Legion - A Horus Heresy Book Review

Disclaimer

Spoilers abound in these posts, if you haven’t read the books and will get upset by finding out what happens just stop.

This is also not a recap, if you want a recap go to Lexicanium.

What The Black Library says about the book

A Great War is coming, and it will engulf the Imperium of Man. The Space Marines of the Alpha Legion, the last and most secretive of all the Astartes brotherhoods, arrive on a heathen world to support the Imperial Army in a pacification campaign against strange and uncanny forces. But what drives the Alpha Legion? Can they be trusted, and what side will they choose when the Great War begins? Loyalties are put to the test, and the cunning schemes of an alien intelligence revealed in this latest installment of the ground-breaking SF series by Dan Abnett, as the fate of mankind hangs in the balance.

What the book is really about?

Legion is a very different book from the others in the series so far. The best way to describe it is that it is a spy thriller. The whole book is about conspiracies and plots, with different groups spying on each other for different reasons. There are no less than five factions involved in this intrigue and it makes for great reading.

First of all, there is the local “deviant human race” (the Nurth) that the imperials are trying to subjugate. They specialise in guerrilla warfare and lightning raids (as well as “air magic”….. basically warp magic). They are defending their world from “compliance” (Such a spin doctor for an invasion) because they are chaos worshipping nutjobs armed with spears and black magic.

Then, there is the geno-regiment. The main human protagonists are part of this fascinating group. The regiment is ruled over by a cabal of low level psychic women whose eggs are harvested when they mature and vat grown into soldiers. These “uxors” use their psychic abilities for command and control of the vat grown soldiers. They are supported by “Hetmen”, non-genetically modified veteran officers who provide direct leadership and command on the field. It’s an interesting model, solid dependable grunts, veteran grizzled sergeants, and psychic female officers. I like it a lot and the dynamic between the three groups is believable, and more importantly, would be combat effective.

The Cabal is introduced in this book and they are a fascinating concept. A group of alien races that have been working against chaos since humans were grunting apes (So at least before 1977). The Cabal have deployed one of their human agents to negotiate with the Alpha legion and to get their help in the war against chaos. To this end they have sent a man whose sole role in life seems to be to eat scenery, and that is John Grammaticus. I’ll take more about John later, but he is essentially the 40k universes James Bond.

The Alpha Legion are the fourth faction at play here. Summoned to the warzone by the machinations of the Cabal they are conducting a shadow war against the Nurth and not really telling the imperial command exactly what they are up too. The Alpha Legion use a combination of hit and run tactics, covert operations and their own non-astartes spy network to cause trouble. 

Finally there is the imperial commander and his retinue of “Lucifer blacks”. The commander is suspicious of everyone and is pretty pissed that the Legion is just conducting operations in his warzone and keeping him in the dark.

The story builds into one giant cluster f** of suspicion, spying, intrigue and deceit. It’s all good.

Why are there humans in my book about super powered Space Marines?

This is a human centric book, something Dan Abnett seems to excel at. If your idea of a great 40k book is one about wooden space marine stereotypes being heroic and killing stuff with the power of AWESOME, then this is not the book for you. (Battle for the abyss is the book for you, read it while you sit in your mom’s basement cuddling your Marneus Calgar pillow case)

The human characters are all relatively well fleshed out. I really like the buddy duo of the curmudgeonly pragmatic Hetman Bronzi and his maudlin friend Hetman Soneka. These two veteran soldiers are portrayed well, as guys who have been around a warzone for most of their lives and are willing to do practically anything to survive.

The Uxors are interesting as well as young ladies in command positions. Abnett does a fine job of presenting their mixture of youth and the responsibility that comes from being able to perceive and control thousands of soldiers. I really liked the concept of the geno units.

Even the imperial commander and his bodyguards are presented in an interesting light. It would have been easy to make the commander into a bit of a fool being outplayed by the Alpha Legion, and while he ultimately ends up on the losing side, its after he’s figured out exactly what is going on. Unfortunately for him, he ends up figuring it all out just a bit too late.    

MVP – John Grammaticus

John is an interesting character. On one hand he is a wish fulfilment character, he’s immortal, he has super powers, he’s boning a hot woman, and he’s a super spy. I normally hate these sort of characters, but John is written with such charm that you end up rooting for him. His story arc is good, and it reveals him as a flawed human far more than the uber awesome super spy he initially comes across as.

 

 John Grammaticus an immortal super spy........

Worst Character – Um……?

