Unlucky for some?

I have been really busy with work and everyday life recently, so have not been able to put brush to mini for the last couple of weeks. To keep the blog ticking over though, here is the map for Turn 13 of Doggerland.

There seems to be a couple of theatres of war at the moment, in an almost East v West confrontation. Elrich the Alwise of Bergen seems to be at loggerheads with Bjarni Glittertind of Borre in the north and Bran mak Morn of Cantwara and Anker Banksidhe of Thuringia are at each others' throats in the south. The fly in the ointment is the non-player Carloman of Dogger. We have had a couple of warlord deaths recently though: Ugh the Thug of Boinne and Strom Sealegs of Mitgard.

There is still a very long way to go in the game, as it plays one turn every week, but each full turn is made up of two sub-phases, and there are still a good 17 turns left. That said, the players have now conquered most of the non-player territories and are now vying for power against each other. Lots of shenanigans should start going on now.

Elsewhere, I sorted out those western Roman Empire auxiliary spearmen that I will be painting up to match in with the eastern archers I finished painting a couple of weeks ago. I also put by the dragonewts to be finished and I dug out a set of five fighter minis that are all based on the same dolly but with different heads and weapons. They fit in nicely as warriors to defend the five elemental schools (Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Void), so that is how I will paint them. I am hoping I won't be so busy this coming weekend, so will be able to get a few more minis painted and up on the blog. Alex was the only one who managed to do any painting; he finished, varnished and based a unit of Bretonnian archers. These should be up on the blog as soon as I can matt varnish and photograph them.

I have also been having a rather one-way (apologies Colin) e-mail conversation recently about Tavern Knights of Legend part deux. He has simplified the rules ready to begin play as soon as Doggerland comes to a close. This might seem like a long time off, but these things soon come round and we occasionally find ourselves having to put something together at short notice. Also, Colin is working on another pbm we used to play in our Sci-Fi universe. I personally cannot wait to get started on that again, but it means a lot of work for the referee to run as well as he does.

I like pbms as they mean I am still able to game even if it is not on the tabletop. As our gaming group live so far apart now, this is generally the only way we get to play any more. I personally would love to get involved in an old school (read AD&D) face-to-face campaign - I do miss the early days of dungeon delving.

Anyway, enough chat - until next time.