Hobby Goal #16: What Matters Is The (Death) Company

First off, progress on using the Mephiston Red Spray...

Its coming out pretty well, if a little lighter than I intended. I shall try two layers of Nuln Oil on the next model I paint like this.

And my provisional army list based on what I have built and painted goes a little something like this:

HQ

Chaplain with crozius arcanum and plasma pistol. 105 points (WARLORD)

Librarian with force weapon and bolt pistol, Level 2 Mastery. 90 points

Elites

Death Company Dreadnought with blood talons. 135 points

5 man Death Company Squad with bolters. 100 points

Dreadnought with assault cannon. 120 points

Troops

5 man Scout Squad with boltguns, Veteran Sergeant with bolt pistol and close combat weapon. 65 points

10 man Tactical Squad, meltagun, heavy flamer and Veteran Sergeant with power weapon. 195 points

10 man Tactical Squad, plasma gun, heavy bolter and Veteran Sergeant with power fist. 200 points

Fast Attack

Land Speeder with multi-melta. 60 points

5 man Space Marine Bike Squad with plasma gun and Veteran Sergeant with power weapon. 145 points

Heavy Support

Baal Predator with flamestorm cannon and heavy flamers. 135 points

5 man Devastator Squad, 2 lascannons, missile launcher, plasma cannon and Veteran Sergeant. 150 points

1500 points on the dot. Its mainly just things I have built or can build quickly.

I've yet to come up with a Captain conversion I like so I'm taking the two other character classes but, hell, the Flesh Tearers are undermanned so I don't feel too bad taking a Chaplain as my Warlord. The Elites are just an expression of my love for Dreadnoughts and the fact that you just have to have Death Company. Troops are a solid block of boltguns, a nice anvil for the enemy to run up against. I gleefully admit to stealing a Dark Angels tactic with the Bikes and Land Speeder tag team in my Fast Attack slots. Then there's a big block of high strength weaponry in my Devastator Squad to make up for the fact that I just can't say no to the idea of a flanethrower tank.

Right now I have both Dreadnoughts, the Librarian and one Tactical Squad painted and everything but the Predator, one Tactical Squad and Bikers built. Still, 8^th edition doesn't seem to be imminent so there's plenty time.

Hobby Goal #16

Paint some Death Company

Its a simple fact that a Blood Angels army is not complete without Death Company, especially as I already have a Death Company Dreadnought built and painted. So my goal for the week is to add some black to the army, maybe even paint up the Chaplain to accompany them since they'll be using basically the same palette. 

Why 40k needs a General's Handbook

This week on "A Man And His Dog"...

Okay, so one thing before we start: this whole chain of logic is based on the idea going round that a General's Handbook 2^nd edition is coming sometime this summer. The whole idea I'm about to lay out pretty much relies on the idea that the Handbook is going to become an annual-ish release.

That said, let's talk about the single greatest gift to game balancing GW has ever created.

Let's look at the customer experience of buying a Codex. You buy your Codex, which in itself is £25 or £30 on top of the cost of the main rulebook, the miniatures, glues and paints and such. You can't really cut down that list much except in terms of the books and the most expendable of the two books is the Codex.

Add to that the fact that every edition is basically honour bound at this point to produce a new Codex for every major army with a few small timers getting a book every other edition.

So every edition you're in for an instant cost of the main rulebook/starter set and sooner or later you're expected to fork over another £30 just to keep using your army in most settings. Yes, there are places you could play older versions of the rules but most gaming clubs, certainly the most accessible ones that GW runs on its own premises, is going to insist on current rules so everyone is playing the same meta.

So let's talk about limiting that cost and doing a favour to game balance at the same time.

In AoS, buying a Battletome is an incentivised purchase. Yes, there's stuff in any given Battletome that isn't available for free: Warscroll Battlions, Allegiance rules and Battle Plans for the rules side, background sections for the fluff side. Essentially, though, those are all add ons as full rules of every unit and characters, aside from points cost in Matched Play, is available for free download.

Because the points costs are available in a seperate (and relatively cheap) book, I don't think we'll see a second edition of most Battletomes any time soon. Oh, Stormcast Eternals will definitely get their fourth book, fat golden poster children that they are, and maybe some other housekeeping exercises like smooshing Khorne Bloodbound and Khorne Daemons together to match Disciples of Tzeentch's formatting. However, I don't think a new Ironjawz or Flesh Eater Courts books is on the horizon.

Because there's very little reason to create it, let alone ask for the player for fork over the cast. If GW has a sudden inspiration to add a unit to, say, Clan Pestilens they can just release the free PDF and lay out its background in White Dwarf. They give it a provisional points cost on the Battlescroll and codify it when the next General's Handbook comes out. This way new model releases don't have to be tied to book releases.

And what's more, as points costs are the main game balancing strategy of these games, if they can be updated once a year that gives GW a lot more chance to both shake up and rationalise their meta.

There was a problem once where Space Marine tanks were massively over-pointed for what they did and the rules designers committed to lowering the points cost in new Codexes. However, for some Space Marine factions this took years because they had to wait their turn and so you had one army spending peanuts on their Razorbacks and Predators whilst others were paying through the nose for them. Instant imbalance and a years long wait to see it fixed.

With a General's Handbook it could have been done in one release.

Honestly, this is all motivated by the fact I've been playing this old game for four editions now, soon to be five, and one version of Codex: Space Marines doesn't read much different from any other. Maybe its time to just release one version of the thing and let it sit, a background resource supplemented by PDF downloads and whatever campaign book system rises from the ashes of The Gathering Storm. I also think it would be of benefit to GW to de-empahsise buying books over miniatures, especially with how short these editions are getting. 

Comic Reviews: Brave New(ish) Worlds

So, its a week of relaunches as the X-Men, Inhumans and Superman books give us our first taste of what their new directions are going to give us.

