Been even longer

Well... the last time was a mere 9 days, now it's been an entire month.
Been fairly busy with various bits and pieces really, but here's the low down of what's been happening.

Dogs of War - Progressing well enough. Asarnil and his buddy Deathfang are taking a bit longer than I suspected. A lot of work to get a Dragon looking good. However, Asarnil himself is nearly done and is looking ace I think. I may end up throwing a few Duellists in this month so I can spend a bit more time on Deathfang.

Blood Angels - I made a decision. I was spending too much time per Blood Angel to get them done at a decent page. Was that a bad thing? No. I was painting good quality stuff, multiple layers and all that. It just meant, I made the decision to drop them from the Tale of 40k painters. I'll just continue on at my own page.

Mordheim/Posssessed - I can't remember if I mentioned this much, but there's a Mordheim league taking place in the Bloodbowl off-season time. I've chosen Possessed, because I wanted an interesting conversion opportunity. I've been enjoying things so far, I got some magnets for arm swaps and all that. The only slightly frustrating thing is the Chaos Spawn is HUGE, and way too large to be a Possessed. I'm gonna stick with one for now, but at some time later I really have to convert and sculpt my own (Time I don't really have for this season). Also, last Sunday we had our first Mordheim get together to build terrain. Was a good day overall, even if only about 8 people turned up. Gonna have to churn out a few more buildings to get our first table done.

Bloodbowl - Been a while I think. I had my first loss against the top of the table Dark Elves. I drew facing one of the top contender Wood Elf team (a somewhat miraculous 3-3 for the slow moving Khemri). I then beat the 4th placed Chaos team. The Wood Elves failed to win, so got knocked out of the finals. So unfortunately that leaves me in 3rd place (I have the same record and touchdown diff as the 2nd placed team, but he has more touchdowns so I assume that's what counts). This means, I have to fight my way to the finals everyway. Our finals are done the same way AFL does theirs (top teams play each other, the winner has a bye. Bottom teams are strictly elimination all the way through). So it's gonna be tough, got a Chaos team with lots of block and a nasty looking Minotaur to deal with.

Warmaster - I actually picked up an Undead warmaster army in blisters/boxes fairly cheap. So could be that you'll see a warmaster army from me sometime next year or in the free time. Should be a change of pace to paint smaller stuff that I'm not doing to any particular deadline.

Go - Go I haven't talked much about in my blog, but I figure now is a good time to speak up a bit about it. Go is an ancient Asian board game. Go look it up on wikipedia for more information. To be frank, it kicks the crap out of Chess in complexity overall. I'm a decent player I'll say, definately wouldn't rate myself as good, although of course, others below me might. But I like decent, there's plenty of room for improvement left in me, and people (like the Pro's) way above me.
Anyway, recently at the start of October, I attended the Australian Go Nationals. Was a great event. I arrived on the Thursday night, and pretty much just watched a bit of tv and went to bed (Wasn't exactly prepared to be wandering around an unknown city at night right after I arrived). Friday kicked off with a teaching day, where I met some of the people running the event, others as well. Around midday, the professional player An Young Gil arrived, and gave us a lecture on 'Connections on the 2nd line'. Was very informative. He later played a simultaneous game against about 8 people. On the Saturday and Sunday were game days. There were some slight hitches at the start, but once things got going it worked out relatively well.
There were 3 divisions at the Nationals. The first was the Open Division, for people ranked 3dan and above. This is a non-handicapped division, and is played for representative points (A system Australia uses to determine who goes oversea's to represent Australia in some of the international events). The 2nd division was 2dan to 3kyu, this is the division I played in at the 3kyu rank. The final division was the 3rd division, for 4kyu to 15kyu ranked players.
I played 5 games (With 1 bye due to the odd number of people in my division). I managed to win 2 games, and lost 3. All were very good games, the games I lost being very close indeed. While the games I won, had fairly tense fights going on, whoever died would surely resign (And luckily I lived).
At the end of the day, everyone who attended got a japanese style fan. A bit dodgy in quality (or I don't know how to close fans properly. Kept on tangling itself up) but still a nice touch to award all who attended. I got mine signed by An Young Gil.
Overall, had an enjoyable time in Melbourne. Kind've nice to see a bit more of it, as every time I've been there has been for work and just driving off to wherever we've had a meeting.

