Zipwire half century

A handy day off on Friday just gone, and I cashed in my birthday promise from Sara - a zipwire at Tower Zipworld up by Hirwaun.

It's a great set up, with a long zipwire over a lake followed by the "fastest seated zipwire in the UK" to get you back down to the main complex. 

You can also get a video of the zip too - of course, this is my point of view so you only really get the evidence that Sara did the zips!

We also did the Tower Coaster in the main site. It's a high speed ride through trees and tunnels. It's also great value, as you get three goes round for the ticket price. That was handy as Sara's twins both wanted to go round with 'Uncle' Jon - so they were both able to get a turn screaming next to me.

Diolch yn fawr, Sara, for a memorable half century birthday present!

More Action Force revival news

Last year I posted about both an official and unofficial revival of Action Force, with figures released in homage to my favourite toy line of the 1980s. This week I received three fresh new figures created by Black Major Nation, an independent toy manufacturer named after one of the villains of the original toy line. 

The figures are another version of Red Jackal, a Cobra style trooper in a Red Shadows style uniform and a Cobra Eel Trooper from the classic G.I.Joe line but done in the colour scheme of a Kraken from vintage Action Force.

Red Jackal is basically a repaint of "Destro", one of the key members of Cobra, the terrorist organisation that fought against G.I.Joe. Back in the 1980s, Destro had a repaint and was released as Red Jackal in the UK. This makes the toy very collectible now for American collectors who have all the G.I.Joe figures released in America. 

Unlike the Red Jackal I blogged about last year, this one is a multi-jointed "o-ring" figure, like the original one in the 80s. (It's called an o-ring figure because the legs are attached to the rest of the body using a rubber band inside the figure - that's the O.)

Red Jackal comes with two alternate heads - one would turn him into Red Laser and the other is a Cobra Commander hooded head with an anachronistic AF Enemy logo on his hood.

The Cobra Trooper is OK. It would fit in with some Enemy troops fine. 

The Kraken Eel is, well, crackin'. The colour scheme is perfect. 

I really like this figure although the accessories are a little bit fiddly. They don't fit together very securely and the peg on the back-pack is quite loose in the hole in the figures back where it's meant to attach. As a display piece it's great; as a play figure, bits would quickly get lost. 

Shortly after I blogged about the figures last year I acquired some figures from a different independent manufacturer, Lady Jaye Toys. They released some "Shadow Troopers" in a variety of weird colour schemes. I decided to just get the classic Red Shadows they released in tribute to the original range. 

Again, these are o-ring figures. They come with two different weapons - a reproduction of the bazooka that was shipped with the vintage figures, and a machine gun. 

If I had one criticism of these figures, it's that the heads are two small when compared with the vintage figures. However, they come with optional different heads, including one to create a Black Major if you want one.

I have acquired a few vintage Action Force items recently as well, so will share those on the blog at some point. 

On the trail of the greatest secret agent in the world

A work trip to London meant a short stay near Baker Street and a chance to visit the secret entrance to the spy headquarters of none other than Danger Mouse himself!

Massive shout out to Gawain who humoured me and acted as my official photographer!

Battle of the Undead - Blood Bowl match report

An exciting double debut in mine and Bryan's monthly Blood Bowl match up - a brand new team, the Tomb Kings, and a first use of the new Season 3 rules! The main new rule we used was 'Secure the Ball', which means any player can pick up the ball as long as they don't roll a 1 on the dice.

The Tomb Kings seemed like an easy-to-play, fairly average team on their debut. The team's players are undead players from an Egyptian style necropolis. Their big guys, the Tomb Guardians, are very strong, but overall the team felt a bit under-powered, except for their throwers.

I was playing the Necromantic Horrors team that I debuted last month. They were boosted by a star player called Wilhelm Chaney, but he didn't really do very much. 

The first half was chaotic, and we ended up with the line of scrimmage pivoting 90 degrees and just a general mass brawl. 

One of my werewolves eventually got free and made a dash for the end zone. He was one yard away from scoring and needed to roll for an extra yard. The dice betrayed him and he fell over, with the ball rolling into the end zone.

Bryan couldn't get his players near enough to thwart the score and on my next turn, Wolfie stood up, moved one space, secured the ball and scored. 

