First Featured On?

Over the past couple of years I've been writing a lot (by my standards anyway) of content that has ended up on the Flames Of War or Team Yankee websites that in the past would (if I got around to it) have ended up here. A couple of weeks ago I was browsing the blog trying to find a post about an army and couldn't find it. A quick Google search and I found it sitting on Flames Of War. I wasn't annoyed as such, but I was disappointed in myself that it wasn't here too. 

Since then I've been making an effort to transfer these articles over to my blog. To help differentiate these older articles from anything else I've been adding these images (above) at the end of the post, as well as putting the tag of "First Featured On".

With a bit of luck I might even add some completely new content here first as well.... stay tuned.

Chris

Portable Light Box

Late last year one of the guys at work came across a project on Kickstarter called the Foldio - The 1st foldable studio. For a start, who knew that Kickstarter was for anything except Tabletop and Computer games??? Anyway, the concept behind Foldio was that it was allowed anybody with a smartphone to easily take high quality pictures by providing a small light box. The light box itself was compact and (thanks to some magnets) able to be folded up when not in use, or easily packed away and carried around.

I am at best a barely competent photographer but I do like playing around a little. I've also been cleaning out the cupboards of excess miniatures so I figured that a small investment was worth it if it would mean that I could start taking some photos at home more easily. My primary use would be for work in progress shots etc because I could use the white table at work for anything more serious, or for taking shots for ebay.

The Foldio turned up on time, which must be a record for any Kickstarter product! Packed nicely, with a functional but pretty boring little carry bag. It was a little bigger than expected at around 28cm-ish square, meaning I could easily fit a Colossal in there. My version came with two little LED light strips and after watching the assembly video (which was not really necessary) I was up and running.

Foldio on the bookcase by the computer.

Picture, straight out of the camera, with no Photoshop wizardry (other than re-sizing etc).

Same photo with a little bit of Photoshop work (as you can tell, barely competent with Photoshop either!)

Same figures on the bookshelf, where the Foldio now sits.

So, thoughts? In life you can have things fast, cheap, or good - pick two. 

• Foldio is in my opinion quite cheap given that it was around $40 (delivered, with different coloured background sheets, with an extra LED light strip).
• It is fast - lets substitute quick and easy to use.
• As for the last one lets say that it is definitely okay, and it is definitely much much better than what I had (which was nothing). The one thing I do not like about it is that it does not provide particularly great source lighting, but what was I expecting for the price. Also I've spent all of 20 minutes playing around with so probably a ways to go yet. I do have a second LED light strip so I thought I would play around with the placement of that to see if I could introduce a little more light.

Closing thoughts - definitely a well design lead project that looks cool and is easy to use. It was never going to be as good as a "proper" (read more expensive) light box solution, but it sits on my shelf out of the way and with a little practice will become a nice addition to the blog toolbox.

As for buying one, in the short term you cannot as they are still shipping out orders from their Kickstarter campaign but you can always jump on their website to find out more about when they will begin production and distribution through conventional channels.

…2013, come on down!

I meant to be put this up a week ago but with a busy first Christmas with my son the holiday period disappeared quite quickly on me. So, on with the show!

2013 is going to be a bit of an odd hobby year for me. We are only holding one GT this year, so it means a little less incentive to work on some of my FOW projects (EW French, EW Soviets or anything Mid War). I am also unsure as to how many “away” games I will get in as it may be hard to get leave passes for the long weekends, although I am in preliminary discussions to head to Napier in June (good wine country down there so I can get in some gaming, and then after that we can visit some wineries!) and Wellington in August (nicest bunch of WarmaHordes players in New Zealand – sorry fellow Aucklanders, you guys are great too but they take the title). Evan is also likely to suggest I make the trip to Panzerschreck for his doubles tournament in July.

What’s the plan?

Q1 – I need to get a 42 point force painted for Ides of March and I have about 7-8 weeks to do it. I have been tossing up between expanding my Kara Sloan list by painting my Minutemen and Gun Mages, or starting my Trolls… Last night I was playing around with War Room and got excited about an eIrusk, 2 Juggernaught, 5 Man-o-War Shocktroopers, Bombardiers and Demo Corps and a small unit of Mechanics with their Officer UA. I love the MoW units (although they seem a little underwhelming on the table) and this would get me to paint them!

I also need to paint up a T-34 Battalion for a web article I am going to be working on. It means assembling and painting up 21 tanks, as well as an additional 21 turrets. Not normally a big issue but it does mean that I need to schedule my painting time well to achieve both sets of goals.

Q2 – If I am heading to NiCon it will either be WarmaHordes teams event (with Sean and Victor) or Flames Of War at a guess. In which case I will need to paint up some Trollbloods or find something that is going to inspire me with regards to Late War (not sure what periods will be on offer, but LW is a safe bet at this stage) – good chance to paint some of the new plastic PaK40s for my Hungarians as well as some Tigers I have had stashed for a rainy day!

Q3 – Call To Arms in Wellington will definitely be a WarmaHordes weekend with either the Trolls or Kara (or whatever else I end up coming up in between). Looking at my unpainted WarmaHordes figures there are quite a few units that I want to get painted and I know that a tournament is the only way to help me achieve that goal, hence all the swapping between forces.

Q4 – Finish my 1956 Israeli Tank Company! I have the tanks done, now I need to finish my artillery, add some recon and infantry. All the figures are sitting in a box at home, they just need a little paint and a lot of time. Evan is also working on a little Christmas present for me to go with this army – more details on that later.

