Thursday 27 December 2012

2012, the year that was...

Howdy, howdy folks, hope you've all had a very merry christmas, stuffed yourselves with as much turkey/ham/game of choice and santa brought you lots of hobby goodness.  The year is almost over, I've just passed the 4th birthday of the blog, so its time for the obligatory look back at what has been achieved in the year, a sort of queens speech if you will, and of course next week will be a look ahead at what I hope to achieve in the coming year.

My year began with the genesis of One Force (to rule them all), my new marines and current favourite project of all time.  Unfortunately, this pretty much scuppered one of my hobby resolutions from the off (see below).  I also started out the year with recovering and re-posting my old posts that were lost when I updated the blogger template.  There was also the release of the new paints which meant I had to update the paint scheme for One Force.
This year I've also seemed to get my spotting eye in, with some interesting results:  KR Multicase Guest Spot, Secret Forgeworld miniature revealed.
I made it to Salute (1, 2, and 3), made my 100th Post, and finally made it back to Blog Wars 4:  game 1 reportgame 2 report, game 3 report.
I've trialled a few new techniques in my hobby:  Casting handsMagnetising self-help, and due to having generally less time to devote to my hobby, my painting hasn't quite been as prolific as last year, the main achievements were:  One Force Terminators CompletedTFP: Badab Project competitionOne Force commander, and the first 5 squad memebers (to be posted in the new year).  I also completed a lot of my Necrons ready for Blog Wars 4, and rustled up a few more clanrats for the Skaven.

All told, this has allowed me to reach 101 painting points for the year 2012.  That's about half the points I managed in 2011, but a lot of the models are much more detailed painting wise (2011 was bolstered by the quick and easy painting of a lot of Skaven and Necrons).   I'm definitely planning on continuing with painting points as it is a nice measure of how you are doing with the creative side of the hobby, and the page linked is starting to become a jump off point for the posts of all my painted minis.
Probably favourite for me this year painting wise was getting to paint up a few centre-piece models such as the Deathwatch marine and the One Force commander as it gave me a chance to try and push myself a little with painting.  I think in the future I'd like to try and take part in a couple of painting comps, just to give myself a bit of a challenge and try new techniques like the NMM I did on the Shadowseer in 2011.

Possibly the biggest thing to happen to the blog this year was my post Secret Forgeworld miniature revealed.  It got picked up by Faeit 212 which lead to a gigantic surge in traffic to the blog.  As a result, its now the most viewed page on my blog, and pushed the number of views from an expected 37,000 since inception to its current level above 41,000.  You can see the upsurge in views in the stats-graphs below (all time, last week):



As is becoming customary for me, each year I make some resolutions to try and drive my hobby through the year.  This years resolutions can be found here, and looking back over the year...
  • Post once per week minimum.
    • Success -  I've managed at least one post per week all year, and on a few occasions even managed to sustain 2 posts a week.  OK not every post has been a groundbreaking source of hobby goodness, but the need to have something to talk about each week has definitely kept my hobby mojo topped up.
  • Painting Points
    • Success -  at the start of the year I went back and totted up the number of models I'd painted in previous years, and this year I've done my best to keep track of what I've managed.  I haven't scored that highly this year, but its been respectable and I may be able to improve on it next year.
  • Space Wolf Achievements
    • Fail -  in the main because my Wolves have been sidelined for most of this year as I've been experimenting with other armies, shame though as they were a fantastic idea, I'll still try and see what I can collect over time.
  • Attend Blog Wars and at least one other tournament.
    • Partial Success -  I managed to make it to Blog Wars, but no other tournament.  I did go to Salute though and have a few more things lined up for this year.
  • No more purchases until my remaining Necrons (Wraiths, Spyders, Destroyers) and Skaven (IoB boxset, Stormvermin, Bell) have been painted and I have sold my spares (Land Raider, Drop Pods, Valkyrie etc.).
    • Failure -  I did sell about half of the stuff listed at the start of the year, and have recently listed some more, but I've not sold what I'd planned, and have bought even more stuff this year, especially stuff for One Force (lovely Forgeworld goodness) which I'm loving at the moment.  Oh well.
So that's the year as it was.  I'll wish you all a very merry rest of your Christmas, and a very happy new year for 2013, tune back in next week for my plans for the upcoming year.
Cheers - Andy

Monday 24 December 2012

Blog Wars 4: the painting project

Of course my trip to Blog Wars required me to complete the painting of a lot of my Necrons that were almost but not quite finished.  This is what I managed to get painted:

Necron Overlord / Trazyn the Infinite
2 painting points

Thursday 20 December 2012

Blog Wars 4: Game 3 report


Game 3:  vs.  John Holland (MC Tic Tac from Blood Claw)
Mission:  Kill points with Dawn of War ("normal") deployment.

