Greeks, Romans and Blood Rage !

So between my last post and this one Our darling daughter Eleanor was born!  It has been a very full on two weeks with hospital and then sleepless nights but she is just amazing and in allot of ways life will never be the same..... however she does have this in her collection of bibs:

So maybe some things will stay the same :) 


In between the excitement of newborn and nappies I have been able to sneak in some painting and also a few items have arrived in the post which are very cool as well! 

New Start, Updated URL and Hopefully a new direction.

Well Hello strangers !!!!!!

The distance between blog posts has almost spanned a year, I toyed with the idea of starting fresh with a new blog entirely.  I messed around with some ideas that would transfer the work over to word press and I may still do that down the track and I have named that page "Shock of Impact" after a set of rules I use to own. However I decided that a spring clean of the 5th Column was a better approach.

When left the blog back in December I had begun the journey of  building a Ancient Greek Hoplite Army in preparation of Cancon 2016.  I have tracked the projects progress on my thread on the  forum Lead Adventure and I have to say have received and continue to receive  a fantastic level of support and kind words from those folks.

You can find that thread here : Lead Adventure Thread

Since that last post back in December last year it has also come to pass that my wife and I are expecting our first child, due in roughly a few weeks and I have progressed through about half of my masters degree only to put it on hold for a while to focus on the expected bundle of joy:)

So the year has flown by and now with some time becoming available my mind turns back to blogging.  First I have decided to fix something that has been bugging me for a while, the URL for the site.  When I renamed my original blog to 5th Column I did not change the URL and as such "wolftemplars" has been the method of searching for this blog.  It has annoyed me for a long while and with some time and distance between posts I have taken the step to change that.    5th Column Wargaming is the new title of the blog and also has the matching URL.  I am also considering buying the domain but that will come later.  I hope this does reach all those who follow me, however Ill work on getting the blog back out there to those who have supported the blog can still view its updates.

Secondly I want to work on the focus and direction of the blog. I want to really focus in on my current projects and passions in gaming right now, Historical Gaming and FFG's titles X-Wing and Armada.  It is very clear to me that I have now shaken the 40k habit and in general the GW attraction.  They still make great models but I no longer believe that they support the models with great rules, where as FFG and Warlord Games do.

And finally with the posts themselves.  I think the trick with all this blogging is to batch blog posts and match the progress updates of painted figures with some form of opinion piece and or article that revolves around what I'm working on.  I think two posts a month will suffice, with roughly 24 posts a year and that should cycle well with my painting rotation for new units as well as how often i get to game as a gaming father.  In those posts I hope to deliver a few parts, that cover current painting project and other relevant bits about how I see gaming right now.   

So there it is, a new start and hopeful idea's, what is needed now is execution so I hope to have the first post of the new format up in the next two weeks and from there we shall see.

First Unit of Hoplites done now to do More!

 I was able to finish the second stand of Hoplites today and I am very happy with the result, they look great!  I really feel I have improved the application of the LBM transfer on the curved shields and I have to say I like how all the colors have worked together.

More on the way as well as more dark ages stuff! 

Bit of an overhead shot showing how they have lined up with the Ranks and also kept most of the spears length sitting over the base to try and prevent them being damaged.

Have a great week!

Cheers

JP

Its all Greek to me !

There has been some discussion of late about the plan for 2016 for Cancon...... yep we are already talking about 2016 and we haven't even got past 2015.... the sadness is strong in this group!

Secret Weapon- Tablescapes

Way back in the mists of the early part of 2013 I signed up for the Tablescapes Kickstarter by Secret Weapon Miniatures.

After a massive campaign on their behalf and then all the challenges of production a few weeks ago the box's arrived.  I was in the middle of uni so I only really opened a box, had a look inside and then put them away and got back to the business end of uni. 

Well as I mentioned in my last post Uni is over now, and the opportunity for some hobby is upon me!

While the bride was out with the family today I cleared the dining table and laid out a 6x4 table to get a sense of the production values as well as some of the opportunities and things I need to think on.

A return to the desk and slow progress ...........

It has been four months since my last post on the blog. To be honest I had thought that maybe I would not return to blog anymore.  There were conflicting challenges of the Family, Study and work. The Bride and I have begun the seemingly Everest size task of buying a property in the Melbourne property market. If this blog was political I would have allot of things to say about what I have found over the last few months, suffice to say I will not bore you the reader with such details. Suffice to say we are still looking.  My study has progressed well but this was in essence what has taken up my spare time.  Studying at masters level in a subject I love still means I needed to dedicate allot of time to reading and truly learning my subject matter.

Some stuff for sale- Making way for Romans ....... yeah Im doing romans now :)

I have the following Items for sale

For Sale

Perry British Line x 2 $70
Perry British Hussars x 2 $70
Perry British Foot Artillery Firing 9pdr x 3 (Metal) $50
Perry British Colonels (Mounted) x2 $35
Victrix British Peninsular Infantry Flank Companies $30

Whole lot for $220 plus P&P to Australia

Please send me pm on the page or via pm on the The 5th Column Wargaming Blog

Cheers

JP