Assault Group Appreciation

I mentioned the shirt in my last post as a good thing that happened in June. Something else that I really appreciated, beside Fran's awesome shirt, was this magnificent little 28mm pasha/sultan guy that came in the post from The Assault Group.

I can't recall how I learned about it, but I participated in The Assault Group's recent promotion (still running, as far as I can see from their website), to like them on Facebook and receive a free mini of one's choice in return. This sort of marketing is done all the time by big corporations, but for a small miniature manufacturer, it struck me as both creative, generous, and risky.

I wasn't familiar with TAG but, like everyone else, I can't resist a freebie and took part in their promotion. I had requested a German WW2 figure for my Weird War project, but I was delighted to get this fellow from their Renaissance range, as he will go well with an Ottoman army I started collecting some years back as an adversary for my SYW Russians. Besides, it seemed churlish to go back to TAG and say you sent me the wrong free figure. He'll do just fine.

Accompanying the figure was a letter from Pete at TAG, thanking me for my interest, and giving me a 10% discount good for one year at their webstore, or "indefinably" (I think Pete meant indefinitely) if I wished to contact him directly.

So thanks, Pete. I really admire what TAG has done with this promotion, I like what you've shown me of your products, and I will definitely buy some figures off you using your kind discount. I recommend TAG to the good readers of this blog.

Cheers, Mike

Not A Sausage In June, But A Nice Shirt

It's been bloody forever since I touched a paint brush, except for yesterday, during my lunch hour at work, so maybe that, and today's post, counts as breaking my slump. Travel, work, and a touch of what the medievals called accidia, or in good old fashioned English - sloth, have kept me much from the hobby. My painting project in June was to paint the fence around my backyard, which was in an appalling state, and all had to be scraped first. Well, still has to be scraped, really, since I've only managed to do one side, working the odd hour in the evening or all of the Monday of the Canada Day weekend. It's not great fun, and I'd rather be prepping little men, but when it's done at night, a beer and a half hour playing baseball on the PS3 is all I'm good for.

The scraped fence thus far. Anyone want to come help? There's a beer in it for you!

One good thing that happened in June was a shirt exchange with Fran, The Angry Lurker, who had designed some smashing shirts for his group of UK gamers, Posties' Rejects. There is a bit of a Canadian connection with the Posties, because my fellow Canuck blogger, Curt, of Analogue Hobbies fame actually made it over to the UK and played in a game with the Posties this spring. So when I proposed to Fran that I swap him a quality Canadian Forces shirt for a Posties shirt, I felt it was appropriate to have Canadian Chapter put on the back of mine.

Me with the shirt. Definitely the handsomest of the Rejects. Again with the fence!

Such a lot of silver hair. I didn't think I was that old.

Old, and mad.

This shirt goes into a special part of my wardrobe, beside Hot Lead red staff shirt and a rare Too Fat Lardies golf shirt. My son tells me that only an enormous geek would collect wargaming shirts. I tell him I'm not that enormous. So hopefully I'll get the chance to wear this shirt at a game or two soon, and that getting this post up will break the chains of lethargy and get me back to my paint bench ... in an old shirt, because I'm sloppy with paint.