So last night was the first time playing in a very long time. I had the pleasure of playing with my "pusher of plastic and tears, who you love to hate, or hate to love." In other words the gent who works for Comic Book Heaven, Bishop. Bishop and I have a good report so games are always fun. It's been over nine months since I played last and was pleased to find that it's like riding a bike. Soon Eldar were dying and unfortunately so were my necrons.
Still it was a 40k game in all it's glory and made me miss table top games of that nature - A lot. So now I've gotten a little shot in the arm again. Around the corner is the Battle for Salvation Grand Tournament at the Palisades Mall. Maybe you'll see me there... ;)
Going to work a little more on the pieces I thought I had finished painting, need to redo the basing on my troops, and a little cleanup of broken items. Here I go again though, no need to stress about the perfection of the army, only gaming with what I've got!
So now to sit down with the army and see what's on the list "to do" and set some time aside to do the work. I've realized that setting aside even an hour on my calendar helps get things done personally and professionally. Looking forward to sharing the "to do" list here and how to keep it going.
If last week was a person in one hand it held a wand of rainstorms and in the other a wand of happy-dance... What an up and down. I spent some time doing leather work and getting my paints lined up to finish those Chosen.
However this weekend, I'll be kicking back and hitting up The Battle Standard in Manchester, CT for a relaxed weekend of gaming and hangin...
Until that post I leave you with this exceptional speech from the author of the Sandman comics... Remember to keep making art, no matter what goes on!
I got a great gift from a long time friend of a good number of Chaos Space Marines, and finally got a minute to sit down and get started past the base coating. This is where I'm at after three layers of paint, and it finally coming together.
What I didn't do was take the countless pictures prior to this stage, and that is probably a happy mistake, because they were atrocious. It turns out that when painting red expect the paint to go on very, very bright, then dull out significantly on drying. By taking a little longer to wait between coats I saved myself a lot of headache.
Wait, they're over normal limit on skulls there...
So after a seriously generous gift from a friend I've gotten a good number of Chaos Space Marines to ally with the 'crons. However who are these fiends? Why can regular space marines get skulls on their armor and not get in trouble the same way the chaos space marines do? Why do they have things growing out of their armor, and how is it that they appear to be molded to it? Off to get some research done...
I went through the full Black Library and as often happens was quickly overwhelmed. To narrow down I found the Word Bearers to be one of the more interesting chapters of space marines. So on the reading list right now is the Dark Apostle, Dark Creed, Dark Disciple series. The kindle comes in handy for reading on the train and anywhere I can.
Now I realize why those skulls aren't "Imperium approved" and there's some spooky merging of armor and soldier... creepy... Any recommendations on "must" Chaos reading?
Life... - but you know what? These got gifted to me, and you know what? They need paint, and playin' and when I went into the thought process of who'd be assisting the crons in a little bashing? Some Word Bearing meanies came to mind...
So, the next project, the next set of updates? Blood for the Blood God kids!
While there's no great updates on my hobbying it doesn't mean I don't keep up with what's going on with the industry, my friends and peers, and general news for my hobby interests.
There's a million feeds, a million updates, so many that going to each site would take immense amounts of time. So how do I keep up? Mainly Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds, and slick tools to skim the content. A great many tools have come out to date. Feedly is probably the best collector to date, with addons/apps/plugins getting the rest of the skimming then reading done.
Questions came in a few times about what to do in order to get better at painting. What techniques, what videos do I watch, what brushes and paints? Certainly there are a great deal of articles, videos and other material out there offering all the advice you'd want regarding those topics. So how is this article different? This one talks about the most critical component, practice and a rudiment to practice daily,
Sure, you hear it often, and you try a few things here and there. But what are the new guy fundamentals? What can I do? Our hobby has pretty expensive practice material in metal and plastic so where do we go to step up to practice? Plain old paper.
Sometimes in our lives many things may get in the way of our hobby, kids, work, family, anything really and you know what, that's a good thing. We should be people first, gamers second.
Of course sometimes life gets so hectic that we realize six months has passed and we haven't gamed, hobbies or otherwise had a solid time to play hard as well.
One thing to keep on target with playing is to schedule a yearly motivation list. Pick a forum, post the month's achievement and stick to it. January you'll do a war hammer 40k character, something that just looks great whether or not you're going to play it. February you'll do a hordes character, and so on. Just one little thing a month. Don't forget to post your results at the end of every month, it'll motivate you and your fellow board mates.
Since I like to occasionally practice what I preach I'll post at least one of my motivations and results per month, and share the process as I go.
