We All Get a Little Bored Sometimes

It all started off with biting off more than I could chew with that damned Ork Wrecker. It is a
massive undertaking to convert an non 40k model to be usable in 40k. Perhaps I bit off more than I could chew and that is what lead to me stalling out. At first, work went swimmingly. The frame and cab assembled and converted nicely. When it came to converting a driver and gunner for the cab, things kinda stalled out. I did not and still have not found a way to insert a couple of Orks into the vehicle in a way that pleases me. So I would push off working on the Wrecker and work on other projects. Since I started the Wrecker, I have finished 25.5 minis. That's a lot of productive procrastination.

Now, I am out of side projects or small projects to paint and I do not want to go back to Wrecker. I am bored with painting. I sit at my desk for hours just looking at my minis an bits and thinking but brushes never touch anything. I have things I could paint. I have things that I should be painting but I do not have the drive. I have the mini painter's version of writer's block.

What follows is an article on some of the things that I do to break myself out of this sort of funk when it settles over me.

Warhammer 40k 7th Edition - Something Has Changed

Only two years have passed since GW rolled out 6th Edition. Why would they release a new main rule book? The cynical will say that it is just to make money and, while that has to be a component of it, I (in this instance at least) will give GW a little more credit than that. While it may be a good idea in the short term to release a new book to drum up some sales, that plan comes with more than just a few downsides and the cynics are breezing by.

The main drawback to releasing a new main rule book is that producing such a tome takes money. A lot of money. You have to pay writers, proofers, artists, binders and distributors. It takes a lot of money to get a book from the brain to the page to the printer to your hands. That is a considerable investment that is not easily thrown away. It is that investment that dictates the schedule of releases for the rule books. Have they made enough money from the last edition to recoup their investment.

Unfocused Mini-Rant Against GW

This could be a small part of a larger point but I'll start with a point about Whirlwinds and go on rant my ranty rant.

I just figured out why GW decided to make a new kit rather than give a new rule or change a rule to an existing model. It, like everything else lately seems to be, is about money. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but when you put money ahead of the integrity of the game, that is when I have problems with it.

Case in point is the Whirlwind vs the Stalker/Hunter. 

Since rumors of the new Space Marine Codex have circulated, and maybe much before that, there have been further rumors of giving sky fire to Whirlwinds. Seems a very efficient way of updating the SM to 6th and giving them an option for anti-aircraft while preserving the fluff in an Occam's Razor kind of way. This seems reasonable. GW would not have to do anything other than add a line to the Whirlwind's entry. 0.5 seconds of work and then you would increase the sales of whirlwind kits, right?

A Couple of Problems with The GW Site

Oh. Your. God. 

GW: 27.7.13

Me: Is that a date or something, because there is no 27th month.

GW: 27.7.13

Me: Oh you are an British company and that is how you do dates over there. That's cool, but it is pretty lazy for you not to format your dates properly for the US site. It is kind of like the way you spell "colour."

GW: 27.7.13!

The (Welcomed) End of an Era

Faeit 212 (usually a source of good rumors and intel) reports that Battle Bunkers are a thing of the past and I can not say that I am shocked at all. There are many reasons that Battle bunkers are a bad idea but here are my top 5:

-1 Faith in GW

I unsubscribed from GW newsletter today and the picture below is why.

I am so disappointed in GW for this nonsense. The most recent newsletter was a lot of PR rhetoric about these new one click bundles as if they are something new and hot. All these things are are a grouping of vaguely themed items with catchy names. There is no reason to buy these unless they are exactly what you are looking for. There is not even a discount for buying in bulk. The price of the bundles are the same as purchasing the items individually.

Vindication through FAQs

On a long enough timeline the survival rate for douchbaggery drops to zero.

I love the latest GW FAQs for 40k. When 6th Ed dropped, I was impressed with the tightness of the rules. Things seemed very clear and loopholes were mostly covered. What was not covered seemed like you could work it out with some logic and reasonable compromises. However there were a few things that did not sit well with me. turns out that it was the power gamer community centering around sites like BoLS that were deliberately misinterpreting the rules for advantage, but no news there. In an impressive move of listening to what the community was getting wrong and responding, GW addressed these holes and grey areas with speed and aplomb.

Backing up a little, we went through similar self correcting with the Space Wolf Codex. There were lots of folk that wanted to say that if they took 9 Grey Hunters and attached a Wolf Guard then that made a 10 man unit. That earned you a second special weapon. BS. When you try to call them on this nonsense (and you know I did), they come back with that it is now a 10 man unit and due to the ambiguity of the wording they can do it.

