The Giant’s Lair

Rejoice, rejoice!   

Good news people, your prayers have been answered and the Gods have finally smiled on the South West of England.  This Saturday will see the grand opening in Plymouth of ‘The Giant’s Lair’ the South West’s Premier Gaming Venue.

From the venue's website: 

Opening 1st of October 2011

The open day allows players and potential players to check out the Lair and to see what all the fuss is about.
Throughout the day we will be running:

• Apocalypse sized 40k madness
• Warhammer monster mash up
• Space Hulk missions on giant 3D board
• Demonstration games of WWII tank battles
• Talisman board game bash
• Tables set up to come and play on
• Raffle where you can win some great prizes
• Membership sign up with the chance to win a massive replica sword!
• Spot prizes on the day
• Food and drink available in our bar and kitchen area 

Come and get involved in the mayhem or just pop by for a coffee.
Open from 0900 onwards.
We can't wait to see you at the Lair.

Having been for a sneaky look around last weekend, I can confirm that it is officially awesome with loads of purpose built gaming tables, a bar and even a working toilet.  If fact, I would give it my seal of approval, if I actually had one.

You can look at some of the photos of the Lair being prepared on the book of faces, and you can find directions here.

 

Anyway, make sure you get down there this Saturday for the grand opening, and make sure you tell them Frugal Dave sent you!

Happy Gaming

It's finally come to an end...

After a couple of years of posting on the subject, I’ve decided to call an end to it.  After hours spent blogging about it, I’m done.  I’m finished.  It’s all over. 
That’s right, I’ve finally completed my Orc and Goblin army!  I’ve now got 2400pts of tournament standard painted army ready to go, woo hoo!  It’s been a large undertaking, it’s been a challenge and it’s been a pain in the arse, but it’s complete.

The (proxy) Black Orcs get ready to do what they do best.  Hit things.  Hard.

 I’ve been painting for years, but it has always been figures for small scale skirmish games such as Necromunda and Mordheim, so I didn’t realise how much work would be required.  It only took painting the first unit before I realised that my usual painting style was far too slow and detailed to get me through in a reasonable amount of time.  I had to learn to paint a lot quicker, trying dips, all-over washes and loads of drybrushing in an attempt to get figures on the table.  I learnt the importance of making sure that units rank up and I realised that when painting an army, it was the overall effect that was the most important thing, not each individual model.  It took a while for me to get the idea, but I was happy when it finally happened!

It wasn’t all hard work though, I had great fun making some of the pieces; the rocklobber, the maggot hoppers, the spider riding boss and my own personal favourite; the snotling pumpwagons.

Some of the rough sketches for my Rocklobber

This is the first full army that I’ve painted so I’m feeling quite proud of myself.  I’ve learned some good painting skills, and probably picked up some bad ones as well.  I’ve already got plans in place for my next fantasy army, and I’ll be using what I’ve learned on the greenskins to great effect.

Of course, I know that no army is ever fully ‘finished’ I’ll be repainting some of the units and adding the odd piece, but the rush is now over and I can focus on actually playing with it. I’ve got my first game with a fully painted full size army at the club tomorrow night (appropriately enough, against Dwarfs!) so I’m looking forward to seeing if fielding a finished army improves my luck at all. 

I’ll add a few photos from the battle in the next couple of days and let you know the result :)

Happy Gaming

P.S. You can find all the stories of my work completing my army by clicking on the ‘goblins’ label.
P.P.S.  A big 'Hello' to all my fellow greenskin generals who may be visiting from 'Da Warpath'.  Check it out peeps!

The Stylishly Frugal Blogger

Blogging is a terrible job.  All I do is put in a minimal amount of effort in every week or so and I get loads of positive feedback from complete strangers.  I spend an hour or two every week jotting down rubbish and I have people coming up to me and thanking me for writing the blog.  I hate it.

Things got even worse a couple of weeks ago, as I was informed that I'd been given a 'Stylish Blogger Award' not only once, but TWICE!  It's a nightmare.

There's not actually a trophy to go with it.  But if there was...

