Shadow War: Armageddon - Look At What You Could Have Won

This is a warning: What follows is not an unboxing or a review. It's a healthy dose of personal opinion by somebody with an inflated sense of self-importance. I will be reviewing the game at a later date; but by posting this article first, I can focus my review on the actual game and not the shit show surrounding its launch.

So, here I am with my brand new copy of Shadow War: Armageddon. I should be excited. I kinda am excited.

But I'm a bit depressed too.

For anyone who hasn't been keeping up with current events, Armageddon is a revamped version of Games Workshop's classic game of gang warfare, Necromunda. It was hyped to heck and back, and went up for preorder at 10am on April 1st.

It sold out at 10:10am.

And it wasn't an April Fools joke.

Review - Gangs of Commorragh

Published by Games Workshop
For 2 players, aged 12 to adult

Sometimes it's tough being a Games Workshop supporter. I've never known a company move so quickly. They move so damned fast this isn't even the introduction I had planned when I started putting my notes together for the high-octane, high-speed, high-flying, high... er... scoring Gangs of Commorragh.

The original introduction is already out of date.

In fact, this revised introduction is also out of date. More on that in a moment.

Review - Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal

Published by Games Workshop
For 2-5 players, aged 12 to adult

Once upon a time (and I only mention that because all good stories start that way) there was a world of arcane lore and monsters. It was a harsh, cruel world where only the strong survived, and war was without end.

No. I don't mean high school.

This was a tough world. A violent world. Yet it was also a world of humour, where amidst the horror of war you could find something laugh-out-loud hilarious.

And it was also a world of beauty. It was a world where you could battle through the shit and the pain, and in the heart of darkness find a small glimmer of something so wonderful it made everything worth fighting for.

No. I really don't mean high school.

This was not our world, and yet in some ways, it was not so very different. This world was the Old World. The world of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

Painting Guide - Brimstone Horrors

I have always said I am primarily a gamer. I'm not even secondarily a hobbyist. I really like painting miniatures, but I find assembling them a chore; and honestly, I have very little time for painting. Still, I do paint, and...

Yeah...

I'm not great.

I think they call it "tabletop quality."

So, if I'm not a skilled artist, why have I had the audacity to write a painting guide?

Simple really. I sort of wanted to show that anyone can do this, and it doesn't just have to involve a base undercoat and a tin of Army Painter Quickshade. (Not that there's anything wrong with dipping miniatures either.) But also, I thought it might be fun to show people how I flounder through this stuff.

I'm not so much going to guide you as I'm going to flail around wildly, leaving a broken trail to show where I've been as a warning for anyone else.

Oh, and by the way, if people are interested in this sort of thing, I'm toying with the idea of making it a semi-regular feature (not that anything on this blog is even close to regular). It's a little bit different to my normal content. Tangents and conversations about the biscuits I was eating while I painted these miniatures will be kept to a minimum.

I have to stress that this is not a guide for anyone even remotely confident with a brush. But if you're thinking about giving painting a go, this is how I painted my cute little Brimstone Horrors from Games Workshop's Silver Tower.

Review - Catacombs (First Edition)

Designed by Ryan Amos, Marc Kelsey, and Aron West
Published by Sands of Time Games
For 2-5 players, aged 12 to adult

My hands are basically screwed.

Have I ever mentioned that?

They randomly betray me, flinging things across the room. Last month I had to remove electrical outlets from my wall to drain them because a full cup of tea escaped my fumbling grasp, and not long after that I bounced one of my best friends freshly painted space marines off the table. It wouldn't have been so bad, but it was his first go at painting miniatures for about two decades. Fortunately, those space marines are a lot more robust than some people give them credit for. I guess they have to be if they're going to survive in the grim-dark future of the Warhammer universe.

And this is my hands under normal conditions. If it starts to get cold, they straight up stop working altogether.

My rubbish hands take the full blame for my inability to learn to play the guitar (my lack of persistence is completely unrelated, I assure you), and also for my heavy reliance on ink washes and drybrushing to make my painted miniatures look even halfway decent.

They're also why I'm not overly keen on dexterity games.