My geeking summer #2: True North

A hot time in the old town: Games Hub Edinburgh

This post could also be subtitled ‘fB strikes again’ because, exactly as with last month’s encounter with Mark Millar at Plan B Books, this story all began on Facebook. If I recall correctly, what happened this time was that a couple of months ago I followed through on a link that a friend had liked and lo, there it was: the Games Hub Edinburgh, a fB group for an upcoming games cafe in Edinburgh. Frankly, I was gob-smacked. What an awesome idea! What a risk to take. Just WTF! More seriously though: the Games Hub Edinburgh strikes me as an idea whose time has come, and as the most important thing to happen in the Scottish gaming community since I don’t know when. OK, starting G3 back in 1998 was totally exciting, and no small achievement for all concerned, but what we have here strikes me as being different by a whole order of magnitude. GHE, after all, won’t be a club meeting weekly for some 4/5 hours. It’ll be open 12 hours/day, 7 days/week. See what I meant about awesome, and the risk?

My geeking summer #1: "Oop north"

Land of the White Rose

England, York, &
the White Rose

I mentioned last time that I was holidaying with family in York after a trip to Bradford. I’m back home now and reality has finally reasserted itself, so it’s back to the old bloggery. Where better then to begin than with a geek’s eye tour of my wee visit to the legendary county of Yorkshire (no prizes to readers who offer suggestions, constructive or otherwise!- NB, that’s no prizes, not ‘No Prizes’, OK?)?

Blast-off in Bradford

The geeks

The expanding Hive

The convention I attended in Bradford wasn’t a geek-con as such, but it was hoaching with geeks of all kinds. I’d been hoping to get some gaming in (I even took along a few cardgames for that very purpose) but the gaming area wasn’t very well organised, so that turned out to be a bogey. Still, I had fun handing out my card, which turned out to be a great way of smoking out the other games geeks (not that they needed much encouragement). Among the highlights of those encounters were:

Changes, changes

Old habits die hard: tabletop miniatures games

"Very pretty John, but
what does it mean?"
(Damned if I know BTW)

When you're depressed you often become withdrawn to the point of being reclusive. The resulting emotional disconnection from so much of your life means that a period of depression really isn't the best time to make decisions of any consequence about your life, not least because coming out of depression means that you face putting back together everything which has been disrupted when you were down. So you could easily dispose of things or give up on activites which are really important to you because you take your depressive emotional disconnection at face value, when you're really just expressing your dread of the effort it'll take to get everything sorted out when you're feeling better.

Memories, sigh

All of which is by way of preamble to an explanation of some changes in my gaming tastes and habits which have come upon me in recent months. First and foremost is that I'm giving up tabletop miniatures gaming. This is something of a painful break, and even as I type this I'm struck by a sense of unreality, not to mention wistful nostalgia. After all, my life as a hobby gamer started nearly 40 years ago when my brother and I made up our own rules for playing proper games with our Airfix 1/72^nd Napoleonic toy soldiers.

Of GW, the lure of Chaos, gribblies, and stuff

Space Hulk wins 2 Golden Geek Awards
My recent visits to the pages of Black Library novels: Graham McNeill's Heldenhammer- which I picked up at Conflict 2010, and Nathan Long's Bloodborn- which I reviewed last month; these visits to the world of the book have revived my interest in tie-in fiction set in two of my favourite gaming universes. And so it was that last Saturday saw me dropping in to my local GW in search of new reading matter. Also available was the new issue of White Dwarf. I confess I'm in the camp who finds GW's house magazine to be of limited utility in terms of adding value to my GW gaming interests- namely 40K, but I always like to read interviews with the creative types at the Design Studio. White Dwarf #368 features two, so I bought it.

One mighty game; two well-deserved awards

Skimming through the pages of news and new releases, as you do, I was pleasantly surprised to read Jervis Johnson's grateful acknowledgement of the two 2009 Golden Geek Awards the BGG community had awarded Space Hulk, whose 3rd edition was released amid great fanfare last year. The awards were:

• Best 2-player game.
• Best artwork/presentation.

Pleasant: because it was good to see that Space Hulk had received these accolades from the BGG community, and because it was nice to read Jervis' appreciation of this in the pages of White Dwarf. Surprising: because, regular BGG user that I am, I had no idea of these awards- the official awards ceremony was in November last year, until I read of Space Hulk's 2009 success in White Dwarf.

