Podcast No.2 has arrived!

Adventure Number 2 in my podcast quest has arrived.  You can check it out via this link 

The podcasts are still very much a work in progress and I'm keen to get feedback and suggestions on how to make them more entertaining, so feel free to comment below (or on Soundcloud)

Currently the things I'm wanting to add/improve on the podcasts are...

• Some (Licence Free) incidental music (anyone recommend any good sites?) 
• Get a better Mic
• Have some more established regular sections 
• Work on my diction (speak slower and clearer) 

The podcast has landed!

That's right people, after months of talking about it I've finally got around to recording my first Keep Calm & Re-Roll podcast which you can find over on Soundcloud

It is a bit of an experiment and very early days but I'm hoping to record one at least every 2 weeks and develop and grow it as I go along. 

I've also set up a new Keep Calm and ReRoll Instagram account as this seems the quickest and easiest way to upload photos. 

Check them out and let me know what you think and don't forget to Sharlikeascribe (Share, Like & Subscribe!)

QuiGonJim

Imperial Assault AT-ST

Just a quick post today to show you mt finished AT-ST for Imperial Assault. 

Next week the Tyrants of Lothal comes out, and I am very much looking forward to that release (Deathtroopers!). 

More Shadespire

Hi all

Just a quick on today as I've finished another one of my Shadespire Warbands, specifically the Fire slayers.

In other news I've attended a few Star Wars Destiny Store championships recently so I'll be doing a little post about my progress and thoughts on them soon. 

until next time, Keep Calm... and Re-Roll

The new light box has arrived!

After talking about it for months now I finally got around to ordering a light box from the internet and, just the other day it arrived in the post! 

As promised I got to work photographing some of my recently finished miniatures and here are the results…

Slambo, Champion of Chaos

The Farstriders (Who turned out to be terrible in Shadespire!) 

My newest Imperial Knight.  I may add some more highlighting to it at some point. 

Imperial Space Marine 2016.  I did actually paint this back in 2016 but have rephotographed him for the blog. 

Another view of him. 

Ahriman 

My AT-DP for Imperial Assault.  I painted this miniature by using several Drybrushed layers.  I think the end result looks really good.   

Now I have my new light box I plan to make good use of it, so expect plenty of new pictures soon.  In other new I’ve also recorded my first test podcast.  I just need to play around with the editing (Trying to cut it, add music etc) so it’s a bit of a learning curve.   I’m hoping to get it posted on Soundcloud imminently, so watch this space for more details.  

Wow it's been a while!

It has been a long time since I’ve posted anything on this blog, so for that I apologies (Especially as one of my pet peeves is when people don’t frequently update their blogs or channels!).  without out going into too much detail there’s been several things going on that have meant that I’ve not been able to update this blog as much as I had wished.  Firstly, my phone is pretty much on it’s last legs, so taking photos of my finished miniatures has been tricky.  The lamp that I normally use to light my miniatures for photography also broke, and with my phone camera being what it is it has meant I haven’t been able to light my miniatures effectively enough to get any decent photos of them.  I am however in the process of ordering a light box from eBay, so that at least should solve one of the problems.

I’ve also been looking at branching out into other social media platforms and after deciding that YouTube was a no go with my current level of technology I’m now considering doing a podcast.  I’ve downloaded Audacity, and after having a bit of a play around with it and recording some stuff it looks like so far so good, at least from a technology point of view.  I still need to iron out a few things before making my first demo recording but hopefully I’ll have something you can listen to soon. 

In terms of content for the podcast, for now it’s still a work in process but I think it will mainly be me talking about things I’ve played or consumed over the weeks, offering some tips etc.  But like I say it’s still a work in process. 

If the podcast is a go I may set up a Keep Calm and Re-Roll Instagram account to go alongside it, as this is a bit easier to update then a blog. 

