Procrastination by Numbers

[roland murat]

How would I make it shiny?

A shiny varnish - or tinsel

[cunningmatt]

A shiny varnish - or tinsel

Right, I will bare that in mind. (Don't want much do you, you lot?)

By the way Roland please come and harrass me next time you're at club night, I have several packets of Angel Delight that belong to you (don't ask) and am bored of carrying them around like a sherbet crack whore. If you don't know who I am, I'm the guy who looks disturbingly like an old version of Tintin - apparently.

[cunningmatt]

Update 22 – Monday 21st November 2011: Santa's Downfall

Goodness it's been a while since I last blogged, how has this happened? How have you coped? Sorry if you're rocking in the corner, shaking slowly with withdrawal symptoms I'll try not to leave you so long next time.

In Matt news, I'm strangely excited, I'm actually in a good mood (I know, hence why I've had nothing to write about). I don't know what it is, but I seem to be full of joy for Christmas – no really I am! I've started my shopping, wrapped some presents and even got some cards, who knows you may even get one – though I imagine that is exceptionally unlikely! Yes for some reason I can't wait to put up those decorations, start cooking the turkey and eating copious amounts of chocolate (oh... that's already been done). Games Workshop have even got out their Christmas stocking fillers, I don't know about you but I can't wait to get some translucent dice and a Paint Station Plus – apparently it can pause your painting while you go to the toilet and then you can replay it
later! Excellent.

First up I know you're itching to hear about the adventure of Santa and his Elves in the Tale of 2 OGs Winter Campaign thing-a-me, that or you've got some hideous infection in your pubic nether regions that's causing you to scratch. Maybe that's what Silvio Berlusconi should do know he's left office, put his face to a range of sexual transmitted disease disinfectants? Maybe, I shouldn't think out loud?

Santa and his Elves

Battle 3 – versus Giles' Orcs & Goblins

Santa and his Elves had been doing impressively well so far scoring an impressive (and entirely unexpected) 30 points out of 40 available points. Game 3 and I was to face Giles' Orcs & Goblins. Deployment was largely dominated by a half an hour phase in which Giles deployed war machines, two Doom Divers, two Rock Lobbas and about forty seven Spear Chukkas. Giles reassured me he was simply going to be handing me over victory points as they'd all misfire.

Giles won the roll for the first turn and all his artillery turned its attention to my fast moving troops, the Eagle was shot down by two Spear Chukkas, a single Doom Diver hit wiped out all the Dragon Princes, causing my Archers to panic and just avoid running off the board. And finally the White Lion Chariot took two wounds from another Spear. So far one Rock Lobba misfired, but would fire again in two turns. So one turn in, and anything fast enough to take out war machines or draw out Fanatics was gone. Great.

I advanced as quickly as I could to the main body of the Orcs with my infantry in a bid to get into combat and out of target choice for all those war machines. My Archers rallied, but my Level 2 Mage miscast and in return for a Flamestorm which widely scattered and only incinerated four Night Goblins was sucked into the Chaos Warp taking a load of Lothern Sea Guard with him.

The Squig Hoppers who I'd so far ignored, as I was concentrating on the artillery, charged the flank of the Lothern Sea Guard, outperforming them and breaking the unit. The few remaining Sea Guard escaped but due to a series of appalling leadership tests never rallied. Up next the big guns of the artillery opened fire blowing holes in my remaining units and finishing off the White Lion Chariot. No misfires yet.

The Swordmasters made a long charge into a large unit of Black Orcs eager to spill some green blood, unfortunately this triggered the release of multiple Fanatics. Rather obligingly most of the Fanatics hoped out only a few inches and the Swordmasters only took one hit. Once in combat the Swordmasters butchered loads of Black Orcs, but their numbers had been thinned sufficiently by artillery and the Black Orcs were able to destroy all that remained. The Archers and Bolt Throwers shot up an Orc Chariot – first victory points. While the Phoneix Guard got stuck into the Squig Hoppers.

