From the workbench of the esteemed Horati0nosebl0wer

I’m scared shitless. This is as bad as the time I taught an intro to basing course at a convention. I am essentially the pusher for a new game system that is slowly getting off the ground at my FLGS. I don’t know the rules as well as I could and I study half heartedly while I paint figures and look for work again. I believe that the interest right now is built up because I have fully painted armies and I’m showing the work on more to show it is achievable.

I’ve had one game with one of the other regulars and he’s head over heels for the historical aspect. I’ll meet him halfway using some of my Arabian Knights as some sort of army of Islam while he obsesses and grabs the hardcover books. I have a slight sadistic impulse to say I’d play as something like the Anglo-Danes or the Goths as I know he’s got an impulse for WYSIWYG. Watching the ensuing body twitches would be humorous. I could still field Greeks or proper Vikings to avoid the suffering.

Well, I guess my path to promote the game is set and I will cheerlead for all comers into it. I might get a banner made for the store as they already show off One Piece and MtG. It might conflict with the cardboard crack addicts on one level but I feel staking out a presence for figure hobby and mini games is necessary. As much as some might not like what I have to say, I’m glad there is little to no presence of Warhammer gamers (despite the product in the store). The store seems relatively inviting because of that.

As time moves on so too do touchpoints of pop culture references for geekdom. The Harryhausen inclusion to my armies will likely not hold as much value for others as I place on them. I feel the last great age of fantastic film was in the 80s and perhaps the 90s. The magic was in going into the story cave where sorcerers showed what great things could be witnessed. The cinema experience was a unique and private thing of singular attention on a shining screen in the dark. Now, how does the work any one of us build creates value?

What things can I imagine and share through the clumsy hands of mine? The overall build of the army and the poking of other people’s brains. Is fantasy wargaming limited to the perennial of Tolkien? I should hope not. As much as I like the story of grand scale which makes someone feel small where danger is very real it has a limit. I can look at the bog standard trope elf, dwarf or halfling and then give a shrug. I have no excitement for the ‘possible albeit improbable’ at that point. The joy of new worlds is no longer able to be transferred as easily as it could. Miniatures which have underlying layers to interpretation are being made now as a fight against this sensation but the overwhelming sense of loss remains. That era of the 80s/90s has passed and is difficult to recapture with physical media (even going to the length of using metal). The postmodern zeitgeist is The Void which sits unfulfilled like an empty stomach. A tongue given no flavor has no sense of taste. Eyes given no light or motion grow dim with muted colors. The ears go dull without the roar of joy or groan of defeat. Screens have replaced a great many boards and the ‘what migh have been’ given in visual frequencies that turn people into addicts.

Maybe this is where the smallness of the world is good again, the retreat from More is More to understand the scale of what we are amazed by. The draw down in model count, the epic scale creep and the deeply personal narrative from extended play are more appealing. The cultural implications in all of this is bigger than I can address but suffice to say I think the gaming world touches on things earlier. How do we as gamers make the game shop we play track onto the mythology of the real world? I think that’s what presently might be going on. It just sucks to see personal relevance slowly sink and that includes the work I do even for fun. It’d be easy to stick around as a horseshoe crab but really dull. Living fossils are like zombies, undaunted by time but not truly alive. Maybe I’ve also found my true dislike for historicals.

Trailing off the thoughts of why I found issue with the Hebrew army difficult and the idea of human play, I came up with this. The Freedom Fighting Farmers of Judea – an anarcho-communist semi-autonomous tribal agrarian collective, as much as I want to try and pull in Monty Python I’m not sure if that would be well received. I will give my apology to the Future Farmers of America as I used their name as a springboard for the insanity. The important part is that it makes me laugh and gets me over the hurdle of my writer’s block. The ludicrous name and the association with ridiculous humor pushes this problem out of my system. I will, contrary to the farmer ensemble, use a dedicated military looking set of miniatures for the mere fact that it would read better as an army.

Frankly I think what these exercises in army building are is to excuse buying things attached because I find pleasure in the play of the idea I come up with. Maybe this is a map of why people collect as they do. “How do I rationalize buying this?” is another creative venture to try and gain the positive sensation of dopamine. The creativity circle does not balance well by itself. The downside is that physical reality is limited by time (for building/painting/modifications), space and money.

