Gamesday 2013 - Less is Less

The last year has seen its share of controversy for Games Workshop. But while disagreements with fans and the hobby community at large are nothing new to the Nottingham studio, this year's Gamesday illustrated how much aggressive management decisions have damaged the company and perhaps it's relationship with even the most die-hard fans.

I hadn't realised this year's UK Gamesday was going to be a smaller event than recent shows have been until I spoke to a Forge World customer service rep a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't even noticed it had been moved back to the National Indoor Arena until I rang to pre-order some models. But the sales rep told me they were only selling half as many tickets as they did for sites at the National Exhibition Centre.

Thinking back on the madness of the last couple of years at the NEC, I thought at first the issue was perhaps one of crowd control. It's just really, really hard to safely move 8000 people around an enclosed space. Even with the great improvements to the retail area they introduced in 2012, Gamesday last year was still a draining experience. In some ways, there was too much to see and do, and it was all spread out over a really big area. Walking from a seminar to a signing to a display game and then back to the store and so on, all through a hot crowd of fellow fans, well, once a year is enough for that much effort over toy soldiers. So perhaps this year was going to be a more intimate affair, I thought as I queued up, early last Sunday morning. More time to examine the models, talk to the designers, and enjoy the displays and participation games.

But, after visiting every part of the arena, every table and stand and seminar or signing area, and then, barely more than an hour later, sat in the stands and watched hundreds of bored looking punters trudge past on the floor below, I realised thats not why they did it at all.

GW's corporate strategy has, for several years now, been all about doing the same or more with less. GW is all about 'efficiency' these days. Not 'the hobby', not the fans, not anything else but making a higher profit margin. Even if that means less customers overall, and certainly if that means less staff. 

The Charybis assault pod, new from Forgeworld

Hence there were no demo games at this years Gamesday. No store-built display tables or have-a-go scenery areas. No speed-painting or scrap demons. The studio staff were there and there was an area where you could paint a free mini using the digital paint by numbers system GW flogs these days. But you can meet the designers and the writers at several other events throughout the year and all GW stores will give you a free mini and guide you on how to paint it when you are starting the hobby.

No, this was a bare basics event, one where the licensees literally had as much floor space and quite possibly more actual interaction with customers than GW itself.

Celebrate!

What GW did have was shopping. Alan Merrett recently testified in front of a US Court that GW's customers' favourite activity at Gamesday was 'buying things from Games Workshop'. Perhaps this was why fully two thirds of the main show floor was dedicated to sales. In the picture above, the sales area is to the left. This line of red shirts clustered in a line to the right of the shot is the line of sales tills that stretched across the hall. The little collection of tables and stands beyond it is the display and studio area.

Here are some happy people, happily doing their favourite hobby activity.

As a metaphor for how GW feels about its business, its customers, and the hobby in general, you can't get much better than this. Sales, sales, sales. The company could just about scrape together enough staff for a massive retail operation. But beyond that - not so much. Gamesday used to be a chaotic but fun celebration of the hobby, the biggest company in the market, its fantastic IP's, and the people that make and play it. Just like the stores. This year though, its a stripped down experience. No fun, no joy, just money.

Forge World at least had a strong show. Funny how the 'niche' studio seems so much stronger than the parent organisation. Lots of new models, great displays, entertaining seminars. This part of the business truly does do more with less.

This Forgeworld table is designed to represent the layout of Gamesday. Dark, cramped, crowded...

I was disappointed by Gamesday 2013. But I have been disappointed by GW for a while now so I'm used to it. I feel worse for friends from my local club though who went this year to their first ever Gamesday and came home bruised and annoyed. They had heard the stories of Gamesdays past and were expecting to be blown away. Instead many of them came away discouraged and frankly angry at a waste of time and money. And these are people who still love GW.

At least Forgeworld put a little effort into it.

There was in fact very little to differentiate this affair to the studio open days and Black Library events that are run at Warhammer World. It really comes down to Golden Demon, the longtime premier painting competition everyone wants to win. 

