Sunday 8 November 2009

Go go Goblins!

The last couple of weeks I've gone Warhammer crazy! Well, not quite, but I have splashed out. After playing WFB with Matt a couple of weeks ago, I've really got the bug for the game and the idea of collecting a Goblin Army started whirling in my head. I put up a half decent resistance (a week or so) then, while passing Games Workshop, picked up a plastic Giant kit and the Orcs and Goblins Army book.

Although I'm a committed Frugal Gamer (this year), I've always said that this means I'm prepared to pay a little bit more to get a quality product (link to previous post). I know I've criticised GW in the past, but the giant kit is absolutely fantastic (and ripe for conversion) and the Orc and Goblin Army Book provides a huge range of options to play greenskins. I was a little worried that by choosing to take the all-goblin route I'd be limiting myself, but there are myriad options for armies comprised entirely of the little guys. And one very big guy...

As often happens, the buying didn't stop there; I came across the GAME OVER blog run by Von (hello Von!), also based in Plymouth. It's a really nice blog, currently focusing on non-GW games, such as Warmachine and World of Warcraft, so if you play them go and check it out, in fact go and check it out anyway.

On a recent post, Von mentioned that he had a load of plastic goblins to get rid of (and a few metal ones), so *sigh* I had to get in touch and take them off his hands... This now means I have nearly 100 goblins to paint (1 big tin of green paint and 1 big brush?), I can't see them getting done until next year, but I'm really looking forward to it and looking forward to getting some games played!

My next painting priority is my 40k force, I'm still planning to have my Dark Eldar all painted by January of next year, this way I'll be able to enter into PAW 2010, with a fully painted force (and go for the painting prize!).

All this planned gaming leads me to start thinking about gaming surfaces. At present I play Necromunda on home made terrain tiles, but if I get into 40k and Fantasy more, will I need a new gaming surface? I've currently got a fold out cloth gaming surface that I put over the table and that seems to suffice, but I suppose a full size textured and modelled gaming table would come in useful...

Make sure you come and visit the site next week when I'll have big big news, it affects you all and will herald a whole new year of Frugal Gaming!

By the way, the blog currently has 49 followers, who's going to make it 50?

4 comments:

Von said...

40K should tick along nicely on your Necromunda terrain, to be honest, especially if you're prepared to splash out on the Cities of Death supplement (and I do recommend it: close, stealthy firefights over dense terrain with the crazy strategem/scenario stuff from that book play more like scaled-up stripped-down Necromunda than 40K, and that's frankly the most fun I ever had with the system).

As far as fantasy gaming goes, that's a bit more tricky, although your Goblins might look quite swish on grey slate bases (and that'd probably tie in with whatever base colour you're using for Necromunda). They do live in caves and up mountains, after all...

Dave said...

Hiya Von, unfortunately my Necromunda terrain is very very cramped, so it's not entirely suitable for moving tanks around!

I was thinking of snow covered bases for my Dark Eldar (this will help to show off the terrible colours I'm painting them in), so I may go for a snow covered board...

Of course, that'll mean the Gobbos will have to have snow bases as well, some interesting conversions may be in order. Yetis instead of Trolls?

Von said...

Having trouble moving tanks around is part of the charm of Cityfight and what makes it different from ordinary 40K. They become much more of a firebase than a mobile threat projector and tend to park up at the end of roads or overlooking objectives, tearing up whatever they can see (rather than roaring across the table on turn five to render the mission a moot point by contesting all the objectives, which is what happened in literally every game of 40K I played last year).

On the other hand, snow would be cool, and Yeti are extremely cool. A snow-covered city for 40K would be even cooler (although the homage to Stalingrad's been done several bajillion times before, it's still quite striking).

Colin Hagreen said...

One cheap and high quality option is to buy a Mat-of-War from Antenociti's Workshop - http://www.barrule.com/workshop/gaming%20mats/gaming%20mats%20for%20wargamers.html.

Tip 1: Buy the brown mat. Get some green emilsion in a saucer, and a sponge. Dip the sponge, dab on newspaper until almost dry, then apply to the mat. Once you have a light patchy covering, go over the top with white emulsion paint in exactly the same way. Continue until you get the snowy covering you like.

Tip 2: remember that the cloth has two sides. I have a brown mat with a grey road grid applied in exactly that way on one side. Great for Cities of Death, or turn it over for more open terrain.

Wulfric