Blood Bowl painting update

Dear reader. Today's blog forms two parts. The first is a quick painting update, and the second is a tactical question on team building. 

Painting bums

Here are the four lineman I have painted since Sunday evening. As you can see, there is a range of dynamic poses that really give off what it means to be a fast paced passing team. 

What you may be able to notice is that they are painted slightly differently. The two on the right have more extreme highlights on them, and consequently extra washes to thin it down. The two on the left (your left, not theirs) have slightly more muted highlights, and therefore only one coat of liquid skill. 

As you can see from this bum photograph, the two on the right (your right) have slightly more extremely highlighted glutes. The left sided models have slightly more muted cheeks and muscles. 

In a larger army this wouldn't be a problem, but when it's 11-14 (optomistically, I mean I am a wood elf player!) players im nervous that it might show up a bit more. Hopefully in the hustle and bustle of professional sports it won't be noticed, and can be put down to the washing powder. Ironically, the next two models are a different form of highlighting again!

Building a team roster 

Having partially read the version of the competiton rules we are playing (catchy named "Blood bowl competiton rules") it seems that fan factor has both less and more impact that before. Now you add your FAME to many of the dice rolls, (including the gate, some of the kick of results) which you only get if you have more fans basically. So if you don't have enough fan factor it's worthless, but there doesn't appear to be much benefit to spending say, 50,000 on it, like there was before. I am missing something? What do people think?

Blood Blood: The Juggernaut Shield

Dear readers! Please join me on a trip down memory lane, to a time when games workshop made the best miniature games in the world. To a time when there were cool, characterful comments in the rule books, and to when fanatic existed (shout out if you remember that!) To the time of Blood Bowl.

On the coming weekend we have a Blood Bowl round robin tournament. Potentially 8 games of what the real fantasy football is.

In preparation for this, I turned my parents house upside down lookin for my original wood elves team. And I found them. So I thought I'd do a quick painting update to let you know where I've got to. 

This is what they looked like when I got them home. Some classic painting from 2000-2005 in this box. As you can see, the team was halfway through a repaint anyways, with the yellow ones slowly replacing the purple and blue colour scheme. 

Alas, as much as nostalgia filled my being when looking at these models, we'd agreed to push ourselves with the painting a bit. This is because following BWX we noticed that whilst we took 3 spaces in the top 10, we weren't competing as hard as in the painting side of the hobby. It's something we want to sharpen ourselves up on this year.  

So without further ado, here are some sharper Wood Elves.

First off, one of my war dancers. He's featured before but is now complete. Really pleased with the fact he's only got one foot on the ground, it gives him a real sense of movement. 

A Catcher - with fancy painted line on the base

Some linemen. These guys are the mainstay workhorses of any team, but costing 70,000 each this even more so for Wood Elves. 

I'm pleased with how all of these have turned out. They are better painted than my most recent howling griffons, but I do feel like because the colour scheme is simpler that they've taken less effort. The bases in particular are something I'm really pleased with. They look like boggy, churned up Rugby (for my non British readers that's American football without any padding or helmets) pitches. Exactly the look I was going for. 

So this is a 5 done, 8 to go in 5 days post. I'd better get back to it! 

Harry Potter Monopoly - Darksun Life Vol. 11

Whilst this post isn't entirely toy soldiers related, I thought it was cool enough to be included. For Christmas, I made my wife Harry Potter Monopoly! You can't buy it, it doesn't exist, so I'm quite pleased with how it turned out!

As somebody who glues and paints for a hobby, the process was reasonably easy. It actually went quite well once i'd put myself in the zone, the same as if I were taking on a big modeling project. The main thing i learnt was to take my time.

If you know somebody that likes Harry Potter and Monopoly, then head to over this guys blog: http://collettcreative.com/how-to-make-harry-potter-monopoly/. All the free PDFs I used are there. Obviously, I dont hold any of the copyrights so don't sell this, do try and make money out of it blah blah blah.