Hmm... I think that's all that's happened really. It has been a long month.

Been a Little While

So yeah, been a little while since I've posted. I've been pretty busy with lots of stuff to be honest.

For starters, I didn't quite get my guys done completely for the Tale of Fantasy Painters. Maximilian Damark I didn't finish, because I wanted to give him a bit more attention. That also meant I didn't put grass on any of the Marksmen bases (Want to do them all at once). The good thing is though, once I have them done, I'll have 280 points of Dogs of War painted. I'm going to be working on Asarnil this month. I ordered some bits (yet to arrive) to also make him on foot, just in case Deathfang gets shot out from underneath him. That does however mean I have to basically do all my green stuff work on Asarnil himself again. Deathfang still needs work, really need to get him done so I can figure out what I want the base to look like.

For my Marines, failed. It's painful, but I really need to get on with them. Considering I jokered the first month, not only do I have to paint the original 5, but need to paint the rest of the squad as well. Maybe I'm in a bit over my head, as I think with my Blood Angels I've really stepped up the quality of my work as well.

Kroq-Gar I couldn't finish either. I wanted too, but just didn't have time and decided not to rush it. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way things go. I would rather accept not getting it done on time, rather than rush it and not get it looking as good as I want.

Khemri team haven't been looked at since Shrikebowl. With no tournies in the near future, they'll probably be put on the backburner until I get some more free time. It's sad though, because they probably need the least amount of work to be complete.

I got Space Hulk last weekend as well. It looks brilliant. Unfortunately I cut my finger pretty bad trying to get Lorenzo off the sprue (not bone deep, but still deep). That kind've killed the rest of the weekend for modelling. I've managed to get in one game though against my brother. We played Suicide Mission. I won both times (as marines and then stealers), but I also had a somewhat better idea of what was going on, and had some fairly decent dice rolls and command points when I needed them. Due to lack of time, unfortunately I'm not gonna be painting these guys anytime soon. Terminators might get some attention while doing my Blood Angels though.

Tto make matters worse. In addition to having to split my time between Dogs of War, Blood Angels and Champions Online, the Mordheim buzz has been going around. It's due to start after the Bloodbowl season is over, which means I've started (just last night though) making a warband. Gonna roll with the Possessed, and convert up the entire lot. Should be a lot of fun!

The stuff I collect - Other

So here's part two. Warhammer Fantasy is my main system that I collect, so that got a post of it's own. The other systems I really only have 1 or 2 armies in, so they can all go in one post.

Warhammer 40k
Blood Angels - I started off Warhammer 40k with Blood Angels. I bought a big lot of models from a guy at school, sold off the stuff I didn't use and went from there. So really, it's a bit of a mish mash of stuff I have for my Blood Angels. Personally I think I intend to sell off all my old models and restart them soon, as I'm not really that fond of my old painting (Given most of it was over a coat of paint already).

Space Marines - With the advent of Assault on Black Reach, you could get Space Marines super cheap. So I decided to do so. Originally I wanted to convert stuff to plastic Grey Knights, but... the whole idea of getting them was to have a side project that didn't require much conversion in the first place (Doing it alongside my Empire, which required lots of conversion), so I just paint them really. I like how they look, and generally have almost gotten a proper army done (Commander, Terminators, Tactical Squad, Rhino, Dreadnought, 2nd Tactical squad just needs basing). Next I plan to add an Assault Squad and Land Speeder to the army, as well as some Heavy Support sometime down the track.

