8: What did I use when making my Snotling pumpwagons?

Question 9: I recently had an article featured in Unseen Lerker magazine. What was the subject?

Question 10: During the royal wedding weekend, what did Pete think that he could catch up on?

How did you score?

10 out of 10: Frugal Superstar!
7-9: Golden Demon
3-6: Snotling
0-2: 'While gaming blogs continue to propagate this drivel, I'm afraid not reading them is the preferred option.'

Fraud, Babies, Excuses and Crowd-Sourcing

2011-05-28T00:13:00.001-07:00

It’s all been a bit quiet on the gaming front recently. I was going to have a terrific article going into more detail about planning terrain, but it’s a little too dull and rambling at the moment. I’ll probably have to edit, re-write, and maybe completely ignore it before the end. Instead, I was planning to get on with actually building the terrain. Unfortunately, my bank account was targeted for fraud (didn’t lose anything, but my card was blocked) so my bits and materials order has been put on hold while I wait for a new card to come through. While this does prevent gaming-related expenditure, I’m aware that a certain minimum amount of expense is necessary in certain circumstances. Hence – no building, no blog post. Also, as this post isn’t going to be too interesting (it is mainly a list of excuses, but there is a point near the end) I won’t count it as my monthly quota of blogging and I’ll try to make it up in June when things get back on track.

On the actual playing side, I’ve been unable to get in a proper long game for a while as a work deadline looms up (seventeen and a half hours overtime last weekend, whee), and home life gets slightly more hectic as we are expecting a baby any minute now (due date is less than two weeks now). And being nine months pregnant isn’t easy on a person, so I’ve picked up extra household tasks, and reduced my gaming time.

The aforementioned conferences are interrupting my weekly RPG session (we’re English and Scottish heretic hunters in a slightly homebrew RuneQuest game set in the 15^th Century with demons and magic, chasing down French leper monks for the ampulet of anointing oil used to crown the French kings, if anyone is interested) – probably the first one I’ve missed – and last week’s was off as the GM and half of the players were in Italy at a medieval re-enactment event. I did manage to salvage that one with a game of Talisman with other non-combatants, which was surprisingly easy to remember the rules for and a lot shorter than some previous games – I thank Lady Luck for that one, as my wife’s Dwarf picked up a Talisman early in the first couple of turns, and my Wizard managed to engage in psychic combat and steal it (then grab an axe and sail off to the end, out of reach of retaliation).

Now that all of that’s off my chest, I’ll get to the point of the post. In trying to get parts for my Necromunda scenery, I’ve gone to all of my normal ‘small plastic parts’ web stores, and even visited Antics in Bristol to get a better look at things. It occurred to me after reading Shadowbadger’s blog (recommended to me by @Bjoyhoy on Twitter) that everyone has a different set of go-to shops to get their hobby materials from. Where does everyone get their materials from? I’m not thinking of models themselves, but the plasticard, thin rod, tubes and chain that can be used for conversions and the like. Also, I’m not after the cheapest, just a range so that prices can be compared – an expensive shop may have a great deal on one thing or an exclusive item that’s perfect for a particular project.

What I hope to do is to create a list of these shops in a separate post that we can keep updated as we find new shops and sources, to save raw Googling (with Bing), to be a reference to hobbyists like ourselves. Suggestions in the comments below, and thank you very much!

Termite Art, Branded Materials, and DIY in the hobby

2011-05-24T04:53:00.000-07:00

Every so often, my blogging worlds (all this nonsense and Doctor Who fandom, in case you're keeping score) collide. It's been a while since the last one, in which I was chattering about the Doctor Who roleplaying game, and so this has probably been a bit overdue.

Who pundit Lawrence Miles has (unless he's deleted it, as is his wont from time to time) been pontificating of late about brands, making things, and TV spinoffs. Specifically, the rather cool Deadly Art.

But Deadly 60 has its own pilot-fish programme, Deadly Art. This is the latest and most carnivorous offshoot of the Take Hart format (or Art Attack, if you're dead common), and you can probably see how it all fits together. We get a precis of the accompaying Deadly 60, and then two artists in the studio - usually young women, y'know, like with Tony Hart - make A GIGANTIC SODDING PRAYING MANTIS WITH GLOWING EYES OUT OF SCRAP METAL. Only pausing to run off a smaller version out of the sort of thing you might find, ooh, in your bins.

I mention this less to rattle on about children's TV and more to pad the entry while explaining the term 'Termite Art'. Y'see, Miles goes on to make an Interesting Remark:

If the Termite Art version of television provokes the viewer into going outside and poking around to see what's there (and I still hold that this is what most good telly does, especially children's telly), then this is more like siege conditions. Branding always closes the gates. This is your product, you don't need anything else.

Now, you can probably sense where I'm going with this. Back when I was a lad, there was a lot of the miniature wargaming hobby that one was largely encouraged to Do For Oneself. Sure, Citadel made trees (they weren't very good) and produced their own paintbrushes and paints and clippers and stuff, but there was never a particular drive for everything to be Official. White Dwarf ran frequent articles on how to make modular chipboard battlefields, with terrain crafted from of bits of toilet and the ridiculous amount of white packing material that their larger kits came in, and they showed this stuff in battle reports; it was part of the Right Way to do the Hobby, and it was mostly pretty damn cheap. Names were dropped in painting articles - Humbrol, Tamiya, Airfix - and there was a culture of crossover and usage between manufacturers. Furthermore, it meant there were relations, however tenuous, between my hobby and the sort of shops my grandfather loved to visit. The hobby sent me off into the big wide world looking for stuff to do things with (or things to do stuff with, if that's what you prefer).

Nowadays, of course, there's a Citadel-branded everything, and a definition of the Games Workshop Hobby that actively avoids mention of any other kind of Hobby. The terrain you see in White Dwarf these days is exclusively the stuff you can buy in kit form in your local GW. Mention of other manufacturers' paints and tools and miniatures and goodness knows what else is strictly off-limits. I'm going to be fair here and point out that Privateer Press tried to go this way as well - Formula P3 paints, their own brushes and tools and even brass wire for pinning, not to mention the ill-fated Warmachine terrain kits - that Battlefront makes its own proprietary terrain kits as well, and that every bloody gaming company ever does it with dice, templates, tape measures and other accessories to play.

This saddens me, and it does so beyond the staggering expense of the stuff (this blasted thing is a particular offender). I like to keep the gates open and to have a steady flow of people outwards as well as in. I like initiative, and re-use, and re-cycling. I like putting things to strange new purposes. I don't like having the Official Product and being told that I don't need anything else. Especially not when it's four times the effective price of what I've come up with.

The Stylishly Frugal Blogger

2011-05-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

Blogging is a terrible job. All I do is put in a minimal amount of effort in every week or so and I get loads of positive feedback from complete strangers. I spend an hour or two every week jotting down rubbish and I have people coming up to me and thanking me for writing the blog. I hate it.

Things got even worse a couple of weeks ago, as I was informed that I'd been given a 'Stylish Blogger Award' not only once, but TWICE! It's a nightmare.

There's not actually a trophy to go with it. But if there was...

Apparently the rules of the award mean that I've got to answer a few set questions, link back to the poor deluded individuals who nominated me, and then link to a number of of other blogs that inspire me. Yes, it's less an award and more a chain letter with flattery, but hey it's a chance to talk about me, and some of you of course.

1. Thank and link back to the person giving you the award.
Mucho thanks go to Ruaridh at The Ooh Shiny Complex and Tristan at GW Pertinent. Thank you!

2. Share seven things about yourself.
Do they all have to be true? Okay, one of them is made up.

I'm a Dad of two lovely children, who I'm currently training to be gamers (I have a number of other children, but they're horrible and not interested in gaming),
I'm one of the best wargamers that I know, hardly ever losing games,
I have earned the right to wear the Green Beret of Commando forces,
I love cycling and often compete in Triathlons (but not as often as I'd like),
I live in Plymouth, but I'm originally from Yorkshire (USA readers: A part of northern England, very similar to ancient Sparta).
I've almost completed a degree in Engineering... in my spare time,
I'm a proud member of the Cross Swords gaming club.

3. Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award.
10-15? That's a lot, so I'll just go with the creme de la creme (US readers: That's how people from France say 'Shit hot'):

I must first point to the excellent work undertaken by the contributors to this blog, on their own sites; Game Over by Von, pagan-gerbil.net by Pete and last (but by no means least) the wonderous Wee Blokes by Arabian Knight (US Readers: AK lives in Scotland, and 'Wee Blokes' is Scottish for 'Little Dudes'). Before you check out any of the other geeks I've listed below, make sure you visit these geeks first.

As to the others, a blog I really like is Doctor Merkury's Lab. I've mentioned this blog before when I built a ruined wall, and I often check back to see what the good doctor has been up to.

If you're a fan of 40k, Epic, Space Marines, Sharks or really rather good cartoons, you should pop over and visit NinjaBread, run by Curis. Just don't tell him I sent you as it'll go to his head.

Studio Cyberlab has to be seen to be believed, it's just insane. It features some of the best conversions I've ever seen.

There's some interesting work going on with toys over at Nathan 'Ironworker' Miller's site, gaming related profanity at Dick Move*, and some fortifications being built at The Sharp End of the Brush which are shaping up to be very impressive.

Fortifications being built at The Sharp End of The Brush

And finally, one of the best blogs out there and not in any way gaming related; the New York based cycling blog: Bike Snob. Fantastically funny.

That's all for now, please visit these other blogs and say hello from me, just make sure you come back. Okay?

Happy Gaming.

*I've just noticed that 'Dick Move' has been nominated a number of times, his response to the whole idea is much better than mine. Check it here.

Fifty Ways To Leave Your Gaming Company

2011-05-20T02:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, not fifty, but I'm sure Paul and I can manage a few.

Imagine, for a moment, that you're a gamer. Shouldn't be too hard; you're reading this. Now imagine that you buy most of your gaming gear from one company, and that that company isn't necessarily offering the value for money you'd expect. Hopefully, you don't want to indicate support for their decisions by continuing to spend money on their products (we've already discussed how that works) but you still want to play their games. I have a few suggestions in that line.

Know what you want. What's your actual problem with the company? Can you continue to play their games in good conscience, or is your seething righteous fury at the injustice they perpetrate too much? What is it about their games that makes you want to keep playing them? Is it story, scale, mechanics, funky miniatures, funky gamers, gamer funk or simple habit and ignorance of the alternatives? You need to know why you're doing or not doing things before you can make an informed decision about whether or not to keep doing them. If you like sword and sorcery skirmish games, do you really need that huge army of flying space tanks?
Stop and take stock. What do you own? What is built and ready to go; what has been sitting in a box since New Hot Sexy Release Day and never looked at since; what can work with what at a pinch and what's mutually exclusive? Work out what you've got, what you can do with it, and how much work and expense it would take to do something with it if you need to make an investment. I tend to find the people with the biggest dead lead piles and collections of mouldering, dusty sourcebooks are the people who only buy from one company but have lots of projects going on within that - who buy Company X's complete new release every time but never really get very far with it before picking up the next one. The downside here is that all those projects require ongoing investment, and if you're suddenly unable or unwilling to continue making that investment, you have a pewter mountain on your hands that, in many cases, would embarrass the European Union.
Diversify. Once you know what you're most likely to continue using, sell the rest. Go on. Get rid of it. Use those resources to explore new games and new environments, to boldly go where no nerd has gone before... or at least where you've not gone before. You're not going to dissassociate yourself from the company if you have no idea what the competition has to offer.
Use the secondary market, Luke. Unless your name's not Luke (metaphorically speaking, that means 'unless you have some pressing need for as-new material', like a wargamer who likes to kitbash and thus won't be as keen on assembled and painted kits), the secondary market is your friend; it enables you to complete and extend projects without directly supporting the company with your own money. This is, of course, psychological double-talk to an extent - that eBay bargain has, at some point, been purchased from the company who made it, and the money you spend on it will like as not find its way back to them, so this isn't one for the ideologues who've decided that the company is run by Satan and all his little wizards. If your problem is simply "man, I can't afford the new Cyber-Knights, they are too spendy at umpty-seven pounds for two, but I still really like Star Pogrom and what it's about", you'll probably be more comfortable with this.
Avoid prescriptive environments. Many companies have officially designated spaces in which they control what can and cannot be used there, whether it's "Dungeon Bash 8.4 is the only edition that's on sale at the event, therefore the only edition that can be used here, and official dice, character sheets, measuring implements, status tokens, floorplans and pencil shavings are a requirement" or "you must use branded Nerd Emporium paints, brushes, glues, pins, chewing gum and wishful thinking to build your Cyber-Knights in the Nerd Emporium". Fie on this nonsense, says I. Fie on it! Such policies are nearly always designed to burden the consumer with expensive and unwanted purchases - get out of the environments that force those on you and find or create an environment where you're allowed to do things your own way, substituting in cheaper equivalent miniatures, homebrewed rather than supplemental rules, and materials that don't cost the Earth.
Disengage from what you've left. Try not to get excited about Sexy Hot New Release Day for a game you don't play any more. Don't let yourself be seduced back in. Remind yourself why you quit - it doesn't matter how pretty that new book/miniature/dice block/paint-pot/staff member is if it doesn't fix what drove you away in the first place. Likewise, fight the urge to get into Internet arguments (or, goddess forbid, actual arguments) about how rubbish Dungeon Bash is compared to Castle Brawl, or how Nerd Emporium is secretly controlled by the New World Order. You're still thinking about something you were supposed to be getting away from, and that's the sort of behaviour that will see you sucked right back in.

Yes, she's lovely, but that doesn't mean she isn't trying to sell you devil droppings in a blister pack.

For those of you who are still reading and haven't slavishly followed the above link, it might be worth you pointing your browser toward this week's Gaming on a Budget, which has some excellent advice on avoiding hobby burnout and, possibly, avoiding the kind of conditions that lead to you needing this sort of advice in the first place.

Free Reads

2011-05-17T02:20:00.000-07:00

To keep you entertained whilst Dave is moving I thought I'd best chip in with a post - especially as I missed my April accounting update (quiet month anyway!)

This week (already) has seen the release of two of my favourite free pdf publications.

