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Thursday, 9 February 2017

Killing it

So decided I am going to kill this particular blog off not least of all cause I never post to it, but also cause a new venture needs a fresh start.

 Going to be building a new blog over the next couple of weeks, it'seems going to be dedicated to painting, gaming and the occassional rant about something or other that has got my ire up.

Thanks to everyone who viewed the blog over however long it'seems been up and I hope you have been at least a little entertained by my musings and my ramblings. If I ever get myself published I will start using this blog again but until then it's getting shut down.

Cheers

David

Saturday, 20 August 2016

Time flies

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I posted a blog.

How time flies when there is so much shit to be done.

In that time I have had two jobs, my baby niece has turned 1 and I met an amazing young lady online who liked me for who I am and we were proceeding along the path that I thought meant I was never going to date anyone ever again, of course I've managed to screw that up that we went from talking all day every day to her barely speaking to me at all. All my fault cause I am a self sabotaging idiot, how much I wish I could stop myself.

We lost my Grandma back in January after a battle with cancer which sucked the fun out of life for a while. She was the strongest, toughest, little old Geordie lass you would ever meet but she loved her family like nobody else could and the loss of her presense in all of our lives is sorely felt by all of her family. I wish I had had kids before she died so they could have known her and like all of us we are glad that she got to meet our munchkin,  wee ZoZo, my niece Zoey, who is the most fun to chase around the place cause that wee cheeky smile and laugh brightens up your day.

On the creative side I am working on a number of writing projects at the same time, it's fun because when I'm writing I am not getting bored at all, funnily enough not one of them is the book that I've been sitting looking at for years that I keep on promising will get published but never seems to get there. I'm working on a Military Sci-fi novel as part of a series actually set in the Magiverse I set up for Burn, Forest City, Burn.

The second is the first book in an epic Fantasy series based on a world I've been RPG gaming in for 20 years (well 11 years but there was a 10 year gap inbetween 10 and 11) and it's not getting worked on much but it's coming along but this one has a plan that I can go back to without the fly by the seat of my pants approach I usually take to writing.

The third is actually a campaign book for the aforementioned epic Fantasy series, which due to actually playing in the world I find myself looking forward to publishing more than I do my books. It's 20 years in the making, it's something I've been tinkering with and perfecting longer than anything in my life.

I've started painting for other people, starated with my wee brother's Chaos warriors, who are nowhere near done but I have managed to finish all the foot warriors, like everything else of my own painting wise there is so much work to be done that I go back when I can. I'm putting the finishing touches on a 2nd group of Battletech figures for one of the guys at Glasgow District I regularly play against. He hands me them and says do what you want with them, I've got the 3Rd Lyran Guard, 2nd Ceti Rangers, 1st Marik Militia, 4th Arkab Legion and Smoke Jaguar Alpha Galaxy down pat. Watch this space for updates on that particular endeavour in the future.


Of my own painting I've been working mostly on my American WW2, but it's been a while since I did anything with them, my ever growing Malifaux collection, spent more money on that in a year and a half than I have anything other than booze, actually probably more than I have on booze. I've been doing bits and pieces for everything but not settling on a single project for more than a month at a time. When I got my Zombicide Black Plague (If you haven't played it I can not recommend it more, it's awesome) I worked on that a whole lot, 30 figures at a time over a couple weeks and I'm probably only half way through them.

I took part in my first Malifaux tournament at the Scottish GT last month and didn't come last, managed to beat my expectations for the weekend of getting a Victory Point in every game of the tournament, by actually winning a game, beating a friend who had up until that point alluded me beating at the game. I'll conceed the terrain, the strategy and the schemes suited my faction and the crew I chose to perfection against his which none of it was any help to him. Liking forward to my next one and an excuse to paint abother faction's worth of figures. Got three factions now, Guild, Ten Thunders and Outcasts, though I could field a Neverborn crew I wouldn't say I had them as a Faction. One of the Outcast crews is all female and I will be painting them all the colours of the Harley Quinn Rainbow, from the original, to the Arkham series probably all the way to the Suicide Squad incarnation. Watch this space for those.

I've also got a bunch of Napoleonic's sitting ready to be painted I started the foot centre company but got distracted by work and everything else.

So as for the rest of my life, the only real significant thing other than getting my degree was the young lady who I met online. Sonya. She fits all the attraction points for me, redhead, gorgeous even though she doesn't see it, fun, smart even though she doesn't think it, and tough, not just because of everything she's gone through in the past 6 and a half minus that I've known her but the mental toughness to come though the things she's had to endure over her life, if I was her I'd have rolled up into the fetal position long ago and wouldn't have gotten out of it. Of course I managed to do what I always do and sabotage myself by saying stupid shit and not stopping myself even though I know I should and have been there before. I wish I had learned by now not to do this shit. But I haven't and don't know if I ever will.

As for the martial arts and my fitness, it's not been a great year, barely been to the Grip and put all that weight I had lost back on, I'm working on getting it back off but with my work schedule being as eratic as it is I don't know where I'm going to be from one week to the next, I was up north for two days last week, three this week and two next week. It's not like you actually get to see a place either, you get there at 8 O'Clock at night, go to bed cause you are up early the next day go to the job and either go home or onto the next town where you eat and go to bed cause of the early start. But it's work and I hate nnot working.

I'm going to stop predicting when I am going to publish what because it's a waste of my time, your time and anticipation. It is suffice to say, I am working on it and will be done and ready when I am done and ready.

