Army General (Plus Free Bonus Rant you should certainly feel free to ignore)

Well, between baby-sitting and getting semi-ready for tomorrows move Ive have done exactly nothing. Again. Except work... and even then I didnt do much as I managed to skive off to pick up some Xmas decorations for the office and then spent the next three hours decorating the damn place. It did mean I had to stay back for an extra hour though, as I couldn't just leave the job half-finished. My, isn't celotaping tinsel to the ceiling a great way to make a living?

Yeah, more sarcasm. Still, beats having people moan at you all day about how inefficient the government is. Believe me, I already know. We tell our senior management how utterly useless they all are often enough that they no longer even bother consulting us before introducing the latest inefficiency anymore.

Gah! I miss the army. Sure, the MOD was every bit as blithely incompetant as the Department of Work and Pensions but at least we could ignore their stupid directives until they took the hint and tried something else. They once asked us to count every individual 5.56mm rifle round held by the entire regiment (as opposed to counting and weighing the twenty round boxes in open ammo crates and examining the seals on the unopened one's). Yeah, seriously, only about half-a-million rounds or so! Needless to say they were told in no uncertain terms where they could shove their ammunition audit.

But now I`m just a lowly civil servant who cares more about getting vulnerable people they're money that he does about the governments bloody unemployment figures. I cant really get away with that sort of thing anymore. Honestly, I`m not sure how much more rule bending they'll let me get away with. But frankly, I dont see why a customer should have to wait five days to be paid just because their GP can't fill out a medical certificate properly. Especially not when we can use Internet Banking to pay the customer on the same day the doctor re-issues the cert! Sure it takes a half-an-hour each time. But it's not the customers fault the government sacked nearly a third of our processing staff is it? Or that the "time saving measures" brought in the goverment actually increased the time it takes to issued emergency payments. Yeah, we told them that would happen, but now that they've spent 13 million on a payment system that forces us to start from scratch if we make a spelling mistake (or, heaven forbid, try to go back ato the previous screen!) they're determined to make us use it rather than admit to the mistake.

Frankly, if the senior bods were really even remotely adequate for the job, they wouldn't be civil servants. They'd have been head-hunted long ago and off to the happy, delerium -inducingly high-wages of private bussiness. Instead, they're still here. Basically because no other bugger would be stupid enough to employ them.

Don't get me wrong, there are a few senior bods whom I truly believe have stayed on in the civil service because they are genuinely trying to make things work. Alas, they're just banging their heads against brick walls every bit as much as we are. At the end of the day, it's the civil service culture that's at fault for allowing second-rate individuals to rise to the top of the chain. But how do you change a culture thats become ingrained after several hundred years of development?

Truly, I just dont think you can. And that, to me, is a real shame. When civil servants (we're SERVANTS remember?) care more about their statistics and the next performance review than they do about the people they are supposed to helping you can't help but be inundated at our level with a thousand little tradgedies a day. Like a primary school teacher who has worked for thirty years being told that although she has developed bowel cancers and now has toilet issues, the fact that she has survived breast cancer for six years now makes her fit for work! Now it will take an Appeal and as long as six months to get her Incapacity Benefit claim up and running again. And all because the certificate informing us that the cancer had spread was lost in the interal civil-service mail. What kind of social "security" system is that? It disgusts me!

It also makes me very sad.

Right, enough. This is supposed to be a wargaming blog after all. So, included for your delectation (I love that word) are some pics of my recently touched up Army General. Again, apologies for the picture quality. I have had some great advice from some good people, but these pics were taken off the cuff about fifteen minutes ago and it's far too late to be messing around with lighting and such. Anyway, I've off to bed now. G'night.

Haven't forgotten

No, I havent forgotten to update and no little green men havent come down from mars to upduct me...

They were blue.

