Please Allow Me....

To reintroduce myself.

So who is this great bufoon behind the blog? Well, put simply, me. Known infamously as Big Kev or vandalworks (twitter, instagram, XBL, facebook) I am not only large in size but also large in nerdiness. Over the last year, Death By Die, has been put to the side a little as real life came to the forefront and decimated my time and mental stability. But now it would appear that I need this more than I realised. I've missed blogging, writing about things I love (mainly gaming of the dice and card based kind) and hearing from people and making new friends. So where do we start? Lets talk about the shit I love.

This last year, myself and a couple of our club members (The Gwent Reavers) got into Dungeons and Dragons. We didn't know what to expect, but I think massively enjoying it wasn't one. I thought it would be ok and worth a go, but I've now become a huge fan of being a DM (thats short for dungeon master) and helping to create these adventures for my friends to gallantly garner victory or hilariously fail basic tasks. Gav, looking at you kid. What makes this so good is character development, seeing people you know get into who they have become for a game and trying to go against what might be a better tactical option for something more in line with their character. And the best thing now is that we're soon having our first regular roleplay night with a few new people. Should be good and will be something I'll blog about in the future! 

Ah Sons of Anarchy. This represents not just how much I adore board games but certain TV shows too. Sons being one, Game of Thrones being another. I don't get in to many but the ones I do get into, I may blog about occasionally! Also keep an eye out for movie posts, with a Force Awakens thoughts post coming soon!

Everyone needs their ideal snack for gaming, and by Christ Squashies are the best. From full to empty in a short and often unbelievable amount of time these little pillows of goodness are addictive. Hence why I've been clean for a few weeks. But soon....

Being born in the year of the Empire, (1980) I was a pure eighties kid. Cartoons were probably at their best with Thundercats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bravestarr and a plethora of other goodies being crammed into my eager and toy needing eyes. But if one caught my attention more than any, it was Transformers. Generation One Transformers to be specific. When the vehicles got a little scifi they were'nt Robots in Disguise anymore, which was ok but I preferred the real looking ones. Expect much gushing if I spy Transformer related goodness. 

Ah Blood Bowl, my first love. Not only have Games Workshop released the first sculpts for the new addition and therefore given me the biggest nerd-on in the last year but I picked up the sequal to the original videogame on the Xbox One and its been enjoyable. I took a little time off videogames for a few years but a few months ago Star Wars Battlefront was being released and I needed to get back on board. Expect some videogaming posts on this very blog! Along with the Blood Bowl tabletop game I do play the occasional game of 40k and am often found tinkering around with some Space Marines, so progress, which you can find over various posts previously in this blog shall continue!

Wrestling. Yes, I'm a fan of the theatrical fight where men in pants covered in baby oil act and grapple for a new belt. From WWE to local wrestling, if I can get to some shows I'll be giving thoughts on them and about things that happen in the wrestling world as I see fit to comment on. Royal Rumble is just around the corner and may well be the first subject on this blog! 

So thats my reintroduction of who I am, and what you can expect as I attempt to inspire myself to blog and annoy you about all things I feel most nerdy about. 

Geek on Garth.

Warhammer World and Battle Brothers

So today, I got the chance to go to Warhammer World with some of the Crow Valley Crusader lads, namely Byron, Shaun, Chris... And Mike. Bah Mike! He's never seen the Animated Transformers film, what a dork! Anyways, enough with why I want to beat him into a pulp, about today!

We got to Warhammer World unable to book a table due to an event. We took some minis up anyways just in case but to be honest, even without playing we had a pretty good time. The following images follow the day roughly, from the always must see trip upstairs in the miniature hall to bugmans bar for food and then I got the chance to chat and take some pictures of the Battle Brothers event. More on this later!

Its apparant that I'm either a Space Marine or an short Ogryn. I'm about the same height as this fellow and just as dangerous... although I need sleep a hell of a lot more!

Quality Jib Capture no.1

I was never a fan of these outrider bikes until I saw this amazing army today. They look so much better in person and I wouldn't mind getting one for a chapter master conversion... thing is you can only get three and its £45! Ouch. I love those attack bike conversions too. The chap who had this army was a great guy to chat too, he was telling me how the Battle Brothers events are always a good time and that he and his team mate had just lost against an Eldar/Dark Eldar coalition. 

And I think he meant these. I'm pretty sure just before I'd gone back into the gaming hall I chatted to this team, as they said they'd just won a close-ish game with Eldar and Dark Eldar. Stunning armies too, look really effective and I like the ying yang effect and backwards role. The Dark Eldar are the lighter colour and the Craftworld are much darker. Stunning armies! 

 

These Tau were really nice too, unmusual colour scheme and this picture doesn't do them justice!

Game of Thrones references are always good by me, especially when Hodor is mentioned. HODOR!

This was incredibly. A Necron monolith made to look like a sand castle. I don't know what to think! In one way its just too bezerk... but in another way its genius!

Quality Jib capture no. 2

I'm not even sure... 

These were also stunning, some amazing freehand work on these!

When a Titan needs its big bro....

Quality Jib Capture no.3

So today was a great day, I got some bits ordered for Bam and Alun from Forge World and the lads bought plenty themselves. I'm keeping my money back as I'm looking to start an Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum army. I've got a Banewolf almost finished and five more Cadians to do, and I've also sorted out a trade with a nice bloke swapping my Tau for some Guard bits, including the new Dex' and some other goodies. Looking forward to adding more to it! We're hoping that the next time we go to Warhammer World it'll be a joint trip with the Tredegar Reavers and the Crow Valley Crusaders, and have some nice chunky games. I also really want to organise a huge tank battle, will have to see how viable that is! 

One of the things for me though was seeing just how nice everyone was in the Battle Brothers event, and its made me really wanna have a go! Also playing against fully painted armies would be amazing, there were some stunning forces up there and to see them on the other side of the table would be a treat. Perhaps next year!

If you're in any of the images above or your models are, just leave a comment and a link if you wanna pinch it!