Games Workshop Japan- Jinbōchō, Tokyo

Earlier this week I visited my new local GW store. It's one of several around Tokyo, and I believe it's the biggest.
Finding the place was a little daunting the first time. Tokyo can be a bit difficult to navigate at times (They have no street signs, I can't read Japanese yet and don't have access to anything like google maps on the move anymore), so I thought I'd write up a simple guide to getting to the store for any western gamers who are visiting Japan and want to roll some dice.

GW Jinbōchō

Firstly, you want to get yourself to the Jinboucho station. There are a few ways to do this, the easiest being from Shibuya station. It's worth noting that the Jinboucho stop isn't actually on the JR line. While you can still use your rail card to get there, this means the platform isn't grouped with all the other JR line platforms, so that's something to watch out for. The line you want is called the Hanzomon line, and is colour coded purple. If you're in Shibuya near the Hachiko exit you should be able to spot the signs for it. It's a few stops away and cost me about ¥150. I believe you can also get to Jinboucho from Shinjuku, but I came at it from Shibuya.

Who says the Japanese subway is complicated?

Anyway, somehow you make it to Jinboucho. You want to take exit A5. There will be a map somewhere on the platform showing you which way to go to get out of exit A5. Once you're out on the street, there should be large crossing directly to your right, and a family mart over the road from you.

The crossing

The family Mart

Cross the road towards the family mart, turn left, and GW should be a few paces in front of you. In fact you should be able to spot it from the subway exit.

The map showing the exit you should come out on. Note all the other exits on the map, so if you come out a different one you should be able to find your way there. The store is basically under the S 06 green circle on the map.

I'll leave you with a couple of shots of the inside of the store. If you're not planning on visiting Tokyo any time soon this is probably a bit of a useless post, but don't worry! I'll update part two of my trip soon, which will be all the figures from the store. Lots to look at!

Look what I found...

I know a lot of you out there have custom dice. I'm no exception.
I mean, what's cooler than a D6 with your army's logo on it?
Today in Shinjuku's Yellow Submarine store, I found the answer.

Yeah, that's right. Dinosaur Dice!


Also Lobster Dice, because lobsters are cool too

Plastic Haemonculi

Quick one today, just showing my Haemonculi. The spare torsos are fairly easy to source (Raver jetbikes come with a spare front and wyches come with a spare back). They were glued to some sprue for the legs, and then the robes were simple quick and dirty Greenstuff.

Dark Eldar weapons: Getting the most Blaster for your buck

I'm not the foremost expert on Dark Eldar tactics, but it's a pretty basic fact that the more blasters in your force, the better. However, there is only one in each box of warriors.
Here's how to make more with a little creative thinking.


The first of my Trueborn is armed with a basic blaster. The keen eyed amongst you may observe his lack of head. Do not worry, the head will be attached before he takes to the battlefield.


The second blaster is made from a Shredder (who uses those anyway, right?), with the barrel cut off and replaced. The replacement here comes from the reaver jetbike sprue, but you could just as easily use a Blast Pistol.


Lastly we have a stripped down Dark Lance. Simply trim the long barrel off! It looks a little heftier than the usual Blaster, but it's still about the right shape and size to fit in nicely.

Plastic Incubi

Hey guys!
I've been pretty busy lately, as, I'm moving in a few days. Going overseas to Japan! I've set up a second blog which will detail my adventures. Digital Wastrel will stay focussed on hobby type stuff. I mentioned before, but I shall be bringing my Dark Eldar with me. While i'm not sure how much gaming I'll get to do out there, hopefully I'll be more focussed and actually make some progress on painting. More updates than usual? Stay tuned to find out...

Anyway, before packing them away I sat down and finished up all the half finished units that had been cluttering up my desk. First of these was my Incubi. I came up with this prototype ages ago (and not even on my own blog apparently!), but finally gathered the bits to make an entire unit. I ended up going with Hellion weapons. With both ends painted up as power weapons the unit should stand out from my other warriors nicely.



Not sure how I'll be running these guys, but a unit of 6 should be plenty, especially as they'll be hanging with my Archon. Looking forward to getting them all painted! I went with fairly subdued poses which I think works better for the whole cold and brooding menace thing they have going on (plus I didn't have any Wych legs spare). The guy at the top of the post is my Klaivex. His pose took me a while to get looking right (considering it wasn't very complicated), but I quite like the way he turned out. My favourite in the unit though is below.




I've got a couple more blog posts written up, so expect more over the weekend!

New blog design!

A certain Sandwich lover was messing about on photoshop yesterday. Seeing as my plan of "I'll make myself a blog banner eventually" had yet to produce any results, she did a few designs for me. One for each of my armies...well, almost! Much fancier than before. Now I just need to keep the content coming.

1500 Tau and moving away

Note: My own Tau are half painted by my wonderful Girlfriend, half proxied miniatures, and entirely unphotographed. Instead, I shall pepper this post with images of my good friend OtherRob's Tau, from the Cheltenham Warchiefs gaming club.

It's been a while!


I have been pretty busy with an upcoming massive move and life-change (watch this space for more info) which has rendered my usual intermittent hobby output even less...mittent. Lots of games played, but I've not been painting or buying much. The move is possibly short term (a few months) but it may well end up being a full year. It's also overseas. Obviously, this means my tonnes of miniatures won't all be able to come with me. I decided early on that I'd take a single army with me, and I've been working over the choices in my head for a while now (yes, I think about important things like this). I think I've settled on taking my Dark Eldar. They're plastic (thus, light), mostly unpainted (so even if I don't get much gaming done I can channel my hobby energy into painting them), and they also tick the all important "evil pointy eared space elf" box.

I've been cycling through all of my various armies, trying to get some games in with each of them before I depart. This is the first of a possible series where I talk a little about each of my most common lists.



Today, my experiments with the Tau!
Tau were, for me, an early idea for an army to take with me. They're a very different play style to my usual (I normally live for the assault phase), but wrecking faces with Rail Guns is certainly awesome. In the end I decided against taking the army beyond my experiments because I'd still have so much to buy. If the rumours are true about them getting a new book sooner rather than later are true though, I may have to join the greater good permanently!



Here's my 1500 list.

HQ:
Shas'el - Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi Tracker


Elites:
2x Crisis Battlesuits, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi Tracker

2x Crisis Battlesuits, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multi Tracker

2x Crisis Battlesuits, Twin Linked Missile Pod, Target Lock (didn't have enough points to make them all Fireknife load out)

Troops:

6x Fire Warriors (these guys steal the pathfinder's fish)

6x Fire Warriors, Devilfish with Disruption Pod

10 Kroot

10 Kroot

Fast:
8 Pathfinders, Devilfish with Disruption Pod

Heavy:

Hammerhead with Rail Gun, Smart Missile System, Disruption Pod and Target Lock

Hammerhead with Rail Gun, Smart Missile System, Disruption Pod and Target Lock

2x Broadsides, Advanced Stabilization System, Team Leader with Hard Wired Target Lock, Hard Wired Drone Controller, 2x Shield Drones

1497 points total.



Pretty simple stuff.
So far my Pathfinders have consistently been shot and immediately broken, but I think their markerlights are too useful not to have them in the list.
Kroot are a useful distraction/sacrifice unit, and I love them. Bigger squads would be nice, but I can't afford them.
It might be worth dropping the SMS on the hammerheads and using the points for something else.

Anyway, that's my take on the Tau! Kind of an epic and rambling post.