Hobby Goals 2017 #1

A simple one to begin the year: by this time next week I want to have finished something from the models currently on my paint station. No particular preference, just get something done to give myself some momentum for what I hope to be a more productive year in my hobby than I had last year. Doubly easy, one hopes, because everything sitting there has been tantalisingly close to completion for weeks.

There are the twelve Dwarf Rangers who really only need their crossbows and some metallic details filling in; five Traitor Guardsmen who I just need to work out what I want to do with those oxygen backpacks; a Deathwatch Watch Master who needs a lot of fine detail work but not much on the macro level; and, six Flesh Tearers Tactical Marines and a Librarian who need their blacks tidied and a checking over for any gold or parchment detailing I might have missed.

Anything from the list is fair game. Obviously, I'd like to shift those twelve Dwarfs onto the basing shelf but this week I'll take any victory as a win.

The Triumphant Debut of Arkhan Land

(mild, nigh-inconsequential spoilers for Horus Heresy: Master of Mankind, just background details, really)

Arkhan Land is one of those little details of Warhammer background that just fired my imagination when I first got into this hobby. He's the Mechanicus Tech-Priest who discovered the STC templates of the Land Raider and the Land Speeder (hence the names). The little background that existed for him before now portrayed him as an eccentric techno-archeologist who owned a cybernetic monkey and a collection of extravagant wigs.

Now, with Aaron Demski-Bowden's novel Master of Mankind, Land has made his first appearance in prose and it is glorious. He's a ball of arrogant self-assurance fully aware of how brilliant he is and how much he's contributed to the Imperium. He is, as I always imagined, very much unlike other tech-priests and this is all brilliantly represented in his monkey Sapien.

So, like most Earth wildlife, monkeys are extinct by the 31^st millennium and Sapien is a clone engineered to resemble what people believe a monkey was. Now, some researchers believe that a monkey could hang from branches using its tail. This idea, Land believes, is idiotic as, obviously, the monkey's tail was a lashing weapon meant to break the skin of other creatures and deliver venom.

Yes, this tech-priest has pet monkey with a scorpion tail because he thinks this is historically accurate. This is why I always trust ADB to deliver the goods, stuff like this.

The Tzeentchian Temptation Continues...

The new army temptation comes less often now. Over the years the instant attraction to the latest thing has lessened. There are armies I know aren't to my play style (Eldar) or where I simply don't like the aesthetics (Khorne Daemons) and, of course, I just don't play Age Of Sigmar so by and large those releases just pass me by.

That said, every now and again AoS brings out something I can use for classic Fantasy, in this case the Disciples of Tzeentch miniatures coming out this month.

One real complaint I had against the Fantasy version of Chaos was a lack of marked units. Now, I like the basic Chaos Warrior as much as the next man but given the wild variety of 40k's Chaos models they were a bit samey.

Yet here we are with GW finally making more god-specific Chaos miniatures. The Gaunt Summoners, especially the one on a Disc of Tzeentch, would make fantastic Sorcerer Lords, the Kairic Acolytes would be fantastic Tzeentchian Marauders (they're a bit too bare chested to be Warriors) and hopefully theyll have parts left over you could use to customise Warriors and Knights. Throw in a warherd of Tzaangor, that lovely Tzeentchian Sorcerer from a few years back and a few mutated looking monsters, maybe some daemons and you're got yourself an old-fashioned Hordes of Chaos Tzeentch army.

Finally.

Like I say, I'm tempted. A few cheap square bases, some Darksphere discount to offset the expense and... maybe? I don't know, I'm in that “new year, new project” headspace right now.

The Power Rangers movie looks not crap, but...

… I sort of wonder who the intended audience is?

I went to watch Rogue One (good movie, though I feel I've rather missed the boat on posting a review) there was a trailer for the Power Rangers reboot and it looked...not awful. It looked dark and a little self-serious but I could certainly see how this could be not the worst superhero movie coming out this year. I mean, I know its a trailer and its meant to look good but there are enough decent moments I'd be hopeful of an entertaining two hours.

But the thing about this reboot that makes it different from a lot of other reboots is that Power Rangers never stopped being a thing. I mean, it isn't the all-conquering super-franchise it was when it began but it is still running and it looks like this...

… which is pretty much indistinguishable from what it looked like when I was a kid.

So, in theory there's two audiences for this thing: the kids who are into the show now and the adults (like me) who watched the series this movie is based on. I'm not sure either audience gets anything out of this thing, though. The modern audience is used to Power Rangers as it is in all its low-budget, bright and colourful glory. Meanwhile, people my age, whether coming back to it after years or still being part of the fandom, don't get their nostalgia kick because out of this dark, gritty and inevitably brooding version for pretty much the same reason.

So I worry that this might actually be a competent and entertaining movie that just isn't going to have the built-in audience it thinks it does.

This Week's Comics

This week, immigrants fight for America and women in STEM fields; Batman's up all night to get lucky; I have a small problem with the reborn Atom; and, Marvel's newest super-team gives me a nostalgia kick. Spoilers to be assumed.

U.S.Avengers #1

First off, I have no idea how to pronounce this series' name. Do I pronounce the A in Avengers the same as the A in USA? Because either sounds wrong.

Besides that this was a great first issue. Well, not really a first issue. This is one those times when Marvel just decides to re-number when there's a status quo change to get new readers onboard. Hopefully it works because this is great. Not only does Ewing continue his wonderful theme of mad science villains with the most innovative volcano doom fortress idea ever but he has a fantastic hook for what makes these the “US” Avengers.

You see, Ewing's continuing cast from when this was New Avengers contains Sunspot (Brazilian born naturalised US citizen); Toni Ho (Chinese-American); Aikku Jokinen (Norwegian) and Squirrel Girl (dual citizenship US and Canadian) and each of these characters gets a speech about what being a US citizen and being an Avenger means to them. Sunspot even waxes lyrical about how they're fighting for a flag that is theirs (and Aikku's, if she wants it to be) and no one can take it away from them.

