The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

A different kind of greenskin

I managed to get my fiancé Kim painting at Gamesday back in June, and to try and encourage her interest in the hobby I tracked down and bought her a pair of Reaper Killer Frogs. She and I spent an afternoon painting together while I worked on Wurrzag, and at the end of the day she had this very tidy killer frog to show for her efforts! I thought it'd be fun to share with all of you:

 

She's done a great job with this little guy, and I'm very happy that she enjoys painting with me.

Edit: July 18, 2008

It's been a little while since Kim last painted with me, but since I had company over to game with, she kept herself busy with us by painting the frogs up some more. I have to say, her results are really something special:

 

She highlighted their bellies with a nice whiter color, and did a lot more work on their details. They're really awesome - the jumping one in particular came out really nice, especially the water on his base and his mouth.

So proud!

Golden Demon and some other things

So one of the people I talk to on AIM was nice enough to let me know that Games Workshop now has Golden Demon Baltimore 2008 coverage up on their site. The ironic thing is that I was looking for this yesterday afternoon, but their newly-designed labyrinth of a site means that there's a decent chance you won't find the thing you're looking for, even if it's sitting right under your nose. I bring up their coverage for two reasons. The first is in vanity - my gargant is up there as a Honorable Mention, which has me giggling like a schoolgirl because I have invaded GW's webspace. The second reason is just that I was impressed by something - and no, it wasn't the Slayer-winning inquisitor, which I thought was a blindingly busy model. I was impressed by this - the gold winner of the Open Competition.

Why, you may ask? That miniature is the one you received at the registration desk at Gamesday this year. Meaning, the fellow must have gotten there, gotten the mini, presumably primed it, sat down at one of the painting events, painted the damn thing before daemon registration ended, and then submitted it and won the gold. That is a staggering result for what could have been no more than three hours of work. Of course, this is decidedly less impressive if he somehow managed to get his hands on the miniature earlier, but to my knowledge they weren't mailing them out with the tickets. Truthfully, too, I don't think it had any right winning the gold over the other two entries on the same page, unless the judges were also absolutely floored by the speed at which it was painted also.

Edit: I've been told that the guy who submitted the Salamander I was talk about above was a store manager, meaning that he probably had about two months or so to work on it in advance... meaning, it's not quite as impressive as I had imagined. Still, I think this makes an argument for a new category for Gamesday - speedpainting! They had tables for speedpainting events, but it'd be hilarious to see how Demon winners could do given only a handful of hours.

Moving on, I just want to mention that if you haven't spotted them, final photos of the Gargant are now up under it's project listing. The Pressure Casting Tutorial has also been completed as of this morning, and the third video is up for what I hope will be your viewing pleasure. I'm looking forward to making more tutorials for the site as I can, but I don't know what you all want to see from me! If you have something in particular you would like a tutorial on, throw it in a comment and I'll give it consideration.

Also, an unrelated point I want to bring up: Thanks are due to Mad Jazz of the Penny-Arcade.com forums for my wonderful Secret Santa gift, a boxed Space Marine Predator. It really is a brilliant present - it fits both armies I play nicely, and is loaded to the gills with bits!

More to come as I have time.

Gamesday Baltimore 2008, Part II

I've been digging through all of the additional Gamesday photos I took and I thought I might throw a couple more up just for the sake of completeness, since I went to the trouble of picturing some of them.

First, a couple of the other Gamesday entries that caught my eye and were subsequently photographed. I am not sure how these placed, don't ask! I was too busy trying to get my own entry boxed up and packed away at the end of the day, since it's a bit of a process. In no particular order:

 

It's a bit amazing how scratched up and dented the cases they put the GD entries is. Someone needs to buckle down and make some new ones, because it is hard as hell to shoot a camera through some of 'em. I got a peek at the photo setup they were using for the entries, and all I can say is that I'm mighty jealous - the dude even had a pair of lights attached to either side of the camera lens for when he actually shot the models. I have no idea how he keeps from washing out all of the models.

I snapped a couple random pics off of the boards as we were playing that I thought were neat, or ideas that I might consider making into a board of my own. Here's a couple of the ones that came out:

 

The costume contest was a bit of fun, though incredibly unfair. Everyone was milling around waiting to see who would come out of the woodworks until a kid dressed as an eldar titan crashed the party, at which point he effortlessly won the contest. I imagine the girl standing next to him felt a bit cheated by the whole ordeal, having spent most of the day being oggled by the Gamesday crowd for nothing. Still, that kid was awesome and I'm glad he won. I'm seriously considering giving the commissar outfit a go next time.