The first is the bi-monthly "The Ancible" - a magazine that specialises in Sci-Fi and Fantasy gaming, with no fixed game of manufacturer to promote, which is refreshing. This wee beauty started off as a pay-for product, but the plan has now fallen on advertising to pay the costs. The quality hasn't deminished however, and the adverts do not get in the way of the magazine. The new copy (Issue 9) has a walkthrough totorial of building and painting the mighty Warmachine Khador Battle Wagon, a couple of nice painting tutorials and interviews and much mech madness with an article on Metal Gear Arena and an "out the box" review of the new Battle Tech Intro box. I'm also eagerly looking forward to the next issue which the spoiler seems to feature some Aeronef action.

The second publication is the monthly e-zine for the friendly painting forum WAMP - Portal .The magazine is a bit of a monthly forum highlights magazine, so there are loads of nice gallery pictures that have been put up and some great tutorials as well, along with figure reviews of all sorts.

Really my descriptions don't do these justice, so give them your support and download away. It'll cost you nothing!

Silent Running

2011-05-16T22:59:00.000-07:00

Hello all, as some of you may have heard (via Twitter) I'm moving home this week. As a result; my internet connection, and therefore blog posts will be intermittent at best. Hopefully I should be posting again before too long and my brave co-workers (Von, Pete and Arabian Knight) will step up and keep you entertained in my absence. Until then, stay frugal and...

Happy Gaming!

Making Rivets (and a Snotling Pumpwagon)

2011-05-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

If you’re a regular reader (or even an irregular one) you’ll have seem some of my progress on building snotling pumpwagons for my Warhammer Orcs and Goblins army. They are now complete, fully painted and have seen admirable service on the gaming table.

These models are remarkable simply to make, but just take time completing the detailing to make them look good. I would have liked to have added more detail to mine, but I was keen to get them onto the table to start smashing the enemy!

I made two pumpwagons, one armoured and one flying, but I’ll focus on the armoured one to show off my method of making rivets…

Equipment
You will need…

Pin vice, with 1mm drill bit
Sharp knife
Selection of files
Razor saw (or junior hacksaw)
Side cutters

Materials

Plasticard
Model train kit
1mm round styrene rod (all from your local model shop)
12mm Plastic Pipe – (from local DIY shop) you only need a very small amount so you could always just roll up some plasticard to make a small tube.
Spare bits and bobs and the odd snotling
Superglue
Polystyrene cement (plastic glue)

As with any project like this, be careful when using tools and glues; running around the house looking for a first aid kit can seriously eat into your hobby time.

Making the Basic Shape
To save time and to ensure that I had a suitable basic shape for the pumpwagon I used a plastic locomotive kit. My regular gaming buddy Lawrence gave me the idea after he’d used the same kit to make some horrendous warmachines for his Skaven army. I promptly stole his idea and bought a kit from my local hobby shop for a reasonable £6 (~$10).

I used the chassis of the kit to make the base of my armoured pumpwagon, the boiler was used for my flying pumpwagon.

The chassis was built up into a box shape using plasticard. This was then adorned with additional panels, and various bits and bobs from my bits box to give it a much more ramshackle appearance. I added a small length of 12mm pipe to the top to make a turret and fixed a blunderbuss onto that to strike fear into the heart of the enemy. It works, so make sure you add one yourself.

Making Rivets
Once the basic shape was complete I added the rivets, this is a great way to improve the look of any model with a metal element. There are a few methods on the market, including etched brass strips and individual stick on rivets, but I prefer the method I developed to use on some tank traps and then on my goblin rock lobber.

The method is simple (the photos are from making the roller, but as you'll see later the methods are the same);

1. Mark on your plasticard where you want the rivets to go, roughly 3mm apart is good.
2. Drill into the plastic using a 1mm drill bit in a pin vice, making holes wherever you marked. When these are done, give the surface of the plastic a quick sand down to remove and rough bits of plastic.

3. Take your styrene rod, put a little polystytrene cement on the end and insert it into one of the holes you drilled. Using a pair of side cutters, cut the plastic rod off, leaving about 5-6mm showing above the surface (don’t worry, you’ll remove the rest later). Carry on around the rest of the model until all the holes have plastic sticking out of them.

4. Leave this to set thoroughly. Go and have a cup of tea or some cake. Or both.
5. Using your side cutters and a file, go round the model and cut and file all the rivets down until they are only 0.5 to 1mm long. Experiment with different lengths of rivet until you find one which you like

I used the same method to make the spiky roller as well, adding styrene rod to a length of 12mm plastic pipe, but leaving the rod a little bit longer than the rivets. The ends of the rod were covered in plasticard and the roller was then glued to the front using strips of plasticard

The snotlings were then stuck on using polystyrene cement (for the plastic figure) and superglue (for the metal figure). At this point your shiny new pumpwagon is complete and ready for painting!

Painting
I would suggest painting the figure before adding it to a base (guess which way round I did it), as this makes it much easier. I primed the model, then gave it a basecoat of GW Boltgun Metal, I then washed it with brown and black washes and picked out the various details and crew. I found that the model benefitted from more and more washes and detail being added, but I eventually ran out of time and had to get it ready to hit the table!

I stuck the model to 40mm square base (the correct base size is a chariot base), in a suitably dramatic pose, added some sand and gravel and then painted it before adding some static grass to finish it off.

This was a relatively simple model to build. The main thing to remember is to get a solid basic shape to which more detail can be added. I hope you have a go at building your own pumpwagons, and if you do, let me know how you get on.

Happy Gaming

Vonnington, Vonnington, where have you been?

2011-05-10T00:50:00.000-07:00

Or, as they say in the old country, "'ere bey, where you bin?"

It's that time of year again: the time when actual gaming begins to edge out typing nonsense about gaming on the Internet. Life on the miniatures front has slowed down somewhat of late, since I don't live anywhere near the Dice and Decks lads any more and have yet to rally the local Warmachine crowd around my banner (steps are being taken and I've been pleasantly surprised to find battle boxes hiding on various people's shelves around the town - now to get the wretched things onto the table!).

However, life in roleplaying has kicked up a gear, and with remarkable frugality too, as I'm currently playing a game I actually own nothing for.

via absoluteastronomy.com

See, the thing about roleplaying is that not everyone needs everything, if you catch my drift. Most seasoned roleplayers possess dice in abundance (although recent events have led me to believe that I could do with another d20 or two). If the gaming group has access to two or three core rulebooks and one copy of any supplements that are needed, that usually does the job.

via onceuponageek

This sort of thing is hardly a requirement just to play the game a couple of times a week, after all.

I recently parted with my hoard of No Quarter magazines, in accordance with certain sage wisdom that invites us to inquire whether we actually gain anything for our time and money. Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I did at the time; the roleplaying content in No Quarter is generally of excellent quality and the terrain building articles are very inspirational, if unhelpfully US-centric in their materials listings and purchase advice. However, the magazine is not endlessly re-readable, and hoarding paper copies as insurance against that One Day when the article might come in handy is somewhat cumbersome, especially when you move house as often as I do, so I've traded them all away (except for the two which cover new model types for Warmahordes - it's still cheaper to buy two magazines for the sake of two articles than to buy a whole new rulebook for the sake of four pages). Before I passed them on to their new owner, though, I did take the liberty of scanning in the articles I was still interested in, just in case that One Day comes around.

Exeter Legionary

2011-05-08T01:58:00.000-07:00

As regular readers know, there’s nothing I like better than getting in a car and driving up a dual carriageway for an hour to spend all day in a cattle shed with like-minded gentlemen before driving home again. This weekend was no exception as I journeyed to the frozen north (Exeter) to participate in, and bring a bit of class to, the Legionary 2011 wargames event.

In fact, before we go too far, don't forget you can still win a copy of the latest Unseen Lerker magazine featuring my own article on Frugal Gaming, see the last post for details. But hurry, you only have a few days left!

Anyway, this was the third year that I’ve visited Legionary, and it’s the third venue in that time. There were a few criticisms of the layout last year for gamers (I didn’t participate in the tournament so I couldn’t say) but this year the venue was pretty good. It was in an agricultural auction house on the outskirts of the city, though was nowhere as bad as you may imagine. The large open space meant that all the gamers were in with the traders which created a good atmosphere and lots of people were wandering over from the trade stands to watch the games being played.

As with previous tournaments, I met plenty of people. This included two of my Exeter twitter chums; Domonet and Wartrader (both well worth following) who turned out to nice guys rather than murderous psychopaths, which is always the risk of social networking. Domonet and Wartrader were running a demonstration game of Infinity which looked very interesting, but I’m currently afraid of taking up another game system as I’d probably end up selling a kidney to fund my ridiculous gaming addiction. But if you’re on the lookout for a new game then check it out and let me know what you think. Of course I would be remiss to not give a big plug to Wartrader’s business; so have a look at that as well.

I also met James, who had made the epic journey from Surrey to compete in the competition (for my American readers; Surrey is a separate state, east of London Island, two timezones East of here. Everyone there speaks like our Queen Elizabeth and drives around in Rolls Royces Automobiles). It also happens that James’s wife had to travel to Exeter that weekend for work, but I’m sure that's just a coincidence. James mentioned that he reads this blog (Hello) so I knew he was a man of taste. As it turned out he also a great looking Warriors of Chaos force, which was one of the nicest painted armies I’m ever seen with my own eyes. I’m sure that my pictures don’t do it justice, so take my word for it that his ‘Amy Winehouse’ champion conversion was superb.

"They tried to make me go to the Realm of Chaos, I said 'No no no...'"

The bring and buy stall was well stocked and most things seemed to be reasonably, priced apart from the obligatory £100 copy of Space Hulk. As it turns out, I did end up buying an original copy of the 40k Rogue Trader rulebook. This was a bargain and was bought purely for nostalgic reasons, it was the first gaming product I ever saw and it opened up a whole new world to me! Looking back over the badly rendered Space Marine drawings and crudely painted miniatures would have brought a tear to my eye if it wasn’t for the fact that I'd just sold my soul to Satan to learn to paint like James.

The bring and buy also featured this amazing 5ft long spaceship for £30. File it under ‘Looks cool, but I’ve no reason or space for it’.

As for my games of Warhammer; I got beaten like an incontinent puppy at a carpet factory. I did take a few of the enemy down, racking up a few hundred victory points from each game. My overall ranking was the same as at my last tournament (second from last) but I feel that my game has improved massively in the last few months and I’ll be expecting a win or two next year.

Yeah, next year. I’ll definitely be back to Legionary 2012 for more, a lot of the guys from the Cross Swords club agreed that it was a great tournament and we’ll be back next year. Well done to all those who took part in the tournament and a great big ‘THANK YOU’ to all who organised and ran the event.

Happy Gaming.

The Frugal Lerker

2011-04-29T03:59:00.000-07:00

If you listen to gaming podcasts such as Heelanhammer, Podhammer, and Bad Dice, you'll probably have heard of a Warhammer based magazine currently on the market called 'Unseen Lerker', after hearing a number of positive reviews I decided to give it a go. I've not been a fan of gaming magazines in the past, but I decided to give this one a go for a number of reasons:

It's had some fantastic reviews
It focuses on Warhammer Fantasy
It's only published six times a year.

Yeah, my main problem with previous gaming magazines was that I wasn't getting the chance to read them cover to cover before the next issue came out; this was combined with the fact that most magazines covered a wide range of games systems, of which I only played a small number.

But anyway, Unseen Lerker is much better, even with my super-slow reading rate (I'm not stoopid, I'm just busy, okay?) I manage to read the magazine (and re-read my favourite articles) before the next issue drops through my letterbox. Oh, and that's another point, and perhaps the greatest attribute of the magazine; it's a proper print and paper magazine, so you can, as they say themselves: 'Read it on the loo, not on the screen'. It's not one of those horrible pdf magazines or blogs that you can only read while sat in front of a computer. Erm...

I subscribed a few months ago based on the positive reviews and I've not regretted it, the magazine is a great mix of hobby and gaming articles written by those people who are genuinely involved and excited by gaming.

Yawn... Frugal who?

Speaking of which, I must admit that the normally high quality of the magazine has dropped considerably in the latest issue; they've included an article on 'Frugal Gaming' by some scruffy bloke called Dave. That's right, I've got an article in the latest issue of the mag, introducing their readers to the ideas of Frugal Gaming. Of course, you lot don't need to read about all that stuff, but if you're interested in reading my article from the magazine, the Editor ('Bobo') has sent me a free PDF copy of my work that you can access here.

In addition, Bobo has kindly given me an extra copy of the mag that I'll pop in the post to one lucky reader. If you'd like to go into the draw for a copy of the magazine simply send me an email, with the title 'Unseen Lerker competition' and I'll draw out one lucky winner. Get your entries to me by midnight (British summer time) on Wednesday 11th May (that's nearly two weeks from now) and I'll get in contact with the winner within a couple of days.

I hope you like the article, if so give the magazine a try and make sure that you tell them that Frugal Dave sent you.

Happy Gaming!

Frugal Terrain for a Frugal Game – Necromunda Experiments

2011-04-26T05:28:00.001-07:00

Excuse me for a minute while I ramble on a bit, to introduce a new project...

My second frugal year is going extremely well so far, as I’ve managed to squeeze in a few games of Necromunda recently. Part of that is helped by (finally) being able to drive across the country to visit family, and be able to catch up with old gaming friends. Technically, the petrol is expensive (oh boy, is it expensive) but it’s a cost I’d be shouldering anyway. As a bonus, I could play against my wife while our first gamer-in-training was being watched by his aunt. For my goals so far this year – I am a couple of hours behind on my painting, but that should be sorted later this week thanks to the Royal Wedding. The gaming budget has been used up till June, because I am a complete sucker for a Dawn of War game, and used up five months on it near the beginning of the year.

All this Necromunda has re-inspired me to work on some scenery for the game. It might just be what I’m used to (my original opponent had two box sets, two Outlanders sets, and the Imperial Bastion, Bunker and Firebase card scenery), but it just doesn’t feel right playing on a flat table with a single level of scenery. I much prefer thinking in three dimensions, trying to get up and down very specific points (the house rules are quite unforgiving about ladders and their usage) to get good covering positions. With only a Gorkamorka fort and ‘blocking’ terrain (hills, rocks, crashed spaceships), it’s not quite the same at all.

