Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves

[noahtonkin]

I think you are slurring the good people of Liverpool, that's my job in this week's post don't steal it!

Very sorry, I ment it more as a slur against those 'elected' persons who now claim to be running the country better than their predecessors. Personally I think it would have been better had that party I voted for got into power, at least the Monster Raving Looney party admit that they are completely unhinged and know nothing about the jobs they would be taking up!

[cunningmatt]

Oh political moaning, oh that's fun - in fact I actively encourage!

Though please don't form any political opinions based on the background to my Black Isle Campaign - seriously I know nothing about anything, I'm just a fool with a keyboard, make your own judgements based on sensible criteria! 

[cunningmatt]

Wednesday 30th February - WEEK 9

So I'll come clean straight away, this month's painting task of the Phoenix Guard is not going well. I thought I best check the calendar and see how long I have left to paint them, and imagine my surprise when I found out there's actually 42 days in February this year.



I know, I was shocked too. Must be some kind of special leap year or something. Still on the plus side it gives me a chance of painting up the Phoenix Guard before the end of February. Fingers crossed.

Scrolling back through the blog, it does seem to have been a rather long time since we talked High Elves, not sure exactly how that's happened. But the good news is I have got somewhere with the Phoenix Guard, here's Stage 1 (including detailing on the banner, musician and cloaks! - woooo, effort this month, I know you're impressed):

Stage 1 – Phoenix Guard











Base: Khemri Brown
Leather Pouches and Sword Sheaths: Scorched Brown
Outside of Cloak and Sleeves: 1:1 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Inside of Cloak: Iyanden Dark Sun
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Armour Trim: 1:1 Enchanted Blue: Ice Blue
Weapons Haft: Khemri Brown
Flame Trim on Cloaks and Flames on Banner: Skull White
Night Sky on Banner: 1:1 Chaos Black: Necron Abyss
Phoenix on Banner: Skull White
Drum Skin: Khemri Brown

In fairness I've got a lot further than that and am very close to completing Stage 2, so next week they should be very nearly finished, I'm sure they'll be done by the 42nd of February.

Liverpool

The main reason why I've not got so far is the fact that a couple of weekends this month have been consumed by work, notably last weekend when I journeyed to sunny Liverpool as I mentioned here in last week's post. Can't say I actually saw that much of Liverpool, I didn't even see Liverpool Lime Street station, despite getting a train there, as we ended up alighting at Runcorn (just outside Liverpool) - where on the way back I did see the Liverpool football team on a train - not that I knew who they were, it was pointed out to me by people who actually know of the game of football. That's how showbiz I am!

My main observation of Liverpool is that cloakrooms in clubs and bars must be extremely expensive, surely that can be the only reason why so many people wander the streets on a night out in less clothing than I'd wear in the shower. I should point out I didn't see these people actually during a night out in Liverpool, but simply passed them on the mini-bus into work at 6.30am in the morning as they were coming home! Classy!

Still even during the busy time of work in Liverpool, I was thinking of you, as my Phoenix Guard came to for a bit of painting (not that there was much time), here you can see painting corner set up in my rather lush hotel room come apartment in Liverpool.



Look it even had its own kitchen area, and the window overlooked Liverpool docks – the nice bit, not the seedy bit where you pick up sailors and dysentery.









I was even watching the BBC News Channel, a channel which people only ever watch in hotels!

Plus very nice toiletries, which I was tempted to steal but cunningly rather than having little toiletry bottles, they had massive shampoo bottles, so it was much harder to sneak them in your luggage – clever people they must know what the Liverpool masses are like. This combined with the fact that my bag had been packed to within an inch of it's life meant they didn't come with me. Shame.

