Von's Frugal Year: Month the Seventh

Oh yeah, baby.  On time, two months running.  I'm on fire.

Spending Less?

Sort of. I confess I did crack and buy myself the Forces of Cryx book a few weeks ago, but I look on that as getting the most out of an existing model collection and informing future purchase plans and actually bringing myself up to speed with the current game rules, all of which are probably worth it. Anyway, I'm going to make it back, oh yes.

I'm also looking at giving the Blizzard some more money (yes, MORE money) to move my World of Warcraft characters about a bit. It's a rip-off. Daylight robbery for changing a few entries in a database. It will, however, put all the characters I play on the same server, which will make the time I spend playing the game much more efficient (since I can buy heirlooms on the high level ones and speed up the levelling of the low level ones, and their professions can support each other, and I won't basically be doing everything twice because some of my little pixel people are in different invisible pixel places from each other). Won't be doing it juuust yet, though, as I need to make some disposable income appear first.

To help me with the spending that I'll be doing, you see, I'm returning to an age-old Von trick: when hard up, sell some miniatures.

If you're interested in decently painted, discounted-from-UK-RRP Warmachine Mercenary stuff, go here and check out my painted mini auctions. More photos, including close-ups of 'jacks and 'casters, can be found here.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and hum the Last Post for a bit.


Gaming More?

You could say that. For a start, I've got a World of Warcraft character to level 80 (finally, only took me the better part of a year), and another rapidly approaching (72 and counting). The plan of sticking to two characters and levelling them alternately (so one's Resting and gaining a period of doubled experience while I'm playing the other) seems to be working out so far.

I've also been playing my last games of seventh edition Warhammer (*starts humming the Last Post again*), writing up my first list for eighth (Dave will no doubt be delighted to hear that it includes a unit of 40 Spearmen, just to upset his Goblins even more), and trying hard not to want to do another WFB army (I think I'm cured; doing two armies for one system is an extravagance! Doing a new 40K army is too expensive for the moment. FOR THE MOMENT...).

The Dark Heresy game is rattling along nicely; we're now halfway through the ten-part storyline I've written up, we've broken out every token and spare die in the house (except the zombies from Zombies!) for big battle sequences on painstakingly hand-drawn maps (drawn in the last five minutes before the session), and the players are starting to put two and two together. They think they know what the Big Bad is and how the plot is going to resolve.

They could, in fairness, be more wrong... but they're not even remotely close to the truth. Not yet. Moo hoo ha ha...

Von's Frugal Year: Month the Fifth

Written in mid-June, about May. Sigh. We're all falling behind a bit, mostly due to actually doing things instead of blogging about them.

Spending Less - well, I was mostly good. I did shell out £25 on a Cauldron of Blood (since my Dark Elf army needs one in order to destroy you), but that has brought the Dark Elves to a point at which I can say "these are done, I don't need more stuff to play them, have fun and do well".

I've been sticking my fingers in my ears and ignoring the Warmachine releases (although I am, at the very least, going to pick up the Cryx and Mercenary books, a Harrower helljack and a box of Steelhead Riflemen before the year is out), and bracing myself instead for the upcoming release of Warhammer's eighth edition.

Most of the stuff they're releasing around it looks like overpriced ephemera that's not actually massively useful to the practicing gamer, although I admit to quite liking the new template set - and I've paid more than that for plain templates in the past.

The rulebooks themselves are now verging on 'prohibitively expensive', and so I might be borrowing Dave's strategy of waiting until the boxed game comes out, taking out the templates and mini rulebook, and then flogging the rest. GW staff members will no doubt be wailing and gnashing their teeth at this, but the truth is that two hundred (or three hundred) pages of background is a) a luxury for which I'm not able or even willing to pay and b) bloody heavy to carry on your back when you cycle or walk everywhere.

It will mean I have to wait until whenever the box comes out to actually start playing eighth edition, but what the hell, I've still half a Dark Elf army to paint and a couple of Warcraft characters to level.

Ah yes. Warcraft. Let's talk about that in a bit.

Gaming More - I've had a couple of Warmachine knockabouts with the honourable Shiny, and plans for a decent-sized WFB game are in the works (is that this week, chaps?).

These games, and the one between Dave and Shiny the other day, are being recorded, nay, chronicled in fact, using BATTLE CHRONICLER! (yes, you have to shout it. It's the rules...) which is a rather nice and very free utility for making battle reports like they used to have in White Dwarf back in the day. It takes a while to get used to the controls, especially if you're trying to manipulate individual figures (facing in particular has a tendency to stray when a report is in progress and you're clicking and dragging your dudes about), but it looks quite nice when it's done. The first report (on a Warmachine game) will be up on either GAME OVER or Hand Cannon just as soon as the chap who's hosting them gets back to me with a merry "yes Von your stuff is online now". I have the notes together for Dave and Shiny's game, but... well, did I mention I'm qualifying as a teacher in the next few weeks and have rather a lot of paperwork to do? Well, I am, and I do, and my gaming time is being spent... elsewise.

I've started painting Dark Elves (the Executioners, Witch Elves, Shades and Assassins are all on the go and have all had something painted: skin and metal mostly). It seems like a slightly bitty way to get things done, but when you've mixed up too much flesh or metal you might as well use the paint, and it does mean there's a lot of variety on my painting desk (so if I feel like painting armour, I can do some work on Executioners; if cloth, Shades; if big Eighties hair, Witch Elves). I'd rather have the variety to inspire me than have one project on the go and then not advance it when I just don't feel like painting those minis right now.

Also, I've been playing World of Warcraft. Quite a bit. See, my guildmates have finally become frustrated with me for rolling low-level characters and never bothering to do much with them, and so I've pledged to concentrate on my two highest-level pixellated slayers of lesser beings and actually get them to the endgame before the next expansion comes out.

