Its all Dan’s fault

And this time I’m not just talking about Warmachine. You see young Mr Currey came up with an idea earlier in the year. This idea was for a group (a club if you like) to bring very active individuals from gaming community together to do stuff outside of their clubs.

A club for the dispossessed and overly enthusiastic of us; who want to do stuff beyond our own local communities. Dan’s enthusiasm being infectious, it wasn’t long before there was a Facebook group, a club, a blog, and an event. Thus, the Legion of Snake Eyes was born!

So what is Legion? It is a group of gaming activists, a group that will hopefully enable us to run and do stuff we cannot do alone. A good example is our first event, Where Sleeping Gods Lie. This is not a project my home club would be interested in, however by banding together, myself and two other activists can run this.

Where is it? Everywhere! Although we are in theory a UK based group, there is nothing to stop us having members in other countries.

Who can join? Anyone over 18 years old, if invited. Being a bit of an old boys (and girls) club, membership is by invitation only and only to individuals of good standing in the community. In practice, this means if we like you, you can join.

In short, Legion is there to enable like-minded gaming activists to do what they want to do.

Cool huh?

I May Have Been A Bit Rash…

OK, firstly, its been a while since my last post on this blog. They are some good reasons for this which I may or may not cover during the course of this ramble.

Next Thursday, I have a couple of good friends visiting for a game of Warmachine. This is obviously not earth shattering news (unless you can’t believe I actually have friends); however it has set a deadline for painting some of my Cygnar.

Why? Well, I’m one of these crazy people that insists on painting every single model before playing with it. No game seems as real or excites my imagination without little PAINTED toy soldiers on a table with nice scenery. This is unfortunate as it takes me ages to paint anything.

I could blame the crazy job that leaves me travelling around Europe all the time, or the family which with young kids is also very demanding. However those would just be excuses. The truth is, I’m a slow painter. My steadily deteriorating eyesight doesn’t help and neither did Halo: Reach (excellent game by the way); but even still, it takes a long time for me to paint anything.

This is where deadlines like tournaments are great. The only reason my Blood Angels, and in particular the latest addition, a Typhoon, were finished was because of A Small Matter of Honour and Calnage.

The aim is to paint little and often. So, by next Thursday I’ll have 15 points of Cygnar painted and finished. Hopefully.

For the record, I have started tonight by painting the kitchen…

In other news, myself and a couple of conspirators are planning a Warhammer 400000 campaign weekend next year under the working title “Lost Stars”. The emphasis will very much be on a fun style of gaming and it will probably use a 1500 point doubles format. More details will follow once we’ve actually got organised.

In the meantime, if you like 40K doubles, there are still tickets available for the GCN South Champion of Champions tournament, being hosted by Spiky Club in Reading on the 14th November. Cruise over to their website if you are interested!

Painting Inside Out

Last week whilst I was out of the country (bored and in a hotel room) I started to listen to Precinct Omega Hobby Podcast. The guy running this, Robey, is among other things, is a Gaming Club Network Rep and runs his own painting business.

Whilst I’m quite a gristled hobby veteran (I’ve even won a couple of best painted army prizes) I did pick up one surprisingly useful tip which I’ve missed in all the years I’ve been in the hobby.

When base coating a model, Robey divides the model into layers, painting the inner most layer and working his way outwards. So for example on an eldar head, you would start on the recessed faceplate before basecoating the rest of the helmet. The advantage of this method is you can be quite rough with the inner most layers, tidying up your painting as you go along.

In fairness I sometimes paint in a similar way, but I don’t normal follow that exact logic. However, I’ve just tried it on a dire avenger exarch and it certainly seemed to speed up the base coating stage. This is one technique I think I’ll be using again.

The second tip is one I do anyway and is vital for my painting projects (especially at the speed I paint). When I’m painting a new army I always put together a painting guide showing the exact paints I’m using. This makes it very easy to replicate the same style and scheme time after time so the army looks consistent.

The piccie to the right shows the (in progress) guide I’m using for my new eldar army.

Finally, moving away from the painting side of the hobby, I owe my father an apology (like he is ever going to read this blog). The dice made by Blatchfords for their 120th anniversary are actually made from (military grade) aluminium. Happily as Warmachine does not require many dice, the three gold plated D6s my dad dropped round today will do quite nicely.

Robots, more robots!

Well, I finally done it, I’ve defected to a game system not printed by Games Workshop. This is partly because I’ve become disillusioned by Warhammer Fantasy over the last couple of years and I really can’t face relearning the rules, again.

The other reason is because I much as I love Warhammer 40000 (tanks = good), I really fancied getting into another system. I’m really not inspired by anything historical so the search began…

After a bit of nosing, I’ve picked up a copy of Warmachine today. Why? Well some of the models are really really pretty. The rules are geared towards very aggressive, hero driven games. And finally, it has giant robots. What’s not to like?

