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Author Topic: Hey y'all.  (Read 2262 times)

Offline NotifyGrout

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 192
  • Sub-Random, Cut-Up, Trident
Hey y'all.
« on: December 19, 2021, 11:06:07 PM »
The short version: Started painting in the late 80s (I still have some of the first gen GW paints to prove it). After adoring old GW, new school GW left a bad taste in my mouth, Malifaux got me to love the hobby again, and now I stick mostly to miniatures-agnostic fantasy and sci-fi rulesets because why can't my models work in multiple systems?

The long story:

I decided to use a new handle for my minipainting-specific adventures, though I've been involved in the hobby off and on for decades.

First off, the name. There's an old collectible card game I played in the 90s called On the Edge. Still one of my favorite games ever, though admittedly a big part of that were the multiplayer games I played with college friends. It's still available from Atlas and one box of boosters will cover 3-4 players easily. Notify Grout is a minor character in the game, name supposedly taken from AOL trial CD initial passwords (which were two short words followed by random characters). Other characters, like Steno Topic, were also named this way.

Did I mention I like to go off on tangents a lot? Because I do. I also like to ramble and tell long stories.

Anyway, I started as a kid with Testors enamels and Ral Partha and a few Grenadier models. Probably killed some brain cells with them, even with "proper ventilation". I will put the pics up of that earliest work when I can get to those again as an inspiration to people new to the hobby- the paint jobs don't get much worse than those!

Despite my friends rarely wanting to play anything, I discovered Blood Bowl 2nd Edition (some of the best fluff ever, from the old days when Games Workshop didn't take themselves too seriously) and HeroQuest. There was something about the minis that just stuck with me.

College was better; got to play some Necromunda with some friends and had a great time. Discovered Warzone and tried to get into 40k using mostly Rogue Trader era Marines (because beakies are cooler). Once again, no one wanted to try Warzone, 40k got stale after a few games. I was in a deep depression after college for a while, and painting was one of the few things that kept me going.

Things got better and I lost interest in the hobby. Got into and out of the radio business, got into other hobbies, played way more video games, came back to it in 2008 after a bad breakup. I realized that Blood Bowl was more fun via the PC game as it kept track of everything for me. After meeting a couple of 40k nerds at a bar's karaoke night I decided to dig my old RT marines out and try to play 5th Edition.

...welp, that sucked. It sucked so bad I almost quit the hobby completely. Lots of reasons, but the underlying theme is that it really wasn't for me. Then I saw a pack of models that were a style I wasn't used to: the 1st Edition Malifaux Rasputina starter box (link goes to Gmorts Chaotica's pics). 'Tina was kind of a pin-up hottie but she also looked like she wasn't f---ing around, and she had a bunch of ice monsters with her, so I thought "why not? This is new."

Malifaux was awesome, even if it was heavy when the special rules came into play. I got enough people to join in that we played at least on occasion, and made some friends along the way at that store (I think the owner might be around here somewhere- since he closed he has been introducing college kids to old-school gaming goodness of multiple varieties, and loving every minute of it, which made me happy to hear). I have a lot of out of town and out of country friends to this day because of Malifaux, and isn't that the best part of a hobby anyway?

2nd Edition was even better...well, it was until the 3rd book came out. 3rd Edition seems to be a step forward and back- on one hand, the core rules are more streamlined than ever, with less stuff to have to remember. On the other hand, they aren't even attempting to balance anything, or even separate Masters into tier groups (easy, medium, challenging), so I left it behind.

Now I'm trying to play anything I can get someone to try with me. Mostly -Grave games lately, but I will get some Zona Alfa and Red Book of the Elf King in, as well as compare several fantasy warband/platoon scale games at some point (Saga: Age of Magic, Dragon Rampant, Of Gods and Mortals, Warlords of Erehwon, Clash of Spears, and perhaps Dux Bellorum and Wrath of Kings if I can get someone else to play it with my models). I like Kings of War but I dislike the hardcore tournament bent it has now, even though it means the game is way more successful than it likely would have been otherwise. I am interested in trying other Mantic games like Warpath: Firefight, Deadzone, and Vanguard (which I backed on Kickstarter but still haven't played).

Not a huge historicals guy, but I occasionally dip my toe in the water with ancients. I like Wargames Atlantic's Dark Age Irish models enough to think about doing a Saga army with them.
https://www.instagram.com/notify_grout/
Current projects: collecting way too many vintage Warzone models.

