This is always a good one. lets hear what some of you can come up with for yourself...I am going to see what I can get done as well as hold myself to in 2009. Please feel free to list your own. we can look back later this year and have a laugh
I'm counting down from easiest to hardest. Despite the odds against some of them- I promise that I'm giving all of them a shot!
#10. No more new games!. This one is no brainer I've got more stuff on my plate then I have time for already..need to pick and choose whats going to give me the most bang for my already spent money, time and energy. I need to take the family on a real vacation this year and buy a new car so money is going to be super tight...this one is a no brainer. Definitely!
#9. Get my Empire army finished and fleshed out up to 4000 points and at my highest standards, including some of the new releases later this year. Definitely going to happen, very few models once I'm ready for Adepticon, (going to finally paint my Flagellants as I need them for Escalation)
#8. Get my Chaos Daemons in good looking playable shape at 2250 points, to a standard I am not embarrassed to take to a tourney. This is going to happen shouldn't be tough, 3/4 of the way there already for our upcoming campaign.
#7. Play more Lord of the Rings.. get my Mordor force painted up to 750 points. Highly Probable, I'm motivated, and its already about half done.
#6 Get some other Historical games happening by finishing my models and terrain for Legends of the High Seas and Old West. Try to organize the locals I know and get a few afternoons of Historical skirmish games happening. This is doable, low model counts, stuff is built, based, primed..Bill built and old west town, I have a pirate town and ships.
#5. Get my WAB celt army built and fielded..get at least some models painted, try to play at least 1/2 dozen matches this year when the 2.0 rules come out. Harder, but also doable. about 70% built, nothing painted..should finally get my back ordered WF models soon...the high model count and low numbers of local players will make this tough to focus on.
#4. Build the Flames of War stuff I bought and try to get some games in. Hard- having built one stand of guys..the high model count and tedious painting make this a tough one, I do know guys to game with but I need to get out of the house another weeknight in order to do so and that could be problematic but I do already own everything I need..this ones a coin flip.
#3 Make progress on either my VC, Dwarf or Orc and Goblin WFB Armies I have mostly sitting in boxes on shelves, at least do something with one of them (most likely VC). Dubious with all I have going on, but not out of the question, late in the year if its going to happen, I'd like to paint up some VC models just to see where its going.
#2 Dip my toe back in the waters of 40K, either with a small Marine list (if I still have them) or gulp! with a new army like Imperial Guard. Doubtful, but optimistic..I haven't sold my marines but I am not really trying, so buying the new SM codex and playing a game is easy. The rest really depends on how cool the new I.G. stuff is. Having both an Empire for WFB and Guard army for 40K is appealing but the high model count and all the Tanks aren't as the time sink to get it done is a full time hobby. I do like the idea of a plastic valkyrie and a bunch of drop troop -like commando guys..but I have no idea what they do or if they are even worth building...this is pure speculation. so anything goes here.
#1.Stop buying terrain, until every other terrain project I've got that is WIP is done!LOL!, never gonna happen but I am going to try..I just had to say it.
With the exception of a Christmas bummer (see my side bar) 2008 was a great year for me on the personal front as well as the hobby front. Personally my business is doing ok to well despite the economy, my wife and I had our second daughter in July and everybody is heathly and happy, what more can you ask for right?.
On Hobbying- I was cooking with a semi-prolific (for me) output of stuff this year, I easily painted over a 100 models, and built several hundred more..including tourney readying my Empire Army @ 3K, building my 2k Chaos Daemons both for WFB, around 100 Celt Barbarian Models for WAB, plus the Lord of the Rings models and Pirates I've done. I knocked out a whole bunch of terrain, including buildings, numerous smaller obstacles, my Hirst arts experiments, Built the physical structure and terrain for the better part of 3 tables..I now have 4 full gaming tables in my basement about, 2, 4X4's, a 4x6 and my 4x8.
On Gaming - I competed in 5 tournaments...one at our local GW shop, two at the Chicago Battle Bunker, The Warhammer Fantasy Championships at Adepticon and the Chicago GT. With my Empire Army winning two best appearance awards at the smaller events. I ran 3 full Mighty Empire campaigns for a total of 25 weeks of weekly campaign gaming. I played a zillion games of Warhammer too many to count..while squeaking in a few games for Legends of the High Seas, a single game WAB, and maybe a dozen Lord of the rings games.
