Tourney time update 29/9/2018

 

With any luck (and a bit of clever scheduling shenanigans) this update will be hitting the blog as I am on my way to the Seeds of Destruction tournament that I mentioned last month.  Organised once more by the terrific team at Vale Renegades, the event is being hosted by the ever fragrant boys and girls at Firestorm Games in beautiful, downtown, Cardiff, Wales.

I will hopefully unless reduced to a salty teared mess be writing a blow by blow account of the tournament in the coming weeks, but at the time of posting almost 90 competitors have entered the running, making it the biggest tournament I will have ever attended.  On top of it being an ITC event, it has also now been classified as an ITC GT – something, I am led to believe, that is a very big deal.  Either way, I’m just chuffed to be going!

Everyone gets FAQ’d!

 

So the Big FAQ finally drops (and on the eve of the big tournament no less!) and it seems to be full of good things for all lovers of balance (or at least the illusion of balance) in our favourite game of toy soldiers.

Having had a very quick read, here is my very biased (T’au’va!) and ill informed first impressions

Painting update 26/9/2018

 

With the upcoming Seeds of Destruction tournament (this Saturday!) occupying most of my meagre painting time, I have been concentrating on trying to bring some of the worst painted elements up to scratch.  Everything in the list is now painted at least, but some bits are bit shabbier than others.  And by bit, I mean a lot.

In that regard, by far the worst unit is my Broadsides, specifically the Railsides.  I painted these a long, long time ago in a country far, far away, with the intention of just getting the first coat done so I could use them on the tabletop with less shame that sprue grey would have bought me.  I always intended to go back and tidy them up, and guess what – it only took just over two years for me to get around to it!

Modeling update 22/9/2018

 

Since we are already more than halfway through the month of September, I though it might be a good idea to try and crack on with this months pledge.  After a coupe of hours determined rummaging in the garage I was able to find the boxes marked geek junk hobby stuff and dig out sufficient items of equipment and sprues to get cracking with the Contemptor Dreadnaught!

Painting update 19/9/2018

 

With all the chaos of moving house I didn’t have time to update the blog with my progress on the Vale of Legions pledge for August.  I may not have posted in time for this blog, but I did manage to make the pledge in time and submit my almost finished HQ, the Centurion Delegatus Consul!

The year of living prudently…

 

When Labour came to power in the late 90s, it was not (as some suspected) a socialist spend fest of epic debt building madness.  Far from it.  In fact, Chancellor Gordon Brown’s buzzword for the first couple of budgets was something much less exciting – prudence.

No, not the name of his mother, pet cat or favourite car.  He meant prudent spending – not spending more than you earn, and in fact spending significantly less so as to try and get the whole economic ship back into shape.  So, ignoring the fact that labour soon tired of this approach and went into full on ‘spend mode’, I have decided to try and live the coming hobby season as prudently as possible.  Here endeth the historically inaccurate and grossly over simplified political commentary for this post.

Tooth and Claw: Unboxing

 

Another week, another juicy Games workshop boxed set.  This week Last week WEEKS AGO we saw the release of Tooth and Claw – a Space Wolves vs Genestealer Cults boxed set, which just happened to arrive during the home packing chaos, building up to the big house move.  I didn’t even have time to open it – it went straight from the postman’s hand and into a box labeled divorce exhibits A-Z Geek stuff.

Now that the hell fun of the move is behind us and we are a bit more settled in, I judge myself to have made sufficient progress unpacking boxes of stuff we need to live (oh toilet paper, where art though?!) and decided I could probably let myself have a few minutes of geek time to peel back the cellophane layer and have a quick gander inside at the juicy contents therein.

The 2018/19 Hobby Season ‘Call to Arms’

 

Dave Weston, of 40kaddict fame, has once more issued his annual call to ‘painting and modeling’ arms, encouraging all of us harbouring a grey tide of embarrassment to get a move on and start making some headway with a proper ‘To Do’ list. You can see Dave’s original post at his blog.

Last year my focus was mainly on building, with only a small amount of painting targeted. That list was also massive and unwieldy and presented me with little hope of completing it. For this year, my main focus will be on trying to get some balance between the painting and the building, as well as setting realistic targets that will give me a sense of achievement as I progress rather than crushing the will to live out of me denting morale before I even begin.