And I was doing so well. . . .

So, I had been painting pretty much every day.  Even 15 or 20 minutes at a time is starting to add up, and pretty soon, I should actually start seeing some of those orcs near completion.  The nice thing about assembly line painting is that, once things start finishing, lots of things start finishing.  The downside is that, for a long time, you may not feel like you are making any progress.  But the orcs are indeed coming along, and today I took a break and started on the Milites Christi for SAGA. 

But I had only purchased one mini for the year - a pre-painted TIE Striker for X-Wing.  Sure, some Warpath models had arrived, but I am not counting them, since they came from a KS pledge a year ago.  Likewise, some other X-Wing models arrived - not counted because (1) pre-painted; and (2) ordered in 2015.

But I just placed an order for the "Liberty or Death" set from Warlord Games.  I went from virtually nothing for adding another 300 models to my pile of unpainted plastic.  On the plus side, if I can get my SAGA stuff and the Dystopian Wars painted before it gets here, I will only be in the hole by 150 models or so.  Possibly even less.

Yeah, it's going to sit on a shelf for a couple months, but it was on sale at price way too good to resist.  I just have to clear the queue now, and I hope this provides some decent incentive.

(And, I might wind up picking up another round of minis in the next couple of days.  Big project, for late this year.)

Still on track for lots of updates

First off, my board has changed a little bit since last week.  Let's take a look, shall we?

Big change - something is in the "To Base and Seal" category.  It would actually be done, but it's been pouring or humid for the last few days, and I can wait for better weather to seal it.  Likewise, all of the Bayou boss box is now assembled, with most of them waiting for better weather before priming.  I am putting test colors down on a Tesknes and a Goristi model, just to see how I want to paint them.  Most of the Wrath of Kings models are assembled, but not yet primed, although I still have about 35 or 40 to go.

But yeah, I now have an almost completed model on there.  The first since probably mid-April.  For a game I don't even play.  But I need to get more done - 3Haley and some other models are on the way.

(Don't bother complaining about mold lines.  I didn't care about this guy, I really just wanted to see how the Bones material took different paints and effects.)

New year starts whenever, right?

So, summer is here, kids are underfoot, and GenCon is fast approaching.   I'm going to start making an effort to update a lot more often, because that way I can document some progress.  And, to help limit what I am trying to do, and to visualize progress, I took a spare white board, and made a Kanban board.

I have more categories than "To Do," "In Progress," and "Done," however.  But, if I take daily (or near daily photos), then I should be able to actually track progress of some projects across the board, and, more importantly, I can attempt to limit what is actually on my plate at any given time.  If I don't do that, then I can easily wind up with a several dozen different projects at each stage, and that's just too much.  Now, at the moment, there are full KS boxes that are in the "To Build" category, and as I pull a few models out of each per day, they will slowly move into the primed category. 

In the meantime, at the start of the day today, this is what my board looked like:

I should at least be able to add a few more to the "Build in progress" or "to prime" categories today, and some of the ones waiting for priming will be moved onward to "To Paint"

The more, the better.  Later this month, I have some Warmahordes stuff coming, and I have at least one Kickstarter coming before the end of the year.  Plus, I buy stuff at GenCon, and I am still dumping stuff that I don't play for stuff that I hopefully will. I need to start working on this backlog of lead and plastic, before it buries me.

Welcome back!

So, I think yesterday might have been my first actual games of anything (well, miniatures-related) in several months.  I still had to carve out the time, and my utter lack of playing made did not help my already mediocre skills.  In the end, I went 1-2 in a Who's the Boss event.

I ran Khador - so, basically a standard Winterguard death star (with only 2 rockets though, since that is all I had), Kovnik Joe, a Decimator, War Dog, pEiryss, Harlan Versh, Widowmakers and a Gun Carriage.  Oddly enough, of the 8 players, 3 wound up playing Khador - and all three had the WG deathstar/Kovnik Joe/Widowmakers core.

I did okay on first round, with eAbby popping feat and delivering a flying Decimator to Sturm & Drang.  Round 2 was bad - I faced pKreoss and 2 Archangels.  Pop & drop and 2 Archangels to the face did bad things to my army, though I did manage to take out on of the archangels before losing the game.  Axis plus feat plus charging an archangel let me claim some moral victory, before Kreoss killed him.

Round 3 was against one of the other Khador players.  He was running Behemoth and Kayazy, plus the deathstar core.  pLylyth did okay, but a timely feat from the Witch Coven prevented me from doing a lot of damage with the 4" templates from the gun carriage (I did not need to hit the kayazy, just drop it somewhere in their general direction, and I was sure to catch a couple), and he trampled Behemoth into a position where, when Versh failed to kill him (though I did cripple both arms), he shot pLylyth to death.  (I had my choice of losing via caster assassination or scenario, but I was going to lose when he started his final turn.)

