Hobby update
As I said in the last post, I tend to work in spurts. It's been about three years so time for another post. :-)
LIFE EVENTS
Since my last update, I got settled into my job and we've had a bit of a global pandemic. I have seen a lot of people finishing off hobby projects, and I've envied them. But every time I thought about it, somehting adulting came up - do yard work, walk the dog, etc. Prior to the pandemic, what little free time I had for gaming was being directed to LARPing, which due to the fact that the closest games are 3 hours away, involved a lot of driving. Driving eats time, and so forth with the excuses and justifications. Even once the pandemic started, I was trying to play my LARPs via Discord, just more of them, but that quickly got stale. Bottom line: I wasn't prioritizing my attention to table-top games or mini-games. That's changed in the last two or three months. I got involved in an online Spelljammer D'nD 5e game which has been a lot of fun. Meanwhile, my girlfriend had been asking questions about miniature painting, mostly in the context of fantasy RPG minis. We finally got around to some serious ok-this-is-how-you-paint-a-mini lessons (after I literally blew the dust off the painting supplies) and she loved it. In the context, I of course showed her stuff I had painted for 40K and KoW which led to a conversation about KoW which led to her looking at the KoW stuff which led to her picking an army (Trident Realms) which led to painting and playing a few this-is-what-it's-like demo games which led to more serious painting, and suddenly I'm back into that hobby with some amount of momentum.
RPGs
The only RPG I've been active with is the 5e Spelljammer campaign. I play a crazy lady (AKA an assimar sorceress who thinks she's a god because she can do "miracles"). I'm enjoying that.
40K
I ogled the 40k stuff in a recent visit to our local GW store (Yes, Columbia has a GW store! Who knew?). They make such pretty pretty models that are so very, very pricy. I drooled over the Drahari or whatever they are calling the Dark Eldar these days, realized I have a closet full of them that I still want to paint some day because... they are so very pretty. I also have two kinds of Space Marines and the start of a "steampunk Chaos Space Marine" army in that closet. If I ever go back to 40k, it'll likely be with the Drakari nee Dark Eldar or the CSM just to finish modeling them. But, truth be told, while I find the models beautiful and I have many fond memories of playing 40K in "The Lion's Den" (a friend's basement), I don't think I want to get back in bed with GW. So it sits and goes nowhere, but I'm not strong enough in my conviction to get rid of it either. After all, I might go back "some day" and then I don't want to have to re-buy it all.
KINGS OF WAR
This remains the lion's share of my mini war gaming interest. As of the last update, I had three armies in various stages of construction: 1) Elves with an absolutely gorgeous dragon and chariot all painted and stunning and looking find along with several boxes of unpainted mini. 2) Forces of Nature consisting of some Mantic models and a lot of metal Reaper minis I got at a super discount. I have put one of my three greater earth elementals together, but it's not even primared, three primered treemen, and I had begun work on a bunch of Sylph Talonrider conversions using some GW wood elf riders to be mounted on some Reaper eagles (which I was really excited about). 3) League of Rhordia using mostly the awsome Westfalia halfling line along with some human pikemen and knights I got from CMON and Fireforge respectively. Obviously, I'm not a diligent, disciplined, or fast painter (and a much, much better collector) which, complicated by the fact that I don't assemble until I have painted, means I got pretty much nowhere in the last three years. Meanwhile,KoW 3rd edition came out and caused a lot of havoc in my armies. On the minor end of things, the Talonriders I had been lovingly planning (and shelling out the gold for three boxes of GW Sisters of the Thorn plus the Reaper eagles for them to ride upon, were suddenly no longer a unit in the new rule set, much to my consternation. Worse, Mantic took an axe to my League of Rhordia halflings in that at least two of the units I had been working up, Ranger Cavalry, Halfling Spearmen (who had been the core of my line), Halfling sorcerer, Halfling Iron Beast, and the Halfling Howitzer were all removed from the list. Given that, when I'm actually painting dilligently, it still takes me over a month and closer to two to paint a unit, the loss of my invested time not to mention treasure invested in now non-existant units left a sour tase in my mouth. Almost as badly, they altered the fluff so that the League, instead of being the last bastion of free expression and thought, was becoming a racist, human-centric nation (in order to justify gutting the League army of most of its halfling units). Combined with the fact that my aging body now physically hurts after anything over two hours of painting, these absolutely gutted my Rhordia list and put me off KoW for over a year. It also left me in a bit of a quandry as to what I wanted to work on and paint up when I started getting interested in it again last month - more on that later.
When my girlfriend began painting test minis for her Trident Realms army (using my FoN naiads with my blessing), I was in a bit of a quandry as to which one of my armies to start working on. The easy thing was to finish painting the Halfling Knight regiment that I started, oh, in 2017 or so. But what after that? I had my halflings who I could technically just put in the place of what was supposed to be human units. I had my desert elves with their tan and dark purple color scheme that I love and which are quite a good army in KoW. I had my never fielded Forces of Nature, but I was already ceeding the naiads to the assembling Trident Realm force. Which to choose? So I did what any logical mini gamer does in moments of crisis and indecision like this, I decided to start a new army... sort of.
SALAMANDERS
I had 40 plastic salamander miniatures as part of my Forces of Nature, having planned to use a regiment of them to supplement a naiad anvil there, and I had fallen in love with the sculpts themselves when I got them. They went together easily for starters. They also posed really well in ways that made them look "in-motion." I also knew I liked the core salamander trooper. They aren't super-great or anything, but the are very... solid is a good word. Good hitting power, good armor, average speed, average nerve. And Mantic had just announced a pre-release of several Salamander sculpts to finally fill out the army without having to hunt around for, often more expensive, proxies. It seemed like a good time to get into them. Moreover, I was working on a new angle to try to keep me painting - I tried to pick mini's that I thought looked "really cool", hoping that would hold my interest better and stop me from army hopping before I finished at least a playable 2,300 points. Right now, I'm very excited about them, but it is still honeymoon days. Still, this is absolutely where my current focus lies.
HALFLINGS
Right after I started getting back into KoW, Mantic announced that they were going to be promulgating beta rules for an all-halfling army. Obviously, it peeked my interest, and I watched the previews eagerly. This morning, the rules dropped along with several pre-order images of the minis themselves. ....And I'm all excited about halflings again. Except I started Salamanders so I need to stay on target, stay on target, you get the idea. Anyway, in some ways this is the opposite of my attraction for the Salamanders. Mantic's minis are in my humble, but certainly not expert, opinion... ok, but not great. It's like they have a split personality. On one hand they are supposed to be serious war-footed, military halflings and, in this regard, at least they aren't cherubic, buck-toothed, hicks like some lines. BUT, they also have soldiers wearing tophats or coming to battle with notched and poorly maintained kitchen knives. Worse, there is one mini so grossely over-sized (ie FAT that I hope to never see its unattractive ass on my table, I don't care how good it is. Even their Iron Beast, the titan AT-AT of the Shire's armies is apparently a walking kitchen. Boo-hiss. Gonna have to carve that crap off it. The rules though, the rules for these guys! I'm super-excited about their rules because it's all about synergy and tactics. This is going to be a supurb all-rounder army, and that's the kind of army I like. So, it's goodbye League of Rhordia, and hello, Halflings! I'm just planning to use all those lovely Westfalia miniatures I already have along with a few Mantic pieces for things like the jet-pack troops, aeronauts, and so forth. But I must. paint.salamanders.first. sigh
ELVES
Not much has changed except my elves have slipped further down the queue. This is still the most complete and playable KOW army I have in being (until all my Salamander pre-orders arrive anyway), largely because it descended from my last WFB army. I made them Southern Kindred (again because no one else seemed to want to do that). I'm focused mostly on Gladestalkers and chariot units to the extent I'm focused on anything (by which I mean I am not actively building or painting any elves). I'm also planning to use Dragon's Breath warmachines instead of bolt throwers because the former are mobile and I want the army to move. You can see my elves "in action" in some previous batrep posts in this blog. I still want to do them... just "some day" after I've got like 6K points of Salamanders and 6K points of Halflings painted.
FORCES OF NATURE
I'm not sure what the fate of this army is. In some ways, I still like the Forces of Nature. They have a lot of diversity in what they can bring and I, thanks to Terry Brooks, have a fondness for Druids. But parts of the army are now being parcelled out to other places, parts are no longer viable units (Talonriders), and it would take quite a bit of work to get the Reaper bitz table-worthy. By the time I get to these in my priority list, I may well be eying another army entirely. It's been known to happen. :-) For example, Herd could be interesting and would let me use my FoN centaurs. I also have some Nightstalkers from the Vanguard kickstarter and they are tactically interesitng. I also could end up coming back to FoN if I have completed naiads and salamander units to build from. Who knows? But for now the FoN is probably on life-support.
