Spinning many plates

I find it very difficult to know when to stop when it comes to deciding which hobbies to try and keep going.  Part of the joy of most table top games if that once you have the board game, a pile of cards or an army you can, if you wish, keep on playing over and again with the same collection, often in new or at least varied ways.  Of course many of these games are produced by companies that are keen to keep you buying new things...

Anyway as a result of expanding my circle of wargaming friends and also revisiting some old interests I'm currently wrestling with a lot of different bits and bobs.  I do seem to keep coming back to GW's Warhammer Fantasy and more recently 40k too - so you'll see lots of posts about those on this blog and this post wont dwell on those any further today.

So what are the other things distracting me?

Well a good friend of mine is a keen fan of Warhammer Ancients - and I mean really ancient here, around 600 BC at the most recent!  I've dabbled with the game in the past owning a modest Macedonian army (a bit modern at 330BC) and I'm in the process of dusting down the pikes for some more games to see if I can actually work out how to win.  Coincidently one of the local model shops phoned me this week to say that a nice new box of Warlord Phalangites was waiting for me (I forgot I even asked!) - its been a long time since I've been able to buy models for 50p each brand new!

Recently my brother encouraged me to try out a format of Magic the Gathering I might find interesting.  Its called Commander (also known as Elder Dragon Highlander - there can only be one!).  I've not been collecting magic for a few years but have a pretty huge back catalogue of questionable value in the face of today's impressive cards, however a 100 card deck with no duplicates actually rewards diversity and depth of your collection.  Suffice to say I had a lot of fun but can't say my first attempts at decks worked very well in a fairly powerful environment I encountered in the Midlands.  I also tried this with a mate more locally and found that its definitely a way to look at those cards stacked in a corner anew and have some fun along the way.

My commander, from my treemen and ferret deck (yes ferrets)

Lastly (for now) the local club has got me interesting in playing Malifaux.  One of the blogs I follow got me interested in this some time ago (thanks Jody) and my brother also painted up a Rasputina crew (I can't find any pics of his to share sorry) so I was sort of aware of the game.  I've seen several demo games and played my first encounter now (thanks Brian) and I have to say I am enjoying it, playing with a standard(ish) deck of cards rather than dice is a really interesting mechanic.  I will no doubt be posting more on this topic in future.

I don't even collect this faction (yet?) but how cool are giant fishmen?