Busy busy busy

April is shaping up as a busy month for me from a hobby perspective. The Tale of Duelling Gamers officially kicks off today, however it may well be a few days before I can sink my teeth into it. Then there is the battle report I have started working on. Or maybe that will have to come first...

I have been meaning to do another proper battle report (of less than ridiculous size) for a while now, and on Friday Nick (or Elmo, Cookie Monster, or one of any number of the other muppet-based nicknames he seems to go by nowadays) and I finally got around to organising and playing one. We decided to use Orcs and Goblins against Dwarfs, both of which are actually my armies. Nick doesn't really have an operational painted army at the moment. Go over to his blog and hassle him about it.



Of course, it was only when Nick had chosen a list that I really thought about the state of the models and how they would look in photos. Many of my Orcs are only "mostly" painted, and it turns out that about a zillion of them have never really finished the re-basing process the army underwent a couple of years ago.

Some slightly battered Boar Boyz with 14 year-old paint jobs and incomplete basing. At least I found all the missing arms...

If anything Nick seemed to take particular delight in my sudden realisation and the subsequent frenzy of activity as I tried to make sure things wouldn't look too shoddy in the photos. He even took pictures of me trying to get ready at the last minute.

OK, so all these guys actually needed some updates. But that's OK, I had a few hours the night before. They all scored some static grass on their bases, too. Such luxury!

Even my Trolls, who have attended numerous tournaments in their admittedly unfinished state, got some grass.

I discovered there was a Citadel Battlemat in my pile of stuff. Turns out years in a box will make it rather wrinkly.

Operation Emergency Iron was launched to moderate success.

Raiding the display cabinets for models for the game.

Things about to get under way.

Anyway, despite my obvious lack of forward planning, we eventually got the game done and now I have started to write up the report. Hopefully I'll have it all sorted in a few days.

Of course, if I am spending my available time writing up the battle report, I will not be painting. Which is not the best way to start off the Tale of Duelling Gamers. The first month is the most ambitious with double the budget of the other months, so leaving myself with less than the full month to work on things is not ideal.

I did have a rough plan laid out for what I would paint over the next 6 months, but the realisation that April might be a mess prompted me to shift my plans a bit in order to ease the load. Here is what I now plan to paint this month:

Here we have April's revised painting target. The only thing that was in my original plans for the month was the Thane...

Above you can see the following (using GW's Australian RRP):

• Slayer Command Group ($55.00)
• 5 Slayers ($41.00)
• 5 Slayers ($41.00)
• Dwarf Thane ($22.00)
• Dwarf Cannon ($41.00)

Total: $200.00

As you can see, Slayers are hideously expensive by virtue of their still being metal models. Either GW are planning the delayed release of a plastic box set, or they have basically admitted defeat in the face of things like the Berserkers from Avatars of War. Too late to the party, as it were. Anyway, I have made use of the diabolical expense of the Slayers to cushion the blow of the $200 first month. My original plans would have had me painting twice as much stuff, and the models would have been wearing clothing, and everything! Here none of that is an issue...

Anyway, I will have to dive into painting these guys once I have the report done, but I'd like to get it finished first. So the race is on.