New Name, New year, Same blog, more content (Hopefully)!

Hello internet,

I am in the process of restarting this blog. I am still the same person from 2015, albeit, in the future. Now it is 2019 and a lot has changed (once again). I now live in the great city of Dallas, Tx. There is a bustling and active wargame scene, pretty much for any set of rules and models. There are over 10 stores for wargaming in the area and thus with this cornucopia of hobby potential, I had decided to stop playing wargaming for about a year and a half. I have since decided to return.

At the beginning of this year, I made a resolution and promise to myself that I would begin wargaming as well. I have been missing it in my life. It brings a sense of community, new relationships are made and growth as person occurs. My original plan was to play warmachine/hordes competively again. And I did, I took part in 1 tournament in January and had a blast. I am playing Grymkin, a new hordes army that came out in 2017. They are based on personified nightmares and vices given life. They are an interesting army to build and paint. I will be posting a lot of pictures in the coming weeks to showoff my progress on them.

While I was able to play WM/hordes as before, I was dabbling in another game. Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. This is the sequel/follow up game to the now unsupported Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I loved Warhammer since back in college and was sad that it had been "killed" by GW. It was reborn as Age of Sigmar in 2015 and has had a very rocky start and life. Recently, it has been growing, most likely as a result of tidying up of the rules through the annual General's Handbook (GHB for short) and the new 2nd edition that came out summer 2018.

In the last two years, I had been reading the End time novels set in the last moments of Warhammer Fantasy world. It tied up a lot of loose ends each of the characters present on the tabletop and found in the lore. It had varying degrees of success and while overall, I thought it was a great series of books, many felt it was rushed. In my opinion, the Warhammer worlds had been stagnant for a decade. A conclusion or movement in the story was very much welcome, at least for the fact that it meant change (is that Tzeentch talking?). Ultimately, I finished the last book and with that, the desire to play Warhammer Fantasy ended with it. It was both a symbolic and actual end to the universe and allowed GW to start with a semi-fresh pallete and do whatever it is they want.

In comes Age of Sigmar. I heard and knew the massive pushback from the player base on the new ruleset and world. Since I was out of reading material and had time to listen to audio books again, I decided to try listening to one of the books set in the new AoS world. This was my gateway drug.

I began listening to the series of short stories. Hammerhal and other stories. It contained 1 longer story and a couple of other shorter ones that described the world and the different realms. I was immediately hooked. I drive 40 minutes to work each way was able to listen to substantial amounts of each book per week.

Suffice to say, I began browsing GW's site once again. I connected each model to the name and person described in the books. Little by little, I began desiring to play, to imagine this world on the tabletop. That is when I picked up my first Star Collecting box. It was for Flesh Eater courts (previously known as ghouls and strigoi faction in Vampire counts).

I picked Flesh Eater courts because of one model - the Terrorgheist.  I had always loved their look but loved them even more because I tended to use them as strike forces in the Total War: Warhammer PC game. (I will make a review for that game - and its sequel - at a later date). I love big flying monsters and the tactical flexibility they game my Vampire armies. This was back in December of 2018. Now, I have over 3000 points worth of painted models and love their look, their feel and lore behind them. Plus they recently received a new battletome (the rules book) that has catapulted them to the top 5 best armies in AoS, competitively speaking. More on that at a future date as well.

I will finish this post by saying, it feels good to be back. AoS has taken my life over and there is also a very active community that is growing in the DFW area. As you can see by the banner, I have gone all in on AoS. Due to time constraints, I have put WM/Hordes on hold and may be exiting the game in the future. This is still to be determined. Both are great games, but the lore in the AoS has sucked me in and has me wanting to game in the Warhammer Universe again.

FOR SIGMAR!