Where's my head @?

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I'm in a somewhat reflective mood and that usually prompts the 'where's my head @?' post rather than 'what's on my palette?'. What is funny is I go back to the last 'where's my head @?' and I discover it was almost exactly 12 months ago that I wrote it. More interesting is that I had a similar sense of ennui at the end of the last hobby season. I already had things I wanted to say here but before that I'm just going to reread what I wrote in 2023...

Some time later

OK, so there is some help from that refresh of how I felt, but let's set the scene now: I finished my Adeptus Titanicus models and I thought let's get into the Leviathan Tyranids. I know my Tyranids, the scheme and that's comfortable and familiar - wrong! It was tedious and demotivating. Ironically the opposite of what happened last year where I thought I could go back to my Terminators and instead leaned into the bugs. I mean I'm persevering with them but it's not much fun.

Additionally, I'm thinking about Armies On Parade, insomuch as I never had a plan for this year, aside from my Leviathan bugs and that's not happening. So I thought about my Knights... except I just ordered the Cerastus Acheron and Castigator and it sure would be nice to have them on the board too. And I was thinking my original DreadTober plan of my Norn Emissary + 2 GSC Sentinels could instead be 2 Cerastus Knights. Except AoP is October so those timelines don't align - which has further skewered my plans and motivation.

On top of that I have been writing my review of the Season. Although I was 'satisfied' for my progress when the Deathwing were done and my [stretch goal] guarantee of satisfaction was the Titans. Well I achieved that - so I was supposed to be free and clear. But the recent lack of mojo and seeing fewer finished models somehow undid that sense of achievement. Thankfully looking at that post from last year has helped. It's pointed out just how much of a challenge those Terminators were, which I ultimately overcame. And, let's remind ourselves of my own pearl of wisdom:

However, as my Hobby Season comes to an end I am fortunate to see that this season has been a bumper one, so if next season is a little more fallow I can live with it.

So, I gave myself permission last year to do less, so I should not be feeling bad about that. And although that is true, the things I've done have been hard work, challenging and significant stumbling blocks in how long they've been on my list. Not to mention models I did not look forward to painting again [Titans] but overcame that reluctance; not just for this effort but possibly any future Titans. In which case, I have a lot to be proud of. 

It's only through writing a reflective post like this, and accidentally discovering the last post covered similar issues that I can move on with positivity. I may not have solved my AoP situation and my bugs are still tedious - I have some WiP posts to explain why, but at least my head is @ a better place now, than when I first thought about writing this post.

Adeptus Titanicus - Cerastus Knight Lancers - WHITE PICS ⚪

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my remaining #AdeptusTitanicus Cerastus Knight Lancers and here are the pics on a white background for the connoisseur.

The heraldry on knights can be a lot of fun to do, but also kill the momentum of a project.

I was quite lucky here in that not being the case.

I also had the advantage of being able to add some Legio Gryphonicus decals too, just to reinforce their commitment to the Titan order.

I randomly decided to add yellow lightning bolts on the shin pad as kill markings. I was only going to do 3, but it looked a little WW2 war symbol, so I added more to make it a pattern.

I love doing the chevrons but the shin on es should be going up at the middle rather than down. I was copying a previous one that went down and now I see it's the opposite of what's on the carapace. Nevermind.

The decals add such a history to the model, which technically it doesn't have!

The orange plasma glow worked great in some places, but the eyes are a bit ropey on both of them, but I can live with it.

Some top down views so you can see how the carapace and shoulder pads were painted.

And the set of 4. As much as I hanker for the 40k Cerastus I think it's just Lancers I'm after for Adeptus Titanicus.

That said, I do want some Questoris so I can copy my 40k knights in epic scale. Until then I hope you enjoyed all these little giant robots.

Belated 9th Anniversary of the birth of the Man Cave

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've had my man cave for 9 years now, it was originally installed on 27th July 2015. But it was mid September before I'd finished insulating and boarding it out, not to mention getting the electricity fitted and moving in.

So a little late in celebrating it's installation but it's all good. I've been busy recently, had some time off and finally been able to get to Otty's on a good day to help with his new hobby shed. I've got a fair few pictures of it being built that I'll share down the line. Sadly [or conveniently?] I wasn't able to be there when a lot of the heavy lifting was needed but I did get to paint one end of the shed, which looks pretty cool.