For January it was completing my shiny new necron croissant, the infamous doom scythe. Lots of nice pics on that.
February will bring a hordes model, one I plan on entering into The Battle Standard painting contest out of CT in April. Here's where I stand with that model, just got some white primer in, which will soon coat all the pretty pieces.
So keep out there, do one coolminiornot.com entry a week, one more 2013 motivational thread or simply take a picture, upload in to your computer and save it on your desktop. Any way you slice it you'll be happy to look back at your achievements and be happy that you took out a little you time for the hobby.
Kickstarter is without a doubt changing the world, and very much so the gaming world. If you're not familiar with Kickstarter it's a way for you, the lowly standard civilian to help chip in to get a small company or even an individual the funds they need to produce a product. Amazon checks them and blesses them, of course taking a little chunk of the pie. So what do you get? Well if you look at the different levels you can get everything from a hearty "Thank you" letter up to a whole lot of product.
So what have I dropped Kickstarter cash into recently, and/or am considering putting into?
Wild West Exodus is the first and I'm already in. It's a sci-fi western mini game that has great looking models, a good tie in comic book and a promising start with some guys getting into a new step in their hobby careers.
Go take a look: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wildwestexodus/wild-west-exodus-sci-fi-western-miniatures-game
As with any kickstarter getting in early insures getting some really good deals and a way to get started for less than normal, all you need is some patience!
The next one I'm looking at getting into once the funds become available is Jawaballs' "The Jawaballs Way: How to Paint Wargaming Miniatures"
Jawaballs is not only a fantastic guy, he's also a very talented painter who's tips are well worth listening to. He's been awarded quite a number of times and even his table top level of painting is exceptional.
Go take a look:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/793275926/the-jawaballs-way-how-to-paint-wargaming-miniature
I'm pleased to announce that I'll be writing for the collective blog group known in short as WMD and in long hand known as war machine miniatures and dice. They can be found at http://wargamingminiaturesanddice.blogspot.com
I ran into all of the crew and was near immediately given a club shirt to show my support of and get the advertising out there of the group.
The gentlemen and ladies of WMD showed me a great time in the recent TempleCon held in Warwick, Rhode Island. Many games were held, a good deal of painting and hobby was to be had with the group. As time goes on I will be cross posting and occasionally linking you to the site from here when a relevant post should be shared on my journey through the hobby.
Looking forward to sharing a bit more with even more people and giving WMD some 40k perspective!
Running around at my first con and it's honestly one of the better times I've had in a while. People are friendly, ready to help you learn a new game or an old standby. Either way I've been up till three every morning and waking at seven to get food, then more gaming.
Definitely get a room at your conference venue though as being able to slip to your room for a nap is a must.
I've put a number of board games in and met a great deal of gaming industry folks especially in the after hours. There's always a game going on twenty four seven in any space.
I will definitely be placing a local convention into the budget moving forward. People are always willing to help and play any game you'd like at any time. This is also the perfect place to try a new game and get tips on playing from a much broader range of people.
Here's some pictures to get scale of the amount of gaming and people.
A 35 point Warmachine admin setup
Side halls full of games
The grand ballroom with 40k in the background
More retail
My wraith in a painting contest with some seriously good competition
If you've played any game we'll all agree that there's that guy, that guy who always tweaks the rules to his or her advantage, they're called "rules lawyers." If you haven't played a Games Workshop game of 40k then you wouldn't know how maddening this can be. There's a lot of interpretation in the rules, and frankly that's sometimes good. However sometimes a rule is so far off, confusing, or just poorly written that the Games Workshop team will issue a FAQ for rules clarification. Not uncommonly this will cause any number of objects to go flying in a pick up game at the FLGS (local game store), and more than a few flipped over tables. Well, ok maybe not that crazy, but you know what I mean. They can be frustrating and confusing. Ultimately you just have to remember, the game is for fun, not for cut throat wins.
So what's the latest FAQ craze sending people into blind rage? One rule to rule them all;
Source, Games-Workshop: http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2940039a_40K_RULEBOOK_v1.2_JANUARY13.pdf
So I've finally taken the plunge and invested in an airbrush setup. Right now it's a very simple setup, and should work fine to get started. Here's what I did purchase;
"Master Airbrush Brand High Performance Multi-purpose Gravity Feed Dual-action Airbrush Kit with 6 Foot Hose and a Powerful 1/6hp Single Piston Quiet A"
So I know what you're thinking, a cheap compressor? A cheap airbrush, then a Sotar 2020 brush? Yeah, it's not perfect, however I had a tight $180 budget, so had to work with that and remember that I needed to fit tax and shipping into that price. This was a one time purchase for the time being, so I wanted to jam as much in as possible for $180. That said I had to go with a low power, no tank compressor, something that I can easily upgrade later once I become proficient with the airbrush itself. No need to go buy the brand new sports edition of a car if you're only buying your first car to drive a mile to the train station. Once you start taking trips and have some miles under your belt, then it's time to get that nifty edition. So, I'll save up and pawn this one off for a few bucks a year down the line.
Enough about that though, let's talk about cool stuff. It's cool to have a $390 airbrush at a steal for $75, it's cool to have a little compressor humming along helping you paint. It's definitely not cool to huff atomized acrylics... So what to do? Make a airbrush "booth."
If you’re new to the hobby you may have heard of “fluff.”
What is fluff exactly? It’s the background information for a given army and
there are many sources for your army’s particular fluff. One source is usually
the main rule book of your game, and if your game has codices the game
designers will have at least a blurb about the history or goals of your army. In
the case of Warhammer 40k Games Workshop has a separate department known as Black
Library which through both print and digital delivery publish a great deal of
written material on various armies, specific generals and “VIPs” to their
universe. They’re more often than not in a novel format, with small stories and
combined collections making appearances as well. There’s a fairly large stable
of authors who contribute to the library continually making new releases a
bi-weekly event.
With all that fluff out there where should you start? In 40k
as mentioned before your rulebook and codex likely has some fluff, but where do
you start in the Black Library? There’s a lot of information and unfortunately
a lot of duds out there. First place is recommendations, ask your peers and
your online community. Second would be to go through the Black Library site
using their search engine. Obviously Necrons are an interesting topic for me so
that’s where I started and landed on Fall of Damnos. I’d not review it as an
awesome work of fiction though it’s a ton better than I could ever pull off and
has a great deal of action. This is where some people argue these books have
little literary value and I can sometimes agree. There are often gratuitous battle
scenes outlining all kinds of gory details, not necessarily the stuff for your
nine year old to be thumbing through.
You’re likely wondering why I’d knock these books for having
so much violence, with taglines like “There is only war” how could I want
something more tranquil? Simple, what’s the day to day life of these soldiers?
What is life like for the children of the Emperor in these cities? We play out
the battles every game we play and we due to some action we can imagine what a
lascannon will do to a tank, down to the color of the shot. What’s up with the
kids of the Imperium? Do they hunker constantly, or are they even there? Whole
ships worth of people are hurtling around in space, and no one gets a rusty tin
roof? Seriously? Alas, I’m way off topic, just know that most fluff novels will
be akin to watching the Expendables on loop. Sometimes this is a good thing and
sometimes it’s not, but that’s what you’ll get in most cases for 40k
So if you don’t want lots of action where to go next? The
codex is your next best bet. You’ll get concise information regarding major
battles and events and will get highlights from most of your generals. The
codices are well done from GW in this way. Don’t forget the web! While some fan
written content isn’t the best, others do very well at it so poke around.
Finally, make your own fluff… How? Simple if you’re an old
hand at Role Playing Games like Dungeons & Dragons you know this trick. Go
and name a character, for me it’s Nemesor Zahndrehk and Illuminor Szeras
leading the Nihilahk from the tomb worlds that are being invaded. I play the
game then go through and take the game results into a quick synopsis. While
there’s a place for battle reports outlining strategy and bad luck there’s also
a good open ended zone for making a narrative as you play, and more so after
playing. This is one a hobby initiative attempt for this year, let’s see how it
pans out.
Do you have some sources for fluff? Share em below.
Sixth Ed definitely has a lot of new tricks for a player to learn, one of which is using flyers, then using them well.
Here's what I've learned so far; Necron flyers (read as any flyer) are nasty pieces of work and frustrate and distract an opponent very nicely. I've learned no one spends points on defenses with skyfire. Skyfire mysterious objectives are scary business when a razorback with twin-linked lascannon rolls into town, and finally a death ray is a wonderful/terrible thing to behold.
Almost done, still have primed-only weapons.
Tactics for me include keeping Zahndrahk on the field and using his Phased Reinforcments rule to great effect getting my flyer on right away since it's essentially a twin-linked reinforcement roll. Why? Because the rule allows me to bring in my reinforcements when you get a successful reserve roll. If you're going first then it's even better, if you don't get reinforcements in then I still get another reserve roll on my turn - worth the price of admission right there for Zahn.
Once on the field the night scythe is a monster and very distracting for the opponent, something moving up to 36" on any battlefield is demoralizing especially when my fire power is stripping hull points as simple infantry (warriors with gauss), a Doomsday cannon is in the backfield dropping large template weapons from 72" away (!) and tesla is arcing everywhere.
