I couldn't have said it better myself...

Thursday Theories

As many of you will have gleaned, I'm a bit of a GW fanboy. I've been playing their various games for over 20 years now (god I'm getting old...) and really do love what they've put out. I've played every game they have put out in that timeframe, and bought into almost all of them, hell, I even have TWO copies of Heroquest and a copy of Battlerealms.. 'cause I'm crazy like that.
I've also bought every single copy of White dwarf since that fateful first issue I read (and in turn bought) when I was 10, looking about the local hoppy shop searching for batman toys.
That magnificent issue was WD Issue 193.

I collected and bought every issue since then.. right up until issue 321... then I found it got rather.... Iffy. The magazine I'd loved for so many years had changed, and not for the better. It had become all about the new releases, not the hobby. Gone was the whimsy and love poured into the pages by an awesome staff, replaced by a corporate shill pawning off the newest releases as the second coming of gaming. So I stopped buying it. I began to only pic it up if I wanted a model catalogue to look through while traveling.
Hell, when I was working FOR GW I gave my personal copies away to customers who spent over $100 in my store (easy to do, as anyone who buys GW product knows...).

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way... And reading the following article really brought this into stark focus for me.
I highly recommend giving this a read. It's fantastically written and well laid out. Give it a peruse. And tell me (and the author!) what you think.


The Dice Gods Are Hungry!: The Decline and Fall of the White Dwarf Empire

Bean out~ 

Well that was Interesting...

oops

BOOM! Headthought.

Well it seems there's been a bit of a lull in posting recently. This is 100% my fault. Richards been keeping up his thursday slot, which is awesome, but I've been a naughty naughty boy and not published anything in 2 weeks. Sorry.
But it was all for a good cause. Those life issues I've complained about recently have got a little better, I had a mini-vacation to see my friends (*cough cough* Richard you didn't come out you bastard! *cough cough*), learned the new 40k system (AMAZING!), got my grubby mitts on some more models for my Ariadna (Infinity yay!), laid some smack down on those paltry humans who called themselves my opponents (A winner is me!), grabbed a whole smack-tonne of my models from storage for selling, painting, and general hobby goodness, and most important of all, Saw some pees, had some laughs, and took some time out.

BUT I'M BACK NOW. 

Or at least a Winner is me!

So you can all sit back, relax and enjoy as regular posting shall once again commence. I Even had a chance to get my hands on a new phone with much better capabilities in pictures and video so i'll even have a chance to create some of those video tutorials I've been talking about... and who knows, maybe you'll be able to see my pictures in some form of focus now (they are still all taken with my phone... I'm not made of money like some people (Maqma >.>) to be able to buy cameras).
Anyways, Back to normal.
So sit back, relax and enjoy.

Bean out~

Dem Purty Pictorz: Directing the Eyes

Welcome to the second part of my photo series, where I hope to enlighten would be shutterbugs to some of the various consideration points of photography (though with more focus towards shooting still photos rather than action shots). This time around, I'd like to focus on the subject of focus and tricking your viewers into looking where you want them to.

There are basically 2 methods with which to achieve this:

•  Focusing on our subject and defocusing everything else, causing a contrast in sharpness that will draw the eyes to the sharpest parts of an image. Same thing can be done using light/dark, again removing information from something to make the remaining parts more important.
•  Composition via colors, and ratios, manipulated to create points of interest that guide our vision along to settle on the areas we want them focusing on. Unfortunately this part is something that can be a bit hit/miss as not everyone perceive things the same way. 

As I mentioned in my previous entry, aperture can be used to determine the amount of light entering your sensor. This is pretty much how big of a hole being opened up to allow light to spill onto the sensor, and as you could imagine, is pretty friggin’ important. Short rule of thumb: 

 Smaller aperture number = Bigger hole

Thing is, aperture also pulls double duty as it also creates an area of focus for your image. Using a larger aperture (size of the hole, not the number) will narrow your field of focus, causing the background to blur. This effect is called bokeh, which can be used to tell the viewer where you want them to be looking as naturally, the eyes are drawn to what is in sharpest focus, rather than that blurry blob in the back. Using this trick you can use this to direct where you want them looking, rather than just wandering about with their eyes. Just keep in mind that you can’t stop people guessing at the details that are not there…I should also note that simply having a lens that is capable of a wider aperture does not guarantee this effect, as there is also sensor cropping to factor in.

