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Dave Fraser

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  1. Dave Fraser

    Gooey

    By Dave Fraser,

    So like virtually everyone else I've been working on Nurgle.
    First up was a couple of trees, yeah I'll need a bunch more, but it was a starter for 10 to get me going, I don't want to overbuy on them.
    Following on from that I started with adding Rotigus to my existing Nurgle stuff.  This model is a joy to paint.  You can do it with a basecoate & wash and it will look pretty decent, you can then spend as much time as you want pushing the shadows & highlights further and get all the cool effects you want, picking out details and basically doing fun stuff with the model.



  2. Dave Fraser

    Building to Heat 2

    By Dave Fraser,

    So the only tournament I'm currently signed up to for 2018 is GW Heat 2 which is mid April.  I've got a few armies I could choose between to take:
    Sylvaneth - Dreadwood, painted it at the end of last year but still not played a game with it.
    Blades of Khorne - I've got a reasonably chunky khorne army, I enjoy playing them but it's mostly an infantry horde so not the most interesting visual spectacle.
    Maggotkin - Triple GUO would be the list I'd like to play but currently I use a non-GW model for one of my GUO so would need to buy and paint another just for this event.
    Skaven - I've got a pretty hefty Skaven army, so could put something together.  Might encourage me to paint up a handful of models I've had sat for a few months that I should really get round to doing.
    Moonclan - An army I really enjoy playing but the basic grots aren't painted terribly well, I would probably want to put some effort into making them look better.
    Tomb Kings - They'll be quite a unique army, can't imagine too many people will run them these days.  Not terribly well painted however.
     
    I don't want to take a top competitive list, playing that way isn't of interest to me right now.  But I also don't want to get crushed into the dirt every single game.
     
    What I'm trying to decide around is more relating to whether I try to take an army and try to get myself a painting nomination.  Most of my armies are nicely painted but I don't think they quite hit those heady heights so I'd definitely have to put a little more effort into trying to push their quality a little further.
  3. Dave Fraser

    Maggotkin book

    By Dave Fraser,

    So I posted up my intentions for 2018 and you know what wasn't in there despite having seen the preview pics, Nurgle, but you know what is now in my to do list... Nurgle.
    That said it's not an awful lot that I need to add to my army, currently I own the following nurgle stuff all painted up:
    1 Exalted Great Unclean One (FW model)
    1 Great Unclean One (Alternative Plague Daemon nurle from Mierce)
    1 Herald of Nurgle
    30 Plaguebearers
    3 Nurglings
    6 Plague Drones
    7 Beasts of Nurgle
     
    That by itself does not make a 2000pts force.  So what I'm looking at is a fun excuse to run my big monsters and the reviews by Facehammer & The Black Sun (Chris Tomlin) discussed a Battalion using 3 Great Unclean Ones and that just sounds like ace fun and a good excuse to get my big gribbies on the table.
    This lead me to the following list:
    eGUO 500
    GUO 340
    Rotigus 340 (new special character GUO)
    Battalion 160
    30 Plaguebearers 320
    5 Blight Kings 160
    5 Blight Kings 160
    Total 1990
    The list is 10pts away from what I'd wanted which was to be able to drop 5 Blight Kings down to Nurgle Chaos Warriors and then have 100pts for a summoning pool available.
     
    The alternative I've been considering is dropping the exalted down to just a regular GUO (given the new GUO is bigger it doesn't feel very special anymore so would assume people will not be too upset by this).  That then frees up 160pts, so I can then drop the blight kings to warriors giving me 230pts, which could become Festus because I love his model and have it sat waiting to do and also he has some tasty rules, plus gives me access to the rotbringer spell that makes 6's mortal wounds to basically turn the plaguebearers into an offensive unit as well as defensive.
    The second list just feels a lot more rounded and means I can actually use the contagion points for something other than trees but it's not using the eGUO as what it is that is always something I'm wary of doing.
  4. Dave Fraser
    I’ve included a pretty significant pre-ramble setting out how I’ve come to my goals as much as anything I needed to run through this process to get everything square in my mind.
     
