Warcry Diary: Day 4

DAY 4: Friday 23rd August

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
FINALLY, with the completion of the last main pieces (and a couple of little ones I'd previously overlooked), the terrain is all assembled.


I have to say, having got this far, how impressed I am with the terrain pieces in this set. Pictures don't do justice to the level of detail, how the finished kits look, or just how much there is in the box. Never mind a good Warcry set up, there's nearly enough here for a good setup for a full-scale Age of Sigmar battle. Even unpainted, it looks awesome on the game board, and I can't wait for my first game.


However, it must be said that there is one big issue with this set. The instructions. They're rubbish. They don't give a complete guide to assembling all the pieces and they completely fail to mention that, for some of the missions in the book, you will need to use some of the pieces separately, when the instructions tell you to glue them. This is a huge oversight. This is a starter set, designed to bring new people in to the hobby, and be a standalone product. You should not need to go online and find video guides in order to find out how to pt the terrain pieces together. I'd have been absolutely furious if I'd stuck these pieces together right away, without knowing of the issues and the online solutions. This sort of error is not good enough if you're a new startup. In a product from the the world's most experienced manufacturer of this type of thing it's unforgivable. Slap on the wrists, GW.

Anyway, having got that off my chest, I am happy to report that all the terrain in the set, once assembled, fits neatly into the box. Excellent news for those (like me) who have limited storage space at home.
Right, on with the warbands!

Total time so far: 5 hours

Thanks for reading!
-Stu

Warcry Diary: Day 3

DAY 3: Tuesday 20th August

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
A slight variation from my usual Warcry entry today. Instead of reporting on my usual (lack of) progress I thought I'd mention a couple of Warcry-related products that arrived today. First up are these resin bases from Gladius Game Arts. There's two styles to choose from, and sets available for all the current warbands, as well as the chaos beasts from the starter set. I bought the ones for the Raptoryx and Furies, to see what they were like and I have to say I'm impressed. I'll be ordering a set for the Iron Golems and Untamed Beasts too, and I'll give a full review of them once I've got them painted. I wouldn't mind seeing a set for the scenery pieces too (subtle hint...). The current sets can be ordered here.



Garfy Etherington, he of Garfy's Get A Grips, Tale of Painters and regular contributor to the Warcry Facebook page I run, has released his latest product, the Initiative Tracker. This useful little gadget has slots for all the dice you need to play the game. As with all Garfy's designs, it is simple, elegant and does exactly what it says on the tin. The Tracker can be bought from here. I highly recommend his grips too, they're fantastic.

Okay, that's it for this supplemental entry. I'll be back soon, hopefully with all the terrain finished!
Thanks for reading-Stu

Warcry Diary: Day 2

DAY TWO Wednesday 14th August

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
Ugh, has it really been over a week? That sucks. Well, at least I managed to sneak an hour's worth of assembly in today, and got all the barricades and little loose pieces of scenery done. It's not much, I'll admit, but it's something and, honestly, with the last few weeks I've had, I'm glad for that something. Anyway, the plan is to try and get all the scenery put together by the end of the weekend, then get the figures stuck together by the end of the month so that The Better Half and I can get a game in on one of the rare occasions we get an evening off together. I'll leave you with some not entirely exciting pictures of the bits I did today...

Total time so far: 3 hours
Thanks for reading!
-Stu

Warcry Diary: Day 1

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

With everyone and their dog doing posts about Warcry, I was wondering what I could do to bring something different to the table. Then it occurred to me, there's all these posts by pros who got the set in advance of release, had days in which they could devote themselves to getting it all ready and built and painted and photographed, etc. etc. So I thought, "How about looking at it from the perspective of an everyday gamer, with limited hobby time, and how he/she would get on with getting the set ready for play." So that's what I'm going to do. And the thing is, I don't have to make anything up. I am an everyday gamer with limited hobby time. I genuinely bought Warcry as a way to get some proper gaming done with The Better Half, so I have real reasons to get in done as quickly as possible, but with only one or two hours some nights in order to do it. So I'm going to be documenting the build, from sprue to first game and beyond, in the form of my Warcry diary.
The Eightpoints beckon. Have at it!

