The near meditative practice of having a clear out

As I packed up this week's eBay sales to head out to their new owners, I found it becoming strangely restful. There was a certain preciseness to the routine of packing the item, taping up the box and carefully affixing the postage label.

This whole thing was probably reinforced by the rain drumming on the conservatory, and my impulsive decision to re-listen to Pablo Honey all the way through. The soundtrack to my adolescence's kitchen chores was bound to put me into some kind of mood.

...

Of course, this whole thing has been thrown out of kilter by my getting distracted part way through writing this, unpacking a box of rugs, then finding a key box of scenery, my Frostgrave warband, my currently assembled Malifaux and most importantly, my Infinity token box.

I'm writing this on Sunday night to be scheduled for Monday evening, and currently my brain is in full excited "we're back in business" mode while it really needs to be drinking a nice mug of mint tea, chilling out and getting ready for bed.

And my mind drifts back to Pablo Honey and "You do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts..."

Sisters of Battle First Game Plans

 

I'm hoping to get my first game of the 9th edition of Warhammer 40,000 in soon, so I took a little time to write a list using the Sisters of Battle I have available. I've not written the list for a particular mission, as that will need agreeing with my opponent, but there's not exactly a lot of variation I can manage within the models I've got. It's only going to be a 1,000 point game.

First up, I'm taking a Patrol detachment with two five lady squads, taking advantage of the fact I have a couple of spare Veteran Sister Superiors from the limited edition models.

Lacking any tanks at the moment, mobility will have to be covered by the Seraphim squad. I'm suspecting some transport tanks may be high on the purchase list to expand out to 2,000 points!

As it's the only armour I've got, I'll also throw in the Penitent Engine to run around do violence before something smushes him.

This mob will get led by a Canoness, with a second Canoness leading up a Vanguard detachment as most of the models I own are Elite . . .

I've grabbed a Dialogus to learn what they do in the new edition. They seem to hand out buffs to units or something.

Also, the Imagifier, who also seems to have an aura of useful effects.

The rest of the list is taken up by angry people. To get two org chart free Repentia Superior, there's a squad of Repentia in both Detachments. I'm aware they could likely do with some vehicles, which I don't own, soooo...

The list is then rounded out with as many Arco Flagellants as I can afford for the points. Their job is to run forward screaming with the Repentia and see who dies most / kills most.

Getting a game in isn't really my top priority right now, as I really need to focus on getting ready for the Malifaux tournament I'll be at in November, but if I have some free time to fit in a game, I may as well...

Once I've got a game or two in, I can start thinking about how the force plays and what sort of models it would be sensible to get to expand the force. The obvious one to start off would be more Battle Sisters, so I can take more varied troop choices and get a bigger Detachment rather than two smaller ones.

A short update

Well, it turns out that the overly optimistic tidying plan was pretty catastrophic on my blogging schedule. Things are all back in boxes now, in a bit better order. There's still some stuff to sort, but that's in one place and I'm pretty happy I know where it's all at.

I've been Outside, going to a friend's wedding. It was pretty exhausting. I'm planning on not really doing more than one tournament a quarter while I get used to human interaction again, and have signed up to a big Malifaux tournament in November.

Of course, when I did this I hadn't realised they had a minimum painting standard, and I can't just run the bare plastic I had assembled, so it looks like I've got another deadline. That's the Stormcast on the back burner and Malifaux to the top of the pile.

My neon NA2 forces for Infinity have had some reinforcements back from my new commission painter. I need to do some organising of those photos but will get them up on the blog soon. I've also signed up to an "in person" league with my Dahshat, as I don't have quite all the right pieces assembled for my Shasvastii to play in person just yet. (I mean, I have enough models painted for a legal force, but I'm missing some pieces I want to use, so am going to wait for them to get done.)

All in all, things are pretty OK, just not really interesting stuff to blog. Hopefully that'll change in the coming weeks...

If you can't be an example, be a cautionary tale

 

If, on the eve of a forecasted heatwave, you are looking for a very specific model to put into a commission batch, you observe that your hobby boxes are badly organised, may I gently suggest you don't start trying to sort them then?

Everything is boxes. I'm not taking a photo. Mostly because so many of those boxes have addresses on and I'm not daft enough to post my address all over the internet.

After simply lying in a cool room for several days avoiding everything, I realised I'd had a good amount of time to actually Think About Stuff, so you're getting another rambly post today. And hopefully not just because I can't get to my painting desk.

So, I settled down, filled up my amazing Fenris Games mug with the good tea, and had a think. I find these sort of blog posts super useful because it also helps me actually sort them out in my head as I try and get them organised to make them into coherent sentences.

So, I'm pretty happy with the progress I'm getting on my Shasvastii. I had my second vaccine today, so I'm looking forward to getting out to some in person games in the future. In the meantime, I've signed up to another short online league to get a bit more practice in with them.

I'm writing up a big spreadsheet of how I find all the different units, both to help remind myself and with the ambition of maybe writing some tactics posts for them in the future.

My fluorescent NA2 forces have some more models away at the painters, but I'm not sure when I'll next pick up painting them. The focus is really on the Shasvastii right now, but a couple of fun brawls with my "previous season" armies is definitely on the cards at some point. I also have White Company being slowly worked on to pick up in a future season once enough models are ready, but there's no rush. I'm also looking at the new Nomad models coming out, but they're very much for when the current project I'm painting myself is finished!

Rather than expanding the Sisters, I decided it was better I get my Deathwatch sorted next for 40K, which did lead to a revelation of quite how many Marine kits I have kicking about my house. This one is a simple "once I get out, play a game and see what I'm enjoying and what I want to do next".

The next project that I'm looking to paint myself is a Stormcast Eternal force for Age of Sigmar. With the new edition out, the Stormcast are a low model count army that should be forgiving to learn with, and will be having an updated Battletome for the new edition pretty soon.

And the thing here will be trying to just focus on the one project. There isn't a specific deadline as such, beyond "try and get a playable force by the time the Battletome is in stores". I'll still pick up bits and bobs of things as palette cleansers in between Stormcast, because I go just as fast on the project and end up with more things painted in total by the end of it.

And that said, I'm going to try and be a bit more sensible with my palette cleansers. I'm hoping to one day run an D&D campaign with miniatures, and also to try out Frostgrave and Stargrave, so that can give a little more . . . structure to models I'm painting because I like the look of them.

With all that in mind, you might see the painting speed slow a little on the blog as I put more time into clearing out the stuff I definitely don't need any more. The flat is still super cluttered and knowing what I can do when "flat out" now means that a lot more projects move from 'the future' to 'I'm really not going to get around to this, am I?'... An army box of Ad Mech has already been swapped for some more Marines to flesh out the Deathwatch, and they're all going straight back out the door to the commission painter...

So, it's really more of the same, hopefully with a little more focus and less stress. I'm pretty happy with how the hobby year is going, despite the world's best efforts. The real challenge is avoiding over-committing to things, which I am a master of...

A pause for reflection

While I was focussing all my hobby time on getting ten Shasvastii done for the Corvus Belli painting competition, I noticed how much stuff was building up elsewhere.

Now, when thinking about hobby, I've realised I'm very bad at keeping track of how long it all takes. I end up just thinking about the painting, but not realising how much time prep, assembly, basing and undercoating takes at one end, and photographing and varnishing at the other end.

Thing is, I have shown myself that I can get a nice chunk of a painting project done in about a month and a half.

Now the rush is done, I'm planning on clearing the decks, having a bit of a tidy up, maybe doing a couple of simple figures as a change of pace, then settling into a new project.