Annual belated New Years post

I make these every year about this time (late), and they never seem to actually come true.  Maybe I should change them, and make them realistic - paint less, lose more, etc.  With any luck, I'd fail at those as well.

Anyway, in 2016, I am aiming (once again) to finish one point (for Warmahordes) per day, and one model (in any system) per day.  That's "on average," so despite the fact that today is the 3rd already, and I have not actually finished anything, I am not yet concerned, or even really behind.  (Especially since I am going to be heading to the basement to paint in a few minutes.)

I obviously intend to play (and win) more games, and I have actually gotten in a game (and a win!) already this year.  I did not deserve to win the game (a 50 pt matchup between my Nature of the Beast tier list against a Goatvana list), but managed to do so because my poor opponent had really, really, really lousy dice.  (Seriously, it should not take both a Feral and a Stalker warpwolf, and a Druid Wilder, to kill a Road Hog.)

Right now, the only things I am going to be concentrating on are the things that I need for AdeptiCon, and some Warmahordes minis.  (I did not sign up for any WM events at AdeptiCon, just SAGA and Kings of War, but I have a fair amount of free time, and will probably play some Iron Arena games, so I need to either take my painted Cryx or CoC, or paint something else, probably Minions.)  I will have about 200 Abyssals to paint for Kings of War (yikes!), but I think I can basecoat them with an airbrush fairly quickly, and go from there.  I only have 37 models to paint for SAGA, and they are already at least primed with one color on them, with several actually approaching completion.  If I paint pigs and gators, I need to paint a lot - most models have at least some color on them, and some of the gators really just need the bases to be finished, but it's still work that I need to do at some point.

And, with that, I think "some point" needs to be now.  Off to paint!

The problems of being an altaholic.

So, my FLGS is going to start some different fall slow-grow leagues in the middle of next month.  Right now, there are plans for leagues in Malifaux, Warmahordes, Firestorm Armada, 40k and Infinity.  I plan on playing in 4 of them.

Fortunately, I already have the needed minis for everything.  I can play either Terrans or Directorate for FSA, anything I want for WM, Combined or Ariadna for Infinity, and more than a couple crews for Malifaux.

But I would like to have everything actually painted by the end of the league, which is the hard part.  I think I need to spend some time in the next few days assembling things, and maybe really learning how to play Infinity.  And brushing up my Malifaux rules.

The weekend was a bust

Well, a bust in the sense that I got no games in.  At all.  On the other hand, I spent hours at the FLGS on Saturday, talking about Planetfall and FSA (which is good, because I am hoping to play in an FSA event next Sunday), and helping four players through some games of Warmachine.  These weren't demo games; the players all had 15 point armies, but they were still new to the game, and I was glad to answer questions and offer advice when needed.

I also worked on a couple of 4' x 4' boards for a friend, and got a little painting done, and had time to start reading through the Planetfall rules.  I also think that I have all of my 40k Marines rounded up, so they can go off to Bartertown.  Need to raise some cash for GenCon, and pay for a couple of Kickstarters that I am interested in.  And get some more SAGA models.

Progress report

I'm not painting nearly as much as I would like  Part of that is life getting in the way, part of that is because I decided to help out the FLGS.  Today, they are having a 40k tourney.  It's apparently going to be kind of a big deal - they are hoping to have people coming from several hours away (though the foot of snow expected over the course of the day will probably lessen attendance some).  Anyway, the FLGS does not have nearly enough terrain for this.  They have the table space, they have table toppers (to get them to 4' x 6'), but the tables would have been pretty spare.

So, the store reached out to the local gaming club, which, ideally, would have said something like "You betcha!  We're not really using it that day, and we'd love to see lots of 40k games being played in the area, even if they aren't at our preferred store.  What time and format is the tourney, anyway, because we would love to play!"

That didn't happen.

So, I looked at what I had in the basement earlier this week, sent a quick message to the store telling them that I could probably scrounge up some terrain for them to use, and got to work.  This is the result:



(For scale purposes - the green area rug is 5' x 8')

The final tally is more impressive.  I managed another seven or eight linear feet of walls, maybe more.  I had a large box of hills that aren't pictured here.  There are pieces on the right that got cut out of the photo.

Now, I have been painting.  I got a couple of things finished - and I'll post pics in the next day or so.  But, I have also been working toward the next big thing for my FLGS.  They're doing a miniature gaming demo day.  So, we plan on running demos of Warmachine and Hordes, another local is going to run Malifaux demos, and we'll have space set up to demo and play Firestorm Armada, Relic Knights, and Robotech Tactics.  We'll also demo PP games like Zombies Keep Out and High Command.

