AlistairB1983

I've been diligently working away at my pile of shame over the last 6 months for this very reason Everything is, currently, fully painted and based. It's just the stupid new base sizes for The Old World mean I want need to rebase them.

I never said I was going to finish the projects

Oh, very much so. I already have a number of projects I plan to use to help give me some down time, they just involve re-basing and/or stripping/re-painting existing models rather than buying new ones, as it's going to be the lack of money that is more the issue rather than the lack of time.

Watched Obliterated on Netflix over the weekend - an 'action comedy' about a group of various federal agents/armed forces guys trying to stop someone from setting off a nuclear bomb in Las Vegas. It was definitely worth a watch - although I was slightly caught off guard by the almost immediate levels of drug use, sex scenes and violence. Nothing off-putting, just wasn't expecting it to that extent. However I can't help but agree with a number of others who have reviewed it in that I do think it went on slightly too long. 8 episodes in all realistically could/should have been 5/6. The last two/three really dragged out a story with a reasonably well disguised plot line that, personally, I think the show could have done without. But, if you have a spare 8 hours and want to watch something that's a mix of Deadpool and The Hangover, this is pretty much it.

Well that's me £120 poorer after the pre-release of W:TOW on Saturday. Luckily I had kept the wife vaguely updated with this being my last 'big' purchase before the crotch goblin's due date in April, I just didn't necessarily specify exactly how much it was going to be. Let's hope I get home first that day to hide some of it

*Contemplates opening up the 'Space Opera' debate, but decides against it*

I think they're conflating the two as they're using 'fantasy' in its sense of fictional universes, rather than specifically Fantasy settings, as it's an article aimed at the 'general public' rather than has been published on a website aimed at those already interested/invested. I know this is a common thing I encounter with people lumping them together when they don't know any better (e.g. parents, former partners etc.). So to that end I guess, in their minds, the LotR comparisons are justified as they're using it as a benchmark as to whether or not they can produce 'good' entertainment based on a huge fictional setting which they themselves don't actually own/write for. And whilst I love GW's Sci-Fi setting - although not the 'human' characters as I'm tired of them all having plot armour a mile thick - the Fantasy setting will always be way of more interest to me. And I believe many people are similar - not necessarily for having a Fantasy preference but for having a preference, despite liking both aspects immensely.

Games Workshop and Amazon agree to make films and TV programmes (msn.com) One step closer to production ... although still a couple of years out Also interesting to note the option retained regarding Fantasy. As that was always my first love, I would dearly love for that to be picked up, although I doubt it will be as I don't think they'll view it as having enough of a USP for the general public (something I disagree with, but sadly not a boss at Amazon!)

That very much depends on your definition of "very soon" - I know of a good half-dozen schools who are currently still with SIMS, none of whom want to be or plan to be once their 3 years are up. I'm not intimately familiar with all their SLTs, though I am for a few, and I know they're all either actively looking already or have it 'pencilled in' as an item on next year's agenda. So yes, give it another 3 years, and yes I would entirely agree with you that by that point anyone with SIMS is there because they have decided to be. But in the interim I think they will continue to lose users year on year before they eventually plateau out at whatever percentage of market share they're left with.

Well, I know it won't smooth off entirely as I know at least one school that is moving to Arbor from SIMS later this year But in all seriousness, I think so long as the competitors continue to offer the deals they are currently (i.e. no paying for the base module for as long as you're contracted to SIMS) and as long as ESS continue to run their company/marketing as poorly as they have by trying to strong arm both schools and LAs into deals, then they're going to continue to lose their client base. With many schools probably close to, if not past, half way through their 3 year contracts many will now start to look around at the alternatives to go to 'after SIMS', only to find that they don't have to wait that long! Again, I know at least one school for whom that was a massive incentive to ditching the dinosaur.

If only that was a problem confined to just that side of the Pond. Looks potentially interesting, but as others have said would very much depend on the chemistry between them as that's what the original centred on.

If it were just simply showing bias as in 'we prefer this MIS as it's much better/user friendly/whatever' then that would be absolutely fine. It's a difficult enough job persuading SLT to agree to a change, LA's showing a bias/preference for a different MIS would definitely assist in that regard. However if such bias/preference was as the result of being paid to do so, then that is obviously an entirely different matter and not one I would particularly be in favour of. Unfortunately given the state of funding within local government, I wouldn't be surprised if this is something which started to gain traction within LAs.

From my understanding there isn't a way to produce such a 'combined list', you can either have one or the other - i.e. a list of lessons taking place or a list of the students' attendance marks. What is SLT's desire behind having such a list? Perhaps there is another way to go about it.

Must admit my GW painting has taken a back seat in recent months - managed to get an entire Bolt Action Chinese army ready and painted in a couple of months instead However with the news of the imminent return of The Old World I think I'll be switching back again shortly. I have a bunch of printed Emo Elves that need their purple painting in time for the new rules (even if they do only get a stupid pdf!)

