Author

SCG

Finnish resident, British born. Writing again for pleasure and sanity.

A blurred photograph of books on a shelf.

Oh. Hi, friend! I didn’t see you waiting there. It’s been quiet around these parts for some time. In keeping with what passes for tradition on this blog, we’re acknowledging that with an awkward and self-aware intro. It doesn’t at all connect to the post’s subject matter, but that’s also a tradition here. We call it “rolling with the first draft”.

In seriousness, it’s been a long while since I wrote anything for the public – assuming anyone other than myself and bots ever consumes these words – and that’s been on my mind lately. I’m on holiday so chose to write the simplest of simple posts: a personal listicle.

Here’s what I’ve been reading in the past week…

July 21, 2025 0 comments 6 views

Orktober 2024: something really stupid pt. 1

by SCG October 20, 2024

written by SCG

Retro 90s Squighog Boy Painting Diary

I feel like one post in five on this website involves me acknowledging that I’ve not been writing much, but I guess a gap of around 10 months does warrant some response. And, well, my working life saw me shift into a new role around this time last year, and it’s been really tough, and I’ve had very little energy to put into writing, hobbying or even my social life. Things are, at last, getting a little better. And I’ve been keeping a personal journal which I’ve gotten surprisingly regular at updating, which is nice. So it’s not all bad.

Anyway! It’s October, and that means it’s ORKTOBER! Last year I entered a Midwinter Minis painting competition on the community Discord, and my retro 90s Snakebite Squighog Boy (plus period-appropriate cactus) caught enough attention to snag me a runner-up prize. With that in mind, how could I resist entering again this year?

This time around the challenge was to convert any ork model, to at least some degree, and paint it. Nice and simple, very open. I’ve not really done much converting before – in the 1990s as a child I cut the arm off a Van Saar gang leader and glued on an Eldar power fist, and I once glued a cocktail stick to a 2nd edition plastic Goff’s back for a banner – so this was a bit of a challenge. But in for a penny, in for a pound, right?

October 20, 2024 0 comments 539 views

Photograph of the sun setting over a Finnish lake. Photo taken by Markus Watkins.

2023 in review

by SCG December 29, 2023

written by SCG

2023 is dying, and 2024 struggles to be born. It continues to be a time of monsters.

Er, apologies to paraphrase Gramsci and then to roll straight into a 2023 round-up post. If it’s any consolation, these things are hard to think up openings for.

December 29, 2023 0 comments 1.3K views

Retro 90s Squighog Boy Painting Diary

by SCG October 31, 2023

written by SCG

During October the YouTube channel Midwinter Minis ran a painting competition. Dubbed #Sporktober (a portmanteau fusing Spook, Ork and October) it offered prizes for painting Undead or Ork models in a vibrant and colourful 1990s style. I hadn’t painted in that style since the 90s (when my painting was, quite literally, childish) and I had never entered a painting competition, so I decided this was a perfect opportunity to amend both!

The greatest obstacle for me was that I had two work trips during October, which effectively took me out of the country for two working weeks, reducing the time I had available for anything else. I also misjudged exactly when these trips occurred relative to the submission deadline, because I am very smart. The end result of this was that although early in the month I’d developed a clear plan for what I wanted to paint and assembled my chosen model, when it came to the actual basing and painting I had exactly three days to get everything done. Well… why not make a challenge more challenging, eh!

The basic idea was to follow the 90s colour scheme for the Snakebite ork clan, particularly the old Boarboyz. I also knew that I wanted to break out some of my very old 1990s Citadel paints, at least for some base coats. And finally, I wanted to include a simple base decoration that in some way recalled the period – eventually arriving on the idea of making a miniature spiky cactus, something familiar to anyone who read White Dwarf in that decade.

October 31, 2023 0 comments 1.4K views

September 2023 boardgame roundup

by SCG October 6, 2023

written by SCG

September was a busy month for both my partner and myself, and we didn’t play too many board games. I sense this will change in the near future, as several Kickstarters I backed look to be delivering before the end of the year, and as the Finnish climate turns colder we’ll be spending more social time indoors! That said, I’m away quite a bit in October, and am planning to participate in a miniature painting competition, so it might be November before we play much more.

All that aside there were two notable pools into which we dipped our toes; two large games that felt beyond the scale of most games we’ve previously played. The first of these was Twilight Imperium. Together with four other friends, including several from our Dark Heresy TTRPG group (something Claire and I have been doing for a few months now, and about which I might write something someday), we played what turned out to be a test game.

October 6, 2023 0 comments 1.2K views

Starfield

by SCG October 5, 2023

written by SCG

This is not really a post about Starfield. This is a post about my feelings about Starfield, as squeezed through the cheesecloth that is almost two decades of playing the same game, and often writing or talking about it.

It’s weird looking back over this stuff. Eleven years of posts and podcasts documenting how I grew tired of Elder Scrolls gameplay, and how I came back to it again and again, each time I found the experience more grating, and sooner.

These past experiences made clear to me that I was unlikely to get much out of Starfield. Given that, I didn’t plan to play it. But Microsoft own Bethesda these days, and that means Starfield is a day one Game Pass release. So I had to check whether my expectations would be met, you see.

As for your expectations: don’t read this if Starfield is your new favourite game and you just can’t bear to hear that someone on the internet didn’t like it. Really, don’t bother. Neither of us will get much out of how that would play out.

October 5, 2023 3 comments 2.5K views

Thronefall

by SCG September 24, 2023

written by SCG

Thronefall’s been picking up considerable attention and positive responses since it launched into Steam early access at the start of August. This is deserved success, and I’m interested in where the game goes from here – though I have some reservations.

First off, let’s put the game in context. If you imagine a game that takes liberally from the Kingdom series and the tower defence genre, and garnishes with survival RTS like They Are Billions or Age of Darkness, you’ll be in more or less the right place for Thronefall. You directly control a hero character ala. Kingdom and invest your precious coins into constructing and upgrading buildings. Each night you come under attack from progressively more dangerous and numerous enemies. Some folks just want to watch the whole world burn, you know?

September 24, 2023 0 comments 1.1K views

Pikmin 4

by SCG September 9, 2023

written by SCG

It’s been delightful to read that Pikmin 4 has met with modest financial success, especially when compared to its predecessors. The Pikmin games are a delight that I’ve loved since my girlfriend introduced me to them. We played through Pikmin 3 together both on Wii U and when re-released for the Switch, and we revisited the first two games back in the Wii U era as well. They’ve never previously seen even a fraction of the success of Nintendo’s flagship games, and that’s doubtless why Pikmin games are so few and far between compared to the abundance of Mario and Zelda titles.

Although, if you’re inclined towards feeling like a special flower, this could be a sad moment, as it’s a rare thing indeed to be able to celebrate a previously little-known Nintendo series.

Pikmin 4 clearly set out to be more approachable than the previous games, which have a fairly aggressive difficulty curve in terms of gameplay as well as an overarching progression system that put pressure on you to make the best use of every precious minute. The game starts out slow with a gentle and extended tutorial which, frankly, I don’t look forward to on any future playthrough. It does do a good job of introducing you to the game’s concepts and mechanics, including the most notable addition to the series’ cast: ‘space rescue pup’ Oatchi.

September 9, 2023 0 comments 731 views

Photograph of all three Patchwork boards used in a two-player game. The game is heading towards a close!

August 2023 boardgame roundup

by SCG September 2, 2023

written by SCG

These days my partner and I play more boardgames than ever, despite our regular gaming group being something we left behind when we moved away from Brighton. (Don’t feel too sorry for us: we still have friends with whom we can play, we just lack the regularity of that old group.) We play more two-player games than we did in the past; fortunately there are no shortage of these.

Here are some first impressions of what we’ve played this month: Cosmic Encounters Duel, Portobello Market, Patchwork, and Curious Cargo.

September 2, 2023 0 comments 859 views

Gladius: playing as Tyranids

by SCG August 3, 2023

written by SCG

A quick administrative note: in the interest of stretching my writing muscles a little more frequently, and publishing a little more frequently to this sadly neglected blog, I’m going to try writing small pieces about stuff I’m doing or am interested in. This might mean some posts seem a bit weird or undercooked… more so than usual, anyway.

I’ve again been playing Slitherine Software’s second most recent 40k offering, the not-quite-a-Civ-game and definitely-a-mouthful Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War. If you don’t know, the potted description is that it’s a hex-based strategy game that looks a little like Civilization or Warlock or Fallen Enchantress or any number of other civ games, but in practice it’s a great representation of the grimdark setting of 40k, because you will never stop fighting. Want to hang back and fix your economy? Good luck, pal.

The game is brutally tough on higher difficulties but, happily, it works well as a multiplayer title. I’ve been playing multiplayer games with some friends and friends-of-friends against AI teams and sometimes things go well, but other times one of us is stomped into dust before anyone else can help them. It’s luck of the draw where you will start out; if you’re close enough to support an ally, that’s good. If there are other players between you, that’s not so good.

Still, you can only blame random deployment so far: knowing what you’re doing with your faction is also very important. Our most recent starting games left me feeling like there was a lot I had to learn about playing as everyone’s favourite voracious bug swarm, the Tyranids. I’ve started a practice game to experiment with some stuff, and figure out possible build orders for the faction. Here’s what I’ve got so far…

August 3, 2023 0 comments 4.1K views

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