Hobby Weekender 24/05/19 Jumping the Shark

[mageParticipant 20596xp 1]

This weeks gaming has me thinking of a few things. The title and the questions will be linked. Some music before a shameless copy and paste!

 

 

Ladies and Gentlefolks, hello! Welcome to the Hobby Weekender.

This is a somewhat niche thread on BoW that acts as a weekly painting support group, social thread and friendship circle where all are welcome. We have a host, participants, meaningless points, awards, and post pictures and music. It is a little silly, not to everyone’s taste, but is fun and I encourage everyone to participate. My intention is to make the thread as friendly, welcoming and inclusive as possible.

So, we start with a pledge, and post pictures of our work and post up music as well from there. Also, I act, or the host rather, as an arbitrator. Such a serious word! So the host moderates, runs and hosts the thread. They also post up questions to stimulate real conversation so this becomes as real as possible, as if you were at a club or friends painting night. That way we get to know each other better and have conversation going on as well, even if our personal lives and hobby time prevent us from immersing ourselves to the degree we could prefer.

The rules: don’t be a dick. Use your common sense. Keep the swearing and innuendo to a minimum if possible as these posts appear in other users inbox if they subscribe by email to different forums on the site. Also, no religion or politics: it NEVER works. Be supportive, kind and respectful. In turn, we are all positive, encouraging and once more welcoming to all.

So please pull up a chair and join us. This is not an exclusive club, so join on in! ?

Also there are bonuses for the following ‘Achievements’:
· Most Valuable Player (most engaged with topic)
· Fire Starter (topic starter, encourages the member circulation)
· Hobby Champ (most hobby over the weekend)
· Meme Lord (ryhmes, funnies & memes)
· Pun-Tertainment (best pun)
· Brush Licker (painting & terrain)
· Headliner DJ (most eclectic music)
· Armchair Commander (weekend battle reports)
· Community Usher (helpful & engaged)
· Storyteller (weekly discussion & story)

This thread will run from today until maybe Wednesday. Or Thursday. Ish

 

 

Now! To type up and post up questions.

[mageParticipant 20596xp 1]

This week I have played Coriolis (the sci-fi game from Modipius) and a lot of Nintendo Switch.

 

1.      When have you found a large reboot of a rules system or game setting has worked? It could be the setting, rules, some rules, but it also must not be something with a slight change(s) from edition to edition. For instance, there wasn’t a huge difference between D&D 3rd edition and 3.5. Likewise, some of the editions are samey with 40k. That’s all, then. Go, tell me!

 

2.      When has something happened in a game’s story that really made you facepalm what a character did, was needless pandering, how something was written, or how something broke the spirit of something already established and cool? My one caveat is don’t mention Age of Sigmar. Its been discussed to death across the internet and won’t add to the conversation.

 

3.      I need a more positive question here, haha. Uhhh…. Does weathering necessarily make a paint job better? Or can it be a lazy shortcut when taken to an extreme? Is less more?

[sundancer 42978xp 1]

1. When have you found a large reboot of a rules system or game setting has worked? It could be the setting, rules, some rules, but it also must not be something with a slight change(s) from edition to edition. For instance, there wasn’t a huge difference between D&D 3rd edition and 3.5. Likewise, some of the editions are samey with 40k. That’s all, then. Go, tell me!

I’ve never stuck to any game that long to have a massive change of rules. The only thing that comes close is X-Wing V2 and that was something needed to happen but also pissed of a lot of people. Including me. And just judging by my guts the game suffered greatly. At least in my part of the World.

2. When has something happened in a game’s story that really made you facepalm what a character did, was needless pandering, how something was written, or how something broke the spirit of something already established and cool? My one caveat is don’t mention Age of Sigmar. Its been discussed to death across the internet and won’t add to the conversation.

midi-chlorians. ’nuff said. *mic drop*

3. I need a more positive question here, haha. Uhhh…. Does weathering necessarily make a paint job better? Or can it be a lazy shortcut when taken to an extreme? Is less more?

No it doesn’t and yes it can be. Also: it depends. Weathering makes the paint job better if it makes the painted object fit better in its environment or scenery. Grim Dark Armies or war dioramas would look weird without weathering.  Giving everything a slight “used/in use” look adds to realism but not everything needs to leak oil. I don’t do it very often or very much because I always feel like I’m ruining the carefully applied paint job. Maybe I didn’t find the right model for it yet.

[mageParticipant 20596xp 0]

@sundancer <55 points>

 

10 points for the first post.

 

(1)   I have not paid too much attention to it. What were the needed changes, but what annoyed people? I have noticed it has to have seemingly negatively effected it in different parts. 15 points.

 

(2)   That was indeed painful and requires no elaboration. 15 ponits. Kudos for making the last two relating to Star Wars. Totally up your wheelhouse.

