Welcome to my abode

Finally got my hands on the Fortified Manor House and have to say I was even more impressed with this kit than I was with the chapel on its own.

Lots of sprue fluff and a whizz to assemble.  I’ve painted everything up now apart from the fences and dry stone walls.

Terrible photograph of it – but I’m really pleased with the paintjob – especially the brickwork effect which I got from a very good blog that detailed a more realistic method of painting them than that detailed in the GW guide.

Next in my sights is the recently announced Skullvane Manse, Lair of the Astromancer – as well as something a bit older, but more on that later.

Meet Asharah

My new Chaos Sorcerer.  Fantastic sculpt from Raging Heroes.  Better than any of the GW models – can’t wait to get this one assembled and painted.


She’s very much daintier than the GW models, but the detail is incredible.  Very reasonably priced too – with a couple of assembly options – the above picture shows her in vampire mode but she also has a Chaos Sorcerer option.  Will post more pictures once I have her painted.

Do you feel inferior?

Another bits of scenery added to the collection.  Scenery is my great love, and I prefer building and painting it doing anything else.

An elf way stone and a Chaos warp stone – and a girly wood elf betwixt them.

Failcast, FineCrap and other names…

You’ve probably heard them all and I have too but I was trying to avoid them until the reported problems went away.  However, on a recent trip the rest of the clan bought me one as a gift and so I was off on a rollercoaster ride.

Took three attempts to get a model that was usable – not good for the price – but I can’t fault GW for the customer service.  In each instance they unquestioningly replaced the faulty model.  I say replaced – they actually just sent me a new one so I now have a few spares!

The detail is great (difficult to judge in the dreamy picture above – must clean camera) when you finally get one that isn’t full of holes or just badly miscast.  Looking forward to painting it.

Guess what I bought!

I was weak – and the box was so tempting!

Only painted the above so far, and played through the first scenario – but seems like good fun.

I desperately need to figure out why my camera appears to be going all romantic with blurry round the edge pictures!  I suspect when the Gobbo Gobbo took the camera for her homework project she must have put her disgusting fingers on the lens.  Hmm where did I put that cleaning cloth.

A lakeside view

A quick and easy pond!  Made to shut up the Gobbo with the frogs – who was pestering for one ever since he found out about the skinks special rules.

I experimented with PVA glue for the water effect – turned out great the day after I made it, but then went this strange milky colour a day after that and has stayed that way ever since.  Still looks good enough though – and the Frog Gobbo loves it.

Mrreegghehllleeebluergh

“Aha”, I hear you cry.  “There was also some Chaos Spawn in that pile!”  And you would be correct.  Assembled one and painted.  Not a lot to say about it really.  The kit has an awesome selection of components so these beasties can be customised in a bazillion different ways – such is the will of the gods of Chaos.

My little darling took on the visage below – and he thinks Papa Nurgle was kind!

I'm watching you!

Down from the frozen North

You may have seen in my last pile of purchases a box of Chaos Marauders.  The plan was to beef up my current small band to a mighty war host – well at least add another few ranks anyway.  Well the latest models have been assembled and are standing in line ready to be painted.

At the same time I also went to the effort of magnetising the movement trays for the whole of my Warriors of Chaos army.

After reading a few tutorials on the ‘net I came to the conclusion there was no right and wrong way to do it.  So I just ordered a load of flexible metal sheets and a bunch of magnets – the really strong rare earth ones (I won’t attempt to spell the name – I’d only fail!).  Really pleased with the results.  In the end I plumped for a ‘hidden’ look – so you can’t see the edges of the movement trays – makes movement measurements much easier to do.

Sorry about the absence

Things on the blog front have been very quiet lately and I want to apologise.  I know I made a promise that I would not let this blog descend into the swirly pits of the internet abyss and I stand by that promise.  Unfortunately work has been very hectic at the moment and most of my waking moments are spent sorting problems – resulting in long days and very little weekend time.  What little time I have had free I have been busy painting and modelling – and as such the blog has suffered.

