The Army Collector

Boba Fett? Where?

2012-02-17T12:31:00.000-05:00

Mole-man, Lando, Buboicullar, Leia (as Boushh), Hermi Odle, Boba Fett, and Oola

My work on my friend's Jabba's Palace diorama continues. I managed to slop together seven figures, some detailed, others not so much. There's not a lot you can do with a brown guy except paint, wash, and drybrush detail. Anyways, turns out like most aliens that ever appeared in the movies, they all have names. I do think that Oola, who ended up being eaten by the Rancor, is way too small when you compare her to Leia. Of course, it's a cheap plastic kit from over a decade ago, so what can you do.

I've still got a few of these to do. Hopefully the whole thing will be done in the next week or so, though. Until then, it's seven more points towards the painting goal.

Another quick shot of Friday's game, now with 100% T-Rex

2012-02-12T17:28:00.000-05:00

Another quick shot from last Friday's game. That's a hobgoblin warlord on a T-Rex attacking us inside a chapel. (FYI, that's my own warlord with the red tail in the foreground.)

Yvonna, Eladrin Wizard

2012-02-11T08:52:00.000-05:00

I'm a relatively humble person, but this time I'm tooting my own horn. This miniature turned out great. It doesn't hurt that it was a great miniature before it was painted; this was the "Iconic Oracle" mini from Reaper's licensed Pathfinder series. In the Advanced Player's Guide you can see the artwork that inspired the Oracle, and I clearly went with a very different paint scheme (and painted her belly to make is look like part of the dress.

This mini represents Yvonna, an eladrin wizard played by one of the new players in my D&D 4E campaign. I painted her to the specification of the player--dark green and silver. I think she was hoping for a strong "Lord of the Rings" vibe. Anyways, it looks good, although I wish there were more contrast between the silver headdress and the light gray/white hair.

Speaking of my D&D game, here's a pic of last night's session. We're being charged by three dragonkin with hobgoblin monk riders.

More figures from Jabba's Palace

2012-02-10T16:02:00.000-05:00

It's Friday, so that means I got together with my friend who is working on the Jabba the Hutt 1:52 kit. I had a productive afternoon, finishing R2D2, Chewbacca, Droopy McCool (the fat clarinet player), Tessek (the Quarren), and Bib Fortuna (Jabba's primary henchman). So that's five more towards the February total. Here's a WIP pic of the diorama.

It was great just hanging out and doing my usually solo hobby pursuits with a friend. I also managed to get a lot of work done on a figure for my D&D campaign. Hopefully I'll have that up later.

Her Majesty's Landship, the Argus

2012-02-08T18:56:00.000-05:00

This figure which began it's life as a $5 action figure is now the HMS Argus. I did a little more weathering with washes, trying to get a oily, streaky look to the figure. Then I painted the base and hit it with matte sealant, which did a lot to help the bronze look in my mind. Once that was done, he was flocked.

All told, a fun little project. The Argus is ready to take his place amongst the future British troops in When the Navy Walked. Plus, I get five points on the board for February.

The Argus, weathered

2012-02-07T21:58:00.000-05:00

I kind of went back and forth about how to weather this guy. In the midst of that I began to regret painting him bronze because it would be easier to paint him a solid color and then have the paint "flaking off" and exposing metal. In the end I sort of took the easy way and just hit him with the wood varnish. It didn't do a bad job, and in retrospect I like the way it created a more burnished look to the bronze color, and it gave a nice dark ring around the rivets.

In other news, I'm reading Boneshaker by Cherie Priest right now. It's a great steampunk-meets-zombies novel. I'll post a review once I'm done.

AAR: 800 pts. Dwarfs vs. Orcs (WHFB)

2012-02-03T14:30:00.000-05:00

My son had a day off from school today, so last night we started an 800 pt. game of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, 7th Edition.
Side note. I haven't bought the new edition yet, and frankly am not in a hurry. I know people who still play Third Edition WHFB and enjoy it. Unless I start gaming at the local store, I may just save me the ~$100 and still have fun.
I played dwarfs while my son played orcs. Here's a shot of the table.

Click for a larger pic

Kind of a big table for a small game, but I wanted to try out the new Zuzzy battlemat. It looked great, but I discovered one small disadvantage: dice bounced all over the place! I eventually put a tray down in which to roll the dice.
I told my son that orcs either won big or lost big, and this time they won big. Lots of the good kind of Animosity to get him across the table in record time. My cannon misfired on the first two turns, tying it up for three turns total. He made loads of armor saves, etc. Even my thane got crushed in one melee round by his Black Orc Boss. All told him steam-rolled his way across the table and won handily by the top of turn six.
But two bits of silver lining. One, it is always good to get the new generation excited about playing, especially with an impressive win. Two, it serves as my mandatory wargame of the month.

Flagrant Cross-blog pimping

2012-01-28T01:11:00.000-05:00

Right now, I'm in the midst of a huge creative surge on the roleplaying side of the hobby. You can check out the idea behind my superhero RPG over at Graph Paper Games.

Clockwork base coated (WIP)

2012-01-24T22:04:00.000-05:00

So, back to my VSF walker project. I haven't made huge headway on these guys, but at least the Ben 10 figure Clockwork has been primed and basecoated.

Now, I have to figure out how weathered a giant mechanical robot from the 19th Century is supposed to be.

More Star Wars figurines

2012-01-21T09:26:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm helping a friend assemble this scale model of Jabba's palace. It's not a fabulous kit (I think he said he bought it for $3.00 on eBay) but it is kind of fun and I'm enjoying a little change of pace. Anyways, Friday I went over to his house and banged out four figures in a couple of hours.

C3PO, Luke, Han, and Yarna

Did you know that practically every person who has appeared in a Star Wars movie has been given a name and a backstory? It's true, "overweight dancer at Jabba's Palace" is actually Yarna d'al' Gargan. The detail on these figures isn't fabulous, and they are about 1/72 scale, but I managed to do a passable job on them. I don't do a lot of painting in scales smaller than 28mm, so I don't really know how to do points for them, but since they are close enough, I'm giving myself four points. After all, they are aren't much smaller than a goblin.

That's Mr. Hutt to you

2012-01-20T12:30:00.000-05:00

I seem to have a lot of side projects going on right now. One of them is for a friend of mine who is building a model of Jabba's palace. He asked if I could help with the detail work, namely painting up the figures in the diorama. So, here's one of the first figures, the big man himself, Jabba the Hutt.

So, a bit of geek trivia. Jabba's appearance actually changes between various iterations: The Return of the Jedi, the lousy CGI part they put back into Star Wars: a New Hope, the Phantom Menace, and all the other video games, comic books, etc. that are out there. His appearance has actually changed quite a bit, making it a little hard to figure out exactly how to paint him. But I decided to go with the original, green screen, no flying droids zipping around, yes-I-can-see-where-you-cut-the-film version.

And hey, two points to the painting goal.

WotC to reprint AD&D

2012-01-19T12:47:00.000-05:00

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/21954.html

It looks like Wizards of the Coast is going to release all three core books of 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons to support the Gygax Memorial Fund. $45 for the DMG, $35 for the PHB and MM. I have all those books, and the OSRIC version, but I might pick these up as they are for a good cause (and might remind WotC that there is some interest in this style of game as they move towards 5th Edition).

Book Review: Allison Hewitt is Trapped

2012-01-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

I first read about Allison Hewitt Is Trapped: A Zombie Novel on Vampifan's blog as part of his regular reviews of all things about zombies. I've had mixed success with zombie novels, tending to find that prose sometimes struggles to capture the dread I associate with the whole zombie milieu. But Vampi waxed on about this book and so I thought I would give it a read.

I'm glad I did. Allison Hewitt is Trapped is written by Madeleine Roux and the story takes the form of a series of blog entries written by the eponymous Allison as she experiences the Zombie Apocalypse (tm). All the way along I wondered about how the post facto quality of the narrative meant that she would be guaranteed to survive every encounter, but then I realized that they could either go with the "post script written by someone else" option or the "I've been bit and now I'm going to write this before I shoot myself" option, so the drama persisted.

Allison is an employee at a bookstore in a shopping mall in the MidWest when the zombies first appear, and she and several co-workers secure themselves in a saferoom in the back of the store. They are armed with only a baseball bat and a fire axe that Allison seizes as her own personal weapon for the majority of the book. The narrative doesn't stay there, however, and in fact the book rarely settles into any location for the long haul, not to mention cycling many characters in and out of the story, some coming to a grisly end.

Like most good zombie stories, the focus isn't on gray hands reaching out of nowhere, but rather on the human condition, and in fact it is starvation, disease, and aberrant human behavior that pose the greatest threat throughout the novel. There are the usual gangs of violent men, religious fanatics, and unscrupulous characters that appear in many of these stories, but there's also a very good treatment on the transformation of real relationships: friends, boyfriends, spouses, children, etc. that occur under extreme pressure. As a first person story there's a lot about her own emotional state the roller coaster that finding oneself in the middle of the collapse of society can place can do.

So it's a clever, witty, and features a compelling main character. As Vampi pointed out one of the side character's death is really poorly done, largely for shock value but also places a huge continuity hole in the plot of the story that never gets sewn shut, but that's really minor in comparison to a larger, very well written work. Apparently there are other "girl zombie blog" novels by Roux in the works, so I'll have to keep my eye out for them.

The first wargame of 2012

2012-01-17T22:43:00.000-05:00

One of my goals for the year was to play one wargame a month. I am actually more skeptical about this goal than I am painting 150 miniatures. But, with some encouragement and a bit of luck, I got one in.

Brazen Claws vs. Biker Marines

Of course I lost. It doesn't help when you forget an entire unit of terminators that you never brought in my deep strike. Sigh.

VSF Walkers from Toys (WIP part one)

2012-01-14T10:59:00.000-05:00

A while ago, I picked up a copy of When the Navy Walked, and even reviewed the game briefly. I've always liked the "look" of the game (even if I had some critique of the actual layout of the book). Moreover, it is in the 15-20mm scale range, which tends to be pretty inexpensive.

The other thing I liked about it was the chance to perhaps move into a different niche of the hobby--scratchbuilding vehicles. And not just any vehicles, but funky Victorian science-fiction vehicles. And as this has been slow-cooking in my brain over the last year, I've been slowly picking out items mentally that I've seen in stores that might be converted. Well today I saw two toys in the clearance section of the local big box store, both priced under $5 and I finally jumped.

The two figures are "Clockwork" from the Ben 10 TV show and "Shel" from the movie Green Lantern. Shel was $3.50, Clockwork was $4.50.

Like a lot of the Ben 10 aliens, Clockwork has really smooth lines to fit the animation style, so he really needs some added detail. Shel is practically good as-is, a rickety, spindly robot with a bulbous head. To get Clockwork up to speed, I decided to add some rivets. Now some use a hole punch and plasticard, and God love them, but I'm too lazy right now to do that so I just dropped $2.99 on a huge bag of 4mm googly eyes at the hobby store, as well as buy some 1/12" birch plywood to cut bases for the two figures. WTNW doesn't have standardized bases for Capital units, so these will both be 2" by 4".

I glued the googly eyes in what I thought were appropriate places across Clockwork's body, making him look a bit like the mythical figure "Argus" (which might just end up his name as a VSF walker). I used superglue and a cheap pair of plastic craft tweezers to make sure I didn't end up attaching a little bit of human flesh to the walker as well.

Shel, as I said earlier, really needed no work, so I attached him to the base using E-6000, which is a sort of clear multi-purpose thick, gummy glue. I had a staff person at Hobby Lobby say that most of the staff carry one of these tubes around with them at all times in case of emergencies. It is a lot thicker than superglue, and I felt that with the smooth plastic finish of the toys I needed something with a little more heft to attach them to the base. Then it was my typical practice of covering the base with watered-down PVA glue and then a layer of model railroad ballast. For a little variety I glued on a couple of chunks of terrarium gravel as well.

Now these guys are all ready for priming and painting, which I'll cover in part two. Comments welcome!

Happy Saturday the 14th!

2012-01-14T09:27:00.000-05:00

I totally missed that yesterday was Friday the 13th until I checked the "blogs I follow" links and saw everyone celebrating that day.

For a notoriously bad day, mine was pretty great. I finally decided to start up a little side-project I've been thinking about for a year: converting toys into 15mm Victorian Science Fiction vehicles. I'm planning a big how-to post on that, so stay tuned.

I also played in my 4E campaign for the first time since before Christmas. I'll admit that the game has once again hit its stride. We've got a good group, a nice mix of PC's, and the story was good (including that all-important bit of player agency). It makes me almost not want to take over when the time comes (especially because we may have two more players, kicking us up to seven players).

Finally, I had the chance to see some of the filming of small indie flick "The Sublime & Beautiful," which is being shot entirely in my home town. One of the scenes was at my church, and I was able to bring my daughter, who is very interesting in acting, to see a real photo shoot. What's even better, the lead actor and director was in the TV series FlashForward, which I loved, and he told me a bit about what they were kicking around for Season Two, which never happened. Needless to say, Mrs. Q was very excited to hear all about it.

Anyways, for a notoriously unlucky day, I have to say it was all good.

Zombies and Living 2012 twice

2012-01-13T12:45:00.000-05:00

I posted these over at Hard Boiled Zombies, but here they are--another round of zombies from Zombiesmith.

Boney, Yield, Pop, Homemaker, and Chubbs

I read an article out there (and of course now I can't find it) where this guy (a psychiatrist?) outlined this mental discipline by which a person sort of envisions the upcoming year and then speculates on what the biggest mistakes or regrets that might occur in the upcoming year. It's a kind of tricky, but when you think about it, it is not that hard. I can see myself, for example, failing to take up an exercise regime, watching too much television, or getting sucked into some drama with my extended family. On December 31st, 2012, I can see myself ruminating on all those bad decisions.

Then, you decide not to do them. You imagine your state at the end of that year and say, "I don't want that," and then act differently. I'm oversimplifying this a lot, but I think you get the idea. You can see how this applies to your hobbies as well, especially if you have a long history of impulse buying like I do. Will I regret buying the latest edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles? Probably not. Will I regret trying to build a new Vampire Counts army? Probably, because I've played VC before and while it might be a little different, it's still a pretty two-dimensional army without a lot of variation. So at the end of 2012 I have an army that I probably won't like that I spent of ton of money on and maybe even didn't use all that often.

Buying Infinty? I'll probably regret that.
Painting up all the Zombiesmith zombies? Nope.
Buying a copy of the latest Warmachine rulebook, despite the fact that I already own it (this happened in the midst of writing this post)? Absolutely.

New York Times Article on the new edition of D&D

2012-01-09T16:56:00.000-05:00

Link

The article does a good job of pointing out a couple of the major shortfalls in the "let's get suggestions for changes," particularly the one about how this means that at least someone isn't going to get what they want.

WotC "charts a new course" for a new edition of D&D

2012-01-09T12:19:00.000-05:00

From WotC's website:

That is why we are excited to share with you that starting in Spring 2012, we will be taking this process one step further and conducting ongoing open playtests with the gaming community to gather feedback on the new iteration of the game as we develop it. With your feedback and involvement, we can make D&D better than ever. We seek to build a foundation for the long-term health and growth of D&D, one rooted in the vital traits that make D&D unique and special. We want a game that rises above differences of play styles, campaign settings, and editions, one that takes the fundamental essence of D&D and brings it to the forefront of the game. In short, we want a game that is as simple or complex as you please, its action focused on combat, intrigue, and exploration as you desire. We want a game that is unmistakably D&D, but one that can easily become your D&D, the game that you want to run and play.

