Opening the vault

             A dense fog wafted through the corridors of the ancient vessel as Amallyn Shadowguide stepped off the Maglev with the small group of Rogue Traders. The path split, the eldar veteran pulled her rifle up to her chest and scanned the left. Then the right.... her keen eyes trying to pierce the darkness. Pausing. A mechanical whir forced her eye to the scope of the gun. But it wasn't mechanical at all that too her first bolt of fire. A patrolling guard almost walked passed the corridor if it wasn't for the 3 shots fired at him, two of which brought him to the ground. 

Yes, the gretchins are the spindle drones.

         Yes! It happened! My D&D group wasn't able to come together (fully), so we/I forced/begrudgingly agreed to learn Blackstone Fortress. The first round was a bit rough, looking up rules, and figuring out how the hostile enemies played out depending on certain situations (no line of sight, multiple PCs, etc.) I also decided to skip the reinforcement step as well. But my group seemed to enjoy, specifically Andrew. He was one of my friends that started playing when we were in high school. We both fell out of Warhammer for years, but now with games like Kill Team, Blackstone Fortress, even 8th edition streamlining the rules. It's definitely making a come back. 

       Pious Vorne was eager to enlighten the heretics that squatted in the Emperor's holy vessel. Anyone who doesn't believe in the Emperor is judged by flames!

The zealot traitor guards charge into the flames, several being burnt to death as Pious sets the room ablaze.

Janus unleashes a volley of rapid fire shots, but the guards keep coming.

         With the first game under our belt we can start playing more seriously, maybe even a legacy game.

Things to come!

Escalation League started, no games yet, but will have time off soon for Warhammer games. Comic Readers has also announced a Kill Team League which I joined, my skitarii will see the table soon.

    

Pile O' Shame

      Whelp! This is a bit embarrassing! Every year I dig through my D&D miniatures, tabletop game and board games and I try to figure out what I need to focus on for the year to paint. 2018 I got a bit carried away with how much stuff I bought compared to how much I got painted or played with. I feel it's important to see your grey tide for what it is and realized what you can get to or what you should sell off. With Kill Team, I find it easy to fall down the rabbit hole. I mean, it's only like 5 miniatures, oh but wait, I should get a commander and maybe some units for some variety... well I might as well make another army. Been there before!

Before I get to my grey tide, I will show off all the models that I did end up painting in 2018.

Excited to field my Harlequin, might need a commander though....

Start Collecting Clan Pestilens Box, Nightvault, Saurus Guardians and a butt load of nurgle!

Endless Spells (excluding Prismatic Palisade) and my custom Feculent Gnarlmaw

      That's not quite all of the figures I got finished, but it's close. I also painted the Kill team starter set terrain and a death world box of terrain too, but they aren't quite finished. That at least looks like a lot of work!

         And now for the pile!

Blackstone fortress!

Chaos has corrupted my paint area, figuratively and literally!

H&T was cheap, thought they would make good D&D figures.

Assortment of Battletech, Tau, Orcs and Bones minis

KT box is finished, my death world terrain was missing a piece so GW sent a new box of terrain to add to my pile.

Test of Honor is assembled! Haven't had to work with metal models in awhile.

My Boxing Day order from Thunder Games and Gifts! But which God will they worship?!

Oh boy! That's a lot to paint and play with! Both things I will aim to do more of this year. And of course, I have some Vostroyan Firstborn coming in the mail. They will fit nicely into kill team. I traded the genestealer Hybrids in the Kill Team box for the Ogryns, maybe they too will be come a converted part of the vostroyan firstborn, only time will tell!

Things to come!

        Beginning in February, I'll be organizing a Age of Sigmar Escalation League. It will be fairly beginner friendly, mostly aiming to get more people into the hobby. Quiet a few people getting into the game for the first time or trying out new armies, so it should be fun! Till then I'll continue to pluck away at the Blackstone Fortress, hoping to get 2 more heroes finished and get a game in.

2019 Hobby Resolution

            Looking back at 2018, I didn't get many of the items on my to do list done. Mostly because I was distracted with other newer and shinier things (curse you Kill Team!) The only thing I managed to do was assemble my Malifaux crew and play more games. At the start of the year, I was in a skirmish group, which helped move my painting along. Every game you played, you would get more points to spend on units, meaning more units to assemble and paint.

