Posts on Andrew Waite's World

Lootboxes, mobile gaming and responsible gambling

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 14:39:26 +0000

Backstory

Anyone that knows me (or read other posts here), knows I’ve spent my life de-stressing from a day/week in the trenches painting little toy soldiers, rolling dice and making pew-pew noises. A couple of years ago I finally made the pilgrimage to if not wargaming’s central Mecca, at least one of the Seven Wonders of the gaming world – Warhammer World, in Nottingham, for one of their Open Days (Narrator: it was an excellent trip).

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Rides

Sun, 22 Jun 2014 18:57:26 +0000

The Ravenwing ride to war!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/infosanity/14477971162/

More shots available over at my Dark Angels Flickr album

-- Andrew Waite

Dark Angels - Terminator Librarian

Sun, 22 Jun 2014 18:43:05 +0000

The advent of 7th has spurred the need for some psychic reinforcements. The first of the reserves comes in the form of Calistarius from the recent(ish) Space Hulk boxset.

[slickr-flickr tag=“DA-T-Lib” id=“63200866@N03”]

Let me know what you think.

--Andrew Waite

Dark Angels - Greenwing Rising

Sun, 02 Feb 2014 22:50:34 +0000

I’ve been working on my new Dark Angels force for around six months, whilst theres been plenty of activity on my Flickr feed covering my progress I’ve been slow to write up any of the progress in any meaningful way. This is the first in what should be a series of posts hoping to correct this.

When I started painting the tactical squads I had available it was with one purpose in mine; Force Organisation Chart requires two Troops choices for a legal army, and Tactical Squads are the stalwart of any Space Marine list. After finishing work I’ve come to really like the look of the unit both in pictures and on the tabletop; and after a handful of games I’ve found my mundane core troops to be far more reliable than the more exotic elite options in my force.

Papercraft Terrain - iKube

Sun, 26 Jan 2014 19:01:39 +0000

Previous attempts at home built terrain pieces were less than successful. Luckily some research and assistance from kind #warmongers on the Inter-tubez I came across a Spanish site (with English translations, thankfully) Toposolitario; who, amongst other projects, developed and FREELY released the iKube project. As the project has a tagline of ‘Scenery made easy’, it sounded like exactly what I was looking for.

You can download several PDF’s from the project containing full colour templates for easily, quickly and cheaply building some good looking terrain pieces. First production run:

Warmaster Chaos Warband

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 21:08:53 +0000

A recent tidy up of my gaming cupboard (don’t ask) caused me to knock the dust of my Chaos Warband for Warmaster. For those that haven’t come across it before Warmaster was one of Games Workshop’ (sadly now de funct) ‘Specialist games’. Unlike most of GW’ games, Warmaster is 10mm scale, and is basically a Fantasy version of the better known Titan Legions/Epic 40k game systems.

Looking over all my army choices, seems I’ve got no love of being the good guy, so it should be no surprise my army of choice was Chaos. On top of personal preference Chaos provided several benefits:

Necrons - Royal Court

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 23:22:18 +0000

I’ve finally finished HQ for my Necrons, just in time for their next outing at the weekend: 1750pts vs Tau.

Not completely happy with the finish; with the benefit of hindsight I shouldn’t have forced through the end of my Skull White spray can, the finish isn’t as smooth as it should be. Planning to strip and repaint at some point to correct, but for now I need fully painted and based units on the table-top.

Necrons - Annihilation Barge

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 16:48:05 +0000

Annihilation Barge

[slickr-flickr tag=“AnnihilationBarge”]

Like the Ark kit, the barge kit can be made into two different nits; the heavy weapon platform Annihilation Barge or Command Barge, both are AV13 skimmers making it fairly difficult to deal with quickly. I like the strength of both units, but am currently favouring the heavy option, especially as it’s only 90pts - bargain.