There was also a pretty good eldar ranger going around the place, too, who I missed in that picture:

Here's a couple more of the things they had in display cases around the convention.

 

I think that's about the extent of my worthwhile photography at the event. Enjoy!

Gamesday Baltimore 2008

So I have just returned from my brief stint in Baltimore, and I have to say that Gamesday was pretty spectacular.

 

It's been a while since I've been around that much noise. I figured out pretty quickly that it might have been a good idea to buy tickets in advance after seeing the line at the box office, but it wasn't particularly bad after that - they sorted us into thrashing, drooling mobs by assigning 'clans' at the registration desk to keep us busy before they opened the doors. I had the good (?) fortune of being placed with the Deathskullz, which I suppose is appropriate enough.

My first order of business was to throw my gargant into the ring in the 40k vehicle category for the Golden Demons, though truth be told I wasn't expecting much, since it's a painting competition and my entry's strength was primarily in the conversion. I walked into the event thinking that if I made first cuts I'd be happy.

 

I did have the good fortune of making it into the finals with my model, though I didn't get any farther than that. I certainly have a better idea of what I'm up against next time! The dang eyes were a big hassle, as they were not designed to remain lit for the entire duration of the day, but the Golden Demon judges were champs about my request to turn them on for judging and photographs.

As far as the gargant itself goes, I'm happy to consider it finished at this point, barring the occasional touch-up; proper pictures will be taken and posted up on it's project entry by tomorrow.

By 3:00, the winners had mostly been decided, and I got a chance to get a look at what took the awards in my category. An NMM'ed-out Blood Angels Dreadnought took home the gold, a Death Korps-ish vehicle of some imperial design took the Silver, and some sort of Eldar jetbike took bronze. This just goes to show how much I know about non-ork races, I suppose. I only took photos of the winners in my category to give some comparison.

 

They were all exceptionally well done, though there were some other dynamite entries that I thought got overlooked, particularly a chaos land raider. This event was the first time I've ever been able to see NMM in person. In person, the effect looks fairly underwhelming, to be honest, as I imagine it has much to do with the angle at which it is viewed and the lighting conditions. However, peeking back over some of these macro photos I took of the winning blood angel dreadnought, I can easily understand it's appeal, as it pops.

I spent a lot of the event wandering around looking at everything going on. Apparently, there was some kind of product development conference they had at the beginning that I missed that all of these new sprue pictures are popping out of. Despite that, I still got to take a peek at a couple new items they had out and about. I've no doubt anyone who reads a site like this has already seen the models they had there somewhere else, but since I did photograph them I thought I'd throw some of the pictures up, particularly of the orky models they had on display such as ammo runts, the new warboss model, and a souped-up engine kit that I think might be a forgeworld part:

 

A giant display of an imperial army that easily had to be 10-15k+ points caught my eye right at the onset. The scheme was a bit drab, but when you're looking at a table full of it, there is no arguing - it's totally awesome.

 

There was also a 'Big Game' that was being run in one whole corner of the convention. I didn't hang around that area too long during the day, but it seemed to be a bunch of Imperial Baneblades versus a number of looted Orky Baneblades. I snapped some photos of the orky baneblades for later inspiration on my own - a large number of them were spectacularly done. I assume they were made by Games Workshop staff, as everyone I asked about them claimed they didn't know where the models had come from.

 

There were also some ridiculous, ridiculous templates made from other apocalypse templates that just had to be photographed. These were for orbital bombardments that were rewarded to the team (ork or imperial) that could bellow the loudest. When I was there, the orks took it by a mile, and I have to say, my head nearly exploded when they were all bellowing 'WAAAGH!'. I have a newfound sympathy for weirdboyz and their 'Eadbang rolls.

There was also a new Mars Pattern Reaver Titan on display from Forgeworld, painted up and looking fairly impressive. Truthfully, I thought it was going to be a little bit bigger than the model actually turned out, but it's still very nice. However, ringing in at 1,100 USD, I don't think I'll be picking one up any time soon.