Before you think it was all glamour and fun in Liverpool, I should point out I spent most of my time there standing in a warehouse which was frostier than Colonel Gaddafi's reception at the Tripoli branch of Oxfam. It takes something for it to be colder inside than outside in mid to late extended February. Additionally the toilet facilities were somewhat questionable, there's a bit of a history of discussing questionable toilet facilities on this blog, see page 15 for a review of those in Basildon. By Day 2 in these particular facilities, ala Liverpool, we'd run out of hand soap, paper towels and toilet paper in all the toilets – it was a four-day job and they didn't get restocked - eekk. After this point everyone was desperately stockpiling serviettes from the cafeteria or stealing toilet rolls from their hotel room. Nice! I was somewhat concerned as the next nearest source of paper to the toilets was a large pile of scripts that I had written. Let's be honest there's nothing quite as depressing as seeing your own work floating around in a toilet pan, unless of course you work for Andrex in which case I suppose it would be quite flattering. The reluctance to use the toilet, combined with the very stodgy nature of the tasty food being served on site, meant some rather troubled bowels and quite a large amount of flatulence. I personally did a 5.4 on the Richter Scale – see told you it wasn't glamorous. What do you mean "Too Much Information"? You are on a forum which has this icon available - you abandoned any sense of taste and decency with one click of your mouse.

Moving on before this becomes about as stomach churning as a documentary by former home secretary Jacquie Smith on !@%$#%@ (such a programme has been commissioned), I'd like to refer to you a new feature on the Tale of OG Gamers Blog – High Elves, which is the Tale of OG Gamers Blog – High Elves Map which shows you all the exciting places that have been visited and painted in on this very thread. As you can see our resident 4-year old artist has been very busy drawing and paying attention in Geography:



Over the remaining few months of this blog, we'll try and widen the locations that High Elves have been painted in.

Black Isle

Not too much to report in the Black Isle as no battles have been fought, although whilst away I managed to double my gold total. After I raided Andrew of 150 gold, and won 45 gold from a draw I didn't play against Julien's Bretonnian's – think I might play the rest of the campaign from Liverpool seems to work quite well for me!

Cameron steadied himself on a branch, his plan to sell weapons to the Tomb Kings of Tripoli had gone down well, except that the idiot Clegg had forgotten he was in charge of the tribe whilst he was away. What a fool! Still no matter, the tribe's deficit had been massively reduced by the introduction of a state armour tax – the nearby hoard of Chaos Warriors had, had to pay dearly, and little did they know the tax would rise again next week. Mooo ha ha ha thought Bray Shaman Cameron.

Paintbrushes

And now for something completely different, thought I'd talk to you about the trusty old paintbrush – a friend to every painter (well it would be hard to paint your Dark Elf Hydra with a roller brush let's be honest).



Essentially they are bits of horse hair that are bolted together and used to groom your models, in fact what with the super glue you've got most of a horse already available on your modelling table. It wouldn't surprise me if Green Stuff actually turned out to be horse mucus or that modelling sand is actually the ashes of a cremated horse. In fact just hang around the Grand National race course and you could probably take home enough stuff to stock your modelling table, just by collecting up those horses that fell at the fences.

I digress, as always. Seriously sometimes I talk so much random rubbish it's like having a conversation with Charlie Sheen.

Am I the only person who finds that they look after their brushes for just two weeks after purchase? You know brand new brush comes up, it's thoroughly washed after each colour, rinsed under the tap, always stored upright and no paint goes over the metal part of the handle (that keeps the bristles in). Fast forward a fortnight and you don't give a toss any more, they're being rammed in any old paint pot, left caked in paint for days on end, stored upside down in a jam jar so their bristles are sprayed further apart than Katie Price's legs. Hell you're even scratching your arse with them. And before long there's just a single solitary bristle desperately trying to spread paint over an entire Screaming Bell, the equivalent of trying to paint Croydon town centre with a cucumber.

I wish I could get more into the habit of looking after them, problem is I've taken to guerrilla painting, five minutes before work, twenty minutes before bed, during funerals and bar mitzvahs whenever modern life allows you to. But if you add washing your brushes and changing your water everytime you start well that's at least 20% of that brief painting window of opportunity wasted.

