Hobby Dungeon

Do you remember Storm of Chaos, Dark Shadows, or even A Dark Conspiracy?   Well I do. Storm of Chaos came out in 2004, at the peak of my juvenile interest in Warhammer Fantasy and captured my imagination. I would have been 13 or 14 that year, and it happened right before I moved across the country and away from my friends and my local GW store. For those who are unfamiliar, Storm of Chaos was a global campaign - an event hosted by Games Workshop where players could go into any GW shop, play a game, and have those results recorded. All of the results from all over the world would be tallied up and help to decide the fate of the Old World.  The idea that I could participate in something that actually had an effect on the world I cared so much about was amazing - and groundbreaking for a pre-teen Andrew. I have always wanted to participate in another one of these events, now that I am an adult who can carve out a bit of time and energy for something like this - I wanted to do it right and

Barak Thingaz (The Forest Gate in Khazalid) is a fortress built south of the Black Mountains and Karak Hirn, in the land of the border princes. For dwarfs, it is a very strange place. Many aspects of dwarfen life and culture that do not normally mix can be found to inhabit this holdfast. In the first place, the fort is not built into a mountain - it is built around a stone tower in the middle of a dark forest, with stout palisade walls of massive timbers. Dwarfs are not normally known as forest creatures, but these dwarfs have found some advantages to living away from the mountains. The hold was founded and is currently led by an engineer named Ogam Oathkeeper, who was forced out of Karak Hirn for his dangerous engineering experiments. The king of that hold feared Ogam would explode the entire mountain on accident and exiled him to practice his engineering away from the ancient dwarf lands. Around his engineering workshop a variety of industries sprang up. A distillery and brewery we

This post is going to be something of a ramble, as I’m working through my thoughts on the current dwarf army project I am embarking on. On a recent episode of Hive Scum, there was some discussion about coming up with lore and story for armies on the table. One of the suggestions that I really liked was having names and histories for each unit. This helped resolve a bit of an issue I have been having with my dwarf army. Most of my army has been recently acquired, and I have more models than I know what to do with currently. I wanted to develop a narrative for my army, but I’m trying to figure out how to bring it all together. I will probably be playing predominantly The Old World, so I picked up the Arcane Journal for the Dwarf Mountain Holds. In that book, they list two armies of renown (I think that’s what they were called), which are themed lists. The two lists are polar opposites, but they each get at something core to the dwarf sensibility. The Royal Clans take no gunpowder

I've been quiet for a few weeks, but I have still been busy working in the dungeon! Stepping away from IG has been restful, and it has inclined me to also take a step back from a lot of other obligations in my life and re-orient some of my priorities. I've been enjoying my quiet time and have been using that extra time to read through The Old World rulebooks which I picked up on a lark. I've played a fair amount of OPR Regiments over the last year (and have loved it so much), but something about the crunch and the character drew me back into the world of Warhammer Fantasy. I've been building lists, theory crafting, and digging my old dwarf army out of storage and bits boxes. In fact, I've been buying and sourcing dwarf models from anywhere I can find them (huge shout out to my bud Rory for giving me a ziploc full of dwarf warriors). My existing dwarf models were on a mix of 20 and 25 mm, and a mix of square and round bases. They are also painted in

Over the last few years I've repeatedly stumbled over the work of Alexander from 28 Magazine. Specifically, the work he has done with his Lord of the Rings miniatures. What is so striking to me about these miniatures, is that they fit an aesthetic of LOTR that I have had in my head since I was a child, and which I have not seen for many years. When I was younger I had the 1991 collected LOTR in a single volume, complete with colour illustrations by Alan Lee. This was not long after I had read The Hobbit, and been totally enchanted by the world of middle earth. The combination of these pieces of art (especially being prior to the Peter Jackson films) created a strong image an aesthetic in my mind. It was earthy and simple, and always seemed to in soft pastel colours. I know now that my memories are influenced heavily by Alan Lee's artwork, which itself was not original - only the most recent at the time of my reading. Alan Lee LOTR Illustration All of these ideas of what the Lo

I am feeling very overwhelmed. I am writing this on Tuesday morning after arriving home on Sunday night at midnight from Dungeon Fest. My mind and body are still recovering from that whirlwind of an event. I know Rat Boy Rory is going to be taking even longer to recover than I am - he birthed this wild event in his brain, and then carried it forward into the world. We owe it to Rory that this event was such a success. And what a success it was! All throughout the weekend there was chatter about what we were going to be doing 'next year', which made us feel like people were excited to come back before they even left. But I'm getting ahead of myself. What is Dungeon Fest? Well, Dungeon Fest is a two day gaming and culture event in Calgary, Alberta that takes heavy inspiration from Under the Dice Fest in Chicopee, Massachusetts. There were full day gaming events of Mordheim, MTG, and Flames of Orion, as well as pickup games of OPR, Turnip 28, Gaslands, Space Hulk, and Mork Bor