Seven Revelations and Three Resolutions

Well, that was 2012.

I was going to start this post with some trite observation about how I didn’t do too much gaming this year, but if I actually think about it, it’s not that there was less of it, it’s just that it was harder to track than “go down Workshop every Thursday night like clockwork mate”. The cards of life have been shuffled and re-dealt several times this year, to the point where I think back to January and have hazy recollections of opening a Catacomb Command Barge which I’ve just about managed to undercoat and play one game with during the last twelve months, and for some reason that’s stood as a metaphor for a year in which I have… let’s see…

• started playing ruddy Magic again, although it’s successfully stayed marginal and occasional rather than becoming a dominating force like it used to be
• actually become an active force in a WoW guild, rather than a confused non-participant as I was in the ‘Von joins raid guild’ days
• played most of the Dark Sphere Warmachine league and a couple of tournaments
• re-acquired my Vampire Counts
  
• painted my entire Cryx collection and promptly sold them
• run a startlingly successful long-term RPG for the first time in ages (the Dark Ages game), and run a startlingly unsuccessful set of new player experiences (the various D&D-ish excursions)
• played a few games of 40K.6 and found it to my liking
• played a few games of WFB.8 and found it not to my liking
• played a few games of LotR SBG and started Hark off on it to boot
• played several new games – Malifaux, Freebooter’s Fate and Epic 40K have all seen some table time this year, and I’ve played quite a few board games which I haven’t blogged about because I have no idea what I want to say about them. I even played some Dreadfleet!
• been on a Geek-Cation with some lovely people and run an enjoyable but ultimately uneventful one-off RPG thing
• done rather less than bugger-all in the Hobby Department, bar painting a handful of warnouns for Warmahordes, a handful of zombies and zombie merchandise, and a few commissions. In my defence, I did pretty well for the first 97 days of Project 365: I’ve just done sod-all since I arrived in London.

Now, I would be a bit rubbish if all this actually doing stuff (or, in the latter case, not doing stuff) didn’t make for a fairly revelatory year. Fortunately, I am not a bit rubbish – at least, not at self-indulgent navel-gazing – and therefore I have some Revelations to share with you, as time’s winged chariot trundles on toward the year’s end.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

It’s that time of year again, folks. September’s rolled around, and brought with it the start of a new academic year. Since I’m currently employed (for once) that means I’m teaching, and that means a dramatic drop in the levels of free time available. This year may be a particularly bad one, as the current gig’s location is Well Rural and imposes six hours of travelling time as a consequence.

That said, if I’ve worked my little routine out properly, I still have three hours of every weekday to call my own, plus weekends, minus the Saturday mornings I spend writing for the House of Paincakes. Good job, too, ’cause I’m actually quite fired up to play games at the moment.

The in-house RPG group is gradually sliding toward Greg Christopher’s Errant as game of choice, and the proposal of four-hour sessions on a Sunday afternoon has been met with cautious enthusiasm. (The original propsal of six-hour sessions was met with a rather emphatic negative, but four seems to be working as a compromise.) One of the group has rather more board-game, rolling-dice tendencies than is the usual wont of my players or myself, but – ever one to see a challenge and an opportunity where lesser men might see a problem and a ball-ache – I think I can work with this by cracking the miniatures out, and maybe drawing up some of those hex maps that I hear all the cool roleplayers use. I don’t mean running every single session as a game of Talisman or anything like that though. What I mean is using something like Hordes of the Things (on hex terrain to eliminate the mensuration and positioning tensions that emerged when I introduced one of these players to the LotR SBG a while back) to model the English Civil War I was on about last week.

Basically, the armchair-improv-theatre stuff would involve approaching and enlisting various Magicians, Paladins, Behemoths and other ‘special units’, which would then – along with the player characters themselves – be represented on a strategic-level hex map and positioned to halt an oncoming enemy force. Players would have to assign themselves, and troops, and significant NPCs/allied monsters, to strategic points, and battles could either be played out as wargames or simulated, Risk-fashion. I’d probably use 28mm scale models for the player characters and the very major NPCs, and 10mm for everything else.

10mm pieces like Kallistra’s are starting to hold an appeal for me anyway, for reasons that will make more sense once I’ve talked about what I did in my last few days of unemployment and what I plan to do with myself in the coming year. See, my newfangled commute takes me through Clapham, and therefore the Clapham Wargames Guild lies on my journey home.

This naturally means a renewed interest in the wargames I have models for. WFB remains popular at the club, and if I can persuade folks to play my preferred 1500 points I’m still cautiously in favour of that (I find the small game size limits some of the really bad craziness of which the game is capable – plus I have to be in bed by about ten on a work night). Some of the gentry are interested in Warmachine and Hordes, which means it’s demo time for me; I also want to get some practice in with the Skorne for the upcoming event calendar.

