Wandering Adventures

HeroClix is one of those games that people either already love or have somehow never tried, and I want to talk to the second group for a minute, because you are missing out on one of the most immediately fun things we stock. The whole idea is that your superheroes come pre-painted and ready to play straight out of the box. No assembly, no priming, no waiting until you have painted an army before you can start. You open it, you put figures on a map, and you play. For a hobby that often asks a lot of setup before the fun starts, that is a breath of fresh air. The clever bit is the dial in the base of each figure. As your character takes damage over the course of a game, you click the dial and their stats change, so a hero can get more desperate and dangerous as they get hurt, or gradually wear down. It captures the feel of a comic book fight better than almost anything else on the table, and it means the game stays tense right to the last click. Now is a genuinely good time to start, because the current run of releases is deep and very welcoming to new players. There is a fresh line built specifically to help newer players level up their game, and updated starter sets that hand you a ready to play team of four right out of the gate, with the current Marvel starter fielding classic X-Men in Wolverine, Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Bishop. On top of that there is a steady stream of sets for the fans, with Venom already out and Thunderbolts on the way, plus the Iconix line doing fun single character showpieces. Whatever corner of comics you love, Marvel or DC or something more offbeat, there is a figure for it.  It is affordable, it needs zero preparation, and it lands with basically anyone who has ever enjoyed a superhero movie, which is to say almost everyone. A starter set under the tree gets played on Christmas afternoon, not shelved for a future painting project. We run HeroClix at the store, so once you have a team there is a place to bring it, and we are always happy to teach a first game. Come by Wandering Adventures in Woodbridge to grab a starter or the latest set, or shop the range online. Clix a dial, throw a punch, see for yourself.We run HeroClix at the store →https://wanderingadventures.ca/products/heroclix-zero-to-hero

How to Paint Your First Blood Bowl Team So you've picked your Blood Bowl team, maybe using our team building guide, and now you've got a box of miniatures staring at you from the desk. Good news: a Blood Bowl team is one of the best painting projects in the entire hobby, and I say that as someone who has been painting miniatures for twenty years. You're looking at somewhere between twelve and sixteen models, they're all on the same side, and unlike a Warhammer army there's no codex telling you what colour they should be. It's a sports team. You get to invent the franchise. Here's how I'd approach it. Pick Your Colours Like a Sports Team, Not an Army This is the mindset shift that makes Blood Bowl painting fun. Don't think "what's the official scheme," think "what does my team's home jersey look like." Two main colours and one accent is the classic formula, the same way real sports teams do it. Bold combinations that would look garish on a 40K army look fantastic on a Blood Bowl pitch: purple and gold, teal and orange, black and red. If you're stuck, look at actual football and hockey teams for inspiration. Pick colours you'll enjoy seeing for sixteen models, because consistency is the whole point of a team. Batch Paint, But in Small Groups Painting sixteen models one at a time will take forever, and painting all sixteen at once will burn you out somewhere around the third pair of boots. My sweet spot is groups of four or five: all the Linemen in one batch, then the Blitzers, then the fancy stuff. You keep the assembly line efficiency without feeling like you're working a shift at a factory. Do every model's skin, then every model's jersey, then every model's leather, and the batch is done before you know it. Contrast Paints Are Your Best Friend Here If ever there was a project made for Citadel Contrast paints, it's a Blood Bowl team. Prime the models white or a light grey, then let Contrast do the heavy lifting on jerseys, skin, and leather in a single coat. I use Contrast and Citadel Shades constantly in my own painting, and on a Blood Bowl team they'll get you to a genuinely good-looking tabletop standard in a weekend. From there, a quick highlight on the raised areas lifts everything. If you prefer traditional acrylics, Vallejo and AK Interactive both give you smooth coverage for jersey colours, and AK's ranges are what I personally reach for most these days. Whatever you use, thin coats and patience beat one thick coat every time. Make Your Positionals Easy to Spot Here's a practical one that new coaches learn the hard way: mid-game, you need to instantly tell your Blitzers from your Linemen across the pitch. Real teams solve this with numbers, and you can too, but there are easier tricks. Paint the helmets or shoulder pads a different colour for each position. Give your Catchers white boots. Paint a stripe on the base rim: one colour for Linemen, another for Blitzers, and so on. Base rim markings are my favourite because they're readable from any angle and take about thirty seconds per model. Your opponents will thank you, and so will future you. Don't Sleep on the Bases Blood Bowl bases are half the character of the team. The classic look is pitch turf, and a simple green flock or grass tuft finish works great. But an astrogranite-style stone pitch, a sandy Nehekhara desert, or a snowy Norse field can tie your whole team to its lore. Keep the recipe simple and repeatable, because whatever you choose, you're doing it sixteen times. Varnish Everything Blood Bowl models get handled more than any other miniatures you'll ever own. They're picked up, knocked over, pushed into cages, and occasionally thrown by a Troll. A coat of matte varnish protects hours of your work, and if you want that classic sports-gear look, hit the leather and armour with a touch of satin afterwards. Get Painting A finished Blood Bowl team is one of the most satisfying things you can put on a table, and the whole project is achievable in a couple of weekends. Wandering Adventures in Woodbridge (Vaughan), Ontario carries everything you need to paint your team, including Citadel Contrast paints and Shades, AK Interactive, Vallejo, Army Painter, brushes, and basing materials, plus Blood Bowl team boxes and the new Third Season Edition boxed set. Visit us in-store or shop online at wanderingadventures.ca with free shipping across Canada on orders over $150.  