As a gamer I really enjoy most types of board game, from Ticket to Ride to Articulate. (and others that dont have the letter "tic" in them!). If you're looking for a new one to try, I'd recommend Love Letter. Its a simple game of guessing set within a medieval court. Lots of fun, and near infinite replay-a-bility.

A dangerous way to play

Eisenhorn Gameplay Trailer

In all honesty, I didn't even know this was a thing! But apparently GW are allowing somebody to make an Eisenhorn PC game. I love the Eisenhorn books, I have some of the original paperbacks, signed by Dan Abnett himself, so I'm in the target market for this game!


Having now watched the trailer, my observations would be that its quite a dark trailer. And by that I don't mean grimdark, I mean hard to see. I don't know if its the setting of my work PC, but I was struggling to see what was going on. I'm sure you could adjust that though. It also looks quite a bit like the Space Marine game mixed with Assassins Creed. Stealth with button bashing.


Inspite of these two things, I'm cautiously optimistic about it. If my PC/ Xbox 360 will run it, I might consider it. Those books were one of the things that really got me into the 40k universe in a big way, and I did quite enjoy Space Marine and Firewarrior. Im not a massive Assassins creed fan, but I suppose you've got to use different tactics if you're an Inquisitor compared with being a Battle Brother of the Adeptus Astartes.....

2016 Hobby Resolutions

It's 2016! I wanted to set down some goals for my hobby. I've been really looking forwards to this post, because people keep asking me about what my resolutions for 2016 are and I don't have much to say that isn't related to war gaming. So hopefully this post will be good!

Bolt action 

I received some flak for my dismissive comments about bolt action. So I thought I'd better put it on the to do list for 2016! For my brits Id like to conservatively aim for the following:

1. Having painted the 20/30 models I have assembled (inc 1 tank)
2. Assemble the commandoes that I have (should take my army to around 50 men)
3. Become competent at the game. I've not played very much and I'd like to have a reasonable grasp at it! 

Not much to aim for, but at the moment I've only played 2 games and haven't painted a single model. Part of me is really tempted to paint them all wrong. Eg pink and purple, or with American squad markings. My hope would be is that it would be to much for the historical pedants. But I don't know if I could take them being to far off the beaten track!

40k

A lot has changed for 40k in the last 12 months. What can we expect in the next 12?! In all honestly it makes me a bit nervous. Games workshop's approach to 40k at the moment appears to be something of a blender that you put your debit card in. And can only pick out whilst the aforementioned kitchen applicance is on. Heaven forbid you ask to adjust the speed (ruleset) or to mix it yourself (trying to balance the game). 

With that badly mangled metaphor in mind, here is what I'd like to achieve in 2016 for my 40k:

1. Attend at least two 40k tournaments (should be easy with fluffagedon and double trouble). 
2. Sell my space wolves. An odd goal, but with the vague prospect of games workshop blowing up 40k in the same way that they did with fantasy, I don't need 4 full sized 40k armies. 
3. Paint some stuff (see below). 

X-wing 

Yes, X-wing. Pew pew pew. I've really fallen in love with X-wing over the last 12 months. It flirts with being my primary hobby system, which is something I never thought would happen. How nieve of me! Here are my X-wing goals for 2016:

1. Attend at least 3 weekend warlord events this year. 
2. Attend 1-2 store championships. How refreshing that the games developer supports structured tournament play!
3. Start an imperial fleet. Dangerous, (especially for my wallet!) I know. But I think I'd quite like an imperial fleet. I'm thinking triple ace or tie swarm. I'm sure I'll be terrible at flying it!
4. Run a version of the outryder cup between Leicester sabres, weekend warlords and somebody else. It's basically a team event where you pair against other stores/clubs. (More on this in another post)

Vlogging

It's going well! 10 so far. I'd like to get to 50 vlogs this year, and 200 blog posts. That's about 2 posts a week of some nature - I'll be signposting the vlogs on here so in terms of content it's not to daunting. Hopefully more painting, more tourney reports, and maybe branching out to the other areas of my life occasionally as well! 

