Thursday 2nd September
Ok so it's about time I started my Tale of OG Gamers blog, admittedly I planned to be all organised and start this yesterday so as to start on the official first day, sadly I forgot so as you can see at this early stage it's all going well!
My plan was to finally get round to making my High Elf force half desent. Sadly High Elves have always suffered throughout my painting and collecting history, all the way back to the 4th edition when they were ignored in favour of the Orcs & Goblins in the box set all the way up to know, where I painted a basic force with the intention of expanding to include all the exciting and fun options available to a High Elf general but instead got swayed by the powers of Chaos and ended up painting myself an army of Warriors and of Beastmen in the interim. So now was the time to swing the balance back in the High Elves favour. Additionally High Elves seemed like a good choice as their high points cost meant 200 points a month shouldn't be too hard (I know work is going to take over my life in October and November so anything I can do to help is good), plus what with the new Island of Blood box set and High Elf reinforcements next month there's never been a better time to sort out my High Elves - sorry sound like I'm writing High Elf propoganda for White Dwarf there!
In order to fit to the rules of Tale of OG Gamers I was going to paint up a seperate 2,000 point High Elf army, (legal at 600, 1,200 and 2,000 points) that could function on its own, but the intention was that I could join it up to my exisiting army which consists of about 3,000 points of High Elves to give me a mighty warhost to play a big fun game with some time (must organise some big fun games some time rather than just prattling on about them). I wasn't going to make a plan for exactly what this 2,000 point army consisted of, as I'm rubbish at sticking to them anyway (partiuclarly when the lure of new models comes into play) - the chances of my planning out my next 10 months of painting were remote in the extreme. However I wanted my new High Elf army to consist of the choices I was missing from my existing force, saying that provided it didn't make the combined army legal I wasn't rulling out and duplication of units - the only real restriction this gave me is that my new army couldn't have a Battle Standard Bearer, bit of bummer in 8th edition, but High Elves are probably the army most able to live without a Battle Standard Bearer (plus it would give me more points for magic - mooo hahahahahaha). The other wish list on what I wanted was that my exisiting army went from having extra core units in 7th edition to being 5% under the core restrictions in the 8th edition so if my 2,000 point army was a little core heavy that wouldn't be a problem.
My current High Elf army consists of the following (so this is the stuff I'll be avoiding):
Prince on Steed
Battle Standard Bearer
Archmage
Mage on Steed
15x Spearmen
15x Spearmen
12x Archers
12x Archers
12x Silver Helms (I know, I know they are about as much use as Jedward, but still they are painted!)
20x Swordmaster of Hoeth
20x White Lions
5x Shadow Warriors
1x Tiranoic Chariot
2x Repeater Bolt Throwers
So ideally I'm looking to add characters on monsters, hero on foot, Lothern Sea Guard, Phoniex Guard, Dragon Princes, White Lion Chariot, Ellyrian Reavers and Great Eagles to my army.
Fortunately the new of Island of Blood set contains a lot of this wish list, unfortunately I can't come to the club today (bloody work) so I'd have to wait until Monday before I could collect my set and start any painting. So the point of this long rambling diatribe is to disguise the fact I have done no painting and won't be able to start until a week into September... looking good so far then!
You'll be fine Matt, look forwards to your first batch... :thumbsup:
Wednesday 8th September
Welcome back to the blog which is about as disturbing to fathom as imagining what Anne Widdecombe MP will look like on this year's Strictly Come Dancing!
Now the astute amongst you will notice how last week I bumbled on in a vein effort to disguis the fact I hadn't actually done any painting, so one week on - and 27% of the way through September you will be pleased to know that nothing has changed. Let the ramble begin.
Last week I explained how my plan was to add to my current High Elf army with a new 2,000 point one including units that were missing from my original army whilst providing a new stand alone army - as if you possibly care. The good news is that this meant that colour schemes and basing options had already been dictated, so here's a quick guide to how my army should look:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners013.jpg)
I should point out, for extra clarification this chariot is from my old army, I'm not claiming I painted it in the last eight days - but it does show the colour scheme I'll be using namly traditional High Elf white and silver look, but my accent colours are light blue and yellow. Which coincidentally, I think (unless I was brainwashed into painting in some advertising) is the same colour scheme as that used by all time favourite shop (bar OG Games) of Shakeaway:
http://www.shakeaway.com/subsites/uk/homepage.htm (http://www.shakeaway.com/subsites/uk/homepage.htm)
For those of you unfamiliar with Shakeaway, it is like a giant sweet shop but you go in and choose the sweet/chocolate bar/cake/fruit (if you're boring), which is then turned into a milkshake - amazing! I recommend you try out, there's one in Angel, and there are some lesser rival brands around but none are as good as the true Shakeaway experience. Oh and if you're not sure what flavour to try I'd suggest a "Jack" which is a caramelly concoction. Anyway I appear to have digressed away from painting, which apparently is the point of this blog though you'd be hard pushed to guess, and plugged another company on Ol's site - don't worry Ol they don't sell minatures!!
I'll talk you through the colours used to get the scheme shown above, when I've actually done some painting - I know you can barely contain yourself! For now I've had a thought about what units I want to paint up for my army, specifically the first 600 points, primarily the High Elves from the Island of Blood set, though the news about new Phoenix Guard (that's the second way I've spelt Phoneix through this blog, oh and there's the third, seriously where does that "e" go?) and Dragon Princes this week nearly caused a diversion!
Whilst I was going to paint a general this month, I know time will be tight next month (bloody work) so thought I should go for quantity this month, hence it has to be a core choice. This was obviously going to be the Lothern Sea Guard, because they're on the list of units I don't have for my exisiting army, they're in the Island of Blood set, and I'm thinking in a 600 point game a dual purpose unit that has missile weapons and is half decent (for Core) in close combat will be useful. 207 points gets you 14 Lothern Sea Guard with Full Command and shields (they don't come free - an extra point each don't you know!), so that is this month sorted (oh bar the small matter of painting them, details, schemtails).
Anyway to prove I have done something useful this week, I've put together this week's events through the medium of photography (be grateful it wasn't dance), so hopefully I'll give the impression I've been doing something!
This weekend, with no Island of Blood box set I was unable to paint any High Elves so with a marathon session on Sunday I finished off a large number of Beastmen models:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog280.jpg)
I'm not really supposed to talk Beastmen here, this is a High Elf post after all, so if you want to see more check out my other painting blog (shameless plug alert) here: http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=943.msg15596;topicseen#msg15596 (http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=943.msg15596;topicseen#msg15596)
On Monday I picked up my Island of Blood set - wooo:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog211.jpg)
I opened it...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog212.jpg)
Ok so that picture probably wasn't necessary, snipped up all the High Elf and Skaven bits:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog214.jpg)
Then swapped my Skaven with Lee for his High Elves, sadly no picture of this exists so instead we have an artist's impression of what that moment may have looked like, sadly the artist in question is about 4 years old.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog296.jpg)
Some plastic glue and basing later (this is actually sand PVA glued on, and then washed with PVA glue to seal the sand down works a treat - see painting tips in amongst the drivel) the Lothern Sea Guard and the Mage are assembled - there are 18 Sea Guard here, the 14 rank and file and 3 command group figures, plus I used a spear from a Spearmen frame to make the second standard bearer into the 18th trooper (there isn't a specific model for the standard, just a banner you can attach to the regular models instead of a spear). I planned to convert the second champion and musician to make the unit up to 20 but that looked too complicated for now.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog206.jpg)
Then they went onto my lovely balcony on a particularly grey day for a Chaos Black undercoat (is it me or is the can always nearly empty when you really need to undercoat something?). The most important thing about this picture is the shock news that "London Paramedics are called out every to deal with a drunk every 8 minutes" - must have been an OG Games event. Plus if you look very closely you'll see Malagor the Dark Omen and Ghorros Warhoof have snuck in this undercoating batch, dam the Beastmen get everywhere can I put them down long enough to get some High Elves done?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog208.jpg)
So we now have one assembled Mage (for a later date, we'll get round to him)!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog215.jpg)
And 18 Lothern Sea Guard, the first 14 of which will be this month's 200 points.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog217.jpg)
And you'll be pleased to know that's it for this week, well done if you made it this far. Hopefully next week I will talk about actual painting rather than the line up for Strictly Come Dancing, milkshake shops, models I painted two years ago and the strain our binge drinking culture puts on the NHS, who knows and frankly who cares?!
Quotethe shock news that "London Paramedics are called out every to deal with a drunk every 8 minutes" - must have been an OG Games event
:))
Brilliant mate, very entertaining, especially the recreation of the Matt / Lee handover... :thumbsup:
really liking the effort going into this blog, don't think i've seen a more detailed decription of assebly and undercoat! :thumbsup:
That cant be lee.... NO BEARD!
IMPOSTER!!!
Quotereally liking the effort going into this blog
Possibly less effort in the blog, more effort in the painting would be more productive but where would the fun be in that?
QuoteThat cant be lee.... NO BEARD!
IMPOSTER!!!
Bless her the artist who did the artist's impression is only 4, she's not even allowed into the pub to the witness the event - all considering I think she did well, though I'll slap her and see if she can do a better picture for next week!
Thursday 16th September
It's that time of the week again, time for the blog that's more predictable than Phil Mitchell burning down the Queen Vic after spilling alcohol everywhere – thank god matches aren't allowed at OG Games (not that I watch EastEnders you understand, I just had it on whilst I was ironing - hmmmm not sure which sounds sadder).
Anyway we start with shock accusations that the resident 4-year old artist, insulted by claims that last week's artistic representation of me swapping Island of Blood models with Lee wasn't a good enough likeness, has been Photoshopping her pictures - shocking claims indeed! And I think we can all agree that looking at the picture from last week again, we can see absolutely no Photoshopping has taken place.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog072.jpg)
It appears that we've digressed from painting of High Elves already, what a surprise?! So back to the Elven army in question, and after looking at other people's blogs in this series I realise that my army is lacking any theme or back story, apparently generic High Elves (sponsored by Shakeaway - the milkshake shop, seriously have you tried one yet? You really should, I know summer is over but seriously they are good) doesn't constitute a theme. Whilst I would write some epic piece of backstory for them I feel that without the literary grace of the Games Workshop team (and a large thesaurus) my efforts would appear like the Ladybird book of Warhammer "Once upon a time there were some High Elves, and they didn't much like the Dark Elves who were very naughty, so they put on white clothes and made lots of money doing Persil adverts" - see without a few random words that you are not quite sure of the meaning of, but too lazy to look up, it doesn't feel very Games Workshop.
So then inspiration struck, but rather then telling you straight out I'm going to pontificate for ages before getting to the rather lame point (if you've got this far in the blog you'll be used to it). Last Thursday it was the 25th anniversary of the start of on-air continuity for CBBC, by that I mean the start of the much loved Broom Cupboard on CBBC (if you are too young to remember the Broom Cupboard and only remember Studio A or Studio 9 as it then became, I hate you greatly and you should stop reading this blog immediately, you are banned hear me banned!). If you're feeling nostalgic why not look at this highlight of 25 years of the Broom Cupboard (see if you remember Edd the Duck, Wilson the Butler, Phillippa Forrester and Simon Parkin plus many, many more):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA1qyUq1gsg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA1qyUq1gsg)
To the point, I know you're getting bored busy at work etc. - no you're not you're desperately waiting for lunch! Sorry! Well some of you may, or may not know (that covers all options bar not caring) that I have a connection to children's television, no not that I'm a paedophile! Why does everyone of a certain age group (i.e. men old enough to go in pubs) presume that the only connection anyone can have to children must be paedophilia, if I mentioned I worked with a photocopier you wouldn't instantly presume I shove my dick in it would you? You would!?! Well then out of the two us I'm not the sick one! Any way I have a connection with children's television so I thought why don't I name each one of my units around a classic children's programme from my youth in tribute? And so we get to the point, my army will be themed around classic children's TV – except in name, not in modelling or anything complicated like that.
So to the Lothern Sea Guard, now the obvious nautical children's programme for their naming would be Captain Pugwash, but I never watched that as a child so it feels cheating to use it. The one nautical thing that does come to mind is a programme called The Smoggies, now to prove I'm not going mad here is a clip of the theme tune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdCfCSfkLqQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdCfCSfkLqQ)
See I'm not mad, well... perhaps. The interesting thing about The Smoggies, and I use the word "interesting" in much the same way as the makers of Celebrity Come Dine with Me use the word "Celebrity" – namely incorrectly. The interesting thing about The Smoggies is that they are named after the show's protagonists rather than the heroes, mind you if you were called the Sun Tots you probably wouldn't shout about it for fear of getting the proverbial kicked out of you on the Night Bus. The basic theme of the show was that The Sun Tots (who were kind to the environment and apparently only had one hair stylist, but infinite quantities of hair dye) had a secret magic coral that made you forever young (and solar panel technology, despite only the ability to build things out of wood), where as The Smoggies who lived in a boat off the coast of Sun Tot Island polluted the planet whilst trying to steal the coral – for some reason the Sun Tots wouldn't share (little bastards).
Any how as that is the first children's nautical reference I can think off, my unit shall be named Smoggy's Sea Guard, I imagine they live permanently on a boat off the coast of Lothern, bitter about their aging (well you'd surely have a few wrinkles if you were a thousand years old?) and polluting the sea dumping Tippex in the ocean, the bye-product of all that white cloth dying. So there we have it a theme for the army.
That just leaves us time for this week in pictures, horray!!
On Friday disaster struck, I realised in my haste to put together my Lothern Sea Guard I had not properly joined the spear arms to the body in assembly in a couple of cases.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog019.jpg)
Turns out that I later read in the Island of Blood intro book...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog065.jpg)
...that apparently the frames in the Island of Blood set have labelled the arms that go with the appropriate bodies with a Letter etched on the frame. If only there had been some clue on this book to the fact I should have consulted it before assembly.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog069.jpg)
Also I had noticed my cunning conversion where I used a spare spear from the High Elf Spearmen frame had a flaw. The Lothern Sea Guard have gloves, but the Spearmen don't, well I can kind of live with that, his second arm is hidden by the shield, and to be honest he could have lost the glove on the battlefield, I mean I lose gloves on the Underground all the time so it's not impossible. But more importantly one arm now had a shoulder pad piece of armour, and the other didn't, so he looked a bit lopsided – oops!
So it was time to get green stuffing, I find it very useful to keep all my green stuff in a little bag otherwise you get odd yellow and blue stains round the house which are hard to explain.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog006.jpg)
And so the gaps were filled...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog021.jpg)
And a second shoulder pad was constructed...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog043.jpg)
Ok so it's a bit shit, but this plan was never going to fly was it. From a distance (about 5 miles) it works, so we'll hide him in the back rank and remove him as soon as a casualty occurs (even if it's not to that unit).
So this leaves a load of spare green stuff, no matter how sparing you are in making it up there's always some left over. I find it best to roll it into balls, then when you have people round for a dinner party who you don't really like you can hide it in the green peas and laugh at them choking, but maybe that's just me?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog023.jpg)
Then on Saturday given it was the anniversary of a day when a particular Daemons of Chaos player, who doesn't in any shape or form represent all Daemons of Chaos players, carried out a terrible army list against other people. Thusly I decided the best course of action would be to set fire to many copies of the Daemons of Chaos army book thereby sending a message to said Daemons of Chaos player that his action was unacceptable, but at the same time offending thousands more innocent Daemons of Chaos players causing them to create more terrible army lists.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog049.jpg)
Then after a quick word from Barrack Obama and some press coverage that caused riots in the Daemons of Chaos homelands, I realised this would be incredibly stupid so didn't do it.
And after all that I did a little bit of painting, namely the basecoating on the whole unit:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog054.jpg)
Here's a quick guide to the colours used, should you be mad enough to copy me.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog059.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog062.jpg)
Base: Khemri Brown
Leather: Scorched Brown
Robes and Shield: 1:1 Astronomican Grey : Skull White
Armour Edging: 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Spear and Bow: Khemri Brown
Dragon: Mechrite Red
Sea: 1:1:1 Chaos Black : Enchanted Blue : Dark Angels Green
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Hair: Vomit Brown or Dheneb Stone or Calthan Brown
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Pennants and Arrow Quivers: Iyanden Dark Sun
Seaweed: Dark Angels Green
Shells: Dheneb Stone
And with this, possibly the longest post ever (including discussions on children's TV, Photoshop scandals, paedophilia, pollution and mocking of current affairs events), I say goodbye for this week. Next week promises painting on the road, and mixing paints, very exciting, I'm sure you can wait!!
This has become the most rambling and entertaining plog I've seen in a while! Keep it up!
I'm never getting the last 10 minutes of my life back am I?
Luckily they were an entertaining 10 minutes.
Matt
I love it, especially the green stuff gags!
Paedophilia, there are few better areas on which to base your comedy.
Great ramble err Blog
I wholeheartedly agree that Shakeaway is awesome. Aero mint is my current favourite.
As for the rest of the blog, totally bonkers. Love it!
QuoteI wholeheartedly agree that Shakeaway is awesome.
Phew! I'm glad someone else has heard of Shakeaway, it was beginning to look like I was talking absolute drivel. :wink;m::
Wednesday 22nd September
Ok so it's the time of the week that's more eagerly awaited than the Pope's visit to the UK is on Richard Dawkins kitchen calendar, yep it's my weekly update on the progress of my High Elves. We're currently 73% of the way through the month (or 22 days for those of you who use more conventional standards for time measurement) and I'm reasonably pleased with my progress I seem to be on good course to complete this month's 200 points. After looking at some of the other blogs in this series I noticed some people haven't even started painting yet, I'm not sure if this makes me feel smug that I'm so far ahead or jealous that you have a reasonable chance of painting so much in such a short space of time - I'm nothing if not an easily distracted painter, as I'm sure I'll discuss at some point in the future in this blog (there's 10 months of this drivel to write after all).
As you may be beginning to fathom after 3 weeks of these blogs, my mind is about as organised as the Indian Commonwealth Games (sorry was that a ceiling tile dropping past my head?) and after reading last week's entry I realised that, despite doing more painting than in any of the previous weeks, I actually spoke it about less in my blog than in any of the previous weeks. So in effort to overcome this I thought I'd talk a little bit more about how I go about painting my models.
Last week I showed you Stage 1 of the painting of Smoggy's Sea Guard generally I paint my rank-and-file in 3-4 stages, with most colours simply being a base, midcoat and then a highlight, with the fourth stage reserved for possible extra washing, secondary highlights and details such as eyes, gems and basing plus a little touch up here and there. For character models or larger models (such as monsters) this is generally extended to 5-6 stages with an extra colour in between base and midcoat and again between midcoat and highlight (invariably a 1:1 mix of those two colours).
If you look closely at last week's pictures of Stage 1, you'll notice that my basecoat is much like the performance by those two chav girls on The X Factor a few weeks back, namely poorly applied, sloppy, offensive and if you stare at the picture long enough you'll probably want to punch something. No matter how hard I try to be neat I generally find the basecoat ends up in a mess, unless I paint everything with a fine detail brush, which would mean I'd have as much chance of finishing my 200 points by October as they would have finish the Indian Commonwealth Village by October - oops already done a topical gag about that! So the procedure for all the time I've been painting had been to basecoat the models with a larger brush, not worrying too much about the slops and spills and then to spend an inordinate amount of time neatening up the colours with a fine detail brush before moving on. Generally this seemed to double the time it took to paint the models because it was as fiddly as trying to find the end of a roll of selotape whilst having your head immersed in treacle, and about as tedious as watching Loose Women, which generally meant I put off doing it and got easily distracted. Then divine inspiration struck me (much like when Christine Bleakley couldn't decide whether to leave The One Show then realised she'd be getting paid about two million pounds more at ITV) when whilst painting my Beastmen army earlier this year I realised that virtually all the mess at the basecoat stage could be tidied up with the midcoat (this probably halved the amount of time I spent painting Core units). Generally most of any colour area, bar the deep recesses will be recovered at the midcoat stage, and the deep recesses are the areas least likely to have a splatter of the wrong colour on anyway, as they are recessed, so hey presto I just ignore the mess and carry on regardless. Obviously a mini neatening stage is still need at the end to tidy up those stray flecks of paint, and with characters it might be worth a neatening step after every stage, but generally a lot of time was saved, and with time now being of the essence this was good. Any how the point of all this blather, which before you moan is about painting (shocking I know), is that you should hopefully notice in the photos of the later stages of Smoggy's Sea Guard that the painting should look neater so that by the time the final fleck of paint is applied it will look like a masterpiece painting by one of the great Renaissance painters of the time - well it would if my camera wasn't operating at one tenth of a megapixel. Bless it, it's an old camera, and it's not helped by the fact I cracked the view screen when I fell over trying to board the Autopia ride at Disneyland Paris and I ended up sitting on it - sad but true.
Anyway on that bomb shell it's time for my camera to shine as it's time for this week in pictures, everybody's favourite part of the blog (because it is easier to skim through and pretend you've read it).
On Friday we got to Stage 2 of the painting of Smoggy's Sea Guard, here's a couple of snaps and an update on the colours used (see Stage 1 on the previous week's entry for the base colours).
Smoggy's Sea Guard – Stage 2
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog076.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog080.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Leather: Wash with Badab Black
Robes and Shield: Layered with 1:2 Astronomican Grey : Skull White
Armour Edging: Layered with Ice Blue
Silver Metal: Wash with Badab Black
Spear and Bow: Layered with Graveyard Earth
Dragon: Layered with Blood Red
Sea: Layered at top, and waves painted lower down with 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Dark Angels Green
Gold Metal: Basecoated (over the Tin Bitz) with Shining Gold
Hair: Vomit Brown – washed with Ogryn Flesh. Dheneb Stone – washed with Badab Black. Calthan Brown – washed with Badab Black
Flesh: Layered with Elf Flesh
Pennants and Arrow Quivers: Layered with Golden Yellow
Seaweed: Layered with 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Dark Angels Green
Shells: Layered with Bleached Bone
The astute amongst you may have noticed that the method for the shield and seaweed is quite similar to the method on the Island of Blood painting guide on the Games Workshop website – this is entirely true, they copied me*..., even though I'm writing it up after they published it.
*for legal reasons I should point out they didn't copy me.
Here's some group shots so you can see the unit as a whole:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog084.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog087.jpg)
On Saturday to celebrate the reaching of Stage 2 I went and bought myself a Shakeaway!!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog091.jpg)
You'd have thought with all the publicity I'm doing for them painting my army the Shakeaway colours I'd have at least not got my drink for free, but apparently according to the shop assistant this wasn't good enough reason (the cheek of it).
Incidentally for those of you interested I choose the French Fancy (sometimes known as Fondant Fancy) flavour – French Fancies are those cakes which consist of a cube of foam with a small blob of, what one can only presume is, fire retardant foam on then iced in a colour of stripey icing so bright it wouldn't look out of place on Lady Gaga's dress.
Ok so I've gone about Shakeaway a bit too much, I promise next week there won't be a single mention, honest, possibly.
Sunday was a very exciting day, I promised it last week, yes painting on the road! As I set off with Smoggy's Sea Guard to the sunshine paradise of Wilsden Green, well it was sunnier there than Clapham on the day.
I am fortunate to own one of the quite nifty Fast Attack Bags from Games Workshop - I'm sure Ol will be able to get you one if you ask him very nicely (when I say "get" you may have to pay for it, maybe "supply" would be a better choice of words). I got mine as a well thought out Christmas present from the parents and it's actually surprisingly useful – the padded area holds a reasonable number of infantry models all safely tucked away (it does struggle with anything bigger than cavalry though):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog028.jpg)
Then there's some elastic straps which hold paintbrushes, glue, clippers and a selection of paints the right way up minimising spills...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog029.jpg)
...unfortunately there's never enough spaces for paints as you need, so invariably you throw the remaining paints in the bottom of the bag increasing the chance of a spill and making the whole thing rather pointless – much like a sign I genuinely saw in Boots this week, which read Eye Appointments Available Tomorrow* and underneath read *subject to availability – which surely means that "eye appointments might be available tomorrow, or at any other time, why not check at the desk there's no way this poster can know for sure" – i.e. utterly pointless, though the small print was so small you couldn't read it unless you didn't need an eye test, so perhaps the sign was a way of checking if people needed their glasses changing based on whether they noticed the small print which makes the sign irrelevant – I've gone off topic again haven't I?
The other good thing about the Fast Attack bag is there is very little Games Workshop branding on it, which is very helpful if like me you keep boarding tubes packed full of Chelsea fans who are likely to point and mock (this isn't a slur on Chelsea fans in particular, I just happen to pass through Fulham Broadway station at the wrong time remarkably often).
The reason I went to Wilsden Green is for a painting session with my friend, who is commonly known by me as Mr Shakey Shakey (no connection to Shakeaway) due to his rather unsteady hands during the painting process as you can see.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog046.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog047.jpg)
This combined with his scatter gun approach to painting means that his Wood Elf army consists of lots of part finished models, as you can see here there's Way Watchers, Glade Riders and Warhawk Riders scattered across the table in various stages of completion.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog035.jpg)
Hopefully Mr Shakey Shakey can get his army finished soon, in the mean time all I can show you is an artist's impression of what it might look like when finished.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog119.jpg)
Sadly as we know Wood Elves are pretty pants in 8th edition, so here's an artist's impression of what it will probably look like by turn 2.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog123.jpg)
Mr Shakey Shakey shouldn't worry as he probably won't have finished his army until 9th edition. Thanks there to our resident 4 year old artist.
I should point out that painting with someone else invariably leads to a lot more painting being done than solo sessions, primarily as I don't have the TV on for company, which can be quite distracting, and the other person generally is motivating enough to keep you painting when you start to get bored. I would highly recommend it, maybe an OG Painting session could kick off? And here's another painting tip, bits of board to mount your units on for quick batch painting...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog032.jpg)
...generally this helps me whiz through rank and file models, painting the colour across the whole board, here I've used Celebrity Kappa Board – it's been on telly don't you know! But any bits of thick card would suffice.
Sadly other than pictures of someone else's dining table I have no snaps of Wilsden Green itself, I'll have to leave it to your imagination – maybe more holiday style snaps on the next leg of the tour.
And by Wednesday, that's today (if I finish writing this blog by midnight), Stage 3 was mostly complete on Smoggy's Sea Guard, thanks to Sunday's efforts. Here's all the useful colour info.
Smoggy's Sea Guard – Stage 3
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog108.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog112.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Leather: Highlighted with Beastial Brown
Robes and Shield: Layered with Skull White, sometimes a second coat used for good coverage especially on large areas.
Armour Edging: Highlighted with 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Silver Metal: Highlighted with Mithril Silver
Spear and Bow: Layered with watered down Bleached Bone (to give a uneven wood grain effect)
Dragon: Highlighted with Blazing Orange, then with Vomit Brown.
Sea: Layered at top most and on waves with 1:1:1 Enchanted Blue : Dark Angels Green : Space Wolves Grey
Gold Metal: Washed with Gryphonne Sepia
Hair: Vomit Brown – highlighted with Vomit Brown. Dheneb Stone – highlighted with Bleached Bone. Calthan Brown – highlighted with Snakebite Leather
Flesh: Washed with watered down Ogryn Flesh
Pennants and Arrow Quivers: Layered with Sunburst Yellow
Seaweed: Layered with 1:1:1 Enchanted Blue : Dark Angels Green : Bleached Bone
Shells: Highlighted with Skull White
Sorry there's no group shots I haven't quite finished the last bit of Stage 3 on all the models, I was too busy ranting on Radio 1 about how the BBC haven't paid me, until I realised like Chris Moyles that no one cares (and incidentally I don't work for the BBC).
And then to cap off Wednesday my porn arrived (as my flat mate refers to it), what he means is this month's White Dwarf – which despite the undoubted attractiveness of the White Dwarf team I can exclusively reveal has never been used in the traditional sense of porn, by any one in the world ever (except weirdos). I sat down for a quick read with two Weetabix (or technically two Sainsbury's Wholewheat Biscuits – I'm quite cheap and proud), and I can recommend Weetabix as a tasty but healthy post work snack that won't ruin dinner.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog095.jpg)
I shan't reveal too much, don't want to spoil the read for you, but it's full of High Elves hence my excitement. And reveals that they're re-releasing classic Lothern Sea Guard models (as well as a new High Elf Hero) which don't look too bad should I want a second unit of the Lothern Sea Guard – though they are a little pricey so may have to wait until a day when I'm in a good mood, or have robbed the local Cash n' Carry – whichever comes first, probably the Cash n' Carry.
And that my friends is this week over, sadly no Mixing Pants this week (I know I promised last week, but I haven't done any, maybe next week!). Next week does promise to see the finish of Smoggy's Sea Guard, more painting on the road and the preparation of Month 2's miniatures including a trip under my bed (yes the much talked about under the bed), oh and no mention's of Shakeaway, I promise – I can't wait. Until then I bid you good week, I hope your dice always roll 6s and you never have to paint yellow – seriously it's a bitch!
Entertaining as always matt! Agreed on yellow being a bad colour to paint, slightly regretting having chosen it for my empire horde army scheme!
Great rambly blog, looks like the start of a great new High Elf army!
A friend of mine managed Shakeaway in Kingston for a couple of years. If you've ever wondered what a degree in geology from Imperial College gets you, there's your answer.
QuoteA friend of mine managed Shakeaway in Kingston for a couple of years. If you've ever wondered what a degree in geology from Imperial College gets you, there's your answer.
I have a degree from Imperial College too (not in Geology mind) does that mean I can manage a Shakeaway? That is the best news I've had all week, maybe all month! :thumbsup:
Great update matey, loving your , sorry, the 4 year old's artwork.... :))
QuoteGreat update matey, loving your , sorry, the 4 year old's artwork....
Ssshh... I don't think anyone's noticed!
Quote from: fatolaf on September 23, 2010, 03:05:01 pm
the 4 year old's artwork.... :))
Thats a bit harsh mate....
I think your paintings very nice Matt :))
QuoteI think your paintings very nice Matt
Thanks my Mum still puts them on the fridge!
Your mum puts your models on the fridge?
Quote from: cunningmatt on September 22, 2010, 10:25:00 pm
And that my friends is this week over, sadly no Mixing Pants this week (I know I promised last week, but I haven't done any, maybe next week!).
Just a typo I hope, or are you planning on sharing even more personal information with us next week?
:))
QuoteJust a typo I hope, or are you planning on sharing even more personal information with us next week?
Hahaha, it's an even better tease for next week's blog entry than I expected!
Wednesday 29th September
This week's blog is written with disappointment in my heart, stemming from the fact that I didn't win the Labour leadership contest, what many of you may not know is that me and Diane Abbot are one and the same – that's the reason you never see me in the same room as her, and why my visits to the club are slightly sporadic as I'm busy filming This Week.
But as September draws to a close the good news is I've finished this month's painting task – Smoggy's Sea Guard are done, plus there's a bumper blog entry to end the month – it's been a busy week for painting (sorry I promise to be shorter next week). Here's a sneak preview of the finished unit:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog198.jpg)
Obviously I am slightly loathed to submit an entry on the OG Forum for any kind of painting contest, after my last entry (my converted Chaos Giant), was tragically denied winning Painting Competition 5 after no one remembered to announce the result, here's the proof he should have won:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog245.jpg)
See 50% of the vote. Fortunately I'm not a bitter person, I haven't carried this with me or remembered it for several months since the closing date on the 22nd of June – 3 months and 7 days ago, I haven't felt bitter and cheated and it hasn't gnawed away at me making me a twisted and nasty person. Not at all, not in the slightest, no. I blame Lee, and to think I voted for him to win. Charming! :rant;2:
Any way moving away from that. I made three promises to you last week, which I will endeavour to keep – firstly no mentions this week of certain milkshake shop that begins with "S" and ends in "hakeaway", so I promise that word will not pass my lips (well keyboard) this post, honest there will be no mentuons. Secondly was to show you a group shot of Stage 3 of Smoggy's Sea Guard, so here they are:
Stage 3 – Smoggy's Sea Guard
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog125.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog131.jpg)
There is a third promise, but I'll come to that later. Ever the tease that I am.
This week, for the first time in a while, I popped along to the OG for a quick game of Warhammer on Thursday. I played my Beastmen against Bart's Orcs & Goblins – I lost, this is hardly a headline but I did learn five things from the experience (none of which are related to game play or tactics) that I thought I'd share with you:
1) Tom is rather loud when playing Warhammer. Sitting on the next table to him was a bit like sitting next to Brian Blessed during a shouting competition when he's got a nasty bout of Tourette's. I should point out I'm not complaining, I am just observing, plus Tom commented how much he enjoys this blog and my ego is easily flattered. He must have just been very excited; he was shouting "gay" a lot which I can only presume means he's having a merry old gay time of it.
2) Last week when reading my blog Ol spat red wine all over his computer screen. I'm not sure whether this was in amusement (unlikely), disgust (probable) or some kind of natural ability he has developed to spit red wine much like a deadly cobra can spit its poison across great distances. Personally I'm hoping for option C, I love the idea of a swanky wine bar with loads of Ol's – you simply select the drink you want stand by the appropriate Ol holding out a glass and he spits the drink of your choice in the glass. Sou'westers would probably have to be provided to guests, but it would be amazing.
3) No matter how quickly you are rushing round the house and getting dinner to get to your second slot game, don't go out and leave the electric hob on. I did this. Fortunately no one was harmed and no damage was done. This combined with the fact that I "donated" my jacket to the Northern line this week is forming a strong case for the fact that I am drifting into insanity. Plus my flat mate was quite disturbed to get home walk into the kitchen and find the ambient temperature was about 58 degrees Celsius, on the downside he now thinks I was trying to kill him in some kind of insurance scam. I of course wasn't, but next time I'm leaving a three bar electric fire in the bath that's sure to get him.
4) Don't use the radiators in the Spread Eagle pub's games room as a little shelf for spare models. I found out after knocking a Bestigor and Ungor down the back of the radiators, that the gap between the radiator and the wall is sealed on the other three sides (and there's no way your hand will fit down the gap from the top) – oh dear. This resulted in me spending about 15 minutes trying to hook them out with the end of a tape measure with my head pressed against the wall for a good view. It was like a shit version of the Crystal Maze, in fact I half expected Ol to don a faux leopard skin jacket and play the harmonica behind me whilst I finished the task. Fortunately for all concerned he didn't.
5) Ritchie can't read this blog because he doesn't have internet access. Which means I can say This Morning is shit, and not feel bad about it. This Morning is shit! There said it again! Actually I quite like This Morning, well anything that's surrounded in the schedule by The Jeremy Kyle Show and Loose Women is going to appear artificially better than it actually is. But in fairness I quite enjoy a bit of Holly and Phil banter (as long it's not a serious item about someone whose children have a bizarre medical condition where their heads have been replaced by florets of broccoli – I don't like that bit), I'm less keen on Eamonn and Ruth though, they're a bit of a Friday disappointment, usually Friday's are for treats but ITV evidentially disagree. When I first saw them present together I thought they had an awkward, angry, frictional on-screen relationship which some may say was bitchy and confrontational, which I thought was odd. Then I realised they were a couple and it all made sense. It's kind of an unwritten rule in TV that fellow TV people don't slag off people not announcing their Giant hasn't won a painting competition – sorry I mean an unwritten rule in TV that fellow TV people don't slag off other TV people's work. We have to politely sit there and say how nice it is, when actually we thought it was a pile of poo (I'm sure people say this about my work all the time!). Unfortunately I was unable to stick to this rule when I met a producer who had worked on some of the recent Danny Dyer shows – even if I had the acting talents of the great Dame Judy Dench it would have been a struggle.
Before I move on to This Week in Pictures, I should point out that like the rest of this blog any comments made about other members of OG Games in this post should be taken not seriously and in good humour – except the bit about my giant not winning, I meant every word of that. Calm down someone pass me my beta blockers – phew I'm fine now.
So it's over to This Week in Pictures.
Thursday saw the completion of Stage 3 of Smoggy's Sea Guard, pictures are already in this blog and the colours used are in last week's blog, so I won't repeat them again.
Friday, and here's my third and final promise. Jack pointed out, thanks Jack, that due to a typo in last week's blog I accidentally promised to show you Mixing Pants this week rather than Mixing Paints. Well I am one to keep my promises and I did try, but it didn't go down at work when I tried to swap my M&S Trunks for some ladies lingerie off a girl in finance, certain people complained and it all got messy. I'd show you the photos but HR asked me to delete them, sorry (particularly to the finance department).
Saturday saw the next leg of my painting tour as I took my paints (and pants) to Orpington in Kent as I went to see my parents for their anniversary. Now I've found the good thing about taking your paints when you go and see family members, is you can set up on the dinning room table, paint away, and it looks like you're being sociable when in actual fact you don't have to talk to them – I know genius, you can have that idea for free! Any how disappointed with last week's trip where I failed to take any photos of the sites of Wilsden Green this week I've done you proud.
First off some fascinating facts about Orpington:
The Buff Orpington is a species of hen named after the town, which incidentally was part of the crest on my primary school badge.
The first mention of Orpington was in 1038 when the treasurer of King Cnut (a name that should always be carefully spelt) gave away land at Orpedingetune.
The last British civilian to die in World War II died in Orpington, due to a V2 rocket destined for Biggin Hill airfield. Worryingly if a V2 were to land in the centre of Orpington today it could do potentially thirty-eight pence worth of damage.
So bright-eyed and bushy tailed I set off from Clapham Common on Saturday morning:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog132.jpg)
Here's the quiet, peaceful, leafy Clapham, little do people know of the horrors of that lurk just a few metres below the ground... the Northern line!
A short tube ride later we're at London Bridge:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog134.jpg)
Rather disturbingly, particularly given my early comments, a V2 rocket can be seen here stored right next to London Bridge platform 1, I'm not sure this is the safest location for such armaments – in fact I'm almost certain it isn't.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog135.jpg)
Here are some of the delightful places we get to stop at on the way to Orpington, note to self put the camera away and pretend to be a tramp when we get to Grove Park – it's the only way to avoid a mugging.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog138.jpg)
And here's the best view of London Bridge - the view as you leave it. If you look closely in this picture you may see a train spotter, in which case this would make you a train spotter spotter.
After about 20 minutes we arrive in Orpington, where the first thing we are greeted by is a sign that I think perfectly encapsulates everything about Orpington:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog140.jpg)
I don't think any caption is required to make this sign funny. Though I am tempted to hold up a similar message next time someone asks me an annoying question at work.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog141.jpg)
Here's the wonderful new footbridge at Orpington station with lifts, empowering the elderly and disabled to suffer the misery of the early morning commute along with the rest of us. Lucky them.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog142.jpg)
Here we can see South Eastern trains staff busy at work, we can only imagine what exciting Orpington-related gossip there is.
We now head into Orpington town centre, where one of the first sites you encounter is this new construction:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog143.jpg)
Apparently it is the biggest Tesco in Western Europe – what the hell it's doing in the small town of Orpington is anyone's guess.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog145.jpg)
Here's Orpington High Street, as you can see the new regeneration programme has made Orpington look absolutely amazing and like no other mediocre town centre in the country.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog146.jpg)
Here we see Sweets n' Shakes a milkshake shop which is a rival to a more popular brand whose name escapes me at present. Incidentally I was once asked to leave a different rival brand milkshake shop in Manchester after making inappropriate comments about Milky Way Magic Stars.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog147.jpg)
Closer inspection of Sweets n' Shakes disturbingly reveals all the stock is gone, and a hastily scrawled "Closed" sign in the window, this would only be more worrying if the sign read "Closed by the order of Government Environmental Health" and a fleet of Rentokil vehicles surrounded the shop while deploying heavy duty pumping equipment – hopefully that isn't what has happened.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog148.jpg)
Here's the highly exciting Walnuts Shopping and Leisure centre, the main advantage of this over the High Street is the ability to walk past all the closed down shops whilst under cover from the elements.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog149.jpg)
Now finally we get to a Games Workshop/modelling/painting connection, you knew there had to be one, though you may have given up hope. This shop used to be the site of Computer Leisure Centre a shop that not only sold games for my Sega Master System (old school) but also sold a range of Citadel Miniatures – and has a school child was my most readily accessible supply of them. Sadly it only really stocked a handful of completely random blisters and all the little box sets that used to contain 10 mono pose models all for a fiver. Though I did pick up a couple of River Trolls there at the bargain reduced price of £3 each once – what a find!?!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog150.jpg)
Here's the Save the Children Orpington branch which featured in the BBC 2 show Mary Queen of Charity Shops – essentially a programme where Mary Portas harassed and moaned at a group of sweet, well meaning, elderly volunteers until they gave up their jobs and stopped helping at the shop.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog151.jpg)
This is the Texaco petrol station not far from my house, which during one university break caught fire when a moped burst into flames in the forecourt – very exciting to watch from a safe distance. Apparently the petrol station's fire prevention methods of an empty fire extinguisher and a bucket of sand chained to the wall so that no one could steal it were insufficient to prevent extensive fire damage to the premises – who'd have thought?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog156.jpg)
Finally we get to my parents house, and you can see final painting on the Lothern Sea Guard taking place here – incidentally this is only use for the Orpington & Chislehurst News Shopper - to protect Mum's dining room table from a nasty splatter of paint, and to protect me from my mother's wrath!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog163.jpg)
And lastly something about painting, this is a tip from Lee for trying out what washes to use – thanks Lee (if only you'd be so handy when it came to awarding Giants prizes they deserve – cough cough :wink;m:: ) Basically I've painted consecutive stripes of all the yellows I used, and then painted various washes across them to see which blends them better – Ogryn Flesh at the top here looked better than Gryphonne Sepia (I'd recommend doing this on plain white paper rather than a copy of the Orpington & Chislehurst News Shopper for better results).
On Sunday, after surviving the parental visit, a supreme effort (the last little details always take longer than you expect) got Smoggy's Sea Guard finished!!
Stage 4 – Smoggy's Sea Guard
Here's some finished group shots:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog198.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog204.jpg)
And a close up of the command models:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog207.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog208.jpg)
And if you fancy copying my technique (you mad fool) here's the final part of my four stage guide:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog226.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog233.jpg)
Base: Drybrush with Bleached Bone then flock with Glade Grass
Leather: *NO CHANGE*
Robes and Shield: Further layering of Skull White on central areas
Armour Edging: *NO CHANGE*
Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Spear and Bow: *NO CHANGE*
Dragon: Wash with Baal Red
Sea: Highlight uppermost waves with 1:1:3 Enchanted Blue : Dark Angels Green : Space Wolves Grey
Gold Metal: Highlight with 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Hair: Vomit Brown – highlighted with Bleached Bone. Dheneb Stone – highlighted with Skull White. Calthan Brown – highlighted with Bubonic Brown
Flesh: *NO CHANGE*
Pennants and Arrow Quivers: Wash with Ogryn Flesh highlight with Bad Moon Yellow
Seaweed: Layered with 1:1:3 Enchanted Blue : Dark Angels Green : Bleached Bone
Shells: Wash in recess with 1:1 Asurmen Blue : Thraka Green, then wash all over with a very watered down Mithril Silver
Eyes – eyes were painted with a fine slit of Chaos Black and then two Skull White dots in the corner.
Gems – that last bastard for all High Elf painters just when you think you're done!! All my rank and file gems are either blue or yellow, red is reserved for character models to help them stand out. Though for this unit they were all blue, as it worked with Smoggy's Sea Guard colour scheme. I'll talk about gem painting in more detail another time – but overall they are painted Chaos Black with a blue highlight in the corner ever shrinking curves of Necron Abyss, Regal Blue, Ultramarines Blue and Enchanted Blue with a highlight of Skull White in the corner, these will them be given a Gloss varnish after the whole model is Matt varnished.
Overall I'm really pleased with these models, though putting them up against my old High Elves that I painted nearly two years ago I see that my painting standard has significantly improved (if I do say so myself), which I suppose is a good thing – but does make me want to repaint the rest of the army – no, there's no time for that Matthew, resist.
I'm particularly pleased with the white, layering on a slightly watered down Skull White on the top layer to shade with the greys works much better than just using it neat out the pot as I did in the fast. The Ogryn Flesh wash really improved the yellow – though it's still a bum to paint. Flesh and faces look much stronger, again Ogryn Flesh, plus better brush control (learnt over the Beastmen years). Being more careful with the eyes helps too, some of the old ones had great big eyes, which looks weird now, good eyes only need a small area of black and the tinniest hint of white (especially on creatures like Elves with smaller faces). Shields came out looking well, thanks to the Games Workshop guide. Watering down the Bleached Bone on the final step of the wood really looks good – giving the wood a natural grainy feel rather than blocks of colour. Oh and the shells and musician's horn benefited from a very thin wash of Mithril Silver to make them glisten slightly, with that slight mother of pearl look. Plus the seaweed will be given a gloss varnish to make it look nice and wet – why you'd tie wet seaweed to your spear I'm not sure but I can imagine the pong now.
So with Month 1 done here's a roster for of the army so far:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog246.jpg)
Ok so the chart's not very exciting at present, but hopefully over the coming months it will get more exciting.
Incidentally if you want to see the Lothern Sea Guard close up they'll be fighting it out at the doubles event on Sunday, sounds like they're doing a book signing doesn't it?! I'll let you know how they get it on in an extra bonus blog next week – exciting I know, you can barely contain yourself!
I have twittered on an awful lot this week, more so than usual (I can't promise this every week, seriously by Month 10 I'll have died if we keep up this pace!). But this just leaves me time to tease next month's painting project. All I'll say is it includes some Island of Blood models and some under the bed models – yes that's right the infamous under the bed, that Ol knows only too well. That sounds like I keep Ol locked up under my bed in some kind of sick domestic violence scenario, I don't mean that, what I mean is I keep mentioning the fact I have loads of old models under the bed to Ol so it's become infamous. Incidentally if I am keeping Ol locked up I find it easier to keep him in my airing cupboard – if he's under the bed it's impossible to get a good night's sleep even if he's bound and gagged.
Anyway here it is, for the first time ever, under the bed:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog239.jpg)
I've got basically six sets of six mini-drawers, cheapo from IKEA which are ideal for storing miniatures and most of my old collection from when I was a kid lives here. Now I thought this sounds like an exciting prospect for a competition! Wooo! I say competition..., in fact I say exciting...
All the boxes are labelled number 1 – 36, primarily because I'm quite anal and like bizarre order where none is required:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog242.jpg)
If you reply to this post with a number (from 1-36), I will randomly draw a number from the suggestions next week and show you what is in that drawer (you won't win it I hasten to add), but you will get to see a treat – it could be some classic old models from way back when, it could be some poorly painted prototypes, could be some recently painted models or if you're unlucky you could pick the one empty box and then you'll waste your chance for a look!
Essentially it's a lot like Deal or No Deal?, except without the cash prizes or Noel Edmonds – though there is every chance I could ring you in a disturbing phone call – I'm not promising anything. So if you want to play reply to this post with a box number and who knows yours could get picked, I don't want to influence your choices but boxes 31-36 will require me to move the chest of drawers to open – so think carefully!!*
*Lines close at midnight on Monday 4th of October, votes cast after this won't count but may still be charged.
And that's it, we're at the end of the longest blog ever (until next week probably, no I will contain myself) – well done if you made it. Last week I bid you goodbye by wishing you roll lots of 6s, and after this I rolled an inordinate number of 6s during my game this week – it's almost as if me wishing you good fortune returned the good fortune to me. So I'm hoping this theory is correct as I wish you a week full of Lottery wins and brilliant sex! With any luck next week I'll be able to afford slaves to paint my models and This Week in Pictures will be 18-rated – here's hoping!!!
P.S. I'm not bitter about the giant, honest!
another brilliant update, and congratulations the the winner of the Conversion painting contest! :1st:
(I'll get it sorted and award your giant it's place in the hall of heros! This award is non-refundable and has no cash value! :thumbsup:)
i choose drawer 13
I move that the following icon.... however badly drawn (I do maps not graphics!)...
be added to the smiley database!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v225/vispilio/Shakeaway.png)
Quotecongratulations the the winner of the Conversion painting contest!
Did I win?! I'd completely forgotten about that competition! :wink;m:: Horray! The Giant is happy now.
QuoteThis award is non-refundable and has no cash value!
Not even 0.000000001p?
QuoteI move that the following icon.... however badly drawn (I do maps not graphics!)...
be added to the smiley database!
I couldn't agree more, I'd use it loads (unsurprisingly)!
Keep those votes, I mean start those votes coming in for the competition who knows what drawer you may get to open (well you'll know it will be the one you vote for... hmmm).
Great stuff Matt. lol is an overused acronym, but your posts do make me laugh aloud several times a page. Esp as I live not far from Orpington and get why you're not a big fan ...
I vote for drawer 11. No reason.
Sunday 3rd October
The Sun slowly made it's inexorable journey up from the horizon into the azure blue sky on a crisp Sunday morning, on the face of it there was nothing different about today, but there was. Something deep and fundamental was about to shape the course of history, something so important that people had come from far and wide to hear all about it. Yes I was going to upgrade from my 4.5 tog duvet to my 9 tog duvet – winter's coming don't you know? Oh and it was the day of the Wandsworth Waaaggh II (this time it's personal, presumably).
This was my first ever tournament and an opportunity to try out Smoggy's Sea Guard in battle, the advantage of using the Tale of OG Gamers to expand an existing army meant I could road test each unit as we went – in theory this gives me a tactical advantage, but as any one who has ever played me will tell you me and tactics don't go hand-in-hand. Here we can see Smoggy's Sea Guard ready for battle before the first battle – would newly painted model syndrome be their doom, only time could tell (unless you spin forward to the end of the blog then you'll find out).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog278.jpg)
Seaweed blowing in the air as the Sea Guard get ready to do some Smogging!
I had paired up with Jack and his Lizardmen to form Team Shakeaway (my sponsorship deal means I have to be called that), Jack fortunately didn't know my playing style too well and agreed to pair up with me before anyone could warn him off – the fool!!
My army consisted of the following:
Heroes
Mage using High Magic 100
Upgrade to Level 2 Wizard 35
Staff of Solidity Immune to effect of 1st miscast 20
Guardian Phoenix 5+ Ward Save 25
Total 180
Core
16x Lothern Sea Guard 192
Shields 16
Sea Master 10
Musician 5
Standard Bearer 10
Banner of Arcane Protection Magic Resistance (2) 25
Total 258
Special
13 x White Lions of Chrace 195
Guardian 12
Musician 6
Standard Bearer 12
Gleaming Pennant Reroll 1st failed Ld test 5
Total 230
10 x Sword Masters of Hoeth 150
Bladelord 12
Musician 6
Standard Bearer 12
Banner of Sorcery +D3 Power Dice 50
Total 230
Rare
Repeater Bolt Thrower 100
Total 100
Grand Total 998
As you can see Smoggy's Sea Guard had a couple of extra members more than last month's painting job, just to make them up to the required 250 points of core. I don't have Jack's full army list, but broadly speaking it was this:
Skink Priest (general, level 1 - heavens) + extra spell
Scar-Veteran BSB (cold one, spear) + Charmed Shield, Luckstone, Dragonbane Gem
10 Skirmishy skinks (blowpipes)
10 Skirmishy skinks (blowpipes)
20 Skink cohort (javelin shield) + std, musician
5 Saurus cavalry (standard) + Banner of Eternal Flame
5 Chameleon skinks
3 Terradons
2 Salamanders
Neither of us were expecting to win, or even come close, though we did realise if we won the wooden spoon we could possibly write a number 36 on it and claim someone's order of lasagne and chips from the bar.
Before I start telling you what happened I should point out that these aren't full battle reports – no maps, just key points and recollections and as always my photography skills are about as good as the England team's football skills during the recent World Cup.
In the words of William Shakespeare, or was it the Reverend W. Awdry, I always get those two confused: "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" – it's time for the first battle.
Battle 1 – The Watchtower
With everyone assembled at 11:30, all with varying degrees of hangover and all promising never to drink again (before getting a pint) we were ready to kick off. Except that Jack was running a tad late, and so we were late starting – lateness would come to be a theme of the day!
The draw revealed we were up against Team Flail consisting of Gary with his Wood Elves and Lee with his Chaos Dwarfs/Dwarfs/Warriors of Chaos/something on a lava base army – apparently Dwarfs this time! This was a good draw, primarily as I knew them already and wouldn't have the awkwardness of explaining why I was taking photos and why my team was called Team Shakeaway! It was this point it became apparent that Gary had never played Wood Elves before and Lee had only once played Dwarfs before hence the game was punctuated with moments of "Oh I didn't realise Runesmiths generated an extra dispel dice before" and the like.
The Dwarf army broadly consisted of: Runesmith, Battle Standard Bearer, Dwarf Warriors, Dwarf Thunderers, Grudge Thrower, Cannon and Gyrocopter. Wood Elves: Spellsinger, 2x Glade Guard, 2x Dryads, War Dancers, War Eagle.
The scenario was the watchtower and Team Flail won the roll off so got to position 20 Dwarf Warriors with hand weapons and shields in the central tower, whilst we got the first turn:
Turn 1
Turn 1 was generally unexciting with both armies advancing towards one another – all my infantry including Smoggy's Sea Guard (escorting my general) hotfooted it towards the tower ready to strike:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog280.jpg)
The Dwarf warriors defend the tower and white dice used as the turn counter – this dice would be painfully slow to turn
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog284.jpg)
Smoggy's Sea Guard ponder whether health & safety legislation can be used to remove the Dwarfs from the tower after it becomes apparent someone has failed to install the exterior staircase part of the fire escape
Turn 2
Turn 2 and it was about 5.30pm already, apparently we like talking more than playing, oops! Lee had "cunningly" positioned his Gyrocopter to block the advance of Smoggy's Sea Guard so it was time to unleash an array of charges. The Cold Ones charged the War Dancers who were busy practising for Strictly Come Dancing, the Lothern Sea Guard charged the Gyrocopter which apparently cannot flee! And the Swordmasters charged a unit of Dryads.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog287.jpg)
Smoggy's Sea Guard charge the Gyrocopter – played here by a Bull Taurus, while the White Lions hurl axes and lion dung up the walls of the tower
The combats were largely successful with the Gryocopter broken and unable to flee so destroyed, the Wardancers fled and were caught (yes it turns out Wardancers can't flee, what can I say, I wasn't reading the army book!). In the important combat the White Lions beat the Dwarf Warriors in the tower but being stubborn on Leadership 9 and in range of the Battle Standard Bearer we didn't hold out much hope – that is until Lee picked up the dice... and promptly rolled a 10 followed by a 12 – the Dwarfs ran for it and the White Lions took the tower! Meanwhile the Swordmasters, couldn't reroll their faliled hits as the Dyrads had higher Initiative and boy did they struggle unable to fight back the living trees.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog288.jpg)
The White Lions proudly claim the tower, as Lee appears to be attacking the far side with a screwdriver!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog289.jpg)
The Swordmasters remain bogged down with the Dryads, near to the "Pit of Ick" so named because the glue hadn't set yet!
The Dwarfs and Wood Elves counter with the second of unit of Dryads munching through several Skink units and the priest whilst a massive artillery bombardment, including flaming arrows from the Wood Elves, hits the tower – it's value on Homes Under the Hammer was rapidly falling as all but three White Lions were buried in falling masonry.
Turn 3
Turn 3 and by this point everyone else had gone to get food and Ol was holding his head in despair. The White Lions evacuated the tower realising that it wasn't a good place to stand and positioned themselves to block the recently rallied Dwarf warriors from assaulting the tower again. The wizard and Smoggy's Sea Guard took the tower and even claim a handful of Glade Guard with their bows.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog290.jpg)
The Seaguard proudly take the tower and begin by opening a branch of Shakeaway on the first floor.
The Swordmasters continued with their bad luck as Lee made an extremely jammy ward save roll for the dryads 5+ ward save:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog291.jpg)
According to Guinness Book of Records this is Lee's best ever roll – frame this picture it will never happen again.
However the balance was restored as despite only losing the combat by one, Lee failed the Dryads break test and the were fled and chopped down, presumably with shouts of "timber", by the Swordmasters, who stopped just short of the Thunderers. Meanwhile the combined volleys from Skinks whittles down the Glade Guard and poisons the Bolt Thrower Crew, whilst the Terradons and Salamanders take out the Cannon and the Stone Thrower.
At this point, as we were winning, I tried to end the game for lunch but Lee and Gary refused to cooperate, instead they assaulted two towers – the second unit of Dryads charged the Sea Guard whilst the rogue Eagle attacked the other tower in our deployment zone (all these towers - it was practically a high rise council estate) where our Bolt Thrower was stationed.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog293.jpg)
The Eagle attacks the tower in our deployment zone – the one I argued should have been the target for the capture the tower objective, but even Jack disagreed with this.
The Dwarfs charged the three remaining White Lions, they killed two but were unable to break the champion who continued to block their way. The Eagle was unable to wound the Bolt Thrower crew who to add insult to injury wounded the bird back eager to kill it and wrap it in breadcrumbs. Smoggy's Sea Guard killed two Dryads including one by standing and shooting, and lost four of their number, but they just passed their break test on an 8 being stubborn and holding back the Dryads:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog294.jpg)
Despite pouring weedkiller from the ramparts the Sea Guard are nearly driven out of the tower.
Turn 4
With the eyes of Ol burning into the back of our heads and our stomachs rumbling as everyone else had eaten, the fourth turn started. Desperate to protect the tower the Cold Ones and the Salamanders charged the Dryads.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog296.jpg)
The battle concluding with the most colourful units on the table taking on the least .
Meanwhile away from the tower the Swordmasters broke the Thunderers and the Repeater Bolt Thrower shot the Eagle inflicting one more wound. The Mage cast Fury of Khaine at the Spellweaver inflicting 9 S4 hits killing him and reducing the rest of his unit to dust, whilst the Sea Guard in the tower and the remaining Skinks culled all bar one of the remaining Glade Guard. The last remaining White Lion however finally succumbed and his white cloak was trodden into the ground – and mud stains are so hard to get out with my regular washing powder, sigh!
In the important battle the Cold Ones and Salamanders broke and ran down the Dryads, and at that point we were forced to abandon the game, as everyone else had grown a beard in the meantime.
Result, and what would have happened had we finished the game and not been talking!
With Smoggy's Sea Guard in control of the tower we won the game, and we amassed 1,374 victory points. We all agreed that had we played on the result would have been the same, only two Wood Elf models weren't dead (the wounded Eagle and one Glade Guard), and the only unit able to threaten the tower were the Dwarf Warriors – yes they could assault it next turn but with only 7 of them left they'd need a miracle to shift the Sea Guard and with Lee's rolling that was very unlikely! So with our first victory we ended up second on the leader board, I demanded a recount but apparently we were doing that well – oh dear the only way is down!
The Sea Guard did reasonably well I felt, killing a Gyrocopter, several Dryads and Glade Guard they made their points back and crucially held the final assault on the tower! Victory to Smoggy!
Battle 2 – Blood and Glory aka "The one with Fortitude that no one quite understands and scratches their head whilst reading the rulebook"
Another successful draw meant it was people I knew and we didn't have to explain the Team Shakeaway thing – this time it was Mike and Steve in the form of Team Ginger with their Undead alliance of Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts, again, delving into the darkest recesses of my memory the armies were something like this. Vampire Counts: Vampire, Wights, Zombies, Grave Guard 2x Ghouls. Tomb Kings: Hierophant, 3x Skeleton Archers, Chariots, Screaming Skull Catapult, 2x Tomb Scorpions. This did present an interesting challenge as we realised that we hadn't actually got any magic weapons to deal with the Wights and a roll for spells produced no direct damage or magic missile spells – oh poo!
Again this was a slow battle mainly as various combinations of Jack, Myself, Mike and Steve (almost always involving Steve) entered into some kind of bickering/married row every five minutes. My main objection to Steve's comments was that he kept going off topic for example naming the bowmen – Edith Bowmen and the forests Phillipa Forrester – doesn't he realise pointless rambling is my act, get your own! Additionally Jack insisted in providing sound effects for every movement his unit made, mainly to annoy Steve. Hence the game was slow, and I made less notes – so apologies if this is rather sketchy. Incidentally Ol made most of his announcements about how long was left before we had to finish the game whilst standing by our table – almost as if he was talking specifically to us! Hmmmm.
Turn 1
Broadly speaking the High Elves and Lizardmen advanced towards the Undead line, with the Chameleon skinks and Cold Ones heading to deal with the Tomb Scorpions (who hadn't burrowed) and the Screaming Skull Catapult, everyone gave the Grave Guard a wide berth and the Salamanders got to a good angle to shot them from in the hope we might do some damage. The magic phase began with Steve proclaiming "You must have the Banner of Sorcery" – it was at this point we remembered we did, we'd forgotten for the whole of the last game, and would forget again in Turn 2 of this game! Seriously we are utterly disorganised!!
The Undead countered by launching a charge with the Chariots on the Terradons who fled, and this was redirected at the White Lions who bravely held their ground. In the magic phase we held back our dispel dice as Zombie after Zombie was raised from the ground forming a unit of over 50, there was a fortitude point we weren't going to claim!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog300.jpg)
With so many Zombies all in one place you could be forgiven for thinking it was a Sharon Osbourne look-a-like convention.
The Screaming Skull catapult hit Smoggy's Sea Guard, their armour save did reasonably well only letting one die, but it was enough for a panic test and they promptly gathered their seaweed and legged it.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog299.jpg)
Smoggy's Sea Guard flee past the Terradons as the Screaming Skull's ammunition reminds them they really need to get a dentist check-up.
However in the combat phase things went better with the White Lions suffering only 3 wounds from impact hits by the chariot, they then proved their worth will all 11 attacks wounding and wiping out the chariots – first point of fortitude to us!
Turn 2
Fortunately Smoggy's Sea Guard rallied, and in the movement phase the White Lions closed in on the Skeleton Archers confident they could claim yet more fortitude points.
In our second shooting phase everyone concentrated on the Grave Guard, we didn't think we'd stand a chance but boy were we wrong?! Two Salamanders, a unit of Skinks and a Repeater Bolt Thrower felled 15 of them, and a couple of Zombies in the cross fire!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog301.jpg)
So shocked by the carnage around them, the Grave Guard musician faints.
Over on the other flank the Chameleon Skinks killed the Screaming Skull catapult, whilst the Cold Ones wiped out a Tomb Scorpion – no fortitude but they hoped to clear the path to get to the Skeleton Archers and their vital banners.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog302.jpg)
No fortitude is scored on the left flank, but the pint of beer objective is clearly held by the Lizardmen.
Team Ginger responded, first by arguing, and then by retaliating. Despite having the turning circle of an Oil Tanker (but without the Greenpeace protestors) the thousand strong hoard of Zombies wheeled round into the White Lion's flank in an unforeseen charge – oh dear that was them pinned out of the game.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog304.jpg)
From out of nowhere 10 billion Zombies snuck up on the White Lions.
Meanwhile Raise the Dead only managed to regenerate one Grave Guard after some poor rolling. And the Wights headed towards Smoggy's Sea Guard, Mike and Steve's constant whispering implied a plain was afoot.
Four White Lions were struck down in some impressive rolling from the Zombies, but the unit's stubborn leadership meant they held and were able to reform to face the foe.
Turn 3
Turn 3 was to be our last, after a 4 hour argument about where some Terradons could land that was one-inch away from everyone!
In a desperate bid to take the remaining Grave Guard down and secure another point of fortitude the Swordmasters and large unit of Skinks charged, and both failed their charge rolls! Dam it! Meanwhile the Wizard bailed out of Smoggy's Sea Guard, who advanced to pin the Wights in and stop them running amok.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog305.jpg)
In what must be a "brown trousers moment" the Sea Guard advance at the Wraiths confident they can do absolutely no damage.
It was at this point that things went tits up, the Mage (who had previously miscast and used up Staff of Solidity) miscast again, casting of all things Drain Magic. A Dimensional Cascade opened up swallowing the Mage and two points of fortitude – it turned out the Mage leaving the Sea Guard for his own protection had actually been for their protection as they avoided a nasty Strength 10 explosion. Ironically this ruined Steve and Mike's cunning plan which had been to use magic to get the Wights round the Sea Guard and take out the Mage – I knew the whispering was them up to no good.
In the final moves of the game the Skeleton Archers charged the White Lions allowing the Zombies to finish them off for another point of fortitude, and Smoggy's Sea Guard got the Wraiths in the face but despite losing 4 held their nerve and avoided fleeing.
Result, and what would have happened had we finished the game and not been talking!
On fortitude we lost, as we lost 3 points to Team Ginger's 1, but as we hadn't broken it came down to victory points and somehow we scored an impressive draw when we were destined to be overrun by Zombies and Wights. In fairness at the beginning it was going well as the White Lions chopped through the chariots, and headed dangerously close to the enemy lines, while the Lizardmen headed up the flank chopping up Scorpions and Catapults. If only the White Lions had avoided the Zombies and we'd manage to capitalise on our fortune with the Grave Guard we may have done better – though I suspect we'd have succumb if the game had continued, if not to the Undead to the incessant bickering!
Smoggy's Sea Guard failed us this time, the flee from the Screaming Skull catapult meant they were out of action for 1 of the 3 turns and once pinned down by the Wraiths were only going to face a grizzly death. Loss for Team Smoggy!
Battle 3 – Pitched Battle
Just before Battle 3 I managed to get some food, finally, at 5.15pm – as we weren't the last to finish our game – shocking I know!!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog306.jpg)
A tasty chicken and cheese panini with some orange juice served in what can only described as a cross between a vase and a camp glass. Incidentally the rules for shooting in the 8th edition are so distorted that the orange juice glass provides no shielding from shooting as you can still trace a line of sight through it – bent I know!
Going into Battle 3, somehow it was mathematically possible (dependent on other results) for us to win the whole competition, bloody hell what happened there?! The draw went well in the respect that we got the same table so no moving troops round the room –result! But we got Matt and Tony from Milton Keynes (home of the amazing Snowdome) so I had to sheepishly explain Team Shakeaway and what I was doing with a camera.
Matt and Tony had a High Elf and Empire alliance, and whilst the Empire was very well painted the High Elves were amazing – each with their own nautical themed movement tray that could all be slotted together to form a ship. Suffice us to say my High Elves had their painting tail well and truly between their legs – so to get my own back I didn't take any close up photos of his models that way you'll never know how bad he makes my painting look <insert evil laugh here!>.
Army wise, again as best I remember – High Elves: Mage, Seaguard, Archers, Phoenix Guard, 2x Repeater Bolt Throwers. Empire: Arch Lector (thing), Battle Standard Bearer, Knights, Crossbowmen, Handgunners, Hunters, Pistolers and Mortar.
Smoggy's Sea Guard deployed in the tower, alongside the elite High Elf units who bravely sheltered behind the hedge and the Skinks.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog308.jpg)
The Skinks and Swordmasters approach Beacher's Brook on the Warhammer Grand National.
Meanwhile the Lizardmen took advantage of their aquatic abilities to deploy in the lake.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog309.jpg)
The Skinks hide in the only water feature in the world not built by Charlie Dimmock.
And the High Elf/Empire alliance deployed elsewhere!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog310.jpg)
Sadly I've not zoomed in enough so you can't see other Matt's wonderfully painted High Elves – what a shame, he he!
Turn 1
The Lothern Sea Guard promptly left the tower after it became clear it was going to be a shooting game, and they didn't have the range to shoot anyone. The main event of Turn 1 was the Pistolers getting rock bombed and shot to pieces by the Terradons, whilst our arsenal of spells (we got Chain Lightning and Flames of the Phoenix) caused a handful of casualties alongside our shooting, including 2 archers for Smoggy's Sea Guard. Also the Chaemelon skinks broke the scouting Hunters who fled for the enemy battle line.
In response one enemy Bolt Thrower wiped out the Chaemelon Skinks, the other was cowering under the machine after the Pistolers got destroyed. The mortar lived up its reputation and misfired, preventing it firing this turn or the next. So far things were going our way.
Turn 2
Team Shakeaway continued its advance with the Terradons charging one of the Bolt Throwers and the main friendly High Elf battle line heading through the ruined building, whilst the Cold Ones manoeuvred to avoid the deadly Phoenix Guard charge arc.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog311.jpg)
Several White Lions fail their dangerous terrain test after a movement tray disaster.
The Terradons destroyed the Bolt Thrower and overran into the disabled mortar, whilst our magic phase is largely contained, though we do get off Shield of Saphery.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog314.jpg)
With the High Magic Battle Magic cards not having reached Ol a temporary replacement was bodged together Blue Peter style.
In response the Milton Keynes-ers (they didn't have a team name) advanced their High Elves and Lothern Sea Guard out of the Cold Ones' charge arc in a game of cat-and-mouse. The Knights tried to charge various Skinks who all promptly fled to avoid being trampled down. The Phoenix Guard got a surprise charge off against Smoggy's Sea Guard which I hadn't suspected, thinking there was no way they could make it I stood and shot taking down one Phoenix Guard but they rolled high 10 inches to get the charge in (oh dear).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog315.jpg)
"Those Phoenix Guard will never reach us..."
In combat my failure to flee cost me as the Lothern Sea Guard broke and along with my general were cut down by the Phoenix Guard bugger!.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog316.jpg)
A bloody pulp is all that remains of Smoggy's Sea Guard, and after all that time I spent painting them!
However the Terradon did take out the mortar on the plus side.
Turn 3
The White Lions and the Swordmasters unleashed a charge against the Milton Keynes' Sea Guard and general, they wisely fled but after only rolling 3 inches there was a danger they could easily be caught. The Swordmasters redirected at the Archers confident that the White Lions could catch the Sea Guard, however they rolled a 3 as well and promptly failed. The Archers also fled leaving the Swordmasters with another failed charge, but they fled into the charge arc of the Cold Ones – who first charged the fleeing Sea Guard who fled down the length of the battle line bouncing through friendly units on a marathon run, so the Cold Ones redirected at the Archers who fled the board.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog317.jpg)
How many failed charges does it take to break a whole in a battle line? The Swordmasters, White Lions and Cold Ones all are left with failed charges...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog318.jpg)
...whilst the Milton Keynes Lothern Sea Guard flee across the Empire battle line.
Matt and Tony's Turn 2 is largely uneventful as more Skinks flee from the Knights and handgunners's charges, stranding them. Whilst the Phoenix Guard's inability to pass a leadership test to reform leaves them stranded at the far end of the battlefield. The Lothern Sea Guard do rally though.
Turn 4
The White Lions see an opportunity and launch a flank charge at the Empire Knights, whilst everything else repositions. The Skinks in the shooting phase poison 5 Phoenix Guard, their ward save preventing it from being much higher – take that Asuryen! In combat the Arch Lector moves onto the flank of the Knights meaning the White Lions are limited to causing two wounds, what with ranks, flanks and charges the Knights lose the combat by quite a few but jammily pass their break test on the Battle Standard reroll and them jammily repeat the feat to reform and face the White Lions.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog321.jpg)
The Knights reform to face the White Lions, note the directionally challenged archer is actually a White Lion – "slight packing the wrong models because I am fool" issue.
The Milton Keynes-ers respond as the Phoenix Guard launch another sneaky charge this time into the rear of my Swordmasters, unfortunately Jack is distracted by a text and so I'm foolishly left to my own devices and hold (forgetting that not all the Swordmasters will fight as it's the rear and the Phoenix Guard have higher initiative than me!)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog322.jpg)
The Phoenix Guard get off another sneaky challenge – probably their vow of silence, no one can hear them coming.
However fortunes change when other Matt's mage miscasts, and in a repeat of my last game a dimensional cascade swallows him, but this time destroying seven Lothern Sea Guard in the process.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog323.jpg)
The remains of the (enemy) Lothern Sea Guard, this close up shot is allowed as the terrain blocks you from getting a full look at their amazing paint job!
In combat despite killing four Knights the battle standard bearer holds the White Lions to a draw, the Swordmasters are unable to kill enough Phoenix Guard to prevent a rout – but with this being the final turn the flee and pursuit roll are crucial. Fortunately the Swordmasters escape by one inch to avoid being hacked into Phoenix Guard axe-shaped bits.
Result, and what would have happened had we finished the game and not been talking!
At that point the results were tallied up and with only 70 victory points in it, the results was another draw. Had we played on I'm sure the White Lions would have finally seen off the Empire Knights, but with the rampaging Phoenix Guard around I'm not confident we'd have won.
Smoggy's Sea Guard kind of let me down, I think the lesson here is fleeing from charges – other Matt did and saved his Sea Guard where as mine were too proud and got smashed to pieces only killing a couple of Archers and Phoenix Guard in the whole game – failure for the Sea Guard. But overall I think they've done a reasonably good job, a resounding victory in Game 1, Game 2 they were unfortunate to get penned in by a unit no one could kill and Game 3 well I was stupid – not their fault!
Overall Results
So with that my first tournament came to an end, and with one win and two draws we'd somehow done alright! Finishing a very creditable fourth (though with the trouble the results program was giving Ol there could be an error of plus or minus 20 places on that result). I found it a thoroughly enjoyable experience even if we didn't finish any games (sorry about the yaking). Have to say thanks to Ol for organising, for Jack for putting up with me for three games (he must have the patience of a saint), and for all my opponents for allowing me to photograph their models and not lodging a formal complaint about me mocking them in this blog (even if you wanted to complain you can't as it looks bad now I've said you haven't!).
Normal service resumes with more talk on painting (or not painting) later this week, though with work getting busy and the Apprentice starting on Wednesday who knows when it's getting written?!
Oh and before I go remember to select a box from 1-36 for our "What's in the box?" game, you've only got until Monday to do it and I need more entrants or I'll never sell the format to Channel 4.
Hurrah!
Not sure anything further needs to be said but I will anyway. Sounds like a really fun day and glad to see you took your gaming so seriously.
it was a good day, my game against matt was one of the most fun (if slowest) tourney games i've had in quite some time! Perhaps me and Gary should read our army books before turning up next time! :bash;m:
This
Quote
1) Tom is rather loud when playing Warhammer. Sitting on the next table to him was a bit like sitting next to Brian Blessed during a shouting competition when he's got a nasty bout of Tourette's. I should point out I'm not complaining, I am just observing, plus Tom commented how much he enjoys this blog and my ego is easily flattered. He must have just been very excited; he was shouting "gay" a lot which I can only presume means he's having a merry old gay time of it.
Almost was the end of my laptop as I had a mouth full of toast and milk when I read it....Fab blog update and great tournie BR, glad you had fun buddy and well done on your 4th place..
I pick box 17!
Well done Matt, I think we made an excellent team! Despite both of us vying for the title of 'world's slowest warhammer player' and being more interested in chatting than playing, it turns out we actually came 3rd in the end (according to Ol's results page). I assume there must have been more computer gremlins at work.
Podium position, baby!
I feel like I should point out that you managed to get most of our victory points by kicking butt with the swordmasters and white lions. I just generally distracted people and pissed them off by shoving skinks in their faces. I did have the vital tactial role of baiting Steve in game 2 and irritating him with my sound effects.
Box 17 please (17th March being my birthday!)
Quote from: jackhoneysett on October 04, 2010, 01:58:56 pm
I assume there must have been more computer gremlins at work.
It listed via BP's and alphabetically instead of by VP's, so yes you guys were 3rd.... :thumbsup:
WOOHOO Im famous.
Quotemy game against matt was one of the most fun (if slowest) tourney games i've had in quite some time!
To think at the beginning of that game we considered the fact it might have lasted 10 turns!! We'd have finished Game 1 just as the final results were announced.
QuoteAlmost was the end of my laptop as I had a mouth full of toast and milk when I read it
I think for the safety of your laptop you're going to have to stop eating/drinking when reading my blog!!
Quoteit turns out we actually came 3rd
3rd!! I demand a recount, that's ridiculous - we had no clue what we were doing, I think we must have accidentally claimed the points of one of the other Matts or Jacks, that's all I can think of!
QuoteI feel like I should point out that you managed to get most of our victory points by kicking butt with the swordmasters and white lions.
Wasn't this our vague sembelance of a plan?! I think in fairness my battle reports are Elf-biased mainly due to my poor memory (bare in mind last time I came to OG I left an electric hob on in my house - I am not the sharpest tool!)
QuoteBox 17 please (17th March being my birthday!)
Either you've been watching too much Deal or No Deal? or that's the least subtle hint I've seen for a present.
QuoteWOOHOO Im famous.
Under most definitions being mentioned in this blog doesn't make you famous, though it be sufficient for an appearance on Celebrity Cash in the Attic - say hi to Angela Rippon for me!
It's got to be Box 17, Jack Bday, Mine, And Ge's are all on a 17th...
Quote from: cunningmatt on October 04, 2010, 11:00:58 pm
Wasn't this our vague sembelance of a plan?!
Yes, that basically was the plan I suppose! The elves did most of the hard work like kicking people out of towers, while the skinks amused themselves dancing around and poisoning the odd war machine.
Quote from: cunningmatt on October 04, 2010, 11:00:58 pm
Either you've been watching too much Deal or No Deal? or that's the least subtle hint I've seen for a present.
I try and avoid watching Noel Edmunds if at all possible. The idea of a present hadn't even crossed my mind - all donations gratefully accepted though come next March :))
Re box picking I nominate box 3. No reason.
Wednesday 6th October
So here we are Month 2 how exciting there's new models to paint, more unit naming and the exciting results of "What's In The Box" the hit new game show – I've already had an offer from Sky, all their HD channels for £17.99 a month <comedy drum roll>. Sorry I promise the jokes will get better (terms & conditions apply – your home may be at risk if you do not keep up repayments). The beginning of a new month seems like a good place to recap what the hell's going on, as this blog has become more confusing than an the conclusion to Lost.
Basically the whole point is painting a new army 200 points a month, being legal at 600, 1,400 and 2,000 points. The slight difference I've employed (as I'm always difficult) is to make an army that is legal separately but can be added to my existing High Elf army to make one large army if so required (with me?). In this army I want to add as many of the choices missing from my existing army as possible (various character options, Lothern Sea Guard, Phoenix Guard, White Lion Chariots, Dragon Princes, Ellyrian Reavers and Great Eagles), already ticked off that list last month's were the Lothern Sea Guard so what am I going to paint this month? I hear you cry – as if you possibly care, actually someone already has asked me so maybe I underestimate you the reader.
I had to actually do some planning at this stage, as the advantage of High Elves being worth lots of points thus reducing the amount of models needing to be painted was going to bite me on the arse if I wasn't careful, I needed to be legal at 600 points, i.e. I needed a character and three units – given the average High Elf unit can easily be 200 points there was a danger of me falling further off target than the remit of ITV's Daybreak. So my next two units were going to be some relatively small / cheap (for High Elves) units – Ellyrian Sea Guard (another tick off the list and some more of the Island of Blood set) and some Shadow Warriors. Now I do already have a small Shadow Warriors unit in my existing army, but I had enough extra models kicking around to make a new unit. And to be honest looking at my grand army for a moment I'd be quite happy to combine the two units for a bigger set of Shadow Warriors.
Points wise I worked out that 5 Ellyrian Reavers with spears and bows (for that is how the models are armed) with full command came to 133 points. 6 Shadow Warriors with Shadow Walker was 108 points, adding that to my Lothern Sea Guard would make 448 points leaving me 150 points for a character (and 2 lost points – lost points are so annoying you feel you should use them but you're not sure why or what on). So this month I would paint up the Ellyrian Reavers and 4 Shadow Warriors (197 points) leaving me 2 Shadow Warriors (including the Shadow Walker) and one character to paint next month – three models in November, surely even I could do that?!
So with this month's painting task sorted out, and this week's Apprentice watched (all I've learnt is that I want more than 42% meat in my sausage), it's time to get on to this week in pictures.
Wednesday
Last Wednesday you may recall was terribly wet day, and an unfortunate casualty of that day was my Warhammer mini rulebook which had been in my less-waterproof-than-expected bag in the hope that repeated reading during the commute would help the rules soak into my brain. Sadly all that has soaked in is several gallons of rainwater, and while the book is now dry the crinkled pages will annoy me every day until 9th edition comes out – dam it!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog247.jpg)
Thursday
Thursday saw the construction and undercoating of all the models for this month. At the risk of opening a can of worms that will upset the more tactically minded of you, I hate units not to have a full command group (or at least all the options available to them) – there's something just wrong about it, it's like having Bruce Forsyth without a dodgy joke, an MP without an expenses form or Wayne Rooney without the belief that he should be in some kind of care. The Ellyrian Reaver models in the Island of Blood boxset only come with a champion, no other command models – so at the risk of overstretching my creativity I decided to do some converting <insert gasp/intake of breath>. Don't worry call off the UN, I wasn't going to go too crazy. The new Ellyrian Reavers are really nice models, so I didn't really want to go hacking them to pieces, additionally one part (or in this case three part) plastic models are probably the hardest to convert. With multipart plastic models obviously all the core bits are separate so you can swap loads of parts round, and you can convert individual parts before assembly, with metal there's generally the more forgiving nature of metal that parts can bend and be reshaped to some extent. But with single plastic models there's no bending, and all the accessories tend to be moulded across key parts making it difficult to do a simple snip.
Instead I had a rummage through my High Elf bits box for some parts to make a few alterations – the musician was made by adding the horn from the High Elf Spearmen set, the hands and excess 'ribbon' (there's probably a technical military term for fabric wound round a horn but we'll stick with ribbon) were filed off and I made some extra straps from green stuff to show it hanging from his side arms – well he can't have his horn in his hands all the time! (apologises I've come over all Graham Norton for a brief moment there). Careful position of the green stuff straps, and rotating the horn to the best angle meant that most of the rough edges where hands etc had been removed were covered up so I didn't need to worry about being too neat.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog168.jpg)
The standard bearer was even simpler, I used a spare banner from the Silver Helms unit (well if they can have that sized banner on a lance, surely the Reavers can had that size banner on a spear – otherwise there would be fights in the barracks). After cutting off an ornament attached to the spear and using more green stuff to mould the part of the banner that winds round the spear we had a fully fledged standard bearer.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog173.jpg)
Assembling cavalry always requires a little bit of green stuff as invariably the two halves of whatever steed you stick together don't quite join, generally it's a rather easy if slightly tedious process but two rather disturbing thoughts always occur to me at the point where you get to the horse's bottom – I have never talked about these feelings before in public but perhaps by sharing them others will come forward, and I will gain enlightenment.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog188.jpg)
Firstly at some point there will be the disturbing realisation of what you are actually doing, you are in fact shoving green modelling clay up a horse's arse with a metal instrument. This becomes even more disturbing when you realise it may be the closest thing you've come to, to a sexual experience all week. I am not for a moment suggesting this is in anyway an arousing or sexual experience for myself, but if like me you live a rather lonely life (or are married – the two seem to be largely similar in terms of sexual encounters) it can become apparent that if you were to list all your daily activities this would be the closest one in description at least to an intimate experience – depressing isn't it?
Secondly there is the awkward question of how much filling you do in the bottom department of your horse, around the body it's quite obvious you're just trying to get a smooth join across the back. But at the back end so to speak, there's a natural indentation shall we say, where your horse does his daily business, so how much filling do you do? On the one hand you don't want to smooth out the bottom so much that it appears your horse could never even pass wind let alone the digested remnants of a bail of hay, but on the other hand you don't want to leave such a large crevice that it appears your horse was buggered by a root marrow sideways. It's an interesting point, and where do you go for reference? "Horses Anuses" is a phrase you want to type into Google Images as much as you want to type in "Catholic Church at the Early Learning Centre", you just know it's going to produce unpleasant results. Though worryingly if you do type "Horses Anuses" into Google this post will now come up – is this an association I want? Ultimately I'm left to fill in my horses arses to an intermediate level in the hope that this halfway hous is how nature would shape its horses. I'm left with many secondary questions; am I alone in having these worries? And does talking about this technically make me a horse arse whisperer? Any how, I hope I'm not alone in this conundrum, and if anyone else has any thoughts they'd like to share with the group please go ahead (don't you wish I was still talking about sugary milk based beverages!).
Returning to a slightly more savoury note, it was now time to do the spraying and out to my balcony again, which leads me to introduce you to some residents of my house, my pair of balcony furs John & Edward:
This is John:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog184.jpg)
And this is Edward:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog183.jpg)
I've always had a strange desire to name my plants after dodgy pop acts (it may stem from having never been allowed a pet as a child). In my last flat I had two plants Daphne & Celeste, although after a tragic accident a new, slightly more bizarre double act of Enrique & Celeste was formed. John & Edward generally have to suffer blasts of erroneous spray paint/varnish in addition to the other Clapham elements, and I am slightly concerned they may not survive to Christmas, which is ironic as last year most people had the same thought of their namesake's careers.
Due to the rather wet weather this week I am came to a rather cunning plan of keeping me indoors and the paint outdoors, as you can see I sprayed through the patio doors:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog194.jpg)
Though I should warn you that this did lead to most of the fumes returning into the house, on the plus side the resultant high did lead to the housework getting done double quick time (on a health & safety note I must point out I cannot recommend this technique no matter how much you hate the vacuuming).
And so on that high – get it? That "High"? – tough crowd. On that high the Ellyrian Reavers were sprayed:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog196.jpg)
And so were the Shadow Warriors who you can see here skirmishing across Pixie Lott's face on a vintage edition of the London Lite, thankfully as they are skirmishers no dangerous terrain test is required for this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog243.jpg)
The astute amongst you will notice that the lead Shadow Warrior (who will be my Shadow Walker) is the free Elf model given away on the front of the White Dwarf many moons ago for the release of Mordheim. I recently came across this model in my bits box and thought he'd make an excellent Shadow Warrior and I love the dynamic pose.
Sunday
A good tail wind meant, that even working around the excitement of the Wandsworth Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh II (which I've already discussed in far too much detail on these hallowed pages), that the Stage 1 basecoat was complete – so here's a quick overview with paint colours, as last month:
Stage 1 – Ellyrian Reavers
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog254.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog259.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog263.jpg)
Base: Khemri Brown
Skulls (on base): Khemri Brown
Rocks (on base): Charadon Granite
Hooves: Chaos Black
Mane/Tail: Drybrush Adeptus Battlegrey
Horse Skin: Adeptus Battlegrey
Barding Cloak Outside/Rider Cloth: 1:1 Astronomican Grey : Skull White
Barding Cloak Inside/Feathers: 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue
Barding Metal Trim/Arrow Flights/Trim: Iyanden Darksun
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Wood: Khemri Brown
Leather: Scorched Brown
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Hair: Vomit Brown or Dheneb Stone or Calthan Brown
Stage 1 – Shadow Warriors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog273.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog266.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog270.jpg)
Base: Khemri Brown
Leather: Scorched Brown
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Cloth: 1:1 Astronomican Grey : Skull White
Cloak: Chaos Black
Metal Trim/Arrow Flights: Iyanden Darksun
Wood: Khemri Brown
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Hair: Vomit Brown or Dheneb Stone or Calthan Brown
As you can see I included very little bright colours (only a tiny bit of yellow and no blue) on the Shadow Warriors, I couldn't really imagine them prancing around in the Shakeaway colours as they approach the enemy with stealth (not that I can really imagine the rest of army dressing like that but there you go) – but with the yellow trim they are tied to the rest of the army. Stage 2 will hopefully be finished this time next week.
Lastly, but not least that leaves us with the excitement of the "What's In the Box" competition-thing, I know you can barely contain yourself! Thanks for all the entries, I appreciate you humouring me!
Here we can see all the week's entrants written out on post-it notes, 17 appears twice as it was nominated twice (no accusations of cheating here):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog325.jpg)
They were then all folded up and placed in the Shakeaway cup:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog326.jpg)
For the record, for this draw we are using Shakeaway Cup Merlin and set of post-it notes Number 5 as chosen by Steve in Swanley. At this point I should introduce to another one of my plant family, this is Cheryl, who will be the independent adjudicator for this draw:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog324.jpg)
Cheryl is obviously named after Cheryl Cole/Tweedy, and has recently lost some colour in her leaves – might be down to malaria. Though unlike her alter ego my Cheryl can actually choose singers who don't muck up all their auditions, though in fairness she tries to avoid the ones about to get deported as well.
Back to the draw, and the numbers were mixed in the draw machine, and randomly the number drawn was Number 3, which was accepted after conformation from Cheryl - she was happy that the draw was fairly carried out in accordance with the rules:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog327.jpg)
We head under the bed now to Drawer Number 3, which was randomly selected as you saw, just before this week's Apprentice:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog328.jpg)
And opening the drawer here we can see that have randomly selected a drawer full of unpainted classic Dwarfs:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog329.jpg)
Getting them all out looks like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog330.jpg)
For those of you unfamiliar with my armies, hey who knows how far the reputation of this blog has spread you may even not have met me, my first painted army that I painted a few years ago is a Dwarf army consisting of some classic models from my childhood and more modern models. Drawer Number 3 contains those classic Dwarfs, from my teenage army, that I haven't quite painted yet.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog337.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog339.jpg)
Here's some classic Champion and Standard models, remember those days when you units didn't have a specific command group, instead each race had a couple of generic command groups and you had to assign them to the units they looked best in. Invariably one champion worked in all the units, and one just didn't work at all. Often your favourite standard model had to stand in as the army's Battle Standard Bearer – ahh simpler times!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog344.jpg)
Here are 15 classic, and by classic in this case I mean crap, Ironbreakers (sorry chaps) – never really felt the urge to paint these ones, they new ones are so much nicer.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog346.jpg)
The classic Thorgrim Grudgebearer model, still looks pretty imposing and amazingly ranks up pretty well in a unit despite not having a solid base.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog348.jpg)
Here's the old Anvil of Doom, when it had wheels, and stored power cards and shot out bolts of lightning and stuff – the crew aren't here, as they've been seconded for a long abandoned project that one day I might finish.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog351.jpg)
The menace of all armies here, the Organ Gun. Which interestingly has chariot scythes (though mine have come off), a classic model from the days when war machine crews were modelled with flailing empty arms.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog354.jpg)
Two classic Dwarf Cannons here with little step ladders for the Dwarfs – how practical, and a choice of plastic wheels available! Woo. I actually have a third of these which has been painted up.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog355.jpg)
The classic Dwarf Gyrocopter, which is a lot easier to assemble than the new bloody model – take note Games Workshop (plastic Gyrocopter for the new range of Dwarfs please! – whenever that may be, I have no insider knowledge).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog358.jpg)
12 classic Longbeards, which I actually quite like, they may end up on the painting table - and they have a different set of weapons to the current models, so they may turn out useful.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog360.jpg)
A practically ancient Dwarf Bolt Thrower here, I particularly like the crew member at the back who seems to be doing some kind of zombie impression.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog362.jpg)
And lastly everyone's favourite cheapo (money wise, this cost me £10!) units in the 4th edition, yes it's 20 plastic Dwarf Warriors notice some have been undercoated (which back when I played in 4th edition was more than most models!). One has even been badly painted, hence he's hidden in the back ranks. Sadly some of these guys have been salvaged for spare bases, as I can't really see me painting them up ever! Ahhh, poor unloved models.
I hope you enjoyed "What's In the Box?", well done to Tom who picked the winning box. Who knows if you did like it, I may even bring it back – probably when I'm in a hurry and haven't got anything to write about. Well there's still 35 boxes left, so I could probably do it every week until we get to the full 2,000 points!!
That just leaves me to say goodbye and leave you with the rather sad news, that despite these blogging efforts I didn't automatically get the job of new writer for the Games Workshop website:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=400001a§ion=&aId=13100001a (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=400001a§ion=&aId=13100001a)
How rude! See you next week, happy painting!
P.S. Hopefully next week I'll have thought of some children's TV inspired names for my new units, suggestions on a postcard to the usual address!
See those old dwarfs in a box... Is there an element of unwantedness to any of them, by which I'm not really thinking the old plastic monopose guys. (ps I read the whole post if that helps make your mind up!).
Oh and you're completely wrong on the ironbreakers, the new ones are poo compared to these ones. Fact. :wink;m::
Great update as per, love cheryl!
Oh and that is not the first gyrocopter, I have the first one back from when it was called a Thwuppa thwuppa...Even older...
QuoteSee those old dwarfs in a box... Is there an element of unwantedness to any of them, by which I'm not really thinking the old plastic monopose guys. (ps I read the whole post if that helps make your mind up!).
Oh and you're completely wrong on the ironbreakers, the new ones are poo compared to these ones. Fact.
Dave - afraid I'm not really interested in parting with them at present, even the crap Ironbreakers (which are craper than the original ones - I checked on Wikipeida - so it must be true), I'm thinking I may end up painting them all up one day - when I retire, maybe! Sorry I feel I cheated you out of 25 minutes of your life reading this post! But if I change my mind, or drift into insolvency, I'll keep you in mind!
QuoteGreat update as per, love cheryl!
Oh and that is not the first gyrocopter, I have the first one back from when it was called a Thwuppa thwuppa...Even older...
You've got to love Cheryl, unless you're name's Gamu that is.
I beat the Thwuppa thwuppa was easier to put together than the dam new Gyrocopter model. :rant;2:
I seriously struggled not to burst out laughing whilst reading this at work (and alerting my whole lab to the fact that I am not really working at all).
If it's any consolation, reading about horses' backsides being stuffed is the closest I've come to anything intimate today. (I'm in danger of turning this thread into some kind of emotional support group, so I'll stop now)
Disappointed that number 17 didn't win it - I think Cheryl's judgement may have been affected by her tropical illness :wink;m::
Quote from: fatolaf on October 07, 2010, 04:52:22 pm
Thwuppa thwuppa
??
I Get knocked down... but I get up again... you ain't ever gonna keep me down...
oh wait.
QuoteIf it's any consolation, reading about horses' backsides being stuffed is the closest I've come to anything intimate today. (I'm in danger of turning this thread into some kind of emotional support group, so I'll stop now)
I am glad I'm not the only one to bring this up, was rather concerend I had overstepped the mark, sorry if I gave your laziness at work away!
QuoteDisappointed that number 17 didn't win it - I think Cheryl's judgement may have been affected by her tropical illness
Don't you be questioning Cheryl's judgement, I don't want her going off her plant food again!
QuoteI Get knocked down... but I get up again... you ain't ever gonna keep me down...
What a tune!!! Oh wait showing my age again!
I too enjoyed a good snigger to myself whilst reading about the delicate matter of how much stuff you wanted to shove up the rear end of a horse.
As for the cheeky request for the dwarfs I wouldn't worry about it, I just see old metal and come over all funny sometimes. It's not as if I even need any more, I'm now up to 60 hammerers in total of which 40 are the old 3rd ed ones, due to my compulsive ebay habits (ie they were less than £2 a figure so I had to buy them), I've got around 30 of those Ironbreakers so I just hope they can live without getting jealous of their inferior numbers and the poor old longbeards there are only 20 of them. They must feel so left out, but that's their own fault for not carrying greatweapons, who ever heard of a dwarf without a great weapon (and don't mention my entire 7th ed army).
I wish I had access to my vast store of unpainted figures, and paints, being homeless (though not in the sense of roughing it on the street and living in a combination of a cardboard box and my own urine) is such a pain. I can't wait until mid november when I hopefully move into my new flat and get to set up my very own painting cellar (the g/f is trying to ban me from doing it in the house but I'll be seeing how far I can push that one after all it'll be as much my house as hers!). But I reckon a painting cellar with a daylight bulb will do the trick nicely as long as I remember not to make it the one which leaks in the rain. What I mean is your blog makes me want to paint stuff.
Anyways enough of my ramblings, back to yours.
Saturday 16th October
The forum's back and it's all brown, much to Nick Griffin's disgust! Yeah mint green was sooooo earlier in the week and it clashed with my thoughts. Sadly forum updates meant I couldn't post on Wednesday in my usual post-Apprentice slot, however I am thinking this new Saturday morning slot fits a children's television themed army so we may keep it, maybe I'll call it "Live & Painting" or "Painting in Da Bungalow"? (Better suggestions to the usual address). Anyway the upshot of all of this is that most of this post was written on Wednesday so apologies if the topical jokes/replies are no longer topical, and if anyone in the public spotlight who I've joked about has since died, but I'm not wasting this material!
Cheers for the comments Dave, glad my rambling makes you want to paint (not sure if that's in a "turn off the computer and don't read any more of this drivelous blog" kind of way or not) at least the blog now has a purpose and I will try and continue in that vein. Incidentally I think I've found a situation worse to paint than your leaky basement, but I shall come back to that later. And just to reassure regular readers that this week I've been made to promise that there will be no mention of Horses' Arses, bar that mention there.
Now unless you've been stuck in a Chilean mine for 69 days (or have had something else better to do) then you'll know that I'm painting up my High Elves and my theme is that my units will be named after children's television programmes – admittedly this doesn't really make sense but I'm sure there was a justifiable context somewhere. This month I'm painting up a unit of Ellyrian Reavers and some Shadow Warriors.
The Shadow Warriors I've decided to name after a current(ish) children's television series, called Raven. Raven is an adventure gameshow where kids are lead through a fantasy-medieval world by a character called Raven who can turn into said bird, (naturally) by sweeping his black cloak around him. It's this sweeping cloak action that I'm reminded of by my Shadow Walker, who will get painted next month, which is the free Mordheim figure from White Dwarf years ago – at the lead of the group in this rather poor picture.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog243.jpg)
Raven essentially involves children fighting to collect rings, in order to fight off evil demons, which despite generally high production values are portrayed by men wrapped in brown robes – much like monks with very big hoods. If you are the losing child at the end of the day's show then you must face the terrifying Way of the Warrior, essentially a life size version of one of the hardest levels of Sonic the Hedgehog you've ever faced. In this the child must evade swinging maces, razor sharp teeth and vicious battering rams in the kind of punishment any kind of supply teacher would love to have at their disposal. If you can avoid being pushed off the wooden beam onto the deadly wood chippings of doom, and head through the portal you escape elimination – a task which happens more rarely than Ann Widdicombe getting a 10 on Strictly Come Dancing, seriously it's really hard! Here's a clip for your enjoyment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HROR9wdOvr4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HROR9wdOvr4)
For those of you not so familiar with current children's TV it's kind of a cross between the Crystal Maze and the classic children's show I'm sure you remember Knightmare. Knightmare was where a team of children guided another child who had a crash helmet on, to protect him from the harsh magics of a fantasy world (and from seeing how the somewhat dated visual effects were all green screened on). Bizarre oddities about the show included spy glasses, which were a kind of ancient CCTV where you could see the overly camp evil leaders plotting how they would stop these highly dangerous children (you know the ones wearing crash helmets with no eye slots!) from ruining their nefarious plans. Unlike most fantasy settings where the various regions are named by pulling out a random handful of letters from a Scrabble bag and hoping for the best, the realms were simply named "Level 1", "Level 2" and "Level 3" in a situation that most modern day signage makers would wish had been applied to the real world if simply to help push down production costs. My favourite oddity of this show was that spellcasting was done simply by spelling out the name of the spell, do you see what they have done there?! So to cast fireball you'd simply spell out F-I-R-E-B-A-L-L, allowing nerdy kids the chance to show of to their cooler classmates that there was a reason for paying attention. This of course meant that Harry Potter never took part in the show due to the inherent difficulties in casting "Wingardium Leviosa". And incidentally this format point led to the show's cancellation when in a scandal a dyslexic child accidentally miscast the spell "Rope Attack", leading to a member of the production team, poorly dressed as a goblin, having to inflict indecent acts upon the casting child.
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologise for the poor taste of that last joke.
So glossing over that unfortunate point, in summary my Shadow Warriors are to be called Raven's Shadow Warriors – this has the rather good advantage of actually being a not unreasonable name, certainly easier to explain to unknowing opponents than Smoggy's Sea Guard. The Ellyrian Reavers are proving more problematic the first thing that comes to mind when naming them is horses, but the only children's memory that relates to horses is various My Little Pony VHS's my sister subjected me to. The particular story that for some dark reason stays in my mind is where some kind of witch cast a spell which lead to a giant purple sludge spreading through Ponyland (whatever it's called, probably not something simple like Level 4 I'll wager) submerging everything in its path, in an unfortunate parody of the current terrible disaster in Hungary. The purple sludge even covered the Pony's castle and they were forced to move out into some kind of Holiday villa, in a genius move by the show's writers to sell a new Holiday villa playset. When the sludge receded they Ponies simply decided the villa was much better than the castle and so handed it over to someone else made homeless by the purple sludge incident without so much as popping back to pick up any choice belongings. The ponies thereby clearly implying how shit the castle was, and missing a good opportunity to make money through some kind of buy-to-let scheme. Anyhow since my own shame won't allow me to name my unit of Ellyrian Reavers "Cheerilee's Reavers" or "Rainbow Dash's Ellyrians" (both genuine My Little Pony characters I've done my Wikipedia research, though I think Cheerilee is now a regular contributor on Loose Women if I'm not mistaken), I'll have to come up with another option next week.
Anyway all that drivel and inappropriate jokes about children leads me to This Week in Pictures...
Thursday
Despite the ongoing inroads of work into my social life, I was so tired tonight I actually fell asleep during the Apprentice – scandal! I managed to get the second stage of both units painted up at this point. Here's the usual pictures and colour guide you've undoubtedly already decided to skip through to get to the rest of the lame jokes:
Stage 2 – Definitely not Cheerilee's Reavers
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog378.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog388.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog421.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog430.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Skulls (on base): Layer Dheneb Stone
Rocks (on base): Wash Badab Black
Hooves: *NO CHANGE*
Mane/Tail: Drybrush Codex Grey
Horse Skin: Layer 1:1 Adeptus Battlegrey : Codex Grey
Barding Cloak Outside/Rider Cloth: Layer 1:2 Astronomican Grey : Skull White
Barding Cloak Inside/Feathers: Layer Ice Blue (except large areas on barding which were layered 1:2 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue and then further layered with pure Ice Blue)
Barding Metal Trim/Arrow Flights/Trim: Layer Golden Yellow
Silver Metal: Wash Badab Black
Gold Metal: Shining Gold
Wood: Layer Graveyard Earth
Leather: Wash Badab Black
Flesh: Layer Elf Flesh
Hair: Vomit Brown – washed with Ogryn Flesh. Dheneb Stone – washed with Badab Black. Calthan Brown – washed with Badab Black
Stage 2 – Raven's Shadow Warriors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog395.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog408.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog415.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Leather: Wash Badab Black
Silver Metal: Wash Badab Black
Gold Metal: Shining Gold
Cloth: Layer 1:2 Astronomican Grey : Skull White
Cloak: Highlight 3:1 Chaos Black : Codex Grey
Metal Trim/Arrow Flights: Layer Golden Yellow
Wood: Layer Graveyard Earth
Flesh: Layer Elf Flesh
Hair: Vomit Brown – washed with Ogryn Flesh. Dheneb Stone – washed with Badab Black. Calthan Brown – washed with Badab Black
Saturday
Some weekends are busy weekends, but sometimes the best weekends are those where through some twist of chance, alignment of the planets or simply the worship of Hugh Edwards as a demi-god fate deals you a relaxing weekend. This weekend proved to be one of those, and in a bid to spend some "quality" time with my flatmate I agreed to do some painting in the living room table in the presence of Saturday night television with him. Little did I realise the fate that awaited me, which puts Dave's leaky basement way into perspective. First up was two hours of Strictly Come Dancing, a show which could only be made camper by the involvement of Dale Winton, but he's doing the lottery so for now we are safe. I did discover the show does give my dad employment, as judging by the content, he writes Bruce Forsyth's material. The main advantage of Strictly Come Dancing is it is not The X Factor, and hasn't reached the astronomical level of bullshit that The X Factor now has. I was about to find this out, as after two hours of Strictly, we now changed channel for a further two and a half hours of Simon Cowell and co. Sadly no photos of this exist so it's time to bring forth our old friend, the 4-year old artist to give us an artists' impression of me watching The X Factor, whilst painting:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog475.jpg)
You'll notice two important points about this picture, firstly our 4-year old artist has found a red pen, and secondly the 4-year old artist actually drew The X Factor graphics used on the show.
The bullshit begins pretty early on in The X Factor as we welcome the judges onto the stage with such a rousing rendition of Carmina Burana that you could be forgiven for believing the judges had been summoned from the deepest pits of hell itself. Meanwhile enough pyrotechnics are being set off on stage to brink down a stealth bomber, I'd like to believe that this how they insist on being introduced when they enter any room, I love the idea of Cheryl Cole walking into a public lavatory to the same set of special effects.
The next piece of bullshit the nation is subjected to is the "wildcard", where in a "twist" each judge is given a fourth wildcard act to bring to the finals. The "twist" being there isn't actually a "twist" this fourth act has no special rules, it's just as if they selected four acts in the first place. In fact if anything the "twist" is the fact that have "twisted" the definition of the word "twist" to include things that are in actually not classed as a "twist", but I leave such pondering to you.
Next we see a variety of disturbing acts, particular ones that stand out in terms of awfulness are Diva Fever an act so camp they actually gone all they way through gay and back to straight again, personally I'd rather spend an evening in with Scarlet Fever than Diva Fever. Then there's Wagner, not the German composer of "Ride of the Valkyries" and "Here Comes the Bride" fame, but someone who appears to have escaped a lunatic asylum. It's a sad side note that the majority of the British public will associate the later of these two with the name Wagner – what ever happened to our cultured society (says the man who just spent the last few paragraphs debating the plot line of My Little Pony – let he who is without sin cast the first stone!).
Line of the evening has to go to Wagner, who upon being revealed as Louis Walsh's wildcard said "It is like being brought back from the dead" – firstly how can he possibly know what being resurrected is like (unless of course he is the original German composer Wagner brought back to life in some kind of terrible twist of musical fate – in which case I allow him this point)? Secondly this is hardly a simile to which all of us can all relate to, unless I'm missing out on a major trend being brought back from the dead isn't a regular occurrence for the majority of the British public. And lastly, if the only way you can be resurrected is to have Louis Walsh pop round your house I'm up for staying dead.
As the night progresses I came to the disturbing conclusion that The X Factor is slowly morphing into the Eurovision Song Contest as a mix of indescribably bizarre acts grace the stage, the only thing missing is the sarcastic commentary of a bitter man – which my flatmate reliably informs me I am more than qualified to provide. Come on ITV you know the X Factor would be better if you could get a pisstaking commentary by pushing the red button!
After five and a half hours the reality marathon is over, though you can of course choose to watch The Xtra Factor should you're quench for dross not be fully saturated, I instead decided to have a lie down and take the opportunity to revaluate what I'm doing with my life. The one up to all this is that Saturday night TV is aimed at such an atrociously low IQ level I was able to do quite a large amount of painting despite all my ranting. However somehow the power of Chaos consumed me (I blame the presence of Aleisha Dixon or Aleshia Currys Digital as she now rebranded herself to) and some how Morgor and Ghorros Warhoof snuck onto the painting table for some basecoating:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog439.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog435.jpg)
On a separate X-Factor note, I have some concern for the Gamu-situation. Not that I have an opinion on whether she should be allowed to stay in the country, unlike the rest of the population and the media I am leaving this decision up to the various authorities who have looked through the evidence and have read her applications and know the rules – I know it's a controversial way of approaching modern life but there we go. However my concern is there seems to be a lot of public support for her to stay in the UK just because she's a good singer, would there have been the same public support to keep those two fat girls in from the audition who ended up punching each other because they couldn't sing? I think not. And that brings me to the worrying conclusion that in a few years time United Kingdom Border Control will simply be replaced by a panel of four judges (two of which aren't UK residents) who judge whether people should be allowed to stay in the country based on their singing abilities. A typical application could go as follows:
Judge: "What's your name and where do you come from?"
Asylum Applicant: "I'm Lucy, and from Azakstan*"
Judge: "And why do you want to come to the UK?"
Asylum Applicant: "To escape tyranny and oppression, have a number one single and claim benefits before they're all axed".
Judge: "Brilliant, and what are you going to sing for us."
Asylum Applicant: "Cheryl Cole's Fight for this Love".
Judge: "Take it away".
ASYLUM APPLICANT SINGS
Judge: "Thank you for that. Remember if you get through this round you're off to boot camp, I mean the Sangatte Refugee Camp, and if you survive that you can come round to the Judge's houses – though you'll have to stay in the garden because we're terribly middle class and can't have you ruining the carpets".
Asylum Applicant: "I can't tell you how much this dream means to me".
Judge: "Well I'm afraid to say that it is four No's from us, but don't worry you can try again next year."
Asylum Applicant: "I will, provided I'm not stoned to death for my religious views"
Judge: "Great, it's been lovely to meet you and Dermot's outside to give you a cuddle and take away your forged passport"
A disturbing thought I'm sure you'll agree.
*Azakstan isn't a real place, but bonus points if you know where I got the name of Azakstan from (it was from something that happened in the last fortnight), but no using Google – that's cheating!
Sunday
Sunday is disturbingly like Saturday, as living room painting in front of Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor occurred again, albeit this time with the subtitle "Results". On Strictly Come Dancing this resulted in the revelation of which celebrity was leaving night being drawn out to levels of tedium unseen on British television since the axing of Kate Thornton's Celebrity Wrestling. Meanwhile on The X Factor 12.9 million people sat through recaps of the previous night so long, that you could conceivably nip out at the beginning of the recap to Homebase, purchase a shed, bring it home, assemble it in your garden, creosote the frame work, and have chance to shower and change before the final phone number disappears off the screen. Fortunately for the nation this week the judges were able to decide on which act to send home after the sing-off, I think there's always something deeply depressing when the judges can't agree and we are sent to Deadlock, a very over dramatic way of just using the initial viewer vote as we realise that the last 15 minutes of television could have been avoided if we'd done this in the first place. And with 12.9 million viewers this is equal to a total of 368 years of wasted viewing time!!
The main differences of Sunday to Saturday was that 90 minutes is a far more reasonable block of reality TV than 5 and a half hours. Also I got to watch the superb Harry Hill's TV Burp which I cannot recommend enough – his commentary of The X Factor is far more witty than I could ever hope to be. And thirdly during all this reality crap I did actually finish Stage 3 of this month's models, see not only Strictly Come Dancing – The Results and The X Factor – The Results, but Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves – The Results!:
Stage 3 – Still definitely not Cheerilee's Reavers
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog460.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog469.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog471.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Skulls (on base): Layer Bleached Bone
Rocks (on base): Drybrush Adeptus Battlegrey
Hooves: *NO CHANGE*
Mane/Tail: Drybrush Fortress Grey
Horse Skin: Highlight Fotress Grey
Barding Cloak Outside/Rider Cloth: Layer watered down Skull White
Barding Cloak Inside/Feathers: Highlight 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Barding Metal Trim/Arrow Flights/Trim: Layer Sunburst Yellow
Silver Metal: Highlight Mithril Silver
Gold Metal: Wash Gryphonne Sepia
Wood: Layer watered down Bleached Bown
Leather: Highlight Bestial Brown
Flesh: Wash watered down Ogryn Flesh
Hair: Vomit Brown – highlighted with Vomit Brown. Dheneb Stone – highlighted with Bleached Bone. Calthan Brown – highlighted with Snakebite Leather
Stage 3 – Raven's Shadow Warriors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog458.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog444.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog447.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Leather: Highlight Bestial Brown
Silver Metal: Highlight Mithril Silver
Gold Metal: Wash Gryphonne Sepia
Cloth: Layer watered down Skull White
Cloak: Highlight 1:1 Chaos Black : Codex Grey
Metal Trim/Arrow Flights: Layer Sunburst Yellow
Wood: Layer watered down Bleached Bown
Flesh: Wash watered down Ogryn Flesh
Hair: Vomit Brown – highlighted with Vomit Brown. Dheneb Stone – highlighted with Bleached Bone. Calthan Brown – highlighted with Snakebite Leather
Monday
My ongoing row with the Northern Line continued on Monday, when a station closure, points failure and signal failure on my journey home was still considered to be a "Good Service". I suppose it was better than the time when I was subject to "Minor Delays" when my journey was so slow I could have actually walked the same trip at street level quicker. I dread to think what "Severe Delays" will consist of. Nothing to do with painting but I felt it was worth getting off my chest!
Tuesday
The reason why I really don't like the Skaven was bought fully to the fore, when I came home to find a mouse scuttling around on my bathroom floor. Bloody vermin! Still I supposed I'd have been more annoyed if a full size Doomwheel had been careering around my hair wax supply zapping off lightning bolts. On the plus side unlike the High Elves of Blood Island I have pest control coming tomorrow.
Thursday I know I said I wrote the blog on Wednesday, I did, this bit came to mind afterwards.
Thoughts on the rescue of the Chilean miners:
1) Why did Endemol not make the whole incident into a reality TV show, I'm sure Davina could have been flown out?
2) How exciting is actually watching live feed of this on the BBC News Channel for 24 hours? About as exciting as Big Brother, hence point 1.
3) What happened to International Rescue, Thunderbird 2 could have come and deployed the Mole and had them out in a day or two?
4) According to the news the first miner came to the surface at midnight local time, yet was wearing special goggles to protect him from the glare of the Sun as his eyes wouldn't be used to it. How bright is the Chilean midnight Sun, I imagine it might be a similar kind of luminosity to the cave he was in? Or were the glasses simply to protect him from the glare of a thousand press flash bulbs.
On that point of pontification I say goodbye for another week, knowing full well I'll probably put some other comments up during the week rendering my goodbye very pointless and some may say deeply self-indulgent.
Oh and by the way if you are watching The X Factor tonight keep your eyes pealed during the commercial break at 8.55pm, you'll see and advert for a certain children's television channel, featuring a certain children's programme that a certain someone connected to this post is working on. You certainly won't see that certain someone just to warn you – public appearances do make shoplifting harder I find.
For those of you excited by yesterday's teaser the answer to where the name Azakstan comes from is:
[spoiler]It was the fictional place the terrorist in Monday before last's Spooks was from. He was from the Azakstanian group who were trying to fend of Russian oppression[/spoiler]
I've left it as a spoiler in case you were saving this blog to read at work rather than waste valuable weekend time!
And to keep you updated on my X Factor thoughts, I didn't get to see it much this week because I have a life... does that sound convincing... hmmmm not sure! Anyway I've noticed that whenever Cheryl Cole speaks Simon Cowell's hand is on the back of her chair - I suspect it might be because she's actually a puppet controlled by Cowell (more than just metaphorically I mean). Also the only times you see Simon Cowell's hands both together and moving independently is when she's out of shot - presumably because her lifeless puppet is slumped on the judge's desk next to him! A conspiracy theory or perhaps I've uncovered the truth?! I'll keep you updated on my findings!
Matt, I'm really glad to see how nice and shiny your army is shaping up to be (OK being high elves, I suppose it's what they are supposed to do!) It is good to see something that won't look like a mass of brown / black / grey that most peoples armies end up as (mine included)
p.s do you think the panellists on border control will also get wildcards ?
Quote from: Garzini on October 17, 2010, 10:32:19 pm
It is good to see something that won't look like a mass of brown / black / grey that most peoples armies end up as (mine included)
I think that's why I really like the High Elves, they really do feel like a breath of fresh air when painting them compared to painting various flavours of Chaos as I have been doing. I mean the Sea Guard had Blue, Red, Yellow, Green and White on - I can't think of many armies you can do that with on a model without it looking a member of Diva Fever (must stop talking about X Factor - look like an obsessive). I am thinking of painting a Bretonnian army at some point for similar kinds of reasons, love the idea of every model having loads of primary colours, though admittedly they'd still have loads of brown / black / greys on. Speaking of your army I think the Moons and Mushrooms (along with green faces) do add a decent amount of colour in, I think I hark back to the 4th edition where bits of wood were as often blue or red as brown or grey!
Quote from: Garzini on October 17, 2010, 10:32:19 pm
p.s do you think the panellists on border control will also get wildcards ?
Perhaps all the runners up would be allowed to hang on to the bottom of a lorry passing through Dover and the person who hung on longest up the M20 would win the wildcard - only connection with The X Factor being the screaching noise they make?!
This
QuoteAnd incidentally this format point led to the show's cancellation when in a scandal a dyslexic child accidentally miscast the spell "Rope Attack", leading to a member of the production team, poorly dressed as a goblin, having to inflict indecent acts upon the casting child
followed by this
QuoteThen there's Wagner, not the German composer of "Ride of the Valkyries" and "Here Comes the Bride" fame, but someone who appears to have escaped a lunatic asylum
Resulted in small bits of toast and peanut butter covering my keyboard, very funny mate :))
I must stop eating / drinking before reading your PLOG..
Models looking great mate, keep up the great work!
Quote from: fatolaf on October 18, 2010, 12:58:15 pm
Resulted in small bits of toast and peanut butter covering my keyboard, very funny mate :))
I must stop eating / drinking before reading your PLOG..
Now I have warned you about this Ol, you've got to stop eating before reading! Or is it that these posts are so long you need a meal break halfway through?
Last week I talked about Horses Arses, this week abuse of disabled children and still I haven't hit the point where a forum moderator goes "Do you know, I think that might be a bit much" - so we continue digging next week. :thumbsup:
Quote from: fatolaf on October 18, 2010, 12:58:15 pm
Models looking great mate, keep up the great work!
Cheers mate, there's a real danger I might get this month's painting done - despite all signs to the contrary!
Quote from: cunningmatt on October 18, 2010, 10:31:49 pm
Last week I talked about Horses Arses, this week abuse of disabled children
Before anyone gets offended reading this part of the post without having read the above context, should point the incident was described as "unfortunate" and it was all written in the best possible taste! #-)
Yep, keep up the good work Matt... everythings coming together nicely.
(P.S. I knew the answer to that question about Azakstan but wasnt brave enough to come forward,,, would I have won a prize? Perhaps the contents of drawer 7?)
Quote from: cunningmatt on October 18, 2010, 10:31:49 pm
and still I haven't hit the point where a forum moderator goes "Do you know, I think that might be a bit much"
Wrong forum mate.... :cool3:
QuoteI would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologise for the poor taste of that last joke.
Don't it was awesome, I spend a good 5 minutes sniggering at work.
I feel your pain on the reality TV, having avoided the apprentice for the last 3-4 years I was subjected to an episode my girlfriend had recorded last night. I found the show so painful I had to walk out half way through and do anything else instead. Given I am currently residing in my uncles flat and he's over visiting the UK on one of his rare trips that meant sitting in a dark room rocking backward and forward. It was still more fun that the apprentice.
Quote from: Steve H on October 19, 2010, 08:59:09 am
(P.S. I knew the answer to that question about Azakstan but wasnt brave enough to come forward,,, would I have won a prize? Perhaps the contents of drawer 7?)
Almost certainly not. Though who knows what's in Drawer 7, maybe you'll find out because it's nearly time for October's edition of What's In The Box?! I know exciting! Perhaps I should see if Shakeaway will fully sponsor this blog and then I can give away free shakes for the competitons?
Quote from: fatolaf on October 19, 2010, 01:24:47 pm
Wrong forum mate.... :cool3:
Red rag to bull! Cool!
Quote from: Dave on October 19, 2010, 02:39:18 pm
It was still more fun that the apprentice.
At the risk of losing a reader, I'm quite a fan of The Apprentice, much more than The X Factor - I think it's the fact I find out more sociably acceptable to laugh at people who I feel are almost certainly going to be richer than I am in life, as opposed to laughing at people who probably should be in some kind of care. Saying that if I come up with any more good Wagner jokes they are going in!
Totally agree, The apprentice is 'must see' tv for me, especially this year where the producers have gone totally mad and just picked crazies, not one of them could you take seriously in business..
" Just like King Midas - Everything I touch turns to SOLD! "
Classic line from that nob head in episode 1 :cool3:
Next years apprentice was being filmed at Rachels office last week... down to the last 4.
Apparently a bit more professional... but you never heard that from me.
*wink wink*
True story.
Whilst I am enjoying this series, I need Margaret back!
Quote from: Mike on October 20, 2010, 01:58:45 pm
Next years apprentice was being filmed at Rachels office last week... down to the last 4.
Apparently a bit more professional... but you never heard that from me.
*wink wink*
True story.
Next years? Or the final 4 from this year? They are usually only a couple of months behind Real life when they film that show..
I agree about Margaret, She has a great column in the Sun but on the show Karen never says anything!
Monday 25th October
I should apologise firstly for the slightly erratic nature of my posting at present, sadly my other life (as in work, not my superhero alter ego) has gone silly crazy and I've been caught up in a series of 18 hour days over a punishing 19-day straight schedule – ouch! Hence I have been reduced to a gibbering wreck. Regular readers probably won't notice the difference.
Whilst I have been painting Shadow Warriors and Ellyrian Reavers this month, I had a change of heart and decided to put them to one side and instead paint some more exotic units for this month's 200 points – I could always come back to the originals at some point.
If you have the original print run of the current High Elf army book you may not have the rules for the models I've chosen to paint as they featured in an appendix in only the third print run of the book. Even more curiously Games Workshop have never made any models for these units, bizarrely. Now I've never painted any non-Games Workshop models before, but I decided as another company had models for these units it was time to give them a try. I was pleasantly surprised with how easy these models were to assemble. Painting was particularly easy, but the stickers did prove a bit of a challenge. So without further a do here's this week's finished 200 points. There's the High Elf Panda Chariot:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog491.jpg)
And the Ellyrian Pursuit Reaver 2000.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog494.jpg)
You'll see I've kept the same paint scheme as I had with the original High Elf army despite the different models. Large areas of white, blue trim on the lights and a yellow trim primarily on the facial areas – looking back this may have been an odd choice, but I think it works. Before I go on, I must point out how easy these new models are to convert, here you can see I decided to make the open-top Lothernian variant of the High Elf Panda Chariot:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog495.jpg)
In case you don't have the newest version of the High Elf army book, I've reprinted the rules for you here:
High Elf Panda Chariot
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog507.jpg)
Points: 130 – Rare Choice
Unit Type: Chariot
Special Rules: ASBO Issuer, Impact Hits (2D6), Siren Charge, Swiftstride
ASBO Issuer – At the beginning of each turn before charges are declared roll a D6, on a roll of 6 the Panda Chariot immediately issues an ASBO to the nearest enemy unit. If the enemy unit is from The Forces of Order the unit obeys the terms of its ASBO and is removed from the game at the end of Turn 4 as it is forced to follow its curfew. At the end of Turn 4 the unit is immediately removed from the battlefield but no additional victory points are scored. If the enemy unit is from The Forces of Destruction the ASBO only encourages it to do more anti-social acts, the unit immediately charges the nearest terrain feature, if able to do so, and spend the next two turns graffiti-ing it, during this time the unit may perform no other actions. If unable to charge a terrain feature the unit spends three turns climbing into shopping trolleys and racing each other, during this time the unit may perform no other actions.
Siren Charge – The presence of a large siren on a unit alerts friendly models to its position on the battlefield and encourages them to move out of its way, as such units with the Siren Charge special rule are granted with a greater freedom of movement. At the beginning of the movement phase a unit with the Siren Charge rule may declare a charge through a friendly unit at an enemy unit, so long as the enemy unit were a viable target if the intervening friendly unit was not there. The unit with the Siren Charge may declare a charge even if the intervening unit is not making a charge that moves it out of the charge arc of the original unit. Roll the dice as normal to determine the charge distance, if the dice roll is greater than the distance to the target unit the charge is made. The intervening unit simply passes to allow the Siren Charge unit through and then reforms as normal. If the charge distance is failed however the unit with the Siren Charge stops part way through the intervening unit, both units are forced to miss a turn whilst the intervening unit makes a formal report to the Police Complaints Commission.
See the example below:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog500.jpg)
The High Elf Panda Chariot wishes to charge the Tzeentch Chaos Warriors. Because it has the Siren Charge special rule it may declare a charge against any unit that would be a valid target were the Lothern Sea Guard not there, regardless of the intentions of the Lothern Sea Guard.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog503.jpg)
If the roll is successfully made then the High Elf Panda Chariot charges the Chaos Warriors as normal.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog501.jpg)
If the roll is failed made then the High Elf Panda Chariot gets stuck in the Lothern Sea Guard, neither unit may move that turn.
High Elf Ellyrian Pursuit Reaver 2000
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog508.jpg)
Points: 70 – Rare Choice
Unit Type: Special
Special Rules: Fast Calvary, Flashing Lights, Superswift Stride
Flashing Lights – A unit with Flashing Lights special rule causes all units of War Beasts or Calvary with 2D6" to take a panic test at the beginning of the owning players turn. If the unit fails it flees directly away from the target.
Superswift Stride – A unit with the Superswift Stride rolls 4D6 when rolling to pursue or flee and discards the lowest result. On a roll of 3 or more 1s however the unit is hit by passing a motorist who didn't see them in their wing mirror and takes 1 wound with no armour saves possible.
Additionally units with the Superswift Stride rule must half their movement in built up areas, and if one of the buildings is a school they are reduced to a quarter movement. When the unit passes more than 6" away from the buildings its full movement is restored.
Here's a couple of photos of the models in action in a recent battle.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog498.jpg)
The Warhounds fail the panic test caused by the Flashing Lights and flee from the Ellyrian Pursuit Reaver 2000.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog504.jpg)
At close range the High Elf Panda Chariot takes a direct hit from the Dwarf stone thrower.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog506.jpg)
The Ellyrian Pursuit Reaver 2000 uses its Superswift Stride rule to flee from the Warriors of Chaos battleline when they unveil their secret weapon of a Khornate Fire Engine of Doom.
If you like the models for the Panda Chariot and Ellyrian Pursuit Reaver 2000 then I'm sure Ol would be able to stock them for you. I'm very pleased with mine. And at 200 points for the pare they make a good addition to my fledgling force, next month I need to think about a hero to round off the first 600 points. I'll let you know what I decide in the next blog. Thanks for reading. Apologies for the shorter than usual duration of the blog, this is due to cutbacks unveiled in the recent government spending review.
I nearly forgot to mention that as it's nearly the end of the month, it's time for this month's edition of What's In The Box? You know how we play, there are 36 boxes under my bed, all with random little Games Workshop treats - old models/new models/broken models/painted models/unpainted models. All you have to do is a pick a box, if your pick is randomly drawn I'll open the box and you get to see (not keep!) what's inside!
To play simply reply to this thread with a number between 1 and 36 - box number 3 has already been opened, so don't pick that one! Lines close on Friday at midnight, so don't call after then. The two boxes with the least votes will be forced into the sing off where the judges will decide which should be sent home... or something like that.
just when I thought this plog couldn't get much stranger! :thumbsup:
box 13 please
hmmm I suspect those mini's were pre-painted.....
I shall gather proof!
Quote from: maelzch on October 26, 2010, 12:33:32 pm
just when I thought this plog couldn't get much stranger!
Never understimated the madness of a severely sleep-deprived mind!
Quote from: Mike on October 26, 2010, 12:39:12 pm
hmmm I suspect those mini's were pre-painted.....
How dare you?! Those stickers were hard work I tell you. :wink;m::
I know you said don't pick box 3 but I really liked it's contents! Ok fine then box 25 (and not because it's jesus's birthday - for more than one 1 reason. 1. this is not very likely to be true. 2. I don't give a rats ass about jesus unless he's a bowler wearing an all purply/pink bowling suit).
Those models have a lot in common with GWs stuff, for example:
no clearly distinguished base size has been provided.
There are multiple options for how to assemble the kit
There are a load of fiddly bits that are just too much hassle and you'll end up leaving them to one side.
The faces casting is of poor quality so they eyes are difficult to define well.
Khorne ones are still red.
Also do you work for GWs rules department, because I'm fully expecting half of those to appear in the next few books released!
Love it Matt, simply breath taking work there son.... :cool3:
Box 17 please!
Quote from: maelzch on October 26, 2010, 12:33:32 pm
just when I thought this plog couldn't get much stranger! :thumbsup:
box 13 please
Seconded on both counts! Had me chuckling mate, I like!
Well Halloween's coming up, so 13 for me too please.
Quote from: Dave on October 26, 2010, 01:33:36 pm
Also do you work for GWs rules department, because I'm fully expecting half of those to appear in the next few books released!
Don't know what you mean these are genuine Games Workshop rules!
BLATANT PLUG ALERT
Can I just take this opportunity to put in a massive plug for my new show, which actually started tonight at 5pm, in my usual fun place. Please watch especially if you have a BARB box, I need a second series to get comissioned to pay for my next army. :wink;m:: Plus you may get to see me looking like a right idiot as an extra on the show, what more could you want?
Apologies for that inexcusable plug! Normal service to resume soon.
Sunday 31st October
This is going to come as a shock to many of you but in last week's blog entry the models I showed you and claimed I painted, well I hadn't, I lied. I'm very sorry. I didn't have anytime to do any painting as I was very busy at work, it's not clever, it's not funny and I'm not proud. My apologies. However in the words of Melissa from the Apprentice "carmically they will be retributed, the universe speaks louder than I do" (note those words aren't real, she was talking bollocks), but that happened to me as sadly John & Edward were struck down and taken from me by high winds.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog533.jpg)
I know, a sad ending to a happy Halloween, but it has encouraged me not to lie and do some more painting. But before we get to This Week in Pictures and the exciting results of What's In The Box? I thought I'd show you how I go about Mixing Paints, I promised this ages ago so it's about time I delivered. Before I start I should point out that mixing paints is extremely messy, and I recommend you do it in a kitchen or bathroom somewhere easy to clean with access to running water. I know, what you're thinking "It will be fine" "what are the chances of me making a mess?" I do this all the time, but on this occasion you are wrong. Trust me. Halloween can only be made more scary by a loved one/relative/flatmate finding you've spilt a tonne of paint all over the table/carpet/cat/children etc.
Since Games Workshop in their infinite wisdom stopped selling the empty paint pot (fools), you'll have to make your own empty paint pots, by emptying a paint pot – hope I'm not getting too technical for you. Ideally this should be a colour that is one of the colours you intend to mix, as it saves you having to clean too hard. Invariably there will be some manky residue left behind as shown here:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog511.jpg)
This residue is the second hardest substance known to man, just behind Weetabix remnants that have been left in an unwashed bowl for a few days, seriously that stuff could be used to glue railway bridges together. However help is at hand with an old toothbrush, if like me you don't have an old toothbrush you can buy cheap ones from your local supermarket.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog512.jpg)
This toothbrush came in a pack of two for 10p at Sainsbury's – 5 pence a toothbrush, that is madness. How can you make a toothbrush so cheap? How? I don't understand, it can't be possible, best be on the safe side though and not put it in my mouth (even before cleaning the paint out)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog519.jpg)
Some Fairy washing liquid and hot water, your old toothbrush and the ever useful Sculpting Tool (I used this to help me defrost the freezer earlier today) can be used to get yourself a pretty clean empty paint pot.
With your pot empty you'll need a couple of extra tools:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog521.jpg)
An old paint brush, this is a seriously old paintbrush (the red handles were out during 4th edition of Warhammer), and you'll need some kind of tiny pot for pouring the paint. I've used the cap from a sun cream bottle (you won't be needing any in the UK for a while). If you want to mix specific quantities of paint e.g. 2:1 of two different colours, then it will be helpful to have a mark on the pot to measure to – I find some sticky tape round the outside does this well (though you won't be able to see it in the picture) as it will survive repeated washing.
I'm making up a highlight for Shining Gold, which will be 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver (I find it takes very little Mithril Silver to lighten metallics before they go very grey). Firstly I pour out Mithril Silver to the level on the suncream top.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog524.jpg)
Using the old paint brush, scrape out all the paint into the empty pot, and then thoroughly wash out the pot. This is particularly messy, so only a fool would have an expensive digital camera around when they're doing this – oops. I then repeated this 5 times with Shining Gold (can be worth washing out between each set of Shining Gold so you can see the mark on the side of the pot). Once this has done you'll be left with a delightful Jackson Pollock-esque paint pot:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog528.jpg)
Give it a good mix with your old paint brush, being careful to scrape round the edges until you get a consistent colour (I feel a bit like Delia Smith now, giving you these tips – though I should assure you no one is taking revealing shots of my breasts as I lick the cream off a spoon – in case you were wondering). And here's what it should look like when you take it out of the oven:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog535.jpg)
Always worth putting a label on your new paint pot – in case you forget what you mixed up:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog537.jpg)
And in true Blue Peter style (no I didn't rig the vote to name the cat), but here are some I made earlier...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog538.jpg)
And you can see I've cleverly labelled one pot 1:1 Fortress Grey : Skull White, when it actually contains 1:1 Astronomican Grey : Skull White – this is because I am a fool.
There you go that is how you mix paints, in a guide so simple that even Katie Price could understand it.
Whilst we're talking about paints, I should mention my secret supply of contraband paints – don't tell anyone but I have paints that you aren't allowed to have any more. Here are some of them:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog540.jpg)
This selection has a street value of about four million pounds, and you'll often find people in Camden High Street offering you Tentacle Pink, if you know where to go. Hush, hush, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Anyone seen the new style Games Workshop paint pots? Here's the first one I picked up recently:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog552.jpg)
Now I like the new paint pots, and I like the old paint pots, but which is better? There's only one way to find out... FIGHT!! No actually that's not true. I do like the new paint pots for their full transparency so you can see what colour you've got from any angle (though annoyingly the Foundation Paints and Washes don't have this feature). But annoyingly they don't stack. Anyone else got this problem? I like to stack my paints to make space on my painting table, here's what I can do with the old paint pots:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog547.jpg)
And here's the same feat attempted with the new style pots:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog550.jpg)
Hmmmmmmmmmm, not helpful, make them stackable!!!!!
Any way after that rant it must be time for This Week in Pictures, everyone's favourite photographic story telling section – bar the photo love stories you get in women's magazines, I always like them!
Thursday
About a thousand years ago, when I last had a free night to come to an OG Games night, I picked up a selection of goodies from Ol (I know Ol I still have the High Elf cards to collect, I will return at some point when I escape hibernation). Getting a bag of goodies from Ol always reminds me of Ready Steady Cook, not sure why?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog545.jpg)
Anyway here's the goodies in the bag, I tried to make a delicious meal for four from them, but that was less successful.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog544.jpg)
This week I only used the Stippling Brush, though I'm sure the rest will enter this blog at some point. This was used to do some stippling (funnily enough) on my Ellyrian Reavers, not sure how well this went – I'll leave you to judge.
Friday
Not sure if I mentioned this but my new show, definitely worth watching! Plug! Plug! Plug! Plug! You may even see me in it if you look closely! Please watch, I am literally begging!
Saturday
Lines closed on this month's exciting What's In the Box? with slightly more votes cast than in the X Factor this week, there was lots to play for. So far the board stands as follows:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog608.jpg)
With Box Number 3 open there was still 35 boxes to choose from, what would be in the chosen box? Would it be good, would it be bad? There was only one way to find out. Cheryl oversaw the draw as always, unperturbed by the recent death of John & Edward, as number 25 was drawn – well done Dave.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog606.jpg)
All eyes on Box No. 25...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog608.jpg)
Ooooooo...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog609.jpg)
And I can exclusively reveal it is a Warriors of Chaos box.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog610.jpg)
The box contains a mixture of unpainted models and some of my poorly painted early attempts (oh the shame).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog614.jpg)
Here's an early attempt to paint a classic Chaos Sorcerer, as you can see I made it Tzeentch, simply by using blue – and that was the extent of my themeing. This model was one of a succession of Chaos sorcerers that came supplied with a familiar model. What are we supposed to do with them? Do magic item familiars need to be modelled? Invariably they don't fit in the unit. Or maybe they should be used as markers for your sorcerer, or maybe you just shouldn't bother and chuck them in your bits box to never be seen again, or maybe you should just hurl them out the window at annoying small children? – better suggestions on a postcard please to the usual address.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog615.jpg)
Here are some really badly painted old Chaos Warriors, these, you may remember, were the first ever multi-part plastic box set and boy weren't they shite? They look utter crap. My painting scheme fitted this style entirely I drybrushed them Mithril silver, painted the bones Bleached Bone and the base Goblin Green and that was it – at the time I felt clever.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog621.jpg)
Some of my favourite classic Chaos models were these Chaos Knights, loved them. They came from a time when you couldn't have a Chaos Knight musician (as there was no model for them), though as musicians did practically nothing and cost twice the points of a regular model you'd need 160 points to get an old Chaos Warrior Knight musician – ouch!!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog624.jpg)
I loved them so much I even had a second Standard Bearer. I may even paint these up for my Warriors army soon.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog625.jpg)
Here's a pile of various bits of other Chaos Knights, including parts from the multipart Chaos Knight set, which was only marginally less crap than the Warriors box set.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog629.jpg)
And lastly a Nurgle Chaos Lord, a very old model here, that rode a Palanquin carried by Nurglings – which might be in one of the other boxes, you'll have to hope you pick it out next month if you want to see it!
And that's it – a slightly less varied box this month, but who knows what you'll get in next month's What's In the Box?
Sunday
Despite serious jet lag setting in after changing the clock on the oven in the morning (why does that always happen it's only a bloody hour?!) and seriously what time is it now. I mean really, is it really an hour ago, an hour before, or next Tuesday? Why do I feel so confused?
Anyway the good news is I finished this month's painting. Horray! Horray! Not sure how, but I did, but I did. Here's some group shots of the finished stuff:
Ellyrian Reavers:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog583.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog589.jpg)
And the Shadow Warriors:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog569.jpg)
For those of you excited by how I got there, here's all the usual details:
Stage 4 – Ellyrian Reavers
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog573.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog579.jpg)
Base: Drybrush Bleached Bone, add Static Grass.
Skulls (on base): Layer 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White
Rocks (on base): Drybrush Fortress Grey
Hooves: Highlight Codex Gray
Mane/Tail: *NO CHANGE*
Horse Skin: Stippled 1:1 Adeptus Battlegrey : Fortress Grey, restippled with increasing amounts of Fortress Grey until one final layer of Fortress Grey
Barding Cloak Outside/Rider Cloth: Skull White on centremost parts
Barding Cloak Inside/Feathers: *NO CHANGE*
Barding Metal Trim/Arrow Flights/Trim: Highlight Bad Moon Yellow
Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal: Highlight 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Wood: *NO CHANGE*
Leather: *NO CHANGE*
Flesh: Highlight Bleached Bone
Hair: Vomit Brown – highlighted with Bleached Bone. Dheneb Stone – highlighted with Skull White. Calthan Brown – highlighted with Bubonic Brown
Stage 4 – Raven's Shadow Warriors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog559.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog564.jpg)
Base: Drybrush Bleached Bone, add Static Grass.
Leather: *NO CHANGE*
Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal: Highlight 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Cloth: Skull White on centremost parts
Cloak: *NO CHANGE*
Metal Trim/Arrow Flights: Highlight Bad Moon Yellow
Wood: *NO CHANGE*
Flesh: Highlight Bleached Bone
Hair: Vomit Brown – highlighted with Bleached Bone. Dheneb Stone – highlighted with Skull White. Calthan Brown – highlighted with Bubonic Brown
Just a few points here to note, I can now directly compare my new High Elves to my old ones, as I've painted the Shadow Warriors before:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog570.jpg)
The one on the left is the newer one, and whilst it's quite difficult to tell the difference in the photo I think the White, Yellow and Wood look much better with better layering. The face of the new one is a little dark – too much Ogryn Flesh I think, but not too pale like the older one. So fingers crossed the new army will look better than the new ones. Sorry this isn't an amazing detailed comparison but I've written about 8 pages of this drivel now and need sleep, it will have to do!
Here's the details from the Ellyrian Reavers:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog598.jpg)
The musician conversion, looks reasonably good if I say so myself. I think it looks like part of the original model, which is all you can hope for
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog590.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog591.jpg)
And the standard bearer came out well to, even added a quick runic design to the banner, which was fairly straight forward. It's the Elven rune for "I'd like my Shakeaway to be a large please" which felt appropriate.
So at the end of Month 2 the High Elf Army looks like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog605.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog631.jpg)
All good, not quite legal yet but Month 3 will solve that, and finish off the Shadow Warriors.
Before I go just time to bring to your attention a puzzle I've been wondering about. What does this 20% mean?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog632.jpg)
I'm slightly worried it represents my brain slowly downloading onto the OG site, and how much crazier will this blog get should up to 50% of my brain download? Hmmm. Oh well, more to come next week – might even be funny (sorry very tired no jokes left) – don't hold your breath though.
Happy painting!
Quote from: cunningmatt on November 01, 2010, 12:13:47 am
John & Edward were struck down and taken from me by high winds.
NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cry: :cry: :cry:
Quote from: cunningmatt on November 01, 2010, 12:13:47 am
Before I go just time to bring to your attention a puzzle I've been wondering about. What does this 20% mean?
Its a unit of measurement.
Basically its used to assess Awesomeness.
I am 80% Awesome. The lost 20% is on account of the gingerness.
Quote from: cunningmatt on November 01, 2010, 12:13:47 am
Before I go just time to bring to your attention a puzzle I've been wondering about. What does this 20% mean?
It is your % of posts you have done, 100% meamns you earn a shiny new badge proclaiming you as an 'Old One'
Great update buddy, very sad to hear of your loss..... :cry:
another great update mate, congrats for being the first to finish you October stuff for the tale!
Quote from: fatolaf on November 01, 2010, 11:32:43 am
It is your % of posts you have done, 100% meamns you earn a shiny new badge proclaiming you as an 'Old One'
So the more posts you do, the more you bar tops up? Can I get bonus points for ridiculously long posts?
Quote from: Mike on November 01, 2010, 11:27:49 am
Basically its used to assess Awesomeness.
I am 80% Awesome.
So you're suggesting I'm only 20% awesome? :bash;m:
Quote from: Mike on November 01, 2010, 09:44:41 am
NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cry: :cry: :cry:
I propose a minute's dysentery as a mark of respect.
-p
Move along, move along, much like this year's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here line up there's nothing to see here, bar Gillian McKeith screaming and I don't even have that.
Hopefully normal service will be resumed next week!
My monitor / keyboard breathes a sigh of relief at the prospect of a week without wine / food being laughed up/out all over it.... :cool3:
Sunday 21st November
Way hay! Cover your keyboard and get a wipe clean screen Ol, I'm back (that sounds like this is going to be a pornographic post – check the previous post and you'll see what I mean). Yes apologies that it has been three weeks since the last rambling, hope you've not missed me too much. Sadly the real world reared its ugly head (that is if you can call filming celebrities driving a mobility scooter round a race track the real world) and I was all consumed in a fiery ball of children's television. But now I have been reborn like a Phoenix from the flames. Actually I'm quite knackered really, but let's get on and tell you what's been happening in the last 3 weeks.
I've finally come up with the name for the Ellyrian Reavers, those of new to the blog might not know that I call all my units after classic children's TV shows – why is an entirely different question that we shan't go into. Anyway inspired by the horse theme of the Ellyrian Reavers, they are apparently the fastest horses in all of Ulthuan, even fastest than the fastest milk float in the West – remember that song?! Or is it just my mind. Anyway I do remember a classic moment from my children's TV youth when Blue Peter had a horse, and we all got to vote on it's name (and presumably they just made up a choice, but the days of TV were much more innocent then), and I distinctly recall the horse was called Jet because it was black – although nowadays something that is black on TV simply reminds Louis Walsh of a young Lenny Henry! Blue Peter was an odd programme, very much something your parents wanted you too watch, and something that at the time I felt I had to watch – but I'm not sure why. Things I particularly remember are the appeals, when there was a bizarre shaped totaliser wheeled into the studio, and we, as a nation, had to collect 400,000 aluminium cans or something to send a tractor to Africa, it almost doesn't seem worth the effort now, a couple of quid in a charity box is the most I can manage now. And then there were the bloody summer excursions – god they were boring, 4 weeks of VTs from Lithuania or wherever they'd chosen to go this year. I didn't enjoy, I'd much rather have seen Mark Curry knock the head off a LEGO man instead (a much repeated clip that was the Lulu the Elephant of my Blue Peter years). Presenters wise the first I vividly remember was the Mark Curry, Yvette Fielding and Caron Keating years – Mark Curry has virtually disappeared off the earth, though bizarrely I did know someone at University who was also called Mark Curry who had ginger hair – what are the chances? According to Wikipedia, which is the same as saying I've just made up, Mark Curry later went onto present the final series of Catchphrase, and also appeared once in Last of the Summer Wine, who knew? Yvette Fielding went onto disturb the nation in a series of programmes involving her in a dark room screaming, you'll have to decide amongst yourselves whether that's better than showing children how to make a pencil holder in the shape of Jim Davidson out of a toilet roll and some sticky back plastic. Caron Keating's career hasn't gone that far, but in fairness you can't blame her for that. Then there was John Leslie and Anthea Turner – enough said. And I think I left it, around the Richard Bacon and Konnie Huq period, who is now annoying everyone with on The Xtra Factor – not that, that programme needs any more excuse to be annoying. Anyway on that note I'll leave Blue Peter, except to say that my Ellyrian Reavers will now be called Peter's Blue Reavers, see what I've done there – clever isn't it?! Lots of effort there!
So onto this month, 21-days in, I better tell you what's been happening then. Looking at my current army I'm going to need a couple more Shadow Warriors to make that unit legal and of course I need a general, in fact all together now: #I need a hero, I'm holding out for a hero til the end of night, he's got to be strong, and he's got to be there and he's got to be up for a fight# apologies now if the rest of your day is spent humming Bonnie Tyler songs. But the point is my army needs a leader, and much as I'd love to paint up my Lord on Griffon from the Island of Blood box set, he weighs in at somewhere in the region of 450 points. So unless I do some extreme lying, or start waterboarding the other people taking on the OG Gamers challenge (if they haven't all abandoned it), then I'll need a hero level character. This leaves me with two options, a Mage or a Noble (again a Dragon Mage is out of my points league at present, sadly), which was it to be? My existing High Elf army is missing a Noble on foot, so that was a temptation, but I quite fancied a Mage (in a non-sexual way of course), because I was thinking of tactics – I know, anyone who's played me will be stunned by this, usually tactics isn't part of my thinking, which means that beating me at Warhammer is kind of like beating a 4-year old child at chess, it doesn't really count. But with my tactics hat on I decided that a Mage would be more useful, as with the exception of my charging Reavers nothing in my army could muster more than Strength 3, so I felt a Mage rather than a Noble would be more useful at bashing tougher targets from afar – and everyone seems to moan about how good magic is at present, so I'm sure I'll prove that theory wrong soon enough.
So for the Mage, I'll be painting up the Mage from the Island of Blood box set, normally I'd decorate the bases of my heroes but there isn't any room on the Mage because of the whispy tendrils of magic – technical term. So here we go this is where we are at Stage 1:
Stage 1 – High Elf Mage
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog670.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog675.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog678.jpg)
Base: Khemri Brown
Whispy Tendrils of Magic: Deneb Stone
Leather: Scorched Brown
Robes: 1:1 Skull White : Astronomacian Grey
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Yellow Trim: Iyanden Dark Sun
Blue Robe: 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue
Hair: Deneb Stone
So far looking good, just 3 more stages to do in the next week!! Gulp!
Now foolishly at the beginning of this month I thought I would have loads of time just to paint a mage and a couple of Shadow Warriors, how wrong I was?! So I started painting a few more projects to keep me amused, none of these actually come under my Tale of OG Gamers army, so technically they shouldn't be here, but given the crap I've rambled on about and no one has so far moaned, I feel you've missed your chance to complain that I'm now talking other elements of Warhammer. Sadly I should also point out none of these pictures are actually funny, sorry if the truth be known I have to be funny at work and so am exhausted of being funny, additionally I think I set the bar too high with this blog at the start and I can't keep up. I'll do my best to get back on form over the next few weeks before I start losing audience numbers faster than Daybreak.
Alith Anar
I fancied painting up a special character (I know boo, hiss, boo at me – special characters are broken blah, blah, blah – don't care), so thought I'd look at Alith Anar. Just to clarify again, he's not part of my OG Gamers army!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog681.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog693.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog694.jpg)
Stage 1
Base: Khemri Brown
Stone: Charadon Granite
Leather: Scorched Brown
Robes: 1:1 Skull White : Astronomacian Grey
Cloak: Chaos Black
High Elf Silver Metal: Chainmail
High Elf Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Dark Elf Silver Metal: Bolt Gun Metal
Dark Elf Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Hair: Scorched Brown
Yellow Trim: Iyanden Dark Sun
Blue Trim: 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue
Wood: Khemri Brown
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog687.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog689.jpg)
I modelled under Alith's feet I pile of slate (from the Warhammer basing kit) and some strewn bits of Dark Elf, a broken sword and head (modelled on a longer neck with green stuff) – bits taken from the Dark Elf Spearmen set I believe. This way he looks like he's been on a murderous killing spree – always nice.
High Elf Way Stone
Also started painting up my High Elf way stone model, from Forge World, I do like the discarded Elven horn and helmet at the base of the model I have to say:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog698.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog701.jpg)
Stage 1
Base: Khemri Brown
Stone: Charadon Granite
Way Stone: Calthan Brown
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
And here you can see it to scale:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog704.jpg)
I must hurry up and finish this, as a number of my friends have commented at present it looks like a butt plug – I think this maybe has something to do with the fact that some of my friends are rather unsavoury. Anyway on that disturbing note, I'll promise to do more painting for next week (need to as nearly December) and I'm aiming to get a little bit festive – you have been warned!!
Entertaining as always mate! Made me realise how far behind I am this month!
QuoteCaron Keating's career hasn't gone that far, but in fairness you can't blame her for that.
There goes my cereal..... :cool3:
On account of her being dead.
there goes my coffee!
Monday 29th November
Panic stations everyone! Yes there's only one more day of November left (hope your moustache looks good), where has it gone?! And of course this leaves just 24 hours to finish the mad painting for this month's High Elf models – it's only three models this month but it seems to be killing me – I blame real life, isn't it shit?
Now I have to confess part of the blame for my lack of painting has to fall fully on ITV1, for the abomination that is I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! It's a truly horrendous show full of all the most vile and twisted elements of modern day society – and for some reason I love it. I know, I am ashamed, every middle class bone in my body is revolted at the thought, but for some reason it falls into my guilty pleasures category, and boy what a guilty pleasure it is. After watching it, I feel dirty so very dirty, as if I need to go and have a wash to remove the feelings of chav from my body, worried that if I don't eventually it will build up to sufficient levels that I go and shop at Primark and Poundland, start wearing Burberry, show off my arse crack and smash up bus shelters. It's a slippery slope. Incidentally I have once shopped at Poundland, in my student days, to play the brilliant game "what's the shittest thing you can buy for a pound", where everyone has five minutes in the store to find the tackiest thing you can buy, and with all your purchases you then decide what's the worst thing someone bought (incidentally getting a trolley out for a pound doesn't count – it was in last month's Poundland FAQs). Whilst in said store I did once genuinely hear someone say "I can't believe this is only a pound!" – I think they may have been planted in the store to wander round saying that to drum up business, or they were filming a Poundland commercial and I hadn't noticed. The other thing I noticed was the exciting competition for Father's Day entitled Poundland Dad where you had to write in twenty words or less why your dad deserved the title Poundland Dad – I suspect many of the entries were sent to social services. And if your dad won this "prestigious" title? Well to compound their misery they also won twenty pounds to spend at Poundland, or twenty things as it's also known. When did competitions become so life changing?!
Back to I'm A Celebrity..., everything about this show is wrong and how wrong can be summed in one word "sponsorship" in that the show is sponsored by Iceland. Now call me a snob, but there isn't anything about Iceland that makes me want to go and shop there. The only plus side is they've finally seen sense and got rid of Kerry Katona – all it took was alcoholism, drug-taking revelations, full-scale nervous breakdown and awkward appearance on This Morning – who says fame is fickle? In a bid to go more upper class, Iceland have recently wooed in one of the Nolans and Jason Donovan, I don't know why they just don't go the whole hog and have the face of Iceland as Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot? Sure they did bad things in their time, but who's going to argue with a frozen bag of prawns for a pound, as advertised by The Third Rich? It is particularly odd that Gillian McKeith is in this year's series, as often the Iceland sponsorship features one of those large party food tables that looks remarkably like table full of food that the fat people eat in an average week on You Are What You Eat – you know the bit just before they're introduced to a diet of pumpkin seeds and elderflowers. All we can hope is that Iceland goes the way of it's namesake country, and goes bankrupt, though hopefully without all our council's savings and without requiring a seven billion pound bail out from George Osbourne – though think of all the party food you could buy for 7 billion pounds. Yum. Though you know your bowels would never be the same again.
I have many problems with the overall concept of I'm A Celebrity..., it's kind of like all other reality TV shows in reverse, rather than unknown people becoming famous, this features famous people trying to avoid becoming unknown. There's something so gratuitous about the depths they're prepared to sink to for this fame that it's very uncomfortable, but somehow the show embraces this, and by wearing it on it's chest it's ok, I think. I'm not sure how I feel about the way animals are used in the show either, is it right that 500 cockroaches are killed in order to entertain me? And what about that kangaroo bouncing around without a penis so some celeb could chow down on it, in a horrific televised blow job – doesn't seem right somehow. However the ever bubbly charm of Ant & Dec save it for me, I don't know what it is about them, but whatever show they present they come out of it smelling of roses, I'm sure if they presented a show in which children were routinely smashed round the head with baseball bats, the nation would still enjoy their Geordie charms – even if it isn't a patch on SM:TV Live.
I cast my eye over this year's celebrities – where celebrities has been said in such large inverted commas, that I think I could even be included in this category and not be the least famous one, after all I once was custard pied on ITV1 – probably my highest accolade. Here's a quick look at the rundown in "no particular order", actually it's alphabetical order, for those who care:
Linford Christie – Former athletics runner and Olympic Gold Medal winner, I still remember my parents' outrage when he was disqualified from the final of the 100 metres in the 1996 Atlanta Games for two false starts (and they say I know nothing about sport). Apparently Louis Walsh described him as looking like a young Lenny Henry.
Kayla Collins – According to Wikipedia she is an American Playboy model, so I'm sure she we can expect a lot of deep philosophical comments from her, and absolutely not gratuitous "foaming up" when showering in the waterfall.
Jenny Éclair – There's lots that annoys me about Jenny Éclair, I happen to know for a fact that in real life she's a particularly vile bitch. Sadly I'm warming to her in the jungle, because she's actually vaguely amusing. There's still time for her head to be ripped off by an alligator, we can still hope, and then I won't feel bad for finding her slightly funny.
Britt Ekland – One of the many actors/actresses I've heard off, but probably couldn't tell you what she's actually done, but my cultural knowledge is disturbingly bad. Apparently she's from Sweden, so presumably she was supplied in multiple parts with an Alan Key, and doesn't look quite like the picture on the box.
Sheryl Gasgoine – Not really famous, are you? Just married someone famous, perhaps if I marry newsreader Fiona Bruce I can be on next year's I'm A Celebrity... not that I wish to be, I want to point that out just in case the producers get desperate.
Alison Hammond – Former Big Brother contestant, in the days when I watched Big Brother thinking it was a fun little show, how wrong I was. She now presents on This Morning, though rarely is she confused for Holly Willoughby. She seems like a perfectly nice and lovely person, but being fat all women will bitch about, all straight man will regard with utter contempt and sadly she's doesn't wear enough in the sequins department for gay men to embrace her.
Nigel Havers – Nigel used to be considered a well respected actor, I suspect he may have turned up on this programme accidentally, perhaps believing it was the casting call for a Shakespearean drama. Any way he came to his senses at some point and left before he could leave over the bizarre rope bridge of fireworks – like a poor version of Sydney Harbour bridge on New Year's Eve, the exploding fireworks doing their best to drive the animals of the jungle into a murderous rampage. Nah I'm sure they've thought of that. No chance an outraged pack of scorpions would attack the camp – or is there?
Dom Jolly – Once upon a time Dom was very Jolly, everyone loved his giant phone and hidden camera stuff. Then everyone else copied it, and Channel 4 wasn't really sure what to do with him. He seems vaguely amusing, and is enjoying his spy role in the latest challenge, perhaps a role in Spooks beckons, perhaps not.
Gillian McKeith – There isn't much I can add to what has already been said about Gillian in the last few weeks, other than who'd of thought that her examining people's poo wouldn't be the weirdest thing that she's ever done on TV? Cleverly she's entered the programme despite having a phobia of everything on the show, presumably when she's finally voted off she'll scream and faint at the feet of Ant & Dec, before a tender VT in which she explains she has a terrible phobia of people from Newcastle (she just got voted off this didn't happen, shame)
Lempit Opik – Very few people's CVs read dated TV weather girl, worried about asteroids, dated Romanian annoying singer, got voted out of Parliament... so by those standards his appearance on this show isn't actually weird. I'm going to bet a tenner that he will actually get married to Prince William, at which point the creature we believe to be Kate Middleton will rip off her face mask at the alter to reveal the former Liberal Democrat MP staring back. Still we get a Bank Holiday, so it will be worth it.
Shaun Rider – Grumpy man from the Happy Mondays which is rather ironic. Anyone noticed he looks like on of Peter Kay's characters from Phoenix Nights?
Aggro Santos – Who? No seriously, who? I've been watching the show for two weeks and still don't know. I think he may have snuck in whilst no one was looking.
Stacey Soloman – Proof if ever proof was needed that reality TV has become incestuous, so desperate for famous people have we become, that people who are famous for failing to be famous are now on the show. I believe the woman has escaped from some kind of government compound – fortunately her voice is grating on me slightly less than last year when she annoyed me on The X Factor.
And that's pretty much all the I'm A Celebrity... I can stand. I'd turn over to ITV2 to get more but I'm not a complete sicko you understand. I still like to believe I am middle class, and ITV2 is a level to which I will not lower myself. Well except for a repeat of All Star Family Fortunes.
Enough ITV crap, but before I get onto This Week in Pictures, just a quick time to tell you I have named my wizard Wizbit, again after another children's television classic. For those of you who don't remember Wizbit he was a large yellow cone shaped wizard with slightly shifty eyes. He inhabited a place called Puzzleopolis, just outside Croydon, where he had to solve puzzles in order to learn more about humans – as you do. The world was populated by various magical creatures (magical in the conjuring sense rather than the fantastical) consisting of giant playing cards, large rabbits and Paul Daniels – no really Paul Daniels. You may remember there was a period in the history of light entertainment when people liked Paul Daniels, and actually watched his shows, shocking I know. But The Paul Daniels Magic Show ran for 15 years on primetime BBC 1, and he had classic gameshows Every Second Counts and Wipeout – remember these from the days when quiz shows were quiz shows and people didn't bloody cry all the time. This was long before the days when having Paul Daniels on a show was the running joke it is now, long before he was voted off in Week 2 of Strictly and Week 1 of X Factor: Battle of the Stars (remember that shite?). The show also featured a villain called Professor Doom – well wouldn't you be annoyed if you had a name like that, who tried to stop Wizbit all the time (do you think he was Mr Doom, who did a PhD then post-doctorate?). Judging by this Youtube episode he seems to have been played by 80s Snooker legend Willie Thorne, who knew?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVf7wNnVbI0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVf7wNnVbI0)
Anyway as a child I certainly liked the show, I seem to remember collecting tokens from Hula Hoops packets and sending off for a Paul Daniels and Wizbit magic kit, don't think I was ever any good at it, but I've since realised magicians are generally a bit creepy so it's probably for the best. Hopefully my mage looks slightly better than an upturned yellow cone with legs, but that's what it's going to be called anyway.
Now it is time for This Week in Pictures...
Tuesday
After a bit of painting, it's only three models after all, finally made it to Stage 2 of the High Elf Mage:
Stage 2 – Wizbit, the Mage
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog722.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog726.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Whispy Tendrils of Magic: Layered with 1:1 Deneb Stone : Bleached Bone, then pure Bleached Bone
Leather: Washed with Badab Black
Robes: Layered with 1:1 [1:1 Skull White : Astronomacian Grey] : [2:1 Skull White: Astronomacian Grey] which I think is 3:2 Skull White : Astronomacian Gray if I've done the maths right!* Then layered with 2:1 Skull White: Astronomacian Grey
Silver Metal: Washed with Badab Black
Gold Metal: Rebased with Shining Gold
Flesh: Layered with 1:1 Dwarf Flesh : Elf Flesh, then pure Elf Flesh
Yellow Trim: Layered with Golden Yellow
Blue Robe: Layered with 1:1 [1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue] : Ice Blue (which I think is 1:3 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue)* then layered with pure Ice Blue.
Hair: Washed with Badab Black
* - if you compare this to the painting guides of the regular High Elf models you'll see in most case I've added an intermediate colour between the normal Stage 1 and Stage 2 colours. Generally I find with characters and larger models this is worth the effort, I usually just mix the Stage 1 base colour 1:1 with the Stage 2 midcoat colour for this intermediate colour. So in the case of the Blue Robes, usually I'd basecoat 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue then midcoat pure Ice Blue, however for the character I've mixed these two colours for an extra stage. As I'm mixing my premade mixes I couldn't tell you the exact mix, but hopefully my Maths A-Level hasn't let me down and that's right. The same has done in Stage 3 as well.
Stage 2 – Alith Anar
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog730.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog734.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Stone: Drybrush Adeptus Battlegrey, then drybrush Codex Grey
Leather: Washed with Badab Black
Robes: Layered with 1:1 [1:1 Skull White : Astronomacian Grey] : [2:1 Skull White: Astronomacian Grey], then layered with 2:1 Skull White: Astronomacian Grey
Cloak: Highlighted with 2:1 Chaos Black : Codex Grey, then highlighted 1:1 Chaos Black : Codex Grey
High Elf Silver Metal: Washed with Badab Black
High Elf Gold Metal: Rebased with Shining Gold
Flesh: Layered with 1:1 Dwarf Flesh : Elf Flesh, then pure Elf Flesh
Dark Elf Silver Metal: Washed with Badab Black
Dark Elf Gold Metal: Rebased with Burnished Gold
Hair: Drybrushed with Bestial Brown
Yellow Trim: Layered with Golden Yellow
Blue Trim: Layered with 1:1 [1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue] : Ice Blue then layered with pure Ice Blue.
Wood: Layered with Graveyard Earth
Wednesday
Any one been to Sainsbury's recently? Well you've probably been to some kind of supermarket recently, and maybe they do this too. At the end of the till when you're receipt is printed off there's a sort of lucky fruit machine that prints money off vouchers – and if you've been a good boy (or girl) you get a voucher printed off for you. I think you need a Nectar card (or equivalent) for this, so don't get upset if you aren't getting them. In theory these are supposed to be based on your regular purchases so you get useful tokens, however having got some for Tampons and Dog Food (I don't have a dog or a vagina so neither are particularly useful), I suspect the system may be slightly flawed. Sometimes you might get money off things you actually buy, Frosted Shreddies seem to be a favourite of mine that come up a lot, but generally you get crap ones in the form of "100 extra Nectar Points if you spend £50 on your next shop", knowing fully well that my average shop is a lot less than £50, I won't fall so easily for your propaganda Sainsbury's. However on Wednesday I struck the jackpot, with this token:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog480.jpg)
Surprisingly there is no catch, all I have to do is turn up with my token and I will be given a 50g box of Lindor for free, no minimum spend nothing. If you haven't had Lindor I do have to recommend them, they are amazing, melt in the mouth, succulent chocolate – basically orgasmic. I am a bit of a chocolate fiend, well it is my only vice, I don't drink that much, don't smoke and at present seem to have sex about as often as Bubbles the Chimp since the death of Michael Jackson, so Lindor it is for me. Rock and roll. A 50g box is 4 delicious Lindor balls, so a reasonable treat from Sainsbury's. I wonder what would happen if Shakeaway did a Lindor flavoured milkshake, mmmmmm, really probably think about such things in public – might get arrested again.
Thursday
Went to Sainsbury's for my free Lindor. They'd run out. My mood is akin to that of the North Korean border.
Friday
Went to Sainsbury's for my free Lindor. They had some.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog776.jpg)
Matt is happy – bugger this is turning into Facebook.
Saturday
I am not a victim of marketing, no never, never a victim of marketing, adverts and promotions rarely sway me, if at all. But I may have bought 2 of these in Sainsbury's:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog779.jpg)
2x 337g boxes of Lindor, about 50 balls, but they were on special offer and are very nice, and would make an excellent Christmas present for me. Cough cough, hint hint. Maybe I could try taking them to Shakeaway and see if they'll blend them for me. Hmmmm.
Sunday
Despite putting on 4 metric tonnes in weight and needing a hydraulic platform to get out of the house I managed to get to Stage 3, a fine achievement given my fat fingers can't even pick up a paint brush (or anything smaller than a Lindor ball).
Stage 3 – Wizbit, the Mage
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog741.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog746.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Whispy Tendrils of Magic: Layered with 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White, then pure Skull White
Leather: Highlighted with Bestial Brown
Robes: Layered with 1:1 [2:1 Skull White : Astronomacian Grey] : Skull White then layered with slightly watered down Skull White
Silver Metal: Highlighted with Mithril Silver
Gold Metal: Washed with Gryphonne Sepia and Highlighted with 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Flesh: Washed with watered down Ogryn Flesh
Yellow Trim: Layered with 1:1 Golden Yellow : Sunburst Yellow, then pure Sunburst Yellow.
Blue Robe: Layered with 1:1 [Ice Blue] : [1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White] then layered with pure 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White, then washed watered down Asuyrmen Blue*
Hair: Highlighted with Bleached Bone
* - if time allows, and there isn't other tripe to rabbit about I hope to talk more about finishing details in a later blog. No promises though.
Stage 3 – Alith Anar
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog748.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog754.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Stone: Drybrush Fortress Grey
Leather: Highlighted with Bestial Brown
Robes: Layered with 1:1 [2:1 Skull White : Astronomacian Grey] : Skull White then layered with slightly watered down Skull White
Cloak: Highlighted with Codex Grey
High Elf Silver Metal: Highlighted with Mithril Silver
High Elf Gold Metal: Washed with Gryphonne Sepia and Highlighted with 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Flesh: Washed with watered down Ogryn Flesh
Dark Elf Silver Metal: Highlighted with Chainmail
Dark Elf Gold Metal: Washed with Gryphonne Sepia and Highlighted with 5:1 Burnished Gold : Mithril Silver
Hair: Drybrushed with Snakebite Leather
Yellow Trim: Layered with 1:1 Golden Yellow : Sunburst Yellow, then pure Sunburst Yellow.
Blue Trim: Layered with 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Wood: Layered with 1:1 Graveyard Earth : Bleached Bone, then pure Bleached Bone
Here's a couple of detail shots, for detail fans:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog758.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog763.jpg)
And I also finished the remaining 2 models of Raven's Shadow Warriors, they were painted in exactly the same way as last months so I won't bore you with the details again (there's enough today already to bore you, so you'll have to have a look back in the blog):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog765.jpg)
I'm particularly pleased with the Shadow Walker, which as you may remember was the free model from White Dwarf 180ish, ages ago for Mordheim, here's a couple of other shots of him sweeping his cloak:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog769.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog771.jpg)
I'm reasonably pleased that he still looks High Elfy despite very little High Elf colours (particularly white) showing on him.
That's pretty much it for today, other than to say it's end of the month so it must be time for What's In the Box. You know how it works select a box from 1 – 36 (3 & 25 have already gone so don't vote for these as your vote won't count but you may still be charged, and you'd be a fool), Cheryl the plant will randomly draw a box from the suggestions and will open it up and you can see what's inside. Get your votes in by midnight on Friday the 3rd of December, as that's when the draw (or should that be drawer – get it?!) will occur.
It's going to be busy week for "The Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves" as tomorrow, I should be posting again provided I get the finishing touches to Wizbit done. And then on Wednesday something brand new, very exciting, and perhaps a little bit disturbing happens on these pages – you don't want to miss it (though you could just catch up with the updates any time in the future really if you do miss it, but that doesn't sound very showbiz does it). Right back to painting just 24 hours of November left!!
Another very funny and lengthy update mate! Ol better not be eating when he reads this!
I'm a little behind with my stuff for this month, but will see how I do!
Quote from: maelzch on November 29, 2010, 11:49:17 pm
Another very funny and lengthy update mate! Ol better not be eating when he reads this!
Cheers mate, the ramble has returned! I do try and warn Ol in fairness.
Quote from: maelzch on November 29, 2010, 11:49:17 pm
I'm a little behind with my stuff for this month, but will see how I do!
Good luck, need some people to play the first 600 points against.
I'm gonna paint like a nutter tomorrow night, so we'll see how I fare!
I'll go for the box of champions, lucky number 6 (because all the numbers it divides by also add up to it's total, try and find any other number that can do that!).
And once again an entertaining read, though I have to hold issue with your love of I'm a celebrity. They are all clearly damaged individuals that they care more about what the public thinks of them than enjoying an all expenses paid trip to a jungle, I'd love to do that.
Quote from: Dave on November 30, 2010, 01:50:52 pm
I'll go for the box of champions, lucky number 6 (because all the numbers it divides by also add up to it's total, try and find any other number that can do that!).
I see your logic, box 28 would also work - because like 6 it's a Perfect Number, not sure what's so perfect about them, maybe they're a good number to choose on the Chinese menu? (Just like to show that I'm not just Lindor Chocolates and I'm a Celebrity!)
Quote from: Dave on November 30, 2010, 01:50:52 pm
And once again an entertaining read, though I have to hold issue with your love of I'm a celebrity.
I take issue with my own love of I'm A Celebrity... I know it is wrong and I'm bad person for it. I'm hoping by confronting the issue here in the open, it will work a bit like a self-help therapy group and I can overcome this. :wink;m:: Glad you enjoyed the read.
Tuesday 30th November
I promised, there'd be full update on the final stages of Wizbit yesterday, I know, but for once I actually concentrated on the painting not talking rubbish on here. So the model is done the blog is not. Here's a pic:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog888.jpg)
I'll endeavour in next week's blog to include all the details on Stage 4, possibly even a picture of Wizbit in focus (but don't hold your breath) and how I painted all the detailing (I found out how the super zoom on my camera works!). Remember keep your suggestions coming in for this week's What's In The Box, you've got until midnight on Friday.
Oh and tomorrow, there'll be a special update here so do check that out, though I endeavour to post it before I go to work so by the time you read this it will probably already be up!
Wednesday 1st December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Yes December is here, hopefully you're feeling well and truly festive and if not remember this month is an excuse to get drunk (as if you needed one).
To celebrate advent I've decided that everyday on The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves blog, I'll reveal a forgotten Special Character from the Warhammer archives, in what I'm snappily going to call "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar". I know Special Characters have a bit of a bad rap in the circles of people who actually know how to play Warhammer properly, but I'm hoping that this nostalgic view over the next 24 days might change your mind.
To keep up the excitement I've added a spoiler in so you actually have to open the door to see the character, I hope you appreciate the effort I've gone to try and make something pointless seem vaguely interesting. So here is Door Number 1:
[spoiler]
December 1st: Gorfang Rotgut
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog959.jpg)
Name: Gorfang Rotgut
Original Points Cost: 90
Background: Gorfang Rotgut is chieftain of the Orcs of the Black Crag, leader of the Red Fang Tribe, neighbour and uneasy ally of Skarsnik and has a Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award. He broke into Dwarf King Kazador's Throne room and shaved his son (much like an 18-30 holiday then).
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Orcs & Goblins - 4th Edition (though originally a less tatty copy than mine)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog984.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog979.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Orcs & Goblins - 4th Edition (as far as I know)
Special Rules: Virtually none. He had one more point of Strength and an Extra Wound as compared to a Big Boss (his character level) and he Hates Dwarfs - that's it. Although he can ride a boar, monster or chariot.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog980.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Loved and still love the model for this, I have a bit of a soft spot for the 4th edition style, dare I say it more "cute"/friendly looking Orcs & Goblins and this was a nice model. Also as a child who hated painting and assembling, this was a cheap model that could be shoved on a slotta base and Bob's your Father's brother a special character ready to go.
Person most Reminds Me Of: Phil Mitchell
Inclusion in 8th Edition: I think even I could make up the rules to include Gorfang in 8th Edition. Standard Orc Hero character, with the special rule Hates Dwarfs. What do you reckon +5 points to the standard cost. Better let him choose some magic items too.
[/spoiler]
Hope you enjoyed that, they'll be another door tomorrow. If there's someone you'd like to see in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar" why not PM me (to keep it a surprise for everyone else) their name (pictures and old rules blurb are helpful but not essential) and they might make it in. All it needs to be is a named character that is not in the current edition of Warhammer and it's active supplements - so characters from sources other than army books could potentially count.
Plus remember to vote in What's In the Box, you know the rules!
Ahh, my very first WHFB army book, that brings a tear to my eye. :cry:
God, there were some utterly useless Special Characters back in the day. Wonder if he'll be back in the new book, maybe as a Big'Un champion or something.
4th edition where only 1 or 2 units had special rules and only dark elves had an army wide rule. Special Characters back then really only had a few bonus rules which made them special back then.
Great update mate, love the advent calendar, keep that up please...!
And I choose for the 3rd month running, box 17 :thumbsup:
My choice for a box, as always, is lucky 13
Quote from: Meals on December 01, 2010, 10:34:27 am
Ahh, my very first WHFB army book, that brings a tear to my eye. :cry:
Mine too, and it's marginally less sad than my first record which was Mr Blobby by Mr Blobby on Audio Cassette - I was a special child.
Quote from: The Trampoline on December 01, 2010, 12:44:23 pm
4th edition where only 1 or 2 units had special rules and only dark elves had an army wide rule. Special Characters back then really only had a few bonus rules which made them special back then.
I'm sure I remember slightly more complex special characters back in the day, perhaps it's rose-tinted glasses and all that. I guess I'll find out over the remaining 23 days.
Quote from: fatolaf on December 01, 2010, 03:35:46 pm
Love the advent calendar, keep that up please...!
Fingers crossed I'll get all the way to Christmas Eve - though if anyone does have any suggestion do PM - plug, plug.
Quote from: maelzch on December 01, 2010, 04:08:25 pm
My choice for a box, as always, is lucky 13
Surely it will come up this time Lee, you can't be as unlucky in this game as Warhammer?! :wink;m::
Thursday 2nd December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Unless you've been snowed in a train for the last 24 hours (as if that would happen) you'll know that for December I'm revealing forgotten Special Characters in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar".
2nd of December so even my maths skills tell me it's Door Number 2:
[spoiler]
December 2nd: Tristan le Troubadour avec Jules le Jongleur
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog944.jpg)
Name: Tristran le Troubadour and Jules le Jongleur (and an unnamed horse)
Original Points Cost: 205
Background: Tristran le Troubadour is on his Grail quest and goes around the country singing songs (he's auditioning for The X Factor), Jules le Jongleur is his court jester and goes around on a hobby horse (he is annoying).
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Bretonnia - 5th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog986.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog989.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Bretonnia - 5th Edition
Special Rules: A lot more than Gorfang! Tristran: Questing Virtue – Immune to Panic, Virtual of Noble Disdain – Hates all enemy with missile weapons or war machines, if joins a unit may sing one of three songs with the following effects: +1 Combat Resolution, 3+ Natural Dispel, Leadership 10. May change song (or continue) at the beginning of each turn. Jules: Can only be hit by missile fire or in hand-to-hand on a 6+, one enemy of Tristan takes Ld test in hand-to-hand or loses first attack.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog990.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog991.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Not bad models, despite the 'classic' Bretonnian horse The 5th edition Bretonnian book is filled with a whole host of special characters (14 in fact, of which some are pairs, as in this case, or even triplets), and struggling through French GSCE at the time this raft of French names didn't go down well. Still loved the Bretonnian army, can't work out whether Jules is characterful or just annoying, but he'd probably be fun to paint. Of the Bretonnian characters however not as good model as many of the others at that time, including the amazing Green Knight and Louen Leoncour on Hippogriff (the first one).
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Prince Charles, Camilla Parker-Bowles and Prince Harry – you can work out who is who.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Seems to work reasonably well, Tristran would be a Paladin with Questing Virtue and Virtue of Noble Disdain (which both still exist in 6th edition). As before he could sing to either get +1 Combat Resolution, Magic Resistance (4)!, seems a bit high, maybe make that Magic Resistance (3) or Leadership 10. Jules would have the characteristic of a Yeoman Warden (Men-At-Arms Champion), with sufficient movement to keep up with Tristran, 6+ to hit in hand-to-hand (can't see the shooting version of this being any use in 8th) and one enemy must take Ld test or lose attack. Valuing Tristran's special rules at 60 points (I don't know Games Workshop probably just make up the values) and Jules at twice the cost of a Yeoman Warden +10 points, makes the pair worth 206 points (bizarrely close to the original given I just guessed values for the rules!!). Though he'd be annoying to field as, to be any use he'd have to be in a unit and Jules would have to sit at the end (and I don't like units that don't look like neat rectangles – my OCD).
[/spoiler]
So that's Day 2, maybe we can choose our favourite special character at the end of the run? Remember to PM me any suggestion for inclusion in the calendar, thanks for the votes for What's In the Box, keep them coming! Good luck in the snow!
I remember those two! Some of the special characters in the old brets book were ace! I think I had all the old Brets SCs at one point or another.
I've still got that miniature, I was thinking of resurrecting my 5th edition Bret army and using him as a grail knight as the musician.
Unless you include him in my list the special character, that is no more, that I'd choose is a no brainer but I'll remain silent until the end of your list.
Those guys are ace, would be quite handy in 8th even at 200 odd points...
Enjoying this stuff! I think that being aside the lance formation duo would work quite well as the jester would be trotting along, just how it looks- even if it does mean no neat rectangles.
Friday 3rd December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
It's F-F-F-Friday!! Woo, and my Mum's birthday. Happy Birthday Mum, she won't be reading, but it's the thought that counts.
Tristran le Troubadour and Jules le Jongleur seemed to prove pouplar, though unrectangular units - I think I need a lie down what are you doing to me?! We'll have to see if by Christmas Eve we hit on Dave's Special Character choice.
Day 3 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar" equals Door Number 3, still no chocolate I'm afraid. Lee actually PMed me to suggest this character (though I had actually picked him out already has a favourite), remember you can do the same PM me with a character suggestion and if I can find them they'll go in the calendar. Enjoy!
[spoiler]
December 3rd: Arbaal the Undefeated
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog946.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog948.jpg)
Name: Arbaal the Undefeated, Destroyer of Khorne (as in he destroyed on Khorne's behalf, not he tried to destroy Khorne – got to be careful here I heard Khorne's a bit of a grump)
Original Points Cost: 600 points (4th Edition), 570 points (5th Edition)
Background: Arbaal is a psychopathic murderer who broke down the doors of Prague in the siege and has killed thousands, however Khorne is a tough boss and could turn him to spawn at any minute. All in all a ripe character for inclusion on the Jeremy Kyle Show.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Chaos - 4th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1009.jpg)
Remember this came in a box with loads of tokens and spell cards, interestingly the artwork has a picture from the Warhammer 40,000 universe on with a giant titan rolling in the background. At least it had a picture though.
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Champions of Chaos – 5th Edition, supplement to Warhammer Armies: Realm of Chaos – 5th Edition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1026.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1042.jpg)
Obviously work experience doing the army book cover art this week.
Special Rules: Arbaal is instantly turned into Chaos Spawn should he flee for any reason, and is not subject to the usual rules for frenzy despite having Mark of Khorne. He must issue and accept all challenges, should he slay a challenged enemy he may make a further challenge until no one accepts or he fails to kill the target, if no one accepts he may make a normal attack on regular troops. Magic Weapon: The Destroyer – Arbaal has only 1 Attack on his profile, should this hit it becomes 2D6 hits. Hound of Khorne – fights in all challenges (all Flesh Hound rules apply), hound is immune to magic items, hound and rider immune to all spells.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1016.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1048.jpg)
In the 5th edition this was virtually unchanged (even the background was basically word for word the same), except he was 30 points cheaper, The Destroyer became Destroyer of Khorne and gave him 2D6 attacks (rather than 2D6 hits for his 1 Attack – massive improvement) and the Hound became subject to the Monster Reaction test should Arbaal die, oh and the artwork was much better.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1043.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Genuinely one of my favourite ever models, loved this when it first came out and went down to Games Workshop on day of release to pick one up. I've always been a fan of the Warriors side of Chaos, my love of the Beastmen is very new, Tzeentch has always had a soft spot in my dark and twisted heart but Arbaal stood out for the forces of Khorne. Really must paint this model and do it justice one day.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Dale Winton, underneath that camp exterior when he's getting out his Lottery balls I'm sure he wants to kill in the name of the blood god and destroy all (for legal reasons I should point out I have no evidence to back this up).
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Probably, seems like a big arse ache though! I'd make him Chaos Lord with Mark of Khorne, challenge rules could probably be left as the current ones as they're very similar. Would be replaced by a Chaos Spawn if he fled, and Hounds rules would stay the same. Points wise the Lord weighs in at 225 points, Hound is similar to a Manticore in statistics roughly so make that 200 points. Destroyer of Khorne (was worth 25 points – needs to be worth a hell of a lot more), based on the price of the Chaos Daemon Sword in the current book, I'd say needs to be valued at about 100 points – so that would make him worth 525 points (expensive, yes but not the most expensive Warriors character by any means). If you were feeling less adventurous the Hound could be replaced by a Juggernaut and the Destroyer of Khorne with the Chaos Daemon sword – but where's the fun in that?
[/spoiler]
Let me know what you think of my 8th edition rules suggestions, could I be a Games Workshop rules writer? Could we use these characters in a friendly club battle? Could they make an interesting variation? Could it be a step too far and they should be consigned to history? Could I ask any more questions in this paragraph? It's over to you!
Day 3 done and dusted, more tomorrow, remember today is the last day for What's In the Box, so keep voting. Have a great weekend, hopefully they'll be a painting update somewhere in this mess as well as more "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar".
Wasn't arbaal in the 5th ed 'champions of chaos' book?
I've always liked the idea of updating old SCs to the current edition, even scrawled away a few thoughts somewhere, though it all seems to fall apart when I consider a certain skeleton clown!
Quote from: maelzch on December 03, 2010, 10:01:43 am
Wasn't arbaal in the 5th ed 'champions of chaos' book?
Yes, I think I said that?! Didn't I?
Gah, misread it, brains still frozen!
Phew! I thought I was going mad.
Are all these SC models yours then buddy?
Quote from: fatolaf on December 03, 2010, 01:49:50 pm
Are all these SC models yours then buddy?
So far they are all, though I definitely don't have 24 models so some may have to come from 'other' sources -intrigyued? I am, I have no idea what these other sources will be!
I have at least one old forgotten Special Character, though I have no idea where the rules can be found anymore since they were White Dwarf as far as I can recall. I can send you a photo though if you want
Its also Painted too so it may ruin your theme somewhat... :thumbsup:
Send us a pic, I'll make up some rules, we'll see if anyone notices!
Wait, wasn't Arbaal acually originally in 4th edition? Just kidding, great stuff :))
Luvvly jubbly, is his banner pole meant to be that bent though?
Quote from: Undead Dan on December 03, 2010, 05:12:48 pm
Wait, wasn't Arbaal acually originally in 4th edition? Just kidding, great stuff :))
Don't confuse the issue!
Quote from: Undead Dan on December 03, 2010, 05:12:48 pm
Luvvly jubbly, is his banner pole meant to be that bent though?
Quite possibly, perhaps that's why I thought of Dale Winton?
Saturday 4th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Just 20 shopping days until Christmas, so I hope you're using them wisely – oh you're reading this... then you probably aren't using them wisely! It can only be Day 4 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar":
[spoiler]
December 4th: Belannaer
Name: Belannaer, Loremaster of Hoeth
Original Points Cost: 555 points
Background: Belannaer spent ages trying to walk to the Tower of Hoeth, only for him to never get there, until he tried to walk away from the Tower of Hoeth when he couldn't avoid it – essentially a fickle version of the Metropolitan line commute. He shrouded the coast of Ulthuan in a maze of spells to prevent Norse raids (the fantastical equivalent of giving them a malfunctioning sat nav). He also trained Teclis, and became jealous of his fame after Teclis appeared in more army books than Belannaer.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: High Elves - 5th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1000.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: High Elves - 5th Edition
Special Rules: Belannaer is a Level 4 Mage, Glamour of Hoeth means any charging unit must roll two dice and subtract the difference between the two from their charge distance (the charge is failed if they don't make the distance). Belannaer has four magic items – Cloak of Stars: all combat and shooting attacks at Belannaer resolved at -2 Strength (to a minimum of 1), first spell cast against Belannaer will be dispelled. Blade of Bel-Korhadris – no armour save from non-magic armour, one combat phase per battle Belannaer may automatically strike first with an extra D6 attacks. Book of the Phoenix – at the beginning of the battle select one of the following rules: 1. If Belannaer is killed causes S6 hits on all models on base-to-base and returns to life with D3 wounds in any High Elf unit on the battlefield (one use only). 2. Belannaer can cast one spell with no magic cards per turn. 3. Belannaer's strength is doubled to 8. Staff of Cyeos – Any spell cast by Belannaer counts as being cast with one extra power card.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1003.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1006.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: None what so ever, he never had a model and I never really used the 5th edition High Elf book.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Anna Ford, maybe because his name contains the word "Anna", maybe because the artwork looks a little like Anna Ford, or is that me?
Inclusion in 8th Edition: God this is going to be complicated, there's a lot of special rules! Basically we'll go with a Level 4 Archmage. Glamour of Hoeth works as is. Cloak of Stars works as is. Blade of Bel-Korhadris – I'd make it Armour Piercing (as there seems to be no distinction between magic and non-magic armour in 8th) and once per turn Belannaer gains D6 Attacks (always strikes first not being a major boon for High Elves), Book of the Phoenix as before choose one of the options 1. Broken, but don't really know how to tone it down without ruining it, 2. Acts as bound item with randomly chosen High Magic spell (cast at appropriate casting value), 3. Unchanged. Staff of Ceyos adds +2 to casting rolls for all spells. Points – oh who knows? More importantly we have no model, but I do think the picture of Belannaer bares a very strong resemblance to the plastic High Elf mage kit (model on foot), here's my painted example:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1060.jpg)
I'd probably use the head with long flowing hair if I was to actually build one specifically to make Belannaer, maybe mixed with some parts of the Mage from the Dragon kit. The book definitely sets the character. Worth a go, if you're the kind of person who wants Belannaer in their High Elf army, who knows I may get bored round Month 8 of my High Elf army and go for it?
[/spoiler]
I remember bellanner, my group always used to use the teclis model for him. In game I seem to recall that he made teclis look like a little girl (well more so!)
Sunday 5th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Thank god I'm A Celebrity... is over, I can get on with the important things in my life now – well Day 5 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar":
[spoiler]
December 5th: Gotrek & Felix
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog930.jpg)
Name: Gotrek Gurnisson & Felix Jaegar
Original Points Cost: 477 points
Background: Gotrek got very grumpy, no one knows why (maybe he had a bet on Shaun Ryder to win I'm A Celeb...) and became a slayer, however despite all his slaying efforts no one seems to be able to kill him. Felix was one of the instigators of the Window Tax Riots of Altdorf, a demonstration that erupted into an outbreak of looting and mob violence towards Nick Clegg. In a drunken binge afterwards (possibly at an OG Games night) Felix signed up to record Gotrek's eventual doom as his official biographer (available now in WHSmith at half price).
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Dwarfs - 4th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1028.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Dwarfs – 4th Edition, as official characters with rules! However that wasn't the last we'd see of them. A second version of the models was later released and they of course had a series of Black Library novels based on them. More recently a new collector's edition set of models to accompany the books was released in White Dwarf 319:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1091.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1092.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1094.jpg)
And to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of White Dwarf (White Dwarf 330), a new White Dwarf model carried by Gotrek and Bugman as shieldbearers was released:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1095.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1098.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1099.jpg)
Special Rules: Gotrek follows all the Slayer rules, except cannot join any unit, Felix must be with him and is Unbreakable so long as Gotrek is alive. Gotrek's Doom special rule means any wound suffered by Gotrek or Felix is ignored on a D6 roll of 4+. Gotrek carries Gotrek's Axe all hits in close combat wound on a 2+, with no armour save except magic armour which is at -3. All wounds do D3 wounds, except on Dragons and Daemons which suffer D6 wounds. Felix carries the Blade of Leaping Copper +2 Attacks.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1035.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Great models, I still prefer the originals to all the other subsequent versions. Don't think I ever played with them much, as they were quite expensive, but is shame that such iconic characters don't have a place in the actual game at present. Fingers crossed they'll return for Warhammer Armies: Dwarfs – 8th Edition.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Robin Cook and Lembit Opik
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Pretty straight forward actually. Gotrek's Doom simply becomes a 4+ Ward Save, other than that they use the basic Daemon Slayer and Empire Captain statistics. Both magic items can be put together and costed from Dwarf Runes, as can the 4+ Ward save rule. Simple. I think I may even use them!
[/spoiler]
they did have some 6th/7th Ed rules released which were about as official as the rest of Dogs of War:
Linky (http://wizbangs.parks.officelive.com/Documents/gotrek-felix.pdf)
loving the special caracters! if we get some consensus on their viability for the 8th rule set i can't see why we cant crack them out for a few games in the name of banter
Best calendar ever , but a small chocolate treat would not go a miss... :cool3:
Quote from: maelzch on December 05, 2010, 11:36:52 am
they did have some 6th/7th Ed rules released which were about as official as the rest of Dogs of War:
Linky (http://wizbangs.parks.officelive.com/Documents/gotrek-felix.pdf)
Bah! New I'd get caught out somewhere around the 5th/6ht edition where I had a life and didn't play Warhammer! :wink;m::
Quote from: sainthale1988 on December 05, 2010, 12:30:41 pm
if we get some consensus on their viability for the 8th rule set i can't see why we cant crack them out for a few games in the name of banter
I should point out I have playtested my rules suggestion for the 8th edition over at least 500 games against a range of opponents and they weren't thrown together at the last minute at all. Honest.
Quote from: fatolaf on December 05, 2010, 04:29:38 pm
a small chocolate treat would not go a miss... :cool3:
Don't want much do you! Tell you what you add the feature that allows everyone to download a King Size Mars Bar through their screen and I'll supply the chocolate!!!
Sunday 5th December
So this is usually the part of the week where I update you on my painting, life, milkshake drinking and other habits. Usually I write my documents on Word before pasting them in here in case the internet crashes, that's some behind the scenes gossip for you. Sadly however I had multiple documents open and in my confusion hit "No" in response to the question "Do you want to close this document without saving?" on this week's blog entry, thus deleting a lengthly and highly amusing (if I do say so myself) description of this week's exploits. Bollocks and buggery. :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:
I may write it again during the week, but it will never be as funny, my creative juices have been pissed up all the wall. :bash;m:
So no blog entry today, you'll have to live with the knowledge that it would have been good had I not deleted it.
Monday 6th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Sadly I've still not recovered from yesterday's deleting trauma, why isn't Word clever enough to know that when I clicked "No" I really meant "Yes"? I blame the person who invented the Overwrite function, why on earth would I want a button that allows me to slowly and almost without noticing type over all the other work I've written? When could this possibly be useful? And if it is useful for someone it shouldn't be just activated by hitting the Insert key which could be done accidentally. This key should be hidden behind glass or under a plastic flap like the nuclear button it's that dangerous – rant over (for now) it's Day 6 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar":
[spoiler]
December 6th: Lucrezzia Belladonna
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1080.jpg)
Name: Lucrezzia Belladonna, Hireling Sorceress
Original Points Cost: 358 points
Background: Lucrezzia was married to the Prince of Pavona until he was killed by rival merchants, much like Heather Mills she was desperate to keep her fortune, so married a mercenary general and made him Prince of Pavona. Every time her current husband is about to make a mistake, they mysteriously die of poisoning and she marries a new general, after a duration Heat magazine would describe as "OMG", she's now on more husbands then Kerry Katona.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Dogs of War - 5th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1075.jpg)
Clearly I own this book, I haven't taken a picture of the cover from the pages of White Dwarf 225:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1084.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Dogs of War – 5th Edition, though I believe rules for them may have been updated in the White Dwarf for 6th edition at some point, anyone able to shed any light?
Special Rules: Lucrezzia is a level 3 Battle Wizard riding a warhorse. Stunning Beauty: All fleeing friendly units within 6" automatically rally, ashamed to flee from such a beauty, I'd leave the bitch to die to be honest, but that's me! She has three poisonous items, not magic items as such: Phial of Poison – At the beginning of the game roll a D6 for each character on the enemy army, starting with the lowest points value, first to roll of a 1 they suffer 2 wounds with no save possible, if no 1s are rolled no one is poisoned. Poisoned Stiletto – Lucrezzia may use this in combat, but automatically strikes last, however all hits automatically wound (armour saves may still be taken). Potion of Pavona, before the battle nominate one friendly character D6 of their characteristics can be increased by 1 (up to a maximum of 10), however should you roll a 1 the characters suffers a wound and receives no benefit.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1078.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1079.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Don't remember her, sorry. I almost had bailed on Warhammer at this point, and Dogs of War never really interested me, preferred the more classic armies fighting for state rather than cash.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Rosa di Marco – mother of the axed Italian family in EastEnders
Inclusion in 8th Edition: You could. But no one in their right mind plays or paints with Dogs of War armies in 2010, so why bother?
[/spoiler]
I was going to suggest some DoW characters myself! I don't think there were any updates to 6th edition for the DoW special characters.
She could always be used in certain themed Empire lists!
or vampires........
Quote from: maelzch on December 06, 2010, 08:35:19 am
I was going to suggest some DoW characters myself! I don't think there were any updates to 6th edition for the DoW special characters.
She could always be used in certain themed Empire lists!
There was an update for 6th in a White Dwarf, but I don't have them to hand to check. Biorgio, Lorenzo, Mydas, Hobgoblin Khan, and Lucrezza were all updated, (all the special characters that had models basically, Marco Colombo and Leonardo were ditched at this point.
Hmm, I don't remeber seeing that one, if you've got a copy, could you send a scan my way?
Quote from: maelzch on December 06, 2010, 12:04:08 pm
Hmm, I don't remeber seeing that one, if you've got a copy, could you send a scan my way?
I think I may have a copy, I had a feeling when I was throwing this morning's advent calendar entry together (I promise it usually is planned months in advance) that I'd seen an update for these rules. I'll have a rummage at a convenient time.
Im very sad that you lost your latest blog entry matt.... :cry:
My PC screen however dances a jig of joy.... :))
Quote from: fatolaf on December 06, 2010, 02:56:25 pm
My PC screen however dances a jig of joy.... :))
As a mark of respect for the deceased blog entry I took part in a 1 min silence this morning, with a one mouthful coco pops screen spew salute in its honour.
Quote from: Mike on December 06, 2010, 03:11:26 pm
As a mark of respect for the deceased blog entry I took part in a 1 min silence this morning, with a one mouthful coco pops screen spew salute in its honour.
I want to see a photo of that please. Failing that I'll have to comission the resident 4 year old artist again!
Tuesday 7th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
First week of December nearly done, and I even managed to pop along to OG Games last night for two and a half games. Tell you more about that in next week's post, fingers crossed this week's post will be rewritten and up here at some stage this evening. But for now it's Day 7 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar":
[spoiler]
December 7th: Redmaw
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog957.jpg)
Name: Redmaw
Original Points Cost: 75 points
Background: Redmaw was the massive Chaos Hound raised by Khazrak the One-Eye, so in some senses he was halfway to being a guide dog for the blind. Khazrak was famous for raising packs of Chaos Hounds that terrorised Battersea Dogs' Home.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Champions of Chaos – 5th Edition, supplement to Warhammer Armies: Realm of Chaos – 5th Edition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1042.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Champions of Chaos – 5th Edition, supplement to Warhammer Armies: Realm of Chaos – 5th Edition. Khazrak the One-Eye went on to appear in Warhammer Armies: Beasts of Chaos – 6th Edition:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1211.jpg)
(Remember when army books were only £12?)
And Warhammer Armies: Beastmen – 7th Edition:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1207.jpg)
But without his trusty hound, what happened to Redmaw? Did he run away and Khazrak couldn't see him because he was in his blind spot? Maybe Khazrak had him put down? Did he die of natural causes and the other Beastmen tried to find a matching Hound so Khazrak didn't notice? Or was he killed in the Coronation Street tram crash? We just don't know.
Special Rules: Redmaw can be sent by Khazrak to charge any model or unit within Khazrak's charge range. Redmaw must return to Khazrak's side once target is killed. Should Khazrak be killed Redmaw becomes subject to the rules for frenzy.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1246.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1248.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Having collected quite a sizeable Chaos army in the 4th edition, I had the somewhat difficult task of splitting this into three separate armies when 5th edition came along. Beastmen were never really a priority, Warriors and Daemons were my favourites. However Khazrak and Redmaw made a nice cheap special character to lead my fledgling Beastmen army and the unique idea of character and 'pet' made them stand out on the table. Still have the old Khazrak model too, except I've lost his head – slightly vital part.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Lassie
Inclusion in 8th Edition: You could as an addition to the existing Khazrak, and I don't even think you'd need to change the rules from above as far as I can see. Probably should insist Khazrak's army takes some Chaos Hounds as he had to in the original rules.
[/spoiler]
we do know: in the fluff of the beast of chaos book Redmaw was killed in a hunt by an elector count (boris todbringer?) and nailed above said elector's fire place (there was some mention of Khazrak the One-Eye getting rather miffed by this and having a revenge style ramapage of retaliation)
Quote from: sainthale1988 on December 07, 2010, 10:08:21 pm
we do know: in the fluff of the beast of chaos book Redmaw was killed in a hunt by an elector count (boris todbringer?) and nailed above said elector's fire place (there was some mention of Khazrak the One-Eye getting rather miffed by this and having a revenge style ramapage of retaliation)
Well bugger me, I missed that! And I had money on it being the Coronation Street tram accident. Thanks for filling in the gaps. Must try harder at my homework! :thumbsup:
I believe in many versions of the fluff, Todbringer and Khazrak have this ongoing enemity (they've both taken the other's eye I believe)
Wednesday 8th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
As you may have noticed I've been trying to do characters from the various different Warhammer Armies? Well at least to start with to keep it mixed up. But which army will it be in Day 8 of "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar"?:
[spoiler]
December 8th: Thryus Gorman
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1243.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1245.jpg)
Name: Thyrus Gorman, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic
Original Points Cost: 365 points
Background: Thyrus was a Bright Wizard and trusted ally of Karl Franz, until Wikileaks revealed they didn't really get on. He bares the Staff of Volans made for first Supreme Patriarch and probably has red hair and made Fire Magic blow strongest.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: The Empire – 4th Edition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1214.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: The Empire – 4th Edition, I think. Thryus is referred to in Warhammer Armies: The Empire – 7th Edition as being defeated by the new Supreme Patriarch Balthasar Gelt of Gold magic fame.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1229.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1225.jpg)
I'm pretty sure Balthasar was in Warhammer Armies: The Empire – 6th Edition and Thryus was culled before Warhammer Armies: The Empire – 5th Edition when the vast range of models available to Empire players was culled. However I don't actually have either book, so if someone in the know can confirm that would be amazing!
Special Rules: He's a level 4 Bright wizard with a special magic item the Staff of Volans – that's all however it's a goodie, any spell cast with the Staff of Volans cannot be dispelled by any means, however on a roll of 1 or 2 the staff is exhausted.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1222.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1224.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Don't really have many, he was part of my abortive attempt to collect an Empire army, when I got a box of random Empire bits from an independent supplier on the Isle of Wight whilst on holiday. The box included Thryus and was quite cheap, though I remember hearing a presumably regular customer tell the owner as I left the shop, "I'd never thought you'd shift that" which always fills one with confidence on leaving shop. I do generally remember him among the vast array of Empire special characters at the time that were wheeled out for every White Dwarf battle report.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: A ginger Paul Daniels – now there's a disturbing thought.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: The character himself not a problem, the Staff of Volans is interesting, does he just use Balthsar's current Staff of Volans from 7th edition? Or do we give him a meaner version, every spell cast by Thryus is cast with Irresistible Force, without a Miscast, but on the roll of a 1 or 2 the Staff is exhausted. Seems horrendous. And can Thryus and Balthsar appear on the same army? Both have the Staff of Volans? Many questions peeps, what do we think?
[/spoiler]
P.S. Sunday's blog is written, having trouble uploading it (might be too long :blush:) - so going to try at work! And if anyone has any Forgotten Special Characters for Dark Elves, Lizardmen, Skaven or Wood Elves I'd be very greatful as I don't have any of the older books! PM please!
That staff as written was ridiculous, it's slightly tempered by the fact he's a bright mage and they dont' have quite the same uber killy spell of nastyness that some of the other decks offer but not an item I'd expect to see in todays warhammer world.
Quote from: Dave on December 08, 2010, 11:03:49 am
That staff as written was ridiculous, it's slightly tempered by the fact he's a bright mage and they dont' have quite the same uber killy spell of nastyness that some of the other decks offer but not an item I'd expect to see in todays warhammer world.
So that's a no to 4th edition Staff of Volans in the 8th edition then?! :wink;m::
I'll put it down as a tentative no whilst I contemplate how to adopt it. (now where is the sitting on the fence smiley?)
And he lives on in Warhammer Invasion, as a rather good yet suicidal hero
(http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p57/fatolaf/1-32.jpg)
Sunday 5th December – Take Two on Wednesday 8th December
Right here goes attempt two to tell you all about this week... must remember to hit Save now and again, must remember... Apologies it's a long one, get yourself a cup of coffee, some biscuits and a sleeping bag!
So it's time for a normal Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves blog entry, I say normal, but what I mean is no advent calendar nonsense. On the subject of which I hope you are feeling all festive and that the "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar" has helped you feel the festive love. Thanks for all the nice comments and PMed suggestions (particularly looking for help with Skaven – every character I've found seems to still be in the 7th edition book, also Dark Elves, Lizardmen and Wood Elves are proving tricky as I don't know much about them! And it would be nice to have at least one model from every available army if possible!). I don't know about you but it's helped me feel festive, I've started writing Christmas cards, put up my decorations, leave the jokes about the Christmas fairy please, and even done some Christmas shopping.
Now obviously I'd love to do all my Christmas shopping with my official sponsor, no not Shakeaway, but OG Games – not that I've seen any sponsorship money, apparently it's all trapped in a Nigerian bank or something :wink;m:: Whilst it would be much fun to do all my shopping on this illustrious website, most if not all my nearest and dearest probably wouldn't appreciate the kind of thing you can buy here. I'd love to buy my mother an Imperial Guard Catachan Battle Force (available to order from OG Games now at a significant discount), sadly however I doubt she'd appreciate it. And it would lead to a rather awkward conversation in which I realise I know as much about the contents as she does given I've never played Warhammer 40,000.
This leaves me with one of three options:
1. Gift Vouchers. Gift Vouchers are where you have your perfectly useful cash in the form of pounds sterling, that can be spent in any store with very limited restrictions. You take this cash into a store of your choosing and swap it for a new form of cash that can only be spent in that store, and must be spent within 24 months of being converted, cannot be used in conjunction with any special offer, and can never be converted into any other form of cash no matter how hard you try. Put like this it makes perfect sense. The good news about this major inconvenience you can inflict upon your friends and family is that it's very easy to wrap. Obviously it goes without saying that gift vouchers for OG Games represent very good value and are the present everyone would love this Christmas!
2. Online Shopping. Online shopping is the future apparently, you go online and find your loved ones the perfect gifts, or after two hours of looking through the Boots website you go sod it and get them a set of toiletries. After several attempts to attempt to pay for these goods using your credit card, they are eventually dispatched to you, and it's this point you realise the estimated delivery date is April. At some point these will be attempted to be delivered to your house, when a card will be popped through the door telling you, that you were out when we came to deliver the package, even though you were in. At which point you'll be given the option to go and collect the package from your "local" depot, usually somewhere in Crawley, or for a small fee of £5 you can have them redelivered to your nearest store for collection thusly removing the entire point of collecting online in the first place other than to pay an exorbitant postage & packing fee. Given my flat doesn't have a letter box (for complicated reasons), it represents Fort Knox to the postman and thus online ordering is not for me.
3. In Store Shopping. Having exhausted all other options I am left with the last resort of actually going into a shop and purchasing goods in person. May god have mercy upon my soul.
So this weekend I headed to Westfield in London:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1106.jpg)
Apologies for the lack of focus, my hands were shaking as I was having a fit before entering the store! Here's more proof, I should point out it's 3pm in the afternoon not the dead of night as implied in this photo:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1105.jpg)
An interesting aside former Secretary of State for International Development Claire Short was on my Tube on the way in to Westfield, that's nothing to do with the story, but thought I should share, make me look a bit more high brow that I recognised her given all the I'm A Celebrity... talk I've peddled recently.
I was particularly excited about my trip to Westfield, because two years ago I went Christmas shopping there and was refused a free sample of alcohol in Marks & Spencer because I looked too young. Result!!! That wasn't just a good boost to my day, that was an M&S good boost to my day!
For the purposes of December Westfield has been twinned with Purgatory and represents the second busiest place you can go shopping in Central London, unfortunately to get there I have to change tubes at Oxford Circus, the first busiest place you can go shopping in Central London. Surprisingly enough this didn't go well, and so I have put together a list of the 10 most frustrating things about my Christmas shopping experience, in the hope that this will give you some insight and tips and allow you to avoid the pitfalls I've succumbed to. At the very least it will allow me to vent my rage and get these things off my chest.
1. Bags. Invariably you will want to do all your Christmas shopping in one go to avoid countless trips to hell and back, which means at some point you will end up with thousands of carrier bags. What you don't want is you're bloody carrier bag to split:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1121.jpg)
This results in countless stops as you slump in the fire exit, whilst you rearrange all your shopping like some decrepit bag lady. Then you have to go into Next and demand that they give you 8 extra large carrier bags, even though you've bought a box of cufflinks, to re-triple bag your shopping before all your bags explode all over Westfield in a shit, very unfunny version of Buckaroo. And let's be honest Buckaroo wasn't fun to start with.
2. Picky Relatives. Some relatives can be picky, I shan't name names just in case they are reading, but they lay down ground rules for getting them Christmas gifts: No clothes (I have no room in my wardrobe), no toiletries (the bathroom is full), no food (I'm on a diet), no gift vouchers (they're not personal enough), no alcohol (I'm a recovering alcoholic and it would be inappropriate) – that last one might be a lie. Then when you ask what you can get them they say "Oh don't worry you don't need to get me anything". Fine I won't. That should go down about as well as a Christmas card from Wikileaks at the White House. So instead for peace I navigate Westfield for all eternity (or the time it takes Louis Walsh to answer the question "In one word who do you want to send home from the X Factor tonight?" – depending on your chosen measurement of time), looking for a gift that like Piers Morgan's charisma doesn't actually exist. Best I could find is a Reindeer that pooes chocolate covered raisins – any good?
3. People. Christmas shopping would be bearable if it weren't for the fact that other people are there. Apparently it's too much to ask for Westfield to be cleared for my visit, because all these other selfish people are busy buying gifts for their loved ones – gits. The main problem is stored are laid out such that one medium wasted person can easily pass between the racks of merchandise, this policy breaks down when you try to pass down the aisle with 84 bags of shopping whilst coming the other way is a woman armed with a double buggy and an arse the size of a badly parked Vauxhall Vectra.
4. Buying for Yourself. The fatal pitfall of Christmas shopping is buying for yourself, understandable when everyone else is so difficult to get for, but still you must resist that pair of jean, DVD, computer games console or new car. As a rule of thumb if you've bought yourself an entirely new wardrobe, and all you've bought for other people is one packet of gift tags – that shopping trip is generally not considered to be Christmas shopping.
5. Sunday Closing. Many years ago when I was young, sometime around the Bronze Age, Sunday opening was very rare. You had to go a big town to find shops that opened on a Sunday and then it was only big department stores. Now everywhere is open on a Sunday regardless of whether you want it to be or not, and as society we can't live without it. Hence my annoyance that one store is Westfield proclaims itself to be "Keeping Sunday Special" by not opening an Sundays, this is not helpful, I have come shopping on Sunday because I work during the week. What about "Keep Wednesday Special" I've never got time to go shopping then, its Apprentice night after all. Moral high grounds are all good, but don't let them inconvenience me.
6. Decorations. Shopping centres and town centres at this time of you attempt to display a selection of festive decorations in order to calm you down and make you feel festive during the shopping period. For example at Westfield:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1107.jpg)
As you can see Westfield have gone for decorating their trees such that they appear to have survived the aftermath of Chernobyl, this is not making me cheerful. Quite frankly given that I'm so stressed during shopping that even the presence of scantly clad models handing out vodka and crisp fifty pound notes will do nothing to calm my nerves, you can imagine how I feel about snowman suspended from the ceiling like Ann Widdicombe on Strictly Come Dancing. Not calming at all.
7. Christmas Music. I would say my tolerance for Christmas music is higher than most, I am in fact listening to some now as I rant about my shopping experience. Though one particular year when I spent October having a Pizza Hut meal with a friend and was forced to listen to the same Christmas CD on loop for two hours, I did have a different opinion to Christmas music. However, the general rule is, it's all about appropriateness. It wouldn't have been appropriate to begin the allied Shock & Awe assault on Baghdad to the soundtrack of Lady Gaga's Poker Face. Similarly the sound of children screaming, valuable crockery smashing, and people rowing in Westfield is not best rounded off by a rendition of Cliff Richard's Mistletoe & Wine.
8. Receipts. Over recent years I have noticed a disturbing trend to receipts, they either handed to you with a pile of paperwork consisting of a series of vouchers that I don't want – do I look like I want half price children's books or £5 of my No 7 purchase? I don't think so. Alternatively they are printed on ridiculously long pieces of paper, recently I went to Hamleys to buy some toys – no I've not become a paedophile, they were comedy gifts for a friend! I only purchased two items, but because of the promotional blurb and an offer for money off at Leeds castle printed at the bottom of the receipt, I was a presented with a receipt that was a foot long – genuinely I measured it (god I need to get a partner, my life is dull). What if I had children and bought a stocking full of toys, I'd probably have been present with a receipt long enough to embalm myself in, or at the very least form a noose and end it all – which in fairness in Hamleys at Christmas time may be the only option. The upshot of all this is my wallet is now filled with enough receipts and money off vouchers that I could beat a whale to death with it, it's larger than the Argos catalogue. And the one solitary fiver in there as spontaneously combusted due to being compacted in with so much paper.
9. Shops that make you Queue Outside. At Westfield there is a number of desirable designer shops that wish to make them seem more aspirational than they really are, to this end they make people queue up outside in a roped off area. I'm sorry but f**k off, you aren't the log flume at Chessington World of Adventures, why on earth do you think I'd want to queue up to see all the things I can't afford in the shop that you don't have in my size. I think you'll find I'll be doing my Christmas shopping in good old unfashionable M&S where everyone is welcome. Admittedly everyone will think their gifts are unfashionable, but at least they'll stop being my friends and I won't have to go Christmas shopping for them again.
10. Shop Assistants. Now I have been a shop assistant, in fact I once sold Sir Trevor McDonald some underwear and socks – and that's a true story. So I do know the pressure some shop assistants are under, and many of them are very good. However many of them complete troglodytes, shambling around the store like a disembodied Margaret Beckett – not sure how that would look actually. Case in point, I spent thirty minutes in Boots, the world's most impossible store to navigate (every aisle's bloody bottles), being sent repeatedly upstairs and downstairs by different shop assistants who hadn't a clue where the item I wanted was. Still it's better than in shoe shops, where there's no one to serve you, you grab the one shoe on display then wander round like sodding Prince Charming looking for Cinderella to see if she's got the other crystal slipper in a size 11.
11. Inappropriate Drinks. To ease the pain of Westfield shopping I arranged to meet a friend at Costa for a drink and a chat / moan about our tedious lives. Feeling rather festive I decided to order a Frosted Mint Hot Chocolate – how something can be Frosted and Hot at the same time I'm not quite sure, but it was on the Christmas menu nonetheless. I was then asked if I wanted chocolate sprinkles on it, to which I said yes and then was presented with this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1101.jpg)
I'm sorry what the bloody hell is this?! As a terminally single man, I don't want to be presented with a beverage that's had more romantic existence than me. Why not just rub it in and present me with a chocolate muffin shagging an apple turnover, or a cheese and ham baguette surrounded by hundreds of other cheese and ham baguettes having a wonderful birthday. F**k you! It is not helping, it ranks up there with people snogging on the escalators of the London Underground, don't do it I will push you to your deaths – you have been warned.
Sorry it was a bad day ok, yes I may have issues, many issues but we should move on... here's This Week in Pictures...
Monday
Bad news, all last week's Lindor have gone.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1111.jpg)
Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll just have to rock in the corner like a madman now. More chocolates, more chocolates.
Tuesday
As you may have already seen, I finished Wizbit the mage, here's the final stage of painting:
Stage 4 - Wizbit, the Mage
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog884.jpg)
Sorry probably should have tidied away those chocolate wrappers, here's attempt two:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog888.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog891.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog893.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog894.jpg)
Base: Drybrushed Bleached Bone, flocked with Static Grass
Whispy Tendrils of Magic: Washed in recesses with Leviathan Purple, overall washed with Mithril Silver
Leather: *NO CHANGE*
Robes: Highlighted with Skull White in central areas only
Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal: Fine Highlight of Mithril Silver
Flesh: Fine Highlight of Bleached Bone
Yellow Trim: Washed with watered down Ogryn Flesh and layered with 1:1 Sunburst Yellow : Bad Moon Yellow, highlighted with pure Bad Moon Yellow.
Blue Robe: Mixed intermediate shades of blue across bands on cloak as was needed to smooth transition.
Hair: Highlighted with Skull White
Details: See Below.
So this gives me a 600 point army which looks like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1187.jpg)
Or on paper like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1193.jpg)
Which you can't fail to notice is actually legal for the first time in the whole blog! Horray!
And I haven't forgotten Alith Anar, because if I had he would be a forgotten Special Character and would be in The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar. See what I've done there? Do you get it? Now that's funny! Laugh god damn you, laugh.
Stage 4 - Alith Anar
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog899.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog901.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog903.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog844.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog909.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog910.jpg)
Base: Drybrushed Bleached Bone, flocked with Static Grass
Stone: *NO CHANGE*
Leather: *NO CHANGE*
Robes: Highlighted with Skull White in central areas only
Cloak: Washed with Badab Black
High Elf Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
High Elf Gold Metal: Fine Highlight of Mithril Silver
Flesh: Highlighted with Bleached Bone
Dark Elf Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Dark Elf Gold Metal: Fine Highlight of Mithril Silver
Hair: Lightly Drybrush with Vomit Brown
Yellow Trim: Washed with watered down Ogryn Flesh and layered with 1:1 Sunburst Yellow : Bad Moon Yellow, highlighted with pure Bad Moon Yellow.
Blue Trim: *NO CHANGE*
Wood: *NO CHANGE*
Details: See Below.
High Elf Details
Now for about the last 3 months I've promised to talk about gems, faces, details and other bits and pieces, so here goes:
Generally it's always worth a bit of effort on the details for character models, if you can be arsed and as obviously they will be your most looked at models and have more details sculpted on them. High Elves in particular are worth looking at, as even the lowest Spearmen will have a selection of gems.
Gems:
First paint out the gem in Chaos Black, it has almost certainly got messy at some point:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog795.jpg)
Then painted a large swirl of your darker colour at the base of the gem, personally I tend not to worry about light source direction, it all gets a bit complicated and my painting skills aren't really up to it. For a red gem like here I'd use Scab Red (for a yellow gem Iyanden Dark Sun and for a blue gem Necron Abyss)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog806.jpg)
Then paint a second layer of a lighter colour over most of the base colour bar the upper most portion, for the Red gem it was Red Gore (Yellow – Golden Yellow, Blue – Regal Blue).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog825.jpg)
Sorry poor picture I know! Repeat the process again with Blood Red for the Red gem (Yellow – Sunburst Yellow, Blue – Ultramarines Blue)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog840.jpg)
And once more with Blazing Orange for the Red gem (Yellow – Bad Moon Yellow, Blue – Enchanted Blue)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog854.jpg)
Then dot across the black area with a small dot of Skull White to show the reflection:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog863.jpg)
Here's the completed blue and yellow gems:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog879.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog876.jpg)
All three would benefit from gloss varnish.
Eyes:
I always paint eyes on all my models but for character models it's definitely worth it. But it does require a steady hand, and I'd always have your base flesh colour to hand for tidying up afterwards.
Paint the eyes in Chaos Black:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog799.jpg)
Then dot in tiny dots of Skull White in each corner for the eyes, if you look in the mirror at your own eyes you'll see the pupil/iris fills up most of the eye and you don't normally see a single black dot in a see of white – unless you're going for a surprised or frenzied look.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog876.jpg)
Same picture as above I know, it's being economical!!
Whilst talking about eyes, for horses you'll never see the white of their eyes unless they are startled so, just paint them pure Chaos Black.
Orbs:
The orb is very similar to the gems, I started with a Chaos Black undercoat:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog797.jpg)
I wanted mine red so undercoated it in Scab Red:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog807.jpg)
Then highlighted most of that with Red Gore:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog812.jpg)
Then painted random blobs of Blood Red on in no particular pattern, you want it to look like a swirling ball of colour in the end:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog839.jpg)
Blazing Orange was then added to similar effect:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog853.jpg)
And then a single white dot was painted for the reflection:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog859.jpg)
And hey presto it looks like a Lindor ball – yum! You can if you like use washes on this to mix the colour, I didn't as I find Baal Red can make red go a bit pinky, but I definitely would have for a blue gem (with Asuryman Blue).
Vials:
This is based on a guide in White Dwarf 362, for painting an hourglass – mine doesn't look as good I'll tell you now!
Starting with a Chaos Black undercoat, first paint the liquid in a dark shade of the final colour, I've chosen Orkhide shade – make sure the level of the liquid is parallel to the ground in cases where the vial is held at an angle. I've then painted most of the visible part of the glass in Shadow Grey leaving Black at the edges. Note again I'm not too fussed about lighting directions, this will appear to be lit from the point of view of the camera.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog811.jpg)
Next highlight the centre of the liquid, with the next shade up Dark Angels Green in this case, and the glass with Space Wolves Grey, pay particular care to edges and rims that will catch the light more. In both cases leave the original colour at the extremities.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog830.jpg)
Repeat the process with the next colour Snot Green in this case, and Shadow Grey mixed with Bleached Bone for the glass. The cork is painted Clathan Brown
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog843.jpg)
And one final highlight with Scorpion Green and spots of Skull White on the glass.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog857.jpg)
Here's a red one done with the same colours for the glass as above, and the same reds as the gems.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog869.jpg)
Other Details:
As mentioned above on large areas like this cloak, I added mixes of the various blues in as appropriate where I felt the transition between the layers needed softening, a watered down mix of Asuryman Blue was applied to help blend the colours:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog874.jpg)
The swirling energy field had already been painted up to Skull White, but note from Deneb Stone not Astronomacian Grey to give distinction between the white robes and the field. For more definition Leviathan Purple was washed into the recesses, then a watered down Mithril Silver was washed across the field to give it an unnatural shimmer:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog794.jpg)
The blood on the neck of the Dark Elf was painted by layering from Scab Red through Red Gore to Blood Red, a gloss varnish will have make it look liquidy. I'd be careful to avoid too many blood stains though, in my opinion it can be a bit cheesy.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog849.jpg)
Lastly the sword details were painted using the details for a crystalline surface in White Dwarf 362 as a basis, though I wasn't going for crystal more glowing runes. The runes were basecoated in 1:1 Hawk Turquoise and Space Wolves Grey. Regal Blue was added to darken the base of the runes and more Space Wolves Grey to lighten the top of the runes, this was done with two highlights even on the small surface to give a good flow:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog883.jpg)
I find in cases like this it's quite good to mix the base colour in the palette and lighten one part and darken the other so you can see the three colours together before you start painting!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog858.jpg)
Enough details, back to This Week in Pictures..., hope you can follow my random musings and drivel!
Wednesday
The whole of the nation's current affairs programmes and newspapers can be summarised in one picture:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1054.jpg)
Please don't send in your snow pictures to me, unlike every newsgathering organisation in the country, I'm not interested. Though this does give me a chance to introduce you to the latest addition to my household, it's our new plant Wagner.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1056.jpg)
What's all that white powder around you Wagner? Have you been hanging out with Amy Winehouse again, oh no it's just snow!
Thursday
In a desperate bid to embarrass them Wikileaks releases a series of controversial internal communiqués about Games Workshop that they've gained from an as yet unnamed source. Mounting international is placed on Wikileaks to close the site. The latest internal Games Workshop communiqués published by the whistle blowing site include:
"Don't tell anyone but OG Games is up to 15% cheaper than we are. Don't let on."
"A couple of our army books could probably do with a bit of balancing, but that's not important"
"Please buy our things"
"We missed out #342 when numbering issues of The White Dwarf, how could that have happened"
"Shit we forgot we had an army called Ogre Kingdoms"
"Plans to bring back Man O'War have stalled when we accidentally brought back the Christ Tarrant presented gameshow Man O'Man."
Friday
This month's What's In The Box was been drawn, sadly due to me accidentally deleting this blog once already, I don't have time to rewrite it now, so it will roll over to next week. I realise many of you may not be able to sleep on such cruel tenterhooks, but I'm a nasty man!
Sunday
The first 600 points of my High Elves are getting ready for their first battles, in a round robin event with the other OG Gamers. It was at this point I realised the foam holes weren't big enough for the horses:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1125.jpg)
The round robin batters were to be hosted at the Spread Eagle Pub in Wandsworth, however due to a BBC Panorama documentary the tournament will now be played in Russia .
And so there you go that was Sunday's blog entry, two days late, was it worth waiting for - probably not?! What could be funnier than rewritten jokes with topical gags that are no longer topical?! Sigh! Hopefully normal service will be reassumed this weekend. In the meantime do enjoy The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Thursday 9th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Hope you enjoyed the late arrival of Sunday's blog entry yesterday, apologies for the length, bad language, ranting, inappropriate jokes and out of focus photos.
Another suggestion by Lee for today's "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar" – if you have a suggestion do PM, particularly looking for ideas for Skaven, Wood Elves, Dark Elves and Lizardmen. Here's Day 9:
[spoiler]
December 9th: Nagash
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1249.jpg)
This is honestly not a picture from the Games Workshop website, honest, Gov!
Name: Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead and founding member of the Tufty Road Safety Club
Original Points Cost: 750 points
Background: Nagash is a powerful human being who was transformed into a 15ft tall monster by use of warpstone (judging by the model it's not a beauty treatment) His right arm was cut of by King Alcadizaar after a struggle for power in Nehekhara and then he got deported from the UK for preaching religious hatred – or maybe I'm thinking of someone else. He also has one of the Nine Books of Nagash and is hoping to pick up the other 8 on eBay to complete his collection.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Undead – 4th Edition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1198.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Undead – 4th Edition. However he's mentioned throughout Warhammer Armies: Tomb Kings – 6th Edition as the individual who destroyed Nehekhara turning it into the land of Undead, creating all Undead creations and giving Games Workshop another army to sell. Noted as one of the most evil men in history, just behind Piers Morgan.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1206.jpg)
Special Rules: His immense stat line is bolstered by the following special rules: Level 4 Necromantic Wizard, who may cast each spell multiple times a turn, Immune to Psychology, causes Terror. Plus the following Magic Items: Black Armour of Nagash – 4+ Armour Save, that may always be taken and is never modified (a ward save to you and me). Mortis, The Great Blade of Death - +1 Strength, any Wounds caused by this recover Nagash one lost wound up to his starting value. Book of Nagash – Increase magic level (and number of spells known) by 1. Staff of Power – Store 4 magic cards each turn (except Total Power and Drain Magic), randomly starts battle with one stored card.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1199.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1201.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: I don't especially remember Nagash's model being quite so comical as it appears now. He genuinely seemed like one of the most evil monsters in the game, and would have been considered for my very, very short-lived Undead army (I bought the book!). When Undead split up into Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings it gave Nagash's background a massive chance to expand but curiously he was lost somewhere in the transition – maybe he will return at some point... probably not though?
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Janet Street-Porter, go on tell me you don't see it?!
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Who came up with this stupid category? It's far too hard to work out in 15 minutes before work. Yes you could include him, if you worked out some rules.
[/spoiler]
Loved the rant, Matt, it got me through the morning :)) And I especially agree with pushing the kissing people down escalators :thumbsup: how dare they be happy!!!!
God, Nagash was an awful model, but those were the days where everything was more innocent and all the models were made to look like bad cartoons.
an ongoing challenge that I've set myself is to attempt to paint the Nagash model so it looks much less arse! I haven't got the drive to get going yet, I've just done a scenic base instead!
Quote from: cunningmatt on December 08, 2010, 06:14:54 pm
I have put together a list of the 10 most frustrating things about my Christmas shopping experience, in the hope that this will give you some insight and tips and allow you to avoid the pitfalls I've succumbed to. At the very least it will allow me to vent my rage and get these things off my chest.
Quote from: cunningmatt on December 08, 2010, 06:14:54 pm
11. Inappropriate Drinks. To ease the pain of Westfield shopping I arranged to meet a friend at Costa for a drink and a chat / moan about our tedious lives. Feeling rather festive I decided to order a Frosted Mint Hot Chocolate – how something can be Frosted and Hot at the same time I'm not quite sure, but it was on the Christmas menu nonetheless. I was then asked if I wanted chocolate sprinkles on it, to which I said yes and then was presented with this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1101.jpg)
I'm sorry what the bloody hell is this?! As a terminally single man, I don't want to be presented with a beverage that's had more romantic existence than me. Why not just rub it in and present me with a chocolate muffin shagging an apple turnover, or a cheese and ham baguette surrounded by hundreds of other cheese and ham baguettes having a wonderful birthday. F**k you! It is not helping, it ranks up there with people snogging on the escalators of the London Underground, don't do it I will push you to your deaths – you have been warned.
Thats 11 things.
*runs and hides*
The smiling skull face doesn't help to make people take the model seriously either.
Excellent buddy, your shopping rant was read by me and then me wifey after she heard me sniggering about bagel shagging...
I stick with box 17 by the way...
Cheers for the comments guys (would have replied earlier but had to actually do work at work today - the cheek of it), will try and answer them all!
Quote from: Meals on December 09, 2010, 12:18:32 pm
Loved the rant, Matt, it got me through the morning :)) And I especially agree with pushing the kissing people down escalators :thumbsup: how dare they be happy!!!!
Cheers mate, glad my pain bought someone some joy, and that I'm not the only one who hates escalator kissing!
Quote from: Meals on December 09, 2010, 12:18:32 pm
God, Nagash was an awful model, but those were the days where everything was more innocent and all the models were made to look like bad cartoons.
And...
Quote from: maelzch on December 09, 2010, 12:27:11 pm
an ongoing challenge that I've set myself is to attempt to paint the Nagash model so it looks much less arse! I haven't got the drive to get going yet, I've just done a scenic base instead!
And...
Quote from: The Trampoline on December 09, 2010, 01:27:32 pm
The smiling skull face doesn't help to make people take the model seriously either.
Totally agree now looks rather daft, but at the time it had some charm. As I said about Gorfang Rotgut I do have a soft spot for the old Orcs & Goblins with their goofy smiles, which (compared to the newer breed) probably look naff to today's 12 year olds.
Quote from: Mike on December 09, 2010, 01:25:37 pm
Thats 11 things.
*runs and hides*
Mike - you found me out! Though I made a different mistake to the one you think. In the original post I wrote, and then deleted on Sunday, there was Item 12 which was "People who go on ranting when they've promised they'd stop and can't keep to their original promises", which unfortunately I neglected to add in my rewrite - dam waste of a good gag! :wink;m::
Quote from: fatolaf on December 09, 2010, 01:40:18 pm
Excellent buddy, your shopping rant was read by me and then me wifey after she heard me sniggering about bagel shagging...
I stick with box 17 by the way...
Glad you and wifey enjoyed, I meant every word about the Costa Coffee incident! The drawer has already been drawn - so to speak, so you'll have to see if you were lucky this weekend/next week/month when I get round to uploading the pics!
Friday 10th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Day 10 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar" - I know you don't read this bit, you just go straight ahead and click on the Spoiler button don't you? Go on admit it? This paragraph is a complete waste of two minutes of typing, I could write whatever I like, I could tell you all about a deep and troubled childhood involving sexual experiences with a Mr Potato Head and you'd never know. Here's Day 10 and a slice of Quiche Lorraine (there is no Quiche Lorraine, but you didn't read that bit either, I know!):
[spoiler]
December 10th: Tzarina Katarin
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1240.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1215.jpg)
Name: Tzarina Katarin, The Ice Queen of Chicken Kislev
Before you start moaning, it's not another Empire character she's Chicken Kislev – so there!
Original Points Cost: 300 points
Background: Tzarina Katarin is ruler of Chicken Kislev the land to the North of the Empire filled with bears, Chaos warbands, stout determined warriors and gorgeous chicken filled with garlic butter. She succeeded her father Tzar Bokha, is the most powerful wielder of Ice Magic ever and is a judge on Dancing on Ice.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Empire – 4th Edition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1214.jpg)
Last Appearance: Almost certainly Warhammer Armies: Chicken Kislev – 6th Edition. This was a supplement released as part of White Dwarf I believe – I actually never had it, just saw it listed on eBay once when I was looking for something else. So this is all guess work.
Special Rules: Level 3 Ice Wizard, carries Fearfrost – if an enemy suffers a wound by Fearfrost it automatically suffers a further D6 wounds. Only Magic Armour saves against Fearfrost.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1217.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1219.jpg)
You even get to photocopy some spell cards for some arts and crafts fun (or wait for Warhammer Armies Arcane Magic to release them on card):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1220.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1221.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: A character too far for The Empire, mind you Kislev units were an army too far for The Empire. Would probably make a nice separate army one day, but it all got mudded with Empire. Would Tzarina Katarin really accompany an Empire army just because of a unit of Kislev Horse Archers were there?
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Anne Robinson on horseback.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: If she had an army probably.
[/spoiler]
And did you touch mr potato head in his special place?
last apearance was in fact in the free supliment from white dwarf: Army book Kislev, relased as part of the Storm of Chaos campaign. These gave rules for kislev troops in 7th edition (including a limted run of new stuff) and rules for the Tzarina and Boris (the chap on the bear)
Quote from: Dave on December 10, 2010, 10:23:48 pm
And did you touch mr potato head in his special place?
Oh dear, you do read that bit. :blush: In the words of that great literary wordsmith Miley Cryus "AWKWARD".
Quote from: sainthale1988 on December 11, 2010, 10:57:07 am
last apearance was in fact in the free supliment from white dwarf: Army book Kislev, relased as part of the Storm of Chaos campaign. These gave rules for kislev troops in 7th edition (including a limted run of new stuff) and rules for the Tzarina and Boris (the chap on the bear)
Thanks for the clarification Tom, wasn't sure when Warhammer Armies: Chicken Kislev was out.
Saturday 11th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Day 11 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar" – it's the weekend, I've got people coming round for dinner, I haven't got time for this. Oh go on then since you insist, here's Day 11:
[spoiler]
December 11th: Be'lakor
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1237.jpg)
Name: Be'lakor, The Dark Master
Original Points Cost: 650 points
Background: Be'lakor the Dark Master was once the favoured son of the gods of Chaos until his own pride caused him to be cursed by Tzeentch to millennia of insubstantial, maddening existence – well we've all watched Loose Women and know what that's like. When Archaon the Chosen of Chaos was crowned Be'lakor was at last freed. However he was bitter and twisted (like me) and hated Archaon (as I hate happy couples), he bought back to life the dying body of the Grand Theogonist Volmar the Grim to internal terrorise him, in the hope of getting one up on Archaon – and he also sent Archaon to Boots the Opticians rather than Specsavers to make him look foolish, how bitter is that?
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Storm of Chaos. Although referred to throughout the literature to the Dark Shadows Campaign
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1236.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Storm of Chaos. Whilst the model's still available he failed to make Warhammer Armies: Daemons of Chaos – 7th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1234.jpg)
And as Archaon made Warhammer Armies: Warriors of Chaos – 7th Edition that's not going to improve his mood.