Its a prestigious award and some truly amazing art is produced there each year. The display cabinets still had their own area, its just it was in the basement, four flights of stairs from the main hall, cramped, and badly lit. The Armies on Parade competition being squeezed into the same space didn't help, but if I were a top flight painter, busting my ass over a year to get something put together flawlessly and beautifully, only to find it displayed in a narrow badminton court hidden away at the bottom of a lift shaft.... I might start thinking the sheen of the thing was wearing a little thin.

Not a great show then but perhaps just another way for GW to alienate and disappoint its customers.

Forge World's Eldar Lynx Build Guide

One of my local gaming clubs has a bunch of Apocalypse games planned for the summer so I picked up this Eldar Super-heavy at Salute.

It is not the heaviest of heavies. Its slightly smaller and less expensive, both in points and currency, than a Cobra. But it still packs a mean punch, with a choice of either a two-shot Destroyer cannon or an apocalyptic template D-weapon. It only has two structure points, but its Titan holo-fields give it a decent Invulnerable or Cover Save each time it moves. But what's it like tto build?

Turns out, pretty easy. Its a nice straightforward kit with a minimum of parts, most of which are easily removed from their sprues. There's lots of big flat surfaces to glue together as well, so you end up with a fairly solid little tank. Apart from the antennae, but we'll get to them later. Also note this is the Pulsar version of the Lynx. Construction for the Sonic Lance version might vary, but likely only in the shape of a couple of the components.

So it looks like there's a lot of stuff in the bag the Lynx comes in. And clearly some of the parts are likely to be warped. Boiled water does the job of straightening out things like the cannon barrel and wing tips, so no big deal.

 You're probably going to start with the main fuselage. Its three large chunks of resin and they all slot together nicely.

 I recommend adding the weapon power plant and the engines next, before the control flaps/jets on either side. This is because when you are applying pressure to the engine parts, waiting for the glue to dry, you will likely be tempted to brace your fingers against the side of the tank, making pulling those flaps off again if the glue there isn't perfectly dry.

When you glue the engines on though, the two long ones go in the inside positions on each side, the shorter ones on the outside. There are tabs at the base of the engine components to guide their alignment, though you may need to trim them a little for a smooth fit. And yes, I did cut my thumb open while making this kit ><

 Here's the control surfaces at the left side of the tank. You can see the shorter piece goes to the front, the longer at the rear. Mine were a little warped, something I didn't notice until I had glued them on, so check yours and heat-treat if needed.

 The main weapon comes in two parts. A power plant type thingy for the back end. Again, there is a tab that may need trimming.

And the main pulsar barrel at the front. Another tab to make sure it is aligned properly.

 The kit also comes with four warp vanes/antennae. There are two long and two short. I suppose you could put them pretty much wherever you want and there's probably some scope for artistic interpretation there. I prefer to just stick mine on like the ones on the Forge World site though, so its the long ones in the middle and the short ones on the outside surfaces.

Make no mistake though; these vanes are tied for worst part of this whole kit. As they are resin, they are almost guaranteed to be warped when you get them and furthermore brittle and incredibly prone to snapping. I mean really prone to snap. I've definitely snapped three of them with only light pressure. Its going to make transporting this thing a pain in the bum, :( So be very very careful with them, or use spare plastic ones if you have them.

The only part of the kit that rivals the vanes in the Bad Design awards has to be the stand. For this large chunk of expensive resin you get: a standard 40mm flying base. There is a hole drilled in the base of the tank, but if you insert the stand into it the tank does not balance and just lists to one side. Maybe I got unlucky and got a Lynx with an over-drilled hole, but I doubt it. I have instead magnetised the base and the stand so its now nice and solidly attached.

Thats it for the construction. I forgot to take a picture of the secondary weapon mount, but its fairly obvious where it attaches below the cockpit. You only get the shuriken cannon option in the kit though, so, if you're playing a really strict game of Apocalypse, where WYSIWYG is observed, you might want to mod this bit before deploying.

Next: the painted model and battle report.

Salute 2013 Part 1 - Anvil Industries

This past weekend saw Salute 2013 go off at the Excel Centre in lovely London. It was my third time at the event and the most fun I've had there to date. Part of that is probably due to amount of toys I came home with, the first of which I'm showcasing here.

