After a difficult summer, I am starting to get myself back on track, still need to work out a weeks schedule, but I am getting there
The studio is much tidier, I have reinstalled Windows to deal with my glitch gremlins, I am painting more, I am playing more video games, and working on my mental health more.
We have made some good investments in the houses infrastructure, replacing the homelab, getting new hoovers, and an FDM 3D printer, still have a few more things to pay for/pay off but we are getting there.
My next thing to tackle is getting on with some more physical exercise, but lets see how next week goes.
What I am Modelling
I turned my attention to the Blood Angels to get a bunch of them finished off so I can have the Combat Patrol ready to go,
I painted up the Intercessors from the Combat Patrol
I haven’t been posting for a while, alas a lot of it comes down to going through my usual summer slump and a bit of depression I have been battling, but I am trying to turn myself around.
Giving myself some projects to do, and things to try and keep me occupied, I really think I am missing Company of Legends, it gave me something to focus on, something to look forward to and these last couple of years without it, well I have been doing a bit badly.
But let’s crack on and update you on my last few months, so let’s get into it!
Heresy Camp
This other weekend, I attended Heresy Camp, run by some amazing friends of mine, and how did a not “Company of Legends” weekender go?
On Friday I met up with James at Gamers-at-Hart and we played a warm up game with our armies, my Solar Auxilia and his Sisters of Silence
Aethon Heavy Sentinel Squadron [200 Pts]: • 3x Aethon Heavy Sentinel [65 Pts]: Aethon Missile Battery, Multi-Laser
Malcador Heavy Tank Squadron [350 Pts]: • 1x Malcador Heavy Tank [350 Pts]: Searchlights, Smoke Launchers, Vanquisher Battle Cannon, Demolisher Cannon, Hull (Left) & Hull (Right) Mounted Lascannon, Pintle Mounted Multi-Laser, Dozer Blade, Flare Shield
Malcador Heavy Tank Squadron [350 Pts]: • 1x Malcador Heavy Tank [350 Pts]: Searchlights, Smoke Launchers, Vanquisher Battle Cannon, Demolisher Cannon, Hull (Left) & Hull (Right) Mounted Lascannon, Pintle Mounted Multi-Laser, Dozer Blade, Flare Shield
## Lords of War [300 Pts]
Macharius Heavy Tank Squadron [300 Pts]: Macharius Vanquisher Cannon • 1x Macharius Heavy Tank [280 Pts]: Two Sponson Mounted heavy stubbers, Hull (Front) Mounted twin-linked heavy stubber, Smoke Launchers
After the game myself and James made our way to Moorhouse Adventure Centre where we hung out for a bit, I was going to play Zone Mortalis, but decided to come home that night cause I wanted us to pick up Graham the next morning, but there were some great games being played
The missions and environment rules were fairly punishing with vehicles and dreadnoughts moving within 3” of terrain having to fire on the nearest United friend or foe, which saw me destroy one of own Carnadons and Nick wipe out a Recon Squad of his
Deamon Fulgrim is a beast and basically ate two squads of Lasmen and my Command squad, in the end I lost by a lot!
Game 2 was on table 3 vs Johns Death Guard, which was a mostly infantry list, but damn Death Guard are tough
Combination of Mortaion, who kept healing the wounds I put on him, and a trio of Dreadnoughts just ripped apart my tanks and I was tabled again
Game 3 was against Chris’s World Eaters on Table 4 and I wasn’t tabled, which was a bonus, but his fast troops, and awesome advanced reaction made short work of my tanks.
After the game I had my tea, a lovely Chinese takeaway of chips and fried rice in curry sauce and salt and pepper chicken, after which we had a Heresy Quiz, which I did respectably in.
The next day I played Matthew and his traitor White Scars, which was tough game, the rules were a bit complicated and I was forced to keep my men out of their transports to carry the objective.
