Procrastination by Numbers

[roland murat]

I leave my blog for one morning, and it degenerates into cricket talk. Any game that after 5 DAYS can end in a draw, surely isn't designed that well.

Yet the draws can be some of the most exciting games watching bottom order batsmen try and block out a bunch of overs to save a series. England at Cardiff vs the Aussies anyone?

[roland murat]

I almost forgot - 83 chairs

[jackhoneysett]

It's quite rare for Test matches to end in a draw after 5 days of play - but I think the fact it can still happen shows that the game is well balanced and the winner is usually the better side.

I used to be a cricket hater (probably due to being subjected to endless Radio 5 coverage in the car as a child - I thought making a kid listen to that much Geoffrey Boycott was tantamount to abuse), but now I've realised how tactical Tests can be I love it. I think more than anything it's a game for geeks who love stats (mainly because not much happens for long periods of time, and commentators have to talk about something).

I still hate football though.

I leave my blog for one morning, and it degenerates into cricket talk. Any game that after 5 DAYS can end in a draw, surely isn't designed that well.

Sorry, I'll get off my cricket-loving high horse now!

At least people aren't sharing tips on lube (yet...), as happened to my last blog post 

[cunningmatt]

Sorry, I'll get off my cricket-loving high horse now!

At least people aren't sharing tips on lube (yet...), as happened to my last blog post 

I'm not sure which is actually worse. Speaking of your blog... is it ?

[Tom Hale]

quite interested in your football comments matt. I quite like watching a GOOD game of football, but the problem is the amount of sheer dull week to week grind stuff where little happens turns me off from being a fanatical supporter.

One point that does resonate with me is the seeming obsetional need for trivia and statistical knowlage of the game to have a conversation with a big football fan, something i lack and have no interest in filling my mind with. Your point at the acceptability for football 'geekness' compared to many many other areas of interest was a good point.

As regards to teams i comit the heresy of following two teams, not just two but two from the same city! on opossite sides of the river! most football fans seem to consider this a hanging offence irrelevent of the teams in question

[cunningmatt]

quite interested in your football comments matt.

Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed, my flatmate's starting reading my less Warhammer related blog entries as he got curious. And he said the football one was "less funny than the rioting one", because "you didn't make any poo jokes, or talk about how your life was a train wreck" - always nice to know someone's enjoying my misery.

[Dave]

At least people aren't sharing tips on lube (yet...), as happened to my last blog post 

I've got my Vaseline packed for the ETC.

[jackhoneysett]

I've got my Vaseline packed for the ETC.

I've always suspected the ETC is actually a massive international orgy. Why else would everyone get so excited about it?

[cunningmatt]

Update 6 – Friday 19th August 2011: Newsnight Review meets War Gaming.

In a desperate bid to actually put off doing any painting (and to move us on from cricket and lube), I thought it might be fun to do a review of this month's White Dwarf, in my usually random, pointless style. Provided this is even vaguely funny, and doesn't get me sued by Games Workshop, then it might become a regular feature. On that note I should point it's not my intention to simply transcribe this month's White Dwarf onto the web so you don't have to buy it, that would be illegal, and tedious. My aim is simply to poke fun in a respectful way, and maybe get you a little bit excited about Games Workshop, but not in a sexual way, that should be illegal. So start the fanfare of trumpets and be upstanding as we exclusively unveil this month's White Dwarf Review:



For those of you who like such things, the quote on the spine of the magazine is by Vlad Von Carstein and reads "Surrender and serve me in life, or die and slave for me in death.", which coincidentally is the exact translation of the Inland Revenue's Latin motto.

We start with the editorial, which as always seems to solely consist of the editor simply talking about how he's just rushed out and got the latest releases – implying he's either very well paid, or gets a hefty staff discount. Mind you how expensive can property prices be in Nottingham? Who'd want to live there. I mean seriously. £20 a week for rent and bills I should imagine! Lots of money left over for toys.

Obviously the Undead dominate the new releases with their exiting monster kit, full credit to Games Workshop who are getting exceptionally good at making these. And making them multi purpose, the Zombie Dragon/Terrogheist is no exception. I particularly like the fact the two models seem to have entirely different positioning – which is usually the drawback of multi-purpose plastic kits like this. But equal mention has to go to the new plastic clamp packs, allowing character models to be sculpted in all kinds of positions never before possible – such as the Cairn Wraith and Tomb Banshee touching the base simply by a tiny wisp of cloth, able to fully support themselves as each model weighs about as much as Kerry Katona's brain.