A few months later, GW has to release a FAQ specifically telling these people that not only can they do that, but they were DBs for doing it in the first place. It would be nice if GW took a leaf out of Privateer Press' book and beta tested the rules with the community a little before releasing the books to weed out this kind of end run around sanity and rationality, but that is too much to hope for. I guess that we (and by we I mean me), will have to put up with a few months of people trying to break the rules for advantage. I guess that is because they can't compete on a level field.

Coming up to more recent events, the gaming community that was not the douchbag core was lit up like a pinball machine over units of characters namely Paladins and Ork Nobs on bikes. The 6th Ed rulebook had those models listed as Cha and the community took that to mean they they were all Characters and could all make Look out Sir rolls for each other. I pointed out several times in several places (here I could link to me calling jerks out on BoLS but I don't want to visit their site any more than I have to or read their garbage), they this makes no sence on several levels. There are no other units that are made of all Characters. From a fluff/rules/reasonable point of view, why would the people go through acrobatics to each get shot for each other every time they are shot at? It does not make any sence for the purposes of the rule and it really slows down the game.

It is now a few weeks after GW has specifically corrected this and there is nothing from the DB community other than a a pouty face they they can't use this particular brand of cheese anymore. And that is how it goes. In my perfect world, there would be a black mark on the people that not only used this "tactic" but promoted it. Insted they go on to break the game in other ways.

So why write rants against this? Because it makes me feel good that I have the right interpretation of the rules and that few of my plans are changed when an FAQ comes out. It makes me feel like I have a good grip on the spirit of the rules.

Finished - Wolf Guard got a hammer

I don't know how much play time that this guy will see but I love the model. I tried a different pattern with the Blood Claw markings and painted them horizontally. I was unsure as to how that I was going to paint the hammer but like how it came out in the end. If I had thought twice, I would have chosen a different head. I wanted my Blood Claws to all look young and wild but this gut is rocking a Chester A. Authur chops and I love it. 

Next up is a Wolf Lord. I am going to give him Storm Shield and a Frost Blade. I really wanted to use the Frost Axe bit, but with the changes to the Power Axe rules and them striking last, I am less likely to put that on my I 5 leader. 

In semi-related news, GW put out a new load of FAQs that fix the specifics on Sanguinary Guard power weapons, Dante's axe and the rest. Maybe SandWyrm will be able to stop his temper tantrums and play now. On second thought, I don't think the hobby misses him. 

Oh GW, it is like you are not even trying any more

For YEARS, many of us wanted a bits pack with decent-looking combi-weapons in them so we would not have to cut up a flamer and glue it haphazardly to a bolter. GW through that I would be a good idea to make our dreams come true by cutting up a flamer and haphazardly gluing it to a bolter.

The combi weapons are awful except for the melta which is a direct cast of the one from Space Marine Captain sprue. The flamer and plasma are little better than even the most untalented hobbist could do with 5 min of effort. I think anyone could do better than the combi-flamer really. What is it with GW wanting to make spindly little bits that hand off their minis then make them out of a material that make glass look like steel.

Base Trial - Texture Paint

Stirland Mud with sprinkles!

So I ripped this guy off his brown base and stuck his brown butt on a black base. I made a special trip to the CLGS to get some of the new texture paint to try out a more complicated basing method other than my paint, sand and forget method. 

A short aside about the local GW store: I am starting to really hate even going in there. May of the black shirts are ok but there are two that are just awful. Chris is loud, obnoxious and really a jerk. He is the black shirt that denied me the use of the new paints and then painted right in front of me without offering his own. I am still shocked at the thought of that. The other is Eric (but he spells it all weird). Both of them do this really fake chatting you up every flipping time you come in. "Whatcha workin on? (So I know what to sell you)" "Need and brushes (...at our crazy markup?)" "Why don't you enter our BS contest/tourny?"

Rumormongering

Just flippin wait.

The short: I don't like it.

The long: What's the point, really? Assuming that 50% of the rumors are accurate, there is still not enough information to make any kind of informed decisions. They is so much BS and chaff, that you can't separate the fact from fiction until after the official rules are out. Then even after they are out, it still takes months for every to get a grip on the changes to the game.

Take a look at this. This is The Back 40k and my new favorite community. They usually have their heads screwed on straight. In that link they are giving a review of some rumors for the GK Codex as reported by Blood of Kittens. You can read down them and see that even 4 months out from release the rumors are fairly accurate at least in kind of a general way, but not accurate enough to relate the subtly in some of the rules. None of that was readily apparent until you could get the codex in your hands.

