zondag 27 maart 2016

It has been busy in the Eemshaven

It has been a busy 2 weeks in the Eemshaven. 4 ships arrived to either drop off or pick up Dutch military equipment. A fifth ship arrived to drop off equipment for our Belgian friends.

The 2nd Batallion Royal Marines had finished 8 weeks of Joint Artic Training in Norway brought back a large amount of vehicles that usually stays behind in Norway, but brought them home for overhauls.  It also included large amounts of ammunition.

Equipment from the 43rd Mechanised Brigade and Firesupport Command arrived with a LOLO (Load Off - Load On) ship which takes a lot of time as it all has to be unloaded by crane.

A regular line service dropped off Belgian equipment.

Pictures by Major (r) Beekman

Dutch Royal Marines in their green Landrovers....I think these are getting long in the tooth by now.
 The new Amarok vehicles in different colours (Royal Marines in front, Military Police in the back)
The Buffel has been busy!
 The message didn't list this, but isn't this a British vehicle?
 Again. British trucks? (The Bandvagn is ours)




zaterdag 26 maart 2016

Frostgrave game tonight.....and out came a little spider.....

Me, Erik, Henri and a guest from the UK, Rikh Hart, did battle tonight. I played Rikh with my Necromancer, Erik played Henri.

Let's just say I never seen so many 20's rolled (mostly by Rikh) and so many 1's (almost all mine) in a single game. Rikh plays very differently from Erik and Henri, much more agressive, and despite autokilling one of his henchmen with a 20 with a bow early on, his use of Push severely weakend several of my members and by the time the spiders (and a boar) showed up, just a single member of his band had been cutting a bloody swathe through my team. Even my wizard killing his didn't do anything to stop that as he too got slain by this bezerker. In the end, that guy alone killed 5 of my men and 2 monsters. If that didn't call for a Viking Saga  then I don't know what will. My Zombie and Men-At-Arms getting eaten by spiders is not stuff for a Saga, though my Men-At-Arms  did keep the spider at bay for 3 long, agonising, poisoned turns.....poor sod. I should have run away much sooner.

When we rolled to see who had died, none of Rikh part had died and I lost my warhound, yet again! I'm wondering why I even bother with it, sure, it is fast, but has no staying power in combat and when I roll for it, it dies instantly.

Hands of the Earth worked great, keeping one of his team from grabbing a treasure early on. Bone Dart managed to kill the enemy wizard. And I raised 1 zombie which got eaten by a spider pretty damn fast. For all of that I got 1 treasure off the map, my other 2 treasure carriers being either wounded and unable to take the ttreasure off (and fail the roll) or getting killed by his bezerker (who then claimed the treasure, managed to kill my wizard while holding the treaure and then rolling ok to keep it at the end of the game). Rikh claimed 4.

Ugh, Death or Glory.....lot's of Death this time.

For next [ainting time: x3 Spiders. Also 1 Boar but I already have 2 ready to be painted and that should be more then enough.. Also, for the love of God, get my warband based up and start painting them. Using stand ins all the time is not cool. Grrrrr.....

Rikh made a ton of pics, if he passes any over I will upload them. It was nice to hear he was impressed with the amount of scenery we put on the table, that always does me good.














How about my impression of a homeless guy? (I need a haircut)
 

donderdag 24 maart 2016

New commander for the Dutch Army

Today, we installed new commander for the Dutch Army (Landmacht).

Luitenant-generaal Mart de Kruif relinquished command over to Lieutenant-General Leo Beulen today.

