Campaign Points 2. Triumph & Treachery first impressions

Yesterday I had my first game of Triumph & Treachery, the Warhammer supplement for more than two players. It was a four-player game to mark a significant moment of the campaign. We were split into two rough teams: Matt and Tom allied their Empire armies (one of which, Tom's, is a bit rogue) whilst my Vampire Counts teamed up with Iain's Warriors Of Chaos (who had previously captured my General and ransomed her back in exchange for support in this battle).

It was our first game under the system so let's skip over some of the obvious ones: things took twice as long as they should have (the game lasted four game turns and nearly seven hours) and we were constantly forgetting to play our Treachery cards at the right moment.

We made one other huge mistake in that the Empire players took one long edge of the table and the Friendly Alliance of Hugs and Niceness (Tom's suggested name for my team) took the other.

Thus things greatly descended into two normal games taking place in parallel. Over the course of the later turns Tom and Iain came to fight other opponents but Matt and I found ourselves largely restricted to the player directly opposite us. If we'd chosen to deploy allied armies in opposite corners I think we'd all have been faced with harder, more interesting decisions about who to declare our enemy player in our turns.

All that aside I like the system. The mercenaries rules worked well with only 200 points of extra troops per 1000 points of main army meaning they added a little flavour (Dwarfs for the two Empire players, Skaven for Iain and High Elves for me, which is a long story we'll get into another day) without making matters confusing, visually or mechanically.

The matter of nominating a single player to be your enemy in each phase is also a good system. Things get a bit abstract here and there (a cannon ball can't harm a neutral player, for instance) but it's better to have a rule affect the game under all circumstances rather than having a half dozen exceptions cluttering it up.

Treachery cards are fun, too. I had two great ones I got to play. The first was a card that simply stops a war machine from firing when your opponent declares he's targeting you. The other, and the effect of this was amazing, is a card that you play after another player's Wizard has failed to cast a spell. Play the card and that spell goes off with irresistible force (so cannot be stopped) but this also forces a miscast.

I played the card when my “ally” Iain's Shadow Sorcerer Sith'Kin failed to cast a spell at Tom's army. It went off, which he wanted it to, and thanked me. Then I pointed at the condition, Iain rolled on the miscast table and his Sorcerer promptly rolled Dimensional Cascade and was swallowed by the Warp.

All of which serves that Sorcerer right for compelling my Master Necromancer Berenice Von Gallenberg to provide troops for him by attaching a mutant strangulation beast to her neck.

Would I play again? Yes. But I'd have to say that unless experience makes the game much, much quicker I'd restrict it to 1000 points a player (we played 2000 with 400 of mercenaries each) and either not have alliances or not deploy as we did along parallel sides.

All in all, though, an excellent system. 

Ooh, that's quite shiny: GW pre-orders for 15 March 2014

Crimson Slaughter: a Codex: Chaos Space Marines supplement (£30 hardcover)

You know, for the first time I am tempted to buy one of these new Codex supplements and it's for the very reason some people are resisting this one. I want a Crimson Slaughter book because they are new, because there hasn't been much written about them so far. I like their look, I like what little background they have (Space Marines driven insane by the ghostly voices of those they've killed which can only be quieted with more killing) and I want this more than the previously rumoured World Eaters/Book Of Khorne supplement because I know the World Eaters inside out.

Between the three Chaos Space Marine codices I own, the old Index Astartes, the Horus Heresy novels and a couple of audios the World Eaters are pretty well covered as far as I'm concerned. But a new faction? Give me some of that, please.

Helbrute (£33 multi-part plastic box set)

I pretty much covered this before when the kit leaked onto the 'net. I rather like it, it's good to have all the options from the Codex available without having to convert the Dark Vengeance model. I won't be buying one in the immediate future (even after finishing my 100 miniature painting challenge) because I still have my DV one to paint.

Still, this gives me hope that multi-part Cultists are on the way.

Chaos Space Marine Attack Force (£120 army bundle)

It seems that Battalions and Battle Forces are getting too expensive to be the starter sets GW wants them to be so they're replacing them with these larger sets for older gamers with more disposable income (at least that's how I read the shift) rather than younger gamers wanting to get started quickly.

I can't argue with the deal, it's a good mix of units: a Chaos Terminator Lord, 10 Chaos Space Marines, a Chaos Rhino (with that lovely vehicle accessory sprue of which I have many fond memories), 5 Chaos Terminators, 5 Raptors and a Forgefiend. Saving £21 by my count means you get the Raptors for free. It might not be the best army imaginable (you need to split the 10 Chaos Marines into two squads to make it legal) but I think it might be meant to combine with Dark Vengeance in which case it's more than convincing.

Coda: 100 Model Painting Challenge

If the supplement is any good I'm halfway tempted, as I haven't started them yet, to paint up my Dark Vengeance Chaos Marines as the Crimson Slaughter. 

Your random Hellenic fact for the day

“I wouldn't stick my hand in the fire” is apparently the Greek equivalent of “I wouldn't swear to it”, as a Greek co-worker of mine explained after I looked at her blankly when she used the phrase.

Nothing else, slow day.

100 Models #2: Vampire Counts Wight King

Vampire Counts Wight King

single plastic miniature

Games Workshop £9

With the application of a sheet of A4 to provide a neutral background and using the timer on my camera so I don't judder it as I press the button I think I'm getting much better pictures. I just have to figure out how to switch off the flash to get rid of those shadows and I'm set. Anyway, onto the miniature:

This is a far more complicated model than the Cairn Wraith. It has a lot of layers so you really have to go in with a plan for painting it. Some layers need drybrushing, some need inking and it can tie you in knots. This is actually my second attempt to paint one of these, having hashed up the first go so comprehensively I had to buy a new model (the original is in a drawer waiting to be paint-stripped and turned into Bretonnian Paladin).

