Wipsters, Oldhammer and KnaveCon 7

Piers Brand's superb greenskins

The internet is a funny old place. A lot of the internet is like a sneaky bowl of chocolate cereal. Briefly tasty, but then the guilt. The sugary guilt. Still more of it is like walking down an alley in Bangkok at 2am singing 'What shall I do with all this money' at the top of your lungs.

Now and again though it does yield gold.

The gold in this case is the way our hobby has connected the thousands of small metal and plastic man enthusiasts together. We all know how good the interwebs is for gaming, so I'll skip right on past that. What I mean is the friendships that can result from such shared obsessions over the net. The kind where a grown man you've never met before gives you a ten second bearhug, and you're totally reciprocating.

A deathworld never looked so beautiful.

That's what brought about the meet-up at KnaveCon 7.

There's already been some fine, fine reporting on the games of the day. You can catch the Rogue Trader report here, at Scale Creep, where some of the mightiest examples of the gaming elite hold court. Indeed, these, among some excellent others, are the very fellows that made the trip to Ireland to throw some dice and revel in the sumptuous miniatures there on the day. (Bar Captain Crooks, with his whole 'I live in Australia' excuse.)

The Frostgrave portion of the day was reported on here by Cheetor over at Sho3box and here by Asslessman at Leadplague.

The height of Rogue Trader fashion saunters through the jungle.

So my take on the day will be more about the participants than the gaming, as enjoyable as that was. Over the last couple of years the Wipster group has coalesced out of the Oldhammer scene. What started out as trades and comments on forums and posts turned into a gaggle of miniature nuts who constantly rant and ramble at each other about what excites them on any particular day in the hobby. From that Scale Creep was recently born, a pubic outlet for our mutual affliction. Online therapy.

Yes. That's a giant floating ballbag there at the back.

One of the most enjoyable things, hobby-wise has been the group projects. We've had several, and seeing everyone's work moving along has the positive effect of giving painting mojo a serious boost. Added to that the large amount of great work that comes out of the group keeps everyone pretty enthusiastic and churning out even more good stuff. See what I mean about gold in them thar internets?

Sneaking. It's what they do.

After a while, when you're speaking to folks on a daily basis you can't help but get to know them despite your best efforts. That eventually resulted in almost all of the Wipsters/Creeps showed up at KnaveCon 7. Getting nearly everyone together was tremendous in itself , and as expected, the games themselves were casual, friendly and full of laughs. It's always slightly weird meeting someone you know reasonably well for the first time, but a couple of the aforementioned bearhugs sorted that out.

More gorgeous Frostgrave minis.

The day went off super well, bar poor JB who was afflicted with something akin to the black death. The amount of fantastic terrain and models was such that I didn't get around to seeing all I wanted to see, but there's always next time. Again, it's one thing looking at a model on the web, quite another holding it in your hand and being able to turn it about for a good look.

Brewhouse Bash at full tilt.

So there you go. The internet. Not all weirdos and creepy bearded men. Sometimes it's weirdos and creepy bearded men with great paint skills who like to roll dice and have a laugh.