Back from GenCon

I (sorta) just got back from GenCon, and boy is my wallet empty.  I did not buy everything that I wanted to, only because some of it was sold out almost immediately.  I did manage to exercise some restraint - I had a shopping list planned, and I generally stuck to it.  I'll make a longer post later today; I've only just woken up, and the coffee has yet to really kick in.

Only one more sleep to GenCon

I leave for GenCon tomorrow - a solid four days of working at the booth, spending way too much money, getting no sleep, seeing friends, losing (and sometimes winning) games, and general having fun.  I still have to pack my armies, label and pack close to 60 items for the auction and consignment store, pack clothes, and do some things around the house.

No board update this morning

I might take a pic of the board later today, but for various reasons, the board did not change much yesterday.  The bottleneck is kind of obvious - I can assemble and prime minis much faster than I can paint them.  So, while I put together a couple of things yesterday, I tried to spend my hobby time painting.  I'm not even painting minis for a wargame; I've been painting up a couple of Bones minis, even though I haven't played an RPG in years.

No matter.  Painting is painting, more or less, and it's making a dent in the enormous backlog of plastic and lead.  I am using that time to think about what I want to take to GenCon and play, as well as beyond.  Once I decide that, and once I decide on a scheme for the Wrath of Kings minis, then those will start moving from the "To Paint" section into "Painting in Progress" fairly quickly, although they will then hang there. 

Hopefully, tonight or tomorrow, my post will include at least one finished miniature.  I really need to get something done soon, just to help maintain momentum.

This! Is! GENCON!

(Cause it certainly was madness.)

Okay, one more GenCon post.  That's it.  Probably.  After that, we got back to posts on how I don't paint, how I often lose, and probably some random complaints about the size of my collection.

One of the PGs took this video on Thursday morning, from the demo area (right by Big Blue), as the hall doors opened to the general public.  Follow the link to watch, and see how quickly the crowd for the IKRPG grows.

Hey, look - it's a mob!

(Tried to embed it, but the blogger kept choking on it.  Meh.)

The haul.

As promised, the final post is a full accounting of everything that I picked up during the course of GenCon.  Let's get started, shall we?

At the con
IKRPG
Level 7 (given as a thank you gift)
X-Wing
Heap
Warmachine playing card deck (given as a thank you gift)
Warlands Tire stack (won)
Miss Terious (Malifaux)
Malifaux revised rulebook
Rail Golem
Willie the Demolitionist
Metal Gamin
Som'er Teeth Jones starter set
Evil Baby Orphanage
Directorate Escort
Aquan Prime Carrier
Aquan Prime Frigate
Centurion (old metal version)
1 blister Wolves of Orboros
Cyclops Shaman
Druid Overseer
Holy Zealots blister
Gatorman Witch Doctor (x2)
Bloody Bradigan
Reeves of Orboros blister
General Ossrum
Grind
Mountain King
Woldwrath
Hyperion
Wiz War
Farmageddon
Hike
Cthulhu Flux (+2 con promo cards)
Heavy Gear Field Manual (rulesupdate)
Dystopian Wars rulebook, v1.1 (rules update)
Russian Coalition Naval battle group
Russian Coalition Land battle group

Other
Ram shirt
Ram mug

Ordered
Druid Gone Wilder
Kilt Lifter
Bombadier Bombshell

What I did not pick up
I did not pick up Leviathans or Super Dungeon Explore.  Both look fun, both look interesting, both have a $100 price tag.  I want to play a demo before I buy them.

I also did not buy the Rail Crew starter for Leviathan.  I will be ordering it - I need to check and see how long the free shipping code is good.  (They were distributing free shipping codes to people who wanted the rail crew set, as an apology for not having it at the con.  Very classy.  And, with what I save on shipping, I could add .  . .NO!  Stop!  No more!)

 I wanted to pick up some Warlands stuff, but Aberrant apparently had booth space, and then got bumped not too long before the con.  I did not get a free shipping code, but I did get a 20% discount code, good through the end of the month.

Anyway, GenCon was a blast, and, while it was expensive, a lot of it was defrayed, mainly because I sold a lot of stuff at the auction.  Don't know yet if I can manage to swing a trip next year - otherwise, I can start saving now for 2014.  In the meantime, I will need to re-inventory my Warmachine collection (since ibodger does not track all of the models anymore), and get to work learning new rules, priming figs, and reducing the pile of lead, plastic, and resin.

