Trevy's Painting Table

If you follow my Facebook/Twitter pages (which you all should, by the way :D), you'll know of my recent rampage through the proverbial pages of the Horus Heresy's Prospero Burns and A Thousand Sons.

Before all remembrance of these sacred texts is burned from my mind by the curse of a terrible short term memory, I'd like to disseminate what I thought of the books by way of a review.  It should be noted before I begin, that I am not good at remembering words lifted from pages with any clarity and thusly listened to the books in an audio format - therefore some of my spellings may be off and my opinion somewhat biased by the medium.

I read (re; listened to) Prospero Burns first after some sage advice from the wise and limitless interwebz.  In hindsight, however, A Thousand Sons should probably be placed first in this "series;" A Thousand Sons goes into far greater detail regarding certain, pivotal moments in the story while Prospero Burns focuses more on the character's perspectives and observations.  It would have been nice to have access to the information on events such as the Council of Nikaea presented by A Thousand Sons before diving into Prospero Burns.  In any case, I will review the stories in the order that I read them; with Prospero Burns first.

Prospero Burns

Let me first say that those who reside in the camp of "Graham McNeill is the best Black Library author evar!!111!!1!!!" are sorely mistaken.  After reading these two novels back to back, it is painfully clear that Dan Abnett is a far superior author capable of crafting stories with limitless depth and fantastic story arcs.  It helped that the voice talent of Gareth Armstrong captured the thick, norwegian accents of the Valkya Fenrika and linguistic superiority of Casper to a tee.  It is difficult to find fault with such a masterfully crafted story - the plot was rich and filled to the brim with twists and turns (which, in hindsight, would have been better had I read A Thousand Sons first), and the way that Abnett delves into the rich traditions and history of the wolves of Fenris is eye-opening.  Even the Thousand Sons themselves are presented as noble, disciplined sorcerors destroyed only by the holy order of the Emperor of Mankind.

One criticism of the novel that I can bring to bear, however, is the climactic culmination of the story.  Where A Thousand Sons goes into painful detail of the event, this area of Prospero Burns is curiously vacant.  I would have liked to hear of the cataclysmal battle from the eyes of what is essentially a non-combatant, and, more importantly, an observer on the Space Wolves side of the battlefield.

A Thousand Sons

Graham McNeill's contribution to the story, however, was so far estranged from Abnett's that at times it was difficult to remember that they were part of the same story arc at all.  The book seemed thrown together by a writer not wholly invested in his work and only out to fulfill his contractual obligations.  In other words - it was mediocre at best.

I'm sure that part of my review is colored by the less-than-steller voice talents of Martin Ellis.  While I am sure that Ellis' voice is perfectly suited to other stories, his portrayal of the Imperium's foremost sorcerors and accumulators of knowledge was disheartening at best.  Ahzek Ahriman, arguably one of the most feared and downright badass nerds in the 41st Millennium, sounded like a whiny, petulant child while the awe-inspiring paragon of etheric might that is Magnus sounded downright grumpy the whole time.  Not pissed off or filled with righteous anger, just grumpy.

That said, the novel was filled with inconsistencies and repeated adjectives that chipped away at my suspension of disbelief until I felt like I was reading one of the many, hackneyed science-fiction novels lifted serruptitiously from the dusty shelves of the local book store and not the glorified awesome of the god-Emperor distilled into literary form.

Why did the characters keep referring to the "Throne" while the existence of the Emperor's Golden Throne wouldn't be common knowledge for another decade at least?

Why did the Council of Nikaea only last four hours?

Why did the High Librarian of the White Scars (whose name escapes me) refer to Astartes having only one heart?

Why did the Space Wolves refer to themselves as "Space Wolves" when it is clear that they prefer the term "Valkya Fenrika?"

When did Othere Wyrdmake become such an asshole!?

Characterizations of individuals and groups remained largely inconsistent between the two books - the aforementioned transformation of Othere Wyrdmake from a noble psyker to a vindictive douchebag, Leman Russ inexplicably turning from a brother-Primarch to a roaring brawler and the Space Wolves themselves described as an apparent sea of uncontrolled anger, rather than the trained killers that Prospero Burns describes them as.  It was obvious that the two authors had very little communication when writing their books, and proofreading didn't do enough to catch the myriad errors with the background.  While minor, they served to annoy me.

Another problem I had with the novel dealt with the characterization of its main character.  Ahzek Ahriman, as I said before, is a galactic badass.  He is approximately the third most powerful psyker in the Imperium (being the cheif Librarian of Magnus himself!)  Why then, is he constantly surprised by everything and seems to get mentally corrupted ridiculously easily?

While these problems with the book did persist throughout its length, the culmination of the story (the actual burning of Prospero) rectified most of my problems with it.  The scene was suitably dramatic and intense, and the fight between Magnus and Russ was nothing short of awe-inspiring.  The climax, it seems, was the books deliverance from the depths of mediocrity.

