Hobby Time

Have had little time for Hobby but managed to do a few things here and there. The eclectic zipping to and fro from each hobby has actually inspired me again. Totally recommend if you are in a stale patch and looking for some good kick start.

Picked up a rather battered Valkyrie recently for bugger all. Gave it a good Black coat and added spare parts (Thanks fellas who contributed). Painted the cockpit and discovered Necron Abyss is a great colour for Helmet visors.

Fixed with Spare bits. Valkyrie will fly again!

 Doesn't look too bad once its fixed a bit. Long way to go yet. 

Needed a bit of colour to get a bit of inspire to stay the course of the project.

Ogres recycled into my Bull unit.

 Crom gets a slight pose change. Waiting to do my Termies soon.

 Blood Bowl is so cool. Couple of players from the league I'm playing in gettting a game in at Club.

Just managed to pick up another two teams and the original box, yuss!

Some economical sides for a broken Russ.

 Managed to salvage a heap of IG(AM) tanks.

 Wedge get's a distinctive repaint. I'll do this with all my Ships at some stage.

I believe in the minimal time best results rule of thumb.

Both Wedge and Bobba below took me 10mins which was ace.

 Darker red repaint and a Badhab Black wash for Bobba.

So much hobby in so little time. Life is hard at the mo.

X-Wing Rebel Aces - Out now!

Just went down to the local store and picked up the new Rebel Aces pack. They've got them a couple of weeks before anyone else which is a bonus. Brilliant value and that gives me my second B-Wing in the Squadron and my first A-Wing. The upgrade cards you get with the pack make the A-wing viable in game. Looking at it's maneuver dial it's one fast ship and adds very well to my Rebel faction. Excellent value pack release from Fantasy Flight again. I'm liking this game more and more.

Shiny new toys!

Pack is filled to the brim with extras.

GuardCon 2014 Weekend Part 2 WH40k, SAGA & X-Wing.

This year doubles was back for WH40k by popular demand. Always aimed at the more fun side of the Hobby. You can take your cheese but it doesn't mean anyone was going to take cheese seriously :) We saw a big attendance from the Auckland faithful and a few travellers looking to have a go at the Auckland scene. Some spectacularly painted armies were present. David Bailey and Patrick Kerr was notably and both brought their work for all to see. Both of them also put up their time as commission painters for the community. Each supported the Young Blood award for WH40K and WHFB. If you need a commision done please get a hold of them or contact me and I'll  put you onto their services.

Warhamme 40K doubles was T.O'd by Christian Pride. Teams of 2 with 1000pts each fought over objectives on the weekend over 6 games. Last year we ran a Singles event but this year and from now on it will be a doubles competition aimed at fun and the novelty of the occasion.

Overall Results	Team Name	Battle Points	Paint	Bonus	Sports	Total
1	Too Late	51	15	5	20	91
2	Its a hustle, its a bustle	47.5	15	5	20	87.5
3	Like a Boss	45	15	5	20	85
4	Once were battle brothers	41	15	5	20	81
5	Apparantly this worked in 6th…	40.5	15	5	20	80.5
6	Team Go Go Taudar Force	40.5	15	5	20	80.5
7	Wraith & Ruin	39	15	5	20	79
8	Festering fungle horde	37	14	5	20	76
9	Pus Knights	34.5	15	5	20	74.5
10	Carnival of Blood	34	15	5	20	74
11	Grey Wardens	32.5	15	5	20	72.5
12	Da Mad Hatterz	32.5	15	5	20	72.5
13	Sunbros	32	15	5	20	72
14	The Decievers	32.5	14	5	20	71.5
15	Glorious Avengers of Glory	29	15	5	20	69
16	Skorka-Tau Coalition	28	15	5	20	68
17	Heads of the Aquila	26	15	5	20	66
18	Team Venture	25.5	15	5	20	65.5
19	Team Jacob	22.5	15	5	20	62.5
20	Mana 1	16.5	15	4	20	55.5
21	Inyaface	17	14	4	20	55
22	Chaosnids	14.5	15	4	10	43.5

Best Sport : Patrick C & Paul B

Best Paint : Steve G & Mike K.

One Half of  Team 'Too Late'

Team 'It's a hustle, it's a bustle' (without Russell).

 'Like a Boss'.

Best Paint (gotta get some photo's of their army).

Best Sports.

Booby prize!

X Wing Casual Tournament.

First year for this tournament, which is great for hobby! Good numbers for such short notice and we had plenty of fun. The 1st day was Dominated by Peter Hutch with a pearler of a list. I think it was Wedge, Corran and two z95's. I felt the pain of his expert piloting and so did the field as he posted a perfect tournament score. Second day was Geoff's and his Imperials posted a convincing victory. Plenty of Prizes given out and Amol kindly helped and T.O'd.

Piloting Ace!

 Sweat shirt Ace!

It's Vader yo!!

 Auckland Traffic in Spaceeeee!!!

SAGA Tournament.

This year we also had the first SAGA tournament (one dayer). Rob kindly offered to host it and we got a good field. The mini's on display were excellent quality. The system was unique and played like a skirmish WHFB style feel (I'm definitely no expert :) ). If anyone is interested with questions, please don't hesitate to comment and I can put you in contact with the guys at the club. It looks like another quality hobby.

