The thoughts and musings of Marcus Rickard

Hi all,

Today we’ve got something a bit different for you on ITSZ; story time! As a part of the campaign Jon ‘Eternal Ocean’ Gregory  wants us to have an idea of what our fleets and admirals have been up to since we started collecting. While my Dindrenzi have a longer history and have more games under their belts I’m going in with the Terrans for this one. Partly to balance the teams at 3 players per side and partly because I’m enjoying the change of gameplay style from the Dindrenzi. As such, I’ve not got a lot of backstory for them so far (only the one game) so I’ve had to come at this from a different angle than the others and instead gone with a more reflective nature of story which you can find below. If you’re interested then keep reading!! Be warned, she’s a long one…

293rd Storm Fleet SCA Update

Hi all,

As you may know my gaming group has a Firestorm Armada campaign coming up at the end of next month and we’ve all been throwing ourselves back into the FSA universe in a big way.

We’re back! (Again…)

Hi all,

So, the last post I put up was 4 months ago saying about how I was back and the blog would pick up again and all that. As you can tell that went really well! But fear not intrepid space battle fans, this time we really are hoping to be back!

After my last post I had to go into intense GW mode to get a 2000 point Iron Warrior army put together for the Heresy Weekender back in February and since then I’ve been in a mix of hobby slump and slowly working through the Iron Warriors. However, on June 25-26 Jon “Eternal Ocean” Gregory from my regular gaming group is planning on running a campaign weekend for the 6 people in the group. This has spurred the entire group back into FSA in a big way (Dan “August Doumerc” Smith has been going nuts trying to nudge us all to finish our fleets).

Campaigns have always been my weakness when it comes to hobby. The idea of doing a narrative weekend of gaming, developing a set of strong characters and caring about what happens to them and the fleet over a series of linked games is just the biggest slice of games imaginable. As such the chance to do one for FSA is putting models on my painting station once more!

I’ll try to keep you updated as we get closer to the Campaign itself with pictures of the various fleets and snippets from the other players so you can keep track of the build up.

Until next time!

Soooo… 2016

Hey all,

First off, apologies for going radio silent almost as soon as I got back into ITSZ; moved house, new job, new people. Basically I let my hobby slip by the wayside. This was not in any way helped by GW (boo, hiss… Other general internet feelings about the company) released the Battle of Calth set and kick started me on a whole new Horus Heresy army (I have 2000 points of White Scars in various states of built/paint).

Secondly, 2016… How the f*** did we get here already?! I’m officially closer to 30 than 20. What. The. ****. I’m aware a lot of my hobby mates are older than I am but still. That’s quite a realisation. But then I still play with plastic soldiers/space ships and go to LARP so… Young at heart! May it ever be so.

Thirdly; around this time of year people have a habit of making resolutions that last until about the 1st February. In the spirit of such abject optimism I thought I’d share my goals for 2016 in terms of hobby:

• Actually finish my dindrenzi. Nearly 3 fething years I’ve had some of my ships and they’re still unpainted… Disgraceful, sort it out.
• Finish my Terrans. The new kids on the block for me but the imperialistic, oppressive overlords (sorry, I was a son of Rense first!) need doing
• Start and finish an 800 point Directorate fleet. I split the cost of the Overseers box with Jon “Eternal Ocean” Gregory and need to do my half as he will have his done in about 6…hours.
• Various GW hobby related goals of HH and 40k variety!

Who has a 2016 hobby goal?!

The Icarus Project: Gabriel Cross Unboxing

Hi all,

Welcome back to ITSZ. Today I wanted to show you the level of quality and detail that is going into the miniatures for The Icarus Project Kickstarter (so don’t worry, it’s picture heavy!). As mentioned yesterday when the KS reached 200 backers Anthony and the Icarus team decided to put a sale on for Gabriel Cross, the mini currently available on the store pending the result of the Kickstarter, so I picked one up to give you guys a look at what sort of quality you can expect from these guys in the future. Even if they fail to make their funding level in this round they’ve said that they’re going to go back, have a rethink and decide on a course of action that gets this game into our grubby little gamer mitts so these figures are coming, it’s just a case of when.

The Icarus Project

Hi All,

Something a bit different for you today on ITSZ, a new game! Now, I’ve been playing wargames for around about 15 years now in various forms with the primary focus during that time being Warhammer 40,000 – I’m going to go ahead and assume that anyone interested in gaming enough to find my small dark corner of the internet knows this game but a brief overview regardless;

Progress on the Terrans

Hi all,

Welcome back to ITSZ, today I’ve just got a short update for you as I’ve actually spent some time painting and thought I’d share the results so far! Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not the most diligent hobbyist when it comes to painting my armies and fleets so the fact that I’ve nearly completed 800 points of Terrans in about 2 weeks is nothing short of a miracle to be perfectly honest. I do have to apologise for the poor lighting compounded by the fact that I haven’t done highlights on the non-grey sections yet so they appear a lot darker than they actually are/will be. But enough from me, onto the pictures:

Spartan Mega Sale!

Hi all,

Just a heads up that SG are offering a fantastic deal this weekend with half price mega sets! These sets are the ones that give you one of everything in a particular fleet at a standard discount of 20% off but this weekend only that is increase to a mighty 50% discount. You could pick up an entire fleet with every option for about £130! And if you buy one you also get the chance to buy all 3 hardback rulebooks at half price too. 

  
So, if you are looking at getting into the game but been sat on the fence, or if you’re a current collector who is in need of a new fleet to play check it out here. It also applies to the Dystopian Wars equivalents in case you fancied expanding into another Spartan product.

Alas pay day isn’t for another week for me as I’ve been eyeing up expanding my Terrans and possibly starting Directorate (I have a problem, I know) or I would definitely be picking one of them up.

For those less financially constrained get in there and pick up some new toys, you’ve earned it!*

Until next time…

*ITSZ not responsible for excessive unpainted model syndrome, any and all purchases are the responsibility of the reader. 😛

800 Point Terran vs Dindrenzi Battle Report

Hi all,

Welcome back to ITSZ, I am so sorry for the delay – Real Life decided to throw a couple curve balls at me which reduced gaming time but I think I’m now through the majority of it! Today, I’ve got another battle report for you; my first game with the Terrans and my first game against August Doumerc. We were about to head off to LARP (yes, I am that nerdy and I love it) and had an evening free so headed down to Dark Sphere for a game. Unfortunately Alex of Fleet Signal wasn’t able to join, it would have been good to meet the man behind the blog – next time I’ll try and give some more notice mate! So onto the battle, our fleets were:

Fluff Piece: Dindrenzi Naval Ranks

Hi all,

As anyone who’s been here before will know, my gaming group and I love creating fluff and detailing the adventures of our admirals and fleets. In the process of doing this I got to thinking about the naval ranks for my own fleet of choice; the Dindrenzi.