DAY ONE Monday 5th August.
So, I bought Warcry on Saturday, and managed to have a good look at it and do a bit of an unboxing review of the contents, which you can see here. On Sunday I didn't manage to get any hobby time, due to Real World Stuff, but I have managed to get some done today. I decide I'd begin by assembling the terrain. I've never put together any terrain kits before, so I was really interested to see how this lot was going to go together. The first bits I tackled were the bell tower and the state. I utilised the guide to sticking the terrain together from Waywalker Studios and the video from Blackjack Legacy, to make sure I wasn't sticking any bits down that I shouldn't be. I left the skeletons from the alcoves in the bell tower unglued as well, for ease of painting later. A bit of Blu-Tak keeps them in place for now. As suggested, I've kept the steps on both, and the platform on the statue separate.
Total time spent: 2 hours.

The Best Laid Plans...

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
A word of advice. When planning new ventures (say, for instance, a radical reworking of your work blog...) it's a good idea to not do this around the time of a major change in your personal life. It's even less of an idea to do it when you have two such life-changing situations going on.
In my defence, when I decided to relaunch the blog and produce more regular content for it, I wasn't planning on changing my job within a month of doing so (although, with hindsight, the fact that I had applied for the new job and there was the possibility of the change happening was something I maybe could have factored in...) I certainly wasn't expecting to suddenly have to deal with all the implications of the death of my dad, and all that goes along with such an event. But, the simple fact is, life rarely goes as smoothly as you would expect (or hope). Certainly, I'd like to avoid anything like the kind of stress I've had to deal with over the last couple of months happening again any time soon, thank you very much.
Still, I have managed to maintain some level of ongoing posts here, which is something. Mostly this has been because it's not been something that I've had to think too hard about. My concentration and ability to focus on such things as sitting and painting for hours on end has been hopelessly lacking and, frankly, the blogging has been a comfortable way of at least feeling like I'm doing something constructive during the recent vicissitudes.
But it's all over now, aside from wrapping up dad's effects, moving stuff into storage and other tasks which, while needing to be done, aren't going to have quite the same impact on my time or focus. I can, at last, put all my energies into getting into a rhythm with the job and my work here in the shed. I can catch up with the huge backlog of work. There's painting to be done, reviews to be written, parcels to be sent...
I must just say a huge thank you for all your messages of support over the last few weeks, and for the understanding of those who are waiting for work that was supposed to be delivered ages ago. My idea of "Woop woop, nowI can get all caught up and make everybody happy!" went right out the window. I now need to get my head down and see what I can do about making all those very patient people happy.
I'll leave you with some pictures of Madge, from Hasslefree. The only miniature I've managed to finish to a decent standard in the last two months...


Thanks for reading!
-Stu

Some thoughts on Everchosen...

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

So, the first round of GW's new Everchosen painting competition has happened and I think it's fair to say it's been a success... but not an unqualified success. It seems there have been some teething troubles but, before we get to that, I'd like to offer my hearty and unqualified congratulations to everybody who got through the first round and will go on to represent their store in the next stage. I remember very well what an utter thrill it was to get through the local stages, back when Golden Demon had such a thing, and I'm sure all those winners will be feeling really proud right now.
But what about those teething troubles?
Well, after the first round of the competition was over, I started seeing a number of posts complaining bitterly about certain aspects of the competition. At first I put these down to standard internet whining or sore losery* but, it seems, at least some of the complaints have merit. I put out a request for opinions from those who had taken part and I got a really good response from Alex Murray, who was eminently qualified to comment, as he was one of the regional winners. His comments supported a lot of the complaints I'd seen online. While he was very positive about the fact that this was a global event, and therefore much more accessible for those who are unable to make the journey to Coventry (hell, I have trouble with that, and it's only five hours away for me...) he had some things to say about other aspects of the competition. I'll let him speak for himself:

Good things:
• An actual painting competition bigger than just a local store.
Great to see that this was made an event! I’d love to see the return of Golden Demon to not just the northern hemisphere, but if that’s not gonna happen, would love to see Everchosen expanded and made into even more of an event.
• Accessibility. I think a lot of people really gave it a good go, so the access to a worldwide painting comp for lots of people was good. Hopefully it inspired more people to improve their painting or paint not just for armies too.

