Christmas loot

So that was Christmas. As is traditional I'm writing this from my sick bed - someone in my house always gets ill over Christmas and this year it was my turn. Nothing too bad but enough to make me feel grotty.

Probably Tinnsilitus. 

It was a good year for gaming loot though. As my family are all godless heathens we've long since embraced the Amazon wishlist method of gift giving (and happily export it to the families of partners) meaning that rather than socks and aftershave ì got models and interesting books from relatives.

First up,  from my partners mum.  If you've not played munchkin then I'm pretty sure you've been living under a rock. Go play it.  I'll wait. Okay.  So I got munchkin Cthulhu and the first expansion.  I asked for this after playing an epic three hour game of it the night before my sister got married.  We'd finally managed to get my brother in law to sleep but we still had booze left and this was the version of munchkin that grabbed us (the fact we were to drunk to try and learn Zombiecide is neither here not there).  One of the later expansions has portals to other realms in it and one particular one screwed us over so badly that we couldn't kill anything until we'd gotten out (which needed a random event).  This took three hours and a lot of booze.  That was my excuse next day anyway.  I've played a lot of munchkin but don't actually own of the them anymore - they didn't survive the flight from York sadly. Someday I'll do a roundup of munchkin because it's quite a fun little game with several dozen versions now.

Like Lovecraft but with more girls and less racism.

My partners sister bought me two things (I expect encouraged by her husband - a lapsed gamer).

* They bought me a T-34 tank from Warlord that will be added to my Bolt Action force. I've not put it together yet but it looks pretty straight forward, it comes on two small sprues with a transfer sheet some nice extras - a tanker for the people who like a guy sticking out of their turrets and some bits of stowage.  The model is in a nice crisply detailed hard plastic and looks like it will a joy to paint.  I've seen an tutorial somewhere explaining how to do the winter white wash effect using toothpaste but I'm not sure I've got the painting talent to pull off the weathering...

Mine is slightly smaller. 

* She also bought me the 'Latigo Posse' crew box for Malifaux.  I've had my eye on playing guild since they released the wave two stuff but after a few games with Lucius I realised I was going to need something with a bit more punch than the guardsmen. The family models deliver both this as well as being a new crew in their own right and meaning I have enough cool cowboy style figures to give Deadman's Hand a go in the New Year. I've got a love/hate relationship with the Wyrd plastic kits. While they are stunningly beautiful sculpts they are also fiddly as hell to assemble due to their odd habit of using separate pieces for hands, pouches and ponytails.  This is particularly noticeable on the smaller, more delicate figures like Perdita herself.  We shall see if she is another Mae Feng or not...

That hat on the right is getting swapped somehow. 

I've also treated myself to some Warmachine stuff. I got the two player starter box that I'm going to split with Mark (he wants the Khador bits) as well as a few bits to top up my Protectorate of Menoth force. I've done what I usually do when I start a new game which is to pick a faction, read some tactics articles, work out what is good and suits my playsuit before forgetting it all and buying models that look cool.  Hence me ending up with a Choir of Menoth, a unit of Wracks, a Covenant of Menoth and Heirophant Severius.  I gather the Choir is pretty filthy but the rest just looked pretty.  At some point I'll buy more jacks. That seems like a good idea in a game about massive robots smashing the Hell out of each other. If any of you guys play Warmachine and can suggest which jacks I should pick up that would be really helpful.

"Do you have a moment to talk about Menoth? "

I've got a game penciled in for the middle of January so I might even try to get something painted before then.  I need to decide on a colour scheme for them- the official one is white and red but this means learning to paint white.  I've ordered a set of the Privoter Press paints for my faction and will give their triad system a go. Essentially they sell colours in threes meaning that for any given colour you'll have a base colour, a shade colour and a highlight which is supposed to make shading and highlighting easier. I gather the new citadel range does this but with a slightly confusing naming system. We shall see anyway.  I plan on keeping my force pretty small so I'd like to take my time over the paint jobs and see what I can learn from them.

This is what filth looks like apparently. 

I'm looking forward to shaking this plague - once my hands stop shaking from all the coughing I can get started on putting some figures together! What did Santa bring you lot - anything cool and gamery? 

I don't need to be very ill to start linking my favourite bit of GW art...