Hobby LURVE!!

As vaguely worrying as it is I spent a particularly satisfying evening last night basing some figures. Getting home after a hard day slaving over a hot desk I sorted out dinner quick as i could and got straight down to it :)

Not just any figures but four full ten man Dreadball teams. Shaun has been good enough to let me plunder his kickstarter kit until mine arrive to replace them. He has no idea how much joy this has brought to me :)

Now that I've resettled myself I have Wednesday and Thursday off work and the DB Copperbowl Tournament to attend at Tabletop Nation this Sunday. That's three whole days, inc Saturday, to paint up a team to take reeking of fresh varnish!

As Shaun had already built these lads all I did was glue them to bases and have a vague scrape at some flash. The most work was taking the bases off the sprue! its been so long since ive done anything, three months at leadt, that my joy could not be tempered by such a basic task.

I've been running paint schemes and fluff through my head since I grabbed them last Tuesday. Being somewhat rugby obsessed that had to come out somewhere.

The Orx will become Tohn-Gar (Tonga) a semi-feral tribe from a deep space asteroid making their way to matches stowing on old freighters.

Red base with white shorts and Dag tribal "tattoos" as per their shirt. The fact that the Tongan flag features a Christian dove will need to be worked in somewhere too :)

I really want the humans to be a take on London Wasps. The scheme is forming in my head. Yellow under suit, boots and helmets against black pates and white highlights. A decent corp name and background currently eludes me :/

For the Copperbowl I was going to take Humans as I've had most games with them, about 4 or 5, but reckon I can get the Orx painted quicker and better in the time AND have a Tonga shirt to wear on the day. I'm not worried about where I place so could be a good Orx learning curve as such.

Would still rather take the Wasps boys though. What do you think?

Club tonight to get Space Hulk some table time and maybe sneak in some more DB. Will let you know.........you lucky, lucky people :)

Book Review: Dodger

And now for something relatively different..... the fact that its a book review that is. As with all of my reviews it'll be impressionistic rather than in depth.

The criticism of this approach might be laziness whilst the defence would be allowing people to make up their own minds :)

Anyway, as a lifelong Pratchett / Discworld addict this was something of an obvious purchase. I knew that it wasn't Discworld and as such would be different so was interested to establish how and how much.
Every fan is aware of his condition and enforced change of writing method and style. What effect this has is hard to know.

To be honest I've found the last dozen books to be a bit hit or miss but nor really known why. Felt a bit like the plot was becoming predictable despite the journey being an enjoyable one.

I have to admit that I initially struggled with Dodger. The character, story and style of its telling, unsurprisingly, was very Discworld-esque but then lacked the more fantastical elements that made, for me at least, so engaging. I found it all a bit confusing.

Once I accepted that this isn't a Discworld novel but a Discworld-eque novel about a cheeky chappy in the sewers of Victorian London then we got on much better together. It was still a bit of a push to get through to the rather obvious ending that was something of a relief.

Not a terrible read but hardly a classic. It's a shame that I won't be rushing out again :/

The acorn does not fall too far from the tree. Not so sure about the tree anymore.
I may burn for that!

SLAM-ed!!

First two rounds of the DreadBall league down at the Enfield Gamers last night which saw a healthy turnout of coaches raring to go.

Levels of preparation were decidedly mixed with myself well towards the bottom end borrowing Shaun's unpainted, unbased humans. To cap things off I walked in with the team unnamed and unrostered as well.

Don't worry though they definitely paid me back for it :)

First game of the night was against Ian's Forge Fathers, the Green Tray Stackers. Ian is well known around the club for the quality of his dice to the point where "Ian Dice" is a fully coined phrase. Fully prepped and far more experienced I was soon handed something of a lesson.

In short it was 7-0 at the end of the 7th rush which did at least leave plenty of time for post match analysis and tea making.

In honesty I made a few opening turn blunders quickly compounded by poor dice resulting in quick turnovers. Ian took maximum advantage. Buying up event cards each turn he deployed them to maximum and brutal effect. 3+ strength for Slams also helped :)

Main lessons;

1. Cards are important buy them whenever you can. Effective use means three activations for that player / play.

2. Sequence of play, do the no risk things first (schoolboy error from an experienced BB player!). Just because the game is fast and furious doesn't mean you should be!