Apparently the rules of the award mean that I've got to answer a few set questions, link back to the poor deluded individuals who nominated me, and then link to a number of of other blogs that inspire me.  Yes, it's less an award and more a chain letter with flattery, but hey it's a chance to talk about me,  and some of you of course.

1. Thank and link back to the person giving you the award.
Mucho thanks go to Ruaridh at The Ooh Shiny Complex and Tristan at GW Pertinent.  Thank you!

2. Share seven things about yourself. 
Do they all have to be true?  Okay, one of them is made up.

1. I'm a Dad of two lovely children, who I'm currently training to be gamers (I have a number of other children, but they're horrible and not interested in gaming),
2. I'm one of the best wargamers that I know, hardly ever losing games,
3. I have earned the right to wear the Green Beret of Commando forces,
4. I love cycling and often compete in Triathlons (but not as often as I'd like),
5. I live in Plymouth, but I'm originally from Yorkshire (USA readers:  A part of northern England, very similar to ancient Sparta).
6. I've almost completed a degree in Engineering... in my spare time,
7. I'm a proud member of the Cross Swords gaming club.

3. Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award.
10-15?  That's a lot, so I'll just go with the creme de la creme (US readers: That's how people from France say 'Shit hot'):

I must first point to the excellent work undertaken by the contributors to this blog, on their own sites; Game Over by Von, pagan-gerbil.net by Pete and last (but by no means least) the wonderous Wee Blokes by Arabian Knight (US Readers: AK lives in Scotland, and 'Wee Blokes' is Scottish for 'Little Dudes').  Before you check out any of the other geeks I've listed below, make sure you visit these geeks first.

As to the others, a blog I really like is Doctor Merkury's Lab.  I've mentioned this blog before when I built a ruined wall, and I often check back to see what the good doctor has been up to.

If you're a fan of 40k, Epic, Space Marines, Sharks or really rather good cartoons, you should pop over and visit NinjaBread, run by Curis.  Just don't tell him I sent you as it'll go to his head.

Studio Cyberlab has to be seen to be believed, it's just insane.  It features some of the best conversions I've ever seen.

There's some interesting work going on with toys over at Nathan 'Ironworker' Miller's site, gaming related profanity at Dick Move*, and some fortifications being built at The Sharp End of the Brush which are shaping up to be very impressive.

Fortifications being built at The Sharp End of The Brush

And finally, one of the best blogs out there and not in any way gaming related; the New York based cycling blog: Bike Snob.  Fantastically funny.

That's all for now, please visit these other blogs and say hello from me, just make sure you come back.  Okay?

Happy Gaming.


*I've just noticed that 'Dick Move' has been nominated a number of times, his response to the whole idea is much better than mine.  Check it here.

The Frugal Lerker

If you listen to gaming podcasts such as Heelanhammer, Podhammer, and Bad Dice, you'll probably have heard of a Warhammer based magazine currently on the market called 'Unseen Lerker', after hearing a number of positive reviews I decided to give it a go.  I've not been a fan of gaming magazines in the past, but I decided to give this one a go for a number of reasons:

• It's had some fantastic reviews
• It focuses on Warhammer Fantasy
• It's only published six times a year.

Yeah, my main problem with previous gaming magazines was that I wasn't getting the chance to read them cover to cover before the next issue came out; this was combined with the fact that most magazines covered a wide range of games systems, of which I only played a small number. 

But anyway, Unseen Lerker is much better, even with my super-slow reading rate (I'm not stoopid, I'm just busy, okay?) I manage to read the magazine (and re-read my favourite articles) before the next issue drops through my letterbox.  Oh, and that's another point, and perhaps the greatest attribute of the magazine; it's a proper print and paper magazine, so you can, as they say themselves: 'Read it on the loo, not on the screen'.  It's not one of those horrible pdf magazines or blogs that you can only read while sat in front of a computer.  Erm...

I subscribed a few months ago based on the positive reviews and I've not regretted it, the magazine is a great mix of hobby and gaming articles written by those people who are genuinely involved and excited by gaming. 

Yawn... Frugal who?

