Tag Archives: Oldhammer

A retrospective of BOYL 2017

02 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in OldHammer

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Wow… what a weekend… 3 full days of hobby, with at least 30 hours of gaming & socialising – man, I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the weekend! I got to see hundreds of the loveliest miniatures you will ever see, including some rare beauties from the White Dwarfs of my youth, and some of the coolest OldHammer examples from the interweb, but the best bit was getting to meet virtual friends for the first time, re-meeting folks from last year, and getting to know new people for the very first time – including some very notable names from the misty dawn of our hobby. I played WFB 4th ed for the first time, played Mordheim for the first time, did some jousting, raced a jetbike, played Necromunda, and took part in a big multiplayer game of Rogue Trader. I even squeezed in a little game of AoS on the Sunday evening!! So many cool things… here is the complete run-down, (warning -MANY photos!):

Thursday: Picked up Tytus from Luton airport & headed up to Newark. Stopped at Warhammer World on the way for a quick whistle around the exhibition hall. Out for a burger in Newark & crashed a Steampunk cosplay party before getting an early night.

 

Friday:

 Tytus & me, ready to rock

Spent some time looking at the fantastic ‘mega-boards’ in the main marquee, including the superb Helsreach board, (Curtis & Aiden), and the equally stunning Heldenhofen board, (Geoff, Harry & Chris). Each board was so big that several different games could & did take place simultaneously over the weekend – basically giant gaming sand-boxes. Heldenhofen hosted multiple games of Mordheim, BeirBowl, Squig Hopper racing and Giant Slaying, while Helsreach hosted Grox Hearding, Jetbike races, Necromunda and Rogue Trader… that’s just the games I know about, but I’m sure that more went on! Just take a look at these beauties:

I also made sure I had a catch up with the two Tonys – Mr. Yates and Mr. Ackland. I am a particular fan of Tony A’s work – he’s an absolute legend who has contributed so much of the art in RT, WFB, WFRP and RoC. I deeply regretted not making Tony an offer on some of his work last year, so I summoned up the courage to ask if he would consider selling anything this time around, and was lucky enough to get some of the original pieces from the RT bestiary. I am absolutely delighted about this because this is the section of the book that I spent the most time looking at as a kid:

 Me & Tony Ackland

A quick tour of the display cases revealed these treasures from a bygone age:

 

Then I was lucky enough to be invited to play in a FB/Mordheim campaign to recover the recipe for warpstone infused cheese! The game was created between Davide & Gionathan (from Italy), Tytus (Poland), and Richard from the UK, so I was really just along for the ride. The campaign started with a jousting competition, which my Undead attended while disguised as noble knights (i.e. I don’t have any cavalry & had to borrow some!). Appropriately enough, Gionathan’s gorgeous Bretonian knights took the most honours in the jousting, which brought some benefits to the next game – a 5-way game of WFB 4th edition. Gionathan took one corner of the board with the flower of Bretonian chivalry, while Tytus took another with some good old Empire steel. My undead took up another corner, while Richard’s Sea Elves made a late appearance on the fourth. Davide held the village in the centre with a motley collection of halflings & dwarfs, where each unit of was hoarding some warpstone tainted cheese. The idea was to compete to destroy units & loot them for cheeses. There was also a wizard hidden in the woodlands, (busily messing with the weather), and one half of the recipe for the evil cheese was in the grasp of a hidden halfling cookmaster. There were so many funny moments – the illegal rampage of my zombie dragon, (should’ve run away in the second turn, but we didn’t realise until the fifth or sixth – during which time he devoured a unit of halflings, killed the Empire general & gryphon, ran the Sea Elf sorcerer off the battle field and killed the grey wizard!), the amazing teleporting grey wizard (who stole ALL the cheese before being blasted by the illegal zombie dragon), the cowardly Bretonian general (who ran away, ran back, and then got himself killed in a challenge against a Lich), and the crazy nautical beasts and their handlers on the sea elf side (crabs, lobsters, jellyfish & seahorses instead of dogs!). We ended the game with the Empire clear winners, having used the magic deck to great effect to recover the bulk of the cheese and half of the recipe! Here are some pics:

 Round bases on movement trays!!! Heresy!!!

