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.

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.

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.

Happy New Year

Howdy all,

A happy new year to you all.

Been a while since I posted so I thought I should probably hit one out today.


So, update on the writing, been writing a lot of back story for my Military Sci-fi series, along with all the characters, as well as working on all the armed forces. Been working on the actual books themselves but you need to put the work in too.

Also in the early process of work on a collaborative effort with my good friend Ferdinand, it's kind of a post apocalyptic Fantasy where we'll have two opposing forces of magic, in the very early stages of it working on the magic systems themselves.

My painting project this year is the Dystopian Wars Prussian fleet that I got  for Christmas, though only half of it has appeared, still waiting on Wayland Games even dispatching their half. The games a good laugh and hope to have the fleet painted in time to display it at Carronade next year for Glasgow District Wargamers Society.

Talking of displays at Carronade, this year alongside the club's Bannockburn display (Of course we're doing Bannockburn, it's the 700th anniversary this year) myself and Sandy Dewer will be pooling our Battletech collections and fighting the Battle of Bannockburn Bog on the Planet of Skye. Hoping to make it a mix of display and public participation. It's a massive switch of the regular displays by GDWS, apart from the occasional Very British Civil War display, everything I've ever seen in my many years as a member is Historical (or Semi-Historical), hopefully this switch is well received.

Apart from that College is going great, almost completed everything from the first semester of the HND, and looking forward to next year and entering the third year of UWS's Computer Networking degree, it will be delivered at Cumbernauld but it'll still a degree course.

Hoping to post more short stories up and finish off Return from the Empire but I had the plan to post a lot last year and it never materialized.

I'll sign off now and get back to doing something constructive.