Everything else

I've got a blood bowl tournament on my birthday weekend that I'm really looking forwards to. But to compete, I still have 9-10 men to paint. Better get a move on with that then! I don't know how good I'm gonna do, but being wood elves I'm aiming for 16 touchdowns over 8 games. And being wood elves, not end up with my whole team dead!

Painting

So, instead of listing the stuff in each of their areas I thought I'd do a list here:

1. Paint my whirlwind
2. Complete a second thunderfire cannon & techmarine
3. Paint more bikes for 40k, so that I have enough to field 10 bikes plus a captain/ librarian. 
4. Paint my bolt action stuff
5. Paint IG-88s for X-wing (a specific goal within number 9)
6. Paint my old models that I've found
7. Paint my blood bowl team. (Needed by the 16th of January!)
8. Paint commissar yarrick
9. Get up to date with the Horus heresy stories. (Possibly a laughable goal, we'll see!)
10. Have all my small and large base ships painted for X-wing by the end of the year

So, that's all in all a good collection of things to aim for! 

2015 in review

Love a good graph!

Back to Blogging
Since I rebooted my blog, in October I've been averaging just over 1000 views a month. I'm reasonably happy with that, although in April this year my blog got 800 hits by itself! I've got plugged into two networks (40k kings and international house of paincakes) and they've bumped my hits up a bit. plus I've been putting it on twitter and Facebook groups as well. I'm not obsessed with page views, but I need to figure out more networks to be a part of and how to keep people coming back. Does anybody have any suggestions? 

40k

I think my 40k year has gone well. Painting wise, I now have a decent sized howling griffons army. A big step up from splashing them with salamanders. Gaming wise, I've survived the choppy last 12 months reasonably well, only "needing" one new codex. That doesnt mean to say i havent bought models, but as much as i can i try not to buy directly from GW. At least if i buy from a FLGS then it gets a cut, or from ebay where im helping the secondhand market.

They did not hit that flyer at all

I'm still a bit nervous that games workshop are going to blow up 40k like how they did with fantasy, but if they do that I'll just keep playing 7th ed. I feel tactically I've improved quite a bit, thou I am still slow at playing the game I'm speeding up little by little. I wouldn't say I win every game by any stretch but in 40k tournaments this year I have had a very happy return- Winning 9 and drawing 2. I'll expand more on the competitive and painting side of things below. 

X-wing 

2015 was a year where I really took the plunge into a new games system for the first time in a long time - X-wing. Not since 2010 when I played warhammer fantasy have I tried a new non-40k system in any depth and never have I picked up a non games workshop game. It turned out to be a great boon for my hobby, giving it a new lease of life as well as a new concern for my wallet. In general, the reason I would now recommend maintaining a second different system to anybody is variety. Having to think differently has really developed my tactical thinking, allowing me to see beyond the you go / I go 40k-ness. 

This is what it feels like to play X-wing

In addition to this, X-wing is a great game and I love it! The rules make sense, there isn't really any opportunity to abuse loopholes and there isn't the laziness that games workshop are guilty of with thier ruleset.

Bolt action 

Whilst yet to feature in a blog post, I do have fledgling bolt action force. British army, with some paratroopers. My main problem is that they are very fiddly to put together. I really like the ruleset, and the idea of having some sort of historical wargame. I also quit enjoyed the rule book (I know that sounds odd!) But it is currently third choice, especially when it comes to wallet or painting. 

I don't know where this will go in 2016, a lot of the guys at my club (leciester sabres) have it - in fact they very generously gave me a free hit of plastic crack to get me into it. It's just not grabbing me as much right now.

Vlogging

Something I've been trying out this year, and it seems to have gone well. Part of the reason i got back into blogging actually, I felt the two tied together quite nicely. My top viewed vlogs so far are my review of the x-wing mat i bought and my k-wing repaint. Overall, id rate this as a success. It's been positively received and is a good way to interact with people - be that those i see regularly or hardly at all.