Not 'just another' Claymore

Convention off the starboard bow
August is waiting at the door and so Claymore is manoeuvring itself into position again on the local convention calendar.

My plans aren't in place yet but my intention is to attend as ever. The success of last year's new venue means that I await 2010's Claymore with anticipation tangible enough to feel quite novel.

Zombies and Daleks, oh my!
This year's programme of participation games looks interesting all round. I can honestly say that I'd be happy to play in any of the games in this year's programme. Needs as needs must though, so here is my shortlist of 3 games for the day:

• City of Prosperity: 15mm Zombies.
• Dumfries Wargames Club: British Civil War 1938, 28mm.
• Edinburgh League of Wargamers: 28mm Daleks.

Daleks, zombies and an alt-history British civil war? Truly messieurs convention organisers, you are spoiling us.

Conflict of Heroes on tour

Kingdom of Adventure
Friday afternoon a week ago saw a traveller- somewhat weary thanks to insufficient sleep the previous night, hauling his heavy luggage through the door of Kingdom of Adventure in sunny Kirkcaldy, there to be greeted by David, the cheerful and friendly store proprietor. My luggage was stowed in the back office and David proceeded to show me round his shop.

Kingdom of Adventure is a really nice wee shop. The ground floor is bright, airy and spacious. There is a smaller upstairs gaming room whose 6 tables make it more cramped, naturally enough, and which lacks the full length floor-to-ceiling window which gives the ground floor such a pleasant aspect. For all that this is no poky wee hole either.

David hard at work keeping his customers happy over a cardgame

UK Games Expo'10 #4. Winding up and wending home

Birmingham geek-out!
My travel plans on the Monday after the Expo gave me a day to spend in Birmingham. I deposited my luggage at the station then pondered my options: was I going for the cultural day out, or the geek day out? I chose the latter, naturally enough (no slur intended on the cultural attractions of the fair city of Birmingham I assure you dear readers, this option just proved easier to pursue on the day).

Who goes where?
Decision made, I set off to visit the local GW as is my wont when I'm on my travels. Luke- the staffer on duty, gave me the familiar friendly GW greeting when I arrived. I gave him my card and told him the story of my trip to Birmingham, then we fell to chatting. Answering the usual questions, I told him that I'm a DIY Space Marine Chapter Master and filled him in on some of Penumbra's Talons' background. I talked about how Belon (the Talons' home world remember) is located in the Eastern Fringes, which is where it's all going down in the Dark Millenium these days:

• There are rumours that the protracted death of the Emperor on his Golden Throne has reached a point where the Astronomicon- upon which depends all human interplanetary travel, no longer reaches the Eastern Fringes; or that it is at least weaker and less reliable than ever.
• The imminent Deathwatch RPG is to be set in the Jericho Reaches: located in the Eastern Fringes, and the target of a major Imperial Crusade aiming to reconquer lost Imperial worlds.

Little did I know what I was letting myself in for all those years ago when- on a simple whim, I plumped for the Eastern Fringes as the location for the home of my lads.

Not your regular Sunday session #2. Of gangers, competitors and winners

Getting wired inWednesday's first installment of this Conflict Scotland 2010 report was all about meeting people, seeing the sights, and loading up with swag. Today I'll be telling of how Andy and I fared when we joined in the fun, and of the results of the competitions: the event's purpose after all.

Underhive shootout
The game
Knowing that there was to be open gaming laid on, Andy and I took along some of our models for a game. Andy took his 1500pt, 20 model Space Wolf Wolf Guard army (Andy's tried this army out already- against David's infamous Tau: you can read Andy's battle report here). I'd considered taking a Penumbra's Talons army but decided against it in the end, preferring instead just to take along my gang for a game of Necromunda with Andy.

Now part of GW's Specialist Games range, Necromunda was originally released in 1995 in a big box stuffed to the gunnels in best GW tradition (a box whose contents included- IIRC, the first appearance of the now highly prized plastic bulkheads). The game was an instant hit and has since won itself a following whose fanaticism is matched only by that of Blood Bowl, another game hailing from the same period (Blood Bowl's definitive 3rd edtion was released just the previous year).

