About Me

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London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
A mythical beast - a female wargamer! I got back into wargaming in the summer of 2011 after a very, very long break and haven't looked back since. I must admit that I seem to be more of a painter/collector than a gamer, but do hope to correct that at some point in the near future. My gaming interests span the ages, from the "Biblical" era all the way through to the far future. I enjoy games of all sizes, from a handful of figures up to major battles (see my megalomaniacally sized Choson Korean and Russian Seven Years War armies).

Thursday 30 May 2013

A Bit More Pimping

James Brewerton of Exiles Wargames Painter is celebrating the 3rd birthday of his blog with a fantastic giveaway. So, if you want some freebies you'd better head over and start following if you aren't already. All you've got to do is comment on the post and there are bonus points for pimpage and poetry (he's asked for wargaming related limericks, but I submitted a haiku instead).

I may or may not post later this evening - I've arranged with a couple of people at the club to play our first games of X-Wing, so it should be fun. If only it was 26 days earlier so we could quip "May the fourth be with you!". I guess we'll just have to settle for such benedictions as "Stay on target", "I find your lack of faith disturbing" and "Let the Wookie win!".

I've remembered my camera, so there should be pics.



Edit To Add: Don't forget Mike Whitaker's giveaways over at Trouble At T'Mill


And another Edit To Add: I've just realised this was my 400th post!!

Wednesday 29 May 2013

Pirate Problems

Well, not so much problems as a decision which had to be made.

Last night I compared figures from the different ranges, to see how they matched up for size. I found that the Peter Pig and Grumpy figures were a good match, as were the Blue Moon and Rebel Minis figures. However, the two pairings don't mix well size-wise - the Blue Moon and Rebel are noticeably larger than the Peter Pig and Grumpy.

For my army, I've decided to go with the Blue Moon and Rebel Minis. I can probably use the Cimaroons, Chinese and Malays from Grumpy as they don't look quite as out of place. The Peter Pig and Grumpy pirates will go into the pile for skirmish games at a later date.

The next job for me is to work out how many extra Blue Moon and Rebel packs I need to order. I should probably sit down and work out a suitable army list first!

Tuesday 28 May 2013

Still More Piratical Plunder!

And the last of my original orders for Project Pirate Pandemonium has arrived. This was the one that Royal Mail forgot to tell me to collect and returned to Old Glory. So, the customary unpacking pics:

The standard box pic

What pirate force would be complete without a ship?

L to R: The Musketeers;  Ships Guns; Civilians; Artillery crews; Highwaymen

So, with all the orders in it was time to take stock of what I've got and see what I need to order. I have:

more captains than I need
more guns and gun crews than I need (but some of the spares can be used on the ship)
enough general pirates to field a good sized army for FoG:R
plenty of bits to do camps
a ship!

I still need to check the general pirates to find out how many have firearms and how many just have melee weapons, but I think the mix is about what I'm after. I do need to order some more Cimaroons (escaped slaves) and maybe some native Americans. I also need to order a rowboat from Peter Pig.

What else might I order?

More ships!
Pirates throwing "grenadoes"
Some more Chinese and Malays
Some suitable buildings


The ship that I've got is the Blue Moon Man O'War. It's a lovely model, 35 cm long by 7 cm wide, but there are some air bubbles that will need to be filled. I'll also need to do a bit of drilling and opening the gun ports on the open deck. There only appear to be enough dowels to do the masts and top masts but not the crosstrees. For those I can easily use bamboo skewers. It's a three-master and I'm considering adding a bowsprit for a jib sail. I'm not sure what to use for the sails. I've seen good results with paper, but the Madaxeman's barque had sails made from cotton hankies and they looked really effective.


Monday 27 May 2013

Pimping Time

Well, I've got two bits of pimping to do.

First up:

Click the pic to go to the blog
A few fellow nutters bloggers have decided to lay on a super game at Triples next year to raise money for two charities - Help For Heroes and Men Matter. The game in question will be the Battle of La Belle Famille from the French Indian War played using the Muskets and Tomahawks rules. At the moment it is in the planning stages, but they have already secured support from AW Miniatures and Warbases. The blog has links for donating to the charities, there will be a collection on the day and all the figures used will be raffled or auctioned off at the end to raise extra money.

They are looking for people to help out with painting all the figures (painting only - they will be doing the basing), so if you'd like to help by contributing some time, pop over and let them know.


Second up:

Mike Whitaker over at Trouble at T'Mill is celebrating being the survivor of 100 thousand hits by having a big giveaway over the next few days.

"It's freebie time folks!"







Sunday 26 May 2013

100K Prize Draw - The Day 5 Winner (may contain boobs)

Phew! We're finally there. Now my blog can return to a sedate pace with a handful or two of comments per post, rather than the spam it's suffered over the last 2 weeks from some of you.

Anyway, a quick reminder pic of today's prize:



Yup, 2/15ths of Leonidas' force at Thermopylae.

The stats for this draw:
Entrants: 48
Entries: 207
Highest single entry/entrant count: 65 - I think we all know who that was *grin*

And the winner is:





Errmm, that wasn't the pic I meant to post, let's try again:



Nor was that! OK, third time lucky:



Oh dear, it appears I'm suffering from my dice-luck here (at least it wasn't a female Zardoz or Borat)....




At last, the right pic!

So, two comment spammers have won prizes. Mind you, in Seb's case I guess it is karma rewarding him for the generosity he displayed transferring the Baccus voucher to Hetairoi.

Saturday 25 May 2013

100K Prize Draw - Day 4 Winner

In case you've forgotten, the Day 4 prize is a small collection of minis from the Reaper Bones line:






31 followers had 163 entries between them, just over half of them (82) from 2 individuals - one with 49 entries, the other with 33. From what I've seen on their blogs both would do these figures justice if they won them.

So, who was the lucky winner of these figures?



Well, persistence with the comment spamming has clearly worked for Anne (she of 49 entries for this prize and 39 for yesterday's prize!).

Anne - please drop me an email with your address and I'll get them shipped out to you.

Just one prize left to be drawn.


Friday 24 May 2013

100K Prize Draw - The Day 3 Winner

OK folks, you can stop sending Seb bribing, blackmailing, threatening, begging and bugging messages. He decided to do a random selection from among the many entrants for the Baccus gift voucher, so the lucky winner is:


Hetairoi Wargames

Please email me via the Kontactr link and I will get the electronic voucher sent to you.



And now for the Day 3 Prize, this lovely pack of 28mm plastic Royalist Foot from Warlord Games:




Again, lots of interest in this prize with 198 entries from 36 individuals (one entrant even went so far as to build up 39 entries!)

And the winner is:



Alastair

Congrats to both of you and I hope you enjoy your prizes.

100K Prize Draw - The Day 2 Winners

A bit later than planned as I was playing Saga at the club this evening. I didn't win, but had good fun with my Normans. I also spent a few minutes admiring my words on the printed page when I got home - my subscription copy of Miniature Wargames with Battlegames had arrived. Henry's done a marvelous job of laying out my words and photos.

"will you just shut up and get on with announcing the winners?"

OK.

First up - the GZG goodies of your choice. There were 128 entries from 37 individual followers. And the lucky winner was:



Well done Vladdd - proof that spamming the comments doesn't necessarily guarantee a win as you only commented once. Please send me an email (Kontactr link under the Postie's Rejects logo) and let me know what you want ordered (and your address for shipping them to).



Second up - the Baccus voucher. This was somewhat more popular, with 141 entries from 36 individuals. And the lucky winner of this one is:



Seb! When he commented, he very generously said that if he won he'd transfer the prize to someone else who had entered. So, for all you Baccus fans who had entered, now you know who to spam/bug/bribe/threaten/blackmail to get that gift voucher! Seb - let me know who the lucky person is please.

Well, there are three more prizes to be won so if you are interested in those don't forget to comment on the posts.

Wednesday 22 May 2013

100K Prize Draw - The Day 1 Winner

What a truly popular prize this one was - 240 entries (including bonuses for poetry and pimpage) from 67 individuals!

Just to remind you what the prize was


Anyway, the spreadsheet column of names was sorted into alphabetical order, copied to random.org and the words "Hocus Pocus" said (or whatever the site does to randomise them) and a winner was found:


Congratulations Ferb!!! Please email me (use the Kontactr link underneath the Posties Rejects logo) with your address, and I'll get them sent out to you.



What else has been going on?


Monday Night FoG:AM Game

Gordon is taking a Later Polish army to a tournament this weekend and wanted a practice game beforehand. As the only blood my Swiss pikemen had seen was mine on the end of their pikes, I volunteered and duly turned up with a 650 point army that should have been a good match against a cavalry-heavy army.

