Tribal Warfare Campaign: End of Turn One

What a great first start to the campaign. A fair number of games were played, and they really showed the calibre of players we have in our local area, both on the table and in the list building. The sheer number of defences that were won, mixed in with draws, caused minimal change to the map, with only Caleb successfully conquering any territories.

 Map at start of the campaign

Games Played:
Caleb attacked Tom (Caleb Won)
Caleb: General gains +1 Toughness
Tom: General Captured!

Chris attacked Ethan (Ethan Won)
Chris: May not use Ushabati in next game
Ethan: Causes Fear against Undying Dynasties in next game against them

Caleb attacked Ethan (Caleb Won)
Caleb: Causes Fear against Beast Herds in next game against them
Ethan: General Captured!

Tom attacked Ethan (Ethan Won)
Tom: General and his unit gain Hatred and IoP against Ethan in next game (if he has recaptured his            general
Ethan: General would have increased a stat except he cannot as he is currently captured

Ethan attacked Chris (Draw)
Chris: General gained +1 Movement
Ethan: Causes Fear against Undying Dynasties in the next game against them

Tom attacked Ethan (Ethan Won)
Bonuses had no effect

Tom attacked Caleb (Draw)
Tom: Regained his General, who gained 25pts worth of magic items
Caleb: His Vermin Guard gain Immune to Psychology

Caleb wasn't able to make the game where Ethan attacked. An agreement was made, and Ethan's General was released from captivity

Map at the end of Turn One

Game One (Undying Dynasties vs Beast Herds)
To kick off the campaign, Chris's Undying Dynasties attempted to take control of one of my territories (T12). The living dead lined up ready to take out the Beasts, but the blood hungry animals were out for blood, and quickly crushed the skeleton assault. This was the only one-way landslide game of the entire turn.


Game Two (Vermin Swarm vs Beast Herds)
Although distracted by the rise of the dead in the South, the Beast Herds quickly swelled to their northern lands to defend against an attack from Caleb's Vermin Swarms (T8). This was a bloody battle, with many creatures from both sides falling to the bloodied blades of their foes. However, the tides of Vermin were too many for the Beasts to handle, and their defence eventually fell apart, and the herd fled from their water way territory. In their flee, the general tripped, fell, and was jumped by a bunch of rats! They quickly tied him up, and rushed him off to sacrifice to the Vermin gods!


Game Three (Orcs and Goblins vs Beast Herds)
Having also just lost land to the Vermin, Tom's Greenskins were enraged, and threw themselves in an assault against me (T12) in an attempt to break free from the surrounding forces. Tom bought out an almost all out gunline style of Orc army, forcing the Beasts to do what they do best, and charge forward to the enemy! It didn't take us long to engage, but even then, this shooty greenskin army put up a good fight, and the game ended with a minor win to the Beasts.

Game Four (Beast Herds vs Undying Dynasties)
Still outraged at the insult from the Undying Dynasties, my Beast Herds assailed southward (T19) in an attempt to draw them closer to the Living Dead Settlement. Although the game started heavily in the favour of the Beasts, the late game went in the favour of the Undying Dynasties, who managed to bring the game back to a draw with the work of his War Kitty and a unit of hard hitting armoured dead men!!! (cannot recall the name of the unit).

This was to draw the first turn to a close, however, before the new turn started, our Highborn Elves player made the decision to pull out due to time constraints...So a Skeleton, a Rat, an Orc, and a Minotaur, all stood their in silence, hands held, and watched the graceful ships of the pointy eared elves sail away to distant........yeah no, they just went and took claim to the elves previously owned lands instead!

Map at the start of Turn Two

Matthew's departure from the campaign was unfortunate but fully understandable. Although we have filled the territories, we are still looking for other players to join into the campaign, in which case we will give them the average number in territories and points, and increase the map size.

A great start to the campaign, and hopefully we will see even more games played in Turn Two!

Tribal Warfare Campaign: The Rundown

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we have just kicked off or Tribal Warfare 9th Age Campaign. I will be posting End of Campaign Turn reports every fortnight, with details on the progress of the campaign, on my own battles, and of my thoughts on the campaign itself.

