2012 in Review

2012 was a really fun year for my gaming habit. It was my second year playing Warmachine, and my first year playing competitively. It was also the first year in a while that I hardly played any Warhammer 40K all year. Ironically, this blog started as a 40K blog dedicated to a Harlequin army that, thanks to 6th ed 40K, isn't even a usable force now.

I thought it would be fun on the last day of the year to take a look at this last year from a gaming perspective.

Games Workshop Editions - The Good, Bad and Ugly

It's no secret that Games Workshop is about to drop 6th edition 40K on us. The rumors are pouring in now, a month or two away from release day. Some people are super happy about the changes, some are panicking, everyone else is somewhere in the middle. There are definitely some interesting rumors out there. If nothing else, it seems pretty clear that this is going to be a large change to the way the game is played. None of the rumors seem to point to a small fix.

This is not going to be another article talking about the rumored rules, either good or bad. it is not going to be another wish-listing blog post about all the things I think are broken and how I would fix them. If you want an article like that, it won't take you more than 5 minutes browsing through your favorite blogroll. Here's the thing. we can talk about rumors all day, but we'll end up getting all worked up over nothing. you can pull out all the rumors and try to talk about how it affects your favorite army, but if you miss a single rules change, or one of the changes don't end up in the final document, the entire picture changes.

The bottom line is that people get worked up every time a new edition of their game comes out. people start complaining and saying they will just keep on playing the previous edition forever. in the end, we'll all be playing the new rule-set, and will probably get used to it within a year. A few years from now we'll all be worked up about how 7th edition is going to mess up our game. so with that in mind, this article will be about something a little different. I want to talk about previous edition changes GW made and how they affected my experience. Disclaimer: I realize that my experience is not the same as many other players'. Feel free to argue with my reasoning, but I am merely talking about my own experience and thoughts on this issue of updating core rules.

My Battlefoam Experience

my new bag, complete with journeyman league patches

I finally did it. I finally broke down and bought myself a brand new Battlefoam bag. There are a few guys in our gaming club who say all kinds of nice things about Battlefoam, but I never decided that I needed one. Part of me felt like they were saying good things about Battlefoam because they had to (the guys in our local gaming club happen to run Bell Of Lost Souls. Sponsored by Battlefoam. And Wargamescon. also sponsored by battlefoam). But soon, almost every "serious" player in the club was toting these things around and talking about how much they loved them.

Well, about 6 months ago or so, I finally got my wife into wargaming (hmm. maybe I should do an article about that sometime... maybe after Adepticon). She now has a decently sized Circle Orboros army. for a while, she just carried her stuff in a single foam sheet from my Sabol bag (rather, one sheet from my excessively large collection of foam sheets that go in my standard-sized army transport). then she needed a second sheet, and several Space wolf rhinos got displaced from their foam. when we started making 50 point lists for her army, it was clear she would need a better way of moving her models.

Turns out, she was more than happy to take my Sabol Army Transport if it meant she would have a good way of transporting her stuff (especially when we fly to Chicago in April!). When I finally sold my old Xbox, I ran out of reasons not to buy myself a new bag. Now, about a month later, I just received my Battlefoam GO pack in the mail. So here are my first thoughts on this new bag.

Where has the month gone?

Somehow, this last month has just gotten away from me. Sometimes real life sucks. For several months, I had a really nice schedule that let me spend the time I wanted to spend on my hobby (or plastic crack addiction...). Recently, I haven't had that time anymore, and I think I'm having withdrawals.

Suddenly, my schedule has filled itself to the brim. the normal gaming nights for our club have filled with other things, leaving only one night a week to maybe play wargames. My lack of playing time has manifested itself on this blog as well. the less time I play 40K, the less time I spend blogging about it.

My life right now...