Hobby Meltdown - Who Gets the Chop Today?!

Have to be honest folks, finding my self suffering a little hobby burnout due to a lack of inspiration. The Chaos Space Marine release was a big disappointment for me in terms of miniatures and general over hype. Despite the book being visually stunning in terms of design and art direction, I find the actual content nothing more then a general re-hash of the last book crossed with Warhammer Fantasy (and we all see how well that sells at the moment...). I believe this has cemented the trend of no more legion cult armies and the rise of Chaos generic led by 10+ old miniatures - a new Abaddon would of been nice for inspiration don't you think? The book of today is more spikey marines than ever, regardless of what they say and I see the current codex attempt(s) as a child friendly version of what was the biggest evil in the galaxy, the corruption of the dark gods has been diluted down to pure emo daddy hate (with sprinklings of Jurassic Park). Joking aside, reinventing the wheel is as hard as they say, with Chaos being so varied (up to 3.5) it was always going to be hard to re-vitalise the army once Daemons were given their own book, however GW has actively made the choice (in my eyes) to kill off the validity of Mono-God armies/legions across all game sets, in order to sell more product (note - gone are the sacred numbers, the division of Chaos into three sub armies for Fantasy). There is no choice now but to focus on the humanised aspect of the 'long war' ie Chaos Space Marines, Cultists, Dark Mechanicus (via Daemon engines). Perhaps in the future this will yield more interesting results, however right now despite the allies matrix, Chaos Space Marines is just Jurassic Spikey Marines.

Site News: Mo Nurgle Mo problems

Apologies for the lack of updates this week, a combination of work and hobby related problems have left me frustver when ever something good happens, problems re-balance the scales. So what major problem am I whining about now I hear you cry?!: The tongue bit is missing.rated and tired eyed (all will make sense in a moment). I started working on the lovely Forge World Great Unclean One last week and hit off to a great start, the colours and enthusiasm were at an all time high. 

Seems like such a small thing, but when you shell out over one hundred pounds for an item and proceed to lose a piece, it is enough (in this man's case) to drive yourself nuts. I actually turned the hobby den upside down in order to try and find it...this did not help as not only did I not find it, but I discovered other miniatures had gone missing, needless to say I thought I was going all kinds of Jack Nicholson crazy. Well I have put out messages to various friends and even a email to Forge World (I expect no sympathy from them but straws are straws even if short), fingers crossed I will have some form of resolution to the issue next week.

Now a brief note on the "New" Chaos...The more I hear about the book (and have seen from various shots), it seems like nothing more than an evolution of the previous codex:

Mono = Crap, take Poke-dragons and add liberal sprinklings of obliterators.

We will find out fully tomorrow but I am banking on the above being the end result of the "new" Chaos Space Marines. 

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion

User Comments - Duncan Wright

"I have to say, all these early pictures were pretty crappy. I think you might want to take a look at the new photos, cause I initially agreed until I saw the official pics on the site. In my opinion, they are an awesome new direction and you should definitely take another look."

Thanks Duncan for taking time to read this blog and respond, my apologies for having to 'publically post' a response, but the eternal war between Disqus and Blogger comments continue! I have the digital version of Whitedwarf magazine (which I actually like and have subscribed to!) and have had a close look at the new chaos range, and my standing point remains stronger than ever, you have however cited something very important in your statement and that is 'Direction'.While In some cases it cannot be disputed that the physical design and sculpt (or cut?) of certain figures such as the dragon and the Mauler Fiend are high (while others like the Maulers are simply crap on a stick), it is actually the concept/direction that does not sit well for me. For a lot of older gamers who played Chaos in the 'good ol days', these new designs do not fit into the vision of God centric Chaos created over the last 20-30 years, and this is completely Games Workshop's fault. 

