Merry Xmas fellow Gamers

Xmas in the Warhammer World: The year of Nurgle

Xmas 2014. So it was, an uneasy truce had settled over the Warhammer world. Or at least in our house.

The whole Warhammer world as we knew it has changed. Nagash is back, Settra is who-knows-where, as is a long list of other characters. Nurgle is rampant. Where is Morathi ? What will 2015 hold ? Archaon and the End of Times ?

Kislev is no more, Karl Franz and his turkey have fused to become KFC.

Dark Elf now embraces High Elf. (Yeah Right), and Malekith becomes the Phoenix King.

What the? Hey ! So we're mates now? All is forgiven?

 

or is it? 

Glottkin and his corpulent buddies are unleashed on the world, characters swap sides before you can blink. Or blink out of existence before you can think.

Old factions have reunited and new unholy (and wholly unexpected) alliances formed during the End Times.

Nurgle had ruled supreme this year at work; with malice and pestilence interfering with time for gaming in a big way. Terminally short of staff in 2014 , what started as a great foray to Europe and the US, ended up as being snowed under with work.

As for the Ogres, all migrating from the mountains, 

will Santa be visiting you this year? 

He's wearing a shiny new gutplate, anyhow...

Coming back with a massive haul of models, flexing my modeling and gaming muscle for a great year of wargaming turned into a year of furious graft to keep our business afloat.(From a man power point of view)

Nurgle imparted copious rancid visitation on one of my business partners: blessing him not with one, but two fractured legs. Six months apart. Read 3 to 4 months out of action with each fracture. Add to this a partner that migrated to the UK, one on Sabattical, and a  brand new rest home with a dementia wing and a hospital level care facility. Then one of our associates upped and left. Found myself working a day and a half a week just to keep the rest home covered...

Came Thursdays I struggled to drag myself to the club meetings. If I was not on call.

So 2015 is looking brighter: 3 new staff appointed, annual leave soon, and hopefully some time to indulge in actually reading the End Times books. May even get a few games in, and some time to build those models still sitting on the shelf.

Having said that, I have found the time to systematically repaint my Undead Army, who now eagerly awaits the coming of Nagash. We are hoping that he may show up in the Xmas stocking.

I've retouched my dwarfs, and given them a dull brown wash, making them look a little less garden gnomish, built and painted an alternative set of hammerers and Ironbreakers (Mantic); expanded my Slayer Army, and aquired another Gyrocopter.

My Nurgle army has also received some love, with Gutrot Spume, a Nurglish Cygor, Blight Kings and soon-to-be-painted Knights, Marauder Cavalry and Daemon Prince lining up for the Paint-pot. If Nagash can't make it into the Xmas stocking, I'm hoping that the Glottkin can.

So, not an altogether lost year of Warhammer gaming. Seems I actually got a fair whack of painting and building in. But not a lot of gaming. And the modeling was in fits and starts, the painting probably sanity preserving.

So all that remains is to wish you all the happiest of Christmases wherever you are, and a prosperous 2015, filled with health, love, laughter and lots of time to model, paint and game!

War. Man's second favourite pastime.

Another hobby shop goes under: Toyworld in Paraparaumu shutting its doors

Sad news for scale modelers and gamers on the Kapiti Coast: Toyworld is shutting shop. 

I stood by the graveside of yet another gaming shop today. Steve is closing down Toyworld in Coastlands, Paraparaumu on Christmas eve. Everything went on sale today. Sad news indeed for the gaming and scale modeling community in the area.

A victim of competition from large retailers, circumstance and internet shopping. Add to that family health issues, and you have a perfect storm. So sadly, a decision to close the doors.

 The last purveyor of modeling materials on the Kapiti Coast now gone.

Steve has supported our club well through the years, and I find it very sad to see this happen. He was the only local supplier of GW, Tamiya, Airfix, Italeri and other brands of popular models, glues and paints. He also recently started stocking a great range (Zap) of glues and acrylate accelerator, which has revolutionised my own hobby glueing practices.

