The Tale of More Warlords - Uncle Sledge Wants YOU!

It's that time of year. The Christmas markets have sprung up all around Germany - this year's in Dortmund is a neat fusion of a seasonal winter market and a few stalls from the local medieval reenactor society. The days are short, the mercury's low and if you're brave enough to be in stores for any stretch of time the calls between small children and their exasperated parents are becoming increasingly shrill.

Unless, of course, you're from the southern hemisphere, in which case your Christmas is a weird assault between predominantly American and British media featuring the fabled White Christmas and bundling in front of the fireplace with a hot chocolate while you're sitting around in shorts and a t-shirt trying not to explode at the thought of moving. It's such an odd cultural disconnect when all the songs and movies reference this frozen wonderland while you're dead certain that that fur-trimmed suit would incinerate jolly ol' Saint Nick the moment he crossed the equator, but I digress...

Christmas and the coming new year represent a period of immense opportunity to us wargamers. There's a symbolism associated with resolutions, new beginnings and the like which we can easily turn to our own ends. There'll no doubt be plastic and metal by the truckload delivered to homes around the world to be surreptitiously wrapped and hidden from the prying eyes of hobbyists both young and determinedly young at heart, and come Christmas we'll be up to our mistletoe in excited newcomers to our hobby, which is awesome. New blood, new ideas and new enthusiasm makes for a great shot in the arm - or a kick in the arse if that's more your speed - and can provide the impetus we need to get into our glue and paints and get to work on our own projects.

Many years ago - before I was even involved in the hobby, I think! - there ran in White Dwarf magazine 'A Tale of Four Gamers,' which has since become a staple and will reappear every couple of years. The premise is pretty simple: four hobbyists choose an army and assemble their miniatures, setting themselves deadlines and getting their new toys painted in order to end the series with a climactic battle featuring their finished projects. It's a lot more exciting than I'm making it sound! The format changes a little each time, but the idea is easy enough to replicate for hobbyists at home. All you need is a bunch of bare plastic and an idea in your head, and the loose framework of the 'competition' between these four warlords helps maintain momentum and encourages participation - you can't let your opponent get a leg up over you by finishing more units than you can field on the table, after all!

We're lucky in this day and age to have the internet. Instant access to ideas from around the world helps us get our models assembled and finished; the knowledge available from people steeped in their fields can inspire and direct our enthusiasm for something that we might not have known about before. From small groups of friends to local clubs where techniques would be shared we've exploded into an international community with hobbyists all the way around the globe. No matter where you are in the world, if you can get online you can find yourself in a conversation with someone interested in the same things as you, whether it's your favourite Space Marine Chapter or discussing cavalry tactics of the late Bronze Age. I was part of the generation that grew up right at the moment this began to take shape, and seeing the wargaming and miniatures hobby dive into it has been remarkable. If you're anything like me, you get a kick out of seeing what people are doing with their painting and modelling, and enthusiasm is infectious! So, began a few conversations on Twitter, we should definitely take advantage of that as Christmas and 2019 draws nearer. Let's try our hand at running a Tale of Four Gamers of our own, knowing that we won't necessarily be able to all meet up for a game at the end of it!

It was Mr @VincentKnotley that coined 'Tale of More Warlords' for our grand endeavour, and I like how that one rolls off the tongue. There's been a little discussion about how this ought to run, where it should be 'held' online and so forth, as well as talk about what people thought might be reasonable restrictions or requirements for participation. So, after a little thought, here's my thoughts on how we ought to try and tackle this:

• Twitter makes for one of the easiest ways to share and collect links, pictures and conversation. Facebook might prove useful due to its gallery functions, though some folks might prefer the relative anonymity of Twitter by comparison - for now, we'll concentrate on how this will work on Twitter and add to the concept as we go.
• Posts can be made anywhere (Facebook, off-site blogs, Instagram, Twitter, Mastodon) and then linked on Twitter for ease of promotion to one another. #TaleOfMoreWarlords is the hashtag we're planning on using.
• Warlords - because, really, let's have some fun with it - are encouraged to tackle a new project on something they haven't done before. A new army, a new game system, a new historical period; something unfamiliar and interesting to them. However: Warlords are encouraged to use this as an opportunity to do something they would like, so if that means adding 1000pts to an army you already have, there's absolutely nothing wrong in that!
• From December 27th to January 1st is when Warlords make their pledges. "I will paint a Blood Bowl team for #TaleOfMoreWarlords," for example, or "For #TaleOfMoreWarlords I will be painting an entire Soviet infantry company for Flames of War."
• Traditionally, Tale of Four Gamers ran for a few months. In order to keep momentum and avoid burnout, we'll keep this a little shorter. February is a short month, so our #TaleOfMoreWarlords will run from January 1st to the Friday of the last week of February - which actually turns out to be March 1st.
• Each week, Warlords should post WIPs, finished miniatures or squads with as many pictures as they like, and include a short write-up on something they like about the project, or some historical or lore-related tidbit they learned while working on it. "This Chapter of Space Marines was first mentioned in Warhammer 40,000: 2nd Edition..." or "This unit of Sikh infantry could have taken part in these significant battles..." Anything about the project that interests you!
• There's no official requirement for how much of anything should be finished during each week, except for a pledge to be complete by the 1st of March. If you're aiming to paint a whole army by then, you might paint a squad each week. Otherwise, you might paint a single character each week and show progress as you go. Again: There is no binding requirement for how much you need to do each week. This is meant to be encouraging and achievable, not to grind you down!
• On the weekend following the completion of the pledge period (2nd-3rd of March) Warlords are encouraged to get all their finished work together and share as many pictures of it as they can. Show off and be proud of your work!

The idea of setting things to a hashtag means that people can either set it as a bookmarked tab in their favourite browser or however they like to keep track of these things. Ideally, if you see someone struggling or wondering how they'll finish something - or outright asking for advice! - you can chip in with something you might know about the subject, some off-site links to useful information or anything you think might help out. As I mentioned earlier, we're going to see a lot of newcomers to the hobby like we do every Christmas, and it's an awesome opportunity for us grizzled old hands to welcome them into the fold and demonstrate the positive power of the internet to really build and encourage that international community.

Now, for my part, I'm torn between tackling a large part of the growing mountain of grey plastic in my cupboards or hoping that Saint Nicholas knows my new address and will show up with something shiny and new for me to paint over those couple of months. Indeed, the hardest part may be deciding what it is I'm going to pledge...

So! Feel free to jump on this now, share ideas and thoughts and start drumming your fingers on the table while thinking about what you'd like to achieve over #TaleOfMoreWarlords. We're about a month out from when we'll kick things off in earnest, so I'll be tapping on this again as we get a little closer to the date in order that folks who might have wanted to get in on it without realising it was actually happening will get to see it - and jog a few memories along the way!