Pro's & Con's of Multi-gaming

Howdy wargamers and hobbyists, and welcome to another gaming article guesting over on the Creative Twilight Community Blog. This time around I have presented a rundown of the benefits and detriments of playing multiple miniature wargames rather than focusing my efforts on just one or two, so please hop on over using the link below, and let me have your thoughts.

The Pro's & Con's of being a Multi-gamer


Thanks for reading.

Eternal Wargamer Hobby Update #1

Howdy Wargamers and Hobbyists.

Today I would like to introduce you to a new format I am going to be using for bringing you a more structured and (more importantly) regular hobby update.

Eternal Wargamer Hobby Update

Please feel free to comment any thoughts or questions about the new format or any of my hobby content.

As always, thanks for reading.

Tutorial: Making your own Cobblestone Bases

Greetings Wargamers and Hobbyists and welcome, after something of a break to my Eternal Workbench.

For this article I am pleased to be able to present my tutorial on how I produced my own cobblestone bases for gaming miniatures. The article is guesting over on the Creative Twilight community blog, so why not head on over and have a read.

Making your own Cobblestone Bases



Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

Hero for a Day - 40K 24 hour Marathon

Howdy Wargamers and Hobbyists, and welcome to the gym. This is where I have started going to build up my wargaming stamina so that I can manage to survive this event.

A club mate of mine will be running a 20 man Warhammer 40,000 24 hour gaming event for a children's cancer and leukaemia charity entitled 'Hero for a Day', and it sounds like it will be an amazing day.

This article (guesting over on Creative Twilight) will certainly be worth your attention, and I very much hope that if you aren't too far away, you might be able to make it.


Thanks for reading.

Dinner with the Captain...Sky Relics Interview

Greetings Wargamers and Hobbyists, and welcome to another article guesting on Creative Twilight.


As promised after my last article which talked about their painting contest and engagement with the community, here I present the follow up article which gives the game creators a chance to give us their thoughts directly in response to my probing questions.

I give you 'Sky Relics - An interview with the Creator and Editor'.


Thanks for reading.

Sky Relics...

Greetings fellow wargamers and space combat enthusiasts. The stars are bright, but the storm is nigh...

Here I bring you another article guesting over on Creative Twilight. A few words about their Painting Contest, which they have used as a great way of engaging with the gaming community, and some photos of the ships I have painted.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading.

Sprue Cutters Union January 2016! - Sticking point...

Greetings Wargamers and Hobbyists, and welcome once more to the Eternal Wargamer blog. This month, the members of the illustrious Sprue Cutters Union have been asked to talk about a varied discombobulation that must plague us all from time to time:

At what point of the build do you tend to stall?

Well now, here is a question that could have a multitude of answers, but I will stick to the spirit of the topic and think about just which bit of a project it is that causes me to bog down and flounder. And what is the answer? Honestly, I would say there are two points in a project that might inhibit progress. The first is right at the beginning.

In recent years I have made it an essential part of my builds to prepare model components properly, which means removing all the parts carefully from the sprues, and cleaning them up by scraping and removing mould lines and other imperfections. This is a mind numbing process which takes about as much time as the assembly of the kit, so bearing in mind that the majority of my hobbying takes place in my hour lunch at work on weekdays, on a box of twenty miniatures I have added about a week to my project time.

The benefits to cleaning up the parts like this are significant when you look at a finished model that was cleaned up first to one that wasn't - visible mould lines, or nubs of plastic or metal where they shouldn't be, un-drilled gun barrels etc, compared to a miniature that has none of these blemishes for me to be bothered by for years to come or for other people to kindly suggest should have been removed before assembly and painting. I am now what I would consider to be an experienced modeller - that doesn't mean I am a good modeller, just that I have been doing this for some considerable time, and have picked up a few tricks, and so naturally I am going to use the techniques I have picked up.

So where is the stall point? It's before I even take the shrink wrap off the box, because I know that when I do, the project, like every project these days, starts with the job I dislike the most...

There is one other factor that causes my projects to stall, but it isn't related to the kits or the work involved, it is related to the amount of time I have to spend on hobbying, and the impact of this is far more pronounced. Unfortunately the job I do can be quite demanding, which means that occasionally I either don't have time to take a lunch break away from the desk, or I am off-site altogether for the day and don't have the usual hobbying accoutrements with me to work on my project, and this has in the past cost me several hours of hobby time. This alone has a double impact on my projects, because not only do I lose actual available hobby time, I also find that my brain can be too fried to even contemplate concentrating on a modelling project.

I never like stalling on a project, and I have found that the more a project stalls, the harder it can be to get back into good routines and pick it back up again - it's important to get back on the horse and crack on with a job, because nobody else is going to do it for you. I guess this is why some people have additional motivating factors, like deadlines for finishing an army so that it can be used at an event that you have committed to or, in my case, a painting target to be reached before the end of the year.

I have found that another great motivator to help you keep going is a little bit of friendly rivalry, and so periodically at our club on online on forums I have run one of my 'Hobby Survivor Series' events, which are just a bit of fun to try and keep people painting and building where, left to their own devices may lost the motivation to continue weeks earlier. Suffice to say that the premise is that all participants have to post progress photos of their project every third day throughout the Series, and anyone that misses the posting deadline or has failed to make progress is out.

Those that successfully post every posting day until the end (typically a Series is 20 posting days long) are allowed to post a badge in their forum signature that tells everyone that they are a Hobby Survivor. If everyone drops out before the end, the Last Man (or woman) Standing is allowed to add a special 'extra' to their Survivors Badge to indicate this achievement, and anyone that fails to make it to the end is open to a little ribbing from the rest of the group. This is all in jest however, and those that do drop out are always keen for the Series to end and the next one to start.

Anyway, those are the things that cause my projects to stall, and a little bit about an initiative I have found works very well for keeping myself and others motivated. I look forward to reading what my compatriots have said about their project stalls, to see whether they are different to my own.


Until next time, thanks for reading...