The Orc & Goblin artillery turned their attention on the remaining Archers and Bolt Thrower – still no misfires!! The Phoneix Guard finally killed the Squig Hoppers, but a big unit of Orcs were heading their way. So they tried to hide behind a hill bravely and hold out for anything but a 20-0 defeat! However the laser guided Orc Artillery finally flattened the Bolt Thrower and Archers, a Doom Diver and a Rock Lobba both misfired but only missed a turn of shooting. Meanwhile the Orc Shaman Miscast 'Eadbut killing the Archmage who couldn't roll a single ward save, and the miscast simply killed a couple of Orcs. Finally the large unit of Orcs caught up with the Phoenix Guard but their depleted numbers meant the Orcs had no trouble killing them all. And that was it. every Elf dead.

Sadly two chariots and some Squig Hoppers was simply not enough to claw even a 19-1 defeat. No points for Santa on this occasion. I knew it was going too well.

50 Spearmen in 50 Days – Day 13
Yes it's the most exciting thing since Pat Sharp entered the jungle, it's back to the 50 Spearmen in 50 Days project, like a mass Children in Need event without the excitement or benefits to society.

Worryingly this is Day 13 and I don't have much to show for my efforts. Last time you saw the billion sprues I had to cut out and assemble and there's been a lot of snipping and gluing as you can see:



The astute amongst you will have spotted that I have invested in one of Games Workshop's latest tools the Citadel Clean Up Kit consisting of a brush and a tooly thing, but not the kind you find on Tool Academy:



On that note it's time for the return of another favourite feature from last time!


Matty's Top Tip – Number 2The Citadel Clean Up Kit is quite good


I'd like to point out before I'm buried in an avalanche of e-mails telling me otherwise, that this is "in my opinion". And I am only comparing it to using a set of files for cleaning up models. How it fares against a knife, I can't tell you, because given I can't use a clothes horse without inflicting life threatening injuries on myself I shouldn't really be trusted with a knife.

Here's my top, pointless guide, on how to use the new kit.

1) Find a mould line:



Here's one.

2) Scrape up and down the mould line with the scrapey part of the kit:



Rather tricky to photograph this, need an extra hand!

3) Your mould line is gone, but there's lots of debris left over:



4) Next take the brushy part of the kit and brush away the debris:



5) Hey presto your mould line is gone and the debris is brushed all over the carpet:



So there you go, a lot quicker and simpler than using files and you won't cut your hand open – although some of the short pieces (like the base of the spears) are too small to use the tool on, so keep that file handy. Admittedly you don't need the brush, an old toothbrush will do, but it came with the tooly thing, and I never get around to using a toothbrush I usually just leave the debris on the model!!

With this process repeated about a thousand billion million trillion times all my parts were assembled.

Some liberal sanding of bases (that is attaching sand, not actually sanding down), and a good blast with the Chaos Black spray can, and here's the 50 Spearmen all assembled:



And all their shields:



Each rank has the spear at a slightly different angle, with the bank ranks being held vertically and the front ranks horizontally poised ready to take this charge. As this picture, in homage to those Theory of Evolution diagrams showing a monkey turning into human through Neanderthal stages, shows:



Whilst I wasn't too worried about exact positions for each model in the unit, as that can make ranking up take about a week, I thought it would be helpful to make a note of which Spearmen go in which rank for ease of unit assembly (don't want to spend hours gauging the angle of a spear), Plus this would be helping for placing the models in batches for painting. So each rank was lettered from A to E and labelled on it's base:



And so that is where we are, 26% of the way through the project and not a drop of 'proper' paint placed on a single Spearmen. Well as I was desperate to splash a little bit of Elven colour around, and I was bored just gluing together Spearmen, I did make a start on another special character for my army (I do like a special character, almost enough to put them in an advent calendar – hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink). So here's my start on Korhil, he's not the Finecast version I'm afraid, as I've had his metal companion kicking around for years. For those of you interested in such things, he's been stuck to a resin base from the Warhammer Basing Kit.

Stage 1 – Korhil, Captain of the White Lions







Base: Khemri Brown
Rock: Chardonite Granite
Skull: Khemri Brown
Boots, Gloves and Leather: Scorched Brown
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Armour Trim and Yellow Cloth: Iyanden Darksun
White Cloth: 1:1 Skull White : Astronomacian Grey
Blue Cloth and Plume: 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue
Wood: Khemri Brown
Lion Skin: Dheneb Stone
Hair: 1:2 Iyanden Darksun : Dheneb Stone
Elf and Lion Flesh: Dwarf Flesh

Right, suppose I best get back to the Spearmen... see you soon!