The floor was fairly dominated by retailers this year and there was a fair amount for sale to fans of 28mm gaming. The first thing that really caught my eye was the Anvil Industries stand. I have, in the past, enjoyed the Horus Heresy novels and it has been fun seeing Forge World come out with models to match. I really like the more baroque styles of armour and weapons they have been putting out. Their prices though are something else. Now, I'm not saying Anvil are making their own version of FW's stuff. But it is extremely 'compatible'. That is, it shares enough similarities that, I reckon, you could use Anvil's 'Exo Lords' in your 40k or 30k games, but with some different twists.

 

It was the Black Ops squad that first attracted me. They look like knights in space (notice I didn't say 'space marines' there?) but with a Halo accent. Extra ammo pouches, more streamlined weapons, but still like dark ages suits of armour with power packs. Perfect, I decided for bulking out my Blood Angels Vanguard Veterans in time for some Apocalypse games this summer.

The only hangup was realising the Black Ops packs only come with rifles - not close combat weapons. Luckily you can buy most of Anvil's range 'a la carte' - mix and match legs, torsos etc. to get the look you want.

Now, get ready for really the cool part - the complete set of five miniatures cost me £14.50. For all five. I then bought some 'Silver Wing' jet packs from Max Mini at £6, meaning I now have a full assault squad in cool armour for twenty quid. A similar sized set up from FW would run to £33. I added some chainswords and purity seals from my bits box to get some extra Blood Angels flavour, but this is still a massive saving.

 

The guys running the Anvil stand were also really friendly and helpful. Every part I chose they showed me several different styles they had for sale and I felt like I was really getting the models I wanted, rather than the ones they were trying to sell me.

 

There are options for 40k players then - at least if you play marines or, maybe, guard. Not so much Eldar or Tau and it would be nice to see a few more companies in the market with alternate parts for those races. Maybe the Chapterhouse/GW legal tussle is keeping companies out of that arena for now, although recent depositions and testimonies would suggest GW doesn't really have a leg to stand on when it come to some of their copyright claims.

So, now I've told you all about the alternatives to expensive Forge World resin, my next post will be about the Eldar Lynx I bought :)

Wargames Terrain: Oil Barrels

In ascending order of awesomeness, here are some awesome things to look at:

• A gaming table full of models fighting each other
• A gaming table full of painted models fighting each other
• A gaming table full of painted models fighting each other in and around painted scenery and objectives.

This week I decided to challenge myself a little bit and paint something I don't normally do: scenery. GW added exploding fuel dumps as an optional extra to the latest version of 40k. I have had a small piece of barrel-filled scenery sitting on the shelf for months now, plus I came home with another set from Games Day (free! From GW!), so I decided to paint those suckers up and make some. obstacles/objectives for wargames.

First up, the set of barrels and jerry cans from the GW batttlefield scenery kit. You only get three barrels and two cans in the set, which is barely enough to make one fuel dump. Its representative of a fuel dump, is probably as generously as its possible to describe the piece. But with 6th ed. rules you can hide behind them, I guess, and thus make them explode. So hey ho.

On the other hand, these are the barrels GW gave me fore free(!) at Games Day this year. Now thats more like it. A proper collection of potentially explosive containers. They also gave me some tinfoil (!) and half-heartedly told me I could paint it as camo netting. I binned that though as I had a better idea - see below.

First the paints used and techniques. This all comes from Forge World's Model Masterclass Volume 1 - a great primer on advanced modeling and painting.

I sprayed the cans with Desert Yellow first. GW don't make this paint any more, of course, because it was great, so you'll need to find your own alternative. It doesn't really matter too much what you choose as the base as you'll be weathering the *&%$ out of it later on. But I recommend a khaki or olive colour for verisimilitude.

I then sponged on Charadon Granite to get the chipping, concentrating on raised edges and the top and bottoms of the barrels as this is where the worst wear would occur. And that is a hard sentence to say or type.If you can't get Charadon Granite, look for a dark grey, almost black to sponge on instead.