One last thing Grimbold books, the indie publishers that published Strange Tales from the Scriptorion Vaults and A World of Their Own, both of which have short stories of mines published within their pages if you don't already own copies of both you should cause while I am a hack at the best of times the rest of the writers are truly superb and they are both Charity anthologies so the money you spend goes to two superb literary charities. They are on Patreon to keep the publishing going, the owners have poured their hearts and souls and plenty of their own money into this venture and there are some truly brilliant writers on their various imprints, I myself am helping them keep the business afloat, granted they are my friends and I support them because of that but because they also take chances on works that no major publisher would, and the out there oddball stuff is the best. Like all Patreon's you get what you pay for it'll be worth your time and money if you are a Fantasy and Sci-fi fan.

Think that's me for now, I will try and update this more often than I have in the past I need to just make the time.

Peace.

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

A World of Their Own




So, a week past on Friday A World of their own by the Alliance of Worldbuilders, a group who I was a member of when I was a member of the now defunct HarperCollins owned website, which was essentially their slush pile for potential authors, not that many people got through that, I never read any of them but doesn't mean they weren't any good, though just because anything get's published means it's any good Twishite got published.

Anyway back in 2010, the Alliance of Worldbuilders Authonomy thread began to take off and became the go-to site for fantasy/sci-fi writers to share ideas, critique each other, offer tips, and encourage one another in our writing and publishing journeys. We would constantly break the forum because our thread was so huge that they wouldn't load any longer, so we had to start again.

In 2011, we began to discuss the idea of an anthology to be published in 2012, collecting short stories and flash fiction from our members and putting it together. As we have all been on our own individual journeys in the last few years (many of the collaborators now published authors at this point), it took quite a while to finally put together and bring a real finalized product to the world.

So all the proceeds go to the World Literacy Foundation who's mission is to lift children and youth out of poverty by delivering effective and sustainable programs aimed at eradicating illiteracy.

The World Literacy Foundation was founded on several basic principles – education is a basic human right, too many people around the world don’t know how to read or write, and that literacy is the foundation to learning. Since its establishment as a not-for-profit in 2003, the World Literacy Foundation has steadily grown to align with the needs of a continually evolving educational sector.



So, basically a World of their Own is one part Charity Anthlogy other part homage to a fallen comrade, Lindsey J Parsons, or Sergeant Gummie Dragon, who we lost in early last year of a Brain aneurysm before she could complete the trilogy she was working on the Return of Effra. I personally didn't know her a whole lot but anyone who did never had a bad word to say about her and that speaks volumes about a person in my opinion.

Anyway both of my short stories We Rise and they smite and Night of a Thousand Spells were on here at some point in the past and it says I'm working on a Caleb O'Hearn book to be published hopefully in the first quarter of next year, of course since it's been published that's already changed. The first book of the Gabriel of Alba books, which was titled Burn, Forest City, Burn, but is know just Burn: Book 1 of the Magi Chronicles is going to be that book because the second draft is 80% done (and not before time it's only taken 3 years) and the first draft of Warrior Rising is only at 40%, but I'll be releasing that 3rd or 4th Quarter next year, none of this depends on if I get a publisher, I'll be self-publishing and at least sell it to the friends who like me enough to do it and the family members who feel generous.

So, if you are seeing this and haven't already bought it, please do and if you liked it leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads and any good review site, because the more people read and review it, the more money the charity get.

ISBN 13: 978-1909845817
ISBN 10: 1909845817
ASIN: B014WQS2GQ

Sunday, 30 August 2015

Life Update

Howdy do folks,

So a little life update, I passed my Resit of my Unix exam so I have a BSc in Computer Networking, so whoop.

Went to the first ever UFC in this great, mighty small nation on the planet, there was one bad fight all night, and all three Scots won that night, the atmosphere was out of this world, UFC's in the US aren't like that, but Europeans, we bring the sane atmosphere we do to Football matches.

Back on a painting kick after having painted two whole fleets of Dystopian Wars Air fleets for the Claymore show, which was alright but it wasn't anywhere as good as Carron adequate,  which we got a special mention in Wargames Illustrated.

I painted a 50 soul stone crew for Mali faux,  it came out awesome all but the Crew leader that is.

I'm in the middle of painting my younger brother's Warhammer Khorne army, it'seems going very well at the moment. Managed about 40 chaos warriors so far, I'll post pictures when I'm done.

I'm single which sucks but we persevere.

I've been a bit broken for a couple of months, my back hasn't been doing well at all, all stemming from an idiot screw up trying to do a single takedown with a lift rather than a drove. Dumb ass move it was.
This means I've put the weight I had lost this year back on. But I will be hitting the training again soon. And I started doing Yoga to see if that can help with the back.

A World of Their Own, a book of Short stories by members of the Alliance of World builders, a group of writers including myself, that met on the now defunct Authonomy website, is due to be released on the 4th of September on Amazon in the UK and USA, it'll be £8.99 in the UK and $13.99 in the US for the paperback and £1.99 and $2.99 for the Ebook, I'll be doing my usual shilling like a villa over the next week.

All proceeds to the book are going to the World Literacy Foundation, which is an awesome charity who try and get youths out of poverty through literacy and education.

Oh, my baby sister had a little girl, Zoey, and she is the most gorgeous, cute, lovely little pudding of a baby. She is awesome.

So, that's pretty much it for now.

Thursday, 11 June 2015

Long time coming

Jesus it's been a long time since I posted anything, been to busy I suppose.

So, onto it, well I've passed all but one of my modules for my BSc in Computer Networking, which means a resit in August which is a pain in the ass, but never mind.

