Musings of a Green Man

Today sees the pre-order release of the latest Gotrek Gurnison figure by Citadel, his first appearance in styrene. Gotrek grew out of a character in the play tests for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and, over the years, and 30 years' worth of novels, novellas, short stories and audio dramas, he met, or his stories even introduced, almost every major character in the World That Was. Thanquol became a running nemesis. Felix Jaeger went from a young buck looking for adventures that he could turn into stories, since he was an author, to a middle aged veteran, with more stories than he could ever write. Through all of this, Gotrek continued to be the best, or worst slayer dwarfs had ever known. He slew trolls, giants, dragons, daemons, some say even gods, and still refused to die. The world ended. An apocalypse literally tore the planet apart in a magical explosion. Still he kept going. BoLS, Spikey Bits and so on have coverage of the rules side of things, and can comment more meaningfu...

The most expensive part of the gaming hobby, in general, is buying the models. As such, there's a growing tendency to look at a points to currency ratio. Basically, this is a question of how many pennies, on average, you're paying for models, per point they cost in-system. To use an example, the Cadian Storm Troopers box costs £20 in the UK. This can be used to make 10 Conscripts, at 40 points, or a 10-man squad with flamer or grenade launcher and vox, at 48 or 51, or a veteran squad, with a vox, 2 flamers and a grenade launcher, for 70. Using the set for Conscripts, is 50p per point,  the infantry squad with vox and flamer, 39p per point, or the veteran squad 29p per point. Obviously, you get better "value" the more experienced and better armed the squad. In contrast, the push-fit Cadians are £6 for 5, so 30p per point, if used as Conscripts or Infantry, 24p as Veterans. On a similar note, a couple of options that are remarkably cost effective, in the grand scheme ...

We're currently in the tail end of August. This means that there's only 2 months until the Samhain/Hallowe'en season, and 4 until the winter festival season (Hanukkah, Christmas, Hogmanay, Solstice, etc.). As such, it's time to start saving your pennies. In part i say that because of the consumerism of the "festive season", but primarily because the next 5 months will give a lot of opportunities for the canny hobbyist to pick up bargain terrain. Obviously, the scale in which you play will be a big factor in all of this, and the genre/period of the setting, but, look out for the following and you can dress your table fairly cheaply: Hallowe'en Shops that sell seasonal decorations will fill with skulls, gravestones and other macabre trinkets. While most of these will be too large for use in most games (unless giant skulls are a thing in the setting), many of these places will have little trinkets, such as necklaces, pins and bracelets, that will contain...

Looking around on-line, one thread seems to keep surfacing: that, whether tools, glue, paint, or whatever else, you should always buy the best product you can afford. The implication being that the more expensive, the better or something like that. It's got me looking at my tools, glues, paints, etc., and looking at old articles from decades ago (some in publications that predate my entry into the hobby by a number of years). What I've found in those articles is that the current advice, to buy the best, is in direct contradiction to a lot of the advice from 30-40 years ago. There are articles saying that you should buy cheap tools, because, with any significant use, the tools will soon be broken and need replaced. Of course, back then, most terrain packs for gaming were cardboard cut outs. Back in those days, companies wanted you to spend as much of your hobby budget as possible on miniatures and products they produced. These days, the same can be said, but most companies hav...