The Ruins of Houghton House

 

 

 

A slightly different post than normal today, nothing to do with minis or wargaming and whilst I've featured my visits to historic sites before they've always had a military link to some sort, which then of course links into the wargaming.  Todays site is an impressive ruin of an old stately home.

 

Up on the hill behind the village where I live there is a ruined house, it dominates the ridge and commands excellent views over the Marston Vale in central Bedfordshire.  It is also an excellent walk from my house through hay meadows and an ancient woodland that takes about an hour, which is just about right for an afternoon stroll.  The ruins are in the care of English Heritage and are freely accessible in the hours of daylight.  I took a walk up there last week, and was quite pleased with the photos that I managed to come back with.

 

A brief history then; Houghton House was built in 1615 for the Countess of Pembroke Mary Sidney, after her death it passed to the Earls of Elgin and then in 1738 to the Dukes of Bedford who used it as a hunting lodge until around 1800 when they stripped the house of its furnishings and roof and left it to decay.  It's claim to fame is as inpsiration for the 'House Beautiful' at the top of the 'Hill Difficulty' in John Bunyan's once popular christian allegory 'the Pilgrims Progress'.

 

 

Mars Attacks - Martian Grunts & Eva

Just a quickie this evening to show off a squad of Martian grunts and the heroine Eva from the new Mars Attacks game that I've just painted.

I played my first game of Mars Attacks this afternoon as well, and although we only played the first scenario (twice) first impressions are very positive.  Expect a full review once we've played through a few more missions.

From The Painting Table #15

A few more random bits and pieces have been finished, which I present below;

 

First this rogue trader era Imperial Army standard bearer for use with my Imperial Guard Astra Militarum army.  This guy came without his right arm, I searched fruitlessly for an appropriate spare Cadian arm, that would have worked better, but had to settle for this Catachan one in the end.

 

 These are Ver-Mym from Mantic's warpath universe, although these ones came with the project Pandora game.  They're clearly space skaven, and are at the higher end of Mantic's variable sculpting range.  These have been painted to match the plague marines in my warhammer 40k chaos space marine army as they have a dual role as a squad of chaos cultists as well.

 

 

A few askaris from foundry's darkest Africa range to go with my as yet uncompleted explorers project.

 

 

This was an odd elf that got sent to me with an order of historical stiff from wargames foundry.  I like the general style of the fig, but can't say that I really approve of the gratuitous exposed breasts.  It just seems silly and pointless.

 

 

And finally these three Eldar jetbikes for 40K.  These are very old minis, and frankly not very good, but they will see action as a vital tactical part of the Eldar forces.

 

I've Been Plagiarised!

UPDATE: The offending blog post has been removed from the hitting on a double 1 blog.  Presumably due to either this post or some of the messages left on that post.  No apolagy has yet been received.

I'm annoyed, very annoyed, a couple of days ago I posted a post on the new Mars Attacks miniatures from Mantic Games.  This has been a popular post and has generated a lot of hits in a small space of time, and too be honest I was quite pleased with it as a post.  Please take a minute to read it here.

Now take a second to head over to Hitting on a double 1 and read Carl Packham's post on the same subject posted a day after mine.

He's changed some of the wording and added a few bits of his own, and at least has had the decency to take his own photos, but as I read it was still clearly my post that I was reading.

Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "stealing and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original work. (definition from Wikipedia).

Which is what I feel has been done here, it's the sort of thing you get when a 14 year old copies his mates English homework and I don't think it's acceptable.

Some evidence;

My post 'The minis come in three colours, red for the heroes, tan for the US army and green for the Martians, again a good idea as not everyone will paint their minis and this looks better than them all being grey'

His post 'The miniatures come in three colours, red for the heroes, tan for the US army and Turquoise for the Martians (But with the Martian Hero in Red) again a good idea as not everyone will paint their minis and this looks better than them all the same nondescript colour'

My post 'The first thing to note is that a lot of the minis suffer from what I call 'floppy weapon syndrome' as can be seen in the top photo above.  However I can also report that this is easily fixed by dipping the minis in a cup of hot water.'

His post 'Typically with the minis being soft! they suffer from the 'floppy weapon syndrome' as can be seen in the photo right showing the Heroes.  This can be easily though by the hot water method, a few of the bases will need this treatment as well as they are slightly warped.'

My post 'The minis are in true 28mm scale, rather than the 'heroic' scale favoured by many manufacturers'

His post 'Sculpts are fairly good and they are true 28mm scale, rather than the 'heroic' scale favoured by many manufacturers'

My post 'There are of course mould lines, but these are no worse than on any hard plastic minis and a damn sight better than those on Mantics restic minis'

His post 'The ubiquitous Mantic mould lines are evident, but no worse than on any hard plastic minis and a damn bloody sight better than those on the restic stuff.'

