Chris Miller

Old Friends

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 22:58:28 +0000

This is part three of an ongoing series of stories following the journey of The Lady Petra Hirkeit through The Silver Hills Age of Sigmar campaign. You can read more of the narrative here or start from the beginning.

The days following the encounter at Whioll were filled with what seemed to be an endless march across the wilderness. The host encountered a few small groups of travellers along the way. A small band of humans, who upon seeing them fled almost instantly. Moltke charged the black riders to find them, ride them down and dispatch them. They had shortly thereafter joined the company meandering over the Silver Hills.

A fledgling warband of Orruks were unlucky enough to cross paths with the host too, though they proved more elusive. Melting into the wilderness, hidden from sight until the last of the Lady’s retinue shambled past. So many races that Petra hadn’t seen in this area before, at least not in any sizeable numbers. Orruks roaming the land unchecked, it was something unfathomable. If it wasn’t something that she and her family would’ve taken care of, it’s something that the humans, ælves or even one of the smaller duardin settlements in the area would’ve seen to. There wasn’t a lot of The Silver Hills to go around, and the races under Sigmar’s protection made damned sure it was for them to squabble over alone.

Of course, they viewed her as one of their own back then. A woman of noble birth who’d seen the horrors of the Soulblight curse, and had taken it upon herself to aid in the fight by joining the ranks of Sigmar’s faithful as a witch hunter. In truth, other dynasties and families with the gift were eyeing her holdings, making moves to seize territories that she had claimed. Ever edging towards an all out assault to usurp her from her rightful place.

She’d spent years trading influence as her alter ego, working out of the major city of the area called Salzenmund. She was held in high regard, consulted on matters relating to pushing back those Soulblighted monsters encroaching on the Silver Hills. Whatever time she didn’t spend as the witch hunter she spent solidifying her hold over her own territories, removing as much evidence of her dealings as possible. Presenting to the outside world as a simple fiefdom presided over by a benevolent and absentee ruler.

It had been fun, she’d enjoyed the duplicity of it. One day playing the righteous hero, striking down the enemies of Sigmar. Enemies, who happily were also her own enemies. The next slinking back into the shadows, to puppeteer vassals and influence territories to expand the reach of her dominion.

She’d actually made… friends? No, not friends. She’d made acquaintance with some of the people. Had more than a passing familiarity with a few, more than one generally would with chattel. A great game, a play of sorts, the kind of thing she’d seen as a young woman at court before being blessed with the gift.

Her mind had drifted to these thoughts because she’d eyed a group of figures in the distance. Her blessings giving her superior eyesight, she could see clearly who it was even from here. An old… acquaintance. An older acquaintance she realised as she approached the figures, leaving her cavalcade behind out of sight. Approaching with a throng of reanimated warriors would likely stifle any conversation.

As she grew closer she saw the pale alabaster skin, delicate androgynous features—slightly more worn with age—and the sharp pointed ears she’d come to know. It was definitely the face of someone she knew from her time in Salzenmund.

The figure looked up upon hearing her approach, wearing a look of confusion which turned to surprise as the mental cogs slipped into place and recognition set in.

“Is that… Petra—” the figure began to ask.

Petra started to vocalise a greeting, to offer a reintroduction. Finally, a chance to get some answers, some perspective. To find out how far removed she was from the place in her memories.

“—” was what she managed in answer. Nothing more than a guttural groan and exhalation of air.

It was only now she realised, she hadn’t spoken a word, not since waking up on that cold slab. She’d had no need. Had nobody to speak to. Had nobody that required her to utter a sound. Her congregation didn’t need direction, not in that way.

Giving a throaty rasp she tried to resurrect her voice. But just as she was managing to form the first sounds, all hell broke loose, an attack!

Ferrel shrieks and roars from the East, as a thundering stampede of lizard folk romped in from the hills. Savage beasts ranked up holding clubs and spears, some riding atop other large lizard beasts of their own.

The ælf she’d been walking towards shot her a suspicious glance, then darted off in the opposite direction without a second look.

Her need to vocalise was gone. She needn’t call out for help, or to tell the troops to rank up, her warband had already began the descent to her side. The pack of deadwalkers filing in to surround her, the black knights taking the rear.

Kaukus who’d been flying high above, landed heavily in front of one flank of the reptilian warband. Moltke and his palace guard burst forth and formed up in a line between the Lady Hirkeit and the approaching masses. Once again Petra used her gift to draw a pack of dire wolves back from their graves, setting them to defend against the approaching scale covered torrent.

The battle didn’t last long. Unrelenting wave after wave of lizard hide beasts crashed against her forces. The more that crumbled the more she raised from the dead, but ultimately in a futile effort.

Kaukus was torn down, Moltke and his retinue too. Moltke reanimated shortly thereafter to rejoin the fighting ranks, but the combined weight of the force of the lizards was too much.

The day was lost. Lady Hirkeit gave ground and fled. Gone was the ælf she’d recognised. Perhaps dead, or fled, it didn’t matter which. Out of reach. Unable to be questioned, unable to provide the answers Petra was so fervently searching for.

The next few days passed uneventfully. Lady Hirkeit exhausted the time nursing her voice back. Raspy noises gave way to guttural, grunt laden hoarse whispers. Ever improving she muttered away to herself for the most of the journey.

They were close to their destination. The moon was reaching its zenith just as they crested a hill, the valley below came into view in the silver light of the moon. Nestled in the valley was the township that sat next to, and around Hirkeit Manor.

“Home,” said Lady Petra Hirkeit, hearing her own voice for the first time in what felt like millennia.

The Silver Hills

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 23:46:12 +0000

This is part two of an ongoing series of stories following the journey of The Lady Petra Hirkeit through The Silver Hills Age of Sigmar campaign. You can read more of the narrative here or start from the beginning.

The Silver Hills were different than she had remembered them. More verdant, full of life. Sweeping meadows full of wildflowers and greenery. From time to time small rodent like animals jutted their heads up from thickets of long grass, skittishly looked around, surveyed the landscape and disappeared back into the brush. It was all very pleasant.

Something was wrong, however, many of the geographical features felt familiar, but things were missing. The hill they were approaching should have a guard tower atop it, looking over the fields below. The path they were following was ancient and robust in her memory, but in reality it was nothing more than a rough pebble road, barely wide enough for three horses to ride abreast.

Other things were wrong too. She remembered the smells of industry that would waft by on the breeze, but with every influx of air the familiar scent never came. The silver the area was named for, it would appear, was to remain firmly in the ground.

