Warllama Weekly Issue 2

Monday 19th - Sunday 25th November 2012

As I said last week I had the week off and I spent 4 of those days back at my parents house over in England with my girlfriend so there wasn't any hobbying done. Although while there I did try and visit a couple of GW stores to add to the list. Unfortunately when we got to the Stevenage branch we found it was closed, I'd forgotten no shops open on a Monday or a Tuesday. Anna was not pleased! The good news was that the next day was Wednesday and we were planning to head to Cambridge. I had a great chat with a chap I think was called Steve and was hoping to see displays of the magnitude of their Games Day effort. I was disappointed but the friendly staff and the fact Anna walked out with bagfuls (although not free bags, what's up with that?!) of Christmas presents more than made up for it!

Also while we were in Hitchin we checked out a recently opened gaming store called Battle Worlds. Had a quick chat with the guys who set it up and they seemed really nice and chatty. They had a couple of gaming tables and a lot of stock around the walls. Mostly GW but some other systems too.

On the Friday after we'd got back to Cardiff I had some time to myself and decided I'd make a start on cleaning up some of the characters and finecast I had lying around. I managed to finish off the Blood Angels captain, a Cryptek, the AoBR Warboss and the DV Chaos Lord. I didn't quite get round to finishing off Draigo and he's the one I'm most likely to want to paint first. Didn't manage to get any of them sprayed because the weather was shit as usual.

Saturday rolled around and I had my alarm set to apprehend the postie and my White Dwarf, it never came. For the first time in fucking months it wasn't on time. Oh well, I had things to do so I set off into town to the Lego store to pick up a copy of a game called Heroica. I managed to avoid the screaming kids surrounding Hamleys next door and made it to safety. They only had the Fortaan set but I was happy with that.

Next on my to-do list was to walk down to Firestorm Games to pick up a Chimera. I also found the old Chaos Marine codex for £2.50, back of the net! No I haven't gotten back into fantasy, a Chimera of tank variety. I felt like getting one for my GK army and it's a cool tank, shame they no longer have the tread-guard parts but still cool. I got it half built that evening and also finished off season two of Walking Dead. Still adjusting to Andrew Lincoln having an American accent, I'm so used to him being Simon in Teachers.

Also that evening we cracked Heroica open. It does say ages 8+ on the box and I'd read a couple of mixed reviews but thought it would be worth a try. The most fun, as ever, was building the dungeon, and I think this is where the expandability is going to come in, building our own layouts. The gameplay was simple but great fun, it was cooperative so there weren't any arguments and we'll definitely be picking up some of the expansions soon.

On the cards for next week is my monthly review of WD and hopefully some priming. Other than that I'm not sure what I'll get done, check back to see what happens!

Ps. While I was back in Hertfordshire my parents took us out for a meal and there was a burger on the menu. I love my burgers of all varieties (except McDonalds, they're rank) so I went for it, medium rare, and it was fantastic. It could've done with a bit of relish or some mayo but what it lacked in condiments it more than made up for in quality. I have an idea for a burger blog so this might form the first official review, keep checking the tabs at the top of the page for if this idea ever comes to fruition.

Weekly Warllama 1

This was an idea I trialed at the beginning of the year to improve on the regularity of my blogging. It worked for a while but then I decided I didn't want one post to contain lots of independent things so I stopped. Needless to say the post output this year has been shocking, highly inconsistent and of dubious quality! This has to stop!

So I'm reinstating my weekly hobby updates. This should keep me thinking and writing, it should also keep me motivated so that I actually have something to write about, and it should make for an interesting read...

Week 1 - Monday 12th November - Sunday 18th November

It's been a quiet week on the hobby front really. I haven't had much chance to put brush to plastic but I have managed to do a few bits and bobs.

For some reason I had the urge to dig out my Grey Knight codex and start writing some lists. I dropped Draigo and this gave me so much space I was even able to fit in a Chimera and some henchmen. I love the weaponsmith model so just had to shoe horn him in there. Since I'm so bored with painting necrons and my #fwo forces are slow burners I might get around to painting more GKs soon!

On wednesday I popped over to my mates house for a game of 40k. I took a really basic ultra force, plenty of rhinos and tactical squads. I was up against Space Wolves, and he'd squeezed in 3 thunderwolf cav and a land raider. Needless to say I was up against it but held my own and came out losing 2-1 on secondary objectives. I was happy with the way I played and think my tactical prowess is slowly improving.

Saturday was a big day, the Imperial Defence Network / Wall of Martyrs that I'd pre-ordered was ready for pick up from GW Cardiff so I headed over before work. The box is massive and it was torture having to wait till closing time to get home and open it up. The sprues are fantastic and it all looks like it's going to take minimal clean up to get ready. It seems like it'll fill a 4x4 board nicely. The mechanisms to hold the sections together don't seem to do a good job so I'm thinking about magnetising it all which should stop unwanted movement during a hectic battle.

Finally on Friday GW put up some tasty advance orders. The separate bits of the defence line but also a 40k campaign book, the Crusade of Fire. There's not a huge amount of info about it at the moment and only minimal page shots but it seemed like it would be in the same vein as Blood in the Badlands so I snapped it up as it's a 'While stock lasts' kinda deal. It looks like it's penned once again by Andrew Kenrick which increases the link to BitB which is a fantastic read. It might inspire me to get on with my planetary empires tiles!

That's it for my week in wargaming. Next week I'm off work but there won't be any crazy #warllamanecronweek shenanigans this time around as me and my girlfriend have managed to sync our holidays and are going away to visit my parents back in England. I'll be taking my ipad though and am hoping to work on some lore (i hate the word fluff!). Might be able to squeeze in a bit of painting at the end of the week though. Cheers!

Oh and we watched a great series called Defying Gravity over the weekend. There's only 13 episodes as it got cancelled (fucking abc, they cancel everything that's good). If you haven't seen it and like cool space ships I would defo check it out.