Hello. It's me. I'm aware that it has been a while but I've had a lot on my mind (a massive change in personal circumstances) over the last half year. So here is a post, as the title suggests, to catch up on my gaming goings-on since January.
PURCHASES
I have added a few bits and pieces to my Menoth army this year with the most notable items being a second unit of Temple Flameguard (eFeora tier list baby, yeah!!), a unit of vengers for Intercessor Kreoss and Thyra and Nicia. There is also a minimum unit of Idrians that arrived on my desk yesterday but I'll wait a bit before I max them out and use them. I am planning to get the TFG painted at some point as a priority so eFeora can see a bit more table time in the near future.
My Retribution and Skorne forces haven't seen any new additions so far this year as I want to concentrate on getting the Menoth fully painted.
The Minions, on the other hand, have seen some significant additions. An opportunity to buy a practically complete Farrow army at the beginning of the year was too good to pass up. I supplemented this by making the minimum units of Brigands I bought maximum and getting a few solos in (Gudrun, Rorsch and Brine).
Away from WarmaHordes, I took the plunge and bought starter sets for both Bushido and Dropzone Commander. Now, when I say starter for Dropzone Commander, I mean the Mega Army Deal and maxed out all of the units as well. I've actually shocked myself when I checked the amount of money I have spent on this game.
Additionally, I have filled out my Morat Aggression Force for Infinity by making sure that I have one of every Morat blister/box that is currently released.
PAINTING
I was on a bit of a painting kick towards the end of last year by powering through dozens of Menoth models and taking them up to about 80% finished overall. This sort of stopped while I rearranged my life away from gaming. It took the purchase of the Dropzone Commander goodies at the end of April to get me going again. The small scale of these models allowed me to do a (very) quick job on them in order to field a fully painted force. By the time I got through the first few, I found a little OCD like determination to finish them. In truth, I ended up just giving all the minis a couple of sprays, a wash and a cuss-load of drybrushing, which made me happy. Using this, and forcing myself to take a break from WarmaHordes (in addition to a month long Japan trip in April) in order to play smaller games, I turned my attention to my Morats. I might have said previously that I really enjoyed painting Infinity models, and that was true right up to finishing the last few off just last week. You won't see much in the way of highlighting or whatever, but you will see a smile on my face when I put them on the gaming table. I am proud of what I have achieved with them.
Currently on my paint table is Dartan Vilmon and two Paladins, along with Gorman and the Testament of Menoth. Having finished off the Morats, I needed something to do before the massive task of painting up my Farrow begins for part three of the Machination league taking place next month. The paint table had a unit of Cinerators that only required finishing touches but had been pushed to one side (and actually had a bit of dust on them), so I finally got them out of the way. I hope to finish the five minis above (Gorman is pretty much done) by the weekend.
So to illustrate (for personal motivation), here is some selected progress:
GAMING
PURCHASES
I have added a few bits and pieces to my Menoth army this year with the most notable items being a second unit of Temple Flameguard (eFeora tier list baby, yeah!!), a unit of vengers for Intercessor Kreoss and Thyra and Nicia. There is also a minimum unit of Idrians that arrived on my desk yesterday but I'll wait a bit before I max them out and use them. I am planning to get the TFG painted at some point as a priority so eFeora can see a bit more table time in the near future.
My Retribution and Skorne forces haven't seen any new additions so far this year as I want to concentrate on getting the Menoth fully painted.
The Minions, on the other hand, have seen some significant additions. An opportunity to buy a practically complete Farrow army at the beginning of the year was too good to pass up. I supplemented this by making the minimum units of Brigands I bought maximum and getting a few solos in (Gudrun, Rorsch and Brine).
Away from WarmaHordes, I took the plunge and bought starter sets for both Bushido and Dropzone Commander. Now, when I say starter for Dropzone Commander, I mean the Mega Army Deal and maxed out all of the units as well. I've actually shocked myself when I checked the amount of money I have spent on this game.
Additionally, I have filled out my Morat Aggression Force for Infinity by making sure that I have one of every Morat blister/box that is currently released.
PAINTING
I was on a bit of a painting kick towards the end of last year by powering through dozens of Menoth models and taking them up to about 80% finished overall. This sort of stopped while I rearranged my life away from gaming. It took the purchase of the Dropzone Commander goodies at the end of April to get me going again. The small scale of these models allowed me to do a (very) quick job on them in order to field a fully painted force. By the time I got through the first few, I found a little OCD like determination to finish them. In truth, I ended up just giving all the minis a couple of sprays, a wash and a cuss-load of drybrushing, which made me happy. Using this, and forcing myself to take a break from WarmaHordes (in addition to a month long Japan trip in April) in order to play smaller games, I turned my attention to my Morats. I might have said previously that I really enjoyed painting Infinity models, and that was true right up to finishing the last few off just last week. You won't see much in the way of highlighting or whatever, but you will see a smile on my face when I put them on the gaming table. I am proud of what I have achieved with them.
Currently on my paint table is Dartan Vilmon and two Paladins, along with Gorman and the Testament of Menoth. Having finished off the Morats, I needed something to do before the massive task of painting up my Farrow begins for part three of the Machination league taking place next month. The paint table had a unit of Cinerators that only required finishing touches but had been pushed to one side (and actually had a bit of dust on them), so I finally got them out of the way. I hope to finish the five minis above (Gorman is pretty much done) by the weekend.
