Getting WaT 15mm tanks in Australia

 Getting WaT 15mm tanks in Australia 

https://toofatlardies.co.uk/product-category/what-a-tanker/

What a Tanker in my area (Canberra Australia) uses 15mm (1/100) miniatures to play this great 'beer and pretzels' level miniatures wargame.

One of my friends asked how to get miniatures, and I am the sort to head off being asked a questions a few times by making a blog post. (Hi Mr C!)

The game only needs a few tanks per side to get going, and on your first game and large team games, you may only need a single tank, easily borrowed from your teacher or game runner. After that, you will naturally want your own collection. 

STORES

http://store.aetherworks.com.au/

Super Biased first pick! Aetherworks are my friends of 20+ years and I have even done bits of work for them. I declare my bias :)   

An easy start point would be the "Fury" boxed set with three US and two germans.  

You can drill down in the store to Miniature/ Flames of War/ country and then pick the miniatures you want. This is a very easy way to get what you want miniature by miniature. They are located in Sydney, so postage is fast. For example, this link should go to the German vehicles. Vehicles this way are about $15 each. 

If you want to start a collection in one box and don't want to paint, you could get the World of Tanks Miniatures game and get four base coated tanks and a whole other rule set for $71. This is a rebrand of Gale Force 9's (GF9) old "Tanks!" game adding in the basecoat painting and bumping the price. Singles are not out yet, but look like they are $22 each. Great if you have no interest in painting, or if you only want to detail the tanks yourself.

https://www.warandpeacegames.com.au/15mm_Plastic_WWII_s/2469.htm

War and Peace stock a few different companies than Aetherworks. they link above goes to 15mm WW2. The bargain of the moment seems to be that they are clearing their GF9 TANKS games miniatures for $7.50 each. Good price! Limited Stock.

https://www.mightyape.com.au/brands/zvezda

Mighty Ape stock Zvezda models. They are inexpensive models, recently endorsed by Jygdrasil. He was very happy with them arriving in a couple of weeks at very, low prices. He put his toe in with s $20 starter order and order #2 at $40 is underway.

https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=15mm+tanks&_sacat=0

Everyone knows ebay. You can watch carefully for bargains @ $5 a pop, or go spend $250 on someones complete pre painted collection of everything you want. Search 15mm tanks or 1/100 tanks

http://www.thecombatcompany.com/categories/miniatures-historical/plastic-soldier-company/15mm-world-war-ii.html

The Combat Company main differentiator here is stocking Plastic Soldier Compoany brand miniatures. They came through ompeteing with Flames of War by offering inexpensive simple pose plastic miniatures. They sell cheap tanks in boxes of five to match the FoW ruleset. 

3D PRINTING

Down at the 15mm level, 3D printing is just fine. If you have a friend with skills in the area, the polite thing to do is for you to make all the tank decisions by picking what you want from https://www.thingiverse.com/ and sending them the links. Then, offer them about $5 per tank for filament and setup labour. I have 6/25 3d printed tanks, and unless you have a good eye you won't be able to spot them from my plastic and metal tanks until you pick them up.

 

Getting ready for my third home town

At the end of this Semester, Adelle will be a qualified engineer, and we will be moving to Wodonga, Victoria, as she will be based at the army base there. This weekend I will heading down to "Border War", an SCA war event there. It's going to be interesting, interacting with gang knowing I will be a local in few months.

I'm also facing finding a new job. I don't think this will be too much of an issue, as there are some major hirers down there, and I have very solid experience.

Finding fellow geeks shouldn't be a problem, I have those skills sorted :)

This is also a shout out - who knows cool people near the area, and cool places/ things to do?

Cancon Apocalypse 2011 Facebook Group

Okay, I've got the facebook group rolling. I've got next week off for some serious terrain making. I'm fired up! January 2010 we blew the socks off the other tables with sheer scale. In 2011, we want our little slice of Baal to get people with scale & quality. Stay tuned...