Her throng of undead were aimed towards two of her holdings. Places she knew she could take stock of the situation, change into something more fitting and find a decent meal.

They’d finally arrived at the first, a small estate her family had maintained for generations on the outskirts of their lands. To Lady Hirkeit’s dismay, all that remained was rubble. Broken buildings, rocks strewn around and all but a few signs of paths and roads swallowed up by the encroaching wilderness.

This was wrong. She remembered a small but vibrant estate. Grandiose when compared to its size, though nothing contemptibly so. Small but comfortable. A loyal brace of subservient small folk to tend to your needs, and a nigh inexhaustible stream of sustenance. What was here wasn’t recognisable. It was so far removed from what she expected. It would take years for the estate to fall into this level of disrepair, for the wilderness to creep in and take over, decades!

The scope of her absence was beginning to take shape. The Order of Morr had done more than cut her down. More than desecrate her body, at least that’s what she suspected they’d done, they’d also stolen from her, taken years. They’d taken everything. Her station. Her lands. Her power.

But patience, she still had her patience. Patience enough to seek them out, to cut them down. Take everything from them.

Through gritted teeth Lady Hirkeit ordered her host onward, on to Whioll, a village long under her protection, dreading what they’d find there.

They followed the beaten path, at least the parts they could distinguish from the brush. It’d been a long time since anything more than a lone cart had traversed this route. This route that had been a major trade thoroughfare. The further they progressed the more the dread built.

Cresting a hill that lead down to the river that Whioll sat abreast, she saw what she was dreading, but had been expecting. Nothing remained of the village she knew. More broken ruins of buildings, trees now in place of familiar edifices, bushes and grass had taken residence here now. Nature had long since began the task of reclaiming the township for its own, slowly eroding all physical evidence of its presence. Her brow furrowed and her head fell as she led out an exasperated exhalation. Wait. Her eyes opened wide, head snapped back to attention, out of the corner of her eye she’d seen something. Some movement in the shadows of the ruins.

Her retinue were anything but stealthy, so she and Moltke left them behind and made their way to a bluff, where they could better survey the remnants of the town without being seen. Greenskins, small Orruks or Goblins of some ilk. There were dozens of them, picking through the undergrowth, looking for scraps. Some of them wrangled large bulbous red swines almost the size of the greenskins themselves. Others rode them, holding lances, like caricatures of knights.

She’d witnessed enough. It was an affront. It was bad enough what the Order of Morr had done, but this was a slight on her, on her family, on her name. These pests needed to be routed from her lands.

Moltke the Deathless led his retinue to war again, as he’d done many hundreds of years ago. They went on ahead as The Lady gathered the remainder of her horde. They entered the clearing of what used to be Whioll’s town square, the vermin that were sacking the ruins spotting them approaching ranked up to meet them head on.

The battle started and The Lady’s forces attacked with zeal. She struck down some of the green skinned invaders with an arcane attack. It all came back to her instantly, she could feel the energy prickle her skin before, with the utterance of a few syllables, she cut down multiple foes at once. She smiled. This was the catharsis she needed.

Across the battlefield the Wight King Moltke burst forth from the earth yet again. A sight reminiscent of his rebirth only a few days prior, he and his retinue clambered from the ground, this time to take their enemy unawares.

Lady Petra felt more alive than she had done, or had been, for what felt like aeons. With a flourish of the gift a pack of dire wolves were summoned from the grave, and fell heavily onto a mob of the red beasts.

Carnage ensued. Wolves fell and were risen by The Lady again. Moltke’s retinue were cut down in their entirety, only to claw their way back into the fray to tear down more of the greenskins. The knights flanked the enemy, taking the north eastern quarter of the square. Kaukas, who until now had been circling high above the battlefield, landed in the greenskins back line, tearing through crazed ball and chain wielding goblins that had suddenly appeared.

The battle raged on. The black knights were dispatched by the faux goblin knights charging through them. The faux knights wheeling round then charged headlong towards Lady Hirkeit.

More of the green skinned vermin began pouring out of a cave. Kaukas let out a shrieking wail and snapped at the mass of bodies, those he didn’t catch in his maw he chased down and stomped to a bloodied mess.

The rest of the battle was a haze of blood and viscera. Moltke was cut down and Petra didn’t even notice, she was too focused on the knights riding the red animals. Attack after attack she parried, dodged, sidestepped and repelled. She tore limb from limb and drenched herself in their blood as she executed them to their last.

Unstoppable waves of undead fell against the greenskins, again and again. The black knights tore back into unlife and back into the battle. The remaining forces of the greenskins melting away, fleeing into the wilderness.

The battle was done. Whioll was once again under the Lady’s patronage. But it was a hollow victory, it held none of its previous value to her. She called up her host and sallied them forth, leaving Whioll to its fate, to be wholly reclaimed by The Silver Hills.

Her sights were now trained on one the one place that would truly pain her to see in such ruin, Hirkeit Manor, her ancestral home.

The Lady Reborn

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 13:49:24 +0000

This is part one of an ongoing series of stories following the journey of our protagonist through The Silver Hills Age of Sigmar campaign.

She awoke in a crypt. She knew it was a crypt immediately, they had a familiar smell, dry air and old death. The smell was familiar, but how she’d got here wasn’t.

The cold of the rock slab she was laid out on bled through into her body. Her arms and legs ached, so did her neck. Stiff from a long cold slumber.

Swinging her nimble legs off the slab, she sat upright to survey the room. It was small and enclosed, hewn out from solid rock. A doorway was cut into the wall beyond the foot of the stone slab, it held a heavy wooden door, barred shut, with an large bookcase pushed against it. A man lay dead at the foot of the bookcase, a priest of one kind or another based on his garb, his life essence having left him days ago.

She stood. Unsteadily at first, but after a moment to compose herself she drew herself up to her full height. She lifted her chin, cocked her head slightly and surveyed her situation. A brazier burned in the corner, bright with an off-yellow, slightly green flame. There was no discernible fuel source, likely some arcane trickery keeping it ablaze. The brazier cast light upon a small wooden table, which was covered in metal implements, bloodied and haphazardly thrown in a pile after use. The only other thing on the desk was a sealed jar, containing a thick deep red, almost black coloured liquid. She picked up the jar to inspect it, the liquid oozed rather than ran, it was cold. She could tell what it was without even opening the lid.

The air in the room was stale, it'd been days since the door was sealed by the smell of the priest piled against it. The blood in the jar had been so cold, it was almost like a jam, she’d tore through those sanguine delights, hungrily devouring the contents, palming the preserve into her mouth in a burst of animal savagery, unexpected based on her size and stature.

