State of the Warp Address
Hello, faithful readers. I've tried to make my state of the Warp address something of a tradition. Two years ago I forgot to do it and I ended up skipping from one project to the next with no real planning or completion for most of them. Think of this as a chance for you to see what I've got planned for the next year, and a chance for me to make those plans and hold myself (somewhat) accountable. I had a number of plans last year, some of which worked well and others that didn't quite make it. I'd like to mention those a bit, so you can see what I accomplished and what I didn't, then I'll go over what I'd like to achieve this year.

First, the projects to improve this website:

Background and Appearance
I had originally planned for a multifunction display look for Warpstorm, with brushed steel edges around a text screen and function buttons on the bottom or side for navigation. While I didn't quite get there, I did get the brushed steel around the edges and away from the text where it made people's eyes bleed. Although I haven't gotten the original look I was going for, I'm pleased with the look and I probably won't be continuing to improve it. It's simple and it works, I don't plan on messing with it much. Time spent tinkering with the look of the website is time not spent on writing up new articles or painting models. I'm pretty sure that most of you aren't here for the aesthetics of my website, so I'll just keep going with the content. If you don't like the look of it and you have some skills with basic html, feel free to redesign it for me and send me the code. Note, though, I use raw html typed into a text document, nothing fancy.

The Girls of Warpstorm!
I had planned on updating and upgrading my picture gallery, given that I have definitely improved my painting (and I've gotten way better about documenting that with pictures.) Unfortunately, that plan, like some of them, got forgotten over the past year. I will definitely be updating and improving the picture gallery this year. I plan to break it down by army and I'll have a terrain section as well.

Next, the projects to improve my skills

Tactically
Tau have really helped me understand a lot of tactical thinking better, and have somewhat rounded out my general knowledge. I expect that I'll be learning even more this year as I try to come to grips with playing a Water Army. I'll also put together some tactical treatises from different points of view and I may revive some of my tacticas on how to play or how to play against different armies. I'm not committing to anything definite yet, but tactics were the backbone of my reason to launch my own website, so I can guarantee that articles will keep on coming on this subject.

Aesthetically
I have made some huge strides as a painter, though I am usually hobbled a bit by my impatience to actually play the game. I had planned a series of projects to help me improve my skills, with an eye toward a Golden Daemon entry. Those projects have also languished as I built and played my Tau army. While I may eventually come back to these projects, I think that I will leave them up in the air for the moment. I do have a plan to use some of them in my upcoming army, though, so I may not need the individual projects after all. For completeness, the projects are listed below.

The first project in this series was A Study In Black. I've wanted to do this for quite some time, but I haven't quite gotten around to it. The concept is to take some character model and paint it all in black. Just painting it black isn't enough, however. I plan to use Gloss Black and Flat Black and Cockpit Black and other shades of black that I can get my hands on. I want to take a Black model and paint it black. I'll do tone-on-tone designs and even highlight it (with graphite, most likely) Basically, I'd like to have a model that from 3+ feet away looks like it has been primed. Then as you get closer, you notice some highlights. When you pick it up, you realize it's got designs painted on it. Partially this is to satisfy my twisted desires, and partially this is to make me work on fine designs.

The next step in the process is Non-Metal Metallics. For those of you that aren't familiar with it, that's the process of painting something so it looks like metal, but without using a metallic paint. You see this in posters all the time. Next time you see a print ad that has a chrome look to it but isn't just a picture, notice the painted-on lights and shadows and reflections. That's what I want to do. Eventually, I want to do a Tin-boy. I'm planning on taking a plastic character model and painting it so that it looks like it is made of metal. From 3+ feet, I'd like it to look like unpainted pewter. Once you realize that's not a pewter model, you'll be able to see the painted on reflections and things. This will be much more difficult to carry off, but I think it's a worthwhile goal.

I don't have projects planned for the last two yet, but I'd like to work on my blending technique and I'd like to work on Source Lighting, which is where you paint a model so that it looks like there is light coming from it, such as a Blue Powersword casting shadows and blue tints onto the rest of the model. I still haven't made any plans here, but I've seen the source lighting effect used in a number of models, and I've got a better idea about how to pull it off when I do get to it.

Now, on to the armies:

Deathwing
This army has languished for quite some time and it will definitely take a lot of work to get it back in shape again. It will be my focus this year, however, so this time I'll actually do it. :) I won't go into details of my ideas and plans yet, partly because not all of them are finalized yet, and partly because it really deserves an entire update.

Tyranids
I had planned to leave my Tyranids mostly on the shelf last year, and I did it successfully. I still miss the gribbly things, and I'll still get them out and have them eat people from time to time, but if I play with them too much I won't get my Deathwing army done.

