Off Piste

So already this item is not about Baroque, let alone Bronze Age, even the Normans of my first post for that matter!

I picked up two excellent buys on ebay over Christmas.

The first was “Snowtails” a boardgame. The second “Memoir 44” again a board game. Yes there was no mention of board games in my blog purpose, but hear me out.

The origin of these purchases is due to my figure painting habits. Having found I paint best while listening to some background sound – I can’t paint to a tv programme/video stream though – I settled on some classical music simply because it really is great “background” music that can be ignored! My painting rates improved no end. And somewhere along the line I discovered podcasts by meeples and miniatures, and after some initial reservations I started using them for background instead and my painting rates improved again. It should be said my painting rates are very slow anyway.

During one meeples show Neil Schuck read out an email from a listener who had gone back through all the old podcasts in the site archive – a few hundred in all!

My interest was fired up as I waited for the latest edition of meeples, switching back to classical music for infill. So I started with episode No.1. And the painting got better again. The early episodes are obviously dated in terms of current news being 2006 era! But the reviews of games and figures are only dated in terms of if their out of production ranges. And I liked the simple early podcasts which were uncomplicated. Later ones actually got harder to paint to as I kept stopping to relisten to something or write a note. The guest sessions being the worst or best depending on which way you look at it.

By the time I got to episode 61 “snowtails and memoir 44” were clear winners for Neil. And on the strength of a 10 year old recommendation I went shopping only to discover that “snowtails” was very expensive even secondhand.

Boardgames I have always enjoyed in a non wargaming setting except for kingmaker which was very playable with people not interested in wargames. I got lucky with a snowtails nearly new copy starting on auction at £1 and a few days later a memoire 44 going at £5 as well. I bid for both and with limited bidders the prices only crept up as Christmas approached. I was determined to have both so put in my top price at the start. Eventually I won both with a few pounds to spare. Snowtails went for £25 and memoire for £32 (ok so brand new memoir 44 was going for £40 elsewhere on ebay) still I thought it was worth the effort.

Both arrived promptly and the contents were fine.

Neither are in my wargaming period but were the result of my painting habits changing. Thanks to meeples and miniatures and Neil Schuck.