Kim came along with me to Gamesday, and handled the event admirably well. She toughed it out alongside me all day, building models at the conversion corner and participating in the scenery make-and-take. She even painted some of a model!

 

She liked a lot of the fantasy models, too, particularly the Wood Elves. Now all I need to do is convince her to pick up the hobby! (This will probably never happen). My wallet wasn't safe from Gamesday's shenanigans, either. Midway through the day, they offered up blister grab bags for , each containing ten blisters. Within about ten seconds, the store area was swamped in gamers all trying to peer into the semi-translucent bags to find the best goodies they could, myself included. I had the good luck of grabbing a bag filled with only 40k stuff, and most of it was character models, making it a huge steal - for 30 bucks, I ended up getting Celestine, the Living Saint, Apothecary Corbulo, Grand Master Azrael, and Mephiston, Lord of Death, just to name a few. To top that, almost all the rest were ork models! I did get one tyranid in the mix, a Ravener, that I wasn't quite sure what to do with until I ran across this fellow...

... named Chris, a tyranid player who I gamed with regularly down in New Brunswick, who was wearing one of my Turbosquig T-Shirts. He got the 'nid for going through the trouble of actually wearing the shirt to the event. I didn't hang around until the very end of the event to see the awards get given out, since we were exhausted, but from what I hear one fellow took like six or seven of the golden demon awards, so I can only assume the slayer was his as well. I have a lot more pictures of the event that I took that I may put up later, but I think on all of the important parts of my day. All in all, it was a great event. I think next time I go I will try and enter a couple different things into the Golden Demons, because it was a really exciting process that I enjoyed.

Never a dull moment

It has been quite a while since I last updated, and in the interim I have been keeping myself quite occupied. I'm sure a number of you were probably wondering if the lack of updates was due to me killing myself in a horrible pressure casting accident, but I can assure you that not only is that not the case, I have had wondrous success with the whole process. In any event, an absence of nearly two months is inexcusable, but I'm going to try and explain anyway.

Its been an exceptionally busy time for me! Finals, law school, and graduation have all been keeping my free time fairly well tied up, but I am happy to say that my courses are all done with and I have successfully run the gauntlet of graduation at Rutgers.

Its not been just school keeping me busy, either; I've been caring for a baby squirrel! The little dude took a big fall out of his nest and landed on his head, but fortunately someone was around to see him take the dive. Since both of my folks are vets, he was brought to us. Because of his little 'incident' he is blind in one eye, but damn if he still isn't the cutest thing I've ever seen. We've not yet named him, but the lack of an eye and the drunken swagger suggests a pirate theme. I need to craft him a jaunty eyepatch.

Moving on.

With any luck, I will be at Gamesday Baltimore on June 14th to enter a fully painted gargant into the vehicle category. I've been withholding pictures of it's painted state so far to build the tension, though I realize my absence has probably not done much to help with that. I may throw out a picture or two as the day approaches, but I am hoping it's first public, painted outing will be there, at Gamesday. I don't expect to win or even come close, but it'll be a nice way to start off my first Gamesday ever.

In anticipation for the event, I've made myself a completely ridiculous T-shirt. Behold!

Like I said, completely ridiculous, but it should be fun to wear at Gamesday despite the fact that I am sure nobody will have any idea what it means. Surprisingly enough, a couple people I showed it to were interested in getting their own, so I uploaded a high resolution version to zazzle.com that you can order as a Dark T-shirt in a variety of colors and sizes. I didn't honestly expect anyone to buy these, but a couple people who are going to GD Balt already have, and I think it would be absolutely hilarious if we got a bunch of people down there wearing them. I wonder how many it would take for GW to start noticing.

The one I crafted for myself has the logo for The Warforge shamelessly emblazoned on the front, with the turbosquig on the back. I encourage anyone who recognizes me with this to come up and say hello, because I've somehow managed to trick my girlfriend into thinking that a trip to Baltimore is a vacation. She'll be with me at the event and I think if she still loves me after hearing all the super-nerd-talk that I will invariably engage in, I will be a lucky man.

There's much more to talk about, but at least I've made a start.

Impatient for the Apocalypse

Had a fun day of enormous battle that I thought I might share.

One of the guys at my local game store challenged me on Wednesday to see how many points of orks I could pull out on short notice, if I'm given VDR and Forgeworld approval and have to stick to force org. I put together a 2,500 list to match his guardsmen. It had 60 models. I find that hilarious. 60 models in a 2,500 point army, guys.

