Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves

[cunningmatt]

Friday 24th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar

Happy 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.

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





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.



Original Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Chaos – 4th Edition



Last Appearance: Warhammer Armies: Champions of Chaos supplement to Warhammer Armies: Chaos – 5th Edition.




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).



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).






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.

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!

[fatolaf]

And so it ends, what to do now............................


[spoiler]Only joking, Happy Xmas one and all.... [/spoiler]

[maelzch]

A good ending character matt. He is mentioned in the current warriors book I believe, the black tongue is his tongue

[fatolaf]

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.... )

[Meals]

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

Merry Christmas mate!

[cunningmatt]

And so it ends, what to do now............................

Thank god for the spoiler, I was slightly concerned!

He is mentioned in the current warriors book I believe, the black tongue is his tongue

I believe I do even remember that!

Cheers for the month of entertainment, I don't know how I'd have gotten through it without it
Merry Christmas mate!

You are more than welcome!

[cunningmatt]

Saturday 25th December - Forgotten Special Characters Advent Calendar

So 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



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



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.



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).



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!

[fatolaf]

What a great SC, Clegg FTW! 

[cunningmatt]

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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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!

[fatolaf]

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.

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!