As I sit here trying to verbally remove the layer of dust the blog has accumulated it actually made me remember a very important detail; since december Whelpslayer is 1 year old! Brings a lot of things into perspective to reread your old blog posts and to see how things change over just a year. But with the new year comes new ideas and I’ve had some pretty different ones this time round. Fair warning a lot of this post is about personal stuff and I’ve written it as much for myself (a reminder so to speak) as anyone else so if you’ve come looking for reports or tips or anything im afraid you won’t find any in this post but still if I have your curiosity then by all means read on…

Another Xmas come and gone but It was a good one for me, spent a lot of time with the folks and the girlfriend and even got a few games in here and there. I’ve been meaning to get some blogging done for a while but never got round to it, usual excuses and all but more importantly I’ve decided on a pretty big change to my hobby “objective” you could say recently.

For a few months I’ve been trying to get regular practice in for numerous events I had tickets for this year but due to work I was never present more than 2/3 weeks at a time. During my time away all I could really do was theorycraft as I am not a fan of vassal at all. As such any progress I made was lost by the time I got back. This compounded with other elements that I wanted/needed to prioritise meant that the whole thing became a kind of 2 steps forward 1 step back situation. All in all I have to admit it stressed me out and I was enjoying my games less and less and in general I was disliking my gaming experience.

So anyone who’s been to the U.S. before knows that international flights give you plenty of time to think…and eat tiny packets of pretzels but I digress, during my recent trip over there thats more or less what I did and had a bit of an epiphany (for lack of a better word). Long story short I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to do it, I’d rather devote the time and attention to other, more important things and try to make warmachine and wargaming what it was to me before: a hobby, a pass time I really enjoyed and an artist outlet. I still intend on playing plenty of Warmachine as I love this game and page 5 is still sacred but I intend to do it with a more casual and fun perspective without the rigors of trying to get my level of play up for serious events.

To that end I’ve sold off the tickets I had for major events this year and taken a step back from things and kind of tried to re evaluate what I really liked in the game and one of the first things I decided was to go back to my Khador. I had been slowly building up a legion army, getting it painted quickly and efficiently using Army painter dip and this was meant to be my tournament army for 2013. I was enjoying my foray into hordes and getting used to all the new elements slowly but surely however my first love has always been Khador and with no more events I’ve quickly shifted back to the motherland. What I do with them I’m not sure yet but I feel like I will sell them off in order to finish my Khador collection.

I’m trying to look at the Khadorans in a new light too. Stepping away from the stereotypical lists I normally use to try out some different approaches to a faction I’ve been playing overall very similarly for the past 2 years. My last 3 games have been with Zerkhova, eVlad and Butcher and it’s been both very enjoyable and refreshing and I’ve found myself writing loads of army lists for different casters that I’m very keen to try out. On a painting note, now I no longer have to try and paint under tournament deadlines I’ve taken to painting things I really want to and after 2 years I finally picked up pButcher and took him home to paint. Either way I feel a liberated, I’ve started really enjoying my games again and in a very turnabout way it makes me want to take part in more events so I can meet new opponents, test out new lists and just have fun as opposed to worrying about rankings, which when I think about it is why I got into this in the first place.

TL:DR – I’m still playing warmachine, just don’t want to aim for serious competitive play anymore.

Where do I intend to go from here then? I’ll also be running the PP Machinations League down at The Outpost so plenty of warmachine is on the cards. Speaking of cards I’ve been getting into Malifaux recently too as it has always interested me and my girlfriend wants to try out wargaming and chose Malifaux so I’ll be getting a crew together as well as some terrain I think. The new plastics are amazingly pretty and its a very inspirational game terrain wise so they should both be pretty fun tasks. I’m also wanting to get back into dystopian wars a bit with friends.

For the Blog well as I mentioned I’m getting into some of the more…unorthodox styles of playing Khador so I may write a few things about that. I’d like to try doing some battle reports again and maybe even stream some more games for fun. I’ll also document my adventures in Malifaux as well as any artistic endeavors.

So there you go guys, sorry it’s been a while (though I’m sure you’ve managed perfectly fine without me!) Normal service will be resuming form now on.

Peace out.