Month: August 2017

Starting a Recipe Book and a Trip to Hartside

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On 29th August 2017

In Blog

​I started a recipe book this week, well a notebook in which I am going to keep the recipes I like cooking.

My nana had one, and she swore by it, and I guess it’s time for me to follow suit, plus it will help with the drive to cook more.

So far it has in it, the recipe I got for Kansas City BBQ sauce from LonCon 3, my Sloppy Joes recipe, my Kansas City, Rub recipe, that I also got from LonCon 3, my nanas cornflake flapjacks, Cajun Spice Mix and my Italian Winter Soup.

As I try things out, I am going to experiment to find the way I like to cook meals, and then add those recipes to the book.

Trip to Hartside

On Bank Holiday Monday, myself, Megan, Lindsay and Paul took a drive up to the Hartside Top Cafe, a place I used to ride to while I had a motorbike. I love it up there, the roads are brilliant, which Lindsay loved and the views are spectacular, and the cafe isn’t bad either.

I had a corned beef and potato pie with chips and beans followed by a broken biscuit cake and its just as good as remember, they have even improved the tea!

On the way back we stopped at the South Tynedale Railway so Paul could buy a book and then we drove back home via Weardale. We then finished the day off by having our tea at Pizza Express in the Metrocentre.

What I am Modelling

I finished up the Inceptors, I am not 100% happy with them, not sure what it is but I just had a bad time painting them, but none the less they are finished and added to my Blood Ravens.

I then started on the Caestus Assault Ram which has been sitting half finished for a long time. I bought it two years ago second hand and a year later I blocked out the main blue, and six months ago I finished off the hull colour.

My Ultramarines need some attention so I figured I would get this done, and it will form part of a Breachers list.

But it didn’t take me long to finish the Assault Ram and I had it done in a day, although it does once again show that I am awful at painting whites!

With that out of the way I decided to paint up some characters for my Space Wolves, specifically a metal Ragnar Blackmane, metal Njal Stormcaller in Power Armour and Geigor Fell-Hand from the Burning of Prospero set, who will also be the first dedicated model for my Heresy Wolves.

What I am Reading

I have been slowly listening to Pharos and am about halfway through it.

Still struggling with written books, the pain makes it hard to concentrate, but I did make myself read a chapter of the Crimson King this week.

What I am Playing

I haven’t been able to play any games this week apart from Ticket to Ride on my iPhone, must try harder this week.

What I am Backing

The Warehouse 13 Board Game has got me interested, but Megan is the big fan in this house so I want her opinion on it before backing it.

Unspeakable Words Deluxe was delivered to GamesQuest, so here is hoping that they fulfil it sooner rather than later.

What I am Cooking

On Wednesday I mixed up a couple of spice mixtures, the first was a jar of Kansas City BBQ Rub, which uses brown sugar as a base, so when cooking with it, you need a low temperature. And I also made a Cajun Spice mix, which uses paprika and salt as a base, little worried about the amount of salt I used but we shall see how it tastes.

This week I cooked a teriyaki beef meatloaf, it was a super simple recipe and I wasn’t all that excited about making it.

Because my hands were feeling quite weak Megan mixed and shaped the meatloaf. I used Mr Yoshidas Wing and Rib Sauce for the teriyaki flavour, I thought we had the Original Gourmet Sauce, but we didn’t so I hope this was okay to use instead.
It was served up with mashed potatoes, carrots and broccoli, and it was ok, not a dish that will set the world on fire, but it was nice.

Lindsay and Megan really liked it, it was Megan’s first ever meatloaf and she then asked her mum why she had never been fed meatloaf growing up, turns out her mum isn’t a fan of meatloaf.

Although I wasn’t sure about it, the girls have convinced me to add the recipe to my book.

Next week will be a big week and very challenging, I am going to make Pulled Pork and BBQ Pit Beans, which means I need to make up my Kansas City BBQ sauce as well.