The fitness regime is lets say kicking, more I'm getting my ass kicked than me kicking ass but that's cool because I've got hard muscles for the first time in ten years, also I can do proper push-ups again and I'm starting to run the belly off, I couldn't do that with just walking and running last summer. The squats are easy, it's the crunches that are a bitch, and kettlebells are awesome even if they aren't the Onnit Primal bells, they looks so cool but considering they would cost almost £300 before posting and the import tax I can do without. Also I started to do Yoga, yes me, who always made fun of guys who did Yoga, but to be fair I made fun of the new agey assholes.

Carronade 2015 was a rousing success both for the Falkirk club which had it's biggest numbers in clubs, traders and feet throught the door this year, and for the Glasgow District club as well.

We did two displays, my own Assault on Gibraltar using Dystopian Wars (my what a surprise for you all) and a Spanish Civil War game run by Balkan Dave himself.

A few photos are below including George Dick's awesome Rock of Gibraltar, the Britianians were from Bill Robertson's collection and the Prussians are mine, some of which were I will admit whole heartedly finished the night before





I could not honestly tell you who won or how the game was played who killed what and what killed them. I was too busy talking with the many people who came to see the game. I let Bill and Sandy do the shooty shooty but ass the landing on Gibraltar never actually happened since we ran out of time I think the Britannians won by default, (BOOOO). We actually ran out of fliers for the game midway through the day, we never run out of fliers ever and the last one went to the Wargames Illustrated's roving reporter, hopefully we'll get a mention.

Details of both games are on the GDWS site.

Assault on gibraltar

There's a Valley in Spain called Jarama

Also Balkan Dave's blogpost on the show



Next up in displays will be an all aerial Dystopian Wars game at Claymore. Yes that's right all airships and fighters. Lots of aces flying around the place. Thing is though it's seven weeks away and I've got pretty much all the Britannians and Russians to paint. Thankfully the Prussians are all done.

I have finished my book I was working on and am currently in the early stages of the first edit before I send it out to have it perused by some people to get their feedback on the various aspects of it. Still on course for the March release next year, whether it's a traditional, indie or a do it myself publishing is yet to be seen.


Also I'M GOING TO THE UFC, yes that is correct I will be in Glasgow at the Hydro on the 18th of July, one of the lucky 13,000 that will witness the first ever Scottish UFC event and what will be the loudest ever UFC event in the history of the organisation. Dana White thought Dublin was loud,  I say fuck Dublin, there's going to be twice as many of us and as everyone knows the Scots are louder than the Irish any day of the week. There's only been 9 of the 12 fights announced so far, so I'm hoping that means some trials for some of Scotland's up and coming fighters. I'm going along with the sister's baby daddy but I know of a half dozen people who got their tickets. It's the fastest sell out of a UFC event in Europe ever, 25 minutes and all the tickets were gone. To say I almost bounced off a wall when I got the tickets would be an accurate assessment, also the shit eating grin I had for a week pretty much summed up how awesome I thought it was.

Still waiting on a release date for the Alliance of Worldbuilders Anthology and will post it when I know. I know there are some issues with it at the moment, I'm not sure what they are but as I said when they are available I will let you know.


All in all not a bad report of the activities.


***EDIT*****

Oh, aye, I forgot, 53 SNP MP's in Westminster (maybe 54 if that lying Wanker Carmichael get's booted out), tae fuck wae the establishment, maybe the EU referendum will give the English the kick up the arse they need to see that the fuckin established wankers aren't working.

Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Podcasts

So, today after a small update on how life is going, I'm going to talk about the recent introduction in my life that are podcasts, not entirely a new concept but new for me at least.

It all started for me with the Joe Rogan Experience, some of you who like me are fans of combat sports will be aware of Mr Rogan the colour commentator for the UFC in its peak period of growth, some of you older people may remember him from the 90'a sitcom News Radio, my own first experience was from his stand up comedy. 

I started listening to the show because I was bored one day and came across it looking to see if he was going to be doing a stand up tour in the UK, he wasn't but I came across the podcast videos, the first one I came across waa one with Joey Diaz, another incredibly funny stand up with one hell of a life, for those of you that aren't aware of him, I recommend listening to one of the podcasts and listen to him recount some of his stories. What I was to find was not just a comedy podcast but a podcast that had everything from discussions on psychedelics to political discussions, philosophy, the nature of humanity, fighters,  just about anything you could want torder know it's in there.

Now there are occasions where I want to shout and tell Joe to shut the fuck up and let his guests talk, but they always eventually get out what they are wanting to say. And because these people have said some interesting things about various subjects you want to hear more, which has lead to my listening to probably two dozen podcasts, from Daniele Bolleli's Drunken Taoist, Cara Santa Maria's Talk Nerdy, a numbet of the Earwolf, Nerdist amd Deathsquad networks' podcasts, everything I listen to informs my thoughts and how I approach evertything in life.

This had lead me to stop watching TV practically altogether, I'll now do what I did with only with Game of Thrones and wait for the whole series to finish and watch every episode in one or two sitings and because while listening to a podcast you can pop the headphones and get something else done at the same time, my productivity has shot through the roof. Where I would have to sit and watch for a couple hours every night what had been on the night before, I power through it, which is what was always great about Netflix, every episode of a series is right there to watch. I may be massively behind everyone else but so what I should be used to that by now. I now don'the even bother with music while I'm exercising anymore, I download a couple of podcasts on my phone and away I'll go, I used to unconsciously move at the rhythm of each song, which when every song has it's own throws you off, now I go at a  natural rhythm which is cool.

You may be asking why I even bother talking to you about this, well I like to share things that are new to me, and if me sharing my experiences cam lead someone else to a podcast that helps them in life or even they just get enjoyment out of , that'sounds me paying it forward and doing a little good, and if you keep doing a little good every day, then it makes life and the world better a little bit at a time.

That's enough from me for the day, so peace, love and all that good shit.


Monday, 23 February 2015

I'm Back

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,

It is indeed I, your favorite neighborhood wacko foul mouthed, angry Scotsman.

It has been a good long while since I posted, there was the massive the massively drunken rant over the UK blackout of events on Fight Pass, I got over it since I get BT Sports for free and just record it, but apart from that there hasn't been anything since the Referendum, which I'm just going to say much other I'm bummed about, but come May hopefully the Westminster Establishment of theives, cunts, pedophiles and wankers are going to be kicked squarely in the arse by the rolling freight train of the renewed vigour of Scottish interest in how we are governed, and how badly we've been getting shafted by the Tories, the Red Tories and the Yellow Tories.

I passed two of my units for the first half of my Uni 3rd year, the one I failed was Unix and it was the exam that I failed miserably but it doesn't help when you the study materials you have don't even remotely match what's in your exam, you can't study the whole of Unix, it's frigging impossible. Hoping this half won't be as bad, doesn't seem like it (Helps that HTML and Javascript doesn't have an exam) and I get to resit in August so won't be repeating and wasting a whole year on it.

The Dystpian Wars extraveganza is rolling on, 6000 points strong of Prussians and 4000 points strong of Russians, and while we are fighting the Battle of Gibraltar at Carronade in very early May, the Rock itself is being crafted masterfully by the great George Dick, is rolling along quickly and not absolutley prepared for it, but I'll be orgainising that little bit in the ext few weeks, emails need to be sent and the delivery of members of the clubs who cant be there's ships needs to be arranged.

On the Wargaming front still and I just spent over £200 on a new World War II American army, with the required Sherman, in 28mm for Chain of Command by Two Fat Lardies and Bolt Action by Warlord. Pictures will be forthcoming when the painting is complete. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment and always give myself more work than I can handle but screw it.

Yet again staying with Wargaming, I will be taking part once again in the Scottish Battletech Championship this year at the Schiltron Wargaming tournament, hoping to make up for last years debacle with a top half finish this year. If you are interested I believe there are some places still available for Battletech so if you pop along to the website and have a look see

On the writing side of things, I am in the middle of working on the first draft of Warrior Rising, it is the new title of my first Caleb (originally Calibern) O'Hearn novel, it is actually a completely different book from Running out of Space which along with the several books that I started since I began that, got stopped because I couldn't take them anywhere at a certain point cause I didn't feel it (maybe because I'm an idiot and didn't have a plan for any of them). This was precipitated by a conversation I had in the Pub (oh, everyone has to be surprised by that) with my good friend Ferdinand, big crazy Dutch Philosopher in chief of Rufus T Firefly, about how I always start things and have great plans for them (or not really in my case) but they always go to shit, I started afresh with a brand new book but using the back story I had created for him and a number of the characters, sat down and went through all the backlog of stuff I had written and then made a plan of the novel section by section who the characters would be that were in the story. It'll be finished at the end of August this year, drafted, read by people I trust, drafted, read, drafted and then polished up and in September I  begin shopping it around publishers after that and if I don't get a bite I will be self publshing for this time next year.

In other writing news the Alliance of Worldbuilders is in the final stages of prep (I'm a lazy shit and only just wrote my Bio) the irrepresible and awesome Sammy HK Smith, author of In Search of Gods and Heroes, mother of Cats (seriously she has a whole fuck load of them), one of the head honchos of Grimbold Books is working her way to completing that, I have two short stories in there, Mr Gabriel of Alba, protagonist of my Urban Fantasy work is hacking away and shooting spells at people in there, so watch this space or my facebook or even my Google+ feed for that and if you haven't bought and read In Search of Gods and Heroes why the hell not?

This year also as part of my attempt to become healthy and fit once again, am seriously (aposed to fucking around with it for short periods) taking up  Muay Thai and Brazilian Jui-jitsu as part of an MMA orientated regime, it will encompasse eventually the whole spectrum of training in MMA but I'm starting with the hard bits first. Also I begin 352 days of no Booze, that's correct no more drunken ramblings for almost year, as of  the 16th of March, conveniently those 352 days land on the end of my birthday celebration period of one year and end at the beginning of the celebration period of another year, not really all that convinient since I sent the time limit. I reckon if I can go that long without booze after losing three stone over three months without it, I will be a lean mean and less angry machine by the end of the 352 days, that and I'l save a shitload of money.

That's about it for this particular blog, as I am about to eat dinner and head out to Falkirk for some Chain of Command, first outing of my new army.

Peace, love and all that good shit.

Sunday, 28 September 2014

UFC Fight Pass

Fuckin fight Pass.

I love the fights, and willingly fork out £60 for the year for the pleasure of watching guys and girls beat the shit out of each other, from way back in the beginning, fighters past, present and future and the promotions of the past, but why the fuck do I just get the prelims for UFC 178?

I don't pay for pay-per-view, because let's be honest other than boxing fans and "wrestling" fans nobody in the UK is dumb enough to fork out £30 for one event.

I have BT Sport cause I have BT internet, so that's not an issue.

Why the crap can't I sit in bed and watch the actual fights, the ones that actually matter, not that I don't mind getting to see Manny Gamburyan get his shit back together now he's at Bantamweight, and watching Kevin Lee's tenative steps in the UFC is fun.

But...

I want to see Dominik Cruz's comeback as he  proves his time out wasn't in vein as he makes his way back to the top of the men's Bantamweight pile, while he's proving he is still one of the best of the 135 pounders as he pounds the crap out of Mizugaki.