However, as I will be posting these reports via this blog, I thought it only right that I firstly explain the way the campaign works. I will include a copy of the player pack in a link below if anyone wishes to read the full details of the campaign, and as the event organiser give the rights for any other group who wish to run a 9th Age campaign to use the player pack.

A campaign turn runs for a two week period. We are going from Tuesday night to Tuesday night, using the Napier Executioner's Club meeting night as the turn start time.
In that two week period you may attack up to three territories that are either adjacent to one of your own territories, or adjacent to a waterway if you too control a waterway. You may not attack the same person more than twice in one campaign turn. Games are arranged amongst players either at the club meeting or in their own time across the period.
All games played are 1500pts, following all the rules for writing a list as per the rule manual, except for regarding your general, and with no Lord level characters allowed. Your General's points cost does not come from your points, and is free.
Your general is either a level 2 wizard, or a character from your Heroes list that would be allowed to carry a Battle Standard (obviously he is not your BSB). You may select ONE item from your mundane items for free to add to him, and that is it. After that, he can gain additional items and stats by winnning games. You may give him a mount, in which case the mounts cost comes from your points cost. Once he has been mounted for one game, he must always be mounted on the same mount, unless upgraded to ride an even more expensive mount.

Pre Campaign Turn One Map

At the end of the battle, both players roll on separate tables, one for the winner and one for the loser, and apply the effects. Some of these may increase a unit or your general's stats, give your general more gear, or cause your general to be captured by the enemy!

The points are as follows: Win:5pts; Draw:3pts; Lose:1pts; Capture Settlement:+4pts.

You also get three plots across the campaign. You may not play them more then once, and no more then one may be played per turn.

The first one, Ambush allows you to attack a tile you normally would not be able to. The second, Reinforcements allows you to in one game have an additional 150pts in your list. The third, Forced Truce, is played against a player at the start of the campaign turn, and neither you nor that player may attack each other over the course of the campaign turn.

This is the basics of how it works. Here's a sneak peak of the map halfway through the first campaign turn.....

Tom: Orcs & Goblins

Caleb: Vermin Swarm

Chris: Undying Dynasties

Ethan (Me): Beast Herds

Matthew: Highborn Elves

Player's Pack:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NeX8tZDbFtaH6YI_iBBNGmX-uRR1FWZVwZlyeQhBXCk/edit

Goats, Cows and Broken Farm Fences

I suddenly came to a realisation the other day, that my Beast Herds is made up of goats, cows and horses.....I should just play FarmVille, would be much cheaper!

I haven't been able to make much progress on my Beast Herds army recently, which isn't a good thing as I have an entire army that needs to be painted and converted and based in preparation for Nicon 2016 in June, but I will get there (a LOT of sleepless nights ahead!). Truthfully, I just haven't had the time, between work and studying for my General Manager's Certificate, and business planning and meetings, it doesn't leave a lot of hobby time. To make it worse, well, I need new paintbrushes! I did manage to pick up a giant model and assemble it, now to just do the conversion work to it!

However, gaming wise is a different story, as I have managed to get a fair number of 1500pt games in with a good mate of mine, and have managed to pull off victories in a good portion of those games. Why 1500pts and not a bigger game you might ask? Well, we are preparing for two campaigns that kick off this week!

The lesser of the two campaigns, which kicks off tomorrow, is Around New Zealand in 16 Battles. This campaign was designed around encouraging people to play more games, and play against or with a variety of different armies. It's open to all New Zealanders too! Although it kicks off tomorrow, anyone can join it later on, which is great as new players come to the table.
Basically, the goal is to cross off a list every single army in 9th Age, whether you won or lost. To do so, you either have to play against that army, or play with that army. It's that simple!
You can get the player pack here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2HkCXLSe9TUdmNQV0JCZFJ0WmM
If you are interested in jumping in, register at plaguebearersnz@gmail.com . Oh, and its free!
The only catch is, you have to provide a battle report of the game as proof it was had! This can either be in a bunch of story time pictures with a description, a blog post, or a YouTube video. So long as it is open or all to view and enjoy, it works. For this, I am electing to kick off my own Channel on YouTube! Fun times ahead!