It's not really a surprise, since many had seen the creation of D&D Essentials as being almost a "4.5 Edition" of D&D. What I'm trying to figure out is the somewhat incredulous claim that the new D&D will "rise above differences in playing styles, campaign settings, and editions (emphasis mine)."

I'm not among the people who stridently point out the differences between B/X, 1st, and 2nd Editions. I know they were there, but fundamental mechanics were so little as to make it easy to pick up a Basic Edition module and run it using 2nd Edition rules. But 3rd Edition radically changes everything about the way the game was played, and 4th was a huge shift from there. So what is WotC saying? That they'll do a magnum opus of optional rules that allow you to hen-peck which version you want to play? That the whole game is being scrapped in favor of some abstract style? I'm also curious about how much combat will really be sharing space with intrigue and exploration. The "it is sort of a skirmish wargame" meant that the pre-painted miniatures business, not to mention the battle mats and gaming tiles, are a big part of their business model. This is especially the case after the DDI came out that gave you access to all the character creation options without buying the books.

I'm enough of a cynic about this think that a lot of this is just smoke-and-mirrors, an attempt to both appease 4th Edition enthusiasts to stay on and not rebel about losing their game support and to attempt to lure the 3rd-and-prior holdouts that have been pumping money into retro-clones and Pathfinder.

Sometimes it writes itself

2012-01-04T11:05:00.000-05:00

I am wary of stating anything about my roleplaying game hobby with certitude, but in theory I am going to be taking back over responsibility of running at D&D game at my house in about two or three months. In theory.

Anyways, yesterday I had one of those cloudburst moments of creativity where it all just comes together at once after weeks of wracking my brain for ideas. It all starts with my brother-in-law's Christmas present to my son. Ammo Grot, as I like to call my son, is a pre-teen and into video games. My BIL decided this year to just give him for Christmas a dozen back issues of some video game magazine he has a subscription to. It sounds cheap, but it is actually brilliant. Tweeners are exactly going to be spending tons of money on cutting-edge games--they just want to look at pictures and read up on stuff and getting it all in one lump suits them just fine. Plus it is recycling. Win-win-win.

So I'm thinking to myself "what am I going to do for a story that isn't the same old monster lair raid" when I read an article for some video game from 2009 that was built around the idea of surviving a massive earthquake in the city. Ding! Here's the set-up: PC's are back in some major city doing their restocking/healing/etc. when the city is shook apart by a violent earthquake, leaving the party buried under a huge building. First, do the PC's dig upwards to the surface, risking having more of the building come down on top of them, or do they go downward into the city's sewer system and try to escape that way [Player Agency].

While digging they uncover an NPC, a young person whose father is a bigwig in town [roleplaying opportunity, minor quest--get the person back to daddy]. If they ditch the NPC, then they will have a more difficult time navigating the city since they are strangers to the area, not to mention losing out on the quest reward.

If they go down, they get a few sewer-based encounters [oozes, vermin, lycanthropes, maybe a hag as the BBEM] but also get a couple of clues from the subterranean denizens that the earthquake isn't natural. If they go up, they get to fight their way through the city [ghouls and carrion eaters, magical pets run amok, looters that could use the rarely-tapped PC race monsters from the Monster Manuals]. Either once back on the surface from the sewers or as they travel along the streets the PC's come across the residence of a local archmage that looks like it is in pretty rough shape: weird lights, sounds, etc. If the PC's investigate, they will rescue the mage who rewards them [Player agency, side small quest, maybe three encounters] and get another clue that the earthquake isn't natural but the result of something being summoned to the area [roleplaying opportunity].

The home of the NPC's father is also under siege, but after the PC's deal with that the father informs them (being a local scholar or sage) that an earthquake of this magnitude would be normally impossible and must suggest something is amiss [major quest: uncover (and hopefully stop) the cause of the earthquake].

Here's where I use what I call the "Quantum Ogre Theory" of gaming. If the PC's went into the archmage's house, then they already have some clue about what is going on. If they didn't, the NPC father can send them back to the archmage's house or to some other location where I recycle the encounters from the archmage's house (retooling them to be a library, a university, or a temple). At this point, the PC's can be pointed towards the location of the earthquake's epicenter and doubtless cause of the earthquake [something earth-related like a giant elemental or something]. But to get there they have to either a) travel below ground or b) travel through the city, whichever option they didn't take to get to the father's house, and I can recycle the encounters not used the first time.

This isn't really cheating your way out of Player Agency, it is just taking work you've already done and not inventing the same wheel twice. If I want I could make the quest to the summoned creature have a few more encounters [may want to see how long the game is going].

In the end, the PC's find and stop the creature, but then uncover mysterious clues to who might be behind the summoning in the first place. Is the city under attack from an unknown, perhaps subterranean power? Can we say Underdark?

Anyways, here's a rough map of the adventure, where you can see how it all ties together. My apologies for the terrible handwriting--I've suspected that I have undiagnosed dysgraphia.

As you can see, I need to do about seven encounters, plus maybe another three for the arch-mage sub-quest, and maybe a couple for the final search for the earthquake-causing monster. At a rate of gaming for three or four hours every other week, this should last me the better part of three gaming sessions or six weeks, minimum. All cobbled together in an hour, which is pretty cool.

The First (Zombie) Miniatures of 2012

2012-01-03T08:53:00.000-05:00

click for a bigger pic

I posted these guys earlier at my other blog, Hard Boiled Zombies. This is the first set of zombie miniatures I have painted that are manufactured by Zombiesmith. The zombies are named Skater, Brokeback, Jawbone, Overalls, and Gutshot on the Zombiesmith's site. There's a lot of good character to these guys, and they painted up well using the basecoat-and-stain technique. Overalls' head has been spun around by a vicious but ineffective cranial attack, and Gutshot has a hole going right through his torso! I painted all five yesterday, stained them last night, and then finished the bases today. Not bad for about a day's work. Looks like they are lurking around the school looking for tasty kidlets to eat.

This brings up an interesting question. Most of my hobby stuff will be on my zombie campaign, which has its own site, but not everyone follows it. Do I double post, just put stuff here and maybe the AAR's on the zombie site, or leave this site without updates? Comments welcome

My 2012 Pledge(s)

2012-01-02T09:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been thinking about what I want to do, if anything, in terms of hobby-related goals for 2012. Sometimes I think goals are counter-productive, causing me to stress about stuff that's supposed to be fun. On the other hand, not keeping my own proverbial feet to the fire. And I know myself well enough that I'm more likely to let my painting slide during moments of ennui than to stress out about whether I'll get all my painting done (especially since I have always met my painting goals).

So, with that in mind, here's what I got in mind:

Paint 150 miniatures I can clearly get 150 painted, but I didn't want to ramp it up too much. Leaving it where it always is allows me a little leeway to work on other projects as well. What's interesting is that there are loads of people I know online for whom 150 miniatures is a pretty lightweight painting schedule, but around here 150 is this unheard-of herculean effort.

Wargame once a month This might actually be harder than getting 150 miniatures painted, but I have really let this slide in 2011. I'm not the only one--on my Christmas vacation I stopped by my old arch-rival Vince's house to see how he's been doing and he admitted to not having played Warhammer Fantasy in eight months. But if I can either get over to my FLGS and subject myself to another humiliating loss at 40K, or get my ATZ solo campaign going at a rate of once a month, that will be a step in the right direction.

Be more positive For someone who has a wonderful family, a well-paying job, and even a few friends I seem to mope around a lot. Much of it has to do with the word "few" in my description of my friends, but I also know that I can tend to find the fault in anything. It is not a great personality trait, and I'm trying to avoid looking for the critical flaw and instead focus on what's going right. I think I also need to make sure I hang around in the internet in places a little more positive, meaning avoiding negative chatrooms or reading lots of comments to news reports.

Not exactly in the resolution category, but more in the category of New Year Blog Housekeeping:

Editing Pages I'm removing the "Hordes of the Things" page, since that project has been completed for some time, and if you want to see what I did last year you can just go to the "Hordes of the Things" tag. I will probably leave up the Brazen Claws page for now. I'm not sure if I have a new page to put in its place, but we will have to see.

The Ever So Slight Monetizing of the Blog I dislike the "below the post" advertising in some blogs, but my brother-in-law recommending doing the Amazon Associates option for the blog. He does the same for his own (a blog about teaching and technology), and said to me "You read and review things that your readers are interested in, they are likely to buy it on Amazon, why not get a little something back?" So I thought I'd try it out in a small and hopefully inoffensive way, namely the sidebar. I read a lot of books in a pretty eclectic manner, so I thought I would share it with you, the reader, while at the same time getting the chance to get Amazon gift cards to buy more books. If it is really awful and you hate it, let me know.

Monthly goals I didn't want to set this up in the same category as the painting goal for the year, but I thought I would try to set up some short-term goals just to help keep me on track. In the month of January I would like to paint ten zombies, four gangers, and one survivor for my ATZ game.

Okay, that's it! I hope you all have a wonderful new year!

2011 in Review

2011-12-31T21:28:00.000-05:00

Well, it is time for the end-of-the-year wrap up for this blog.

At the beginning of 2011 I had just moved to a new house in a new state for a new job, having left behind a lot in the way of gaming groups, roleplaying game groups, and most of the gaming terrain I had ever made. I had managed to get a small RPG group together to play D&D every other week, first at the FLGS by my house, and then later at my own home. I had little success in finding people interested in doing wargaming, aside from a few historical wargaming guys who weren’t that interested in a new person and rarely got together.

So what happened? First, I set a painting goal of 150 for the year, less than what I painted last year, and then manage to not only surpass the goal but also what I painted in 2010. I began by mostly working on painting to Hordes of the Things armies (a dwarf one and a goblin one), neither of which have actually seen a battle yet. Then around the end of Spring I managed to get hooked into a 40K group at the FLGS and between painting Space Marines I already owned a few splurges on new figures I managed to get about 1750 points of marines painted. None of these were dipped, by the way.

But my 40K experience has not necessarily been all that great. I was used to being a pretty fair player of Warhammer Fantasy, and between shortcomings in my army list, my own unfamiliarity with the rules, and a pretty competitive group at the FLGS, I found myself consistently losing and losing badly. One evening after another bitter defeat Mrs. Q asked me what it would take to start winning and I said, “about two hundred more dollars and a lot of playing.”

While she would probably not have begrudged me that, I had to admit to myself that I just wasn’t enjoying myself as much as I had hoped. My attendance at the FLGS has dwindled off substantially.

All along the way I have been slowly building up my repertoire of miniatures and terrain for my All Things Zombie campaign, even to the point of starting a blog about it. I have long admired a lot of different people’s ATZ campaigns on the web, and thought (and still do think) it looks like fun. Solo wargaming also provides a possible outlet for me in the interim until I can establish a game with person or persons that I do enjoy. This project has picked up quite a bit of steam since finishing the painting goal, and through the holidays I bought a lot of O-Scale model train buildings to use in the game.

Speaking of trying to establish a game, I find myself struggling a bit to talk about my RPG gaming situation right now. At the beginning of the year, I was with a new group that seemed to be getting underway nicely. In the twelve months that followed I saw the group begin to constantly cycle players in and out for largely circumstantial reasons (players moving away, having job schedules change, etc.) The up-and-down attendance meant that play was often disrupted and much of the wind behind the game was sucked out.

At some point I was approached by one of the players who wanted to take of DMing for a bit to run an adventure he had purchased, and I ended up playing D&D for the first time in ages. Right now I’m looking forward to running again, but that player has been saying he may want to stay on. That will have to be a conversation between us, and fairly soon. At the moment, I’ve got a group back up to speed, but I wonder for how long. I’m also wondering how long I’ll be stuck with D&D 4E, which is starting to bore me a bit.

Finally, I’ve been slowly restocking my terrain. Some fieldstone terrain, some gothic terrain, and some sci-fi terrain. I purchased a metric ton of pre-made plastic terrain pieces--enough to fill a table. And oh yes, I got a Zuzzy battle mat for Christmas, so now my gaming table is all tricked out nicely.

I suppose, looking back, 2011 was a year of some rough transitions. I often think of it as being a little bit like a rebuilding year in collegiate athletics; what I had in years past is gone, and now I'm feeling my way through a new place and getting to know new people. I have a load of New Year's Resolutions, but above all thanks for hanging out here. I hope it is worth your time.

Christmas Swag, 2011 edition

2011-12-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

This year, Mrs. Q gave me for Christmas a 4' by 6' Zuzzy Terra-flex gaming mat, the "Moorlands," which is part of their "Verdant Fields" line. Very cool. I'm trying to figure out if it would be worth it to paint it and risk some flaking or just leave it as-is.

In the meantime, I'll be looking forward to planning epic battles, desperate skirmishers, and a few humiliating defeats in 2012.

Merry Christmas from WQRobb

2011-12-23T22:12:00.000-05:00

December Wrap-up

2011-12-20T14:22:00.000-05:00

I'm writing this now while I have a spare minute. I don't see myself getting much painting done over the Christmas holidays and vacation, and most of my work has been on the zombie project which has been featured on my other blog (this is the peril of having more than one hobby blog--just as the former owner of Firebase: Spartan).

So, if you're not following over at Hard Boiled Zombies, here's what I've been up to since late November.

I'll save the year-end wrap up for another post, but as you can see I've got the miniature-painting mojo going again, just as some of my RPG-related stuff is having a resurgence. Is this a last-minute of 2011 comeback? Can I keep it going? Wait and see!

500 Heroclix

2011-12-06T22:39:00.000-05:00

My FLGS, Hometown Games, did a cool fundraiser for the Ballard Center, a local homeless shelter. They did a "silent auction" and got a lot of items donated by various manufacturers, but the store put up some items from their own stock. Included amongst those, 500 Heroclix.

I played some Heroclix back in the day with my nephew, but I haven't played in years. I did notice that there are some interesting solo versions of the rules floating around out there, but in the meantime the kids love them.

Here's the DC characters...

Over 200 Clix, and you can still pick out Power Girl's chest

And here's the Marvel characters...

You better believe there's a Doctor Doom in there

What was really cool was that I was allowed to pick out what I wanted from the loose stock, so aside from about five or six or the various agencies (Hydra, SHIELD, etc.) there are very few if any duplicates. Although oddly enough, I somehow ended up with three Black Lightnings, but he's cool.

So, Superfriends vs. Legion of Doom, anyone?

A Painting Goal for 2012?

2011-12-06T10:53:00.001-05:00

I still haven't made my (not so) big announcement yet, mostly because it requires photos and I haven't the chance to sit down at the home computer to do it (homework and balancing the books trumps dad's blogging every time) but in the meantime I thought I'd reflect a little bit on the subject of painting goals.

In 2010 and 2011 I had goals for painting miniatures. In 2010 I overcame the goal by a wide margin and then set 2011's even higher than I accomplished in 2010 and made that with months to spare. Once I hit the painting goal for the year, my painting dropped off precipitously, although I'm seeing a little resurgence as I start painting things for my ATZ project.