On Blogging- The blog had a great year, 26,000 + hits since mid January. My daily visits right now are hard to pinpoint because those Talisman figure shots I took got cross posted stuff on table top gaming news. The exposure created like 1000 hits in 24 hours so my daily averages are kinda off...but my guess its somewhere around 100 of you on a average daily basis are stopping by here so that's pretty cool. I doubled my post output from 2007 and put alot of time into expanding the resources of the blog and "tried' to make it more interesting. I've met a lot great people through blogging and hope to continue to reach out to more. While I didn't do much more than record my own gaming exploits and creations, I hope that I did provide was interesting to my fellow hobbyist and will continue to be so.
Looking ahead-
Personally I'm striving to keep the ship right and sail straight ahead..I'm working on a "green overall" of my business when it comes to energy efficiency which is expensive time consuming but in the end well worth it. I'll have less free time at work this year..but since I have no plans for another child this year.I'm hoping they sort themselves out where I have hopefully the same free time I had in 2008.
On Hobbying- I'm going to continue to expand my current collections and paint more to round things out as fully playable. I'll continue to work on existing terrain projects and want to try to finishing everything that's WIP ( a tall order). No new game systems for 09", new models for what I already have- sure! but I am dialing back the spending this year.
On Gaming - Obviously as I mentioned- the official GW 2009 tourney scene is not what I was hoping for, but GW people tell me that they hoping to increase the number of events this year in the circuit so we may actually see a few national GW events with the proper standards show up. unfortunately its probably going to be Las Vegas and Baltimore both which are most likely out of reach. As of right now Adepticon is only ticket in town for me, I am signed up for both WFB Escalation and the WFB Championships with my Empire so the first quarter of next year is going to be all about that. We've got a new campaign cooking up in January at our local store..new house rules and variations on the stock Mighty Empires game, looks like another good one.
I am also planning on hosting the first "Plastic Legions" tournament at my house in January, its only 8 players but its going to be fun..expect full write ups and reports on that. I actually figured out I could host up to 12 people (6 tables) at my place..so we'll see how it goes on the expansion of this idea. I have to add I am looking forward to getting way more Lord of the Rings gaming in next year as well as plenty of the Historical games.
On Blogging - I am doubtful I can double my output again in 2009 but you never know..expect more the same from me, with the addition of trying to get more useful articles posted..been thinking/ working on a painting article, an " army building" article for WFB. We will see if I can get these fleshed out enough to post. I like the idea of some my pals guest blogging here , hopefully a few of them can offer up some good stuff for you as well. Overall I'm not letting up on the Blogging here at Plastic Legions, while I can't pretend I am going to be a useful as say "From the Warp", I'm sure going to try to inspire you guys as much as I can and even give you a good laugh with an occasional foul mouthed rant!.
( names of particulars are left out of the commentary on purpose as they aren't relevant to the point, this story takes some setup so bear with me)
The other day a friend of mine lost his bag of custom dice on the way home from a game at my place. When I say "custom" I mean they were logo dice, the "six" being replaced with a custom icon. They were produced by a popular internet forum and he had picked them up as novelty. I felt bad for my friend as it sucks when you lose anything gaming wise you'll need to replace. I jokingly told him on a private forum we are both members of, "that it was "Ok" as I was starting to suspect they were loaded anyway" and he should "Go get some crappy "brand X" dice we all normally use and let the 1's fly" I was joking of course about the loaded dice thing, because you always seem to remember when your opponent rolls alot better than you- especially with logo'd dice. Seeing those logo'd sixes everywhere after a bad game is almost like a bell being rung in your head every time they come up. Of course this is purely psychological because when you lose you always want an explanation, and normally its an explanation other than something that would be more realistic like " You let yourself get out of position and he flank charged your best unit dummy, of course you lost.". Needless I say I never get wrapped up in the dice thing, because sometimes you just have have a shitty dice day.
