What did you do today.

[The Other Dave]

Nice! I've also been making a list of all the stuff I want to get at UK GW prices when I'm in Oxford next week. Eh, the students will be fine by themselves. Crusty old buildings? Meh. I just need to get to that juicy 40-50% currency markup discount! And yeah, I'm definitely picking up the WarCry cards for orcs, goblins and stormcast, and got the ebook of the manual this past weekend. The Ichinomiya shop owner ordered an English version of the core set with me in mind as well, so that's calling my name.

(I'm also looking forward to daytime highs of 21 degrees.)

[Jaghatai_Khan]

As an Irishman, I never thought 21 degrees would sound so mercifully cool.

Enjoy the shopping! My brother's coming to visit in a couple of weeks and he's hauling over a few things for me. The plastic smuggling racket is alive and well!

[Primarch]

I managed a few hours of painting today. I got a bunch of minis 99% finished, just need to add some flock and got some work done on some other figures that have been stalled on my workbench for a while now.

[Primarch]

So I got some minis finished last night and here they are.

A Giant for D&D. He's a chunky fellow, that's a 3" base he's standing on.

Some random figures for D&D. An undead monk, a wizard, a knight and a goblin champion.

And my first unit of dwarves for a Dragon Rampant force. The models come from Northstar's Oathmark range.

[YellowStreak]

Nice work Prim - is that "brave" Sir Robin's shield I see?

[The Other Dave]

Today I got back from my trip shepherding exchange students to Oxford (trip report: central Oxford is kind of crap really, although it has a lot of excellent pubs, but I wasn't prepared for the mind-blowing charmingness of the English countryside; GWUK prices feel really really cheap after living with GWJ prices for so long), and I'll need a day or two to recover from sitting in airplanes for 15-20 hours, but I'm the proud new owner of a couple new warbands for WarCry (with another on the way after I split up the core box I'm getting with a friend), so I have to get cracking. The only question is whether to do creepy face-skinning guys or orcs first.

[ashdevon]

Hey Dave, glad you enjoyed Oxford. I was there not long ago and did a little video on some Tolkien spots. I used to love going on holiday in London with Japanese yen. Always a good deal for GW, nice to pay a price that makes sense for a change. It must have been nice to escape the heat you guys have been having I heard it had been 40 C! Is that right?
I really enjoyed the Oxford tour bus as well as the audio guide which had a lot of info about the town. I've never been on a city tour bus in my life so it was a real novelty and a bit of a laugh. I agree Oxford is not great for modern shopping but it has some amazing historical significance. I would struggle to find something modern to entertain the students as a group there to be honest. Of course there is the Harry Potter gift shops (Groan). Unless they are Inspector Morse fans?
I was impressed to learn about the Bodleian Library or The Stacks which has floors and floors of books below street level. Apparently it takes 3 days to order a book as they have to find it and pull it up by a series of elevators. For every book published in the UK they have to hold a free copy here for reference purposes. Oxford always reminds me of Altdorf from Warhammer, Terry Pratchett's college of magic or that place in GOT where Samwell Tarley goes to study with the Maesters. I was really impressed by the place.
There is a really good bookshop called Blackwells with wall to wall Tolkien and C.S Lewis displays. The tourist information runs Phillip Pullman and Harry Potter tours daily. Tolkien tours are less often so I made my own one with a guide book. I did meet a relative of a friend of Tolkiens working in the tourist info. Her grandfather had served at the front with him in WW1. Being the fanboy I am I had her sign my tour guide. Tolkien and C.S.Lewis's grave are situated outside of the town but are possible to reach by bus. I wish I had known you were going! I've only just seen this post. This is all useless info now. Oh well maybe next time. I'm sure the Japanese tour guides had it covered though.
Anyway please enjoy my out and about in Oxford video. So glad you could visit our country and cultural capital of learning. It's a huge honour to know so many tourists from around the world come here.
That's a mean jetlag back and forth between Japan and UK. Rest well my friend.

Oxford Eagle and Child pub and other sights
https://youtu.be/BKy35GwSo0w


Also did some research/sightseeing in Banbury nearby for my ECW project.
https://youtu.be/YFJB7vEvnxU

[ashdevon]

PS

Great painting everyone. Like the D&D miniatures. Great job. Keep it up.

[The Other Dave]

@ash - cool video, thanks! The students are loving it actually - I'm just not big on the "looking at old buildings" brand of tourism (aside, as mentioned, from the inside of pubs). And yes, moving back to 36 degrees after a week at 15 or so has been a bit of a system shock.



Status: loopy on plastic cement fumes, looking at a sliced-up thumb and wondering if these kits needed *quite* so many gates. (And realizing I should have changed my Xacto blade sooner.) I also primed up my Brutes and Unmade, so I should be able to get in on painting them this week.

And I need to make painting progress, because now I'm sitting on 4 WarCry warbands (and one for Shadespire, and the terrain for WarCry and actually Kill Team too) unpainted while the Blackstone expansion with the cool new adventurers, the Underworlds expansion, and Space Marine Heroes 3 (with my new kill team) are all coming out in the next month or so. :flinging money out of my wallet emoji:

[kojibear]

Status: loopy on plastic cement fumes, looking at a sliced-up thumb and wondering if these kits needed *quite* so many gates. (And realizing I should have changed my Xacto blade sooner.)

Welcome back Dave. The country side is really beautiful over there. I agree.

What terrain is that?

@Prim - Having seen the Giant close up, it is a big'un alright! Nicely done, too.