Then I painted up a test piece for a new terrain project, this one is going to be for a no man’s land board for Trench Crusade, but is also going to be generic enough that it won’t look out of place in Bolt Action or Warhammer Fantasy Battle
This year I want to finally play some Legions Imperialis, so I painted up the bases to make my Aeronautica models usable, went for a sandstone type scheme
And finally, myself and Graham had an intro game of Bolt Action in which I played the Germans (because I already have a German army) and Graham the British, I think he won, but really we were just figuring the game out
I originally bought it on GOG a few days after release, despite my system at the time only having a 1660 Ti, which wouldn’t have run it well, but I got it for under a tenner due to the very poor reviews of the state it was in at launch.
But my experience with GOG Galaxy and its cloud saves ended up having me buy it on Steam in a sale earlier this year, alongside Phantom Liberty.
I even bought Phantom Liberty on GOG, but losing all my saves in Control when GOG Galaxy crashed, has put me off GOG for anything I really want to invest time in.
So the reason I am only now just playing it now is cause with these kinds of games, I tend to wait until all the expansion are out, and then have a massive big playthough then, and well it took a bit for Phantom Liberty to come out and I was busy with other stuff.
I have still been playing some Hell Let Loose most Mondays at least and often a game on Wednesday nights as well, and the other week we had this score which was incredible!
I have started a new YouTube painting series Just About Tabletop Standard, in which I am going to paint a Marine from each of the 18 Legions from Horus Heresy.
We started out with an episode on the Dark Angels, followed by an episode on the Emperor’s Children
What I Am Spending
The grown up purchase the past few months was a new vacuum cleaner, we ended up getting a GTech AirRam Mk2 K9, and Lindsay is very happy with it, she always gets excited for new vacuum cleaners!
Our new car was also delivered, we got a Renault Mégane E-Tech which is a really nice car, quite a bit more range than our last and a few extra niceties as well, like a pair of USB-C sockets in the back and dual zone air-con
I managed to get all of the issues of Combat Oatrol I wanted, issues 37, 38, 39 and 40, to get me a Helbrute, some Chaos Terminators and some Wraithguard
Whilst at UK Games Expo, I did pick up the Battletech Beginner Box, I really want to play some of this game again, played it as a teenager, and want to relive my youth!
I spent the other week at the UK Games Expo as a volunteer on IT and it was a knackering but amazing few days.
I really enjoyed it and I will absolutely being doing it again next year if they will have me, but I do have to be more realistic about my physical abilities and perhaps I need a job with more sitting down.
My journey to Birmingham was pretty bad, we got continually stuck in traffic, including being in the middle of a bunch of cars headed to a funeral that were following a marching band.
And finally the bus broke down as we left Manchester, and we had to wait over an hour for a replacement, so all in all it was a typical MegaBus journey!
I didn’t get to play many games, but the one that stood out to me was Samurai, but its long out of print, so I will be buying Pollen instead which is in print, if a little expensive.
There were a few cool things that peaked my interest, the DRPA Case and other stuff from Tabletop Tech, the amazing Colour Forge, TT Combat and their Strike Team Commander, Catalyst had Battletech which had me all nostalgic, and Gamer Grass had some amazing stuff as well.
Next year I need to take more notes to give a fuller report!
What I Am Modelling
On my return I hit the Chaos Space Marine Legionnaires of the True Sons
I got a couple of games of 40K in at the weekend, playing both Dale and Craig in the 40K league, and if I don’t win the wooden spoon I will be peeved!!!
Posting this weeks post early because today I am off to the UK Games Expo, an event I love to do.
This year, as my Asmodee contract ended, I am volunteering directly with the Expo itself, my job is being split between IT and the Bring and Buy.
Most of my time will be spent setting up the IT equipment to run the expo and a few hours spent helping in the Bring and Buy.
I am going by Megabus from Middlesbrough to Birmingham via Manchester!
