What I Hear–Fandible

So unlike with the blogs where I’ve begun with what for me is one of the centres of the hobby community, I’m going to start with a podcast that is not like the rest. The Fandible Podcast is an Actual Play RPG podcast that has been going for a couple of years now.

“Fandible is a website dedicated to the role-playing culture and all the fun that comes with it.”

I found I whilst was planning my first round of the Deathwatch campaign, I wanted to hear how the 40k roleplay rules worked. So I started listening to their Dark Heresy campaign, and it was awesome. The group consists of 3-4 guys and 1-2 girls from various backgrounds who I believe are based in New York. Arvandus is most often the GM, although the other players all rotate in and run adventures in a large variety of different systems. They have played a load of different games that you can now find easily in their archives.

One off games include:

• The Laundry
• Supernatural
• Part Time Gods
• Fortune’s Fool
• & others (even ‘Tequila and Betrayal on House on Haunted Hill’)

The real highlights of the show are the longer term campaigns, a few of their stories now cover multiple adventures following the same characters. The Dresden Files RPG has provided some hilarious moments as a coloured WereEmu transforms back to human form in 19th Century New York as they battle time travelling Vampires and had a hell of a time with the Fey. Their Pulp adventures within the Hollow Earth have taken them from Amazons to Nazis, Nymphs to Pirates and with Dinosaurs along all the way.
The true powerhouse series on the podcast are the Warhammer 40k RPG games from Fantasy Flight Games. These are run by Arvandus and are quite simply fantastic. Their Dark Heresy campaign focuses on a small band of Inquisitorial Acolytes, a ranking Arbites son, an ex-hive ganger and a Tech Priest. They have now saved multiple planets at the costs of a great many lives and a good few living communities. Ratt’s fall into corruption alongside Theodorus’ ‘fall’ into Imperial thinking adds a great amount of depth alongside the stories being told themselves.

Barsher Da Barsher is one of the most amusing characters you can imagine, the Ork, wanna be boss, wanna be Mek Boy. Barsher supports his Kaptain, (another Rogue Trader so pro-xeno would be hard to find) alongside the rest of the crew in a Rogue Trader Campaign that has focused on the workings of a vessel in the 41st Millennium and the taking of contracts to build up fortunes.

Fandible handled Deathwatch in a special way, having a female player they chose to focus their campaign on the discovery of a female Marine. This led to a quite different and interesting set of adventures with a strong theme. Angela, the female player discussed the experience on the Gaming as Women blog. Black Crusade has so far had only one session, maybe there will be more, I personally am OK with more Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader.

More recently Fandible have updated their site, the addition of a Youtube channel and an onsite blog/article archive is interesting. It’s going to be great to see what they make of it all, I’m with them all the way. This is on top of them reviving the 'Couple of Geeks' podcast within their own feed, an 'open chat' style show hosted by Angela & Billy a married couple from among the regular hosts. They have also begun a discussion show about RPG's in general and their experiences specificly.

I hope some of you enjoy the podcast, it can be found on iTunes as well as their own site and they are really good at updating regularly. Covering a podcast has been tougher than blogs or figures as the format is not suited to viewing. :) I hope I've done it justice. Let me know what I could do to make these more interesting. Future 'What I Hear's will be more focused on wargaming podcasts I listen to.

40K Motivation - GK2

With the release of 6th edition motivation is of course pretty high. This is tempered by the new baby time vaccum, but I have found time to finish building my second Grey Knight.

The actual time spent on him was much less than the first yet I feel the Green Stuffing went much better. I hope that by plugging away I'll reach a point where I can sculpt some basic details as well as flat surfaces.

Number three is all clipped out and ready to convert. Let's hope I can get a squad going soon.

When I popoed into my local FLGS to pick up some Army Painter spray for my Imperial Strongpoint I saw the new LOTR LEGO. Helmsdeep in the window is amazing.

OK, this is my first 'blog on the go' using the Blogger iPhone App. Please let me know if any technical problems come up.

What I Read – The Shell Case

A little update for anyone who reads this now. The Shellcase Forums have closed down due to not being used so much. Whilst this is a shame it is a sign of the fantastic community that Phil, et al have grown over Twitter and across the blog network. To that end the Shellcase Alliance has received it's own website and is as strong as ever.

I wrote this post a few days ago as part of my attempt to get on top of blogging and have content ready to post. I'd thought to put it up tomorrow when I was home and had some free time. but as The Shell Case is celebrating it's one year birthday today it feels like I should get this out. So Happy Birthday Phil, well done and thanks for the hard work and inspiration.

Here are one of the two blogs I feel stand back the #Warmongers, a fantastic Twitter community that stretches the world over and covers many games and aspects of the hobby. Whilst the community is widely spread in interests as well as location I believe it’s success stems from the dedication of Phil (@TheShellCase) of the Shell Case and Dave (@DocBungle) of Miniature Musings of a Bear.