 

Saturday:

We continued the campaign over from Friday, this time playing Mordheim on the incredible Heldenhofen board. We were busy searching for Marion Thistlefoot and the other half of the cheesy recipe, and this time Davide joined the search with his Tillian warband. I had one skeleton interrupt a Halfling Hotpot party (?!) & end up frenzied for the rest of the game, while another skelly got murdered during another search. On the plus side, I gained a halfling rat catcher along the way, so that was cool 🙂  The recipe turned up after a few turns, so a bloodbath ensued as we all got stuck in to try and retrieve it. Even the city watch got involved in the mayhem (with the legend that is Garth taking the role of lawman very seriously indeed!). In the end, the undead prevailed, with the high wound count of my general Richter Kreugar, and Gregor the undead ogre keeping them in the game to the bitter end, (though they were both were down to 1 wound each!) Again, many funny moments, with the Bretonians running away lots again, and the Tillians & Empire troops drawing the ire of the city watch on several occasions. Here are a couple of shots, (though I didn’t take as many as I should’ve done):

And here are the fearless generals – me, Tytus, Davide, Richard & Gionathan

 Superb gamers one and all

 

After Morheim, I quickly headed over to Helsreach for a spot of jetbike racing – much hilarity ensued as we crashed & bashed our way around a brutal figure of eight course. My bike failed to cross the finish line after gracefully testing the surface tension of concrete 🙂

I then joined in with a bit of Necromunda but failed to get any good pics. I think the tiredness had really kicked in by this point, and my brain wasn’t really working very well.

 

Sunday:

Sunday was a bit of a wind-down day, and I was lucky enough to enjoy a nice casual game of RT with some OldHammer blogging heroes – Jon, JB, Colin, Aiden and Shane, along with Chris & Tom (who probably also have blogs, but I don’t have the deets). The game was roughly ‘goodies’ vs ‘baddies’, with me & Aiden taking Guard, Jon with a squad of Arbites and Chris with a squad of Eldar, while Shane brought Orks, and the others had various pirates, scum and outlaws. This was a distinctly multinational affair as well, with JB (France), Shane (Australia via Thailand), and Chris & Tom (USA). I was lucky enough to face off opposite the Orks, and so had the honour of playing against two of my favourite things on the internet – Shane’s amazing slaver walker, and his superb version of Governor Kulo from the Book of the Astronomican scenario ‘Wolftime’. Getting one of my tanks and a bunch of troops stomped on by the walker was brilliant, and I was almost sad when a crafty Eldar blew it up with a well-placed lascannon shot from the other end of the table, (after many turns of me & Aiden both trying and failing to kill it!). Governor Kulo managed to escape the wreckage, only to be gunned down by a lucky survivor from the earlier stompy rampage. My corner of the table was eventually secured, albeit at great cost, and Aiden and I had just enough firepower remaining between us to contain the pirate scum that were in danger of sweeping the board. Luckily, they didn’t have too much in the way of anti-tank, because I had precious little left in the way of troops!. This loose and easy game had many funny moments, including the ‘baddies’ shooting down a flyer – only for it to crash in their midst & kill 15 or so scum-bags, using Shane’s walker with Giant rules from WFB and going on a stompy rampage, and Aiden doing some ‘on the job’ training on Conversion Beamers – killing one of his own men, and shooting me in the process 🙂

 Just look at that walker…

 Kulo

 STOMP!!!

 Ooops!

I also got to meet a certain Rick Priestly, the named author of Rogue Trader, and all-round gaming legend. I shamelessly got my copy of RT signed and blagged a photograph, while having a quick chat about how funny it is that vehicle rules seem to have come full circle in 8th ed, (working in basically the same way as they did in RT). There was also an interesting insight regarding the bestiary section of Rogue Trader, with Rick explaining how this was based on existing D&D creatures, and was basically included to boost sales said minis. Apparently, it was way more successful than anticipated, with RT sales outstripping D&D sales at that time. I would have loved to have chatted longer, but we were mid-game by this point and I didn’t want to hold up the table with my fan-boy shenanigans 🙂

 Me & Rick Priestly

(yeah, I see what you’re doing back there Colin!! 🙂

I also got to meet Nigel Stillman very briefly, and said hi to Kev Adams during his now customary face sculpting stint. Here is Nigel, showing off what I assume to be a strategy hat of some sort:

 Nigel Stillman

 

All to soon it was time for an hour of goodbyes, and promises of next year. A huge thank you goes out to the Ansell clan for their superb hospitality and generosity, to the visiting dignitaries and hobby legends who so willingly give their time and energy, and to all the amazing people that were involved in running the event, creating the amazing mega-boards, and in devising and running various games. BOYL really is the highlight of the hobby year as far as I am concerned, and it is all thanks to the amazing people involved:

 

 

 

Footnote:

Tytus crashed at my place on Sunday night, and we squeezed in a quick game of AoS… The Empire troops were unfamiliar with this new fighting style and were defeated in the field, but not before a plucky handgunner managed to take down none other than Richter Kreugar with a cheeky dagger blow… As the battle subsided, the heavily injured handgunner noticed a scroll in among the pile of bones that was Richter, and, without understanding why, he stole it before begining the long, painful crawl back to his own lines and safety…

Later, Richter was brought back to shuddering unlife, as per the curse that was placed on him so many centuries ago. He screamed his rage to the stars as he realised that his half of the warpstone cheese recipe had been stolen. With both halves in the hands of the Empire, the fate of whole worlds stood in the balance…

To be continued 🙂

Last minute BOYL prep

26 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by in AoS Undead, OldHammer

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Hi guys, I have a quick bonus post for you today, just a couple of last minute ‘quick wins’ to share before I head off to BOYL. In my last post I mentioned that I would be having a crack at WFB for the very first time – I’m hoping to be up against an Empire army run by Tytus from Gameoftravel. Now, I might be a total WFB noob, but there is one thing I do know about Fantasy, and that is DRAGONS ROCK!!! I have never painted a Dragon before, but recently acquired a Tom Meier Zombie Dragon from way back in the misty mists of 1986… I got her busted neck repaired, and got her sorted over the weekend ready for painting this week. She was an absolute joy to paint – in fact, she practically painted herself to be honest! This is all done with various washes and a bit of technical paint, but no ‘solid’ base colours at all:

 

She’s quite tricky to photograph, but isn’t she a beauty? I think I may enter her into the BOYL painting competition 🙂

 

But… that’s not all guys – I also quickly turned out a second kill-team for Necromunda/Shadow War, ready to take on the trials of Helsreach! I got these from a recent Kickstarter by Blind Beggar miniatures – loosely modelled on Marvin from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie, their goofy charm was irresistible 🙂

 

I’m running them as alternative Necrons, with the Gold Tops being Immortals (with the Appointed squad leader in the middle):

 

The Black Tops being stealthy Deathmarks:

 

The Silver Top as a Warrior:

 

And this lovely lady being a Praetorian (with her mighty Handbag of Covenant!!)

 

And here is the game-legal 1000 point starting team:

Bloody terrifying, right?! I know they are low on detail and are just a bit of fun really, but I do find them quite sinister… I’ve seen enough Dr. Who to know that cute & helpful robots always turn on you… I reckon my kids are going to love these, and I can see them turning up in all kinds of pulp/sci-fi scenarios, as well as in games of Shadow War.

Anyway, that’s it dudes and dudettes, I’m heading up to Newark tomorrow so I’ll catch you on the flip side with a full run-down of the weekend – I hope I remember to take lots of photos for you!! Peace out 🙂

Operation Desert Storm

24 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by in OldHammer

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Greetings fellows, I have some painted stuffs to share with you today – I have been busy preparing for BOYL, which is kicking off in just 4 days’ time!! For those not in the know, Bring Out Your Lead is an annual Oldhammer extravaganza, which is generously hosted over a long weekend by the Ansell clan, (including Bryan, one time MD of GW), at the family owned Wargames Foundry in Newark. It is an amazing weekend where all the older versions of the core GW games, (and later specialist games), get a damn good thrashing, along with a feast of gorgeous minis from that era. If you can make it, then I really do encourage you to come along – you won’t regret it.