I honestly can't think of a better message at the moment, especially as its said by a man from South America to his best friend the good old American white guy from Kentucky.

Batman #14

So you may remember back when the New 52 started, the number two sexiness controversy (after Starfire in Red Hood and the Outlaws #1) was a scene in Catwoman #1 where Batman and Catwomen bang. The problem was not so much that they banged but that clearly Selina didn't know Bruce's identity in the new continuity and there was a whole odd kinkiness about them keeping their masks on.

Anyway, this issue is all about fixing that. Its a whole issue, the first of a two-part storyline, dedicated to Bruce and Selina's relationship. Oh, they bang, but Tom King has a lot more to say about the relationship than that. Its Selina's last night of freedom before she spends the rest of her life in prison without hope of parole and so she and Bruce make a night of it. They do some Bruce stuff, they do some Selina stuff, there's some real give and take in this issue.

I certainly hope this two-parter isn't all we get to see of this pairing, Tom King has a lot of interesting insight into Bruce's relationship.

Oh, and the Condiment King makes his Rebirth debut.

Justice League of America: The Atom: Rebirth one-shot

Oh, I so wanted to like this...

Ryan Choi was one of my favourite characters from the post-Infinite Crisis crop of DC characters. Ray Palmer has really been growing on me as I get caught up on Arrow, so I reckoned this would be an easy sell.

Not so much. For one thing, I am absolutely sure I've read half of this issue before. Not sure where. Was it in DC Universe: Rebirth? Anyway, what we get here is a rather extended origin capped off by a tease that this'll continue in a new JLA series, which was rather disappointing. Not that I'm sure I would be any more onboard with an Atom series from this team or on this theme but I think it would be more of a sell than doing a single-character origin setting up a new Atom to do Atom things as a tease for a team book.

Oh well, maybe next time.

Unstoppable Wasp #1

Okay, so this issue makes a good point and I absolutely love it, for that and many other reasons.

So, in this issue the new Wasp, Nadia Pym (Hungarian estranged daughter of Hank Pym) meets Mockingbird. Now, I'm a massive comicbook nerd but writer Jeremy Whitley genuinely blindsided me. Mockingbird, I didn't realise, was a scientist, a biologist. In fact, she almost cracked the super soldier serum with Hank Pym before the whole superhero thing. Nadia, however, who has read everything the father she never met ever published, recognises her not as Bobbi Morse, Agent of SHIELD and superhero but as Barbara Morse, the biologist.

The whole issue has a theme celebrating not only women in science but also the idea of women supporting one another. Nadia has great scenes with Mockingbird, with Ms. Marvel, even with the woman handling her immigration case. Yes, amazingly, this issue even has a positive portrayal not only of immigrants but of the immigration process! Unprecedented!

Add to that the charming art style of Elsa Charretier, another example of the more clean, uncluttered art style that's been gaining traction in the last couple of years. Its a style I am an unabashed fan of and it really works for the Nadia character: her emotions are so big and direct, so uncomplicated and free of pretence.

A definite keeper, this series.

Champions #4

This was a nostalgia fix of an issue. The Champions gets shot down over the ocean, their plane becomes a boat and half the issue is spent on character vignettes so we get to know these characters and their relationships. It rather reminded me of those wonderful character issues of Chris Claremont's X-Men, rather helped by Mark Waid's absolutely spot on Cyclops. Viv gets a lot of focus in this issue, included a potted origin which was actually rather helpful as she's probably the character with the lowest profile (and the least publishing history) of the team. Actually, her history is really interesting. Really tragic but interesting and I might be tempted to try out the Vision series once it gets collected.

But, oh, do I not care for the character who gets introduced in the cliffhanger. 

A Tzeentchian Knight (in theory)

I actually came up with this idea for someone else's benefit. I was in Games Workshop the other day and one of the staffers and I started talking about conversion ideas. He was looking for a project and was thinking of doing something with the Imperial Knight Crusader. My suggestion? Tzeentchian Renegade Knight by hybridising the Knight with a Heldrake. The thing is, as expensive as it is (I was suggesting this idea to someone with staff discount), I think it would look amazing and I'm quite tempted to try it.

So here's how I think it would work:

"I am the (K)night!"

The idea is to use parts from the Heldrake sprue to make the Knight look like a mechanical Lord of Change. Replace the Knight's head with the bird head from the Heldrake, most likely on the long sinuous neck in the middle of this sprue...

… which should change the profile of the model considerably. I'll dryfit that just to be sure it won't look too ridiculous. Also on that sprue, centre top, are two shoulder pad things that, with a little cutting and filling, might well fit on top of the Knight's shoulder pads for extra Chaos iconography.

Also of use from the Heldrake are its wings, which I think can be spaced along the rear of the Knight's upper carapace and down its back, and its talons which I intend to add to the Knight's toes to make them more Avian. I'm also going to see if I have any plastic Marks of Tzeentch from the Chaos Vehicle Accessory Sprue knocking around. I should, I've only ever used the Nurgle and Chaos Undivided stuff from those sprues in the past. For sure I have the large Rubric of Ahriman that comes with the Thousand Sons Rubric Marines, which should fit well on the shoulder-mounted heraldry shield.

Now, even using a discount store like Darksphere (who are great, by the way) this'll set me back about a hundred pounds but it will look so good once finished that I am genuinely tempted. So, I'm going to take a couple of days to think about it, maybe work on those Rubric Marines to get the colour scheme right in my head and come back to it.

It would look awesome, though.

