Busy busy busy

April is shaping up as a busy month for me from a hobby perspective. The Tale of Duelling Gamers officially kicks off today, however it may well be a few days before I can sink my teeth into it. Then there is the battle report I have started working on. Or maybe that will have to come first...

I have been meaning to do another proper battle report (of less than ridiculous size) for a while now, and on Friday Nick (or Elmo, Cookie Monster, or one of any number of the other muppet-based nicknames he seems to go by nowadays) and I finally got around to organising and playing one. We decided to use Orcs and Goblins against Dwarfs, both of which are actually my armies. Nick doesn't really have an operational painted army at the moment. Go over to his blog and hassle him about it.

Guest Post: Writing a Battle Report

For all that I wrote up and posted the final turn of the Hel Fenn battle report today, it is now the better part of 2 weeks since the game itself was played. During this time I had a number of people regularly querying where I was at with the report. One of these people was Owen the Puddingwrestler (from over at Terrain for Hippos). I think I must have snapped at him at some point about giving me time to get it ready, because he took it upon himself to write the following piece for me, to help explain why it is that these things take a little while to prepare. If you're a little baffled by the hippo references, head over to his blog and all will become clear. Or infinitely more confusing, depending upon your state of mind...

Writing a Battle Report

A lone hooded figure sits crouched over the dim light of a laptop screen in the dead of night; completely still save for the fearful flickering of his fingers over the keyboard. Occasionally he lets out an insane giggle. He is watched by a silent mass of small, grey hippos, all waving banners bearing messages of support. Every now and again, a woman will come over and place a supportive paw on his arm or offer him a glass of Coke. A child is pushing a Thomas the Tank Engine around his feet. Outside, fiends and wild creatures howl and batter at the windows, demanding that the manuscript is completed at once. The figure types on, doing his best to blot out the gibbering of the creatures outside.

He is Greg the Hoodling, and he is completing a battle report.

Hel Fenn - coming soon...

Hi folks!

For those of you waiting impatiently for the Hel Fenn battle report, I apologise. The New Year period has been a bit busy and this battle promises to take a long time to write up, if I want to do it justice. Sorting through about 700 images (and culling blurry and irrelevant ones - a symptom of having at least 5 people taking photos) is a bit of work, and then there's the writing and the maps... Rest assured, I will get there. The end product will probably come out on a turn-by-turn basis, as it will be too big for a single post and it might get things online a bit quicker. I hope to have something online before the end of the week. Time will tell exactly how much.

In the meantime, here are a couple of images to help tide you over...

The Wolfygryphs are coming...

I have spent a lot of time modelling over the last few days - far more than usual. It's slightly depressing then that I have so little obvious progress to show for it. Nevertheless, I figured it was time to show what I've been working on.

On Saturday I went to the club as usual, however I brought bit and pieces rather than an army, and spent the time clipping Thunderwolves off sprues, cleaning them up and gluing them together. It's amazing how long this process seems to take, but that was why I decided to do it at the club - where I would have several hours uninterrupted in which to get it done. 

I also decided to bust out a Witch Hunter that I've had sitting in a blister for some time. I got him as part of a second-hand bundle, so I didn't really stop to think how old he really was. The model is the old Warhammer Quest Witch Hunter model, but I guess I figured they had been selling him as a regular Warhammer character for some time. It was only when I went to trim the mould lines that I realised how soft the metal was - he had lead content. Then I checked the packaging, and realised the poor guy had been stuck in there for the last 17 years...

Free at last! The Warhammer Quest Witch Hunter finally escapes the confines of his blister pack

A bridge too far?

The toll bridge recently featured on Terrain for Hippos.

I feel I am an endangered species at the moment. All around me, people have fallen in love with games like Warmachine, Infinity and Confrontation. Skirmish games seem to be the new black, but as I have stated before, they don't really do anything for me. I prefer the look and feel of a battle - the larger the better. As such, Warhammer is more suited to my tastes and I have stubbornly clung to it, even as those around me have found new favourite systems.

There is nothing wrong with there being variety in the games people play. At the club on the weekend I think there were a bit over 20 players, and between them they were playing 6 different systems - Warhammer, 40K, Warmachine, Infinity, Confrontation and Blood Bowl. Dystopian Wars has been making waves as well (hur hur - sorry, I'll get my coat). Variety like that is healthy in a club, and it's probably a far superior situation to where the club would have found itself a few years ago, where only 1 or perhaps 2 systems would be played at any one time.

However, for all that it's good that people are finding new games that they love to play and that there are ever more options for people to choose from, it does present some problems. The arrival of 8th edition Warhammer helped spur this surge in interest in other games, as not everyone found the new version of the game to their tastes. This coincided with the change of rules requiring a shift in the make-up in people's armies - units were getting larger and previously unused units were worth considering. Like it or not, for most people this meant painting (and sometimes acquiring) more models. In other words, more commitment.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only War(machine)

I think a lot of the Jacks in Warmachine look pretty cool. But things like this are a bit gangly for my taste...

I am going to be honest with you. I had barely even heard of Warmachine or Hordes (Warmahordes) before 8^th edition Warhammer Fantasy was released. I am aware that the game has been around for years, and that there have been people playing it in the past. However, it was not until 8^th edition was released, people tried it, and a lot of them found they didn’t like it, that Warmahordes really leapt into prominence for me.