There's warpstone in them thar hills

Played another game of Warhammer the other day. My Skaven against Charlie's Empire, around about 1000pts and a very narrative style of gaming as its the style of gaming that Charlie and I prefer to play.  As we went for such a narrative game, I thought it would be unfair to not at least write it up as a bit of a story.  So below, is my pitiful attempt.  It is a little longer than it would be otherwise, but hopefully it won't be too painful to read, and might even be enjoyable, its certainly been a stretch to write it, who'd have thought writing fiction was so difficult ;)  I'll also point out that the point of

"Finished, finished, finished now it is. Yes, yes, very finished, see, lots of rats for power, lots of new mechs to make it go." 

"You say its finished, Rat-k, but you said the same last time and I lost a whole clan to this whirling contraption, and what did it do for me, nothing.  Yet you go by the name No-risk, I hardly think that's right now is it?" 

Skrakit wrinkled his snout at the stench that filled the cavern, the usual ozone tang of any skyre contraption, with the added mix of singed hair from Rat-k's engineering assistants that were too careless when installing the warpstone needed to power the newly repaired Doomwheel.  In fact, the whole assembly was physically shivering as little runnels of green warp-lightning ran along any metallic surface, regularly earthing themselves against the walls and floor of the cavern.   Skrakit leaned in to inspect the pilots seat and one of the emitters on the machine. 

"Not so close my Lord, no, not so close.  Very delicate mechs, not want Lord hurting himself, no no, not hurting self..." 

Rat-k scampered across the workshop, trying to pull his lord away, still fawning all the time;  Skrakit swatted him away, using the momentum of the blow to lean his body a little to the side.  The little trickle of green glow that had been working along the emitter mechanism reached the warpstone crystal at its tip and grounded itself into the wall behind Skrakit.  The accompanying shrill squeel and the pungent odor of singed fur and roasted meat told Skrakit the assassin that had been creeping up from amongst Rat-k's assistants had taken the full force of the discharge, just as he'd intended.   Turning, Skrakit prodded the smoking body with his toe, already lost in thought.  With one last venomous glance at the Warlock Engineer, he stalked from the cavern muttering something about them not even trying anymore.

After the few survivors from the hamlet of Bernwood stumbled out of the woods of the foothills, a small force of Hochlanders under the command of Oskar Brandt (also) accompanied by a Sorceress march through the foothills to retake the hamlet and the tower that it serves.  (PS:  before anyone asks, no, we weren't playing in a sauna).

One Force Mk IV almost complete

These guys have managed to slip through the net of blogging, they're almost complete and with the brief exception of a guest appearance, they haven't starred on the blog.  This is a big shame as the kit is gorgeous and has been a real pleasure to work with and build.  When I started One Force, I would have probably placed the Mk IV armour at the bottom of my list of favourite alternate marques, but after staring at them for a while, I'm totally converted.

As ever you can see them posed both with their regular backpacks and with the MaxMini jump-packs.

My 2013 Resolution - what I hope to do

Well, here it is, my plans for 2013 which if history is anything to go by, is as good as saying these are definitely the things that I won't manage to do...

• Maintain 1 post minimum per week

This worked fantastically for me in 2012 to keep me hobbying and keep the turnover on this blog.  If I hadn't had this resolution, I think I would have let the blog languish at times, but as it was the most achievable of my goals, I kept at it.

• Attend more tournaments/gaming weekends

Blog Wars was brilliant yet again, and I'd really like to make it to 5 & 6 this year.  I've already signed up to the March 40K Throne of Skulls so I'll get in more than last year (and any other previous year), and may also be attending Nerd Thunder 4 with the guys from the Beard Bunker so this year looks to be a more gaming year.  I'd also love to try out one of the Tempus Fugitives events so I'll try and get to one of those too this year.

• Sell my spare stuff

I made a half hearted effort with this earlier this year but did nothing since, I'm definitely going to get rid of more of my random stuff that is cluttering my flat.  I have a large plastic spares/bits box that I would like to be the only place I have spares/bits by the end of this year, it'll either be in that, or painted and playable!

• Complete my Skaven (at least all the models I own, and anything I buy)

I have some idea's for a Vampire Counts army that I'd like to try out, but I won't be doing that till I've completed the Skaven I already have.  That means about 50 Clanrats, and a load of character like models that need to be painted.

• Beat last years painting points score

Pretty self explanatory, this year ended up better that I thought it would, but I'd love to get in more time painting in future.

• Bring One Force to a playable 1750 points force minimum

I'm loving these guys, and because I'm magnetising them, hopefully by this point they'll not only be 1750 points of Blood Angels for instance, but also 1750 of regular Marines, Space Wolves and maybe even whatever is the new flavour of the month.

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 report, game 2 report, game 3 report.
I've trialled a few new techniques in my hobby:  Casting hands, Magnetising 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 Completed, TFP: Badab Project competition, One 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

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