 To pick out the details I used a mix of black and brown oil paints, thinned with thinners, gently pushed into the corners and crevices. The nature of the thinners causes the mix to flow along these lines, so mixing it up in the first place is probably the hardest part of this job.

I then made up some rust with the brown oil paint. some thinners, and some rust weathering powder. I flicked this onto the drums just by stroking my finger along the bristles of an old brush that was loaded with the rust mix. You get a nice splattering pattern this way, which you can then soften up by spraying on more thinners.

I used thinned brown ink as 'oil' and dribbled it around the seams of the barrels and on the flooring around them. This is definitely a no-smoking area. Lots of oil and dirt lying around. These cans are meant to be used and reused.

To make the larger stack of barrels a proper source of cover and concealment, I wanted to add some camo netting that would look a bit more convincing than painted tinfoil. I'm not saying you can't paint tinfoil to look awesome. Just that I can't. So, using another technique from Model Masterclass, I raided my First Aid box for a bit of bandage. I soaked this in watered down PVA glue, wrung it out, then draped it over the barrels.

The next morning the bandage had dried almost completely stiff. I first glued on several strips of thin masking tape. then painted it all with watered-down Graveyard Earth and lots of it. The bandage naturally soaks up the paint, I may have wrung too much of the glue out, and requires lots of coverage. I finished it off with a drybrush of Kommando Khaki, and hey presto, a camoflaged fueld dump.

 I'm very pleased with how the barrels came out, perhaps less so with the camo netting. I wonder if there is some way to paint the fabric before gluing it and setting it in place.

For now, I have two nicely painted bits of scenery to go on the table :) Next up - the ammo canisters.

Losing Weight, the Forge World Way!

As a middle-aged man who is at home most of the day with the kids, it was easy to become, shall we say, 'well-built'. Or we could say 'fat'. its up to you. Whatever you choose, I am quite certainly the visual definition of overweight. Medical charts would classify me as being dangerously so. Not in imminent danger of diabetes, heart disease, or any of the myriad other health issues weight can precipitate, but certainly heading that way. Ok, I'll be brutal - I'm obese.

Thank you, Doctor.

The key to successful change of any kind though is motivation. Sometimes this can be fear of negative consequences but such is human nature that more often than not the appeal of gaining something is far more powerful. So I have decided to utilise a trick that helped me quit smoking nearly a decade ago to help me lose weight.

I simply added up all the money I was going to spend on tabs and instead spent it, guilt free, on toys.

Thank you Valve, and Gordon Freeman, for saving me from lung cancer.

I did this with a simple spreadsheet. One column had the day's date. The next, how much I would have spent that day on nicotine. The third kept a running total of that cash. Being that smoking is habitual, it was easy to make a count each day of how many cigarettes I was likely to have consumed. One after breakfast, another mid-morning, maybe a couple at lunch time, one late afternoon, two, maybe three in the evening, and so on. I knew what my triggers were, when I was likely to have needed more nicotine, would have been too busy to smoke and so on. Before long I had a steadily growing total of cash saved up.

Just in case anyone reading still doesn't know that.

Note I did not stop myself from smoking per se. If I really wanted one, I could have one. But it took practically no time at all before the potential reward (another £6 to add to the total!) quickly outweighed the desire to smoke. Instead of satisfying that craving to sit down, relax, chill, smoke, I could remind myself I intended to buy a new graphics card for my PC and I would far rather have that than five minutes poisoning myself.

It is easier, then, to change a habit for a reward than it is for a punishment.

So, with my weight, I have decided (with my wife's support too!) that for the next three months, I will be rewarded with £10 for every 1% of body weight I lose down to 100kg. I currently weigh just over 116kg, meaning I could gain about £150 to splurge on Forge World!

Swapping a gut for this.

The cash incentive is to help me form new habits, healthy habits, that will get me fitter and slimmer, faster. Instead of sitting in front of the PC or TV in the evening I can go for a walk or run. I can say 'no' to those late night cravings for cereal, bread and peanut butter, or chocolate, and instead check out Forge World's website for new models, books and supplies.

How far would I have to run to get these boys?