I've not found a game type where a flyer is useless and plan to keep playing my flyers as much as possible, especially given their supremely low price to field. (100 points with a warrior squad...)
Building the Necroissant is a lot of fun, I'm the type of hobbyist who prefers vehicles to infantry painting so it's a good time all around, and makes for another post. As you can see from the photo brush strokes are at a bare minimum and there's a lot of work that goes into getting it, though much more patience than sweat equity.
I'm looking forward to sharing pics with the flyer on the field and may just pickup another as I go along.
So the games have begun. :) Two games
played on the asphalt side despite still being flat black, we weren't picky, it's all about the surface feeling/looking right. The dice rolled just as well as any other color and the sand didn't come up/off.
1000 point game in 4x4 mode
And
put a few picts up from the Remembrancers. (Remembrancers being the in game "fluff" term for historic recorders/journalists) One win for the Imperialists, and
another for the xenos. :)
Well, last warrior unit of THY-26062 is about to be recycled
The Emperor can only do so much once you're this close to a Wraith
I was on schedule for this weekend on the gray layer, washing however my white
acrylics are so old that they went granular and dry. No amount of thinner or
water changed the clumps into paint. So new white is on the shopping list, and am
getting a nice burnt umber to give a shot to the flock siding and see how that
goes.
The flip side of the board will be flocking and static grass, sealed with PVA and water. Hopefully this will work, you'll know as soon as I do as I'll post up the results soon as they're done.
Special thanks to theFreeBootaz who've been helping out with tips and tricks towards getting this board done. Some of the big ones; Paint both sides of the board or over time it'll warp, Seal your painted surfaces or you'll have mishaps, and finally some excellent formulas on paint mixes... For those mixes you'll have to subscribe though. :)
The terrain board is now in it's next step of painting the base coat. One jar of black acrylic paint, a little water and some play sand got me a nice deep base coat with some solid asphalt texture.
Here's some key things I learned;
First - never use a good house painting brush your wife just gets mad, and mad wives are no fun.
Second - Get a smaller brush than you think you need, sure the 5" brush will cover a lot of space faster, it just won't do it necessarily better. By having a smaller brush you're able to make the texture less patterned.
Third - Add water to the acrylic. Seriously, thin it a little more than you think you need to because once you add that sand in (slowly!) you're going to make a painting mud. Keep stirring before each and every application of paint.
Fourth - Don't paint, stipple. Gently dip the brush into the mix, make a glob on the board and stipple it out spreading it. Not only does this minimize patterning it eliminates brush strokes, something that the sand in the bristles will accentuate.
Fifth - Have fun! Don't stress about how perfect or not this is going to be, it's just a base layer for all the cool stuff to come. Enjoy the process!
Next up on the project will be drybrushing grey down heavily, then making a black wash. Lines will then be made using a marker/pencil then dry brushing of a deep warm brown (reddish hues) will be laid down over the lines, then a cool brown (bluish hues) will provide highlights.Again another healthy layer of black wash, thinned out further still.
After that pegs to hold it together, then the terrain to put on top.
Stipple, not brushing. Stippling was done upper right, brushing elsewhere.
The very wet result. As of this morning it's completely matte and rock hard.
Remember, you need a place to actually let it all dry. This worked very well and was dry overnight.
Just posting this more as a log entry than anything and to go back over what I did to date. That said, I'm planning on making an urban style board, and putting pieces of standalone terrain on the board once completed.
So the issue I had is that I have a small house and no way to store a board. That said I also wanted something that was modular and can be easily stowed away while offering multiple options for terrain playability. It also had to fit on an ikea table that wasn't 4x6, so the segments needed to interlink somehow. What I decided on was 2' by 2' 3/4" underlayment plywood. MDF was not chosen due to weight and cost.
So, I had the plywood sheet ripped into 2'x2' squares, took six of them and have marked off three locations per tile. These will be pre-drilled then outfitted with wooden dowels which will act as pegs for stabilizing the board. With the remaining two tiles I plan on cutting, gluing and otherwise causing all manner of engineering to make two dice boxes/miniature staging zones for the players.
I'll likely be using some "basics" acrylic paints and some sand to make the base coat on each tile, adding lines, cracks and other elements right onto the plywood, adding features with poly/Styrofoam and gluing them on.
Looking forward to sharing the process as I continue tonight and through the winter.
So, I'm a huge fan of digital versions of many things, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, NY Times especially. My white dwarf though?