Speaking of which, I must admit that the normally high quality of the magazine has dropped considerably in the latest issue; they've included an article on 'Frugal Gaming' by some scruffy bloke called Dave.  That's right, I've got an article in the latest issue of the mag, introducing their readers to the ideas of Frugal Gaming.  Of course, you lot don't need to read about all that stuff, but if you're interested in reading my article from the magazine, the Editor ('Bobo') has sent me a free PDF copy of my work that you can access here.

In addition, Bobo has kindly given me an extra copy of the mag that I'll pop in the post to one lucky reader.  If you'd like to go into the draw for a copy of the magazine simply send me an email, with the title 'Unseen Lerker competition' and I'll draw out one lucky winner.  Get your entries to me by midnight (British summer time) on Wednesday 11th May (that's nearly two weeks from now) and I'll get in contact with the winner within a couple of days.

I hope you like the article, if so give the magazine a try and make sure that you tell them that Frugal Dave sent you.

Happy Gaming!

Ch...ch...ch...changes...

Hello all, as you may have noticed, I've made a little change to the blog.  Instead of being 'yearoffrugalgaming.blogspot.com', we're now at 'ayearoffrugalgaming.com'.  Yeah, that's right, after a couple of years slumming it on blogspot, we're now a proper grown-up website.  Woo hoo!

If you have this page bookmarked, you'll find that you get automatically redirected, and most of the pages should automatically transfer across.  I'm in the process of checking through the site to make sure that there are no broken links or problems, so please bear with us and if you notice any major website malfunctions, drop me a line and let me know.

(Sort of) New and (Slightly) Improved

I have only one ambition in life, and that is to make this the greatest Frugal Gaming, cycling and cat related blog... IN TEH WORLDS!

This week I have put the pedal to the metal on the highway of improvement, revved up the engine of... erm.. making the blog a bit better and started burning rubber, or something.  What this basically means is that I have updated the 'Pages' tabs at the top of the blog to aid navigation around the site.  I've added a 'Categories' tab, with links to all posts on that subject, an 'FAQ' tab which lists lots of questions that in all honesty I've never been asked, and a 'Contact' tab so you can write beautiful electronic mail to me.  Of course, there's also the good old fashioned search box on the right hand side of the page. 

The idea behind this is to help you look around all the content on this site (there's a lot of it) and perhaps find something that interests you hidden away in the archives.

Have a look around, let me know how you get on, and if you have any comments, questions or suggestions, drop me a line!

Happy Gaming

Want to be a Winner? Or a Blogger? Or Both?

The Banner competition closed last weekend and I'm pleased to announce that the prize goes to Lawrence for his sterling efforts.  I'm really impressed with his design and as his was the only entry it made the judging process a lot easier.  Yes, that's right, only one of you lazy lot could bother your backsides to enter the competition, shame on you.  Fortunately, you have a chance to redeem yourself as you can always enter the current competition to win a copy of the book 'Wargaming on a Budget', details are here and you have until next saturday to get your entries in, if that's not too much trouble.

Anyway, back to the winning design; I'll be changing the banner to coincide with the new year, so keep your eyes peeled.  I'm afraid that I don't have a photo of Lawrence, but as he was the only heroic character who took on the might of my evil competition this will have to do:

As is becoming traditional, December is the year when I open up the blog to all you muggles out there who fancy a go at blogging (In fact, I'm always keen to welcome new posters at any time of the year but I get particularly lonely in the winter months).  If you're interested in writing occasional words about any aspect of wargaming, boardgaming or RPGs then send me an email with the title 'I want in, how much does it pay?' to the usual address.

Look out next week for the traditional 'End of Frugal Year Review' when I waffle on for a couple of hundred words about how great I am, before listing some of the least worst posts on this blog from the past twelve months.  See you soon!

Wargaming on a Budget - Book Review and Competition

Where do you read this blog, are you currently sat at your kitchen table? Are you at work? How about on the beach, or in the bath?  Though I’d like to think that this blog is a useful resource, you can’t beat a good old fashioned book to sit down and read wherever you fancy.

 
This week, I’m reviewing ‘Wargaming on a Budget’ by Iain Dickie.  For those of you unaware, Iain used to edit Miniature Wargames magazine, so he knows what he’s talking about.  The book presents ideas for gaming ‘constrained by money or space’, so you can see why it piqued my interest.