No character in this book truly sucks. I’m serious, there was not a single character that made me want to scrape my eyes out: Perhaps the elder douche who keeps calling humans monkeys, but that was pretty minor.

Blue/Purple? Who knows?

Get to know your Legion – The Alpha Legion

If I was designing the Space Marines, they would have ended up like the Alpha Legion: Smart, dirty, clinically efficient and without the steaming piles of hubris the mar the other legions.

Instead of dropping head first into the first combat target that appears, the Alpha Legions tactics involve gathering intelligence, using infiltrators and spies, and generally only attack important targets at the most opportune times.

Most legions battle plans so far seem to be as follows.

“Right men, the enemy is here….. we think…. It certainly looks like they are there and one of them called me a knob. How about we all load up and drop pod onto the first thing we see and beat it to death with our hands. Alright, last marine to the drop pods is a poof”

An actual strategy seems sorely lacking, mostly it comes down to applying brute force and winning because your soldiers are 8 foot tall genetically engineered supermen in power armour who eat lead and shit bullets.

The Alpha Legion are different and I totally love them for it.

Oh, I really love the scene where an Alpha Legion warrior waltzes through a laser security grid without setting off the systems and is all “yeah, we know you have security, we took precautions, we are the Alpha Legion, your silly little security system is no match for us dude.”

Get to know your Primarch – Alpharius Omegon

Right, if you really don’t want spoilers stop reading…..

Now…..

Seriously…

Ok, if you’ve read this far you either know what the reveal is, you don’t care, or you are functionally illiterate.

There are two Primarchs of the Alpha Legion, twins called Alpharius and Omegon.

What I really like is that they are a wee bit smaller and less MAGNIFICENT than the other Primarchs, and that they have surgically altered their men to look like them. I really like the “I AM SPARTACUS” routine they have going with each and every legionnaire identifying themselves as Alpharius.

These guys seem smart, level-headed and generally admirable warriors. They also seem to be absent the raging inferiority complex that all the other Primarchs seem to suffer from. When Horus is begging for praise and Lorgar is worshipping, the Alpha Legion duo are off blowing up stuff and not taking the credit for it.

Yeah, Primarchs that are not completely head over heels with promoting everything they do. Weird I know!

I really like how they swap who is Alpharius and who is Omegon, and that they even share the roles amongst their men while pretending to be random foot soldiers.

I can see how these guys felt alienated from their brother Primarchs though. Being the only level headed dudes in a room full of ego-maniacs would do that.

One of these things is just like another

Why the Emperor is a giant douche

Chaos and the warp….. again.  

It’s a big freaking deal that he never mentions this to his Primarchs. Yet again, a legion is tripped and falls because the Emperor thinks that the best policy with chaos is to ignore it and lie to his people.

Douche.

Moustache twirling evil-bastard award – Soneka and Bronzi

I really enjoy these guys and their character arc, from grumpy old veteran soldiers, to hard bitten agents of the Alpha Legion. Soneka wins the award for his final betrayal at the end of the book, really nicely done.

The writing – technical review and evaluation

Good book, good human characters and an intriguing story that introduces new concepts, creates a believable alpha legion and shakes up the story quite a bit with its reveals.

This is one of the few Horus Heresy books that is a genuinely good book in its own right.

This book gets a “must read” rating. (5/5)

Book Rankings

This is a new Feature, where i will be ranking the books from my favorite, to least favorite so far. 

 In short, Abnett good, McNeill ok, Counter bad.

Cephalyx faction for Warmachine - Video and first thoughts

Click to watch Privateer press launch video

OK, I must admit to not being entirely excited at the idea of a Cephalyx faction. However, after watching this video and hearing what the faction will be like, I'm willing to admit that they sound pretty cool. 

For those of you who aren't aware the Cephalyx have been in Warmachine for a while. They have been mercenary allies that Cryx have been able to take. before this release they had two units. One, a small group of mind controlling chaps like the one below. And the other one mind controlling chap and a bunch of mooks called drudges. 

Am I evil? Yes I am. 

The Cephalyx are your classic subterranean mind controlling evil slave race, like Morlocks and Mind Flayers. The imagery is very much in line with evil nazi scientists combined with the dudes from Hellraiser. 

The faction is described as being one consisting of three major elements. 

Drudges - shock troops, meat walls and beatsticks there to be used an abused. 

Cephalyx - Manipulators and controllers, it sounds like there will be a lot of solos and UA's that can exploit your drudges to your advantage

Monstrosities - Big slabs of meat that take the place of warjacks. 

This combination sounds like it could be a lot of fun to play. 

