New Year

"And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East."

from us  all in the Duchy of Tradgardland.

Uptown

Uptown with the girls on Hogmanay morning- church,coffee and then a wee look about. I popped to the model shop for some static grass. I did buy the static grass and then came away with this too-

The Edinburgh connection was too much and I succumbed to temptation. I have been reading around the model railway hobby for some time through magazines and books.This is my first purchase of anything more.

Dragon Rampant first games.

Yesterday I played my first game of  Dragon Rampant. In good faith I had meant to read the rules thoroughly before the game but I had not got round to it. I just managed to scribble on some roster sheets prior to Richard's coming - yesterday had run away from me.
We played two games- one with my ME figures and one with his GW ones-

The wolves come snarling into contact.

The wolves flee the field.

Trolls in background,Uruks take the fight to the horsemen who lost in the end. I had not bothered to check points values and the horsemen were not "beefed up " enough in terms of add ons to their Heavy horse definition. Even the hero in a reduced unit as Elite Horse could not prevail. A good fun game though I lost.

In the second game we were obviously a little better acquainted with the mechanisms of the rules. I commanded the dwarfs.-

The dwarfs await the wolf riders...

The trolls flee the dwarf bowmen and the orc berserkers run from the field.

All in all a most enjoyable afternoon.The rules delivered in a pleasing "old school" way and deserve further study from me to add subtleties the rulebook has to offer. I would recommend you to give them a go ,you'll certainly not regret it.In fact they will I think provide a renaissance in fantasy gaming. 

Dragon Rampant and a gift...

Richard popped round pm for our first go of Dragon Rampant ( photos and first thoughts tomorrow) and gave me this lovely figure-

I know nothing about it. Anyone recognise it?

Parcel

This morning I walked to the local sorting office to collect a parcel I had missed on Christmas Eve. It was a recent ebay purchase. Upon return I opened the outer packaging to reveal a charming little box-

Anyone read German and tell me what it says?
The whole box is covered in this design-

Inside I found some figures and scenery for my 40mm Counterpania project-

 I am very pleased with these indeed :)

Tolkien for Dragon Rampant...

I wondered how people had defined the Nazgul,Ringwraiths,Uruk Hai etc for Dragon Rampant? I started a thread on Lead Adventure about this and got this reply from Sun Jester-

"Funny enough, I've just been thinking about the same thing.
So far I've just been looking at the assorted orcs and haven't thought about more powerful things like Nazgul yet
One thing is, do you judge the stats by the actual figure, or what it is representing in Middle Earth? Most orc models are substantially larger than their book equivalent. I've decided to go with how they are represented in the actual books, ignoring their relative size to standard men.So I am thinking so far:
Orc chieftain/leader with bodyguard, Heavy offensive foot.
Large orcs
If access to good armouries (Mordor Uruks, Isengard Uruk-hai etc) either Heavy offensive foot or Bellicose foot with Shiny Armour.
Otherwise, Bellicose foot
Soldier orcs ("average" sized orcs), Light offensive foot, can be mixed weapons.
Snaga (little orcs), Light offensive foot and Fearful, can be mixed weapons.
Possibly have the odd unit of Orc archers, Scouts."

Any other thoughts appreciated for the  above, Beorn etc etc...

A Tradgardland Sunday morning

This is the scene on the kitchen table mid morning ,

after Stollen and coffee was taken post Church. Basing proceeding well (for a forthcoming game of Dragon Rampant on Tuesday) whilst listening to " I'm sorry I haven't a Clue" on BBC Radio I player. It is such an enjoyable radio programme and often has me laughing out loud.
In case anyone is interested in David Jones here is a wee link to an article on him-
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/10/soldier-poet-painter-david-jones-britains-outsider
Have a good day whatever you are doing.