        But I did get a fair bit of painting done. This year I started adding bases to my units making them feel more immersive on the tabletop.

Completed Painting List

Nurglings (3)
Saurus Guard (8)
Clan Pestilan Start Collecting Box
Putrid Blightkings (5)
Tau Ethereal
Plaguebearers (10)
Myrmourn Banshees (4)
Skitarii Rangers/ Vanguard (5 and 5)
Harlequin (6)
Malign Sorcery Box (Only Prismatic Palisade left)
Custom Feculent Gnarlmaw (2)
Nightvault Warbands
Sepulchral Guard
Owlbear
Space Hulk Genestealers

       I started to work on my Space Marines in Space Hulk, cutting up the bases to use the Necromunda bases. Then don't convert very easily. Once Christmas hit though, my girlfriend bought me Blackstone Fortress. Let's just say it moved Space Hulk off the table for a bit.

2019 Hobby Resolution

New year's resolutions are better if they are compass goals, they are something you are interested in learning about, wanting to try, or would better yourself in someway, but it's more about the journey and the people you meet with similar passions that make it worth while. Without further ado, here is my list.

- Try Malifaux - I have the minis, might as well give it a go.

- Paint up Blackstone Fortress - excited to get this game on the table and introduce some of my friends that don't play much tabletop games. The minis are really nice too.

- Play Test of Honour - A samurai skirmish game? Count me in! I have been looking at Mutant Chronicles - Mishma for awhile now, but figured it would be just another game to add to my ever growing pile. When my girlfriend and I were in Calgary, we went to Sentry Box and they had almost any game you could think of! We both picked up a box to play against each other. Might grab the starter box later this year too.

- Play more buy less - Last year I was a bit aimless with my purchasing, figuring I would eventually make this unit into a kill team or use that in D&D. It felt like I didn't appreciate what I already had (pile of shame pictures to follow later this month.) before moving to the next big purchase. With that said, I have the battleforce box of Slaves of Darkness and some Vostroyan Firstborn coming in. I have always wanted a small group of Firstborn, and with kill team, that's all I need! There is always one (or two) more things on the way, such is the hobby.

- Post more often on blog - If I have more games set up, I should have more interesting items to post on the blog. Win/ win right? Last year I didn't really have a goal with the blog, just a place to throw up some pictures, but I want to make it into a journal, with updates to projects and to help keep the motivation high.

Games workshop just posted some amazing miniatures. I guess getting the Ambull and Skitarii Kill Team box won't hurt right?

Next time on Jon's Hobby Desk

I'll be working diligently on Blackstone Fortress till my Vostroyans show up. Once my hobby room is a bit more organized, I'll show you my grey tide that has gotten a bit mountainous.

Harlequin Kill Team

      After looking over my paint desk, I noticed that I have a bad habit of starting a project and letting it sit incomplete. I have plague drones that are mostly painted, but I want to magnetize the wings for easier transport. My endless spells were half done but they were taking up valuable space on my desk. After running a half Harlequin, half Drukhari Kill Team at our local Prairie Game Expo there was half a box (3) left to paint and assemble.

The three harlequin players that were painted for PGE

Completed team, I believe it was exactly 100 points!

        Harlequins were fun to paint and try out new ways to paint (like making those checkered patterns!) Now that Commanders is out, I might have to look into adding a Death Jester or Shadowseer. 

            After finishing my Harlequins, I bought some Ork Gretchins, the idea of having a Gretchin Leader was amusing to me so that might be in the pipes for a winter project. The boyz I bought around the release of Shadow War off ebay might be the humble beginnings of a new kill team. This passed weekend I also finished my two Shadespire warbands from Nightvault and decided to have my first 4 player game, I'll be posting pictures in the coming week.

Kill Team

       After waiting a full week longer then everyone else, (I ordered online for a discount) I finally have my kill team starter set! This box is an amazing deal, you even just get it for the modular terrain alone and it would still save you money. A friend of mine mentioned a great idea that would make this set all the better. What if they made thematic kill team boxes? Tau with orks? Thousand sons and space Wolves? Tyranid... fighting everyone? 