Despite its excellent ending that far outshone that of Prospero Burns, A Thousand Sons fails to hold up the slightest of candles to Abnett's masterpeice.  Consistent inconsistencies, bad characterization, poor descriptions and a plotline not nearly as in-depth or fulfilling as that of Prospero Burns really makes A Thousand Sons look like a shoddy, makeshift presentation of the epic story of the Thousand Son's excommunication.

Okay, the moment that you've all been waiting for is finally here!

I will now be taking new projects!

Obviously there are some caveats to this announcement.  The following restrictions on new projects are going to be in place indefinitely, mainly because I don't exactly have a lot of space in my dorm room at the moment:

1. I will only be taking a maximum of two projects at any one time.  One will be actively worked on and the other will be waiting.  When one is completed and shipped out I will take another one.  You guys can queue up projects, but I won't accept more than two at any one time.
2. No more than 30 "mid-level Infantry" (i.e. Level 2-3) at any one time.  Larger models and higher levels will further restrict the available size of projects, and likewise lower levels will allow more space.  Obviously I'm going to be pretty lenient on this restriction, so don't hesitate to talk to me!
3. A lot of materials and bitz that I used for conversions I don't have at the moment, so bear with me on conversions, magnetization etc.  I don't have a stock of bitz or magnets on hand as I did in my old studio, so it will take longer for them to be completed.
4. While it should be obvious; I'm paying a lot of moniez for classes and while I love painting your guys toy soldiers, the amount you're paying me doesn't make them more important.  My classes are my priority and this business is just a side project, so please be understanding if I have other things to work on.

So that's state of things at the moment.  I won't be adhering to a lot of these restrictions to stalwartly, so again; don't hesitate to contact me and we'll discuss things.

With all of these changes I am going to be implementing some changes to the website over the next couple of days; I'm going to install a chart at the top of the homepage that will detail ongoing projects and queued projects so you can see where you are in the running.  I will also pretend to update the chart fairly often.

You'll find a new link to my Photobucket account, where personal projects are detailed and you can find photos of my personal armies.

I'd like to set up some sort of "WIP" gallery - perhaps another Photobucket album or similar hosting site.  Stay tuned for that.

As detailed in my previous post, you can now contact me via Skype at the username trevythegreat.

I'm also trying to use my Facebook page more regularly, so if you want quick updates please follow me there if you're not already.

Again, please e-mail me with any questions that you may have or new projects that you want completed.  Ironically, weekends are the busiest time of the week for me, but I will try to get back to you as soon as possible!

The word yikes and Skype go together so well.  Is than an ill omen?

I've decided, on the recommendation of one of my faithful clients, to start communicating with clients via Skype.  I will still accept all other forms of communication (e-mail, YouTube/eBay message, Facebook posts, carrier pidgeons etc.), but this is just another option.

I will still require that quote and project requests be sent via e-mail.  It's a lot simpler to send files securely via e-mail and it is also easier to keep a record of discussions with e-mail messages.  Skype can be an easy way of keeping up-to-date on projects and making suggestions on them.

My Skype username is, ostensibly: trevythegreat

Feel free to message me any time I'm online (or if I'm not online I'll get back to you)!

Whenever someone asks me; "where exactly do you live?", my default response is quickly becoming - "about an hour away from anything exciting."

I am quickly finding that I need to drive about one hour to reach any given exciting thing.  Like the campground by the lake that I visited over the weekend.  Or the local hobby store bursting with Warmachine and Malifaux players.  Or the hobby store that I just visited where I played the first game of Warhammer Fantasy that I've played in over a month.  Man, I forgot so many things during that game...

I took pictures, and the game turned out to be decently exciting, so expect a batrep sometime soon.  I also have a batrep of a game of 40k that I played a few weeks ago to get up, so stay tuned for that as well.

I've been thinking about taking up Malifaux recently.  It seems like a decently strategic game to play (along the lines of Warmachine) and relatively easy to get started with.  My Cygnar force is almost painted (although I already have a list of things that I need to buy for the damn thing), and when its done I might want a new project to work on.

Someone needs to give me a run-down of the game so that I can make up my mind...

Sorry I haven't been getting news in regards to taking new projects out to you guys; every time I think about when I should take them again, some new crisis comes up.  My car almost decided to commit hari-kiri last week.  This week its a test.  Blarg.

I think that I will have to make up my mind sooner or later.  I promise, next week I will have some solid, definitive information for you all!

Sorry for this little mind-dump.  I'm very tired right now and I think that it all might be relatively relevant information.

A am again very sorry for not posting more often on this blog - classes aren't giving me a lot of time to write blog posts and, to be perfectly honest, there hasn't been too much going on worthy of note.

I did, however, recently play a game of Warhammer 40,000 at the first meeting of the campus gaming society's tabletop gaming branch.  Apparently the local gaming club is a many limbed organism encompassing anime, RPGs, video games, TCGs etc...

Like an octopus.

But, in any case, I do now have a battle report to show you!

Unfortunately I won't be able to play as many games as I have been, but I'll try to give you guys as many reports as possible!