And that's the news tonight.
LIFE EVENTS
Since my last update, I got settled into my job and we've had a bit of a global pandemic. I have seen a lot of people finishing off hobby projects, and I've envied them. But every time I thought about it, somehting adulting came up - do yard work, walk the dog, etc. Prior to the pandemic, what little free time I had for gaming was being directed to LARPing, which due to the fact that the closest games are 3 hours away, involved a lot of driving. Driving eats time, and so forth with the excuses and justifications. Even once the pandemic started, I was trying to play my LARPs via Discord, just more of them, but that quickly got stale. Bottom line: I wasn't prioritizing my attention to table-top games or mini-games. That's changed in the last two or three months. I got involved in an online Spelljammer D'nD 5e game which has been a lot of fun. Meanwhile, my girlfriend had been asking questions about miniature painting, mostly in the context of fantasy RPG minis. We finally got around to some serious ok-this-is-how-you-paint-a-mini lessons (after I literally blew the dust off the painting supplies) and she loved it. In the context, I of course showed her stuff I had painted for 40K and KoW which led to a conversation about KoW which led to her looking at the KoW stuff which led to her picking an army (Trident Realms) which led to painting and playing a few this-is-what-it's-like demo games which led to more serious painting, and suddenly I'm back into that hobby with some amount of momentum.
RPGs
The only RPG I've been active with is the 5e Spelljammer campaign. I play a crazy lady (AKA an assimar sorceress who thinks she's a god because she can do "miracles"). I'm enjoying that.
40K
I ogled the 40k stuff in a recent visit to our local GW store (Yes, Columbia has a GW store! Who knew?). They make such pretty pretty models that are so very, very pricy. I drooled over the Drahari or whatever they are calling the Dark Eldar these days, realized I have a closet full of them that I still want to paint some day because... they are so very pretty. I also have two kinds of Space Marines and the start of a "steampunk Chaos Space Marine" army in that closet. If I ever go back to 40k, it'll likely be with the Drakari nee Dark Eldar or the CSM just to finish modeling them. But, truth be told, while I find the models beautiful and I have many fond memories of playing 40K in "The Lion's Den" (a friend's basement), I don't think I want to get back in bed with GW. So it sits and goes nowhere, but I'm not strong enough in my conviction to get rid of it either. After all, I might go back "some day" and then I don't want to have to re-buy it all.
KINGS OF WAR
This remains the lion's share of my mini war gaming interest. As of the last update, I had three armies in various stages of construction: 1) Elves with an absolutely gorgeous dragon and chariot all painted and stunning and looking find along with several boxes of unpainted mini. 2) Forces of Nature consisting of some Mantic models and a lot of metal Reaper minis I got at a super discount. I have put one of my three greater earth elementals together, but it's not even primared, three primered treemen, and I had begun work on a bunch of Sylph Talonrider conversions using some GW wood elf riders to be mounted on some Reaper eagles (which I was really excited about). 3) League of Rhordia using mostly the awsome Westfalia halfling line along with some human pikemen and knights I got from CMON and Fireforge respectively. Obviously, I'm not a diligent, disciplined, or fast painter (and a much, much better collector) which, complicated by the fact that I don't assemble until I have painted, means I got pretty much nowhere in the last three years. Meanwhile,KoW 3rd edition came out and caused a lot of havoc in my armies. On the minor end of things, the Talonriders I had been lovingly planning (and shelling out the gold for three boxes of GW Sisters of the Thorn plus the Reaper eagles for them to ride upon, were suddenly no longer a unit in the new rule set, much to my consternation. Worse, Mantic took an axe to my League of Rhordia halflings in that at least two of the units I had been working up, Ranger Cavalry, Halfling Spearmen (who had been the core of my line), Halfling sorcerer, Halfling Iron Beast, and the Halfling Howitzer were all removed from the list. Given that, when I'm actually painting dilligently, it still takes me over a month and closer to two to paint a unit, the loss of my invested time not to mention treasure invested in now non-existant units left a sour tase in my mouth. Almost as badly, they altered the fluff so that the League, instead of being the last bastion of free expression and thought, was becoming a racist, human-centric nation (in order to justify gutting the League army of most of its halfling units). Combined with the fact that my aging body now physically hurts after anything over two hours of painting, these absolutely gutted my Rhordia list and put me off KoW for over a year. It also left me in a bit of a quandry as to what I wanted to work on and paint up when I started getting interested in it again last month - more on that later.
