When claiming support = equals abuse, Spikey Bits Crosses The Line.

If you've been around the GW hobby for even just a short while, you'll have encountered a website called 'Spikey Bits' (SB for short throughout this article).

Once upon a time, SB was a 'go to' rumour site, with it's creator, Rob Baer, Harvesting tidbits of information from all over the web, adding in articles about modelling, painting, tactics - a really nice and useful support tool.

However...

Somewhere along the way, it changed. It became bitter in tone, biting the hand that fed it (Games Workshop) to a certain extent as GW retreated from social media, putting out harsher and harsher critical articles out, on everything from pricing to model choices, rules to background.

There are also many occasions where gamers themselves needed to challenge SB for their actions - allegedly stripping pictures from blogs and reposting them without credit, refusing to remove them when the owners asked hiding behind ephemeral 'TOCS' which are posted on their website as if they absolved them from their legal obligations (Something I came a cropper of not so long ago).

But that's pretty tame stuff compared to the newest 'article' SB have deigned to publish - The Most Alarming Trend In GW Tournament Play

Criticism, at it's purest form, should provide communication, feedback which can improve the product, service or information and force the reader to evaluate how they think (for more on how good criticism works, this article from the Guardian is a good start ).

This article by SB does none of those things, and in fact, goes one further - it offends and makes light of a serious issue.

Lets look at their claims:

• Spikey Bits is an industry pundit, we call it like we see it for all companies, especially our friends in Nottingham with whom we stay fiercely independent from GW for that very reason" - This is a risible claim. I can't think of one person, website or publication that would consider SB to be an 'industry pundit' - they barely rank in the lower leagues of websites let alone aspire to the levels of say, Geek & Sundry, Beasts of War or Den of Geek - in fact, they're little more than a click farming fanzine (anyone who visits their page without an adblocker functioning will attest to the amount of popups, malware warnings and dodgy ads that occur so often it almost renders the page unreadable).  As for 'calling it as we see it' - that may be as they say, but it's often wrong, misdirected or just plain false. As for staying 'independent of GW' this I suspect is a dig at those sites and bloggers who now work in partnership with GW to promote new releases in a quid pro quo to receive promo copies early - something that SB isn't included in.

• Some of you new kids that started in the last couple years can be forgiven for this. You're exempt, you can leave - just how condescending to a wide portion of the hobby community can they be? 'You're not a vet therefore you don't understand' - this is pure gatekeeping.

• If you’ve been playing this game for a minute, then you remember the dark days when it took years for a Xenos army to get a new codex, or for that matter, new models (8 years for the one Ork book IIRC). You remember GW scaling back community engagement, closing down their tournaments and events, and shutting down the major company hubs.  This is correct - to a point. GW did scale back the US and RoW events, but the UK events carried on, as did the tournaments at Warhammer World, which sold out (and continue to sell out) in minutes of going on sale. I'm not going to say it was the right decision to do so, but the decision was made.

• Basically, you remember the days when GW abandoned the community and left you all alone. There you were in your dark house with your superglue and your clippers in your hand wondering what to do with yourself. As with the previous point, it's hard to not agree to an extent - GW decided (I'd bet) that the wider US community did a better job than they could - after all, events such as GenCon had been running well before GW became the prime mover in the war-games scene.

But these points are the shallow end of the article, the preamble so to speak - this is where my problems begin...

Your Stepdad Came Home and Begged You to Let Him Back In

• Then like every victim that enables your abuser, when Kevin Rountree showed up and turned the company around, he started handing out a quality product and re-connected with the community. That’s when you threw open the door and let him back in.  “This is the new GW! Don’t worry baby”.  An estimated 1.9 million adults aged 16 to 59 years experienced domestic abuse in the last year, according to the year ending March 2017 Crime Survey for England and Wales (1.2 million women, 713,000 men).  ONE POINT NINE MILLION PEOPLE. Yet somehow, SB think it's appropriate to equate the return of a games manufacturer to the tournament organising scene to the brutal treatment of women, children and men at the hands of their families - be it husbands, brothers, boyfriends or cousins.  This is disgusting - it shows a lack of respect for the victims (70% of which are women in regards to cases resulting in homicide) and a lack of understanding of the seriousness of which Domestic Violence should be taken.