And even then, the real impact of the changes do not come through until months later. That point was illustrated very well on World's End Radio in a recent episode. (I would link to it but that would mean re-listening to a 3 hour podcast.) They were talking about their review of the Dark Eldar Codex and how they were way off on how some things worked until after they had played many games.

The kids over at BoLS, blood of Kittens and everywhere else that reports rumors does a disservice to the community. I know why they do it. It is the same reason that they do the worthless "Caption Contests" and idiotic Goatboy articles. They generate hits and those hits are how they sell advertising. It is just like the local news. They do not care what they report as long as you read it and they can get real paid.

I can wait. I am gonna wait. Don't get me wrong, I have my pennies saved and I'm going to get the rule book the day it is available. Then I am going to read it. Then I am going to write about it. Them I am going to read what other people write. Then I am going to play lots of games and only after all of that will I have enough information to make any sort of informed decision.

I wonder what this could be

I mean it is so subtle and cryptic. I am perplexed at what it could be.

Unless you are living under a rock, you know that 6th Edition of Warhammer 40k has been on the drawing boards for a while now. There have been all kinds of rumors about when and what and who that it makes me a little sick. Half are wrong and the other half are inaccurate. I see no use in speculating as to the difference or planning anything in advance. When the books hits we are all gonna buy it and then I'll see what is what.

What I find especially frustrating is that there are no repercussions for rumormongering just like there are no penalties for predicting the end of the world. Loudmouths can yell whatever they want no matter how half-baked it is and pay no price for it. a few years later they get to do it all over again and no one calls them on it.

Digital GW? I don't know about this.

It seems like a good idea right? Digital and searchable codicies and painting guides right there on my laptop? I am willing to give GW the benefit of the doubt but I already have my Codex as PDF on my phone. What could these ebooks offer above and beyond that?

This will require some more careful investigation.

How to use Liquid Tallent and WTF GW Blog

Two posts in one today!

Agrax Earthshade (formerly Devlan Mud, aka Liquid Talent) is not the final step in painting. It is a shading step and the model still needs to be painted after that. The to the left picture demonstrates this.

One of these is painted.

I have a basic pattern of how I paint. I give a base layer, shade, touchup then highlight. You see how there are two steps after the shading/washing step. That's the painting part. Slopping on a basecoat then dipping a mini really takes no talent, skill, time or energy. It is not painting. It is cheating.

Now, I don't have a real problem with this. Dipping minis is just like dipping tobacco. Dip if you want to, but don't expect me to like it or condone it. I won't acknowledge a dipped army ad "fully painted" because it is not painted. It is better than a grey or black army but not much.

The bottom Rhino was just washed with Dev Mud and nothing else. The one above has been touched up (intentionally sloppily), then highlighted and perhaps some lite drybrushing and it is a world of difference and took very little work and time.

The GW doth protest too much, methinks

For those of you that do not know, the title comes from Hamlet where some chick keeps going on and on about how something is not true that people become suspicious that it is true.

I am sick of the GW blog, the emails and the damn Black Shirts extolling the virtues of the new paint. A few blog posts and the intro video would have been sufficient, but there are several "testimonial" videos on the blog. Now, I ain't even going to watch them because I know what they are going to say already. They are going to tell me how great and new and better the paints are and not really give me any details as to the how or why they are better. Testimonials are not reliable and this outpouring of praise seems disingenuous. I know when I am trying to be sold something and this feels like a sales pitch.

If the paints were as good as they were saying, then they could get by on their merits alone and testimonials would not be necessary. All they would need to do tell us they are out and put them out for sale. I mean, it is not like people are going to stop buying their paints at the GW store.

Paint Propaganda and Patronization

I went into the local GW store (Which is fast becoming the CLGS) because I had a few hours to kill. I brought the CSM Iron Warrior Rhino to seal it (more on that in a later post!) and a few painting projects to kill time with. I brought my own brush because GW store has only crappy brushes for general use. What they have had is paint for use.

So I slide up the painting table and ask if I can paint something. The Black Shirt says that of course I can paint something. I ask where the paints are and he says that they have discontinued that service. I was a little shocked at this but I'll get to that in a bit. I then ask if there are some of the new paints to try out. He says of course there are (I should hope so since the GW Blog said that you could go in and try the paints in the stores. I ask to use those and the Black Shirt (Ayrec maybe) says that I can use them but I can not use them to paint my own minis. I can only use them on test minis they have.

Ok says I. Let's paint a Blood Angel. I was curious to see how the new reds work. He tells me they only have a red Base paint and a red Wash available to try. Not enough to do the full progression on the website. I then ask him if he has the conversion chart printed out to help me navigate the paints. He tells me that they are in the White Dwarf this month. I ask him to look at it and he tells me that I have to buy one if I want the chart.

