11th Edition Resolutions: Armagideon Time

 

New edition, new me. 

Do me a solid and let’s all pretend for a second that this article was published before 11th came out and not a bit after 11th’s release date. 

As one of the gargantuan tide of people who got back into the hobby “properly” with 10th, I felt inspired to use the dawn (PRETEND) of the new edition to do a 10th recap and set some goals for myself for 11th. Also I saw this video. The new year is sort of a fake new year that happens once a year without fail, but the real new year, the cooler new year, happens whenever a 40k edition rolls around and you get a chance to reflect on what you’ve done and what you want to do with your piles of plastic. 

It looks like they’re embracing rules digitisation even more for actual update, points, and hotfix purposes, which is fantastic, but good lord GW have to understand that the codices model is financially untenable for players, especially in the form that they were released in in 10th! * 

I love that they are refining rather than resetting, I’m excited to be excited with everyone, I’m excited to be inspired by everyone’s excitement. It’s a really satisfying, positive communal feeling that I haven’t really experienced before in the hobby space, and I was a little worried that the update was going to turn into the toxic quagmire that consumed the Horus Heresy update, so we’re all sunshine and rainbows baby.

Sick Ass 10th Edition Hobby Achievements Wicked Gnarly Style

obligatory columbo dot jpeg

Thing 1: Good Vibes

Number one most important thing that I’m taking with me from 10th into the future is that building and painting my silly little plastic armies has made me find a sense of worth and value inside something that I’m seriously not good at. This is what I (re)started the hobby for, I needed to find a way to shift my sense of self to a place that is less achievement and excellence focussed and a lot more… like… happy? 

I do not need to be a global leader in anything to be proud of myself, and I am proud of myself. I like my little goobers! They bring me joy to look at, and I want to share them with strangers online because I get joy from their little projects as well. Taking photos, posting them online, allowing space for myself to yap (for no more than ten minutes at a time) to non-hobby friends about feeling good about it, we’re taking steps! 

Shuffling, slow, septuagenarian steps, but still steps. 

Thing 2: Army Discipline

 

When I was a lot younger and getting into Warhammer for the first time I was an absolute magpie demon creature. I would happily jump from codex to codex building list after list after list inspired by custom colours in Dawn of War 1 or small bits of fiction published in White Dwarf.

It was bad enough that pretty much any new thing released would immediately become a massive piece of my identity, a steadily growing Akira-style fleshy Warhammer mass. For the most part this was contained firmly inside fantasy, in buying books and sketching out ideas on paper, but there was a real risk that re-entering the hobby with disposable income would lead me back to these same habits.

From the start of 10th to right now I have been tempted to go and buy some extremely stupid things at extremely high prices, and I think the shadow of army purchase dysregulation has been something that has haunted me for a while and made me constantly observe and self-critique my own enjoyment. 

Surprisingly, I am no longer a ten-year-old child with a child’s impulse control.

Even more surprising, I’ve managed to build my way slowly and methodically towards 2k points of Soulblight, about 1.5k of Aeldari, and about 1.5k of Tyranids - all my weird little spontaneous purchase urges kept firmly in the realm of the occasional Kill Team or Blood Bowl squad. I have, even with a sort of negative shadow surrounding it, built for myself a satisfying place to enjoy the hobby in moderation, and for me that’s a pretty big achievement!

Thing 3: Paint ON The Models Not Paint BESIDE The Models

Until February of this year (where I was unexpectedly inundated with gifts) I have not had a backlog of models. We have gone a box at a time since Leviathan, staying with each project until completion before buying anything new. 

A bit intense! I have Chilled The Fuck Out, but the childhood version of myself really was terrified that every fleck of paint I put on a model was a step towards ruining it, so I held myself to a particular standard of not leaving anything unpainted. 

No real story here - beat that particular demon no problem, no more stress about gaining a backlog, and on top of that I’ve gained a new angle of appreciation for GW’s sculptors! I love that these models are made to be un-fuckupable, and the further in I go the more I am in awe of how paintable they all are, how much attention has been paid to ensuring that even the most shaky brushwork can still be gently carried by excellently planned models. Thank you, unfairly anonymous GW sculptors, for making my efforts look worth it no matter how jank it gets.

Futuristic Radical Resolutions For 11th Edition

Brushing up on some of the brand new 11th edition Armageddon rules, factions, and models, feelin' like Frieren.

These are a bit of a combo deal: 

Resolution 1: A Full 2k 40k, k?

I want to build my Aeldari up to 2k points. Easy. Just buy more stuff! Convert some Blood Hags into Howling Banshees! Easy!

Resolution 2: A Full Sized 40k/AoS Game

In 11th I want to actually participate in games. 