Firstly Lindsay took me to ASDA for lunch, would have preferred Tesco, but they don’t go back to normal hours until Monday, but I grabbed a wrap and energy drink, plus a bottle of coke for the coach, and then we drove to Boro where I hopped on to the bus and here we are.
The Megabus is certainly better than I remember, more legroom and even a plug socket for my Steam Deck, not that it worked, but the thought counts right!
What I Am Modelling
I started out with some Blood Angels, painting first a Terminator Captain
Gamergate was an utter debacle; it was horrific, disgusting, and merely an excuse to abuse and harass women and minorities in the gaming industry.
It was never about ethics in gaming journalism. If you believe it was, you’re seriously mistaken and need to reconsider, basically take several seats.
At its core, it was a jilted ex-boyfriend’s revenge plot that spiralled out of control.
Following events like Race Fail and the Sad/Rabid Puppies controversies, it was a dreadful time for enthusiasts like me. All my passions, including gaming, sci-fi, and fantasy literature, felt under attack by far-right zealots.
It took me years to regain my enthusiasm for gaming as my love for it waned alongside my interest in literature.
Now, there are opportunists attempting to ignite a new Gamergate to make themselves relevant again or simply to stir up anger for profit. I refuse to let this happen again.
Take Mark Kern, for example, a once-prominent figure now irrelevant since being ousted from his company in 2013 due to his egregious behaviour.
And it’s disheartening to see creators I once admired, like Lady Decade, getting involved, which really stings.
Yet they persist, desperately seeking to spark a new “scandal”. Their efforts with Sweet Baby, who actually advised for widely praised changes in games, have failed.
They’ve targeted Stellar Blade, lauding it as “Game of the Year” material solely for its characters tits and arse and ‘jiggle physics’, blatantly ignoring the story and gameplay, they never mention that at all, so I have no idea if the game is actually any good.
Now, they’re criticising a tabletop RPG adaptation of Tomb Raider because it focuses on uncovering historical truths rather than grave-robbing. Clearly, they’ve never engaged with the Survivor Trilogy, which explores similar themes.
Furthermore, there’s constant griping about the portrayal of women in games, claiming they all should look like porn stars with heavy makeup.
Take Aloy, for example; they call her ugly when in fact, she’s stunning and lives in a post-apocalyptic world devoid of beauty salons. And Mary Jane in Spider-Man is portrayed beautifully in a realistic way.
So, if you see me confronting these chuds, know that I’m not backing down this time. This is my hobby, and these ignoramuses need to understand it’s not just a space for cis-het white men!
What I Am Modelling
Started the week with some Tyranids, specifically the Neurolictor
The Boarding Actions Terrain was finished up as well. This stuff is going to be used for my Zone Mortalis table mostly, the idea being it’s going to be the neglected and horrible service corridors of my hive
I still want to add the marketplace stuff, a gang stronghold and some promethium containers, perhaps another set of shipping containers, but for now, I am quite happy with this!
And these Dark Angels Aggressors were finished as well!
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6C9y6qI-dA
So what’s next?
Sisters Repentia x 4
Hobgrot Slittaz x 10
Drycha Hamadreth
Sneaky Snufflers x 12
Lasrifle Section c 20
Arco-Flaggents
Dark Angels Intercessors x 10
Space Wolves Infiltrators x 10 and Battle Leader in Phobos Armour
Paychophage
Mega Boss on a Maw-Krusha
What I Am Reading To
I listened to Mort by Terry Pratchett my first of the new Discworld audiobooks, a real classic story and a hell of an update with a stellar cast!
I weirdly find it far easier to listen to the Discworld books than read them, dunno what it is, but the structure just seems to work better in audio, for myself that is!
And that was a game in which we both thought I would be tabled by turn 3, but I managed to keep it going and survived the whole game, still a major loss!
Think I am gonna win the leagues wooden spoon!!!
What Video Games I Am Playing
Not much this week, Megan is anxiously waiting on something so I have leant them my Steam Deck to help distract them, they are mostly using it to play Disney Dreamlight Valley, on my Xbox profile I might add!