Superman #20

Contrary to my expectations, Hamilton County continues to be a thing. About the only thing that seems to have changed, status quo wise, is the Kents are now living under their real names. I don't expect this to last but its good that DC have commited to a slow filtering out of information on the new status quo rather than trying to infodump the whole thing in one go.

Anyway, story wise, Batman and Damian turn up to be paranoid, not eat pie (Batman, we are told, does not eat pie) and make some oblique references to events in Super Sons. Batman also, in a fit of paranoia, examines a prize winning dairy cow, which is the sort of left field weird I've come to expect from the Tomasi/Gleason dream team. Plus, Lois calmly puncturing Batman's dark and brrody act is a joy to watch.

Royals #1

I decided to buy this issue based purely on how much I loved Marvel Boy in Keiron Gillen's Young Avengers. As I've said, the Inhumans aren't character I care much about one way or another and I've only really encountered them in passing when they intersect with something else I like. Ultimately, they were a big and complicated and very densely populated corner of the Marvel Universe I didn't really feel like I had the time to get to know.

However, this series comes along with a lead character I really love (Marvel Boy) and a small cast of Inhumans joining him on a quest to somehow regain the secret of Terrigen and kickstart the birth of new Inhumans. Some I know of old like Medusa and Gorgon whilst others, like Flint and Swain, are new to me. I especially like Swain, who is a space pilot dressed like some sort of Regency buccanneer.

The only part of this issue I didn't like was that it had one of those “thousands of years in the future” portentous prologues that foreshadows that someone on the crew is going to die and you just know... you just know that somehow that future isn't actually going to happen. Not in the sense that the next creative team will ignore it but in the sense that you just know the current creative team has a way to wriggle out of it all planned. I could be wrong but, well, its not like this hasn't happened a lot of times.

Still and all, I think I might finally be getting into the Inhumans books.

All-New Wolverine #19

Like Superman, this is a pretty soft reboot of the “X-23 as Wolverine” concept. She has a new costume, her clone sister Gabby has graduated to being her proper sidekick and we get a lot of guest stars turning up to remind us that the X-books are properly part of the central Marvel Universe again.

Add to that the fact that this story has an angle on Wolverine that I don't think has been used as a hook before, not with either incarnation of the character: viral immunity. An virus is released on Roosevelt Island by a dying alien child whose last words are Laura's name and our All-New Wolverine is sent in to investigate as she's the only lead SHIELD has. Oh, and Ironheart is trapped on the island so maybe we get to see Laura and Riri team up next issue. Please?

X-Men Gold #1

This is such a damn good start. Look, I'm not going to lie, X-Men comics are what got me into this medium and watching the franchise lurch through the last couple of years in Fox-spiting exile from the grand sweep of the MCU hurt me deep in my soul. Hell, at this point I was even looking forward to an arc called “Back To Basics” with all the paint-by-numbers fan service that implied.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by the end product. Yes, there's a lot of nostalgia here with all sorts of call backs to X-Men runs of the past and brief appearances by characters who haven't been seen in a terrible long count of years like Rockslide and Armor. However, writer Marc Guggenheim is careful to cut it all a commendable amount of new. The Xavier Institute is now an outreach centre located in Central Park, Rachel Grey finally has a superhero identity of her own instead of a hand me down from her mother, and most off all Kitty Pryde is now the boss. I mentioned with X-Men Prime that I loved having the Kitty Pryde I remembered from the later years of Excalibur back. She's older here, more confident and assured and we get a pretty good example early on in the issue of how much more experienced and powerful she is than the barely legal ingenue she's been portrayed as since about the Whedon run.

I genuinely expected this to be the part of the relaunch that would dissappoint me but I'm really impressed and can't wait to see what's in store for the Blue team.

Uncanny Avengers #22

… and, comics being comics, a little unfinished business remains from before the big relaunch. Its actually a rather bittersweet affair as the whole Red Skull and Xavier's brain finds some closure. There's a lot of emotional moments for Rogue in this one, not least of which her telling Steve Rogers to shove off, which at the moment is a really cathartic thing.

And the cliffhanger promises to dust off one last piece of unfinished business that has been lingering since the run before the run before this. Now that's either long form storytelling or someone literally forgot about that whole damn plot. I ain't taking bets either way.

Spider-Man #15

Now, this feels like things are getting back on track, this is the Brian Michael Bendis I like spending money on. The issue is largely an epilogue to the Kissin' in a Tree crossover with Spider-Gwen (including an absolutely pointless reprise of that arc's linking device) with Miles and his dad talking over things, first with each other and then with Miles'mother Rio. Its got a nice emotional through line, some fun bits and some high emotional bits all of which guest artist Szymon Kudranski draws the hell out of. It rather reminded me of some of the Matt and Foggy two-handers from Bendis' Daredevil run, as much as I hate comparing a writer's work with something they put out over a decade ago (just seems mean...).

Batman #20

Once again, a master class in structuring each issue of a comic as a single episode with a consistent theme and its own flavour. Most of this issue is literally just a fist fight between Batman and Bane but Tom King writes an internal monologue for Bruce that goes to some very interesting psychological places.

King is definitely not one of those “Batman is the real identity, Bruce Wayne is the disguise” types, is all I'll say. 

A couple of lucky finds

Most hobbyists, I think, have one or two models they regret not buying when they had the chance, things that we were going to get some day but then went out of production on us. In our modern age, of course, this is a major motivating factor in why many of us have eBay accounts.

In my case, the other day, the chance came up to get two such models at pretty reasonable price and they're two of my favourite models ever.

Eltharion: The Elf Without Fear by Frank Miller

The first is Eltharion the Blind, one of the earliest dynamically posed character sculpts and a relic of GW's first attempt at rolling storyline (the one that didn't end with the world being destroyed). I love the motion of the model, the way the pose captures a moment in personal combat that is very rarely used in miniature design: blocking an incoming attack. It actually conveys the skill of the character more than having him in a static or attacking pose would. Yes, the model has certainly aged but it has a real place in my heart as one of the miniatures that inspired me to start collecting.