In looking at where I was mentally in this whole process, I did feel at times like I was under a lot of pressure to make the painting goal to the point where I was sometimes just slapping paint onto miniatures and staining them just to get the numbers up. That's ironic given that I easily met the annual goal and have been basically painting in a fairly desultory fashion ever since. It's worth my noting that the drop-off also happened around the time of EOW, my RPG mini-convention, when my interest went back to that end of the hobby, and the rise of my frustration with playing 40K.

So I basically am wrestling with a couple of questions as we get into 2012:

Painting goal or no painting goal? Is it worth it to obligate my hobby, or does a painting goal make sure I don't get distracted by less worthy pastimes like watching television?

More or less? Is 150 a good number, or should I go higher or lower?

Annual goal or monthly? Some months just seem to favor getting painting done over others, so it is good to just keep it as one single goal rather than incrementally doled out?

Count dipped miniatures or not? This is perhaps the most vexing portion of the whole thing. A lot of the miniatures I got painted were basecoated-and-dipped with wood stain. You can go over to the thearmypainter and see dozens of miniatures painted in a manner of days that way. It seems sometimes like that's "cheating" but other times it seems like a perfectly reasonable way to get a mass army painted without quitting your day job. The counter argument? I'm not improving as a painter when I do it, so I lose that benefit of the painting process.

I've considered the overly-complicated possibility of a multi-tier painting goal, like 130 mass-produced miniatures and 20 slow-painted ones for the year.

Anyways, comments? Your own experiences with painting goals? All welcome.

Hey, 25K Pageviews!

2011-12-01T22:05:00.000-05:00

I stopped using third party analytical software and just starting using Blogger's own stat tracking, which showed me that yesterday 25,000 pages have been looked at in my little ol' blog. That's really cool.

And, I've done some serious decision making about 2012. First, 2012 will be the Year of the Zombie for me. Appropos given the highly-speculative belief that it will herald the real end of the world. I've started painting survivors and zombies over at my zombie blog Hard Boiled Zombies, and terrain is to follow.

I also have a big announcement about a huge addition to the collection, but I'm going to save it until the next post. I think it's big enough to warrant its own entry.

Thinking about 2012, part the first

2011-11-25T22:21:00.000-05:00

Upset because Christmas is already getting too much attention? I'm already onto 2012, my friends!

Actually, I'm just spending the holiday season thinking about what to do next. If you read my RPG-related blog you know that I'm trolling about (no pun intended) for a new game, but I don't have super-high hopes on the project. Oddly enough, 40K seems to be in a dry spell at the FLGS. I've got more sci-fi terrain than I know what to do with now because of what my friend sold me dirt cheap a few months ago. All of this leaves me a bit adrift in terms of a project, something that frankly I have been at for a while now, and it is getting me bummed out. Any time I find myself watching a ton of television, I know I've hit a quagmire in my hobby pursuits.

So, big birthday coming up, new year upon us, and I'm ready to turn the page. Here's what I'm thinking about these days:

Solo Wargaming I've noodled this around before, but it might be fun way to get me painting/building again, and I could spend some time on my day off playing. If I was really clever I might find a game I could play solo or with someone else (a sort of "hybrid" option) on the off chance someone could stop by to play a game.

All Things Zombie A sort of corollary of the solo wargaming enterprise, I have a whole blog dedicated to this project but haven't done more than paint the odd survivor miniature. I think Two Hour Wargames has some of the best options for solo rules out there, and it seems to me that it would be an easy game in terms of the number of miniatures necessary to play.

Hostile Realms A dusted off this game recently. I got it while back as an "alt Warhammer" possibility, and the rules heavily favor a solo option. At the time, the game just didn't click for me, but on the second glance I am starting to understand the philosophy behind the game design. Much like ATZ, Hostile Realms eschews the IGOUGO pattern for something more random (which helps with the solo usage). I keep telling myself, though, that it would be okay to spend a couple of hundred dollars on two armies for a game no one plays.

Heroclix I wouldn't have seriously considered this until I saw a guy at Solo Nexus doing a whole solo campaign using them. Then my FLGS is doing a fundraiser for the local homeless shelter and was auctioning off 500 Heroclix for a song. I put down a bid and to date am the current high bidder. If I'm not outbid by the end of the month, I may be building some clix-sized terrain in the next few months.

My Terrain Opus Magnus Since I started building my own terrain using Hirst Arts I have dreamed of building the grand-scale project, the entire gaming table fully kitted out. No golf courses or parking lots--a total city done in Hirst Arts. It could easily take me more than a year and certainly more concentration and focus than I've ever show in any project, but it is something I've always wanted to do, and with less and less time out of the house, it might be the way to go.

Well anyways, Happy Thanksgiving and a blessed beginning to the Advent season. I'll let you know how it goes.

Delaque Gangers

2011-11-12T18:08:00.000-05:00

I don't think the Necromunda campaign ever actually took off at my FLGS, but I did get my Delaque gangers painted up. I decided to try to make their bases look like concrete, or at least do something different than the typical "earthy" look. I did use the dip on them, which made a huge difference.

Well, that's eight for November. October wasn't much, but I've been trying to do more on the RPG side of things. That hasn't worked out so well, however, so maybe I'm back to painting minis for a while.

My Veteran's Day Story

2011-11-11T08:39:00.001-05:00

This one was a favorite tale around my family, and gets circulated at Veteran's Day every year.

My great-grandmother (known to me as "Great Grandma E") had three sons who lived to adulthood: Fred, David, and my grandfather Ralph. All three served in World War II. Ralph was in the Army Air Corps and flew cargo planes in the Middle East. David joined the Marines and ended up at Iwo Jima. Fred joined the Coast Guard and was stationed on a hospital ship.

So David is at Iwo Jima, fighting in the trenches in that long siege. One day he's sitting there in the trenches and he sees a empty can of peaches a few feet away. Now they had told him that you were supposed to bury your cans in the dirt so that the Japanese couldn't see the reflection. So he crawled over to where the can was and started covering it with dirt. Well, a shell landed right where he can been, so the can of peaches saved his life. Unfortunately he did take some shrapnel in the leg from the shell and was evacuated to a hospital ship: Fred's.

When Fred saw his brother's name on the list of injured on board, he requested that he be assigned to his brother's care. He also sent a note to his mother, saying that David was hurt but was going to be okay.

Fred went on to become a scientist for NASA, and worked on the Apollo program.
David became one of the nation's best woodcarvers. You can see his carved birds in the natural history section of the Smithsonian. He also built the "Fairy Tale" attraction at Busch Gardens.
Ralph opened a sheet metal shop in Florida and spent most of his free time making things like telescopes and pedal cars for his grandchildren.

But brother caring for brother? That's what Veteran's Day is all about.

--WQRobb

Playing 40K again

2011-11-08T21:42:00.000-05:00

Things aren't looking for for those terminators...

So, I decided to head back to the FLGS for another game of 40K. I was surprised that so few people showed up. I was actually there almost half an hour before someone came, and sadly for me he brought tyranids. What's worse, I left some of my guys at home by accident, so I had a lot of meltaguns for a tyranid fight.

Short version: lost badly. But I'm playing again, and that's all good.

First round of Gaunts and a quick survey

2011-10-28T11:49:00.000-04:00

Okay, these guys are done: six termagaunts for my son's tyranid army. What's more, I can add six points to my painting total for the year, and October won't be a complete wash in terms of miniatures painted.

Okay, so here's the question. I maintain really four blogs, one wargaming, one RPG's, one zombies, and one personal (that last I never update, having learned the pitfalls of revealing personal information on the internet). Should I consolidate into one blog, or leave each of the flavors separate? Comments, please.

Going back to the old

2011-10-27T21:27:00.002-04:00

I got tired of the "dynamic view" blogger layout, so I went back to the old style.

I hope you like it.

WIP Gaunts

2011-10-26T22:55:00.000-04:00

So, it's been a while since I posted on this blog. Mostly that's because I've been hanging out at my RPG blog, Graph Paper Games, doing stuff there. But I've got back into the saddle again with my son's tyranids. Here is a WIP shot of the first set, six termagaunts. My son wanted the color scheme from the previous-to-the-current codex, and while I didn't (and really can't) go into that level of detail, I've approximated it pretty well I think. At least he's pleased.

As a side note, I have been trying out this dynamic thing on Blogger, but I'm not sure I am a fan. What did you all think of it? Comments appreciated.

The Tyranid Pile

2011-10-04T22:37:00.000-04:00

So, long story short, a friend of mine sold me his Tyranid collection for a song. And I mean a short, three-and-a-half minute pop tune. Part of it was that he wanted to get the minis out of his condo where he and his family live, part of it was he knew my son would enjoy them since he's such a fan of Tyranids. In any case, I got loads of them, as you can see from the above pic. But that wasn't all of them.

I don't even know what's there, but I saw genestealers, hormagaunts, warriors, lictors, raveners, gargoyles, a carnifex, a biovore, a genestealer patriarch, and a hive tyrant. And that's only part. So now I've got another army to paint, probably in a pretty simple color scheme, and likely using the dip. This might be my 2012 project in the offing here.

I'm back, baby!

2011-09-21T12:39:00.000-04:00

So, if you've been keeping up with my angst-filled hobby-related drama, you know that I've been generally losing heart with playing 40K, and have been fairly listless about taking up any other direction because I don't know if I could get anyone to join me.

Well, last Tuesday I ended up missing the beginning of the weekly club meeting at the FLGS. By the time I got there most of the people had gone, but the ones that were remaining said, "Hey, next week we're starting Necromunda."

BA-ZING!

I've got the starter box for Delaque gangers--I've had it for years. For that matter, I've considered making a gang using the Wargames Factory Shock Troopers. What I would really love to take a crack at if I was feeling exorbitant and ambitious is a Goliath gang using Chaos Marauders and Catachan Imperial Guard.

And terrain? Oh yeah, I've been waffling for months now about building either gothic, fieldstone, or sci-fi terrain. What's more, the sci-fi terrain could be re-used with 40K, MERCs, and just about anything else this side of Warmachine. What I really want to avoid is the foamcore-sheet silhouette terrain that seems to be the staple for "ruined buildings." My FLGS has several of those, and there's popular because they are interesting in terms of tactics, but you can do tactical buildings without having to look boring. I was thinking I could try to build one terrain piece with a 8" by 8" footprint per month, and in a year I'd have 5 1/2 square feet of terrain. Not a long on a 4' by 4' table, which has 16 square feet, but we'll see.

So, the spice must flow, as they say, and it is going strong. The first step is to paint the Delaque gang. I may try to get it all done by Tuesday, which means a speed paint job, but that's okay. These days my speed painting looks almost as good as my slow painting. Stay tuned.

Review: Mythic GME

2011-09-20T10:41:00.000-04:00

The Mythic Game Master Emulator (GME) is getting a lot of love on the solo-wargaming online community, and given my current side-interest in solo wargaming I thought I would give the product a look-see.
Basically, Mythic is a pretty free-flowing RPG that has it its rules the option to game without a GM, as long the group is willing to engage in a little creativity, logic, and a handful of random charts. The concept was popular enough for the publishers to create a separate (and less expensive) book that just had the GME in it.
Here's how the GME works. Basically there are several components. The first handles basic questions about the narrative of the game. For example, the PC's enter a cemetery looking for a monster that has been ravaging the countryside. A PC asks, "do I hear any noises?"
At this point, the players consult a chart which determines how likely, given the situation, something might occur, anything from very likely to impossible. There's percentile number given then, which when rolled determines if this is, in fact, the case. So the chart result might indicate the PC's hear nothing, or that they hear a noise. The PC can then ask, "does the noise sound like something is approaching?" and the chart would be consulted and so on. Now the rules specifically say that you have to use some good judgment and a little well-intended creativity here. A person couldn't then say, "is the noise a person coming to hand me a machine gun?" for example. Like I said, there's an expectation about common purpose that is implied here.
The second part has to do with plot twists. Basically, at the beginning of every "scene," and when doubles are rolled for a simple question from the first part, you roll on a second series of tables. The first part indicates what dimension of the game the twist effects, e.g. a PC, an NPC, a major plot thread, a minor plot thread, etc. The second part indicates essentially the verb, and the third part the object of the verb that will be the plot twist. So you could roll an NPC, the verb "forgotten," and the object "clue." With those three things, you could say (given the above scenario) that a professor the PC's met back at Ginantonic University pulls up to the cemetery is his car to tell the PC's that he had forgotten this notation at a book back in his office that said that the cemetery was the home to the grave of a famous mass murderer from the 18th Century.
The GME can be used for people interested in doing a little bit more of a structure-free RPG session, or a solo RPG session, but as I said it is also getting some play in solo-wargaming. Basically, you (the living participant) could say, "will my non-existent opponent charge my archers (as opposed to, say, a unit of spearmen) with his cavalry?" Then you could speculate that the cavalry are more likely to charge the archers because it is more tactically advantageous. Then you roll on the chart and discover that, despite it being more likely, the NPG (Non-Player General) has decided to charge the spearmen instead, because something real opponents do stupid stuff like that too. You can also use the GME to develop a campaign model, indicating for example that the room your zombie-hunting miniatures have entered contains the plot twist: "major plot line, lost, and solution," in which case your heroes may discover that the scientist they were hoping to find to produce a zombie vaccine has shot himself in the head, having discovered his family has been lost to flesh-munching undead. See how it works?
For a little under seven dollars and 54 pages of text you can not go wrong with this thing. If you're a RPG player, it is a way to add some random twists to the game your running, or you could test drive a game that you haven't talked your friends into playing yet. If you're a wargamer whose thinking of getting into solo wargaming, it is as good a device as any to simulate another player. Definitely should be on the must-buy list.

I am so tired of losing

2011-09-13T21:56:00.000-04:00

So, another weekly club report, another loss. I read somewhere that most players lose most of the first games in the first year of playing 40K, but I wonder if that is really true. I also think I'm not an idiot, I've got a fairly good grasp of the rules. I think my continual losses are a result of two things: first, my limited army selection, and two, the army itself (vanilla space marines).

In the club, there are two Black Templars players, one tyranid player, one Grey Knight and one space marine player who regularly show up. All four play in the tournament leagues (Hard Boyz, etc.) All have larger armies than my own. All have played longer than me. Out in the fringe there are an Imperial Guard player, a Chaos Space Marine player, and two Ork players but I haven't seen too much of them in the past several months. Mostly I've been losing to BT players. And can I just say how much that sucks? The BT codex is old. It has marines that run towards you when you shoot them and then get to re-roll when they get into assault. Oh, and when I do shoot them, they get taken off of neophytes. Damn it I hate those guys. But it's okay, if I get tired of them, there's always the uber-cheesy Grey Knights.

So here's how I figure it. There are four factors to doing better in 40k: skill, luck, army choice (as in what army you field, e.g. Space Marines or Eldar), and army composition. I don't think all factors are weighed equally. I can't affect my luck. I can improve my skill, although I wonder how much farther I can go with that.