Here's what came along:

1 Warboss (HQ)
Choppa; Power Klaw
'Eavy Armour
Attack Squig
-----------------------------
1 Gargantuan Squiggoth (Heavy Support)
Bolt-on Big Shootas (x5); Zzap Gun (x2); Twin-Linked Rokkit Launcha (x4)

Onboard this squiggoth:

8 Flash Gitz (Elites)
Shoota (x4); Big Shoota (x4)

1 Big Mek (HQ)
Kustom Force Field
-----------------------------
1 Gargantuan Squiggoth (Heavy Support)
Bolt-on Big Shootas (x5); Zzap Gun (x2); Twin-Linked Rokkit Launcha (x4)

Onboard this squiggoth:

9 Tankbustas (Troops)
Slugga & CC Weapon (x6); Rokkit Launcha (x3); Frag Stikkbomz; Tankbusta
Bomz

1 Nob
CC Weapon (x1); Rokkit Launcha; Frag Stikkbomz; Tankbusta Bomz
Ammo Runt [4]
-----------------------------
1 Shielded Super Heavy Walker (890 points)
Structure Points: 3; Front Armour: 14; Side Armour: 14; Rear Armour: 12; Walker; War
Machine; Speed: Agile (Souped-up Engines); Power Fields (x3)
Long-range Blast Kannon
Long-range Blast Zzap Gun
Long-range Blast Zzap Gun
Gattling Twin-Linked Big Shoota
Close Combat Weapon
Close Combat Weapon
Skorcha
Armor Plates
Grot Bomb Launcher Upgrade
-----------------------------
12 Slugga Boyz (Troops)
Slugga & Choppa (x9); Burna (x3)

1 Nob
Choppa (x1); Power Klaw (x1)
-----------------------------
9 Trukk Boyz (Fast Attack)
Slugga & Choppa (x8); Burna (x1)

1 Nob
Choppa (x1); Power Klaw (x1)

1 Trukk
Big Shoota (x1)
5 pt. Armour Plates
Grot Riggers
Turbo Boosta
-----------------------------
9 Trukk Boyz (Fast Attack)
Slugga & Choppa (x8); Burna (x1)

1 Nob
Choppa (x1); Power Klaw (x1)

1 Trukk
Big Shoota (x1)
5 pt. Armour Plates
Grot Riggers
Turbo Boosta
-----------------------------
Models in Army: 60

Total Army Cost: 2499

The Long-range blast zzap guns are particularly insidious, because the blast upgrade gives it a template, while zzap gun rules state that the weapon automatically hits. And it's AP2. So I'll be throwing around auto-hitting random-strength AP2 Blast templates the whole game. I expected my opponents to stick to cover based on that, which is why I brought the burnas along as well.

Anyway, I'm happy to report that despite the ridiculousness of my list, I came out on top in a 3-way, 7,500 point battle - we had a cron player show up at just the right time. Lots of images below, but I'm not writing a batrep, because I don't hate myself that much. I'll try and hit some of the highlights.

 

A look at my full 2,500 points. It's hilarious. I had the smallest army on the table, in terms of models.

 

A look at things post deployment. We didn't feel like figuring things out about who goes where in a 3-way ffa, so we all rolled scatter dice and basically chose somewhere around where the arrows pointed. We were supposed to be equidistant, but the cron player got a little too overeager and deployed way too close to the guard player, honestly. Precision was not our goal. The Guard player was using that big white bitz bin as a stand-in for a Baneblade, while the 'Cron player had his monolith there to represent some ridiculous VDR creation. I felt bad that my dudes weren't painted, compared to the other two, but damnit, at least my models look something like what they're supposed to.

 

The Lith stood for something the dude called a 'Tomb Stalker', which was basically a 'bend horde armies over and have your way with them' machine. It cost, apparently, twelve hundred points. On the first turn, it ponderously floated forward, and proceeded to drop ridiculous amounts of blast templates on everything within range. The guard player lost an enormous amount of casualties in that first round of shooting, and a couple tanks.

Of course, he had packed them so absurdly densely that he deserved it. You have no idea how much the ork tactician in my head squealed at the thought of dropping a few large Strength 8 blast templates on this:

The formation I set up with my orks was pretty damn tight, as well.

