Burgold Festus, Champion of Nurgle

Today, an iconic sculpt from Jes Goodwin, and possibly my favourite Nurgle champion of them all.

I used browns and sickly greens for him rather than the black and green I used with the rest of my army, but I managed to include just a touch of my "poison Green" (eyes and axe symbols) to tie him up. Those old sculpts are so much fun to paint. In fact it's one of the figures I enjoyed most painting in years. I'll have to paint the other Nurgle champions now, probably sooner than later. A unit of them? Would that be too much?

Nothing starts a new year with more style than a classic figure from the 80s, am I right?!

2015 is dead, long live 2016!

2015 was a crappy year as far as my hobby is concerned. A new job, the water leak, and the process of selling and buying a house took most of my time and I did very little painting. Consequently I'm just glad it's over and there will be no post reminiscing about it!

While I expect the first few months of 2016 to be similarly hectic, I have high hopes a more normal routine will follow!

And with optimism comes planning! So, what is on the horizon, in my world of Fantasy (and Sci-Fi?)

Painting 

Chaos Army

This project, which was going very well, suffered from my lack of painting the most and I intend to get it back on track and "finish" it. My goal is to have a picture of the "completed" army by the end of the year. That means, at minimum :

-  2 trolls

- 8 Chaos Knights

- 1 Chaos Spawn

But of course I'd like to add a bit more, including a unit of nurglings, a couple of random Chaos champions and possibly a unit of Nurgle warriors. 

Skirmish Sci-Fi project

Yes, something completely different and out of the blue. After an impulse buy of some Sci-Fi figures, I decided to plunge into the genre. I blame JB's Leadplague and a few other blogs for that! While I like my fantasy in big battles and big armies, I intend to go very small for this project. The goal would be to create small factions of 20 or so models. I'd like to build two factions this year. So approximately 30-40 figures. More on this later...

Just two projects to paint, hey? That"s focus! Can I maintain that focus and not start any other projects? We are going to find out!

Collecting

Slaanesh and Tzeentch Chaos stuff

Yeah, it's probably crazy but after building a dark chaos army with strong Nurgle ties (and some Khorne allies) I'd still like to paint one day a crazy colourful Chaos army with a lot of Slaanesh and Tzeentch troops. It would allow me to play a Realm of Chaos battle using the actual (crazy powerful) RoC lists. And I would like to do that one day. An old dream of mine. So I need pretty much everything, from more warriors to more Champions to more Beastmen, etc. And quite possibly some Marauder Dark Elves.

More Goblins! MORE!

2017 should be the year of the goblins in my house. I've been collecting this army for a while now, and I'd like to get some more greenskins before the grand day arrives. Especially warmachines, more squigs, and you know, you can never have too many goblins. It will have an heavy 4th edition flavour, but I haven't completely forgotten about the 3rd edition stuff...

The good guy army

I'dm thinking of building a good guys army for Warhammer. I don't have one. But instead of concentrating on one race, I'm thinking of going really Warhammer 3rd edition and go with a bit of everything. You know, an alliance of good folks! I already have a lot of Dwarfs, and I might also collect some Wood Elves, some Empire, etc. For this army I'm not restricting myself to old stuff though. There's a few new ranges I've had my eye on. Although do expect a lot of Halflings, and I mean a lot of the little buggers...I have a certain Kickstarter to blame for that. 

The game room

I bought a new house (although we haven't moved yet). Inside that new house there's a basement. And as per agreement with the girlfriend that basement is mine. I'd say this is my biggest project of 2016 for sure. The basement hasn't been worked on since approximately 1982. I have lovely wallpaper (and who doesn't LOVE wallpaper), some nice orange 70s ceramic, horrendous light fixtures, etc. A game room has been THE dream, and I intend on doing it right. 

So that is the plan for 2016. Next post, the first painted figure of the year. 

Merry Christmas!

I wish you all health, lots of gaming and tons of new figures in the new year.

 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

What happened to Iannick?!

Yes, indeed, what happened to me? Why have I gone AWOL for months and months?

Well, mostly because of this...

This is a picture of my garage, and the water you see is dripping from my main floor. Yes, I've had a massive flooding due to a ruptured toilet pipe (speedway) which ruined pretty much my entire first floor (because obviously it had to break while I was away). Rotten bad luck, apparently. Wooden floors, ceramic floors, kitchen modules, bathroom, bottom of walls, everything was ruined!

And the worst part?

Our house was put up for sale a week before that! How unlucky is that?

So Laurie and I spent more than 2 months living in a hotel, with 2 cats, while our first floor was being redone pretty much completely (thank God for insurances). We came home a few weeks ago.

In those months, we managed to find a beautiful house (with a basement!! all mine. GAMING ROOM!) and we made an offer on it, which was accepted. Between last year's health problems and this year two water problems we figured Karma owed us.

Now we just have to sell our current home. Anyone looking for a lovely (and completely renovated) townhouse in Montreal?