 (Luitenant-generaal Mart de Kruif on the left, Lieutenant-Generaal Leo Beulen on the right)
(Luitenant-generaal Mart de Kruif in a beautifully restored YP-408)

I only met Luitenant-generaal Mart de Kruif once, at the Army Open Days when we did a display of a possible Cold War game involving our troops. He was smiling (really big smile too!) when we explained the display game, he pointed out 2 minor errors we had made and then gave me orders to win the game. Really nice man. Sadly no games this year at the Open Day, no room due to the increasingly smaller format due to budget cuts. And it's in the middle of the week :(
(Tough crowd)

Progress update and a sale

Right. I have managed to move all the filled boxes from the living room into the attic, and paid the price with a sore knee for the past 2 days. I did some more planning and in 2 more trips I will have completely cleared the storage unit, so that is sorted. I've started filling boxes in the hobby room and putting asidee stuff that might be nice to sell in advance for the Impact show, as I need to replenish my brass wire, Vallejo washes and look for suitable stuff for any of my projects.

Sofar I have sold or traded:
  • 7 books 
  • 1 used transport case 
  • 1 Chessex Battlemat
  • 1 limited edition figure still in the box
  • 1 GW Store Promo poster from 10 years ago, brandnew 
And in return I'm getting:
  •  A Rhino new in the box
  • The Predator tank I sold at Crisis last year, still new in the box! (life is funny!)
  • Several Rogue Trader era figures 
  • A handful of Necromunda Cawdor models
  • 70 euros in cash
  • 5 used Fenris wolves
Not bad for 2 days trading. I also received more 2nd edition monopose figs, and I prepared a bunch of blocks with concrete, so I will get cracking on making more statues soon. I will however adorn all of the blocks with a Aquila this time, either still affixed or broken in the dust at the base. Seems...fiting.

I've put up lots more for sale, using FB groups this time, and so far it works quicker then forums.

Tomorrow and friday I have a lot more packing to do, as time is ticking away and the room has to be cleared by the 5th of April (the kids then leave for a 5 day stay at my parents place) ready to be repainted in colours more suitable for a pair of 3 year old girls.... somehow I fear Kim will go for Pink :D. That gives me wednesday to repaint everything, thursday to move furniture from one room to the other and vice versa, and friday to move the essentials back into the hobby room and hook up the computer again for a status update. Of course, best laid plans and all that, but I have saturday as a spare day just in case we get delayed, and the girls will be back sunday afternoon.

Looking forward to it with enthusiasm!

Tomorrow evening I'll take a trip to Tilburg and do some trades, have a few chats, pick up some extra 32mm bases and half of the boxes from my storage locker. Friday evening will be Frostgrave night, Erik and Henri are attending as well as my British guest, so that will be fun. I'd better get my warband properly based up now and my spells printed out....I've managed to misplace my deck of cards ;/

Now to get a proper nights rest :)

zaterdag 19 maart 2016

An eventful week

Quite the week this was! Having listed the contents of my storage box last week, I found that on monday no one had even bothered to ask for information or make a bid, so I called the local goodwill store ifn they wanted to pick up the lot. And that they did. What could have been a nice figure in cash was taken for free, and I'm quite happy about it. Waiting for bids could have taken weeks, and now it is all empty besides a few more boxes of stuff I that I will pick up the next time. I also cancelled the lease, so I have to vacate it by April 18th. That is another 60 eros saved each month.
All that is left
 
I also filed my tax report and we are in for a small but welcome sum of money which will be usefull to cover the period that I'm out of work.

Starting next week (ok, I made a headstart) I will work to clear out my current hobby room and disassemble everything, storing everything in the attic. I have 16 days time untill my folks pick up our kids for a long week. I want to use that week to repaint their new room, so everything has to be gone by then. No ifs, buts and whens, it has to be done by then, so we can surprise them with a freshly painted new room when they get back. When that is finished I can rebuild my hobby room from scratch in the old kids room (won't bother with fixing that up as my cabinets will cover any damage done by the kids) and refill it with the stuff that I set aside to be returned. Then, and only then, will I start taking stuff down from the attic, 1 crate at a time, and going over the contents yet again to see what can be sold and what can stay. All of my hobby funds will have to come from that so some tough decosions will have to be made....again.

But what else happend this week?

