VOTE FOR VON

I know, I know, I've been neglecting you.  I've spent the last couple of months actually, y'know, being Frugal.  It's the not having any money that does it.  Most of the hobby I've done has been other people's, for money, although I did find the time for a quick Warmachine tournament and I do have a NEW PROJECT on the go too.  Incidentally, if you happen to have some models that you want painted and can't be bothered with doing yourself, drop me a line here or via GAME OVER and we'll have a chat.  I'm no Marike Reimer, admittedly (she's better looking), but I'm cheap, quick and tabletop quality.

Anyway.

I'm doing a thing, over at the House of Paincakes blog network, sort of a contest thing where the winner gets a weekly series in front of a larger readership than I have ever dreamed of amassing.  Have been for a while now.  Didn't want to talk about it on this blog because Posting About Blogging is something I try not to do.  Content uber alles, and all that.

On the other hand, failure to leverage available resources in a competitive endeavour is the mark of a nebbish who shouldn't have signed up in the first place.  And I do have a credible shot at winning, which was... unexpected.

AND, AND AND AND, if I win, I'll never write a post about 40K.  Everyone bar Loquacious on the ol' HoP does that, as do most of the blogs on the roll, and it's getting boring.  I won't cheat and do Warmahordes either.  Vote for me, and be guaranteed a shot of something different every week - might be WFB, a historical, a Specialist Game, an RPG, a board game, a book review, something that isn't 40K.  A vote for Von is a vote for diversity - and that's not something this straight white able-bodied British bloke ever thought he'd be able to say with a straight face.

So I suppose you should pop over to the International House of Paincakes and vote for me in this week's HoP Idol, so I can say more things like this, this,  this, and this.  No SPESS MAHREENS, ever.  Promise.

The Dreaded 6 month Review

Gosh, hasn't it been quiet around here lately. "It's that time of year again" as the saying goes. Obviously its always that time of year for something. In my case it's Summer time (or at least what optimistically passes as Summer in Scotland) which means less hobby time, more garden tending time, more away days at the weekend (less hobby time), etc. So apologies for the lack of updates but here it is- the mid-term review.

We'll be quick here and move straight to the numbers:

• Cash Out: £243.46
• Cash In: 349.42

 That's an average monthly spend of £40.58 which, if I'm honest is a bit disappointing, as I was looking for less than that. Just over £100 pounds of that was on the main painting/gaming focus for the first half (Warmachine and Space Marines) I suppose i shouldn't feel too bad. Also the spends on these two games/areas are just about finished, so a line can be drawn under that. On the plus side all my costs have been covered in sales from the hobby shed, with a bit extra (at the moment). This obviously helps me justify the other purchases of the year that haven't had any attention lavished on them (yet).

Which makes me look at the bought/painted stats:

• 28mm: Bought: 95 Painted: 53
• 10mm: Bought: 37 Painted: 22

Converse to the cash spend I'm actually quite pleased at the number of figures I've finished so far. It helps that 40k ones are all pretty quick to paint, but that's fine. I am am suprised at the numer in the bought column as I wouldn't have thought it added up to that much - funnily enought it does though. Just goes to show how your perceptions and real facts often differ (especially in accrued lead).

  

2 days into the year I set out my stall with numerous plans (or dreams) for the coming year. Looking over this mighty document I can see that I've failed (or at least faltered in most of these). My Gladiator campaign lasted a few months until a new set of rules derailed me. My Songs Of Blades campaign still shows no sign of starting, I've not played with my 10mm dungeon (although I have been painting it), my 2 Sci-fi scenery projects haven't been touched, and I've painted zero modern era figures for my zombie gaming. And you can you add in the fact that the number of roleplaying sessions played can be counted on the fingers of Bugs Bunny's hand!

Bug's reads up on his gaming tactics

So the year's been a complete washout then? Well, no. If we look at the gallery page we can see a clue to something that has sneeked in - Space Marines (and Necrons) and using them toboot! Sci-fi gaming has hit the Hobby Shed with a vengence the last few months. It started with Arabiansquire's birthday present of some Space Marines of his own to paint, and he's been keen to play them ever since. Previous favourite fantasy gaming hasn't had a proper look in at all. To add to the Sci-fi feel of the year there have been quite a few Pod Racing Sessions over the last couple of months as well. Warmachine has also dominated the painting mat as I try to finish off my Cryx Army. Nearly there now though. I may actually get to play with them once it's done, as the local league play has somewhat stalled.

This seamlessly leads me into the next six months. I'm going to shelve (or box) my grand WWII plans. This fuse was ignited by Halo*Star, but he's not over so frequently just now and he still hasn't picked up any figures that I will leave it for later - I've a few other pots boiling at the moment anyway. I hope to replace it with something I go WOW! for - Doctor Who. This also has great playing potential, as the wee lad is Dr Who mad; in theory I need less figures (and I already own a few); being a time travelling adventurer I should be able to use many of my other figures; it's new and shiny (which lets be honest is why we all start!) But like all best laid plans we'll have to wait and see! I would also like to see a few more warbands (fantasy and Sci-fi) painted before the year's end, especially as I've bought a couple this year and it would be nice to see some more "bought and painted" figures rather than the usual "discovered and painted" variety!