This is one thing that makes Necromunda – a free-rules game with a limited model requirement – less than frugal, for my preference. Don’t take this as a frugal game review, however – the game is far and away (if you consider Gorkamorka to be ‘merely’ an awesome variant, as I do) the best and most frugal wargame I’ve found. The problem is that the game improves amazingly with more scenery, to the point that reducing that scenery rankles slightly.

We’ve made do in a pinch with Lego terrain – multiple levels, ramps, and infinitely configurable, but the nightmare industrial Underhive will always look exactly like Toy Town. This never really bothers me any more than unpainted models or scenery bother me, but it’s still something I would rather correct.

Alongside the Lego, I’ve tried some of the Hexagon and Platformer sets – as many people have discovered, this is almost perfect for Necromunda. It’s even in a nice dark grey plastic that doesn’t necessarily need to be painted, so it can be disassembled for storage or reconfiguration. This, however, is hardly frugal at all. If I recall correctly (it’s been a while since I got them), the sets cost around £13 each and each make a single medium-to-large structure (as tall as the original card buildings but not as big a base area) with spare parts. To reproduce the original box sets cardboard scenery would cost at least £50 – incidentally, looking at the prices of the original terrain on eBay aren’t far off.

Next, I took the advice of every beginners terrain article through the years and got some expanded polystyrene – rather, I convinced the wife not to throw away the cupboard full of polystyrene that was delivered with our white goods. I cannot say for other modelling projects (they probably make good bases for hills, block buildings or other solid terrain) but this was a bad idea. We had perfect shapes in the polystyrene to create a ruined building with exposed elevator shaft, around six storeys tall. However, to make the polystyrene stable it couldn’t be cut thinner (it was almost two inches thick), so each floor of the building was nearly five inches high – an original Necromunda bulkhead was three inches high, and the cardboard floor is of negligible thickness. I compared the half-finished scenery to the original stuff, and placed it on the table to think about how we’d play it. It didn’t look good, since it obstructed so much line of sight both from within and without – effectively cutting the table in two. Even shortening the piece wouldn’t work, since it had all solid walls. That’s something very different to the cardboard scenery, which is quite open.

I’ve tried things that looked wrong, felt wrong, or cost too much. The kits were quick and beautiful, but small for their cost. The Lego was similarly quick and cheap (I’ve got buckets of Lego older than I am) – but would never look right. The expanded polystyrene was cheap (it’s rubbish), but would take a lot of time to produce something that didn’t work well enough.

Making all these comparisons to the original scenery has given me my next experiment. I’m no great designer, but I am great at criticising. Criticism, turned around, is constructive as a list of requirements. To make new scenery in the spirit of the old, it needs to have:

Large-ish flat surfaces for plenty of movement
Open walls
Minimum of vertical usage
Ability to attach walkways and connecting pieces
Cheap

As I said, I’m not a great designer, so I have a scan of the original cardboard stuff and I’m going to copy it. I even believe I can improve on it for a small outlay of time and money – by building it out of plasticard, it will be more durable than the original scenery (good for someone like myself who throws all the scenery into a box and stuffs it in a corner). It will also let me model with it slightly better – I wisely lost a bottle roll early into a long multiplayer game on Saturday, and spent the rest of it examining the terrain for tips and ideas. There are some great touches added to the graphics, like exposed panels, thin pipes/hoses and vents, that could be modelled without making it too difficult to stand on.

The difficulty comes in that, as Von has discussed before we must watch the temporal investment of the hobby. I’ve saved a lot of time over the years by not painting models, but now I’m trying to correct that. It’s also a time when my time is more in demand – as a student, I thought/pretended I was busy, but as a full-time employee and father, I would slap that younger self for being such an utter nit. There is, however, a solution for this. As I come back to being in credit (see above, regarding Dawn of War) with my gaming budget, I can afford some of the more exotic plasticard I need (L-shaped angle lengths, thinner for decoration, etc) to make it look like a quality reconstruction and not just a thick cardboard knock-off. I technically come back into budget in the middle of June, but I might take an advance on that as I’ll be near a hobby shop before then getting supplies for ‘macro-modelling’ (aka DIY), and just accept that winter will be devoid of any new modelling goodies.

Writing this, I’ve also noticed that it’s something I can write about similar to the completely unrelated (except it also has the word Necromunda in it) ‘teach myself unit testing’ experiment at my own ~~shameless plug~~ blog (warning: I am a programmer in another life, this is not about gaming).

Next month, I’ll try and describe how I think I’ll solve the problems that reproducing the terrain in plasticard sheets will cause...

Losing with my army and then against it...

2011-04-23T01:27:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

It's been a busy week! If you've been following me on twitter (you really should, I'm remarkably interesting), you'll have seen that I played some 40k (played twice, lost twice) and I've been working on completing my snotling pump wagons.

The 40k was against my regular gaming chum Lawrence; he had kindly agreed to lend me his Tau army so that I could play against my n00b gaming friend who would be using my Dark Eldar. It was a rather good game; I really enjoy using the Dark Eldar, but they can be a bit fragile and susceptible to being shot at (aren't we all?) although the wyches and grotesques are amazing in close combat. As I say, I lost the game, but I learned a lot from it. I'm being far too cautious with my force. I keep hiding them and trying to blast the enemy from a distance, what I really need to start doing is throwing them forward and getting them into combat as soon as possible, even if it means taking a few casualties on the way in. Next time I imagine I'll have a good haul of slaves and a satisfying victory at the end of the game. You heard it here first.

So Lawrence left and his Tau remained behind for me to use the following evening. This was the first time 'The n00b' had played 40k and to cut a long story short, he won and loved it (I wonder if the two are connected?), he keen to try it again so expect more n00b 40k updates. I'm glad he enjoyed it, but I was really hoping he'd get into Necromunda which we played last week. There's been some talk at the club of setting up a Necro campaign, so I may have to get involved in that instead...

So yeah, a good week, with plenty of projects on the go as well. Hopefully the snotling pumpwagons will be complete in the next week or so; when they're done I'll post a full 'how to' guide on their construction. I've also got another conversion project for my orcs and goblins in the planning stages, based on a Heresy miniatures kit, are there any guesses?

Happy Gaming!

Don't get more games, get more gamers!

2011-04-16T05:43:00.000-07:00

As regular readers know, I like to game. I like to paint, I like to model, I like to write my silly little blog, but in the past year I have made a conscious effort to play more games. Inevitably, like many other gamers, I have now started to look around for other gaming experiences; new games systems, new armies, bigger and more spectacular battles. Of course, as a frugal gamer I fear the required expense that comes with these options.

Recently though, I have come across another option, which improves my gaming for minimal outlay; I’m not getting more games systems, I’m getting more gamers.

This has come about in two ways, firstly I’ve joined the excellent gaming club here in Plymouth ‘Cross Swords’ and secondly I’ve managed convinced a non gaming friend to take up the dice.

Heavily themed, skirmish games such as Necromunda can really appeal to new players.

The benefits of joining a club are well known, but can’t be overstated. Plenty of new players to face, lots of other armies to battle against, trial games of new systems, and even the ability to share lifts to tournaments and other events. Of course, going to a club does have it’s costs. Cross swords costs me £2.50 per visit for entry, a couple of pounds in petrol and the cost of a couple of drinks. I visit every couple of weeks so the cost averages out quite well, and the idea of laying out my army in front of a room full of other players helps me to focus on getting figures painted and building the best army I can.

The second option is perhaps one that gamers rarely try; getting non-gamers to have a go. I’m excluding those of us with children; we seem to be pressing dice into little pudgy palms before our poor sprogs can even sit up on their own. As gamers, we can be a bit shy about telling our workmates and acquaintances about our hobby, and those of us that do will probably only mention that we ‘play wargames’ and if pushed we’ll tell them what game system we play. This is generally met with a fixed grin and a patronising nod of the head. It is only rarely that others will ask for further details. I do make a point of subjecting one of my work mates to terrifyingly detailed battle reports on a regular basis in an attempt to annoy him, try it, it works.

Anyway, I had the rare pleasure of a friend popping round a few weeks ago, looking at my figures on a shelf and asking me if he could try a game. I thought it was some elaborate sting operation, but I eventually set up a couple of small scale trial games of different systems (Warhammer and Necromunda). He really enjoyed the games and we’ve arranged some more for the future.

Gaming at a club can be great fun... and may include chocolate.

So over the last couple of months, I’ve managed to massively expand my gaming, without a huge outlay of cash. I’ve also made a few friends, and brought a new person into the hobby. Playing any existing games you own with new people, whether seasoned pros or n00bs, can be great fun and put a spark back into your gaming. Give it a try and let me know how you get on.

Happy Gaming.

Ch...ch...ch...changes...

2011-04-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hello all, as you may have noticed, I've made a little change to the blog. Instead of being 'yearoffrugalgaming.blogspot.com', we're now at 'ayearoffrugalgaming.com'. Yeah, that's right, after a couple of years slumming it on blogspot, we're now a proper grown-up website. Woo hoo!

If you have this page bookmarked, you'll find that you get automatically redirected, and most of the pages should automatically transfer across. I'm in the process of checking through the site to make sure that there are no broken links or problems, so please bear with us and if you notice any major website malfunctions, drop me a line and let me know.

A Year of Open Accounting - March

2011-04-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

On the financial ins/outs this month it has been pretty quiet. As forecast I purchased the new Gladiator rules for Red Sand Blue Sky (still unplayed), and towards the end of the month there was the unexpected arrival of some old Rogue Trader Space marines. I took March off from the Hobby shed sales which may have cost me in incoming column, but freed up some time that I could relax, and sometimes paint, in.

Talking of painting, I briefly, for a few hours, had one foot in the hallowed ground of more figures painted than bought (the Space Marines knackered that). Clearing the table blockage of a few Warmachine Warjacks has felt like a good strong dose of ex-lax, and I'm back feeling enthused about putting paint to bristle to figure again. Hopefully some quick painting of the marines and the push to finish (or almost finish) my 10mm Dungeon pack should see me push back to that heady moment of painting accounting again.

10mm Skeletons, patiently waiting around for company...

That brings me on nicely to April's plan of action. School holiday's are just about to descend, so that is going to hamper a bit of hobby time as . I want to finish my Space Marines for playing with Arabiansquire. I also want to get the bulk of my 10mm dungeon finished (assuming you can link 10mm figures and the word "bulk") before Carronade in May. Also, looking toward Carronade, I think I'll have to get some more old Hobby Shed stock up for sale to help finance the show. It could/should put a large dent in my gaming cash reserves and I'd rather prepare for the plummet towards the red figures with a bit of a buffer.

Building a Talos in a Week - Day Six

2011-04-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

At last it's done! The last lick of paint has gone on, the static grass has been added and even the talons are nice and neatly varnished. Yes, after six busy evenings of work, I have scratchbuilt and painted a Talos Pain Engine for my Dark Eldar army in Warhammer 40k. Tomorrow I'll be taking my Dark Eldar down to the club to join forces with Shiny and his Tau to take on some Space Marines. I hope it does well! I'll collect all the photos together in the next few days and put up a full step by step guide on what I did. Until now, feast your eyes on my poorly painted beast of terror!

Building a Talos in a Week - Day Five

2011-04-05T15:12:00.000-07:00

Only one more day to go! The model has got to be finished tomorrow, ready to go the gaming club on Thursday evening. I've shaded and highlighted, so all I need to do now is finish the detail and the base. I'd also like to do a bit more shading as well, but I'll have to see how much time I have tomorrow evening. Here's where I've got to this evening, come back tomorrow to see what the finished article looks like...

Building a Talos in a Week - Day Four

2011-04-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

Most of the time when I start a project, I struggle to get it finished. I know that the professional image that this blog puts across may make it look that I'm a perfectionist, but sometimes things don't go entirely to plan. However, the last few days seem to have provided a minor miracle. The Talos I'm building for my Dark Eldar 40k army is progressing well and I may well get it finished on time! Here I am at the end of day three, the model is now primed, mainly basecoated and has also had a blue wash applied. Enjoy, and look forward to another update tomorrow!

Building a Talos in a Week - Day Three

2011-04-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's not perfect, but time is pressing! Here's my Talos at the end of Day Three. I'm planning to paint the greenstuff on the head and back as beaten bronze (to cover my terrible sculpting skills).

Tomorrow will be priming and basecoating. And perhaps a bit of panic re-sculpting...

Building a Talos in a Week - Day Two

2011-04-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

More basic building today. I've made a start on the detail as well. My plan is to finish the detail tomorrow so that I can prime and basecoat it on Monday. I hope. Anyway, here's where I've got to today:

See you again tomorrow!

Building a Talos in a Week

2011-04-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hi all, a bit of a strange one this week. Last night while at the local gaming club, I was having a game of 40k with Shiny. After we'd finished (I got beaten. Twice) we were asked if either of us fancied a game next week, as it turned out we decided to team up. To cut a long story short, we now both need to bring our 1000pt forces up to 1250pts. To go some of the way towards this I decided to knock up a Talos for use in the game. Of course, this means that I now only have a week to build and paint a Talos from scratch (as well as the usual hectic mix of, you know, real life and stuff). Agh!

Here's my progress at the end of day one. It's a mix of chaos spawn, giant parts, odd Dark Eldar pieces and bits from a 1:35 WW2 German Sturmtiger kit:

There's plenty more to do, I'll update again tomorrow.

Happy Gaming!

The Lion Roars!

2011-03-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

I've returned safe and well from my trip up to Edinburgh last weekend; Mrs Frugal and I had a great time. Of course, being the frugal gamer that I am, I made sure not to go over my gaming budget for the month whilst I was up there. However, as I was technically ‘on holiday’ I was entitled to spend some of my ‘holiday money’ and I decided that rather than buying Mrs Frugal something nice or taking her out for a meal, I would buy myself a souvenir to remind me of my time north of the border.

I’d done a bit of research before traveling away and identified ‘Black Lion Games’ as the premier games retailer in Edinburgh. I left Mrs Frugal picking out boxes of shortbread and went looking for it.