You Hobby Like Your Buddy With the Controlling Spouse

• Remember when you used to go out with your one friend all the time, and you were best pals. Then he met up with that new significant other and he started changing. You eventually figured out that you saw him less and less because she didn’t like his friends and you least of all? Remember when you thought, “well if that’s what our friendship means and that’s how easy it is to get rid of me, then screw you too.” Remember that?  So, not only do SB think that domestic violence is somehow a minor thing to be equated to GW coming back to support the tournament scene, SB decide that perpetuating the 'controlling spouse' trope is a good thing to use - to make out that women are harpies, harridans that want to do nothing more than remove a man from his social circle - a form of domestic abuse itself - and such a cliche as to be parody. This tone deafness, this sexism - misses that a good portion (some say as high as 50%) of the gaming community are women! To perpetuate this outdated misconception is to ignore their input into the community, to relegate their status to just 'the girlfriend' and is in no way helpful or constructive to their argument. This is also shown in the next point...

Who’s A Grown Man?

Listen to cops, because they tell you to obey the law so that you don’t go to jail.

• Listen to your boss, so that you keep your job and he keeps paying you.
• Listen to your lawyer, because he needs to keep you out of jail to get paid.
• Listen to your accountant, because he needs to make you rich to get paid.
• There’s a lot of people in your life you should listen to you, either because they pay you to listen to them, or you pay them for good advice.

So do you listen to people to tell you what to do with your spending money on your toy soldier budget? Yeah, maybe if you’re a child and you get your allowance from mommy. If you’re a grown man though, your money should buy the best product on the market regardless of the manufacturer or who told you that you could or couldn’t use it.

It’s a plastic toy, not a surgical prosthetic heart valve or a precision instrument on a space rocket. 

Sigh. How many times does SB want to ignore the fact this is a unisex hobby? Do they need to be presented with women gamers, painters, designers until they believe it? 

Maybe this is the problem - they don't see women in gaming in their social circles - so using outmoded tropes and language is OK - they can't offend those they don't know! But to the rest of us? To those of us who have groups that are unisex? This kind of article, this kind of language and this kind of website should be consigned to the skip of history.

If you want to know more about the the statistics involved in this article, the Office for National Statistics provides a report every year on domestic violence.

If you are a victim of Domestic Abuse, or need to talk to someone about DV, The National Domestic Violence Helpline are there to help - it's a freephone number in the UK - 0808 2000 247

Painting, mental health and mindfulness.

This article is to be something a little different to the typical article I post up.

I've posted before about how I use painting as a form of 'mindfulness' - a way to focus my mind and find calm.

Ruby Wax, writing in her excellent book 'Frazzled' explained mindfulness as: "For me mindfulness is like building a house, so the next time the tsunami that is depression comes I'll have a structure in place to resist it."  Through painting I build the structure that keeps me strong when the tsunami hits, as it sometimes does.

For me, I came to realise this when I had a period of severe depression in early 2016, which left me physically incapable of pretty much anything apart from basic living skills. However, what I did find, what helped remove the 'noise' in my head, the maelstrom that I felt just by opening my eyes, was painting.  Even if I couldn't eat, drink or in the worst days, wash, I could still pick up a brush.

Focusing on a inch tall miniature, working out the colours to use, the textures I needed to replicate drew the world down to what was in front of me, allowed me to block out the issues, both real and imagined that I felt I was fighting against.  Through this, and taking the meds as prescribed, I found that the time between the episodes of debilitating depression began to grow longer apart, until they stopped.

Now, I'm not saying that painting is a panacea for all ills, or a miracle cure for depression, but it certainly helped me, and continues to help me.

So this is where the new logo comes in.  Instead of just talking about it, I want to start to help others find their version of mindfulness, pushing the negative energy which depression unleashes into creativity, whatever that may be - painting, sculpting, writing - I'll be looking for stories of those who've managed to do this, who can stand as inspirations for everyone to look to.

I'd love to hear from you if you've experienced episodes of poor mental health, and how you've overcome them - however it may have been.

I'll leave the final words to Ruby Wax - who puts it better than I ever could:

"Why is that when people become ill and have something wrong with any of their organs, they get sympathy from other people - except when that organ is their brain?"

So let's change that - let's have the conversation and help each other!

Adding Units to the Praetorian XXIV - Glory Boys and Hotdogs!

Now I have the 'core' of the Praetorian Army done (each squad is a Veteran squad), it's time to start adding supplemental units to the army, to add depth...