Doctor Who novel adaptations wish list

With the release of Original Sin and Cold Fusion, Big Finish's novel adaptations line seems to be over. Its been a pretty good run that hit most of the high points of the Virgin line: we heard the Doctor's first meetings with Bernice Summerfield and Sherlock Holmes; got to hear Gareth Roberts' rightly legendary Fourth Doctor trilogy come to life; Russell T. Davies' first Doctor Who story (which, space-cocaine aside was practically a manifesto for his TV series); we even got a Chelonian story out of the deal.

Still, with how good the last two were it feels like the series is over just as it was starting to hit its stride so here are a few... *ahem*, humble suggestions on where the line might go if it ever returns. Honourable mentions for books that can't be adapted because of the sad loss of vital actors: The Dying Days, Happy Endings, The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, Managra and First Frontier off the top of my head.

The Empire of Glass

The whole point of this novel is to place the staunchly non-interventionist First Doctor in the sort of adventure he'll have in later lives: a pseudo-historical set in Renaissance Venice with loads of different aliens knocking around because Irving Braxiatel wants to hold an intergalactic peace conference. Also Gallileo, Shakespeare and Marlowe are there. It sounds over busy and, frankly, it sort of is but it has the potential to be a fun little romp with lashing of Miles Richardson thrown in.

Lungbarrow

Whilst the “true origin” of the Doctor as Marc Platt writes it here might not be to my taste, it was the cap off to the Seventh Doctor's adventures back in the day. It tied off a lot of threads that had been seeded throughout the novels, including in Cold Fusion. Now, a lot of these ideas got re-used by Platt in other work for Big Finish, the Doctor's origins being something of a pet project of his, but I'd love to see the original story see the light of day again.

Set Piece

This was the book that wrote out Ace and had her become her own hero, Time's Vigilante (as opposed to the Doctor as Time's Champion). Given that Big Finish are muleheadedly dedicated to not giving Ace a definitive send-off she might as well finally get one in the canon grey area that is the novel adaptations. Its a good send-off, too, unsurprising given its written by Kate Orman.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

A high fantasy romp set in the early, anything goes days of Season One. A year ago this would not have made the list since it has a really substantial solo story for Barbara but with Jemma Powell taking the role in The Early Adventures the possibility is open. Its a great little novel that handles the four person TARDIS crew better than most of the TV stories they appeared in giving everyone something substantial to do. Plus, the First Doctor doing magic is just too delightful an idea to resist.

Andrew Cartmel's War trilogy

The “Cartmel Masterplan” is, of course, not a thing. He's been quite upfront about how he had no endgame in mind when he seeded all those hints about the Doctor's past into the episodes he script edited. If anything its the Platt Masterplan but we dealt with that earlier in the list.

But if there were a Cartmel Masterplan this would be it: unapologetically political, anti-corporate Doctor Who with a focus on how the Doctor affects the world around him.

So Vile a Sin

Never read it. Probably never will. Out of print pretty much the moment it came out and insanely expensive second hand. The grand sequel to Original Sin with Chris and Roz returning to their home time written by two of the NA's best talents Kate Orman and Ben Aaronovitch. Frankly, even if it didn't sound great on paper, just the fact that its stupidly hard to get hold of makes it a worthwhile addition to this list.

Vampire Science

Naughty, I know. This was a BBC novel not a Virgin one and so probably Big Finish wouldn't be able to get the rights but it is absolutely the best Eighth Doctor Adventure in the whole in the whole series (which, being the second in s eries if seventy three novels is praising with faint damnation) and if I could have only one novel brought to life in audio it would be this. 

Vampire Science is basically Kate Orman and Jon Blum writing a stage by stage guide on how the TV Movie should have been made. Its set in San Francisco, the Doctor teams up with a female scientist who's having relationship difficulties, it delves into the series back catalogue for an antagonist but it does all these things in fresh and interesting ways. I absolutely love this novel.

Nostalgia for "my" Doctor

Last night I listened to the Big Finish adaptation of Andy Lane's novel Original Sin and as the first few scenes unfolded I was struck by a funny sense of nostalgia. This might be the ninth adaptation Big Finish has put out but it was the first one that really felt to me like one of those old novels I grew up on.

This isn't to say the other releases haven't been good, the worst I can honestly say is that I thought The Highest Science wasn't as funny as the book but it was still entertaining. Rather, its just that all the ingredients were present in this one in just the right ratios and just the right places.

You've got the in medias res beginning as we join Benny and the Doctor at the end of a mainly unseen adventure. You've got Benny, Chris and Roz together, which was the definitive TARDIS team of The New Adventures as far as I'm concerned (I never got on with the guntoting space marine version of Ace). You have a discussion of the Doctor's morality, albeit not a terribly compelling one, with the serial killer Zebulon Pryce. Most of all, though, there's the scenes in the Overcities of 30^th century Earth teeming with aliens and sly little reference like the Birostrop character.

One of the big selling points of the Virgin era was that the books had a pretty solid sense of what the future looked like in the Doctor Who universe but, sadly, not many of the books Big Finish have been able to adapt have been ones using that solid future continuity. What little we've seen of that future in the adaptations have been isolated outposts of the Earth Empire (Love And War, The Romance Of Crime) or random archaeological expeditions to the edge of space in that era (Theatre Of War, The Highest Science) with this being the first time the series has done the sweeping space opera I remember from that era.

Given that the adaptations seem to be ending with Cold Fusion (which I am so very much looking forward to) its nice they got in one like this before the end, a real nostalgia fest for the majestic height of the novel line.

On the attraction of Inquisitorial Warbands

Individuals. They're something the Warhammer 40,000 universe is severely lacking in by design. Its a game of massive armies fighting wars on a global scale or higher. Whether its the massed ranks of standard issue Guardsman or the endless tide of Orks there's a uniform look to every army. Don't get me wrong, this works for the sort of game and the sort of universe GW are trying to evoke but when you're on your fiftieth dude in the same armour with the same gun it can get a little wearing.