Some Frugal Alternatives To Popular Spendy Games

Enough, I say!  Enough!

I wrote a post.  It was about increasing prices and decreasing points values and the two-way gouge perpetrated by miniature wargame companies.  It wasn't bad.  I'm just sick to the back teeth of doing nothing but advise people on how to negotiate with these big bad corporate entities, how to play the popular games without being played for fools.  It's possible to play that game and win, but a better way to win is to not play.  With that in mind, here are some of the free or cheap things I've been painstakingly hoarding, in waiting for the day when I can persuade people to play them and not something you buy in the shops.

War Games

Hordes and Heroes, by Kallistra, is a 10mm fantasy game revolving around abstract units made of several models on a single base.  It uses a very clear, very clinical hex terrain system, which is probably the clearest set of rules I've seen for terrain pieces in a long while, but is perhaps incompatible with your existing terrain collection unless you're prepared to do a bit of work or invest in Kallistra's proprietary terrain sets.

This is why I'm also going to recommend Hordes of the Things, by the Wargames Research Group.  It's currently out of print (I bought one of the last paper copies, it would seem) but the WRG have been good enough to provide a download of the current edition as a stop-gap until they can bring it out again  (and thanks to arabianknight for pointing that out!).  Hordes of the Things is another very tight rules set with the advantage of working in a variety of different scales - the measurement distances and number of models that qualify as a 'unit' changes, but the actual mechanics don't.  Both games use generic unit types that are wide open to choice regarding which manufacturer's miniatures you use, and both have a historical variant (Hordes of the Things is in essence a clone of major historical system De Bellis Antiquitatis, also by the W.R.G., with rules for dragons, gods and magicians bolted on) if that's more your bag than outrageous fantasy.

On the skirmish side of things, allow me to big up Dave King's Skulldred.  Skulldred is currently in beta testing and has been for some time, largely because Dave wants it pretty much as tight as he can make it when it does finally go to a commercial release.  At the moment, it's free to download, and has the advantage of being open to use any set of miniatures in the same scale (although, as is my way, I recommend 28-32mm for anything where individuals matter and 10-15mm for anything that's more about regiments).  You'll need to perform some jiggery-pokery with dice, either using the wraparound template Dave provides or investing in some blank d6s to make your own.  Or you could use a look-up table, but that'll get a bit wearisome if you have to do it for every roll.

Roleplaying Games

Swords and Wizardry is a free-to-download open-source 'retro-clone' of several early editions of Dungeons and Dragons rolled together (I confess to not being up on the game's early history to the point where I can tell you what's been rolled into it; furthermore, I confess to not caring).  The point is that it can do pretty much whatever you want to do with Dungeons and Dragons - scale up, scale down, convert settings, make your own setting, imitate Basic, Advanced or Old Dungeons and Dragons - and it doesn't cost anything or come with the promise of splatbooks ranging out into infinity.

If you find Marxist taxonomies of characters and rolling tons of dice to be faintly distasteful, meanwhile, allow me to point you in the vague direction of Atomic Sock Monkey Press and their excellent free-to-download Prose Descriptive Quality system for diceless roleplaying.  They also make a few settings for that system to be used in which, while technically costing money, come with enough free downloads for you to bodge your way through it with a bit of imagination (and let's face it, you'd need at least a bit of imagination to play a diceless RPG).

Computer Games

Battle for Wesnoth!  It's free, it'll run on damn near anything, and it's a charmingly addictive hex-based turn-based fantasy strategy game.  I recommend Wesnoth doubly because of an active user base that's forever churning out new single-player campaigns and offering multiplayer if that's your thing.  The only bad thing I have to say about it is that large battles with three or more computer players get pretty boring; you can skip the computer players' turns but then you'll start yours with half your units missing and no idea what killed them or what to avoid when you save and reload - which you'll be doing a lot, since the AI is intelligent enough to go after things that you don't want to die and very, very cut-throat in its application of attack probabilities.

Torchlight is in essence a Diablo clone.  You remember Diablo.  It was a one-armed bandit thinly disguised as a fantasy dungeon crawl game where you hit monsters to see what loot fell out of them.  It was single player World of Warcraft, in essence, and it was mindlessly addictive.  Torchlight did not set my world on fire, but the demo's free, the game's cheap, and it even looks suitably old-school.  I've just been spoiled for single-player games by the chat-to-other-players aspects of MUMORPEGGERS, I think.

