A WABtastic weekend... and more!

The past few days have been a great weekend of gaming, comraderie, socialising, and generally being middle-aged bloke-ish, within the confines of our hobby.

Steve Gill came over for the weekend, and we were joined on the Saturday by Andy Moran and John Kersey for a game of WAB.

We decided to pack a 6x4 table with a doubles game (each of us fielding 1500 points worth). My Rise of Macedon army allied with Andy's Greeks, and we faced up to John (all round WAB Oriental guru) and Steve fielding a couple of armies from John's vast collection.

The banter, the spirit, and the desire to have a fun game shone through. Here are just a few pictures from the game. There were some crucial moments (not least my hard-pressed Hypaspists fighting an army general, army standard bearer, and sundry other chaps, needing to pass an Ld test on a 3, and getting snake-eyes!) I'm sure a fuller report will be forthcoming on Andy's blog (see previous post) as he tends to keep a more accurate eye on proceedings! John Kersey has provided an outline report on the Facebook WAB group, including mention of the flaming bull ruse that the Chinese Yin general (played by Steve) tried to unleash towards the end. A young Prince Alexander narrowly escaped being gored and flame-grilled!

A couple of people have asked why we are playing on such plain, featureless, terrain-less tables using WAB. Well, the simple explanation is that we are just getting used to the rules again, and want to keep things simple for the moment. However, that may change very soon...

And here are the gang. We're referring to ourselves as The Old Berks (a reference to Berkswell, the village where I live). In this picture, we are toasting my first grandchild with suitable refreshments!

l-r: Steve, John, Andy, myself.

After the WAB game, and the departure of Andy and John, Steve and I set up a quick game of... wait for it... Dragon Rampant, using figures I have had in boxes since the 1980s. 

Well, it was Halloween weekend, after all, and the end of what some people refer to as "Orctober".

I had picked up a few old plastic goblins on ebay and over the past week did a bit of converting and painted them up for the game. I decided not to do green-skin and go more for a Middle Earth look as I had imagined it when I first read The Hobbit back in 1973!

Anyway, that was the Action at Bumbleberry Bridge where Steve commanded the Dwarves to a victory against the Orc/ goblin/ Troll force. A suitable end to a great day's gaming.

Meanwhile, on the paint desk, I've been dabbling - here are a few Han Chinese figures I have been experimenting with. That Mr Kersey can be a bad influence!!

Right now, I'm starting to put together plans for a winter of 'finishing' where I plan to tidy up a few loose ends around certain projects. We'll see.

We are also looking at the diary and planning more Old Berks gatherings.

Hope all blog visitors are well in these challenging and uncertain times. May your hobby flourish!

All the best...