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).