Which is, I guess, why Inquisitors have such an attraction for me. An Inquisitor is meant to stand out, they're meant to be exceptional individuals and their entourages are an opportunity to convert interesting and unique models. This is especially true now as so many of the more interesting and evocative henchmen models have been retired. They make a nice tinkering project: a limited number of models you can really sink your teeth into without having to worry about how many more of them you'll have to finish.

Its also a wonderful opportunity to find cool third party miniatures since you don't have to worry about making them fit perfectly into the aesthetics of an army.

I have two Inquisitor characters, myself: Laurento Hex, who is a puritan Xenos Inquisitor, and Gemini Rooper, who is a radical Malleus. Hex is an investigator, prone to longterm undercover work and plans that can only be described as capers. His warband tends towards scoundrels, intelligence specialists and commandos. He has an inner circle of longterm associates who are as close to friends as an inquisitor ever gets.

Rooper is more the blood and thunder type and her warband is all offensive power with a lot of psychic operatives. She tends to view her acolytes as expendable assets. She and Hex do not get along, in fact she was once assigned to hunt him down, a misadventure during which her radical leanings were exposed and she was censured by her ordo. These days she operates on sufferance and under heavy supervision by Hex as they hunt down a renegade Inquisitor Lord called Metatronis.

Making these warbands isn't too urgent a thing, just something to tinker with, as I say. Just a fun little side project and, not uncoincidently, an excuse to buy that plastic female Inquisitor when she comes out sometime this month.

2017

2016 was a thoroughly miserable year full of all sorts of political stupidity in which approximately 80% of all celebrities ended up dead. Maybe 2017 will be better, maybe not (we've certainly got plenty of political insanity booked in for the next couple of months) but its a new year, yes it is...

… and so its time to lay out some plans for this blog. Just a few ideas and projects for the coming year to be tackled at whatever pace takes my fancy.

Weekly Comic Reviews & The Comics Ramble

This started off as a comics blog, a subject I have endless thoughts about and stacks of material to read through in search of further thinkings. So, for one thing I want to get back to doing weekly reviews, probably on a Friday as my work schedule doesn't really allow me to read them straight off. For another, I want to write some retrospectives on old comics I love and that's going to be The Comics Ramble: longer reviews recommending graphic novels, series, webcomics or whatever else I feel like chatting on about.

Paint my Bretonnia army

There is a beautiful, beautiful invention called the Army Painter Insane Detail Brush. It is a wonderful thing that makes me believe that I can finally try my hand at freehand heraldry. Bretonnians were for many years my signature army and, lucky for me, I stockpiled a fair few for myself before they went out of production. I have all sorts of ideas for character and unit conversions and its about time I got around to them.

Its obviously going to be a rather slow project since I want to paint every knight with individual colours and heraldric devices. I know if they're the only thing I'm working on I'll get frustrated and bored so I'll continue working on my Dwarfs and Wood Elves so I can feel some sense of progress, maybe a few Night Goblins here and there.

I'll also post more of my hobby progress because the chance to show off is always a great motivator.

Get back into playing Warhammer 40,000

Fantasy is definitely my preferred game but I must admit to enjoying a bit of round based grimness every now and again. My housemate Matt has ideas about a modified Kill Team ruleset he wants to try out for smaller scale games, which sounds like fun. At the moment I'm working on Flesh Tearers (to have a quick and simple army I understand to start out with) and Genestealer Cults (for something fresh and interesting because I have wanted this army forever). Again, progress to be posted as its made.

Finish watching classic Doctor Who

I'm almost at the point where, reconstructions included, I've watched as much classic Who as its possible to get. There's just a few odds and ends left on the docket: the animated Power Of The Daleks; the recovered episode of The Underwater Menace; K9 And Company; and, Scream Of The Shalka. Once that's done I might give another go to the idea of a complete watchthrough, Totters Lane to Perivale and all stops inbetween.

Write something about every Big Finish release I listen to

Like comics, Doctor Who is something I have endless opinions on. I won't say I'll review everything I get from BF, that's a bit too organised for me, but I'm sure I can muster something for every release even if its only fanboy squealing about how much I love Helen Sinclair and Liv Chenka when Doom Coalition 4 comes out.

Write about wrestling

One of my housemates has the WWE Network and we watch pretty much every pay-per-view so I might as well review them. Plus, I have a lot of strong (largely positive) feelings about the women's division. Maybe even do some of that there fantasy booking that's all the rage. How I Would Book The Four Horsewomen Fatal Fourway, perhaps?

That seems like enough to be getting on with for the moment. 

Batman is not a tormented loner

I have never understood this view of Batman. To me, Batman is a character who copes with the trauma of losing his family through building a new family. An enormous family, at that:

Alfred and Julia Pennyworth, Jim and Barbara Gordon, Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, Kate, Steph and Cass and all the characters who orbit around each of those. He's created a family out of the lost and in turn those lost souls follow his example and create families of their own: Dick and the Titans, then the Outsiders; Jason and the Outlaws; Tim and Young Justice; Babs and the Birds of Prey; and now Damian's forming his own Titans.

And Batman isn't blind to it. Back when Geoff Johns was relaunching the Teen Titans and Tim resisted joining because them because he didn't need more training its Bruce who insists "No, but you do need to see your friends" as Tim has been beating himself up trying to process Omen's death on his own. During the Bruce Wayne: Murderer storyline what breaks Bruce is when Dick and the other kids doubt his innocence. These really are his kids for whom he has actual human emotions, albeit often poorly expressed ones.

But that wouldn't be as horrifically nihilistic and hopeless so that isn't the Batman that turns up when an audience of millions sees him on the big screen and that is genuinely sad. It genuinely seems that the larger the audience Batman has, the worse he is at dealing with his trauma. For years in the comics, basically since Damian was introduced, he's basically come to terms with his parents' murder: motivated by it but not constantly tormented. That's for an audience of hundreds of thousands.