Cancon 2011 booklet is out

On the Canberra Gaming Society website

The other white blog

I have bundled out my miniatures hobby blogging to "Needs more skulls" Funny thing about that, is that it is now where I am writing most, as I am on a hobby run. Those who care can head on over, and those who don't can stay here and wait till I do something interesting that is not miniatures related :)

A gamers take on the practicalities of moral rights and fair use

Ahh, the synchronicity of interests. I read a lot of Birmo's books, and his blog.  From this, I have run into some other great bloggers, many of whom feature on my blogroll now. One of them is law professor Paul Nicholas Boylan. He has just reposted a great article of his from a faded online law journal.

He said it was quite dry, but I found it interesting withing the context of better understanding the interaction between artists and companies from Europe, the Commonwealth, and the United States.

The internet is full of bush lawyers with all sorts of unproven and untested opinions. They comment on letters of demand to close down web sites, they comment on what they perceive as "draconian" restrictions of free expression, and sometimes the companies seem to work at directly opposition to the expansion of their companies.

The thing I most enjoyed about Paul's article is that it included a lot of plain, clear talk about the law, and the very principles on which the law is based, and the different jurisdictions.

One company I follow very closely is Games Workshop, being a big fan of their games and miniatures lines. They are an English company. After reading the article, I have a great understanding of the complexities of the issue, and more empathy towards those who have to make the decisions about IP for that company.

Well worth a read, and thanks Paul!

Christmas Shopping.

My Christmas shopping for others is pretty small. For my nuclear family, we swap small thoughtful or funny gifts. For those who share Christmas lunch, there are a few small thoughtful gifts.

With almost everyone else, I say "Thanks for the virtual $50. here is your virtual $50 in return. Thanks!" and then go on to buy something for my self, and say "Thanks for the X you got me for Christmas."

This comes from when my brothers and I were all "Big Day Out" fans, and we would all go to that summer rock festival. What we would all do is buy our own tickets, and say "Thanks, Brothers of mine. What a perfect and thoughtful gift."

Now, many of you might be wondering - what has Bart bought with all of your virtual Christmas fifty dollars?

I'm glad you asked.

Netbook - Many times during the year, I've been wanting to take my data with me. Not games, not media - just spreadsheets, word processing documents, emails and pdf's. I process data at work or at home. I like grunty desktop PC's. Notebooks never did it for me. Too many compromises. My phone, while a vaguely usable data point, is not use for sharing data with others. So in comes the netbook. It's a HP Mini 110, running Linux. It's fast to boot, light and V. portable. Claimed 3 hours battery life, and will hopefully be able to plug in my HTC diamond to act as my 3G modem. $400.

Vehicle - I got rid of the van. Two regos was silly, and the unreliability of an older vehicle is something I could very much do without. I also thought about the amount of times I had four passengers. Almost none. And I hated it anyway, because most of my friends are tall. So it sucked. Why did I get the van? CUBES. I am in hobbies where moving a lot of stuff is a necessity. Medieval Stuff. Gaming Stuff. Tents. bed, tables.

I was driving and loving my Yaris. It cost almost nothing to run, could move a few people, and could move a lot of stuff. But I needed cubes.

So as of early January, I will own a Hilux Ute. It's the basic 4x2 workmate ute with alloy tray, tray cover and 2250 kg powered brake towball. White. 4 cyclinder 2.7 litre petrol, manual. 2.7 litres is my biggest engine ever. My previously reasonable environmental cred is slipping... Still, I've never owned a v6 or more.

So thanks everyone for my netbook and my new ute. Merry Christmas!

Weekend: Short and Sharp:

Saturday wedding was fun catchup with the gang. Drinks at the pub was a cool catchup with some It was amusing that the wedding was located just by the large goldfish pond where an ex-Australian prime minister was lifetime banned for a nude swim in his student days.