After replacing the lid of the jar, she placed it carefully back on the table. She pulled open the door, the wooden bar across it splintered and broke, the bookcase and accompanying body at its foot easily swept aside in its wake.

Leaving the room she entered a narrow, unassuming corridor. She followed it into the main room of the crypt. There were bodies strewn around the room, all dead. Some had been hacked to pieces, some heaped in one spot with bolts protruding from their chests. Others had been staked and tied down, then burned alive. They were familiar sights, some of Sigmar's most devout had been here. Witchhunters!

She emerged from the crypt. It was early still, before midnight she thought as she stepped into the pale moonlight. Walking up the steps from the crypt she came to a grassy area, bisected by a pebbled path. Around her grave markers and gravestones ranked up, she was in the middle of a cemetery.

There was a familiar scent of decay and death in the air. It filled her nostrils, breathed life back into her. The scent was age old and familiar, but somehow also different, fresh… new.

Taking her time, she surveyed her surroundings, the graveyard sloped downhill in front of her, a gentle descent to a wall and set of iron gates in the far distance. Behind her the path split off to climb the hill, passing a barrow sitting atop it. Some King or Duke would be interned there. His most prized warriors laid to rest in the graves surrounding the barrow, to slumber alongside him for all eternity.

Inspecting the graves more closely, there was no signs of Morrda here. His taint wasn't evident in the grave markers or in the iconography upon them. She relaxed slightly, this place was free from his influence, his protection, she spat as she thought the word.

She strolled along the path, intrigued she climbed the hill towards the barrow. The name chiselled above the entrance was ornate, but well worn. Centuries had eroded much of the filigree that the site had once held. She leaned in to read the name of the interned noble. Moltke. It was a notable name from stories she had heard of Kings past. A name that held significant renown.

A suitable name for a general.

She could feel the dead surrounding her, sense their presence. She cleared her mind, melted into the feeling, could pick them all out across the cemetery. With a tense of her senses she felt the rush of the gift flow through her.

Soulblight they call it. It was no blight. It was a gift. It was power. It was the power over life and death itself.

She stood back to observe. She had felt Moltke in his grave, had pulled on his essence, lulling him back from the dead, bringing him into her thrall.

The now Wight King Moltke emerged from his barrow. Earth and stone tumbled around him as he as he fought his way from his place of long slumber. The retinue of his most elite warriors, who had been laid to rest around his barrow, began clawing their way from the roiling earth to join him. Still garbed in their ornate armour befitting his palace guard, they pulled sword and shield from their graves, stood to attention and reaffirmed their pledge to serve him, in life and in death.

Beyond the barrow and over the crest of the hill skeletal horses burst out of the ground back into unlife, shaking themselves from the tundra. A cortège of black clad riders emerged from the same graves, climbing upon and mounting the polished bone steeds. Settled back into the saddles that bore them to war many hundreds of years prior, the Knights ranked up, spurred their mounts, and joined the ranks of the gathering undead.

Across the cemetery soil turned and boiled, graves ruptured and the dead stirred. Back to once again walk in the Mortal Realms. A shambling horde of reanimated corpses gathered, drawn to the presence of she who had dragged them back from Shyish.

With her deathly entourage in tow she swept down the hill, towards the gates of the cemetery. The looming gates presented a name once she was close enough, 'Hirkeit Mausoleum & Cemetery’. The large gates were framed with ornate cast iron dragon iconography.

Memories of long forgotten old stories came rushing back to her. Stories of a now nameless warrior King, who had lain siege to these lands atop a mighty dragon named Kaukas. With this dragon he’d cut himself a holding of lands larger than any of the dukedoms or chiefdoms of the time. He started a dynasty of kings that ruled for hundreds of years.

The stories ended with tales of the unknown king having been laid to rest in a barrow alongside his dragon. A barrow so large and deep, that it looked like part of the landscape. The stories told of the site becoming a place of power, where others have flocked to bury their dead for many hundreds of years since.

She slunk back into herself, melting away all of the distractions around her, deepening her concentration. A wry thin smile slowly painted across her face. There was a sharp intake of breath and she began striding onwards, through the gates of the cemetery.

In the distance, the earth below the mausoleum where her rebirth took place cracked. The ground ruptured, a noisome scream erupted from the crevasse. The crypt toppled and folded in on itself, swallowed by the earth. Emerging in its place boney wings broke through the ground as the hulking mass of Kaukas tore into view.

The Lady Petra Hirkeit passed through the gates of the cemetery, leading her undead host towards her ancestral home.

Hobby Journal: Day 10: Peasant Pedantry

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 22:48:43 +0000

Day 10 of 2024. I decided it'd be a good idea to throw some matt varnish onto my bowmen to tamp down the satin finish of the Army Painter Speedpaints, as they tend to be a bit shiny when uncoated. I gave all the peasant archers a coat of AK Ultra Matt varnish through the airbrush, my preferred varnish.

After doing this I, in my ultimate wisdom, decided it'd be a good idea to apply some edge highlights to the units. It might not be a good idea in the long term to do this on the rank and file troops. It certainly wasn't my plan. For the uninitiated, Warhammer The Old World is a rank and flank game, which involves a lot of miniatures, and if I commit to doing edge highlights it will mean doing this to many, many, models across my entire army.

But I'd rather it look good than be done quickly!

I only did the unit of blue & white bowmen, and I only highlighted the tunics, collars and faces as they're the most prominent details.

All the edge highlights were pretty rough in the interest of time (they are just chaff units after all). The blue tunic got a very bright blue highlight, the grey half of the tunic a cold off-white and the collars got a pure white highlight. I think the collars in particular really stand out with the edge highlight, worth the effort in my opinion.

The image shows the edge highlighted version on the left compared to a non-highlighted one on the right.

I batch highlighted the same sculpts together, the image to the right shows the second sculpt with edge highlighting (left) compared to an unhighlighted model (right).

Perhaps it's an unnecessary addition to a rank and file troop, but I think it makes a big difference to the model, and helps draw focus to the central part of the mini.

They still look a bit disjoint overall, but I think a lot of that is due to the unfinished bases. Once they're placed in-situ on a larger base with basing materials it'll look much better.

I also made a start painting up a knight in a similar colour scheme to the unit. The idea being that the bowmen are peasants from the domain of the knight. He's their liege lord and has brought them to the army so they bear his heraldry and colours.

Hobby Journal: Day 9: Hobby Journal

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 22:12:45 +0000

Day 8 of 2024. HOBBY JOURNAL.