For an audience of millions, his torment never ends or, if it does, its the last minute of the last movie in that particular continuity. Not that they haven't tried: Joel Schumacher tried to get Bruce to evolve as a character in his two movies but it didn't take and the DC-Warner rebooted the series under Christopher Nolan. There seems to be a feeling that Batman can't exist for a general audience without being constantly defined by his pain.

And, I won't lie, that makes me sad. 

Arms Length: the cure for painting perfectionism

For the last couple of evenings I've been working on the first models for my Flesh Tearers army. Nothing too complex or extensive, just a handful of ordinary Tactical Marines with bolters, not even an entire unit. It was even going well until I hit a roadblock: the white on the chapter symbol.

Like a lot of miniature painters, white is something of a problem for me. Endless iterations of white base paints and layers have come and gone and I still can't get a consistent coat. My dream of a White Scars army lie perpetuallyunfulfilled because I just can't make large expanses of white armour look like anything more than a field of visible brushstrokes and painfully evident basecoat.

Still, thought I, the only white on a Flesh Tearer is on their shoulder pad and I had a method straight from a painting guide that just had to work because, hey, this is what the 'Eavy Metal team had worked out was the path of least resistance to a good, flat white.

So I painted the red, I painted the black, I filled in the base layers on the gold, the gunmetal and the green lenses. It was all going well.

Then I tried to paint the chapter symbol. Once again, as ever, visible brushstrokes and a patchy finish that left the basecoat painfully visible.

Frustrated, I slumped back on my couch and, smoke rising from my ears, turned my attention to the episode of Supergirl I had on the TV as background noise. After a few minutes of Kara and Cat's delicious mentor relationship soothing my savage breast my eyes flicked down to the models on my painting table and I saw something.

A good, consistent white. The same white I'd painted, untouched from when I'd turned to the TV in frustration. Now I wasn't holding the model right up to my eyeline under a bright lamp, now that I was viewing them at a decent distance of about two feet, it looked okay. A little dull, perhaps, maybe in need of a Ceramite White or Pallid Wych Flesh highlight but good enough.

I think this is the real issue in my perfectionism and maybe for other people as well. I forget that most people who see these models won't be holding them as close as I am when I'm painting them. Instead they'll be on the other side of a four foot table and looking down at the models.

So the next time you're frustrated that your paintjob isn't “perfect”, get some physical distance and look at them the way you and your opponent will look at them on the tabletop. Trust me, it gives you literal perspective on your work.

International Men's Day 2016

(Content warning: suicide mention. Also, I shit you not, that picture was the number one Google image result for “Men”, could it be more perfect?)

Yesterday was International Men's Day, an event that is all too often just treated as a gotcha when that annoying MRA guy you know at work spends March 8th whining about International Women's Day. Now, of course, this even gets co-opted all too easily by people who just want to use the occasion to bash feminism as if women having rights is at fault for every problem men face. 

And how much good does that do? How much does that help promote men's health issues or foster important conversations our society needs to have about the role of fatherhood, of what makes a good male role model or help to demolish harmful stereotypes of masculinity? 

Nothing. It does nothing. Its just a bunch of MRA Status Quo Warriors shutting down important conversations because those conversations might hurt their fragile little feelings. 

The theme of International Men's Day 2016 is Stop Male Suicide. On average the rate of male suicide is three times that of women. Our rate of suicide is higher in every country bar China that keeps public records of such things. Does anyone think this is conversation that doesn't need to happen? Does anyone actually benefit from shutting down this conversation? 

Men are taking their own lives because of the broken, aggressive, emotionally closed off version of masculinity our society promotes and every man who lowers the conversation to “but it's all the fault of the Feminazis!” is one more person working against this issue being taken seriously. You know what would help? Having actual discussions about how men spend their whole lives being told to repress their feelings; about how society actively mocks people of all genders for seeking psychiatric help; about how the expression of any emotional weakness is seen as a negative. We are encouraged by society, by media, even by the orthodoxy of some medical professionals, to ignore and hide our feelings. 

And when someone actually sets up an event to address these issues the loudest amongst us treat it like a joke or, worse, an opportunity to lash out at their favourite targets (usually women) and the media ignores it because it looks like all having an International Men's Day for is just an appeasement tactic for the worst forms of masculinity. 

There is an epidemic of male suicide. Prostate cancer is incredibly common (only lung cancer kills more men) and is barely discussed in comparison to skin, lung and breast cancer. We are not taught emotional coping strategies. We are socialised to treat women as either an objective or the enemy. 

So fuck those guys who think they can sweep all that under the carpet by shouting the word Feminazi at the top of their Twitter accounts. 

Because we really need to talk about these things. 

These Aren't the Neophytes I'm Looking For (or, Power Armour Is A Fad)

Yesterday I went into my local GW to pick up some of the new Genestealer Cult kits. By the time I got there, a whole two hours after opening, there was one box of Acolyte Hyrbrids/Metamorphs left on the shelf which I bought and spent the next hour chatting with the staffers and watching the disappointment on the faces of later customers.

In truth, I didn't go in for the Acolyte kit. My original plan was to start with the Neophyte Hybrids and work my way up the generations from the most human to the least so I could experiment with the alien elements as I went along. Instead it looks like I'll be taking the opposite path and built these Acolytes as Metamorphs and work my way down the generations towards the Neophytes.

I don't mind, I'm quite looking forward to these models, they look lovely and I have a fair idea what I want to do with the flesh and chitin elements.

No, rather what interests me is that they sold so well. I'm not surprised, this is one of those armies like Mechanicus and Deathwatch that hobbyists have been wanting for years. At this point I think the wishlist is complete barring Sisters of Battle (one can always dream...). However, they were sold out in the store, they were all but sold out on the website (only the Neophytes were available to order when I checked that morning) which goes to prove that things not wearing layer upon layer of power armour can sell.