GenCon, Day Four

I sleep in.  I have a 10 am event that I am already planning on blowing off.  I got into a "Learn to Play Level 7" event at 10 am.  I also have the Wild Card entry into the Privateer Press Speed Painting competition at 10.  Decisions, decisions. . . . learn to play a game that I now own, or carpe diem and earn a free fig.

Yeah, like that was a contest.  I skip the run - I'll take care of it later in the day.  I get to the painting area a little later than planned, since I actually ate breakfast and loaded up the car.  I like to sit to the far left; I'm left-handed, and it's annoying to both me (and the person on my left) when we keep smacking elbows together.

The figure this time is a Man O'War.  Great.  I have been wanting to try out my paint scheme on the khador mini-jacks (okay, I know they are not technically jacks.  So what.)  I look at the paints.  Crap.  The only green is bright.  Almost neon.  Iosan green, IIRC.  Yeah, that's not going to work.

I lose most of the first fifteen minutes messing around, trying one thing after another, and getting increasingly frustrated.  Fortunately, we get a full hour.  Finally, I manage to cobble together a fairly decent approximation of the Vallejo Russian Green, and get to work.  I base the entire model, then begin trying to get the white-wash effect to work.

Not a Man O'War, but this is the effect that I am trying to get.

It's kind of time-consuming, which is not a good idea during, I don't know, a SPEED PAINTING competition.  It wasn't my brightest idea, but I figured that I could pull it off.  I am working faster and faster, the clock is ticking down, and, while I do not finish, I actually manage to get something close to what I wanted.

A bit messy, but hey, it was speed painted, right?

With custom-mixed colors, thankyouverymuch.

I obviously did not win.  I wasn't expecting to, either - but I did learn some things from the experience.  Things about having a more definite plan, about keeping things simple, and, from the guy who won the event - "Paint a base coat, paint the base, and then free-hand the fuck out of it."

Which he did.

I zip over to the consignment store, where I collect the rest of what I was owed.  I had picked up some of it on Saturday, and took my hand truck in case I needed to pick up stuff that didn't sell, but everything sold, so I did not need it.  Back to the hotel to check out, and then back to the exhibitors hall.  I got stopped by the balloon dragon.  The dragon got started on Wednesday, and finished sometime on Saturday.  A charity auction determined who would get to pop it, and a huge crowd had gathered to view the "slaying."

Unfortunately, I did not check the camera settings before the slaying began, so all of those pics turned out pretty blurry.  I did not even get to catch the final slaying, when the children in the front got to come up and help kill the remnants of the dragon.  Not to worry - Tim Thurmond (the artist who put it together) was asking everyone to send him pics or video of anything from start to finish, and he is hoping to create a pseudo time-lapse photography of the entire creative, and subsequent destructive, process.


Once the dragon was truly dead (although keen-eyed observers would see children carrying around half-inflated "souvenirs" for the rest of the day), I went into the hall to see if I could play a demo for a game that I had already purchased the day before.

I wonder what game this could be.

I knew that it mostly used the Wings of War mechanics, and though I had not played it, I was vaguely familiar with the idea.  (My favorite aerial combat game is probably Blue Max, which is, AFAIK, long OOP.)  Plus, it was Star Wars.  So, I took the part of the loyalists, and tried my best to shot the Rebel scum who were seeking to overthrow the peaceful government of the Empire.  Or something like that.

See Luke Skywalker.

See Luke Skywalker shoot a turret.

See lots of TIE fighters shoot Luke Skywalker.

The Death Star demo board was incredibly kewl, and I feel the need to build one now.  The scenario was very difficult to the Rebellion to win - they had to either kill all the TIE fighters or four of the towers. But four TIE are (roughly) equal to the two X-wings, and, when you abandon your wing-man, you die.  The empire did not lose a single TIE, and only two towers.  A dark day for the Rebellion indeed.  A lot of fun, and my only regret is that I did not ignore the (fairly) high price point for each additional fighter and buy up some extras - now I have to wait a month or so before I can pick some up.

I wandered the hall for some time - looking in on a demo of MERCS, chatting with some people, and general killing time until the raffle drawing at the DP9 booth.  They were raffling off some seriously nice prizes.  Which I did not win.  Once the raffle was done, it was back to the car, and a long drive home.

