Shenanigans

Greetings dear reader!

So this post is all about Shenanigans, you know the sort, dodgy things that happen in games, rules that just seem too good to be true, or just plain scary dice!

In the last few week we have had several of these events so I thought you'd like to hear them...

1) Bolt Action

Recently we have been gearing up for our 500pt Bolt Action tournament, and its thrown up a few very scary sceanrios! In particular, Air and Artillery observers are absolute beasts when they get it right, and more so when it goes wrong!

Take today for example, my poor Italian Bersaglieri had happily wandered into sight of a US air observer. He then proceeded to call down a pair of fighters, one who essentially ripped the heart out of my force, and the other who lightly peppered his own men! Cue cries of cheese (from me), and jokes about the Italian army and their flag waving abilities...

Or how about a few weeks back when my plucky British Bren Carriers parked up on a bridge only to find their own artillery observer had decided he would rather see the bridge destroyed, and promptly flattened my entire force! At least, I tell myself, he was free...

2) Dreadball

In Dreadball, sixes explode, so quite often you'll see someone suddenly have an intense burst of everyone's favourite dice side. Not long back I managed to roll 12 6's in a row, one after the other. Now, you might say this was a particularly impressive roll, and surely must have impacted upon the game, but no. Sadly all I needed a pair of successes to pick up the ball. And when I want to dodge? Nothing but 1's!

Many players are now beginning to realise just how useful drawing cards can be, and naturally, just when you think the opponent is out of actions, they flip that card they've been gripping all game. Often times it leads to a score, or (a thing feared by all Judwan players) the dreaded "Ball Shatters" card!

3) Dropzone Commander

Recently we have picked up this fun fast game, and as they were the last ones on the shelf, I picked Shaltari. Turns out they are full of shenanigans! I haven't quite mastered it yet, but the moment one of my guys nabs the objective, hops in his eden transport which beams up into the the nearest gate only to poop back out of one thats several inches from the table edge, but its a pretty fun tactic, even if it leads to all the normal players screaming blue murder at me!

4) 40k

Perhaps the biggest offender for shenanigans, 40k has more units in it that seem to ignore the standard rules or just replace them is unreal. Currently unpopular is the Stompa with half a dozen meks and grot riggers (essentially, unkillable), the Imperial Knight (affectionately known as Lord Stampy) and of course the dreaded Transcendent C'tan.

Its not often I complain about rules in 40k, I honestly believe every build has its weakness out there, but the transcendent C'tan is just wrong. That beast has butchered pretty much every unit in the store and still stood! I am trying to get him and the stompa to face off, and I'll report back here when they do!

What about you though? When do you call shenanigans? What do you think is the worst thing to face in any game?

Until next time....

A Tale of The End Times

Greetings and Salutations!

Here at Asgard Wargames, we have been swept up in wave of Warhammer Fantasy! With the rise of Nagash, the great upheaval in the Warhammer World and of course the amazing new miniatures, we felt it was high time that Fantasy had its moment to shine!

Our 40k Campaign is going great guns but will be winding down this month (updates soon!), so the time was right to look ahead. Now not many gamers here have a fantasy army ready to play with, so we decided to resurrect (no pun intended) an old GW White Dwarf format, based on the Tale of Four Gamers series.

The premise of TO4G was simple. Each month, four hobbyists would buy, build and paint a set of miniatures, with the aim of building an army. Back then they started with £50, and had a further £25 each month. The article is fondly remembered by many older GW fans and there are plenty of blogs and threads out there following a similar theme.

Our plan is a little different. Each month, from September to December, players in the Tale must build and paint 500 points (roughly) of their chosen army. At the end of each month, phots will be posted here, and WiP's can be seen on the Tale of the End Times group here: https://www.facebook.com/events/270184083171050/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

So, we gathered unto us a group of gamers who have yet to build a Fantasy Army...

STEVEN: THE BOSS

Ste (thats me), has decided (after much much deliberation), to collect a Dark Elf Army, simply because it ticks all of his Fantasy boxes- Strong magic, evil, and access to Dragons!