The solution to this model is to paint it from the inside out, innermost layer to outermost. This wasn't exactly a simple process and I had to touch up the innermost layers rather a lot (covering stray Necron Compound off the boot and knee after drybrushing the chainmail, for instance).

An effect I'm rather proud of, but which hasn't photographed well, is the dirty metal effect I tried out on the sword blade. With luck and better photography you'll see a lot more of this effect on my Black Knights and Guardians Of The Covenant but it basically goes like this: basecoat in Leadbelcher, wash Nuln Oil, drybrush the whole area in Necron Compound (or Runefang to suit your taste) and then wash Agrax Earthshade. The brown ink picks out and colours the brighter drybrush layer so you get the look of mottled filth covering the blade.

I also rather like the colour of the cape (Incubi Darkness) and I think I'll use it wherever I can within the arrmy, try to create a more cohesive look for a very disparate force.

The red armour I am less fond of. I went right up far too bright in layering and tried to darken it down again with inks but it didn't quite take.

All in all this was a complicated but very satisfying model to paint. When I'm buying models again (98 to go!) I might get some Grave Guard and paint them to match him, albeit with darker armour. I am painting some units, by the way, it's just that the character models were finished first (there'll be another one on Thursday) so I should make more substantial progress towards my goal soon, especially when I have a chance to basecoat those eleven High Elves I'll need for Sunday's Triumph & Treachery game. 

Campaign Points 1: The Triumph & Treachery to come

Yesterday I had a game of Fantasy in my friend Matt's ongoing campaign. My Vampire Counts versus Ian's Warriors Of Chaos, I lost but what's important is that Ian managed to capture my general Berenice Von Gallenberg. There were two options: I could play a scenario to try and rescue her or Ian and I could come to a deal for her freedom.

The deal we made was as follows: Ian recently lost a territory to Matt's Empire, he wants that territory back. In exchange for her freedom and not being tortured by Slaaneshi sadists Von Gallenberg will ally with him to help re-take the territory. It'll be a three-player game so we'll be using Triumph & Treachery.

So I need mercenaries.

At 2000 points you get 400 points to spend on mercenaries. My mercenaries will be a band of High Elves who have come to investigate this mysterious island that has appeared in the Sea Of Chill. The band's leader, an eccentric Loremaster of Hoeth called Korando, has made a devil's bargain with the Necromancers. He wants to know what is at the heart of the island, what animates it and he suspects it is based in Dark Magic. Dark Magic attracts other Dark Magic so he allies with the undead to use them as sniffer hounds.

The game is on Sunday, I have a week. Unfortunately I can't start until Wednesday because I can't find my primer. It'll be a real time attack to get the mercenaries finished in time. 

100 Models #1: Vampire Counts Cairn Wraith

Single plastic miniature

Games Workshop, £9

Let's talk about simplicity. It's hard to review a simple model. If I were reviewing something like, for instance, the Black Knights I'm currently painting I could talk about the variations between the five figures, the impressive alternative build, the business of deciding on their colour scheme. But this model...?

No bells and whistles, no weapons options, no posing options: just a cloak, a skull and a scythe. There are maybe half dozen different colour areas involved, paint it to look ethereal and you can cut that down to a white basecoat and a wash. Your only real decision is what colour you're going to paint the long, flowing robe that makes up most of the miniature. As you can see I went for a traditional black Grim Reaper-style robe. It may be unambitious but I think the model benefits from a simple colour scheme.

That said I've seen some fantastic Cairn Wraiths with green robes and if I buy a second one I'd be tempted to paint it that way.

The whole model revolves around the robe, which is empty below the skull. It's a wonderful design even if you do have to strain a little to see if you've painted every part if the interior. This simplicity also makes it easy to paint, hence it being the first model to make it off my hobby table in this project (99 to go!).

The only flaw in the miniature is the price. £9 is more than reasonable for a character and if you're using it as a Hero, as I am, you won't feel cheated. It's if you want to run a unit of five of the things you run into financial difficulties because suddenly you're looking at a £45 bill for a very small unit.

As to my own work on the figure I'm rather proud of the rust effect on the scythe, achieved through drybrushing (I'm not actually that fond of the effect the new Ryza Rust technical paint gives). The Skavenblight Dinge drybrush on the black robe appears thicker and less subtle now I've varnished the miniature. I want to use the effect again on my Hexwraiths and Deathwatch so I'll have to remember it needs to be very subtle. I don't hate how it's come out, it still looks enough like cloth but if I want to use it as a highlight on, say, power armour it won't do.

Also, it's been so long since I painted a base that I need more practice to get the line between side and top neat and straight. Still, one benefit of this project is that I'll have another ninety nine goes to get it right. 

100 Model Challenge: The Rules

The Intention

To paint 100 Warhammer models before buying any more miniatures. This might sound like a lot but since I play mainly Warhammer Fantasy that's really just five rank-and-file units. Every hobbyist ends up with a pile of half-finished projects and it's time to tackle some of mine.

The Rules

One: 100 models to be painted. “Painted” defined as tabletop standard, based and varnished.

Two: No matter what size the miniature, one model is defined as one model towards the total: a Zombie is one model; a Knight on a horse is one model; a tank is one model; a towering Necrosphinx is one model; and so on. One equals one.