Things are easing though so I’m going to try and update the blog a bit more regularly.  I do plan to cheat a little though – I’m about to write up a number of posts about the projects I’ve been working on and schedule them to appear.  They will therefore look as though I am adding new content over the course of the next week or so when in fact I’m probably off on another painting spree (or work spree if I’m unlucky!)

Rats in the house

Bought these on a whim from someone on warseer.com


Both the Frog Gobbo and I had a hankering for a force of Skaven but not sure when I will get time to sort them out.  In the meantime they will no doubt stay in the box biding their time- till the blood god awakes!

I'm going to the chapel and I'm gonna get...

Spent the weekend putting together the new Warhammer Chapel I got last week.  Have to say the kit is a joy - one of the ones Games Workshop have got right!

To begin with, this thing is dirt cheap.  The official price is £15.50, which is what I paid, but look around and you can pick them up from independent stockist much cheaper. You get a lot of plastic for that money - and all of it beautifully detailed.  The amount of sprue fluff is awesome - allowing a myriad version of chapels to be built.  Personally I wasn't aiming for the chapel look - more a random warhammery house so much of the fluff is still on the sprue, but will come in useful for scratch builds or conversions.

Assembly was trivial but I wasn't really looking forward to painting such a large model, however, I fell across the painting guide on the Games Workshop website and once I got underway it turned out to be a complete joy to paint.  The initial stages are a bit frightening as the paint scheme starts out bright yellow (Iyanden Darksun to be precise) but the later process soon tones this down and the final scheme looks great.  It's also dead easy for a melon fisted dauber like myself.

My new abode.

As you will know if you read my last post, I actually wanted the fortified manor set but that wasn't available at the store.  I've now ordered one online which should be winging its way to me right now.  Can't wait for it to turn up so that I can have a go at another chapel and the watchtower.

Also managed to build a few other pieces of scratch built scenery over the weeked - but I'll probably cover them in another post.

News flash: GW Profits soar!

Had a bit of a splurge and got a whole bunch of models.

I guess this weekend is going to be spent assembling, gluing and painting!

You'll notice a chapel in the above pic - I had wanted the Fortified Manor set but they didn't have it in at that store (seems the shelves were full of Dreadfleet - but that's only to be expected).  The Chapel won't got to waste though - you can never have enough scenery.

Just need to find a good guide to painting it now.

Points if you can identify all the kits in the above picture!

Watch out! Gobbos!

I'd promised my daughter a copy of the new Orc & Goblin rulebook but she wanted a box of fanatics too.  Was browsing ebay and stumbled upon a guy selling both as well as a bunch of other gobbo bits and bobs - had a speculative punt and managed to win the entire lot for less than the book and fanatics would have cost from GW - was well chuffed.

My copy of Warhammer, The Generals Compendium also turned up today.  So all in all a good day.

Do I really want to do this?

During a recent bout of web trawling I stumbled upon a blog that recommended keeping track of all your expenditure on wargame items.  Unfortunately I don't recall whose blog I saw this advice on but did think it an excellent idea.

I'm about to start my own list - nothing fancy, just an Excel spreadsheet with details of each item, where and when it was purchased and how much it cost.

It's that last part that worries me though - am I ready to come to terms with how much money I spend on this pastime!

I'll report back once it's complete and perhaps we can compare - if you dare!

The New Warhammer room

Up until now our warhammer games have been played in the dining room, but for a number of reasons this has been far from ideal.  The main problem, as I see it, is that there just isn't enough room around the table.  The main problem as my wife sees it is that it means we can't eat in there.

Even after explaining that eating was secondary to playing my wife didn't agree.

The dining room taken over

The plan therefore is to have a dedicated gaming room.  When we bought the house last year we did so based on the fact that one of the spare bedrooms would be a 'Warhammer room' but things didn't go as planned, mainly due to lack of time, and it ended up just being a general TV watching room for the kids.