The second campaign, which kicks off this evening, is a local campaign called Tribal Warfare. It is a 1500pt campaign battled across a portion of the 9th Age World:

My Beast Herds own the Brown territories. The other territories are owned by the following; Green: Orcs & Goblins; Blue: Highborn Elves; Purple: Vermin Swarm; Yellow: Undying Dynasties

Each campaign turn lasts two weeks, and in that turn you may make up to 3 attacks on territories you are either connected to by a waterway, or by an adjacent territory that you own. You also have to play out as many defence games as you are attacked.

There are three special one use only plots that you can declare you will use at the start of a turn. The first one allows you to make an attack on any tile that you normally wouldn't be able to attack because you do not have an adjacent territory or aren't connected by a waterway. The second is like a forced truce, where once declared against a player, they may not attack you during this turn, nor you attack them. The third one allows you to in one game have an additional 10% worth of points.

Your general is also free, but must be used in every game. You start the campaign giving him one piece of mundane equipment from your list, and as the battles rage, he can get upgraded. You may purchase him a mount, but if you do, the mount's cost comes out of your 1500pts, and he must always ride that mount in every game henceforth (unless you trade him up to a more expensive mount).

For this campaign, I have decided I will post blog updates at the end of the turn, with details on my own games, where my general is at, and what's happening on the map, along with any thoughts on the campaign itself. I will probably also use some of these games to knock off armies in the Around New Zealand in 16 Battles campaign.

All in all, a busy time a head, and I cannot wait to kick these campaigns off!

[RANT] If you don't like it, there's the door, but don't break my toys on the way out!

If you don't like it, there's the door, but don't break my toys on the way out! 

Last night, in my not so sober state, I listened to a video on YouTube by a wargamer who I have followed since I started watching YouTube videos. This gent has been a solid brick in the foundation of the Warhammer YouTubers Collective over the past many years, and I have just about always enjoyed his content.

However, last night, he posted a video that really threw me back. It was about the major reason he will not be playing The 9th Age. Now I am not going to get into the reason, as that is not the part that threw me, but if you wish to watch the video you can here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2NzT2nztLU

After watching, I commented on it, listed my opinion in regards to what he had to say. And was about to leave it at that, until I read the other comments on the video by other subscribers, and saw an issue that has been happening for a long time. Just this time, it got too far under my skin.

We all play games, whether board, video or table top wargames because we enjoy it. No one is forcing us to do so, we do it because we enjoy certain or many aspects of the game. Basically, it's because it makes us happy. But we aren't going to dedicate the same amount of time to a game we don't enjoy, that doesn't excite us or give us a fun time. And that's fine. Maybe we will try it out, watch videos about it, read up about it, and make a decision based on information and experience that the game is just not for us. If we don't like the game, "then there's the door". Take it. Don't spend anymore time on it, and find something that you enjoy.

"...but don't break my toys on your way out!"

Why is it, as a global community, that when we do not like a game, or a gaming company, we feel the need to dedicate time in 'bashing' the game, in making negative sentiments towards the game, and making anyone who has a part of the game either as a gamer or developer, feel like you are targeting your negative feelings at them.

It's quite simple. If you do not like something, walk away, and leave it at that.

Over the past several months I have spent a lot of time in the 9th Age forum, reading posts from various levels of gamers. And on numerous occasions, I have watched people who have felt that their entitlement to the game means they have a say in the way things happen, or what should happen, and when it doesn't, they call the creators "delusional" and spell out the doom and darkness of the game. Purely because they didn't get what they wanted.

Its that sense of entitlement that people have that makes them feel that a game should be the way they want it to be, and that they have a right to bash games they don't like. Since when did we as gamers become so self righteous as to think we can tell others that their games are crap? To tell game developers they are delusional? To tell people that this is the way it should be, and if we think otherwise, we are stupid? And when did we become so self entitled that we feel we can dictate the way a game is developed or played.