Now, I like Space Marines fine. I've had a couple of Space Marine armies and I absolutely want a Deathwatch force but I have to admit I don't like how they dominate the game and the background. They are, in short, a bit dull. They have a very simple and uniform design aesthetic; they don't vary much in personality or personal history; and there are just so many of those armies around you end up playing a lot of Space Marine against Space Marine games in a club environment.

I don't doubt that fewer kits were pressed for this release than the Deathwatch release a couple of weeks backs but I do hope that the very fact they sold so well online (since I can't really judge from one shop's selling out how they did at retail) is a sign that GW can make some decent money on things that aren't just more Space Marines.

Who knows, is things like Mechanicus and Genestealer Cults can be a success maybe we'll finally get those Steel Legion/Valhallan Guardsmen in great coats that have been rumoured since the year dot.

Wood Elves & The Learning Curve

Yesterday I had my second game using Wood Elves and it went a lot smoother than the first. My first game was against Beastmen and I got pretty much crushed. This time I rolled out against an experimental all-cavalry Warriors Of Chaos army that Matt really wanted to try. The result? Well, I lost again but this time we actually had to total up the victory points to work it out.

Still, the fact I went from being crushed by a slightly outdated lower-tier army to only narrowly losing to a higher-tier one feels great. Especially as I used the same army list in both games so what improved was how I used my units and not what units I chose.

I'm finally getting used to the idea that moving and shooting isn't a terrible idea. My Deepwood Scouts have trueflight arrows so they shoot without penalty and the Waywatchers have such a high ballistic skill that it hardly matters. Both are skirmishing units who can float round outside of the enemy's charge arc shooting off volleys of arrows. Let me tell you, Matt loved them, in the sense that he dedicated the whole of his final magic phase to exacting revenge on the Deepwoods. Positioning is the key: keeping them in range and out of charge arc.

Shooting really is the key to the army. In the first turn Matt used his Vanguard moves to bring up two units of Marauder Horse and one of Hellstriders to unnerve me, distract me and make me call hasty charges.

Between the Glade Guard, Glade Riders, Deepwood Scouts, Waywatchers and the Treeman's strangleroots, all three units were vapourised by the end of my first turn. Which, okay left me with two units of Chaos Knights that I never really managed to shift for the rest of the game but it meant far fewer distractions bouncing around the table. If I'd had fewer shooty units I might have ended up target blind.

Combat is my weakness. My Dryads spent most of the games out of position and fighting Chaos Hounds whilst my Eternal Guard got eaten by Skullcrushers, an enemy well above their weight. Like shooting, its just a case of picking my targets better and I'm confident I'll get there.

Dwarven Mathematics

Dwarf core infantry box sets: bloody old, stupid numbers. Sixteen Dwarfs to a box from the good old days when ranks were four wide and command groups looked all lopsided. Nowadays in our modern space year of 2016 ranks are five wide, command ranks have a random pleb on either side of them and sixteen is a funny number of Dwarfs to have.

So here is the plan. I have three boxes of Dwarfs: two boxes of Warriors and one of Thunderers/Quarrellers. That's forty-eight Dwarfs.

First off, straight out of the box are twenty Dwarf Warriors with hand weapons and shields, the mainstay of any throng, which leaves me with a dozen spare bodies plus all the weapons and command options to go with them. Then I make the sixteen missile troops as Thunderers and keep all the crossbows off to one side.

Also kept off to one side are all the cloaked bodies, four from each box. Hopefully the two torso pieces are the same in each kit (they look close enough but there might be some green stuff involved to marry the two kits together). I take the cloaked bodies, the crossbows from the Thunderers/Quarrellers box and the great weapons from the Warriors to make a dozen Rangers.

In all honesty, the Thunderers are a bit of an after thought: useful but not really a unit I'm terribly invested in. What mattered here was getting a solid block of twenty Warriors and the parts to convert my Rangers.

I really have a lot of building to do...

Bray Wyatt: This Is What Burial Looks Like

You get a lot of talk amongst wrestling fans, smarks on the internet especially, about people being buried. A lot of the time I find that it tends to be a little over-diagnosed, too often used as an overreaction to someone being beaten on PPV a couple of times.

You see it a lot with John Cena feuds. He beats someone at the end of the feud and people will say he's burying his opponent. Okay, there is the problem that after a John Cena feud there's very few ways to go for the other wrestler but down. He's the biggest face in the company, after all, and if nothing else the US Open Challenge meant that they could go from him to higher things in terms of belts. It didn't always work out and some right stupid booking could take hold (Rusev joining the League Of Nations, for instance, the biggest waste of talent on the roster not to be the Social Outcasts).

Its not what I'd call burial, though. Its not the sort of long, consistent run of bad booking like, for instance, Bray Wyatt's seeming inability to win at pay-per-views these days.

Because he just can't win these days. Take Backlash a few weeks ago: he seemed strong for a moment when he was beating Randy Orton up in a corridor and then standing unopposed in the ring insisting on the ten count so it would go down as a victory to him. He looked dominant, he looked scary, he looked like the figure he presents in his promos.

Then Kane, who simply does not need the win and isn't feuding with Wyatt, comes out so a match can go ahead and beats Wyatt in short order.

Wyatt is popular, he is over, and he keeps losing high-profile feuds. Right now all he has is the fact that he cuts really, really good promos bit with nothing to back them up and that can't last. For months on end he has either lost big matches or fed one of his minions to the opponent...

… and he's all out of minions. Harper's injured, Stroman got drafted to the other show and Rowan... I'm not even sure. Wyatt is one of the best heels WWE has at the moment, one of the best talents to come out of NXT and they are utterly wasting him.

