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.

Modeling and Painting.
I continued my commission painting for Cyrus’s completing Bolt Action SS at a phenomenal rate but it was still not as fast as he could buy them. I feel we’ve entered a symbiotic relationship where the faster I paint them the faster he buys them leaving the net amount to do unchanged. I did manage to paint from start to finish 10 Volksgrenadiers and 6 specialist figures e.g. Forward Observer and a nebelwerfers plus crew in two days. Now this might seem quite achievable but I have a full time job, a full time wife and two extra time boys under 6 so my hobby time is very low. With the completion of the 2 x Sd Kfz 250/1 and the Sturm tiger it put my Good Life budget at just under £300. My wife started to eye my bankroll in a suspicious manner.

Buying.
Despite the temptations of Salute and a hip pocket full of cash my spending this month has been comparatively low. With most of the chaps preparing for Dead Man’s Hand our first stop was to Black Scorpion for some of the most wonderfully sculpted figures in the genre. Binx bought some Outlaw figures, Cortez bought some Outlaw figures, Ellioto bought some Cowgirl figures I guess the attraction of painting tiny breasts was too much to pass up. I think he was swayed by the hot pants and crop top attired assistant on the stand. She was old enough to be his, well, older sister? I however already have some cowboy figures from 6 years ago and was immune to cow girl’s bewitching good looks.

Although I made a pretty good search for my cowboy figures in the boxes and cases in the garage and loft I only found a single mounted figure so conceded that the only way to find them was to buy some more. Fool hardy I know. I settled on the box of Lawmen from Great Escape. Yippee ki yay 1895!

Next stop was 1754. I had my M&T spending planned, a box of Perry British regulars with Rangers and Indians from Conquest Miniatures but it was not to be. Two days earlier the 4Ground email newsletter came out advertising the new range of 15mm buildings for the FIW. 15mm! 15! We hadn’t even considered it. It was a skirmish game, skirmish games are 28mm, stands to reason. After we got over the shock we did some research. There were a number of examples of 15mm skirmishing, who knew?

Binx and I eventually settled on some figures from Blue Moon supplied by Old Glory. A quick look in the cabinet at Salute was all we needed to change scales. Now the Blue Moon range is closer to 18mm than 15mm but we won’t be mixing with other ranges. Old Glory was doing 6 blisters for the price of 5 and my anticipated spend plummeted from £60 to £36. Not only have that but I only needed just over half the figures so if I can sell the spares I may have achieved my goal for about £20

Selling.
With all the cash rolling in from the commission painting I didn’t feel the need to sell any more items for the moment. So I decided to save the Gaunt’s Ghost figures and the Titan Battle Group for another day.

Planning.

Resetting the time machine for the 2000 we went for one last look round the stands before committing to Force on Force. It has been in the planning for a while and Salute was going to be where we made our decision. We would buy some figures or perhaps short list the suppliers but once again fate intervened. Old Glory had a splendid range of Taliban figures which we noticed whilst buying our FIW figures. It is a shame as we were heading for Iraq, we have the book. Binx and I pulled back in good order and regrouped on the Wayland Games stand finding ourselves by the FoF bookstand. We flicked through the Afghanistan book – Enduring Freedom – nothing was said but we both knew Iraq would have to wait and our glory was to be found in the Green Zone. Our sights are now firmly fixed on 15mm Afghanistan June will see the start of our conflict in dust and 40 degree heat. Unless we open the garage door of course.