Wyrd's Latest Preview - Armored Whelks

So the latest preview for The Other Side and I really do like the look of this one. I think it might be the creatures face I love the most with things like the eyes, teeth and just the general shape of the face itself. I'm really liking these Gibbering Hordes.

Zootopia Case Dismissed

So catching up on Leonard French (our favourite copyright attorney), I saw the update on the Zootopia case and it went much like I thought it would. To make a long story short, the two works were detailed and when compared to each other, it was concluded that Disney's version had very little in common with Goldman's version. As a result the case was dismissed.

With that out of the way, can we please get a sequel now?

Anxiety and Supanova

So this one is a little late, but that's nothing new. Anyway, Supanova was on the weekend and just like last year I went to this one too. However, this was the first time I had to go it alone (my brother decided not to go this time round) so facing this prospect given the way my anxiety was going this year was something of a problem. Now at this point I would have just skipped it, but that changed when I learned that CrikeyDave was going to be there. This artist was the one who I have commissioned a number of pieces from in the past and I really wanted to thank him personally for doing them for me, which I got to do (it was a very inspirational encounter, though I always feel like I make a fool of myself thanks to the anxiety).

The thing is, I have created a number of characters over the years, but I'm not a very good drawer and as such it is disheartening to not be able to draw these characters. So when someone does do that for you, it helps pick your spirits up and gives you that joy of finally seeing them in various poses and scenes. Yes, even if you commissioned it, it is still a great joy and a wonderful feeling as the artist is putting in great effort into bring a creation of yours to life. For that, I can never truly express my gratitude enough.

I admit, because of the anxiety I barely stayed for an hour and so had to go. I didn't bring my camera, but there were plenty of great Cosplayers and it's always great to see the effort that gets put in, but also seeing them just having fun with it (I hope to one day do something like it too). Unfortunately, the event was too much and by the end of the day I was crippled with stomach pain and a headache (the running side effects of this blasted condition) and ended up in bed.

Strangely, I was still smiling threw it all and not the general mask smile you put on to hide what your really feeling, but a genuine one. Thinking back, it was probably the most positive and inspiration day I've had in a while even with the negatives thrown in. These kind of days are rare, but when you get them, you tend to appreciate them much more. I'll leave it on that positive note.

Preview Pics

So while I'm still in the process of figuring out how to get decent pictures of the miniatures (you can see from these shots that I do have one out of the two planned lights working. Still having issues on how to get the best focus, so perhaps a light grey background could help as the white reflects too much light and makes it difficult to edit the photo right), I thought I'd just throw up a pic or two to show some things being worked on.

This classic Chaos Spawn has been sitting around for years and was a conversion done for my old Cult of Slannesh. It was originally just a light flesh colour with a purple ink wash and a pink tail with purple spots and looked really bad. I feel the fleshy look adds a more accurate feel to how I'd imagine they'd look (I threw in some blue blend to show its dedication to its new master, Tzeentch).

While still in the painting process, this is just one of the miniatures that has had a slight conversion to help add a more Skryre feel to this Skaven Blood Bowl player. I plan for a number of them to have mutations or tech conversions, with more mutation looks for the Goblin players on the team. I had thought of re-painting the team colours to have a darker purple, but have decided to just re-design the team icon/logo.

Slowly Moving Forward

So another update. Health wise, it's very slow, nuff said there.

Projects are also slow, but moving at least. I am still waiting on parts to finish one of two Gremlin conversions, while the other still needs Green Stuff to complete. Same goes for one of my brother's Ten Thunders base constructions.

Age of Sigmar stuff has so far consisted of slowly re-basing five Skeletal Horse Archers, re-basing my ten rat Stormvermin squad I had from that one time I did them up and entered them in the Golden Daemon thing years ago, getting bases to re-base my two Heralds of Tzeentch and Flamers I did, looking into my old Chaos Ogres and turning them into Chaos Ogors and of course, taking that old Chaos Spawn of Slannesh I did a long time ago and updating it into one more suiting a fleshy creature of Chaos.

