Guildball: Choosing my tournament 8

Insidiously Mad

I've got my first proper guildball tournament coming up at Dark Sphere on July 30 and I have been trying to figure out what my tournament 8 is going to look like. Since I was already spending some time thinking about it, I thought I might as well blog my thoughts. I have only played one guildball team at the moment, so will be sticking with my Fishermen for this event. I wrote some of this a few weeks ago, and finished the article a week or so before it posted, so my painting has come further along and I only have Sakana/Siren left unfinished at the moment.

Captain (1):
There are two choices for captains: Shark and Corsair. Both are great captains and both can lead great teams. I've gone with Shark for two reasons.
1) He is already painted, and I have a few other models I need to focus on getting done for the event
2) I've played him 23 times compared to 3 with Corsair so he makes more sense as my captain for my first tournament.

Shark is the main ball retriever in my team and also tends to be the main scorer. He also enables Angel to be a fantastic turn one goal scorer and can speed up other players where needed as well. He tends to get 6 influence almost every single turn and will either try score or turn those 6 influence into 6 momentum. He really is the superstar of the team and the fact that he takes about 1/2 your influence every turn means you have to be very influence conscious while building your team. He is a lock. 

Mascot (1):
Salt is currently the only option for a mascot for fishermen so he is obviously in. I tend  to use him mostly as a defensive buff for Angel. When Angel is not in the team he functions as a quasi goaltender or ball retriever and mostly just tries not to die. I never put influence on him unless there is no way anyone other than him can get to the ball (in which case he is pretty darn fast). He is a lock.

Meet me at the crossroad (7)

As anyone who follows me on any social media will know I've recently been painting the Crossroad Seven as a bit of a project. The plan was to tie them in with my Ressers while also making them look a bit different and to push my painting skills.

So I thought I'd give you a quick run down on the seven along with some of the inspirations for them.
When it comes to inspiration for painting I use Pinterest a lot so for anyone who follows me on there and sees the creepy/odd things I post there is a reason for it.

Wrath

With wrath I wanted something alive and angry to stand out from the zombies of my crews.

I went for a skinless effect as a nod to some angry characters from pop culture and also to make it feel a bit neverborn linking in with dopplegangers look.






Envy

Envy took a bit of time to think of a way to make him resser-ish in the end I went for a ghost in a rusted machine. Partly as an excuse to attempt metals and weathering as someone who has never played anything with mechs it was a nice change.

London Malifaux - Tanelorn (not finished)

So turns out my club guide post got added to the queue despite being slightly unfinished... So what I'm going to do is leave this and the Dark Sphere one up but promise everyone I'll do a proper write up of both Dark sphere and Tanelorn very soon.

Next up is a club most listeners of the late great fools daily would of heard of Tanelorn

What
 Tanelorn , gaming club

Where

A short walk from Leytonstone Station (Central line)

Leytonstone & District Ex-Servicemen's Club
Harvey Road
London
E11 3DB



When

The club meets from 2pm to 6pm every Sunday.


How

If you are looking for a game head over to their facebook page Tanelorn .

Why

I'll use this section to let Tanelorn say a bit about themselves


Who
The Henchman at Tanelorn is the always excited Matt Cole and among the other players there you might also be lucky enough to meet the world famous Conrad as well.

London Malifaux - Dark Sphere

I'm going to do a series of post about places to game in London. As a community we're lucky to have a wide and varied choice of locations to play with our toys. But we also suffer with being lazy and we will tend to stick to just the club we know best.
So I going to try and introduce people to the different options of places to play in London and hopefully encourage people to try as many of them as you can.

First up is Dark Sphere as its the main place that I play. I'm going to keep these posts fairly brief more of a guide than a review so that I can get through as many as possible before I get distracted by something shiny.

What
 Dark Sphere , gaming center and store.

Where

Two minutes walk from Lambeth North tube (Bakerloo Line).
10 minutes walk from Waterloo (Rail/Bakerloo/Waterloo & City/Jubilee/Northern).

Arch 186 Hercules Road
London
SE1 7LD





When

There's tables available every day for casual gaming from 11am - 10pm

How

If you are looking for a game head over to their facebook page Dark Sphere - Malifaux . You will need to book a table in advance and it can get busy so I recommend booking early.

Why

I'll use this section to let Dark Sphere say a bit about themselves


Who
There's no longer a henchman at Dark Sphere but there is a large group of players of all types and levels. The Abnormalifaux lot are regulars there along with a dozen or so other players.

Hobby! Huh! What is it good for....?

Well quite a lot of things as it turns out!

A recent conversation on Twitter set me thinking (apologies for anyone affected by the resulting smoke and burning smell). Have all these hours spent filing down tabs, greenstuffing gaps, removing flash and trying to paint teeny tiny metal figures REALLY been worth it? I mean, maybe I should have been doing something worthwhile - I could have learnt a new language, spent time with my friends or even tried my hand at learning some practical skills. So I decided to have a look at all the ways that hobby, in general, has improved my life (even if it has wrecked my bank balance at times!)

1. I've learnt new skills. Before I started hobbying, I had no idea there were so many things that went into making these miniature figures look great. I think it's a side of the hobby that a lot of non-hobby people don't seem to see. I was talking to a non-hobby friend recently and he was admiring a Deadpool mini I'd painted. When I told him that I'd had to get someone else to do the build on him (he was a nightmare, significant gaps to fill and lots of filing required) he was a bit gobsmacked, he had no idea that they needed building. He'd assumed that all minis came prebuilt - when I introduced him to the concept of clipping bits off sprues he was a bit gobsmacked.

I've learnt how to use clippers to detach minis from sprues and metal tabs. How to use a file to make sure any sprue or tab remnants are filed off. How to use a hobby knife to remove mould lines without wrecking the model.How to build models and to (sort of) conceal joins using green stuff. This is something I still struggle with, but with more practice I'm sure I'll get there. And I'm certain there are other skills I can learn - practice building bases, how to pin models to bases etc.

And the most important skill I've learnt? Painting! While I can't claim to be an amazing painter, I've definitely improved as well as realising that I really enjoy painting. My ultimate goal one day is to get a painting prize for something but I suspect this is something of a pipe dream given there are so many amazing painters in the community!

Progress on the table - Fun with cardboard

I have now moved onto the next phase of my Victorian Streets gaming table - flagstones. It all begins with cardboard.

I have kept a considerable number of cereal boxes in preparation for this stage. I quickly knocked up a pattern and cut out varying sizes of cardboard pieces.

Progress on the table - Painting the flagstones

I have made some progress on my Victorian Streets table, In this post I will be showing the update I have made in painting my flagstones. The first thing I needed to do was tape up the bricks so that I could lay down a coat of black paint and PVA.