Big Geordie Geek – Page 59 – Home of the Fat Geeky Geordie!

Edge of Empire

On 12th February 2017

If you know me well, then you know I have an interest in podcasting, a couple of years ago, I bought a new mixer, microphones and headphones and I dabbled a little, but didn’t really have much in the way of focus and it kinda fell by the wayside and I didn’t really do much with it as a result.

I had often thought about Podcasting about the Horus Heresy and the scene in the North East, but couldn’t motivate myself, and it took Graham to say, that he wanted to do a podcast for me to say, yeah I actually want to do this.So we have currently got a name for it, Edge of Empire, because here in the North East we are at the edge of what was the Roman Empire, and the Imperium is kinda Roman themed, plus it was just too good a name to pass up, so thanks to Martin for suggesting It.

So I have stormed ahead and registered the domain and started work on a website, registered us on the main social media sites, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, set up the Soundcloud account and set back up properly my equipment.

Now we just have to get in and do it, I have Lindsay going to design us a temporary logo, cause mine is rubbish, and we can use that until we can strong arm someone to design is a better one.

Me and Graham both have plans to build new armies around the new Inferno book, him Thousand Sons, me Space Wolves so that’s going to be an interesting place to start with, and we plan to generally talk about the hobby here in the North East, and it’s an exciting time, what with the Weekender coming up and the new Battle Bunker opening in Sunderland. And with so many other great podcasts out there influencing us, like Sons of Heresy, North Heresy, Geno Five Two, The Imperial Truth etc, we just hope we can do a good job.

Anyway suggestions on how to do this are welcome, both me and Graham have no real idea of what we are doing so if you can offer any advice it’s always welcome.

What I am Modelling

It’s all about scenery still, I have painted up two Wall of Martyrs Imperial Defence Lines and a Wall of Martyrs Imperial Defence Emplacement, I am now halfway though it all and although I love the detail on them, they are a pain in the arse to paint up so many.

I have also built a Wall of Martyrs Firestorm Redoubt, which is a horrible kit to build, two Munitorum Armoured Containers, a Basilica Administratum and a Manufactorum. I think I am going to get the rest of the scenery built tomorrow so I can try and prime it after my driving lesson on Monday and then get on with painting it all.

What I am Reading

I finished Master of Mankind and have to say it’s an absolute masterpiece.

I was struggling to sleep the other night and so I picked up my Kobo to read a single chapter and I couldn’t put it down, the last third of the book is simply that good.

I really think it’s good enough for me to nominate for a Hugo, I doubt it would win over many other voters as they tend to look down quite a bit in Black Library books, but the quality of writing is simply amazing, and certainly up there with the best of them.

Honestly, Aaron Dembski-Bowden if he wrote sci-fi that wasn’t Warhammer related, would win a Hugo award, and frankly I am not sure how Black Library are going to keep hold of him for too much longer.

Now that I am fully up to date with the Heresy, I am thinking of reading the Beast Arises series, Harry tells me it’s really good.

What I am Playing

Played noting since I last blogged, have been too busy with painting, but I did manage to get a game of Blood Bowl 2 in on the Xbox One, struggling to get past the Wood Elves.

What I am Backing

I am a big Munchkin fan, I know it’s not the most sophisticated game, but I enjoy it. So it natural that I would be backing Munchkin Shakespeare, a project which arose out of a panel on a JoCo Cruise, and seeing as it’s a crowd sourced project, it kinda makes sense to crowd fund it.

Well honestly I am not a big fan of established companies going to Kickstarter to launch a new game without good reason. And Steve Jackson Games is a pretty big company so I am conflicted about this, but they aren’t a daft company so I am sure they would have done research before deciding to take this to Kickstarter, and in fairness, it’s a product that I can distributers being a bit wary of.
Regardless, I am sure the team will produce a game that will amuses and entertain us. I am backing at the $60 I Want it All! tier which includes the base game, which currently consists of 147 cards and a custom d6, a Kickstarter exclusive expansion which has in it 37 cards, 16 dungeons, a bookmark, Kill-o-Meter, a journal, a coin and some blank cards, and all the add ons unlocked by the project, which so far include a rigged set of demo cards, a pack of 6 d6s with 4 cards and a guest artist Kill-o-Meter with 4 cards.
The project stand at $117kish as I write this and is well on its way to unlocking its next two stretch goals, the $130 one being some themed Flower pawns.

So if you are a fan of Shakespeare and Munchkin I highly recommend you go back this project.

What I am Spending

Seeing as I spent all my money at the store birthday party, absolutely noting, although I did pick up the Dwarves Blood Bowl team that I had ordered at the birthday party on Saturday.

I had hoped they would have gotten some stick, but none was sent to the store strangely, and I did spend some time checking out more scenery, but I am not sure I want to add anymore to the to do list!

A Long To Do List and a Birthday Party

By michael

On 8th February 2017

In Blog

It’s less than four weeks now until the Heresy Weekender and I have lots of scenery left to do, so I really need to get a crack on with it.

Currently left to do I have:-

3 Wall of Martyrs Imperial Defence Lines
2 Wall of Martyrs Imperial Defence Emplacements
1 Firestorm Redoubt
1 Void Shield Generator
1 Imperial Bastion
2 Munitorum Armoured Containers
1 Shrine of the Aquila
2 Haemotrope Reactors
2 Sanctum Imperialis
2 Manufactorums
2 Basilica Administratum

So it’s a big list, all I have managed to do so far is a single Wall of Martyrs Imperial Bunker.

I think I need you guys to wish me luck!

In the meantime it was my local Warhammer stores birthday party on Saturday and I went down to join in on the festivities. I managed to forget my case of models, curse you brain damage, so was unable to enter anything into the painting contest, or take part in any of the games. But that was cool I hung out with the guys and just chatted, and drooled over the stuff coming out of the Weekender down in Nottingham.

I had a KFC for lunch which was a nice treat and voted for my favourite model in the cabinet, which was of course Grahams Vampire Lord!

Martin and the gang put on a fun day with lots to do and it was a lot of fun, can’t complain at all. I did have 21 tickets for the auction at the end of the day and had hopped to get myself a framed picture of a Stormcast Eternal, but that ended up going for a lot more than 21 tickets. In the end I gave my tickets to a kid so that he could outbid a fella on a picture of some 40k battle brothers, and ended up encouraging others around me to do the same, as it’s always nice to see a kid walk away with a prize.

Oh and The Mighty Zugband my Word Bearers dice from Forgeworld arrived, quite early which was nice.

What I am Modelling

Not a lot had been done, just haven’t been able to get the time in the studio that I would have liked, but I have done a little work on my Word Bearers Tactical Support Squad, and they should get finished up tomorrow.

For the store birthday party I was going to take along my Stormcast Eternals Errant-Questor for the Bloodtide game, but Megan wasn’t doing so well on Friday night and needed my company, so I didn’t get a chance to finish him off, but when I got in after the party, I went and finished him off and I am quite proud of it, we’ll sort from the sword that is, ruddy hand tremors mean my highlights are utter pants.

I did build the Khorne Bloodbound side of the Age of Sigmar box up today, which I ended up using in my first ever game of Age of Sigmar, but more about that in a bit.

What I am Reading

I finished up listening to Vulkan Lives and I have to say, it made a lot more sense listening to it than it did reading it.

I have started on the audio book version of Leman Russ: The Great Wolf, and it has so far been quite good. Although Dan Abnett certainly gets the credit for how the Rout is portrayed in the Heresy, Chris Wraight has really fleshed out that portrayal quite a bit, and here we get to see a bit of the Wolves in the immediate aftermath of the Heresy which in itself is really interesting.

I am about halfway through now, and so far got to say that Leman is about as much as I would expect him to have been during the height of the Great Crusade, I am looking forward to getting into more of the book tomorrow.

What I am Playing

I have actually played quite a bit recently, so let’s give a brief overview.

I played Grant at Blood Bowl at the Raiders on the 31st and I drew that game with my humans against his Orcs, but I think I need to get an Ogre to give my humans a bit more punch, but I have Grak and Crumbleberry so they will be getting integrated into the team ASAP. It was a really tough game and I lost 3 players to KO during the game.

On the 1st I played Smash Up at home with Lindsay and Megan, I was playing Changerbots/Time Travellers which was an interesting combo. Unfortunately Megan got a headache so the game was incomplete, though I was on 14 points Simone away from winning. Me and Lindsay then had a game of Ticket to Ride using the India map, where I beat her 177 points to 96 points thanks to getting all my routes on a Mandala.

On the 3rd I played Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition with Lindsay and Paul, it’s a rare treat that we get this set out and I am always the Hobo Express, Lindsay got to play with the circus trains which megan normally plays, anyway I couldn’t repeat my success of a few days earlier and only scored 105 points to Lindsays 136, but I was ahead of Paul’s 79.

On Sunday we cracked our Sentinels of the Multiverse, and I don’t know what it was, but I just didn’t enjoy it all that much, probably didn’t help that we got so many of the rules wrong, either way I just found it dull, so will have to change it up for our next play of it, especially as it’s part of the 10×10. We then finished up the day with a game of Firefly Fluxx which was won by Megan.

Today I had my first game of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and I rather enjoyed it. I played David at the club and in our short game I had a unit of 20 Bloodreavers, a Mighty Lord of Khorne and a Khorgorath against his 16 Dryads, Treelord and 3 Kurnoth Hunters with greatbows.

The game was a tad unbalanced and I got ripped apart quite quickly, but I had fun, the game was quick, interesting and simple to pick up, but next time we should use points to ensure a more even game.

What I am Backing

Sliced Quarterly has come back to Kickstarter and my old school pal Ken Reynolds has put together a nice campaign for it.

There are 14 days to go and as I write this they are £106 from funding, so if you like experimental comics go take a look and if you like it, back it.

What I am Spending

Well the store birthday party saw me get into the spirit of things, mostly cause I wanted a messenger bag!

But in all honesty, what I got was mostly for the Heresy Weekender, and those were scenery, I picked up a Firestorm Redoubt to go with the other Wall of Martyrs stuff I have and a Void Shield Generator, so I think we are going to have a pretty cool board with those bits together.

I also wanted to grab a boxed game, I went in with the intention of getting Gorechosen to add to my Khorne Bloodbound, but ended up getting Gangs of Commorragh because Megan loves her Dark Eldar, though I am kicking myself as that’s something I should have gotten her for her birthday instead of letting here know I had got it!

I also picked up a few pots of paint and a Golden Daemon bag label and I also got the free messenger bag, blue mini shopping bag and a bunch of other promo stuff like badges and wrist bands.

10×10 Report for January and Painting a Bunker

By michael

On 31st January 2017

In Blog

Well the 10×10 didn’t go too well this month, after a good start we didn’t play a single game for the last week and a half, so we have only completed 4% of the challenge.

So we have 96 games still left to play, we must do better next month.

Horus Heresy Weekender Scenery

I have been putting my hobby budget mostly towards scenery for the Horus Heresy Weekender, simply because I want us to step up our game in terms of scenery from last time.

So I purchased a load of Wall of Martyrs scenery so we can make ourselves a defence line board, when combined with a couple of Imperial Bastions.

I have done a test piece to set out how the rest of the stuff is going to be painted, and I think it looks quite good. The painting method is a simple one I found on a blog a few years ago.

The scenery is primed black and the concrete sections are then dry brushed with Stormvermin Fur, followed by a dry brush with Administratum Grey, the metal is painted with Leadbeltcher which is then sloppily washed with Agrax Earthshade. The small aquillas are then dry brushed with Ceremite White.

The gold is Retributor Armour, washed with Reikland Fleshshade and dry brushed with Sigmarite. The earth is Mournfang Brown, washed with Nuln Oil and then dry brushed with Mournfang Brown and then dry brushed with Tau Sept Ocre.

The Cadian armour is painted Castellan Green, washed with Agrax Earthshade and then dry brushed with Nibblet Green, and the red canister is Mepheston Red, washed with Agrax Earthshade and dry brushed with Astorath Red.

The roof is painted Doombull Brown, washed with Agrax Earthshade, drybrushed with Squig Orange and the dry brushed with Leadbelcher.

Finally the bone is Zandri Dust, washed with Agrax Earthshade and then highlighted with Ushabti Bone.

It’s a very simple scheme and one that is very easy to replicate across the three Imperial Defence Lines and two Imperial Defence Emplacments that I still have to paint, and I might be adding a Firestorm Redoubt to that pile as well.

How Did I Miss That

By michael

On 30th January 2017

In Blog

In my last post I mentioned the game against the guy who had three Imperial Bastions and Deep Striking Terminators.
Anyway, I somehow managed to miss the Castellan Force Organisation Chart, I mean I must have spent a few hours looking through the book, and I missed this, my excuse is that I have brain damage, but that only goes so far really!

As for the Deep Striking Terminators, well it’s been suggested that he could have rolled for Void Walker as his Warlord Trait, I am sure he rolled for World Burner, but a Praetor can reroll for his Warlord Trait and I didn’t see him reroll it, so that’s entirely possible.

Anyway, then conclusion is that I am an idiot, so don’t listen to me!

Embrace the Plastic Fantastic

By michael

On 29th January 2017

In Blog

The past few weeks I have had a few discussions with people about people getting into The Horus Heresy game with plastic models. When I first started my Ultramarines it cost quite a bit to get into, my first two orders to get me going came to £1,291.72!!!

That got me two full Tactical Squads of 20 marines, two Storm Eagles, a Fire Raptor a Sicaran, Praetors, Apothecaries, Tarantulas a 10 Marine Assault Squad, Champion, Master of Signals, Quad Mortars, Deredeo, Command Squad, command Upgrades, Assault Weapons, Books 1 and 5 plus moulded shoulder pads for everyone!

So it wasn’t cheap, but I had saved for a long time to be able to afford it all over two purchases. But someone starting today doesn’t face the same cost barriers I did, mostly thanks to Betrayal at Calth and Burning of Prospero.

So how is it cheaper getting into Heresy, we can see this just by looking at how I started my Word Bearers, for which I wanted 35 Marines, which would be split into two 10 man Veteran Tactical Squads, a 10 man Tactical Support Squad with Plasma Guns and a 5 man Heavy Support Squad with Missile Launchers.

Now going to Forgeworld for resin marines it would cost me £25 for 5 Marines, making it £100 just for 20 marines without weapons, now add to that sone Bolters at £12 for a pack of 10, so you need two packs plus a command upgrade pack at £11, you have a total cost so far of £135 for two basic squads. Of course these being veterans you want them to have special/heavy weapons, I opted for Heavy Bolters in one Squad and Missile Launchers in the other, to grab those you need to buy a pack of 5 of them for £13 each adding another £26 to the cost of those squads for a total cost of £161 for the two squads!!!

For the Tactical Support Squad, you will need two £25 packs of Marines, and a pack of Plasma Guns in this case which are £12, so that Squad is £62. The Heavy Support Squad need a pack of heavy support marines which are £24 plus the missile launchers which cost £13.50, so that squad will cost you £37.50.

So far for just basic powered armoured marines we have spent £260.50.

With a copy of Betrayal at Calth you can do it so much cheaper, buying from Games Workshop direct you would get the boxset for £95 giving you 30 marines which you can use for the Veteran Squads and Plasma Support Squad, and what’s more it comes with all of the options to build the Veteran Squads, you will still need to buy the £12 plasma gun still. Also you are five marines and four missile launchers short of having everything so you will still need to get the £24 Heavy Support Squad and £13.50 Missile Launchers. So with that in mind your spend for those 35 marines is now £144.50.

But that’s it all you get with Betrayal at Calth, you also get a Contemptor which with its weapons would cost £53 and a squad of Cataphractii Terminators which would cost you £49.50. And not forgetting a Praetor in Cataphractii Armour and a Chaplain, the nearest equivalent on Forgeworld being the Praetor pack which costs £34.

So all told with the few bits from Forgeworld, buying Betrayal at Calth instead of Forgeworld resin gets you £397 worth of stuff for just £144.50 and gives you a basic list of 1532pts.

Now what about adding vehicles?

The discussions originally started around the use of Mars Pattern vehicles and whether or not this was ok or not. Now as you may or may not know, I have used Mars Pattern Rhinos for my Word Bearers, two of which were in the modelling section below. These vehicles, no matter what anyone tells you were around in the Heresy and are perfectly fine fluff wise to use, Whirlwinds, Rhinos, Predators and Land Raiders. The only ones you can’t use are Razorbacks and Land Raider Crusaders/Redeemers because they hadn’t been invented yet. And you can’t really use a Mars Pattern Whirlwind to represent a Whirlwind Scorpius, because they are very different models, but other than that, go wild use them.

So if you add three Mars Pattern Rhinos you are spending only £22.50 as opposed to £37 for the Deimos Pattern Rhino, and £45 for a Land Raider as opposed to £73 for a MKIIB Land Raider from Forgeworld.

From this you can see getting into Heresy these days can be relatively cheap, all of the above would set you back no where near as much as it would have 18 months ago, and that can only be a good thing can’t it.

Well not according to some Horus Heresy veterans who shall remain unnamed. They are concerned that with the plastic kits, too many people are getting into Heresy on the cheap and damaging the game!!!

Right well let’s just look at what has happened in the last 18 months then in the North East Heresy scene. We have seen a lot more people getting into the game, now admittedly a lot of those armies are initially starting off as heavily infantry based as that’s the model favoured by the cheaper kits, but once the infantry core of your army is established, it’s then easier to add the more expensive resin only stuff to your army on a piecemeal basis.

So a player might start off with two big footslogging units of Tactical Marines backed up with Terminators and Predators, but as they play others, they see what works for them and they start adding things like Sicarrans, Spartans, Leviathans etc etc.

