Hey, there's a blog here!

  It has certainly been a while.  Sorry about the absence- work was a real butt-kicker and school suffered for it.  A shift in priorities (again) saw the blog put behind the back-burner.  But now that job is done and I'm back to being the perfect student, so I figured it might be time to do this blog thing again.  As always, I appreciate the patience.
  During all this time, I haven't failed to get my hobby on.  I just didn't have the time to put in on the site (or even take pictures).  My son and I played soooo much 40k and I even had a buddy come down and whoop us on my own table.  Five games and not one made it past the top of turn 2...


  GW also did a great job draining me of my cash.  It wasn't the gaming that got me buying more toys, it was just the genius that is that darned company!  Between my love for 40k already and the release of AoS stuff, they added cool mini-games (admittedly as an excuse to sell models) like Underworlds Nightvault, Speed Freaks, and Necromunda (of which I now own everything since finding the little ol' Warhammer Citadel...).






  Speaking of Speed Freaks- you see, I had started an Ork army many moons ago and was buying a few more things to beef that force up and then, well... let's just say that certain car repairs haven't been done.  This was where my buddy come down from Chicago and played his Orks against me and my son.  Between his experience and his army-building skills, my buddy taught us many valuable lessons.  That included maximizing movement in the Charge and Pile-In moves to get the most attacks and things like that.

  My buddy also bet and motivated me to finally finish painting my Primarch, who's been sitting unfinished for years now.  It took some effort and I have so many touch-ups to do, but at least he's done and can hit the tabletop.

Lord Commander Guilliman

  Then GW finished off the year strong for 40k and launched a campaign that promises the return of the Chaos Warmaster himself (a 14th Black Crusade?).  Vigilus Defiant, alongside the Chapter Approved for the year... My excitement could not be contained and I was at my local shop picking these things up as soon as I could.  As promised, the campaign book mirrors the Forgeworld style and introduces some rather key fixes that the game needed.  [On a side note, I see the excitement for the White Dwarf rules for Crimson Fists, but did anyone see the Special Detachments in this book for that Chapter?]  

  Now of course this meant that I would have to continue the flow of painting and get the Master Macragge himself done.  I even followed Duncan's video on Warhammer TV (with a couple of colors changed since I didn't have exactly the palette he used)-  I highly suggest his videos!  Not only is it how we are trained to paint in the company, but he's so good at explaining it as he goes, so anyone can do this.  I chose to even put the helmet, rather than the bare head, on to maybe represent a new Chapter Master rather than Lord Calgar himself (and Primaris to boot!).  Regardless, the rules for him are awesome and finally put him on par with Abaddon in his current form.  This makes me fear how much more powerful the Warmaster of Chaos will be in the next chapter...  For now, I plan to use Lord Calgar in every list- he's sooooo good!  Courage and Honour!

 And I admit we've been doing some other games as well.  We played some DnD and everyone leveled up.  My brother is even DMing for the first time and I have to note that he's pretty good at it (he's so patient, which is a really good trait to have in a DM, I'd say).  And my son was rewarded a Hammer of Thunderbolts for his birthday- his Dragonborn clan seems to take birthdays seriously!  

  Now I've made a plan with my buddy to finish my Ultramarines army this year.  Considering that I haven't painted anything for the force since...  a long time ago, this is going to take a bit.  The Vigilus campaign rules make for a great starting point, but this means that I have to paint up a lot of Intercessors.  Not hard, but I really feel like I've painted enough marines in my life.  Unfortunately for me, my son has painted his entire Death Guard army (and is working on Mortarion as I type this) and I've run out of excuses.  This shall be the year of power armor made with lapis lazuli, I declare!

Image from IndiaMART on Google Images

 So what do you plan to be working on this year?