 It is already working. Instead of wasting the morning surfing the web and mooching around the house, I am going for a swim. Maybe I 'll spend the afternoon digging the garden. Maybe I won't as I will have my 5-month old boy with me. But maybe I'll spend the time bench-pressing and bicep curling him instead :)

And then I can re-watch the Horus Heresy trailer and plan out tomorrow's exercises....

Thats the plan then and I would love to hear from any other overweight gamers who would like to lose weight along with me. Maybe some sort of friendly competition? A fortnightly weigh-off with prizes for the winner? Or just get in touch if you want help getting motivated to get slim and/or more healthy. If I can figure it out, I will share the Google Doc with my weigh ins here - any tips on how to do that would also be welcome. Thanks :)

UPDATE: As of 31/8/12, one week in to the plan, and I have lost 1.2kg, just over 1% :) Thats the first £10 done!

Good old fashioned Blood Angel Terminators (with NMM)

I had a great day at Wayland Games/Tabletop Nation today, including a sweet game of 40k where my Eldar/Corsairs tabled a bunch of Grey Knights :) More on that tomorrow (I think). For today, here's some Blood Angel Terminators I painted a while back.

 Having painted nearly thirty Space Wolf Termies before this lot, it was kind of a relief to build and paint models with pretty much the same armour and equipment. Paint for the armour is the usual recipe of Mechrite Red, Blood Red layer, Blazing Orange and Vomit Brown highlights and Graveyard Earth shade.

 The Storm Shield has a very basic Codex Grey base. I forgot what I used for shades and highlights. I believe the cracked effects are just lines of Codex Grey/Chaos Black mix, with a very fine highlight of skull white (maybe a very light grey?) to give that 3D effect.

The 'nid skull is a spare from a genestealer sprue. Its a happy coincidence that the few 'nids I have painted have been that colour as it matches the colours on the termies really well. Almost as if I planned it...

 Side view - so you can see the Forge World shoulder pads. The sculpt quality is pretty good. You can keep the ribbons and parchment as far as I am concerned, but the winged blood drops are really sharply cast - very easy to paint up with a striking contrast between the recesses and raised points. I don't think the Blood Angels pack is nearly as good as the Space Wolves one - it would have been nice to see a proper conversion kit, rather than just an upgrade style pack. But they are still a nice way to mark out your BA terminators out as different than the plain boxed ones.

 So here I wanted to show the blend I did for the NMM effect on the Thunder Hammer. There's something about taking pictures with my phone when the light is really strong though, hence that bar effect you can see. I suspect its just that the light is too strong for my camera, but hopefully you get the idea. For a steel effect, I often start with a base of Hawk Turquoise/Bleached Bone. I then blend up to Space Wolves Grey, then through to White. I blend down to Regal Blue.

Getting this NMM effect is, in my opinion, easier on smaller pieces, like these blades or Dreadnought claws, than on big pieces of armour. Thats because you only have to worry about light coming from one direction. Often my NMM blends can actually look really crumby until the very last step - the edge highlight and notching. I often do this with my lightest blend of the base but you can do it with straight white paint too. Basically, you overbrush the edges (every one!) so you get a fine edge highlight and then add a few diagonal streaks. Depending on how you do it, you can get either the effect of the blade being pitted from striking hard objects of seeming to shine with reflected light.

You don't have to do a NMM blend to get this effect either. Even if you use the old Boltgun Metal/Badab Black wash, followed by a drybrush with Chainmail technique, you can add a degree of verisimilitude to your blade by adding these notches/streaks. The trick is getting the lines thing enough to look natural and then knowing when to stop :)

PLEASE do feel free to ask any questions. I know you are reading this :) If you have any questions about any of the stuff I have painted or written about, leave a comment. Unless you're going to be rude, of course. In which case, move on - this isn't the place for you :)

Eldar Corsairs

I have been posting a lot of photos and text about my Corsair flyers. The sad truth of it though, is that you have to field at least one unit of Corsairs in a legal army. Sad because I hate painting Eldar.

Not their tanks or planes. Just the little individual models. Maybe its the quality of sculpts (unlikely), amaybe its a weakness in my painting skills (most probable). But while I can paint Terminators and Space Marines till the cows come home, Eldar armour is a pain the bum. But still, needs must...

