1000 Posts Not Out!

Milestone unlocked!

Don't worry - in the midst of the naval-gazing, we also have a competition winner.

Welcome all! Whether you joined us at Post #1 (our first visitor) or Post #1000 (our twelfth visitor), I hope you've found something here to enliven, inspire and enchant.

Before the cake comes out, let's take this moment to have a quick break from the grim darkness, and look back on where we're been.

Stylus' Retrospective

In the beginning

This blog was founded in the heady days of 2012 (when it seemed like the worst that could befall us was the Olympic closing ceremony) with the intention of tracking my own hobby progress in the run-up to our annual WoffBoot (and if you don't know what that means ... you're not alone).

We played Warhammer Fantasy Battle, pretty much exclusively, until the Old World got nuked from orbit. And for all the criticism (some justified) that WFB 8th Ed took, I credit that with getting me back into the hobby.

(that ... and having a couple of kids, which annihilates your social life, but does wonders for evenings spent at the painting desk)

Bases not green enough and not even red on the models. Grade: C-

For all four of my Fantasy armies, I was an unrepentant Lead-head - which explains why I tended to do so badly in competitive play. I should also add that, while I haven't used them for years, none of the armies are finished.

Let battle (reports) commence!

After several months of painting updates, we had our first battle report - a narrative from one of our WoffBoot events and, ironically, not written by either myself or Kraken.

We have since made up for this, and can now boast over two hundred battle reports across all systems. This has been fuelled in no small part by the innovation of the Skype Battle which has proved a hugely effective way of playing games long-distance.

It was a primitive time.

The arrival of Age of Sigmar caused us to falter, but not fall (although it did push our gaming into some interesting alleyways of X-Wing and Dungeon Saga).

The next big shift was the arrive of Warhammer 40k 8th Edition, which has drawn us all back in, just as the designers intended it to. Since that arrived, we've cranked out more 40k battle reports and we ever did for Fantasy, and are looking good to exceed the number of painted miniatures too.

Some improvement.

Words written

I tried a program to count the number of words blogged, but it gave up after half a million. Given that we never use a picture where a thousand words would do, I think a conservative estimate is at least double that.

So if you've read everything, congratulations, you've done a couple of circuits of War & Peace (and probably had more fun).

Models painted

Where to begin? As a rough estimate, we have posted over 2,800 images of painted miniatures (there's probably a few hundred more that slipped through the cracks).

They're all accountable in our miniatures gallery check the top menu), and the largest army at 300+ models are the mighty Crypt Angels.

What did surprise me is that the painting machine that is Kraken has only accounted for two-thirds of that total.

So I've managed to put in a respectable showing of 1000+ miniatures (thanks to the Greenskin horde army for that!)

Top posts

According to our page views, from our top ten popular posts:

• Six are battle reports (no surprise there)
• One of them is an ordinary painting update (I assume 'Kairic' isn't that common on Google)
• One was a really old post about wargames on television (no idea why)
• The last two were unboxing and review posts for Dungeon Saga - which I can only assume was such a low-key game that no-one else was covering it!

Favourite battles

This would be impossible to single out. It would be like picking your favourite child (don't worry, he knows who he is). But we have just built a handy new reference page for our 40k battles, so I'm going to cop out and direct you there.

And finally

Having started this hobby in 1989, these last seven years have been the best of the lot. So thanks to everyone who has read and commented, it really makes make a difference (except for clicking those reaction boxes, they're just for fun).

Thanks to all the guys who have rolled dice in the name of the WoffBoot, and especially the gentleman-gamer below with the impeccable Swedish accent.

Kraken's Retrospective

When we kicked this off, I'd just moved to a country where I didn't speak the language, then my wife and I had two children. Like Stylus, this somehow improved my painting skills immeasurably. 

This is the first completed set of models I did, a merc band called the Warthogs.
They have never seen tabletop action since!

My first posts were painting up some elderly lead, and then the slow genesis of a Warriors of Chaos army for Fantasy Battle. Having left the gaming crew behind in Blighty, and not knowing the Swedish for "I fail all my saving throws", I kept skyping the old gang and pestering them into games of stuff. 

So the Skype Night was born, initially with a drab stretch of kitchen floor and many heavily proxied fights. 

Seven years later, I have two decent-sized armies for 40K, two more on the go and three tabletops' worth of scratch-built scenery, mats and accessories. It's how I pretended my hobbying looked like as a teenager, rather than the pile of proxy lego I claimed was an apocalyptic junkyard. Plus it's nearly all painted! Ah, progress. Still can't speak much Swedish, mind, so you can tell where I really put the time in. 

I'm not sure I have favourites, really, and I'm not a fan of resting of my laurels. There aren't many GW factions I haven't painted a fair few of these days, and I reckon I've done about fifteen armies' worth at least. 

Our narrative stuff is what I enjoy writing best (which is why my bits are so long). So I'll claim it's whatever I've finished this time next year in terms of models. My favourite battle report is another future event, the one where my luck finally balances out and make all my rolls! 

Competition Winner!

Now it's time to announce the winner of our prize draw - we had over a hundred names in the hat, and the winner is ... Templar Tom!

So congratulations Mr Tom, we'll be in touch to sort out the painting and dispatch of your limited edition Terminator Captain.

I'd also like to point out that Templar Tom owes his victory to voting #TeamStylus for our last battle, which gave him an extra five names in the hat. Remember to vote wisely, kids.