Return of the Liebsters

It is apparently that time of the year again when bloggers all point fingers at each other and ask lots of questions. The Liebster Awards are a way for people to acknowledge blogs that they enjoy reading and highlight them for others to go and take a look. It's meant to help people find new blogs, hence there is meant to be a cap of 200 followers on nominations. Of course, 200 followers is actually quite a lot in our little world of wargaming, so that really only excludes some of the most popular wargaming blogs...

There are a few rules. I have added a badge on my sidebar linking back to the blog from which I was nominated (Wargames Obsession - ironically I don't actually follow this blog, but I do follow Herman's Warhammer blog instead, Trouble in the Border Princes). I also have to answer the 11 questions and nominate 11 other blogs for people to go and investigate. So, here we go...



Question time
1. Why did you start blogging?
A few things pushed me into starting a blog. 

• I had taken to writing a few opinion articles on our games club website, and I found myself wanting to respond to certain issues on forums, but it felt like a waste of effort to try to address things properly in that format. A blog gave me a place to put such things, and then people could come and look if they cared to.
• A number of friends had started doing it and it looked easy enough to get into.
• It was an easy way to show some friends overseas what I was up to.
• I wanted a place to write up battle reports.

2. If you could change one thing about the wargaming hobby, what would it be?
From my particular perspective, it would probably be Games Workshop, or at least its relationship with gamers. The company has done a great job of dividing hobbyists into those who either still liked or tolerated it, and those who despised it. The latter seems to an ever-growing group, and it's very tiresome. GW used to be a company that had a good relationship with those who played its games, and it's hard not to feel like that has been poisoned over the last decade or more. There is far too much ill-feeling out there.

3. What is best in life?
Spending time with people whose company you enjoy, I think.

4. Do you want to live forever? 
Sure, why not? Beats dying, right?

5. Fame or Fortune?
Being famous doesn't really seem to be all that great. I'm not sure why anyone would really want that. Money, on the other hand... With enough money I, I could stop having to spend time making money and could instead have more free time to do the things I want to do. Like play with toy soldiers. 

6. What miniatures are you most proud of having painted? 
This could be interpreted a number of different ways. As someone who is more focused on getting things to a tabletop standard, I don't really have any individual models that I am super-proud of as a showcase of my painting. As a whole, I am most proud of my Empire army because it's been the project that has seen the most significant modelling, and as such contains the most unique models. Most of it is not terribly well painted, but it's still the thing I am most proud of.

7. How do you deal with burnout?
In terms of modelling or painting burnout, I would just take a break, really. Spend some of my free time playing xbox or watching movies instead of painting. Or switch my modelling focus to a different army or unit, if I'm just sick of working on something in particular. I don't tend to get gaming burnout because frankly, I don't seem to play all that often at the moment anyway. But if I did, my approach to handling it would be similar.

8. Why is a raven like a writing desk?
What on earth... I'm sure I'm missing something with this question. Anyway, it is well-documented that ravens are servants and spies of various dark forces in the world (or maybe it was worlds other than this one). And spies probably spend a lot of time lurking around writing desks, either writing sinister messages of their own to their bosses, or trying to steal messages and documents belonging to their victims, so I guess there is that?

9. Star Wars or Star Trek?
I enjoy a bit of Star Trek, but I grew up loving Star Wars, and even George Lucas' best efforts in recent years have not managed to destroy my love of that universe.

10. If you could only buy from one miniature company from now on, which one would it be?
Given that Warhammer is really the only miniature game that I play at the moment, I guess the answer would be Citadel/Games Workshop. I might not agree with the company's policies or enjoy how much of my money they want for each model nowadays, but I do still like most of the models and they're the ones that go with my chosen game system.

11. What is your favourite takeaway?
I eat more pizza than any other sort of takeaway, although I am very partial to Mexican food.

My nominations
This will be a bit of a mixed bag. I have a lot of blogs on my news feed, but often the updates will not be of interest to me and I will skip over them. I also follow a few that have a large number of followers and hence are not really eligible for a Liebster nomination. So what follows will fall into a couple of groups. 

The first few are ones that I view frequently:

Fields of Blood is one of the most frequently updated Warhammer/40K blogs outside of the big news-centric sites, and one I often visit. It's probably been nominated already, but I haven't seen any sign of it, so there you go.

Terrain For Hippos is the only terrain-focused blog I follow, and also happens to be packed full of amusing, English-challenged hippos. What's not to like?

I don't really know what The WoffBoot Chronicles is about. The blurb at the top of the page doesn't help at all. But the writing is amusing and it's Warhammer-related, so I go have a look every now and then.

The rest of my links will be to pages from people I know, some of which have some interesting updates, but almost all of which don't get updated often enough. When they do get updated, I look - but this is generally infrequently. You know who you are. You have all been named and shamed...

Back in Drew's Day. Pirate Ogres and Orcs who think they're Wood Elves. What's not to like?

Some Call It Luck. This is Nick Hoen from the Dwellers Below. He can write up a good tournament report. Or could, if he could be bothered seeing it through...

Short Shorts and Paint Brushes. Yeah, another Nick from the Dwellers. Gentile, this time. Who knew he had a blog? Nobody, because he never updates it.

Den of the Eternal Youth. Another Nick, another lazy blogger. Yeah. Cop that!

Well that is only 7 blogs rather than 11, but that'll have to do. I have other things to blog about, but other things to do. I shall return!