9th Age is an interesting concept in this, as it isn't company built but community driven. But even though that is one of its biggest strengths, the weakness that comes with this is it increases the amount people feel they can have their say and that their say should be listened to and, obeyed.

We are stakeholders, not shareholders.

The decisions made relating to a game effect us as we have an invested interest in the game. But we do not own the game, we do not have shares in the company, we are not its developer, design team, executive board of directors. We are just the people at the end of the chain holding onto it for the ride, whatever it shall be.

The 9th Age is Community Driven, not Community owned.

It's a game being designed and built by many hard working volunteers for a community of wargamers wanting to see the complexity of WHFB continued on in a balanced and competitive game. But just because we are the reason it is being built, we don't own it. We don't have a controlling power invested in it. We are not financially entwined in the organisation. We just have an invested interest, even financial based invested interest based on the fact we own the miniatures to play the game, but we do not own the game.

Is someone wants to play AoS, that's cool. You don't have a right to tell them their game is shit.
Is someone wants to play KoW, that's cool. You don't have a right to tell them their game is shit.
Is someone wants to play Warmachine, that's cool. You don't have a right to tell them their game is shit.
Is someone wants to play 40k, that's cool. You don't have a right to tell them their game is shit.
Is someone wants to play 9th Age, that's cool. You don't have a right to tell them their game is shit.

Let's stop being self righteous and entitled. Let's just play the game we enjoy, and leave others to play the games they want to. Because, "if you don't like it, then there's the door, but don't break my toys on your way out!".

Hobby Update: March 2016 (Where on Earth have I been?!?!)

Sorry guys! I went AWOL. Well, not really, but I haven't been giving you anything to read!

I don't have any excuses, but I do have a few reasons. Since OTT at the start of February, I have been so busy between work and real life, that the hobby time I have gotten mostly was away from the screen!

In saying this, I have been relatively productive with the time I had. I picked up a box of LotR Haradrim Warriors and Easterling Warriors, along with a box of Ogre Khans bulls. I have just finished painting up the Haradrim, hence why I am now sitting down enjoying a much deserved beer and spending time on my blog.
I have started converting (when I say started, I mean done very little but pretending like I have done heaps) the Ogre Bulls into Hold Guardians for my Dwarven Holds army. This is both exciting and challenging, as to accomplish the look I want, I have to do a lot (I mean a lot) of greenstuff work. The idea behind it is similar to that of the Animated Statues units for Tomb Kings in WHFB, that the Hold Guardians are Dwarven statues that a Rune Priest has bought to reality. The final product will look like heavily armoured Dwarves/Dwarven Statues, with raw magical energies pulsing through them.
I also picked up with some of my prize vouchers for OTT, another Daemon Prince kit. From this kit I am creating two Daemon princes. The first one, which I have only just started converting, is using the wings head arms and body of from the kit, and with a mix of wire and greenstuff, his bottom half will be made like a closed off cloak. The second Daemon Prince, which I have finished (at this stage anyways) the converting of, is combining the Daemon Prince legs and one of the weapon arms, with the body and wings of a Rot fly from the Plague Drones kit.
I have also started work on my Beast Herds army, in preparation for upcoming tournaments, but have reached a stand still very quickly into the project, as I am still struggling to settle on what colours and basing I really want to use to fit in the theme, which is based around the Three Eyed Raven from The Game of Thrones series. I really want to include a lot of blacks and greys, to keep with the dark idea of the theme, but at the same time love the way red comes off on these models. It's also a hard decision, that if I do go with blacks and greys, I need to keep the skin tonnes lighter to balance the colours and make the models stand out, but I'm not sure I am a big fan of the lighter colour tones on them.

Completed unit of Haradrim Warriors

Speaking of tournament armies, I have two tournaments coming up! Both of them are 9th Age, and both of them are in June (okay, not still a little while away I guess).

