Shhh... Spies Secretly Seeking Stuff, So Someone Snag Soon!

Hey. Hey you.  Yeah you.  Com'ere. You want stuff?  Free stuff? 'Course you do. But don't look at me, I'm not giving anything away, I already did that not long ago, if you missed out ya missed out.  But Anne is giving away stuff, and Pat Hatt is giving away stuff. But you didn't here it from me.  Well you did, but..oh hell, just go check it out before it's too late.

Anne is giving away a whole bunch of prize bundles in her Double Triple Secret Give-Away. 

Something about it that isn't secret is that "This give away is being sponsored in part by author Patrick Hatt. You can find Mr. Hatt's Amazon Writers Page at http://www.amazon.com/Pat-Hatt/e/B00AGFMYVC/."

So what is secret about it?  Well, if that was told, it wouldn't be a secret, sheesh.

This message self destructs at the end of the month.  That's likely to make a mess, so hurry up and go there.

Enjoy!

And the Winners are... & a chance to win from Mr. Lee

Thanks to all the people who took part in the Give-Away contest, those who plugged it and quite a few new followers.  As September 1st draws to a close there are a lot of entry numbers.  In proper gamer-fashion I'm rolling dice to find the winners, using percentile d100 and just re-rolling if the number is higher than the number of entry numbers or if it lands on a person who has already won.

There will be three winners, prize selection determined by choice in order of winning.

To see what the possible prizes are just go here : Contest Starts

And on with the dice rolling... 

First Winner: 

Kasper

Second Winner: 

Michael Audry

Third Winner:

FireyMonkeyBoy

If you won, just email me at  Laughingferret (at) yahoo {dot} com

Tell me your mailing address and your first choice of prize.. which is fine for the first winner: they get their first choice... the second winner, maybe send me your first two choices, in order of preference, and for third winner, your three choices, in order of preference, just in case the person ahead of you picked what you wanted most, won't have to do as much email tag telling you your choice was snagged already and pick another. 

Thanks again everyone! 

Maybe I'll do something like this again for a future big milestone. 

*** Quick Edit: This Just In ***

Mr. Lee of the International Mr.Lee's Emporium of Miniature Spectacle, not to be confused with Mr. Li's Importer of Miniature Spectacles, for all your rodent vision-correcting needs, is having a Give-Away contest too! 

So, did you enter but not win anything from my contest? (Like the aforementioned) 

Then go over to Mr. Lee's Emporium and enter his contest to win something there!  

Go Now!  

The link opens in a new tab, so you can still watch the video below, it's not going anywhere. 

But if you do have a near-sighted mouse, don't let him continue to suffer like this:

Seek out Mr. Li for mouse sized glasses.

But for winning miniatures, go to Mr. Lee

**************************

And for no good reason other than it is fun, and will maybe cheer up those who didn't win a prize, enjoy this classic MST3K short. I doubt any of this advice will help you win a random give-away, or that it will help you in anything else, but it's 11 minutes of your life well spent just the same.

Enjoy!

Step Right Up! The Cure For What Ails You For The Low Cost Of Free! Give-A-Way Starts!

Step right up! Step right up! No matter what ails you we have the cure!
That's right, to a lucky few who are wise enough to obtain Professor L. Ferret's patented, pertinent,  permanent, prescribed potion to unburden the weary woes that is your life.

Stuff!  Stuff my friends.  The tangible tanticularities of the firmament made manifest in your hands.
The sounding stones of the otherwise dubious incertitude of the nature of reality and one's place within.

Stuff.

And it can be yours! Nay, it verily must be yours for the verisimilitude of your peace in existence.
I say this not lightly.  Now, I am no saint.  No sir, no madam. I am but a humble traveler along life's path, blessed with unreasonable good fortune and so I should, no, I must, share this fortune and gift with others.

And so I present you good folk with a chanceful opportunity to receive this elixir of entities of entertainment.
Not for coin, not for dollars nor trade.  I have so much faith in the validity of my claim I offer these oddities freely!

Now, who shall be the first to come forward?

......................................

