Hatter, hatters are cool...

Finally getting around to some hobby, which along with everything else seems to have taken a bit of a slump lately.
I had an urge to paint a bust which is fast becoming one of my favourite types of painting to do, and I just so happened to have a box of busts from Salute crying out for some paint.

The set is based on Wonderland but slightly more twisted ( or more openly twisted as Alice in wonderland is already pretty dark) they’re advertised as transition busts meaning the scale is a bit more friendly towards painters used to working on minis (I believe?) Check our Broken toads website for a better look and an actual explanation.

First up was the Hatter, who has a face that is really screaming to be the focus of the piece.

A bit of Dungeons and Mali-meh

So it's been awhile I know, and I know that traditionally this is a Malifaux blog and it's been a long while since there's been any of that here but I thought I make an attempt at a post while I had some time free.

First off the reason there's not been much 'faux is because I've not been doing and 'faux related stuff lately. Painting has dried up and playing has died off. Other than the podcast I haven't really thought much about Malifaux at all. I don't think it's particularly a problem with Malifaux at the moment more likely it's an issue with my limited attention span and the fact that currently Malifaux isn't the easiest choice when I want a game with my mates and I'll almost always take easy if it's an option.

What I have been playing for anyone who hasn't been following the blog is Dungeons & Dragons, which I have been thoroughly enjoying. So I'm going to have a brief ramble on about that before I try and tackle my Malifaux problem.

Abnormaliroll - Fighter Part 5

It was no use. The thick wooden support pole of the tent showed no signs of breaking or even cracking. The ropes around her neck and wrists was also thick and tough, not something that could be easily snapped. Reezka growled loudly in frustration, earning a sideways glance from the disheveled monk bound to a neighbouring pole. But she had to do something! Come the dawn Reezka, Verina and Stei were facing the very real threat of execution. She didn’t know where Asla, Machi, Hesh or Badger were but she hoped that if they were killed, they had at least taken a few cultists with them. Or maybe there was the slim chance of a rescue….

They had all taken a rest after the battle at the ridge. Feeling some of her strength and vitality returning, Reezka had scanned the surrounding area with a wary eye. As good as the rest felt, they couldn’t afford to let their guard down too far. Her instincts seemed to be correct when the sound of stealthy footsteps could be heard coming up the path towards the group. Wheeling around, one hand on her axe, Reezka was relieved to see the slight form of Stei heading up the slope towards them. Badger wasn’t with him however and Hesh had quickly slipped off to see if he could pick up any trace of her, he had more chances of avoiding any patrols that might be in the area after all.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: I finally did another event!

 So I finally went to my first Malifaux event in ages. Over 4 months since my last proper ranked event. I haven’t been playing much Malifaux in the last few months as I have been fairly focussed on Guildball, which has taken over as my main competitive game. But as this was a tournament at our LGS Dark Sphere run by the lovely Tom Skitt, I wanted to go along and suprport it. I had been planning on going solo Pandora as the strat/scheme pool wasn’t bad for her and I haven’t played her much this year and always enjoy running her out. But the night prior to the event I realised I wasn’t actually looking forward to playing. I think bringing out a Master I used to be quite competitive with but was very rusty with and was realised the idea of losing games with her because of lack of practice would frustrate me. So I brought this issue into the Abnormalifaux group chat and our resident Guild expert Francois offered to lend me a Guild crew as he was playing Yan Lo for the event. I’ve been meaning to try Nellie for ages and thought trying something new would let me have a fun day without putting pressure on myself to do well. So I went into the day with Nellie and my own Lucius stuff just in case (tho I did end up sticking to Nellie for all 3 games). Brought a few of my favourite mercs along as well (Burt, performer, sue, McTavish, etc.)

MACHI TOKAI AND THE SLIGHTLY MUCH MORE BETTER DAY.

This is a write up of the events of week four of our new Dungeons and Druids Dragons 5ed campaign.

It makes a nice change form carrying the heavy bag of Malifaux stuff.

I've created a nice Druid character, called Machi Tokai Lautaro. He is not a traditional "Wise old beardy forest bloke type." He is more of a "drug addicted shaman type." Not crazy, but definitely a fish out of water. If only his companions realised that being bitten by the scared snakes was his way of healing them! He's genuinely baffled by why they won't try his mind expanding cactus juice and mushroom strew.