    Gaming:
    2017 saw a bit of a change of mentality in my gaming. 
    AOS:
    I started off the year with my usual focus on attending events and running competitive armies (TK at Firestorm Fours, Order Gunline at Heat 2) with an eye to prep for the 6 Nations in June.  Then due to ‘real life’ TM it all went on hold and the last 2 day event I attended was Heat 2 in April and I stepped down from the 6 nations.
    As a result I’ve been playing down the club a lot more and had less desire to run cutting edge lists.  I think what I need to find is the lists I enjoy the most and just stick to them.  Currently I’m going to try out a Moonclan list. I didn’t run them loads last year but when I did they were a lot of fun.
    I’m signed up to heat 2 but I would not be surprised if this is the only event I go to this year.  I might attend some 1 dayers if they’re local but I’ll only be travelling further afield for social weekends not caring about the gaming.
    Guild Ball:
    If I’m honest I think the writing is on the wall despite the competitive scene seeming to be booming right now with events selling out in minutes and the world championships doubling in size (more countries not just doubling through on those already playing).
    I don’t see where the game can go from where it is now, given what SFG have committed to, that will make it better and without growing/changing it won’t bring in new players. But I’m not a game designed and I didn’t in the slightest forsee the AOS rewrite being as awesome as it has been.
    Last year I suffered from:
    1)      Not playing regularly
    2)      Switching teams frequently
    I find that I can’t play GB without playing it relatively competitively.  The game frustrates me when I make silly mistakes because you get punished hard for them.  Therefore I think I need to stop jumping around between teams and just play something repeatedly.
    I’m going to give it a few months as there is a really cool group of locals who I enjoy playing with but if the game continues to frustrate me then I may start to step away from it.  I’ve been a pundit for 3 years and run 3-4 events per year so the important thing for me would be to hand that on if I do decide to stop.
    Shadespire:
    It was a late addition to my gaming but one which I’ve loved. 
    The nature of the game makes this less of a tabletop wargame and much more a board game/CCG.  It turns out that I love board/CC games when done well! I can’t see how you don’t play this game competitively either but unless they ridiculously accelerate the release schedule then I don’t think I should have an issue with that. 
    There is a clear end game in that the cards are numbered (x/437) so there is a finite cap on what is ‘Shadespire’ (note the game is actually called Warhammer Underworlds and Shadespire is just setting/series within that, so they can release future sets should the choose).
    Other Games:
    I played next to nothing else (actually I think it was nothing else) despite having a bunch of other miniature games all painted and ready to play.  There are a couple of reasons for it:
    1)      Interest in games
    2)      Available opponents
    3)      Available time
    Some games like Saga simply don’t interest me to play these days.  The people, models & game system are cool but it just doesn’t speak to me.
    Others like 30k/40l or Bolt Action I don’t want to spend the time learning a new ruleset and integrating into a new playgroup at the moment.  I’d need to fully drop AOS/Guild Ball before this would become an option.
    Others Like Malifaux and Epic I know there are a few people playing but I’d have to put the hard yards in to find the players to play it and relearn the rules and get back up to speed.  As a result they’re of no interest to me. 
    I’ve sunk time into trying to get GB ticking along in the local area, I can see enough players now going that it seems to be holding up and others are now starting to run events but I’ve not got the time/energy to put that into another game right now.
     
    Modelling/Painting by Game:
    30k: Sell everything.  I’m never gonna play it because they’re sticking with 7th edition ruleset and I’ve not got time for that in my life.
    40k: Realistically will I ever play the game – probably not.  Do I want to paint the Eldar army I have in boxes… Maybe, I’ve had it for at least 7 years and painted very little, it’s probably a sensible time to commit one way or the other.
    WM&H: I’m definitely never going to play this game.  I have a pretty large unpainted Mercenaries army.  I do actually quite enjoy painting these though on the rare occasions I turn my hands to it.  Commit to painting or offload, no idea what is a ‘good’ force in the game these days so just paint what I like.
    Relic Knights: Another dead game for me.  Just a case of do I care to paint up the rest of the Doctorine faction or do I just pick a unit out as and when it takes my fancy.  I do need to sell off the other faction I have and don’t care for (Cerci).
    Darklands: Gamewise this is clearly dead in the water.  Rulebook was overly complex and most of the people I know who were playing have moved on.  That said I really like the models and enjoy painting them.  I’m going to continue to paint up the stuff which I have, there is the option to use these in other games. Still waiting on a load coming through from old old kickstarters.
    Guildball: I’m pretty close to owning all the factions, so most likely I’ll do this in 2018.  Question is what’s next.  GB is in an interesting place for me.  The core game I’ve always loved but I can see where it’s developers SFG can only realistically do so much more with the game before it basically falls over due to model bloat/loss of faction identity. 
    That said the remaining investment for me to be ‘complete’ is relatively small, so I’m happy to plow on with getting them all built & painted (about 30 models outstanding).
    Shadespire: This game has grabbed me, so as a result I want to stay close to the releases and pick everything up.  The bonus of Shadespire is that each release is only 3-7 models per box so keeping up isn’t difficult and I want to buy them for the cards anyway.
    AoS: It’s been my main game system for years but I’m increasingly becoming less fussed with it. This comes down to time rather than not liking the game or the background. 
    I’m definitely trying to pare down my collection and avoid buying new factions in the name of chasing the competitive meta.
     