Anyway, we had in excess of 125 casters, I believe, and I supplied about 115 of them.  (Other players could have supplied more, but I wanted to see how many I really had, and it was easier that as much as possible belong to me, so that, in the event of breakage, it was less of a big deal.)  We certainly plan on running it again, so I guess I have 4-5 months to get a few more casters, and to see if I can actually get some of them painted.  I'd like to have everything fully primed, and base colors on most of them, but a lot of that will depend on how busy the rest of this year winds up being.

We start up a JR league next week, and the other PG is going to run it.  So, I get to play for a change.  We can make our own battlebox, with 12 points (plus jack/beast points), but no epics or character jacks/beasts.  I need to decide on a faction and a caster in the next few days.

Update on the caster collection

Random update kind of worthy of its own post:

I am trying to get all the casters before the end of 2014.  Here is what I am currently missing, as near as I can determine:

Cryx
NONE

Cygnar
Darius
3Stryker

Khador
3Vlad
Strakhov

Protectorate
Severius
eSeveries
Harbinger

Retribution
eVyros

Convergence
NONE

Mercenaries
NONE

Circle
Cassius
eKaya

Legion
Bethayne
3Lylyth

Skorne
3Makeda
Rasheth

Trollbloods
Borka
Hunters Grimm

Minions
NONE

When the new casters from the next Hordes book come out, I'll update this list, but I am hoping to have cut out five or six from this one before then.  I'm pretty sure that, for the most part, I have been picking them up faster than Privateer has been releasing them, so sooner or later, I will catch up.  Then I can start going back and picking up units and jacks/beasts that I am missing.

It's a feeling of accomplishment

And not a little horror.  I'm still not done with cataloging everything, but I made more progress today.  The kids had a half day of school, so I lost some serious painting and counting time.  Here are the counts, as of a few minutes ago:

Cryx -111
Cygnar -39
Khador -36
Protectorate -18
Retribution -94
Convergence - 89
Mercenaries -57
Circle -28
Legion -22
Skorne -54
Trollbloods -74
Minions  -92

So, we're up to 714.  I think I only have a couple hundred still to go.  I'm a little unsure at this point - I'm marking and setting the tallied ones aside, so it's not that, it's simply that I have several half-filled cases, whose contents are currently a mystery.  I'll see about clearing some of that up tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to get in a few games of WWX tomorrow.  Need to start playing so that I can get a good handle on the rules between now and AdeptiCon.

Almost halfway?

So, I lost all the stuff I had been logging yesterday.  I made a plea for a new collection tracker on the PP forums, and lo, my plea was answered.  It's been a long day, and I've had a couple of drinks to unwind from several hours of counting little metal men, so I'll keep this brief.

To date, I have cataloged something like 412 miniatures, broken down (roughly) as follows:

Cryx - 42
Cygnar - 27
Khador - 29
Protectorate -10
Retribution - 10
Convergence - 86
Mercenaries - 25
Circle - 23
Legion - 18
Skorne - 12
Trollbloods - 55
Minions  - 75

Per the calculator, I currently have 56.74% of the casters (though it includes, among other things, all of the ones from the KS - which I will be getting). I have 23.51% of all the available models - but it will be considerably higher, obviously.  And, it says that 17.45% of what I have is painted - but it counts a unit of 10 as being 1 model in this case, so that number is whacked.

I'll bet that I plug in another 200 models or more tomorrow.  This is kind of interesting - I knew I had most of the casters - looks like the current count is 80, but it is still shy by at least half a dozen.

A wasted afternoon

So, I'm now looking for a new collection tracker, other than forwrdkommander. I've used it, it's not bad, except for this:

I logged out of FK on the desktop upstairs. I take the laptop to the basement, log in to forwardkommander, and begin to track everything. I mean, everything - I started with a blank slate, and began to rebuild the omnibus list.

I had some 200 or so models logged, and so I logged out on the laptop. When upstairs, started making dinner, and logged in on the desktop. And half of the models are no longer logged. So, basically, I can redo about half of what I had logged over the course of the afternoon. Except, I need to sort them out, and see which models are still logged, and which are not.* (E.g. - the last thing I logged, my units of gatormen, are still there. My convergence, which I had logged previously, is now gone.)

I have a thousand or so WM models, spread across every faction. I'm trying to build an omnibus list so I can (1) ensure that I have every warcaster/warlock for Who's the Boss events, and (2) not buy solos or other models that I have, but have forgotten about.