Sunday was Apoc followed by ANU campaign. Apoc was the recently finish 5k of Tau V Roger's "Megafauna" Tyranids list. ANU was my GC Cult V John's Eldar. Both fun in very different ways.

Will expand once I get a moment. Make that if.

Jen - I said "Hi" to Birmo for you.
Birmo - I loved the possible flavors of the introduction "This is Bart, a friend of Dirk."

Well enough to paint and model

And I'm feeling creative and confident in my focus, so I've decided to do a modelling diary.

To the non-miniatures geeky, this is where you commit to making and painting a miniatures army from the piles of plastic and concepts in books all the way to a completed army ready to play and looking good on the table.

Since my health is poor, all those fit and active things I normally do won't get in the way. Since I'm currently single, those lass related distractions are gone as well. I reckon it's a pretty safe bet I'll stay single as well. "Hey  good looking, I smell like linament and my arm doesn't work, how about it?"

(Note for me: Might have found a cool, obscure planet for my IG - http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Baraspine)

ANUCON 40k event this weekend.

This weekend I am looking forward to play in the ANU 40k tournament. Everything is painted, lists are in, and I only have a tadlet more reading to do. If I had well, I might have tried to take a 'serious' list of Razorback mounted Blood Angels set to rip in. As my health was too delicate I simply got my Thousand Sons together with a couple of fun Obliterator conversions and a Demon Prince.

The list is highly unlikely to bother the top of the tables, and in my test games only ever got draws. So once I face serious opponents, I'll likely get spanked down to the kiddies end of the Swiss Draw pool. I have counters to horde and elite armies, but a heavy mechanised force will likely get through me fairly easily. And the chances of facing one of those is high.

One little toy I purchased with my tax return is a light tent - It is an especially crafted tent of white fabric that diffuses light sources from outside. Essentially, I put my miniatures, or other small objects, in the tent, set up my lights outside, and shoot. The diffuse light means the photographs will be much better than my usual haphazard efforts. I'm looking forward to getting it, and putting nicer pictures on this blog.

Flu, CS:Source, 1k Sons, Hepburn and Fry.

The flu does strange things to people. As those who read my blog know, it is mainly a calendar and some quick entries about little events or amusing anecdotes. Essentially, I'm usually so busy having my life I don't get to write about it.

However, this years flu has stopped me in my tracks. My brain is fuzzy, my body is sore, I need to stay rugged up, and going outside into the Canberra winter just makes me worse. My concentration is so low I can't play Counterstrike Gun Game for more than a map or two. This is serious illness :)

When I can't stare at my cathode ray friend anymore (Yeah. I rode that wave. $50 for a 21 inch monitor just because it's a CRT? Hells yeah) and outside is off limits, I tend to end up at the miniatures table. It is perched happily behind the couches, and a glance up will let me see our beautiful huge LCD Teev.

However, I faced a very modern crisis. I had watched everything in the lounge room. Singles were all watched. Boxed sets were all finished. Ceasar had bitten the big biscuit in Rome series One. Dexter had slashed his way through two series, the Battlestar was silent, and the residents of Deadwood had shot their way to a new age of telegraphs and Cornish miners. Stargates were crossed and the worlds conquered with 9mm mp5's (I laugh every time). Clint Eastwood had shot a large amount of criminals and cowboys.

It was time to dig a little deeper.

A boxed set - win. Pink. Hrm. Audrey Hepburn. Other than "My Fair Lady" had seen nothing of her work. What the hell.

Thousand Sons are one of my favourite armies 40k fluff wise. Magnus used naughty, naughty magic and quested for knowledge, and when the beefy, popular, boofheaded Horus rebelled he tried to warn dad and got his teeth kicked in. One of his men saw the original dream corrupted, and instead of being a good minion, tried to DO Something About It. And turned his men into ghost marines of awesome lead by mages.