Three: The only Games Workshop products to be purchased in this period to be paints, brushes and novels.

Four: All finished models to be photographed and reviewed for the blog just as soon as I find my digital camera.

Five: Once a model is set down on the paint station it stays there until it is finished. The point of the exercise is to finish the projects I set to one side so no setting thing to one side.

Six: No wriggling out of it, Ashelford, I know you.

The Helbrute leak and what I hope it means

They've been taken down now but pictures leaked onto the internet earlier in the week of a new Helbrute model, multi-part with options to represent all the Chaos Gods. The pictures were from the next issue of Warhammer Visions so we can expect the model to be solicited in the next White Dwarf.

This is good. I like (even prefer) the Dark Vengeance Helbrute but it'll be good to have the option of a second without buying a whole other starter set. It'll be nice to have one I can built to be clearly Nurglesque for my Death Guard (the Dark Vengeance one will be painted for my Word Bearers). Has to be said, though, I like it mainly because of what it might mean in the future.

Right now the Helbrute is a big draw for Dark Vengeance, an exclusive mini you can only get in the big set and there are other models fitting that description I'd like to see as separate kits. I know I bang on about the Lost And The Damned but a proper Cultists kit would be lovely. Let's face it, compared to the Helbrute a bunch of expendable mortal plebs with shitty guns is not a huge draw (unless you're me).

And then there are the High Elves in Island Of Blood. Two of those exclusive units are Core choices. I say that the contents of this set need making into proper kits out of pure selfishness since the two High Elves themes that really appeal to me are Lothern (with Sea Guard from one horizon to the other) and Hoeth (with a Loremaster at the head of a big block of Swordmasters).

Of course, the Helbrute isn't even the first kit of this kind. The clampack Space Marine Captain from last September was a blatant retread of the Captain from Assault On Black Reach just with one of the new grav guns slapped on the model.

I guess what this comes down to is that I like buying certain models and I would like the option to buy just those. I want a Chaos Space Marine army with lots and lots of Cultists being callously pushed towards the enemy by their Astartes masters but I don't want to end up with half a dozens Helburtes and endless Chosen to make that a reality.

You never know, we might finally see plastic Deffkoptas. 

Trek Humour

It's Tuesday. I'm having that Tuesday problem of comics not being out until tomorrow and not having anything to say. Have a funny poster that turned up in my Facebook feed courtesy of a friend. 

Hobby consequences of my annual water rates

For a brief, beautiful, fleeting moment I had money. My deposit came back from my old landlord. I wasn't even planning to do anything with it, just put it into savings in case I had to move again at the end of this six month contract. Then the rates turned up, which I really should have expected but there we are.

Anyway, the current financial situation has led me to make a bit of a resolution. Since I need to save money I should get on with painting some of the Warhammer models I've got sitting around half-finished. Every hobbyist gets to that stage eventually, no one ever buys “just one kit at a time” and finishes it “before I buy the next one”. No one.

Let's pick an arbitrary big number and say that I will finish 100 models before buying any new ones. This might sound a lot but I play mainly Fantasy so that's five rank-and-file units. Hell, I've got two Bretonnian Battalions sitting atop my bookshelf and they constitute 90 models between them.

I have a mountain of projects half-built or half-painted or just waiting for a few finishing touches. I started painting some Black Knights in December, painted the bone effect and just... stopped, got distracted. I've been fielding them less-than-half-painted since Matt started his campaign and it's time to get them done. I need more models for my Zombie raising pool, I bought a box, never got round to building them. I really need to make a start on my Dark Vengeance set (Guardians of the Covenant for the Dark Angels, Word Bearers for the Chaos Marines). I bought some Death Guard kits and a Wight King Battle Standard Bearer at Games Day then I had to move and they got shoved in a box, unopened. I picked up Belegar Ironhammer just to paint and... didn't.

I did make a list of all the odds and sods hanging around and it was shaming. I had no idea how far behind I was on these things. 100 isn't exactly a drop in the ocean but it's less than half the list.

Time to get to work. Progress posted to the blog as I finish models. 

Why I should avoid rumour site comments

(I'll catch real shit for this, but screw it... )

So over the last few weeks I have been following along with increasing mirth to rumours that Bretonnia will be phased out of Warhammer because this is the secret reason their metal and finecast kits have been removed from the GW web store. The rumour was recently expanded to include Wood Elves, Beastmen and Tomb Kings and now it's the turn of Dwarfs.

No, seriously, no. I thought this was silly with Bretonnians. I thought it was bafflingly absurd when the list was expanded to include two armies that received updates within the last four years. Now that one of the four principle races of Warhammer is involved... well, you see that image at the top of the post?

The simple fact is that there is a predictable cycle of fan panic attack that surrounds these things and this is how it goes, using recent Dwarf events as a guideline:

Event 1: Rumours of a new release for army X, probably started in part by GW itself to test the waters on the idea. In the case of Dwarfs rumours surfaced in November that they'd be early this year (pegged as January rather than February but these things aren't 100%).

Event 2: Games Workshop's online store removes listings for redundant and outdated models in that army, usually white metal and finecast kits. GW is currently working to phase out finecast and white metal is actively obsolete as they destroyed the casting equipment some time ago. In this case Dwarf Hammerers and Ironbreakers have disappeared, both super-expensive fincast 5-man rank sets. (Not Slayers, which worries me).