The deep dive might be to say to ourselves a limit needs to be had with a select set of something. All the choices available mean we chase all the things and can’t have fun with what we have. I’ll say that idea applies to far too many things in the world but let’s just limit it to gaming. Maybe this is why GW stands as a monolith because people are generally unaware of other options or the options are too diverse.

Truth be told I find my brain wandering to the AI issue here in creative capture. The AI as we know it presently is a construct of weighted word association. The probability of words attaching to others created formula to follow. With that you move into the realm of images and begin attaching word to visual cues. The future “creativity” of AI models is based only on human association and has yet to show the true disturbing aspects of human imagination/association.

If you work from a thesaurus you can find synonyms and antonyms. Now, if you take color theory and apply it to factors of nuance in the subtle shade we apply to words there might be issue. Ex Machina would no longer be a simple story of the Murder Marrionette to be afraid of, one should fear the omnipresent cultural influence on a scale previously incapable by humanity. The written word and posted image (now curated video) nw make the real world move. The impact on material things here in the gaming sphere I believe are safe to a point. AI programs are machines. There is no need for play. There is no mechanical aspect of growth in performing research into the arena of play. The programming of information into a system has no tag of positive or negative through experience to a program. There is only binary input and output. AI can never have a “self” which is encoded between an id or superego. The human terminus of death is what gives us a place in sensing self, procreation and preservation.

On a base level code is merely present to act and has no other reason to be. Code executes and may continue to replicate until all resources are exhausted and all is one code. There is no uncertainty in binary being. The condition of “might be” doesn’t exist for all but the most advanced computers and has yet to make impact on physical reality. Creating to refinement perhaps is our best asset to ourselves as a species. Counter to our inherent genetic foibles our lifetime gives an “expiration” date that opens up resources for changes to occur. A static state computer system can never change and develop. “The Internet Is Forever” and why bloatware and system updates destroy your phone memory for processing.

To play is human, as we weigh on possibilities and impossible things. Imagination is our flexibility to suspend disbelief (lower the threshold of acceptable occurrence within a Boolean logic matrix). With spatial reality there is no connection to the computer world interpretation. There is yet to be a bridge to the gap between concrete physical to LLM association. The weird shit that will first come out once that happens is something that will shock us all.

In the conversation mentioned in the last post it moved from the troops to monsters. The use of concrete material figures for various symbols to represent ideas was explored. The miniatures ambivalent nature of the game gave my friend, with whom I spoke, the idea that an army could be fielded with tokens bearing sigils representing various angels. He went on to propose using 3D models of esoteric concepts from the Torah like the merkava (chariot) representing enlightenment as two intersecting cones that would otherwise be 2D Stars of David. I put a lid on that saying it was too esoteric.

That lead to discussion on abstraction and made me think of strategic games of WWII. I reeled that thought back in remembering far too many military games and countered a game of SAGA might as well be played with Chinese chess tokens. The problem I found with it was the translation between players, pointing out that the sigils may fulfill autistic drive and make perfect sense with extensive knowledge of the baked in nuance, it was solipsistic. Taking an object symbol and utilize associated concepts that might be readable to others was my own aim. It gives players something interesting to look at in game and hobby over beforehand. The problem I find is, again, a limited fantasy object roster to pull from to build an army with visually.

I guess I find the same issue with this army build as if I were to do one for Germanic tribes or Slavs that have mythologies which aren’t popularly known to be monster heavy and rely mostly on heroes. You can only do so much with the human being as a model before getting bored. Even in historicals factions are visually distinct for gaming purposes. Without much in the way of visual vocabulary the articulation of being significant does fall flat. Atleast the other Bronze Age people did some sort of hallucinagens which gave us lamasu, manticores and scorpion men among others. Egh… I’ll see what I can do.

I had a discussion at my FLGS about making armies as I’m getting people into SAGA. The conversation started with how one of my friends might build his.

He thought of what models he had available and where he could go in terms of following with the warbands as given. I promoted the idea of setting that aside and create a head canon motif/story to what army the figures would fit. He addressed the problem as story craft to give models a place in his army unit by unit. Now, only later, can I give a better analogy of the approach method we both took. He was fitting square peg figures into a round hole of warband ideas. I was modeling an army idea around a warband form. In terms of hobby he was kitbashing and I was scratchbuilding/sculpting.