I should get more, really, I should, and I try to. Everytime I peruse Ol's lovely website I think I should buy some paintbrushes, but then I get distracted – that's money that could be spent on a lovely new box of Minotaurs or some Dragon Princes, and I've already got some paintbrushes. Admittedly they have no bristles left, but I do already have some. Perhaps I could tie a lock of my hair to the brush and carry on painting – though I imagine the amount of hair product I use that the brush would rapidly turn into a sculpting tool as all the models I attempt to paint are "converted" by a thick layer of hair wax accruing on them.

And why is that despite my brushes having no bristles left I keep them, all of them, every single one, I think I read somewhere in a White Dwarf once that an old brush can be useful – hence I've kept every single one ever. At this rate I'll have to move out of my house in 2015 and simply hand it over to old paintbrushes or I'll be swimming through them to get to the airing cupboard.

It's much the same with toothbrushes really, soon enough my toothbrush looks much like my paintbrushes:



And yes I really should get more heads but if, like me, you have an electric toothbrush purchasing is a traumatic experience. Who actually knows which type of brush head actually fits on their toothbrush? This isn't helped by the fact that virtually every type of electric toothbrush packet is constructed in such a way so you can't see the hole at the base of the brush to see if it's the shape of the hole on the brush you already have. And what with the head of the brush changing design every five minutes (you can now get a brush with a tongue scrapper on – who needs that? Seriously! I have never eaten a meal so inedible I've ever had to actually scrape it off my tongue) you haven't really got a chance. Plus a packet of toothbrush heads costs about fifty quid, it's a bit too much of a gamble to take if you don't know if they'll fit your toothbrush. You don't want to have stick the brush head on the end of a Biro at start brushing your teeth that way, knowing your luck you'll use the wrong end accidentally draw over your mouth and be at work until 5pm before someone points out your mistake – or maybe that's just me.

And whilst we're on the subject of toothbrushes, Oral B? Whatever happened to Oral A? Did this simply refer to a time before we cleaned our teeth with brushes, and poked them with sticks, does the "B" signify this upgrade? If so isn't time we updated to Oral C? Given the pace of technological advancement in other areas it must be about time, I vote for electronic versions of those X-shaped treats they give dogs to clean their teeth with – that would add some fun to the early morning bathroom session.

Back to paintbrushes, god forbid we should go off on a tangent, and the little plastic caps have always intrigued me. These are the little "hats" supplied by Games Workshop that sit on your paint brush keeping the point nice and neat – until two uses later when the brush is splayed and any attempt to put the cap on simply splays the bristles even further. My main question is why are they transparent? Why?! Have you ever tried finding the bloody things again after you put them down somewhere? Particularly on newspaper which is already that dirty clear colour that they tend to appear to the naked eye.



Seriously you need high-tech night vision googles to see them.

It's as if each paint brush cover as it's own cloaking device (like the Romulans in Star Trek) which is activated the minute you put it down – at which point you will never find it again, ever. For all you know it's disappeared to the moons of Neptune where all plastic paintbrush hats live mocking how easily they escaped from under our noses. My cunning plan has been to paint the cap the colour at the base of the paintbrush to give me a chance of working out which caps are missing, and to find the bloody things as they hide across my desk like little thieves in the night.





Anyway this gave me an idea, for a new competition here on the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves. Called a Spot the Paintbrush Cap competition, it's a bit like a Spot the Ball competition made popular through the cultural significant game of football. Except that rather than working out where the football is, you need to work out where the paint brush cap is. Below is a photo of my work station where one paint brush cap is, I have however "digitally removed" the photo cap from the picture. All you need to do is tell me which grid square you think it's in. What could be more fun?

Oh and before you dismiss this as rubbish, there's an actual prize this week – yes a prize! A stonking prize. If you get it right you will win this fabulous Shakeaway voucher, entitling you to a free medium Shakeaway (from a company that may have recently closed down half of its stores due to going into administration, but quite frankly that's a minor detail).



Here's the picture of my workstation below, simply work out where you think the painting cap is (remember it's been "digitally removed" it's not like Where's Wally?!) and then reply on this thread with your chosen grid square.



The competition closes on the 42nd of February so get your entries in.