While I managed to play some Kill Team, Blood Bowl, and one incredible game of Spearhead over the last three years, I did not manage to play a single game of 10th edition Wh40k. 

I got as far as setting up for a game of Combat Patrol that never ended up happening, and that’s it. This edition cycle, I really want to change that. 

I’m not exactly the most communal person, to put it politely, but I have been actively engaging with my other hobbies in spite of my recalcitrance and I hope to replicate that success with Warhammer. 

A huge motivator for this has genuinely been Paul is Bad At Stuff (and other similar channels that have been buoyed up into my eyeline by the youtube algo like Shagrot’s Sidequests and Legion W, as well as the tournament/tournament prep text adventures found on stop-calling-it-Goonhammer and Plastic Craic). 

Tournament recaps and sorta-vlogs are great videos to have on while I’m at work, and before I knew it the brainworms were a-wrigglin’ and getting me a-thinkin’ about how so many other people make attending and playing events seem like a task of just regular, normal difficulty, and not this momentous, giant thing that it is inside my brain. 

Content-wise it is interesting to think about event vlogs as existing in a space parallel to the (many, insanely high quality, incredible) battle reports that now exist on youtube. Battle reports act as a visceral snapshot of a gaming experience, the camera and the commentary placing the observer inside the standing-room-only section of the tabletop battle colosseum, a way to spectate The Game. The event vlogs act holistically as we vicariously experience the less game-y parts of an event and get a closer, more emotionally evocative look at the drama inherent to existing in a space and putting all your hopes on increasingly silly die rolls. 

We have such a nice spread of high quality, interesting hobby youtube content out there now, and for me the variety is creating so many points of motivational connection - I’m watching stuff that inspires me to do other stuff, and that’s nice. 

Thaaaaaaat’s nice. End of section. 

Resolution #3: Remember To Have Fun 

I touched upon this slightly in the army discipline section, but it really sucks to be constantly on your own back, measuring, pocketwatching, and litigating any kind of fun or self-fulfillment. Is this worth it? Did you really get anything out of this? Are you really enjoying yourself? All useful questions to ask yourself but absolutely deleterious if the only thing going through your head are these endless, transactional discussions. 

This edition I’m going to throw myself headfirst into sitting down and painting for two or three hours without asking myself “yeah, but was that worth it? Shouldn’t you have been learning a language? Doing work outside of work hours?”. Rubbish mindset to have! Goal now is to kill this mindset and bury it somewhere out in the woods.

Resolution #4: Take Better Photos 

Fun story: I recently traded my fully painted Space Marine half of the Leviathan box to a friend-of-a-friend for a semi-painted Emperor’s Children combat patrol. I was more than happy to make a slightly lopsided trade, I had no real remaining attachment to my little dudes and the person I was trading it to was extremely excited to slot the final pieces of his army project together, felt like a bit of a shelf-space/new project win/win.

Upon receiving my Space Marines, they decided to send me an old LoV combat patrol plus Hearthguard because he felt that he had effectively received a commission job for free - other than the shoulderpads and some detail work, my Raven Guard were pretty much 1:1 with his not-quite-Iron-Hands, and all were painted to his standard for tabletop play and above. 

This felt amazing, like what a huge compliment to receive! What a boost to my self esteem to know that someone unwrapped these silly little models and went “I have to give this guy more otherwise it’s a deeply unfair trade”, what an example of good character, what a day brightener! Maybe one of my top hobby highlights so far, honestly. 

 

He had not initially realised that my models were… anywhere near this level, and he thought he had a tonne of painting to do before his army was completed, because my photography “actively obfuscated” the work I did. Huh.

Hmm.

ONE MORE BAD WIP PHOTO FOR THE ROAD, GROSS ORANGE LIGHT TOP OF THE SHELF FOREVER BABY fine i'll get a FUCKING lightbox. Or a light. 

Lesson learned, I guess, so this edition I intend to learn how to take better photos of my models. I have very little ego with regards to the actual quality of the things I make and paint - I know what makes me feel content, and that's mostly where I try to get to - but when I take photos I think I want to try and memorialise them properly in a way that actually reflects my pride in my tiny plastic achievements instead of a sheepish photographic afterthought.

Do other people do this? Are new edition resolutions/roundups a regular thing? I feel like I had fun here, I'd love to read/watch other peoples' end-of-edition roundups but there's not that much of this out there. Let me know if the new edition/the community journey through the massively popular 10th ed inspired you towards anything - I don't think I'm even that big a fan of 40k compared to AoS, BB, etc. but the 11th expectation was SUCH an event that it prompted this. WHATEVER, END OF BLOG. BLOG = END.