GenCon, Day Three

(I hope somebody is still reading these.  I'll have to check the dashboard at some point.)

Saturday morning.  Man, these mornings are getting earlier and earlier.  I got up, ran, got cleaned up.  Today, my roomies and I were all playing in a Mordheim tourney.  Mordheim was a game that GW made sometime during the 90s.  It's a gang fight game, in the GW fantasy setting.  You make a gang, they fight (using something fairly similar to the GW ruleset, with some modifications to make it more of a skirmish game), and they advance or die, as the dice decide.

We get over there, and bump a few hopefuls.  The event is full, and we have tickets. They want to play, but have generics.  Now, knowing now what I did then, I might have been tempted to give one of them my spot, but that's neither here nor there.

We get a quick overview of the gangs, dice off, and start to choose.  I make my choice - a rather inspired one, if I may say so.

In the front, Inky, Clyde, Pinky and Binky.

This choice annoyed one of my friends.  He wanted them too, and I beat him in the dice off.  As luck would have it, we squared off in the first game.  Now, Mordheim is largely a scenario-driven game.  Sometimes, the scenario is in your favor, and sometimes, it isn't.  The scenario in this case seems fairly even - both sides are searching the buildings on the table for a treasure chest.  Once you find it, you have to take it back to your table edge.  We can't search the first row of building closest to us, but can start searching the next row.  Roll boxcars, and you find it.  If it isn't found beforehand, it will be found in the last building.

I win the roll, run forward, search one building.  On the opposite side of the table, Phil runs forward, searches a building, and rolls boxcars.  Game over.  He can't fail to get the chest to his table edge before I can get there.  We call it, shake hands, take care of the aftermath (gaining experience, treasure, etc).  The GM tells us that we can wander for a bit - our game is over in five minutes, more or less, and the others are just getting started.  I head for the consignment store.

Where there is a line.  Remember when I said that some of the Saturday deals were phenomenal?  I obviously wasn't the only one to think so.  By the time I get in, almost all of it is gone.  I pick up a few pieces, but nothing as nice as I had been hoping to grab.  Still,  I can't argue with $7 (or so) for a NIB Centurion.

I head back, kill some time before the next round.  It's not a repeat of the first - it's a different situation.  Both armies, his and mine, have no problems hitting each other.  We just can't hurt each other.  It's getting funny, but finally I decide to bottle (read: run) before things get worse.  He fares a little better than I do in the aftermath, but it was a good decision for a campaign game.  I lose a couple of minor grunts, but make enough to replace them, and add another model.

Last game is a rematch against Phil.  The scenario frankly favors me, but I ask if he just wants to duke it out in the middle.  We agree, and have a cracking good time - his Pit Fighters mow through my Orcs like a plasma cutter through warm butter. 

This will not end well for me.

I lose, but we both have a lot of fun.  Phil gets to release some seriously pent-up aggression - his gang had barely made an attack roll prior to this point in either game.  He makes a lot of them over the course of a couple of minutes, and we both enjoy the scene immensely.

After the battle, I head over to my next game, only a few rows of tables over.  I have had a copy of Warlands for several years, but never played it.  It's kind of a Mad Max game, where you have Hot Wheels cars (repainted and modified, of course), and drive around, shooting each other.  It's far more cinematic than real - destroyed cars can easily blow up, fly through the air, and come down a full turns move away.

The upside-down buggy was mine.  It started 11" away.  

I just missed landing on him.  Rats!

I scored the first kill, but was also the first to be completely eliminated.  Since the prizes were in descending order, I scored third place (out of three), and got a small prize.  Still, a great time and a bonus prize is better than nothing.   Looks like I need to find some Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars at garage sales this fall.  It's a fun little pickup kind of game, and good for a change of scenery and mood.

Hey, a balloon dragon.  He's done!

Saturday night was the press gang party.  Apparently, the press gang party is like Vegas - what happens there, stays there.  'Nuff said.  Good times, good times. 

After the party, I went back, hung around Iron Arena for a while, and took a few pics. 

Someone has been busy.

He wasn't the only one.

That bridge looks pretty congested.  

The Commodore will fix that problem.

GenCon, Day Two

(Still plugging away at these.)