So I'm not waiting to hit 300 followers, I don't know when that will happen, or if it will, and while I'm close to 500 updates, that's a couple months off I'd expect.  And since the blog hit 200,000 views that seems like a good spot to stop and have a Give-Away!  More of that in a bit, but first, the 200,000 hits analysis:

200,000 Hits! 

If that was 1 hit a year it would go back to the very earliest occurrence of our species! 

First Blogger: 198,000 BCE

200,000 hits: Who's checking in around the globe? 

Just like when I hit 50,000 and 100,000  I also did a bit of digging to find out where the most visits were coming from.

Again, the top 5 countries in (the same as before) order of the most visits was: USA, UK, France, Germany, Australia.  But I don't count raw numbers, it's just not a fair way to do things when some countries have much larger populations.  So, punching numbers for per capita.. the last two times it was: 1.UK, 2.Australia, 3.Denmark

Would it be the same again? Would the home country rise to place, would Australia beat the UK? 

Let's find out!

FIRST PLACE, with an index value of 26:

United Kingdom, for the third time!

SECOND PLACE,with an index value of 25:

New Zealand!  Knocking Australia from her position.

THIRD PLACE, with an index value of 21:

Denmark! Maintaining it's position at 3 for the third time. 

Australia slipped to 4th, followed by Sweden, then Canada, then the US with France just a touch behind. 

I really enjoy finding out all the international visits and hobby goings-on in other places. 

...................................

THE GIVE-AWAY

OK, I promised a contest, so here goes. 

DURATION:

The contest lasts 11 days.  At the end of September 1st, 11:59 PM Pacific time I'll draw it to a close. 

THE PRIZES:

There are 11 items to chose from.  See below for details.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE? 

Anyone who enters. Great if you are a 'follower', but I know some people 'follow' without being a 'follower' because they don't have a google or blogger account.  If you follow by email or by bookmark, that's fine, I'm not here to change how you get about the internet. Winners could be anyone, from friends locally I see fairly regularly to people anywhere on the planet a postal worker can reach: selection is by random chance.

HOW DO I WIN?

You get points for certain things. At the end of the contest I'll add up all the points and generate a random number from the total, if it is one of yours: you win! 

Here's what gets you points:

1 point: Comment on this update. 

1 point: Plug* this contest on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, somewhere else that is appropriate and reference it here in the comments. 

1 point:  In addition to linking to the contest, link to another past update that you like- something you enjoyed or think is useful, interesting, weird, or whatever criteria you have.  Just to get the older stuff noticed again.  Internet & human attention span being what it is, things older than a week tend to get lost, but there could be fun stuff in past updates people hadn't seen. 

* Plug: 

Plug means promote, endorse, refer, link, town-crier, or chicken little it. It does not mean 'pimp'.  

That's a massive pet peeve of mine that I wish would die by fire.  

Pimps are assholes.  Pimps are as low as slavelords. Pimps should have their humanity status revoked.  

The fact this word has come into common usage to mean promote or endorse or make fancy is disgusting. The fact that common culture now seems to admire pimps is repulsive.  Anything that helps make this acceptable I want nothing to do with.  I have nothing against, though no personal interest in, prostitution, but pimps are parasites.  Prostitutes work for a living, they don't abuse and use others as property.  Pimps are not bad because they are associated with prostitution.. they could only aspire to reach such heights: pimps are a rotting fester that sucks the life out of, abuse, and dehumanize human beings. I don't accept taking advantage of other people.

So no 'pimping'. 

If you want to use the word, feel free, it's your right, but if it's associated with this contest all points are lost. 

I know a lot of people use the word without any such intended meaning, so I don't judge people who use it in a casual unthinking way, most who use the term don't give any thought beyond the immediate innocent meaning they intend, but I do think about it, and now I can't help but notice the offensive nature behind it.

The subconscious affect is real, and I'd prefer to not even have a second-hand association with it.

Avoid the word and I'm happy.

Words shape ideas. Ideas shape reality. So I draw the line on that one. 

/soapbox. 

So you can get as many as 3 points.  

I will roll randomly to select at least 3 winners. 

First rolled gets first choice, then second, then third. A person can't win more than one time. 

If there are a lot of entries I may open it up to have more than 3 winners, but there will be at least 3. 