It was a big wall of killing death. The Big Mek aboard the middle squiggoth gave everything around him some love - from hull down on the gargant to invuln saves for both the squiggoth he was riding and the one adjacent to him, and the boyz pooled around the squig's feet. Best use of points ever, ever, ever.

On my first turn I realized that the necron warmachine was full of hate and pain and would easily wipe me off the board given the chance, so I began to hammer all of the necrons I could find within reach to try and phase him out. The gargant's blast zzap guns made a right proper mess of the necrons deployed closest, and promptly removed the entire warrior squad and necron lord. (The lord is being proxied; a tau model is in his place.)

Guard also took tremendous losses to squiggy shooting. I had to split the squiggoths up due to terrain, so I sent one brave creature off into the middle of the board to tempt fate while my gargant spent the following turn sprinting up the side of the board making a mess of the stormtroopers in it's way. By this time, the baneblade had managed to put three structure points worth of damage on the VDR'ed cron machine, and it was almost done, so he turned his attentions (and his tanks) to me. Unfortunately for him, by the time he managed to do so, I had used my zzaps to disable both ordnance weapons on the baneblade and prevent it from moving, giving me a wonderful shot at the superheavy's side armor.

 

The downside to the size of the heavy choices I had were that they had to single-file it up the side of the board, so I had to pull one squiggy back. Smarter deployment in future!

In the end, Guard had eaten up the Necron warmachine with ridiculous amounts of lasguns, and I had dropped unheard of amounts of heavy weaponry onto the guard, which thinned them out in a hurry. I also had a great deal of luck with the two trukk boy squads, which spent a large portion of the game running at full-speed towards the melee - I figured I might as well throw them in without any hesitation. One of the nobz actually survived the rest of his squad being destroyed, and proceeded to spend the remainder of the game introducing the human command squad to his power klaw.

My boss was sorely dissapointed. He spent most of the game running just a little bit ahead of the squiggoths. He has requested that in future games he gets a trukk of his own.

I ended up winning by a fair amount, as I detonated the 'cron player was wiped before he could really bring his guns on me, and the guardsmen were too flimsy to get in the way of the heavies. There were a few admirable attempts at wounding the squiggoths - each had three wounds by the end of the game, courtesy of his autocannons - but they both performed amazingly well. The Gargant also survived excellently, as well - of the three structure points and three force fields it had at the outset of the game, it was left with two of those structure points by the end, and had one of it's zzap cannons disabled by a cheeky basilisk shot. The Trukk Boyz took some serious losses, but only after eating up more than double their points in guardsmen.

I think I would have done way better had I been able to keep my 'killin' wall' formation, and actually had range the first few turns to bring all my mean guns to bear. In any case, the list performed admirably! And stuck within Force Org, even, though nobody else did. Very fun, all in all, though I can't help but wonder if this list would even be feasible under Apocalypse rules. A couple strength D weapons would do me in right quick!

The ever infrequent update

Well...

The good news is that I have gotten both of my Secret Santa gifts done and out of the way. The bad news is that I completely and accidentally deleted the photographs of one of them in its final stages, so I'm going to hope that my recipient can take some decent photos of it and sent it along to me. Either way, now that they've been sent out, I think it would be a good time to point out the 4th Edition Lootaz project, as it won't ruin the surprise any more.

I also had the good fortune of winning an unusual model on Ebay. Apparently, a company called 'Demonblade' created models very similar to Games Workshop's... They promptly got sank under the lawsuit, but there are still a couple of these old models floating around, and I thought I might pick one up and give it a look-over. And while I'm at it, why not give all of you a chance to look as well! This is their 'Orc Warboss' model.

 

Demonblade existed around the time of 2nd edition orks, which might help explain some of his appearance, though that face looks more like a squig that has become humanoid! The Klaw is a neat touch, though - I like it a good deal simply because it looks good and orky. The gun is actually a bit inspiring, not because I find it particularly well made, but because it looks like it would make a reasonably good Big Shoota model. I'm actually contemplating making a similar weapon now, with the ammo drum and clip in a similar fashion, and maybe casting it for the benefit of my Flash Gitz. Either way, it's an interesting model - the face needs a bit of work, but I think if I get a big enough iron gob on him, he might be passable as a proper ork, though of what variety I could not say. Maybe he can be a mek, or something.