First and foremost, is NiCon in Hamilton, which is being run by Hamilton Immortals this year. Brian S, who is the main organiser for 9th Age at NiCon, has asked me to help as an organiser as this is the first 9th Age tournament to be run in New Zealand, which is exciting! NiCon is being held over Queen's Birthday weekend at the start of June.

And then, at the end of June (dates to be cofirmed), is Equinox is Auckland! Last year at Equinox, under WHFB, I had a very poor final standing, so this year I plan to make a come back from it and show the very talented Auckland crowd that us Napiertonnians have what it takes! This tournament is run by Phil W, and I will also be aiding him in making it happen to bring out the second 9th Age tournament in New Zealand,

I haven't managed to get in as many games recently as I would have liked, only playing two games of 9th since I got home from OTT. This I am okay about, because I was waiting on the release of the final Beta version of the game, which came out today. We are expecting the full version to come out end of April.

In the first game I played, I took a Beast Herds list against Tom's Ogre Khans. This BH list was one that I was considering as a possible tournament list. I messed up quite a bit in this game, but did learn the value of a kitted out Minotaur Beastlord when he holds up a decent size unit of Ogre Mercenaries with a Great Khan in it for over half the game, but I don't think I will be running the list as a whole.

The second game was again against Tom's OK, but this time I bought out my Dwarven Holds. This game was different. My list was designed around the concept of inpenatrable armour, and shooting. And it worked, to a point. Based on my set up, I was able to avoid just about all combats that I didn't want to get into (and against the sheer number of Ogres charging down on my position, that was most combats). I pulled off a small win, and liked the list that I ran, though would make many changes to improve it. Although it was a very avoidance-played game on my part, it was still a lot of fun.

As for events and groups over the past month, Napier Executioners Club started up again for the month (very very late start to the year) and in the two meetings I have managed to get in some games of WHFB, 40k, and a lot of games of Settlers of Catan!

I also had my application to become a member of the newly set up NZ Hobbit League Committee accepted, and am running the merchandise part of this group (when I say newly set up, I mean we are having our first meet and greet/brainstorm/shit talk chat at 9pm tonight). I am really excited about this, and very appreciative of being given the chance to be able to work alongside some incredible hobbyists and gamers.

Anyways, time to get back into it. Would love to hear about what you guys have been up to and see some photos of your WIPs.

Until next time, Peace!

OTT 2016: The War of the Legions and the Three Elves

This past weekend saw the annual Over the Top tournament in Hamilton. This year, it hosted WH40k, LotR/SBG, AoS and Warhammer 8th. There were about 40 competitors across the mix of games, and was a great weekend.

I took my Legions of Nurgle to the fold, led by the one and only Glottkin in what was an End Times based Warhammer 8th tournament. Prior to deciding on a list, I had really been weighing up if I wanted to bring out my Legions or my Dwarfs. After the lists were released, I really wished I had gone with my Dwarfs. Of the 8 competitors, 3 were mixed Elven lists, and the other 5 were Legion of Chaos lists. In those Legion lists, 3 contained Skull Cannons, which when your running a list based off of regeneration, hurts. So, here's the list I ran:

-The Glottkin
-Festus, The Leechlord
-Exalted Hero: BSB, Palaquin, Nurgle, Talisman of Endurance, Enchanted Shield
-22 Warriors of Chaos: Nurgle, Halberds, F/C, Shields, BoSwiftness
-Chaos Chariot: Nurgle
-Chimera: Regeneration, Flaming Breath
-5 Plague Drones, Banner, Musician

This list was very compact, and I enjoyed the writing and playing of it. However, it has a lot of hard counters that did hurt over the course of the tournament. With out further ado, lets have a brief recap of  the games.

Game One (Brian S)
My first game was against Brian, a good mate from the Hamilton area who I had only ever played against once, which was on the day I met him at WarBanner 2014. He opted for this tournament not to bring out his Dark Elves, but a Legions list he had been working on for a long time.
I think going into this game, we both believed I would win, even with his flaming Skull Cannons. However, whether by lack of sleep or poor judgement, I went against my instincts in deployment and instead of deploying to overwhelm one flank as I should have, I spread my force out. Due to this, he was able to pick off my units one by one, and it wasn't long until I had nothing left.
Brian is a great guy, and awesome player, and he really worked my poor choice to his benefit. Even taking a loss first game, it as great fun.