See, the Beasts from the East are my faction of choice for FQDIII in October; I’ll be one of the many, many people running Magnus and four Renegades if the next Dice and Decks event takes the form that’s being proposed (I’m thinking the Warlord running ‘Team Rocket’ of four Renegades and a Mule, plus Master Tormentor Morghoul running three big stompy Titans and light ‘beasts to go); and since SmogCon 2013 is positioned favourably in time and space (tickets on sale right after my first payday, event located on the way to Hark’s family at the start of half term), it’d be churlish of me not to go. Which has meant that I’ve been forcing myself to paint up the rest of my Skorne…

He’s turned out all right, really, although I’m becoming sicker and sicker of the studio scheme the more times I have to paint it. And that’s the problem, really; I have four Paingivers (which I’ve blatantly, totally phoned in, and which I will not insult your senses by showing to you), a Bronzeback (who should be fun) and a Razor Worm left to do, at the very least.

Basically, I’m sort of sick of painting anything but the most occasional model. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could just drybrush, ink, detail, DONE stuff in like I used to, but unfortunately I still don’t like looking at obviously-phoned-in stuff, and it’s putting me off adding new toys to any of my existing armies.

10mm may well offer me a way out. 10mm fantasy in particular; Warmaster, Hordes of the Things and Hordes and Heroes all offer a quick and cheerful infantry painting experience (they’re so tiny that there’s not much point in making an effort!) coupled with the odd ‘big’ individual piece that I can paint ‘properly’. These being individuals, I shouldn’t get sick of them – right?

On the subject of small scales, I also have models for Dystopian Wars (thanks, Mr. Frontline!) sitting around waiting to have something done with them. On the subject of models lying around, there’s also the LaCroix family for Malifaux, who I painted up and then failed to do anything with since Pathfinder last year; and then there are my Iron Kingdoms RPG models gathering dust waiting for the rules to release later this month; and a few odds and sods from Mantic which came free for attending Live and Let Fly and which I might as well do something with at some stage.

There’s also the small matter of Return to Ravnica (the next Magic expansion) coming out this month and having some interesting duel decks that I want to play around with, and also the looming Mists of Pandaria release (although the intermittent and aggravating Internet connection in the Castle von Von mean that’s less and less likely to see the love). And I want to build a Blood Bowl team at some point. See? Loads to do, and rather limited time in which to do it, which is where this announcement comes in.

Over the next six months, I’ll have enough time to play some games, but maybe not enough to blog about doing so, and frankly I know which one I’d rather be doing. Lexington claims to be similarly busy with work and women and affairs related thereto, and Hark… well, not wanting to destroy the mystery too much, but Hark dictates her blog posts to me (she haaaates typing, you see), and so if I don’t have time to blog, neither does she, if you see what I mean.Point is, the update ‘schedule’ is going to be ‘as and when’ rather than ‘weekly’, or indeed anything with pretended regularity, although I’ll be keeping up appearances on the House of Paincakes as usual.

I can promise a list build and report post for FQD, as usual, and something about Errant once we’ve played it for a bit. If I try a brand new game I’ll try to say something intelligent about it. No more than that will be promised; if you’re desperate for a weekly drip-feed, try the House of Paincakes, Saturday lunchtime.

And The Hammer Came Down: A Bad Seeds Report

We go back a long way, the former Commander Magnus and I. Right the way back to the start of this ‘ere blog, as I may have mentioned once or twice, and indeed to before then. We spent some time together – a wild, experimental time, when we were still trying to work out what the future held. And, I admit, we drifted apart for a while – money was involved, and mistakes were made. We’ve been seeing rather a lot of each other lately, though, and I might just about be ready to say we’re back together.

I’ve been playing Magnus the Warlord week in, week out for the Slow Grow League up at Dark Sphere, and doing quite well, troubling the top three despite a second week in which I lost the ability to gauge threat ranges, charge lanes or indeed anything that might keep Magnus alive for more than two turns.

Much Ado About Not Blogging – WM Slow Grow, WoW RP, Dark Ages Vampire

Ahem.

So.

That promised ‘every three days’ schedule isn’t really working out, is it?

Let me explain, and then perhaps your ire will be cooled, a little. Not that it should go entirely unspent; content was promised you, and has been withheld, and certain dues must be paid and reparations made if that’s to be forgiven. I hope that comes to pass, in time.

The thing is, I moved house two months ago in order to get busy. Work was drying up, and if I were to continue the practices of eating food and living indoors (practices for which I confess a certain ingrained fondness, born out of habit as much as actual value), not to mention keeping Hark in Goblins and hair dye and whatever else she subsists on (tea and pastries, mostly, it seems), I had to seek out a fresh wellspring.

It hath been sought, and it hath gushed. I have written at least two dissertations’ worth of exemplary material for various bodies in the last two months; I have taught a young man half a century of social history in a week, amending the damage done to him by the professional neglect of others; I have regular invigilation work, and an evening class to teach.

I have also been playing games, shocking as this assertion may appear to you.

Beasts from the East – One Man And His Lord Tyrant

As well as running a friendly, well-stocked brick-and-mortar and online shop (for all your guilt management needs), the good people at Dark Sphere Games have a rather spiffy gaming space that’s half an hour’s walk from my place and draws a decent Warmahordes crowd of a Monday night. It’d be churlish of me not to give it a go, really, and so I’ve popped up and been rocking the Skorne for a couple of games. One of these was my first with the good Lord Tyrant Hexeris since, umm, actually since I acquired him two and a half years ago, and it proved to be a strange experience after Morghoul.