What I am Spending

It was the Metrocentre Games Workshops birthday on Saturday so I popped along and bought myself the Birthday Primaris Captain with a Power Fist and Plasma Pistol. I also picked up the captains for a few other folk as well who couldn’t make it to the store.

But I don’t get to pick it up until the 9th September, they are making them to order.

Whilst I was there I also bought a Bloodmaster, Herald of Khorne for my AoS Khorne army. This means I can now run the Murderhost alongside my Gore Pilgrims. I also got the Generals Handbook 2017 for the new points. And top make the purchase up to £200, which bagged me two bags of goodies, I got the Ironjawz Warscroll Cards for Megan and the Eavy Metal dice.

Mood: Tired
Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: 4
In My Ears: Paint It, Black by The Rolling Stones
Game Last Played: Warhammer 40,000
Book Last Read: The Crimson King by Graham McNeil
Movie/TV Show Last Viewed: Big Bang Theory
Current State of Projects: Space Wolves Characters 50% Done

Heresy Weekender Planning

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On 22nd August 2017

In Blog

I started putting the first touches to the Heresy Weekender this week, the first thing I addressed was the biggest complaints, which were poor coffee and unpainted armies.

For the coffee we will be taking along a Tassimo machine and be offering people Costa coffee from that, it does mean we will have to charge for those, 50p for an Americano and £1 for a Latte. I don’t drink coffee so I hope this will suffice, and of course we will still be offering instant coffee for free as well, because I want to give people the option. And the instant coffee and tea will still come from Ringtons, so it has a North East favour to it.

And for painting we have introduced a 3 colour and based minimum painting standard, I understand that some people felt their immersion was spoiled by unpainted armies being on the table and I totally get that.

We didn’t want to put off players, because people do have different demands on their time, whilst for me, I have all the time in the world to paint, I know people who are teachers working 80 hours weeks, and have kids, so finding time to paint for them is a struggle.

But the people who came spoke, and the majority wanted painted armies, and they are after all, the people we put the event on for.

We also looked at the points levels, for the past two years we have done 3500 points, but this year we have decided to drop it down to 3000 points. Gregg of The Imperial Truth runs his events at 3000 points and they work really well, it still allows people to bring the nice big toys, but will help us with timekeeping. Oh and we have abandoned the sideboards in favour of a much simpler thing, just allowing people to bring two different lists.

Not sure if we are doing doubles again, this is fun, but it did take a long time and some people didn’t have as much fun for various reasons, we still need to discuss this however, because doubles can be a lot of fun. It’s something up for discussion anyway.

At Raid on Angstrom XI Graham trailed a possible way to run the campaign, based on the Shadow Wars system. The biggest issue we had this year was that sorting out the results and the narrative outcome took a long time, and having set missions let people slip into tournament mode a little, so hopefully this will work and resolve the issue. If that doesn’t work we do have a plan, but it will take a lot more work, as we will be basing it on a tree campaign system.

We also want to introduce some more environmental effects to give the tables a bit of personality, still figuring out ways of doing this, but I think we can manage something, I have seen a few good ideas in the Warhammer 40k Open War Cards.

I am also sending off Megan’s mum to a local butcher, Bolams in Sedgefield to see what price we can get for the meat we need, they sell meat sources from local County Durham farms and we are after all trying to give the event as much of a local flavour as possible. We are charging a bit more this year, so we may as well see what we can to put some of that into the food and improve its quality.

Some of the extra money is going to be used to hire tables, so we can have a uniform flatness to the table without a ridge interfering with the mats, and also allowing us somewhere to eat. The venue has less tables than they did last year so it’s now at the point where we need to hire them, plus it looks a lot better and a bit more professional.

It’s still six months to go, but the sooner I get the organisation dealt with the easier it will be in the long run, this includes a few under the hood changes to the Edge of Empire website which will allow us to sell the tickets and take your money.

