Miniature Sunday: The Radio Man

I believe this was the last figure I painted before my recent miniature clear-out.  It’s a great little figure that comes from Games Workshop's, Imperial Advisers pack. Despite containing three, really nice miniatures, this pack was never put into general release by Games Workshop, and was only available by mail order. This actually kept me from buying the pack for a long time. I did eventually, however, and I'm really glad that I did.

I painted him up so that he would slot right into my Black Moab, Inquisitorial forces with his red tunic. The lighting seems to have thrown the colours off just a tad in the photograph, as his trousers are grey, and not nearly so blue as they seem here. 

One thing I really like about the figure is the kind of throw-back look of his breast plate. It is very reminiscent of the old Imperial Guard officers from the 80s. I went with a pale bronze for this as I thought it fit nicely with the red.

He should find lots of work with the forces of the Black Moab, as every detachment needs a radio man. I’m very pleased with this figure and even more mystified as why GW made him harder to obtain than usual.

Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide (Deluxe Edition)

A few years back, I wrote a book called Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide for Osprey Publishing. While I’m no zombie fanatic, I had been dissatisfied with most of the books on the market. Every book I had seen only examined zombies in their most current and popular incarnation as virus victims that could only be put down with a shot to the brain. While that is all well and good, it neglects a huge body of myth, folklore, and creative imagination that has surrounded zombies for decades. So, when I came to write the book, I covered a variety of zombie types including necromantic zombies, voodoo zombies, atomic zombies, as well as several varieties of modern zombies.

The book also featured a load of really great artwork. Some of this was newly commissioned for the book, while the rest came from a variety of sources both professional and amateur. All-and-all, I was very happy with the end result, and it was my proudest writing achievement at that time.

Well, with the zombie craze still apparently riding high, Osprey has decided to re-release the book in a new Deluxe Edition. While the interior of the book is essentially the same, it now features a black, leather cover, with silver foil stamping on the cover and spine, and silver gilt-edging around the edges.

The book is due to publish in September. I’m hoping that I’ll actually get to see a copy in August. 

Pre-order one for the zombie-lover in your life! 

Chain Snap

Even though I cycle back and forth to softball games, I’ve actually been doing less cycling over the summer.  I quickly discovered that a 13-mile round trip to work, combined with a 6-mile round trip to the field, plus a game of softball, is a bit more than my body can handle most of the time. It’s also hard to ride to work the day after a game as I’m often tired and a bit bruised.

That said, yesterday morning I was feeling good, and the weather was nice and cool. I had been planning to take the bus, but I hoped on my bike instead. I even took a different route to work, cycling along the Thames path for much of the way. It’s a longer, but undoubtedly, nicer trip (at least in the morning when then riverside is mostly empty).

On the way home, I decided to take my normal route. I made it about a third of the way, when I heard an ominous ‘chunk’ followed by scrapping. I freewheeled on the pedals for a second, then glanced back and saw my chain dragging behind me…

Well, it was a long walk home. Thankfully there are a few long down hills on the route so I was able to glide down them. Still it added a good 30-45 minutes to the trip.

Looks like I get to ride my wife’s bike to softball tonight.  My poor Ridgeback Meteor is going in the shop on Monday. I’ve just got to figure out how to get it there.

Total Bike Miles: 8,438

Softball – Fun Style

This week, when I arrived at the ball field, I discovered that the league was running a special ‘mixed-up teams’ day. 

Since I had captaincy experience, I was unfortunately put in charge of one of the teams. Thankfully, I was with a laid back group of guys, and it proved a simple task. For the game we used a rule of 3 outs or 5 runs. Basically, as soon as one team scored five runs in an inning, the inning ended and the sides switched. With a lot of new players, and players playing out of position, it seemed like a great idea. The game flew along and never got bogged down in a big inning. The rule only came into play a few times and after ten innings we called the game with the score 22-19.

I went a rather mediocre 2 for 5 on the night, although both hits were very satisfying line-drives over the third baseman. In the field, I spent 4 innings at pitcher, 2 at catcher, 2 in the outfield (where absolutely nothing happened) and 2 at second (where I took a shot in the chest, blocking a hard bouncer - made the out though). 

In many ways, I much preferred this more fun oriented style of play. True, it wasn’t an official game, but you better believe I’m counting the hits for my career totals! I don't know how many more games I've got in the old bones; I need every hit I can get!

Career Hits: 96

The Last 70

So, as promised, I went home after work yesterday and went through all of my unpainted miniatures. The plan was to get my stock down to 50 and put the rest in deep storage. Well, I almost made it. I got it down to 70 and decided that was close enough. After all, its a hobby and I don't want to stress out about it. Plus 28 of those miniatures are all part of The Hobbit releases from Games Workshop. I've cooled on the project at the moment, but I know this will only last until I watch one of the movies again (when is that Hobbit extended edition due out?).

Anyway, 70 will soon be 50; and 50 will soon be done. I'm not worrying about it.

What I think is pretty impressive is the number of different miniature companies represented in my remaining seventy. So, for those who have an interest in such things, here are my remaining seventy unpainted miniatures.

The Hobbit (Games Workshop)

5 Dwarves
18 Goblins
Goblin King
3 Warg Riders
Radagast

Misc.