First up is a 4th

Troops choice - Tempestus Scions. For my background, the Scions are seen as 'Glory Boys', they're not from Praetoria, don't follow the same code as the XXIV and always seem to only be there when the pict recorders are running...!

To differentiate them from the XXIV, I decided to paint them blue, with white accents. This was easy enough given the armour they wear, and the head choices - for these, I went with the berets.

To make them a mobile choice, I've added a Taurox Prime - chosen as it has a handy missile launcher on the back! It's a little more pricey, but I hope it will work as a good firebase. The 'standard' Taurox has track units rather than wheels, something I've never liked about the design, so I swapped them out for some large wheels I had knocking about.

Alongside these, there's a squadron of Armoured Sentinels. I prefer these over the lighter Scout version, even if they do lose the Scouting ability, they make up for it in firepower! Again, to try and make them into individuals, I've modelled each one slightly different (not just in weaponry) - these makes them into characters of their own...

So - here's the Scions and their Taurox Prime Transport:

And the three Sentinels:

Look to your front. Mark your targets. Look to your front.. Painting the Praetorian XXIV

Well, the side project isn't taking very long!

As you will be aware dear reader, I recently found and bought one of the Limited edition Praetorian XXIV boxed sets, something I'd wanted for a good long while!

Now, a little over two weeks since I purchased it, the box is completely painted, plus the start of support units - this will be added to my existing Imperial Guard army, but able to stand on its own as well...

The army as it stands today (547 points, 29 Power Levels) - the Aurox in the foreground is a 'counts as' Taurox...

Captain Karuthors, Commissar Fonbeck and Command Squad...

Squad 1 - Sgt Jenks

Squad Two - Sgt Smif, with Heavy Weapon Support Squad in the background

Leman Russ Vanquisher 'Gloriana' commanded by Captain Whight 

Next up to be added are:

Squad Three - Sgt Barcker

Bullgryn Squad 

Tempestus Scions

3 more Leman Russ Tanks

3 Sentinels

What do you think of these models? Which were your favourite IG regiment?  Let me know in the comments!

Standing with Cavan.

Recently, Games Workshop announced a series of books for release that are to be aimed at 8-12 year olds,  to introduce the settings of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000.

The writers, one of which is Cavan Scott, have a past record in writing books for Younger Readers which deal with complex situations and settings, but in a way that the intended audience can relate and understand.

So far, we've had character synopses and a few illustrations of what these characters will look like - very much in keeping with the universes older readers will recognise, but rendered in a more 'animatic' manner (and I don't mean this as a negative point), the character biographies given hint at characters which will grow and mature alongside the reader.




Now, this to me is a good thing. Any hobby, sport or past time, regardless of what it is, be it wargaming, chess, football, macrame, crocheting or stamp collecting die and pass into memory if not for the recruitment of new enthusiasts, who can take up the hobby, enjoy it and pass it on to the generation after them.  To see younger players getting involved, and having avenues that make it all the easier for them has to be celebrated and encouraged.

However.... here we come to the reason I'm writing this blog passage.  Im 43 - far beyond the age these books are aimed at (though trust me, I won't let that stop me buying them if they tell a good tale). But it seems that the very existence of these books has enraged parts of the hobby community, and moved some to even post threats to the authors social media feeds.



This is unacceptable. By all means, question and critique the books when they're out, but this total loss of perspective is outrageous. Imagine if you will receiving threats and insults for your work if you were an accountant, or a bricklayer, or plumber - would you be happy to continue work? Why do some see it as their right to barrack, harass and abuse those in a creative role within 'their' favourite settings?

This is the same behaviour which has recently seen several stars from the Star Wars films leave social media - because a group of overwhelmingly white male 'fans'  decided that the producers, writers and actors took a storyline in a different direction to what THEY demanded. These are the actions of bullies - insecure, immature, violent bullies, scared that what they see as 'theirs' is being opened up to all.

In fact, there is a different word to 'fan' to use for these morons - Gatekeeper. I'm not sure on when the term was first used (if you know, let me know in the comments) but it refers to those who would block entry to a hobby, or interest to those they deem 'not suitable'  - they're no different to the old men who would gather in their clubs refusing access to women or Persons of Colour for no other reason than they were not male and white - these idiots seek to build walls where there should be open doors, stopping potential hobbyists, gamers and readers in, to experience what they purport to love.

BUT...