My post 'There has been some talk on the internet about the undercuts on the Martian grunts, well they exist, at least it exists on one sculpt.  Each pack of 10 Martians comes with one of the ones on the right in the pic above, which does have a ghastly undercut'

His post 'There has been some talk on the internet about the undercuts on the Martian grunts, well they exist, at least it exists on one sculpt. Each pack of 10 Martians comes with one of the ones at the front in the pic right, which does have a bad undercut'

It's not just the wording either, the structure of the two posts are so similar as that can't be coincidence.

Thank you if you bothered to read all this.

I'd really like some thoughts on this.  Am I overacting? Should he have credited me at least? Are 'derivative' works like this fine?  I put a lot of effort into my blog and having it taken like this just makes me feel angry is that right?

Mars Attacks The Miniatures Game - Miniatures Review

Hot on the heals of my wave 2 Deadzone package Mantic have also just sent me the first part of my (relatively small) Mars Attacks package, which basically amounts to the retail boxed game and the expansion book, with the rest to follow in a few weeks.

It was with some trepidation that I opened up the box as these are the first soft plastic PVC minis that I've got from Mantic, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  This is the material that they're using for all their board-game type releases from now, and I am expecting delivery at some point in the future a load more of these type of minis from the Dreadball Xtreme and Dungeon Saga kickstarters, so I had quite a hobby investment riding on them turning out OK.

The first thing is that they all come pre-assembled, which felt a bit odd, and part of me missed having to glue them all together.  Having said that I think Mantic have made a wise choice as this makes it far easier for a novice to get into, and I think the whole Mars Attack set is a perfect entry point into miniature gaming.  The minis come in three colours, red for the heroes, tan for the US army and green for the Martians, again a good idea as not everyone will paint their minis and this looks better than them all being grey.  Another advantage of the PVC plastic is that they will take being knocked over or dropped very well and it will take a lot to break them, although we'll see if Mike manages to prove me wrong on that front.

The first thing to note is that a lot of the minis suffer from what I call 'floppy weapon syndrome' as can be seen in the top photo above.  However I can also report that this is easily fixed by dipping the minis in a cup of hot water.  I dipped the minis in the hot water and then left them overnight (to check that they would stay in their new positions) and the results are in the bottom picture above.

 

The minis are in true 28mm scale, rather than the 'heroic' scale favoured by many manufacturers, and the sculpting and level of detail is good (better than I was expecting to be honest).  There are of course mould lines, but these are no worse than on any hard plastic minis and a damn sight better than those on Mantics restic minis.

There's only one way to make a proper judgement and that to start painting, I selected the heroine Ashley (above), a sassy girl who fights the invasion in her prom dress.  The material didn't like my normal spray paint and she's come out a bit shinny, but overall it's not bad.  The next couple of minis I did I undercoated by hand and this produced a much better finish (Sir Edwyn and General Tor below).  The grey bases are just a temporary solution, I haven't decided how I'm going to base my Mars Attacks minis yet.

 

The second mini I had a go at is Sir Edwyn of Hoo a knight lost in time.  Not a huge amount of detail on this one, but a nice quick and easy paint job (about 15 mins worth) and we have a completed mini.

There has been some talk on the internet about the undercuts on the Martian grunts, well they exist, at least it exists on one sculpt.  Each pack of 10 Martians comes with one of the ones on the right in the pic above, which does have a ghastly undercut.  It's more disappointing as the Martian on the left above shows how a similar pose can be done without the horror.  For me whilst it is a slight disappointment it's not a deal breaker.

The third mini I painted was this Genral Tor, the Martian leader, he is by far my favourite out of the three and I'm rather pleased with how he came out.  Another issue I've read a few complaints about are the Martian helmets, and whilst I accept this is a single example it fitted fine and looks good.

Ultimately they don't compete in quality with a well engineered hard plastic mini (like anything from GW or Mantics own hard plastic zombies & ghouls), but they're not bad at all, they do the job well, and come at a price that I like.  I also think they are perfect minis for beginners, a big thumbs up from me!

Deadzone Kickstarter Wave 2

All my new stuff!

After what feels like a very long wait my second wave shipment from Mantic Games' Deadzone Kickstarter has arrived.  It's just possible that I've ordered too much stuff, with this box containing over a hundred new minis that need painting.

Asterians

Overall there's a lot of great stuff in this shipment, and I had a lot of fun sticking it all together, the core of the delivery are the two new factions, the Forge Fathers (space dwarves/Squats) and Asterians (space elves/Eldar).

