Saving Money vs Supporting Local - Alladin's Morning Coffee Musings #4

Today I want to talk about a subject in our hobby which, turns out, I feel somewhat strongly about, and that's who we give our hard-earned cash to (and what we get from it).

We all know our hobby is an expensive one. When you can now easily spend $100 on a single plastic model, or $500 just to get a workable starter army (Games Workshop economics - obviously other game systems may be more or less affordable), it becomes clear that a dedicated hobbyist invests significant disposable income into his or her passion. And since we live in a capitalist society (most of us, anyway), there will always be an enterprising person or company trying to find ways of separating us from our disposable income in a more efficient and expedient fashion that benefits both us (cost savings) and them (sales volume). This, of course, is not limited to our hobby; it is simply the world we live in. 

The point is that we have choices on where we spend our money, with some choices offering significant cost savings. Depending on your end-game, however, I feel that the decision you make can have significant ramifications in the long-term enjoyment of your hobby.

Huzzah! 2014 Resolution Complete!

Well, I am now officially part of not one, but two Blog Networks/Exchanges!

Thank you Natfka at Faeit 212 and the group at Tale of Painters for adding me to your respective blog lists. I now have much more impetus to put out useful content now... and I guess this means I can now stop having conversations with myself and my loyal group of "Team Edward" referral bots!

Next step is to put together a decent light box set up for future photography taking - I am quite underwhelmed at the photo quality of the first part of my Step-by-Step tutorial, and will try to get a better solution before I do any more tutorial work.

With that, I'm out!  40k Fist Bump!

Searched for "40k Fist Bump" in Google Images. Got this pic. The Internets are so cruel.

Hive Fleet Ceryx - 1500pt list

The last few days that I've had off have been predominantly spent putting together the massive pile of sprues I now own for my new Hive Fleet.

So far I have put together 12 devilgants, and have clipped and cleaned my Tyrant & Carnifex. I will be magnetizing some of the options for my Monstrous Creatures, so progress beyond this point will be slow. In any case, I hope to have my army assembled and ready for prime spray-painting season (aka spring).

 

I thought a lot about my initial 1500pt list for Hive Fleet Ceryx, after reading the 6th Ed codex and lots of reviews and first impressions online. I came up with the list below, which should be a good starting point and hopefully a well-rounded list.

Warning: Dramatization, may not be as fearsome as depicted.

The Nature of the (Hobby) Beast - Alladin's Morning Coffee Smoothie Musings #3

Good morning to all my loyal followers referral bots!

Today I will ramble a bit about the nature of our great hobby and how it affects me. Specifically, about how our hobby elicits a surprisingly strong hoarding complex in me, whereas in most other parts of my life I act quite the opposite.

I got back into this hobby about a year and a half ago. I still had some remnants of my old stuff, but I was essentially starting from scratch. Today, I am faced with a closet almost overflowing with hobby-related product. How is this possible? Why do I keep spending? I wish I knew the answers to these questions. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to be back in this hobby, and I do keep to a fairly strict budget, but they don't call it "plastic crack" for nothing.

Alladin's "Step-by-Step" #1: Grey Knight Strike Squad (pt.1)

Hello again!

After completing my first 5 Knights, I am moving onto the next batch of 5. These ones will be painted a bit differently: 4 of them will be painted up as Purifiers, with the 5th painted in my general Strike Squad colours. The focus will be on the Strike Knight, but will include WIPS of the entire 5-man process for posterity's sake, as well as colour combos and tips that may be unique to the Purifiers for anyone who is interested.

Additionally, I am a notoriously slow painter so part of my process will be to time my work and keep a tally of how much time I spend painting each section. This is more for my own use than for my readers' sake; a way for me to keep track of my progress as I (hopefully) improve both my quality and painting speed.