Ninja 'Nids!
This army was loosely based off an idea from somebody on Warpshadow as well. The concept is to have a bunch of well-hidden and deep-striking creatures so that the opponent has very little to shoot at. The current plan is to use Leaping Rippers as Troops. They can hide in cover, using their bonus to get better saves, then when needed, they can leap out almost 18" to tie up the enemy front line. Meanwhile, a Flying Hive Tyrant lurks in the background, behind terrain. Finally, 18 Raveners and 3 Lictors deepstrike in, most likely all on one side of the enemy line. The Leaping Rippers and Deepstriking/assaulting into combat Lictors will hide the Raveners for the turn that they deepstrike in. After that, it's a mad rush to kill as many things as possible! I already have the Tyrant and Lictors. I will, however, need the Raveners and I might even need the Rippers, as I haven't seen mine in a while. This is a planned expansion for the long-term that will round out most of my Tyranid collection and really allow me to play just about any configuration of Tyranids. This army never made it to the light of day because of lack of interest and lack of focus. I have recently had a revival of interest in it. I'm not sure I'll get to it this year, but I think I'll eventually put this army together simply for a sense of completeness. (I have pretty much every other kind of Tyranid and can field all the other armies, why not this one?) This army has seen some improvement in the rules for 5th edition, but it will still be on the back burner for now. I've got other armies to work on, and I've got plenty of other Tyranids to play with when the urge strikes.

Dark Eldar
The Dark Eldar have come back to me, so the next time I start hearing about them being a second or third-class army, I might just break them out and show people how it's done. The painting is still crap, though, so I might just have to break down and repaint them. It's not high up on my list of priorities, but they are home now, so it's a lot easier.

Well, I still plan on redoing my Dark Eldar army, but I'm putting them aside for a while longer now in favor of my DeathWing army. I do miss the old Kabal now and then, but if I try to do too much, I'll never get anything done.

Other 40k Armies and Ideas
Well, I had some ideas for Eldar armies (Lan Rillishelwe, the precursor to my Dark Eldar) Space Marine armies (who knows what I was thinking) and Chaos armies (including both the ultra veterans and the Thousand Sons.) None of them were started, though the two Chaos armies did come up in the bid for my small army project before the Tau eventually won out. It's possible that I'll be revisiting these armies in the future, as the basic concept behind them still resonates with me. I expect that I won't be getting to them this year as I concentrate first on the Tau, then on other armies that I already have.

I did, in fact, concentrate on the Tau last year. Variations of the Chaos themes and the Space Marines did show up as alternate considerations for my Water Army, but I chose DeathWing over them. These are unlikely to see the light of day in the next two years, as I have plenty of other projects and they would cost money that I just don't have right now.

Fantasy Armies
While I still have my Fantasy armies, I haven't done much to them in a long time. I will continue to concentrate on 40k this year. I enjoyed playing Fantasy, but I have enough going on without trying to add another army or two and learn a whole new ruleset.

So, what am I actually doing this year?
Okay, so I've mostly gone on about how I'm _not_ going to do a bunch of different things. What am I actually going to _do_? Revamp my DeathWing army. In addition to completely changing my tactics (previously they've been a fire army completely mounted in LandRaiders and looking for an early charge or an Earth army, with lots of footslogging Terminators and long-range missiles) to those of a Water army, I have other plans as well. I need to reassemble quite a bit of the army, and I plan to repaint it a lot as well. My Deathwing army was the second of my armies where I really concentrated on painting, and it was a big step up. My painting has improved quite a lot since then, and I think it's time for another leap. I'm planning on really working more on the individual models this time through. I'm also planning on stretching some of my skills, so you'll probably be seeing some NMM on them, and maybe, just maybe, some source lighting. Not sure about that, yet. With only 17 models, it should be easier for me to concentrate on painting these to a higher standard. My plan is to focus on this one army for the bulk of this year, so I should have time to really do it right.

That's it? One army?
In previous years I've bitten off more than I could chew, and it showed. Either there was a lot that fell through the cracks and didn't get done, or I really did a crappy job at it. This year I am planning on really concentrating on one main project and seeing it through. There are a number of things that led me to this. First off, I have been kind of burnt out on 40k lately. I'm not sure why, I just haven't felt much like doing anything with it. I've been feeling unmotivated, perhaps because my Tau ended up being a lot more work than I bargained for. In addition, I've been playing some other games lately, and it's been easier to pick those up than to try to get in a game of 40k. Finally, the global economy is in the toilet and I don't have a lot of money to spend on this hobby, so I need to really concentrate on using what I've got and making it work. Ultimately, it all points to concentrating on one army right now, so that's what I'll do. That means the Dark Eldar will have to wait, but that's just how it's got to be.

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