Monthly Archives: June 2021

“Filthy Casual” Play for Warhammer 40,000 (Arbitor Ian)

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While I haven’t really been posting much lately, I have been doing a bit of (slow) painting as well as playing some videogames, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube and the like. One channel that’s popped up on my radar is a new, smaller one, the 40k-centric “Arbitor Ian“. I’ve been enjoying his videos over the last few days as background to painting, and one that I felt worth drawing some attention to is the one I titled this post on, a followup to “OPEN PLAY in Warhammer 40k – Improving an underused format” (see below)

He then followed it up with this one – “FILTHY CASUAL PLAY for Warhammer 40k: A simpler way to play.” Which attempts to address some of the Combo-Hammer and rules bloat that discourages many people (including myself) from getting into (or in my case) getting back into playing 40k – Warlord Traits, Relics, Objectives, Psychic Powers and all of the rest of the non-model, rule-complexity stuff that’s been layered over the top of “Pick your guys, go to table, roll dice and have gun”.

I’d like to give these try next time I attempt to get back into 40k – though I haven’t played it in some time now – having had a couple of casual learner-games of 8th here, but my old group is long scattered to the winds, and my more recent gaming group really wasn’t a minis group anyway. Then something happened in 2020 that really prevented me from venturing out to seek new opportunities to stand in large indoor venues filled with strangers or invite them into my home, and until that abates, I’ll just keep painting and likely playing simpler minis games and board games…

Posted in 40k.

WizKids WK73395 D&D Nolzurs Marvelous Miniatures T-Rex (D&D Monster Manual 66) & Monster MAYhem ’21 Wrap-Up

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WizKids WK73395 D&D Nolzurs Marvelous Miniatures T-Rex, Tyrannosaurus Rex

And today, my final Monster MAYhem miniature – the T-Rex from Nolzur’s D&D range. As with yesterday’s Goliaths, I also completed this model on Monday night (31st May), and, I mean, it’s pretty obvious which of those models I needed to finish the challenge with to go out on a proper high note!

WizKids WK73395 D&D Nolzurs Marvelous Miniatures T-Rex, Tyrannosaurus Rex

It’s a pretty nice model, really. I picked it up last December after eyeing it for about 6 months, because – just look at it for AU$25! Of course, with no specific reason to get it painted, it just kinda sat around until Monster March where it got moved to under the painting desk, but sadly I didn’t make it that far, and now Monster MAYhem that got me to take it out of the packaging, and get the sucker painted.

WizKids WK73395 D&D Nolzurs Marvelous Miniatures T-Rex, Tyrannosaurus Rex

Since I wanted to get this one done, the other dinos I worked on this month essentually being the warm-up and practise models for several techniques that I applied on this big boy. From blends on the scaly skin through to the embedded weathering-powder dirt. I mean, it’s still a pretty simple model overall and the textures across it do a lot of the work of painting, but it’s still a nice sculpt, especially for the price.

I’ve still got another… close to a dozen additional monsters in the works that would have qualified for this past month’s challenge, and so even though they missed the deadline, I’m sure I’ll slowly work my way through them to completion. Still – a pretty decent outcome for Monster MAYhem. I noticed that with this challenge, the models I completed fell into three broad categories: Dinosaurs, D&D Monsters and Shadows of Brimstone Monsters. I guess technically, the T-Rex is a D&D model, and we all know Reaper just makes D&D Proxies, so it’s also kinda two categories I suppose. All good either way though. Now I just need to figure out where to store them all…

I’ve been snowed under from work since the latest lockdown so I haven’t been keeping up with the blogosphere properly over the last week… I wonder has Dave’s Season of Scenery started yet?