Offline CapnJim

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3658
  • Gainfully unemployed and lovng it!
Re: Hey y'all.
« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2021, 08:10:07 PM »
Welcome!
"Remember - Incoming Fire Has the Right-of-Way"

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
Re: Hey y'all.
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2022, 02:11:04 AM »
Welcome!
Home of the Grumpy Gnome

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/

Offline OSHIROmodels

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Elder God
  • *
  • Posts: 27708
  • Custom terrain a speciality.
    • Oshiro modelterrain
Re: Hey y'all.
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2022, 09:01:06 AM »
Welcome  :)
cheers

James

https://www.oshiromodels.co.uk/

Twitter account -     @OSHIROmodels
Instagram account - oshiromodels

http://redplanetminiatures.blogspot.co.uk/
http://jimbibblyblog.blogspot.com/

Offline BeneathALeadMountain

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 681
Re: Hey y'all.
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2022, 01:19:24 PM »
Greetings. I also still have a number of functioning 80’s GW paints (and if you miss them Coat D’arms still makes them) and also came back to 40k from RT during 5th. Luckily I was playing with very RT-minded people and it was bearable (sometimes even fun) but after that (6th+) I rapidly lost interest as it wasn’t 40k to me anymore.

Andrew
BALM
BeneathALeadMountain
Beneath A Lead Mountain - my blog of hobby procrastination and sometimes even some progress
https://beneathaleadmountain.blogspot.com/

Offline NotifyGrout

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 192
  • Sub-Random, Cut-Up, Trident
Re: Hey y'all.
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2022, 03:54:19 PM »
Greetings. I also still have a number of functioning 80’s GW paints (and if you miss them Coat D’arms still makes them) and also came back to 40k from RT during 5th. Luckily I was playing with very RT-minded people and it was bearable (sometimes even fun) but after that (6th+) I rapidly lost interest as it wasn’t 40k to me anymore.

I need to just bite the bullet on shipping and get some of the Coat d'Arms paints to replace some of the ones that were ruined by the DropTops I tried. While the colors aren't a perfect match, P3 paints have the same feel, which is nice. If I ever do any YouTube or streaming I think it'd be fun to paint old models with these: https://www.warcolours.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=76

Offline Patrice

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1769
  • Breizh / Brittany
    • "Argad!"
Re: Hey y'all.
« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2022, 08:45:30 PM »
Welcome, and thanks for the background story, it's always very interesting to understand why people do it.  ;)

Offline NotifyGrout

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 192
  • Sub-Random, Cut-Up, Trident
The hobby inertia ebbs and flows...
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2022, 05:04:44 AM »
Yes, board, I'm sure I want to reply. It's the one place where it's OK for things to be all about me o_o

The hobby momentum I built up has been lost. 2022 has been good for my wallet with the upgrade in position, but we've lost three pets this year, including our poor sadboi dog last week. He was a foster fail that his original owners definitely neglected and most likely abused (I hope that the cosmos gives them as much hurt as they gave to him).

I think I'm going to get this mini (or STL) from Duncan Shadow and paint it like him. He was part Corgi, and this one doesn't have a dopey grin like the others do (that just wasn't our dog's style).



I miss playing- got to board game with some folks a couple of weeks ago and it was fun even though I am not much of a fan of Secret Hitler (Citadels is still great). It's frustrating because I have tons of stuff I want to do, along with a new air compressor still in the box. I just always seem to lack time, energy, or executive dysfunction (or a combination of all of them) for going past assembly and/or prep.

Offline has.been

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 8236
Re: Hey y'all.
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2022, 07:03:33 AM »
Start with just one figure, maybe that one, & your Mojo
may very well return. I had a friend who was out of the
hobby for almost a year. He was off work, had loads of spare
time, but painted nothing. Back at work (all hours) & he started
churning out painted figures.

Offline nicknorthstar

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • *
  • Posts: 2647
Re: Hey y'all.
« Reply #9 on: October 11, 2022, 08:18:02 PM »
Hello

Offline ithoriel

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 378
Re: Hey y'all.
« Reply #10 on: October 11, 2022, 10:10:37 PM »
The Mojo is a shy beast at times but I find that there is always some aspect of the wider hobby I can involve myself in. Research, planning, collecting, painting, gaming or just generally mooching around forums like this, Pendraken and TWW.

Providing one is happy with what one is doing, and neither upsetting the nearest and dearest nor the bank manager, why worry.

I have come to the conclusion that I am no longer really a wargamer, just a researcher and  planner of, and collector for, projects I will possibly never start and almost certainly never finish!

To channel my inner Bing Crosby
"We're busy doin' nothin'
 Workin' the whole day through
 Tryin' to find lots of things not to do
 We're busy goin' nowhere
 Isn't it just a crime
 We'd like to be unhappy, but
 We never do have the time!"
 lol lol lol lol lol lol
There are 100 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data.