    RESOLUTIONS
    1)      Continue to downsize the unpainted mound – I’ve done a reasonable job of not buying new stuff this year but I should continue to clear out the old stuff I don’t want/use.  I’d done an ‘easy’ cut of this in 2017 selling off some of the really old projects that were complete armies but I’ve still got plenty more that can go:
    Kharadron Overlords – painted the core of an army just need to add about 15 of the flying bubble dudes and I’ve got the standard netlist. Once painted I’m quite likely to sell it as the playstyle looks dull. Stormcast Eternals – I have an army in boxes, I just need to get it all painted up.  Could be a fun army but they’re so common and I like different, so I’ll probably sell it. Seraphon – An old army that I can flip over to AOS now they have some decent abilities for the game. Don’t need to paint much to have an army complete and then I can sell it off as again I have little desire to play them. Deathlords – I’ve had this in a box for about 15 months now.  The models are big and cool, I definitely want to get round to painting them, I’ve just been too focused on painting stuff for gaming to get to it. Hopefully my slowdown on AOS will finally allow me to do this.  Don’t see this as a play army but as a ‘looks cool’ army. Skaven – Have an army painted but have a bunch of models I’d like to add to it. 3 more Stormfiends, Thanquol & Boneripper, Verminlord Deceiver. 2)      Continue to sell off unused painted models (Still got multiple AOS armies to shift and really should get rid of more of the older WFB stuff I’m still sat upon).
    3)      Buy & paint all new Shadespire warbands (I’ll be buying for the cards anyway so I want to try and keep on top of the models)
    4)      Focus down on gaming – In 2017 I committed to cutting back to just 2-3 game systems: AoS, Guild Ball & Shadespire.  In 2018 I want to return to ‘git gud’ principles and focus on playing the same faction for a large chunk of the year until I’m actually playing it well instead of flitting about constantly and being frustrated that I’m losing games I feel I should win.  Note this doesn’t really mean gaming more, but when I game not constantly swapping.
    5) Paint at least 1 high quality monster (last 2 years I've done this and really enjoyed it, should do more than 1 but I always get stuck in army projects).
  5. Dave Fraser
    Ok so Blog updates stopped.  In part this was due to the faff of my picture host - photobucket ****** the pooch and removing all external linking and partly extreme laziness on my part.
    That extreme laziness did not extend to painting models however but first lets restate the years objectives:
    No not aim to paint 1/day, instead I’m going to try and paint some individual models to a higher standard, probably targeting something like 26 good quality models. (1/fortnight).  That’s not to say I won’t paint a load of other models around these but my objective will be the better stuff.
    Stop buying tonnes of junk I’ll never play with! I’ve curbed my KS habit in the last 6 months only backing Roots of Magic (9 models) because it’s a small independent KS making some very nice models on a shoestring budget.
    This is one I’ve not quite settled on yet – Sell off some of my armies. With the changes to AoS I basically won’t use a large chunk of my WFB stuff ever again so it doesn’t really make sense to hold onto it all.  Also there are a bunch of games I’m unlikely to actually play, do I really need to keep stuff for them or should I just get rid.
    Paint a ‘concept army’.  For those that don’t know this is a big thing in AoS at the moment, basically it means not to paint a colour scheme but to paint a theme eg ethereal, sin city etc.  In reality what many people have done is spray one colour, wash and drybrush their models and call it done which usually just looks like a half assed rush job.  I want to do it properly.
    Finish some projects – 30k Alphas have a few models o/s, Relic Knights, Epic Marines, various AoS armies.  I don’t want to be fully painted at the end of 2016 but I want to be able to say “I have no more of [x] to paint”.
    Outcomes:
    1. Total Fail - I painted 1 model to a really high standard and that was my GUO.  I did good paintjobs on a few more models but utterly failed to achieve what I was intending to do.
    2. Can argue that this was a total fail but I definitely curbed myself.  I painted a lot of unpainted stuff and I offloaded a load more but still probably 100 models I've added to my stash that need painting.  Have pretty much knocked KS on the head, just waiting for a single dragon model to come through.
    3. Success - Sold multiple armies - Sylvaneth, Chaos Dwarfs, Squats, BA Germans, Saga,  Tzeentch and a bunch of random models I didn't want any more.
    4. Kind of yes, I set out to do one early in the year then shelved it.  I then came back at the end of the year and have done a sylvaneth army that potentially could fall into this category but you could also argue is a proper paintjob for Sylvaneth.
    5. I guess this goes down as a success but with a bit of an asterisk beside it. I don't think I painted any armies such that I have no more of [x] to paint.  But I did paint a lot of stuff up and I'm certain I've shrunk my unpainted mound.
    In more specifics This year I've painted:
    36 Death Guard models - Done for my local game store, basically the starter box plus a few of the new releases 68 Khorne - painted up an army but have a few more bits I still need to do. 76 Tzeentch - painted up the filth, played it once, now sold it. They're fun & really nice to paint tho. 4 other Chaos models 21 Death models - Mostly for the TK utter filth netlist at the start of the year before the points update came out in April 6 Destruction models - Mostly large monsters to run in my Moonclan - Rogue Idol, colossal squig, thundertusk. 33 KO - The core of a Zilfin list, need to add the bubblemen 102 Sylvaneth - This was a commission army (Gnarlroot) and then a second army for myself (Dreadwood). 10 Darklands models 69 Guild Ball models 19 Shadespire models - All 4 warbands 42 Epic Space marine models - I just enjoy painting on the smaller scale. I added a second company to my ultra marines plus some support units. Total of 489 models
    Commission Sylvaneth