The scope of this book is huge, everything from ideas for campaigns and satellite combat rules, to descriptions on making ships and even casting your own figures.  It really does have it all, but the wide breadth of areas does not allow a large amount of depth; the book could quite easily be twice as long and still contain plenty to keep the reader entertained on each page. 

This reflects the slightly more ‘grown up’ tone of the book, it gives plenty of ideas and instructions, but doesn’t go into them in the type of explicit detail that many gamers are now used to.  As somebody who’s read lots of gaming and modelling articles, I appreciated this approach.  The book is decidedly ‘old school’ wargaming, covering all gaming periods and scale, again this may scare a few of the GW Fanboys off, but it shouldn't, there's so much content in this book and the majority of the ideas can be read across to any system or scale you choose to play.

The book doesn’t mention the internet as prominently as may be expected, which is a little strange.  I firmly believe that the internet is the single biggest gift to the frugal gamer; it allows price comparisons, reselling, discussion of tactics, free magazines and downloads, and a wide range of other resources. Though of course, any talk of ‘modern technologies’ instantly dates a book, so perhaps this was a wise move on the part of the author.

One of the ideas raised in the book is that, as gamers, we also need to be frugal with space.  It’s not something really covered in this blog, but it’s an area that surely affects us all.  Only a lucky few have dedicated gaming rooms where we can store all our figures, terrain and boxes of unfinished projects.  The author looks at ideas for changing scale, storing figures and making gaming tables that can be easily collapsed and stored away, ideas definately worth considering.

For me, the greatest strength of this book, alongside the huge amount of ideas, is the format.  I know this sounds stupid, but having a proper sized paperback to read, rather than an oversized glossy paged book is so convenient.  It can be read in the bath, in bed, or on the bus, without having to jostle for elbow room or tilt pages to look at the text. 

So don’t expect hundreds of glossy pictures and detailed instruction, (though colour pages are included).  This book makes a refreshing change from the step by step 'How To' guides that gamers have been spoon fed over the last decade.  If you want something with lots of genuinely novel and useful ideas in a friendly format, this is well worth adding to your Christmas list.

I'm giving away my review copy of this book in a prize draw; to enter simply send me an email with the title 'Book Giveaway' and I'll choose a winner at random.  The draw will close on the Saturday 18th of December at 1200 GMT.

Wargaming on a Budget by Iain Dickie is available through Pen and Sword books.  Many thanks to Rachele for the review copy.

Special 101st Blog Post Extravaganza!

Hooray!  This blog passed a couple of milestones in the last week or so; the last post was this blog's 100th (which helps any mathletes out there calculate my percentage of posts) I've also passed the 100 followers mark (106 as I write this) so I'd like to say a heartfelt 'thank you' to you all, and as a token of thanks, here's a photograph of me feeling suitably happy:

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I've created a remarkable frugal gaming quiz based on previous posts on this blog.  There are no prizes, simply look at the 10 questions, think about your answer and then click on it (no hovering!), use the return button on your browser to return to the fun!  If you're right, you'll see; if you're wrong you'll get a Boom!

Question 1: What is the Frugal gaming motto?

• Spend less, game more.
• Paying less, painting more.
• I'm loving it.
• To infinity and beyond!

 Question 2: Pete gave some tips on creating the perfect games night, what did he suggest?

• Popcorn
• A 'McGuffin'
• A box of staples
• All of the above

Question 3: With a small amount of wood, a polystyrene sheet and a hand made 'x' template you can make.

• Lots of friends
• A Blood bowl pitch
• A 2000pt Tournament legal Necron Army
• An elaborate, though mostly ineffective trap

Question 4: What method did Arabian Knight use to paint his Heroquest miniatures? 

• Basecoat and dip.
• Felt tip pens.
• White undercoat and colour washes.
• Dozens of layers, wet blended to perfection. 

Question 5: Which four of the following items have been made on this blog over the last two years?

• A post office
• Metal ladders
• A stone watchtower
• Tank traps
• Trees

Question 6: Is this a cycling blog? 

• Yes
• No

Question 7: What did Von say that his Warhammer army needed to have '...in order to destroy you!'

• Space Marines
• A Hefty Dose of Luck
• A Cauldron of Blood
• All of the Above

Question 8: What is best used to strip paint from miniatures?

