While I appreciate that none of us have much time for post-Out Come The Wolves Rancid, the fact is that the first three records are nigh-on untouchable. And besides, everyone else was naming their Tale Of Gamers articles after bands, I didn’t want to be left out.

Here is a fun fact for you. As of about 6 years ago, Tim Armstrong had been sober for years. A band who had done some touring with them in the past told me and my bandmates that a few hours before they started, he would start acting drunk to ‘get in to character’. I guess thats what happens when you’re a millionaire dressed as a punk. Anyway…

For some time now I have wanted to start a new army for Fantasy Battles. I haven’t been near 40k in over a year, and while it might be more practical for me to look in to a new Space Marine army (I’ve always loved Crimson Fists and Imperial Fists), I’ve been drawn less and less to the painting and gaming aspects of 40k as of late.

Initially I narrowed it down to three choices. I love anything to do with weird forests, so Wood Elves was an option. Beastmen were also an option, them being the counterpoint to the Wood Elves in my eyes. The other idea I had was to do a cool Bretonnian army. I wanted something that used Magic. I wanted something that I would have fun painting, that had a lot of variation and themes I could look in to, and that would take me outside of my painting comfort zone. These three armies ticked the boxes nicely.

With regards to picking one of the three, I thought the best thing to do was set myself a deal. I said that I would collect the first army that got a new rulebook this year. With 2013 having such a seemingly heavy release schedule, I thought that one of them at least are bound to receive an update prior to the years end.

However, my mate, and fellow Corehammer writer Smart moved to Sweden some time back, and as such, left a lot of his Warhammer stuff behind. One of the things he left was a sizeable Orc & Goblin army. He has decided to pass this on to me rather than see it gathering dust, so the two paragraphs above this are now completely useless as the decision has been made. My next army, and my Tale Of Gamers project for this blog will be Orcs and Goblins.

While I always planned to make my Dwarfs of a high tabletop standard (as I initially never intended to play), these –  I hope – will be knocked out fairly fast. I think I can find a good balance between speed and quality. And I guess only time will tell if I’m right or not.

The next step for me is to go through these two boxes full of grey and silver, and start to build the 500 point list to get utterly battered by at WHW in a few months time. After that, some building, some painting, some blogging, and a lot of pouring through Rancid songs desperately trying to find something that fits.

Remember when Rancid were amazing?