Event 3: Opinion is divided straight down the middle with one half of commenters forgetting Event 1 and commencing the wailing and gnashing of teeth that the army is being phased out or “Squatted” in the parlance. The other half, remembering Event 1, advise caution and point out that this happens for just about every release, especially for those armies that have large numbers of kits still in metal and finecast. This second half speculates about what might be in the release and how the army might be added to in new and characterful ways.

Event 4: The first half berate the second half as being “GW apologists”, “hopelessly naive” and bang on about how GW thinks of nothing but “destroying their hobby”. Intemperate language is employed by both sides. The first half claim that X army doesn't make enough money and so “must” be on the way out. The second half point out that under that logic GW would cease production of anything except Space Marines who make up 70% of their revenue. The first half then moves on to how Fantasy will be dropped entirely, how every release in the last two years has been completely botched and how GW will go out of business soon but don't worry their mate has a friend who has a cousin who has a Kickstarter that will totally do things better than GW ever could and be as big within a few years!

Event 5: The army gets a new release. Kits are released to replace the ones taken down from the online store. There is rejoicing in the streets, livestock is slaughtered in celebration and in a comment section somewhere the heart of a doomsayer breaks a little more.

EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. 

UKIP weather reports on Twitter

Okay, this whole business when an MP from UKIP declared that the flooding of the past few months was God's punishment for the UK government passing a gay marriage law.

This ignores the fact that we've had severe flooding every winter for at least the last five years and all the anti-homosexual stuff in the Bible is from the Old Testament alongside the rules about not touching pig skin, keeping the Sabbath on a Friday on pain of death and explicit legal dispensation to sell your children into slavery.

Yet we keep being told the anti-gay stuff is still relevant? Seriously, guys, if this stuff is actually important to your world view you should read it properly not just cherrypick the bits that confirm your own prejudices.

Anyway, the picture at the top of the post hit Facebook the next day and now some brilliant joker has started a UKIPWeather Twitter. It is hilarious and I recommend it to anyone who likes a laugh. 

What's wrong (and right) with Bretonnia

Under no circumstances am I even going to
attempt to paint that heraldry!

So the “scrapping of Bretonnia” rumour is doing the rounds again, this time enhanced by the idea that Wood Elves, Beastmen and Tomb Kings are getting the chop as well. I'm not going to dwell on this because it is bollocks, doubly bollocks when you consider two of those ranges were given substantial numbers of new models within the last four years so let's point and laugh at that idea and move on.

Finished pointing and laughing? Good, let's start.

Another rumour that did the rounds a few months ago was that Bretonnia was getting a new Army Book some time about Quarter 3 of this year so I decided to start a new army in anticipation. Sadly, a lot of the range went out of production whilst my back was turned but I'm choosing to interpret that positively as GW running down soon-to-be redundant stock instead of negatively as a conspiracy to “destroy my hobby!”.

But what would a new Bretonnia book do? The current book will be ten years old next month and whole editions have come and gone in the mean time so a few odd relics of ages past remain that could do with updating.

Before we move on I should warn you that I'm going to do something I've often said in comment threads was stupid: I'm going to compare Bretonnia to The Empire. I want to qualify this hypocrisy by saying that in the past I've warned against this because commenters on rumour sites who themselves say they don't play Fantasy believe the Bretonnian army could be absorbed into The Empire. This is also bollocks: differences play styles, formations, special rules and background scream against the idea. Points costs, however, are based on statistical usefulness and game balancing so the also-human Empire makes a good point of comparison to propose theories against.

All settled? Let's talk crunch:

Lords and Heroes

Characters for the most part are rather reasonably pointed and I was pleasantly surprised to see a Bretonnian Lord has a couple of superior stats to a General Of The Empire (+1 Weapon Skill, +1 Initiative and +1 Attack, as it happens) for only 15 extra points. Eminently reasonable. Paladins and Damsels are similarly reasonable against their Empire equivalents so the only over-priced one seems to be the Prophetess who is 25 points more than a Battle Wizard Lord with a lower Toughness.

What might need a bit of fixing are the Virtues: extra traits you can buy for your knightly characters, some of which are useful, some of which are useless and some of which are blatantly broken. This is no one's fault, edition changes have simply wreaked their customary havoc.

My personal favourite bug bear is the fact that to have a great weapon your knight character has to have the Questing Vow but you have to pay extra for the great weapon on top of the Vow.

Core Knights

Not over-priced, in spite of what people have said to me. Knights Errant are 20 points, Knights Of The Realm are 24. Empire Knights come in at 22 points and I'll take either Bretonnian choice over them any day. The lance formation gives you a bucket of extra attacks. In a lance of nine knights (three wide, three deep) you get the full attacks of seven knights and their mounts plus one supporting attack from the guy in the middle.

Knights Errant, whilst statistically inferior to Empire Knightly Orders in several regards are Immune To Psychology after charging but I have one complaint: the Impetuous rule. If you're in theoretical charge range you have to take a Leadership test to restrain the urge to charge headlong at the enemy. Unfortunately the theoretical charge distance of Knights Errant is 20 inches and that means your enemy cam easily bait you into maximum distance charges to get you nicely out of position and then slam into your flanks.

Whilst we're on the subject, though, I'll take the current lance formation over the old arrowhead idea any day.

Grubby Working Class Yobbos

It was recently pointed out to me that Men-At-Arms are, statistically speaking, Vampire Counts Skeleton Warriors with higher leadership. That's all, really, they're fine, so are the Peasant Bowmen so all that needs noting is that we could really do with plastic Mounted Yeomen and it'd be nice to have Men-At-Arms with the spear option included on the kit.