Richard's Warhammer 40,000 Strategy & Tactica: Missions Part 1

It's been a long couple of weeks and I apologize for the lateness of this article! Some health issues with my significant other prevented me from sitting down and working on this. But today I had the time and the energy to write and provide some thoughts on the current mission system under the: "Fighting A Battle" chapter of the 6th Edition Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

To begin, lets go over the first steps of preparing for a mission.

Richard's Warhammer 40,000 List Building: Elysian Ride of the Valkyries

Hello! It's been a long week so I just managed to find the time to post, but it's worth it! As I mentioned last week, I would put up an Elysian list and of course, with Imperial Guard allies! First and foremost, I feel this is very much appropriate before I continue.

Now then, while you listen to that and reminisce over Kilgore lecturing Lance in Apocalypse Now, I thought I'd provide a brief summary of the list. The Elysian drop troop list done by Forgeworld in Imperial Armour Volume 8: Raid on Kastorel-Novem was unique in that it utilized Valkyries as its premier dedicated transport to ferry platoons/veterans into combat and then provide deadly air support. With the advent of sixth edition, I realized that cutting down on a few Valkyries and Vultures and injecting some much needed ground support and mobility was required. So here we go son!

On the Workbench: Vitamin Bean

On the Workbench

Real Life

No I'm not dead (Close... but not dead...), which is the main reason for the dearth of solid articles on my behalf. Life, as it has been well documented, can get in the way. As such, I've not had any time to write anything worthwhile for all you lovely people out there and have let the 2 new guys (Richard and Maqy) pick up my slack. While I agree this isn't cool, alas it is what it is, and thus I've not got a lot of time to commit to the blog at the moment.
Things might be like this for a little while, though hopefully they'll get sorted and I can get back to doing what I so greatly enjoy soon (blathering on at length about gaming, roleplaying, models and painting). Posting will continue as it has been for the last couple weeks (short snippets that I type out when I can), so don't worry the usual stuff will still be up along with Richards most excellent articles about army lists, and Maqma has a few articles still up his sleeve, so all is not lost.

New infinity faction?

 Video courtesy of Corvus belli miniatures, or Beasts of War. (not sure which)

What's this on the horizon?
Not only is the new scenario book finally coming out, but we get a new faction AND something concerning special forces? We feel almost spoiled! Here's hoping that the Special Forces bit is all about making customizable characters for your forces!!!

Now the book just needs to drop so we can all devour it and gain its sweet sexy knowledge by eating it's pulpy paper flesh.
Till next time,
Bean out.

Dem Purty Pictorz: Light/Exposure Control

Picking up from that hack job that was my intro, we’ll be jumping into the first talking point of the series: Exposure management. This little bit pretty much covers the basis of photography in general: the act of capturing light onto film. Unlike using traditional film, digital photography involves sensors, which simplifies our post-processing work, reducing the need for as many skills before we can achieve usable results from our amateur attempts. Breaking down the exposure, there are a list of items that we could consider separately: shutter speed, ISO, aperture.

Richard's Warhammer 40,000 List Building: IG/SW Mobile Gunline

Salutations and welcome to another instalment of my list-building articles. This particular army list actually details a force I'm most likely going to build, partially because I love the fluff behind Space Marines reinforcing beleaguered Imperial Guardsmen and mainly because I already own 3/4s of the vehicles necessary to field it. When constructed this army will most likely represent an Imperial Guard army of my own devising using a combination of parts from Victoria Miniatures and other well known conversion parts produces like MaxMini and Puppetswar. The Space Wolf allies will be represented by Death Watch, using GW Death Watch shoulder pads as well as numerous shoulder pads from other chapters manufactured by Forgeworld/GW.

TAKE ALL THE MONEY

Damn you Forge World. Just damn you to hell.... And take my Wallet with you....