This week I need to get sorted with working out the final budget and seeing what we can do to make it an amazing weekend for people.

Oh and tickets go on sale on the 11th September.

What I am Modelling

I have built some Ad-Mech stuff this week, I spent my Saturday night building a pair of Kastelan Robots and their Cybernetica Datasmith, all of which were rather decent models to build, so far I have enjoyed building each of the Ad-Mech kits, and I have built one of them all now.

I also built a Tech-Priest Domius which I bought this week as well.

I have done some painting on the Inceptors and they are now about 80% done, my painting mojo has been quite suppressed this past week.

What I am Reading

I finished listening to Sons of the Forge and yeah, the second half was just as muddled and bad as I remember when I read it.

The biggest issue it had is that it’s simply got too many characters for such a short story, too many threads that don’t get fully explored properly, and there are too many cliched tropes in play.

Really a quite poor book, and it solidified my opinion that Nick Kyme is not one of Black Library’s better authors.

I then listened to the Eagles Talon, a book I really enjoy, the whole Imperial Fists undercover and sneaking round a ship I find quite cool, when I first listened to it, I was still deciding on what Legion to build, and this almost made me go with a Recin Squad based Fists army, but I hate painting yellow!

I also finally got round to listening to The Heary of the Pharos, which was originally published as The Dark Between the Stars, but was hastily retitled because they forgot to check the title wasn’t already in use.

I am not a big fan of Laurie Goldings writings to be honest, but this was pretty good, it being set in catacombs underneath the Pharos meant that they were able to do great things with the sound effects in order to create an atmospheric audio drama.

The story fills in a lot of holes about the run up to Pharos and really should have been released prior to that, but I suspect it may have been a victim of the poor organisation that was going on at Black Library during the period in which Pharos was published. Plus it kinda links in with the Scythes of the Emperor stories that were written by Golding as well, which are set 10,000 years later.

My only complaint is that Dantioch didn’t sound right, if anything he sounded, healthy and we know that he is not a healthy man.

I have now started listening to Pharos itself, and I do enjoy that story.

What I am Playing

This week I played in the Raid on Angstrom event that Graham organised, and it was a lot of fun, very well organised and really cool. I took my Word Bearers and played with Lorgar for the first time, using a Primarchs Chosen army.

My first game was against Steve’s Primarchs Chosen army of Raven Guard with Corax. It did not go well for me, I was wiped out pretty quickly, my Gal Vorbak deep struck only to be shot to death very quickly. Lorgar did smash some face and took out an entire Terminator Squad himself, only to be shot to death by two Plasma Predators, and in general in went very badly for me. But the game was an awful lot of fun, despite it being very one sided.

My second game was much the same, but against the Iron Hands, the mission requires I deploy everything on the board and could only hold in reserve units like fliers and Drop Pods, so my Gal Vorbak has to footslog across the board.

Was a very tough game and my Xiphon just refused to come into the game, my Spartan was killed very early by a mixture of a Drop Pod Leviathan and Laser Destroyer Rapiers.

The rest of my army suffered at the hands of a squad of 10 Volkite Culverin Heavy Support Marines and three Quad Mortar Rapiers.

In my last game it was a complete reversal, we played Suicide Mission and I had to stop Johns Raven Guard getting into my deployment zone.

My army did really really well, my Volkite Contemtor wiped out a squad in the first turn and I did a lot of damage to a Mor Deythan Squad.

John just kept rolling 1s and 2s, I felt really bad for the guy, whilst I couldn’t do any wrong, my Gal Vorbak came on and smashed face, Lorgar wiped out a unit of Attack Bikes by himself and then he and his squad of Terminators ate through two Contemptors.

In the whole game I lost a single Terminator, a Single Gal Vorbak, my Chaplain, a Rhino and two Tactical Veterans! I like winning, but I don’t like winning like that.

In the end the Traitors managed to edge a win in the campaign and I think both me and Graham were very happy with how it played out. Given us lots of ideas for the Weekender.