Chop'n'swap droolage

Incoming!
A scant three months after officially announcing the release date, and following the subsequent obligatory official teasers and fevered internet rumours and speculation, GW a fortnight ago finally released the first tranche of its new Blood Angels range. Readers who also follow RD/KA!@fB will know already that I have since bought myself the crucial two new Blood Angels boxed sets: the Death Company and the Sanguinary Guard. The BA are one of the 4 classic iconic space marine chapters; the Death Company have long been their signature unit; the Sanguinary Guard have joined the Death Company as another signature unit as part of a shiny new BA codex.

The new Codex: Blood Angels is the fullest treatment of the BA since the 2nd edition Angels of Death codex, which they shared with the Dark Angels. Since then the BA have had one of the infamous 3rd edition 'minidexes' intended to supplement the standard codex and their 4th edition list was a 2-part White Dwarf article. The new C:BA is therefore the first full-sized, stand-alone codex GW has ever devoted to this always popular army: an event of some note for 40K fans in other words.

The Tau bite back

"Bring me the head of Shas El Quixo!"
So last Tuesday, Ezekiel Cromwell's Penumbra's Talons expeditionary force and the maverick Shas El Quixo's Tau battlegroup had their latest encounter on that as yet unnamed planet in a still unidentified system somewhere in the Eastern Fringes of the Imperium of Man. I'd been looking forward immensely to Dave's and my second game after the thrills and spills we'd enjoyed only a fortnight before. I was not to be disappointed.



Inevitable tactical adjustments
The Talons
Composing my army list for the upcoming game (lists here), I knew I couldn't afford to chance everything on another favourable roll on the Mission table, which'd've given me a 2/3 chance of being screwed before the game had even started if I chose to go with the Troops-light army I'd run the last time. My must-haves were the jump packers- as ever; dreadnoughts Elias and Stirner- they're the only heavy armour I've got just now; and a tacsquad with the free missile launcher (ML) and flamer options- the points shaving had begun.

Talons tear into the Tau

A newfound opportunity
This story begins late last year when I was invited to join a fB group called 40K for Glaswegians, which needs no introduction. David- the group's creator, contacted me to ask if I was interested in playing some 40K. I confess my feelings about this were mixed, echoing those evoked in me by the 40K game itself: I just love GW's 40K Dark Millenium- which I think is one of adventure gaming's great subcreationist endeavours; my DIY Space Marine army Penumbra's Talons is one of my proudest hobby creations; the tabletop rules though have long frustrated me because they're so like the Windows OS- buggy as all hell edition after edition.

Feelings mixed or not, my beloved Talons were just too much too leave lying- I knew I'd be playing sooner or later: I had been hoping for this since last year after all. David and I did the usual coffee meet last month to check each other out. We quickly hit it off. A game at the earliest opportunity was soon agreed upon. That opportunity finally arrived last Tuesday.

This, that and the other

I've got various ideas simmering away at the moment, looking for the hooks that'll make them into stories. Meanwhile, it's time for another pot pourri...

So it goes...
I warned you yesterday dear readers, of my intention to follow through on the story of the controversy generated by the RPGpundit's 6th November blogpost about FFG and its GW RPG licences. El pundito posted his 4th installment today. To keep this brief, I will just make a few points:

• This post is a succint example of the hate-filled bile (here aimed at two of his favourite targets- RPG.net and the so-called "Storygames Swine") and overweening sense of self-importance which have defined the pundit's hyperbole from day one.
• The pundit's excuse for "not post[ing] this link" (to a Storygames thread)- his "policy of not providing assistance to the Swine in promulgating their filth", is lame almost beyond words:

1. Embedding links is so easy that I cannot help but imagine the man with the red flag from the early days of the motor car.
2. The pundit's persistent unwillingness to enable this technologically trivial cross-checking cannot but cast further doubt on the credibility of his commentary.

• The pundit's celebration of the publicity the whole affair has garnered cannot be said to have proved my speculations of yesterday, but I believe they remain valid and open.

There will be more I imagine. :-\

The long road back to the painting table

Gearing up and clearing the decks

It's been three months since I wrote about returning to the miniatures hobby I'd put aside a few years ago. I still haven't picked up a paintbrush in anger in those weeks, but I'm getting close. In the meantime I had to empty a large walk-in cupboard to clear the space to reestablish my painting table. Although everything's packed away again so that I finally have a functional workspace I'm going to have to unpack and reorganise everything again at least once before I'm satisfied.