One last detail: I got the entirety of my BWBits Mega Grab Bag order. I'm pretty satisfied with it. I have posted loads of pictures of the spoils here so if you care to see them, venture that way. I'm feeling far too lazy to thumbnail and post up all of the pictures here when I think that post sums it up much better and cleaner, honestly. Not much ork stuff; primarily chaos, dark angels, marines, and nids, with little bits of everything else thrown in for good measure. I feel like I just broke even on the cost of the two bags, honestly.

‘Spike’ lives up to his name

Interesting day, today! I had the chance to go out and pick up some guitar wire after work, as I was all out, and in the mean time a package of mysterious origin was being delivered at my very door!

I'd traded off my old Guntrukk to a buddy named Gizmo in the UK, and in return I obtained a huge warboss ot lead my army in the interim while I work on my own Big Boss. 'Ere we are:

 

The trip across the Atlantic was fairly kind to this warboss, named 'Spike' by his previous owner, but I took a few liberties of touching him up in a spot or two, adding eyes as he lacked them, and varnishing the whole thing up for the sake of protection. Lots of the boss seems to be sculpted right from scratch, which is pretty unique. My only caveat with the model is a lack of power claw, which any proper boss should have, but my opponents are usually flexible enough as to attribute him one based purely on the size of that weapon.

Fairly exciting day, all in all. I am expecting a few things from ebay to come in the mail in the next few days - a bundle of ork vehicles I got for absurdly cheap that included a remote control tank (Can you hear the gears in my head turning? Can you?) and a very bizarre OOP Alternate Warboss by a company called Demonblade which I hope to examine in greater detail in the next few days.

Let there by cliche!

So recently, thanks to a tutorial on the W.I.P. forums, I have been taught a way of lighting up the tiniest of miniatures. Due to my dire need to take modelling to ridiculous excesses, I thought it warranted further investigation. No! It doesn't involve the use of arcane fiber optics piped from a model's base, which was my original guess. (And a pain in the rear, to boot!)Rather, I have been introduced to a marvelous little piece of technology known as the SMT LED. What is an SMT LED? It's the most ridiculously tiny Surface Mounted Light Emitting Diode you've ever seen. About 1/5 the size of a normal 5mm LED, all told.Now, I solder like a monkey, but apparently even I have the motor skills to bang this together. From this little fella...

You get loads of light!

Don't believe me?

The applications for this sort of thing are limitless - just imagine an orky battlewagon all lit up, or the driver's compartment illuminated my different colored gauges! Even lit Kustom Force Field Generators! (Which I am currently planning!) And they fit in the tiniest of places...

And you can do it in a variety of colors! I was in a sudden mood to start lighting some of my Daemonhunter dreadnoughts, and after about 15 minutes with a dremel and soldering iron I was able to put this together:

 

Dremelling a forgeworld item is not for the faint of heart, but you could do this to any dreadnought, any power klaw, anything large enough to fit these super-tiny lights! I'm working up the nerve to light an ork's bionik bonce at the moment. I might do it to Ghazzie's head for the sake of it. This wire is the wire I recommend using with these things. It's super-tiny and can fit wherever the LED can, and it's pretty cheap. Don't expect retail radio shack outlets to carry this - I had to order my batch online. I also grab most of my SMT LEDs off ebay - they can get a bit pricy (I got 50 of the blue ones for around ) but they're worth it!

Posting like it’s 1998

said I'd post these scans, and by god here they are. Hopefully this won't get me in any sort of trouble - the magazine is long out of print, and it's just such phenomenal material. If I get an e-mail from GW asking me to take it down, I shall do so gladly, but I don't honestly think this causes any harm - if anything, it should make you want to subscribe.

First, the battle report, Last Stand at Glazer's Creek. I love Adrian Wood so much. Who else would take the time to pose roaring at his opponents for a magazine?

 

Following that up, I also have the scans of the Adrian Wood's Dreadnoughts. I think a lot of these parts are since out-of-production, but they're still very interesting visually.

 

There was one last little thing I noticed while I was reading through these old magazines that I found highly entertaining. Check out the old, all-metal Thunderhawks they used to push!

I love these old magazines. They've got such a vintage feel to them, and they don't take themselves too seriously. Might have to look into grabbing a couple more from ebay! I'd certainly recommend people grab a subscription to WD, in any case. Just think - in ten years, you can be looking back fondly at all the current stuff!