This has seen the number of regular opponents I have shoot up from 2 or 3 to substantially more giving me more variety in my games, and how can that not be a good thing??? With my two regular opponents Graham and Christian, I was lagging behind in a bit of an arms race, with Graham running a tank list and Christian running a Scoria Cybernetica list. Now I can enjoy games against them, with my reasonably fluffy Ultramarines list, lose and know I have other opponents against who I stand a more equal chance.

Not that I am complaining about Christian and Grahams lists, I just need to develop better ideas on how to handle them whilst sticking to the fluff of my Legions.

And with more players comes more events, Graham has been able to run several more Heresy related events at which we have gotten more and more players, giving us all chances to play more varied games. If anything the influx of people has actually calmed down the local meta, as new players come in, we have actually seen our lists decrease slightly in power so we don’t put the new blood off the game.

Anyway, I say, go out and buy plastic Marines, use your Mars Pattern vehicles, come and enjoy the game, because the more players we have, the better off the game will be in the long run.

What I am Modelling

The first half of the week my motivation to paint was quite low, but on Wednesday I was ambushed by Lindsay and Megan and frogmarched into my studio where I decided to paint up the last two Rhinos for my Word Bearers. One will be for the Heavy Bolter equipped Veteran Tactical Squad and the other will be for the Plasma Gun equipped Tactical Support Squad.

With both of those finished I have put the main red onto the armour of the Tactical Support Squad and washed it, but I was running very low on Nuln Oil and had to wait until Saturday to restock.

What I am Reading

I am about halfway through Master of Mankind and so far I am impressed, it’s a very good book and extremely well written, possibly the best Black Library book yet written.

I am also listening to Vulkan Lives, like with Nick Kymes other Slamanders books for the Horus Heresy, I struggled with reading it, but I am getting on with it much better as an audiobook, plus it’s nice to get an appearance from John Grammaticus who has to be one of Black Library’s most mysterious and interesting characters.

What I am Playing

I went to Graham’s Horus Heresy event, A Message from History last Sunday. I took my Word Bearers at 3500 points and played two games. My first was against a Mechanicm Cybernetica army, playing the Shatter Strike mission.

With a large number of Castellan robots, three Thanatars and a low number of troops, I figured my best tactic would be to drive forward and get up into his deployment zone and try and stay there.

So my Rhinos and Spartan headed in whist my Dreadnoughts walked in whilst shooting their weapons, I deepstriked in with my Gal Vorbak and Ashen Circle to try and distract him and keep him off my troops.

The tactics worked, and I ended up winning the game 7-1.

My second game saw me team up with Grahams Iron Warriors in a doubles game to play the same Cybernetica player and a Dark Angels player. The Dark Angels player was using a force organisation chart that allowed him to take four fortifications, which I am still trying to figure out which book that was in. Either way he had three Bastions and some Vengence Weapon Battery’s.

Due to some confusion about setting up, all my dudes ended up set up behind Graham’s line of tanks! So it took a while for my guys to get into combat, although my Plasma Gun equipped Tactical Support Squad managed to wipe out a unit of Dark Angels Terminators who arrived by Deep Strike, again trying to work out how they did that too.

In the end my squad of Terminators and my Praetor saved the day by killing the Cybernetica Warlord in the last throw of the games dice.

In the event overall the forces of the Warmaster easily destroyed the lackeys of the Emperor, and Christian got to play with his new Acastus Knight Porphyrion.

I also got to play a game of 2500pts with my Word Bearers against Edwards Emperors Children at the club on Tuesday, again the tactics of being aggressive paid off as we were playing the Tide of Carnage mission.

Again it came down to the last dice roll as I denied him a unit in his own deployment zone by having my Ashen Circle charge and chop down the guys he had in his deployment zone, meaning that I won the game instead of him.

What I am Backing

Still just Light and Dark, but I have finally gotten round to unboxing the Turtles game and I will have a proper report for that written up once I have gotten a game of it in.

What I am Spending

I have bought some terrain for the Heresy weekender which is just five weeks away now, bought three Wall of Martyrs Imperial Defence Lines, a pair of Wall of Martyrs Imperial Defence Emplacement, a Wall of Martyrs Imperial Bunker, two Basilica Administratums and two Manufactorums.

I also preordered the Dwarf Giants dice, the Special Play Hall of Fame Cards and the Mighty Zug for Blood Bowl as well as some Word Bearers dice and I picked up a couple of sets of plastic Tartaros Terminators from eBay relatively cheaply.

Spent a lot this week, but much of it was for the weekender so that doesn’t really count does it!

Anyway the issue is that I have been feeling down, and when I feel down I either overeat or spend money, and this week I have been spending money.

Mostly Down

By michael

On 14th January 2017

In Blog

I have mostly had a couple of weeks of being down, to start with, we had a tragic and untimely death in the family and that and its circumstances which if I may be so dramatic, could very well be the worst thing to have ever happens on the maternal side of my family.

To further make me down we have beenhaving issues at the flat we own in Newcastle, we already had to replace the boiler this winter, something we could have gotten done for free had someone followed up on something they were supposed to have done for us, and now the washing machine broke down!

And of course when they first tried to deliver it, they refused to install it because the old washing machine had a leak, so we had to pay £75 to a plumber to go out and stop the leak, which would have stopped anyway once the old machine had been removed.

I was also a bit ill earlier in the week, including one day where I threw up my medication, which resulted in me being all over the place for a day as my meds really do keep me stable and out of pain, so I was going from manic to depressive all day.

We have also had to have some repair work done in our flat as on of the stairs slipped out of its fixings and part of it went through the ceiling below it, the landlord was absolutely shocked at how badly it had been installed, but he had joiners out to inspect and check the whole staircase and thankfully it was just the one which was bad.

We have a temporary step fitted whilst the new one is cut, it’s been approved by an inspector from the council but it still doesn’t feel safe, but that’s probably just me feeling insecure about it know the old one was dodgy.

And to top it all this week, when buying some Xbox Live credit on eBay, I managed to get someone’s house raided by the Anti-Terror Squad!