So here are my pretty much finished Sun Blitz Brotherhood Eldar Corsairs. They're not much to look at - I have had to adopt a 'tabletop standard' philosophy towards them in order to just get them done so I can move onto something more fun again.

 

I hope they're more fun to play than they were to paint

 Its probably worth saying a few things about the Forge World Eldar Corsairs upgrade kit though.

For your money, you get 10 Corsair las-blasters, 10 Corsair heads, 10 Corsair backpacks, and 20 Corsair vanes to stick on them. For the Felarch you have the option of a shuriken pistol or fusion pistol to complement his power sword.

How the parts come in the bag

The las-blasters will require their handles to be chopped off for you to add them to the arms that come with the Guardians box ( from which you will of course need to remove the shuriken guns). The backpacks stick straight onto the Guardian bodies and the vanes are somewhat poseable, having ball and socket joints to fit into.

Orientation of the backpack and vanes

The vanes are the most distinctive parts of the kit and are what will really draw people's attention when you field the models. The helmets and las-blasters though are both nice sculpts though and do a nice job of differentiating these wayward space elves from their worldship-bound cousins.

Some nice options for the Felarch

 Apart from the modification necessary to use the guns, the kit is very easy to use and put together. Some of the guns and vanes in my kit were a little bent but they are so thin they could be reset with hot tap water. No miscasts or bubbles that I could see.

Are they worth the money though? Well, its horses for courses, really, isn't it? You could get away with painting up some standard Guardians in your Corsair fleet of choice's colours, I'm sure. But, if you really want your pirates to be clearly different, this kit is great, particularly if you are planning on fielding them alongside Codex Eldar. Its not cheap, but nothing Forge World is. I would have preferred the guns to have come without handles to eliminate one stage of the upgrade process, but its not a deal breaker by any means. Generally 'ok' for value then.

I did, however, draw the line at the special weapons kit Forge World offer. You get one of each type of heavy weapon Corsairs can carry but for me, this would just leave two weapons on the sprue, never to be used. If the kit came with two of each type and didn't cost £4 per weapon I might have sprung for it. As it was, I decided to kit-bash a missile launcher and shuriken cannon. Each weapon consists of four or more pieces stuck together and are reasonable, if slightly oversized, simulacrums of the 'official' parts. And a lot better value for money.

Just the bases and a power sword to do then, and I can get on with painting something a bit more fun :)

Forge World Void Dragon Phoenix - How Not to Build a Model

This week I got to move to the next phase of my planned domination of the skies by the Space Elves - the Phoenix Bomber.

I was at Warhammer World last weekend, up at the tills, trying to decide which of the two Phoenix models to get. They cost the same. But there is the vanilla version and the Void Dragon edition. In theory, the latter is a special reworking of the original, with a few extra details and female pilots. I believe the supplied weapons vary too. I was a little concerned there might some blatant Dragon motifs on the thing, making it a little uncool for my Sun Blitz Brotherhood detachment. Turns out that stuff doesn't matter - the model is absolute crap any way.

It started off well. Here's a picture of what you get in the box/bag:

At this stage, the model is awesome

The most striking feature of the set is the flyer is pretty much a solid single cast. Its a hefty beast, and you just have to stick on the engine nozzles, two sets of fins, and the cockpit surrounds. All good, yes? No.

For a start, the main body is attached to a a chuck of resin by three solid pylons of material and a substantial amount of flash. Cutting through the flash ought to be simple enough. Except for when you have to get through a pretty solid chucnk of it first, causing your blade to then suddenly run through the inexplicably thin and cuttable wing section. Leaving you with this:

OK, maybe I'm just not a good modeler

Great! A chance to put the greenstuff techniques I learned at the Open Day to use! Grrr... This one I was prepared to put down to poor technique on my behalf when cutting. Lesson learned, I said, move on to the next bit and we'll fix that one later. Its hardly noticeable....

Then I got to grips with the dorsal fins. As far as I can tell, the Void Dragon versions have cutouts, making them more, I dunno, spacey or something. Problem is, they too are attached to a big lump of resin.