I wonder how those rumours (from 2021 iirc) relate to the subsequent announcement/rumour (can't remember which it was!) about Amazon making a Warhammer TV show with Cavil. Did the ME rumour turn out to be the Warhammer one? Is it separate? Is he doing both? I dare say, whichever he does will be the first & last time my wife gets excited about either of my hobbies

Really? We re-watched the first series before watching the second (as Mrs can never remember plot lines with this much gap between seasons!) and having watched them so closely the second season felt a lot less imaginative in terms of plot. Everything seemed so blindingly obvious as to how it was going to unfold within a very short space of time, whereas with the first I remember (and re-remembered!) wondering what was going to happen in almost every episode. Sure the acting and the production value overall was better, but the whole plot just seemed so ... obvious. Although I'd be interested to know whether this season was more or less like the books, as I'm aware there were some 'fans' who bemoaned the first season for its departure from the original storyline in the books.

And now to have it restricted before anyone beats my score .... I mean, 'for security reasons'.

Apologies, yes I should have been more specific in stating the lack of special rules only applies to the 'standard' codex chapters and not any of the 4 who routinely have their own codex. Whilst I would agree that you can customise the actual gameplay of your army more so than at any time previous, I can't help but feel it's come at the expense of flavour/lore since in the absence of any special characters, an Iron Hands detachment can play exactly the same way as a Raven Guard detachment, which just feels ... sad. I guess when everyone can be everything it makes them all a little less special. *shrug* but it may all look/feel/play differently once the book's actually out! Honestly? Whilst I'm glad some generic characters are going, I can't help but long for more special characters. If the only way to make my force represent a particular legion is to have a named special character in there, then the legions deserve to have more than 1 or 2 named characters to actually make it a valid choice. Or at least balance out the ones they have got (the two Salamander ones, for example, are VERY different in terms of their power levels). Just feels like another SM release where Iron Hand players are expected to just be thankful for what we've got, even though it's less than everyone else. Just like always.* * (apart from one 3 month period in 2019 after the release of the IH supplement when we won every tournament going, so we got nerfed back into the stone age)

So I've been watching a number of spoiler videos on Youtube about the upcoming Space Marines codex. I don't normally bother that much, but I'd heard one thing about it that I wanted to check if it was correct - and it is. There aren't chapters anymore - well, not in terms of a rules difference at any rate since all the chapters can use all the Detachments. I'm not really sure how I feel about this - on the one hand it's nice that I can run the 'same army' several different ways, so I guess that keeps it more interesting in that sense. But being an Iron Hands player, I only have a single Special Character, so unless I take him (and he's very specific in terms of how he plays within the army) my Iron Hands could essentially be Ultramarines, Imperial Fists or anyone else. Which just seems a shame

Whilst not wishing to appear to speak on behalf of others, I would say that generally the issues lie not with the product itself (which, by all accounts, does seem to have a good reputation) but rather the company behind it and more specifically how tarnished their reputation was by their court case. I'm not going to rehash all the arguments for/against the court case or the company itself, but simply put it has generated an extremely large amount of ill-will within parts of the community. This is why this seemingly 'Independent' discussion on the whole process comes across as astroturfing, since it's being paid for by a company who (I assume) are acutely aware of the hostile feelings their actions have generated amongst certain sections of the community and would (I assume) be very keen to try and get the discussion onto other ground.

As someone who is a Data Manager and has gone from SIMS to Arbor back to SIMS (and hopefully back to Arbor in the next 6 months or so) over my last three schools, I will attest to the above. What you'll find is the majority of the data that staff wanted will be much more easily downloadable/readable within the MIS itself, compared to the archaic reporting system within SIMS. The only thing some staff will need to accept is that the reports produced may not look exactly the same as they did via SIMS, but even this is becoming less and less of an issue as the new MIS's are - unlike SIMS - continuing to offer updates and changes to their software, meaning more and more features are becoming available to users. As to whether specific reports are transferable, I don't believe so directly but the new MIS provider will, I'm sure, be more than happy to sit down with admin staff and help design the new (and improved) versions of said reports. TL;DR - the same data will continue to be available, but staff may just need to adapt to how this is found. But once they have done so, their lives will be immeasurably better.

Agreed. It's a hard enough balance to get right every year for Year 11s between 'these are the most important things in your life ever' and 'it's not the end of the world if things go wrong', but that comes with the job. But that shouldn't be a balance that's required for a set of exams which are used almost exclusively by the education system itself to help monitor progress for both Primary and Secondary schools and have virtually no impact on the individual student's education/life in general going forwards. As far as the students are concerned, these exams do not matter. And they shouldn't feel the pressure the schools/parents are unduly placing on them because of their own desires.

Not jealous of this at all, sitting at work on a Monday morning ...

The Mrs and I watched the new (ish) Luther that's on Netflix (I think - I can't remember which she said it was on!). That was .... intense. Not that the show ever did when it was on the BBC, but this very much didn't hold back in terms of violence, gore, threat etc. There were several scenes she just couldn't watch happen, even as you saw it coming a mile off. Suffice to say I ended up being a human shield on a couple of occasions to block out the TV! Extremely well done, but very much not one for those of a sensitive disposition to watch solo, I'm reliably informed.

The counterpoint being made is that this is a decision that needs to be made at much higher levels than we - be it DfE, Awarding Bodies, JCQ etc. It's not for an individual - either institution or person - to make the decision on what is/isn't right for the education of our students. These decisions are made by those with the power to do so, not by us refusing to follow guidance because we may not agree with it. If you feel that passionately about it, try speaking to those that actually make the decisions rather than deriding those of us who chose to follow them?