The Coolest Ork Characters in Warhammer 40,000 With the new 11th Edition of Warhammer 40K launching with the Armageddon box and the Fourth War for Armageddon kicking off, the Orks are having a moment. The green tide is descending on the ash wastes once again, and there's never been a better time to start an Ork army or dive into the lore of the galaxy's most enthusiastic warmongers. Orks don't fight for ideology or survival. They fight because fighting is the best thing there is, and their greatest characters embody that philosophy in gloriously different ways. Here are the coolest Ork characters in Warhammer 40,000. Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka The big one. The Prophet of Gork and Mork, the Beast of Armageddon, and the closest thing the Orks have ever had to a unifying leader. Ghazghkull started life as a fairly ordinary Goff boy until a bullet to the head and some creative surgery from Mad Dok Grotsnik left him with an adamantium skull and a direct line to the Ork gods. Since then he has launched two full-scale invasions of Armageddon, fought a decades-long grudge match against Commissar Yarrick, been beheaded by Ragnar Blackmane, and been rebuilt by Grotsnik into an even bigger body because being dead is apparently just another obstacle to krump. Now his WAAAGH! has returned to Armageddon to finish what he started, and the entire setting is shaking because of it. No character in 40K has more momentum right now. Wazdakka Gutsmek The Speedboss himself. Wazdakka is the greatest bike-riding Ork who ever lived, a Mekboy-turned-warlord whose life's ambition is to build a warbike big enough to ride across the galaxy, jumping from planet to planet in one endless roaring convoy. That is an absolutely deranged goal and he pursues it with total sincerity, which is what makes him great. In the new edition's lore, Wazdakka leads the vanguard of the invasion of Armageddon, tearing across the ash wastes ahead of Ghazghkull's main force. If you love Speed Freeks, buggies, and the Evil Sunz philosophy that red ones go faster, Wazdakka is your guy. Makari A grot. Just a grot. And yet Makari might be the most beloved character on this list. He is Ghazghkull's personal banner bearer, and he has survived battles that have annihilated entire armies, always emerging without a scratch while clutching the boss's banner. Orks believe he's blessed by Gork and Mork, and honestly, the evidence supports it. There's something perfect about the mightiest warlord in the galaxy being followed around by a tiny, smug, improbably lucky gretchin, and the current model of Makari holding the banner aloft is one of the most characterful sculpts Games Workshop has ever made. Mad Dok Grotsnik Every Ork Painboy is a nightmare, but Grotsnik is the nightmare other Painboys tell stories about. After a Dark Eldar attack scrambled his brain, Grotsnik rebuilt his own head with a reinforced skull plate and lost whatever passed for restraint he had before. He performs surgery nobody asked for, installs bionics into patients who came in for a checkup, and famously wired his own body with explosives so nobody could profit from killing him. He's also the reason Ghazghkull exists in his current form, twice. Grotsnik is equal parts hilarious and horrifying, which is the Ork faction in a nutshell. Kaptin Badrukk The most notorious Freebooter in the galaxy and the richest Ork alive. Badrukk leads da Blacktoof Flash Gits, a mob of mercenary pirates armed with absurdly overbuilt guns, and his own weapon, Da Rippa, is so powerful it's slowly killing him with radiation. He wears it as a badge of honour. Badrukk fights for teef and glory, sells his services to any warlord who can pay, and struts around in a greatcoat and bicorne hat like an Ork Napoleon. He's pure style, and his model remains one of the best in the entire Ork range. Boss Snikrot The scariest Ork on this list, and the one with the deepest Armageddon roots. Snikrot is a Blood Axe Kommando who spent the Third War for Armageddon haunting the equatorial jungles, ambushing Imperial patrols and leaving no survivors except the ones he deliberately let escape to spread the fear. Imperial soldiers on Armageddon genuinely believed he was a myth, right up until he wasn't. While most Orks announce themselves from a mile away, Snikrot and his Red Skull Kommandos appear out of nowhere, do horrible things quietly, and vanish. With the war returning to Armageddon, you have to imagine he's out there in the green somewhere, waiting. Start Your Own WAAAGH! Whether you're drawn to Ghazghkull's unstoppable momentum or Snikrot's silent menace, there's an Ork playstyle for every kind of hobbyist, and the new Armageddon launch box is a fantastic way to start an Ork army in 11th Edition Warhammer 40K. Wandering Adventures in Woodbridge (Vaughan), Ontario carries Warhammer 40,000 miniatures, the Armageddon boxed set, and everything you need to paint your greenskins, including Citadel, AK Interactive, Vallejo, and Army Painter paints. Visit us in-store or shop online at wanderingadventures.ca with free shipping across Canada on orders over $150.