Wow... Has it really been six weeks??

As the title states I haven't been on here in weeks!! So much has happened in that time but I will keep it short!

14 weeks back I talked myself into the Warhammer Fantasy Campaign 'a tale of one gamer' and was really looking forward to this new system that I had never played before!! I was so happy that I'd picked the Skaven and was really looking forward to the challenge.

As you can tell by this blog I was really into it and started on my minis straight away. 

Now as my previous post suggests I got burnt out with the painting so much so that I haven't painted for 9 weeks up until a few days ago, now naturally my wife believed that I had got bored of my new hobby just as predicted but it was more than that. I still enjoyed playing but just couldn't get motivated to paint my Skaven..

I realised that it wasn't Boardem it was just I didn't want to paint them. I didn't want to dedicate my time to it as I enjoy 40k to much. 

It was a shame because I think those Skaven that I did paint are the best minis I have ever produced but with a decision made as quick as the one to buy them I sold them all to a friend down the club. With that cash I have ordered a Landraider redeemer and commissar yarrik (the start of my guard)

I have returned to painting and have painted up the Deathwing squad I have had sitting here for weeks and when I have finished them I will add it to here

Till next time....

The deadline

So a tale of one gamer has a deadline... It's the 25th April which by my maths is about three weeks away!! Now the issue is I've had a right downer on the painting front and I've been left with about 70 models to paint in three weeks, time to get moving one thinks. Today it is my plan to put an undercoat on all of my remaining models. We will see how that goes!! 

RANT ALERT

So, it's Friday again and that can only mean that it's time to wage war again!!

So it's of to my FLGS for some 40k and Bloodbowl, but instead of playing right now like I thought I would be, I'm stuck doing my adult job in my boring adult life!! 

So I'm now counting down the minutes till I can get home, get changed, get the minis and roll some 6's

So I'm out and now on my way to my FLGS, and because I'm a bit of a dick and don't drive I'm on the old public transport, problem being that this is the school time bus and is full of kids and they are doing my head in.. 

Think of the end result!!

Getting a wriggle on

The tale of four gamers 

So I have finally started painting again after a two week absence, I don't know if it the amount of models I have left to paint or the fact that GTA 5 is in but I just couldn't find the motivation to get it done but I'm back on track, got the base colours and washes all down on 5 clan rats just the highlighting and another 30 to go!!

Now I've also found another project and that's blood bowl updates will be available when I pull my finger out!! 

8th February to 14th February

Saturday 8th February

Now I know this blog is about my modelling exploits but as work takes up time I need other stuff to write about. Now I'm treating this blog a bit like a diary. Now most peoples diarys are secret and I suspect mine is too.. I can't imagine many people reading my incoherant ramblings and getting any enjoyment out of it!! So here goes....

I work in an undisclosed career and this said career involves a lot of shift work. As I have said before many of the days I am at work leave no time for any modelling activities and I have discovered that I need to find another hobby as well as sitting in a well lit room painting or in a not so well lit shop playing wargames!!

The gym!! Now I haven't been to a gym for about four years even though I have a free use of one! So last night at 2200 when I finished work one of my dear colleagues... Let's call him Clark convinced me to start training again. 

Well folks after a 9 hour shift at 2300 I want to the gym.. And let me tell you.., it sucked. I am weak and tired quickly. I suppose it's a sign that I need to take it seriously!!

Sunday 9th February 

I got back from the Gym at 0100 last night slept til 1030 this morning and boy do I regret going.. I can barely lift my arms above my head. I was only awake a few hours and had some time with the kids and the wife cooked a Bacon Lunch (sandwich to those who don't know my son) and after the few hours I was back in bed getting up again at 1800 to find my 3&1/2 year old son screaming in my face... Not that anything was wrong... Oh no he thinks this is an acceptable way to wake up someone who is sleeping!! 

So it's a night shift tonight and the kids are at the sitters tomorrow till the wife finishes work so hopefully if I don't sleep to long I may be able to get a bit of painting done. 

Monday 10th February 

Watched Thor a dark world before work no time for modelling again. This is coming a bit repetitive!! Nights shift again. Let's hope tomorrow is more productive. 

Tuesday 11th February 

Woke at 1245 thought about getting out of bed but ended up falling asleep till 1600! Kids were on form as usual and waking to a house full of people screaming is not the ideal situation for me. Was gonna do some work on my minis but have decided to get on the xbox instead. Will try and do some stuff this week!! 

Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th February 

Loads of stuff done over these last coue of days. 

Will let pics speak for themselves

Friday 14th February

As you can imagine painting and playing was a big no no but I did cook the wife steak

Until next time...