Terms & Conditions: The person who gets the exact grid square will win the Shakeaway voucher, if no one gets the exact square the organiser reserves the right to go and have a Shakeaway himself. If the painting cap lies in two or more squares, the square in which the majority of the cap lies in will be the winning square. The voucher will be delivered in person to the winner at an OG Games event, if unable to collect the voucher will be posted out provided the organiser can be arsed. Competition closes on the 42nd of February entrants submitting entries after this date are liable to have their homes firebombed. Please note your milkshake is at risk if you do not keep up repayments and the calorific value of your chosen beverage may go up as well as down. In the event of two or more people guessing the correct square they will be forced to fight it out in a pit of mud to determine the winner.

On that competition bombshell, I shall leave you as I'm off to order some new paintbrushes from Ol. Although after reading the new White Dwarf, maybe it would be more fun to start an Orc & Goblin army instead. I mean a box of Savage Orc Boar Boyz would be more fun than a new Stipling Brush, it's not like I'd collect a whole Orc & Goblin army, just some Savage Orcs, a unit of River Trolls, some Black Orcs maybe an Anorak Spider, a Snotling Pump Wagon and of course a unit of Goblin Wolf Riders, though it would be nice to get some Squig Hoppers too, and how about a Doom Diver... hmmm, see just no room for a paint brush in that order.

[maelzch]

Hmm, february has been a lot longer this year, maybe science should be concerned? (I am still painting away at my tale of OG stuff, will get some photos up this weekend)

[cunningmatt]

Hmm, february has been a lot longer this year, maybe science should be concerned?

It's true have you been outside and felt how cold it is, it clearly isn't March!

[Dave]

I say F3, it's bound to have fallen off and is sitting in the bottom of that jar!

Once again fantastic ramblings and great commitment to actually getting things done.  Most people jack in the 'paint x points for y months' blogs after a couple of months tops.

[fatolaf]

I say box 3D , as that seems to be the vogue for all movies nowadays....

It's in the bag baby.... 

[Veldemere]

A5, has to be.

Another classic Matt. Were you staying in a Roomzzz hotel?

Also the thing I noted was how many milk cartons you got, whenever I stay in a hotel they give you 2 mugs and 2 cartons, I like my tea quite milky (but my coffee black, how odd) and 2 in 1 cup isn't even enough, this could have lactally satisfied me.


Oh and I wrote down the top secret code and have already availed myself of the milkshake which I have obviously won.

[cunningmatt]

Most people jack in the 'paint x points for y months' blogs after a couple of months tops.

I've had a couple of wibbles, I tend to oscillate between wanting to paint loads of High Elves in one month and get them done (ironic as I'm not doing so well this month) and wanting to paint something completely different. But I'm still enjoying them and am now am over halfway am determined to see it through - you can remind me of this in a few months time when it's all gone plop!

I say box 3D , as that seems to be the vogue for all movies nowadays....

Can I just say I do hate 3D movies that there's no point to seeing in 3D, fair enough if their are good special effects but the average romantic comedy is quite sufficinet in 2D! Sorry I'll save that rant for another time.

Were you staying in a Roomzzz hotel?

Also the thing I noted was how many milk cartons you got, whenever I stay in a hotel they give you 2 mugs and 2 cartons, I like my tea quite milky (but my coffee black, how odd) and 2 in 1 cup isn't even enough, this could have lactally satisfied me.

It was a Staybridge hotel very nice. I don't actually drink tea or coffee myself, but one day I thought I lost the storage pots for my contact lenses so ended up drinking the milk out of two of those cartoons and filling it with contact lens solution - I knew a childhood watching Blue Peter wouldn't be wasted!

Oh and I wrote down the top secret code and have already availed myself of the milkshake which I have obviously won.

This was a sample voucher, I have already consumed this one!

Keep the entires coming in for Spot the Paintbrush cap - pastuerised goodness awaits the winner!

[EvilFuzzyDoom]

It's true have you been outside and felt how cold it is, it clearly isn't March!

You think that's bad? I'm wearing my winter woolies when this time last year we were having 40+ degree days. Celsius. Because of the whole antipodean thing.