Time for Change

Warhammer39999.com turned 10 years old a few months ago and I didn’t celebrate. There are a number of reasons why, but I largely attribute it to the fact that I really haven’t been playing 40k. Instead, I’ve been playing board games on the regular (more on that later), but without 40k or painting, it didn’t feel like it’s worth blogging about.

Of course, life gets in the way as well, but I’m going to lean on the first convenient excuse.

But more than that, I also have been needing some sort of change. When I think about it, I think the core reason is that my best friend moved away. Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, I get it. It’s just hard because I seem to make a great friend, and share time with them, and they wind up moving away. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I live in Alaska, but I think that’s largely just life in general.

Anyway, I’ve known him since high school, and we were never very close. Well, a couple of years ago, he went through a divorce and I reached out to him. Turns out, he’s pretty awesome, so we spent alot of time together. He had a plan to move out of state when we reconnected, but it was all based upon multiple contingencies, and they seemed like they’d never come to fruition.

Last year, things changed though, and it started to look inevitable. I think that’s really the reason why I was feeling down and looking for some sort of change. Since I couldn’t pinpoint what was the root cause, I couldn’t figure out how to resolve it.

Well, now that I know that it’s a loss of closeness, I decided to do something new in 2020. What’s messed up though, is that I decided that–for some reason–the answer to a lack of closeness was to cancel my weekly gaming group. Yeah, I don’t think that’s real intuitive, but that’s what I opted with.

I still love gaming, so I plan to play where possible, but maybe scaling it back is a good thing? Time will tell…

I’m Not Dead Yet

This blog was originally started with a mindset wherein I’d keep track of my 40k progress–both for my win/loss ratio, as well as my hobby & painting progress. It’s evolved slightly since then, but it’s still pretty well themed to 40k (which is understandable, considering the name).

The thing is, I don’t play much 40k anymore. I’m not done with it, by any stretch of the imagination. As I’ve alluded to before, 40k is cyclical to me. Interest in the game waxes and wanes over time, so while at the beginning of last year I had knocked out 12 games in six months, this year, I’m struggling to even get one game in. In fact, I haven’t gotten a game in since November of 2018.

That isn’t to say I don’t game anymore–quite the opposite: I game pretty much every week. I just don’t play 40k much as of late. Most of my weekly game nights have been spent playing board games with friends. Maybe we see a shift in that dynamic in the future though.

Though readers out there will surely not have seen it, I have been keeping track of my gaming progress through an iphone app called “Board Game Stats.” I started tracking all of the games I play on January 1st, and to date I’ve racked up 80 plays this year (which is good, since there have been only 98 days so far at the time of writing this). Rest assured, I’m getting my game fix in.

I’ve also started painting a bit, and I’ve been keeping track of little hobby progress items ever since the blog went dark. So, with any luck, the turning of the season and the re-establishment of the glowing yellow orb in the sky will help inspire me to blog a little bit more. I suppose I can’t blog any less, eh?

The irony is that every great blog seems to end on a post like this-trying to inspire renewed interest. Rest assured, this will not be the final post of this blog. Hell, 2019 is the 10th anniversary of the blog–here’s to 10 more!

Old Stuff Day: 2018 Edition

Old Stuff Day is a chance to look back at some classic blog posts (either your own, or others’) and presenting them to a new audience of blog readers.

It really started as a self-serving notion of getting some of my older content a second chance to be seen by a fresh set of eyes, and now that the blog is going on 9 years old, it’s never been more true. This year’s post, I thought I’d go back and revisit a few of the long standing projects that I’ve never completed, and one that I have.

I recognize that some of it will be new to others and might serve as a little inspiration, but the goal of this post is to really motivate myself this year. I can start with:

Too Many Unpainted Tyranids

I have “finished” painting my Tyranids multiple times. I recognize that it’s an ongoing hobby and, as long as they release new kits, I’ll likely never be finished with the process. Still, I’ve been remiss in painting this past year, and have been slowly collecting more and more unpainted bugs (along with genestealer cult models).

My most recent acquisitions include a number of Tyrannocytes (aka. Drop Pods for Tyranids). They, along with some flyers, an Old One Eye conversion (which I’m realizing that I’ve never really blogged about), and a host of other figures are aching to be painted. In fact, they’re all at various stages of completion on my work bench, but they will all be done this year.