The truth is that a lot has been happening lately, the new house is sorted and the organising of furniture is about to begin. Throughout all this I havent had much (read "any") time for painting, but somehow Ive managed to out the finishing touches on all the mounted milites and the general EXCEPT for the shields. Which should take no time at all. After that, I have to consider whether I`m going to paint the libres next, or the axemen. And also consider what miniatures to buy. Colin's VIkings have a bunch of Foundry, Crusader and Gripping Beast mixed in together and they look fine. Just a normal distribution of build amoungst a standard group of guys. Oh yeah, and I have to figure out my new minaiture buying budget. Darn lucky I dont drink, thats all I'll say.

Pictures of mounted milite unit to follow when all the shields are done.

Shields Done: Spearmen pics

Well, Thursday and Friday were mostly write-offs as far as painting was concerned, but I had expected that anyway. Between house hunting and the Opera Thursday saw painting squeezed right out of the schedule, with more house hunting and visiting on Friday. I did at least manage to take advantage of the transfers which arrived on Friday to finish the shields on my armoured milites. Pictures have been included.

I have to say I`m very happy with the result, although a few of the shields need a little touch up here and there before I'd be willing to allow people the option of close-scrutiny. I`ll do that later today in between painting horses and knights. So the new, wildly optimistic targets are to finish the knights over today and tomorrow (complete with shields) and at least prep and base the libre spearmen. That will give me a good (mostly painted) 1000 point force for Tuesday night. A little weaker in terms of missile troops and skirmishers than I would have liked, but thats life with little lead men.

Now I just have to work out how to get the bl;oody things to G3 without trashing them. Especially since they'll be sitting under my desk at work for most of the day. Really should have thought of that before painting. Or arranging a game. But I`ll just leave some of my other miniatures sitting on the table at home and borrow the packaging.

Got Nothing Done

Got absolutely no painting done today. Nill, Nada, Zip, Zero. It took forever to base and assemble those 12 Norman milites. And as my shield and banner transfers still havent arrived I couldn't even spend the three hours while the white metal was drying working on the nearly forty shields I need to have finished by Tuesday. Grrr. More time lost. I say lost, not wasted, because at least it gave me time to read through the rulebook again - something I evidently need to do since I failed to pick up on the fact that routing skirmishers do not trigger panics tests. Makes sense after all. Running away is kind of what they're paid for.

Anyway, no further news on the Norman front tonight. And still no pics of the "completed" spearmen since their shields havent been done.

One other bit of mixed news though. John's WFRP game is of on Sunday, as he and several of the other players are off to Dice Con. Andy P and I will head of to see Casino Royale while the others are board-gaming and then its back to the sweat shop for me. So at least I might be able to catch up on my painting as a result.

Spearmen and Letting Agents.

Well, I did manage to acheive my painting target for yesterday, but alas, I've failed to do any painting so fat today, let alone prepping or basing.

The reason for this, you see, is that I've spent most of the morning talking with estate agents who have so far not bothered their rear ends to return any of emails. Hopefully now Ive spoke to them over the phone they'll start putting things in motion as it were. After all, I`m on holiday all this week and my future flatmate Andy (not the cheeky one who leaves comments but the other cheeky one who doesn't) has taken two days off thursday and friday so we can go to some viewings.

And how many viewings do we have arranged yet? Precisely zero. Hence my rather sore jaw and clenched teeth. (Now now Brian, musn't yell at the poor inconvienanced civilians. (They may be in a uniform, but it's not DPM! Your not in the Army now, laddie!).

,7pm and nothing done yet. Almost a whole day gone, not that I begrudge the time spent visiting my relatives in the afternoon, as I thoroughly enjoy their company. Even so, must get some more painting done tonight. My target: Prep and base the twelve archers that I bought from Perry Miniatures and paint at least six.

If they were more spearmen I`d simply say no contest, but they're in tunics, not chainmail. So it might be another late night for me tonight. But if I`m going to have all the Perry figs I bought the other week (or at least all the infantry) painted by the time I go back to go work next Monday them I`m sure to see a few more of those.