So to illustrate (for personal motivation), here is some selected progress:
| Total | Painted | % | To go | |
| Minions | 114 | 47 | 41.23 | 67 |
| PoM | 218 | 175 | 80.28 | 43 |
| RoS | 112 | 57 | 50.89 | 55 |
| Skorne | 95 | 67 | 70.53 | 28 |
| Combined Army | 30 | 30 | 100.00 | 0 |
| UCM | 96 | 96 | 100.00 | 0 |
| Total | 743 | 488 | 65.68 | 255 |
GAMING
Apart from spending a month in Japan, I have still attended the Cross Gaming Club on a regular basis even going to both gaming nights most weeks (a lot of free time suddenly appeared in my schedule). The beginning of the year saw many games of WarmaHordes. I used mostly eFeora and Kreoss3 (I dislike how he is referred 3reoss on various forums) and used other casters sporadically for the first part of the Machinations league held at the club. After the league had finished I started to use my newly purchased Farrow for the short time before my month long break.
On return, resolved to start playing more games of Infinity, Malifaux, Dropzone Commander and Bushido. I haven't yet played a game of Malifaux this year as they are tweaking their rules and I haven't yet managed to get an intro game for Bushido. I did get in three games of Dropzone Commander and a single re-introductory game of Infinity. The rest of the time I have reached back into my WarmaHordes cases and dug out the odd 50 pointer, which actually annoyed me a little. Having posted in the clubs challenges thread for a game of either Infinity, Bushido or Dropzone, I would wait until the day before club night before seeing that no-one wanted to play any of the smaller games, I would then agree to take up someone else's challenge of a game of WarmaHordes.
And this was after a lengthy forum discussion on game diversity at the club. I know you can't force people to play different games but you can only try and play a different game occasionally in order to keep things fresh. To tell the truth, I had become a little jaded with constant WarmaHordes. I want to make it clear that this had (and still has) nothing to do with the fact that I lose more games than I win (I do have the greatest losing streak (twenty games) in the history of Cross Gaming Club), the game is still enjoyable and I love our group of gamers as a whole. The thing that started to really get (and still does a little) on my nerves is the constant theory-machining and discussions on how to get the most out of an army build. I do acknowledge that it is an important part of the hobby and can be quite helpful in developing a wider knowledge of the game in general. For the most part I don't participate in these discussions on the club forums and don't add to actual conversations on club nights. I just want to simply treat WarmaHordes as a game, something fun to do. I don't scour various forums or zealously read anything and everything to do with the game, and don't expect to gain an encyclopedic knowledge of the Iron Kingdoms universe. I just want to turn up at the club and have a fun game every week, which I will continue to do because I love the game.
This feeling of mehness of gaming I've felt in recent months has actually caused me to cancel a few games (including a one day tournament). I apologise to those opponents whom I was scheduled to play, but my heart and mind were just not in it (I've actually done the same to a number of friends who play squash recently). This is kind of counter-productive as I could/should be using gaming (and squash) as a way to distract myself from my personal life. So I hope that putting my all of this in writing will clear things a little in my head and I can get onto enjoying my gaming a lot more in the latter half of this year.
On return, resolved to start playing more games of Infinity, Malifaux, Dropzone Commander and Bushido. I haven't yet played a game of Malifaux this year as they are tweaking their rules and I haven't yet managed to get an intro game for Bushido. I did get in three games of Dropzone Commander and a single re-introductory game of Infinity. The rest of the time I have reached back into my WarmaHordes cases and dug out the odd 50 pointer, which actually annoyed me a little. Having posted in the clubs challenges thread for a game of either Infinity, Bushido or Dropzone, I would wait until the day before club night before seeing that no-one wanted to play any of the smaller games, I would then agree to take up someone else's challenge of a game of WarmaHordes.
And this was after a lengthy forum discussion on game diversity at the club. I know you can't force people to play different games but you can only try and play a different game occasionally in order to keep things fresh. To tell the truth, I had become a little jaded with constant WarmaHordes. I want to make it clear that this had (and still has) nothing to do with the fact that I lose more games than I win (I do have the greatest losing streak (twenty games) in the history of Cross Gaming Club), the game is still enjoyable and I love our group of gamers as a whole. The thing that started to really get (and still does a little) on my nerves is the constant theory-machining and discussions on how to get the most out of an army build. I do acknowledge that it is an important part of the hobby and can be quite helpful in developing a wider knowledge of the game in general. For the most part I don't participate in these discussions on the club forums and don't add to actual conversations on club nights. I just want to simply treat WarmaHordes as a game, something fun to do. I don't scour various forums or zealously read anything and everything to do with the game, and don't expect to gain an encyclopedic knowledge of the Iron Kingdoms universe. I just want to turn up at the club and have a fun game every week, which I will continue to do because I love the game.
This feeling of mehness of gaming I've felt in recent months has actually caused me to cancel a few games (including a one day tournament). I apologise to those opponents whom I was scheduled to play, but my heart and mind were just not in it (I've actually done the same to a number of friends who play squash recently). This is kind of counter-productive as I could/should be using gaming (and squash) as a way to distract myself from my personal life. So I hope that putting my all of this in writing will clear things a little in my head and I can get onto enjoying my gaming a lot more in the latter half of this year.