Last year I had a great time playing Rogue Trader, (that’s 1st ed 40k to the younglings), including an excellently GMed multiplayer game. This year I aim to be getting involved in various games based on a board modelled on Helsreach – a rough frontier town on Logan’s World, as presented in Rogue Trader. There will be a rolling campaign based on the Necromunda ruleset and a bespoke game of Jet bike racing, so I decided to put together a desert themed force to participate. I will actually be playing them as Guard as per the new Shadow Wars reboot of Necromunda, so this gave me an excellent excuse to paint up some of my all-time favourite Guard miniatures – the Tallarn. Here is my starting 1000 cred team:

 

Now, this squad is nowhere near my best work – I was against the clock, so I mostly used inks over a Zandri Dust base coat & kept to a very restricted colour scheme, (apart from the freehand on the shoulder pad – my rogue trader’s personal livery). While it is all a bit rough and ready, I actually kind of like the dusty, weathered look on these guys. The flesh tone is a little darker to suit the theme, and I’m also quite pleased with the OSL glow on the two plasma guys.

In terms of fluff, these guys are desert-world mercs – guns for hire, and tough as old boots. This group has been contracted by Rogue Trader Arturo Lamina, (hence the somewhat incongruous use of the Trader’s personal heraldry on the shoulder pads), to go to Helsreach and get stuck in to some potentially profitable shenanigans that the crafty trader has heard about. In my mind, Arturo has forked out on some knocked off Army gear to equip them, and hopefully give them an air of legitimacy that will help them to avoid any ‘imperial interference’. Devana the huntress, from Arturo’s personal retinue has joined the team – ostensibly as a special weapons op, but also to keep the mercs in line on behalf of her boss… any sign of betrayal, and she’ll be behind them to put a bullet in their skulls.

I also have a few more troops prepared to join the squad in future campaigns, (and if the Helsreach game mechanic allows for advancement):

Commissars are also a thing in Shadow War, so I’ve included one of my all-time favourite models to provide a desert-flavoured equivalent, (again, for future games, but also if the Helsreach mechanic allows):

Finally, I wanted a desert themed jet bike to take part in the racing side game, so I did a bit of Toyhammer turned this:

 

In to this:

No… I wouldn’t want to ride it either… :-/

This was great fun to build, and uses some old Hotwheels thing and an old Imperial Guard medic rider as the main components. The rider got a headswap (for thematic reasons, but also because the original was so messed up), and a quick delve in the bits box provided all the doodabs and gubbins, while the saddle is sculpted in Greenstuff. The kids saw it finished and said it looks like something from Star Wars, so I reckon that is a win 🙂

Here’s the whole expedition force together, ready for the drive up to Newark on Thursday:

 

So, that’s it for now dudes – I’ll also be taking my Praetorians with me for a bit of RT action, and I am also planning to play one of the early editions of WFB with my Undead. I may get lynched for my heretical round bases, but I’m really excited to give it a go – WFB wasn’t in my local meta where I grew up and I have never played any of the pre-AoS editions, so this is kind of a bucket-list item for me. With that in mind, I’m having a last-minute push to get something ‘new’ painted up for my undead -specifically for BOYL. It’s a little bit special, so fingers crossed I can do it justice & get it finished in time! I’ll keep you posted 🙂

A return to the Albino Forest

27 Saturday May 2017

Posted by in AoS Undead, The Chapel

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Greetings fellows! Well… it is done. My final dissertation got submitted on Tuesday, and for the first time in 5 years, I am completely free of any study obligations. Woohoo! Ok, so there is the 2 month wait to see how I did, but, (as I keep reminding myself), that is out of my hands, so I’m just enjoying the peace that comes with wrapping up something that has been a big chunk of my life for so long 🙂

Of course, like any good hobbyist I had to celebrate my new-found liberty with a spot of painting, and given that I will be out of circulation for the next three weeks, I thought it best to tie up a few loose ends rather than start anything new, (I hate loose ends anyway, so this makes me happy). Some of this you have seen before, but other items are things that have been languishing in their undercoats, and that you won’t have seen.