So, tl;dr - collection tracker wonkiness lost an hour or more's worth of work today.  Yay for wasted time, right?

Life had other plans

So I did not post anything the last couple of days.  A quick update is in order, then:

The FLGs that changed owners?  Yeah, it's going to be a nice place to play.  I did an unofficial demo day there today (advertised, but not enough people for it to be "official"), and I plan to be back there again next weekend.  I may stop by during the week, since they have used miniatures for sale. . . .and while I resisted some of the siren song, I nonetheless picked up Kromac the Ravenous and Intercessor Kreoss.  That makes me happy - and brings me a little closer to the goal of having all the casters.

Yeah, I'm still short on that, but I plan on getting a little closer this year.  I think, even with the release of Vengeance, that I can get most of them by the end of the year.  I closed it up a bit last year, but lost focus sometime mid-year, when my attention turned to Convergence.  That has settled down a little, so I can spare some attention to other, non-roboty goals.

I have been assembling my WWX guys.  I love their plastics.  Very, very nice.  I want PP to make plastics this nice, actually.  My Union goons (er, hired hands) Wave 1 are done, and I am working on my Lawmen goons, just so I can play a couple of different things.  I should get them primed in the next couple of days, and I really need to start painting them ASAP.

I haven't actually started working on the DZC figs.  I should be doing that too.  And pouring plaster - I have three major Hirst Arts projects that are about 75% poured, and really, a day or two of casting would let me get to the point where I could finish putting them together.

I've also been cleaning the basement.  I have a train layout that I really need to get cracking on.  Working on it will help with my modelling skills, as well as my carpentry.  And get a lot of crap out of the way in the basement, since it's all stuff that came off the former layout, and needs a good home.

Counting time

Math is hard.  Math, when you are shy on coffee, and forget a kickstarter, is worse.

My rough count as to what is coming in the next few months is:

Rivet Wars (forgot this one yesterday) - 160 models, more or less.  Supposedly still on track for September, IIRC, but I am assuming October.

Relic Knights - 58, I think.  Seems like it should have been more, but I think that may be it.  Fortunately, I won't see this until the holiday season, so I might have until Dec to clear some space for them.

Robotech Tactics - won't see this until January anyway, no matter what they say.  100 models, more or less, depending on how I fill out my pledge manager in the next week or two.

Wild West Exodus - 45 or 46 models, I think.  The pledge manager was done as an .xls file, so I have my copy tucked away somewhere, but I think I pretty much know what my share of it is looking at the KS page.  Those are due in Sept/Oct, and are still on track.

GenCon - not attending, but PP and Wyrd both let you order con figures online, so I'll probably be adding 20-30 models from those lines later this week.

So, 400 models, as a ballpark, back of the envelope calculation.  Add in a special order or two, and some trades (if I get the terms nailed down), and there is an even odds chance that I will add another 5-600 models between now and the end of January.  Just extra incentive to get painting, I guess.

ETA - so far today, I have put paint (to a greater or lesser degree) on 13 models.  Not as nice as yesterday, where I managed more than 25, but better than 0.  I hope to paint for another hour or so tonight, and a similar amount of time tomorrow.

They're here.

This says it better, actually:

Right now, the box looms there, lurking on the chair, smirking at me with the temptations and frustrations of several hundred miniatures.  Not sure if I should open it now, or take it to gaming tonight and open it there. .  .

Oh happy day

Gone for a few hours, and checked email to see:

Hi there! We're shipping out your Kickstarter stuff!

You're getting:
Kickstarter Sophie x1
C'thulhu x1
Kaladrax Reborn x1
Nethyrmaul x1
Clockwork Dragon x1
Figure Case x1
vampire x1


Should be here Friday. I'm running an IK game on Friday, and a WM event on Saturday, so I won't get to do much with them until Sat night or Sunday.

Collection digression

I should have some Convergence test pics up later today, but in the meantime. . . .

This is from a facebook discussion, where the original question was asked:

Discussion topic: How do you guys decide it's time to part ways with an army? Have you felt that you have too much stuff, and it would be nice to have less, or use excess stuff to fund another project? How to choose, how to choose? Do you follow any personal guidelines in turning over your forces for something new?