So as you can guess the hobby took a back seat to real life crap. In fact, I even avoided most of the blogs and forums I follow, because it was too difficult to not being able to participate in all of it (so if you noticed my absence it wasn't personal). I also cut all hobby spending (this whole process is kind of freakin' expensive!). Basically, I completely moved away from my hobby out of necessity.

Now I'm back home, half my stuff is in boxes, my main painting area is no more (replaced by a nice living room table...you know home staging) but I feel like painting again. And out of sheer foolhardiness I joined the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge for this year...so I guess this blog should be slightly more active, well that is until I move. Yeah, probably a few more hectic months in front of me. 

So really, this post is just my polite way to tell you all that I'm still alive!

Top 10 "Livres dont vous êtes le Heros" (Gamebooks) cover art

Today, a nostalgia post; the Top 10 greatest "Livres dont vous êtes le Héros" (Gamebook) covers. Those were especially popular from about 1982 to the early 90s, and I'm pretty sure all geeks of my generation read at least one! I still have a massive collection.

In my younger days I was a huge reader of books (well still am today). Not very gifted in sports as a child, I would spend my evenings and week-ends reading comics and novels. When I was around 10 or so, I discovered "livres dont vous êtes le héro" (choose your own adventure books) and I fell in love. Almost every friday for more than a year, my mother would bring me and my brother to a used bookstore in downtown Montreal (it has of course disappeared since). This store had a massive section of used LDVELH ("livres dont vous êtes le héro") and I would buy one book with my meager weekly allowance, and, armed with a pen and an eraser,  spend the friday and saturday reading and playing it. These opened the door to everything else; RPGs, Warhammer, etc. 

One of the great things about those books were the covers and interior art, illustrated by some of the masters like Blanche, Miller, McCaig, etc. Of course the covert art were meant to entice young readers and they were very efficient in doing so! So here is my top 10 of the best covers. Please note that I picked the french edition, because I read these in french as a child. I also think Gallimard, the publisher of the Folio Junior collection, did a great job with the look of these books; every series had a small logo in the bottom and on the spine, which makes them look great, and especially on a shelf. 

The series logo

 In a future post I'll give my top 10 stories (alas a great cover did not always equate a great story, and vice-versa!).

The name of the artist is next to the name of the book.

10. Les Cryptes de la Terreur (The Crypts of Terror), Geoff Taylor

I used to love Dragons, and I still do! The four "Loup Argent' covers had a common blue palette and I always liked it. Not the most original cover, but it's just aesthetically pleasing. And did I mentioned dragons?

9. Le Combattant de l'autoroute (Freeway Fighter), Jim Burn

 It's the car man, it's all about the car. What boy did not wanted to be behind those wheels?! Not surprisingly, the iconic Défis Fantastique (Fighting Fantasy) makes an early appearance on the list.

8. La Cité des Voleurs (City of Thieves), Iain McCaig

As a child, undeads, skeletons and Zombies always made me uneasy in a good way, and this one was no exception.

7. Le Seigneur de l'Ombre (The Lord of Shadow Keep), Leo Hartas

Did I mention I used to love Undeads? There's even blood on the scythe and on the tree next to it. Now that's some creepy stuff right there! And a great book name, too. Today this would probably be the subject of a Twitter censorship initiative! #whywontsomeonethinkofourchildren

6. La Sorcière des Neiges (Caverns of the Snow Witch), Les Edwards

I always loved the forever look of despair on the frozen Ork. So evocative of the book's atmosphere.

5. Les Terres de Légendes (The Lands of Legends)

Ok, I'm cheating. This was actually a RPG world book, published by Folio Junior, and not an actual LDVELH. But come on, look at that bad ass centaur and tell me it doesn't deserve to be on this list?!

4. Le Temps de la Malédiction (Realm of Chaos), John Higgins

As a lad, one of the few good fantasy movie available was the 1981 cult movie Excalibur. Full plate armour? Oh yes please! And that is a mighty fine illustration of a knight in full plate (he seems to be in somewhat of a pickle but that's another story). I also love the somber, grey palette. Something about that book's name also...

3. La Forêt de la Malédiction (The Forest of Doom), Iain McCaig

The whole Forest of Doom is represented there, with that single creature. Well done Mr McCaig, well done...

2. La Cité des Pièges (Kharé, Cityport of Traps), John Blanche

John Blanche. Nothing else needs to be said.

And now...your number 1!

1. Le Labyrinthe de la Mort (DeathTrap Dungeon), Iain McCaig

This illustration is so iconic it's insane. It inspired countless Game Masters in the creation of countless dungeons quests, and the image probably still sleeps in a corner of every fantasy geek's brain. It was the first LDVELH book I ever read. I saw that cover, and I bought it. It was the only sensible decision to make at that moment. THAT's what fantasy is supposed to look like*.

Well this was a very difficult list to make, because there's a lot of great covers. I'm sure you disagree with some of my choices, and have your own favourites. That's what the comment box is there for, folks!

*Not so subtle dig at a certain well known company's recent offering.