Unfortunately due to charger issues, Brian's army is the only one I was able to take a photo of.

Game Two (Adam R)
My second game saw me in a game against Adam and his legions list. This list didn't contain any Skull Cannons, but was based around the concept of speed and hard hitting. It contained 3-4 chariots, 2 units of Skullcrushers, 2 Chimera, and several lone characters running rampart on the battlefield. This game swung a bit, and we both had a lot of failed chargers across it. I really think Curse of the Lepar spell on my Warriors is what won me the game, as when 2 chariots, a chimera and a unit of 'Crushers come charging in, and are unable to do any wounds, they bounce. By the end of the game however, I am not sure either of us cared who won, as we were just having so much fun. The game was almost musical!

Game Three (Nick Munn)
This was the game that took me out of any contention of placing IMO. My competitor was a great dude, and really know how to work his list to its full potential. However, a few bad dice rolls on my part caused everything to unfold very quickly for me, and I was tabled with very little points gained. I must admit, I felt very dismayed by this game and knew that I wasn't likely to place after that.

Game Four (Nick Jebson)
And then this game happened. It was our final game on Saturday night, and I was matched against a Dark Elf player with a fairly balanced list, which is always nice to play against. Nick was an awesome dude, one of those people you would happily play again and again, because he made the game quite comic and fun. This game swung back and forwards quite a bit, and I really expected not to win. However, after some luck turned my way, and my tank of a BSB who had won out about 3 challenges against a mix of generic and named characters, he turned into a Daemon Prince who ran rampart on the board. Although I ended up sucking Glottkin into the warp in the final turn, and I didn't manage to table Nick, I picked up a decent amount of points on what was the bloodiest board I had played on yet.

Game Five (Andy H)
Game Five was on Sunday morning, and after a very big night of drinking, I was faced of against Andy and his awesome looking Nurgle army. There isn't much I can say about the game itself, as it was extremely uneventful in the fact that neither of us could really kill any of our opponents units. To be honest, I think the few points we both got were based more of secondary scenarios then our opponents losses. Andy was yet another great player, with a very competitive mindset. I do believe if we had not both been playing Nurgle, I would have been very hard pressed to pull of a victory against someone so tactical.

Game Six (Tom D)
In typical tournament fashion, I ended the tournament against my close mate and travel buddy, Tom. He was running a 1000pt Malekith led Elven host, a list that I had helped him write and had always miserably been crushed by it. Tom was sitting high up there in points, and there was not a lot of difference in standings between the top 4-5 players. This scenario allowed us to cast the End Times spell related to our lore, and after Malekith failed to land Pit of Shades onto Glottkin in top of turn one, the Brothers Three cast the Nurgle End times Spell at the Eternity King, and turned him into a Daemon Prince. It was the beginning of the end, and both of us were stunned as I managed to table him and claim max points by turn three. Unfortunately, this took Tom out of the running to place in the tournament overall.


It was a fantastic weekend, and we all had a lot of fun. McCrae L went on to take out the Best General award with his Wood Elves, which he was quite happy with.
As part of the tournament, we had to provide a paint 'Hero of the End Times' miniature to purpose in the secondary scenarios. There was an award for this model as well, which Tom won. However, Tom made the decision after we returned home that as I had actually painted the miniature as part of a commission for him, that he wanted me to take the award. This was really kind and unexpected, and I have so much respect for this guy as both a player and a friend.
The final award, Best Paint overall, which was the prize I had been aiming to get, just managed to land into my hands, with another player sitting just one vote behind me. I am very estatic to have pulled this off, and humbled all the same that other players felt it was worth voting for. To those who did vote for it, thankyou, it is much appreciate.