No traditional hobby today, instead I set up and wrote all the previous posts for this hobby journal!

Hobby Journal: Day 8: Bretonnian Knight Horses

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 23:55:12 +0000

Day 8 of 2024. Horses.

Didn't get through much today, but chipped away at some things. I painted the horses of the Bretonnian Knights as well as the horse for the mounted Grey Wizard.

I mix and matched a few different colours for the horses, including an off-white for the unit leader. It doesn't look like much of a difference over the zenethal prime, but it did make some of the shadows softer.

I also managed to bite the bullet and decide upon a colour for the collars of the Red / Yellow bowmen, settling on a leather colour.

Hobby Journal: Day 7: Bretonnian Archers

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 15:41:19 +0000

Day 7 of 2024. Time to get some paint back on to some of these old Warhammer Fantasy models, fulfiling their 28 year old destiny!

After a zenithal prime of black, grey then white Vallejo surface primer through the airbrush it was on to painting these archers using Army Painter Speedpaints.

Painting massive block of rank and file infantry isn't something I'm used to. I've painted big units of Age of Sigmar units, but those tend to be the exception rather than the rule. I think AP Speedpaints / Contrast paints are going to be invaluable for kocking out large blocks of troops for The Old World.

I split my 23 (annoyingly I've lost one bowman) bowmen into two blocks of 12, I decided upon painting them with two different split colour schemes. I didn't have any heraldry in mind, I just wanted to paint something interesting having never really had the chance to paint Bretonnians properly when I was younger.

I opted for one unit in a red / yellow split, the second in a white / blue. In hindsight I would've probably mixed up the scheme a bit and painted a few miniatures in quarters rather than them all 50-50 splits, but I'm happy with the outcome.

I put down a variety of skin tones across the models and varied a few colours in places, but generally kept to the same mixes to save on time.

I was happy with the white neck coverings on the Blue / White bowmen, but was swithering on what to paint the collars on the red / yellow ones, so I've left them white for now.

Hobby Journal: Day 6: Stripping

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 15:49:41 +0000

Day 6 of 2024. Time to undo some 30 year old hobbying.

The big job for today is stripping back the painted and primed Bretonnian models I have from 28 years ago to bare plastic.

This involes a sonic cleaner, Isoprobol Alcohol, a toothbrush and a bowl of soapy water.

Hobby Journal: Day 5: The Old World is coming!

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 15:49:02 +0000

Day 5 of 2024. It's hype time, the reimagining and rerelease of the classic Warhammer Fantasy Battles game is coming with the arrival of Warhammer: The Old World.

It's based on a game that was retired almost 10 years ago, which originally came into being in 1983 (making it as old as me, 40 at the time of writing). I've got miniatures from before I fell out of the hobby in the late 90s, some originating from 1996 and some from before even then.

I had the Warhammer 5th Edition starter box which contained a Bretonnian starter force (which is one of the new forces in the upcoming ToW release), so I'm pulling those out to see what I have.

I also had a Dwarf army from back in the early 90s, some of which survived too, so I've been taking stock of what miniatures I have from that line and making plans for them too.

I'm not sure if the Dwarf pictured to the right best fits in a Dwarf or Bretonnian army.

Expect more 28+ year old hobby goals to be fulfilled in the coming days and weeks.

Hobby Journal: Day 4: Stock Take

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 22:43:11 +0000

Day 4 of 2024. As with all things in life, this hobby comes with paperwork!

It doesn't really. Or it doesn't have to! I've got a lot of Space Marines and other Warhammer 40,000 miniatures that I'm realistically never going to use, so I'm looking to offload them for more hobby bucks, or in exchange for some AoS models I'd prefer.

The realities of this means I need to collate a list of what I own and potentially what it's worth, so I've been putting together that list today, it's not exciting, but it is technically hobby!

Hobby Journal: Day 3: Silver Hills Warscroll Cards

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 19:08:21 +0000

Day 3 of 2024. It's all about the upcoming Age of Sigmar Silver Hills campaign at the Dumfries Gamers club.

We're starting our next AoS narrative campaign this month. It's called Silver Hills and it's a Path to Glory campaign which will be following the Dawnbreaker Crusade narrative as set out by Games Workshop.

It's the second narrative campaign that I've been involved with running at the club, following on from The Fens of Woe campaign that we ran last year for about 8 months.

Going the PtG route, means we'll be a little more hands-off this time in curating the narrative, so there's more focus for me on evolving the story and getting into the narrative elements as opposed to gameplay and rules.

I'm getting hyped up for the start of the campaign and, as per instruction, have written a bit of a blurb for my spiritual leader for the campaign, The Lady Petra Hirkeit.

She awoke in a crypt. Laid out on cold rock, her arms and legs ached, so did her neck. Stiff from the long slumber.

The room was enclosed, a door barred shut and a heavy bookcase pulled over across it. A priest of some kind lay dead against the bookcase, his life blood long stopped. A brazier burned in the corner, casting light upon a work table full of metal implements, bloodied and discarded after use. A sticky red liquid sealed in a glass jar, sitting off to the side.

The room was stale, it'd been days since the door was sealed by the smell of the air, and the sanguine delights on the bench. After draining the jar of the life blood she pulled the door open, the bookcase and accompanying body easily moved in its wake.

She saw there were bodies strewn around the crypt as she swept through it. All dead. Some hacked to pieces, others tied down and burned alive. Familiar sights, Sigmar's most devout had been here.

Emerging from the crypt into the pale moonlight, she caught a familiar scent in the air. Familiar, but somehow also different. She couldn't place it. It all smelt so... fresh, new... colourful.

Surveying her surroundings she noticed a barrow on the hill. Some King or Duke was interned here. His most prized warriors laid to rest alongside him, to slumber for all eternity.

There was no signs of Morrda here. His taint wasn't evident in the graves or in the iconography upon them. Free from his influence, his 'protection', she spat the words as she thought them.

Climbing to the barrow she read the name of the interned noble, MOLTKE, a notable name! A suitable general.

She tensed her senses, felt the rush of the gift flow through her. Soulblight they'd called it. It was no blight, a gift, the power over life and death.

She looked on as The Wight King Moltke emerged from his barrow, earth and stone erupting as he emerged. His retinue of elite warriors began clawing their way from the roiling earth to join him. A guardian force in this graveyard.

Farther up the hill, Skeletal horses burst into unlife, shaking themselves from the tundra. A cortège of black clad riders climbing from the very same graves, mounting the polished bone steeds. Settled back into the saddles that bore them to war many hundreds of years prior, the Knights ranked up and spurred their mounts to join the ranks of the gathering undead.