Friday.  The recap for Friday is actually going to be pretty short.  Why?  Read on, and see. . . .

Okay, not much suspense.  I woke up, went for a quick run, got cleaned up, and headed over to the exhibit hall.  I got there plenty early, but I did not get the "I can get you in early" text that I had been warned to possibly expect.  I sat around, and basically watched the people in the area.

Like this Dalek.

And these folksingers.

By 2018, half the hall will be steampunk.

 At 10, the doors opened, and the maddening crowd rushed inside.  Word had spread that some items were already gone (IKRPG and Android: Netrunner, at the very least), so the rush was not quite as pressing as it had been the day before.  I made a beeline for the Privateer Booth.  There, I was put to work.  I stood at the demo tables, and taught people how to play, and how to defeat the bloody Menites with the forces of goodness and light (Cygnar, for those who were wondering).  Or, something to that effect.

I pretty much lost track of time.  From time to time, Will Hungerford would come by with a bottle of water, and see if I needed anything else.  I'd say thanks, take the water if I needed it, and keep running demos.  Eventually, another PG (Kevin, I think) came by and told me that I had to take a break.  I pulled out my phone, checked the time, and thought "Holy $($*&!  It's four o'clock!"  I thanked him, finished up what I was doing, handed the table over to him, and wandered the hall.  I wasn't really hungry, and I wanted to check out some stuff.  I headed over to the Wyrd Miniatures booth - I wanted to get some Malifaux things (like, say, the rulebook), and pick up the new Rail Crew figs.  Unfortunately, the Rail Crew wasn't in yet - I had been told on Thursday that they hoped to have it in on Friday, but it hadn't happened, although Saturday was a possibility.

No worries.  I wandered over to the Warstore booth, checked out Dropzone Commander, and picked up the Russian Land force.  I kind of wanted the bust of the Commander that came with it (as a GenCon freebie), and, although I wanted the naval force more, I did not see it.  I checked out the Heavy Gear stuff at the Dream Pod 9 booth, since it was next door.  I know I did some other wandering, and that was when I had my first revelation:

By 2018, half of the exhibitors hall will feature steampunk, in one way or another.

Anyway, I went back and finished my shift.  With only an hour and some to go, it flew past, and suddenly, the hall was closing, and I was packing up dice and tokens and out the door.  I stopped for one quick pic before I left.

I look remarkably chipper, don't I?

I zipped over to the consignment store, since I had a few hours to kill.  Remember how I talked about how the consignment store might have a few nice things in it?  Yeah - try several large boxes (like, moving boxes), full of Warmachine, Hordes, and Firestorm Armada figs.  On Thursday, the prices were too high.  Heck, on Friday, they were too high.  On Saturday, they would be irresistibly low.

I got a call from a friend, and it was back to the hotel and off to dinner.  A short walk away from the convention center, a fairly quick meal at a Mexican place (Acapulco Joe's) and it was time to grab some gear and head over to run Iron Arena from 9 pm to 1 am.

Again, Iron Arena was a blast. Talked to people from a lot of different places, and got to watch as they set up the "Who's the Boss?" tourney.  In the tourney, you make your army, but have no warcaster or warlock.  You get one, randomly assigned to you - the rules on the card get tweaked a little (e.g., warlocks gain focus manipulation, etc)  Obviously, to do this properly, you need to have copies of every single warcaster and warlock in the game.

Well, lookie here!

The only one missing in the end was General Ossrum.  Considering that he had been released at GenCon only the morning before, that's not too shabby.

Eventually, my shift was done, and I headed out, though not before grabbing pics of one last item.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

GenCon, Day One

I woke up early, went downstairs, ran a quick couple of miles (I am a daily runner, and have not missed a day in years.  Day Four of GenCon marked the end of year four - today marks the beginning of year five.), got cleaned up, ate a quick breakfast, and headed over to the hall.

First event was a demo of Heap.  Heap is the new card game from Privateer Press, for 2-4 players, aged 10 and up.  Frankly, I can't see it playing well with only 2 - the PG who demo'd it described it as "Uno on steroids."  The description is fairly apt.  Basically, you have four vehicles that you are trying to upgrade with different parts.  You place two parts per turn, and then, once everyone has gone, you start playing the remaining cards in your hand in the scrum - winner getting extra parts to add immediately to their vehicles.  (I'm giving a very condensed version here, obviously.)  When someone has three parts on all four vehicles, the game enters its final battle as soon as that turn is completed.  Had a great time, and resolved to pick it up at some point during the con.

