Rosemary and Co. Brushes

 Image nicked from Rosemary and Co.website, I do hope they don't mind
Finding my current brush stock to be wearing thin, I ordered some Rosemary and Co. brushes on Scrivs' recommendation.
Placed the order at around 3pm on Friday, they arrived in the post on Saturday morning - excellent service.
In contrast to their speed I only manged to get round to using them last night, and jolly good they are too. Not quite W&N Seven series it seems to my unskilled eye, but at least as good (and probably a bit better) as the Citadel ones I use for most of my painting. And cheaper.

I ordered from the 33 Series and recommend them, and their excellent service.

A World Gone Mad

Those searching for evidence of an impending Apocalypse should look no further than the fact that I managed to win a game last week and that this remarkable occurrence was repeated the following evening to leave me with record of P2 W2 for the week!
in fairness I received considerable assistance from my opponents in both instances. In my regular weekly WFB game Steve was kind enough to use his all Night Goblin army, which has great comic value but isn't what one would describe as fearsome. As a result my Orcs (who failed rather fewer crucial animosity tests) were able to hand out a reasonable pasting. I suspect I'll be up against something altogether friskier this week!
in my other game I'd arranged an Age of Arthur game against Scrivs at Maelstrom as prep for the event in a couple of weeks. All was proceeding in the expected fashion (great piles of dead Saxons on my side of the table,rather fewer on the other) when our units of Gedrith finally clashed in turn six. Scrivs issued a challenge with his general which I duly accepted with mine. Two wounds later and my Cyning is looking a bit poorly, however a Hail of Blows to the face of his opposite number and it's all gone wrong for my enemies. Scrivs then proceeds to fail every single Panic test possible meaning we go into turn seven without a single unit not fleeing on the table. I manage to rally my single remaining unit of Gedrith but Scrivs can only pass two tests, each for small units of skirmishers. At which point the game ends! On A count-up of points I've sneaked a win by a coupe of hundred points, despite having been comprehensively outplayed, so a win but nor a very deserving one. Fortunately we've arranged a rematch for a couple of weeks time when no doubt normal service will be resumed. In the meantime keep a watch out for plagues of locusts, fire raining from the skies and pigs with wings.

Orc Shaman WiP (3)

Inching towards a conclusion wth this one.
Still not enjoying painting him though, but he's approaching the stage where I can declare myself satisfied.

Lots of highlighting gone on.
The bone needs more work and I need to decide what to do with the bottle at his waist and the hands on his back, but then he just needs a basing and he's good to give my enemies a proper Foot of Gork-ing!

WAB Spring Open Report thingy

Actually not much of a report really, I've pretty much forgotten most of it. Sorry.
However here's lots of eye candy:

My first game was against Tom who'd proved to be my nemesis at the El Cid event, and we went with the form book in this one too. He was using the Fall of the West Warlords list and the heavy throwing spears hurt. A lot. We also got the warband rules wrong, which resulted in more Panic than strictly necessary, but as it affected us both equally no harm was done. A good fun game against a thoroughly jolly chap

Game two was against Pete, who I'd not played before, but as he'd travelled down in the car with Jim and Tom I knew he'd be a good guy to play soldiers with, and so it proved. He had some form of Late Roman thing going down (nicely painted too) I think from FotW but they could have been AoA (they all look the same to me, coming over here, killing our Saxons). Largely in this game I spent my tme bouncing of the Roman shieldwalls and running away. Sigh. Another good fun game against a good opponent.

In the third round I was paired with tournament leader Scrivs and his very similar early Saxon army. Well, similar in that we'd both used Musketeer Miniatures models and had similar sized units. His were however much more nicely painted than mine and he knew how to use them. I still had most of my units in 6x4 formations from the old WAB rules (largely because I'm too lazy/tight to make new movement trays) whereas Scrivs had his as 8x3 with the result that he was kicking out more attacks than me in any even match-ups. Couple that with a knowledge of the rules that meant the match-ups weren't even in the first place and I was onto another hiding. But I never mind taking a beating from a decent chap, so we had a very jolly time watching me shovel off dead men.

Finally I played Chris in the last game, who I'd sneaked a win against in the El Cid event thanks to some unlikely heroics from the Kamel Korps. Chris was using some late Saxons, so I was attempting to kill my own descendants. I'd finally started to remember how to play WAB by this stage, so at one point I was doing rather well, but sadly Chris fought back well and I was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Another great game with a nice opponent.

In the final wrap-up I'd come a distant last, but I'd had four great games, met up with some great folks and had a top day. I even "won" a Wargames Illustrated six month sub in the end of tournament dice off (actually I didn't win, Scrivs conceded as he'd already snagged a prize as overall winner - what a nice chap).
Thanks must go to Tommy for organising a great event, to all my opponents for great games and to Maelstrom for hosting.

Many of the chaps will be doing it all over again at the Weekender in May (apart from Chris, he's doing a Demo game at Triples) and I'm looking forward to it a lot.

Orc Shaman WiP (2)

More work done on the AoW Shaman, mainly highlights and a lot of scorched brown on the skulls and bones (of which there are many).

Saxon Cyning and ASB

After the Open (yes, yes report eventually, honest) and before the Weekend in May (pass-out is signed!) I've been looking over my Age of Arthur Saxons, and thought I'd take the oportunity to post a couple of pictures. Most of the army was painted for me (otherwise I'd still have only about six finished models) but I kept the characters for myself. So here are the Cyning and his loyal ASB

Lovely Musketeer Miniatures sculpts with LBMS flags and shields.

Cyning

Sorry for the shiny shield, it needs a coat of matt varnish

ASB

I painted them a while ago and they need a little touching up (ooer) and some varnishing before the Weekender.
If they've wetted your apetite for Musketeer loveliness go and check out Bill's Blog where he's been showing off his late Romans. I'll be adding some of them to my Saxons as allies (will I get them in time for the weekend event - stay tuned to fnd out!). Order your own here