Saturday 5 December 2009

Tangency ahead ...

It's late and I'm listening to the THACO podcast interspersed with Julian Bream playing Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez (there's some culture for you fuckers) and attention span problems are hitting. I need to be doing about four or five hobby projects at once. Stupid, yes, but it's how I'm wired. Rather than berate the reader with vitriolic diatribe interspersed with gay sex jokes (hurr u liek it up teh botti), I'll just get on with my latest scheme and what's going on with my Desert Nazis (just switched to Bream playing Bach's Fugue in A Minor).

The Skorne will be coming along (I'm just prepping my Tyrant Commander, a mini that looks like it's been fucking hit with a tattooist's needle it's that fucking pitted), to be followed by some Cataphract Cetratii. These will be speed painted (but hopefully not rushed). I have the mini I'm painting for my fellow pressganger (still in need of prep), Kaelyssa (bloody Matt DiPietro), basic sculpting to learn (blocking forms, correct proportion and the like). Add to this a novel I'm plugging away at in the background and I need one more project to fritter away my life with.

Enter the great devourer.

I know, it would have been better if I had wrote 'Enter the realm of Chaos, your nightmare has just begun' and waffled on about Bolt Thrower and how music was awesome when GW was more open to random projects and added some more gay jokes (u stil liek it up u'r bum) but I'm quite mellow at the moment (must be the music, I'm back to Rodrigo).

My history with GW has been quite odd. I think that the management buy out circa White Dwarf 120-ish was a bad thing, and their propensity to simplify and add space machines to everything pisses me off (not to mention the legal department headed, I'm reliably informed, by the very
cliché of a greasy lawyer type) but GW kept the hobby alive during the dark times, and as I hob-nob with the higher-ups of the design studio every now and again (who are all really nice guys), I'm prepared to forgive them. Fuck, they aren't hitting me with a cease and desist and I don't really give two squirts of piss about your opinion on Bloodbowl.

The oddness comes from the fact I have never had a full army of GW's before. There, my shock admission is out in the open. When I played my only two games of 40K (then called Rogue trader) 22 years ago, I got had twice and decided to stick to roleplay. Battle at the Farm, where you could be Crimson Fists or Space Orks. My one game of Warhammer Fantasy came during my quest to paint like his holiness Mike McVey and I played with a friend's gobbos against his Dark Elves.

Then I stopped with the hobby for about 10-12 years. I had seen some of Mike's miniatures in real life (specifically his Heroquest diorama and his Eversor Assassin and Emperor vs. Horus dioramas) and I was shocked at how different they looked in real life. For one, you couldn't see the filligree painted on the Emperor's armour and the colours looked so much more rich and vibrant in reality. I was basing my painting style on the lighter way the models appeared in White Dwarf. So they looked quite bland compared to how the high end painters I desperately wanted to emulate really painted.

Add to that my rather punishing training shedule (8 hours work, 6-8 hours gym and martial arts a day) and there wasn't time to do the hobby any more. However, the great thing about toy soldiers is you can always go back to it. I also have found one of the last minis I ever painted before stopping, a test model for a Chaos army in WFB. Yes, I'll get some pictures so you can have a good chortle, you pack of bastards.

Which brings me to the point of this rather meandering post. I am embarking upon my very first 40K army, and it is Tyranids. The greatest menace the Imperium has ever known, and an archetypal 'horde' army. I have started at the top and got my army leader, the Hive Tyrant. He's huge, far bigger than most generals, and directs the will of the intelligence behind the 'Nids on the battlefield. He's also a bit of a bullet magnet, so I imagine there will be very angry posts on how everyone 'lieks it up teh bum bum' because they can beat me easily.

I'll be at Wargames Inc assembling and painting this army, so if you want to come on down and get or give hints and tips on painting, modelling (miniatures or 3d only please) then pop in for a chat.

I promise not to post about your propensity for receiving the sossage up your brown eye at all.

Honest.

Rob
Angry at ... err ... racism. Yeah, that's always a good one to be angry about

4 comments:

  1. When putting in a late one (it happens, you know?), I tune into Radio 3's 'Through The Night' for all my rage-appeasing classical needs. Whilst the presenter (an upper-middleclass fop who, fortunately, injects fairly infrequently) is a touch wearing, why not train your 350 kilowatt laser brain onto that frequency? At the very least, should keep the paint flowing and deter you from those frequent plode, I mean 'fag' breaks. Or something.

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  2. Of course I meant to say that the presenter 'interjects' infrequently, but they're all on skag at the BBC anyway

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  3. It's good quality skag, I imagine. Smooth and mellow. But my BBC needs are Horizon and Top Gear. And just to clear something up, I don't have a quick one off the wrist while watching porn at work. I have a moral compass, unlike you psych feebs.

    Be pure ...
    Be vigilant ...
    BEHAVE!

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  4. I entered the realm of WhiteDwarf at about the same time you came bumbling in... my experience was enthusiastic but equally fruitless. Intriguingly, since I've started GW against (2 years ago), the prices actually seem to have come down - well compare to the rest of the overpriced inflated market that is ... and GW are running strong - which makes a change.

    On the listening side, I choose spotify for my classical needs ... and avoid the dribbling injections entirely.

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