Friday 22 November 2013

Project Eldar update - the impossible task?


A couple of months ago I decided to set myself a hobby challenge, to paint a full Warhammer 40k army for the Summer Solstice tournament which is held at my local club every summer.  After a bit of deliberating I ordered a bunch of Eldar and officially started the project at the start of November meaning I had about seven months to complete the army.

So, coming up to the end of month one where am I at?  Pretty much where I started to be honest!

I’m admittedly a slow painter so this was always going to be a challenge but my lack of progress is almost laughable.  There’s a total of 66 individual pieces in my army (including some big stuff like a wraithknight and a crimson hunter), so far I’ve painted a whopping three of them (and they’re not even exciting pieces!).

In the past I’ve been fairly critical of the painting standard of 40k armies, I’m not going to win any painting awards but in comparison to most 40k stuff I’ve seen, I’m Raphael (which also happens to be my favourite flavour of turtle).  Sure, there are some great looking armies at my local club (Dave Williamson’s Tyranids and Andy Richardson’s Grey Knights instantly spring to mind) but they’re vastly outnumbered by bare plastic, undercoat or, at best, three colours and a wash that look like they were applied by a retard on a rollercoaster.

What this project has taught me so far is that the poorly painted 40k armies you see may not come from a lack of painter skill, they may just be a product of necessity.  Most tournaments have a minimum painting standard of three colours (and based) and have to be fully painted.  Based on my recent experience, even that is a significant challenge!  Based on my current paintin speed, my army will be fully painted to a decent standard in a little under 2 years.

The big question I have to ask myself is do I rush the painting to enter the tournament or do I go at my own pace and risk missing the tournament.  That took me less than a second to answer, the reason being my reason for spending money on the hobby.

If you stop and think about it, spending vast amounts of money on small lumps of plastic is fucking insane!  That is until you stop and compare that to other things.  Let’s say you go to the cinema, you pay £8 for the chance of a couple of hours worth of entertainment and then you go home having gained nothing.  If you go to the cinema three times, you will have spent the same £24 that you could have spent on a box of Eldar Fire Dragons.

The Fire Dragons may not give you a fumble in the back row but you do get some value out of that £24.  If you’re a slow painter like me, that money will get you much more than the six hours of entertainment you would get out of the cinema.  Hell, with finecast you’ll still be trying to clean the models up after all the films have finished.  On top of the hours of painting pleasure you can get, there’s also the sense of achievement at the end where you can appreciate the thing that you have beautifully painted.  Then you can stick it on eBay for a profit and buy more because people will pay silly money for painted armies (wonder why that is?!).

As this post has been a bit ranty in places, I’ll leave you with a picture of one of my completed Fire Dragons (taken before adding grass to the base).

D.F.T.B.A.

And

 

Thursday 14 November 2013

Selling Malifaux stuff

I've decided to sell the bulk of my Malifaux stuff to make way for other games. Here's a list of the stuff that's for sale (I have way more to list). I'll update this post as I add more to the list. I've not put prices for the painted stuff, just make me an offer (if you want pics just ask).  None of these include stats cards however first edition cards can be included for most if you want (just ask).  Please add £1 to any purchase for UK delivery (sorry, I'll only deliver within the UK).

If you want anything, just email me (soulstonetrain@gmail.com) or contact me on Twitter (@soulstonetrain).

Guild
Lady Justice (alt sculpt) – new in blister (£5)
Pathfinder & Traps – new in box (£9)
Papa Loco – (£4) sold
Guild Hounds – new, not in blister (£6.50)
Hoffman - new, not in blister (£4)
Lady Justice - painted
Judge - painted
Austringer - painted
Santiago - painted
Francisco - painted
Sam Hopkins - painted
Perdita - painted
Executioner - painted
Scales of Justice - painted
Lucius - painted
Guard Captain - painted
Sonnia (alt sculpt) - painted
Purifying Flame - painted