What I am Backing

A project that has had me keep looking at it again and again is Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, a special double issue of Uncanny Magazine featuring stories, poems, essays and art by creators who are disabled. Disability and sci-fi is something that interests me a lot so this is right up my street.

They have some great creators on board and I am looking forward to the production of this awesome issue.

Ogrezine still has a day left to run and has smashed right through all of its stretch goals.

What I am Cooking

This week I cooked a Tex-Mex inspired chilli, I made this mostly to the specifications of the Chili Appreciation Society International which means it was a chilli without beans or tomatoes, I did break the rules slightly and put in a couple of onions but I think it needed it.

The chilli was made with chunks of beef as opposed to mince, and the spice was cumin, oregano, paprika and dried red chillies in a Mexican larger sauce with some dark chocolate.

Megan was very unsure about it as I prepared it and put it in the slow cooker, and she said it was a larger chocolate spice abomination.

To accompany the chilli I made some cornbread, last time I made this I made it in a frying pan which then went straight into the oven, but I no longer own a frying pan that can go into the oven, so I made them as smaller muffin style cakes.

To make cornbread meant getting some corn meal, which is not a normal ingredient in British supermarkets, you can use polenta as a supbsitute, but most supermarkets only sell polenta as a ready made solid block. Thankfully the Tesco Extra in Gateshead has a good selection of Asian ingredients and I was able to get a nice big bag from there.

The cornbread was made with some onion, green chillies and cheese in it, and went down fairly well, both Lindsay and Megan enjoyed it.

The chilli on the other hand was a different story, it was far too spicy, so next time I will use less dried red chillies, and Megan found that it had too much larger in it, so when I make it again, it will be made with half as much larger and the rest will be made up of beef stock.

Next week my meal has to be a bit cheaper so I am thinking of making a teriyaki meatloaf.

What I am Spending

Trying not to spend again this week, but I did but a cheap Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Priest Dominus, I have up until now been using the Forge World Magos Dominus, but I really like the look of the Games Workshop model and was able to pick it up off eBay quite cheaply from a seller who was breaking up some Start Collecting boxes.

Must get round to finishing off my Ad Mech at some point.

I also finally bought the new Paranoia adventure, Troubles by the Boxload, I have been reading through the books of the new edition, I plan to run some games of this at some point in the near future with Lindsay and Megan.

Dublin in 2019 Whoop!

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On 14th August 2017

In Blog

A brilliant thing happened this weekend at WorldCon 75 in Helsinki, the site for WorldCon 77 in 2019 was selected, and it is going to be in Dublin!

This is brilliant news and means I will be able to go to WorldCon, and Dublin is a brilliant city, so its going to be an amazing event. Myself, Lindsay and Megan are all planning on going, just looking at the costs at the moment and it does mean no Eastercon that year and the UK Games Expo will be reduced to a day trip, but it will be worth it.

WorldCon 77 will run from August 15th to 19th 2019 at the Convention Centre Dublin, a brilliant venue, and the Guests of Honour are Bill and Mary Burns, Diane Duane, Ginjer Buchanan, Ian McDonald, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Steve Jackson.

If you love sci-fi and fantasy I encourage you to attend, going to a WorldCon is something I think all fans should do at least once in their lives, and this one looks to be an amazing one.

Interestingly EuroCon is the very next weekend in Belfast, so I am looking at doing that as well, although Megan isn’t sure she can handle it, so I would likely be on my own for that one.

What I am Modelling

Had a slow week of painting, my hand tremors were quite bad, so I only managed to finish off a squad of Space Marine Primaris Intercessors for my Blood Ravens.

I am quite happy with the new technique I am using as it has cut out a few steps and looks just as good.

Anyway, right now my Primaris Marines have a Captain in Gravis Armour, a Lieutenant and this Intercessor Squad.