That leaves the other two options. I can pump up my Space Marines, buy a Land Raider or another Land Speeder or a bunch of terminators with thunder hammers and storm shields. I could overcome my aversion to Special Characters. Or I could build a second army, maybe an anti-MEQ army since that seems to be the flavor de jour in the group. But that means investing another $500 in this stupid game.

Oh well, enough griping. Feedback welcome.

The Other Brazen Claws Demi-Squad

2011-09-09T17:40:00.000-04:00

Click for a larger pic

Hey, I'm back to painting Brazen Claws! I decided to spend my day off getting the last of the tactical squad figures. A lot of time I split one of the squads to put the HQ and the assault half with a razorback. I think I may consider fielding a command squad or a squad of veterans in the Razorback instead.

So, I'm on the board for September with five miniatures. I think I'll try to tackle some of the vehicles now. My current plan is to finish the Brazen Claws by the end of the year. That is basically a scout squad, a termine squad, two rhinos, a razorback, and a predator. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, it's D&D night, and we're already down one player. I wonder if it'll be a wash again. If so, I may give up.

Depreciating Value, Round Two

2011-09-06T22:48:00.000-04:00

My earlier post about depreciating value was a big hit, so I thought I would give you one more, an Eldar army list. This comes from Collecting and Painting Wargames Armies (1998). The army list is "I Wanted to Invent My Own Craftworld" pp. 30-31

Farseer with seer runes, spirit stone, and witch blade
Warlock with singing spear
6 Howling Banshees
5 Swooping Hawks
6 Fire Dragons
4 Dark Reapers
5 Guardians with power weapon
5 Guardians with power weapon
2 D-Cannons and crew
6 Jetbikes with meltagun and power weapon
Vyper
Falcon with scatter laser and crystalline web

Now, right off the bat, I'll need to consolidate the Guardians into one unit and add the warlock. Plus there's no power weapons or melta guns, but how's the total work out?

1998: 1,998 points

2011: 1,052 points

Depreciation: 47%

Note: One of the biggest offenders is the warlock, which went from 177 points to 28 points, but whose stats also took a beating. The falcon went from 258 to 140. Guardians went from being ~20 a piece to 8.

This'll be the last of these entries for a while, since I don't have an exhaustive collection of up-to-date army books. If you'd be interested in my posting 1998 numbers and someone else out there telling me what the total is, let me know.

Weekly club report, first week of September 2011

2011-09-06T22:06:00.000-04:00

1500 points, my valiant Brazen Claws against Black Templars. Take and hold, dawn of war

My army list:

Captain with RB/SS
Dread with multi-melta
Dread with assault cannon
5 Termies
Tac Squad (10) with flamer, missile launcher, rhino
Tac Squad (5, should have been bigger but forgot minis) with power fist, razorback
7 Scouts with sniper rifles, missile launcher
3 Bike Marines with power weapon, meltagun, plasmagun
Landspeeder with multi-melta and typhoon missile launchers
Predator with autocannon and lascannon sponsons

My opponent (not quite sure on details)

Emperor's Champion
BT Dread with twin-linked lascannon and tank hunter
Tac squad with power fist, rhino
Tac squad with power fist, rhino
2 Landspeeders with multi-melta
Assault Marines (10)
Biker Marines (5)
Vindicator

Honestly, I should have won this one, but the Landspeeder and the Predator both fell victim to terrible die rolling. For that matter, rolling 1, 2, and 2 on three attacks on the Captain didn't do me any favors either. His landspeeder took out both my landspeeder and my pred, despite my having the drop on him each time. He swamped my deep-striking termies with his assault marines and one tac squad in close combat, and that 2+ save doesn't do much when you're rolling 21 armor saves. I took out the vindicator, both rhinos, the assault marines and the biker marines. He got my captain, the termies, one tac unit, the landspeeder and the predator. In the end, my flag was uncontested while one of his tac squads was sitting on his, so the game was his.

Next week my wife's new work schedule kicks in, meaning she doesn't get home until about two hours after the club starts. That could put a crimp in things unless I can get some people to play at my house. We'll see.

I've got your point devaluation right here

2011-09-06T16:08:00.000-04:00

Von over at A Year of Frugal Gaming posted an interesting article about, in addition to miniatures costing more, you're also getting fewer points in army lists than you used to. He kicked around some numbers, but I thought I'd give you some flat-out examples. I possess Collecting and Painting Wargames Armies, published by Games Workshop in 1998, thirteen years ago. The book is nothing more than lists of various people's armies and a pic or two of each one. The idea was to inspire you to build your own army, but the description also included point values. For those checking, 1998 would make it fifth edition for Warhammer Fantasy (which came out in 1996) and right at the publishing of the third edition of Warhammer 40K, in fact I think that the army lists are really 2nd Edition.

So, example army number one: Space Marines, namely "The Dark Crusaders" on pp. 26-27. The list contains the following figures:

Captain w/power fist, conversion field, master-crafted chain sword
Librarian Epistolary w/force sword and psychic hood
Tactical Squad of ten w/missile launcher and flamer
Tactical Squad of ten w/missile launcher, flamer, power-fist, and vortex grenade
Terminator Squad of five w/assault cannon and chain fist
Techmarine w/servo arm, haywire grenade, power axe
Dreadnought w/twin-linked lascannon, power fist, and auto-launchers
Landspeeder
Whirlwind

Interestingly enough, you couldn't even field this list now because of the odd outdated bit of hardware, but looking for some comparable choices, how many points do you have here?

1998: 1,991 points

2011: 1,265 points

Depreciation of 37%

Okay, let's look at the fantasy side. We'll go with the "Beards, Beer, and Cannons" on pp. 4-5, obviously a dwarf army

Lord (called a "General") w/heavy armor, shield, Rune of Iron, helm with Master Rune of Spite, Master Rune of Swiftness
Runesmith w/heavy armor and shield, Rune of Fate, Rune of Cleaving, Rune of Resistance, ring with Rune of Spellbreaking
23 Hammerers w/standard bearer and musician, Banner w/Rune of Courage
12 Trollslayers w/standard bearer, musician
12 Trollslayers w/standard bearer, musician
17 Crossbowmen w/standard bearer, musician
1 Flame Cannon
1 Dwarf Cannon w/Rune of Forging
1 Gyrocopter

I don't have the current edition of WHFB, but I'm pretty sure this list isn't street-legal with its conspicuous absence of Core troop choices and way too many points of runic items on the Runesmith, but how many points worth of miniatures have you bought?

1998: 1,928 points

2011: 1,606 points

Depreciation of 17%

I could probably donate more time to the fact that WHFB in particular had a shift away from tooled-up heroes to more bountiful troop choices, but there's the numbers. Von makes a point of saying that the increase in the cost of miniatures and the depreciation of their value isn't a moral issue, it's just their business model. Whether it works or not is obviously up to the market to decide.

First Look: MERCs

2011-09-06T10:16:00.001-04:00

Sadly, no pics right now. I don't post WIP pics too often, and besides most people can look up what an assembled Space Marine Razorback looks like. But I did think I'd just check in with what I've been up to lately, on the topics of interest to readers of this blog.

I have built two Space Marine rhinos, a razorback, and a predator for my Brazen Claws army. I magnetized the razorback turret and the predator side sponsons so that the weapons can be swapped out. I had an extra razorback weapon mount from the large lot of used Space Marines I purchased (no idea why it was there, but it was). I didn't magnetize the predator main turret; I'm not that adept at magnetizing models and I don't see myself going for the twin-mounted lascannon all that often. If I change my mind I can also buy the turret sprue online.

I also got the foam trays for my Sabol Army Transport ripped out and ready to go. I've got an older model of the Army Transport that opens on the top, but I can see the advantage of a side-opening container. But now the Brazen Claws can travel to their weekly thumping together in style.

I bought on an impulse a copy of the wargame MERCs. MERCs is a sci-fi skirmish game in which each side only fields five 28mm miniatures on a 2' by 3' board (some use 3' square). The background is pretty standard for your cyberpunk dystopia: mega-corporations rule the world, jockeying for technology, resources, or things like the Panama Canal. Each player plays a team of MERCs from one of the megacons or the independent mercenaries. The rulebook is a huge, richly illustrated brick of a book for a skirmish game that only lists four factions, but full-color photos and ample artwork make up the bulk of it. I haven't read it enough to judge the rules, but I will share with out the big quirk of this game. In addition to the five miniatures, none of which can be duplicated on a team, you also need cards for each of the miniatures, which are sold separately. These cards cover not only the miniatures stats (not shown in the rulebook), but are also used for calculating movement, weapon ranges, blast radii, and a host of other things. The writers of the game claim their forcing you to the use the cards is altruistic, since it spares you having to buy and lug around an army book, a tape measure, blast templates, etc. You can get the rulebook for $30, a complete set of cards for the existing miniatures in a given faction for $7, and each miniature will run you $8-10, depending on where you get them. Each faction has five or six miniatures so far, so you'll basically need to buy one of everyone one you can in the faction. Total cost to play is about $80, if you buy your own copy of the rules.

The figures look great, but I'm aware that the producers of the game clearly believe in the "Sci-Fi Tax" that seems to be applied to all sci-fi miniature lines. I wonder how much variety can be in a game that doesn't have a lot of flexibility in the army lists, but I'll know better after I finish the rules.

Weekly club report: fourth week in August 2011

2011-08-31T10:28:00.000-04:00

1500 points, my ever-lovin' Brazen Claws vs. Grey Knights.

I've never played against Grey Knights, but the general consensus is that they are the "super-elite" army of the 40K roster these days. 1500 pts. sure doesn't buy a lot of feet on the ground in a GK army, that's for sure.

I also have no idea what my opponent fielded. I'm pretty sure I faced

Brotherhood Champion
Inquisitor
Grey Knight Terminators
Grey Knights
Stormraven gunship
Dreadknight

I fielded

Captain with the relic blade/storm shield
Dreadnought w/MM
Dreadnought w/assault cannon
Tac squad w/rhino
Tac squad w/razorback (combat squadded)
sniper scout squad
landspeeder w/missile launcher and meltagun
devastator squad
devastator squad

In the beginning, only one of the Grey Knights and the Dreadknight were on the table, which gave me a chance to try to dismantle them before the rest of the army showed up. In perhaps the greatest moment in the game, the multi-melta dread kicked three wounds off the dreadknight before being destroyed, and then the dreadknight in turn was wiped out when my opponent rolled two 1's on the armor save when it was hit by the missile launchers from the landspeeder. Kiss 300 points goodbye, while I only lose 105 points on the dread, and it tied up the dreadknight for three turns.

When the rest of the army showed up on turn three, I was able to light up the Stormraven with a lascannon hit from one of the devastator squads. Another moral (and point-heavy) victory. From there the game became a grind as I threw everything I had at this remaining units, but the dice just turned against me to the point where onlookers began to comment. My captain had a good showing, taking a lot of hits to his storm shield before finally losing the last of his three wounds. But in the end (of turn 7, sigh) I couldn't staunch the onslaught of his terminators and their hammer-hands and their psy-cannons and the no less than three different grenades that they carried which would lower toughness, initiative, and prevent one guy (usually my sergeant with a power fist) from attacking in the assault phase. Bleh.

But it wasn't a bad loss, I made a good showing of it, and even though I didn't get there until almost 6:00 PM I still managed to find someone to play in a game that went almost to 9:00 PM when the store closes. So I'm feeling a little better about the 40K situation than I was yesterday, even if it might be nice to put one win on the board some time this year.

System Problems

2011-08-30T16:34:00.000-04:00

So I have written some version of this post about six times and deleted it every time, not wanting to write whiny, introspective posts about everything that has been going wrong, but yesterday I finally called one of my best friends from my old home town and told him everything that was going wrong these days--work, family, and yes gaming, and after all of it he says, "You have a system problem."

Now, he was referring specifically to the problems we're having in my RPG campaign, and how the game we are playing is contributing to the difficulties, because out of all of that it is the gaming problems that will hold his interest, but it was an apropos comment regardless, because most of the things that are really chapping my hide aren't specific "do this and it'll be fixed" problems, it's the general system of things.

Case in point (since this is not my life blog but my hobby blog): my wargaming, or lack thereof. So the local gaming group meets at 5:00 PM at the back room of a gaming store in which is crammed five gaming tables (which are 4' by 6' sheets of plywood laid across folding tables) where things are so tight that basically you'll spend the game continually brushing up against the back end of whoever is playing on the next table. Last Spring and Summer getting there at 5:00 PM wasn't a problem, but now my son doesn't get out of school until 5:00 with sports and I don't get him home until 5:30 and then maybe I could fly over and get there by 5:45. It's a big gaming group, which means that quite a few times lately I've been out of luck and can't game that night. Which stinks. Actually what is odd is that I'm lamenting not playing a game that I don't really love but still spend hundreds of dollars on so I could play something, although now I'm running into problems with that.

What's the solution? Well I could see if one of the members of the wargaming club who is not a student or unemployed and can not make the 5:00 curtain call wants to game somewhere else, like a my basement, although that thwarts some of the "get out of the house" benefit I was trying to cultivate. Again, system problem.

Then there's the roleplaying game situation. Basically my gaming group has three players: Evan the DM, Rod, and me (I've changed names to protect the innocent). We've been playing D&D for about a year, first with me DMing, then Evan when he asked if he could run this module he really liked. In addition, there have been about ten other people who have drifted in and out of the campaign, sometimes only coming once. Right now there are four additional people in the group: a woman who is friends with Rod, her boyfriend, her daughter, and her daughter's friend. A sort of four-player unit. We play every other week to accommodate Rod's schedule, but it has been so sporadic that we're one year in and are only at sixth level. Two sessions ago, the four-pack of players didn't have characters. Last Friday Rod's friend called fifteen minutes before game time to say that she and her boyfriend couldn't make it, which meant the other two of the four-pack weren't coming either. To make matters worse, neither did Rod. So Evan and I shot the breeze and downed a couple of beers instead, mostly talking about how many this might be the beginning of the end.

In addition, Evan told me that in his other campaign, the one I can't play in because of my job, the DM wants to quit running that game and since that's really his primary game (since it has apparently a larger, more stable group), could I take my campaign back? What am I to say: no, you have to keep running this time as long as I want you to?

So in two weeks I'm going to find out if the four-pack are really out or if this was just a hiccup. But I'm once again in the unenviable position of needing new players for D&D 4E, because the game doesn't really work with two or three players. Like my friend said, system problem. The solution here is a little more straightforward: sell the group on another game, one that doesn't need such a large critical mass, and can handle having the drop-in and drop-out problem that we seem to perpetually suffer.

It just seems like after a year living in the new place, I'm not that much better off than I was before--trying to build the whole thing up from the ground floor. The only benefit I really have is that now I'm aware of the local gaming communities and how they communicate. Maybe that will help.

The Howling Hag

2011-08-26T11:57:00.000-04:00

Click for a larger pic

I'm continuing to paint up game tokens from board games to be used as miniatures in the D&D game in which I play. This is, I believe, supposed to be a howling hag, but I can't be sure, since the DM hasn't told me (nor should he).