It's also going to a merc contract, so I wonder how many of these guys will be usable in a cryx list? 

Not warbeasts at all, more like warjacks

So monstrosities are mostly like warjacks, they don't use fury and they don't frenzy. I'm curious to see how many abilities this nullifies on them, as I imagine its quite a few. (I see yet more things immune to disruption......

They note this in the video, but ill draw some more focus to it. They have low points costs, pretty ordinary stat's and a bucket load of hit boxes. 

These things will take a pounding, and at 6-7 odd points they are pretty respectable. I'd expect to see more than 1 or 2 in a list, that's for sure. 

They have only shown one caster, but hes a doozie.

8 focus, telekinesis, arc noding monstrosities and a feat that sounds like it could be "telekenetic" in nature. They also hint at influence and a morale breaking spell. 

Not only that, the figure is simply amazing. 

Anyways, considerably more excited for this now that i've seen the models and heard a little bit about the faction.

My next bet for PP is a hordes "compact" faction like Convergence of Cyriss was for Warmachine. My bets are on a faction for Blighterghasts Alliance. 

Yep, different spawn from different dragons. A lot of potential there i think, and the books keeps bringing blighterghast and the alliance into the story, a lot more than either the Cephalyx or Convergence have been.  

My muse has returned! - Ol Rowdy teaser

After nine months of not wanting to paint a single thing, the urge has returned

Today was spent assembling models and doing some prep work.

the highlight of today was assembling Ol'Rowdy, who has been sitting in a box for 9 months being neglected. I'm looking forward to painting this guy in my character warjack scheme (Gold Dominant) and getting him on the table.

Oh, i also ordered a bunch of minis today. 

Prepare for updates!

The Kriegys 2013 - 1st Annual Vomkrieg awards!

Welcome to the first annual Kriegy awards. Yep, it’s award season and as I have complete and utter contempt for any awards I decided to do my own.

Why? Well, it’s because as far as I’m concerned my opinion is as valid as anyone else’s. So if you have issues with that, I suggest you take it up the with esteemed Kriegy awards committee*

*note….. that’s me

Anywho, this is totally and 100% my view on stuff. So, without further fanfare, the awards!

P.S all awards are based on stuff I have seen and done in the last year, I don’t really care when stuff was initially done or when it was released.

The "F**k this, I give up" award

For model that most made me want to give up painting because anything I do will not be as cool as that.

That's it, I give up.

 This goes to Kong Quest, an insanely well painted Khador Konquest conversion. I mean seriously, this thing is freaking amazing and completely demoralizing at the same time. 

The "What am I even looking at" award

For model that made me think the sculptor was smoking crack or just really really high. 

I give you, the POOP-BOT 4000

Stahp, just stahp

I nearly went with the Space Marine Centurions, as they are breath takingly stupid models, or any number of recent space marine vehicles that look like lunchboxes with guns on them. 

But I was persuaded not to by the ginger ninja. The comment below is not a quote, more of a summation of the essence of his feelings on the matter. 

So dumb

"Look... it's a giant killer robot taking a dump, and they modelled it taking a dump, so all over the world people will have giant robots floating on poo piles"

Oh yeah, runners up are pictured here as well......

Sad work people, sad. 

The Axos the Dark Rose memorial award

For best role-playing game book and or supplement.

I've played some good RPG's this year and i'll give an Honorable shout out to the runners up. 

1st up, Dark heresy. The system is a bit poo and all over the show, and the less said about the 2nd edition beta we took part in the better. Fun game, but I think that's more to do with the setting and the GM than the materials provided. 

2nd, Monster of the week from http://genericgames.co.nz/

This game is really good fun, it's basically all of those urban fantasy settings (Buffy, Supernatural, Dresden files) rolled into one easy to play, pulp experience. Strongly recommend it. 

The winner however, is the new Iron Kingdoms. 

Finally, someone makes an RPG that can works with similar rules to the tabletop wargame it's based on without it being a mess. Dark heresy, Warhammer fantasy roleplay and mechwarrior all failed compared to Iron Kingdoms. 

That, and the book is really really nice. 

The "Ghandi-Mandela" award

For the person who showed the best character on the receiving end of a complete thrashing from me during a game. 

That's a lot of blue models.... and not much else

No one likes losing games, most people play to win and I admire those people who can take a loss with great character and have a laugh about it at the end. I try my best not to be a dick in victory or defeat, but i'm nowhere near perfect. 

So this award goes to the person I thought showed awesome character in defeat. 