Squats Forge Fathers

 The Forge Fathers are well sculpted and characterful minis, but aren't that original, the Asterians are a slightly different take on the space elf model with each strike team only containing a single elf leading a group of cypher robots.

Pathfinder on bike and on foot, in multiple coloured resin for some reason

Iron Man meets Wolverine

Each of the original four factions received some reinforcements as well, a single mawbeast for the marauders, plagued enforcers, sorak swordspawn and an enforcer pathfinder and enforcers with special weapons.

Enforcer, Plague and Reb Striders next to a GW Dreadnought

I've also got four striders, which are a big walker which can be used for the enforcers, rebs or plague.  I'm really pleased with these and I think they compare favourably with the styling on GW's dreadnoughts.  The kit nicely makes the three different versions look different as well.  I've not built the fourth one yet, can't decide which of the three options to use, I'm also considering trying to convert it into a counts-as stuntbot for use with the marauders.

I Will Eat Your Brains......

This delivery also contains Mantics new sci-fi zombies, made in nice hard plastic.  I think the quality of these is frankly brilliant and they look great.  The sprue is slightly limited though, not as many options as I would have liked, it really could have done with another couple of heads and another couple of pairs of arms.  As I was looking at assembling my fifth sprue I had a bit of a brainwave and went and found my spare kings of war zombie parts which I used to add a bit of variety, I also remembered the base plugs that represent zombies dragging themselves across the floor, which means I managed to get another 5 'floor zombies' out of my sprues.

Marauder commando stand-ins

This mixing in KoW parts to the zombies also made me have another idea of using some of my spare warpath marauder sprues to make a few counts-as minis to represent the cards of the commando upgrade pack, which I didn't get.


The last thing I got was all the expansion books both in normal softback version and awesomely fancy hardback which was provided with a personalised book plate signed by Ronnie and Jake.  The new rules add a huge amount of playing options with all the rules for the new minis, plus multi-mat, multi-player, solo, zombie games and a whole campaign.  I can't wait to try some of it out.

personalised book plate

In a nice change for a Mantic kickstarter everything that was due to be in wave 2 actually arrived.  Still another wave to come though, hard plastic enforcers, enforcer peacekeepers and armoured forge fathers.  The basic enforcers being delayed again is getting frustrating as the enforcers were one of the initial 2 factions and still lack most of their support options, but whilst it is frustrating in the end I think I'd rather wait and get better quality product than a rushed bodge-job, which mantic have said was the alternative.


Right, I'd better get painting.

Space Hulk - My Thoughts, My Minis

Space Hulk is a truly great game and I love my copy of the (limited) 3rd edition.  It was the rerelease of Space hulk 5 years ago that led me to collect my current Space Marine army and start playing warhammer 40K again after a gap of 8 years or so.  Throughout this post are pictures of the minis from my set that I painted when it came out last time round, I was immensely proud of them at the time, and they still hold up well 5 years down the line

My initial reaction when I saw the leaked pics of the new 'limited' edition Space Hulk was to feel a tad gutted and slightly cheated, after all the guy at my local Games Workshop when I bought my copy was making a big deal about the fact that these minis would never be available again.  And here we are, my 'never available again' set available, but in a slightly better format with an extra 4 missions.

I think its obvious to us all the GW aren't doing as well as they used too, and this is an attempt to boost revenues and please the city and shareholders.  I'm sure it will work, its a great product and the ebay prices for the last edition stuff is insane.  Ultimately GW doing well and making money is only good for our hobby in the end, but it still feels slightly cheating and underhand.

If you didn't get it last time round it's a total win for you, go buy it before they run out.  But even for someone like me that did get last time, there are some compelling reasons to get it.  Those 4 new missions for a start, what OCD completionist wouldn't want them?  And I've always regretted not buying two copies last time round so I could add the excellent termie models to my Space Marine army, now I have that chance.

Well I've ordered it sucker that I am, I'm looking forward to the new missions and will be converting the terminators for use in my Vengeance Templars army.  The genestealers will probably end up on ebay to recoup some of the costs.  GW must be doing something rigt as this will be the only big purchase from them so far this year (and we're more than two-thirds into said year).

That's how this post was going to end, but I changed my mind at the last minute and didn't order it.

Oddly the extra three expansions (for Dark Angels, Ultramarines and Space Wolves) have out me off buying the game as the extra version still wouldn't now be complete. Also I don't get to play Space Hulk anywhere near as much I woiuld like anyway, and I realised last minute it would be a waste of money and that I have too much to paint and too much stuff coming from kickstarters anyway.  I wonder if in a year or two I'll end up regretting this decision.