I've been up to lots of hobby stuff whilst I've been "offline" including several items I’m currently working on, or planning to finish over the next few months, just to give you the highlights these include…

• Starting a new Mechanicum Army for 40K.  (So far I have a Knight Errant, which is currently on my painting table and two Castalan Robots.  This army isn’t a priority but will be my next big project)
• Finishing my Kharadron Overlords Army for Age of Sigma (With 2.0 now out I can repoint everything using the new costs in the Generals Handbook to figure out how large my army actually is and how far away from my 2,000 point goal I am.  I also need to factor in 400 points of Stormcast allies so I can get access to wizards and Malign Sorcery!)  I also need to paint a lot of them!
• Finish painting the remainder of my Death Guard army.
• Paint my new Chaos Blood Bowl team.
• Finish painting my new Imperial Knight

I’ve played a few new tabletop games as well including the excellent Terraforming Mars and Lords of Waterdeep.  I’ve also started a new tradition called payday new games day.  Recent purchases have included Unstable Unicorns, Firefly Adventures and the aforementioned Lords of Waterdeep.  Going forward I hope to make this a new feature on the blog or podcast.

Finally I’ve been getting back into Imperial Assault and have tried to play at least one game of it every other week.  I’ve got an Imperial list I’ve been developing and aim to use it in a  tournament sometime soon.  So as you can see I’ve been keeping busy, and just to tease you on some stuff I have finished her are a few photos of things I’ve managed to complete… until next time! 

Harley Quinn inspired Madonna paintjob

Rear view

Trip to Warhammer world!!!

4 things I've been up to

1.

I’ve finished another one of my Imperial Assault miniatures, specifically Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Here are a few photos of him.   

I’m really happy with how he turned out and he makes a fine addition to my collection.   I’m hoping to get some more games of IA in soon as it’s a game which I have neglected of late, and with the new expansion coming out soon I’d like to get some more experience of playing. 

2.

I recently purchased the Gaslands rulebook with the aim of playing the game very soon.    In the run up to this however I’ve been converting up some Hotwheels by putting some weapons on them.  Having read the rulebook whilst I was away in Manchester I’ve concluded that it looks like a really fun (and cheap) game to get into,  sort of a cross between X-Wing and Necromunda.  So far I think I’ve spent around £30 on it, including the rulebook and plastic templates.  Now to find some time to play it. 

My Gaslands collection.  The cars I picked up from Poundland whilst the plastic templates came of eBay and the dice from my own collection. 

Work has begun on converting up the cars.  

3.

Last weekend I played in a local Shadespire tournament .  I decided to use my Stormcast warband from the core game (As I’ve had the most experience with them and more importantly they’re fully painted).  Regrettably Shadespire has been another game which I’ve not had much time to play, and this showed as I had forgotten half the rules and my deck build wasn’t very good.  As a result I lost my first 3 games.  Fortunately we were playing a swiss round tournament so my games got more evenly matched as I progressed and in the end I managed to win my final two games (although they were very close) and ended up coming 6^th, which is more impressive than it sounds as there were only 8 people in the tournament.  Still I got some cool prizes out of it.

I also purchased the new  Farstriders warband  (Which I have now finished painting) I’m hoping to get some more games in with them soon, so I can see what they are like.  

I've finished painting these now and at some point I will upload some photos of them.

4.

Today I assembled my new Choas Blood Bowl team.  Having just finished the Rygas League with my Lizardmen I’d been thinking of a new team to try out and I really liked the look of the new Chaos team so opted for them.  I think I’m going to paint them as a Tzeentch team, especially as I’ve converted up Ogroid Thaumaturge to be my Minotaur.   I’m hoping to get them painted up relatively soon, though I have a lot of other projects to finish as I’ve been finding it hard to stay motivated recently so who knows how much progress I will make. 

More Imperial Assault miniatures, Firefly Adventures and YouTube update

I recently completed two more IA miniatures, specifically Emperor Palpatine and Chewbacca.  I finished both in a couple of hours, which means I now have time to try an finish my Orc Blood Bowl team. 

The Emperor (You'll have to imagine the force lightning)

Chewie!

In other news I’ve been trying to create some videos for my Keep Calm & ReRoll YouTube channel, however my computer has decided to have other plans and doesn’t want to run the trim tool on Windows Media player without freezing, so it looks like I’m going to have to update my hardware in order to start producing content.   This is very frustrating but in truth it’s probably about time I got a new laptop as this one is starting to get old.  So bare with me folks video content is very much on its way! 