Could be improved:
• Public voting ensures that it’s not always the best painted that goes through to the next round. There’s at least one store where an amazing entry that, in my opinion, would certainly be a contender for the overall sword missed out just because of where they entered and a good, but not quite as good entry won because of the votes.
This method isn’t necessarily going to give the best painted entry the prize, which as a painting competition, it should. I reckon it should be closed-judged in the first round, then public voted for the second round. This has all sorts of logistical challenges with having enough qualified & impartial judges available in each area though.
• Consistency. Rules for the Everchosen category need to be clearer. Things that would have been disqualified because of base sizes and interpretations of the rules in one store, appear to have been fine in another store.
If there’s a limit on base sizes, but display plinths are fine, make the distinction clearer and be more specific.
• Display of miniatures. Having the entries in a prominent, well lit position at eye level would have been much nicer.
As it was, in my local, they were on the bottom two shelves of a display cabinet which made it seem like an afterthought and not an event. Makes it hard for everyone to see all of the details too (eg- if the backs will never be seen, why bother painting them?) Another challenge, as you don’t want the public picking up the minis in case of accidental damage or theft, etc but you do want the mini as a whole to be judged.

These are all valid points and, the first and last ones at least, are going to be a real challenge for GW to fix. It doesn't matter how many edicts they lay down about how the entries are to be displayed, not all stores (some indie stores were also hosting the event) have the sort of space available to display large numbers of miniatures properly. Similarly, the public voting thing is a difficult one to solve without coming up with an entirely different method of judging the first round. When there's a public vote, there is always going to be a risk of it turning into a popularity contest. If Johnny brings along all his friends and family to vote for him...It's a complicated issue. Even the idea of having someone like the shop manager as an impartial judge is not infallible solution. It's something that GW need to think long and hard about for next time, and it will be very interesting to see how the next round of (online) public voting goes.
The consistency issue is something that GW can solve very easily though. The rules need to be much more hard and fast and all ambiguity needs to be removed. When you are dealing with dozens of individual stores and their staff, any opportunity for mis-interpreting the rules causes huge problems. If the rule says "no larger than 60mm base" and some shops stick to it, but others "allow a little leeway" then it makes the rule meaningless. GW need to make sure a rule like that is properly enforced. But they also need to look to themselves for a little housekeeping, too. Saying entries to the Everchosen category need to "be only Citadel Miniatures that are currently available on the Games Workshop.com website" sounds pretty unambiguous but it's still open to confusion. If they're not going to allow Forge World models, for instance (which that rule suggests) then they need to categorically say "no Forge World miniatures will be accepted" otherwise you're going to have situations where some shops will allow them and some won't. Hardly a level playing field.
These ambiguities could cause problems down the line, too. What if little Johnny's** Forge World Blood Bowl Minotaur got through the regionals, only to be disqualified at the next stage, when the bods at head office get to see the entries online? Does that mean whomever was in second place in the regional should get his place?
These issues need to be looked at because, modern internetting*** being the way it is, any perceived inconsistencies or injustices will be jumped upon from a great height.
And I really do hope they can sort these issues out, and they are just teething troubles, because Everschosen is a really great idea and I'd love to see it continue.****

One more thing. Graham Shirlie, of Painted By G, pointed out that, due to the fact that the information is in the sealed winners' envelopes, some winners might not be aware that they only have one week to post a photograph of their entry to the Everchosen global competition. He has kindly allowed me to post his photo of his golden ticket, in the hope that it might help some unfortunate avoid missing their chance. So, if you're reading this and you haven't retrieved your entry and winner's envelope from your local store yet, DO IT NOW!

So, it just remains for me to wish the very best of luck to all the regional winners in the next round, and I very much look forward to seeing all the entries come voting time.

Thanks for reading!

-Stu

*it's a perfectly cromulent word.
*yeah, him again. Maybe he entered in two different stores...
***again, utterly cromulent.
****(Partly because I'm hoping that, next time, The Real World won't drop such a heavy load on me just at the time when I should be working on my entry and I can get to have a go...)