The twin-linked Tesla Destructor has the potential to dish out some serious hits; S7, assault 4, and as it’s Tesla it triples wound output for any to-hit roll of a 6. If that’s not enough, if it generates at least one hit, the Destructor can ‘arc’ into any unit (friend of foe) with 6" of the target unit on a 6, causing additional damage to secondary units.

Necrons - Arks of the Covenent

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 15:15:56 +0000

I love the Necron Ark kit, one of GW’s first multi-option kits. That is, until I started building my first Ark, this kit lives up to it’s reputation as one of GW’s trickiest kits.

Ghost Ark

[slickr-flickr tag=“GhostArk”]

The Ghost Ark forms the core of a Necron warrior phalanx, providing transport, firepower and even the ability to re-animate fallen warriors. Getting the Ghost Ark into a premium firing position can be tricky as the vehicle’ weapons can only broadside so you risk exposing rear armour to the enemy, but as the Ghost Ark is open-topped it also allows a full unit of warriors (or Crypteks *cheese*) to fire from the platform. The pay-off is if you can position the Ark between multiple enemy units the volume of fire can be withering; in my last game it took out a full SW blood claw and long fang unit in a single turn, not a bad damage output.

Starting with scenery

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:52:01 +0000

As my Wordbearer host is starting to grow I decided it was time to build some scenery for them to fight over. Building scenery is something I’ve never really tried to do so I’ve attempted a few different projects to figure out what works, but mostly found what doesn’t.

Progress so far:

Hills Noone wants to fight over a flat, desolate landscape, I thought hills would be a good place to start. First attempt was to shape a block of polystyrene, base and paint. End result, it’s not exactly hill shaped (and still not fully painted:

Necrons - Stalkers and Hyperspace Hunters

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 00:12:55 +0000

Triarch Stalker

[slickr-flickr tag=“TriarchStalker”]

The Stalker is, in my opinion, a very cool looking model; and thankfully it has some useful abilities on the battle field. I’ve provided mine with the weapon loadout unique to the Stalker, the Heat ray.

Like the Doomsday Cannon, the Heat Ray has two alternate firemodes, providing some great levels of tactical flexibility:

Focused Beam: 24", S8, AP1, Heavy2, Melta - Perfect for popping heavy armour
Dispersed Beam: Flamer template, S5, AP4 - Perfect for handling infantry hordes

If the heat ray wasn’t enough, the Stalker adds to Necron’s pool of AV13 armour AND if the heat-ray hits an enemy unit, all other Necron units targeting the same enemy unit count their weapons as twin-linked thanks the the Stalker’ target relay ability. Synergy FTW.

Stripping paint from miniatures, UK style

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 12:13:37 +0000

I’ve been a gamer for many years, so long in fact some of my collection is over 20years old. Whilst my painting skills are far from Golden Daemon standard some of my first forays into gaming are, um, not good. But some of the figures are great, and with the cost of gaming going up (there’s another rant right there) and spawn0 draining my bank account I’ve been trying to be more frugal and reuse some of my old collects.

4weeks and counting - Middlesbrough 10k race 2013

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 14:41:17 +0000

I’ve been meaning to post an update for some time: Despite it being the safe bet, I’m still training and somehow it’s going better than expected - My progress can still be followed over at RunKeeper.

I hit a major (for me) milestone last week, completing 5km without needing to stop/slow (and in a reasonable time, <35mins). As this was my original training goal back in 2012 I proud to have got there in the end, unfortunately it left me with five weeks training to double my distance if I’m to complete the race’ course in one piece. Feels like a tall order needing to add an extra km every week, but so-far It’s an increase I’m managing to stay ahead of.

Middlesbrough 10k race 2013

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 00:04:23 +0000

A little over a year ago I wrote a post (over on my infosec-focused site) detailing my attempt to lose weight and get fitter. The drive at the time was to enable I was able to run around the park with my then just expected daughter: I’ve got zero interest in finding out how you tell your kids you can’t play in the park because “daddy prefers pizza”.

