Archive for October, 2004

SELWG report

Posted on in Games, Miniatures.

Yesterday was the SELWG wargames show at Crystal Palace. I went along for a few hours to look around and buy stuff; overall I think it was an improvement in last year’s show which I wasn’t very impressed by. Some people thought it was rather good whilst others found it not so good.

I bought Rebel Storm boosters – the first boosters I’ve bought (though I have been buying large numbers of canon fodder types on eBay). Got the very rare Princess Leia, Captive figure in one of them which was lucky. Various traders were selling boosters for prices between £8.00 and £12.99 – I got mine at the lower price because I remembered that it always pays to walk round every stand at a show before opening your wallet.

The only thing I bought were some MoFo minis from Gripping Beast – five packs of UK Falklands War troops to add to my UNIT force and a pack of SF characters based on Stargate SG1. The MoFo miniatures are little bit smaller the Harlequin UNIT troops but once based and painted up the same should fit in just fine.

There were some good games on show, the most striking being Diamond Geezers – a game based on old telly shows played over a very good recreation of a 1970s street scene.

SELWG is the last show of the year for me, there’s nothing now until Salute in April. You never know I may actually get round to doing some painting before then.

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Books for the good doctor

Posted on in Books, Doctor Who.

I’m very pleased to see that The Discontinuity Guide has been republished by Monkey Brain Books. Along with the forthcoming updated edition of A History of the Universe from Mad Norwegian Press this is splendid news for Doctor Who fans.

Top five non-fiction Doctor Who books

  1. A History of the Universe by Lance Parkin
  2. The Discontinuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping
  3. I, Who by Lars Pearson (all volumes counted as one)
  4. License Denied by Paul Cornell
  5. The Television Companion by David J Howe & Stephen James Walker

Piccies

Posted on in Dinosaurs.

These are the photos I took at the Dinomites exhibition at the Horniman Museum.
StegosaurusIguanodonPolacanthusAvimimusVelociraptorPolacanthusTyrannosaurusOviraptor

The first picture here was taken last autumn at the Eagle Heights bird of prey centre. I’m not sure what type of bird this one is, but later in the day I flew a Harris Hawk, which was a fabulous experience.
Bird of preyLettice
And of course the second picture is Lettice, also fabulous.

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Presenting ABUTT

Posted on in WWW.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present a new breakthrough in web site design and development – the Alcohol Based Usability Testing Theorem (hereafter ABUTT).

The basis of ABUTT is that usability testing can be difficult to organise but that so long as you can organise the proverbial piss up in a brewery you can still gain most of the benefits of usability testing and improve employee happiness at the same time.

How ABUTT works

First, take your team to the pub for a good old fashioned liquid lunch.

Then, take them back to the office and ask them to test the web site. With the alcohol coursing through their bloodstream their co-ordination, memory, reading and comprehension skills are all impaired. In other words, they begin to approach the level of web use skill demonstrated by the average man in the cyber-cafe.

Watch and take notes.

Well, it should demonstrate Fitts’s Law if nothing else.

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Dalek toilets

Posted on in The World.

One of the few joys in commuting through Victoria station is the chance to admire the Dalek toilets. The what? you cry. Well, next time you’re at Victoria look at the sign above the toliets on the main concourse. There you will see four icons indicating, from left to right, that there are toliets for women, men, wheelchair users, and Daleks. And now you know why you thought the sound of the announcer’s voice was familiar.

Rebel Storm miniatures review

Posted on in Miniatures.

So what did I get in my box? Ten miniatures – the Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader miniatures that are in every starter set plus two different stormtroopers, a rebel trooper, a rebel pilot, an Ithorian scout (that’s Hammerhead for us old timers), a Bespin guard, a Gamorean guard and a Tusken Raider.

I had seven out the ten as action figures back when I was a kid. Hmm, so I’m going round in circles. Except that these are smaller. Ever decreasing circles perhaps?

The miniatures are about 30-32mm toe to eye. This makes them as tall as many of the larger “28mm” miniatures available. However, these are much slimmer – realistic proportions rather than the chunkiness we’ve come to expect from metal miniatures. It’s not too much of a problem with the aliens and armoured figures but the ordinary humans won’t mix too well with other ranges.

Comparison of 28mm Science Fiction Miniatures
From left to right: Ground Zero Games 25mm Stargrunt; Foundry Street Violence; Copplestone Castings Future Wars; Fantasy Forge Kryomek (available from Scotia-Grendel; Harlequin Doctor Who (available from Black Tree Design); Rebel Storm; Foundry Street Violence (big guy).

The miniatures are made from a rubbery plastic and spring back into shape if bent. I’m not sure whether this will make them harder or easier to convert than metal figures. Some of the poses are a little strange – The Rebel Pilot seems to be trying to “walk like an Egyptian” whilst the Rebel Trooper is leaning alarming far forwards.

The paint jobs are okay. I doubt I’ll totally repaint them but I may touch up some of the details. (The photograph above isn’t very flattering to my painting abilities – I may not be great but the flash really hsn’t helped matters. Time to buy some matt varnish perhaps?)

I think I’ll be buying some more, I’ll mostly be hunting for the common troop types – with luck the collectors will be flogging them off cheap having bought a gazillion of them to get their hands on the very rare figures.

The rules? Read them, seem okay for what they are. I doubt I’ll be using them much. Daleks vs Stormtroopers in Stargrunt II anyone?

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