Hobby Dungeon

Guardians sheltering from a Tau gun line. This weekend I played my first game (40k, AOS, or otherwise) in a hobby shop. I have always had an aversion to spending time in a shop unless I was there to make a purchase or to browse, and I think these feelings come from bad encounters I have had in GW stores. This store, however, was an independent game store in my city. My usual gripe is that GW staff can be fairly aggressive at times, and I know that this is a stereotype and lot's of people have good experiences at their local GW, but I haven't had those experiences. Jet bikes rushing up the center. Because of this, I have been put off of meeting new players in my area and have reduced my opportunities to game. Generally, when I become interested in a game, I need to convince a critical mass of my friends to get invested, and then we all play together. The problem here is that we all approach the hobby with different intensities, and someone like me (serial batch paint...

This was my first ever foray into 40k proper. I have played Killteam a few times, and I enjoyed that system, but it felt like something was missing. We played patrol detachments of 500 points on a 3x3 board, and I had a blast! I don't know what it was about this game that appealed to me so much more than my last few Age of Sigmar, Killteam, or Mordheim games, but maybe if I work through it, I can figure it out. I made a ton of misplays in this game. It was my first game of 40k, and my first time working with Eldar, so I didn't really know how things were going to go. I left guys out of cover too often, I moved my jet bikes onto an objective that didn't matter, my HQ got pinned down for 2 turns because of my poor, and my reinforcements got dropped in awkward spots. Despite all this, we had a close game and both did a ton of damage. I learned that  Eldar units are fine and dandy, but their Psykers are out of control. I played with Eldrad as my HQ, and his spells were insane. ...

Being somewhat isolated due to Covid, I haven't had as many opportunities to game as I would like. I recently discovered Mordheim and fell in love with the system. Unfortunately, I haven't had anyone to play with. I have slowly been bugging my girlfriend to play a game with me, and she finally agreed! We both had a lot of fun, but there was definitely a bit of learning involved. Luckily I had already read through the rulebook and watched some battle reports, so we had a good head start. I was playing Middenheim mercenaries (painted like Averland, because black and yellow is awesome) and she was playing as chaos dwarves. I didn't actually have any chaos dwarves, but that's what she wanted to play, so we used some real dwarves and some chaos. I also had a Centigor that we were able to use as a Bull Centaur. We played a game type where we tried to capture and hold the most buildings without enemies inside. We were a little short on buildings, so we used a stand of trees as...

My hobby project for the last week or so has been something that I have been meaning to do for a few years now: Scatter terrain. Even though I say that, what I made may not qualify perfectly as scatter. I still need to make or acquire some crates, barrels, wagons, and other debris, but I did my best to stick to the same principle. This is stuff that I want to throw down on my Mordheim or Frostgrave board to create clutter, cover, and character. A real hobby blog would have covered all the steps involved, documenting the process thoroughly, but I forgot to take pictures after the first step. Each of these pieces is done the same way (except for the fence and the pillars). I start with sticky craft foam, and attach it to a cardboard base. This provides stability, and also absorbs glue and paint better than cardboard. I glue down all of the rubble that I want, and then I apply a mix of glue and water to the base, pouring sand on top. Once this dries, I go over the sand with more glue and ...

I have been a fan of Gotrek Gurnisson since I was 12 years old. I always wanted the old Gotrek and Felix models, even if the sculpts were squishy and plain. When I saw that Gotrek was back, I was a little perturbed that he didn't have his trademark star-metal axe. I then read the final book in the Slayer series and all my concerns have since evaporated. I wanted to try a bunch of new techniques on this model, some worked well and others were a learning experience. I tried glazing for the first time and am totally satisfied with the results, but my first OSL (object source lighting) attempt wasn't at the same level. These first 3 photos show the model finished and fully based, but the lighting wasn't quite right. Further down there are some pictures without the snow, but with better lighting, so the details (and flaws) are a bit more visible. On this properly lit Gotrek, you can see a bit of the OSL work, as the dim red light glows on his right boot and a bit of debris. The ...