What's Up?

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In the original post, I erroneously refer to The Bloody Reaver in Dreadfleet as a Dark Elf Black Ark. It's actually the vampire dude's boat. There isn't a Dark Elf ship in Dreadfleet. I'm still going to do a bit of mixing between Dreadfleet and Man O' War, but I'll have to start with the dwarf ship, Grimnir's Thunder.
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Let's keep this posting thing rollin'!

So what have I been up to lately? To start things off, I'm the proud owner of a (mostly) complete copy of Man O' War by Games Workshop. I've always wanted this game, but it went out of print just before I joined the GW hobby. I managed to acquire a copy for free, and the only thing it's missing are half of the plastic ships. The half that remain are unpainted, and in excellent condition. It came with a bunch of stuff from Plague Fleet, but not everything. So in my madness (and utter disregard for financial stability), I purchased a copy of Plague Fleet off of eBay.

I plan to slowly build up a collection of ships ("slowly" being the operative word, seeing as most of them go for $17 a ship once shipping's factored in), and play some games. This looks like one helluva game, and I'd love to get it to the table. Normally naval combat games bore the living hell out of me, but this one looks simple and customizable. Of course I can't expect others to start collecting ships, as their price and availability is somewhat prohibitive, but I have no problem making this a pet project. I think I'll begin with a Dark Elf fleet, as their ships seem abundant on eBay, and I plan to use the Black Ark from Dreadfleet in place of the original Black Ark (I mean, Black Arks are supposed to be huge, so it would be somewhat thematic if I used a ship that's in a bigger scale. I'm toying with the idea of doing something similar with the other ships from Dreadfleet. After all, I bought the damned game and need an excuse to get those ships painted. I'll see how the Black Ark turns out first, though).

I've also been working on my Americans for Bolt Action. This is an interesting paint project for me because I plan to dip the figures. As you may be able to tell from my lack of painting posts in the last little while, I haven't been inspired to paint much lately, and any attempts I've made to "dive right back in" have been met with the proverbial wall. I'm hoping by tackling a project that's simply base-coating a figure and dipping it into an instant-shading goop I'll be warmed-up to tackle a more involved project. I should also mention that the Warhammer club I frequent has been playing Bolt Action quite regularly, so there's even more inspiration. I, sadly, haven't attended the club in a couple months, so this is really killing multiple birds with one stone (good lord!).

I'm working on an original Cyberpunk RPG of my own design. Nothing much to say about it at the moment, but keep your eyes peeled.

As a perfect distraction to all these things, I bought, built, and primed my Capitol starter box for Warzone. I still have to finish my Brotherhood (which are so close to being finished), so this project probably won't see completion for a couple months.

And finally, this is something that's got me excited purely on speculation: Warhammer the End Times Chaos. I'm hoping this'll be my entry back into Warhammer. I've always loved Chaos in the Warhammer world, and if the rumors are true, and this book will allow me to integrate my Warriors of Chaos army with Beastmen, and Daemons, then I'm more on-board then ever. That's one of the changes I lament from the transition between 6th edition and 7th edition Warhammer is the separation of the Chaos factions. If I can stick them all back together again, then I imagine that I'll only want to from here on in.

Alright, that's it for now. I've had a remarkably infrequent stretch of three days off, and I plan to do even more hobbying tomorrow before I'm back in the coal mines that is game retail. Oh what a life!

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O brave new world, that has such games in't.

"Hey!" you exclaim, "I hate new stuff. Why're you changin' yer blog around?"
"Shaddap!" I say.

Nah, fer realz: I just thought that the sombre tone and title of "The Wargamer" seemed out of step with what I really do for fun. I wargame, that's for sure, but I also play boardgames, role-playing games, and card games.

Really, I wanted to call the blog "I Love Games," but the URL was apparently taken for that, so I went with "Playing Non-Stop," which is a clever take off of an expression ("Those neighbors have Van Halen's 'Panama' playing non-stop!"), and also a clever take off of a Kraftwerk song. I wanted to call it "I Love Games" because I do. I immerse myself in the gaming world, and a byproduct of that is a healthy respect for games designers. Mark Rosewater (of Magic: the Gathering fame), often describes Magic creator Richard Garfield as "loving games" whenever he mentions him in his articles or podcast. I respect both those men, and I guess the name kinda stuck. Oh well, at least now I can't be accused of comparing myself to Richard Garfield.

I'm also hoping this slight change in tone will encourage me to blog more. It's a bit ironic, though, that the things I'm concerning myself with the most at the moment are miniatures games, which were right up the alley of some blog called "The Wargamer." Anyway, they'll be the first things I most-likely mention on here.

Just thought I'd pop by to make another empty promise about blogging more, but at least the place got a face-lift, and it's nice to know that there's a reason for it, I imagine.

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