Unfortunately, Gordon discovered on arrival that he'd accidentally picked up the wrong bag. Instead of rules, dice, measuring sticks, terrain and 650 points of Poles he had 850 points of Classical Indians. Rather than cancelling we agreed to play on and Gordon worked out a 650 point list he could use. He won the initiative and selected b****y "Tropical" as the terrain type! Just what an army of Swiss pikemen want to be fighting in. Here's a pic of the table:

Green blobs = Forest; Black = Gully; Brown/Orange = Brush. Table is 3' x 5' - you can just about make out the chalk boundary
Absolutely brilliant. Terrain that slows my heavy foot down and severely disorders it but barely affects the Indians' medium foot.

I'll do an AAR later, but the abridged version is that I scraped a narrow 12 to 8 win (I'd lost 3 BGs broken and my camp; Gordon had lost 5 BGs). Most of my fighting had been done where my BGs lost dice due to severely disordering terrain where their pikes didn't count for combat factors, so it was quite a surprise.


The Mystery of the Blue Moon

I'd been waiting almost a month for my Blue Moon pirates order from Old Glory UK to arrive. Yesterday I had a package in the post which contained 4 of the packs from my order, but no packing slip or note to say where the rest were. I was planning to contact them this evening to ask about the rest of the order.

The 4 packs I received

This morning I got an email from them to let me know that Royal Mail had returned a package because I hadn't collected it. As I never got a "you weren't in" card, I didn't know it was waiting to be collected. After mutual disparaging of the Royal Mail, they are sending the package out again (to my work address this time) so I will hopefully get it on Friday or early next week.





Sunday 19 May 2013

100K Prize Draw - Day 5

Previous Draws:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4


And so it comes - the 5th and final Prize Draw of my 100K giveaway.




Yes, more plastics from Warlord Games. The lucky winner just needs another 7 packs to have his (or her) very own 300, and also the 20 that the history books and film producers always fail to mention.

The first prize will be drawn on Wednesday evening, so if you are after some 28mm Tommies then you'd better head over and leave a comment on that post.


Secret Project Update

I've very nearly finished it. There is just one step left and a little bit of presentation work to do. That shouldn't take me long to do and means it will be finished in plenty of time for Broadside.

Saturday 18 May 2013

100K Prize Draw - Day 4

Edit to Add: Just a quick "Eeeeks!!"



Don't forget, there is still time to enter the previous draws:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3


So, onto today's draw. There are 3 photos today but all the items together constitute a single prize. I think that Anne and Ray [ :p  ]will be hotly contesting this one!

Anyway, piccy time so that you know what's on offer - eight fantasy figures from the Reaper Bones line:

Cave Troll, Young Fire Dragon and Ogre Chieftain

Human Warrior Barnabas, Garrick The Bold, Human Ranger Michelle

Fulumbar Ironhand, Elf Archer Lindir

OK, the rulesy-stuff:


1. You must be a public follower of this blog
2. Each draw will be open for 7 days and then the winner will be chosen at random from all entries
3. Every comment on the post will count as 1 entry in the draw (eg 5 comments = 5 entries)
4. Linking to the draw on your own blog will earn you an extra 5 entries for the prize in question
5. You can transfer your prize to someone else if you wish



Secret Project Progress

I've just got one more painting step to do on the bits I made with Milliput. Before I add them to the project, I need to do some touch-ups and highlights of the bits that are already part of it. That's my job for tomorrow.

The whole project will then need some finishing touches, leaving me with just a little bit of artwork to do to declare the project completed.

Friday 17 May 2013

100k Prize Draw - Day 3

Prize Draw Day 1

Prize Draw Day 2


The response so far has been amazing. For the Day 1 draw there are 191 entries when bonuses for pimpage and poetry are taken into account.


So, onto Day 3 and I have another fabulous prize for someone.


Yes, some more Warlord Games plastics, this time from their Pike & Shotte range.




OK, the rulesy-stuff:

1. You must be a public follower of this blog
2. Each draw will be open for 7 days and then the winner will be chosen at random from all entries
3. Every comment on the post will count as 1 entry in the draw (eg 5 comments = 5 entries)
4. Linking to the draw on your own blog will earn you an extra 5 entries for the prize in question
5. You can transfer your prize to someone else if you wish

Thursday 16 May 2013

100k Prize Draw - Day 2

Campaign 2013 Individual Results

I've seen the spreadsheet of individual results from Campaign and I came 32nd out of 38. If I hadn't made a very silly mistake in my last turn of my last game, I might have been 30th. Oh well, lesson learnt (but more than likely forgotten by the next tournament).


Secret Project

I did a little bit of work for the remaining Secret Project last night, playing with Milliput for the first time. I'll say no more and let you keep guessing what it all is. I might get a bit more done on it this evening.