Special Rules: Loads! He has Mark of Chaos Undivided, all enemies suffer -1 Ld on attempts to rally, additionally all enemies within 6" suffer a further -1 on all Ld based tests. Any spell directed at Be'lakor will cause a miscast on the role of any double. Be'lakor causes terror, and all units must continue to take terror tests even if they have already taken one against Be'lakor. All enemy shooting is at -1 to hit. At beginning of turn must take a Ld or move directly towards/charge nearest enemy. He may re-roll all failed rolls to hit, and must pursue broken enemy. He is Daemonic, Large Target and can Fly. He is a Level 4 wizard with his own set of spells – Bolt of Dark Light (7+) magic missile range 18" causing D6 Strength 5 hits. Nightmare (7+) forces one unengaged enemy unit within 24" to take panic test. Curse of the Dark Master (8+) cast on any enemy unit which suffers -1 on all rolls to hit in combat and shooting – remains in play. Fog of Death (10+) every enemy unit suffers D6 Strength 3 hits, however roll for every friendly unit on a 4+ they are also affected. Coils of the Serpent (12+) A single unengaged model within 12" must pass a Toughness test or be slain outright with no saves. Enough special rules for you?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1238.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Sadly none, I wasn't into Warhammer at this point. However I recently picked up Storm of Chaos on eBay and was really impressed with the contents looks like a really interesting way to play a variety of existing armies in different ways and create your own units. Shame Games Workshop don't do this kind of thing so much. Would really like to play some of the battles/special units one day.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Bitter, jealous and angry – me!
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Looking at it, all his rules seem to work in 8th edition, so could be used in either Daemons or Warriors of Chaos armies, and there's a model available to boot, or you can make him from plastic now!
[/spoiler]
Ah belakor, one of my favourite models.
He was also the dark master mentioned a lot in mordheim. There are many fluff hints at him being Kaleeb Dark (the champion of Malal) ascended to daemonhood.
Love that model, lost mine years ago :cry:
Quote from: sainthale1988 on December 11, 2010, 02:57:55 pm
Love that model, lost mine years ago :cry:
I believe he is still available should you want another one.
'this is my belikor, there are many like it but this one is mine!'
Quote from: sainthale1988 on December 11, 2010, 10:40:57 pm
'this is my belikor, there are many like it but this one is mine!'
Bit like your first rabbit, parents may get you a knew one when it dies, but you know it's not the same?
if i get a new one will it die in one turn to long range gnoblar trapper thrown scrap? (true story)
Quote from: sainthale1988 on December 11, 2010, 11:06:48 pm
if i get a new one will it die in one turn to long range gnoblar trapper thrown scrap? (true story)
I sincerely hope you're still talking about Be'lakor now, because if that's what happened to your first rabbit that's a terrible story and a warning to us all about allowing pets on the gaming table.
he he! bunny'lakor :thumbsup:
Sunday 12th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Day 12 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar" – it's the half way mark people only another 12 to go until Christmas! Here's Day 12, and as it's halfway this character is linked to Day 1:
[spoiler]
December 12th: King Kazador
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog919.jpg)
Yeah I've lost the little runic bit of the top of his banner, sure it's around somewhere!
Name: King Kazador of Karak Azul
Original Points Cost: 494 points
Background: Kazador was a crazy man his youth on Dwarven 18-30 holidays he used to lift fully-laden ore ponies, out drink all the Dwarfs in his kingdom, hunt Goblins and cause a disturbance in Magaluf. However since Gorfang Rotgut raided his kingdom, took away his kin and shaved his brother, he's been depressed, the Victor Medlrew of the Dwarf Kingdom no longer enjoys the pleasures of life and can't even stand X Factor. He's hell bent on revenge on Gorfang.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Dwarfs – 4th Edition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1028.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Dwarfs – 4th Edition. Though rules for his inclusion, using standard runic items were included in White Dwarf around the release of the 2nd Warhammer Armies: Dwarfs – 6th Edition book.
Special Rules: Like his rival Gorfang, not too much, he has +1 Strength on his rival, and then just a specific set of magic items made from commonly available runes. The Hammer of Karak Azul contains Master Rune of Death (all wounds kill), Rune of Striking (+1 WS) and Rune of Might (Double Strength against targets with higher Toughness than Kazador). The Armour of the King of Karak Azul contains Master Rune of Adamant (+2 Save) and Rune of Resistance (re-roll save on 4+). And The Thunderhorn contains Master Rune of Dismay (once per battle, enemy mast pass Ld test to move).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1029.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1030.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Lovely model, lovely character, expensive but not prohibitively so – he could be a reasonable sized game and boy could he chop up monsters! Definitely worth painting up for my current Dwarf army, if I ever get time. The current trend in army books is to bring back old characters so who knows Warhammer Armies: Dwarfs – 8th Edition he could be there.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Sir John Butterfill, former MP for Bournemouth West
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Pretty straight forward, you could cost out his +1 Strength from appropriate runic items. Most of those runes he has exist in the current book, so go for your life. Or find the issue of White Dwarf that does it for you!
[/spoiler]
Monday 13th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Day 13 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar" – which I will shall announce in the style of The X Factor, "And the Special Character who has been chosen to be Day 13, in no particular order is ............................................................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................
......................................................:
[spoiler]
December 13th: Bertrand the Brigand
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog925.jpg)
Name: Bertrand the Brigand, Hugo le Petit and Gui le Gros.
Original Points Cost: 83 points (+1 extra point per Bowmen of Bergerac)
Background: Bertrand is a commoner who is looked upon like the scum of the earth by the Knights of Bretonnian, much like Cher Lloyd. That was until he single-handed slew the "Great Flapping Monster of Chateau Mal", I've been called similar when looking for my house keys, using only his longbow. He has picked up and abnormally fat and an abnormally tall friend, and a whole host of normal bodied friends.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Bretonnia – 5th Edition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog987.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Bretonnia – 5th Edition.
Special Rules: Bertrand le Brigand can reroll all rolls to hit with his longbow, and he has The Black Arrow – once per battle a shot with the arrow wounds automatically with no armour save except magic armour. Hugo le Petit's bow hits at Strength 5. Gui Le Gros can feed the unit wine once per battle, from then on the Bowmen of Bergerac are immune to panic, but suffer -1 to hit. The Bowmen of Bergerac may skirmish.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog994.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog996.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Nice set of models, don't take my word for it Gui Le Gros made the Citadel Hall of Fame in White Dwarf and has been re-released this month. At the time quite unique to have an upgrade for a basic unit, though something that seems to happen a bit more at present – what with the Beastmen having two unit upgrade special characters. Added some good variation to the Bretonnian army at the time.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: I'm sure I'm getting some kind of historical, legendary character, can't put my finger on it. Maybe Merlin and King Arthur?
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Yeah, pretty straight forward special rules for 5th edition, so should be pretty straight forward to move to 8th – not sure I'd ever use Gui's wine though, archers that can't hit are no good!
[/spoiler]
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding though the glen...
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, and his band of friends (because we don't like to be sexist)...
Loved by the poor, feared by the rich. Bertrand le Brigand, Bertrand le Brigand, Bertrand le Brigand.
Ahh GW we so love your crossover characters.
That's it! I knew they reminded me of someone!
I so want that fat man, tempted now that GW have re-released him....
Quote from: fatolaf on December 13, 2010, 01:01:09 pm
I so want that fat man....
there's a joke there somewhere!
Quote from: maelzch on December 13, 2010, 01:45:27 pm
there's a joke there somewhere!
Shame you're comedically challenged otherwise one can only assume we'd have been in for a belly laughing, side splitting few minutes.
Sigh... we'll have to think with sorrow on what might have been.
Quote from: maelzch on December 13, 2010, 01:45:27 pm
there's a joke there somewhere!
And fully intended when written....Blooming smut merchants the lot of you... :wink;m::
I feel this serious blog has been corrupted into a work of comedy nonsense. How rude!
Quote from: cunningmatt on November 22, 2010, 12:04:33 am
Sunday 21st November
Caron Keating's career hasn't gone that far, but in fairness you can't blame her for that. !
Says the man who posted this..... :cool3:
Quote from: fatolaf on December 13, 2010, 02:52:04 pm
And fully intended when written....Blooming smut merchants the lot of you... :wink;m::
Misread that as "Smurf merchants" originally... now that really would have been going too far!!!
Quote from: fatolaf on December 13, 2010, 03:10:01 pm
Says the man who posted this..... :cool3:
It's a fair cop.
Tuesday 14th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Forgive me if I sound bleary-eyed in this post, it was the work Christmas party yesterday, and someone had to show those kids how to throw some shapes on the dance floor. Ouch! Here's Day 14 in "The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar":
[spoiler]
December 14th: Plaguestrangler Vilestench
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog955.jpg)
Name: Plaguestrangler Vilestench, Champion of Nurgle.
Original Points Cost: 525 points
Background: Plaguestrangler single handedly defeated over three score of High Elves in combat, destroyed the city of Averheim in a day, and infected the town of L'anguille with Black Fever – and you thought Julian Assange had been a naughty boy. The last feet led to Nurgle rewarding him with a Palanquin of Nurgle – better than a book token. Additionally like most teenagers he has not washed since he was 12.
Original Appearance: Citadel Journal Issue 12.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1085.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1089.jpg)
Last Appearance: Citadel Journal Issue 12. Did anyone read this?
Special Rules: Any enemy in base-to-base with Plaguestrangler must roll a D6 on a roll of 1 they are incapacitated by his smell and may not attack, they may only be attacked by the Palanquin's Nurglings that turn. The Palanquin causes Fear, may not march (for god's sake!), suffers Daemonic Animosity – remember that?! And all Nurgle units within 6" are immune to psychology and add one to their Ld for all break tests. The Plague Sceptre may be used to cast a magic spell Black Fever – the target takes D6 S4 hits, if the spell is not dispelled by next turn it takes 2D6 S4 hits and so on, any unit entering base contact with the target also contracts Black Fever.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1087.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1090.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: The initial fun of having a Nurgle special character for my Chaos army (as there were none at the time) and a special model not everyone knew about was short lived when I realised at Movement 4 and no march move chance are he won't ever cross the battlefield – pointless for Chaos and at 525 points a big waste.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: The smelly man I had to sit next to on the Tube.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: There is a Palanquin of Nurgle in Warhammer Armies: Warriors of Chaos – 7th Edition, so yes, but this category is annoying me now and I can't be bothered!
[/spoiler]
Wow his stats are poo, but the mini is rather good (for an oldie!)
I love the older GW SC names, like this one, lets see how many woods or phrases we can cobble togther... :cool3:
I actually have Journal 12 kicking around somewhere! Nice stuff Matt.
Wednesday 15th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Sorry, we're a little late today (just made it before midnight), but I've been Christmas shopping and enjoying The Apprentice, great to see Margaret back, what a corker! – The show that is, not Margaret, though you have to love those eyebrows. Here's Day 15:
[spoiler]
December 15th: Prince Imrik
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1065.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1067.jpg)
Name: Prince Imrik, Lord of the Dragons.
Original Points Cost: 4th Edition: 229 Points (+450/600/750 points for Dragon of various levels), 5th Edition: 275 Points (+450/600/750 points for Dragon of various levels), 6th Edition: 335 points plus 340 for Dragon. – He's more complicated to price up than your car insurance!
Background: Prince Imrik is the last descendant of the Phoenix King Caledor, and is planning a royal wedding in the Spring, which means every High Elf gets a bank holiday – result! Imrik amongst others is able to raise the Dragons of Caledor back from their teenage-student-esque slumber, without getting shouted at.
Original Appearance: Not, Warhammer Armies: High Elves – 4th Edition as you may expect...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1039.jpg)
...he was absent from this book, but he first appeared in White Dwarf 178 where the model and rules were first released.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1063.jpg)
He finally made it into a book in Warhammer Armies: High Elves - 5th Edition:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1001.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: High Elves – 6th Edition:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1074.jpg)
But like Cher Lloyd he was pipped at the last post and failed to make High Elves – 7th Edition:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1321.jpg)
And there for no reason I have included a picture of every single High Elf book – BINGO for those of you playing army book spotter!
Yes Imrik was cruelly dropped like a kitten over a bridge in a plastic ASDA bag, the life brutally crushed from it, in act of utter barbarism. At this time of giving can you spare some cash to help a Special Character sadly dropped from the latest army book, just five pounds a month will buy them an article in White Dwarf. Sorry I don't know where I was for a minute there!
Special Rules: A growing number, in the 4th edition he had none just the new magic item the Star Lance, +3 Strength and no armour saves on the charge.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1072.jpg)
In the 5th Edition the Star Lance became available to all, but he got two new exclusive items the Dragonhorn, once per battle his Dragon gets D6 extra Attacks in that round of hand-to-hand combat. Armour of Caledor, 2+ Armour save, which can never be worse than 5+ immune to all Dragon breath weapons. In the 6th edition, his dragon became named Minaithnir – an important detail and the rules grew: Star Lance remained the same, Armour of Caledor gives a 2+ Armour save and normal Dragon Armour rules, Dragonhorn, once per battle for that turn all friendly High Elf units may reroll failed psychology tests. And some special rules came to: Dragonkin – No enemy Dragons will fight Imrik. Minaithnir – if Imrik is slain, Minaitnir becomes frenzied but remains under control of the High Elves. Good job he's not in 7th edition the rules would be far too long.
My Memories of the Character: When I started playing Warhammer this was the first Dragon model, let alone Dragon model special character, that was available. Pretty soon loads of armies gained them, but initially it was just him, up until then we had to make do with Eltharon on his Griffon and an Orc Shaman on his Wyvern, and being a Dragon he could kick everyone else's arse (as we always took an Emperor Dragon – why wouldn't you!). Also we felt quite privileged because if you didn't have White Dwarf 178 you couldn't play along with Imrik!
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Harry Enfield, only because of that metaphor I came up with about getting students out of bed, and I keep thinking of his Kevin character.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Well there's still a model available for him, and a new one at that (not as good as the original one I think, but what do I know?):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1324.jpg)
And all his magic items are available in the High Elf book, so there done straight forward.
[/spoiler]
P.S. Thanks for all your suggestions for characters for the Advent Calendar, those that haven't appeared will shortly. However I'm now full until Christmas so please no more, with the exception that if you have any Skaven suggestions I will make room for them. Turns out every character in the 4th and 6th edition book is in the 7th edition, which makes this rather tricky!
Oh bugger, just realised I was 2 minutes late on this post - sorry I feel I've let you all down :cry:
Thursday 16th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Right I'll try and be on time today, here's Day 16's Special Character and I think someone in the group may approve – that's all I'm saying – though there's not much suspense as all you have to do is open the spoiler to find out:
[spoiler]
December 16th: Astrogoth
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1379.jpg)
Name: Astrogoth, High Priest of Hashut (or technically High Priestof Hashut as the typo in the book says!)
Original Points Cost: 358 points
Background: Astrogoth is the oldest living Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer, so old his body has started to turn to stone – that common aging problem you can't get sorted on the NHS. However his body has been replace by a mechanical construct made by his slaves, what everyone wants for Christmas.
Original Appearance: White Dwarf Presents: Warhammer Armies: Chaos Dwarfs – 4th Edition, which for those of you too young to remember (god I hate you) was a compilation of a series of White Dwarf articles.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1347.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Chaos Dwarfs – 4th Edition.
Special Rules: Astrogoth is a Level 4 Sorcerer with four Chaos Dwarf spells (remember them people – lava and magma and stuff). His mechanical body gives him a 3+ armour save but means he can't ride a monster. Astrogoth cannot move faster than his move of 6" to either march or charge (except to flee or pursue) – well you wouldn't want a Dwarf moving faster than 6" with you. If all three of Astrogoth's Attacks hit the same target, he can immediately strike all the blows again against the same target.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1331.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1333.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Think this was the only Chaos Dwarf special character model, queue everyone desperately replies to correct me. And as one of my regular opponents of the time, it was nice to have some characterful creatures in the army, and someone slower than the blasted Bull Centaur and Lammasu chasing me round the board!
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Bruce Forsyth he's old, and has all the personality of an artificial, mechanical robot – oh no sorry that's Tess Daly I'm thinking off!
Inclusion in 8th Edition: I could, but I'd need to make up rules for a whole army to go with it, and I have better things to do with my time – it may not appear that way but I do. But you never know what will come out of Forgeworld next year, who knows you may be able to pick up a new Astrogoth model for a mere £250 in the summer?
Many thanks to Mr Shaky Shaky, my Wood Elf painting friend from earlier in this blog, for lending me the book and providing the photograph of Astrogoth.
[/spoiler]
Good work Mat, I was gonna start an angry rant about people not doing things on time when I have payed nothing for it in the first place and its all for love of the game. But then I realised this isn't a tourney comp thread... :))
I think I can happily state that I have never once in 15 years played a Chaos Dwarf army... silly little buggers.
As for Imrik, my favourite Helf Special Character, I think he was pretty much the red headed step child of the Helf characters. I mean all his magic items are just given to any Helf character who wants them. No special magic items for you!!
@matt - I approve of today's character! The character was included in the fan-made Indy GT Dwafs of Chaos book too.
@james - we'll have to amend you not having played the chaos dwarfs before!
Quote from: Meals on December 16, 2010, 10:27:22 am
I was gonna start an angry rant about people not doing things on time when I have payed nothing for it in the first place and its all for love of the game. But then I realised this isn't a tourney comp thread... :))
Bloody hell I was only two minutes late, I wouldn't have even been late if I was a train! :wink;m::
Quote from: Meals on December 16, 2010, 10:27:22 am
As for Imrik, my favourite Helf Special Character, I think he was pretty much the red headed step child of the Helf characters. I mean all his magic items are just given to any Helf character who wants them. No special magic items for you!!
I'm a big fan too, think he may end up in my High Elf Army - although at 200 points a month might be sometime in 2016. Hmmm.
Quote from: maelzch on December 16, 2010, 10:36:55 am
@matt - I approve of today's character! The character was included in the fan-made Indy GT Dwafs of Chaos book too.
Thought you'd approve! Unofficial rules! In this blog, how dare you, I have integrity here to preserve! Can't you tell! :thumbsup:
Bloody evil stunty bastards................... :bash;m:
:cool3:
QuoteMany thanks to Mr Shaky Shaky, my Wood Elf painting friend from earlier in this blog, for lending me the book and providing the photograph of Astrogoth.
I felt the need to register on the forum just to protest at the constant references to a "Mr Shaky Shaky".
<Protest!!>
There we go...
and also to comment on how hilarious Matt's blog is, as always. I was tempted to take some pictures of the old special characters that came from the 5th (?) edition boxed set where GW couldn't afford the plastic minatures and you had to resort to their cardboard pictures..
I am hoping to come with Matt to one of your gaming nights (just to watch him lose spectacularly!), and I think if Santa is kind I may well have a new army that I can paint (hopefully more successfully than the incredibly slow rate I have been doing my Wood Elf army!) and write a fascinating blog on the life and times of Mr Shaky Shaky...!
Rup
Quote from: Meals on December 16, 2010, 10:27:22 amI think I can happily state that I have never once in 15 years played a Chaos Dwarf army... silly little buggers.
I've played them twice. Once at the ETC clash of the gash and once at the ETC 6 nations practice tournament. Both times they came out as spectacular draws. Though in the clash of the gash it took a bit of work to pull it back as he had a 3 shot to 1 lead for most of the game as his stuff moved faster and I only got parity of the drinks in the last turn (oh and we drew on vps too).
Quote from: shakyrup on December 16, 2010, 01:31:43 pm
I felt the need to register on the forum just to protest at the constant references to a "Mr Shaky Shaky".
<Protest!!>
Hey Mr Shaky Shaky has joined the forum! :thumbsup: That's not his real name, I'll get in trouble now, it's just he used to be a bit shaky when painting, but I've got some pictures of his Wood Elves and they look very good! Glad to have you on board.
Quote from: shakyrup on December 16, 2010, 01:31:43 pm
I was tempted to take some pictures of the old special characters that came from the 5th (?) edition boxed set where GW couldn't afford the plastic minatures and you had to resort to their cardboard pictures..
Ahh the card Eltharion and card Grom the Paunch, I think there was a card Bolt Thrower, Rock Lobba and Orc Shaman on Wyvern too - scary as they were. Sadly both characters are still in existence otherwise they'd definitely make the Advent Calendar.
Quote from: shakyrup on December 16, 2010, 01:31:43 pm
And also to comment on how hilarious Matt's blog is, as always.
There's what a good bribe will get you.
Quote from: shakyrup on December 16, 2010, 01:31:43 pm
I am hoping to come with Matt to one of your gaming nights (just to watch him lose spectacularly!)
First of all, as I think everyone on this forum will tell you I'm an amazing Warhammer player and have let to lose a game at OG so far. :blush: Perhaps I exaggerate slightly.
Secondly you will have to come down to the gaming night, as I think people suspect I invented you in the blog as a work of fiction (like the resident 4 year old artist), so now it looks like I've created a fictious log in and am having a conversation with myself. In fairness compared to a lot of this blog, this wouldn't be that bizarre.
Quote from: shakyrup on December 16, 2010, 01:31:43 pm
And I think if Santa is kind I may well have a new army that I can paint (hopefully more successfully than the incredibly slow rate I have been doing my Wood Elf army!) and write a fascinating blog on the life and times of Mr Shaky Shaky...!
Hmmm depends, I hear Santa's sick and tired of bloody wrapping up presents this year. Stupid things. Though you better not try and rival this blog, else there'll be trouble!!
Friday 17th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
This time next week it will be Christmas Eve, bloody hell, hope you're ready, done your shopping, wrapped your pressies, posted your cards, come up with 8 more characters for the calendar. So much to do, here's Door number 17:
[spoiler]
December 17th: Golgfag
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1353.jpg)
Name: Golgfag
Original Points Cost: 285 points in the 6th edition for Golgfag and three Ogres including Skalf the Standard Bearer and Unnamed the Horn Blower, but in the 5th edition you ask, twiddles thumbs, do-do-doo, don't have the book.
Background: Golgfag switched sides between the Orcs of Gnashrak Badtooth and the Dwarfs of Ungrim Ironfist in a fight, after a disagreement over payment and in fact fought his way out with Gnashrak's severed arm. The Ogre band became famous mercenaries fighting many battles with the Bretonnians, and Gnashrak even ate Skalf's leg after being imprisoned by the Dwarfs. He then went onto to a pop career releasing Halleluiah to be Christmas Number One and was team captain on Series 3 of Hole in the Wall – may have made that last bit up, don't have the book!
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Dogs of War – 5th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1075.jpg)
(and released in White Dwarf 226, where I got all the info from!)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1345.jpg)
Last Appearance: Updated rules in White Dwarf 252 for 6th Edition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1346.jpg)
Sadly they never made Warhammer Armies: Ogre Kingdoms
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1349.jpg)
Best I can do for an Ogre Kingdoms character I'm afraid, only one book means no one can be forgotten you see!
Special Rules: They caused Fear. That's it. Could be hired by anyone except the Bretonnians – those notoriously cheap Knights!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1350.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1351.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1342.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: None, never had Dogs of War or played when they were around. Heard of Ungrim Ironfist though, does that count?
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: The famous leg-eating Mitchell brother... I don't know, he doesn't remind me of any one in real life he's an Ogre. Oh maybe Shrek! Love that film, and 2, but not 3 not so good.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Yes very complex special rules - they'd cause Fear.
[/spoiler]
P.S. I'm off to panto tonight "Oh no you're not" I hear you cry, well you're wrong I am off to panto tonight on overnight trip to Basildon – could it be more showbiz? So tomorrow's Advent Calendar will be a little late, sorry in advance!
I can dig out the 5th edition DoW book to let you know the points if you want.
Golgfag was mentioned in the Ogre Kingdoms book, and I think he was a character back in 4th edition too
Quote from: cunningmatt on December 16, 2010, 03:50:43 pm
so now it looks like I've created a fictious log in and am having a conversation with myself.
Thats what I first suspected... :wink;m::
Quote from: fatolaf on December 17, 2010, 02:50:23 pm
Thats what I first suspected... :wink;m::
No it's not I'm a genuine friend of Matt - s**t wrong log in!
Saturday 18th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Here's Day 18, sorry nothing funny to say today:
[spoiler]
December 18th: Egrimm Van Horstmann
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog967.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog969.jpg)
Possibly need to do some minor repair work on this model.
Name: Egrimm Van Horstmann, Dark Sorcerer of Chaos
Original Points Cost: 1,121 points in 4th edition – possibly the most expensive character of the time, even more so in 5th edition as climbed to 1,146 points.
Background: Egrimm Van Horstmann became Grand Master of the Order of Light, pleasing his parents deeply (though his uncle wanted him to be a doctor), but little did they know he was planning evil. Whilst he served the Order of Light he worked corruption and unlocked many evil things like Piers Morgan. Eventually he was uncovered by the Grand Theogonist and the Inquisitors of Sigmar, just in time as they were dancing on the final of Strictly Come Dancing. Egrimm escaped after unlocking the Chaos Dragon Baudros from the Pyramid of Light. With his corrupted Acolytes of Light formed the Cabal one of the mightiest Tzeentch warbands and a terror of Croydon library.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Chaos – 4th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1009.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Champions of Chaos (supplement to Warhammer Armies: Chaos – 5th Edition)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1042.jpg)
However he is mentioned in both the 6th and 7th edition books.
Special Rules: In 4th Edition none, he was equipped with standard magic items that were available to all: Chaos Armour, Chaos Runeblade, Chaos Familiar and Skull of Katam. With Mark of Tzeentch, Level 4 Wizard and mounted on a massive Chaos Dragon.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1501.jpg)
In 5th edition he gained his own special rule Power of the Mind, for all Ld based tests rolls on 3D6 discarding the highest result. And as Chaos Armour became standard equipment in the 5th edition his items were slightly tweaked to be: Chaos Runesword (no armour save, except magic armour, each wound causes D3 Wounds), Chaos Familiar (each player turn Egrimm may add or subtract 1 to any dice roll – declared before roll), Cunning of Tzeentch (Chaos player can always choose to go first, any one Chaos unit can be deployed after all other units have deployed in own deployment zone), Skull of Katam (Egrimm may cast spell with one less power card than normal, however each time he uses the Skull takes a Ld test, if passed Ld is reduced by 1, if failed turns insane and is killed).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1496.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1498.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1500.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Lovely character, lovely model, when I played 4th edition our games were dominated by High Elf dragons so Egrimm gave the Forces of Destruction a chance to fight back. Was a bugger to keep in one piece, as I didn't know how to pin at the time! Don't think I'd ever risk the Skull of Katam thought 1,146 points gambled on a Ld test – no thanks!
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Lucas North in Spooks, no one suspected he was a traitor either.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Level 4 Tzeentch Sorcerer on Chaos Dragon is easy to create, the Power of the Mind rule could probably stay at +20 points. Chaos Runesword and Skull of Katam exist in the 7th edition book, with different rules, but would use all the magic items allowance! Cunning of Tzeentch could still be used, I reckon +25 points and the Chaos Familiar could be swapped for one of the others.
[/spoiler]
Sunday 19th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Just 6 sleeps til Christmas, scared yet?! You should be, some man's going to come down your chimney and empty his sack in your bedroom. Sorry I've gone all Graham Norton I do apologise.
Thanks to James, aka Meals, who suggested today's choice (so blame him if you don't like it!). Here's Day 19:
[spoiler]
December 19th: Ariel
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1360.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1357.jpg)
Name: Ariel, Queen of Athel Loren
Original Points Cost: 600 points (suggested rules for 6th edition – see below).
Background: Ariel is the Queen of Athel Loren and once starred in the Disney film The Little Mermaid. She has been embodied with the power of the Elven god Isha, god of Nature. She makes the whole of Athel Loren grow, like Alan Titchmarsh and Monty Don combined, and of course is married to Orion, King of Athel Loren. When roused for battle she takes the form of a giant insect with moth-like wings and antenna springing from her, in this state she's often been mistaken for Lady Gaga.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Wood Elves – 4th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1370.jpg)
Ok sorry I haven't got the 4th edition Wood Elves book I had to take this picture from White Dwarf 197
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1368.jpg)
Though I did find this which did make me laugh, for some unknown reason!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1369.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Wood Elves – 4th Edition, her husband did make the next book, but she didn't though she is mentioned throughout the 6th Edition book.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1373.jpg)
Special Rules: I have a confession I didn't have the 4th Edition book, so I don't know the rules, thankfully James supplied me with the rules from the Games Workshop website to convert them into 6th Edition. She Flies, is a Forest Spirit and causes Terror. She can move through all forms of Difficult Terrain without penalty, all friendly units within 6" are immune to panic, any unit charging Ariel counts as moving through Difficult Terrain, additional should Ariel flee pursuing units roll an extra D6 and discard the highest result. Magic Item – The Heartstone of Athel Loren (Magic Resistance 2, if the spell is dispelled then the casting wizard takes a Ld test – if they fail they lose a magic level and can't cast that spell again).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1503.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1504.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Sorry didn't know any Wood Elf players, can't help you. Looked a nice model though!
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Charlie Dimmock, but with a bra.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Well the 6th edition inclusion almost does it, need a couple of changes. Ariel automatically passes all Dangerous Terrain tests and all units charging must take a Dangerous Terrain test. The magic item could stay the same, but if Ariel passes the 5+ ward save against any spell taken, then the casting wizard takes the Ld test as described. What do you reckon?
[/spoiler]
Fear the Butterfly of DOOOOOOM! >:D:-)
Her model has to be up there with Nagash as one the worst made so far
Hehe, you can understand why GW pretend that no model has ever been made :D
Didn't even know there was a 4th edition Wood Elf book!
Ahhh, the glory days of Goblin Green bases and no Static grass. How far we've come...
I think she could have an awesome model if they bring her back, but I found an awesome alternative here http://www.ragingheroes.com/collections/complete-collection/products/syl-iriah-spirit-of-the-woods-legendary-version (http://www.ragingheroes.com/collections/complete-collection/products/syl-iriah-spirit-of-the-woods-legendary-version)
Quote from: fatolaf on December 19, 2010, 01:08:03 pm
Her model has to be up there with Nagash as one the worst made so far
Maybe we should have a series of awards for all the Advent Calendar Special Characters?
Quote from: Undead Dan on December 19, 2010, 07:04:40 pm
Didn't even know there was a 4th edition Wood Elf book!
Came out about 3 months before the 5th Edition of Warhammer, out of date almost as soon as it arrived.
Quote from: Meals on December 19, 2010, 08:02:03 pm
Ahhh, the glory days of Goblin Green bases and no Static grass. How far we've come...
I still base my Dwarfs this way, how I hark for simpler times!
Quote from: Meals on December 19, 2010, 08:02:03 pm
I think she could have an awesome model if they bring her back, but I found an awesome alternative here http://www.ragingheroes.com/collections/complete-collection/products/syl-iriah-spirit-of-the-woods-legendary-version (http://www.ragingheroes.com/collections/complete-collection/products/syl-iriah-spirit-of-the-woods-legendary-version)
That one is stunning....
Quote from: fatolaf on December 19, 2010, 01:08:03 pm
Fear the Butterfly of DOOOOOOM! >:D:-)
Her model has to be up there with Nagash as one the worst made so far
The wings were quite nice, the rest of it not so much.
ps Matt, where is the dwarf special character or have I blindly overlooked it?
Quote from: Dave on December 20, 2010, 01:19:06 pm
ps Matt, where is the dwarf special character or have I blindly overlooked it?
December the 12th - everyone seemed to miss that one! Also December the 5th(ish) Dwarf / Dogs of War.
Sorry today's post is coming, but I'm riddled with flu. :thumbsdown:
Ah yeah, I remember now. I'll hide my disappointment that it wasn't Burlock and his bionic arm.
Monday 20th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Apologies for being a day late with this one, I've been struck down with flu, which is very annoying. So have spent most of the last few days marinating in my own sweat in bed – too much information? Sorry!
Here's Day 20:
[spoiler]
December 20th: Rakarth
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1377.jpg)
Thanks again to Mr Shakey Shakey for this photo of the model!
Name: Beastlord Rakarth of Karond Kar
Original Points Cost: 629 points (including Black Dragon)
Background: Rakarth's father was a mighty beastlord and attempted to break in an unruly Dark Steed Bracchus – the steed however bucked and threw him from his mount. Rakarth's father ordered the steed killed, but Rakarth being a big Black Beauty fan persuaded his father spare the beast if he could tame it. Rakarth fixed the steed with his stare, and his gone onto tame hundreds of creatures. He now rides a Black Dragon Bracchus in honour of the steed. Note in the blurb for the 6th edition, the Bracchus Rakarth's father failed to tame was a Black Dragon, not a Dark Steed – guess his dad beefed the story up over time as didn't sound that good!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1505.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1509.jpg)
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Dark Elves – 4th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1512.jpg)
It's another 4th edition book I haven't got, you've found me out. Army book is from White Dwarf 187:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1511.jpg)
And rules are from White Dwarf 189:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1510.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Dark Elves – 4th Edition, though there is background blurb in the 6th edition:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1514.jpg)
Remember when army books were £12?
Mentioned in the 7th edition too:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1513.jpg)
Special Rules: Has the following magic items: Whip of Agony (Before any side strikes in hand-to-hand Rakarth makes on attack with Whip, if strikes enemy must pass a Ld test to make any attacks back. Ridden monsters must use own Leadership), Enchanted Shield (adds +2 to armour save, though may not be increased beyond 1+), Armour of Fortune (5+ Armour save, if failed, may immediately retake Armour Save on an unmodified 5+). Special rules, in addition to hating High Elves. Rakarth has a Beastlord special rule, any monsters Rakarth beats or draws with in hand-to-hand combat switch to the Dark Elf side. This lasts until Rakarth is killed. Ridden monsters may only be broken by Rakarth if the character riding them has been killed.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1507.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: I think this was the first character with the infamous plastic wings, that almost every ridden creature had for years to come. Nice model and gave Mr Shakey Shakey a powerful creature for me to shoot at with my Dwarven cannons.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: I only know one person who can control animals like Rakarth, it's Animal Hospital's Rolf Harris come on everyone sing along: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMWSh6kZxGc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMWSh6kZxGc)
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Technically all of Rakarth's magic items exist, in the current edition: The Whip of Agony in the Dark Elf book even mentions him as the owner (Armour piercing, always strikes at Strength 5 can never be modified). The Armour of Fortune (5+ Ward Save) and Enchanted Shield (adds +2 to armour save) exist in the common magic items in the 8th edition rule book. Though Rakarth technically can't take both, as they are both Magic armour. Tut tut. Rakarth's Beastmaster rule could probably be transferred over affecting Monstrous Beasts and Monsters only. Monstrous Cavalry are always ridden, so unaffected and I think would be a bit too much if entire Monstrous Infantry units switched sides. I think would be valued at +50 points – plucking a number from thin air entirely. What do you reckon, too powerful?
[/spoiler]
Tuesday 21st December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
Yes it's double bubble today, because of the flu. You'll be pleased to know I'm feeling a bit better because of my Day & Night Nurse flu drugs, though interestingly many of the potential side affects of the drugs are the same as the symptoms of flu itself, that the drug is supposed to relieve – how would I know if I have the side affects or the drug just isn't working? Maybe someone cunningly listed this as side effects because the drug simply doesn't work? Hmmmm. It's too much to ponder for a flu-ravaged mind here's Day 21, which is another suggestion from James, many thanks:
[spoiler]
December 21th: Alarielle
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1519.jpg)
Name: Alarielle, Everqueen of Averlorn
Original Points Cost: 475 points (plus 16 points per Handmaiden)
Background: Alarielle is the current Everqueen of Averlorn, co-ruler of all Ulthuan. She is so in touch with nature that birds fly to her, life springs from the ground and even her pot plants don't die on her. During the latest Chaos invasion she was hidden from Dark Elf and Chaos attackers by Tyrion until the battle of Finuvial Plain where the tide was turned.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: High Elves – 5th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1001.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: High Elves – 5th Edition, though the Everqueen is mentioned throughout all the books.
Special Rules: Lots! Level 4 Mage. The Boon of Isha: Any one unit within 12" of the Everqueen may add 1 to all it's dice rolls to hit in the shooting phase. Similarly any one unit within 12" may add 1 to all it's dice rolls to hit in the combat phase (including enemy turn). The Chaos Bane: At the start of close combat phase all Daemon models within 6" of the Everqueen take a wound on a 4+ - wounds count towards combat resolution. Roll a dice for each Chaos Reward or Magic items on the Chaos side within 6" of Everqueen at start of close combat phase on a 1 item is destroyed, 2 to 3 item doesn't work for the close combat phase. The Everqueen has 1 Attack at WS 10 should this strike the enemy is not wounded but cannot fight back this turn (applies to whole model for chariots/ridden monsters). She carries the following magic items: Star of Averlorn (May heal wounds on any friendly character within 12" roll a D6 for each wound recovered on a 4+ - may only be used on Everqueen if there are no other valid targets), Shieldstone of Isha (Araielle and Maidens if she accompanies them, get a "what we would call a ward save" on a 4+), Stave of Averlorn (deal 3 cards to the Stave from whatever deck Araielle draws from, player can keep any or none in the Stave, spell can be cast from the Stave at no power cards, but then leaves the Stave once cast. Can either be discard or Araielle can keep the spell and discard one of her own spells).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1515.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1526.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1528.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1529.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: None, sorry stopped playing High Elves around 5th edition.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: The Angels from Captain Scarlett.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Now it's not like me to not work out how to include these characters in 8th edition, I never shirk my responsibilities, but I am ill and that's a lot of special rules – am I getting any sympathy?
[/spoiler]
Wednesday 22nd December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar
We're almost back on form, almost, still feel a bit ruff but Day & Night Nurse is a wonderful drug! Before we get on to Day 22, I added a few more pics to Day 21, which I forgot I'd taken sorry about that. And here's a special treat for Dave:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog931.jpg)
Sorry Dave, it's not him behind Door 22 of The Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar, instead it's <DRUMROLL PLEASE> this person:
[spoiler]
December 22nd: Inxi Huinzi
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1537.jpg)
Name: Inxi Huinzi
Original Points Cost: 85 points – cheap as chips
Background: Inxi-Huinzi came to fame for fighting back the Norse of Skeggi, who formed a colony on Lustria, and for being worth loads of points in Scrabble – which we all know the Slann love to play. Inxi-Huinzi and his Cold One raids were unable to drive the Norse from Lustria but have significantly halted their expansion and holed their longships preventing them sailing up and down the rivers of Lustria to pillage the gold of the Slann.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Lizardmen – 5th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1536.jpg)
Thanks again to Mr Shakey Shakey, this time for loan of his Lizardmen book!
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Lizardmen – 5th Edition, I'm sure he's mentioned in the blurb in the 6th edition, but it's been a long time since I've read it, so couldn't tell you!:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1533.jpg)
Special Rules: 2+ Save, which never becomes worse than 6+, rides a Horned One – special breed of Cold One, Cold Blooded. Inxi-Huinzi has a number of Poisoned darts he can throw as he charges or is charged. He can throw one dart for each full 4" of charge distance (flyers count as charging from 16"), there is no penalty for long range. Roll to hit using Inxi's BS all hits wound on 4+ due to poison. All casualties count for combat resolution. Inxi-Huinzi cannot throw darts in the Shooting Phase. Inxi-Huinzi rides a Horned One, an almost extinct breed of Cold One, the Horned One is immune to stupidity (as are any Cold Ones in the unit it joins) and causes Fear.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1540.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: There was no model for it, and I never had Warhammer Armies: Lizardmen – 5th edition, and I'm old and forgetful. How would I remember.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Timmy Mallet, well #It's an Inzi-Huinzi, Itzi-Bitzi (another Lizardmen special character), Yellow Pokka Dot Bikini#. Follow this YouTube link at your peril: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77tirxSTAWU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77tirxSTAWU). Don't blame if that's in your head all day, I did warn you.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: I think all the rules work in the current edition, you might want to specify 16" as the maximum charge distance over which Inxi-Huinzi can fire darts, as now it's possible for cavalry to charge from beyond the range at which his darts are thrown (16" in the book). Points wise 85 seems good, he's not a very powerful character. Still no model for him, but I bet the keen amongst you could convert something by adding horns to a Cold One to make a Horned One. Go on give it a go over Christmas – ok don't then see if I care!
[/spoiler]
Aww you big tease. Still Incy Wincy is an acceptable substitute.
Quote from: cunningmatt on December 22, 2010, 09:37:31 am
Inxi HuinziMy Memories of the Character: There was no model for it
ah, but there was:
(http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii245/maelzch/OG%20Games/newimageuw4.jpg)
Well blimey oh riley, so there was!
Alarielle, Everqueen of Averlorn
I fought against this madam loads when I started playing wfb again in 6th ed, I think Ritchie has her..
All I remember was that she was nails..... :bash;m:
Quote from: fatolaf on December 22, 2010, 02:04:31 pm
Alarielle, Everqueen of Averlorn
I fought against this madam loads when I started playing wfb again in 6th ed, I think Ritchie has her..
All I remember was that she was nails..... :bash;m:
She seems particularly nasty if you are Daemons of Chaos, but I've always found this forum full of sympathy towards Daemons players.
I use her as my Herald of Tzeentch. The irony is delicious...
Her rules do look pretty bent, escpecially combined with 8th Ed Life Magic...
Wednesday 22nd December
Sorry, I've lured you in haven't I? You saw in the feed on the homepage a new post in the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves and thought "oh good a new Advent Calendar post, what special characters is it today?" and then were disappointed to see it was a regular lengthy ramble. Anywhere you're here now, so go on get yourself a coffee, a tea... or a vodka, sit down and have a read, and if you're Ol put down whatever you're eating. Stop Ol, seriously I mean it, finish chewing, I'm filling to give you chance to fully digest that last mouthful so it doesn't end up sprayed over your computer screen. Just another moment. Gone yet Ol? Nearly. Good. Now onto business.
High Elves
What with flu, advent calendars and getting ready for Christmas, it's been a little while since I've blogged, so there's a lot to tell you. Where shall I start? Well I suppose it would be prudent to talk about the actual point of the whole blog, my growing High Elf army. Last blog entry I finished November's painting task so onto December, and after battling on the tabletop with my current 600 points I realised that the slight downfall with my current army is that it can only muster Strength 4 at best – and that's only the Ellyrian Reavers on the charge. So I think I need some punch, a Repeater Bolt Thrower will do that, some nice Strength 6 bolts whizzing into the enemy "whizz", "ker-pow", "splat" "shish-kebab" and other such evocative sound effects come to mind, though I'll try to refrain from using them during a game. At 100 points, that leaves 100 points spare, so as we're in the Rare section I'll take two Great Eagles please, they're on the wish list too so double bonus. If you don't remember I am expanding an existing High Elf army, and want to add units I don't already have – I don't have any Great Eagles. This all sounds good, doesn't it? Slight issue is, it's Day 22 and that's as far as I've got. Oh dear.
I did buy a High Elf battalion of Ol, to get my hands on the Bolt Thrower (I want the other bits too). And has anyone notice the High Elf battalion's had a sneaky remix out with the Silver Helms, and in with a Chariot, 4 more Archers and 4 more Spearmen. Although it's gone up by £5 it's actually better value for money (against purchasing the parts separately) and 20 Spearmen/Archers is a much more useful number than 16.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1559.jpg)
And as you can see I haven't got distracted by my Beastmen army at all. Cough cough.
Beastmen
Speaking of which, Beastmen that is, many months ago, in a different thread, on a different blog, on a different army, in a distant galaxy far, far away (but not on a different forum), Andy aka Blue Moon asked to see my whole Beastmen army in one photo. I hope he wasn't holding his breath else he will have died of asphyxiation by now, but in case you're still with us Andy here you go:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1254.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1260.jpg)
Sorry not very good at photographing whole armies, but at least you get to see my desk fan and iPod earphones – I knew you'd be excited. Anyway I'm pleased because apart from the Giant and Chaos Hounds I painted all this since February! I know I surprised myself, I really do have an empty meaningless life – shit isn't it?
What's In the Box? - November Results
Talking of things from a while ago, in November we had the latest round of What's In the Box? the high energy game show element of this blog. All the entries were placed in the Shakeaway cup as always and Cheryl drew out this month's winner which was Box Number 6 (as voted on Page 7 of this blog – god haven't I rambled this month!). Well done Dave your Perfect Number picking was indeed Perfect, sadly you've won nothing. And also you've drawn a duff box, because rather than picking out some lovely old classic models, you've got a box full of staff I've painted. Sorry to disappoint, but it is a genuine game. Either way here's the contents of Box 6:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1127.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1128.jpg)
The most important thing this picture will tell you is that I really need to vacuum my carpet, sorry about that, it will get done.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1130.jpg)
Here's a Dwarf Dragon Slayer model, from way back when, but still available now – the sign of a good model if you ask me.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1137.jpg)
The slightly more up to date Dwarf Lord on Oath Stone – doesn't he look smug, must be because he's an inch taller than the other Dwarfs.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1141.jpg)
A personal favourite of mine the Dwarf Runesmith, love those funky gloves!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1143.jpg)
I managed to get my hands on some of the old Dwarf Engineers, who now regularly accompany my Bolt Throwers to battle, that extra BS point is worth 15 points. The close-eyed amongst you will have noticed I've done a little bit of detailing on the base with the spare bits from the Dwarf Cannon / Organ Gun set. The very close-eyed amongst you will notice some suspicious looking hairs on the carpet, they're almost certainly not pubic, I think. Sorry probably shouldn't have brought that to your attention. So anyway another photo... move on, move on...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1145.jpg)
Another Engineer, don't mention the curly hair on the floor next to it, just don't mention it Matt and you'll get away with it. Thank goodness I don't have that condition where you blindly write down your innermost thoughts, eh?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1149.jpg)
The Dwarf Grudge Thrower, love this model looks really good.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1150.jpg)
Classic Dwarf Cannon, without crew, they must be in another box – who knows maybe you'll get lucky and find them next time.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1155.jpg)
And another crewless Cannon, but this one from the Battle for Skull Pass box set – remember that? How quickly you forget. Funny how all the Warhammer starter sets have such gruesome names "Warhammer: Battle of Skull Pass", "Warhammer: Island of Blood", here's my suggestion for next time "Warhammer: Adventure in the Forget-me-not Fields", or how about "Warhammer: Non Violent Argument over who gets the Last After Eight Mint" – I'd buy it.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1157.jpg)
Classic Flame Cannon, again without crew, love this model – even it does show the Dwarfs uncharacteristically using wood. Regular opponents of my Dwarf army may remember I've stuck with the cannon time and again, even though it rarely shoots any bloody thing!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1160.jpg)
My first ever painted Dwarf character, with ornamental moustache, I think I want one for Christmas - an ornamental moustache that is, already got the model.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1165.jpg)
A pair of unmanned Bolt Throwers, bloody Dark Riders usually cause this in the game. The shits.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1168.jpg)
The much feared Dwarf Organ Gun, which rolls a suspiciously high number of 10s to hit when firing at Chaos Knights – mooo hahaha! (That's officially how an evil laugh is written down). Yes I know I need to fix one of the barrels, slight falling-book-off-shelf-above-displayed-army incident there.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1173.jpg)
A lovely out of focus Master Engineer there, you can tell he's a Master Engineer as he's vacuumed the carpet around him of suspicious looking hairs, unlike those Engineers.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1178.jpg)
A Dragon Slayer from Battle for Skull Pass, not as good as the metal one in my opinion, but hey worth painting.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1179.jpg)
Out of focus Thane from the same box set. When I say "out of focus" that's a description of the picture, not some special rules you haven't seen in the Dwarf book.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1181.jpg)
Lovely Battle Standard Bearer model, love his raised finger beckoning the enemy to dare charge him, little do they know he has the Rune of Slowness on – so you'll fail your charge and then he'll charge you and smack you round the face with his banner poll!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1184.jpg)
And finally the great Daemon slayer model, still available even though it came out during 4th edition – some models are that good though.
So that's it from What's In the Box? for this month, and this year sadly. Ahhhhh. I know you're sad. But don't worry it will return, I'll have run out of things to do once the Advent Calendar's done!
Panto
Before I move on, many of you have been PMing me to find out how my trip to panto went... ok none of you have, but I'm sure it's not that you don't care, you're just very busy people aren't you? Yes that's right. So anyway here's the highlights of that.
I went to panto in Basildon, to cut a tedious story short, one of the actors I work with put on the show, so I got free tickets. Anyway worth going to see, it's full of filthy innuendo so judging by an average night at the club I'm sure you'll love it. But that's not the main part of the story.
Afterwards we decided to go onto a club in Basildon, unfortunately we possibly chose the crapest club in all of Basildon (I know that's possibly not saying much, but bare with whilst I explain). Inside the club it appeared to be Minger Night, either that or we'd gate-crashed the Lidl Staff Christmas Party! I mean we were by far the most attractive people there, and I'm not being egotistical, I don't consider myself attractive at all, but by god these people were ugly. They made the average night at OG Games look like a Mr Universe competition (that may seem harsh guys but I count myself in this and you know it's true!). Additionally there were an extremely large number of people on crutches, nothing wrong with this of course, but I was worried there'd been a terrible disaster in Basildon earlier in the week that I'd missed. The DJ was rather interesting; on many occasions they had budget version of current tracks Hot n' Cold, for example, not by Katy Perry but by some random women - sort of a tin pot version you'd get on a cheap computer game. Very odd. Also he was unable to mix tracks, one track would stop, there'd be a short pause and then he'd play the next track – skilful, almost like me with a CD player. And often DJs would mute tracks in the middle of an iconic part to encourage the dance floor to sing the missing lines, our DJ would do this – except that he'd mute random lines in the fourth verse of songs, that weren't even the original mix, so generally these silences were greeted with further silence from the six people on the dance floor. That's the kind of atmosphere I want. Mind you the DJ did have a T-shirt on proudly displaying the C-word, and I'm not talking Conservative – so I suppose it wasn't false advertising. Lastly there were the toilets, I use the word very loosely, they certainly were a shithole. Four mixed sex cubicles, literally swimming in piss. It's saying something about the toilets when I thought would be less unpleasant to simply urinate in my pants rather than go to those toilets – I didn't for the record but I was tempted. Thank god I didn't need a number 2, or I'd have had to have gone home. Still it was Basildon so it was cheap, got drunk and a taxi back to the hotel, with a McDonalds at 3am for a tenner. Brilliant!
And the randomness didn't stop there, we spent the night at a Holiday Inn, which was very nice. Though I was woken up to the fire alarm at 9.30am – not good, but there was a genuine emergency as a hot water pipe had burst in the hotel and was flooding the kitchen. So stood in my pyjamas and coat, out in the car park I met my friend from the panto, who introduced me to one of his friends and fellow hotel guest – Chris Rogers the BBC News presenter. Don't know if you remember him he's presented for most news channels, but I remember him most from Newsround (when I was a kid anyway) and also as the newscaster on Channel 4's abortive breakfast show RI:SE. So there you go that was my random moment of the week meeting Chris Rogers in my pyjamas. If this happens more regularly I might introduce a feature entitled "Who's Matt met in his PJs this week?", but I suspect it may be a short-lived feature.
Painting on the Move
Finally it's onto some painting I hear you cry! Well a few months ago (or about 400 pages of blogging ago depending on how you count), you'll remember I did a whistle stop photo tour of Orpington in Kent where I went painting. And you may also remember that on a separate occasion I visited new member of the site Mr Shakey Shakey (aka Rup) to do some painting with him (he is a real person ok, I've not made him up!). Anyway I went for another painting trip to Mr Shakey Shakey's house in Wilsden Green, so here's another whistle-stop photo tour of that day:
We start of at the grim location of Clapham Common London Underground station, here pictured in a drab winter surrounding:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1263.jpg)
Though just next door is the very festive Clapham Common Christmas tree, doesn't it look nice:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1265.jpg)
If only I was protesting about tuition fees, then I could burn it to the ground in festive joy.
And so we take a short journey on the tube, no photos here, as you're not allowed flash photography on the tube, and I'm a good boy. Sadly no tube journey is complete without incident, ever been there where you see an empty carriage on an otherwise packed tube? Result!! Loads of seats I'm not packing in the other carriages like a mug, you jump on through the doors, they close just behind you – and then as soon as they do you realise why that carriage has been deserted. Someone has done a chunder to end all chunders across the entire carriage, it looks like Jabba the Hut's exploded, or worse like that Vegetable soup you had at lunchtime. Not pleasant. Now the quandary, do you get off at the next stop and change carriage, even though all the others are packed? Or do you hold your nose, avert your gaze and look apologetically at all the other passengers at the later stops who get on and look disgusted at you when they see the vomit. As if it could possibly be me who'd done it?! Surely if I'd vomited up 700 gallons of pulped vegetables, I'd be on a heap on the floor somewhere in the middle, not standing daintily at the end of carriage looking away from it with aloof but charming expression on my face? I still don't know the answer to this quandary.
Another tube-based quandary. Why, oh why, do all the doors on trains on the London Underground have a "Door Open" button on them, even though all the doors automatically open at every stop? Is it just to confuse foreign people? Or do late at night, deep in the heart of Zone 29 do tube drivers get a bit picky and not let you out unless you push the button?
Quandaries aside, I soon arrived at Wilsden Green, as this photo proves without shadow of a doubt:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1266.jpg)
It also proves I can't spell Willesden Green, but there we go.
Here's the outside of the station, doesn't it look lovely and historic, complete with Christmas decorations, how nice:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1269.jpg)
And I know what you're saying "What are the highlights of Willesden Green Matt?", well curious reader there's a branch of everyone's favourite Estate Agents:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1270.jpg)
I've never heard anyone say a bad word about them. Oh and do you like they way I said "a branch of everyone's favourite Estate Agents" because there's a branch in the photo too, how funny!! He he he he he!... Oh come on it's Christmas you'll get worse jokes in your crackers. Tough crowd!
Some lovely recycling points and free newspaper collection facilities here:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1268.jpg)
But is The Polish Observer for people from Poland or an interesting magazine about spotting cleaning products? Sadly the stand is empty so I shall never know.
High quality fast food is available from the Chicken Cottage:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1271.jpg)
For some reason when I see this rather gourdy hoarding the building that first comes to mind isn't usually a cottage. Must be my crazy countryside ways.
And some important advice for everyone:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1272.jpg)
Please do, else my mum will be round with a load of black sacks and she's going to moan about it. I could do without that over Christmas lunch.
Once settled down at Mr Shakey Shakey's I got down to the important business:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1275.jpg)
That's right watching Have I Got News For You, p.s. you'll notice the shakey camerawork I think we know who is to blame!!! Incidentally anyone else seen Miranda on BBC Two, I genuinely found it very funny, but when I said this at work everyone said I was weird – opinions please. But be nice I'm very sensitive.
Painting corner was then established with everything I need to get some good quality painting done, in a festive environment:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1308.jpg)
Even complete with what every festive setting needs, and in fact the true meaning of Christmas, yes stupid Christmas cards:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1307.jpg)
Never have I seen a happier dog.
On with the painting, and rather than painting some High Elves for this month's blog I decided it was just the perfect time to paint up some more Beastmen:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1310.jpg)
I've not quite finished them, but here's Malagor the Dark Omen:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1296.jpg)
And Ghorros Warhoof, prolific shagger of Beastladies:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1300.jpg)
Well with teeth like that, admit it you'd be hard pressed to say no.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1305.jpg)
One day I'll do a stage-by-stage guide to Beastmen, but not today. Instead as Mr Shakey Shakey's been doing so well with his Wood Elves here's a few shots of his latest additions:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1312.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1313.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1316.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1318.jpg)
Good work, looking forward to seeing them on the battlefield soon.
Well that's nearly it for my blogging efforts this week, and in fact this year. But make sure you join me on Christmas Eve as there's still more doors left on the advent calendar (sorry I work in TV this is how we write goodbyes!) And with the best will in the world I'll try and blog something between Christmas and New Year, though I'm at home with family so I have no way of uploading photos – so you'll just have to believe me when I say I've painted 854 points worth of High Elves by the end of the month!
In the meantime safe journey for those of you travelling through the snow and ice, many thanks for reading and leaving comments – I genuinely am flattered by those of you who say you enjoy my posts (even if you are lying to my face, I don't mind it's the compliment that counts!). So from me and my resident 4-year old artist Merry Christmas and I hope you never see this annoying message in the New Year!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1383.jpg)
Oh and before I go here's a Step-by-Step guide you might find particularly useful, might even keep the missus off you back too, don't say I don't do you any favours:
Stage 1: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1433.jpg)
To start your wrapping, - to clarify I mean Christmas wrapping not Cher Lloyd wrapping, you'll need to assemble a few key tools, no Chaos Black or mixing palettes here, but some Christmas Wrapping Paper (if you can get wrapping paper with Lego men on like me so much the better, but I appreciate not everyone is as cool as me), Sticky Tape, Scissors, Gift Tags and maybe some Accessories.
Stage 2: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1430.jpg)
You'll also need some presents, if you haven't started yet then see my guide earlier in the month for Christmas shopping tips. Though personally I think you may have left it a tad late, and will need a large supply of illegal narcotics to get it done in time. For my example here is a DS game for my lovely Mother, from her list, so I'll know she'll like it. Fortunately this item is a cuboid (3D rectangle for those of you not so mathematically familiar) which makes the job very easy. At this point remember to remove any prices, particularly any labels which show you got it at a discount, or those sticky circles with a present simple in (we all know they mean 3 for 2 don't let anyone find out).
Stage 3: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1434.jpg)
Place the gift in the corner of the wrapping paper as shown above.
Stage 4: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1437.jpg)
Then rotate the object through 90 degrees about the edge farthest from the side edge of the paper, repeat this process until you have completed three full rotations and the object has rotated through 270 degrees.
Stage 5: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1438.jpg)
Make a small cut at the end of the object, you will notice you have now measured out a length of paper equal to the four sides of your cuboid.
Stage 6: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1439.jpg)
Replace the cuboid to it's original position, and repeat the above process, rotating along the edge of the paper. But this time rotate only once through 90 degrees before making your snip.
Stage 7: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1441.jpg)
Removing the object fold the paper about a line parallel to the end of the paper, along the second snip you've made.
Stage 8: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1442.jpg)
Cut along this fold until a point perpendicular to the first snip you made, at this point you should now be able to fold the paper between the first snip and the line you've just cut.
Stage 9: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1444.jpg)
Cutting along this line should now give you a separate section of paper, the perfect size to wrap your cuboid gift. Place your gift in the centre of the paper, being careful to ensure it is orientated in respect to the paper in the same direction that it was when you first measured the paper.
Stage 10: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1446.jpg)
Next join the two furthest ends of the paper across the top of the cuboid and sticky tape them in place.
Stage 11: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1450.jpg)
With the overhanging paper at each end, fold a corner along the edge of the gift. Repeat this on the remaining 7 corners.
Stage 12: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1456.jpg)
Fold the two edges of the overhang together so they meet in the centre of the side panel of the cuboid gift and sticky tape down the join.
Stage 13: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1458.jpg)
Complete this on the other side to finish the basic wrapping of your gift.
Stage 14: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1464.jpg)
Next you will need to add a tag, so that people know who the gift is to, and who it is from. There are many different types of tag and I will cover all the main groups available.
Stage 15: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1466.jpg)
Write a festive message in the tag, possibly in a festive coloured pen, that critically states the recipient and deliverer of the gift. At this point it's a good idea to remember exactly what the last gift is you wrapped up. You don't want to end accidentally giving your Gran the sexy underwear set you chose for you girlfriend, particularly as Gran may like it and then you'll never get that image from your head.
Stage 16: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1467.jpg)
Some tags will have a set of simple self assembly instructions on the back.
Stage 17: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1473.jpg)
Follow these by removing the backing paper.
Stage 18: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1474.jpg)
Then stick proudly on your gift.
Stage 19: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1477.jpg)
Other types of tag include this string affair, it follows the same basic principles as above, write the message as before, then attach the two pieces of string to the wrapped gift using some more sticky tape.
Stage 20: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1478.jpg)
Invariably, despite miltary planning, you will never have enough gift tags for all your gifts, so you can always cut a festive shape from some spare wrapping paper, write your message on the back and affix a corner of the festive shape to the parcel. Alternatively you can just write directly on the paper, though you should be warned this may make you look cheap (though it's better than just leaving the entire gift in the carrier bag).
Stage 21: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1485.jpg)
Those of you at advanced level may wish to stick a festive but ultimately pointless rosette to your gift, this work in much the same way as the first set of gift tags (though don't write a message on them) extra class points are available if they match your tags.
Stage 22: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1490.jpg)
Super advanced stage, includes the use of this stuff called ribbon. Unroll a suitable sized length of ribbon.
Stage 23: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1486.jpg)
Spend several hours contorting it about the present, then realise it's not worth the effort and throw it away.
Stage 24: Christmas Wrapping – Cuboids
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1484.jpg)
And there you go a completed present. Simply place under the tree and your house should look something like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1562.jpg)
Irregular Shaped Gifts
Unfortunately not all gift manufacturers are kind enough to manufacture their products in neat rectangular shapes, here are some horrendous items that I've tried to wrap up his year:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1493.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1494.jpg)
Seriously, where the hell do you begin with this?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1252.jpg)
Would it have killed you to manufacture this in a square box?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1389.jpg)
Sweet as you may look Tigger, you're going to be a pain to wrap up.
My best advice is to attack this present with lots of paper and sticky tape and it may look something like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1394.jpg)
Sorry if you found this guide a bit patronising (that means talking down to you!!!), but hopefully you'll find it useful! And my final tip is wrapping is a lot quicker if you don't take photos at every stage.
Well you weren't expecting something sensible in my last post before Christmas were you?
Have a very Merry Christmas and an amazing 2011.
Matt :thumbsup:
Matt, it's been great fun reading your blog over the year.
Have a great christmas
Quote from: cunningmatt on December 23, 2010, 01:22:01 am
Wednesday 22nd December
Sorry if you found this guide a bit patronising (that means talking down to you!!!),
All these years of wondering and someone has finally explained this to me. Good to know, thanks!
ps wrapping non cubic christmas presents is very much like particle physics.
ok that not obvious enough for you? particle physics starts with the assumption that all particles are a point sphere on a frictionless plane. So all you need to do is assume that all presents are cubic and treat them exactly the same way as were they in a nice uniform box. Sure it'll look like crap if anyone touches the empty part, but that's their problem not yours.
Quote from: Garzini on December 23, 2010, 06:56:50 am
Matt, it's been great fun reading your blog over the year.
Have a great christmas
Many thanks!
Quote from: Dave on December 23, 2010, 12:33:30 pm
All these years of wondering and someone has finally explained this to me. Good to know, thanks!
The old jokes are the best, in fact any jokes a bonus at times!
Quote from: Dave on December 23, 2010, 12:33:30 pm
ps wrapping non cubic christmas presents is very much like particle physics.
ok that not obvious enough for you? particle physics starts with the assumption that all particles are a point sphere on a frictionless plane. So all you need to do is assume that all presents are cubic and treat them exactly the same way as were they in a nice uniform box. Sure it'll look like crap if anyone touches the empty part, but that's their problem not yours.
Was with you all the way up to "ps...", I'd suggest a gift box! :wink;m::
Luckily I had finished my lunch before I read these
Quote
It's saying something about the toilets when I thought would be less unpleasant to simply urinate in my pants rather than go to those toilets
QuoteIf only I was protesting about tuition fees, then I could burn it to the ground in festive joy.
Quote(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1486.jpg)
Spend several hours contorting it about the present, then realise it's not worth the effort and throw it away.
And as for this
QuoteIncidentally anyone else seen Miranda on BBC Two, I genuinely found it very funny, but when I said this at work everyone said I was weird – opinions please.
I think it's a very good show, with all the old school bits, looking at the camera (lovejoy stylee), cast waving at the end etc.. Very funny at times indeed, the bit where she loses all her clothes in the taxi door, very funny and very brave IMO...
Matt, whilst I will mourn the loss of the advent calendar, I look forward to 2011 for continued episodes of 'whats in the box', your 'HE painting' and random photobiopic journyes you take round London.. :thumbsup:
Happy Xmas sir
Quote from: Garzini on December 23, 2010, 06:56:50 am
Matt, it's been great fun reading your blog over the year.
Have a great christmas
^ This! Have a great one.
Quote from: fatolaf on December 23, 2010, 02:00:50 pm
Luckily I had finished my lunch before I read these
Glad you're following the safety advice!
Quote from: fatolaf on December 23, 2010, 02:00:50 pm
I think it's a very good show, with all the old school bits, looking at the camera (lovejoy stylee), cast waving at the end etc.. Very funny at times indeed, the bit where she loses all her clothes in the taxi door, very funny and very brave IMO...
Good to find a fellow fan "Such fun!", I do want to copy the bit where she has a drum kit just for the end of EastEnders - does that make me weird?!
Quote from: fatolaf on December 23, 2010, 02:00:50 pm
Matt, whilst I will mourn the loss of the advent calendar, I look forward to 2011 for continued episodes of 'whats in the box', your 'HE painting' and random photobiopic journeys you take round London.. :thumbsup:
I shan't miss the advent calendar, bloody thing's ruined my life!! Next year I'm writing all 24 in advance! :wink;m:: Glad you enjoyed though, hopefully they'll be some more bizarre new things for 2011. Have a great Christmas yourself.
Quote from: Draig on December 23, 2010, 08:36:10 pm
^ This! Have a great one.
Many thanks!
I used your cuboid christmas wrapping guide tonight, awesome sauce :thumbsup:
Thursday 23rd December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent CalendarHope you enjoyed my final full blog entry before Christmas, if you haven't seen it look up, it's above you look, look, no not directly above you as in on the ceiling, scroll up the page. Found it? Good. Oh if you have how can you be reading this now? Ahhhhh too confusing. Anyway enjoy this the penultimate door on the "Tale of OG Gamers: High Elves – Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar Deep Space Nine Holby City CSI New York" or whatever it's called.
Here's number 23:
[spoiler]
December 23rd: Krell(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog915.jpg)
I think this is the most up to date model for him. Though I can't be sure.
Name: Krell, Lord of the Undead
Original Points Cost: 335 points
Background: Krell was leader of a barbarian tribes at the dawn of man and the great disaster when the polar gates collapsed unleashing Chaos across the Earth (some how even Sky News managed to over dramatise that story!). His barbarian tribe became corrupted by Khorne and he quickly carved out an empire amongst the barbarians, and they quickly formed fairgrounds and started short changing the locals. He along with Night Goblin allies stormed Karak Ungor and Karak Varn during the Dwarfen Times of Woe. He was finally slain by the Dwarf Grimbul Ironhelm during the assault on Karak Kadrin. 1,500 years Nagash (you remember the one who looks like Janet Street-Porter) raised Krell from the dead, and he led Nagash's legions against Sigmar's Dwarven allies. However Sigmar cut down Nagash and his army crumbled. Krell was one of the few survivors who escaped and went on a rampage around The Empire protesting about £9,000 student fees until he was eventually imprisoned in a magically constructed tomb at the Battle of Glacier Lake by Sigmar. Since then he was risen by Heinrich Kemmler to launch an attack on Bretonnia, seriously don't you hate it when you can't get a good night's sleep.
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Undead – 4th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1198.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Undead – 4th Edition, I think. I don't think he's in Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts – 5th Edition, but I don't know. In fairness I think his history got a bit mixed up when Undead split up, like I got all mixed up when Steps split up – sad times.
Special Rules: Causes Terror and is immune to all psychology. He can ride a Skeletal Steed – though you'll need another pack of Lego for that. He has the Armour of Protection (5+ Save, and he can reroll all failed saves on an unmodified 4+) and the Black Axe of Krell, well it is his, (Double-handed weapon, no saves allowed, any person suffering a wound from the Black Axe but still alive, rolls a D6 at the beginning of each magic phase on a 1-2 they suffer a further wound).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1542.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1543.jpg)
The drawing doesn't look as much like the model as you'd expect.
My Memories of the Character: I don't remember him having such easily detachable hair.
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Peter Stringfellow – more so now Krell is dead in fairness.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Well the Armour of Destiny from the rule book is much like the Armour of Protection. Not sure I like the Black Axe of Krell, too annoying to remember who has and hasn't been wounded. How about does D3 wounds instead for 50 points. Also maybe as a former Chaos Champion he should be forced to issue and accept challenges, that could be fun?
[/spoiler]
P.S.
Quote from: Undead Dan on December 23, 2010, 10:19:19 pm
I used your cuboid christmas wrapping guide tonight, awesome sauce :thumbsup:
Hope you avoided the ribbon Dan!
I believe the Krellington appeared in the 5th ed vampire counts book, fantastic model for krell
Friday 24th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent CalendarHappy Christmas Eve! Hope you're not too sick on the relatives yet, the good news if you are, is that in less than 48 hours the whole thing will be over. Talking of things that will be over, this is it, yes the final day on The Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar. :cry: :cry:
I know it's very sad, but as they said to Esther Rantzen when they axed her show "That's Life" – a joke for the oldies there. I suppose you think I've chosen a really special, special character (if you get what I mean), and I have, but it's special to me only, so you'll probably be disappointed. Dave you'll definitely be disappointed it's not Burlock. Sorry I ran out of doors.
Here it is Door Number 24, for the last time open up:
[spoiler]
December 24th: Aekold Helbrass(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog974.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog976.jpg)
Name: Aekold Helbrass
Why him? Well he's the only Forgotten Special Character I've painted.
Original Points Cost: 230 points (4th Edition), 248 points (5th Edition)
Background: Aekold bears the most astonishing Chaos gift known to man - no not to look cool wearing sandals and socks. The second most astonishing Chaos gift known to man then – the Breath of Life. Everything he touches springs back to life, friend, foe, flora (not the margarine), fauna and Floella Benjamin.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1580.jpg)
Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Chaos – 4th Edition
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1009.jpg)
Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Champions of Chaos supplement to Warhammer Armies: Chaos – 5th Edition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1042.jpg)
Special Rules: 4th Edition: Mark of Tzeentch, Chaos Armour and Breath of Life (at the beginning of each Chaos turn can recover a wound on a 4+, once slain he can recover wounds but a 6 is required for the first, he reappears where slain. Any model in base-to-base friend or foe recovers a wound on a 6 as well).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1583.jpg)
In 5th edition Breath of Life remained the same except a 5+ is required for the first wound once slain. Because Chaos Armour became mundane equipment in 5th edition he gained the Wind Blade (Double-handed weapon, roll a D6 at the beginning of the game to determine other effects: 1-2: Aekold can fly. 3-4: Aekold Always Strikes First (still at +2 S for Double-handed weapon), 5-6: Windblade can be thrown in shooting phase, range 12", using Aekold BS, if successful does D6 S5 hits).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1582.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1579.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: Great model, and I quite like the modelling I've done to his base with the vines growing from where he stands (if I do say so myself). Very characterful as he kept returning from the dead, and I'm always a fan of Tzeentch!
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Bruce Forsyth, surely he's died several times already.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Got to do this carefully, as it's model I actually own and have painted so could use in a game. Well the rules sound pretty good, though I think he needs 4 wounds, not 2, so Breath of Life can work more effectively. Probably a bit overpriced, maybe make him 15 points including magic items? And probably should include the rule that "If you field Aekold your opponent must immediately go and purchase you a Shakeaway". I think it sounds fair.
[/spoiler]
P.S.
Quote from: maelzch on December 24, 2010, 12:59:13 am
I believe the Krellington appeared in the 5th ed vampire counts book, fantastic model for krell
I knew someone would know, I think it's one of GW's better models to be fair!
And so it ends, what to do now............................ :endit:
[spoiler]Only joking, Happy Xmas one and all.... :cool3: :thumbsup:[/spoiler]
A good ending character matt. He is mentioned in the current warriors book I believe, the black tongue is his tongue
Quote from: maelzch on December 24, 2010, 12:01:38 pm
He is mentioned in the current warriors book I believe, the black tongue is his tongue
How do you know this stuff? Seriously good rentention there sir (some would say anal.... :wink;m::)
My old mate used to use Aekold years back. It was always humurous when he'd go and heal back the damage he'd done in combat....
Cheers for the month of entertainment, I don't know how I'd have gotten through it without it :1st:
Merry Christmas mate!
Quote from: fatolaf on December 24, 2010, 11:33:24 am
And so it ends, what to do now............................ :endit:
Thank god for the spoiler, I was slightly concerned!
Quote from: maelzch on December 24, 2010, 12:01:38 pm
He is mentioned in the current warriors book I believe, the black tongue is his tongue
I believe I do even remember that!
Quote from: Meals on December 24, 2010, 12:14:59 pm
Cheers for the month of entertainment, I don't know how I'd have gotten through it without it :1st:
Merry Christmas mate!
You are more than welcome!
Saturday 25th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent CalendarSo you've come back, have you? You think that just because "modern" advent calendars have 25 days on that this one will do to? Well it's not proper is it? When I was a boy they only had 24 chocolates in for good reason, there was enough to keep me entertained on Christmas Day.
But do you know what, as you've been nice enough to come and say hello on Christmas Day, here's a special treat (and no Dave it's not Burlock!).
[spoiler]
December 25th: Clegg(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1552.jpg)
Name: Clegg - no not Nick Clegg, just Clegg.
Original Points Cost: 150 points
Background: Fed up with being maltreated by humans of the Empire and their oversized world. Clegg formed a bag of the roughest toughest Halflings in all The Moot – about as tough as the Maidstone's Under 4 Ballet Class. They went off to fight for fame, fortune and money.
Original Appearance: Citadel Journal Issue 10
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1548.jpg)
A Halfling Mercenaries list was included in this edition, allowing you to include them as allies for Empire, Bretonnian, Wood Elf, Dwarf or Norse (seriously Norse!) armies. In a sort of very early Dogs of War.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1551.jpg)
Last Appearance: Citadel Journal Issue 10 – can't think why!
Special Rules: Clegg can "Infiltrate" as in the Warhammer rulebook – your guess is as good as mine, don't remember that rule! Clegg can be armed with Poison Daggers at +5 points, thrown weapon, 6" range, hits at User's Strength +2 (except against War Machines, Undead and Daemons where it his at User's Strength). He also has the Magic Swag Bag (at the beginning of each Halfling turn, the enemy fans out all their magic item cards, Halfling player picks one that Clegg may use for that turn only. At the end of the turn the item returns to the owner but Clegg may redraw next turn).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1554.jpg)
My Memories of the Character: None, I don't even think he's real!
Person(s) most Reminds Me Of: Ronnie Corbett, well it is Christmas.
Inclusion in 8th Edition: Look it's Christmas Day, don't push your luck ok.
[/spoiler]
Now that definitely is it for The Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar. Don't come back on Boxing Day there won't be more. Now come on you know you've got to head back to the family and spend an unenjoyable day pretending you really wanted that jumper. Come on now, no more lingering. You have to go it's tradition.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
What a great SC, Clegg FTW! :))
Friday 31st December: Review of the Year
So Christmas is over, the relatives have gone – hopefully, the presents are opened, you have enough food left to feed a small African nation and you've been crushed to death in the January sales – even though it's not January yet. But there's still one more celebration to come, before the drudgery of January sets in, and the realisation you've got another 12 months of this crap to come.
Yep New Year is upon us and 2010 is nearly as over as my pop career, what a dam crying shame that was. So it's time to look back over the highs and lows of the final year of the first decade of the 21st century, before we forget the whole thing in the hope that 2011 will be better. It probably won't, in fact you probably won't notice the difference. But there we go. In addition to discussing the year we'll also be looking at my New Year's Resolutions – War Gaming ones that its, here's the ones I made for 2010:
1)To paint three times as many models as I buy. Managed twice as many in 2009, but with the Beastman coming this year may be tricky!
2) To win more games of Warhammer than last year (so only need 3 wins then for that one!)
3) To completely finish the Dwarf army.
4) To actually paint some High Elves so I have some choice - rather than the same army every time I play.
5) To be better at participating in the forums, and not only posting stuff once every blue moon!
Hmmmm.... we'll see how they go throughout the months.
So onwards and upwards here's a review of the year, with a Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves twist, see how much you remember / suspect I've made up.
January
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January saw an alien invasion hit the shores of the United Kingdom, no not the new Tyranid models, but ITV's "hit" dating show Take Me Out – currently in its second series (I know! It got a second series). For those of you lucky enough not to have seen it, the principle is that a single man enters the show to be judged by 30 (or maybe 24, I'm not a big fan!) single women. The women find out more and more about the man, until fickly they decide they don't like him (invariably because they find out he owns a teddy, or shops in Gap for Kids, or routinely commits High School massacres – something minor like that), at which point they switch off their light and show their dislike. At the end of three rounds the man is forced to go on a date with the women who left her light on, if he fails to have any lights on the man is sent home to slight his wrists and wallow in the bitterness of a cruel lonely world where even Paddy McGuinness can't help you. Should our male contestant have multiple lights on at the end, then in a reversal of fate he gets to turn their lights off and select his favourite female. Invariably the women take to this part of the show very well and don't hate the man for doing what the judging bitches have been doing for the rest of the show. I look forward to the reverse of the show, where 30 braying drunk louts heartlessly switch off their lights to a poor 20 year old girl. Yet somehow I feel society would judge that as being sexiest. Hmmm.
As I also mentioned January saw the arrival of the new Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Tyranids featuring Tyrainds unsurprisingly. They have journeyed across the intergalactic void to feast upon this galaxy devouring everything in their past, comparisons with John Prescott would be cruel. But quite funny. In other news Britain was under a blanket of snow, roads, airports, railways, schools and branches of Lidl were shut by the thick white stuff. The news media became concerned when trains were cancelled in the home counties (the fact Scotland had drowned in 20 foot of the stuff not being news worthy), they then proceeded to terrify us into fearing that the snow would kill us all!! Whereas normal people had a day of work and a snowball fight, safe in meteorologists predictions that the chance of this happening next winter were slim to none. David Tennant the former Doctor Who regenerated into new incarnation Matt Smith after being unable to save Bernard Cribbins from a box (I may have paraphrased the story slightly) – in Star Trek they'd have just beamed him out! David was seen morphing into Matt at the end of the New Year's Day special of How To Look Good Naked in one of Gok's best transformations to date. Avatar beat Titanic to become the highest grossing film of all time, as the creator of the Smurfs sued. US company Kraft bought Cadbury's, to national outcry as we all thought the chocolate would change – judging by my post Christmas waistline my belly didn't notice the difference. Celebrity Big Brother came to an end after plumbing the depths of "Celebrity" so that cage fighter and Jordan interest (the person not the country) Alex Reid won. Jonathan Ross announced he was quitting the BBC and Simon Cowell announced he was quitting America's Got Talent – in both cases staff decided not to have a crew whip round for a leaving present. And finally Apple announced the launch of the iPad, though I got very confused by the press conference thinking it was just a very small man with a normal iPhone.
And January in Matty painting land? Well it was a good month, I resisted buying anything and with the Christmas holidays in hand I painted up a 20 Dwarf Longbeards, 2 Dwarf Engineers and a Dwarf Grudge Thrower bringing my 2010 Paint:Bought total to 27:0. A good start.
February
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February saw the only Warhammer Armies book of 2010, Warhammer Armies: Beastmen. Everyone went a little Beastmen crazy until they saw the models and read the book, apparently. New Gors, Ungor, Bestigor, Minotaurs and Razagors (everyone's favourite model) appeared in the shops, along with Malagor the Dark Omen and Ghorros Warhoof. The new book focussed on the Beastmen's hatred of humanity, something all single people can understand. Particularly at Valentine's Day – pah!
The spirit of Valentine's Day was truly alive with a number of high profile apologies for naughty behaviour, following in the footsteps of Tiger Woods. John Terry stepped down as England captain after his superinjuction (a normal court injunction, but with an S on its top) was broken revealing he'd been doing more than playing Boggle with a fellow teammate's partner. And Vernon Kay had to apologise to Tess Daly after sending some flirty texts, our survey says "Even though it wasn't cheating Vernon, you shouldn't have done it because the press will punish you" and it was right. On a continuing theme Cheryl Cole announced to Heat magazine she'd be splitting from Ashley Cole, after complaining about press intrusion in her private life. In non break up news, it was awards month, with film The Hurt Locker (not about school bullying) taking 6 BAFTAs, Beyonce collecting 6 Grammys and Lady Gaga winning 3 BRIT Awards – which were promptly turned into a dress. And to prove that I've heard of sport, the 21st Winter Olympic Games were held in Vancouver, Canada and Britain won its first solo Gold in 30 years after Amy Williams slides down a hill on a tea tray very quickly. Meanwhile ITV continued its very own camp version of the Winter Olympics – Dancing on Ice, though by this point the main attraction Heather Mills (McCartney) had already left – and no her leg didn't fall off while skating and you're a bad person for even thinking it.
In Matty painting news, despite buying 20 Beastmen Gor , 20 Beastmen Ungor and a Beastman Battle Standard Bearer to begin my Bray Herd it was another form of Chaos that received my attention with 2 Chaos Spawn, Aekold Helbrass (see 24th December) and a Tzeentch Sorcerer (plus some Movement Trays – very important to remember them) getting finished off. This take the Paint:Bought total to 38:41. Falling behind people, falling behind.
March
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March saw more excitement for Warhammer 40,000 fans – well maybe it did, I don't know maybe they didn't like it? Anyway if they liked it they might have been excited as Warhammer 40,000: Battle Missions was released providing 30 new scenarios for you to fight over, along with a host of Warhammer 40,000 goodies for you to do it with.
Meanwhile the General Election was a called, given Gordon Brown's lack of luck at the time he probably fell over a corgi as he asked the Queen to dissolve parliament. Alice in Wonderland, the 2nd biggest grossing film of the year, and How to Train Your Dragon, the 9th biggest grossing film of the year, were released (I met the author of the later – name drop, name drop!). The nation got very upset about meow meow - a new drug released by the makers of The Littlest Pet Shop toy collection (technically that's libellous but I'm sure no one believes me), despite giving the drug a sweet name parents were not fooled and instantly decreed it bad – which of course it is. Meanwhile drugs woof woof and oink oink successfully got past the Daily Mail filter and are being consumed by children as young as 2 months daily. Didn't know that did you. In other real news in March Boris Johnson announced that the ArcelorMittal Orbit will be placed in the Olympic Park – it is unsure whether Boris really meant for this crushed piece of metal to be built or if he accidentally dropped a broken staple on his scale model of the Olympic Park, either way it will be taller than the Statue of Liberty and at least 90 times as ugly. Meanwhile Michael Jackson was busy from beyond the grave signing a $200 million deal with Sony music – critics said he was being lazy and there wasn't going to be any new stuff. Meanwhile the ROKS Cheonan a South Korean Navy Warship was sunk, investigations found a torpedo marked "Property of North Korea" stuck in the side of the wreck, however North Korea denied being involved. Their leader Maleketh Ill (that's his name, he's not poorly) said the country was busy building Black Arcs at the time. Oh and in bad news, I found out I was getting made redundant – boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Bloody ITV!
In less depressing painting news, I went Beastmen crazy painting last month's 20 Gors and 20 Ungors and another 15 Ungors I found under the bed. Though I did buy myself a Beastmen Battalion consisting of 20 Gors, 10 Ungors and 10 Beastigors – to be honest I did it mainly for the box, it's useful to have a large box for each army to keep spare bits in don't you find? So the Paint:Bought total became 83:81, just pulled back into the lead there.
April
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Get out your Blood Red paint people, April saw the arrival of the Blood Angels angry humans – well they say red is a stressful colour and you shouldn't paint your bedroom that colour so it's no wonder is it? I know nothing about Warhammer 40,000 as you may have guessed, so I'll have to move on. Clash of the Titans – the 10th Highest grossing film of 2010 came out in April, I didn't see that either so again have to move on.
Something I did see was Over the Rainbow – the bizarre BBC show in which Andrew Lloyd-Webber (a man who looks like Toad from Toad Hall) gets us to do his job and cast his new hit musical. This time we were looking for Dorothy, whilst friend of Dorothy Graham Norton oversaw (he made the same joke on the show, so it's fine!). It was a rather odd programme which ended with a rather creepy sequence, in which after the bottom two Dorothys had sung off. Losing Dorothy had her shoes confiscated and handed to Andrew Lloyd-Webber, as if they were about to enter a house with extremely cream carpets, and then they were strapped to the Moon and whisked off into the studio roof whilst the other Dorothys pretended to be upset whilst really thinking "yes we've beaten that bitch". As you can see a quite odd ending, or that oink oink had kicked in again.
In other news, Adrian Chiles was very "disappointed", despite requesting a day off he was unhappy that he got it and Chris Evans, after successfully taking over Radio 2, got to present The One Show on Fridays. So he scarpered to ITV, probably nothing to do with the reported £6 million to present Daybreak. Christine Bleakly ummed and ahhhed like she was watching a firework display then left too. The gap on The One Show was quickly filled by Jason Manford – bought to you by the BBC's "That Went Well" Department and a biological clone of Christine Bleakly. David Jason's last ever Touch of Frost was broadcast, in which it was revealed the Touch of Frost was his name for inappropriately grooming young boys – that bit is not true. And the new series of Doctor Who started as Matt Smith met his strip-o-gram side kick – that bit is true. Scrabble changed the rules so that proper nouns could be used, so now "Jedward" on a triple word score was actually quite good, plus my new favourite word QXJKZ which is a Mongolian T-shirt company, if ever you get stuck with that hideous set of letters. Walkers released a range of disgusting crisps, to get you in the mood for England's performance at the World Cup. A series of Election Debates occurred, the first time in British history, as the three leaders went head-to-head, the entire nation was wooed by Nick Clegg, someone they'd never heard of, representing a party they'd never heard of – the Liberal Democrats. Soon the nation was in rapture with them, this man made sense, and he wasn't one of the other two, surely he'd sweep to power. Incidentally I spent most of the Election Debate confused, I thought I tuned into Celebrity Weakest Link – it's surprising how much Anne Robinson and Adam Boulton look alike. Meanwhile a natural disaster dominated the news with a volcanic eruption in Iceland, Asda immediately hit back with their own earthquake promotion, until they read the news properly. Air travel across Europe was grounded, thousands of people were stranded and then someone realised it was probably safe to fly through the cloud anyway so off we went, which was good news for newsreaders as they couldn't say Eyjafjallajökull. On the other side of the Atlantic the Deep Water Horizon oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico creating the biggest environmental disaster since I washed all the wax out of my hair.
Plus April was my birthday too, don't worry I know my card was lost in the post. However I did get some painting time too, the Beastmen continued with 20 Bestigor, 6 Harpies a Wargor and a Shaman joining my army – I could now field an army shock! I was a good boy too, not buying anything so the Paint:Bought total became 111:81 – now there's some progress.
May
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May saw Lord of the Rings: Battlehosts as the main Games Workshop release... I have even less idea about this than Warhammer 40,000. Errmmmmm..., fortunately there were new plastic River Trolls and Orc Boar Boyz specifically so I have something to talk about in this article. I mean who wouldn't want to model a vomiting troll in plastic?
In other news a raft of popular and not so popular films were released including Iron Man 2 and Shrek: Forever After (though UK film goers would have to wait), the 7th and 5th highest grossing films of the year – which I didn't see. Also released were Letters to Juliet and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, less popular but I did see them both. In both cases I was asked to go with a friend, particularly the first case. The finale of Lost aired in America to 13.5 million confused viewers, who still didn't understand. Lily Allen picked up three Ivor Novello awards – primarily for not being Amy Winehouse, which is always good in my opinion. In important UK news the General Election came to its finale, with a climatic public vote, sadly no sing off, maybe next time. Despite the nation's rapturous realisation of who Nick Clegg is, everyone forgot at the Ballet Box – well those that could vote, an impressive 60% turn out crippled the polling stations and people had to be turned away. Goodness. And after all that electioneering the clear winner was.... errr.... well no one was sure, we were reasonably sure it wasn't Labour or UKIP, it probably wasn't the Liberal Democrats, and it might have been the Conservatives. In the end, after some wrangling by the Sith Lord himself Peter Mandelson, Labour accepted defeat and Gordon Brown, the unluckiest man alive, left office – instantly becoming human again as a giant sigh crossed as his face – thank god he hadn't won. And so this left David Cameron and Nick Clegg to form a civil partnership of policies if not alive, everyone happy that at least the oh so lovely Liberal Democrats were there to keep the nasty Conservatives in check, or so we thought. Around Europe other news was dominating the landscape, not the multi-billion pound bale out, but Eurovision. Up in Norway the umpteenth Eurovision Song Contest was taking place, and the United Kingdom came last with just 10 points, poor old Josh Dubovie – remember him? He can now be found in the club scene, taking your coat for a pound and cleaning up sick. May also saw the end, sort of, of one of the greatest children's television programmes – Toonattik. Brilliant written by some of the best talent in the business, it is in fact rumoured that one of the Assistant Producers is a rising star and the penultimate show was one of the funniest written ever – I could be wrong.
In unrelated news I became redundant. Booo. But on the plus side painting wise there was time to do some painting and clear away some projects of the painting table. Including a Giant for both Chaos force, 4 Chaos Trolls, 10 Chosen and a hoard of 20 Beastmen Gors the later being part painted on Clapham Common as there was glorious sunshine and I didn't have to work! Horray! So you'd think it would be a good month for the Painting:Bought total. However I finally had time to do some shopping, and Mr Shakey Shakey finally returned from abroad (trapped by a volcano – twice!) to give me my birthday present. So I ended up with a Beastlord, 6 Minotaurs, 5 Centigors and 10 Ungors. Putting all those numbers in gives the total as 160:120 which is better but not great – for those of you interested I'm using 7th edition Unit Strength as a rough waiting for my models.
June
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June saw Spearhead a new set of rules for massive tank formations released for Warhammer 40,000 and a whole hosts of new tanks including the Eldar Night Spinner – this could be a type of dance for all I know about Warhammer 40,000. I read it on the front of the White Dwarf.
In other news, some big sporting event called the 2010 FIFA World Cup got underway in South Africa. I only knew because of the fact that every commercial product available at the time had the St George's Cross emblazoned upon it like the official sign of the chav. England's performance wasn't exactly what fans as expected, despite cast iron promises that "Football would be coming home", football had other ideas and went to its holiday home in Spain. England's performance was rather disappointing, only struggling to a draw against the great footballing nation of the USA – though technically we lost that game if you were watching on ITV1 HD. And then after squeezing through the qualifying stages, crashed out 4-1 to Germany. Ah well, I'm sure we'll win it next time – well the fans are! Elsewhere Britain's Got Talent came to a conclusion as the nutters were slowly eliminated by the perfectly sane grouping of Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan. Spellbound became this year's winner, which the Queen would be forced to endure at the Royal Variety Performance. Meanwhile long running drama for old people, Heartbeat (not the art show for kids with Tony Heart) was axed by ITV and this year's Glastonbury event was closed by Stevie Wonder – the first fully dry Glastonbury since 2002. Toy Story 3 the biggest grossing film of the year came out, as did teen excitement The Twilight Saga: Eclipse which thanks to people much younger than me became the 6th highest grossing film of the year. 24 finally came to an end, despite the much hyped last series 25 in which a terrorist attack took place on the day the clocks went backwards, Jack Bauer finally came to an end, well the story did even if he lived on. The final series of Big Brother kicked off, as a number of people you wouldn't want to meet and probably wouldn't want to watch were locked in a house – however a good friend of mine worked on this so I'm saying nothing.
I also got a job! Horray! However that did slow down the rate of painting, with only 2 Tuskgor Chariots, a Wargor, the rogue Battle Standard from March and a random Ungor found down the back of the bed and some random movement trays getting painted. And with redundancy having curtailed the spending, this took the Painting:Bought total to 176:120 – not a bad place to be at the half way point.
July
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July saw the release of the 8th edition Warhammer rule book a mighty 528 pages that could be used to beat in a whale to death. Incidentally July also saw the NHS record a 500% rise in admissions of geeks with back strain, entirely coincidental I imagine. Also released was a range of commemorative bits and pieces which you didn't know you needed, until you got them and realised you didn't need them. 8th edition saw Unit Strength, Range Guessing and Outnumbering out and useful Battle Standards, miscasts that truly are scary and plonking templates down all in.
Elsewhere Wikileaks published its first batch of leaked US documents 90,000 documents pertaining to the Afghanistan war, and to think people in the press can actually be bothered to read them all! Cheryl Cole was struck down by malaria and forced to cancel her taxing schedule of saying no to people during The X Factor auditions. Elsewhere Jonathan Ross finished his last chat show at the BBC, where David Beckham revealed his love of LEGO – good man, he immediately revealed a new chat show deal with ITV – Jonathan Ross that is, not David Beckham, ITV's not that foolish. The BBC Trust saved 6 Music after a public outcry when the 6 existing listeners told everyone about it and Robbie Williams recorded a new album with Take That. The 4th and 7th highest rated films came out in America which were respectively, Inception – you know the one where the plot didn't make sense so you had to go and see it three times to understand it (clever marketing), and Despicable Me – the one you had to pretend you knew those children sitting next to you in the cinema in order to go and see. The iPhone 4 caused techie nerds to run around wetting themselves, it wasn't that they were excited that was need to fix the signal strength problems. Meanwhile in the news Paul Gasgoine became the unlikely hero when he tried to stop gunman Raoul Moat with a can of lager and a chicken – hardly International Rescue is it.
In painting news, I was still being good and had spent no more money, and in the first mention of High Elves in this blog I painted up 20 White Lions of Chrace – still want the plastic ones though. Taking the Painted:Bought ratio to 196:120 – very good, at this stage.
August
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It took until about August for the hard core gaming community to realise they didn't like Warhammer 8th edition. So Games Workshop placated them with something sure not to upset the hard core gaming community, some Daemons releases. Out of the warp spewed Bloodcrushers (pretty cool models if you ask me, but don't tell anyone I said so else I'll be branded a Daemon liker), Pink Horrors and Seekers of Slaanesh, plus there was plastic Daemon Prince (ideal for Warriors of Chaos too), the Changling and Kairos Fateweaver. All of these could be used in Warhammer 40,000 too – so I'm told.
In the real world, no Warhammer isn't real sorry, Dan Brown's new novel The Lost Symbol broke the UK weekly paperback sales figure. No real major film release, though special mention goes to Piranha 3D for a deeply disturbing advertising campaign that made me not want to go and see it. Wyclef Jean's bid to become president of Haiti failed, because he was a US resident – I didn't even make that up can you believe it. A number of things came to an end, including Swine Flu, which officially stopped being a pandemic, still was a pain when I got it in December though. On a similar note Last of the Summer Wine finally ended, you remember that the show that was old and tired when you watched it 25 years ago as a kid. Long running ITV drama The Bill came to an end, just as police budgets meant the same would be happening to a police station near you. Financial Sales Rep Josie Gibson won the final series of Big Brother, then was given the choice of whether to enter Ultimate Big Brother or not and stay in for another three weeks – she did, but then left. I wouldn't have given her a choice, just send the new people in and not tell her what had happened like some disturbing psychological experiment – or better still get the other contestants to pretend to be survivors of a nuclear holocaust and tell her the world has been destroyed, that's not too harsh is it? Disturbingly I recognised a worrying number of the Ultimate Big Brother contestants, it's one of those facts you wish you didn't know, if my brain was a PC those facts would go straight into the Recycle Bin. Ultimately the ultimate winner was Brian Dowling, winner of Big Brother 2 and presenter of SM:TV Live, he successfully restarted his career appearing in many things such as... err... anyone? Meanwhile all of America was getting upset about a Mosque to be built at Ground Zero, except it wasn't, it was a multicultural religious centre being built someone a few blocks away from Ground Zero, but hey this is the news – the truth doesn't matter when you can create religious friction and backlash.
In painting news I finished my lovely Minotaurs, really enjoyed painting them – will do some more soon! This really boosted by Painted:Bought ratio, until I bought 5 more Centigors, a Daemon Prince, Malagor and Ghorros Warhoof. Oops! So the ratio was now 214:137, still quite good.
September
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September saw the 8th edition of Warhammer continue its release with The Island of Blood box set being released, including your very own Skaven and High Elf armies. There was also a range of other special bits and pieces for you to get your teeth into. Critically it also came with a funsize edition of the rule book, making it possible to play a game of Warhammer without packing enough luggage for a family of four for a fortnight in Spain.
In the real world the News of the World was embroiled in a phone hacking scandal as hundreds of MPs and celebrities claimed they'd be taped. Obviously this lead to half the world's busybody middle classed mothers also claiming to have been bugged, but they should realise no one is interested in what they say, so they weren't and even if they were they could tell the world and no one would care. Google became cleverer in September, predicting what you wanted to search for before even you knew, thereby wasting countless more eons of everybody's time as they looked at hundreds of results of things they hadn't even thought about to spend wasting their time upon. Meanwhile George Michael got an eight-week suspended sentence after crashing his car into the window of Snappy Snaps – who could be that desperate for their photos? GMTV came to an end, as ITV axed the long running breakfast programme to replace it with the short running breakfast programme Daybreak, complete with lovely windows overlooking the Thames – which were dark for every show between September and March. Meanwhile Peggy Mitchell got out of her pub, when the Queen Vic in EastEnders burst into flames and Top Gear lost a court battle to prevent everyone finding out the identity of the Stig, which by this point everyone now knew. And high brow programme Australia's Next Top Model became a YouTube hit when the wrong winner was announced during the live final, oops! Well in fairness I can't tell the difference between all those bland blondes. Ed Miliband became leader of the Labour Party, just beating PC Plum from Balamory into second place, and an American Pastor came up with the really good idea of burning copies of the Qu'ran thereby upsetting the entire Muslim world, only he didn't burn them – so instead upset them for nothing!
In painting news the highly exciting Tale of OG Gamers was launched where literally tens of people all signed up to paint 200 points of models at month, and at least 3 of them picked up a brush! Even this little old blog got created and it soon became synonymous with providing a deep insight into the world of the painter and important cultural repartee. Oh ok so in September I talked about Shakeaway, resident 4 year old artists, paedophilia, The Smoggies, burning of Daemons of Chaos books, Mr Shakey Shakey, Weetabix, Pants, Ol's Red Wine Spitting, Diane Abbot, V2 rockets, Save the Children and my non award-winning Giant. I did do a bit of painting, including my 200 points of High Elves, I also had a week off so got a whole load of Beastmen done too, finishing off 20 Beastmen Ungor, 10 Centigors, a Bray-Shaman, an Arcane Ruins set and 18 Lothern Sea Guard. An impressive total, however this was easily balanced by picking up two Island of Blood sets, well the High Elves in each, as the infamous picture showed the great handover. This made the Painted:Bought ratio 283:203 – still ok I guess.
October
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High Elf fun continued fresh from Island of Blood with Dragon Princes, White Lions of Chrace and Phoenix Guard all making plastic, along with High Elf magic cards and things for fun.
It wasn't all High Elves though, out in the rest of the world Chiliean Miners were being freed in what became an odd game of Deal or No Deal? Oh it's Miner number 25 in that box, who'd have guessed. Still 3 months down in a mine, compared to 3 months of X Factor, hmmmm. I know what my choice would be. The Apprentice kicked off, introducing us to the joys of Stuart Baggs: The Brand. Jonthan Franzen's book Freedom had to have 80,000 copies of the book pulped after the wrong version was sent to the printers, and at 576 pages that's over 80,000 Warhammer rule books! What a terrible mistake to make, as if anyone would actually publish a draft of something that wasn't complete leaving in terrible embarrassing comments [INSERT JOKE HERE THAT WILL MAKE THE MORONS THAT READ THIS BLOG LAUGH]. Meanwhile everyone ended up hating Nick Clegg, earlier in the year we all loved him, and then how we turned. Nick had been in the unfortunate place of making a load of pre-election promises with absolutely no chance of getting in power, so he could have promised free hover boots for everyone and a Post Office on the moon safe in the knowledge he'd never have to deliver. However in a bizarre twist of fate he was in power, and a quick look at the coffers revealed that Britain's bank account consisted of 8 pence, a fluffy Liquorice All Sort and 12 Spanish Pesetas. Bad news for Nick as all the things he promised, he couldn't deliver, unfortunate as one of his promises was promising not to break promises. And as all the cuts came in, the Conservatives got a PR stunt that even Saachi and Saachi couldn't pull off for Lady Thatcher as the entire nation blamed the Liberal Democrats, true the Conservatives were being evil too – but that was expected, not lovely Nick Clegg who a few months ago we all agreed with. The only thing left to do was protest, smash up Millbank House, burn a Christmas tree and hurl a fire extinguisher off the roof of a building – we've all been to those parties. In unrelated news Take That's new tour sold out in under 24 hours.
In the world of The Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves the following random things were discussed gaming, more projectile food laughing from Ol, wet Warhammer rule books, box opening, horses' bottoms, plants named after dodgy pop acts, Pixie Lott's face, indecent acts being performed on small children, My Little Pony VHSes, Wagner, Asylum applications done in the style of The X Factor, shoplifting, Azakstan, the High Elf Panda Chariot, stacking paint pots, Ready Steady Cook, clocks going backwards and my brain downloading. Some painting was actually done too with 5 Ellyrian Reavers and 6 Shadow Warriors painted, I did buy the Prince Altharan model though taking the Painted:Bought ratio to 299:204.
November
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November saw Warhammer 40,000 fun – well they'd had to wait a while so it's only fair With the Dark Eldar Codex arriving which is nothing like Dark Elves I'm sure. For Warhammer players there was new terrain in the shape of Witchfate Tor and Dreadstone Blight – wow two new Empire buildings, there's something new for my gamin table!
You may remember I was quite busy in November, but apparently all this was happening. Researchers at CERN trapped 38 atoms of anti-matter for one sixth of one second, the first time mankind has ever successfully trapped anti-matter after a little girl opened its cage door and it ran down the back of the sofa. Wikileaks published a quarter of a million US documents revealing embarrassing secrets like David Cameron is posh and the Italian government might be a wee bit corrupt. Ireland had to be bailed out to the cost of £7 billion, plus money from the EU after the national outlook "Ahhh, it'll be ok" turned out to be wrong. The second biggest grossing film of the year Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 burst into the cinemas breaking a string of UK box office records in the first week of its release. Lord Young accidentally said "We'd never had it so good", before losing his own job when people pointed out that might be a tad insensitive. A raft of 3D films continued to come out, often film makers missed the point that it's got to be worth it for us to sit through the films wearing the 3D glasses – if all I might see is Robert DeNiro looking a bit more 3D it's not worth it. Also BBC News went on strike for 48 hours, though most people failed to notice. And Katie and William announced they were getting married, and we'd get an extra Bank Holiday – horray!
In the world of The Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves the perfectly normal topics of discussion were aluminium drinks cans, Caron Keating (shouldn't dwell on that comment really), horses, !@%$#%@, Bonnie Tyler, Daybreak, butt plugs, Poundland , cockroaches, Willie Thorne, Lindor and super zoom. A little painting was done with Alith Anar and a High Elf Mage being finished and with no purchasing that took us to a Painted:Bought ratio of 301:204.
December
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December traditionally sees no massive releases from Games Workshop, just little bits and pieces, for Warhammer this saw upgrade packs for the Knights of the Blazing Sun, should you fancy making them.
So while we were busy running around getting ready for Christmas, or not getting ready for Christmas and putting it all off to the last minute what was the rest of the world up to. Well like the television schedules the year ran out of new things to do, so December saw a rerun of January as the entire country was blanketed in snow and yet again the nation became increasingly angry that we hadn't spent billions of pounds snow proofing every facility in the country despite the fact it very rarely snows. The whole of Northern Ireland died of thirst when every pipe belonging to Northern Ireland Water simultaneously burst, still of all the ways to go in Northern Ireland at least it was novel. In filmic news Tron: Legacy the 10th highest grossing film of the year came out, as apparently did Yogi Bear the movie, something worth rushing to the cinema for there. Sports-wise, and yes I can blather on about sport for a bit too, sport-wise the World Cup of 2018 and 2022 were awarded to some of the great footballing nations Russia and the alcohol banning, homosexual hating, 50 degree sweltering Qatar. Still when it's 50 degrees in the shade you don't want the homosexuals effortlessly looking stylish, swishing around in their linen suits and fashionably tailored board shorts, hair styled to within an inch of its life, not when the rest of the population is so red-faced and sweaty it looks like it's been chased out of the Early Learning Centre by an angry mob who think you abuse small children, so all in all it's probably a sensible decision. Though you come to the conclusion FIFA didn't really think about it, every problem suggested about the decision to choose Qatar hits their press department like a tonne of bricks magnetised directly into their face. If you said "We can't have the World Cup in Qatar because it breaks the rule that in spelling every Q must have U after it" they'd probably look at you dumb founded make an inappropriate joke, come back in four days after concluding you were right and then redefine spelling. Still it did give ITN an opportunity to explain to its viewers that Qatar isn't a Guitar – they actually did this, I'm not making it up. Elsewhere in Sport England retained the Ashes for the first time on Australian soil since the dawn of time, I have no idea what this means but my Dad and Uncle are very excited. In New Year's Honours Annie Lennox, John Suchet, Shelia Hanncock and Howard Webb are some of the famous names honoured, no MBEs for contribution to the geek community this year, but we'll hold out for next year. James Naughtie was very Naughtie (were his named pronounced that way) when he misintroduced the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt live on Radio 4, made all the more funny as Andrew Marr made the same mistake laughing about the original incident – that'll teach ya! McIntyre and Hasselhoff are announced as the new judges for Britain's Got Talent (that's Michael McIntyre not Donal McIntyre – if it were Donal he'd be busy examining all the contestants benefits claims before going undercover in Ant & Dec's dressing room to reveal they're actually biological twins – still that's the problem being the world's most famous undercover reporter, everyone knows who you are). Coronation Street celebrated 50 years with a live episode and a massive tram crash, that wasn't how the live episode went, that was the actual storyline. And finally every reality show ever made came to an end in December, Matt Cardle (already, "who?") won X Factor despite Louis constantly pleading "I want everyone in Ireland to pick up the phone and vote for Mary" like a deranged PR stunt for BT, even though she left the competition the week before! Strictly Come Dancing wasn't won by Ann Widdicombe after the nation decided it would simply be too much to bare and the world would fall off its axis in the madness so ex-EastEnder Cara Tointon won and got to sleep with her dance partner too, always good to get a Brucie-Bonus. In I'm A Celebrity... Dr (who isn't a real Doctor) Gillian McKeith won the best actress BAFTA after fainting live on ITV1, whilst Ant & Dec seemed not to care about the whole event, I guess it's something you see every day on Britain's Got Talent. And over on The Apprentice, everyone's favourite Lord (just behind Lord Sith) Alan Sugar, finally got annoyed by Stuart and fired him... out of a cannon into the Thames, before deciding that a Stella would be a nice way to finish the series – he meant the drink, but ended up with the personality sink that is Stella, still I'm sure she's very nice. Oh and there was Christmas and New Year's Eve too.
In Blogging corner, the 25 doors that were The Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar were opened revealing a forgotten Special Character every day including some bizarre ones like Clegg. We also talked Shish-Kebabs, Battalion craziness, pubic hair, pantomime (oh no we didn't!), self-urination, Chris Rodgers, an exploded Jabba the Hut, Willesden Green, polish, Miranda, funny dogs, Christmas wrapping, Imperial Guard Catachan Battle Forces, Crawley, Claire Short, murderous rages in Westfield, Ol's wife, Buckaroo, Vauxhall Vectras, Baghdad, No 7, Sir Trevor McDonald, people kissing on the Underground, snow and Wagner. Whilst in painting corner, well, errr... I don't have access to my camera, so I could say I have painted up the next 7 months worth of Tale of OG Gamers stuff. I haven't. In fact this month has been a bit of a disaster, I'm sure a rush of other people's entries will appear today and complete the blog, but mine won't sorry. I was busy, and I was the only one to get Month 3 done in time. So the final Painted:Bought blog would be quite good, if I hadn't bought two battalions this month, ahhh! So it is 301:294, still more painted than bought... just. Though I believe I'm due a Christmas present from Mr Shakey Shakey and he hinted it might be miniatures so the final total may be worse than that. Oh well.
New Year's Resolutions
So, before we get onto the subject of 2011's resolutions we should just pour over the car crash that is 2010's resolutions. Looking at each in turn:
1)To paint three times as many models as I buy. Managed twice as many in 2009, but with the Beastman coming this year may be tricky!
As you can see with each month's update this didn't really happen. In fairness it was a ridiculous pledge, last year I managed twice as many as I bought simply because I bought a whole pile of Warrior of Chaos bits in November 2009 and painted them in 2010. With a whole Beastmen army in February there was no chance. On the plus side I painted about twice as many models as last year, and virtually all my 4th edition Beastmen got painted up, so lots of old models got done, just not that many.
2) To win more games of Warhammer than last year (so only need 3 wins then for that one!)
I just about managed this, turns out if you play about 75 games then no matter how bad you are statistically you have to win about 4.
3) To completely finish the Dwarf army.
Yeah Dwarfs kind of got ignored this year, I did some in January but then High Elves, Chaos and other things got in the way!
4) To actually paint some High Elves so I have some choice - rather than the same army every time I play.
Done, done and double done. Painted a load of new units and more on their way as part of the tale. Big Tick here.
5) To be better at participating in the forums, and not only posting stuff once every blue moon!
Well, I've written a little bit of stuff on here from time, not much, but it'll probably do for this blog.
So that leaves 2011's resolutions, I'll leave aside the usual ones about losing weight, starting smoking and giving up bestiality and stick to gaming ones here.
1)To keep up to date with the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves painting.
Yeah so I fell behind this month, but I promise that over the course of January I'll make it back up and get both month's done (I'm not back at work until the 17th so I have a chance!). And from then on its 200 points every month – promise.
2)To paint more than I buy, and stop buying random things that just sit on the painting shelf.
After 2010 I'm not promising ridiculous pledges, simply more painting than buying. And whilst random purchases are good, they need to be painted – things like that Daemon Prince unopened on the shelf can be bought in 2011, but needs to get painted!! I've actually set myself a Beastmen challenge to paint 60 Beastmen (using up both my battalions) before the end of January (alongside my two months of High Elves). If I achieve, it, which hopefully I will, that'll be nearly 100 models done straight off, which will put me in good stead.
3)To keep blogging.
Hopefully you haven't all groaned and taken your own life at this point. If so bye bye. But I aim to carry on blogging, with just a little more focus on High Elves. Yes I know the bits about me murdering people in Westfield are more fun, but really I need to mention some Elves now and again, so hopefully that'll happen. I've even got battle reports planned for 2011 so look out for that.
4)To try and learn tactics.
Yes, it's about time I learnt the "T" word, less minty than Tic Tacs, tactics are apparently useful if you want to win some games, so I'm going to try. I've made a conscious effort to try and practice my High Elven tactics with my recent games so fingers crossed I'll get better.
5)To try and complete, well head towards complete, some armies.
I don't think I'll ever finish, finish and army, what I mean by that is painting up one of every choice so I can go a bit crazy and choose different selections – I know crazy talk. I don't think I'm going to get any new armies this year, unless the new Bretonnian army book surfaces, but I can't see that happening. And with Beastmen, Warriors and High Elves unlikely to get any new updates this year, it's only Dwarfs that could come along with a new book and force me to buy loads of new purchases. So hopefully 2011 will allow me to tidy up my existing armies.
There you are five statements, that this time next year will be in tatters as I become the new Nick Clegg. On that bomb shell I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year and hope 2011 treats you better than 2010 and that some of your painting actually gets done!
QuoteI don't think I'm going to get any new armies this year, unless the new Bretonnian army book surfaces, but I can't see that happening.
Rumours are that after O&G this year, will be Tk and then Brett (more than 1 -2 armies in 8th Ed have to be released this year)
Fantastic round up of the year buddy, and the blog has been a constant source of amusement, keep it up in 2011 sir! :thumbsup:
Quote from: fatolaf on January 02, 2011, 12:54:01 pm
Rumours are that after O&G this year, will be Tk and then Brett (more than 1 -2 armies in 8th Ed have to be released this year)
Oh dear, who'd have thought my New Year's Resolutions would collapse on the 2nd of January. Oh well!
Quote from: fatolaf on January 02, 2011, 12:54:01 pm
Fantastic round up of the year buddy, and the blog has been a constant source of amusement, keep it up in 2011 sir! :thumbsup:
Many thanks! Happy 2011 to you too
Tuesday 4th January - WEEK 1
So can I officially be the last person to wish you a Happy New Year, and can I also be probably the only person to welcome you back to your tedious life. Yes I'm afraid Christmas is over, the New Year is gone, there are no more Bank Holidays left and it's back to the hum drum tedium that is your life. Except you're a bit fatter, a lot poorer and you have a selection of jumpers you didn't want. Sorry. Unless of course you've taken a couple of extra days off, in which case you've simply prolonged the inevitable and essentially made the fall all the worse. All you have now is months of poor weather, higher VAT (from today) and no bank holidays to look forward – the next one is not until April 22nd, really that long away. Oh well, on the plus side at least New Year's is gone and done, perhaps it's me but isn't the worst celebration ever? Perhaps that's why they have it at the beginning of the year to get it out of the way? I mean talk about anti-climax, everyone waits excitingly for the clock to change to midnight, and then what? What changes? Nothing. Other than the physical number of the year, your calendar and the fact that you'll spend the next two years mucking up filling in forms, sometimes inexplicably writing the year as 2012 (why does that happen?), nothing has changed. I've had a series of New Year's horrors, dealing with drunken/hysterical friends, being rammed into pub/clubs/parties with loads of happy couples kissing over the New Year – my favourite thing as I'm sure regular readers will have guessed. Particularly highlights include a party where the DJ missing the New Year and announced 10 minutes late that we'd missed New Year, and being in bed with food poisoning over the Millennium New Year's celebrations after eating a dodgy prawn sandwich. I've even done the banks of the Thames, standing in conditions so cold that my reproductive organs have retracted so far into my body that I've become an Action Man, however to make it up my nipples have become so erect that if I turn round quickly I run the risk of knocking five people into the Thames. You stand there for hours, if you want a good position, just to see a clock strike 12am – at no other time of the year is this considered entertainment for good reason. Then you seem some admittedly nice fireworks, but you'd have a better view on telly. And then you have to get home, yes the Tube runs all night and is free – but all the useful stations have been closed to avoid overcrowding, so you have to walk to Zone 2 before you can even board. So this year none of that, I stayed at home like a miserable git with my parents, we watched Graham Norton, the Lottery Draws and Jake Humphrey – the Formula 1 presenter, who'd lost the BBC's annual sweepstake and was forced to endure the banks of the Thames so I didn't have to. We all had one drink, then played Wii until 2am. Perfect, and much like the rest of the year, miserable. Still I'm happy.
Well I say I'm happy, the Christmas period brings with it, its own ills – and I'm not talking about Christmas dinner washing up and pretending that you liked those Christmas presents that you really didn't. This Christmas I ended up feeling very old, there's many reasons for this. Firstly spending time with your parents, which I've come to realise is liking looking into a mirror of the future, you see yourself in thirty years time an inescapable fate, your destiny is to turn into this people no matter what you do, you cannot avoid it. It's like a science fiction movie where the characters see their own future and no matter how they try to avoid the future unravels as is written. Those of you under the age of 25 will be reading this puzzled, I spent all my late teenage years and early twenties convinced that I would be nothing like my parents, determined in fact I wouldn't copy their annoying habits, I'd be "cool" at the age of 60. Then somewhere around the mid-twenties the awful truth hits you, you are turning into them, well a hideous hybrid – almost like you're 50% your mother and 50% your father. You've started seeing their traits in you. I know I've started shouting at inanimate objects like my mother, sighing loudly for no reason like my father, generally being baffled by new technology and moaning that the buttons on new gadgets are too small, turning down the TV and wandering round the shops rejecting the arrays of clothing presented to me because "it wouldn't be practical". It's only a matter of time before I start going upstairs and by the time I get there forgetting what I came up for – though I've come up with a cunning plan to avoid this by only every living in single story buildings, clever eh? Then I'll be off to buy a beige cardigan and start a 1,000 piece jigsaw just for fun. Why on earth they need to do DNA testing on Jeremy Kyle, just wait until the child is 30 you'll be able to tell the parents – "yeah you do that annoying moaning noise when you're not really ill, just like him, he must be your father".