February 2014 - 1st to 7th

Saturday 1st February 

After a horrendous night shift and two hours sleep I was up at 1030 to go for breakfast with the wife and kids!! I had pancakes, they were lovely. 

I rocked up to Miniature Empire at about twelve, said hi and bye to Lano who was rushing out of the door talking about taps and digging holes in his garden..

Now Lano may be offended by this but I was pretty much sleep walking so I have no idea what he was going on about. 

The talk turned to Warhammer Fantasy.. I've been mulling over in my mind if it would be a good game.. Now I like guns.. Big space guns that cause carnage.. Fantasy doesn't have space guns so I thought I would be turned off of it straight away. 

Now MEGC has started a campaign called 'The tale of one gamer' the idea of which is to start a Fantasy army initially at 750pts. As I had never played before I was a bit dubious. 

Today I got a game. Now I had got it into my mind that I would play Skaven if I was to do this project as I could pick them up cheaply plus the rules etc in the Island of blood box set.

Damon set me up with 750pts of Skaven and played me with his Orcs. Of course he beat me but he has successfully made me like another game type. So there it is, I am now the proud owner of a 750pt Skaven army thanks to Island of Blood!

Super Bowl Sunday - 2nd Feb

Now as a Brit the only time NFL is alowed anywhere near my TV is when Super Bowl is on. 

I sprayed all my new models bar one which dropped on the floor in the garden!! 

I sat back to watch Super Bowl and started trimming the flashing and whatnot off of the little critters, bad move, gave up after five models.. Bloody Super Bowl is awesome. Now at the half time show whilst writing this. Mars is banging out some tunes and I'm debating wether or not to go up and continue watching this in bed.....

..... yep gonna go up

On a side note I'm gonna post every ten days or so I think... We will find out!!!

Monday 3rd February

Well that was a mistake. Should never have gone up fell asleep before the fourth quarter!! And because I had paused live TV when I made the transition I missed the good touchdown. 

And now of course, I'm really tired. My wife has gone off to work and as I am on a rest day I have to fight with the children all day!!

So night finally falls and I manage, whilst seeing off the hands on 10 month old with a scalpel, to finish shredding all the slotta pieces off of the small Scaven hoard!

Tuesday 4th February

Woken by freezing cold hands and screaming children!! Awesome!! Busy day with no time for modelling :(

Wednesday 5th February

Up at 0445 hours (this is a real time of day!) for work - sucks!!

Bloody train strike so have had to scrounge a lift in which obviously makes me a bit of a burden!! (Note to self - learn to drive knobhead)

Well I've had a very productive night!! Got one of my 40 clan rats painted.. 

Really need to get a wriggle on with this painting malarkey!! 

Thursday 6th February

Got a couple of models painted tonight another clan rat spear and the warlord. I'm really happy especially with the warpglow that according to Instagram I nailed. 

Clan rat 

Warp glow

Friday 7th February 

Well that's it that's my first week done.. I know there will be no more painting this week (today) as I am on late shift at work which also means no gaming!! Boooooo. 

Until next time

Coming next - 8th February to 14th February 

2014 - The year of miniatures

So here we are.. We are up to date and this post is about the plan for the new year.

It's the end of January (Probably February by the time this goes to print) and it's my year of miniatures. 

This is the plan

1) buy stuff

2) play more

As you can see it's quite an easy two step plan, a plan that anybody could adhere to.. You would think!

Up until now I have only mentioned my 40k exploits and have kept you readers out of the loop when it comes to the man behind Cuban Trog

I'm Gary, I'm 30 years old, married and a father to two wonderful children and there you see is my spanner in the works

I work full time, doing shift work so as you can imagine between work and the kids it's hard to get a game. 

The wife has also been reviewing the bank statements and has seen that I have spent an obsene amount of money in the short seven months to date!! 

So after a heart to heart this is what has been decided! (By her)

1) I can play once a week - this is either at the club on a Friday night or on a Saturday. (Work permitting)

2) I can spend a maximum of £50 a month on little men (her words not mine) this is so that we can still afford to feed the children (apparently you have to do this or social services become involved and it all gets a little messy)

3) I can paint when one of two situations arise a, the kids are both out or b, the kids are asleep and she wants to watch something on the tele!

As you can see I am quite under the thumb but this keeps the whole house in a state of equilibrium. 

So when January payday came I really impressed the wife by only buying a squad of terminators that cost £12 from eBay (bring on the brownie points) unfortunately due to all the other stuff they are still in their box awaiting some much needed undercoat!!

So there we are. We are up to date and you know lots about me. I'm going to tray and find out how to get people to read this stuff

Up to date

November saw in my first apocalypse battle, to date I have not seen as many models on the table! I got to Miniaure Empire at 0930 sharp as instructed by Damon, I had my stack a box in my arms ready to play... The shutters were down!! 

