CANCON News and Loot

Having spent the last 36 hours in sunny* Canberra I got back home this afternoon toting a metric sh1t-tonne of goodies and awesome memories. But before I get onto the loot a brief overview of the show and a the Antipodean Bloggers meet-up....

* may not be strictly true [ahem]

This year's CANCON was like most I guess in that it had good and bad aspects. The bring-and-buy (see below) was pretty good and despite not being of a mind to line up this year I still scored a pile of bargains. The trade hall was pretty good too although "dice guy" was missing for once and I'd actually taken the time to write a list. Whoops!

There seemed to be a bigger focus on comp games this year and the table / terrain quality varied from really impressive to downright boring (unpainted MDF???). The Cold War participation game looked awesome and was a corker to play I'm told as was the ACW game but the rest was disappointing to say the least. We'd hoped to have a go at the 28mm Napoleonic game but we couldn't engage the organisers who seemed disinterested to the point of boredom so we wandered off. Why bother running a "participation game" if that's your attitude? A shame as it looked great...

The highlight was most definitely the Antipodean Bloggers meet-up and we managed roughly a dozen peeps all up at various times. Dinner with the lads was great fun and everyone commented on the fact despite many of us never having met in person before we had a blast and it felt like old times. An entertaining "people's pub protest" was conducted with a number of us writing heartfelt entreaties to Alex Buchel of SAGA fame, requesting a campaign supplement in no uncertain terms (written on beer coasters for extra credibility). These will be delivered in person later this year. If that won't get it written I don't know what will!

Left-to-Right: Chris (Moruya Marauders), Barks (Wargaming with Barks),
Paul (The Man Cave), Kaptain Kobold (The Stronghold Rebuilt), Dux (Dux Homunculorum),
Definitely not a GIMP and Steve (from Odin's Night games club).

OK, enough news about events, time for some news about loot. In short, I made out like a bandit and rather pleased I am about it too. Here's the haul...

Land Raider Crusader. $45 and just a bit of cleaning up required before painting.

NINE (one elsewhere) 40K/WFB army books for $25 (yes really!)

1kg of MDF off-cuts (free) for all kinds of terrain work

4 x unknown sci-fi figs from 1995 for skirmish games ($5). Any idea what they are???

5 x Eldar Dark Reapers ($10) for my Rogue Trader project

Dystopian Wars NIB KoB Wolf Pack ($20)

Dystopian Wars mint KoB starter box and Avenger Class Carrier ($30)

Quite the haul I think you'd agree. I now have so much Dystopian Wars KoB stuff to paint it's crazy but I really like it and couldn't walk by at the price. Points-wise it's over 3,000 without upgrades and while I doubt I'd ever play a game that big it means I can do all sorts of nifty combos and play some decent scenarios.

So all up a rollicking good time with lots of new toys and great mates. I'm not sure what more I could asked for? Actually, not true, we passed the Batmobile on the way home. Caked iced. Story, end of :-)

Cheers,
Millsy

AHPC Bonus Round 2... EPIC Fail

I struggled for inspiration for the second "Epic Fail" bonus round but got there in the end. Once a germ of inspiration had blossomed however, I experienced significant trouble reigning my enthusiasm in but somehow managed it. I think. :-)

Here's my entry, a double dose of revenge for previous digs by fellow inmates Tamsin and DaveD, with both of whom I have a tremendously enjoyable ongoing series of wind-ups.

There are loads of other entertaining, creative and gorgeously painted entries so head over and cast your vote!

Cheers,
Millsy

D-6 to Aussie Bloggers Meet-Up: CanCon 2016

That's right peeps, we're less than a week away now from out meet-up at CANCON!

1:00pm at the Board Games section in the Northern Hall at CANCON 2016. Hope to see you there!

Cheers,
Millsy

Painting Challenge entries so far...

Time has been limited by various real life occurrences of late so blogging has been lagging behind the painting a bit I'm afraid despite being on hols. Anyway, I've found a few minutes while the paint dries (better than watching it!) so he's a brief recap of what's been painted Challenge-wise thus far...

 

This is my entry to the Bonus Round Number One, Ethel the Fire Engine and crew. Loads of other great entries to see and one day of voting left so pop on over...

And finally a small unit of crossbows for my SAGA Normans...

Two more submissions are ready today so hopefully some more eye candy for you in the not-to-distant future...

Cheers,
Millsy

Goodbye Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites

[Sigh!] One of the things I liked most about Blogger was the ability for non-Google folks to follow blogs. That's all about to change, "for the better". Really? Better for who?

"In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.

Posted by Michael Goddard, Software Engineer"

Not much we can do about but it still stinks...

Cheers,
Millsy

The Challenge (Day 17); The Importance of Adaptability (and Chemistry for Beginners)

The 6th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge continues apace!

Regular readers will be pleased to know that I finally pulled my finger out and got some runs on the board in the first of the themed rounds, 'Nostalgia', though it wasn't exactly what I originally had in mind.