However that's not the only reason I'm feeling particularly old, whilst at home this Christmas my sister said "Is that a grey hair on your head", following up with "only joking!". How we laughed... until I throttled the bitch with a string of tinsel and shoved her face in a Sainsbury's Yule Log – the cow! Not that I'm overly sensitive, you understand. But worse than that, I got the news that everyone dreads, the awful news that you lay awake at night hoping will never come. The first of my university friends is expecting a baby. Yeah some of my school "friends" have been pregnant before, several times, but they were slags they don't count, these people are like you, they are your peers. I mean it was bad enough when they got into long term relationships, and increasingly you realised that you were in a minority and that single didn't just describe your relationship status, but how many of your friends have time for you any more. Then a year or two after you last spoke to them a card drops through your door inviting you to their wedding, laughably asking if you'd like to bring a +1 with you, if they'd actually spoken to you in the last year they'd know still terminally single, still sitting on the shelf as wanted as a Jedward Album, where even a 99p sticker hasn't done anything to shift you. I've just been through that face, there are two of us left unattached, bitterly meeting for coffee to bitch about all the friends that we haven't seen in years. Now the next phase has begun, the one that makes you feel even more alone, the baby phase – there all going to start popping them out soon. I'll be invited to baby showers, your last chance to see these people before they become internally tired, where undoubtedly well meaning but essentially moronically patronising friends will declare "don't worry I'm sure it'll be your turn soon", I have news for you the evidence suggests that it won't be. Who knows maybe even asked to be a Godparent – though if any of them have read this blog they'll surely be questioning my suitability in that role. It's all so deeply depressing and cementing two things, one I'm no longer young – if people my age are grown ups, and two I'm living my life through moaning about their lives. Oh dear. Still I'm looking forward to the next phase, the awkward and bitter divorce phase, at least I'll feel less single this time round. Perhaps we can have divorce parties, where I can cheerfully announce to the remaining couples don't worry I'm sure it'll be your turn soon". And some people say I have issues.
To prove that I'm getting old, two final "old people" things to address. Firstly, when did it become acceptable for shops to start displaying Easter Eggs so bloody early, I was confronted by the awful sight of Mini Eggs and Cream Eggs in WHSmith on New Year's Eve – it's not even the same year as Easter (at that point). This is entirely unacceptable, and I did the only thing I could, what any sane and reasonable person would do, I burnt the store to the ground. It was for everyone's good. On the plus side at least it wasn't Valentine's Day merchandise, you can imagine how I feel about that. And lastly here's a photo of the recipe for the starter I made for Christmas dinner.
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Why do I have a photo of it? Well, the recipe book was very heavy and it was easier to take a photo of it and bring it to my parents than the book, I viewed the recipe off the camera screen – clever, eh? Why is the photo in this blog? Anyone's guess, I just found it here whilst I was uploading painting photos so thought I should bung it here. Essentially it's madness.
Right it may be the most depressing month of the year, I may be getting old and I may be more undateable than the Hunchback of Notre Dame but my life still has purpose – painting toy soldiers. Oh dear that sounded better in my head, than in print. Any how what's happening, it's all gone to pot hasn't it? Well... yes, sadly I missed December's painting deadline, though judging by the notable absence of a Month 4 results blog, I'm not the only one. However as you may have seen in last week's, well last month's, well last year's in fact last decade's entry, if you managed to wade through the Review of the Year that I've pledged to catch up this month. And catch up I will, not only will December's painting tasks be finished but so will January's. There I've written it in print, I've staked my reputation (technically I don't have a reputation, but who knows if I live up this promise I may gain one!).
So what's the situation? December's task was a Repeater Bolt Thrower and 2 Great Eagles in "Rare month". The yet to be named Repeater Bolt Thrower is at Stage 1, and here's how we got there:
Stage 1 – Repeater Bolt Thrower
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1642.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1647.jpg)
Base (crew): Khemri Brown
Leather (crew): Scorched Brown
Robes (crew): 1:1 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Silver Metal (crew): Chainmail
Gold Metal (crew): Tin Bitz
Flesh (crew): Dwarf Flesh
Yellow Details (crew): Iyanden Dark Sun
Blue Details (crew): 1:1 Enchanted Blue: Ice Blue
Hair (crew): Vomit Brown
Wood (bolt thrower): Khemri Brown
Silver Metal (bolt thrower): Chainmail
Gold Metal (bolt thrower): Tin Bitz
Bolt Quivers (bolt thrower): 1:1 Enchanted Blue: Ice Blue
Oh and if you're wondering why the table has changed colour, don't worry this is my parents house – the nice pine photography area will reappear soon, as if you cared!
It shouldn't take too long to finish this off, as for the Great Eagles. Well I took them to my parents with every intention to assemble and paint them over Christmas sadly, whilst I remember the Plastic Glue for the Bolt Thrower I forgot the Super Glue and Green Stuff so they're a little behind.
And for January, well whilst I'd like to add more killer units to my army, I'd like to keep it legal and I'm now out of core. The 208 points of Sea Guard will only sustain 800 points of army. So I've delved into last month's Battalion box and pulled out the 20 Archers for a bit more missile support, don't worry I'm not going for an all shooty High Elf army in the next few months so hard core fighting troops will be appearing. But I needed the core and I have other ideas for the Spearmen. They're all assembled, undercoated and packed. Packed? Why? All will become clear later.
But because I'm mad fool, it's not just High Elves I've been painting this Christmas, oh no, and no it's not any of they myriad of other projects I've started. Instead I've set myself a Beastmen challenge – 60 Beastmen to paint between now and the end of January. Why? Well part of my New Year's Resolution is to paint up some of the forgotten about projects on the painting table, after buying a Beastmen battalion back in March last year most of the contents lay unassembled, as I'd already bought some core units (the battalion came out a month late for some reason). To be honest I like getting a battalion more to have a nice box for all that army's bits to go in, more than the models – expensive madness I know. Anyway I decided this had to be painted, so I bought myself a second battalion (I realise this sounds like I've gone crazy) to combine the contents for two extra units. 40 Gors and 20 Beastigors.
I've already got 20 Beastigors, of the 5th edition models, but the new ones are good, so they needed to be assembled. Why 40 Gors? Well I thought it would be fun, and it would be my first hoard unit, yes it will probably die, but if I was playing to win I wouldn't be playing Beastmen. To be honest if I was playing to win I wouldn't playing Warhammer, Hungry Hippos suits my skill level better. I decided to arm them with hand weapons and shields, simply because I'd already built some of the new plastic Beastmen into a unit with extra hand weapons so I fancied being different. Normally I'd paint the shields separately and attach them at the end, but these Beastmen have a good chunk of their arms attached to the shields, and in many cases are holding them away from their body (where they are least useful, but let's be honest Beastmen are thick), so in most cases it wasn't too much of a hindrance to assemble them fully before painting. For the command models of the Gors I added in a few parts from the Beastigor set (didn't want my champion looking like the one I'd already assembled) and added a few arrow from the Ungor set to make them look like they'd be under fire – for my Beastmen army I'd decided to detail all of the command groups bases. Incidentally revenge was served on my sister, as a brief look at my models made her realise that Beastmen are better able to plat their hair than her, who'd have thought bad hair day means you've got less stylish locks than a half goat-half man mutant. Ha ha ha!
I've promised to give you a Beastmen painting guide before, so here goes, to be honest I find it writing in this blog is more useful for giving me a record of what I've done – getting old, I forget. Also it means when I check back at what I've painted I bump up the visitor's count making my blog look far more popular than it actually is, but don't tell anyone. So here's the guide, I should point out I paint my Beastmen in a different set of stages to my High Elves as I find it easier.
Stage 1 – Beastmen Gors
For the Beastmen there's a lot of messy drybrushing so that all gets done early on.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1591.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1585.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1587.jpg)
Over a Chaos Black undercoat:
Wood: Drybrushed Codex Grey, then Drybrushed Fortress Grey
Fur: Each model is brushed in one of the following three ways to give the unit some variation: A) Drybrushed Scorched Brown, then Bestial Brown and finally Snakebite Leather, OR B) Drybrushed Chardonite Granite, then Adeptus Battlegrey and finally Codex Grey; OR C) Drybrushed Codex Grey and then Fortress Grey.
Chainmail, where present: Drybrushed Boltgun Metal, washed Devlan Mud, then lightly Drybrushed Chainmail.
Stage 1 – Beastigors
Exactly the same as above, though I've repeated it purely for me as it will help me when I look back at what I did! Again command models have detailed bases.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1607.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1601.jpg)
Over a Chaos Black undercoat:
Wood: Drybrushed Codex Grey, then Drybrushed Fortress Grey
Fur: Each model is brushed in one of the following three ways to give the unit some variation: A) Drybrushed Scorched Brown, then Bestial Brown and finally Snakebite Leather, OR B) Drybrushed Chardonite Granite, then Adeptus Battlegrey and finally Codex Grey; OR C) Drybrushed Codex Grey and then Fortress Grey.
Chainmail: Drybrushed Boltgun Metal, washed Devlan Mud, then lightly Drybrushed Chainmail.
Stage 2 is then the basecoating, which I managed to get all done, as well:
Stage 2 – Beastmen Gors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1626.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1627.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1650.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1651.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1652.jpg)
Looks quite an impressive sight, if I do say so myself.
Flesh: 1:1 Scab Red: Dark Flesh
Horns and Bone: Khemri Brown
Base: Khemri Brown
Silver Metal: Boltgun Metal
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz then overcoated (is that a word?) with Shining Gold
Tin/Brass Metal: Tin Bitz
Leather: Scorched Brown
Cream Robes: Khemri Brown
Red Robes: 1:1 Mercherite Red: Blood Red
Stone: Adeptus Battlegrey
Human Flesh: Tallarn Flesh
Stage 2 – Beastigors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1631.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1640.jpg)
Flesh: 1:1 Scab Red: Dark Flesh
Horns and Bone: Khemri Brown
Base: Khemri Brown
Silver Metal: Boltgun Metal
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz then overcoated with Shining Gold
Tin/Brass Metal: Tin Bitz
Leather: Scorched Brown
Cream Robes: Khemri Brown
Red Robes: 1:1 Mercherite Red: Blood Red
Stone: Adeptus Battlegrey
Human Flesh: Tallarn Flesh
A quick word on metals with Beastmen. For my Silver metals, I obviously want them darker than my High Elves so start with Boltgun Metal. I find Devlan Mud wash gives a pleasing grubby, worn look without painting rust or blood on which can look a bit cartoonesque. I leave some of my Tin Bitz as Tin Bitz to give another dull non-precious metal to the Beastmen army. My gold is done in exactly the same way as for the High Elves. However to represent the Beastmen hierarchy the lowest Beastmen in the pecking order have the least gold – Ungors have none, the odd Gor might have a little (usually the Champion, in fact only 7 of the 40 Gors have any gold), most Beastigor have some gold and all Minotaurs have some. I imagine in Beastmen society you've got to be big to hold onto your gold for any length of time.
And that is where I am, all the highlighting is done in one final stage, Stage 3 (funnily enough), as I generally find it easier to complete each colour and move on, rather than updating each colour with one highlight then moving on as I do with the High Elves.
So that's it for this week, I did promise a Battle Report didn't I? Hmmm... it will come I'm sure. Tomorrow I'm off on holiday, to Gran Canira – the most southerly point of the European Union I'm reliably informed. So next week's blog will have an international feel, as I blog from the Spanish colony – well I'll be blogging when I get back but there might be some sunny pictures, particularly as the Archers and Bolt Thrower are coming to Gran Canira – some painting in the winter sun, what could be more relaxing? On that note I bid you Bon Voyage until next week, who knows maybe I'll have tales of holiday romance – doubt it though. Oh and apologies for any dodgy spelling/grammar haven't had time for a proof read this week (it may surprise you to know I usually do this).
It's funny, I had a similar thing recently. A rash of friends beginning to 'settle down'. Buying houses, having babies, getting married. It made me feel quite rubbish to still be studying at 28, despite the absurd number of degrees I need to teach First Year University students how to read Poetry.
Thumbs up for the Gors, they look very impressive indeed all together.
'ave a good time Matt! Don't blog too much on holiday! :thumbsup:
I started reading the blog with two words in my mind - Charlie Brooker
Unfortunately Matt, these two words have changed to Glen Cunningham ;)
Happy New Year - superb entertainment as always!!!
My New Years Resolution is to actually have a working army ! - There is hope yet, although being homeless is a greater probability at this moment in time!
Quote from: Draig on January 04, 2011, 02:23:47 am
It's funny, I had a similar thing recently. A rash of friends beginning to 'settle down'. Buying houses, having babies, getting married. It made me feel quite rubbish to still be studying at 28, despite the absurd number of degrees I need to teach First Year University students how to read Poetry.
I know, doesn't it make you hate your friends? Or have I taken it too far again!
Quote from: Draig on January 04, 2011, 02:23:47 am
Thumbs up for the Gors, they look very impressive indeed all together.
Cheers mate.
Quote from: Undead Dan on January 04, 2011, 02:24:57 am
'ave a good time Matt! Don't blog too much on holiday! :thumbsup:
Many thanks, don't worry I won't blog until I get back. By the way what are you all doing up at 2am in the morning - go to bed :wink;m::
Quote from: shakyrup on January 04, 2011, 10:03:35 am
I started reading the blog with two words in my mind - Charlie Brooker
This is not the first time this comparison has been made, at work I've been likened to him too. I was probably moaning about fluffy kittens at the time, or something equally inoffensive.
Quote from: shakyrup on January 04, 2011, 10:03:35 am
Unfortunately Matt, these two words have changed to Glen Cunningham ;)
Don't mention my father, it's too disturbing to think about. Last time I went round he managed to get broccoli in his ear. How is that even possible?
Quote from: shakyrup on January 04, 2011, 10:03:35 am
Happy New Year - superb entertainment as always!!!
My New Years Resolution is to actually have a working army ! - There is hope yet, although being homeless is a greater probability at this moment in time!
There is the worry about being homeless, but I'd still rather you come round tonight for a pre-holiday painting session rather than house viewing!
try being 36 mate with the mind of an 18 year old, depressing... :thumbsup:
Have a good hol mate, and I look fwd to a great Hol rundown post...
Quote from: cunningmatt on January 04, 2011, 12:04:04 pm
I know, doesn't it make you hate your friends? Or have I taken it too far again!
I think hatred and pity in equal measures. Especially when they are moaning about the Mortgage or being kept up all night by a howling ball of poo and tears.
Quote from: fatolaf on January 04, 2011, 02:40:07 pm
try being 36 mate with the mind of an 18 year old, depressing... :thumbsup:
Have a good hol mate, and I look fwd to a great Hol rundown post...
Glad to know the situation only improves as I get older!! Cheers mate, hopefully it will be a more tanned body writing here in a week's time!
Quote from: Draig on January 04, 2011, 02:45:52 pm
being kept up all night by a howling ball of poo and tears.
We've all had dates that have ended like that, haven't we?... Just me?
I'm 31, seems the majority of the weddings are behind me but the babies are starting to stack up at some ridiculous rate (not mine I'll hasten to add). I've also shot myself in the foot by having a 27 year old girlfriend, that means that she is just hitting the prime 'friends getting married stage' so I've got to go through a whole new round of weddings of people I know even less well. The joy...
I discovered between christmas and new year that apparently I've got a knack with <6 month old children, when handed to me they instantly fall asleep and stay that way, it seems to be considered a spectacular trait by the women who insist I take them. I have realised what this wonderful trick is, I leave them alone. Women don't seem to be able to do this and keep bouncing, touching, faffing with them so they never fall asleep. My strategy of ignoring them as much as possible seems to work rather well. Who knew...
Anyway off those horrible depressing topics (I do wonder how I'm not terminally single, it remains a mystery to me) and onto more inspirational stuff. The beasts are looking really nice, now ignore them and focus on the high elves like you were meant to!
Quote from: Dave on January 05, 2011, 02:00:46 pm
so I've got to go through a whole new round of weddings of people I know even less well. The joy...
Aargh my idea of hell :endit:, Bad enough at the best of times. Just do what Ihave done in the past, just say no :cool3:
Friday 14th January – WEEK 2Hola – that's Spanish for hello, apparently. Yes I'm back from the sunshine paradise of Gran Canaria, slightly browner and about 4 stone heavier. I wouldn't want to make you jealous but it was 25ºC and looked like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1737.jpg)
I'm so glad to be back in damp London I can't tell you, no really I can't! In the style of Blue Peter after their summer expedition, this week's blog entry is Painting on the Move from Gran Canaria. Don't worry hopefully it won't be as boring as the Blue Peter Summer Expedition, and I promise there is some painting action in there for those of you who strangely think that I should mention these things!
Now it has been suggested that I like to moan in these blogs:
Quote from: shakyrup on January 04, 2011, 10:03:35 am
I started reading the blog with two words in my mind - Charlie Brooker
That couldn't be further from the truth, could it? Well to prove it I'll start this week by talking about something I like, I know surprising isn't it? But whilst packing for Gran Canaria I did remember my fondness for mini-toiletries. Aside from the obvious advantages of mini-toiletries – namely you don't fill up your spongebag or use up all your baggage allowance carrying a bottle of shampoo the size of one of the smaller Canary Islands, there's something I find intrinsically pleasing about mini-toiletries. I think it's the fact that they are faithful replicas of their bigger cousins, except unlike fun-size chocolate they are actually useful and practical. Here you can see my collection:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1865.jpg)
Incidentally if anyone knows where I can get the mini-versions of the Nivea for Men products I'd be very grateful as I can't find them anymore. Usually there's a section in Boots and Superdrug with them, where when you find them briefly you think you've turned into a giant, until you realise all the products are supposed to be smaller. For comparison here they are next to a standard-sized Elf:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1867.jpg)
And people say I don't feature High Elves in this blog!
Some people moan that mini-toiletries are too small to last a week, but I often find when presented with a smaller supply I naturally ration the amount I have. Usually half the amount of shampoo will still wash my hair, I just guess I use too much with a massive supply at my disposal – well I think, the smaller amounts get me clean, though inordinate amount of flies did bother me on holiday, perhaps I did smell like a turd? Obviously I do make an exception for hair wax, come on this level of hair care doesn't do itself – in fact my hair has been styled to within an inch of it's life and a proper wax supply is required, none of this mini-bottles this is a standard week's supply for me (with rationing):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1870.jpg)
Mini toiletries aside, it was time to pack and get ready for flying. I have actually only flown once before and that was to America on the 9th of September 2001, as you can imagine this was a slightly concerning time to fly back, but I don't want to turn this into "Where was I during a terrorist attack" Top Trumps. This event didn't really put me off flying, just it's been a while so it's still a relatively new experience. First thing is first packing and the various regulations, when I last went flying you could bring anything onto a plane even a shotgun could go in your hand luggage and no one would care (that might not be true), but now a tube of moisturiser could potentially send your aircraft tumbling from the skies. So with my Wii Fit out to weigh my suitcase, first time that's been used in a while, I diligently made sure that my suitcase weighed under 20kg, and that all my heavy stuff went in my hand luggage (no weight limit there). The High Elves and paints I was taking had to go in the hold, whilst it would have been fun to say I've painted at 10,000 feet – the Games Workshop version of the Mile High Club, taking twenty pots multi-coloured pots of liquid through the security checks may have raised a few eyebrows and to be honestly I was secretly hoping for a full body pat down – the closest to sexual activity I'll get on the holiday, so I didn't want the paints to distract from that.
With my luggage packed it was off to the sunshine paradise that is London Gatwick, Britain's second busiest airport, which involves me passing through Britain's busiest train station.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1833.jpg)
Why promote this? Surely this isn't a feature to be proud of. During my early morning commute I wouldn't want to be constantly reminded that I'm travelling through Britain's Busiest Railway station, I want to travel through "Britain's Quietest Railway Station" or "Britain's Least Delayed Railway Station" or "Britain's Best Railway Station at Segregating Stupid People onto their own Platforms". Any how despite all this we made it to Gatwick, where we checked in our luggage and were submitted to all kind of luggage checks, including the deployment of liquids in clear plastic bags. This bit always makes me nervous for some reason, I have the kind of random blind panic where I think there's a chance I may have accidentally packed the kitchen knives or a chainsaw in my luggage which is generally hard to explain, and typically if they do find a kitchen knife in your luggage you can't just say "Oh sorry, is that banned? I'll leave that behind" – typically it's frowned upon. Fortunately I passed the X-ray, sadly my foil-lined underpants didn't set off the metal detector, so no pat down for me. Sigh.
At this point your hand luggage is branded to show it has been checked.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1823.jpg)
Now I'm not a real snob, but walking around Duty Free with this proudly displayed on my hand luggage is a bit like going round with the word "CHEAP" branded across your forehead – I want a T-Shirt that says "No upper class airlines fly direct to where I'm going" to accompany it. Still meant I could look down on the people with Ryanair tags on their bags, which undoubtedly they had to pay extra for. Duty Free, isn't really so exciting when you realise that your travelling within the European Union so you're not entitled to any tax off, so instead of Duty Free it should be called "Same Price as on the High Street", particularly dull when you realise all the shops are ones that are on the High Street so there's nothing exciting to buy, other than over priced bottles of mineral water which you need to replace the perfectly good one you had to throw away before security checks. However for some reason there are a large number of luggage shops, which makes no sense. Who at this point, after checking in all your luggage, decides they need to buy a massive suitcase, which they can't even take on the plane anyway as it's too big for hand luggage? Some mad person must, or do these shops work in collusion with the airlines getting a cut of the excess baggage allowance charged on passengers trying to take a set of matching new holdalls into the cabin?
Anyway I didn't buy any luggage, instead I went for some lunch. Given that nothing in the Duty Free area (that isn't actually duty free) can be dangerous if smuggled onto the plane, because you've already been checked and scanned. When you have dinner in Duty Free you're not given a real knife. Instead your given a flat piece of metal cross between a spatula and a fish slice which couldn't be used to cut anything, lest you try and hold up the plane with it. Thank god I didn't order the steak, or I'd still be there now trying to hack it into pieces. However given this reason for not supplying knives, surely haven't gone far enough if I could hold up the cabin crew with a knife I could also hold them up with a broken piece of crockery – I was given a china plate after all. What about holding up the cabin crew with a cup of hot coffee, we all know that can burn if spilt on a member of the cabin crew? Or even giving them a nasty series of paper cuts with a novel bought in WHSmith, run a copy of War and Peace across someone's finger they'll be desperate to let you into the cockpit (I realise that could sound like a euphemism, but I'm hoping you're all grown up enough to ignore). Worst of all those giant Toblerones, what if one of the cabin crew is nut intolerant? Give me control of the aircraft or Tracy the lead cabin crew is going into Anaphylactic shock! I think to be honest security is too lax on aircraft, in a few minutes I've found a serious of obvious breaches. By the way given that last year a man was convicted of "sending menacing electronic communications" after tweeting that he was going to blow up Robin Hood airport as it was closed due to snow delaying his trip http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-11408239 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-11408239). I would like to point out I am joking, and I have no intention of holding up any aircraft with a giant Toblerone or any other object. Just to be safe. But if MI5 or the other security services are now reading this post: Hi, do keep reading there's some good painting pictures coming up later!
After the joy of Duty Free and Toblerones, it was time for the flight. Despite the fact you have to check in over an hour before boarding there's always some desperately running to board the flight minutes before it takes off, no doubt armed with a new set of luggage. That wasn't me, we got on the EasyJet flight nice and quick so we could get good seats, I say good, I mean seats together, none of the seats are brilliant let's be honest. Though the one thing I will say about EasyJet is I admire the loyalty amongst the staff, there aren't many companies where the faces of all the employees are the company colour, you certainly wouldn't get it on BA so it's nice to see it here. An interesting thing about flying, is that you never actually see the outside of the aircraft, invariably the windows of the terminal don't allow a good view of your own craft. I mean I presume it's like the others, but for all I know it could be made of cardboard, or be a knocked off job with different colour doors to bodywork like some cheap car. Because of this I don't have any photos of the plane, so it's over to our resident 4 year old artist for her take on the plane:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1855.jpg)
Yeah. Not her best work in fairness. Though she hasn't done a picture for a while, she must be rusty.
Once we're all settled a lovely member of cabin crew announced "The flight is four hours, so that's plenty of time to get comfortable and enjoy the flight" – well thank god for that, if the flight had only been three and a half hours, I'd have insisted we circled Gran Canaria for thirty minutes so I could fully enjoy the flight. If it had been only a ninety minute domestic flight, I'd have had no time to get comfortable, I'd have been in agony! Once on the flight, whilst enjoying my four hours, you get a chance to look through a small version of the Argos catalogue selling a variety of in-flight gifts from alcohol to perfumes, from alarm clocks to LEGO (I know how exciting? I was forced to hold back!). Which does pose the question if I spent hours weighing out my luggage to ensure I didn't take a single gram over 20kg to conserve aircraft fuel and avoid a hefty surcharge, how come there's enough free weight to carry all this crap back and forth in case anyone happens to want a digital alarm clock? Surely if you dumped all this tat each passenger could have an extra kilo or two?
The highlight of the flight however had to be the women behind me, now I know that take-off and landing are the two most dangerous parts of flying, once you're in the air it's fine until you want to get down. So understandably if I'm going to be apprehensive, it'll be at this time. It was during take-off where she chose to announce she'd been in a recent "plane crash", where apparently during landing the plane had tilted and the right wing hit the ground, causing the plane to roll to the left and the left wing to then hit the ground. During this time the pilot had apparently left on the intercom and shouted "Abort landing, abort landing" down the Tannoy – not the most reassuring thing you can hear. I'm not totally sure how true this story is, but I'm guessing the woman's nerves weren't calmed by repeating it, and neither were the other passengers who had to hear this story. However during landing she was a lot worse, as during our final approach the plane was rocking a little bit due to turbulence, causing the woman to shout "It was like this when I crashed", followed by the line "Please don't crash, please don't crash!" and then once we touched the runway "Brake! Brake!" was shouted at the top of her voice. It goes without saying I shall be billing her for my underwear dry cleaning. Some of you may suspect that I exaggerate my stories for this blog, but I can assure you the woman genuinely shouted all those things!
On that hysterical note, we'd finally landed in Gran Canaria – who'd have though 2,400 words in the blog, before we even got to Gran Canaria! Here's some exciting photos of Las Palmas airport for those of you who like such things:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1821.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1822.jpg)
The worst part of arriving at an airport, is baggage reclaim, I'd bought a new suitcase for this trip and couldn't remember what the hell it looked like. I think it was blue, but then it could have been black, I remember it sort of looked suitcase-y but then most of the bags did. Next time I fly I may paint my luggage the colour of a Shakeaway cup to give me a chance of recognising it on the carousel, which did remind of Yo Sushi, yum yum!
Incidentally if you're wondering what happened to Charlie Dimmock and Tommy Walsh, they now run the facilities at Las Palmas airport as this picture shows:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1832.jpg)
Good to see woman without bras can still get work.
After a quick connecting coach ride, we were at the hotel:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1819.jpg)
The hotel was very nice, here's some nice pictures of the surroundings:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1710.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1715.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1723.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1816.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1818.jpg)
I wasted no time in setting up painting corner on the balcony:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1734.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1735.jpg)
You can just see my towel and swim shorts drying in the background, don't worry to save discomfort all round I haven't posted any pictures of me topless in this blog, shame I know, but you'll have to manage.
Here's the view from my painting balcony:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1712.jpg)
Where you can see the sea, and the neighbouring hotel which managed to block out the sun for the best part of the day, sadly my petition to have it demolished wasn't accepted.
To those of you disappointed with the lack of progress made with the High Elves:
Quote from: Dave on January 05, 2011, 02:00:46 pm
The beasts are looking really nice, now ignore them and focus on the high elves like you were meant to!
You'll be pleased to know I packed the High Elf Archers (January's painting task) and the Repeater Bolt Thrower (part of December's task – oops!). I'd like to point out at this point, I didn't go on holiday just to paint and I certainly didn't avoid the delights of sun, sea and sand to paint. However I have trouble sleeping when I'm away, so tended to do about an hour in the morning before my room mates woke up, and an hour around sunset when my travel mates had a little nap before we went out. It's amazing how much painting gets done without the distractions of the TV, internet or blogging, so within a few days my Archers got to Stage 1:
Stage 1 – High Elf Archers(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1700.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1704.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1692.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1693.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1694.jpg)
Nothing exciting about the paint scheme, but in case you are interested:
Base: Khemri Brown
Leather: Scorched Brown
Robes: 1:1 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Shining Gold*
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Sleeves and Trousers: Iyanden Dark Sun
Sash and Quivers: 1:1 Enchanted Blue: Ice Blue
Hair: Vomit Brown or Dheneb Stone or Calthan Brown or Scorched Brown**
Wood: Khemri Brown
* - usually I'd paint Tin Bitz as my Gold undercoat as it tends to cover better on this, unfortunately I forgot to pack Tin Bitz (I was trying to not take too many colours!), so instead I painted straight Shining Gold, which I'd then recoat in Stage 2 where needed.
** - with the High Elf Archers hair is quite important as unlike most other regiments they have no helmets so you can see a full head of lovely locks on every model. Hence I chose a few different colours so they didn't all look like clones, even the odd dark-haired elf with Scorched Brown simply for diversity, there's no ethnic cleansing in my High Elves!
Incidentally if you're wondering why they've been photographed in the hotel bathroom, the lighting was particularly strong in there, just what you need when looking at your face after just waking up!! And the pile of bits were the few casualties that occurred during the flight, I blame EasyJet as I think it's unlikely me jumping up and down on the suitcase to shut it caused these problems! Sadly as well as the Tin Bitz forgot the plastic glue so these would have to be fixed on my return to the UK!
After that little bit of painting, it must be time to get back to the hotel, most of the facilities were lovely including the swimming pool, sauna, sun terrace and apparently the gym was good too – though I wouldn't know. Although the restaurant possibly was my favourite, being all inclusive, you got an all-you-can-eat buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner with all-you-can-eat snacks in between and a free bar! Which is just what you need after the Christmas binge! I decided to get my money's worth, my record being 11 lumps of ice cream in one day. Mmmmmmm. The choice of food was very interesting, breakfast always threw up some curveballs as amongst the bacon and eggs, pancakes, cheeses and cereals often came random vegetables such as broccoli and courgettes! Which suspiciously were available on the previous night's dinner. I don't know if the hotel staff had something against vegetarians, but sadly what limited vegetarian choices they were, were often deliberately ruined. Peas and other vegetables would often be served with a sprinkling of ham for no real reason! But the best thing about eating had to be the comedy signage; most dishes were labelled in 5 European languages. Some probably didn't need a label, such as a tray of "Sweetcorn", which surely if you can't identify by inspection, then any number of translations would not help. Some needed more information such as the ever present "Fish In Sauce" or "Meat In Sauce" you're guess is as good as mine. And there was always the comedy translation such as "Smashed Potato" which for some reason had ham mixed in it! Still after 21 meals and copious amounts of snacking I don't feel fat at all, well maybe totally!
Talking of fish in sauce, here's the two lovely fish from the hotel pond, which never seemed to move, I think they may be plastic but don't tell the kids:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1722.jpg)
Now whilst the hotel was good, there were a few minor points I have. Not that I like to moan you understand, well not much.
The hotel entertainments manager was rather annoying, in fairness most of the guests were a lot older so bingo was a good entertainment for them. But he was quite insistent that everyone got involved to the point where when we saw him coming we pretended to be asleep to avoid being forced to participate in a fashion show or men versus women competition – all of which sounded much more preferable to sunbathing, I think not.
Oh and thanks to the other holiday maker who switched off the lights, you know who you are. I was just in the cubicle for a Number Twosies, when someone came in for a Number Onesies and upon leaving switched off the toilet lights. Not helpful when you've still got stuff dripping out your bum as you're forced to grope your way round the toilet with you trousers and pants round your ankles looking for the light switch hoping no one else enters the toilets because it will be difficult to explain. Hope that wasn't too much information.
Moving on there are many military, economic and technological secrets that the United Kingdom has, that is has chosen not to sure with its allies, trading partners and the rest of the World, why does one of these have to be the duvet? The duvet and fitted sheet is the best form of bed covering there is, why would you want any other? Yet in continental Europe there is the stubborn instance that a selection of various sheets, quilts and blankets is better. There are many problems with this. Firstly which layer of the sheets are you supposed to get between, it's never clear, often the bottom sheet as is loosely fitted as the top one, I have no idea where to go, and at bed time I do not want a puzzle. Secondly, wherever these beds are and what ever sheets are chosen, why is one of the layers always irrationally itchy for no good reason, and why no matter how hard you try to keep it away from your skin do the sheets some how part like the Red Sea to allow the itchy layer to rub right up and down your body? Thirdly flat sheets should be banned, as in the base sheet that rather then being elasticised to hold it to the mattress is instead simply folded under the mattress and held in place with hope. Every time I even so much as breathed in bed the thing came out from under the mattress, god forbid you turned over else the entire bed sheets wrapped themselves round you like an overfriendly python. Seriously I was tempted in the morning to make the bed with a staple gun.
On the subject of interior decorations, if you've got a bit of extra curtain fabric left over, what do you do with it?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1814.jpg)
Oh that's right you have it framed and put on the wall as a picture:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1815.jpg)
Maybe it's a Spanish thing.
Now if you are getting jealous, I'll try and make you feel better by telling you that one day it was cloudy and unfortunately it seems when it's cloudy not only is it colder but it's windier. Still being British we weren't going to let that stop us, cloudy and windy is what our summer is like, so while the other European nations retreated to the warmth of the bar we continued to sunbathe. Despite the fact the sun could not be seen we still had our sunglasses on so those plus cloud meant we couldn't see. We still had Factor 50 suncream on, you never know, just one ray could burn us. And we continued to sunbath even as the wind got strong enough to rattle the shutters on the gym and send deckchairs flying across the terrace. We did Britain proud. Alright eventually it got a bit nippy, so I went in and did some more painting, and got the Bolt Thrower and Archers up to Stage 2:
Stage 2 – High Elf Archers(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1792.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1795.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1797.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Leather: Washed with Badab Black
Robes: Layered with 1:2 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Silver Metal: Washed with Badab Black
Gold Metal: Shining Gold*
Flesh: Layered with Elf Flesh
Sleeves and Trousers: Layered with Golden Yellow
Sash and Quivers: Layered (Sash) / Drybrushed (Quiver) with Ice Blue
Hair: Washed with Ogyrn Flesh (Vomit Brown base) or Washed with Badab Black Dheneb Stone or Calthan Brown base) or unchanged (Scorched Brown base)
Wood: Layered with slightly watered down Graveyard Earth**
* - I simply touched up the areas that needed a bit of extra Shining Gold, particularly large areas such as on the banner and musician's horn.
** - Watered down to allow the Khemri Brown layer to show through and give it a natural effect.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1801.jpg)
Sadly the bits pile was getting steadily bigger.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1802.jpg)
And here's the command group, the astute High Elf fans amongst you may have noticed I used heads from the Bolt Thrower crew for the Standard and Musician and the weird head from the Spearmen set for the Hawk Eye. Already having two units of Archers I thought it would be nice to vary the command models a bit, particularly as there aren't too many options for their equipment. I also added quivers from the Spearmen set (for the Lothern Sea Guard) which have bows in, for the models that were holding a bow.
Also got the High Elf Bolt Thrower up to the same standard:
Stage 2 – Repeater Bolt Thrower(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1779.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1781.jpg)
Base (crew): *NO CHANGE*
Leather (crew): Washed with Badab Black
Robes (crew): 1:2 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Silver Metal (crew): Washed with Badab Black
Gold Metal (crew): Painted Shining Gold
Flesh (crew): Elf Flesh
Yellow Details (crew): Layered with Golden Yellow
Blue Details (crew): Layered with Ice Blue
Hair (crew): Washed with Ogryn Flesh
Wood (bolt thrower): Layered with slightly watered down Graveyard Earth (See notes for Archers)
Silver Metal (bolt thrower): Washed with Badab Black
Gold Metal (bolt thrower): Painted Shining Gold
Bolt Quivers (bolt thrower): Drybrushed with Ice Blue
From painting to the Spanish language, sadly my grip of Spanish is poor to none. At school I only learnt French and Latin (don't ask, it was a posh school – I felt out of place), and with me not taking any holidays in Ancient Rome (what is the Latin for my lilo has a puncture anyway?) only French has proved any use. Broadly speaking I have enough French knowledge to roughly translate enough to get buy in France, I am by no means a French expert or even what you would call mediocre, I just have enough familiarity to get the key points out of signs and to be able to construct a useful question asking where the toilets are. The only problem being unless the response is anything less complicated than pointing I have no idea what's been said. Unfortunately French has become my default foreign language, which always causes the problem of me saying "Bonjour" and "Merci, Au Revoir" in every shop for a week or two in the UK after I get back from France! In Spain this causes extra complications, as invariably they will great with me the Spanish "Hola", realise I'm English and speak to me in English and then I will end the conversation with "Merci, Au Revoir" by accidental default causing untold confusion. As you can see I'm doing my best to dispel the myth that Europeans believe the British are rubbish at foreign languages. My greatest Spanish language triumph was buying this sun cream:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1862.jpg)
At least I think it's Sun Cream, it's got the word Nivea on, they make creams and things, a picture of the sun and the number 20 which surely is the factor? In fairness for all I know it could be Beef Marinade which goes in the oven for 20 minutes and I've been smearing it all over my body in the sun – again that could explain the fly thing. Still foreign languages, mistranslations, faux-amie (that's French for false friends, and means words that look like English words, but are in fact different – see I know French) and general cultural differences means that signs in other languages can be quite funny. All we need is a comedy British twat to photograph them and point and laugh. It's my calling! So here are my favourite signs of the holiday.
A classic favourite from dinner here, yes I've got my long trousers but what do the women wear:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1682.jpg)
I sort of know what they mean by Habitual Elegance, but how would you define it, and what does that ban. I'm guessing women from Newcastle will have to starve.
Oh hang on a minute here's another sign from dinner explaining what to wear that might help:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1733.jpg)
I see, you can't calm dressed like a reject from Fame. Though apparently wigs on women are fine.
And of course remember in Spain, it's very rude to poke your feet:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1768.jpg)
I won't be poking my feet, whether it's raining or not you'll be pleased to know.
And do you want to be fondled by the chambermaid? No?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1773.jpg)
Well make sure you put up your "No Molesting" sign on the door then, or god knows what you could be in for.
And who wants to be insulted by a sign:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1813.jpg)
I know my swimming is poor, but putting up signs is just rude frankly.
Of course there's nothing possibly funny about this sign:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1671.jpg)
Except that from Geography lessons, I remember the thing it's erected upon is also called a groyne – tee he he, so much smut.
And finally a common sign in China:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1667.jpg)
Yes make sure you kill your second born child, oh and don't smoke either – good health advice.
You may be thinking at this point that I didn't leave the hotel and nothing could be further from the truth, well ok on one day I went for a walk. Here's some of the highlights I've what I saw:
A house with measles:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1740.jpg)
The sea:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1738.jpg)
The lovely sand dunes:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1744.jpg)
And to think I spend a fiver on pots of sand from Games Workshop, could have saved myself a fortune here. The sand dunes did include this sign:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1745.jpg)
Something is prohibited, not sure what though, it could be Russian kings.
After a long trek across the dunes, which resulted in copious amounts of sand in the shoes, always annoying how does it get everywhere? We approached one of the sites – the Lighthouse:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1747.jpg)
Sadly it was rather sunny at the lighthouse, so I couldn't see my camera screen, so I had to guess where to point the camera and this was the best shot I got, sorry:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1753.jpg)
For some reason they like to put weighing scales around the island, so you can see how much you've eaten at the buffet. Either someone was a bit fat here, or unhappy with the reading:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1678.jpg)
Ok it was me! But that ice cream was tasty.
There's the place where they filmed the Barclaycard advert:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1676.jpg)
And of course the dodgy man from the 70s who advertises all electronic products in Spain, here you can see him advertising the Wii:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1680.jpg)
I personally wouldn't buy anything off him.
And there's this, everyone's favourite area:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1750.jpg)
That is until you actually go there and realise the only people who use the Nudist area are people who you don't want to see using the nudist area. There bodies look so bad; they just have given up caring. Seriously the average person was 80 and their breasts were dragging on the floor carving out their own sand dunes – and that's just the men!
And that my friends is Gran Canaira in a nutshell, not sure if I'll get that job with the Tourist Board but you never know. To end with here's the reason you should always wrap your paints tightly in several bags if you're transporting them anywhere:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1826.jpg)
Ahhhh it's a Skull White explosion!
I'm off to beat up my flatmate for telling how many times he's been to the gym since he got back. My weight loss efforts have so far struggled to a haircut, well they must have cut off at least 50g worth of hair.
Next week, I'll hopefully have a battle report for you (I keep promising that so don't get excited), I'll be working on December's Great Eagles and they'll be news of the Black Isle Campaign which my Beastmen will be losing I mean entering next week. Until then, here's a summary of what I painted for those of you who like to read the bottom of these posts to get to the point:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1806.jpg)
And I leave you with this lovely picture, which if you've seen Qi this week will know isn't true:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1764.jpg)
I'd like to say what a pleasure it is being back in grey old London ready for work, but I can't. Grassy arse for reading!
Why have I not had this blog in my life until now! Fantastic work Matt, loving it (although if I am honest I have currently only read the first 6 pages so if it sucks after that I reserve the right to punch you in the back of the skull, but I doubt there will be any need for that. Entertaining, informative and wonderfully illustrated.
Well done mate
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Quote from: Veldemere on January 14, 2011, 11:49:38 pm
Why have I not had this blog in my life until now! Fantastic work Matt, loving it (although if I am honest I have currently only read the first 6 pages so if it sucks after that I reserve the right to punch you in the back of the skull, but I doubt there will be any need for that. Entertaining, informative and wonderfully illustrated.
Well done mate
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Hey! Glad to have a new reader, I see you've been busy on the forum!
Thanks for the compliment, I think the next 11 pages live up to the first 6, if I remember rightly they get more vulgar, knowing you though I think you'll approve!! Though maybe don't read today's earlier post when I'm around. Don't want a punch in the back of head if you're jealous of my holiday!!
Jealous of the sandpit when I have just come back from skiing, not sure that is possible
Quote from: Veldemere on January 15, 2011, 12:12:02 am
Jealous of the sandpit when I have just come back from skiing, not sure that is possible
Well at least I won't get a punch in the head! Hope skiing was great, enjoy the rest of the blog!
QuoteYes make sure you kill your second born child, oh and don't smoke either – good health advice.
Amongst many good comedy gems this was my favourite...
Great update and well done on your result last night (not going to give anything away :cool3:)
Quote from: fatolaf on January 18, 2011, 02:44:25 pm
Amongst many good comedy gems this was my favourite...
Ahh, I loved that sign, though I am telling my friends I look habitually elegant a lot of the time.
Quote from: fatolaf on January 18, 2011, 02:44:25 pm
Great update and well done on your result last night (not going to give anything away :cool3:)
Cheers x2, and in the words of Kirsty Wark on Newsnight (ala Dead Ringers) there will be more on that story later...
Wednesday 19th January – WEEK 3
Do you ever feel Games Workshop have gone too far with their publicity for the new Skaven models? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12187409 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12187409)
Personally I think that's too much. Anyway let's crack on shall we? This week we've gone hobby crazy, yeah after last week's holiday snaps and painting in the sun (hope you saw) it's pure unadulterated hobby with painting, a battle report and my exploits in the Black Isle campaign, so there's going to be no time for jokes about necrophilia and Dancing on Ice – sorry.
Painting
Let's start with painting, as it's been a while and we've all got a bit confused what with advent calendars, reviews of the year and Spanish islands here's where we're up to:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1187.jpg)
And what was painted each month:
September – Lothern Sea Guard
October – Ellyrian Reavers and Shadow Warriors
November – Mage
December – Repeater Bolt Thrower and Great Eagles
January – Archers
The astute amongst you will have noticed that we're missing December and January's painting tasks, well the good news after a very productive weekend at Mr Shakey Shakey's progress has been made. Here's the details.
The Great Eagles actually didn't take too long once I assembled them. Sadly 40mm x 40mm bases don't have a central hole for the flying base to attach to. So dotting some white paint on the bottom of the clear stand I dotted a space on the rear of each base which I then cut out:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1836.jpg)
The Great Eagles were then green stuffed, which fortunately unlike the Ellyrian Reavers didn't necessitate filling their bottoms, phew!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1839.jpg)
As they had such large bases, that they weren't actually touching, I detailed the Great Eagles bases. One of which had some Repeater Bolt Thrower bolts (from the Bolt Thrower kit) imbedded in the ground along with some bones (from the Warhammer basing kit) that the Eagle is descending on for a quick snack.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1878.jpg)
The other had a pile of rocks (from the Warhammer basing kit) and a Elven helmet (from the Bolt Thrower Kit) and a Shield (from the Silver Helms kit – yes I bought them!).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1871.jpg)
The advantage of having Elven parts on each base was that it allowed me to introduce the Elven colours to the Great Eagles without having to paint them blue and yellow! I have a bit of a pet hate of monsters/creatures who are painted the colours of the army's clothing, it doesn't look right (I mean I suppose the army could have dyed it's banners to match the creature's flesh, but it's tenuous) so you won't be seeing any sky blue Dragons or bright yellow Griffons in my army. Obviously if monsters share the same colours as their respective race's skin tone that's different, just no Red Empire armies who happen to have a Griffon exactly the same shade of red – not right! I'll get off my soap box now.
It took much deliberation in what colours to paint my Eagles, whilst the typical alternating rows of feathers, as shown on the GW models, appealed it reminded me more of falcons and would arguably look much better on my Griffon where I had more rows of feathers to play with. In the end, after seeing this picture in the High Elf book (I like finding some reference to validate my choices, even though I'm sure if I painted the Eagle bright pink no one would bat an eyelid!):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2075.jpg)
I decided to paint them like North American Bald Eagles. A quick look at some pictures from Eagle porn (phwoar look at the wing span on that), on the internet gave me an idea of where the Eagle's feather colour changed.
So here for the first time ever, is all 4 painting stages together, as I managed to get these done in a day! Go me!!
Oh and apologies for the poor photos, the Great Eagle models are really difficult to photograph, had to lean them up against paint pots to get a decent shot!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1947.jpg)
Stage 1 – Great Eagles
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1957.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1928.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1970.jpg)
White Feathers: 1:1 Khemri Brown: Bleached Bone
Black Feathers: Chaos Black
Beak: Tausept Ochre
Flesh: Iyanden Dark Sun
Talons: Chaos Black
Tongue: Hormagunt Purple
Base: Khemri Brown
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Wood: Khemri Brown
Rocks: Chardonite Granite
Quivers: 1:1 Ice Blue: Enchanted Blue
Yellow Shield: Iyanden Dark Sun
White Shield: 1:1 Skull White: Astronomacian Grey
Stage 2 – Great Eagles
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1966.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1972.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1978.jpg)
White Feathers: Wash with Gryphonne Sepia then Drybrush Bleached Bone
Black Feathers: Drybrush 1:1 Chaos Black: Kommando Khaki
Beak: Layer Golden Yellow
Flesh: Wash with Ogryn Flesh, then with Gryphonne Sepia
Talons: Highlight 1:1 Chaos Black: Kommando Khaki
Tongue: Layer Liche Purple
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Silver Metal: Wash Badab Black
Gold Metal: Shining Gold
Wood: Layer watered down Graveyard Earth
Rocks: Drybrush Adeptus Battlegrey
Quivers: Drybrush Ice Blue
Yellow Shield: Layer Golden Yellow
White Shield: Layer 2:1 Skull White: Astronomacian Grey
Stage 3 – Great Eagles
By the way the Sun came out during these photos, hence the different lighting – I know, in Britain in January, who'd have thought!!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2001.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2021.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2020.jpg)
White Feathers: Drybrush 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White
Black Feathers: Drybrush Kommando Khaki
Beak: Layer tip 1:1 Golden Yellow : Scorched Brown, edge nearest head highlight 1:1 Golden Yellow : Skull White
Flesh: Layer Iyanden Dark Sun
Talons: Highlight 1:1 Chaos Black: Bleached Bone
Tongue: Layer Warlock Purple
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Silver Metal: Highlight Chainmail
Gold Metal: Wash Gryphonne Sepia
Wood: Layer watered down Bleached Bone
Rocks: Drybrush Codex Grey then Fortress Grey
Quivers: Drybrush 1:1 Ice Blue : Enchanted Blue
Yellow Shield: Layer Sunburst Yellow
White Shield: Layer Skull White
Stage 4 – Great Eagles
By the way the Sun came out during these photos, hence the different lighting – I know, in Britain in January, who'd have thought!!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2066.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2063.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2069.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2070.jpg)
White Feathers: Drybrush Skull White
Black Feathers: *NO CHANGE*
Beak: Layer tip 1:1 Chaos Black : Scorched Brown, edge nearest head highlight Skull White
Flesh: Highlight Bleached Bone
Talons: Highlight Bleached Bone
Tongue: Wash Leviathan Purple
Base: Drybrush Bleached Bone and flock with Static Grass
Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal: Highlight 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Wood: *NO CHANGE*
Rocks: Wash Badab Black
Quivers: *NO CHANGE*
Yellow Shield: Wash Ogryn Flesh then Highlight Bad Moon Yellow
White Shield: *NO CHANGE*
The Eagles' eyes were painted Chaos Black, then Enchanted Blue with highlights of 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Space Wolves Grey, then Skull White.
And then I got bit carried away, and finished the High Elf Monolith, you know the one from Forgeworld I started back in November:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2148.jpg)
I won't do a full painting guide for this, as it was actually rather straight forward. Rocks, base, gold and silver are as above. The Monolith itself was painted Calthan Brown, then washed Badab Black then heavily drybrushed Khemri Brown, then Dheneb Stone, then Bleached Bone and finally 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White. And doesn't look to bad if I do say so myself.
Ok so the Bolt Thrower and Archers aren't quite done, but they are so close it's unbelievable all I have to do is gems and eyes so that should done by the weekend if not before, more details next week!
The Black Isle Campaign
You can't fail to notice that's its been busy on the forum what with Warhammer 40,000 (whatever that is) tournaments starting up and the Black Isle campaign kicking off. Not a minute goes by when scurrilous insults are trader on this forum – either that or you've all got nothing to do at work.
Well not one to miss out on a good chance to insult someone I've joined the campaign, not with my High Elves but with my Beastmen. You may be wondering why given how Beastmen don't seem to fair well against other armies. In fact that is the reason exactly, if I lose terribly everyone will assume it's the Beastmen's fault and not the fact that I'm not very good at Warhammer, mooo ha ha ha – (that's an evil laugh written down in case you didn't know!).
And feeling suitably inspired I have come up with some "fluff" for this army, I'm not quite sure where I came up with my inspiration but here goes:
The sun was just beginning to clip the treeline of the forest, dusk was fast approaching as a
great wail was heard. Beastlord Brown stood into the forest clearing and collapsed his one good eye twitching in the pale light. A mighty roar went up from the gathered Beastherd, their leader had died. It was almost unheard for a Beastlord to die of old age, but this one had, not that he hadn't had his opponents, ever since beheading Beastlord Blair and taking control of the tribe Beastlord Brown had been threatened by rivals. But his vicious rage and ability to throw fax machines made sure he saw off even the most spirited challengers such as Wargor Blears.
But now the tribe was without a leader, ordinarily the previous leader's killer would fulfil this role, but old age itself could not lead the tribe. So the two most powerful Beastmen stepped forward Great Bray Shaman Cameron and Beastlord Clegg, Beastmen custom prevented the Beastlord from killing the Bray Shaman and the Bray Shaman knew he needed the support of the Beastlord to rule the tribe. So as sun set the two made a pact to the Ruinous Gods of the North (and Croydon) that they would lead the tribe together, and lead it beyond the forest. Great Bray Shaman Cameron had heard the call of the Chaos Gods, they were beckoning him out of the forest to rampage somewhere knew on a place called the Black Isle.
Great Bray Shaman Cameron:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2118.jpg)
Cameron the Great Bray Shaman had long been an opponent of Beastlord Brown, unhappy with the way he ruled the tribe. He had learnt the powerful Lore of the Beasts from a great master who only allowed those with lots of gold to be schooled by him.
Beastlord Clegg:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2095.jpg)
Beastlord Clegg had earned the respect of the tribe and was favoured by Bestigor, Gor and even Ungor. However since coming to power, his respect has dwindled, as Great Bray Shaman Cameron had somehow managed to make Clegg seem responsible for every misfortune that befell the tribe.
The herd pushed on through the forest rampaging through several Empire farmsteads on there way to the port of Marienburg. On the outskirts of which lay the Marienburg Naval Academy, the hoard began it's assault destroying the ancient building. The students of the Academy were not happy, knowing they would have to pay more money in order to rebuild the Academy they fought back, but before long the beastherd had them kettled within the Academy grounds. Cameron commanded the beastherd to find a ship, which they did. Unfortunately it was not in the Beastmen's nature to find and use technology only to destroy it. Clegg got the blame. At the ninth time of asking the Minotaurs were restrained long enough for the army to board the ship. The Empire ship set sail, and passed the coast of Bretonnia on its long journey to the Black Isle.
It was while Cameron was drunk on the cheap duty free, that the Harpies circling the ship spotted the Black Isle. The ship's pilot had also been on the cheap duty free and so the ship beached itself rather ungainly on the beach of the isle. With the whole heard disembarked the Minotaurs promptly lost control of their frenzied rage and destroyed the ship much to Cameron's disgust. Clegg got the blame.
Aware that other nation's were trying to seize the Black Isle for themselves, Great Bray Shaman Cameron split the herd, he would lead the faster elements of the army on lightning raids against all comers, whilst Beastlord Clegg would keep the majority of the infantry behind to defend what they had gained. Clegg wasn't thrilled at the prospect, but worried he'd get the blame agreed.
Anyway obviously I don't want to give away my full army list to all the other opponents ad I might lose, but if I do give it away then it's another excuse should I lose! So here's how the tribe was split:
Great Bray Shaman Cameron's Army:
Wargor Ed - Battle Standard Bearer
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2101.jpg)
Twin brother of rival Battle Standard Bearer David, Wargor Ed was proud to have been chosen over his brother to bear the tribe's standard. An excellent fighter, though not the most attractive Beastmen he was a big supporter of Beastlord Brown.
Hammersmith & City - 2 Tuskgor Chariots
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2119.jpg)
Named after the two Beastmen gods of poor travel conditions Hammersmith & City represent everything their gods embodied - ramshackle
The Deficit Reducers - 20 Gors with Two Hand Weapons and Full Command
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2079.jpg)
Under Beastlord Brown the tribe had buried a lot of their gold in the river banks, unable to find where the gold has been buried the Deficit Reducers are tasked with pillaging gold from rival tribes and enemy armies and rationing it within the tribe itself.
The Common Scum - 5 Ungor Raiders with Bows
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2130.jpg)
Despite the best efforts of Bray Shaman Cameron to drive the scummy Ungor out of the tribe by making their lives intolerable and miserable a few cling on desperately, if it were up to Cameron they'd be hunted down and killed.
Banking Bonus Bouncers - 6 Minotaurs with Light Armour, Great Weapons and Command Group
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2127.jpg)
Those in charge of burying the tribe's gold at the river bank had been discovered to keep a portion of the gold for themselves. Bray Lord Cameron entrusted the Banking Bonus Bouncers to patrol the river bank clobbering those who bury the gold.
The Benefits Vultures - 6 Harpies
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2139.jpg)
Beastlord Brown under his rule had seen many Ungors die, so against Beastmen ways he made sure they were given greater access to food and rotated close to the camp fire to give them warmth. Cameron hated this and so employed these Benefits Vultures to strip the Ungor of any advantages they may have previously got.
The Out of Hours GPs - 6 Centigors with Spears, Shields and Full Command
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2136.jpg)
Medical care amongst the Beastmen tribes was virtually non-existent, however to cut the costs of running the tribe even further Bray Shaman Cameron employed 6 Centigors to deal with any medical complaints – it was amazing how many people suddenly felt a lot better when they turned up.
Beastlord Clegg's Army:
Wargor David - Battle Standard Bearer
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2101.jpg)
David the Battle Standard is bitter that Ed beat him to the place of Cameron's battle standard bearer when he was expected to have a much stronger chance of winning than his twin brother. Notice the family resemblance.
Cable – Bray Shaman
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2099.jpg)
Bray Shaman Cable is Beastlord Clegg's right hand man, competent with number he counts the beastlord's troops for him, but has a bitter hatred of Sky and anyone who fields the Lore of the Heavens.
Immigration Limiters - 20 Gors with Two Hand Weapons and Full Command
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2079.jpg)
Completely different to the Deficit Reducers – honest. The Immigration Limiters patrol the outskirts of wherever Clegg's army is camped making sure no Polish Beastmen enter the army and steal our jobs. They often need to go into ambush to accomplish this task.
Student Bashers - 20 Gors with Hand Weapons, Sheilds and Full Command
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2087.jpg)
The Student Bashers look for any educational establishments they can find and smash the living daylights out of any revolting or attractive scholars studying there, trained by the Metropolitan Police they are a robust fighting force capable of serious damage.
The Noisy Common Scum - 5 Ungor Raiders with Bows and Muscian
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2109.jpg)
Sometimes the scummy common Ungors like to remind the Gors they exist in the hope they will be offered food. A musician helps to draw the attention of Clegg, usually so he can whack the offending Ungor though.
The ASBO Abolishers – 20 Bestigors with Great Weapons, Heavy Armour and Full Command
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2086.jpg)
Capable of tacking down even the yobbiest of human youths the ASBO Abolishers have helped remove the human criminal classes by killing them and holding onto their burberry tops waiving them proudly above their regiment. They are Clegg's elite infantry.
V.A.T. – 3 Minotaurs with Great Weapons and Light Armour
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2107.jpg)
V, A and T are Beastlord Clegg's personal Minotaurs, recently they've grown an extra 20% and more than capable of causing disarray running through markets destroying signs displaying prices among other things.
So anyway you've met the armies, how did they get on? Well at present I've only fought one battle, the remaining one will be tomorrow. My first battle was against James Bretonnian's who were raiding my area of The Black Isle – which admittedly sounds like gay innuendo, but I assure you it wasn't. Here's a quick summary of how they got on.
The Student Bashers made their camp in the tower that Beastlord Clegg defended, throwing fire extinguishers off the roof to fend off attack. Whilst the Bretonnians prayed to their vile human gods the whole Beastmen army ran forward to defend the tower with no units choosing to ambush. The Bretonnian Lord alongside his Knights of the Realm attacked the tower causing many casualties amongst The Student Bashers but unable to shift them.
The Student Bashers abandoned the tower, whilst The ASBO Abolishers accompanied by Bray Shaman Clegg and David occupied the tower. The Bretonnian Knights set about attacking the Beastmen units, with The Student Bashers eventually succumbing to the Knights of the Realm. V, A and T and the Knights Errant played chicken as both attempted to charge each other but fell short before the Knights Errant finally charged and whilst V, A and T held them up for a while they eventually were killed.
At the tower the Bretonnian's sent in their Men-At-Arms in a bid to wear down The ASBO Abolishers, with the vile sorcery of the Human mage they were stronger and thus able to kill many Bestigor, though not as many as Bray Shaman Cable who had three miscasts before he finally killed himself and many Bestigor.
Outside the tower the battle raged with Beastlord Clegg and the Immigration Limiters locked in a bitter struggle with the Knights of the Realm, Knights Errant and Pegasus Knights. Clegg himself personally fought off the Knights Errant killing their hero, and when the Immigration Limiters became frenzied the Pegasus Knights were all but killed. However the Bretonnian Lord struck down Clegg in a personal challenge and from then on it was curtains for the Immigration Limiters however they held on long enough to prevent the Knights reaching the tower.
As the sun began to set only David the Battle Standard Bearer and The ASBO Abolishers' champion remained in the tower, the only two Beastmen left alive. The Men-At-Arms charged in with their Mage and David sought her out in personal combat cutting her down, and whilst The ASBO Abolishers' champion died, David the Battle Standard Bearer held the tower waving his banner in defiance and shouting "Ed couldn't do this good, why did you vote for him"
So my first game had gone well, I won, just with my Battle Standard Bearer being the only surviving Beastmen (although reduced to his last wound), and he fended off the Bretonnian's from the tower. It was my first ever victory with the Beastmen (possibly the first ever Beastmen victory in the history of Warhammer). Overall I was pleased with the Beastmen's performances as although they eventually fell to the Knights they held them up for a long time, and had my Beastlord not died in the challenge with the Bretonnian Lord (who he wounded twice) we may have even finished off some Knights too.
Winning the battle won my 3D6 gold, unfortunately I rolled a deeply unimpressive 5 so 50 gold for me. However I had two injuries to look at after Clegg got killed in a challenge and Cable blew himself up in miscast. Clegg lost his arm and Cable nearly had a mental breakdown, oh dear. Next week I'll let you know how Great Bray Shaman Cameron gets on raiding The Empire.
Battle Report: High Elves versus The Empire
And finally, I've promised it for months I know, but here is the Battle Report between my 600 point High Elf army, from this very blog and Lee's rival Empire army. Apologies for any slips of memory as we did fight this back in November, and apologies for slipping between the first and third person, I have no idea what I'm writing!
The armies were of course taken from our painting exploits, I'm sure somewhere I've done a miscalculation on Lee's army as it comes to 619 points but that's almost certainly an error in the midst of time! Incidentally I have translated Lee's hodgepodge collection of models (standard for him) into their Empire equivalents for simplicity!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/Army.jpg)
And here's the battlefield we fought over. As we were using such small armies we played on a 4 ft by 4 ft table and we didn't award victory points for generals and standards as they'd have too big an influence at such a small scale.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/BasicMap.jpg)
Before the game I formed a relatively simple plan, knowing Lee's selection already, I planned to use my Shadow Warriors scout move and my Ellyrian Reavers vanguard move to get them into Lee's deployment zone and star engaging his gunline in combat as soon as possible before my army was shot to pieces. Wizbit started in the Lothern Sea Guard, I was worried a miscast could destroy nearly half of my army, but in previous games Wizbit had been taken out easily so I felt he needed the protection. Would my plan work? Well you'll have to read on...
Deployment
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(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1397.jpg)
The armies face off against each other in a battle of "Who can paint the best yellow?"
Lee's wizard took from the Death lore, switching Doom and Darkness for Spirit Leech and keeping Soulblight. Wizbit took High Magic because as I said: "I just about remember what the spells do" getting a reasonable selection in the form of Curse of Arrow Attraction and Fury of Khaine as well as the free spell Drain Magic.
With Lee's Empire starting deployment it was clear the hill was going to be the dominate feature as the Crossbowmen deployed on the hill, with the Mortar and Hand Gunners adding to the firebase. Whilst an ominously large block of Spearmen deployed with the Wizard on the western side of the hill. On my side the Smoggy's Sea Guard and Wizbit starring down the barrel of several weapons position themselves so as to with Mage positioned so as to take advantage of the cover offered by the building. Peter's Blue Ellyrian Reavers positioned themselves on the extreme flank hoping to make a dash for the rear of the Empire hill. Once normal deployment was over Raven's Shadow Warriors snuck in behind the forest ready to threaten the western Empire flank and the Ellyrian Reavers used their vanguard manoeuvre to take them up the eastern flank – perilously close to the Empire gun line. And with that battle lines were drawn.
High Elf Turn 1
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/HighElfTurn1.jpg)
Both sides rolled a 2 to see who would go first, but as the High Elves had finished conventional deployment first they went first much to the Ellyrian Reavers relieve, as the unit marched up out of the Empire firing arc to threaten the flank of the Crossbowmen. Meanwhile Raven's Shadow Warriors marched their sights firmly set on the Mortar (aka Halfling Hotpot – they'd obviously had bad food there). Wizbit realised that him and the Sea Guard were now the only viable target for the entire Empire gun line, so bravely advanced to take shelter behind the wall.
The Winds of Magic blew mid level providing 8 dice for me and 4 for Lee, no one channelled but Wizbit's Jewel of the Dusk provided a 9th power dice. Wizbit started his magical assault by casting Curse of Arrow Attraction unopposed on the Hand Gunners hoping to help Smoggy's Sea Guard whittle their numbers. However Lee's wizard refused to let Wizbit cast Fury of Khaine on the same target which was dispelled, Wizbit then failed to cast Drain Magic.
In the shooting phase the High Elves were unable or unwilling to concentrate their shooting. Despite the high toughness of the Mortar the Shadow Warriors picked off a single crewmen, not enough to prevent the Mortar firing next turn. The Ellyrian Reavers felled a single Crossbowmen and despite Curse of Arrow Attraction the Sea Guard could only take down one Hand Gunner. Not enough for any panic tests, still at least it was consistent.
Victory Points – High Elves: 0 Empire: 0
Empire Turn 1
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The movement phase was relatively uneventful with only the Spearmen marching forwards to get to grips with the Sea Guard. The magic phase continued to be the definition of average with 7 power dice. Lee decided to throw 4 dice in an attempt to cast a long range version of Spirit Leech on Wizbit. The Elven mage knew this was too much power and watched as the dreaded double 6 came up, the Wizard has miscast, but there was nothing Wizbit could do to stop the spell. With tension mounting for the fate of both spellcasters myself and Lee both rolled a dice, and both rolled a 6 – Wizbit's higher Leadership saving him from any damage. However the Empire Wizard was not so lucky with a roll of 4 on the miscast table a Dimensional Cascade opened up consuming him and 11 spearmen, including the unit Champion who failed his Look Out Sir Roll in continuing bad luck. The unit then failed it's panic test fleeing backwards and stopping just short of the Shadow Warriors.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1399.jpg)
The cataclysmic explosion of the Empire Wizard leaves a massive hole in the Spearmen
Hoping to regain something the Empire's gun line, opened fire – the only valid target for most of it was Smoggy's Sea Guard. The Mortar positioned it's massive template directly over Wizbit's head ready to blow him sky high, however fate was still not with the Empire as it scattered 10" away taking a massive chunk of the nearby hill out – but nothing else. With the hard cover of the wall and the long range the Crossbowmen and Handgunners were at 7+ to hit and so were only able to take out one of the Sea Guard – still better than the magic phase.
Victory Points – High Elves: 125 Empire: 0
High Elf Turn 2
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/HighElfTurn2.jpg)
Seizing the moment of disarray in the Empire ranks, the Elves declared a raft of charges the Shadow Warriors leaping into the Mortar to finish what they started and the Reavers ploughing into the flank of the Crossbowmen spears lowered.
With the Empire Wizard dead the magic phase blew stronger, ahhh the fickle finger of fate, producing 10 Power Dice for Wizbit and 5 for the Empire. Wizbit realising he needed to remove the Handgunners from action to allow his Sea Guard to advance safely from behind the wall, started off with Curse of Arrow Attraction on them, cast on an impressive 17 on 3 dice (including magic level, so no miscast). Without their wizard Lee's forces were unable to then counter Fury of Khaine which smashed into the Handgunners killing 6, they promptly broke and fled through the Crossbowmen to end up cowering behind the hill.
Things continued to go badly for the Empire as the Shadow Warriors butchered the Mortar crew and destroyed the machine before over running into the other flank of the Crossbowmen. The Ellyrian Reavers then killed a single Crossbowman in a disappointing round but the Shadow Warriors wiped out another three, surprisingly the horses failed to do anything (that's never usually the case). In retaliation the Crossbowmen killed a single Shadow Warrior and a Reaver, despite losing the combat by three the Crossbowmen were steadfast and refused to flee.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1403.jpg)
Peter's Blue Reavers stand on tip toes to reach the Crossbowmen
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1405.jpg)
The Empire may have not killed many Elves, but at least they were neat and only killed one from each unit...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1406.jpg)
...whereas the Empire dead pile was slightly larger
Victory Points – High Elves: 200 Empire: 0
Empire Turn 2
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/EmpireTurn2.jpg)
Lee's phase was rather restricted as everyone was either fleeing or locked in combat, on the plus side both the Spearmen and the Handgunners rallied. The Spearmen reformed to charge into the rear of the Shadow Warriors next turn, unfortunately the Handgunners were behind the hill now!
There was no magic with the Wizard being dead, and no shooting with the Handgunners having rallied and the Crossbowmen being engaged, so straight into combat where Raven's Shadow Warriors brought down two Crossbowmen as did Peter's Blue Reavers, again the steeds failing to live up to their reputation and not killing any one. The Crossbowmen were unable to cause any damage back, but again remained steadfast.
Victory Points – High Elves: 200 Empire: 0
High Elf Turn 3
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/HighElfTurn3.jpg)
With the Mortar destroyed, the Crossbowmen in combat and the Handgunners safely behind the hill Wizbit advanced the Sea Guard out from the safety on the wall bearing down on the Empire Spearmen. The Winds of Magic blew relatively weakly, so Wizbit threw all his dice into casting Fury of Khaine on the Spearmen, even without their Wizard the Empire army was able to dispel it. With everyone having marched or being engaged in combat there was no shooting to speak off.
In close combat the High Elves needed to break the Crossbowmen in the hope they could flee out of range of the Spearmen who were poised to charge into the Shadow Warriors next turn. The Shadow Warriors unleashed their hatred of everyone each of the five remaining warriors killing a crossbowmen, including the musician. There were only two Crossbowmen left now, if the Ellyrian Reavers killed both the unit couldn't flee and thus the Shadow Warriors would be in the firing line next turn. However the Reavers only were able to kill the standard, again the horses doing nothing, leaving the champion alone and outnumbered. He fought back against the Shadow Warriors wounding them, but to add insult to injury, they saved the wound with their light armour.
Victory Points – High Elves: 353 Empire: 0
Empire Turn 3
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/EmpireTurn3.jpg)
Lee charged his Spearmen into the rear of the Shadow Warriors, requiring a 7 to make the charge they rolled a 7. I decided to hold as I was worried they'd flee the board, however I realised my mistake, the Shadow Warriors were unlikely to survive the combat and would break allowing the Spearmen to pursue into the rear of the Reavers and likely wipe them out too. A third of my army lay in the balance and the tide could swing.
With no magic it was onto shooting only two Handgunners were able to shoot past the hill, and both missed the Sea Guard. It was time for the vital combat phase, my position worsened when I realised a second mistake, that only the back rank of my Shadow Warriors could fight, foolishly I thought the second rank could support but obviously being charged in the rear they couldn't. The Shadow Warriors did they best scoring three hits and three wounds out of three, had this given them the best chance of holding. No, as two Spearmen rolled 6s so their light armour saved them. The Spearmen replied by wiping out three of the Shadow Warriors, it didn't look good, knowing the combat resolution was massively in Lee's favourite I casually asked "Can I still hold on a Double 1?" not remembering if the rule made 8th edition, and then I casually rolled a double 1. Phew I'd been saved, just, the Spearmen were frustrated as the two remaining Shadow Warriors simply refused to run away.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1416.jpg)
"Can I still hold on a Double 1?"
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1413.jpg)
The Shadow Warriors really aren't going to budge, as Lee cries in the background!
Victory Points – High Elves: 353 Empire: 0
High Elf Turn 4
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/HighElfTurn4.jpg)
Smoggy's Sea Guard determined to rescue Raven's Shadow Warriors knowing full well they wouldn't survive another turn, requiring just a 7 to make it into combat they rolled a 3 and trundelled forward a few steps. Peter's Blue Reavers knew they were standing in a very precarious position so hot footed it out of the way and took up position behind the Handgunners.
The Winds of Magic blew relatively weekly dealing out 6 dice, Wizbit started off by casting Curse of Arrow Attraction on the Handgunners to allow the Reavers a good chance of wiping them out. Rolling a 13 Lee felt he had to throw all 4 dice in to stop it, but again luck was not on his side and he failed to stop. Unopposed Wizbit was now able to cast Fury of Khaine, scoring 6 hits it wiped out the Handgunners to a man making Curse of Arrow Attraction rather pointless. With no valid targets left for shooting the Reavers twiddled their thumbs waiting for next turn.
In combat Raven and his one remaining Shadow Warrior attacked first, despite the reroll only one of the three attacks hit killing one Spearmen. The Spearmen replied by wiping out the Shadow Warriors. First victory points to the Empire!
Victory Points – High Elves: 449 Empire: 108
Empire Turn 4
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/EmpireTurn4.jpg)
With nothing much to do Lee advanced his Spearmen down the hill so the Reavers couldn't charge them (as now behind the hill), and with no magic, shooting or combat that was it.
Victory Points – High Elves: 449 Empire: 108
High Elf Turn 5
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/HighElfTurn5.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1423.jpg)
The Spearmen looked slightly surrounded
Wizbit considered leading the Sea Guard into charging the Spearmen, but rationally there was little to gain from the advantage of the charge he decided to spend a turn softening them up to let them charge him next turn and lose the rank bonus. The Ellyrian Reavers however crested the hill meaning if the Spearmen did charge next turn it would allow the Reavers a rear charge in the subsequent turn.
The winds of magic blew strongly with 9 dice being drawn, Wizbit just cast Curse of Arrow Attraction after rolling a poultry 5 on 3D6, but this was easily dispelled. He more than made up for it by rolling an impressive 14 on 3D6 for Fury of Khaine, Lee was unable to stop it. And Khaine hit 8 Spearmen doing 7 wounds, the unit just passed it's panic test. However they were in for more trouble as the shooting phase begun, the Ellyrian Reavers killed one Spearmen leaving 5 left, then the Sea Guard opened fire, benefiting from having not moved they scored 5 wounds, only the Standard Bearer's light armour saved him. However having seen all 12 of his remaining comrades shot down he promptly fled.
Victory Points – High Elves: 449 Empire: 108
Empire Turn 5
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With less than 25% of the Spearmen left, in fact just one, they required a double 1 to rally, and so carried on running. Would they stay on the table long enough to deny me their victory points?
Victory Points – High Elves: 449 Empire: 108
High Elf Turn 6
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/HighElfTurn6.jpg)
The hunt was on, as the remaining High Elves closed in for the kill and those last victory points, victory (barring catastrophic miscast) was assured so it was for glory alone. The Ellyrian Reavers spun round on the hill for a good shot at the lone Spearman, whilst Wizbit left the Sea Guard allowing him a clear arc of fire on the fleeing Spearman.
Wizbit summoned forth the Fury of Khaine again, rolling a 13 (despite Lee encouraging him to roll 5 dice – I wasn't that foolish!). Lee had one chance to stop it, and rolled a 12. It was curtains for the Spearmen and a total wipeout of the Empire army.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1426.jpg)
Wizbit supervises the final kill
Victory Points – High Elves: 619 Empire: 108
Conclusion – sounds rather school science reporty doesn't it?!
Well whilst the victory points show a massacre, I was very lucky, or more to the point Lee was very unlucky. His Wizard blowing up on the first turn and taking out a chunk of Spearmen was unfortunate and gave me a massive advantage. Overall my plan worked well I think, using the fast moving Elves to get into the Empire deployment zone (over half my army was there before Lee even had a turn!!) and then engage the Empire on my terms. My major mistake was not fleeing the Shadow Warriors from the charging Spearmen, firstly I was too worried they'd flee off the table if I simply fled – not realising the threat they posed to the Reavers should they break and flee. And secondly I forgot they wouldn't fight in two ranks, I think to be honest I got a little too confident here. Fortunately I was very lucky to get a double 1 for the break test and deny Lee a chance to take the Reavers too. In the end I only lost 8 Elves, and 6 of those are Shadow Warriors – no self respecting Elf is a friend of a Shadow Warrior so no great loss! My lesson to learn is to pick and choose your battles with the Elves and fleeing is always a viable option. I have to say special thanks to Lee for letting him record our battle, and being such a good sport when things went badly, playing on to the end when he could have easily thrown in the towel. As always a pleasure.
Incidentally we had played the same battle earlier on, and things had been different, though the Shadow Warriors and Ellyrian Reavers got behind the enemy lines early on (the Shadow Warriors even shot all the Mortar crew on their first turn), my Lothern Seaguard got shot to pieces and routed by the Spearmen and Wizbit got hit in the face by a volley of Handgun fire. Thank god for that wall this time round!
That's it from me this week, in an exceptionally long blog, well done if you made it. Next week they'll be more from The Black Isle and I'll have finished January's painting tasks so see you then. Incidentally if you'd like to play a game with me for a future battle report on this very blog (I promise I don't just record the few games I win!), then PM and let me know. Please bare in mind it will take longer than usual to play due to all the recording. Until next week (or I leave a comment during the week) bye!
Shame, I always feel there is room for jokes about necrophilia and a little Dancing on Ice, the more you can combine the 2 the better!!
This plog keeps going from strength to strength, love the bat rep too, really clear, can't wait to be beaten by you and hope it gets the same treatment as at least I might have some idea why I lost when I sobered up.
:thumbsup:
Quote from: Veldemere on January 20, 2011, 10:25:31 am
Shame, I always feel there is room for jokes about necrophilia and a little Dancing on Ice, the more you can combine the 2 the better!!
I will try and make sure these comments make next week's blog entry, though am worried it would mean mentioning Angela Rippon!
Quote from: Veldemere on January 20, 2011, 10:25:31 am
This plog keeps going from strength to strength, love the bat rep too, really clear, can't wait to be beaten by you and hope it gets the same treatment as at least I might have some idea why I lost when I sobered up.
:thumbsup:
Cheers for the comments. It will be great fun to do a battle report with you sometime, either as part of The Black Isle or with the High Elves if you prefer? Let me know, it'll be the Children's versus Daytime battle.
Bring it on Matt, maybe we should challenge next round!!
And there is no insult you could give Angela Ripon that is more unpleasant than having to work with her!! :bash;m:
Quote from: Veldemere on January 20, 2011, 12:09:03 pm
Bring it on Matt, maybe we should challenge next round!!
Let's do it!!
Quote from: Veldemere on January 20, 2011, 12:09:03 pm
And there is no insult you could give Angela Ripon that is more unpleasant than having to work with her!! :bash;m:
Oh like that is it?! Oh dear.
good write up of the games Matt. discreete failure to mention that the previous time our Tale lists faced each other, the result was completly the other way!
I really need to get cracking with the January painting!
QuoteDespite the best efforts of Bray Shaman Cameron to drive the scummy Ungor out of the tribe by making their lives intolerable and miserable a few cling on desperately, if it were up to Cameron they'd be hunted down and killed.
That made me piss myself laughing.....Then I remembered it was actually real.... :endit:
I think that was your best post yet, great work on the Eagles, really good fluff and a very smooth BR, I love the way you even get thesmoke for when the mortar has fired..
Which BR programme is it?
Quote from: maelzch on January 20, 2011, 12:45:03 pm
good write up of the games Matt. discreete failure to mention that the previous time our Tale lists faced each other, the result was completly the other way!
I believe I said:
Quote from: cunningmatt on January 20, 2011, 01:03:52 am
Incidentally we had played the same battle earlier on, and things had been different, though the Shadow Warriors and Ellyrian Reavers got behind the enemy lines early on (the Shadow Warriors even shot all the Mortar crew on their first turn), my Lothern Seaguard got shot to pieces and routed by the Spearmen and Wizbit got hit in the face by a volley of Handgun fire. Thank god for that wall this time round!
Though I thought that game was abandoned as a draw as we hadn't finished it by 11.30pm because all of our yaking, Mr 619 points?!!! :wink;m::
Quote from: fatolaf on January 20, 2011, 01:13:05 pm
That made me piss myself laughing.....Then I remembered it was actually real.... :endit:
I know it's sad isn't it?
Quote from: fatolaf on January 20, 2011, 01:13:05 pm
I think that was your best post yet, great work on the Eagles, really good fluff and a very smooth BR, I love the way you even get thesmoke for when the mortar has fired..
Which BR programme is it?
Cheers mate, and the post was all vaguely on topic (well for me!), I was shocked! :thumbsup: Wasn't sure how the Eagles were going to turn out, always scary doing a unit that isn't just the usual White Robes, Silver Armour etc.
Didn't use a Battle Report programme, all the artwork I drew myself (had some tips from the resident 4 year old artist), tried to make it look as much like a classic White Dwarf battle report as possible (with a map for each player turn - why don't they do that any more!!). Particularly pleased with my Arcane Ruins symbol!
That's what I get for skim reading! Apologies
Quote from: maelzch on January 20, 2011, 04:13:14 pm
That's what I get for skim reading! Apologies
Skim reading?! It's not long read the whole thing! :wink;m::
I will on the train mate, but cause my phone doesn't have photos for the forum, I skimread to see what photos sit where!
Quote from: cunningmatt on January 20, 2011, 03:30:24 pm
Didn't use a Battle Report programme
V impressive, what did you draw it on, paint?
And yes the ruins, looked very good, it's why I did not recognise the 'programme'
Quote from: fatolaf on January 21, 2011, 12:52:40 pm
V impressive, what did you draw it on, paint?
And yes the ruins, looked very good, it's why I did not recognise the 'programme'
Mainly drew it on Paint Shop Pro, with a bit of Paint fun as there's somethings I can't do on Paint Shop Pro (primiarily as I don't know how!). Have done a website and some diagrams at Uni on it before so becoming a Paint Artists if only it was the 1970s it might be a useful skill for a career!
Wednesday 26th January – WEEK 4
Last week we focussed solely on hobby related activities namely Great Eagle painting, a full on exciting battle report and background for my Beastmen army in The Black Isle campaign, scroll up if you missed it! This has resulted in a number of complaints that this blog was disturbingly on topic, apologies I'll aim to correct that this week.
Incidentally (first aside of the post) I've noticed a lot of people refer to this thread as a "plog", whatever a "plog" may be. I have heard of the term "blog" and am familiar with that, as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as a personal website or web page on which an individual records opinions, links to other sites, etc. on a regular basis and I get that this thread could be described as a blog, if the blog of a deranged man. However the Oxford English Dictionary is less informative with "plog", "did you mean plug?" being the only response it gives. Not so helpful. So I try everyone's lying friend Wikipedia which tells me that amongst mean plog could be:
• Jobst Plog, director (1991-2008) of the broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk – probably not what was meant in this case.
• Plog, a Unix command related to the Point-to-Point Protocol daemon - again probably not, and I've undoubtedly lost the militant half of the hobby audience by mentioning Daemons in the post. Sorry.
So failing that I decided to try a website called Webopedia which claims to be a free (and that's critical as no one would pay for this s**t) dictionary of computing and internet terms, obviously not for beginners as you can only access it via the internet, so you need to have mastered basic computing (as in turning it on and finding the internet) in order to use it. Webopedia says that a "plog" is A slang term used to mean a political blog, or a blog about politics – presumably Webopedia is unaware that political blog and a blog about politics mean the same thing. A blog about politics, really? Are people really getting informed about politics from this blog? I know I wrote a little spoof about politics in last weeks Black Isle fluff, but really a blog about politics? I think I mentioned Ann Widdicombe once, but I was talking about the job in which she's been taken more seriously – a "dancer" on Strictly. I fail to see what else this has to do with politics, yet it's called a plog. Hmmm. Still people call The Daily Mail a newspaper.
But given that plog is what some of my readers have called this post, it stands to reason that's what you want, so I'll try and talk about politics – don't worry dear reader I'll abandon if it gets too boring.
So what's happened this week in politics for me to comment on? GDP's down and there's a chance the UK could be plunged into another recession – laugh a minute. Maybe I'll gloss over that story. Also Andy Coulson resigned from his role as the Prime Ministers' Communication's Chief, blaming coverage of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. Andy Coulson said coverage had "made it difficult for me to give the 110% needed in this role". Now there's lots to find disgusting in those last two sentences, lots I could pick on to be disgusted by – such as the fact that a valuable member of the government has been forced to resign despite no court proving him guilty of any crime, or the fact that it is alleged that The News of the World has systematically been tapping into the phone accounts of people illegally – probably not mine in fairness, or depending on your political view point that this is a man that helped get the Conservative party into a sort of half-power leadership thing. However the thing that has disgusted me the most is this part "made it difficult for me to give the 110% needed in this role".
This is because of the use of the term 110%, which is utterly annoying business type rubbish, obviously 110% can be used in correct terms, such as this post is 110% more off topic than last week – though in fairness I think it needs to be more like 500% off topic to be factually correct. But he surely can't be giving 110% of anything, he cannot give more than the whole to any cause. Firstly he's not defined what this 110% he's giving is of, is it focus? In which case he may die, as I think some effort needs to be spent not walking into walls and breathing and stuff. 110% of his shoe collection? Again not possible, unless some third party his matching his donations of shoes with one shoe for every ten? Or was he intending to give 110% of his love, meaning he's entered a love deficit in which he has given away more love than he actually has in his person, thus meaning he has to draw love in from those surrounding him like some emotional black hole? Come to think of it, I think I may be in love deficit – something to do with Valentine's Day coming up ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Where's a good vomiting smilie when you need one? The diarrhoea one doesn't quite do it justice.
Anyhow I suspect he means something along the lines of effort or passion or concentration, or something like that, which I believe is impossible. Because not only do you only have 100% concentration to give, you can never achieve that maximum level because your body has to do other things at the same time. I'm not scientist (well technically I am) but I'd argue that your brain concentration is broken up like this:
• 10% - Basic bodily functions. This is the part of the brain that keeps you breathing, keeps your eyes open and stops you urinating in your pants.
• 5% - Stopping stupid impulses. This is the part of the brain that stops you doing rash stupid things, like slapping your boss, sticking your hand in the paper shredder, falling off your chair, watching Countryfile or booking a holiday to Tunisia. This percentage tends to fall with alcoholic consumption.
• 25% - Thinking of things begin with S. This part of the brain varies between the genders but for men this consists of thinking about shagging and supporting your football team, for women this consists of thinking about slagging off men, slagging off women, shoe shopping and shooting Andy Gray.
• 15% - Better Things to Do. This part of the brain is always thinking of better things you can do, and generally it expands with boredom. This is part of the brain that wants to go home and paint models when you're supposed to be at work, or sometimes it works in partnership with "The thinking of things beginning with S" part of your brain to google porn when you're supposed to be making an online bank transfer.
See as you can see from my deeply in depth scientific stuffy that leaves a maximum of 45% of your brain left to focus on other tasks. So technically the most I can give is 45%, certainly not 110%, though I probably wouldn't advise saying this in a job interview.
Incidentally this figure of 110% has been subject to the worrying trend of cliché-inflation, back in 1997 Gordon Brown famously said he was 101% behind the then Prime Minister Tony Blair. Since then 101% is simply not enough and we're now at the bullshit figure of 110%. I imagine by next year this will be 115% and by the end of the decade it will have reached 500% unless the Bank of England keeps a hold of cliché-interest rates to keep it in check. Either way next job interview I'm going in and declaring that I'll give a squizillion-billion-gazillion percent, just to get the job, it's no more inaccurate than 110%. It's just part of a multitude of management jargon we're bombarded with, mindless words that mean nothing, here's some good ones I heard "waterfall information" – that apparently is when the head of a company tells his managers some information and they waterfall it down telling the people below them and so on and so on – couldn't they just call it "telling people" and then we'd all need. Another good word I heard this week is "gllocal" pronounced gleh (as in the first syllable of glue)- local, which means global and local, thus incorporating all possibilities and making the word entirely meaningless.
However they say you shouldn't mock until you've tried. So in an effort to test out using management speak, I have written the details of this week's painting in management speak to give it a try. See what you think.
From the "get-go" and the "pre-planning" stages of the project "I had in my radar" than I needed to "completeicate" the Bolt Thrower and the "diverse team" of Archers. After an "ideas shower" I decided that "you can't turn a tanker round with a speedboat" and that I needed some "360 degree thinking" and to "conversate" (meaning talk to) with the "heart and sole" of the team. So after a "painting 2.0" meeting ideas were "cascaded down", and despite "touching base offline" about next week's painting, I decided to continue with the "standard painting practice" as "I've got my fingers down the throat of the organisation of that nodule", however "my door is open on this issue". So after painting at the end of the day I palocked (combining painted and flocked) the bases meaning that there was "cross-party unity".
What a load of bollhit (combining boll... well I think you get the idea).
Painting
In English, I painted the Archers and Bolt Throwers as the other models and based them, here's the pictures and details:
Stage 3 – High Elf Archers
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1899.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1904.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1905.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Leather: Highlighted Beastial Brown
Robes: Layered with watered down Skull White
Silver Metal: Highlighted with Mithril Silver
Gold Metal: Washed Gryphonne Sepia
Flesh: Washed with Ogryn Flesh
Sleeves and Trousers: Layered with Sunburst Yellow
Sash and Quivers: Highlighted (Sash) / Drybrushed (Quiver) with 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Hair: Drybrushed with Vomit Brown (Vomit Brown base) or Drybrushed with Bleached Bone (Dheneb Stone base) or Drybrushed with Snakebite Leather (Calthan Brown base) or Drybrushed with Beastial Brown (Scorched Brown base)
Wood: Layered with slightly watered down Bleached Bone
Stage 4 – High Elf Archers
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2205.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2211.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2160.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2165.jpg)
Base: Drybrushed Bleached Bone and Flocked with Grass
Leather: *NO CHANGE*
Robes: Layered with Skull White
Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal: Highlighted with 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Flesh: Highlighted with Bleached Bone
Sleeves and Trousers: Washed with Ogryn Flesh, highlighted with Bad Moon Yellow
Sash and Quivers: *NO CHANGE*
Hair: Drybrushed with Bleached Bone (Vomit Brown base) or Drybrushed with Skull White (Dheneb Stone base) or Drybrushed with Bubonic Brown (Calthan Brown base) or Drybrushed with Snakebite Leather (Scorched Brown base)
Wood: *NO CHANGE*
Stage 3 – Repeater Bolt Thrower
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1890.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1892.jpg)
Base (crew): *NO CHANGE*
Leather (crew): Highlighted Beastial Brown
Robes (crew): Layered with watered down Skull White
Silver Metal (crew): Highlighted with Mithril Silver
Gold Metal (crew): Washed with Gryphonne Sepia
Flesh (crew): Washed with Ogryn Flesh
Yellow Details (crew): Layered with Sunburst Yellow
Blue Details (crew): Layered with 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Hair (crew): Highlighted with Vomit Brown
Wood (bolt thrower): Layered with slightly watered down Bleached Bone
Silver Metal (bolt thrower): Highlighted with Mithril Silver
Gold Metal (bolt thrower): Washed with Gryphonne Sepia
Bolt Quivers (bolt thrower): Drybrushed with 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Stage 4 – Repeater Bolt Thrower
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2151.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2153.jpg)
Base (crew): Drybrushed Bleached Bone and Flocked with Grass
Leather (crew): *NO CHANGE*
Robes (crew): Layered with Skull White
Silver Metal (crew): *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal (crew): Highlighted with 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Flesh (crew): Highlighted with Bleached Bone
Yellow Details (crew): Washed with Ogryn Flesh and Highlighted with Bad Moon Yellow
Blue Details (crew): *NO CHANGE*
Hair (crew): Highlighted with Bleached Bone
Wood (bolt thrower): Edges highlighted with 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White
Silver Metal (bolt thrower): *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal (bolt thrower): Highlighted with 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Bolt Quivers (bolt thrower): *NO CHANGE*
You'll notice that I painted up the Bolt Thrower's bolt rack and spear and shield for some decoration. However I mounted them both together on a piece of green stuff so they don't keep bloody falling over, which I based as before.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2155.jpg)
The command of the Archers have got heads from the other plastic sets to differentiate the unit. And for the models not holding bows I've used a quiver from the Spearmen set (for the Lothern Sea Guard variant) that has a bow in the quiver, so it doesn't look like it vanished. Doesn't explain where the rest of the bowmen keep their hand weapons, but there we go.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2164.jpg)
And I painted a plan view of the Bolt Thrower with some assembly instructions, ala Ikea, on the crew member's scroll:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2156.jpg)
So as of December the army looks like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2173.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2201.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2202.jpg)
You'll notice I haven't thought of any names for the new units yet, this is because I haven't thought of any name for the new units yet, but I'm sure it will happen!
Slight error occurred with January as I painted 20 High Elf Archers, but that comes to 245 points. Oops. So I'll roll over the Hawk Eye and Standard to next month, which is good as it means I don't have to do the bloody banner yet. Which means that 18 Archers including a musician is 203 points. And the army looks like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2183.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2214.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2215.jpg)
And so January is done a week in advance – shocking I know. Rather disturbingly I notice I'm in sink with Mike and his superb Wood Elves now. Last week we both painted Eagles and this week we both painted Archers see...
http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=1688.0 (http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=1688.0)
I'm slightly concerned that if we get any more in sink we'll both need to go to the loo in the pub at the same time, and we'll start getting deeply unreasonable for the same week each month. BECAUSE WE WILL OK!!!! Sorry just had a moment.
Talking off people I don't like (only joking Mike, it just made a good segway, and I don't want people to think this is a random selection of thoughts, love you really Mike – I'm so fickle), I had a rather unfortunate encounter on the tube, before I get there I'll need to give you some back story. Once upon a time... no let's not get that silly. Christmas just gone I was lucky enough to get a DS, you know about 5 years after they were first new and just before a better model comes out (this is how I am with technology, my mobile phone is the size of house brick and the laughing stock of the office).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2149.jpg)
Anyway the DS is very good for making Northern line journeys vaguely bearable. That isn't all I got for Christmas, somehow I ended up with this much chocolate...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2199.jpg)
I think people think I like chocolate, either way it's not helping with the diet. Incidentally the lethal dose of chocolate for humans is 22kg which I think is what I have here – maybe my family are trying to tell me something.
Anyway one morning this week a new game arrived in the post, perfect for the journey in, I thought. So I boarded the Northern Line torture device, I mean train, and as I reached into my pocket to pull out game and new DS a voice went "Hello Matt". I looked up to be confronted by a woman who I barely recognised, desperately I wracked my brain thinking of who they were, but much like when you put my career into Google no results came back. Then it struck me, it was someone who I sort of used to work with at my previous job, someone who didn't work in my office and the sole total of our conversations over the four years I'd been there were "Hi" as we passed in the corridor. Often I feel that if the sum total of your conversations is this, then there's a very good reason. Unfortunately she looked hell bent on conversation, and I knew she was going to travel the majority of my journey with me. Oh god. I don't know about you but the part of my brain that holds reasonable conversation and appears interested in what people has to say only wakes up about 2 minutes before I get into work. As my flatmate leaves the house before I get up, it's worked out that it can stay switched off until I turn the corner into the office. So 45 minutes earlier it certainly isn't configured for a 30 minute conversation with someone you've barely spoken to. Maybe I'm just a grump!
So she spent part of the journey telling me how wonderful her job was, I spent the journey wondering at what point it would be rude to get my DS out and ignore. She then told me what she was doing at the weekend, I didn't care. And then she told me how she was deeply hungover and today was going to be a struggle, I was thinking this tube journey was a struggle. As she got off the tube she told me how it was funny that we took the same journey into work and maybe we'd bump into each other again. No we won't because I shall now be boarding the Northern line in disguise lest we ever meet again, of course I didn't say this, I just said "Yeh, bye". Do these thoughts make me a bad person? Actually frankly I don't care, she ruined my day by being nice, if you see me before 11am on public transport don't be pleasant I don't want to talk to you.
I should just clarify that Ritchie if you're reading this story, this isn't a reflection on the fact that we got the same bus together on Thursday after gaming, I wasn't chatting to you wishing I could be playing my DS!
The Black Isle
Talking of Thursday night, how did the Great Bray Shaman Cameron get on, on Thursday night? (Another brilliant segway, I thank you!). Last week you'll remember that Great Bray Shaman Cameron landed on The Black Isle and whilst Beastlord Clegg successfully defended the garrison from the raiding Bretonnians (earning us 50 gold out of 180 – great) Great Bray Shaman Cameron went to raid The Empire. For a full rundown of that battle and all the units in both forces, check out last week's blog/plog.
The Beastherd charged out of the forest heading towards the Empire defences. A selection of artillery, crossbowmen and outriders awaited them, whilst a large unit of Spearmen defended the tower.
Cameron and Ed (Battle Standard Bearer) led the Deficit Reducers (Gors) in support of the Banking Bonus Bouncers (Minotaurs) heading straight towards the tower. On the flanks Hammersmith & City (Tuskgor Chariots) headed towards the cannon, whilst The Benefits Vultures (Harpies) scouting close to the Minotaur. On the closer flanks The Out of Hours GPs (Centigors) hoped to get some flank charges off against the Empire infantry and The Common Scum (Ungor Raiders) took advantage of the forest cover to support the line.
As Great Bray Shaman charged forward the Banking Bonus Bouncers assaulted the tower on the first turn, easily crushing the Spearmen but unable to drive them from the tower, however with the smell of blood on their first they became frenzied. Cameron also used Curse of Anraheir to limit the Outriders fire, and The Amber Spear to whittle down the Greatswords.
The Empire army responded by advancing it's infantry toward the tower, the Outriders bore down on Hammersmith & City. The Bright Mage summoned the winds of magic to unleash a Fireball with Irresistible Force frying 5 of The Benefits Vultures, the mage was unharmed by the magical backlash, but the remaining Harpy would not flee. As the great guns of the Empire fired a cannonball roared overhead missing Hammersmith & City, the Mortar, despite the presence of an Engineer exploded and the Outriders were unable to wound the chariots – Hammersmith & City smelt blood.
The Benefits Vulture headed toward the Wizard, its primary target of the Mortar destroying itself, whilst Banking Bonus Bouncers assaulted the tower again failing to rout the Spearmen but becoming more angered. City charged the Outriders who fled and just escaped the crazed driver, whilst Hammersmith closed on the cannon, the Out of Hours GPs positioned themselves so as to charge the Swordsmen.
The Outriders regained their confidence and swung round behind City without the Curse of Anraheir they easily destroyed City, whilst a cannonball spelt the end for Hammersmith. The Engineer unsure what to do charged the lone Benefits Vulture in the flank apparently individual models have a "flank" hmmm unable to wound he still won the combat but the Harpy didn't flee and instead turned to face the Engineer The combat reform test was the third leadership test the Harpy had rolled less than 4 for! The Swordsmen charged the Out of Hours GP easily overwhelming them with the remaining two scampering away, whilst the Greatswords charge against the Deficit Reducers was too long and the heavily armoured men tired.
The Banking Bonus Bouncers failed to destroy the Spearmen on the third attempt despite getting nine hits and wounding on a 2+ they rolled five 1s! the Benefits Vulture failed to hit the Engineer who failed to hit him back in a comedy slapping contest.
The Greatswords finally made the distance to the Deficit Reducers, as did the Swordsmen who hit them in the flank, whilst the rest of the Empire's units positioned themselves to fire on the tower should the Spearmen finally die. The remaining Harpy and Engineer continued to miss each other. Despite a flurry of attacks from Ed, the Deficit Reducers were soundly beaten by the Empire's swords but Cameron held the unit's nerve with a well timed double 1! .
Finally the Banking Bonus Bouncers killed the last Spearmen and claimed the tower now with 4 extra attacks in combat! The Common Scum charged into the flank of The Outriders and killed an impressive two, maybe they weren't so common thought Cameron, the objective simply being to stop them firing. Ed did a sterling job with the Beastmen felling many Greatswords, the Empire still won the combat with their weight of numbers but Cameron easily reassured the Deficit Reducers to carry on fighting. The Benefits Vultures and Engineer again missed each other.
The cannon fell short of the tower so the Banking Bonus Bouncers were safe, as crossbowmen were unable to penetrate the tower. The Common Scum killed two more Outriders breaking them but again they fled too fast to be caught. Benefits Vulture and Engineer again failed to hit! Again thanks to Ed's vicious work the Gors held with Cameron's leadership – though there weren't many left oh for 4th edition when Beastmen had 2 wounds! . However finally the Empire swords' weight of numbers told and the Deficit Reducers broke and fled with them, Cameron and Ed killed.
The cannon roared overhead with a shot striking the tower, what then followed was a heated discussion by everyone in the room as to whether the cannon did D6 hits on the unit, or D6 hits each causing D6 wounds – I knowing nothing of the rules read Woman's Own whilst the result was decided. the cannonball struck the tower and a shower of masonry buried the Minotaurs alive. All that was left on the Beastmen army was two Centigors who fled leaving the Harpy and engineer slapping each other as the sunset.
Another good game, Steve was a fun opponent despite shouting "filth" at every unit I deployed on the table, I swear if I'd opened a gingham table cloth on the battlefield and set out a picnic he'd still have shouted "filth". And I was so close to a victory, if it weren't for that dammed cannon – with the Outriders broken (more than I ever expected from the Ungor Raiders who cost 30 points and were just there to fill up the core allowance), the Crossbowmen only hitting on 7s and both the Greatswords and Swordsmen heavily depleted those Minotaurs could have held the remaining turn especially with 4 extra attacks. If only those dammed Outriders had run a little slower when the chariot charged them, then both would have been free to charge the cannon next turn – no way both could be shot, or if the Harpies deployed by the cannon (well I didn't know the Mortar was going to explode), though the comedy of the lone Harpy versus Engineer lasting 8 rounds of combat was worth it. I thought the Gors held up reasonably well and if I hadn't cocked up the position of the Centigors allowing them to be charged, they may have got off a supporting charge and turned the tide.
Good news was neither Cameron or Ed suffered a lasting injury, though when rolling a D6 for my gold I got a 1 – 10 gold. So despite winning one game, across 4D6 I'd only rolled a 6 – 60 gold, putting me second bottom. Will the Beastmen never win anything? Slightly worried that the next turns battles will actually be about wiping out the other army (given in the last two my army was left with only a handful of models), I think I do better capturing towers and sacrificing everyone else! Oh well I've opted to raid the Goblins, seriously they're Goblins how hard can it be?! So join me next week when I roll a 1 for my gold after a goblin-based thrashing!
On that note, that's your lot for another week, I would pop down for a game tomorrow but I've got tickets for the audience of Channel 4's 10 o'Clock Live, which means that in my spare time I'm going to watch people doing my job for entertainment. Hmmm. That's a bit like a secretary going to watch someone photocopy for fun. Oh well. See you next time.
Another good update matt.
Fyi, 'plog' is a shortened colloquialism for painting log. Yeah, late night long words!
Well done mate, another great installment, I can't wait till this plog comes out in book form, I hope we all get mentioned in the acknowledgements!
I thought you looked twitchy on the bus, if it's any consolation I would rather have been playing your DS than talking to me!!! :thumbsup:
I would especially like to thank you for putting 110% into this plog, or at least 45%
Quote from: maelzch on January 26, 2011, 01:48:12 am
Fyi, 'plog' is a shortened colloquialism for painting log. Yeah, late night long words!
Ahhh that makes sense. I know too late, I should have gone to bed a lot earlier.
Quote from: Veldemere on January 26, 2011, 08:21:49 am
I can't wait till this plog comes out in book form, I hope we all get mentioned in the acknowledgements!
I'd say I'll send you a copy, but you'd probably be the only person who bought it so I don't want to cut into my sales by 100%.
Quote from: Veldemere on January 26, 2011, 08:21:49 am
I thought you looked twitchy on the bus, if it's any consolation I would rather have been playing your DS than talking to me!!! :thumbsup:
I didn't want to say anything.
Quote from: Veldemere on January 26, 2011, 08:21:49 am
I would especially like to thank you for putting 110% into this plog, or at least 45%
Only 15% was on MSN and watching TV at the same time. Loving Charlie Brooker's new show "How TV Ruined My Life" - it has!
Quote from: cunningmatt on January 26, 2011, 10:57:34 am
Loving Charlie Brooker's new show "How TV Ruined My Life" - it has!
You and me both fingers crossed for the awards tonight!!
Quote from: Veldemere on January 26, 2011, 11:48:33 am
You and me both fingers crossed for the awards tonight!!
Oh yes, good luck, again best children's programme creuly overlooked by the National Television Awards :sign0010:
oh I thought plogging was porn log, where you record all the porn you've watched. No wonder I'm typically disappointed by peoples plogs...
1001 points, legal? I DENY YOU GOOD SIR :endit:
Quote from: Veldemere on January 26, 2011, 11:48:33 am
You and me both fingers crossed for the awards tonight!!
Congratulations mate. well done on your win - didn't see you on stage, but then the whole production team could have been behind Eamonn Holmes, always possible.
Quote from: Dave on January 27, 2011, 05:33:22 pm
oh I thought plogging was porn log, where you record all the porn you've watched. No wonder I'm typically disappointed by people's plogs...
It is porn log, even my porn life is disappointing :rant;2:
Quote from: Undead Dan on January 27, 2011, 07:05:35 pm
1001 points, legal? I DENY YOU GOOD SIR :endit:
I am using "legal" to mean having a legal number of units, all units being legal and percentages within their appropriate limits. Technically if you consult the rules :daredulerules: The Tale of OG Gamers armies only need to be legal at 600, 1,400 and 2,000 points, other than that I'm painting as close to 200 points a month as I can. So there Mr Smartypants! :wink;m:: He he he
Another stirling effort sir, keep up the excellent plogging..... :cool3:
Ta!
I think this is as good a place as any to put this excellent quote from last nights Charlie Brooker show..
QuoteAs you pass into your 30's, you are supposed to start feeling like you are an adult.
In fact the only insight you'll probably get is a sudden realisation that all the 'adults' who went before you didn't have a clue what they were doing at this age either
Belting.... :cool3:
Quote from: fatolaf on February 02, 2011, 05:05:50 pm
I think this is as good a place as any to put this excellent quote from last nights Charlie Brooker show..
I loved it, my favourite quote was "When I'm old I'll want to watch young people being kicked into the sea on TV", I'm not old and I want that now!
Wednesday 2nd February – WEEK 5
Can you believe it, it's February! What the hell happened to January? I swear as I get older life passes me by quicker. No wonder old people need to sleep all the time, they must be knackered just constantly changing the months on the calendar! It's also another momentous occasion as we are half way through the Tale of OG Gamers, yep 5 months in 1,000 points down and 1,000 to go before this blog comes to an end – ahhhhh! Still at least you'll get about 4 hours of your week back not having to read this.
The shock news is that unlike previous end of month blogs which sum up my desperate last minute painting, this month I finished the painting last week, so nothing to say there. And as I haven't played any Black Isle games since last week, there's pretty much nothing to speak out. So there you go that's it for this week see you next time.
Not really, you didn't think you'd get away that easily did you? Now those of you who have very long attention spans and manage to read entire posts on this blog, will know that back around Christmas-New Year time I set myself a Beastmen challenge, to paint 60 Beastmen by the end of January, in addition to my High Elf stuff, well the good news is that with 20 minutes to spare I painted the last one. Phew!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2222.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2247.jpg)
Ok, ok so I didn't finish the banners, shesh you guys are a tough crowd. I'll do them this month along with my High Elf Archers' banner. Either way I'm still pleased, 40 Gors and 20 Bestigors painted and my first hoard unit done! As this is the first Beastmen unit I've done, I've put a full painting guide together here (Stages 1 & 2 are a repeat) - though I do my Beastmen in a slightly different order to my High Elves.
Stage 1 – Beastmen Gors
For the Beastmen there's a lot of messy drybrushing so that all gets done early on.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1591.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1585.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1587.jpg)
Over a Chaos Black undercoat:
Wood: Drybrushed Codex Grey, then Drybrushed Fortress Grey
Fur: Each model is brushed in one of the following three ways to give the unit some variation: A) Drybrushed Scorched Brown, then Bestial Brown and finally Snakebite Leather, OR B) Drybrushed Chardonite Granite, then Adeptus Battlegrey and finally Codex Grey; OR C) Drybrushed Codex Grey and then Fortress Grey.
Chainmail, where present: Drybrushed Boltgun Metal, washed Devlan Mud, then lightly Drybrushed Chainmail.
Stage 2 – Beastmen Gors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1626.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1627.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1650.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1651.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1652.jpg)
Flesh: 1:1 Scab Red: Dark Flesh
Horns and Bone: Khemri Brown
Base: Khemri Brown
Silver Metal: Boltgun Metal
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz then overcoated (is that a word?) with Shining Gold
Tin/Brass Metal: Tin Bitz
Leather: Scorched Brown
Cream Robes: Khemri Brown
Red Robes: 1:1 Mercherite Red: Blood Red
Stone: Chardonite Granite
Human Flesh: Tallarn Flesh
Stage 3 – Gors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2242.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2245.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2243.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2250.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2255.jpg)
Flesh: Layer Vermin Brown, then wash Gryphonne Sepia, then Highlight 1:1 Vermin Brown : Elf Flesh
Horns and Bone: Wash Badab Black, then layer Khemri Brown, layer Deneb Stone and then layer Bleached Bone (for horns the colours are tailed so the tips are lighter at one end, for bones and skulls a final highlight of 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White is used).
Base: Drybrush Bleached Bone, then flock with Scorched Grass, then flock with Snow with PVA, then flock over existing snow with Snow with PVA and Skull White mixed.
Silver Metal: Wash Devlan Mud, Highlight Chainmail
Gold Metal: Wash Gryphonne Sepia, Highlight 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Tin/Brass Metal: Highlight 5:1 Tin Bitz : Mithril Silver
Leather: Wash Badab Black then highlight Beastial Brown
Cream Robes: Layer Kommando Khaki then highlight Bleached Bone
Red Robes: Wash Devlan Mud, then Layer Blood Red, highlight 1:1 Blood Red : Vomit Brown
Stone: Drybrush Adeptus Battle, then Codex Grey, then Fortress Grey, wash Badab Black
Human Flesh: Layer Dwarf Flesh, highlight Elf Flesh then wash Ogryn Flesh.
Eyes: Dot Blood Red
Can I just add here hoard units are extremely difficult to photograph and get them all in the shot, without being so far away you can't see the models!
Stage 1 – Bestigors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1607.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1601.jpg)
Over a Chaos Black undercoat:
Wood: Drybrushed Codex Grey, then Drybrushed Fortress Grey
Fur: Each model is brushed in one of the following three ways to give the unit some variation: A) Drybrushed Scorched Brown, then Bestial Brown and finally Snakebite Leather, OR B) Drybrushed Chardonite Granite, then Adeptus Battlegrey and finally Codex Grey; OR C) Drybrushed Codex Grey and then Fortress Grey.
Chainmail: Drybrushed Boltgun Metal, washed Devlan Mud, then lightly Drybrushed Chainmail.
Stage 2 – Bestigors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1631.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1640.jpg)
Flesh: 1:1 Scab Red: Dark Flesh
Horns and Bone: Khemri Brown
Base: Khemri Brown
Silver Metal: Boltgun Metal
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz then overcoated with Shining Gold
Tin/Brass Metal: Tin Bitz
Leather: Scorched Brown
Cream Robes: Khemri Brown
Red Robes: 1:1 Mercherite Red: Blood Red
Stone: Chardonite Granite
Human Flesh: Tallarn Flesh
Stage 3 – Bestigors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2223.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2224.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2228.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2230.jpg)
Flesh: Layer Vermin Brown, then wash Gryphonne Sepia, then Highlight 1:1 Vermin Brown : Elf Flesh
Horns and Bone: Wash Badab Black, then layer Khemri Brown, layer Deneb Stone and then layer Bleached Bone (for horns the colours are tailed so the tips are lighter at one end, for bones and skulls a final highlight of 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White is used).
Base: Drybrush Bleached Bone, then flock with Scorched Grass, then flock with Snow with PVA, then flock over existing snow with Snow with PVA and Skull White mixed.
Silver Metal: Wash Devlan Mud, Highlight Chainmail
Gold Metal: Wash Gryphonne Sepia, Highlight 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Tin/Brass Metal: Highlight 5:1 Tin Bitz : Mithril Silver
Leather: Wash Badab Black then highlight Beastial Brown
Cream Robes: Layer Kommando Khaki then highlight Bleached Bone
Red Robes: Wash Devlan Mud, then Layer Blood Red, highlight 1:1 Blood Red : Vomit Brown
Stone: Drybrush Adeptus Battle, then Codex Grey, then Fortress Grey, wash Badab Black
Human Flesh: Layer Dwarf Flesh, highlight Elf Flesh then wash Ogryn Flesh.
Eyes: Dot Blood Red
And as with all my Beastmen units I've tried to decorate the bases of all the command models, here's the Bestigor done using bones and skulls from the various Beastmen plastics.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2220.jpg)
And here's the Gors, I've added arrows from the Ungor set to make it look like they've been under fire, as someone bravely tries to shoot down the hoard. Also the Champion includes spare parts from the Bestigor set to try and differentiate him from my other Gor champion - the axe being cut off the original Gor champion and a Bestigor axe added with some pinning.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2237.jpg)
I'm pretty pleased with January (bar banners) I've painted 40 Gors, 20 Bestigor, 20 High Elf Archers, a Bolt Thrower, 2 Eagles and a High Elf Waystone which using my rough and ready Unit Strength approximation guide for working out how much I've painted-bought works out means I've painted nearly 100 models and over 1,000 points worth of troops! Yeah! Will never happen again I assure you. Whilst I'll be focussing on the High Elves next month I'm hoping to also finish Malagor, the Dark Omen and Ghorros Warhoof for my Beastmen which should only take a few hours. Although saying that any painting project which should only take a few hours easily expands to 27 weeks of solid painting. Why is that?
Also planning to add some Razagor and a converted Razagor chariot to my army in the near future, and before you start I like the Razagor model - someone had to and it was me. Ok! Plus some Beastmen Chaos Spawn, and an idea I've had for a Jabberslyth conversion (I say idea I've had, when I mean idea I've stolen, but if I don't say you'll never know).
Moving on last week you may remember this disturbing picture of Mount Lard as Ordinance Survey recently named it:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2199.jpg)
Inspired by this and the fact that I spent two and a half hours trying to do up the collar on a shirt that fitted before Christmas (seriously, at the end of an evening wearing it I had to be cut free by the fire brigade). I decided it was time to do something horrendous and evil - physical exercise. Ewww. The very thought has made me vomit more than Victoria Beckham at an all-you-can-eat-buffet. So this weekend between painting more Beastmen than you can shake a medium sized stick at I went for a run! I know, a run! I say run it was a more a stop-start jogging affair with me clutching my chest a lot thinking I'm about to die. I think I need to face up to the fact that I am just not fit, running down the escalator to catch the tube generally makes me so breathless that I spend the rest of the tube journey huffing and puffing like a trainee asthmatic. And still no one offers me a seat. I'll have to get pregnant it's the only option.
Back to the running, I foolish presumed that a T-shirt and some jogging bottoms would be sufficient to keep me warm, as obviously I'd be running so hard that the heat burning off me would stop the cold getting in. I was wrong. My body slowly turned through purple to blue such that by the time I got home I appeared to be an extra from Avatar. Sadly the sportswear department of my wardrobe is rather sparse so on Day 2 I was forced to wear a crap pair of jogging bottoms and an old zippy top with stains on. Hardly the height of sporting fashion, I looked like I'd rolled out of bed and fallen through Oxfam on the way to the run. All the hard core joggers seem to have some kind of lycra all in one suit on with shorts and a t-shirt over to cover their modesty. Problem is that, that lycra only really suits thin muscley people who have already started jogging - it doesn't really suit the fatter entry level jogger. You tend to look disturbingly like George Galloway did in that infamous clip from Celebrity Big Brother where he wears that red cat suit. Sorry if you're eating, but Ol I've warned you not to whilst reading this blog.
Any way the upshot of all this? I've done my first piece of physical exercise since September and now fill justified in eating Mount Lard in an all night binge - so there you go job done I'll be super fit in no time. And just remember next time you walk past Clapham Common and see a breathless men red in the face and collapsed on the floor it could be me, or you've just got lucky cruising!
"Enough physical exercise, where's the hobby stuff", I hear you cry. Or maybe that's just one of my many internal schizophrenic voices shouting mocking abuse at my life. I can never tell. Either way moving on, those of you new to my blog won't know that all the units in my High Elf army are named after classic children's TV shows, those of you who aren't new to the blog, won't understand why all the units in my High Elf army are named after classic children's TV shows. Nevertheless there's three units in my army that don't have names so it's time to sort that out. Anyone remember Stoppit and Tidyup? It was a very odd show in which Stoppit a furry red full stop and Tidyup a gherkin loving purple bag who looks a little bit like Doc Emery from Back to the Future (or maybe that's just me) go around the land of Do As You're Told. The storylines were odd and made no sense, in a sort of ahead of it's time version of Lost, and it was part funded by the Tidy Britain Group, though very little tidying or encouraging children to tidy occurred. Just like Stoppit and Tidyup all the ancillary characters were commands parents traditionally say to their children: Comb Your Hair, Wash Your Face, Hurry Up, Go and Play, Calm Down, Not Now, Beehave and Beequiet and the Big Bad I Said No. Don't believe me? Well take a look at this (those last two sentences aren't characters by the way!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sHjiKRrKOM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sHjiKRrKOM)
If you've just watched that clip, you can't fail to have noticed that Terry Wogan narrated the show, which at the time seemed very bizarre. Though I suppose it's no odder than the fact that I spent the first ten years of my life thinking that Ringo Starr was primarily famous for narrating Thomas the Tank Engine. The other thing that amuses me about the show is the random belching noise that Tidyup makes – which you can hear in the clip. Why? I know the rest of the show is odd, but that seems odd even by their standards.
