Hobby in general:
I joined the local gaming club, called Games'n Dice. While I do know that the German TTG scene differs a bit from the one in the US, I'm not going to dwell on that topic today. Think I leave that explanation for another posting in the future.
The club cooperates with the FLGS in town where I buy almost everything hobby related. It's a really small store, esp. if you compare it with the huge GW Flagstore around the corner. Almost everything hobby related means all the stuff that doesn't suffer from a ridiculous price difference between UK and Germany. For example paints, Dystopian War models and nearly everything from Privateer Press except for plastic kits and rule books.
The local pressganger is also a member and organizes the clubs WM/H tournaments, which are hosted at the FLGS. While most of the guys own at least one WM/H , do play some of other games like Dystopian Wars, Uncharted Seas, FoW (second big system in the store) and a bunch of classical board games. Oh and did I mention that those guys are real bunch of nice fellas?
The local pressganger is also a member and organizes the clubs WM/H tournaments, which are hosted at the FLGS. While most of the guys own at least one WM/H , do play some of other games like Dystopian Wars, Uncharted Seas, FoW (second big system in the store) and a bunch of classical board games. Oh and did I mention that those guys are real bunch of nice fellas?
Besides paying my membership fee, I invested my money into some general hobby assets and models (more about those purchases later). Got some second hand tools from a fellow member that quit the hobby, some fancy stuff like daylight pigments (courtesy to massive voodoo) and pair of Series 7 sable brushes from the local art store.
My biggest "general hobby" purchase was a backpack from Feldherr, a German company that sells their own line of army cases and foam trays. While they don't offer customized trays like the ones you can get from battlefoam, their products are of a high quality and my local store stocks them.
The main selling point for me was the backpack solution itself. My old DIY case suffered from two major problems. Not only was it custom-designed for a Eldar skimmer list, but it also was a bit unwieldy. Have you ever tried to carry a whole army around, when you're using a racing bike for commuting? That only works with a backpack solution and I do love my old racing bike, as long as it doesn't rain cats&dogs or snows like crazy. So the DIY case had to go.
The main selling point for me was the backpack solution itself. My old DIY case suffered from two major problems. Not only was it custom-designed for a Eldar skimmer list, but it also was a bit unwieldy. Have you ever tried to carry a whole army around, when you're using a racing bike for commuting? That only works with a backpack solution and I do love my old racing bike, as long as it doesn't rain cats&dogs or snows like crazy. So the DIY case had to go.
With 42x27x17cm of space for foam trays it can easily handle my whole cryx army or a 50 points WM/H list and both of my Dystopian Wars fleets. The one thing that may end up giving me a headache are those Dark Eldar of mine, but only if I intend to field lots of raiders&ravagers and use my bike (which means no second case for those skimmers). But hey, that's not something unique to the backpack setup. Most stock-solutions available on the market have their problems with a DE list build around 6 raider hulls. I mean how many GW army cases would you need for such a force? Esp. if you skip on magnetizing the sails and just glue them?
Given the fact that I don't intend to finish (or rather work again on) my DE army this year anyway, I'm quite happy with my purchase. It should arrive at the local store on Wednesday, so keep your eyes peeled for some pictures later this week.
Now how about my miniature purchases and wargaming plans? I'm gonna start with PP, then tell you about my Spartan Games purchases and end today's posting with some brief words regarding my 40k armies and 2012 projects.
Privateer Press:
My original plan looked like this:
- Play a demo game or two, then decide on one faction from one of the two PP systems.
- Buy a starter box for that faction, play some more games and then collect a mid-sized jack/beast heavy army with a appropriate caster/lock.
- Get some paints on those models and increase that first army slowly, buying new stuff only after the other purchases are already assembled and painted.
- Buy the Domination expansion book for Hordes and then decide if I want to collect a hordes faction in 2012 or rather stick with expanding my first army even further.
I give my dear readers a hint. Just one word: Clausewitz...
Phase one went quite well. I started with the usual groundwork: Took a look at the miniature galleries and then talked with a guy from my last team tournament team, who moved completely from 40k to WM/H and plays it on a tournament level too. Read about the different factions on battlecollege and then dropped my possible choices from 11 (all WM/H factions) down to 4 (2 from each system). I contacted the local pressganger through the stores own forum and set up a date for a demo game. Played one WM vs WM game myself against the president of the club and watched a second demo game involving hordes factions.