100K Prize Draws

Well, the response to yesterday's prize has been astounding. Clearly that was a good choice of prize as so many of you want it! Remember - there are still 6 days to comment


I was originally planning a single prize for today, but I've realised that I'd forgotten about those followers who like the mass effect of 6mm. So, there are two prizes on offer today.

A) £21 of metal (of your choice) from Ground Zero Games. Rather than offering a specific item (or set of items), the lucky winner can simply email me a list of what products they want and I will order them for delivery to their door.
Now, £21 might not seem much but it will buy an Intro Fleet plus an extra ship or two or enough 15mm figures for a reinforced infantry platoon.

B) a £25 gift voucher for Baccus 6mm (this may be an electronic voucher rather than physical).


For this draw, please indicate which prize(s) you want to be entered for when you comment!

Edit for Clarification
You can, of course, enter for either prize or both, but do make it clear in your comment(s).

Edit to Add


OK, the rulesy-stuff:

1. You must be a public follower of this blog
2. Each draw will be open for 7 days and then the winner will be chosen at random from all entries
3. Every comment on the post will count as 1 entry in the draw (eg 5 comments = 5 entries)
4. Linking to the draw on your own blog will earn you an extra 5 entries for the prize in question
5. You can transfer your prize to someone else if you wish


Wednesday 15 May 2013

100K Prize Draw - Day 1

Well, having reached 100k page views, I needed to get some prizes for my giveaways so after work today I headed down to Orcs Nest to see what they had.

What's in the bag?



I'd decided on doing 5 prizes to be given out over 5 days. I managed to pick up 4 of them today - the other prize (which will be tomorrow's) will be slightly different. You'll just have to wait and see.

OK, the rulesy-stuff:

1. You must be a public follower of this blog
2. Each draw will be open for 7 days and then the winner will be chosen at random from all entries
3. Every comment on the post will count as 1 entry in the draw
4. Linking to the draw on your own blog will earn you an extra 5 entries for the prize in question
5. You can transfer your prize to someone else if you wish


Without Further Ado - Prize 1



A box of 28mm plastic WWII Late War British & Commonwealth Infantry from Warlord Games. The pack allows you to make up 25 figures with various weapons and includes round plastic bases and decals. This would be a great prize for anyone considering Bolt Action, Operation Squad or Chain of Command.


Tuesday 14 May 2013

100k? That crept up on me fast!




I've just spotted that my blog has broken through 100k page views. I knew I was getting close, but thought I had a couple of days yet before I got there.

I guess I really ought to do a prize draw to celebrate. If I don't I'll be seeing an angry mob with torches and pitchforks heading in my direction. So, after work tomorrow I'd better do some shopping for prizes.


Monday 13 May 2013

More Plunder!

I'm really glad I'd booked today off work as I was absolutely knackered after the weekend. After a long lie-in and an hour or so of browsing blogs whilst having a nice cuppa, I headed out to the local Royal Mail delivery office to pick up a package that needed a VAT payment. It could only be one thing - my order from Rebel Minis!

The order was a mix of piratical plunder and some sci-fi bits as well.

Back row: Pirates with melee weapons; Pirates with firearms; skull rock; PyRats; Skeleton Crew
Front Row: Guns and crew; Male pirate captains (plus mermaid); Female pirate captains; native porters (from Pulp range)

Skull rock in close up. This will form the centre-piece of my pirate camp.

Gun Clerics; Black Widow Mercs; Warrior Grav Tank

Sahadeen Militia

So, that leaves just my order with Old Glory UK to come in (which includes my pirate flag ship) then I can determine what else I need to order to complete my army. I think I might get a couple more ships, just because they will look cool, not because I actually need them.


Painting Plans

Now that I've finished the main part of my Korean army, it is time for me to head back to painting a couple of other projects which got put onto the back burner.

First up are Donogh's Hasslefree minis which I'd made a good start on before the Koreans arrived.

Second up is the other outstanding Secret Project. I've still got a few bits of sculpting/modelling to do to add to the overall project and they will need painting. The main part is almost done, with just some details/highlights/touch-ups to do.

After those I think I really should finish off some of the bits for my earlier armies. I still have 60 Sarmatian lancers to paint up (their horses are already done); 12 Scythian cataphracts plus 3 more for the command stand; and a bunch of 30YW bits (limbers, regimental gun markers, casualties for cohesion markers). I'd like to get those done before I start painting the pirates up.