With any luck, they’ll all be done before the next Apoc game at the end of this month (though that seems a tad overly optimistic at this point).

My Tyranid Bastion

Without a doubt, it’s been too long on this bad boy. Honestly, it’s only been about 2 years, and I have outstanding projects that have wasted away on my work bench far longer than that. Still, since I’m already committing to painting up my tyranids, it only makes sense that I add this to the bunch.

I wound up stealing the idea from Dwez over at 40k Addict, and I’m really pleased with the progress so far. Of course, I also seem to have lost (err.. misplaced) the window coverings for this model. I’m sure they’ll turn up though, right?

This too, should be done sometime this year. Click here to see more pics of my Tyranid Bastion.

My Imperial Knights

With a few outstanding projects weighing me down, I figured I’d also include a success story. Back in 2015, I wound up picking up a couple of Imperial Knights. In 2016, without painting the first two I purchased, I wound up getting a good deal on a third. It wasn’t until last Summer that I finally worked up the nerve to paint them up.

I wound up writing quite a few blog posts on the matter, detailing it all as a step by step process. Typically I would’ve only done one or two on a painting project, but considering the amount of effort and time, it seemed reasonable that I’d have a few extra posts on the matter.

The final inspiration to help me paint them was an impending Apocalypse game. They have always been a good driver for me to get off my arse and make hobby progress. Maybe next year I can convince myself to paint up all of my outstanding fortifications…

That might be a little too unbelievable at this point.

Finally, seeing as there’s been quite a number of years, I figured that Old Stuff Day deserved it’s own tag on my blog. So, for anyone looking to see what I’ve drudged up for previous years’ events, look no further than the new tag: OldStuffDay

So here’s to wishing you a Happy Old Stuff Day.  I’m looking forward to reading into some of your old gems out there.

 

 

 

 

 

Stranger Logos

The site now boasts a new (temporary) banner at the top of the page. In homage to Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” which is itself a retro-style show, I figured I’d throw up a temporary logo (and background image) for the site.  The site was due for a bit of a shake-up anyway as it’s been years since I’ve really done anything to spruce it up (aside from the new logo–which will be back, rest assured).

Don’t worry, I won’t post any spoilers about content on the show, I just will let my nerd flag fly high above the site for the a little while.

If you’re interested in your own banner/logo, you can make one at makeitstranger.com. That’s where I made mine…

 

Warhammer 39,999: The Logo – Revisted (Feedback Requested)

I often forget about just how long I’ve been maintaining this blog.  It doesn’t seem remotely reasonable that I would’ve started this whole shindig back in 2009, but I did.

As a result, how long ago changes were made to various things always come as a bit of a shock to me.  I’ve been toying around with the idea of having an official logo created for the blog for a while now.  Just how long, I can’t rightfully say, but since I last updated the logo of the blog back in 2012, you can safely assume that it’s been more than five years.  Frankly, I suspect that my aspirations of a blog specific logo go back as far as the blog itself.  The earliest inspiration I can think of was when I did up a few test banners for Maunderings of a 40k Gamer back in 2010 (a contest which I won, by the way, though never got my prize for!!!)

In all fairness, that’s because I was both a little too ambitious and a little too lazy to get things going.  It wasn’t through any fault of Dvernings.

Anywho, I started rekindling an interest in Magic: the Gathering over the past few years, and have been following a number of folks on Twitter related to that aspect.  One of the guys that I follow there is called “The Proxy Guy” who does some pretty fantastic renders of various magic cards.  Well, he happened to tweet out to someone letting them know that he’s also an artist available for commission work, so I shot him a message to talk pricing and availability, and we agreed to some terms.

That’s where you come in.  I gave him some baseline suggestions about what it was I wanted, and he came up with some ideas to work from.  My original content requests were:

The logo I had in mind was a play on GW’s old second edition logo.  Obviously having the 40,000 replaced with 39,999. But also aged. Cobwebs on it, cracks in it.  Maybe one end of it broken off.

From that, and a little banter back and forth, these are the options he came up with:

I’ve asked some friends for their opinions, and there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on what is the best solution.  From top to bottom, I’d number then 1-4.  Which one(s) do you like the best, and why?

Do you have any suggestions on how to improve them?  I’m going to forgo leaving any of my own personal thoughts on the matter (Short of saying that he is a pretty fantastic artist), so as not to taint your thoughts.

Thanks in advance!