Two nights ago, while I was too tired to do any serious hobbying but not quite tired enough to go to bed (I was in the what I like to call the "void" which for me is usually between 1:00-2:00am) I was on the net cruising a few forums not looking for anything in particular just looking for the motivation to go upstairs and go to sleep. To my surprise I stumbled across a similar dice discussion from on the very forums my friend had the logo'd dice from. The discussions all took place in Oct/Nov and believe it or not the central gist of them involved accusations of dice cheating at both the Las Vegas GT, the Baltimore GT and the Ard' Boys finals for Warhammer 40K by a particular well known and long established gaming club. I was somewhat surprised at this but not really, as I know and have personally witnessed things that lead me to assume that nothing is below the belt in terms of unscrupulous or childish behavior on the 40K tourney scene. Regardless, this got me interested into what the hell was going on here, so I spent some of the next day investigating these claims and the participants through various outlets on the net. The basic summation of all the noise was- that after a bunch of back and forth 8th grade behavior from a bunch of adults fighting about playing a game- The antagonist (a long time and well known forum member) ends up getting his account forever banned from this popular forum but not before majorly succeeding in tarnishing the image of the accused well-known popular gaming club. I read this as a total Lose/Lose resolution.-Now I don't know any of these guys- so I throw no stones at who is right or wrong here as I really couldn't care less. The important thing is by following the discussion I was led to a variety of articles that laid out in very specific detail all the intricacies and fallibility of those little plastic cubes we stake so much of our fun on- Dice.
In a nutshell- I've learned that you shouldn't make assumptions about the neutrality of the dice you are using, things like logo's, sharp corners, dull corners, the size of the dice and the specific purpose intended for your dice all have an impact in how they fall, throw in some unscrupulous behavior or intent and you got a real stinking mess on your hands and its definitely a stinking mess this hobby does not need. I've seen and played people with dice every size shape, type and color and never thought twice about this even after the shittiest dice game ever, one that would make you want to fall on your sword if you were packing one.
While Mr. antagonist over at said popular forum makes the first impression of a Kaczynski-like misanthrope with a chip on his shoulder the size of the Titantic, he did make one very, clear and excellent point. You should not be able to use any old dice you feel like at any tournament that people are paying money to play in.
There should definitely be a dice standard in any of the official circuit tournaments, ( ideally the very common 12mm round cornered dice we all have boat load of. with no logos.) something clear and concise and spelled out in the basic rules of the event along with everything else. An even better idea is at the big national events they should give a set of dice away as swag and everyone MUST use the swag dice for the tourney. The removes the potential for any accusations of impropriety with dice or any funky dice rolling. With all the common rules disagreements that always pop up, having dice as a scapegoat is just one extra thing any competitive event can do without.
Now we all have fancy dice of a variety of colors to match our Armys. I have red and green dice for my Hochland/Empire Army, Red and Yellow for my Daemons, etc. Personally I stop using anything bigger than 12mm "Standard" dice and any logo dice today, even in my casual games. I am going to suggest my friends do the same. If you want to save your funky dice for fun games where opponent could care less that's cool, but for christ sake if you are using those big Las Vegas style dice..throw those damn things away OR bring enough that you can offer a set to your opponent so if you really want to use them- insist he use them too.
The bottom line is this- If you both aren't using the exact same kind of dice while playing..the playing field is not even, and if you are "Paying to Play" not having an even playing field is best way to incite all kinds of problems. Casual gamers take this advice with a grain of salt but if you see that you and your opponent are both using different kinds of dice -think about swapping out to the same kind or just sharing one set..Odds are.. you'll will have a better game.
I don't talk about board games here as its not really my hobby focus but as this both concerns miniatures and is Games Workshop related its on topic. I really like this game as Talisman is an easy sell to both my non-gamer and closet gamer friends as an alternative to the other horrible board games I occasionally get roped into when we have guests over. Its simple and fun and a good nights entertainment. FFG picked the license and re-did the new edition much for the better. The new rules are clear and concise and it closes some loopholes and misunderstands in the 1st print ruleset. I was surprised other than a few previews of single models, I couldn't find pictures of the new miniatures, they look quite nice. Here they are, you know I am painting these guys up as soon I can get them on the bench!.
(L to R -rear- The Wizard, Prophetess, Sorceress front- Thief, Troll, Assassin, Ghoul)
(L to R- rear- The Monk, Elf, Priest front- Druid, Minstrel, Warrior, Dwarf)
Ok, this is my second rant this year so be forewarned, if you don’t want to read me gripe, piss and moan or are offended by crude language. Time to stop reading.