• Domestos
• Dettol
• TCP
• TNT

Question 9: Can I save money and use Christmas as an excuse to get some more painting done?

• Oh no!
• Oh yes!

Question 10:Which three of the following offer fantastic free gaming resources?

• Bell of Lost Souls Minidexes
• Games Workshop Specialist Games
• Frugal Dave's Ultimate Awesome Free Gaming Website
• Dream Weaved Worlds

Special Bonus Ultra Question!
The 75 minute long, straight to DVD extravaganza Ultramarines 'movie' is now available for advance order.  What price are we expected to pay for this visual feast?

• A Bargain £5.99
• A Reasonable £9.99
• A Rather-pricey-but-still-justifiable £15.99
• An eye-wateringly-idiotic £25.99

I hope you enjoyed that.  Let know how you got on and I'll see you next time.

Happy gaming!

How Not to Blog...

Hello all!  You may have noticed that I've been slacking recently, leaving all the posting on this site to Pete, Arabian Knight (I'm still not convinced that's his real name) and Von.  Well, this is in no way due to a lack of interest, in fact it's the opposite!  The reason I've not been blogging about building, painting and gaming is that I've actually been building, painting and gaming.  What with this and what I like to call 'real' life (i.e. all the boring stuff), it's been a while since I've found the time to sit down and write about how wonderful I am...

Ahem, anyway what this means is that I have a heck of a lot to write up, so expect to see it soon on this very blog.  In the meantime, here's a peek at my workbench.

And here's something funny, see you soon!

Free Painting Service!

I'm always keen to receive emails from readers of this blog and the other day I got an interesting email from Dave (not me, apparently there are other people called Dave out there...), who is offering a Free Painting Service.  Yes, you heard correctly, a FREE painting service.

Like many of us, Dave looked in his cupboards and realised he had huge unpainted piles of lead, was still buying figures and didn't have the motivation to sit down and paint them.  A vicious circle.

He came up with a solution, here's the explanation on his blog:


I get other gamers... to send me your unpainted miniatures. Then I paint them and send them back. Brilliant, huh? It’s a great solution to my problems. Firstly, I’m not buying the figures. So, if I buy 0 and paint 1, then my painting to buying ratio is actually positive. Also, If I’ve got someone else’s miniature, I’m sure they are going to want it back, which gives me the motivation to actually paint it. 

I must say it's a crazy idea, but it just might work.  All that Dave asks is that you pay the postage (to him, he'll pay for it to come back to you), though he has mentioned setting up a PayPal 'tip jar' to accept any donations.

I can thoroughly recommend Dave's service; check out his blog, drop him a line and unburden yourself of your lead.

Note:  All photos on this post are Dave's own handiwork!

Your Year of Frugal Gaming

The main thing about my Year of Frugal Gaming is that it's soon coming to an end, of course this means that at the end of December I'll be returning to my normal non-Frugal ways (well, maybe, more of that in the next couple of weeks). To keep the Frugal dream alive, I'm now looking for other gamers to take up the challenge and try their own Year of Frugal Gaming.

If you currently live the life of a Frugal Gamer, or fancy having a year where you attempt to spend less and game more, then I'd like you to get in touch with me and I'll give you permission to post on this very blog!

I'm looking for all types of contributions, terrain, modelling, painting and money saving tips, frugal reviews, or even just updates on your thoughts as you live twelve months as a Frugal Gamer. You may have noticed that I like to put a lot of photos in the blog as well, so I hope you'll be able to do the same.
As well as the infinite kudos for being on this high profile blog (ahem), at the end of next year (2010) I will even dish out some prizes for the best posts, plus prizes for random contributors as well, so there's every reason to take part.

You don't have to be a great writer, you don't have to have had a blog before, all I ask is that you're passionate about wargaming, boardgaming, card games, modelling or painting. I'll make any minor changes or edits to your posts as necessary!

If you fancy trying your own Year of Frugal Gaming email me.

Save Money – But Only if You’re Fast!!

I was going to save this bit of information until my normal post on Sunday (this week – Making Trees, woo hoo!), but I've just realised that it'll probably be too late by then.

