Fantastic day.

The day started well as both my wife and I were working from home and the children were at school. Let’s just say we had a leisurely start to our day.

I earned brownie points by deep cleaning the upstairs bathroom. Everything in there was washed and polished to within an inch of its life! That reminds me, I must remind the children to wring out their flannels, there was limescale on the radiator!

War gamers garage.

I’ve been getting my gaming table in the garage sorted out. The green felt cloth arrived today so I got all my terrain out for the first time in 2 years to see what I have and its condition. I also decided to have a small solo game of What a Tanker! from the Too Fat Lardies. I’m really enjoying that set of rules.

It was such a lovely day that I sat in the sun trap and painted Necrons for the Warhammer 40K game. I hope to use them tomorrow in a game with my son.

Before and after.

I was having such a fun day that about 3pm I suddenly realised I hadn’t received any emails from work. I checked my phone and got an error message. I went in and fired up the laptop. Luckily no-one was trying to reach me. People are winding down for Easter.

I then made up a recipe for dinner. Rice and vegetables, lamb, onion, garlic and Mediterranean spices gave us each a tasty bowl of nosh. My daughter complained but you can’t please everyone 😆

Glorious day 2.

It’s amazing how much my spirits have been lifted by the arrival of Spring. I was doing a bit of shopping at the local shopping precinct. Normally a mundane activity but was almost a joy in the sun.

Garden chairs.

I painted 5 garden chairs with black Hammerite paint. I like these chairs. Once you get the cushions on they are very comfortable. You can see the table in the corner – that’s our little sun trap area. After noon it gets the sun until late evening. The table is big enough for the family to sit at and I plan to get a BBQ installed nearby.

I plan to get rid of the gravel at some point but I expect that will be next year now. I’ve a nice shady spot close to the house that needs a lick of paint and I may buy another table so it’s easier to pop outside with a book and a cuppa.

You can probably see that the wall by the table needs repainting and once that is doing I plan to put some plants in pots up there. I was thinking of a small herb garden or just some flowers.

Glorious day.

As we’ve entered British summer time I spent the day tidying up in the garden and putting the garden furniture out. To be honest the chairs need a coat of paint, which is tomorrow’s job.

By 3pm I was all set and sat in the sun reading my book. By 3:45 I had to come back inside as it was too hot in our little sun trap. I’ll have to find the parasol.

Useful day today.

I’m annoyed. We had the house re-rendered just before Christmas. I had noticed a wet patch by the front door and it turns out the waste pipe has been broken off and gaffa taped back on! It’s broken off in the fitting so the whole thing will have to be taken apart, which means hacking a hole in the new render. I’ve bodged it back on by screwing an old ice lolly stick to the pipe and fitting to hold it in place and gaffa taped it. We’re planning to get the bathroom refurbished and will sort it out properly then, but I’m upset they broke it and didn’t say.

Next there was a problem with the downstairs bathroom door not shutting properly. I took it off and modified the hinge arrangements with some batten. It now shuts much better.

Then I made a wargaming table to put in the garage. With the rules of lockdown changing I can get my pal Steve over for some games.

I did end up looking at things online and I bought some stuff from a local games shop, which can be my Easter egg this year.

Down a rabbit hole …

You know how you can lose hours looking at the internet? I’ve had one of those days. Saturday is usually a domestic day, with laundry, vacuuming the carpets and doing a big shop. In between those things I went down a wargames rabbit hole.

I stumbled upon a blog by a chap who I play online D&D with. He was giving a commentary on a fantasy rat men army he has been building. The blog is good and he writes well. This leads to me looking at the supplier website for the rat men. Whilst there I spotted some other things that interest me.

I then did a search for any up and coming releases of wargaming miniatures and ended up joining a couple of Facebook groups. I think tomorrow may be the same!

What a Tanker.

I found the What a Tanker stuff in a bag whilst looking for something else. It is a table top game from Too Fat Lardies, writers of some very good rules.

1 on 1 solo game.

I thought the game would lend itself to solo play and I was rusty on the rules. I decided on a training mission between a Panzer 2 Vs Panzer 3. They are similar but with a slight edge to the P3.

The game went in the opposite direction. The P2 managed to get the first shot on target and take away 2 command dice temporarily. The P3 never recovered and was on the back foot as the P2 manoeuvred into a better position to make its shots count. Win for the P2!

The game is fast and simple and works well with about 3 tanks per player. I plan to play again at the weekend and try to get my kids interested.

Feeling positive about Necrons.

Necron Warrior.

Once I have assembled the miniature I glued some sand to the base with PVA glue. When dry I have sprayed the whole model with silver paint.

I’ve lots of old paint pots from Citadel Paints, P3, and others. Most are gunky and over 10 years old. I found a green that had some life in it, as well as a brown and metallic copper. I used these sparingly.

I have a coloured varnish from the Army Painter range. Once I’d levered the lid off I applied it with a paint brush so I could control where it went. Army Painter uses a dipping process but this can be very messy, so I use a brush.

All your base are belong to us!

The brown base is still wet, as is the varnish. I’ll give the base a highlight and stick on some static grass to finish it off but otherwise I’m happy with this painting style. The brown varnish gives the silver a battlefield tarnish and the dots of green match in with the Necron description in the rulebook.

1 down, 11 to go!

What happened?

Space Marines.

I used to wargame competitively. In the noughties I played Warhammer fantasy, 40K, Blood Bowl and Warhammer ancients. Roughly 6 times in the year I would travel with my friend Steve and other friends to a tournament. We played in Sheffield, Birmingham, London, Blackpool, Portsmouth and I also ran a few tournaments myself.

One of the prerequisites of tournament wargaming was a fully painted army. I have fully painted Dwarfs, Undead, Early Imperial Romans, Normans and several Blood Bowl teams.

I’ve bought Warhammer 40K for my son but I can’t summon the enthusiasm for painting them. I really don’t know where the magic has gone!

I’ve ordered some silver spray paint for the Necrons (scary sci fi robots) to try a speed painting technique. Spray them, use thinned brown paint as a wash to get in the cracks and then pick out the eyes with a spooky green paint. Bosh! Get them on the table.

What’s that smell?

Light dimmer switch.

There has been a smell similar to the disinfectant Dettol by the door to the under-stairs cupboard. Last night it was particularly strong. I went to bed mistified.

When my wife decided to come to bed she couldn’t turn the living room lights off. The dimmer switch was very hot and she was concerned. She decided to trip the consumer box switch for the downstairs lights.

As you can see above, the dimmer switch has melted and given up the ghost. We buried it with full honours.

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