The best way for any business to piss off its customers is to let them build up expectations based on past performance and then change the end result of those expectations without informing the customer, all the while acting like nothing has changed. Doing so implies your customers are stupid, just as does trying to change the game after people have signed up to play . Both of these moves have killed countless a business as they violate the trust customers put in a business to do right by them. There are a shit load of current examples of this going on in our current economic environment, so you’d think any business not already in Chapter 11, would take heed. However recent events tell me Games Workshop never got the memo.
.
This concerns the newly posted 2009 Grand Tournament schedule from Games Workshop. I played in 4 tournaments in 2008 all them of were professionally run, Only one of them- The Chicago GT -was run by Games Workshop and despite the negative attitude of many veteran gamers have about the GT, I personally had been following Dave Taylor’s ( GW rep and organizer of the GW circuit events in 2008) blog and was really looking forward to the event. In the end I wasn’t disappointed , I thought it was a very well run event and I did indeed have a great time. That being the case I was really looking forward to this upcoming tournament season, most especially since I have little to no painting to do leading up to an event. and I anything I did do was purely from an elective standpoint.
About two weeks ago I read that Dave Taylor was no longer with GW, I was very surprised at this given the positive vibe created by the Chicago GT, and the great things I heard about both Las Vegas and Baltimore. I’ve heard speculation that GW was upset with the Chicago turnout, and while yes it was low. There were a bunch of external issues effecting the draw, including living down the crappy reputationthat was last years shitty GT at Games Day, a new 40K Edition just coming out and let’s not forgot the price of gas being at an all time high- which made traveling to an already expensive event, more expensive. Despite this, the event was big success for those who attended and GW earned a lot of good will and word of mouth for the next year.
When I read Dave Taylor was gone I was disappointed, then when I saw the 2009 circuit schedule posted. I about threw up.
No official GW sponsored tourneys- 10 events all independently run and co-sponsored by GW. Last year was 11 events total so it leaves little room for more than one or two GW run events to be posted later on. The delivers the clear message that they are deciding where to host the few or one official event they do run.
While that’s unbelievable to me in itself , its not by far the biggest pisser of the whole thing, as I spent time reading over the details of these Indy GT’sI was shocked to realize that there is no painting requirement for 7 of the 10 2009 circuit events!!!What the bloody hell is this??,
Holding major tournaments without a painting requirement is inexcusable. It amounts to nothing less than the wholesale rape of the hobby, to think that GW would sponsor this shit makes my skin crawl. Having 2 Indy GT’s with no painting requirement in this years circuit was bad enough but to bump it up to 7 for 2009!!, Seriously- it’s a kick in the balls for those of us who work hard to create good stuff and try to inspire other people to do likewise.
I know a bunch of guys that work for GW these days and one thing I know that gets pounded into their heads is how to relate with people in away to create long term hobbyists. Sponsoring bullshit tournaments ( and YES, I don’t care how “cool” the people running these events are, if they allow unpainted models in their tourney, the event shouldn't be considered for the circuit) is directly contradictory to this as well as counterproductive to health of the hobby and the business.
I know of course GW’s main goal is to sell as much plastic as possible and painting requirements exclude people who “might” buy more models, but isn’t that why they started Ard’ Boyz tourneys?? so power gamer doodz can bust out a new 3K of unpainted models every time a new army gets released . GW’s gets the big sales and these guys get their own tournament scene, right?. I do expect GW to support all its customers, including ones that don’t paint or hobby but opening up the normal /traditional circuit as a free or all, is not the way to do it. There is plenty of room for well organized tourneys without a painting requirements..I just expect the full experience at these bigger events, and dumbing down the painting just kills it for me.
I don’t quite yet get exactly what’s going on with this but this isn’t good, it does not bode well for future expectations of a tournament circuit. Does anyone whose spent years working on painting and converting their armies want to pay goodmoney to enter a tournament just to get paired up with some guy, who glued his models together the week before and who can’t wait to drop grey plastic/ bare metal on the table and abuse the newest army book at your expense.?? Does GW think that’s ‘fun”?. Do they think its going to fly as soon as people start to notice?, do they think that no one is going to care?