Guild Wars is one of those MUMMORPEGGER things, only it isn't subscription-based: you buy it, you play it, and the only money you need to spend is on expansion packs if you want to play through those.  Looks like World of Warcraft with more sophisticated graphics and less bad pop-culture jokes.  The former stopped me from really getting into it, as there was enough lag to break any sense of immersion or engagement before it really had the chance to develop, and I get the impression that it's a slow-burner anyway.  Not designed to addict with quite the same cunning and effectiveness as World of Warcraft - definitely more of a make-your-own-fun kind of game that relies on you interacting with other players in some meaningful way, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Champions Online is closer to WoW in terms of its early-game-hook design, although operating in a different genre, and is nominally free to play, although the free version is so cut-down that you'll probably end up spending some real money to unlock some options for yourself.  Still no subscription fees, though.

Given my druthers, I would play all of these and not their more expensive counterparts, but the trouble with games and gamers is that they are in essence social pastimes and if you want to share other people's play time you often end up playing what they play.  I can sit up here in my Frugal castle with my sense of self-satsifaction and full wallet but that's piss all use if everyone I know wants to play Pathfinder.  That said, I still want to fly the flag for alternative games; they are cheaper than what people already play, they are often more flexible and freeform and imaginative than what people already play, and they are probably every bit as much fun as what people already play.  I'd know, if I could persuade people to play them.

A Year of Open Accounting - May (with a bit of April)

How Frugal is this - 2 months for the price of one. You didn't even have to pay me for the first 10 months either to get the first one!

The numbers:

I missed the April report as it was a quiet month and I got carried away doing other things so didn't get round to it. Money wise nothing was sold as I was looking to sell my wares at Carronade at the start of May (rather optimistically as it turned out). Purchase wise I kept it pretty tight, but managed to fall to a couple of naughty impulse buys. Well one, as "grass effect" mat was more of a chance discovery than impulse, but it's been a great bargain buy and I have no regrets. The other was an Ebay lot of 31 vintage figures. I'd just finished painting an old Ral Partha Ogre and was swept away in a fever of old school mini's. For the price they were still good, and although a few (most!) are unremarkable (elf archers, dwarves) the two Tree Shepherds and the Giant are great. I've been looking for some old Tree Ent like figures for a Forrester themed warband I've planned so very happy. I may even try to sell off some of the other figures to recoop some of the cash (and decrease that lead bought number as well!)

May began with one of my highlights of the year: Carronade in Falkirk (Scotland). Something different this year, as I had along not only ArabianSquire, but also a non-gaming friend of his, so the pressure was on to find the entertaining games. I still wanted to shift so of the Hobby Shed surplus, though. So I booked a Bring & Buy table for the first session to get it out of the way and provide maximum flexibility during the rest of the day for game playing. The sales were not too forthcoming. Having just the first hour of the show to sell was not the best, as most people show up 30 minutes or later after the doors open, look round the halls and traders, THEN have a peak at the B&B hall. Really the 2nd or 3rd slot would have maximised the single hour of selling (I noticed a quite few people have tables for at least a couple of hours). A grand total of £14 was raised which at least paid the modest table rent, my unplanned purchases at the show and cleared a (very) little amount of shelf space.

Bargain Beastmen

After the stall was packed up we had a proper look round the halls. Now ArabianSquire's friend had previously played Heroscape a few time (which had been very much enjoyed) and was the basis of his attendance. He managed to highlight a couple of things that make our hobby confusing to the uninitiated. The first was the statement in the car on the way "I want to buy a game". I had a bit of difficulty explaining that most games there didn't work in that way. Relative expense was a second problem, as the £5 he'd pulled from his piggy bank wasn't going to go too far. I did of course just try to get him to hold back his spend. He ended up with a bag of Halo Clix figures that I didn't sell as a gift as he was so keen, and the generous man at Gateshead Gaming didn't charge him for the 3d6 he wanted to buy. A very generous gesture to a young lad new to the scene that didn't go unappreciated. It meant that his carefully folded blue note went back home with him as well.

As for games played, all 3 of us enjoyed a Great Escape game from RAF Leuchars and trying out Full Thrust, from the Glasgow Wargames club. Despite the fact we arrived 10 miniutes before opening and finished rolling dice 10 minutes after closing everyone had a really enjoyable day. I big thanks to all concerned at Falkirk for their efforts again. Even the new boy was happpy at the end after over 6 hours in an unfamiliar setting. I'll have to come up with some simple rules for his new soldiers, and we'll have a new gamer in town - hopefully.

Bargain Orcs

Now obviously this is a Frugal Accounting post, not a show review, so let’s get down to spends. The bulk of the spend was taken up by a show pre-order from Pendraken Miniatures in the form of a 10mm dungeon booster pack and a couple of figure booster sets. The Bring and buy threw up a few bags of excellent old Orc and beastmen figures (which were marked down 25% on their already bargain price) and a bag old Space Hulk Genestealer pieces for 50p - enough to make a few 'stealers to add to my horde. To cut down on cost (and fussy 9yr old eating habits) we'd taken packed lunches - which was a nice break outside in the sun away from the claustrophobia of the show. My other wish list items never came up (or at least not within my price range) so that was it (barring entry, fuel & a quick snack).