I want to watch Cat Zingano put the hell of her last year and a half behind her and prove why she's a better fighter than 'Cupcake' Tate and why she should be ahead of anyone as the next challenger for Ronda Roussey's title (by the way fuck Gina Carano, she hasn't fought in five years and fuck Cyborg, the steroid shooting cheat doesn't deserve to still be fighting, no PED user who abused the proper system should ever be allowed to fight ever again, including Chael Sonnen who I fuckin loved watch fight and Stephan Bonner, who is one of the pillars of MMA as it is today after his TUF 1 final with Forrest, while I'll enjoy watching him fuck Tito up in November (one of few Bellator fights I might sit all the way through just to watch Tito get fucked up) I still think he should have got a lifetime ban for using roids), while fucking Amanda Nunes up.

I don't want to have to wait until I wake up and watch Conor MacGreagor beat the shit out of that greetin faced prick Dustin Porrier (I really want to be the one beating his face in but I would actually get owned to fuck).

I don't want to watch the Cowboy show Eddie Alvarez why Bellator's for has beens and might be's while it's happening.

And I want to watch Mighty Mouse's hand raised yet again, and let it be a lesson to all the haters of the little guys, a 125 pounder with the proper training will still fuck your day up.

Anyway, that's the rant over....

Time for Pizza and the fights in the uncomfortable chairs.

Friday, 26 September 2014

Progress Report number how should I know.

Alrighty folks

So, it's been a couple of months since my last update.

Just spent the better part of three months losing over 30 pounds, and any time anyone tells you excercise is fun is talking out of their ass, it's not fun if you are 50 odd pounds from healthy and want to kick that fat's ass, got another nine pounds to go before I get back to the gym and start rebuilding the upperbody and getting arms to resemble the tree trunks that are my legs.

That's going to be slowed down due to me starting my 3rd year of my degree, it started last Monday and I'm already bashing my head off of the wall at one of the modules, Proffesional Issues in Computing, more like philosophical claptrap designed so I don't go out and start destroying people's computers just cause I'm getting paid to do it. I'm already a member of the BCS, the rest of the course isn't bad so far other than the fairly heavy duty labs for Unix, but Unix is frigging important for anyone that wants to deal with more than 2% of the World's servers.

Just found out that I'm potentially going to be published again somewhere around Christmas, you may have noticed that They Rise and We Smite was removed from the blog, that would be the reason for it, there's also another couple potentials. I had submitted it to the Anthology well back into 2011 but it never seemed to ever be going to materialise, hence the posting up here, but my good friend and all around crazy worker Sammy HK Smith, author of In Search of Gods and Heroes, available at Kristell Ink Publishing, and her team at Grimbold books, who recently held a very successful Kickstarter campaign to keep the indie publishing house open for another couple years, are going to publish it, more on that when everything is finalised and I'm actually sure that I'm going to be featured, from recollection They Rise was a bit of a frigging shambles and in need of some serious editing. But I'll probably still shill it anyway since it's a charity anthology and I can resist shilling for charity.

The Falkirk District Wargames Club to which I am a member is doing a Necromunda campaign, which I bought the day it came out way back in 1995 and had been playing in campaigns on and off into the early 2000s but probably not since 2004. I was going to use Ratskins, none of the official models right enough, just some Sci-fi Native americans that I had from some game that I got for nothing that I never ever played, I had converted them and painted them and then played with them a couple of times and promptly realised it that was a slightly dumb idea to use a gang that had no heavy hitters and ancient weapons even for today's standards. So I promptly changed my mind, and decided that I would use one of the House Gangs. Back in the day I used Orlocks, cause back when I was young and stupid, I liked the look of them so I bought them. This time around I decided that I would choose a gang that was more geared to how I play games, full tilt aggresive, so I went for the Goliaths. I was just going to use the plastics I had from the two boxed sets that I had bought in 1995 and 2002 the first for a fraction of the actual price in some one day sale that the Glasgow Games Workshop had on. But the problem with the plastics was no individuality, even putting in new heads and converting heavies, it wouldn't have the flavour of my old Orlock gangs where I only used one of each of the plastic figures, so I went onto ebay to see if I could find any, find many I did, and I promptly put three bids on two of which were essentially the same models, minus one player or another, the other was a group of Orlocks incase I didn't get the Goliaths and I could just supplement my old ones with the new ones. I was thinking, I might win one but I'll never win three, nope I'm an Idiot, I went and won all three, so here I am sitting with all these models and thinking, gods damn it I'm still going to have to get converting shit, though screw trying to convert the heavies, just be two heavy stubber identical twins with some different tatts and a different hair colour.

Once they're all done with the paint jobs, I'll be uploading the pictures from each stage of the process, a well documented one, I like projects like this where every model itself is an individual project in it's self.

As for the writing of the books, it's in it's constant state of who the fuck knows, I think I started another two projects over the summer and really didn't do much of it, though I did manage to sit down and go through Burn Forest City Burn, and decided the title sucked a disesed Monkey's puss infested nut sack, and the second go at the first edit will be beginning as soon as I get a few spare days to sit and go through it, line by line, otherwise the writing hasn't been too far up the line over the last couple of months, felt a little disconnected from my creative side for a while.

For this current Glasgow District Wargamers Society club year I will be doing both the Falkirk Carronade show and the Edinburgh Claymore show, both will be Dystopian Wars, Carronade will be a port strike, witht he Prussians striking a Brittanian port, possibly Malta, or Gibraltar, the port itself I won't be making, that'll be down to the esteamable George Dick who's Wild West town at this year's Claymore (At which we were fuckin well robbed of the best Public Participation game by the Political shitheads at SEWC, who I found to be kind of obnoxious and cunty) was absolutley stunning and made all the more so by his hand crafted Mine. The pictures are somewhere which I can't remember and I'll post them at a later date. The Claymore one will be probably an aerial battle between Brits and Prussians again, mainly cause between us in the club that's the most collected fleets.