So I have also been building Robotech figs.  And some Malifaux. And painting FSA stuff, in addition to WM models.  And, this afternoon, while the snow falls, I am going to be spending some quality time in the basement, assembling veritech fighters and battlepods, while watching a bad movie or two, and periodically going out to fight a losing battle against the white stuff falling from the sky.

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.

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.

Shut up and take my money already!

Flipping through NQ 48, and damn, but I think I may have finally settled on "my" faction.  I'll still play all the others, but I think some clockworks are going to take up a lot of my playtime.  Bodge, Strip, Razor Bola, Luck, Homing Ripspike?  Damn, but those guys are nice. . . .

Now I just have to wait until they are out. . . .

Thoughts from the weekend games

So, still playing in a jouneyman league, and still playing pMagnus.  We're up to 25 points, so I have started putting in some units, trying them out, and making notes.  I'll pretty up my chicken scratches a little here, but here's basically the synopsis of the games from this weekend:

Saturday - pMagnus vs 3Makeda.

I was runningthe Magnus battlebox, plus Gorman, and min units of Steelhead halberdiers and cavalry.  He was running 3Makeda, a Brute, two savages, paingivers, gators and a task master.

First, Black Oil is great.  It literally saved the game for me - I managed to Oil 3Makeda, and stopped her from charging Magnus.  I think from now on, if I can fit Gorman into a list somewhere, he'll be there.  He's just too useful, and if I can get Snipe on him, then I will do so.

Backswing.  I used the Obliterator on a few targets, not intending to do much damage (and I didn't), but to simply knock them down.  The cavalry charged in, and while I remembered the assault order, and the impact hits, I forgot about the +2 to hit (not that it mattered, since the targets were knocked down), but I forgot to take my backswings.  Hopefully, I remember next time.

Magnus - I think I need to lead the charge with the mechanikal arm, and boost the hit roll against high Def targets.  I'll do less damage, but the knock-down affect is too handy to pass up.  Bad dice (on his part), and that knock-down let me take down 3Makeda, but he was wining the game up to that point.

Sunday
pMagnus vs pLylyth
Dropped the steelheads for a full unit of Long Gunners and Kell, ran his tier list.  My opponent was running the Legion battlebox, plus Typhon.

I can't claim to have really learned anything from this game.  I put Snipe on the Renegade, and pretty much just ran my army forward.  He moved everything up on is turn.  I wanted to put the hurt on Typhon, so I shot at it with the Obliterator.  Missed (even boosted), and it deviated right on to pLylyth, who had not kept any fury on her.  She took the hit, I moved up Kell, shot her, moved up the Long Gunners, and used CRA to shoot her.  Missed one of the CRAs, but the other hit her, and managed to kill her.  We both looked at each other, and said "Good game?"

So yeah, I won that game, but my dice were made of awesome and win.  I have no idea what the outcome would have been if I had landed the shot on Typhon as I intended.

PMagnus vs Bloody Barnabas
Same as before.  Barnabas had a croak hunter, gators, and a bull snapper.   This went about as expected - Barnabas with Swamp pit could pretty much advance into charge range, and, frankly, Long Gunners are not melee stars.  Or even competent.  I lost, and killed only a few models.  (In all fairness, most of the posse was badly wounded, but I could not put those last 1-2 points on any of them for the life of me.)

First step in a new direction

The first step is always the hardest one.  Unless it is off a sheer cliff, in which case it will likely be the only one.  Anyway, since I am tying to break the habit of not winning, I am trying some new things in my games.  I'm not talking models (although that will certainly be part of it), but rather, I am going to take better notes on my games - my list, my opponents list, what I did right, and (most importantly) what I did wrong.

So, yesterday, I got in a 25-pt game.  I wanted to try some stuff for the journeyman league this week, and my opponent wanted to try the newest incarnation of Makeda.  I'll post more on it tonight (and hopefully another game or two today), but I do feel reasonably confident that making a note to myself to not, for example, forget about Backswing on Steelhead Cavalry is probably going to be useful.  Obviously, if I play them enough, it will become second nature to me, but I need to decide on at least a faction in the next couple of months if I really want to get some quality games with them before AdeptiCon next year.

(Yes, I am looking toward next year.  Believe it or not, while I may have some impulse control issues when it comes to amassing quantities of lead and plastic, I am more than capable of taking a long-term planning approach.  And, right now, my sights are set on Lombard, IL next year.)

Belated update.

Yeah, I was going to post pics yesterday.  Went down to the basement with the camera, turned on the TV for background noise for while I was painting, and yeah. . . .

So, here are the pics.  I have done a little bit of painting since my last pic update.  First up, the least important stuff: my Malifaux crew.  I don't plan on playing many games of Malifaux at AdeptiCon, but I did pay the cost for the league, and want to play at least a few games, to help increase my familiarity with the system.  I have enough for it, so I might as well play.