Hurried from there to the Lego Robo Rally.  Roborally was a game from long ago, where each player controls a robot.  You get cards every turn, which you have to use to maneuver through a maze, complete with conveyor belts, crushers, pits, pushers, walls, and other robots - all of which carry lasers and shoot at whatever is in front of them.  Everyone plots their entire turn at the same time, too - so where you end up may not be exactly where you planned, when some other bot runs into you and pushes you along the conveyor belt - and then you drive forward 2 squares, and fall into a pit.  It was an expensive game, and lasted only an hour, but it was worth it.  They had some technical glitches (since it was their first game of the con), but it was a lot of fun.  I'll be doing it again.  I had to leave, due to a hard break, but I was able to stay and program in my final turn.  I ran upstairs and grabbed a chair for the Privateer Press Speed Painting competition.

 Behold, Lego geeky kewlness!

The yellow one looks familiar.

 As does that one.

Now, first off - I am not a fast painter.  I can be, but I don't generally like the results.  They seem really sloppy, I feel frustrated the entire time, and it's just not the overall relaxing, zen-like state that I can experience on a good day of painting.  But - speed painting forces me to be faster, and every time I do it, I learn some tricks that can be applied to future projects.  We were painting Menite scum, and, while I did not win, I managed to get a Wild Card slot to the finals.

From the speed painting it was a mad dash to the exhibitors hall.  There, I found out about The Line.  When the doors to the hall opened at 10:00, the Privateer booth had only a couple of VIGs present buying copies of the IKRPG.  By, oh, 10:02, there were several hundred people in line; a line which wound around the Privateer Booth, then stretched back past the Kenzerco booth, and then past the next three of four rows of booths, turned right at the Tardis, and head back toward the rear of the hall.  The line got capped, and slowly worked its way back down.  But, I got told that the line was still capped, and would be for a while.  I wandered around a bit, checked out the Wyrd booth, talked to some people, and came back to the PP line.  Wandered again for a bit.  Finally got into the line about 1 pm.  I stood in line but, when it hit 2 pm, I had to make a choice - stay in line, and possibly get a copy of the IKRPG, or leave for a "Leave how to play IKRPG" event.  I stuck it out, and walked out of the booth with a copy of the IKRPG, along with some other things.  (A full and complete accounting of what I picked up will be in the last post.  It's a long list.)  I wandered around a bit, checked out the consignment store for a few minutes, then headed back to the hotel, dropped off my purchases, grabbed my figs, and headed to the Iron Arena.

Iron Arena is a 24/7 event.  (Technically, it is 24/4 or so, but it runs through all of official GenCon.)  The idea is that you pay two generic tickets, then play games of Warmachine, Hordes, and now Heap or Level 7. and you earn "skulls," or points.  These points can be redeemed for various prizes.  You earn extra  skulls by playing different people, or people from different states, playing at various point levels, theme forces, fully painted, and so forth.  I had to judge the event from 5-9, which consisted mainly of registering new people and taking reports from old ones.  I had a lot of fun, and Stubs, who is an old hand at this kind of thing, helped me out a lot.

Once it was done, I got in a game with Andreas, from Stockholm.  His 3Vlad army just crushed my poor pigs.  It wasn't close, but it was a lot of fun.  By that time, it was pretty late, and I had to work the next day, so I went back to the hotel, vowing to return to the Iron Arena.  Some of the prizes looked pretty sweet.

 My pigs can handle that.

 Those guys might be a problem, though.

 Yep, they are.  Say good-night, pigs.

GenCon, Day 0

(I'm still organizing the pics.  I took only 170 or so, and some are blurry, but it may take a day or two to get them sorted and up.  I will go back and insert them into the posts as I do so.  Just a heads-up.)

I was originally hoping to be on the road by about 9 am on Wednesday morning.  Indianapolis is about three and a half hours away, so I would be down there by lunchtime.  That didn't happen.  I wasn't out of town by ten, although it was close.  I had to run a couple of minor errands on the way, and double back to pick up my camera.  Doh!