So,  30-70% off all stock today. (I was told of the sad state of affairs by one of my staff last night.) Got there at around 12 this afternoon, and the vultures were circling. Feeling quite guilty in some ways, I joined the fray.

GW at 30% discount. Not a lot left, but I made off with a daemon prince and a box of skullcrushers, a handful of citadel paints. Couldn't speak with Steve. He was to busy. Got a brief word in with his wife, pain and sadness clearly apparent  in her eyes. Didn't go into details, but just told them I'll miss them.

The Dutch and Afrikaans languages have a saying: " Een man se dood is 'n ander se brood" (One man's death is bread to another) Looking at the feeding frenzy in the shop I couldn't but wonder how many regular shoppers there were, and how many were just opportunists. I for one am saddened by the loss of yet another hobby retailer

With STP gone and Mighty Ape giving so-so service, and not being able to get to GW WTN regularly any more, Wayland games seem to be the way to go. If you can wait...

End Times: 3500pt Dwarfs vs Glottkin, Guttrot Spume and the Blight Kings (well, sort of)

Wargames night,(now already several weeks ago) and Sam throws down the gauntlet.

He wants to run his great-looking Ctulu monster-thing as part of his intended Glottkin themed Nurgle Army in a End-Times game. Always up for a thrashing, I thought I'd run the army I'm workin' on at the moment:

Dwarfs. Vs Chaos Re-United. Daemons and WoC mortals all rolled into one with the end-times rules. Yeah right.

The Dwarf Throng of Karak Brakak eyeing the unimaginable horrors on the horizon

"Yeah right", many said. "Dwarfs? Didn't know you had a dwarf army. Never seen you play it. "

Actually I do, and yes, I recently dusted them off. And yes, I have not played them since 7th Ed. And yes, the dwarfish sit-and-wait-till-you-come-to me-and i'll-shoot-you-to-sh*t style of play does not really appeal to me. And frankly the dwarf book and the Dark Elf book was too close together for my wallet's liking. And I like DE's much,much better. So there...

Anyhow, I started building some hammerers and that organ gun that had been sitting on my shelf of shame for years; obtained the Dwarf book, and drew up an end-times army.
Sort of. Did not expect the dwarfs to be really competitive unless I took the gun-line. But that's not my style. Like to live dangerously, I do

Slayers strolling towards the Putrid Blightkings, Ungrim leading the way

So I went with a Slayer list, Longbeards and hammerers, 3 lords: Ungrim, a Dwarf Lord on Bearers in unit of Longbeards and Lord and Thane (BSB) with hammerers. Banner of Valaya on the Longbeards, 2 Rune priests; 2 x organ guns, flamegun and  cannon, dozen or so quarrellers with great weapons. Strollaz rune on Slayers.

Sam brought almost every horror that Nurgle ever created and marked aver WoC he had with Nurgle. Glottkin, Guttrot Spume, Putrid Blight kings, Furies of nurgle, Epidemius, plaguebearers, beasts of nurgle, spawn of nurgle. You name it, it was there. Stunties never stood a chance. Apologies for the poor quality photos- taken w my phone. Tried to castle. Sam went first, and it was game over for the dwarfs. Cthulu and the furies were too quick into the mix. He rolled nurgles rot repeatedly. My one organ gun never fired a shot, the rest of the artillery got in a shot each. Glottkin regenerated 'em.. Don't have the words to write a batrep. Too sad. Photos say it all.

Cthulhu ably standing in for the Glottkin

Maybe standing over would have been a better term..

Flood of Nurgle commences

Dwarf Lord and Thane going under in a tidal wave of Nurgle

Glottkin is soooo broken.

Armed my quarrelers with great weapons, so able to make a (slight) dent in Nurgle's puppy who was licking the last surviving flame cannon crewman to death. Not enough to kill it, and there was a conga line of more of 'em waiting

Death blows making a dent in the blight kings as the slayers meet glorious doom

Ungrim giving the thumbs up as he deftly slays the last of the putrid blight kings. He was the hero of the day for the dwarfs, in what was otherwise a bleak and one-sided contest