Nordland Campaign Results

Following a decisive and unanimous vote we are bringing the Nordland Redux Campaign to a close. At this point in time it is extremely clear that the combined forces of the Skaven and Wood Elves will destroy us all. Both of those players are good generals, with great and fully painted armies, and all around good guys.

I may be so bold as to say this last 6 months has included the most fun games of Warhammer that I have ever played. At the end of the whole thing we had a lot of good games played, 4 players (50%) finished painting 2400 point armies, and so I call this campaign a success. I think we've also learned a lot about what we can do to improve our campaigns going forward

So, the moment you've all been waiting for, the winners:

Colin and his Wood Elves take the prize of Best Overall. Not only did he lovingly complete painting a wonderful selection of Wood Elves, at the end he controlled more territories than any other player.

Neil and his Skaven win the Best Campaign General prize. Having a mere 1 less territory than Colin, Neil's overall player skill allowed him to push forward and smash all those in his path. Despite starting with a solid core of painted Skaven, he continually added to his force and his Screaming Bell is as well painted as it is terrifying on the table.

Rounding out the winners is Nick with his Ogre Kingdoms army for Escalation Champion. Nick started playing Warhammer about a year ago and this is his first ever painted army. At last check I think he told me that he had about 4000 points painted now. I anxiously watch his progress as I expect that he will soon surpass me in painting skill and production speed.

And a big shout out to everyone who participated in this campaign. Mike, Michael, Josh, and Brad, you all rock and it was great to see everyone get involved.

Now what shall we do for the next campaign? Convert Neil and play 40k? Sounds good to me!!

The start of a horde!

I wish my first army looked this good

Great contrasting colours

These guys look awesome!

These are my nemesis! Burn them with fire!

Look at all that blue and orange!!

Gaming Groups are Awesome

So this post will be a bit of a departure from the campaign and hobby focused blog posts. I really want to talk about how building a solid gaming group can enrich your whole life.

I recognize that I have been slacking in my blogging this year. Part of that is because I have had a really rough time in my real life. While I have kept up a solid regime of regular painting, playing games and blogging have really taken a back seat. I have been dealing with a number or personal and family issues that I won't get into, but because of the stress of everything and all my worrying I had pushed everyone back and isolated myself. By and large,I have had a good life. Parents who love me, 3 beautiful, healthy, and smart children, an amazing wife, a good job, great friends, the list of things that I am grateful of goes on and on. But in the last 3 months certain things have influenced situations to make this one of the worst periods of my life. Now, things are getting much better and I am a lot happier. There's still a lot of work ahead of me, but it's getting better every day.

  The reason that I am bringing all of this up is that I learned something incredibly important. The worse things got, the more I isolated myself, and things began to spiral out of control. In a vain effort to keep the rest of my life in balance, I also tried to exert control on something really minor in our campaign. It was stupid, foolish, and caused a divide between me and one of my good friends. You see, the root of the problem is that not everyone's hobby is the same. In fact, that is what I believe makes this hobby so amazing. Everyone takes part in the various aspects in various degrees, and that uniqueness adds flavour and variety. I tried to force people to participate in my personal flavour of the hobby, and it just can't work that way. I was also so focused on trying to make sure that people had fun in the campaign, I forgot the part about it being a competition. With how little time I get to actually play games, my personal focus is on enjoying that game as much as possible. To me, two softer lists played in a relaxed environment is hugely more enjoyable than taking two hardcore lists and pushing every tactical decision to the max. The truth is, both styles of play have their own merits. I also know that I enjoy competitive play in the 40k universe better than Fantasy because the 40k community has spent a lot of time and effort trying to balance the game.

  But I digress. When everything finally hit the bottom, one of the lowest points in my entire life, I finally cracked. I didn't know what else to do anymore and just starting asking for help wherever I could. That was when I had this huge realization that really helped me turn everything around. When I started talking to my gaming buddies, I found a wealth of people who really cared about me and wanted to help me. Right now it all seems so simple that it's silly, but even some of the newest additions to the group have shown me a level of kindness and support that helped me to realize that to them I am more than just someone who they play toy soldier with.

   Over the years the dynamic of the people that I game with has changed and evolved. Because of my experiences over the last 13 years I will say this. Surround yourself with good people. If you regularly finish a game against someone and you're frustrated or unhappy because it wasn't fun, that's not a good thing. And there's a gigantic difference between having fun in a game and winning the game. There are a whole host of people that I have fun playing against, even when I lose. Guys in my group like Neil, Nick, Josh, Mike, Scott, Colin, and Jody. They're all great people who are fun to play against, win or lose. (And I'm not leaving any names out on purpose, as there are at times 20+ people that I can game against, but these are the guys I'm closest to.)

At the end of the day, it's your hobby and you should enjoy it. And if you're going through a tough time, maybe privately talk to some of your gamer buddies about it. You may find that they can help you out a lot too.

My final parting point is this. My boss said it to me when I had explained thst things were tough and I might need to take some time off. He said "Life happens to everyone, it's just your turn right now."

Campaign Turn 14

Busy busy busy...

Life is just that, very busy. I have still been hobbying fairly regularly, when I haven't been sick that is. I'm also at a new job site that tripled my commute time and shuffled the hours of work. They work there isn't bad to do, but getting there and the mud are frustrating.

But hobby stuff! I wanted to test out the colour scheme for the Thousand Sons. I converted the model from the Dark Vengeance Chosen Champion. The watcher is from the Dark Angels Deathwing Knights kit, given the mace for his master. This model can be a Dark Apostle or a Sorcerer and when I finish the other Watcher with the sword so that he can have a force sword.

Following the completed Dark Apostle, I quickly finished 17 Bloodletter. They're not amazingly painted, albeit the camera makes the red look worse, but they're done and that's worth something.

I took a bit of a break after the Bloodletters and then finished the Herald of Tzeentch in about a day. Sometimes the paint just goes nicely. I'm also please because it's an inversion of the colours in the Dark Apostle. Same pallet but flipped.

And then pulling up the rear I decided to work on the Forgefiend/Maulerfiend. The Howdah is to make it look original and the Dark Apostle just happens to kit up there for luck.

Wow, so much hobby in 1 month!