The Dark Pact Revisited

Back in July I wrote a post about The Dark Pact, a Horus Heresy themed Tale of 4 Gamers type of affair. This is a follow up post to that one, so go and give it a quick read to remind yourself of what it's all about before reading this one.

DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS

Ok so that would be all of us then.

As you can probably guess by a lack of posts since the last one, the Dark Pact has kinda petered out. Unfortunately I think this a pretty common occurrence with this type of thing. Everybody is so pumped and excited when a project like this starts but the enthusiasm soon dwindles as the project roles on and life gets in the way. If anyone has any good tips for maintaining momentum within a group please leave them in the comments below.

I was intending to writing another post at the time of the second deadline. However, as only Craig and I had managed to meet that target there seemed little point. Since then Matt and David have caught up as well so I figured that it was about time I got you guys updated. Incidentally we've seen nothing new from Mog or John so there'll be no update there.

VI Space Wolves XIV Death Guard- Rob

 I realise I never posted Robs first months offerings in the original post, as he hadn't finished at the time of writing. If you've read the last post you'll see I made a big joke about how Rob constantly changed his mind about which legion to take, so it's no surprise then to see he ended up with painted Death Guard in the end.

I would complain but he's done such a good job on these that it's hard to. Unfortunately it looks like he's out of the Dark Pact for good. So there's no 'month 2' offerings. I keep trying to tempt him back and you never know I might be successful one day.

The 4 of us who are left (me, Craig, Matt and Dave) haven't given up on building Heresy armies altogether, we're just not following regular deadlines. Unfortunately cost is the main barrier at the moment. As it happens though we're all building regular 40k armies at the moment.

XIII Ultramarines - Dave

I only have pictures of 3 of Dave's Marines. I'm missing the other two although I'm sure he's finished them.

I'm betting he never got the chance to photo the other to what with the moving to Australia malarkey

 As always you can read about Dave's adventures here on his blog. If you've kept up-to-date there you may have seen him post pictures of his new Heresy miniatures a few weeks back.

He's recently moved to Australia for a couple of years and he's working on some Dark Angels at the moment, although he's had to make some hard decisions about what miniatures to take over with him. He's also threatened to GM some games when he gets back, so we've all got about 2 years to get some armies built in preparation.


XII World Eaters – Matt

2nd Month models

Army so far

Matt got the second half of his squad completed a little before Christmas. He's currently working on some 40k Orks. I had two sets of the Black Reach Orks lying about which I sold to him (I'm sure I'm going to regret getting rid of them one day) so he's using them as a basis for an army.

XVI Sons of Horus - Craig

2nd Month models

Army so far

 Craig got his Justaerin finished on time although I say he cheated. The rules stated you have to paint 5 models or a unit. Justaerin can be fielded in units of 3 so technically he's fine but I know he has two others he intended to paint but didn't.

He also broke the spirit and point of the project by buying too many miniatures. One of the things we wanted to do was to only buy little bits at a time and paint it before buying more. I believe me and Dave have 5 basic marines unpainted, while I don't think Matt has any. Craig on the other hand has his two Justaerin, 3 Jet bikes, 5 basic marine and 5 assault marines...I think I've got that right.

He's also getting in on the regular 40k action by starting an Eldar army. Me, Craig and Matt all reside in Cardiff now so once they've got a few hundred points painted up we'll be getting some games in and I'll be sure to write about those games here.

I'm also hoping to get them to guest write a post once they've got some models painted...although I've not told them that yet.

VIII Night Lords – Me

2nd Month models

Army so far

So I say I win the Dark pact as I was the only one to get 10 models painted when they were suppose have been painted. If you follow me on Twitter you may have already seen me post these pics on there last year when I painted them.

I've been toying with painting a new legion. The new Night Lords rules in Massacre are cool and all but something doesn't sit right with me. When I think about how my army is going to grow, I realise it's not going to grow into want I envisioned from a Heresy army. It's difficult to explain and perhaps I'll write another post about my thoughts on it at a later date.

I think one of my problems is that I don't like the models for the Raptors. If they release some awesome models for the terror squads it may pull me back in.

I've got 5 Heresy marines unpainted and I'm tempted to paint them as another Legion as a test. Even then several legions are winning me over, although Imperial Fists are currently in the lead.

I'm going to be working on my nidz for the foreseeable future anyway so the issue is fairly mute at the moment.