I love my Stormcast Eternals army, I mean its really fun to play with and I actually love the theme of the army, especially as I play Celestial Vindicators and their colour scheme is amazing.
My favourite chamber, is Sacrosanct and well, GW have announced that 80% of my army is being squatted, which is a real bummer.
Ok the old school Liberators look like they will be fine with the new rules, but so much of my army, seemingly isn’t going to have a Thunderstrike replacement, so yeah pretty bummed out.
It just is quite dishartneing that an army I put my heart and soul into, has lasted barly 6 years before being yeeted.
Its got me feeling really down about AoS 4.0, like I am probably gonna skip the launch box, cause honestly, I am not sure if I buy it, how long those models will be useable for.
Had a game of Horus Heresy with Russel on Friday night, we played Strike and Fade, and I lost 7-3, could have gotten a draw but alas my Terminators just failed to get to the objective in the last turn!
I also bought myself Ghost of Tsushima for PS5, I have been hunting for it, at a reasonable price for a while, and it was on sale at the local Argos, so I leapt on it!
Not much this week, but I have made a couple of changes to the house to make it more comfortable and easier to use.
The first, was to add a SKÅDIS pegboard, just like in the studio to the wall, to hold knives, and a few other bits and bobs using some bits that I had previously used on my studio board.
I finished listening to The Fall of Cadia by Robert Rath, which was a pretty good listen, and I hope they finish the story of the Gathering Storm and give us a novel of the Fracture of Biel-Tan and the Rise of the Primarch because they are so far poorly explored.
What Tabletop Games I Am Playing
I haven’t, but I did receive my BoardGameGeek Secret Santa, which is Root!
Due to the insulation work, we had to swap out a bookcase we had when we moved for a narrower one, so we went to IKEA and picked up a narrow Billy to store some of our board games.
This is a big update, life has been a bit all over the place and its taken this long to sort out putting out a new blog post, sorry
My dad turned 60 earlier this month so we buggered off to Suffolk for a birthday meal, we were in the county for less than 24 hours which felt too brief as I was unable to get any quality time.
Would have liked to have spent more time with the nibblings, but it was nice nonetheless.
It was a Sunday dinner at the pub and I had lamb, cause I love lamb and so rarely get to have it.
I turned 41 as well, which was fine, but my birthday plans failed and it’s left me somewhat deflated.
I am on the verge of giving up any attempt at celebrating it from now.
I did get a pair of AirPod Pros for my birthday, mostly cause I needed the ANC
This weekend I went to Stirling for a Horus Heresy event runs by some friends of ours, an event with lots of Conpany of Legends DNA, which is really cool cause we never get to play in our own event!
That’s not me saying they ripped us off, we love that they have taken our concept and turned it into their own thing, it’s absolutely brilliant, although we did provide them with Chris’s scoring/pairing spreadsheet.
I am gonna put up a vide with my list next week.
It’s been a really fun event, my first game was against Matts Whit Scars, a beautiful army that I was able to really push and give it a hard time.
The game went rather well for me, I did lose in the end, but it largely came down to a mixture of great tactics by Matt, poor decision making on my part and of course rolling double 1s on Plasma Pistol Chainfire on my Moritat resulting in him dying in his first turn out of the Rhino!
The second game on Saturday was against Chris’s Custodes, and yeah at 3.5k points, Custodes really get to shine as they can take a lot of the nicer toys that 3k kind of stops them taking
I got hammered in this game, my list just struggled to handle the sheer amount of 2+ Armour
Wonderful guy as well and a beautifully painted army, makes me want to get my Custodes out the box!
On Sunday I faced Mark and his Ultramarines, in a very challenging game, for a good part of the game, I was dominant on one flank, distracting him with stuff on the other, but once he had taken care of those units, he quickly wiped out my whole army!
A great weekend and the lads put on an amazing event, really good, absolutely loved my time there.
Insullationgate
Not my name, but it seems apt, on my return Stirling, we were having some insulation work done by the landlord, the contractors said, it was all external, but when they arrived, we were told its actually all internal!
As a result of the insulation, I found a DOOM box of abandoned Warhammer projects and decided to finish as many of them as I could, starting with a resin Big Mek with Shokk Attack Gun, who mostly just needed a few bits and bobs finishing
Then I finished up some Marines that Chris gave me ages ago to supplement my Word Bearers who needed a couple of Marines per Squad to allow me to take them as Tactical Squads instead of Veteran Squads and allow me to build some non Pride of the Legion lists
I also had a couple of bits printed up for my controller board, some black hooks to hang cables and a shelf, to hold a few little bits.
I also finally bought a new monitor for the studio, I just really needed some more screen real-estate for editing Edge of Empire podcasts, cause the setup I had was a bit weird in composition.
Its a Cooler Master GA271 and is really good for the £130 I paid for it, and I mean, really good, far better than it has any right to be, with some HDR and FreeSync too.
Megan spoke to me and Lindsay the other week about how she has been feeling since we moved, anyway long and short we are adopting a pair of rabbits!
Currently known as Harvey and Hudson, they are being renamed Perrigrin Took and Angron Eater of Cables!
So this past week and a bit has been taken up with the task of rabbit proofing, rabbits are utter hoodlums and will chew any fucking thing.
So all the cables are being sheathed in protective coverings, the board game units are getting doors for the bottom shelves and a couple of extension cables are going into boxes.
Tomorrow Megans mum is coming round and the cage will be built!
I like bunnies, but they are pains in the bum, just so bloody naughty!
What I Am Modelling
I started the week by painting the Lord Castellan for Shadows Over Hammerhal and his trusty Gryph-Hound.
Followed by the Darkoath Warchief, I love the whole Darkoath aesthetic and I tell you, if they ever made a whole army of Darkoath, I would be on it like a tramp on chips!
Played a game of Horus Heresy against Graham on Tuesday, it was a close game and I must admit my Dreadnought killing his Sicaran Punishers was beautiful!
Not only have I spent most of it unwell with a nasty tummy bug, but the flat has turned up a few issues.
We were in the process of having a water damaged cabinet replaced, when it was discovered that due to some missing airbricks, there were some geet big holes in the wall letting in moisture!
So we are having to have the plaster removed, get airbricks put and, so a damp treatment and then replaster.
Anyway, due to a shortage of available tradesman, it’s gonna be after Christmas before it can actually get done so that’s annoying, as it was the cabinet with the kitchen sink in it!
Ah well, life does love to throw some curveballs at you!
What I Modelling
I started by finishing off a pair of Necron Tomb Blades.
I am now currently working on an Imperial Fists Tactical Squad.
So what’s up next?
Imperial Fists Tactical Squad x 10 & Officers x 6
Kataphron Breachers x 5
Oruck Gutrippas x 12
T’au Crisis Suit Team x 3
Imperial Fiats Contemptor Dreadnought
Ultramarines Intercessors x 10
Silver Tower Heroes
Blood Angels Repulsor
Templar Brethren x 10
Hobgrot Slittaz x 20
What I Am Reading
Finished up listening to Kasrkin which has been an enjoyable listen.
And a little progress has been made on Zachareth, but not as much as I would have liked.
What Tabletop Games I Am Playing
Sadly none at all.
What Video Games I Am Playing
Sadly not a thing, which I am quite upset about, the ill meant I really struggled to sit down to play anything.
What I Am Creating
Nowt I actually did myself, but I did go on Bez’s daily show.
What I Am Backing
I am in on the Steve Jackson Games Campaign for some Car Wars STLs.
What I Am Winning
I am not entirely sure who this was from, it just came with a plain white piece of paper saying “congratulations on your win”, but I won a black Playstation 5 DualSense controller, which is brilliant.