No I didn’t SWAT them, basically he asked for a scan of my driving licence and passport, now I am a paranoid git (it’s true I take tablets for it) so I think that isn’t quite right, so I say no, he says he won’t send the code. So I call eBay up, who then make me call ActionFraud, who go nuts and put me though to the Anti-Terrir Squad who themselves think that they have stumbled onto a way that terrorists have been obtaining details for fake IDs!!!

So I get a call the next day and they have conducted a dawn raid against the guy, and yeah he does have loads of driving licence and passport details, but simply because he was trying to protect himself from scammers on eBay!

But regardless what he was doing is pretty naughty and he is being charged with crimes relating to the Data Protection Act and possession of a stun gun, and I am possibly going to be called as a witness for his trial if he has one!!!

So yeah that’s all contributing to be feeling quite low.

If I am honest the stuff that has been going on has in a way been a distraction form the family death, it’s hit me hard because me and this person were extremely close growing up.

What I am Modelling

Yeah I have built the first 1000 points of my Tau, well 1009 points if you want to get technical! In addition to the Devilfish I built a couple of weeks ago, I have built a Start Collecting Box and Burning Dawn. Combined that gives me 2 Ethereal, 10 Fire Warriors, 3 XV8 Crisis Suits, 10 Pathfinders, a TX4 Piranha and 3 XV25 Stealth Suits, oh and not forgetting all those Drones too!

I have also almost finished building the Word Bearers for the 22nd as well, I also finished painting the Ashen Circle and a unite of Legion Veteran Tactical Marines, who are armed with 2 Mars-Pattern Heavy Bolters and a Sgt with a Lightning Claw. The Mars-Pattern Bolters are really quite cool and I am glad I went with them, but have fitted them, I can say with certainty that they would not have fitted a MKIII Marine without some serious cutting down of his vambrace. The ammo belts are also a little difficult to get into place, but mind you a lot of that could be bacause I mount my models on the base, and putting the basing material on before I start painting.

I didn’t get finished the Gal Vorbak, Mhara Gal, Legion Tactical Support Squad or 2 Rhinos. I feel a bit crappy going to play with unpainted models, but you know, some personal stuff can up and I kinda needed to stop painting because I had to paint, and paint because I wanted to paint for a bit.

So I did start painting the 3 Crisis Suits and I have gotten as at as getting their armour done, going to try and finish them next week.

What I am Reading

I actually haven’t read anything this week barring news and magazines. I have read through the Fall of Cadia tonight, and well talk about advancing the story!!! But I won’t spoil it for anyone.

I finished listening to Betrayer this week, and have just started on Fear to Tread, a book which I really enjoy and love even more so since a few years ago I got to spend an being with the author James Swallow as he told me about how he approached writing this book.

What I am Playing

We finalised the list of games to form our 10×10 Challenge, the final list consists of:-

Bohnanza
Castle Panic
King of Tokyo
Kingdom Builder
Lords of Waterdeep
Pandemic Legacy
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Smash Up
Speldour
Thunderbirds

Last week we had Paul around so we began Pandemic Legacy, and January got off to a bad start. We had early success in curing the blue disease, but got hit with a few outbreaks early on. We managed to then cure the yellow and black diseases and were making progress to curing the red one, but we had neglected South America, and a chain reaction of outbreaks saw us lose the game and have one city hit Panic Level 2!!!

We will tackle January again in a few weeks, it felt weird changing the game, but this is going to be an interesting experience, I just hope we have a fun campaign and we make it to December without destroying the world!

This past fortnight we have also played King of Tokyo, Tsuro and Bohnanza.

What I am Backing

Currently backing Light and Dark which is an expansion for a game which I backed last year, Ember. The creator was responsible for Lindsays best moment of the whole weekend, his enthusiasm really made her rather happy, so I was happy to back his first expansion for Ember and I am looking forward to getting this one as well which looks like it adds some different elements to an already enjoyable game, plus the dude only lives in Scarborough so is almost local!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Shadows of the Past finally arrived and I will post a bit more about this next time.

I did get through my copy of Steal This Game, plus one extra, need to get to give this a game and see how good it is. Either way I am happy to give to the campaign.

What I am Spending

I sold a couple of bits and bobs, so I had a bit of money this fornight, and feeling down I went on a mini spending spree and bought a KV128 Stormsurge for my Tau and a copy of Doom for the Xbox One plus a Season Pass for it.

I got myself a USB 3.0 hub to replace one that broke, and a friend was selling a 2016 Imperial Space Marine so I bought that one with the idea of turning it in to a Knight Errant.

Oh and I went on eBay and bought another Primus Medicae, this way I can have one for my Word Bearers and my Ultramarines.

Distraction is the Name of the Game

By michael

On 9th January 2017

In Blog

I am hurting right now, I had a pretty rotten week, but on Saturday I got some news which has completely shaken my world.

I can’t and won’t go into it here at this time, but it’s left me utterly in shock, today to try and cope with it I found myself drinking bourbon to try and numb the pain, I know that makes me a bad Bahá’í, but I fell back on an old and very destructive coping mechanism.

This afternoon to try and distract myself from the pain, I got myself off the bed, where I had spent most of the day staring at the ceiling and went to my man cave to start something.

The Word Bearers project was going to be 15 days of intensive painting, so I have put that aside and will be playing with an unpainted army, which is something I usually never do, but I don’t think I have the heart for 15 days of hardcore painting.

So I decided to pull out my Tau and build the Formation out of one of the three Start Collecting boxes I bought to start the army with. I tonight got built the Ethereal on a Hover Drone and three XV8 Crisis Suits, all with two Burst Cannons (I had to crack open another kit to get cannons five and six), and equipped two of them with target locks, the Shas’Vre is getting a Drone Controller.

Tomorrow I am going to spend the day up in the cave and build the Drones for the Crisis Suits, they are all going to be Marker Drones, and build the Fire Warriors, using the set up as described in the Kill Team booklet. If there is time I will then start on the Burning Dawn boxset because with those two boxset Formations combined I will have a little 1000pt army built with a few different units on to start testing out how the Tau actually work in combat.

