Introducing a new Blogger: Dave Fraser

by | Apr 1, 2015

Unlike Steve I'm not important enough to warrant an exclamation mark after my name... (Can be arranged!(!) - Rich)


So Rich is continuing in his quest to take over the world or at least the UK Warhammer blog world. To that end he demanded that I come and join his stable of slave writers to churn out content at his bidding, he’s actually holding my family ransom at present until I provide enough content to tide him over his hobby shutdown period this summer when he gets married and is forced to take time away from painting. I know, the horror!


Dashing, gallant, handsome, witty and charming...

For those that don’t know me I’m Dave Fraser, hello, I’ve been wargaming for about 25 years now having first been brought into WFB (3rd ed) by my older brother and his mates. Roll forward through the typical story of taking a break, finding girls, realising girls aren’t as much fun as toy soldiers and getting back into it and that brings you to about 7 years ago when I decided to give tournament gaming a crack after listening to Heelanhammer and Bad Dice bang on about it.

Dwarfs - First army I took to tourneys (though this is a 7th ed build I had at the ETC)
7 years later and I’m still hooked and enjoy the social side more than competitive gaming, that’s right I’m making excuses for being rubbish already, family means I really value my weekends away doing my own thing so tend to try and go to events which I know a group of mates will be attending.  Of which I know Rich from my days up in Scotland prior to moving to the south west of Englandshire (ooohh arrr), so I tend to travel to tourneys up north more than location would seem sensible as it’s a bit of a trek to catch up with the old contingent otherwise.


The other claim to fame for my WFB was being the captain of the Scottish ETC team one year.  This may sound like a glamorous role with kudos and power, but it’s all a sham really, you’re basically a glorified admin monkey and cat herder that fights to get 8 people to go to what they then will tell you is the most enjoyable tourney they’ve ever been to.  Thankfully my reign was short lived as having kids gave me an excuse to hand off the captaincy to someone else and since then I’ve been basking in the glory of being another washed up has been (never was).
The lengths you go to, to avoid being an ETC captain

One final point to note is that in addition to having a collection of figures which contains models older than most players at tourneys I also am a total hobby magpie and seldom sell anything.  That has resulted in a vast collection of armies and game systems which I play.  At last and rather sketchy count I have 10 painted WFB armies (ranging from 3000-7000pts),  marine company for 40k, an Epic Eldar force, Van Saars & Spryer necromunda gangs, Mercs warmachine faction, Guild and Neverborn crews for Malifaux and I’ve just painted a Relic Knights Doctorine force.  Plus I’ve then got the usual compulsory mountain of unpainted models too.  I think I’ve not been to a tournament for about 2 years where I’ve not taken more than 1 army with me as I’m always happy to lend stuff out to people.
Latest project - Relic Knights ohh non-warhammerz racy!

So what I plan on bringing to this blog is not the out and out painting quality of Rich and Steve, whilst I think I can hold my own when I try, that's not really what I do for warhammer.  We're talking a game where most armies are between 50-100 models and some really large ones can push on 300 figs (basically skaven) but I tend to make up for quality through sheer volume.  I've tracked my painting since 2011 and in the 4 years and 3 months (1,551 days) I've painted 1,648 models (making no distinction on size, so Monster = 1, infantry =1).  So for the average man on the street painting where painting to the level of quality achieved by the others is simply too daunting I'll hopefully provide some inspiration on just getting stuff done.