I finally found it, and it looked like the dodgiest shop I’ve ever seen, if I wasn’t actively looking for it I’d have probably walked right past it. It looks, to be honest, like a sex shop. Judge for yourself:

Its well worth the trip though. It may not be the biggest shop in the world, but it’s got a huge range of stock (miniatures, RPGs, boardgames, cards) and very friendly staff. If you’re around the Edinburgh area, seek it out and tell them the Frugal Gamer sent you.

Here’s what I found in my hand after I left the shop:

Yes, like so many before me I have fallen foul of the temptation that is Warmachine. And before anyone starts telling me that Menoth are a rubbish choice (they may well be) I decided on them as a starter force as I fancied something nice and white to paint to give me a break from all the dark and grubby miniatures I’ve been working on recently. My poor eyes could do with a break.

So there you go, I’ve got some more miniatures to add to the unpainted pile and another set of rules to learn. Maybe I’ll win some games at this one...

Happy Gaming

Dark Eldar Progress

2011-03-25T00:39:00.000-07:00

Hello blog fans, a bit of a short post this time as I'm taking Mrs Frugal up to sunny Scotland for the weekend. For any American readers out there; Scotland is a small island to to the North of Britain, where all the food is filled with deadly bacteria which can only be killed by deep frying any meals. Scotland (also known as 'Wales' or 'Ireland'), has lots of castles where the population live, only venturing forth to go looking for 'Freedom' which can only be achieved by beating the British team at a game of Soccer. In 5000 years of Scotlandish history, this has never happened.

While I'm away I'll leave you all to wonder at the fantistically mediocre paint jobs that I've applied to my old school Dark Eldar. Remember that these are still works in progress and will look much worse when finished.

Happy Gaming!

Game Review – Order of the Stick

2011-03-22T06:15:00.001-07:00

I’ve noticed this blog has become really active in the last month, with some great wargaming and frugalling articles, so I thought I’d contribute something slightly different. To keep up with my frugal resolutions – I’m a couple of weeks behind my painting obligations, but catching up fast and well within my budgetary limits (I’ve spent nothing) despite several temptations (having played more Gorkamorka/Necromunda and read more of tUGS). Not just spending less, but definitely playing a lot so far this year (see here and here)! Without further ado, a schizophrenic game review.

The Order of the Stick is a humourous webcomic, which lampoons tabletop RPGs – the basic question being ‘how would the characters (without players) live, act and converse if they understood the rules of the game?’. There is also an adventure game, which gives the flavour of a tabletop RPG without actually being one. Being a fan of one, I picked up the other.

The game is fun, and funny, although in my experience some of the jokes go over people’s heads if they’re not familiar with the comic. Although it stretches to about five book collections (possibly more) the game was produced early on, and really only re-enacts events from the first book – and the additional expenditure of a book isn’t required, since all the comics are online, free to view. How’s that for frugal?

Gameplay revolves around getting your pseudo-RPG character down the levels of a randomly generated dungeon (draw cards for rooms) until you reach the bottom level – where you need to defeat the boss (a lich named Xykon) and then escape. Along the way, you level up by gaining ‘shticks’ – additional cards that represent your powers increasing. You also gain loot from defeating enemies, which is important at the end – whoever escapes with the most loot, wins. An additional twist, however, is that loot needs to be relevant to your character. One character loves food, another loves treasure, a third knowledge... occasionally, these will cross over and loot will be desired by more than one player.

The game is very good at providing new experiences – rooms are selected at random by drawing cards, many of them have special rules, some of the loot is actually a trap, and everything has the flavour of the comic strips humour. Unfortunately, if you play too many times in a short space of time, the jokes can feel a bit overplayed. They would probably work well in a games night setting, where people, beer and popcorn often bring up those sorts of jokes anyway. Typical game-table humour.

Unfortunately, I’ve never tried it out at a games night because the rules are not quick to learn, especially to an audience not familiar with the common concepts of an RPG. The same people would probably not enjoy the jokes so much either, which need an understanding of popular RPGs even more. To them, it would probably appear overly-complicated and irreverent. Some people might like that sort of thing, but it’s difficult to predict that. Even if all those things come together alright, for me as a fan of the series already, there seem to be a lot of the jokes based on knowledge of the Order of the Stick comic and not just in the style and source of it’s humour. People might get the rules quickly, understand the dragon-colour jokes, but still fail at the fun poked at a character’s personality quirks. This can be off-putting to some players.

Another problem with this as a party game is that it takes a long time to play – a bit like Talisman, you’ll probably want to take an evening playing one game of Order of the Stick and nothing else. Games nights are best when there is a variety of games to play, when everyone can pick up the rules to a sufficient level fairly quickly (ie, Kill Doctor Lucky!) and when everyone feels included. An alternative is when a significant proportion of players already know the game being played so everyone can help new people learn, and everyone knows what game they’re going into beforehand. It’s less of a ‘games night’ and more of a ‘Talisman night’ or ‘Order of the Stick night’ (although it’s still hard to stop games nights becoming ‘Kill Doctor Lucky nights’).

So, despite being a very fun game, the time investment to play it is a little too high to make it an frequent occurrence. I’ve not tried to play it since our son got walking around, because (with the random dungeon layout / size) it’s difficult to find somewhere to play that he won’t end up walking on things, and he’s likely to finish any nap before the game is done. At around £35 (although I can’t find it in 30 seconds on Amazon to confirm), it’s just a little too high for a game that can’t be picked up and played anytime, especially if you already own games that fit into the same sort of ‘long-play, complex rules’ bracket. It probably won’t get a lot of action.

That being said, while researching for this review, I found reference to a new expansion for the game (board game expansions are still something a little strange to me...) called ‘The Shortening’ that promises to make the game quicker and simpler – which is a good move, given what I’ve mentioned here. But then, that’s increasing the cost ever so slightly again...

Finally, this is a Frugal game review – is the game good value for money, will you get a lot of use and play out of it, what does it require that you bring along with you. If you have enough cash for an expensive board game, oodles of time, and loads of gamer mates who have nothing to do of a weekend, you’ll love this game – it’s very funny, and great fun. I’m not so lucky, and our regular roleplay group is having enough trouble trying to find time to roleplay without bringing them another game to play!

(images stolen from www.ookoodook.com)

Party Time!

2011-03-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

Comic taken without even asking from http://nedroid.com/

Okay, this has got a little bit out of hand. I'm a gamer yelling at the other gamers to spend less money on gaming and I seem to have accrued a few followers. As I write this, the blog has 179 followers and there's a distinct possibility that in the next few weeks it could pass 200. If (I'm too much of a pessimist to say 'when') I do pass the 200 followers mark, I propose that we have some sort of celebration, probably involving me giving some prizes away or whatever, maybe a competition, maybe lots of little prizes?

My question to you is, what the hell shall we do? Any ideas?

Mo' like DUH-ngeon Tiles...

2011-03-17T23:49:00.000-07:00

Today's crafty tip and fiddle from yer uncle Von is all to do with RPGs and maps.

Even for an armchair-theatre type like me, roleplaying sooner or later ends up generating the need for maps. Now, necessity is the mother of invention, and consequently many RPG manufacturers have invented things for you to spend your money on in order to establish just how far into ur base the characters are, and how many d00dz still require killin. Things like this.

Don't get me wrong, it's very pretty, but it a) costs money and b) only represents the one thing. I am a) poor and b) inclined to run lots of different roleplaying games, in lots of different settings and with lots of different environments coming up in the space of one story, sometimes even in one session.

That's why I use one of these instead.

Oh, I admit it doesn't look as nice, but the thing is, I'm not limited with this. I can choose to have a grid, or not to have a grid, can choose whether this blank white space is a dungeon, or a field, or a lava flow, or whatever I like. If I'm feeling terribly artistic, I can even draw out multiple areas in different colours and use them to trigger events in play. I also don't have to spend a fortune on graph paper. I tend to whip it out for any particularly busy encounters and then put it away again, rather than tracking the entire course of an adventure on it, but in theory, smaller pieces could be used to track out quite a substantial area.

In the UK, Wilkinson's sell the board and a black pen for £2. They also, for just over £4, do a larger board that's half whiteboard and half cork, allowing you to pin resources like world maps, interesting documents and other stimulating papery things onto, but since I can't fit that one in the Nerd Bag (of which more later), it's so far been a no-no.

The Period Drama Challenge

2011-03-15T04:48:00.000-07:00

With the inclimate weather hitting Scotland this weekend, I sat Arabiansquire down to continue painting his space marine, having finished his first one a few weeks ago. After 30 minutes he'd done the blue and the guns on a couple of figures before the need for a break and a biscuit. The painting gear was left out, and took the brush down time to walk the dog for half an hour. So imagine my surprise when I returned to find him sitting finishing off his FOURTH figure on my return. How did that happen? He'd used a few speed painting short cuts (reduced palette, etc), but they are painted and will be good on the table.

Now where am I going this? Well I'd spent the marine painting time assembling a trio of old Terminators I've had lying about. Suddenly I'm behind, but "salvation" was at hand. ArabianQueen wanted to watch a Period drama (about Dylan Thomas) that night. So I wondered if I could speed paint the 3 terminators whilst "watching" it - 1hr 45 mins. (Question: why is a Dylan Thomas love triangle film set in WWII a period drama and hence OK to watch whilst Saving Private Ryan isn't and gets the thumbs down? The injustice of the world!) .

Now as this desperate plan was forged a mere 30 minutes before program start I didn't have time to test any colour plans, etc - just grab some paints I thought would work, equip the laptop painting station, pour a large drink and sit down before curtain raise.


Title sequence runs	An hour in

My initial plan was to dry brush the background parts of the terminator and just use the main colour on the most forward sections of the armour. A drybrush of dark marine blue was rubbish. So I repeated with Space Wolf Grey. It also looked rubbish, so I abandoned this plan and went for a covering of Dark marine blue (the clock was ticking) on the armour and Space wolf grey as the base for the helmets (the intention being the helmets would be white) and a white shoulder pad. Next up was hopefully the final colour shade of Space Marine Blue. It didn't take me too long to realise that this was going to be too dark, but in the interest of consistency I painted all 3 termies in it. On the opposite end of the contrast range I also realised that Space Wolf Grey was way too light to pick up the sunken detail of the helmets, so I gave them a wash in blue. Whilst all this was drying some aged gold was applied to the motif on the shoulder. Gun bolt metal was also brushed on the weapons. Time was running out now, and I'd started to run out of options on my rushed palette. The ink wash had dried on the helmets so some white highlighting was done. A quick dash through the house had me "borrowing" ArabianSquires blue that he'd been using for his marine earlier in the day, which I only managed to get on one marine before the end credits had finished rolling. I'd failed!


15 mins to go	The final credits roll

Or had I?

Well, yes I had. But as compensation after less than 2 hours I had 3 mostly painted Terminators and I had learned some valuable lessons. I was always going to be tight for time from the start. Next time I should convince my other half to watch Gone with the Wind (although that's actually a film worth watching!). Spending so much time applying coats of paint (and the subsequent drying time) did me no favours. Having a rough idea of what sort paint colours you are going to use is no substitute for knowing what paint colours you are going to use. Also, not playing 40k, the models are not very familiar to me, especially all the small details in the sculpts that are not immediately apparent when they are bare metal. All these problems were all symptomatic to the fact I only thought of this with half an hour before the whistle blew.

And just to finish the piece here's a picture of the finished Terminators after about another hours work. No great shakes, but table worthy (see below):

The key to the timed speed paint is preparation. You must know your model, paints and methods. Know where you can save time with a big brush and what parts you can get on with whilst other areas dry. Know how long it'll take to work round fiddly bits or how you are going to tackle them. Know where you can shortcut with washes and a dry brush. With a plan you know will work you can efficiently get the paint on.

And to finish, a picture from the following day as both sets of newly painted figures got table time.

Space Marines and Terminators take on the Nekron menace

Living in a fantasy world

2011-03-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

As regular readers of this blog know, I enjoy the trappings of power that being a famous blogger brings such as the money, the international travel and the constant requests for public appearances (I’m afraid I couldn’t make it to the Oscars this year as the organisers had already met their ‘British People’ quota).

The only drawback to my fame is that I now hate to give the oxygen of publicity to any other bloggers out there as I fear they may steal my precious followers (I love you all, please don’t leave me...).

However, I often see a blog that I feel needs a little bit more internet attention than it is currently receiving, in which case I’m happy to direct some of my fanbase over to it. I was planning to recommend DJKs Fantasy blog, after it was brought to my attention a couple of weeks ago. However, as DJKs blog is so good and I’m so lazy, within a few weeks (the first post on the blog was in February) the blog already has loads of followers. So my idea of bestowing fame on one of the little people has failed.

So, there’s no need for me to talk about the excellent work that DJK is doing on his blog, but I’m going to do it anyway. As I say there have only been a handful of posts but each one is chock full of goodness. Each is a detailed account of scratchbuilding wooden buildings suitable for fantasy, medieval or even old west gaming and he’s been using my favourite of materials, the wooden coffee stirrer. DKJ gets his for free and they need washing so I’m not sure what he’s up to. I hope he works in Starbucks.

DJK seems to have the polar opposite approach to me for terrain building, I like to draw detailed plans and measure everything as accurately as I can (I’m an engineer, it’s not my fault) whereas DJK seems to have a more rustic style, as he says himself:

I don't set out with detailed plans of what I intend to build, quite often I have an idea for the type of building I want or a feature I want to include and then see what happens.

I like his approach and it gives the pieces real character. I hope I don’t sound like I’m damning with faint praise here; these models are fantastic and I felt inspired to try some of my own. As a Frugal Gamer these buildings really appealed to me, they’re really cheap to make and look great when finished.

There are a lot of gaming blogs, that try to be funny (hello!), that show fantastically painted miniatures, or that teach you how to build gaming boards bigger than a swimming pool, but DJKs blog really appeals to me, it’s the kind of feature you’d expect to find in an old copy of White Dwarf. It’s not only useful and very well presented, it also doesn’t try to hard to show off or be too clever. In an age when everyone has to have a great new novel idea it’s heartwarming to see someone doing something simple and doing it so well. I look forward to seeing what DJK comes up with next.