The drive was uneventful.  I arrived, parked for a brief period on the street, ran in, grabbed my badge and tickets from Will Call, and took my stuff to the auction room so that it could get checked in. I had to make two trips with the hand truck, but found someone to watch my stuff in the meantime.  When you took stuff to the auction room, the first question was "How many items do you have?"  If it was under 25, you got a green ticket.  Over that, and it was red.

I had 33 items, so I got a red ticket, and stood in the line.  And stood.  And stood.  The green line had a couple of people working it, and the red line had one.  And the red line had people with just over 25 items, and people getting rid of hundreds of items.  At ten or fifteen items per minute, going through 700 items takes about an hour.

An hour or so later, I left mt stuff in the auction room, under the watchful eyes of several other line-standees, and ran out, drove around to check out a long-term parking lot, got lost, found my way to the hotel, checked in, took my stuff up to the room, parked at the hotel, and went back to the auction room.  I was gone for almost an hour, and not only had my number not come up, but the red line did not even more in that period.

I waited in the auction hall until it officially closed at 6.  They hit the point of turning people away, and added more people to check in the red line.  Some of us (meaning: me) were getting kind of testy, because they had switched things around, and now, green tickets went to anyone with up to 50 items.  They did manage to fit me in, so that I did not have to try and come back (and miss events) Thursday morning in order to wait in line again.  The good news that came out of all this is that I could tell that the auction and consignment store would likely be pretty good this year.

Anyway, once that was done, I headed over to the Ram, so I could meet some PGs and try the new beer that they had brewed for the year.  I look for other PGs in the scrum, and must have looked especially lost and pathetic, because I got invited to a random table, by another press ganger (Don King).  He grabbed a few other random people, and we talked for a while.  Several staffers came over and talked to us, as well as other gamers.  It was a great random and chaotic time, although I was a little brain-fried from having stood in that auction hall for so long.

Eventually, I headed left, but not before I picked up the mug and shirt.  Met up with my friends back at the room, talked for some time, and went to sleep, waiting for the day that is, to a gamer, almost as big a deal as Christmas - opening day of GenCon.

Back from GenCon

I'm back, and will write something, and post pics.  Had a lot of fun, did some work, didn't play as many games as I had hoped, and bought what will probably turn out to be waaay to much stuff.  Definitely worth it.

Pre-GenCon thoughts, musings, and randomness

So, GenCon is in a couple of days.  My first thought is a rather comforting "Holy $*&$!  I am nowhere near ready for this."  Seriously.  I have something like 35 items currently in the auction or the consignment store.  Many of them are terrain items (I am a licensed seller of Hirst Arts stuff - basically, I make terrain) - not all of them are done.  Most of them are very, very close - I should knock off a bunch of them tonight without much effort.  The others will take a bit more work, but should be done by mid-day tomorrow.

The rest of it is random gaming detritus that has collected in the basement over the years.  That stuff, I just have to bag and tag, more or less.  Easy peasy rice and cheesy.

I have a pretty good shopping list already worked up.  I want to go pick up Leviathans.  It's an alternate-earth, armored airships game, which sounds like fun.  It's going to be pricey, so I am hoping that it is worth it.

Malifaux is a game that I have been meaning to try.  I picked up a bunch of Malifaux figs in a trade a few weeks ago, so GenCon will give me a chance to go try the game.  I'll be picking up the core rules, and there is a new set coming out that looks like fun.  Metal railroad golem, a crazy Harry kind of guy with a wheelbarrow full of dynamite, and a spitting image of John Henry?  Yeah, I'm in on that.

Fantasy Flight is coming out with a new Star Wars spaceship game.  I'm not super-happy with the number of ships in the core box, especially at that price point, but I'll still almost sold on it, just because it is Fantasy Flight, and Star Wars.  I'll have to see it to push me over the edge.

Privateer Press is going to get a goodly amount of my money, especially if the Hyperion is out.  Or the Galleon.  I plan on picking up the IKRPG, a colossal or two, a gatorman witch doctor, and filling out some other holes in my collection.  If the 2-player Hordes starter is out, that's great, but I'll probably have to hold out on it for a while - both Circle and Legion need beefing up, but I want to plug some other gaps first.

I've been thinking about Wiz-War for a long time, but it has been OOP.  Fantasy Flight has brought it out again, so it looks like I can finally pick it up.  And, that really means that I will also wind up making a Hirst Arts board for it at some point.