For the sake of the bloggery I've invested in the finishing touches to my layout for miniatures photography:

• A nifty wee tabletop tripod.
• A quality PVC backdrop.
• And a pair of cheap halogen spots; I'd've thought these would give bad light, but the guy in the camera shop where I bought the backdrop pointed out that digital image manipulation makes it easy to correct the light.

Fighting Formations preview #1: Some background

Readers who know me from the days of yore will remember the effort I put into designing a viable model of operational command and control for WW2 tabletopping. At the same time, regular readers should be only too aware that I regard Chad Jensen's Combat Commander as second only to Courtney Allen's classic Up Front as an exemplary gaming treatment of these matters, albeit both on a smaller scale (and that's a very close second, which has as much to do with accidents of history and biography as it does with matters of absolute quality).

Just to remind readers:- Chad's Combat Commander has enjoyed remarkable success in the past 2½ years:

• Two boxed core games - CC:E and CC:P (the first already in reprint).
• A boxed system expansion - CC:M.
• Two zip-locked battle pack expansions - BP1: Paratroopers and BP2: Stalingrad.
• The 3rd of the planned battle pack series - BP3: Normandy - sprinted through GMT's P500 system last April in record time.
• A similarly continuous stream of new scenarios, maps and counters appearing in C3i magazine.

Claymore 2009: expectations fulfilled but not exceeded

The new home
To cut to the chase: Claymore lived up to the cautious optimism engendered by its long overdue change of venue; and that's the "cautious" as much as the "optimism". The new venue is Telford College's new main campus, opened less than 3 years ago. So, while not pretty outside, the building is spacious, bright and airy inside. A far cry from the cramped and stuffy lodgings from which Claymore suffered at the old Meadowbank venue, this was unanimously praised by everyone to whom I spoke.

Spacious, bright and airy: the main convention hall (the college refectory)

That said, readers will already recognise there were reservations (and I'm here considering the venue not the event):

• The second convention room was in the gym; not quite as nice as the refectory; and a few minutes away - this didn't bother me as much as it did others.
• The bring and buy: the great failure of the new venue this was (again by unanimous opinion) more cramped and poky than it had been at Meadowbank.

Even though the bring-and-buy's room was too small for its purpose, the very fact that it had a room of its own was interesting. The painting demo had its own room too. I wonder how many side rooms like this there are available in the new Telford College campus, and how many of them could feasibly be put to use by Claymore? It'd be nice if there were possibilities like this which the event could use to expand. Time will tell I guess.

The painting demo
The painting demo was my next port of call after the bring-and-buy. This had its own room, showing already the new attractions on offer at the more spacious venue. The demo was quite well laid out, with a webcam, digital projector and screen; all of which showed the potential of the latest technology to make something really interesting of an event like this.

Our painters (in no particular order): Andrew Taylor, Brian Philips and David Imrie

Did our 3 painters make the most of this chance to showcase their skills and pass the fruits of their experience? To be honest I don't know because I didn't return after my brief early visit. Of what I did see I can say:

• Our painters looked as if they'd suffered a few teething problems with the basic logistics of their event, which is hardly surprising for a first go.
• There was no sign of a programme: it strikes me that a schedule structured around the 3 basic experience levels- beginner, intermediate and advanced; that this would've made for an event a more attractive showcase for the painters' skills.

What I do know is that I hope Claymore repeats this in 2010, and that I remember to take names. D'oh!

The tables
I did visit the 3 participation games I'd found listed in the programme. The first I found was the Dingwall Wargames Club's 1/144th scale Dambusters game (not much to see on the website BTW, but there are contact details). The table was full so I booked my seat and headed for the Dundee Skirmishers. When found this proved to be a demonstration game, but I took some pictures of the frankly quite impressive layout.