 Teclis, Tom's Hero of the End Times Winnning Miniature

The Bronze Legion of Nurgle, my OTT Best Painted Army and Award

It was a great weekend away, with lots of laughs and excitement, and was definitely worth the trip. I look forward to returning next year to hopefully compete in either 9th Age (should this system become adopted) or Lord of the Rings/Hobbit SBG.

Thanks again for taking the time to read my blog, and I should hopefully have another hobby post up soon!

Twelve Days into the Deep End! (Studio Update January 2016)

It suddenly hit me today: we are almost two weeks into the new year! How time has flown already, and so much has happened already! I'm not exactly sure where to begin...

Firstly, let's talk about the models. As many of you now know, I have just handed in my list for the Over the Top WHFB 8th Ed: The End Times 2400pt tournament over Waitangi weekend in February. I am taking the Bronze Host, which shall be led by The Glottkin himself. So, as per my usual tournament hussle, I have purchased a few more models! I picked up two boxes of Plague Drones, courtesy of Elven Glades blogger (link to his blog at the bottom of this page), and will be on Thursday picking up the Festus the Leechlord and Gutrot Spume models. Although I am trying to avoid purchasing models around 8th Ed, and focusing on 9th, these are some pretty cool miniatures that I have wanted to own for a long time, so am glad to finall get my hands on them. I also managed to build a new BSB miniature, this one on a Palaquin. The conversion took me some time, and the painting side took longer while I tried to work out what colours I wanted to use, but I am impressed with the final product. I have shown pictures in a previous blog post while it was a WIP, but here's some pics of the final product:

I also took on a new army, and this one, is purely for 9th Age! It just so happened I was scrolling along TradeMe, and discovered some Beastmen models going for cheap. And then I found more. And then more. And all of them were the models that I would need for some lists I was writing for fun for Beastmen. So I hit BUY! So now I am sitting here frantically waiting to see a courier turn up with a big box of blood hungry beasts for me to paint! So, if you don't see me around soon, I am either head down painting up more models (the backlog ever grows) or my wife has finally had enough of my hobby, and set it on fire, or just killed me instead! lol.

I also purchased (yes I know, a lot of hobby buying this month!) an airbrush and compressor as an early birthday present for myself. The catch now is, to get it set up and going so I can use it to get my army finished for OTT in February!

Outside of the hobbing, painting and gaming side of things, the community side has just started getting busy as well!

At PlagueBearers, we have finalised the player pack and rules for the first of our events this year, The Reign of Fire WHFB Campaign, and are hard at work getting our 40k campaign set up and ready to follow. We haven't yet been able to set dates, however I do not believe the WHFB campaign will start any later then the first week of February. We also havem't kicked back into club yet, which should happen soon, and are still on the hunt for a potential new premise.

I also applied to become a part of the 9th Age Team. My application was accepted, and I was offered two positions to chose from. The first, was working as Armybook Support. This position didn't have a hand in the work on the army books themselves, the rules or the balancing, but was designed to work with the players to help communication regarding the books, answering questions and clarifying things where needed, and to collect data from the community. The second position, which was the one I accepted, was as Tournament Support. In this role I am to be the intermediary between The 9th Age Team and tournament organisers, help organisers with there events, and collect data based on tournaments and events. As it happens, I am the sole Tournament Support for New Zealand, and will potentially in time take on part of Australia also to help whoever takes on that region. There is a lot of other things that both of these roles also entailed, but those are the main points

If I wasn't busy enough, I have just applied this evening to join the New Zealand Hobbit League committee, that is in the process of being set up. There are four main positions available in this committee, being Hobbyists, Gamers, Painters and Organisers/Community. I am hoping to be able to fill the community role. Along with this, they are looking for a person/people, to head up and run the NZHL Merchandise team. As this sort of thing is something I have wanted to do for other hobby and non-hobby related areas of my life, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me that I would excel in.

Its a busy time of the year, and I do not see it slowing down anytime soon. What is it that they say? Grab the Rhinox by the balls and.........




My dear friend, the Elven Glades:
http://elvenglades.blogspot.co.nz/