Rock. Robot rock.
My original oath of moment was to make some headway into my Word Bearers going into 2015, and that continued nicely into 2016 with a load of new units, with more being added fairly regularly. I’ll do an update on how that’s going in a few weeks having re-appropriated a few units from the old III Legion army. Continue reading
Winners!
I want to talk about the movie Airheads. Actually, I want to talk about one scene from the movie Airheads. That’s right, that fucking weirdo 1994 movie about idiot butt rockers taking a radio station hostage to play their shit song. Starring Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler and creepy Steve Buscemi who I’m convinced has never actually looked young. And the reason I want to talk about this film is that it represents the real treatment of Dungeons and Dragons, which was around for me both in person, and in the media, that I had grown used too.
This is an article nominally about my trip to Stockport to attend Corehammer Fest 2016 in October. If you can’t be bothered reading the whole thing, it was a great time and you should go to the next one if you can. If you can be bothered slogging through my ramblings, hopefully you come to the same conclusion.
“Come to the fucking North”
This was the response I got when I floated the idea that I’d be over to London in early 2015. Not exactly the warm welcome I was hoping. You see, for Americans, the UK wargaming scene is often seen as a sort pilgrimage to be made. The motherland where the hobby in a modern sense was launched, where the biggest and most influential companies are based, and where every field and lane probably has dead soldiers from some medieval armor wearing era buried beneath. But on this trip in 2015, I saw none of that. I did manage to meet up with one very special Stevie Boxall, who took a couple Californians to a British Mexican restaurant and a walking tour of brutalist London architecture, cheers. But that was the start, when I returned for work almost a year later I finally made it out of London and to the wonders of GW and Wargames Foundry (covered in a previous DungeonPunx Podcast, you should listen, but probably won’t) and was shown an incredibly warm welcome by a bunch of good dudes. That experience planted a brain worm that burrowed deep, and ensured I’d be coming back again, and would make gaming a priority when I did. So, when the dates came out for the October 2016 event, I said fuck it and plotted a way to make it happen.
What did I get myself into?
This article contains NO Stranger Things spoilers. Don’t worry.
Like a lot of people, I raced through Stranger Things on Netflix in a weekend and absolutely loved the freaking thing. Story, tone, setting, details and music all combined into a perfect warm broth of nostalgia and entertainment. I just wrapped myself up in it like a comfy blanket and enjoyed my time in that perfectly imagined world. Don’t worry, I’m not going to discuss any actual spoilers, but I will say there is some Dungeons & Dragons being played, and it’s handled pretty damn excellently. This made me ruminate again on a topic that crosses my mind every so often. How does the media, and specifically film and television, portray Dungeons & Dragons and roleplaying games in general? Are they laughing at it, honoring it, terrified of it or just ambivalent towards it? How has this portrayal changed over time? What trends does it speak to? And how does the treatment of roleplaying in these works of creativity and art reflect on the creators and the audience they’re speaking too? To answer these questions, and bore you kind folks to tears, I’m going to be taking a look at all the D&D in media I can, and waffling on about it because that is what the internet is for (well, besides porn, porn and cat videos).
Things may have been a bit quiet on the blog front, but we’re still rolling dice, chatting shit and having a laugh, but it’s time we all got together for some fun, so we are proud to announce Corehammer Fest 2016. This will be at the newly refurbished Element Games NWGC and we have plenty of activities planned. Tickets are just £5.00 and limited to 40 places, so grab one asap from the Corehammer Munitorium . Details below the poster, but all will be revealed over the coming weeks
Emperor’s Children in black look absolute nails.
It’s been a while, but we’re back again with the What Legion series, this time Andy from Tales from the Maelstrom steps up with his Horus Heresy Emperor’s Children army. If you’re unfamiliar with his blog, and you’re reading this, you’re in for a treat. There’s a tonne of classic gaming and miniatures from the Rogue Trader era. This is an article that will take you down memory lane, back to flicking through those late 80’s copies of White Dwarf.
First up, can you let us know who you are?
I’m Andy, I’ve been a gamer since the mid 80s and worked as a games designer for Games Workshop, Fantasy Flight Games and various other companies since 2001. I’m currently product manager in charge of bringing the most beloved of the specialist games range to a new generation.