I did do some building this week, I built a Chaplain on foot, a Repulsor and a Redemptor Dreadnought for the Blood Ravens.

This evening I started painting some Inceptors for the Blood Ravens from the Dark Imperium set, I have painted on the main colour of the armour and given it a wash

What I am Reading

I finished Deathfire and am now listening to Sons of the Forge, and I am finding it easier to follow it as an audiobook as opposed to it being in text, and unlike when I read it, I am actually enjoying it.

What I am Playing

On Tuesday I played Arran in a game of 40k, he was playing his Salamanders, and he brought a very powerful list with a couple of Sicarans, a Typhon and a Fire Raptor, it was a ever so slightly illegal list but I am not bothered by that personally.

It was a very fun game, we used the Open War cards and pulled the Comet with the Dead of Night twist, and it was a rather fun game, the objective arriving in a random location in the middle of the game is quite interesting.

I lost, but I did a lot of damage to his army, my weakness was being too conservative with pushing my forces forward, also didn’t help that I took 9 wounds off my Deredeo myself by rolling 9 1s when firing the Ectoplasm Battery!

I also played a game of 7 Wonders Duel with Lindsay on Sunday and I actually won, she made a poor decision in the first age, which allowed me to pull ahead on reources which eventually translated into a crushing victory!

What I am Backing

Founders of Gloomhaven ended this week and hit all its stretch goals, I shall look forward to getting that early next year.

Ogrezine is still funding and it’s looking like it’s going to be a decent magazine. I really need to get Ogre our to play a bit more often.

This week the two expansion decks for Paranoia arrived, Mutant Explosion and More [Redacted] Societies, looking through the decks there are a lot more options for the game now and they will add a lot of fun to an already fun system.

Also this week Pretending to Grownup arrived, and that has some very nice artwork in it. It was a really cool project as the designer got a lot of well know web comic artists on board to design cards for it, all of which are really nice.

What I am Cooking

This week I cooked Sloppy Joes, an American classic, which is basically a mince dish served in bread buns.

The recipe I used for this was influenced by my love of BBQ flavour, so I added BBQ and Tabasco to the sauce.

It was something I could prepare in advance and then heat up and add the cheese to later on, although I should have picked a better cheese, perhaps Monterey Jack.

Anyway it was served with chips and the girls rather enjoyed it, they gave it an 8/10.

To celebrate Dublin winning the right to host WorldCon77, on Sunday I cooked a coodle!

Been a long time since I made this and I lost my usual recipe so this one used one I got from the internet, on reflection there was too much bacon, not enough potatoes and it could have done with pearl barley, oh and I didn’t have parsley so I used mixed herbs. Also ham stock is delicious!

So I will be making this again and making a few improvements, probably adding in a carrot so Lindsay and Megan don’t complain about the veg content!

Next week I am doing a Tex-Mex chilli in the slow cooker.

What I am Spending

Trying not to spend any money, but I had a £10 voucher for eBay that was expiring so I used that to get a Deathwatch Chaplain as well, both are going to join my Blood Ravens.

I also had to pay the Royal Mail ransom money for Pretending to Grown Up, something I hate doing. I have no issues paying customs charges, but the £8 processing fee is exorbitant.

Mood: Happy
Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: 4
In My Ears: Linger by the Cranberries
Game Last Played: 7 Wonders Duel
Book Last Read: Paranoia – Guide To Alpha Complex
Movie/TV Show Last Viewed: Rick and Morty
Current State of Projects: Inceptors base coats on and washed

Pain and Sleep

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On 8th August 2017

In Blog

As many of you know, I am not in the best of health and haven’t been for a few years. I have been suffering with some brain damage I sustained in a car accident with chronic pain and fatigue.

The fatigue is something that has been bothering me a lot, I am always tied and can fall asleep very easily, and I really want that to improve. So to help me the doctors are sending me for a sleep study to see if there is some sleep apnea going on, which is great bar one thing. The sleep clinic doctors want me off some of my painkillers for six weeks as they can interfere with the study.

