Artwork & Tables Part II - Tuesday 29th September 2009

The last couple of posters are now up on the wall and everything is looking pretty darn good! The gaming cupboard is still pretty rammed, but as I sort through my armies over the coming weeks I'll be aiming to repack everything into either army cases or boxes of a more similar size.

Games Day 2009 - Tuesday 29th September 2009

I haven't been to a Games Day for about 4 years and it was just as good, if not better than I remember it!

Given the parking spot I was directed too by the kindly NEC folk I arrived via the Golden Demon Entrance. After politely dodging the people handing out Golden Demon entry forms and quietly chuckling to myself at the prospect of entering something daubed in my particular style, I found myself in The Studio section of the event.

After catching a quick look at the cover of the new Tyranid Codex and perusing the pages of an A3 size Space Wolf Codex I set off towards the gaming area. I've always been a fan of this section at any Games Day. The terrain boards are second to none and always a great source of inspiration for my own collection.

The centrepiece for me this year would have to be the Imperial City boards. I've been eagerly drooling over the teaser pictures the Games Workshop website keeps posting of the board and it was great to see it in person. The city area of the board as particularly stunning and I can see a lot of Imperial Sector box sets coming my way sometime soon!

Artwork & Tables - Wednesday 16th September 2009

I wasn't 100% sure about the frames, having only seen the images provided on eBay, so I only bought 6 (working on the basis that I had 6 posters at the time which I wanted to frame - the 9 Horus Hersey ones hadn't arrived yet).

Well they arrived and it turns out they kick ass, so I've ordered another 10!

The 6 I've put up already look good and I can't wait to get another 2 in place to finish the row!

I'm also contemplating another row below these two, but they might be a bit low and end up getting dislodged from the wall by player's rear ends while gaming.

As you can see from the photo my boards are now in place too! I've got another smattering of bruises on my forearms from Sherpering the metal tables the boards are on up the stairs, but they're the best I can muster for now and they give a good sturdy surface to game on.

I was going to get my two Realm of Battle Boards set up, but I've decided I might wait for a bit as I'm going to paint all the wooden boards grey first. The flocked grass look of my Battle Boards is cool, but I think I'm in need of an urban environment too. Painting these boards grey should give me the versatility to go either way.

I've sorted through my gaming books as well and they're now all in a much neater state. A place for everything and everything in its place!

Horus Hersey Posters - Monday 7th September 2009

Going a little bit Emperor's Children meets Changing Rooms; I decided that my new gaming pad required a few artistic works to grace its walls.

I've wanted to put a few of the pictures I've amassed over the years up for a while now, but I've been loathe to knock holes in rented walls. The new landlord has already let us decorate though, which was nice of him and he's also said we can hang as many pictures up as we want!

The artwork I've already got includes a limited edition Asmodai print by Mark Gibbons, who is one of my all time favourite GW artists. I can't remember the date, but I'm pretty sure I got the print for spending over £100 in Shrewsbury Games Workshop on Tyranid figures during one of the national event days. Thanks Mum!

I've also got a nicely aged map of the Warhammer Old World, which will make a great reference piece for my WFRP games. Along with these I've got some old Black Library A2 book cover prints, which include Way of The Dead, Iron Breaker, Bleeding Chalice and Arbite.

Looking over these and realising all over again how much I love the Games Workshop imagery, I thought I'd take a quick trip to the Black Library website and see what they currently have on offer.

This resulted in me ordering all 3 of the Horus Hersey Poster Bundles. The cover art from these books is great and even more so when it hasn't got the blurb from the back of the book blocking a chunk of it!

A quick trip to eBay for some frames and the next step towards gaming utopia is on the horizon.

I probably won't quite manage to squeeze all of these pictures in and it'll be tough picking the best ones to put up, but I guess I can always rotate them and keep things looking fresh.

Photos to follow when everything turns up.

Legion Awaits - Tuesday 1st September 2009

During the house move I managed to get the final chapter of Decent of Angels read. I wasn't hugely impressed with the way the book ended, which felt a bit abrupt and strangely out of sync for a book which had moved at comfortable pace until the final chapter. I appreciate that there is another book that follows on from this one, but after the calibre of all the novels so far I think I've been a bit spoilt.

Next up is Legion... I've been looking forward to this one.

The Alpha Legion has always been an interesting, but highly mysterious chapter and it'll be great to take a look at their early exploits.

End of The Movement Phase - Tuesday 1st September 2009

First off I'd like to apologise for the complete lack of updates for the last couple of weeks. What’s my excuse? Well, I’ve finally moved house! It’s been in the pipeline for over a month now and after a whirlwind weekend of activity the contents of the old house is now in the new house.

While my girlfriend put the rest of the house together I cracked on with more important duties… sorting out my games room!

I must confess that to begin with I was a little disappointed. I’d rather hoped that I would be able to get both my Realm of Battle Boards end to end in the new room, creating a 12’ by 4’ board. But upon measuring the room (if there is one thing you’re never far from in my games room it’s a tape measure) it turned out to be 3” too short. The walking distance of a Dwarf had put and end to my grand plans!

Not to be put off, the room got shuffled about a bit and a compromise was reached. I’ve still got both boards in, but they’re side by side rather than end to end. This has given me a 6x8 foot table, which has good access all round and there’s even enough space to split the boards and have 2 battles going on at once. Bonus!

You never realise how much stuff you’ve got until you move house!

Getting all my books on the shelves gave me the space to try and sort the rest of the room out. I carried all of these downstairs from the old games room then upstairs to the new games room, I am truly a martyr to the cause.