The Shell Case blog is many things all in one. There are a lot of reviews and early looks at models and games, although recently at least they have been focused on games that don’t interest me so much. There have also been a lot of ‘personal opinion’ posts, these of late have been focused on the new fluff of 40K and an entertaining look at Ultramarines from a guest writer (#Warmonger @tjstep83).
The support to the community goes far beyond his own blog posts however The Shell Case blog is also the hub for four extra, and excellent  services.
The Shell Case Alliance is a group of hobby related blogs that are all accessible from one place. The members (and especially the two bloggers covered today) re-blog each other and support each others projects and competitions etc. Many blogs that I cover over time will be members of the Shell Case Alliance as it is a great resource for finding the works and opinions of people within the hobby.
The Shell Case Shorts is a series of monthly (or thereabouts I think) writing competitions run by Phil and supported by a great selection of prizes. The topics have ranged from Steampunk to design a Space Marine chapter. I’ve read some of the winners and really enjoyed them, one day I’ll enter. Simon (my most regular commenter) should really think about entering these.
The Shell Case Forum is a great forum that anyone can join up to and all of the writers within the Shell Case Alliance are members of. It’s not the busiest forum in the world, but like the Alliance you can find discussions and help on a massive range of topics.
The Shell Case Chronicles is a paper.li online paper that has a collection of articles from around the web with a broad pull of hobby related topics. A great browse that updates regularly.
The Shell Case blog is a great resource and a great read, one of the four five blogs I check daily, and Phil’s regular and interesting comments and discussions on Twitter add massively to the appeal.

Filling the Gaps

With the Littlest Inquisitor taking up so much of my time I’m getting very little hobbying done nowadays, but so as to not completely let the blog fall into oblivion I’ve decided to fill the time with other small posts about a variety of topics; such as:

The Works of the Inquisitor – A series of photo sets showing the armies I’ve built (and partly built) over the past eight years in the hobby. Some of my models are already photographed and others I’ll pull out and capture, as the series goes on they will become more wip styled as we reach more recent projects.

What I Read/Hear – A link to a hobby blog or podcast that I enjoy along with a brief description. When I’m in work I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts and I really enjoy and support a few of them. Whilst I have less time to keep up with blogs their are a few that I really enjoy and benefit from and that I’d like to share.

The Greatest Good – Simon from my Deathwatch campaign has written up an account of Kill Team Apache’s latest mission. Chapter by chapter I will release this once it’s been edited. I really hope people enjoy it for the great piece of 40k fiction it is.

Plus any other good ideas that I come up with. Let me know if there is anything you’d like to read or see and I’ll do my best. I hope to also add in occasional views on the D&D campaign I’m in, board games I play and perhaps one day some modelling progress or even…. a minis game played!

The Works of the Inquisitor–The Knights Templar

So back in 2004 I had a dream one night about starting my own Space Marine Chapter. I wanted to base them on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table of the Knights Templar order from the crusades. I’d been out of the hobby since 1996/7 at this point and had no idea what so ever that 3rd Ed. 40K had been and gone bringing the Black Templars with it; so of course I went with the Knights Templar.

I lived in Nottingham at the time but it was an age before I discovered that Warhammer World was nearby, so a trip to the in town store and I enthusiastically began with my ‘Battle for Macragge’ a starter set of paints and the Space Marine codex. This was the time of  Traits for Marines and the Knights Templar quickly became an Imperial Fist successor chapter devoted to protecting Imperial citizens on pilgrimages to Terra.

You see the black helmets for the assault marines and the yellow for the devastators. This is because the background included a story of Imperial Fists defending pilgrims against overwhelming Chaos forces and being rescued by Black Templers. Leading to the forming of the chapter formed from the survivors of the encounter.

I used a lot of parts from a Bretonian knights kit to try and capture the classic Knights Templar feel.		Librarian	Company Champion
I also used a half green half black colour for my Chaplin after reading somewhere that the colour was used that way in the real life order.		Terminator Sargent	Chaplin (‘Jean-Luc’)

The paint scheme was (very) simple, I undercoated in white and then base coated half-heartedly with more white. A liberal wash with a heavily watered down Codex Grey and a dry brush of white over and I was done. The result was average at best, but with some bold colours besides it and a high tempo meaning I actually got things completed I still feel that as an army they look alright.

My favourite two units are my Veterans, a metal Black Templers unit that had all of their Bolt Pistols replaced with Bolt Guns to represent the ‘True Grit’ trait I used.

And my Venerable Dreadnought, the Chaplin that led the Black Templers when they rescued the Imperial Fists and whose religious zeal has led the chapter in to actual worship of the Emperor as a god. A Penitent Engine with a sarcophagus built from parts of a Land Raider Crusader and the tanks guns modified to finish the piece. The traitor guard’s greenstuff’d spinal cord is a treat.

The Knights Templar battled a great deal against CSM and Ultramarines during 4th Edition in Warhammer World, and a variety of different one off opponents in Nottingham’s GW store. My battles against other loyalist Marines were based on the premise that a corrupt radical Ordo Malleus Inquisitor had tricked the Knights Templar chapter master and led one of the chapters Brotherhoods unknowingly to Chaos. Somewhere in a box is a Daemon Prince waiting to be ‘Knighted’.

In total they come to a bit over 2,000 points and apart from needing to finish the bases (I painted them Goblin Green and called it done to start with, after my 90’s roots), I think I’m pretty much done with the army. Certainly should I want to do more Marines now they would be another chapter, but never say never I guess.

My battles against friends in Warhammer World were known for some pretty appalling bad luck with dice rolls on my part, and that leads to the final images of this retrospective.

This figure was given to me when I moved away from Nottingham to Norway in 2007. ”Lady Luck Kiss My Ass!” by Simon Rippin

 

 

Well I’d love to hear some comments on this post, was it at all interesting? was the layout format OK? Is there something I could have done to improve it?