The other model I just bought is, I admit, rather less spectacular. In fact, the reason he went out of production is that he isn't as spectacular as the competition.

"Come along, Dobby!"

This is one of four Spellsingers released for the sixth edition Wood Elves book and the first to go out of production. The other free all have these floating poses, held aloft by sculpted magic effects. Next to them, a dude standing there with a staff just doesn't cut it, especially given that at the time characters floating in mid air was this amazing thing we astonished to see achieved in miniatire.

He also, I think, was designed to represent the darker, more capricious side of the Wood Elves. He has a more sinister aspect than the surviving Spellsingers, an impression not helped by the sight of whatever the hell he is doing to that spite. Funnily enough, he fits better with the sort of character the Wood Elves had in the 8^th edition and I'll probably use him as a Dark Magic Spellweaver.

"I walk in eternity (also swamps), Sarah Jane."

He also rather reminds me of Puddleglum as played by Tom Baker in the Chronicles Of Narnia TV series. Not a terribly villainous figure, I admit, but a central character in one of the most mentally scarring viewing experiences of my childhood so you understand the association.

Time And Relative Definitions Of Fired

The Sun, the Baron Von Munchausen of British journalism, has announced that Pearl Mackie has been fired from Doctor Who.

Okay, let's do this...

I mean, THIS is what we're dealing with, folks!

The Sun, a famously racist and homophobic hate rag, has declared that the co-lead of Capaldi and Moffat's final season will not be returning under the new production team. They use the word “fired” for sensationalism when the pretty obvious reality is that she was probably on a one year contract to start with.

I can't say I'm surprised. In fact, just yesterday I said I didn't think she'd be doing a second season. Considering past form, its likely that she has a self-contained arc that'll run through the season designed so that Chibnall (who has not made any casting decisions for his series eleven as yet) could choose to retain or drop her as he wished with the balance of probability being that he'd want to introduce his own characters to better fit his vision of the show.

There is really nothing to panic about.

Yet.

I mean, for all I know Chris Chibnall is planning to start his era by revealing that the Doctor has always been a secret Nazi and his new companions are thinly veiled stand-ins for Richard Spencer and Nigel Farage. Absent that information, however, I feel no reason to panic about the idea of a one season TARDIS crew, an idea that was the norm for the first four seasons of the revival.

Also, its The Sun, given their past form we'll probably find out tomorrow that Pearl Mackie has been offered a five year contract or that she is the Thirteenth Doctor or something...

Time And Relative Dimension In Gayness

SPOILERS (sweetie), for the coming season of Doctor Who, do not proceed beyond the picture.

So the new companion, Bill Potts played by Pearl Mackie is going to be the first openly gay Doctor Who companion. Now, this comes with some caveats that I am not really interested in rehashing but it is a major step. This is the series' co-lead we're talking about and we're told her sexuality will be an open, confirmed thing.

This isn't going to be a bunch of jokes about Jane Austen (Clara), a character who will disappear after five episodes (Jack), a recurring guest star (River), a set of tropes in a school uniform (Turlough) or an expanded universe character comparatively few fans will ever hear of (Oliver Harper, Chris Cwej, Fitz Kreiner). This is an out and proud, one hundred percent definitely gay character holding down the second most prominent role in the show.

Also, she's a gay woman of colour, which is a combination that doesn't happen often enough in fiction because of a strange psychology that makes people think “That's too many extra things!” deviating from the straight white male template that is, of course, the pure and unaltered human being.

What's more, given Moffat's track record on these things she's unlikely to end up dead at the end of the season. Okay, all of Moffat's companions have confirmed deaths but Amy, Rory and Clara all had long, full lives before the end. They didn't just drop dead when the Doctor was done with them, is what I'm saying.

(Okay, no, I don't think she's going to be in more than one season. I think Chibnall, like Moffat, will want to start with his own Doctor and his own companion to tell his own story and I can't hold that against him. I could be wrong, but the BBC certainly seemed to like the clean break of Series Five/One/Fnarg and I reckon they'll want the same for Series Ten.)

I look forward with immense anticipation to Bill meeting Missy. I really want to see the Master doing her “seduce the companion away from the Doctor” routine with a companion who might actually view is as seduction. 

The Comics Ramble: Diversity vs. Nostalgia vs. Marketing

“We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against.”

The quote comes from David Gabriel, Senior VP of Sales, Print & Marketing at Marvel, speaking to ICv2 about a downturn in sales Marvel suffered through the end of 2016. He then goes on to contrast the strong sales of Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, a nostalgia series about an alternate timeline where Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are still married and have a daughter.

Now, Gabriel admits there are a lot of factors in why between October and December last year people might have been making personal economies, about how Marvel may have just been putting too much product on the market, and several other factors. Still, the message seems clear, especailly as he goes on to tout the return of classic characters to prominence in coming months as a response to this downturn.

So, we need to discuss a few things.

For one, there is a specific breed of fan to whom this is good news. This is the sort of person who calls any title featuring a lead who is now white, male, cis and straight as “SJW comics”, as “pandering”. To this sort there is no additional, outside context to these falling sales, its just the natural consequence of not exclusively catering to them and their projected power fantasies at all times. Unfortunately, in many cases, they are also probably right.

How did we end up with this reality though? This reality that diversity doesn't sell in a world where Moonlight and Hidden Figures have been so successful? Diversity doesn't sell when YA novels can't throw out empowered female leads fast enough? Diversity doesn't sell when LGBTQ audiences will champion to high heaven any series that gives them even moderately respectful representation? Diversity doesn't sell in a world where one of Netflix's flagship series is set in a women's prison and from day one featured a parade of female characters representating all sorts of minorities? How does diversity not sell?

Because there's no one to sell it to.