Still he has a good (well neutral) heart and a complete lack of understanding of civilisation on the Sword Coast. Despite everything he tries to keep calm and chop on a hallucinogenic mushroom when times are tough. That way he can be sure of pretty colours and perhaps a chance to play with pink fox.

At a later stage, I'll go through the design mechanics and some of the choices I've made for him in terms of background, abilities, equipment and things like that.

Abnormaliroll - Fighter Part 4

The sound of an oath cut through the air, making Reezka pause in cleaning the blood from her axe. Quickly glancing around she realised that the source of the noise was Asla, being jolted back into consciousness by Machi and his snakes. Suppressing a smile, Reezka went back to removing the clotted blood from the edge of her axe, and honing it back to the original sharpness. The druid’s methods were not the most orthodox but they did seem to get results. Hesh and Verina had joined her, Machi and Alsa on the small rocky plateau, which was now littered with bodies. Perhaps now would be a good time to decide on their next move, possibly by the time they had decided, Stei & Badger would have rejoined the group. That would definitely be an advantage, Reezka was sure that there would be more of these ambushes set up to try & discourage them from following the cult members. She was determined though that nothing would keep her from finding Cyanwrath. She was so looking forward to returning his sword after all…..

Abnormaliroll - Fighter Part 3

After what had seemed like the longest walk of her life, the group had made it back through the tunnel and back into Greenest Keep. Governor Nighthill had met with the group & asked for a recounting of the events at the mill. Reezka, leaning heavily against the wall had listened to Verina tell him what little they had learned while reassuring him that all the cultists and guards at the mill had been dealt with. Nighthill seemed relieved that there was no immediate danger to the town’s grain stores and had given each of the party a healing potion as a small token of thanks. He told them that not much had changed while they had been away, the dragon was still circling the town whilst making the occasional sweep down towards the top of the keep.There had been sightings of a potential leader though; a woman in a large headdress and vivid purple robes. She seemed to be in charge but she was surrounded by a large group of heavily armed guards. Nighthill’s frustration was clearly visible - his town was under siege from a host of creatures and he wanted answers. Pacing distractedly back & forth he had asked the group if they could bring in a cultist alive - perhaps then they could get an idea of why this group was here and what their purpose was.

Suddenly there was a shout from the floor below where they were standing and a cultist darted across the floor from a side door. Before Reezka could even react, Nighthill’s hand moved like lightning & the cultist fell dead, a gleaming silver knife embedded in his skull. The Governor had whirled around to face the group and snapped out an order to go and find Escobert and capture a prisoner they could get answers from.

Abnormaliroll - Fighter Part 2

As they slowly limped & hobbled their way back towards Greenest, Reezka's mind was running over the events of the evening. The meeting with Governor Nighthill had gone well once Asla had managed to convince him they were here to help. He'd asked them to go and see what was the cause of the flames at the town watermill and to save the grain that the population would need in the coming months. Reezka had wanted to go right away - she knew the long hours and toil that would be required even to attempt to replace the lost supplies. But with the howling mob of kobolds outside the keep and the ever circling dragon above them, how could they get there?!
It was Nighthill who had had the idea - an old,disused passage that led from the keep & out to the stream. From there they would be able to follow the stream all the way to the mill. The only problem though was that no-one knew where the tunnel was. Except....maybe Escobert the Red, the dwarf archivist who knew more about the keep than any other inhabitant of the town.
As they made their way down the stairs to look for Escobert, there was a ringing shout from somewhere above them. Reezka looked up to see a hero, clad in shining armour, standing on the battlements taunting the dragon. In the blink of an eye the dragon dived low and let out an intense cone of heat and flashing breath. The hero didn't even have time to scream before he was completely annihilated. Reezka insitnctively flung up her shield but as quickly as it had come, the dragon flapped it's mighty wings and soared off again into the night sky.

AbnormaliRoll - Monk

It had been a more interesting start to his time away from the monastery than Stei had expected. Despite the tales of adventure and other exotic races he had heard, he had been warned that the most likely experience would be to spend a year doing odd jobs and meeting other humans, rather than the variety which he had found himself among with this group.

