The Abyss – James and The Giant Nah Cheers

Hi, hello, happy new year! We made it. Nothing exploded or melted at midnight on the 31st (unfortunately?), and we’re seemingly all here for another year of Tr*mp, vaping, beard oil, and all manner of other horror that makes it difficult for me to look at the internet in the morning. On the bright side, the Emoji Movie came out last year, so that’s at least one thing we don’t need to fear. Hopefully you used your time wisely over the festive season. By wisely I mean that you used it to consume meats, cheeses, any fake version of the aforementioned, and enjoyed repeated viewings of Die Hard, as well as ITV showings of teen movies such as the Maze Runner series, facsimile Shrek Kung Fu Panda, twee garbage The Princess Diaries, and Battleship. Despite what you’ve come to know of me, I don’t enjoy any of those things, but I definitely sat and watched them, and a load more cinematic compost, with a baked Camembert, some part baked rolls, and a posh pear M&S chutney. In fact I enjoyed Battleship so little I’m almost sad it’s out of our time frame for a review. The film was 2 and a half hours long and seemed to involve mostly the plot from Independence Day, but written by teenage drama students and located on a boat. Also Rihanna wearing a Hoods tshirt – the hardcore scandal everyone forgot because no one listens to Hoods really anymore, not even in the gym. All this is just proof of what you can get me to shut up and sit through if you offer me a nice cheese. Anyway.

Continue reading

Trapped Under Dice: CH Xmas Mosh

“Human sacrifice, dwarves and elves living together, mass hysteria”

Once more the hour had come upon us for that finest of recent traditions,the Corehammer Christmas social. Typically plans were made, promises of attendance sworn in blood and games organised. In previous years we have held court at Warhammer World, Foundry and the Element Gaming Centre in Stockport. But I like to mix it up and visit new places so this year we gathered at Mantic HQ. Tucked away on the edge of a residential estate in Bullwell, Nottingham, it took Ager and I a few goes to try and find the place.  After successfully navigating a gaggle of nightmarish traffic calming bollard children, we arrived. We were greeted by our host for the day Mantic’s very own perennially enthusiastic Scotsman, Andy Meechan, and ushered inside.

Continue reading

Corehammer Christmas Mosh & Raffle

Yo, just a quickie. Our annual festive meet up is scheduled for November 18th at Mantic HQ in Nottingham. Games will be played, rips will be executed, snacks will be consumed. Much laughter and jackanapes to be sure. All are welcome. Fiver gets you in and you can get a ticket HERE

Organise some games, play some new ones, make new friends, raise some money, enjoy a little solidarity. No bullshit attitudes or nazi’s cheers. Stay the fuck home.

We are also running a charity raffle at our Christmas do to raise money for St Mary’s Sexual Assault Referral Centre. Thanks to some very generous and kind individuals and companies, the prizes for this are absolutely incredible, check out our Facebook and Instagram over the next few weeks for what’s going to be up for grabs.

You need to get a ticket to take the ride though, and while we will obviously be selling some on the day, we’ve got you covered if you can’t make it either. We will be selling them in packs of five (it doesn’t make sense to do less due to the Paypal fees etc, which is what the 40p is for), and will send you a photo of your tickets with your name written on them. They will be added to the draw on the day (which we stream live as it’s 2017), and you will have just as much chance of winning as anyone else. Anything you do win will be posted to you, wherever you live in the world.

People have been generous, you can be too. Link HERE

All money raised from entrance to the day and from the raffle will be donated to assist the good work that the folk over at St Mary’s Sexual Assault resource centre. Go have a read of their website HERE and get your head around exactly what they do.

 

For Whom The Sleigh Bell Tolls….

“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Manifesting at the end of your bed like the ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, the Corehammer Charity Xmas Bash returns! This year Mantic Games in Nottingham are very kindly playing host to our ragged band of Hammerheads, Dungeon Punks and assorted Scallywags.