[cunningmatt]

Update 23 – Friday 25th November 2011: The War on Socks

Well after this week's early post, I personally can't believe that this joke didn't get a bigger response...

...and a Paint Station Plus – apparently it can pause your painting while you go to the toilet and then you can replay it later! Excellent.

...I mean come on that's comedy gold!! No? Philistines.

50 Spearmen in 50 Days – Day 17
Good news is I've applied some colour to the Spearmen:



And that's it...

Oh well. Instead here's a rant about something to tide you over until I do some more painting.

I've never liked socks, all my life I've been locked in a constant struggle with survival, a war that can never be won against the sock-kind. Over the years the nature of sock-warfare has evolved and changed as new technologies have been developed and new frontiers have opened up, but at all times I've been engaged in a War with Socks. I just don't like wearing them. I can just about tolerate wearing them at work or out shopping, whilst wearing shoes. But as anyone who's ever lived me will be able to tell you, as soon as my shoes come off my socks are whipped off faster than the average I'm A Celebrity... contestant whips off their dignity.

I just can't see the point, you wouldn't wear gloves indoors, so why socks? Admittedly you're lumbered with the unpleasant side effect as you travel around the house and your feet pick up all kind of debris that collects on the carpet like dust, pepper seeds, bits of tissue and the odd homeless person. It's like my feet are like some kind of super kitchen roll dredging the carpet, but surely this is a small price to pay for the freedom of toe-based flexibility (they're not battery hens after all). If it's cold I put on a pair of slippers, ok they're less sexy than a Midsomer Murders DVD Box Set but if comfort, warmth, rights for toes and victory over socks are what you're after they're the way forward. Though you will have to get machine washable ones as a few weeks of sockless slipper wearing and they end up smelling like nuclear Armageddon in a Babybel factory.

Socks are intrinsically evil. Not convinced, well consider is the seam that joins the toe of the sock to the main body. Is it just me or is there something inherently annoying about the fact this seam is in exactly the same point as where toe-nail and toe join? And I find this very uncomfortable, admittedly not in every pair of socks, but if I buy a pack of seven pairs for some reason at least one pair will have a particularly annoying seem making them unwearable. Why does this happen randomly? Are these faulty? Can they be sold in special cheap packs like broken biscuits? Who knows? Either way I don't want them. And itchy seems are just one of the weapons socks use. As it is you can't even trust socks, their numbers are constantly changing, you put an even number of socks in the wash, and an odd number come out. What's happened? Has a sock gone undercover in the T-shirt drawer to spy on your every move and report to sock command? Or have the socks been breeding, increasing their foul numbers to take over the world?

At this point you may be thinking that I'm a child, and I should just shut up and wear socks as things will never get better. Well you'd be wrong. In recent years a great victory in my battle with sock-kind was secured, I finally broke through enemy lines with only the deaths of 25,000 innocent civilians.  This first big break through came in the discovery of coloured-toe socks. You know the kind, that all the big department stores sell in large multi-packs?



Up to now the biggest bane of my domestic chore life (other than the daily trip to the bottle bank to deal with my drinking habit) was the pairing up of plain black and navy socks. Over time the various pairs bought across a number of years had all slightly faded by differing amounts. This turned the task of the correct pairing up of them whilst removing from the clothes dryer' into a Krypton Factor-esque challenge, but without the excitement of Gordon Burns or an obstacle to course to finish with. Coloured toe socks have changed all this, they can be paired up quicker than E-list celebrities in the Big Brother compound. And when out and about wearing a shoe, (typically two) no one need know about your eccentric behaviour of wearing mad coloured socks with crazy coloured toes, unless you're wearing sandals that is. This victory alone has saved about half an hour off my weekly chores.

However, while I may have won the battle, I certainly haven't won the war, for with new socks came new problems. Now I do realise by even opening up this can of worms, I sound older than Peter Stringfellow's hair cut, but is it me or has the quality of socks got worse? Either that or my feet are slowly turning into talons and I've not realised. Rarely a week goes by when I haven't manage to shred the toe of one of my socks on my barbed, cheese-grater like feet. I'd be happy, it's the destruction of socks, but sadly I need socks – society forces me into a symbiotic relationship with them.