During our discussion I expressed how I was having problems with trying to get suitable figures for an early Hebrew army. To build from what was generally sold, it was difficult for me, to read them as anything more than Bronze Age peasants. Historically I gathered that was indeed the case as there was no formal military industry in place. Taking my general stance it really seemed pretty dull when compared to other peoples of the time/place which featured armor and notable weapons.

The pure historical would be fine for an Ancients game but not really inspired on a fantasy table. To have more re-creation versus simulation makes me think of the difference in Robin Hood as played by Errol Flynn versus Kevin Costner. Both fill the same role but visually they affect the viewer differently. With the inclusion of magic and monsters I want more Flynn. It isn’t as crunchy and granular to the exact texture of linen and homespun fabric or dirt under the fingernails. I don’t want the credibility so watered down as to be comical. I’ll keep checking on how I feel about figures.

I’ve had time to stop and think how disturbing time without something to do is both boring and irritating. Time without input or stimulation is painful. Given that I have quite a bit of time on my hands I’ve put my hands to work on hobby. I do not like the act of sitting about and having no purpose. I’m tired of doing no thing.

The meditation is merely mental masturbation and a crap placebo for treatment. Zen (Chan) is cunning to deal with this and says that’s about the right way of looking at life. I’m also finding guidance to sit in that very same discomfort to “feel through” the experience. This is crap.

Urgh.. between lying in bed looking over hobby stuff and being up making things by hand I am trying to deal with being unemployed. If I were able to use my skills and energy for profit in a manner I enjoy like hobby I’d feel much better. It seems to me that I can only spend resources in to get joy. Chop wood, carry water… gotta keep thinking that and find contentment in the moment. Existence is suffering and perhaps the trick is to think less and just do the actions that solve the emotional distress. One’s head gets in the way far less often when on autopilot. Atleast I know here misery loves company and we all suffer the effort of making hobby as best we can.

Is this the reality of those who have retired or injured severely and forced into inactivity; is this like your moment of rediscovering a reason for being?

On the heels of the other ideas I was inspired by the Black Friday sale email of Epic Basing and seeing their desert theme elements. Numerous styles of cactus and thinking dry, relative to the recent rain herein Texas, my brain slid sideways. A new interpretation on dry undead was born. I started thinking that a combined force of spectral and material undead was possible with Native American figures and various skeletons. This is possible if you were to take the idea of The Ghost Dance and shoehorn it into a fantasy environment of SAGA Age of Magic. My mind extended the thought from the American West to the rest of the continent with Mythic Americas and Paymaster Games. It didn’t hurt that there are also branches and other deadfall to play with some more places and terrain material is plentiful if one decides on a location to build up.

There are plenty of companies with historical figures to pressgang into service here as well. The question that needs to be addressed is what list to run.

• Undead Legion is easy enough said and done if you bring in skeletons and do ghostly paint jobs. Undead/zombie animals are figures available in plastic and even metal/resin (see Gamezone, Bad Squid do, etc.) with stls being ever present. Mythic Americas can be pulled in for some Hearthguard units just for numbers and make for an excellent fantasy selection (double up regular purchases for units to make Warriors).
• Masters of the Underearth might make sense if you want to incorporate firearms. Make an story addition that there are “ghost guns” being used and you’re in business.  I see issues with trying to incorporate any sort of warmachine though unless one goes the route of Ewok indomitable tree trunk technology.
• The Horde might even be able to get away with something like a herd of buffalo or stags when making up a chariot.
• Lords of the Wild the optional Levy unit can be made out of any small animals/vermin at hand. Wildlife otherwise is easy enough brought in and used for both Warrior/Levy bases on foot and mounted. Creatures can be moved in with the same thinking. Hell, consider the mystic/dire form of an animal and it works in a simple story build. Beyond that the use of bows by this list makes mini purchases easy.
• Great Kingdoms could be a list that people overlook until Central and South America are drawn in. Formal armies in uniforms using battle formations sit right with this thought and can make for some interesting armies.
• The Otherworld might also make sense considering the available models for the story build. The downside is being niche and low in number of creations. There is also the deep dive of research should you want to really flesh out your head canon *shrug*.

No idea on how anybody else might build a Native American army for Age of Magic but these are some ideas on how I got sucked into that line of thinking.