Nerd Rage

It's been a while since I have updated here, for which the blame lies entirely with Creative Assembly.

Oh and I had a touch of grey plastic disease.

Much as I am still inspired to get painting the boxes of Perry plastic Napoleonic French, the prospect of actually doing them drove me to seek solace in Empire Total War, and of late the far superor Shogun 2 - and the figs have lain unpainted in the cupboard. Of course the cure for grey plastic disease is to by fewer models on a more regualr basis - it will still take the same two years or so to get the army finished, but the binge painting followed by gaming malaise, the main symptoms of grey plastic disease, will be avoided.

However in the past week or so I have been inspired via various podcasts - principally Jaded Gamercast - to revisit my Ogres. Like all such projects when I went in search of the long rejected models I was pleasantly pleased with the painting, and have been working on the bases - pictures to follow.

Since I am your typical gamer, no sooner do I start painting again, then I begin to daydream of new ways to spend money to get more stuff - despite promising myself that I would not buy any more figures until I have painted the French.

Which brings to the topic of the moment - GW prices.

Nerds the world over have gone into apoplectic rage over the double whammy of the price increase and the change to the retailer contract.

The general response has been 'I will never buy another GW product again!!!!!!!!' which leaves me thinking - 'yeah right'.

Anywho....

I realise that GW is the essence of all evil, and the end of days is fast approaching but I do find myself wondering at the mentality of those gripped by the rapture.

For instance, one of the chief memes of the small memebered macho types that proliferate on forums is that the price rise will stop new people getting into the hobby - THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!. The basis of the arguement is that new people are put off when they are told that they need to shell out £500 to get a tournament ready army.

Uh hellooooo....

If anything keeps people out of the hobby, it is this notion that there is only one way to do the hobby and that an army has to be a certain size, or you just can't play. Oh and you have to have all the army books. And you have to have this, and that, and you are some kind of moron if you have spent £75 on a unit of Pumbagores, because that is one ugly model... and why the hell are you playing Beastmen anyway?

I do wonder how many people making the argument that price rises drive people out of the hobby, have ever tried to get a person interested by splitting a starter box, and running an exculation campaign over a number of months. I suspect not many, as they are too busy with the collectable figure game of net list building, and dreaming of the day that Warhammer is televised on mainstream TV with a professional league.

And yes, it does look bad that a box of goblins has gone up 16% - or whatever - but on the other hand it is £2 - or whatever - or @20% less - or whatever - than a latte and pepperoni pizza from Greggs. Yes I do find myself balking at the notion of spending £50 odd for a horde of Night Goblins with fanatics - can you guess which army I am looking at next - but then the price rise equates to a bottle Terranto negromara from Booths (currently half price) - *drool* - and if I want the models that is the price (well it isn't really, since I buy online, so the bigger the price rise the bigger the discount, so I'm only really looking at three a bit bottles of Banks Fine Fettle (can you guess my other main hobby?)).

I am old enough to know that complaining about prices is pretty pointless. Those saying they are going to quit - and usually follow this up with the virtues of Privateer Press, which just makes Hordes and Warmachine look like a game for whiney berks - reminds me of people who swore they would stop smoking when 20 fags cost £1, or would give up Mars bars when they reached 15p.


And it's pretty much the same for the other news.

There has been outrage around the internut at the news that Maelstrom has fallen out with another of it's suppliers, and being Maelstrom they have taken the opportunity to play the gamers champion.

When Battlefront refused to trade with them for breaking discount agreements, were there tankheads up in arms at the conglomerate behind Flames of War, Gale Force 9, Wargames Illustrated et al?

Uh no.

Not a dicky bird.

Despite the fact that Maelstrom were dropped by Battlefront for exactly the same reason as GW are ditching them - or they are ditching GW - breaking discount agreements.

At which point enter stage left the Xenophobes.

Apparently it is an outrage that GW haven't noticed that Britian is not a world power anymore (as if anyone in Britain gives a toss about such matter) and various Ned Kelly and Paul Reveirre types - i.e cowardly nurks, who for various reason have gone down in history as heroes - have been running around in defence of their compatriots of convict ancestory saying that it is an outrage that they can no longer smuggle product from.... uh? Britain.

Don't get me wrong, I have sympathy for Austrailians who are paying twice the price for the same product. I just don't see that it is something to get rabid about.

Even more humourous are those people - revolutionary types - particularly in the US who reckon that they will take up the slack and start their own internet buiness... which is not just closing the door when the horse has bolted - it's shutting the door, jumping on the imaginery horse and running into the door.

I mentioned on this blog - or it might have been in a moment of internet warriory elsewhere - but I recall when Island of Blood was launched saying that the UK internet retailers would clean up. The reasons were pretty simple, and only really apply in the UK: cheap postage rates, no local sales taxes, no paranoid faffing about customs duties, a realisation that people exist in the outside world... all of which meant that when you went to the check out, there were no scary surpises awaiting you.... which is precisely why I have never bought anything from the US or indeed anywhere overseas.... even when the exchange rate in theory made doing so the chance to make a killing.

Still the Ogres are now lumbering through the snow and mud on their bases and who knows I may even get a chance to play with them, if I could be bothered to get off my fat posterior and arrange a game at the local club - which now meets in a brand new hobby centre, FLGS (if you will), always assmuing that the place is still open... after all with all these discount online retailers springing up and offering me figures at knockdown prices, there's no guarantee that the shop will keep going by offering discounts within the agreed margins and territories.

peace:)