The hobby and the games are irreparably tied and while you can argue for the health of the hobby sans game, you can’t argue the contrary as the rules just aren’t “that" good.The best thing about GW and its games are the people it turns into long term hobbyists and the big tourneys are the excuse for all these people to get together and bring their awesome creations to one location and throw down. To piss all over that 25 year legacy with this “models do not need to be painted, but must be fully assembled” bullshit is an outrage. Don’t poison the well for the people who give a shit about the hobby because times are tough and you don't think you can sell enough tickets.
I’d love to hear from the GW genius who decided that “Tourneys were not well enough attended to our liking so lets shit-can our own events and go support a bunch of indies with no painting requirements and see how it goes” Are you fucking kidding me? Way to take a hot steaming crap all over that brand loyalty you work so hard to build.
The old saying goes "When going gets tough, the tough get going" but what I am hearing is "When going gets tough, bend over and take it in the rear". Hey guys! how about trying to "fix" the problem before flushing your entire tourney schedule totally down the drain.??. Dave Taylor “was” fixing the problem as far as I could tell.
Then again I don’t know, maybe I am way off base and he was fired for damn good reason, maybe he’s a fucking serial killer, I don’t know the guy, I just know what I saw.I saw the bullshit that was Games Day/GT 2007 and I saw the difference this year. What I see here is GW cutting its own legs out from under them. The way I see it- the 2009 tourney scene just exploded on launch.
I won’t bother getting into all the inconsistencies between events with things like the lack of composition scoring, You can’t call it a “tournament circuit” without some kind of uniform standard, and right now the only standard I see is trying age old alchemical trick of trying to turn lead into gold…or what we Americans have gleefully rephrased into “You can’t polish a turd”- I guess on the bright side -I can cancel any plans I had to road trip to some other events this year. At least I have Adepticon.
Good showing tonight...everyone played 2, 1000 point games, scenario was "escort" new photos of updated armies coming in the gallery as soon as I can resize and upload them. With the Holidays coming we pushed the 1500 point round out to January 6th..so lots of painting time between no and then..We lost two players and picked up one..thanks to Anthony for running the ringer army..the store orcs!
Bill- Wood Elves Completion Score 4 Game 1 - Solid Victory vs Skaven Game 2- Solid Victory vs Daemons of Chaos Round 1 Score -13 Round 2 Score-12
25
Chris- Bretonnians Completion Score 3 Game 1 - Loss to Daemons of Chaos Game 2- Solid Victory vs Skaven Round 1 Score- 11 Round 2- 8
19
Billy- Skaven Completion Score 3 Game 1 - Loss to Wood Elves Game 2- Loss to Bretonnians Round 1 Score- 13 Round 2 Score- 5
18
John - Daemons of Chaos Completion Score 2 Game 1 - Massacre vs Bretonnians Game 2- Loss to Wood Elves Round 1 Score -10 Round 2 Score- 8
18
Bob- Ogres Completion Score 3 Game 1 - Loss to Beasts of Chaos Game 2- Massacre Vs Lizards Round 1 Score - 4 Round 2 Score-9
13
Andre- Beasts of Chaos Completion Score 1 Game 1- Massacre vs Ogres Game 2- Loss to Orcs (Ringer) Round 1 Score 3 Round 2 Score 7
10
Nate- Lizardmen Completion Score 1 Game 1- Loss to Orcs (ringer) Game 2- Loss to Ogres Round 2 Score 3
My pal Felix came by yesterday afternoon and we had the chance to play a couple games with his new High Elf army. As I am short on time this week, and since I apparently set my camera incorrectly in my rush to take pictures and alot of my pictures didn't come out.I am going to amend my plans for full battle reports and just do a couple brief Battle Recaps.
In other news...I am have about 4 hours into my "Realm of Battle" table and I am still painting...my "6 hour" claim isn't going to happen...its more likely a 10 hour project although I am pretty anal about details..I am liking the paint job enough that I debating not flocking it and leaving it more a windswept dustbowl scheme....we'll see.
Also still plugging away on my next 500 of Daemons for tuesday's round 2 of the Painting Challenge. My Herald of Slannesh took way too long and I am behind schedule a bit...not to mention that trying to focus on a disciplined hobby schedule this time of year is pretty tough..anyway I am sure I will get it but don't see myself getting more that the same "2" completion score that I had in round 1, anyway on with the battle recaps.