Many of you, especially those that read this blog regularly, are aware that I’m a big fan of Heresy miniatures , I love their style and quality and they’re my miniature manufacturer of choice. At the moment, Andy (who runs the company) is looking at moving into new premises and therefore needs a bit of cash and needs to clear some space, to this end, he’s having a SALE. Unlike many miniature companies, this isn’t just the usual ‘stuff that never sells’ that he’s getting rid; of there’s some awesome stuff in there (such as the excellent ghouls pictured below) and all have a decent chunk of money knocked off.


The sale ends after Monday the 26th, so on Tuesday morning, all sale items will be taken down and everything will be back to it’s normal price. There really is no better time to go and check out the site and invest some money in this fantastic company.

Visit the sale site here.

I'm back!

That's right, after moving into a new flat I have finally had some time to game, then sit down and write about it!

My gaming buddy Matt has returned from a long spell away with work, so we were both keen to catch up and throw some dice. We settled for a game of Blood Bowl as we now both have fully painted teams. We've been looking at starting a Blood Bowl league, but I hadn't had chance to get a team roster worked out so we just played a normal game. It was a good job really, as my Dwarfs got resoundingly spanked by Matt's Dark Elves, 4-1! Ah well, it's not the winning, it's the taking part. To be fair, it's not as though I'm a bad player, it's all the dice's fault, all I needed was for them to keep giving me 5's and 6's but they wouldn't cooperate!

I'm hoping to get back into painting soon as well, I need to get my Dark Eldar painted (or at least assembled) so I can get some 40k played. Matt, Kenny and I are looking at starting a small 40k campaign which should be good, and I also want to enter into the 40k championships at the Plymouth Association of Wargamers annual show in Feb, which seems like plenty of time, but it'll soon pass.

And of course in the last week it was announced that Space Hulk is being re-released, (woo hoo!) so I'm expecting a few games of that. Busy busy busy....

Batch Painting

I don't write a blog about cycling, but if I did, this week I'd be talking about cleaning my bike. For Christmas I got a cleaner called 'Muc-Off' (geddit?) which you just spray on and then wipe off, making your bike all lovely and shiny. It doesn't end up as clean as if you did a full scrubbing with brushes and sponges, but it only takes a fraction of the time. I was a bit snobbish at first, but you can't argue with very good results for a lot less effort. But like I say, I don't write a cycling blog, this is a Frugal Gaming blog and I think the bike cleaner story is very similar to my attitude to batch painting and washes, but more of that in a bit.

The big news this week was that my terrain has all sold (hooray!) it sold as a lot to a trader on ebay who is going to stock them in his shop. There was quite a bit to send so I packed it all up in a box and arranged a courier, this meant I had to take a day off work (my estimated pick up time was 'Thursday'!). As I was stuck in the house all day, I decided to put my time to good use and get some terrain making, mini prepping and painting done.

Batch Painting
I'm a bit of a perfectionist, it's not that bad, I just think that if I'm painting a mini I want it to look as good as possible. This is fine when I'm working on a small number of figures for my Necromunda gang, but not so good when I'm going to be starting to paint a full Imperial Guard army in a couple of months.

When I attended the Bristol Table top sale a few weeks ago I decided I wanted an 'ancients' figure to show that my terrain could be used for ancients gaming. I found a plastic Roman that I'd got free with a wargames magazine and quickly stuck it together. Deciding to paint it as fast as possible I quickly threw some base colours on, let them dry and then gave the figure a wash with the 'Ogryn Flesh' wash from Games Workshop. To amazement, it looked brilliant and the total painting time (not inlcuding drying) was less than ten minutes!

Now this worried me, all the time I've spent in the past, getting my figures to look as good as possible, has it been wasted?

I since decided to try and speed up my painting a bit by batch painting, my first effort was my Blood Bowl dwarves, I primed them, basecoated them and then gave them a couple of steps of highlight and that was about it. I added some runes on the shoulder pads for team numbers and sprayed them up with some 'Purity Seal' satin varnish.

I was really happy with the way they came out and they didn't take long at all. I've just got the rest of them to do now...