You see, the sad reality of the comic industry right now is that if DC and Marvel weren't owned by larger companies that make megabucks licensing their IP they would probably have fallen apart years ago. The reason that so many events, even major jumping on point relaunches like DC Rebirth, are based around continuity wrangling is because the only major audience left for these things is the same core audience who have been reading comics their entire lives. Comics are sold in comic shops, not in supermarkets or bookshops or the local newsagent and that is just as true here in the UK as it is in the US. You want comics on a monthly basis you either find a comic shop in some back alley well away from the high rents of places with actual foot traffic or you order online.

And how do comic companies market a new series? Crossovers! Event tie-ins! A marketing strategy that literally requires you already read comics and have enough affection for Character A to want to spend extra money on their two-issue guest role in the series of Character B.

Outside of that? Nothing. Comics are advertised in comics, it is an insular feedback loop.

So, of course nostalgia sells better than diversity, of course Renew Your Vows sells better when it has one of the company's most popular characters in a spin-off of an era whose death fanboys bitch and moan to this day. Hell, I'm with them on that! I love Renew Your Vows, I got into comics during the Clone Saga, I miss the idea of a mature Peter and MJ as a young family.

But I got into those comics because they were in a rack at Nicholsons', an odd shop that was sort of a halfway house between corner newsagents and miniature supermarket. It was on one corner of what was, then, the main square of Basingstoke town centre right next to the bus station. I passed it every day of school through secondary school and on Wednesday I would pass through and pick up a couple of comics from the little section between the football magazines and the activity books for kids: Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, Generation X, Sensational Spider-Man, Fantastic Four. It wasn't much of a selection, in fact it was downright frustrating that of the four Spider-Man titles they only stocked three so I always missed a quarter of any major storyline.

It was accessible, though, to me and dozens and dozens of other kids coming to and from school.

It is a very simple truism of marketing that you can be amazing at something and you won't make a penny if no one sees you do it. If Marvel wants to reach audiences who are crying out for representation they can't trust that those audiences will just spontaneously decide to research comics on their own in the hopes of finding the lesser spotted Pakistani Muslim teenage girl superhero written by an actual practicing Muslim, they have to actually put some bloody money into telling the world that character exists.

And maybe, while we're at it, concentrate more on the experience of buying a single series than following the Marvel Universe? Events and crossovers are money sinks and we don't live in that economy anymore. You'll attract more casual fans if you aren't constantly teasing big events. We just got out of Civil War II then Monsters Unleashed, now you're building towards Secret Empire and Generations is going to run in the middle of Secret Empire.

We live in a world where the internet has basically destroyed any knowledge-based barrier to entry. The most convoluted character history is a Wikipedia article away and the only barriers left are the ones the comic industry seems happy to perpetuate: physical inaccessibility, lack of marketing and the financial burden of following a huge universe instead of a number of different series that share a setting.

Diversity doesn't sell... PAH! 

Hobby Goals #14 and #15: Pay and Spray

Let's jump straight into Flesh Tearers Month with some... okay, to be honest, housekeeping exercises to set an agenda whilst I spend my hobby time filling in details on the Sylvaneth I've spent the last month finishing all the boring bits on.

Hobby Goal #14

Write a 1,500 points army list

One of the reasons I decided to build this army in the first place was because I had a bunch of Space Marine kits lying around and I wanted to do something with them. As a result, I reckon I probably have a decent sized army if I just got around to organising it. So, I should write an army list to decide what to paint first and also work out just what I have and how much its worth points wise.

Hobby Goal #15

Test out Mephiston Red spray

I've recently discovered how useful sprays that aren't Chaos Black can be. Whilst the main colour of Flesh Tearers is the good and noble Khorne Red, I have found that it comes out rather patchy over black when painting large areas. My chosen guinea pig for this experiment will be the plastic Blood Angels Terminator Captain. He came with the Start Collecting set and, nice as he is, I don't think I would have bought him otherwise. Nothing against the model but he is a bit glorious to be a Flesh Tearer and I view him more as a stop gap option until I can convert myself a nice, bespoke Captain of my own. 

April is Flesh Tearers Month!

With 8^th edition just around the corner, I should probably knuckle down on getting an army ready for it. That is originally why I started cobbling together a Flesh Tearers army from random Space Marine kits I had lying around.

Flesh Tearers are a personal favourite of mine, though I'd be lying if I said half the appeal wasn't their very simple, very easy to paint colour scheme. There's also the fact that they're Blood Angels and thus have access to so many different Dreadnoughts. I love Dreadnoughts, they are one of my favourite things in the whole of 40k.

I'm also a fantastically biased player in that I love me my assault phase. I like red. I really like red but I don't like how Khorne armies play.

I also really, really like the background the Flesh Tearers have had for the last couple of editions. The idea that, faced with certain knowledge of their coming extinction, they have just decided that by the time they're gone the Imperium isn't going to have any enemies left. They now range ahead of Imperial armies and by the time the army arrives at their destination the enemy are dead, the local animals are dead, everything is dead and a small note is pinned to the skull of the enemy commander reading:

“We won. Yours, Gabriel Seth.”

I'm not overly fond of the Black Library fiction for the army but I can pretty much just ignore it since its almost exclusively about Seth and his immediate circle.

So, the current state of the army: I have a single Tactical Squad, a Librarian, a Death Company Dreadnought and a Contemptor Dreadnought painted. I have a bunch of other models built, mainly infantry. First job, the, will be to see what I actually have and how to cobble it together into something approaching a useable 1,500 points army. Second job is to come up with some characters and a mission for them to be pursuing.

All in all, I'm rather looking forward to returning to the grim, dark future where there is only war. 

Comic Reviews Prime

This week, we say goodbye to the best series of a mediocre era; the X-Men relaunch over coffee; I give the Inhumans a chance to impress me; and (Bat)girl talk just isn't enough to sell me on an annual.