The Soviets move out from the cover of the treeline

Duncan - "The Little General" - shows off his handiwork

Some nice terrain

"Bombs away!"
It was soon time for my Dambusters game with the Dingwall club. This game was delightfully simple:

• Objective: 4 Lancasters must breach a Ruhr dam in Operation Chastise, as immortalised in the 1955 movie The Dam Busters.
• Gameplay: Make a bombing run lasting 6 turns, taking your luck with the flak and trying to bring your Lancaster to the ideal speed and height before you dropped your famous bouncing bomb.
• Rules:

1. Each turn, you could accelerate/decelerate or climb/dive.
2. Roll 1d6 to determine how many feet or mph you gained or lost.
3. Flak was likewise a simple roll of 1d6 to generate results varying from damage to enforced changes in speed or height.
4. Each player had 3 'jokers'; cards they could use once each, eg. for dice modifiers or rerolls.
5. The final bombing run was a simple percentage dice roll with modifiers for damage, and for degrees of variance from the ideal speed and height.

And that was that, except that, with rules that fit easily on a single sheet of A4 and which could've been squeezed comfortably onto a single sheet of A5, the game was actually simpler even that than summary.

Dambusters in action (note the white tape which marked each turn's movement

In our game I was Y for 'Yankee', number 3 in line. By the time I'd seen the previous 2 bombers move for a turn or two I had an idea of what I thought would be good tactics: we were coming in hight and fast; and with 6 turns of flying I was going to have to adjust for a few turns before I could hope to pull into straight and level flight. So I opted to climb straight away rather than dive then find myself having to climb again. The reactions of the Dingwall gamers told me that this was quite smart.

Yours truly prepares to brave the flak again

After this promising start it all went pear-shaped with the dice so that I ended up providing some light entertainment for everyone else. The 'high point' was when I needed to roll high; rolled 1; decided to use my 'joker' for a reroll; and rolled the inevitable 1 again. The hilarity of my bombing run notwithstanding I was able finally to hit the dam with a lucky roll of 29%. Three of our four planes hit the dam on that run, for 69% damage. It was the highest score at that time but we were well down the day's rankings in the end, including at least 3 who managed to blow the dam.

Thirty minutes on 'Bloody Omaha'
The tagline for this game staged by Royal Air Force Wargamers Association (Leuchars) was (I paraphrase):

"The average life expectancy of a US Ranger in the first wave at Omaha beach on June 6th 1944 was 30 minutes. Can you survive that long?"

Six hardy volunteers led a squad of 12 US Rangers fully equipped with bangalore torpedoes and satchel charges, led by none other than Captain Tom Hanks (AKA. Captain Miller) himself. Our objective was simple: get up that beach and blow that bunker!

Two of the RAFWA guys beside their lovely table

The picture above shows the details of the table:

• The brewed-up Sherman complete with poor GI who'd lost his legs when the tank ran over them.
• The beach obstacles, including the damn wire.
• The bunker.
• And our landing craft.

You can also see the survivors of the previous attempt huddled by the shingle where they'd failed even to breach the wire.

The rules were simple again:

• We were mortared.
• We were machine-gunned.
• We moved (8" minus wounds).
• Then we fired - 1, 2 or 3d10 depending on weapon, needing a 9+ to hit (pesky bunkers).
• Then we took our actions, eg. doing first aid or setting a bangalore.

So, our 6 brave volunteers had a quick planning session, in which yours truly suggested splitting to go up each flank, meaning that half of us would've had to have run twice as far diagonally across the beach. My 'plan' quickly forgotten, we piled out of our landing craft, spread out, and took the short route - straight ahead.

My BAR man (each of us had 1 character from Saving Private Ryan: I think mine was Pvt. Reiben with the BAR) was in the front, so he was targetted first. He was dead in 2 turns, but not before he'd managed to lay down some effective fire on the bunker. Quickly out of the landing craft and doubling in bounds via the beach obstacles our squad soon managed to reach the shingle bank, led by my #2 character, who proved to be the day's crackshot with 2 KIA's to his credit. We were helped in this dash by the inaccuracy of the German mortars, which constantly missed us, and which finally only hit the landing craft once we'd all made our exit.

Four of our brave team, including (on my right) the hero of the hour: our medic

Safely hunkered by the shingle, we reorganised and waited while a bangalore cleared a weak section of the wire. Then our men were running towards that bunker as fast as their legs could carry them. We'd picked up a flamethrower from a casualty at the shingle, and our flamethrower man proved deadly. One attack disposed of the HMG and a 2nd attack cleared the trench in front of the bunker.

The rest of us sprinted round the back to finish the bunker off with our satchel charges. Of course, in our haste we'd forgotten the 'murder hole' (about which we'd been quietly reminded by one of the RAF guys; I'd actually thought he was just talking 'in character' so to speak). We were lucky: we managed to set our satchel charges before the German in the murder hole opened fire, killing my character with a single shot just before the bunker blew. We'd won, and our casualties had been remarkably light, all things considered.

Afterthoughts
Both of these games were great fun: simple concepts cleanly executed for maximum ease of play on the day; ideal public participation games in other words. The 'Bloody Omaha' game was my personal favourite:

• It was a lovely piece of work, featuring Tamiya models which were a bit of a nostalgia rush for yours truly.
• The combination of simple rules; just enough players to generate command confusion; and the relentless pressure of the GM's made for a tense and dramatic half hour's gaming.
• On top of all that, my hooting and hollering was largely in celebration of success instead of in an ironic response to ever more hilarious failure.

I heard later that this game won a well-deserved Best of Show.

The swag
I bought some stuff as you'd expect, mostly books. Of particular note was a pile of 6 (count them: 6!) Osprey Campaign series paperbacks for a mere £25. You can be sure I availed myself of that offer with enthusiasm dear readers. The same trader had many fascinating books at irresistibly reduced prices, one of which was an odd little volume: Britain, France, and Belgium, 1939-1940, by Brian Bond. I say "odd" because books on this campaign are relatively rare; rarer still are books which deal with the geopolitical background to the Anglo-French strategy instead of merely rehashing the familiar story of the German blitzkrieg. I may have more to say about this book in the future.

And I treated myself to a new game, naturally enough. More about this too in due course no doubt.

The verdict
This year was as much fun as I've had at Claymore in many a year. The sheer pleasantness of the new setting played an important part in that, as did the comforting rituals of catching up with old friends. Most important though was the simple application of the lesson I learned at UK Expo'09: have something to do. You can be sure I'll be applying this to future visits to Claymore. Meanwhile, a big thank you to the guys from Dingwall and Leuchars, as well as to all at SESWC for all their efforts. ;)

Looking to tomorrow

Fingers crossed I guess

I commented last month that the new venue for Claymore has revived my interest in this venerable event on the Scottish gaming calendar, which I've attended in recent years mostly for the sake of nostalgia and the chance to catch up with my old Edinburgh buddies. I'm not quite sure what I'm expecting, since there is no sign that there are any radical departures in the programme; eg. there is still no open gaming space laid on, as is the norm at boardgaming conventions and which is commonplace across America AFAIK.

I could turn this post into a rant about the oddity that so many gamers seem to find nothing strange in conventions the primary purpose of which is not to enable them to indulge their primary hobby passion, ie. actually playing games. But no, instead I'll just get on with making what I can of the Claymore 2009 programme.

Bulletin from Belon

My recently revived interest in miniatures has led me back to my old haunt The Bolter and Chainsword. An enduring feature of the gaming ecommunity, the B&C is now what it always has been: the best online hangout for fans of 40K power armour; and a model of how to run an ecommunity.

The B&C has been through several upgrades, as befits its veteran status, and it is now a much more fully-featured community portal than the simple ezboard of 10 years ago. With more to come, the features already available include:

• Image-hosting: members' albums can be seen in the Gallery.
• Downloads: lots of stuff created by gamers for gamers.
• Gothic power armour's own special subsector of the blogosphere.

Talk of the blogosphere brings us to the point, naturally enough: Bulletin from Belon is my new B&C community blog.

I've never used a community blog before, because I had no reason to divert content from RD/KA!. Chapter Astartes Penumbra's Talons though is frankly one of my proudest creations; returning to work on them then, I felt they deserved more than just the occasional post here. This all the more so because I had a title ready and waiting which'd rattled around in my brain for several years, a title which I knew I wanted to headline all my blogging about my lads. A B&C blog followed by a process of ineluctable logic.

And why Belon? Well, if you don't already know the answer, and you want to know, you know where to go... ;)

PS. Thanks to Ange for her help with hosting my shiny new link to Bulletin from Belon. :-D

There came a wanderer #4: the wind-down and the send-off

Creeping tiredness which drove us much earlier to bed on the Friday night, coupled with Keith's plan for a lunchtime meet with ORC (the Open Roleplaying Community) in a bar in Edinburgh, meant that Saturday dawned blearily early. One coach journey later, Keith was introduced to his Edinburgh host, while I set off for a wander around the city of my birth; Scotland's Athens of the North.

As I said last month, the shiny new Codex: Space Marines and lovely new plastic kits mean that the siren song I've been hearing from the painting table for many months now has become particularly insistent in respect of my Penumbra's Talons (colours left, thanks to The Space Marine Painter V3.0 over at The Bolter and Chainsword). It was a cinch therefore that my first port of call during my unexpected visit to Edinburgh would be the local GW, located on the Royal Mile.

I was having a nice chat with one of the staff there when, to my surprise, a familiar face appeared. Last known to be in Stockholm, it was John. He'd been the manager in the Glasgow store when my Talons won me best painted army in the mini-tournament the store staged to mark the release of 40K4 back in 2004. We spent a pleasant few minutes catching up and gloating over new stuff in the GW ranges before I departed on my main mission for the day- tracking down a copy of one of Keith's Eberron novels; with John's injunction to visit again soon ringing in my ears.

Keith, me and John

I proved unable to find even one of Keith's novels, but I was able to fulfil John's injunction sooner than he'd expected, when Keith declared his wish to visit GW; visiting local games stores being part of his globetrotting plan.

And that, dear readers, is pretty much that. Saturday evening was to be a quiet night in so that Keith could recharge his batteries; Saturday's dinner was to be a choice of leftovers, zapped in the microwave. Sunday saw us visit Static games to meet Kenny (nope, none of Keith's Eberron novels there either!) while we awaited Sunday office hours at Glasgow Cathedral where Keith had to file some tourist paperwork. I left Keith in Glasgow airport on Sunday afternoon. He was heading into a coffee bar to get some work done as he sat down to wait for the arrival of his girlfriend's flight from the US.

So, Keith. Thanks for visiting. I was very pleased to be part of your big adventure, the scope of which frankly boggles me just a bit; and I enjoyed hanging out with you. My best wishes to you for the future. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
- Epic adventure!
- There came a wanderer #1: Well, that was unexpected!
- There came a wanderer #2: Return to Eberron
- There came a wanderer #3: Dining out and gaming on!

Promises, promises!

The perfect Space Marine army?

Facebook-friends and twitter-fellows will already know about the Liquid Gloat prompted by yesterday's geek grab:

"the 'old' one (and better than ever too!)."

No-prizes (with apologies to Stan 'the man' Lee and the old Marvel Bullpen) to readers who thought... 40K?

Yes I'm hankering after more than just some roleplaying, so yesterday I hit town; there to visit my local GW; where I availed myself of the filthy lucre and finally grabbed myself a copy of the new(ish) 5th edition Codex: Space Marines. I've only skimmed the book so far but I can report that, alongside the astonishing and ever-growing range of plastic Space Marine kits, this codex - fat as an old 2nd edition volume, means that there truly never has been a better time to be a Space Marine fan (and at GW's prices, it's just as well, don't you think?).

Fresh blood!

I've been meeting a whole new social circle in recent months, many of whom turn out to like games, or are full scale geeks even. So yesterday I found myself hooked up with with Jack, who was at a loose end. Faced with a gamer at a loose end, I did the obvious thing, and invited him for grub and games. So we took a wander round our FLGS (I was looking for a game which neither of them had in stock), and we dropped in to our local GW, where we both looked a bit wistfully at the new 40k 'Assault on Black Reach' boxed set, which is the most amazing box of stuff GW have ever created as a starter set.

I cooked Sophie Grigson's brussels sprout and caramelised onion soup which I'd been planning for anyway, to use up some sprouts I'd had in the fridge for some weeks. It's only the 3rd time I can remember cooking soup (pauses for the already familiar gasps of horror at my shameful soup record), and it was certainly the most successful.

Ivanhoe
Afterwards I introduced Jack to Ivanhoe. Jack won the first token, then lost it when he had to withdraw with the maiden supporter down. He grew worried as he watched me take a 3-0 lead, but his worries began to vanish as he was able to seize the initiative and then to cruise comfortably in for a 5-3 victory.

We were only able to manage 1 game, but Jack liked Ivanhoe. I'm sure he'll be back for more. ;)



Score
Jack 1
Me 0
;-/