John was rocking Death Wing (5 squads with assorted load-outs), Belial, a blob of guard allies with a commissar and a Bastion.  A lot of 2+ armour that I didn't really have anything to deal with other than weight of fire, I was going to be in trouble.  I was also starting to tire by this stage (I'd done the classic and been up till the wee small hours the night before finishing my army) so I may not have been on the top of my game - sorry to John if I came across badly at all.  I also completely forgot photos for this game so I'm afraid this'll be all text.

Thursday 13 December 2012

Blog Wars 4: Game 2 report

Game 2:  vs.  Keith Duncan (no blog apparently)
Mission:  Relic with short edge deployment

Keith had a bit of a monster in his list, an 1100 point Lord (Trazyn the Infinite) and "Royal Court of Doom!" with a Cryptek with each of the available staffs, and 4 or 5 Lords (I can't quite remember) all with Warscythes, 2+/3++ saves, Mindshackle Scarabs and some Res Orbs.  The rest of the force was almost incidental compared to that with a couple of Warrior squads, a unit of Tesla Immortals, some Wraiths and an Ann Barge.


Having thought a little about my game 1, I tried to fix most of the issues I'd had in that last game with some better results in this game.  We both set up pretty aggressively towards the Relic spread across the whole width of the board so as much stuff could be forward as possible.

Monday 10 December 2012

Secret Forgeworld miniature revealed

from:  JD's Blog
I'm sure like everyone else out there, you've seen many of the pictures from the Istvaan diorama that Forgeworld produced for Games Day this year.  There's a few more below for you just because they are so very pretty.

Its currently on display at Warhammer World in Nottingham, in the case next to the main building entrance so that everyone can check it out.  If you are there, take the time to look at it as it really is beautiful and a fantastic piece of work.

from: Wargaming Hub

from: thegreatcrusade.co.uk

While I was looking at it something caught my eye and I just had to chuckle.  I got some pics to show you all too.  The pics aren't the best as it was a pretty bright day, behind glass and the light is kept low in the show cabinet to preserve the colours of the minis.

This is the left end of the diorama, in amongst the traitor legions:

That's a heck of a lot of legion troopers, but wait, whats that?
Wait a minute, there's something funny in that doorway, some kind of commander model perhaps?

Definitely a different colour, could it be a model that hasn't been released yet?
You've got to be kidding, I'VE FOUND WALLY!!!

Red and white stripy shirt, check!  Blue trousers, check!  Beanie hat, check!  Yep, its definitely Wally.
Touché Forgeworld.  I'd say that's on a par with a rick-roll :D  I did drop Forgeworld a line to ask about him and it turns out I'm the first person to spot and inform them of spotting Wally.  Woot!

I've included a full resolution image from my camera below so you can zoom in yourself if you want to double-check.

Cheers - and happy spotting, Andy


Friday 7 December 2012

Blog Wars 4: Game 1 report.

A quick aside, voting continues for The Fallen Princes Badab Deathwatch competition, go take a look at all the entries, and place your vote for the one you think is the best (especially if that happens to be mine: no. 2).  VOTE HERE :)




Game 1:  vs. Andy Humprhis (Ven from Sons of Sanguinius)
Mission:  5 objectives with diagonal deployment.

Andy is the reigning Blog Wars champ having won all three preceding Blog Wars so going into this game I knew I was in for a hiding.  That didn't really help me though as I pretty much managed to psyche myself out of the game before it had already begun.  Andy is a great guy though and despite him tabling me in a pretty much one sided game, it was never dull, boring or in any way not fun.  I gave him a bit of a run and dragged things out to the 6th turn so it wasn't the worst result in the world.

Monday 3 December 2012

TFP: Badab Project Voting - VOTE NOW!

I'm back from Blog Wars 4 and had a great time, but I'd like to plug this quickly.  You can see here the entry I made for The Fallen Princes Badab War Deathwatch competition.

Voting is now possible for the entries to the competition.  Go take a look at all the entries, they are all brilliant with some very distinctive looks, and place your vote for the one you think is the best.  VOTE HERE :)

Cheers, and stay tuned for my Blog Wars write up.  Andy.

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