Second game of the night was against Rob's Veermyn team, The Biters. Due to my lowly ranking I got to choose my opponent and did so partly because Rob always gives a good game and also so that I'd gain some experience of the Veermyn.

What followed was a (full) game of Benny Hill-esque incompetence as we were both plagued by the same appalling dice conspiring to ensure that neither of us could score. We could both set up the strikes no problem but no matter how many dice we could muster.........NOPE!

Eventually I managed a solitary 2 point strike in the 12th rush to break the deadlock, snatching unlikely victory from the jaws (sigh) of ludicrous draw.   

Main lessons;

1. Those cards again, HUGE part of the game as is the need to "play like you've got a pair". Go for doubling the big strikes to whip up the crowd to gain more coaching dice. Risk vs reward not playing by the percentages!

2. Look at all the options. Veermyn are quick and skillful, several times Rob just stole the ball from me and skittered away. Slam and bash is not the only way to win the game, not by a long chalk!

So by the end of the evening;

A Guard died against Ian but selling his body and my income bought me a 3rd Guard which isn't so bad.

One minor win / one big loss means that I'm currently mid league which is cool.

I've learnt a lot more and enjoyed myself massively doing so. Lots / some prep before the next round!

I've just ordered the Gamers Edition :)

Balls of Iron

As previously threatened I've just inflicted DreadBall upon my housemate / landlord, Mr Christian.

Basic rules with no event cards, fouls etc as this was my fifth game out of the blocks but even then my reference to the rulebook was minimal.

Mr C took Orx while I ran the Humans. As a seasoned BB player pick up was quick and he was soon giving out plenty of SLAM!! I meanwhile tried to hone the more silky skills which generally came off until the final move / strike...........at which point cr@p dice struck.

All in all it was a good tight game the Mr C won in the last rush. So, one more convert and a definate purchase for myself. I've already started working through possible paint schemes in my head.

Happy days :)

Grabbed by the Balls

Hello people,

Sounds painful but more the fact that my multi-phased hobby rehabilitation kicked off last night as I got down to the club (Enfield Gamers) last night for the first meeting of the year.

Plenty of new faces and after a fair amount of obligatory banter, geek and otherwise, I got in my opportunity for a third ever game of DreadBall. A good starter on Phase 1 then :)

Waiting for Rich to finish loosing to Shaun I had a good look through Shaun's DreadBall box (KickStarter) and was mightily impressed by the quality of the product.

The hooter sounds as I desperately try to remember what comes next!


1st rush 2 point score.........

The rulebook is the now relatively standard high quality, super glossy, perfect bound offering that we've all become used to. Plenty of good fluff and full colour art to go with the rules which has also become expected.

I had been tempted to pick up an MDF pitch as I wasn't sure how good the standard offering might be given that Mantic have often been criticised for the quality of their card tokens.
I shouldn't have doubted as it's a nice thick high quality printed offering outdoing your standard Blood Bowl board by some margin.

I had also read that the figures are true 25mm and relatively challenging to the regular GW painter. This proved to be the case for the former. I find myself to test the latter supposition.

 

...quickly followed by a 4 pointer!

It having been a good couple of months since last playing my previous games I honestly had to get Rich to remind me how things kicked off (groan....) and there was the odd prompt and explanation along the way.

Having said that I was very quickly playing my third ever game with the full rules, cards , special events etc with no reference to the rulebook what-so-ever.

As much as I'm an "experienced" gamer and prefer to learn by playing rather than reading I do think that this is testament to the smooth and streamlined nature of the game, it's very intuitive. I like that.

So, Phase 3 motivation project is DreadBall then :)

Tsunami strike back......

Back at the game I threw caution into the wind and with the dice in my favour quickly stormed into a 6 point lead when gaining a 7 point lead is an auto-win!

Having just bigged myself and / or the game I did then make a series of noob tactical errors as Rich fought back with his superior knowledge and experience of the game. Even with that undoubted advantage he only just manged to draw the scores to level before producing a super-jam special plat card only last rush score to steal the game.

Plenty of good lessons learnt for my good self which is no bad thing and all in the very best manner.

....to steal the game in overtime!!

So I had fun, learnt some new tricks and got myself well back into the gaming saddle. Good stuff.