With a purpose I fell upon Ebay to fill the gaps in my want list. And a reasonably priced Dreadnought and fix-up Rhino both were in shed before too long. In fact I enjoyed my Super Smurfy marines so much I picked up some shoulder emblems (and a nice captain figure) to round off the force. This pretty much takes me where I want to be with my Space Marines (which are just really a pleasant quick distraction), bearing in mind I have at least another half dozen old Terminators in the Shed waiting for paint.

Bought and painted in the same month.
We may never see its like again

So to sum up, May was costlier than usual, but not unexpectedly so. My net May bill still came to less than £50. Sales were a bit disappointing, but mostly covered the purchase of 2 fantasy warbands and a 40k Rhino, which isn't bad when you look at it that way. The "figures bought" column took quite a bashing with the vintage lot, a load of 10mm and the fantasy bargains, but in the run up I'd painted a bunch of 10mm (to justify buying the booster pack) and quite a few 40k quick paints, all of which have seen table time.

In the coming months I really must extract a digit from my posterior and get some more of the dwindling Hobby Shed surplus out for Sale to get some more cash in, before the buying urge happens again...

A Year of Open Accounting - March

On the financial ins/outs this month it has been pretty quiet. As forecast I purchased the new Gladiator rules for Red Sand Blue Sky (still unplayed), and towards the end of the month there was the unexpected arrival of some old Rogue Trader Space marines. I took March off from the Hobby shed sales which may have cost me in incoming column, but freed up some time that I could relax, and sometimes paint, in.

Talking of painting, I briefly, for a few hours, had one foot in the hallowed ground of more figures painted than bought (the Space Marines knackered that). Clearing the table blockage of a few Warmachine Warjacks has felt like a good strong dose of ex-lax, and I'm back feeling enthused about putting paint to bristle to figure again. Hopefully some quick painting of the marines and the push to finish (or almost finish) my 10mm Dungeon pack should see me push back to that heady moment of painting accounting again.

10mm Skeletons, patiently waiting around for company...

That brings me on nicely to April's plan of action. School holiday's are just about to descend, so that is going to hamper a bit of hobby time as . I want to finish my Space Marines for playing with Arabiansquire. I also want to get the bulk of my 10mm dungeon finished (assuming you can link 10mm figures and the word "bulk") before Carronade in May. Also, looking toward Carronade, I think I'll have to get some more old Hobby Shed stock up for sale to help finance the show. It could/should put a large dent in my gaming cash reserves and I'd rather prepare for the plummet towards the red figures with a bit of a buffer.

A Year of Open Accounting - February

Again mixed bag this month. Somehow I suspect every month will be! First of all lets look at the hard facts:

• Outgoings: £51.07 
• Incomings: £101.68 
• Figures painted: 10
• Figures bought: 15

On the positive I managed to clear out a bit more space in the hobby shed. With a bit more re-arranging I'm on the verge of being able to re-organise some of my gaming gear to a more organised set-up. Result! It's also brought in a small amount of additional funds which never hurts.
 
Purchase-wise I've made a couple of "planned" no guilt buys - a magazine and a cheap(er) copy of the core Rapid Fire! rulebook. My lack of willpower, however, has led to an increase in my unpainted Cryx army courtesy of hanging about ebay too much monitoring by sales. Maybe at bargain price (for Warmachine mini's anyway) but I can't help feeling somewhat the guilty. Another unexpected buy was a set of Critter Commandos. However, although they most definately don't fit into any current project they can join my other unpainted CC figures. They are such fun and full of character that the anticipation of painting them makes them worth the price (and another bargain one at that this time). I may have to just have them on display to put me in a good mood everyday.
 

So what of the next month, I hear you ask? Well no more Cryx purchases for a start! My painting table is over flowing with them, so is my guilt trip so a purchase ban has been put on. March will hopefully see a few move to the painted cabinet. There's been a bit of a log jam caused by trying to paint a Slayer, Reaper and DeathJack all at the same time, but the corner has been rounded now (ie all the base coats are finally down) so I'm now optimistic about completing them and moving on this month. Two Hour Wargames have the new version of Red Sand Blue Sky release scheduled for March. Judging by the batreps being posted it looks pretty good, so that will probably be purchased and adopted for my running campaign. Aside from that I'm hoping to keep it to a minimum. I'm pretty sure the Post Office Workers are as fed up seeing me as much as I am making the journey to see them, so I'm also taking a bit of a break from Ebaying. This will have to effect of dropping the incomings, but also should stop potential outgoings as well. In Theory!
 
I'm also mindful that Falkirk Wargames Club Carronade show is but 2 months away (Saturday 7th May) which will hit my budget somewhat. I've mentally promised myself that I have to finish off my Pendraken 10mm dungeon pack before then so I can justify ordering up the expansion for show pickup. Also I anticipate some 1:72/20mm purchases. After all, Easter is the time time of "Fast before Feast".