Firstly, I went back and tidied up some of the undead I had speed painted for last weekend, and added in some detail where needed. This batch got some highlighting on the bone & I added a spot of OSL:

I also finally got around to adding some detail to this guy’s banner:

 

The Cursed Company got some highlighted to the bone, I did the banner, and painted in some gems on Krueger and the standard bearer:

The bottom scrolls are supposed to say ‘Mors Omnia Aequalia’ (roughly ‘all equal in death’ – seemed appropriate for this unit in particular!):

 

Next up I revisited The Chapel project and finished a few pieces for the Albino Forest, starting with a big tree stump kindly donated by Mark at Heresyofus (than you Mark!!!):

 

Next a Malifaux ‘hanging tree’:

 

You have probably noticed that all of my hollow trees have a collection of heads in the top – sacrifices to appease the forest spirits of the old world, but I really pushed the concept with this next piece. A monster of my own devising – the Charnel Oak was a sacrificial tree like many others, but over the years, the life force of the many victims imbued the oak with a malignant sentience. It became a creeping horror that slowly roams the forest, looking for victims that have fallen into a spoor-induced dream state, are too injured to run escape, or those that have been staked out as a sacrifice. The Charnel Oak drags these unfortunates into its bloated body, slowly digesting the poor victims until naught but their bones remain:

 

Pity those who remain conscious of their fate:

 

Finally, I thought it would be worth posting a high shot of everything I have completed for the Albino Forest to date:

It still looks a bit sparse but I have much more to add in the coming months, which works out very nicely for The Chapel project, and also for a spot of AoS as well:

 

So that’s it for now dudes – I’ll be off the hobby for the next 3 weeks with various travel and work commitments, but I am really looking forward to getting right back into it later in June, when The Chapel project will be my main focus – no doubt with a small side salad of Undead.  Yum! 🙂

Speed painting challenge… OF DEATH!!!!!

21 Sunday May 2017

Posted by in AoS Undead

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Hello boys and girls, welcome to a pleasantly unscheduled post from yours truly. I have been quiet of late, being deeply immersed in writing the final dissertation in a 5 year mission to explore strange new academic worlds; to seek out new knowledge and new qualifications; to boldly, (after 42 years of consuming oxygen on this good Earth), finally get a bloody degree! This workload has meant that I haven’t really been in the right frame of mind for in-depth hobby stuff like the Chapel project lately – in fact, I hadn’t painted much of anything up until Friday night…

Now, by Friday, I had the vast majority of my dissertation written, and with time in hand, I decided to treat myself to a pleasant Saturday evening of AoS with my Brother-in-Lead Ross, who has one of the most awesome collection of OldHammer Daemons you are likely to see anywhere. He ‘let slip’ that he was going to run a Great Unclean One in a 1000 pt. list, and that caused a bit of panic, because I didn’t have anything like enough painted lead to match that… thus ensued a speed painting session of legendary proportions!

Firstly, I spent Friday night finishing up 18 venerable Nightmare Legion figs I got for cheeps on ebay a while back – the two standard bearers were missing their standards, there were no shields, and one of the troops was missing a head, so the job lot was dirt cheap at £2.30ish per mini. I had previously fixed up the broken bits and added some cool shields from Knightmare Miniatures, and they were already mostly base-coated so it was just a case of doing the metallics, weathering, finishing the bases and highlighting up the bone… but still, 18 finished minis in an evening was pretty frantic! Here they all are:

And here they are forming a nice 20-strong unit with my lovely C17 command squad to lead them:

 

Saturday day was a full on speed painting slog – I had 17 assorted undead based and undercoated… could I do them all in a day?? Well, I was certainly going to give it a bloody good go! First up we have some randoms from the recent Nightmare Creatures Kickstarter from Dark Art Studios:

Spirit hosts or banshees perhaps?

A couple of zombies

Some skellies

Some more (slightly weirder) skellies

 

As if that wasn’t enough, I also had nine of GW’s ‘Cursed Company’ Dogs of War minis undercoated and ready to paint! I picked these up a few weeks ago because I thought that they would go very nicely with the racially diverse skellies I got from the Dungeon Monsters Kickstarter last year. Here they are in groups:

No, I don’t know why the orcs are naked either…. Ahem. Anyway, I decided that I would use the champion ‘Richter Kreugar’ as a second Wight King, so I separated him from his unit but the rest got rolled into a 30-strong mob with the Dungeon Monsters KS skellies, the four skellies from the Dark Art Studios KS and a couple of randoms:

 

Ok, so they are a bit rough and ready – I need to go back and highlight the bone on Saturday’s output and finish the Cursed Company banner, but they are certainly good enough for table-top I reckon, and hell – 35 completed minis in 21 hours is pretty incredible, right? So why the mad rush? Well, partly it was two weeks of pent-up painting frustration, but mostly it was the result of the arms race mechanic of AoS… Allow me to explain.

