The New Year: A Time for Resolutions and Whatnot.

For those of you still keeping score at home, I made a list of hobby resolutions last year.

The idea was, by giving myself a something of a hobby to-do list, I'd actually get some hobbying done.

Or, at least, that I'd manage to accomplish more than I'd done the year before when I hadn't made a list.

Unfortunately, that list didn't do much to help me. In fact, that list was pretty much exactly this list. I'm sure that one can use the excuse that life got in the way, as life tends to find ways to do, but nonetheless it left me with quite a pile of stuff to sort, glue and paint and not a single bit of hobbying actually accomplished.

This year, however, I'd like to actually start completing some of the various hobby projects I've got laying around. I've got, literally, a room full of little plastic men (and women, beasts and armament if we want to be entirely inclusive) from various armies that I'd thought were good ideas at some point in time and they deserve to be assembled, converted, painted and see the field of battle.

In fact, I've also got some fields of battle that need to be painted and played on lest they feel neglected and unwanted and unloved, but I digress. 

Therefore, be it resolved that I will complete all of the following armies -- in their entirety -- before I buy anything else.*

1. The Iron Men of the Mechanicum (1000pts.)
   Yes, this army is Iron Man themed. No, I don't care if you don't like me mixing geek genres.
   
   1x Magos Dominus (a 'Tony Stark-flavored' Ferrus Manus conversion)
   6x Thallax
   3x Castellax Battle Automata
   3x Castellax Battle Automata
   
   Additional units I've already purchased which can be used to expand this force: 3x Thallax, 5x Myrmidon Destructors (a unit of converted Iron Hands Gorgon Terminators), 1x Thanatar Siege Automata, and 1x Questoris Knight Magaera.
    
2. The Tau (500pts. / 750pts.)
   I have a paint scheme in mind for this army, but no fluff because, well, I haven't dug that far into their background or whatnot. I've just always thought they looked cool.
   
   1x Cadre Fireblade
   { 6x Fire Warriors}
   3x XV8 Crisis Battlesuits
   3x Stealth Shas'ui Battlesuits
   1x Pirahna
   2x Tetra
   1x XV104 Broadside
   
   Additional units I've already purchased which can be used to expand this force: 1x Pirahna (Forgeworld variant).
    
3. The Night Lords (750pts.)
   This is a Vampire Counts-flavored version of the Night Lords. Think something along the lines of the Night Lords fleeing into the Warp, a chapter settling a dark, sunless planet and thereupon discovering that there are scarier things in the night than they themselves.
   
   Before you protest, in W40K lore, there are such things as Vampires. Imagine what they could do if they managed to infiltrate a (fallen) legion of the Astartes ...
   
   1x Chaos Lord with Jump Pack
   20x Chaos Cultists
   20x Chaos Cultists
   5x Raptors / Warp Talons
   6x Raptors / Warp Talons
   1x Heldrake
   
   Additional units I've already purchased which can be used to expand this force: 1x Knight Titan.
    
4. The Carcharadons Astra (1,500pts.)
   This army is intended to be more fluffy than uber-competitive. That said, I'd still like it to kill things.
   
   1x Tyberos the Red Wake
   5x Assault Terminators
   5x Assault Terminators
   { 5x Assault Terminators }
   { 5x Assault Terminators }
   7x Scout Squad (Snipers)
   5x Scout Squad (in transport with Shotguns)
   5x Scout Squad (in transport with Shotguns)
   
   Additional units I've already purchased which can be used to expand this force: 1x Contemptor Dreadnought, and 1x Leviathan Dreadnought.

Those are my first set of milestones.

Doing the math, there really aren't a large number of models there to paint though, obviously, some a larger significantly larger than others. With any sort of efficiency, I should easily be able to complete this in a matter of months. Not later than the end of April, I'm sure.

To get it to the standard I'd like them to be, however, and taking into account the fact that there will never be the sort of time I imagine there to be to actually complete this list, I'll double that estimate and say that I hope to have this done by the beginning of August.

