Shalamansers blog about the “Pledge” struck a chord with me in wargames terms the “Pledge” is when a wargamer attempts to paint more figures in a year than he/she buys.

Currently MY brought and unpainted score  for 2009 stands at

130 15mm Medieval’s (Free Company) for FOG

2 Uncharted seas starter fleets a total of 20 Ships

1 Hvy Carier plus 8 Fighter Groups @ a civilian Transport for Full Thrust

1 15mm G Carrier

4 Weird WW2 Figures

I should have all the 15mm foot base coated tomorrow.

Had a short 3 day break over the weekend at  Games EXPO 2009 in Birmingham playing in an AT43 Tornament I have done a longer write up over here about that.

An interesting if tiring weekend and a nice change from the insane rush that going to one day events like salute is. I got some new models for my FT Fleet and some starter fleets for Uncharted Seas an fantasy Naval Wargame.

I don’t normally do many political posts but seeing a claim from UKIP that Ian Dale is reporting made me smile. Apparently the Long ballot papers are being folded and this is confusing.

To be brutaly honest if you cant work out to unfold the paper and tick the appropriate box then I suspect that you probably shouldn’t be allowed to vote – or even be allowed out after dark. May be Ukip will use Mr Gumby as there logo the next time around

Been getting more into Primeval in the latest season though some fans  don’t like the shows more action feel compared to s1 – I feel that certainly Season one was a tad slow. Killing of a lead character is risky and ime not totaly sure about losing Jenny as well as Nick.

Though I do like Connor’s butching up some what similar to Ianto’s snark injection he got in Torchwood season 2 though man what is with the Hat Connor?

They defiantly have more of an interesting arc to the season – you cant run a Show on a “monster of the week” basis these days and it looks like S3 is building up to an interesting climax Lets hopw ITV’s budget problems dont lead it to be canned for yet another ghastly shiny floor show.

Actualy managed to get all the foot based up ready for spray under coating – just need to find a cardboard box to make a paint booth.

It looks like that Rackham will be bringing out some new army boxes for Red Block and the new Cogs faction. This is something that Fans of AT 43 (and in particular Blok players)  have been wanting for ages. This is the first big change since Rakham came out of restructuring and the big plus is the price of the box sets are a significant discount to buying the units on there own. with US prices in the 70$ range lets hope the UK/euro pricing is similar.

AT43 Red Blok Army Box

Contains a complete Red Block company for AT-43 the ready assembled and painted miniatures game.
• 1 unit of 12 Krasnye Soldaty: regular infantry containing three grenade launchers, two medics and an officer
• 1 unit of 8 Krasnye Soldaty: regular infantry containing one grenade launcher, two mechanics and an officer
• 6 Dragonov Kommandos: elite infantry with one sniper rifle, an electronic warfare specialist, a medic and an officer
• Odin O-1 and Manon O-2: the Red Blok’s two greatest heroes
• 1 Urod: Odin O-1’s and Manon O-2’s combat strider
• 1 Dotch Yaga: the most heavily armored combat strider to ever grace the battlefield
• 6 low walls
• 1 container
• Introductory Rules
• 1 Red Blok revolutionary forces tactical manual
• 1 game poster
• 12 dice
• 1“Red Blok” ruler
• 1 explosion template
• 26 game cards

AT43 Cogs Army Box

The Cogs army box contains a complete company for AT-43 the ready assembled and painted miniatures game.
• 1 unit of 4 Warmongers: basic super-soldiers
• 1 unit of 4 Sharpshooters: elite super-soldiers
• 1 Prowler: basic combat strider
• 1 Vandal: the most powerful Cog combat strider
• 3 heroes from the C-Naps line: C-Naps G09, C-Naps G36 and C-Naps G45
• 3 high walls
• 1 container
• Introductory Rules
• 1 Cog tactical manual
• 1 game poster
• 12 dice
• 1 “Cog” ruler
• 1 explosion template
• 8 game cards

you can see the product listing on FRP games site here

When I was younger I was a member of 18 Plus a social orgaisation for nominally 18-30 year olds. 18 plus used to run a lot of different events around the UK but for most of us Plussers they year revolved around the large scale events. There where a number of big National scale events which could attract up to 4000+ attendees.

