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.

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.

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.

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.

Battle of the Marianna trench

As promised the first battle report from Glasgow using Dystopian Wars fleets.

Facing off against each other were myself in the guise of Vice Admiral Rudolf von Der Goltz in charge of the main Prussian Fleet, Sandy Dewer as Air commodore Johan Müller in charge of the Prussian Air contingent and my younger brother Andrew in the character of Kaigun Shōshō Enomoto Sukeyuki of the Kappa Division of the Sword army of the Empire of the Blazing Sun, on the other side Bill Robertson in the as Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Northbury of the Brittannia Naval Armada and Ian Beal (Yes, that's really his name) playing the part of commodore Josiah Tattnal of the Federated States of America's Navy with attached units of the FSA air fleet.

The Prussian order of Battle:


IPNS Bismark a Blucher Class Dreadnought and Admiral Von der Goltz's flag ship
IPNS Graf Spee a Blucher Class DN
IPNS Graf Zepplin a Rhine class Fleet Carrier
IPNS Brandenburg an Emperor class Battleship
Cruiser Squadron 1 (Konigsberg class battlecruisers)
IPNS Moltke, Vonder Tann
Cruiser Squadron 2 (Reiver class Cruisers)
IPNS Prinz Heinrich, Furst Bismark, Prinz Aldebert
Cruiser Squadron 3 (Reiver class Cruisers)
IPNS Agir, Elbing, Falke
Destroyer Squadron (Stolz class)
IPNS Stoltz-II, Sachesen, Wuttenberg
Frigate Squadron 1  (Arminius class attached to Graf Zepplin)
IPNS Borther, Berlin, Rothe Lowe
Frigate Squadron 2 (Arminius)
IPNS Morian, Chur Prinz, Kur Prinz
Corvette Squadron (Saxony Class)
IPNS Stoch, Biene, Eber, Stien, Viper
A Metzger-B class Robot commanded by Brother Theodore Janus of the Teutonic order
Air Contingent
IPAS Derflinger  Imperium Class Sky Fortress
IPAS Fritzjof Gewitterwolke class Airship Air commodore Johan Müller Flagship
IPAS Geifon, Goeben, Pflicht class Scoutships
2 Geier Class Bombers

Kappa Division of the Sword army of the Empire of the Blazing Sun
EBSN Asahi a Sokutsu class BS and  Kaigun Shōshō Enomoto Sukeyuki's flag ship
Cruiser Squadron (Nakatsu class CR)
EBSN Furutaka, Kitakami, Mogami
Frigate Squadron (Uwatsu frigate)
EBSN Kaiyo Maru, Shohei Maru, Kaiten
2 DFA-17 Bombers

Brittannia Naval Armada
HMS Vanguard  a Majesty class DN and ice Admiral Sir Thomas Northbury's flagship
HMS  Courageous, Furious Avenger class Carriers
HMS Repulse, Superb Ruler class Battleships
Cruiser Squadron 1 (Tribal class CR)
HMS Cavendish, Hawking, Raleigh
 Cruiser Squadron 2 (Tribal Class CR)
HMS Trobisher, Effingham, Cumberland
Frigate Squadron 1 (Attacker class Frigates attached to Repulse)
HMS Heda, Pomone, Shannon, Leonidas
Frigate Squadron 2 (Attacker Class Frigates attached to Superb)
HMS Briton, Tenedos, Thetis, Lively
Corvette Squadron (Swift Class)
HMS High Flyer, Esk, Pylades, Cossack, Tartar
Frigate Squadron 3 (attached to Furious)
HMS Havock, Ferret, Hornet, Lynx
Frigate Squadron 4 (Attached to Courageous)
HMS Decoy, Boxer. Dasher, Haughty 
Frigate Squadron 5 (attached to Vanguard)
HMS Fearless, Nike, Harold, Hastings
Destroyer Squadron
HMS Lightening, Banshee, Dragon

 FSA Battlegroup
FSS Ranger a Saratoga class Fleet Carrier flagship of commodore Josiah Tattnal
FSS Indiana  an Independance class Battleship
Crusier Squadron (Lexington Class attached to the Indiana)
FSS Atlanta, Chicago, Harvard
Corvette Squadron (Revere class attached to the Ranger)

FSS Cayuga, Chippewa, Chocura
Air contingent
FSAS Polk Valley class Airship
FSAS Davis, Beuregard Lee class Scoutship
FSFR Huron, Kineo John Henry class robots
2 A-17 class Bombers

The fleets at the beginning of the game.