Now young people won't know of this device, but in ancient times before DVDs, Blue-Rays, iPlayer and Sky+ if you wanted to watch something at a different time to when it was shown on the television you had to have a device called a VCR standing for Video Cassette Recorder, where about 4 hours of programmes could be stored on a device the size of a shoe box provided you could operate the complex setting instructions for the VCR and the programme went out at exactly the stated time. More modern VCRs had a high tech function called Long Play which allowed you to record twice as much as on the cassette then it was originally designed for. However if you attempted to play a Long Play Video Cassette on a VCR without Long Play the programme, including sound, played back at twice speed. For some unknown reason I once watched an episode of Stoppit and Tidyup back at twice speed and Tidyup's belches were especially funny at twice speed. Don't mock, this was what passed for amusing entertainment in the 1980s. The point of all this is that my pair of flying eagles remind me of the pair of flying bees in Stoppit and Tidyup hence the Great Eagles will be known as Beehave and Beequiet.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2066.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2070.jpg)
Beequiet surely has to be the one with his mouth closed, so that must mean Beehave is the other one.
So with that sorted onto the Bolt Thrower, the Bolt Thrower is pretty much the High Elf army's only machine, so what machines do I remember from kids' TV? Well it's got to be Bertha surely:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z18s8LGSnA0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z18s8LGSnA0)
Bertha was a large purple factory machine that made a variety of different products in weird and wonderful ways. The show had a range of characters Mr Willmake the manager with his secretary Miss McClackerty, who I was convinced was named that as "Clakerty" was a good word to describe the noise of her typewriter. The designers Mr Sprott and Tracey, who actually had computers!! You have to remember in the 80s this was revolutionary, though just like today they mainly played noughts and crosses on the computer if memory serves me. There was Mr Duncan the grumpy foreman, Ted (who looked like Elvis crossed with Postman Pat) and Roy who operated Bertha, Mrs Tupp the tea lady, Panjid the forklift truck driver (who you hoped to god Prince Philip didn't talk to in the special Royal Visit of the Factory episode) and Nell and Flo the packers. Plus of course T.O.M. (Talk Operated Machine) a robot designed by Tracy and built by Bertha.
Storylines were hard hitting such as the one where they made inflatable teddy bears on a hot summer's day; it was so hot the rubber expanded resulting in a giant inflatable teddy bear that floated around the factory. Thank god they weren't making condoms that day! And the episode where Mrs Tupp was replaced by a coffee machine, that is until T.O.M. broke the machine and was forced to use a giant sponge Bertha accidentally made to clean up the mess before Mrs Tupp was replaced. Sadly the series came to an end when the UK's manufacturing industry collapsed, all the staff were made redundant and production moved to China – still the kids need to learn. On the plus side, however I present you with Bertha the Bolt Thrower.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2151.jpg)
I would come up with a name for the Archers, but too much 80s nostalgia is giving me the urge to put on my fluorescent lycra leggings and dance to Fame – which the terms and conditions of my ASBO prevent. (Second mention of lycra in one post, I know too much sorry)
I will move on to a more hobby related topic, anyone seen this post on Games Workshop about Armies on Parade:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=15000005a (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=15000005a)
For those of you too lazy to click on the URL it's basically a new "competition" as part of the annual Games Workshop festivities where you paint an army and a 2 foot by 2 foot terrain board to display it on. Entries are judged on composition and style as well as painting and the winner from each store goes through to the Games Day final in a sort of less cheesy Eurovision. I have to be honest and say I quite like the idea, there's something nice about combining the terrain and army in a little diorama without having to go crazy and start scratch building. I also find the example ones, particularly the Ultramarines board (don't say it, I can't start collecting Warhammer 40,000!) particularly pleasing. Obviously the cynical amongst you will say it's all a clever ploy to flog expensive Realm of Battle gameboards to the masses, but as you know this blog likes to be off topic and what could be more off topic than actually praising Games Workshop on a gaming forum – it's about as unexpected as Jeremy Paxman's pronunciation of "cuts". Not that I'm entering mind you, firstly the chances of me finishing an army and display board this side of the next Ice Age are significantly small, and if I did I certainly wouldn't want to take it into Games Workshop for a hoard of annoying 12 year olds to poke it. Sorry any 12 year olds who have some how Googled this post whilst looking for Games Workshop information, but you are all annoying. When I was 12 I thought kids aren't annoying and I'd be cool adult and always like kids, but something changes in the next 20 odd years and I realise even I was annoying as a 12 year old, the same will happen to you. Though I hope the VCR description earlier is useful for your History homework.
Anyway that is pretty much it for this week, sorry not many new photos but hopefully things will be less abstract next week. Just time to tell you that What's In the Box? is back. Yes the highly exciting, nearly bought by Channel 4, gameshow with no point or prizes returns. Under my bed are 36 boxes (labelled 1-36) all you have to do is pick a box and if you're the lucky entrant drawn I'll photo the contents and shove them on the blog. Just to clarify you don't win anything, but you do get the thrill of seeing What's In the Box. See exciting.
So all I need you to do is reply on here with your chosen Box number 1-36 (but not 3, 6 or 25 as they've already been booked) and I will draw a "winner" next week – and I can say the draw is actually genuine! So go on give it a go, especially if you've never played before, or if you're reading this blog and haven't joined the Forum go on join and leave a number (saves you thinking of an introduction). Hell if you're Googlebot scanning this site for its records why don't you leave a number to.
Next week we'll hopefully have Turn 2 of Black Isle, plus February's painting tasks and I may even be talking all things paint brush, but as you know any old tosh* could come out of this crazy mind between now and next Wednesday, and with only two weeks to V-Day there's chance I may slit my wrists or stick my head in the oven – if only it wasn't electric.
* yes "tosh" is an odd word, but I felt the flow of the sentence needed a 4 letter word for "rubbish", so you should be grateful that's all you got.
Aaah 'The Big Bad I SAY NO!'......One of my favourite (bad) Terry Wogan impressions, that I still do, but mostly to the yoof, who don't have a scooby what I am on about..Nice one Matt..
Well done on the beasts, as the prosepct of painting 38 Bestigor looms for the SCGT, I draw much needed encouragement that it is entirely possible...
And I will try again, Box number 17 please :thumbsup:
Quote from: fatolaf on February 03, 2011, 12:01:05 pm
Aaah 'The Big Bad I SAY NO!'......One of my favourite (bad) Terry Wogan impressions, that I still do, but mostly to the yoof, who don't have a scooby what I am on about..Nice one Matt..
The yoof being those who don't know what VCRs are, I get ya! Yes all I remember was it being a very bizaree programme, but I guess they're the ones you remember.
Quote from: fatolaf on February 03, 2011, 12:01:05 pm
Well done on the beasts, as the prosepct of painting 38 Bestigor looms for the SCGT, I draw much needed encouragement that it is entirely possible...
Yeah entirely possible, I've actually found the Beastmen much quicker to pain than my previous armies. I think the difference is the level of nudity (ooohhh rude word), but Beastmen (and I guess Lizardmen and Tomb Kings) have very little clothes so once you've painted hair and flesh you've done virtually the whole model, as opposed to Dwarfs, Elves etc. where there's lots of clothing which have multiple colour areas. Saying that Bestigor are the most heavily clothed Beastmen so good luck!
And fingers crossed Box 17 will finally come up!
I HATE Plague Censer Bearers! :bash;m:
More on that story next week, sorry just had to get it off my chest!
If you've read this message you should be now going to Post your entry for this month's What's In The Box? Just hit reply and write your number simple as that! Full details are above this post in this week's blog entry, which if you don't read you're quite frankly a bad person, I mean where else are you going to see someone stupid enough to paint up a unit of 40 Beastmen Gor?
Shameless self-plugging galore!
Good plog update matt, you definately gave it 45%! I only managed to paint 2 things in the time you painted a squillion beastmen! No fair
I choose box 13
Quote from: maelzch on February 04, 2011, 12:31:08 am
Shameless self-plugging galore!
Your point being...! :thumbsup: He he he!
Quote from: maelzch on February 04, 2011, 12:31:08 am
Good plog update matt, you definately gave it 45%! I only managed to paint 2 things in the time you painted a squillion beastmen!
That's the good side to breaks in contract!
as promised i pick box 14
Good sir, I just wanted you to know that your blog is marvellous and I love your work. I have signed up to the OG Forum ESPECIALLY to tell you this.
Also the miniatures look nice too, which I guess is a bonus. :cool;m:
EDIT TO ADD: I pick box no. 28. Just 'cause.
Quote from: EvilFuzzyDoom on February 08, 2011, 12:54:16 am
Good sir, I just wanted you to know that your blog is marvellous and I love your work. I have signed up to the OG Forum ESPECIALLY to tell you this.
Also the miniatures look nice too, which I guess is a bonus. :cool;m:
Many thanks I'm deeply touched, though that could be because I'm sitting next to the office sex pest as I write this. And welcome to the forum, hopefully you'll participate in the smut located elsewhere!!
Thanks to for the Waht's In The Box? vote, if anyone has more please get them in soon as Cheryl's ready to make that drawer. Though if you're in the Black Isle campaign telling Ol your challenges is probably more important! :wink;m::
Must say the bases on the beastmen look lovely. Good work, and an awesome blog, keep it up.
Quote from: Ron Burgandy on February 08, 2011, 04:39:31 pm
Must say the bases on the beastmen look lovely. Good work, and an awesome blog, keep it up.
Cheers mate! My only tip regarding the bases is flock/snow before vacuuming your flat not after - fail!
Wonderful stuff and the painted models are looking good too, nice work on jazzing up the bases a little.
As for painting countless beasts, well done that man.
Box number 1 please.
Matt this jsut goes from strength to strength. I am loving the 80s nostalgia it is like reliving my youth without the embarrassing attempts to fondle girls!!
As soon as you said stoppit and tidyup I could hear it in no other way than Wogans Irish brogue, and an expression I have oft tried myself in an attempt at same said brogue.
And got to be box 11, I told Chezza she could have the US X Factor job if she picks box 11 so I must win!! :thumbsup:
Quote from: Dave on February 09, 2011, 08:31:39 am
Wonderful stuff and the painted models are looking good too, nice work on jazzing up the bases a little.
As for painting countless beasts, well done that man.
Many thanks! Would jazz up the command model bases on my High Elves too, but find 40mm square bases too small to fit anything on. And as for the Beasts someone had to paint up thousands of Gors - not sure why it had to be me though! :endit:
Quote from: Veldemere on February 09, 2011, 09:44:55 am
Matt this jsut goes from strength to strength. I am loving the 80s nostalgia it is like reliving my youth without the embarrassing attempts to fondle girls!!
As soon as you said stoppit and tidyup I could hear it in no other way than Wogans Irish brogue, and an expression I have oft tried myself in an attempt at same said brogue.
And got to be box 11, I told Chezza she could have the US X Factor job if she picks box 11 so I must win!! :thumbsup:
Well save reliving fondling girls for next week, I may have a mini rant about Valentine's Day brewing!! :rant;2:
My lawyers have asked me to point out that in no way is Cheryl the plant biased in which box she picks for What's In The Box?. Thank you!
Mate, the only Shakeaways in Australia is on my bus route. I AM SO EXCITED. I CAN GO THERE ALL THE TIME. :))
Thank you for opening my eyes to its wonder and glory.
This seems like the best place to post this, just watching the latest Charlie Brooker, only a few minutes in and already some ace quotes:
[spoiler]"this one's even sprouted wheels, the bastard!"
"the majority of people ... enjoy a life of cocktails dick and shoes"
"then the 70's arrived and everything outside was shit awful"[/spoiler]
there aren't many shows that make me genuinely laugh out loud this much, it's ace!
one more:
[spoiler]It's like watching people knife each other to death in a skip, but less sexually arousing![/spoiler]
Wednesday 9th February – WEEK 6Hey welcome back to another week of craziness in my world of hobbying, moaning and procrastinating. Though let's be honest that could sum up any of our lives – you know I'm right!
Warhammer Armies: Orcs & Goblins – 8th EditionFirst up let's talk Orcs & Goblins as there's been much excitement on the forum today about the new models available to advance order today, check them out on the Games Workshop site, then come back here and pre-order them!! Can I say first of all how nice it is to see universal praise for the models and no moaning about price, always nice to be upbeat, though I'm sure once we've read the book and decided the army is too hard/too soft that will start!! Although on that note rather too many references to ejaculation from certain Orc & Goblin players for my taste, you're not making it easy for Warhammer players to integrate into society! I've always been a fan of the Savage Orcs and Forest Goblins side of the Orc & Goblin realm, sadly no units of Forest Goblin infantry back – miss those days (I would convert but really converting for units of 40 is never going to happen). But the new Savage Orcs (including Boar Boyz and tandem spear pusher – they may have come up with a better name than my attempt) look amazing and I think everyone is impressed with the Arachnarok Spider (despite the word looking like anorak if you read it quickly) and bar transportation and storage issues the massive size is amazing – though if partners/housemates have arachnophobia you may have to make sure it's stored away safely. And the Goblin Nasty Skulkers look cool too, controversially in a metal blister pack which is almost unheard for new units, especially in the most popular armies – they'll be re-released in plastic in a few months I bet! Lastly that leaves the new army book, yes more expensive, but it is hard back, thank goodness. No more well thumbed falling apart army books, such as my poor Warriors of Chaos book:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2295.jpg)
It's as if the Sorcerer Lords and Daemon Princes are forming a breakaway army book. Additionally, as pointed out on the "What's New Today" thread on Games Workshop – hard back means they should stay open on the page you want, rather than having to be held open with tape measure and a set of Arcane Ruins on the useful page with all the statistics summarised on! And finally always good to have something weighty to hit annoying opponents over the head with, especially as the mini rule book has meant my 512 page beast no longer gets to play (no euphemism intended). Incidentally I define "annoying" players as people so obsessed with the game they forget they are playing another human being with which they could talk. Instead you get a stream of numbers such as "4s to Wound, that's 8 4's, 5's to save, 2 saves, remove 3" – what, are you talking about? It's like having a conversation with the machine at Argos that announces when your order number is ready to collect – except without the thrill of collecting a new clothes horse at the end. I have found a full-proof way of finding out whether an opponent will be "annoying" or not, is to simply ask the following question as you set up the game "How was your day?", if they reply with something along the lines of "Fine thanks, nothing special, how was yours?" you'll have a fun game whatever happens, if they reply with "Ok." Followed by a brief pause and then "I'm going to roll for spells" – it will be a tiresome game. In fact this method is so full proof if they answer with the later option I don't even bother deploying any models I simply say "Well done you've won" and then leave, this may seem harsh but bare in mind whilst said "annoying" player may not have had a game, they have had probably their longest conversation of the week, and it's right that you are encouraging them into the real world, it's like therapy – except they're unlikely to pay if you send them a bill for £300. I should at this point, point out that I can't recall a single "annoying" player I've played at OG Games, though if I have walked out of game before the deployment phase begun you now know why, next time try and at least feign some interest in a conversation!
Anyway back to the Orcs & Goblins, despite me saying how nice it was no one was moaning, I am going to moan, it's in my fickle nature! Now I know that it's a nice to get into the character of each army but why does it always turn into such a pantomime with the Orcs & Goblins? Every word has to be misspelt and end with a z whichz I'z findz real-ez anoyzingz seez, it's like reading a text written by an 8-year old - annoying! And have you seen today's "What's New Today" post on the Games Workshop website – now I know they feel they need to inject some comedy to compete with my blog, that's totally understandable :wink;m::. But really it's about as funny as an episode of My Family, sorry GW I know you tried hard, but anything that reminds of me the scrawling across the pages of the White Dwarf that was supposed to be an article by the Mail Order Trolls I mean Trollz is not somewhere I want to go. Am I being too harsh? I let you decide, I accept I am a mean spirited, grumpy git. In fact I actually aspire to that!
I have to admit the new Orc & Goblin models did make me consider starting them as a new army, I have quite a few old models from 4th edition, and the thought of going back to Orcs & Goblins is always pleasing. Anyway this got me thinking, combined with this interesting thread:
http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=1753.0 (http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=1753.0)
Which I am unable to comment in, because I know as much about tournament style playing of Warhammer as Piers Morgan knows about not being an annoying tit. Most of the top armies I've rarely played with or against, in fact I've never ever played a Daemons of Chaos army – must be something to do with requesting a friendly game, that and the fact they often roll for spells without asking me about my day – bitches! Back to the point, I was wondering what order of preference people have to collect the various Warhammer Armies, i.e. what would be your top choice of army to collect be, and which would be second..., obviously don't include any armies you currently own (in reasonable playable form - a handful of old unpainted models doesn't count) as that would be like choosing your favourite child. Though I often think that would be easy, surely it's the child that screams the least, costs the least and is closest to leaving home?! Anyway to get you into the swing of it, here's my thoughts: I already own painted and playable Dwarf, High Elf, Beastmen and Warriors of Chaos armies so that leaves me with 11 choices which I've ranked as follows:
1st Bretonnians – I've been a fan of the Bretonnians since the 5th edition and have loads of models from that era in those famous drawers (we'll find out which one you picked later in this post). I do like choosing colour schemes for my armies, there's something I find quite satisfying about it. So the idea of being able to choose a colour scheme for each knight sounds amazing. Having also seen some nice Bretonnian armies at the club, am pretty sure that when a new book comes out I will be snapping them up.
2nd Orcs & Goblins – Currently riding high because of their new models, would love to get back into Orcs & Goblins as I was in 4th edition. However the thought of painting up so many models frightens me, particularly as I do have a tendency to get at least one unit of every troop type! Plus the constant updating of the Orc & Goblin range could get expensive. However the Forest Goblins are calling... hmmm.
3rd Dark Elves – Worried here about getting caught in the "You've only got this army to win" label, though frankly have you seen me play? Even with the best army type and 15 times more points than you, you'd have a good chance of beating me! So maybe I should go for the edge. Having painted the High Elves the chance to paint their antithesis is appealing, and would be a good excuse to use some purple to.
4th The Empire – Always been a fan of the Empire, especially as they are the army the Warhammer world is seen through, plus most of the terrain represents their building so you could be quite thematic. Nice range and models but all the points of the Orc & Goblins range and number of models apply.
5th Lizardmen – Never been a huge fan of them until I read their new army book in Gran Canaria and was swept in by the background. Models look really straight forward to paint to, as I've found those that are predominantly skin are much quicker to paint than models with loads of fiddly clothes with details.
6th Tomb Kings – My favourite of the Undead aesthetically at least, and would be a very different army to paint with and play than my current armies. However given the comments on their current playability and ease of putting models together, not going to be until after a new book at the earliest.
7th Daemons of Chaos – Again fall into the Dark Elf trap of I don't want to seem like a male hen, however having been a big Chaos fan from 4th edition where it was one uber army, and having loads of old models in a certain set of drawers they do tempt me slightly. But whilst it would be nice to paint the full pantheon of Chaos feel I should try my hand at another evil army first.
8th Vampire Counts – Not bad, but not my favourite Undead, nothing really wrong with them but they don't appeal as much as the other armies and again falling into the Dark Elf trap they don't rate that highly at present.
9th Wood Elves – Poor Wood Elves, it's not their fault, and to be honest I quite fancy painting some greens one colour I rarely use. However Mr Shakey Shakey has theme, and since 4th edition we always tended to collect different armies so as not to tread on each other's toes, so feels naughty. He's about to start a Lizardmen army to, so those may drop down here as well. By the way Mr Shakey Shakey is moving house at present, hence limited internet access which is why he's not on here – and definitely not because I've made him up, and his profile is actually me with a different log in.
10th Ogre Kingdoms – It's not really far, but I wasn't playing Warhammer when they were introduced, so never seen any hype for them in White Dwarf, and whilst I have read their army book it's one of the titchy 88 pages ones which isn't enough to get immersed. I'm sure they're fun, but they just don't excite me.
11th Skaven – sorry rat fans! But the Skaven just don't appeal. There's something I find slightly uneasy about their background, their backstabbing nature and the sewing together of various organisms that I just find too repulsive to love. Besides they make me think of cheese and that won't help the diet.
Any how I invite your thoughts on this topic, please post your own lists of what you'd like to collect. Would be great to see some reasons, and whilst gaming reasons are valid would be nice for some aesthetic thoughts to, as let's be honest this blog is about a lot of things, but it dam well ain't about tactics!
Painting High ElvesThe astute amongst you will have noticed we haven't talked High Elves yet, nor in fact have we actually got anything in progress for this month painting wise. Well I decided it was about time my High Elf got some punch, Archers, Eagles and Reaver Knights aren't going to take out any heavily armoured foes. Plus I really wanted an excuse to buy one of the new(ish) High Elf plastics – from late last year. Whilst I was tempted by the White Lions my existing High Elf army (pre Tale of OG Gamers) does have a unit of theme painted up, and one of the objectives of this was to paint up the missing choices. So it was either Dragon Princes or Phoenix Guard, I decided to plumb for the Phoenix Guard, the new models look amazing, and the Lothern Sea Guard could do with some infantry support. I'm reasonably sure Dragon Princes will turn up in the last 600 points.
Now don't get me wrong I love the new Phoenix Guard models, the odd thing about them is there isn't much choice in how to put them together, essentially this is because of the way the cloak interacts with the arms and the spacing of arms on the great weapons. So to ensure you have the correct parts for each build, each component on the sprue is labelled as belonging to a set from A-E, in fact pretty much only the heads are not labelled. This is slightly problematic, as ordinarily I'd cut all the parts from the sprue, file them all and then assemble them in one go. Instead you tend to want to build each unit one model at a time to avoid mixing up the pieces. I saved a bit of time by using a tray with labels (A-E) and cut the pieces laying them with the appropriate letter. Fiddly, but still they are good models:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2262.jpg)
Also after having trouble ranking my Gors last month (despite planning it very well, I thought!!), I built each model separate to the base then used white tac to plan out the positions, ensuring they ranked before gluing them to the base:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2270.jpg)
Sorry about the lack of focus (in the picture I mean, there's never any focus in the discussion). I also ensured that Caradryan, Champion of the Phoenix Guard ranked up in the unit next to the command models too. Am tempted to paint Caradryan up next month as I need a hero to round off my 1,400 points, but I'm not sure what people think of the inclusion of special characters in my Tale of OG Gamers army. I know most people speak about special characters as highly as Jason Gardiner speaks of pretty much everyone on Dancing on Ice, so maybe I went. But hang on a minute I'm pretty much the only one doing the Tale of OG Gamers any more so sod it, I'll include what I like. What's that "If I paint up Teclis, you will stab me in the eye with a snooker cue", perhaps I will consult you about any more special characters.
That pretty much is where I am as regards painting this month, I will need to get a wiggle on as I'm filming in Liverpool (don't ask) at the end of the month so time is against me. Apologies if I'm delayed in advance!
The Black Isle – Turn 2Turn 2 saw Cameron and Clegg's Beastmen army face the two Tom's with Tom H's Skaven attacking Clegg's garrison force and Cameron leading his raiding party against Tom C's cookery inspired Goblin army. Literally I was fighting a Satnav, because I was fighting a Tom Tom get it? A Tom Tom?! Ahh suit yourself.
If you want to see my full army background it's part of Week 3's post on Page 17 of the Blog, though I've tried to include unit types as well as their names in the description.
Clegg vs Students/SkavenWhen I found out Tom was raiding me with his Skaven, personally I was just glad I wouldn't be fighting with the army containing my Beastmen chariots, I hear Tom has a devastating Thunderstomp attack he uses against them, scary! (sorry Tom I couldn't resist!).
I've actually never played the Skaven before, but I've heard bad things so it was time to see if their reputation was deserved. Tom had assured me that he had taken a heavily themed army that didn't feature any of the horrible choices from the Skaven list. As my army was loosely themed around the Coalition Government (see Week 3's post), Tom thought it would be fun to have his army named after the student protestors in a topical clash. Step forward a Plagueclaw Catapult aka The Daily Mail s**t flinger (apologies for the swearing there I promise not to say Daily Mail again), 2 units of Skaven Slaves aka the Humanities Students and the Arts Students, a unit of Giant Rats aka The Labour Party Supporters (I leave you to draw your own conclusions about Tom's political allegiances!), a unit of Clanrats aka the MA Students, a Plague Mortar aka the students peeved off because they're not getting thirty quid a week to study any more, a unit of Plague Monks aka PhD Students and 2 units of Plague Censer Bearers aka the Student Socialist Party. Once I convinced Tom to come down from the roof and stop throwing fire extinguishers the game continued. (For simplicity of stuck to the conventional names for the Skaven units beyond this point!)
Cable (Bray Shaman) started the game badly by rolling two rubbish spells from the Lore of the Wild (and those of you about to chip in with all the spells in the Lore of the Wild are rubbish can sssshhhh now, it's thematic!).
The chittering hoard of Skaven swarmed out of the burrows heading towards the Beastmen lines, a selection of plague based weapons exploded around Clegg, but no Beastmen fell and the distance to the Grey Seer limited the magic Cable needed to counter. Clegg was pleased to see the Immigration Limiters (Gors with extra hand weapons) successfully ambush the Skaven and appear at the rear of their ranks ready to hack apart at the Skaven from the rear.
Before Clegg knew it the Skaven were upon him with a raft of charges the various factions of the Student Socialist Party (Plague Censer Bearers) charging V, A and T (the Minotaurs) and The Noisy Common Scum (Ungor Raiders) and the Plague Monks charging the ASBO Abolishers (Bestigor accompanied by David (Battle Standard Bearer) and Cable), whilst the Bestigor held up well against the Plague Monks their double handed weapons cutting through the diseased ratmen the vile Censer Bearers wiped out V, A and T and The Noisy Common Scum without giving them even a chance to strike back, Minotaur flesh flung high as censer balls swung through them shredding muscle and bone. Meanwhile the Slaves turned to face the Immigration Limiters. The Immigration Limiters then charged the Slaves their hatred for the Skaven showing new bounds as they became frenzied as well, whilst their many blows struck true they were simply unable to hit hard enough to wound the Slaves.
Buoyed by their success one set of the Student Socialist Party charged the flank of the engaged ASBO Abolishers and the other the front of the aptly named Student Bashers (Gors with shields and Clegg (Beastlord)). The Plague Censer Bearers devastated the flank of the Asbo Abolishers and with David unable to take down many Plague Monks the unit broke and fled, but tired they ran only a short distance before being cut to pieces! Overhead a diseased load from the Daily Mail flew into the sky only to crash into the Skaven Lords own unit, he suspected foul play, but with so many other Skaven alive it was hard to pin the blame. Elsewhere Clegg had better luck, with two Plague Censer Bearers succumbing to their own fumes, Clegg struck down the remaining four before they could react. Buoyed by their success the Student Bashers charged the remaining unit of Plague Censer Bearers, however Clegg was unable to repeat his feet and the Beastmen lost the combat just, it was enough for them to break without the presence of David and his trusty army standard. The unit speedily fled, however not speedily enough. The Gors rolled an impressive 10, but the Censer Bearers rolled an 11. Curses.
Only the Immigration Limiters were left, bogged down by the Skaven Slaves then the Giant Rats charged them in the flank, having seen the rest of the army being mown down by the Censer Bearers they promptly fled the table. A quick and brutal victory for the Skaven. Total destruction and those were the nice bits of the Skaven army! Bloody hell. The Plague Censer Bearers personally killed all but 1 of my units – bloody things.
On the plus side I did roll a 6 for my Gold, (the same as the sum of all the previous games), and only Clegg suffered a lasting injury which was that he feared Skaven – and who the hell can blame him!
Still it's probably my own fault, earlier that day I'd had pest control come and put down more poison to deal with my mouse problem in my flat, I guess that's karma for you!
Cameron vs GoblinsThe Beastmen army crashed threw the forest at the crack of dawn, without the light of dawn the army's formation was in disarray but then so would the Goblins be, and they closed in for the kill. The majority of the Beastmen army was positioned on the left-hand flank, whereas Tom had rolled a surprisingly large number of 1s and 2s during deployment meaning his army was heavily waited towards the flanks.
The attack began as Cameron unveiled his policy on Goblins, the Benefits Vultures (Harpies) swopped from the tower and landed just in front of the Rock Lobber, positioning themselves to avoid being attacked by any of the other greenskins. The Banking Bonus Bouncers (Minotaurs) launched an early charge against a unit of Wolf Riders that had advanced at the beginning of the battle, but they fled out of the brute's reach. In response the Goblin line rumbled forward with Chariots and Wolf Riders threatening the Banking Bonus Bouncers' flank, a unit of Spider Riders turned to shot the Benefits Vultures, but they only shot a single Harpy so the unit continued it's advanced towards the greenskins' war machines as a giant rock sailed over their head, heading straight towards the Banking Bonus Bouncers, the rock slew a single Minotaur outright however the rest survived the rubble though embarrassingly they were wounded by a short bow form a Wolf Rider meanwhile the Doom Diver missed Cameron and The Deficit Reducers (Gors). The Beastmen responded by ploughing into combat, Hammersmith (Tuskgor Chariot) ploughed into the Snotling Pump as Cameron, limited by the spells he could cast reinforced the vehicle with Wyssan's Wildform, so powerful was it that the chariot simply smashed through the Pump Wagon destroying it on impact before ploughing into the Snotlings, though a solitary Fanatic was released spinning towards the Beastmen lines, who was then shot to pieces by the Common Scum (Ungor Raiders). The Tuskgor chariot caused an impressive 6 impact hits, and released a Fanatic from the nearby Night Goblin unit - Tom decided to send the Fanatic toward the Ungors and Gors heading his way rather than the chariot, but it fell a few inches short. I ummedd and ahhhedd about overrunning the chariot into the Snotlings (they were 15 bases), but felt it was better I pinned the Snotlings in place rather than let them pin a more valuable unit in place.
Over the otherside of the battlefield City (the other chariot) was unable to reach the Squig Herd, however the Out of Hours GPs (Centigors) were able to crash into a Goblin chariot denying it a valuable charge), the Banking Bonus Bouncers headed towards the Forest Goblin Spider Riders who fled, again the Minotaurs were denied combat their blood now boiling. Meanwhile Cameron summoned an Amber Spear which flew out of his hands impaling the Black Orc Warboss who was moaning about pots, pans and Jamie Oliver, penetrating his ward save the arrow did 2 wounds on the boost. The Benefits Vultures attacked the Rock Lobber whose payload had been so deadly on the Minotaurs earlier, the Harpies slaying every crew member before they could react. The Out Of Hours GPs used the spears to inflict serious damage on the Wolf Chariot which fled through a wall, Rocklobber and Harpies to get off the battlefield chased by the Centigors. Despite having inflicted serious damage this turn I had, had atrocious luck with my Leadership tests the Centigors failing their Primal Fury test (and their reroll for being Hungover - random special ability assigned to them at beginning of battle) and then failed to restrain and pursued the Wolf Riders getting themselves caught on a wall, fortunately they passed the dangerous terrain test, but were now stuck in a position where they wouldn't be able to threaten any Goblin units. The Harpies also failed their reform roll leaving them pointing in the wrong direction. Never have I rolled so many 9s, 10s and 11s for Leadership tests. Seems wrong to moan as I was winning, but was concerned as this exposed my units to being attacked later.
The Spider Riders regained their courage returning to their flight and shooting at the Banking Bonus Bouncers though they were unable to penetrate their tough hide. The Wolf Riders swept round the flank of the Beastmen only for the Hand of Mork/Gork/a Dork/someone from York/a Champagne Cork/a Roasting Fork with a bit of Pork on the end (Cameron couldn't tell) to sweep them into the flank of City (the unengaged Tuskgor Chariot). Meanwhile a Wolf Chariot and the Night Goblins charged into the Common Scum, despite netting themselves the greenskins killed all but one Ungor who turned to flee but was stabbed in the back by a dirty Night Goblin, from under a net. Both chariot and Night Goblins pursued into the The Deficit Reducers (Gors), accompanied by Cameron (Great Bray Shaman) and Ed (Wargor Battle Standard).
The Benefits Vultures took off and landed in front of the Doom Diver ready to butcher the crew at the next opportunity, the Out of Hours GPs were tangled up on a wall due to their clumsy nature and were only able to reposition themselves The Centigors failed their fourth leadership test in a row, as they attempted a free reform and instead simply positioned themselves as best they can to face the approaching Squigs.
The Banking Bonus Bouncers charged the Forest Goblin Spider Riders who were lead by the Battle Standard Bearer bearing the Wailing Banner, despite crushing three with the full force of the impact the Minotaurs cowered and found it hard to hit their foe, but still it was enough to forced the Forest Goblins to flee who were mown down before the Minotaurs ploughed into the flank of the third Wolf Chariot. Cameron drew the powers of the wind of magic to transform the Deficit Reducers with Wyssan's Wildform helping to mitigate the impact of the Wolf Chariot and cancel the effects of the Night Goblin's nets. With their enhanced frames the Gors beat off the Night Goblins who fled, however the Wolf Chariot stubbornly refused to die. City and the Wolf Riders continued to fight, with the Tuskgors unable to fight no one could gain the upper hand.
The Black Orc Warboss shouted the f-word, closed down a kitchen, and charged headlong at the Deficit Reducers, Cameron laughed as the Black Orc failed to make the distance huffing, puffing and swearing. The Squig herd ploughed into the front of the Out of Hours GPs, in a close battle two Centigors were killed, as were two Squigs, but the noise of the Centigor's horn was enough to send the Squigs amoke exploding through the Centigor unit killing another two. The Centigors nerve broke and they fled away from the Squig based carnage The Centigors failing their 7th consecutive leadership test, unable to gain Primal Fury as they were!
The Minotaurs launched a bloody attack smashing the Goblin Chariot to pulp and increasing their frenzy. Whilst the Gors destroyed the remaining Goblin Chariot.
Cameron was feeling in a wicked mood and so charged forward towards the Black Orc Warboss to grant him his wish. Meanwhile the Banking Bonus Bouncers failed to reach the remaining unit of Squigs, the Benefits Vultures charged and ripped apart the Doom Diver and the Centigors decided to rejoin the fight finally passing a leadership test!
The Black Orc Warboss bellowed a challenge, smelling the breath of a commoner, Cameron bravely pushed Ed the Battle Standard Bearer forward to face the challenge, who was promptly cut to ribbons, despite this the Black Orc Warboss's resolve wavered for a moment in the face of ranks of charging Gors and he turned and run, Cameron sticking an axe in his back as the Gors caught him and mauled him to death. And with that, despite it only just being dawn the sunset and the battle was over – odd thought Cameron The pub was closing so we ended it then!
With the Goblin dead far outweighing the Beastmen dead and the remainder of Tom's army being surrounded it was a Beastmen win! And I rolled 9 for my gold, still below average, but better than a Polaris missile in the genitalia as I always say. Rolling on the critical injuries table Ed scored a 6 meaning he'd survived and his troops impressed by the recovery now treated him as having 1 higher Leadership, which now meant Ed was now technically a better leader than Cameron – make of that what you will.
At this point I should say big thanks to both Toms for being great opponents and fun to play and putting up with my moaning, turns out I moan whether winning or losing! Look forward to playing you guys again. Also the reason that the battle report I lost in is much shorter than the one I won in is not because of me sulking, it was just a very quick massacre!
Turn 3 loomed and despite two wins out of four, my poor dice rolling means I'm still in the bottom 3. Next turn I'm raiding Ritchie's Dwarfs and campaign leader (gulp) Toast aka Andrew will be raiding me and probably turning the Beastmen to Toast with his Warriors. Stay tuned for more exciting developments, or come to the club and boo Cameron for yourself!
What's In the Box? – The ResultsThat pretty much leaves us with this month's What's In the Box? – thank you for all the entrants a record breaking 6 this month. Particular thanks to "Evil Fuzzy Doom" who has logged on all the way from Australia, just for this post – which proves that no matter where in the world you are everyone needs s**t to read to procrastinate and avoid doing useful things.
Quote from: EvilFuzzyDoom on February 09, 2011, 10:16:19 pm
Mate, the only Shakeaways in Australia is on my bus route. I AM SO EXCITED. I CAN GO THERE ALL THE TIME. :))
Thank you for opening my eyes to its wonder and glory.
Oh and glad I opened your eyes to the glory of Shakeaway, though I am slightly jealous there is one on your bus route (I presume it's a shop somewhere near the stop, rather than an in-flight trolley service, that would be good on the Northern line), however in fairness if there was a Shakeaway in Clapham I would need one of those super-size ambulances, the NHS have been buying, to get me to hospital and have my stomach pumped after overdosing on Shakeaway goodness.
As always Cheryl, my house plant, oversaw the proceedings to make sure the draw was fair. Though I am a bit concerned she's a bit worse for wear, she's gone all droopy and isn't taking up her water – maybe it's the stress of America:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2298.jpg)
Looking at the board as it stands we can see boxes number 3, 6 and 25 have already been picked:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2303.jpg)
All the entries were loaded into the Shakeaway cup:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2296.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2297.jpg)
Before Cheryl drew this month's "winner":
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2302.jpg)
Yes it's number 14, well done Tom who has picked the "winning" number twice now, commiserations to Ol and Lee who despite picking the same number for the last four months have still yet to be drawn. Don't worry I should imagine in about 32 months' time your box will get drawn. Sorry guys!
So let's see What's In The Box numbered 14, by the way I've vacuumed the carpet after last time's embarrassing hair incident!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2304.jpg)
And perhaps appropriately for today it's an Orcs & Goblins box:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2307.jpg)
We've got a Savage Orc Boar Boy with Spear, more exist in another box, possibly with a consecutive number (there's a clue for next time):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2310.jpg)
A Savage Orc Shaman on Boar, which I think is a particularly good model:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2314.jpg)
Morglum Necksnapper, Black Orc Warboss, who annoyingly I seemed to miss when compiling the Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar – god dam it, it was hard in the last weeks!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2321.jpg)
And some of the first of the "new" style Orcs, that didn't have the more cartoon-esque face, here's an Orc Big Boss on Boar:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2327.jpg)
And a unit of Orc Boar Boyz with spears for him to lead:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2331.jpg)
There's a musician and standard here, not sure if there's a designated champion model or if the Big Boss was meant to lead them, it was from around the time when Games Workshop mucked around with command models, and there often wasn't a full set for each unit.
What's In the Box? will probably return in March, so you'll get another go then. Thanks again for your entries.
Just before I go some random bits and pieces...
Quote from: maelzch on February 09, 2011, 11:10:09 pm
This seems like the best place to post this, just watching the latest Charlie Brooker, only a few minutes in and already some ace quotes:
there aren't many shows that make me genuinely laugh out loud this much, it's ace!
Yes Charlie Brooker's show is amazing, I quite like 10 o'Clock Live with him on as well (though it does clash with gaming nights), but if you hear him say any jokes you've seen in this blog you know he copied me not the other way round.
I don't play Warhammer 40,000, but if I did I think I'd paint up a Stormraven in the colours of Thunderbird 2. Am I the only person who has thought that?
Oh and I know it was a while ago in the blog, but do let me know your lists of what armies you would/wouldn't collect if you were/weren't already collecting them, if that makes sense. Would be interesting to know.
Next week it will be Valentine's Day, oh joy! So I'll probably be crumbling Valium and Prozac onto a Pizza for 1, expect a vitriolic rant next week!!!!
Another good update matt, makes for much more interesting reading on my commute than today's doom rag, or newspaper as it's more commonly known.
I'll have you know I'm still frantically painting away on stuff for the Tale, I'm aiming to get my month 5 stuff up by the end of the weekend (better late than never)
My choice of armies I want to do is less based on the playability of the army, or if I like the models, it tends to appear once an idea latches onto me like some kind of brain leech! The current ideas that are top of my "I can't start another[/] army" list are:
'Barrow Kings of Albion' - A tomb kings army, but all converted into zombie celts and such
'Malal's uprising' - a daemon army *gasp* based around the fifth forgotten (due to IP) chaos god, Malal, who was the god of distrust and betrayal. This army would be a chance for me to use the fantastic Belakor model, as he is the deamon prince of Malal. As Malal's colors are black and white, I can see that I'd use a lot of OSL when painting this army.
Dammit, I need to clear out some stuff!
Baring in mind I've only got my dwarfs and now WE painted I've got plenty of options, but as per my recent thread about hoarding stuff I've a few options. Armies which I'd most like to do next:
1. Lizardmen - I'm kind of half way there with them just now so it's a bit of a cop out answer but I really like the figures and once I started reading the background I was truely captivated.
2. Tomb kings - I basically want an excuse to use a big old unit of mummies from my undead collection, but again the whole egyptian look and theme and idea of animated constructs really appeals. If I could find suitable oriental figures I might consider doing the good old terracotta army using their rules but sure it's been done before.
3. Daemons of chaos - again it's an old project revisited, I've got a host of the slanneshi stuff all badly painted from my previous excursion into daemons when they were the weak part of the combined chaos book. Only thing keeping me away was the 'it's pure filth' sign that you get attached to you for taking daemons. I thought 8th was going to remove that, but it seems not.
4. Ogres - I like the bigger models and as a result lower figure count to paint which keeps tempting me to try and do a 'different' paintjob on them. A while back there was some nice tzeench blue and khorne red ogres floating about, really piqued my interest in them.
5. Warriors of chaos - This one rages up and down my list of what I fancy doing. At it's peak I bought a whole armies worth of stuff, then promptly lost interest and they all sit untouched in a box to date. Again favour something a bit different from the norm and would go for something along the lines of sigvalds stying, super crisp clean and golden pretty boys.
6 Skaven - I painted up the IoB clanrats and had a really good time doing it, which again is tempting me to get a skaven army. The fact that they're a dime a dozen right now is putting me off.
7 Dark Elves - but specifically because they can do a decent all mounted army. I like the idea of a hugely mobile force and nobody else quite offers the same options to do mobile, and good, at the same time.
8 Bretonnians - Love the idea, hate painting horses.
9 Beastmen - Lack of any real variety in the army, everything is a fur and flesh beast, just variations of theme. But I like the background of them that exists in my head (not read the recent books).
10 High Elves - Dunno, used to have an army of them, but now just dont feel the love, probably due to them being rather popular round my way.
11 VC- this is another one which swings up and down the list, but anything fun now seems to be considered a bad choice, which is tempting me again, but you know you'd be tarred with that brush.
12 Orcs & Goblins - just never really been my thing
13 Empire - never done it for me really, just a historical army plus some silly tank and rockets
I've always loved Brian Nelson's Orcs. I have that same Big Boss painted up, but unfortunately I dropped a LCD monitor on him a little bit and he needs a few repairs.
When it comes to want/not want for Fantasy armies, hrmm...
1. Orcs: I always wanted to collect Orcs when I was a little tacker; the green appealed to me I guess. I had a go when the BfSP box came out but my money ran out and that was the end of that.
2. Warriors of Chaos: I've just started working on a thousand points of 'em (had them lying around, it turns out!) so yeah, I guess I like them. I've wanted to play a Tzeentch-themed force in 40k since before it was either wise or the models were available, and figured that this was close enough.
3. Beasts of Chaos: Because they look awesome. And easy to paint. And awesome. Apparently they're total pants though. On the plus side, I could blame the army when I get my butt kicked from here to Naggarond...
4. Wood Elves: Mainly for the Dryads. Those models are awesome. I might grab some just for funsies or Daemon stand-ins at some point. My ex-girlfriend is also (sort of) collecting Wood Elves though, so it might get a little awkward if I started on them for reals though.
5. Dwarfs: Because I could pop on a fake beard and do a reasonable impression in a pinch. And the whole "gunline" idea seems like it might just be simple enough for me to pull off despite my tactical capacities.
6. Skaven: Doomwheel. Purrrty. Although the sheer quantity of models involved is a little off-putting. I play Imperial Guard, after all, and I think I could only survive painting one horde army.
7. Ogre Kingdoms: Apparently they're super easy to collect. But a friend of mine plays them and, well, I'm not sure my painting standard would hold up on that scale over a whole army. I might go cross-eyed and obsessive over them.
8. Tomb Kings: By gum they'd be easy to paint. Spray & wipe painting scheme? Yes please.
9. Vampire Counts: A little easier, but still a little less appealing than Tomb Kings for some reason. Couldn't say why.
10. Empire: I have at least 3000 points of them lying around. They were an unanticipated gift. I just can't bring myself to paint them since many of them are spectacularly awkward conversions, and I could never buy any more of them while owning so many of them already. I've decided to pretend the army just doesn't exist in the meantime.
11. Daemons of Chaos: I'm pretty sure I'd either get bored painting all one colour, or claw my eyes out trying to justify why I'm shredding 15 years of fluff indoctrination: "BUT... BUT... DAEMONIC ANIMOSITY! KHORNE DOESN'T WORK WITH SLAANESH! ARGH!"
12. Bretonnians: They're probably more appealing than the undead armies, to be honest, but a friend collects them and... well they just don't tickle my fancy.
13. Lizardmen: I tried once. They were purple and yellow. I don't think I could ever relive the horror.
14. Dark Elves: Bloody hell there are a lot of armies around, aren't there? It's like Fantasy tries to make up for not having hundreds and hundreds of Space Marine variants by having actual different armies.
15. High Elves: Who are these people and what are they doing here? Pointy-eared gits.
The legend rolls on, this is great!! And now we get homework from the plog :endit:
I am elso enamoured of the dichotomy of the man who gets annoyed when gamers don't speak with him, a rage only matched by the vitriol targetted at a woman for daring to speak with him on his trip to work, you are a complex chap Matt.
I am obviously disgusted that what's in the box is still so open to abuse, O&G eh, how convenient! I have asked wikileaks if they have any information on this subject, I also have the News of the World tapping your phone just in case. As soon as this series of million pound drop finishes (I say million pound, but it is then subject to stupid tax administered by contestands plainly chosed by how much peroxide they use per year and then ultimately ends up as a 50/50 for £20,000) I think the draw needs to be televised, I suspect the role of Cheryl will have to be played by Davina, sorry.
As for armies, I still think Ogres are the most fun army in the game and I enjoy them I am really hoping they get an 8th ed soon. As I am still in the process of constructing the dwarves and space marines I can resist new armies, only just. I have tried most armies over the years but the ones I am still tempted by are the Bretts and Tomb Kings.
EDIT- Oh, and old people like me are not keen on the blue text, it hurts my eyes
Quote from: EvilFuzzyDoom on February 10, 2011, 10:29:48 am
I've always loved Brian Nelson's Orcs. I have that same Big Boss painted up, but unfortunately I dropped a LCD monitor on him a little bit and he needs a few repairs.
Seriously, I totally misread that I actually thought you were painting and dropped and LSD, that would be interesting but big boss would be a really bad idea!! :))
Armies that I would ike to coolect for painting/gaming purposes..
1) Bretts - Want to do a TK / Brett cross over army
2) Ogres - Love the models, but can't think of a theme yet
3) Dwarves - Using the new Mantic models, but would never ever want to play with them, with out a doubt the single most boring army in the world IMO (joint top with VC actually)
4) O&G - love the new models, love my Black Orcs that I have had since the plastics came out (used them in my Chaos Dwarf army) but the prospect of painting another horder is frighteneing..
So currently I am getting on with doing my WoC / Beasts army, thinking of using some savage orcs as Gors to really mix it all up
And I tell you if Box 17 does not get picked next month, Cheryl fecking gets it.... :spank: :bangbang: :spamlaser: :decapitated: :jason: :fighting04: :sniper:
Great blog again sir.... :thumbsup:
Quote from: fatolaf on February 10, 2011, 12:37:13 pm
3) Dwarves - Using the new Mantic models, but would never ever want to play with them, with out a doubt the single most boring army in the world IMO (joint top with VC actually)
Only if you insist on building a 'competitive' build.
Quote from: Dave on February 10, 2011, 01:35:05 pm
Only if you insist on building a 'competitive' build.
More based on the total lack of vareity. Only infantry, no magic phase, no cavalry, no monsters, and I dont like war machines....Never been the army for me I'm afraid...
Plus I dont think I have ever had a fun game against them at a tournie, total hobby killer for me..
oh, box 11 again btw
I'm going to stubbornly refuse to change my choice from box 13 methinks
Wow! It's gone crazy here today :thumbsup: sorry tried to reply at work, but they actually wanted me to work today, how rude?! Thanks for the comments and thoughts on what armies you'd paint and collect, all great, I've highlight a few tit bits from the responses which particularly grabbed my attention!
Firstly, whilst it's good you're keen on "What's In the Box?" lines haven't opened for March's round yet, so your votes don't count and you may still be charged. Hold back people, hold back.
Lee:
Quote from: maelzch on February 10, 2011, 08:32:33 am
Another good update matt, makes for much more interesting reading on my commute than today's doom rag, or newspaper as it's more commonly known.
I'll have you know I'm still frantically painting away on stuff for the Tale, I'm aiming to get my month 5 stuff up by the end of the weekend (better late than never)
I can add some random slurs against asylum seekers, global warming, the BBC and Jonathon Ross if you like make this fill the newspaper void! Hehe. I did use the phrase "I'm
pretty much the only one doing the Tale of OG Gamers any more " specifically as a nod to your good self.
Nice army suggestions, funny I expected something a bit simpler from you, maybe "Just a plain Lizardmen army - as seen on the box."!
Dave:
Quote from: Dave on February 10, 2011, 08:54:22 am
1. Lizardmen - I'm kind of half way there with them just now so it's a bit of a cop out answer but I really like the figures and once I started reading the background I was truely captivated.
6 Skaven - I painted up the IoB clanrats and had a really good time doing it, which again is tempting me to get a skaven army. The fact that they're a dime a dozen right now is putting me off.
7 Dark Elves - but specifically because they can do a decent all mounted army. I like the idea of a hugely mobile force and nobody else quite offers the same options to do mobile, and good, at the same time.
8 Bretonnians - Love the idea, hate painting horses.
9 Beastmen - Lack of any real variety in the army, everything is a fur and flesh beast, just variations of theme. But I like the background of them that exists in my head (not read the recent books).
Nice comments on all the armies, picked a few above. Totally agree on the Lizardmen front, brilliant background, lovely models. You mention painting the Skaven, am very tempted to paint the odd unit of every army for some variation, but I am very worried it will snowball into wanting to paint all of them into full armies. I guess if you hate painting Horses and want to do an all mounted force Dark Elves is the way to go. The recent Beastmen book I think has a really good background, slightly annoyed they played down the Beastmen vs Wood Elves theme, but I think they got it on the head with the way they worship Chaos - unaware of the different gods, and jealous of the Warriors of Chaos who receive gifts of armour to buy their loyalty. Painting wise yeah they are all fur and skin, though I do find that actually makes them quite speedy to paint, though there is some difference in the Centigors, Harpies, Razagor, Tuskgor, Giants and the other monsters.
EvilFuzzyDoom:
Quote from: EvilFuzzyDoom on February 10, 2011, 10:29:48 am
3. Beasts of Chaos: Because they look awesome. And easy to paint. And awesome. Apparently they're total pants though. On the plus side, I could blame the army when I get my butt kicked from here to Naggarond...
5. Dwarfs: Because I could pop on a fake beard and do a reasonable impression in a pinch. And the whole "gunline" idea seems like it might just be simple enough for me to pull off despite my tactical capacities.
11. Daemons of Chaos: I'm pretty sure I'd either get bored painting all one colour, or claw my eyes out trying to justify why I'm shredding 15 years of fluff indoctrination: "BUT... BUT... DAEMONIC ANIMOSITY! KHORNE DOESN'T WORK WITH SLAANESH! ARGH!"
15. High Elves: Who are these people and what are they doing here? Pointy-eared gits.
You're totally right about the Beastmen, in my humble opinion, and you've spotted my reason for playing with them!! Dwarfs-wise I think I emphathise with them in this case, if I was in battle I'd stand with a gun at one end of the battlefield and shoot as many times as possible before the enemy reached me - though I'd then run away so a little less Dwarfy! Know what you mean about Daemonic Animosity, maybe it should come back to help the anti-Daemon camp. And as for you comments about the High Elves, how rude?! This is a High Elf blog don't you forget (I forget often enough), such comments aren't welcome here!! :wink;m::
Ritchie:
Quote from: Veldemere on February 10, 2011, 10:34:56 am
The legend rolls on, this is great!! And now we get homework from the plog :endit:
It wasn't meant to feel like a chore! :))
Quote from: Veldemere on February 10, 2011, 10:34:56 am
I am elso enamoured of the dichotomy of the man who gets annoyed when gamers don't speak with him, a rage only matched by the vitriol targetted at a woman for daring to speak with him on his trip to work, you are a complex chap Matt.
Ha ha ha ha ha!!! You've got me there, I am a fickle, hard to please, complex individual - or in other words a woman!
Quote from: Veldemere on February 10, 2011, 10:34:56 am
I am obviously disgusted that what's in the box is still so open to abuse, O&G eh, how convenient! I have asked wikileaks if they have any information on this subject, I also have the News of the World tapping your phone just in case.
Wooah, wooah, wooah!! Am I going to have bring in Cheryl to do the draw live in OG Games to avoid accusations of cheating? Failing that I could pop up amongst Dale Winton to grab some balls?!
Quote from: Veldemere on February 10, 2011, 10:34:56 am
As for armies, I still think Ogres are the most fun army in the game and I enjoy them I am really hoping they get an 8th ed soon. As I am still in the process of constructing the dwarves and space marines I can resist new armies, only just. I have tried most armies over the years but the ones I am still tempted by are the Bretts and Tomb Kings.
I feel bad for my comments on the Ogres, and I did enjoy playing yours, I just can't find enough background to sweep me up as I can with the others. I suspect if an 8th edition did come out then the inevitable glut of White Dwarf and online articles and a bigger army book could push them up my list.
Quote from: Veldemere on February 10, 2011, 10:34:56 am
EDIT- Oh, and old people like me are not keen on the blue text, it hurts my eyes
Fair enough I did find it hard to read too! Just trying to be themeatic! I've changed it to Teal now which hopefully you can read this even if you can't read the blue!
Stop moaning Ritchie!
Ol:
Quote from: fatolaf on February 10, 2011, 12:37:13 pm
Armies that I would ike to coolect for painting/gaming purposes..
1) Bretts - Want to do a TK / Brett cross over army
3) Dwarves - Using the new Mantic models, but would never ever want to play with them, with out a doubt the single most boring army in the world IMO (joint top with VC actually)
So currently I am getting on with doing my WoC / Beasts army, thinking of using some savage orcs as Gors to really mix it all up
Interesting combinations, I look forward to seeing them on the field of battle. The good thing I find about Dwarf tactics is the fact you never have to get out of your chair to play them, no standing up and stretching across the table to move your troops - perfect if you want a rest!!
Quote from: fatolaf on February 10, 2011, 12:37:13 pm
And I tell you if Box 17 does not get picked next month, Cheryl fecking gets it.... :spank: :bangbang: :spamlaser: :decapitated: :jason: :fighting04: :sniper:
Great blog again sir.... :thumbsup:
Looking at the state of Cheryl I think she may not need your spat of weaponary to finish her off!
Thanks again for the great comments, loving hearing people's thoughts on what armies to collect? Anyone agree/disagree with my pantomime theory on Orcs & Goblins?
In response to your bit about army ideas, did you ever expect anything normal from me? Annoyingly, after having mulled it around all day, the Malal themed army has it's hooks in me. Expect me to start buying stuff for it soon!
Quote from: maelzch on February 11, 2011, 12:05:36 am
In response to your bit about army ideas, did you ever expect anything normal from me?
No not really, but I keep reading the Evening Standard in the hope it will have some uplifting stories about the day in it! :wink;m:: - I love your highly converted, off the wall armies really, and am simply jealous I am not that imaginative. Though my Thunderbird themed Space Marines may catch on.
Quote from: maelzch on February 11, 2011, 12:05:36 am
Annoyingly, after having mulled it around all day, the Malal themed army has it's hooks in me. Expect me to start buying stuff for it soon!
Apologies to your bank manager in advance!
The conversions and themes just come from the fact that I don't want to have the same army as anyone else (the reason why my skaven are on a slow burn until they're not top tier any more!)
As this seems to be the place for funny Charlie Brooker quotes, last night on 10 o'Clock Live - "The Daily Star couldn't be more offensive to Muslims if it was printed on ham!" :))
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 11, 2011, 12:17:31 am
...Though my Thunderbird themed Space Marines may catch on...
I took the idea to my friend who's commissioned me to paint his marines. He said no. :cry:
What a spoil sport?! I reckon a Space Marine Land Speeder could easily be made into Thunderbird 4.
Hmmm perhaps destined for the same fate as the flump inspired beatmen army and Lazytown inspired BloodBowl team
Probably won't even get that far!
Wednesday 16th February – WEEK 7
Warning the following post contains seriously vitriolic and anti-Valentine's rant, those of a delicate romantic nature (and teddy bears) may wish to look away now.
Seven weeks ago I told you that New Year's was the worst celebration of the year, I lied! Well more to the point 11 months of therapy had worked and I'd blocked the affront on humanity that is Valentine's Day. Don't get me wrong Valentine's Day isn't all bad, the Valentine's Day Massacre being a particularly tasteful event from the 1920s but now there seems to be far too much Valentine's and far too little Massacre for my tastes. The only good thing about Valentine's Day is it's proximity to Christmas which means retailers only have a month and a half to promote the bloody thing. I swear if Valentine's Day was in October and we'd had 6 months of retail space devoted to it, I'd have burnt down my Sainsbury's. In fact I hate Valentine's Day so much that the only appealing thing about the day is deliberately "accidentally" falling against people in the tube baring bunches of roses thereby crushing the flowers and ruining their evening!
I'll be upfront and come clean now, my bitterness about Valentine's Day is purely and simply due to the fact that I'm single and the last time I was in a relationship on February the 14th was back in the Cretaceous period. It's a pure bitterness and jealously thing there – I'm not happy, and Valentine's Day serves to remind me of that. Whilst it may seem that Valentine's Day is just an innocent celebration of the romance you have for the one you love, it is in fact a big reminder to the terminally alone that you are a failure. In a sense it's a celebration that "we're not single" and by extension an exclusive party to which single people aren't invited. Which seems not to be more than just a metaphor for my life at present - apparently I can't come to any dinner parties with my uni friends any more as they are all in couples and inviting me means that they need an odd number of seats. Well I'm terribly bloody sorry, tell you what, I'll just binge eat to cope with my depression and become so obese I can occupy two seats – there problem solved, and ironically more likely than me actually finding a bloody partner to take.
Anyway as I was saying Valentine's Day or "We're Not Single" Day as it feels always seems a bit tasteless, I mean you wouldn't have a day called "Having a House" Day where you celebrate having somewhere to live, as that would be in poor taste to the homeless. You wouldn't send cards saying:
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I have a roof over my head.
Shame you don't too."
Because that would be wrong. Similarly it would be wrong to have "I'm Not Ugly" Day, as this card would be inappropriate:
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
You filll with me dread.
And your face makes me want to spew."
Again "I Have a Job" Day would be wrong, this card would not go down well:
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
At least on Monday you're in bed,
But on Tuesday you'll have to join the Dole queue"
Quite tasteless as you'll agree, though in the current economic climate quite a good seller. Even worse at the Frankie Boyle level of political correctness (not Frankie Howard level of political correctness as I originally wrote - thank god for proof reading) would be "I'm not Mentally Retarded" Day where such cards could read:
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Sadly you're brain dead,
And someone has to clean up your poo"
Again everyone would say this is deeply tasteless, totally outrageous to the mentally ill and deeply offensive. Though possibly not as offensive as the version of this rhyme that mentions a toasted cheese sandwich, but I'll leave Ol to fill you in on that one!
So if this is the case and all such celebrations are tasteless and wrong, I'd argue that "I'm Not Single" Day falls in the same category. Single people typically have more tragic lives, wallowing in their own self worthlessness – it's simply not fair to have a day to remind them off this. So in retaliation I have decided to launch my own celebration which I will call Anti-Valentine's Day where we celebrate failed and unrequited love, bitterness and singledom. I think it's only fair and represents a massive marketing opportunity, which in these harsh economic times can only be a good thing for the country. You would be able to send cards to people who you'd had unfortunate relationships with, such as for an unrequited love a card that on the front reads "Why Won't You Go Out with Me?" and inside reads:
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
You're responsible for the unfortunate stains on my bed,
And I'm outside your house watching you"
Touching.
Or for the person who dumped you, a card that simply reads "You Ruined My Life" and inside:
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I can't get the thoughts of you out my head,
I'd do anything for once last screw"
Or my favourite for the person who cheated on you a card that reads "Remember Me?" and inside:
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I want you dead,
And your new boyfriend too"
Like Valentine's Day cards these should all be anonymously signed for proper stalkerish effect, and to reduce the likelihood of the relevant authorities finding you. Personally I think this would be a genius marketing ploy for retailers because as we all know love may last forever but only bitterness is eternal.
For the last few years I have been embracing Anti-Valentine's Day with my own Anti-Valentine's Day meal where I have cooked for a selection of my single friends on Valentine's Day, forcing my housemates in couples to go out for the evening and spend an inordinate amount of money on their partners – ha ha ha.
Like all tackily themed Valentine's Day meals my Anti-Valentine's Day meal is known for it's tacky anti-Valentine's Day themeing, as you can see:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2333.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2338.jpg)
Just as the heart is the symbol of Valentine's Day the shattered heart is the symbol of Anti-Valentine's Day with broken hearts everywhere.
To remind us why it's better to be single than in a couple, pictures of famous celebrity break ups are scattered around the dining room:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2336.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2340.jpg)
Always good to see Les Dennis and Heather Mills in the same post I think.
Even the menu is themed:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2341.jpg)
With the starter being Bitter Paté, main course being Broken Chicken Hearts and dessert being Date-Free Cake – see what I've done there? Additionally shots are only available as singles.
It's important to make sure the door into the event is appropriately themed:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2342.jpg)
Incidentally this image makes a great R.S.V.P. to wedding invites that your more successful friends send you. Bastards.
No Anti-Valentine's Party would be complete without a touch of burnt rose petals for the smell of your hopes and dreams burning:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2337.jpg)
Just in case it gets too much an appropriate emergency sign is placed on the balcony:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2339.jpg)
And no Anti-Valentine's Dinner would be complete without some table decorations:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2334.jpg)
Here's Valentine's Doggy holding a lovely heart and with a knife sticking through his chest, and blood dripping out of his body.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2335.jpg)
And Valentine's Teddy whose head has unfortunately been ripped off - the stupid smug smiling turgid bear.
At this point you're likely to be backing away from the computer, and thinking to yourself if I ever see that spikey-haired weirdo down the club again, I'm leaving. And to be honest any good psychologist would probably agree with you.
Sadly Anti-Valentine's night didn't occur this year, primarily as my regular group of single friend invitees have pretty much all found partners, and those that haven't, have responded to the above paragraph. So in an effort to be positive and take control of the situation I signed myself up to a Valentine's network and socialising event, the idea being that being as it was on Valentine's Day only single people would go. Thus you could all meet up get laid and live happily ever after – well that's what the brochure said.
The problem is that any event in which romance is being attempted to be artificially orchestrated will only attract social retards, like myself, because clearly those who aren't social retards can meet people they like in normal situations and ask them out without the need of some grand "shag me" event. Also I failed to realise the key plan that everyone else would do at these events, they'd bring at least one other single friend along, so they had someone to talk to. I didn't. So now we have a room full of social retards, no one talking to anyone, except to the people they've bought with them who they already know. And the individual singletons like myself standing there in a corner on their own, eitther acting excited by a pot plant or pretending to read texts on their phone. Seriously I ran out of things to do on my phone, I'd cleared out the drafts text message folder and reorganised my phone book all whilst pretending to read a text. In fact social awkwardness may be the best reason to get a smart phone, at least that way I can use Google whilst pretending to read texts. Incidentally if you're reading this blog and don't know who I am down at the club, as I know it's busy and I don't come along as often as I'd like, you now know I'm the one standing in the corner pretending to send a text. Come and say hi, I'll run a mile.
Anyway having spent £10 for this "exciting" event and drunk my free glass of wine, I decided, after an hour of avoiding making eye contact with the creepy looking people, I should abandon this lost cause. So my Valentine's evening consisted of wasting £10, feeling depressed about being unable to pull in what by all accounts should have been a dead cert – room full of desperate singletons on Valentine's Day. Then I went home binge ate a pizza and two cheesecakes and completed a level on Mario Kart. Not doing that again, next year I'm coming back to get you teddies!
Before I go for this week to calm down and let my vein stop throbbing, I should impart to any couples out there the three golden rules that you should always obey when trying to comfort single people on or around Valentine's Day:
1. Don't tell us that Valentine's Day is worse for couples. If it that's bad leave them, you are miserable by choice, we are miserable despite our best efforts not to be. Your level of pain pales in comparison to our own don't try and trivialise it.
2. Don't tell us that you and your partner aren't doing anything for Valentine's Day. How could this possibly help? What you are effectively saying is that you have a ticket to the Happiness Party we're not allowed to go to, but your life is so happy you don't need to go to the Happiness Party – this makes us hate you.
3. Don't tell us that "don't worry you're bound to meet someone perfect soon". Quite frankly I'm too old for this Disney bullshit - it's perfectly possible that I will spend the rest of miserable life sad and lonely with my only companionship provided by a group of dismembered Valentine's Day teddies. Fate has nothing to do with it, don't patronise me!
I don't know about you, but I feel better! :thumbsup: Incidentally as I seem to have become known as the OG Gamers' Charlie Brooker, I should point you in the direction of his wonderful programme "How TV Ruined Your Life" which this week is all about Love and holds a similar view point to me. Though not being married to a Blue Peter presenter makes me a more believable person to moan about singledom, I think you'll agree! Anyway here's this week's edition:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/ysfvh/ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/ysfvh/)
This edition includes the classic Brooker lines: "Love to me is being able to share a fridge with the same person for 17 years without resorting to fists" and "Blind Date is hosted by Cilla Black, here played by Ronald McDonald's Aunt" – so true!
Before I go just to say does anyone else have that moment where they post a "what they think is really funny" comment on a thread, only to find no one replies in a really awkward tumbleweed/you killed the thread kind of way. Thank god that doesn't happen to me:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2344.jpg)
Yes I was that one reply. Still no further comments I see. Oh well just trying to be funny.
Finally three bits of bad news. Firstly I haven't really done any hobby this week - had to work the weekend and thought using razor saws and craft knives with the state of mind that wrote this blog might be a bit dangerous. Secondly, next week I will be in Liverpool with work (that should cheer me up – I think not!), so probably won't be able to blog next week, and consequently the third bit of bad news is that I probably won't finish February's painting tasks in time. Don't worry though I will try and do some painting in Liverpool so at least it should provide some blog material.
Have a great week, and remember if you want to self harm ankles are always better to cut than wrists as less people at work will notice! :wink;m::
a great, if occaisionally borderline psychotic update this week Matt!
One of my friends wished me a "Happy Overpriced, Novelty, Heart-Shaped and Flower Scented Tat Day" on Monday, which pretty much sums it up!
The selection of 'alternative' message made me laugh, suggest a few to Hallmark, especially my favourite one:
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 16, 2011, 10:20:10 pm"Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Sadly you're brain dead,
And someone has to clean up your poo"
Again everyone would say this is deeply tasteless, totally outrageous to the mentally ill and deeply offensive. Though possibly not as offensive as the version of this rhyme that mentions a toasted cheese sandwich, but I'll leave Ol to fill you in on that one!
I believe you are referring to this quaint ditty:
[spoiler]"Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I've got Alzheimers,
Cheese on toast"[/spoiler]
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 16, 2011, 10:20:10 pm"Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
You're responsible for the unfortunate stains on my bed,
And I'm outside your house watching you"
Touching.
I nearly spat Coke onto my screen with just the word "touching" following that, you'd think I'd have learned from Ol by now! :bash;m:
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 16, 2011, 10:20:10 pmIncidentally as I seem to have become known as the OG Gamers' Charlie Brooker
Couldn't agree more, there's a lot of rage and vitriol bottled up in there, despite weekly outbursts!
May I propose an official anthem for Anti-Valentine's Day:
TISM - Everyone Else Has Had More Sex THan Me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwNVE37BGVE)
Damn it, I knew there was something I was supposed to remember on monday!
One thing you lucky singletons have though is the understandign that if someone says to you
'no, i dont want a pint/a cigarette/any thing else' chances are they actually mean it.
I had the delights of 'why dont I have flowers'- you said you didnt want anything, infact you explicitly told me not to get you anything or you'd be really angry, now that I havent got you anything, your angry! Honestly. I really dont get it.
Nice to hear appropriate views on yet another innocent celebration ruined by the corparate market.
In all seriousness, I came back to london after christmas and popped down to tescos to get some essentials (bread, milk, top gear magazine) and the shelves were full of valentines stuff and easter eggs!
Really, 4 months away and they'd already started putting stuff out.
Fab, need I say more, muchos yoghurt spat on pc screen...
QuoteTouching
Classic! :cool3:
Quote from: maelzch on February 17, 2011, 12:07:25 am
a great, if occaisionally borderline psychotic update this week Matt!
You know me so well.
Quote from: maelzch on February 17, 2011, 12:07:25 am
I believe you are referring to this quaint ditty:
[spoiler]"Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I've got Alzheimers,
Cheese on toast"[/spoiler]
Ahh it was Cheese on Toast not a Toasted Cheese Sandwich, must have just been thinking of my stomach!
Quote from: maelzch on February 17, 2011, 12:07:25 am
I nearly spat Coke onto my screen with just the word "touching" following that, you'd think I'd have learned from Ol by now! :bash;m:
Stop it with the drinking/eating and reading, you know it will end in tears/techonology repair bills.
Quote from: maelzch on February 17, 2011, 12:07:25 am
Couldn't agree more, there's a lot of rage and vitriol bottled up in there, despite weekly outbursts!
Again you know me so well.
Quote from: EvilFuzzyDoom on February 17, 2011, 07:43:12 am
May I propose an official anthem for Anti-Valentine's Day:
TISM - Everyone Else Has Had More Sex THan Me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwNVE37BGVE)
Yes you may. Motion approved!
Quote from: noahtonkin on February 17, 2011, 09:59:19 am
Damn it, I knew there was something I was supposed to remember on monday!
One thing you lucky singletons have though is the understandign that if someone says to you
'no, i dont want a pint/a cigarette/any thing else' chances are they actually mean it.
I had the delights of 'why dont I have flowers'- you said you didnt want anything, infact you explicitly told me not to get you anything or you'd be really angry, now that I havent got you anything, your angry! Honestly. I really dont get it.
Maybe us singletons would like a deep passionate row with someone more exciting than the office photocopier? Did you think of that? :wink;m::
Quote from: fatolaf on February 17, 2011, 11:11:31 am
Fab, need I say more, muchos yoghurt spat on pc screen...
Again food/drink and my blog don't mix, unless you put the screen up against the window and read from outside! :thumbsup:
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 17, 2011, 01:08:04 pm
Maybe us singletons would like a deep passionate row with someone more exciting than the office photocopier? Did you think of that? :wink;m::
Well not to worry, I'm sure you'll find s... oh wait, you said not to say that.
Damn it, you really have taken the fun out of it, this is one of the very rare occasions in my life where I can actually be part of a group, and you've gone and set up its antithesis, which of course I now cannot be part of!
Quote from: noahtonkin on February 17, 2011, 01:22:49 pm
This is one of the very rare occasions in my life where I can actually be part of a group, and you've gone and set up its antithesis, which of course I now cannot be part of!
Sorry!
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 17, 2011, 01:08:04 pm
Again food/drink and my blog don't mix, unless you put the screen up against the window and read from outside! :thumbsup:
At least I think it was yoghurt.... :cool3:
Quote from: fatolaf on February 17, 2011, 01:52:23 pm
At least I think it was yoghurt.... :cool3:
Ewwww in my blog as well, dirty, dirty :spank:
Valentines day sex is great, seriously, it is fantastic, you really are missing out on something great, there is nothing better than getting random presents off 1 or several people!!!
Now that's ok isn't it? You didn't say I couldn't say that did you? :))
Quote from: Veldemere on February 17, 2011, 02:57:20 pm
Valentines day sex is great, seriously, it is fantastic, you really are missing out on something great, there is nothing better than getting random presents off 1 or several people!!!
Now that's ok isn't it? You didn't say I couldn't say that did you? :))
As usual you have all the tact of a Polaris Missile up the arse!! :wink;m:: Hopefully my Beastmen will beat your Dwarfs tonight, as a victory for singledom! :1st:
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 17, 2011, 03:32:05 pm
a Polaris Missile up the arse!! :wink;m::
So
THATS what you single folk are up to these days.
No wonder you've got a gripe against valentines day!
On a slightly off tangent note...what was st valentine famous for? I know St Fracis, and keep on thinking that its valentine that looked after little animals, but I know thats wrong!
(again, even further off tangent, anyone read the Red Dwarf books? Specifically Backwards? Specifically the fact that the world makes more sense in reverse, apart from the fact that santa is a mean old pervy theif who steals childrens toys, St Francis of Assisi..spot the thought thread...is a cruel old begger who tortures helpless animals and hitler is the guy who brings millions of people back to life in the mid 40s....)
OT tangent spotted!
The Red Dwarf Backwards book is a good read, may read it again once I've finished Keef's book
Quote from: noahtonkin on February 17, 2011, 04:06:39 pm
So THATS what you single folk are up to these days.
No wonder you've got a gripe against valentines day!
In fairness I've had worse Valentine's Days.
As regards Saint Valentine's according to Wikipedia no one knows what he did - which is even more bloody annoying, we are essentially being made miserable by a nobody, it's like watching a Kerry Katona documentary!
Red Dwarf - watched the episode Backwards but not read the book, I'm that kind of literary guy! And remember it amusing me, my favourite bit where Cat does a cheeky wee in the bushes backwards.
STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS!
I know, I'm not due a weekly update but I have some very sad news to report.
Shakeaway the world's best milkshake store has gone into administration :cry:
And a number of stores have been closed down, including my local one in Angel, Islington :cry:
http://www.shakeaway.com/england/index.php?page=news&id=47 (http://www.shakeaway.com/england/index.php?page=news&id=47)
And now my nearest still opening store is in Croydon :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:
I will be having two minutes silence as a mark of respect at 11am tomorrow which I invite you to join in.
As you can appreciate this is very sad times in The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves and so it may take a while to get back to my usual cheery level of posts.
oh dear they're going to takeaway your shakeaway.
Well that's one half filled loyalty card I won't get any benefits from!
Are they actually in administration, no clue to that on their website?
By the way that is one seriously disturbing website, having been a retail mgr for nigh on 15 years, I can safely say that if that company is really that bloody happy, they must be putting some high levels of happy juice in the staff milkshakes.... :cool3:
Quote from: fatolaf on February 18, 2011, 02:21:35 pm
Are they actually in administration, no clue to that on their website?
I have some contacts in the legal world who inform me that this is true - -p
Quote from: fatolaf on February 18, 2011, 02:21:35 pm
By the way that is one seriously disturbing website, having been a retail mgr for nigh on 15 years, I can safely say that if that company is really that bloody happy, they must be putting some high levels of happy juice in the staff milkshakes.... :cool3:
They are very happy! It's surprising I can tolerate them really!
I can't believe it, get me actually caring about a product I have never had and would never touch with a bargepole (who the hell puts vegetable oil and potato starch in a freaking milkshake!!!) I am just worried that it is more than Matt can bear, I think he needs a rhyme to cheer him up-
Roses are red
Violets are blue
someone'll love you one day
although god knows who!!!
There we go, I think that is one of my best pep talks, he'll have a spring in his step now I tells ya, a spring.
Quote from: Veldemere on February 18, 2011, 03:14:40 pm
Roses are red
Violets are blue
someone'll love you one day
although god knows who!!!
How is that job of yours at the Samaritans going?! :decapitated:
Thanks for that very funny, though "day" doesn't rhyme with "red" so poor show!
I always assumed that 'roses are...' rhymes are in ABCB pattern, but you are looking for ABAB, hmm, I will have to work on that, I will do it after my shift at Childline tonight.
Quote from: Veldemere on February 18, 2011, 04:27:08 pm
I always assumed that 'roses are...' rhymes are in ABCB pattern, but you are looking for ABAB.
In fairness my experience is limited in this area!
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 18, 2011, 01:12:52 pm
STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS!
I know, I'm not due a weekly update but I have some very sad news to report.
Shakeaway the world's best milkshake store has gone into administration :cry:
And a number of stores have been closed down, including my local one in Angel, Islington :cry:
http://www.shakeaway.com/england/index.php?page=news&id=47 (http://www.shakeaway.com/england/index.php?page=news&id=47)
And now my nearest still opening store is in Croydon :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:
I will be having two minutes silence as a mark of respect at 11am tomorrow which I invite you to join in.
As you can appreciate this is very sad times in The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves and so it may take a while to get back to my usual cheery level of posts.
This makes me very sad. I had plans to go weekly into my local GW and use their paints on hobby night while nomming on shakeaways. Now they may not come to pass :cry:
Quote from: EvilFuzzyDoom on February 19, 2011, 04:35:39 am
nomming
It is a VERY good word, I will try and use it more often. In fairness I am not sure how Australia's Shakeaway's are affected - fingers crossed!
how are you going to paint without a blue and yellow stripy cup for inspiration?
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 19, 2011, 02:31:09 pm
I am not sure how Australia's Shakeaway's are affected - fingers crossed!
Quite a few in the uK and many abroad are franchises, so they should be alright what ever
Quote from: Garzini on February 19, 2011, 02:40:14 pm
how are you going to paint without a blue and yellow stripy cup for inspiration?
It's going to be hard, but as Ol says as they are franchies I may still find some inspiration!
Tuesday 22nd February – WEEK 8
Now I know I promised you last week I wouldn't be posting this week, but I've managed to squeeze out a little post for you, sorry I know you wanted a week off!
Battle Report – Children's Television vs Daytime Television
On Thursday I fought Ritchie's Dwarfs with Cameron's Raiding Beastmen army in the Black Isle campaign and I've put together this battle report. Being two media lovies from various parts of the television spectrum it would be a grudge match as Children's Television took on Daytime Television. Would I be victorious for glove puppets and people slipping up on banana skins everywhere? Only time would tell (or skimming straight to the end of this post). Sadly I forgot my camera, so no pictures of the players (as is customary for a battle report) so the resident 4-year old artist has stepped in.
Beastmen (Children's) Tactics
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2419.jpg)
My army consisted of Cameron's Beastmen raiding force as detailed below, because I am languishing bottom of the table I was able to choose a mission and went for Dawn Attack where deployment is randomised. Some may question the wisdom of doing this given Beastmen value their general's leadership and presence of battle standard bearer. But I've often found opponents' plans are thrown by not being able to deploy their army in their standard way and use their regular tactics. I on the other hand have no plans or tactics hence my plan cannot be thwarted by irregular deployment – see it's genius!
Here's the Beastmen that make up my raiding force:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/BeastmenArmy.jpg)
Ritchie wasn't going to know what hit him.
Dwarf (Daytime) Tactics
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2416.jpg)
Ritchie: "The bitterness of the rivalry between kids and daytime is famous, but much like a wise old Thane I realised that I was representing the senior service versus the upstarts. Dawn attack left an element of random to the start but the intent was to hit the minos with a block holding another to assist with a flank, as for the rest it was just down to my shooting to keep them at bay. The plan was absolutely flawless spread out across the baseline to split the attacks then shoot the snot out of them, nothing could possibly go wrong, absolutely nothing!!!!!!"
Here's Ritchie's force, I've not included any runes/points cost, as it would be rude to reveal the secrets of another army that other players may be facing (I'll tell you all mine, as it gives me another excuse to explain away my inevitable losses):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/DwarfArmy.jpg)
The Battlefield
Cameron pushed back the leaves of the forest branches burdening his vision, "If only I'd manage to sell these off" he said, his breath forming clouds in the cold morning air. Whilst he hated these morning raids, he knew the Dwarfs hated them more, particularly after the long night drinking the Dwarfs had enjoyed as his Ungor Raiders reported. All he hoped was that in the early gloom his army had formed into some semblance of a battle line. He'd given all his unit champions copies of The Big Society carved onto stone which dictated where they should deploy, but would any of them understand it? He hoped so. It was time to spill some Dwarven blood for the glory of the Beastmen and apparently Children's TV and singletons – though he didn't understand why that was important.
Deployment
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/Deployment.jpg)
Ritchie won the roll to deploy first and so rolled to decide on which area of his deployment zone his units would appear. The large blocks of infantry all ended up on his right flank whilst the ranged missile troops were spread across the rest of the deployment zone. Meanwhile the Beastmen had the Minotaurs and Ungors on the left flank, Gors on the right where the Leadership of Cameron and Ed was far away. Whilst the Centigors and Chariots formed in the centre. I deployed the units as best to maximise the cover I could get from the ranged troops, with the Minotaurs protected by forest Ungor and Chariot. The Harpies meanwhile scouted behind a hedge ready to head for the Cannon as soon as possible. Cameron rolled for his spells getting Wysasan's Wildform, The Flock of Doom, The Amber Spear and The Savage Beast of Horros. The Centigors meanwhile rolled to see how drunk they were, getting the tedious result that allowed them to reroll Primal Fury tests at the cost of a -1" Movement penalty. When was I going to get the result that made the Centigors good? – What do you mean Centigors are never good?
Dwarf Turn 1
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/DwarfTurn1.jpg)
As expected the Dwarf warriors were going to let the enemy come to them, the only movement was to reposition the Thunderers so they could shot the Benefits Vultures (Harpies), should they fail to make it to the Cannon. Ritchie was very keen to protect this valuable artillery piece.
Disorganised as the deployment had been the Dwarf commanders were clear that the Minotaurs were the biggest threat, with all units wishing to target them. However the Cannon was unable to see the unit due to the position of Hammersmith & City (Tuskgor Chariots), so instead it fired at the chariots. The cannonball landed just to the side of City throwing up great clods of turf before smashing through both Chariots causing two Wounds to Hammersmith and one to City. Thank goodness Strength 7+ hits no longer outright destroyed chariots! The Bolt Thrower and Quarrellers both took aim at the Minotaurs but the long range, dense trees and Ungor Raiders meant no shots found their mark. The Beastmen had survived the first round of shooting without any casualties.
Beastmen Turn 1
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/BeastmenTurn1.jpg)
The Beastmen surged towards the Dwarf lines, the Benefits Vultures (Harpies) flying out from behind their cover easily making the distance to the Cannon, swooping and howling as they went. The Banking Bonus Bouncers (Minotaurs) crashed out of the forest keeping The Common Scum (Ungor Raiders) and Hammersmith close whilst the other Tuskgor Chariot took refuge behind the central hill. Cameron lead his Gors towards the centre of the lines, desperate to be in a position to allow his beasts to benefit from his leadership and the sight of the army flag, whilst the Out of Hours GPs (Centigors) mounted the hill ready to sweep down on the Dwarf lines.
The Winds of Magic blew weakly with only 3 dice being drawn, Cameron glared furiously at his staff which refused to draw any extra power from the Winds. With little in Cameron's line of sight, he tried to call forth a Flock of Doom against the Thunderers, but found his magic easily countered by the presence of a Dwarf Runesmith. Cameron then tried to fire an Amber Spear at the Thunderers but with the Winds of Magic so weak he was unable to summon the required power.
The Harpies bit and clawed at the Dwarf Cannon crew and their Engineer, however despite their superior agility they were only able to land a small handful of blows on the crew (only 3 attacks hit, despite needing a 4+), and none could penetrate the Dwarf's tough skin. The Engineer plucked a Harpy out of the air strangling him, whilst a member of the crew knocked one out of the sky with a wrench, the rest of the Harpies weren't sticking around and fled leaving the Cannon crew jeering but unwilling to abandon their pride and joy to give chase.
Dwarf Turn 2
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/DwarfTurn2.jpg)
Again the Dwarfs were not in hurry to start chasing down the Beastmen and all remained where they were weapons firmly gripped. Ritchie was very concerned that The Benefits Vultures would rally now they were closer to Cameron and return to finish the Cannon, so the Thunderers opened fire their deadly volley inflicting seven Wounds enough to down the remaining four Benefits Vultures their shrieking finally silenced. The Dwarf Cannon was unable to see the flank of the Minotaurs again due to Hammersmith, the Chariot protecting the vulnerable monsters. However the strategic nature of the Dwarfs was not undeserved as the Bolt Thrower aimed at the chariot in order to finish it off and allow the Cannon a clear shot, however the bolt thudded into the ground harmlessly next to the Chariot. The Quarrellers however were luckier a shower of bolts taking the remaining Wounds of the Chariot as crew and Tuskgor were trapped beneath a shower of broken wooden debris. The Cannon now had a fix on the Minotaurs and fired straight and true the deadly ball landing in the perfect position just to the side of the unit, however it buried itself deep in the earth. The Minotaurs had been saved again, much to the annoyance of the Dwarf crew.
Beastmen Turn 2
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/BeastmenTurn2.jpg)
The Thunderers had moved badly out of position and the Out of Hours GPs (Centigors) spotted this, charging down the hill into their flank easily making the distance. Meanwhile the Common Scum (Ungor Raiders) parted to allow the Minotaurs a clear run at the Dwarven infantry next turn, but were careful to shield the flank of the Minotaurs from the Quarrellers and Bolt Thrower. City, the remaining Tuskgor Chariot, crested the hill ready to run down into the Dwarf lines next turn. Whereas Cameron and the Gors hot hoofed it as fast as they could to get behind the Centigors and out of the arc of the Cannon, but they were unable to get the whole unit out of the gunner's lines of sight.
Again the Winds blew weekly and Cameron's staff wasn't much help, giving him only 4 power dice. Cameron again tried the combination of The Amber Spear and The Flock of Doom, this time on the unengaged Quarrellers, but the Runesmith countered all his casting attempts.
In combat the Primal Fury combined with the charging spears and uphill advantage allowed the Centigors to kill nearly half of the Thunderers, and they shrugged off their return attacks easily. This was too much for the Thunderers who broke and fled only to be run down by the brawling Centigors.
Dwarf Turn 3
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/DwarfTurn3.jpg)
Despite the Beastmen closing the gap to their lines, the Dwarfs were content to wait for combat. The Dwarf Cannon spied the flank of the Minotaurs unobstructed and the Engineer lit the fuse, but a great crack appeared in the barrel of the Cannon and the ancient machine exploded killing the crew and leaving a smoking crater in it's place. Cameron let out a great roar, mainly of relief! The Quarrellers and the Bolt Thrower attempted to make up for the Cannon unleashing a hail of projectiles on City the remaining chariot but they were only able to do a second wound to the Chariot.
Beastmen Turn 3
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/BeastmenTurn3.jpg)
The crew of City, prodded the Tuskgors hard and the chariot tore down the hill slamming into the Bolt Thrower. Cameron saw the distance to the Bolt Thrower was still large, but tried to charge anyway, he was less concerned about covering the distance as the Cannon was no longer a threat. The Gors couldn't make the distance as it turned out but Cameron was confident they would next turn and no real movement advantage had been lost. Ritchie spent all this time goading me, mainly with "single" insults to attempt a long charge with the Minotaurs. Foolishly I submitted and the Minotaurs roared as they headed at the Ironbreakers, unable to reach them. Without the Cannon to deal with, the Centigors headed towards the remaining Dwarf artillery, swiftly reorganising their ranks despite their drunken nature. The Common Scum meanwhile repositioned themselves between the Ironbreakers and Minotaurs at the closest point, meaning if the Ironbreakers wished to charge the Minotaurs next turn they'd need to run a longer route.
The Winds of Magic finally provided 7 power dice for Cameron, but with his line of sight blocked he could only cast two spells and therefore only needed six dice, thusly the Staff of Channelling finally worked and provided an 8th dice - typical! Cameron seeing the danger of the Dwarf infantry launching a coordinate charge on the Minotaurs, threw all his power into casting Wyssan's Wildform concentrating even harder to cover the long distance to the Minotaurs. The Runesmith was powerless to halt the flow of magic as the Minotaurs became even stronger and tougher (now hitting on Strength 8 and having a Toughness of 5). Cameron with limited options decided to cast The Savage Beast of Horros on himself, it probably wouldn't be useful, so he threw limited power in it to avoid any chance of a potentially dangerous miscast. The Runesmith not sensing any danger didn't stop him and Cameron's body transformed into a fighter's body.
In combat two of the Bolt Thrower crew were rundown by the Tuskgor Chariot and the Bestigor sliced the third crewman in two, but the Engineer survived, though he was unable to damage the great frame of the Chariot but stubbornly refused to abandon his machine.
Dwarf Turn 4
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The Dwarfs who had been biding their time finally leapt into combat. Though the Dwarf infantry was put off the bulk of the Minotaurs after their recent magical augmentation, the Ironbreakers hit the flank of the Common Scum (Ungor Raiders) who held their ground to prevent the Ironbreakers redirecting against the Minotaurs should they suddenly find their courage. The Quarrellers desperate to save the Engineer and Bolt Thrower shouldered their crossbows and flung themselves into the side of the Chariot.
The Ironbreakers easily ripped apart two frail Ungors and the remainder were unable to penetrate the tough armour platted Dwarfs fleeing straight away. The Ironbreakers opted not to pursue to avoid exposing their flank reforming to face the hulking frames of the Minotaurs. The Quarrellers ferociously attacked the Tuskgor Chariot smashing it's frame and doing the last two Wounds but as the chariot collapsed the Tuskgors kicked out goring the Engineer and effectively disabling the Bolt Thrower.
Beastmen Turn 4
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With a bellowing roar the Minotaurs ploughed into the front of the Ironbreakers, their tough armour shielding them from the force of the beasts' impact. Finally the Minotaurs would get combat. Meanwhile the Centigors ploughed into the Quarrellers taking causalities from the shooting Dwarfs as they charged forward. Cameron then lead the Gors into the same target. Scared by the presence of Cameron and what he might do to their job seeker's allowance the Ungor Raiders rallied.
Again the Winds of Magic blew strongly when Cameron wasn't in a position to use all his spells. Cameron attempted to recast Wyssan's Wildform on the Minotaurs to prepare them for combat as the initial spell had subsided. But the Runesmith sensed the danger now they were in combat and used all his resources to counter the spell. Unopposed Cameron was able to cast The Savage Beast of Horros maintaining his magically enhanced state.
With a towering part Shaman part Beast and hordes of Gors and Centigors attacking the Quarrellers didn't really stand a chance and the remnants broke and fled towards the Ironbreakers and Minotaurs. The Centigors and Gors pursued catching them as the fled, though the Centigors lost one of their number as he tripped in the forest just leaving the Gorehoof. The Gors halted their advance next to the Minotaurs unable to hit the flank of the Ironbreakers due to the positioning of the Centigor, meanwhile the remaining Centigor failed to reach combat slowed by the forest. The Ironbreakers were swifter than the brutal Minotaurs and with the presence of two Thanes and their superior Weapon Skill were able to slay two Minotaurs before they retaliated. Whilst the Minotaurs great axes easily penetrated the heavy Dwarven armour despite it's runic defences the Minotaurs found it hard to lay any clean blows on the Ironclad Dwarfs who's prowess with their axes was good, they were only able to slay three Ironbreakers. Frustrated the Minotaurs attempted to stomp the Dwarfs into the ground, but their glowing runic armour saved them all. The Minotaurs were beaten and despite the presence of Cameron and Ed were unable to roll the five required to stay in combat, they turned to run, but could only muster a step before the Ironbreakers swarmed them and ripped their bodies to pieces (the Minotaurs rolled just a three for their flee move – why does that always happen just after you've rolled two really high results for the break tests?!).
Dwarf Turn 5
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/DwarfTurn5.jpg)
With their gunline shattered the Dwarfs were unable to do much this turn, though the infantry turned to face the threat of Cameron and his Gors.
Beastmen Turn 5
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%202/BeastmenTurn5.jpg)
Realising he couldn't delay the inevitable conflict Cameron led the Gors screaming into the front of the Ironbreakers with the remaining Centigor following in. The Ungors, unsure what help they could be repositioned themselves to threaten the Ironbreaker flank.
Cameron tried to boost his units' combat prowess, but again the Runesmith blocked Wyssan's Wildform, though Cameron was able to continue his transformation recasting the Savage Beast of Horros.
As combat began the Ironbreakers faltered at the sight of The Wailing Banner (Ritchie rolled a 10, followed by an 11 for his Fear test). Subdued by the banner the Gors easily lay blow after blow into the Dwarfs, and despite their strong Toughness, 4 wounds were struck, the Ironbreakers armour failing to stop any of them (despite having a 3+ Armour Save, followed by a 6+ Parry Save Ritchie failed to save a single wound). Cameron himself ripped apart another 3 Ironbreakers in his monstrous form, and Ed held the Dwarven General in a challenge though neither side was able to cause a wound. The Ironbreakers killed 4 Gors but their ranks were now depleted and they needed a miracle to avoid fleeing (they required a double 1), but in a moment of inspiration the Dwarf Thane called to the Dwarven sense of duty and the Ironbreakers held (Ritchie reversed his recent dice misfortune rolling the double 1 required).
Dwarf Turn 6
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Seeing the Dwarf General struggling the Dwarf Warriors charged into combat to help their brothers. Dwarf stood shoulder to shoulder and this time the Wailing Banner was not going to rob them of their spirit. Without this crucial advantage the Beastmen struggled, only Cameron in his bestial form killing any Ironbreakers, while Ed Milliband was slaughtered by the Dwarf General ending the challenge. The Dwarf lines cut through the Gors and the Beastmen had no choice but to flee running a long distance (the Centigors fled 10" with the Gors fleeing 9") however in an uncharacteristic burst of speed the Ironbreakers caught them (also scoring 10"!) and wiped out Cameron and the last of the Beastial horde. With just three Ungor Raiders left victory was handed to the Dwarfs and Daytime TV!
Conclusion
Never ever underestimate Dwarf infantry! Just don't! Before I get into the nitty gritty I should say it was great fun fighting Ritchie and we both enjoyed the battle because/despite of the constant tirade of insults flowing between us!
Overall I'm reasonably pleased with the performance of my army, to be honest anything that isn't an overall crushing blow for the Beastmen I call a victory, so the fact that this game was so close and could have gone either way up until the bitter end is pleasing. I made a concerted effort to use the terrain to protect myself from the Dwarf artillery (usually something I overlook!). And overall my casualties to the Dwarf gunline were quite minimal only losing a chariot and the harpies in the open. In fact Ritchie's fear of the harpies was far greater than the threat they posed, effectively sacrificing the Thunderers to finish them off despite the fact they simply bounced off the Cannon, which then ironically blew itself to bits. The Chariots seemed to draw a lot of fire too, saving the rest of my lines from taking a pounding, and the Minotaurs just seemed to be charmed as nothing could hit them! Even the much maligned Centigors (you people know who you are!) had a good game killing the Thunderers and playing a good part in the death of the Quarrellers – Centigors for the win!!
My main mistake was underestimating the Dwarf infantry, criminal given I am a regular Dwarf player. But with Weapon Skill 5 and Strength 4, 20 Ironbreakers are not to be sneezed at even if you're able to virtually remove their armour save with your Great Weapons. The mistake was not positioning the Gors, during their charge, so they could overrun into the Ironbreakers flank in Turn 4 when they broke the Quarrellers – I just didn't see it, which is my lesson for the game – Look at where you could potentially overrun too! So the Gors who overrun far enough to get into combat simply stopped at the side of the Minotaurs, whilst the Centigors failed to reach the flank of the Ironbreakers and to make matters worse one of them fell over a squirrel and died in the forest. I think overconfidence came down to it, so pleased was I that the Minotaurs had made combat without a single Wound I expected them to eat the Ironbreakers for breakfast, but their higher Weapon Skill made it hard for the Minotaurs to score anything better than a just below average number of hits, that combined with the Ironbreakers armour shrugging off impact hits and stomps meant the Minotaurs didn't have a chance. In fairness the Minotaurs should have done better, but they were by no means guaranteed the victory I expected. If only that blasted Runesmith hadn't stopped Wyssan's Wildform going off – I think that was probably the deciding roll of the game in the end, T5 Minotaurs would have been much harder for the Ironbreakers to shift, and Strength 6 impact hits and stomps might have made it through that armour.
I can't really be annoyed Ritchie got that critical Double 1 for the Ironbreakers break test, I'd only got to that position through some terrible leadership rolls for their fear test and an appalling set of armour saves. Oh how fickle Lady Luck is.
We've already agreed a rematch, so hopefully I can regain the honour for Children's TV, I might even sneak along some custard pies to help me out for the next game. Though there's always the danger Ritchie will bring along Eamonn Holmes which would probably ruin everyone's night!
Ritchie: It was a very close and bloody game played in exactly the right spirit, as it was so close there is no room for gloating on either side, I know Matt would have taken the win with magnaminity and dignity. I. however am not that grown up, as this was the crunch battle of Daytime vs Kids there is only one way to sign off;
Bagpuss, Papa Moomin, Dogtanian, Postman Pat, Ulysses 31, Ed the duck, John Noakes and Simon Parkin your kids took one hell of a beating!!
Bring on the rematch.
Cameron picked himself up off the floor, he'd survived the rampage of the Ironbreakers, but only just many of his fellow Beastmen lay dead, Wargor Ed has lost his arm in the brutal attack by the Dwarf Thane. Cameron surveyed the battlefield, the raid was a disaster his precious Minotaurs dead and only 20 gold ransacked from the Dwarf army. Cameron could feel the blood boiling in his body, he hated Dwarfs, hated them with a passion. A couple of passing Ungor couldn't help but comment that it seemed Cameron had always hated the little people.
I also had Andrew raid my Capital, ooo-err missus, and Clegg as usual was in defence. Whilst I did try and take notes for a battle report, unfortunately I've not had time to do a full report, so you'll have to make do with some fluff instead.
Clegg spied the oncoming Warriors of Chaos as they marched towards the capital, were they not aware it was illegal to protest so close to Parliament? No matter they would be crushed like so many before (or more likely he would fail, but he was optimistic). Realising that only having 5 Ungor with bows meant it probably wasn't worth manning the buildings and shooting. The Beastmen bided their time allowing the Warriors to approach them, their fear of the Minotaurs disrupting their lines. As the Trolls, led by the Chaos army's Battle Standard Bearer approached the Gors sprung their trap, Clegg was confident he could kill the Battle Standard Bearer and then the Trolls own Stupidity would cause them to run. The Gors charged in, and Clegg raised his axe, but was then struck by the dazzling fast Chaos Warrior Four Attack, Four Hits, Four Wounds! Ouch! 1 Save! Double Ouch! Clegg nearly lost his remaining arm as he was struck down but the blow simply removed the stump from his already lost arm. Without Clegg's support the Gors did well felling two Trolls but when a Chaos Chariot and Spawn joined the fray they couldn't hold out running with Vince Cable and they all died. Another example of the great high roll for Break test, low roll for Flee distance scenario! The Bestigors led by David Miliband and the Minotaurs charged the Nurgle Marauders hiding behind the wall, however the Minotaurs in a particularly slow move failed to make their lines. The Bestigor fought the Marauders hampered by the Mark of Nurgle and the wall, the impudent Marauder Champion stepped forward issuing a challenge, David Miliband would show him – and then was promptly killed outright by the Champion. However the Bestigor slew enough Marauders such that they fled only to be killed by the Bestigor. The Chaos Warriors charged the Minotaurs who fled to avoid 26 attacks in the face, the Bestigor moved in position to threaten the Warriors. Eventually the Trolls got in combat with V, A and T the Minotaurs, vomiting all over them and causing them to flee and be killed. With little options left the Bestigor charged the Chaos Warriors but the fury of their blows cut them all down. The Warriors had made off with over 150 gold from the Beastmen Capital. Clegg was not happy.
I should say apologies to Andrew, I think the line between humorous moaning and being a bit grumpy was straddled during that game. So sorry if I didn't come across as my usual loveable rogue self (or something like that).
And finally, it has been (rather rudely) pointed out that I have suffered the most injuries in the campaign – 9 to be precise, over 6 games (and that does include a number of rolls that generated a "no injury" result). I would like to point out that this is nothing to do with my poor generalship but entirely due to the fact that my characters are named after politically contentious individuals and therefore people are "out to get 'em" to coin a phrase. My list of characters now does look rather like a group of extras from Holby City, but here's the full list of injuries for you to laugh heartedly at:
Great Bray Shaman Cameron – Hates Dwarfs after a bitter encounter.
Wargor Ed – Is a legend +1 Ld, and lost an arm (-1 WS/BS cannot us Extra Hand Weapon/Great Weapon)
Beastlord Clegg - Lost an arm (-1 WS/BS cannot us Extra Hand Weapon/Great Weapon) (twice!), and Fears Skaven
Bray Shaman Cable - has gone mad and lost 1 Ld and fears all races bar Beastmen
Wargor David – (like Cable) has gone mad and lost 1 Ld and fears all races bar Beastmen
It's a brutal world out there.
I'm going to be offline for the next few days, I'm in Liverpool, or Liverpooooooooooooool as it's pronounced. In fact I may not live, this could be my last ever blog – sad times. So if you want to write anything rude about me on this blog now's your chance. You've just got to make sure you delete it by Sunday night! Have a good week.
An almost flawless picture of me by the resident 4 year old, except it would appear I am smiling, I am not sure anyone has seen that. I am told that I was seen to smile once but it turned out it was trapped wind....
Great report Matt, and your fortunes in the campiagn have increased with your tacital mastery of picking the Brignds event and robbing 1st place Andrew of some of his well earned gold, taking you out of the bottom 3 before you have even played a turn 4 game...
Well done on that master stroke sir.... :wink;m::
I've made it back from Liverpool - unscathed... just!
Quote from: Veldemere on February 23, 2011, 10:55:28 am
An almost flawless picture of me by the resident 4 year old, except it would appear I am smiling, I am not sure anyone has seen that. I am told that I was seen to smile once but it turned out it was trapped wind....
The resident 4 year old only knows of (and thus can only draw) happy people, she can't be exposed to the depression that is modern life - hence I don't speak to her that much!
Quote from: fatolaf on February 23, 2011, 01:02:06 pm
Great report Matt, and your fortunes in the campiagn have increased with your tacital mastery of picking the Brignds event and robbing 1st place Andrew of some of his well earned gold, taking you out of the bottom 3 before you have even played a turn 4 game...
Well done on that master stroke sir.... :wink;m::
Wow! I do really well when I'm in Liverpool, I may have to do that more often! Glad you liked the report!
lol, this is the funniest Warhammer blog around. With a bit more effort you could publish a comic diary. You were a good opponent in every respect, Matt. Grumpy?! How so? I've had a player abandon his second slot game after I beat him in the first slot and stomp off home. But then he was a veteran daemons player :wink;m:: I remember it because it is the only occasion I've beaten a veteran daemons player. Unless you count the time I IF gateway'ed a greater daemon on the first turn :blush:
Quote from: Toast on March 01, 2011, 09:11:33 pm
lol, this is the funniest Warhammer blog around.
Bless you that's very kind of you, both to say it's funny, and that it's about Warhammer!
Quote from: Toast on March 01, 2011, 09:11:33 pm
You were a good opponent in every respect, Matt. Grumpy?! How so?
Phew! I was a bit worried my "comedy" moaning at my poor fortune/lack of tactics had gone a bit far! But no I've not had a proper Warhammer tantrum... yet, maybe if I get my old Daemons out from under the bed...?
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 01, 2011, 10:48:28 pm
maybe if I get my old Daemons out from under the bed...?
That just sounds like a repeat of the valentines day posting to me! :endit:
Quote from: cunningmatt on February 27, 2011, 11:23:28 pm
Quote from: fatolaf on February 23, 2011, 01:02:06 PM
Great report Matt, and your fortunes in the campiagn have increased with your tacital mastery of picking the Brignds event and robbing 1st place Andrew of some of his well earned gold, taking you out of the bottom 3 before you have even played a turn 4 game...
Wow! I do really well when I'm in Liverpool, I may have to do that more often! Glad you liked the report!
Anyone else see the irony of matt being in liverpool and robbing people of ther well earned money...
Surely next time someone gets brigands they need to go on a convenient trip to westminster
Quote from: Veldemere on March 02, 2011, 08:18:05 am
That just sounds like a repeat of the valentines day posting to me! :endit:
That is where the teddies live too in permanent suffering under my double bed (oh the irony).
Quote from: noahtonkin on March 02, 2011, 09:59:38 am
Anyone else see the irony of matt being in liverpool and robbing people of ther well earned money...
Surely next time someone gets brigands they need to go on a convenient trip to westminster
I think you are slurring the good people of Liverpool, that's my job in this week's post don't steal it!
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 02, 2011, 05:35:57 pm
I think you are slurring the good people of Liverpool, that's my job in this week's post don't steal it!
Very sorry, I ment it more as a slur against those 'elected' persons who now claim to be running the country better than their predecessors. Personally I think it would have been better had that party I voted for got into power, at least the Monster Raving Looney party admit that they are completely unhinged and know nothing about the jobs they would be taking up!
Oh political moaning, oh that's fun - in fact I actively encourage!
Though please don't form any political opinions based on the background to my Black Isle Campaign - seriously I know nothing about anything, I'm just a fool with a keyboard, make your own judgements based on sensible criteria! 8-
Wednesday 30th February - WEEK 9
So I'll come clean straight away, this month's painting task of the Phoenix Guard is not going well. I thought I best check the calendar and see how long I have left to paint them, and imagine my surprise when I found out there's actually 42 days in February this year.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2430.jpg)
I know, I was shocked too. Must be some kind of special leap year or something. Still on the plus side it gives me a chance of painting up the Phoenix Guard before the end of February. Fingers crossed.
Scrolling back through the blog, it does seem to have been a rather long time since we talked High Elves, not sure exactly how that's happened. But the good news is I have got somewhere with the Phoenix Guard, here's Stage 1 (including detailing on the banner, musician and cloaks! - woooo, effort this month, I know you're impressed):
Stage 1 – Phoenix Guard
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2373.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2387.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2388.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2390.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2393.jpg)
Base: Khemri Brown
Leather Pouches and Sword Sheaths: Scorched Brown
Outside of Cloak and Sleeves: 1:1 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Inside of Cloak: Iyanden Dark Sun
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Armour Trim: 1:1 Enchanted Blue: Ice Blue
Weapons Haft: Khemri Brown
Flame Trim on Cloaks and Flames on Banner: Skull White
Night Sky on Banner: 1:1 Chaos Black: Necron Abyss
Phoenix on Banner: Skull White
Drum Skin: Khemri Brown
In fairness I've got a lot further than that and am very close to completing Stage 2, so next week they should be very nearly finished, I'm sure they'll be done by the 42nd of February.
Liverpool
The main reason why I've not got so far is the fact that a couple of weekends this month have been consumed by work, notably last weekend when I journeyed to sunny Liverpool as I mentioned here in last week's post. Can't say I actually saw that much of Liverpool, I didn't even see Liverpool Lime Street station, despite getting a train there, as we ended up alighting at Runcorn (just outside Liverpool) - where on the way back I did see the Liverpool football team on a train - not that I knew who they were, it was pointed out to me by people who actually know of the game of football. That's how showbiz I am!
My main observation of Liverpool is that cloakrooms in clubs and bars must be extremely expensive, surely that can be the only reason why so many people wander the streets on a night out in less clothing than I'd wear in the shower. I should point out I didn't see these people actually during a night out in Liverpool, but simply passed them on the mini-bus into work at 6.30am in the morning as they were coming home! Classy!
Still even during the busy time of work in Liverpool, I was thinking of you, as my Phoenix Guard came to for a bit of painting (not that there was much time), here you can see painting corner set up in my rather lush hotel room come apartment in Liverpool.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2423.jpg)
Look it even had its own kitchen area, and the window overlooked Liverpool docks – the nice bit, not the seedy bit where you pick up sailors and dysentery.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2424.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2425.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2427.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2426.jpg)
I was even watching the BBC News Channel, a channel which people only ever watch in hotels!
Plus very nice toiletries, which I was tempted to steal but cunningly rather than having little toiletry bottles, they had massive shampoo bottles, so it was much harder to sneak them in your luggage – clever people they must know what the Liverpool masses are like. This combined with the fact that my bag had been packed to within an inch of it's life meant they didn't come with me. Shame.
Before you think it was all glamour and fun in Liverpool, I should point out I spent most of my time there standing in a warehouse which was frostier than Colonel Gaddafi's reception at the Tripoli branch of Oxfam. It takes something for it to be colder inside than outside in mid to late extended February. Additionally the toilet facilities were somewhat questionable, there's a bit of a history of discussing questionable toilet facilities on this blog, see page 15 for a review of those in Basildon. By Day 2 in these particular facilities, ala Liverpool, we'd run out of hand soap, paper towels and toilet paper in all the toilets – it was a four-day job and they didn't get restocked - eekk. After this point everyone was desperately stockpiling serviettes from the cafeteria or stealing toilet rolls from their hotel room. Nice! I was somewhat concerned as the next nearest source of paper to the toilets was a large pile of scripts that I had written. Let's be honest there's nothing quite as depressing as seeing your own work floating around in a toilet pan, unless of course you work for Andrex in which case I suppose it would be quite flattering. The reluctance to use the toilet, combined with the very stodgy nature of the tasty food being served on site, meant some rather troubled bowels and quite a large amount of flatulence. I personally did a 5.4 on the Richter Scale – see told you it wasn't glamorous. What do you mean "Too Much Information"? You are on a forum which has this icon available - :toilet: you abandoned any sense of taste and decency with one click of your mouse.
Moving on before this becomes about as stomach churning as a documentary by former home secretary Jacquie Smith on !@%$#%@ (such a programme has been commissioned), I'd like to refer to you a new feature on the Tale of OG Gamers Blog – High Elves, which is the Tale of OG Gamers Blog – High Elves Map which shows you all the exciting places that have been visited and painted in on this very thread. As you can see our resident 4-year old artist has been very busy drawing and paying attention in Geography:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2440.jpg)
Over the remaining few months of this blog, we'll try and widen the locations that High Elves have been painted in.
Black Isle
Not too much to report in the Black Isle as no battles have been fought, although whilst away I managed to double my gold total. After I raided Andrew of 150 gold, and won 45 gold from a draw I didn't play against Julien's Bretonnian's – think I might play the rest of the campaign from Liverpool seems to work quite well for me!
Cameron steadied himself on a branch, his plan to sell weapons to the Tomb Kings of Tripoli had gone down well, except that the idiot Clegg had forgotten he was in charge of the tribe whilst he was away. What a fool! Still no matter, the tribe's deficit had been massively reduced by the introduction of a state armour tax – the nearby hoard of Chaos Warriors had, had to pay dearly, and little did they know the tax would rise again next week. Mooo ha ha ha thought Bray Shaman Cameron.
Paintbrushes
And now for something completely different, thought I'd talk to you about the trusty old paintbrush – a friend to every painter (well it would be hard to paint your Dark Elf Hydra with a roller brush let's be honest).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2442.jpg)
Essentially they are bits of horse hair that are bolted together and used to groom your models, in fact what with the super glue you've got most of a horse already available on your modelling table. It wouldn't surprise me if Green Stuff actually turned out to be horse mucus or that modelling sand is actually the ashes of a cremated horse. In fact just hang around the Grand National race course and you could probably take home enough stuff to stock your modelling table, just by collecting up those horses that fell at the fences.
I digress, as always. Seriously sometimes I talk so much random rubbish it's like having a conversation with Charlie Sheen.
Am I the only person who finds that they look after their brushes for just two weeks after purchase? You know brand new brush comes up, it's thoroughly washed after each colour, rinsed under the tap, always stored upright and no paint goes over the metal part of the handle (that keeps the bristles in). Fast forward a fortnight and you don't give a toss any more, they're being rammed in any old paint pot, left caked in paint for days on end, stored upside down in a jam jar so their bristles are sprayed further apart than Katie Price's legs. Hell you're even scratching your arse with them. And before long there's just a single solitary bristle desperately trying to spread paint over an entire Screaming Bell, the equivalent of trying to paint Croydon town centre with a cucumber.
I wish I could get more into the habit of looking after them, problem is I've taken to guerrilla painting, five minutes before work, twenty minutes before bed, during funerals and bar mitzvahs whenever modern life allows you to. But if you add washing your brushes and changing your water everytime you start well that's at least 20% of that brief painting window of opportunity wasted.
I should get more, really, I should, and I try to. Everytime I peruse Ol's lovely website I think I should buy some paintbrushes, but then I get distracted – that's money that could be spent on a lovely new box of Minotaurs or some Dragon Princes, and I've already got some paintbrushes. Admittedly they have no bristles left, but I do already have some. Perhaps I could tie a lock of my hair to the brush and carry on painting – though I imagine the amount of hair product I use that the brush would rapidly turn into a sculpting tool as all the models I attempt to paint are "converted" by a thick layer of hair wax accruing on them.
And why is that despite my brushes having no bristles left I keep them, all of them, every single one, I think I read somewhere in a White Dwarf once that an old brush can be useful – hence I've kept every single one ever. At this rate I'll have to move out of my house in 2015 and simply hand it over to old paintbrushes or I'll be swimming through them to get to the airing cupboard.
It's much the same with toothbrushes really, soon enough my toothbrush looks much like my paintbrushes:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2443.jpg)
And yes I really should get more heads but if, like me, you have an electric toothbrush purchasing is a traumatic experience. Who actually knows which type of brush head actually fits on their toothbrush? This isn't helped by the fact that virtually every type of electric toothbrush packet is constructed in such a way so you can't see the hole at the base of the brush to see if it's the shape of the hole on the brush you already have. And what with the head of the brush changing design every five minutes (you can now get a brush with a tongue scrapper on – who needs that? Seriously! I have never eaten a meal so inedible I've ever had to actually scrape it off my tongue) you haven't really got a chance. Plus a packet of toothbrush heads costs about fifty quid, it's a bit too much of a gamble to take if you don't know if they'll fit your toothbrush. You don't want to have stick the brush head on the end of a Biro at start brushing your teeth that way, knowing your luck you'll use the wrong end accidentally draw over your mouth and be at work until 5pm before someone points out your mistake – or maybe that's just me.
And whilst we're on the subject of toothbrushes, Oral B? Whatever happened to Oral A? Did this simply refer to a time before we cleaned our teeth with brushes, and poked them with sticks, does the "B" signify this upgrade? If so isn't time we updated to Oral C? Given the pace of technological advancement in other areas it must be about time, I vote for electronic versions of those X-shaped treats they give dogs to clean their teeth with – that would add some fun to the early morning bathroom session.
Back to paintbrushes, god forbid we should go off on a tangent, and the little plastic caps have always intrigued me. These are the little "hats" supplied by Games Workshop that sit on your paint brush keeping the point nice and neat – until two uses later when the brush is splayed and any attempt to put the cap on simply splays the bristles even further. My main question is why are they transparent? Why?! Have you ever tried finding the bloody things again after you put them down somewhere? Particularly on newspaper which is already that dirty clear colour that they tend to appear to the naked eye.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2448.jpg)
Seriously you need high-tech night vision googles to see them.
It's as if each paint brush cover as it's own cloaking device (like the Romulans in Star Trek) which is activated the minute you put it down – at which point you will never find it again, ever. For all you know it's disappeared to the moons of Neptune where all plastic paintbrush hats live mocking how easily they escaped from under our noses. My cunning plan has been to paint the cap the colour at the base of the paintbrush to give me a chance of working out which caps are missing, and to find the bloody things as they hide across my desk like little thieves in the night.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2450.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2453.jpg)
Anyway this gave me an idea, for a new competition here on the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves. Called a Spot the Paintbrush Cap competition, it's a bit like a Spot the Ball competition made popular through the cultural significant game of football. Except that rather than working out where the football is, you need to work out where the paint brush cap is. Below is a photo of my work station where one paint brush cap is, I have however "digitally removed" the photo cap from the picture. All you need to do is tell me which grid square you think it's in. What could be more fun?
Oh and before you dismiss this as rubbish, there's an actual prize this week – yes a prize! A stonking prize. If you get it right you will win this fabulous Shakeaway voucher, entitling you to a free medium Shakeaway (from a company that may have recently closed down half of its stores due to going into administration, but quite frankly that's a minor detail).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2456.jpg)
Here's the picture of my workstation below, simply work out where you think the painting cap is (remember it's been "digitally removed" it's not like Where's Wally?!) and then reply on this thread with your chosen grid square.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2479.jpg)
The competition closes on the 42nd of February so get your entries in.
