Highlanders and Shermans, what a mix.....

So it's been another week, or so anyway.  Still no news on No2 son and his knee.  We spent nearly 3 hours in Exeter hospital to be told "We are not sure what he has done so we will put him on the fast track for treatment.  Come back in 4 weeks for a scan".  Not overly impressed with not even knowing what he had done, we rang his insurance company to see if he is covered for scans, Aviva said yes so he is know in on the 30th for his scan and to see the consultant. Money talks I guess.

Painting wise, here are some pictures of the Highlanders and Shermans.  The infantry are off to Cornwall soon while the tanks will be on eBay tomorrow.

42nd "Royal Highland" aka The Black Watch.

 The first of three units of Highlanders, these are AB figures I believe.  Painting tartan is still quite interesting, but the other units have more colours in them than this, so may push it into annoying instead of interesting.

A Sqd, 1st Coldstream Guards

 First unit of Shermans, painted and decaled to represent A Squadron, 1st Coldstream Guards, part of 5th Guards Armoured Brigade in the Guards Armoured Division, circa Normandy 1944.

B Sqd, 1st Coldstream Guards

The second unit is marked up as B Squadron, the only digfferences are the turret markings and the number of commanders.  The vehicles are all Battlefront from the Open Fire box set, which are pretty good models and match their metal models nicely.

Gaming has been a bit hit and miss, but an improvement on the previous couple of weeks.  Monday night we played a Cheapass Game, which involved time machines.  It's not my favourite game of theirs, but it was a reasonable way to spend the evening.  I have also had a couple of races of Formula De with No2 son, 'cos he's bored being stuck at home.  Little git kicked the crap out of me in the first race, hitting every corner just right and getting a 1-2 result.  Race two went a bit better, with me getting 1st and 3rd.  Round 3 will come up soon, unless X-Wing rears it's ugly head as my loving wife bought me a Tie Interceptor and B-Wing last week, which was nice. 

Monday night will see us having a multi-player game of Chain of Command, being set up by Nathan.  We will have to play in the wrong scale (25mm) as the more aged members of our group can no longer see anything smaller (no comments please).

Anyway, its late and I have stuff to do before bed, so keep rolling those dice and I will catch you later.

New computer!

I have got all the bits, put them together and even got them to work.  Upgraded from an old dual core 1.6ghz processor, 2gb ram(max motherboard would take), 250gb hard drive and old 512mb graphics card to quad core 3.6ghz, 8gb ram(32gb max!), 1tb hard drive and new 1gb graphics card.  Its significantly faster at everything and I even get into battles on world of tanks before they start.  Shiny.

I am also painting stuff.  Started some more of the Wars of the Roses figures as there is less than 2 weeks until we play the big game at the Devon Wargames meet.  I still have 36 figures to paint up for this, so have to get on with them.  I am still waiting for the Pak43s I ordered from Battlefront many weeks ago.  Its over 5 weeks since they took the money, but they are still out of stock.  Not impressed.  I have also just ordered some more AWI figures from Peter Pig, but they are a Christmas present from my Mum, so I can't have them when they arrive but have to wait until Christmas.

Monday night we played X-Wing again upstairs while Panjo and Colin finished off a Dux game downstairs.  The Rebels had Chewbacca flying the Falcon with Gaven Dreiss Dwarven Grease and a Red Squadron pilot in X-Wings.  The Imperials fielded Darth Vader in a TIE advanced and 4 TIEs piloted by Howlrunner, Mauler Mithel, Winged Gundark and an Academy pilot.  Asteroids littered the table and several moves were restricted by the risk of collisions.  End result was the Falcon had lost all but 2 hull hits, Red pilot was dead and Gaven Dreiss Dwarven Grease had 1 shield left.  The Imperials lost everybody except Howl Runner(1 hull left) and the academy pilot(2 hull left).  In terms of damage caused, the Rebels caused 14 hits against the Imperials hitting 17 times, but the durability of the Falcon and X-Wings won the day.  It was a fun game though, everybody seemed to enjoy it.

Downstairs, Panjo's Romano-British were butchered by Colin's Saxons.  Colin won by 9, so got more men and Panjo will take 3 months to get his men back.  Ouch.

Well, keep smiling and roll those dice folks.

X Wing

 I have finally finished my Revell Millenium Falcon model.  This has come about because FFG have delayed release of their official model until February, so steps had to be taken.  The model was £6.50, the base is some offcut mdf and the stand is some left over plastic rod. 

Revell Millenium Falcon, based and shaded

The base was covered with a home made attempt at a ship data sheet.  Not as nice as the official one, but it will do.  I have also made some cards up using templates I found on Boardgamegeek, so I can now use it on the table.  I think it scales up pretty well with the fighters and doesn't look to shabby.

Tie, Falcon and X-Wing together.

Top view of the 3 ships.

Sick again, Maelstrom Games, Parcel Farce and X-Wing

Well, here I am at home on the 2nd Saturday of the month instead of being at the Devon Wargames meeting.  My stomach is playing up again and I need to go to work tonight, so I am taking it easy today.  Stupid pancreas.

It seems my last post rather pre-empted the situation at Maelstrom Games.  My order for guns is still outstanding and they are no longer using paypal, so it looks like I am out of pocket there.  Not impressed to be honest, seems like the head honcho at Maelstrom has a bit of a reputation for this sort of thing as well.  So I am off to order some Pak 43s from another source now, probably direct from Battlefront to save any future problems.

My next company to avoid is Parcel Force.  I sold some woodworking tools on ebay for a friend last Tuesday.  Had been paid by everybody by Thursday so booked them all to go via a courier service via Parcel2Go.com.  Five items were sold, ranging from 4kg to 20kg. Three of the five were shipped by my Hermes, one by Yodel(ex-DHL) and one by Parcel Force as they were cheapest for shipping to Norway.  Yodel picked up yesterday at about midday, my Hermes were here by 3pm and Parcel Farce were here..............never.  Yes, that's right, I still have a parcel here.  Despite paying over £33 for 48 hour shipping to Norway, the parcel is still here in my dining room.  Not a good advertisement for a shipping company to be honest.  So now I have to stay up on Monday after working Sunday night in the faint hope that Parcel Farce might arrive to pick up the parcel. 

Finally something good.  After my purchase of the X-Wing game, with its two TIE fighters and single X-wing fighters, I have just received my first wave of reinforcements.  Another X-wing and TIE fighter, supported by a Y-wing and TIE advanced.  Very nice they are too, although I still see a need for some more.  Another X-wing would allow the trench run for the attack on the Death Star to be replayed.  Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles and Biggs Darklighter  each with an R2 unit and proton torpedoes adds up to 102 pts.  They are a trio to fear in X-wing fighters, espescially Wedge. I will also need 2 more Y-wings, to do the same mission.  Then some more TIE fighters to match them up.  I think another box set, which will give another X-wing and two more TIEs would be a good buy, followed by two more Y-wings.  Then some TIE Interceptors when they come out.  I'm not to bothered about the A-wings, I just don't like them much.  I will need a Millenium Falcon though.  I mean, who doesn't want one.

Anyway, keep playing and keep smiling.