In the new year i'd like to expand a bit, maybe doing more tournament reports, and prehaps the odd battlle report. its quite difficult to keep fresh actually, being in front of a camera puts you under a bit of pressure! I think generally speaking they've improved dramatically even over the last 10. If there is anything you'd like to see, let me know and i'll see if i can vlog about it :)

Us at BWX (me on the far left)

Tournaments 

Ive had a reasonably successful 2015 tournament wise, having used many relationship points to attend tourneys far and wide (doesn't help when you play more than 1 system let me tell you!) I did reasonably well, finally getting the monkey off my back and placing in the top 3 on a couple of occasions (something I've never done). Here's a summary breakdown:

1. Placed 3rd for 40k in the student nationals 
2. Placed 4th and 14th at blog wars 9 + 10. (It also means that I only ever lost 1 game at blog wars tournaments, and that was my first ever game. Damn space monkeys!) so my total return at blog wars was W16, L1, D1 across 6 events. 
3. Attended 2 X-wing store championships, making the cut the first time and then getting knocked out. That means I ended up somewhere between 5th and 8th out of 32. For the second one I came like 7th out of 8 ppl. 
4. Place 3rd in an X-wing store competition in November at weekend warlords in Loughborough. Gotta love tlts :)

I feel likes there are more events that I've gone to but I can't remember. That's 6 at least! Blog wars are the still the highlight in my calendar, and it's really nice accross the events to meet new people and catch up with old friends from other blogs. I'm really looking forwards to Double Trouble that alex is planning to run in 2016.

 

Painting

Not really sure how I got on with this one. I pretty much paint as my main pastime now so I'm painting almost everyday. I didn't set any specific goals but I feel like I've moved away from being the guy who is proxying unpainted models so much. At least in my mind anyway. 

I know I've painted loads (probly most of my howling griffons army) but I didn't have a to do list. I haven't operated like that for a long time, I'm much more a buy it, paint it, buy the next thing kinda guy. So actually I paint for the love of it. I'm going to try making a list for 2016, but I then might ignore it on a day to day basis as I think it'll add pressure. 

Until I went home and grabbed a bunch of old models from boxes at my parents, I didn't have a list of models that I wanted to paint. I do now! Most of them won't serve any key game purpose but are cool models, such old games day models - I even found a model from the "skullz" campaign that they did.

So there we have it! Tune in over the next few days to catch a look at what ive got planned for 2016 :)

Refurbishing some old classics

So, I've been clearing out my old models in search of anything that needs love. Some of the stuff I've ebayed, but these guys were way to cool to get rid of.theyve all spent most of the last month in a vat of nail polish remover and are now ready to be painted. 

 I thought I'd share with you about them and make them part of my "to paint in 2016". I'll be doing a proper post on that but this is a more detailed look at these models. 

First off, this games day model! From the early 2000s I think, this guy is not great under 40k rules as he has a powerfist. I also don't think I ever had is right hand, but that's a simple conversion. I'm looking forwards to putting this guy back to his former glory. Even if I don't really want to ever take a space marine captain on foot lol. 

Rolling out another classic, this banner bearer is a metal equivalent of my current banner bearer. I've got the cross piece for the top of the pole so I can make a banner for him but I don't know what design to go with! Do I say that the first one is the chapter banner or that this guy is? I'll have to take a look at that. 

Another grizzeled veteran here. Perhaps a drill Sargent or a the guy who trains the new recruits. I'm wondering if I should paint him up to somehow represent that. "He's normally on the fortress monestry but for this battle he's out on the front line" kind of thing. Or maybe he's just a tactical squad Sargent. 

I also found and cleaned up a culexus assassin. I never found the assassins easy to paint. It's just black after all! But hopefully that'll come out ok. 

So there we have it! What gems have you found recently? I've been at my parents this week for baby Jesus day and I've found a whole host of goodies!