Terms & Conditions: The person who gets the exact grid square will win the Shakeaway voucher, if no one gets the exact square the organiser reserves the right to go and have a Shakeaway himself. If the painting cap lies in two or more squares, the square in which the majority of the cap lies in will be the winning square. The voucher will be delivered in person to the winner at an OG Games event, if unable to collect the voucher will be posted out provided the organiser can be arsed. Competition closes on the 42nd of February entrants submitting entries after this date are liable to have their homes firebombed. Please note your milkshake is at risk if you do not keep up repayments and the calorific value of your chosen beverage may go up as well as down. In the event of two or more people guessing the correct square they will be forced to fight it out in a pit of mud to determine the winner.
On that competition bombshell, I shall leave you as I'm off to order some new paintbrushes from Ol. Although after reading the new White Dwarf, maybe it would be more fun to start an Orc & Goblin army instead. I mean a box of Savage Orc Boar Boyz would be more fun than a new Stipling Brush, it's not like I'd collect a whole Orc & Goblin army, just some Savage Orcs, a unit of River Trolls, some Black Orcs maybe an Anorak Spider, a Snotling Pump Wagon and of course a unit of Goblin Wolf Riders, though it would be nice to get some Squig Hoppers too, and how about a Doom Diver... hmmm, see just no room for a paint brush in that order.
Hmm, february has been a lot longer this year, maybe science should be concerned? (I am still painting away at my tale of OG stuff, will get some photos up this weekend)
Quote from: maelzch on March 03, 2011, 12:22:26 am
Hmm, february has been a lot longer this year, maybe science should be concerned?
It's true have you been outside and felt how cold it is, it clearly isn't March!
I say F3, it's bound to have fallen off and is sitting in the bottom of that jar!
Once again fantastic ramblings and great commitment to actually getting things done. Most people jack in the 'paint x points for y months' blogs after a couple of months tops.
I say box 3D , as that seems to be the vogue for all movies nowadays....
It's in the bag baby.... :cool3:
A5, has to be.
Another classic Matt. Were you staying in a Roomzzz hotel?
Also the thing I noted was how many milk cartons you got, whenever I stay in a hotel they give you 2 mugs and 2 cartons, I like my tea quite milky (but my coffee black, how odd) and 2 in 1 cup isn't even enough, this could have lactally satisfied me.
Oh and I wrote down the top secret code and have already availed myself of the milkshake which I have obviously won.
Quote from: Dave on March 03, 2011, 01:01:31 pm
Most people jack in the 'paint x points for y months' blogs after a couple of months tops.
I've had a couple of wibbles, I tend to oscillate between wanting to paint loads of High Elves in one month and get them done (ironic as I'm not doing so well this month) and wanting to paint something completely different. But I'm still enjoying them and am now am over halfway am determined to see it through - you can remind me of this in a few months time when it's all gone plop!
Quote from: fatolaf on March 03, 2011, 01:29:30 pm
I say box 3D , as that seems to be the vogue for all movies nowadays....
Can I just say I do hate 3D movies that there's no point to seeing in 3D, fair enough if their are good special effects but the average romantic comedy is quite sufficinet in 2D! Sorry I'll save that rant for another time.
Quote from: Veldemere on March 03, 2011, 02:36:07 pm
Were you staying in a Roomzzz hotel?
Also the thing I noted was how many milk cartons you got, whenever I stay in a hotel they give you 2 mugs and 2 cartons, I like my tea quite milky (but my coffee black, how odd) and 2 in 1 cup isn't even enough, this could have lactally satisfied me.
It was a Staybridge hotel very nice. I don't actually drink tea or coffee myself, but one day I thought I lost the storage pots for my contact lenses so ended up drinking the milk out of two of those cartoons and filling it with contact lens solution - I knew a childhood watching Blue Peter wouldn't be wasted!
Quote from: Veldemere on March 03, 2011, 02:36:07 pm
Oh and I wrote down the top secret code and have already availed myself of the milkshake which I have obviously won.
This was a sample voucher, I have already consumed this one!
Keep the entires coming in for Spot the Paintbrush cap - pastuerised goodness awaits the winner!
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 03, 2011, 11:08:00 am
It's true have you been outside and felt how cold it is, it clearly isn't March!
You think that's bad? I'm wearing my winter woolies when this time last year we were having 40+ degree days. Celsius. Because of the whole antipodean thing.
My body seems to have given up on trying to judge the season its in.
Last winter, miami and 30 degree heat. Summer, Oz and 10. prev winter lapland and so cold that breathing was painful, and summer before than, NZ, and frost on the ground in august!
Why can the world not just run to plain old british weather of rain rain rain rain SNOW!!! PANIC!!! rain rain rain rain (I think I once saw the sun...)
I'm going to use my sneaky powers of sneaky deduction and go for square B5. I recon its sitting on top of a paint pot.
And once again if no-one has said it yet...
You sunk my battle-ship!
Oh dear, it took 25 pages and 340 replies, but finally we've got on to discussing the weather - apologies for my role in that!
Battleships - hmmmm, that gives me an idea for another Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves game for another week!
we are English, eventually everything gets around to the weather!
Quote from: Happy Little Gekko on March 07, 2011, 10:26:47 am
we are English, eventually everything gets around to the weather!
It is true, but I thought we had a lot more filth left to exhaust before we sunk to this new low*
*low meaning high, because it's not filthy, but feels like a conversational low if you see what I mean - I'll shut up now. Bloody Monday mornings!
Quote from: Happy Little Gekko on March 07, 2011, 10:26:47 am
we are English
Not everyone is.
I know, very sorry for mentioning meterological phenominon in a blog clearly dedicated to the finer things in life (painting, shakeaway etc)
Quote from: noahtonkin on March 10, 2011, 09:30:26 am
Not everyone is.
I know, very sorry for mentioning meterological phenominon in a blog clearly dedicated to the finer things in life (painting, shakeaway etc)
Yeah, don't be lumping me in with you crazy English peoples :bash;m: :wink;m::
Uh-oh weather and national stereotyping - this blog really has gone down the pan!
It's become the Daily Mirror!
Quote from: maelzch on March 10, 2011, 11:31:28 am
It's become the Daily Mirror!
We'll have some hot celebrity gossip from the 3am Girls in the next post!
EDIT: Wow! This is my 500th post - I've become a Tomb Prince.
Does that mean we get some Pg 3 girls, cause I'm cool with that :))
i'm guessing they'll be tastefully rendered by the resident artist
Quote from: maelzch on March 10, 2011, 12:12:18 pm
tastefully
I'm sorry I am unfamiliar with this word.
Saturday 12th March - WEEK 10 It's about as welcome as the unveiling of Blue's Eurovision entry for the United Kingdom, yes it's another week of rambling in The Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves. Apologies for the delay in this week's post – I blame alcohol.
I hope you enjoyed your pancakes on Tuesday, did you forget it was Pancake Day? I had loads of them dripping in ice cream and Nutella, and then I felt quite, quite sick. Anyhow Pancake Day was upon us, which means Lent must also be upon us too. Have you given anything up? I thought about giving up the usual things: cigarettes – don't smoke, alcohol – don't drink that much (no seriously I don't, despite the free White Wine I had at a work do on Wednesday night – that was a mistake), chocolate – no people would die, masturbation – I'd explode. So instead I thought of something better, I'm going to give up going off topic on this blog, yep that's right no more rambling, everything from this moment on will be Warhammer/hobby related, until Easter, and that's a promise.
So, what to discuss... errrr... errrrmmmm... can't mention annoying people... errr... oh yes painting. The Phoenix Guard are on the cusp of being complete. Barring my application to MI5 coming through, I should get them finished by next week. Here's where they are now:
Stage 2 – Phoenix Guard(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2484.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2493.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2497.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2500.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2507.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2523.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Leather Pouches and Sword Sheaths: Washed Badab Black
Outside of Cloak and Sleeves: Layered 1:2 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Inside of Cloak: Layered Golden Yellow
Silver Metal: Washed Badab Black
Gold Metal: Shining Gold
Flesh: Layered Elf Flesh
Armour Trim: Layered Ice Blue
Weapons Haft: Layered Graveyard Earth
Flame Trim on Cloaks and Flames on Banner: Very fine layering Bad Moon Yellow, then Sunburst Yellow, then Golden Yellow.
Night Sky on Banner: Layered Necron Abyss
Phoenix on Banner: 1:1 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Coals on Banner: Scorched Brown
Drum Skin: Kommando Khaki
And look at me go, Stage 3 is done too:
Stage 3 – Phoenix Guard(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2596.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2599.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2609.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2612.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2616.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2573.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2578.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Leather Pouches and Sword Sheaths: Highlighted Bestial Brown
Outside of Cloak and Sleeves: Layered watered down Skull White
Inside of Cloak: Layered Sunburst Yellow
Silver Metal: Highlighted Mithril Silver
Gold Metal: Washed Gryphonne Sepia
Flesh: Washed watered down Ogryn Flesh
Armour Trim: Highlighted 1:1 Ice Blue: Skull White
Weapons Haft: Layered watered down Bleacehed Bone
Flame Trim on Cloaks and Flames on Banner: Very fine layering Fiery Orange then Blazing Orange.
Night Sky on Banner: Layered Regal Blue
Phoenix on Banner: Layered 2:1 Skull White: Astronomacian Grey
Coals on Banner: Chaos Black
Drum Skin: Highlighted Bleached Bone
See not bad, if it wasn't 12 days into March. Whoops!
Black Isle – Turn 4Time to head over to the Black Isle and see what's happening there with Great Bray Shaman Cameron and Beastlord Clegg. With Cameron's battle being declared a draw it was just up to Beastlord Clegg to defend the Beastmen Capital from those evil Wood Elves. Fearing the ranged assault I was likely to suffer from the massed ranks of Glade Guard I deployed all my units within the buildings and behind the walls of my Capital, however it soon became clear my battle plan had more holes in it than Ashley Cole's work experience as I wasn't really sure what to do next. I'll leave it to Beastlord Clegg to tell you the rest of the story...
Beastlord Clegg, stood with the Student Bashers (Gors) cowering behind the walls of Eastminster the ramshackle Beastmen capital. The Wood Elves approached and they were nearly as annoying as the Students, they may not have had fire extinguishers but those bows and arrows looked like they could do some impressive damage. Wardancers, Waywatchers, Treekin and Dryads advanced up the right flank, but fortunately Clegg had, had the foresight to send the Immigration Limiters (Gors) into ambush, they would surely arrive behind the Wood Elf lines and engage their Waywatchers who were steadily firing on the Beastmen lines – fortunately the buildings of Eastminister sheltered them from the worst of the damage. Sadly the Ambushers lost the scent of the Wood Elves and arrived right next to Clegg – "the fools" he thought, however they charged into the Waywatchers threatening the Ungor Raiders in Eastminster tower. But the Waywatchers fled allowing the Gors to charge into the Dryads. Meanwhile Bray Shaman Cable attempted to cast Mantle of Ghorok on himself for no real reason other than he had power dice left, and promptly miscast wounding himself and killing 3 Bestigor. "Old fool" thought Clegg, it was like the incident with the Air Elemental tribe of BSkyB all over again. The Dryads started butchering the Gors but with Clegg's presence the unit held. Meanwhile the Wardancers charged the flanks of the Gors, but Clegg and his own personal Gor unit charged the Wardancers in return. Whilst the Immigration Limiters (original Gors) were wiped out so only the Musician and Standard Bearer were left. However Clegg butchered the Wardancers wiping them out as they fled and winning the overall combat so the Imigration Limiters held. In shock news, the Ungor Raiders actually shot dead two Waywatchers causing them to flee. The Minotaurs and the Bestigor taking causalities under the volleys of Wood Elf fire made a run for the nearest set of buildings to join Clegg. Cable tried to cast Mantle of Ghorok again, this time casting it, but rolling a 6 for his Strength boost thus suffering a wound and dieing – stupid spell! Shockingly the Gor Musician and Standard locked in combat managed to get frenzied from Primal Fury beating the remaining nine Dryads in combat. The Bestigor then charged in demolishing the remaining Dryads – Timber!! Clegg could sense it was close, and decided the best way was to protect the heavily damaged remaining units (a unit of one Gor, three Ungor Raiders and one Minotaur on one wound had to be saved to prevent conceding any more points). Clegg ordered said units to hide behind the hills however massed shooting from the Wood Elves and the sneaky moving Wardancers had returned allowed each target to be decimated. Victor to the scrawny Elf-kind. "Pah" thought Clegg.
God dam it, it was so close I lost by 104 victory points, 4 less and I would have claimed a draw, if any of those beleaguered units had survived (or Cable hadn't blown his head off, again) it would have been a draw. And if any two of Cable the Gors or Minotaurs had survived it could have been a win. A fun game, even though I had no tactics – I kind of froze in the face of all those bows, and played for a draw which I've never done before and is bit naughty – I flogged myself on returning home I reassure you. The end result is that Cable now hates Wood Elves after rolling on the injury table and I scored 40 gold.
After much ummminnng and ahhhhing I decided I probably should build a tower, it doesn't feel very Beasty though – Beastmen burn, pillage and defecate everywhere but that don't build towers. And looking at my theme Cameron and Clegg aren't the tower builders, perhaps I could spend some gold to close down a library or something? In the end I did build my first tower – horray. And then I read this...
Quote from: fatolaf on March 10, 2011, 02:04:06 pm
With a potential 2 players on 3 towers in that turn we could have a winner, so do think your challenges and events through carefully...
You mean we're supposed to be building towers? Oh... probably should have built one sooner then. Oops!
Warhammer Armies: Orcs & Goblins – 8th Edition(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2528.jpg)
This week I managed to pick up the brand new Warhammer Armies: Orcs & Goblins from Ol, thanks Ol. And I've been stroking the embossed new hardback cover – come on don't lie you've given it a little stroke yourself haven't you? You know you have! Fine don't admit it, you're only lying to yourselves. Anyway after reading it cover to cover I wonder if you noticed the things, I noticed? Probably not, you were too busy working out the killer uber super duper army to make – either to field it yourself or to bitch about other people fielding it weren't you? Yes you were. I know!
Anyway, here's some things I noticed:
There seems to be a similarity between Orcs & Goblins and education under The National Curriculum...
Page 16:
"For their own part Orcs & Goblins don't care about history... ...Greenskins like hearing about bloodshed and great victories, although they need lots of gory details to hold their limited attention span"Sound familiar? That's why children know more about the Power Rangers than Henry VIII. Additionally I noticed similarities between the way history was taught to me and Orcs & Goblins:
Page 16:
"A Shaman can rouse some interest with inspired bits of pantomime brawling, but more powerful Shamans go a step further, working themselves into a trance while describing battles of long ago."Still disturbed by my history teacher even to this day.
Though there are other extra curricular events in Orc & Goblin society, P.E. being reasonably well catered for...
Page 16:
"...or watching a Giant play a match of Dwarf Skittles."Are Dwarf Skittles like Fun-Size Mars Bars really disappointing portions of confectionary? You know the type that require you to eat about 50 packets in order to be sated and thus defeat the object of smaller portions. I wonder.
You have to feel sorry for Ronnie Corbett under Orc & Goblin law...
Page 17:
"The torment of the Halflings... ...proved very popular. Camps held Halfling-eating contests, barrel battles – consisting of a Snotling versus Halfling fighting it out in an empty crate – and other barbaric cruelties."A comedy legend surely doesn't deserve treatment like that.
Have you ever eaten at the Pizza Hut All-You-Can-Eat Buffet...
Page 21:
"With his stomach visibly churning and expanding from the continually growing Troll flesh in his belly, Grom rolled about in agony for days, much to the delight of his fellow contestants. Somehow, heroically, after weeks of chronic indigestion and near fatal flatulence, equilibrium was reached..."I knew I shouldn't have had that last 14 pieces of Garlic Bread.
Still things could also be worse...
Page 26:
"When the Black Orc Warboss and his legions at last marched out, the Skaven of Hell Pit were down to their last line of defenders, many of which were already standing in puddles of their own musk of fear."That's happened to all of us, hasn't it? Though in pathetically less scary circumstances. I've stood in a puddle of my own musk of fear simply walking through Croydon, or after having been ill and had a bout of flatulence on a day out in London. The main fear being that my friends, who were with me, would be able to smell "the musk of my own fear". But that's maybe because I have unsympathetic friends, I tend to keep the kind of company that would make Prince Andrew question whether he should defriend them on Facebook.
Somethings need further pondering...
Page 35: "Inarguably Shamans are a bit mad, being prone to trances and sudden spasms of fitful dancing. This embarrassing behaviour can cause scenes around the camp that are awkward at best."
Such as, who inspired who out of Orc Shamans and Charlie Sheen? I smell Tiger Blood in the air.
I think the Chaos Dwarfs need to fire their publicist. I mean 15 years ago, they had an army and models and now they have no models and aren't even given credit for what used to be fact. On Page 10 it says "The origins of the Black Orcs are shrouded in mystery", only on Page 39 does I say "Some maintain that the Chaos Dwarfs... ...magically bred the more disciplined Black Orcs.". It used to be unequivocal that the Chaos Dwarfs created the Black Orcs and now we've all forgotten, come on Chaos Dwarfs be proud of your own achievements. Maybe they should hire Max Clifford, I mean representing a maniacal race hell bent on creating intolerable evils from their smoking lava pits is virtually a step up from representing Kerry Katona. Perhaps that's what Chaos Dwarfs need, an appearance on Dancing on Ice. I mean an Earthshaker Cannon fired at Jason Gardenier is sure to boost ratings.
Hasn't the recession hit Orcs & Goblin's hard? Only 8 magic items to choose from. Still I suppose it reduces the number of horrendous combinations that you can make and "ruin" the game with. Though I'm sure people will still moan – most probably me.
On Page 14 I think a secret has been given away to an up and coming monster in a future Warhammer Army:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2544.jpg)
Surely "beastss" refers to some kind of serpentine creature, it's a clue isn't it? It's pronounced beastss because of it's snake like qualities and it's hissing tongue perhaps with the head of Janet Street-Porter and the body of Michael Winner that's going to be devastating the Warhammer world with it's deadly tooth attacks and reassurances to "Calm Down, it's only a Strength 9 attack" the whole world would shudder. Ol – can I preorder five plastic sets of whatever this turns out to be? Cheers.
And finally it's good to see that the world of reality TV hasn't missed the Orc & Goblin community:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2534.jpg)
As we can see Da Great Idol now as it own studio marked on the map, as TV's best Orc & Goblin Geordie Duo Gork & Mork search for the best singing Snotling in all of The Badlands, and you decide with a phone vote. Judges include Neil Wolf, Simonster Cowell, Peter Watertroll and Nicki Campblackorc. And if you're wondering how long I can keep going with this string of dodgy reality TV/Orc puns, then I'm still milking it. As Simonster Cowell as his own breakaway show X Fanatic presented by DermOrc Leary, with judges Louis Waaagh, Cheryl Cave Squig and Danni Migigantic Spider.
I am sorry I can only apologise for those terrible puns. Sorry. I know it's not enough.
And after having a good look through the Orc & Goblin book I've decided upon my Top 5 favourite units. Clearly this is not based on Tactics, this is me after all, but based on models and background that I like. And probably the things I'm most likely to get if I get tempted by the new Orcs & Goblins.
5: Doom DiverWhat could be better then strapping yourself with wings and firing yourself at the enemy, we laugh, but it's much like that those mad people who make cardboard planes and fire themselves off piers – invariably sponsored by Red Bull. And when I was a kid, Doom Divers were very cheap too as the only had a Goblin and tiny catapult they worked out about £2.99 each bargain. Though arguably the new bigger models is more impressive.
4: Black OrcsNever a big fan 4th/5th edition but the new(er) plastic models and their armour really inspired me, plus a good opportunity for an Orc collector to use a new shade of green surely can't be missed.
3: River TrollsI love vomiting on people and River Trolls give me the option to do this in a slightly less messy and socially unacceptable fashion. Plus nice models, and painting scheme (though the 4th edition ones were cool models too) means I am very tempted to get myself a box or six.
2: Savage OrcsIt's not just the new models, though they are amazing, but there's something great about the background to these. Combined with their striking blue warpaint, mad shamans and new ability to kebab the enemy – what more could you want?
1: Forest Goblin Spider RidersEveryone loves an underdog, and you've got to love the Forest Goblins. From vast infantry units of them that you used to be able to field, they vanished altogether. And then returned. And yes they do have a new super Anorak Spider but that would be too easy to choose. There's nothing like the classics climbing over buildings and poisoning people – much like my life at the age of 15.
Though I am slightly disturbed that my top two choices are both "naked" Orcs & Goblins – not sure what that say about me.
A close 6th would have been Azhag the Slaughterer simply for the amazing model, though I know mine would fall to bits should I try to assemble/get one.
Would love to know your top 5 Orc & Goblin Choices from the new book (or just old times), whatever criteria you like – tactics, models, background or even most fun to torment the cat with (not that you should torment cats). Please let me know!
That's pretty much it for this week, other than to say there's still time to enter last week's "Where's the Paintbrush Cap?" competition, remember which square do you think the paintbrush cap has been "removed" from? There's a Shakeaway Voucher up for grabs.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2479.jpg)
The competition closes at midday on Wednesday 16th March.
Terms & Conditions: The person who gets the exact grid square will win the Shakeaway voucher, if no one gets the exact square the organiser reserves the right to go and have a Shakeaway himself. If the painting cap lies in two or more squares, the square in which the majority of the cap lies in will be the winning square. The voucher will be delivered in person to the winner at an OG Games event, if unable to collect the voucher will be posted out provided the organiser can be arsed. Competition closes on the 42nd of February entrants submitting entries after this date are liable to have their homes firebombed. Please note your milkshake is at risk if you do not keep up repayments and the calorific value of your chosen beverage may go up as well as down. In the event of two or more people guessing the correct square they will be forced to fight it out in a pit of mud to determine the winner.And don't make it complicated by choosing one of the squares that's already been picked F3, D3, A5 and B5 have already gone.
And if you think this is the worst competition currently running online, I draw you to the attention of the BT website where you can help plan Jane's wedding (from the long running adverts starring Chris Marshall) and win the chance to attend the wedding. Seriously who's life is so empty that they end up entering this?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2618.jpg)
And NO I didn't make this up, it is real!!!
Anyhow I'm off to my friend's birthday. He's moaning about turning old now he's 23. 23!! Bloody idiot, I've decided the only sensible option is to rub his face up and down a pebble-dashed wall to teach him a lesson. Until next week keep those entries and Top 5 Orc & Goblins coming in.
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 12, 2011, 12:50:52 pm
Saturday 12th March - WEEK 10
Seriously who's life is so empty that they end up entering this?
Yours! Do I win a prize? :)) :wink;m:: Also, I thought there were gonna be Page 3 girls, dammit!!
Anyway, I'm off to get trashed in Prague. Have a good night!
Quote from: Meals on March 12, 2011, 06:56:58 pm
Yours!
Seems a tad harsh, as a result no Page 3 girls for you!
Matt, I think we should count february as being 59 days for the tale (although I think I'll still struggle)
Also, liking the dawi zharr mentions, I've not yet had a chance to read through t fluff in the new book.
I'd best not mention ages after that rant!
Quote from: maelzch on March 12, 2011, 10:27:22 pm
Matt, I think we should count february as being 59 days for the tale (although I think I'll still struggle)
I reckon I can finish February and March by the end of March, despite the 42 day February! So I think I should be ok. Touch wood.
Quote from: maelzch on March 12, 2011, 10:27:22 pm
Also, liking the dawi zharr mentions, I've not yet had a chance to read through t fluff in the new book.
Funny I haven't had a chance to read the rules yet, but I think that says a lot about my playing style!
Quote from: maelzch on March 12, 2011, 10:27:22 pm
I'd best not mention ages after that rant!
Best not!
Quote from: Meals on March 12, 2011, 06:56:58 pm
Also, I thought there were gonna be Page 3 girls, dammit!!
Perhaps I should do next week's post as a full newspaper - though I think it might be break my Lent promise of staying on topic!
I am delighted to hear that you think you didn't go off topic at all this week, I was a little worried it was just going to be about your painting (slightly OT but those Phoenix guard look great, really food work on the flames on the cloaks), I am glad Cheryl Cave Squig still made her appearance.
I will have to think about the O&G, I for one don't think you need to cheapen your plog with page 3 girls, I say this partly because I fear what you will come up with!!!
Quote from: Veldemere on March 13, 2011, 01:26:11 pm
I was a little worried it was just going to be about your painting (slightly OT but those Phoenix guard look great, really food work on the flames on the cloaks).
You surely know me better than that! The flames are really fiddly but worth doing. The only way to get them to look good is loads of thin layers of yellow and orange - bored of that now!! Thank god I wasn't doing a unit of 50, or something more dispicable.
Quote from: Veldemere on March 13, 2011, 01:26:11 pm
I for one don't think you need to cheapen your plog with page 3 girls, I say this partly because I fear what you will come up with!!!
What on Earth do you mean? :angel:
Nice work on the flames - often difficult to do well, and particularly on the banner. Awesome models that you're doing a great job on. Looking forward to seeing more.
My Top 5 O&G units from the new book
5) Snotling Pump Wagons - They can now fly, nuff said....
4) Snotlings - They can now stand & shoot, nuff said....
3) Night Goblin Shaman - Now a mushroom eating mini slann, nuff said...
2) Mangler Squigs - Scares the shit out of your opponents, until you tell them to simply park a unit of dogs on top of them...
1) Nasty Skulkers - Killing Blow and WS 2, what more do you need, Nuff said.... :cool3:
Quote from: Angelus Mortifer on March 14, 2011, 09:02:00 am
Nice work on the flames - often difficult to do well, and particularly on the banner. Awesome models that you're doing a great job on. Looking forward to seeing more.
Cheers mate, nearly finished the flames and reasonably pleased with them myself! Hopefully more will come soon!
Quote from: fatolaf on March 17, 2011, 11:38:38 am
My Top 5 O&G units from the new book
5) Snotling Pump Wagons - They can now fly, nuff said....
4) Snotlings - They can now stand & shoot, nuff said....
3) Night Goblin Shaman - Now a mushroom eating mini slann, nuff said...
2) Mangler Squigs - Scares the shit out of your opponents, until you tell them to simply park a unit of dogs on top of them...
1) Nasty Skulkers - Killing Blow and WS 2, what more do you need, Nuff said.... :cool3:
Good choices, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the Mangler Squig model as I reckon they could do nice things with it. Hopefully I won't be disappointed.
Sorry for lack of update this week, nothing's really happened so far... will have to make something up!!
Quote from: fatolaf on March 17, 2011, 11:38:38 am
My Top 5 O&G units from the new book
5) Snotling Pump Wagons - They can now fly, nuff said....
... WHAT?! :doomdiver001:
Thursday 17th March - WEEK 11
Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Yes it's everyone's favourite patron saint, plainly and simply because it's an opportunity to have a drink. You're not Irish and you have no idea what Saint Patrick did, but you fancy a drink and it's good excuse that makes you feel like less of an alcoholic!
In fact Saint Patrick was born in Britain, and is probably most famous for bringing Christianity to Ireland and teaching it with aid of a Shamrock – I think it was a prop, rather than some kind of CBBC-style puppet.
Do you feel the need to celebrate Saint George, the Roman solider who went on to slay a dragon? No because there's no drinking involved. How about Saint Andrew who apparently founded the city of Saint Andrew's (slightly narcissistic if you ask me)? No again no drink. Saint David? The Bishop who preached in Wales, who apparently is best known for the miracle that occurred when preaching to a crowd, and those at the back couldn't hear him. So the ground rose up beneath him to give everyone a better view. Also known as the miracle of the O2. Again no, as there's no drink involved. In fact you're more likely to celebrate Saint Nicholas dumping a sack full of presents in your living room than any of the British saints, and only St. Paddy because he let's you have a drink, and presents the ITV1 show Take Me Out. The miracle being it got commissioned! If you agree with this, you're a drunkard and we all like a drunkard.
I on the other hand have more sophisticated drinking tastes, and prefer the refined nature of a Shakeaway, which brings us neatly onto the topic of our Spot the Paint Cap Competition where you could win the highly exciting Shakeaway voucher:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2456.jpg)
I say could win, it's now closed so you can't win if you haven't entered. All you had to do was guess in which square, from the picture below you thought the Paint Cap was "digitally removed" from:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2479.jpg)
Well we had a host of entries (well four), so thank you very much, but I can reveal the square that the Paint Cap was mostly in (see the small print before you nitpick!), was square C2:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2480.jpg)
Where you can see it resting on the base of my daylight lamp, the little difficult to catch rascal!
Plotting all your answers on the grid, like Peter Snow, we can see that whilst no one was bang on the money, Ol was clearly the closest.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2619.jpg)
So I hereby declare Ol the winner! You'll soon be the envy of all your friends with this Shakeaway voucher, to the losers I'm afraid you leave with nothing – not even your dignity, as you lost that by getting involved in this utter madness!
Last week I promised you I would have finished February's (cough, cough) task of the Phoenix Guard... well... errr... they're really, nearly finished, basically I need to flock them and tidy up the banner. But I haven't had time, shockingly I've actually had other things going on in my life – I know it's deeply unexpected and no one is more surprised than myself!
Next week I promise that there'll be a flurry of freshly painted models, and if you believe that you're a fool as I've just admitted to breaking a previous promise to you.
Warning tangential change of topic approaching:
Charity begins at home, or so they say - hence I've nearly bought myself a nice new computer to sit in my home and look lovely. Why do I mention this? Well tomorrow is of course the biennial (meaning occurring every two years as opposed to biannual which means occurring twice yearly - I had to look this up and thought you might enjoy the factoid) fund-raising extravaganza that is Red Nose Day (that's the name of the day, Comic Relief is the organisation responsible for it - again another factoid you might like).
Now you probably think I'm going to moan about Red Nose Day, but I'm not, instead I'm going to moan about the people who moan about Red Nose Day. You see there's a selection of divides on opinions towards Red Nose Day (and similar charity telethons), and they broadly breakdown as follows:
The people who love it! These people fully get behind having sponsored leg waxings (generally it's hard for women to get sponsorship for this, it's a bit like men having sponsored use deodorant days), sponsored silences, cake sales and all kinds of activities every year and then present the raised money in an excessively large cheque* for no real reason. I myself have once been in this category having been "custard pied" for Sport Relief – my life is surprisingly odd.
*Perhaps the cheque represents the scale your bank statements would be sent to you in if you followed up their offer to have a large print service. Though given this offer is almost always written in the small print I can't imagine anyone ever takes it up.
The people who are reasonably supportive. You'll pop a pound in a box, wear a Red Nose – for five minutes, and probably watch and enjoy at least some of the surrounding televisual events. Speaking of which can I recommend 24 Hour Panel People on BBC Three? (check it out on iPlayer) where David Walliams (who can't spell William) competed in a non-stop(ish) 24-hour marathon of well loved panel shows, and Celebrity Juice. This is the typical category I would fall in, I'll donate some money – mainly so I don't feel guilty about going to make a sandwich during all the depressing VTs about famine. And I may even buy some Red Nose Day products such as these Muller Crunch Corners I purchased this year:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2622.jpg)
By spending £2.50 on this pack 10 pence went to Comic Relief, obviously I could have donated the full £2.50 but then I wouldn't have got any yoghurts. And I would have missed out on the cool one with red balls in, in honour of Red Nose Day – which actually tastes disgusting.
The people who enjoy but don't donate. You know who you are, you're like the people who have a drink on Saint Patrick's Day but don't know anything about Saint Patrick. You are enjoying the show, which people are appearing on for free (much like I am writing this Comic Relief blog without accepting a fee, more because no one's offering one though, rather than for any charitable reasons!), when you don't really deserve to. It's a bit like watching the Signing Zone when you're not deaf, you're kind of cheating. You shouldn't go and make a cheese sandwich during the VTs you should sit there and be shamed by the starving children! Look at those sad lonely eyes, you are cheating them of at least 50 pence.
The people who don't care and don't get involved. You have no time for Comic Relief, you're not interested, you do you're best to avoid it and probably donate to other charities. I have no problem with you, the people I have a problem with are...
The people who actively hate the thing. These are the people who won't donate, which is fine, but who actively moan about it's existence. Judging the whole event as a TV show that's rubbish, Children in Need always tends to be a victim of this as people moan about things like the fact "that the newsreaders did stupid things". Well, yes they did, but they did it knowing it was stupid in the hope some people might donate some money because they've done it. And actually a lot of people who watch these things do donate money. And I think whichever of the above groups you fall into, you have to agree that the raising of money for these causes is a good thing (though one of my friends does think that the TV show is good, but the charity isn't – but I suspect he's missing the point). If you don't like it don't watch, but don't moan about other people trying to do something to make the world a little bit better. The Red Nose Day event is hardly enforced upon you, the same can be said of all TV, as TV is the easiest media to escape – you simply push the "Off" button, or change channel. Unlike all other types of media: computer games, DVDs, books, magazines etc. you've not paid for that programme specifically so you've not wasted any money. All you had to do was push one button the remote.
So if you don't like Comic Relief that's fine, I don't mind, if you don't donate fine, I don't mind. But don't criticise the thing for actually raising millions of pounds to help people, because you've missed the point. It's like the NHS you can maybe moan about the standard of care and waiting lists, but you wouldn't moan about it's actual functioning of saving lives. Would you?
Having had a little rant about people who hate Red Nose Day it would be remiss of me to point out that if you'd like to donate some money and have a few pennies to spare you can do at www.rednoseday.com (http://www.rednoseday.com). You don't have to, and I won't judge you if you don't, but don't judge me if I do.
Oh dear I've gone all serious, and made an intellectual point – quick think of something daft to say. Oh I know, maybe I should hold a charity telethon for my Black Isle campaign army. I'm still languishing second from bottom despite stealing a fistful of gold. Go on if you donate some money Beastlord Clegg might shave his legs or Bray Shaman Cameron will wear a red nose. Ok fair enough this is the kind of telethon you can hate, it's clearly isn't the good cause Comic Relief is.
I think that's a good place to leave it, apologies that this is slightly shorter blog than normal (you're probably relieved), but I'm off to sit in a bath tub full of baked beans whilst reading next month's White Dwarf which has arrived today...
Which seems early, controversially early some might say, but then February was a long month it must have confused things. And it's all about Warhammer 40,000 anyway so I have no idea what's happening!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2623.jpg)
Next week will definitely see some painting... probably.
Quote from: EvilFuzzyDoom on March 17, 2011, 10:40:33 pm
... WHAT?! :doomdiver001:
Pump Wagons can be fitted with "Flappas" as upgrades which are crude wings allowing the Pump Wagon to make short bursts of flight and bounces - meaning they don't take Dangerous Terrain test unless they end their move in the terrain.
By almost completely managing to avoid almost any mention of warhammer or painting (showing the cover of WD hardly counts) I feel this plog is transcending itself and almost becoming Matts Mein Kampf (without him being a nasty little man) or Red Book (without him being a nasty little man) this is a secular treatiste on life and as such I urge you all to fill in the religion section of your census with the term Secular Cunningmattist, I shall be setting up a church which you can all be members of, all I require is 10% of all monies you earn, that is cheaper than some Messirs Cruise and Travolta!!
Good efforts matt, even though I feel cheated out of a shakeaway.
Quote from: Veldemere on March 18, 2011, 08:53:35 am
By almost completely managing to avoid almost any mention of warhammer or painting (showing the cover of WD hardly counts)
I think you'll find I showed a picture of my painting table, and mentioned a charity collection for my Black Isle armies, how much Warhammer do you want?!
Quote from: Veldemere on March 18, 2011, 08:53:35 am
I shall be setting up a church which you can all be members of, all I require is 10% of all monies you earn, that is cheaper than some Messirs Cruise and Travolta!!
I'm not sure whether to be flattered or concerned, probably concerned, though for reference I am a "nasty little man"!
Quote from: Veldemere on March 18, 2011, 08:53:35 am
Good efforts matt, even though I feel cheated out of a shakeaway.
How exactly do you feel cheated? You lost! :wink;m::
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 18, 2011, 10:33:46 am
I think you'll find I showed a picture of my painting table, and mentioned a charity collection for my Black Isle armies, how much Warhammer do you want?!
I wasn't complaining, more commenting
QuoteI'm not sure whether to be flattered or concerned, probably concerned, though for reference I am a "nasty little man"!
I am sure L Ron Hubbard said much the same things
QuoteHow exactly do you feel cheated? You lost! :wink;m::
But the winner didn't win :wink;m:: I am a very bitter person :1st:
Quote from: Veldemere on March 18, 2011, 10:45:44 am
I wasn't complaining, more commenting
Fair point! But there's always next week for some Warhammer action!
Quote from: Veldemere on March 18, 2011, 10:45:44 am
I am sure L Ron Hubbard said much the same things
I've modellend my life on him... no I haven't that is in fact a lie.
Quote from: Veldemere on March 18, 2011, 10:45:44 am
But the winner didn't win :wink;m:: I am a very bitter person :1st:
He won more than you! :wink;m::
St Patrick- Romano-british monk who got kidnapped by irish raiders, brought back as a slave to ireland, and then somehow managed to convert the entire ireland to his religion.
The reason for the stupid amount of drinking is actually very simple. St patricks day falls in lent, during lent you're supposed to give up rich food, booze and all maner of other worldly comforts. Have you ever seen what happens to an irish man when he goes a month without beer? (see family guy http://www.whoomp.com/funny-videos/family-guy-museum-of-irish-roots.html (http://www.whoomp.com/funny-videos/family-guy-museum-of-irish-roots.html))
I do find the wanton gluttony of st patrick's day especially amusing.
He was himself a bit of an apocolyptic- he believed the world was about to end, not in the least due to mankinds exesses of drinking and debauchery. That his saint's day is now used as an excuse for everyone to claim some slim irish heritage, get paralytically drunk on guiness (which they wouldn't touch most of the year because it tastes like burning) and generally make a nuicence of them selves gives me satisfaction that he must be squirming in his grave!
How I love organised religion for so often becoming distracted from the point at hand.
On that note I think secular cunningmattists have a perfectly legitamite reason to be considered not only a recognised religion, but in fact, the most appropriate religion, as their founder's doctrines are based solely on going off topic!
Right, yearly religious rant over, must stop before I end up getting into philosophical arguments about the nature of the christian pantheon, its connections with other religions, perversion of previous sacred deity iconography etc.
(can you tell I did religions studies at a level?)
I won :1st: :1st: :1st: :1st: :1st: :1st: :1st:
Quote from: noahtonkin on March 18, 2011, 11:49:39 am
On that note I think secular cunningmattists have a perfectly legitamite reason to be considered not only a recognised religion, but in fact, the most appropriate religion, as their founder's doctrines are based solely on going off topic!
Loving the religious rant there, though am slightly concerned that you are helping give credibility to my role as a cult leader. And more concerned there might be a spelling mistake in that last sentence.
Quote from: fatolaf on March 18, 2011, 12:18:00 pm
I won :1st: :1st: :1st: :1st: :1st: :1st: :1st:
Well done Ol, your worthless voucher will be with you shortly. Although I may try and turn that 1 Shakeaway Voucher into 5,000 as part of my first miracle.
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 18, 2011, 01:14:34 pm
Loving the religious rant there, though am slightly concerned that you are helping give credibility to my role as a cult leader. And more concerned there might be a spelling mistake in that last sentence.
Well done Ol, your worthless voucher will be with you shortly. Although I may try and turn that 1 Shakeaway Voucher into 5,000 as part of my first miracle.
I tend to do that kind of miracle at work. That way they foot the bill for the photocopying.
Is it bad that whilst I was watching Comic Relief I mistook Lenny Henry's visit to an African slum video as a Premier Inn advert?
So did I...
Glad I wasn't the only one!
Liking your last battle report Matt. And the idea of taking causalities sounds positively philosophical. Was it the wood elf arrows that killed the beasts? Perhaps they would have died anyway. Arrows piercing chests could be co-incidental. Maybe dying is just something beasts do.
If a beastman herdstone falls over in the wilderness, does it make any noise?
How do you know that?
Really?
Sensory information is not necessarily able to support a conclusion.
You don't like that? Well what if the herdstone was made of polystyrene? AaaaaaaaaaaaH!!!
Quote from: Toast on March 21, 2011, 08:30:58 pm
Liking your last battle report Matt. And the idea of taking causalities sounds positively philosophical. Was it the wood elf arrows that killed the beasts? Perhaps they would have died anyway. Arrows piercing chests could be co-incidental. Maybe dying is just something beasts do.
I have to be philosophical because I am officialy crap at Warhammer, as Ol put it this very evening "You are s**t at deployment" - if only there were more useful guidelines, deploying a table for dinner is much more structured and obvious: knives on the right of the place setting, napkins folded into the shape of the Pope's hat and sandwich tongs shoved up the butler's arse - really I can pick up a sandwich without tongs thank you! In fact I probably wasn't philosophical tonight about removing casualities, I was like a Timmy Mallet shirt - loud and obnoxious - as Lee will atest too. Sorry Lee I was in an odd mood. Plus Ol was accussing me off throwing around handkerchiefs and inventing my own stalkers, very odd (your guess is as good as mine!).
Quote from: Toast on March 21, 2011, 08:30:58 pm
If a beastman herdstone falls over in the wilderness, does it make any noise?
This is one of these obtuse questions asked by philosphers to justify them having a function in life, when they don't. It's much like the question "If a Pot Noodle is not eaten, does it still taste like the contents of a septic tank?" - the answer to which is of course yes, it's a Pot Noodle it will always taste foul.
However to be obtuse about your obtuse first question, firstly people can be in the wilderness (check out Telford town centre if you don't believe me) so said falling herdstone could still be heard. But to get to the crux of the matter, as always iyou need to ask a physicist, if only we had one at hand - oh wait a minute I am one. So I can say, yes it does make a noise, because noise is sound and sound is a compression wave travelling through a medium (as in material, like air or water, not an average sized shirt or Derek Akorah) which occurs whether someone is around to record some sensory information or not. If it didn't make a compression wave when no one was there, this would imply the Universe is somehow sentient and only chooses to make compression waves when people are around. And any one who has seen "OMG" with Peaches Geldolf on ITV2 can surely vouch for the fact that for the Universe to allow this to exist it cannot be sentient.
Oh and would it still make a noise if it was a polystyrene, yes, you just might not be able to hear it because of humanity's inferior audio receptors.
Apologies I have a feeling that this post may read like I'm a w****r, I'm not. I'm just in a very odd mood I blame Sainsbury's Creamy Petis Pois, Green Bean and Asparagus Pasta Sauce.
One of your best posts thus far.
I am really starting to detect some Marvin coming out of Matt, brain the size of a planet, we need to work on his happiness. I think we need to have a whip round to send Matt to Alton Towers, I am already working on a VT of James Cordon with some uncomfortable looking celebrities to try to raise the money then a montage of the valentines day photos to an Annie Lennox track, it is made of win.
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 22, 2011, 12:26:45 am
This is one of these obtuse questions asked by philosphers to justify them having a function in life, when they don't. It's much like the question "If a Pot Noodle is not eaten, does it still taste like the contents of a septic tank?" - the answer to which is of course yes, it's a Pot Noodle it will always taste foul.
However to be obtuse about your obtuse first question, firstly people can be in the wilderness (check out Telford town centre if you don't believe me) so said falling herdstone could still be heard. But to get to the crux of the matter, as always iyou need to ask a physicist, if only we had one at hand - oh wait a minute I am one. So I can say, yes it does make a noise, because noise is sound and sound is a compression wave travelling through a medium (as in material, like air or water, not an average sized shirt or Derek Akorah) which occurs whether someone is around to record some sensory information or not. If it didn't make a compression wave when no one was there, this would imply the Universe is somehow sentient and only chooses to make compression waves when people are around. And any one who has seen "OMG" with Peaches Geldolf on ITV2 can surely vouch for the fact that for the Universe to allow this to exist it cannot be sentient.
Oh and would it still make a noise if it was a polystyrene, yes, you just might not be able to hear it because of humanity's inferior audio receptors.
Now you're getting into somantics.
Noise and sound.
Sound is the physical wave form created by compression as you rightly state, however noise is the perception of sound. So if said herdstone fell in the woods it would make a sound, but no noise.
Once again, A Level RS coming to the fore (I had the delights of philosophy and ethics classes)
I'm completely floored by that. You deserve a column somewhere. In a newspaper, that is, not a herdstone in Telford.
Quote from: noahtonkin on March 22, 2011, 09:21:44 am
Once again, A Level RS coming to the fore (I had the delights of philosophy and ethics classes)
Sounds like a load of arse, I'm with the physicist (so says the Chemistry grad)
Hmmm, I'm off to find a Shakeaway and use my voucher..... :cool3:
Quote from: Dave on March 22, 2011, 07:57:29 am
One of your best posts thus far.
I think what you may be witnessing is my full scale mental breakdown in written form! At least it's entertaining though.
Ritchie - how quickly I've fallen, last week a cult leader, this week charity case. Fortune is but a fickle thing.
Andrew - yeah sorry I did seem to go off on one there, not quite sure what happened yesterday! :blush:
Noah - I don't want to question your logic, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Noise is defined as
"Noise: noun, a sound, especially one that is loud or unpleasant or that causes disturbance" therefore I'd say noise and sound are the same thing despite what your GNVQ in Religious Studies (which was called R.E. when I was a kid, but that's another rant), says. :wink;m:: And in case you were wondering:
"Sound: mass noun, vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person's or animal's ear"Notice the critical word "can" not "must be heard".
Ol - enjoy the voucher
Lee - sorry, just sorry, I promise not to be so psychotic during our next game!
Well what do you know, foiled by OED. That woman on countdown would be proud.
I know what you mean about RS vs RE. it was RE when I was in primary school (presumably as i needed education) while it became RS for A Level (some fool thought i could by that time study!)
The joys of compulsory subjects as christian schools.
I do take delight in quoting passages about a deity, born in mid winter in a cave as there was no room in the village, surrounded by animals and from a virgin birth, wait for those of christian persuasion to say "Ah yes, the birth of christ" and then point out I'm talking about a 4th centuary BC Roman god...
But anyway, must steer clear of religion, its a touchy subject.
You should all be careful as I managed to bore someone to sleep in a meeting informing them what the difference between volume, audio levels and loudness is! Don't make me do it!!!!
And don't worry Matt, I believe David Korsech had his school lunches paid for....
Quote from: noahtonkin on March 22, 2011, 02:47:06 pm
Well what do you know, foiled by OED. That woman on countdown would be proud.
I know what you mean about RS vs RE. it was RE when I was in primary school (presumably as i needed education) while it became RS for A Level (some fool thought i could by that time study!)
The joys of compulsory subjects as christian schools.
Ahhh Susie Dent, bless her.
And I'm pleased though your talking RS, you aren't talking AS Levels. Else I would have to break down in tears!
Quote from: Veldemere on March 22, 2011, 02:57:54 pm
And don't worry Matt, I believe David Korsech had his school lunches paid for....
I googled this person, and am concerned!
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 22, 2011, 02:12:05 pmas
Lee - sorry, just sorry, I promise not to be so psychotic during our next game!
no worries mate, at least it was comedy insanity; and who can blame you, you were being heckled by a full audience!
Quote from: maelzch on March 22, 2011, 06:58:41 pm
no worries mate, at least it was comedy insanity; and who can blame you, you were being heckled by a full audience!
I don't know what the heckling was for, just because I was playing utterly awfully with a significant points advantage!
Wednesday 23rd March - WEEK 12
WARNING THIS POST CONTAINS IMAGES OF AN EXPLICIT NATURE
After an unscheduled rant about philopshicl, philospicl, phiolsophica,... why is that word so difficult to say out loud? And what does it matter I'm trying to write anyway, I know it's spelt philosophical. So anyway after an unscheduled rant about philosophical matters it's time for this week's blog update proper, and given it was suggested a few week's back, and I haven't thought of anything better myself, I present this week's Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves blog in the style of a tabloid newspaper... enjoy!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2625.jpg)
Daily Tale (of OG Gamers – High Elves), like Daily Mail, get it? Except it's not daily and we're unlikely to blame it all on the BBC, asylum seekers and the cost of the Olympic Games and I'm unlikely to mention house prices. Though I may throw in the odd reference to Princess Diana for s**ts and giggles.
And here's this week's front page story...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2865.jpg)
See what I did there, don't mock, it's at least as good as the Sun and I didn't charge you 20 pence for this.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2866.jpg)
Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves author Matt, also known as "Shut the doors the Nutter from Clapham is coming" has finally finished his February painting task of some Phoenix Guard. A source said "Matt has been blathering around doing anything but painting his Phoenix Guard, even talking about Pot Noodles and Red Nose Day yoghurts to get out of it. I'm amazed he's finally completed it." Matt had even been extending the month of February in an audacious bid to try and claim he was still on schedule, when he wasn't. Our ace reporter Michael Madeupaloadofbollocksbecauseourreadersarestupidandwillbelieveanything caught up with Matt on the scene to give us this update on how he finished them:
This is getting odd, isn't it? (You see italics is the newspaper report and normal text is my comments, :wink;m:: , you'll get the hang of it! I'd say it's worth persevering, but possibly not – though bare in mind this one of your ideas, before you start moaning!)
Here's Stage 4 of the Phoenix Guard painting guide:
Stage 4 – Phoenix Guard
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2894.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2896.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2872.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2880.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2888.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2889.jpg)
Base: Drybrushed Bleached Bone and flocked with Glad Grass
Leather Pouches and Sword Sheaths: *NO CHANGE*
Outside of Cloak and Sleeves: Highlighted Pure Skull White
Inside of Cloak: Washed Ogryn Flesh then Highlighted Bad Moon Yellow
Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal: Highlighted 5:1 Shining Gold: Mithril Silver
Flesh: Highlighted Bleached Bone
Armour Trim: *NO CHANGE*
Weapons Haft: *NO CHANGE*
Flame Trim on Cloaks and Flames on Banner: Very fine highlight Blood Red
Night Sky on Banner: Layered 2:1 Regal Blue: Enchanted Blue
Phoenix on Banner: Highlighted Skull White
Coals on Banner: Highlighted Skull White
Stars on Banner: Space Wolves Grey with a central dot of Ice Blue
Drum Skin: *NO CHANGE*
I'm really pleased with the cloaks, not only have they turned out whiter than the cast of Midsomer Murders, but the flame pattern seems to have worked really well. The secret, I'm afraid is lots of layers of oranges and yellows, no quick tricks here.
Matt also finished the remaining Archers required to complete that unit, so here's his armed build up on the Libyan border as of February.
Just to clarify I'm not planning on invading Libya, bloody press always lie. But here is how the army's looking as of February:
In order to get the points right, February consists of the Hawkeye and Standard read my story exclusively in next week's Daily Tale for the Archer unit (42 points) and nine Phoenix Guard including Musician and Standard. So here are February's finished models:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2904.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2902.jpg)
Here's the army list:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2867.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2868.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2869.jpg)
And here's full army:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2922.jpg)
And the other headlines:
Private Jet owners anger at new tax. "It's going to affect every middle-class family in Britain", says Lord Hartlepool-Fontleroy-Piddlebottom-Brown-Netherburt-Cuddle-Wuddle. The Daily Tale blames the BBC.
Prince William and Kate Middleton Souvenir Condoms available with just 5 tokens, turn to Page 42 to get your first one.
ITV to commission new Titanic drama, viewers complain they already know the ending.
Asylum seekers steal one hour from your weekend. Clocks go forward as Poles demand they get the hour. Hate them and burn them the foreign scum they are raping your daughters.
As always a balanced view from the press there.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2998.jpg)
And now for Page 3, which has been kindly provided by our resident four year old artist:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2986.jpg)
Sadly she didn't understand why only women appear on Page 3, and also did this drawing:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2987.jpg)
Unfortunately Social Services have now taken the resident four year old artist into care. Oh dear.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2993.jpg)
Breaking News, Breaking News. It has emerged that Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves author Matt, also know as "Brick up the windows the spikey haired moron's back!" has not only painted February's High Elves but he's also painted March's section as well. Michael Madeupaloadofbollocksbecauseourreadersarestupidandwillbelieveanything is back on the scene:
Yep, this time the papers are correct. March's task was to paint Caradryan, Captain of the Phoenix Guard here's a full guide:
Stage 1 – Caradryan, Captain of the Phoenix Guard
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2398.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2400.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2406.jpg)
Base: Khemri Brown
Stone: Charadon Granite
Silver Metal: Chaimail
Outside of Cloak and Sleeves: 1:1 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Armour Trim and Decorative Cloth: 1:1 Enchanted Blue: Ice Blue
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Weapons Haft: Khemri Brown
Leather Straps: Scorched Brown
Hair: Snakebite Leather
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Stage 2 – Caradryan, Captain of the Phoenix Guard
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2510.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2515.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2514.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Stone: Drybrushed Adeptus Battlegrey
Silver Metal: Washed Badab Black
Outside of Cloak and Sleeves: Layered 5:7 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White* then 1:2 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White
Armour Trim and Decorative Cloth: Layered 1:3 Enchanted Blue: Ice Blue then pure Ice Blue
Gold Metal: Shining Gold
Weapons Haft: Layered 1:1 Khemri Brown: Graveyard Earth then pure Graveyard Earth
Leather Straps: Washed Badab Black
Hair: Layered Desert Yellow then 1:1 Desert Yellow: Bleached Bone
Flesh: Layered 1:1 Dwarf Flesh: Elf Flesh then pure Elf Flesh
*5:7 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White is 50% 1:1 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White mixed with 50% 1:2 Astronomacian Grey: Skull White!
Stage 3 – Caradryan, Captain of the Phoenix Guard
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2555.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2567.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2558.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Stone: Drybrushed Codex Grey
Silver Metal: Highlight Mithril Silver
Outside of Cloak and Sleeves: Layered watered down Skull White
Armour Trim and Decorative Cloth: Layered 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Gold Metal: Washed Gryphonne Sepia
Weapons Haft: Layered 1:1 Graveyard Earth : Bleached Bone then pure Bleached Bone
Leather Straps: Highlight Scorched Brown
Hair: Washed Gryphonne Sepia, then Devlan Mud in recesses only
Flesh: Washed Ogyrn Flesh
Stage 4 – Caradryan, Captain of the Phoenix Guard
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2907.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2913.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2914.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2916.jpg)
Base: Flocked with Glade Grass
Stone: Drybrushed Fortress Grey then washed Badab Black
Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Outside of Cloak and Sleeves: Highlighted Skull White
Armour Trim and Decorative Cloth: *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal: Highlighted 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver, then pure Mithril Silver
Weapons Haft: *NO CHANGE*
Leather Straps: *NO CHANGE*
Hair: Highlight strands with Bleached Bone, then tips with Skull White
Flesh: Highlighted 1:1 Elf Flesh : Bleached Bone, then pure Bleached Bone
I mounted Caradryan on a stone base from the Warhammer Basing Kit (pining him through the base) as this has the effect of making his base look more detailed and making him taller, as he comes in a little shorter than the other Phoenix Guard, because he's taken his helmet off!!
When assembling Caradryan, I ensured he'd rank up with the other Phoenix Guard before gluing him in place:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2930.jpg)
Unlike the newer Phoenix Guard models, there's no moulded flame pattern on Caradryan's cloak. So I painted the outline of one on using a Fine Detail brush and some Chaos Black, practicing the pattern on some newspaper in advance.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2632.jpg)
The pattern was then painted as on the Phoenix Guard with the following layers, moving upward: Skull White, Bad Moon Yellow, Sunburst Yellow, Golden Yellow, Fiery Orange, Blazing Orange, Blood Red.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2644.jpg)
So here's March's two models for the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2919.jpg)
The updated army list:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2990.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2991.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2992.jpg)
And the army as it stands now:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2926.jpg)
Unbelievable scenes here at Matt's painting table, because not only has he finished March, he's also painted a handful of other bits this week. We went to Tale of OG Gamers leader in chief Ol, who said: "Meh", before drinking another glass of red wine:
Yeah somehow lots got done this week as I also painted a handful of movement trays, the Banners for the two Beastmen units I painted back in January and I finally finished Malagor, the Dark Omen and Ghorros Warhoof from November last year:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2989.jpg)
I actually painted eight movement trays up, more details next week.
Malagor, the Dark Omen
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2939.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2943.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2944.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2948.jpg)
The base is from the Warhammer Basing Kit (like Caradryan, Malagor is pinned through the base), and I painted lava in the cracks stealing Lee's technique. I say stealing, he did put an excellent painting guide up for lava bases so what does he expect? Check it out here:
http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=160.0 (http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=160.0)
I've added snow to the base to match the rest of the Beastmen army, but thinned the snow closer to the lava. The idea being that Malagor has just opened a lava vent beneath his feet (seems something that suitably evil people do), and the snow is rapidly melting in the heat. Plus I think I score cheese points for having lava and snow on the same base!
Ghorros Warhoof
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2952.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2954.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2964.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2968.jpg)
The base is slate from the Warhammer Basing Kit, with a branch with skeleton growing out of it, which is actually a spare "arm" from the Dryad kit. Both Ghorros and Malagor had their arms pinned in place.
And finally the Beastmen Gor Banner:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2978.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2976.jpg)
And the Beastmen Bestigor Banner:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2970.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2973.jpg)
Make sure you check out next week's Daily Tale for a full pull out guide on painting banners and making movement trays, only here in the Daily Tale where we tell you that foreigners are bad.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2994.jpg)
And now it's your chance to win only with The Daily Tale as it's this month's What's In The Box competition, yes you can win the honour of your box being opened and nothing much more. Remember to play along you just need to send your box number 1-36 (not 3, 6, 14 or 25) on the back of a postcard to The Daily Tale, Biased Street, Made Up Trash Town, Injection of Despair into Society City, N0 4INER5
Or alternatively you can just post it below, make sure your entries are in by midday next Wednesday!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2996.jpg)
Travel is all about planning, for example I was planning to organise a trip to Edinburgh for this weekend, however fortunately I did some checking and found that the last train back to London on a Saturday was at 5.30pm (because we live in some third world backwater country apparently). So due to my planning, we realised this would not be possible and so we cancelled the trip. You see planning is very important, it's equally important if you're also the company running the transportation network as opposed to the traveller.
My journey into work is about to change, because as part of the Crossrail development Tottenham Court Road Underground station is going to be shut to Northern line trains from April the 2nd for seven months. Nothing funny in that sentence, especially as I commute on the Northern line to Tottenham Court Road. You see the problem is that for the last year there has been reduced escalator capacity at Tottenham Court Road station whilst the escalators are being refurbished. Now call me crazy, but wouldn't it have been more sensible to combine these works? With no Northern line the station would be around half as busy, and so closing half the escalators to replace them during this period, would have surely been sensible. No? Maybe I know nothing about escalator replacement. Or maybe I am planning genius, well by TfL's standards anyway?
Fortunately they have been planning for the Northern line not stopping at Tottenham Court Road, as someone has already place the little stickers with a big cross through Tottenham Court Road on all the maps on the Northern line carriages – nearly 4 weeks before the station has actually closed.
Now I'm not suggesting that to place all those stickers is a small undertaking, that can be done in one night, there must be what 20 maps per tube carriage, 10 carriages per train and around 100 trains on the Northern line. So that's 20,000 stickers to place, and anyone who has ever built LEGO surely knows the stickers are the most frustrating bit. But surely to have done the vast majority of the work nearly a month early is a bit keen isn't it? Is the sticker person on holiday for the next four weeks? Certainly this has led to confusion where announcements are playing out on the Underground announcing the closure of Tottenham Court Road to Northern line trains, along with announcements explaining that Tottenham Court Road is still open to Northern line trains and to ignore the stickers on the trains. It's all rather confusing so let me explain, Tottenham Court Road station is still open to Northern line trains, as long as you are reading this before April the 2nd – otherwise it's closed, unless of course you've gone back in the archive and are reading this after November 2011, in which case it's open, unless you're reading this at a point in the future where new engineering works are taking place in which case it may be closed. I'd get a bus to be honest.
I say that, but buses are no better, my regular bus trip to Wandsworth to play at the OG Games' Nights has had to change. In fairness to TfL I'm sure they didn't want Thames Water to replace the water main outside my house any more than I did. But it's happening. So as I am sensible I planned my journey, I went on the TfL website to see how my journey would be affected. Critically I wanted to know which stops my bus would no longer be able to stop at, and thus which stop would be best to get my bus from. What would have been helpful here would have been a map showing the new route, instead I'm simply presented with a list of roads the bus route now goes up – no map, no directions, just a list of roads. Cross-referencing these with an actual map of the original route, which is really easy to find on the TfL website I concluded, as best I could from the incomplete information available, that the bus would be leaving the original route about three stops (10 minutes walk) before my house and rejoining at Clapham Junction about six stops (30 minutes) after my house.
So this presented me with a decision, do I walk for 10 minutes or 30 minutes, obviously I plumped for the 10 minute walk. So imagine my surprise when after walking for 10 minutes, boarding my bus, and driving for 30 minutes on a wild goose chase around backstreets and the like, I then found the bus rejoined it's original route one stop from my house, or about 2 minutes walk. Brilliant. Hence I was unnecessarily 40 minutes late for my game with Lee, which put me in a hysterical mood (see below), and then caused me to come home and rant on this very blog about the metaphysical nature of falling down Beastmen herdstones. (As a side note, I need to say thanks to Ol for putting a herdstone on the Black Isle map for my Beastmen army after my discussions on tower building a few weeks ago – Ol you see has the common courtesy to update his maps, take note TfL!).
In fairness to TfL it's hard to update their maps, it's not as if their website already has software that allows it to plot routes on maps just by putting two postcodes in. Nor were the roadworks announced about three months ago. So it's not as if they had any time to update their maps. Anyway to give them a hand I've produced an updated map for TfL which hopefully will give them the message of the kind of thing I want:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2999.jpg)
This map is dedicated to you TfL, I hope you got the message, the subtle message!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2997.jpg)
And finally it's the sport news, as David Cameron led his Beastmen into battle against Lee's Empire army in order to conquer the Black Isle. Pre-match reports suggested that Matt was in a rather odd mood, he muttered something about the number 37 bus before deploying the unit he intended to place in ambush in the centre of his battleline. It didn't look like it was going to go well...
Cameron surveyed the battleline as his Beastmen prepared to attack the Empire. He was pleased he was able to deploy with his brand new hoard of Gors – 34 fighters known as Osbourne's Briefcase Carriers. He looked to his left pleased to see the other Gor unit, The Deficit Reducers, deployed. Then he remember they were supposed to be going into ambush to deal with The Empire artillery – the fools, they'd forgotten to go into ambush. Cameron knew the replacement of the Victorian Water Mains on Black Isle was going to be problematic. Still the hoard charged, bombarded by a spookily accurate mortar hidden behind a hill. The Empire's Pegasus rider drove forward charging the Harpies and forcing them to flee from the field and preventing them from dealing with the Empire's cannon. After much bombardment the Beastmen hoard readied for the charge. Chariots charged the Pegasus rider who fled. The Deficit Reducers fled from a well placed mortar shot, whilst Osbourne's Briefcase Carriers and the Minotaurs charged the two units of Militia who had been sent in as sacrifices. The Minotaurs butchered the Militia but were too busy feeding on their bodies to overrun into the nearby Archers. Cameron, was now a super powerful monster with a variety of augment spells coursing through his body. Then Osbourne's Briefcase Carriers felt the call of the wild as their Primal Fury sent them into a frenzied rage. Between them they butchered 14 of the 15 Militia, however now forced to pursue the fleeing runt they ended with their flank exposed to two large units of Spearmen and the Empire's General and Battle Standard Bearer. Cameron attempted to reboost his own Strength and Toughness in preparation for the fight. But he misjudged the power, energy flowed through his body as he forgot three of his spells. The spearmen charged in, Cameron despite his mental breakdown still retained the abilities of the augment spell, though they were rapidly dispersing and he couldn't remember how to recast them. He and Ed Milliband pushed to the flank to massacre Empire Spearmen. They bravely hacked the ranks limb for limb and would have drawn the combat were it not for the Griffon Standard which made them lose the combat by three. The Gors fled after some high break test rolls, and then preceeded to roll a Double 1 for their flee move. The Spearmen chopped up the Gors, Cameron and Ed. With that, half the Minotaurs dead from the Mortar and the remaining Gors still fleeing as they just refused to rally Cameron called it a day!
So despite going into this battle with a 300 point advantage, a whole 34 Gors of killing power extra, I still buggered it right up. Bloody stupid deployment, bloody miscasting Cameron, bloody fleeing Gors, bloody number 37 bus. I only challenged Lee, because he's usually not that good, instead he's started winning games now, when did they start? It's rude if you ask me.
So Cameron now has trench foot and can only move 4" a turn. Great. Though I did roll 50 gold, I've actually rolled less for a game I won – so I suppose that's good news.
Oh well fingers crossed for the next battle, who knows I may win. Hopefully I won't turn into the raging lunatic I became during this game, on which note that leaves me with one final thing to mention this week...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2995.jpg)
Goodbye to Matt's sanity. It will be sorely missed. Though few ever met it.
Until next week... coconuts on unicorns!
I feel slightly soiled by page 3!
Another cracker Matt, well done
As a small aside, not sure I have mentioned this before but I really don't like the phoenix guard helmets, they are just comically enormous.
oh and, box 11
Loving your work Matt, you've salvaged an already crappy day. :thumbsup:
My hats off to your artist, that was sexy, yet tasteful, you've made me so happy! :wink;m:: She's even included the inane comment about current affairs (cause obviously Pg 3 girls are there for their insightful opinions...). Your attention to detail is impressive.
Quote
Unfortunately Social Services have now taken the resident four year old artist into care. Oh dear
Those bastards..... :cool3:
Quote from: Meals on March 24, 2011, 10:13:14 am
Your attention to detail is impressive.
You mean the 4 year old's attention to detail!
Once again a fantastic read and combined with my rant has salvaged my grim mood of this morning following last nights violoation.
Cheers for the comments, glad I managed to cheer some people up!
Ritchie - you think you're soiled by Page 3, our poor resident 4-year old has come out of it a whole lot worse. Hopefully I can wrestle her back of social serivces too. I do have to disagree though, love the new Phoenix Guard models - think they are amazing, even if cloaks are a bugger to paint.
I should also say that Sarah and Ian, aren't just pretty faces, they are well known for their intellectual insights on a range of matters, so if you can please respect them for that. :wink;m::
Consistently great painting Matt (muttermutterevilstaremutter).
Look forward to bashing away at your beast tower on monday. Oo-er
Quote from: roland murat on March 27, 2011, 10:19:26 am
muttermutterevilstaremutter
For a minute, I thought this was the name of another journalist on the Daily Tale! Thanks for the compliment.
Quote from: roland murat on March 27, 2011, 10:19:26 am
Look forward to bashing away at your beast tower on monday. Oo-er
Well I have got another 300 points to play with, so I wouldn't be sure you can beat the Beasts (not that it made any difference in the last game!)
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 27, 2011, 10:39:49 am
Well I have got another 300 points to play with, so I wouldn't be sure you can beat the Beasts (not that it made any difference in the last game!)
Yes it did make a difference. There was more beats dead in the graveyard. (I'm not sure beats do bury their people) :cry:
Absolutely beautiful Phoenix Guard, and not a subtle hint about house prices in sight!
Quote from: Julien on March 27, 2011, 11:41:54 am
Yes it did make a difference. There was more beats dead in the graveyard. (I'm not sure beats do bury their people) :cry:
If Beastmen do bury their people the whole of The Black Isle is going to have be dug up and turned into a massive landfill/burial site - that's going to push up the Council Tax.
Quote from: Garzini on March 27, 2011, 01:28:26 pm
Absolutely beautiful Phoenix Guard, and not a subtle hint about house prices in sight!
Many thanks, much appreciated.
And whilst I have your attention, for those of you who think I just rant and moan without structure or form, I'd like to draw your attention to this amazing article by my good friend Charlie Brooker* who explains how to do it properly! http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/28/charlie-brooker-rebecca-black-friday (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/28/charlie-brooker-rebecca-black-friday)
*When I say "good friend", we've only met once, but we got on well(ish), we'd probably be friends if we met more often.
Well said Charlie, great article...
Sadly Brooker writing that in the Guardian is about as relevant as Michaelangelo painting the ceiling of McDonalds gents in Croydon. He really is preaching to the converted, I would love to find a way to call people to book over their comments they felt they could deliver through the medium of internet anonymity, those 'web warriors' utterly lacking spine!!
I know it is slightly ironic that I post this in the guise of an assumed name and an avatar that shows nothing more than the Yorkshire rose, but I think most of you know where to kind me if you disagree with one of my posts!!
Quote from: Veldemere on March 28, 2011, 03:20:40 pm
I know it is slightly ironic that I post this in the guise of an assumed name and an avatar that shows nothing more than the Yorkshire rose, but I think most of you know where to kind me if you disagree with one of my posts!!
Rolls sleeves up and sets off.... :cool3:
Quote from: Veldemere on March 28, 2011, 03:20:40 pm
He really is preaching to the converted.
It is true, but he does it with humour so I don't mind being reconverted!
Quote from: Veldemere on March 28, 2011, 03:20:40 pm
Sadly Brooker writing that in the Guardian is about as relevant as Michaelangelo painting the ceiling of McDonalds gents in Croydon.
You've been to the McDonald's in Croydon, nice aren't they! Did you have the birthday with a tour round the kitchen like me?
Wednesday 30th March - WEEK 13
I write this week's post from my death bed, yes I'm afraid I have the deadliest disease known to man (literally just man), not rubella, not dysentery, not even chicken pox but the virulent man flu. I'd say there's only at best a fifty-fifty chance I'll make it. So this could be my last post, I await your "With Deepest Sympathy" messages later.
Currently I'm surrounded by more tissues than a 13-year old boy who has just discovered the internet, with a headache that feels like someone has cracked me across the cranium with a well lubricated roller skate. However I have dosed up on all my medicine just in time to write this blog, medicine that I might add tastes like a cross between paint stripper and an emptied out elephant's colostomy bag, if anything's going to make you sick it's that.
Anyway before I leave this world and my remains are scattered on a custard pie and hurled at an innocent bystander (it's how all children's television professionals want to go) I best share with you the secret of banner painting* take it and pass it on, my legacy to the world:
*ok technically I revealed this secret about a year ago, but A) I'm ill and so am allowed a repeat, and B) I was less funny then!
These are the banners I painted in my epic finishing spree last week (yes March is already done people, in fact April's been started but more about that next week), in case you missed the breaking news in last week's Daly Tale bulletin, then not only did I paint my Phoenix Guard but I painted three banners, some movement trays, plus Malagor and Ghorros the Beastmen special characters. Incidentally if I have spent months painting some Special Characters, please don't tell me the rules for them are so rubbish that they're about as useful as a Snotling Assassin when you see me at the club. It's quite upsetting when a lot of effort has gone into them, besides who will be laughing in 14 years time when Warhammer Armies: Beastmen – 10th Edition comes out and they're as hard as nails, and I already have a nicely painted model? Ok, well we can all dream.
Anyway back to the point, here's last week's banners in case you missed them:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3025.jpg)
High Elf Archers
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2978.jpg)
Beastmen Gor (note this banner is actually from the Bestigor set, but I've used some green stuff to fill in the holes and make the banner slightly longer – I hate having all my banners look identical, especially on the more "ragtag" armies).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2970.jpg)
Beastmen Bestigor
They may seem familiar, that's because they are copies of Games Workshop's own banners, (as featured on page 76 of the current High Elf book and 69 and 73 of the Beastmen book), and here's how I stole their intellectual property – I mean paid homage to their great work (in case their lawyers are reading!).
Firstly it is infinitely easier if you can save attaching your banner to the end so you can work on a flat surface. It is possible if attached, but I'd advise mounting the model in a large lump of white/blue/any colour-tac (no racism here) so the banner is as flat as possible. Then paint the banner your usual base colours (i.e. whatever "Stage 1" would be for the colours you've chosen), so for the High Elf Banner I have painted the banner 1:1 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White and the gold parts Tin Bitz.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2653.jpg)
Then photocopy yourself a picture of the banner you want to copy (unless you don't mind damaging the original picture), with the exception of group army shots or battlefield photos most Games Workshop photos are at approximately 1:1 scale, so you should have a good choice. But I would strongly recommend working at 1:1 scale (I've tried enlarging/shrinking images before and it went a bit wibbly!).
On the photocopy then draw a set of gridlines, breaking the image into 1cm by 1cm squares, it is helpful to make sure the centremost horizontal and centremost vertical line cross in the centre of the image. This may seem obvious but if you start your grid squares at the edge of the image rather than the centre it may not be the case, and you'll find it much easier for positioning the design in the centre of the banner. At the risk of sounding like a disenfranchised school master, a ruler really is essential for this.
Once that's done your original image should look like these examples:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2726.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2720.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2725.jpg)
Next you need to copy the same grid pattern to your banner, again start with the centre point, making sure it is central on the banner so that your image doesn't drift off the edge of the banner. I find it easiest to mark out dots for all the intersection points using a ruler and a colour of paint that will not feature on your finished banner (certainly different to the colour you choose to outline your banner design in):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2675.jpg)
Incidentally that property in Brick Lane, EC2 has now gone – thanks for your interest.
With that done you can then join the dots with straight lines, as best as any alcohol problem you may have will allow – generally banners are too lumpy to actually use a ruler on!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2727.jpg)
As you can see by making sure the central cross is in roughly the same place during your marking out, your banner design should end up centrally placed.
Next using your outline colour, often Chaos Black, but this will not be the case on dark banners, copy the image across square by square. It helps to concentrate on one square at a time, and start by noting the point each line crosses the gridlines, and then try and copy the shape – rather than trying to copy the shape, and then drag it to cross the gridlines at the right point (if that makes sense) as it will end up a mess!
After a few squares it will look like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2738.jpg)
Don't worry too much about errors, as you'll be repainting on both sides of the line, so feel to redraw the line if it goes a bit askew as I have done. Importantly although you are working square by square make sure your lines cross the gridlines, else your pattern will have holes in it when you remove the gridlines! The trickiest part will be any self-contained lines that do not cross any gridlines, there aren't any here, but if I'd been unlucky with the positioning of the gridlines I may have had an eye completely in one square. In this case try to pay attention to each line's closest approach to other lines as this will give you a reference to hopefully locate the line without giving your beast skull wonky eyes!
Once the whole image is copied across hopefully your banner will look at least as good as (hopefully even better than) these:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2759.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2775.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2770.jpg)
You'll notice there are rogue error lines here, don't worry they'll get tidied away. Once you are sure you are happy with your design (you really don't want to be redrawing gridlines) paint the design with the base colour of each section (painting out the gridlines, but leaving the outline showing), for example:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2785.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2798.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2788.jpg)
You'll notice for the unicorn on the High Elf banner, the main body of the unicorn is the same colour as the background of the banner.
Again check you're happy, then paint out the remaining gridlines using the base colour for your banner background:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2818.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2812.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2805.jpg)
And there you go, you've actually done the hardest part now. All you need to do is highlight the whole banner (including design) as you would for any other part of the model.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2824.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2828.jpg)
In the case of the Beastmen banners I've washed the red with Devlan Mud and lightened the Brown field with the next lighter Brown – Beastial Brown and Kommando Khaki respectively.
Once finished your banners will hopefully look something like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2845.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2833.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2837.jpg)
A couple of important points to remember when highlighting – firstly remember to do the back of the banner! Bare in mind, provided your battle is going well, you are likely to spend the majority of the game looking at the reverse sides of your banner – and your view is most important! There may not be a design on the back, but it is worth making sure the cloth is highlighted properly. Secondly your highlighting, both of the background cloth and design, should reflect the folds in the banner, so obviously parts of the banner folded away from you should be darker, and conversely those folding towards you should be lighter.
And hey presto you should have some lovely banners, which look a bit like Games Workshop's counterparts:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2853.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2863.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2859.jpg)
Then all you need to do is mount them on your standard banner and you should have a standard bearer that your opponents are envious off. In fact you don't have to copy Games Workshop banners, you can copy your own designs from paper to banner using exactly the same technique – such as I have done in this alternate banner for my archers:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2857.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3019.jpg)
Which one should I actually glue to the standard bearer? Hmmm!
It's actually a lot easier than it looks, I promise! Here are some other examples from my armies to get you inspired*:
*these may be familiar to those who read the last tutorial I did for this!
Another Beastmen Gor banner (well you can never have enough Gors):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Beastnen%20Banners/BeastmenBanners007.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Beastnen%20Banners/BeastmenBanners048.jpg)
This banner is taken from Warhammer Armies: Beastmen
A Beastmen Ungor banner:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners019.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Beastnen%20Banners/BeastmenBanners044.jpg)
Again this banner is from Warhammer Armies: Beastmen. This was a little trickier as I had cut a plastic banner to fit on an old metal banner bearer and as such had to glue/green stuff banner to model before painting.
Tiranoc Chariot:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners001.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners013.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners015.jpg)
This banner is from Warhammer Armies: High Elves (current edition), note because both sides of this banner need a design I simply placed the original photocopy next to a mirror to reverse it. This also a good opportunity for re-spiking your hair I've found, you may or may not find that as useful an opportunity as me.
Chaos Warriors:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners004.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners012.jpg)
This banner is taken from Warhammer Armies: Hordes of Chaos (6th edition) – the 6th edition books feature pages of line drawn banners, which are really simple to copy as your photocopy will appear that much clearer than a full colour banner.
Chaos Marauders:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners003.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners007.jpg)
Again taken from Warhammer Armies: Hordes of Chaos (6th edition), in this case there wasn't room for the full design, so to help I coloured over the parts of the design I wanted to copy on the original so as to avoid confusion.
Chaos Knights:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners005.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners008.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/OtherBanners010.jpg)
Again taken from Warhammer Armies: Hordes of Chaos (6th edition), highly curved banners can prove tricky. If the curve isn't too intense and the image you're drawing is an irregular shape, like a skull, or small images then copying the pattern as detailed above will probably look ok. If however the design contains lots of straight lines or geometric shapes you'll find that if they aren't distorted they will give away the fact the image isn't curved as well.
In the case of the Chaos Knights banner above, the best technique I've found is that when you draw the gridlines on the banner, keep the horizontal lines the same as normal, but draw the vertical ones so they are parallel with the way the vertical edge of the banner curves (obviously this swaps around if your banner is more curved in the horizontal plane). So you will have a distorted set of gridlines. Then as you copy your banner across from your straight set of gridlines, to your distorted ones, as long as you keep the intersections between the outline and the gridlines the same, the image will be curved in the same way as the banner.
Hope that proves helpful, and it can easily be applied to cloaks, shields, hulls of tanks or even tattooing the cat – though I can't say I approve of that.
If you do have a go, why not post your photos here? We can even look at them whilst listening to this music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om2HbDzZOWA&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om2HbDzZOWA&feature=related)
I'm afraid that's me done for this week, sorry but man flu is about as painful as reading through this blog. Next week, provided I'm alive, we'll have movement tray making, the last update from The Black Isle and the most depressing question in the universe. Plus I hopefully will be able to announce some important news later this week, so keep your eyes peeled! Oh and don't forget it's Mothering Sunday on Sunday – you're mum won't have (is that the rush of hundreds* of readers hurrying to Moonpig.com I hear?).
* when I say hundreds I mean about three, but I love you all dearly!!
And before I go, I should say Happy Birthday to Lee for tomorrow, if the plague has lifted I will head along for the Arena of Death (I know I haven't declared myself in, or chosen a character, but I should imagine whatever I take won't trouble the eventual winner!), if the plague hasn't lifted I will be heading for just general Death. Many Happy Returns, and I'm not specifically singling out your birthday because mine is a week tomorrow and am hoping for many nice messages – honest. Though I have just noticed that according to the forum, you're only turning 24, twenty-four, twenty-f***king four (no I'm not angry with Kiefer Sutherland). That's depressing, I have things at the back of my fridge older than you. I was 24 ages ago, it was such a long time ago that people actually had money then, it was time when it was alright to hate Jade Goody, Kate Thornton was awkwardly trying to control the X Factor judges like a failing supply teacher, and Army Books cost less than their weight in gold. What happened to my twenties? Supposedly the best years of your life? Mine were s**t, who can I write to, I want to get a refund?
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 30, 2011, 10:33:26 pm
What happened to my twenties? Supposedly the best years of your life? Mine were s**t, who can I write to, I want to get a refund?
I can't even remember my twenties.... :bash;m:
Hope you recover buddy, I only just made it myself (think I should set up a survivors group)...
Quote from: fatolaf on March 31, 2011, 12:21:47 pm
I can't even remember my twenties.... :bash;m:
Surely that was because of the alcohol?
Quote from: fatolaf on March 31, 2011, 12:21:47 pm
Hope you recover buddy, I only just made it myself (think I should set up a survivors group)...
Yeah, we can give councilling for others suffering the same trauma. Let's do it!
As the plague lifted enough to see you tonight for the Bday arena?
Quote from: fatolaf on March 31, 2011, 01:33:36 pm
As the plague lifted enough to see you tonight for the Bday arena?
I'm afraid not, :cry: have a wicked time all!
Friday 1st April - WEEK 13 Update
So they often say that bad news is accompanied by good news, that is unless you watch Sky News in which case bad news is accompanied by bad news, more bad news, some breaking bad news, the weather, a commercial break and a trailer for upcoming bad news featuring tasteless clips of current bad news. I digress. Anyway the point is bad news is often accompanied by good news (and vice versa) simply because most things have advantages and disadvantages.
And this is the case with the news I have to update you with now, as so often in my life a random thing occurred late last week. I was contacted by Games Workshop, it turns out they've seen a little bit of this forum (who knew they are interested in what customers think!) and specifically this blog – I know what you're thinking legal action is certain to follow. But no, you'd be wrong. In fact they quite like what they saw, well we often say they are crazy! And have asked if I would like to participate in a new venture on their website called "Da Real Boyz" – I know, I didn't choose the name! In this feature a selection of semi-regular "columnists", for want of a better word, will tell the stories and exploits behind their attempts to build and paint a brand new army. The idea being that unlike the painting robots of Games Workshop who manage to paint a new army within about a day of it being released, this group of people will reflect real hobbyists in having to balance painting tasks with day-to-day life and consequently falling behind in their schedules and things changing/breaking etc.
Apparently they like, and I quote, "the bizarre comic sensibility and randomness of your blog, that make it a unique if somewhat unpredictable read" – although their legal department have given me a few key pointers of topics to avoid, apparently they're not too keen for me to mention things like Caron Keating, horses' arses and the Catholic Church. No I shall never be censored, actually I will, because I said yes.
As you can imagine I'm quite excited about this, I know it's hard to actually imagine me being quite excited and not grumpy, but it does happen from time-to-time. My new blog will be starting in mid-May and will feature my attempts to build up a Bretonnian army (just in time for the new book, which apparently is coming sometime soon, though the bu**ers won't tell me when!), so you can definitely expect some Shakeaway Heraldry to be hitting the Games Workshop website soon. Sorry I haven't been able to say anything sooner, but it's all been under wraps whilst the details are finalised, usual legal bulls**t – oh apparently won't be able to swear either.
As I said, at the beginning of this post, with good news comes bad news, and this is no exception. Games Workshop have insisted that I need to stop doing this regular blog by the end of April as they don't really want me having one blog they can't control and one they can in case the two become connected. Probably many of you will be relieved that you won't have to read this any more, to those of you I will disappoint you by saying I can still participate on this forum and of course come to club nights to moan at you in person, just no more Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves. Sorry I do feel like a bit of a sell out, especially to you Ol, but it was a good opportunity I had to take. To make it up to you I will attempt to finish the 2,000 point army this month, no social life for me (nothing to do with the painting, that's just standard).
And I should say thank you to all of you have taken the (not inconsiderable amount of) time to read this blog, and especially to those of you who have replied. All the feedback has been much appreciated, and the comments are a dream to bounce off, and I've loved the fact that you've taken the craziness to heart, who'd have thought entering a competition to win nothing where your entry is picked by a house plant would be so popular? And apparently this is now both the most viewed and most replied to thread on the forum, and that's down to you (there's only so much clicking I can do), so a genuine massive thanks from me – it really, really, really has been appreciated (sorry I don't do sincere well).
That's it from me today, but of course I'll try and blog all the usual ramblings, maybe with a bit of painting, next week! Until then!
splitter...
Oh and congrats on your journalistic exploits attracting the attention of the ivory tower.
11 minutes in, didn't take you long Matt! Love it.
Matt, you almost had me until you said the stuff about GW being interested in what it's customers think... :wink;m:: :thumbsup:
Most of you treated this post with the contempt it deserved, but for final clarification, yes it was utter arse gravy! Hope you heard some better pranks today!
Both Fools done so far were Brett orientated as well....
And well done to Dave for falling for it, tut tut
I quite like the one on the Games Workshop website, obvious, but a good amount of effort's gone into it! Plus the one in today's Metro which suggested the newspaper would be ediable from next month (sadly not brave enough to put from today's edition - presumably worried someone might sue if they ate it!).
Quote from: StarDragonFTW on April 01, 2011, 02:08:34 pm
And well done to Dave for falling for it, tut tut
Oops, silly me.
Quote from: Dave on April 04, 2011, 05:51:30 pm
Oops, silly me.
But bless you for believing I could be successful! :thumbsup:
Just found this article:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/4849238/Surprising-discovery-in-research-addiction
"Seeing a milkshake can activate the same areas of the brain that light up when an addict sees cocaine, American researchers say."
This explains alot...
before you know it those crazy kids will be freebasing Angel Delight
I think Matt (the student) tried that once :endit:
They had to do research to find this out?! Isn't obvious? I could tell them that when you see chocolate your brain goes "mmmmmmmm"!!
So based on there research this should make you hungry...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3019.jpg)
I'm off for a milkshake! :))
Wednesday 6th April - WEEK 14 Hearty celebrations, yes as I'm sure you are aware today is the start of a new tax year, how excited are you? Yeah, you can fill up a brand new ISA and do lots of other things... probably... yeah. Horray for the tax year and of course it means April Fool's sillyness is out of the way for another year, did anyone catch you out? TfL did a great one where they claimed there was a "Good Service" on all London Underground lines. How I laughed.
Avid readers will remember that last week I commented on Lee's birthday or more specifically the fact that Lee was turning 24:
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 30, 2011, 10:33:26 pm
That's depressing, I have things at the back of my fridge older than you. I was 24 ages ago, it was such a long time ago that people actually had money then, it was time when it was alright to hate Jade Goody, Kate Thornton was awkwardly trying to control the X Factor judges like a failing supply teacher, and Army Books cost less than their weight in gold.
I mention this vitriolic rant again, because on Monday at the club, after a very successful outing for the Beastmen, (and by "very successful" I mean utterly disastrous) I engaged in conversation about the topic with Ol (and by "conversation" I mean abuse forum). The conversation centred on my actual age, and whether that qualifies me to moan about being old. After revealing my genuine age to Ol, he scoffed loudly before saying "In you head maybe, go on what's your real age?", this is always a comforting reaction to admitting your age, in that sort of way that having an armed squad from the KGB smash in your windows and hold you at gun point is comforting.
To avoid you having to guess or write on the forum and ask what my real age is I can tell you now, no it's not 21, but I'm in fact 28... well 29 tomorrow, hence the reason I feel this conversation is specifically pertinent. As I get towards the age where the London Fire Brigade need to be called to put out the candles on my cake, I'm forced to question at what point am I old, and at what point is it ok to moan about being old? Is 29 old? It would be old for a cat but young for an octogenarian so I guess like all things it's relative.
Which brings me to the next point Ol, being the other side of 30 than me, claims I have no right to moan about being old? Really? But what about a 40 year old, surely they would say the same to thing Ol if he moaned about being old, and extending this logic surely the only person allowed to moan would be the oldest person alive, as they bore the second oldest person alive with statements beginning "You think you're old...". But surely if you follow my logic a two-year old can moan at a one-year old about how young they are, which to be honest I don't mind if it's done with appropriate wit and comic flare. Though in fairness my line from last week...
Quote from: cunningmatt on March 30, 2011, 10:33:26 pm
Though I have just noticed that according to the forum, you're only turning 24, twenty-four, twenty-f***king four.
...probably isn't my finest example of blistering wit.
Clearly neither of the extremities I have detailed above are any more correct that the fact that Kerry Katona's allowed to breed and she hasn't been chemically sterilised for the good of the gene pool. So what age is it ok to moan about being old? To add to the evidence only a few weeks ago I was telling a friend who'd just turned 23 to "shut up" after they moaned about being old. If that's the case what gives me the right a mere six years later to do the same?
Well in fairness I think there's one very good reasons why the mid-twenties (and by that I mean late-twenties, thank you), are the time to start moaning about your age. Because this is the first time in your life you start to realise your not the youngest any more, ok fair enough clearly people in there thirties are older, but you realise you are at the top of a slippery slope, thirties are your inevitable destiny, just as forties are the destiny of those in there thirties and there's nothing anyone can do about it. You see between 18 and 25 you can claim your young, because no one's younger than you. Of course there are children, but there have always been children, and you're used to children being younger than you from school. In school children are segregated entirely by age, and there was an advantage to be older, as older kids got to beat up younger kids/be their form representative (dependent on whether you were state or private educated). No the late twenties are the first time there are genuine adults younger than you, and not even ones you can excuse away with the fact they are at university so there still kids really. I have two 25 year old people working in my office (who nominally I'm in charge of, though they have other ideas), they've been to uni, and whilst I think of them as kids, they're proper genuine adults and they are clearly younger than me! This has never happened before, people younger than me have always been children.
Secondly you spend the first twenty years of your life believing your body will never age, the most traumatic thing to drop out of your body are your teeth and your testis (but you get a new set of at least one of these). Now hair's starting to fall out, except for my nose which is now sprouting hair so fast a team of landscape gardeners needs to be called in. Additionally I'm coming to the inescapable conclusion that my face is slowly starting to slide down my head, there seems to be a build up of excess skin around the chin area, at this rate by the time I'm fifty my face will look like my scrotum.
And then there's my health and physical fitness, gone are the days where I can eat what I want, I'm not saying I'm obese by any means but my body is no longer able to hide three days of junk food without worrying. Now a pizza binge manifests itself so that under poor lighting I look like I could be a few months pregnant. And as for exercise, it becomes that much harder for that much less reward, gone are the days where a quick jog around the Common started the day and got me off to a bouncy start. Now running for the Tube makes me more breathless than an asthmatic in the vacuum of space.
There's also the worry about things you can't do any more, as a child getting older meant there were more things you can do drinking, driving, lottery, buying !@%$#%@ without the need for a step ladder. The only things you stopped being able to do was go to the under 8s ballet class, and then that was alright because you got to go the 9-12 year olds ballet class. As you get to the late twenties, you're simply not allowed to do things any more, I'm questioning whether I should go on an 18-30 holiday now before it's too late. Yet the concept of an 18-30 holiday utterly despises me, but what if on the day I turn 31 I suddenly decide that I really want to vomit all over beautiful areas of the Mediterranean, hang my undergarments off a lamppost and have more fun with bubbles than Michael Jackson ever did at a foam party?
So you see I admit that 29 is not that old in the grand scheme of things, but it's part of that crucial age where nature finally reminds you that you are going to be old. As superhuman and as invincible as you may have seemed during childhood, 25-30 is the age at which your body starts to rebel, at which the signs of age start to show you that soon you will look like Colonel Gadaffi's stunt double. You may not be old yet, but you're no longer young and no matter what you thought, your body is deserting you, it won't be long before when you stand up your knees make a sound like an old dial-up modem connecting to the internet. Or put another way 25-30 is the age where getting older starts turning s**t, under 25 and there's usually a bonus to getting old, over 30 and you're life is already s**t so you shouldn't be surprised, you now know it's s**t and then you die!
So there you go, enjoy your gaming tomorrow, I for one will be sat at home alone, crying into a large tub of Ben & Jerry's with a candle in, because I've dropped the spoon on the floor and my stiff old back won't let me bend down and pick it up.
What's In The Box? I'm afraid that to follow that depressing statement I have some further bad news... it's Cheryl... I'm afraid she's finally passed from this world unto the next...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3087.jpg)
As befits her status she has been given a proper burial...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3086.jpg)
I don't know how we will all go on, I really don't. As a mark of respect we'll have a minute's punching toilet assistants. Sad as this is, this does bring me onto an important question of who will be the independent adjudicator in last week's* What's In The Box? Well this actually solved by the fact we only had one entrant, so I think even I can independently draw that. Congratulations Ritchie you've won the most hollow victory ever, in that you haven't won anything and you only won nothing by default. Still it's a bigger thrill than Lotto.
Here was the state of the boxes before Ritchie's pick.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3049.jpg)
And has he picked box 11 , let's take a look inside.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3055.jpg)
Not sure it's that exciting... it's a box of classic plastic Orcs & Goblins:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3057.jpg)
There's 30 Goblin Spearmen (from Warhammer 4th edition), with a variety of shields some even attached to them:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3061.jpg)
18 Orc Arrer Boyz (as they were called at the time), I believe some of these could have potentially been from the Warhammer Quest game:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3065.jpg)
28 Night Goblin Archers, again from 4th edition Warhammer:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3067.jpg)
10 Black Orc Warriors (classics yes, but nowhere near as good as their present day models):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3073.jpg)
23 Orc Warriors (again Warhammer Quest had a hand here):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3076.jpg)
You may have noticed a few odd painted Orcs there, yes these were some of my very, very first attempts at painting:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3077.jpg)
It appears I didn't have many colours back then, but I think you'll agree the basing is some of my finest work.
*Two weeks ago, as I forgot about the draw last week.High Elves Apparently this blog is about High Elves, I hide it well, but I should give you an update as to where I am with them.
Firstly I neglected to say last month, that I have reached the elusive 1,400 points mark, which back way back when, when the rules were formulated is the next value at which my army should be "legal", and the point where the next round of games takes place. So if anyone Tale of OG Gamers or otherwise (I suspect otherwise), fancies taking on my High Elves (and winning) for a battle report on this very blog, do please get in touch.
"But Matt, what are you painting up this month for your High Elves?" I hear you cry, metaphorically of course, unless you've broken into my house again. Please stop doing that. With just 600 points left I think it's time for some "cool stuff", an ironic phrase which when used to describe miniatures instantly makes you "uncool", but there we go. High Elves certainly aren't short of "cool stuff", and now my army is finally big enough to support it I've decided to paint up the Lord and Griffon from The Island of Blood. Weighing in at whopping 350 points, without equipment, he's going to be a two month project and as both rider and Griffon are one model, I can't conveniently split the painting so you'll have to bare with.
I started by assembling and getting the ever present friend of green stuff out to fill up gaps between wings and body halves:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3046.jpg)
With the whole model supported above the base by an extra tall flying stand (they've gone crazy as it's all plastic), I had a full 50mm x 50mm base to decorate so I added a line of rocks from the Warhammer Basing Kit. I've nearly used all the large slate pieces so mixed in a few medium ones too, and at one end of the line I places a small Elven tower* spare from the Dragon kit – I had intended to use this on one of my Great Eagles, but given their lower position on the base there was nowhere I could glue without looking like the eagle was about to fly into it!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3043.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3044.jpg)
And with the Lord on Griffon weighing in at 350 points, this left me 50 points over the course of the two months** to spend, and so I have already this month painted up four Lothern Sea Guard to add to Smoggy's Sea Guard, taking the total to eighteen:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3092.jpg)
And, no these four were absolutely not painted at the same time as the original fourteen, I was very good and painted them quickly this month, honest! I used the same technique described way back on Page 1 and 2 of this blog – ahh happier times, before I became and embittered ranter.
Sadly all I've done to the Lord on Griffon is spray him with Chaos Black, but hopefully some more will be done by next week.
*is it a tower? It doesn't seem big enough, a baby monument? Turret? Phallic erection? Get in touch if you know the technical term!**To clarify I'm pooling April and May to get my Lord painted, and thus have 400 points to paint. Black Isle So the final battles have been fought and the Black Isle lies in the hands of the Beastmen, if by that you mean the army to have the most casualties on the isle that's probably true, otherwise almost certainly it's a lie. The final standings are that I came second... from bottom, still that's probably a better position than Clegg will get at the next election, so I should take some comfort from that.
My final battle was last week against Mike's Warriors of Chaos, he was assaulting my tower. Given I had already managed to win a hold the tower game, and I still had 300 points extra in this game, what could possibly go wrong?
Beastlord Clegg heard the warning call come out from the Beastmen's only watch tower. He felt confident he could crush all onlookers, he was ruler of this half of the Beastmen and he had earned that position rising through the ranks crushing all who stood before him. It wasn't as if he got the job after his dad pulled a few strings, no not at all. Though he remembered he should probably speak to his uncle, as he apparently he was able to get a new set of those iHorns you could buy, and he'd be able to get one on a nudge and a wink.
The Beastmen surged towards the tower accompanied by their reinforcements, a new unit of Harpies and three more Minotaurs accompanying V, A and T. The Chaos Warriors charged the tower hacking and slashing wiping out most of the Beastmen Gor in the tower, they refused to flee but they wouldn't hold out much longer. The Beastmen headed as fast as their hooves could carry them but couldn't reach their targets.
Then the might of the Warriors of Chaos charged, a unit of Wariors hit the flank of the Bestigor led by David Milliband and Cable, the large Tzeentch unit redoubled their attack on the tower and the Chaos Knights smacked into the Minotaurs. The Tzeentch Warriors slaughtered every single Gor in the tower and claimed their prize. However the Beastmen on foot fared better with David Milliband slaughtering the Chaos Warrior Champion, the Bestigor holding the flank charge and reforming to face the foe. The Minotaurs slaughtered every one of the Chaos Knights with only minimal losses.
Clegg countered the forces of Chaos by sending his Minotaurs into the flank of the Warriors of Chaos unit locked with the Beastmen, whilst the Harpies saw off one of the units of Marauder Horsemen. With the Champion dead the Chaos Sorcerer had to challenge and the Minotaur Champion stepped up and slaughtered him. The combined weight of the Bestigors and the Minotaurs was too much for the Warriors as only two survived and they fled, however they were able to pick out Bray Shaman Cable killing him with their attacks. "Pah" thought Clegg, Cable's Lore of the Wild was crap anyway.
The Warriors of Chaos consolidated their position as the Beastmen pushed for the attack the Bestigor charged the tower, but the Tzeentch Warriors in the tower (buffed by their Warshrine) slaughtered three quarters of them before they fought and the Bestigor were pushed back. Meanwhile the Harpies dealt with the other Marauder Horseman unit.
The Minotaurs then charged the tower but were all slaughtered before they could even strike a blow. So Clegg led his Gors in on the charge, all bar him were slaughtered and he was unable to shift the Warriors. Then the Warshrine charged Clegg, his magical axe gave him amazing strength against the Warshrine, but it's mystic aura simply shrugged of the attacks.
As the sun set the Warriors held the tower with most of the Beastmen dead at its feet. Clegg still furiously trying to smash the Warshrine.
So another loss to add to the selection of losses, in fairness Chaos Warriors (buffed up with a Warshrine) are bloody difficult to shift from a tower and there was nothing I could do to stop them getting in there in the first place. I thought my army performed well at close combat on the ground (we'll forget the fact I had an extra 300 points to play with and say it's down to my skill), the Minotaurs and Bestigor making short work of Chaos Warriors and Knights. And my Harpies, who I almost exclusively use for dealing with war machines drove off two units of fast cavalry – two attacks and a mighty initiative five means they're quite good this and I will have to get them to perform this role more often. Thanks to Mike for a good game, and catching completely off guard with the comment "Had any good rants today?" I forget people actually read this and form an opinion on me based upon it.
Congratulations to Andrew for winning the whole campaign, despite me stealing a load of his gold, thanks to Tom C for doing even worse than I did so I didn't look so bad! And a massive thanks to Ol for organising and running, it was thoroughly enjoyable and I look forward to the next one.
Over the course of the ten battles I've learnt some important lessons which I'll share with you now:
1) You can win with Beastmen, I actually won two whole games – my first two Beastmen wins ever (incidentally I already knew you can lose with Beastmen).
2) Lore of the Wild really is piss poor, I was hoping I could prove the doubters wrong by using it in defiance of their objections, but it really is about as useful as Lauren Laverne on 10 o'Clock Live (bless her she seems lovely though). However the spell that makes everyone's steeds attack the riders does concern Bretonnian players, but I'm pretty sure that's not sufficiently redeeming.
3) If you do win, roll high for the gold total, extremely poor rolls for my wins really didn't help. In one case I rolled more for a loss than a win.
4) Never name your characters after unpopular public figures as it tends to make people want to kill them. 14 injuries, it's like the season finale of ER. Next time I'm going to name them after more popular people like Hitler and Pol Pot.
5) Lee isn't as easy to beat as I'd hoped, he's lead me into false security with his poor artillery dice rolls over the years!
With the Black Isle in the hands of despised humans who worship Chaos, Great Bray Shaman Cameron gathered the remains of his army to return back to the Old World. The expedition had been a complete disaster, his best Minotaurs lay dead, he'd lost more Beastmen chariots than he'd shut down libraries in his lifetime. On the plus side the recent rise in inheritance tax coupled with the death of so many Gors should boost the coffers. He was confident he'd be able to push the blame onto Beastlord Clegg, especially now he'd thrown him overboard, it was his own fault – he just wouldn't shut up about the Single Transferable Vote for the whole wretched campaign.And that's pretty much it for this week, I'd tell you what I plan to do next week but whenever I do it always seems to change. It probably will involve the new Tomb Kings which yes it would have been topical to talk about today, but I didn't have enough time to think of anything funny to say. I'm off to eat cake and wait by the letterbox for cards.
Oh and remember please let me know if you want to take on the 1,400 points of High Elves (sadly I can't make next week, but like piles I will return – although that is the only similarity between myself and piles I should point out).
I do like pictures of drinks on banners, my dwarfs have a pint of guiness on the bsb's flag! And I have been known to imbibe the odd pint whilst playing.
Still loving the colour choice for these guys and love the way you approach banners, I usually can't be bothered shading them down much so usually chop off the flag bits and just stick totem things on instead as they're far easier to paint. :blush:
As for addition to milkshakes I own a blender, a freezer and a fruit bowl. I may or may not have a slight addiction to banana and vanilla ice cream milkshakes. And might I also recommend blending aero bars into vanilla ice cream, Mmmm I'm off for my next hit.
Quote from: Dave on April 06, 2011, 10:14:31 pm
I usually can't be bothered shading them down much so usually chop off the flag bits and just stick totem things on instead as they're far easier to paint. :blush:
I know what you mean totems are a lot bloody easier to paint, I tend to use that option on my Warriors of Chaos builds quite a lot!
Quote from: Dave on April 06, 2011, 10:14:31 pm
As for addition to milkshakes I own a blender, a freezer and a fruit bowl. I may or may not have a slight addiction to banana and vanilla ice cream milkshakes. And might I also recommend blending aero bars into vanilla ice cream, Mmmm I'm off for my next hit.
Mmmmmm, good choice, can I recommend blending Smarties into vanilla ice cream, not only does it taste nice but it leaves colour trails in the ice cream which look cool.
Look at all these receipes, we've gone all Delia!
ahh, the old 4th edition gobbos with the horrible pointed sticks! I'm pretty certain that most people who played back then have a story about getting them stuck in their hand!
Quote5) Lee isn't as easy to beat as I'd hoped, he's lead me into false security with his poor artillery dice rolls over the years!
Don't believe the hype, it's just the fact that I seem to have a negative effect on opponents dice!
Quote from: maelzch on April 06, 2011, 11:38:16 pm
ahh, the old 4th edition gobbos with the horrible pointed sticks! I'm pretty certain that most people who played back then have a story about getting them stuck in their hand!
Feet I always found, but then I am rather odd!
Quote from: maelzch on April 06, 2011, 11:38:16 pm
Don't believe the hype, it's just the fact that I seem to have a negative effect on opponents dice!
In fairness I can't remember if my dice were particularly bad against you, but then I was hysterical during the game, all I remember is your cannon and mortar misfire far less than your Hellcannon ever did - damn Emprie engineering! :bash;m:
Happy birthday and welcome to 29. As a spritely 31 year old I can say it's made feck all difference to me, over the last few years, except for the gradual creep of my weight that you've begun to experience.
Happy birthday, I have been 29 for some time now and am starting to get used to it, although it still hurts.
I am so happy that I won the what's in the box, I will take any victory at the moment, for some reason hollow ones seem to feel even more fitting.
Happy birthday Matt.
Only recently found this plog.
Great painting on the High Elves, cant wait to see your Lord in the coming monthes.
Quote from: Dave on April 07, 2011, 07:17:24 am
Happy birthday and welcome to 29. As a spritely 31 year old I can say it's made feck all difference to me, over the last few years, except for the gradual creep of my weight that you've begun to experience.
Cheers mate, though I've got enough problems with my own weight without yours creeping all over me!
Quote from: Veldemere on April 07, 2011, 08:27:22 am
Happy birthday, I have been 29 for some time now and am starting to get used to it, although it still hurts.
I am so happy that I won the what's in the box, I will take any victory at the moment, for some reason hollow ones seem to feel even more fitting.
Cheers Ritchie, congratulations hope you were pleased with your box choice.
Quote from: StarDragonFTW on April 07, 2011, 09:24:31 am
Happy birthday Matt.
Only recently found this plog.
Cheers mate, please turn to page 5 to download the form to claim back the time wasted reading the forum.
Quote from: cunningmatt on April 07, 2011, 12:52:05 pm
Cheers mate, though I've got enough problems with my own weight without yours creeping all over me!
Cheers Ritchie, congratulations hope you were pleased with your box choice.
I was sure I'd also put in a box, but oh well I'm happy with the option that came up so i won't demand a redraw. I ended up cutting the end off all the gobbo spears after impaling my feet on more than one occassion. I'm guessing you played on your bedroom floor, thus the feet injuries, obviously other richer people could afford a table on which to game thus putting the injuries at hand level only.
And my wonderful way with the english language lead to your conclusion about my weight creeping on you. Safe to say I don't intend on giving any of it to you against your wishes, I'm a caring sharing guy but only for those that want it!
I was sure I had picked a box number as well, but a bit of match fixing never hurt anyone now did it... :cool3:
(these media types all sticking together, I tell you)
So Happy belated Bday buddy, And I will give your HE a game next time, maybe using my TK if the black box comes next week...
Quote from: Dave on April 07, 2011, 01:27:12 pm
I was sure I'd also put in a box, but oh well I'm happy with the option that came up so i won't demand a redraw.
Quote from: fatolaf on April 08, 2011, 11:25:02 am
I was sure I had picked a box number as well, but a bit of match fixing never hurt anyone now did it... :cool3:
(these media types all sticking together, I tell you)
The advantage of this all being posted on a blog is I can go back and check if you did, and you didn't!! :wink;m:: Cheryl maybe dead but she is still fair.
Quote from: Dave on April 07, 2011, 01:27:12 pm
I'm guessing you played on your bedroom floor.
Snap! Both in terms of agreement and the noise of Goblin spears snapping off in your feet.
Quote from: Dave on April 07, 2011, 01:27:12 pm
And my wonderful way with the english language lead to your conclusion about my weight creeping on you. Safe to say I don't intend on giving any of it to you against your wishes, I'm a caring sharing guy but only for those that want it!
It's very kind of you to offer, but too much birthday cake has already crippled my waistline!
Quote from: fatolaf on April 08, 2011, 11:25:02 am
So Happy belated Bday buddy, And I will give your HE a game next time, maybe using my TK if the black box comes next week...
Cheers mate. Battle sounds like a plan, sadly work has stolen both Monday and Thursday this week - boo, but next week you're on.
Thursday 14th April - WEEK 15 So the birthday cake has finally been consumed, I say finally, I may have shoved it in my gob faster than Katie Price at a Celebrity Blow Job Convention. I should at this point, point out that I don't if such conventions actually exist (though I suspect they might), and if they did I don't know if Ms Price would attend such event (though I suspect she might), but on the plus side she won't complain about this joke as I haven't mocked her disabled son. All of that irrelevance has done nothing except lower the tone to an acceptable starting place as we consider what's gone on in the last seven days of hobby.
Tomb Kings Yep the Tomb Kings are next on the Games Workshop release schedule and the models are available to pre-order on this very site. Ok, so technically this happened eight days ago, but it was too late to make last week's print. Even if this is a blog which can be updated 24-7 rather than a magazine or newsletter.
The Tomb Kings, much like the Ogre Kingdoms, occupy an odd position in my internal opinion of the Warhammer World, you see both were created during my "dark" period, not the point where I decided to black up so I'd look cool with dreadlocks, but the point where I disappeared from the Warhammer "scene" (for want of a less wanky statement) before rejoining many years later. Incidentally I am considering coming out of my second "dark" period as regards LEGO – still love it, but I don't need to collect any more, or do I? Though the LEGO Farm would go well with the Police Helicopter I got for my birthday last week:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3098.jpg)
I wonder if I could use this as an alternative Dwarf Gyrocopter model? Hmmm.
Anyway the point was, I used to like Warhammer back in 4th/5th edition, and then there were no Ogre Kingdoms or Tomb Kings (though there were Chaos Dwarfs) and now when I like it again back in 7th/8th they've suddenly appeared. Which means they don't have that nostalgic place in my heart that many of the other races do. Although unlike Ogre Kingdoms, I do remember their Undead predecessors (and the launch of the Vampire Counts), so they aren't completely new. It's not a bad thing necessarily, but it's odd not having any nostalgia for an army, and at the same time not having the potential excitement of seeing them launch and be excited for a new army.
So these new releases and army book for the 8th edition, give me a chance to embrace these skeletal warriors anew, well embrace as much as is possible without being consider a necrophiliac – though given my success rate in the dating stakes, I could spend a whole life time in a graveyard and not come home with anyone to introduce to my parents. Sorry I'm digressing. Again.
Well there's the new army book and magic cards, still enjoying the new hardback army books, but I said most of that back when the Orcs & Goblins came out. The Magic Cards are intriguing, still not quite sure why they need to be limited edition? Other than the fact that Games Workshop still have piles of Beastmen Magic Cards they can't shift – but maybe that's their fault for making the Lore of the Wild about as useful as a Burka in France? I personally find it quite useful to get all these decks, just so I can have my opponent's spells to hand as I can never remember what they do, and tend to bore other players to death by constantly asking them.
That just leaves the models, and my first comment is there's not that many of them, don't get me wrong the kits look amazing and do make multiple models, but if you'd been waiting for the whole of the 7th edition and longer with not a single Tomb Kings model then three kits seems a little lousy. Particularly when you consider the number of Tomb Kings metal models that could do with replacement with simpler to build plastic sets. I've never tried to construct these models myself, but apparently the current Bone Giant, Tomb Scorpions and Carrion models are only marginally more simple to assemble than the cooling system at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant. Perhaps, as on many recent occasions, a second wave is planned – in which case I may retract these comments, we shall see.
Anyway enough negativity, let's look at the models the Tomb Guard do look ace, particularly their shields. And fit nicely into what makes the Tomb Kings appealing for me, that is the rank upon rank of Skeletons and other bone clad constructions. I know some people find the prices for the new 10 model sets expensive, but have you compared the latest sprues with the newer sets? There's loads more parts and a lot more detail than on the older plastic sprues. After comparing my High Elf Archer sprues, one of the first multi-part plastic sets with the new Phoenix Guard, I have to conclude the Phoenix Guard probably represent better value, when you consider the final model you're getting.
Then we have the Necropolis Knights / Sepulchral Stalkers, I have no idea what these models really represent, and I doubt anyone who hasn't seen the rules really does. But they do look good; of all the various bone animals available to the Tomb Kings it does seem odd that the cobra hasn't been available before. Given the importance of snakes in Egyptian mythology and the desert theme, I think they are a welcome addition to the theme. Though I may disagree when they're ripping apart my Gor units on the battlefield.
Finally we have probably the most talked about of the new models, the Khemrian Warsphinx and Necrosphinx kit. Again the Sphinx is an obvious theme missing from the existing Tomb Kings army, so this fills the role nicely and provides that "wow" model. The models do look amazing, and good value that you can get either one with spare parts for £31 (less with Ol!), and potentially a spare Tomb King if you build the Necrosphinx. I don't know much about them on the tabletop, bar a few snippets I've heard which make them sound incredibly deadly, gulp! Hopefully there's a so far undiscovered weakness I can exploit, failing that I'll have to resort to nudging the table at just the right point causing such models to plunge onto the floor.
All in all a good set of models, which hopefully will be joined by some friends so Tomb Kings fans don't have to wait the best part of another decade for some fresh meat (which is a rather ironic phrase for the Tomb Kings!).
Talking of the Necrosphinx / Khemrian Warsphinx, big beasties seem to be the flavour of the latest edition of Warhammer. Although it's not just the Orcs & Goblins and the Tomb Kings, benefiting from these, I suppose you could argue the current wave all started with the Hellpit Abomination for the Skaven. Which until the new model came out I was convinced was some kind of actual pit (as it only seemed to be referred to as Hellpit), which I imagined behaved similarly bizarre fashion as the other stationary models like the Anvil of Doom and Cauldron of Blood, thusly I was a little bit disappointed when it turned out to be just a big monster!! Then of course there's the Beastmen, with their host of new beasties, none of which actually have models (apart from the Giant – which despite it's name is now dwarfed by many of the newer kits), that combined with the rareness of Beastmen on the tabletop means you probably have never faced one yourself.
But are we happy with these new superduper monsters making an appearance in seemingly every Warhammer army? In a word, yes. The imagery of Warhammer has always suggested that such large monsters and creatures have inhabited the world, and now the advent of the plastic kits have meant that Warhammer has finally caught up with it's futuristic cousin in the inclusion of large tabletop dominating models. Ok, so they existed to some extent before, but let's be honest everyone was afraid to touch the table as large metal dragons and the like were invariably as stable as Judy Finnigan's hands after a buy one get four free offer at Threshers. God forbid the model fell over, it would probably crumble to dust, these new plastic models practically bounce – even if you need a removal lorry to get them to your game given the size of some of them. So I don't have a problem with these large scale beasties, though let's make sure they don't overdominate the game. The odd super monster now and again will be fun, entire armies Necrosphinxes with only the minimum number of Skeletons required to full the Core section will be about as tiresome as So You Think You Can Dance, but without the fun of Cat Deely. I should point if you do field Cat Deely in your army against me, I will be deeply impressed.
High Elves Talking of monsters, those of you paying attention will of course remember that last week I started painting up my High Elf Lord on Griffon, well I have a bit of a naughty confession to make, a naughty confession that I don't think anyone who has taken part in The Tale of OG Gamers has ever been in danger of incurring – and before you ask it doesn't involve Catholic priests and family size tubs of Nutella.
You see Paragraph 4, Subsection 13, Amendment g) of the Tale of OG Gamers rules (the rule under the one about not doing naughty things with the toilet brush in the Spread Eagle loos) states:
Quote from: Steve H on August 18, 2010, 06:08:28 pm
If you are painting a character/monster that is more than 200 points then this can be submitted part painted to cover the appropriate level over more than one month.
This weekend it was hot and sunny, and I was at my parents' house in the garden and may have accidentally painted the entire of my Lord on Griffon (this month and next month's entry). Ooops! Still I think I'm the first person to actually be ahead on their painting schedule (and I noticed after consulting the rules to find this quote that my army was supposed to be legal and battle-tested at 1,200 points not 1,400 points as I quoted last week- double oops!). Sorry about that naughtiness, I promise to flagellate myself appropriately - but not with the Spread Eagle toilet brush, I've read the rules.
Sadly at present I can't show you any pictures of said model (which if I do say so myself is looking, mightily impressive), because I didn't bring my camera home and so had to use my sister's camera and am waiting for her to e-mail me the snaps. Hopefully the anticipation will give you something to get moist over during the coming week. What?!?! I meant drool, clearly – dirty boys.
Beastmen The good news about accidentally painting up April and May's High Elves means I have a bit of time to concentrate on my old friends the Beastmen, and looking at my army I have to say the rare section of looking rather sparse. Currently all I have is a Giant and two Chaos Spawn, which don't really fit the theme as they are heavily Tzeentchifed (probably not a word) spawn shared with my Warriors army, and bright pink and blue don't really fit the Beastmen palette (I really must get myself some more beastly Chaos Spawn painted up).