I will definitely pick at least one up and one print copy. Our hobby is so hands on that it is hard to justify our mag going digital. You want to have it in hand or do you?
In favor; after now settling into the house, space is most certainly at a premium, the ability to zoom in on 'eavy metal paint jobs, see that I'm not the only one to screw up the stalker chariot rail (go look, it's askew, even in white dwarf or on the Web) so being able to see that in digital is great.
On the flip side reading on a back lit screen sucks, for photos it's great just written word is a strain, especially for s tech professional who stares at a backlit screen all day. Not stopping into the game store is a bad thing, those mom and pop stores help the community, one that's tends to be holed in I've met some fine people just hanging at the store. Finally the cost, what happens when I have an old enough iPad, now there's a big outlay to keep using the digital, could I see a PC our Android version please?
So, I'm mixed, what do you think? Will you go digital always, sometimes or never?
Remember that song!? No, well that's ok, neither do I, so let me bless you with this ballad of power.
Amply blessed? Good :)
So we're almost in our new place with a closing date set and all ready to rock!
While I wait and since everything is in storage I've been reading a lot about WH40k, the excitement for the new Chaos Space Marine rumors and playing World of Tanks, Terraria and Team Fortress 2.
I realize as I play these games that all three have similar elements to Warhammer. Yes, not only are they all games, they're all tactical, strategic and progressive.
World of Tanks is about 60% tactics, 30% strategy and 10% progressive. You're in an arcade environment, with a team that may or may not be useful and keep building experience to buy better and better tanks. You've got an over head view, and a basic in tank view. It's no first person shooter yet sometimes it can feel that way. It takes a lot of game play to build up your garage, or as they say "depot." It never feels like a grind though. When you get home from work and just want to blow stuff up, it hits the spot. Quick skirmishes last around 15 minutes, often less and will have you hooked on getting the next round a bit better. Being good at world of tanks requires being clever, using cover of hills and buildings and generally realizing you're not invincible no matter what you're driving. Plan for about an hour to an hour and a half to get your fill. What makes it more addictive is that at any stage you're either wanting to try the new gun/tracks/engine etc on your tank, or you're just that much closer to your next research to get your next tank part or even the next tank. Just three more lost games or one win and you're there. So, you queue up and try for just one more win... It's good fun. Oh, did I mention it's free to play? Purchases can be made that'll speed things up, and the dollar to fun value is very good. Go take a look at their site: World of Tanks
Team Fortress 2 is about the same, 60% tactics, 30% strategy and 10% progression. In this case, it's all first person shooter skills to the nth degree. Be ready for the little kids to be playing, however as the night gets long the college crowd comes on, and they're very, very good. What makes you good in TF2? Not "pwning noobs", instead team play is rewarded through clever map layout and solid balance between player classes. This makes for a rewarding game play, however if you had a bad day at work you may want to pass until tomorrow's game session. Game times are widely varied, from five minute rounds all the way up to an hour or longer, so plan a good two hours to get a good run of it. In terms of progression you're a the mercy of achievements, random "drops" and a robust trading system with other players. So, keep an eye on "player found" messages and see if they're interested in trading one item for another you don't use. This is yet another free to play game which is terrific news for those who can crack walnuts betwixt cheeks. Team Fortress comes from Steam: Steam Powered
Finally Terraria. This one is about 20% tactics, 20% strategy and 60% progression. This is an old school side scroller with completely random worlds, and it does what it does very well. You're going to be often most solo in this world and if you wish a multiplayer level can be made and played in. Regardless solo play shines. This has been the competition to Minecraft, "with bosses." Moving forward in this game requires finding better and better building materials to then summon and beat progressively difficult monsters. The bosses get bigger, badder and faster almost too quickly. There's never a time where you can blame the game, if you can't beat something you'll need to visit the wiki figure out what to build next and try again, suddenly making the fight easy. Some say this is poor balance, to me it's about strategic setup of the terrain in the world (which you have full control of) and getting the boss into a place where you can control the fight. For this reason you can work on the game for five minutes or an entire weekend and still need even more time. It's truly a time sink. At the end of doing all this work however you feel a great sense of accomplishment going from barely surviving a rabbit attack to taking on huge bosses that take up the whole screen. In general, old school fun. This one has a slight price of entry, and definitely worth it. Again, this can be gotten from Steam: Steam Powered
So that's what I'm up to when not hobbying, go take a look at those games, you may have some fun killing time if you can't get to your hobby or as a break when that wash didn't go on right... again... or when those pesky necron warriors won't assemble properly. We've all been there, getting up and taking a break is good medicine.