There’s no stipulation on what you can or cannot play. Just put your fiver in the bucket and do as you feel. We also ask that attendees chuck a tin of non perishable grub in the kitty too. No, we’re not bringing back the school Harvest Festival smart arse. But events like this are a great opportunity to help out those less fortunate and if we can get a decent contribution together for the local food bank whilst doing our thing, well it’s no hardship to be nice is it? Continue reading

For Those Who Were Crucified: The Walking Dead – All Out War

Author: Tom Chippendale

Unless you have been living feral under the docks exchanging favours for pennies then you have surely heard of The Walking Dead. From its humble debut as a graphic novel to the hit TV show, Rick Grimes and his ragtag crew have lodged themselves into the populations brain like a makeshift shiv into the mushy noggin of so many zombies.

I like The Walking Dead. I like the comics and I like the shows and as soon as I saw the Mantic games Kickstarter for The Walking Dead: All Out War I popped a little boner. Not a big enough boner to back it mind you but a big enough one to hope it did well and I could pick up a copy at my local games shop at some point. Luckily 3700+ people who are functioning members of society saw fit to pledge $685,853 of a $50,000 goal and while not the ludicrous amounts of money you see flying around on Kickstarter it was still more than enough to make my dreams of having a decent table top experience of The Walking Dead come to life.

Continue reading

Anaconda: I don’t want none unless…actually I just don’t want none.

1997 was the year of sequels. Speed 2, Jurassic Park The Lost World, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (don’t worry, I will eventually get to that one for you), Alien Resurrection, Batman and Robin. As we know, all these films were shite. Sure, we got Con Air, we got Face/Off, The Fifth Element, Spawn (shuuuut up), and Starship Troopers. But there were no creepy crawlies worth mentioning whatsoever. Somehow, at the end of my 13th year, I had gotten a touch bored of watching people shoot each other, and I needed something else. I needed monsters. I needed blood and guts and inhuman terror. I also needed Ice Cube (I always need Ice Cube), and when we made our regular Friday night trip to the video shop, both of those things were staring back at me from the top row of the horror section.

Now, we told you this is an action movie blog, about action movies. We’re only two weeks in, and I’m going off on a tangent. But you know what? I’m not ignoring monsters, because when you ignore the monsters, you also ignore the opportunity to revisit 90s CGI and tear it to fucking shreds, and I don’t think you want me to do that, do you? I think you need to know precisely every awful thing about this film that a revisit in 2017 makes painfully obvious, don’t you? Of course you do – it’s JLo and Ice Cube and Jon Voight and a massive rubber snake. And you do now anyway because I watched it and I refuse to suffer alone. Continue reading

Doing The Resurrection Shuffle……

Hello darling, it’s been a while hasn’t it? You look nice though. New hair and…have you been working out? Thought so. Look, I know what you’re thinking, here he is cap in hand, crawling back to us from his latest failure. A man who thought himself bigger, better, brighter than the humble blog that spawned him. I know how you people think. You can smell the guilt oscillating off me in great stinking waves. So here’s my confession. Continue reading

Don’t Forget the Struggle, Don’t Forget the Streets: Building a Modular Ruined City

So at the end of April we gathered in San Diego for our first official Corehammer West Coast Chiller. A month or two before that I had gotten the crazy idea of building a modular ruined city for the event so that at least I’d wander up with something to add to the festivities. I ended up only having something like 3 weeks to build the thing starting at the beginning of April, but in the mad dash to produce something I did manage to document the process so I figured I’d share it with you all now. That way you can learn exactly what I did, ignore it, and make something way cooler on a normal human schedule. I’m going to describe what I did, and not go too far down the rabbit holes of ideas not considered or techniques not used. Feel free to ask questions in the comments about anything you want though. Corners were cut, designs were simplified, but in the end, I had a table that can host a number of games in all sorts of different setups.

Continue reading

Nate’s Hot Dates – Middlehammer & Fighting Fantasy Fest Part Deux

Sometimes the very insular nature of our hobbies can be isolating. I know for many of my peers that is part of the appeal of these pastimes. Finding some solitude away from the unrelenting streams of work, responsibilities and bullshit that gnaw away at our daily lives. Hell, an hour away from the internet and endless Whatsapp group chats and ‘can you just…’ lectures, to disconnect and take pleasure in the simple joy of painting a plastic moon man or dreaming up a D&D scenario. I get it man.

Continue reading

COREHAMMER FEST 2016 Review – Swinton so much to answer for

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.

Corehammer Fest Flyer

“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?

Continue reading