The Man with No Time

It's been a bit longer than I intended, but I'm finally getting around to putting up my SmogCon photodump. I'm not going to put the full album up here, just to save space; as usual I took an awful lot of photos!  I've separated the photos out into a few different categories for ease of viewing. If you're interested, the complete set of photos (in chronological order) can be viewed on my  Flickr account . Painting Competition Spell Draft Iron Arena Board Games & IKRPG General

Another month, another Guardians of Tyr Warmachine tournament! This time it was back to Northampton for another 35pts Steamroller even. However, this was no ordinary Steamroller. One of the things that I like about the Guardians of Tyr setup is that they try to mix up the even formats throughout the year. They ran a Highlander (there can be only one!) event at Northampton to start the year which I sadly missed out on, and have run Who's The Boss at Milton Keynes this year as well. This time it was "4-Headed Hyda". The idea of the Hydra event is that you make a single list, assuming a set number of warjack/warbeast points - in this case 35pts, with +5 warjack/beast points. You then choose a number of warcasters/warlocks equal to the maximum number of rounds to run the list - in this case 4. Each round of the tournament you select one of your warcasters/warlocks to use, and each can only be used once. It's an interesting twist, and forces you to think about list s...

Last Saturday I travelled down to Milton Keynes for my third Warmachine tournament of the year. Like the last one I went to ( in Northampton ) this was organised by the Guardians of Tyr, and was a 35pt standard steamroller event. This time around though there was no Divide and Conquer in play, so no need to play each list, and the event was a little bigger - 24 players rather than 16 thanks to the extra space in the Milton Keynes branch of Wargames Workshop. After my bad form in the last two tournaments I attended, where my record was 0-7, I was really hoping that I'd at least get one win in. But in some ways that was a secondary goal - my main aim was to have fun, be a good sport, and try to give my opponents an enjoyable experience playing me. WARNING: Like most of my tournament reports this is going to be a really long post!

Last Sunday I travelled down to Northampton for my second Warmachine tournament of the year. It was being held at Wargames Workshop Northampton, and being run by the ' Guardians of Tyr ' gaming club. Despite a poor showing on my part in terms of results, I have to say that I had a really enjoyable day at what was a very well run tournament.

Tomorrow I'm travelling down to Northampton for my second Warmachine tournament of the year. It should be about double the size of the last one, with 16 players signed up for four rounds, and I'm looking forward to it. I've had my Cryx on the back burner for while so that I can learn how to use some of my Circle Orboros models at weekly gaming, which has been a lot of fun. But it will be nice to get the undead back on the table.  After my disastrous results at the last tournament I attended, I'm setting my sights low. I would like to win one game, and if I manage that I'll be happy. 

Tomorrow I'm travelling over to Leicester for my first Warmachine tournament of the year. I've never been to the store there, so it's a bit of a journey into the unknown. But after asking on the Warhammer Forum's Warmachine board it seems that there's no sign up, just turn up on the day. So I thought I would. It's a 35pt, Deathclock, Steamroller 2014 event. Two lists, with each having to be played at least once. 

It's been a good period for my wargaming recently. I've been getting some decent painting time in, and I've even managed to get some games of Warmachine in! At the end of last month I went to a 35pt tournament at Highlander Games in Dundee, and yesterday I travelled to my second tournament of the year. This time the format was a 50pt Steamroller, with reinforcements for all games and deathclock. I really enjoyed playing with reinforcements under Steamroller 2012, so was pleased to get the chance to break them out again. I was also looking forward to trying deathclock timing for the first time, having only ever experienced timed turns. In the end it was a small tournament, only 8 players, but a lot of fun.

I've been slacking a bit with my Lost Hemisphere Challenge, but I knew that was going to happen. The end of February and first two-thirds of March were always going to be pretty much a write off owing to the RLSS Speeds, conferences, and organising the BULSCA Champs eating up all of my free time for nearly a month. Then I came home and had to observe for a week! But this week I've been getting back into the swing of it, with some painting progress and my first games with Venethrax!

This month has seen the release of the latest expansion for Warmachine: Colossals. This new expansion has only two releases per faction (three for Mercenaries), but they're well worth the wait. Each faction has a new warcaster, which is a third incarnation of one of the Prime warcasters for the four original factions, and a colossal warjack. Unlike with the battle engines though, this time the Mercenaries aren't left out. Mounted on the same 120mm base as the battle engines, these new colossals primse to be game changing, and I can't wait for the Cryxian Kraken to be released. The new Cygnar Stormwall colossal. That thing is scary to deal with. (Credit: David Brown)

Last Sunday I travelled South for the inaugural Worlds Gaming day. Organised by the owner of Worlds at War , it was held at the Howden Park Centre in central Livingston, and featured tournaments for Warhammer 40K, Flames of War, and Warmachine/Hordes. It was a long day, starting at about 10:30 and going on until 18:45, but very enjoyable. I met lots of new players, all of whom were very friendly, and got to know some of the more familiar faces a little bit better. Not only that, but I even won half of my games!

After the Warmachine  April Annihilation steamroller tournament that I went to down in Livingston, I've been starting to think about my lists for the upcoming Worlds Gaming Day on the 20th of May. Organised by the same pressganger, and run in conjunction with Worlds at War once more, it's going to involve a twist on the standard 2012 Steamroller tournament. Primarily a 35pt tournament, with the usual 2-list, character restriction format, the final round will be played at 50pts, with all restrictions lifted. So you can repeat character units/models from your 35pt lists, and even use a different warcaster if you want to. I'm in a few minds as to the direction that I want to go in with this, so I'm posting up some thoughts here to get them down on paper.

Yesterday I travelled down to "Worlds at War" in Livingston (well, Craigshill to be precise) to take part in my first Warmachine tournament of the year. I was really looking forward to it; I hadn't managed to get any games in at all up to that point this year, so these were going to be my first 4 games of the year. I was also eager to play some new opponents, as there were several people on the entry list that I'd not met before at my previous two tournaments. The tournament was a standard 35pt Steamroller event. Two lists, with character restrictions in place and reinforcements required. We could play each list as many times as we liked, including not at all if we wanted to.  I was fairly sure about my first list - a tier 3 Deneghra1 list that was tweaked from a list that I'd used previously. But my second list gave me pause. I considered taking one of the warcasters that I'd not used much/at all; Skarre2 and Terminus both crossed my mind. But in the en...

Part 3 in my series on how I fritter away my time will focus on the hobbies that make me a self-confessed geek (and proud of it). It's time to talk about wargaming and RPGs.