by Peter Atkinson
Shall we get straight into it? Ads are gone – we’ve binned ‘em off. Happy Friday, motherfuckers. The whole point when we started doing this was to put out the kind of content that we would want to read, and I don’t want to read articles slathered in ugly crap. I’m biased AF but I’m massively enjoying reading the articles that the whole team has put out, and I think they deserve to be showcased in the best way possible. You wouldn’t slap the Golden Arches on the side of the Sydney Opera House, would you?
So I hope you all enjoy reading the site in a much cleaner experience going forward. Now that’s the headline, but we’ve got loads more to talk about today, so stick with me.
Next up – we’ve got a couple of new writers to welcome to the team:
Nico is an absolute stalwart of competitive AOS. I’ve been a fan of Nico’s writing since his “Mostly Grots” write-ups on TGA way back in the day, and he’s perhaps best known for penning an excellent and high-profile dual piece on the Activation Wars over on the AOS Shorts site. Nico is an AOS rules expert with a professional background in law, highly active in rules discussions in both public and private forums and about as unbiased as you can get, because he plays basically every army.
Nico will be writing recurring rules articles for the site, covering a spread of topics, but one motif will be an ongoing series of FAQ Watch articles for new books. This will cover the questions that will need to be cleared up whenever a Battletome lands, offering guidance for players and TOs on any interim calls and rulings they may need to make.
I think this will be a great resource for the community and we’re rapt to have him on board.
Eric Hoerger is a competitive player who made a heavy impact on the UK competitive scene in his time there, and is now moving back to his native USA. Eric recently penned a reflective piece for the site about understanding your own gaming journey and we’ll be twisting his arm for plenty more to come.
Content we’re focusing on
We’re not in the business of taking free Battletomes from GW and regurgitating them on the screen, because I don’t see any real value from that in a world where Wahapedia exists. What we really want to do is add a bit of value, and there’s a few ways we can do that best in the written word:
- The series on Battle Tactics that we’re running right now. We have a bit of fun in there but there’s also a really good resource building up. I’ve personally got a lot of value from reading the ones for factions I don’t play – I’ve found it to be a really good primer for playing against them in future.
- Technical review of key combos, like Calvin’s article on Cities of Sigmar. Really going into detail on how an important combo works is something that we haven’t seen a lot of out there, and the written word is the perfect format to really crunch this stuff out. Definitely a format we want to do more of.
Plus our regular Power Picks list review format (nobody wants to sit and slog through 60 lists, so we only bring you the gold), monthly Listbuilding Challenges, competitive list write-ups, tourney reports and everything else you’ve been enjoying on the site.
Merchandise
You strut out of the ocean in your Plastic Craic swimming shorts, and all the chicks try not to stare as you roll up your Plastic Craic towel and slip into your Plastic Craic slides. You pull the Plastic Craic t-shirt over your rippling muscles and stroll to your beachfront home, where you pour yourself an ice cold beer, the condensation forming on your Plastic Craic beer glass.
Your wife enters the room, a playful smile caressing her lips as she sips a warm drink from her Plastic Craic mug. “I’ve missed you, darling” she whispers as her Plastic Craic robe slides to the white tiled floor, followed by your Plastic Craic jocks.
Looks like you rolled box cars in life yet again, on your Plastic Craic dice.
Oh yeah, we’ve got dice!
How are they rolling? Well the first three dice rolled in anger were Gore Gruntas trying to make save rolls against rend -2 Longstrikes, looking for 5s to make their save:
Not bad. I still lost three pigs to various mortal wounds, and the next three dice rolled were trying to Rally them back at the start of the following hero phase:
Yeah. Not bad.
How do you respond to media reports that you went on to lose every priority roll in that game with these same dice?
The mainstream media can present those facts, and we will present our alternative facts.
They are legitimately nice dice though, and after a couple of games I’d say they roll pretty true overall, but they look bloody amazing. The textured gold looks sexy AF and the logo has come up nice and crisp. Seanzor designed a bespoke version of the logo that would come up cleanly on the dice, and I reckon he’s smashed it.
About half of these dice are already allocated to our Patrons and the writing team, but anyone who wants to support the site is welcome to grab themselves a bunch, and they’re on sale now.
They’re my main dice in my own games right now, and I wouldn’t say that if I wasn’t using them.
The beer tastes sweeter with Peter
Paint this man green and give him the Megaboss keyword!
Our merch store is up and running, and Patrons at Megaboss tier and above get 15% off (including the Plastic Craic dice). Patrons: DM me if you don’t know your discount code. I didn’t want to give this a push until I’d bought a couple of items myself and received them safe and sound (everything but the dice is drop-shipped to order), but now that the beer glass arrived in one piece I’m happy to mention and recommend the merch store to everyone. Seanzor will be revamping the designs at least annually, so if you’re making use of that Megaboss discount it won’t mean picking up 6 copies of the same t-shirt over time.
The beer glass took a few weeks to arrive here in sunny Australia but the main thing is that it arrived well-packaged and intact. I should also point out that it seems to be an American pint, which is around 473ml, and not the 568ml of a British pint. Just wanted to put that out there because I know the Poms get anxious that smaller beers won’t have enough opportunity to warm up for them, just the way they like it.
I christened the glass last night and I love it already. We’re heading into spring here in the Southern hemisphere so it’s fucking sun’s out, guns out: time to take the lid off something cold and fizzy, and start working on that beer gut. Hell yeah.
Store Partnership
BAM! The hits keep on coming. We’ve partnered up with Gap Games in Queensland to set up an affiliate programme for Aussie readers:
https://www.gapgames.com.au/plasticcraic
Gap Games works for us for a few reasons:
- They offer a market-leading 21% discount off retail on GW products. So they’re offering really sharp prices – we’re not trying to steer you towards some dickhead scalpers here.
- They offer an additional 5% off larger orders (AUD $600+), so they’re unbeatable for whole-army purchases.
- They carry an excellent range of hobby supplies: Greenstuff World, Gale Force 9 and a whole bunch of other new and specialist paints and hobby gear.
The plan is to put any credit we build up through this link into prizes for the Listbuilding Challenge and other competitions, so click the link above for your hobby purchases and you’ll be helping out with that for sure.
Patreon value proposition
So that’s what we’re trying to do here: flog you a load of branded tat create an AOS website to be proud of with regular, high-quality content that we enjoy reading ourselves, ad-free and supported by Patreon and merchandise sales.
We’re massively grateful for the support of our Patrons, which allows this to happen, and what we aim to offer in return is:
- Hobby Contests open to all Patrons, with prize support
- Voting for content, including topics for the Listbuilding Challenge
- Exclusive articles on the Patreon site, including regular, short-form “key learnings” batreps
- At Megaboss tier and above:
- 15% discount on all Merch
- 20 Plastic Craic dice sent to you annually
- Request an article once per year
- Annual Merch drop for Maw Krusha tier
- Discord access at all tiers: No Dickheads Policy. We’ve chosen to keep our Discord (The Craic House) tight, with access open only to Patrons and writers. This means that when you post a list or ask a question in The Dojo, you will get meaningful feedback and answers. Not some Troggoth running their mouth, or radio silence
- List clinic. We’ve got a fuck-ton of event wins, 4-1s and podiums between us, plus a few Best Opponent and hobby awards too. The team plays a whole bunch of different armies, so in addition to discussions in The Dojo, our DMs are open to Patrons for list and tactical advice
We’ve already had one Hobby competition for our Patrons and we’ve got loads more ideas in that space too – the next one will probably be a conversion challenge, inspired by Clarkzium’s marvelous creation which deservedly took flight last week on Twitter. So watch this space.
Honestly, the site is absolutely flying and we’re pumped for the next step in the journey.
So if you want to join us, we’d love to have you on board.
If you’d like to help us continue with our work, we’d love to have your support. We’re the Age of Sigmar specialists, publishing regular AOS articles, including Patron-only posts on that platform. Please click here to join us on Patreon.
Plastic Craic 