Also as a long term fan of Final Fantasy, the Iron Kingdoms background borrows more than a little from the FF series which kind of makes it work for me. As a consequence, I shall be referring to my warcaster as Cid.

Having a flick through the Prime rulebook, I have to say I’m very impressed. Privateer Press have produced a top notch full colour rulebook with some fantastic artwork. I’m aiming to have a proper read of this and the <@£$%” faction book, this week before going to Battlegroup South next Saturday to buy some toys.

On a completely different subject, I’ve also managed to do a bit more painting so I now have two dire avengers finished! I’ll upload some piccies once the finished the squad, however it may take a while…

Hobby On The Move (and cool dice)

Like many people, I travel a lot for work. This is not helped by the fact my office is a 1000km away from my home. Although some of my free time away tends to be taken up with business stuff, I also spend a good portion bored in hotel rooms (normally updating my blog, reading, etc).

To try and make a bit more progress on my eldar (it is painfully slow at the moment), I’ve put together a little painting kit to haul around on my travels. This is based on the rather excellent Feldherr MINI case which fits very nicely in the bottom of my laptop bag.

This little lot went over to France last week which was great, but the big thing will be to take it to Sweden this coming week. Unfortunately this means getting through airport security which could be entertaining.

Of course all this said, my kids gave me a new book for Fathers Day(Unseen Academicals by Sir Pratchett) so that might go instead. Oh, and I must remember to ask how Sweden are doing in the World Cup (according to my Danish boss).

On a completely different subject, Blatchfords (the prosthetic limb people) celebrated their 120th anniversary this weekend. As part of the festivities the guys in their machine shop made some steel dice, and thanks to my father, I have two of these special D6s. As far I as can tell these are perfectly weighted.

Ideal as leadership dice for my Blood Angels. Unfortunately the chances of getting ten of these in teal for my eldar is slight to say the least!

Campaign Weekends

On the way back from Birmingham Games Expo a few weeks ago, myself and Dan Currey (from Bracknell Forest Gamers) got talking about past events we really enjoyed.

Whilst tournaments are enormous fun, all the events and gaming moments that really struck in our minds were campaign weekends.

To put this into context, both Dan and myself are veterans of the Warhammer 40000 hobby and have run loads of tournaments and club events over the years. However, some years ago we were also heavily involved in several of Games Workshop’s Dark Stars campaign weekends, all but writing and running large parts of the Sabbat Crusade and Medusa V events at Warhammer World; plus running several spin off events in other parts of the country.

With the twists, turns, heroes and villains these campaign weekends supplied moments we treasure even now. Whilst the Tempus Fugitives have taken the mantle at Warhammer World and have been running some great events of their own, we both fancied returning to this type of narrative event; despite the huge workload to do one properly.

So far I have a story outline typed up and an idea of the factions involved. The format will probably take something from the doubles events we are running and we will add some new units into the pack(although not too many). Rather than a computer generated map (like the one above from the Sabbat Crusade), I really like the idea of using a physical campaign map so that will be another difference.

Anyway watch this space, hopefully (real lives allowing) we can get something together!

Enforced Hobby Break

I’m in Copenhagen this week for work, and if you think GW's toys are expensive at home, you should see the prices in DKK. Still, there's a few good game shops here (including Faraos Cigarer) and lots of stuff we do not normally see in the United Kingdom.

Whilst here, I’ve picked up a small Feldherr figure case to carry my latest painting project (and paints). It fits very nicely into the bottom of my laptop bag although I’m not sure how well this will work because I fly a lot. However I’m going to give it a try next week!

The Mini case itself is a lovely place of kit and very nicely put together with a address tag slot on the side. Mine came with two 16 figure 25mm mini trays and is the limited edition Deluxe version (pictured above).

Unfortunately it is the wrong shape to fit in my GW Apocalypse bag (I have a KR Aquilla which fits perfectly into one of the pockets). However the intent is to use it in a rucksack or one of the messenger bags I have. In either case, it leaves plenty of room for lunch or a small box with a tank inside.

If you are after something a little bigger, Feldherr do a four tray version called the Mini Plus. This will hold up to 64 infantry models and has a handle of the side. Again, good to throw into a rucksack, however the shape feels a bit weird.  Up from this is the Medium case which is their answer to the GW hard case. This looks really nice, has a pocket for rulebooks on the front and a shoulder strap.

I’m also going to start re-reading "A Thousand Sons" on the way home tomorrow. Since starting this job (which involves a bit of travelling), I’ve found a good book invaluable to pass the time on aeroplanes. And unlike the MP3 player, they don’t have to be switched off during take off and landing.

Hopefully this weekend I can get to some of the hobby stuff!