Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves

[Dave]

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.

[cunningmatt]

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 

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.

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?

[fatolaf]

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.....'

[cunningmatt]

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.

[StarDragonFTW]

Though I have used an Goblin spear as a toothpick before, who hasn't?!

, guilty as charged!

[cunningmatt]

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!!

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:







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:





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...





...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.



Here you can see spraying corner set up on the balcony, next to a rather dead looking Wagner.



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.



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.



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.



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).



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.



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:



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

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

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:



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?

[Dave]

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.

[cunningmatt]

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.

Finally, nice phone.

Cheers, the big Apple Knob in me is very pleased* 

* - I'm not really an Apple Knob, I'm being an ironic paradoy of one!

[Meals]

Cheers, the big Apple Knob in me is very pleased* 

I was gonna make a gay joke, but its way too easy.... 

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....

[cunningmatt]

I was gonna make a gay joke, but its way too easy.... 

Just behave yourself, these are exactly the kind of comments that mean we can't do a vlog from each Games Night!!

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!