Blog Gnord's return to Lustria.

[Gnord]

Hi To everybody at Lustria.

It's been a long and windy track to get back to Lustria.

The last time I played any form of Warhammer was with second edition sometime in the mid to late 80's.Back then it was three books in a box. Those late heavy tomes (Riles)you have, well lets say never existed back then. It was a magical time when Lustria was just appearing and the Slann were a young race to us old time gamers. I just can't explain just how exciting it was to us old gamers to get a non humanoid race to charge across the battle table. And who was responsible for me getting into Warhammer fantasy battle and move from Dungeons and Dragons. It was Kremlo. And here he is. That baby Slann that was recued and given a home by some Norse warriors that had settled in Lustria. So it comes as no surprise he's dressed as a Norse and not in his native Lustrian garb.

Times change and it appears the hobby did a lot as well in my absence (marriage).On my return last year I hardly recognised the gaming scene. It had changed beyond recognition. My plan was to take up where I had left off with fantasy battle, but it appears I had missed the boat. The End Times had come and gone and the Age of Sigma was upon us and with it total chaos in the gaming community.

So I am still undecided where I want to be. Do I embrace Age of Sigmar just as a casual gamer, would it be better to step back and turn my back on modern GW rule sets and go for 8th or earlier. Should I join the Oldhammer movement which seems to be growing steam. Is there another set of rules out there which will enable me to field an army I want?
At the end of the day it's what will eventually be felt in the heart and of course what is being played in my local community.

Over the last year and my attempted return to the community I have been buying up models willy nilly from here and there.Nothing in particular. A box of Skaven from this boot sale, a handful of Goblins from that school fete. E-bay has played a part in obtaining many great pieces. But surprisingly the areas I have had the most success at obtaining bulk miniatures has so far failed to produce any Lizard men at a reasonable price.

I have always had a soft spot for Dinosaurs, and as a child there was nothing better then a dinosaur film. All children go through the dinosaur phase, just some of us never grow out of it. It's this long term life long passion that has started to surface and fuel my hunt for something a little more me when it comes to gaming. Lizardmen hits the spot perfectly.

So now my hunt is on for troops to start to build a new army. The first I must add in over 26 years or more.



Slann lovely Slann. Just how I remember them from the mid 80's
Slann being carried by human slaves.



Two early Lizardmen. The one with the bow belongs to Karnac's lizard raiders set. I feel they both have great toothy smiles.Guess they are just happy to be part of a growing Lizardman army once again.

Until next time,good luck and be happy.

 

[Bowser]

Welcome aboard! Those are some fantastic models you have there!:whatever system you use someone here should be able to keep the game interesting for you.

 

[Gnord]

Hi Bowser,
Being honest I was looking around and asking questions at my local toy store Saturday. They have a healthy 40k community. But the Fantasy community seems to be a much reduced one since the introduction of the "End Times ?".Age of Sigmar seemed to fragment what was left of the community even more.It's pretty much reflected in what the shop stocks or what they place priority on ordering. The 40k racks are reasonably full, but the fantasy racks are near empty. I went in for a box of skinks and came out with the only Lizardman model they had, a great looking Bastilodon. Guess the internet is going to be my best friend.

 

[n810]

Welcome back of Lustria, old timer.

 

[Gnord]

Old Timer!

They say you are only as old as you feel, and I feel I must press every button I can find in my local toy shop just to wind up the staff, lol. But at my age it could take quite a while getting from one end of the aisle to the other.

Now where's my walking stick.

That is where I went after work. Ran out of Agrax Earthshade during the week and one of my dry brushes seems to have less hair then I remember it had last month. The toyshop had it's usual crew, the type of person that really has no passion. Painting takes a lot of time but often it's a quicker option then getting served and out of the local shop. Somehow whilst waiting I ended up with a handful of the modern weekly White Dwarf magazines that were on offer for one quid a piece. These were just brought for the painting tips in their pages. But I still feel that these magazines are a far cry from what they were like in their golden age.

It's been a very good day. On arriving home from work I was greeted by a brown card box sitting on the kitchen side. Torn between ferociously ripping it apart or savouring the moment I opted for the latter. Carefully slitting the tape with a knife and opening the lid I was pleased to see the Seraphon Skink Starpriest I had ordered. Along side him was a box of 24 Seraphon Skinks. The Starpriest is a finely modelled piece and great care was taken in his design. His finely detailed hand instantly caught my attention. This miniature is truly something of beauty. Unfortunately at this stage I do not feel I could do him any justice by my painting standards.
I am equally impressed by the box of Skinks. For their size they too have been beautifully modelled with some really fine detail. Just check out the teeth.