I had two of the metal gamin and the rail golem painted at the beginning of the month.  Now, the rail crew starter, the rail golem, the metal gamin, and Willie are all painted and based.  Reasonably happy with them, too.

But, on to the Warmachine stuff.  I've been planning on playing Cryx for several months now - I had more painted for it than any other faction, although that is not saying much.  These guys were done (earlier this year, Feb maybe?), but never based.  I had to take care of that, of course.

Full Biles and a Scarlock do not an army make.  I had a couple of chicken jacks done, but I needed more.  So, I painted a few.

That's two slayers, a reaper, a stalker, two ripjaws,a harrower, a leviathan, and deathjack.  That will do, right?


But I need more than that.  I should have some support models and solos as well.

Five scrap thralls, two warwitch sirens, and Mortenebra and her special little friend.  But wait, there's more!  They're not pictured here, but right now, pGaspy, pThags, and a necrotech are basically sitting in their basing materials.  The second nectrotech is almost ready for basing.  Terminus is based, and, while he is not done, he is completed to the 3-color standard required by AdeptiCon.  The Kraken is now at the 3-color standard, but I need to pick up something tonight at the store to finish up his base.

The sticking point is the Revenant crew and Rengrave.  More than half of the revenant crew are almost ready for basing, and would be done to the 3-color minimum.  Rengrave and four of the crew are a little farther back.  With any luck, I will get the crew mostly done tonight.  If I can get them mostly done, tomorrow won't be bad, and I might even get the Withershadow combine based and to 3-color standard.

I do need to carve out some time tomorrow to put arc markings on the bases, but that should take no more than an hour, and it is something I can do while paint dries.  I might even start on that tonight, since I have Blackbanes and some other things that need arc markings.

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.

Any progress yet?

AdeptiCon is now two days closer.  What have I gotten done so far?  Well, it turns out that not everything for Malifaux was assembled.  I have a Willie the demolitionist model that is still sitting in his box. I need to get him put together.  I have managed a test scheme on two of the metal gamin - I hope to have at least one of them finished later today, and possibly even based, if I can find some base elements that I bought some months ago for another project.

Not much has been done for Warmachine.  I had to strip a bunch of the models, and had to get them and onto their new bases.  It does mean that I will have to buy a new pack or two of blank bases, since I pretty much destroyed the old ones in the process.  They are almost stripped, and I hope to be reassembling and priming them later today or tomorrow, so that I can really get to work on them.

Drew some more concept sketches for the display board as well.  Need to finish my army lists and what not before I actually build too much of it, in order to make it look nice.  Hope to start on it before Christmas though, so I actually have a lot of time.

Time to get painting!

So, there is about 136 days until AdeptiCon.  I'm currently signed up for the Malifaux by Gaslight, Iron Arena, Wm/H Hardcore, and Blood, Sweat and Tiers.  I'm starting to look at lists, and making my painting queue, because otherwise, it is not going to get done.

For Malifaux, it looks like I need to paint about 20-30 models, tops.  And that would give me several different factions, and a fair choice of crews within those factions.  Not a problem.  Some of the models I want to use are already started, and unless I decide to build something around a man named Sue, I do not have to buy anything, so everything is already here, assembled, and primed.  Score!

For Warmchine - I have definitely settled on a faction.  I need to do some fairly serious painting, since virtually nothing for any of the lists that I am considering is painted.  (Actually, I think two of the 'jacks are done.  Not a big help, actually.)  Nor do I even own everything in at least one of the lists that I am looking at running.  I should have everything by the end of the month, or mid-January, at the latest.  I hope to have what I have on hand painted by then.

Oh, and I need to build a display board.  Not for a contest or anything, just for rule of cool.

Time to get cracking, I guess.

Colossals!

I'll post more on this later, but they're coming this summer. Looks like I should just give PP the routing number for my bank account now.

You Tube preview here

More distractions

Wrath arrived today, along with the Ogrun Assault Corps, and a merc deck. Magnus, Boomhowler, and other MK I figs are now playable, and I have only two factions to go in order to have something beyond the battlebox for all of them.

And, in a related note - I was contemplating dumping one of my Warmaster armies, and even put it up a few weeks ago, and, out of the blue, I get a couple trade offers on it today. Now, I have to decide - because one offer is Khador, and one is Legion. . . .

New day, new distraction

It's still Warmachine related, but the mail today brought some Rhulic goodness. I picked up the following figs:

Durgen Madhammer(primed black)
Wroughthammer Rockram(primed black)
Ghordson Basher(half painted)
Driller x2(both primed black)
Thor Steinhammer(primed black)
Ghordson Gunner x3(primed black)
Ghordson Blaster x2 (primed black)

I also finished building a dice tower last night, and am trying to finish up four figs from Reaper's CAV line for someone.