And so for the past week I have no longer been given codeine and Tramadol, which has been a real nightmare. My body is in agony and I am struggling to move, I never appreciated how much the much the pills were doing for me.

On the one hand it’s solved part of the sleeping issue, the pain is now keeping me awake, but by the time exhaustion wins out over the pain, it’s very very late and I end up sleeping through much of the day.

Just having a general moan really, I have to do this for another 5 weeks, and I am not sure how I am going to be able to manage it.

What I am Modelling

At the beginning of the week I completed the Khorgorath from the Age of Sigmar starter set.

The skin was interesting to do and it’s a very challenging model to paint, now to let him loose on the mortal realms.

After that I set myself to work on the last six human players from the Blood Bowl starter set, the Reikland Reivers, although I found these fairly hard going this time.

I also do the Mighty Zug whilst I was doing those, although I might redo his trousers, I did them in off white to match the rest of the team but I am concerned that it makes him appear rather dull.

The Grav-Chutes and second set of Reivers arrived, so I did a little bit of work swapping some arms around on the two additional Reivers I built and now have a full squad of 5 Reivers equipped with Grav-Chutes.

In between the Bloodbowl players having washes drying I also quickly did the promo ships I got for my Dropfleet Commander UCM at the UK Games Expo, the two Athens Class Light Cruisers which are equipped with two UF-6400 Mass Driver turrets which allows them as a group to put out 8 shots locking on a 4+ with a 10” thrust, which is a nice little package for something only costing 86 points a ship.

Now I have started work on a squad of Intercessors for my Blood Ravens to give me a break from Fantasy based models. Last night I got down the base colours for the red and bone and gave them a wash and then tidied up the red armour, next up I am going to edge highlight the armour.

What I am Reading

I have been listening to Deathfire by Nick Kyme this week, a story which so obviously is inspired by Homers Odyssey, it might as well have a flashing neon sign proclaiming as much.

I do struggle with Salamanders stories, the names don’t do well with my brain damage, they are just really unfamiliar, but I am finding that with the audiobook I am following it much better.

I am going to listen to Sons of the Forge next, and that was a book I really struggled with, hopefully it will be better as well by listening to it.

What I am Playing

Haven’t played a game of anything this week, but I am playing Arran tonight at club with my Word Bearers and taking on his Salamanders

What I am Backing

No new projects this week but Steve Jackson Games have launched a Kickstarter for an Ogrezine this week so that is something I have decided to back, I am always wanting more content for Ogre.

Founders of Gloomhaven has a few days left on it, I really suggest you take a look at this one as it promises to be great!

What I am Cooking

This is a new section, so let me explain, since I got the brain damage, cooking has been very difficult for me.

I used to love cooking and I did it a lot, but these days I simply can’t cope with it, I am too forgetful and can barely manage to make a meal in the microwave.

So with the support of Lindsay and Megan, I am now going to try cooking one night a week, and this week I made Cowboy Beans in the slow cooker.

It’s a recipe which is basically like a BBQ chilli, and that’s how I approached it, I cooked beef, onion, chorizo, bacon, tomatoes, Pepper in the slow cooker with some beans and sausages (traditionally the dish uses Pork n Beans, but you can’t really get that in Sainsbury’s) butter beans and chilli kidney beans, along with some chilli, paprika, cheyenne pepper, Worcester sauce, brown sugar, BBQ sauce and a healthy dollop of American bourbon.

I let this cook for 6 hours and then served it up on cheese on toast. Was really quite nice, and I was rather proud big doing that, there was even enough left over for mine and Megan’s lunch the next day. We had Emily and her daughter Tilly over that day, and although Tilly declared she hated it before she tried it (well she is three), Emily, Megan and Lindsay all decided I can make it again.