Thank god I never shed a bed with another human or, judging by the state of my socks, my toes would slice their feet off like a scythe ploughing through wheat. Which on the plus side would mean if I did ever convince someone to get in bed with me, they'd find it hard to run away.

All this has lead to a new frontline with the socks, I need new socks, I'm losing them faster than Adrian Childs is losing jobs. Obviously I could get more socks. But through reasons more tedious than Louis Walsh, I've been gifted an unwanted set of socks with the days of the week embroidered on them:



We all know the type, quirky socks with the days of the week printed on them, that want to be quirky and friendly when really they're evil. On the one hand these sound perfect, they are easy to pair up and no one need know I am wearing anything other than plain black socks. But am I ready to accept that my life has reached the point where it's tragic enough to have the day printed on your sock? It seems a ridiculous level of organisation, even for my anal standards, to have my socks already designated to a specific day. What does that say about individuality, surely it means the socks are controlling me – they've won? I mean I could wear the socks on the wrong day, to spite them, but introducing an additional level of complexity to my already worrisome existence doesn't seem healthy. Also if I was going to have a calendar based system printed on my footwear, days of the week aren't that helpful, (except on holiday and at Christmas – where socks have no chance of being worn) I generally know what day of the week it is. The date would be more useful, and let's face it a pack of 31 socks is likely to fit better with the average lazy person washing schedule that a pack of 7. Though that would mean letting 62 socks in my house, that sounds dangerous.

As it stands, with my social life being about as exciting as a meeting of the Keith Chegwin fan club, I never leave the house at the weekend. Thus if I take up the offer of these free socks the Saturday and Sunday pairs will stay shop fresh whereas Monday to Friday will be ripped apart like the body of a small child fed to a pack of hungry wolves. And what if Wednesday's socks have the dodgy seam, and are unwearable? What am I supposed to do? Introduce a midweek barefoot office day? I don't think it will catch on. Oh the dilemmas! Will there ever be simplicity in my life.

As you can see The War on Socks is never won, there are always new battles to be fought. Constant vigilance is required, I'll see you on the front line.

[Meals]

Matt, you could be adventurous and wear Friday socks on Monday. Think of the massconfusion you will create in the ranks of the evil sock army... Its more brilliant than Sun Tsu...


Alternatively, if it really is this bad, it sounds like you need to move to Australia. Then you can wear thongs to your hearts content, with never a sock in sight. Wait... that is what they're called up here isn't it?

[cunningmatt]

Matt, you could be adventurous and wear Friday socks on Monday. Think of the massconfusion you will create in the ranks of the evil sock army... Its more brilliant than Sun Tsu...

I am worried that will make me "quirky" which sounds like a bad dating profile statement!

Alternatively, if it really is this bad, it sounds like you need to move to Australia. Then you can wear thongs to your hearts content, with never a sock in sight. Wait... that is what they're called up here isn't it?

I already do! Errr.... I mean.... Oops! 

[Cyberactivity]

Was reading this when the wife was about and she decided that she wanted to see what I was laughing at.

She approved of the War on Socks rant. Well done!

[Dave]

M&S 'the best sock in the world' has been my place of sock related solace over the last year, their seams lack the killer instinct of your average common drawer sock and they have a slightly thicker material that I've yet to puncture.

On the subject of seams have you tried wearing your socks inside out?

[cunningmatt]

Was reading this when the wife was about and she decided that she wanted to see what I was laughing at.

She approved of the War on Socks rant. Well done!

Awww very kind of you to say, glad yourself and wife approve. My blogs do seem to go down well with wifes perhaps I would do well with a nice afternoon slot on Radio 2?

M&S 'the best sock in the world' has been my place of sock related solace over the last year, their seams lack the killer instinct of your average common drawer sock and they have a slightly thicker material that I've yet to puncture.

A couple of years ago I would have agreed with you, but turning into my mother "These socks are not what they used to be" - all the above socks are Marks & Spencer's creations.

On the subject of seams have you tried wearing your socks inside out?

What an excellent idea! I shall attempt this straight away and report back with my progress. You can't wait can you?

[Crompton]

What an excellent idea! I shall attempt this straight away and report back with my progress. You can't wait can you?

5 mins and still waiting for this report Matt. You cannot keep me in this kind of suspense!