Occasionally when you follow a podcast or YouTube channel you’ll hear about a mystical Lost Episode, where the recording crashed and it was gone forever. I’ve had a similar outcome with the How To Beat Ogor Mawtribes piece I’ve been working on: a version conflict that left the whole thing as a mangled mess, and I don’t have time to fix it all back up. So there’s not much in the way of an article this week I’m afraid – or likely for the foreseeable future, but we’ll come to that.
The Ogors thing has probably lost a bit of fizz anyway – after that weekend where Ogors blitzed one small event in the USA they’ve regressed to the mean and the whole conversation has calmed down. Life being a bitch, I’ve got a horrible feeling that GW locked in the next round of GH points in the middle of that brief moral panic, so it’ll likely be a vicious kicking for Ogors players while all the filth chasers simply move on to Slaves to Darkness.
It’s not like Ogors are a metacrushing juggenaut like Slaanesh or FEC in their day (BOC already owns them for one), but they’re a Destruction army that’s top-tables competitive and that cannot stand. I’d have liked to bed the army in and get a solid 6 month run out of it until the big July update, but I’m not optimistic that we’ll get that.
If Santa could organise for me to be completely wrong on this subject, I’d appreciate it.
Holiday Reading
If you happen to have White Dwarf issue 51 lying around you’ll see a review in there of a well-received RPG called Superworld, which allowed the players to play as Superheroes. An author you might have heard of called George RR Martin picked it up and DM’d a sprawling two-year session with a bunch of leading fellow sci fi and fantasy writers, which unleashed a burst of creative energy that coalesced into a series of shared-universe novels called Wild Cards, 30 books strong and counting.
A (then) little-known author called Neil Gaiman pitched an entry into the series, but it was rejected – so he went away and developed it into Sandman. Wild Cards blends science fiction, superheroes and steampunk into the biggest pop culture sledgehammer you’ve never heard of (unless you have, in which case bonus Cool Points to you).
So if you’re looking for some reading material over the holidays, that’s my recommendation for you. What makes it timely is that Marvel Comics has just published the first entry in the series as a comic book, and it’s outstanding – the first two issues from the four-issue run are already on Marvel Unlimited. Enjoy.
A Christmas Cracker
Why do bees have sticky hair?
Because they use a honeycomb.
Out of Office
Anyway. I’ll be taking a break over Christmas and into the New Year – I’ve already got some strong submissions for the Herohammer article and I’ll definitely be publishing that, so send in whatever you’re cooking up and I’ll consider it for the Challenge (even if that runs into January).
I do hope to have one cool piece for you in the next week or two, where a special guest who really knows his shit discusses list building dilemmas, so definitely check back for that. But in terms of my own regular output, while it’s possible that I’ll get a burst of time and motivation to smash out an article or two, as it stands I’ll be hanging up my keyboard for a little while now. Anyone who’s followed the blog long term will know that I do take these breaks from time to time, but I always bounce back – I just love the attention writing too much to stay away.
That also means I’m unlikely to get out my full A Year In Plastic annual review, so I’ll quickly hand out the prestigious Podcast of the Year award and be on my way. Miscast gets an Honourable Mention as a welcome platform for blue-chip players to offer their insights, but Podcast of the Year 2022 goes to Sam for his outstanding Unidentified Wargamer series.
Sam’s an exceptional interviewer, really giving his guests space to breath, and the way he cracks out essential episodes week after week just blows me away. Check it out.
Well thanks for reading in 2022 everyone, and I wish you all a peaceful and prosperous 2023. See you there.
Plastic Craic 