The White Dragon

2011-08-24T09:21:00.000-04:00

Click for a larger pic

Well, I have figured out some of the question of what to do now that I've finished my painting goal for the year: paint other people's figures. In particular, I'm painting figures for the DM of my D&D game. It is a nice preview to what we'll be fighting. Like the gargoyles a few weeks ago, this is from the Ravenloft board game. It was a zombie dragon, but the DM wanted it to be a white dragon instead. It wasn't too decayed so it painted up as a white dragon pretty well.

The only thing about this miniature is that, like the gargoyles, it is made of a sort of taupe plastic. But the plastic is really soft, similar to that used in Airfix 1:72 plastic minis. The base it totally warped, so much so that I considered cutting it off and gluing the miniature to another base. Worst of all, the miniature is actually make of a couple of parts, and there is a very unfortunate ill-fitting seam in the groin area of the miniature that isn't visible in the photo but, well...let's just say that it looks really, really bad. Unless you're into that sort of thing, which on the internet means that there is someone who probably is. I'm sorry the photo ended up looking a little washed out--that is probably because of the white color being reflected by my lamp bulb.

I have a handful of these miniatures from my DM that I have been asked to paint up, so that will probably keep me busy for the time being.

Movie Review: Skyline

2011-08-22T17:11:00.000-04:00

Between getting done with my painting goal, family visits and the kids going back to school, I haven't had a lot of time to work on hobby stuff, but I did manage to catch Skyline on Netflix online.

Before I begin, a quick note a trivia, according to Wikipedia Sony Pictures nearly sued the makers of Skyline because they were also doing work on Battle: Los Angeles without having informed them they were putting together a very similar film at the same time. Nothing came of it, but the movie is about, well, aliens invading L.A. The main character is Jarrod (Eric Balfour, who I keep wanting to ask "why the long face?"), a visual effects artist visiting an old friend named Terry (Donald Faison, whom you'll recognize as "Turk" from Scrubs). Along for the trip is Jarrod's girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson, who looked damned familiar until I looked her up and realized that she was the daughter of the arms dealer Tony was dating on NCIS). The night after Terry's big Hollywood birthday bash, aliens invade.

Skyline has a strong "War of the Worlds" feel to it in that you see the invasion through the perspective of civilians, people who don't know what's going on, occasionally see military jets fly by, and basically go a little unhinged by what is happening. Skyline also gives a nod to Independence Day by showing a big fighter-jet vs. alien starfighter battle with the one ship with the big missile making it through to the mother ship. I haven't spoiled anything here, because it isn't the climax of the movie.

In the end, though, what Skyline has in the way of plot is aliens kicking the beejeezus out of humans. The aliens are practically bullet-proof. They regenerate. They fly. The small ones are the size of refrigerators, while the large ones are the size of Godzilla. They have city-sized mother ships like ID4. And the big kicker is that they have hypno-beams, so don't look at them too much. So most of the movie is the cast running around like chickens with their heads cut off while the aliens gruesomely abduct them so that their brains can be sucked out.

Speaking of which, having seen this and Cowboys vs. Aliens in the same month, I'm struck by how you can show brains being removed like a slurpee from 7-11 and get a PG-13 rating, as long as there is not one boobie flicking past the screen. This movie is downright gory at times, but someone is okay for me to take an eighth grader to.

Oh, and the ending? There's no ending. The movie just stops, because the director/producers wanted to make a sequel, and for a film that only cost ten million to make and brought in sixty, we'll probably get it whether we like it or not.

Skyline was a pointless schlockfest, full of wooden acting from characters that really weren't all that sympathetic. With half a million spent on filming actors and ten million on CGI effects, this is just a visual effects spectacle with little to offer aside from freaky-looking aliens and a lot of glowing brains getting gulped by aliens.

The 150th miniature of 2011: a Brazen Claws Captain

2011-08-14T23:07:00.000-04:00

Click for a larger pic

I've been saving this guy for the momentous event. Back in January, I set my goal for the year to be 150 miniatures, a fair amount given last years grand total of 165. Now, in mid-August, I've hit my goal with this Space Marine Captain. He's also a rare instance of some conversion work, adding the storm shield to his right hand to go along with what I'm calling a relic blade.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what to do now that I've hit my goal but still have 4.5 months left in the year. I considered shifting gears, maybe starting a new army for Warhammer Fantasy Battles or maybe something totally different, like When the Navy Walked. I considered shifting hobby gears and focusing on building terrain or an RPG-related project.

After a lot of consideration, I decided to go with a long-standing but often forgotten precept. Namely, dedicate the time to the game(s) you are playing. That means the weekly drubbing I get in 40K. The way I figure, I have the terminator squad, the scout squad, two rhinos, a razorback, and a predator to go. That's 60 points (admittedly forty of which are vehicles, which some have said are over-valued in my paradigm). That's 15 a month, which is a more leisurely pace that what I've been doing for the most part. So theoretically I can relax a bit on the painting, and still have the Brazen Claws finished by year's end, which isn't a bad post-goal goal at all.

Weekly club report, first week of August 2011

2011-08-11T08:15:00.000-04:00

No great shock, I lost again. 1000 points, my Brazen Claws vs. tyranids. What did he field?

tyranid prime
tervigon
zoanthrope
3 tyranid warriors
10 hormagaunts
3 biovores
trygon prime (240 pts minimum)

I fielded

captain with relic blade/storm shield
dreadnought w/ assault cannon
10-man tac squad with flamer, missile weapon, power fist and rhino
10-man tac squad with flamer, plasma cannon, power fist and razorback with twin-linked heavy bolters
7 scouts with sniper rifles, camo cloaks, and missile launcher
landspeeder with missile launchers and multi-melta

I broke the second squad up and put the captain in the razorback. Not a bad list, but not the minimum-troop list that i was going up against. I also didn't know I would be facing tyranids, or I would have swapped out the captain for a libby in a heart-beat, and maybe even dropped the rhino tac squad for a predator with auto-cannon/heavy bolters.

I played better than i have in the past, but still made mistakes. i should have set the landspeeder against the biovores, whose obnoxious barrages caused no end of havoc. i also should have kept my army together as a firing line and hammered the trygon prime with its assault 12 attacks before it got to me, but the tervigon popped out 30 gaunts and i went after them instead, fearing that if i didn't destroy them piecemeal, they would horde up and overwhelm me. As it was I did manage to wipe out his gaunts (including the extras) and his warriors and his zoanthrope, and got his trygon down to one wound. Like I said, better but not good enough.

I don't know how I feel about these min-maxed army compositions. I get that they are legal, and even a good idea if you want to win, but I'm thinking that 40K could learn from WHFB here, where Core troops choices had to make up a chunk of your army list. I would think that Troops in 40K should be the same, but clearly that's not the ethos of the game.

The Elf Paladin

2011-08-07T20:19:00.000-04:00

Click for a larger pic

One of the newest members of my D&D group is a guy playing an elf paladin (aka "the tank"), so I decided to welcome him to the group by painting him a miniature. I had this one, "Argonnite, Elf Cleric" by Reaper, already on hand. The miniature has a variety of weapon options: a sword, a mace, and a bow, so he's a good figure to pick up. I'm particularly pleased with the eyes and face on this one.

Three Gargoyles

2011-08-07T08:19:00.000-04:00

Click for a larger pic

So there's competition standard, tabletop standard, and "pre-painted plastic mini standard." These guys look like they are barely above the last of the three, but when you realize that they are game tokens that were a sort of taupe plastic, then you realize that I at least put a little work into them.

These were painted for the DM of the D&D game I'm in, so I will be seeing this stony trio at some point in the near future.

Space Marine Demi-squad

2011-08-06T13:42:00.000-04:00

Click for a larger pic

So, I am closing in on my goal with this small combat squad of Space Marines, including another sergeant with a power fist. I'm hoping to have at least two of these squads, either in its own rhino or divided up into the heavy-weapon combat squad and the assault squad that'll ride with the librarian or captain in a razorback.

The -1 Cursed Space Marine Landspeeder

2011-08-02T18:54:00.000-04:00

Click for a larger pic

I have a confession to make: I believe in cursed miniatures. You know back in D&D (about three editions ago) you could end up with cursed magic items that you couldn't get rid of and really sucked. Usually the only way to get rid of a cursed magic item was to pawn it off on someone else without their knowledge.

Cursed miniatures are the same way. They don't take primer. They don't paint up well. After you paint it, you drop it and scuff the paint. This Space Marine Land Speeder is cursed. Maybe I'm being melodramatic, but it just was a real pain to get done. It was part of that lot of pre-owned stuff I bought a while back. It was already mostly assembled and primed; I probably would have painted the sub-assemblies separately. It's also missing the upper halves of both the crew, so I am working on a solution on that. For that matter, I also need a flying base too. This vehicle took me weeks to get done, working off and on during the month of July, but now at least it is tabletop ready.

And for all that, there's something to be said for a salvage job, and land speeders are one of those "gotta have" units in the vanilla space marine army. Plus, vehicles are ten points towards my painting goal, meaning that in the first days of August I've already tied July's amount.

The First Miniature of August

2011-08-02T12:22:00.000-04:00

Click on the pic to enlarge

I painted this guy up in between steps on my other item on the worktable, which will hopefully get finished in the next day or so. I like putting power fists on my tac squad sergeants--they give a nice boost to assault and can actually damage vehicles and large creatures. Slow, but that's what the rest of the squad is there for.

Ruminations after the break

July was sort of a slow month for miniature painting, my second lowest after the abysmal February. My reasons are half-practical, half-personal. My children were away for much of the month, and generally my painting time is while my wife is reading them stories before bed. No kids, no stories. Instead my wife and I watched the 2009 science fiction series FlashForward, an unfortunate victim of the writer's strike and lacks any real ending. It's too bad because it was a great series with a lot of potential to be ABC's answer to Lost.

The other reason was that I was getting bored with what I was working on, but I talked about that at the time. I'm on the board in August, though, and hopefully will finish out the annual painting goal this month.

There's rumors going around the internet that GW will release a 6th Edition of 40K some time next year. Predicting a new edition of a GW game is a lot like predicting there will be a full moon some time this month, but my inevitable nerd rage at the fact that the new ruleset will inevitably be more expensive and mean new and likely more expensive codices is tempered by the possibility that the game will stop looking like Tank Wars and I might be on a little more even footing with the rest of my club who know the rules much, much better than I do.

But what it will probably mean is that I will probably not create a second Warhammer 40K army. I'll tidy up the army list for my Brazen Claws and just play them. For the money I sank into these guys I could have a small but effective wood-working workshop. Or a tablet computer. Or a used set of golf clubs, not that I play. While my Hobby ADD tempts me to a second army, I think I will just learn to play Space Marines well on Tuesday nights and save my money and my hobby time towards other pursuits.

I'll have to reference this email at a future date, I'm sure.

Weekend terrain piece

2011-07-23T16:59:00.000-04:00

This is what I can build when I have a day off.

Finally, a Friday

2011-07-22T14:25:00.000-04:00

After re-reading my last post I realized that I was precariously close to some sort of emotional slump and could easily succumb to the temptation of spending all my free time watching old episodes of Silk Stalkings on Netflix or something. Therefore something had to be done. Thankfully, fortune favored me by arranging for me to have a day off and the house to myself: no kids, wife, or work commitments. I know from long experience that disorder in my environment can be a distraction and a drag, so I began there. Here's what my worktable (and for that matter, my gaming table) looked like:

After a good hour of straightening up, here's what I had:

I even gave the old girl a good round of polish after taking the photograph. For good measure I tidied up the worksink also present in the Daddy/Daughter Cave, and even went so far as to tackling the shelves and shelves of random miniatures that make up "The Lead Pile." I had, as perhaps evident in the previous picture, been tossing about several different projects at once, and most of those got shelved, like the zombie strippers and the Space Marine land speeder. I find it so much better if I just tackle one project at a time, rather than get ahead on about three or four at once and then feel overwhelmed. My own schedule said I should be working on the second unit of tactical marines, and I began painting five of them, rather than the one ten at one go.

I also started casting a little plaster with my Hirst Arts molds. This is a fine thing to do while painting. You can mix up and pour the plaster, do a little painting, and scrape five minutes later. After another half hour of painting you demold the bricks, and repeat the process. After two or three hours of this you will find yourself having painted quite a bit, and by the same token have made five or so casts, which can form the basis of a nice bit of terrain.

Hopefully by this time next week I'll have some nice finished pieces to show you. I think I've successfully flushed out my ennui.

Once again in the rough patch

2011-07-19T12:50:00.000-04:00

My task of painting the Brazen Claws has once again slowed down quite a bit, although it is worth noting that I'm almost done with my annual painting goal for the year and it is only July. The reasons for the slowdown are all the usual suspects:

Work. Despite it being the slow time of year for work, I'm racking up a lot of evening meetings with committees, evening appointments, etc. What's more, the one thing the job would really, really like to have happen requires my committing to another regular evening (I already work at least two evenings at week at work).
Family. We're out of the routine, a routine that usually has my being in the hobby room a few evenings a week to paint while the wife and kids do their thing. This isn't so much a complaint, really--the summer just brings a different schedule to the household.
Frustration. I bought a ton of used SM stuff from a friend, and have been piecing together what I can for my own use. There's some good stuff in there, including a whole tactical unit and lots of bits to make marines with assault weapons, etc. Unfortunately every once in a while I will be unable to find a missing piece, usually after I've already started. Since this is something I'm supposed to be enjoying, frustration tends to be a quick energy-sapper.
Frustration, pt. 2. I played WHFB for eight years and got pretty good at it. Now I'm playing 40K and I'm doing lousy at it. I'm unfamiliar with the rules, and I don't own the strong units. That's one thing that sticks in my craw about 40K--there is a sense, especially when you go online to look at tactical analysis, that there are units that you must take because they are so good, and units that you should never take because they are over-priced or under-powered. This, I think, is the bane of GW's existence as a hobby community. There are so many people who have dedicated so much time and mental energy into scrutinizing this game that every time a codex or an army book comes out, the various rules are processed and re-processed so that within days you can find detailed analysis about what the optimal army builds are. It's like eighteen months of playtesting gets done within hours. And if you play in a fairly competitive group (and I do) then if you're not optimizing your options you're at a disadvantage. So now I'm buying stuff that doesn't really interest me, but I need in order to field a competitive army. Bleah.
Boredom. There's a lot of red and blue in a Brazen Claws army. I break it up with the occasional zombie-related figure, but I'm really thinking of just setting it aside for a while and doing something different for a while. I think once I get a couple of the SM transports and the predator built I'll have a decent army assembled, if not painted. That'll give me something to work with on Tuesdays until the mood to get everything painted hits me again.

Brother Phoghallen, Brazen Claws Dreadnought

2011-07-13T22:21:00.000-04:00

This is the other dreadnought, which I got in the Warhammer 40K box set. He's outfitted with a multi-melta and dreadnought close combat weapon. He's been through a lot the past month, so I told him that I would paint him next, plus it is five more points towards my total for the year.

If you didn't get the connection between the other Brazen Claws names, hopefully this one will finally help you out.

Weekly club report, the second week of July 2011

2011-07-13T12:35:00.000-04:00

Space Marines vs. Space Marines, 1300 pts.

I fielded my usual lot of Brazen Claws (i.e. what I own): librarian, captain with SS/RB, tactical squad, scout squad, sniper scout squad, two dreads, terminator squad, three bikes, and a devastator unit.