So I'll leave it there, hopefully we'll see a further return to the Dark Pact, we've not given up on it entirely.

If you like the post be sure to comment and share it with your friendsTill next time...

The Week in Hobby

This is the first in what I plan to be a regular segment on the blog. Each Sunday I'll be summarising my hobby and gaming activity during the week as well as providing a glimpse into the week ahead. I'm not totally sold on the name of this segment, so it may change and suggestions are welcome.

Restarting the Blog 

So I've recently decided to restart the blog as you may have guessed. What you wont know at this point is that I've decided to restart it in a much bigger way. It's still a work in progress, but the aim is to post far more regularly, perhaps 2-3 times a week and to generally take a more professional attitude to the blog.

When I first started the blog the aim was to track the building of my Lizardmen army. You can see the results here

In the past, even when I was posting on a semi regular basis it was always in a hap-hazardous way. There was no regularity to my posts, I would write them on a whim and just keep writing till I ran out of things to say. While I'm proud of the posts I wrote in my Lizardmen series, they were very much sprawling affairs reaching into the 3-4000 word mark that I'm sure for many people earned the mark of tl:dr (too long didn't read for those not familiar with internet speak). The plan now is to write shorter but more regular posts, with the occasional essay thrown in. 

I also want to aim for regular days on which to post. At the moment I'm thinking Tuesdays and Thursdays with a regular week in hobby post on Sunday, although this is subject to change. I also want to broaden the subject matter for the blog. While it will primarily remain a Games Workshop gaming and hobby blog, I want to include the occasional post on other types of gaming, such as board games and perhaps even computer gaming although I'm not sure how far down that rabbit hole I want to go.

My one post since making the Lizardmen army was about the Dark Pact, 

a Horus Heresy themed tale of several gamers. You can check it out here

As to why I'm doing this, there are a few reasons. The main one is that a couple months ago I moved to Cardiff. Right now I'm only a 20min walk away from from a good gaming venue as opposed to the 45min train ride I had to traverse while living in Weymouth. I also have a few friends already here, who are hobbyists like me and so there should be a hell of a lot more hobby and gaming in my life in general, giving me much more material to write about.

Taking part in the hobby and writing about it has gone very much hand in hand since I started this blog. A lack of posts has very much been a symptom of a lack of hobby in my life, with just one or two exceptions.

I've also recently had the urge to write more lately, to practice and get better at it and this likewise fuels my desire to get this blog into a better state.

At the moment though, consider the format of this blog to be very much a work in progress and there will likely be some trial and error. Comments, criticisms and suggestions at any point will be greatly appreciated about anything, from the hobby to the format of the blog to the writing itself. Feel free to leave them here directly on the blog or tweet them at me here, but please, keep them constructive.

Elsewhere in the week

On Monday I had a visit from Dave over on Zen and the Art of Miniature Painting. He talks about the visit here but the long and short of it is we had a game of Battlefleet Gothic and my Word Bearers fleet decimated him. Later we played the board game Relic with two of our other gaming buddies in which I didn't do quite so well. I'll leave the detail to Dave, he gives a small battle report, it's a good read and there's some pictures of our fleets you should definitely check out.

Later in the week I began sorting out my Tyranid collection in preparation for the new codex being released Saturday. I posted the results Friday and you should expect the second part of that post, where I see how my army totals up under the new codex, on Tuesday. I'll also be writing some thoughts on how my army has changed under the new dex and some first impressions.

I've got some other posts in the works as well, which should be up over the next few weeks, including a more in depth look at my painted Tyranids so far as well as an explanation of how I painted them. In fact I've got a couple of posts in mind for the Tyranids.

I will also be returning to the Dark Pact, to give you an update on this floundering Horus Heresy themed tale of many gamers. After my game this week I plan to write a bit about my love of Battlefleet Gothic, including posting a short story I wrote for my fleet in a campaign a couple of years ago.

I also plan this week to get started on painting more Tyranids, although I'm not quite sure where to start yet, but expect to see some posts about it should I make any progress.

And that's it for this Week in Hobby.

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Till next time...

(PS I might need a better closing line too)

The Dark Pact

So it's been 2 years since my last post. Instead of dwelling on that fact I'm going to move directly on to talking about my latest project.

Back in April I went up to Cardiff to visit some old uni friends for a weekend around my birthday. On the Sunday Me, Matt and Rob are sat in a weatherspoons recovering from the previous two nights. We're there to meet a third friend of mine, Craig, whom I've not seen in sometime but who only vaguely knows the other two (I don't think Rob and Craig had ever actually met before).