A Modest Proposal Towards Pegasus Knights

This is a big one because one of the most feared units in our little gaming club are Matt's Demigryph Knights. In light of The Empire's monstrous cavalry being a full 3 points more expensive than mine I humbly submit that one or both of the following measures need to be employed:

One: Give Pegasus Knights the option for barding and therefore a 2+ save. The barding is on the model so it won#t necessitate a re-sculpt.

Two: Give them 3 Wounds. This is absolutely standard for monstrous cavalry and infantry these days.

Beyond that I have no complaints. Questing Knights stand up well and, in all honesty, I never used Grail Knights so I can't vouch for their effectiveness. The Field Trebuchet remains an immensely powerful stone thrower by anyone's standards and I hope it stays as is for the next edition.

So, all in all, a fairly solid army even now so GW can spend more time working out cool new shit for them than bringing their rules into line with anything more than a few token additions and subtractions.

Fingers crossed. 

Campaign Divergence: the House Harkonnen soundtrack

Yesterday Matt, Tom, Dave and I got together for a day of fast-paced 1000 points games (results: two wins to Matt, one to me) and as usual we had some music on in the background. Hans Zimmer's Gladiator soundtrack is a perennial favourite, ditto Howard Shore's The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit soundtracks.

Then it was Tom's turn to fight Matt and he had an idea: alternating soundtracks turn by turn. He was playing Matt so in Matt's turns the soundtrack was Hans Zimmer's Gladiator and Tom pulled up Youtube and started playing the soundtrack from the game Emperor: Battle ForDune.

The section we're interested in (though I do like the opening Atriedes tracks) are the Harkonnen campaign tracks by David Arkenstone starting at 1:11:30. For those not familiar with the franchise Dune is a planet where a future empire mines the most precious substance in the universe. One of the noble families doing the mining are the Harkonnens who are all various shades of evil: the duke is a sex criminal, his son is a maniac, his nephew is a sadist and their planet is an industrial hell of slavery and gladiatorial combat between healthy nobles and malnourished, untrained slaves.

And they have a bitchin' soundtrack.

Tom has been using it as painting music whilst working on his Nuln army. A heavy industrial sound dominates most of the tracks which works for the forge of the Empire. For me the harsh sounds, especially the inhuman wailing in the background of Tribute To Evil, made me think about resurrecting my Dark Elves. Other highlights include The Machine which has a baseline that makes me think of heavily armoured elite troops stamping down a street in occupied territory.

In spite of being a MIDI-heavy electronic soundtrack it's quite atmospheric and perfectly captures the character of the House Harkonnen and well worth a look if you want inspiration music for a project concerning very nasty people.

Though it has to be mentioned that my game against Tom which involved farcical miscasts on both sides, a close-to-mutual tabling and my Necromancer army chasing his around the board would have been quite atmospherically accompanied by Yakety Sax. 

Hobby Vows passed and failed

Hobby Vow Tracker

Passed: 1

Failed: 1

Last week I set myself two hobby vows. One I passed, one I failed but I can content myself that the one I failed wasn't through laziness.

I failed to paint my three Necromancers but not through lack of effort but rather because for most of the last week I've had a stinking cold and not been motivated to do anything, plus I left my army case at a friend's house and so I didn't have them readily to hand for most of the week.

I have succeeded in the other vow, however, and have not only a colour scheme but theme and self-written background for my new Bretonnian army.

The army will be (predominantly) from the duchy of Artois. It's general, the one I am converting from King Louen Leonceour, will be Sir Merovech of the Quest. This is one of the lords whose heraldry is set out in the Army Book. As it turns out Merovech is the name of a semi-legendary Frankish king from around the 450s AD so I'll read up on him to see if there's anything I can blatantly poach.

The idea at the moment is that Merovech has finished his Quest (and so I won't have to do too much cosmetic surgery on his hippogryph) and has been named by the king as Warden of Artois. Most of Artois is covered by the Forest of Arden so I imagine the people are under constant attack from Beastmen, Goblins, bandits, Orcs, Skaven and feral squirrels. Artois also shared a substantial border with Mousillon, home of Bretonnia's Undead. Thus the king has appointed a warden to co-ordinate the entire military might of the duchy. It allows me to include any units I want without the limitations put on me by saying the army is on crusade.

As to the next two vows:

Vow the Practical

Build the contents of my Bretonnia Batallion. It might look like a lot for a week but the Peasants are actually quite easy.

Vow the Theoretical

Plan out the conversion for Merovech himself. As said above I've decided against making him a Questing Knight because I've seen some amazing conversions using Leonceour's body and a lance. Not sure what I'll do with the Questing Lord body I have spare now but I've seen some very nice kitbashes on the Google Image Search sitting him on a Pegasus.

Though I do feel that perhaps taking a flying mount on the Quest is rather cheating a bit. 

Fairy Tail, my new slightly guilty pleasure

Anime has never been a big fandom for me. I've watched, even enjoyed, my fair share (Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the Studio Gibli films) but by and large as an art form it passes me by. I blame Studio Gibli, to be honest, once you've seen Spirited Away there's really nowhere to go but down, is there?

Anyway, Fairy Tail and why I think of it as a bit of a guilty pleasure. You see, I'm as guilty as any non-fan of mocking long-form anime's tropes: fanservice episodes, filler, overblown magic attacks hyper-competent child protagonists... well, the whole series structure of Naruto, basically.

Yes, Naruto, which isn't as bad as a lot of non-fans make it sound but does have systemic flaws. Most of these can be put down to it being a long-form anime based on a long-form manga that's still running. Filler arcs, flashbacks and over-extended fight scenes are a necessary evil to stop the anime overtaking the manga. It makes the pacing of the series brutal, though.

Yet here I am about to extol the virtues of a series that, on the surface, is rather similar. Fairy Tail is about a guild of wizards who take jobs from the civilian population, usually combat-oriented, for money. This structure is basically indistinguishable from Naruto's Leaf Village set-up. The core cast are three young wizards from the guild: Natsu, Lucy and Gray. Natsu and Gray have a passive-aggressive rivalry that turns just aggressive-aggressive at random intervals (see also Naruto and Sasuki) and Lucy is the outwardly least mature, least competent character who muddles her way to success (either early Naruto or Sakura, depending on your reading of the character).

Where things differ is that Fairy Tail takes a very Carry On approach to its characters' roles.

The Carry On films, if you've not heard of them, were a series of film parodies that ran from the 1950s to the 1970s. Each one takes a known genre, populates it with all the expected characters but plays them all for laughs. I saw one over Christmas that was a parody of a Foreign Legion movie and had Kenneth Williams as the Camp Commandant (I know, not too obvious) and he played the part with a ridiculous German accent except in private the character spoke with Williams' normal voice because the character was an Englishman putting on a stereotypical German accent because that's what a Foreign Legion Commandant is “meant” to sound like. Having a strict German officer in charge of a Foreign Legion outpost isn't even a joke, it's a trope and that's where the gag comes from.

So we have Lucy, our blonde, busty, over-sexualised heroine who is also a powerful wizard of the summoner type except whenever she tries to get her way through flirting or flashing her cleavage it turns out the other character just doesn't fancy her. We have Natsu, who is constantly bigged up as the most powerful fire mage anyone who fights him has ever seen except that he keeps being floored by horrendous motion sickness. We have Gray, the attractive young man you'd expect to get shirtless every now and again for fanservice but who doesn't need any contrived plot reason to do so, he just continuously and randomly strips as a running gag. Literally, the shot will leave him for a moment then turn back to him in his boxers or less for no explained reason.

Then there's the Fairy Tail Guild itself, which is based out of a pub and whose members have a reputation for collateral damage above and beyond the call of duty, drunken behaviour and general rowdiness. One character, Mirajane, is apparently a powerful and famous mage but instead of the sort of epochal destiny you'd expect such a character to have her ambitions don't seem to run to more than running the bar and doing a bit of glamour modelling on the side.

The resulting series is fun and utterly charming. I doubt I'll sit through the full 170+ episodes but its a better than decent way to waste twenty minutes between bits of housework.

(This post is indebted to Philip Sandifer and his scientific breakdown ofhow Carry On films work from his TARDIS Eruditorum series). 

Please, take a moment to thank your CS telephone operative

So today I had reason to phone the town council. The reason being I've recently moved house (I may have mentioned or, more accurately, have transcribed several tantrums during the process) and I had to sort out my council tax. I thought I'd already done it but it seemed my lettings agent and I were working at cross purposes so the balance of my old account wasn't incorporated into my new account. Consequence: £296 owed to the council that I shouldn't owe.

I phoned them, had a short conversation with a very efficient young woman and the long and the short of it is my council tax is, as I originally assumed, paid up for the year. What's more my old account had a credit of “249 pounds on it from the first year I lived on my own when I didn't know about single persons' discount so next year's council tax bill will only be about £500.

I reiterated the result verbally to her to make sure, we had come to the agreement I thought we had and then I took a moment to thank her properly:

“I just have to say you've been brilliant. I was kind of dreading this phone call but you've been great and I just wanted you to know that. I know you must get a lot of grief doing this job and I want you to know I really appreciate your work.”

The sad thing is that she was really, really grateful for my gratitude. That's just sad. So the next time you have a good customer service experience by phone, just take a moment to let your CS operative know that you appreciate their work on your behalf. Yes, it's their job but that's no reason not to tell them they're good at it (especially after they save you £796).

Now I'm going to go on Youtube and watch old episodes of The Charlie Brown And Snoopy Show to make sure the day continues to unfold upon lines of fluffy niceness. 

Tzeentch's Advocate: White Dwarf Changes

Yes, I've decided to give my “Games Workshop reaction” posts a title. Perhaps one day I'll even work out what to do with it. Anyway..., the long running Games Workshop magazine White Dwarf is changing and having spoken to a local GW employee I'm rather exciting to see where this goes. Basically there'll be two magazines now: one weekly, one monthly.

The weekly will take the White Dwarf name and a significant reduction in page count. 32 pages for £2.40 (the price, the GW website reminds us, of a pot of Citadel paint) and will have some new columns, the week's releases, painting guides and new game rules. So, yes, weekly releases are go, the rumour being two weeks in a typical four week month going to GW models/rule books, one week for Forge World, one for Black Library.

Sounds good. It's the game rules being included that might be interesting: flimsy print versions of Dataslates, perhaps? Pilots for later collection are also a possibility as the various flier rules that later got collected together to be Death From The Skies.

The monthly will be Warhammer Visions and here we get to the metaphor of two traders breaking up the business. White Dwarf Weekly gets the name and goodwill while Warhammer Vision gets the truck, the tools and the address book of repeat customers.

Or, to be more literal, they get Standard Bearer, Blanchitsu, Paint Splatter and Army Of The Month. No word on Jeremy Vetock's column but I live in hope. Actually, I live in hope that in one of these magazine they'll bring back Mike Walker and the Reverend Jeff Leong, the best columnists White Dwarf ever knew.

