Looking Ahead to 2016

Happy New Year!

Every year at this time, I try to set some hobby goals. I usually wind up distracted by something new and shiny by February, but it's fun to take stock of your lead piles and fool yourself into thinking you have a plan. A major portion of my hobby time this year will be spent working on my participation game of Beneath the Lily Banners for Historicon, but there will still be plenty of Oldhammer goodness mixed in (err.. On the painting table, not at Historicon, but by all means if you're going to attend, find the League of Augsburg table - I'll be happy to talk Oldhammer and Rogue Trader as well).

So what's on for 2016? Let's take a look...

OLDHAMMER 
Dwarfs - I bought into these guys heavily last month, purchasing more than 180 Citadel and Marauder castings from eBay - over 2200 points without characters, war machines or magic items! My initial goal will be to paint a playable force of three or four small units, then I will work toward army minimums and a proper horde. Dwarfs were one of my first fully painted armies for 3rd edition and I have long wanted to replace the army I GAVE AWAY 20 years ago. I also wanted a 'good' army to oppose my 'evil' armies.

Undead - Speaking of 'evil' armies, I have lots of unpainted lead for this army that I didn't get around to last year - 30 zombies, 5 death riders, 4 carrion, 3 undead chariots, several mummies, and a screaming skull catapult! I think the army will still only be around 1650 points, but I haven't figured in any additional characters, magic items, etc. so it should be possible to push it to 2000.

Chaos - My current army is somewhere around 1800 points and I'd like to round it up to 2000, maybe with a Chariot or unit of Minotaurs. I also have some random Dark Elves, Goblins, and Skaven that I purchased with an eye toward building warbands for all four Chaos Powers. Somehow, I've never managed to get to this despite decades of planning this small project. I did paint all four Champions last year, so that's something!

Bretonnians - Back to 'good' armies, I have a decent amount of the Wargame Foundry recasts of the models featured in Dave Andrew's classic army. If not enough for a full army, they will definitely make great allies for my Dwarfs.

ROGUE TRADER 
My painting was all over the place last year in 40k, but I was concentrating more on skirmish scenarios rather than armies of any specific point value. I think I will again roll a random scenario from the Rogue Trader book - I have a good selection of models to form the core for many different scenarios, but the result may dictate what I need to add. I have lots of unpainted lead - Space Marines, Imperial Army, Squats, Eldar, Orks, and Chaos Renegades plus loads of adventurers, pirates, etc. I even have a Confrontation Tech gang that I might get around to painting this year. I really have no idea where I'm headed with this, so I will plan to roll a new scenario soon!

Looking Back at 2015

The blog launched on December 14, 2014, but I only managed around 5 posts that year. I am now up to 164 posts, 88 followers, and a fairly large collection of painted oldschool lead!

55 Chaos
38 Undead
70 Rogue Trader

All but 7 (2 Chaos Warriors and 5 Ultramarines) of these were painted this year! I also managed 162 models on my other site - WW2, League of Augsburg, Beyond the Gates of Antares, and a few more. But, here are just a few of the models I painted this year...

Thanks for following the blog! Lots more on the way in 2016...

Dwarfs in 2016

Just picked this up on eBay...

This was one of the first Warhammer boxed sets I ever owned. I have long been planning to add a 'good' army to my Oldhammer collection and the Dwarves have always been one of my favorite. Inspired by Jaeckel's stunning and successful project, I decided 2016 would be the year of the Dwarf.

I apologize in advance to any Oldhammer collectors I may go up against on eBay (really, really soon) and do not begrudge any who defeat me on the field of battle.. err.. bidding.

Oldhammer Doesn't Work

They really have no clue over at Bell of Lost Souls if your game doesn't involve trying to melt the face off your opponent with your ridiculous army build before the dice even start rolling...

Oldhammer Doesn't Work

The funniest part to me is this:

You may have heard this term bandied about quite a bit during the whole birth of Age of Sigmar. Many people who thought negatively about the Age of Sigmar rules decided to just keep playing 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

I really don't think the article is about Oldhammer at all and the author grabbed the term without knowing what it meant. Likely he 'heard this term bandied about', probably by those raging against Age of Sigmar.

The entire concept of the article is foreign to the concept of Oldhammer as it's been built by the community that coined the term...

In short: your game gets stale. The Power Curve gets stale, the codices get stale, the unit entries get stale. You lose all hope for a better codex. If you play the same edition and same codices for, let’s say ten years, the armies that were on top at the beginning will undoubtedly be on top at the end. There is a 0% chance that they will get any worse and that other armies will get any better. The game would almost become rock-paper-scissors after you’ve played enough games. When Army A fights Army B, the battle will probably go the same way it always did every game previous; generally speaking.

That description has ZERO to do with Oldhammer. I'm not going to go into what Oldhammer IS... I've posted this link before and you can go to The Realm of Zhu to read it if you are unfamiliar with what I'm on about.

Delany King

Delaney King is a Trans Woman who is also a well respected miniature painter, sculptor and works in computer graphics making some truly amazing models and designs (from quite a few big titles including Dragonage: Origins, Civ 4, LOTR Online). She has worked on developing computer model design coursework in this country in an attempt to raise the profile of Australian computer game design and appeared on industry panels at conferences.

This year she began transitioning, which together with it came a wave of transphobia from the nerd and geek community which is unacceptable in this era - especially from a community of which the chief focus is playing with toy soldiers. She is now resettled in Melbourne after moving from Canberra for work and split from her partner and one year old child who remain in Canberra.

She now finds herself struggling to stay afloat as described in her post. If you can help, Delaney is asking for donations to help her get on her feet in a new city. Share out to the wider nerd network if you can.

Delaney has chronicled her beginning stages of transitioning, separating with her partner and relocating to a new city together with some of the transphobia she has encountered. Her blog over the last year has been an interesting read if this is something you haven't known within your circles.

http://kingsminis.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/please-help-me-get-back-on-my-feet.html

Squat Squad

Here they are!

Like the Imperial Army squad from last week, I managed to maintain a uniform look while making sure each model was an individual. This was fun unit to paint.

Not sure what's up next, but I'll have a root around the lead pile and see what catches my interest...

Squats

Same pose as one of the others earlier in the week, but the lack of a helmet adds a different bit of character to the model.

Right - so this unit is sorted... I'll have them assembled for review tomorrow.