Gift of Tongues

Well, a little impatience and a quick shopping stop have intervened (see dropbox).

I'm now back in part time education, seeing as how nine years of being a student just isn't enough. I'm taking SFI classes, which stands for Svensk För Invandrare, or Swedish For Immigrants. Clever bit of acronymics, that.

My homework for today is to read a paper and listen to some news radio. I thought I'd try and justify a quick GW stop on the way home, and actually buy White Dwarf for the first time in years. But I'd make it into homework by getting it in Swedish!

I can now chat a little more fluently, and quickly discovered that Sweden doesn't actually have any of the rules or products in their mother tongue. This is disappointing, I wanted to know what Bloodcrusher of Khorne is in Swedish. Because that will be useful in ordinary conversation.

Seems a bit disappointing, that, and almost certainly a sales force thing. But ah well, I came home with the all new layout of WD to read through.

Boy, what a disappointment. The last time I bought it was back in Oxford, at a point where it had devolved from the experimental rules hotbed it once was to a glorified catalogue. It's gone a long way further down that line imho, with a block of eight pages at the back being nothing more than a list of stores and the first quarter of the book little more than artsy pictures of the newest models.

There is a battle report, but it's short and a bit anaemic (and in classic style, the newest releases kick the most arse). The hobby articles are dull and self-aggrandising for the most part, with so-and-so explaining how all their design decisions are brilliant and improve everything for everyone. The painting guides are good, and the models are very nice, and that was always lot of the charm of the magazine for me. But I got through the whole thing in twenty minutes, and most of the best pictures are already on the website or the internet.

And call that a 'rules update'? Pfffff. It's two sides giving you the new rules for the new models, it adds nothing else about the WoC book. Excellent new models, of course. 180 points for a trio of monstrous cavalry with 0+ armour saves - that would fit into a thousand-pointer...

Anyhoo.

We had a small baby shower at the weekend. I often end up playing and chatting with the kids, because that's my level really. But whilst trying to play hnaftafl with one of the adults, I was trying to entertain his son by showing off the contents of my model case. The son in question was very interested, but wanted to know what everything was, so I've learnt a few new phrases for my language book.

Rose Skrika = Pink Horror

Barn en Ond Gud = Children of an Evil God (all purpose description for all the Cthullhu stuff)

Deformeras Tentakler = Deformed Tentacles

Blodkross av Korn = Bloodcrusher of Khorne