Uruk Hai, the return! And more……..much much more

My name is Jason Stockwell.

I am an obsessive Uber nerd, and Fecking proud.

This project has grown, inflated again, then mutated. Took many a side alley. And now reached an absurdly oversized conclusion.

I have learnt many a thing about my preferred gaming habits. Mass fantasy battle is best en mass! Sci fi is best done small and skirmishy.

The power of habit in the hobby, 5 mins minimum a day truly stacks up  into mountains of achievement.

The fun of narrative in games.

The answer to a question of ‘is painted better than non painted, even if it’s not painted very well?’

Yes it is. I have had to make many sacrifices to my preconceived ideals about painting standards. This only happened because I do not allow medium to high standards as these will bog my progress down and achieve nothing. Achievement at this painting standard is better than partial failure because the standards are too high for rapid and mass production.

Painted, fully modelled games are worth the effort.

Terrain. Terrain is a cheap and dirty backdrop representation to allow for the real action and play pieces (your game and your models). I regret nothing at how crudely and quickly I slap terrain together. The over all effect is perfectly adequate and not too busy to over shadow the miniatures. Hell, the miniatures are simple and not over complicated which gives them a charm that more athletic, all over the place posed, too detailed miniatures lack.

I have played so many games of many different varieties with these same miniatures. So my bang for my buck is massive.

Warhammer fantasy.

40k

Frostgrave.

Kings of war.

Dungeon saga.

Stargrave.

Lord of the rings strategy battle game.

War of the ring, mass fantasy battle game.

I’m sure you can think of more that can be played.

The square bases are the right bases.

They work across more gaming situations and look better when ranked.

Squares don’t matter a jot when skirmishing. Squares matter a lot when you have facings and arcs.

The discipline of keeping your sights focused and forcing yourself to pick one set of stuff to do all your desires. Not buying a separate army to play kings of war. Yet another for lord of the rings. Yet another for warhammer, yet another…..etc etc. I now have a larger achievement. With more options of play open to me than I ever would have done.

The main benefit I have is, it is real. Not contemplative. Not in the planning. Not I’ll get to it one day. Not I’ve started it….

Actual. Actualised. Here. Real.

FUN.

Satisfying.

Lovely.

Ready to go.

I sometimes questioned why I included all the updates of distractions. Stuff not relevant to the main push of the project.

But I concluded it was honest to do so, it is such a large undertaking for me that I wanted to show that I did get fed up and need other stuff to distract me, re vitalise my enthusiasm, and get me bored enough of the distraction to want to push on with the main attraction again. The distractions have now become great side achievements as I hope to have shown in the pictures. I love those little side projects. Not a high standard of course, but great for me. It is real. It is mine. Like a Ford mondeo is not a Bentley. But I can’t get a Bentley. And Ford can be great fun too.

Let go of those lofty heights keeping you back from true progress. Get stuck in, make the cock ups. Keep the cock ups. Amass a ton of completed, imperfect units/models/ terrain. Move on, do not strip them. Use them. Reach goals. Get new minis. Make the new minis. Paint the new minis. Come to terms with the faults. Have fun.

I may make an army list that has an Isenguard and Moria flavour to it for warhammer. The process of this insanity of mine, has had me thinking up narratives for why this may have occurred. These narrative have not left me, they have deepened and expanded. Creating scenarios and situations that fire me up.

What if Saruman was not a sell sword traitorous coward? What if he was an Uber rationalist who cannot gamble, but plays the percentages. Plays the churchillian game of compromise with the devil to secure the higher goals. The double agent who cannot reveal his true intentions, even to his oldest friends…..

What now.

Empire, I suppose?

?

J