It’s all just a distraction but right now that’s exactly what I need.

What I am Modelling

Other than the Tau, I am almost there with the Ashen Circle, but there is so much detail on them, and I built the Mahara Gal.

What I am Reading

Last night I finished reading Weregeld, which was a fitting way to end Corax’s story prior to Terra, was also nice to see an appearance by the Wolf King too.

It feels like the series is coming to its close, which is good in a way as it’s has been going on for a long time, but it’s sad in other ways because I have really been enjoying reading them for the past few years. But all things must end.

I also fitted in the Grey Raven, one of the shorts from the Advent Calendar, and that was alright, but it once again showed that Malcador is Just as big a dick as the Emperor himself.

What I am Playing

To get my brain working tonight we played Thunderbirds, we played it with the Tracy Island expansion, which has become a preferred way to play the game recently, and I pulled Parker as my character, Lindsay got Lady Penelope and Megan had Scott Tracy.

We got off to an okay start, what with two of us starting away I Europe and all, and we solved the first couple of disasters with ease. But that luck didn’t hold, for mission attempt after mission attempt we kept on rolling Hoods, and pulled so many Hood Advances cards out of the disaster deck it wasn’t funny.

We ended up one Hood advancement away from him completing his second scheme for quite a while, until we attempted our last rescue attempt and we got another Hood.

We only got 30 minutes of play in, but it was tense, it was quite late otherwise I think we would have given it another go.

Thunderbirds is still currently my favourite game, I just can’t get enough of it.

I have also been playing a lot of Fallout New Vegas, this is my third attempt at the game, hopefully I can complete it this time without getting distracted by something else.

What I am Backing

Nowt, although I am getting continually annoyed with IDW over the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows of the Past game. It shipped to the Yanks at the end of October, but it didn’t even make it to the EU until a month later, and then spent a month in Customs, and yet still it doesn’t appear to be shipping.

Now I know we can expect Kickstarter’s to have delays, but the delays here seem oddly much longer than other projects I have backed, and it doesn’t help that IDW have kept us in the dark over the situation, but it’s annoying when friends who did my back the game have already bought it at retail. I know I am getting a bunch of exclusive stuff with my Works Edition, but I really wish I knew what was going on right now.

What I am Spending

Absolutely nothing this week apart from an audiobook, which was the Leman Russ instalment of the Primarchs series, and I don’t get to download that until the 14th, Tau stuff that I ordered around Christmas continues to arrive, I am currently waiting on a last Riptide and a Devilfish, and I sold a couple of bits the other night so now have enough to afford the second Stormsurge which will be the last addition to my project pile for quite some time I think.

Oh actually one thing I did but is paint, Megan and Lindsay went to the cinema today and were already going to Games Workshop to pick up my delivery of the Tau Sept transfer sheet for me, so I asked them to pick up two Layer paints, a Dry paint and a bottle of Shade for me.

Happy New Year and a 10×10

By michael

On 5th January 2017

In Blog

Happy New Year nerds, I hope you all had a nice time and are looking forward to 2017.
I am not doing resolutions this year, other than to paint more than I buy, but one thing I am doing is a board game 10×10 in order to get to know some of my games better.

The basic idea behind it is that you play 10 games, 10 times in a year, so 10×10! Our current list consists of:-

Pandemic Legacy
Thunderbirds
Splendour
Lords of Waterdeep
Bohnanza
Kingdom Builder
Castle Panic
Sentinels of the Multiverse

Lindsay has the last two to pick still, so I am curious as to which games she will pick. We kind of decided that we would avoid light fillers like Fluxx and Love Letter, despite Megan’s objections because we really want it to be a challenge to achieve.

I will keep you updated about how we do!

What I am Modelling

I was away at my parents in Suffolk a good part of the week, so not a lot!

I bought a Tau Devilfish which had some parts come off the sprue, so to make sure they didn’t get lost, I did build that and it’s Drones.

I am currently painting The Ashen Circle for my Word Bearers, and I really need to get a move on building and painting the rest of them!

What I am Reading

I read this week a couple of shorts in the Horus Heresy series, Red-Marked and Raptor, both have been available as audios for a while, but have now been published in anthologies so I have reading them a shot.

Red-Marked explained how Thiel got his gang together, who we meet in Deathfire, and it was about as Thiel like as we could expect. A short and sweet story, one which I throughly enjoyed.

Raptor saw the Talons of the Raven Guard come up against some Wulfen of the Space Wolves, what happens when mutant Astartes meet, well it explained the lengths that the Raven Guard would go to in order to protect Corax and showed how despite all the evidence, the Wolves don’t see their mutations as being something a fundamental flaw in their geneseed.

On the audio front, I have started and am most of the way through Bettayer, a book I enjoyed for its combination of the Word Bearers and World Eaters, two Legions whom one would never have thought to pair up. As usual the writing of Aaron Dembski-Bowden is superb, and I am rather proud that he is a friend of mine, his books are simply amazing and well worth the long wait they often take, perfection after all, should not be rushed.

What I am Playing

I got to play a few games this week on New Years Eve with my brother, his girlfriend and my nephew.

We started out with Trivial Pursuit Family Edition, it’s not really a game I would normally play, but my nephew insisted, I ended up winning that one because I got a really easy question as my final one, nobody thought I would know a thing about ballet. Through playing it, I did find out that my nephew has some serious holes in his knowledge of literature, something I think I will have to do something about.

Then me, Lindsay, Megan and my nephew played Castle Panic, at first he was a little confused about it, but once he figured it out, he really enjoyed it, and we sadly lost, but only just, but it had my nephew chomping at the bit to play again.

Alas we didn’t have the time, but once the bell struck 12 we did have a game of Batman Fluxx, but I am not sure he took that in quite as well as he was really tired and falling asleep in it, and I still didn’t get a chance to flip the promo coin that I have for it.

What I am Backing

Not backing anything still, but I did get through my copy of Braggart 2nd Edition, so expect a report about that soon.