What I am Spending

I overspent a bit this week, I decided to take a plunge and get some more bits for my Blood Ravens Primaris Marines, specifically a Redemptor Dreadnought and a Repulsor Tank. This means that for the 2000pt list I have written up of all Primaris Marines I now only need an Inceptor Squad, which I plan to pick up when they go up for preorder.

The Datacards for the Chaos Space Marines and Grey Knight have been preordered, I have a habit of collecting the Datacards, just in case I decide to start up those armies, in the case of these two, I am currently playing Chaos Space Marines and I do have a couple of Grey Knight models.

I also bought Sons of Anarchy the board game, it was s bargain from Buysend at £14.62 on Amazon. No idea why this hasn’t sold better, it’s a cracker of a game. So I will also be picking up the expansions at some point too.

I was tempted by and gave into some Santiago Class Corvettes for my UCM Fleet for Dropfleet Commander, I only wish that these came in sets of 3 rather than sets of 6, I just can’t see myself ever needing more than 3 in a game.

I want to get a few more ships for my UCM, specifically I want to build a squad of 4 Taipei’s which would require a Frigate box, and a coupe of Madrid’s which I could build out a Cruiser box. I also fancy building a St Petersburg, which would mean I need another Cruiser sprue, and then I also want a Beijing Battleship to finish off my UCM before I move onto the Scourge.

Of the things I have cooked in the past, Lindsay and Megan really like my pulled pork made with a BBQ sauce recipe I learnt at LonCon3, and I have been researching ways to improve the pork itself, so next week I am going to try cooking it in a different way, and for this I bought some Liquid Smoke. Something that’s a bit peculiar, I ended up getting it from Amazon, but then learnt I could have gotten it slightly cheaper from Waitrose, although our local Waitrose is quite small so not sure they would have stocked it.

And finally I spent £3.75 on a small Lego set of the Joker doing some battle training from the Batman Lego movie.

  • Mood: Tired
  • Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: 2
  • In My Ears: I Don’t Care – Fall Out Boy
  • Game Last Played: Warhammer 40,000
  • Book Last Read: The Crimson King by Graham McNeil
  • Movie/TV Show Last Viewed: Big Bang Theory
  • Current State of Projects: Intercessors Started

Bunker War 3!

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On 2nd August 2017

In Blog

On Saturday I played in my first 40k tournament in over a year, the end of 7th edition killed me when it came to competitive play, at that stage it was so unbalanced it was unreal. Add to that some of the more competitive players in our local scene turned into massive knobs over the game and would bring lists that would simply curb stomp pretty much everyone, the Skyhammer Annihilation Force being the worst example of something that was so utterly broken as to be unreal.

Now I like formations, I think they are an interesting and sometimes fluffy way to build an army, but at some point they turned from being fun and interesting into being utterly ridiculous, designed simply to destroy older armies and had no negatives to them.

So anyway I didn’t play 7th for quite some time bar the occasional fluffy game here and there, I mostly stuck to Heresy. But that has changed with 8th edition, sure there are powerful lists out there, but the game feels a lot more fun now, I occasionally have a chance to pull off a miracle and destroy a Land Raider with massed bolter fire.

Anyway, I went along to Bunker War 3 at the Battle Bunker and I played three games with this list of Chaos Space Marines, and I got tabled in every game, but I enjoyed it!!!

 

First off I played Phil and his Tyranids, which was a hard as nails list and he finished me off in less than an hour, but it was a good game and I did manage to kill a couple of things.

Then I played Matts Tyranids, which was a beautiful painted army, and I managed to do much better this time, at the end of the game all he had left was a few big beasts, specifically a couple of Trygons and a Tyrannocyte, but no matter what I did I just could not finish off those last big ones.

Then I got to play against Nathan and his Necrons. I love Nathans army, every single time I see it, I just want to start Necrons, I love the Nihilakh scheme he has going on, and if I ever do Necrons that the scheme I will pick. In that game I pulled off a nice alpha strike and killed his warlord in turn one, but then just started racking up the losses after that. Necron Warriors are hard to kill and the Ghost Ark just shrugs off Lascannon shots with its Quantum Shielding.

