Thursday 13 March 2014
Imperial knight.
So like most of the world I grabbed a couple of Knights. Have to say really nice models. and after building one I have some great ideas for some small improvements on the next one. Colour scheme wise I just made up one. Wanted to dry air brushing flames so did that on this one as well. any way spent an hour taking a few pictures this morning in the light tent so have a look and let me know what you think.
Wednesday 26 February 2014
Waste Land Wonderers
Brother Vinnie's have released some stunning miniatures based on the Fallout 3 waste lands. Now its a shame there isn't any rules to go with these, but who cares, these mini's are stunning, and represent one of my Favourite games of all time.
You can grab these minis from Brother Vinnie's as well as some other great minis.
Also if you are a Fan of Xcom like me, Then you will love the miniature below from the Scifi Monster section.
You can grab these minis from Brother Vinnie's as well as some other great minis.
Also if you are a Fan of Xcom like me, Then you will love the miniature below from the Scifi Monster section.
Friday 21 February 2014
Codex: Legion of the Damned
Anyway for those that don't have iBooks here is the sample edition.
Wednesday 19 February 2014
Games Workshop Hate Mongering Part 1
Lets be honest here, you go onto any forum remotely related to wargaming, and you will see the hate threads. So where does this hate come from. like most things on the Internet people follow a trend, and it seems as though most people follow a trend of hate when referring to GW. And for the most part I see the trend setters as those few who have been in the hobby since the start. the rogue traders amongst us. There knowledge and experience of the hobby make them the trend setters. The only issue is most of these people are blinkered to the rogue trader era. complaining about prices being too high, rules are broken. etc etc.
So lets put some things into perspective, first of all price. The main argument is that back in the good old days GW was cheap, you could grab 5 models for £2.50 and its true you could. But lets also take into account the average wage back then was £6000, not much is it. But that's not strictly true in today's terms, as we haven't added in inflation to that. And the average wage of the UK today is £19000 so that's a rise of 216%. So let's take the rogue trader space marine box set. 30 marines for £9.99 using the UK inflation rate available on most government sites, that would be £36 for 30 marines today. Now lets look at quality. Because £36 for 30 models is a great deal. when compared to today's price of £2.50 per space marine, 30 years ago a space marine would cost £1.20 so about half the price. However what about quality?
Rouge trader Era
Today's Era
And that's where things start to fall off, Sure the hate trending rogue traders era wargamers remember the cheaper prices, but seems as though they forgot how much the quality has changed also. So this one could be classed as personal choice. do you A: have more models for your money, and live with the models looking like final fantasy VII characters with over sized heads and arms. Or do you B: go for less models for your money yet have models that are stunning to look at, when compared to the £1.20 space marine rogue trader era models?
Now some gamers will go for the cheaper nasty looking models, and these are what we refer to as the 3 colours or less gamers, the ones that simply want to play the game and don't care about the look of the models in the army, these are the guys that would not think twice about cracking out those Cardboard cut outs from 2nd edition. The ones that will proxy Books as land raiders and such. And then you have the collectors, the ones that prefer to fully paint a model before it is used on the table, the ones that will sooner loose than proxy a unit. And these will almost certainly choose the more expensive yet much nicer looking units.
Yup that's basically why Mantic games stuff works out cheaper. I wont get into the fact that Mantic games have the same rule set for every game in there company until Part 2, when I try to break a few myths about rules. So thanks for reading, And I undoubtedly expect some hateful comments below. As i don't follow the trend, Sure I don't like some items GW do and I don't like How they price stuff up sometimes. But that's not hate that's just observational disagreement. And because of this I may be considered a "fanboy" so be it.
So lets put some things into perspective, first of all price. The main argument is that back in the good old days GW was cheap, you could grab 5 models for £2.50 and its true you could. But lets also take into account the average wage back then was £6000, not much is it. But that's not strictly true in today's terms, as we haven't added in inflation to that. And the average wage of the UK today is £19000 so that's a rise of 216%. So let's take the rogue trader space marine box set. 30 marines for £9.99 using the UK inflation rate available on most government sites, that would be £36 for 30 marines today. Now lets look at quality. Because £36 for 30 models is a great deal. when compared to today's price of £2.50 per space marine, 30 years ago a space marine would cost £1.20 so about half the price. However what about quality?
