227: 2013 in review

So, how have your 2013's been?

As has become a tradition for me, I'm going to look back over the past year for my hobby to see where I was and where I've got to.  So in 2013 I managed:

• 36 Blog posts, passing the 200 mark for total number of posts
• One Force has progressed well, and now stands at 1500 points
• I'm especially proud of the conversion I did for the Storm Raven, I think it looks a lot better now.
• I went to two tournaments this year
• I came back from the March Throne of Skulls with the Best Necron certificate (in part thanks to also getting a Best Sports certificate)
• I made at least one of Blog Wars this year, and only just managed to avoid the wooden spoon
• Painting wise I managed to total up 70 painting points, not what I'd hoped, but not as bad as I'd thought it would be.

As well as all of that, I've also completely changed career, having to go back to school part time to do so, completed my first triathlon, and renovated about half of the place we live in, so I've been pretty busy.

I also started this year with a series of New Years resolutions, so lets see how I managed to hold up to them this year:

• Maintain 1 post minimum per week - FAILED: Although this worked for me in 2012, this year life and everything else kind of got in the way.
• Attend more tournaments/gaming weekends - COMPLETE: As well as the two tournaments I went to, I also got in a gaming trip to Warhammer World with some local guys. 
• Sell my spare stuff - PASS: I did sell of a lot of stuff, but there's still more to go, so not totally complete yet (but then it may never really be complete). 
• Complete my Skaven (at least all the models I own, and anything I buy) - FAIL: Nothing painted for the skaven, but thankfully only a Warp Lightning Cannon bought, and I hope to make a little progress in the new year. 
• Beat last years painting points score - FAIL: I came closer to equalling it than I expected, but just didn't have the time. 
• Bring One Force to a playable 1750 points force minimum - FAIL: I managed to get to 1500 points, and didn't buy anything new, so I'm almost through with all the models I currently own for the army.

So out of 6 resolutions, I managed to complete one, and pass one, but failed the other 4 which just goes to show that I was just a little too ambitious last year, or that I wasn't as dedicated as I could have been this year. Either way, I'm going to have to reconsider how I'm going to go about hobby next year.

So that's how my hobby year has gone, if any of you out there are doing something similar, I'd love to hear about it just in case I don't already follow your blogs. I'm away over the Christmas/New Year period, so won't be able to reply straight away to comments, but will be checking in as I now have internets abroad!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
- Andrew

226: Necrons vs. Space Marines

Game played!

Brief batrep from the game I played a week or so ago against the new marines.  I've included a very brief battle report below, but due to the shop closing, we could only get in 2 turns so its pretty short.

Marines:

            Chapter Master with Honour Guard

            Librarian

            3 x Tac squads with Meltaguns and Lascannon

            5 Scouts (Bolters and Heavy Bolter with Hellfire)

            10 Sternguard

            Dreadnought with Lascannon and Missiles

            10 Assault marines

            10 Devestators – 2 Missile Launchers, 2 Lascannon

            Predator Destructor

            Autocannon Hunter/Stalker variant

My Necrons

            Trazyn the infinite

            2 Destruction Crypteks

            1 veil Cryptek

            1 Lord

            2 x 9 Warriors in Arks

            8 Warriors

            10 Immortals with Gauss

            2 x 3 Heavy Destroyers

            3 x Annihilation Barges

Game was Dawn of War (long table edges) and Purge the Alien (kill points) so about as straight forward as possible.

The Marines went first, their setup, from left to right (my point of view):

Stalker/hunter, Devestators, Tac squad, Dreadnought, Assault Marines, Chapter Master, Tac squad, gap for a building, Tac squad, Predator.  The scouts infiltrated forward in front of the predator, and the Sternguard and Librarian were waiting in the Drop Pod.

225: 5 years old today

Amazingly, today marks 5 years since I started Iron Legion.  Can't quite believe its been that long.  Looking at the post number, it would seem that I've managed to average exactly 45 posts a year, a little under 1 post per week.  Not bad really, but that's not been all that consistent, with times when I've managed to keep a good run going, and other times like recently when a new job, going back to university, and renovating our house means that hobby ends up right at the bottom of the pile, I take a bit of a break.

I'll be back soon, and in the meantime, as a birthday present to you all, I found this out at a recent game and it was news to me:

Skyfire works not only against Flyers and Flying Monstrous Creatures, but against Skimmers too.  May not be all that important, but it opens up the flexibility of units like the Hydra, Hunter/Stalker and others that have the Skyfire rule without Interceptor.

See  you all soon.

224: Finecast is dead, and I'll be sorry to see it go

If you follow any of the rumour mills out there you'll have seen recent talk that GW is abandoning finecast in place of plastic and that forgeworld will be coming more "in-house". I'll probably be the only one to say this, but I'll be sad to see finecast go.

It's got problems, major problems, but if you step back from the rage for a moment, you'll see those problems have a lot more to do with the casting process than they do with finecast. Bubbles, flash, misaligned casts are all symptoms of casting resin and certainly not exclusive to GW or finecast. In fact I've seen the same people bitch and moan about all these things with finecast, but just put them down to par for the course for forgeworld because it is made from resin. Double standards much?
A lot of the problem comes from GW marketing finecast as the best thing since sliced bread.  A bold claim they couldn't back up with product, but get a problem with either their or forgeworld's respective products and they will replace them without question (at least in my experience, others may differ).  If only they'd taken some advice from forgeworld on casting techniques and problem solving, or had a decent quality control system (less of a problem with plastic, but I've still come across problems), I don't think they'd have had half the bad press they did.

I can only hope that we may see forgeworld start to use finecast so we can get their delicious detail without risking our health every time we try and clean and trim models. I also hope forgeworld getting closer to GW won't see their excellent customer engagement start to suffer, and that we might see a softening of GW's policies as they learn from those that are eternally loved.

Anyway, that's my 2 penny'th.

Andy

223: Keeping the Hobby - Notes

So it's been a while, and there's always reasons.  I won't call them excuses because they are mostly conscious choices but they are there nonetheless. Over the last few months I've completed my first triathlon (in under 3 hours, and all the training that entailed), cracked the 2 hour mark for a half marathon, and started a completely new career. We're also about to embark on a significant remodel to the main room of our flat, which will entail further disruption.

I'm sure I'm not the only one out there that finds the other things in their lives get in the way of their hobby.  I thought I might do a few posts on how I manage to keep abreast of what is going on in the hobby-verse and to scratch that hobby itch during the times I can't get to the paints or the table.  I'm going to title these "Keeping the Hobby", hopefully some of you out there might find the odd titbit of interesting information in them.

Notes

This one might seem strange at first thought, but how often are you doing something else and all of a sudden a thought pops into your head for a conversion, a pose you'd like to use for one of your guys, maybe an idea for a new army or some background for your existing army.  I know for sure that this happens all the time for me, but the problem I tend to find is that by the time at back at my painting table I've forgotten all about it.

I've taken to carrying a notebook with me as much as possible, dedicated purely to my hobby.  I'll write down paint schemes, tips I read or hear about, bits of fluff ideas or anything else that pops into my head just as quickly as possible in it so I've got them to go back to whenever I need to.

I'll tell you, its amazing the number of times I've sat down at my painting table, and drawn a blank when trying to figure out what to tackle next.  I quick flick through my notes and that's always cured.

So that's it for the first post, simple, but probably the most effective of all the things you can do to keep going with your hobby when you don't have time/space/energy to paint.

What do you do to keep your hobby mojo going in the lean times?  Lets hear your suggestions in the comments below.

Be back soon.  Andy - bG