So far Steven has finished a box of Corsairs and has Dark Riders ready to go:

BEN: PAINT MONKEY

Asgard Wargames hosts Ben, of Vermilion painting as our in house commission painting service. Having seen Nagash, Ben's soul was forfeit and he immediately pledged his loyalty to the master of Undeath!

Using a mix of Games Workshop and Mantic Products, Ben has already raised a sizeable horde!

These 5 hexwraiths are work in progress, alongside them this month march 40 Skeletons and a Necromancer, with Krell, Black knights and Nagash himself all to come! 

ALEX: MANTIC-MAN

Alex is our resident Mantic Pathfinder and naturally, wants to show us all how to build an awesome Fantasy army, at half the price! Again, another of our gamers has been bitten by the Undead bug, and has this to show so far:

In his own words:
"I have 20 skeletons and 3 cairn wraiths built. I had 13 skeletons already started from an army I began last year but never got round to finishing. I also have 10 ghouls painted from the same army but it would be cheating to include those right now so I'll be starting afresh with those and the zombies when they arrive (along with the other 10 skeletons)."

ROB: MASTERMIND

Rob is our history buff and all round brain-box. Naturally, this lead him to the men of the Empire, an army famed for its careful use of its highly trained soldiers.

Rob is awaiting some items from eBay before he gets to work, but given his track record with Bolt Action, it won't be long before he has them painted!

CHRIS: BIG MEK

Chris has settled on an Ogre army known as the Red Horde. Chris has several armies, all of which are incredibly unique and highly customised. He will be building his Ogres from Mantic's Ogre range with a World of Warcraft theme...


Tune in soon for more Tales from the End Times....

The Storming of Bastille Round 3

Silence dominated the great hall as the censer bearing servitors took their place at the altar. The fumes curled and twisted around the mighty being knelt before them, its head bowed in prayer. 

"I shall purge the unclean. I am the bringer of fire and light. Where my hand falls, none shall stand." intoned the warrior in gold.

"We stand with you." The voices of the Space Marines behind said as one.

The golden figure arose, and grasped the hammer laid before him. He turned to the assembled warriors of the Imperial Fists and raised the mighty weapon above his head.

"Brothers. The arch enemy hammers at our gates. As Lord Dorn once defended the Imperium form Chaos, so now must we protect the citizens of Hive Primus. Arm yourselves, steel your souls, this will be a fight like no other." Lysander, First Captain of the Imperial Fists marched down the aisle, his stern face fixed on the horizon. Before him, the balcony overlooking the square flickered with eery light. Outside, the skies had turned dark and unnatural shadows cast themselves about. The screams of those whose own nightmares were besieging their minds filled the air. Chaplain Lo Chang appeared at Lysanders shoulder.

"Our scouts have reported the location of the enemy. The Black Legion have established a portal at Bastion XIV" he said.

"Then we have our target. Notify Inquisitor Vindomus we are moving out of the Hive. Order all remaining militia forces to hold the north gate. Vindomus has put Knight Paladin Tywin at our disposal, inform House Lannister of our plan."

"It will be done, Captain."

With that, Lysander turned and began preparations for war.


So, this round has been interesting!

Several alliances were temporarily brokered, notably between the Black Legion and the Chaos Daemons, the Tau and Dark Eldar and the Imperial Stars and Charcarodons. In the manner of the outbreak of WWI, each attack triggered an aggressive response from the allies, leading to two huge battles!

 As you can see, lots of attacks on the Imperial held worlds! As it happens, when designing the campaign rules, I had stipulated that base hexes could only be attacked from and adjacent hex, and not from a space port, but we were so taken aback at how quickly the map moves escalated, that we just went with it!

Here are some pics from Sundays big battle day:

Game 1: Tactical Escalation, Imperial Stars and Charcarodons (4,200pts)  vs Tau and Dark Eldar (4,000pts).

Deployment: Short table edges meant limited maneuverability in such a big game! With the Tau and Dark Eldar needing to stay mobile, things were looking grim from the start for the Xenos!

Turn 1: The Xenos alliance attacks swiftly, but face a vast number of space marines, and their Stormlord!

The Imperial Stars take a defensive posture, daring the aliens to come to them!

Result: A win for the Imperial forces!

Game 2: The Scouring, Imperial Fists, Inquisition, Imperial Guard and Space Marines (4,000pts) vs Chaos Daemons and Chaos Space Marines (4,000pts).