AbnormaliRoll - Fighter

The keep door swung shut with a heavy thud, just as several arrows buried themselves in the thick oak planks. Reezka stopped. gasping a little for breath, and absentmindely swung the small child down to the ground. Strange, she thought, that the child had no fear of her. Most humans were at the very least wary of her. Despite the orcish blood not being the main component of her heritage, it certainly showed stongly in her features. The sloping brow, large frame and blunt tusks were more than enough to make most humans approach her with caution.
She glanced over at her newly acquired companions. How did they feel about the half orc? So far no-one had seemed hostile or attempted to injure her, but there was definitely some wariness there. The Druid had stared openly when they had first come across each other. He hadn't said much, which suited Reezka fine, but he didn't seem to be familiar with orcs. Maybe they didn't have them where he came from.

AbnormaliRoll - Druid

As the door of the keep slammed shut behind them, Machi Tako paused and rested his hands on his knees and took a deep breathe. He was not having a good day he decided. It had started well. He had travelling companions. That was good. They seemed able to fight, that was also good. Still, he was slightly worried. The northlanders were so different. They way they seemed to act and think was alien. He had grown up in a small village by the sea. He had dug the dust and fished with his father before his wanderlust had driven him to the mountains in the furthest south. He felt he understood the silver haired woman, Asla, best. She followed a goddess of the sea and nature. She liked the sea as he did. That was good. He could sense her nervousness, her feeling of being an outsider. That meant nothing to him; to be a druid was to be an outsider. She would learn in time to rejoice in the power such freedom gave. Outsiders didn’t have to dig the dust after all.

AbnormaliRoll - Cleric

Asla stared into the waves as the ship headed towards shore. She inhaled the salty air as she reflected about her new companion. She'd spent the last few days with a Druid from the distant South. Not one to make friends easily Asla still felt this Druid was different. Ever since her family had drowned and she'd discovered her powers the sailors had been nervous of her. They respected her, but held their distance.
While not warm, the Druid did not shudder at her presence and he seemed happy to discuss the world and the places he'd seen. So she'd agreed to join him on his travels. And while there she could spread the word of Umberlee.

AbnormaliRoll - Bunch of hordes

So as I briefly mentioned before the Abnormalifaux group have decided to take a stab at some RPG fun by running a D&D campaign.
I'm the poor soul who has to herd these fine examples of adventurers so I suppose it's also my job to inflict ... sorry inform you with what's happening as we go.

For those that want to know we're playing Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition and we're running through the Horde of the dragon queen adventure (with a few tweaks from me)

Hopefully the player will fill you in on the story as we go, from their view point as its their story. I'll try and stick to the more technical side of the adventure with my posts going forward.

Summer summer summertime showdown.

Once again my Sunday plan was to head down to Wayland for another in the showdown series of events. This time I was picking up fellow Abnormalifaux Francois. (Also as a treat my car didn't breakdown until the day after instead of the day before)

No drama getting there and a fairly reasonable start (for me anyway less for Francois who had to get the tube to the countryside before risking getting in my car)

Got to sunny Hockley in time to help set up the tables, this would normally be the time I'd grab a pre game tea but for some unforgivable reason Wayland didn't open the bar until 11 so no tea, which hurt my cold dark soul.

Usual chat, handshakes, and hugs (Malifaux players are huggers) we joined the queue and registered with the TO team. (Non English readers do you enjoy forming into an ordered queue to register at events or is that just us??)

AbnormaliRoll

First off let me apologise for the lack of content lately. As a group we've not been gaming as much as we used to due to a mix of real life, gaming burn out, and the hideous heat that I'm slightly concerned is going melt the paint off my models. (For those non UK readers who are thinking it's not that hot please remember our entire country is designed to survive on grey skies and hot tea).

So what have we been up to? Well as you asked so nicely I'm going to tell you (also because otherwise this post would be tragically short)

Gaming Down Under - Part 1

So after 6 big years in the UK, arguably the tabletop mecca of the world it was time to head back to Oz. Kids are still young, weather is better and the beer cold etc.

I also thought what better time to actually contribute to the blog again giving a bit of a run down of my adventures on the 'Otherside' ... see what I did there !!