Visions weighs in at an amazing 236 pages per issue for £7.50 and there's even more extra content than it sounds like because the store directory is being cut from the magazine because it's been useless ever since the internet got its act together.

I'll get the first copy of both on February 1^st but I'm almost certain that the new White Dwarf will be an occasional purchase and Visions will be my regular fix. It sounds like Visions will be the more hobby-focussed and Low Fat White Dwarf will be the gaming focussed one and we all know where my heart lies. 

Sod Skyrim, I got Sonic & Knuckles!

Okay, I got the Xbox but my friend Matt couldn't find the copy of Skyrim but he did have another game for me: the Mega Drive Ultimate Collection. Ladies and gentlemen, the soundtrack to my childhood:

Okay, I have a console powerful enough to render 3D graphics, soundtracks involving voice acting and games that can last me weeks but, you know what? I've forty 16-bit games from my childhood and that's enough to keep me amused for a while. Who knows, after twenty years I might even be able to finish Sonic The Hedgehog 3?

Yes, shamefully I have never got further than the Carnival Night Zone and some day I might have to admit to myself I never will but that is not this day!

Plus Ecco The Dolphin and Ecco II: The Tides Of Time. The comic adaptation in Sonic The Comic ended before I got to find out who was behind the shenanigans in Tides Of Time so that's worth playing if only to settle a dangling plot thread that hasn't bothered me since about 1996. Plus there are a load of Phantasy Star games which I hope have a save function because 16-bit RPGs were the most frustrating things ever when they didn't have that option.

Sonic 3D's on there but they couldn't all be winners, I suppose. 

Canon conflict? This is a job for Big Finish!

This screencap was taken from the 50^th anniversary episode The Day Of The Doctor, just a random prop photo on the UNIT noticeboard full of companions, a completely non-canon mash-up of UNIT Captain Mike Yates and First Doctor Companion Sara Kingdom, Space Security Agent.

Come on, Big Finish, you know you want to explain this one. It's a new Sara Kingdom story, you know it makes sense.

Well, it doesn't and that the point. This is a mad combination of Third and First Doctor era characters but it would certainly be damn entertaining. 

Current generation gaming: an outsider's perspective

So in a couple of days I'll be handing over £30 pounds to my friend Matt and getting an XBox 360, a couple of games and hopefully some sort of waterproof container to transport it home in. I've rather sat out the current console generation, which isn't unusual behaviour for me. I'm what's known as a casual gamer, you see, and the casual gamer is typified by short attention span, conspicuous lack of spending and better things to do with their time.

To show what I mean my favourite games at the moment are the Lego film adaptations (Lego Star Wars, Lego Indian Jones, etcetera,.) and the Sonic Rush games on DS. These are fun, light and easy to pick up just for a half hour or so when you have a bit of time to kill. When I do try something more substantial it's got to be something capable of keeping my interest for a span of months during which I'll probably play it once of twice a week. Final Fantasy games are favourite for this because they're pretty enough they'll keep me coming back just to see the next set piece or new environment but simple enough plot-wise that I can pick up it up after a few weeks and still know roughly what's going on.

Anyone who thinks I'm being hard on Final Fantasy storytelling here should please note that a) I mean it as a compliment and b) two decades of superhero comics mean I've been trained to take in backstory and intertextual connections the way the rods and cones in our eyes take in light: without conscious effort and flipping it the right way up to make sense of it as a matter of course.

But, anyway, fourth paragraph and I should probably start relating this back to the post title and talk about how I've viewed current generation gaming from my current perspective: outside the window laughing at the funny little antics of those inside.

You want how much?

Like I said I don't devote a lot of time to gaming and so I'm loathe to devote any significant amount of cash to it, either. I play Warhammer and I read comics, two activities that give me more enjoyment than video games usually do so they get a larger claim on my disposable income. I picked up my DS from a pawn shop for £40 and I literally cannot remember the last game I bought new but I strongly suspect it was for the Gamecube.

Second hand XBones have started turning up in Entertainment Exchange and they still want £500 for them plus another £40 if you want something so decadent as a game to play on it.

And then there's DLC, which is both grammatically as well as financially offensive. Initials are usually taken only from the first letter of each word, “downloadable” being but a single word, but let's concentrate on the rip off. If I buy a game I want it to be finished and I do not view this as an unusually prissy demand. I admit that the fact after-market improvements can be made to eliminate bugs is a good thing, no one's quality assurance department is good enough to spot every flaw but I resent the idea of paying extra for, say, the classic songs not included on the disc of Beatles Rock Band (most people complain about the lack of Eleanor Rigby but I'm going to point out Help a2 the most egregious one).

The long and the short of this is I'll be checking out game reviews ahead of time to see if there's any of that DLC malarkey going on because I intend to avoid it like the plague.

Martha, Git Yer Gun!

I hate shooters. My God, I hate shooters but they seem to be the emblematic genre of this generation as platformers and beat 'em ups were for the 16-bit era. Yes, that was my generation, they heyday of mutant hedgehogs, psychotic bandicoots and family-run Italian plumbing businesses with strange uniform standards.

(By that last one I meant the Mario Bros not a mafia front operation, by the way, I just realised how that could be misinterpreted).

But, my God, FPS has come into its own hasn't it with Halo, Gears Of War, Medal Of Honor, Call Of Duty and it's all so, so gritty. I don't want grit, I don't want realism and I especially don't want realistic violence. No offence to those who do, the lack of opportunities one gets to enact horrific consequence-free violence in real life is frustrating to me, too but it's the industry-dominating ubiquity of the genre that gets to me.