I always loved them, but my painting skills were not up to doing them justice. I made all my mistakes on the High Elves, and then when I learned my limitations I retreated to Blood Angels and the Empire. Now my skills are advancing, It's time to go to an army just because it's cool and fluffy. The fact my favourite effect I ever obtained were the Eagle wings on the High Elf Giant Eagles may have had something to do with it - Awesome fluffy marines combined with Bird mages for the big win.

My book at the moment is Stephen Fry's 'Moab is my washpot.' I still haven't figured out why it is his washpot, only being 60% through, but I'm enjoying it immensely. Honest and personal writing about a man, who was a boy in a place time with institutions that fascinate.

So my non work time has taken a curious pattern. I get up, and home cook all my meals. I head out to the minatures desk to eat, and throw on some Hepburn and construct and paint for a while, my Thousand Sons or Barry's Tau. When my concentration fades I nick off to bed, and read more Fry. If I am mentally blunt, I got back to the miniatures desk. If I feel sharp, I burn it off with some Counterstrike, until I slink back to dullness of mind or soreness of arms. Give it a map or two.

I only attempted actually leaving the house late Sunday. I tried to go and watch fighter practice, but the wind ripped righ through my three layers and my scarf, and I felt my warmth and strength leaching away within minutes. By the time I had greeted people I had to leave. I went to Sui's to be patterned for a fighting jacket by the lovely Meesh. My brain, being enfebled, forgot that it was not a patterning but an alteration. I had forgotten the critical garment. Oh well.

So my weekend and last night were spent modelling in front of a model, tapping away to show tunes and the delightful fluff that is a Hepburn movie. I'm glad I don't play Slaneesh, or I would wonder If I hadn't caught an entriely different condition than the flu.

Anyone got any boxed sets I can borrow that I haven't watched? Preferably with stuff that blows up? I think I need it - I've never dressed well enough to like gentlemen in that way, and I'm currently too unwell to chase women, or have enough energy to do anything interesting if I caught them.

Joining CAC

CAC = https://sites.google.com/site/canapocclub/

Sure thing. We don't have regular meetings. Closest we get is when Sui and I sit down at his place and do stuff, or when I go to Sydney and do stuff with Numbat & Pauly. Numbat is a GD level painter, and Pauly runs a webstore that sells minnies.

Numbat: http://arrch.blogspot.com/ Pauly: http://www.mainlymedieval.com/store/index.php?cPath=31&osCsid=54928a6a72223936539145915ec2d7a5

If you want to find a time to have a minnies session, give me a yell. Weekdays that work are Monday and Thursdays. Weekends that work are ones that are not booked out already on one of my blog entries that show my calendar. http://ysambartcourtin.blogspot.com/

I am currently in painting mode, trying to finish off my flatmates huge Tau army for $, and I hope to have my Thousand Sons finished for Apoc and ANUcon. This weekend I spent and painted and assembled around 100 minnies.

Cricket cramps turns into superbowl day off

I took all the precautions. I dosed up on magnesium and calcium for up to three days before. I made sure I didn't overindulge in food. I only had one game this weekend, not two. I took lots of liquids, a water, a 1 orange juice - 5 water mix, and the same mix with apple and guava. 4.5 litres of liquids. I only ate a light, nutritious breakfast.

Still, once I was out in the 37 degree heat trying to chase that little red ball, I was cramping like crazy. Hot damn I hate cramping. It is partially the price I pay for my laziness, but also has been a constant fight all of my sporting life, happening even when I was super fit. This one was even a variation - the normal extreme pain radiating off the hamstring that shoots the leg dead straight, with a wraparound conflict between the quads.

I kept playing, requesting a bit of mercy from the captain, and he put me in point - nothing requiring a big run came my way, thank goodness. When it came time to bat, we were not in much trouble, but we just couldn't score well enough. Nursing my injury, I dropped myself to nine. When I came in, it was 8 runs an over required. I tried hiting out, but kept finding fielders, and eventually got dismissed. I ran a few runs, but didn't make much difference. We couldn't make the runs. After the game, I did the right thing, and got straight back into the mag-cal, with a warm shower, and then went straight to bed.

