The New Year

So 2013 has arrived, and after a busy couple of weeks I've finally been able to get some time to do a retrospective post and a look ahead to the new year. Firstly, as club was shut over the holidays a few of the guys came over where we spent the day playing Blood Bowl, eating pizza and krispy kremes, and introducing the lads to Rare Exports. I won two of my games with my humans, but lost to Morgan who simply had the better dice rolls. I couldn't get any of his players off the pitch! I did manage wins against Aluns humans and Owains Dark Elves though, plenty of winnings and I managed to dig out the old Special Play cards that added an extra bit of fun to the game.

 So looking back over the past year, and its been huge for myself personally. Not only at the tail end of 2011 did I find a wargaming group with a great bunch of guys I now call friends, but I became Chairman, helped to rebrand the club and we became members of the GCN, which is an honour. This means we'll be advertised on their website, and invited to events such as Hammerhead which is in February, which a few of us may be at! 

The biggest part of wargaming calender was most certainly the release of Warhammer 40,000 6th edition. There were so many rumours, people burning effigies in the streets, others creating new statues to the gods to earn favour, all in the hope or disbelief of what they heard were in the new rules. Well, the rules came out, and they've been pretty sublime. They have added new tactical decisions, reasons to take new units and mix things up, generally just so much better than I could have hoped for.  We've played many games since its release and I think every game has been enjoyable whether its a comfortable win, horrible loss, or a tight game.

Something else of note for me in 2012, was being able to play in Warhammer World in Nottingham. Playing apocalypse was tiring, exciting, tedious, amazing, such a mix of emotions as you play, and the await while your opponents play their turn. With each turn taking around an hour it was hard at times but the amount of stories and events that happened in just one game more than made up for this. Highlights for me was my Legion of the Damned taking over 120 shots from various weapons before 'dying', my Chapter Master Vincent Eniko taking on Imotekh the Stormlord and utterly destroying him, and just seeing my force set up on the Battle for Fort Pain board with everyone elses armies. It was astounding! Anothing highlight was meeting James and his wife. James is a great guy and we chat regularly on Facebook about life, gaming, jerky and much more. It really is a highlight of the hobby that through its social interaction new friends can be made.

So 2012 was a great year, but what for 2013? Well, what you see above is a box of Skaven Gutter Runners. I've long had an affinity for the ratmen, and as they were my first team, I've decided to have a go at converting a whole team from scratch as a slowburn project... that could become a crazed fast convert-a-thon as I hurriedly claw and sratch my way to make a team to compete! 

Another aspect is that I've heard from someone within GW, that as Warhammer Fantasy Battle is 30 years old this year, there 'could' be some sort of surprise release in the summer involving perhaps a campaign book or even a boxed set... intriguing! Intriguing enough that I may just start collecting a Fantasy army for the first time. Skaven are obviously an option, but Beastmen are the leading temptation so far. I love the feral and brutal look of them, so may skip my hooves down to my local store to pick up a box or two. I'm also intrigued that the new Tau codex is possibly around the corner... this could influence whether my attempt to get into WFB will actually happen!

Club wise we're just looking to improve what we have in terms of terrain and tables, get more exposure and hopefully more members. More members means more income, and more income means more things for the club. Hopefully Hammerhead will happen for us and we'll get some interest from that, and also Huws Pirate game keeps developing nicely, could turn into a treat!

Blog wise, I'll be here blogging all the latest from myself and the clubs activities, wargaming news and rumours and hopefully a few more videos here and there. I'd also like to see who is interested in meeting up at Games Day 2013, as I'm intending on going again. For now though, I shall wish you all a farewell and I hope your new year is a great one.