Hugo Awards - Revisited

A while back I said I'd read and review the 5 books on the Hugo Awards list for this year.

I did well on this, read 3 out of the 5 books before the awards and managed to review 2 of them. Problem was, I was let down by the library copy of One Hundred Thousand Kingdoms going walkies for a couple of months. Poor excuse I know, but it’s the only one I’ve got.

This year’s winner was Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis, a duology that masquerades itself as a single novel. I managed to read Blackout before it won, but All Clear was only published in the UK after the Hugo was awarded.

Random Pics Of Miniatures

As promised in a previous post, here are some pictures of some of my completed miniatures.

Steam Powered Zombie

More Steam Powered Zombies

A Stitch Thrall

A Pair of Pistol Wraiths

My Fantasycon Experience

What better way to spend a weekend that in a hotel in Brighton with a load of fantasy fans, authors and publishers. So Cathy and I did, by attending Fantasycon 2011 in the blazing heat of last weekend.

This was only our 2nd Con, and the first one away from home. Our first, Eastercon this year, was held within travelling distance of home, although that did mean us leaving at about 8 each evening to make sure we got home. This time, we hoped to engage in that age old Con tradition of staying up late drinking in the bar!

Getting Started - 40k RPGs

There is nothing worse than being interested in starting a new RPG, but not know where to start. These days, most of us don't have the spare cash to risk buying a book that won't be useful to us.

So, I'm going to try and give you all an idea of the books to avoid, books that you must get, and those you can leave till later for Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Deathwatch.

Random Miniatures Post

I find it very easy to get distracted by all the shiny miniatures that are out there. As my wife can attest, I have many boxes of unpainted lead that I've bought in the past on a whim. At the moment I'm trying very hard to only buy and then paint, miniatures I'm going to use. This is why I'm mainly painting Warmachine and Hordes stuff, but I have just bought some Dinosaurs for an upcoming D&D game I'm playing in.

Painting tips

Recently, I’ve found myself enjoying painting a lot more that I have done in a while. The reason, less boring troops to paint! For 40K and Warhammer, much of the units are large and similar, leading me to boredom very quickly. Warmachine and Hordes have much smaller units that are much more interesting to paint. Thus my joy of painting has been rekindled.

So, I’ve been looking around for painting tips and tricks to help me improve my technique. In all honesty, I’m a passable painter, who manages to achieve decent results by accident more than anything. My basic  technique usually revolves around a base colour, throwing on some ink for the depth, then trying to highlight up. While this works fine for some miniatures, as I found when painting my Tau, it doesn’t when I want a more crisp finish.

Warmachine - First Games

Over the bank holiday weekend I had the opportunity to get some Warmachine games in. All of us are novices to the game, despite my knowledge of the setting I've only ever played 1 game under the Mark I rules! So it was back to basics, learning by making mistakes (and boy did we make them!).

Why I Love, City of Heroes

City of Heroes is a Super Hero MMO that's technically been around longer than World of Warcraft, but has never managed to gain such a massive following.

Later this year, City of Heroes goes Free to Play, and so I'm going to tell you why I love playing it, and why I think you should give it a go.

Review: Warmachine Wrath

Wrath is the first expansion book for Mark II Warmachine. Following the same format as previous expansion books (Escalation, Apotheosis, Superiority & Legends) Wrath contains new units for all of the factions, as well as fiction that moves the setting forward.

Introduced in Wrath is a new unit type, the Battle Engine! Large based models, that come with powerful abilities, these units should change the way you play your force.

I fail at posting

I realised yesturday that its nearly been a month since I last posted anything.

I fail at blogging!

I don't even have the excuse I've got nothing to write about, I have a list here of things I keep meaning to write up and end up forgetting.

So, I'll list them here, and if you like the sound of any of them, poke me and I'll write them faster!

Warmachine: Wrath review
Dark Heresy: Demon Hunters review
Deathwatch: Mark of Xenos review
Captain America review
Pictures of my Warmachine and Hordes stuff
Continuing Building a Deathjack.

Here's to a new post soon!

A Dance With Dragons - No Spoilers

Its here!!

I am now the proud owner of half a dead tree in the shape of A Dance With Dragons. Its even bigger that Peter Hamilton's last book, but only just.

Once I've finished my current book, then I'll start on it. Thankfully its quite a short one, Stephen Deas' The Thief Takers Apprentice in case you wondered.

I shall make sure that any posts I make regarding ADWD have spoiler warnings attached, so panic not if you've yet to start!

RPG Review: Pathfinder: Ultimate Magic

Time to get back into the swing of writing reviews for the RPG books I buy!

Review: Pathfinder Ultimate Magic

I've been a big fan of what Paizo have been doing with Pathfinder. While I don't buy the setting specific books, the basic core rules have all been excellent books, high quality and avoiding the rules bloat that afflicted 3.5 and seems to be continuing in 4th Edition.

Modelling Warmachines

I started a post talking about how to build warjacks and warbeasts, and paint them, and realised I'd created a massively boring post. So I deleted it and took another tack.

Instead of me just telling you about what's available and the theory behind building, I'm going to show you. So be prepared to watch in amazement as I build the Cryx DEATHJACK!