Podium Results:

1st	Eric Juhl	Johmsvikings
2nd =	Andrew Argutters	Viking
2nd=	Rob Sadler	Skaerling

Good work fella's!

Eric takes out the tournament and gains the title 'Eric the Viking'.

Very interesting unique system of play.

Awesome weekend of Hobby. I'll have a quick synopsis and more photo's from the tournament in part 3 next time around. 

GuardCon 2014 Weekend & Results. part 1.

Another well attended and top weekend of games with a number of systems hosted at GuardCon weekend. Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k were the mainstays again. Flames of War, Board Games and this years two new systems at the convention, SAGA and X-Wing also getting a run. Both of the new tournaments were heaps of fun. Rob running SAGA and Amol and myself running the X-wing. We saw a great turnout from the Auckland community and a smattering of travellers from around the country. With only 130 at the tournament we thought it would be great to have everyone in the main hall which gave it a the exciting convention feel. The number of smiles and excited shouts was encouraging for the hobby and continued tournaments ahead.

Remember that Equinox 2015 (mid March) and NatCon 2015 (Easter weekend) will be our next two big tournaments. Early bird registrations will be up this weekend.

The first thing at the tournament I noticed is the more relaxed standard of painting at this years tournament. The number of new players in the community coming through our local club is testament to the popularity of the games. All you vets out there know how much sustained painting goes into making an army complete. It will take a while for the standard overall to rise again. In saying that the benchmark for painting at the top of the tournament was very high. There were some amazing armies and the ones that were noticeably wowing me were the winners of best paint for both WHFB and WH40k. The 'Grey Wardens' for WH40k and The 'Double Carnosaur' for WHFB were a dream for any painting aficionados out there.

Here's some of the tournament Pic's courtesy of Lee our Photographer (many thanks for your top work). There are also some photo's from my point and snap, and I'm sure you'll recognise those.

Also visit our club page on facebook

Auckland City Guard at Freemans Bay

WH40K on the left, WHFB on the Right. SAGA, FoW & X-Wing at the back of the hall.

 Great to see young bloods at their first tournament. Also grand to see some experience to temper that too.

 Some very nice tables of terrain at the tournament.

 Good amount of competition mixed with easy going fun.

 X-wing is definitely a good change up. I'm think WHFB & WH40k will still be my main hobbies. 

X-Wing is a refreshing filler afters. The miniatures are so cool.

At this point my Camera threw a sicky. Thanks to all these chaps for sticking around for the prize giving and giving us a hand to pack down, Legends!

Warhammer Fantasy was run by Nick L-I again this year and Swedish Comp was used. The variety of Armies at the event and positives from the tournament testify that it's very solid. Here are the results and big ups for Rory, defending his title to claim the 'GuardCon Shield'.

	Name	Sports	Battle (120)	Adjusted battle (60)	Paint (16)	Adjusted paint (22)	Penalty	Total (100)
1	Rory Finnemore	15	84	42	16	22		79
2	Kelly Gragg	14	82	41	16	22		77
3	James Brown	12	85	42.5	16	22		76.5
4	Sean Robertson	16	74	37	16	22		75
5	Glen Tibbles	14	75	37.5	16	22		73.5
6	Nick Lironi-Irvine	14	70	35	16	22		71
7	Ryan Simister	15	76	38	16	22	5	70
8	Antony Kitson	12	72	36	16	22		70
9	Richard Barby	14	66	33	16	22		69
10	Brian Smith	14	62	31	16	22		67
11	Phil Comins	15	57	28.5	16	22		65.5
12	Michael Coxon-Baines	16	55	27.5	16	22		65.5
13	John Willenbruch	14	58	29	16	22		65
14	Paul Dalton	13	62	31	15	20.625		64.625
15	Daniel Street	16	53	26.5	16	22		64.5
16	Daniel Leigh	13	61	30.5	15	20.625		64.125
17	James Cardno	13	77	38.5	11	15.125	5	61.625
18	Ken Hay	14	51	25.5	16	22		61.5
19	Mike Youngs	15	56	28	16	22	5	60
20	Erdem Oguz	16	60	30	9	12.375		58.375
21	Rowan Coker	15	52	26	16	22	5	58
22	Richard Holtzhausen/Neil Heileman	13	39	19.5	16	22		54.5
23	Aaron Cue / Paul Davison	14	45	22.5	16	22	5	53.5
24	Russell Simister	15	43	21.5	16	22	5	53.5
25	Tom Cochrane	16	30	15	16	22		53
26	Chris Ellis	11	48	24	9	12.375		47.375
27	Michael Partridge	14	48	24	4	5.5		43.5
28	Curtis Tweedale	14	39	19.5	7	9.625		43.125

Best Paint : Sean Robertson

Best Sport : Erdem Oguz

Well done Rory, defending the Shield!

Kelly capturing 2nd should catapult him in the rankings.

Go James with a consistent podium finish.

 Best paint Sean. Those Dinosaurs look magnificent. Can't wait to see more work from you maestro. 

 Mr Nice Guy. Erdem with best sports.

Curtis wins the 'Booby' prize. He also captured the Young Blood award.

 Sean's Dinosaur army.

 Very close second in the Best paint awards.

 I'll have the rest of the results and more pics in the next part tomorrow. 

It's getting late.