A lot has happened since my last post and hopefully I can get a few blog posts out now things have settled down to tell you about it all!
Where do I start? I better tell you what I've been up to then in a hobby related nutshell -
- Malifaux Tournaments
- 40k Club Challenges
- Taking Photos
- Playing Malifaux
- Taking Photos
- Starting a Warmachine Army
- Starting a Warzone Army
- Starting a WFB Army
- Taking Photos
- Actually Painting Models!!! (I know... notice the word painting, not brushing!) Not many but a few!
- WarhammerFest
A long list and a lot to show you! Those who follow me on Twitter (@geekphotoguy), check out the pics I've posted on there. I've taken a few for the blog but the whole range is on the Twittersphere!
I'll begin with my most recent bits and bobs and, at the moment, the game which has taken my interest... Malifaux!
I've been on a bit of a learning journey over the past few months and I've learnt a few things which have shaped how I play the game and also how I want my experience of the game to be.
Last weekend (8th & 9th Nov 2014), I went to the BIGGEST Malifaux tournament in history (so far) - the UK GT. This consisted of 68 players (down to 66 on the day) competing to be the number one player in the UK!
To say it was an interesting experience would be putting it lightly, there were players from all over the country - Bournemouth to Glasgow, Bridgnorth to Ireland...Northern of course! Tickets sold out instantly on the day of release and I was lucky enough (or sad enough) to get one of the first, 3rd in fact! Unfortunately, that didn't mean I would finish third, far from it but I'll come back to that later on!
So, I rock up at 7.30 to this sleep hollow in York and I was greeted by the familiar sound of Mr Matt Spooner, Mr Mike Marshall and Mr Lee Batterick of Maliools Podcast and BendyBoards fame. Tables were set up and ready to go! Now, I was slightly early... so my morning involved a bit of waiting around but to be honest, when there are so many beautifully painted models, it didn't matter. I was also employed as a courier for the weekend to deliver a commission painted package to Mr Malifaux himself, Joel Henry.
Joel, was in the process of raising money for WAAC (Wargamers All Against Cancer) which involved him wearing a pig onesie for the whole weekend! He has raised over £1000 so far and he still has the UK Masters to go in January!
Yes, this is THE Mr Henry in all his glory. And yes, the last photo is him faceplanting a cake! The models, if anyone is wondering or saw them at the GT as Joel unboxed them are painted by @NigelSBartlett who is taking commissions if you wish to have something done! (#shamelessplug)
Anyway, back to the gaming stuff...
Tables and what not... Again, a comprehensive package of photos is on my Twitter feed but here is a selection...
There was an amazing array of tables available to play on and what I really liked on the second day is that the table order changed and instead of having the top tables on the stage, which is where they were on day one, they were rearranged so that the 'bottom' tables played where the 'top' tables were on day 1 and vise versa.
So... all that is out of the way and on to the gaming shiz... We were given some freebees... YAY FREEBEES! 7 Soulstone Poker Chips, Distance Measurer, M2GT BendyBoard Terrain and a record sheet! Huzzah!
The gaming format took a very simple and effective format - 4 games on Saturday, 2 on Sunday which meant people are able to get away early and actually get home. After the journey of some people - 7 hours in some cases - it was ideal to get away and get home ready for the hectic work life on Monday!
Ready... Set... TARA!!! My crew is ready... on a nice BendyBoard tray but not a painted tray! The option for the GT was simple, you can use a fixed master which may be dual faction or use a fixed faction. I opted to use Tara as a singular master because I think I know her well enough to play her consistently, although I only use her as a one trick pony!
So, 4 games... and I start of with Peter Sidaway - a York Garrison Player using Ten Thunders and in this case using Mei Feng... Urgh.... I'm under no illusion that every game is going to be tough over the course of the weekend and I've said it before on here, good players push good players and in a community which is ever expanding, players are coming over from different games systems which enable them to progress andd become better. I've said I need more games against Tournament/Competitive players and it is still true. However, at my LGS (Titan Games) I have been in conversation with some people to have a look at how we structure our games... I think that's a separate blog post!
Anyway, Pete on Table 9... incredibly strong opponent to start and against Mei... Tara stood no chance!
Strat: Turf War
Schemes: Line in the Sand, Assassinate, Protect Territory, Spring the Trap, Power Ritual.
I took Line and Protect,
Peter took Protect and Power Ritual.
I won't bore you with the details... (because I can't remember most of them) but it ended... 10-3 to Peter!