I had planned to get some old lead painted up, but well, it was a lot of lead, and it was very old, and as it turns out, old lead is both very fragile and very prone to oxidisation. Here's an example;

He's clearly seen better days.

Needs a little cleaning and reconstructive work, right? And you see that fine dusty patina over the surface?

If only I'd seen that before undercoating the other dozen figs... I'd removed flash and mould lines, but failed completely to reckon with 30 years' worth of oxidisation. Paint completely failed to stick, leaving the vintage minis a blotchy mess.

Well, I still have the one shown above, so we'll see how we go cleaning him up for painting. Incidentally, he's one of a boxed set of RuneQuest adventurer figs from 1982 - how nostalgic would that have been?

So I had to activate my contingency plan, or rather, come up with a contingency plan. And here he is!

Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African Explorer!

Copplestone Castings produced this wonderful figure of Groucho Marx, as seen in 1930's Animal Crackers. I'm just glad I had this one stashed away on the north face of my lead mountain!

He was painted with a mix of GW paints and the Vallejo colours which I'm progressively phasing in as the GW stuff runs out. Basing is on a 25mm Renedra plastic base with a layer of Vallejo White Pumice for texture, and Tajima1 Tufts to finish it off.

Hello, I must be going...

So if you haven't already, get on over to the Bonus Themes page at The Painting Challenge and check out the other entries in the 'Nostalgia' round. You will not be disappointed!

More later - stay tuned!

Ev

Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016

With 2015 just about done with it's time for another annual round up of:

1. What I planned to do
2. What I actually did
3. What I didn't do

And just occasionally where 1 coincides with 2. So what fantastical promises did I make last year?

GLORIOUS PLAN MILLSY 2015

Finish the WFB Savage Orcs
Nearly done now. Two units of cavalry soon to make an appearance in the AHPC, then it's just a giant troll, a shaman on wyvern and they're complete.

Finish the 40K Space Marines
Similar situation. All the infantry and armour is finished and I've got just three land speeders plus a devastator squad and I'm done there too.

Finish the Epic Squats
Hmmm... Only about 50% complete, mainly due to difficulties procuring remaining bits and bobs.
That's all sorted now and they'll be moving forward really soon.

Paint all my remaining VBCW miniatures (Soap Works Militia and Chester BUF)
Done inside the next 24 hours. I've got vehicle I'm sitting on for the Nostalgia round of the AHPC (shhhh!) but otherwise they're finished.

Plow on through the Warmaster Empire, hopefully to completion
Fail. Haven't touched them since last year's AHPC other than to add to the wee beggars. [ahem]

Finish touching up the Cadians I bought in 2014 and add some vehicles and maybe some elite support
I back-burnered this project in favour of the Catachans which needed a load more work. I have two bases to go on those and a really big project is complete, including all the armour I added this year.

Continue the WFB Dogs of War
A little progress but this is a real long term project so it'll go on and on, possibly forever :-)

Finish ALL the remaining Flames of War
All the Germans for Ostfront was completed but the DAK hasn't been touched. Hopefully I'll add that to the AHPC queue this year.

Get some more terrain made and in use
Enough progress to be satisfied but I need to keep working at it.

Finish the ECW Royalists
Nailed it!

Finish my extra Dystopian Wars Britannian ships
Another one on the AHPC painting queue. Haven't played for ages and no impetus to paint apart from a desire to finish another project.

And.... most likely several mad "side projects" as Curt likes to call my lack of focus
That'd be an entire SAGA Norman warband, a commission for design work on Simon's To the Strongest! rules, a large Dark Angels commission, four more issues of WBQ, a large BUF force for VBCW, two more 40th birthday bonanzas plus all the other odds and sods. I guess you could call that a "slight distraction"...

GLORIOUS PLAN MILLSY 2016

2016 will hopefully be another pretty productive year. I've got a number of major projects nearing completion and plan to slam a few doors closed over the next 2 months. So.... zee plan?

• Finish the WFB Savage Orcs
• Finish the 40K Space Marines
• Finish the Epic Squats
• Finish ALL the remaining Flames of War
• Finish my extra Dystopian Wars Britannian ships

Um, yeah, you're right that's last year's plan. OK, I've referred to the List of Shame (yes that is a real thing and its longer than my arm) so what's going to be added?

• Orc Skirmish Warband
• Frostgrave Warband
• 40K Imperial Guard (Cadians)
• Finish off the Necromunda collection (Delaque, Ratskins, Pit Slaves, Chaos Cultists, etc.)
• 28mm French and Austrian Napoleonic skirmish
• 15mm French Napoleonics
• Runequest army for To the Strongest
• Continue the Imagination project

and... BUY LESS STUFF!!! :-)

The last item is about as likely as a very unlikely thing happening on Unlikely Sunday but I can try right?

So that's about it for 2015. A very Happy New Year to all our friends and followers from me, Evan and the rest of the crew here at C&G. Stay safe people and pop by every now and again to see what's up.

Cheers,

Millsy