Screamers and Frothing Beardie Blokes

Well, yesterday was fairly okay painting wise, I managed to complete another half-dozen spearmen, short of painting the shields (for which I`m awaiting another delivery of transfers). I should really have done more given that I had the whole day to paint (up till about 6 in the evening when I met with a bunch of the guys to go out for a meal), but frankly I`m still knackered from this cold. Dont get me wrong, I`m not snorting or sneezing like I used too. Even so six weeks of feeling ill combined with not going to the Gym because I was ill, have left me feeling drained and knackered. All I want to do is sleep. I left early last night because of it, got in about 10:30 and went straight to be. So I slept for about eleven hours, as I've just gotten out of my pit and had my breakfasr. This from a guy who normally hits the sack between 2-3am and gets up for work at 8:30.

Anyway, I'm getting way off-topic here. Today, I aim to complete the last six spearmen that I have sitting in front of me, plus two command sections. 12 figs, shouldnt be hard, especially since I have all day to do it. Now if I could just generally ditch this feeling of lethargy it would be fine. Once I've completed this first batch (actually, Ill have completed enough for a whole unit, but as that unit is going to be broken up and mixed in with the Crusader figs when they arrive I'll try to avoid thinking of them that way) I`ll move on to something with a little less armour. All this drybrushing is great for saving time, but it sure is dull (the painting I mean, not the armour. Even though it is... you know... dull.)
One thing that irks me about yesterdays painting is that these milites are supposed to be fairly rich by period standards. I mean, they have chainmail, swords and helmets for heavens sake. Sure, even if their handed down, they still represent a significant display of wealth. So why the heck did I go and paint most of their tunics in shades of unbleached wool? Gah! By the time I realised what I was doing the only cloth left unpainted was the hose on two of the miniatures. So out came the greens and burgandy to add a splash of wealth and colour, along with some bronze detailing on the helm of one of our richer milites and on the sword of a "poorer" one to make him seem a little wealthier. It's not a huge problem, some of these guys are supposed to be richer than others and several of them are probably no more than heavily armoured serjeants anyway. But even so, I now have a disproportionate number of "poor" milites, especially when the Crusader guys in padded doublets are added in. C'est la vie.

Just means I`ll have to put out a few more shades of red, green and blue on this next bunch.

On a non-painting note, just learned from Andy (the cheeky one who left a comment on my first post rather than the other cheeky Andy who didn't) that not only is it Julian who has the wads and wads of screamers (Celts I mean, not his kids) but Colin has an Army of Shieldwall Vikes! Yay, more opponents. Boo!!! Berserkers. Well Ill not be letting any of those throthing maniacs with their automatic D6 S5 hits anywhere near my oh so expensive milites (foot or mounted). specially since he can have up to three in each unit and they cause an automatic break if they inflict more than 25% casualties on a unit.

I really dont want to think about what they could do to my mounted milites. I mean, sure, they have a 3+ save, but S5 knocks that down by a scary amount and those berserks would only have to kill three knights between them to send the rest running. Yikes! Good bye nearly 25% of my armies total points cost. Not bad for about 60 points worth of naked beardie blokes eh?

Thats a scary thought in itself. One unit of admittedly very hard and very nasty knights and a bishop take up nearly a quarter of my points! Damn, talk about fire magnet. Note to self: read El Cid lists. Find out if any of the various muslim armies get seige engines. If so, collect Welsh, run for the hills and ditch the Normans.

Except for playing games fo retinue, one of which I`m hoping to get organised with Kev for next week or the week after.

Anyway, I`m getting tired again. Going to lie down for a bit and then bounce back into the painting. Will let anyone who actually bothers reading this know how I`m getting on and then take a few pics of the completed "batch" for the blog. Thanks v. much Andy (the same one) for those tips vis a vis taking photographs of miniatures. I`ll give it another go later.