And then helped Otty, Phil and Liam with insulating and boarding the inside. 40% of the walls were done in 5 hours and we got some insulation in the ceiling too. I'm down for another day on Tuesday, maybe we can get all the walls done by then?

We've had so much fun in his original shed and my own is now 9, it will definitely need a repaint next year for its 10th birthday. Sheds are ace! All hail the man cave.

Adeptus Titanicus - Cerastus Knight Lancers - TO DONE! 🔴

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my remaining #AdeptusTitanicus Cerastus Knight Lancers. I genuinely thought I'd be over painting little giant robots after the titans were done, but it seems I'm not.

These two fellas were a lot fun to finish off and it meant I didn't have to focus on the Lion or my Tyranids.

I'll be honest my enthusiasm and momentum is somewhat lacking at the moment. 

There's just one month left in the season and I don't feel I have the energy to get much done.

We'll see though, but I've blogging to catch up with and a new hobby season to conjure up.

But I did enjoy fitting these in and they were much quicker/easier to do than I had imagined.

One worry is that GW have just announced a twin box for the Cerastus Acheron and Castigator!

I am sorely tempted. I always wanted the Acheron and when the Lancer came out I always hoped one would come with some kind of gatling weapon.

That said I'd been planning on the Acheron and getting 3rd party bits to make the Castigator. 

3D printed sword and using the baneblades Vulcan Mega Bolter to make the gun. It'd be cheaper and I can't ever imagine running 3 Cerastus.

Certainly not if they don't make the Imperial Knights Codex, which is still unconfirmed.

Not to mention there have been rumours of a different knight coming in plastic, who knows what I might want instead.

But for now, these guys are done. I may actually talk about painting them in the white background pics 😂

Another Bloody Great Big Bloody Stamps of Bloody Approval!

3 million

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity almost 3 years ago I hit the 2 million view mark on the blog, which had previously taken 5 years to go from 1 to 2 million and 6 to make the first million! But what does it all mean? Not much if I'm honest. I've said it many times before that I don't covet views, hits or followers. I mark them as a milestone but I don't use them as a measure. In particular the blogger hit counter is getting data from somewhere that never actually correlates with my Google Analytics. 

Not 187,000 views in Google search, that's for sure...

I think it counts web crawlers and all sorts so I don't think this number is a true reflection of how many people are visiting the site. But, the number exists, so I have to acknowledge it, even if I don't agree with it. 

That said my comments are nearly at 6,000, which is a number I can get behind because that's people taking time to talk about the hobby and my efforts within it. I try to respond but I keep finding posts from way back when I didn't [which I should rectify] so it's probably about 3,000 messages from people that are genuine [my spam thankfully is not included in that number, currently at 220].

Interestingly though the 3 million hits has had a massive boost in the past few months. I don't know what's changed but the increase in traffic has been insane - I've had over 180,000 this last month alone! That's nearly triple the highest I'd ever received, which was 63,000 in March this year. Previously the highest was nearly 59,000 in September 2023. But you can see below the last year were pretty solid [apart from May, but even that was 18,000] before it's just gone through the roof this month

I'm going to put it down to adding more search descriptions. If it's bots and web crawlers than I suspect they help a lot. At the end of the day I've no idea what it means. It's a stat I get, I note it and I move on. But within those numbers there are real people still coming to the blog, and if you're one of them then I thank you for sticking with me.

Adeptus Titanicus - Cerastus Knight Lancers

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my remaining #AdeptusTitanicus Cerastus Knight Lancers. I genuinely didn't think I'd get back onto these so soon after the titans. However, I had done a little bit more on the Lion, wasn't feeling inspired to continue with it and hopped back onto these.

And from a position where the gold was mostly done and red was basecoated it hasn't taken too much to get these moved on. Getting the red, black and yellow in place so I know what what each scheme is going to be has been really motivating.

Shading then on all the metallics and on some of the basecoats. Once again the washes seeped underneath the Gamboge Art Acrylic, leaving 'pruned' ripples in places across the surface.