Around the graveyard soil turned and graves burst open as the dead stirred, back to once again walk in the Mortal Realms. A shambling horde gathered, drawn to the presence of she who summoned them back from Shyish.

She swept towards the gates of the cemetery, saw the name, 'Hirkeit Mausoleum & Cemetery', at least now she knew where she was. The ornate cast iron dragon iconography of the gates put her in mind of the stories of old, of some warrior King whose name was now lost to history. Of how he conquered kingdoms atop his mighty Dragon Kaukas. How he'd been laid to rest in a barrow alongside his dragon, so large and deep that it looked like part of the landscape.

The earth below the mausoleum cracked and ruptured, a noisome scream emerging from the toppling crypt as boney wings broke through the surface of the ground.

The Lady Petra Hirkeit passed through the gates of the cemetery, leading her undead host towards her ancestral home.

I'm going full on and have been making Age of Sigmar style warscroll cards for my uniquely named units, adding a bit of flavourful text, adding named weapons and including any spells / special rules for the unit in the PtG campaign.

The cards don't 100% match the GW produced warscroll cards, but they're close enough and will add a bit of flair to my SBGL army when on the table.

Hobby Journal: Day 2: Blood Knights

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 21:29:26 +0000

Day 2 of 2024. It's time to keep the ball rolling and build some more of the Soulblight Gravelords miniatures that I have on sprue.

My plan is to build up most (if not all) of the SBGL miniatures I have before I run out of steam on the building front. It's perhaps my least favourite part of the hobby process. I enjoy putting the models together and seeing the final miniature on the table, but I really detest the clipping and cleaning portion of that excercise.

I've got a lot of miniatures still on sprue for this army:

1 Vengorian Lord / Lauka Vai
10 Blood Knights
40 Deathrattle Skeletons
3 Vargheists

I'm not sure the Vargheists will actually end up in my Soulblight army, it's the same kit that makes Crypt Flayers / Crypt Horrors for the Flesh-eater Courts army, and I think they're better placed in that army (as the Vargheists aren't great in SBGL). More FEC coming in later weeks.

I managed to get 10 Blood Knights clipped, cleaned and built ready for basing and priming. I also took a few shots of my currently built and painted Soulblight Gravelords collection (currently around 1,000pts) for someone at the club to show to someone who's interested in starting a SBGL force.

A productive day (a public holiday, so don't expect this level out output on an ongoing basis!).

Hobby Journal: Day 1: Hobby Space

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 19:20:26 +0000

So it's been nine (9!) years since my last post. Less than a decade, that counts as an active website with cutting edge, informative content that's keeping up with the kids. Right?

I've decided that in 2024 my aim is to be more productive in my Warhammer hobbying. Part of which is trying to spend at least a bit of time each day doing something hobby related. I thought wherever possible I'd post something here to track my progress and keep a bit of a journal of how things are progressing.

It's currently the 9th of January when I'm posting this, but I'm backdating it to the 1st because: 1/. Starting a journal on day 9 reveals a complete lack of foresight on my part, and 2/. it's when I cleaned my hobby space.

I managed to spend a bit of time cleaning my hobby space, putting everything away in the HobbyZone shelves and drawers I have. Organised all my paints back into racks, cleaned up my hobby tools and stored the many bases I have into a drawer in one of my MDF drawers.

Once the desk was clean it was time to start making a mess again. The first step was to build the three Fel Bats for my Soulblight Gravelords Age of Sigmar army that I received from Badgie at the Dumfries Gamers club for my Secret Santa gift.

There's nothing fantastical to show, but it's the first step. Stay tuned for more.

Classic Color Meter

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 12:38:33 +0000

There are a few tools I use day-to-day that I couldn't be without, one of them is a colour picker to use on the desktop. Traditionally I used the one that ships with Mac OS X called Digital Color Meter, however at around the time Lion was released there was an update which dropped functionality I was heavily reliant on. The Mac App Store was still in its infancy, but after a few searches I'd found the replacement I was looking for — Classic Color Meter.

It promised to replicate the original functionality of the Digital Color Meter, allowing me to essentially replace the application with this one and carry on as before. Since then it's grown and added some extra functionality which should make it useful to designers and developers across the board.

My main use case of the original Digital Color Meter was to pick the hexadecimal values from colours on designs or websites. I could hover the target pixel and the R, G & B labels in the app would show me the hexadecimal values of the colour at that pixel. The Lion update removed the hex view, switching to full integer RGB values which, whilst convertible to hexadecimal, aren't really as useful.

Enter Classic Color Meter. Straight out of the box I can view colours in various formats including the 8-bit hexadecimal I'd been using previously. Alongside the format I'd been lusting after are a range of formats I've found useful since: RGB percentages, RGB Decimal (8 and 16-bit), RGB hexadecimal (8 and 16-bit), HSB & HSL; as well as a raft of YP_BP_R and YC_BC_R options which I'm clueless about the use of.

There are a range of features included in the Classic Color Meter which I find useful or improved when compared to the Digital Color Meter application.

Float window — you can toggle floating the colour picker above other windows using ⌘F, so you can for instance interact with a webpage and quickly capture the hover colour of a link.
Copy as… — there are various key combinations that can be used to copy the currently picked colour in different formats. ⌘⇧X will copy the colour as 8-bit hexadecimal; ⌘⇧R and ⌘⇧A will copy as CSS RGB or RGBA snippets respectively; ⌘⇧N copies an NSColor snippet; and ⌘⇧U copies a UIColor snippet.
Hold colour — you can hit ⌘⇧H to "hold" a colour. The picker stops updating and whatever colour you had selected fills the preview window. Sliders appear with the appropriate values set to describe the colour you've selected. As you can see from the image, the colour #f2efe6 is shown as HSB. From here it's possible to tweak the colour by changing the H, S or B values; swap between display types and you'll see the sliders and values update, allowing you to edit in RGB or HSL if you'd prefer. I often find it useful to pick a colour from a design I'm working on, then play around with the HSB values in order to create a lighter or darker colour variant to be used for hover or interaction states for buttons and links.
Paste colour — paste a hex, RGB or RGBA colour with ⌘V and the Classic Color Meter will jump to hold mode and set the colour to the one you've pasted. Useful for tweaking colours without having to pick it first.
Position locking — we can lock the position on the X axis, Y axis, or both axes; allowing us to track the colour of a single pixel, a given row or a column of pixels. The Classic Color Meter adds guides when locking, a handy addition to the behaviour in the Digital Color Meter.
And more — there are various other improvements: a tighter interface, smaller footprint on the desktop, multi-tone aperture for ease selecting very light or dark colours. All-in-all the Classic Colour Meter improves upon the built in Digital Color Meter in every way.

