Sedition Wars has landed! Unboxing: Part I

Today was an exciting day. Late yesterday I had a confirmation from UPS that my long-awaited copy of Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster was finally starting its final journey from Essex to my front door. Given that I pledged toward to Kickstarter for it last June, I've spent quite a while looking forward to it!

Having tracked it onto a van at 7:30am, I spent most of the day with bated breath. Finally, at 4:30pm...

Let's take a look inside, shall we...?

Checking in...

Well, I promised myself that I'd try to post at least once a week, so it's about time that I checked in.

Thanks to a busy week at work (they're all busy, but this one particularly so), I've not got much to report in the way of geeky pursuits, I'm afraid. My Judicator has a couple more layers of paint on it, and I've made generally positive noises and had some interesting thoughts about all of the latest Skorne spoilers, but  neither have developed to the point at which they're worth talking about in detail. Watch out for more about both of those later in the week.

Instead, I'd just like to give you  a quick roundup of the latest news in my world:

Switching cases

Well, that title isn't entirely fair. Swapping cases might be more accurate, but doesn't have the same ring to it. Anyway the point of said odd title is to lead me into talking about what I was up to yesterday lunchtime.

I'm making a transatlantic trip to Templecon at the end of the month, and I'm more than a little bit excited about it. As part of the planning, I was faced with a dilemma - which army should I take? My Protectorate made the trip to Lock & Load with me last year, so it seems only fair for the Skorne to come this time. The problem is, the default position is for my Menites to fit in my old Figures In Comfort case (whose foam I've hacked up a bit to accommodate Flameguard spears and the like), whereas the Skorne live in my Battlefoam bag. Both bags have their advantages, but only the Figures In Comfort case is small enough to count as hand luggage on BA flights. This made the decision pretty simple: If I could successfully fit my Skorne into the smaller case, then I'd be taking them to Templecon.

To cut a long story short, an hour of careful unpacking and repacking resulted in the conclusion that my Skorne fit in the smaller case, so a-travelling they will go. So, if you're going to Templecon, and you see these guys, come and say hello!

An added bonus to unpacking my entire Protectorate force was that I could take some quick pictures of the full army, which now stands at around 130pts painted. Here are a few of the highlights.

150pts is creeping closer. This guy might have something to do with that...

Time for a reboot

In the fine tradition of blogs since the dawn of time, this one has, sadly, fallen into disuse over the last year or so. There are any number of reasons for that, lack of time (or, to use the proper term, laziness) being chief among them. Still, as a new year dawns, it seems a good time to get things going again.

To (hopefully) make things more interesting for you, dear readers, I'm going to branch out a little from gaming, and use these pages as a chronicle of all of my geeky exploits, whatever they may involve. Gaming will still take centre stage, of course, but you can expect to see a few ramblings about (folk) music, (nerdy) web shows, (fantasy) books, (random) movies, and even a bit about running.

Wait... "Running?", I hear you cry. "I thought you were supposed to be a nerd!". Well, yes. But I've started running, and quite enjoy it. Also, the better runs involve beer, and that's never a bad thing.  

2013 is definitely going to be an interesting year, and hopefully better than the last couple (which, for reasons I may or may not go into, weren't the best for me). I hope that you'll enjoy spending a bit of time hearing about how it goes!

In the meantime, here's a work in progress camera phone shot of my Judicator. I'm rather pleased with it so far...

50pts eSeverius vs Ravyn T4

I just got back from our regular club night, where I had an excellent game of Warmachine against Dean's Retribution. We were warming up for the 50pt Dragon Slayers' Big Bash (which takes place this Saturday), so we both had lists that shared Field Allowance with other lists in our repertoire. This meant no Wracks or Hierophant for me, and no Mage Hunter Assassins for Dean, along with a few other oddities. Here's what our lists looked like:

Hierarch Severius
- Reckoner
- Redeemer
- Revenger (Bonded)
- Repenter
- Repenter
Choir (max)
Temple Flameguard (max)
Exemplar Bastions (max)
Exemplar Errants (min)
Errant Seneschal
Reclaimer
Vassal of Menoth

Ravyn, Eternal Light (Tier 4)
- Phoenix
- Phoenix
- Griffon
Mage Hunter Strike Force (max) + UA
Mage Hunter Strike Force (min) + UA
Mage Hunter Strike Force (min) + UA
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
Fane Knight Skeryth Issyen
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios

Holy cow. What a lot of Mage Hunters! With my choice of three squish Protectorate 'casters (Amon, Testament, and eSeverius), this is pretty much my worst possible matchup. Worse still, the scenario was Revelation, and Dean won the first turn. Not good. This meant that I'd have to run at into his crossbow fire in the first turn to have any hope of keeping him off the flags.

Mini exchange: Conclusion

In my last post, I promised some closure about the painting exchange we ran at Oxford Gaming Club in May. Well, here it is!

Manhuntress, painted by Matt for Jim

Grissel Bloodsong, painted by Dean for Daniel:

Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios, painted by Daniel for Dean:

Satyxis Raider Captain, painted by me for Matt

And finally, an Allegiant of the Order of the Fist, painted by Jim for me

So there you go! It was great to see everyone push their painting boundaries for this challenge, and everyone managed something at the top of their game. Personally, I'm over the moon with my new Allegiant - I'm sure you'll agree that Jim did a great job with both the conversion and the paintjob.

I'm sure we'll do this again sometime - perhaps with Infinity, since we're all getting into that at the moment. I'd also heartily recommend something similar to any gaming group that would fancy painting something a bit different. It's a lot of fun!

M. I. A.

Oops. My last update was back in May. Sorry dear readers, but I'm sure that your lives didn't feel any less complete without my ramblings for the last few months. In my defence, I've been pretty darned busy these last few months what with several weddings (one of which was mine!), various trips away, visits from family and friends and all manner of other, less pleasant distractions.

Nevertheless, I'm back now, and hopefully I'll be able to stay a bit more up-to-date. In the meantime, here are a few highlights of my last three months of Warmachine.