Product Review: Leodis Games Malifaux Mat

Hello Everyone! I know, I know it's been ages. All of us here at the blog have had a bit of trouble finding the time to write lately, and sadly I'm not sure if it's gonna get better any time soon. I do want to do a review of how my year of Guildball has gone so far as I have played a LOT of fishermen since my last article. But as for today, we have our first (I think) product review on the blog. Our friends at Leodis Games were kind enough to send me a battlemat to review. As I know quite a few people have been picking them up lately hopefully this is useful for those of you who have not yet gotten ahold of one. So I decided to get a Malifaux mat as I already had an official Guildball mat and thought having a faux map with all the deployment lines would be very handy. So as for the product itself. I was worried the matt wouldn't lie flat after being in the tube as it is quite light (not as light as my cloth mat, but much lighter than the mousepad ones). The first time I used it I definitely had to weigh down the corners, but it stayed flat quite easily after the corners had been weighed down for a bit. 

I chose a grass background as I thought that would best go with my Malifaux bases. I really like the pattern and was quite impressed with how it looked.

That is some realistic looking grass....

 As seen here and in the above pictures the center lines (both diagonals and the standard centerline) are very clear at a distance and the 6" center circle is also fairly clear and incredibly handy. We actually played Search the Ruins in our game and it made it much easier to bluff not having to measure things from the center during the game (though I still failed to score for it... I hate that scheme :P ).  My biggest issue with the mat, however is that the deployment lines are very hard to see. I managed to find the standard and close deployment lines (although it was tricky) but even when I was looking closely I couldn't find the lines for Flank or Corner, which is a bummer. However, I think this is an issue with the grass mat specifically as if you look at the below picture you can see the lines are much clearer. I think a stronger line print is necessary for the grass matt or possibly doing the lines in white, which would be much clearer. I personally would rather have more obvious lines than very subtle ones, but could see that being an issue for some people so it may come down to personal preference.

 As mentioned above, see how much clearer all the lines are on the cobblestone mat. Would definitely suggest picking this one up rather than the grass one if you specifically are wanting the matt for the deployment lines.

 Here is how the mat looks with terrain from Bendy Boards (mostly) before we started our first game on it. Really looks good even with unpainted terrain.

It's hard to tell from this photo, but the grass on my bases works quite well on this mat which is excellent. Really like the pattern.

Here is my Rooster getting ready to put down a Claim marker near the centerline.

 Here you can see the center circle quite well.

And here is a photo of me giving up a bunch of points for Search the Ruins to my opponent :P Cost me the game...

Anyway, all in all I am very impressed with the quality of the matt and playing with the lines on it was really handy and saved a bunch of time. As previously mentioned the only downside was the clarity of some of the deployment lines, but this appears to be an issue specific to the black lines fading into some patterns rather than an overall issues (as the cobblestone picture proves). Thanks again to Leodis for sending me the matt and I plan on continuing to use it whenever I play Malifaux at home.

ITC: Abnormalifaux Rises!

I haven’t had much time to write lately, but I really wanted to cover ITC because it was an amazing event and has really reignited my interest in Malifaux (even if it felt like there was a NB support group there about how crap out waves 3 and 4 were… but I digress). Before I get into the actual games I would just like to thank Mike Marshall for running yet another amazing event. Mike has now run two of my three favourite events I’ve ever been to (Daffcon 2016 and ITC 2017). The third one was in Canada, though I’m sure Mike would’ve run it even better. Also thanks to all the judges and other volunteers who were great and looked like they were having a blast. I’m still unsure if we will get a team together for next year or not, but if not I definitely plan to volunteers as a helper/judge. Finally thanks to everyone at Element games. Wow, what a venue. So far the only other venue I’ve been to that compares is Firestorm in Cardiff. Also it was lovely that they noticed me eating a salad I bought elsewhere on the Saturday as I couldn’t eat the provided sandwiches (which I am totally okay with) and offered to get me a salad for the next lunch, which they did. So props on that, they really went over and beyond my expectations. Finally, having an on site bar is fantastic and the late hours were great too. Honestly one of my favourite parts of the weekend was drunkenly playing Dom Westerland and James Reeves in Guildball (borrowing James’ Masons team) and trying to explain to some of the Finnish team how the game worked. 3 Games of Malifaux (and several pints) during the day and still was up for some Werewolf (Paul Butler is always a werewolf…) and Guildball (and more pints) at night. What an awesome time. Other big highlight was just chatting with a bunch of new players. Was great seeing Elinore, Martin and the rest of their team again as I had met them at Nationals 2015 and had faced Martin in Daffcon Frostgrave event. Also was great chatting with the Americans who were just excellent blokes. Also props to Team Trump Card for winning the event and for embracing their role as the heels of Malifaux by dressing up in super American gear. Loved it. Anyway, enough gushing let’s get on to the actual games.