     
    Tzeentch

     
    Khorne

     
    Deathguard

     
    KO

     
    Destruction Monsters

     

     
    And my pride of the year the Exalted Great Unclean One

     
     
  6. Dave Fraser

    14 march

    By Dave Fraser,

    Been a little lazy with updates. Still been churning away at stuff. 
    A few death models so I have the full (now repointed) TK lists as GW models so I could run it at heat 2. 
     
    After that hat I have gone back to chaos and added a few characters and then started work on a bloodbound contingent. Only 500pts so far but will grow it out. 






  7. Dave Fraser

    8 Feb 2017

    By Dave Fraser,

    FLGS running a slow grow and was planning on running death for it and painted up these guys. 
     
    Now having a wobble though so might be switching to chaos. 

  8. Dave Fraser

    30 Jan 2017

    By Dave Fraser,

    I've an event coming up this weekend (firestorm 4s) so figured I best finish painting all the models in my list. 
    Its not a subtle list, take russ veal & Dan fords TKs from the masters and mash the two together!
    But that meant I needed to paint up Izzie VC, so I have done!
     

  9. Dave Fraser
    I fancied painting something different from what I'd been doing recently so pulled a thundertusk out my 'to do' pile. 
     
    As as it happens I was watching  (well listening) to game 5 of the GE heat 1 and enjoying rob talk on the high skill required to use these finesse beasts as I painted it. 


  11. Dave Fraser

    07 Jan 2017

    By Dave Fraser,

    First models complete of 2017: 10 zombies to go in my TK list. 
     
    Basically i I copied a netlist (written by domus) and there were 40 points spare so I was able to upgrade 2 of his units of zombies to skellys to stay more on theme but the last unit had to stay zombies and I had none painted. 

  12. Dave Fraser
    2016
    Final tally was 448 models:
    Infantry 331, MI 26, Cavalry 12, Epic bases/vehicles 36, Monsters 7, Vehicles 7, WMs 2, Chariots 1 and Terrain 12.
    Split by Game:
    AoS 209, 30k 67, Saga 40, Guildball 37, Epic 36, Bolt Action 25, Darklands 24, Warmachine 6, Relic Knights 3, Bloodbowl 1.
     