I picked up MERCS in a trade a while ago (same trade as the Malifaux).  I'll stop by the booth and see if I can get a demo.  I have several of the factions already, but might pick up another.  I like the idea of buying one set of six figs, and being basically set for any game.

I'll do a lot of wandering, just to randomly see what is in the exhibit hall, and naturally I will check out the auction and consignment store.  (I'll be looking to see what of mine has sold, but also looking for bargains.)  And, if you happen to wander by the Privateer booth on Friday, or are in the Iron Arena area Thursday or Friday nights, stop by and say hi.

And hey - leave a comment here, if there is anything at GenCon that you think I should check out.  The exhibit hall is big, so I'm going to miss things.  A heads-up would be appreciated.

Random pics

Finally got around to getting these off the camera:

The green on the boneswarm matches the green glowy that I use for my ghosts.  I wanted to have an animating mass of ectoplasm thing going on.

I can only claim three of the gators for last month - two of them (the ones with finished bases) were done months ago.

So, that puts me at six minions officially finished.  I would be depressed about it, and wondering about my self-imposed deadline, except that my second unit of gatormen is almost done - four of them are ready for sealing and basing, and the leader is actually almost done - I just want to do some touch-ups and detail work.  Well, eleven is doing okay, I guess.  The bull snapper is almost done too - which would bring me to twelve. 

I've also been working on the pigs, but, while progress can readily be seen, none of them have been finished yet.  I've tried a couple ideas for the bog trogs, but I haven't gotten anything that I like just yet.  S'ok - the tests have been stripped, and I have a couple more ideas that I want to try in the next couple of days. 

I'm still working on unloading some 40k stuff, and I am going over my collection of random lead and games, because my GenCon buy list keeps growing.  I mean, look at it:

Heavy Gear - I have the game, I have some figs, but I want to pick up the Arena game.  That's about $100, is I get the deal.

The auction and the consignment store usually runs me close to $100.

Leviathans - I want to see it before I buy it, but a pseudo-naval wargame, with airships?  Sure thing!  There goes another $100.

Dystopian Wars/Firestorm Armada - I really want to pick up some more stuff for these games.

Board games - looking at the list on boardgamegeek, I see some in there that I might want to pick up.  More $.

Heap, Iron Kingdoms RPG, Colossals, etc - whatever I can get.  The more the better.

I have a budget in mind, but the more I can sell between now and, say, the Saturday of GenCon, the better.  My gaming room will be cleaner for it, and hopefully, I can get rid of stuff that I no longer play, in exchange for stuff that I want to play.

The sorting hat.

OKay, I did not wear a hat of any type when I was making my decision.  And I barely had anything alcoholic to drink, so it was a fairly sober, reflective decision.  Basically, last night, and this morning, I start sorting through everything that I had.  Sure, I have a fairly current list in iBodger, and while it is not too far off in terms of how many figures I have, it is wildly inaccurate when it comes to determining how far along most of my figures are.  If I wanted to play Cygnar at GenCon, for example, it would be good to know that I would have to do some assembly work before I could really begin to paint much beyond the 35 point level.

I didn't get everything sorted out before I made my decision.  800 or so figs takes a while to go through, but pretty early on, it became clear that Minions would be something that I could actually finish.  I won't have enough to field a 100 pt army (since my Gators and my Pigs both top out at about 70 points, less warlock points, so 60ish in terms of actual gameplay), but I will be able to field 50 points with any of the 3 Gator or Pig casters. 

This means that I would have six armies (more or less), and they will all have different play styles, but there is a fairly small number of miniatures to paint, and a small number of cards to know, and know well.  Iron Arena may not be a tourney environment, but that does not mean that I should not be familiar with whatever I happen to take with me.

Thus, my painting queue stands as follows (roughly):

• Dr Arkadius
• Lord Carver
• Sturm & Drang
• Bloody Barnabus
• Caliban
• Mealok
• 2 Blackhide Wrastlers
• Bull Snapper
• Ironback Spitter
• Boneswarm
• 2 Warhogs
• 2 Gun Boars
• 20 Farrow brigands
• 6 Bone grinders
• 6 Slaughterhousers
• 1 Razorback crew
• Targ
• 16 Bog Trogs
• 10 Gatormen
• 2 Swamp Gobbers
• Alten Ashley
• Croak Hunter
• Saxon Orrik
• Totem Hunter

I have some other items that I want to pick up in the next month or so - at least one Road Hog, one Swamp Horror, another unit of Gatormen, and so forth.  It's a fairly small amount of addition (model-wise - the dollar amount is something else!), so this might just happen.