Time for all that to change.  Last weekend was spent clearing out the rubbish and re-arranging the furniture ready to begin the big conversion.  When the room was emptied it became obvious that it needed a lick of paint to freshen it up - which I'm planning to do next weekend.  Until then we've moved back in the TV and the old bookcases.

TV is going to be wall mounted.

The Gobbos in the new Warhammer room

So the ultimate plan is to paint the room - we've agreed on a light green - replace the old bookcases with some newer ones, possibly even wall mounted ones and to mount the TV on the wall.  That should give me enough space to build my custom, permanent games table - more on that in the future.

That was quick

Won an auction for a copy of the Warhammer Skirmish supplement on Sunday and the thing turned up today.  Kudos to the seller for getting it out so fast!  Had a quick flick through - I know it's out of date but I love to collect the Games Workshop material as it is all so gorgeous.
They act as great inspiration for building terrain pieces too.

Also won a copy of Warhammer, The General's Compendium at the weekend and looking forward to that turning up.

How I got here.

Forgive me for the next post which is pretty much a rambling on how I got into Warhammer again after an aborted attempt in my youth.  I'm conscious that at the moment my budding blog has zero readers and though I'm tyring not to chase off any potential subscribers (I wish) I'm also concerned that it doesn't end up like my previous attempts at blogging which were disastrous wastelands of single posts.

Hence I'm trying to seed the blog with many articles that will magically appear over the next few days thanks to the wonderful scheduling abilities of Bloggers engine.  So while this and other posts will seem to miraculously appear over the next few weeks many of them will have been rattled out over the frantic first few days of its creation.  That's enough exposition though - on with the story of how I became Warhammer crazy - again!

Wales, Aug 2008 - a bit wet.

It was August 2008 and we were stuck in deepest Wales with no prospect of the sun ever appearing.  My enduring memory is of grey skies and damp air.  Unable to enjoy the sights without fear of drowning and with two young children in tow (so unable to voluntarily drown in a hostelry) we found ourselves in a toy shop in some god forsaken village in the middle of no-where.  While the kids ran merry and attempted to purchase every piece of tat a young child could gorge their desires on I spied a small corner of the shop festooned with Games Workshop livery.  Thereupon my eyes fell upon 24x12 inches of pure delight!  The Battle for Skull pass box set.  On a mad whim I found myself grasping it and my credit card as I strode towards the till.  

Forgotten.

The sun came out and it never got opened.

It languished gathering dust in a cupboard, unopened and forgotten.  In 2009 we were having a terrible summer and once again the family were all stuck inside while the rain was tipping down - bored senseless.  In a flash of inspiration I remembered the game tucked away in a cupboard and duly went to hunt it out.

Several hours later, having played the tutorials, an epic battle ensued in which the gobbos decimated the stunties and managed to invade their precious mines and rob them of all their shinys!

We were hooked, and we wanted more.  A great debate was entered and each member of the family had to choose an army to side with.  Rustling of the rule book commenced and searching of the website and we finally all decided on our allegiance and picked an army that we could each command to glorious victory on the battlefield.

Wallet survives attack by GW

A trip to the far flung reaches of Sheffield's Meadow Hall and an (S10) assault on the wallet later and we each had a box of figures and a book telling us about the strengths of our chosen forces. Much hilarity when the guy in the shop called my wife’s wood elves 'girly' – she hasn’t been able to live it down since!

So now we are here and the whole family is Warhammer mad - which I'm led to believe is not normal - but then who wants to be normal?  Over the coming posts I'll detail more about my own army, the Warriors of Chaos, and the armies of my wife (the troll) and the kids (the gobbos).

Photographing the little beasties

One thing my new blog has highlighted is just how rubbish my photographs are.  So I've been playing with some new techniques to see if I can improve my pictures.

Progress so far:

Existing image.  Need to improve on this.

First attempt. Too dark!