Strat: Stake a Claim
Scheme: Line, Breakthrough, Assassinate, Vendetta, Make them Suffer
Me: Breakthrough and Vendetta
Jan: Breakthrough and Vendetta
Final Score: 10-4 Loss
On to round 3 and I'm sinking worse than the Titanic! Next... we are on to Mr Liam Hall (@MunkeyKungFu) who has got a wonderfully painted Lucius crew!
Little did I know, Liam had an even worse time that I had in his last two games and the last thing he wanted was to face a Tara bomb which came together in this game, which just compounded his misery even more! Plus side for Liam... his models are painted to a decent standard, whereas mine has used the 'oh look a big brush' technique.
It wasn't a mauling and was actually quite a close game but the cards went against him! Down to table 32!
Strat: Recon
Schemes: Line, Distract, Breakthrough, Plant Explosives, Murder Protege
Me: Breakthrough and Murder Protege (Mature Neph)
Liam: Plant Explosives and Murder Protege (Killjoy)
Final Score: 6-2 Win
On to game 4 and I was buoyed by the win and it was on to Table 27! I was playing against Cathy Winton. Cathy had come along with her husband and son to play in the tournament. A really nice family and excellent players with the 'Malifaux Attitude'. Really enjoyed playing against Cathy and at the evening event, I managed to get a few games of MTG in with her son. Cathy was using Archanists and a master I have never seen before... Kaeris!
Strat: Reckoning
Schemes: Line, Assassinate, Bodyguard, Take Prisoner, Frame for Murder
Me: Take Prisoner (Firestarter) and Frame for Murder (Trapper)
Cathy: Assassinate and Frame for Murder (Willie)
A really good and thought provoking game but I came out on top 5-4! She would have taken the win if it had not been for Tara stoning to prevent damage on her! Moment of this match was Kaeris flying off the top of a building with the Trapper, taking him down to 1 wound and then finishing him off in the 2nd turn for Frame for Murder! Good old trapper!
Well... Day One finished and I've ended on 2-2!
It was a lot better than I expected at the end of the first day of a GT, considering my track record in 40k Tournaments!
Onwards to the evening arrangements and to York Brewery. Really good to socialize with other gamers in the community and Dave even put on a Malifaux quiz! I even got to have my first crack with a MTG Draft! Woop woop!
Right, Brewery closed and back to the hotel... whereas some went out, being up for about 28 hours and playing games made me very tired!
Day Two... I got a face another Gremlin player and another podcaster - Dom Westerland of Chasing Bacon fame. Whereas I missed out on facing Wong yesterday, today would more than make up for it!
Strat: Squatters Rights
Schemes: Line, Bodyguard, Breakthrough, Entourage, Outflank.
Me: Line and Breakthrough
Dom: Line and Breakthrough
Sounds simple... WRONG! Wong does a Baldrick Blackadder poem: Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom... Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom! BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! Boom, boom... boom!
Well, I guess you can tell how this ended up... 10-4 loss! Nevermind! It was a really fun experience - especially when you have this opponent on the other side of the table!
Strat: Turf War
Schemes: line, Breakthrough, Distract, Plant Evidence, Deliver the Message
Me: Distract (which I forgot about...) and Plant Evidence!
Dave: Breakthrough and Plant Evidence
So my last tournament game ended in a 10-4 loss. If nothing else, I was consistent in giving my opponents 10 points! Overall, I finished 53rd... Told you I had something to do with a 3 in my ranking!
All in all, I had a fantastic time. The Malifaux community once again showed itself to be the best in the UK in terms of spirit, togetherness and competitive play.
I must note and extend my full thanks to Mike and the team for a perfectly observed 2 minutes silence to remember our fallen on the Sunday. I know people have been effected by war and it really meant a lot to me to have that time to reflect, so thanks Mike and everyone for that!
Another thanks must go back to Mike, Lee, Matt and the boys at York garrison for their tireless work to put this event on and I must say, it ran so smoothly that round times were precise and waiting time was minimal which made a snappy day where you could concentrate on your games as opposed to floundering and panicking where to go next! As I've said, It made for an extremely enjoyable weekend and those who read this (the few that want to listen to my ramblings) and are not playing Malifaux in different places, it's well worth a go! You do meet some great people, some knobends but on the whole a great bunch of people who want to have a good time and play with pieces of plastic!
With the games out of the way, I will add that we had a raffle and auction during the weekend and that went down a storm with Nate Zettle's mother baking cakes to auction off and a large framed poster of Joel, which went for £40! So some lucky fucker will have that up in his hobby room...or bedroom... Or toilet!