You can use any paints you see except these.

That part kind of pissed me off but BS company policy can be what it wants. The thing that really sent me off was that the GW employee then sits down to paint with store paints. Granted he was working on terrain for the store but that was a little slap in the face. As if that was not enough, an off the clock Black Shirt sits down to paint right across from me and makes no move to share as I sit there with minis and brush with no paint. To rub salt into my wounds, the off the clock one then goes on a rant about moochers that need to buy their own paint. He buffers it with a "present company excluded" but that did not do much to soften the blow.

145 Exposed: Revisiting paint and GW

"All we have is paints, paints, paints, paints, paints, spam, paints, paints and spam."

Remember back when I talked about GW's new paint and how they are promoting and releasing it? Well, no surprises. I get an email about it and GW's blog is lit up over what is essentially a re-branding of the same paint that Citadel has had for years. It is very much ado about nothing.

While BoLS felt content with what is little more than a picture and a blurb about the new release, we here at TMM hold ourselves to higher standards. I'm going to take a look at the information in the release and write it up longer and more properly.

The blog post over at GW is rather appalling. The writer(s) of the blog like to style it as a fan-written insider-yet-maverick perspective. It is designed to give a personal and human voice to what has historically been a rather detached and impersonal website. I do not know who writes this blog, but the tone is a departure from the fun and friendly style that has been shown most frequently. The post about the paints reads like an infomercial and was obviously written by someone trying really hard to sell you something. Through the post they use phrases that seem to pump up the value and importance of the paints while not really giving you specific ways where they are superior to the old versions.

This may sound like complaining or GWbashing and perhaps it is a little. More it is a bristling at the hamfisted selling techniques. The paints are new and exciting but you are going to sell them to me on merit rather than trying to make them seem like the second coming (form without function pissing me off seems to be a running theme in this blog).

GW also put out a video narrated by Timothy Spall, the fat guy from Harry Potter!

Below the jump cut, we'll take a closer look at all the paints.

Rumormongering. GeeDub style.

 GW has a strange relationship with their fans especially regarding their release schedule. They do not tell their fans what they are working on until it is 2 weeks from hitting the shelves. given the short memory and attention span of the average gamer, who can blame them. Promoting something that is not available for months is a waste of money when they know we're gonna buy it anyway.


When they try to stir up excitement, it is pretty weak and flaccid attempts. There was this one a while back for the Necron release. We all knew it was coming and what ti was. The mystery was wasted on everyone but perhaps the very young or the very unplugged. It was nice to know what was coming, but at the same time, it gave us nothing useful. More excitement could have been drummed up by giving us a taste of what was to come rather than having someone tell us that they smelled something in the kitchen.

Old School because I am an old fool.

When they do give us a good hard look at what is to come before it is out, I find it hard to get excited. For the 25th anniversary model, they put out a video that tried to whip up a frenzy and establish its value, but this was completely lost on me. I started 40k at the tail end of 3rd Ed and never saw the marine on the cover of Rogue Trader. It means nothing to me and thus no nostalgia. I think the cover art is lackluster but on par with the art of the time. The model does not do much for me either. I mean, it is ok but nothing spectacular. It's just as fancy as a Sternguard or Vanguard vet. It got some other people excited but just for me I was unimpressed.

That brings up to GW's latest attempt at stirring up excitement while not really telling us what we are excited about.

"OMG 145! I don't know what it is but I want to preorder one now!"

I wonder how many people would preorder a 145 if you did put it up for preorder. GW should try that one day.

I went to GW site after a long time of being away and scrolled down the What's New blog. I saw this post. I see the 145 on the cover art and click it. Que the tension music and exciting reveal of the numbers. By the end all I could think was, "...so?" The big secret that they were building up to is just a number and even that was on the cover art. Why make a video if you are going to give away your ending before it even starts. Seems pointless.

And the big super secret is not hard to figure out. Citadel shield and a paint splatter? Warlord683 put it together pretty fast over on LJ. It's paint. Big buildup and all this fanfare for them putting out new paint. Big whoop. Do they think that this kind of rumormongering is going to up their sales? Do they think that telling us that they are going sell less old paint if they tell us that they are making new paint?

Heck, I'd go and buy up all the paints I like if I knew they were going away. I'd clean them out. That would help them clear out their backstock and generate revenue. Maybe I am missing something about their model that makes it in their best interest to act this way, but it is lost on me. I am not a businessman and have a hard time understanding the reasoning of them.