All-New X-Men #19

And so the undisputed jewel of this unremarkable era of the X-Men concludes. Its a nice, quiet character piece like Extraordinary X-Men went out on as the team (plus Inhuman boyfriend type Romeo) gather for a barbecue outside a random gas station. What plot there is tidies away the lingering ghost of time travel from the series forevermore and I'm glad of it. As fun as it is to see the original X-Men wandering around the modern Marvel Universe, this issue needed sweeping away.

And Jean Grey returns. I admit, I'm not as high on Jean Grey as most are. One woman of my acquaintance described Jean as her “comicbook waifu” and that's far from abnormal (in some senses, at least). That said, Hopeless does do us one final great service and pretty much confirms that she and Scott are not and do not need to get back together.

All in all, I'm sad to see this series go and I hope Oya and Genesis find a home in the X-books somewhere down the line but I'm still looking forward to where this team goes next.

X-Men Prime one-shot

I've been waiting a while for this Kitty Pryde to return to the X-Men. This is the Kitty Pryde that was around when I started reading comics. Not the teenager of Chris Claremont or the barely more than a teenager Joss Whedon brought back into the fold but the experienced adult from Warren Ellis' Excalibur. This is the Kitty who grew up as a superhero and has some serious game as a result.

This is a Kitty that Storm is happy to turn to as a possible successor. There's no two ways around it, this issue has a very poor opinion of the franchise's direction in the last couple of years. That's fine, I happen to agree, and there's a definite sense that bringing Kitty back into the fold is an attempt at spiritual renewal for the X-Men as a group.

There are other teases: we see the original X-Men talking about why they're striking out on their own again (even if only obliquely) and a short vignette with Lady Deathstrike that sets up Weapon X. There's also a sweet little moment with Jubilee and baby Shogo, which is an unsatisfying tease for Generation X but a charming little scene in and of itself.

And, whilst I won't spoil the last page reveal, it certainly promises that the X-Men are going to be at the centre of the Marvel Universe again where they justly belong.

Inhumans Prime one-shot

I pretty much just bought this just to see what was up with the new Secret Warriors, which is pretty much the only Inhumans series I knew was spinning out of IvX. As it happens, the Secret Warriors don't make much of an appearance outside of a big group shot of Inhumans on a splash page and the resulting fight scene.

And now that I have read the teases for what else is coming out?

Well... the issue starts and end with Marvel Boy pretty much as we last saw him in Young Avengers. I love that character and that he's going to be a fixture in Royals absolutely sells me on the series. I admit, the Inhumans themselves, especially the new ones, aren't characters I'm very familiar with aside from Ms. Marvel. I find Maximus the Mad rather charming, but not enough to sell me on Black Bolt, which I assume from much silent brooding in this issue is where Maximus will be appearing.

Ultimately, though, that's two out of three series I'm at least willing to give a try which is not a bad average for a franchise I have not much interest in.

Batgirl Annual #1

This annual was mostly fluff and a tease for an upcoming Supergirl storyline. To be honest, that's not much to base an extra long (and extra expensive) issue on, especially as half the issue tells a story set before the current ongoing and so has very little to do with what's going on with Batgirl these days.

And I'm not sure getting some quality girl time between Babs and Alysia, a too rare pleasure since Gail Simone left the series, is enough to compensate for all that. 

Forge World, why are you like this?

I am the first person to argue that background should influence miniature design. Take, for instance, the fact that no Warhammer Dwarf has been armed with a sword in years, just axes and hammers. That is the good side of background influenced design. However, sometimes it is taken too far. Just because the product line is called “Forge World” should not make building the bloody things a century long artisanal project.

I am rapidly going off Forge World. I am currently building some Mark III Space Marines with Death Guard conversion parts (to get them done before the plastics come out) and it is a slog.

For one thing, there's the matter of cleaning the parts, which involves soapy water and a toothbrush that has already broken one shoulder pad. There's the horrible amount of flash on the parts, the fact I have to mutilate the groin of the plastic Space Marines to make them fit into the torso join and all the little distortions in the cast.

This is Games Workshop's premium product and there is no reason for it to be like this.

I have bought resin models and conversion parts from a number of companies over the years and none have been as irritatingly time consuming and prone to mismolding as Forge World. I have bought better quality resin from Games Workshop itself. As many issues as I have had with finecast, the models could at least be built without having to scrub them to within an inch of their lives. GW charge way above the odds for Forge World kits, many of which require you buy other high cost plastic kits to use them. This conversion kit is £25 (though it was slightly cheaper when I bought it, many moons ago) and I am using it to augment a £30 plastic kit.

I do not feel it unreasonable to expect these kits to be user friendly at the asking price. Smaller companies with much more modest R&D budgets than GW have managed to send me clean, properly molded resin kits that fit together (including with GW kits) like a glove.

Is the difficulty somehow a selling point? I know FW are meant to be the “expert” product but usability should be a priority.

Still, they look sweet once they're built, I just wish it weren't such a struggle to get them there.

Brexit means... well, we'll work that out later, no hurry

A man who is not the leader of a political party but keeps speaking for it... yesterday.

Today, Theresa May (the Prime Minister, not the pornographic actress) triggered Article 50 and officially declared our intention to leave the EU. Let me break this down so that I have a masterpost to refer people to when this all goes to shit:

1) The UK has two years to make a deal on all aspects of our relationship with the EU.

2) The deal must pass the EU parliament and our own parliament to come into force.

3) The deadline is not extendable.

4) Article 50 is not reversible.

5) Should a deal not come into force all existing treaties and trade agreements that rely on EU law to work will simply lapse. This in includes extradition treaties and the corporate laws that allow, say, the German companies who own more than half our public transport infrastructure to operate in this country.

6) The EU's incentive to treat us kindly in negotiations is practically non-existent.

7) I mean, they kind of hate us now.

8) We called them cunts for forty years whilst enjoying all the perks and privileges of the EU membership we constantly complained about.

9) And we have nothing to hold over them.