It's not a sexy thing, it's an application for picking colours. But Classic Color Meter takes something boring and makes it sexy, by doing it so very well; there's nothing more I'd ask of this application, save for it to perhaps run a menu bar helper to give me access all the time. It's only of use to a small subset of Mac users, but for those it should be a no-brainer, instant purchase. And at only £2.29 ($2.99) on the Mac App Store it's a steal.

Warlords of Draenor

Sun, 23 Nov 2014 01:15:15 +0000

I've played World of Warcraft on a semi-regular basis for almost ten years now. I started playing because the idea of a free-roaming fantasy world peaked my interest, and having previously played past Warcraft titles I was already a fan of the franchise. Ten years on, with the arrival of the fifth expansion for the game, I'm finding that some of the changes have given me a renewed vigour for the story.

Staking your claim

One of the largest, and most publicised features of the new expansion — which you've likely heard about if you've been interested in WoW over the last few months — is the garrison. Perhaps as a belated response to the calls for player housing over the past ten years, you are required at the beginning of your journey into Draenor to set up an outpost to serve as your foothold for this new fight. After establishing your garrison you continue to quest and as a result gather resources to be used in further expanding it.

You build buildings to expand your garrison, adding them to pre-defined plots, giving you a pseudo-unique experience and letting you tailor your home-away-from-home to your own needs & style. Different buildings give bonuses to your character as you quest or allow access to trade skills — in game professions for the uninitiated — which your character may not have.

A major part of the garrison story is your character taking charge and leading people as you see fit, albeit on an on-rails story via the main trunk of the questing content. Roles become somewhat muddled as you gather a band of followers to command; send them off on missions on your behalf; watch them level up with experience gained from these mission; and eventually send them off on epic raiding quests taking hours at a time. This aspect of the game works on a similar style to a micro-transaction game the likes of which have been popularised by Facebook. Interaction is required at timed intervals, and tasks — missions in this case — take set periods to finish. Thankfully Blizzard has not gone the route of trying to squeeze players for more money and haven't added micro-transactions to speed up completion or to buy in-game currencies.

Your garrison is central to the story and provide the backbone for questing throughout Draenor; however much like the ~~Pokémon~~ pet battle elements that were added into the game a while back, follower quests are a nice addendum over and above the main gameplay focus.

Simpler Social Play

I'm not much of a socialiser on WoW, I'm not in a guild — save for one I use to transfer content & currency between characters — and I don't know many people who play the game, barring a couple of seasonal players who drop in-and-out at different times of the year. I don't stand around in the in-game cities chatting or hang out online if I've nothing better to do. I'm logged in to play the game; to explore or find some content I've not seen before. I've levelled multiple characters up to the level cap over the years but I'm sure there's stuff out there I've still never seen, the whole game world is a collection of interwoven epic stories that are easily passed by.

I'm pleased with changes that've been made to make social group play a bit more inviting. New mechanics have been added for quest specific targets, named mobs that you would have been vying for access to previously are now shared between any and all players, giving kill credit to any player involved in the fight and having player specific loot for any dropped gear. These targets are marked with a quest icon — an exclamation mark (!) on their unit frame, as shown in the image above. The game feels a lot more fluid, with multiple players banding together to defeat a common foe without the need to pre-arrange a group.

Gearing made easy

Quest rewards and drops are a staple element of the questing structure in World of Warcraft. In previous expansions it was a mixed bag and, if you weren't questing for specific gear, a bit of a lottery when it came to upgrading your equipment. Warlords of Draenor has drastically simplified gearing and stats, making upgrading your gear as you level a much easier task.

There are five main stats attached in various combinations to pieces of gear; these are stamina, strength, agility, intellect and spirit. Each class in game benefits from some of these stats in different ways. Melee classes benefit from strength or agility, whereas casters benefit from intellect or spirit, stamina is used by all classes and increases the hit points a character has. A secondary set of stats are also attached to gear, these stats can effect things such as your damage output, defence and can impact on how often you can use your abilities.

Warlords of Draenor has seen these secondary stats revamped, removing stats that were essentially required to ensure you achieved optimal damage. Instead we're given a single secondary stat per class that they receive an extra benefit from, usually a 5% increase. Most classes benefit from loading up on that one secondary stat as much as possible.

Quest rewards have been reworked too in Warlords, now we're presented with class appropriate rewards — we no longer have to deal with quest rewards that will be absolutely no use to us. Gear also has non-spec stats attached too. Some classes in World of Warcraft have hybrid roles, switching between these functions could call for different primary stats on gear — for example agility may be required for a damage dealing role whilst intellect is needed for a healing role. Previously players would need to carry two sets of gear with appropriate stats, these new changes mean that a single set of equipment can be used for both functions.

Another nicety added in for Warlords is the chance that any dropped loot or quest rewards will be upgraded. Loot in WoW falls into one of six categories: Poor, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary. Quest rewards are generally uncommon (green) or higher, legendary rewards are reserved for very long and arduous quest chains. The new system gives the chance that quest rewards and loot can be randomly upgraded from an uncommon or rare quality item to a rare or epic quality item. Whilst not to be relied upon it can make upgrading your gear a bit quicker and questing more exciting.

The little things

There are a raft of other things that have been tweaked or added to the game that make things a little bit nicer. New zones, revisiting old content in a new setting, the whole alternate timeline thing — it seems to have worked for Abrams and Star Trek! A few of the little things that I've found and been excited about are below.

Stormwind is fixed

A couple of expansions ago a big ol' dragon named Deathwing buggered up the entire in-game world, cutting zones in half and destroying portions of cities. Since then in game Non-Player Characters (NPCs) have been toiling away to get things fixed up again. With the arrival of Warlords they've finally finished putting Stormwind — the Alliance capital — back to its former glory.

Treasure. Treasure everywhere

There's literally hundreds of hidden treasures and mini-puzzles hidden throughout the world of Draenor. Objects you can interact with to pick up a rare or epic bit of kit; or sometimes just a random bit of lore related junk. Not to mention all the rare spawned mobs littered around the zones that provide a bit of an extra challenge and the odd bit of gear as you level. Lots of these elements are easter eggs or references to other things.

