Will here: Armies, Paints, Lists, and (tabletop) Gamer Girlfriends

Howdy, weary traveller! Come, seat yourselves within the Karlack 22nd's barracks, and watch for the inevitable knife at your throat. My name's Will, and I'm one of the bloggers here. I was going to include a goofy picture of meself, but I decided it was probably better to spare your eyeballs from my shockingly bad hair and stunning good looks (not the most admirable combination) and I'll start on the first few things to discuss.

First thing I'll mention, is a bit about me and my gaming habits. Because, I'll be honest, they're bad ones. I picked up 40k at the end of 5th ed, much like fellow blogger Alex, after I managed to actually find myself a gaming group who I could do RPGs with; the Warhammer came as an 'Oh, that looks kinda fun. I'll pick something up, and see where it takes me.' (Bad gaming habit #1.)

So, there I was, with a brand new and sparkly Tau army, paintbrushes, paints, and a ton of enthusiasm. Which isn't a bad way forwards. I amassed about 1500 points of Tau in the end, some painted to a moderate (for a newbie) fashion in a striking pale blue and red colour scheme. I was proud of them, even though I lost. Constantly.

Though, time turned my fantasies of a fluffy, entertaining army on it's head. I had gotten used to a less-than-viable army that was fun to play in a fluffy fashion, and was pretty unique. I was the only Tau player in my club, and in my area - which, while a little lonely, was nice. The new codex heading out was like a godsend - it was an edition out of date, and was in dire need of an update. GW just made it too good.

Suddenly, practically everyone I knew who was in the least bit competitive (sadly the case for both my half of the people I knew at both the club and the local GW) had Tau - big, stompy riptides that tore everything against them to small puddles of plasma. My cornerstones - the Kroot and Vespid - had been largely ignored, though - Vespid were no cheaper, and Kroot took a massive -1S hit, and suddenly could equip everything with sniper rifles, making them less the moderately okay melee unit into huge sniper blobs, which didn't fit. Kroot had snipers, yes. But not squads of 30 of them!

And so, my Tau army, and my shiny new limited edition codex collected dust for a bit. I flitted between armies, barely scraping 500 points before I changed my mind, decided I didn't like them (Bad gaming habit #2) and scrapped them. I think I tried Dark Eldar, Tyranids, even dabbling in Fantasy, before - almost 2 years later - I think I've finally settled on two armies that I can kind of split my attention between. Chaos Space Marines (Word Bearers), and Imperial Guard (Yes, another one. This is something of a Karlack thing - though I do Vostroyans, and Jay does Steel Legion (And Alex does Cadians. - Jay)). That is, I literally started those armies no more than 3 months ago. As such, this blog will be documenting the rise of those armies from the very beginning. I've also turned my sights towards my love of historical warfare, so expect to possibly see the start of a US Bolt Action army here in the future. Money permitting, of course.

So. Onward to my next point - models!

I'm quite proud of my painting style, and like to create a unique army in any way I can. I've stuck very religiously to the style given in How to Paint Citadel Minatures, which I picked up when struggling with painting Dark Eldar models. You know the one:

I was astounded by how much the basic techniques picked up my painting style, and so, I've stuck by it. However, that does mean that my Vostroyans have upwards of 40 paints per model - a number which seems to astound my fellow bloggers (also very slow - Bad gaming habit #3). So, I'll be updating a paint count with each of the models I paint here - starting with my little band of cultists, which are sat on my desk with half of their base layers done as I type this. 4 paints thus far.

Anyway. Sadly, there's not much to say in terms of painting models right now, since with my Tau having been shelved and my other two armies being new. I will leave an image of my Vostroyans here though, but watch this space; I'll be posting up more on my cultists soon, promise!

<Vostroyan group shot goes here>

Next point - lists!

Jay's already mentioned a 3000 point Apocalypse list; I'm writing one too, since we're planning some games for when Alex gets his arse back here in April. I've been working on a complete roster for a 'finished' army of Word Bearers - though, that said, it's a list that's almost touching on 5000 points now, so that's a little useless. Instead, I'm thinking of using it as an excuse to push me to paint models - though, given my usually slow fashion (#3 again) it may just be a case of base and wash those I use for now.

You may have gathered by now that I'm a fan of fluffy armies - that's largely why Word Bearers appeals to me. I've often thought about doing a chaos army because they are vastly different and yet so similar to the common Space Marine armies that littered our tabletops back at my old GW - mainly, I guess, because of the evil streak that permeates them. Same reason I enjoy Black Crusade over Dark Heresy. I guess I'm a closet villain.

At present, I've been listing what might be useful at that level, rather than what might constitute a list. After all, I've never played a game of more than 1250 points - especially not with my CSM, since I only own around 700 - but I do have an idea of things that would be handy. Long ranged firepower, certainly - so Defilers; Air support - so Heldrakes; Anti-Air weapons, so Havocs and Heldrakes; so on. I'm also sorely tempted by the idea of a Lord of War thrown in, simply because Apocalypse Only models make Apocalypse fun, right? The Fellblade has my attention - that 100" range on the Accelerator Cannon is really quite nice, though I'll admit I'm not in the least bit keen on the model - at least, the Forgeworld one. Anyone pointing out decent stock Fellblade conversions can have brownie points.

Choices aside; I've been fiddling over my choices for this. At present, it looks like I'm going to need to paint around 250 points a week - as well as accrue the money to fund this excursion - in order to meet that quota. But hey, a deadline gives a sense of urgency, so there may be hope yet. I'll also be keeping this updated, so let's see where we get.

Finally, I'll mention my girlfriend, Cally, who will also feature in a few of these, at least until she decides to write herself. She's got a good number of armies (Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Necrons and High Elves) and is a pretty sodding good painter, so anything  to show off will probably be crammed in these posts, alongside yet more captivating dialogue by yours truly.

But I've made this long enough, so I shall leave you to your surfing of the interwebs. Fly now, chaps; and don't let the trojans bite. 'Til next time!

EDIT: This was written back in January, and I shelved it with the intention of getting a decent light setup for photographing some models. In the meanwhile, I've had quite a few issues with RL such as leaving university, so the photos never happened: if I get the opportunity to take them, I'll add them here. In the meanwhile, I told myself and the rest of the guys on this blog I'd join them, so I really feel I ought to get writing.

Will