This is beginning to be problematic Serious Warcraft Business territory, and I'm having to remind myself that time, once spent, cannot be regained. With that in mind, I've been setting up both my characters to spend extended periods of time resting, gaining double experience points when played and therefore levelling at something like an efficient speed, getting more done in the time available. I've also been using profession levelling guides to cut down on the amount of faffing around a bit.

So far I've got one character parked at level 70 (I want to take my time a bit more with him, since it's the first time I've taken a wee dude to Northrend and I want to enjoy the scenery and story a bit) and a Death Knight busily mining and grinding and battlegrounding away, not gaining experience, Resting so that when I do start playing him properly he'll rocket through the levels like there's no tomorrow.

Oh, and the Dark Heresy's going well. We're three sessions in and the plot is slowly beginning to move: the lads have requested More Combat, and so next week's session ('The Killing Floor') will be an extended fight scene with tanks and rioters and aircraft and things so they can get the urge to roll dice and consult charts out of their systems.

This means I actually have to learn how combat in Dark Heresy works instead of fudging it as garishly as I have been. I'd, um, better get on that. And painting Dark Elves. And actually finishing my teacher training on time. It's possible that I need to look at my time management skills again... although I have cut right back on my blogging/foruming time, so that's a start.

Von's Frugal Year: Month The Fourth

Spend less?  Hahahaha NO.  I've shelled out £150 on a Dark Elf army (granted it's a Dark Elf army that would have cost about £330 at recommended retail price and probably about £270 with online discounts and stuff, so I think I came out fairly well there), £20 on extra models for my Satyxis Raiders (just so I can top the unit up and run them at full strength), £6 on a can of NitroMors for paint-stripping metal Dark Elves with, and £21 on turning the World of Warcraft subscription back on (I keep telling myself that if it entertains me for three hours a week it's more economical than, say, the cinema, which so often doesn't).  Going to have to keep that belt tight for a few months (although the ranks of unpainted Dark Elves, Trenchers and Satyxis are having the desired effect of putting me off buying any more stuff).

Game more? Hell yes.  Played a game of WFB against the ever-faithful Shiny (report here, as is the custom), and a few extended sessions of World of Warcraft (I've actually joined a guild now, fulfilling the originally planned function of 'game I can play with old gaming chums who are now scattered about the country', which means the social aspect of the game is finally being explored as much as it should be).  I've also been painting on my mornings and afternoons off this week, and have turned out fifty Dark Elf infantry, two Bolt Throwers and a Sorceress.  Apart from the Sorceress, they are what might politely be termed 'gaming standard' (four colours, basecoat-ink-highlight-done), but when I have close to a hundred models to paint for an army I'm not going to spend the time making each and every one a masterpiece.  Oh, and my Dark Heresy game finally lurched into life last week - it's going rather well, even if I say so myself.

Plans for next month: more painting, more WFB, more Dark Heresy, more making good on purchases made and less spending of money on new ones.  May need to look into a way of moving my models about that's cheaper than buying new case foam from Kaiser Rushforth - I wonder how much it'd cost for a metal toolbox and enough magnets for the Dark Elf army?

Von's Frugal Year: Month The Third

Turns out that I've finished my latest batch of essays a day ahead of schedule, so I've time to leave you with some food for thought before I scurry off to the Barbarian North for a week and leave the laptop behind.

First things first: how did the Frugal March go?

Spend Less - brilliantly. Not a penny spent. Jokes about the state of my bladder are not welcome. ;)

Game More - brilliantly. Minor dilemma resolved with minimum of gamer angst. Some thoroughly enjoyable games were played, too, beyond the Space Hulk and WFB I've already used precious bandwidth to opine about.

We broke out Zombies! when an old mate from Wolverhampton came down to see us, which was fairly enjoyable up until the elimination of two players in short order. Zombies! is, in theory, a first-past-the-post game that should avoid situations where two players are out and waiting for the rest to finish, but a run of bad luck can leave someone eliminated early and two players of equal skill can stonewall each other from meeting either of the victory conditions for quite a while. While I like the screw-your-opponent potential of Zombies! a lot, I can't help but feel that the zombie apocalypse setting works better for co-operative gaming, and the thing about co-operative gaming is that there's no advantage to eliminating another player. You might even want to let someone who's 'died', or otherwise had their presence removed from play, back in, so they can continue with the fun times. The other thing with Zombies! is that it suffers from a bad case of expansion creep, with a lot of extra little boxes out to tempt with foolish expenditure.

The House of Von also had a little away-day when another old mate and former Mage player came back down for a weekend visit, and we decided the time was right to play 1000 Blank White Cards again. We've traditionally sat down and played this astonishingly Frugal game (pack of blank index cards, pair of scissors, some black biros, DONE!) in pubs or coffee houses or other public places (because it's hilarious and because we meet all sorts of nice people who are interested... plus the occasional batch of less-than-nice people who find people having fun in public offensive to their delicate sensibilities, but we don't care about them because they're dead inside) and it's usually a damn good laugh.

Finally, the Dark Heresy campaign is lurching forward. Three characters have now been generated, but a schedule conflict has forced one of our players to bow out (he works on an odd rotation and the only days when he's free at the same time as everyone else are days when we're already committed to doing other, non-gaming stuff), so it's back on hold for that bad boy until I can recruit another player or two (going to see some people who might be interested tonight...).

Oh, and I got some more work done on the battlefield: a set of eight modular hill pieces have been cut, painted and textured, as has a cover sheet for the river (so the table can be extended to its full 4'x4' dimensions for games where the extra six inches of flank might be important). I'll get some pictures taken of those (and the Dark Elves) when I'm back from the Northern Wastes.