Month: February 2020

Relocating Hobby HQ

Posted on by Michael Charge

Big news time – I’m taking a break from writing stuff for this blog.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may know that my day job is currently based in Edinburgh (more details there, trying not to cross the streams too hard). However, I’m originally from Leeds and with family and friends in the area, I do keep finding myself back there. Not to mention, the Usual Opponent is also close by, complete with his fiendish plotting. With a new year and a family situation change, I’ve decided to move back to Leeds and set up there. I’m very lucky that my work has decided to support this move and so, with only minimal interruptions, I’ll be starting work in the Leeds studio in a few weeks.

Of course, this means I have to move all my life (and more importantly my hobby materials) down to Leeds. Which means I need to organise a house down there. And, as you can see, I have an awful lot of stuff to get packed and ready to go. This meaning I will have exactly 0 time to paint or wargame and not much time to be spent updating this blog.

However, looking forward, moving to Leeds should improve my hobby output. For one, I’m going to have more space! Every property I’m looking at is a marked improvement over the two-room flat I have up here in Edinburgh, with enough space to separate living room and hobby room. I’ll also have a driveway/garage to use, meaning larger projects (such as the pile of buildings I have). Finally, having space to entertain means I should be able to run more games in my own home, something I’ve always wanted to do.

So the plan is to take off the whole of February, giving me time to move in somewhere and get settled before coming back sometime in March. Watch this space for more updates.

Wargaming Week 03/02/2020

Posted on by Michael Charge

Let’s start this Wargaming Week, covering the 27th of January through to the 3rd of February.

NEWS

New releases from Empress – they are extending their builders yard to now include a set of damaged apartment blocks, letting you easily build out a larger city using them. They do look like some big chunky resin, so I expect them to definitely have some heft.

I also had a quick chat with Empress at Vapnartak about their upcoming releases for Late War Brits. The long awaited Vickers team is almost here, as well as a 3inch mortar. Also on the cards are some troops for an engineering section, almost vital for a Chain of Command selection. FInally, Paul did mention that they will possibly be looking at making some troops without the camouflage jackets and scrim, instead focusing on the assault jerkins. Overall, these sound like some great additions and I am very excited

To extend my news, I’m going to start looking at a few other things that excite me. As you may have seen, I picked up the Aeronautica Imperialis set a few months back, in part because I love the look of these aircraft. However, my personal favourite (the Valkyrie) wasn’t released… until now. The next box will take us to the skies over Taros, pitting the Valks and Lightnings (sadly the newer design rather than the original pattern) against the Tau craft. I haven’t yet got a game in of the core sets, but I can see the Tau being long range, high power aircraft, lobbing missiles and railguns at incoming targets matching to the concept of them being more modern than the midrange/close range brawlers of the Imperial Navy/Orks.

PURCHASES

Despite going to Vapa, I managed to actually not spend anything on new figures. I’m actually very close to a major move so adding things to a lead pile doesn’t really make sense right now.

So instead, I picked up anther carry case and box from KR Cases. I decided to go for the wheeled one, both for the protective element but also the fact it takes cardboard cases (of which I have a few) letting me easily pack them away). I’m actually quite looking forward to being able to get everything packed up, complete with a little bit of extra space.

HOBBY

As I mentioned before, I went to Vapa in York on Sunday. I always enjoy starting my year off with the show, seeing friends and catching up with traders while admiring the game. This year seemed pretty busy and great, a good mix of sellers and demo games (such as the rather cool Entebbe game above). Overally, it’s a good start to the year, especially if you manage to escape without having spent a penny!

As for my own hobby time? Well it’s been a little quiet this week. I’m in the process of some life changes so I had very little time to sit and paint. What time I did spend was mostly on writing some rules I’m wanting to play around with (details soon). And the rest? Well I really like just assembling models, so with the aim of relaxing, I broke out some of the GW plastic kits I’ve had lying around. These Sylvaneth Tree-Revenants are a joy to build – although not super easy to vary poses the level of design on them, as well as various parts, lets you play around with them.

That’s it for this update, expect more updates next week!