Last article I introduced the game Saga: Viking Age to readers. What I left out of my ridiculous and meandering prose was discussion of how to get your grubby hands on one of the most important aspects of any miniatures game, the figures. See, historical games are a little different than the current incarnations of Warhammer, Malifaux, WarhmaHordes etc… in that there are often times a plethora of miniature companies that make compatible figures, and there is no IP infringement or cease and desist letters on history. It isn’t always as easy as just purchasing the exact thing they show in the book, but with this added effort comes incredible choice on how you want to spend your hard earned stacks of cash.
If you’ve been primarily coddled by the sweet retail presence of Games Workshop or Privateer press, you might find sourcing figures for Saga a different (and sometimes challenging) experience. The purpose of this article therefore is to quickly discuss a whole host of manufacturers, what Saga relevant figures they’ll have and some thoughts on their quality. Its a primer, a showcase of this particular period and some of the best (and worst) the internet will throw up on you. This is not meant to be a totally exhaustive list, but as close as I could come to with the knowledge I have. About 95% of these manufacturers I own miniatures from, sometimes from the ranges I’m picturing, so while this is my highly subjective opinion, it at least has some false grounding in experience. Finally, I’ll throw in some good pop culture inspiration to get your mind working and ready to jump on board the fad train as it once again leaves the station. First however, I’d like to discuss a couple realities for those new to the historical miniatures scene.
Since starting up on OoM towards the end of January, I’ve made some fair progress with the first stage of this plan – to finish off the bulk of the figures that I’d started painting over the course of 2015 but, for assorted reasons, fell by the wayside before they were completed.
Most of the models that fell into this category were bits and bobs of the 40K Bad Moon Ork army I initially started putting together way back in the days of 3rd and 4th edition, and I’d set about sprucing up and updating last year, following a decade-long break from the hobby. Also, several were additional members to add to units I painted the bulk of in 2015, so my first couple of update posts seemed like a good opportunity to show off the army so far, and share some thoughts regarding what’s changed since I was last having a crack at it.
This time round, I’m going to concentrate on the Troops choices – these were always what served in the past as the biggest stumbling block to me in terms of staying disciplined about completing an army. I’m pretty pleased with having overcome this to a sufficient extent to have well in excess of the bare minimum requirement.
This is the only guy in the mob entirely composed of post-2005 bitz, I think.
The first time they raised her she said, ‘Behold, I see my father and mother.’
The second time she said, ‘I see all my dead relatives seated.’
The third time she said, ‘I see my master seated in Paradise and Paradise is beautiful and green; with him are men and boy servants. He calls me. Take me to him.’
That’s right folks, we’re going to do an introductory article for a 5 year old historical miniature game. Here at Corehammer, we like to be only the most current and cutting edge with our content. Stay tuned for our Warhammer “The End Times” thoughts and possibly some rumors on a shadowy new edition of the game with talk of controversial round bases. Maybe a quick review of the first Avengers movie and bitching about Tom Hardy’s Bane while I’m at it. Also, did you know women can vote now? Topical. So why am I actually spending time introducing Saga? It started with a simple WhatsApp message from the frozen Nordic lands, “Did I hear you played Saga?” I gave some quick thoughts, praise and warnings back and went on about my day. But something about that little conversation stuck with me. I started thinking about the game again, how more people should be playing it, how it is such an interesting introduction to the historical miniature hobby, and how dammit, I want to be playing again. Some weeks pass and the fad light has been switched on (not by me) and my friends group were all looking to dive in for some sweet, sweet, Saga gaming. I quickly realized there is still a lot of information out there that is either missing, or hard to find, and is relevant for someone looking to get into the game. This means that even though the game was released a little while back, and was reasonably popular for a niche wargame, there is enough of a gap out there that makes it worth my frankly pretty worthless time to write up an intro. This first article will focus on the original Viking Age flavor of the game, a part 2 with shopping and figure recommendations and a follow up to cover those Mediterranean romps in the sun from Crescent and Cross. This ultimately will be my utterly cack-handed attempt at opening the vault and sharing my nonsense ramblings on what really is a superb little game.
Up from the motherfucking idyllic coastal regions of Colchis!
In this article I’ll go over a few techniques I use to weather my tanks, these have been predominantly word bearers tanks so if you’re starting a XVIIth army then this is a good place to start. that said, the techniques are mostly things you can use over any paint scheme so worry not if you’re painting up a different legion.
The techniques are all military modelling skills, and will give your tank a much grimier, dirty look and feel to the bright GW/’eavy Metal schemes, if thats the look you’re after then theres going to be little of use here. If you want your tank to look like its actually just driven off a real life battlefield complete with dings, mud, smoke, oil, and burn, then read on.
