A New Love

As predicted I have fallen in love with the new shiny thing, Gripping Beasts Saga rules have really floated my boat. Historic wargaming has always fascinated me, yet the large amount of figures and the overly complicated rulesets always put me off. Now howevwer I have a skirmish based wargame allowing me to best the Dark Ages best heros against each other.......



On that note anyone want to buy a job lot of Space Marines lol =)

Out With The Old In With The New

So four months without posting anything is a long time, yet in this time my gaming life has completely changed. Following various items issuing from GW I have completely given up on wargaming, I haven't played a game since February, I have also slowed down on my purchases, yet despite all this I do find that the mountain of lead doesn't get any smaller, I seem to have purchased vast quantities of USMC and the Third Reich are threatening to takeover my painting table. Perhaps I should have blogged this all sooner but like being caught in the doldrums, it has taken a while for my mind to reach normality and realise there is more to life than toy soldiers, yet maybe a break is all I needed as last weekend I played a game of WHFB and it was like slipping on a pair of comfortable slippers. Yet I am aware of its overwhelming power, to drag you in and suck the life out of you, its ability to sacrifice you on the altar of the Dice God. Perhaps now I stand stronger, or perhaps not, I am aware that the next big thing will undoubtedly draw me in. I WILL fall in love with a new army or new system, and yet a sense of calm settles over me as I realise that I am not alone. There are thousands like me across the globe and like me they I will just have to shoulder the burden.

To Beer or not to Beer

Now most gamers will freely admit to beer being a large part of their gaming experience, but how much of it? Is it limited to a few drinks between games or do you ritually have a beer with every game? Or does it go further, do you go for a 'session' with the lads afterwards? I know I fall in the latter category, my clubmates would probably say I even go above and beyond that, however that's another story. Lately however recently I have found that it maybe effecting my homelife side of the hobby. Now I would be the first to admit I suffer from that awful disease known as 'shiny thing syndrome' I am not alone in this I know but how many of you find that it's effects magnify when you have a drink or two on a Saturday night? The Sunday morning is like the proverbial walk of shame, you come down the stairs head pounding and all you can think is 'what the fuck did I buy/bid on last night.' or is it worse than that, do you suddenly have models turn up in the post you have no recollection of buying? No oh well it must just be me. Anyway it's all good until my darling wife looks at the bank statement.



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Location:My Ma's

Why do the Dice Gods hate me?

So I played my brother in law again, now he has a limited amount of eldar so I changed the points limit to 750. Guess what I lost again. Now don't get me wrong I'm not moaning about it, it really was a great game a real close match at times. My two terminator squads chewed through three of his five units. I even thought things were going my way when he fluffed most of his 'to hit' rolls in the shooting phases but it wasn't to be. Now a fellow club mate described me on a public forum as the unluckiest man alive, however I'm not sure if this is exactly true. Maybe there is some sort of divine being who watches over all the dice being rolled, but how do I appease him? Is he a loving God who reacts to dice being treated with love and kindness? Or his he a vengeful God who thrives on acts of violence? Should I carry out a ritual sacrifice before each game and slaughter a single D6. Hmmmm that would be an interesting conversation before each game.
Opponent: Why do you have that hammer?
Me: Oh I am going to carry out a sacrifice before we start.
Opponent: Really in that case I forfeit.
Me: Awesome I win.

Now perhaps that is the way forward. :)

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Location:Wetherspoons

Funhammer the Sequel

So I went to my brother in laws for another game of 40k, however this time I upped the points limit to 1500 as it was just the two of us. Big mistake...... To paraphrase Darth Vader the pupil has become the master. Perhaps it is my fault, the first rule of combat is never under estimate your enemy, yet I took a soft list. I may as well have taken a knife to a gunfight. That and the dice gods turned there back on me yet again. (Damn you, you fiends.) Anyways back to the game, it was Seize ground with three objectives and the standard twelve inch deployment. As for lists I took
Belial
5 man Scout squad, Heavy Bolter, 3 Sniper rifles
Two Terminator Squads with Assault Cannons

Dreadnought MultiMelta, Droppod
Two Devastator squads with 4 Missile Launchers
Predator Las-Cannon Sponsoons
Landspeeder Heavy Bolter and Assault Cannon
Like I said a soft list.
Now my oppo took an unexpected foot slogging Eldar list, which had a liitle bit of everything.
Farseer and Warlocks
3 units of Pathfinders (God I hate these when they have a 2 up cover save.)
5 Fire dragins with an Exarch
5 Banshees with an Exarch
5 Dark Reapers with an Exarch and Maugen Ra
Wraith lord
there were various liitle extras for each unit and I hate them all equally :) Now as far as an actual battle report goes that is still beyond me, I still get to involved in the game to take down notes, but the things that stick in my mind are the failure of my Ternies and Dreadnought to come down till turn four, and Pathfinders that would not DIE.........................
Oh well s**t happens, next time I will take a harder list. The gloves are well and truly off.

