Author: Flamekebab

Phew, some breathing room. This time two weeks ago we were supposed to be packing up stock for ChillCon 2018 (Sheffield) but it turns out getting Jenny’s hair dyed took most of the working day. We arrived at the salon at 11 and left at about half past four. Yep. Well she seems pleased and I got some work done too to get myself nice and psyched up for meeting you lot!

ChillCon was at Ecclesfield School again this year and was nicely packed, even more so than last year. Given that it was utterly horrid outside the venue I’m really impressed by how many of you braved the elements to reach us.

We did our best to reward as many as possible with thematic chocolate. I’m reliably informed that it was Easter so eggs were deployed by the bowl full. I’m proud that neither of us ate too many during the day… the leftovers we were less well behaved about though…

Anyway, before we get into the specifics of our stall let’s talk about some of the other awesome stuff that was there. I mean, you can already look at most of our stuff – you’re on our site!

The Fox Box stall was stationed opposite the wall of miniatures and glorious painted miniatures of Crooked Dice and their 7TV game system. I’m ashamed to say that I only recently had the concept explained to me at which point I couldn’t stop gushing about it. It’s about running TV shows and allows for all sorts of amazing creativity. Hopefully I can get a suitable board setup when I move next as I love the idea. I find it hard to justify buying random cool miniatures without a game to use them in – see where I’m going with this..?

Other highlights – this gargant:

I do love a good scratchbuild, especially when it’s massive!

Then there’s these charming chaps:

Lovely lads – several of them stopped by the stall for a chat. We had a nice natter with loads of folks (and occasionally persuaded them to take some minis home!) and as always it was great. I spend most of my time working in either a small work room or a casting shed – getting to be allowed out to talk minis with other people is wonderful!

Now you might expect photos of our stall in here but you’ll have to settle for one taken from behind the scenes!

Several people were creating videos of the event this year and I was interviewed by two of them. You can see me there having a chat with Wargamer Online‘s camera – I say that because Phil was using a wide angle lens meaning he could get rather close. From where I was standing everything but the lens was peripheral vision!

Who else? Why the rather smashing Paul from EnterTheWolftime, that’s who!

Right, back to the salt mines for me. Good news though – ChillCon are having another event in Derby in September!

I should probably check if we have a stall booked…

(Want to know how last year went? Jenny wrote that one up – here)

It should come as no surprise to you that I like wargames. I’ve played a lot of Gorkamorka, Necromunda, a fair bit of Shadow War: Armageddon, and some Mordheim too. What you might not know is that I’ve not played Warhammer 40,000 since third edition, way back in about 2001. I probably played less than five games of it back then as it was far too much for young me to handle, model-wise.

Last night I played my first game of 40K since then. I play at the Rogue Gamers wargaming club here in Rotherham and whilst not everything was painted (on either side) it was great to finally have a playable force on the board!

I’m part of an escalation league and we’re starting at 750 points. I knew I was in a bracket with various power armour clad armies and equipped myself based on that (a substitution at the last minute meant I was a bit over-equipped on the tank hunting side when facing Tempestus Scions but more on that in a minute).

1. Big Gav and Kranky Frank (Big Mek, Kustom Force Field, and Headwoppa’s Killchoppa)
2. Tezza’z Tin Openaz (5 Tankbustas +Boss Nob & 2 Bomb Squigs)
3. Spores of Anarchy Glowin’ Dunez Charter (10 Slugga Boyz + Boss Nob)
4. Dakar’z Boyz(10 Slugga Boyz + Boss Nob)
5. Rutger’z Raiderz (3 Grot Tanks with Rokkit Launchas and Shootas + 1 Kommanda with Rokkit Launcha, Big Shoota, and Shoota)
6. ‘Arper (Skorcha)
7. Olga (Battlewagon with Deff Rolla – open topped)

If you’re familiar with the Fox Box catalogue there’s probably a few things jumping out at you from that photo but there’s some things in there that you won’t recognise because they’ve not been released yet. Biggest of all would be Big Gav himself!

