"The scale of the problem" (or "Why we fight")

It wasn't easy starting this blog.

Bother Handro and I both have amassed sizeable collections over the last 5 years, and admitting that we (like everyone in the hobby (Brother Handro: "I keep saying, this IS the hobby!") have been guilty of buying the nice new shiny things, or even just buying older stuff with the view of "We'll get around to it one day".

With this in mind, i have started the Wall of Shame! page. Herein shall ye find the reams of projects/models which lie disassembled, grey or otherwise incomplete.

This list as stands today is by no means complete, and things will be added to each/all sections in due course. It doesn't include projects for which we have merely parts, It doesn't include terrain and It doesn't include the multitude of other little "bits and bobs" which we have bought/acquired through our time in the hobby.

Perhaps a picture says it better?

The above shows the boxes on my shelf, granted they aren't full, parts have been used. But it starts to show the scale of the problem.

The next image shows the rack of things that need painting (and this is NOT the only source of models to work on!

We have (in this frame anyway) 40K Dark Imperium Death Guard, in front of Blood and Plunder Bretheren of the coast, on top of a tray of Arcworlde (mixture of Battle for Troll Bridge, other assorted elves, and 12 sheep for some reason) - this list is just the top shelf. Other shelves have more Blood and Plunder, Tyranids, Bolt Action and one of a set of islands for Blood and Plunder.

My hope is that, over the next few weeks and months, we will start to chew through our respective backlogs. Hopefully we will have more success, more pleasure and more gaming as a result!

Purge the Grey

Der H

Thought for the day: "Heresy grows from idleness"

Welcome to the blog (AKA we have a problem!)

Der H: Brother, we have to talk...

Brother Handro: Eh?

Der H: Have you seen the amount of grey stuff in the basement?

Brother Handro: One word brother...Tau...

Der H: You've bought another army? We need to work on this don't we...

Brother Handro: It's part of the hobby... [looks left and right shiftily]

Der H: I know; let's start a blog to make us work harder...

Brother Handro: But won't that take up time that could be spent..

Der H: A blog I say! To the internet!

With that whimsical preamble over it is time we explained what is going on.

We are two old friends from Manchester who were avid hobbyists in our younger days. Teenage years came and went, University happened, and gainful employment followed, and after the boozing (Der H), studying (Brother Handro) and several years out of the hobby we both needed to scratch that plasticky-resinous-glue-induced itch that only comes from building little toy soldiers.

It started out with Handro diving into the 30K era of Games Workshop's flagship Warhammer 40,000 franchise (Brother Handro: Back then we didn't have plastic/any MKII, III or IV, and all this were fields....) and starting, slowly to build up some little plastic men. Handro had wisely not thrown out all of his hobby stuff (Der H: Do I need to remind you that you threw out a Land Raider....) [Handro: It was two Land Raiders actually. And a Basilisk. And...] and hit the ground running with some great conversions. Der H came back from university into the busy life of a junior doctor and thought "You know what Handro, I've found a box of Space Hulk 2nd Ed on E-Bay. We could make time for that". As you might guess - that project is not finished. But it rekindled the love of the hobby.

Here we are 5 years later and wow, the hobby has progressed, as have our lives. Scraping together to get a few squads on the table has been replaced with impulse buying plastic and resin 30K. One game system became multiple systems. One franchise became many (Brother Handro: All?), and the butterflies finally were released.

The biggest cause/excuse for this ballooning of our hobby has been buying a house! Der H recently bought a house with a basement, and his wife was nice/foolish/cunning enough to allow him free reign of the space (Brother Handro: Isn't the lock on the outside of the door?). Here it is in all its glory before being filled with the plethora of hobby bits which currently clutter the whole space.

Today's image shows our 4'x6' (extendable to 4'x8') gaming/work table which takes pride of place in the hobby basement. The painting and airbrush stations occupy the other walls and off-screen there is a wall of shelves to store all the wonders that the post-2012 hobby can offer.

This blog hopes to combine all of the efforts across our range of different systems and in doing so, will hopefully force our hands and make us finish some projects.

Stay tuned for updates to the About us pages, project tags, reports from the Forge World Open Day, and hopefully some grey things becoming...less grey?

Purge the Grey

Der H & Brother Handro

(AKA TheHobbyButterflies)

Thought for the day: "Sanity...is for the weak!"