Scott Avery, for my "pantsing" of you at Nationals this year, crushing your army off the board while only taking a single model in loss, I salute you.

In Scott's defence he had hit the Scotch a bit hard the night before and was looking very very seedy through the whole proceedings. 

Seriously though, next time we play he's gonna double kick my ass now i've posted this. 

The "leading cause of paper cuts this year" award

For best card game of the year

Well, a lot of good candidates here as well, but one clear winner. 

I'll give honourable mentions to Smash Up, Blood Bowl Team Manager and the Star Wars LCG. But anyone who knows me in real life knows that there is only one card game that i dribble on about endlessly. 

Android Netrunner. 

Seriously, go out and buy it, it's a real brain stretcher and intense to play. I just love the asymetric nature of the game as well as the bluff/counter bluff aspect to the game. 

The "what if I told you" award

For card/model/expansion that completely altered the metagame for a system. 

For a while I considered the Stormwall collosal from Warmachine. It has changed the Cygnar faction a lot and earned much love and hate from warmachine players. 

That said, Stormwall only appears in Cygnar lists and Jackson "FREAKING" Howard appears in just about every single corporate deck in netrunner these days. 

He's a game changer for the corporation and, quite simply, changed the nature of the game as soon as he arrived. 

Honestly, i'm sick of his smug little toy peddling face and want the game to introduce a "shoot Jackson Howard in the face" card.

The "Toy soliders are serious business!" award

For miniatures game of the year

Ha! I bet you thought I was going to pick Warmachine as this blog has a lot of Warmachine focus. 

Well, I didn't. I picked the X-wing miniatures game, and here is a laundry list of good reasons.

• it comes with all the stuff you need to play, 
• It's easy to learn, but difficult to master
• the pre-painted models are pretty darned sharp
• It scales well from small ship battles to pretty big engagements
• It has customization and list building that creates challenges 
• It's FUN AS ALL FUCK!

The only kicker is getting enough models as they keep selling like hotcakes. 

Y-wing are a different kind of sexy :)

The "Crack peddler" award

For best local supplier

This is a tricky one, so I think I should mention a few names. 

Mark one is still my preferred source for comics, but logistically i prefer to get boardgames and stuff elsewhere. 


Cerberus games just opened in my home town, I guess i'll need more time to evaluate them.

So, this year it is Seriously Board

Dave at seriously Board was set a challenge by the local Android netrunner community to get the cards for each expansion in as early as possible. Most recently they spoiled the expansion for the world by being the very first supplier, in the world, to get the goods.

That, and he has pretty good prices too. 

The "Sean Lincoln service to gaming in the community" award

Goes to........ Sean Lincoln!

King of Gamers..... king of men :)

All the press gangers for Warmachine in Wellington do a dam fine job, so respect to Scott and Chris as well. 

But Sean runs a weekly session, almost without fail with 4-8 games going in one night. He lets 15 odd sweaty gamers into his house, every week, and helps build and foster a great gaming atmosphere. 

Although I haven't been over much in the last year, I credit the environment Sean has created at his place for a lot of my overall enthusiasm for Warmachine. 

He's a good bastard!

The "What shall we do tonight, Pinky" award

For best boardgame of the year

It's still BSG

So this is for the game that I will never pass down a shot to play if there is time permitting. 

Yep, it's still Battlestar Gallactica. I know there were no awards last year but if there were it woudl have won then as well. 

Dammit, this game is so much fun with the right crowd. And the recent expansions have added a few wrinkles that have kept the game fresh. It's just a damned fine experience. 

P.S this game brought us the word INCOMPUTREACH. 

Where you are not sure if a player is being treacherous, or is just an incompetent muppet. 

The "Golden Kriegy" award

Overall winner For best game system of any kind for the year


Well, this was a hard call as i've enjoyed a lot of games this year. So i'll shout out to some of my favorites that didn't win.  X-wing, Smash up, Red Dragon inn, Iron Kingdoms, Dark heresy, Battlestar Gallactica, Blood Bowl team Manager, Star Wars Card Game, Castle Panic, and a bucket load more. 

But no game has grabbed me as much as Android Netrunner this last year. I play online.... a lot, i fiddle with decks while watching TV, and generally talk about it a fair bit. 

So congrats to Netrunner for winning an award of ABSOLUTELY NO CONSEQUENCE. 

Have a potato!

Dissent about Descent of Angels - Horus heresy Book Review.