 

Mr Christian, my soon to be housemate, also made the trip down for the night and left clutching Shaun's loaned copy of the game. I'm scheduled to move in on Sunday. Sunday night we're playing DreadBall. Phase 2 good to go!

 

All good stuff which leaves with a warm fuzzy geek-glow.

 

Merry New (Gaming) Year indeed :)



The Power of Love

Another End of the Year post but not quite what you might think. LIFE has been "interesting" recently and involved something of a hard reset. Its all a bit sucky but there you go the point of this post is not to bleat on (too much) but mention the restorative powers of the hobby.

As many might I plan on medicating myself with hobby-love though due to current circumstances this will come in a number of phases as I re-establish myself, both in terms of my living circumstances and my gaming ability.

Phase 1: Play games at the club.

Basically get back down the Enfield Gamers and play some games..............any games!
I am currently limited in the figures that I have access to, the ones that I've stored at the club, but this includes my set of Space Hulk which I definitely intend to see some table time.

Current themes at the club are Dreadball and 40K. The second isn't an option and the former is far more enjoyable. Rich is also running a DB tournament day at the end of the month so I've signed myself for a bit of extra motivation.

Phase 2: Play more games / read.

My previously regular reading has gone horribly astray with several offerings partially completed and a big stack of 2000ADs accumulated. Answer; pick one and push through. This shall be Pratchett's Dodger which I've been persevering with but its been as much work as pleasure :/

I also want to get back to gaming outside of the club. My soon to be house-mate is a vaguely lapsed gamer so, once I get access, I'll be converting him to Warhammer Invasion ASAP. Practice games of DB are also to be targeted.
Getting back to some regular roleplay would be good as would a good lump of Skyrim..........taking arrows in the knee :)

Phase 3: Pick up the brushes.

Hopefully by the end of this month........hopefully.
Various projects I COULD pick back up;
- AWI / Tomahawks and Muskets / St Peytersburg
- Dystopian Wars Republique de France
- Mordor Orcs SAGA

I WILL get round to these EVENTUALLY but none are currently / likely to be played anytime soon.
A new year and start is an obvious excuse for a new project, though a limited one which I feel is far more acceptable.....something that comes out of of one box for example.

Zombiecide was my first thought quickly followed by DreadBall. For £75 I can have either, Zombiecide via Amazon no less, pretty much complete. At that level DB comes with four teams and an MDF pitch, just not the MVP star-players. DB makes more sense for a lot or reasons :)

So thats about it really. The last half of last year was a bit of non event hobby-wise. The first half of this year will be about nothing but. No real targets for Painting Points other than previous gauge of an attempted average of 20 per month. We shall see.

For that I first need to get back to playing games and enjoying doing so which is what it's ALL about. Sometimes that's too east to forget!

The power of love............HOBBY LURVE :)

Watch This Space prt 1

As previously threatened here's the first instalment of blogs I follow and why I think you might be interested to do so as well.

First up we have  Carmen's Fun Painty Time whose posts form a regular part of my pre-work browse. My mate Shaun made the recommendation to me and he was spot on!

Skirmish is Carmen's speciality of the 28mm and 54mm scale with some old school role-play figures and an occasional watercolour illustration thrown in.

What really impresses me is the quality of his work, paint and sculpt, along with his ability to actually complete projects on a regular basis.

Some are a little quirky but always high quality with plenty of "labour of love" care and attention lavished upon them.

Recent projects have been Dark Future-esque post apocalyptic spins on a ruleset that the author probably didn't have in mind.

Carmen's stuff just speaks to me and leaves me equal parts inspired and vaguely envious.

Frontline Gamer was another solid gold recommendation, this time by Stewart.

Mr FG is a big sci-fi gamer and does a very good job of keeping track of what he thinks is hot and more importantly tells you why.

With plenty of industry contacts he's always got a view on the main frothing points of the day / week / month but always seems to manage to keep it constructive with a healthy dose of reality.

His Sunday Sermons are a personal thought provoking highlight and the inspiration for my altered blogging content during my hobby hiatus.

To me Mr FG is something of a real world gamer and seems to maintain a hobby position that I think many of us would like to occupy. Kudos!

Anyway, hopefully I've spread some love and / or inspiration. Until next time :)