So in other words, I can highly recommend this site to you all, get over there now and check it out.

Happy gaming!

Scorched earth? Send in the druids...

2011-03-08T03:56:00.000-08:00

Another month, another radical shift of priorities.

A combination of real-life serious-business type stuff has necessitated a long, hard look at What I Own and What It's For, and most importantly, Whether I'm Using It. This consideration has brought to light certain essential truths about what I play games with, and why. The short version is that I've recently come to realise that getting back into WFB was a grave error, and so my Warriors of Chaos have been shown the door.

My Skorne have also gone - while I enjoyed playing them, I did not enjoy painting them, for reasons which have been explored previously. M'learned colleague Neal was good enough to take them off my hands, and since he enjoys uniform colourschemes and resilient, stand-up-and-fight forces more than me, I think he'll enjoy them.

The Chaos Warriors, who cost me £60 in three lots, have been sold off for £93 in two, thanks to the local Tale of X Gamers and an apparent high demand for cheap Beastmen on eBay (must be something to do with them being best in units of forty-odd and costing £15 for ten). I did also part with a GW figure case in the process, but I've had years of loyal service out of it and see this as an opportunity to liberate myself from buying and cutting so much custom foam for the cases, and look into cheaper storage solutions for models not in the current away game force. Admittedly some of that has gone on long-considered new Cryx toys, and a little more was eaten by postage and packing costs, but I've still turned a net £30 profit on the exchange.

The Skorne, meanwhile, were straight swapped, along with the case foam they live in and a pile of my old No Quarters - while an excellent mag, and improving all the time, it doesn't have infinite rereadability, and lugging them up and down the country every time I move house was becoming tiresome - for a Circle Orboros army, mint and untouched in its boxes.

Circle still fulfil my original goal of having a Hordes faction, they give me an alternative to Cryx that still plays fast and tricksy, the way I like, and they offer a much broader variety of 'looks' than the Skorne do, with great big hairy barbarians and armoured, uniformed paramilitaries and robed druids and big stone stompy things all sort of co-existing together and encouraging me to paint by offering me variety. Oh, and they'll fit in with my terrain collection a lot better than the Skorne did, and allow me to use my neglected Nyss Hunters across two game systems, since they'll hire out to both my main factions.

As far as getting into a new force goes, acquiring a whole collection of stuff like this means that the limited-toolbox-at-the-start, which I talked about last time, is less of a factor, especially if the collection happens to include some known expensive/good stuff and the job-lot nature absorbs the cost of buying that on its own. Its being unassembled and unpainted, from somebody else's hobby dead pile, where it's lain neglected for a good two and a half years, is a bonus, and trading it out for something they'll get more enjoyment out of than you will is even better.

So, monthly review: I've gotten rid of some belongings which were frustrating me, replaced them with stuff I'm more interested in and excited about, and I'm £30 up on the trading process, which covers March's bus-fare-club-entry-and-chip-run budget very nicely.

This time last year was when it all started to go wrong, of course, but this time I appear to be consolidating rather than expanding, and that's a good thing. Almost all my hobbying has been self-financing, and I have a lot to be going along with, so the temptation to spend more money is offset by the 'in progress' pile. So far, Von's Second Frugal Year is a proper bobby-dazzler.

Frugalnomics Lesson 2 - Shopping Around

2011-03-02T23:17:00.000-08:00

If you play Warhammer (or even if you don’t) you’ll probably be aware that Orc and Goblin players are getting some treats from everyone’s favourite games company in the next couple of weeks. Games Workshop have revealed a whole host of new models, alongside the obligatory magic cards and the new army book. There’s been the usual criticism of price rises and sculpting quality (yawn), but I really like all the new bits and pieces. I suppose that if all you have to complain about in your life is that some plastic models don’t look exactly like you’d hoped, then things can’t be that bad overall. I’d certainly never overreact to something so unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Personally, I like the idea of the new book (hardback, full colour and much longer) and can’t wait to get my hands on it.

But where from? There’s plenty of places offering these items for sale but which offers the best value? As part of your ongoing education in ‘Frugalnomics’ let’s have a look...

The first step in shopping around is to be clear on what you want buy, otherwise you may fall into the trap of spending more to make up to a free postage limit, or just get carried away with the excitement of it all and spend more than you’d planned. Decide what you want and then stick to it! For this exercise, we'll look at a typical Frugal gamer, lets call him ‘Percy’, who is an Orc and Goblin player. Percy wants to buy the new orc and goblin army book, the aracnarok spider and a set of magic cards. After a bit of looking around on the internet he chooses the following online stores (Total Wargamer, Maelstrom Games and Wayland Games) and compares them to his local Games Workshop (Please replace pounds sterling with crazy foreign equivalent as applicable.):

	Arachnarok	Magic Cards	Book	P&P	Total	Saving
GW	£ 36.00	£ 4.10	£ 22.50	£ 0.00	£ 62.60	£ 0.00
Wayland	£ 28.80	£ 4.71	£ 18.00	£ 4.41	£ 55.92	£ 6.68
Maelstrom	£ 32.40	£ 3.69	£ 20.25	£ 0.00	£ 56.34	£ 6.26
Total WG	£ 30.60	£ 3.48	£ 18.00	£ 3.99	£ 56.07	£ 6.53

So, by looking at the table, Percy can see that Wayland Games is cheapest overall. But he also notices that by buying the army book and aracnarok from Wayland Games and then buying the Magic Cards from his local GW next time he’s in town, he can increase his savings to over £7. Good work Percy!

Next time you’re thinking about your next purchase, have a look around and compare prices, a little bit of time spent searching can save you pounds (or crazy overseas equivalent).

Class dismissed.

Please note that prices were correct at the time of writing this article, please check prices yourself before making any purchases!

A Year of Open Accounting - February

2011-03-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Again mixed bag this month. Somehow I suspect every month will be! First of all lets look at the hard facts:

Outgoings: £51.07
Incomings: £101.68
Figures painted: 10
Figures bought: 15

On the positive I managed to clear out a bit more space in the hobby shed. With a bit more re-arranging I'm on the verge of being able to re-organise some of my gaming gear to a more organised set-up. Result! It's also brought in a small amount of additional funds which never hurts.

Purchase-wise I've made a couple of "planned" no guilt buys - a magazine and a cheap(er) copy of the core Rapid Fire! rulebook. My lack of willpower, however, has led to an increase in my unpainted Cryx army courtesy of hanging about ebay too much monitoring by sales. Maybe at bargain price (for Warmachine mini's anyway) but I can't help feeling somewhat the guilty. Another unexpected buy was a set of Critter Commandos. However, although they most definately don't fit into any current project they can join my other unpainted CC figures. They are such fun and full of character that the anticipation of painting them makes them worth the price (and another bargain one at that this time). I may have to just have them on display to put me in a good mood everyday.

So what of the next month, I hear you ask? Well no more Cryx purchases for a start! My painting table is over flowing with them, so is my guilt trip so a purchase ban has been put on. March will hopefully see a few move to the painted cabinet. There's been a bit of a log jam caused by trying to paint a Slayer, Reaper and DeathJack all at the same time, but the corner has been rounded now (ie all the base coats are finally down) so I'm now optimistic about completing them and moving on this month. Two Hour Wargames have the new version of Red Sand Blue Sky release scheduled for March. Judging by the batreps being posted it looks pretty good, so that will probably be purchased and adopted for my running campaign. Aside from that I'm hoping to keep it to a minimum. I'm pretty sure the Post Office Workers are as fed up seeing me as much as I am making the journey to see them, so I'm also taking a bit of a break from Ebaying. This will have to effect of dropping the incomings, but also should stop potential outgoings as well. In Theory!

I'm also mindful that Falkirk Wargames Club Carronade show is but 2 months away (Saturday 7th May) which will hit my budget somewhat. I've mentally promised myself that I have to finish off my Pendraken 10mm dungeon pack before then so I can justify ordering up the expansion for show pickup. Also I anticipate some 1:72/20mm purchases. After all, Easter is the time time of "Fast before Feast".

"Why can't you just make do with what you've got?"

2011-02-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

My grandmother's been asking me that for as long as I've been gaming, and in that decade and a half, I've never been able to come up with a satisfactory answer. Given that I've built Warriors of Chaos and Ork armies three times, and Undead, Dark Eldar and Chaos Space Marines twice each, with occasional dalliances off to the side, it's a valid question. Why do I, and others, feel the need to swap all the time?

I blame Noel. He hypnotises you into it.

Originally, I'd have said it was down to design limitations and boredom. Particular factions in games have particular aesthetic and tactical styles, usually dictated by the game's background. Chaos armies in Warhammer, for instance, tend to involve small units of armoured hardcases, covered in spiky metal trims, paired up with hordes of lesser minions, often under-armoured and fur-clad. The army will feature only token ranged elements, top-end-of-middling magic, and overwhelming combat potential, and (if well designed in the particular edition) will have the mobility and control required to deliver it with some degree of effectiveness.

This is cool. After a few years, though, it gets boring. You end up playing essentially the same game all the time, which was the end result for my poor Vampires. Some factions have more variety in them than others - a large collection of Dark Elves could play combat-heavy, range-heavy, magic-heavy, monster-and-chariot-heavy, skirmishy, hordey, anywhichwayyoulikey, but they'd still be M5, T3 and wear tinfoil armour painted in dark moody colours. Eventually, you'll come up against the fundamental limitations the designers chose to place on the army, and I'd bet my bottom dollar that that will eventually become boring, although I suspect the game system itself may grow wearying and the player will either drift away or an edition change will occur before this boredom becomes truly endemic.

Historically, then, I've changed armies once I've become bored with the way they look and play. Occasionally - more often in recent years - I've done so because they don't live up to my tabletop demands. The problem is that changing armies doesn't help one escape from that - if anything, it exacarbates the issue, thanks to the inherent tactical limitations of small collections vs. large ones.

When you're starting out, you can lose during list-building, because you simply don't have the pieces available to engage meaningfully with what your opponent's bringing. I'm finding that a lot with my Skorne - give them a target-light environment and they do all right, but give them a horde of stuff that they can't trample through or a small set of well-buffed targets and they flail horrendously. I can tell what they require in order to do better, but it's quite a lot of stuff - more than I can afford to invest in, more than I'm able to prioritise effectively, and more than I want to paint (those uniforms are really starting to get to me). Can I enjoy a game where it's possible for me to lose before I've even started, simply because I can't afford the variety of pieces to open up an interesting range of tactics? Honestly, I have trouble giving a 'yes' to that one.

The issue is further raised by many game systems' privileging of expense. 40K5 likes high-cost low-value transports; WFB8 favours large units of increasingly-expensive plastic infantry (£15 for 10 Gor is bad enough, now factor in that it'll take 30 to make any sort of meaningful impact on the battlefield and you'll see why I don't play Beastmen), and Warmahordes has an internal kink that means units start to be a better buy than single models after the initial buy-in (it also has a bad habit of patching poor design choices with unit or weapon attachments, or solos that do the same job, which means your crap unit now 'needs' the new solo to make it worth the investment). This may make sense for the companies, provided they don't go crazy with it (arbitrarily doubling the cost of Orc Boyz models that have been out for around ten years is my new benchmark for 'going crazy with pricing', in case you're wondering), but it's frustrating for the player who's trying to branch out.

Stelek said something about this recently, while exploring and justifying his own Skorne and explaining why he doesn't branch out into a third faction:

Also, I realized in my quest to figure out the kind of army I wanted to run in those other armies, that I could probably ‘make do’ with some upgrades to my Skorne.

Despite myself, I reckon I probably could have made do with my Cryx, very happily, especially if I hadn't been an idiot and sold off a good chunk of them during my Masters' year (to be fair, I did need the money...). At the very least, I could have gotten by with just adding new pieces to the collection and extending what it could do.

The reason I didn't make do with what I had for Warmachine, is partly down to other people. In the UK, the faction is both overplayed when compared to others, and annoying to many opponents because they don't 'play fair'. That combination of things tends to result in... not necessarily in butthurt, but just in a display of weariness from across the table as someone sees me unpacking the third Cryx army they've been 'cheated' by in one day.

You get used to these as a Cryx player.

What I'm trying to say is that I may not have taken up Skorne if a bout of frustration with my Cryx collection hadn't co-incided with frustration from others that there were too many Cryx players around the place. Beyond that, I'm not sure I'd have taken up WFB again if Dave and Shiny hadn't been around, with their models going unused, or 40K again if I hadn't decided to run the school club and wanted to play the game the kids played.

If I didn't think about what other people play, and how they want to play it, I'd never get any games in, or at least not any fun ones. It can't be argued, though, that attempting to address the needs and goals of others does create additional opportunities to spend time, effort and money. It's with that in mind that I'm refocusing my efforts onto one faction, and that faction is Cryx. Other people's sensibilities are less important than my wallet, in the end.

Frugalist, Know Thyself

2011-02-26T02:41:00.000-08:00

It happens to us all, at some time or another.

Sometimes we realise that our project has aspects that become a chore (working on lots of models that all look the same is a HUGE barrier for me, which is why my armies don't tend to wear uniforms or spam the same unit/model type), sometimes we come up against a strange quirk of game design that means our COOL PLAN can't work out, and sometimes it just turns out we've made sub-optimal choices early on and end up stuck between trying to use pieces that we either don't enjoy or that don't work (usually both), or selling them on at a loss shortly after purchase.

This makes starting new projects hard, as it's unlikely that a small, economically-manageable starter collection will include a wide range of tactical capabilities, and equally unlikely that you'll be equipped to make wise choices straight off the bat if you're coming into something that's new to you.

At this point in most blogs, the author would start listing resources that you can use to make wise choices. I'm not going to do that - I'm driving towards something a bit beyond recommending intelligent websites here. Y'see, most advice posts/blogs/sites tend to concentrate on the tactical opportunities and costs involved in selecting a force, and take a few important aspects of the choice as read. What I want to do today is to look at the questions that I think gamers should ask themselves before they even start thinking about collections, lists and tactics.