Arran (Metalhed), Francois, Pippa, Me, Brad (Mechanical Dove)

So I lied… before we get on to the games I want to talk about my team. Abnormalifaux brought a team! That’s right we were repping the blog. Though only 4 of the 5 of us have actually written for the blog, but still, we are a true team and I was really excited to see how we would do. Also nervous though as I think we had played a combined 4 games or fewer of malifaux in the previous 1-2 months (I’ve been playing a lot of Guildball and a few other guys have been as well or were just generally busy) and one team member Brad (Mechanical Dove) was forced to play a different faction and ended up using a Master he had never won a game with (hamelin) for the whole weekend. For simplicities sake Brad went fixed master Hamelin, Francois went fixed Nellie, Philippa went fixed Ironsides except one round where she dropped Raspy, so it was really only Arran and I that were swapping Masters, and both of us only ended up using 2 of the 3 we brought (Sorry Tara/Pandora).

Busted!

A while ago I wrote a post about my attempt at painting a bust. It was something I'd wanted to try for a while and as it turned out something that I really enjoyed too.

With my first busts finished I now I'm keen to carry on and do more, (unfortunately this is at the expense of the rest of my painting queue)

While I'm pleased with these busts they did help me pick out a few (many) gap in my skills. As with most things the key to improvement is research and practice.

The research I could do, the only benefit of going to work is time and access to trawl the web for tutorials, videos, diagrams, and inspiration. This is also a time where social media is brilliant. Various painting groups on facebook plus following other painters on twitter and instagram is a gold mine of information. I've also found figure painter magazine to be really good for all things painting.

Practice was looking to me a bit more difficult, unlike painting models for gaming where I seem to have a never ending supply, bust feel like a bit more of a luxury purchase. Thankfully Salute is a thing that exists. While at the show along side my many other (much needed) model purchases I treated myself to a selection of busts.


Firstly there was the Wonderland set from Broken Toad which my daughter insisted I buy. ( she's also insisting that she gets to paint one of them but I'm skimming over that).

These other than just being gorgeous sculpts are also aimed at painters looking to make the jump from models to bust. The scale is big enough to try out new skills without completely rethinking how you paint. Which was an issue I found with the flower girl bust.

I'm hoping to really push myself on this set, which while its a great goal does restrict the practice element slightly. So my final purchase at Salute was ideal, spotted completely by chance on a stall that sold random boardgame bits and bobs. (If anyone remembers the name please let me know). Here I found a box of loose bust which looked like pieces from a game. They were ideal, bold simple sculpts with enough character to really have fun with. And at £1 each (If I had had any cash left I would have got the whole box for that price).

So now I have a selection of busts to try techniques and ideas on. The first of which I grabbed out of the pile of shame the other night and started on.

This happy fella was the first out the bag, And the things to try were bolder colours, dappling to blend skintones and also better shading of hair.

I decided to go a bit random with the colours, as I usually have a predecided scheme for gaming minis this would make a nice change.

I started off with the skin, I've wanted to try something greenskin for a while so that seemed like a good excuse. I painted all the shadows in first with a purple, most of it ended up covered but it helped with the tone. I then built up from dark to light green in layers which I then tried to blend together by building up multiple areas of spots in various shades all overlapping. I also added in spots of browns and yellow to help.

I then moved onto the hair using something closer to NMM gold than the highlighting I'd do on a 32mm models hair. I think the idea was right but seeing it finished I probably should have increased the contrast between the light and dark areas (similar issue I have with NMM)

The glasses where next and it was another excuse to try something I'd been wanting to for a while. Reflective surface. I think the term is Sky Earth Non Metallic Metal or SENMM (or shiny).
This took quite a light touch as too heavy or bold on the colours and it would look closer to just mutlicoloured glasses not a reflection. I think it worked but it'll definatly take a few more tries before I'm happy with the theory of it.

The clothes were a bit simpler, bold colours and attempt some texture. The shirts is supposed to be slightly silky which will need a rethink to get right (but the colour is great) The tie has a more woven texture used by criss crossing lines along the length.

I'm rather pleased with the results and it has given me some new things to go away and read up on before I start my next project.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully there won't be such a wait before the next post.