Well, I had a testpiece made of the gift I want to give all who take my TNT demo at Poldercon.
It helps to know people who can lasercut and are willing to work for stuff I have surplus....in this case I'm getting 22 more of these done in exchange for 3 binbags of foam I had been told to throw in the trash by my dear Kim anyway. Neat, ey? I've been a fan ever since I saw Ash from Guerilla Miniatures use them, so this was the next logical step. Well, in my train of thought anyway :)

While clearing boxes I found tons of kits I had forgrotten about, including these 2:
I had been looking in my parts boxes for suitable 28mm wheels to make a few Caravan carts from, and failed to spot any, so these will be the donor kits for that and I can use the remains of the cars to make wrecks of. They won't mix with the Cars cars but will do fine with the Marx cars.

I'm in for a busy weekend, not much time for the hobby, but plenty for my little girls as my niece is having her birthday this weekend and she and her sister love spoiling my kids.
Nikki and Emma....or is it Emma and Nikki? Even I have trouble telling them apart at times. About to enter daycare this morning. Sometimes they kick and scream at each other, and the next minute they are the best of friends. Loving it. :)

Random other things:
  • I'll spraypaint the Space Marine statue gold again, then matte varnish it. The last time I failed to realise it was so smooth, so the Oxide wash had nothing to hold on to to. Also, the Oxide was way too thick.. 
  • Over at the Guild., a new Group Build has started; fortified, dug in and defence. I've been reading up on Iran-Iraq war scenario's and battles and have found several scenario's in which Iraqi tanks start dug in and cannot move during the game. Rather then make sandbag emplacements to slot around the bases, I will make a master of sandbag defences (in scale!) and a mould out of that, so that I can put my greenstuff tanks into the positions and add more sandbags to that. 
  • Friends have asked me to focus on TNT for Poldercon, maybe only do 3 demos instead of 4, and skip CY6! I'm still thinking about it.
  • Sgt Screams payment for the statues arrived today, 2 more 1st Edition plastic Terminators, plus some very nice RT Orks and a single RT...ehm space man? Guard? I'm not sure what he is actually. I've been so busy this week I completely failed to post his models, so when I finish tonights Blogpost I'll pack and label it, ready for shipping tomorrow.
  • I've traded a blister of metal Spirit host for some bits. These will be for Mordheim/Frostgrave and my undead collection for the graveyard.
  • I've found a limited collectors edition Marco Colombo in a unopend pack. If you know someone who can use that, feel free to pass on that information. I'm looking for 12 pounds excluding shipping or a swap for RT era Space Marines.
  • I've traded quite a bit of stuff over the last few weeks just to get a small stash of RT era Marines (plastic and metal) as well as 2 Calth dreads to go with them. I want to use those for my own RT games when the city is finished. If you have any RT era Marines, let me know, I'd like to trade.
  • I picked up a half styrofoam ball to make a planet from for space games. Just because I felt like it.
  • My purchase of the week is not a miniature, but something extremely usefull for the hobby. It's a 2nd hand heavy office comb binding machine that I picked up at the 2nd hand shop that is old but fully functional. Just what I needed to make booklets for the TNT demo and to bind any rulessets I print off in the future. I'm trolling Marktplaats right now to find some used lots of binders ( Fun fact: I actually owned a box full of them during Uni, when I would strip them off old thesisis and reports that had to disposed off as waste paper, and then reused them when running a copying and binding service for my fellow class mates. I've always been a small fry enterpreneur. )

dinsdag 15 maart 2016

Inspiration for the day

Brought to you by Facebook and random Google searches

The WSS page had this as a picture for a message about the Editor gaming with the Author of Gates of Antares.
A crashed spaceship will look lovely with my 28mm Post Apoc table, my 20mm Sci-Fi project and in the future with my 3mm Sci-Fi....and I can use the same ship for all 3....just have a to be a bit careful with the basing and make some in scale addon pieces.

Another hit for the Post Apoc table would be.....
Simple thing, eye catcher and always good for a laugh.

Stuff that nobody makes in 1/600th and that I want are:

1 of these:


And a flight of these (so 2 or 3):


Might get a pack of Ju-188's and cobble these together with that as a donor.

Of course, no time or money to do all of this soon. But a man can dream :)