The first question to ask yourself when selecting a new force is the hardest one to answer: why do I want this?

Image taken from http://bluegroovecrafts.com

Allow me to illustrate with an example. I play Cryx in Warmachine. I like them, but the game designers made Choices when they created the faction, Choices with results including "it's not very tough" and "it needs to do tricksy things to be good". The net effect here is that whatever I do with this collection of figures, it will always operate within these limitations, which means I occasionally want a change. The fundamental nature of the faction, while certainly to my liking, occasionally frustrates other people: Cryx are tricksy and popular, and that tends to create a little tension when five or six Cryx players turn up to an event and proceed to debuff, deny and generally annoy their way through the proceedings.

I bought into Skorne as a second faction because the Skorne are very tough and tend to be more direct in their approach, hitting the enemy very hard and basically 'playing fair' in a way the Cryx simply don't. They are also very uniform, whereas my Cryx are more anarchic and colourful, and so I thought they'd provide aesthetic variety. Finally, they're a Hordes faction, and so they provide an alternative means of exploring the game's rules, which I wouldn't get if I picked up a second Warmachine faction.

Once you know why you want your new toys, you have another question to answer: why won't I want this in six months' time?

Image taken from http://sandalsandsocks.typepad.com

This is where self-knowledge comes in handy. If you know how you like to do something, you can try a spot of clairvoyance and ask yourself whether you'll be able to approach this project in a manner of your choosing.

For instance, I don't like painting the same models for any sort of extended period of time. Half a dozen of the same colour scheme and I'm bored - less, if it's at all intricate or complex.

My Cryx are fully painted primarily because I don't give a damn about making a 'uniform' army where everything looks the same, and have opted instead to paint each unit type in a different scheme, relying on bases to tie the whole lot together.

Skorne are very uniform - lacquered armour, metal trims and big shiny weapons. This is proving to be something of a deterrent; the Arcuarii have been used a lot, but I've been shying away from painting them because there's eight models there and they're not substantially different from the last models I painted, to whit the Skorne battle box. What else is on the hobby table at the moment? Warriors of Chaos - so that's more armour with trim details and big shiny weapons.

See where I've gone wrong here? I know I have a problem with painting the same thing for too long, and I've set myself up with nothing to paint but similar models across two projects. Regardless of how valid my reasons for choosing the two armies may have been, I've erected a barrier between myself and having fun. Small wonder I've been making terrain and (re)painting Cryx instead.

A Tale Of N Gamers, Where N = Some

2011-02-24T03:10:00.000-08:00

A long, long time ago, I can still remember, when White Dwarf didn't suck on chodes...

The Tale of Four Gamers is perhaps one of the most persistent memes that's ever done the rounds in the wargaming community, although I suspect FOOTDAR will give it a run for its money in time. See, once upon a time, in the hallowed years of the mid-nineties, when 'Wiki' was just the Hawaiian word for 'quick' and Jervis Johnson was a pillar of the community instead of the laughing stock he's been made into by the kind, merciful kiss of the Internet, White Dwarf ran a series about four staff members who pledged to construct Warhammer Fantasy Battle armies to a budget which, all these years later, seems frankly laughable. I recall those articles fondly, and still have a tendency to count meat-filled sandwich products as a gaming expenditure and refer to small children as Noise Familiars as a direct result of their influence on my unformed brain.

I was clearly not alone in being strongly influenced by the article - White Dwarf and, in later years, the GW website, counted it among their greatest successes, referring to the requests for a rerun, a 40K version, a follow-up on the armies, anything at all to do with it, on an increasingly exasperating basis. I've never been active on a wargaming forum where there isn't some version of it on the go. Privateer Press, as has long been their way, followed in GW's footsteps and recently got in on the act with their Studio Challenge articles, although these cheerfully omit the budgetary restrictions. Only this morning, I came across The Western Immoren Economy Tours, a Warmachine blog which is pursuing the endeavour in the original spirit and style, with a tight £30 a month limitation on purchases.

All of this sets questions a-moving in my fragile, agile mind, chief among which is "why do I have neither pig-flesh nor baguettes in my house at this present moment?" Hot on its heels, however, is a query more pertinent to people who aren't sufficiently fortunate to dwell in the House of Von, and this is it: "why is the Tale of N Gamers format so popular?"

Is it the sense of joy that comes from achieving a goal, in this case the construction of successful forces on a tight and inflexible budget? Is it the sharing of your experiences with an audience? Is it the slow pace of construction, which enables an emotional investment to be made in a force and a serious attempt at actually painting it all made?

I'm not sure. It's possible to do all these things in isolation, although personally I fail badly at the first and third elements - whenever I've tried to set myself a monthly budget, it's exploded within the first two instalments, and when I'm set on a project all unfetteredly-like, I tend to rush forward, seeking broader and deeper gaming experiences than can be achieved at entry level.

I think it's the shame. I think it's the knowledge that your fellow Gamers will rib you rotten if you go over budget, and rightly ridicule you for not managing to paint one lousy box of new models in twenty-eight days.

All right, there's a bit more to it than just humiliation. I also think it's the guarantee of games against others who are similarly constrained by circumstances. As recent events have reminded me, it's not always fun playing with people who can afford a more tactically viable force than you, and a player base that's subscribing to the same limitations levels off that playing field, especially when cheats will be punished by withdrawal of snack van privileges.

That said, recent 'official' Tales of Four Gamers have left me cold, and I believe the format may be dying a death as the realities of modern gaming hit home. The truth is, games companies have a certain vested interest in sweeping the precise costs of new forces under the rug, particularly when their game doesn't scale down as well as it used to (I'm looking at WFB here, although I'll be following the Warmachine effort with interest, since the buy-in cost for that game is lower and it's the long-term maintenance of the army and expansion of its tactical portfolio that hurts, financially speaking).

This limitation was pretty obvious in the first ever instalment; Paul 'Fat Bloke' Sawyer's Beastmen, available only high-cost low-value combinations and yet requiring the second-highest model count of the forces involved, ended up as a small, top-heavy army, shackled to expensive point sinks and not necessarily equipped to handle its competitors. Funnily enough, the Beastmen are in the same old predicament today, as I learned to my cost when I contemplated them as an army... so I suppose some things don't change.

Anyone for a bacon butty?

(Sort of) New and (Slightly) Improved

2011-02-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

I have only one ambition in life, and that is to make this the greatest Frugal Gaming, cycling and cat related blog... IN TEH WORLDS!

This week I have put the pedal to the metal on the highway of improvement, revved up the engine of... erm.. making the blog a bit better and started burning rubber, or something. What this basically means is that I have updated the 'Pages' tabs at the top of the blog to aid navigation around the site. I've added a 'Categories' tab, with links to all posts on that subject, an 'FAQ' tab which lists lots of questions that in all honesty I've never been asked, and a 'Contact' tab so you can write beautiful electronic mail to me. Of course, there's also the good old fashioned search box on the right hand side of the page.

The idea behind this is to help you look around all the content on this site (there's a lot of it) and perhaps find something that interests you hidden away in the archives.

Have a look around, let me know how you get on, and if you have any comments, questions or suggestions, drop me a line!

Happy Gaming

Colour Management part 2 - The Good, the Bad and the Bland

2011-02-20T07:52:00.000-08:00

The Bad, the Bland and the Good.

As regular readers know, I’m not perfect, aside from spelling errors and horrendous formatting, I’m also a bit rubbish at giving any kind of advice. You may remember that in 2009 I lectured you all on selecting colours to ensure that your army looked its best. I then illustrated this point by adding a picture of what I thought were good choices.

The old individual colours; nice in small numbers, but horrible in large groups.

With the release of the new Dark Codex, I decided to finally get round to finishing off my Dark Eldar army (and by ‘finishing off’ I actually mean ‘assembling and painting’). Anyway, I realised that my exisiting paint schemes looked terrible and I needed something better. Since getting back into gaming a few years ago, I had primarily focussed on skirmish games (such as Necromunda and Mordheim) where I could focus on each miniature and make them individual. As I took up Warhammer, I realised that I needed to make an army more uniform, so that it looked better when assembled on the tabletop.

Casting the individuality of my Dark Eldar aside I stripped off the paint and began painting them in a bone colour (as shown at the top of the page) to give uniformity and to avoid the generic purple Dark Eldar army look. Unfortunately, as nice as this colour was, it was quite dull and didn’t show up very well against my grey gaming board. Dammit.

So after a bit more paint stripping (my flat really is starting to smell like an old people’s home now), I decided to go for something brighter. Ice blue seemed appropriate. So here they are, bright blue, easy to spot on the battlefield, and most importantly of all, not purple.

Not the most amazing colour scheme, but not purple.

Happy gaming

Rubbish Twitpic app...

2011-02-19T11:18:00.000-08:00

Hello all, this isn't a proper post. I'm afraid that the Twitpic app on my phone is playing up so I'm having to post photos here so that I can link to them. Grr!

Anyway enjoy these mock ups of the snotling pump wagons I'm building...

How to blog (not very well)

2011-02-16T10:26:00.000-08:00

As regular readers know, I like to relax in the evenings and read a few emails. When I’m not helping out Nigerian Finance ministers or confirming my HSBC bank details (I don’t even have an account with HSBC, but they seem happy to accept my credit card details nonetheless), I like to respond to my fan mail.

Recently, I found the delightful blog ‘Ninjabread’ hosted by Curis and sent him a note to express my admiration for his efforts (especially this stunning ultramarines comic) and to ask him to ‘plug my blog’ which is internet speak for blagging some free advertising (not to be confused with ‘icing the log’ which I would not ask Curis for).

Anyway, Curis reciprocated and sent his own electronic note of admiration for this very blog. So what was he most impressed by? The hints and tips for money saving? The wonderful photographs? The witty insights into the world of gaming? No. What he admired most was my follower count and wanted to know how I'd managed to dupe so many people. Bastard.

But anyway, my reply was as follows and I thought any fellow bloggers or self promoters may find it interesting...

My blog has been running for over two years now and the number of followers has grown steadily. The main method I use is shameless self promotion, posting in various forums ('fora' if you're a pedant) everytime that I post on the blog.

The main site I post on is 'The Miniatures Page' which is where most of my hits come from. Speaking of which, I use a 'Site Meter' tool on my blog to record the number of hits that I receive and where they come from, so that I can focus on the sites that work. I've managed to piss off a few people with this method though, as I use their lovingly curated forums to advertise my shoddy blog. I even managed to get thrown off one message board, though I can't remember which one it was.

Apart from that, the only other method I can think of is following other people's blog, as they often follow you in return.

So those were my tips, I hope you find them useful. And don’t forget that you can ascribe any success that Curis may have in the future to my mentorship. I made you Curis, I MADE YOU!

Happy Gaming

More Cygnar proxies

2011-02-14T08:36:00.000-08:00

Way back in the sands of time (last November) I flung up a post about proxying Cygnar trenchers.

As promised (surprisingly) I managed to carve out a few more.

First off we have the Trencher Officer and Sharpshooter Unit attachment. Looking at it now I think the sniper scope is a tad long, but hopefully it'll look better once painted.

Next up in the Trencher Master Gunner. Blunderbus, knife and head from a GamesWorkshop Empire set.

And lastly the Trencher Rifle Grenadier.

All these figures came in at the spookily familiar price of 41 pence, totaling £1.64, instead of the retail of the official figures of £19.85. I think I've pretty much done the trenchers now with these plastics (barring repeats to take advantage of field allowance).

Any further proxying will have to come from a different figure source. And be cheaper than the official figure price.

PAW 2011 - Plymouth Wargames Show

2011-02-11T14:11:00.000-08:00

The fantastic participation game presented by Cross Swords gaming club.

As you may have guessed from my incoherent ramblings on this blog, I’m not the best Warhammer player in the world. However, I do enjoy the game so I decided to enter the local tournament which ran last weekend; the Plymouth Association of Wargamers annual show, (also known as PAW 2011).

After writing and submitting my 1000pt Army list a few weeks ago, I tried it out against Lawrence's Skaven and proceeded to lose at every opportunity, I wasn't filled with confidence. We decided to take a trip to the Cross Swords gaming club to meet a few other gamers from the area and so that I'd recognise a few faces at the tournament. Everyone at the club was friendly and we had a great night, we'll definately be going back for some more.

Goblin on Goblin action (mine are the ones being flanked)

Feeling a bit more positive about the whole thing, I went along to the tournament. To cut a long story, slightly less long, I played all six of the scenarios from the rulebook over the weekend, reporting the result of each game in my twitter feed.

Shortly before the army was eaten by a dragon.

Of all those games, I only won one; by crushing my opponents Chaos Sorcerer General in the first turn of the game with my Rocklobber (it was the Blood and Glory Scenario, so I instantly won!). I’d had the first turn so my opponent didn’t even get a turn. He didn’t look mightly impressed, but I got him a cup of tea, and we chalked it up to experience. We wrote up our scores and then carried on the game as if it was a normal pitched battle. Which he proceeded to win.

Goblins about to get eaten, again.

Alongside the gaming, there were a large number of traders present, as well as the bring and buy stall. Obviously I did my best not to spend too much money, though a couple of small purchases were made, which I'll tell you about in future posts. By far the most impressive sight of the day was the participation game put on by Cross Swords, which involved a huge castle being assaulted. The photos don't do justice to the scale of the model and I'll direct you all to some better photographs as they become available.

This castle was huge! Constructed from Hirst Arts blocks, it must have taken months to complete.

Overall it was a great weekend, I saw some great armies and met some great gamers. From a Frugal perspective, it was also a success. For £15 I had two days of gaming against a range of opponents as well as the opportunity to talk about the hobby and discuss painting and strategies with the others who were there.

Oh, just in case you were wondering, I came came 23rd out of 24 players. Better than I expected.

Happy Gaming.

2011 Already? Time to Check In

2011-02-07T04:52:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone, Pete here. I’ve been pretty busy, working hard on my frugal plans for the new year.

As some of you may remember, I made some resolutions for the first time last year and it worked fairly well, so I’ve decided to make some this year too. I found that they work best when there are targets, limits and tangible goals.