So, what will I ever do to fill the rest of my year ... ?

Oh, there are things. But, I'll have to write about those more later.


(* - This 'no more buying' ban, obviously, does not include the units or individual bits necessary to complete those armies. As it is, for example, I'm actually about three units short of filling out those lists as they stand so the ban would not apply to those units. And, if inspiration strikes, I may throw the ban out entirely ... )

Bitz Site Review: BitsandKits.co.uk

As nearly every one of my projects involves a lot of conversion work, I tend to buy a lot of bits.  A lot of bits.  As in, I spend more on bits than I'd care to think about and far more than I'm comfortable admitting to my wife.

Because of that, I tend to look for the best deals and the best dealers.

As lots of small businesses survive on word of mouth, if I find them, I'd like to share them with you.  It helps them by keeping them in business and it helps me by having them still in business (no, they don't pay me commission to talk about them or slide me free bits on the side or anything).

As most of my experiences with bits sites have been positive, most of my reviews will be positive.

This is not one of those reviews.

Warhammer: The Seduction. (Beasts of Chaos)

It may seem like it's been a while since I've posted anything about painting up that massive Skaven army. That's likely because it's been a while since I've actually put any work in toward actually painting up that massive Skaven army. Why's that, you ask?

It's because I've been seduced.

It started simply enough, as most seductions do: While idly surfing the internet looking for painting ideas and tutorials, I happened upon a particularly cool looking minuature: a Skorne Bronzeback Titan.

I decided that I needed wanted to have one.

I wanted to see if I could capture the same amazingly well-painted tones and textures and to see if I could do what this other painter had done.

But having a beast so beautiful with no reason to field it would seem wasteful.  If I were to buy one, I would need an army with which to play him ...

Establishing the domain ...

My wife has always graciously accepted the fact that she married a geek.* It's simply a fact of who I am, and she loves me in spite of it.

I've been collecting comic books since junior high. If it has been turned into a 'comic book movie,' I likely have most every issue dating back to the late 1980s. Batman. Superman. X-Men. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I have hundreds of issues of each; enough to fill dozens of 'long boxes.'

Several of my closest friends and I would sneak away from our Boy Scout troop to find an empty room in which to play Marvel Super-Heroes or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Role-playing Game.

( And, it should be noted, that another friend I've recently reconnected with via Facebook remarked that the thing that he remembered most about me was that I could draw the Ninja Turtles better than anyone he'd ever seen. )

In high school, Star Trek: The Next Generation was at the peek of its popularity. We had a Star Trek club at my high school (populated by a surprisingly high number of Student Council and Honor Society members). We held a viewing party in the school cafeteria for the final episode, "All Good Things ..."

In college, my interests diversified some. I discovered collectible card games. No, not popular ones like Magic: The Gathering or Legend of the Five Rings. More obscure ones like Highlander: The Card Game and Star Trek: The Customizable Card Game and such; games that tied back into my other, more deeply rooted geeky fascinations.

Those were merely a gateway drug into other, more hardcore geeky gaming pursuits, and after a while I moved on to other collectible games. Like Games Workshop's Warhammer and Mordheim and Gorka Morka.

Then, after a few more years, WizKidsGames introduced the ultimate in collectible super-hero miniature gaming: HeroClix.

Over the years, I've no doubt sunk enough money into my geek hobbies that, had I saved it away instead, I could've paid cash for a new car (or, perhaps even a modest house). Though, that would've doubtlessly been far less fun.

And, we've managed to have bought a modest house anyway.

Within that house, in a small room tucked away in the basement (ie: the realm that houses all truly great lairs of geekdom), resides the tangible evidence of my years of geekishness. The boxes of comics. The super-hero action figures. The dozens of role-playing game books. The hundreds and hundreds of miniatures. The thousands of cards.

It is my domain. These are its chronicles.

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* - Technically, based upon militantgeek.com's definitions, I am both a geek and a nerd. Though not a dork. Not since elementary school, at least.