11 hours sleep was not enough. When the 7am alarm went, I tried to make my feet and get to the shower - not happening. Still stiff as a board, I called myself in as sick, and rolled back over to attempt sleep. Not happening. I spent the next hour manually messing with my leg in order to get it moving, whacking and stretching in enough to make it to the shower. Once I got in, the hot water did it's magic and gave me reasonable movement, and I wondered what I would do with my day. Hey, wait a minute, it's superbowl Monday!

I called the only person I knew who would not be at work, Sui, and told him to get on over. It was time for a very impromptu superbowl party. Being typically Australian, he didn't even know it was on, and had never done the party before. I limped down to the shops and laid in the supplies - hotdogs, sauerkraut, a sixer of millers, a sixer of budweiser. The rule is that you buy the cheapest american beer you can find - they had a tie, so we grabbed one of each. Sui didn't think the dogs would cut it, so he grabbed some nacho's fixings as well.

I did all the hotdog cooking and preping, and then got myself laid out straight on the couch to nurse the leg. Sui was behind me, painting some 40k figures. He has recently gained the urge to paint, and I couldn't sit in a chair, so he got the crafty-artist seat.

Luckily it was a good game, with plenty of action and stayed nice and close, and the 100 yard intercept was awesome to watch. If I was well, I would have been at work and missed it, but it was nice to take advantage of my cringing agony to watch the superbowl. First one in about three years.

Getting back in the habit of blogging.

Gah. I'm out of the habit. Can't maintain focus, too much actually going on to get the time to write a structured piece. Meh, I'll just spill it higgledy piggeldy. Golf - carry a few injuries, I can't exercise stupid hard (my preferred method) so I've pulled it back to golf. A quick nine here and there has been good. Late starts (11am) mean I can sneak nine or even eighteen in easily. Nice. The regulars have started up again, with Monday WHFRP with Kim as GM, and practice at Sir Stephens getting a few people in and keen. GWMatt is camping with us at Festival, which should be cool.

Sui & Meesh have a new house. Will check that out this afternoon and say Hi. Moving in summer - yick. I'm not a fan. At least a Canberra summer is so much milder than a Brisvegas one.

I had a few bucks spare so I purchased Army Builder 3.0 to help me with my lists. It will save me a chunk of time, and their pretty output sheets saves a lot of hassle and double reading. I've owned it a couple of times, but my sharehousey Nomadic existance means I've lost the disk a hea of times as well.

I got my first 100% confirmed Apocalypse players - so it is 100% on. I'm glad I've been keeping up presuming players would come. I still don't know if I will need to play in order to keep the games flowing, but we will see. But my army will be ready, just in case. Army Builder 3.0 will help with this. On the weekend I will prolly do a complete army list, and a 4000 point list for Cancon.

SCA stuff will wait until this 40k frenzy is complete. My aim is to have my 4,000 point force ready for the table, lists printed, and ready boxed for transport for Australia day long weekend. Then I plan to completely clear my gaming table and turn it into a sewing table. I've been on guards before, but I was buried deep in new jobs, second jobs, recent moves to new towns, no oney, no infrastructure etc. Well my excuses are out! I have some cash, I have a workspace, I have some time. Time to go Merovingian. I've done a fair bit of purchasing, I've got a fantastic piece of craft coming from Eadwyn Corny is planning on being in the workshop - so I have a helmet plan as well.

Stuff for reign:
Cloak: Mustard fabric purchased, Red trim purchased. Awaiting: Finish of 40k army.
Shields: Purchased - Edging, Bosses, Wood, Paint. Needed: Fabric for cover.
Pants: Planned between Meesh & I. Nothing purchased yet.
Accessories: Need to Email Asa & Neen.
Helm: Need to get 14ga metal from Stephen/ order it. May not make Valentine
Weapons: Need to sit down - have all equipment.