Skinks I am happy to have in any quantity. One day I hope to have units with boltspitters, moonstone clubs and Meteoric Javelins. But for now my first unit of Skinks will be equipped with Meteoric Javelins and Star-Buckler shields. This is mostly as they look cool to me and will have more eye appeal.

I like the Games Workshop blue paint scheme and several searches on U-Tube gave me a couple of painting recipes to try out. They look quite striking in their bright blue livery. It's a good place to start and when mastered it would be easier to move onto other colour schemes and details of my own.

At the moment I do not have much time for painting due to work, but luckily I have a day free at the weekend to try out a couple of the recipes which were collected and safely filed away in a painting journal for later use.

Well it's been a long hard process but finally decided to go with the Age Of Sigmar game. The deciding factor was Games workshops announcement on their Facebook page saying soon there will be three way to play it. I am hoping the narrative version will be great and will be possibly be looking forward to a few campaigns with a great story behind them. But the main pull is the idea of being able to use a point system which will be introduced with the Match play. No doubt this is for comp play but it will also make deciding what to take to a friendly bash over a mates house a lot easier in the future when talking over the phone. Funny thing is I can see players eventually combining elements of these three sets of rules hopefully producing one hell of a great game. If this happens I want to be there.

The other deciding factor was that new miniatures will be released for this game. And it is always nice to have a new buddy to look at across the gaming table or on a display shelf.

I will post pictures of my painting attempts soon. I have to catch one of the skinks first and boy are they fast,puff ,puff ,puff .

Exciting times indeed.

 

[Gnord]

Wow,Finally got a bit of time to myself. That's the problem with life, quite often too many things happen at once and my quite well laid plans go astray.Last year was far too hectic especially with an unforeseen job change mid summer. Since then its been all systems go and nose to the grindstone to try to pass my 6 months probation. There has been far too many things getting in the way.

Last week finally got around to clearing off my painting area again. Leave it for a few weeks and everybody thinks it's an open invitation to dump rubbish there. In my case it was the best part of 6 months till I got around to rescue my private space. I can actually see my paints pots again now. Amongst the debris I spied a few missing skinks. Poor things were covered in dust. So with a quick blast of air to remove most of the dust I finally set to work to try to complete a couple to test my chosen colour scheme.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

Very nice work on the skinks. I love the colour/effect you created on the fins on their heads. The transition from what appears to be blue, to green to yellowish looks amazing!!!

Glad to hear that you've regained your painting space.

 

[Bowser]

The colour blend on these looks amazing. The design on the shields is great. Brilliant work here.

 

[Crowsfoot]

Ohh I do love skinks and I am in the process of planning a painting spree on 30, what is the story about the shield design or was it something you just liked?

Are you UK based as you mention "quid" in your posts?

Great work so far.

 

[Warden]

Beautifully painted skinks, I love the head-crest transition you did from blue to yellow-green. And those shields! Amazing work, really look good

 

[Gnord]

Hi all,Yes I am UK based.
The shield design was just something simple and hopefully looks a little tribal.
Just obtained the Seraphon Battletome. Its a good looking book with so many splendid pictures. Also received a copy of the generals handbook.

On a bad note, I am now pretty much the only person who seems to be regularly asking questions at my local toy/hobby shop. Simple questions that nobody working there can seem to answer. And my question is simply who's playing in my area?
Most of the answers I get seems to be most people buying into the hobby just seem to be casual collectors. Occasionally I manage to catch one of their older customers browsing( a rare thing indeed), and even they look perplexed when asked that simple question.
My thought behind this is simply, if I could get playing again then it would add more incentive to paint on a more regular basis with the aim of getting finished units to the gaming table. It would add direction to what I am doing and a good reason to do it. It would also allow the miniatures to be used for what they were made for. At the moment they just collect dust on the shelf which is never good. So the question is in this age, How do you find like minded people in your area?

P.S. Tried Imperial primer recently and found it rubs off without any effort, It's worse then Nurgles rot.

 

[Bowser]

You could start a meetup group, start a slow grow league, or host a small tournament and leave a poster for it in the store if they let you, check kijiji in your area to see if there are people buying or selling that you could connect with.