So here are the prizes: 

1. 15mm Sci-Fi transport by GZG (not assembled, pieces placed to show how it looks)

2. Twelve 28mm Mordor Orcs on spru by GW for Lord of the Rings

3. 28mm Blood Bowl Referee (converted & painted by me) and set of Block Dice

4. Six 25mm Pirates by Wargames Foundry

5. Two 28mm Bandidos from Black Scorpion

6. His & Hers 28mm Demon characters from Reaper

7. A whole mess o' dice: wide variety of colors of d6s 2d10, a d16 and a direction die.

(I'll switch out a grey d10 for a second color so they can be used for percentile).

8. The Tolkien Companion. Hardback 531pgs.  A-Z chock full of Tolkien Lore

9. 40k history codex bundle: the first ever codex: Space Wolves (2nd ed), & 3rd ed. ImperialGuard

10. English Reformation. Trade Paperback,367pgs. Lots of info on life during the Tudor times. 

11. The Vampire Encyclopedia. Hardback, 303pgs. A-Z chock full of Vampire Lore.  

Good reference for Horror gaming. 

So 11 choices, hopefully something appealing to everyone. 

Good Luck! 

Brokentooth's Guide to Goblin Greatness: Making Use of Trolls, pt.1

So so young warriors. Next lesson! Who knows what makes us more powerful than Orcs eh?

The pack of goblin scrappers looked around confused... one piped up.."uh, we aint?"

Pah! We are! Sure we're smaller, sure they're big strong brutes, but we have bigger friends and more of them!  Trolls!  And Giants, and half-trolls... Jibberwogs, Gurbenderfs.. and such.  Orcs have some now and then, but not many.. gives em complexes.  See, Orcs so used to being so big & strong, they don't like anything around that makes them feel small.  Makes em uncomturblin. They're very sensitive about such things.. bc they're much small than goblins in the way that counts.. they've got very, very small...brains.

"Ahhh" snickered the rabble of goblins.

Anything that reminds em that they're not so big or biggest puts em off, so Trolls and more come to work for us!  And why not? We're smarter and more clever, can find good uses for them.

Mostly Trolls you'll want to send into the big mobs of big folk, send them flying.. always a good laugh.  And against their knights!  Horses are right scared of Trolls. But Trolls can serve other purposes.  One of my greatest discoveries was realizing that Trolls love to eat goat more than anything else!  But goats fight back, and their horns are right where the most sensitive troll-bits are, so Trolls are reluctant to attack them straight out.  Some hide under bridges, but goats don't cross bridges as often as they used to, so now they tend to throw rocks at them.  Keep a safe distance and smash em good.

Now all we have to do is tell the Trolls the enemy are protecting goats and they're very happy to throw rocks at them all day! Just remember to feed them some goat after the battle or you might get et yourself!

So...let's meet one of my prize rock-throwers! Which of you wants to go for a ride?

......................................

I mentioned in the last Brockentooth's update that I'd show a catapult, but that it might surprise you.  

We'll see if it does. 

TROLLAPULT !

I like the idea of goblins with engines of war, but I couldn't resist something a bit different.  

Goblins are clever.  They're also lazy.  Much easier to get a troll to throw a rock than make a machine and have to lift the rocks yourself to load it! 

I had this Heresy Troll for awhile, without a clear purpose, and glad I hadn't used him before for anything else. He's a big brute. That's a 50mm Square base he's on. 

Ready... aim....

Another nice thing is I could use this as a catapult, or as a lone Troll or maybe even a Giant.  He's bigger than a troll, bit smaller than a giant, so it's a very flexible addition to the Goblin Army. 

I have another similar fellow I'll show later in the week.  I also did break down and order a catapult, which I'll show when I get it and do a review of it.  Looking forward to that. 

Speaking of Trolls and their hunger, for goat or anything else, Melanie from No, Really, You Can Eat It! (and if there was ever a motto for a troll that's got to be it) is having a contest! More blogging freebies? Count me in! Edible?  Even better!  So that was her link there, go check it out, get some recipes and post in her comments so you can get counted for the contest and tell her I sent you, so I get counted too! 

She's also a nearly daily source of great Cat Pictures.  My Cats approve. 

So Go Enter! 

More Goblin Madness to Follow!

Enjoy Colbert's Troll Story (skip to 3:30 to just view that)  Enjoy!

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

Keep Silent? HET ! Spread the word for free stuff & win World War II !

Normally good advice, but not this time!  The word needs to go out! 

For Victory... or at least for Free Stuff!

Now that Mike over at Trouble At T'Mill is turning 50 he's giving away free stuff! 

Whether this is from an early onset of senility due to his obviously advanced age, or he wants to spread the wealth before he shuffles off his coil, since you can't take it with you, this is good news for all of us with open outstretched hands! 

Go visit the Mill here and check out how you can get in on the action. 

The give-away could get you a set of the new WWII rules from Too Fat Lardies, which after listening to the Meeples & Miniatures Podcast episode about the rules I thought they sound very promising. 

Playing Town Crier earns you some extra raffle tickets, so you might have heard this news already, if not, go check it out! 

Picking up new rules is always a good thing!  And apparently safer than picking up other things...

(consider yourself warned)

So go check it out, and pitch in on spreading the message!

And while we're enjoying some WWII propaganda, I noticed the Depressive Diplomatist announced today, August 8th, my Dad's Birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!) is also "Dalek Day"

So Happy Dalek Day!

I Won! & starting to plan for upcoming give-away

Yes!  I Won!

So Long Suckers!  I'm outta here.. heading off to my new castle! 

Wait.  What? Not the castle? Just the land?  

No? So.. the art & furniture inside? 

No? So then... Oh! The library?  Has to be a lot of old valuable items in there..  Oh, just the one book then. 

A checkbook? Ha..haha..ah..no.. right. So... about that whole 'sucker' thing... 

Well, my castle will have to wait, but in the meantime I have a cool new book to read while I wait!

Thanks to Edwin at Thoughts of a Depressive Diplomatist I was greeted by a fun book this week!

His blog is well worth the trip, go visit if you haven't!

Any new item must first pass inspection by the feline border agents. 

Evidently the topics of alternate timelines infuses one with a bright burning internal power. Excellent.

This is the third time I've won something from fellow bloggers since I began this blog, and since I'm heading toward some milestones: close to 300 followers (but hard to know when or if that number will be reached), close to 500 blog entries (a bit easier to predict) and closing in on 200,000 hits (easy to predict) I'll be planning some sort of give-away here too. Though not this book: I won't have finished it in time I'm sure.

So look for a chance for some free goodies in the near future.  No castles though.
If I find one of those, I'm keeping it!

Big & Small: Old & New

Last month I took part in, and got the narrowest of victories in the painting contest on The Warhammer Forum, with my Blood Bowl Apes, and the spoils of victory is to pick the theme for the next contest.

A couple years ago I tried to enter these every month. It was great fun, win or lose (since it's not really the point) and good motivation to paint and do something new or unexpected.  The contests began to suffer from a slow down- taking a very long time between contests, languishing in limbo as it waited weeks for a poll to be put up, and I lost interest since it just didn't seem to be happening. But seems to have renewed interest of late and more timely chugging along, which is great news.

The theme for this time, is 'Dynamic Duo': Two against the world.  So many great iconic characters and stories of two heroes facing impossible odds: Batman & Robin, Legolas & Gimli, Frodo & Sam, Lone Ranger & Tonto, Han & Chewie..I'm sure you can think of a lot of others too.

I'd thought I'd do a couple for Prehistoric Pulp, but then I thought about one of my (many) unstarted projects: the Halflings.  Awhile back I ordered a lot of Warploque Miniature's halflings-because they are awesome- and imagined they'd make a nice fantasy force for games like Songs of Blades & Heroes, or perhaps a fantasy skin of Saga.

I also am a big fan of old Citadel miniatures from the 80's era.  So when I run across a nice one I'll pick it up.

And so my two heroes are born- or, almost- they just need to be painted!

Halfling veteran and his Ogre compatriot.  

These two have a long history and many tales of past battles.  

This Ogre is from 1993, so nearly 20 years separate these two miniatures, but I think they make a great pair!

They have a similar character about them. 

The Ogre I converted a bit. He was supposed to be a standard bearer.  But for a skirmish game, and being possibly the only Ogre to be in the halfling's force, I needed him to take a more active role. 

So I converted the standard into a spear worthy of an Ogre! 

I also de-skullified him.  His medalion had a skull face, and the pommel of his sword was a skull (as is the round thing hanging from a chain off the spear) so I shaved the skull icon off, and filed & rounded out the other two details.  Skulls are fine for chaos marauding ogres, but this fellow has long since settled into life among the halflings and they aren't too keen on such things. 

I'm really looking forward to painting these two up!  

See how good painting contests are?  It's got me to give the first step of attention to a project. 

The contest deadline isn't until November 5th, so if you think of something you have lying around that you've wanted to paint, why not do it?  Any genre is open, so it doesn't have to be fantasy.  Check it out here. 

And in the meantime, if you have any suggestions for names for these two, let me know! :) 

Get Five Free Base Stars!

Five Free Base Stars?

I always wanted a Vyper, but I wouldn't turn down a Base Star.. then again, might be bad if they turn on you

Wait.. that just doesn't sound right..

Oh!

Not Five Free Base Stars.  Free Five Star Bases!  -That makes more sense.
Damn my dyslexia.

Frontline Gamer's sleigh isn't light enough to not crash yet, so more stuff is being given away.
You can put your name into the hat for the bases here: Give Me Free Bases!

So what's the scoop on the bases?

$100 worth of store credit at Dragon Forge Design.

(check out their store for yourself)

So I wasn't kidding about a Five Star rating ...yes out of 5 cheeky gits..I mean, 5 out of 5 stars, not 5 cheeky gits, asking out of how many stars was why I called you a cheeky git, and now you ask if I meant out of 5 cheeky gits? Yet more evidence of why you're a cheeky git.  So anyway...

These are excellent bases. I've used them for a few projects.  The Assyrian-themed Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team used these bases (can find them in the Hall of Fame page tab at the top).  There are a lot of good resin bases for sale out there, and a lot that are not so good, but in my estimation, Dragon Forge makes the best.  Good detail without being so full of detail the mini is hard to place or gets lost, and sculpting & casting are both the best I've used. When I have a need for resin bases I check this source first before any other to see if there is something that will fit the style I'm looking for. 

And to get $100 of anything in the store for free? You'd be mad not to put in for it.

O.K., maybe not quite as cool as getting a Base Star, but still pretty cool. 

Maw Goodness! What Big Teeth You Have!

Least Popular Kissing Booth at the Fair!

But don't let that dissuade you from bringing him home! 

You still have a couple days left to put your name in the hat to get a free Bane Legions Blood Maw!

Details at Frontline Gamer.  He's been going at high speed tossing out free gaming items like Santa in fear his sleigh will crash unless he lightens the load.  

Don't miss out, it's easy: follow his blog, leave a comment, cross your fingers and hope the Blood Maw isn't hungry if he comes to your house. 

This thing is awesome.  It's not just huge, it's very versatile.  Looks like it would be comfy in any gaming setting: fantasy, sci-fi, horror, even work as a godzilla-sized monster in 15mm! 

FF-Fields Competition Results:

Awhile back FF-Fields, a company specializing in creating pitches for your fantasy races' sporting enjoyment, had a contest with several categories:
Best Painted, Conversions, Concept Theme & Best Pro-Painted.

You probably know I'm a big fan of Blood Bowl, and have painted a lot of it.  I kept thinking about what I'd enter.. which team?  which category? Maybe something new... I delayed, hoping I'd find time to finish the conversions for the all-skink team I started awhile back, maybe enter them for Converted or Painted.. but real life laughed at that thought.  Laughed hard: haven't found time to make any progress on that team.
The result? Procrastination and Thoughts Elsewhere saw me not enter a dang thing.
Missed the deadlines altogether.

And yet, I still won!

Well, sort of.

Two other people won, but in the 'Pro-Painted' category, with teams they'd bought from me.

I don't get a prize of course, but I'm just as happy as if I'd won, since, I kind of did.

First Place went to Dan, a great guy from Australia, who commissioned a Chaos Dwarf team late last year.

(Close up picture in the 'Hall of Fame' page: tab at the top of the blog)

He was very happy with the team when he got it, and I'm very happy for him that he got first place and will be getting a custom puzzle pitch for his team! 