What I am Spending

I bought a few things for my Tau specifically a Riptide and as I mentioned before a Devilfish, plus another Tau Commander that a friend offered me for cheap, and it was still sealed. And I had a friend get to Games Workshop on the 27th to pick me up the Primus Medicae in Cataphractii Terminator Armour, but not sure if he is going to join my Word Bearers or Ultramarines.

Upon delving into my Tau Empire Targeted Reconnaissance Cadre battleforce box set I found an extra Broadside had been placed in the box, so that made me happy as Larry!

I had to buy a printer as mine had gone kaput, Megan was determined that this printer be very good for photo printing so upon looking at reviews, I have bought us a Canon Pixma iP7250, but discovered afterwards that it’s just a printer and has no scanner! So either I will need to replace it again or buy a separate scanner 🙁

But a big thing was that I bought my membership to Eastercon, I will attending for the first time in 16 years this year and I am really looking forward to it.

Christmas Report

By michael

On 28th December 2016

In Blog

Well Christmas came and has now gone, and I had a nice few days. This year instead of going away, Megan’s family stayed up north, so me and Lindsay got to spend the day with them.
We did the traditional Botterill thing of waking up and having bacon and mushroom stotties, although a lot earlier than usual, 7am to be exact! And then we opened our presents. I was a bit worried about what I got Megan and Lindsay, but they both loved what they got, so that made me happy.

I got some quite cool things, a pack of Wulfen for my Space Wolves and some Haemotrope Reactors as well as a Stormsurge, Pandemic – Reign of Cthulhu, Fallout 4, Ghostbusters (2016) on Blu-Ray, some drill bits for the drill I got for my birthday and an amazing pair of Joker Converse High Tops!

We then travelled down to Megan’s parents where we had a lovely dinner of beef and turkey, piled high, not quite as high as my Nana’s, but pretty high. In the afternoon we played some games and watched a bit of TV, then had a tea of party food, including some low sugar cakes and gingerbread that Megan made especially for me.

When we got back home that night, we had left the wrapping paper on the floor, purposefully, so we sprinkled some pellets in it and let Gandalf dive into it and make a mess like he loves to do!

Boxing Day I spent in the house on my own, which gave me a bit of time to just chill out in my own, and with that time I did a of reading, and some painting.

All in all a really nice Christmas, different from the Christmas that I have developed over the years with Lindsay, but sometimes it’s nice to mix it up a bit, and I have promised the Ruffell’s a Botterill Christmas next time they stay up north for the 25th December.

What I am Modelling

Still working hard on the Word Bearers, but I need to really get my arse into gear if I am to have all 3500 points read for the 22nd January.

Over the past week I have finished up a Praetor for the list, it’s the event only mini, which I picked up at Warhammer Fest, armed with a Combi-Volkite and a Thunderhammer. Absolutely love this model and feel like it’s full of character. I have the same one painted up for my Ultramarines and am tempted to get another to paint up for Space Wolves.

I also painted up a squad of Cataphractii Terminators for which is used a few bits form the Special Weapons Upgrade Kit, specifically the Reaper Autocannon and the Power Maul. I didn’t think that the Power Sword really suited the Word Bearers whereas the Maul really did. The model was inspired by a piece of artwork that SN Battle Reports have been using for their Horus Heresy event, it really captures what I wanted to express with my model and I hope you can see that.

Then there is the lone MKIII Marine with a Meltagun. One of the things I want to do with the Word Bearers is to use them as Chaos Space Marines for 40k, but I can’t simply plop my Legion Veteran Squad in as a squad of Chaos Marines, sadly they can’t take two heavy weapons. So that’s what this guy is for, he will substitute for one of the Missile Launcher Marines to give me a 10 man squad of Chaos Space Marine armed with a Missile Launcher and a Meltagun.

On Boxing Day, I was left to my own devices as Megan and Lindsay were off elsewhere and I was able to paint up a Spartan Assault Tank and a plastic Contemptor Dreadnought armed with a Kheres Assault Cannon. I also built and primed a squad of Ashen Circle which I shall begin painting tomorrow.

What I am Reading

In audiobooks I listed to Perpetual, a story by Dan Annett which formed part of the Black Library advent calendar subscription. I really enjoyed it, was nice to catch up with some characters who are off on one of these side missions which will probably not finish up until the Siege of Terra. I did have one issue with it, and that was that the actor voicing Ollanius Persson seemed a little too old. The artwork of him from Know No Fear shows a man of middle age appearance but still quite vigorous, and his voice actor in the audiobook of that story I think captured him perfectly, whereas in this one he is just a tad too old, more like Robert De Niro, old and retired but still with it, than Liam Neeson, if that makes an sense.

I also listened to Children of Sicarus in which we got a bit of historic information about the home world of the Word Bearers and a bit of character building for Kor Phaeron. We also were introduced to the first Kairic Adept in the 30/40K lore which makes me wonder if they will be introduced when GW get round to do some more Tzeentch models for the game. We got to see what a self-serving got Kor Phaeron truly is, how he puts himself ahead of everything, even the will of the Gods he claims to serve.

A criticism would be that it describes M’Kar as a member of the Gal Virbak, when I just listen to the story of his assent to the ranks of the Daemon Princes in The Mark of Calth, and he is quite well established as such in the rest of the lore, typical GW not keeping tack of its own more I suppose, LOL!

I got finished reading Sons of the Forge, and overall, I didn’t enjoy it all that much, it was very jumpy and filled with plot holes and dead ends, which is a sad thing to say because it had lots of potential.

I then moved on to a few of the recent shorts that were released during the Advent event, The Painted Count, Exocytosis and The Last Son of Prospero, all of which I enjoyed a lot. But Last Son of Prospero was a tad weird, it’s an interesting ending and I am wondering where they are going to go with it, but it does seem to have undermined all that had been built up around this character up to this point.

What I am Playing

On Christmas Day, I played a couple of games with Megan’s mum and sister along with Lindsay and Megan. We started off with Joking Hazard, we played to 5 points and Lindsay won it, was a lot of fun and we made some very funny comics. We then played a game of Timeline British History, which I had gotten Megan for Christmas, and Lindsay won that, after declaring at the beginning of the game that she wouldn’t win because she is rubbish at British history!