So time to add to my army with another big beastie, as we're in a big monster theme this week. I really quite fancied a Jabberslythe to add to my force, something that could fly and get into combat quickly (even though being Beastmen and controlled by myself it will almost certainly die instantly). However with no Jabberslythe model and not even a picture in Warhammer Armies: Beastmen I was going to have to do some conversion work, and with no reference, was going to have use the description from the Beastman Beastry (for no other army is the word Beastry so apt).
According to Warhammer Armies: Beastmen
"Jabberslythes are amongst the most ancient and foul of all the creatures of the deep forest. They are truly repugnant to look upon, having such grotesque and twisted features that even the clearest pools of water will not offer up their reflection... ...the Jabberslythe encompasses all that is unwholesome and vile about nature and magnifies it a hundredfold... ...the most horrendous of all the Jabberslythe's weapons is its vile appearance. There is something so unearthly and unsettling about these beasts that even to set eyes upon one is to go immediately and permanently insane." Hmmm... what springs to mind when I read that bit of inspirational text?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3105.jpg)
AAAHHHHHHHH!!!!! I think sometimes you can take the background to these models too far. Suffice us to say this is a family game and I won't be making anything that looks like that. Instead I spied a model on Forgeworld that I thought would make an interesting and unique* conversion.
Unique if you didn't happen to read the "What's New Today" blog on Games Workshop around March last year. It was a long time to go therefore I can claim it as my own!After raiding Fort Knox to pay for the Chaos Spawn model it arrived, and here's what it should look like.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3103.jpg)
I don't want my Jabberslythe to be on all fours, so I needed to raise the upper part of the body. Fortunately the Chaos Spawn comes in two parts, so it was a simple (possibly not the right word) job of gluing the parts at angle!! To do this I inserted seven pins into the belly join, all at angle and cut to an appropriate length to hold the upper part of the body. Scary as this seems on an expensive model, I reasoned unless I did something monumentally stupid, like actually drilling through its leg – the worst that could happen is the pinning went wrong and I'd just forget about and glue the model together as normal.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3001.jpg)
As a responsible adult I should point out that resin dust is potentially toxic so you should wear a face mask whilst drilling or cutting the stuff, I found this out on the Forgeworld packaging – not that it mentions this on the Warhammer Basing Kit packaging that contains resin bits, so if you've used it, you could die.
Also it's quite difficult lining up seven pins so you might need a bit of bending skills on the paperclips and a lot of patience!
Gluing these parts together gives you a Jabberslythe body with a big whole in the middle:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3004.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3007.jpg)
I filled the hole with green stuff, a surprisingly large amount given how usually you only need the tiniest bit. Initially I placed a large block in to fill the whole, that was slightly recessed from the model and then once that had set, I sculpted on an extra layer which was matched as best as possible to the flesh of the existing model:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3012.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3015.jpg)
Sadly I didn't take very many decent picture of this stage, particularly when finished, but you can see the formation of a belly button in the top part finished picture I'm very excited about this feature. More excited than about the filing of mould lines I had to do on this model, particularly as a mould line ran right through the model's crotch – no one should ever have to file down a Jabberslythe's nether regions, particularly not in the guise of a hobby. All I can say is it seems to be a lady Jabberslythe.
Once this was done I had to make a few other changes, critically a Jabberslythe can fly and so needs wings. These came courtesy of the Winged Nightmare Wings, which you can order from the Bitz section of the Games Workshop website, and were pinned into the sockets where the talons go – they fitted in quite well with only a small amount of green stuff to smooth out the join.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3029.jpg)
With the body now raised the front legs couldn't be glued in, as the front feet have a part moulded base on – not shown on the instructions, and so I didn't want my front arms to have completely flat palms. Also the background mentions giant claws for ripping apart prey. So instead I cut the forearms above the claw and cut the talons part way along pinning the two together:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3034.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3035.jpg)
With that done I pinned the Jabberslythe to a Monster Base. I should point out flat, smooth pieces of resin don't seem to glue well to plastic bases (I found this out on the Warhammer Basing Kit too), so I'd recommend attacking the smooth resin surface with a file to rough it up a bit (obviously with a face mask on) – these then seem to glue much more sturdily together. For those of you with a curious mind, you're actually increasing the surface area thus increasing the friction between the two objects and the surface over which the superglue can act, and they say my Double A* at GSCE Science was wasted.
On the base I added some rocks and moulded a small pool, I intended to finish with Water Effects (god help me), to represent the swampy ground that Jabberslythes live in:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3028.jpg)
So with all 13, yes thirteen, pins in place the model was finally assembled:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3026.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3037.jpg)
Certainly my most ambitious, and potentially-expensive-if-went-wrong conversion ever, and I'm reasonably impressed. It certainly seems to catch the mood of the creature, look suitably foreboding and has some half decent green stuffing on. I'll be sure to update you on the progress as it is painted.
Storm of Magic Finally this week on the monster theme, which I think you should be impressed that I've managed to keep up all through this post, we have the upcoming release of Storm of Magic announced this week. Yes for people like me still struggling with the basic Warhammer rules, this supplement to the game packed for new rules will be a confusing addition about as welcome as being kicked in between the legs by a goat.
Apparently it features big spells, just the ticket for those beautifully painted hoard units you spent months painting, everyone just loves removing them in one fell swoop! And of course new monsters, apparently
"With the new Expansion allowing you to use so many different creatures there are a whole host of new monstrous plastic kits on their way." - I mean imagine how annoyed you'd be if you bought a really expensive Forgeworld model and metal wings, spent hours cutting up and converting it, moulding green stuff on etc., only for a brand new much cheaper, much easier to build and much better looking model to come out a few months later. You'd be really bloody livid wouldn't you... I ruddy well imagine.
Still not only will there be the new supplementary rules pack, more scenery (probably should paint some existing scenery at some point) and new monsters, but there's a whole range of collectable themed items to go with it. With Warhammer you had the Empire Engineering Kit and Skull Dice and Storm of Magic is no different, in fact I have got a secret exclusive sneak peak of one of these items - Storm of Magic in a Teacup:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3094.jpg)
And for those of you wondering if I constructed this entire blog around this one lame ending joke? I did. Enjoy!
The jabber-spawn looks suitably Lovecraftian, which is to say good!
Safe to say you can consider me impressed. When I first saw the model you bought I thought "that'll look gash". Then the conversion pics proved me wrong. The one thing I'd say is the hacky claw arms look a little bit skinnier than the normal arms I'd put a bit more greenstuff on the transition between the two.
Also intrigued to see this wonderful griffon.
Great big beastie Matt, looking forward to seeing your high elf lord as well.
Cheers guys, much appreciated, am toying with painting it a slimey green colour, as I think yet more Beastmen Brown (an official colour which I have now invented) might prove my undoing!!
Quote from: Dave on April 14, 2011, 09:19:16 am
Safe to say you can consider me impressed. When I first saw the model you bought I thought "that'll look gash". Then the conversion pics proved me wrong. The one thing I'd say is the hacky claw arms look a little bit skinnier than the normal arms I'd put a bit more greenstuff on the transition between the two.
Also intrigued to see this wonderful griffon.
Cheers mate, I know what you mean, I'm not a fan of that Spawn model as an actual Spawn just looks a bit too comical, but works with wings!! Good point on the arms, will have a look, though have sprayed it black and the join looks pretty good.
I've possibly oversold the Griffon, but am personally pleased with it, hopefully the photos will get here for next week.
Lovely work buddy, we must have a 'jabber' off soon as mine is going back on the table to finish his conversion after the SCGT..
Flying Beasty with Orange Fur FTW! :))
Cheers mate, I look forward to seeing your Jabberslythe, they'll probably just both fail their leadership tests in the magic phase and rip their own eyeballs out at the disgust of each other. Come to think of it I've been on dates like that.
And consider yourself stickied sir.... :cool3:
Quote from: fatolaf on April 14, 2011, 12:08:14 pm
And consider yourself stickied sir.... :cool3:
well deserved!
Quote from: fatolaf on April 14, 2011, 12:08:14 pm
And consider yourself stickied sir.... :cool3:
Thanks very much, I am honoured. Though hoping you are refering to the thread and not your excitement about seeing my Griffon!
Love the conversion - rather impressive. Keep jabbering on :wink;m::
Quote from: Toast on April 15, 2011, 08:15:50 pm
Keep jabbering on :wink;m::
Ah ha, I see what you've done there. Very good! Thanks for the compliment!
Wednesday 20th April - WEEK 16
My plan to move into politics has now been well and truly destroyed, simply because I'm about to actually fulfil a promise. Yes, never will I now be able to grace the Houses of Parliament and get my moat dredged at your expense. All this is rather roundabout way of saying that the pictures of my finished High Elf Lord on Griffon that I promised you I'd show this week, are here, and I've got the Stage-by-Stage painting guide.
Before I show it to you, I thought I'd talk about Stage-by-Stage guides; it can't fail to have escaped your notice that I do actually try and put up a stage-by-stage guide for all my painting on this blog. As I suspect most of you probably skim through it to get to the funny bit (I know I do when having a quick proof read!) you may be wondering why I put them up.
Well the first, rather self centred reason, is that I find it useful to be able to refer back to them for my own reference. Not only does this have the added bonus that every time I consult my own guide I add to the "read" count for this thread! >:D:-) - But also it's pretty helpful if I want to replicate any paint scheme at a later date. Alongside the High Elves and Beastmen I also have a Dwarf and Tzeentch Warriors of Chaos army and try as I might my brain simply can't remember the paint schemes I've used across all four (to be honest it struggles with the model types of just one army, as anyone playing me when I've identified my unit as the Phoenix Lions of Hoeth will attest to).Yes I could keep this memory jogger on a scrap of paper somewhere, but I'd lose it - and the advantage of having it online is that from anywhere in the world (mainly my parents' house, but the painting tour of the world is growing), I can log on and remember crucially what the mid tone I used for the pale brown on an Elf's hair actually is.
Secondly and perhaps more importantly I hope the guides are useful for you. Not that I believe that anyone out there is slavishly replicating my army in all it's detail, like some kind of disturbed stalker - reliving my life as dictated in the blog. If you were doing this you'd currently be writing your own version of this blog, whilst sitting in your pyjamas, scratching your nether regions, wondering if you'll ever find love and looking at your own fully painted army in the colour scheme of your favourite ice cream based beverage eatery. Incidentally I should point out that if you are stalking me and trying to live out my life as described in this blog you will now need to go and find yourself a stalker to do the same to you, who then in turn will need to find their own stalker and so forth and so forth in a sort of conga line of stalking in which everyone in the world eventually ends up living their life through my ramblings. What a disturbing thought?!
Though I should point out disturbing as the concept of stalking can be, it is still nice to get some attention now and again. Though why is it that only ugly people are stalkers? Let's be honest if you receive the text "I'm lying in bed thinking of you", randomly in the middle night it's not creepy if it's been sent by a deeply attractive person, it becomes creepy when you add in the ugly looking weirdo part into the mix (or if they happen to be family members, then it's always creepy regardless of how attractive they are). Still either way I can't be the only person, who on no longer being stalked by an individual, feels a slight sense of disappointment. What have you done that makes you no longer irresistibly appealing to you? Is it the new haircut? The fact I've put on weight? My knee length shorts? Or the court injunction I've taken out against you? We may never know, but it does leave the tinniest of pangs of disappointment to know that as you sit here, no one is secretly imagining what it would be like to do despicable things to you a turkey baster and a 4-finger Kit Kat. No?
In case you haven't worked it out I've digressed. The point I'm trying to make is that hopefully my Stage-by-Stage guides provide you with a little bit of help and inspiration, not a template to copy, but a resource from which you can borrow some ideas. For my Lord on Griffon model I used a selection of Stage-by-Stage guides to give me a starting point for various bits of the model:
Turret – 'Eavy Metal guide for High Elf Lord from White Dwarf 335
Griffon Feathers and Saddle – 'Eavy Metal guide for Elathron the Grim from White Dwarf 337
Griffon Claws and Beak – Games Workshop website guide for Island of Blood Griffon
White Lion – Games Workshop website guide for High Elf Details
Elf Lord Hair – 'Eavy Metal guide for Prince Althran from White Dwarf 370
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3163.jpg)
Invariably these were tweaked and combined with my own existing schemes and ideas, but they can give you a good starting point particularly if you're painting something new. Often I find they're extremely useful for "natural" things, by that I mean things like wood, stone or animals (or parts of animals in the Griffon's case), it's usually pretty straight forward to work out how to paint a blue cloth (all you need to do is find an existing blue you like), but how would you go about painting a birch bow, a tiger's hide or some marble? Simply finding a good base colour can be the inspiration you need.
That said nature can be a tricky thing to deal with, painting wise, primarily because it often lies. A lot of your preconceptions about nature are wrong, for twelve years at primary school whenever you've drawn a tree it's trunk has been coloured with that deep reddy brown felt tip pen (close to Beastial Brown) because that's how it's always been. Yet if you look at a tree you'll find it's bark is almost certainly grey or grey-brown. Similarly nature lies when naming it's creations, consider the Blue Whale, if you were painting such a creature, Enchanted Blue would not be a good place to start because a Blue Whale is really a navy-grey colour, though Navy-Grey Whale whilst being a better fit with trades descriptions doesn't roll of the tongue. A Red Squirrel, that's not really red is it? More browny-orange, a Bluebird is pretty much universally not blue, painting a Golden Retriever gold would be madness (and get you in trouble with the RSPCA) and as for a Blackbird... oh... well I suppose that is kinda black. Anyway you get the idea, be careful with natural things.
I should just say with the Griffon, whilst I'm really pleased with it I had intended to paint the lion body as a White Lion, I'm not sure if it's come out a little too dark for that (I think the Games Workshop web guide starts a little too dark with hindsight), but I'd appreciate your comments on the matter as will probably be painting some White Lions at some point soon so want to get right for them (as discussed above I won't be falling into the trap of actually painting them white!). Obviously the Griffon's legs can look more like a lion or lighter cat, so am not going to make a change to this model.
So with all that said, here's the guide hope you can find some useful titbits:
Stage 1 – High Elf Prince on Griffon
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3116.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3112.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3110.jpg)
Base
Base: Khemri Brown
Rocks: Chardonite Granite
Turret: Calthan Brown
Griffon
Eagle Flesh: Iyanden Dark Sun
Talons: Chaos Black
Light Feathers: Khemri Brown
Dark Feathers: Scorched Brown
Yellow Beak: Tausept Ochre
Black Beak: Chaos Black
Tongue: Liche Purple
Lion Flesh: Dheneb Stone
Lion Paws: Dheneb Stone
Prince
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Reins / Saddle: Scorched Brown
Blue Trim: 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue
Lance: Khemri Brown
Yellow Cloak: Iyanden Dark Sun
White Cloth / Pennant: 1:1 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White
Hair: Snakebite Leather
Padding on Saddle*: 2:2:1 Mercherite Red : Scab Red : Liche Purple
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Stage 2 – High Elf Prince on Griffon
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3120.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3119.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3123.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3128.jpg)
Base
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Rocks: Drybrush Adeptus Battlegrey
Turret: Wash Badab Black
Griffon
Eagle Flesh: Wash Ogryn Flesh, then wash Gryphonne Sepia
Talons: Highlight 2:1 Chaos Black : Kommando Khaki, then highlight 1:1 Chaos Black : Kommando Khaki
Light Feathers: Wash Ogryn Flesh, then drybrush 1:1 Khemri Brown : Bleached Bone
Dark Feathers: Wash Badab Black, then drybrush 2:1 Graveyard Earth : Scorched Brown
Yellow Beak: Wash Gryphonne Sepia
Black Beak: Layer 2:1 Chaos Black : Kommando Khaki, then layer 1:1 Chaos Black : Kommando Khaki
Tongue: Layer 1:1 Liche Purple : Warlock Purple
Lion Flesh: Wash Gryphonne Sepia
Lion Paws: Paint Dwarf Flesh
Prince
Silver Metal: Wash Badab Black
Gold Metal: Paint Shining Gold
Reins / Saddle: Wash Badab Black
Blue Trim: Layer 1:1 (Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue) : Ice Blue, then layer Ice Blue
Lance: Layer watered down 1:1 Khemri Brown : Graveyard Earth, then layer watered down Graveyard Earth
Yellow Cloak: Layer 1:1 Iyanden Dark Sun : Golden Yellow, then layer Golden Yellow
White Cloth / Pennant: Layer 1:1 (1:1 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White) : (2:1 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White) then layer 2:1 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White
Hair: Layer Desert Yellow, then layer 1:1 Desert Yellow : Bleached Bone
Padding on Saddle*: Layer 1:1 Scab Red : Blood Red
Flesh: Layer 1:1 Dwarf Flesh : Elf Flesh, then layer Elf Flesh
Stage 3 – High Elf Prince on Griffon
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3135.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3139.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3143.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3133.jpg)
Base
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Rocks: Drybrush Codex Grey
Turret: Overbrush Khemri Brown, then overbrush Dheneb Stone
Griffon
Eagle Flesh: Layer Iyanden Dark Sun
Talons: Highlight 1:1 Chaos Black : Bleached Bone, then highlight 1:2 Chaos Black : Bleached Bone
Light Feathers: Drybrush Bleached Bone
Dark Feathers: Drybrush 1:2 Scorched Brown : Graveyard Earth
Yellow Beak: Layer Tausept Ochre
Black Beak: Layer 1:2 Chaos Black : Kommando Khaki, then layer 1:3 Chaos Black : Kommando Khaki
Tongue: Highlight Warlock Purple
Lion Flesh: Layer Desert Yellow, then layer 1:1 Desert Yellow : Kommando Khaki
Lion Paws: Layer 1:1 Dwarf Flesh : Elf Flesh, then layer Elf Flesh
Prince
Silver Metal: Highlight 1:1 Mithril Silver : Chainmail
Gold Metal: Wash Gryphonne Sepia
Reins / Saddle: Highlight Scorched Brown, then highlight 1:1 Scorched Brown : Bestial Brown
Blue Trim: Highlight 1:1 Ice Blue : (1:1 Skull White : Ice Blue), then highlight 1:1 Skull White : Ice Blue
Lance: Layer watered down 1:1 Graveyard Earth : Bleached Bone, then layer watered down Bleached Bone
Yellow Cloak: Layer 1:1 Golden Yellow : Sunburst Yellow, then layer Sunburst Yellow
White Cloth / Pennant: Layer 1:1 (1:2 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White) : Skull White, then layer watered down Skull White
Hair: Wash Gryphonne Sepia, then wash Devlan Mud in recesses
Padding on Saddle*: Wash Badab Black
Flesh: Wash watered down Ogryn Flesh
Stage 4 – High Elf Prince on Griffon
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3166.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3169.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3171.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3173.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3174.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3176.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3179.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3180.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3182.jpg)
Base
Base: Drybrush Bleached Bone, then flock with Static Grass
Rocks: Drybrush Fortress Grey, then wash Badab Black
Turret: Overbrush Bleached Bone
Griffon
Eagle Flesh: Highlight Bleached Bone
Talons: Highlight Bleached Bone
Light Feathers: Drybrush 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White
Dark Feathers: Drybrush Graveyard Earth
Yellow Beak: Highlight 1:1 Tausept Ochre : Bleached Bone, then highlight Bleached Bone
Black Beak: Feather (1:3 Chaos Black : Kommando Khaki) : Bleached Bone then feather Bleached Bone
Tongue: Wash Leviathan Purple
Lion Flesh: Layer 2:1 Kommando Khaki : Skull White, then layer 1:1 Kommando Khaki : Skull White, then wash heavily watered down Gryphonne Sepia
Lion Paws: Wash Ogryn Flesh
Prince
Silver Metal: Highlight Mithril Silver
Gold Metal: Highlight 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver, then highlight Mithril Silver
Reins / Saddle: Highlight Bestial Brown
Blue Trim: *NO CHANGE*
Lance: *NO CHANGE*
Yellow Cloak: Wash Ogryn Flesh, then highlight 1:1 Sunburst Yellow : Bad Moon Yellow, then highlight Bad Moon Yellow
White Cloth / Pennant: Highlight Skull White
Hair: Highlight Bestial Brown, then highlight Skull White
Padding on Saddle*: Highlight Blood Red
Flesh: Highlight 1:1 Bleached Bone : Elf Flesh, then highlight Bleached Bone
*The padding on the saddle is almost completely concealed by the model, I've painted it as described so you get a flash of red should you see it. So don't worry if you can't find it in any photos.
With the extra Lothern Sea Guard painted up this takes the army, as of the end of May (I know, I'm ahead whoever thought it possible?!!), to:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3188.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3194.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3195.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3196.jpg)
The astute amongst you will notice I have taken the 15 points of magic items off Wizbit, this was so I could afford some equipment for my High Elf Prince who despite weighing in at 365 points is looking decidedly naked! And at this point that just leaves the final 200 points to be painted (in June) to finish the army off. Will I get it done? What models will I paint? Does anyone care? Who knows?
As the end of April is looming it must be time for this month's What's In The Box competition. If you've forgotten how to play you need to pick a number between 1 and 36 (but not 3, 6, 11, 14 or 25) and post your pick on this thread, remember all votes from previous months have been discounted so: IF YOU DON'T POST YOUR CHOSEN NUMBER THIS WEEK, IT CAN'T BE DRAWN, just to clarify there so don't moan if you forgot to post!!! :wink;m::
For your reminder here's what the wall of boxes looks like now:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3165.jpg)
In case that pattern of opened boxes influences your decision.
Before I go, I should, as OG Games official representative from children's television, say how sad I am to hear of the death Elisabeth Sladen who played Sarah Jane in Doctor Who and CBBC's The Sarah Jane Adventures. Not only was she a wonderful actress, but she expertly proved that people on children's television don't have to be 17 to gain the respect of children. She will be missed by many adults and kids alike.
With Easter looming upon us I intend to post a special Easter edition of The Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves over the weekend, please look out for that (there may be chocolate involved), until then enjoy your Bank Holidays and the sunshine – though I suspect you'll be lucky to get them together!
I'll have a vowel please Carol
box 13 please matt!
Quote from: cunningmatt on April 20, 2011, 01:06:04 am
Wednesday 20th April - WEEK 16
But also it's pretty helpful if I want to replicate any paint scheme at a later date.
That''s why I do it too!
And the stalking thing... Ok maybe not so much.
Finally box number 1 again(even though you ignored it last time round :wink;m:: )
I like the way the budgie looks though, very nice looks like a lot of effort went into it (carefully phrased statement based off this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13128701 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13128701)) my one critique would be I think there is too much static grass on the base and clumps in fewer places would have looked more striking.
Box Number 7
Quote from: StarDragonFTW on April 20, 2011, 10:56:14 am
I'll have a vowel please Carol
Will "A" do?
Quote from: Dave on April 20, 2011, 12:34:18 pm
And the stalking thing... Ok maybe not so much.
I probably should at this point clarify, that this week's post shouldn't at all be used to infer that I am stalker... honest.
Quote from: Dave on April 20, 2011, 12:34:18 pm
Finally box number 1 again(even though you ignored it last time round :wink;m:: )
I'm happy to be proved wrong, but really last month the only entrant I could find was Ritchie's if you can find the post on this thread I will..., what will I do..., errr... be deeply apologetic... good enough?
Quote from: Dave on April 20, 2011, 12:34:18 pm
my one critique would be I think there is too much static grass on the base and clumps in fewer places would have looked more striking.
Cheers for the comments, glad you liked, to an extent I let the already based models in the army dictate the proportion of static grass I used, and I do like my Ulthuan to be nice and grassy. However with static grass it's a bit like the reverse of a haircut - when you get your haircut you let them cut it a little bit short so it grows into the perfect length, when I flock my bases I go a little over the top so that after four trips in an army case when half the grass has fallen off it's about right!
Saturday 23rd April – Easter Special
Happy Easter, hopefully you're lucky enough to be enjoying the sunshine and a full 4-day bank holiday or 11-day super weekend, if not sorry but think of the good you're doing for a fledgling economy.
Easter's a funny old celebration isn't? Religiously speaking, with my very limited recollection of R.E. it's the most important celebration in the Christian calendar. Which you can understand coming back to life is arguably more impressive than simply being born, I mean every single one of us has done the later – and admittedly I was very young at the time, but I don't remember being visited by monarchy or farmers or having a giant star over my crib. Though, maybe that only happens if you were born in a barn? Although that would imply this treatment happens to every sheep ever born, if so I think we'd have notice by now. And all things considered, I prefer the idea of Farnborough Hospital Maternity unit anyway. Even culturally the average Monday to Friday worker is guaranteed a bigger stretch of time off at Easter than Christmas and the same number of bank holidays, but yet Easter has a lot less commercial/non-religious themeing attached to it.
Having worked and written for Children's television for what seems like a lifetime I can tell you that Easter is very hard to be topical about in a comedy/entertainment style (which is probably why this update is so tedious!). Rightly or wrongly Children's TV tends to steer away from the religious aspects of all festivals, and leave that for other more respectable messengers to convey. Let's be honest how detailed can the morale guidance of an art form that primarily revolves around buckets of gunge and custard pies be? So what does that leave us as the topical inspiration (or peg – as it's known) for an Easter-themed show/blog. Typically chocolate flares up, though generally this always goes the way of one presenter has lots of chocolate eggs and hides them, other presenter finds them, eats them all and gets fat – in fact so likely is this story it's been retold more times than the Nativity itself and nearly as many times as Back to the Future II. And with everyone moaning now that kids are getting fat (to be honest I find fat kids funny) people turn up their noses at binge eating of chocolate faster than at an All-You-Can-Sniff-Coke-Bar. Apparently binge eating chocolate is somehow worse to show to the under 8s than Britain's Got Talent. I ask you! The moral compass appears to have gone somewhat of course me thinks.
So what's left for Children's TV writers/wargamming bloggers to theme their Easter based updates about, well there's daffodils (they're funny aren't they? Not.), hot cross buns (hmmm...) or lambs, ducklings, chicks and fluffy-wuffy little bunnies. Which are only funny if there's some suggestion they might die, and apparently the RSPCA disapproves of such things. Incidentally that's the second time this week I've blogged about the RSPCA, how odd.
One thing I can talk about is the new abomination I've noticed connected to Easter and that is Easter cards. It's part of the greetings card industry's attempts to single-handedly support the Post Office by inventing a serious of random reasons for us to send cards to each other or feel guilty as if we don't love our nearest and dearest. I can just about cope with cards for Christmas, birthdays and the odd anniversary/congratulations/new job/sorry you're leaving/sorry you're dead card might make it through (let's not go down the Valentine's route please; presently I'm currently having a good weekend). Suffice us to say I don't think this list needs to be added to, Easter never needed cards, nor did National Secretary's Day, Flatulence Awareness Week or National Send Someone a Card just to keep WHSmith's in Business Day. So why now do people want to send them to me? Sorry but I'm not interested, it's not as if they're spreading a religious message - which is of course fine if that's what you wish to do I'm not denying that. But Easter cards have all got pictures of chicks and Mini Eggs on, nothing vaguely associated with religion. Quite frankly I want an Easter card pushed through my letterbox about as much as a free tester sample of Anthrax shoved there, so terribly sorry but if you've sent me an Easter card you're not getting one back. I even asked our resident four-year old artist what she thought of Easter cards, bearing in mind she was forced to make some at school before the holidays:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3199.jpg)
Oh dear, that's rather harsh, she's not a fan then. I think social services will be on my back again.
Anyway the point of all this rant about Easter is that it's very hard to do a topical update on Easter because it's simply not very trash-"entertainment" friendly which begs the question why I bothered in the first place, to which I don't have an answer.
However given this isn't Children's TV, and I can be a little braver, and tackle the subject of religion – and of all the religions Christians seem to be one of the calmest religions in terms of their response to vague attempts at satirical nonsense. I will pose a question I have wondered for a long time: Good Friday, the day Jesus died – was it really Good? I mean if I'd been unfortunate enough to be crucified by a Roman emperor, whose first name sounds a little bit like emergency rainwear that they hand out in theme parks, then despite what else had happened that day I'd consider it to be a pretty rubbish Friday. Dying just before the weekend's always got to be annoying, hasn't it? I mean how bad was Jesus's average day, that his death was a Good day? I suppose the catering nightmare of feeding 5,000 people with just hand full of bits you got at the Jerusalem branch of Tesco Metro would try us all, and 40 days and nights alone in the desert wouldn't be the happiest of times – but then we've all stayed in a Travelodge before. Hmmm, it's a puzzler, but a puzzle that's meant in an entirely non-offensive and humorous fashion (thank you very much any readers who may easily be offended by such puerile tosh – I don't want to be eternally damned... again)!
All this pointless ramble hasn't really got us anywhere I feel I've stolen the last 10 minutes of your life. Apologies. Sadly I've got nothing Warhammer related to say – though am making progress on the Jabberslythe this weekend – so hopefully you'll get to see it at some point.
Before I go, I should mention our current What's In the Box competition – keep your votes coming in by replying to his thread. Sky and Virgin Media viewers can push the red button to turn off their TVs.
And I've got a very special Easter competition, with an actual prize and everything, yeah Easter may be a themeing nightmare but the one thing you can do is have a good old Easter Egg hunt. Concealed throughout the pictures of the last few weeks of blog updates are a selection of Eggs – 12 in fact of lots of different kinds. Can you find them all? If you can, you can win this fabulous prize:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3203.jpg)
Yeah a triple pack of yummy Cream Eggs can be yours if you can spot all 12 eggs. To enter PM your answer of where the eggs are hidden to me (don't post it as a reply else everyone will know!!), a winner will be drawn from all the correct answers to win the prize and it will be delivered to an OG Games' Night of your choosing by the Easter Bunny (me, and the day of your choosing will really be of my choosing). Please note the 3 Cream Eggs above do NOT count towards the 12. And remember they're not necessarily in this entry, you may have to go further back – though I'm not telling you how far!!
Happy hunting and good luck spotting those Eggs. Plus I wish you a very Happy Easter and in fact a Good Saturday, Good Sunday, Good Monday and even a Passable Tuesday. Enjoy that chocolate!
Quote from: cunningmatt on April 23, 2011, 09:23:23 am
...fluffy-wuffy little bunnies. Which are only funny if there's some suggestion they might die
ain't that the truth!
the more I read on this blog, the more I get reminded of this:
Quote from: maelzch on April 23, 2011, 12:21:55 pm
ain't that the truth!
Yep nothing funny about white bunnies, except that I've just watched a very odd programme on BBC One called "Don't Scare the Hare", it's so completely oddly random I can't work out if it's genius or awful. Undoubtedly I'll have more to say at a later date!
Quote from: maelzch on April 23, 2011, 12:42:14 pm
the more I read on this blog, the more I get reminded of this:
Looks like my perfect job.
And get hunting for these eggs, sorry Lee but 8 out of 12 won't win you the prize - they're all there somewhere!
Booo! I just watched don't scare the hare too, ended up just being convinced I'd taken something!
i caught the end before Dr Who came on - I thought is was dire.
It's just odd, probably dire, but maybe cult to be. No replacement for Hole in the Wall though - that was classic. All together now "Bring on the Wall!" Better with Dale than Anton though.
As part of my commitment to public service information on this blog I thought I should remind you that tomorrow, Tuesday, is the last day you can apply for the London Olympic 2012 ballot. I have, I hope to god I don't win all the tickets though else no more models for me until the 2016 Olympics.
On an almost as important note, remember to keep your entires coming in for the Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves Easter Egg hunt - a box of Cream Eggs awaits the winner! (PMs only for this competition please!)
Am I too late for the boxes?
If not, again I will plump for No:17 please.... :1st:
Quote from: fatolaf on April 27, 2011, 02:30:29 pm
Am I too late for the boxes?
If not, again I will plump for No:17 please.... :1st:
Nope still have another week for boxes, and also Easter Egg hunt - keep hunting real prizes at stake!! So far no one's found all 12 so if you do you'll be in poll position for some chocolatey goodness!
Thursday 28th April - WEEK 17
Welcome back to the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves, before we get into the usual random chatter and drivel, you may have read in the papers this week that I have been painting more High Elves than I actually need to for this month's blog. Serious rumours that suggest that as well as painting my Lord on Griffon I've been painting extra units for the army not in the standard 200 point structure, simply because I've had some days off. At this point I'd like to point out I've taken out an injunction which means no one, not even I can reveal the identity of the units painted and if they existed.
On that note, here's the Stage 1 painting guide for my latest High Elves.
Stage 1 – Unknown
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3355.jpg)
Base: Unknown
Leather: Unknown
Cloak and Sleeves: Unknown
Silver Metal: Probably Silver
Gold Metal: My guess would be Gold
Flesh: Can't say
Armour Trim: Nope not allowed to tell you
Weapons Haft: Not even this one
Banner: And especially not this one, you're not allowed to know.
Even the resident 4-year old artist is not allowed to draw what I've been painting, her felt-tip pens have been taken away and the only thing marking her paper is the tears pouring from her eyes as she cannot draw.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3365.jpg)
I would tell you Stage 2 but I've now upgraded my injunction to a super injunction, which means that not only can no one talk about my painting of additional High Elves and what they might be, but no one can talk about the fact that I've taken out an injunction at all. In fact the only way this can ever be mentioned is if one of the OG Games committee brings it up in an OG Games parliamentary meeting. Well they could if it wasn't the fact I've also taken out a hyper injunction which means no one anywhere in the whole world over all time can ever mention what Elves I've been painting. In fact you have to now forget the whole of the last three paragraphs and pretend they never happened. Sorry but that's the law, only I can know.
Except that I've know taken out a super-duper-hyper-wyper-uber-duber-with-cherry-on-top injunction which now means not even I can talk about or know what I've been painting. In fact what have I been painting? And what have we been talking about? I seem to have suddenly forgotten. Though I do have a strange urge to tell you I've been having an affair with Andrew Marr. How strange.
Jabberslythe
Anyway on to more pressing matters, not involving Andrew Marr, and whilst I haven't been painting any High Elves at present (my lawyers asked me to say that), I have got on with my Jabberslythe, which you may remember I converted two weeks back. I used the Games Workshop online guide to painting River Trolls as a starting point for the main body, the rest was just what I dam well fancied. Unlike my Elves after basecoating I've completed each section separately hence a slightly different guide this week. Please bare in mind I painted this at my parents' house over Easter hence the selection of different photographic backgrounds and lighting types which only help to confuse the matter!
Basecoat – Jabberslythe
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3206.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3213.jpg)
Base: Khemri Brown
Rocks: Charadon Granite
Main Body Flesh: Knarloc Green
Wings (back and limbs): Orkhide Shade
Wings (membrane): Khemri Brown
Horns, Teeth and Claws: Khemri Brown
Mouths, Tongues and Gums: Liche Purple
Flesh – Jabberslythe
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3214.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3216.jpg)
The flesh was firstly shaded with 1:1 Knarloc Green : Orkhide Shade, followed by pure Orkhide Shade. Then it was highlighted by layering with the following colours 1:1 Knarloc Green : Desert Yellow, then pure Desert Yellow, then 1:1 Desert Yellow : Kommando Khaki followed by pure Kommando Khaki. After this it was highlighted with 1:1 Kommando Khaki : Bleached Bone followed by pure Bleached Bone.
With large areas of skin like this, I definitely think it's worth using lots of layers to get as "natural" a gradient as possible. This was then washed Thraka Green which has the effect of drawing the layers together smoothing the transition.
Horns, Teeth and Claws – Jabberslythe
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3220.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3225.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3229.jpg)
The horns were painted my usual Beastmen (and Warriors of Chaos) method, in order to tie the army together. Washed with Badab Black then feathered Khemri Brown, Dheneb Stone, Bleached Bone and 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White. I should point out I am sick of painting bloody horns, having painted over 150 Beastmen infantry in the last year, so at least 300 horns, I am bored of them. I don't find feathering easy despite all the practice I've had. Sorry just had to get that off my chest – no more horny armies (so to speak).
Mouths, Tongues and Gums – Jabberslythe
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3308.jpg)
The dental areas of the Jabberslythe were layered as follows. 1:1 Liche Purple : Warlock Purple, pure Warlock Purple, 1:1 Warlock Purple : Tentacle Pink and finally pure Tentacle Pink. The mouth was then washed Leviathan Purple again to draw the colours together, also the skin surrounding each mouth (yes I mean "each mouth") was washed a watered down Baal Red to emphasis the mouth.
Wings – Jabberslythe
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3359.jpg)
The outside of the wings was layered with 1:1 Orkhide Shade : Snot Green and then Pure Snot Green (I was originally planning to layer further but was happy with the result at that point), this was washed Thraka Green.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3364.jpg)
The wing membrane was washed Devlan Mud, then layered as follows; pure Khemri Brown, then 1:1 Khemri Brown : Kommando Khaki, pure Kommando Khaki and finally 1:1 Kommando Khaki : Bleached Bone. It was then washed Gryphonne Sepia.
Boils – Jabberslythe
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3350.jpg)
All the myriad of boils on the skin and tongue were painted 1:1 Dark Flesh : Blood Red, followed by a spot of Bubonic Brown.
As it stands I still have the eyes, base and weeping wounds to paint – I intend to paint the wounds black as the background in Warhammer Armies: Beastemn mentions a thick black blood leaking from every wound the enemy strikes.
But as of present the Jabberslythe looks like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3346.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3352.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3354.jpg)
Any connection you make between that photo and tomorrow's Royal Wedding is entirely in your own mind and quite frankly unpatriotic – you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Outdoor Painting
It can't failed to have escaped your attention that some of those pictures were taken al dente as the Italians would say – oh hang on that means firm but not hard, it can't failed to have escaped your attention that some of those pictures were taken al fresco as the Italians would say – no apparently that means eating outside. Try again. It can't failed to have escaped your attention that some of those pictures were taken outdoors as the English would say.
So far this year the garden has seen about as much action as the Playstation Network has this week, but with a 4-day bank holiday weekend and the Mercury (technically it's probably not Mercury in your thermometer for safety reasons) soaring to the high twenties (Celsius, I don't do Farenheit – ewww) that was all about to change. It was time to relax in the garden with a bit of painting whilst soaking up the Sun. Even though the next bank holiday weekend isn't forecast to be such a scorcher, with summer fast approaching I thought it's about time I give you my super top guide to Outdoor Painting and the pitfalls to avoid.
First up you'll need somewhere comfy to do your painting, that critically doesn't put any unwanted strain on your back/neck by forcing you to sit at an awkward angle – you know it's important, if boring. Step forward my parents' lovely little outdoor bench/table:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3283.jpg)
Whilst the table section is to the side of the seat I made sure I leant back firmly in the chair (like an idiot on a roller coaster), and held the model in front of me to avoid annoying twisting.
Do remember newspaper is important, just because it's outdoors doesn't mean parents/spouses/siblings/flatmates won't want to turn your genitalia into an attractive pair of earrings if you spill paint on the porch/patio/garden table/lawn/cat etc.
Next up whilst you might like the Sun, your paints definitely won't. They'll dry up faster than Jodie Marsh's lady bits when her legs have been left open – which is all the time (sorry that's a disturbing image, I can only apologise). Always make sure your paints are stored in the shade, in a bag under your chair is often a good place.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3281.jpg)
Any paints I'm working with sit in the shade of another object on the painting table to give them a chance of survival.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3280.jpg)
And yes that is my leg you can just see in the bottom left corner of the photo. Oh yes the legs were out, I know what you're thinking "sexy", but keep those thoughts to yourself – your partner's in the other room and it would be difficult to explain if you were rubbing my leg on the screen when they come in.
I should also point out that I have had situations where models have melted in the Sun, admittedly I was in the South of France and the temperature was high thirties, not twenties, but it's probably worth mentioning that whilst your paints and washes will dry on the model in record time, be aware of how long your models sit in the Sun for. Fortunately for me only the slottabases warped in the heat and I have loads of those, but with the increasing prevalence of plastic models we don't want your brand new Khemrian Warsphinx melting all over the patio.
Next remember suncream is important, you don't want to look like you've been dipped in a giant pot of Baal Red when you finish.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3289.jpg)
Although you're not sunbathing, you're not likely to be moving in the Sun, so be careful and follow the safety advice. Though I am puzzled by this line:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3287.jpg)
"Avoid the Sun between 11 and 3", well when the hell can I go sunbathing?! Only when it's not sunny, are you telling me I can only be sure your product will work and protect me from the Sun if I go sunbathing at midnight (and then not in northern Scandinavia during the summer), what a stupid piece of advice.
Seriously do top up regularly, and don't confuse the sun cream with Skull White, even though they both have a similarly dodgy level of coverage!
You'll need water for your paints:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3316.jpg)
An obvious point perhaps, but you'll find changing the water much more annoying if you're enjoying the sunshine. And a lot harder if you are not doing it in a garden, say in a park or the like. If so it's worth bringing a larger bottle of water to decant from (I know a posh word for this forum, and used correctly – be impressed), and pouring the dirty water away. Don't worry paint residue is unlikely to kill all the plants, unless of course you've been using metallic paints then it will get in the groundwater supply and kill everything within a 50 mile radius.
You'll also need refreshments for yourself:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3293.jpg)
Though I'd advise not eating such refreshments whilst wearing a white T-shirt, bloody chocolate stains.
Whatever you have to drink, be it juice, water or neat vodka, as pictured here...:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3322.jpg)
...something will come along and die in it.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3321.jpg)
Usually an insect, you have to be pretty unlucky for it to be a Water Buffalo. Still you'd think with millions of years of natural selection that by now nature would have taught all it's creations that flying into a body of water isn't good for your health. I mean are rivers just giant graveyards for the insect masses? Mind you if natural selection was any cop we probably wouldn't have Wayne Rooney.
Not really a tip, but does any one else find this label I found for a pair of garden gloves quite funny:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3239.jpg)
Sorry not very mature is it?!
Also I don't know if it's anything to do with being outside, but I've noticed my Badab Black stinks to high heaven:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3311.jpg)
Has anyone else noticed this? I'm sure my last pot didn't smell like Peter Stringfellow's dirty underwear.
And lastly amazing as the natural world is, and as natural as it may look – it doesn't really provide natural looking scale backdrops for your models. Try as I might the garden didn't look like a Warhammer battlefield, as my Jabberslythe found out:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3295.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3300.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3302.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3305.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3303.jpg)
Of course you don't have to have a garden to make use of this advice, nor even a balcony. Painting on holiday is always an option (loved ones willing – not a problem for me sadly), I've even taken to painting on Clapham Common. No that's not a euphemism before you start. You may be worried that you'd look odd sitting on the common painting little men, but if you've ever been to Clapham Common you'll know that is by no means the oddest thing that goes on there. Only yesterday I was overtaken whilst jogging by an elderly balding transvestite on a bike wearing a tartan mini-skirt, and I've not even made that up.
Hope that proves of some help, if it does why not send us a picture of your painting outdoors I look forward to seeing it.
High Elves vs Ogre Kingdoms Battle Report
With the High Elves finally at 1,400 points it was time for another battle report to see how they faired. Step forward Noah and his Ogre Kingdoms for a fight.
Here's my army list which was pretty much decided by what I've painted:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/HighElfArmy.jpg)
And here's Noah's, who had to make a revision after realising you needed 3 units to make a legal army – easily done!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/OgreArmy.jpg)
* in the spirit of foolishness both myself and Noah made a bit of an error. I forgot to spend my 15 points reserved for magic items for Wizbit and Noah forgot that he'd taken 3 Leadbelchers not 2, which he actually fought with. For simplicity we left victory points as set.
Wizbit chose to take Fire Magic, taking Fireball and Flamestorm.
Deployment
We set up quite a lot of terrain for our battle:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/BasicMap.jpg)
This included the Elven Waystone I painted for my army (eastern edge of battlefield) which unsurprisingly played the role of an Elven Waystone (+1 to all channelling attempts within 6"). Dreadstone Blight played the role of Arcane Ruins (any wizard within 6" can attempt to channel up to 4 dice, but 3 or more 6s result in a miscast), the woods were all mysterious forests.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/Deployment.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3146.jpg)
The High Elves and Ogres deploy against one another, apologises for the lousy photography this is partially my fault and partially the fact that the club room is darker than Frankie Boyle's stand up material.
The High Elves deployed the Bolt Thrower on the hill and the Archers with a good field of view. The Phoenix Guard set up in a ruined building and the Lothern Sea Guard by the hill behind which the Great Eagles deployed. The Ellyrian Reavers used their Vanguard move to get behind the Elven Waystone, whilst the Shadow Warriors scouted behind the ruined temple.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3145.jpg)
The Shadow Warriors start sneaking around, not distracted by Noah's chequered shirt which could have easily caused them to misdeploy.
The Ogres deployed their main character laden units on the eastern flank with the Leadbelchers holding the western flank.
Despite taking far longer to deploy the High Elves won the roll and elected to go first, let battle be drawn.
High Elf Turn 1
High Elves: 0 victory points
Ogres: 0 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/HighElfTurn1.jpg)
The High Elves used their movement to try and surround the Ogres with their fast moving troops. The Ellyrian Reavers sweeping up onto the hill out of the Bulls' charge arc. The Eagles getting ready to ambush the Leadbelchers should they advance on the Bolt Thrower. The Shadow Warriors took up position in the ruined temple and the Lothern Sea Guard advanced to threaten the main Ogre flank.
The Winds of Magic blew strongly with 12 dice. Wizbit tried to target the Ironguts with a Fireball, but the Ogre Butcher dispelled, so then he tried to cast Firestorm on the Ironguts, however Wizbit was unable to control the power during such a strong magic phase rolling a double 6. To add insult the Firestorm scattered off the Ironguts harmlessly scorching the grass, but Wizbit's attempts to drain the power of the spell meant he lost 2 magic levels forgetting all his spells! The High Elf magic phase was unlikely to be any more bother.
Hoping for better luck in the Shooting phase, the Archers levelled their bows at the Ironguts. Scoring an impressive 15 hits (needing a 4+), they caused 4 wounds and only one was saved by the Ironguts' armour felling an Irongut. The Bolt Thrower joined in with a volley off bolts causing a further 2 wounds. The Shadow Warriors attempted to join in, but their arrow couldn't penetrate the tough Ogre flesh and do the final wound on the second Ogre.
Ogre Turn 1
High Elves: 0 victory points
Ogres: 0 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/OgreTurn1.jpg)
The Ogres wasted no time charging towards the Elven lines determined to shatter some pointy-eared heads.
The Winds of Magic eased to 8, but both Wizards (despite Wizbits' mishap) managed to channel. The Butcher started off by casting Trollguts on the Bulls boosting their toughness but took a Wound from the spell – despite the Halfling Cookbook. Wizbit then dispelled both Toothcracker and Braingobbler, but was unable to stop the Butcher casting Bloodgruel and regaining his lost wound. With the Leadbelchers out of range and no combat the Ogre turn finished.
High Elf Turn 2
High Elves: 0 victory points
Ogres: 0 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/HighElfTurn2.jpg)
The High Elves begun their turn by sending the Great Eagles charging into the Leadbelchers' flank who were unable to fire their cannons in retaliation. The rest of the army repositioned with the Sea Guard continuing to threaten the Ironguts' flank, the Reavers and Shadow Warriors repositioning to get better shots on the Ogres and the Phoenix Guard deciding discretion was the better part of valour and returning to the ruins.
I'd hoped to out manoeuvre the Bulls but soon realised there was no advantageous position for the Phoenix Guard to move into that wouldn't result in the Bulls being able to charge them next turn. So I moved them back into the ruined building, meaning if the Bulls did charge they'd count as behind a defended obstacle and would avoid those troublesome impact hits.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3150.jpg)
The Phoenix Guard would have objected to the calls of cowardice thrown at them, as they withdrew into the ruined building, but vows of silence make it hard to object that forcefully.
With no magic to cast Wizbit simply dispelled Trollguts, hoping the shooting phase could do more. Another impressive volley from the Archers scored 12 hits on the Ironguts inflicting 3 wounds and removing another Irongut. The Lothern Sea Guard joined in causing a single wound killing another Irongut. Again the Shadow Warriors were unable to penetrate the tough Ogre hide. The Ellyrian Reavers and Bolt Thrower targeted the Bulls bearing down on the Elf battleline doing 4 wounds between them and killing a single Bull.
In the combat phase the Eagles did 3 hits, but failed to wound the Leadbelchers who responded by inflicting two wounds. The combat was drawn but the Leadbelchers' musician won them the combat. Requiring a 7 to hold, fortunately both Eagles rolled exactly 7 for their leadership tests and held, but the Leadbelchers were able to combat reform and bring both Ogres to bare.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3147.jpg)
What's the Eagle word for "bugger it"? Their failure to wound the Leadbelchers allows them to reform to face the Eagles head on.
Ogre Turn 2
High Elves: 0 victory points
Ogres: 0 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/OgreTurn2.jpg)
Realising that the Lothern Sea Guard were trying to outflank them, the Ogres consolidated their position on the eastern side of the battlefield to draw the Sea Guard out of position. The Bruiser Battle Standard Bearer moved out of the depleted Ironguts unit to join the Bulls.
The Ogre Butcher was easily able to outwit the crippled Elven Mage casting Trollguts and Bullgorger on the Bulls. He then cast Braingobbler on the Archers, realising they were within 12" of Caradryan and able to use his Leadership of 9 Wizbit let it through, only for the Archers to roll an 11 and flee 10" stopping just short of the battlefield edge. Wizbit did dispel Bonecruncher aimed at the Sea Guard but was powerless to stop the Butcher reinforcing the Leadbelchers with Toothcracker.
In combat, despite Toothcracker and one of the Great Eagles failing their fear test, they manage to wound a Leadbelcher, in response the Ogres did two further wounds on the uninjured Great Eagle meaning both majestic birds were down to their last wound. Again however both Eagles passed their break test.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3151.jpg)
From the safety of the ruins the Phoenix Guard watch the Ogres do the character dance.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3152.jpg)
The Battle Standard Bearer has enough of the Shadow Warriors inability to wound him and moves himself to join the Bulls.
High Elf Turn 3
High Elves: 175 victory points
Ogres: 50 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/HighElfTurn3.jpg)
Fortunately for the High Elves the Archers rally and get ready to recommence their bombardment of the Ogre lines next turn.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3156.jpg)
Not only do the Archers rally on the board edge, but they all pass their dangerous terrain test for being on a board clip.
The Lothern Sea Guard decide they can't make the charge distance to the Ironguts, but just in case the Ironguts think they can they shuffle backwards away from their foe, their chance to get the Ironguts in the flank gone.
Using the Arcane Ruins to channel extra power dice, with limited risk, Wizbit is able to dispel all the Gut Magic spells from last turn bar Bullgorger allowing the Bulls to maintain their enhanced Strength.
Without the Archers the High Elf shooting phase is depleted, but the Ironguts still receive a load of arrows in their face, with so few models left in the unit the Butcher takes a wound from the Bolt Thrower whilst the Sea Guard, Shadow Warriors and Bolt Thrower all do one wound each on the unit removing another Irongut. The Ellyrian Reavers have less success unable to wound the Bulls.
Despite one Eagle failing it's fear test, the Eagles finally get their act together all 4 attacks wounding the Leadbelchers and killing one. The remaining Leadbelcher cause one wound killing one of the Eagles, but it's not enough and he breaks caught by the screeching Eagle who is bought to a halt by the Arcane Ruins.
Ogre Turn 3
High Elves: 175 victory points
Ogres: 325 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/OgreTurn3.jpg)
The Bulls charge headlong into the Phoenix Guard, who hold and take the charge. Whilst the Ironguts march past the Sea Guard to threaten the Archers, moving quickly to avoid exposing their flank to the Sea Guard.
The Butcher attempts to cast Trollguts on the Bulls to give them regeneration, but Wizbit throws in all his dispel dice to ensure it's stopped. Sensing the defenceless Elves the Butcher goes to cast his next spell only to fail to roll the casting value ending the magic phase.
After realisation that the Bulls won't get any impact hits on the Phoenix Guard due to the defended obstacle settles in. The Ogre Tyrant accepts Caradryan's challenge (forgetting that the Battle Standard Bearer has a 2+ Ward save against flaming attacks!). Caradryan has his work cut out, but both attacks hit, and requiring a 6 to Wound he manages to roll two 6s, only to see the Tyrant pass one armour and one ward save. Caradryan is completely caught out when one of the Tyrant's sword Gnoblars wounds him bypassing his armour and mystic ward. Despite a flurry of 1s rolled by the Tyrant he does the final wound striking down Caradryan. Caradryan calls for Asuryan's wraith, unfortunately Asuryan isn't listening only doing 1 of D6 wounds which the Tyrant's ward save repels. The Phoenix Guard manage to kill one bull, but take 5 casualties from the Ogres and Battle Standard Bearer despite their ward save. Losing the combat by 5 the Phoenix Guard just about hang in with a roll of a 4 for their break test.
High Elf Turn 4
High Elves: 465 victory points
Ogres: 508 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/HighElfTurn4.jpg)
In a desperate bid to save the Phoenix Guard the Ellyrian Reavers charge the rear of the engaged Bulls.
This may have seemed like madness, but the charging Reavers would gain +3 to the combat resolution even before they struck (+4 if I'd remembered they were charging downhill!), and with their spears they would at least be wounding on a 4+ - this plan might have worked had I not forgotten about the Battle Standard Bearer in the back rank.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3154.jpg)
The Ellyrian Reavers make the long charge to the Bulls only to find a Bruiser waiting for them, oops!
Elsewhere the Eagle extracts itself from the building and repositions itself should it be needed later on, but sufficiently out of harm's way given it's on its last wound.
Meanwhile Wizbit manages to dispel Bullgorger on the Bulls reducing their strength and giving the Phoenix Guard a fighting chance.
The shooting phase cause more pain for the Ironguts, the Archers scoring 12 hits and 4 wounds, 3 on the Ironguts, killing the last Irongut, and one on the Butcher. The Lothern Sea Guard are unable to wound, but the Shadow Warriors do another wound on the Butcher. The Bolt Thrower attempts a flank shot on the unit through the soft cover of the trees but misses.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3157.jpg)
Thank goodness my units had moved up the western flank, else where would I put my army book?
In combat both the Phoenix Guard and the Ellyrian Reavers do a wound on the Bulls, but the Tyrant and Bulls kill another two Phoenix Guard their ward saves absorbing a lot of the pain. However the Battle Standard Bearer kills 4 Ellyrian Reavers. The combat is lost by one and both units flee. The 3 Phoenix Guard get away, but the Ellyrian Reaver champion doesn't see the Butcher who is able to swipe him from his horse as he runs through the spell caster.
Ogre Turn 4
High Elves: 465 victory points
Ogres: 688 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/OgreTurn4.jpg)
The Tyrant charges the Phoenix Guard who are forced to flee off the table, whilst the Bulls and Butcher get closer to the Archers to try and remove their threat.
In the magic phase Wizbit again struggles he stops Trollguts, but the Butcher is able to cast Braingobbler on the Archers again, this time they fortunately pass their panic test, two are however killed by Bonecruncher before the Butcher fails to cast Toothcracker ending the magic phase.
High Elf Turn 5
High Elves: 640 victory points
Ogres: 688 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/HighElfTurn5.jpg)
Other than the Eagle's continued repositioning, this turn is all about killing the Butcher for the High Elves. The Lothern Sea Guard manage a wound with their bows, as do the Shadow Warriors, but the Butcher makes his ward save. The Archers, hoping they'd be free to shoot the approaching Bulls, are unable to wound the Butcher. Fortunately for the Elves the Bolt Thrower shoots through the wood, doing the final wound required.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3153.jpg)
Never trust an Archer to do a Bolt Thrower's job!
Ogre Turn 5
High Elves: 935 victory points
Ogres: 688 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/OgreTurn5.jpg)
The Tyrant repositions himself to threaten the main High Elf army whilst the Bulls charge out of the ruined building into the Archers. In a flurry of marksmanship the Archer score and impressive 6 hits which all wound killing two Bulls on the spot.
In the combat phase the remaining Bull and the Bruiser each crush an Elf with impact hits, but the Archers swarm up killing the remaining Bull before he gets a chance to strike. Despite losing four Archers to the Bruiser the unit remains stubborn and refuses to budge.
High Elf Turn 6
High Elves: 935 victory points
Ogres: 688 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/HighElfTurn6.jpg)
The Shadow Warriors, Lothern Sea Guard and Bolt Thrower all try to shoot the Ogre Tyrant but only two wounds are caused, both of which are saved. In combat the Hawkeye sacrifices himself in a challenge, he's ripped to shreds but prevents the Bruiser from doing enough wounds to stop the Archers being stubborn.
Ogre Turn 6
High Elves: 935 victory points
Ogres: 688 victory points
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%203/OgreTurn6.jpg)
In the final turn the Tyrant charges at the Lothern Sea Guard who decide it's too late in the day to die and leg it, thereby denying the Ogres any chance of claiming their victory points.
In combat the Archers are forced to fight the Tyrant fair and square but manage an impressive two wounds after rolling six 6s to wound! Ouch! The Tyrant does 3 wounds back but it's not enough and the Archers pass their break test.
Debrief
So it was victory to the Elves, horray! I should firstly say thanks to Noah for being a great opponent, and putting up with my note-taking and photography and providing me his full army list for the report. Before I go on to talk about my performance I should point out Noah had just come off nights so had a massive handicap!
Ogres and Elves are an odd matchup, with the Elves really struggling in combat against them - impact hits being a personal hatred for Elves as the bypass the initative system which they love, but on the flipside Ogres can really suffer from Elven shooting - as the Ironguts certainly found out.
Generally I was pleased with my performance, building on the lessons learnt with the Elves of only fighting the battles you want to fight. At the time I was a little disappointed with the Phoenix Guard, my first ever battle using them, I've often fought them and been stunned by their ability to constantly pass ward saves. So understandably when I only rolled an average number of 4+s I felt a bit cheesed off! As Noah put it I claeraly haven't been to Daemon school - he he. Poor old Caradryan didn't really stand a chance against an Ogre Tyrant, but to be wounded by a Sword Gnoblar, oh the shame! I honestly expected a few more wounds from Asuryan's wraith though, which is the only reason I sent him into the challenge!! Bloody gods.
I was saved by my shooting and most notably my Archers, who must get Elves of the match. They always hit way above the average, twice getting 15 hits out of 20 on a 4+. Except the Champion, who was useless, but he died so just desserts. Not only that, but their impressive performance standing and shooting two Bulls dead on the charge and killing the final Bull in combat gave me the win, else I'd have only managed a draw. And then two wounds on the Bruiser. Normally you'd say the game ended and saved the Archers from the Bruiser, but I'm not sure if that in this case it was the other way round and the Bruiser got a lucky escape.
Many thanks again to Noah for taking part in this battle report.
Before I go this week to get my bunting out for the wedding, there's a couple of bits of housekeeping. Firstly to say if you'd like to take part in a battle against my High Elves for a battle report for this very blog please let me know (it will take longer than usual to play the game as I feverishly draw maps and write notes!).
Secondly bon voyage to Mike, who's off to York I believe – sometime soon, but it's his farewell tournament on Sunday, which sadly I can't attend. Thanks for the games we've had Mike and for wasting your time reading my blog, hope you keep it up from York!
And finally a reminder about our outstanding competitions, keep your numbers coming in for What's in the Box? You've got until the beginning of next week. And we're yet to have a winning Easter Egg hunt entry. Remember all you need to do is find the 12 Eggs featured in the photos of this blog, as a clue I'll tell you they all appear in April's entries! PM where they are and you could be winning this delicious 3-pack of Cream Eggs.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3203.jpg)
Who wouldn't want them, except those who don't like sickly food, those on a diet and nut intolerant people?
On that note enjoy your second 4-day weekend, you lucky people. See you next week.
Box 36 please, if I'm in time...
Nope you're still in time, going to close this one Bank Holiday Monday. Though you do realise by picking Box 36, should you win, I will have to move my chest of drawers to get to it - I hope you understand what you've done!!
Don't fancy a go at the Easter Egg hunt?
Pm sent, I have found 11 for sure, not so sure about number 12, I know it's some trick... :cool3:
Good spots, yeah the 11 you got are correct. The 12th is not a trick, you've already got the trickiest ones, and it's not in the picture you suspected it might be in. Though no one else has found that egg yet.
Quote from: cunningmatt on April 30, 2011, 02:26:33 pm
The 12th is not a trick, you've already got the trickiest ones, and it's not in the picture you suspected it might be in.
But it's in a picture posted during April on this blog??
Definitely in April, I just checked!
Quote from: cunningmatt on April 30, 2011, 05:30:52 pm
Definitely in April, I just checked!
And in the piccies before you announced it, or is it possibloy amongst your garden / Jabberwocky collection?
The picture was up on the blog when the egg-citing competiton was announced, it's not an egg-stremely devious one that you're missing. Sorry that was a terrible yolk!
Wednesday 4th May - WEEK 18
It's Star Wars Day, May the Fourth be with you!! Ok now that terrible joke's out the way let's get on.
I'm afraid that's it, your 11 days off (perhaps) and your 4-day Bank Holiday weekends (if you were lucky) are over. It's back to work with a bang, no more painting in the garden, if you have been (incidentally if you have you can check out my top painting tips for outdoors in last week's Blog - scroll up, scroll up, bit further - I mention this only as someone pointed out to me they hadn't had time to read my blog because they'd not been at work this week. Glad to see my blog is costing the economy money!). Still despite being back at work we can all agree the Royal Wedding was lovely, didn't all those trees look amazing in Westminster Abbey. Shame the Duke of Edinburgh failed his dangerous terrain test and took a wound!! Hey, and they said I couldn't make a joke connecting Warhammer and the Royal Wedding, admittedly they didn't say it had to be a good joke!
This week I've decided to introduce a new feature to my blog entitled "Models from Hell", or maybe "Poo Models" it's a work-in-progress feature so we can worry about that in good time. Essentially it's an opportunity to moan about models that we don't like in a kind of Room 101 for hobbyists, except without the fun trap door and Paul Merton. Before I start I should point out I don't actually moan about Games Workshop that much on this blog, in fairness I moan a lot, but it's generally about how my own persona is supremely unsuited to our modern world and actually the moan is more my own rebellion at the fact that I'm a crap example of a person. I don't really like to give Games Workshop too hard a time, as it some ways it feels a bit soul destroying to attack the very core of what we all do for leisure, and also being the media w**ker I am, I do understand the predicament of trying to balance the need for Games Workshop to make profit with trying to do everything the "fans" want (not that I have "fans" in any form). That all said, one particular model ruined most of last Friday and Saturday with it's intense stupidity so I've decided that it shall be my first "Model from Hell"/"Poo Model".
Model from Hell/Poo Model - Number 1
And the model that has caused my rage is the Beastmen Razagor:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3434.jpg)
I realise the poor old Razagor has never had its fans, but I'm going to shock you now by saying I actually don't mind the look of the finished model. It's not my favourite model ever, admittedly, but I certainly don't hate it and am happy to have it in my Beastmen army*. I realise that trying to convince you that this model isn't that bad looking will be a bit like trying to convince that you Jedward are good, so I'm not going to try. Incidentally, if you are wondering what happened to Jedward (?!) then you might like to know they are entering this year's Eurovision for the Republic of Ireland (and you thought Blue was bad!). Genuinely they wanted to have two real life tigers on stage them with, but the hosts banned it on health and safety grounds. I think I speak for the whole of Europe when I say we're willing to risk it.
*Terms and conditions apply, I'll come back to this point
Despite all of what I've just said, this is a democracy (of sorts) so on the grounds that the vast majority of you don't like this model that clearly is grounds for our first black mark against the Razagor.
Regardless of thoughts on the models design I did purchase a handful of them, why you might ask? Well the only units, with models available, missing from my Beastmen Horde are a Razagor Herd and a Razagor Chariot. So I decided it was about time I rectified this and over the months since Christmas have ended up with four of the buggers, three for a unit and one I intend to convert to pull a chariot. At this point, thinking about and buying the models, I probably should have stopped...
So after the festivities of the Royal Wedding I decided to assemble my Razagor herd, and got three of the models, first thing I noticed was – no instructions.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3437.jpg)
Now don't get me wrong it wasn't impossible to work out what goes where, but given some of the simple plastic kits that get instructions, I'd think a 13 (yes thirteen)-piece metal model could probably do with some, but never mind. Second black mark.
Thirdly despite the Razagor being designed to be fielded in units of multiple models (although minimum unit size is 1), you'd think there might be at least two different variants, even an interchangeable head or something. You'd be wrong. All four of my Razagor are identical.
It turns out the 'Eavy Metal team have got over this by converting a handful, as seen in this battle report from White Dwarf 362 when the current Beastmen range were launched.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3451.jpg)
Whilst I liked the original model, these "variants" I'm really not keen on, they look a bit too much like a cartoonesque explosion of boar, and how exactly have they converted them? I can't in fact tell which is the original model and what was done to make these different – they look like completely new sculpts. I may not be the only one pleased with them either, as this is the only picture anywhere (that I can find) with them in published by Games Workshop – apart from this blurry one from the same battle report (best to keep them out of focus):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3457.jpg)
All the army shots in Warhammer Armies: Beastmen and other sources feature no more than one Razagor – the standard one. Is it possible these were the original models, and they withdrew them as they look odd, but not before they photographed the battle report?
So with my unit of Razagor consisting of three clones, I had to do some converting work to try and at least differentiate them slightly – which is particularly tricky when you consider the fact that despite the model being 13 pieces it is primarily one large hunk of metal. However I did give it a go and add on some bits and pieces from the Chaos Spawn set and do a bit of fur modelling from green stuff, you can judge my results shortly.
However the single worst thing about this model, is its absolute impossibility to assemble, it would probably be easier to reassemble Osama Bin Laden's body than put this pig of a model (literally) together. None of the parts fit properly, it all needs pining and there isn't a single join that I didn't have to attempt to glue at least twice on every bloody model, for f**k's sake!
Pining whilst usually the answer didn't work in this case, as the pieces are so badly fitting it is impossible to get the holes on each piece to be aligned. You need the pieces to be actually touching to work out the "least worst" option of where they'd join, which my usual technique of mounting a pin in one piece and pushing them together to find where the second hole should be doesn't allow. Similarly putting a blob of paint on one part and pushing them together doesn't work, as at most places the parts don't actually join due to the poor moulding. This is exacerbated by the fact I was using Games Workshop's pin drill and hobby vice, often whilst pushing the pin drill down to bore a hole the drill bit will slip back into the drill, hot helpful. And as for the hobby vice, the vacuum clamp on the bottom has less chance of adhering to a surface, than Nick Clegg has of adhering to a promise. I tend to find wedging the model in a lump of blu-tac works better than the hobby vice, which is more useful for holding together two pieces you are waiting for the glue to dry on.
Of course the fact that none of the pieces actually bloody fit together means I used enough green stuff to build a full scale model of the Himalayas. So after two days of getting green stuff all over the dining table, drilling into my arm and getting superglue all over my fingers the three Razagors were finally assembled.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3443.jpg)
I only managed to spray one (the non-converted one for info), as the other two still need some more green stuff, in fact a tusk fell off just moving them into position for this photo. Bloody pieces of tat.
What annoys me more, is I can so no reason why they didn't just make a kit to do a few (maybe even a chariot option, but I shall not push it) from plastic, which would have given some variation and been a hell of a lot easier to put together. In fact I say Games Workshop should be banned from releasing any more metal models that are more complicated to assemble than putting in a slotta base. Plastic is the way forward, it travels better, assembles easier, is less likely to break and harder to chip paint off – not to mention cheaper. Yeah, yeah so metal can have more detail on – ok so you can cast extravagant details out of metal, but you can't actually cast pieces that might potentially f**king join together for f**king-c**ting-bu**ery-bo****king sake. And worst of all I've still got one of these to assemble for my bloody chariot, I need a lie down.
Sorry had to get that off my chest.
So there we go the Razagor has been nominated as my first Model from Hell / Poo Model because it looks rubbish (according to popular opinion), has no instructions, no variants and is less fun to assemble than an IKEA bookshelf with all the parts missing.
This new feature isn't all about me though, I'm sure you have a Model from Hell / Poo Model that you absolutely hate for some reason, and I'd love you to put some nominations in too. Feel free to reply with something suitably vitriolic here, or if you like you can PM your rant and I may even add some photos in and shove it in next week's blog. Do bare in mind we want a rant not just Model BLAH – because it's s**t! Oh and suggestions for a name for this feature would be cool too.
In the interests of balance, after having a "slight" moan at Games Workshop I would like to say something very positive about them. After recently purchasing a Beastmen Chariot from Ol, I found that sadly one of the parts was missing - obviously nothing to do with Ol so keep buying from here peeps, keep buying!! (There done my bit). So as not to bother Ol he's a busy man, he has the blog to read after all, I e-mailed Games Workshop directly to ask them what to do. They told me to either send it straight to them or pop into a store, being I don't work too far from the Oxford Street store I popped in there, showed the guys the problem and the e-mail from Games Workshop Head Office. On the spot they opened up a replacement and gave me the missing part, and then let me keep the rest of the model they'd opened up as they were only going to have to send it back to Head Office to dispose of it. So after the slight annoyance of having a missing piece from my chariot I ended up with an extra chariot (bar one piece). Which I consider to be excellent customer service at rectifying their mistake, so big Well Done to Games Workshop – possibly the first time (and last) this phrase has appeared on a gaming forum anywhere in the world ever.
Easter Egg Hunt and What's In the Box?
Over the last couple of week's I've been running an Easter Egg hunt to win a fabulous pack of Cream Eggs (now reduced in Sainsbury's to about 8p), all you had to do was spot the 12 eggs hidden in recent editions of this blog. I've had a number of entries, two being a number, admittedly a rather low one but still I'll take what I get.
However the 12 eggs did prove elusive with our highest scoring entry only finding 11 of them, so where were they?
Well going back to WEEK 15, you'll find Egg #1 which was a hen's egg popping out of the LEGO helicopter box:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3458.jpg)
Egg #2 also from WEEK 15 was a pink children's egg of some description (don't ask) on the Chaos Spawn instructions:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3459.jpg)
Moving onto WEEK 16 and Eggs #3-8 were in a box of six eggs cunningly displayed with some painting guides:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3461.jpg)
Egg #9 was on WEEK 16's set of What's In the Box boxes:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3462.jpg)
Eggs #10-11 were on the Easter special blog entry and were probably the trickiest to discover as they were drawn by our resident 4-year old artist on the Easter card.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3463.jpg)
But where was that elusive Egg 12? Well I had some inventive suggestions, including the fact that maybe Cheryl was an eggplant, which amused me greatly, but actually it was in plain sight. It was another hen's egg with the Storm of Magic in a Teacup gift set.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3460.jpg)
I suspect you were all distracted by the comedy of that gag – Storm of Magic in a Teacup, get it? in a Teacup – sometimes I'm just so funny! Anyway that may be why you didn't see the egg!
Although no one got all 12 eggs, in the spirit of Easter I will give the Cream Eggs to Ol who managed a sterling effort to get 11 of the 12 eggs. Well done mate, the eggs are winging their way to you, so duck!!
Much more popular was the What's In the Box competition with an impressive five entries (if this was BBC Parliament they'd be pleased with those kind of figures)! Here's how the boxes looked at the beginning of this round:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3373.jpg)
With Cheryl dead it fell to our guest independent adjudicator, all the way from the Lion King it's Simba...:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3421.jpg)
...who drew box No. 36:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3423.jpg)
Congratulations Andrew, though this did mean I had to shuffle the boxes round to get them, and all the stuff wedged behind them under the bed avalanched out. Not good news – thanks Andrew!!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3375.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3379.jpg)
And Box no 36 is a classic High Elf box:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3380.jpg)
Featuring 12 classic Shadow Warriors...:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3385.jpg)
...who despite there being different sculpts appear to all be posed in exactly the same way!
Also 14 monopose Archers from the 4th edition box:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3388.jpg)
6 classic Phoenix Guard...:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3391.jpg)
...not as good as the current models, but better than the set prior to the current incarnation.
16 monopose Spearmen, also from the 4th edition box:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3393.jpg)
A couple of classic High Elf Mages:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3395.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3397.jpg)
Randomly a poorly painted Chaos Warrior, High Elf shield and an odd unpainted shield:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3400.jpg)
A full command set for the Spearmen unit...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3403.jpg)
...though I suspect the Champion could pass for a standard bearer!
A "misfired" classic High Elf Bolt Thrower in need of glue, hopefully no bloody pinning here:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3408.jpg)
An odd flying base:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3410.jpg)
And 6 High Elf armoured horses, with a Silver Helms champion, who appears to have fallen off them!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3417.jpg)
Sorry if you didn't win this month, but I'm sure in a few weeks we'll be revisiting the boxes. And bare in mind as we run out of boxes the chances of you being picked increases!!!
From one thing you can vote on to another, see what I did there, Thursday sees only the second nationwide referendum in the United Kingdom's history (bonus points if you know what the first was about), as the nation decides whether it knows what Alternative Voting is or not. Now keep reading, don't skim to the end this is IMPORTANT, and I promise to try and make it a bit entertaining(ish)! If you follow the media you will know that Alternative Voting is so deeply complex, that you can't possibly hope to understand it, I will try and have a go at explaining it now, but bare in mind as a mere mortal you may not understand it.
Essentially under Alternative Voting rather than voting for a single candidate you rank as many as you wish in order of preference. All the first choices are then counted, and if someone has over 50% of the vote then they win, otherwise the lowest scoring candidate is eliminated and the second choices of those who voted for that candidate are added to the remaining candidates, this process continues until one candidate has 50% of the vote and is declared the winner.
Did you understand it? You probably did, because in actual fact it's not that complicated, admittedly it's more complicated than the current voting system, but I'd say it's about as complicated as the way in which the judges' scores and viewers' votes are combined on Strictly Come Dancing, the rules to buying houses in Monopoly, the format to The Weakest Link* or understanding the rules for magic in Warhammer. It's certainly within the realms of understandability for most humans, and is definitely easier to understand than the reasons for Kerry Katona still being on our television screens.
I would like to just say at this point that Anne Robinson announced she was quitting The Weakest Link the very week I compared her to Jabberslythe on this blog, I sincerely hope her decision was not motivated by my comments.
It is customary for me now to try and re-explain Alternative Voting through an elaborate and deeply flawed metaphor in order to confuse what we've already realised is a reasonably straight forward concept. So here is my Warhammer based attempt.
Wizbit the Elf Mage can't decide what's the next best unit to add to his growing High Elf army, so allows his Elves to vote on which unit is best to add to the army. The Elves are excited to learn that they will be able to use the new voting system of Alternative Voting, so rank their top choices. Wizbit decides for simplicity's sake (and as the author of this metaphor isn't great at mathematics) to only ask 100 of his warriors to vote.
After the first round of voting the votes stand as follows:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3464.jpg)
As you can see much like British politics we have two very popular choices, the Dragon Princes and the Swordmasters – the Swordmasters are currently winning but don't have 50% of the vote so cannot win at present. There's a third reasonably large choice, the White Lions (who everyone liked until they got in power with the Swordmasters) and much like real world voting we have the lunatic choices – the Ellyrian Reavers and Tiranoic Chariot and the BNP choice the Witch Elves.
As no one has more than 50% of the votes, the lowest scoring choice is eliminated. Wizbit won't be having any more Ellyrian Reavers in his army. The second choice of those who voted Ellyrian Reavers is now added to the remaining first choice votes.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3465.jpg)
The Swordmasters remain in the lead, but still don't have 50%, so at this point any chance of Wizbit having a Tiranoic Chariot in his army is removed, and their second choice votes are added to the current scores.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3466.jpg)
Still the Swordmasters are in the lead, but again not having 50% of the vote means the Witch Elves, current lowest scorers, are removed. Wizbit breathes a sigh of relief, as the Witch Elf voters second choice is now counted.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3467.jpg)
With a large Dragon Prince support from Witch Elf voters they push into the lead, but it requires a 5th round to get an overall majority.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3468.jpg)
All White Lions votes are recounted (second choice for initial White Lions voters and third choice for those who had White Lions as second choice), and the Dragon Princes claim the majority, just. So despite not winning the initial vote the Dragon Princes are the overall winners, and don't you feel enlightened? That didn't complicate things at all.
If the actual attempts to explain to you how Alternative Voting works hadn't confused the hell out of you, then maybe the campaigns of the Yes and No camps will. I at this point wish to make it very clear I am not influencing your decision on who to vote or even if you should vote, I am going to treat you like an intelligent adult capable of making your own decisions... unlike the Yes and No camps. However we could have a look at some of the more Jackanory style campaign points. Let's start with the No campaign, who quite frankly are best at this, and sent me this lovely leaflet...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3428.jpg)
So what do the "No" campaign say. Well you can't have failed to see the controversial posters featuring an ill baby saying "She needs a new cardiac facility NOT an alternative voting system",
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3469.jpg)
Implying that the £250 million that it is claimed AV would cost would come mean our sick baby can't get the treatment she needs. That sounds absolutely outrageous, I mean taking money straight from the NHS to pay for changes to our voting system. And then of course there's a similar poster featuring a soldier saying "He needs bulletproof vests NOT an alternative voting system".
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3470.jpg)
First of all slightly greedy for him to want multiple bulletproof vests, who does he think he is Osama Bin Laden? Secondly if both of these posters are true, surely the bigger choice is do we have a new cardiac facility or do we have bulletproof vests? We clearly haven't got the money for both, which is more important babies or soldiers? Or is it more likely that money won't be diverted from a hospital or the army to pay for any voting changes.
And let's look at our figure of £250 million to pay for AV, which seems to involve rounding up the costs to the nearest £250 million. This figure includes £26 million to "explain" to voters how the new system works – it's not complicated it doesn't need explaining!!!! Plus I and every media outlet have explained it for free, pay attention people. £130 million will be potentially be spent on counting machines, despite the fact that London and Scotland already have counting machines for various local elections, and in many other countries that use AV they count by hand. That's still actually quite possible, we could get counting machines for first past the post – but we don't. Also the cost includes money for reprinting ballot papers, because of course under first past the post we can use the same ballot papers as last year as not a single candidate across all 656 constituencies has changed since the last election. And last election we printed at least twice as many as we actually needed. Hmmm....
Then of course there's the other countries that use AV:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3471.jpg)
According to the "No" campaign, this is what the world looks like under AV, you mean we can only see countries that have the same voting system as us, how disturbing. Surely though the terror at seeing most of the known world disappear should be balanced by the excitement of seeing these new undiscovered lands using AV suddenly appearing on our planet?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3433.jpg)
The "No" campaign claims that AV is "the least popular" voting system as it's only used in three other countries: Fiji, Australia and Papua New Guinea. Really does this make it "least popular" is it, say, less popular than the voting system used in Syria? In fact I think very few of us actually rank voting systems in order of preference, I think they've confused "least popular" with "least used" which is what they actually mean. And is this really a good reason not to have it, not many countries have free health care, however I wouldn't think that's a good reason to demolish the NHS – obviously the current government think differently. This point also conveniently forgets that many countries use AV for local elections, and lots use Single Transferable Voting a form of AV, but hey who needs the truth.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3425.jpg)
Of course sports have been a good metaphor for AV, even the "No" camp have used it, though they seem to have misunderstood it. Because here they suggest that the last placed runner has won under AV, this could never happen, it's even worse than my metaphor as it's plain wrong. The person who comes last, can't win as they can never have 50% of the vote, weren't you listening during my explanation?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3472.jpg)
And of course there's President Clegg, if you vote for AV then he will always be president forever. Technically not true, and also rather disturbingly suggests should AV be implemented the Queen will be executed and we will become a Republic. This is a side to the argument that's not been publicised that much. Though as the execution will be under AV we at least will be allowed a choice of preferences for how the Queen will be removed. I'm going to vote for sending her on the Total Wipeout course. Of course it could be that using the word "president" is simply more scary to worried voters, who hate change.
And then lastly there's the thorny issues of the BNP, according to the No camp, the BNP will benefit under AV. Really? Really? I mean even in the most disillusioned of constituencies are there areas where 50% of people would vote for the BNP? I find that hard to believe. Secondly who has the BNP has their second choice, "I mean I really want to screw over foreigners, black people and gays, but not as much as I'd like to annoy f**king students, so I'm voting Lib Dem first choice then the BNP" - does that really happen? To me the BNP seem like a rather polar choice, you either love them or hate them – much like Marmite, only obviously less brown.
I always wonder if people do actually read my entire blog, so at this point I'm going to pose the question "Is it wrong to crack one off, whilst watching the Royal Wedding?" simply to see if any of you spot this filthy conundrum.
In the interests of balance I should of course look at the Yes campaign, who really haven't been as inventive with their lies, and haven't sent me a leaflet which isn't very helpful for this part of the blog. Some of their suggestions are however a little fanciful an "End to Safe Seats" is promised, well technically only safe seats that don't already get 50% of the vote. Around 200 seats in the UK are elected with 50% of the vote, they'll still be safe. Although the thought of a dangerous seat does amuse me, is this one with only three legs at the top of a cliff?
And sadly the Yes vote did tarnish their reputation with a certain video (which sadly I haven't been able to find a link to) showing a war veteran proudly displaying his medals who explains that "for all the say I've had, I might as well have died in the Russian convoys, or on the D-Day beaches, or in the Pacific after that". You might as well have died? Really? You think First Past the Post is such a horrendous voting system that we might as well have let Nazi Germany simply conquer the entire free world? I suspect you might be exaggerating slightly, or you might have left your sense of reason on your submarine.
Anyhow as is customary on the internet the mention of the Nazis brings all forms of sensible discussion to an end, and really stupid ones too. I'd like to reiterate in no way am I telling you how to vote or even whether to vote on Thursday, or not. Simply mocking the stupidity of some of the campaign posters, and my longer mocking of the "No" campaign is simply a sign of the fact that they have stupider posters, not any political bias. I for one will be voting "Yes", but "No" will be my second choice!!
On that political bombshell I remind you that I'd love to hear your entries for Models from Hell / Poo Models, but remember we want to see some elegant rants! Reply here, or post them to me and I'll add some of my sardonic wit, and pointless pictures to them in next week's blog, not that I'm sure when I'll have a chance to blog – as The Apprentice is back next week on Tuesday and Wednesday!!!! Horray!
Hurrah, I'm looking forward to seeing you paint dragon princes!
And in response to your question, it depends if you were in company or not. There is now a rather large facebook group which suggests you weren't alone in that thought.
Quotethe BNP ... much like Marmite, only obviously less brown
This is a great quote
QuoteIs it wrong to crack one off, whilst watching the Royal Wedding?"
similar response to Dave, probably only if not alone!
Quote from: Dave on May 04, 2011, 11:09:51 am
Hurrah, I'm looking forward to seeing you paint dragon princes!
Me too, I was lucky enough to get a set from Mr Shakey Shakey for my birthday and the frames look amazing, slightly concerned by the 8-page instruction manual!!! But at least they have one, ruddy Razagors <insert Mutley-esque grumbling noises here> :rant;2: :rant;2:
Quote from: maelzch on May 04, 2011, 12:38:53 pm
similar response to Dave, probably only if not alone!
I was in Westminster Abbey at the time - does that make it wrong?
Quote from: cunningmatt on May 04, 2011, 01:25:24 pmI was in Westminster Abbey at the time - does that make it wrong?
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/formfitting-mcqueen-gown-gets-pippa-middletons-bum-its-own-facebook-page-2277987.html
Was it this or do you just get off over regal things?
Quote from: Dave on May 04, 2011, 03:39:31 pm
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/formfitting-mcqueen-gown-gets-pippa-middletons-bum-its-own-facebook-page-2277987.html
Was it this or do you just get off over regal things?
Guilty as charged! :blush:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3460.jpg)
I cannot tell you how many times I looked at this piccy, crazy how I missed it...Still another win, I love creme eggs :1st:
As for the Pumbagor, I too had to use oodles of GS to make it, and the blooming spines fall off all the time, but even so it's no where near as bad as making a TK SSC or a Scorpion, hell haff no fury like those 2 models..
here's hoping they do plastic ones in the rumoured TK 2nd wave...
Yeah I was surprised given you got all the other eggs, that this was the one that passed you by! Hence my amusement at your brilliant ideas for how I could have tricked you!!
I'm having more trouble with the Tusks in the mouth than the Spines on the back, but am going to put so much green stuff on his mouth will practically be shut.
Yeah I've heard the Screaming Skull Catapult and Tomb Scorpions are horrendous, they would enter the Models from Hell feature, had I built one. What puzzles me is why if all these parts are recommended to be pinned, can't a pin joint be moulded on them in the first place?
I keep thinking about getting a Hellcannon for my Chaos Warriors army, and then remember the stories I've heard... what do we reckon the chances of a plastic one of those are (or maybe a resin one?
After all my babbling about Alternative Voting, I forgot to mention the most fun bit about voting - that is seeing all the tiny undersized chairs and desks at the primary school!!! Can't wait!
I agree that the hellcannon is a cock of a model! One of the two halves of mine was curved slightly outwards, had to sculpt a lot in!
also, congrats, your blog has gone over 500 posts!
When I was at Disneyland last year, I tried to find some little plastic Pumba models to use as Pumbagors, because lets be honest they'd look better... but for some reason, Disneyland has absolutely no Lion King memorabilia whatsoever. Almost ruined my day...
Quote from: maelzch on May 04, 2011, 08:59:41 pm
I agree that the hellcannon is a cock of a model! One of the two halves of mine was curved slightly outwards, had to sculpt a lot in!
I have not heard good things from anyone, I like the idea of painting Chaos Dwarfs but the model scares me :scared01:
Quote from: maelzch on May 04, 2011, 08:59:41 pm
also, congrats, your blog has gone over 500 posts!
Wow! Yes, thank you very much. That's amazing, and I was the 500th person to post - does that win me a small prize?
Quote from: Meals on May 05, 2011, 09:39:47 am
When I was at Disneyland last year, I tried to find some little plastic Pumba models to use as Pumbagors, because lets be honest they'd look better... but for some reason, Disneyland has absolutely no Lion King memorabilia whatsoever. Almost ruined my day...
It would take a lot to ruin a day out at Disneyland, with mentions of Simba and Pumba in this week's blog it's a Lion King special. I feel an urge to sing "The Circle of Life" loudly in my office at work, anyone want to join in? Oh just been told it's not approrpiate at work :sad;m:
Matt - really enjoying this as ever. Suggestions for the remaining 200 points (sue me and die :rivertroll02:)
Vambraces of defence, Star lance and Potion of Foolhardiness on your prince chappy 100
5 more Phoenix Guard 75
Skeinsliver for wizbit 25 (worth if for shooty armies like yours)
Sorted!
Oh, and I am overcome with emotion at having box 36 emptied. :cry: Thank you. :cry: :cry:
Quote from: Toast on May 05, 2011, 03:10:16 pm
Suggestions for the remaining 200 points (sue me and die :rivertroll02:)
Finally someone's bought this thread back on topic!!! It only took 500 replies over 34 pages!! :thumbsup:
Very good point though, with only 200 points left what do you guys reckon I should add for the final month?
I never made a plan for what to take in the army at the beginning, as I knew I'd get distracted with the new High Elf models that were on their way, but I did make a wish list of units I'd like to paint/add - which came to about 3,500 points! 0]] Hence why I have a lot of "naked" characters, but do I paint another unit or do I go for magic items, or is it mix of the two?
I personally had planned to paint up 5 Dragon Princes with full command, which comes in at exactly 200 points, but that would leave Wizbit and the Prince "streaking" across the battlefield. Also I have no idea what magic items to take, ever! I'm rubbish at that bit (as opposed to being s**t hot at everything else in Warhammer, obviously!!) Andrew, I'm sure your choices are good, but I can't remember what any of them will do, will check with my army book later!
For reminder's sake here's how the army currently stands. I've noticed these army lists don't display very well in some browsers, so you might need to click on each image to expand it - else it will look like a dodgy optician's chart:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3194.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3195.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3196.jpg)
The other point I'll make is that personally I only field units with full command (where applicable) so no use in suggesting a new unit without a command group as I won't do it! And secondly if it's all magic items, then I've already painted up the whole army and this blog will close down and self-destruct... probably.
So it's over to you for you thoughts...
Quote from: Toast on May 05, 2011, 03:10:16 pm
Oh, and I am overcome with emotion at having box 36 emptied.
You should thank Simba really, and although it was emptied I put everything back now, got to be tidy!
With out a doubt, you should paint the Dragon Princes buddy.
Then when you are at 2000 pts, you can play people at 2200 pts and add magic items around, or remove Caradyan and replace with magic items as well..
For starters your griffon lord should have the Star lance and the 1+ AS...
And Wizbit should have the ( silver wand?) that lets him pick his spells
Quote from: fatolaf on May 06, 2011, 11:23:15 am
And Wizbit should have the ( silver wand?) that lets him pick his spells MINDWAAAZORRR
I agree with Ol, this is an army building challenge not a 'I'm adding 200pts of magic items to my list' challenge
Yeah I think I agree, would be rubbish to just add 200 points of magic items for the last month. So definitely a new unit/expansion to an existing unit.
Anyone got any suggestion other than the Dragon Princes? Though I may have to just paint them soon, the sprues look too good!!!!!
Oh and I looked up the magic items Star Lance looks good for the Griffon, who should always get the charge - though is an extra +1S and ignore Armour Save when he'd be striking at Strength 6 anyway worth 40 points. I suppose it helps guarantee that all important first round combat res.
The Seerstaff of Saphery is the one your thinking of Ol - I had no clue and had to look it up, choosing spells is always good, but I don't want to become the High Elf version of the Gatewayer!!
Andrew - like the idea of The Potion of Foolhardiness make him a charging machine, and a 4+ ward save (and armour save reroll) from the Vambraces of Defence is of course useful - though work with my Phoneix Guard shows I need to practice rolling 4+'s.
The Skeinsilver - +1 to roll to determine first turn. Seems like a lot of points to not really guarantee you the first turn, as currently I seem to finish deploying second (200 points a month makes for lots of little units). I try not to play it as a completely shooty High Elf army, as battle reports show I do actually advance on the enemy!!! But yes the extra round of shooting is useful, just 25 points seems like a lot for what this does?
As always your thoughts on this and anything else are welcome! Wow 5 whole posts in a row on topic, surely this has to end soon?!!
Star lance is awesome buddy, ignoring armour save against Scar vet tanks, etc is very very handy..
Here is my idea for kit:
Prince: Star Lance, Talisman of Loec, Armour of Caledor, Dawnstone
Wizbit: Seerstaff of Saphery (not cheesy unless you pick shadows), Dragonbane gem, Gem of Courage (with your dice, v useful)
Quote from: fatolaf on May 08, 2011, 10:52:01 am
Star lance is awesome buddy, ignoring armour save against Scar vet tanks, etc is very very handy..
Very good point, I forgetting horrendous character builds and their minus 5+ armour saves!
Quote from: fatolaf on May 08, 2011, 10:52:01 am
Prince: Star Lance, Talisman of Loec, Armour of Caledor, Dawnstone
Nice armour save combo there, and the Dawnstone with Star Lance would be an excellent charge - not such a fan of taking a wound but there we go. And crazily the Talisman of Loec isn't actually a Talisman, it's an Enchanted Item - go figure.
Quote from: fatolaf on May 08, 2011, 10:52:01 am
Wizbit: Seerstaff of Saphery (not cheesy unless you pick shadows), Dragonbane gem, Gem of Courage (with your dice, v useful)
No one ever seems to take flaming attacks against me (maybe it's personal) but I guess if they did Dragonbame Gem would be good. As for the Gem of Courage, I'm not sure best 2 dice from 3D6 is enough, with my dice I need to pick 2 from 8D6 - or get someone else to roll them, how many points would that be?
Quote from: cunningmatt on May 10, 2011, 11:16:36 pm
Nice armour save combo there, and the Dawnstone Talisman with Star Lance would be an excellent charge - not such a fan of taking a wound but there we go.
I think you meant to say the Talisman, did not see the bit about taking a wound, but I think it's still worth it for that must win round of combat, plus he has 3 wounds anyway...
Quote
No one ever seems to take flaming attacks against me (maybe it's personal) but I guess if they did Dragonbame Gem would be good.
Thinking more along the lines of it's only 5 points, so why not?
PLus if you find out someone has flaming attacks, you can use the wizard to challenge him out, plus gies you protection against Fire spells, you could leave a unit and bait the fire mage into trying to fry Wizbit instead of the unit he's in, that sort of thing...
An alternative build for your Prince and an alternative use would be:
Reaver Bow
Shield of Ptolos
Dawnstone or Healing Potion
So with his BS of 6, you can fly round the battlefield, shooting 15 shots off in a game at S5 and hitting most of the time on 2's.
So you can use him to pick off all the fast cav, redirectors, war machines, beasties etc, he will have a 1+ AS against shooting that is either re rollable or you can simply heal him back if his wounds get low.
Give him Dragon Armour as well for the all important 2+ ward vs flaming, which gives him protection against most Dwarf war machines as they all have (usually) flaming runes...
Wednesday 11th May - WEEK 19
I'm going to start with a confession this week, I have nothing to show you painting wise – not a jot, sorry, stuff has been happening but nothing really worth getting my camera out for, and given the random stuff you know I get my camera out for, you can imagine how little has actually happened. In fact there are no pictures at all this week – I need to bring down my average to keep the internet online, but hopefully you don't need the pics to get you through this amble.
My lack of painting gives me an ideal chance to talk about a topic close to my heart, the reason that nothing has actually been painted, and something probably important to you too – given the fact that you've found the time to read this blog. That something, is the art of procrastination, also known as faffing or what women like to refer to as multitasking. Yes, we know your secret female kind, you're not doing multiple things at once, your doing multiple things whilst putting off doing something useful – it's not special or unique don't be proud. We can all do it.
At this point I'd like to point out that I was inspired to talk about procrastination by Dave's wonderful blog – entitled Dave's OGPurchases (not to be confused with the TV Channel Dave, which shows decidedly more Top Gear) which can be found at this url – http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=738.msg26806;topicseen#msg26806 (http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=738.msg26806;topicseen#msg26806). Crazy fact of the week, url stands for Uniform Resource Locator (which is a posh name for a sign in a police station to the cupboard with all the jackets in – sorry lame joke bit O couldn't resist!). Dave's painting blog has two major advantages over mine, 1) he actually does some painting in it, and 2) unlike mine it can be read within the natural lifespan of the Universe.
Not only is Dave's blog a good source for something to do when procrastinating, not that I need extra procrastination outlets, but Dave did a good job himself procrastinating with discussions on how to work out how many models he has painted this year. However the main thing about Dave's blog that got me thinking about procrastination, is the speed at which he paints his models. A Skaven Screaming Bell in 5 hours, and an Eldar person-thing (whatever one of those is), in 20 minutes before work!! Two questions here, if you can paint a model in 20 minutes, how can you be at a deficit of 250 more models bought than painted this year? Secondly, simply, how? In 20 minutes I could maybe paint a shoe of one Elf, or highlight a Beastmen's axe head, but certainly not paint a Beastmen's horn – far too complicated.
It was whilst thinking about why I couldn't paint a Skaven Screaming Bell in 5 weeks, let alone 5 hours that I realised that procrastination is very likely the answer. An exhaustive study has shown that an average hour long painting session with me progresses something like this:
0hrs 00minutes – get out paints, fill up pot with water and lay down newspaper.
0hrs 01minutes – read interesting article on the newspaper from two months ago, and wonder what the picture of the Go Compare man in the paper would look like if I painted the word "Dick" on his forehead.
0hrs 02minutes – complete the above experiment involving the Go Compare man, and be amused.
0hrs 03minutes – open up first paint, and find it's gone hard. Think about whether it would be worth mixing a little water into paint to extend its life – tap's too far away though.
0hrs 04minutes – decide to look to see if there's another pot of said paint.
0hrs 05minutes – there isn't so write down missing paint on a draft text I always keep with paints that need replacing (that way when I got into Games Workshop or wherever I know what paints to buy, clever eh?!)
0hrs 06minutes – think it's a bit warm in the room, open the window.
0hrs 07minutes – realise it's too cold in the room, close the window.
0hrs 08minutes – check OG Forum to see if anyone's replied to Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves thread, they haven't, don't they realise the effort it takes to write this, and how deeply insecure I am and require constant adoration from all my fans?
0hrs 09minutes – toilet break.
0hrs 10minutes – decide its quiet in room, put on iTunes for music.
0hrs 11minutes – realise my taste in music is s**t and turn off iTunes.
0hrs 12minutes – nip to get drink and food from kitchen, could go to tap with dried up paint but I'm busy.
0hrs 13mintues – find out of date chicken in fridge, smells a bit iffy and should throw it away, but shove it in the freezer – it'll be fine.
0hrs 14minutes – check rest of fridge for out of date food.
0hrs 15minutes – for no reason at all wonder what the Movement of a Centigor is, go and look up and find out it's 7.
0hrs 16minutes – scratch genitalia.
0hrs 17minutes – look at currently painted army, basking in glory of most newly painted model.
0hrs 18minutes – break arm of newly painted model, swear, place on side to fix next to other models all broken over the last seven months, which are awaiting repair.
0hrs 19minutes – think of funny joke for this week's Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves.
0hrs 20minutes – forget funny joke for this week's Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves, so have to use usual crap ones instead.
0hrs 21minutes – decide it's quiet in room again, so switch on BBC iPlayer, find an episode of Qi, realise I've already seen it on Dave... five times.
0hrs 22minutes – change painting water.
0hrs 23minutes – go to toilet again, would be weird to go twice in 14 minutes, but it's the "other end", so ok.
0hrs 24minutes – check internet, still no replies to Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves, decide to Google my own name – turns out I am both "internationally recognised as one of Ireland's finest exponents of Irish traditional music today" and died in the September the 11th attacks – dependent on whether I am a Matt or Matthew.
0hrs 25minutes – check mobile phone, no messages.
0hrs 26minutes – wonder if I should go into the lounge and paint and be socialable with my flatmate.
0hrs 27minutes – pack all models, paints and brushes onto lap tray and lug heavy daylight lamp into lounge.
0hrs 28minutes – find out flatmate is watching Coach Trip omnibus and has fallen asleep, return to bedroom so as not to disturb.
0hrs 29minutes – lose little plastic cap for paint brush, why the hell are they transparent?
0hrs 30minutes – look for little plastic cap for paint brush.
0hrs 31minutes – still look for little plastic cap for paint brush.
0hrs 32minutes – give up on little plastic cap for paint brush and let brush get wrecked.
0hrs 33minutes – turn on MSN Messenger, talk rubbish to annoying friend about their day.
0hrs 34minutes – answer annoying friend's question about what they should do about their love life, as if I'm a f**king expert!
0hrs 35minutes – make up excuse as to why I can't meet up with annoying friend anytime between now and Armageddon.
0hrs 36minutes – check Games Workshop website to see what kits I haven't got in my High Elf army, same as when I checked yesterday.
0hrs 37minutes – go to BBC News website, ignore all stories of a newsworthy nature and go straight to funny stories about people falling into sceptic tanks, usually in Eastern Europe – why do grim stories about personal hygiene only happen in Eastern Europe?
0hrs 38minutes – arrange all my paint pots into the shape of cock and take picture as "funny" photo for Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves blog.
0hrs 39minutes – think about sex.
0hrs 40minutes – Google porn.
0hrs 41minutes – empty box of tissues.
0hrs 42minutes – rearrange all Citadel Paints into alphabetical order, to see if this makes them quicker to retrieve or not. It doesn't.
0hrs 42minutes – wonder if clock has stopped.
0hrs 43minutes – check TV Guide to see if there's anything good on telly. There isn't.
0hrs 44minutes – go to toilet, now is getting weird.
0hrs 45minutes – arrange unit am currently painting into formation to see what they look like, given no painting has been done today, they look surprisingly similar to yesterday.
0hrs 46minutes – spill Gryphonne Sepia all over the place, have to change newspaper and buy more Gryphonne Sepia.
0hrs 47minutes – change painting water, gone cloudy even though only the tinniest amount of paint has been used.
0hrs 48minutes – wonder how much a unit of Dwarf Ironbreakers costs, check in army book.
0hrs 49minutes – remember have left washing in washing machine, empty and hang up, have left tissue in pocket and covered all washing in fluff.
0hrs 50minutes – go and look at box of unassembled models and think how much fun it would be to assemble them if I ever finish what I'm currently painting.
0hrs 51minutes – play Solitaire on computer.
0hrs 52minutes – write what I think is witty comment on a new popular post on OG Forum, no one ever replies to comment, conversation killed. Still no replies on Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves.
0hrs 53minutes – think probably should write this week's blog.
0hrs 54minutes – don't.
0hrs 55minutes – text message received, go to other side of room to retrieve phone, it's from T-Mobile.
0hrs 56minutes - go on Facebook, remember have no friends, despite this a surprising number of people have thrown sheep at me.
0hrs 57minutes – go to toilet again, at what point do I diagnose this as complete renal failure?
0hrs 58minutes – shape blob of green stuff into a smiley face for no reason at all.
0hrs 59minutes – all bristles fall out of Fine Detail brush.
1hr 00minutes – think have done too much painting, go and play on Wii instead, brushes are not washed and get damaged.
As you can see the chance of painting anything in that hour is limited, though I challenge you not recognise at least 12 of the things on that list from your own experiences - to be honest if you don't recognise all 60 you're a better man than I.
Procrastination is probably the most useful thing I learnt in my education, and it certainly was the most practiced, from doing homework, writing coursework and essays, revising for exams and even covering your textbooks in wallpaper, so that the original book published in the 1950s had a chance of surviving yet another year, there were a myriad of things I put off doing during my education. Of all of those things exam revision is surely the biggest procrastination driver of all time, a tedious task that can never be completed (like watching all of BBC News 24's output), at no point could you ever say revision was finished as it is only really finished when the exam's done. So, unlike other tasks, with exam revision you can't simply put your head down and get on with it - and here are the ingredients for the biggest opportunity for procrastination in your life. Every year from April to June whilst I was at University I was a hot bed of procrastination activity. Vacuuming the stairs, rearranging my Windows Start menu, putting up shelves and descaling the kettle all became tasks of vital importance whilst textbooks lay open and unloved on my desk. Snooker even became attractive, what with the World Championships always falling during exam revision I even ended up watching a frame or 17 of snooker. So much so, snooker has now become so associated with exam procrastination that even seeing a bit on telly now when flicking the channels brings back a pang of guilt as I think I should be pouring over some dusty book from the library only to realise that I finished my final year exams about 5 years ago.
Upon reading this blog, you may have realised procrastination is still with me, mainly in a literary sense as my train off thought wanders off to discuss all manner of unrelated topics but also in the simple task of sitting down and writing this blog. You may have noticed a flurry of replies from me on this forum at around 11pm on Tuesday night, that was caused by me trying to write my minute-by-minute account of an hour spent painting. As you can see procrastination can occur even doing things you like and painting is of course no exception. The main cause for this I think is that painting isn't fully immersive, my brain feels it can do other things whilst painting, and this is the problem if I was completely and utterly engrossed then I wouldn't let other things into my brain at the time of painting and they wouldn't vie for my attention.
Here's my top 5 attention grabbers, tasks that I have on the background to keep me entertained but which subtly corrupt and steal valuable painting time:
5. Eating - At number 5 is eating, an odd procrastination hobby that can be dangerously unhealthy if left unchecked. The simple thought, "I'll just do painting whilst having lunch" soon becomes "I'll just gorge myself silly on a never eating buffet of food from lunch until dinner, whilst I look at painting" - maybe that's just me. As an added negative my Scorched Brown ends up full of crumbs.
4. Music - You'd think music would be fine, you really would, how can putting some music on in the background stop me painting? One word, iTunes, constant faffing about, replaying tunes you like, skipping tunes you don't like, burning tunes from CDs, making playlists... but no bloody painting.
3. MSN, now known as Windows Live (for you cool kids) - It could be Skype or Facebook Chat or even text messages, but MSN is my time wasting chat tool of choice. Developed by someone who clearly really didn't want to revise for the exams, MSN allows you to ask utterly bloody pointless questions in conversations you wouldn't start if you actually had to pay for them. "How are you?" sounds like a simple question, but ask it to the same two people every bloody day on the internet and you'll soon get to the point where you don't care!
2. Internet - 45 trillion productive hours must have been wasted browsing the .com's and the .co.uk's of this world, and that's just by me. The OG Forum, Facebook, BBC, Digital Spy, Badger Porn and Games Workshop's website all drawing me away from my beloved painting. Painting in front of the computer is always a no go.
1. Telly - And finally at Number 1 is the telly, it always seems like a good opportunity to catch up on your favourite programmes whilst doing that all important painting, or just watch general trash on TV but iPlayer and 4oD claw your attention, until you find yourself just starting at the screen brush in hand as all the paint has dried up whilst you've been motionless for half an hour. Current favourites are BBC Two daytime quizshow Pointless, whose name also explains my feelings on watching it, and Channel 4's high cash game show The Million Pound Drop Live, which has the satisfying plot point of watching people's cash plunge down a trapdoor - that and the fact all the contestants are improbably attractive. A bit like the cast of Hollyoaks, only less plastic. I even tried Radio, and have gone middle class with Radio 4's News Quiz and Just a Minute amusing me, but I find myself simply starring at the blank iPlayer screen just as if it was TV. I'm coming to the conclusion I am odd.
Whilst writing this, I became distracted by the thought of what other things I could be doing altogether. Technically these aren't procrastination events, just other tasks winning my precious painting time. So here's my Top 5 "I'm not even pretending to be painting" distractions:
5. Exercise – sadly I have to do exercise, and even more sadly no one's found a way I can do painting whilst running or swimming, however they have found a way I can do painting whilst eating doughnuts. How do they expect me to stay thin(ish)?
4. Wii – No it's not the Geordie greeting "Wye-Eye" (I do know someone who genuinely thought this), but it's the world's first games console deliberately designed to make you look like an idiot in your living room. Currently I am collecting power stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2, if only all plumbers were this easy to get hold off.
3. Work – Annoyingly work expect me to go and perform menial tasks in return for pay, how rude. And how extremely annoying that we're back to 5-day weeks, I'm just not ready for them yet/ever.
2. Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 – You may not remember this classic theme park building game on the PC, but after a recent visit to Thorpe Park (no painting, but I did read the White Dwarf on the train there, does that count?), I was inspired to play this. Yes there is a 3rd edition, but who needs souped up 3D graphics when a simple isometric 2D quaint set of animations do the job so well. Though if anyone knows how to stop the guests from constantly throwing up I'd be grateful, I'm literally drowning in vomit.
1. The Apprentice (this segment contains spoilers regarding this week's shows) – New in at Number 1, it's back and it's just as good as ever The Apprentice is here, fortunately becoming once weekly after this week else nothing would get done. The format's changed, yes they've got rid of the token "normal" candidate in favour of a complete bunch of weirdoes – more on them lately. Also Lord Sugar is now looking for a business partner rather than an Apprentice – making both the show title "The Apprentice" and the catchphrase "You're Fired" completely redundant. Lord Sugar spends the opening episode criticising the moaning in this country of not being able to setup new businesses as people didn't get loans from the bank – he of course didn't need one. And to prove this point he's giving 16 candidates the chance to rip each other's eyes out for a quarter of a million pound injection into their company, proving once and for all that a cash injection is not required for successful business. What most of the candidates haven't realised is, it would be much easier to get the £250,000 by just appearing on Deal or No Deal?, though in fairness they would have to meet Noel Edmonds.
Talking of contestants we have an odd set this year, overall I find it interesting so many of them had jobs at the age of 13, I'm sure all I was legally allowed to do at that age was deliver papers, certainly not become a chartered account as some of them seem to have done in that really depressing way that makes you feel totally inadequate. A full survey of my office, reveals that none of the candidates this year are attractive – female or male, so you'll just have to jack off to Nick and Karen.
Here's my individual thoughts, not on jacking off, and when I say thoughts I mean rants:
Leon Doyle – Think he will come to regret his hysterical boardroom fumble where he couldn't decide who to bring back with him, he actually had a job as a paperboy though so credit there.
Alex Britez Cabral – Good luck to all the media outlets trying to pronounce his surname tomorrow. He says "I've got a good head on my shoulders. I'm intelligent, driven, ambitious", well he cut bread and then got fired. Literally the worst thing since sliced bread.
Melody Hossaini – Week 1's annoyingly successful project manager, don't you just want to see her fail? She's been educated by Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Shirin Ebadi and Al Gore – don't imagine that was a comprehensive. She also gave the genius quote "Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the Moon" – firstly the phrase "the sky's the limit" is a metaphor, you've taken it too far you stupid bitch, secondly it's a metaphor implying there's no limit so your comment makes no sense on any level whatsoever.
Felicity Jackson – She has a name and a face that seems to be straight out of EastEnders, she's worked in children's entertainment (who the hell would do that?!) and is "inspired by the T-Mobile brand" – normal people aren't inspired by brands, idiot.
Edna Agbarha – A witch, and a witch with elbow length black gloves at that. She says "I'm the type of person who likes to get to the root cause of the problem" – sort of like an intercontinental ballistic missile gets to the root of the problem, she scares me.
Susan Ma – Annoying little whiney girl, she describes herself as an "adrenaline junkie" – I hate people who describe themselves as adrenaline junkies.
Ellie Reed – says "I'm just a nice person really, but I have got a dark side if somebody treats me badly", nice. Wouldn't use it as an opening line at a dinner party, though. She also chased a burglar out of her house at the age of 17 – I'd employ her as a guard dog.
Helen Louise Milligan – she appears to have had her face sucked out, not sure if it's plastic surgery, as it doesn't look desirable. She says "I don't think there's anything that I set my mind to that I haven't achieved" – t**t.
Natasha Scribbins – after watching two episodes I don't think she's actually appeared once. According to her profile she "achieved only four GCSEs", so she's a little bit thick then. She said "I'm tenacious, I'm charming, I'm witty" and a little bit thick.
Vincent Disneur – looks like a smarmy French King, his hair needs degreasing along with his personality, on his profile he claims to be a film buff, which is something you put on your CV when you have no real skills to mention. On this point Lord Sugar please stop referring to CVs as résumés, they aren't called that in the UK!
Jim Eastwood – started working in his father's fish and chip shop at the age of 9, this is illegal arrest him! However he seemed to demonstrate a strange mind control power to talk Alex out of taking him in the boardroom. I like him, but I'm not sure he's not willing me to think this.
Edward Hunter – he says "I'm the wheeler dealer who accidentally became a finance professional", accidentally yes but doesn't want to be one. To prove he wasn't just an accountant he refused to do any accountancy in Week 1, and was fired because his team didn't do any accounting.
Gavin Winstanley – seems to be this year's nitpicker constantly criticising – on an unrelated note I like him! He claims "I've done it all, I've been the best at everything I've ever done", really so you've slept with a squirrel then, and been good at it. I think not, (he has a nut allergy).
Tom Pellereau – is a cross between a business man and Archie the Inventor from Ballamory, he made the world's first curved nail file. I don't know about you, but my gentleman's handbag wouldn't be complete without one. Today he invented a traffic light app, that doesn't do anything.
Glenn Ward – took apart and rebuilt an entire computer at the age of 8 (I think it was a LEGO model), he came up with the crap app that lost Week 2's task. He says "To be honest, I am pretty great" – he's a compulsive liar.
Zoe Beresford – another person I'm not actually convinced has been in the show yet, she apparently bought a house at the age of just 12! Really, god banks did lend everyone money before the credit crisis. Though perhaps she just means her Sylvania Families house?
On that note, and having wittered on for 4,119 words (according to Microsoft Word's count) about everything bar what I'm supposed to talk about, I'd like to finish by saying I am an expert procrastinator, it's my greatest skill. I intend to represent Great Britain in the 2012 Olympics, if I stop putting off the procrastinating training.
I hope you see something of yourself somewhere in all these methods of procrastination. Don't worry about it though! Long live procrastination, down with efficiency I say!!
Hopefully by next week I'll have got round to assembling my Razagor... although the resident 4-year old artist's felt pens could be rearranged into colour order. Hmmm. I think you know what I'll be doing!
I smiled at your procrastination process. Although I'm a slow painter I generally find that in an hour my only procrastination is making about 1 cup of tea and getting distracted by the TV. I need some degree of background noise going on, and usually I can ignore it but every now and then I become engrossed.
My real procrastination comes when I try to exercise. Its too hot, too cold, too wet, I've just eaten, its nearly time to eat...I'll do it tomorrow. As they say in Bugsy Malone, tomorrow never comes.
Brilliant post, insightful and funny as always.
The only criticism I would have is
Quote from: Matt
0hrs 40minutes – Google porn.
0hrs 41minutes – empty box of tissues.
Surely you can last longer than 60 secs (unless you have a hand like a traction engine!!).
Quote0hrs 08minutes – check OG Forum to see if anyone's replied to Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves thread, they haven't, don't they realise the effort it takes to write this, and how deeply insecure I am and require constant adoration from all my fans?
Do you get frustrated when people don't respond when you put up high quality painted figures too, or is that just me? :bash;m:
You do touch on a couple of my keys to not procrastinating
1. I don't like television and I don't really watch it. The only thing I'm currently watching is series 2 of the wire on DVD and I watch this at the glacial pace of around 30mins per sitting because Ciara wants to watch it too. Problem is she falls asleep after about half an hour on average so I get to watch the second half of every episode twice if I don't just stop it and give up on TV. For a few years I didn't even on a TV, it was great, my productivity soared to... Actually that's a lie, I just downloaded more porn, personally I'm not a fan of badgers but each to their own.
2. Check out the time at which a lot of my posts are made. While I'm a "hard working professional" as long as I deliver what is expected of me I can largely fit in some t'internet time in working hours.
Quote from: Crompton on May 12, 2011, 09:17:16 am
Although I'm a slow painter I generally find that in an hour my only procrastination is making about 1 cup of tea and getting distracted by the TV.
My real procrastination comes when I try to exercise. Its too hot, too cold, too wet, I've just eaten, its nearly time to eat...I'll do it tomorrow.
Really?! That's your only procastination! I did 14 of the things on my list just writing this reply. Yes exercise is hard, however having just seen my naked body without a girdle on I'm finding encouragement easier.
Quote from: StarDragonFTW on May 12, 2011, 10:24:25 am
Brilliant post, insightful and funny as always.
Surely you can last longer than 60 secs (unless you have a hand like a traction engine!!).
Cheers glad you enjoyed. I can last longer than 60 seconds, but come on I have painting to get back to!
Quote from: Dave on May 12, 2011, 10:40:41 am
Do you get frustrated when people don't respond when you put up high quality painted figures too, or is that just me? :bash;m:
Officially, no it's always nice when people pass nice comments on your work, but I never expect. Unofficially, between you and me, in a whisper - yes, it consumes my sole like a dark and unholy beast.
Quote from: Dave on May 12, 2011, 10:40:41 am
1. I don't like television and I don't really watch it ... For a few years I didn't even on a TV ... personally I'm not a fan of badgers but each to their own.
As someone who works in telly, that's most upsetting to hear! And as Homer Simpson I believe once said "no telly, where does all your furniture point?". Learn to appreciate badgers, then you can really enjoy the BBC Natural History Unit.
Quote from: Dave on May 12, 2011, 10:40:41 am
I'm a "hard working professional"...
I believe I am the antithesis of every word in that statement.
Whilst replying to replies, I neglected to reply to Ol's post about magic items, ironically I was procrastinating about procrastination instead.
Quote from: fatolaf on May 11, 2011, 11:33:49 am
Thinking more along the lines of it's only 5 points, so why not?
Plus if you find out someone has flaming attacks, you can use the wizard to challenge him out, plus gies you protection against Fire spells, you could leave a unit and bait the fire mage into trying to fry Wizbit instead of the unit he's in, that sort of thing...
Good point, sounds odd but genuinely can't think of a situation where I've been the victim of flaming attacks so haven't had to think this way before!!
Quote from: fatolaf on May 11, 2011, 11:33:49 am
An alternative build for your Prince and an alternative use would be:
Reaver Bow
Shield of Ptolos
Dawnstone or Healing Potion
So with his BS of 6, you can fly round the battlefield, shooting 15 shots off in a game at S5 and hitting most of the time on 2's.