Descent of Angels

What The Black Library says about the book

The planet of Caliban exists much as it has for thousands of years – the knightly orders protect the common people, fighting back the beasts that lurk in the depths of the seemingly endless forests. Young Zahariel and Nemiel aspire to join the greatest of the orders, led by the example of mighty Lion El’Jonson and his vision of a peaceful and unified world. But the coming of the Imperium brings new concerns and a new destiny for the Lion as part of the Great Crusade, and the sons of Caliban must decide if they will follow him to glory among the stars.

What the book is really about?

Ok….. I know I’ve mentioned multiple times that I wanted more backstory, more insight into the Legions and Primarchs before the Heresy.

This book delivers exactly what I asked for and well….. be careful what you wish for.

This is not really a book about Space Marines at all. It’s a coming of age story about a pair of kids training to be knights on the hostile death world of Caliban.

It’s not a bad story by any means; actually it’s quite a neat insight into the knightly ideals of the dark Angels before they were Dark Angels. You get to see a lot of Lionel Ritchie, lead singer of the Commodores and Dark Angels Primarch as well as Idris Elba as a hard bitten London Detective (Luther)…. Wait…. That’s not quite right.

Ok, the story is really about two different relationships. Our hero protagonist and his cousin, who both enter the order as 7 year old children and their journey to manhood/(GIANT MUTANT ASTARTESHOOD).

The other relationship is that between Luther and the Lion. In short, Luther is the most awesome heroic dude of his era, and probably would have been a great hero of yore if he hadn’t found this massive feral Primarch child (The Lion) in the woods one day and decided to raise him as a son.

Both relationships are based on familial ties, both are strained my misunderstanding and pride and both have some very sour notes.

It’s a good story, just take heed that the entire book takes place before the heresy and 80% of it takes place before the arrival of the imperium. With that in mind, enjoy the tale and the backstory of the Dark Angels Legion.

The Hero-Protagonist?

Zahariel is a little different from most of the hero protagonists we have seen so far. For the first point he starts the book as a very young, rather fearful child desperately trying to prove his worth to his mentors and his cousin Nemiel.

Zahariel differs from most of the previous heroes because he knows fear. He is constantly dealing with fear and danger and working with a very human range of emotions in the face of some pretty horrific events.

He also has some flaws, which is good. He has a tendency to keep damning information to himself to save his own ass, and the asses of his friends and heroes. In this respect he is probably the most flawed and human of the SPASH MARINE protagonists so far, and I put that down to the author actually thinking about the character as a human being who transformed into a marine, rather than looking at the ideal of the space marine hero to start with.

Why are their humans  Space Marines in my book about super-powered Space Marines Humans?

300+ pages before you see a space marine, I cannot stress to you enough this point.

It doesn’t make this a bad story, it’s just good to go into it with your eyes open. All the characters, bar the Primarch, are just people. Kick ass people who hunt monsters for a living, but people nonetheless.

I also like the attention given to those members of the knightly order who were too old to undergo the marine transformation. The bitterness and fragility these characters display is done well and its part of the jealousy and nationalism that will end up breaking the Dark Angels in half.

MVP – Kurgis

I’ll give an honourable mention to the hero-protagonist who should really fill this spot. But I wanted to call out a very minor character that appears in one scene only.

Kurgis is a white scar who appears in one scene where the White Scars are handing over the compliance of a planet to the Dark Angels. White scars are pretty feral, and they get that across nicely while still making it clear that he’s not stupid. There is a tendency in fiction (and life) to equate a lack of formal education with a lack of intelligence.

Nope, Kurgis comes across as a “rough as guts” barbarian who is actually pretty savvy and smart. It his suspicions and his foresight to pick out our hero protagonist to warn of oncoming danger, which saves the Dark Angels command from a very grizzly end.  

Worst Character – Lord Cypher

Note, does not appear in the book. 

There seems to be a bit of a rule in these books. If a character appears in the 40k universe then they will kinda suck in the Horus Heresy. My gripe is not really with how Lord Cypher is depicted, but the “bait and switch” that goes on towards the end of the book.

The Lord Cypher is a title, for the person who holds the order traditions. For most of the book it’s a grumpy ass old dude, who is grumpy, old and tradition bound. He resigns when he gets too old and grumpy to live and they replace him with…….

MYSTERY GUY WHO NO ONE KNOWS WHO HE IS!

Weeeeeeee……… so at the end of this book you know jack all about cypher, nothing, nada.

Get to know your Legion – The Knights of Caliban

Well, considering they aren’t Space Marines for 3/4ths of the book you don’t get to know the legion as such. You do get to know the Knights of Caliban very well, and if the character of the knights takes over the legion through the Primarchs influence, you will get a good idea of how they become what they are.

