The Not Quite a Year in Review Post

Slightly jumping on the bandwagon (late, again) with this post but thought it better to use it to define a few new goals for the next year.

I've been back into the "hobby" for a little over 6/7 months and it's been a wonderous voyage of (re)discovery. LOADS of new models, some amazing rules for anything you can mention and the blogging of others have kept me stoked throughout. There have been a few dips in motivation and the tedium of painting similar models has got to me once or twice, but I'm still amped on getting things done as best I can. (Except maybe those plastic Skaven, those guys sucked).

Gaming wise - there's only been some rather sad solo games of SoBH and 2ed 40k, and while a blast it's not quite the same as facing off against someone. My scenery needs a bit of work but it's a millions miles away from the stuff I made as a teenager, if I even bothered at all back then!

Orks n Arbites on the rad Deep Cut mat (with my iffy scenery).

Anyhows, a few things I want to do in 2016.

• Keep painting 40k stuff. This past year saw me finish small 250pt warbands of Space Marines, Orks and Adeptus Arbites. I've got a Pirate group coming together but next on the list and (currently in progress) is a small Stealer coven using the Macrocosm minis. Ideally I want to expand these to 500pts and then possibly upwards from there. I snaffled some later age Ork figs from t'bay which should give me a good base for a potential 1000pt army. I'd like to end with at least that and an opposing force by the end of the year.
• Get back into Epic. I have a ton of this stuff and really enjoyed playing it so it's probably about time to dig it out and get it properly painted. I've knocked up a few 1500pts army lists to begin with so I'd like to get those done at least and see where I'm going from there. There is a very active scene for this out there too, and a lot of it in Bristol it seems, so who knows maybe I'll get adventurous and check it out.
• Warbands, warbands, warbands. SoBH is still a great game and I want to keep chipping away at various fantasy stuff until I've got a decent collection that I can pull out at any time and run off a game. I may even learn how to paint Skeletons properly this year too.
• Post Apoc stuff. Get started with this, it a loose aim and will probably end up as a project I work on when I'm sick of the others.
• More Goblin Quest! As the boy nears school age I'm hoping to get him a bit more interested in some gaming stuff. Keeping his attention long enough is tricky. I may have a look at simplifying (even more!) the SoBH rules and see how that goes. Either way more gaming with the boy in 2016n would be rad.
• Play against real live people. Unsure how much of this I will do, it may help if I bite the bullet and sign up to the Oldhammer forum to see who is out there, or just get along somewhere and maybe try a few demo games of something. There has been an idea thrown about of meeting up with Mark and getting a few games at the end of Feb so fingers crossed that will happen.
• Check out some new rules. Not really too important but I do like looking about. Frostgrave is getting plenty of attention and it does look fun, Infinity might be interesting but looks like it gets really involved really quickly.
• Get better with the painting. Again one that will come with time. I need to expand my paint collection a lot more and learn what to do with it (especially yellows). More reading and video watching there I feel.
• Lose weight. Personal one this but I turn 40 in 2017 and I'd like to not be rounder than I am tall by then. Diet fun!

So thats that, it'll no doubt mutate over time but it's a good start. I'm thoroughly enjoying delving back into all this stuff and hope to get deeper in the rabbit hole this year!

Happy New year everyone!

Orctobervember

As usual a day(month) late and a dollar(couple of quid) short. My painting speed ranges from stop to slowslowstop so these fellas have taken me almost 2 months to do. To be fair I lacked a bit of motivation during October, and November was my boys birthday (and seemingly every other child in his pre-school class) so painting time is at a premium. I have avowed to dedicate at least 1 night a week to slapping on some pigment so things may hopefully improve in regards to blog updates.

Quite happy with the big fella, he's going to be the BigBoss of my Nobz mob.

The rest of the Nobz, yep - all from the 2ed box set. Quite fun to paint but I'm not a fan of black undercoats now.

Group shot with added Mekboy (who will be used as a Nob with a Flamer).

Again apologies for terrible photos, one day I will sort out a nice shoot with my proper camera in direct sunlight and do a mega-blog-post of all my painted gubbins. Well at least the stuff I'm happy with.


Anyways - this lot are all part of my 2ed skirmish project - a few warbands of roughly 250pts. Along with the Orcs there will be some Marines, an Adeptus Arbites squad (with added Ogryn "Enforcer"), a pirate/gang squad and a small Genestealer cult made up from old plastic Space Hulk Stealers and the excellent Malignancy miniatures from Macrocosm. Oh and maybe a Chaos Cultist squad too as I just scored some of the new GW figures super cheap on t'bay. If I get all that done before 2020 it'll be a miracle.

All that and I've also sketched out a few warbands for Ganesha Game's Flying Lead rules based on the Vegas Apocalypse books I've been sneakily reading via Scribd at work. These will be semi-post apocalyptic/modern survivor types but I'm struggling to find any figures to represent the Rojos - any tips on Vato-esque minis gratefully recieved!