Anyway, that's me all up-to-date as far as I can think of.

Adios



Thursday, 17 July 2014

Clearout

Well, today I did what every gamer I know dreads doing, deciding what in their collection is dead weight and needs to go and what they use and gets to stay.

Needless to say not the most fun moment in my life, as collections that were painstakingly put together are going to be put to the wayside and sold.

To be fair though it's figures that have barely been out the box in the last ten years and none of them have even seen the light of day for the past five, except when I was looking for a box of something and cause I'm a lazy get haven't labelled them.

My entire Star Wars Minitures collection, all 74 Revenge of the Sith and  48 Clone Strike models in a box ready for another persons gaming tables.

My Catachan Jungle Fighters, which I'll admit hasn't got the best paint job, but was kittbashed with abandon (Empire Free Company boxed set were awesome for that back in the day where 15 quid got you twenty to thirty a box) along with Metals which are few and far between these days, the classic big ass bazooka missile launchers, the Captain big enough and ugly enough to wield a power fist and a bolter and make anything but a marine of any stripe his bitch, the wheelie heavy weapons teams, and the Heavy flamer teams that scared the bejesus out opponents in a jungle.

My Dark Eldar that I've been slowly but surely pairing away for the last couple of years, mine are all of the original run, when Scourges looked badass rather than like fairies and something with bat wings, and Warriors that looked Eldarish but with plenty of blades to cut you up.

And onto my flintloque collection, small it may be but for the dozen times it was out the hand crafted carry box that they are in (I'll be keeping that for sure) it was much loved, my 105th Rifles along with Sharke and all the characters so lovingly ripped off from the Sharpe Novels, my orc foot and Ogres along with a great big hound from somwhere far off that never got to play, of course the Duke of Wheeling-turn on foot, the Velite Grenadiers de la Garde who I never got to play nice ever, always ruining the plans, my Voltiguers that made the Grenadiers look like puppies, then there is the Witchlands mob that like the ogres and orc line, never got a game, unfortunately my only opponent for the game sauntered off to the land of Hobbitses.

Which marches me onto my Lord of the Rings models, what a frigging waste of time they were buying, the Fellowship, warriors of the third age, moria orcs, rohan, uruk-hai. I stopped at the Two Towers because not only did the game blow, Games Workshop had got to the point that their over inflated prices had finally taken there toll and I gave up to go onto pastures Historical, where you could buy three whole armies in 15mm for one GW army.

And last but no means least, the surplus Battlemechs, yes there is such a thing, Mechs which I have at least one of (If not more than one) of already and will never use in a battle because one or two is more than enough.

But there is a side to them, 9 Rogue Trader Space Marines, two of which were in the first release of Marines, all more for collecters rather than the current crop of players, considering one, as you could in Rogue trader, is armed with a freaking shuriken catapult, no doubt scavenged from the Eldar pointy eared ponce that he's just stomped to death.

So the list is drawn up and been passed onto Gateshead games to see if they'll take the whole lot off me before I need to think about ebay and other avenues. If the price is right they can have it at Claymore but if  the price isn't anywhere near my minimum I will be considering other avenues.

Of course as the money comes in it will probably be feeding that insatiable Dystopian Wars addiction I have developed, the new Battlegroups for both my main fleets land and air will do nicely and by the looks of it my ally fleets are going to be getting some goodies to. Of course some of the money will be liberally spent on libations in my favourite pub, just as soon as the dry month comes to an end.

Sunday, 22 June 2014

A Dystopian Wars Encounter

Howdy do folks, had a game of Dystopian Wars 2.0 today,  between myself and Sandy Dewer, just my second go at the new rules and Sandy's first, one thing I have noticed is that it flows a lot quicker, at we actually got to fight to a finish.


So I as is my usual went the Prussians in my usual guise of Vice Admiral Rudolf von Der Goltz on board his flagship SMS Bismark, Sandy the Russians as White Navy (And most of his ships were very white) Admiral Nikolai Kerzhakov on board their flagship the Gagnut.

The Order of Battle:

Prussian Imperial North Atlantic 7th Iron Fleet

SMS Bismark, a Blucher class dreadnought with escorts ESC-327, ESC-345 and ESC-351, Wachter class
SMS Brandenburg, an Emperor class Battleship
SMS Lützow, a Konigsbeg class Battle Cruiser
Cruiser Squadron 1 (Reiver class Light Cruisers)
SMS Prinz Heinrich, Furst Bismark, Prinz Aldebert
Cruiser Squadron 2 (Reiver class Light Cruisers)
 SMS Agir, Elbing, Falke
 Destroyer Squadron (Stolz class)
  SMS Viper, Stoltz-II, Sachesen, Wuttenberg
Frigate Squadron 1  (Arminius class attached to Graf Zepplin)
  SMS Borther, Berlin, Rothe Lowe
Frigate Squadron 2 (Arminius)
  SMS Morian, Chur Prinz, Kur Prinz
Corvette Squadron (Saxony Class)
  SMS Stoch, Biene, Eber,
 Air Contingent
  SMS Derflinger  Imperium Class Sky Fortress
  SMS Fritzjof Gewitterwolke class Airship.