Rouge trader Era
Today's Era
Now some gamers will go for the cheaper nasty looking models, and these are what we refer to as the 3 colours or less gamers, the ones that simply want to play the game and don't care about the look of the models in the army, these are the guys that would not think twice about cracking out those Cardboard cut outs from 2nd edition. The ones that will proxy Books as land raiders and such. And then you have the collectors, the ones that prefer to fully paint a model before it is used on the table, the ones that will sooner loose than proxy a unit. And these will almost certainly choose the more expensive yet much nicer looking units.
So costing wise on a comparison to sum up this section, would see that wile our space marines are twice the price, they also have twice the options on the sprue and more than twice the quality. And what is also very strange is that people complain about paying £2.50 for a space marine that comes with every option in the box. But yet no one bats an eye lid at paying £4.60 for Forge World marines that are all stuck in generic poses and have no weapons included. With forge world its a case of you can afford it or you cant, so why do people treat gw any different, It would be like me hate mongering on car forums because I cant afford a Koenigsegg and they don't seem to care at the fact I cant afford one.
Then there is the competition as such. PP, Mantic Games, Battlefront miniatures etc etc. all of these produce great games and some great competition for GW. However people buy to much into these companies. PP are quickly trying to become the next GW and that's no mistake. Once they have enough customer base you will see the company change just like GW did, However PP are hardly cheap. Compare the game sizes to GW games and sure it is cheaper. But if you only played Kill team sized games of 40K GW would also be cheap, (cheaper than PP that's for sure) Then we have Mantic games, They make some great games they really do, Dreadball, Kings, Deadzone, Mars Attacks. But yet this company can sell games for very cheap for a few reasons, number one being the the fact they have no overheads what so ever they practically fund an entire run of games from kickstarters and nothing else. I wont get into why this is bad for kickstarter as I have done that in a previous blog post. There is also the quality of the models. Sure they look great on the website, but when you get your plastic miniatures in your little bags from mantic the casting is what is knows as sprueless. Its cheaper to manufacture but the quality suffers, want to know another example of sprueless casting?
Then there is the competition as such. PP, Mantic Games, Battlefront miniatures etc etc. all of these produce great games and some great competition for GW. However people buy to much into these companies. PP are quickly trying to become the next GW and that's no mistake. Once they have enough customer base you will see the company change just like GW did, However PP are hardly cheap. Compare the game sizes to GW games and sure it is cheaper. But if you only played Kill team sized games of 40K GW would also be cheap, (cheaper than PP that's for sure) Then we have Mantic games, They make some great games they really do, Dreadball, Kings, Deadzone, Mars Attacks. But yet this company can sell games for very cheap for a few reasons, number one being the the fact they have no overheads what so ever they practically fund an entire run of games from kickstarters and nothing else. I wont get into why this is bad for kickstarter as I have done that in a previous blog post. There is also the quality of the models. Sure they look great on the website, but when you get your plastic miniatures in your little bags from mantic the casting is what is knows as sprueless. Its cheaper to manufacture but the quality suffers, want to know another example of sprueless casting?
Yup that's basically why Mantic games stuff works out cheaper. I wont get into the fact that Mantic games have the same rule set for every game in there company until Part 2, when I try to break a few myths about rules. So thanks for reading, And I undoubtedly expect some hateful comments below. As i don't follow the trend, Sure I don't like some items GW do and I don't like How they price stuff up sometimes. But that's not hate that's just observational disagreement. And because of this I may be considered a "fanboy" so be it.
Thursday 30 January 2014
Warhammer Visions & White Dwarf Weekly
Well.....................
Shall I start with Visions? Yeah lets start with visions.............
.........................
.........................
.........................
.........................
.........................
.........................
And that's about as much content as Visions has in it. The book is a smaller format to that of the original white dwarf, roughly A5 in size. It's basically a picture book hence the Visions part, but its not a good picture book. For instance I counted at least 8 pictures that had been used multiple times, And that was before I got bored of counting. The repeats are slightly zoomed in or turned so its on a landscape orientation. Then there is the writing, literally nothing, hardly any information given at all, its like reading a child's book. "this is a Rhino" "this is a Harpy" "Z is for Zoanthrope" I honestly wish I could read in German and French as I would get more than one paragraph, as Visions has one paragraph in English one paragraph in French and one in German.