My opponent fielded a Master of the Forge, two sniper scout squads, five dreads of various configurations, and one ironclad dread in a drop pod.

So once again, it didn't go well. We played where we each controlled a single objective. He dropped his drop pod with the ironclad practically on top of my objective and wiped out my sniper scouts while he other dreads chipped away at my two dreads.
What did work well for me was my devastators, who took out the ironclad and at least two other dreads with their shooting. My bikes and the tac squad made their way across the board towards his objective. My termies landed near his objective, but took so much abuse from the snipers and the Master of the Forge and his death cannon of doom that they couldn't hold it.
By the time it was done I was down to the devastators but no one held my objective. He had three dreads, and the two scout units (I got the Master of the Forge) and still held his objective. Victory for him.

This hammered home for me the need for speed. My three troop choices were legging it across the board getting shot up by dreads. I've added a rhino, a predator, and a land speeder to the work table. That'll be a much better addition that the point sink of having two HQ units.

Weekly club report, the first week of July 2011

2011-07-06T09:31:00.000-04:00

This week at the regular club gathering I ended up facing off once more against Black Templars, but this time I was a little wiser and while still getting pounded pretty solidly I gave back quite a bit better. One thing I've noticed is that it is not necessarily bad to lose the deploy first/go first roll. I have two dreads, an anti-mech one and an anti-infantry one. My opponent placed his tanks on the anti-infantry one and his large blocks of bikes and assault marines on the anti-tank one. I'm also really sick of not being able to damage Land Raiders, and my current strategy is just to ignore them and wait for them to run aground on difficult terrain.

Here's a pic, not of my game but of an interesting Daemons vs. Tyranids game featuring the rare occurrence of two fully painted armies battling it out.

Nature red of tooth and claw...

Minotaur Lord

2011-07-05T17:16:00.000-04:00

The DM of my D&D game asked me to paint up a batch of miniatures for him. This one is the first, apparently some giant minotaur that we will eventually face.

I have no idea who manufactured this beast, but he's a great miniature with a ton of detail. You can't see it, but behind his back he has three skulls hanging from his belt, not to mention scars across his back from some earlier but less fortunate adventuring party. There are some other miniatures that I will paint as the mood strikes me and time allows, but this fellow was so great I had get right to it.

Brazen Claws Librarian

2011-07-04T10:23:00.000-04:00

As much as I hate to admit it, this guy is becoming a regular HQ choice for me, especially in low-point games. Between the wargear, the psychic powers, and the relatively low point cost, he's just too good to pass up. I've actually had this figure for many years, when I was first getting into 40K. My brother-in-law gave me this figure and a chaplain, on account of my having been both a librarian and a chaplain at some point in my life. I painted up the chaplain (he looks pretty hideous--I was just learning to paint) but never bothered with this guy. Now he's done and ready to lead my troops to battle. After his sufferings last game, I figured he was due.

In other news, over at SoloNexus they are telling me that November is Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation month and they are doing this push to get people do something new or something big in the month of 11/11. These sorts of things always appeal to me because of my irrational need to try to meet goals related to my free time. And while I have some serious interest in getting a solo campaign going, if for no other reason than because my hometown appears to be in the grips of Irrational Loyalty to Warhammer (or "ILOW" for short), I think I will be taking a pass on this one. I already shackled myself to the painting goal which is almost four-fifths done even though it is only July. Six months to paint thirty miniatures means five miniatures a month, which is practically cruising speed.

A small cottage

2011-07-03T11:45:00.000-04:00

Over the long weekend I decided to finish up this terrain project that had been sitting around for a couple of months. It is made with Hirst Arts molds. I think when I started it I was thinking I could use it in a Chaos in Carpathia, Very British Civil War, or even an All Things Zombie game. Anyways, I'm pleased with how it turned out, so much so that I may do another similar one.

The holiday weekend isn't shaping up all that well. My children returned from a long trip with their grandparents on a flight that was delayed to the point where it futzed with my D&D game, and now today the weather is acting up. I might just go hide from the in-laws in the Daddy/Daughter Cave casting plaster.

Finally, if you haven't been following my RPG blog, http://graphpapergames.blogspot.com , you should check it out. I'm slowly going through a sealed box of RPG's that I bought sight unseen from the local bookstore. It's a random bit of RPG history in there.

Weekly club report, fourth week of June

2011-06-29T12:31:00.001-04:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here you go.

For the record, that would be my librarian HQ being attacked by fifteen termagaunts, one from a regular troop unit and the rest spawned by a monstrous creature (lurking at the top up there). The Tyranids' ally, the Tau, are ready to hose him with blasters should he somehow manage to kill all of them.

This was after the first turn, where upon going first I tried to have the librarian cast Warp Gate (or whatever it is), roll two ones on the Psychic Test, take a wound, and then roll doubles on the scatter and kill a member of his accompanying unit. Then in the shooting phase my plasma cannon-wielding marine lit himself on fire with his weapon, meaning I've given myself three wounds before my opponents have even gone.

The one good part? On the previous game that evening, also against the Tyranid opponent, my librarian rammed his Force Weapon into one of his monstrous creature's necks and flicked on the juice. First time the guy had seen a librarian in action, and he wasn't pleased. Thus in game two, he swamped the librarian and his unit with 'gaunts.

To his credit, the librarian actually held out three turns before succumbing to the onslaught. He scythed his way through a good dozen of them, though. He might get fully painted soon as a result.

A Bitz Bonanza!

2011-06-22T09:39:00.000-04:00

One of the things that happened immediately after I started playing 40K again was that people began offering to sell me miniatures second hand. I think this is because I chose to play vanilla space marines, and that tends to be the first army a lot of people play, then get tired of. Heck, half the marines I have were from when I first started, then got tired of, and am now going back to.
I'm demurred in most of these cases, but a close friend wanted to unload most of his Space Marine stuff, and some Chaos Space Marine stuff as well, and I succumbed to temptation. It was quite a lump of money, but I think I made out pretty well. Here's what I got that I wanted:

The limited edition SM Captain that I can convert to a relic blade/storm shield configuration
A ten-marine tactical squad
meltagun, plasmagun, and plasma pistol bits
two marines with plasma cannons
one marine with lascannon
scout sergeant with plasma pistol
scout with heavy bolter
marine sergeant with power fist
landspeeder with missile launchers

All told, not a bad lot, and at retail more than what I paid. However, that wasn't all that was in there. As I said, there were some Chaos Space Marines in there as well as some Space Marine stuff I don't need, and that stuff I'm willing to sell or trade away.

Side note: why not keep the CSM stuff? Because if I am going to play an army other than Space Marines, it won't be Spiky Space Marines.

Here's some of what I don't want, but maybe you do:

two Space Marine captains in terminator armor with power weapon and storm bolter
Space Marine captain with power weapon and storm bolter (not a terminator)
Chaos Space Marine Lord
Chaos Space Marine Terminators
five Crimson Fist/Iron Fist shoulder pads

Some of these guys have been primed or partially painted, but I am going to give them all the Pine Sol treatment and strip them down. I also have loads of plastic bits. You need a power weapon for that sergeant, or a particular helmet? Let me know, I probably have it. There may even be some Khorne Berzerkers in there somewhere, I think.

Anyways, I'll post pics, both of the salvaged pieces that will become part of my Brazen Claws army and the pieces that would love a new home. If you're interested, leave a comment and I'll be in touch.

Milking the He-Goat

2011-06-21T10:28:00.001-04:00

Every now and then I come across an expression that just encapsulates a concept, and recently "milking the he-goat" has been it. What's better, it doesn't really have an inappropriate context, since I'm assuming you're working the vestigial nipples and not something else. (I call those nipples "papparies.")

Anyhow, getting the Brazen Claws painted has lately felt like milking the he-goat. In particular, those damn Space Marine bikes, which were a pain to assemble and didn't fit together right at the end. Oh, and the arms that hold the handle bars came off every time too. But I needed to paint them before I fielded them, because I wanted to do it by sub-unit instead of assembling the whole bike and then trying to do a neat job of painting the legs without getting the side of the cycle, etc. I'm just not that good.

I also made the mistake of going onto DakkaDakka. I mentioned at the beginning of my journey into 40K that I would try to avoid that, but in my attempt to pimp this blog I went there to post pics. I then succumbed to temptation and decided to do a little poking around which uncovered the article of Space Marine tactics. Bleh. I guess the las/plas combo has now become the melta/missile launcher combo (probably cheaper, given that missile launchers are now free) with the tac unit divided in half using the SM special rule.

I don't want to get too into the fluff/tactics do-I-play-to-win-or-have-an-interesting-army question too much here, but I think that army lists that just exist of taking the most effective unit in each category is a lot like being able to pick what you want to play chess and then making an army with one king, two queens, and five rooks. Yeah, it'll be an easy win, but at some level don't you feel like something is lacking? I don't know.

I've also been in paint-paint-paint mode, trying to hit my annual painting goal by the end of June, which is pointless for two reasons. One, I'm not going to do it, there's just no way that could physically happen. I don't have the time. Two, it's an annual goal, and getting it done in six months doesn't make me a painting hardcase or something. What I've realized inside my own head is that if I hit the goal, I would relax and putter about building terrain and other things. Which is also a crazy way to be treating my hobby.

So, I'm having a moment of self-revelation. I have six months to paint thirty figures, and in the process have maintained a pretty nice painting schedule, given my past accomplishments. I am also thinking about starting a new army, just to have one to bounce back and forth from the Brazen Claws, so I when I get weary of painting red and blue I can switch to the other. Or more likely, use the partially-painted Brazen Claws while slowly painting up the second army until it is ready to go.

In case you are wondering, I do have a second army in mind, but I'm keeping it a secret for now.

And finally, I hit 10,000 visits. I made a big deal out of 9,000 because for whatever reason I like base 3/12 numbers better than base 10, but it is still a nice milestone. Traffic on the blog has increased nicely over the last few months, so that's all good.

Brazen Claws Bikers

2011-06-19T15:24:00.000-04:00

Rollin' like James Brolin and killin' like Penicillin

Ugh. Okay, these are not my favorite models of the Space Marine line. They actually have been kicking around the lead pile for over a decade, and I finally decided to give them their due. But, particularly given the difficult "quartered" paint job, I painted each sub-unit separately: the bike, the marine, and the backpack. When the time came to put it all together, they didn't always fit right (most obvious on the marine on the left). But, they're done and ready to go tank hunting, which is their primary role in my mind, since I've seen how bad they are in assault. Too bad I can't give the sergeant a power fist.

Weekly club report, second week of June

2011-06-15T09:30:00.000-04:00

This week I played my friend Sam's Black Templars at 1100 pts, just a straight shoot-em-up battle. I like Sam, but I wonder why the BT army list hasn't been voided yet, given that there have been at least two iterations for the SM Codex. But enough complaining. I obviously lost, and I should take it like a man.

Again, the descriptions will be rough at times.

My army list (aka the "this is what I own" or the "walking marines" list)
Captain with terminator armor and relic blade
Librarian
Terminator Squad
Assault Canon Dread
Multimelta Dread
Tac Squad with power fist, heavy bolter, and flamer
Scout Squad
Scout Squad with sniper rifles
Devastator Squad with three missile launchers and a lascannon

The BT army list
Marshall with terminator armor and twin lightning claws
Emperor's Champion
large tac squad with noviates or whatever they are called
5 man tac squad with plasma gun and lascannon (see earlier comment)
Land speeder
Land speeder with missile launcher
Bike squad
Land Raider Crusader

The battle:
I deployed my forces with the two scout squads on one side with the multimelta dread, the termies and the assault dread in the middle, and the tac squad on the other side. The devastators were in the back on a hill.
Sam stole the initiative and ran his bikes towards my two scout squads. He settled his land speeders along the back of his deployment zone, where they took out the melta dread with missiles. The land raider plowed towards my tac squad. Aside from the dread, his shooting was abyssmal and my armor saves downright impressive, as they would be for most of the game.
On my turn I moved my termies to back up the inevitable assault on my tac squad, while my non-sniper scouts rushed to engage the bikes. The sniper scouts shot and but failed to do anything against the 5-man tac squad, which would be how they spent the rest of the game. My librarian hit a glancing blow on the Crusader with "Machine Curse" and got "can not shoot" at which point Sam said the Crusader had a Machine Spirit that allows it to shoot once even thought it got a "can not shoot" meaning it was still going to run up on me while shooting so thanks for playing. That was a classic example of the rules/counter-rules quality of 40K that makes me dislike the game some times. My devastators were useless against the front armor of the Crusader.

The Crusader deployed its units, the large BT tac squad going against my librarian and tac squad while the Marshall and Emperor's Champion went up against my terminators and Captain. This proved to be a mistake: the termies and Captain rolled over the two independent characters in a flurry of power fists and invulnerable saves. Over on the other side my scout squad took out the five-marine bike squad, but sustained heavy casualties.

Sam threw his Crusader into reverse (causing me to make the "BEEP BEEP" noise that garbage trucks make while backing up) and essentially moved backwards for the rest of the game, all the while shelling my tac squad and terminator squad. It was a cycle. My guys would move up, make glancing blows on the Crusader which half the time would be negated by the Machine Spirit, while he would take out a couple of guys with the Crusader's guns. My devastators must have loaded up on nerf missiles that day, because they were completely ineffectual against the Crusader's armor.

All the while this is happening, the two BT land speeders slowly dissected my army from 48" away: first the assault dread, then the devastators, then the sniper scouts, and finally on turn six the last of the terminators. My only high point was the single scout sergeant made his way to the very back of the board, assaulted the mini-tac unit, and ran them off the board all on his lonesome. His unit must have worked extra-hard because I had finally painted them.

At the end of turn six Sam still had both land speeders, and a dinged-up but functioning Crusader. I had two miniatures--the power fist-wielding sergeant from the tac squad and the scout sergeant. I called the game in his favor.

What I learned:

At some point, I just should have given up using the devastators on the Crusader and turned them on the land speeders instead. It's hard to ignore ~300 pts. on the battlefield, but the land speeders did far more damage than the tank did.
My own psychological weapon was the terminators, against whom Sam threw so much ammunition I was surprised if they had any paint left on their armor. They just couldn't fail an armor save, even the 5+ invul save.
I love my assault scouts, which proved once again how poor SM bikes are in the assault phase. Without a power fist for their sergeant they would've been wiped out by the dreadnaught if the scouts hadn't torn them apart first. I've got my own bike squad on the workbench, but I'm definitely going to use them as tank hunters.
Speaking of tanks, I need to think about investing in one, or at least a transport vehicle.

I asked Sam not to go easy on me, which he didn't. There's no point in getting a false idea about how effective or ineffective your army is. I did buy a new unit of sniper scouts (the ones I used were borrowed) on the way out the door. I think my order of purchases for the army will go as follows:

Predator
Command Squad
Razorback
Two rhinos (for the two tactical squads)

I'll save my internal debate regarding what configuration to use for the predator for another post.

Some more post-apocalyptic figures

2011-06-13T15:05:00.000-04:00

Click for larger pic

I'm still just bouncing around at the moment between miniatures. These are three various Mutant Chronicles figures, all painted to match my others, at least roughly. The stain really is too red and brown; I think I will be going to the hardware store to look for something else to use.