Deployment: Ser Tywin of House Lannister holds the right flank alongside the forces of the Inquisition and Imperial Fists.

Captain Lysander drops onto the left flank right in the face of Be'lakor and his Balck Legion cronies. He proceeds to weather the storm of firepower and ultimately kill Be'lakor in hand to hand. The Black legion never got out of their corner thanks to his heroic efforts.

Meanwhile over on the right flank, Greater Daemons drop from the skies. Luckily, Ser Tywin is able to finish off the Bloodthirster, the traitor Knight and the Lord of Change in close combat thanks to a lucky roll for prescience! Though it turned out to be not so lucky for the caster, as the enemy knight toppled over and landed on top of his squad, killing them and the nearby scouts!

Attention turns to the Black Legion in the second half as a trio of Storm Talons scream in to finish off the traitor armour

Result: Victory to the Imperium!

All four attacking armies were driven off the worlds they had attacked ready for Phase 4 this Saturday!

Phase 4 will be a turning point in the campaign...


Lysander surveyed the battlefield. Few corpses littered the ground, the Daemons having vanished back into the warp and the Black Legion having fled his wrath. He had struggled with the shadow-creature, his blows simply vanishing through its incorporeal form, but as it had taken solid form, the Hammer of Dorn had struck true. Things could have gone very differently, Lysander knew now what manner of foe Vindomus had tracked.

Even now the Inquisitors men were sealing the warp-breach. Curiously, he had not been able to contact the Inquisitor herself, though he trusted his men to protect her should the arch enemy strike back. 

"My Lord, communciations are worsening, the warp clouds even the most minor of attempts" a disheveled looking Astropath said as he shambled up to Lysander.

"It is the warp portal, its essence clouds your mind" Lysander spoke, his eyes never leaving the burning husk of the traitor Knight.

"No my lord, with all due respect, it is not."

"Explain"

"The warp is resurgent across the system, this portal is powerful no doubt, but its influence is not that great."

"Then what is causing it" Lysanders eyes finally met the blind ones of the Astropath.

"I cannot explain my Lord. It as if something approaches through the Sea of Dreams. What I sense, is merely the bow wave of its presence."

"Return to Hive Primus. Consult your brethren. I would have answers immediately"

Lysander turned and headed towards the waiting Thunderhawk, his mind more troubled than ever...

The Storming of Bastille

Greetings!

In this last fortnight, we at Asgard Wargames launched a 40k campaign! I think it's every hobbyists dream to play in campaign games, its a great driver of narrative for your forces and really brings your collection to life. With a slew of 40k players now using the store, it seemed right to break down those barriers and get them playing other people outside of their usual opponents!

So begins the Storming of Bastille...

Here is our map, showing the Bastille system. We used the Planetary Empires Rules but only allow movement between worlds via spaceports. Each player has 3 armies, a 2k, 1.5k and a 1k force. Each HQ must be unique but the armies can share miniatures!

In the above image, you can see how everyone deployed. Players nominate a supreme commander from their 2k army. Then roll a D6 and add the commanders Initiative. Players take turns in order of highest roll to lowest. In this case, Anth, our Daemon player rolled highest (Bloodthirsters have a very high initiative it seems!)

Anths Daemons (Red): Seized control of Kazhkut, a Death World and made their initial attacks on Bastille Prime, whilst repulsing an aggressive Tau invasion!

Dan's Dark Eldar (Purple) deploy next and seized the Hive World of Pasha, inflicting hideous tortures on the unsuspecting populace. Dan's forces also leapt onto the Tau Garrison force on the Agri World of Dremarr, but the survivors of the failed attack on Kazhkut arrived in time to force the Dark Eldar to flee (but not before spiriting away an unknown Relic!)

Black: Ste's Inquisition. I deployed my forces onto the primary world of Bastille Prime, and set about quickly reeducating the wayward populace. Word of multiple Chaos incursions in the outskirts has reached Inquisitor Aemilia Vindomus, who has ordered an all out attack as soon as possible!

