Saturday, December 28, 2013

Titanfall - Official E3 Gameplay Demo

This game looks interesting. But then most games with mechanised warsuits are interesting...


Friday, December 27, 2013

Weekly Finds

How to Paint Mirkwood Elf Rangers by Garfy from Tale of Painters - I've fallen in love with this series of tutorials by Garfy. I've got a modest size collection of LotR miniatures from when I first got into Citadel Miniatures. After reading through his Dwarf tutorials I've decided to take them out and throw* some paint on them. These is also this tutorial on painting the trolls from the Hobbit movie.

Time Travel with Max by Roman from Massive Voodoo - The monkey head looks so awesome.


Showcase: Space Marine Minotaurs by TEN from Tale of Painters - This is the sort of army I imagine most of us would love to play. Spartans in space...


Sculpting a Base from Polymer Clay by David Soper from Spoket's Small World - I've been following Mr Soper's current project from the start. The actually miniature he's painting doesn't interesting me all that much. However, the process is interesting. And I'm always interested in seeing how others go about basing their projects...


*throw is probably not that inaccurate a description. I've not painted for so long that highlighting is now a tedious chore

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas

It's that time of year when we gather with family, eat way too much food and participate in a circle-jerk of present money giving. Yes, that's right my imaginary friends, it's Christmas.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Reality Aploding

Over the last year this hobby has exploded with activity from the Design Studio. We have updates on codices, new supplements and expansions, and now the formations and dataslates. And don't forget flyers and changes to the force organisation chart with allies. This increased activity has set our very tiny corner of the interwebz into a frenzy.

John Steining's stunning collection is now Tournament legal
The views of tournament organisers and vocal competitive players are great at driving the opinions of our community. As are Store Owners. Regardless of how good or bad something is, they can help set the intwerbz into a frenzy of nerd raging idiotz or something a little less crazy. Because, even though they may deny it, people do like to drink somebody else's kool aid.

Sigur's Lord of Skulls, coming to a tabletop near you
But how does that relate to Games Workshop's latest releases? After all there have been dozens of releases that haven't set the interwebz on fire like this in the past. Do you remember the gnashing of teeth True Line of Sight and Wound Allocation in 5th Ed result in? Now they doesn't seem so bad. My not so humble opinion is that the online rumours planted seeds of fear and it just grew out of control from there. Tournament organizers helped add flames to the fire in a way I've never seen since becoming apart of the online community. There was an innocent knee-jerk reaction to the sudden changes Games Workshop introduced.

According to the interwebz, TEN's R'Varna is just one of the growing problems plaguing tournaments
Fortunately the knee-jerk reactions are slowly being brought under control with some discussions taking place. There are some suggesting we keep on going the way we always have by ignoring the supplements, expansion and the dataslates. After all how many tournaments can you say that use the mysterious terrain, battlefield debris or mysterious objectives found in the rule book? So the precedence is there for tournament organisers to just pick what is and isn't used. There are even those who suggest we ignore the ally table all together.

Cagn's army is proof that Eldar Jetbikes don't have to be ridden by Seers & Warlocks
Possibly the most promising discussion is the one suggesting that careful mission design can have the desired results without introducing restrictions and bans. This approach interests me the most as it doesn't directly stop players from using their own toys while at the same time potentially addressing the over abundance of Taudar, Screamstar, Draigowing, Leafblower or whatever may be the next 'must play' netlist. These changes will shake up what it takes to win games of 40K.

Garfy's stunning collection is now also Tournament legal
Regardless of the approach to our perceived problems, the answers aren't going to come from Games Workshop. If we think they will then we're deluding ourselves. They care about this hobby just as much as we do. However, their actions suggest that this hobby is not meant to be played in a serious competitive way.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Weekly Finds

Less than a week to go till Christmas is upon us. What sort of things do my Imaginary Friends have planned for the festive season?

Necron Cryptek Conversion by Garfy from Tale of Painter - A creative conversion that shows how easy it is to throw in some flavour to Necron Characters. I particularly like the way he went about showing us what parts he used to bring his creation to life. I suspect this miniature will find its way to the White Dwarf teams inbox along with his Goblin Wolf Rider Standard Bearer. Both represent true kit-bashes as opposed to the head swaps we regularly see in White Dwarf.


Horus Heresy Death Guard Killzone Team by Dave Taylor from Dave Taylor Miniatures - The Horus Heresy bug has clearly spread across the interwebz from forums to blogs. It is interesting that several years ago collecting a Forge World army was a daunting task to anybody that didn't want to be divorced. They were viewed as expensive luxuries that only the rich or socially withdrawn could afford. Now, that seems to be changing... unlike Death Korps of Krieg, they aren't strictly an all resin army. Dave Taylor's growing collection illustrates this nicely with a blend of resin and plastic components spread throughout the army.


How to Paint the Hobbit Miniatures Series by Garfy from Tale of Painters - I've included several of Garfy's The Hobbit tutorials in the past. He has collected links to all of them in one place. A must read for anybody that picked up the Goblin Town box set.


Craftworld Mymeara Painting Guide by GMort Nigel Bartlett from GMorts Chaotica - A guest's authors painting guide on one way to painting Craftworld Mymeara. The painting of the canopy window particuarly interested me. It seems like a great way for any painter that uses objective source lightening to add to the illusion.


Mismatch of Bolts and Bolters by coldfyre from Bolter & Chainsword - An indepth look into the inconsistencies between the Warhammer 40K background and the miniatures that we see on the table top. In this case the size of our much beloved bolter and the rounds of ammunition used within them. In the comment sections there was also a link to Phil Sibbering's website. I've not read through all of it. But it offers an interesting look into the Warhammer 40K Universe. For example, his illustration below helps challenge the misconception that Space Marine's shoulders aren't wide enough to fit inside Power Armour. 

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Vinnie Jones' hard and fast Hands-only CPR (funny short film)

I'm off to do my Advance Life Support Course today. And while I'm off learning how to save lives, I figured my imaginary friends can also do some learning with Vinnie Jones...

Friday, December 13, 2013

Weekly Finds

Lost to the Warp...

Friday, December 06, 2013

Weekly Finds

Lost to the Warp...

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

White Dwarf - December 2013

Garfy, from Tale of Painters, offers the last White Dwarf review for the year. It's gone by fast...

Monday, December 02, 2013