New blog!

Hello people!

If you have stumbled onto this blog, then welcome! I hope to start adding models, thoughts and other bits and bobs over the coming weeks and months. Today I'll hit you all with a little overview on myself.

I have been collecting Warhammer, in one form or another since Year 7 in school (that's 11 years of age for those who don't know what that means). I started out with a poorly painted Crimson Fist army and since then I have gone to owning many different armies between Fantasy and 40K. I find that the most satisfying part of the hobby is creating the plan for the game and watching it all come together. I grew up playing games like Rome: Total War and loved moving the armies round, catching opponents in traps and otherwise being rather cunning and clever. Being outnumbered or outclassed was just a new element of challenge - there's nothing like beating someone who outnumbers you 4 to 1! It is this joy of the tactical side of Warhammer that pleases me the most.

However I love the rich background of the game itself. I love buying the army books, not necessarily to collect an army of that race, but to learn of that race's background, and what I'd do with them if I owned them. I'd say then that my approach to collecting an army is not so much building a winning army, but picking units I love the look and feel of, and then working out how the army should work on the tabletop. Thankfully being in the process to getting a  degree in Military History helps me somewhat in working this out!

In 40K I own at least a 1000pts of Grey Knights, Imperial Guard, Nurgle Marines, Dark Eldar and Eldar, with an eye to owning Blood Angels and maybe even Tyranids some time in the future. My armies will often try to stick to some sort of theme, but there are some prevailing beliefs in army selection throughout:
A) I hate tanks that are not my own. I am the guy in Battlefield that runs round destroying every tank and helicopter in sight! Thus my armies tend to probably have more anti-tank weaponry then they really need...
B) I like the assault phase and often like to fight actively in it, something I'm learning swiftly that Guardsmen don't do very well...
C) I tend towards elite armies. Mainly so I have to paint less...

In Fantasy I own at least 1000pts of Vampire Counts, Warriors of Chaos and Daemons of Chaos, with bits scattered here and there of other armies. I'd like to re-start Empire and some point. I follow themes in Fantasy as well, here's a few:
A) I like to try and be active in all the phases of the game - moving, magic, shooting and close combat, which is a pity when you look at the armies I have...
B) Hordes are fun!
C) Every army must have one Lord/Hero carrying a Charmed Shield - its my favourite magic item!

On a whole I'm not great at painting stuff up. I consider it a chore really, though do enjoy it at times. As such most of the models I own are unpainted, but I'm getting better at that! I also enjoy adding the occasional conversion to my armies as well. As my painting skills aren't exactly Golden Daemon, I like cheating by drybrushing most things, followed by block colours on top. I think it creates quite a distinctive style which can be seen across most of my models (the more recent ones anyway).

There you have it! I reckon that's a good introduction into what I do. Hopefully I have some pictures for your viewing pleasure soon. Until next time!

Donald Paper