Summer begins.....

I harken back to the theme song to the movie Meatballs, "Are you ready for the summer? Are you ready for the good times?".......

First we have Games Workshop. They are said to be on some sort of information lockdown. Rumor has it that nobody at the retail or customer level will receive any word on upcoming releases until a week before product hits shelves. Black Boxes are said to still be shipping, but will only be opened the day or, or immediately before the minis are publicly available. No big deal since no stores around me get them anyway. The most advanced lead time or hints as to upcoming products will be the last page teaser in White Dwarf. This is sad since I dropped that magazine, and won't be getting it again. After years of reading it I stopped since it slowly turned to drek. Probably stopped my subscription two years ago and that was two years too late. I miss the White Dwarf of the late 90's early 2000. You know the magazine that featured a fantasy and 40K battle report each issue. A magazine where the newest army didn't win every battle report. The magazine that had coverage from events aside from Games Day. I digress.
No more "coming soon" emails to customers. I'll miss this the most. Subscribing to the G.W. newsletter gets you the new model sneak peeks a day or so before their website. I really liked that as I then don't have to go to the major 40K/Fantasy web sites to see them.

The boy is also here for the summer, so there is also bit of video gaming going on when I'm not doing adult homeowner work and stuff. Hopefully I can get him to get some 40K games in this summer. I started him on it last year, and he liked.




So if these are the big changes to G.W. marketing I'm sort of ok with them. I hate rumors. I hate the tales of, "well a G.W. store employee said this about that." I really doubt that a lowly G.W. store worker has real insight on what G.W. is doing next. Do people actually believe them? Try asking any low level functionary at a retail chain what the home office is cooking up next. They'll have no real idea. If it stops the pointless rumors and hearsay I'm glad they are doing this.

Hey where are all these 40K planes/flyers people were so sure would be here? Did the G.W. media lock-out start sooner than expected? For a summer of flyers it looks pretty dismal. Sure the Dark Eladr, Blood Angels, and Grey Knights have theirs, but that really doesn't scream Murderous Skies. Maybe this is a late summer release, or not happening. I like the second option as they are dropping Fantasy Apocolypse or something either this month or next. I guess I really do need White Dwarf to know, wait no I don't.

There is also the Finecast non-resin resin instead of metal. I'm ok with that too. I don't have a need for any metal or what were once metal models. They look descent and if one day I really need some model that is Finecast and not metal I'll buy it. I hate the metal models. I really do. The filing, pining, bent weapons that can never truly be straightened, the cutting of a random chunk of residual metal and the poor fits on joints; will not be missed by me.

Now away from that it is also E3 week. The yearly gaming expo that I love to follow. Well until this year. It seems the video game industry, like Hollywood, is out of ideas. I watch as I see the cool new release titles appear and it is Mass Effect 3, another Bioshock, Battlefield #, Uncharted #, Gears #, Sly Cooper #, Elder Scrolls # and # and on and on. There are other non sequel games out there right? I guess I was hoping for more new and original. That and I dislike motion control stuff. I'm old school, give me a real controller instead of me flailing my arms. I wish the Wii had been as popular as the Virtual Boy or Powerglove. Then everyone else wouldn't be trying to beat it.
At least they have more footage of Space Marine, and here is hoping it isn't a pile of poo.

I have also had a huge decline in army painting. Now with the outside world to tend to (yard, garden, Mander's flower beds) I have been doing less hobby fun stuff.

Movie season is upon us and so far I'm ignoring it. I honestly only want to see the end of Harry Potter. Everything else this summer looks fairly.....MEH?! I'll probably see Captain America, but I have no real hope for it (Hugo Weaving as a Nazi? BOO!). I have to take Mander's to see Green Lantern as her boy crush, Ryan Reynolds, is in it. He seems to me like more Kyle Rayner and less Hal Jordan.

This is just week one of the summer. What is in store for the rest?