Mordheim
Witch Hunters - I picked up Witch Hunters box back in 2002 I think. That's basically my only entry into the system. I like the idea and design behind Witch Hunters, so I really enjoy the warband. Unfortunately I really only have the warband box + warrior priest for my warband. Since Specialist Games support is minimal, I can't really flesh them out by getting more hounds and models.

Misc - I have a few miscellaneous Mordheim models that I intend to use either in my Warhammer Fantasy armies, or I just bought becaus I liked the look of them. This includes Aenur, the Sword of Twilight, Kislev Ranger, Elf Mage, The Female Vampire persona.

Bloodbowl
Orcs - I started off with an Orc team. Why? Because Games Workshop were out of Chaos Marauders when I went to buy the box. Still I don't mind that, I had a lot of fun converting and painting the team. They're almost completely done as well! Only have to paint 2 more Blitzers, finish the Troll, find 2 suitable goblins and finish another Thrower. These are the guys I took to Southern Shrike Bowl 2008 and came last! (It was pretty much my first time playing, and I took some silly skill choices).

Lizardmen - Had to have a team of Lizardmen of course. Since they are my warhammer fantasy army, it just makes sense. Had plenty of models lying around, so I just did. These guys have served me well, and I think they ended up looking fantastic.

Khemri - Currently one of my work in progress teams. I hope to get them ready for Eucbowl in late July. Not sure if that's going to happen, but I need them done by then for both Eucbowl and the next season of the Adelaide Bloodbowl league I'm a part of.

Norse - Got some Marauders cheap, so decided to go back and do them. I've started, but have not gotten far on them. Got sidelined until my Khemri are done.

Epic Armageddon
Space Marines (Blood Angels) - Well... not really. I bought a box that has the Tactical and Assault marines in it. I'll see how the painting goes, and how much I enjoy it. So yeah, just for painting at the moment and we'll see how they go.

Unchartered Seas
I don't know much about Unchartered Seas. I'm getting a few fleets and the rulebook. Don't know if I'll end up playing, but I chose fleets that I think looked kind've nice. I like the look of the Dragon Lords, so they were a must. I got the humans cause they look kind've good, and should be a good guest fleet if anyone else wants to play. Bone Griffons I think looked pretty decent as well. These are currently on order, so I don't have these models yet, I'll definatly be posting when they come in though.

First entry, more to come

So here is the first entry in my blog on stuff. Mainly a warhammer modelling blog really, but I guess it may include other interests as well. I figured I'd start this, as slowly but surely I have started getting more different types of Warhammer models. I started off my Warhammer days back in 1999, in 5th edition of Warhammer Fantasy battles. Was about 11 back then I think, and I picked up some Lizardmen.
Why Lizardmen? Well, at the store there were only two plastic boxes. Either 8 Saurus, or 2 Brettonian Knights. Pretty simple decision huh? For a kid like me with almost no money, gotta get the one that will give you more models right? And that's how it all started.
In High School, a few of my friends collected Warhammer 40k so Fantasy took a brief hiatus until my friends got into that.
Slowly over the years, I have been building my collection. It's not huge by any means (Although, with the way I spend money on it nowdays maybe it will be someday...) but it has been growing throughout time.
I have taken more recent interest in Specialist Games and other systems as of late. I did pick up Mordheim back in 2002 I think with a warband of Witch Hunters, but that was only my only stint with Specialist Games until more recently. As of 2008 I took an interest in getting into Bloodbowl, participating in my first tournament (In any system) and joining the local league in Adelaide where I managed to come in 3rd in the first season in 2009.
I've also picked up some Epic Armageddon Space Marine miniatures which should be fun to paint, and am looking at Warmaster possibly in the future (I have to restrict myself a little, too much unpainted stuff nowdays).

I've also put in a purchase for Unchartered Sea's, something that seems to be taking off in the Ausbowl forums. Should be interesting to paint something different.

Anyway, that's my brief? Probably not so brief really introduction post. Should be putting stuff up on this blog as they come to me or as I get stuff done (Which seems to be at a slow pace nowdays. Hard to balance work, warhammer and computer).