    As can be seen I’ve flitted around between games a lot this year and now have full armies for multiple systems as a result.  Despite that I’ve not actually been playing all that many games of anything.  AoS & 30k have been the two biggest and then a smattering of others.
    AoS I now have 4 different armies which I can put on the tabletop: TK, mixed chaos, Moonclan & Duardin.  A large chunk of what I did this year was the moonclan & duardin, both were existing armies from 8th which were getting updates to fit into AoS.  The mixed chaos is Skaven & Daemons, most was already painted so it was just rebasing this year but I did add a few bits (Stormfiends & Sayl). 30k was due to the Calth boxset, I ended up with 2750 pts of painted alpha legion. Saga was a club thing, I jumped in played about 4 games and fell off again due to work commitments ****** with the campaign that came out this year and I never picked it back up again.  It’s a fun enough game but didn’t utterly grab me. Guildball is a little misleading as there are 16 bits of terrain in that number.  I painted up 8 bits of fast ground and 8 rough ground to have available for tournaments under my guise of pundit.  Actual models I painted up 21 which was 2 new teams and a smattering of the season 2 releases for the other teams I owned. Epic I typically throw in as my January painting project to get me off to a good start as you can churn out a decent volume of models with minimal effort and this is despite not playing epic for over 20 years. Bolt Action was a purchase whilst I still wasn’t sure about AoS, I’d actually intended to pick up a fully painted army but what I got had a bunch of incomplete/unpainted models so I brought it all up to a standard but haven’t played a single game with it. Darklands was an early in the year interest project that has seriously waned, hopefully it’ll pick back up again when some more models arrive through the various KS’s I have outstanding.  I’ll be going for the Albainn & Erainn factions which have some lovely humans. The Warmachine was just finishing off a unit I started painting 5 years ago.  I quite like picking up a model and doing it every so often for old projects to see what takes my interest and the same went for relic knights, I’d hoped to get the motivation to paint all my relic knights doctorine faction just to have it done but no such luck they simply didn’t grip me this year. Finally a solitary bloodbowl figure was the start to my painting up a skaven team that I only bought because I ended up TOing an event I dropped out of due to uneven numbers and then was bored mid round! The other significant thing about the number of models I painted this year surrounds my running total.  I’ve been tracking what I paint since 1 Jan 2011, which between then and 31 Dec 2016 is a total of 2,192 days.  In that time I have painted 2,226 models.  Which nicely works out at an average of more than 1/day over a 6 year period!
     
    2016 Resolutions Checklist
    30k – paint my alpha Legion – 2750 points painted and taken to a group meetup. Success Saga – paint warband – 6pt saga warband painted and played with/. Success Darklands – a lot of this is KS and has yet to turn up, that said there are a stack of models in a box which I’ve yet to do anything with.  But I did paint and play with my Khthones this year. Partial success. Old School Dwarfs – Rebased, played at SCGT, ruined by proposals to ban legacy (now compendium) scrolls, probably wont see the table again. Success Epic – paint some orks.  Instead I painted some marines but never finished the force.  Partial success Guildball – Paint S2 models.  I did the extra models for union, alchemists, butchers but didn’t pick up any of the new mascots and haven’t painted the second Engineer captain yet.  But I did paint 2 new guilds instead.  Success Rivet Wars – This one was a bit of a tack on and I’ve never found the time to put brush to model for them.  Fail. Frostgrave encounters – Use some of my reaper bones stuff for monsters.  Never touched them. Fail.  
     
    2017
    So what’s up for this year, resolution time!
    No not aim to paint 1/day, instead I’m going to try and paint some individual models to a higher standard, probably targeting something like 26 good quality models. (1/fortnight).  That’s not to say I won’t paint a load of other models around these but my objective will be the better stuff.
    Stop buying tonnes of junk I’ll never play with! I’ve curbed my KS habit in the last 6 months only backing Roots of Magic (9 models) because it’s a small independent KS making some very nice models on a shoestring budget.
    This is one I’ve not quite settled on yet – Sell off some of my armies. With the changes to AoS I basically won’t use a large chunk of my WFB stuff ever again so it doesn’t really make sense to hold onto it all.  Also there are a bunch of games I’m unlikely to actually play, do I really need to keep stuff for them or should I just get rid.
    Paint a ‘concept army’.  For those that don’t know this is a big thing in AoS at the moment, basically it means not to paint a colour scheme but to paint a theme eg ethereal, sin city etc.  In reality what many people have done is spray one colour, wash and drybrush their models and call it done which usually just looks like a half assed rush job.  I want to do it properly.
    Finish some projects – 30k Alphas have a few models o/s, Relic Knights, Epic Marines, various AoS armies.  I don’t want to be fully painted at the end of 2016 but I want to be able to say “I have no more of [x] to paint”.
     
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