Anyone who wanted Morr terrain, will be very excited by the Garden of Morr – see what I've done there, I am just so funny! It is a lovely graveyard kit though, it would be perfect for my battlefield I'm supposed to be making by the end of October – but it does look like it would take me until at least July to actually paint. Oh well.

Then there's the Daemons of Chaos, I wondered when the notably absent Daemons of Chaos Battalion would be arriving on our shelves. And here it is, and can I say like all these box sets it is a dam site more interesting than the Beastmen Battalion – seriously three sets of basic infantry how dull could it be? Why they didn't throw any Minotaurs in, instead of the Bestigors I'll never understand.

Whilst I would have got excited when I turned the page to see the Herald of Tzeentch, I actually let out a little camp screech of joy at this:



As I'm currently building my Tzeentch Warriors of Chaos army these are perfect, and I don't know about you but I hate it when you have multiple units with the same banner (you know if you build a couple of the same core unit and there's only one banner top available). With the banner being the most eye-catching part of most units, having a range of different ones I think is really important, and whilst these are £4 each, I think it's worth paying for some variation. Also being Finecast they won't collapse to buggery when assembled, hopefully.

Over on Page 15 stuck away in a corner is a rather important amendment to the Power Scroll:



With a solicit for people to e-mail if they think any of the rules are wrong, that's rather brave of Games Workshop isn't it. Wait a minute, is that the sound of an inbox exploding, somewhere in Nottinghamshire?

Then we get all excited about the Terrogheist – no I'm not going to tell you the new rules, buy your own copy! Though I don't think I want to face a Death Shriek, it sounds like the horrendous wailing girlie screaming soundtrack used on most ITV2 shows.

On that note, I think I quite like the addition of new rules to the White Dwarf, much like the old days. Warhammer really needs a constant stream of new rules and models to keep it fresh and exciting, and given that even if it were practical to release an army book every month you'd still have to wait 14 months before anything happened to your favourite army – this way it's quite nice that all the armies can have a little tweak a little more often.

We then get a token Lord of the Rings article, yawn! Poor Lord of the Rings players they don't seem to have had much of anything for a while.



Next we talk Sorcerous Pacts, as we try and come up with spurious reasons why our army would summon a pack of Undead to fight alongside it. I think my Dwarf army would summon a Daemonic hoard simply for the pleasing alphabetical reasons of having an all "D" based army. And to be honest I'm still to hear a better reason.

Then it's Battle Report time, and as a complete shocker both players have chosen to field the full range of new models available this month – who'd have thought. And I don't know about you, but I need more maps in the battle reports – my brain simply isn't as agile as it was at 12 and cannot keep track of all the units otherwise!!



For the second month in a row there's a double page spread promoting Forge World's Warhammer and telling us all about the first Warhammer Forge World book, Tamurkhan: the Throne of Chaos "out now" – a quick check of the Forge World website reveals it still isn't "out now", just like last month when they said this!!

Next we're forced to vomit as some annoyingly good people paint some Warhammer monster models annoyingly well. It's all enough to make you feel about as inadequate as standing in a changing room of improbably fit people, waiving their freakishly large tackles around and fondling their six packs. Sigh.



Then there's a painting guide for the Dark Elf Black Dragon kit, which bizarrely mixes a patronisingly simple guide to assembling the kit mixed with a quite detailed painting guide for said model. Interestingly the Games Workshop website doesn't seem to have released a new painting guide for a while, which is a crying shame as I thought these were excellent and usually covered a good selection of the new units – which can be very helpful when you have no idea where to begin with a new model.

Finally we end with some article about something called Warhammer 40,000 – not a clue. This is followed by the usual boring bit at the back that no one reads. And then the news that Ogres are coming next month – excitement personified!



So there we go, my first ever review of the White Dwarf, crap wasn't it (the review that is, no the issue)? Oh well, it was worth a go, and put off me doing any painting for another week! Let us know what you think, answers on a postcard to the usual address. And maybe I'll do some more.

Oh and in exciting news, before I go. Prince Althran and Griffon are airborne once more:



Pinning your flying bases is definitely the way forward, whole thing is more stable than it ever was before. If only the stock market could be pinned in a similar fashion...

[jackhoneysett]

Oh and in exciting news, before I go. Prince Althran and Griffon are airborne once more:

Woohoo! Rioters 0 - Matt 1

I'm not sure which is actually worse. Speaking of your blog... is it ?

I couldn't see that emoticon when reading this on my iphone, it just displayed a 'p' instead - I was trying to work out if that was supposed to stand for 'perished', 'postponed' (...'pants'?!)
It's not quite , just a bit haphazard. Expect a bit of Mumak action soon! I bet you can't wait!