In AoS, 10 Skellies gives you 10 attacks per turn, hitting on 4+ and wounding on 4+… Pretty naff, right? But wait – add another 10 skellies to the unit and you get a bonus +1 attack per model for a total of 40 attacks, (base 20 + bonus 20), while 30 figures gives you an additional +1 bonus per model for a total of 90 attacks (base 30 + bonus 60)… trebling the model count makes the unit 9 times hittier! Add in a command squad, (for no cost), and the champion gets you an extra attack, the musician gives a guaranteed minimum 6” charge, and the banner/icon bearer allows you regenerate D6 models each hero phase… Suddenly these chumps are looking a bit more serious!

But that’s not all folks – if you have a Wight King within 18”, he can use his ‘Lord of Bones’ command ability to grant the unit an additional attack per turn, so that puts our 30-strong unit of humble skellies up to a whopping 120 attacks (or 121 with the champion). But that still isn’t all! Add in a Necromancer with ‘Vanhels’s Danse Macabre’, and you get to do it all again in the same combat round! Phew! A maximum 242 attacks, which due to the power of mathematics should equate to 60.5 wounds… Enough to deal with a Great Unclean One? You betcha… last night saw a very rare victory for team Leadballoony and the forces of (un)death!

I think I’m getting a feel for AoS – it kind of feels like a computer game, where buffs and debuffs are king, and getting the army balance right is really important. Big heroes and monsters have their place, but massed ranks with stacking bonuses are pretty powerful, and your big beasties need to pick their battles carefully. I’m starting to enjoy it as a system, and I am quite looking forward to the skirmish version that is due out soon.

Anyhow, that’s enough waffle for this post, I need to crack on with my dissertation! It is due in on Thursday, and then I have a crazy few weeks of weddings and work travel to get through. Normal service will be resumed mid-June, when I am very much looking forward to cracking on with my warband for The Chapel project. Thanks for bearing with me during this time 🙂

A bone to pick with AoS…

08 Monday May 2017

Posted by in AoS, Side projects

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Hi guys, this will be a quick post today – life is hectic at the moment, so the hobby is very much on the back burner for a few weeks. I did however paint up a few birthday gifts from my brother-in-lead Ross (he of Classic Chaos Daemon fame), who most excellently got me a classic C17 Skeleton command to buff my fledgling AoS undead – I just love these guys, just so much character to them… if you can’t appreciate a skeleton with a Mohawk then you are in the wrong hobby my friend 😉  I also bashed out a skelly emerging from the ground to take my skeleton unit up to the magic AoS 20, (irritating that some units only get good when the multiples of 10 start stacking… go buy more stuff kids!). Ok, so technically the unit is at 19.5, but I am rounding up, ok? OK?? Right… fine… anyway, here they are:

 

Seeing as I was doing some undead, I also dug out some old school Spirit Host minis, (again from Ross, from an earlier birthday), to add to the party. These minis are so goofy, they make me laugh every time I see them! I have split the host, and will be fielding them as Banshees… I’m calling them the three tenors:

 

Finally, I added big chaos champion from one of the rather excellent Pantheon of Chaos kickstarters, (now available as ‘The Sword of Echoes‘ over on Knightmare Games). He’s a big old fella, and, while not sold as an undeader, I’ll be fielding him as a Wight King with black axe for some proper crumping power:

 

And here’s a few group shots with my existing multiracial skellybob unit – just for fun:

 

Painting was all done in a very quick and easy ‘washy’ & ‘stainy’ kind of way – I quite like the faded look that it gives the minis… an appropriate vibe for the shambling undead IMO.

So that’s it for this post chaps, I told you it was a quick one! Not sure when I will next be posting – the next six weeks are just ridiculous with study & work, so hobby time is going to be scant… Bear with me dear reader, this shall pass, and normal service will resume at some point in June 🙂