Now I don't know about you, but I always get worried when different friends of mine meet, I mean they all like me but will they like each other? Now knowing they have all played 40k to a greater or lesser extent in the past, and still have an interest in the background and setting of it all, once they all sat down, as an ice breaker I jokingly said 'We need to find 14 other people and each collect a different Legion from the Horus Heresy'

I never thought they'd actually do it.

10 weeks on and we have our first miniatures to show. We've picked up some extra bodies along the way and there's now 7 of us although not everyone has made the first deadline.

We're running this as a Tale of 4 gamers type of affair. For those unaware, what this basically means is we have a target date and a target number of miniatures to paint by that date. Specifically for this challenge the target is a minimum of 5 models or a unit entry every 6 weeks. Not particularly lofty goals but we had to consider that several members of the group have not painted anything in almost 10 years, plus finances is an issue. We'll be using for the most part, Forge World miniatures and as great as they are, they're not cheep.

We've had 10 weeks for the first deadline however. The first period was always going to be toughest. Picking a legion and setting down a specific colour scheme and style to last the entire project is no easy decision and many of us were painting to the last day.

But enough of the preamble, here are our offerings for the first period posted in order of completion from 1^st to last.

XII World Eaters – Matt

 Matt has totally bucked the trend of the group and made us all look bad by finishing his models over a week early. He's also totally found a kindred spirit in Angron and now has an unhealthy obsession with gore.

XIII Ultramarines - Dave

Dave was the first new recruit, I invited him to our facebook group just so he could see what was going on. Within a day he was like 'I'm doing Ultramarines' and that was that.

Dave runs his own blog and has made a few posts already on this project. Check it out here http://zenartminipainting.blogspot.co.uk/ and be sure to look back at his earlier posts, he's got some pretty cool back story written up.

XVIII Salamanders - John

John was incredibly late to the party, having no more than half the amount of time the rest of us had. He also jumped straight in with no test models, even though he's not painted anything in about 10 years. I think he's done a fantastic job especially considering all of this, so I think we can forgive his lack of bases at this point.


VIII Night Lords – Jim (me)

Despite only sporadically painting and gaming these days, I've been dubbed the lore-master or Chief Librarian of the group, being the only one to have read all of the Horus Heresy Black Library novels, as well as reading more about the 30k and 40k universe than anyone else here.

I'll write another post later in the week with more pics of my Night Lords and to talk a little more about them.

XVI Sons of Horus - Craig

Craig is another one whose not painted for years. He was also late, by about 6 hours taking the view that if he's not gone to sleep yet it's still Sunday. Craig was originally doing Death Guard, but decided he wanted tanks, lots of tanks (actually I get the impression that like me he wants everything) so switched to the Sons of Horus a few weeks into the project.

DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS
We decided early on that the best way for our group to deal with failure to meet targets would be with mockery and peer pressure rather than any other tangible penalties.

VI Space Wolves - Rob

So Rob was originally doing Word Bearers, then Space Wolves, then Iron Hands, then Space Wolves, then Death Corps of Krieg (we told him no), then Space Wolves, then Raven Guard, then finally Space Wolves. I may have got the order slightly mixed up, it's difficult to keep track.

As you can see despite having his first miniature completed weeks ago, and being one of the original members of the group, Rob has failed to get the rest of his squad completed. He's waiting for shoulder pads or some other such nonsense, unsurprisingly he changed his mind about how they looked.

But I guess it's typical of the Space Puppies to be late, they never got to Terra on time either. Hopefully we'll see a completed squad from him by the end of the week.

XV Thousand Sons - Mog

Morgan is the only one of us to have a wife and kids. So when I invited him to the group I didn't expect he'd have the time or spare cash to get involved, but I invited him as I thought he'd be interested to view our progress if nothing else. Within days he was posting pictures of test models and assembled heresy miniatures. Apparently, it seemed, Mog had been planning this kind of project for sometime.

But alas he's been quiet for the past few weeks, work and family commitments seem to be getting the best of him (although part of me thinks he's using them as convenient excuses that we can't easily argue with)

All in all I'm really proud of all of our efforts, despite each of us for the most part living in different cities we've done a great job at keeping in contact with each other and spurring each other on. Hopefully we'll keep this up and I can't wait until we can get together with our full armies and play a big game of apocalypse together.