The Road Warrior: Post-Apocalyptic Gaming And My 100th Blog Post

"...and the Road Warrior... He lives now only in my memories."

With this post I hit the big 1-0-0 of posts on my Bearded Quail blog.  I may not have painted or played as much as I'd like this year but it's been enjoyable to keep a written record of my nerdy thoughts and get some occasional feedback.

The statistics on Blogger suggest a bit of a mixed bag of people reading this - the inevitable British but some odder countries get a mention.  Who'd have thought my poor quality painting would be of interest to readers in Poland, Turkey, Russia and Denmark?

I should really write something more deep and meaningful - or at least connected to the Chaos Dwarfs, Emperor's Children and other recurring topics - but instead it's a piece of writing on a whole new topic for me.  It's my latest purchase: a 1980s Games Workshop boxed game which was dead before I got into the hobby but which has had my interest lately.  A game I've never played but I hope to try very soon.  A game whose only edition is almost as old as me.

I speak of the game of highway warriors, Dark Future.

Back To Da Gobbos (And A Bit About Pink Too)

Da Green Wunz Is Da Bestest

What's on the painting table this week?  Why, it's Hobgoblins in an effort to get my Chaos Dwarfs ready to play at least a small game before 2014 is out.

The latest boyz

As you can see I've got 16 new Hobgoblins on the way, with the finished guys lurking in the background.  Once they're all painted up it'll be a beastly 30 man unit all armed with two close combat weapons and ready to go stab some people in the back.

Why We Fight - Making An Obejctive Marker For Warhammer 40,000

....would leave us alone and virtually surrounded, facing enemies ten times stronger than ourselves.

One can play wargames simply as an exercise in massacring the opposition - especially in historical/fantasy games, the tactics of the time mean whoever kills the most people usually wins.  However, more modern and science fiction games tend to have more complicated win conditions to reflect the nature of modern conflict.  Fighting over vital buildings, rescuing prisoners, trying to break free, stalling for reinforcements.... there's plenty of ways to play a game that sees victory measured in criteria other than megadeaths.

This becomes more true if, like me, you're an RPGer who enjoys building stories around the events in your wargame.  Two random armies shooting each other isn't quite as engaging if they aren't fighting over something interesting, such as a location which must be held for tactical reasons, even at a bloody cost....

You people will not die on me in combat. You fucking new guys will do everything you can to prove me wrong

....or an interesting object which must be taken from the enemy and brought to high command.

...I can't give you this case, it don't belong to me. Besides, I've already been through too much shit this morning over this case to hand it over to your dumb ass.

To that end, most Warhammer 40,000 games use objective markers.  You can buy functional but dull counters from Games Workshop - in the past, I have tried to make my own from odds and ends I had lying around.

Left is an ammunition crate, right is the fragments of a Space Crusade Dreadnought.    These were painted a couple of years ago when I started back on Warhammer 40,000

This time round I tried to make another one by painting up the cool base a Scibor figure came with to represent a chaotic magic circle type objective to be fought over. Pictures follow!

Armistice Day

Whatever Happened To The Post-War Dream?

Although my interests are fairly broad and I'm something of a politics nerd, I've made a conscious decision to use this Blog not as a generic one but purely for nerdy business.  On previous blogs I've posted long politic rambles, analysis of current events, questions about likely future happenings.... this one I've wanted to just keep as a painting & playing log.

However, it's hard to dodge the topic of today's date so for just once I'm going to make an exception.

Today is Armistice Day, the 11th of November and the 96th anniversary of the end of the First World War.  If you are from a Commonwealth country you likely had the traditional Two Minute's Silence today held around you, and some other nations involved in the Great War practice similar traditions.  You will not have been able to move for people wearing poppies, the traditional symbol of this day of remembrance.  (Though they may not all have been red.)

Hole In Time & Space

Glasgow Is About To E-X-P-L-O-D-E

I was off work all week last week and thusly had a nice time with Sister Superior lazing about - going to the theater, to the wrestling, to Edinbrugh and generally not doing anything valuable with my time.

I've also managed to do something else, though: add more Vortex templates to my collection.  I now have 6 large blast-sized ones so I can cover the table with holes in time and space as generated by my Missile Silo, and I also have 2 small blast-sized ones for psychic powers.

One Week of Nerdity

Look, ma! A music joke!

Good news, everyone!  I'm on holiday all this week, which means me and Sister Superior have a nice breather.  It's been pretty hectic at work so I'm glad for an escape, and of course it's always good to have time off for Halloween so I can nerd it up something rotten over the period.

Anyway, I've been up to a multitude of nerdy things in the past week - including, finally, getting back to work on the missile silo.  Pictures and comments follow!

The Battle Of Thermonaos - 1000 Point Imperials vs Chaos

An awesome Sister of Battle cosplay by JNA the Bornean cosplayer.

This monday I left Sister Superior on her own for the evening, travelled out to Dave's flat and took part in a wee game of Warhammer 40,000.  His good lady wife was away for a few days so he had the place to himself - we therefore hijacked his living room for a 1,000 point encounter between Chaos and Sisters.

A small 4 footish table was erected and dave covered it with his temple terrain.  His giant church may have been far too big for the table size... but it was too much fun not to use!  Our armies were broken out and deployed along the board, as well as a scattering of objectives (mostly down the centre line of the board).  Our mission was Big Guns Never Tire, which gives 3 points per objective held and also awards a point per Heavy Support unit destroyed (as well as a bonus point for First Blood and Slaying the Opposition Warlord)

The table at the time of deployment, with a squad of Chaos Marines and a Dark Apostle hiding in the large building.