My Glottkin woes and hobby life as a student.

For a while now the blog has been largely running on pre-prepared posts I have scheduled in advance due to the fact that I am now at university and do not have time during the week to do much hobby stuff. This will therefore be a slightly unusual post for me as it will largely just be ranting and random thoughts: a bit of a vague general update on my hobby life more than anything else. 

First I will rant a bit about Glottkin. Getting hold of this book has been an absolute nightmare and ultimately I have failed to procure myself a copy. As you may have seen a few months ago I bought the Nagash book and wrote a review of it; praising the design team for such an excellent product. I have no doubt that Glottkin is just as impressive but has been much harder to get a hold of. 

I managed to miss the book when it went up for Pre-Orders on the webstore due to being a student and actually having a Friday night social life. I was then unable to reserve any copies from any of the local suppliers and on the day of release the woefully few copies my local GW had were sold out in literal seconds. I even called in a range of favours people owed me, ringing friends across the UK and telling them to run to their local warhammer shop to buy me a book. None of them; from York to Oxford, Chesterfield to Aberystwyth, were able to get a copy for me. 

Nooooooooooooooo!

So now I look at ebay and see Glottkin at triple or even quadruple its retail price; far beyond the meagre finances available to a student (not to mention being frankly disgusting, blatant profiteering). Rumours abound that there will be a release in soft back and at the end of the day I could always buy it digitally, but I wanted a hardback book to sit on the shelf next to my Nagash book as part of a series all bound the same and done in the same style. That could be seen as overly obsessive of me, granted I have bought multiple copies of some books in the Wheel of Time series just so I can have matching covers, but the limited quality of a book that is not being sold as 'limited edition' is somewhat frustrating. Furthermore I have only rumours to say whether I will be able to get a physical copy at all with no official statement communicated in a public manner by GW. 

I have read many interesting theories as to why Glottkin sold out as it did: attempt to boost digital sales, create higher demand by printing limited numbers or simply underestimating demand. Regardless of why I must admit that this has not only irritated me but it has also somewhat killed my enthusiasm for the End Times. Instead of buying some new fantasy goodies last Saturday I ended up getting some reinforcements for my Dark Eldar instead which you can see in some of the photos below. Whilst the Nagash release had me drawing up grand plans for my Undead, the Glottkin release has left me frustrated. 

Now that I have finished ranting about my lack of Glottkin I will move onto the second topic the title has promised: University. I have been living away from home for nearly two months now and I have been really enjoying my course so far (History if anyone is interested). Student life has been fun even if my cooking is still a bit on the dodgy side and I haven't had much time for the hobby. I have joined my university tabletop wargaming society and whilst I haven't had time for any battles I have managed to get some painting done.

This is what my painting station looks like at the moment: sat at the far end of my desk next to the printer. My university accommodation is rather good and it is nice to have a permanent set up for my miniatures even if I don't really get much time to paint. As you can probably see I have a couple of things on the go including more reinforcements for my Dark Eldar and a few models for my Witch Hunters and Ecclesiarchy project. I realise that having a mug of water right next to a printer and a desk lamp is a bad idea, usually the water mug sits on the opposite side of the desk but I moved it for the photo. My actual painting box can be found on the floor to the right of the desk so is easy to reach and I have enough floor space that I can leave it open pretty much all the time.

Bishop Caesar Valentino

This is Bishop Caesar Valentino who in game will be an Inquisitor attached to my Sisters of Battle. I am really happy with how he has turned out as I used him to try out a few different techniques such as using purples, greens and blues to shade golds as well as seeing how a rich, almost pastel purple would work with the rest of the army colours. I used a Dark Vengeance Chaplain as the base and simply added a green-stuff mitre, scarf and some bells on his back to help obscure the Dark Angels sword symbol on his cape.

The name 'Bishop Caesar Valentino' is taken from history, in this case the infamous Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. You may know of him from Assassins Creed Brotherhood or from the recent TV series starring Jeremy Irons. He lived at the turn of the sixteenth century and went from being a bishop to cardinal under his father the corrupt pope, before being the first man to renounce the cardinalate and became commander of the Papal armies as well as a French Duke. His nickname 'Duke Valentino' comes from the fact he was Cardinal of Valencia at one point and later the Duke of Valentinois. 

He has gone down as one of the most evil men in all history and can be found as a perfect example of effective tyranny in Machiavelli's 'The Prince'. I studied the Borgia family several years ago for a project and decided to use the names of historical figures from their time for characters in my Ecclesiarchy forces much as I used mid-17th century inspired names for Inquisitor Harrison Venner V and his war band.

For my Legions of the Faithful which I shall be expanding this year I have built this Company Command Squad to represent a Cardinal and his retinue. In the picture above you can see Cardinal Julius Roverre himself with a medic, standard, heavy flamer and vox caster. In the picture below you can see the three regimental advisors I have converted to accompany him.

Master of Ordnance, Astropath and an Officer of the Fleet

To accompany my Inquisitorial Stormtroopers I converted this Commissar from the Tempestus Scions kit. I think he looks quite good though I am tempted to re-sculpt parts of his coat collar to make it look sharper and crisper. One thing I did enjoy about painting him was the blood splatter on his left hand side going up his gun arm to show where he has field executed an officer and the remains of their head have splattered the Commissar.

Also out of the Tempests Scions kit I built this power-fist wielding henchman to accompany the Inquisitor Lord Hellcarian. This model came together over the course of a few days when I was idly assembling and disassembling stormtrooper pieces, I like to think of this guy as some kind of inquisitorial medic/interrogator who uses his power-fist to break open the armour of heretics before torturing them for information. 

Overall I have been relatively productive these past few weeks though as essay deadlines begin to close in I can see myself doing very little beyond research and writing, so expect the next few posts to be scheduled pre-prepared things; probably on my Game of Thrones stuff and Warriors of Order I think. Should I manage to do anything interesting, or even get hold of a copy of Glottkin, I will make a mid-week post to let you know. Until then...

Doombringer out.