Sunday 12 May 2013

Back from Campaign; Korean Camp

Hi all, I'm back from Campaign now and what a weekend it was. I've downloaded the pics from my camera and will try to write up some AARs tomorrow (I deliberately booked the day off work). I am feeling rather tired, as you can imagine.

So, my results:

Game 1 vs Bob's Southern Song Chinese - 11:9 win*
Game 2 vs Pete's Liao - 15-5 loss (might have been 14-6, the 15-5 was a guesstimate before doing the actual calculation)
Game 3 vs Keith's Koryo Koreans - 25-0 utter defeat in a Korean Civil War
Game 4 vs Paul's Xi Xia - 24-1 not-quite-as-utter defeat
Game 5 vs Mark's Xi Xia - 12-8 win to me in a Central London Wargames Club Civil War**

* my clubmates were amazed that I'd beaten Bob as he is a very, very good player and my win resulted in me receiving a standing toast when we went for a curry on the Saturday night! There are some tales of Bob's truly atrocious dice rolling to be told in my AAR.

** this round was particularly important as my team were fighting against our clubmates and the team result would determine who ended up in last place. My team were 1 point behind going in and the results were as follows:
Simon vs Richard - 24:1 loss
Me vs Mark - 12:8 win
Andy vs Jerry - 25:0 win

Last year my results were: 24-1 loss; 24-1 loss; 21-4 loss; 24-1 loss; 12-8 loss, so this year was a massive improvement I'm sure you'll agree.


I did meet up with a couple of people from the blogosphere while I was there:
Mike from Trouble At T'Mill who was there running a fun-looking participation game involving hot air balloons suspended from the frame of a small garden marquee.
Simon from Iron Mitten and his lovely better half (Kath? I'm terrible with names) who were there in C17th costume with Prince Rupert's Blew Regiment of the Sealed Knot. Poor Simon must have been boiling in his uniform and armour.
Doug (sorry - not sure if you have a blog) who was there with a 54mm Stalingrad demo game which looked fantastic.


Here are a couple of pics I took of the good (?) pirate ship "Madaxeman's Revenge" (I don't know if he's actually given it a name, but it seems appropriate) and of brilliant cohesion markers:






Teh ship is the 8-gun Barque from Blue Moon/Old Glory. He got the tokens off Ebay but I expect you can find them in the kiddies section of poundshops.


Korean Camp

Finally, the Secret Project which was the supply camp for my Koreans can be revealed.




Friday 10 May 2013

Koreans - Kwang Gun Foot

Thank goodness - they're finished with a little time to spare.

In FoG:AM these can be taken as either separate Heavy Weapon or Bow/Crossbow units, or in mixed units (50:50) of Heavy Weapon and Bow/Crossbow. You cannot take more bases of Kwang Gun spearmen (Heavy weapon) bases than you have Kwang Gun archers/crossbowmen. You can take a maximum of 24 bases each of the heavy weapon and bow/crossbow.

For Campaign this weekend, I opted for mixed Heavy Weapon/Crossbow battle groups and I'm taking them as 8s. There are good reasons for this:

1. 6s of average medium foot are too fragile
2. My opponents will (like me) have a lot of armoured cavalry as their main strike arm. Crossbows are more effective than bows against these.
3. At impact, I get an extra dice per file from support shooting which could counteract the effect of being charged by cavalry.
4. Taking them as mixed will give me a couple of shots against enemy cavalry before they are able to charge in, so there is a chance of me disrupting them or killing bases making them less effective at impact.

I will be doing up some Kwang Gun archer bases as well when I finish off the army over the summer.

Anyway, you want pics:

The Blues:





The Greens:





I'll make sure to take plenty of pics of the games and of the whole army together.


If any of you are at Campaign, please do pop over for a chat.



Thursday 9 May 2013

Korean Commanders

Phew! Finished them! They even have flags!

All together:




Commander In Chief






Right Flank Commander




Centre Commander





Left Flank Commander




The flags are free downloads from the Perry website, resized for 15mm.

I will eventually do a few more command stands to enable different classes of general to be easily distinguished on the tabletop.



Kwang Gun Infantry

I've finished painting these at last and have just given them a Klear/ink coat. Once that has dried I'll glue ballast on the base and try to get them to a point where I can easily finish the basing tomorrow evening.

Whoopee! It looks as though I'll have managed to paint up a complete 12 battle group army in just over a month. Quite impressive, particularly when you consider I had the distractions of Salute, the Society of Ancients' Battle Day and two weeks at work which were incredibly hectic and left me too knackered to paint most evenings.

Now I've just got to hope that they perform well in the tournament at the weekend!