I’ve recently purchased the new Firefly Adventures game by GaleForce9 (The first video I tried to make for my channel was an unboxing of it).  I played it on Tuesday and I have to say that I really enjoyed it.  The game perfectly captures the spirit of the TV series (Much like Firefly the board game does) and can be played as a cooperative game or competitive (1 player is the goons the rest are the crew).  For those of you not familiar with it Firefly Adventures is a skirmish game where you play the crew of the Serenity Mal, Jayne, Kaylee, Wash and Zoe (with the rest coming as expansions later in the year) trying to complete various jobs.  We played 2 cooperative games, mainly to try and learn the rules and get familiar with the mechanics. 

The only issue I have with the game is how the rule book is laid out as it took us ages to figure out how to play it (about 2 hours) and even when we had the basics locked down we still spent a lot of time trying to find out specific rules, such as how do you move a body.  Mainly because there not bloody reference in the book!   Apart from this small gripe I really loved the game and I’m looking forwarded to playing it some more.  If you’re a Firefly fan I’d strongly recommend considering it as a purchase.

Well that’s about it for now.  Keep an eye out for my next post. 

Blood Angel Inceptors, Stormtroopers and general musings

I’ve been told to rest up by my GP as I’ve pulled some muscles in my stomach which have been causing me a lot of pain, which has meant I’ve not been able to get up to much recently (No final trip to Purple Rain at the Bikeshed ☹, and  there goes my plan to start C25K this week!) It’s not all bad news however as this rest  has given me the opportunity to get a few hobby things completed, in particular my Blood Angel Inceptor Squad and more IA stuff.

Here’s the end results….

Inceptor Squad, ready for action

The squad sergeant, I just need to add some transfers to their shoulder pads!  

I played another game of Imperial Assault using the App recently and I have to say I’m starting to really enjoy it.  The campaign mode is so different to Skirmish (which I have played most of my IA games as so far) and has a lot more depth to it. The app itself is fairly easy to use, though I wish it had an option to record the upgrades you’ve purchased to your characters so you can keep track of them.  I guess it reminds me most of games like Warhammer Quest and Heroquest and the fact it can be played as a 1 player game means that if you’re bored you’ve got something to whip out and play.

Playing the game more has also motivated me on to get more of the miniatures painted, and recently I painted up 3 Stromtroopers.  This was also a bit of an experiment to test out a paint scheme for Legion.  

Stromtroopers? Here? I must warn the others! 

I’m not sure what I’ll start working on next.  I have an Orc Blood Bowl team which I am keen to paint but equally I really want to paint up some of the new Necromumda miniatures, and there are always IA to paint as well. 

What's on my painting table Part 2 - Luke Skywalker & Imperial Officers

“Everything has happened as I have for seen!” as the Emperor may say.  As predicted the snow fell today so I managed to get some more painting done.  I haven’t quite finished my Blood Angel squad (just some highlighting to go) but I did get 3 more Imperial Assault miniatures finished.

Luke Skywalker, farmboy and future Jedi Knight

Father & Son

Imperial Officers 

What's on my painting table? - Vader and the Grand Inquisitor

For the first time in a while I’ve managed to have a free Saturday to myself, which meant I could get some hobby stuff done.

I’m currently working through a back log of miniatures I need to finish painting so decided to focus on them.  Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get a lot completed today but I did get a good start on a Blood Angels Inceptor squad.  I was however able to finish a few Imperial Assault miniatures, in particular Darth Vader and the Grand Inquisitor (see below).  

As snow is currently forecast for tomorrow I hope to finish off the Blood Angels squad, so unless anything else pops up I should be able to cross a few more units off my list.

I used a gloss coat on the armor of both miniatures to make it look more like plastic.

Vader can be a challenge to paint, being all black in colour.  The trick is to use grey shade to add subtle highlights to the armour to help it to stand out and add depth to the miniature.  This can be very tricky to do on a small figure such as Vader. 

I decided to paint Vader’s eyes red after his appearance in Rogue One and Rebels.  

I finished  Bossk  a few weeks ago but didn’t get round to photographing him until today.