Go date: 14th feb.

Calendar Re-Launch of Jspace doom...

CALENDAR RE-LAUNCH
A caring blogwriter would craft an elegant response to the tragedy of the loss of journalspace, and then maybe go on to describe their holiday season. Well, we all know that caring isn't my strong suite, so here are a heap of impressions thrown into a roughly chronological pile.

2008 12 07 Round 3 - ABS Vs DFAT @ Mawson
Killed by rain. Didn't happen.

2008 12 13 Corn-dawg & Ray-Ray's Margareta Party.
AFTER the party, there were still five bottle of tequila. Nearly everyone bought a hole bottle, so we drank about six bottles. Turning off the lights and having the girls playing lightsaber catch and kiss is as awesome as it sounds. I crashed there, and recovered with Eggs Benedict the next morning.

2008 12 15 Eva Flight No DJ1210 Arriving 0820 CNB
Eva was in town, and we ran around doing funky stuff. Pitch and putt golf on the first day was fun. There was lots of yummy food, a bit of fighty fighty, even more movies, some 1 pin bowling and by goodness I can't remember as it was almost a month ago. My brain hurts.

2008 12 19 Clare Luna party
La Luna had two phases - first phase was the worker crowd, saying hello to the early guests - the Eva and I nicked off to the basement and watch a few metal bands, and then the second phase was the creatures of the night where we came back around midnight and partied on with the stayers. Sunday saw Rufus and Georgia in town. Played a lot of heavy with Rufus, both of us having bastard swords was big fun.

2008 12 22 Eva Flight No DJ1225 Departing 1705 CNB - 22 - Eva visit.
Bye till Festival!

2008 12 25 David, Katrina, Rufus, Georgie & crew Xmas lunch
Turkey, lamb trifle goodness. Mmm.

2008 12 26 J-Turk Boxing day
Gregory of Loch Swan got all the Descarte lads "Wings of War" and we had a big session. Being the huge Biggles fan that I am, I mainly played the British, and mainly the Sopwith Snipe and the Camel. Three on three combat action, the bomber never seemed to make it to the bomb site.

BBQ.20081231 Bar 32 New Years
Didn't end up going to Bar 32, stayed on at the B&B "Supervillans" party. They suggested watching "Doctor Horrible's Singalong Blog" and I ended up creating a character in that style "Blood Wrench - 3/16th's more evil than you." Good fun, costume parties give you an excuse to ask weird questions and break the ice.

My favourite part of the break - using the spa. Most days I found a few hours in which I could lie and read in the spa. Man, that was awesome. I need to do that more...

Recent other stuff - a metric ton of BBQ's, people over, shared food, shared wine and stuff. I can't recall it all. Wii afternoon with Squish finally happened, and it was good. Wii Sports and Wii Play are still the fave's.

Also, I am back to playing www.shot-online.com, a fun little GOLF MMORPG. So you play golf with your character, and as you get XP you get better stats such as Power, Impact etc. The game is supported by the micropayment model, you buy in game goods for real money. I have spent $US20 so far on bits and bobs.

2009 01 09 Crown - 12th Night - Tas

2009 01 18 Round 4 Climate Change Vs ABS @ Chisholm 2

2009 01 24 Sat: Cancon Apoc 40k
2009 01 25 Sun: Cancon Apoc 40k
2009 01 26 Sat: Cancon Apoc 40k

2009 02 01 Round 5 ABS Vs Treasury @ TBA

2009 02 15 Round 6 ABS Vs Finance @ Phillip

20090228 Round 7 DEEWR Vs ABS @ Phillip

2009 04 09-12 Rowany festival

2009 05 01 May Crown Darton

2009 05 05-08 Northern War

2009 07 04-05 Devest Stormhold