10) I mean, the EU is essentially a collective bargaining association. Any trade a member nation loses by cutting us off they can make their money back by leveraging a small price increase on their products in other markets including the over two dozen remaining member states of the Union.

11) I mean, if you've ever found yourself in a position of power over someone who has mistreated you? That's the position the EU is in with us right now.

12) Now imagine that person has been insulting you, using your stuff and spending your money (read: farming subsidies) for forty years.

13) Meanwhile, a quarter of the country is going to try and declare independence and we can promise them... nothing! We don't know what our future is going to be outside the EU so how do we convince the Scottish that they'd have a better future with us when they voted Remain practically unanimously?

14) And that's not even going into the fact that the Irish are talking about reunification.

15) And the idea of making concessions of any kind in our negotiations will be called out as treachery by the right wing press and the more hardline Leave voters.

16) Also, a bunch of things Leave voters are really, really passionate about aren't even on the table and never were. Refugees? Not EU citizens and so not EU migrants, Brexit does nothing to address the issue. Human rights? Our human rights legislation isn't only based on EU law, its based on the European Court Of Human Rights (not an EU body, not a factor in Brexit) and the UN Convention On Human Rights. Leaving either of those would be a whole other shitshow.

17) So what happens when the Leave voters don't get what they want?

18) Not that anyone in the UK will be getting what they want because we are in such a weak negotiating position.

19) We have no economic power because any financial loss an EU member makes can be made back from other markets whilst we are committed to telling them, our largest trading partner, to sod off whilst at the same time our second largest trading partner, the Unites States, has elected a man who declared that he will “Buy American and hire American”, a phrase Theresa May (the Prime Minister, not the pornstar) apparently cannot understand. He also said some things about cats and the grabbing thereof that are horrific but not immediately relevant to this conversation.

20) We have virtually no primary industry in this country, so its not as if we even make anything that Europe needs and, again, what little we do make will be no loss because every EU country has so many other possible trading partners they could get that stuff from. Cutting Europe off from our products isn't a threat, its an opportunity for other countries to grow their markets.

21) Our apparent negotiating position of wanting to keep our perks and privileges without our responsibilities or financial contributions is... impossible. Not simply difficult but impossible. I mean, no one would ever entertain a deal like that in the real world.

22) And why would the EU set a precedent for a deal like that on behalf of a nation that apparently hates them, where the press and political establishment regularly compare them to the fascist movements that dominated the lives of their grandparents, and blames them for every social problem going?

23) We have no power, no good will, no bargaining chips, a fixed deadline, a press and electorate that will willingly sabotage the entire process, and a set of demands so insanely entitled that no one would ever agree to them even if all of those other things weren't true.

24) We are screwed.

Seriously, there is no punchline here. This country has willingly picked a course that puts us in the weakest negotiating position we've been in since... I don't even know... the South Sea Bubble, maybe? And back then at least we had Robert Walpole, now we have Theresa May and she is no Robert Walpole (well, the Prime Minister Theresa May isn't, I can't speak for the political intelligence of the pornographic actress). The simple fact is that a huge number of people decided that economic suicide was better than having to queue up behind Polish people at the post office and they will either get what they want and suffer or the government will have to cave on issues like freedom of movement and right to work just to survive this in which case those Leave voters will still be queuing behind Polish people at post office but without having any say in how the EU is run.

And that's where we are. Brexit. Day One. 

The Sensual Experience of the Game Boy Advance

So, FireRed is the only game I'll be playing in this marathon on the Game Boy Advance. I'll be using the DS and 3DS remakes for Gen II and III. This, as it turns out, will be a bit of a shame. This is because the GBA has a feature the DS and 3DS lack: rounded sides for holding comfortably in your hands.

How is it that Nintendo, the market leader in handheld gaming for almost thiry years and not learnt to design the things to be held in human hands? Why has every other generation of the Nintendo handheld been a rectangle? A particularly hard-edged one in the case of the DS, on which I have four of these games to look forward to.

Okay, admittedly the screen is terrible and the slightest direct sunlight makes the image indeciperable but it is really comfortable to hold. I think the reversion with the DC to the brick design has more to with physical Game Boy branding than any practicality, which is a pity. 

Completed Models: Judge Dread

Flesh Tearers Contemptor Dreadnought

I'm having a bit of trouble getting a good, consistent red on large areas. You can see I had to layer and layer and layer and it resulted in brushstrokes everywhere. I think it might be the black undercoat. It came out fine on all the man-sized models I've tried it on but for anything larger I might want to start from a red spray. I think GW do a Mephiston Red spray now. Also, whilst bashing my own paintjob, the brass on the shoulder armour came out a lot less well than the photo makes it look.

Plus, yay for actual sunlight! The model doesn't look pink! The photo came out not too bad and I only had to crop it.

Kairic Acolytes

… and then the sun went in.

I have to say, these fellows are very time consuming to build and paint. I can't claim they aren't worth the effort but I am thinking that I won't be painting more than this one unit. They look fantastic but what makes them look fantastic are all those fine details I'm painting in unforgiving gold.

I tried out Kantor Blue armour for the plate, just to test it out before doing anything in heavy armour. I wasn't fond of how the silver armour came out on the Sorcerer so I want to try a lacquered look on my Warriors and Knights.

I have to say, I really enjoyed painting the Scroll Of The Dark Arts, its one of my favourite parts of the whole kit.

Completed Models (2017)

Chaos (Tzeentch) : 6

Dwarfs: 5

Flesh Tearers: 7

Genestealer Cults: 5

Renegades & Heretics: 5

Sylvaneth: 5

TOTAL: 33

A third of the way to 100! Counting is fun! 

The Comics Ramble: Superman Reborn: WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?

SPOILER WARNING: This post goes into the events, conclusion and possible consequences of the Superman Reborn crossover (that's Superman #18 - #19, Action Comics #975 - #976 and Superwoman #7) so if you aren't caught up on the Super-books this is really, really not the post for you.

That having been said...