I am buying Space Marine, though, because people can moan at me all they like about it being a Gears Of War rip-off in every sense but I will feel a bit better ignoring all those Space Marine knock-offs to play an actual Space Marine with a chuff-off huge thunder hammer. If I'm playing a Space Marine I want the works; bolt gun, holy rage, nineteen stages of post-human implants and the extra motivating factor of making everyone forget I was ever something as shit as a Tenth Company Scout, not some rip-off pretending to originality because they're wearing different armour.

Tits, Lots Of Tits!

This is not new, the over-sexualisation of female protagonists dates back at least as far as Street Fighter. However, it is extra galling in this case because advancing technology has made visual realism more accessible to games developers and yet it is ignored. It can't be incidental, either. In a comic a brokeback pose is the result of an artist not understanding or ignoring the realities of anatomy followed by an editor who either hasn't the time or the inclination to get the panel redrawn (probably the former) with an inker inbetween stages who's kind of stuck working with what he's been handed.

In a computer game every panty flash, every cleavage shot, every brokeback pose and every pair of slackly pouting lips has been carefully rendered by an entire team of programmers over a course of months or even years of work.

So once I have money for new games I should see if any more interesting female protagonists have developed during my little hiatus. I'm not holding my breath though I have had my eye on a copy of Super Princess Peach for a while, just to see what they do with her as something other than a peril monkey for her idiot boyfriend.

Exercise, You Bastards!

I am not buying a Kinect. Ever. If I do you have complete license, should you ever meet me, to slap me. There's a Wii in our staff canteen and no one used it after a week once they all realised how stupid they looked flailing about infront of their extremely judgemental peers.

I do not look forward to the promised controller future that's apparently on the cards. Maybe this is because the technology really isn't there yet. There's still a time delay absent from handheld controllers that makes things like combat a right bugger using Kinects and Wii-motes.

Conclusions

One: Check reviews for information on whether it can be played satisfactorily without being charged for extra content.

Two: Also check to see that motion control is not a necessary part of the experience. I'm told it isn't for all but the very last releases on the 360 but best to check, I suppose.

Three: People keep harping on at me about story-driven games. Mass Effect looks nice so that'll be a nice place to start and Sheperd can be a woman so I can also get a start on that idea of investigating the portrayal of female protagonists in this generation.

Four: Not buy a Kinect. I don't know anyone who would want to sell one for peanuts and in any case computer games are for sitting down and giving my body something to do while I listen to audio drama.

Five: I need to get £30 out of the bank tomorrow to actually pay for the bloody thing. 

An unfortunate Sherlock theory (for Mary Marston)

I don't want this to be true but I can't help but think it. You see, weddings are big, dramatic occasions in a TV series so you don't usually seen them mid-season, they're première and finale fodder. Yet Watson and Mary Marston got hitched in the middle of the three Sherlock episodes this season.

I'm thinking this can only end badly for Mary Marston-Watson. They're happy, they're married, she's (SPOILER WARNING, SERIOUSLY FOLKS) pregnant and the character died in the original stories. What makes this theory doubly galling is that the Sherlock version is the only Mary Marston I've ever liked.

I mean, in the original stories she was little more than a plot device: a client in one story that Conan Doyle then married off to Watson to provide an ending. After that she didn't really serve any purpose except to force Doyle to write endless scenes in which Holmes drags Watson from domestic bliss to run off on some case or other. Eventually he just killed her off and had Watson move back into Baker Street.

I can only hope I'm wrong, I mean the series has done great things to expand and deepen the characters. Mrs Hudson in the stories is barely a character, just a source of food and lodging who rarely even has any lines yet now she's a central part of the cast.

And damn it, that's why I like this Mary! She calls Sherlock on his bullshit, she hangs around at Baker Street, she jumps on a motorcycle with Sherlock to go and rescue her (their) man. She's an active participant in the narrative and a million miles away from her original. She's also a damn sight better than a lot of the other women written by Steven Moffat (though, of course, he's only had a co-writing credit on one episode of this season so far so that could all end badly if he's sole writer tonight).

Long live the new Mary Marston!

James gained XBox (+10 to timewasting)

I've been largely out of computer gaming for many years now, relying on my faithful PS2 and Gamecube and a selection of old favourites to satisfy any urges in that direction. About a year ago I splashed out on a DS I saw cheap in a pawn shop but apart from a couple of Lego and Sonic games it hasn't seen much use. With a new console generation well and truly under way I thought it might be time to invest in some newly obsolete technology and explore a whole new back catalogue of second hand hits.

Just by luck I ended up in the right place at the right time and gained an Xbox from a friend for the princely sum of £30 plus some games. I'm not sure what the games are but Skyrim was mentioned and I'm hardly about to complain about free stuff.

He named the price, by the way, I was going to offer him twice that. Don't tell him.

So at the very least I have Skyrim to look forward to, which people tell me is very pretty. There are other games I'm most definitely looking forward to, mainly things I saw my friend Dan playing when I lived with him: Space Marine, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, the Batman Arkham series, Saint's Row 2, Eternal Sonata, Bioshock and Sonic Generations rather make up the shortlist.

Of course this might all end with me selling on the Xbox to another Charlie. Matt got it off another friend of ours and offloaded it on me after less than two months. His own reasoning was pretty much that nothing on the modern platform quite matched up with what the PS2 was able to achieve in Silent Hill 2.

Maybe that's true but, in the words of Dave Lister, it's gonna be a lotta fun findin' out.