Starting to think I'm not the problem

Yeah, thats the upper surface the resin is attached to too. Not the bottom surface you glue to another surface, you know, like a surface you can't see. No, its the top surface. Good luck getting that lump off without ending up with something like this:

That is not my fault

Maybe expert modelers know some foolproof way to deal with issues like that. I would have gone with not casting it that way round to start with, but hey, what do I know. That I need to do more greenstuffing, thats what.

Well, I thought, at least the cockpit canopies look pretty simple. I'll just stick those down, paint them, then add the clear plastic after. Piece of cake. Except....

I knew Eldar were supposed to be tall, but...

Thats right - the pilots are too tall for the cockpits. You can get the canopy surrounds glued on ok (as long as you're prepared to spend a good bit of time figuring out which bits are excess resin and which bits are supposed to look that way, then cutting and filing to make them all sit nicely against each other), but it is then physically impossible to get the clear plastic tops on because the bloody heads are too high.

At this point I realised that my clumsy fingers and lack of experience weren't the problem. Its the actual model itself. And don't even try to tell me Forge World is for experienced modelers and will require some finishing work. I can handle filing don the broken surfaces that are on every single piece of this kit. I can reshape bits with warm water. I can fill bubbles with glue or greenstuff. All that is doable. But come on - at least sculpt pilots that are the right size for the bloody model!

After all that hassle then,  I am left with the choice tonight of waiting till Monday morning to ring FW and ask them 'are all the models this crap, or did I just get really unlucky?' or chopping the heads off the pilots, gluing on the plastics, and then just painting over it all.

I am, shall we say, a little disappointed.

And the bloody weapon pods broke off when I tried to glue the canopies on

Maybe the vanilla Phoenix is great. Maybe I got a bad cast. I don't know. For £67 though, it ought to fit.

OK, rant over. I've spent some time this evening with warm water and lots of greenstuff. Tomorrow I should be able to post some pics of the almost good version of it.

Games Workshop Studio Open Day

It was a bit of an odyssey getting there, but yesterday was the GW Studio Open Day. Well, it was initally advertised as such, but at some point that got changed to Warhammer 40,000 Open Day. Still, a good time was had by most.

Having arrived ridiculously early, I found this in the car park:

Naff colour scheme

Apparently the thing is street legal but is immobilized while on display. Yeah, I tweeted a bad joke about rolling a one. Anyway, if you plan on stealing it, bring your own battery.

The doors rolled open on time, at 10am, and in we all trooped.

The whole gaming hall of Warhammer World (or are we supposed to call it GW:HQ now?) had been put to use, with a fenced enclosure full of display cabinets, demo game tables, and, most importantly, Design Studio staff waiting to answer questions and tell us how they make the magic happen. Wait, wrong company? Well, tell us how they do that voodoo dey do do. Or something.

This was a great opportunity to learn from the masters, as it were, and I got a great little tutorial from Edgar Ramos on sculpting cloaks. There was a genuine 'Eureka!' moment, where I realised the trick, that little simple piece of magic that makes these things work, as well as a great look at how a master works, tips on tools to buy, and he even wrote down the name of a good book for further reading. Thanks, Edgar!

Nerds ahoy!

As well as hands on demos, there were also a lot scheduled demos and seminars. These were ticket only events - one had to choose which ones to attend before entering the hall - but, really, once you were in a seminar room the policy is pretty easy going. Its quite possible to stay in the same seat all day and just enjoy talk after talk.

So, what did I see and what did I learn?

First up was a talk on the latest edition of 40k, with Jervis Johnson, Matt Ward, and Jeremy Vettock. Matt was there to talk rules, Jeremy because he was in charge of background, and Jervis because, well, he's Jervis Johnson, man!

We started with some pre-written questions, supposedly based on FAQ's from the community. To be fair, some of these were fairly pointed - why have you added Allies and Fortifications to the rules, for example. The real answer is, of course, because we are a miniatures company that wants to sell more miniatures so we have broadened the amount of stuff you can play in your armies hoping you will therefore buy more of it. Questions such as this were met with fairly professional PR-style answers though - '40k fiction has often featured great alliances but the game has not. We wanted to bring that back to the game and also we want you to be able to play with a cool model if you see it and like it'. Both answers are true of course.