Throughout the entire year… play some more games in general. Other than getting out to play X-Wing at TCOW in the last part of 2012 I did not play may games so the onus is on me to get the FOW and W/H stuff out of the cupboards a little more regularly. I’m also going to get my Dystopian Wars Prussians (and Allied nations) finished this year. They are quick and fun to paint so I need to stop mucking around and just get them done! I’ll also be getting my Relic Knights pre-order at some point so I should try and get some of that painted (or maybe just assembled). Last (but not least) is to work on some 1967 / 73 Syrians to go up against my Israelis.

Well, that is the 2013 plan, I already have this sinking feeling that I have bitten off more than I can chew!

Between writing this and posting it, I managed to get in two games (WarmaHordes with Tony and Napoleon at War with Wayne) and paint some Dystopian Wars stuff – the year is actually starting off according to plan!

Goodbye 2012...

It is fair to say most of us in the office at work suffer from Mike Envy, that is we are all amazed by the quantity and quality of models Mike paints over the course of a year. Sitting down tonight to a very quiet New Years Eve with my son I thought I would look back at what I have achieved through the year...

January/February - EW French. A full infantry company in time for Battlecry 2012. Waiting for the next EW tournament so that I can paint up my Somuas and Lorraine Carriers. Not looking too good with only one BF GT though...

EW French Infantry Company

March - Circle Warpwolf Stalker. A pretty quiet month on the painting front with focus being more in the direction of planning for coming events.

pKaya goes out with half the cast of Twilight?

April - Khador Iron Fang Uhlans. Another NZ Nationals has come and gone - I took my usual position of "tournament bunny".

CHARGE!

May - Iron Painter and Circle Wolds. I do love our Iron Painter events (24 hours of straight painting) even though I am a bit of a softy and end up sleeping for the last few hours. Whilst the rest of the guys were knocking out forces for Blood, Guts and Glory I was working on my Mid War (and techically EW) Soviets. I also spent a week working on my Circle Wolds in preparation for NiCon and the WarmaHordes teams tournament.

Soviets with camo?

Got Wood for Stone?

June - Tournaments. June was all about the last months furious painting efforts, so not much interest on the brush front. Both tournaments worked out well though with Baldur putting in a solid effort for me, whilst my T-26 horde managed Best Army - June was a good month!

July - Dystopian Wars. Love this game! Managed to finish off some Dystopian Wars terrain that I had been sitting on for a while. Easy to paint and looks great when finished. Guess that means I really should finish those last two islands!

We are sailing...

August -  New Miniature added! Not much to say other than that the early comments about him being a laid back little fella that enjoys sleep, food and daddy time have continued, much to my enjoyment!

Leave me alone, sleeping!

September - IKRPG. Got distracted this month by the new Iron Kingdoms RPG. Victor is going to run a game in the New Year, once the rest of us sort out our characters...

Hey Sean, so about that book?

October/November - Late War GT and 1956 Israelis? Back to the brushes to work on my LW GT army - I thought I would take something different and use Blood, Guts and Glory to field a 1956 Operation Kadesh Israeli Tank Company. It was a heck of a fun army and is definitely going to come out at another event. I just need to finish painting the "missing" platoons that I did not get a chance to do. I also found myself distracted (a lot) by the new X-Wing game by Fantasy Flight...

Flames Of War gamer in the making!

December - More X-Wing.  Pre-painted miniatures... fast game system... that was me distracted for the rest of the year!

2012 Wrap-up
3 Flames Of War armies
1 Hordes "army"
2 Warmachine/Hordes expansion packs (new things painted to add on to an existing force).
A pile of Dystopian Wars terrain.

Not a bad effort, I think I give myself a A- on the effort front. Feels like I slacked off during the second half of the year, although given the arrival of my son I think I will forgive myself. Over the next couple of days I will sit down with my wife and plan out the 2013 tournament season and from there start thinking about the painting requirements.

Have a good New Years everyone!

First Pre-painted Miniature from Wargamer on Tour Studios

I guess Blake said it best when he mentioned that I finally had a miniature that did not need painting, or smuggling past my very forgiving wife!

Weighing in at 8lb 7oz, Stephen Allan Townley came into the world on the 5th of August. This little man is my first child and like most new dads out there I am pretty happy (classic understatement there!) to have the new addition to the family. He is named after my father (Stephen) and Sheena's (Allan) as neither of them got a chance to meet him.

So far he has been a pretty laid back guy, happy enough to be fed, changed, bathed and allowed to sleep (as long as he is nice and warm) and even managed to watch a good portion of the first season of Battlestar Galactica with me last week whilst him mum was catching up on sleep.

Stephen - 1 hour old

Very tired dad!

Stop tickling my tummy!

Thanks to this new addition (already using him as a scapegoat) I am a bit behind on my Prussian Month wrapup, so I'll get that done in the next couple of days as well as taking a look at some of the cool new gaming stuff that has come out of the woodwork over the last few days.

Blog Necromancy

Okay, so after creating a blog many years ago and doing nothing with it, the blog is back! Over the past few weeks I have been really inspired by some of my co-workers efforts in terms of constantly getting stuff painted and on the battlefield. In an attempt to inspire and encourage myself to follow in their footsteps I thought I might publish my progress each week - this way I will need to have moved forward on one of the many projects started and never completed!