Ben's Carcharodons (Grey), took control of the desert world of Ghado and made their presence known by issuing threats to the Orks of Waaagh! Mekamungus and the Chaos forces of Be'lakor! A blistering cross system strike failed to cripple the Orks though, whose mechanical walkers crushed their valiant attempt to repatriate the fortress world of Gendarme.

The Orks of Waaagh! Mekamungus immediately seized the fortress world of Gendarme, and its pristine bastions are soon covered in orkish "improovments"! Mekamungus sent his loyal(ish) forces to defend against the beakies and much blood was spilt, first campaign blood to the Orks!

The Tau (Sean, in light blue), seized the verdant agri-world of Dremarr, intent upon establishing a foothold on a world rich in resources. Initial forays in system met with disappointment, as an angry Daemon army refused their diplomatic overtures in favour of bloodshed! However, their successful defence of their home base led to a sudden ceasefire between the Dark Eldar and Tau, as the two xenos races promised to avoid each other in future!

Sam and his Chaos Space Marines (Brown), seized the world known as X-62-Tertius, a quarantined world. Quite what Abaddon and Be'lakor sought on this world is as yet unknown, but the Warmaster wasted no time in advancing upon the soil of Bastille prime itself.!

Finally, the penitent crusade of Imperial Stars (Rob, in green), seized the world of Launay, intending to use it as a base to support the imperial cause. Requesting to be observed by Inquisitor Vindomus herself, the Stars hope to expunge their earlier sins in glorious battle. Vinndomus welcomed the aid, and has issued her orders...

So that's it, Phase 1 and 2 complete! Join us soon for more tales from the Bastille Sector....

Vanity, I name thee google!

Everyone does it.

You don't like people to know you have, but we are all curious.

Just a quick one, where's the harm?


I am of course, talking about "googling" yourself (what else?). Its something we have all done and usually just for a laugh. I remember my first time, I googled my name and the first results were about a convicted murder on death row. Still it helps on the old CV.

Now being a small business owner, I can tell you we are insanely curious about how the outside world perceives us. Now I have the advantage of having lots of regular customers, who are fast becoming friends, so I can gather some feedback from them. But what of everyone else? Good feedback is easy to find, but what about those who have had a bad experience (gods forbid!).

So I did what any person in the 21st century would do. I googled "Asgard Wargames"

imagine my surprise when I found this glowing review:

http://beardbunker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/top-quality-advertainment.html

Whoever this person is, has my sincerest thanks. I mean really. It made my day. It's nice to know that out there are people who appreciate what I'm trying to do!

So, to you, Assistant Kogz, I say thank you.

The (Multi) World Cup Final!

Well the halfway point in the year has been and gone, like a speeding ball of titanium its has firmly slammed us into the next half of an already crazy year. Why all the Dreadball references? Well here at Asgard Wargames we have finally wrapped up our Dreadball-fest with the final game of our World Cup homage!

Playing for the final were the "Slaggy Island 39'ers", a corporation team managed by the youngest Dreadball coach ever at a mere 7 years old, Ben Hinchley. Facing them were the ever placid "3rd Way" a Judwan team ably coached to victory by my good self!

Heres how the game went:

Rush 1-5

The 3rd Way gain the home advantage and begin their final by getting knocked on their backsides! Luckily they land themselves a cheeky 3 pointer before the unfortunate chap above was taken out (permanently)

The Judwan once again set themselves up for a glorious passing game, netting themselves another 3 points!

The Corporation strikes back! More Judwan get knocked out, leaving a mere 3 left to play! Worse still, they score themselves 3 points, bringing the score back to 3-0 to the Judwan!

Rush 6-10

A plucky Judwan player leaps into the fray to distract the opposing striker and succeeds- the ball scatters!

The plucky Judwan then leaps after the ball, only to scatter it himself- right into the path of the nearest Corporation Striker who goes on to net himself a single pointer!

Rush 11-14

Now the mad scrabble for the ball begins! Using a tried and tested tactic, the Judwan set themselves up for a passing game, whicht he Corporation now try to shut down! Luckily for the pacifists they net themselves a further 3 points leaving the score into the final rushes at 4-0 to the Juddies!

After fumbling the ball all game, the Judwan put the "Pass" into Pacifist and score 3 points netting them an 7-0 victory!