The Necron tomb awakens

Sun, 26 May 2013 18:10:36 +0000

To get inspiration for my Word Bearer host I read Anthony Reynolds excellent Word Bearer Omnibus. As the Necrons are the recurring antagonists it sparked my curiosity in the futuristic undead, they became an obvious choice for my next project.

Despite the ease of painting (and my own shortcomings in the area) one thing I want to avoid was a monotone metallic force so went off in inspiration of alternatives. Fortunately the GW site has an article challenging a selection gamers and modellers to design a new scheme for a Necron force in just one day. Dan Harden’s attempt immediately caught my attention due to a distinct lack of metal, serving as a great design base I swapped out Dan’ purple (which I really liked) as I wanted to continue to make use of the translucent green gauss barrels from the warrior set.

WGPS towel 1990

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:57:15 +0000

In addition to my first code release another trip down memory lane was the Witton Gilbert Primary School towel from 1990. Every drew a self portrait (I think), which were all printed. The end result was:

My own picture is central below, you can see why I never considered a career as an artist…..

-- Andrew Waite

Logo code release - circa 1995

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:48:35 +0000

When we moved house recently I came across several things I had thought had become lost to the sands of time. One of which was my first ever code release, years before I had any ideas of becoming a professional geek (I’d wanted to be an accountant, I know…..).

The most hi-tech equipment my school had at the time was a BBC Micro (which was also my home system at the time) hooked up to a robotic Turtle (which I didn’t have). Each pupil was provided (very) brief instructions to commanding the turtle in Logo and a limited time (~30 minutes, I think) to play before returning to standard lessons.

Wintery Morning Walk

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 12:20:22 +0000

Woke this morning to find that last weekend’ apparent start of Spring was a false alarm, with the snow returning for (hopefully) one last time this winter. Undeterred the little-one was wrapped in many layers and braved the (not so) chilly conditions to find some nice wintery shots to add to the collection:

[slickr-flickr type=“slideshow” search=“sets” set=“72157632837317930” sort=“date”]

We’re now back home safe, sound and warmer, with a free Saturday to do with as we like as most of my planned DIY involved being outside, which isn’t going to happen now.

There and back again (to Durham)

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:55:24 +0000

Woke up to a beautiful crisp morning, so we rounded up the clan (well; me, Jo, Chloe and the 4-legged ones) and took a walk into Durham. It’s closer than I was expecting, and lead to some great rolling countryside, especially considering we barely left concrete filled civilisation.

Route on the way into Durham:

This was the first view we glimpsed of Durham Cathedral. Unfortunately I only had my phone on me so picture quality isn’t great, for those that can’t make it out, you’re looking for the two blocky shapes in the centre.

Crisp winter morning

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 22:21:43 +0000

Woke up early this morning to a bright, crisp and clear start to the day. Didn’t manage to go far as the little geek-in-training wanted plenty of attention, but did manage to step outside for a few moments with the camera. Results are below, considering the rushed nature of capturing the snaps, quite happy with the morning’s work.

[slickr-flickr type=“gallery” search=“sets” set=“72157632669735935” items=“10”]

Introducing the 25th Host

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 23:51:33 +0000

Since about 7 years old I’ve been a table-top gamer, with game of choice being Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000. I’ve not actually played for many years since my weekly club closed (if any fellow alumni from Tudhoe/Spennymoor’ Friday night group are about, say Hi), and anyone who ever played with me will know I was never much of a painter, either in quality or quantity.

For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to change my painting habits, starting by building up a force of WordBearer Chaos Space Marines. Several of the units started life as test cases, so the quality currently varies from unit to unit, but I have started to find a style that works for me. I’m not liable to win any Golden Daemon awards any time soon, but the end result is better than I’ve had in the past, and more than acceptable for gaming with.

Hello world!

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:43:13 +0000

Hello All!

There have been several projects I’ve intended to doing for a while. This site will be the home for them all.

If you’re in anyway interested in the random ramblings of a geek that struggles to focus on one project at a time, stay tuned.

--Andrew