Game 1 Empire vs High Elves 2250 points
Empire List - General/ BSB/ Luthor Huss / Battle Wizard 28 Swordsmen/ FC, 9 Free Company Detachments x 2 10- Handgunners X 2. 5 Knights w/ musician, 9 Knights /FC with Steel Standard Great Cannon x 2, 5 Pistoliers, 19 Greatswords FC/ w 9- Swordsmen Detachment Helblaster Volley Gun.
This was the battle of game...The HE "Banner of Battle" is a game changer!
Knowing that if my big blocks got flanked by either the White Lion, Phoenix Guard or Dragon Princes I was in deep trouble I deployed my Swordsmen and Greatswords and Detachments to the right side while putting all my knights to the left. All my Guns went right up the middle. Felix decided to leave my blocks alone and deployed his Special troops up the middle with his Dragon Princes w/ BSB facing off against my Knights. My plan was to make two sweeping motions from each side and catch him in the middle. We both pretty much did what we wanted to do. His Phoenix Guard and White Lions ate up all my guns and those 4+ Ward saves came in handy versus all the shooting and both units ended the game standing in my Deployment zone,(I took the Phoenix guard down to 1/2, but the Lions kept the numbers to deny any scoring)
The Helblaster Volley Gun isn't too intimidating in situations like this!
My infantry swallowed up his Reavers, Archers, the bolt throwers and the 5 Swordmasters protecting them. The big battle came down to my Knights versus his Dragon Princes...I ended up eating the charge...and his BSB killed Luthor Huss..However even with the Banner of Battle I managed to roll the "4" I needed to hold so my other unit of knights could flank charge the combat next turn. On following turn -I win the combat but he holds, on next turn (4, I believe) I Kill everyone left but the lone BSB and I am up +6 on CR...he rolls a damn "6" with Banner of Battle so he end up with a "+7" and I LOSE!!...even thou he's outnumbered 12 to 1...I need "7's" to stick and of course roll "9"'s twice and both units run.. The lone BSB cuts down my 7 remaining Full Command knights..while my other unit of Knights runs off in the forest. That was so huge for felix and basically balance out the game in which I was ahead. My knights ended up staying tangled up in the woods..( I left them there to contest TQ's). The game ended up +190 in his favor or a DRAW.
The Arch Mage didn't have the opportunity to do to much damage and I used my Dispel dice to roll off a couple of nasty magic missles and some protection spells...My Wizard also survived long enough to use both Dispelscrolls and be useful.-
Game 2 Daemons of Chaos vs High Elves 1000 points.
D0C- Skulltaker, 14 Bloodletters/ FC Icon of Endless War,10 Bloodletters/ FC, Herald of Slannesh- lv 1 Wiz/ Multi Armed Mon/ BSB- Banner of Greater Sundering, 15 Daemonettes/ FC my WIP Daemons-
High Elves- Lv 2 Mage, Elf Noble, 15 Phoenix Guard, 14 Spearmen, 2 Repeater Bolt Throwers. 6 White Lions
Felix's HE line
Much different style of game...my plan was deploy in the middle and march straight ahead right at him...I won first turn and Marched felix held and unloaded his magic and shooting. Felix's mage rolled "flames of the phoenix", which absolutely devastated me, Its a fire spell that works like VC curse of years and since I seemed incapable of making my 5+ ward save at all, between the spells and the Bolt Throwers even with a 12" march my Daemonettes got completely wiped out before I got into CC. the Bloodletter fared alot better...but I got Flanked and rolled some high Demonic Instability Rolls...in the end Skulltaker stood alone...while I wiped out the Phoenix Guard most of the White lions and his Noble...his Shooting and Magic did me in with a couple of flubbed rolls two wounds don't last too long..we didnt bother to add it up but its was most like a Solid Victory for Felix. I'll have to Keep this in mind as I play daemons..they are tough but not invincible..and High Elves can kick their ass!
Plastic Legions is a hobby blog covering my own Wargaming, model building and miniature painting pursuits.
It's focus is modeling and painting figures and scenery for various Fantasy, Sci Fi and Historical games.
This blog in its 16th year and still running. This years projects includes warbands and terrain for Games Workshops- Warcry, Old School AD&D projects and old favorites like Rangers of Shadow Deep, Zombicide and Fallout: Wasteland Warfare I do occasionally list past projects and figures for sale. please see my eBay user id: base10studios for my latest auctions.
If you would like to contact me I can be emailed at:
