Hobby Update: Gamesday 2011 and other stuff

On the hobby front, I'm now half-way through the Space Marine Command Squad. It really should have been finished by now, but I've not been painting as much as I'd like due to different things.

I got both the Plasma Pistol/Power Fist and Plasma Gun marines done fairly quickly, but then hit a hiatus on the Apothecary due to a lack of actual white paint. This has now been rectified, and I have now made a start on getting this one done as well and am currently about half way through.

Once the Apothecary is done, I just have to do the Standard Bearer and the Company Champion, then that's the whole Command Squad completed and it's time to move on to the two Commander models!

On a different subject, last week I attended GamesDay 2011 at the Birmingham NEC Area for the first time since 2007. Overall it was a good day, but I couldn't help thinking that it wasn't as busy as the previous two that I've been to. Not sure if this is because they have moved to two larger halls instead of three smaller ones, so people are more spread out, or if the attendance was lower than previous visits. Maybe a combination of both? There also seemed to be a pronounced lack of free marketing material sloshing around than there has been previously. No free t-shirts being thrown at me, or posters or much of anything else either. must be the economy.

Sadly didn't get near the GW Retail or Forgeworld Sales stands as they appear to have been very badly placed and demand much underestimated. The queues were a least 2 or 3 hours long for most of the day and the staff were only letting in a set amount at a time. This is a far cry from 2006/07 when the retail sales were in their own hall and much more accessible. In fact the problems that they had have actually led Tom Kirby to send out an email apologising for the mis-handling of the sales area and promising that lessons will be learned for the next time. I'm quite impressed at this as it's not often that GW publicly apologise for many things.

The Licensee stands were however, far more accessible and I picked up a copy of the Deathwatch RPG core rule book and a pre-release copy of Blood Bowl Team Manager from Fantasy Flight Games.

Most of the other stuff that happened at the event has been publicised elsewhere on the internet and I'm not going to bother repeating them here; except to say that according to the man at the top Forgeworld do want to make a Warlord Titan, but they may not do it for another few years as they can only do models of that size every 2 or 3 years due to the amount of time it takes.

Random Update - Follow-up from Christmas and minor progress

So, it's been a few weeks since Christmas and in that time I have managed to finish the last Space Marine Tactical Squad that was actually assembled and waiting for painting, and another Terminator Marine.

That means I have so far painted the following:

1 Chaplain
40 Tactical Squad Marines
10 Devastator Marines
10 Scouts
6 Terminators

All I have to do now is finish another 4 Terminators, 5 Assault Terminators, 1 Dreadnought, 5 Command Squad Marines, 1 Commander and 5 Assault Marines and I can finally start on the vehicles!

On the Tau front, I've finished the last 6 man Fire Warrior Squad, so that's all the basic Troops done (other than repainting squad markings). Just waiting for my new Gorilla Super Glue to arrive so I can start on the 5 metal Vespid Stingwing troops, the 2 Broadsides, and the Sniper Drone team then I can start on the second wave of Tau painting which also includes a repaint of 1 previously finished Broadside, four built Crisis Suits, an Ethereal and the Commander (Forgeworld model) and Bodyguard.

I'm painting up a second test piece for the Tyranids to refine the speed technique before I embark on painting 53 basic Troops. When the weather gets a bit drier I can use the new Citadel Spray Gun I bought myself at Christmas and batch spray entire squads with the base coat - that should speed the job up!

For a Summer project I have a nice new Citadel Realm of Battle modular game board to paint and decorate. This definitely has to wait for summer though as it's a big job; 6 2x2 foot panels that need undercoating, base coating, drybrushing and flocking as fast as possible.

When the new glue arrives (see above), I can also build and paint my Griff Oberward Collectors Range mini from Christmas, so I can field him as my No 1 Team Captain Blitzer in my Human Bloodbowl team; the Altdorf Imperialists.