The second half was more mayhem. Eventually I scored a second down following an incredible passage of play, failed dice rolls, fumbles and pure dumb luck!

Bryan was setting up for a pass downfield but went for one more block before he did so. He rolled double skulls, ending his go. My werewolf then blitzed his ball carrier, the ball bounced to two of his players who failed their rolls to take possession of it, before landing on one of my flesh golems.

The golem picked it up, provided a hand-off to the ghoul next to it, which rolled two agility rolls to a) collect the ball, and b) escape the grasp of another player and sprint free. The second agility roll needed to be rolled twice, which it could do because it had the Dodge skill. Then it ran into the end zone.

That proved to be the final score of the game, as there were only two turns left. 

Final Score: Tomb King 0-2 Necromantic Horrors. The weirdos win the Battle of the Undead! 

A week in Bucks - my holiday painting project

I decided to take some paints and a couple of Blood Bowl teams on our holiday to Buckinghamshire. 

I used the game box to pack everything I thought I might need.

I've wanted to paint the Black Orc team for a while now. The team will be called The Big Pink Nightmares and I want their uniforms to be bright pink.

I started off with some basing:

I base-coated Varag, my black orc star player, and my two skaven star players on the first night. Unfortunately this was an old pot of paint and had gone goopy. 

I bought some new white paint in High Wycombe, just some Humbrol acrylic. But it worked nicely as a base coat. I also bought bright, light pink paint made by Vallejo. Games Workshop don't seem to do a pink in the shade I was looking for.

I then discovered the "goblin green" I had brought with me was a bit bright. Fortunately I had a more orcish tone with me so I used that on the orcs. The goblins stayed in the brighter shade though.

Eventually I got most of the team mostly painted. I'm not a great painter but badly painted is better than not painted at all...

I also took my wood elf team with me. They weren't attached to bases yet, so that was the first job. Games Workshop don't make it easy with some figures - they have minimal contact with the base!

Speaking of bases, I only managed to get a base coat of paint on them on them so they might have to play as ghost elves for a while!

But still, it felt like a decent amount of progress over the course of the week.

If you were observant, you might have seen I took the Norse team with me as well. They are still boxed and on their sprues, as I didn't have time to build them. Maybe next holiday...

The dice betrayed us

There's a comic strip I saw where a gamer is explaining all about his different dice. Special dice, collectible dice, rare dice. And then he shows some in a dark and manky box. "And these... these are the dice that betrayed me!"

Bryan and me both had sets of traitorous dice in our Blood Bowl game tonight as roll after roll failed. I had two attempts at dodging and rolled a 1 both times, so the guy trips up and my go was over. Then Bryan rolled double skulls which meant his player lost what should have been an easy block. And so on and so forth. 

In fact, one of my very first dice rolls was also double skulls. For my "star player".

We lost count of the failed attempts to pick up the ball. 

The game ended 0-0. 

We were playing Black Orcs (or 'Blorcs') against Lizard-men again with me taking charge of the Blorcs. Apart from a couple of times when I was able to shove little lizards into the crowd, resulting in their injury, and one roll when I took down the big kroxigor, the dice let me down every time. And Bryan fared no better.

But there was some mayhem along the way.

I've come to the conclusion that in Blood Bowl you aren't playing against your opponent, you're playing against the game itself, which is designed to make you fail heroically (or farcically). Tonight it beat both of us!

Pretty pebble beach balancing

I was lucky enough to go to my favourite beach during our recent week in Gogledd Cymru. One night I played around with some pebbles on the beach. The sun was setting and the light added to the fun.

Silly Lego mischief

At the back of the Lego store in Cardiff there is a 'pick a brick' wall. (Think of pick and mix sweeties and it's the same concept.) Anyone can pick up a cup and fill it with fun Lego pieces. There is an art to packing the cups to get as many pieces in as possible.

I often stroll past the hoppers of Lego bits to see what's available. Currently they have cloud shaped pieces (which Lego fans will recognise as the figurine bases from the Unikitty blind-bag range) and they also have eyeballs. And, um, yeah...

I originally only made one of these, but then Cathy found the other eye shapes so we ended up with two little characters. While grey, is probably a suitable 'sky' colour for Cardiffians, Cathy thought it looked dull, so I moved my cloud people to the hopper full of aquamarine bits.

It just shows how much fan can be had with just a few pieces of Lego.