A bit of boardgaming.

Since I have done little to no hobby this last week I give a quick run-down on how my game went this Saturday. Twelew hours with around one hour lunch is to be expected with this game. You all know which game I speak of... *

This man turned out to be the winner, after dethroning yours truly - I had 7 points and had 3 within reach but this evil-doer turned the whole table against me and I was attacked from all angles and managed to lose my capital which meant I was not allowed to score this last round. He was a worthy opponent and eerily similar in appearance to myself. His personality was slightly more approachable than mine, however.

First round - we had one newbie in our grand 8-player game, and hence we did not do simulated early turns, much to my dismay. But it was probably for the better. The new guy (to the game - I was in fact the true new guy in this group due to me moving from my old place!) got the system very fast and managed, with very basic help, collect enough points for a bronze position.

Second round. Yellow is me, newbie is to my right and the Embers to my left. The Embers eventually "fucked my shit up", as the saying so vulgary goes... I actually started to dislike the person managing the Embers, in real life, but managed to hide it. Perhaps I will get over it, perhaps not...

Third round was not eventful due to us passing a law saying that if someone attacked someone, the attacker would lose 1 VP!

Fourth or fifth round. Another weird law was voted through, stating that if you attacked black you would get +1 VP. At the same round, The Embers were sneakily attacked by purple who took the -1VP.

Sixth or fifth round. Green attacked black and got a solid +1 VP. I was in the lead at the time by carefully being the nice guy and just concentrating on tech and VP:s - I have played this game enough to have an inkling what the next VP-condition will be and tried to get the [new] Imperial (can't remember what is called, Assembly, perhaps?). We played with both expansions but not with mercs and leaders.
    This basically means I tried to take Assembly if I had more than one victory condition that was easy to lose - meaning, conditions like "keep five systems beside your homesystem for +1 VP" or "I control M3c@t0l R3x" and so on*.

 

The board in ninth round - quite a few battles happened which might sound strange considering how the board looks like in this picture. At the tenth round, purple lost it's capital as well as... green, perhaps? I lost mine in the last round where black managed to win due to us missing the little green point-giver (from D1st@nt Suns).*

     Not surprisingly, I was too angry to take pictures the last round and was concentrating on not being aggressive and impolite - this is a good game, but 11-12 hours is an investment you want to take the gold in.

Rules conundrum. But also laughter. All in all a good game and a nice little change of company and place. The lokales was top notch and the players were all really good guys - the best gang I have ever played with, so that was really something to be happy for. 

   If you wonder about the semi-careful censoring is because I personally dislike to be uploaded on the internet and so, show the same tact to others - although it looks a bit weird with the black masks, I must confess...

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*) I am trying to avoid traffic from people searching for this game because this is just a one-time happening and I wish not to lure them in here, like that post about "Where is Waldo" which is responsible for over 9000% of my traffic here at the blog.

Sweden Day! Sverigedagen! Jihooo!

Grattis på sverigedagen era gamla pappskallar! Ut och fira i iskylan nu. Själv ska jag dunka i mig tre liter kaffe och äta mandelbiskvier tills jag skiter ned mig. Friskt mod gossar.

This is the Swedish flag.

Här är några inspirerande föredettingar som är en kombination av dessa två grupper: Vinter rasat ut och
flogstavrålet!



The National Day is obviously worthless to most Swedes, the correct National Day is naturally Midsummer's Eve. Also, I messed up formatting in this post.

Dagen till ära, tänkte jag att vi återknyter, tack vare LB, lite till våra gamla 1700-talsrötter:

** Så ock efwen till dig, mon cher ami. Hvad ansér * föröfvrigt om det rådande leget i Rusland? Kan wi venta tsar Vladimir på wår egen tröskel snart månntro? Mijn herre må excuseere, iagh haver full-comligen negligerat att på edra spörsmåål gifve swaar. Ruserna skolen hållas stångne ehuru wij i thet närmaste stärcka trupperne wid Armé, Luft-Waern och Siöö-krafth samt vid Lijv-gaardena. Communismen må obönhöörlighen hålles i schack!

	Citat: Skribent *  Mijn herre må excuseere, iagh haver full-comligen negligerat att på edra spörsmåål gifve swaar. Ruserna skolen hållas stångne ehuru wij i thet närmaste stärcka trupperne wid Armé, Luft-Waern och Siöö-krafth samt vid Lijv-gaardena. Communismen må obönhöörlighen hålles i schack! Skole Hans Tzariske Maij:tt Vladimir behaga att fäckta uppå de vååra Bussar, se Godh herre N.T. vååre forna takt ogh Fäcktlusta kommen en rapide åther. Moskoviten ogh anhang vilja Swärige intet serieuse harm ogh gud-skeliijgen bestraffenheet. __________________ Melius nosse quam facere. Creandi est vitae essentia.

Skole Hans Tzariske Maij:tt Vladimir behaga att fäckta uppå de vååra Bussar, se Godh herre NoTruce vååre forna takt ogh Fäcktlusta kommen en rapide åther. Moskoviten ogh anhang vilja Swärige intet serieuse harm ogh gud-skeliijgen bestraffenheet. Mijn beste D., Ni haver begrijpit krååck-sånghen. En bonne idée voro att återinföre den allmännelige waern-plickten samt raske in-tjöp af örloogs-materiel. En trindh summe rijcksdaler skolen afsettes i budhgetten.  ____________________________________ Så sant som det var sagt.