It’s taken me a little while to work out exactly what my goals should be for this year. I want to write at least once a month for this blog (whoops…), and I definitely want to spend less on gaming stuff. I was on a bit of an eBay splurge last year, and over Christmas I was sorely tempted by many shiny new things. Luckily, I kept away from them, but I can think of a few poor spending decisions I made over the year.

To achieve the frugal goal then, I have four measurable objectives this year.

Firstly, I will spend no more than £5 a month on games or gaming things. This is especially severe since I realised just how many models are boxed up in my study, and how many Dark Elves I failed to paint last year. Buying new things before old things are painted is a major sin, and this will help me limit my guilt. The other big reason for this is the expected arrival of my second child in June (hooray!) and attendant budget reduction. Small children reduce the time available to play now, but when they grow older the plan is to mould them into mini-gamers (mini-miniature-gamers, or mini-mini-gamers?). I always loved slow-burn strategy, playing the long game.

Secondly, I will be aiming to have a day of wargaming at least once a month. I had a nice day of Gorkamorka last month (a fantastic game, and still keeping the interest after all this time), and I’m going to try and schedule a game of Warhammer with a friend who got me into the whole hobby later this month. That’ll be a nice nostalgia moment.

Thirdly, I’ll be aiming to write on this blog at least once a month. I got a bit side-tracked by other things last year, but with better time-management I’m sure that I can keep it organised. A side effect of this will probably be more games nights (to make use of games already paid for) to help me find something to write about!

So that’s my ‘quick, you lost January already!’ catch-up post. We’ll see how well this plan works out. Expect to see insightful, detailed, analytical posts about gaming if I can organise my time better, or about carpet shopping for the nursery if my wife organises it instead. Fingers crossed, frugal gamers!

A Budget Battlefield

2011-02-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

Evenin' all.

I recently acquired a digital camera, and intend to spend at least part of this weekend clearing the backlog of hobby posts I've been meaning to make since.. actually since I left Plymouth last year. To start with, here's a series of reliable images of some terrain, which I'm having enormous fun building and which, through a combination of thrift, hoarding, careful selection of supplies, re-use of old project materials and above all getting someone else to spend money for me, I am not actually paying for.

This is what happens when two art-and-craft types move in together.

Allow me to explain. Much of what you see on this board is being constructed not on my dime, for my own purposes, but for the greater good of Dice and Decks, proud hosts of (ahem)

and therefore being paid for by the club - that's the stuff that isn't made out of stuff I was hoarding anyway.

Joining a club is frankly great for this sort of thing; it's a way of doing something which I really enjoy (building terrain) without the usual opportunity cost (having to spend my miniatures/rules/entry-fee/bus fare on materials for it) - and there's a certain warm glowing feeling which comes from knowing that I'm making something which other people will play on and derive enjoyment from, even in my absence.

Taking a closer look at a few pieces now, we have the Troll-sized adobe huts -

Squint and you'll see the Trollblood I used to test the doors' scale.

- which are basically soup pots covered in modelling clay, which is pummelled into a suitable texture before a rim is added and carved into to create the appearance of crudely hewn stone blocks. I bought the modelling clay from Hobbycraft, which was a mistake when there are places like the Gloucestershire Resource Centre in the world. Incidentally, that's another great reason to join a club; a non-profit organisation running an all-in community activity is well positioned to take advantages of opportunities which simply aren't available to private individuals.

We also see the return of the Wire Trees, which I cover in a black-brown ink over the green-grey Milliput for a more sort of blighted, nasty, industrial-waste-tainted kind of look (seriously, brown trees always look like a children's drawing). Witness these half-finished ones and marvel!

Hark textured one in the time it took me to do five. She's a Proper Artist, you see...

I also have a collection of stirrers, which are going to be made into plank fences, and am under orders to produce some linear obstacles (that's 'lines of sandbags' to non-Warmachine types) out of more modelling clay when I can be bothered to pick some up. Best get a move on - this is the last weekend before the tournament!

A Year of Open Accounting - January

2011-02-02T04:54:00.000-08:00

Let the excuses begin...
We'll start with the cold hard facts first, then flannel out figures afterwards.

The month started off on the wrong foot, spending wise, with a ream of Warmachine purchases. Now I had always maintained that there wasn't going to be any more purchases for my Warmachine Cryx until I had finished painting what had already been bought and I was half a Death Jack away from fullfilling that pledge. However the proposed start of a Warmachine league at my Local Store brought forward some purchases that had been anticipated for later in 2011 (namely a unit of Mechanithralls and a second Warcaster). Also on the list of ideal next buys was a Cryx Warjack. I had thought about the new plastic Warjack kit and using magnets to give me 3 different options, but I ended up with 2 Ebay bargains of the same model types for less total cash spend. I don't know if "ideal" purchases count as frugal, but it was a bargain (dangerous words to use I know) and as they were pidgeon holed for 2011 purchases anyway I can give myself a pat on the back for being ahead of schedule. Sort of.

To coat these new purchases I also needed so spray primer. I sometimes use Grey Auto Primer from Halfords but I wanted black for the Warjacks and they don't do black Auto primer, so Army Painter is was (that's what the Local Store sold)

After all these outgoings on the account books I was starting to get nervous and guilty. So the Hobby Shed clearance sale was put into action. Items were targeted with bulk and space taken up as priorties, so a few games were put up for sale (shelf hogging boxes) as were a vaste array of Cthulhu RPG books I had sitting around to sell for someone else (for a % cut). It's been a while since I've sold on Ebay, and I'd forgotten just quite how much work it can be. Searching through ebay and finding their Turbo Lister software helped though. The old debate of how long to run an auction and what day to finish on reared it's ugly head as usual. In the end I plumped to finish on a Saturday night, as that would give me some time to pack the wins (hopefully) on the Sunday and get them out. All a bit of work, but the ball is rolling now, and with more modest auction numbers to come hopefully it'll take up less time over the coming months. More importantly I brought some money in to cover the Warmachine purchases and provide a nice buffer for the next couple of months.

All this has somewhat curtailed my painting time and energy. My six purchased Mechanithralls were done before the Ebaying started but there has been a distict lack of brush cleaning sounds comng from the painting corner of Arabian Towers since then. That and the progress of my DeathJack has been tortuously slow. That beast may have to have another brief hiatus to get the "numbers painted" count up.

Frugalnomics Lesson 1 - False Economy

2011-01-30T02:31:00.000-08:00

It’s nice to have the position of power that I do. But as Spiderman famously said ‘With great power, comes great responsibility’, so as part of my ongoing mission to educate the masses, I’m launching an intermittent series of articles on Frugal Gaming basics. I’m calling it ‘Frugalnomics’

Basically it’s like Scientology, except that it’s free and there’s no big secret at the end. By the way, if you’re wondering, the big secret at the end of Scientology is that Bruce Willis is a ghost.

The first lesson is ‘False Economy’. False Economy is (according to Wikipedia)

...an action which saves money at the beginning but which, over a longer period of time, results in more money being wasted than being saved. 

So how does false economy relate to gaming? Well, perhaps you bought some cheap miniatures on a whim, only to realise the quality was rubbish and they never got used. Not only did you spend money unnecessarily; you now have to spend the money all over again to buy better miniatures that will get used. Or how about this; you buy a cheap set of tools, they’re difficult to use and break after a few months of use; you need to buy them again. As the old saying goes ‘Buy cheap, buy twice’.

So how do you prevent falling into the false economy trap? The main way I’ve found is to have a look at how much alternative products cost. If you find a particular product from one retailer, have a look around and see what other companies are producing it.

The tricky bit is trying to decide which offers the best value for money; so not necessarily the cheapest or the most expensive, but the one that offers the balance of quality and price. A recent example from my own frugal existence is superglue. I’ve been using pound shop superglue for years and it’s always produced terrible results, breaking easily and requiring me to buy more. After the last bottle ran out I decided to go for a more expensive brand and dished out £3.20 for some thick, slower setting superglue. Since then, it’s been a pleasure to use and has been much more effective. I only have to glue once and it stays stuck.

Have you had a false economy situation? Let me know via email, or post it below.

Class dismissed.

Von's Adventures in eBayland (and Elsewhere)

2011-01-29T08:47:00.000-08:00

I'd like to take this moment to refer you all back to this post of Dave's from last year, in which he talks about how to make loadsamoney on eBay. I'm following most of Dave's tips, albeit not quite all of them; in particular, the starting and reserve prices for my items are curiously similar to the final prices of things I recently purchased, meaning that (if we're going to get technical here) my moment of weakness actually cost me nothing.

On that note: the moment of weakness. I am, technically, not breaking my resolution involving no new figures until everything I own is painted, since the Dark Elves and Tyranids are no longer mine to paint, which left me with a grand total of twelve Skorne to worry about. Like last edition's army lists, my resolution drifts forlorn on the breeze, to be looked back on with fond memories and bitter regrets, until an opportunity arises to redefine and reimagine it in the cause of nostalgic entertainment and something resembling innovation.

Replace the words 'Dark Elves and Tyranids' with 'Warriors of Chaos', though, and the point still stands. Yes, I was weak. No, I regret nothing. Why? Because I scored sixty classic Warriors of Chaos, the ones which are frankly cast from nothing less than pure happy memories for me (my first WFB army was composed almost entirely of them, and they were renovated into the first army I was really happy with the looks of), armed with exactly what I'd want sixty Warriors of Chaos armed with, in the appropriate numbers, and - shipping included, mark you - they cost me fifty pence each.

Fifty pence.
Each.
That's cheaper than they were when they came out, and they were pretty good value then at a rockin' eighty-three-and-a-third pence a head. And they're primed (red, admittedly, but I can work with that). That's about eleven hundred points, all the Core infantry I could ever want, ready for me to start painting, and they cost me fifty pence each. Which, by the way, pretty much exactly corresponds to the fundage raised by flogging off the Dark Elves they're replacing (five hundred points worth, and fewer models!). All I had to do was stay up for an extra hour on Sunday and snipe like I've just been given a NERF gun, a laser pointer and a roll of gaffer tape.

I was hardly going to pass that up, was I? Neither the chance to own a shiny new Nikon digital camera with a 5cm macro setting (the sort of thing that's just about perfect for the aspiring miniature blogger with an artist life partner who really needs to kick their online gallery into gear - and that's Hark, by the way, not Shiny, although they're both very talented people and you should totally buy paintings off them when they eventually sort themselves out to sell said paintings).

It's been a pretty good month; I've cleared out the doomed projects of the previous (failed) Frugal year, bought myself a thing that's going to improve my blogging and help us make some money by selling art, kick-started a new, cheap, sensible hobby project, and the whole thing's been zero-sum. Even the terrain I'm working on has been gratis, having come out of the budget for (ahem)

- which I'm working on scenery for in between testing out the Cryx army I'll be ringering with at the event.

I have, admittedly, still spent some money (£3.50 bus fare and £2 admission to Dice & Decks once a week, skipping one when I was ill, and £10 petrol money plus I-think-it-was-£5 admission fees to a little mini-tournament over in Evesham, oh, and the WoW fees at £7.99), so that's still well over thirty quid in a month, which could stand to be less. It's a good start, though - certainly better than last year.

Oh My Gob!

2011-01-23T03:19:00.000-08:00

I feel that I've passed a milestone this last week or so. As many of you know I’ve been working on my Goblin army for Warhammer for over a year now, and progress has at times been slow. However, over Christmas I made a big push to get it all finished and I’m now pretty much there. I’ve got 2400pts worth of greenskins, about 95% of which are painted to some degree.
Now I’m not making any great claims to my painting or modelling skills, but there are a couple of bits and pieces that I’m quite happy with.

Night Goblin Big Boss on Gigantic Spider

Squig (Maggot) Hoppers

Fanatics

Squig Herd

Rock Lobber Crew

Rock Lobber

There's still a few little bits to get finished, like basing and a couple of coats of matt varnish. But, like the semifinals of a TV talent show, the pain and suffering is almost over.

When I started assembling the army, my intention was to build a full Night Goblin Army. I didn’t do this for a couple of reasons, the first was that in the job lot of gobbos I bought there were a load of orcs that needed using. Secondly, after getting spanked numerous times, the addition of a few bigger meaner warriors couldn’t hurt. I’m still losing games, but at least I’m taking a few of the enemy with me.

I’ve played about a dozen games with my army and found it to be fantastic fun. Magic is pretty powerful; the greenskins have their own miscast table, and the infamous 'Staff of Sneaky Stealin' which adds one of your opponents power dice to your dispel pool. The animosity rule does mean that units can go running off on their own or just plain refuse to do what you ask which can be like herding cats, but then I like cats, so that’s okay.

From a Frugal point of view, I think I've managed to put together a good, fun army for a reasonable price (about £100 in total). I've already had a year's worth of fun painting and modelling it and I'm sure I'll have many more years of entertainment (and disappointment) playing the army. Well worth the investment.

Happy Gaming (and don't forget to follow me on twitter)

To all the Ultramarines Fanboys...

2011-01-22T02:26:00.000-08:00

If you got a haircut and it turned out looking terrible, would you go back for more? Would you think,’He's a rubbish barber, I’ll go back so he can get some more practice?’. If you went to a restaurant got terrible food, in small portions and they overcharged you, would you think ‘They must need my money to improve service so I’ll go again’?

I hope the answer to all these questions is ‘No’. If you get overcharged for poor service, you don’t go back for more and you certainly don’t go around shouting down anyone who says differently. Which brings me onto the subject of the ‘Ultramarines’ movie, which is overpriced shit. I think internet etiquette requires me to put ‘IMHO’ or something, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and state this as a fact, rather than an opinion. It. Is. Overpriced. Shit. Anyway, I’m not angry with the film or the various individuals involved, what I’m angry about is the chumps out there praising the film that they’ve just paid the best part of £30 to watch.

Don’t think that by buying it you’ll encourage GW to make ‘more and better’ films, you won’t. I’m going to say this once more, then go off and kick the cat; IF YOU BUY A POOR QUALITY OVERPRICED PRODUCT, THE COMPANY WILL CONTINUE TO MAKE POOR QUALITY OVERPRICED PRODUCTS.

Thank you for your time.