And that's burial.

Conversations we need to have (but can't because of bastards)

I really wish we could talk about men. There are a whole bunch of conversations I think we, as a society, need to have about men and masculinity. We need to talk about particular stigmas of diagnosing mental health issues in men (we are massively under-diagnosed for disorders and conditions that make us more aggressive because that's apparently just how we're meant to be whilst women are massively under-diagnosed for conditions that make them more passive because same).

We need to talk about how young men and boys are literally not taught how to talk about our emotions. I mean, we are just not taught the language and that has to have an effect on the suicide rate.

We need to talk about how funny some men get about physical contact. How we will literally shy away from each other and how that's not only rooted in unconscious homophobia but also as a manifestation of how we're not meant to connect with each other.

We need to have a lot of conversations about fatherhood. There's that distance again, that lack of contact and emotional honesty. Its a vicious cycle of fathers not being taught how to talk about or deal with their emotions and then passing that

There are health issues that have to be discussed. Not only the peculiarities of certain mental health issues but also the fact that prostate cancer is very rarely discussed in spite of being the second most common kind after skin cancer. And things might have improved since I was at school but there were a lot of sexual health and hygiene issues that weren't fully broached, though this was true of both genders. 

But having these conversations is difficult because once you try to have a serious conversation about men and our place in an evolving society some bloody retrograde “Men's Rights Activist” will butt into the conversation yelling blue murder if you so much as suggest that maybe masculinity needs to change with society.

Superman's a sub (and its canon)

(Just a warning, this post involves what my grandmother called “people getting up to naughties” or sexual content as the rest of us would say, if you didn't guess that from the title).

Do you have a "nerdy thing" that you love see people discover more than you like the thing itself?

For me, I love when people discover that Joe Shuster, the original Superman artist, had such a small repertoire of character models that he recycled Clark Kent and Lois Lane for his BDSM art. I love the reactions to that one.

Lois is usually the Domme in Schuster's BDSM art, by the way. which as far as I'm concerned makes them canon compliant with the DC Universe.

I mean, every decent version of Lois Lane starts out as an older (slightly like in Smallville or considerably like in Superman The Movie), more experienced, guiding mentor to Clark that he is most attracted to when she is in the process of taking no shit whatsoever. Smallville Clark in particular actually smiles when she tells him off (when he deserves it, which is often).

So, yeah, Superman is a bit subby and this is intended by the original creators.

A Truthsayer comes to the Grey Mountains

Sometimes in this hobby you just inherit random models from friends. In this case I've inherited Matt's old Truthsayer and Fenbeast from the Dark Shadows campaign.

We've been talking about using mercenaries in our games, incorporating some of the rules from Triumph & Treachery and Storm Of Magic. Having an itinerant Truthsayer wandering into Castle Desfleuves with his squelchy pal seems like a good way to start testing this out. There are perfectly good rules for both in Storm Of Magic's bestiary, after all.

The as-yet-unnamed Truthsayer will bounce between my Bretonnians and Wood Elves, maybe even the Dwarfs who will be very confused about the whole affair. He has his own agenda, his own wrestling-esque enforcer in the form of his Fenbeast so no one really wants to question what that agenda is.

There's not much background on the Truthsayers as individuals but I see them (or at least this one) as an Odinic sort of figure, both a wise man and a trickster because as we established yesterday...

… I have a type when it comes to mysterious, morally questionable wanderers.

Saturday Teatime: 31 Questions about Doctor Who

I saw this question and answer meme on Script Scribbles' tumblr, reblogged from dorotheemcshane.tumblr.com and, since I want to write more about Doctor Who because it is my number one fandom ever, I thought this would make a nice introduction to how I view the series.

1. Top 3 Doctors

Sylvester McCoy, Matt Smith, Patrick Troughton... so basically that one interpretation of the Doctor as barely trustworthy trickster really works for me.

2. Top 3 companions

Leela, Ace, Rory. So again I have a type and its action companions.

3. Favourite quote

Can't beat the closing monologue from Survival: “There are worlds out there where the sky is burning; where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.”

4. Favourite Dalek story

Remembrance, which was the first appearance of the “modern” view of Daleks that was based more on memories of the awesome, all-powerful, gigantic armies of the things from the TV21 comic rather than the four of five you'd get in any given TV story which, okay, was what you got here but it felt like more. For me, watching it on VHS before we had Dalek and The Parting of the Ways, it was the first time the Daleks felt like the scary monsters they were meant to be.

5. If you could pick any companion to travel with any Doctor, who would it be?

Jo Grant with the Tenth Doctor. I think he could really do with having that constant optimism about the place, someone to keep his brooding in line like a less cynical Donna, basically.

6. How much EU have you seen?

I've been around a while, long enough to have got in on Big Finish at the ground floor so most of their material; I own all the Virgin novels and have read about a third of them; I read the Eighth Doctor novels religiously until about The Domino Effect or thereabouts; not as many Past Doctor novels as I'd like; and, I've been reading the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip since the beginning of the Eighth Doctor era. I've also got horrible nth generation rips of the Audio Visuals and a spotty collection of BBV/Reeltime videos and CDs. There's a massive gap of Bernice Summerfield audios I haven't listened to, having given up on the series after about series four and not picking it up again until the box set era but I'm catching up on that.

7. Favourite companion/Doctor relationship?

Seventh Doctor and Ace, especially once Hex joins them in the audios. I like the way that Ace is presented as more of an equal partner and more of a rounded character than any companion since Romana and the audios (less the novels, I feel) really played to that as they aged Ace and had the Doctor be more forthcoming to her about what they were doing and what the plan was. Once Hex joined the crew it really solidified, I think, because by then Ace had been travelling with the Doctor for years and there was a sort of pecking order where, in effect, Hex was her companion and she was mentoring him as the Doctor had once mentored her.