Inquisitor (Forge World)
Purple Worm (Reaper)
OGRE Mk V. (SJ Games)
Ogrethulhu (SJ Games)
Witch Hunter (Games Workshop)
Witch Hunter (Games Workshop - Warhammer Quest)
Medusa (Otherworld)
Santa Contaminated (Lead Adventure)
Ettin (Reaper)
Athena (Wargames Foundry)
Hera (Wargames Foundry)
3 Dwarves (Wargames Foundry & Black Hat)
Cossack (West Wind)
Gypsy (West Wind)
Astropath (Games Workshop)
Gondorian Soldier (Games Workshop)
3 Future Marines (Wargames Factory)
7 Mechs (EM-4)
6mm Dropship (Model)
Bird Wizard (Games Workshop)
5 Victorian Gents (Northstar)
Sherlock Holmes (Northstar)
Cultist (Northstar)
Chinese Swordsman (Northstar)
Steampunker (Northstar)

That's thirteen different companies represented, assuming you count Forge World as separate from Games Workshop and accepting that one is actually a little model and not really a miniature.

Follow-up Thoughts on the Lead Mountain

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last post, either here or over on The Miniatures Page. It's always great to get insight from others, especially those who are also a part of the hobby.

One gent over on TMP made a very wise observation. He pointed out that the problem I have isn't 'too many miniatures' it is 'worrying about miniatures', and that if I push too hard, I may find that I have traded one set of worries for another. Being obsessed with getting rid of miniatures isn't really any better than being worried about having too many. I've already gotten rid of 85% or more of my original lead mountain, I don't need to stress about a perfect score.

So I've got a new plan. Tonight, I'm going to box up 100 of the remaining 150, put the box up in our hard to access loft and do my best to forget about it. That few, that far out of sight, will hopefully prove out of mind as well. If not, I'll get rid of them later.

With just the favourite 50 left on the work bench, I will probably find I get through them pretty quickly, and I can then return to the one-project-at-a-time approach that made me happiest.

Tearing Down the Lead Mountain

About a year ago, I realized that my main hobby of miniature gaming was actually causing me a good deal of stress. I still loved painting miniatures, imagining armies, and playing occasional games, but I was also worrying about the increasing number of unpainted miniatures I possessed.

It was an irrational problem. All of those unpainted miniatures weren’t really hurting me in any way. 

I wasn’t actually spending an excessive amount, and I could always store any excess up in the attic if space became a problem. Yet, I just kept asking myself, ‘when was I ever going to paint them all?’ I began to paint faster and faster, and my enjoyment became less and less. Although I didn’t immediately realize it, I reached a point where I was painting just to finish miniatures instead of painting because I really enjoyed it.

Knowing that something was wrong, I looked back over my near lifetime of the hobby, and tried to pinpoint when I had most enjoyed it. It turned out to be remarkably easy to find. It was about 15 years ago, when I was living in Silver Springs, Maryland. I was in my first real job after university and making decent money. At the time, I had no real gamer friends and virtually no connection to the larger gaming world.

At the time, I knew of two gaming stories in the area, neither of which were particularly close to where I lived. Both involved a good 30-45 minutes on public transportation, followed by a 15-20 minute walk. Still, I made that trek every couple of months. Actually, I loved those little pilgrimages. It was an excuse to get out and go somewhere, to a part of the greater D.C. Metro area where I would not have otherwise gone. For making the trip, I would generally reward myself with the purchase of a dozen miniatures or so. Usually, these would have some theme. Maybe they were all part of the same warband or pirate crew, or maybe they were a new unit to an army I was working on. Or, sometimes, it was just a collection of the coolest minis I could find at the time.

Once I got these minis home, I would paint them, whenever I felt like painting, and I wouldn’t think much about buying more until I had nearly finished them all. In fact, rarely would I ever buy miniatures, if I hadn’t finished the last batch.

Then things changed. I ended up getting a part time job at one of those gaming stores. Although I loved the job, the extra cash combined with the employee discount and the lessening of my free time meant that I began to buy more miniatures than I could paint. Slowly, my lead mountain began to grow. Then, I began painting miniatures for hire. I kept buying miniatures, but most of my painting time was spent painting for money. I passed the limited where I could ever paint all of the miniatures I had.

In a way, things got even worse when I got to Britain. A combination of my job and the much larger miniature gaming community in Britain, meant that things got even worse (although for awhile it seemed better!). Even though I had left a lot of the lead mountain back in the USA, it continued to grow over here at an even faster rate.

The truth is that years of getting too involved had actually sucked a lot of fun out of the hobby. I really began to realize this last year and decided to take action. I began to sell it all off.

I don’t know how many unpainted miniatures I had at the time, it partly depends on how you count them, but I don’t think that 1,000 would be a bad guess. (For all of you gasping, non-miniatures gamers, I assure you that this is still a small number compared to many gamers).

For months, I photographed, put pictures up on websites, worked the paypal, and made numerous trips to the post office. It was a lot of work, but the extra income had the double effect of helping me with one of my other goals to get out of debt. When some miniatures didn't sell, I just threw them away.

It has taken a year, and I’m not quite finished. Yesterday I counted all of my unpainted miniatures: c. 150. With each pass over the mountain, it has gotten a little harder to sell them off, but I’m slowly beating it down to my absolute favourites. The miniatures I'm actually still looking forward to painting.

If I could get it down to 100, I could probably have almost all of them painted by the end of the year, but you see, I would still be painting just to get them done. I would still be missing the point. No, I’ve got to get it down much lower than that. I just have to keep telling myself, if I ever really want these miniatures, I can just buy them again (but I know I probably won’t).

The burden, because yes, it has become a burden, is starting to lift. I know that I will never get back to how I felt while living outside of D.C., but if I keep working at it, I will find a new balance. I love the miniatures hobby, but I love it best in moderation.