My answer (predictably, as the Army Altaholic) was:

I see those words, but do not understand them. Kidding aside - until I give up on WM/H entirely, I am not giving up any of my armies. I've done it before, and then a mere 6 months later, decided that I wanted to play [X] again, and had to start from scratch. (I have pared down my GW stuff, but I keep some in reserve, in case of a move, since it is slightly easier to find a GW game and WM/H)

 A bit later, I clarified, because someone asked how I decided which GW armies to pare down:

For GW - for 40k, I kept Marines, Orks and (b/c they came in the last set) Chaos. All three are staples, don't change so much that my figs won't be any good, and all should stick around with edition changes. For WFB, I have Skaven and Orcs for the same reason, and though I don't now that Ogres will stay in future editions, it's a small model count army, so if I ever start painting them again, it's easy to finish, and a nice change from the other horde armies.

 The consensus was that, in general, you should get rid of an army either when you know that you are unlikely to ever play that army again in the future, or when you divest yourself of a game system entirely.  For example, when I got rid of my Chronopia stuff last year, I got rid of all of it.  Everything that I could find, all in one fell swoop.  It is possible that I have a rulebook or something still floating around, or perhaps an odd figure that I missed, but I tried to get all of it.  I might do the same thing with another game or two that I have - ones that I have not played in over a decade, and am unlikely to ever play again, since they pretty much require an already-existing group of players.

I have toyed with the idea of getting rid of a couple of Malifaux crews - ones that I did not paint, and have thought about stripping.  I'd be trading them for different crews - essentially, an army swap.  I do that from time to time, but mainly at the battlebox level - once I have a certain critical mass invested in an army, it becomes a lot less likely to go.


Comments from any of my (irregular) readers?

And now for something completely different

I've been reading a lot of the Convergence spoilers lately, and I will have some thoughts on them once I actually have the stats in hand, so instead I am going to randomly post the stuff that I should have coming down the pipe at me, demanding that I paint them:

First off, my Reaper bones order.  I jumped in on the Kickstarter for the project, and, when it arrives, I should be looking at approximately 250 minutes or so - Vampire plus the Sophie plus Cthulhu plus some extra dragons.  I should see that in the next month or so.

Later this year, I should be getting my figs from Relic Knights.  I could go back and do the model counts, but the number is somewhere between 50 and 100 figs.  I should also be seeing my Rivet Wars models, just over 100 of them.  And, my Wild West Exodus stuff will arrive - somewhere about 50 models.

That's a lot.  But I also have a Galleon on the way, a Ragman on back order, a full unit of steelhead riflemen, a couple of razor boars, and I'll be gaining probably 5-15 more warlocks/warcasters by mid-June.  Plus (hopefully) the initial release of CoC.

And, depending on some trades, I might still jump in on the Robotech kickstarter.  And I have some other figs that I want to pick up - some Firestorm Armada, possibly one of the MERCS squads, a few Malifaux figs. . . .

I really should get painting now.

Hooray, another project!

This one is post-AdeptiCon, but I may as well start talking about it now.  No, it's not painting my Reaper Bones (about 250 figs), or Relic Knights (not quite as many).  Those are coming over the next few months, but no, my post-AdeptiCon project is likely going to be this:

Lost Hemisphere's  Most Epic Extreme Unloved Models Challenge 2013

In a nutshell, here is the deal.  You pick a warlock or warcaster from your faction - one which is considered sub-par, which gets no lovin'.  Paint it up, build an army with it, and try to bat at least .500 with it over the course of the year.

That's the level 1 challenge.  If you want to make it harder, you can get the level 2 - where the LH crew picks the war[X] for you, from whatever faction you list.  If that's still not a challenge, there is the level 3 version - where the LH crew picks a war[X] for you, and then you have to use their tier list.

I decided that I might as well go all-in, and ask for level 3.  Of course, as the army altaholic, I told them that they could choose any faction, and I would give it a go.  Maybe that's a bit beyond level 3, perhaps level π or something.

Yes, I am crazy.  It's not like it's a big secret or anything.  I'm thinking, however, that I need to combine this with another challenge, a regional one that popped up on the Michigan WM facebook group:

By the end of 2013.
If you play three games at 75 points.
Three games at 100 points.
One game at 150 standard Warmachine and hordes.
1 game of unbound at any level.
At the end of the year.

 The person who put up this challenge is actually putting up some prizes for it too.  But that's not the important part - it's playing larger, different, games - actually using more of your collection at once. 

Back to painting

So, the demo is done, the table got built, and AdeptiCon is only 50 days away.  (I think it is 51 and some odd-hours, but I'm truncating here.)  And I still have a lot of painting to do.  From a pure numbers stand-point, I am far behind.  I have only one unit and a couple of jacks ready for my Warmachine list possiblities, and only one minion done for Malifaux. 

But at the moment, I remain optimistic, since I have multiple Maifaux and Warmachine models that are actually getting fairly close to being done.  Enough, in fact, that by this time next week, I might jump from having only 14 models done between the two systems to having more than 35 done, with more getting close to the finish.