I can fix the worst bits with battle damage, but some additional highlights will also help obscure this anomaly. They're almost complete now. Decals are next, then I can add some highlights, limited battle damage and weathering.

Then lastly - glow FX on the lance and shield. Really surprised how quick I turned these around - easier to paint than a Space Marine. I've no idea why I was reluctant to get these boxed off!

Battle Report - Middle Earth Moria Vs Army of the Dead at Midweek Warhammer World, Game 3 #MESBG

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing MESBG again at Warhammer World! 

Here's my warband 

• Durbûrz
• 2 Goblin Captains
• 4 Goblin Prowlers
• 17 Goblins [of various loadouts]
• 3 Cave Trolls [2 with hammers, 1 with spear]

Drew Mcclelland was next with his 'army of the dead' legendary legion. Now I'll admit I thought these were Ringwraiths when I saw them, they're dead right? Aragorn was leading them, he had a mounted Rider with 6 warriors. Then there was another warband of 8 with the King of the Dead. The mission was Fog of War which had three objectives: pick an opposing character, not leader, and try to kill it [I chose King of the Dead]. Pick one of your characters, not leader, and try to keep it alive [my Goblin Captain with a machete]. And, choose a piece of terrain in your opponents half [I chose the first walkway on the left middle] and have more of your models in/on it at the end of the game. Now the walkways posed an issue. We debated having them not needing climb or jumps to speed things up, but with my bonus to climb/jump Drew didn't want me to lose the benefit. So, outside of the ramps the Goblins would need to climb to get on the walkways,

Drew heroic marched up the board and I just froze! I mean I started to realise what I was facing after lobbing rocks at them. These are all Defence 8! And they are wounding me on my Courage 2, rather than my Defence [ranging from 4 to 6]. Not to mention they all cause Terror, it turns out Aragorn was probably the easiest! Anyway, the Rider gets onto the piece of terrain I was going for, so I manage to get a Troll and some Goblins on there too. 

Bit of a time jump here. Looks like I lost two of my Trolls. I'm not sure if it was this game or the previous one but of the two rounds of duels they were in they scored 1,2,3, on 3D6 each round - hence why they were cut down. At this stage I was just falling apart. I had a slim chance with holding the piece of terrain I'd picked but there was just nothing I could do and Drew had captured his nominated terrain just out of shot on the right.

With my last troll I once again scored 1,2,3! and was unable to take down the Rider, which meant I could only outnumber him on the terrain piece rather than hold it completely

I then managed to butcher a ghost with goblins! I'd got 5s and 6s to beat the terror test, got two 6's to wound and then needed one 4 to kill! That's how tough these ghosts were. I immediately recalled when we were playing Battle Companies, controlling different areas of Middle Earth gave you bonuses, one of which was a warrior of the dead joined your warband for free! Whoever had that was a nightmare and that was just one of them, not 15 and Aragorn! 

So, as the dust settled I'd lost my last game, I scored 1 VP for having more on my terrain target but Drew managed to get 12, for the life of me I don't know how he'd done so badly to face me in the final game. His army was rock solid so I can't understand how he lost the kill points mission. Regardless, this was such a fun game, the highlight of the event for me.

Which leads me to my final thoughts. The midweek event is really cool and much less tiring but the quick pace and short games mean you don’t actually get to spend much time with the person you’re gaming with. Drew and I got on really well, we were laughing and giggling all the time but I was constantly aware of the 90 minutes running out and having to interrupt the giddiness to get on with the game. 

I’m not sure what the answer is but whatever fear I had about the competitive element soon evaporated thanks to my rotten tactics. I was thankfully unbothered about the results, which meant the reward was in the interactions with the person I was gaming with. I mean this has been my observation for years, but my last tournament was January 2019, which was 40k and slightly more competitive. To be playing my least competitive game, in clearly the least competitive fashion means the shared experience is paramount. My slight disappointment is that everything was over too quickly with the clock-watching and eurrgh, actually playing the game, interrupting the banter we had. 

Perhaps the answer is a tournament with fewer and longer games, with no prizes! Just a casual game, with snacks and copious beverages – essentially my Thursday night gaming sessions ha, ha!