The raffle was extremely well supported with every participant having a prize to take home! Wyrd, KR, Element Games, Tiny World and more gave prizes to the GT which was amazing! I won a Somer Teeth Jones box (Gremlins) but since I already had one, I didn't really have much use for it! I would have donated it to Joel but I think he is sick of the sight of the things! So I kept it with the intention of either selling it or splitting it up for parts but as it happened, Wyrd had provided some 'mystery boxes' to the event and I managed to swap the box for one of those which I'm delighted about! So now I own a red translucent Bête Noire! Yay! Not going to build it though, as my building skills are as bad as my painting! So not risking it on a model as amazing as that!
I did forget to mention the costume competition which was won by Maria! Congrats! I might give it a go next year, if I've got someone to go with so I don't look like the twat on his own with no friends in a costume!
I did forget to mention the costume competition which was won by Maria! Congrats! I might give it a go next year, if I've got someone to go with so I don't look like the twat on his own with no friends in a costume!
Well, that's my Malifaux recent news! What it does leave is for me to show you a few models that I encountered over the weekend, remember my twitter feed has more... LOADS more!
In other news... My love of 40k is slowly dwindling and I have very little interest at the moment I. Playing. I did play just before a few of the lads went off to battlefield Birmingham. I got a game in with Nath (@ninjanathuk) who used a combination of gamey Grey Knights and even gameyer... Is that a word? Gameyest? Anyway... Crimson fists! So... That was going to end badly for me with a shit load of power armour facing off against Sisters of battle with UltraMarine allies. Yes, it's all in the fluff, no I don't see anything wrong with it, yes it was a short game.
So Nath took some gamey bullshit...centurions, librarians, gk Termies, scouts, vindicator, rhino, 2 drop pods with dreadnought and 10 marines in respectively. I took... 2x10 sisters, canonness, 3 exorcists, tiggy, 2 land raiders (as transports), 3 assault cents, 3 dev cents and scouts! So yes, incredibly in keeping with the fluff!
Nath did something a little bit silly... I fact, it was just complete shit tactics as he dropped two units of gks in front of a land raider each... Thing is... There are some cents in each land raider who made short work of the terminators and anything coming their way! So... He handed me a win as opposed to me fighting for it really! Bit silly of him! I have no doubt he'll be reading this and be thinking 'just drop it!' And my answer is no! Don't be such a tool when it comes to playing games!
Afterwards, I got in a quick game of Malifaux where I used Lynch... I won! Huzzah! Can't remember the exact details but I needed to get some stuff together and try him out as he is one of the masters I'm going to be focusing on very soon! But more on that later!
I've popped some other pics too of Pete's Salamanders vs Nige's Eldar, Battles at Warhammer World and WarhammerFest on the end, again, many more on my Twitter!
Afterwards, I got in a quick game of Malifaux where I used Lynch... I won! Huzzah! Can't remember the exact details but I needed to get some stuff together and try him out as he is one of the masters I'm going to be focusing on very soon! But more on that later!
I've popped some other pics too of Pete's Salamanders vs Nige's Eldar, Battles at Warhammer World and WarhammerFest on the end, again, many more on my Twitter!
Well, it just leaves me to show you what I've been painting... I decided that I want to try actually painting models but I always have a big pile to do, so instead, I just bought two models separate to everything I've ever done and tested out my painting skills. Okay, it's not going to win any awards but it's better than the usual droll I churn out!
I managed to get a game of Warzone in with my Brotherhood but that was over by turn 3 as the army I faced managed to deep strike without any scatter and magically wipe out half my army in the first turn. A little bit pissed off, especially as the opponent I faced said 'I'm just trying some new units out, I don't really know what they do' and preceded to kick the shit out of me, seemingly without having to even check the rulebook or unit cards... So, my Warzone has gone in a box and will probably find it's way to an online auction site very soon... Even 40k isn't that broken! Oh well! Now a few more pics for you from Titan Games over the past weeks.
What else do I need to add to my update... Started a new fantasy army, although I have no idea what I'm doing. I've managed to get some forgeworld and mantic chaos dwarfs! I'm looking to build an army which is just fun to play on the table and chaos dwarfs were my first love in wfb so I'm really glad to have a small force of them to get out, when I can!
On top of the GT offering malifaux goodness, there was also some bring and buy action. I picked up a Relic Knight from Liam Hall which I'm really chuffed with and I'm in the process of destroying it by painting as we speak! I've seen a few starters into relic knights but I'm trying to get some intro games, thus far, no one seems to be interested in my local area, so I'm going to see what I can do to get someone to play me! Really love the models and the feel of the game!
I know there are other points but that's for another day!
Thanks for reading, it's good to be back!
I'll see you soon!
Pleasant Dreams...
Pleasant Dreams...
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