2011 Already? Time to Check In

Hey everyone, Pete here. I’ve been pretty busy, working hard on my frugal plans for the new year.

As some of you may remember, I made some resolutions for the first time last year and it worked fairly well, so I’ve decided to make some this year too. I found that they work best when there are targets, limits and tangible goals.

It’s taken me a little while to work out exactly what my goals should be for this year. I want to write at least once a month for this blog (whoops…), and I definitely want to spend less on gaming stuff. I was on a bit of an eBay splurge last year, and over Christmas I was sorely tempted by many shiny new things. Luckily, I kept away from them, but I can think of a few poor spending decisions I made over the year.

To achieve the frugal goal then, I have four measurable objectives this year.

Firstly, I will spend no more than £5 a month on games or gaming things. This is especially severe since I realised just how many models are boxed up in my study, and how many Dark Elves I failed to paint last year. Buying new things before old things are painted is a major sin, and this will help me limit my guilt. The other big reason for this is the expected arrival of my second child in June (hooray!) and attendant budget reduction. Small children reduce the time available to play now, but when they grow older the plan is to mould them into mini-gamers (mini-miniature-gamers, or mini-mini-gamers?). I always loved slow-burn strategy, playing the long game.

Secondly, I will be aiming to have a day of wargaming at least once a month. I had a nice day of Gorkamorka last month (a fantastic game, and still keeping the interest after all this time), and I’m going to try and schedule a game of Warhammer with a friend who got me into the whole hobby later this month. That’ll be a nice nostalgia moment.

Thirdly, I’ll be aiming to write on this blog at least once a month. I got a bit side-tracked by other things last year, but with better time-management I’m sure that I can keep it organised. A side effect of this will probably be more games nights (to make use of games already paid for) to help me find something to write about!

So that’s my ‘quick, you lost January already!’ catch-up post. We’ll see how well this plan works out. Expect to see insightful, detailed, analytical posts about gaming if I can organise my time better, or about carpet shopping for the nursery if my wife organises it instead. Fingers crossed, frugal gamers!

A Year of Open Accounting - January

Let the excuses begin...
We'll start with the cold hard facts first, then flannel out figures afterwards.

The month started off on the wrong foot, spending wise, with a ream of Warmachine purchases. Now I had always maintained that there wasn't going to be any more purchases for my Warmachine Cryx until I had finished painting what had already been bought and I was half a Death Jack away from fullfilling that pledge. However the proposed start of a Warmachine league at my Local Store brought forward some purchases that had been anticipated for later in 2011 (namely a unit of Mechanithralls and a second Warcaster). Also on the list of ideal next buys was a Cryx Warjack. I had thought about the new plastic Warjack kit and using magnets to give me 3 different options, but I ended up with 2 Ebay bargains of the same model types for less total cash spend. I don't know if "ideal" purchases count as frugal, but it was a bargain (dangerous words to use I know) and as they were pidgeon holed for 2011 purchases anyway I can give myself a pat on the back for being ahead of schedule. Sort of.

To coat these new purchases I also needed so spray primer. I sometimes use Grey Auto Primer from Halfords but I wanted black for the Warjacks and they don't do black Auto primer, so Army Painter is was (that's what the Local Store sold)

After all these outgoings on the account books I was starting to get nervous and guilty. So the Hobby Shed clearance sale was put into action. Items were targeted with bulk and space taken up as priorties, so a few games were put up for sale (shelf hogging boxes) as were a vaste array of Cthulhu RPG books I had sitting around to sell for someone else (for a % cut). It's been a while since I've sold on Ebay, and I'd forgotten just quite how much work it can be. Searching through ebay and finding their Turbo Lister software helped though. The old debate of how long to run an auction and what day to finish on reared it's ugly head as usual. In the end I plumped to finish on a Saturday night, as that would give me some time to pack the wins (hopefully) on the Sunday and get them out. All a bit of work, but the ball is rolling now, and with more modest auction numbers to come hopefully it'll take up less time over the coming months. More importantly I brought some money in to cover the Warmachine purchases and provide a nice buffer for the next couple of months.

All this has somewhat curtailed my painting time and energy. My six purchased Mechanithralls were done before the Ebaying started but there has been a distict lack of brush cleaning sounds comng from the painting corner of Arabian Towers since then. That and the progress of my DeathJack has been tortuously slow. That beast may have to have another brief hiatus to get the "numbers painted" count up.

Testing, testing...

I mentioned the Mantic Skeletons in my last post and I've managed to get some painted.  I tried a number of different colours to see what final effect would look best (plus which would be easy to do 100 times over, and would look impressive when viewed as an army).  The results are below:

Of course the reason that they look so badly painted is due to some problem with my camera (and not because I'm a crap painter, they're only test pieces or erm... any other reason I can think of).  I'm going to go for the orange scheme (3rd along, looking a bit 'peachy') and the yellow and blue next to it.  I'll probably have units of each, though it'll be a while before I get started on painting them properly as I've got a metric tonne of Dark Eldar to get painted first.