A couple of other titbits - Jervis said 'fantastic new buildings models coming into the range', in reference to the fortifications question. So yes, new buildings are on the way.


Matt Ward said random charge were in the game now as a response to the new wound allocation system. As you lose the closest models during shooting/overwatch, the designers wanted you to still have the chance of pulling off a charge afterwards.

He also said challenges in combat were designed to redress issues typified by the marine sergeant. If he has a power fist, he is essentially a 10-wound model who tends to hide at the back of the combat until the last second when he steps forward and wipes out the enemy squad. Alternately, if he is a Devastator sergeant, he dies first. With challenges, the idea is  you might have one model holding off a particularly powerful enemy, such as a daemon prince, until his squad could finish off the rest and come to his aid. 


The issue of not being able to charge after arriving from reserves was also tackled. The guys said they wanted to remove 'mugging' from the game. The idea of players being able to pull off some hammer-smash, wipeout manouevre, without their opponent being able to react or resist in any way, was unpopular with the designers. Genestealers outflanking and then assaulting you to death was mentioned (although Jervis pointed out to Matt Ward that could still happen) but, more specifically, Vanguard Veterans and Heroic Intervention was singled out as a tactic that will be removed from the game in future.


Jervis also said future codexes will rely less on codex-specific special rules and abilities and more on the core rulebook's USRs. The idea is that by making the core rules more robust, there will be less possibilities of imbalance in future releases. I'm not sure how well this sits with Matt Ward, being infamous as he is for writing codexes with game-shattering rules within. But apparently thats the way we're going.


After that talk I got to go to a sculpting demo with Martin Footit (very good), one on painting Space Marine chapter markings on shoulder pads with Simon Adams (not so good), and a further demo of painting and weathering an Ork Bomma with Stuart Williamson of Forge World (very very good). 


After that it was pretty much time to go. Despite taking place in a fairly small venue, its still a lot to take in and can be quite tiring. 

Its a bomma! Its a bomma, yeah, yeah, yeah!

It is still very inspiring though. Seeing dozens of fellow hobbyists, meeting and watching some of the best painters and modelers in the world and hearing from some of the creators who made all this stuff happened in the first place is very inspiring. These events make me believe in 40k and want to build my own little part of its universe. 


GW does well to put these kind of events together. Frankly, it makes you forget all the awful marketing decisions, all the price rises, and the insulting memos from senior staff and just love the hobby. It could be better though.


Apart from Jervis, none of the GW staff seemed comfortable with or happy to be talking to the public. In the first talk, for example, all three speakers made a big deal out of not wanting to handle the microphone or handle the questions being asked. This is a big deal - why have a public-facing, PR event like this if you are going to put people in front of the public who make it clear they don't want to be there? 

Building this is easy. Talking to people about it, however...

Its a shame in two ways. Firstly, for the guys giving the talks/demonstrations. These guys could be, should be, like rock stars. You're in a room with a hundred or more people who have paid to come and see you because you are bloody good at your job. Should this not be something you enjoy and get a kick out of? Shouldn't it be fun, talking to fans and sharing your knowledge and expertise? Secondly, the fans, the punters, paid to see their idols/role models. Shouldn't we fell welcome and wanted? Shouldn't we feel these guys are approachable, warm, happy to be there? Its not nice to pay for an event and see people who make it obvious they would rather be at home in front of the TV.


Its true that public speaking is a major fear for a lot of people. But it is also true most of these people could be coached and trained to get past that fear and actually enjoy the experience. I know because I married a Vocal Coach. Seb Perbet mentioned he had recently attended a four-day course on anatomy and physiology, paid for by GW, just so he could be a better sculptor. If meeting the public is going to be part of the job, shouldn't GW stump up for some speaking training too?


Still, it was a great day out. You needed to go to the talks to make the day complete - the demo area in the gaming hall is not that big - and it helps that there is a great bar on hand too. But it was still an excellent opportunity to to geek-out, learn from the best, and go home with more toys to play with and more ideas to make them great.


Thanks, GW :)