I'll be honest, that game had me on edge all the way until the second half! My Judwan seemed to have greased themselves before the match as they either fluffed their pick ups or found themselves slammed into the ground by over-enthusiastic Corporation Guards!

As the store owner, I couldn't very well claim the prize (other than the glory!) so our 2nd place team won themselves a brand new team!

He chose Judwan. I approve.

Whats occuring?

Hail!

This post will be all about what's happening this month in the shop. Alongside a slew of new gamers, shoppers and painters, we have have now started to build up a core of regulars in store, which is great as it means we can start to organise more in the way of regular play!

1. Painting Competition

Games Workshop updated their paint sets this month so the old ones had to go. After pilfering a few paints for the shop table, I boxed the rest and offered them up for the best painted miniature! The rules were simple, any single miniature from any range could be entered. The miniature was then photographed and put on our Facebook page for a week for our fans to judge. The highest number of likes won the set!

Here are the entries:

 Captain Mainwaring, From Warlord Games. Painted by Ian. 2nd Place










Candy, from Wyrd Games Malifaux system. 3rd Place










Buzzcut, MVP from Mantic Games Dreadball. Painted by Alex.

 Tau Commander, from Games Workshops Warhammer 40,000 range. Painted by Carl











Decembers Fist, from the Children of December box by Wyrd. Painted by Ben

 US Sherman crushing Germans, from Warlord Games Bolt Action range. Painted by Craig












Italian Machine Gun team from Warlord Games Bolt Action Range. Painted by Rob

First place went to this superb 25th Anniversary Crimson Fist Captain from Games Workshops Warhammer 40,000 range. This was painted by Ben H.













Now not only were we thrilled with the competition, but the winner, was in fact only 7 years old! So it was nice that he could be judged independently and without any bias to his age, and still come out the winner! Here he is collecting his prize:

We enjoyed running it so much, we are doing it again this July. Entries with the theme "Master & Commander" should be in store no later than July 5th, with the judging finishing the following Saturday.

2. Dreadball (Multi)World Cup

After the great success of our first ever Dreadball League, we decided to honour the spirit of the World Cup, by hosting our own version! 6 teams are playing, with the top 4 in round 1 going onto the quarter-finals, the last two into the play-offs. Here are some shots of the games:

The results of round 1 are below:

1. Slaggy Island 39'ers (7pts + 10 cheers = 17)
2. Sleep with the Fishes (6pts + 3 cheers = 9)
3. The 3rd Way (2 points + 2 cheers = 4)
4. Metal Martyrs (-2 points + 2 cheers = 0)
5. Splinter's Cell (-6 points + 4 cheers = -2)
6. The Constructicons (-7 points + 0 cheers = -7)

So The Play-offs will be between 5th and 6th, and the Semi Finals will be between 1st and 2nd Places, and 3rd and 4th places!

3. Warhammer 40k

Of course, with 7th edition having taken the wargames world by storm, everyone is playing 40k here it seems! Is it just me or is the logistics of running a game starting to take over though? Take a look below, all those cards, templates, rules etc are starting to overwhelm the armies themselves!

That being said, 7th edition is easily the most fun we have had playing 40k in many years, and we heartily recommend you try it out!

Needless to say we have much more planned for July, including Deadzone, Malifaux and Bolt Action games, as well as the long anticipated return of Gorkamorka....

Until next time Asgardians....

World Building

This week we have been busy preparing for the regional Kings of War tournament that is being held at Asgard Wargames on Sunday June 1st. Back in March when we opened, our local Mantic Pathfinder asked if he could use the shop as the venue for the tournament, and I of course agreed! Little did I think at the time just what that meant...

We are currently still pretty small as wargames shops go, with only 3 6'x4' tables available. The idea with that was to ensure I didn't overreach should things go awry, and so far it's worked out quite nicely, and I've had no complaints (as yet!) about lack of gaming space. Added to that we are open every day, so we can nicely spread out our growing group of gamers over the week. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that in the near future we will need to transform our upstairs into a gaming hall, but that's for a future post.

The tournament itself will be between six players, and we have the perfect number of tables to host that, handily. What I didn't have, was three tables worth of fantasy terrain, as our boards are split evenly between, fantasy, sci-fi and historical. What was needed was a crash course in terrain making!