At some point I will be finding a game in which to use these figures as well.

Some Chainmail Dwarfs

2011-06-12T16:59:00.000-04:00

Click the pic for an enlargement

I decided to change up from Brazen Claws for a bit, and painted up a dwarf booster pack from the old D&D miniatures game Chainmail. Some time I'll use them in a game of Song of Blades or something.

On the Market: Central Casting Dungeons

2011-06-09T14:01:00.000-04:00

I came across a copy of this book recently and decided to sell it. I have a second copy of my own, and it is a real treasure for old school Dungeons & Dragons fans. It contains pages and pages of charts and descriptions for randomly generating different kinds of dungeon encounters and rooms. Even if you don't use the random tables, there's plenty of great room descriptions to get your imagination going.

The list for the auction is here

Brazen Claws Scouts

2011-06-08T19:14:00.001-04:00

Finally got these guys done. They are another bunch of miniatures that have been in my collection for ages but never saw a paint brush until the past couple of weeks. For whatever reason, it didn't really come easy, either. I found myself getting frustrated. But I knuckled under and now they are done.

By the way, my chaplain got second place. The other mini wasn't as well painted, but had conversion work. It's only a $5 difference in the prize money, so I'm still pretty pleased.

Gamer's Movie Review: No Escape (1994)

2011-06-06T09:34:00.000-04:00

I saw the trailer for this movie when it came out, but never managed to catch it in theaters or elsewhere until this week when it popped up on Netflix. Part prison movie, part post-apocalyptic survival movie, part redemption movie, No Escape was a surprisingly good flick, especially for a wargamer's perspective.

The year is 2022, and the world's prison systems have been completed turned over to corporations. Cpt. J.T. Robbins (Ray Liotta) is an ex-special forces soldier sentenced to life in prison for killing his superior officer in a glorious bit of cinematography in the opening credits. Deemed both too dangerous and politically sensitive for a regular facility, Robbins is sent to Absolom, a secret penal colony located on a tropical island. The island is divided into two communities: a fairly civilized commune of about one hundred prisoners led by a benevolent, messianic figure called "the Father" (Lance Henriksen), and six hundred brutal savages living deep in the jungle led by Marek (Stuart Wilson). The savage prisoners regularly raid the primitive fort that the other prisoners have set up, but Robbin's presence serves as a catalyst for bringing the conflict between the two factions to a head.

The movie is, as I said, a lot like your typical prison flick. There's the big tough black guy (Ernie Hudson), the doomed kid (Kevin Dillon), the sadistic warden (Michael Lerner) and the shifty scrounger (Kevin J. O'Connor, whom it took me about half the flick to finally put together was "Benny" from The Mummy). But it is also very close to a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story, with the scratch-built armor and primitive weapons and the one, single firearm on the island. But what really makes the movie stand out is the deliberate attempt to develop some sense of depth beyond the basic plot. Liotta's plays Robbins as barely holding onto his sanity and a good part of the story is his refusal to accept the hospitality and support of the Father's commune. The movie's script takes the time to put quite a bit of humanity into the characters so you appropriately sympathize with the prisoners who are seeking redemption and a new life, even as they can never escape the island.

If there is one sour note to the movie it is Wilson's depiction the charismatic yet violent leader of the savages. Wilson chews the scenery with a lot of hammy over-acting that made me check that in fact 1994 was when Jim Carrey was exploding into the Hollywood scene. He could have toned it down just a notch or two and come across as a truly sinister sadist, rather than tap his Shakespearean acting roots and gone for the bombastic, broad gesturing stuff.

Now from a wargamer's perspective, what I liked about the movie was the whole post-apocalyptic big siege battles that appear regularly in the film in a great bit of futuristic low-tech fun, but not taking place in the arid, lifeless landscape so common to the genre. The island is beautiful from afar, but fetid and rat-infested within, a great metaphor for the dystopic outside world (which Henriksen at one point dryly points out might just be worse than Absolom). The jungle makes a great place for mud-daubed psychos to jump out you, rather than being seen from miles away across the sand dunes.

First weekly After Action Report

2011-06-01T09:50:00.001-04:00

Since I'm usually doing one 40K game a week now, I thought I'd at least try to share some of what happens each week. I can't provide the detailed reports that some people can; for one thing, I don't know the rules well enough and for another I'm not taking detailed notes while I game.
My gaming club suffers from having too few tables in the FLGS where we play, which means that at least one table is a two-on-two battle, and I was part of that last night: my Brazen Claws and Imperial Guard vs. Orks and Nurgle Chaos Space Marines (each with 1000 pts).

The Army Roster (of sorts)
I fielded my captain in terminator armor, a tac squad, a scout squad, two dreads, a terminator squad and a devastator squad. My partner had two tanks (a Leman Russ and a demolisher), a Chimera, a command squad, two regular infantry squads, and a veteran squad. Again, I'm short on details.
The ork player had three big trukks, one with the force field, two units of lootas, one unit of bikes and one helicopter. The chaos player had a chaos lord, two units of plague marines in rhinos, a dread and a predator with lascannons.

The game was to claim five markers, with Spearhead formation.

Humanity's finest fall on the mysterious planet Plywood

The short version is the dice crapped out on us. Despite our heavy weapon resources, we actually failed to destroy any of our opponents vehicles with the exception of one of my dreads using a multi-melta at point blank range to destroy the chaos dreadnought and the same dreadnought hitting and destroying the predator's rear armor on a mulligan because they felt so bad for us at that point. We failed to destroy any of the transport vehicles, however, so my tac squad was overrun by 19 Shoota boyz and the Imperial Guard were tank-shocked with Chaos Rhinos. By the bottom of turn three all I had left was an immobilized dreadnought and two terminators while my partner had a Leman Russ and the Chimera. On the other side, they had lost the predator, the dreadnought, the helicopter (which I had taken care of) and the 19 Ork Shootas which my partner had wiped out with barrages. That was it.

Our opponents agreed that we suffered terribly for poor dice rolling, as I said before (hence the mulligan when I rolled a 1 to damage with the multi-melta). I did get a few tips about army composition, but really I'm just playing with what I own, so all I can do with that is file it away on the chance I decide to purchase more Space Marines.

And on that note, I'll break here for some meandering thoughts.

Obviously, one of the topics of conversation around the back room of the gaming store was the price increases at Games Workshop. The FLGS has just received their first shipment of product at the higher price, as well as the first round of miniatures composed of resin.

From the conversation and my own reading of the blogosphere the common wisdom is that Games Workshop is pretty inured against customer outrage. As the game store owner (who wasn't exactly pleased about this turn of events, since the percentage that he pays wholesale also went up) said, what will make any difference at all is if people stop buying Games Workshop miniatures. And historically they really haven't. We can talk about economic downturns and new companies and whatever, but Games Workshop is the Microsoft of the miniatures market in that they got in early and they got in big, so people who have sunk $500+ into Games Workshop are going to be unlikely to experiment with something new. The microcosm of this was two guys at the store last night, one saying "when I buy something new, it'll be one of these WarMachine minis I've been hearing so much about," and the second buying the new resin version of the Ork Warboss.

I have my own version of this. As I mentioned earlier, I painted up a Space Marine Chaplain for the store's monthly contest, in this case a "buy and paint" competition. Well, I'm guaranteed at least second place, because only two people bothered to submit a miniature: me and another guy. My paint job is better, but he had conversion work. If it came down to basing, I think I have it with my resin base over his just-graveled-over base. (I do want to say that the other guy did do up a great miniature, but he's color blind, a source of some humor around the club.)
So, second place is $15, first place is $20. Either way, what am I going to spend the credit on? I own no less than three starter box sets for WarMachine, and have never played a single game. Unless I decide to just buck the system and put it towards the newest edition of Mutants and Masterminds or Dystopian Wars, it'll probably go towards a new unit of devastators because a) that's what I own, b) that's what I play with, and c) that's what the guy sells. Those three reasons are why the GW price hike won't be some cataclysmic blow to the company. It'll continue to peter along, a lumbering monolith of hobbydom, for some time.

And If I'm wrong, I've still got about 1250 pts. of Space Marines to get crushed each week. :T

Gaming with Children Redux

2011-05-31T10:20:00.001-04:00

First, a little background...
I have two kids, whom I tend to call on the internet "Mac" and "Macy." Mac is eleven and into comic books, CGI-laden movies, video games, and fantasy novels and tends to be a little, shall we say, "high energy" (in short, he's Mini-WQRobb). Macy, on the other hand, is eight and possesses the attention span of a zen master and whose favorite hobby is origami. Since Mrs. WQRobb isn't like that, I can only figure that a magpie put her in our nest when she was a baby.
Evan, the GM of my bi-weekly D&D game surprised me a few weeks ago by announcing that he wanted to run a game for my two kids and his two kids, "Zack" and "Abe." I was surprised for two reasons. First, I had run a game once for my kids and it was a fiasco. I ran a milquetoast version of Labyrinth Lord using one of my modular dungeons, but apparently pit traps make you a bad GM and a bad daddy, even if the pit trap is already open and clearly visible.
But I was also surprised because while Zack is ten and another little sci-fi/fantasy geek (he and Mac are good friends), Abe is five. Maybe he is an advanced five, I don't know. When Mac was five he was running around the back yard in nothing but a cape swinging a length of PVC pipe and yelling at the top of his lungs, while five-year-old Macy would do things like come down from her room at 11:30 at night to where my wife and I were watching television, say "I am Sith!" and then skulk back to her room.
But we set aside last Friday for them to play, and I wished him well.

After Evan showed up with Zack and Abe in tow I greeted them warmly, got them set up in the Daddy/Daughter Cave, and then headed into town to meet with a member of my 40K club to discuss a tournament we were planning this summer. About twenty minutes into it I get a text from my wife saying, "Evan is waiting for you to come back. I think he thought you were going to play."

What will our intrepid hero do? Click here to continue

So, I went back to my house, and plopped myself down at the table with four children, all in grade school, and picked up my pre-made character. Evan had come up with some sort of home-grown system combining the latest edition of Gamma World, D&D 4E, some board game and a system he found online called Old School Hack. This allowed for everyone (except me) to play whatever they wanted. Mac was the son of Thor, Macy was a Eladrin Cleric, Zack was a robot, and Abe was a Saiyan pirate. I was given the role of tottering old human wizard mentor, whom I named Zachariah Alder.

One does not simply walk into Gamma World

I will say this for Evan, he planned well. The adventure was pretty straightforward: my character had summoned the other PC's from across the Multiverse to help him defeat an Evil Wizard (tm) who had been terrorizing the countryside with his army of battle droids and skeletons. My PC could lead the others to his underground lair.

Despite my reservations, I played my job has pseudo-NPC pretty well. I would do things like say, "The door is locked. Do we want Chad (the robot) to try to override the lock, or should Thorin (the demi-god) try to muscle the door open?" I'd also just try to soften up opponents with spells but let them actually land the killing blow.

As one might expect, Abe was only good for the game for about three minutes before he decided that sending larger and larger toys careening down the stairs into the Daddy/Daughter Cave was infinitely more interesting. Evan seemed to possess remarkable patience, and later Mac rewarded me for my own contribution by stating that this game was "so much better than the one that I ran" because it was clear that Evan had actually thought about it. Macy informed me that Star Moon the Eladrin cleric would never trust Zachariah again because he brought them to Gamma World without a way of sending them back.

Sure, blame me for the plot device. At least it's roleplaying.

Brother Naismith, Brazen Claws Dreadnought

2011-05-28T11:36:00.000-04:00

Brother Naismith fell during the defense of Cadia in the 13th Black Crusade. His remains were recovered by his battle brothers of his Veteran unit and he was transferred into a dreadnought suit aboard the Brazen Claws flagship Ad Astra.

Click for a larger pic

I'm making good headway on my Brazen Claws army. Next on the list is my second troops choice, a scout unit.

Brother Kemper, Brazen Claws Chaplain

2011-05-27T11:47:00.001-04:00

The local gaming store is having a painting competition this month. The rules are pretty simple: buy a miniature from the store, inform the owner you will be submitting this miniature in the competition, and turn it in by the end of the month. Top three get store credit.

The pickings are a little slim at the gaming store, unfortunately, because the owner is reluctant to order much from Games Workshop (in fact, there's been talk that he is going to basically sell off his standing stock and then see what the demand is following the price hike). A lot of what he had I already owned or didn't need, so I settled on a chaplain wielding a power fist. Not the best wargear set-up, but a good looking miniature and I may tell people he's just wearing a big mitten and not a power fist.

Click the pic for a larger picture

Bonus points if you can tell me where the name comes from.

The First Brazen Claws Tactical Squad

2011-05-25T19:03:00.000-04:00

Click the link for a larger picture

Well, I put my shoulder to the plow and got the first of the squads for my Brazen Claws Space Marine army finished. I freehanded the insignia on their shoulder pads--hopefully it will get better as it goes along. I had a chance to field a Space Marine army yesterday at the club night and am getting a feel for what works and what doesn't.

I also reviewed the painting point structure, compared notes with some people who paint primarily 40K and have adjusted the values. Not much different for infantry, but things like tanks and dreadnoughts have to be accounted for. By my calculation, if I get my proposed army (see the "Brazen Claws" page on the blog) I will complete my painting goal for the year. We'll see how that goes.

9000 Visits

2011-05-21T20:07:00.000-04:00

Doom welcomes you all

Nine thousand visitors on what has been a slow blogging week. I don't have pics up of my first Space Marine tactical squad because this week just kicked my backside six ways from Sunday. On the upside, I played twice this week: 40K on Tuesday and D&D on Friday, both of which went really well. On the downside, a member of my staff died fairly unexpectedly Thursday night. She had been recovering from a previous illness, but everyone had figured she would eventually return (and then admittedly retire later this year).

In addition, the painting has been going slowly because I am not using my "basecoat-and-dip" technique but instead and doing the more traditional "basecoat-ink shade-highlight" technique. This turns out to be much, much more slow a process. I also chose a somewhat complicated "quartered" pattern where I have to end up freehanding color borders on every figure.

Finally, I'm just not feeling it. The ugly truth about the gaming club I just joined is that hardly anyone bothers painting their figures at all. That's their choice and I respect their freedom to do whatever they want, but it is a little hard to get fired up to spend weeks painting figures as a result. This is compounded by the fact that I'm basically painting the army to play a game that isn't one of my favorites. I'm learning to appreciate it, and hopefully that and the fact that I like fielding a painted army will keep me on track.

In the meantime, I am letting myself get sidetracked by some sci-fi terrain projects. More later.

Happy St. Dunstan's Day!

2011-05-19T14:16:00.000-04:00

It says right here, "the player determines true line of sight..."