Russian Coalition 23rd White fleet
RCS  Gagnut, a Moskova class Dreadnought with RCS Escort Squadron 87 (3 Veliky class escorts)
RCS Navarin, a Borodino class Battleship with RCS Escort Squadron 91
RCS Sevastopol, a Dudinka class Assault carrier with RCS Escort Squadron 121 (We used the Kostroma model but the Dudinka stats)
RCS Minin, Gerzog Edinburgski, Rurik, Tambov class Gunship Squadron
RCS  Pallada, Makarov, Varyag, a Suvorov class cruiser squadron.
RCS Askold, Kagul, Oleg
RCS Sokol, Havock, Yastreb, Gagara a Novgorod class frigate squadron
RCS Korshun, Voron, Nyrok, Sova, a Novgorod class frigate squadron


 







The opening moves of the battle were mostly jockeying for position from all but the Borther's Arminus squadron who battered the Sova to kindling and scrap, and the Agir, Elbring and Falke opened fire on the
Minin, damaging the ship but not able to break past the ablative armour.









The second turn, the initiative was seized by the Coalition and the Korshun, Voron, Nyrok,
opened fire killing the Stoch and Biene, Commander Von Hagen in command of the Eber saw his sister ships fall but held his nerve.

In return the Borther, Berlin and Rothe Lowe killed the Voron and Korshun and in boarding the Nyrok left it adrift at sea.

With all guns blazing the Sokol, Havock, Yastreb, Gagara killed the Chur Prinz and Kur Prinz  forcing the Morian into beating a hasty retreat.

The Agir and it's consorts flew through the water, turning their cannons once more into the Tambovs this time firing on the Gerzog Edinburgski, causing critical damage and then proceeded to board and derelict the Havoc and Yastreb.

In return the Minin, Gerzog Edinburgski and Rurik caused a Sturginium flare in the Agir's engines causing it to teleport almost back to the fleet starting lines, and shredded the Falke's defences.







In turn 3 the Prinz Heinrich, Furst Bismark, Prinz Aldebert opened fire on the cruisers Makarov & Varyag, causing both serious damage and engine failures.

The Russian cruisers returned fire and returned Prinz Heinrich the favour and taking a chunk out of the Furst Bismark's armour.

The next two rounds of firing saw the death of the Prinz Heinrich and Furst Bismark and the repairing of the Varyag only for the Brandenburg to open it's three main guns and hammering it to death much to the delight of Commodore Conrad Klose, it's captain, his broadside gunners gave the Pallada it's first Damage.

Vice Admiral von Der Goltz cackled in maniacal glee when the Bismark opened fire for the first time, three of the main turrets smashing the Navarin's hull to bits, as rounds exploded all over the place causing the fusion engine to leak all over it and killing Russian marines in the process, the final rear turret killing off the Pallada.

Admiral  Kerzhakov's own gunners got some semblance of their own back when the Lützow was blasted into scrap metal and the killing of the Stoch by the 87th Escort..

The Sevastopol annihilated the  Dive bombers that came screaming at it before they could cause any damage.

The Stolz squadron drove forward and blew chunks out of the Minin and Gerzog Edinburgski and the fusion leak burned away a vast majority of the rest of it's armour.








The fourth turn, the Initiative was seized by the Empire and the Vice Admirals cackles could be heard throughout the Bismark while he geed on the gunners of the Flagship as it went all out against the Gagnut, not before zapping the last of the Battleship's marines to death with it's fore tesla, when they did open up at the Russian flag it was a full barrage of all four main guns and the broadsides, blasting apart armour and locking the navigational controls down, with it's auxilliary weapons it put down a pair of bombers and it's escorts killed off one of the dreadnoughts escorts.

The Dive bombers of the Imperial Airforce killed off the Navarin in an act of precision bombing, as they exploded left right and centre sinking the already stricken ship.

The fire across the sea born ships was bloody and viscious, leaving just the Agir as the sole Prussian cruiser, all of the Russian Frigates dead and the only escorts left those attached to the carrier. The Rurik's engines malfunctioned with a Sturginium flare and teleported onto the small island, scrapping it.







Turn five was very short as the damage that the Gagnut took while repaired down was returned to it by the Bismark and the Bombing run conducted by the Fritzjof and while the Gagnut took yet more chunks of armour from the Brandenburg, it's Marines were the ones that took the Russian Flag as a Prize, and Admiral Kerzhakov as their prisoner. Commodore Rostovic on the Sevastopol ordered the remaining Russians (Not that there were many) into a hasty retreat.


Overall loses

Prussians

Battlecruiser
Squadron +2 Reivers
saxony squadron
4 arminus

Russians

Cruiser Squadron
2 Escort groups,
Battleship
Both Frigate squadrons and 3 as derelicts
Dreadnought as Prize.




It was a good game that lasted a good number of hours and it's the first game we've played at Glasgow where we have actually got it finished, which highlights the fact that the game plays faster, it probably would have run even faster if we hadn't stopped for a while and I hadn't stopped to take so many notes and pictures, plus looking for rules that I couldn't remember.


Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Long time gone.

        So, it's been about a month since I posted, been busy.

        At the beginning of the month I was at Carronade, the Falkirk Wargames show, for a display of Battletech, one of two at the show, nice to see the game getting a new breath of life. Pictures and a report will follow soon, just been busy with other things. It was a good game I think, didn't get any people into participate though the show was awash with a whole load of public participation games and the G3 battletech display was using the quick play Alpha Strike rules so it's no surprise we got no play. I did break the no buying more Dystopian Wars ships until the new rules come out rule, when I bought the Ottoman Battlegroup but the boxed set was over 30% off, and I was never likely to see that much of a discount, when you save almost twenty quid you aren't going to argue about it, also bought a blue mat for doing sea games.