The Appy Gamer

2011-01-17T10:26:00.000-08:00

Since starting this blog I’ve received a lot of emails, and I often busy myself in the evenings learning about products that promise to ‘Boost You’re Manhood’ or ‘Make sure she pleasure EVRY time!!!’. Sometimes though, I like to relax and read an email relating to gaming. One such message came to me last week from Thomas who has started a Frugal Gaming blog. As well as adopting a ‘buy one, paint one’ approach (this is the ‘Wax on, wax off’ mantra of the Frugal Gamer) Thomas has also installed an app on his smartphone to track his spending.

Like many of you out there, I use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of my finances (with general entries such as ‘rent’, ‘cat food’ and ‘bike maintenance’) and have now extended this to include my monthly gaming purchasing (remember that I’m planning to only spend £20 a month on gaming) so the idea of an app on my phone intrigued me. Thomas recommended Daily Expense Manager by Tech Ahead for the Android OS. After a little bit of internetting I found a similar app for the iPhone (or iPad, if you’re a real hipster) and I’ve started using it myself.

These apps are free and will help you track what you’re spending (often helpful, frequently scary) which can only be a good thing. I’m going to give it a try for the next couple of months and see how I get on. Why not try it too and let me know the results?

You may notice that I’ve gone over my budget this month, but hey, rules were meant to be broken.

Happy Gaming.

eBay II - Return To The Bargain Basement

2011-01-16T11:41:00.000-08:00

Evenin' all.

Just a quicky to let you know that there are some ex libris Von Dark Elves, Tyranids, World of Darkness roleplaying books, Warmachine Mark I rulebooks and a few other odds and ends currently up on eBay, should you be into that sort of thing.

If my new camera had mysteriously arrived within an hour of being bought - unlikely - I'd be filling out this non-post with pictures of models which I (very Frugally) either rehabilitated with bits I had lying around the house, or built out of stuff I'd traded an unwanted GW gift voucher for. Unfortunately the camera has yet to transcend the laws of time and space, and so you'll have to make do with me telling you that I've done some conversions until it arrives.

Time And Motion

2011-01-15T11:42:00.000-08:00

At the dawn of my previous Frugal Year, I spent some time burbling on about the different kinds of investment we all make in our games. I believe I've chewed your ears off about emotional investment more than enough already, 'specially if you're already a GAME OVER reader, and this blog tends to focus on money and time (indeed, the Frugal struggle is often expressed as convenience vs. expense, for example in choosing to make your own terrain/war machines/accessories or buying them). One thing I haven't looked at too often, though, is how these notions all fit together.

I also recently had a dispute with m'colleague Neal (he of the pink Menite fame) about this. I have, in the past, been known to be a bit stingy about away-days to play games. I tend to think that the kind of money we spend on transport, accommodation, event admissions, food and the inevitable booze doesn't offer the world's best return on investment - after all, a tournament is over when it's over, and if you're anything like me, memories really don't last forever (some days, I can't even remember the word 'pencil', never mind anything complicated and intense like a tournament). If I'm going to spend more than a fiver on something, I'd usually expect years of service out of it...

However, I've recently been forced to admit that spending modest sums - for instance, on attending club nights, which usually cost me about eight quid by the time you've factored in bus fares and entry fees - to ensure that the larger sums spent on miniatures actually result in said miniatures being used and not simply possessed for the sake of possession, might actually be worth a go. I had a lovely time at Evesham today and it only cost me a tenner (well, it cost me twelve after I picked up some Epic Order dice to use as extra spell tokens ahd a plastic High Elf mage for conversion purposes, but shh!); realistically speaking, getting to use my Cryx against some nice new people with unfamiliar armies was probably worth the money.

At the end of the day, what's bought needs using, and the same old uses every time end up becoming stale and unfulfilling, like the yoghurt I had for breakfast yesterday. In that same spirit of using stuff that I have rather than mindlessly accumulating possessions, I'm going to focus my gaming time and funds onto expanding and revitalising my Cryx army, adding a few new pieces to inject some interest into a collection that hasn't seen full use for quite a while. The Cryxies will be visiting a few events this year; I'm not the biggest fan of tournaments, but my eyes are always peeled for things that aren't tournaments, and a bit of money spent on ephemeral experiences can't hurt if it means that the money I've spent previously continues to reward and return on its investment.

I'm also planning on putting to use something that's lived in the bottom of my bookcase for many moons, but never actually seen any love; Advanced Fighting Fantasy, which has been out of print for so long that it would be effectively irreplaceable if I parted with it, but which I've only ever tried to play once. I've read and reread those books so often that they no longer amuse me in their own right, so let's try something crazy like actually running the game!

Finally, I'm going to make an admission. Ready for this? Here it comes...

I no longer have the time, or the inclination, or possibly even the ability, to paint in the volume and speed that I did four years ago.

Painting a new army, on the scale that a Games Workshop mainstream game requires for entry-level play, is simply too major an endeavour for me, and I'm too attached to the spectacle of gameplay to really enjoy playing with unpainted miniatures; so I'm attempting to make painting a minor endeavour by sticking to low-model-count mods of the game like Killzone. If I do go so far as to start a new army for a Games Workshop game, it'll have to be painted with the minimum of effort; I might go so far as to suggest dipping, or possibly greyscale, with dashes of colour a la Sin City - how awesome would the Micro Art Studios Orks look painted up like they've escaped from a black and white war film, and how easy would that be to do with an airbrush and maybe a bit of blending? I'll be trying to make a major endeavour into a minor endeavour, through careful choices of techniques and steady expansion.

At least, that's the plan. You know what I am for plans. I'll have to think about whether I'm actually going to go through with it... in the meantime, here's another picture of time in motion. This one's for you, Lawrence: it's the Prague Astrononical Clock, in all its eldritch glory.

Testing, testing...

2011-01-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

I mentioned the Mantic Skeletons in my last post and I've managed to get some painted. I tried a number of different colours to see what final effect would look best (plus which would be easy to do 100 times over, and would look impressive when viewed as an army). The results are below:

Of course the reason that they look so badly painted is due to some problem with my camera (and not because I'm a crap painter, they're only test pieces or erm... any other reason I can think of). I'm going to go for the orange scheme (3rd along, looking a bit 'peachy') and the yellow and blue next to it. I'll probably have units of each, though it'll be a while before I get started on painting them properly as I've got a metric tonne of Dark Eldar to get painted first.

Painting a few test pieces is a good idea if you're painting a large number of figures, it can be a nightmare to get halfway through an army and realise that it looks muddled and uncoordinated when it's all together on the tabletop. Having to repaint or rebase figures can take up valuable time and money, so a few test pieces is quite a frugal idea!

Anyway, before I get onto my Dark Eldar or Undead I've got to finish off the Goblins, write a 2400pt list to go against Shiny tomorrow night and look at a 1000pt list for a forthcoming tournament (my first ever) so it's going to be a busy year. Hooray!

Mantic Undead - Bare Bones Cost

2011-01-09T01:01:00.000-08:00

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years you must have noticed the huge range of non Games Workshop plastic 28mm kits now available. The first I recall hitting the geeky streets were the Perry ACW kits swiftly followed by the Warlord Ancients. Mantic Games were the first to come on the scene with fantasy kits and have been very well received.

As my goblin army has been nearing completion (more on this next week), I’ve been looking for a new army to start work on. I’ve always fancied undead (not in that way), ever since I painted up some zombies and skeletons for Advanced Heroquest back when I was a lad. I really liked the plastic undead range by Mantic Games so I decided to see what I could get for my Frugal pennies.

The Mantic undead range has been reviewed so many times that I won't go over old ground, suffice to say that I can confirm that the quality is fantastic, even if the range of poses is a little limited. As this is a Frugal Gaming blog I’ll be looking at the price. I ordered my figures at the end of last year, but I’ll use the post VAT increase prices to make my point. Looking at the various deals available, the prices break down as follows (click on the picture for a bigger version):

As you can see from the deals available the best price per individual figure is the Undead Army set, giving a mighty 110 figures for a measly £50. You don’t get any of the bells and whistles with some of the other sets (such as catapults, cavalry or metal army command group) but to act as the bulk of an army I think it’s a fantastic deal, and I can always pick up the other bits and pieces as I go along. The other sets offer loads of great options and if you're looking at picking up a huge force then you'd be wise to go for the Liche King's Horde; the revenant cavalry models are amazing!

Frugal Conclusion
Simple really, with prices and quality like this you can’t go wrong, get some. Oh, and I’m looking forward to seeing their forthcoming Orc and Goblin range as well!

Frugal Afterthoughts
To get an additional discount I’d recommend going to Wayland Games, I bought my Undead Army Set from them before the price rises and (with their discounts) only paid £39 with free delivery! The customer service was excellent, even with the bad snow my order arrived within 24hrs of me ordering it online. Thanks guys!

Happy gaming!

Dave

P.S. Don't forget to check out my twitter feed.

Advice Dog Approves: two things to do with blister packs when they're dead

2011-01-08T01:42:00.000-08:00

Hi folks; just a quick one (as I'm messing about with Tyranid colour-schemes today).

Dethtron, stealer of thunder that he is, has started up a series on Gaming on a Budget over on the House of Paincakes. His first instalment went up this week; a set of ideas on things to do with the blisters from your blister packs. Be sure to click that first link at least once a week - in fact, go and do it again now, don't worry, I'll wait - for more crafty tips and fiddles.

As a companion piece, I might go so far as to recommend this piece by the Master Manipulator (every store needs one) on using the foam from blister packs to make a wet palette (something I should probably be doing, given the speed at which the GW Foundation paints dry) without accidentally drenching the author of Lurking Rhythmically.

Right. Back to sorting out those Tyranids. For some reason I can't settle on a colourscheme for them; I blame all that Punk Art.

Some updates...

2011-01-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update to let you all know that I'm experimenting with a twitter feed. If you're a twitter user you can follow me and get updates on all the nonsense I've been up to. If you don't use twitter, you can read my latest tweets using the box on the right. If you've never heard of twitter and think 'we're all going to hell in a handcart' then get off the interweb Granddad, leave it to the kids...

In other news, you've probably noticed the change to the format of the blog, there's still a few changes that need making (such as the pixellated picture) so please bear with me!

All the best

Dave

Frugal exposure

2011-01-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

After Von's sterling and frank review of his frugal year, it's time for me I suppose. I'm going to cut to the chase by completely ignoring last year and making a few frugal promises for 2011.

The Second Great Scottish Clearances: It's sad to say, but I have had to finally agree with Mrs AK. that the Arabian Towers Hobby shed is too full of "stuff". I'm going to have to take that tough, heartbreaking journey to ebay (and in some cases the charity shop) to make the space more habitable. On the up side this'll hopefully bring in some cash and assuming that the British Goverment don't start an new hobby tax (best not joke, actually) this'll help balance the books.
Open Accounting: which seemlessly brings me onto my second grand plan. Although I try to keep costs down I've never been brave/bothered enough to keep note of what I spend on my hobby. Some stones are best left unturned as they say. Well it's time do bring out the lifting gear and tip this mighty menhir over this year. In an attempt to see what the true cost of gaming is I'll be keeping a running spreadsheet of comings and goings. What's more I'll be airing this dirty laundry in public with a linked page from the top of my own blog. Here's hoping that I don't end too many months with my head in my hands muttering "Oh no, what have I done. The wife'll kill me!"
Playing more games: This isn't just a bid to wrack up the hours spent rolling dice. To get full "Value For Money" the gaming resources need to be used, so I'll be looking to play a variety of games to get the most from my figures. To start off I've joined a league at the local store which will force me to play at least a game of Warmachine each month. Good start.
Bought v Painted ratio: Which start of year list would be complete without this old chestnut. I think I did OK last year but without having accounted it I can't be sure how well. So this year I'll be keeping a note of that as well in the aforementioned accounting page.

This should all, in theory, bring frugality to the fore, as oppossed to being just a consideration. I'll see I suppose - and so shall you!

A New Year of Frugal Gaming

2011-01-03T03:44:00.000-08:00

Hello all and welcome to a new year of Frugal Gaming. For those of you new to this blog, the aim is to reduce your spending on gaming products while simultaneously playing more games and improving the quality of games played. I (and my small but select team of Frugal contributors) aim to help you achieve this by giving you hints and tips on money saving projects, reviewing products to make sure you’re getting the best value for your gaming money and generally giving you something else to read on the internet to prevent you straying onto ebay when bored at work.

This site has been running for two years now and we’re still growing so have a look around using the search box on the right hand side of the page, the tag cloud at the bottom of the page or the tabs at the top of the page. and remember you can always get in touch with me by sending me an email.

Last year was a pretty good year for me and this year I want to do more of the same, my ideas for the forthcoming twelve months are as follows:

More Painting: I’ve got a lot of unpainted figures at the moment. My Orc and Goblin army for Warhammer is nearing completion and I’ve just started painting all the Dark Eldar for 40k that I’ve had stuck in boxes for ages. In addition, I’ve also got a lot of undead to paint up, but more about that next week. I plan to not buy any more for these armies until the units I already have are fully painted. No more unpainted models on the table!

More Organising: At the moment my painting desk looks like a refugee camp with a large number of unconnected projects on the go, I’d like to focus more on each project and finish one before I begin another, perhaps only having two models or units in the go at once, rather than the ten or so that I have at the moment. If anyone has any tips on setting up a painting rota, I’d love to hear it.

More Gaming: I’ve been playing a lot over the past year, but I’d like to get more gaming done! I’m considering going along to some of the local gaming gaming clubs, (work and my hectic social life permitting) to get the best out of my newly painted figures.

More Learning: As I say I’ve been playing a lot, but I’d like to get better, I’m planning to get a notebook to keep a brief run down of each of the games that I play so I can learn from my mistakes and understand how a battle can turn on a few key moves.

Less Spending: I’m not quite sure how much I spent on gaming last year, but this year I’m going to set a budget and stick to it. I think £20 a month would be a reasonable figure, and I can always bring in more from selling my old bits and pieces on ebay if I have a big purchase I’d like to make. I’m not sure how it’ll go but it’s worth a try!

So those are my aims for the year. What have you got planned? Drop me a line and let me know, all the best for the new year.

Happy gaming

Dave