I'm not sure that miniature wargamers have a patron saint, but if they were to consider one St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury (909-988 AD) would be a good choice. Dustan was a reformer of the English monastic tradition and re-established and created many monasteries in England, including re-creating the one in Glastonbury, where the Holy Grail is reputed by some to be hidden. What makes him a good patron saint of miniature wargaming is his reputation for being a metalworker and caster, especially in the creation of bells. While many miniatures are now being created by plastics companies, the core quality of the hobby is still being done by metalworkers, and their patron saint is St. Dunstan. You can learn more about Dunstan here, and here's the prayer for his feast day, which is today:

O God of truth and beauty, who richly endowed your bishop Dunstan with skill in music and the working of metals, and with gifts of administration and reforming zeal: Teach us, we pray, to see in you the source of all our talents, and move us to offer them for the adornment of worship and the advancement of true religion; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

My first game of 2011

2011-05-18T10:46:00.000-04:00

I stopped by the Tuesday 40K club at my FLGS, with every intention of just watching since my army is still largely on sprues, but one of the club members offered to let me borrow his army for a quick game. We went with a small size and no vehicles so I could get a handle on the new rules, and both sides played Space Marines just so I could see how different units fared.

I want to say, those who run clubs should take a cue from this. Every came up and re-introduced themselves and really went out of their way to make me feel welcome. I felt like taking notes for my church.

Anyways, I had some leeway in picking my small army and went with the following:

Captain with the upgraded armor, relic weapon and storm bolter
10-marine Tac squad with plasma cannon and meltagun (my "shooty" squad)
10-marine Tac squad with heavy bolter, flamer, and veteran sergeant with power fist (my "assaulty" squad)
Seven marine bike squad with (heavy?) flamer, sergeant with power weapon.

My opposition was the following (in broad terms because I didn't know all the details):

Captain with terminator armor and power weapon
10-marine Tac squad with lascannon and plasma gun
5-marine Scout squad with bolt pistols and chainswords
5-marine Scout squad with sniper rifles
10-marine Assault squad with plasma pistols and veteran sergeant with power fist

The game was pretty straightforward. We both paired up our captains with a tac squad (my assault one) and ran them up into each other on the left side of the board. My shooty marines wiped out most of the sniper scouts, then shot up the melee scouts when they drew close. In the center, the bikes collided with the assault marines where they locked up for the rest of the game, mostly as a result of poor dice rolling and large numbers allowing for attrition.

I managed to get the upper hand with the two "command" units in melee. My powerfist sergeant took out his captain while my captain wiped out the regular marines. By turn five when the game ended, I had destroyed three units and had only really banged up but not destroyed one. In the post-op my instructor/opponent said that the bikes should not have fared so well in assaulting the assault marines. I could see that if they had run through the bikes, they would have headed for the shooty marines, and that might have tipped the game to a tie at a minimum. I am also considering the option of a veteran sergeant for my tac squads after they are put together.

The next army is...Brazen Claws

2011-05-16T16:23:00.000-04:00

Now that I am done with the two Hordes of the Things armies, I have taken up another project. This is inspired by my decision to try out the local 40K gaming club, otherwise known as "the only gaming club that meets regularly in my city."

To their credit, the club is friendly and welcoming and has quite a few members including several women. That says to me that they manage to curb some of the stereotypically negative qualities that gamers can possess. And since I haven't played any wargame in almost a year, I thought this was my best bet.

I am not going to go off on a rant about Games Workshop's market strategy, expense, or ruleset (aside from just briefly saying that I am paying $3.75 for a single plastic figure that qualifies as a infantry troop choice). If you want more than that, there are literally hundreds of blogs and forum posts that will let you eat from that trough.

That having been said, at least initially I am going to just assemble a Space Marine army using the figures from the Warhammer 40K box set (cost: $90) and the handful of Space Marine miniatures I already owned. With the $30 that the army book set me back, that means that I'm in this game for $120 and what I have is about 1250 points for the army. For those who don't know 40K, that's a pretty small army these days. At the club games are played in the 2000-3000 point range. But it is a start, and here's what my list will look like:

HQ Choices
Captain in terminator armor
Librarian

Eilte Choices
Terminator Squad
Dreadnought

Troop Choices
Tactical Squad
Tactical Squad
Scout Squad

Fast Attack Choices
Bike Squad

Heavy Support
Devastator Squad
Predator Tank

After anguishing over which chapter I wanted to use, I went with Brazen Claws. I didn't want to go with one of the more popular chapters, or pick one that would be super-simple to paint, like a simple spray-and-dip option. I wanted one that would look good, but not be too complicated. The Brazen Claws have a red-and-blue quartered armor. I'll be posted pics as I get each unit finished.

Random Demons

2011-05-13T17:28:00.000-04:00

These are two Furies from the Dark Elf army for Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I picked them up ages ago as part of a eBay lot, and they have been moldering on the lead pile for years. Well, the DM of my D&D game (i.e. "the game that never seems to happen") asked me if I had some gargoyle/demon figures and I volunteered them for active service. I painted them blue according to his specifications, but I'm not thrilled with the job I did. It was a little too quick-and-dirty, and I think it illustrates the shortcomings of "the dip." The particular varnish I use is too reddish-brown, I think and I may have to go look at other options.

Goblin Shaman and his Army

2011-05-13T17:24:00.000-04:00

I have finally finished the final unit of my Hordes of the Things goblin army, a Wizard.

With this last unit, the entire army is completed. Here is the entire army in all its green glory.

Hopefully I'll get the two armies (the dwarf and the goblin ones) together on the battlefield soon. I'll make sure to get some photos and maybe even an After Action Report on the blog.

I've got a lot to talk about here, but I'll save it for its own post and let my getting these two armies completed be personally savored for a while.

Goblin Hero

2011-05-12T17:25:00.000-04:00

First, welcome to Figz and Matt D, this blog's latest followers.

Here's the Goblin Hero, who will serve as the General in my Hordes of the Things Goblin army.

One more miniature to go, and then I'll be done with the goblin army!

The Troll Behemoth

2011-05-07T14:08:00.000-04:00

I finished the troll from the Battle for Skull Pass boxed set, which will serve as a Behemoth for my Hordes of the Things goblin army. I'm down to just two figures for the goblin army, and then both will be done and I'll be ready to play!

Goblin Spider Riders

2011-04-27T15:16:00.000-04:00

First, I'd like to welcome kingsleypark, Bill, and hankesslinger as the most recent followers of the site.

Second, as promised, goblin spider riders to serve as Riders units for Hordes of the Things.

The only thing I really regret about these guys isn't visible in the picture. There were two "skull" design spiders and two "zig-zag" design spiders, and I didn't alternate them but glued the two identical ones to the same base. At least the goblins are different.

Thinning out the BlogoHerd

2011-04-27T13:05:00.000-04:00

While Spartan adds a blog to his repertoire, I'm culling the herd down by two, namely Graph Paper Games, which was my RPG-themed blog, and my "personal" blog. I am just not doing that much that is noteworthy in terms of RPG's these days. In fact, we have cancelled yet another session this Friday because of scheduling conflicts. And while I have, in fact, been doing many things of interest to me in my personal life, I've learned that recording too much of my personal life is unwise. And besides, whatever I do want to share can go onto Facebook.
I'm leaving up Hard Boiled Zombies because I still get an itch for zombie/post-apocalyptic wargaming. That genre is currently in a good position for my next project, along with Victorian Science-Fiction. I have been holding to the course of finishing the two Hordes of the Things armies and only indulging in the occasional odd miniature on the side. The goblin spider riders are finished and need only to be sprayed with matte varnish. Once they are done, then it is only a troll and two hero characters to complete the goblin army. It doesn't look like I will get it finished by the end of the month, but hopefully in the first weeks of May I will be able to begin fielding the two armies in battle.
I have decided, after some long consideration, that one thing I won't be getting into is the casting of my own miniatures using Prince August molds. I do a lot of ceramic casting with Hirst Arts mold, but the whole "handling molten metal while inhaling fumes" thing has put me off. I'm pretty clumsy, having dropped more than my fair share of miniatures, and my wife (Mrs. Q) has told me she has no doubt that I would eventually burn myself. Best to avoid that.

Dwarf Army Finished

2011-04-25T11:56:00.000-04:00

I have finally finished my dwarf army for Hordes of the Things. I had actually finished painting the Hero General and the Artillery several days ago. Unfortunately, in the spraying of the matte finish it came across as opaque and gray, ruining all the pieces. Thankfully I had a spare cannon and general, but no engineer, so I had to do without.

Here is the dwarf cannon as Artillery. Double-click the image to enlarge it.

Here is the dwarf thane as a Hero General.

And here is the shot of the final army in all its glory.

Now I just need to finish the goblin army. Sorry for the poor pictures--I can't find my regular digital camera today.

Roger, Zombie Apocalypse Ganger

2011-04-22T16:04:00.000-04:00

While I let the wood polish finish on my dwarfs, I thought I'd tidy up this fellow and get him ready. He's "Airborne" from one of Foundry's "Street Violence" blisters, but I changed the name because it sounded inane. I actually glued him to his base years ago, hence the square rather than the round one I would normally use on a modern, not-to-be-ranked-up figure. I figure he'll make a good gang leader with his grenades, SMG, and assault rifle. He even appears to have some sort of tactical vest on under his overcoat.

I got some good responses to my query about energy. Friday is always a great day for me in terms of creativity, because it is my day off and the kids are at school and the wife is at her job. I tend to putter about the "Daddy & Daughter Cave," paint a bit, cast some plaster, and listen to an old mystery novel on CD. Not the most exciting life, but it gets me by and lets me have a little rare bit of quiet.

I am still kicking about ideas for what to do when I'm done with the two armies. I want to keep up the tempo and get the remaining goblins done once the dwarfs have been completed, just so I can move on without too much delay.

Dwarf Lurkers

2011-04-20T14:38:00.000-04:00

I had a spare point to spend in my army, so I decided to add a unit of Lurkers to round everything out. I thought dwarf miners, fellows who might pop out and attack their opponents.

Dwarf miners, Games Workshop

The end is in sight for the dwarf army. I have just four figures and a cannon to go.

15,000 views and creative flow

2011-04-20T11:12:00.000-04:00

My little blog hit 15,000 views yesterday, which is very cool. I looked at bit at the stats, which show that I am on the whole getting more traffic as time goes by, but there is distinctly a connection between how many or how steadily I am getting miniatures painted and how many people want to check out the blog.
I am also reading a book with the unfortunate title "Kick Ass Creativity" with the subtitle "An Energy Makeover for Artists, Explorers, and Creative Professionals." First I have to say that, in my own somewhat starchy way, I despair over unnecessary profanity, particularly in a professional work with ones own name on it. That's not to say I refrain from profanity entirely--I don't--but it seems cheap and desperate to employ it in such a context.
But the book caught my eye not because of its title but its content, namely its attempt to help artistic people be able to create a better creative flow in their work. I'm one of those people who sometimes struggles to maintain that flow. I get sidetracked, work and real life bog me down, I lose interest or become disheartened when projects hit snags. And I would love to conquer that, to enjoy this hobby of mine, and to be more productive, to experience the flow more often.
So, with that in mind, I'm going to take one of the exercises from the book and do it here, namely by asking the question, what is the model for your own experience of the creative flow? Do you experience it in the evening, the morning, or some other time? Do you have a particular place? Are there elements to the environment that facilitate this experience, like listening to music or having no one else around? What makes it work for you? Feel free to share in the comment section.

The Chaos Sorceror

2011-04-09T20:04:00.000-04:00

First, welcome this blog's 50th follower, CPBelt!

Next, I decided to paint one of my impulse purchases over the weekend. After The Angry Lurker's question about whether we were better painters as we grew older, I decided to go "slow style" on this figure.

I bought him thinking he'd make a fine leader for a Nurgle-themed chaos warband for Mordheim. If I never get around to Mordheim, he'd also make a fine "I built this dungeon you've been grinding your way through" NPC.

More Dwarf Shooters

2011-04-08T16:18:00.000-04:00

I finished the third and fourth unit of dwarf shooters for my Hordes of the Things dwarf army.

Lately I have been suffering from a complete surge in buyer's remorse. In the light of my rapidly dying (if not already dead) RPG group, I went a little "I can find a game people want to play" and purchased, thankfully at a discount, Traveller, Earthdawn, Shadowrun 4th Ed., and the Essentials version of D&D 4E. None of these actually garner me more players--it is just a shopaholic response to the stress. Now I think I am going to see about unloading some of these things to recoup the expense.

What's worse, actually attempts that have even small degree of legitimacy--posting notices around town and in local forums, have been a bust. I am thinking I am at some sort of crossroads--that what I had hoped to create here in my new home may be very difficult, if not impossible.

So what's next?

2011-04-07T12:19:00.000-04:00

Is it my hobby ADD or Springtime in the air that causes me to begin to wonder how I might be spending my hobby in the "Daddy/Daughter Cave" (see earlier posts on that one). It's my hope to be finished with the dwarf and goblin Hordes of the Things armies. If I do, I calculate I will have painted 83 or my 150 miniatures for the year. Not bad, but no reason to begin slacking off.
So I have been considering a couple of options for what to do next. Here's what I've got so far:

Expand the dwarf and goblin armies: Add more units to allow some flexibility for Hordes of the Things, or get the units up to size for Hostile Kingdoms or Fantasy Impetus.

Build a third army for Hordes of the Things: Mantic is doing some nice undead and orcs right now.

Get going on All Things Zombie again: you know what caused me to stall out here on this project? Terrain. Modern day terrain seems to fall into three categories. The first is cardstock terrain, like what Vampifan uses. The second is foamcore buildings that look like adobe houses, often used for the Middle East. The third is model railway houses. I don't see a lot of 25/28mm terrain made for wargaming. There might be several reasons. Modern buildings tend to be large, which don't quite work for wargaming schema. There is also a wide variety of architectural styles. There is also a lot of detail (just look at the cardstock stuff). Anyways, if I can crack the terrain nut, I'd be more likely to move forward on this.

Does painting get easier and/or better?

2011-04-05T22:30:00.000-04:00

The Angry Lurker posted on his blog the question about whether painting miniatures gets better or easier with time, or do the ravages of age cause a general decline. The answer is a mixed bag of shells.

I'm proficiently better, know when to take time, know how to work paint, etc. That I know how to doesn't mean that I do.

When I started painting, it was directed by the teaching in the old 'Eavy Metal Painting Guide which was a base coat then a shade and highlight coat. Still not a bad method, but a tad labor-intensive. Eventually I discovered the idea of painting the darkest shade first and highlighting up. After that I learned about ink washes and using wood finish as a wash. That made painting the sizable number of rank-and-file troops a more likely prospect. There is no way I could have painted an army using the original technique. Believe me, I tried.
So now I paint very well for single pieces like RPG minis or characters for an army, and paint in a pretty lackadaisical manner for the bulk units.
I guess you could say that I am painting smarter, not harder.

More Dwarf Blades

2011-04-04T22:25:00.000-04:00

First of all, welcome Watchtower78 and Desert Scribe. I'm glad you have chosen to follow this blog.

Second, here are two more units of dwarf blades for my Hordes of the Things army.

dwarf warriors, Games Workshop

That is six more towards my painting goal, and a good start for April. That also finishes my blade units for my dwarf army. I have two units of dwarf shooters almost completed and I hope to finish them by week's end. It is actually my hope to finish the entire dwarf army by the end of the month, and perhaps even the goblin army (which has fewer miniatures to paint) as well. If I can get that done, perhaps I could even go so far as to play a game in the month of April, the first one I would have played in six months.

As a small side note, you should check out my RPG-related blog, Graph Paper Games.