More of the same?

No I hope it isn't too boring. I really want to get the Dreadstone finished and with a decent paint job too. Getting the base correct if going to be one of the hardest parts to do. I spent some time last night with a brown pigment and I dirtied up the base and outside a little. This didn't have the effect I wanted, that of muting the rust in the centre so I will have to take some corrective action there. Exactly what I don't know but the orange has to come off some how. It is just too stark. The brown came out fine without too much of an effort. With some plants and debris on the model it should work out really nice.

Here you can see a shot of the stone work outside. This came out better than the flat floor pieces. Working the pigment into the stones was simple. You can also see that I based the tower. This makes it easier to handle in general and in my mind at least frames the piece. I have seen a few comments, mainly from Rob Hawkins on the Privateer Press Blog, about not basing buildings but I really think this looks bad. Firstly with a self constructed building it strengthens the piece. This is really important for the long term use of the terrain which tends to be bashed in use. Also aesthetically it improves the piece as you can tie it into other terrain and the board quite well.

So tonight I won't get any progress made as I have a work training day and I will be wrecked tired. I will hopefully get this piece done over the weekend. I just need to get some propellant for my airbrush so that I can fix the pigments before continuing. I hope I am not boring you all with the slow progress on this piece!

Continuing with the Dreadstone Blight

I managed despite my amazing super drowsy, non-drowsy, medication to stay awake long enough yesterday to make some progress with the Dreadstone Blight. I lightened and tidied the stone work. Its still not finished but it is looking a lot better now. I had just washed the drybrushed grey with Badab Black to get some shading but that generally leads to it going on to heavily in certain areas. So to compensate I lightend the stone work in places, especially where they were too dark. I might go back and give some white highlights to the edges to make them pop, I will certainly do this to the more decorative elements that are there. Also as you can see in the picture I got busy on the magic dial in the centre. The rust in the centre looks a little vibrant at the moment. Thats mainly due to the camera. I will be darkening it down later so I hope it won't be quite like this on the finished model. At least this part of the model will be in shadown so that should also work to tome everything down. I plan on using a brown pigment on the lower stone courses and the floor to really make this place look over grown. Lets see how that goes!

What is Hunter: the Vigil

This question is a tought one. I have struggled with it for a long time. I can't really start to design a game until I know what that game is. I have read the books and I think the problem is that there is too much information. All the conspiracy and organisational stuff just gets in the way. There is too much confusion. Keeping it simple and down to earth for me is paramount.

I scanned the White Wolf forum today. Why I don't really know why but the following post clearer up a lot of confusion for me:

Hunters are not some big game hunters who happened upon Supernaturals and decided to change specialties. They are people, ordinary people, who found the supernatural and recognized that most of them are not exactly friendly.So they decide that they need to do something (this step is important! This is were the character picks up the candle and becomes a hunter).What they do, depends. They might try to contain them, study them, frighten them off, talk to them, etc. But sooner or later they are gonna be noticed by less friendly creatures or creatures who do not even understand the idea of talking. Hunting is not a life you choose. It is forced upon one by ones own morals. By an inability to stand aside and close ones eyes.

My players are getting restless . They know I have started to prepare stuff. I am nowhere near ready for gaming yet though. One of the toughest challenges I face is keeping the group small. I have about eight prospective players and I only want to have a group of four. Anymore than that makes it the game unruly and hard to creat an atmosphere for. So with the mantra above in my mind I can start designing the chronicle.

A Wallet Punch

So here we go again. Games Workshop have raised their prices again but this time its a pretty large rise. This is great for our hobby. Yep you heard it I think it is fantastic. This is the best move GW has made for us gamers in a long time. Of course on their behalf it is stupid, really stupid. Now maybe from a purely numbers point of view it makes some sense to them, it may even be an ievitable price rise due to materials becomig more expensive. I still think they should have tried not to make the rise quite so big.

For us gamers this means that a lot of Games Workshops range is priced unreasonably, especially when compared to some competitors. While I think Mantic Miitures are really terrible, quite like GW's miniatures from the nineties, they are value for money. At some point a decent manufacturer will release a really kick ass range I hope. However there are still alternatives and hopefully we will see these come to the table more and more often. I am looking forward to the day when some one takes out a really individual army at a tournament for me to play against. So in short this price rise will give other manufacturers a boost in sales and hopefully enable them to raise their own quality a little.

For Games Workshop it would seem that they are secure in their high street prescence in most towns and cities we know. This allows them to sell to impulse shoppers very easily. What twelve year old child(well male child at least) can resist checking out whats inside a GW store. I kow I couldn't. So Games Workshop will still sell plenty of Space Marines to passing traffic. The change in their poverseas selling policy is also interesting as this will promote brick and mortar retail stores (more likely it will just mean each area gets an internet superstore like Maelstrom). I can't say it is a bad thing, anything that supports local games stores is good but I do see the rise of the gaming super store driving a lot of these stores out of business and I don't see that this policy helps that much at least in the longer term. We shall see...

This price rise and the combination of eigth edition Warhammer Fantasy means a lot of lost players. I notce in my local games club that while 40k has been played almost every week that I have only seen one game of Warhammer Fantasy Battle there ever. I am not sure how this is going in my club back in Dublin but I am assume Warhammer may be on the decline there too. I wonder is there now any chance of getting these people back. Is their investment but finacially and emotionally in Warhammer now finished with? I know to an extent mine is. I like the game and the background. The miniatures are great. I can't really afford a new army any more. Or maybe I can't justify the cost of one is a better way to express what I feel. I can keep my Dwarves up to date and collect the new miniatures. I guess that means some spending every seven years or so when a new book with new toys is released.

There is a good post here worth reading. You will find a lot of handy liks to other cheaper manufacturers. Here is the link to the Space Marine picture I used above.

Friday Showcase - Battle Standard Bearer

This is one of the most important miniatures in my collection. He has saved me on quite a few occasions for sure! The model is a limited edition one from a 'Skullz' promotion that was done by GW a few years back. The offer allowed you to get various rewards, the only one I came anywhere near having enough Skullz for was this miniature. I think it cost me twenty five of the tokens. It is a wonderful miniature, one of my favourite Dwarf sculpts. The Banner I got with the model was miscast but that wasn't too bad as I hadn't intended using it anyway. The banner comes from the Orc box with a few accoutrements from the then current Clansmen box. The paint job was annoying as hell as getting a flat white on that banner over Space Wolves grey was next to impossible. Even keeping the lines of the runes was impossible. I of course went with Vallaya's rune for the banner. It has always been the most expensive rune available and of course one that I would never take! Thats always the way I find. I had to update him to the gold scheme of my current force which was fine and gave me a good excuse to finish the model. I just need to finish the gems I think as looking at them now they seem unfinished.