On the collecting front, I picked up Zerkova over the weekend, which brings the Who's the Boss list a little closer to completion, and the Covenant.

At some point, I will get around to painting the book - and, having seen some kewl ones floating around, I want to paint mine with a firm tongue in cheek as well.  I want something that inspires loathing and not a little fear - perhaps something like this:

Who's the Boss progress report

So, last month, I said that one of my 2013 goals was to have one of every warcaster/warlock in the game, so that I can run a "Who's the Boss" style event on my own.  (One of each does not mean one of each sculpt.  I don't need more than one version of pMadrak, for example.  I may have the variant sculpts, but it's not a requirement.)

Anyway, thanks to a conversation on Facebook last night, I decided to actually take inventory of what I have, so that I can see what I still need to get.  After an hour and some of going through my collection, here is what I think I still need to pick up this year:

Cygnar
eCaine
Constance Blaize
eHaley
3Nemo
Nemo
eStryker

Cryx
eGaspy

3Gaspy

pGoreshade

Mortenebra

Scaverous

eSkarre

Venethrax

Menoth
pFeora
Harbinger
3Kreoss
Testament
Reznik
Severius - thought I had him somewhere, will have to keep looking
eSeverius
Thyra
Vindictus

Khador
eButcher
eIrusk
eSorscha
Strakhov
evlad
3Vlad
Zerkova

Ret
eVyros

Mercs
Ashlynn
Damiano
MacBain
eMagnus

Circle
Cassius
eKaya
Kromac
Krueger
eKrueger
eMorvahna

Legion
Bethayne
Kallus
eLylyth
3Lylyth
eVayl

Trollbloods
Borka
Calandra
eGrim
eGrissel

Skorne
eMakeda
3Makeda
Dominar

Minions

Rask

Midas

So, I'm more than halfway there already.  Now, of what I have, I think at least five of them are unassembled, but that is something easily fixed. And those are mostly ones that I have picked up this year.  I am also hoping to get my collection of figs inventoried, sorted, and properly stowed by the end of the year, which means (as a matter of course) that everything will get assembled, and anything that needs replacement parts will get fixed.

Goals, 2013.

So, in another blog, the question was posed, "What are your goals for 2013?"  It's generally a little early for me to think about goals for the next year - I like to enjoy a small period of inebriation and over-eating before I indulge in any introspection, so I typically post my goals in early January.

Now, the goals listed in that other blog are all good ones - grow the player base, run more events, paint more.  I plan on doing all of those.  But, last night, I decided on another one.

In 2012, I wanted to hit the point where I could play a legal, 35-pt (or higher) army for every faction, contract and compact.  No problem.  I think I can actually do 50, although some of them are some pretty nasty stretches to get to it.  (Shae should never have that many 'jacks.  Never.)

My 2013 is equally audacious.  I want to have one of every warlock and warcaster in the game.  (Not including alternate sculpts, though I may try to pick some of them up.)  That way, I can run a "Who's The Boss" tourney.  I have over half of the warlocks/warcasters already, so it's a doable goal.

Playing hooky

I should be running.  I should be writing for NaNoWriMo.  I should be painting. (Please note - things like laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc did not even come close to making the list.)  Instead, I am playing hooky from those things, and trying to input my collection into Forward Kommander.

So, at the moment, here are the following stats:

Cygnar: 3 models, 33% painted
Cryx 17 models, 52% painted
Protectorate 0 models
Khador 1 model, 0% painted
Retribution 5 models, 0% painted
Mercenaries 13 models, 23% painted

Circle 9 models, 66% painted
Legion 14 models, 42% painted
Trollbloods 24 models 12% painted
Skorne 21 models, 4% painted
Minions 1 model, 100% painted

Total models is just over 100, so I have barely begun.  This is going to be a good weekend project.  Or longer.

ETA - just found a little quirk in FK.  Had it open on two machines (took the laptop down to the basement.)  Managed to delete everything that I had entered, more or less.  I'm thinking that I will just build an Excel spreadsheet instead.  Much easier in the long run.

Why, oh why?

So, I used to keep track of my collection via ibodger.  Well, that's gone now, and so I am currently doing a complete inventory of everything I have and putting it into Forward Kommander, since I do not have any device which will run the War Room app.

Unfortunately, I am not seeing a way to display and save my collection from Forward Kommander, which is what I really want to do.  I want to make a giant list again, and have it somewhere, so that people can ask me to bring specific models, and so that I know what I have at a fairly quick glance.

Maybe I should do some more poking around before I inventory the next hundred models or so.