The Knights of Caliban are a duty and tradition bound bunch of hardasses who train from age 7 to kill giant chaos beasties in single combat.

Yeah….. I don’t get why they need to fight them one on one, that just seems freaking suicidal, but the “macho macho man” aspect of the Knights of Caliban is a strong one.

They have a lot of traits that make them excellent Space Marine recruits, but one crippling weakness, Nationalism. Caliban is a shit hole of a world, but boy do they love it.

Get to know your Primarch – Lion’el R’chie

I am conflicted here. You see a lot of the Lion, and you hear a lot of his tales through other people. But in the end, the Lion’s character is not very well defined. Mostly, you just get told how awesome he is at everything and how much that sucks for Luther.

You do get some nice insights into him when he talks one on one with our hero. At times he does come across as a bit lonely and sad, which was nice. Overall though, I think he’s a relatively bland Primarch. Not badly done, just lacking a little bit of “something”.

Why the Emperor is a giant douche

This will shock you……. But the Emperor is not a douche in this book. For the first time in Horus Heresy history we have the Emperor acting like a rational super powered being and not being a complete toolbox.

It’s a scene that really surprised me.

Moustache twirling evil-bastard award – The circle of lamest betrayal

It goes a little something like this. 

Worst conspiracy ever, worst rationale for conspiracy ever, and dumbest scheme ever.

If you haven’t read the book I don’t want to spoil the lameness. If you have read it, you know exactly what I mean.

Conspiracy theory 

Ok, anyone remember these little things?


In the 40k world the Dark Angels work with tiny little creepy things called watchers. I actually think the book reveals what these things are and where they came from. 

Yep, Zahariel encounters them in the forests during his first beast hunt. I am interested to see how this little story progresses.

The writing – technical review and evaluation

Mitchel Scanlon isn’t a bad writer and this is an ok book.

I think people were expecting something very very different though. After 5 books about the start of the Heresy, this book may not even mention Horus once. It’s a little too early in the piece and I’m not sure they needed quite that much backstory.

I recommend people treat this as a appendix to the Heresy. Some extra background reading that isn’t integral to the main plot, but adds depth.

I really think it needed to published WAY later than 6^th book in the series though.

This book gets a “Read it if you have the time, but it’s not critical to the series” rating. 

2014 - A plan... of sorts

Well, let me start by saying that New Years resolutions are complete Bullshit that most people don't stick too.

This is not a New Years resolution.

This is a result of me having some time off from work to clear the brain and think about stuff.

GAME STUFF!

I kinda went berserk for a year or so with painting and playing Warmachine, and well. I kinda burned out and the thought of putting paint to model made me groan.

let me put that in perspective for you. For someone who considers themselves a casual painter I completed the models below in just over a year.

Yeah, the boys in blue

No wonder i was sick to death of it.

The last six months have been mostly playing board games, computer games and card games.

Six posts in six months is pretty ordinary content updates, so I've decided to make more content this year. Yep, actual updates on stuff.

In order to do this I have decided to expand what the blog focuses on. So far, it's been mostly about model painting, which frankly is a small part of the hobby for me.

What to expect in 2014

HORUS HERESY

I'm enjoying these, but I only read those books on the bus home from work so it can take a while to get through them. I plan to keep posting one and month as that seems to work out. Descent of Angels is written up and will be posted next week. Two updates in two weeks.... luxury

MORE WARMACHINE

Yep, I'm finally getting the itch to paint again. And if I paint stuff, I want to play with it. I have a small pile of unpainted figs that need attention, and I plan to start this weekend.

I'm also thinking of a noobs guide to Cygnar.

GAME REVIEWS

I thought about getting the lads to help me review games, but logistically, that's actually a pain in the ass. I might sample them for sound bites, but i reckon i can review the games by myself.

GUEST POSTS

Yep, might see a few more guest posts this year from the local gaming community and the droogies I call friends.

And to be honest, a lot of my friends paint about 100 times better than I do. So if you want actual painting advice, instead of just watching a monkey mash paint around, then watch this space.

NETRUNNER/STAR WARS LCGs

This is a big change, including card games, which I have steered clear of bringing to the blog for ages. But the fact is, i like them, so screw you all. Thankfully, this will not include magic, as I'd rather pay off a mortgage than play that game.

P.S. Get your netrunner from http://seriouslyboard.co.nz/ if you are in New Zealand. First place to get the last two data packs in the world!