The Good Life Gamer June/July

Good Life Gamer – June/July

Due to the monumental increase in temperature at the start of July everything is late so I thought I would catch up both months in one post.  In short I have been on a massive bender.  I have spent my entire bankroll and then some.  It all started reasonably but then it descended into a spending frenzy and finally into madness with the Empress Kickstarter.  Read on and I will attempt to explain how it happened.

 

Good Life Gamer - May

 

Good Life May.  So how did May work out?  Let’s find out, together….

Buying

It went quite well, I found some 1/100 or 15mm scale aircraft from Revel, their micro wings range, which have some of the more popular WW2 aircraft I wanted and for less than £3 each.  I bought a Typhoon, a Hurricane, a ME109 and a FW190.  I plan to use these for both Flames of War (FoW) and Battlegroup Overlord (BGO).  Unfortunately the first kit I built, the FW190 was missing the canopy. I have  contacted Revel in German and I am waiting for the replacement to arrive.  So far so good.

I bought Airland Battle for the PC after an article I read on Model Dads.  Curse you.  It is very pretty and rather challenging but somehow manages to keep the pace of the game manageable rather than the 100 mouse clicks a minute that Star Craft 2 requires.  Set in 1985 means that I am very familiar with all the British Army kit as I served at this time.  This will unfortunately compete for my table top hobby time.

Good Life Gamer - April

Good Life Gamer – April

As with all resolutions New Year inspired or otherwise there comes a point when your resolve is tested and invariably (by me) failed. April has Salute as a full stop; the show was great but my resolution was tested at any number of stands in the ‘Great Hall’. It was to be an emotional visit even before leaving for the show a series of emails advertising deals and releases brought about a shift in the French Indian Wars, Musket & Tomahawk, and a minor correction in compass bearing for Force on Force.

Good Life Gamer - March

Good Life Gamer – March

 

Here we are again and it’s going pretty well for me, I have kept my spending to a reasonable level and within budget and I have generated a bit more money.  I haven’t spent a great deal of time on my own projects but you can’t have everything

 

Buying.  Since I last posted I have bought the Games Workshop Warriors of Chaos magic cards.  I have an ‘in progress’ army in my cabinet, which really means I have started it and been distracted, a lot; I will come back to it at some point.  I don’t have the WoC army book as its £30 rrp and as I’m not playing it much that’s money I feel I can spend better elsewhere.  In the past I would have just ran out and bought it on the day of release, put it on the shelf and used it about 6 months later; maybe.  The same could be said of the magic cards but they are only £6, and usually a limited release. I, like my gaming pals, find the cards convenient and that’s how I justified my purchase.

Good Life Gamer - February

Good Life February.  Firstly I would like to mention the passing of Richard Briars (Tom in The Good Life) yesterday, a sad moment for his family and British comedy. 

January sales worked out better than I expected and after costs I accrued nearly £75.  Progress hasn’t been as high as I hoped but then I have come to realise that my goals should all be halved to even stand a chance of success.

Good Life Gamer - January

So here we are in 2013.  My hobby fund is zero.  It would have been cheating to carry forward any money I had in my account.

Buying

I haven’t bought anything not surprisingly but realised whilst looking for Schimmwagen’s that I could buy things at the drop of a hat and worry about the money later.  Not now. 

Selling

I have some items on eBay, mostly old epic figures and books but also a Churchill tank and a couple of WFB Empire war machines.  I don’t see the first few weeks of the year being a great time to try and sell stuff.  We are conditioned for ‘the sale’ and want a bargain.  It used to be the ‘January sales’, then became the’ boxing day sales’ and it has now evolved into the’ we can’t wait any longer for you to come shopping so here is a desperate bid to get you spending sale’.  Maybe it will be fine after all.

The Good Life

The Gaming Good Life

If you are old enough you will remember a BBC TV programme called the Good Life.  If you aren’t it was British situational comedy.

The show centres on Tom Good and his wife Barbara and their Neighbours Jerry and Margo Leadbetter.  On his 40th birthday, Tom is no longer able to take his job seriously and gives up work; their house, in Surbiton Surrey, is paid for so he and his wife Barbara adopt a self-sufficient lifestyle.  They turn their front and back gardens into allotments growing fruit and vegetables. They introduce chickens, pigs (Pinky and Perky) a goat (Geraldine) and a cockerel (Lenin). They generate their own electricity, using methane from animal waste, and attempt to make their own clothes. They sell or barter surplus crops for essentials they cannot make themselves. They cut their monetary requirements to the minimum...