Arcanists
Marcus (original sculpt) – (£3) sold
Gunsmith (male) – new, not in blister (£4) sold
Gunsmith (female) – new, not in blister (£4) sold
Malifaux Raptors – new in blister (£6)
Mechanical Rider - painted
Soulstone Miner - painted
Fire Gamin - unpainted
Hoarcat Pride - painted
Hoarcat Pride - painted
Sabertooth Cerberus - painted
Snowstorm - painted
Slate Ridge Mauler - painted
Blessed of December - painted
Willie - part painted
Rail Golem - part painted sold
Joss – new in blister (£4) sold

Ressers
Seamus (alt sculpt) – new, not in blister (£5)
Flesh Construct (original sculpt) – new, not in blister (£5)
Grave Spirit – new in blister (£3)
Mindless zombies – new, not in blister (£6.50) - sold
Nurses – new, not in blister (£6.50)
Dead Rider - legs attached to horse and pin in the foot, otherwise new (£12)
Rotton Belles – new, not in blister (£7.50)
Simulacrum - painted
McMourning (original sculpt) - painted
Isamu - undercoated
Yan Lo box set - undercoated sold
Flesh Construct - painted
Sebastian - painted
BĂȘte Noir (original sculpt) - painted
Night Terrors - painted

Neverborn
Collodi box set – new in box (£17)
Avatar Lilith - (£15) sold
Black Blood Shaman – new in blister (£4) sold
Alps – new in blister (£7.50)
Lilith (alt sculpt) – new in blister (£5)
Mr Tannen – new on sprue (£5)
Chompy & Dreamer - painted
Daydreams - painted
Stitched Togethers - painted
Baby Cade - painted
Tuco - painted sold
Lelu - painted sold
Lilitu - painted sold
Pandora (original sculpt) - painted
Mr Graves - painted
Coppellius - unpainted

Outcasts
Viktorias (alt sculpts) – new in blister (£9) sold
Hans – (£3) sold
Killjoy - painted
Convict Gunslinger - painted
Levi box set - waif painted, rest unpainted.

Ten Thunders

Ten Thunder Brothers – new in blister (£9)
For Yan Lo stuff see resser section

Gremlins
Somer box set – new in box (£16)
Gremlin Taxidermist – new in blister (£3.50) sold
Piglets – new in blister (£3) sold
Stuffed Piglets – new in blister (£5) sold
Hog Whisperer & Piglet – new in blister (£4) sold
Slop Haulers – new, not in blister (£6.50)
Young Lacroix – new, not in blister (£7.50)
Pigapult - part painted

I also have 4 light up, colour changing ice/fire pillars, if you're interested in those or want to see a picture just give me a shout.

Tuesday 12 November 2013

SST: The Expanded Universe

We’re constantly thinking of ways to make Soulstone Train a better podcast and for a while now I’ve been toying with ideas of how to achieve that.  For us, the podcast has always been about community, both our own local gaming group and the wider gaming world and we really want to incorporate that into the cast.  You’re already heard from a number of our local group and a couple of others but the scope is soon going to widen.

As we have a limited time and budget to bring you as many games as possible, we wanted to find a way to bring you more content and I think we can do exactly that.

Starting with episode 18, there will be a new section in each episode where different people come on and talk about a game they play and why you should think about playing it.  I have an initial list of people that we’ll be contacting to be our first passengers on the train so if you get a random email (or DM on twitter asking for your email address), you’ll know why.

Initially we want to cover some of the games that we’ve wanted to get to for a while, things like  Infinity, Bushido and Blood Bowl, but then expanding into whatever people get excited about.  It will hopefully be a good adventure into gaming for us and that should be good for the listeners too.

We touch on this idea in episode 17 which will be out later in the week.  In that episode we discuss;

Hobby updates
Sponsor (new discount code, presence at Reading Warfare trade show 16th/17th)
Twitter questions
Our fave SST moments of our first year
New section plug
Cards Against Humanity review
Getting better at games, does playing lots of games help?
D&D update (the conclusion of our first adventure)
Upcoming events (X-Wing tourney, Vapnartak)