janewilliams20

At my sister's recommendation, I asked for a SAD lamp for Xmas, and got it. Since today was a particularly bad one for general inertia and lack of interest in anything I'd normally find interesting, I tried it out, while pulling out the box of Lego that I'd been staring at aimlessly and occasionally shuffling for weeks.
SAD works. I have been down the "to-do" list, Doing. And so, I now have two playable HOTT armies and a stronghold, in 40mm frontage, made from Lego minifigs. I have photographed them, and the part-armies in progress, and arranged suitable storage for them. Time to document them.

This all started when I saw some minifigs on Biggleswade market, and did a double take. OK, the hair was blonde not red, but armour, sword, blue clothing, star on forehead..... I had to have her. Then I wanted to give her red hair, so started looking at Ebay for minifigs, and realised just how many there were out there. One who was the spitting image of Vega Goldbreath, to start with. A Celtic warrior woman - again, no red hair, but that could be altered. I started bidding..... I visited the Lego shop in MK, I shuffled bits...

So, here's the result. A Flickr set of photos, with detailed explanation in each one.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/janewilliams/sets/72157649570300100

I'm using a nice simple variant on Kallyr's Orlanthi this time: hero-general, paladin (in case the other side have a magician), two flyers, six warband. It copes with most things.
Last game today, my opponent came up with something I'm told is from Doctor Who, involving angels. I know nothing of the background, but this meant two lots of flyer, Aerial Hero, flyer, with one of those two being the general. A beast and a couple of lurkers completed the army, and the world was full of Bad Going.
So, only my fliers, hero general and paladin can make contact with the bulk of the enemy. Four units. The warband are effectively useless. Oh, joy.
I started moving four of the warband in the vague direction of the enemy stronghold, expecting them to get ambushed by an aerial group on the way (and an Aerial Hero will make short work of them). The other two stayed back to cover the flanks of general and paladin, and the fliers went off to try to break up the big aerial groups.
The fliers broke up the groups, and died. Down to only two elements who can contact the enemy, and they can't catch up with them... one AH hit my warband and took out the flank cover. Six points down...
But thanks to movement points, the warband made it through to the stronghold and mounted a convincing if underpowered attack. One lot of aerials turned back to intercept them, and stalled. Abandoning their warband escort, Kallyr and Elmandanti (sp?) Bluespruce charged the stalled aerial group that included their general - and won! I still needed to kill one more point than they had to win the battle, but they now had no general,and needed an extra pip for each movement. The warband abandoned the stronghold to back the Beast into the edge of the board and kill it, Kallyr moved in on the second aerial hero. Job done. 

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I'd intended to get further than this tonight, but had trouble finding files.

Broken links (in some browsers) on writing page and Gloranthan stories page fixed

"New" stories added to that Gloranthan page. They'd been hard-copy published in Newt's "Hearts in Glorantha", and I don't put things on-line for free when a friend is trying to recoup his printing costs by selling them. He tells me the main sales drive is now over, though, so you get:

1) An article I wrote about how to use the little mythlets in the Dragon Pass gazeteer as scenarios
2) A Kallyr story that demonstrates the principles in that article in detail (assuming you have Kallyr as your PC) - "Lookout Hill", set in 1610, when she's still a disreputable adventurer. It's never been on-line before, and I think it's possibly my best so far.
3) "When the snow lay round about" - an early version of this had been on-line before, but this is expanded, clarified, and generally improved (thanks, Donald!)

Enjoy!

For a journal that's supposed to warn people when I'm out of contact, this isn't working too well...

Let's see, what have I been doing? Job-hunting, and trying to get this job finished earlier than predicted if I possibly can, mostly, which didn't leave much time/energy for other things even before I got a cold.

There was an alumnae weekend at my old college - I'd never been to one before, but thought "networking!" and booked a last-minute place. In fact while the socialising was fun, and probably good practice, the most significant event was the creative writing workshop I went to. It was about poetry. Free-form poetry, the sort I've never understood, liked, or attempted. We had a very good teacher, though, who explained things, asked good leading questions, and had some great tools for inducing inspiration: there's some tricks there I'll be applying to all sorts of writing. And, it seems, when properly inspired, I'm quite good at this freeform poetry lark. Or at least, someone is, and I can take dictation from them. She's going to publish a collection of poems from that workshop and others, and I'll have two poems in the collection. This is not what I expected, not when the introductions around the table started off with the lady whose book analysing Shakespearean sonnets was on sale in the lobby, and continued with various people with degrees in English and languages.

Then there was Furnace. I'd pulled out of running one game (it would have meant finishing writing the scenario), but took the Great Duck Point Boat Race up with me - it now has its own carrying bag, and a GM's Tshirt, due to me going a bit overboard with Vistaprint. That in fact didn't get played, but I had a good weekend up in Sheffield, staying at the Travelodge and rather enjoying the 5 mile drive to and from the venue. Sheffield in the early morning, pre-traffic, is an attractive place. Played in some good games, met some new gaming systems, didn't spend much, honest. Then back on Sunday in time to go over to Papworth for my niece's 17th birthday.

Last weekend, dropped into a "Bazaar" (craft fair) at the RAF base at Molesworth (now run by the US air force) and tasted some interesting American foods, prompting an investigation into Frito Pie, and then on to Pete & Shirleys in Oundle for the afternoon, evening, and Sunday morning. Again, a good time was had.

Oh, and I've had a cold. Three days off work, which didn't do my plans to accelerate getting through this last project any good at all.

