Monday, December 21, 2015

Aimless Meanderings

Hi all.  I'm rather flattered that despite my lack of activity it appears there are still people finding this blog, more than I would expect after so long a hiatus.  Welcome one and all.  I have no real new answers here, just the aimless meanderings of a wanderer through several games and game systems that really just orbit around my hobby center - 40k.


This evening, as I have for the past few evenings, as I look around the once vibrant blog-o-sphere, I see what is a sad pattern.  Most of the painting-centric blogs have remained pretty active and are showcasing the same amazing talent and conversions as ever - with the new models constantly coming out, there's plenty of good fodder to creatively graze on. The authors who play for fun and paint or convert are still fairly active.  A few in both categories have tailed off, and been replaced by others.

However, the tournament-minded or competitive blogs are increasingly rare.  Bloggers that had a nexus of competitiveness to their hobby - either as the entirety or just a smidgen, just aren't there.  I'm looking for something that has been largely missing since 5th edition.  Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places by not hanging out on Dakka or Warseer or similar.  I miss the days of a vibrant, competitive community.  I miss the batreps, the list-building.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't perfect, but who would have thought that in many ways it was a 'golden age' where each of the segments of the hobby (competitors, fluff-bunnies, painters, and the hybrids) had things going on.  Almost every day there was a buzz - a conversation worth reading and comments worth making.  I miss it.

Outside of my usual maudlin however, hobby life hasn't been entirely unbusy.  I scratch-built a storage box that fits in one of my NOVA Open KR Cases nicely.  I'll be putting a post together on that soon.  Aside from that,  I actually started painting my Reaper Bones figures - mostly to put together a Frostgrave warband or two to play with the offspring.  He also painted his first figure (most of it) and did a bang-up job.  Looking forward to playing Frostgrave soon - it's a stripped down version of Mordheim/Necromunda.  Despite a friend being frustrated about "paying for a shiny book with poor playtesting and editing so all the rules are basically fixed in an online faq" - it's neat and simple.  Love the fact that people have really embraced it's lack of specificity to bring their creativity in.  I've seen Reaper Mousling warbands, GW-figures, and everything in between.

One big discovery for painting Reaper Bones figures: as they are vinyl-based figures, regular primer just flat out doesn't work - it just doesn't really dry and leaves the figure tacky or sticky.  It needs to be acrylic.  However, even acrylic Gesso didn't work very well (maybe it was cheap Gesso - but is there really another kind?)  The one primer that's worked extremely well is GW's new acrylic primers, both white and black have worked flawlessly.  Other than that - a light wash with dishsoap to start, dip in boiling hot water to reshape any bent parts, and then hit it with the primer.  At any rate, here's the recently painted figures:
Offspring's Galadon - he did everything but the letters

Azen Contar's elemental familiar

Darkrasp, Evil Priest by Tim Prow
With any luck, I'll have some more time for hobby in the new year.  My list of hobby things to do just keeps growing and I need to start knocking it down.  Keeps me healthy mentally too (well.. as relative as that may be).  Thanks for stopping in and reading.  More tyranids in 2016!

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