Spring Showdown (insert clever pun here)

It was time for the second showdown of 2017, Spring Showdown. You know it's spring because the clouds are a slightly brighter shade of grey and there's a younger looking range of road kill lining the countryside.

Truth be told I wasn't exactly in a social mood on the Sunday morning and it did cross my mind to drive straight past Hockley, head down to Southend and spend the day eating fish and chips on the "beach". But decided against it and parked up in the usual spot at Wayland instead.

The traditional pre event routine of handshakes, hugs, and insults took place while we were setting up and registering. There was a great turnout for the event, the showdown series has consistently grown in popularity and there was a good mix of players of different abilities.

Once registered and a quick intro from TO Mike "The Bunny" Marshall we were off. Thanks to bag o' tools we could just check our phones to see what tables we were at which really speeds things up.

Game one

I faced fellow Dark Sphere local Tim, who was running Molly versus my Raspi. The strat was collect the bounty.
Now this will be a fairly short run down as I didn't actually do anything much all game. I should have known better having played Molly for so long but I got punk zombied to bits by turn three after that it was just a case of him mopping up. The game finished with me having zero models left on the table and a massive 10-1 for Tim. It was a fun game but not a great start to the day.

Next up was lunch and the painting competition. Lunch was the Wayland usual of meat in bread with drink and snacks. The painting entries put out were amazing and I have to say that in the few years I've been playing Malifaux the level of painting has consistently improved. Where as before you had one or two stand out crews now there's always plenty of real contenders.

Game two

This round I faced the brute squad, Mr Harris. It was a Arc off with me sticking to Raspi and Ben taking Colette. As we attempted to fight over squatters rights.

The game was slightly less of a pummelling than game one, Raspi was holding back from killing too much as frame for murder was in the pool. So without the worry of friendly blast damage we ended up in a bit of a melee fest in the middle of the board while various ice dancers ran around doing stuff.

Ben consistently scored his VP while I lucked into a few points here and there. Closest I got to a plan coming off was when Colette to a pot shot at the Emissary, killing it and scoring me frame for murder. Finished up 9-5 to Ben, which is about 5 more points than I scored last time I played him.

Going into the last round I was on for the spoon, which although familiar territory for me it was something I'd rather avoid. So a large tea and a breath of fresh air and it was onto game three

Game three

Time for the second arcanist off of the day (so many Arc players now). This time it was versus a newer player James who was running Ironsides. I was sticking to Raspi again. The Strat was Stake a Claim.

The game started as a bit of a beat down as we all rushed into the centre of the table, Raspi took out Willie and put a fair chunk of hurt on the captain. Then the Captain replied by taking Lola (Cassi) down to two wounds. Then Snowstorm ate what was left of the Cap.

After than I did the smartest thing, I run and hid. The rest of the game became all about dropping markers with the odd fight between scheme runners. 

The game ended 10-6 to me. Meaning no spoon '17 is still a thing.

Well done to all the people who won (including fellow High Fauxdelity host Ritch, who got best Resser) As always I don't remember these things so check the rankings or just guess.

I managed to win a crew box in the raffle (second event in a row) which will go in to my ever growing pile of shame.

Big thanks to Mike for running things and Wayland for hosting. Thanks again to all of my opponents for the fun games. Oh and thanks to Eless for the cookie.

There are still tickets available for the next two Showdowns of this year, and the the Autumn one Falldown has just been bumped up to a two dayer so and ideal time to practice for nationals.

Thanks for reading. 

  

Salute 2017: 3rd time's the charm!

Hello beloved readers! My apologies for not posting very often recently, but to be honest I've been quite busy at the new job and most of my free time has been spent being exhausted and/or painting. Have a lot less free time to blog than I used to, but should have been posting a bit more. I've been playing a balance of Guildball and Malifaux lately but haven't had a ton of gaming time either, especially events-wise. Though I did win the one Guildball event I've been to this year, so that was cool. I do have quite a few more events coming up in the next month as well :D

Anyway, this past weekend I went to Salute for the third year in a row. It's only about 75 min to get there from my flat so seems silly NOT to go. This year I went in with less of a plan on what to buy than in previous years (like last year where I knew I wanted one of the lovely bendyboards terrain deals). I knew I was going to pick up the new steamforged/muse on minis Guildball tokens for my Fishermen and Union and some more basing supplies (grass tufts flowers etc), but mostly just wanted to do some shopping.