A few minutes later Damon arrived and opened the store.. The table was up and the deployment was completed with space in the imperial lines for me to place the Dark Angels. 

Tyranid lines

Imperial line

Imperial fortifications

The game was epic, unfortunately I could play only until turn four as I had to work the day that 5 and 6 were played. The first four were awesome though. Turn one for the marines was purely about picking off anything that was in range. The first turn for the nids was about the advance onto the fortification as that was where the objectives were placed. Turn two for the marines was again fairly poor on the nid killing front and the nids turn two smashed the entrenched marines on the front line!!

Re-enforcements

Marine turn three - the deathwing smashed down into the rear of the nids as did a fists dropped containing an ironclad dreadnought. The ravenwing also came on the back of the table as did Sammuel!! Let the carnage begin!! 

Nids turn three was much the same with nids smashing in The back of the fortress this would get interesting 

Turn 3 saw the destruction of the baneblade only for it to re appear (thanks to and asset card) inside the fortress in an attempt to smash the nids

My deathwing somehow (to lano's amazement) survived an absolute smashing. 

I'll have to get lano to fill you in in 5 and 6 coz as I said I wasn't there. 

December saw the purchase of my deathwing knights - my god they are beautiful models and were painted quite quickly for me (see below) they are probably the nicest models I have painted to date. 

Christmas came and went an saw me with more cash that needed to be spent!! I decided with a scout squad and a ravenwing dark talon* 

These again were painted quite quickly but with better results than my first attempts at painting

* now the Ravenwing Dark Talon is a stunning model and probably the prettiest of all the fliers - unfortunately being the first codex released for v6 it is god awful. I was warned against getting it by the lads but I said I dont care I want to paint it!! And I did... And it's awful... The first game I played with it it came on killed a Tyranid harpie and promptly got smacked out of the air like it was nothing!!

January - a new year - a new start 

This will be a whole new post

Dettol the stuff of champions

So I left you a few days ago with my minis going for a bath in Dettol...

Now Dettol as this post is entitled is the stuff of champions. Now I thought that it may take some of the paint off. Never in my wildest dream did I believe that it would strip it back to plastic!!

The results was amazing.. I decided to celebrate with even more buys!! I bought myself a Dettol present of a landraider and the old assault on black reach set - there's a dreadnought and termies!!! So again started the painstaking task of undercoat and base coat!!

Now the test really began.. Can I paint like a pro?!?!?!

We'll let me assure you the answer is a resounding NO!! 

I don't know what I was thinking but I can say that from my first to second attempts I was getting better. 

Now I've been told already on Instagram that there is to much highlighting and that there is a green glaze that can tone it all down, and I've said thanks for the advice because I do wish to be better at painting but you know what... I was and still am proud of these little guys. I really am pleased with them, yes I can probably do better now, in fact I know I can but I like them and that's how they are staying.

Now I know I haven't mentioned many games but as you can imagine I wasn't playing much because my minis were in a state if disarray however I was attending the Miniature Empire Gaming Club (who have a forum, a Facebook page and a blog - I will post the links soon but I don't know how to do that so I will have to ask Lano the groups 21 year old maths and technical genius!! ) I met some really nice guys there who play many games and I have sample some of these for myself! 

Warhammer 40000 - it's obvious I played this a few times 

Warmachine - for those who haven't played I suggest you do the game can be really quick as demonstrated by Damon! But is an awesome game that can be played reletivly cheap. 

Flames of war - it's good probably not for me at the moment

They play many more it's just I haven't sampled these. 

eBay I've found is an untapped source of cheap minis. I picked up three squads of tactical marines and a predetor tank for about £25!! These too got a Dettol bath and have slowly been under coated and painted. 

I didn't realise how quick I would get through seven months!! My next post will bring you right up to date. 

For now.. I'll leave you with a picture of a based and finished terminators. 

The journey continues...

Yesterday I left you with me heading home with my new stuff.

I headed home by bus raring to go. I'm on the bus looking through my new codex: dark angels, getting weird looks from people as to why I was smiling.. I was thinking to myself.. I was ok at painting before.. Now with more knowledge I will be as good as the pros!! WRONG!! But I'll get to that part later.

When I went in the first thing I did was open up Dark Vengeance and pulled the sprues out.. All plastic.. Wow what quality.. Never in my day etc etc.

I get out the land speeder and set up my box in the back garden like a spray booth and under coat the lot with my brand new can of chaos black undercoat!!

Once dried I start taking the models off of the sprues and gluing them together. Only the dark angels though.. I take care in removing all the crap (sprue joins and mould lines) once all the dark angels were together I gave the models a nice healthy coat of calaban green for the tactical squad and ushbati bone for the Deathwing terminators!! WRONG!! 