Balrog, Kraken, Fell Wargs

So, Kraken is done and flipping done. Aaaaaaw yeah! He looks like a robot, or at least a mechanical beast. But fear not, in real life - "IRL" - he looks more like an insect than a robot and that is always something to be happy for.

Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs turned out okay. When compared to my old Warg Riders they look stellar. I do wonder what I was thinking when I first painted the Warg Riders, around seven years ago - they weren't even properly base coated! I would really like to simple-green 70% of all my models and redo them. Only problem is I would have to redo the bases and I just think I can't go through with that. Granted, a hobby is not supposed to be fun, but I draw the line somewhere between being boring and the outright torture that is redoing 1800 bases (which is roughly 80% of the bases I have done).

I never washed them in the intended dark wash but let them have their earthy colours - for two reasons: Main reason was to distinguish them from the near-black Warg Riders and secondly for them to look more beasty. I also omitted the red highlights since they are more scouting units than anything... (and as such keep a low profile - it is all about the fluff (and the tabletop standard) here at Llama's War of the Ring).

Kraken base in a few more angles. This is the fourth time using water effects and this is the worst result - I was too sloppy with the preparations.

In order to store The Balrog I opted to cut his wings and magnetize them. I weighed them and used Boemann's formula for calculating magnetic strength, but must have slept through my university mathematics class becuase the wings just fell off.
     To make mat(h)ters worse (wohahahah! Pun in-fucking-tended!), I read that this model that I have happily mutilated is actually a rare one. Good thing I didn't threw away or melted the whip. The sword is homemade, which is not overly obvious. I hope...

I will just have to reattach the wings with the cunning use of pins and glue and GS.

Good bye fellow happy bloggers and may your weekend be hobby-filled and without spousal nagging!

Water effects on 120 mm base

I used GW:s product because it was readily available. There are numerous other, better products - not to mention cheaper ones, but this is what I had.

A rim of translucent tape was added and away I went. It has dried for nearly 20 hours in the image above and still is not cured/dried where the it was over 2 mm in height.

Washing away on the Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs. A black wash remains to be applied. The bases need some work also, but after that they are done.

Odin's Day - Everything's Day!

Everything as in Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs, a weirdly themed base and a big flipp-off Kraken.

This time I started not with basecoats but with washes (directly on white primer). I used Vallejo's Thinner Medium to get the colours in the right amount of slippery. I can actually recommend this, it speeds up tabletop painting a lot.
    It all looks very colourful in its current state, but I assure you that they will look suitably dark and Orcish after a few special washes. I am toying with the idea to put woodworker's glue into the wash that goes on the wargs to make them look oily and sweaty. Not sure though.

I then proceeded to work on the base for Kraken since I did not enjoy it especially much. I have tried to carefully make some chemical burn holes in the polystyrene as to make it look more rugged. It did not really go as planned, but it will work after I put a band-aid on it (some moss or whatever).
    Typically, I avoid using expensive GS to make rocks but an exception was made with this base. Three small and dead fish I sculpted as well.

The red water plant is seriously misplaced - I now remember that red water plants are at a certain depth due to red being better at absorbing the correct light-wavelenght. On the base I placed three dead fish, two water-abrased planks, some water-grass (can't remember what is called in English - vass) as well as some kaveldun, you know those cigar-shaped plants that live by sweet water, indicating the critter in fact lives in a lake.

I took it right off it's base - plopp - and it broke half it legs as well as parts of the ugly rock.

The parts to decorate the base. Just remembered: I also made a broken oar that will lay about to further inprint that this is, in fact, a water base that is close to a lake with water in it because the Kraken is a waterliving creature that in fact lives by/or in water, so it's just logical to mount the creature on a base that is themed towards water - sort of close to a lake, in many case made obvious by the oar, the dead fish or the fact that the Kraken is, in fact, a water-living creature - which I indicate by putting it on a waterly themed - aquatic, you could even say - base.

Destroyed the two old Isengard Assault Ballists I made when I was barely a youngling (well... ) and used the parts as a base for the new one, slightly scaled down in size. Not sure when I will finish it. The paintjob was beyond hideous. I would probably punch myself if I had a time-machine.

The base before I added "mud". We shall see how all these projects turn out - I am very interested to see how the Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs will look like, a few washes down the line.

Lastly, the Hunter Orcs aren't the only ones getting a wash today. A big timber truck literary doused me in dirty rainwater when I crossed a bridge and (stupidly) stopped in the middle of the bridge to look at all the water that flowed under it (close to a flood!). For some reason I was so spellbound that I really did not react when the icecold water flowed up my back, legs and neck. I just stood there and watched the water... Is that zen or just a tad too close to the train tracks? Personally, I'd say it was five popped-collars cool!

Also, congratulations to our blogging-colleague Scott of Scott's Wargaming on his new endevour in life! I hope to see you back soon in the nerdosphere! Scott is a great painter and hobbyist and makes semi-regular batreps for LotR/Hobbit and he is good source for hobby enjoyment, so I hope he will manage to rely (reläa?) the responsibilities to his wife soon enough and come back to us!

,l.