Painting a few test pieces is a good idea if you're painting a large number of figures, it can be a nightmare to get halfway through an army and realise that it looks muddled and uncoordinated when it's all together on the tabletop.  Having to repaint or rebase figures can take up valuable time and money, so a few test pieces is quite a frugal idea!

Anyway, before I get onto my Dark Eldar or Undead I've got to finish off the Goblins, write a 2400pt list to go against Shiny tomorrow night and look at a 1000pt list for a forthcoming tournament (my first ever) so it's going to be a busy year.  Hooray!

Some updates...

Just a quick update to let you all know that I'm experimenting with a twitter feed.  If you're a twitter user you can follow me and get updates on all the nonsense I've been up to.  If you don't use twitter, you can read my latest tweets using the box on the right.  If you've never heard of twitter and think 'we're all going to hell in a handcart' then get off the interweb Granddad, leave it to the kids...

In other news, you've probably noticed the change to the format of the blog, there's still a few changes that need making (such as the pixellated picture) so please bear with me!

All the best

Dave

Von's Frugal Year: Month The Twelfth

Something a bit special for the end of the year; now you too can own your own talking Von head, complete with strange pauses and shoddy sound quality.  Listen to it dispense the starry wisdom ramble on for seven minutes about how to fail at Frugalism, or just leave it paused on your screen to offend the neighbours and frighten the children.



If I've set the jump up properly, you'll find a transcript beyond it.

Von's Frugal Year: Months the Eighth and Ninth

Well now.  Here we all are.  It's been a while, hasn't it?

It turns out that getting a new job and moving house at extremely short notice to take up said job can occasionally lead to a mild case of No Blogging Time, especially when your home Internet isn't up and running, your place of work forbids access to blogging sites on principle, and every free WiFi sign you see transpires to be a Lie (I think my newfangled triple-layered security suite might be a bit too secure, since it doesn't want me to do ANYTHING on the Nets at all).  Naturally, I've coped with this reduced ability to read/write about gaming on the tubes by actually doing some gaming (shocking) and spending some of my brand new money (irresistible), so here's how it's been going on:

Spending Less - well, from late August to late September I had no time to really spend any money or, for that matter, money to spend.  October has, so far, been spent making up for that; I've shelled out a tenner on a trip to a Warmachine tournament up in Kidderminster, which you can read all about over on the other blog, and while I was up there I confess I spent another thirty quid on a Skorne starter box for that Hordes thing, fancying a change from my Cryx but not particularly wanting to give up the Warmachine/Hordes system entirely.  I've also been spending about six pounds a week on nights out at Dice and Decks, a gaming club in Ross-On-Wye run by some very nice lads who have just started playing Warmachine.

Gaming More - oh yes.  Weekly games of either Warmachine or Warhammer have become the norm; since most of my Warmachine opponents are brand new and still at the battlebox stage, switching to a new faction and relearning how Hordes works has been a nice levelling experience for our games.  I don't plan on starting an epic horde of Skorne or anything; just a nice little army that I can add odds and ends to as and when the fancy takes me.  I've been to one tournament, which was... an experience... and there's talk of doing some at the club as well (a battlebox round robin job in November, and a 25-pointer early in the New Year).

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!

Go go Goblins!

The last couple of weeks I've gone Warhammer crazy! Well, not quite, but I have splashed out. After playing WFB with Matt a couple of weeks ago, I've really got the bug for the game and the idea of collecting a Goblin Army started whirling in my head. I put up a half decent resistance (a week or so) then, while passing Games Workshop, picked up a plastic Giant kit and the Orcs and Goblins Army book.

Although I'm a committed Frugal Gamer (this year), I've always said that this means I'm prepared to pay a little bit more to get a quality product (link to previous post). I know I've criticised GW in the past, but the giant kit is absolutely fantastic (and ripe for conversion) and the Orc and Goblin Army Book provides a huge range of options to play greenskins. I was a little worried that by choosing to take the all-goblin route I'd be limiting myself, but there are myriad options for armies comprised entirely of the little guys. And one very big guy...

As often happens, the buying didn't stop there; I came across the GAME OVER blog run by Von (hello Von!), also based in Plymouth. It's a really nice blog, currently focusing on non-GW games, such as Warmachine and World of Warcraft, so if you play them go and check it out, in fact go and check it out anyway.

On a recent post, Von mentioned that he had a load of plastic goblins to get rid of (and a few metal ones), so *sigh* I had to get in touch and take them off his hands... This now means I have nearly 100 goblins to paint (1 big tin of green paint and 1 big brush?), I can't see them getting done until next year, but I'm really looking forward to it and looking forward to getting some games played!