Funhammer

Now as a gamer I usually play 1750pts using the ETC restrictions, as that's what we use in my local club. Recently though a Friend asked me to teach him to play as he had been given an Eldar army. Now I am no teacher as I have the patience of a....... well something that doesn't have a lot, yet for my mate I agreed. To make my life easy I dragged my brother along and we played a three way 500pt game and what fun it was. It was like finding the game all over again, many people talk about cinematic experiences when they play  yet until this game I had never witnessed one yet I laughed out loud when my brother decided to charge a lonely guard sergeant into a unit of warlocks, well if that isn't awesome I don't know what is!!! So we have decided to do it again, it really is what the game is about funhammer here we come

For Sale One Life

I saw a thread over on 'The Overlords' (check them out ) the other day, it was an eBay link that seemed to be for one persons lifetime collection of miniatures. Now this made me think. I have over the last fifteen years or so accumulated a lot of lead of which I have sold a few items here and there and lost a damn site more, yet I still have 4 complete 40k armies 2 fantasy armies a mid war FoW army and 4 blood bowl teams, as well as a number of smaller armies and forces for up to a dozen other systems. I also have almost fifteen years of various related magazines. So how would you get rid of it all? Now obviously I don't mean physically but how do you let it all go?
Last year I had a crisis of faith, I looked at my life and realised I was knocking on thirty yet I still played with toy soldiers and toy guns. (I airsoft as well. ) Yet even then I couldn't bear to part with any of it. I just shut the door of my man cave and went about my life. Perhaps it's just as well, as just like a bad penny my hunger and passion for the hobby returned which meant I didn't have to go and buy a whole new army or three. Maybe that's why I didn't let them go, perhaps in some small part of my mind I was thinking about the costs, I am pretty sure my wife was :).
So could you get rid of everything? I know I couldn't, even if I had to get rid of it all I am sure that somewhere in my house maybe lurking in a drawer or behind the sofa, would be a single lone space marine, who would eventually reappear just to reignite my love for the game.

The Directors Cut

So here I sit three day after my first tournament of the year, the meat and alcohol have finally seeped out of my body and I am capable of coherent speech. So my thoughts on Dominion Day IV 'The Directors Cut' ItWasFuckinAwesome.(Oops looks like I haven't quite recovered) I am not going to bother you with in-depth reports for all of my battles because they are available else where but mostly because I can't remember :)
Anyway the tournament was fantastically well run, yet I expected nothing else from the Northern Wasters, they seem to excel at the little things. Sausage rolls on arrival along with copious amounts of Coffee,tea etc, the perfect hangover cure. Then the gaming began So I was lucky with my first draw John Stowe a man I count as a Friend and the master of whiskeyhammer a very easy game to sip at and slide my way into the tournament. Then came lunch.Hmmmm I dread to think of the calorie count that constituted a whole fry wrapped between two slices of soda bread, delicious.So with a full stomach I dived back into the gaming against the bye buster my tourney drinking partner and the only man I know who can play with any army you give him Ivan. My third game was against another guy who I have played before Luke however he decided to play 'Nids as opposed to the Blood Angels I last met. This meant the end of the first day and unsurprisingly I was last on the table with three losses, but Meh who cares it was great craic.Then the festivities began, Beer, Chinese, Beer, I end up in a strange bar with more alcohol then I get deserted by mate briefly before his return, all the while getting my accent mocked by a woman I have never met, followed by a ride home to a wife who isn't to keen on letting me in. Surprisingly though I wake in the morning with just a sickly feeling that will come back and bite later in the day.So the second day starts and I start against another club member Row who in annihilates me with his Thunder Puppies. Now lunch was served and my Hangover kicked in with avengence, have you ever had a mixed grill? I bet you've never had a Wasters mixed grill, Edmund Hilary would have had trouble scaling it, It was massive and lovely all at the same time, a total paradox.(BTW I finished mine) So with a satisfied quiet hall we all entered the last game. I was fighting for the wooden spoon and was worried when I drew another chaos opponent in a kill points game. Luckily my sorcerer couldn't have hit the wide side of the barn. From the inside. and I suffered my last loss of the weekend against Richard Willis, and that was it game over. Congratulations to all the winners and especially to Jonny who came third but demoted himself to fourth for an unpainted army. The Northern Wasters proved themselves again as the experts in running a tournament and I can't wait till DDV where I can defend my title.

The Year so far

So two months into the year, and how is my hobby progressing? Welllll I have played one game of 40k I so hope the year doesn't continue like this. I have also painted like a maniac including 16 completed miniatures and 29 half finished although I have bought 52 hmmmmmn not a good record, oh well I do hear that you cannot die until you have painted everything. As far as reading goes I got stuck on Fallen Angels, not a great read and not by a long shot the best book of the Horus Heresy oh well plenty more books on the shelf. On a plus side my local gaming group has decided to start playing GorkaMorka so the boyz have come out to play once again.

The Impossible Dream

I have attempted to try a new direction with my hobbying, I love painting yet for some reason I find it almost impossible to paint an entire army, unless I have a deadline to work to. So I have decided on a new route I am going to paint over one hundred space marines from completely different chapters. Of course they aren't going to be to a Golden Demon standard as that is way beyond me, but hopefully they will look OK. SO here goes and if anyone is interested this is the picture I am following.

The Female of the Species

The female of the species, quite probably the single most deadly thing known to man. Take my wife for instance she isn't a gamer by any stretch of the imagination, even to the extent that she will quite happily ridicule my toy soldiers even to go as far as to suggest a strict regime of genocide against them, but recently she has found out that she likes Wings of War and it truly is scary to behold. When she takes control of that tiny little Bi-Plane it is like the Red Baron has risen from the dead. However the competitiveness I can deal with, it is the complete randomness I find hard to grasp, how can you think two steps ahead when your opponent doesn't even know what they are going to do. Aaaargh. Oh well I can forgive anything if it means I can get some more gaming in and perhaps it will lead to something bigger and better. Oh well as long as she doesn't ask for any female space marines.

Fluffhammer

How much are you involved in the game you play? Have you ever actually read your codex? This may seem to be a strange question but it is a relevant one, six weeks without playing any games has given me time to look at the hobby as a whole and I have became aware of the massive amount of 'fluff' there is. This may seem odd coming from a man who has been gaming for too long and who has read a lot of the BL novels but there it is, maybe it is the scene in which I play the local gamers are very tournament biased so there is little to no place for 'fluff' but I have found a new lease of life and a completely different perspective to gaming. I have decided to go back to my beloved Dark Angels and now the game is all about what I want to use, not what is most effective!