Showed up around 1130 AM as wanted to miss the rush so we walked right in. Didn't seem like it was as busy as previous years, but that could be just my mind. The free miniature was much better than two years ago (didn't see last years) and the fact that it was Russian revolution themed was cool as that is definitely my area of interest.

First off we went straight to steamforged and had to wait in line for about 10-15 min to get my stuff as it was still quite busy. Picked up the tokens and Philippa and I each got a chibi pin of our captains. Chibi salt is adorable. Also took some pictures of the really well painted farmers models.

Eggs to be hauled

Last minute change of plans left me with a spare Saturday to find some trouble, thankfully with a fully booked tournament calendar I could grab a ticket and head North to join the fun a Haul of eggs.

Finally my ongoing car issues were sorted so Saturday morning I hopped in the car, picked up Claire (partly out of the kindness of my heart and partly as we were heading so far from the safety of the M25 it was in case I needed someone to throw to the reavers)

A smooth run up the M1 and we were at Battlefield Hobbies. A great venue that you'll remember from my Nationals write up. (Yeah like anyone suffers reading this twice)
Best way to describe BH is it's a warehouse with unlimited tea. (In truth the place could be full of rabid wereotters and I'd be happy spend the day there as long as my mug was full).

Usual registration fun, plenty of chat, a bit of well meaning abuse, and a chance to top up my tea.

Game one. A Cooper off! Extraction versus Stef. A mirror match always has the potential to be a bit of a grind but we both took different set ups and schemes. We both got an early kill with Purple Coops blessed killing my Envy and the Red Coops Emissary killing the blessed. Shockingly neither of these scored for frame. After that the game changed gear and become more about dropping markers and weathering the storm around the extraction marker.
Last turn my Coop and Lola were paralysed and I had (thought I did) the markers down I needed so the mannequin took a pointless swing at a performer... Scoring a point for Purple Coop in frame. My idiot move was countered by an unlucky one from Stef leaving a marker just out to score end of game. The game ended in a well earned draw.

Game two. This time we had Guard the Stash. Cooper was back in the case as I'd decide to run a different Master each game. This time it was Raspi. I was up against Andy with Nico.
Because the deployment was flank I was lucky enough to secure a good position early to really unleash the filth of Raspi. Frozen heart was a life saver this game as the scary models Nico sent forward had terrifying as their main defence. One of the few times a pair hanged aren't scary is when they're sitting in the open ten inches from Raspi.
The game ended in a solid win for me (everyone was in almost as much shock as me)

Lunch. Food was provided by the venue a nice buffet the while tasty wouldn't have looked out of place at a great aunts funeral.
Painting was put out for judgement. There was two painting competitions, best three minions which have a huge amount of entries. And best painted egg, which has fewer than hoped but all of them were amazing.
I entered both and had a good nose at the other more impressive entries.

A quick walk in the sunshine to stretch my legs (I know who knew there there was sun up t'north)

On to game three, now I was sitting precariously high on a draw and a win, so I was likely in for a tough match to finish the day.
I got this in the form of fellow Dark Sphere player, captain of the fauxmads, and Angeleye's only fan. Marcus.
It had been ages since we'd played so it was cool to see how we'd both progressed. The game was recon Lucius v Marcus and considering neither of us were playing ressers the was a shocking amount of undead on the table. (Most of my available beasts are from my time playing ressers).

As expected the game was controlled by Marcus from the start but I did manage to put a few speed bumps in the road making good use of a charging emissary and a super quick Marcus.
The game ended in a win for Marcus but left me for I think the first time ever on a positive VP diff to finish a tournament, +1 is a lot better than the previous weeks -18.

As always people won things and there was clapping and raffles and all that fun. Check the rankings if you want to see the standings and things by this point in the day my brain has shut down so I just join in when other people clap. I did win some chocolate eggs and a trans Daw crew which was a pleasant surprise.

One last cuppa, a fair bit of hand shaking and working who'll be a what event next then it was back in the car, remembering to get Claire (no reavers so far but better to be safe).

All in all a great day. Lots of chat, almost enough tea, and I didn't embarrass myself (on the table anyway). Big thanks to my opponents, and to Mr Brown for running things.

Thanks for reading next up for me should be Spring Showdown (tickets still available I believe)