The future is awesome (and free stuff)

I am going to yap on a bit so chill out and take in the variety of topics covered here.

As a gamer I often get excited about up and coming releases. In particular plastic figures seem to get my imagination fired up. Gripping Beasts plastic Warrior box ...Yaaaay! Parts to make Levy with slings and parts to swap with the previous plastic Vikings and Saxons. I can see a few swaps between sprues to get chain mail wearing dudes without helmets and so on. I really like plastics. Easier to store, less likely to get gamer use damage. I recently had a bow snap on my metal viking archer levy and I am sure I had some spares but you think I can find it?! I don't have those sort of mini dramas with plastics.

Gripping Beast are also releasing the last Dark Age factions for Saga with the Rus (2 varieties) and the Byzantines that previously were in a Wargames Illustrated magazine. Seeing as it is the last I wonder what period they will cover next.

Dread Ball Season 2. As a backer of the Dread Ball Kickstarter I have received a link to get a PDF version of the Season Two rules. This contains 4 additional teams. Robots, Female Humans (a rules variation for Human teams so your figures don't need to be females but the figures look cool), Bug insect looking Aliens and also hippie tai-chi pacifist grey Aliens. I am yet to play a game even though I have the first wave of stuff I got delivered back in December. The second shipment is probably not all that far away and it will contain the additional sculpts for teams I already have. I have only painted two miniatures, the referee and an MVP (88). What a slacker! I prefer to have all the miniatures that I am getting for each team so I can paint them in one batch rather than trying to replicate colours and style later. Should be a cool project painting wise.

Flames of War will be re-releasing the D-Day books soon. OK. It does not feel that long ago when I got 'Turning Tide' and  'Earth and Steel'. Possible expanded content in the new ones. They will be giving away a bonus of new plastic bases with Rural enhancements to those like me who have the books already. A part of me is bewildered at how recently many of the books get re-published. Seems a shame these books have gotten so old so quickly. Not sure if I will be getting as many of the new books as frequently as I used to. Perhaps I have some sort of revision fatigue. I am not really all that concerned but perhaps if I pool my local gamers resources we can do some sort of information sharing. You get Book A...I get Book B...copy the 1 or 2 lists that I will actually use on a table and exchange. Like the Axis Market Garden forces as an example. I really only have ever played the German Paratroopers I think. Could be other lists in there that I would consider perhaps but really that it is my main interest so the rest of the book could be unused in gaming for me.

Finally on to the free stuff. Go here to Loki's Great Hall Blog. He is celebrating 2 years of blogging. It's a good blog and Andrew often has Vikings. Give aways are a fun way to get more followers and interest on your blog. Hmmmmm...perhaps I should do one soon. Like many gamers I am certainly the collector of random miniatures and so on.

Cheers and Good Luck from The Kiwi (Brendon)