Operation Dead-Pile in progress, Necromancer and Grave Guard finished

As far as I know every hobbyist has his own lead-pile or plastic heap: the collection of cool models that just had to be bought, but haven't been painted yet. Recently I started noticing a related phenomenon. I have an ever growing collection of models halfway through a paintjob that subsequently never got finished. Now the lead-pile will be there (and grow) forever, but I think this dead-pile can be rectified (and if not, I'll have a bunch more models painted so its one of those win-win type situations). I've called this new activity Operation Dead-Pile, mostly because I was really stumped for a title to this post (ssssh don't tell anyone). Between my regular painting (currently enjoying old Empire Freeguild models) I'll just grab a unit or model that is languishing with a basecoat and some colors blocked in and finish the thing of (quality be damned!)

The trick to finishing toy soldiers is occasionally just forcing yourself to sit down and do the work. Oh no, forced fun, life is hard ;)

Go for the eyes Boo! (and some ramblings about Warhammer Fest)

This Sunday I visited Warhammer Fest in Düsseldorf. I know, I should try to visit Games Day UK proper (or even better yet: BOYL), but Düsseldorf, Germany is just slightly over an hours' drive away and I think the UK is hidden somewhere in the mists of Avalon (hopefully this sounds slightly better then 'I'm too cheap to buy a plane ticket'). For those of you wondering what Warhammer Fest is all about: at its core it is a great excuse to gang up with some fellow hobbyists and spend a day shopping at the ultimate Games Workshop store.

A look from the balcony at Warhammer Fest, in front downstairs the outer edge of the ultimate Games Workshop, the display cases in the back feature Golden Daemon entries.

An ancient Chaos Sorcerer returns to the fray

Even though I like a lot of the new stuff, nothing compares to the truly great classic models. The ones made when the sculptors/designers clearly where on a roll. For me that includes a number of Waaargh! Orks (space) orcs and a large number of original Realm of Chaos champions (and other models from this line). I recently got my hands on this classic Chaos Sorcerer. As I am over-obsessing about Warhammer Fantasy 4th, questing through the Silver Tower with my wife and trying to keep a grip on work, kids and life in general, my painting output has gone down a bit. Still I managed to slap some colors on this guy.

Nothing quite beats the classic GW Chaos Champions. The few I own are set up at the edge of my painting table, primed and ready to be painted when inspiration strikes. 

Trouble in Teufeltal, a Warhammer Fantasy Campaign, session one

In my previous post I talked a bit about the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay ruleset based on a preview PDF. Using these rules I’ve set-up a campaign to play through and gathered a group to play it with. Last Friday we had a chance to get started. It was a night short on story, as building the characters with the group took up most of the evening, but big on fun. In this post I’ll run through a very brief overview of the story I've planned, give a summary of the game and end up with some of the things I learned gamemastering. 

Every adventure begins with a proper map (in this case inspired by a map in WFRP 3rd).

Quick sidenote: If any of my players are reading this, please stop as I’ll stuff these posts so full of spoilers it’ll ruin the game for you :).

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition, first look

This weekend I had a chance to play around with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fourth edition. So let’s take a quick step away from wargaming and add some roleplaying to the mix.  Around the end of last year/start of this year I gamemastered a first edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Campaign (with the Character Pack and fully random characters). I started with Night of Blood and followed up with Fire in the Mountains. Aside from first edition I’ve also played (and gamemastered several 2^nd and 3^rd edition campaigns.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is back, this time with a starter set and a collector's edition.

Age of Sigmar background primer: Soul Wars

Between the final installment of the Realmgate wars books and the release of the new edition of the Age of Sigmar core rules a lot of background has been added to the Mortal Realms. As my last series of background primers was/is rather popular it seems an apt time to bring everybody who has not quite gotten around to reading all the background up to speed.

Undead play a rather large role in the latest part of the story.

Grot Rock Lobbers and Aelf Loremaster step up to the plate

My vacation started this week and before leaving for exotic Denmark (no plans to visit Yorick) I had some serious time to paint. I took part of this time to clean out my entire hobbyzone (King Augeas' stables had nothing on it). The rest was spent with the Silver Tower Tzaangor (mentioned here) and a lot of models and projects lounging around on the shelves. The first of these to be finished were an Aelf Loremaster and this battery of Goblin Grot Rock Lobbers.

Buying second hand models with missing pieces lowers the price, give you the chance to be creative and makes a dent in the old bits box.