Chaos has always been about the four Gods and were always an all inclusive entity; Daemons, Mortals and Beasts of were all mixed into one; which made for some visually stunning and atmospheric armies.When GW split the Chaos books into Daemons and Chaos Space Marines, it also split the design ethics and diluted the creativity by taking away links to the four Gods (God specific Daemonic troops); instead of Noise Marines with daemonettes, you now have Noise marines with and a liberal sprinkling of Obliterators, and this is ultimately generic-ism. It started with lesser daemons and more undivided cults and now points towards Daemon Forge creations. While you do indeed have Cult troops, by taking them as the core of your army you automatically neuter yourself  due to lore based limitations and no God specific Daemons to augment your force (outside of the allies matrix). With the four Gods background primarily in the Daemons book, what do Chaos Marines become? merely spikey Marines. 

As I said at the start while the new Chaos Dragon, Mauler Fiend and some of the new Chaos Marines are technically very fine models, they follow a trend of undivided additions that alienate Four Gods players, while it is possible for players to proxy/convert it still feels cheap to play something that is not part of your list - a reason why I can't play Nurgle Bloodcrsuhers or Slaanesh Berserkers. A big part of me feels that perhaps Chaos Marines should phase out God Cult troops completely (Khorne/Slaanesh/Nurgle/Tzeentch), as it will allow greater acceptance/freedom for the design team to implement generic/undivided entities. 

Perhaps Cult troops truly belong in the Daemon lists as Elite units.

Follow up comment:

"Thanks for taking the time to respond. I can defend the models, and even the undivided part, but daemons and chaos marines should be part of one army".

And I think this is truly the crux of the argument, while there is nothing wrong with having a undivided army at all, removing the God specific Daemons from the Chaos Marines felt like a massive punishment for wanting to play mono-God. While most of the new models are nice in their own way, stylistically and thematically they they do not cater to Mono-God players.

Thanks again Duncan and please, please grab yourself a  Disqus account so everyone can see the excellent points you raise without me having to create a post for it hehe

thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion

Nurgle: Great Unclean One Day 1

An actual hobby post yay! The Forge World Great Unclean One is a wonderful model, it has been sitting on my shelf for around two years, it is a reject from my old Death Guard project and something I have always wanted to start painting. Today I decided to try (again) on making a start on the figure, my previous attempt had ended in failure when I was not happy with the colours and generally crappy brush technique I had applied at the time. In the last two years of painting again, I feel that I have (re) learnt enough techniques to try and paint high detail models like this again, and I hope that figure shows some evolution of technique once completed.

Blacklist: Idiot eBayer of the week

So after 11 years of buying and selling on eBay I got my first negative feedback, what a way to start you day! A buyer has accused me of stealing his money and not sending an item...only problem is it has a tracking number! I received one email from the buyer a while ago and I responded by providing his tracking number (even though it is already on his invoice). Apparently he has waited a month and still no package, instead of sending me a message to discuss where it is or even the concept of a refund, he leaves me a negative.

How do I discuss a refund when you don't even request one from me, am I meant to be psychic?

The best bit - I just checked the tracking, it states, item never collected and being returned. I strictly state to the buyer, to check his sorting office for the item and it looks like he could not even be bothered to do that...I mean how lazy is that? Your package in in the sorting office...you can't be bothered to pick it up...you can't be bothered to ask for a refund...and apparently that is all the seller's fault?

GENIUS

My concluding thought is that the buyer did initially want the item, then changed his/her mind and instead of picking up the item, decided to wait for it to be returned and avoid postage expense.I hate the fact that I can't leave an honest negative feedback for the person, so this is the next best thing. i would honestly recommend to all eBay traders, to add this buyer to the block list, the buyers name/ID is:

 connor19502009connor

I am fed up with how eBay takes no actions to protect it's smaller sellers, so from now on I will be doing my own black list or terrible buyers and sellers right here on my blog. All evidence will be presented and it will be up to you the readers to decide whether or not these individuals should be black listed from your sales. But for this week, congratulations connor you are the idiot eBayer of the week.

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion