Flanel Fields 2.0

It has been a bit bare on this hobby front over this half term. I installed Star Wars the Old Republic and played that a few days before accepting that my computer can't handle it. I then moved back to playing Northgard, agame I experimented with a couple of years back and have fallen in love with this month.  I have played at least a couple of games per week since school started.

Then over the half term holiday, when I had planned to complete any hobby projects, I discovered a guide to improve how you play Starcraft 2 and have ended up prioritising that this week. All I managed to paint was a couple of new fields. 

I really like how they look and how they will break up the battle mat from just green

Uh oh...

A bit of a whim...but I may have just ruined my life. I played this game for a couple of months back in 2013. We will see what happens.

Return of the Mojo: Stuff on the bench

Two weeks of paternity leave, a week of "end of term" teaching, plus another two weeks of Christmas holiday. It sounds like the perfect time to be productive in the hobby. Last time I had paternity leave I made great strides with my computer gaming. This time, I tried something similar, tried to paint something, but generally have had almost no motivation. After griping about it on The Wargames Website, I decided to actually do something about it, read the responses, and see if I could paint something.

Tonight was the night! I managed to finish my Xenos and Colonial Marines (ultimate badasses). I also did some re-painting and flocked a couple of fields. It felt good to get momentum going again.

The grey vehicles have been disastrously painted police vehicles that have been sitting around for over a year. I just went over them in an effort to restart. Now to Pintrest to find ideas for sleek looking sci-fi police. The blue MLRS has been sat around for the same amount of time. I will just finish it this month.

Xenos and Colonial Marines. Looking forward to getting these into a game. Urge to build indoor terrain rising. Need to buy copious amounts of granny grate.

2019 Goals and Reflection on the Year.

I made a few goals for 2018. Some I did better on and others I didn't do so hot on. Here is a breakdown of the goals made for 2018:

6mm WW2

I am mostly pleased with this. I have enough infantry painted up so I can field about a platoon each of Germans and Americans. I have some StuGs, Panzer IVs and a Tiger on the German side, which is great. Unfortunately I only have 3 Sherman 76s, which isn't ideal, as such I need to put in an order of normal armour. 

I haven't managed to get any games in though. This is back to the time old issue of not having enough terrain. I have a few buildings, a couple of roads and some hedgerows. I need more though, and I want different ideas for roads. Currently I am in the process of making fields, and today I picked up two more towels with which to make even more of them. I reckon I will be happy with terrain by the summer in order to get a game on the table.

Activities Week

This was a resounding success. I loved running the games, I loved hosting, I loved getting kids into wargaming. I will be doing this again this coming summer. 

Existing Sci Fi Campaigns

The campaigns of Startport Scum and Horizon Wars that I began at the end of 2017 have still amounted to nothing. I haven't played another game on Satomi, or in the Edge of the Storm campaign. At some point these will continue, maybe this year. It is ironic because the two campaigns were going to link together, with the Satomi battles becoming the origin story for one of the Starport Scum characters. It was going to be amazing. 

New Goals for 2019

1. To actually have enough terrain to have a 6mm WW2 battle. This is an absolute priority.
2. Entrench the Wargaming club at work. I haven't done it this autumn. but the guys know it is coming back in January. In this club a number of different games will be played. Already we have done Star Wars Miniatures and Star Wars Pocketmodels.
3. Finally order some more miniatures to build up my WW2 forces.

Other occurrences

The arrival of my third child, a son this time was a highlight.

Flanel Fields

I hate the boring green gaming mat I sometimes use. The plain desert mats are okay. The fake grass from Lidl are also decent, although can still be quite boring. Unless I absolutely throw down with scatter terrain, there is just so much blank green. So my search to shake things up a bit led me to watch this video. It inspired me to go to Tesco and spend £1 on two tan coloured face washing cloths (my mum raised me calling these "flannels"). I cut out some squares and painted them up as follows:

I much prefer how the green one came out. Although I watered the green paint down to really soak into the cloth. The brown one had neat paint, which I think was a mistake, although it isn't that bad. I might dry brush a few other brighter colours on it to be fair. 

All in all I am pretty happy with these. The only problem is that they are thicker than I was expecting, and I have no idea what kind of wash cloth the guy in the YouTube tutorial used because that one appears much thinner. The ends also curl up a little, but that isn't too bad. 

For the cost, they are fine. The most time consuming thing is getting the green paint on. 

Imperial Assault Miniatures - Rebels, Wookiees, Stormie

Very pleased with how these turned out. Terrible shame I won't be keeping them as they are my brother's. Painting these miniatures makes me want to get into large miniature skirmish gaming...but space and money...

Colonial Marines and Xenomorphs

Two nights in a row I have managed to find the desire to paint some miniatures. Now I feel like I have my groove back.

Below are my attempts at painting an ultimate bad-ass and his team of ultimate bad-asses. No pointy sticks though. I am not sure if I am happy with the colour scheme though. Luckily I only painted up 4 of them.

Here we see the Xenos. They are looking good. I used two different base colours, but can't really tell the difference. Happy with how they turned out I will be able to bash out a whole bunch more of them quite quickly.

Imminent Paternity Leave

So back in February 2017 I had my two weeks of paternity leave. We had just moved house and I had recently managed to get my gaming computer up and running again. During those two weeks, in the evenings once all were in bed, I almost completed the campaign of X-Com: Enemy Unknown, messed around with Skyrim and also a little Starcraft 2. It took until a few weeks ago to actually get round to finishing X-Com, and my gaming rig has since been sold.

My next child is due to arrive within the next four weeks, and I am wondering what I can do during those paternity evenings. No more X-Com to play. My laptop can't handle Skyrim. I honestly don't feel like competitive online gaming, which rules Starcraft 2 out, as I have finished the campaign. I had originally thought to play Galactic Civilizations III, but my laptop can't handle that. I tried to play Galactic Civilizations II the other day and just wasn't into it. As such I am at a loss. It may just be the case that I devote those evenings to model making, figure painting, terrain building, and wargaming. I reckon I can bash out a few games in those evenings.

So, unless anyone has any fairly non-graphics heavy computer game that I can sink my teeth into for two weeks, I think there may be an explosion of productivity regarding this hobby.

The following things need to be completed:

6mm Xenomorphs

6mm Colonial marines + APC

6mm US anti tank guns

Imperial Assult miniatures for my brother

6mm hedgerows/bocage

6mm roads

6mm fields

Youbos - Vector Art

I've been having a bit more fun with my vector art. Youbos - a dustball with colonies for reasons that make no sense. The software I used is Vectr. It took me a while to work out how to create a silhouette but I managed. 

Normandy Progress: A closer look at the hedges.

I brought my felt mat back from school to see how the hedges and roads look on a green backdrop. My kain take away from this is that I really don't like the felt mat. It is too uniform. I much prefer the Lidl mats I bought this summer. I also need more by way of fields and things to break up the green.

A German ambush lies in wait. I mean it looks fine, but the road is curling up which annoys me. I have found other methods for road creation, so hopefully I can experiment with those soon.

The GIs advance. Hoping to hold the road junction. It all feels very cramped. Not sure how happy I am with that. I feel very much like "that'll do" but want more. I want to wow myself with my terrain making prowess. Back to the ideas phase I think for roads. Hedges I am pleased with. I just need more.