My next painting priority is my 40k force, I'm still planning to have my Dark Eldar all painted by January of next year, this way I'll be able to enter into PAW 2010, with a fully painted force (and go for the painting prize!).

All this planned gaming leads me to start thinking about gaming surfaces. At present I play Necromunda on home made terrain tiles, but if I get into 40k and Fantasy more, will I need a new gaming surface? I've currently got a fold out cloth gaming surface that I put over the table and that seems to suffice, but I suppose a full size textured and modelled gaming table would come in useful...

Make sure you come and visit the site next week when I'll have big big news, it affects you all and will herald a whole new year of Frugal Gaming!

By the way, the blog currently has 49 followers, who's going to make it 50?

Making Wire Trees

Hello all! It's been a busy couple of weeks so the blog has had to take a break (It has been gaming related though, so expect a treat next week!). I managed to get both a game of Necromunda and Warhammer Fantasy played yesterday against Matt. I won Necro and Matt won WFB so all was good, however, it was Matt's first game of WFB so it probably counts double!

This week I thought I'd show you all how I make trees. This is a very common method and you can find lots of variations of it on the internet, but here's how I do it:

Materials Required
150cm of Thin Wire (I use florist's wire, but any wire slightly less than 1mm thin will do)
Two part modeling putty (I use Milliput, you can use greenstuff, but you use a lot so it can work out a bit expensive)
Sand or Gravel
Flock or other vegetation for detailing
Thin Plywood (2mm) or plasticard

Tools
Glue gun (or strong thick glue; superglue and PVA are not suitable).
Wire Cutters
Sharp knife/Saw
Sculpting tool

Method

Step 1 Cut and Bend wire
Cut the wire into six or seven equal length strips. Bend each length in half and twist it around itself, leaving a loop at the bottom and two small, separate branches at the top.

Step 2 Form the Trunk
Taking your twisted wires, twist them around each other to form a trunk for the tree with the branches coming out of the top. Make sure that the loops at the end of each twisted wire are at the bottom of the tree as these will be stuck to the base and covered when finished. Bend the branches out at the top of the tree to make the desired shape.

Step 3 Attach to the base
Cut out a small base from the plywood or plasticard and attach your tree using hot glue or epoxy resin. You need a strong, thick glue at this stage, so superglue or PVA is not suitable.

Step 4 Texture the Tree
Add Milliput or plaster over the whole of the tree and base. Smear it on, then create some rough lines with the edge of a knife or sculpting tool down the trunk to represent the bark. At this stage you can also roughly texture the base as well.

[EDIT: Jimborex from The Miniatures Page suggested using Caulking or Mastic to cover the wire. This is more flexible than Milliput so will not break off as easily if damaged. It may not take the detail as well, but hey, all engineering's a compromise]



Step 5 Basing
When the putty or plaster has fully dried, add gravel or any basing materials you wish and leave to dry.

Step 6 Painting
Spray with the primer of your choice then paint brown (or grey for a desolate look). All that's then needed is a light drybrush to bring out the texture.

Step 7 Finishing touches
If you wish you can add leaves to the tree (many specialist flocks are available) or just leave bare. Flock the base as desired.

So there you go, one easy to make tree. This is a very simple design and has much room for improvement or experimentation. You can make these as large or small as you like, in small batches or large forests. Have a play, experiment and let me know how you get on. As always, photos are welcomed and I'll even post them on the site if you fancy! Happy Gaming.

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....

A bit of a break...

Hi guys (and girls),

Just to let you all know that I'm currently in the process of moving to a new flat, this is turning out to be a bit of a pain in the bum so I won't be blogging for the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, keep being Frugal and most importantly, keep gaming!

Battle for Skull Pass

After a very busy couple of weeks, I have returned! Last weekend I was in the glorious metropolis that is Blackpool. Of all the places in the world that I'd like to visit for a weekend, Blackpool has never been particularly high on my list. However, it was my Brother's Stag Night so I couldn't refuse. Anyway between traveling there and back, drinking lots of horrible watered down beer, and throwing my bro's pants (as in underpants, not trousers) onto the roof of a bar I didn't have much chance for blogging.

However, I have been busy during the past couple of weeks with painting. I say painting, but it's mainly just been cutting, filing and gluing. My Dark Eldar force has now been mainly put together and I've thrown a few colours onto them to get some idea of how they're going to look. I'm going with the idea that they're a raiding force that's grown over time with new recruits from all areas, giving a mix of uniforms and colours. I'm still not sure, but we'll see how they turn out...
This week I've got my 11 year old son staying with me. He's quite keen on gaming so I took the opportunity today to go into Games Workshop and pick up a copy of the Warhammer boxed game. We've since spent the afternoon clipping plastic and rolling dice, he seemed to really enjoy it and I must admit I think I did too!

Of course I need to get into another gaming system like I need a hole in the head. Well, I suppose one more wouldn't hurt...