Tonight, I finished up one of the Gatormen leaders, worked on another four of the gators (two are done, and three are being stripped), and started on the swamp gobbers.  I also did some other work on a few more of the models above, although not much.  The four gators should be done before the end of the month, and possibly all of them will be.  Once they are done, I will move on to the slaughterhousers and the bone grinders, although I will probably do a color test for the bog trogs too.

Quick update

I'll write a longer post tonight, but I'm almost certain which faction I will be trying to paint up for GenCon.  The only thing holding me back is that I would almost certainly not be able to field a 100-pt army - just too many models that I would need to buy, and I need to start saving my spending cash now.

Anyway, a quick count shows that I would have to paint about 90 models, maximum, including the warcasters/warlocks that I would be taking.  It's doable - I think I only have 2 of that 90 done, but I worked on 5 of them last night and this afternoon, and should have all five done by the end of this week, in addition to working on some of the other stuff.  And most of it is already started, though 10-15 models are still stuck at the primer-only stage.

Blackbanes just need some minor work on the base, and a sealing coat, and they are done.  Boneswarm still needs basing - I need to mix up some water, and that may have to wait a day or three.

Decisions, decisions

I've had some good ideas in the comments to my previous post, and in a thread I start on the PP forums.  I haven't made a decision yet - I have a couple of ideas that I am kicking around, and will probably decide what I will do in the next couple of days.  Not that it matters a whole lot - Iron Arena is not the same thing as the tourneys, so unless you really wanted to hunt me down, and give my (for example) Mortenabra 'jack list a spanking, or had something specifically geared to take down Nemo and some storm units, knowing what I might be taking probably is not such a big deal.

I do want to have at least a 50 point army painted, and then have enough to spare to be able to change the list out a little bit.  The changes might be small - for example, I probably would not change much between Karchev jacks and Harkovich jacks, but it's a lot more work to change from Karchev to pIrusk - so if I run a jack or beast-heavy list, then I'm probably not going to pack a lot of extra infantry.

If I am really feeling my cheerios, then I would try to have 50-pt lists for 2 different factions.  I wouldn't be able to play 100-pt games, but I would have more variety than 50 pts of Cryx, if I could field Cryx and Khador.

Anyway, no painting yet today - I spent some time cleaning up my painting and mini holding area, and trying to bring some order to the basement.

Hooray for GenCon registration!

OKay, so "hooray" might not be the best of terms, since it was a frustrating process ("I clicked as soon as it went live, and I am number 1836?  WTF?"), but I managed to get 7 of the 10 events that I wanted at the end of the day, and I still have plenty of time for working the PP area, and for scoping for deals in the exhibit hall.

What did I sign up for?  A PP speed painting event, a demo of Heap, Level 7 and the new IKRPG.  I signed with some friends for a Mordheim tourney, got into a LEGO Robo Rally game, and I am going to try out Warlands.  I'll probably get a couple of generic tickets, just in case I see something interesting and have some time to fill at various and sundry points.

I missed out on the Car Wars event, failed to get into a Call of Cthulhu game with my friends, and did not manage to get into any of the Wiz-War events.  Still, I'll keep an eye out on things, and add them if they open up.  And, if they don't - well, I helped make sure that the Ogre kickstarter hit the point where Steve Jackson is going to work on Car Wars as well.  Maybe both Ogre and Car Wars will be at GenCon again next year.

I did not sign up for any Warmachine or Hordes events.  I am not nearly good enough for any of the tourneys, and the Iron Arena takes only generic tickets, so while I will be playing some Warmahordes, it won't be in any tourney environment.  Still, that doesn't mean that I don't need to get some more stuff painted.

I've been slacking on that front lately.  The Boneswarm is assembled, and should be primed tomorrow.  I have 3 Man O War shocktroopers that are approaching completion, and I have a couple other models on the way.  I just need to get down to the basement and paint - fortunately, this weekend spells the end of some of my obligations, and I get some of my spare time back again.  Tomorrow night, it's nothing but the painting table, once the kids are in bed.