The first event of the 18 Plus Year was Caister where 18 Plus took over Caister holiday camp well actualy at its height two adjacent Camps. A holiday at Easter had been a fixture in 18 plus for along time by the 70’s had moved to Caister a small village outside Great Yarmouth.

The event ran for 5 days from the Thursday before Easter till late on Easter Monday  and normally ran 3 venues for the nighttime entertainment which was varied.

Neptunes Palace ans the Old 18 Plus Logo

Easter always bring back memories of Caister and as I am typing this we would have just gone into Neptunes palace if we had been lucky in the lottery (held early Friday)which was used to allocate tickets as there where to many people to fit in just one venue.

Eventually I used to help out with the orgainising of  door security with Dave Domoney (now a gardening TV presenter) who was on the Canister committee. 

The 18 Plus Caister week end was the inspiration for the better known Caister Soul weekends

Well I finally decided to get a Field of glory army. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I was looking at Hoplite but to get a better and more historical selection of opponents  I went for a Free Company starter army in 15mm from Essex Miniatures which I purchased at Salute last week end. This is from the Storm of arrows period books.

I also enjoyed Mary Gentles Ash – so I want to try and do a FOG version of Ash’s Company. I now just have to paint 100 plus figures which will be a first for me as I have never painted any 15mm figs before. I have been taking some advice from more experienced friends and will be sorting out some new paints and some bases at the weekend.

Hers an example of what well painted 15mms look like – pic borrowed form Essex Minatures

I came across an amusing take on the Lolcat meme – Rolcat which is Russian Lolcats with “translations” of the Russian captions added for example.

Your floral offering serves as no deterrent to the inevitable, betrayer.

You will now join me in oblivion.

Will be going to the regular Sunday AT43 Games at Phoenix Games in Leicester there should be 3-4 for of us going from the gladiators.

A shot from Last months games and yes one of the players was a “Girl!”

Having heard good reports of Field of Glory a new Ancients/Medieval rules set from osprey and having been tempted to get back into ancients after reading Tom Hollands “Persian Fire” over Christmas and am currently working through John Julius Norwich’s 3 vol history of Byzantium.

I ordered the main rules set and the Classical Greek/ Persian period army book from my local Waterstones and i thought id do a quick initial review.

Fields of Glory (FOG) follows the normal pattern for modern rules sets of having a core rules set plus period books for particular periods. The rules differ form WAB in being based on units (Battle Groups in FOG parlance) made up of a number of bases not individual figures – so a Hoplite unit is made up of 6 or 8 bases of figures  and casualty’s are done by base and not figures.

The rules are defiantly for a more experienced wargamer and the army books don’t give you the hand holding in building an army  that say games workshops WAB ones do – they assume at least a basic knowledge of the period. The rules can work with any figure scale but they suggest 25/28 mm or 15 mm as good scales.

I just need to get organised enough to paint the figures always the down side and with the hoplite army I am interested in I would like to do both the Persian and Peloponnesian War periods (I did Thucydides at school)  thats a LOT of Hoplites to paint and 28mm figures aren’t cheap let alone the nice annotated Herodotus that is tempting me at waterstones

Bletchley Park is a run down little country estate in Buckinghamshire. Not particularly beautiful, large or distinguished in the way many British country estates are. But in terms of history it might be the single most important patch of land in Britain. Alan Turing laid down many of the foundations of modern computing at Bletchley Park and, along with many others including Tommy Flowers and co from Dollis Hill cracked German codes and helped us to win WWII.

Bletchley Park is also the birthplace of the computer. The world’s first programmable, digital, electronic computer: Colossus was invented and installed at Bletchley Park during World War Two to break encrypted German messages. There is a site dedicated to saving Bletchly Park for the nation and an online petition at Number 10’s website.

Help ensure this incredibly important site doesn’t crumble altogether. If you’re a British citizen please sign the petition to the Prime Minister. If you’re not please donate or help spread the word.

Just Created a face book group for listeners to the TWIW podcast here

Just had to share this spoof add for KFC or Kobol Fried Chicken