Friday 25 February 2011

Last minute painting

It's now 11pm on a Friday, and I've just 'finished' painting my Arcuarii for tomorrow's Where Sleeping Gods Lie campaign. I say 'finished' - really there's a bit more to do, some blemishes to fix and so on, but they'll do for a weekend's gaming.

Here's a sneak peek at them. Sorry the picture quality isn't great. I'll take a nicer one when they're properly finished (this way, I can hide the dodgy bits!).



I'm off to bed now. Tomorrow, the Skorne march to war!

Thursday 24 February 2011

Where Sleeping Gods Lie: Prelude

I'm going to try something new this weekend. The Legion of Snake Eyes wargaming 'club' are running a Warmachine and Hordes campaign weekend entitled "Where Sleeping Gods Lie". Having never been to a campaign weekend for any game system, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it works.

The backstory to the campaign seems to follow the opening (or otherwise) of an ancient Iosan tomb, and the attempts of a fragile Cygnaran/Iosan alliance to return the remains interred within to Ios. Meanwhile, dark agents are guiding the forces of Khador and Cryx to capture the remains for their own sinister purposes. The remaining factions either fight for coin or for their own mysterious reasons.

Sunday 20 February 2011

The story so far...

Before launching into some up-to-the-minute stuff I'm up to, I thought I'd give a bit of my wargaming background.

I started off, as many do, playing Warhammer. I jumped between various armies before settling on Dwarfs, and then lost interest when my infantry blocks just couldn't stand up to the lawnmower units and monsters that turned up in 6th/7th edition. Being at university also did a lot to stop me from playing wargames for a good few years.

About three years ago, I started plotting my return to wargaming, and found out about Warmachine through the (then) local gaming store, Inner Sanctum Collectibles in Cambridge. I had read a little about it online and liked the idea of the smallish forces, detailed tactics and combos. A demo game later, and I was in. I picked up a Protectorate battlegroup, and spent some time slowly painting it up.

By the time I left Cambridge, I had a fledgeling Protectorate force (about 700pts in Mk I), and was totally hooked on the game. Since then, my small force has grown. My tendency to only play with things that are (at least partly) painted means that it's still not a massive collection, but I feel like I have a nice range of options available to me.

These days, I'm a Press Ganger in Oxford, running tournaments and travelling to others when I can. I'm gradually building a Skorne force alongside my Menites, and my enthusiasm for the game just keeps growing. Although my record with Skorne is patchy, I feel that I'm at least vaguely competent with my Protectorate. I'm not going to be winning any major events, but have given some good players a run for their money in my time!

So, that's me. I'll be posting soon about my current projects, but for now I need to actually get off the computer and go and work on them!

Until next time... 

Saturday 19 February 2011

It begins...

So, Hysteresis has a blog! We haven't seen that before...

Actually, this is my second blog. The first one consisted of largely boring details of my day-to-day life as a Ph.D student and wasn't really worth reading. Hopefully this one will be more successful.

The point of this blog is to chronicle my increasing participation in the world of tabletop wargaming. Over recent years, I've very much rekindled my interest in painting and playing with little toy soldiers, mainly thanks to Warmachine and Hordes the games I'll be spending most of my my time talking about.

Expect pictures of my models, battle and tournament reports, musings about new releases, insights into running events, and all sorts of other things related to the hobby.

It all begins here...