… “WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?” to quote Adam Blampied.

To break down the result: it turns out that when the New 52 was created Superman and Lois Lane were split in two. One half became the New 52 Superman and Lois who wasn't married to him, the other became the Superman we've been following since Rebirth who remembers the pre-Flashpoint continuity and Lois that he is married to and has a child with. Now the two versions have been fused together and history has changed around them so that there's only one version of Lois and Clark and they've have been married for years, raised their son whilst working at the Daily Planet and the events of both the New 52 and Rebirth era Super-books happened to them.

This is the perfect platonic example of the DC retcon: it fixes the big problem and leaves us with a lot of little questions.

Now, I can't deny that something like this needed to happen. Superman is Clark Kent, he works at the Daily Planet with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. People who have never picked up a comic in their lives know this as concrete fact so having to constantly explain that a Superman like that existed but died and now we're following his counterpart from another universe who is living under an assumed name on a farm in Hamilton County, Kansas for the benefit of confused new readers is more effort than its worth.

There's also the fact that this is a completely different attitude to the pre-Flashpoint/New 52 split than the rest of Rebirth has been exploring. Take the original Titans, who have recently discovered that their memories of being a team were taken from them and have now been reunited, memories restored. The same holds true for Barry Allen's memories of original flavour Wally West. Other series have either chosen to bring back pre-Flashpoint ideas as new events or just things that never rated a mention before and were totally always canon, honest guv. Either way, the message was that these comics were restoring something, be it restoring an erased past or re-introducing something fans remember fondly.

The Superman books, meanwhile, had this complicated (and, admittedly, pre-Rebirth) compromise of bringing back Superman's marriage but also jettisoning the Daily Planet status quo and there were alternate universes involved. It was complicated, it actively removed elements from the series readers expected to see, and it didn't work with the larger context of the company's line-wide relaunch. It had to go.

So it went and that is good. Superman should not be a series whose status quo is even close to hard to explain. It should be the most accessible, most straight forward series DC publishes: he's a superhero who has every power going and everyone knows who he's dating and where he works. Sometimes expectations are meant to be met.

And now they will be. What little we see of the new version of history, in a single splash page summarising Superman's new history, strongly suggests that the traditional status quo is back plus Superboy Jon. This is, on the larger scale, a good thing.

For those who believe in Rickard Stark's admonition that nothing that comes before “but” counts for anything that was around six hundred words of waste of time but here we go...

The problem DC has always had with these retcons is that whilst they usually do fix big picture problems they aren't that good on following through and figuring out how it affects the little things. Take, for example, Guy Gardner in the New 52. Guy Gardner, as with most of the Green Lantern characters, retained his pre-Flashpoint personality in the relaunch. This personality, however, was heavily based in the relationship he shared with Tora back in the Justice League International days, a relationship that was reduced in the new continuity to a couple of dates, no deep emotional connection and no bereavement because she never died.

Much as I love Guy Gardner, that is small potatoes compared to this.

The death of the New 52 Superman was used to launch Superwoman, New Super-Man and Lex Luthor's current status quo as seen in multiple titles. The fact that they're working with an unfamiliar Superman is central to almost every relationship Superman has with the Justice League, not to mention Nightwing, Batman and even Superwoman.

And that is what this is going to live or die on. Yes, there's a lot of foreshadowing about the big mystery of Rebirth and how the New 52 was created and how it all ties in to stopping Alan Moore getting his Watchmen rights back but, ultimately, what matters is the reader experience.

Are we going to be pissed off by whatever level of pointlessness becomes attached to the Hamilton County era? An era, let us remind ourselves, that covered almost forty issues of the core Super-books plus whatever else one of DC's most famous and widely used characters appeared in during that time. Will the new status quo make sense or will we just be asked to take on faith that all the elements of the characters that carry over from Hamilton County still make sense?

How does it affect Lana Lang and Kong Kenan, both characters whose series I am enjoying and whose origins just got scrambled? Superwoman, at least, had a tie-in that promises the next issue will answer those questions and I assume that with the current arc of New Super-Man is set in Metropolis we'll get some answers there.

So it at least looks like there's a solid plan to explore the consequences of this change up front, not let the questions fester as they did with the New 52.

I want to hope here. The Rebirth experiment, by and large, has been very well thought out. Unfortunately it has also largely ignored until now the Watchmen connection that Superman Reborn brings front and centre. With the Batman/Flash crossover The Button just around the corner, this might be the moment when the wheels start to come off and this very simple, very effective relaunch is about to fall down the same history-twisting rabbit hole DC relaunches all too often fall into. I admit I am cynical about the Watchmen thing for many reasons from its IP dispute origins to the questionable sanity of importing satirical characters into the continuity they were created to satirise.

I also worry about piling retcons on retcons. On that note, I do hope I'm right in thinking that Superman is a special case, a pre-Rebirth retcon that needed fixing to match Rebirth rather than the first in a series of such supplementary reboots.

For once, a DC line-wide reboot was simple, elegant and worked. It restored numerous beloved characters and relationships to the DCU whilst largely maintaining the simpler, more accessible continuity of the New 52. Half the characters and concepts that returned didn't even need extensive explanation. That simplicity was important.

What I am hoping is that DC, going against decades of instinct, keeps this simple. 

Hobby Goal #13: Tall Trees, Strong Trees

Behold the mediocre progress I have achieved on my Kurnoth Hunters...

Yeah, a little layering, some inking and drybrushing. Not spectacular progress but it just hasn't been a week when I could dedicate much time to painting. Still, its something and just about the only thing I managed to do this week. This week,, for the final Hobby Goal of Sylvaneth Month, I will be addressing the last model in my army that has no paint on it at all:

Hobby Goal #13

Work on my Treeman

Same rules as the last couple of Goals: doesn't matter about finishing him, I just have to work on him. Once I have some paint on this guy I can start going back through the other models in the army and polish off their details. Fingers crossed, I might even have something approaching a presentable army by the end of April.