Light source moved closer. More like it

Still not brilliant but I feel I'm getting closer to where I want to be.  The above was with a very makeshift light box, a single light source and a cheapo pocket camera.  The first thing to notice is that it really shows up my amateur paint job!  That aside, I'm not happy with the way the top part of the figure is out of focus.  I'm led to believe this is due to a shop F-Stop on the camera.  Unfortunately my cheapo camera doesn't have the ability to change that.

At the weekend I might break out the fancy camera (if I can find it) and see if I can improve a bit more.  In the mean time I'll finish with a post-processed image that should serve as the starting point for the next post on this topic.

Getting There!

From the 'What the heck is this' files

Over on the right it says I am a relative newcomer to the Warhammer world - but that's not entirely true.  Back when I was a kid I dabbled in both Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer fantasy.  Back then I had nobody to play with - none of my friends were the least bit interested, and the web - not having been invented - meant I didn't have an easy way to meet up with like minded individuals.  All this meant that my initial foray into the hobby was pretty much relegated to painting the small number of models I could afford and setting up small dioramas in my bedroom.

As a result I have a small number of models from my childhood that are either unpainted or painted badly.  The majority of these models, however, are no longer available.  Some I have been able to track down on the websites that list the Citadel/Games Workshop back catalogues.  A couple though have proved elusive to identify.  Once such model is this:

Glorius though he is - what, or who is he?

It's obviously some kind of chaos demon, and I'm assuming it's from a fantasy game, not 40k.  Definitely from Games Workshop circa 1993 as the tab at the bottom says (c) GW 1993 I think!

The front of the tab has some text which I believe is Rangor - but I've been unable to turn anything up by searching the web.

Rangor - I think!

If anyone has any further information I would love to hear it.

The Warriors of Chaos

I suppose it's only right that I should post up details of my current army (if such a rag tag force can be called that) as a starting point for my shiny new blog.  As is blatently obvious from the title of this post my chosed force is The Warriors of Chaos.  I've always been fascinated by these destructive men from the north so it was a natural choice for me.  Although my other love - skelebobs - had me toying with the idea of the Tomb Kings.

So without further ado, onto the current line up.

A moan about Blogger

© Games Workshop - used without permission

The above is an extract from the latest Ors & Goblins rulebook - but I could have taken a sample from any of the official Warhammer publications.  One thing I love about Games Workshop is that the published material is gorgeous - and generally consistent.  A few days before I started this blog I was admiring the fonts that they use.  Consequently, when I was setting up 'The Hammer and I' it was my intention to use some similar styling.

The observant readers will probably have picked up on this already - but the titles of this blog are in a font very similar to that used in the snippet above.  I won't pretend to know what font Games Workshop use - that way lies lawyers - but I did find a very similar freely available alternative on Google's excellent webfonts site - IM Fell English. Handily enough the Bloggers tools allowed me to select this font when styling my blog - but that's where my complain lies.  They offer a number of fonts from the Google webfonts list, but it is a restricted list.  I also found on the Google website a font that matched the body text used above - Gentium Basic - I would have loved to use it for the body text in this blog but for some reason Blogger don't include it.

So come on Blogger, add the complete webfonts list to the customise options, before I send in the Gobbos!

Warhammer Fantasy Counters

When I first started reading my Warhammer rulebook I was a little overwhelmed by the number of things I would have to keep track of during the course of a battle.  the obvious solution seemed to be to use some kind of counters placed next to the units in order to recall what rules were in play.  I thought it would be fairly easy to find some online - surely someone else would have done the same and provided a bunch of them to download and print out.  Unfortunately although I managed to find lots of templates for Warhammer 40,000 I couldn’t find anything for fantasy.

Time to roll my sleeves up and work on my own set.

Instructions are included in the download - but it should be fairly obvious how to put them together.  Printing to card is best, but they work just as well to normal paper.  You can either print and fold for double sided markers, or simply cut them out to have double the number of single sided ones.

Download Warhammer Fantasy Counter set.