 

(3)   15 points. Food for thought

[Anonymous 0xp 0]

1. Rogue Trader to 2nd Edition of 40k.  My friends and I didn’t have a clue about Rogue Trader, we would have been early teens and it was just far too complicated for people who had only played Heroquest before (and probably played it wrong as well).  2nd edition was far easier to build into and follow.

2. The 40k universe was far better in Rogue Trader.  When you had more adhumans, Squats, Beastman Imperial Guard units, Imperial Guard jet bikes and even half-Eldar Ultramarines… The Imperium was a more interesting place.

3.  It depends, yes, it depends.  Weathering some people are good at it, some people don’t have a clue.  Weathering gives your model history and tells the story of where the model has been and what it has been doing .  It can enhance a paint job or ruin one.  It can be used to hide many sins.  Less can be more, but in some contexts more is better.  You could argue that the vast majority of models are probably under-weathered for what would be realistic for the stories that these models should be telling but they would be far less pleasing to the eye.

[sundancer 42978xp 1]

Well X-Wing V1 had pilot cards and equipment cards with printed on stats and point cost. And after some time the game got imbalanced because FFG brought new cards that basically made some pilots and equipment cards worth- and pointless.

V2 doesn’t have points printed on the cards but is kept up to date with the X-Wing app/website. And that’s where it got ugly. The need for an app wasn’t taken very well even though you could get the lists as pdf as sort of an living rule book. But it meant that your flight groups could go up or down in point value making it mandatory to check before every game if your build was still legal.

Oh that and the need to buy conversion kits to keep using your collection drove a lot of people away. If you had a complete collection, like I have, you had to buy 5 conversion kits. Rebels, Empire, Scum and Vilany, New Order and Resistance. The Epic format (capital ships) hasn’t been transfered to V2 yet (so I have 5 capital ships worth around 400 USD just sitting in the shelf collecting dust.)

We’ll have yet to see if the introduction of the factions Galactic Republic and Trade Federation will re-spark X-Wing.

[wolfch 6803xp 1]

Greetings fellow lead pusher (could be worse it could be lead paint licker)!

So this week I pretty much achieved bugger all on the hobbit side of things, shame on me, but current work and hunt for the next one kinda took a toll. Oh wait yes I did paint some bolters for my Space wolves (just did the base color).

1) Well… let’s face it, it is easier to go to the path of the “it was better before”

2) Well there is that old world that sudden,….. oh wait 😛

3) I don’t know, I guess you could think “well as I’ll weather the cr@p out of it I won’t bother to do a clean base and clean shade and highlight. But thinking about it it’s not something I do personally. Even when doing weathering I tend to do the base work well and then go on the weathering road of destruction. Compared to some I don’t go too crazy on it usually, a few scratch and some dust and maybe mud, but I shall try to work more on this side.

 

Music!

 

0=)

 

I better think my pledge through better than the last time!

[mageParticipant 20596xp 0]

@wolfch <30 points>

 

Hi! 10 for the music, 20 for responses. Will you get any hobbitting done?

[mageParticipant 20596xp 0]

@sundancer

 

A lot for me to mull over and counter question you with 😉

 

@robert

 

Ill get back to you. Clocking out for the evening 😉

[dawfyddParticipant 11926xp 1]

1) I’d go for the change from 40k 2nd edition to 3rd edition. The changes implemented were incredibly sweeping at the time, and did wonders to make the game far, far more accessible. And the rules were durable enough to form the core of the game for the best part of 20 years, through five separate editions until the game got a much needed re-fresh as 8th looked back on ideas last seen in 2nd…

2) 2nd War for Armageddon and planetary governor Herman Von Straab – comically incompetent in ignoring advice from Commissar Yarrick in fighting the Ork horde until he makes the one right decision of his term by banishing Yarrick to Hades Hive, where the Commissar forged his legend.

3) I’ve always considered weathering a more advanced technique that gives a model a bit of extra “pop”. I guess it could also be a bit of a crutch to hide mistakes…..

@limburger I knew the switch to X-Wing v2 had been decisive but hadn’t realised it was that bad. admittedly I still need to get the upgrade kits for most of my ships but I don;t game that often. I thought the kits were a nice touch by FFG though – they could have just said buy the new ships. still must suck to have gone inon the Epic ships and not have had those upgraded though 🙁

Anyway, it of an odd weekend for me – I’m in work for 05:00 tomorrow as we haev to decamp from our usual site over bank holidays as the company we do most of our work for is shut down from 12:00  tomorrow till 04;00 Tuesday. Upside though we should be done by 09;30 if last bank holiday weekend is anything to go by.
After that a friend has asked me to take a look at some old boardgames they got out of their parents loft – Heroquest and Battlemasters – and see what my impressions of them are.
Then I think a visit to our local branch of Firestorm Games 🙂
Otherwise got a few books due tomorrow to pad out my Goodreads challenge (9 books ahead of schedule!!), a few vids to watch, a review of Netflix’s Castlevania Season 1 blu-ray release to write (short version – it was waaaay to short), and maybe  build some more kits (my Conquest subscription may  have arrived yesterday…). Then Sunday is painting time – want to finish off those Aleph bits from two weeks ago, maybe start on some of my other painting backlog…..