So what we basically have here is a wanabe be Coffee table book. The images included in the book are just the same old same old WD style photography ones, occasionally they have cropped the miniature and added it to a different background, but that's it I'm afraid. This is the first, And probably the last ever one I buy, unless they so happen to do a special later on down the road, say an entire one dedicated to the Horus heresy then I might be tempted. Now you can go out and waste your money each month, and for those who thought they brought a White dwarf subscription I send you my full condolences, but for the most part Just click this link every month and save your money.
Warhammer Visions Free Edition
Now lets get back to the good stuff White dwarf Weekly............
They did it, they actually did it guys. Not long ago I did a WD classic series, I would give you a few pages from the classic White Dwarf's with a small write up. Back then White Dwarf was comic book sized and released on a fortnightly basis, but had more content than the ones we have been receiving up till last month. But now we have gone to a weekly format, there is info we actualy want, like new releases, painting tutorials for the new models, heck believe it or not there are flipping rules in this mag. I like the fact its comic book sized, this is great if they are going to be putting more rules in the WDW's as you can bag and board them like a comic, with a bit of tape written on it as to what rules it contains for future references.
I really like the weekly format and I personaly hope it continues the way it is, I have to be honest Visions is a total let down. They would be better to do a hardback Visions book on a quarterly basis, rather than what they are doing now. Just how many of these images are going to be re-used.
So to sum up
Warhammer Visions is Blind And white dwarf Weekly is Win!
Shall I start with Visions? Yeah lets start with visions.............
.........................
.........................
.........................
.........................
.........................
.........................
And that's about as much content as Visions has in it. The book is a smaller format to that of the original white dwarf, roughly A5 in size. It's basically a picture book hence the Visions part, but its not a good picture book. For instance I counted at least 8 pictures that had been used multiple times, And that was before I got bored of counting. The repeats are slightly zoomed in or turned so its on a landscape orientation. Then there is the writing, literally nothing, hardly any information given at all, its like reading a child's book. "this is a Rhino" "this is a Harpy" "Z is for Zoanthrope" I honestly wish I could read in German and French as I would get more than one paragraph, as Visions has one paragraph in English one paragraph in French and one in German.
So what we basically have here is a wanabe be Coffee table book. The images included in the book are just the same old same old WD style photography ones, occasionally they have cropped the miniature and added it to a different background, but that's it I'm afraid. This is the first, And probably the last ever one I buy, unless they so happen to do a special later on down the road, say an entire one dedicated to the Horus heresy then I might be tempted. Now you can go out and waste your money each month, and for those who thought they brought a White dwarf subscription I send you my full condolences, but for the most part Just click this link every month and save your money.
Warhammer Visions Free Edition
Now lets get back to the good stuff White dwarf Weekly............
They did it, they actually did it guys. Not long ago I did a WD classic series, I would give you a few pages from the classic White Dwarf's with a small write up. Back then White Dwarf was comic book sized and released on a fortnightly basis, but had more content than the ones we have been receiving up till last month. But now we have gone to a weekly format, there is info we actualy want, like new releases, painting tutorials for the new models, heck believe it or not there are flipping rules in this mag. I like the fact its comic book sized, this is great if they are going to be putting more rules in the WDW's as you can bag and board them like a comic, with a bit of tape written on it as to what rules it contains for future references.
I really like the weekly format and I personaly hope it continues the way it is, I have to be honest Visions is a total let down. They would be better to do a hardback Visions book on a quarterly basis, rather than what they are doing now. Just how many of these images are going to be re-used.
So to sum up
Warhammer Visions is Blind And white dwarf Weekly is Win!
Thursday 23 January 2014
Hobby Update.
So a little update of what I have been up to recently for those of you who don't check the Facebook page page.
First up is the Night Raptors for my NightLords Legion, Grabbed 10 of these when we went to Warhammer world Just before Xmas, was dreading painting them as it was a lot of brush work, And I get agitated if I cant use the Airbrush for everything :P
Also grabbed some Mechanicum on the same trip, Loved these models And actually very fast and easy to paint, Could happily Turn out a Full army of these Bad boys.
