Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Writing: The Battle of the T'nar'o, Part 2

Continuing on from the previous entry, what follows is Part 2 of my short story, The Battle of the T'nar'o.

Here is a link to Part 1.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Movie Review: The Hobbit

This past weekend I went to see The Hobbit. These days I don't get out to the movies much, so I really have to want to see it in order to make the effort.

 Prior to seeing The Hobbit I had heard that critics were saying "it's too long, unless you're a Tolkien geek." That made me think that Peter Jackson got it right. While naturally making the movies is a money-making venture, I also think that a good part of Jackson's motivations is to do Tolkien's work justice, and to make the movies something that will last decades, rather than a film that will start strong and flame out in a few weeks to be forgotten and/or forever reviled as trash (q.v., anything made by Michael Bay).

Friday, December 21, 2012

Writing: The Battle of the T'nar'o, Part 1

Back in 2010 I made several submissions to Black Library, including one short story and two novels, all depicting parts of a large scale war between the Imperium (featuring the Imperial Guard and Navy) and the Tau Empire.

Needless to say they were all rejected--if they weren't, trust me, I'd be blabbing about it.  

Yet, since they were rejected, that means I can post my submissions here.  So over the next several posts I intend to serialize my short story of a battle between Tau and Imperial forces, The Battle of the T'nar'o, and I will subsequently serialize the first three chapters of each of my novel submissions.   Only War chronicles with the political maneuverings that spark a massive war between the Imperium and the Tau, while The Charge of the Danoans focuses on a specific campaign in the early stages of the war.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Realms of Battle Gameboard Unboxing

I haven't bought many miniatures this year, for various reasons, but one of them was to save up so I could buy a Realm of Battle Gameboard.  These days I don't get much time to game, and I am not always able to play in my garage using my using gaming table--frequently I have to travel.  So I found the portability of the Realm of Battle Gameboard very appealing.  So I thought I'd give this thing a try and see how it works out.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Sherman Armoured Platoon

Following up from my recent post of a Sherman from the new Flames of War Boxed Set Open Fire!, I've finished my first armoured platoon consisting of three Shermans and one Sherman Firefly.  As with the first Sherman, I painted them up as Canadian tanks, forming a platoon in C Squadron, 10th Armoured Regiment (The Fort Garry Horse), which was part of the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Warhammer 40,000: Dark Vengeance Unboxing

Originally I wasn't going to buy the boxed set of 6th Edition Warhammer 40,000, Dark Vengeance.  The Dark Angels are a little too angsty, goth, and arrogant for my tastes, and while the chaos models are cool, my Word Bearers army is still in its infancy, and has been on the back burner for ages now.  But then I thought, I do want to get the rulebook.  I did find the small rulebook in 5th edition to be very useful, and far less cumbersome than the full size rulebook.  So I thought a bit, and decided that if I spent a little bit more money than for the big rulebook, I'd get a boatload of great minis too.  If I didn't want to ever paint the Dark Angels, I could always trade them or something.  In the end that put me over the edge.