The first turn the Grand Coaliton won the roll (As they did the only two other turn we actually got in, note for next time, use less ships)

The Vanguard and CruRon 1 moved forward first  and along with the FSA Airships and were out of range when they stopped, next came the Prussian Destroyer squadron that fired and hit the Chippewa front scoring the armour,  the Geier's moved forward from the Air Contingent, and the Furutaka, Kitakami, Mogami moved forward and unleashed their rocket batteries at the Cavendish, Hawking, Raleigh hitting the Hawking's ammo hoppers blewing it to smitherines, the debris smashing into the Cavendish putting a hole in it and the Raleigh which survived intact, the squadron's morale didn't waver however..

The Vanguard battered the Mogami for a critical hit, damaging the engine.

The Graf Spee, Prinz Heinrich, Furst Bismark and Prinz Aldebert combined their turret fired on the Davis and battered a hole in it's side

The Graf Zepplin Bombard launched shells at one of the A-17's and sliced open it's armour.

The Brandenburg, Moltke and Vonder Tann fired their Main Batteries on the Polk slicing open it's frontal armour but missed with the  of the Battle cruisers.

This was it for the first turn

On turn 2 the Repulse and it's escorts pounded the Elbing to scrap and it's consort likewise sank the Falke forcing the Graf Spee and Agir into retreat before they could even fire a shot.

The Prussian's returned the favour however when the Brandenburg, Moltke and Vonder Tann's Main Batteries trained on the Polk hitting, the Prussian Capital ships mimicing their allies in their smashing of the ammo stores of the airship, it exploded taking with it the Beuregard and almost the already damaged Davis, the Moltke and Vonder Tann turned their Speerschleuders upon one of the US A-17's killing it and making it's brother run away.

Firing after this pretty much sucked as the Ranger's fighter wing was decimated from AA from the Brandenburg, Moltke and Vonder Tann as it prepared to launch torpedos at the Emperor class leaving just one squadron that broke off and headed back to the carrier. Eveything else couldn't hit the broadside of a Dreadnought, and they tried.

Turn three really turned the game against the Coaliton though started so well when the Huron and Kineo scored a hit on the Bismark, annoying Admiral Von der Goltz, his shields didn't even turn on.

The Corageous and it's escort took out the Kaiten though the squadron's morale held.

The Stoltz-II, Sachesen and Wuttenberg fired on the Thetis and their gunners jumped for joy when they landed a dozen shells on the poor ship until they realised the Superb's Guardian generator had stopped the lot.

This wasn't the only time in the turn where a Guardian saved a ships bacon it happened a few times and greatly annoyed the Prussians and Japanese.

Though the Cavendish was also saved from death by it's own shields as fire rained down from the EotBS cruisers rocket batteries, it set the ship on fire but it would survive. The targets of the Nakatsu class ships broadsides in the High Flyer, Esk, Pylades, Cossack, Tartar couldn't say that when the High Flyer, Pylades and Tartar were hulled, forcing the rest of the squadron into retreat. They fired their torpedos at the Vanguard's escort but did no damage.

The Furious and it's escorts fired upon the Geifon and Goeben killing Prussian Air Marines on the Geifon and setting fire to the Goeben in addition to almost hulling them and damaging the engines.

The land based fighters of the Coaliton took out the remaining Uwatsu's with torpedos and bombs.

The Superb and it's squadron managed to land another hit on the Bismark further infuriating the Vice Admiral though he got some measure of revenge on the Coaliton when he virutally hulled the Ranger as FSMC personnel were killed and the ship went on fire.

The Morian, Chur Prinz and Kur Prinz took down the Briton and damaged the Thetis and the final firing of the game came in from the Stoch, Biene, Eber, Stien and Viper who were deadly the Viper took the Heda, Stoch put a hole in the Repluse, Biene killed off the Pomone, Eber hulled the Shannon, the Leonidas was lost with all hands as the Stien beat it to death, forcing the Repulse into retreat

 The state of things at the end of play on turn three.

Essentially we of the Imperial Bond won the game because of the damage we had done versus what we had recieved, it would probably have continued to go our way because we had pretty much and intact centre barring the tremeandously lucky attacks on the Elbing and Falke and Bills Guardian generators constantly saving his behind, the Ranger was scrap metal in at most another turn and so were the FSA bomber and remaining airship, probably the John Henry too, the Prussian fleet would do a burly on the island and come into the side of the remaining American forces then pile down on the Brits.

The consensus of everybody was it was good fun but we had far too many ships on the board. We'll have to cut it down to probably about half the next time we play it, and it's going to take us a while to get the rules down, so hopefully by next year at Carronade we can do a display.

Next up me and Ian are going to have a game at the Falkirk club two weeks tomorrow and hopefully we can arrange something in March or April for the Glasgow club. Maybe by then I'll have some Russians too and have them painted.