Happily I managed to botch together some trees and some flower arranging material (Oasis or its equivalent), and have produced some pretty rough, but suitable terrain! Huzzah!

This is our current set up for Bolt Action. Seen here are buildings and fences from 4Ground, and eBay tees and roads, all on top of a Citadel Realm of Battle.

Our sci-fi board is once again based on the Citadel Realm of Battle, with added 40k scenery. I'm planning on adding Mantic's Battlezones stuff very soon!

My most recent acquisition, sat upon a simple grass mat is our latest terrain piece, the Sewers of Malifaux set from Wyrd (this is a work in progress!)

Once our gaming room is up and running, each terrain type will have a dedicated board to save messing on, but for now I'm very pleased with how things are shaping up!

So my question this week is this, how do you approach terrain in your gaming space? Do you go for the simple yet effective, or are you an all out world builder?

Tips and tricks much appreciated, I'm always on the look out for new ideas! 

Until next time...

Planning Permission

Here at Asgard Wargames, we are mostly doing two things. The first, of course, is charging our lasguns and loading our bolters ready for Warhammer 40,000 7th edition next week. After the last post, I had come to the conclusion that it was time to enjoy my Jobby (my Job-Hobby hybrid, of course) and really threw myself back into planning and painting!

The trouble, I find with owning a gaming store (apart, of course, from the bills), is that there are so many awesome games out there that my customers are wanting to play, and only so much time I can devote to each! Of course I want to have a bit of everything so i can join in the gaming fun too, but there comes a time when you have to prioritise and force yourself to resist the shiny toy soldiers!

So this week I settled down to decide what my hobby priorities are for the forseeable future:

1. Warhammer 40,000

The new edition has really fired me up. The idea of unbound armies has shocked many into rage-quitting the hobby, but for me, it represents the perfect chance to have all those ideas I've ever had come to fruition! 7th Company of all Landspeeders? Check. Leman Russ Tank Platoon? Check. Almost 300 Gaunts? Sorry Phil Kelly, but no, the gloss alone would drown my hobby butterfly!

So now I'm looking to my Imperial army (as it now can be called) and my budding Dark Eldar army with renewed fervour. Already this week I've painted up my Captain Darnath Lysander conversion and I'm halfway through a squad of Imperial Fist Terminators to accompany him. Alongside them stand my newly painted Inquisitor and her retinue of followers. So my now 1500pts of Imperial Fists, 500 of Grey Knights and 250 of Inquisition stand ready to face any foe! Years ago, this army would have been inconceivable outside of apocalypse, now its not only game legal, but Battle-Forged to boot!

I'm also hoping to take advantage of the Unbound army rules and build myself a nice army of Dark Eldar with all the fun stuff like the Talos, grotesques and the odd Razorwing, just because I love the models!

2. Gorkamorka

One of the best things to have happened recently is, through random conversations in store, to find that my own love of the classic 90's game Gorkamorka, was shared by quite a few others. So, the idea was formed to resurrect this old gem and get some games going of this frankly brilliant game! So was born, GORKAMORKA REDUX!

A quick rummage in the bitz box and I had myself a Rebel Grot Cutta and plans to build myself a warband of renegade Gretchin. If you haven't seen or heard of Gorkamorka, go to google now. Go on, I'll wait.

Good eh? It really was the defining game of my early hobby life, and I suspect is the reason I look for fun in a game first. If I'm laughing about it before having played it, its for me!

So the guys in store have all begun working on their own mobs. We have classic miniatures form the actual game, through to guys using Warpath Marauders and even a toy car converted into something truly orky! Expect a full blog post about this in the fullness of time

3. Malifaux

Another skirmish game that has recently piqued my attention is the crazy looking victorian-steampunk game Malifaux. Set in a city that sits between two worlds, you lead a band of warriors hunting for soulstones (condensed magic) either to use them for nefarious purposes, or keep them from those who would do so!

Malifaux was a game that I had decided to stock primarily because it was seldom seen but had an incredibly beautiful range of miniatures. Not only that but the 2nd edition of the game is moving towards plastic rather than metal, and the detail on those plastic miniatures is incredible, far in excess of pretty much any other game out there. There was a lot of interest to begin with but with people not knowing anyone to play against, it made them reluctant to take the plunge.