Next Sunday, going down to London to see a performance of Beowulf at the British Library. I just hope I've stopped coughing by then.

In other news, Andre has been in touch about the story I'd half-promised him for Tradetalk, at just the same time as I'd pulled the file out of storage and taken another look at it. It's a follow-up/cross-over to Penelope Love's "The Widow's Tale" - I'd helped produce a conversion of the characters from the book into HQ stats an issue or two ago, and got all inspired while doing it. Writing in her rather distinctive style rather than my own took a bit of getting used to, but by the time my own characters have joined hers, I can relax a bit. I'll just go back to her style for the end, I think.

Yes, it's that time of year again when I head off to the Tudor Arms near Slimbridge for a weekend's wargaming. Very good pub including accomodation, BTW, well worth using. Real ales, real ciders, real perrys, good food.
http://www.thetudorarms.co.uk/
As usual, I drove down Friday, had a pleasant evening in the bar with friends, and will be home Sunday night.
( wargaming bits under here )

Professional as in "to read it, you'll have to pay money". "Hearts in Glorantha" issue 2 is now on sale: see Newt's blog for details and links.
That includes "When the snow lay round about", a Kallyr story based very heavily on "Good King Wenceslaus". You may think you've already read it, but this is version 2, expanded and much improved on the original.

Issue 1, incidentally, contained "Lookout Hill", another Kallyr story set a few seasons earlier, shortly before she became Queen of the Kheldon. And again, if you want to read it, you have to pay. That one isn't available anywhere else, and never has been.

Newt's using Lulu as a publisher, so you can download a PDF, or order a printed copy: yes, good quality print. Not all that expensive, either. Here's the store. http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=1049551

Last night, my Easter Chicks were challenged by young Charlotte. It had to be a short game because Dave and I had booked a table for 15 min later. She deployed, she moved. I rolled a 6 and split into 3 groups. AHG and 2 wingmen hit her flyers, two flyers hit her shooter, AH and wingmen hit her unsupported Airboat General. Two attacks bounced, but the general died.

First real game this morning, Kallyr faced Benedict commanding Richard's morocanth. Magician, knights... nor ideal against my flyers, hero-general and flyers, but we can cope with careful deployment. My Lurker did a lovely job of breaking up the Warband before she died (what was that tree doing in Prax anyway?), but rolling that many 1s (i never got anything higher than a 3) was not something I could cope with. The flyers never moved, and the second time the Morocanth Sorceror tried to ensorcerel Kallyr, he succeeded. There's a story there, I'm sure of it.

We're staying on the marketplace over the same bar as last time we were here. Small, friendly, not en-suite, and breakfast is at 8. Not between X and Y, at 8. Wifi? You have got to be kidding. Not even a sniff of another network.
Did a dawdle round the shops yesterday and met a small, elegant and beautiful penknife (among many other gorgeous knives). Stroked it while eating at the Red Hen, this having a huge and varied menu, and got reminded of the German interpretation of "small “ (there's still nearly a pound of meat on the plate, but they've removed the bone). Then a stroll round town, and back home for drinks and nibbles until the bar closed.

Kallyr is still messing around with probability as a gentle nag, though quite what she's nagging about I'm not sure. The town guided tour here is "with the night-watchman". No, I haven't been on it, though I've listened to the start. I've taken pictures of the Rothenburg town clock doing its thing, and on zooming into the clock and sundial detail, discovered that the town symbol up there involves a two-headed bird of prey. "Haggar," says Kallyr. I'm pretty sure she's wrong (further checking of signs suggests a black eagle), but I still, somehow, got a picture much sharper than this camera under those conditions should be capable of. When she plays with RL probabilities it's usually for my benefit, but it also means she's up to something.
We went down to the walls overlooking the park this morning and saw a black kite soaring over the valley. My little camera seems to have produced better pictures than Dave and Pete with their bridge cameras. Vision, and birds, again. What's she up to?

Dave and I went down to the Spital bastion, explored that (including the cannon!) then walked the walls back north to the Gallows Gate - the café we spotted for lunch already had the other three sitting outside, having walked the north part of the wall. They recommended the Leberkase mit spiegelei, and they were right. Nothing to do with liver or cheese, it's more like what Spam wants to be when it grows up. We've wandered around a few shops since, picked up some cardboard model castles and resisted swords, and are in the nice shady bier-garten of the Reichs Kuchenmeister with a Berliner Weisse and bits of tree falling on us.

More wandering, and we've found the gingerbread house we stayed in first time, and an Internet café that will charge us 1e for 20 min and takes a USB stick. We'll be back there later, after another cool drink and some yogurt icecream and a trip back to the laptop.

(and we are. Windows in German is fun....)

Well, those who at least try to play as well as listen, anyway. I was looking for a score for "Sam Hall" - it's all mr_malk's fault!
http://www.greatscores.com/
Here, I can not only purchase a score on-line, I can hear it played by any instrument on my sound card, get it transposed, and print it. In several arrangements. "Sam" just cost me £2.49, which seems like good value to me.

Now I just want to know what Malk's version of the words is like.... I picked that icon for a reason.

Well over 1000 words, and I started writing it at 10pm. I really should adjust my sleep patterns back to something that fits a 6am alarm better :(
The only real problem with this one was keeping Kallyr out of it, but I just about managed it. Just. Very much a Gloranthan story, this one, it relies heavily on the reader already knowing the background.
Two more to go.