New character models

Blizzard have dragged World of Warcraft firmly into the 2010s by updating the character models for their playable races. WoW has never been known for its visual appeal, opting for a more cartoon style to the visuals. Part of the allure for many people has been the ability to play the game on lower specced machines, not requiring cutting edge equipment to play.

After many years we've finally got some new character models. Updated styles, and higher density textures make the characters look much nicer. Alongside a bump in graphics overall makes WoW look a lot nicer but still with its roots in a cartoonish look-and-feel.

Grass

Such a small part of the overall gameplay, but something I've fallen totally in love with is characters interacting with ground clutter. Long grass and weeds move out of the way when a character runs through them.

Voice acting & cutscenes

Voice acting has always been used in World of Warcraft, however its always been done so sparingly. Blizzard have kicked that up a notch in Warlords and voice acting has been added for many of the main story characters.

Like voice acting, cutscenes have been used throughout WoW for years, but again we're treated to an expanded array of cutscenes throughout the story content in Warlords.

And more, and more, and more…

There are loads of other things out there, Wowhead has a range of good WoD launch guides.

Society6 Shop

Thu, 02 Oct 2014 16:30:34 +0000

I've decided to start selling prints of artwork I'm creating for this site as well as any odds-and-sods that I have lying around. To do so I've opened up a Society6 shop and have listed a few things for sale already. I'll be adding to this list as things appear on the blog that could be repurposed into standalone prints / pieces.

There are a few designs up that you can already buy printed on a variety of products:

Updating your address when moving house

Fri, 08 Aug 2014 20:51:34 +0000

I'm currently in the throes of moving house. From Glasgow, where I've been for the past thirteen years, back to my native Dumfries.

Aside from packing and arranging to move myself and all my belongings, I've been trying to be pro-active about updating everyone I need to regarding my impending change of address.

Given that, I've knocked together a simple checklist of people and entities I've been updating should it be of use to someone else.

Personal

There's lots of people and companies out there that'll contact you from time-to-time, you'll have to let them all know you're moving.

Bank

Your bank is one of the main entities to tell about your move. It's easily overlooked these days with paperless accounts, you'll have to update the bank on your new address lest the next occupant of your current residence get a nice shiny replacement debit card instead of you.

Security checks can require that you jump through some hoops to change your address, so it's worthwhile checking what you need to do to change it sooner rather than later. Be sure to update the address on all your accounts and cards.

Subscriptions

Any current subscriptions you receive will have to be updated. I updated a couple of magazine subscriptions, but you'll have to be wary of other recurring deliveries such as those for contact lens, medications and timed deliveries offered by the likes of Amazon's Subscribe & Save.

Doctor & Dentist

You'll need to update any medical professionals about your change in address. That means you'll need to update your GP and your dentist as well as any other specialist professionals you attend.

Some NHS practices require you to register with another surgery if you're moving out of their catchment area. Of course if you're moving further afield as I am you'll need to find and register with a new doctor and dentist.

Schools, Work, Government

Assuming you're not moving away from your local area and you'll be working in the same place, sending the kids to the same school and dealing with the same government, then you'll need to update them all. If you receive benefits or allowances from the government you'll have to let them know that you've moved.

Fiends & Family

Of course you'll have to let your friends and family know that you're moving so they can send your birthday and Christmas presents to the correct address.

Utilities / Services

You'll need to arrange the cancellation or to move any services you receive at your current residence before you move.

ISP / telephone provider

In my case it's BT; I've swapped the address on my account and an engineer will attend my new address to hook up the connection just before I move in.

Mobile phone provider

O₂ for me, in case they send anything on via snail mail.

Council Tax

You'll need to let your local authority know that you're moving house, and update them on your new address and council tax band. They'll work out how much you're liable for month-to-month, assuming you're staying within the same local authority. In my case because I'm moving between two regions I have to arrange a rebate of funds I've overpaid for my council tax. I will of course have to contact my new local authority to set up payments for council tax in my new area.

Gas & Electrical providers

You'll need to contact the company or companies who provide you with these services and let them know you're moving.

Generally they'll ask you for your moving out date and that you provide them a final meter reading on that date. They'll use these readings to settle up your account and rebate or bill you as appropriate. Of course if your new address is served by the same provider it's simply a case of swapping your address and giving final & first readings at each property.

Post Office

In the UK the Royal Mail offer a mail redirection service that can be set up for up to twelve months.

Company

I own and run my own company from my home, everything is registered to my current address and thus I have to update everything associated with it as well.

Bank

Similarly to your personal banking account, if your business banking is registered to your current address you'll have to update that too. Luckily I use the same bank for my personal and business accounts so I was able to update the addresses for all my accounts at once.

Accountant

If you have an accountant you'll need to update them with your new address so they can update their own records and your PAYE information should you be using it.

HMRC

If your company is registered and operating within the UK you'll need to update HMRC on your change of address. I was lucky enough that my accountant acts on my behalf with HMRC and made the updates for me when I notified them.

Companies House

You'll have to update the company's registered office address via Companies House if it's set to your current residence. It's easy to do on the Companies House website via WebFiling or through the post with a form you can download from their website.

Clients

You should update all of your clients, old and new, to your change of address and request that any correspondence or payments made by post be sent to your new address.

Ideally you'd do this up to a week before your move to ensure that you don't miss anything that's in the mail system whilst you are moving.

Your Stationery & Website

All of your company stationery or correspondence which lists your address should be updated. That could mean getting letterheads and business cards reprinted if they show your address.

Your website should be updated to your new address a week or so before you move, so that you're not missing anything in transit when you make the shift. Be sure to also update any advertising and directory listings out there for your company such as those in the Google business listings and Yell.

Remember to update your address in any document templates and invoices that you'll be sending out. This should also be done before your move so that invoices if paid via post arrive at the correct address.

Post Office

Like with personal mail, though at greater cost, the Royal Mail offer a business mail redirection for up to two years.

Checklist

That covers everyone that I need to get in contact with regarding my address change. If it's at all helpful, you can download a checklist for moving containing everything above.

Responsive Web Design

Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:02:49 +0000

Responsive Web Design (RWD) has been the order of the day for me recently. You might well be reading this via my website, and if you've been here before you'll likely remark that the styling has changed; it now boasts a fully responsive, fantastically sexy new design.

Much of my work for clients of late has been related to building websites which are mobile responsive, as should be the case with all websites in my opinion. Repeatedly building this functionality into various websites has enlightened me to some of the patterns in RWD; my plans are to write a series of articles to share some of what I've gleaned with you lucky people.