        For awhile, I have been trying to get my brother to play tabletop games, but he didn't want to spend much them ( or he saw how quickly I fell down the rabbit hole.) Now that kill team is out he can buy one box and get a descent kill team. Take an immortal/deathmark box. He could split the difference 2 Deathmark with 3 immortals or vice versa. Might not be the best idea for the big version, but with KT, it makes sense. 

      My first match of kill team saw my Tyranids up against Deathwatch. The objective was to run out of the battlefield edge on the opposite side. The only kill was from a genestealer, clawing  down the opponent's leader before falling out of combat to score 2 victory point. My lictor didn't fair very well, thinking he was pretty safe with his -2 to hit when in cover. A grenade to the face taught him otherwise. 

But he got his revenge, scored a great picture (no kills though.)

      I taught my buddy, Andrew, how to play the other night. My leader survived several shots to every limb, but just shrugged them off. It was only at the end of the game that Andrew noticed he wasn't rolling d3 damage instead of the 1 he was actually doing.

Garden of Nurgle

     After playing a few small scale battles with my putrid blightkings, I decided to give them a coat of paint. These models are amazing sculpts. I was a bit nervous about starting them, heck I even finished my Start Collecting Pestilence box then begin 5 of the disease ridden warriors.

When I start a project, the most daunting task is figuring out how to paint skin tones. (It does help that I can make it gross and messy for my nurgle army). Next batch of blightkings (10 more to go!), I'll try out a light green skin.

The Feculent Gnarlmaw is a key terrain piece for any nurgle army. It doesn't come with a base, but the feature is about 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. Making a wire tree was fairly easy and I tried out Cloth Mache on this particular piece. Adding a few nurglings and some other nurgle bits and you got yourself a garden worthy of the grandpapa himself.

With one terrain piece under my belt, I might make a few more Feculent Gnarlmaws to speed up my Nurgle Army! (Lord knows they need it!) Let me know what you think of it and any advice for my next project.

New Blog, goals for the year.

Greetings fellow hobbyists, and welcome to my new blog zone...blog spot.... blog.

      This is just going to be a small post about my hobbying. I am mostly into Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar. I do have small skirmish games that I hope to get games in for like Frostgrave, A song of Blades and Heroes and I just picked up the rules to Gaslands.

At the start of the year, I wrote down some hobby goals for 2018. Here is the list.

Assemble and paint my Outcast crew

I bought  the Herald of Obliteration box already assembled and based from ebay. Ronin are still in their package. Really enjoy the models, but the scale makes me a bit nervous to start them.

Learn to play Malifaux

Yes, I am one of those people. I buy new models before jumping into the rules to see how it runs. I have a friend looking to play and seems eager to get more people into the game. Where I live, Malifaux has died down in popularity now.

Completely paint 40k chaos army

When Dark Imperium came out, I bought two halves of the nurgle side. Think I might've bit off more then I could chew. I finished one half, but still have the other. This is an on going project, now that I also decided to paint up some khorne to go with my nurgle. I will have to post my grey tide of shame one of these days.

Play more games (1-2 a month)

I have been hitting this most months, but now that it's becoming spring time, there might be more temptation to do more things outside.

Start a shadow war campaign (with painted warband)

Last year my FLGS ran a shadow war campaign, I very much enjoyed the old rule set to it so I hope to get more games in. Lately, my brother was showing interest in a small skirmish game. Maybe I can setup some games with him.

Learn Frostgrave & SoB&H

I have had Frostgrave on my shelf for a few years, only got one game out of it so far. I was playing blood bowl when I bought it, and the way the wizard can improve (or get injured) reminded me of  Blood Bowl in a fantasy setting. My warband is painted, they are undead themed.

Face my grey tide

I have been buying a lot of warhammer and Age of sigmar at the start of this year and at the end of last year. My friend, Michael, was running a AoS Skirmish group for new players, so I wanted to finish up my Start Collecting box of Lizardmen and Clan Pestilent. 

Clan Pestilent ready for the battlefield

      I hope this blog gives me motivation to get more games in and to continue to improve my painting.