*Ok here’s a bonus major unoriginal codex gripe: tell me why the Shining Spears are cool first and then tell me what their stats are otherwise what’s the point in me buying a fucking book. If you can’t dedicate two whole pages to Eldrad Uthuan then WHY DID YOU BOTHER TO PRINT THE CODEX it’s INSANE to me that they are treated like rules repositories first and lore handbooks second, these should be the tomes that give you horrid brainworm eggs that are ready to hatch every time you see something sick. Why don’t I have brainwoms for Saim-hann, GW? I bought the book? You released a new Vyper? Where are the brainworms?

To add insult to injury, these aren’t even *good* rules repositories! Most of these are fucked from day 0, and that’s fine, I genuinely understand that rules require a traumatising dunk in the ice cold bath of wide release before they become good. This is even more reason to treat these as primarily character sheets, guides to thinking like- and inhabiting the spirit of- your chosen faction, because rules are temporary! Brainworms are genuinely forever. I have codexes that have travelled with me for decades and for thousands of miles because they evoke such strong feelings in me that I couldn't throw them away! My Armageddon book is old enough to drink and have Thoughts about The Economy, but it's still here because this tiny volume is 90% developing a story space to play in and 10% actual rules, this split really works!

Bad Thoughts Season 2: A Review

 

 

As the pre-eminent Bad Thoughts scholar of our era I had completely forgotten that the second season had come out, and it was only by sheer coincidence that I watched it at all. I would encourage you to read my thoughts about Season 1 here, the eagle-eyed amongst you might be able to spot some serious repetition if you compare and contrast.

THE SHORT THOUGHTS

If you don't want to wade through the rest, here's the tl;dr:

Once again Bad Thoughts provides some of the safest, least threatening comedy available - not punching up, not punching down, barely throwing any punches at all. Groundless, floaty, soft suburbanite fare, broadly incapable of confronting the world, other media, or itself.

  

THE GOOD THOUGHTS

I am glad they took away Tom Segura explaining the sections, those were bad and the show as a whole is improved by their absence. They also changed up some of the comedy, because we now have significantly fewer moments where Tom Segura explains a sex act at great length and detail. 

I think de-emphasising the guest stars (of which there are still quite a few!) was the correct move as well. This season is less funny, but I’m also significantly less distracted by pointing at the screen and going “wow, Famous Person that I like!” - feels like they’ve stopped using an obvious crutch. When the inevitable third season happens*, I think they will heavily benefit from having kept the guests light this time around.  

The k9 unit dog reuniting with his soldier companion sketch is really good. One of the seven credited writers should feel good about this one, really funny, completely dodges the otherwise ubiquitous flaws of the other sketches, and uses the show’s high production values to great effect. Only problem I have with this one is that Tom Segura makes the sketch actively less funny.

I promise I'm not being a hater, this is in Episode 3 (BAD NEWS) - try and tell me with a straight face that Tom's inclusion here isn't weirdly forced and comedically flaccid. Still the best sketch in the season.

If you like laughing, you'll LOVE this new season of Netflix's MOST CONTROVERSIAL super GROSS-OUT comedy! He eats his own sperm! He has bad thoughts! He USED to be fat but he's NOT ANYMORE. 

THE BAD THOUGHTS

The pacing for these sketches are just absolutely fucking atrocious across the board. There is not a single sketch in this show that couldn’t be improved with a harsh edit, to the point where it starts to feel like they keep on writing sketches without any jokes attached - fundamentally untrue! The jokes just go missing, stomped into unrecognisability by the sheer length of the sketch. 

This is the Bad Thoughts “style” - premises are stretched out past the point of viability, and past the point where the audience can ever recognise where the funny part was in the first place.  

I could (and did before mercy-killing close to THREE THOUSAND WORDS) go on about each individual sketch, but all issues pale in comparison to the core one - Tom Segura. The way that this show treats and uses Tom Segura is insufferable and deeply, deeply boring. 

This time the Tom Segura (actor) sketches are mostly bad, and sometimes extraordinarily bad, but the Tom Segura (character) sketches are annoying. They’re just annoying. “What if you, Tom Segura, took the Limitless pill but for inhibitions!” Oh my god he’d tell someone to not shout at their phone in public! Everybody claps! He’d beat up an old lady who was annoying him! He’d commit suicide by cop!

Isn’t there so many different places for this sketch to go than boring slapstick?

If we’re quickly workshopping this, what if the Limitless pill did fuck-all? Would it be funnier if Tom Segura without any societal brakes disappointed the repressed and ordinary Tom Segura, that there was no secret savage hidden inside, no Hyde to his Jekyll, no hidden misanthropic GTA fantasy; maybe the unleashed Tom is just a boring 50-something year old man who repaints his house more often and occasionally jerks off in public now, while everyone else who took it is doing The Purge? 