Perhaps over the next month or so I'll get around to getting photos of them and uploading them along with slowly working on both the Blog's visual update and those other projects I had planned a while back. It's been hard and I've realised that I am far more susceptible to things like panic attacks now, but I'm trying my best to slowly get things here back on track.

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Skirmish Book

So after so many months, the book finally arrived (a computer error misplaced the order, but now it's all resolved) and I've had a chance to finally look over it, see some games played and am ready to give my own personal thoughts on it.

The Rules

Fairly simple, they use the normal Age of Sigmar rules with a few alterations. These include treating each model as being it's own unit (though any banner or musician effects only work for those same warscroll models if they are within a 6 inch radius), being only able to select the Grand Alliance allegiance for the warbands allegiance abilities, units cannot be summoned or destroyed units cannot return to the field (so a skeleton banner that returns D6 models doesn't work in Skirmish), the warband takes the battleshock test and some altered options for the General. Overall, a good foundation for a skirmish game.

There are six scenarios in the book, each with their own mission objectives. The rules can even be altered a little to use other scenarios in other books or you could just change a few things in the ones in the book to add in new challenges. The overall message seems to be focus on just tailoring your games to be enjoyable.

The Campaign

So to help flesh out what you can do in AoS Skirmish, there is a campaign thrown in to show how you can set up your own games. Looking at it now, the Shadespire campaign makes the new Shadespire boardgame feel less original as far as expanding the AoS universe goes. Still, it has a great set of lore for the location and rules to grow your warband and reap the rewards. It's no Mordheim, but it's still set out for you to have some fun with your collection and models.

The Warbands

So this section I do have some issues with section. First off, no site pdf with options for adding other units from the Bretts or Tomb Kings? Really? Plus there are a few models that I feel might cause some players problems if they are not prepared to face them. One example are Nurglings, as with a fairly average point cost, the problem comes from having five wounds and if you don't waste it in a single turn, it is restored to full health. Given that each model is its own unit, I can see some players being put in a situation where that could prove to be a very difficult situation to over come.

There also seems to be a big gap for the number of unit options available to some factions. Death gets at least half a page worth of options, with Destruction getting around a full pages worth. Chaos gets slightly under two pages while Order gets somewhat over two pages of options. As such, it wouldn't be too hard to see players from the Death and Destruction factions being somewhat annoyed at this, given that things like Tomb Kings and even the various Moonclan Grots (Squigs in particular) are very limited. Perhaps an updated list later on could help, but so far nothing has happened beyond the release.

Conclusion

I'll give this, it certainly lays down a good foundation for a future game. Personally, I'd love them to expand upon this to really create an expansive experience. Fans have already taking these rules and expanded upon them with an almost Mordheim style game and GW should look at expanding this game type to follow something similar. Throw in a pdf with the other factions mentioned above and you could start having some real warband fights. An Age of Sigmar version of Mordheim is not impossible and would certainly help make the series more accessible to future players. As for the book, it is still very much available to everyone and makes dusting off the old models in your collection and giving them life a viable option. It is also a great starting point into building an army (with obviously Path to Glory being the next step up with the General's Handbook being the top of the army collection path).

As a person who likes these style of games, it suits me quite fine. While Malifaux is clearly the more strategic and more exciting game, the dumb fun to be had in this is clearly something you want to play if your just having something more casual to muck about with. Heck, it even works with Triumph & Treachery so you can play their scenarios with multiple players, making a real mess of the battlefield for extra fun.

That said, if you don't like small skirmish games, you'll probably skip this, but if you do like them or are just getting into Age of Sigmar, then this is a great little book to have (that and it is fairly cheap too).

The Unfortunate Update

So I haven't done much on here (or anywhere for that matter) for the last week or so. This is the unfortunate effect of suffering a real depression low. It's been so bad it has limited my ability to do many things and drained me of any real motivation. I have begun a series of steps to help improve this (I hope at least) and trying to write again is one of them. Unfortunately all I can do is write this apology update as trying to think of anything else to write at the moment has left me rather blank and I'd rather not go on about depression as it just brings this Blog (and myself) down.

Will try to get more positive stuff up in the future, but if you don't see many updates over the next month or so, this is probably why.