A quick update. …

Sorry it’s been a quiet month on Tales From The Mancave….the girls have been excitedly preparing for Christmas and I’ve been kept busy with shopping, wrapping, chopping, cooking and playing games that sadly aren’t the kind I’d usually post about. So I’m going to give a quick update to keep your all advised of what’s been going down.  Let’s keep this simple. ….

I managed to grab three Star Trek Attack Wing Reinforcement Blind Booster Bricks for the forthcoming Temporal Cold War OP Series. I’ll be trying to post about each vessel and stick some pictures up as soon as I can.

Sticking with a space theme I’ll move next onto Star Wars.  I managed to grab a viewing of The Force Awakens on opening day and was like a child in a sweetshop with Daddy’s credit card!  Lol. Gaming wise I managed to pick up the last remaining ship I required to complete my Star Wars X-Wing collection. …the Tantive 4. Now onto Wave 8.  Being a massive Imperial fan I also wanted to get my dirty hands on the impressive Gozanti class Imperial Assault Carrier to swell the ranks of my Imperial Fleet.  I grabbed one for a very good deal of £39.67 (including P&P) from boardgameprices.co.uk which I was very happy about!

Sticking with Star Wars Christmas was very kind to me and I managed to get a whole heap of Star Wars Imperial Assault goodies from my girls.  I received Dengar to add to my wretched hive of scum in IG-88 & Boba Fett. I’m aiming to put together the whole line up of Bounty Hunters from The Empire Strikes Back. …so I need 4-Lom, Zuckuss and Bossk.  Then I’ll have then go toe to toe with my other games worth of hunters….the Predators from Prodos’ AvP.  I also got a copy of the latest expansion for SW:IA Return to Hoth. Finally I was given a load of Villain and Ally packs to build my SW:IA forces; – a Royal Guard Champion,  Kayn Samos, Chewbacca, Han Solo, R2-D2 & C-3PO and Princess Leia. So I can now assemble the whole gang from the films.  Happy gamer!

I did post a while ago about me returning to the Judge Dredd fold at NAGA to have some games with Brent Jay and Co. Well I was watching some very good deals on EBay and add luck would have it I did manage to scoop up the whole lot for a very decent price of £37 (including P&P). I ended up winning auctions for gangs for Judge Cals Personal Retinue, Justice Dept. Mega City Judges and Specialist Judges. So they’ll go onto the gaming table for use at some point in January against Brent.

The Hairy Gamers (me and Tris) took a little road trip to Dragonmeet in London during December to collect our AvP Wave 2 pledges and boy was there a whole load to struggle through a busy convention with.  I now have 3x Alien Warriors, 2x Alien Queens, 2x Royal Guards, 2x Alien Crushers, 2x Predaliens, 2x Alien Eggs, 2x Berserker Predators, 2x Predator HellHounds, 2x USCM Powerloaders and 1x each set of Dice (USCM, Aliens & Predators). I also bought an extra two boxes of Alien Warriors from Asylum Wargames Online Shop for a great price of £10 each. You can grab some too by visiting them on http://asylumwargaming.tictail.com/ . These guys have great deals on all sorts of goodies residual if you’re interested in Macrocosm or AvP.

This takes me neatly onto Macrocosm. Despite the awesome Chris Nicholls being very busy with his adventure into fatherhood for the second time he managed to go above and beyond to send out my Macrocosm Malignancy pledge.  Once the chaos of Christmas has subdued I’ll try to take some pictures and post more about this! Thanks Chris.  If you too are interested in Macrocosm then you can find more details on the website at http://www.macrocosm.co.uk/

Whilst we were on our road trip I managed to teach Tris the rules for The Devils Run and we even managed to grab a couple of demo games on the stand the Word Forge Games team were using.  Both of us are mad keen for this game and with any luck I’ll be able to help Mark Rapson with some more play testing and reviewing of the game in the build up to shipping.  With so many ideas for this game, with me posting regular bat-reps and reviews and with Mad Max Fury Road available on Blu-Ray and DVD it was inevitable that others would be drawn into the TDR:R666 game. Recently Tris and I expanded the Hairy Gamers family by inviting Gareth Mosley and James Hall to join our ranks. Both have the R666 bug and are busy trash-bashing and scheming for when R666 drops.  James has been busy using any and all HotWheels and Matchbox cars he can get his busy hands on to bash together some cars to use.  I myself am waiting until my pledge drops to see what gaps I have in my collection before getting too busy with trash-bashing. My ideas are mainly for scenery and game tiles based on British Roads rather than the American ones in the game.

Guildball now. ….as some of my regular readers will recall I play in a local Guildhall league at Black Dragon Games in Hinckley. Sadlt this has not been going to we’ll for my Fishermen who have lost their opening two encounters against Craigs Mort-Union team (12-8) & Andy T’s murderous Butchers (12-4). This week I have a double header of games planned against David Mustin and Mark Southerd in store on Tuesday so watch this space for that.  I’ve gone in half’s on a Union Starter with David to get me a copy of Avarisse and Greede to add to my Union Starter of Blackheath, Decimate and Gutter. I also added a Harry “The Hat” Hallahan to my Union line-up this month as well as hopefully getting the miniatures I’m owed by Jay Finnegan in the form of Fangtooth and Hemlocke. At some point I’ll have to grab me a copy of Coin,  the Union Mascot, so I can play Union too. I’ll do a “Gaming on a Budget” post later to cover my Guildball activities.  Having seen a couple of demo’s at Dragonmeet and spoken to one of the brains behind Guildball, Rich, Hairy Gamer Tris had also picked up a great deal on a Masons team for Guildball so we’ll probably throw down at some point even if it’s just to teach him the rules.