As it is that’s me done, and off to bed 😀

[blinky465 17028xp 1]

I’ve been away. Now I’m back.

Well, actually, I’ve been back a while – and I didn’t really go *that far* after all; but I’ve been busy working on side-projects that have seriously curtailed my hobby time, but I hope to free up more of it in coming weeks.

In answer to the questions, here we go…..

Blood Bowl 3rd edition was quite a departure from the original “roll, add modifiers, look up result” mechanic that worked quite well early on. Then it got bogged down with all the additional rules for skills for different characters and character types. I haven’t yet played it, but seeing the run through for Blitz Bowl, it looks like the fast-paced, sports-like rumble that Blood Bowl should have been – will be interesting to see if that keeps the new slimmed down games mechanics, or whether that too will get bogged down with modifiers and additional rules.

Super Cluedo Challenge really shook things up with their “lift a flap to reveal a corner” change of rules; but it fundamentally broke the game for me, rather than improve it, so maybe we leave that one alone.

It may be slightly contentious, or maybe even taking the question in the wrong direction…. but Citadel Contrast with their “one thick coat” has pretty well smashed apart the established painting ruleset of the last 25 years!

 

The Game of Life pandered very much to a wholesome-living US audience in the 50s and 60s, to reflect living the American Dream. The original was a very different game indeed! https://www.vox.com/2015/1/28/7924487/game-of-life-history

 

Tastefully done, weathering can take a nicely painted mini to the next level. I’ve never quite had the confidence to do it – because, when done in a haphazard kind of way, it can also ruin a mini. While I’m no expert painter, I’ll often get a nice clean mini to a point I’m happy with; I haven’t the confidence to risk ruining it with weathering myself!

 

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 2]

Greetings all! I think I’ll start with a pledge…and they’re getting a little samey at this point, but BUILD STUFF! I still have ten German Grenadiers to build, three Custodes, and much more floating around. I also have painting to do…that I must get done… So maybe that! We’ll see. Questions!

1. Age of Sigmar. Honestly, when it first came out, I was skeptical. Very skeptical. I thought it was too radical and just nonsense, but my younger brother got really into it and I started to come around enough to think of playing a game of it with him. I didn’t do great, and I was a bit disheartened, but it opened my eyes to what the game was. The change in setting, the ease of play, it was a true overhaul but the end product is a better game to just kick back and play…though I don’t have an army, yet. I have a Sorceress…but that’s it…and she’s not actually in the Daughters of Khaine list… She’s a great mini, though. Have a picture of her, for fun!

(P.S. She’s not a ‘new’ paint job…)

2. A good facepalm moment in fluff? That’s no easy task. I hated all the times the Imperial Fists get wiped out, but somehow still hold on the the Phalanx…with no one… That’s a facepalm. Like no one on Terra would not just commandeer it once the Fists were gone…

3. Weathering is good, but always in moderation. It adds character if it’s there, or not. For example, I add it to my Bolt Action tanks (but not overboard) because of the realities of war, but for my Ultramarines I leave them as clean as possible to give an air of perfection, and I like that, bearing in mind fluff. I wanted my Marines to look like examplars to the lesser humans and it turns out very nice, in my opinion. Definitely on the lass is more side, though.

MUSIC!

[limburger 21708xp 0]

@dawfydd : I think you meant to refer to @sundancer … I don’t collect every single Star wars toy/gadget/game like he does.

😉

I think it is telling what kind of audience X-wing attracted and how it was handled by FFG.
Compared to the amount of money that is obsolete after every update to 40k the system ought to be dead instead it managed to survive.

Heck … the change from WHFB to AoS didn’t exactly destroy the community. Instead it appears to have been the much needed kick in the behind that the setting needed despite (a few) loudmouthed fanboys claiming how they’d boycott the ‘new’ system ….

[sundancer 42978xp 1]

@limburger I don’t collect *every* game… Armada and Outer Rim are missing in that regard….

@dawfydd Rumour has it, that Epic will be converted some time in the “near future”. We’ll see how that will work XD

[Anonymous 0xp 1]

Pledge.

I’ve no idea.  I do need to tidy the shed.  I also need to finish another dice bag and I got some very tiny fighting men this week, so I will start on them as well.

Music

These are the only two songs I can think of that are about sharks 🙂

[Author]

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