As you can see below, I didn’t win the Wooden Spoon, but I did finish 3rd from last, but I don’t care about that because I had fun!

What I am Modelling

This week when I have gotten time for painting I have been concentrating on the Gorechosen models. I started with the Skullgrinder and Aspiring Deathbringer because these two models seemed to be the most similar in terms of colour scheme. I basically painted them exactly how I would a Blood Warrior and they turned out pretty good.

With the Skullgrinder it was my first time painting fire, something I need to sort out for when I do Roboute Guilliman with his sword. It came out ok, but I need to work more on my blending, because the colours have a definitive line.

I then picked up two Slaughterpriests, the one from Gorechosen and one that came free with last Septembers White Dwarf. For these I chose to go with two different schemes for the flesh, one reasonably normal and the other very pale, and that was rather fun. I have a third Slaughterpriest that came with the Start Collecting Khorne Bloodbound box and I think I am going to do him with black flesh.

With those two out of the way I started on the last model from Gorechosen, the Exalted Deathbringer, a model which has black skin, and that was something I was able to complete today. It was surprisingly quick to get painted up.

On the modelling front, I bought some Aggressors from Battle Bunker on Saturday and I built these on Sunday. I love these models, they are really cool, I think Gravis Armour is my favourite type of Mark X armour. At the same time I also build an Imperial Space Marine which is destined for the Blood Ravens.

What I am Reading

I haven’t picked up a book all week, but I have listened to a few audiobooks, specifically I listened to Ravenloard, Raptor and Tallarn: Executioner in my effort to get up to date with all of the Horus Heresy audio books and I have started on Deathfire.

What I am Playing

Apart from the games at Bunker War 3, I had a game against Graham and his Imperial friends list, which was very enjoyable, Graham has a very nice list there and shows how fun 8th edition can be, I wish I had taken some notes and photos of it now.

What I am Backing

Wound Wang successfully funded last night, now I need to decide what colour I want and what set to get. Was tempted by the War Machine Set, but I am now edging more towards the Company Set.

Founders of Gloomhaven continues to solicit funding, and there are some quite exciting stretch goals coming up on that one, the unique art for all prestige buildings is one I am particularly interested in seeing knocked down.

In fulfilment news, this week Pretending to Grownup had its shipping label printed so hopefully a few weeks and that will be added to our collection.

What I am Spending

As I mentioned earlier, I purchased a box of Aggressors, and along with them I got the Space Marine Datacards, an essential purchase of you want to play the army in my opinion.

I also bought the Space Marine Codex, but instead of buying it both physically and digitally, I have decided to only buy it digitally and see how that goes. When it comes to fiction I only buy ebooks for environmental reasons so I am doing the same now with Codexes and other gaming books.

Earlier in the week when we were doing some shopping I spotted the Back to the Future trilogy in ASDA for £10 on Blu-Ray and I had to have it, it’s something I had on VHS but didn’t replace for some strange reason.

The three extra easy build Reivers I ordered still have not arrived, so I have given up on the seller and asked for a refund, and have since purchased them elsewhere. I have also managed to get hold of five sets of Grav Chutes for them, so my Reivers will be equipped with them.

I have also now finalised the list I want for my Primaris Marines, to what I have, I will be adding another squad of Inceptors with Plasma Exterminators, a Redemptor Dreadnought and a Repulsor. So that’s only a further three kits to get to make 2000pts.
Oh and I bought a lot of Fuegan Orange shade.

Mood: Tires

Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: 6

In My Ears: Domino Dancing by the Pet Shop Boys

Game Last Played: Warhammer 40,000

Book Last Read: The Crimson King by Graham McNeil

Movie/TV Show Last Viewed: Game of Thrones

Current State of Projects: Khorgorath 80% done.

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