This does sound like a very tempting build, and I have been the victim of this before! However I think I'm going to try the close combat build first, don't want my army to become too shooty, I like the idea of using the Elves magic, shooting and movement to allow them to hit the enemy when and where they want on my terms. And having a hard Lord on Griffon plunge out of the sky seems to fit that plan the best... cut to four games later when all that's left of my Griffon in all the games was a pile of feathers and we'll be doing the safely, safely, shoot from afar approach!
do!@%$#%@entary
for some reason the spelling filter doesn't like the use of my word doc umentary, interesting.
I wrote around 6 paragraphs venting my anger on reality tv then accidentally deleted it whilst adding this comment. How frustrating. Safe to say I can't be bothered rewriting it but to be clear, I dislike what passes for entertainment television on the whole these days and the apprentice is just about the prime offender.
I will use this thread to apologise to both Dave and Matt for not commenting on your pics of wonderful painting. I generally post here whilst at work and the evil IT man (which is actually myself) has blocked most image sharing sites. Thus your photos don't appear for me to comment on. I should really have a word with myself to change this.
Quote from: Crompton on May 12, 2011, 03:47:41 pm
I will use this thread to apologise to both Dave and Matt for not commenting on your pics of wonderful painting. I generally post here whilst at work and the evil IT man (which is actually myself) has blocked most image sharing sites. Thus your photos don't appear for me to comment on. I should really have a word with myself to change this.
hahaha, totally busted! Actually I don't really get that het up over it, but it's nice to get the occassional comment. The real yardstick is when you put up a picture and everyone feels compelled to comment, those are the ones where you know you've finally started to get to that award winning level which is ideally where I'd eventually like to create an army.
Quote from: Dave on May 12, 2011, 03:22:30 pm
I wrote around 6 paragraphs venting my anger on reality tv then accidentally deleted it whilst adding this comment. How frustrating. Safe to say I can't be bothered rewriting it but to be clear, I dislike what passes for entertainment television on the whole these days and the apprentice is just about the prime offender.
I would try to defend TV, but this is the medium that gave us OMG! with Peaches Geldof - so you win. For the record I only make children's television with the highest public service values '/3
Quote from: Crompton on May 12, 2011, 03:47:41 pm
I will use this thread to apologise to both Dave and Matt for not commenting on your pics of wonderful painting.
It's alright like all the greatest talents my great recognition will only come after my death. Or I'm crap, one of the two. I'd vote option B to be honest.
Quote from: Dave on May 12, 2011, 04:10:20 pm
The real yardstick is when you put up a picture and everyone feels compelled to comment, those are the ones where you know you've finally started to get to that award winning level.
Does this happen?
A great list Matt, bit worried about the 3 trips to the toilet in 1 hour, you might need to go to the special clinic and cough once or twice, maybe embarrasing bodies wearing an OG Games T-shirt with a Blood thirster rammed up your jacksy
" I swear I dont know how it got there, I was just sitting down after having done my 4th pidddle in 15 minutes "
That sort of thing..
As for the Apprentice, this is shaping up to be the best one yet (as mainly they are all twats) but obviously the greatest scene ever is Lee doing his backwards pterodactyl impression in the interview stage (infront of Claude IIRC) and then being asked why he did that..
'Because you asked me to'
'Not very professional though is it'
Still got the job though (and took his first day off sick....), Legend...
'That's what I'm talking about.....'
Quote from: fatolaf on May 16, 2011, 11:37:33 am
maybe embarrasing bodies wearing an OG Games T-shirt with a Blood thirster rammed up your jacksy
" I swear I dont know how it got there, I was just sitting down after having done my 4th pidddle in 15 minutes "
I see your game, trying to get the club some publicity on Channel 4 at the expense of my dignity. Rude! And just because I piss a lot doesn't mean I shove models in any part of my body. Though I have used an Goblin spear as a toothpick before, who hasn't?!
As for The Apprentice, I'm still loving it - though am looking forward to more Nick faces over the coming weeks.
Quote from: cunningmatt on May 16, 2011, 01:56:57 pm
Though I have used an Goblin spear as a toothpick before, who hasn't?!
lol, guilty as charged!
Wednesday 18th May - WEEK 20
I'll start off this week by wishing Happy Birthday to my Dad, he's not reading this but I did the same for my Mum and I don't want a family feud.
Now I had written a really funny (by my standards anyway) article for this week all about the strikes on the London Underground, however annoyingly they've been cancelled. So it's all wasted. Bloody Tube Drivers. Essentially RMT Drivers were going to strike because two of their members had been sacked, one for breach of safety regulations and the other for abusive behaviour or something like that (what I'm saying is highly libellous, but let's not worry about that). Obviously the RMT could have waited for the results of the employment tribunal before they decided whether to strike or not, but that would involve common sense. Sense has now been seen because the employment tribunal said it was wrong for the guy who broke safety regulations to be fired (obviously, we don't need to worry about safety on the Tube?!). So he's been reinstated, but he's not going to be driving trains any more - which begs the questions what will he be doing? Randomly propping open fire exits with piles of paraffin soaked Oyster cards? So the strike was lifted, and the guy who was abusive to other members of staff... well they didn't really like him anyway at the RMT turns out! So with all that pantomime of prospective travel chaos, my original blog this week lies torn up in shreds in the wastepaper basket. Still it's very unlikely the Underground will be on strike again, so I'm sure I'll never need to drag it out of the draft bin.
On the plus side, you'll never guess what happened on Saturday. Late on Saturday night someone bought my old Bretonnian army I'd been trying to flog for ages on eBay. Quite frankly whoever bought it must have been off their face, "overpriced pile of broken horses" was how someone described it, and that was in the listing. Someone's been suckered!! :thumbsup:
Anyway onto this week and I have some news to break, I've become a knob. Some of you may be questioning my appalling language with the word "knob" and some of you may be questioning whether the word "become" is surplus to requirement. The reason for this is that last week I went out got myself a new gadget, what I believe the kids on the street are calling the "eye-phone". Yes I'm officially an Apple knob after less than a week of my first ever smart phone I've changed. I now can't get through more than twenty-five seconds of conversation before I'm forced to check a variety of apps to see if any have updated. Initially I marvelled at the near miracle of being able to check my e-mail on the move, now that initial wonder has dissipated if I can't get enough signal strength to check Facebook I kick off so much you'd think that my basic human rights had been infringed.
As sure as Cyprus giving Douze Points to Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest, it is pre-destined that as an Apple Knob I have to show off my iPhone at every available opportunity, in fact I've gone along time without showing it off already. So here's some gratuitous photos:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3475.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3477.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3479.jpg)
Phwoar sexy.
You might be wondering why I got myself an iPhone, I'm not really known for my technological prowess I don't have a Mac (other than one you can use in the rain, or a large variety that you can eat), nor do I have Sat Nav – though that may be because I don't have a car. Well I'll be honest it was to annoy someone. In my office there's five people, three of which have an iPhone, one other doesn't but wants one and can't until his contract has expired, and there's me with my old phone. My old phone is affectionately known as the brick, for it's large and heavy properties - not for it's use in house building. The advantages of my old phone were that it was simple, it made and received calls and sent texts and that was about it. Plus it would never get stolen, firstly no one would want it, and any criminal would give themselves away if they stole my phone, I'd notice them dragging it away in a sack.
So I've been subjected to several months worth of mocking by my colleagues, and the person without an iPhone even commented that if I got an iPhone "they'd be really annoyed". So I decided to get an iPhone. Maybe I was already a knob, I'm not sure. Not only that I went against the wise prophet Michael Jackson and ignored his advice that "It doesn't matter if you're black or white" the white iPhone is new and will annoy my colleague at work more than a black one.*
* - I probably should stress this inter-colleague relationship is strictly friendly banter/deep and bitter rivalry at work between myself and someone I've worked with for five years, it goes along the scale of "I scratch your back, you stick a knife in mine" – generally this has lead to us working well together.
Sorry I've gone another 10 seconds without showing off my new phone to someone:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3478.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3483.jpg)
I've practically ejaculated.
In fairness I can see the point of an iPhone, apps to use when chatting to boring people, constant access to the internet and hence porn, and another host of procrastination subjects to avoid painting with. However the iPad, hmmm I'm not so sure, seems like an iPhone but without the useful phone part, though you can eat your dinner off it. I've heard a few arguments for the iPad, one is the fact the screen is about 5 times as big the iPhone's - though I can achieve this effect simply by holding the iPhone 5 times closer to my face. And someone genuinely once said "It's amazing you can sit on the sofa with your iPad and actually read the paper" correct me if I'm wrong, but we've been able to achieve this technological feat ever since the invention of the newspaper/sofa (I'm not sure which was invented last).
Anyway I'm now fully iPhoned up, like all Apple aficionados I am now plugged directly into iTunes regardless of whether I'm doing anything music related or not. My brain is currently connected to iTunes and downloading the latest updates, my thought are ranked in terms of most played - my top thought being "Bye bye Danni". Soon I will no longer need to eat, food will simply be downloaded directly into my body from the menu provided by the Apple Store at 79p a meal, direct from your credit card - I imagine apples will be quite a popular food stuff simply for branding reasons.
At this point you are probably bored about me talking about my new phone (though the topic could have been the Eurovision Song Contest so count yourself lucky) you're probably agreeing with my earlier statement that I am an Apple knob, but before you hate me remember I did have to enter one of Dante's circles of hell - I had to go into the mobile phone shop. Despite rumours that I punched a small child in the face for this phone on the top deck of a bus, the truth is I got myself, and yes all the clichés about the horrific nature of the phone shopping experience are true, in a fruitless exercise to push up the word count I'll take you through it...
Firstly I was greeted at the door by a gentleman named "Moses", obviously he's fallen on hard times in the recession, who'd have thought after parting the Red Sea his next job would be flogging mobile phone handsets? After explaining that I was hoping to get an iPhone, Moses decided to check whether I was due an upgrade or not and after checking on the computer concluded "Wow! You've been due an upgrade since January. That's a really long time!" in a tone of voice that implied genuine shock at the fact that I'd been able to live for so long without popping in for my regular upgrade. To him my lack of visit was akin to putting off a regular lifesaving trip to the kidney dialysis machine. What an idiot?! Four months isn't a long time to not get round to upgrading your phone, it would be a long time if the question asked was "How long is it since you last put the kitchen bins out?" or "When did you last feed the cat?". Mind you last time I got an upgrade, the man in the shop checked my records to find I was due an upgrade three years ago, the guy nearly fell off his chair before rebooting his computer to check it didn't have a virus. I genuinely think he'd have been less shocked if the computer had said I'd been due an upgrade since the end of the American Civil War.
I then asked a serious of tedious questions about my SIM card and transferring over contacts, so tedious were these questions in fact that Moses decided to answer a completely different set of questions that I hadn't actually asked. So I was forced to ask my tedious questions again. It later transpired that every answer that I was eventually given was in fact incorrect. After I was given my phone Moses was then shocked to find that I didn't want to rip off the wrapping and set up my phone there and then and was in fact happy to wait the few hours until I got home, apparently "Most customers just can't wait to set up their new phone" - yes that's because most of your customers are irritating 19 year old pricks with nothing better going on in their life, I on the other hand am a 29 year old prick with nothing better going on in my life. At this point Moses gave me a feedback form where I had to rate his performance under one of the following categories: "Deeply Unsatisfactory", "Unsatisfactory", "Satisfactory", "Very Satisfactory" or "Extremely Satisfactory". Now given that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Satisfactory" is defined as:
Satisfactory - adjective: fulfilling expectations or needs; acceptable, though not outstanding or perfect
I find it hard to work out something can be Very or Extremely satisfactory - it is, after all, hard to Extremely fulfil my expectations but manage to avoid being outstanding. I was then expected to hand my feedback to Moses for him to see. How deeply un-British, of course I lied, it was the only nice thing to do. I ticked Satisfactory. Apparently this wasn't sufficient enough of a lie for Moses who looked deeply put out. He then explained to me that this feedback didn't really matter but I would be text in a few days by my service provider to ask about his performance and his manager would see the results so if I could give him a 5 out of 5 he'd get an extra point on his record. I gave him 1 out of 5, because I'm a bitch (and 0 wasn't an option).
All of this is a very roundabout way of saying I have no painting to show you this week. Still look at the pretty iPhone, let these pictures distract you from the lack of painting...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3473.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3486.jpg)
...and yes I have downloaded a Shakeaway app. Well what did you expect, really?
I say I've done no painting, I have done some hobbying with the recent good(ish) weather I've finally got up the courage to do some varnishing. I find varnishing quite scary, get it wrong and you're models can up with terrible white marks all over them like a bad deodorant advert. This has generally lead to me putting off varnishing for as long as humanly possible, waiting for the perfect day when there's no wind, it's not too hot, it's not too cold and it's not raining – on average there's about two of them a year and they typically don't fall on the weekend.
Here's an exciting set of photos on that amazing topic, that are everything you could wish for, other than being exciting.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3367.jpg)
Here you can see spraying corner set up on the balcony, next to a rather dead looking Wagner.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3366.jpg)
I managed to get all my new High Elves varnished this week, I've got about 2,000 points of rapidly chipping Beastmen to do to.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3368.jpg)
And of course a selection of movement trays, I promised I talk about how I made them a month or two ago... must get round to that.
Before spraying I always find it worth giving each model a quick dust, the large drybrush is quite good for this, or a large old brush. If your models have been sitting on your desk as long as mine they'll need it.
As an aside this week I dusted off my Warriors of Chaos for the first time in a while, the phrase "dusted off" has never been so true, it looks like I retrieved them from a loft untouched since 1948, and whilst am on that topic I love the spell Treason of Tzeentch.
Whilst dusting it's always worth checking for any chips, particularly on metal models that may have occurred (especially if you've been gaming with them before varnishing), and touching them up.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3372.jpg)
Once that's done I find trays very useful to carry all the models to your place of spraying in an orderly fashion. You can see I've lined them up on strips of card, cut from cereal boxes, for ease of rotation whilst spraying.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3371.jpg)
Next I got my trusty spraying box out, which you can see has been coated with many sprays of Chaos Black undercoat – if you are using the same box for all your spraying do be careful to make sure that any black dust that ac!@%$#%@ulates is brushed away else you can up spraying it onto your models with the varnish, which then helpful sticks them in place (this happened to me before resulting in a severe separation of toys from pram incident).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3369.jpg)
A ruler is also useful, I don't bother when undercoating Chaos Black, but the temperamental nature of varnish means I like to check I'm always about the optimum 30cm away before spraying.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3370.jpg)
And of course some varnish, sounds obvious but the number of times I've set up for spraying only to find I've got empty cans left is ridiculous.
I've used Purity Seal, which is a Matt varnish (I only got it as it had my name on), which I believe is the only one Games Workshop now do.
With this done I intend to highlight all the gems (and Eagle tongues) on my High Elves with Gloss varnish. I estimate on the 1,800 points I've painted so far, that equates to approximately 247 gems. So far I've glossed 0, I think I may set up some kind of Blue Peter appeal style charity totaliser to see how we're going with that project.
Time for another look at the iPhone:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3476.jpg)
You want to stroke it, you know you do.
Before I go we should talk about the exciting non-announcement from Games Workshop, on Monday the following post appeared on their website about Citadel Finecast:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=16400050a (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=16400050a)
The release doesn't say much except that Citadel Finecast is being launched on May 28th: and that you should: Be sure to be at your local Hobby Centre to experience this unique, once-in-a-lifetime launch day! This will be your first chance to see, touch and buy Citadel Finecast miniatures. – I don't know about you, but I think I'll live.
After telling us nothing about the product, they then say: In the meantime, there's only one question you need to ask yourself: "What will my first Citadel Finecast miniature be?" Really? My first question was actually "What are Citadel Finecast miniatures?" – call me crazy.
However we do have a new piece to the puzzle, in the form of announcement Ol posted:
http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2153.0 (http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2153.0)
From which I quote: Starting from the 28th of May 120 products that were Games Workshop direct only items will be coming back on the shelves as resin or resin Hybrids. This new range "Citadel Finecast" range will be limited in number for the first few months, so we will be taking advance orders for them.
This is followed by a list of new prices for these existing models. Now in fairness there's been no announcement, so it's unfair to judge, but I'm not fair. What seems to have happened is that Games Workshop have realised that their recent limited edition items, such as the Battle Magic cards and Space Hulk, have sold well. But rather than releasing new limited edition items, what they've done is taken existing items off the shelf, made them out of a new material (that incidentally is more toxic than the existing one), then tried to get us all excited about them by releasing them as limited edition – it's a plan straight from the first few weeks of The Apprentice.
In fairness these models might be amazing, and might justify the increased price, for all I know they may make you a coffee in the morning, or enlarge your penis – in which case I'm getting the full 120 and starting up a new job as a pole vaulter without the pole. Plus resin models of things like the Shaggoth might be helpful, they're less likely to collapse under their own weight for one, anything to make assembling multi-part metal model easier is surely worth it. Plus while no one likes price rises, it isn't actually that many models per army and certainly not ones you're likely to have multiples of. A quick look down the list and I could only see the odd model for my armies, mainly special characters and the odd larger model, ok so the Skaven Warplock Jezzail is on the list. But quite frankly if you want twenty of those in your army you deserve a large block of resin shoved up your own Jezzail. Though these do seem to have gone up from £8.70 to £30 which seems a tad much, either that's a typo or you get a set of thirty (Skaven players hope!). Having gone through my armies on the death list this is what I found:
Beastmen:
Malagor, the Dark Omen
Dwarfs:
Dwarf Lord with Hammer & Shield
Dwarf Runelord with Great Weapon
Thorek Ironbrow
Dwarf Gyrocopter
Dwarf Bolt Thrower
High Elves:
Caradryan
Warriors of Chaos:
Chaos Exalted Hero
Chaos Khorne Exalted Hero
Archaon, the Everchosen
Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount
Dragon Ogre Shaggoth
Put this way, bad as price rises are, it doesn't seem to be on the items I'm most likely to purchase (though I can be optimistic as they seem to have picked a set of models for my armies that I already own virtually all of!).
I think we need a pause to drool over my iPhone again, sadly I've run out of pictures of it, but here's the charger:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3489.jpg)
Even that is sexy.
One last question on Citadel Finecast, what is a "resin hybrid", does it run on petrol and electricity? Generally a hybrid is where you combine the best elements of two different things, obviously that didn't happen with the pricing element. Although in fairness, I have no idea how resin is made or how much it should cost, judging by Forgeworld prices it's made by melting down brand new Rolls Royces combined with NASA grade technology. But as I've said it's not really fair to judge at this stage, I look forward to judging next week!
Anyway on a completely unconnected note I'm announcing the launch of my own new range of products entitled "Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves Finecast", what I've done is collect some of the best old Tale of OG Gamers articles, such as the Newspaper one, or the one with the LEGO High Elf models. These are going to be taken off this site where you can view them for free, they'll then be printed on high quality hybrid paper, and available limited edition for you to buy for £25 an article. The full range will be launched next week In the meantime, there's only one question you need to ask yourself: "What will my first Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves Finecast article be?". Can I tempt anyone for a pre-order?
You'll be amazed to hear the answer is no.
In addition to declining your polite offer you'll also be amazed to hear that resin is far cheaper than metal so no real reason for it to cost more.
Finally, nice phone.
Quote from: Dave on May 19, 2011, 08:32:13 am
You'll be amazed to hear the answer is no.
In addition to declining your polite offer you'll also be amazed to hear that resin is far cheaper than metal so no real reason for it to cost more.
Really why ever not? Perhaps it's in the casting process of the resin, maybe little pixies have to be specially trained to align the resin perfectly at the molecular level. Or maybe the resin is hybrid with gold, though surely that would be referred to as a gold hybrid? I think GW's propaganda department will have to do a better job than I.
Quote from: Dave on May 19, 2011, 08:32:13 am
Finally, nice phone.
Cheers, the big Apple Knob in me is very pleased* :thumbsup:
* - I'm not really an Apple Knob, I'm being an ironic paradoy of one!
Quote
Cheers, the big Apple Knob in me is very pleased* :thumbsup:
I was gonna make a gay joke, but its way too easy.... :wink;m::
But on that note, I think punching an Apple Employee in the face would be the second greatest moment of my life, closely behind punching a GW redshirt in the face. However I'm just not sure its worth the effort....
Quote from: Meals on May 19, 2011, 11:55:03 am
I was gonna make a gay joke, but its way too easy.... :wink;m::
Just behave yourself, these are exactly the kind of comments that mean we can't do a vlog from each Games Night!!
Quote from: Meals on May 19, 2011, 11:55:03 am
But on that note, I think punching an Apple Employee in the face would be the second greatest moment of my life, closely behind punching a GW redshirt in the face. However I'm just not sure its worth the effort....
There's no need for violence against GW staff, oh wait a minute I've just seen the post about June's price rises - go for it!
Nice phone sir, shame you got it too late to get the quartermaster app (aka Iphone army builder) before GW pounced on it (new legal version coming soon)..
Must sort out this swear filter as well...
Quote from: fatolaf on May 19, 2011, 03:01:06 pm
Nice phone sir, shame you got it too late to get the quartermaster app (aka Iphone army builder) before GW pounced on it (new legal version coming soon)..
Cheers, yeah I was surprised to find there were no official Games Workshop apps, seems like the kind of thing that they could easily do and boost their presence.
Quote from: fatolaf on May 19, 2011, 03:01:06 pm
Must sort out this swear filter as well...
Oh dear, on reading my post do you think it needs to be upped. 0]]
Quote from: cunningmatt on May 19, 2011, 03:18:44 pm
Oh dear, on reading my post do you think it needs to be upped. 0]]
No, it has been set to rather over zealous levels, therefore you ended up with this sentence
Quoteif you are using the same box for all your spraying do be careful to make sure that any black dust that ac!@%$#%@ulates is brushed away else
when all you wanted to write was ' accumulates'
Though to be fair that black dust is annoying, I can understand the filter needing to swear at it!! :wink;m::
Wednesday 25th May - WEEK 21
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you are reading this you didn't make it to heaven. I know, I probably should have warned you to sit down or something, but there is no easy way to say that you've done the equivalent of missing the last tube to heaven and you're going to have get the purgatory night bus. If you've no idea what I'm talking about (well no more than usual), then you'll be shocked to find out that the world ended at 6pm on Saturday, at least according to evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping who predicted that the world would end with a series of massive earthquakes, all believers would ascend to heaven in what was called the "Rapture". Any one left behind would be dead by the 21st October, which is good news because I've got a holiday booked for June.
In the media there's been widespread consensus that Harold Camping's prophecies have failed to come true. But have they? He hasn't been since Saturday, in hiding because of the shame of his failed prophecies, or perhaps he's ascended, how would we know? And on slight tangent I wonder what his Out of Office on Outlook would say? Admittedly some of his followers have been seen and are rather bemused by events, but perhaps they weren't as good as they thought, maybe they had an unreturned library book they'd forgotten about? And as for the predictions of earthquakes and the destruction of the world, well... fortunately they haven't happened, but just after 6pm on BBC One there was a trailer for a new series of "Tonight's the Night" with John Barrowman. That sounds like a hellish punishment for us non-believers, though even adding all the sins of every human who has lived over the last two thousand years, I still think that "Tonight's the Night" seems a bit of a steep punishment - I mean what was wrong with eternal suffering in a lava filled pit. Certainly seems more appropriate. The good news any way is that if we are destined for hell, it has at least frozen over, because I've done some painting! (Surely you're impressed with the breathtaking smoothness of that segway? No!)
A whole host of Beasties have come off the painting table to torment the forests of the Old World and lose all the games they play. First up is a new Beastmen Wargor:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3573.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3575.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3577.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3581.jpg)
One of the few character models from the Beastmen range I hadn't painted up (there's not millions in fairness!). And as he's a pretty good model I thought I should get round to it. The base is an Ungor shield and a log (twig from Clapham Common). The main thing of note is here the colours I've used. My accent colours for my Beastmen army are red and cream, red being the more bright and exciting colour I tend to use it more often and particularly so on character models. However I specifically didn't use any red on this model and I think he looks all the more striking in the cream because of it.
Also finished was the Jabberslythe that got started on this forum a few weeks ago.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3582.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3583.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3585.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3590.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3591.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3595.jpg)
Here he is next to the Wargor for scale.
You may not notice the difference but all the wounds/pox marks on the body have been painted Chaos Black and then highlighted a 1:1 mix of Chaos Black and Scab Red - the bestiary describes Jabberslythes as having thick black liquid oozing out of their wounds, so wanted to replicate this. Plus I painted the eyes (there's quite a few!) and based it up.
I also used Water Effects on the base to make a small puddle:
Here's Vallejo's Water Effects tub (Games Workshop's own brand seems to have disappeared from their website), which comes with a nice retro 1970s style label:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3504.jpg)
Once open it rather worryingly says "Sealed for Your Own Protection" on the seal, what is inside that I need to be protected from? Do 1 in 50 packs contain a serial rapist?
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3506.jpg)
Fortunately once open it turned out there wasn't a serial rapist (or at least not one of those serious rapists, one of Ken Clarke's minor kind), just natural yoghurt.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3511.jpg)
Ol recommended using a coffee stirrer from your local coffee shop, or Ol (he has thousands), to apply the stuff:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3507.jpg)
Whilst this was useful for applying, I have to say I found the trusty old Citadel Sculpting Tool useful for smoothing the mixture out, didn't want too many waves in my puddle!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3609.jpg)
It's also useful for picking out dirt from under your toenails, just so you know.
And here's what it looks like applied (a bit like a large bird has pooed all over the Jabberslythe base, though having been plopped on only last week by a bird with serious bowel integrity issues I can confirm bird poo is no longer white, but a sludgy green-brown colour that stains – sad times. Also it isn't lucky to be pooed on by a bird, I think someone who had been pooed on claimed it was lucky whilst being ribbed by his friends to try and win the argument and somehow this has stuck. I fail to see how being smeared in avian s**t is lucky.):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3516.jpg)
So far after 24 hours, the puddle is still a little bit white, so hopefully it should be fully dry soon!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3587.jpg)
I was a bit concerned about the excess water effects that went on the sides of the rocks, but I think it looks alright, as if it's quite a moist area of terrain, and Jabberslythes live in swamps after all!
Obviously I was fully up for painting the Jabberslythe's reflection in the water but according to the bestiary "They are truly repugnant to look upon, having such grotesque features that even the clearest pools of water will not offer up their reflection", so sadly I can't, what a shame!
There's also two new Tuskgor Chariots, doubling the fleet to four.
Here's Chariot 1:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3519.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3520.jpg)
This chariot may be taking a dangerous terrain test in a minute!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3521.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3526.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3528.jpg)
And Chariot 2:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3536.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3529.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3534.jpg)
Skulls here from the Warhammer basing kit.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3541.jpg)
And here's the full fleet:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3544.jpg)
You may notice the slightly older looking crewman, on Chariot 2, he's the original driver from the Gorthor's chariot, who got replaced when the basic Beastmen chariot kit's crew were upgraded. I decided to swap him off Gorthor's chariot, so Gorthor could have the better looking crewman and also to add variation to my standard Tuskgor chariots, all four have a different combination of crewmen. Originally I was going to chop the driver's sword off and give him a spear, but closer inspection of the model and seeing how the sword was moulded right up against the leg, led me to bottle it! However I did add a spear from the Ungor set to his chariot, to use in those all important charges (I chopped the spear off the Ungor's hand and glued both parts together to make the spear).
Followers of an older, much less funnier blog, may remember two Tzeentch Chaos Spawn I had painted up (converted by adding various Tzeentch Daemon parts):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3597.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3599.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3600.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3603.jpg)
Well, originally these were going to be part of the Beastmen army (before the new book I was going to do a Tzeentch Beastmen army to accompany my Warriors, but having seen them move away from the individual gods in the 7th edition book I decided against it). Now whilst these still could be used in the Beastmen army, they felt a bit too, well... blue and pink to fit in. So finally I painted up some replacements (the originals will be in loyal service with the Warriors):
For the first one I used a selection of the Beastmen parts from the Chaos Spawn frame, I wanted to make it look like this Spawn had recently mutated. And I think there's something more tragic about this model as you can see its original origins.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3563.jpg)
Of course there's a large claw, and a random tentacle - just because! I painted the tentacle the same colour as the Jabberslythe to try and tie these models together.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3564.jpg)
Look at those long horns!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3568.jpg)
Hopefully on this photo you can see that I a) need to get better at dusting off the fake snow, the excess gets everywhere!! And b) that I've tried to blend between the grey main body of the Spawn and the brown of the remaining Beastmen parts – this was done by gradually mixing the colours across the gradient. Hopefully it looks like it's recently mutated.
And here you can see the discarded shield of a Bretonnian Knight Errant (from the Warhammer Basing Kit) – with so many Bretonnian players out there this Spawn's bound to face them in battle once!! Covered with a little fresh snowfall and trampled grass.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3572.jpg)
And then for the second, I just went a bit crazy and used the parts of the Chaos Spawn frame that I liked the most to make a completely random spawn with no hint of the original creature left. This one has three beady eyes, lots of claws but no mouth – such is the fickle nature of Chaos (and a good incidentally a good template if any geneticist is creating the perfect partner):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3554.jpg)
I'm particularly pleased with the eyes which have come out well, and the skin tone which is Deneb Stone washed with Tharaka Green, then highlighted watered down Bleached Bone (to keep the green showing through).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3558.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3555.jpg)
I positioned this log to look as if the Spawn had stepped on it with such force to buckle it and raise it in the air, which I think looks alright and pretty dramatic. My top tip, I think maybe this needs to become a regular feature like "Matty's Top Tip of the Week", what do you reckon, maybe with a jingle? Hmmm. Anyway my top tip, is that if you are going to break up longer pieces of twig or cut them to shape them like this, you'll find they may start to fragment and then the various layers break off. If you give it a generous wash with PVA glue it will all hold itself together again.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3561.jpg)
So here's the full set of Beastmen reinforcements finished this weekend:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3612.jpg)
If only the Water Effects will ever finish drying! Don't worry I won't poke it, probably.
This takes the painted Beastmen army to a whopping 5,386 points! And using my usual counting procedure for counting painted models (using Warhammer 7th edition unit strength) equates to 283 models, my biggest army ever! For those of you interested he's the full army list of painted Beastmen (I'd take a photo, but army shots always look poo, and I'm not sure I've a big enough table for them all any more):
LORDS:
Malagor, the Dark Omen
1x Beastlord
1x Great Bray-Shaman
HEROES:
2x Wargors
1x Wargor with Battle Standard
1x Bray-Shaman
CORE:
20x Gors with extra hand weapons and full command.
20x Gors with hand weapons and shields and full command.
40x Gors with hand weapons and shields and full command.
16x Ungors with hand weapons and shields and full command.
20x Ungors with spears and shields and full command.
10x Ungor Raiders with bows, Halfhorn and musician.
10x Ungor Raiders with bows, Halfhorn and musician.
4x Tuskgor Chariots
10x Chaos Warhounds
SPECIAL:
6x Minotaurs with great weapons and full command.
10x Centigors with spears, shields, light armour and full command.
Ghorros Warhoof
6x Harpies
20x Bestigor with great weapons, heavy armour and full command.
20x Bestigor with great weapons, heavy armour and full command.
RARE:
2x Chaos Spawn
1x Giant
1x Jabberslythe
Ok I probably should stop painting Beastmen, but I wouldn't mind painting up a few more Minotaurs, including the character model (as they were quite fun to do). Plus maybe a conversion for the Ghorgon and Cygor, and the other special characters (I've come to quite enjoying painting Special Characters as nice individual models). Oh and of course the Razagor and Razagor chariots. I've finally undercoated the three Razagor:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3615.jpg)
Maybe I'll get to assembling the Razagor Chariot one day, when I take extra helpings of patience.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that this was a Beastmen blog this week, but this is because I was a good boy and got ahead with my High Elves, painting April and May's models (Prince on Griffon) at the beginning of April, so I've been having a rest and painting up some Beasty reinforcements. However June is nearly upon us, it really nearly is, so I've got my Dragon Princes, which will make up June's entry, all assembled and ready to go. Can I say what mightly fine models these are, really impressive details and just generally lovely, I used pretty much all the accessories and extra gems to give them hopefully a truly elite look in the army. The banner and shields have been left off for ease of painting, but I've attached the individual pennants as the design is already modelled on them.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3492.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3499.jpg)
I really hope you can see some of the wonderful detail on these models, and incidentally my blue fruit bowl.
And I even undercoated them, ready for June:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3619.jpg)
To end with, I probably should make a retraction from last week I made some early judgements about Citadel Finecast, and to be honest having seen the models I am starting to be slightly swayed – not totally, but I have to admit they do look good. Plus I think I've been a bit naughty moaning about Games Workshop recently, I don't like to.
Part of this love for resin also comes from realising how robust and lightweight my resin Jabberslythe is, despite being a conversion it seems to take a decent amount of punishment – compare this to my metal Beastmen chariots which are just crumbling to dust every time I touch them. When I saw the lightweight Blood Knights on the Games Workshop website I did think these do look a lot better. No pinning, no collapsing and chipping at the first sign of being touched sounds good to. Looking down Ol's list of models that will make the range and I see the Dwarf Gyrocopter and think how much easier mine would have been to make from resin, and how less likely the flying base would be to snap. My eyes also spy the Dragon Ogre Shaggoth which I'd been thinking of adding to my Warriors for a while, it would be so much easier to build from resin. Ok I don't like price rises, but unless I'm mistaken the positive is that many of these items which were Direct Only will now be stockable by Ol (correct me if I'm wrong), which hopefully means Ol will be able to offer us a nice discount. By my Maths this means I could now get the formerly Direct Only Shaggoth for only £2 more and have a far less vitriolic swearing match assembling it. That doesn't sound too bad to me, plus being resin it will take a bit more abuse it could even come on holiday for my next edition of Painting on Tour – something I'd never have done with the metal model. So at present I'm warming to the Citadel Finecast range, obviously I'll need to see some close up to judge, but I'm feeling more positive. Though it does mean I'm considering the wonderful Azhag the Slaughterer model, which I said no to because it would be a bugger to assemble... have to rely on the price tag putting me off.
STOP PRESS...STOP PRESS...STOP PRESS...
Our old friend Harold Camping has reappeared, apparently he got it wrong about the Apocalypse... and it's now happening on the 21st of October. According to the BBC News website Harold Camping said it had "dawned" on him that God would spare humanity "hell on Earth for five months" and the apocalypse would happen on 21 October. That's good to know, best get on and finish the High Elves then, probably not worth starting a new army then... though I could get Azhag painted in that time. Oh dear!
With Doomsday marked on the calendar, we probably should get on and play What's In the Box? else we'll never get them all opened in time. You know the drill send us your numbers, I can't be bothered to explain any more that that.
And on a completely unrelated note, I'm going to assemble some Marauder Horsemen soon. Looking at the options on the sprue I quite like the idea of giving them hand weapons and shields as it looks quite good. But I can't see any game point why I would, light armour costs the same as the shield, and has the benefit of leaving hands free for better weapons, there's no parry save benefit for being mounted and if I give them light armour and a shield they do get 4+ armour save but cease to be Fast Cavalry which surely negates their main point? Can anyone see anything I am missing? Otherwise it will be the slightly less cool looking, but more gameworthy Flails options for this unit.
Have a great Bank Holiday, hopefully there will be some Elven progress to report next week.
Nice work on the Beasties buddy (as always)...
As for Finecast, finding out today what we can get and how much for...
And box 17 please sir.... :))
lucky box 13 for me please matt :thumbsup:
Quote from: fatolaf on May 25, 2011, 12:49:11 pm
Nice work on the Beasties buddy (as always)...
As for Finecast, finding out today what we can get and how much for...
Thanks mate, hope I haven't preempted you on what you can and cannot get. Please remember dear readers terms and conditions apply, anything I say could be false and I have no idea what I'm talking about!
we can get them just found out, but no more than 3 of each pack per week (till stock levels improve), but no idea what they are going to cost us yet, But I will predict I can do them at 10% off...
Cool well I speak for all our readers when I say we love whatever % you can get off. So should I buy Azhag...? Hmmmm....
You should buy Azhag!! Great model.
Also your Beastmen are really really good. Your painting is comnig on leaps and bounds so keep it up
Quote from: StarDragonFTW on May 25, 2011, 01:57:15 pm
You should buy Azhag!! Great model.
Also your Beastmen are really really good. Your painting is comnig on leaps and bounds so keep it up
Cheers, much appreciated. Just worried if I buy Azhag it might lead to a whole Orc & Goblin army, which after painting up hordes of Beastmen does not appeal!! Plus I really like the Goblin Boss on Gigantic Spider too, so I'd have to add that at then it would be Goblins ahoy!
I have that model (Goblin on Gigantic Spider) yet to be assembled and painted, but looking forward to finally getting around to it.
Nothing wrong with an Orcs and Goblins horde. They are a really good conversion army
If the Gigantic Spider gets made into Finecast (and sold at a discount on OG Games ;)) ) then I might buy it, but damn I aint bothering with a model so fiddly in the meantime!
Quote from: StarDragonFTW on May 25, 2011, 02:38:04 pm
Nothing wrong with an Orcs and Goblins horde. They are a really good conversion army
No but with 4 armies on the go and plans for a 5th, painting all those Orcs & Goblins may kill me financially and physically - I'm not very good at just painting the minimum I need for 2,000 points then stopping!
Quote from: Undead Dan on May 25, 2011, 03:24:52 pm
If the Gigantic Spider gets made into Finecast (and sold at a discount on OG Games ;)) ) then I might buy it, but damn I aint bothering with a model so fiddly in the meantime!
Very good point, hadn't thought how fiddly all those legs would be!
I reckon with all the stuff you've been painting recently you're well ahead of me in painted figures for the year. Beast stuff looks great and I think that's the first time I've seen those dragon princes other than the GW paintjobs. Quite liking them really, looking forward to seeing how they take that shakaway scheme.
Box 1.
Cheers mate for the Beasty feedback! Not sure feel like my painting as hit a rut at present, though am hoping a Bank Holiday weekend and some holiday will help! I think my Dragon Princes are going to have a lot more Gold than the GW ones, I like what they've done with the lacquered (darker) blue metal, but I think it would look odd if large plates of armour were lacquered such a bright blue or yellow. I don't mind an odd bit of yellow or blue metal trim but huge plates I think are going to look crazy! Thankfully there's a lot of details, ribbons, and small bits of cloth pieces that can take the Shakeaway colour!
Box 2 please
Looking top drawer on all of it mate. Really liking the Beast stuff :cool3:
Cheers mate! Hopefully I can keep it up with the Dragon Princes!
I've obviously had a rough week - tired and drained for various reasons... so I couldn't help laughing when I looked at both our avatars and then imagined a hard-a-nails Blood Angel Marine... with a Heavy Bolter... and Red Thirst... as well as being sequestered to the Ordo Xenos... giving your lego guy an amiable pat on the back as he commented positively on the dude's painting skills :thumbsup:
...I need a holiday :cry:
Haha, we clearly have avatars from different circles! This is actually me in LEGO that an artist friend of mine drew. The t-shirt refers to a children's programme I used to work on - one day when I completely run out of things to prattle on about, and this just becomes my memoirs I'll tell you all about it!
Incidentally I need a holiday too, this morning in my half asleep state I accidentally grabbed the bubble bath rather than the shower gel getting washed this morning. I only realisied when I starting foaming up, my body looked like the mouth of rabid dog. Glad I've put that image of my naked body in your head.
PS You do need a holiday, I've just seen how much you've written on your blog tonight - it's making my posts look brief!!!
[Shower Image] . . . . . . . :endit:
As for the blog stuff, it was thankfully pre-written just before I came back to Blighty - no way I could have done all that tonight in my current state :wink;m::
Wednesday 1st June - WEEK 22
So people here we are in the final month of the Tale of OG Gamers, yep 9 months down 1 to go. In precisely 30 days myself, and all the other Tale entrants, will have finished their 2,000 point armies... or perhaps not.
Astute followers (i.e. not those who ask me when I'm going to blog about such and such, only for me to tell them that I did, last week – I know who you are, you need to read carefully I will be asking questions later!) will remember that last week saw a flurry of hobby activity so you're probably thinking that this week will just be me talking rubbish about a load of unrelated stuff to distract from my lack of painting. But no, oh ye of little faith, for I've another fun packed painting update stuffed fuller than a FIFA official's pocket.
First up with the recent rest bite I've had from painting High Elves I squeezed out a couple more Beastmen and got 3 Razorgors done to add to the army. I actually only spent a day and a half painting these, less time than it took to assemble them!!! I'd like to say I'm getting faster, but I think the primary cause of this, is the fact that bar drybrushing the fur, it's primarily all flesh coloured.
Here they are, my main intention had been to make sure they don't, on first inspection at least, look like three clones – as they're all the same original model:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3674.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3676.jpg)
In case you're interested here's what I did to each individual to make them different:
Here's the basic model, as shown on the box:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3682.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3691.jpg)
For those bothered the flesh is Tallaran Flesh, successively layered with 1:1 Tallaran Flesh : Dwarf Flesh, then Dwarf Flesh, then 1:1 Dwarf Flesh : Elf Flesh and finally pure Elf Flesh. It was then aggressively washed with Ogryn Flesh and a final highlight of Elf Flesh was then used.
Here's the first variant:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3694.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3697.jpg)
The changes I made were:
• Making some extra fur for the head with green stuff.
• Gluing the tusks in the mouth in a different orientation.
• The original tail was cut off and replaced with a tail from the Chaos Spawn set.
• Sets of smaller horns, again from the Chaos Spawn, were glued on the back rather than the tall horns.
• The back right leg was reshaped.
• The left shoulder set of spikes were replaced with a large horn from the Chaos Spawn set and some judicious use of Green Stuff.
And the second variant:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3700.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3706.jpg)
The changes made were:
• Gluing the tusks in the mouth in a different orientation.
• The back right leg was reshaped.
• The original tail was cut off and replaced with a tail from the Chaos Spawn set.
• Rather than horns on the back in the fur, I modelled extra fur with Green Stuff.
• A tongue (tentacle from the Chaos Spawn set) was added in the mouth replacing the modelled tongue.
• The right shoulder set of spikes were replaced with spikes from the Chaos Spawn set and some judicious Green Stuff.
• The left eye was replaced with a beady Chaos Spawn eye with some Green Stuff.
And in case you're interested I painted the eyes slightly differently across the unit for more character, some had the following style:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3710.jpg)
Here the eye is painted Scab Red, then layered with ovals of Red Gore, Blood Red, Blazing Orange, Golden Yellow and finally a slit of Chaos Black.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3702.jpg)
And I decided to do one with the infamous bug eye from the 'Eavy Metal paint job (sorry a bit of a lousy photo), I painted the eye Rotting Flesh, with a central area of Skull White, I then washed it Baal Red before adding the red veins and eyeball in Blood Red with a Chaos Black spot in the centre.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3687.jpg)
As they come on 50mm x 50mm bases (yes, not 40mm x 40mm they're that big), I used some twigs and rocks for decoration. Now because I stole my log painting scheme from an old White Dwarf and I'm sick of going under the bed for it I'm going to write it here so I can always access it:
The log was painted Chardonite Granite, then drybrushed 1:1 Codex Grey : Graveyard Earth, with selective drybrushing of Camo Green to represent moss.
That may not interest you, but it saves me heading under the bed – and being someone anal enough to keep their White Dwarfs in number order, it's particularly annoying as it's one from the bottom of the pile!
Adding these new Razorgor to my existing Beastmen army takes it to a whopping 5,551 points!!! And if you're wondering what that looks like altogether, wonder no more:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3623.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3621.jpg)
Just in case your eyesight is failing you, here's a little key (you may wish to click on this photo to make it larger!):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3661.jpg)
A – 5 Chaos Warhounds
B – 5 Chaos Warhounds
C – Giant
D – Tuskgor Chariot
E – Tuskgor Chariot
F – Tuskgor Chariot
G – Tuskgor Chariot
H – Chaos Spawn
I – 6 Minotaurs
J – Bray-Shaman
K – Beastlord
L – Malagor, the Dark Omen
M – 20 Gors
N – 3 Razorgors
O – 40 Gors
P – Wargor
Q – Great Bray-Shaman
R – Wargor with Battle Standard
S – Wargor
T – 20 Bestigor
U – Chaos Spawn
V – Jabberslythe
W – 10 Ungor Raiders
X – 10 Centigor
Y – Ghorros Warhoof
Z – 6 Harpies
AA (yes I ran out of letters!) – 10 Ungor Raiders
AB – 20 Ungors
AC – 20 Gors
AD – 20 Bestigors
AE – 16 Ungors
Somewhat worringly, bar the Giant and Chaos Hounds, I have painted this all in the 15 months since the 7th edition Beastmen book came out (and I've painted the best part of 2,000 points of High Elves for this blog in that time)!!! How did I find the time? Why haven't I got anything better to do?
And here's some other shots I took, no your eyes don't deceive you it's a bit later in the day and they're deployed differently!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3649.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3656.jpg)
This one I particularly like as it looks like a massive endless hoard advancing out of the gloom, an effect I achieved simply by photographing it using the ambient lighting at the OG Games club!:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3658.jpg)
Yes if you're wondering where the dodgy carpet and uniform chairs and tables have come from, no I've not photographed it at 1980s wedding reception but at the club. And I'm sure you're now asking, why oh why, have I assembled such a mob of Beastmen? Well this Monday was a Bank Holiday all day event at the club and a couple of us decided to have a mega battle, sadly this went about as well as a Liberal Democrat popularity contest and so it just ended up being myself and Steven - aka shadownova24 (what happened to the previous 23 shadownovas is anyone's guess?) with my 5,200 points of Beastmen and his 2,500 points of Skaven we had to come up with a slightly different scenario.
Since the arrival of the small Warhammer rulebook in the Island of Blood set my hardback 521 page rulebook has been has underused as Cheryl Cole's visa (I mean seriously over eight years who thought the only person who'd survive all the changes to the presenters and judges of X Factor would be Lois Walsh?!!!).
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3733.jpg)
Anyway towards the back of the Argos catalogue of Warhammer there's a section called Warhammer Battles which has a selection of different scenarios you can try out. We chose a variant of the "Heroic Last Stand" battle from page 394.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3736.jpg)
Here's the rules (plus our changes):
• The "Heroic Underdog" army chooses an army of only 33% of the value of the "Overwhelming Attacking" army, but with no restrictions. Given what we'd bought as lists, Steven had just under half of my army but with normal restrictions.
• The "Heroic Underdog" deploys in a defensible 18" square in the centre of the battlefield – terrain is selected to be defensive, but no buildings in the area can be garrisoned and a maximum of three sides can be fully enclosed by walls. The "Overwhelming Attackers" deploys his units at least 8" from the "Heroic Underdog's models. This was unchanged for our battle.
• The "Heroic Underdog" starts with the first turn and must survive as long as possible, the game ends when the "Heroic Underdog" has no non-fleeing units in his deployment zone. If this happens in Turns 1-4 the "Overwhelming Attacker" wins, 5-6 a draw, and 7+ the "Heroic Underdog" wins. We played until all Defenders were destroyed or fleeing regardless of position – mainly due to misreading the rules!
• The "Heroic Underdog" can place a marker in his deployment zone as a rally point, all units within 6" are unbreakable, but if the "Overwhelming Attacker" moves onto this, the rally point is destroyed. This was unchanged for our battle.
• Any "Heroic Underdog" unit more than 12" from the deployment zone must pass a leadership test at a -2 modifier at the start of the turn, otherwise they're removed from the game (taking the opportunity to flee the attackers). This was unchanged for our battle.
• The "Overwhelming Attacker" can recycle any core unit that is destroyed or flees off the battlefield, it can enter in the remaining moves phase of the next turn. We didn't use this rule.
I didn't do a full battle report of the game, primarily for my own sanity, but here's some photos of key moments:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3625.jpg)
Deployment – and it doesn't look too good for the Skaven, surely even I can win this game?!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3626.jpg)
The Plague Furnace, Plague Monks, and some dice standing in for models!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3628.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3632.jpg)
The Stormvermin, led by Ikit Claw, get hit by 40 Gors to the front and 20 Ungors (who rolled frenzy for their Primal Fury result) to the flank. Meanwhile, in a crazed burst of speed the Doomwheel shot out of the Skaven deployment zone crashing into and destroying a Tuskgor Chariot. However charged in the flank it's unable to hold up to the Giant, whose constant rolls of "Chomp" mean it eats the Doomwheel regaining the wounds it's devastating weaponry inflicted.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3629.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3631.jpg)
Meanwhile the Plague Furnace and Monks, get the brunt of the Skaven attack with 6 Minotaurs, a Beastlord, Battle Standard and 40 Bestigor charging them – with Malagor lingering close by to help those all important Primal Fury rolls.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3633.jpg)
The Plague Furnace is eventually toppled, after 23 Plague Monks die in the first round of combat!! In the background Ikit's unit suffers so many casualties that it's back ranks are no longer within 6" of the rally point so it flees.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3634.jpg)
The Giant runs down the Doomwheel, and the Gors, chasing Ikit, plough into a unit of Clanrats.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3635.jpg)
The Razorgors and a Tuskgor chariot (with slightly drunk driver - slight casualty of transportation) plough into the Skaven Slaves, the resulting combat lasts for 6 combat phases!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3636.jpg)
The Gutter Runners turn up, in a very unskaven fashion they decide to help the last stand, however a lucky round of shooting from the Ungor Raiders sends them fleeing off the board.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3637.jpg)
The Jabberslythe survives a lucky shot from the Warp Lightning Cannon, and then goes onto to destroy it and the critical rally point it's defending.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3638.jpg)
Ikit Claw Skitterleaps out of the unit to threaten Malagor but his Warpfire Thrower wildly overshoots taking three Centigors out who were miles from the front line and his Storm Daemon is dispelled. He later gets a unit of Minotaurs in the face!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3640.jpg)
A Spawn and Tuskgor Chariot wade into the other unit of Skaven Slaves but can't whittle them down, an impressive set of armour save rolls prevent the Chariot from succumbing to the Slaves, much to the annoyance of the waiting Giant who's desperate to smash something!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3641.jpg)
By Turn 2 the Beastmen had nearly overrun the village, but there were still some large units of Skaven holding out.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3643.jpg)
The Razorgor finally break through the Slaves, however they join the massive pile up of Beastmen unit all facing each other after pursuing through the Skaven.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3647.jpg)
A series of spells and a rampaging Chaos Spawn break the remaining Skaven units leaving the Ungor locked in combat with the last Skaven unit of Giant Rats.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3644.jpg)
The Giant Rats are finally broken by the Ungor at the end of Turn 4 giving a win to the Beastmen.
Yes, I won with the Beastmen – thanks to all those who acted with ridiculous levels of surprise and mocking on the day! And yes I only needed double the points to win! In fairness the Skaven put up a good fight, it took 3 turns to clear out the village (which would have won me the original scenario) but then all my units were facing the wrong way to attack the remaining stragglers. Had Steven known the scenario we'd be facing in advance and choose a more defensive army he could have maybe held onto his rally point with a really large unbreakable unit, and I think he could have held for the draw.
Generally it is considered rude to mock people you actually know in print, but I have to say the funniest line of the whole battle – Steven asked me how I based my models, and when I said snow, he said "What real snow?" – yeah mate I glued on real snow, and since have kept my models in the freezer to stop it melting! :wink;m:: Sorry for putting that in print, but I just couldn't resist (and I'm quite mean really!). He he!
What's In the Box? – The Results
Time for What's In The Box? the results, will Ol or Lee who have entered every month since this competition started actually get their box picked this month? (I promise it's a genuine draw!). With the death of Cheryl still weighing heavily on our hearts this month's random draw will be constructed by our guest independent adjudicator Barry the Lindt Bunny.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3664.jpg)
And the good news is, after 9 months... Ol's choice finally got picked!!!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3669.jpg)
Let's hope after all that, it's a good box!!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3711.jpg)
It's a classic Empire box, from my abortive Empire army:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3713.jpg)
I've got 12 old metal Handgunners:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3718.jpg)
12 Halberdiers:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3723.jpg)
A random command group, probably good for Swordsmen:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3724.jpg)
A second command group for the Halberdiers:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3727.jpg)
And one for the Handgunners:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3731.jpg)
And one wing from Deathclaw (Karl Franz's Griffon):
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3728.jpg)
I think I got most of this stuff in a bundle of Empire bits (all in an old style GW Mail Order Box) from and independent retailer on the Isle of Wight when I was on holiday there at the age of 15. I was usually given a holiday spending money allowance by my parents, which I tried to avoid spending on actual souvenirs so I cold spend it on Warhammer (what a horrid kid I was!). I seem to remember on leaving the store with my Empire box set (and a rare expansion to the old Heroquest game) I overheard a regular customer saying to the owner how he thought "He'd never shift that lot, and what an idiot I was for buying them!" – slightly rude (though I think the same things were said when people realised I bought three Razorgors off Ol). Well who's had the last laugh, they've got so much use from me that I've put them in a box never painted or played with them... oh, ok they win. But I did also pick up as part of the set an Empire War Wagon – which is still in the box unassembled under the bed somewhere – that could buy me a house if I ever put it on eBay!
High Elves – yes there are some!
And in case you are wondering I have started this month's painting, but sadly I haven't got the Dragon Princes completely basecoated yet – give us a break it's only the 1st of June! Oh you don't believe me – rude! Here's some proof:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3671.jpg)
See! And if I wasn't writing this blog they'd probably be finished by now! Hopefully they'll be basecoated for next week.
Oh and I had someone comment that they thought last week I was missing a rant – you'll give me a reputation as a grump you know! Anyway as I feel bad for moaning about Games Workshop recently, because I actually quite like the new Citadel Finecast range, so to redress the balance here's two non Games Workshop mini rants I launched at my friends on Facebook recently...
Firstly, I can't believe they've dropped Galaxy Truffles from Celebrations, they were the best!! Why have they gone and not Bounty or Snickers which no one likes? I guarantee all that will be left in the box at the end of the evening will be Snickers, Bounty and the odd Milky Way people have mistaken for a Bounty.
Secondly, I have been wishing my hairdresser had a mute button, I am neither interested in sharing the tedious details of my life nor in hearing the equally tedious details of yours (admittedly I'm sharing the tedious details of my life with you right now, but that's just tough)! Just be quiet and cut my hair. - Does thinking this make me a grumpy old man? Probably. What really gets to me are the pointless topics he talks about, it's like holding a conversation with a copy of Heat Magazine, I don't have an opinion on the fact that the lead singer of the Killers has gone solo, and as for The Only Way is Essex do I really look like the kind of person who watches ITV2? Then he asked me "If I was going on holiday?", I lied and said I had none planned simply to shut that line of questioning down, but then he asked 'If you were going to go on holiday, where would you go?' Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! At least I didn't get irritating hyena girl, who laughs at every statement I say, regardless of whether it's funny or not. I swear I could say to her "I've got a deeply infectious tropical disease that's going to kill every person on this planet starting with you" and she'd simply laugh like a demented banshee before asking me to tilt my head to one side.
There, I feel better now.
I win again! :thumbsup:
People might think there is some match fixing going on here.... :wink;m::
First off I'd best recognise the hobby effort, those beasts are awesome, fantastic horde of figs.
Now the important stuff.
Quote from: cunningmatt on June 01, 2011, 01:42:07 pm
Wednesday 1st June - WEEK 22
Firstly, I can't believe they've dropped Galaxy Truffles from Celebrations, they were the best!! Why have they gone and not Bounty or Snickers which no one likes?
It would seem I'm a statistical outlier (once again to be honest) I quite like the snickers one. The best thing in the celebration box is the maltesery thing.
QuoteSecondly, I have been wishing my hairdresser had a mute button,
Try going to a barber rather than a hairdresser. I have sat in stoic silence for years and been roundly ignored in return, it's awesome.
Quote from: fatolaf on June 01, 2011, 02:24:55 pm
I win again! :thumbsup:
People might think there is some match fixing going on here.... :wink;m::
Just the luck of the draw! Barry the Bunny would never allow such cheating.
Quote from: Dave on June 01, 2011, 02:27:59 pm
First off I'd best recognise the hobby effort, those beasts are awesome, fantastic horde of figs.
Now the important stuff.
It would seem I'm a statistical outlier (once again to be honest) I quite like the snickers one. The best thing in the celebration box is the maltesery thing.
Try going to a barber rather than a hairdresser. I have sat in stoic silence for years and been roundly ignored in return, it's awesome.
Cheers for the compliment! As for the Snickers, that does make you odd! Malteasers are good, and as are Twix which are back - but Galaxy Truffle are the best! Bring them back!!!!! As for haircuts, firstly have you not seen my hair it's styled to within an inch of it's life no bog standard barber can do that! :wink;m:: Secondly I've found barbers in London tend to to employ lots of people who don't speak English (I have no problem with this per se) but after the experience in which I said I was growing my hair long at the back at the non-English speaking barber went yes and then preceeded to shave it all off at the back I've found it easier to brave "small talk".
I've thought about the whole hairdresser thing and I think it depends on the person in question. If its a cute chick cutting my hair, I'm happy to talk about whatever she wants, especially when it gets me her number :wink;m::. I'm also always happy to discuss sport with the barber, but I can't say I've ever been asked about The Only Way is Essex. I'm not sure I even vaguely know what thats about....
Oh, and your army looks ace when its all lined up!
Quote from: Meals on June 02, 2011, 09:02:40 am
but I can't say I've ever been asked about The Only Way is Essex. I'm not sure I even vaguely know what thats about....
Bunch of Chav wannabees playing up the camera in a reality / documentary / soap opera that has now been surpassed in sheer :endit: by the made in chelsea sequel that is full of spoiled brats living it up whilst the rest of the country lives through a recession. God awful show, Everyone involved should be gunned down.... :cool3:
Quote from: Meals on June 02, 2011, 09:02:40 am
If its a cute chick cutting my hair. I'm also always happy to discuss sport with the barber.
Oh, and your army looks ace when its all lined up!
Thanks for the compliment. Yeah my hairdresser was not a cute chick and I suspect physically incapable of actually discussing sport.
Quote from: fatolaf on June 02, 2011, 12:45:06 pm
God awful show, Everyone involved should be gunned down.... :cool3:
That is The Only Was is Essex in a nutshell, in fact I believe it's the listing they use in the Radio Times.
Incidentally Ol meant to ask were you happy with the contents of Box 17 after it eventually got picked?
When I read that the Only Way is Essex was nominated for an award, the tiny remnants of my faith in the British population died.
I did have the dubious honour of going to school with one of the characters on that show. Probably something I shouldn't really admit to. Oh well, it's out there now :blush:
Quote from: jackhoneysett on June 02, 2011, 01:21:49 pm
When I read that the Only Way is Essex was nominated for an award, the tiny remnants of my faith in the British population died.
What disturbed me most is it WON the Viewer's Choice BAFTA - a good reason why the general population should not be asked their opinon on anything, next will be asking them who should run the country!!!
Quote from: jackhoneysett on June 02, 2011, 01:21:49 pm
I did have the dubious honour of going to school with one of the characters on that show. Probably something I shouldn't really admit to. Oh well, it's out there now :blush:
Yeah... oh well
Quote from: cunningmatt on June 02, 2011, 01:08:19 pm
Incidentally Ol meant to ask were you happy with the contents of Box 17 after it eventually got picked?
was not the most exciting box ever was it
'oh look a bit of wing and some humans....'
'I demand a re-draw' (what an ace pun by the way :)))
Ciara loves it, which is concrete proof that it is utter shite.
Quote from: Dave on June 02, 2011, 01:59:20 pm
Ciara loves it, which is concrete proof that it is utter shite.
Drawer 17 ??
:wink;m::
Quote from: fatolaf on June 02, 2011, 02:12:24 pm
Drawer 17 ??
:wink;m::
lol!
Your pun was ace by the way (especially as I made it about 7 months ago when the whole thing started! :1st:)!!! They were old humans if that makes it more exciting, maybe if Lee's box number 13 ever gets picked they'll be something exciting in there?
*crosses fingers* it best be chaos dwarves!
Should I tell Lee now I don't own a single Chaos Dwarf model, or wait until all 36 boxes are open?
Quote from: jackhoneysett on June 02, 2011, 01:21:49 pm
I did have the dubious honour of going to school with one of the characters on that show. Probably something I shouldn't really admit to. Oh well, it's out there now :blush:
Do you really expect us to believe that any of them actually went to school?
Quote from: jackhoneysett on June 02, 2011, 01:21:49 pm
When I read that the Only Way is Essex was nominated for an award, the tiny remnants of my faith in the British population died.
You know what, in this world where every member of the Kardashian family somehow manages to have their own TV show, I'm not really that surprised... I do agree they should die in a fire though, hopefully on the way home from being told the inoperable brain tumour they battled for two years miraculously disappeared. Or is that a bit harsh?
I don't think it would be harsh enough if it was a napalm fire mate!
Any Idea what happens when you get a misscast if its bought from Ol? Can we take them back to a gw, or would Ol have to send them back?
Sent from my 7 Pro T7576 using Board Express
Quote from: Meals on June 02, 2011, 10:35:43 pm
Or is that a bit harsh?
Possibly on the cusp of harshness... slightly concerned that of all the things we've discussed here over the last 9 months the one which has led to the biggest conversation is The Only Way is Essex!
Quote from: noahtonkin on June 03, 2011, 09:20:33 am
Any Idea what happens when you get a misscast if its bought from Ol? Can we take them back to a gw, or would Ol have to send them back?
Wow talk about changing topic. I think you just roll on the miscast table and hope you don't get a 2-4!! :)) :)) :)) :)) - Aren't I funny?! When I had a missing part in a model supplied through Ol, I e-mailed GW who sorted out replacement (I didn't say where I'd bought it, but they never asked to see any proof of purchase), alternatively Ol may have a method for returning items - I imagine suppliers have to let retailers do this.
Quote from: cunningmatt on June 03, 2011, 11:35:46 am
QuoteAny Idea what happens when you get a misscast if its bought from Ol? Can we take them back to a gw, or would Ol have to send them back?
When I had a missing part in a model supplied through Ol, I e-mailed GW who sorted out replacement (I didn't say where I'd bought it, but they never asked to see any proof of purchase), alternatively Ol may have a method for returning items - I imagine suppliers have to let retailers do this.
I like that your painting blog has become a one stop shop for everything because it probably gets more visits than posting up a fresh thread.
Quote from: Dave on June 03, 2011, 11:57:00 am
I like that your painting blog has become a one stop shop for everything because it probably gets more visits than posting up a fresh thread.
I know, but what can you do? Except bask in the warm glow of popularity! :wink;m:: (I jest of course!!).
What a strange post by Noah, but basically you either do what Matt did or take it to a GW, which is why I am going to be very cautious with the fine cast orders at first...
Yeah, sorry about that. Was half reading 3 or 4 posts about various stuff and forgot where I was posting what!
However back on the subject of trash tv (see, I do read really!), I've just been subjected to the living hell that is Geordie Beach...god, kill me now!
Sent from my 7 Pro T7576 using Board Express
Sadly I'm not unlucky enough to have MTV in my house, so alas I cannot watch such delights. Instead I listened to Radio 4 which I think is at the exact opposite end of the broadcasting spectrum!!
Friday 10th June - WEEK 23After last week's disturbingly low brow mass debate (that phrase sounds a lot like masturbate – he he he, sorry that was very childish) about The Only Way is Essex I'm pleased that we've moved on as this week, as we discuss Peter Andre: The Next Chapter... actually no we don't because otherwise I'd have to gouge out my own eyes with a rusty needle. Instead I will discuss this week's painting progress (Yes a third whole week with some painting news. How far we've come in this blog, from the early days of silly pictures and smut?! How much I've grown up?! – though that has largely been ruined by the mass debate comment earlier. Oh dear. It's still funny though!)...
High ElvesSlight panic hit OG Gamers HQ this week as I realised the deadline for finishing my 2,000 points is actually a week closer. Yes I have the arduous task of having to go on holiday in the last week of June. Seriously it's kind, but you don't have to feel sorry for me. So in order to make the deadline and get the Tale of OG Gamers painted and done by the end of June they've got to be finished in two weeks time - gulp! Oh well we need an exciting challenge..., well a challenge, to keep the whole project alive - no one wants to go out on a fizzle.
The good news however is the I've done the first two stages of the Dragon Princes already, which make up that last illusive 200 points, as you can see.
A couple of points to note is that I've tried to glue the Dragon Princes biased towards the front of the base, as these models are so fantastic I am very tempted to add a second rank at some point so just want to make sure I've got the space to do so. Secondly there were loads of gems to add on as extra, and I went crazy and used everyone in the set (except one which I broke with my fat fingers as I was filing off the mould lines - d'oh!). Painting wise, I think I mentioned last week, but you were probably skim reading so I'll mention it again!, I've avoiding going for large blue or yellow plates of lacquered armour as I think my palette is a bit too bright for that to look right (the 'Eavy Metal darker blue plates look great I'm not denying that). Instead I've gone for gold and silver and if I do say so myself I think the Dragon Princes look all the more striking with the golden helms for their steeds. Plus there's still enough blue and yellow on them to join the army's "Shakeaway" theme. "Enough rabbiting" I hear you cry, here's some pictures:
Stage 1 – Dragon Princes(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3758.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3760.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3762.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3763.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3740.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3746.jpg)
Base: Khemri Brown
Rocks: Chardonite Granite
Masonry: Calthan Brown
Hooves: Chaos Black
Tail and Leg Fur: Codex Grey
Horse Body: Fortress Grey
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Reins: Scorched Brown
White Cloth: 1:1 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White
Blue Cloth and Pennant: 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Ice Blue
Yellow Cloth and Armour Trim: Iyanden Dark Sun
Lance: Khemri Brown
Flesh: Dwarf Flesh
Stage 2 – Dragon Princes(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3775.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3782.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3787.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3794.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3792.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Rocks: Drybrushed Adeptus Battlegrey
Masonry: Washed Badab Black
Hooves: *NO CHANGE*
Tail and Leg Fur: Drybrushed Fortress Grey
Horse Body: Layered 1:1 Fortress Grey : Skull White
Silver Metal: Washed Badab Black
Gold Metal: Shining Gold
Reins: Washed Badab Black
White Cloth: Layered 1:2 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White
Blue Cloth and Pennant: Layered Ice Blue
Yellow Cloth and Armour Trim: Layered Golden Yellow
Lance: Layered Graveyard Earth
Flesh: Layered Elf Flesh
Veteran readers way back when may remember that I started naming each of my units after classic children's television shows for reasons more tenuous than Jeff Brazier's career. The astute amongst you will notice this has fallen by the way side, however I have got a name for the Dragon Princes, so brace yourself for a very tenuous link – perhaps one day I will think of clever names for my as yet unchildren'stvised (that's probably not a word?) units. Perhaps?
Any how my Dragon Princes remind me of the classic show Through the Dragon's Eye. Through the Dragon's Eye was a BBC School's programme from the late 1980s that acquired a sort of cult status. School's programmes were designed to teach children on the sly, children thought they got time away from the teacher to watch TV - whereas in actual fact teachers got time away from the children and children were subtly brainwashed lessons on punctuation and simple arithmetic. It already sounds better than The Only Way is Essex.
The basic premise of the story was that three children paint a mural of a dragon and then are drawn into the world of Pelamar through the dragon's eye (see what they've done there?). Pelamar was in trouble because the precious Veetacore, the life source of Pelamar, had exploded (bloody terrorists) and all the pieces needed to be recovered to stop the inhabitants simply fading away. However in the land of Pelamar it's inhabitants had lost the ability to read and so needed the help of the children to read the simple puzzles to find the missing pieces. This is where the learning came in, I remember learning how to spell the word "Quagmire" on this programme, a really useful word I have used exactly once since – and you've just read it.
The main characters were Gorwen the Dragon, who bought the children to Pelamar, the children (but I couldn't give a toss about them), Boris, Doris and Morris who were the guardians of the Veetacore – soon to be fired presumably, they were all one colour respectively Orange, Purple and Green. And the evil Charn a monster who wanted the pieces of the Veetacore for his own evil ends – whatever they were! I particularly remember this character as he had the "terrifying" ability to be able to liquefy people, which he did to both Doris and Morris reducing them to a pool of their respective coloured liquid. As an eight-year old child I remember being particularly disturbed by this turn of events, in that odd way that random things like clowns and Gloria Hunniford inexplicably freak out children. In hindsight it probably wasn't that scary and both Doris and Morris were saved in the end, but when you watched the ten-part series over two months at school that's a lot of potentially sleepless nights, and to be honest this show can be probably be traced back as the reason why I turned out as oddly as I have done.
For those of you intrigued by this programme, here's a classic fight scene from the programme as Gorwen finally confronts Charn – I should point out that if you are hoping to one day watch the series this may contain a few spoilers. I think you will agree that the special effects have certainly stood the test of time and don't in any way look naff.
And look at me, that's the first time I've embedded a video in this blog – check out my technological skills!
But of course I can't mention school's programmes without mentioning everyone's favourite part the ITV/Channel 4 continuity screen:
Come on all together now dur, dur, durdurdurrrh, dur dur durrh, dur, dur, durrrh... etc.
Anyway enough of all that humming (that tune will be in your head for the rest of the day) and in honour of poor old Doris who gets reduced to a puddle of goo for most of the series, I'm going to name this unit Doris' Dragon Princes – odd? I think not.
Movement TraysAbout a thousand years ago, around about the time of the birth of Bruce Forsyth, I promised I would talk to you about how I made Movement Trays, well with the weeks closing in (just 2 more to go!!) I best do it now else it may never happen!
First up you'll need to get your hands on the remarkably useful Warhammer Modular Movement Tray kit, which contains just enough tray parts, corners and edges so that you will always not quite have enough bits to complete the required movement trays! Always the way!
Mark out the shape of your trays, using a pen – here I've used an Overhead Projector marker pen which does the job well. However unless you're using Foundation Paints you may find it shows through on the final movement tray! For my Dwarf Army trays, despite being undercoated with Chaos Black several times, I can still see the marker pen through the Goblin Green!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2287.jpg)
Just realised my keys are in this picture, please don't try and copy the key from this image – I don't really want any uninvited visitors, I'm quite a miserable person and you won't be welcomed!
Now it might sound stupid but it is worth checking you're using the right side of the tray (either the 20mm x 20mm or 25mm x 25mm) before marking out the footprint of the unit. This might sound obvious but I merrily made a movement tray for my Dragon Ogres presuming their bases were equivalent to four 25mm x 25mm rather than four 20mm x 20mm bases – oops!
Next use the Citadel Razor Saw to slice up your bases, at this point I can't strongly enough recommend a cutting mat to protect your table from damage, and incidentally your body from damage when your loved one finds out about the table!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2290.jpg)
It's worth cutting all the way through and avoiding the temptation to brake the two pieces apart no matter how much your wrist aches from using the saw – to be honest it's probably your own fault your wrist aches anyway! Dirty boy!
Then you should have all your nice unit sized pieces left:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2291.jpg)
All this Razor sawing will create lots of dust, so do make sure you have the vacuum cleaner to standby.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2294.jpg)
I for one hope this dust doesn't turn out to be highly toxic like asbestos, else the entire nerd population of the UK could be wiped out in one fell swoop.
Next I glued corner edge pieces to two of the corners of the tray and marked out the places where I need to cut the longer edge pieces. If you're doing multiple trays at once it might be worth numbering all the pieces so you know what goes with what once it is all cut up!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2345.jpg)
I'll let you into my secret code 7HE means this is the seventh High Elf tray, I know – no one would ever figure it out!!
Once all your pieces are cut and glued on, you might need a little green stuff to join the gaps in your edge pieces. After that you're free to base the movement tray in the same manner as your army.
For my High Elves I've PVA glued on Games Workshop sand all round the edge, once dry I washed with watered down PVA which really helps fix the stones in place.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2352.jpg)
Next I sprayed it with Chaos Black, and then undercoated with Khemri Brown as my other bases. A good tip if you're having trouble getting paint in between all the nocks and crannies of your newly sanded (as in covered in sand, not belt-sanded) base, and you don't want to risk caking the paint on, is to use some watered down paint to run in all the cracks.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2626.jpg)
For a normal High Elf base I'd drybrush the stones with Bleached Bone – for the Movement Trays I also drybrush the actual tray. Bare in mind, if you play anything like me, your units will soon take multiple causalities and most of the unit tray will be visible! In fact as it will spend longer on the table than most of your troops it's worth making an effort.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2647.jpg)
Even if I wouldn't normally drybrush that army's bases (say if there were no stones on) I'd always recommend drybrushing the unit tray with a lighter colour just to break up the big block of flat colour. Your monster tank drybrush is ideal for this job.
Then for my High Elves I would stick static grass in patches to the base, and despite all the care and attention in the world, it'll go every bloody where! Much like Weetabix, it's completely impossible to get two Weetabix out of the tube and into the bowl without crumbs everywhere!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2652.jpg)
At this point I'd normally show you a picture of the completed Movement Tray, however I forget to take one! Oops! Instead I invite you to look at the tiny piece of completed base in the top right corner of this picture and imagine the entire base looking like this. Then you should go to your "happy place".
With the coming of the 8th edition the Horde is in fashion, sadly however your modular movement tray pack isn't big enough to cut piece out for a horde unit on 25mm x 25mm bases (I don't think it will do hordes of monstrous infantry either come to think of it). So for my Beastmen horde unit I glued two pieces together. However at the join I glued several pieces of plastic for support. These bits of plastic are the thin strip on the edge piece (that usually fits under the tray) cut from the rest of the edge piece – using these is a good idea as they will be the perfect height to fit under the base.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2368.jpg)
It's always worth gluing these supports perpendicular to the join rather than along the full length of the join, as this way to break the movement tray a force would need to be applied in both horizontal planes – which is quite tricky to do simultaneously. And who said this blog is just a load of crap, here's physics in action!
Then hopefully when you turn your movement tray over it will look as if it was always one piece:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2370.jpg)
Tape Measure PontoonAnd just before you go, I know you know this blog is a hotbed of Games Workshop news, and so much so that I am happy to unveil the full rules for the latest Games Workshop game that I'm sure will be gripping the club in a few weeks time - it's Tape Measure Pontoon. The game that has been invented to make use of your tape measure, now there's no need to extend your tape measure beyond 15" thanks to the invention of laser-guided cannon balls and stone throwers.
What you'll needAll you need to play is a tape measure that can automatically retract.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3810.jpg)
The RulesThe rules are simple pull out the tape measure to 100 inches.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3816.jpg)
Then the objective is for the player to then retract the tape measure stopping as close as they can to 21 inches without going over it. Once the player has stopped the tape measure they may twist up to three times and start retracting again, but if at any point they go over 21 inches they are bust and out. Closest player after all the twisting is done wins!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3820.jpg)
And there you go, the hottest new game around Tape Measure Pontoon, I personally can't wait for a game down the pub, anyone fancy one Slot 2? Though I probably should advise you to wear safety goggles! Although if you're really worried about it, you could use a measuring tape but it does run the risk of rather spoiling the game.
On that note I bid you adjure (that means goodbye) for another week, and hope you'll join me next Wednesday (possibly Thursday if I'm busy, or even Friday if someone goes to the toilet in the air conditioning unit again) for the penultimate week of the Tale of OG Gamers! Sad times I know.
And finally, finally, I just noticed this blog has now passed over the 10,000 hits barrier!! Wow!! If there was a little fireworks smilie I'd add it here. Although on a serious note this fact proves that there's nothing worth doing on the internet. I dread to think of the lost revenue to the British economy this blog has created from those wasted hours at work. Thanks as always for reading – it really is most appreciated!
Dragon Princes are looking smashing mate, the gold helmets are really effective.
Maybe too effective, maybe they become target numero uno now on the battlefield, or per chance that is your plan, cunning Matt indeed :cool3:
That fight scene was ace, actually got into that.. :))
The ITV Schools music sounds like something Jean Michel Jarre would have done in his early days..
Oh and for any thoughts of retiring this blog, f*cking forget it, you're ours now, you work as long as we tell you to, you sir are our OG bitch... :wink;m::
yeah tournament standard for armies is now 2,400pts...so get painting!!
Quote from: fatolaf on June 10, 2011, 12:42:52 pm
Dragon Princes are looking smashing mate, the gold helmets are really effective.
Maybe too effective, maybe they become target numero uno now on the battlefield, or per chance that is your plan, cunning Matt indeed :cool3:
Me? Plan? No!! Though maybe they'll take the heat of the Griffon who's bound to get splatted! Cheers for the comments on the gold, am really pleased how it's come out - was worried they'd look too bling! Have just washed the gold with Gryphonne Sepia and it's looking even better, hopefully have next stage done for next week!
Quote from: fatolaf on June 10, 2011, 12:42:52 pm
That fight scene was ace, actually got into that.. :))
The ITV Schools music sounds like something Jean Michel Jarre would have done in his early days..
It was gripping, I had no idea who'd win. All I seem to remember is as kids we' much preferred the ITV Schools music to Geography Starts Here or whatever it was they were actually showing.
Quote from: fatolaf on June 10, 2011, 12:42:52 pm
Oh and for any thoughts of retiring this blog, f*cking forget it, you're ours now, you work as long as we tell you to, you sir are our OG bitch... :wink;m::
I'm sure some form of blogging may continue, but just wonder if it now would be a good time for a rethink/rebrand - after all this, thread went off the topic of "Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves" around Post 2.
Quote from: StarDragonFTW on June 10, 2011, 12:46:20 pm
yeah tournament standard for armies is now 2,400pts...so get painting!!
But what if it becomes 3,000 points whilst I'm painting the next 400 up? It'll be like painting the Forth Bridge (except that they've actually finally finished that, thanks to a new type of paint!).
Quote from: cunningmatt on June 10, 2011, 01:14:55 pm
I'm sure some form of blogging may continue, but just wonder if it now would be a good time for a rethink/rebrand - after all this, thread went off the topic of "Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves" around Post 2.
Maybe a competition is needed, find the new name for your blog:
'Matt's moan of the week'
'Cunning Stunts' :wink;m::
'Paintaway with Uncle Matt'
'A week in Wargaming'
Any more ideas peeps?
Quote from: fatolaf on June 10, 2011, 01:20:09 pm
'Matt's moan of the week'
I didn't moan THIS week, in fairness it's probably the exception.
Quote from: fatolaf on June 10, 2011, 01:20:09 pm
'Cunning Stunts' :wink;m::
There needs to be a "Raised quizaical eyebrow" smilie for this one.
Quote from: fatolaf on June 10, 2011, 01:20:09 pm
'Paintaway with Uncle Matt'
This makes me sound like a child molester.
Quote from: cunningmatt on June 10, 2011, 01:23:50 pm
Quote from: fatolaf
'Paintaway with Uncle Matt'
This makes me sound like a child molester.
If the the cap fits? :love002:
Quote from: Dave on June 10, 2011, 02:33:41 pm
This makes me sound like a child molester.
If the the cap fits? :love002:
Well that's bloody charming isn't it?!
Looks like you have a job for life now, Matt! Whether you wanted it or not...
'The Cunning School of Painting'
'Celebrity Painting with Matt' (Since TV shows like to shoe-horn in the word celebrity. Also celebrities tend to feature in your plog at least as much as painting!)
I heard about Tape Measure Pontoon on BBC 6 Music, love it! Can we start a club campaign?
Quote from: jackhoneysett on June 10, 2011, 02:36:34 pm
I heard about Tape Measure Pontoon on BBC 6 Music, love it! Can we start a club campaign?
Ssssshhhh, don't give away my sources!
Quote from: fatolaf on June 10, 2011, 02:58:07 pm
Agreed, Matt can T/O
What's the Comp?
Looking good matt, but like people said, we need another 400 points from you now!
In fairness you can do that in a couple of characters.
Paintaway sounds like an awesome show!
Quote from: noahtonkin on June 10, 2011, 03:01:51 pm
What's the Comp?
It's army swap, so you have to swap tape measures after round 1, and no Teclis.
Quote from: noahtonkin on June 10, 2011, 03:01:51 pm
Looking good matt, but like people said, we need another 400 points from you now!
In fairness you can do that in a couple of characters.
Except there isn't enough core to support another 400 points so I'd have to paint more units - it's just too much!
Quote from: noahtonkin on June 10, 2011, 03:01:51 pm
Paintaway sounds like an awesome show!
I don't object to "Paintaway" - I do object to the "Uncle Matt" part!
Quote from: cunningmatt on June 10, 2011, 06:06:24 pm
I don't object to "Paintaway" - I do object to the "Uncle Matt" part!
Aunty Matt? :wink;m::
What do you think?!
Friday 17th June - WEEK 24
Before we get into the nitty gritty of The Tale of OG Gamers, I need to make a small announcement. I will no longer be playing the game of Warhammer. Why you may ask? Have I become an embittered "rage quitter"? No in fact the opposite, I have won four games in a row now, I'll say that again because I admit it does look like a misprint, I have won 4 (yes four) games in a row! I know! No one's more shocked than I am, to be honest I am happy with one win in a row, and four wins was my annual target!!!! It just goes to prove that old saying if you give enough monkeys a set of Warhammer models one day one of them will accidentally do well, it's pure statistics. Anyway this surely has to be the height of my Warhammer career I can't do better than this, and now I have the taste of victory I don't want to lose again. So I'm giving up. A plan with no drawbacks I'm sure you'll agree. On that note I will return you to your regular broadcast...
So we're really, nearly there for The Tale of OG Gamers, well in its original form at least. Next week will be the end of the 10 month run (well technically the week after, but I'm on holiday!) Thanks to all those who last week suggested, begged or in some cases downright demanded that I carry on the project for another X months. I find it odd you're giving me a far harder time for actually stopping this project at its conclusion, than you gave any of the people who failed to get past Month 1 of the project. You know who you are. In some cases you're the origin of the moaning!
Good news is that I've got further with the Dragon Princes, up to Stage 3 – just final stage to go (hopefully I can get it done next week or it will all be for nout!)
Stage 3 – Doris' Dragon Princes
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3862.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3867.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3868.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3860.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3871.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3875.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3879.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Rocks: Drybrushed Codex Grey
Masonry: Overbrushed Khemri Brown
Hooves: *NO CHANGE*
Tail and Leg Fur: Drybrushed Skul White
Horse Body: Layered slightly watered down Skull White
Silver Metal: Highlighted Chaimail
Gold Metal: Washed Gryphonne Sepia
Reins: Highlighted Bestial Brown
White Cloth: Layered slightly watered down Skull White
Blue Cloth and Pennant: Highlighted 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Yellow Cloth and Armour Trim: Layered Sunburst Yellow
Lance: Layered slightly watered down Bleached Bone
Flesh: Washed Ogyrn Flesh
If the Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves were a reality show, this week would be the semi-final. We'd be told this is the biggest week in geeky televisiual history ever, until next week, which of course will be even bigger. One model would be voted off, and would miss the chance to appear in the final week, unless of course they got saved by the judges in the exciting Paint Off. There would be tears, tantrums, arguments and of course someone would spill the pot of Mithril Silver in the VT of their rehearsal just before the live painting, making you think they might slip up in the real show. Next week of course would be the live final, there'd be more hype than has ever existed in the history of ever, the judges would be wearing their smart suits (hoping not to get paint on them) - but they'd have to say all the painters were good in case the rubbish one won and went into partnership with them for a £1 million pound painting and decorating contract. Plus of course there'd be a live performance from last year's winner, just in time to plug their new portfolio, and painting duets with already famous painters such as Michelangelo painting Wood Elves in the style of the Sistine Chapel.
Rambling as this statement clearly is, it does give me an idea for the next OG Gamers painting contest. All the entrants spend a month painting something, at the end of month everyone has to vote for their favourite painting. The one with the least votes is eliminated and everyone paints again until we have a final winner. Could work? I would organise it but, there are administrators on this forum and they need to have something to do!!!
However this week a different element of the reality TV show format has grabbed my attention, if this was a reality show, we'd be able to switch over to ITV2 for a behind the scenes support programme for die hard fans, with all the latest gossip, secrets and opinion. So I thought we should go behind the scenes of The Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves.
Like all reality support shows, it needs to have a spurious title which is sort of an extended pun of the original show. I mean who can forget "Celebrity Love Island: After Sun", "Dancing on Ice: Defrosted" and "Soapstar Superstar: Bonus Tracks" - all of which I'd like to add are genuine names, and the former of which was presented by Matt Brown - which amuses me because his name is actually a type of paint. Anyway we need a name for our behind the scenes show, in that vain, and I think it's going to be Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: The Vanish. So without further ado, I ask you to switch over to ITV2 now for "The Varnish", probably presented by Stephen Mulhern - but let's hope not!
Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves: The Varnish
All support shows begin with a recap of what you've just seen over on ITV1, here's another chance to see Stage 3 of the Dragon Princes:
Stage 3 – Doris' Dragon Princes
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3862.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3867.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3868.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3860.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3871.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3875.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3879.jpg)
Base: *NO CHANGE*
Rocks: Drybrushed Codex Grey
Masonry: Overbrushed Khemri Brown
Hooves: *NO CHANGE*
Tail and Leg Fur: Drybrushed Skul White
Horse Body: Layered slightly watered down Skull White
Silver Metal: Highlighted Chaimail
Gold Metal: Washed Gryphonne Sepia
Reins: Highlighted Bestial Brown
White Cloth: Layered slightly watered down Skull White
Blue Cloth and Pennant: Highlighted 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Yellow Cloth and Armour Trim: Layered Sunburst Yellow
Lance: Layered slightly watered down Bleached Bone
Flesh: Washed Ogyrn Flesh
See what I did there?!
You're probably wondering what a day in the life of The OG Gamers - High Elves writing team is like. And if you're not, tough, because this is a behind the scenes show and this is the kind of drivel it would be padded out with.
Day in the Life of Tale of OG Gamers – High Elf
09:00 – Start of Day
Many of you may think you know Matt the author of this blog, but in fact you'd be surprised to know this is all a cunning façade. The real Matt is an eccentric multi- millionaire who hires a team of people who work five days a week on this high quality blog, broadcasting it to the gaming community through the OG Forum.
At 9am the team of elite journalists (two blokes named Kenan & Kel) turn up to his million pound mansion, cunningly concealed within an ordinary looking flat in the Clapham suburbs. They settle down to one of their workstations, that looks something like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3882.jpg)
As you can most of the workstations do need a tidy.
All of the Blog entries are written separately and then uploaded to the Blog, as in Matt's increasingly delusional state, he believes that one day someone will want to publish these as a book.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3886.jpg)
10:00 – Team Meeting
Matt steps forward from his office to lead the meeting for the day and discuss what will go into the blog. Most of the team find this briefing useless, but show willing by scribbling down pathetic notes about horse's arses, annoying days shopping and Matt's tedious love life in the hope they can think of something meaningful to construct out of these scraps.
Generously Matt provides a selection of Lindor chocolates for the team, however less than generously he eats them himself.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3891.jpg)
11:00 – Painters Turn Up
The 'Eavy Pop team of painters Daphne and Celeste turn up to get started on the month's selection of High Elves. Being arty types, they are allowed to swan in two hours late much to the annoyance of the journalists who have been in since 9.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3938.jpg)
They sit down at their arty painting desks which allow them to watch TV, which they claim helps them paint - annoying the journalists yet again.
12:00 – Competition Corner
Our competition executive Margery usually spends midday trying out the latest competitions on the rest of the team. Invariably they go down badly like the Easter Egg Hunt, but still Margery runs them anyway and no one enters. Here you can see the hat full of entries for our latest competition.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3894.jpg)
However Margery keeps her job for the excellent work she did in inadvertently coming up with the winning format "What's In the Box?" And it is her job to keep the boxes in good working order.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3896.jpg)
It is also her job to book the celebrities to be the monthly independent adjudicator; sadly Eeyore has so far resisted all her attempts to book him.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3899.jpg)
We're hoping that she can raise the game and book some higher calibre celebrities, currently Margery's trying to get Keith Chegwin and Dean Gaffney.
13:00 – Lunch
Lunch is Kenan and Kel's favourite part of the day, primarily as they can stay on Facebook, but unlike the rest of the day they don't feel guilty. Lunch is served in the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves canteen, the food's good but all the dishes are randomly named after classic children's television programmes, such as Fireman Sam's Shepherd's Pie and Thomas the Tank Engine's Mashed Potato. Although Postman Pat's Spotted Dick had to be withdrawn from the menu after complaints from the NSPCC.
14:00 – Battle Reports
Wincie Willis is the member of team responsible for the maps for the Tale of OG Gamers' Battle Reports, she's on loan from Google Maps and has previously worked for Ordinance Survey. I think you can see her previous calibre of map drawing shines through, although sometimes she does get confused with her old job.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3905.jpg)
15:00 – Drawings
At 3pm the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves resident 4-year old artist is picked up from nursery. Upon her return she is subtlety encouraged to draw pictures for the blog, which she does entirely of her own violation.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3912.jpg)
16:00 – Shakeaway Run
At 4pm Pedro the Brazilian tea boy is sent out to get Matt's afternoon supply of Shakeaways, a task made all the more difficult by the fact that the nearest Shakeaway is now in Croydon rather than London.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3914.jpg)
Still if Pedro is unable to get the Shakeaway back before the ice cream has melted he is ritually flogged in the boardroom
17:00 – Photography
Our resident photographer Tom (known for his work as a stalker) comes into take the week's photos. So far he's taken nearly 4,000 photos for this blog:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3919.jpg)
However that's mainly because most of them aren't usable as they come out like this.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3921.jpg)
All of the photos for the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves are taken on this camera:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3941.jpg)
...except this photo obviously.
18:00 – Look up Jokes
With the end of the day approaching the team come up with a selection of highly witty and original comedy material to pepper liberally through the blog.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3931.jpg)
19:00 – Club Nights
On Club Nights often a Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves representative is sent down to the club in order to promote the blog. Many of you may think this is Matt, but obviously being an eccentric millionaire he never leaves the house. The devilishly attractive spiky haired individual you know as Matt who comes down to the club is in fact a robotic creation of said millionaire. Many suspected such a thing of beauty couldn't be natural, and they were of course right. However you are warned never to confront the robotic "Matt" at the club with this news, his circuitry is programmed to explode should this secret of his identity ever be revealed to him. Due to a fault in Matt's information matrix all tactical information has accidentally been deleted from his primary database.
02:00 – Publish
At around 2am the next morning, Matt finally steps forward from his office to approve the finished article, which is then published on the OG Forum website. By this time the team are exhausted from the days work and wonder why they do it all. Almost as is there's no point? The team would go into Matt's office and rouse him sooner for the final publish, but it is well known no one enters Matt's office. Val from HR went in there in December and never came back.
End of Day
And that my friends, is a fully accurate Day in the Life of the writing of this very blog. I felt it was about time that the truth was known as to how this is put together, and I hope you appreciate the hard work of this dedicated team.
That is it for this week, make sure you come back next week for the final entry (Probably. In this series anyway) of the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves. You can expect tears, drama, comedy and the gripping to conclusion of whether I will finish my Dragon Princes in time to complete the 2,000 points. Who could possibly resist or indeed care? So please make sure you click in, for the end of this 10 month saga, and to think they said 10 months ago that by the end of this I'd have run out of things to say and have to resort to complete made up drivel! The fools!
Oh and do Games Workshop ever fancy telling us more about Storm of Magic? Shamefully I have turned into an overexcited child, eager to know what's happening.
Until next week...
QuoteOh and do Games Workshop ever fancy telling us more about Storm of Magic? Shamefully I have turned into an overexcited child, eager to know what's happening.
Me too, it's meant ot be out in 3 weeks and still no info yet... :bash;m:
Great insight into the workings of your team, especially love the note to the resident artist... :))
Quote from: fatolaf on June 17, 2011, 11:22:16 am
Me too, it's meant ot be out in 3 weeks and still no info yet... :bash;m:
I'm actually embarrassed about how impatient I've become.
Quote from: fatolaf on June 17, 2011, 11:22:16 am
Great insight into the workings of your team, especially love the note to the resident artist... :))
It's the only way to stop her watching CBeebies
I'm looking to feed in some comp into our ELG tournament and was going to use storms of magic as an influencing factor.
"The Winds of Magic have blown strongly over the summer resulting in a boon for magic users, unfortunately all good things come to an end and the world is now significantly drained as a result. Magic users are now finding themselves spent forces and far more susceptible to loss of control. In addition the drain upon the world has resulted in many magic items losing their power, no longer can characters rely upon the vast magical resources previously available to them."
Magic rules I'm wanting to try out
Magic Restrictions
A maximum of 12 power dice can be used in any phase
No mage may throw more than 6 power dice at any spell (for the avoidance of doubt this includes those generated for power stones, warp stone tokens, sacrificial dagger or any other item which counts as power dice)
Wizards are allowed no save of any kind against miscasts they suffer, surrounding models hit by the blast are allowed saves as normal.
The 'level 6' spells require such exertions from the mage any miscasts which occur are likely to be spectacular. Roll twice on the miscast table and your opponent chooses which result to apply. (any magic items which allow a reroll are applied before choosing which result to apply)
Magic Item Restrictions
Lord level characters are only allowed to take 50% of the magic item allowance listed in their army books. This applies to Magic items and also to innate abilities such as bloodlines, slann powers, beastmen mutations etc. Eg. A Vampire lord can take 50pts worth of magic items and 50pts worth of bloodline abilities.
Items which prevent/transfer a miscast are not allowed
Power Scroll is not allowed
Inspiring Presence cannot benefit from the standard of discipline (it's +1 LD for the unit carrying it only)
Quote
15:00 – Drawings
...which she does entirely of her own violation.
Matt, Dave was just joking about the Child molester thing.... no need to take it as career advice
Also, the Dragon Princes look great.
Quote from: Dave on June 17, 2011, 02:27:30 pm
Magic Item Restrictions
Lord level characters are only allowed to take 50% of the magic item allowance listed in their army books. This applies to Magic items and also to innate abilities such as bloodlines, slann powers, beastmen mutations etc. Eg. A Vampire lord can take 50pts worth of magic items and 50pts worth of bloodline abilities.
Well harsh on Beasts buddy, as they only have 2 semi decent gifts, and can only have one per army anyway and they come out of their magic item allowance as well.
I agree that doing it to VC and LM, but maybe not to WoC and Beasts should get a gift allowance on top of magical items...
Quote from: cunningmatt on June 17, 2011, 11:26:47 am
It's the only way to stop her watching CBeebies
Ever tried a blindfold??? :wink;m::
Quote from: Meals on June 17, 2011, 03:19:47 pm
Matt, Dave was just joking about the Child molester thing.... no need to take it as career advice
Also, the Dragon Princes look great.
Threatening the safety of someone's relatives doesn't come under the category of molesting, I checked. Cheers for the compliment (that refers to the Dragon Princes, not the child molesting - I don't see that as a compliment).
Quote from: fatolaf on June 17, 2011, 03:21:21 pm
Ever tried a blindfold??? :wink;m::
I nearly answered that with something in such poor taste, that even I stepped back and went "No Matt, you have standards". Suffice us to say it isn't sufficient to get her drawing.
Quote from: cunningmatt on June 17, 2011, 03:30:38 pm
Suffice us to say it isn't sufficient to get her drawing.
:whip:
Never fails.... :wink;m::
That's where you and I differ, you're the stick and I'm the carrot.
I offer her the reward of seeing her mother again, you only offer the cruel barbarity of the whip.
I do hope no one's come into this conversation halfway through, it's very difficult to explain to outsiders!!
Right I really should get back to work!
Ah didn't think beast items came out magic item allowance, thought it was in addition to, will change that one.
Thanks for the kind allowance of a random aside matt.
Quote from: Dave on June 17, 2011, 04:06:20 pm
Thanks for the kind allowance of a random aside matt.
I don't think I have a leg to stand on when it comes to complaining about random asides!! :thumbsup:
Wednesday 22nd June - WEEK 25
And you thought these blog entries wouldn't get longer or filled with more photos!!
Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls we're finally here the end of the Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves. Now before you start crying, this isn't the end of my blogging career (sadly - I need my life back, oh wait...), but this is the final entry for the original Tale of OG Gamers challenge, and I'm going on holiday too! More on this later.
Way back on Thursday the 2nd of September 2010, thirteen people began their Tale of OG Gamers story, and now 10 months later the survivors crawl their way over the finish line, battered, bruised and with repetitive strain injury after typing enough words, that if I were paid a penny a word I could single-handled bail out the Greek economy.
Before we get to the finish we should of course look back at the months that have gone before, if not just to pad out this blog and save me having to come up with new content. Here's the previous nine months worth of painting <insert uplifting music here, probably something by Westlife>:
September 2010, Month 1: Lothern Sea Guard
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog198.jpg)
October 2010, Month 2: Ellyrian Reavers & Shadow Warriors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog583.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog569.jpg)
November 2010, Month 3: Mage & Shadow Warriors
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog888.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog765.jpg)
December 2010, Month 4: Repeater Bolt Thrower and Great Eagles
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2196.jpg)
January 2011, Month 5: High Elf Archers
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2187.jpg)
February 2011, Month 6: Phoenix Guard and High Elf Archers
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2902.jpg)
March 2011, Month 7: Caradryan and Phoenix Guard
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2919.jpg)
April 2011, Month 8: Lothern Sea Guard (and Prince on Griffon, see below)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3092.jpg)
May 2011, Month 9: Prince on Griffon
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3166.jpg)
Plus there's Month 10 still to come...
Of course it's not just been about the painting here at the Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves, in fact far from it. Here's some of my favourite bits of madness that have graced these pages in the last 10 months, hopefully they'll be some happy memories and maybe some gems you missed first time round (alternatively it will be full of unfunny tedious stuff you didn't want to look at the first time round). Plus most importantly it is another excuse to stall before we get to the inevitable:
September 2010, Month 1: Highlights, Pages 1-2
September not only saw the birth of this blog, but it saw the birth (I say birth, obviously she was born 4 years ago) of our resident 4-year old artist, as she recreated the historic moment where myself and Lee swapped the appropriate parts of our Island of Blood sets:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/ChaosBlog296.jpg)
We of course threatened to do what every person who has played against the Daemons of Chaos has wanted to do (though at this point I should confess I've never ever played a game against Daemons - I expect a queue of people to form to ruin my day!)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog049.jpg)
And I may have suggested I had an addiction to a certain milkshake brand...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog091.jpg)
A great wrong was righted when my Chaos Giant finally won the prize he deserved...
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog245.jpg)
And we saw the highlights of my home town, Orpington in Kent:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog149.jpg)
October 2010, Month 2: Highlights, Pages 3-5
In October I took part in my first (and so far only) ever tournament, annoying Jack with my inane comments for a whole day! And shockingly coming third, I still believe it was a fix:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog278.jpg)
We also pondered how much green stuff to shove up a horse's bottom, a question I still don't know the answer to:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog188.jpg)
Cheryl, the plant, drew the first ever result for the What's In the Box? competition:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog330.jpg)
We discussed Wagner (remember him?) and the X Factor:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog475.jpg)
I included my first non-Games Workshop models in my High Elf army after a little bit of self assembly:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog503.jpg)
And their was blatant flouting of the law as we discussed contraband paints:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog540.jpg)
But the month was indeed tinged by the sad death of John and Edward:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog533.jpg)
November 2010, Month 3: Highlights, Pages 6-7
Despite a rude attack of real life consuming all my free time, there was still a bit of blogging time as we discussed I'm a Celebrity... named Wizbit the wizard and found my other sweet-based Achilles' Heel:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog480.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog779.jpg)
December 2010, Month 4: Highlights, Pages 7-16
December was marked with the festive mood in the air and snow on the ground:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1054.jpg)
The highlight of the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves in December was the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves: Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar, as we counted down 25 (yes 25, did you spot them all?) doors worth of Special Characters that are no more:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog959.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog944.jpg)
We painted with Mr Shakey Shakey in Willesden Green:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1266.jpg)
We even had a fully comprehensive guide to wrapping Christmas presents together, hope that helped:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1486.jpg)
Plus 2010 and that year's resolutions were reviewed through the 12 editions of the White Dwarf and a spurious help of random rambling about everything else:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1565.jpg)
But it wasn't just happy times, as we lost blog entry in December and I was forced to go Christmas shopping, a hellish trip that wasn't helped by this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1101.jpg)
Bloody happy people.
January 2011, Month 5: Highlights, Pages 16-18
The New Year began with 2011's resolutions which probably should have included giving up chocolate:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2199.jpg)
And of course painting abroad, as the Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves hit Gran Canaria:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog1734.jpg)
Bray Shaman Cameron launched his ill-fated campaign to the Black Isle, he certainly wouldn't return with this many limbs:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2118.jpg)
And we had the first ever Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves Battle Report, complete with old school maps:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/Battle%20Report%201/HighElfTurn2.jpg)
February 2011, Month 6: Highlights, Pages 19-24
In February we learnt lots of lessons, firstly that it is quite difficult to photograph a hoard unit:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2247.jpg)
Secondly that some single people can deal with Valentine's Day quite well, but some can't:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2335.jpg)
And that there are actually 42 days in February:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2430.jpg)
March 2011, Month 7: Highlights, Pages 25-29
In March we painted in Liverpool, home of not wearing a coat:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2423.jpg)
Discussed brushes:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2443.jpg)
And gave away a Shakeaway voucher, as we spotted the missing paint brush cap.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2479.jpg)
In fact the voucher went to Ol as he cleared up in a series of competition wins defying all probability!
Plus there was the only, to date, tabloid edition of Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2987.jpg)
And some Beastmen even got painted up:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2939.jpg)
Although someone took themeing their army a bit too far:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3019.jpg)
April 2011, Month 8: Highlights, Pages 29-33
In April I very nearly went to work for Games Workshop itself, but celebrations were short lived as we said goodbye to a close friend:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3087.jpg)
We made crap jokes and hid eggs!
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3094.jpg)
Plus there was a super injunction taken out by a premiership footballer against the blog:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3355.jpg)
And the fine Easter weather meant we hit the garden, although we seemed to have swapped April and June's weather around:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3293.jpg)
May 2011, Month 9: Highlights, Pages 33-36
In May we explained proportional representation through the medium of Warhammer:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3467.jpg)
And we discussed how procrastination and toilet trips can ruin your day of painting. Plus I showed off:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3475.jpg)
Finally did some varnishing:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3367.jpg)
Used some natural yoghurt in my painting:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3511.jpg)
Painted some more Beastmen...:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3612.jpg)
...and then realised maybe I painted a few too many Beastmen:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3621.jpg)
June 2011, Month 10: Highlights, Pages 37-41
And this month we discussed The Only Way is Essex for far too long, spilt grass everywhere:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog2652.jpg)
Plus played Tape Measure Pontoon:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3810.jpg)
And went behind the scenes of this very blog:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3931.jpg)
So there we are the last 10 months of crazy blogging, hope you enjoyed the whistle stop tour?!
The big question of course for today is will Greece accept a new austerity package? Oh and the other big question slightly more pertinent to this blog is did I finish the Dragon Princes or am I coming here empty-handed having fallen at the final hurdle? Of course I finished, if I hadn't I'd have simply never come back to this blog, you'd never have realised! I wouldn't have had all this build up just to end in inevitable disappointment, otherwise you'd have thought I was the World Cup.
Stage 4 - Doris' Dragon Princes
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3944.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3945.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3947.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3951.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3953.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3958.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3959.jpg)
Base: Drybrushed Bleached Bone, then flocked with Static Grass
Rocks: Drybrushed Fortress Grey, then washed Badab Black
Masonry: Overbrushed Dheneb Stone, then Overbrushed Bleached Bone
Hooves: Highlighted Codex Grey
Tail and Leg Fur: Washed very weak Badab Black, then drybrushed Skull White
Horse Body: Washed very weak Badab Black, then layered Skull White
Silver Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Gold Metal: Highlighted 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Reins: *NO CHANGE*
White Cloth: Layered Skull White
Blue Cloth and Pennant: *NO CHANGE*
Yellow Cloth and Armour Trim: Washed Ogryn Flesh, then highlighted Bad Moon Yellow
Lance: *NO CHANGE*
Flesh: Highlighted Bleached Bone
I painted the gems and eyes in the usual Elven way. Sadly the banner didn't have a sculpted on picture, which is a bit of a shame given the amazing detail on every other aspect of the model (and the fact that all the other recent releases had sculpted banners).
This meant I had to put down the vodka and do some freehand – I hope I lived up to the quality of the models. I replicated the design painted by the 'Eavy Metal team, fortunately Games Workshop seem to have seen my technique and provided a nice 1:1 photo of the banner on the back of the box:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3966.jpg)
I painted the banner in the same way as the dragons on the Lothern Sea Guard shields, way back in September. Mercherite Red undercoat, layered with Blood Red, then highlight with Blazing Orange followed by Vomit Brown and a light wash with Baal Red.
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3961.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3964.jpg)
You'll notice the banner is quite large and does trail behind the unit some way!!
So the final full 2,000 point army looks like this:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3970.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3975.jpg)
And on paper this translates as:
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3194.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog3195.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog4027.jpg)
(http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae119/cunningmatt/HighElfBlog4028.jpg)
(Yes I know this way of doing army lists doesn't really work, but hey it's the last one I'm not changing it now!)
Conclusion
So this is it, the end, and what have we learnt? Where have we come? Where will we go? And what will we do without another series of So You Think You Can Dance?
The whole 10 month experience has certainly been more involving than I could have ever imagined at the start, personally I blame Steve - the whole Tale of OG Gamers thing was his idea. But I feel pleased I stuck with the High Elves and have been rewarded with a nicely painted High Elf army at the end. 200 points a month now seems easily achievable, even if it didn't back in September and bare a few wibbles I've kept up. In fact I haven't got bored once of the bright colours that make up the High Elven ranks, I've found the bright whites, yellows and blues a joy to paint and all the new models from Island of Blood and the recent High Elf wave have been such a pleasure to work with. I even seemed to have even got the hang of playing with the High Elves (a little bit) – so we'll so how that goes in the next battles!!
In terms of the future of the High Elves, well I can't really stop here can I? Next on the list has to be a White Lions Chariot, being the only unit from the High Elf army list I haven't painted at all (over this and my existing army), plus some how I've not painted any Dragons so we need at least one (or six of them). Then there's the remainder of the Isle of Blood box, will I give into those Swordmasters, they look so amazing sitting there in the box begging to be painted? Or I could paint a unit of the new White Lions (given the Phoenix Guard and Dragon Princes were such amazing models, could be fun to tdo them)? Or add another rank of Dragon Princes, even if just to keep the banner fully contained within the unit! Oh and I'm developing a fondness for painting special characters, so maybe when the Elves start popping out in Finecast they may get a Teclis or two? Plus if I'm going to paint all that I'll need some Spearmen to give me more core units.
As you can see, I think there may be a lot more to paint. Although my attention is now wandering to the Warriors of Chaos, with a couple of new models coming soon, it's time to give my Tzeentch warband some love. Plus with loads of old Bretonnians in one of those drawers (just which one!) and a new book expected soon, perhaps I should join the bandwagon and paint up a load of horses. Who knows?
Blogging-wise I have really enjoyed writing this blog, I hope you have enjoyed reading it too, well done if you managed some of the longer entries. As I say I will keep blogging, after a well deserved rest, I hope you agree! Not sure if it will be this blog as it is, a new blog, or simply a reversioning of this one – I'll make sure you find out, so keep your eyes peeled as I'll let you know. Though I may not stay up until 2am desperately trying to finish that week's entry - that HAS to stop for my own sanity!!
All that remains is for me to say thank you so much to all of you have popped by and simply read this blog, from OG Gamers and beyond – in this busy world we live in, I can't tell you how flattering it is to know so many of you are prepared to give up your time (up to an hour a week in some cases!) to read my crazy thoughts. But special thanks to all you who have left comments, abuse, praise and encouragement – without your input this blog would have been so much less, and it's always useful for me to know what parts of the blog you enjoy, so I know to do more of it! Once again a massive thank you!
Until we meet on the blogosphere again, I wish your milkshakes are always creamy, and goodbye! Let's do it again sometime!
Hurrah, now the important question - has the shakaway legal department been in touch telling you to cease and desist from a) plagurising their colour scheme and b) sullying their good name by association with your reams of twaddle?
Great to see someone actually get to the end of a 'tale of x gamers' style event the majority of time they sink into a gruesome hole never to be seen or discussed again (I refer you to my Eldar project which has been prosponed generally due to the bases being the wrong shape but it will resurface as do all my projects).
Unfortunately you now face a fresh challenge, now you're unleashed on the wider world and no longer have the safety net of a specific 200pts target per month you can really cut loose (ok I can't help but notice you painted an even larger beastmen army as a side project to this one in a fraction of the time) so what to do next? Personally I'd have completed all of the IoB box, because that in itself would have been a good challenge but you've broken the back of it now anyway only really having some swordmaster guys remaining.
Considered running a hobby status diary to track your progress? I've finally hit the limit of my unpainted mountain that I'm working on an attempt to run down the backlog a little. Because of purchases this year I'm not going to achieve 'The Painters Challenge' (painting more than purchased) but I am committed to not buying more and I find tracking it is helping me with that.
I suppose that like all good series, this had to end at some point, but at least Fox didn't cancel it early and it didn't turn out that everyone had been dead all along and was in limbo!
It's been a long journey for your high elves and I'm impressed you stuck through (and painted another army at the same time!). I'm curious to see where your painting goes next.
Who knows, maybe the blog will get comissioned for a second series!
Quote from: maelzch on June 22, 2011, 05:30:36 pm
Who knows, maybe the blog will get comissioned for a second series!
I'd vote for that. Although it would have to be something even wackier than before and never seen on a blog before!
Quote from: Dave on June 22, 2011, 02:24:55 pm
Hurrah, now the important question - has the shakaway legal department been in touch telling you to cease and desist from a) plagurising their colour scheme and b) sullying their good name by association with your reams of twaddle?
What do you mean this is amazing free publicity for them, and the fact they're going bust is probably a bigger worry for them!!
Quote from: Dave on June 22, 2011, 02:24:55 pm
Unfortunately you now face a fresh challenge, now you're unleashed on the wider world and no longer have the safety net of a specific 200pts target per month... Personally I'd have completed all of the IoB box.
Considered running a hobby status diary to track your progress? I've finally hit the limit of my unpainted mountain that I'm working on an attempt to run down the backlog a little.
Yeah those Swordmasters are such beautiful models that I think I'm going to have paint them (and their pretty good in battle too), also might do the remaining unit of Ellyrian Reavers, I've found them very useful in my battles so far, so a second unit might be in order. I think that my future diary/blogging will be more of a stop/start here's what I've done in the last couple of weeks, here's something disgusting a box and here's a crap joke.
Quote from: maelzch on June 22, 2011, 05:30:36 pm
It's been a long journey for your high elves and I'm impressed you stuck through (and painted another army at the same time!). I'm curious to see where your painting goes next.
Me too, maybe Warhammer 40,000?!?! - Maybe not!
Quote from: Crompton on June 22, 2011, 09:42:29 pm
I'd vote for that. Although it would have to be something even wackier than before and never seen on a blog before!
I may have set the bar too high, I think I found as the months went on it became harder to surprise everyone with just how random I can be, you were all too used to it!
Well done sir, a splendid achievement and a superb read through out.
I can reveal that we at OG Towers have fended off bids from rival forums to secure the services of Matt on a 5 year contract. Season 2 of (insert name here, TBC) will debut Q3 2011...
:thumbsup:
Beautiful, it was an emotional final episode and brought a tear to my eye.
It's a great achievement Matt, not only the quality of painting and the sheer bucketloads of beastmen you've churned out, but also entertaining us for 10 months.
As one of the other potential Tale of OG gamers entrants I only managed 1 month and 6 models, so I can comprehensively say that you beat that! Did this final installment have anything to do with the OG Forum being down this morning? I thought perhaps the traffic level of people viewing this momentous occasion might have crashed the website. Or perhaps Julian Assange is a fan, and his minions brought down the servers with a cyberattack in protest at the series coming to an end.
You have to do a dragon next! The storm of magic model looks beautiful, perhaps you could stick a high elf prince on that. Or even a dragon mage if you're feeling particularly crazy! Anyway, for now just enjoy your break :thumbsup:
Oh and I don't have an explanation for how we came 3rd either - I seem to remember I was horrendously hungover at the time and mostly useless, so I think it must have all been down to you!
Quote from: fatolaf on June 23, 2011, 02:21:24 pm
I can reveal that we at OG Towers have fended off bids from rival forums to secure the services of Matt on a 5 year contract. Season 2 of (insert name here, TBC) will debut Q3 2011...
:thumbsup:
Has my agent been making negotations again behind my back? Still Q3's a long way off isn't it, oh no wait it's next week s**t!
Quote from: fatolaf on June 23, 2011, 02:21:24 pm
Well done sir, a splendid achievement and a superb read through out.
Cheers mate glad you enjoyed, once I retrun from holidays the OG Gamers' High Elves will have to take on your Tomb Kings (and lose).
Quote from: jackhoneysett on June 23, 2011, 02:35:36 pm
Beautiful, it was an emotional final episode and brought a tear to my eye.
It's a great achievement Matt, not only the quality of painting and the sheer bucketloads of beastmen you've churned out, but also entertaining us for 10 months.
Cheers, glad you enjoyed - slightly worried about the crying, but each to their own. Yeah I probably should stop painting Beastmen now! Onto Warriors and Bretonnians, and maybe Dark Elves or even 40K - no.
Quote from: jackhoneysett on June 23, 2011, 02:35:36 pm
As one of the other potential Tale of OG gamers entrants I only managed 1 month and 6 models, so I can comprehensively say that you beat that!
I wasn't going to say anything!
Quote from: jackhoneysett on June 23, 2011, 02:35:36 pm
You have to do a dragon next! The storm of magic model looks beautiful, perhaps you could stick a high elf prince on that. Or even a dragon mage if you're feeling particularly crazy! Anyway, for now just enjoy your break :thumbsup:
Tempting, I have an un-built High Elf Dragon kit somewhere, so maybe could do a lord and a mage and put one of them on the Dark Elf Dragon. It would be helpful if they'd actually release some pictures of this and the Storm of Magic set, seriously I am getting quite impatient now! I hope the new White Dwarf arrives today or tomorrow - before I go on hols!! Oh and I am thinking Dragon Mage as my army probably needs some spell casters - am I crazy?
Quote from: jackhoneysett on June 23, 2011, 02:35:36 pm
Oh and I don't have an explanation for how we came 3rd either - I seem to remember I was horrendously hungover at the time and mostly useless, so I think it must have all been down to you!
This seems entirely unlikely - the bit about it being down to me I mean, not you being hungover (that sounds more plausible).
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the forum...
As the forum fills up with rage quitters, the only narcissistic conclusion I can draw is that you're all missing my blogging rants about Warhammer and the rest of the world. So the good news that the brand new rehash of the Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves will be hitting your computer screens/android phones next week! Oh yes! So Ol put down your cereal, and get ready to wipe clean your computer screen (that sounds far wronger than it should) as the milkshakes coming back!
Can't wait.... :))
Banter is coming...
His milkshake brings all the girls to the yard......
Matt, it may have taken me most of the weekend but I have at last caught up! It was with a palpable sense of disappointment that I heard it was coming to an end so I am delighted that, like a phoenix guard from the flame, it is set to return. Please keep this bright spark in a sea of negativity (even with grumbling!), and the thought of not sharing another Valentines day with you is nigh on unthinkable.
Ha, ha glad you enjoyed! And it's good to know I won't be spending another Valentine's Day alone, sadly only in a metaphorical sense, but I'll take what I can get! The good news is that bar Clapham burning to the ground tonight, and what are the chances of that happening - gulp! Then blogging should recommence tomorrow. Are you excited? If so you probably need to get out more!
Quote from: cunningmatt on August 08, 2011, 09:16:12 am
Are you excited? If so you probably need to get out more!
Both these apply to me! Looking forward to more milkshake-elf hybrid tales, and I'm hoping for a good portion of irreverent madness on the side :wink;m:: (although I don't think you need any encouraging in that department!)
Quote from: jackhoneysett on August 08, 2011, 10:00:39 am
I'm hoping for a good portion of irreverent madness on the side :wink;m:: (although I don't think you need any encouraging in that department!)
If anything restraint is probably likely to be require in this department.
From the people that bought you the Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves, here is the next generation of madness. http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2370.new#new (http://ogforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=2370.new#new). Please head over to Procrastination by Numbers to be sick and generally waste your life. I've tried warning you, but you never listen.
And with that we bring this chapter to a close....