       Planning on doing a Dystopian Wars game next year at Carronade, depends on whether or not I can get more assistance from members of the club next year, both GDWS' displays manned by two members a piece, would have been nice if we could have got some help.

         What's been keeping me busy is College which is nearing it's end, only got one exam to go  and that's me done, also got my conditional acceptance to Uni year three the other week which is great. I passed the second to last today with 96%, think I got the best grade in the class which just goes to show if I actually study for shit I pass it with flying colours, wish I had learned that twenty years ago.

          I've based a number of my Dystopian wars ships in lieu of the Display next year, and if I do say so myself it came out awesome, some of them better than others, and like the Falkirk Display pictures will be forth coming. I decided that the plain flight stands were kind of boring with the clear perspex so did some basing of them too, by no means is it a pro job but for my limited experience with basing (the only stuff I've ever done are the Battlemechs that I finished four years ago) they came out damn good.

          Also the writing constantly keeps me busy, more ideas keep flooding in, it's as always the discipline of stopping myself from letting my imagination run amok.

Sunday, 27 April 2014

Prussian Empire Fleet


My Dystopian Wars Prussian Empire fleet, painted in two different versions of a grey paint scheme for the boats, a blue scheme for the bombers and tiny flyer tokens and a green scheme for the Airships, the two Metzger class robots are a lighter grey with red helmet.

All paints used were Vallejo and washes were either made from Vallejo paints or old Games Workshop washes that I've had since the mid 90's.

The ship basic hull base colour was medium sea grey, and either washed with neutral grey for shading and then dry brushed a light grey for highlight, or again medium sea grey, dry brushed neutral grey for shading and then a lighter grey for highlight.

I decided on the two different plank colours because the darker one was a massive pain in the rear end, and on the smaller ones it wasn't exactly a huge amount of fun. But there was also the fact that I wanted them painted as if they came from two different yards. The darker batch were painte first with German Camo black brown, and the individual planks were then painted Burnt Umber.



The second type of planking was easier due to the deck being painted light brown, then a wash of burnt umber mixed up and applied to the deck.

Most of the weaponry that isn't turreted is painted in a mix of Gold and Copper as are little details on the ships, like hatches and the little rings that are spaced about the ships, though some of them are mithril silver from the GW line from the mid 90's. The turrets are all painted similarly to the hull with bronze fittings and gun metal blue barrells.


 The two largest ships in the picture weren't painted by me, they were done by my dad as was the sea carrier, which anyone who knows him would be able to pick out since he painted the tiny flyers in Seattle Seahawk colours. He painted ships from my fleet until I got him Covenant of Antarctica ships and then he had his own to paint.


The Aerial section of my fleet was actually bought of ebay painted but the scheme didn't totally fit with the rest of the ships in the fleet, I made the piping the same bronze I used for the rest of the fleet, and the Tesla coils in the copper and gold of the rest of the ships Tesla parts. I also painted the tail fins like the fighters for the Imperium Sky Fortress, the deck of it painted like the second half of the fleet. Since I didn't know the colour used for the blimp sections I re-painted them since when I repainted the weapon sections to tie in with the rest of the fleet there had been too much splash onto the rest of it without repainting. 





 The tiny flyer bases for the Aerial section are in a different scheme from others they are a black dry brushed with silver. With the same tail fins as the Airships, the green wing tips are for Dive bombers and red tips are for fighters.
 The Metzger class robots were partially done by me and partially by my dad. The bases are actually cast that way, which is cool.

The Rhine class carrier has tiny flyers with the Seahawks colours and Torpedo bomber wingtips as do the fighter bases that came with it.


The chimney stacks are all black drybrushed with bronze then some are painted with the Prussian flag hoop colours. And the windows are painted white first then little drops of ink are put in each one. Most if not all the ships that I painted have their pipes picked out in bronze.

Both Blucher class Dreadnoughts along with the Konnigsberg class battlecruisers in the front. Some of the ships in the fleet have little Prussian Empire Flag decals and/or Iron Crosses, the ones that are on are the best from the batch I made up. Didn't leave the paint to dry long enough and the decal film made most of them run, and when I took them off the paper they went to crap. I need to go back to the clear Decal paper too and paint the white sections on the models, the white paper doest work as welol, especially when it means you have a big white section where there shouldn't be one.
 The Gewitterwolke class Airship and Geier class Bomber which like the tiny flyer tokens are painted a base deep sky blue, then washed in the GW blue wash to shade and dry brushed deep sky blue mixed withwhite to highlight, you can see the wing tips are painted dark green to signiy the are bombers and red tailfins for the Wing they belong to.

 The Prussian Empire flag on the airship is one of the homemade decals for my fleet, taking decal paper printed on an Inkjet allowed to dry and covered in decal film which I let dry.
 The whole Aerial group with the Gewitterwolke & Plicht class airships, Imperium Sky Fortress' and Geier class bombers, and one of the Metzger class robot 

There are two lots of regular Tiny flyer Wings one with red tailfins and one with orange tailfinns.
The yellow wing-tipped squadrons are recon fighters, light green is torpedo bombers. The bases were done by putting blots of blue wash the a drop of white paint and letting it swirl and mix so it's like they are lifting up and down through the clouds, though some of them are moving through grey clouds.




One of two squadrons of Reiver class cruisers.







One squadron of Arminus class frigates 

The Saxony class corvettes


The Stolz class Destroyer squadron






While I've still got the varnishing and the basing to do the whole experience has been fun, and it happens to be the first time I've ever finished painting a fleet or army in my twenty years of painting. I'm going to do the bases using plywood, covered in mastic and painted in sea colours.