When my girlfriend began painting test minis for her Trident Realms army (using my FoN naiads with my blessing), I was in a bit of a quandry as to which one of my armies to start working on. The easy thing was to finish painting the Halfling Knight regiment that I started, oh, in 2017 or so. But what after that? I had my halflings who I could technically just put in the place of what was supposed to be human units. I had my desert elves with their tan and dark purple color scheme that I love and which are quite a good army in KoW. I had my never fielded Forces of Nature, but I was already ceeding the naiads to the assembling Trident Realm force. Which to choose? So I did what any logical mini gamer does in moments of crisis and indecision like this, I decided to start a new army... sort of.
SALAMANDERS
I had 40 plastic salamander miniatures as part of my Forces of Nature, having planned to use a regiment of them to supplement a naiad anvil there, and I had fallen in love with the sculpts themselves when I got them. They went together easily for starters. They also posed really well in ways that made them look "in-motion." I also knew I liked the core salamander trooper. They aren't super-great or anything, but the are very... solid is a good word. Good hitting power, good armor, average speed, average nerve. And Mantic had just announced a pre-release of several Salamander sculpts to finally fill out the army without having to hunt around for, often more expensive, proxies. It seemed like a good time to get into them. Moreover, I was working on a new angle to try to keep me painting - I tried to pick mini's that I thought looked "really cool", hoping that would hold my interest better and stop me from army hopping before I finished at least a playable 2,300 points. Right now, I'm very excited about them, but it is still honeymoon days. Still, this is absolutely where my current focus lies.
HALFLINGS
Right after I started getting back into KoW, Mantic announced that they were going to be promulgating beta rules for an all-halfling army. Obviously, it peeked my interest, and I watched the previews eagerly. This morning, the rules dropped along with several pre-order images of the minis themselves. ....And I'm all excited about halflings again. Except I started Salamanders so I need to stay on target, stay on target, you get the idea. Anyway, in some ways this is the opposite of my attraction for the Salamanders. Mantic's minis are in my humble, but certainly not expert, opinion... ok, but not great. It's like they have a split personality. On one hand they are supposed to be serious war-footed, military halflings and, in this regard, at least they aren't cherubic, buck-toothed, hicks like some lines. BUT, they also have soldiers wearing tophats or coming to battle with notched and poorly maintained kitchen knives. Worse, there is one mini so grossely over-sized (ie FAT that I hope to never see its unattractive ass on my table, I don't care how good it is. Even their Iron Beast, the titan AT-AT of the Shire's armies is apparently a walking kitchen. Boo-hiss. Gonna have to carve that crap off it. The rules though, the rules for these guys! I'm super-excited about their rules because it's all about synergy and tactics. This is going to be a supurb all-rounder army, and that's the kind of army I like. So, it's goodbye League of Rhordia, and hello, Halflings! I'm just planning to use all those lovely Westfalia miniatures I already have along with a few Mantic pieces for things like the jet-pack troops, aeronauts, and so forth. But I must. paint.salamanders.first. sigh
ELVES
Not much has changed except my elves have slipped further down the queue. This is still the most complete and playable KOW army I have in being (until all my Salamander pre-orders arrive anyway), largely because it descended from my last WFB army. I made them Southern Kindred (again because no one else seemed to want to do that). I'm focused mostly on Gladestalkers and chariot units to the extent I'm focused on anything (by which I mean I am not actively building or painting any elves). I'm also planning to use Dragon's Breath warmachines instead of bolt throwers because the former are mobile and I want the army to move. You can see my elves "in action" in some previous batrep posts in this blog. I still want to do them... just "some day" after I've got like 6K points of Salamanders and 6K points of Halflings painted.
FORCES OF NATURE
I'm not sure what the fate of this army is. In some ways, I still like the Forces of Nature. They have a lot of diversity in what they can bring and I, thanks to Terry Brooks, have a fondness for Druids. But parts of the army are now being parcelled out to other places, parts are no longer viable units (Talonriders), and it would take quite a bit of work to get the Reaper bitz table-worthy. By the time I get to these in my priority list, I may well be eying another army entirely. It's been known to happen. :-) For example, Herd could be interesting and would let me use my FoN centaurs. I also have some Nightstalkers from the Vanguard kickstarter and they are tactically interesitng. I also could end up coming back to FoN if I have completed naiads and salamander units to build from. Who knows? But for now the FoN is probably on life-support.
And that's the news tonight.
Comments