So then I gave the guns and eyes a touch of the old red treatment and a bit of lead belcher for the metal parts. Then I mixed a lighter green and dry brushed the tactical squad and sat back and thought wow I ain't lost a bit of technique in my old age... Pablo Picasso himself would marvel at this spectical. WRONG!!

Below is an image of my first painted mini

I put myself back on Instagram (having taken myself of a few years previously because of the fact they can use you photos anyware and you can do a thing) and waited for the likes to rack up!! WRONG!!

What I found was that actually I can't paint at all and that there are people out there that put eavy metal painters to shame!! 

So basically with my tail well and truely between my legs I finished my pants painting and cried a little inside. Returning to the shop I bought an attack bike to go with my raven wing and a devastator squad so I could blow stuff up!!

Getting back home I painted these models, again to a standard that can only be described as SUB. See below for a shot of this carnage

I played another game and as I didn't know the rules all that well. Damon at the shop told me that my army was not legal as I had only one troop choice and that devastators were heavy support!! So it was then I decided eBay was the way forward!!

Looking on eBay I saw that the cheapest tactical squads were the ones that were painted.. I thought buying this would be a bad idea as my bad painting on top of painting that is described as tabletop but actually as bad as mine would be a rubbish idea! 

It was at this point I started thinking 'nail varnish remover removes acrylic paint' looked it up on YouTube and found that it would melt my figures.  I researched some more and found simple green! YES the answer to all my dreams I could buy ch... Wait a minute.. Simple green is a US product!! S&@T that don't work! Another hour of searching the internet or as people north of the Watford gap call it t' tinternet I found that good old fashioned dettol would do the trick!!

Nb.. Although I have been doing this only seven months I have learned one pivotal fact.. Well two

1. Dettol should be in every wargamer's box

2. Don't use the said dettol without wearing gloves.. It makes your hands so dry so that they look like the hands of an eighty year old.

When the dettol arrived I decided that I really weren't happy with my painting and decided that the tactical squad, the devastators and Deathwing could go for a bath!!

Now I had only ever seen this technique completed on the internet and had no idea if it was going to ruin my models or not!

I'll leave it there for today.. I think my kids are going to try and fight mortal combat style if I don't see to them soon! For now.. As the cool kids say*.. Laterz

* I don't think it's cool but you need to be.. As they say.. Down with the kids don't you!!!

The start of things to come

In the beginning there was the Emperor...

This blog is about 7 months late.. In reality I thought blogging was just uncool!! How wrong was I!!

The basics of this will be a journey of my rebirth as a tabletop Wargamer. My original journey was at 13 to 14 years old when I had a modest 1200 point imperial guard army for Warhammer 40,000. I was at 15 when I found women, beer and cigarettes, and so my 40k life finished for good.

It all started again shortly before my thirtieth birthday when I was speaking to my best friend on the blower about blood bowl, how this conversation got started I can't remember but I do remember the end... It went a little like this...

BF: ..... 40k

Me: yeah dude I would love to get I to that again

The wife: Gary.. What are you talking about??

Me: (to the wife) nothing love (To BF) dude if I get some cash for my birthday I'm gonna go and buy something, I'll catch you later dude.

And so a new monster inside me was born..

So my thirtieth came and went and loaded with cash I started researching some stuff online.. I watched loads of YouTube stuff especially the guys from Beasts of War (those guys are legends) and I was sold on the 40k starter set Dark Vengeance.. But damn Games Workshops is expensive so started looking at internet/independent shops.. Found a store near me in Gants Hill in Essex and called them.

I spoke to the manager Damon who states that every GW product (except direct order items) were 20% off... SOLD... I was there the next day!! 

At the store.. Oh it's called Miniature Empire... I went in with my then 16 year old brother and spoke to Damon. He talked me through the DV set and I mentioned that I hadn't played for a long time and he helpfully offered me a game so that I could get a clue on the rules again. Now this conversation went something like this...

Me: .... And I haven't played for years

Damon: well I have Dark Angels and Necrons here... as you are getting Dark Vengeance and want to play Dark Angels you play them and your son can play my Necrons.

Me: (a bit offended that this nice man could possibly make me old enough for my 16 year old brother to be my son) that's my brother.. And thanks it would be lovely!!

So.. After a game and a bit of cash spent I walked to the bus stop with Dark Vengeance, a land Speeder and a bit of paint and brushes..

And so it began.. This my new hobby that I believe is one of the best in the world and also one where there are not many kids.. 

Well that's enough for now, don't want to tell you guys everything all in one night.. I hope to put some pictures of my painting on here and some of the reports from the battles I've had but for now.. Goodbye.