After that I run the math on entry costs for all factions and dropped my hordes choices, bought the Wraith expansion book and decided that undead pirates and horny gothic chicks with whips beats having blue swashbuckling musketeers with magic pistols, electric weapons and lots of ranged firepower. Bough the cryx starter box, played some more low point games and sketched up a buying list for Mortenebra, the caster from that faction that works best with tons of jacks. Guess I derailed somewhere during phase 2, when I tried to get my hands on the models needed for that Mortenebra list.
For those unfamiliar with Privateer Press: They have some serious problem with casting enough models to satisfy the demand. Esp. with the big influx of angry 40k players like me, that switched systems after GW failed Finecast launch and the annual price increases. My local store owner told me right away that getting some of the models I wanted could take some time and that he wouldn't be "angry" if I end up buying them somewhere else.
I asked the boss from my old gaming club (the one with the 3 players tournament) if he could get me those "hard to get" models from his local store and found out in the process that he had some unused cryx models sitting in his cellar. He was so kind to buy me the models I wanted from the store and then sold them to me together with all his cryx models. With that purchase my meticulous sketched up buying list was done for and I ended up increasing my collection with some more juicy deals from the bartertown.
Instead of just collecting a typical 50points Mortenebra tier 4 list, something that's less than 20 models with a focus on jacks and not a single infantry unit, I'm now a proud owner of 6 casters, 20+ jacks, some solos and 5 full infantry units. That's roughly 200 points and 80 models, four times of what I originally planed to own.
So what about phase 3 and 4? Having 80 instead of 20 models also ruined my paint schedule and when two guys offered me a bunch of legion models worth ~450€ (or 400€ with local discount) for 200 incl. shipping I couldn't say "no!" and ended up buying them.
So what about phase 3 and 4? Having 80 instead of 20 models also ruined my paint schedule and when two guys offered me a bunch of legion models worth ~450€ (or 400€ with local discount) for 200 incl. shipping I couldn't say "no!" and ended up buying them.
Guess you can expect to see some pictures of painted WM/H stuff and some small battle-reports from the weekly gaming night each Friday in the near future.
Dystopian Wars:
The local player base keeps growing and growing. I already managed to play one game against the Kingdom of Britannia fleet of another gamer. That guy even went out and build a "cliffs of Dover" terrain piece for the gaming table.
In the meantime Spartan Games managed to release a lot of new stuff, incl. a fifth faction. While I skipped buying that too and sticked with the two fleets I already own, I ended up increasing those a bit. Bough both a pair of Inari scout gyros and Ika mechanical squids for my Japanese fleet and Dreadnought, two scout zeppelins and second hand starter fleet+carrier for my Prussians.
The Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet won't grow that much further, I only intend to upgrade the scout gyros from one min-sized squadron to two maxed out ones (2x3 instead of 1x2).The Prussian Empire fleet will most likely even see a small downsizing. The reason for that is that while the models and the system itself are quite charming, the balance isn't that great. A lot of the PE models I own are either quite weak (the cruisers for example) or not that funny to play against if you spam them (my 3 zeppelin aircraft carriers). The guys around here tend to play small games (750-1k points), so I'm not sure if I really need a 2k fleet.
Got all of the models primed already and given my work schedule this week I'm quite optimistic that I can get some paints of them this weekend. So if everything works out like I planed, you may end up seeing some on the table action pictures this month.
Spartan Games also announced that they try to launch every wave 1 faction model from the core book at the this winter. I've already seen the preview pictures and while both the sea-carriers don't blew me off my chair, I'm quite eager to get my hands on some gunboats and the two big flying battleships.
If you're interested, just go to http://www.spartangames.co.uk/tag/dystopian-wars and take a look at all those lovely model previews.
Games Workshop and my plans for 2012:
I've seen the Necron pictures floating around the web, but they don't blast me away. Esp. with the price tag you pay nowadays to get a mid-sized 40k army. So unless Games Workshop surprises me with a terrific Eldar release, that's not filled with everything called aspect warrior being made in Finecast and rules that make nearly everything I own worthless, I won't spend anymore money on their products.
Like I already said, even my motivation to assemble and paint those new Dark Eldar models I have is lackluster at best. Heck, I'm even thinking to get rid of my Craftworld Eldar (except for some plastic guardian and DA bits), as long as I can find someone willing to pay me a decent price for my skimmers. If that's not going to work out, I'm just gonna put them all in a big box and move that one from the hobby shelf in my room into the cellar.
So what about my 2012 plans?
- Finish my two WM/H armies, not buying a third one.
- paint my two Dystopian Wars fleet.
- start a Swedish army for a Thirty years' war project that the local store plans for 2012. At least those Warlord Games models are cheap compared to both PP and GW.
Oh and of course something totally not hobby related: Get my fat ass up and finish my diploma.
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