Second Place went to another Dan, a friend of mine in California, who bought the Picnic Pillagers when he heard I was going to sell them.  He added to the team later, commissioning a 3rd Treeman to be Deeproot the star player and Puggy Baconbreath.  Since he took a picture of the whole team, I can now replace my old picture in the Hall of Fame, to show the whole team together with the two late arrivals.

(Close up picture in the 'Hall of Fame' page: tab at the top of the blog)

The moral of the story seems to be:

1.  Don't procrastinate
2.  Do enter
3.  Be named Dan. 

You're Too Old For an Easter Basket, But Why Let That Stop You?

Has the Easter Bunny long since stopped delivering baskets to you?
Maybe you're too old.  Or maybe he's just grown concerned with your onset of borderline diabetes.
Well, he's only a rabbit, they have small brains.. what does he know?

Here's a chance to get some free Easter Swag!

Chris, over at Sippin' On Paint Water is doing a bit of a give-away for some Easter Surprises.
Why? He's just a nice guy like that. I know, I won some free bases from him for a naming contest.
And this contest doesn't require any skill or talent. just an ability to make a reply... doesn't even require correct spelling as far as I can tell, so there's really nothing holding anyone back.

Likely he's been sippin' on the Paas Easter Egg dye water, so time to take advantage of his generous disposition!

So go over >Here< and enter! 

Apparently Easter used to be a lot more creepy than it is now. 

We've got some catching up to do. 

2nd Place Pirates

My entry for Hydra Miniatures War Rocket Space Pirate Clan Contest was selected for 2nd place.
I'm quite happy about that!

The contest was for the painted ship as well as the idea and fluff behind the pirate clan.  I also included some rules I came up with for some upgrades, which Hydra has liked enough that some or all (not sure) will be appearing in their upcoming pdf supplement.   I won a Class IV and a Class III ship for when they're released: Free Ships! WhooHoo!  Thank you Hydra Miniatures!

To see the full pictures of the ship and the background and rules visit my blog update for the entry here. 

Visit Hydra Miniatures to see the other winners, both quite cool, and the whole War Rocket game. 

And since it put me in a Gary Numan mood before, might as well continue with another early classic. 

Not as technological, but I could see a good dogfight in space to this...

Brother Can You Spare A Goblin?

Happens all the time. You're walking downtown when a man down on his luck and sitting on the walk looks up at you, hand outstretched and says "Brother, can you spare a goblin?" My heart goes out, as a man rich in minis, my walk-in safe piled high with elves, monsters and spaceships, dwarves and aliens, what's a single goblin to me?

Sure, I could channel Rand and say 'get a hobby you bum' in misguided belief that apathy creates stronger gamers, and those who can't rise to it aren't worth the dice they'd roll anyway.  But I'm just not built this way; my heart bleeds paint. And so I reach into my pocket and give a goblin or two.

Well Tristan over at the Merry Mayhem News blog, which is situated in Portugal I believe -I do love how thoroughly international the gaming community is- is running a Goblin Potluck of sorts for a friend of his.  This was explained on the last Zlurpcast, but he did tell me it was detailed a bit wrong (much like they thought my 'Aslan's Asskickers' team was 'Asian Asskickers': a typo that lead to some pretty wild conclusions) it isn't that one goblin donation will be chosen to win the team, the team will go to the friend and the winner (chosen randomly from all goblin donations) will get a print of an original piece of Blood Bowl art.  There is also a second prize and some extra prizes for people who get up a work in progress picture posted on their blog or a forum or such before Feb 27th.  And the painted gobling isn't due until April 1st, so you have plenty of time to join the fun and make a Blood Bowl goblin.

If you don't win, what does it cost? The price of a goblin, a little time and some postage, but your goblin will join other goblins from around the world.  Personally I get a big kick out of knowing that I have painted minis in 5 continents: it's just fun.  There's still goblin's to be donated, and I doubt he'd turn away others if they get filled, so check it out here:
http://bloodbowlmayhem.blogspot.com/2012/01/give-him-goblin-contest.html

Here's my goblin I made, going for a more dynamic running pose, just built from the standard warhammer plastic goblin kit.  Is he running toward the action or the safety of the bench? Hard to say.