Six Months of Frugal Gaming

Hello all, it’s been a good gaming week. Even though I haven’t actually been gaming I've got plenty of painting done and finally finished off some terrain I've been working on (pictures next week). This week I'm having a look over the past six months, as I'm now halfway through my Frugal Mission....

Spend less
My first aim was to spend less on gaming and I've done pretty well. I've done well on this aim as I've tried to not buy more until I’ve got all my current miniatures painted and projects finished. It’s not been perfect, but I’ve severely reduced the backlog and I feel that when I’ve spent the money, it’s been on the things that I really wanted.

Surely the best way of spending less is to get things for free, and I achieved this by trading away some of my old and unplayed games via BoardGameGeek this is a great resource, and I’d highly recommend you check out the trading functions. Trough these trades I managed to get two full Blood Bowl teams, a copy of Power Grid, some Necromunda terrain and various other bits and pieces.

Game more
My second aim was to play more games. My stats for the year so far are:


This is a total of 41, compared to a total of 52 from the first half of 2008. This is obviously a decrease on my gaming from last year, though some of the games that I’ve been playing this year are slightly longer than those from last year (more Necromunda and 40k this year, compared to Memoir '44 last year), so I’ve probably spent more time gaming. This is partly due to a change on the way that I've been playing. I've recently started attending gaming clubs and haven't had many games nights at home, due to work commitments amongst myself and my friends. I enjoy attending the clubs, but I'm also keen to get my friends round more often.

Making money
The ultimate goal that I set myself was to make some money. This is the holy grail of any hobby, getting your pastime to pay. My main effort in money making was to sell terrain which I enjoyed, but it was a lot of work, for little reward. I managed to break even on my costs, have a lot of materials left over for future projects and even acquire some new toys (my air compressor). It was quite an experience running a stall and it gave me a new respect for people that do it for a living, it was also really nice to meet people who’d read the blog.

At the start of the year I had great success with the Bring and Buy stall at the PAW annual show.

However, when I went to Legionary at Exeter, the results were not so good. Only a couple of my items sold, though I did pick up some very cheap plastic Orcs for Blood Bowl! Pretty mixed results really, though I’ll definitely keep putting item in for sale in future Bring and Buys.

The best way that I’ve raised funds for gaming this year has been through the magic of ebay. I realised early on in my mission that there were certain figures that I’d never get to paint so the best thing to do was to sell them on. A lot went on ebay last week, and I was quite surprised. I’d picked up some old Citadel Empire figures a couple of years ago for a few pounds, I was planning to use them for Mordheim, but I decided to get rid of them as I suspected I could get my money back. I was surprised when I listed them all individually and I managed to make about TEN TIMES my purchase cost back. I was very happy (and very surprised) about this but I’m still not very happy about selling individual miniatures in ebay. It can get you great results as a seller (try it!) but it’s quite frustrating as a buyer.

Summary
So far, I think I’ve done well with spending less, and that it hasn’t affected either the quality of amount of my gaming which shows that Frugal gaming is possible. However, I’m gaming less than last year, not more. I need to get this sorted out! More games nights with friends and more attendance at Games Clubs are definitely on the agenda, this does mean that I need to get my Dark Eldar force painted (or at least assembled), so that's my next objective.

The past six months have been great and I’m enjoying my gaming a lot more, without the annoying feeling that I’m throwing money away unecessarily. The next six months will see more gaming, less spending and perhaps even making a bit of money from the hobby!
All the best, happy gaming!

Busy busy busy...

Hello all!

I'm afraid that's there's not much to report this week, well there is, but there isn't much time to tell you all about it!

I've been gaming and painting as per usual, I played some more 40k this week at the Cross Swords club, as per usual I borrowed an Army and promptly lost. This time my opponent was Chris and my army du jour was Space Marines. Yes, dear reader, this week I must ask your forgiveness as I have succumbed to the filthy list that is the Space Marines. I must say that I can certainly see what all the fuss is about, lots of saving throws means that you can push them around the table with impunity. However, it does take a bit of the fun out of the game, and I must commend Chris for not slapping me in the face when after a couple of minutes of rolling dice, I managed to save every single shot on numerous occassions.

I'm getting a bit of a feel for 40k now, and I've decided that rather than initially go for a Guard army (though it's definately on my 'to do' list), I fancy something faster and nastier. To that end, I've decided to go in for some Dark Eldar action. I have since thrown a few of my old metal miniatures (from the unpainted pile) on ebay to fund this new endeavour. This serves the double purpose of clearing out the unpainted to pay for the new; roughly within the bounds of Frugal Gaming.

In other news, I've nearly finished my Blood Bowl team and I have some Necromunda terrain that I've been working on for a while which is almost done.

The reason for all the rush this week is because I've had an Open University assignment to get in, fortunately, I'm doing a design course at the moment so I get to make models. For my latest assignment, one of the tasks was to design a children's playground, so after numerous sketches, here's a model I made to illustrate my idea:

All the best, look forward to next week's post which is my 6 month (half-way) review!