However, I have now gathered a group together to get some games started, and along with a new terrain board (the incredible Terraclips Sewers of Malifaux set), we will soon be battling it out! Stay tuned to the blog and facebook for more

Finally, one of my customers is hoping to start a Bolt Action Escalation League, starting at 500pts. Having recently invest in a bit of WWII scenery for the store, I am now confident that we can get that off the ground in the near future too, indeed I'm eyeing the Soviet Infantry on the shelf as I type...

So, that's my hobby plans for the near future (not to mention the Wood Elves, Deadzone Asterians, Mars Attacks!, and Dropzone Commander stuff I'm hoping to get into soon too!).

What about you though, how do you organise your hobby? Planned or organic? Lots of games or just the one? Skirmish or massed battle?

Comment below.....

Tribes and tribulations

Afternoon all!

First off, thanks to everyone for looking at the blog. I linked up with Natfka's Faeit212 this week and got a really big boost in viewers, so thanks for clicking!

Today I want to talk about how I have found the community since setting up shop. Before I became the greatest retailer in all of Gilkes Street (maybe), I was a humble wargamer, much like yourself (except shorter and rounder). My own "meta" as it's known, had dried up to nothing since leaving uni, I just didn't have the connection to the local wargames scene (despite its size) and so I continued alone for a few years quietly building and painting forces that appealed to me aesthetically.

About 4 years ago, an old friend returned to 40k and with him, came my first games in about 8 years! It was like starting all over again, but that was fine, because we both had a blast! We would game very infrequently, but when we did, it was an event. A full day trip to Warhammer World, a few casual games, good food etc. We loved it, and you might say, that this was now my "meta".

Fast forward to six weeks ago (in a weird wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey sort of way), and I hit a hugely unanticipated flaw in my otherwise brilliant business plan. I had vastly underestimated just how diverse and how factional wargamers had become. Back in my day, you were a geek for playing wargames, and we wargamers stuck together. These days, there are so many different games going, that little sub-factions have appeared.

I seriously hadn't seen the level of factionalism coming. I felt so judged because I carried this range, or didn't know of another it was bizzare. "Can't we all just get along?" I wondered as rampaging Warmachine players chewed through Mantic games, whilst die-hard Games Workshop fans formed a shieldwall against the onrushing hordes of Bolt Action fans. Well maybe that didn't happen. But it sounds good, and that's the main thing...

On top of all that, I've found myself chatting more and more online with others who are finding it hard to get their "meta" to try new games. All too often I hear "My local club is more of a (insert game/company) club so I can't really play (alternative game/company) stuff." Yet I hear great tales from other about clubs like the Redcar Ironbeards  whose mantra is "If you bring it, we will try it". How cool is that?

Anyway, after many weeks of thought, I decided that as an independent, it was my job to bring harmony to the community, balance to the force, the horse to the well etc. I had two ideas about this:

1. Become a defender of the faith. Basically challenge any and all hatred of other games in the hope that people will simply agree to disagree.

2. Become a champion of the cause. Here I would have to be the flag bearer for every range I stocked, enthusing about every range and every model.

Neither really appealed. I had vowed some time ago to dictate my business, and not the other way round. My customers come to talk hobby and so they should, as long as its about a hobby they are passionate about, for good or ill! So this past week I've had debates ranging from how GW is an evil empire run by bean counters, to discussions about how GW are producing some of the most amazing models they've ever done (seriously have you seen this guy? ). I've chatted about how I feel Mantic Games have a lot of work to do on the quality of their models before I buy an army off them, but I've enthused about how brilliant the new terrain is (and about how I'll be first in line when they release Mars Attacks!)

"So, what's the point, you crazy muttering madman?" I hear you ask.

Well it's my hope that by waxing lyrical about how divided the community seems to be, I hope I'm holding up a mirror to you, the gamer. Ask yourself next time, "Do I really need to hate another game/company so much?", "How bad can it be to just try something new?" or "Why the hell did I read that entire boring blog?" At the end of the day we are all Wargamers and we should revel in the fact that we play war in a golden age when our every geeky whim is catered for.