8. OTP?

Amy/Rory. Obvious answer, I know, but I spent so much of Series Five rooting for them to work things out that it just has to be them.

9. NOTP?

Okay, this is young person language so I'm basically relying on Urban Dictionary to define it for me as my “least favourite pairing”, in which case First Doctor/Vicki. I get that it sort of works on a character level but the age difference and the quasi-incestuous guardian/ingénue dynamic just... no, absolutely no.

10. Any ships?

Not really. I rather like the idea of Bernice Summerfield and River Song but as to myself... I've never really viewed Doctor Who as a very shippable show probably because I encountered it years and years before I knew that shipping and fan fiction and all that were a thing. There's certainly no character relationship that gives me feelings of “aw, they would be so cute together” the way, say, Weiss and Blake do in RWBY (yes, Monochrome shipper, right here).

11. First Doctor you saw

Pertwee. See question 13.

12. Favourite Doctor

McCoy. Not just for the EU stuff but I genuinely feel his era was a breath of fresh air and offered a genuinely new and interesting take on the Doctor. They didn't (and probably couldn't) go as far with it as they might have done but the EU has certainly picked up the slack there.

13. First story you saw on TV

According to a helpful list of early-90s repeats I found on the internet (I love how you can find anything out these days), Planet Of The Daleks. First story I ever saw, actually.

14. How long have you been a fan for?

If I had to put a date on it I'd guess since 1995? Certainly earlier than 1996 given how much I was looking forward to the TV Movie.

15. If you could travel with one Doctor, who would it be?

Eleven. You seem to get more actual holidays and peaceful trips with him.

16. Favourite TARDIS interior

The first Eleventh Doctor one. I love the multi-level construction with all its nooks and crannies and all those random bits and pieces used to make the console. Funnily enough, I hated it when it first turned up in The Eleventh Hour but it really grew on me.

17. How much classic Doctor Who have you seen?

Every one there is to see except the most recently recovered episode of The Underwater Menace, which I keep meaning to get to, plus the Loose Cannon reconstructions of all the missing episodes.

18. Favourite Cyberman story

I think Spare Parts is genuinely the only Cyberman story ever to really deliver on the body horror that The Tenth Planet promised but could never deliver because of logistics. If forced to choose a TV story... The Invasion, but not really for any reason involving the Cybermen themselves who, as a selling point, rank leagues below getting to watch Patrick Troughton and Kevin Stoney having an eight episode battle of wills co-starring Nicholas Courtney.

19. Favourite one off monster

The Sycorax.

20. Least favourite story

Terminus, a swirling vortex of wasted potential and the crowning example of how important the script editors were on the classic series. Under Christopher H. Bidmead's hard SF fairy tale approach Stephen Gallagher produced Warriors' Gate which was complex and layered and gave Lalla Ward possibly the last genuinely good and storyline relevant companion departure of the classic series. Under Saward's very militaristic, dark and gritty vision of the series we get a script with a lot of complex ideas executed in the laziest, most simplistic fashion possible. Bear in mind these stories were made under the same producer less than two years apart and Terminus went into production mere weeks after the same team moved heaven and earth to make Arc Of Infinity look like an epic even though the script was utter crap.

21. Did you cry whilst watching any stories?

No. I am manly... okay, the final speech from Survival brings a tear to my eye every single time and I get the sads watching Ten's goodbye to Rose.

22. Least favourite Doctor (why?)

I don't hate him but there's a lot about Pertwee that doesn't click for me. There are times when he was fantastically lazy as an actor, visibly ungracious on-screen towards his co-stars and I just struggle to see him in the overarching character of the Doctor. I love a lot of his stories and his chemistry with Katy Manning is a gold standard most Doctor/companion teams can only dream of but... stacked against all the others actors to play the role, he ranks as the least good.

23. Least favourite companion (why?)

Dodo. No slight against Jackie Lane who fought against apparently crippling stage fright to give us what we got but there's no substance to the character. Under John Wiles she is literally written as an idiot to make a malicious point about young people and then she's reduced to being the most utterly generic “young girl companion” of the classic series. She has one or two genuinely great scenes in The Gunfighters where we see what we were potentially missing out on and then she gets promptly written out, all promise unfulfilled.

24. Any eras that you would like to know better?

The Second Doctor era, which the recent unearthing of previously missing episodes proves we are missing so much of just listening to soundtracks and photo reconstructions.

25. Favourite EU companion?

Dr. Evelyn Smythe. Unbeatable as a character and, frankly, an all-important element in Big Finish's redemption of the previously salvageable Sixth Doctor.

26. Favourite episode (or top 3 if that's too hard)

Not in any particular order: Heaven Sent, Carnival of Monsters and The Brain of Morbius.

27. Weirdest piece of merchandise you own

I don't own that much merch, to be honest, but I think I still have the TARDIS tin The Trial Of A Time Lord VHS box set came in back in the day.

28. Anything you want to see in the next season

For Capaldi to not regenerate at the end of it.

29. Thoughts on the current Doctor

Capaldi's great in the role and, in all honesty, his “Third Doctor but rude” routine seems more in line with Moffat's personal conception of the Doctor than the character he wrote for Matt Smith. I think that might be the secret of getting two great Doctors out of the Moffat years: he was pretty open about the fact he wanted an older Doctor to start but was blown away by Smith's audition, so he ended up writing the Doctor that emerged from that and then when it came time to cast his second Doctor he had the chance to write his ideal Doctor.

30. In your opinion, will the Doctor ever be ginger?

Eh, maybe. To be frank, I think its sadly more likely than the Doctor being a female or black or desi actor or anything other than a white man and you can't get whiter than a ginger.

31. Thoughts on the sonic glasses?

Love 'em. Glad to have the screwdriver back at the end of Hell Bent but I love seeing the writers come up with new gadgets.