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I paint small metal and plastic figures and rarely get to play with them. But that is fine with me.

22 July 2014

Interlude Part 8

It's been a while eh?

I've been a bit off on blogging of late, so forgive the lapse in time since my last entry.

Life has been a bit busy keeping up with the World Cup and our trip to Panama took up quite a bit of my time. I did manage to get some hobby work done though nothing impressive.

The wee kitten in this image seemed to have made it's home amongst these concrete objects right next to the shoreline next to downtown Panama City.
The trip to Panama was amazing. Quite simply the best holiday I can ever remember going on. My wife's family were very welcoming and Panama itself was so beautiful and full of life (Being that it's Jungle almost throughout.). I've never seen colours so vibrant, nor experienced nights so full of the noises of local fauna. I would wholeheartedly recommend any to go there and see it all in person.

World Cup was... disapointing for Italy, but nice to see both Miroslav Klose beat the record for most goals scored in World Cup history and young James Rodriguez of Columbia getting the golden boot. Italy were taken down (In this humble football supporter's opinion.) by the terrible play calling by severely inept refereeing seen throughout the competition. Okay, sour milk set aside and bad sportsmanship hat removed. Once again, the wait for the next World Cup (This time in Russia) will be a long ordeal, but hopefully with a better outcome for my team!

On to hobby news:

On Saturday 26th July, the NorCal Flames of War Circuit will host a tournament at Gamescape North in San Rafael. It'll be a 1250 MidWar "Urban" effort, with small 4'x3' tables and some old city-fighting-type rules being used throughout three rounds - "Across the Volga" (Allows Artillery to be off-table support [as it should be imo.] choice.) and "Sewers" (For sneaky, tho unpredictable infiltrating fun). Playing space should hopefully be packed with houses, so I expect A LOT of infantry lists.

For my own list, I've gone with the 8th Army Infantry (Italy) out of the North Africa book. I'll post up more on what my list contained and who I played in my next post, including a report of my resounding victory [not]! So for this tournament, I only had one platoon to paint up to field a fully painted force - a requirement according to my Pride and Ego - ugly buggers at the best of times. I wanted some elite infantry in my list so bought some Mid War Commandos. These boys are flipping cool models with even cooler rules. a 2+ in assaults has seen them carve through german grenadiers in practice games and I can't wait to try them out on Saturday.

Here's a phone camera picture, I'll take better ones after the tournament:

Comin' at you!
I've also been slowly, slowly picking up all the pieces for my planned German "Kampfgruppe Arnheim" list so I'll have that "bad guys" force to play against my son in teaching games. Pak40's, Jagdpanzers, "SS" this and that - just to have really bad, guys. Not sure when I'll get around to painting them though. :P

Lastly, My Kickstarter stuff from the Relic Knights Kickstarter finally arrived and I've been gluing together all my scantily-clad anime racer girls from the Cersi Speed Circuit faction. I've only fumbled through one game so far with my mate who also went in on the Kickstarter and thus far I like what I have played. The game is a refreshing change from regular rules sets and I really like the setting too. I'll be reporting more on this on a separate blog altogether along with links to a podcast I'll be co-hosting with a forum mate dedicated to the game Relic Knights itself. Links will be forthcoming as and when I have them ready.

Cheers.

8 comments:

  1. Welcome back! Sounds like an epic holiday!

    Yes indeed, as an Englishman the World Cup was incredibly disappointing. I hear you there.

    Wow, forgot about Relic Knights. Will be looking for more on them with interest. Models , rules etc. Do tell all!

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    1. Thanks mate!

      I'll certainly leave a link to the new blog once I start getting content put together. So far though, it seems a very cool system and setting.

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  2. Ditto on the welcome home and the best of luck at your next tournament.
    "scantily-clad anime racer girls" ... hmmm intriguing. ;)

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    1. Appreciate the offer of luck - with my dice rolls, I'll certainly need it!

      As to the 'girls, next week will be their first feature. Watch this space.

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  3. Great to see you back - I've been away too.

    We had a number of school trips running last week, including one to Berlin and one to Amsterdam. I was hoping to be there for the world cup victory parade, but sadly I was on the Amsterdam trip. I say 'sadly' - it was utterly superb (and we had an amazing tour of the gorgeous Ajax stadium too!)...my colleagues on the Berlin trip though? - Boy did they have fun!

    Not that I ever played it, but I miss the 'Across the Volga' rule: it made complete sense to me...and am I right in thinking you were encouraged to use it in bocage too?

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    1. O wow Drax, colour me insanely envious! Poor Holland had it all in hand, yet.... Always the bridesmaid, never the bride it seems.

      Yeah, I am not a fan at all of artillery being on the board outside of medium mortars. No, we didn't use it when we played the D-Day games. Wish we had though. I think it may well end up being a house rule - a choice to have arti on-table to take advantage of the direct fire for added AT, or, off table to keep the guns safe, though lack that extra platoon when it comes to counting for Company Command rolls.

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  4. Nice looking Commando's, I like the mix of headgear. Nice blog too, don't why I haven't found it before now! Cheers, Paul :-)

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    1. Thanks for stopping by Paul.Have been following your blog for a while too - good stuff.

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