Not sure what theme I'll be picking for my hobby in April. I might dedicate some time to the Flesh Tearers given how taken I've been with some of the ideas being discussed for 40k 8^th edition the other day. That or the Tzeentchians, we'll see.

Reading tea leaves: 40k 8th edition reveals

Yes, reveals, not leaks. GW's commendable turn of telling people things continues with a preview of the mechanics currently being tested for 8^th edition. Yes, its time to read some tea leaves and make some assumptions that are almost certainly wrong. Let's go!

Movement Characteristics

Yes! The basic sense here is that the generic unit types (Infantry, Jump Infantry, etc,.) will be going and replaced by a Movement characteristic on the unit's stat line. This knocks out a chunk huge of the main rulebook, which is just sensible, and puts more emphasis on the individual Codex. The less flicking between books the player has to do, the better.

Charging units fight first

An unfortunate reality of 40k's meta is that if you play a low Initiative army you're most likely to play against high Initiative (read: Space Marine) armies. If nothing else this rule is an inducement to dust off my Orks since my mighty close combat army might actually get to fight a combat round or two in this edition.

Armour Save Modifiers (for shooting)

Whether its a Strength based modifier or a Rending value as in AoS is unclear but I do think its sensible to bring this concept in. The fact that, say, an AP3 weapon completely knocks out the protection of power armour but has zero effect whatsoever on Terminator plate has always been a strange abstraction to me and modifiers are a simple way of bringing that concept into play whilst still keeping the spirit of how these weapons are meant to work (lascannons will still be the shit, lasguns will still be just shit).

3 Ways To Play

Definitely better to bring this in at the beginning than how they did it with Age Of Sigmar. Its the same tryptch of Open, Narrative and Matched play. Now, Open Play is still as unappealing to me here as it was in AoS but I can't pretend that having more options of play is somehow a bad thing.

“Command Points”

Um... this one is a bit complicated because it isn't really explained. The basic idea is that if you build an army as the background dictates you get Command Points, a series of benefits like re-rolls and unspecified army specific special rules.

How army selection actually works under this system is left unsaid. Most likely, in my view, is that the Force Organisation Chart becomes optional and you get Command Points for following it. Also,perhaps the chart will be bespoke to each army, completely replacing the generic version rather than just supplementing it as the bespoke charts in this edition have.

Age of Sigmar morale checks

About the only one I'm not thrilled by. Its not a mechanic I'm super fond of in AoS and that's a game with the option of large units. 40K has always generally lent towards five- and ten-man squads so I suspect this mechanic will be a lot less forgiving, especially the high-cost elite units like Terminators.

Overall, though, I'm looking forward to this, which I wasn't expecting to be. 

Comic Reviews

Horrible week, comics arrived a day late, capsule reviews, motley...

Lumberjanes #36

Might As Wheel

Yay! After an epic catch-up session, this is my first “as new” issue of Lumberjanes and not only do I get to enthuse about this great series in a timely manner, I think I almost understand roller derby. Watching the hardcore lady types from the world's most deeply strange girl scout camp playing roller derby against a team of sasquatches .

That's enough. That's enough weird to draw me in. That the hardcore lady-types are doing this on behalf of a family of yeti who the sasquatches have turfed out of their treehouse is icing on the cake. The fact that somehow the roller... ring? Circle? Thingy?... become a death trap for no readily apparently reason is the cherry on the icing.

Extraordinary X-Men #20

An underwhelming end to an underwhelming series that was the backbone of an underwhelming era of X-Books. Its not completely without virtue, going out on a rather sweet scene that either promises or threatens a return to more traditional X-Men stories in the new series depending on your taste. The main meat of the issue, though, is Storm having some meta musings that are pretty obviously Jeff Lemire bitching about the holding pattern Marvel had this book in through his entire run.

Still, a major theme of the issue was having Nightcrawler smiling again which is one hell of a step up from having him as some sort of morose avenger figure for God alone knows what reason.

Mother Panic #5

Broken Things part 2

Mysteries stack on mysteries with this series. On the one hand we get some concerete answers on how Violet got her powers and the nature of Gather House whilst on the other the actions of Violet's mother bring up further questions and not just in a “crazy person talks prophesy” sort of way. I hate that trope, I've seen too much of the real thing to find any romance in it.

Oh, and the Gotham Radio back-up finally got my attention by bringing back a minor league Bat-villain I always thought there was much more potential in.

Unworthy Thor #5

I guess it works.

Okay, for serious, I think the mystery of “What did Nick Fury say to make Thor unworthy?” just plain went on too long. I know they had to address who the new Thor was first but at a certain point you just end up in a place where no answer is going to be fully satisfying. The rest of the series? Very satisying, there's a reason Jason Aaron has been writing this character (and his distaff successor) for so long and if he could find an excuse to use Beta Ray Bill more often I'd be a very happy man.

So, I guess it works.

Invincible Iron Man #5

I may have soured a little on Bendis' style a little the last year or so but I love his Iron Man series, even if I question the logic in bringing in a villain from the last Tony Stark stories this soon in Riri's run. Everything with Riri and Pepper has been gold and there's something pleasingly real in how over-earnest Riri is in dealing with Sharon Carter when SHIELD turns up.

Detective Comics #953

League of Shadows part 3

A Cass focus issue? Yes, please. That this is turning into a very Cass-centric arc is very gratifying since there was a time when she (and Steph, for that matter) was brushed off by DC editorial as a “toxic” character that they didn't want to use. We also get yet more of her interacting with her biological mother Lady Shiva, one of the great dropped threads of the old DCU. There's also a lovely little scene with Clayface trying to connect with Cass over the fact that neither of them are particularly good at expressing their feelings verbally, which I hope bodes well for Clayface's continuing face turn.

I still don't like the Orphan identity, though, and I rather hope that this issue signals that Cass might eventually grow beyond it. I hope.