Podcasts and Some Books

For longer that I care to look into I've been promising to restart this blog.  And for most of that time, I seem to have been promising to talk about podcasts.

Perhaps what has been putting me off is that my thoughts on podcasts are really unoriginal.  I'm going to summarise them in a few points

• if you podcast is over an hour and a half long,  it is probably too long
• if you podcast contains a description of how you've edited it, you've failed in the editing process
• nobody wants to listen to you eating or drinking (unless it's a really niche podcast)

There you go.  You can fill in the details yourself with reference to your favorite 'cast.

So what have I been listening to?

I've mentioned the first two before.  Both are from James Holloway.

Monster Man started as 

a podcast that delves into the classic AD&D Monster Manual from 1977. Every episode looks at one or more D&D monsters, digging deeper into their inspirations and uses. 

After 70-odd episodes James finished the Monster Manual.  He's currently doing some specials before moving on the the Fiend Folio sourcebook.

As a spin-off James also started Patreon Deities in which he does the same thing for Demigods and Deities (this one requires a monthly subscription of at least $1.00).

In his discussion of the Norse Pantheon (just completed), James suggested Saga Thing

a podcast hosted by two friends and former grad-school colleagues who have been reading and enjoying the [Icelandic] sagas for years. We’re both professors of medieval literature and we both have beards.  Though we live quite far apart, recording Saga Thing gives us an opportunity to get together again (virtually) and talk about our love of medieval Iceland.  Our goal is to read and review the sagas, one at a time, in an epic quest to put the sagas of the Icelanders on trial and to celebrate the greatness of saga literature.

Which has also joined my listening schedule.

And of course, I wouldn't be me if I hadn't acquired some related books.

This one is a present for The Wife

This one is for me

It has nice pictures

And we both like this film

Terrain Tuesday #17

OK, as you'll remember my first goal for the month is it get rid of some of the half-done terrain that's lying around.

The Viking(ish) buildings were 90% finished, but there was some snagging that needed doing.  It's now done.  As I wrote in the last Terrain Tuesday (back on 31 May!).  This was a project that I enjoyed  a lot.  The test pieces having worked out, I'll be making some more buildings along the same line.  Having watched a tv programme on Viking settlements in Iceland and Newfoundland, I also want to have a go at some turf houses.  Watch this space...

Next up were adventures in dry-brushing.  

You may remember the Big Stone Head...

Well, he has kin...

Looking at them now, they don't seem to go together, but I assure you they came out of the same box!

Then there was this evil bugger, who I picked up in a charity shop...

And going back to stone heads, I've picked up a pack of Ristul's Extraordinary Market stone faces basing kit to add features to my terrain.  I do like Ristul's bits and bobs - though most are a little too High Fantasy for me.  You may, however, remember I have their cursed treasure.

Is it me, or do some of them look a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch?

Terrain Tuesday #16

I mentioned yesterday that we'd been without Internet access for most of the Bank Holiday Weekend.  I didn't mean to suggest that this was a bad thing!  Although it was very frustrating, it meant that I sat down and did some hobby stuff.

Warbases

Last week I decided that my Chiefs and Heroes needed 35mm bases to make them stand out.  Now, One Does Not Simply Go to the Warbases website and buy a pack of bases.  

No WIP pictures of these as they go together so simply.

I added planks to the wall and a flannel thatch.  I'm not sure about the former (see later).  For the photo I hung a shield above the door to make it all a little less Brown.  But again I'm not sure.  I may paint the door or walls or both a different colour.

The next item is a combination of the Celtic cross and a casualty marker to make a turn counter.*  I did toy with the idea of giving it the full Dark Age colour scheme, but decided that leaving it grey was much less work meant that I could use it in different settings.

 *"These go to twelve"

Warbases seem to add new lines every five minutes.  I am very interested with the news that came out yesterday that they'll be adding a range of  ruins suitable for Frostgrave, I'll be getting some of them, I think.

I got the Grub Hut to see how easy Warbases' buildings were to put together.  The answer is that they are a doddle.  I'd certainly buy more of them, but probably dispense with adding unnecessary planking.

Another reason for buying them was to compare them with what I could do myself...

Scratch Building

I recently bought a batch of business cards and post cards for Diplomatist Books.  Like most people, when I get something through the post, my immediate thought is that the packaging looks really nifty.

A lad who's going places...

A look on the web provided some inspirational pictures.

The addition of some bamboo skewers and sandy paste was a lot easier than planks and resulted in a tidier look.

No, it's not finished.

Not sure of the pitch of the roof - but nevertheless a useful building (perhaps as a cricket pavillion!).

Adventures in Dry-Brushing

While dry-brushing the Celtic cross, I took a couple of other items from the terrain queue.

Remember this?

Getting there...

Then there is one of the runestones I got from Fenris at Dicini 2014.   Again, I should have gone with the original paint scheme, but I bottled it.

For a modern carver of rune- and image-stones (in glorious colour!) see here.

Random blocks

Vikings Join the Painting Queue

[I wrote most of this on Friday - but spent most of the weekend without Internet access...  As you can see I'm so worn out that I have haven't even bothered to take the required photos.]

I've been rather taken up with health issues this week, so I didn't get the chance to report the arrivals of new goodies on Wednesday.

A little while ago Annie at Bad Squiddo Games made the inspired suggestion that if I ever wanted any of her fine stock we might do some swapsies with the fine stock I carry over at Diplomatist Books.  Well, some of will remember that my plans for Tribal include a box of Hirdmen...  Accordingly, (a mere 15 e-mails later) Annie has now a shelf's worth of books on  women in history and I have the following splendours:

So I thought I'd share my impressions on these.  Don't worry!  I'm not going to do one of those rambling opening-the-box reviews in which some YouTuber spends twenty minutes on why he thinks figures are best done in brown plastic rather than grey, neither am I going to get my gauge out and state that 23mm to-the-eye is preferable to 22.5mm.   But, yes, I am going to ramble.*

* I can't remember who said that the main selling point of my blog was the stream-of-consciousness randomness of it all - but, you're welcome!

Neither am I going to go on about historic verisimilitude.  First, because I'm not qualified to, but mainly because I don't care about it.  There are many fine people out there who do care that their figures and games are 'right' - I don't mean to belittle them in any way*.  But these toys (and this blog) are for my own use - I'm not going to put on any great showpiece displays - and I'm not an historical player.  Frankly, my hirdmen are more likely to encounter Doug McClure, dinosaurs or Cybermen than they are to meet Rus or Skraelings.  If on their encounters with 23rd Century time-travelers they have picked up a taste for Plus Twos and Argyle socks**, who am I to deny them?

* There are also some pretentious wankers - they I do intend to belittle.
**As we all know, a 23rd Century time-traveler wouldn't be seen dead in Plus Fours!

But, to recap, my needs for Tribal are some Chiefs, Heroes and units of  five Warriors each.  All to be armed with either 'short' or 'long' weapons.

[...and here I petered out. ]

The quick-and-dirty version of the un-boxing review is:-

•  "Gosh, isn't there a lot in a Gripping Beast box!"  
• <insert rant about buying boxes that mainly contain empty space>
• Duplication in the GB frames and the fact that the eight frames are identical (plus two identical 'Command' frames) and almost symmetrical along their long axis.
• <insert comments on the flexibility of the having bodies in two parts, a la Frostgrave soldiers>
• But conclusion that, you've still got a lot of plastic for your money and that worries about variety will probably be dispelled once I start taking them off the sprue.

Despite the half-arsed nature of this review, I'm am pleased with my 'purchase' and looking forward to getting to grips with them (it's just that I feel I need several nights' good sleep first...),