It felt good to get a group of minis finished in a reasonable time and they still look pretty good. Of course, the sooner I get them all painted, the sooner I can get playing Blood Bowl!

I'm now a lot less snobby about washes and quick highlights, I've even been having a look at the range of 'Dips' available, I've heard good things about them, but it feels like a big step! Have you tried them? Let me know. All the best, happy gaming!

Saturday - Finished Terrain... Hooray!

Well at long last, the train making is finished. Here are all the pieces finished and ready to go. If you want to pick one or more of these pieces up, come along to the Lincombe Barn Wargamers Tabletop Sale in Bristol on Sunday!

The prices are:

• Tanks Traps: £5
• Rocky Terrain:£4
• Buildings:£10
• Defensive Walls:£5
• Defensive Emplacements:£6

Click on the photos for larger scale photos, all the best

Dave

Magnetic Blood Bowl Bases

On Saturday I took a trip up to Exeter to attend the Legionary wargames show. It was quite a small show, but there were plenty of traders and some nice games on show. I kept true to my frugal mission and resisted buying too much, just the new Imperial Guard Codex for 40k.

My main reason for going was to attend the Bring and Buy, I didn’t manage to sell many of my goods, though I did pick up some badly painted plastic Orcs for Blood Bowl, which means I now have two teams ready to go. On the subject of Blood Bowl, when I got my Dwarf team a few weeks back I decided to put magnets under the bases and a magnet in the ball to make the ball stick to the base of whichever figure had it as they moved. I’d got the idea off the internet, but for the life of me I couldn’t find the article again, so I thought I’d write my own...

Making the base
The key to making magnetic bases is good magnets. Don’t be tempted to buy some old fridge magnets or cheap magnetic sheet, rare earth magnets are the ones to use. I bought mine from ebay; getting 100 3mm x 1.5mm magnets for £5. More than enough for my needs.

The first step is to clean your figure and attach to it it’s base as normal, here’s a slayer that I’ve got all ready, next to the magnet to show how small they are:

To help you stick the magnet, take another magnet and place it on top of the base where you want the ball to go and hold it in place with a little blu-tac. If you’re going to use a magnet within the ball as well, make sure that the polarities of the magnets will match up, you don’t want the ball flying off everytime you want to put it down! I’d recommend making your magnetic ball first and using this to hold the other magnets in place, see the method later in this post.
If you turn the figure upside down, you’ll see two spaces in the slottabase, make sure you know which one is the front of the model, generally the largest. Place a small dab of superglue where you want the magnet to go and then pop it gently into place with some tweezers, plastic are best as the magnet won’t stick to them. As you put the magnet in place, the magnet on the other side of the base will move it to the correct position and hold it in place while the glue sets.

After 10-15 minutes, gently remove the magnet from the top of the base and your magnet should be set in place. You can now attach and detach the ball from the player with ease as he moves around the pitch. To add a little more durability to the magnet, I spread a small amount of milliput around the magnet to stop it being accidently knocked off during rough games.

Making the ball
You can buy balls that are made from ferrous metal so that they will stick to magnets, and these will stick onto your bases with ease. You can also make your own magnetic balls by adding a magnet into a metal or plastic ball.

This can be quite a tricky process, as the balls are pretty small, so should only be undertaken with great care. Hold the ball tightly in a vice, surrounding it with paper first to prevent it being damaged. Drill a small hole in the base of ball, your aim here is to create a hole just large enough for the magnet. For the magnets I’m using this means holes 3mm wide and 1.5mm deep. I did this by drilling a thin pilot hole, and then widening it with larger and larger drill bits.

When you have this hole ready, test to make sure that the magnet fits before adding superglue to the hole and popping the magnet in. This is a fun step, as you’ll find the magnet keeps flying out of your tweezers and sticks to the metal of the vice! If you’ve already made your bases, you’ll have to make sure that the polarity of the magnet is correct, or it won’t stick to the bases.



When the glue has set, your ball is ready to be painted, as are your players, then they’ll be ready to hit the pitch. Or be stuck to the fridge, yes those magnets are pretty strong...



Good News!
Before starting this post this morning, I checked the Site Meter stats and found that this blog has had 10,000 visits since I started posting in December, thanks to everyone for supporting the site!