I only finished sculpting him on Monday, created a mould of him that evening, cast him the next morning, primed him that afternoon, and had him on the board by Tuesday evening!

Tezza and his lads are also new – their arms are new and so are their torsos:

There’s some older stuff in the list too – the Soa charter in there is made mostly of plastic GW parts but the torsos are our rather venerable Orc Biker torsos! Similarly the tanks are our Tiny Tanks and the Skorcha is one of our Piecemaka’ Scout Tank.

I’m afraid that you can’t buy Olga though – she’s a scratchbuild with a few other bits and pieces here and there. There’s only one Olga! (Oh gods, at some point I’ll probably need to create another…)

Anyway last night saw Big Gav’s crew whittled down by intense fire from Kev’s Tempestus Scions but despite not having enough in the way of Big Shootas they put up quite a decent showing.

The Deff Rolla I’d recently fitted to Olga proved rather effective (only 6 attacks but hitting on 2+ at S8 for most of the game) and having Kranky Frank onboard kept her safe until the Scions really focussed fire on her.

“No! No! No! You ‘oomiez leave ‘er alone!”

On the other hand the Slugga Boyz on foot were gunned down incredibly easily. Far too squishy. Clearly without their bikes that outlaw MC charter is no good at all. The Grot Tanks similarly mostly just soaked up fire (and despite the number of wounds inflicted I couldn’t save a single one with their “Rolling Scrap Pile” 6++ save). They’d have been more useful if I’d brought Big Shootas as there were a lot of infantry in front of them but hey, the list was locked in long before the game was scheduled.

Another positive – the Tankbustas happily rained rockets on whatever they could see and did plenty of damage, easily blowing up the other Taurox before it could do much damage. Their Bomb Squigs went to waste though as I didn’t quite understand how they worked until after the game. I could have chucked them out as a shooting attack at any point but I didn’t really figure that out. Oops. Better luck next time!

I couldn’t really find a suitable juicy target for the other Slugga Boyz inside Olga but they did mop up one little squad with their truly ridiculous number of hand to hand attacks (2 per boy, +1 for having a Choppa – and that’s without fancy modifiers!).

The Skorcha was similarly supposed to serve as a distraction but wasn’t all that helpful really. It was rubbish at torching things!

Eventually it came down to Big Gav (and Kranky Frank of course), and two of Tezza’z Tankbustas. They were sheltered from most ranged fire except for a ruddy great Taurox Prime. Two Rokkit Launchas did their best but only knocked a few wounds off the thing. With a great sigh and quite a lot of Joe Pesci-style muttering Gav himself waddled over to deal with the problem.

Two autocannons, frag rockets, and a storm bolter opened up on him as he approached but from the smoke emerged an unharmed and very pissed off Mek.

“You’z in trubbl’ now…“

Headwoppa’z Killchoppa went through the Taurox Prime like a blow torch through particularly warm butter. Making his way back to cover it became clear that he’d best hunker down with the two other lads and his force field generator. The others didn’t last long and eventually his number was up too.

All in all a good game. Big Gav is going to be on the board again next week taking on some Orks. We’ll see how well that goes for him, given that he’s setup for dealing with armour. Erk. Ah well, hopefully Kranky Frank will continue to be helpful!

 

I don’t know about you but I feel a bit daft talking about Christmas in November so I’ve put off writing this post until now. Probably shouldn’t have done that but too late now. Wait, this is starting to sound dangerously ominous…

Each year we travel to Sweden to be with Jenny’s parents at Christmas. It’s the only time they get to see her and there’s a soft spot in my heart for Swedish Christmas traditions (the good kind of soft spot, not the kind that necessitates corrective surgery).

Normally we go after my birthday (18th) but this year Jenny’s workplace have been a pain with dates so we’re going early and returning early. Instead we’ll be leaving on the 8th and be back by 20th December.

We’re reliant on the postal system to get orders out and so that’ll mean that we’re effectively closed for a month. You’ll be able to place orders but they’ll not be seeing the inside of a postbag until the first week of January.

Want something sent before then? You’ve got a week from now!