And I did it, I finally finished the the Proteus, It has been sat Built and Base coated for about 3 months. But I decided to pull my finger out now I have cleared some other units I wanted to get. And finished it off, weathered the same as the rest of my World Eaters. I'm looking forward to grabbing my self a Real of Battle board and building my little Istvaan III table, so all my World Eaters will look right at home. I'm not going to lie here though, I still have many, many, more models to finish off for the World Eaters.
Also grabbed this guy my Local Hobby Store still has these in stock for the correct price, not the £50-70 i have seen people try to sell them for on eBay. The reason I brought it.......... Um its sort of a tester, And a practise piece to work on my Edge Highlighting and other techniques i try to get away with not using. So the model is all pinned and needs a quick dust coat, the dust coat will help me spot any bit that will need a bit of Milliputt or extra attention.
Also grabbed 3 Leman Russ Battle tanks from my Local Hobby Store, they where all ready built and Primed and who ever built them was lets just say a Cretin. But they came out OK with a touch a weathering, and now my Tyrants Legion has a nice heavy support squadron.
And Some more additions to my Dark eldar"ish" Eldar units. Got these Wraithguard painted up to match with my dark eldar. Im starting to like purple far to much. NO I'm not going to start Emperors children next.
Talking of what is next, Been thinking about what I do actually want to do next. I have thought about Elysian drop troops, don't get me wrong I love them to bits, same as I love Krieg, however I hate painting guard. So I may have to skip them. Renegades is also an Army I would love to do, But again the Hate for painting all things guard and the expense of having to buy both guard units and renegade upgrades for those kits makes it a rather pricey list, Almost on par with my World Eaters, And again its painting guard. I still have 120 Mantic Zombies I could paint pretty fast, just need 120 25mm round bases from GW. And i could start my Zombie Nurgle Army. But I have also thought about getting some good guys, I worked out on Battle scribe the units I would want for a fluffy White Scars army. And to be fair it works out pretty cheap if I brought everything brand new. So that is a big possibility.
But I'm sure my mind will change again after the next big FW releases.
First up is the Night Raptors for my NightLords Legion, Grabbed 10 of these when we went to Warhammer world Just before Xmas, was dreading painting them as it was a lot of brush work, And I get agitated if I cant use the Airbrush for everything :P
Also grabbed some Mechanicum on the same trip, Loved these models And actually very fast and easy to paint, Could happily Turn out a Full army of these Bad boys.
And I did it, I finally finished the the Proteus, It has been sat Built and Base coated for about 3 months. But I decided to pull my finger out now I have cleared some other units I wanted to get. And finished it off, weathered the same as the rest of my World Eaters. I'm looking forward to grabbing my self a Real of Battle board and building my little Istvaan III table, so all my World Eaters will look right at home. I'm not going to lie here though, I still have many, many, more models to finish off for the World Eaters.
Also grabbed 3 Leman Russ Battle tanks from my Local Hobby Store, they where all ready built and Primed and who ever built them was lets just say a Cretin. But they came out OK with a touch a weathering, and now my Tyrants Legion has a nice heavy support squadron.
And Some more additions to my Dark eldar"ish" Eldar units. Got these Wraithguard painted up to match with my dark eldar. Im starting to like purple far to much. NO I'm not going to start Emperors children next.
Talking of what is next, Been thinking about what I do actually want to do next. I have thought about Elysian drop troops, don't get me wrong I love them to bits, same as I love Krieg, however I hate painting guard. So I may have to skip them. Renegades is also an Army I would love to do, But again the Hate for painting all things guard and the expense of having to buy both guard units and renegade upgrades for those kits makes it a rather pricey list, Almost on par with my World Eaters, And again its painting guard. I still have 120 Mantic Zombies I could paint pretty fast, just need 120 25mm round bases from GW. And i could start my Zombie Nurgle Army. But I have also thought about getting some good guys, I worked out on Battle scribe the units I would want for a fluffy White Scars army. And to be fair it works out pretty cheap if I brought everything brand new. So that is a big possibility.
But I'm sure my mind will change again after the next big FW releases.
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