I truly believe that this toxic element is in a minority - a vocal one, but a minority all the same. In my many years of gaming, both within my social circle and the wider community through tournaments and events, I've encountered so many great people, all of whom want to see our hobby grow and flourish and be as popular as possible.  These are the people  who matter, they're the ones who will set the groundwork for the new generation of gamers and they are the ones who will be held up as examples of how to behave.

So how do we do this?  Some simple steps:

1) Don't allow negative, abusive comments go unchallenged - but don't become abusive in return - this only feeds the view of the abuser that they're in the right.

2) Do promote positivity - if you see a gamer, designer, blogger, shop or company doing something you like, let others know as much as possible - by highlighting these positive voices we can drown out the negative

3) Think about what you post - you're entitled to not like something, we all do - but don't let it become personal with the creator. Constructive criticism is always welcome, but just saying 'it's crap' doesn't help anyone.

In future posts I'll be highlighting some of the good work others are doing - hopefully by doing so I can do my part to keep the positivity going!

Hold the Line - a Praetorian XXIV Project

Way back in 1997, Games Workshop released a limited run box of Imperial Guard models known as the Praetorian XXIV.  Loosely inspired by turn of the century British Colonial Troops (in particular those involved in the Rourke's Drift battle against the Zulu nation) these were hugely popular models following their use in the Games Day diorama 'Encounter at Glazer's Creek' (also known as Big Toof River).

I'm lucky enough that I found an untouched box recently - which I'm adding to my Mordian forces, but an addition that will have enough character to be able to stand on it's own.

The box set comes with:

1) Lieutenant with Chainsword and Bolt Pistol

2) Command Squad with Vox and Grenade Launcher

3) Commissar

4) Squad One - Sgt, Heavy Bolter and Flamer

5) Squad Two - Sgt, Mortar and Flamer

6) Heavy Weapons Squad - 3 Las Cannon Teams

On top of this, I've added an extra squad:

7) Squad Three - Sgt, Heavy Bolter and Flamer

In support of these, I've purchased a squad of Forgeworld Charonite Ogryns, which will be converted to have shields, making them into Bulgryns.  These models are a little more ornate than the standard Ogryn kit so will fit nicely.

I'm also going to make this a mechanised army - each squad will have a Chimera.  To denote the Command Chimera, I've used a Forgeworld Aurox:

There will also be an Armoured Column to sit alongside these, made of Leman Russes of various marks...

Check back soon for further updates!

Project Necrons - A Milestone!

In my last post I talked about how I wanted to do a side project to my ever growing Eldar army, and that I'd chosen Necrons..

A little less than a month later and I've managed to build and paint a 1750 army! It's been a hugely enjoyable army to pull together, and I've already got plans on how to expand it up to 3000 points...!

I think that the deciding factor on how well this army has gone is that unlike other armies, I planned out what I wanted and in what order I was going to paint it.  I also only built the unit I intended to paint, rather than the entire army, which meant I didn't feel the weight of a large amount of unpainted minis looking at me accusingly.  This focussed my mind on the unit at hand, making sure that they were done to a good quality before moving on to the next one.

The Novokh Dynasty seemed particularly nasty to me - painting their armour red as to signify bathing in their enemies blood being a favourite - With talk of a C'Tan called 'The Crimson God' who makes his enemies explode in bloody fragments... who wouldn't want to play an army like that?

A NOTE ON COMPOSITION:

Some plan their armies based on the principle of 'WAAC' (Win At All Costs), some take a less aggressive, but still as tactical outlook, building a list for tournament use. Not me. I take units I want to paint - ones that look interesting to me. So whilst the list may look 'sub-optimal' to some, this is a great list for me, hence the speed of painting. It's interesting, balanced and I hope, fun to play with and against.

So, here's the army:

Overlord with Resurrection Orb and Voidscythe:

Cryptek with Canoptek Cloak:

2 units of Necron Warriors:

Unit of Immortals:

Unit of Wraiths:

Unit of Lychguard:

Unit of Scarabs:

Annhilation Barge:

Nightscythe:

And the centrepiece of the army so far - a Canoptek Tomb Stalker:

As kits go, this was a right bugger to build! Each segment of the throat is separate, allowing for flexibility, but at the same time you need to be nimble to position it correctly if you want to have it rearing up as I have... but as centrepiece it's stunning.

Now I've finished this 1750, I'm about to embark on another side project (again to 1750 points) - Imperial Guard.  But this one is based around a special set of miniatures...