Post 500: Happy Birthday To Me!

This weekend was meant to be pure hobby time as part of my birthday celebrations – my birthday actually being today. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks but when the day came there were just too many jobs that needed doing around the house. As a reward for my hard work, yesterday I got to go baby-furniture shopping with my wife and mother-in-law… for the entire day. Not such a great birthday weekend!

But not to worry, this time last year I was in Ireland and the year before in California so I don't have much to complain about really. Time is flying by at the moment and we're down to ten weeks before junior is due to make an appearance. It's all getting a bit real.

I did place an order for the Monastic Scenery Set from Tabletop Workshop this weekend. Looking forward to that arriving and I will do a full review of all the pieces included. With this in mind I will be going back to my gaming board as promised and taking another look at that. I think for this first board I will do something quite straightforward so that I have something complete, rather than trying to be too clever and not getting finished.

My plan is to get a simple board and one including water under my belt relatively quickly (for me) and then invest in the TW Castle and do a board based around that. Before I can get stuck into that properly I need to sort out the garage to create some space for it all.

I'm also very conscious that I talk a good talk regarding new projects and none of them seem to get very far (hence my previous post about my Haul of Shame). I think by pitching expectations lower initially I could achieve some of my goals, rather than being too creative or elaborate and adding to my list of fails.

Hobby Haul of Shame

Inspired by a post on fettFace's Back on the Battlewagon blog from a couple of year's ago I thought I would do something similar. We've all got failed projects or stuff put on the back burner that's got an inch of dust on it, but which ones haunt me the most?



So my Top 5 Failed Projects in my Haul of Shame are as follows.
All these projects involved a varying amount of financial investment and all of them are now cluttering the hobby space.

#5 – 40k Imperial Fists
A relatively recent one and probably the one that annoys me the most. I spent a lump sum on a box of plastics that would form the backbone of my new army. I then devised a small campaign to use them in against Bull. Alas, after some initial test pieces the painting stopped and I ended up using my Chaos marines for the campaign. Still not sure whether to restart this one, or consign it to history and Ebay.

#4 – Resin bases
It was meant to be my way of earning some extra income and keep my interest going in the hobby. When I discovered Malifaux I also discovered the joys of building my own custom bases and casting them in resin. After some test pieces I created a couple of ranges of round-edges bases that could be used in the game, then made them available to the public. They sold very well on Ebay and that was the crux of the problem. I couldn't keep up with the demand and what started as a hobby project became a job, as I had to get casting more stuff every night after work. My enthusiasm for the whole thing soon burned out… but not before I'd invested all my profits into a truck load of more resin!

#3 – Modular gaming board
I was so excited about my Dark Crucible project this time last year and inspired by Mr Awdry's similar sized board that I jumped in and started building. Then we took a holiday to Ireland and the board went away and has hardly been looked at since. Ironically it's the most popular post on this blog but another project that was never finished. With the new secret project getting some love at the moment, this one could be resurrected quite soon… though no promises!

#2 – WarmaHordes, Cryx / Legion of Everblight armies
They were the darlings of Salute 2012 – the next thing for Bull and myself was to paint up our Hordes starter boxes and get playing. We played one trial game and never rolled another dice. However, I continued to buy for both Legion and Cryx, painting periodically throughout the year. Alas the painting stopped but the buying didn't and I have a small pile of lead and resin praying to be built. This is one I do intend to return to at some point.

#1 – 40k Dark Templar space marines
They were meant to be my long-term space marine project, the one that kept going when all other side projects were burnt out. They started life as a pseudo Dark Angel/Black Templar army for tournaments but the new look, redesigned chapter never really made it out of the gate. It is my long-term goal to get this one up and running, but the new iterations of the 40k rules do little to inspire.


So here's my challenge to all your hobby folks out there…
– let's hear what's in your top 5 Haul of Shame? 

#HaulOfShame



…and while you're thinking about that, my interview with Bill at Gamers Lounge about the creation of Aetherium is now live!!

Plastic Castles, Chapels and Cottages…

I became aware of Tabletop Workshop's development of a 28mm plastic castle some time ago and have been following progress ever since. I'm very excited about this for a couple of reasons. It will be perfect for my Saxon/Norman project and become a great centrepiece, plus I used to have something similar (if rather crude) as a child so there's a nostalgia value to owning something like this again. In addition, the fact that you can set up the kit so that you can place models inside the towers is awesome.

When I got the memo that TW were taking pre-orders for their castle, I realised (duh!) that they did a host of other, period-appropriate plastic terrain. Coming off the back of my recent GW terrain purchases this struck something of a chord – the difference here is that the interiors of the TW products are as detailed as the exteriors… superb for roleplaying type scenarios.

You may remember back at Easter time I picked up a 4Ground cottage (above) which I love, especially now I've added bits of balsa to the exterior. However, there's something easy and quick about plastic kits, so the idea of having a set of these is really appealing.

After a little investigation I discovered that TW do a Cottage, Stable and Barn for £16 or so each (and free postage). They do all three as a Rural Farmstead set for £40 – a saving of almost £10!

Then I discovered their Monastic Scenery set – OMG – that's the Rural Farmstead set plus a Medieval Chapel for £50… a saving of £18!

At this point I was very interested – right scale, right time period, easy to build and a bargain. I dug deeper within the website for details and found some images of the raw plastics…

How lovely is this!!
The chapel looks superb and I can already imagine my characters interacting within this piece. I think this is a must-have for the project. Tick!!

Similarly the cottage is very detailed and, whilst I prefer the teddy-bear fur roof of my 4Ground cottage, this model does really appeal. I would have to add my liquid greenstuff texture to the walls as they look rather shiny at the moment. However, from a time perspective I could get a village full of these up and running very quickly. I will be interested to see the scale difference between this and the 4Ground and whether they sit well together. Very exciting. Tick!!

With a birthday coming up next week, I may just have found something to top the wish list!