I feel like so many of these Tom sketches all fall down for the same core reasons - they just can’t make Tom Segura an actual loser. They can kill him, that’s fair game, but they can’t ever hurt him. It just all feels so safe, the self-reflection completely absent, the vulnerability or awareness of his own flaws utterly artificial - oh! Did you know he used to be fat? If you didn’t well…. we’ll tell you! Every sketch!

What if people don’t remember me as a skinny rich guy doing comedy, and instead as a fat rich guy doing comedy? Ough the BAD THOUGHTS are at it AGAIN they’re HERE. I’ll never escape the shadow of Fat Comedian Tom Segura ohhhhh it’s eating me up on the inside oooouuuugh. 

I had a friend who quite legitimately had this as their favourite film of all time. They wouldn't stop bringing it up for like two years, great bit honestly. 

That’s the issue about having Tom Segura as the character Tom Segura. It forces us to reckon with the thoughts that went into making the sketch while understanding the context of this highly public, real person. 

That is why the lack of honesty in the writing and performing is such a factor: when Tom Segura (the real person) is lying awake at 2am in the morning, do you think he’s more worried about being a boring old man whose comedy legacy will never escape his thousands of hours of endlessly rotating podcast appearances? Or is he more worried that he can’t physically assault a slow-walking grandma on the sidewalk? Which one seems more likely here?

And which one is the more unexpected direction to tack towards?

There’s a sketch where an intimacy coordinator (Maria Bamford) is coordinating a sex scene between Tom (the character) and an actress (Allegra Edwards), and what stood out to me other than the obviously hacky insecurity about hot topic Intimacy Coordinator was the line  “there are a few bad eggs” when attempting to assuage Bamfords’ character’s suspicions around comedians, which is staggering in context. 

I had to look this up to be 100% sure, but Tom Segura (the person) did a fucking podcast in 2025 with Louis CK in which they talked about Louis new work as an author and him returning to stand up comedy, so like maybe this whole sketch can fuck off? What right does Tom have to be worried about being seen as a sex pest on-set when another, identical podcast Segura will always be more than happy to help rehabilitate him back into wealthy celebrity life? 

This is what I mean by them never really making Tom Segura vulnerable - every sketch that centers Tom as a character comes across as him having no issues or thoughts (bad or otherwise) at all. Just Tom Segura, a blank character without a shred of internality. He can never be confronted for any opinion because he doesn't have any, and there's no interesting contradictions or unique bugbears in this world that a sketch version of Tom Segura can maybe externalise or solve. In a way it's kinda sad that this sketch comedy canvas is being used to air out ideas like "what if my nut had a bad vibe, does that bad vibe make it to the baby?" before crashing that question into a wall and wasting our time with a five minute fight scene. It just speaks to a lack of direction, development, and just... general... funny that they can't do shit with these premises, they can't expand or conclude or take weird steps, it just wastes our time with increasingly desperate layers of nothing.

I laughed typing out the premise, and I had to rewatch the sketch to make sure I wasn't being a super cynical online asshole. Still bad! Also seven minutes long, feels like an eternity.

Tom Segura is also bafflingly unfunny on camera, and the writing and directorial insistence on centering Tom at every possible opportunity emphasises how safe, controlled, and distant his performances are, how lacking in risk or interesting angles or spontaneity (criticisms that could also equally be levelled at the comedy in the show!). He maybe has a breakout Lost in Translation-type role in his future - maybe that’s what this whole meandering project is about - but right now we are forced to suffer through sketch after sketch focused on a man who is painfully aware that he is performing comedy in front of a camera and seemingly has no idea what to do about it.

If you want to watch Bad Thoughts for yourself, you can. On Netflix.

Don’t though! It’s fuckin… bad!

Quick sneak peek about what I didn’t talk about, and instead deleted:

The Actor Tom sketches all kinda suck, sorry. Dire. 

There’s also like three sketches in this season that I honestly think make it on to pretty much anyone’s “worst fucking sketch i’ve ever seen” list, I didn’t even think I needed a “worst sketch” list but now I’ve got some real contenders.

The three in question: the racial fraternity sketch, the ‘what if a slave was gay?’ sketch, and Tom Segura goes and does a Japanese film sketch. Awful, actual trash - shout outs to the YOUR THE MAN NOW, DOG reference in the racial fraternity sketch and the curious details such as backwards-driving cars in the animation in the Japan sketch. 

I don’t want to make any clAIms about the production here, but it is curious! Concerning, even!

*I say “inevitably” because we live in hell, we all live in hell