Year in Review 2016

Hello!

That's right, I'm not dead. Still alive and kicking, however I'm still just as useless at updating a blog regularly.

I'm determined to give it one last push to keep a regularly update wargaming blog, and if it fizzles out this time, then I guess that's a sign to stop :)

I initially wanted to give this a go with a brand new blog, and a clean slate rather than the multiple restarts i've attmepted here after what was at one point a regularlry updated blog with what I percieved as decent content. However, I don't want to lose all the content here and have to re-host any photos or lose any articles I particularly liked. I have had a bit of a play with the way things look though which may or may not change in teh next few weeks. This all depends on if I can work out how to create a new image for the blog header for example :)

Let's look back at the year so far and see what there is to work into a new blog.

- I went back to the Leeds game night early in the year and began with Hordes, and a few games of Malifaux there too. In no small part due to the faff of getting home so late on games night after the long train ride home afterwards(all on a work night), I stopped going to the Leeds game night.

- A long time friend of mine was also getting into Malifaux around this time and since then we have played many games and expanded our group of two in to 6-8 people now playing Malifaux. We have even had two 6 player three round 'tournaments' on boards at home (My wife and I took 1st place at one of each of these, just sayin'..). My wife also plays Malifaux now as her first ever tabletop game aside from D&D, which means I play more wargames now than I have since I was a lot younger.

- A new independent hobby shop has opened in the town nearest to me, so now that our budding Malifaux scene is developing, we are hoping to support them by booking out enough tables there for our next event. It's important to support things like this as there hasn't been a hobby shop closer than Leeds for maybe ten years!

- Whilst I will still be playing (Mk2) Warmahordes with friends, I have downsized my collection, and parted ways with my Gators, leaving me with my fair size Skorne collection for the occasional game.

- I mentioned in January this year that I had just re-jigged my desk setup in the study, giving me a lot more hobby space, and better access to various projects and making it generally easier to paint and make toy soldiers etc. i will hopefully post a few pictures in coming blog posts.

- I have refined my magnetic storage solutions, and again I will be going over this in future posts :)

- I have made what I think are massive improvements in my painting with my Malifaux collection and will try to feature these (again) in some posts in the future. I got a wet palette for my birthday this year and I think that this has helped a lot with me moving away from drybrushing and starting to paint 'properly' with layered highlights.

- With the recent release of the new Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines, my friend and I will be reworking some of our very first armies that we collected and played together, with me starting fresh with some of my most loved miniatures, the Space Wolves. This will mainly be a modelling and painting project as we are both just as disillusioned as always with the constant rules updates to games systems leaving us out of touch. We will be sticking to 6th/7th edition 40k for the games we play.

This pretty much covers what I hope to write about in the next few posts. I would also like to make some kind of posting schedule to help keep me posting regularly. Things like WiP Wednesdays, and product reviews.

Yet again I've dumped a wall of very uninteresting text with no pictures, but this blog is as much for me as it is for anyone else that reads it ;)

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Opportunity In The Community

Time for an update

Over the Xmas/New Year period, I had been planning to replace my old rickety (falling apart) desk, and once I'd finished emptying it out, I realised just how much I had been missing all the hobby stuff I 'didn't have time to do anymore'. A combination of getting home relatively late, and then cooking and washing up etc and having pesky inquisitive cats meant that the goal of a new desk would have to be easy setup/pack away again to maximise time actually spent hobbying.

What I ended up with, I think allows me to do this effectively. I won't go into massive detail here, but perhaps I'll outline my new setup in a future post.
Looking through my many and varied 'to do' piles not only allowed me to put a load of older stuff away (with a view to sell hopefully at some point) but also made me want to get some use out of it all, so I messaged my friend & Pressganger in Leeds, and asked about their regular meet ups.

I mentioned briefly that I recently moved to a new team in the new year, 1st week of January, in fact. I have a lot in common with my new team, having known them for a while before moving, and some if not all of them play either roleplaying games, or online games or both. They are definitely not the kind of people who would give a second thought to me carting around a case of toy soldiers to go gaming with every other Thursday, so it's a great time for me to start again :)

I actually ended up playing Malifaux at my first time at the club, I had mentioned this to Mark (Pressganger), who arranged for me to get a starter set game in with his regular Malifaux opponent.
Not only is it always good to make new friends in the hobby community, but I've had the Guild's Justice box set since my birthday in various stages of WIP, as well as having made some good purchases on a Facebook trading group for a couple of the Malifaux books.

I had a great time learning the game with the starter crews, and very much enjoy the card mechanic in place of dice. My wife and I have been admiring Malifaux models for ages, and I've ordered the starter set for us to start getting some games at home too.  I've had a gaming table for a couple of years so all we need really is a 3*3 playmat and some mdf buildings or similar and we should be set without a great deal of expense.

When I arrived at the gaming space, pretty much the only thing going on (I think there was also a Warmachine game being played) was Guildball.
This is something I was aware of when it kickstarted, but ignored purposefully as I had no-one who would have been interested in playing, despite the models looking great. After our Malifaux session had ended, I loitered around a bit and watched some game play, and asked Mark a whole raft of questions after I had left to get the train. I didn't think much more of it to be honest as my head was full of Malifaux, and what I wanted to get done next towards my Gators/Skorne, and then out of nowhere someone posted on Facebook a Brewer's Guild team for a handsome price, and I snapped it up :)

Which leads me (around the houses) to my hobby plans for the year.
I had originally planned to keep going with Skorne and Minion Gatormen, and possibly branch our into Trollbloods after seeing some really great painting threads, and being on the fence about them for years. That's still what I intend to do, but I will of course now be playing/painting Malifaux (mainly Guild) and Guildball.
I also want to revise my miniature catalogue which has miniatures listed by stages of completion etc, and add to this what paints I own. Just as a reference more than anything , and to stop me buying duplicate colours.
I have no aims for completion of x number of miniatures by y date, but I do want to have my Malifaux ready by the next time I play, and similarly with Guildball.

I'm back at the club on Thursday, facing down a 50pt Runes of War list with Maelok. I had intended to use Barnabus, but I have no confidence in doing very well in my first game so I thought I would try and learn a caster I've not used before and just re-learn all the things I've probably forgotten :)
Time depending, I may also be getting a Guildball demo, but this isn't quite so likely and if not, I will try and watch some of the guildball action to learn what it's like to play.

For the foreseeable future, I'll be splitting my time at the Thursday night gaming between Warmahordes & Malifaux, more than likely Guidball will feature soon too. This week, is Hordes as mentioned, which means that next time around it'll be Malifaux.

Hope you guys are looking forward to this year as much as I am.
Thanks for stopping by
Lofty