Moments of Inertia by Rachel Crawford

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Hobby Update (August 2024)

Hobby has been slow this summer. After reaching 1500 points of Ogres for Kings of War, I never got around to even buying the final 500 points. It took me a whole month to paint 10 Vanquishers and a chariot for my Stormcast army (allowing me to run Yndrasta’s Spearhead). And I barely even started the models I needed to paint up for the other Spearheads.

On the other hand, I have been very excited about hobby – even moreso than usual! – and have played a lot of games.

The main event has been Age of Sigmar 4th edition, which to my tastes is a very successful ground-up redesign of the system. I’ve enjoyed every game played so far, especially of Spearhead, and have come away from every match wanting more. I have a lot of thoughts 🤔 which I hope to write and pod about soon.

Consequently I’ve had a lot more inspiration to buy, build and paint AoS minis than time to actually do it in. Nonetheless I’m currently working on some Dark Riders for my Cities of Sigmar army:

This is a late-WHFB (early 2010s) Dark Elf kit that really holds up. I think all the Dark Elf kits from that era hold up well, but would hold up a lot better if they had as much dynamism as these models do.

My progress so far. This is the unit champion, who has crazy hair.

I like the new rules for Cities and all my 2000-point games of 4th so far have been played using them. I want to try my other armies, but this is the one I’m most excited about playing and painting. Hobby-wise I’m hoping to round out my dark aelf collection1 and then see about some duardin2 and maybe a few humans3.

The other (much more personally important) event is the Magewinds Meetup I’m running on 16th-17th November. That’s alarmingly soon, given the amount of work on the game I want to complete before then. I gotta add things, change things, polish things, and come up with some event-specific scenarios and maybe even a bit of a story. Fortunately my attendees are great people and so I will be able to delegate some of the tasks. Delegating is good! 💪

This last week, my work on Magewinds has mostly consisted of learning how to use Pandoc and how to write Haskell in order to use it in a more advanced fashion. So far it has been frustrating and rewarding in equal measure4.

Anyway, I’d better get back to it. I hope your hobby journey is going well!

It’s off topic, but I must share this nice picture I took of the River Findhorn while cycling near my aunt’s house at the weekend:

*One of the river’s banks, viewed from high above upon Daltullich Bridge. The river has that delicious-looking coca-cola colour characteristic of Highland watercourses.

  1. While I still can 😰 

  2. I probably only have a year or so of Dispossessed still being part of the army, so I better crack on if I want to get them on the table. 

  3. The humans, on the other hand, are definitely here to stay. The new ones, at least… so I’d better grab the older ones I want (Battlemages, Griffon…) soon. 

  4. So like all programming, then. 

Hobby Plans - Mid 2024

It’s May and I’m figuring out how I want to spend my hobby and gaming time over the remainder of spring and the summer.

Kings of War Ogres

I was hoping to be further ahead with my Ogres by now, but I have my next 500 points built and waiting to be primed.

  • Siege Breaker horde (5 models)
  • Paymaster
  • Goblin Sharpstick regiment (~10 models)
  • Goblin Biggit on Mawbeast

I am hoping to get all these done over the next fortnight, just in time for some 1500 point games later this month.

Once I’m done with these I’ll figure out how to make it to 2000 points. It seems like many Kings of War events use higher points caps (e.g. 2200) so it’s likely I’ll have to do more if I want to go along to tournaments, but 2000 points will do for now.

Age of Sigmar

4th edition is looming and it sounds good. It’s quite likely I’ll pick up the launch box and paint my way through that when the time comes – I guess July? In the meantime I’m keen to get ready in other ways, focusing my efforts on the new small-scale game mode, Spearhead.

Stormcast Eternals

To be able to run the Stormcast Eternals Spearhead I need a Stormstrike Chariot and a unit of Vanquishers. I have the former, on sprue, waiting to be built, but I’ll have to buy a box of the troops.

It’s been years since I painted any Stormcast. I’ve been really missing them!

Gloomspite Gitz

To run the Gloomspite Gitz Spearhead I need to paint up a Loonboss and a unit of Rockgut Troggoths. I already have a lot of Stabbas and Squig Hoppers, so they’re ready to go already, although I’d like to spend some time updating and improving the Stabbas because I painted them all a long time ago.

Magewinds

I have big hopes for Magewinds, my own scrappy little skirmish game, this year. I’m even starting to plan a meetup for November-ish, so I want the game to be as good as possible by then. Consequently I’ll be spending a lot of my hobby time doing development work: designing and testing rules, writing lore, drawing art, and so on.

It’s going to be a busy summer in a lot of ways, so I’m glad to have plenty of hobby lined up to relax with :smile:

What are your hobby plans for the middle of the year?

Marines Errant

I was planning to attend a Kill Team: Badab War event at the end of February, but in spite of my herculean efforts to swallow my anti-Space Marine pride to assemble a warband, I caught covid and couldn’t attend. Which sucked!

Nonetheless, by the time I realised I wasn’t going to make it I had already done all the hobby I needed to do, producing eight Space Marines of the Marines Errant chapter, all fresh, shiny and ready to wage civil war.

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Darkshards

Having slogged my way through a Marines Errant kill team for an upcoming Badab War meetup1, I ignored my hobby plans and went straight for a quick win by painting up a unit of Darkshards. I’d already done one Darkshard for a Warcry warband and it made me excited to do the rest.

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