Durham Raiders had an all day gaming session today, but sadly I was unable to make it until much later on, by the time I arrived most people were either leaving or had just started another game, so I sat with Aidan whilst he was building his Sylvaneth for the slow build Age of Sigmar and I built the Genestealers from Lost Patrol.

But after I had done that Phil and Gareth had finished their games of Age of Sigmar and The Horus Heresy, so we played a game of Gorechosen with Christopher. I had not played Gorechosen up until this point, although I had always wanted to pay a game, and it was really really good. I even won, but very early in the game I took a real beating from Gareth’s character until he and Phil realised that Christopher hadn’t taken a single wound, and they then ganged up on him! It’s a really brutal game and I had a lot of fun, so much so that I intend to get a copy at some point, as much for the minis as for the game itself.

What I am Backing

A Bahá’í friend Jody Cooper is running a Kickstarter to fund a concept album of songs he wants to produce, it’s called Serenades and Odes to a Cracked World. He is a rather talented musician so I suggest you check it out.

What I am Spending

Well all the Christmas presents I needed to buy were bought, so I treated myself, I did some demo work last month at the Newcastle Film and Comic Con, so with my pay for it, I got the Tau Empire Targeted Reconnaissance Cadre battleforce box set, a Tidewall Rampart and Stormcloud Attack. With my normal hobby budget I bought a Ghostkeel and a Broadside. So I probably spent a bit much on the hobby this month than I should have done considering my backlog of projects.

I also got a killer deal on an old box set, the Blood Tide of Khorne from my FLGS, they found it at the back of the storage area, it had arrived damaged and unsellable a few years ago when it was sent in by Games Workshop, and they were sent a replacement, so I was given it for a steal, the only real damage I could find was to the box, the sprues themselves are in perfect order, so I snapped up the offer, and this will form part of my slow build Age of Sigmar Khorne army.

Blood Bowl, Bloodbound and Calth

By michael

On 17th December 2016

In Blog

I will be honest I have had quite a boring week, other than a night away in Newcastle with Megan it’s been all rather dull and ordinary, with that last part of the week taken up with a little bit of a tummy bug.

What I am Modelling

I finally finished the Heavy Support Squad for my Word Bearers, might go back to them and add some scripture, but I am actually rather happy with them. They were built using the Forgeworld MKIV Legion Heavy Support Squad with some of the Word Bearers torso and head upgrades, which I regret using as the size of the Missile Launchers make it hard to see them. But these knock off something from my January list which is nice.

I also finished a unit of five Blood Reavers from the Storm of Sigmar box, which will begin my slow build Khorne Bloodbound. For the entirety of next year, the Durham Raiders are going to be running a slow build Age of Sigmar campaign where we all build and paint things to eventually get to a list of 2000 points. I have decided to do Khorne Bloodbound because it’s more than likely a number of players will be doing Stormcast Eternals from the starter box, so I figured I would be a little different. Plus it’s more of a challenge to me, they represent something very different from what I normally paint. It also had my first ever attempt at Dark Skin in there, and I think I did ok with it, well I am happy at least.

I have a squad of Word Bearers Cataphractii Terminators which have just hit the table, tonight I have finished the red armour, something I do by first of all painting it with Mepheston Red, then washing it with Nuln Oil, tidy up with Mepheston Red again, then a dry brush of Astoreth Red followed by a lighter dry brush of Kindleflame.

I also have the Cataphractii Praetor at this stage as well, this is the event only model with the Combi-Volkite and Thunderhammer.

What I am Reading

I have started reading Sons of the Forge, I must admit I have not been the biggest fan of the Salamanders books by Nick Kyme, I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t follow them as easily as other books, and this is proving no different. I suspect it’s the very large cast in it, a cast with names which are not as easy to remember because they are unusual names, I never used to have this kind of trouble but that’s what a brain injury will do I suppose.

On the audio book front, I just finished listening to The Honoured and have just started The Unburdened, so still very much on the Calth stuff. These two books themselves were ok, they didn’t really do much bar fill in a bit of the background of Kurtha Sedd. But then again they were tie in novels for the Betrayal at Calth game and follow the scenarios in that game, so they are rather limited in nature, but seeing the same events from two different perspectives is interesting.

What I am Playing

Played my first game of Blood Bowl in about 20 years on Tuesday at club, I played David, who had his Skaven and I had the Orcs. I chose to kick first after winning the toss, which in reflection may have been a mistake.

The Skaven were able to swamp my Black Orcs with a Rat Ogre, which let the Gutter Runner through to score a touchdown very quickly. I then readjusted my strategy and decided to make it as difficult as possible for him to get his Gutter Runners down the wide zones as had been his tactic when scoring and trying to get the ball and throw it upfield to an awaiting Lineman.

This actually worked for me, bar the fact it ended up being a Blitzer I had upfield, but still I got a touchdown and the game looked to be headed to a draw.

But then in the last few turns of the last half, disaster struck, David got so very lucky, he set himself up so that he could get a gutter runner in my half, and swamped players in his so that they couldn’t assist one another in attempting to take his down. And with some very lucky dice rolls and more sixes than I have seen in a long time, he passed the ball to his Gutter Runner, who then passed through two players tackle zones to fly downfield and score a touchdown for the final moment of the game, meaning I lost 2-1.

I really enjoyed the game and it was a lot of fun, but the Rat Ogre was very hard to play against, so my thoughts at the moment are that it’s a little difficult for the initial basic teams to come up against some of the extras that players who never stoped playing have. But given time I am sure that will be resolved. My loss in all honesty was down to me simply not being able to take out those ruddy Gutter Runners, they were just too fast.

What I am Backing

Nowt right now, but I am eagerly hoping that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:- Shadows of the Past game will be with me by Christmas, currently I am not confident it will be.

What I am Spending

I think I am finally done with Christmas presents, so I treat myself to a meal at Laus 202 in Newcastle, and a second hand copy of the updated Tau Empire Codex from eBay.