I'm aiming to cover the majority of the subject I've experienced. From simple things such as the widths you should use in media queries for different devices; through more complex programatical issues relating to image replacements and page speed optimisations.

Over time, as I add new pieces on the subject, I will make addendums to this article to link through to these new ones; this will essentially become an index on the subject of responsive web design.

For now though, I'm afraid you'll have to go back and consume some old content whilst waiting patiently for me to add more.

Using Sequel Pro with Back To My Mac

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 02:50:05 +0000

I do a lot of development split between two machines, a large desktop machine (iMac) and a portable laptop (Macbook Air), both of which have locally stored MySQL databases. Often I'll run into a situation where I have two out-of-sync databases across the two and I need to access one or the other to replicate changes.

I curse my lack of preparedness: "I should've set up that Dynamic DNS account last time I encountered the problem". But wait doesn't Back to My Mac do exactly what I want, easily and for free? Yes, yes it does.

Unfortunately Back to My Mac isn't an iCloud feature that's integrated across Mac OS, for reasons unknown, it'd be a very useful feature for situations like these. Even so, you can still get access to your remote machines with relative ease.

There's a good article on webdiary.com about SSHing into your iCloud enabled machines via Back to My Mac. Given that we can use SSH to connect to remote repositories in Sequel Pro the rest is childsplay.

Step-by-step instructions for connecting to your repository via Back to My Mac follows:

Get the assigned hostname of your Back to My Mac enabled machines by running dns-sd -B _ssh._tcp on the terminal.
This will give you a tabulated listing of all the machines on your iCloud account you can access.
You'll need the machine name as well as your iCloud hostname that looks something like 12345678.members.btmm.icloud.com.
Once you have that you should be able to connect to the host using hostname.12345678.members.btmm.icloud.com.
Select the SSH option for your connection in Sequel Pro.
Fill in your MySQL details for the machine you're connecting to
Use your iCloud host name as the SSH Host.
You'll be prompted for your SSH password when you try and connect.
You can optionally save the connection to make it easy to get back in.

That's it. Simple as pie. Of course the remote machine has to be alive and SSH access has to be enabled. Short of any networking oddities at the recipient end you should be logged in querying, exporting and importing happily in no time at all.

The user is an idiot, treat them as such

Sat, 13 Jul 2013 02:25:36 +0000

So, you're designing a user interface. A user interface that will be used by a user. Users are people. People are sometimes, often, and generally, idiots.

Not all users are idiots. Some are intelligent, thoughtful, logical people; but there's no guarantee you're going to win the user bingo and end up with one of them. So, as a general rule of thumb I've always worked to one guiding principle: "The user is an idiot, treat them as such".

That is not to say that you should belittle a user's intelligence with any interface design. You should try and allow a user to function independently of your guidance, but at all times provide support for anyone who isn't as capable.

There are various ways to ensure that all users, even the most dumbfounded, can understand and navigate using your interface. Most often it can be achieved by being clear and concise, removing options for failure, being consistent, and giving appropriate feedback at opportune times.

By having a clearly lain out structure to whatever you're designing, be that an app, webpage or anything else; the key is in creating a hierarchy of visual elements. Visual elements that the user focuses in on, discarding for the moment the surrounding parent elements until they find precisely what it is they want to deal with at that moment in time.

We as humans, are very focused, we focus in on a task, deal with it, then move on to something else. By creating a drill-down structure to your user interface or data hierarchy, you allow the focus to be centred on relevant elements, forgoing the transitionally irrelevant ones. Get this wrong, split related items apart visually and you're essentially blocking a user's ability to narrow in on and focus on a single thing, you're forcing them to deal with a much larger scope at any given point.

Removing options for failure is an exercise of restraint on your part. The instinct is to create an all-singing all-dancing interface, where the user can do anything that they could possibly need to. You've already failed, stop what you're doing, go back to the start and ask the question "What does the user need to do here?". Not, "What can the user do?"; not, "What are the options available to the user?"; No. You need to know what the basic, required, without this the user would be lost, functionality should be. These are the key calls to action or fundamental operations your system provides.

The more complex stuff should be there, but perhaps not at this level of your interface. Should a user be able to edit metadata held against blog posts at the top level listing in a CMS? No, certainly not. Bury those actions further down. You're overloading the simpleton, giving him too many places to go wrong. Your interface should be a roadmap with clearly marked signs as to the direction the user should take. If the idiot gets lost, or chooses wrongly, it's your fault!

Consistency is key, don't surprise the dumbard, he scares easily and is likely to run into the arms of another. Be structurally and interactively consistent, your interface shouldn't be too much of a shock to the user — wherever it is, you should be leading them through by the hand.

Your interface should adopt a learn-once apply-everywhere methodology. You should still innovate as much in possible in your interaction design, but not as to be so different as to cause confusion. Don't innovate at every opportunity!

Know what is expected of your interface and meet those expectations. If you're not going to meet those expectations then either provide alternatives or guide the user towards an alternative.

You should be striving to meet expectations in terms of application colour schemes, navigation design, grouping of elements and similarities between interactions with the OS chrome and your interface.

Feedback is important. Regardless of what you do, Joe or Jane public is going to get it wrong at some point. You shouldn't punish their stupidity, you should educate against it! If something goes wrong and it's the users' fault, tell them so.

Error messages are just plain wrong. If your user does something wrong you need to guide them towards doing something right, especially if you can guide them to an action that solves any problems they've created.

You should be making destructive actions less afordable than positive ones. If you want to delete a saved document it really shouldn't be as easy as creating a new one. Giving appropriate feedback and alerting the user to non-recoverable actions should allow them to pause to consider the impact of what they're trying to do.

Tell the idiot where they are, what they can do to get back to an initial state, and don't make it destructive to get back there. Allow recovery wherever possible, users that leave half way through editing a document can, rightly, expect to pick back up where they left off.

Give the user contextual feedback. Let them know what the results of their actions will be and give them the option of opting out of completing the process they've started. Be assertive with the options available to the user, give them definitive ways to proceed but don't ever back them into a corner where there's "nothing else to do there"; always give them the option of cancelling the operation, right up to the last opportune moment.

Approach every new project knowing that your solution isn't unique. You're not solving something that nobody else has addressed before. Even if you are, someone else is hot on your heels, ready to take the best elements of what you've done and add to those.

Anyone else approaching the same problem that you've solved is going to take what you have, find a better way of relating to the idiot user you have and capturing your business.

Don't over reach. You won't win the user war by offering the most feature filled app or service; you're better off doing less infallibly than doing a lot infuriatingly.