Lastly im going to talk about Frostgrave. Not the game or any bat-reps or warband stuff but mostly terrain.  I managed to grab myself two of the old Games Workshop Mighty Fortress plastic kits from EBay as a starter for my planned scenery. I wanted to build the walls of Felstadt. I also picked up 84 Lemax Snow Covered Wintery Pine Trees, a Garden of Morr kit from GW and some rather large Amera plastic moulded kits for their F204 Large Hill Top Ruin (Fantasy Realms page) & Z236 Corner Ruined Building  (Future Zone page). You can take a closer look at thier range on the link below;-

http://www.amera.co.uk/product.php?range=f

Once I get the chance to do anything with any of the above I’ll post something.

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to you all!

Gaming on a budget – The Challenge (Part 3)

In the third part of my “Gaming on a Budget” article Im going to look at Bases with a view to getting some further down the line to unify my team.

A good set of characterful bases can make or break a unit or team in any game and getting the right ones is a very difficult thing to achieve.  There are so many producers out there who make them; Outpost, MicroArt Studios, Fenris Games, Bases4War, Model Display Products, Wyrd Miniatures, and the list goes on……

Today I’m going to look at the options available for my Fisherman’s Guild Team.

Firstly there are a number of options, shapes, sizes and styles to consider.  You can buy square bases, round bases, hexagonal bases, oval bases and “cavalry” bases which are pill shaped.  Guildball uses round bases so that makes that decision easier.  Straight out of the box my Fisherman’s Guild team were supplied with the correct size of base for their miniature in a DS style.  What does this mean?  Well there are three styles of bases to choose from:-

DS Round Profile Base – image credit to Fenris Games.

DS Round means a quarter round lipped base with a flat circular recess area on the top for the insertion of a “topper”.  Many companies such as PRODOS and SteamForged use bases of this type.

Chamfered Profile Base – image credit to Fenris Games.

Chamfered means a base with a slightly slanting edge which can help in identifying miniatures because you can use them for Team numbers and Names, especially useful in Necromunda and Blood Bowl etc.  These are the standard GW Warhammer 40K base.  They can come with a flat recess on the top to insert a topper some do not.

Straight Profile Base – image credit to Fenris Games.

The last option is a Straight Profile base.  These bases do not come with a recess or any kind of edge.  Base toppers look very much like this.

My first option is my go to guys for bases Fenris Games. They make resin bases in all the styles discussed above.  I have used them before (for the Sulaco & Sulaco Hive bases for my AvP) and can heartily recommend them.  The options here for my Fishermen are:-

Darkmere Swamp

Lost Shores

Oddly neither of these are really grabbing my attention as a set of bases.

My second option are Bases4War.  I’ve also used these guys to produce my Battlefield Debris DS Round resin bases for my Cybertronic forces in PRODOS Games Warzone Resurrection.  They shipped quickly, were cheap and did free UK shipping so again they come well recommended.  The option I could go with here is:-

The Deck

My fear in using these bases is that my Fisherman team would look a little piratey but they’re not a bad option.  I prefer them to the Fenris Bases so far.

My third option is MicroArt Studio who are based in Poland.  I’ve never used these guys before but they came well recommended by many people.  An issue here is timing.  The company website says they only get two visits from the postie a week so I could order on a Monday and not get my stuff dispatched until the Friday (not allowing for manufacturing time).  Also the extra time taken in delivery is a factor as they will take significantly longer and probably accrue additional; postage costs.  The only option I feel really matches anything like the feel I’m looking for my Fishermen is:-

Wood

These are nice and look like a ruined jetty or pier.  They could suffer the same piratey issues as The Deck from Bases4War.

My next option for bases are Model Display Products.  I’d not heard of these guys before I posted on the Guildball Forum but having a taken a look at their website I was quietly impressed and could see why they were being discussed.  They had some nice bases I might be interested in for other projects but in terms of options for my team one stood out at a first glance:-

Dock/Quayside

I quite liked the wooden effect, like the deck of a ship or pier/jetty (which seems to be a theme for sea/marine flavoured bases) but wasn’t too keen on the cobblestone bases as part of the set.  If I wanted cobblestones there were other ranges I’d choose.

Outpost were one of the options I picked up from using the Guildball forums.  Some people had recommended them but I think they are resellers of others bases rather than producers in their own right.  I had heard good things about Outpost from Hairy Gamer Tris and Gareth Mosely so figured I’d give them a crack.  Aside from previously discussed bases and styles the only one that jumped out at me as being a viable option was:-

Hit the deck!

They sound interesting but unfortunately I cannot see any images for them as they’re out of stock.  I think I may like them but its whether they’d suffer the “too piratey” problem of The Deck from Bases4War.

Its certainly a tough one for me and of course I could always do my own bases?  I could make some flocky grassed bases with lines painted on them as I would have done for Blood Bowl or could make some nautical/marine themed bases.  I don’t really have many ideas for doing this myself at present and Im struggling for base inspiration.  If any readers of this blog have done some home-made Fisherman’s Guild bases then please let me know and post a comment with a picture.

For now I’m going to sign off and cogitate my options.  Hopefully Outpost will get a restock and allow me to view the finished Hit the Deck bases.

Happy fishing my little Guildballing friends!