Chicago Field Report, part 2

Right On, Ladies and Gentlemen!  It's now time for the run down of the second game of 40k I played in Chicago over the summer.  The report you should have been able to read a few days ago, but my intro took on a life of it's own.

So, when we left off, I had just finished the blackest game of 40k with Hoagy.  After that, I took a break and watched what was going on at the other tables.  Talked some shop with the boys (mostly revolving around how revolting old pots of the citadel washes smell) and then challenged Frank(Evan) to a game of 40k after he finsished with DFM(Joe). Which ended up taking a while due to Joe's peculiar 40k qualities:  easy to maul, hard to kill off. 

After that it was time to finish of the pizza and move on to:

Ulthwe vs. Black Legion
Actually, now that I think about it, most of the games that were played that day created this kind of "none more black" theme.  Joe vs Evan was Dark Angles (heavy on the Ravenwing) vs what may may have been Black Legion.  Which then moved into the following Ulthwe vs. Black Legion.

This was another fun game against another great opponent. I've played against Even before in some Apoc games and he's a laid back cool cat of a dude.  Which is great for actual gaming but bad if you massively underbid your deployment time and have a full green tide to set up.  Ah, memories.

Again, it's been months since I actually played this game, so what follows is more a series of impressions about the battle.  It was a little late in the day, but we went with 2000 points since  we each had prepared army lists  We then proceeded to roll up capture and control (Or as Dethtron accurately described it after the fact: a two hour dry hump into a draw) with regular ol' deployment.

News Interlude

A little bit more of a delay than I wanted between this post and the last.  But I had a nasty little illness that knocked me off my feet for most of the week in which I planned on writing.  I guess that's what a sinus infection will do for ya.  Incidentally, did you know that sinus infection can be contagious?  So if, say, you Girlfriend has a sinus infection and she tells you it's not contagious, she's probably wrong - and you should stay the hell away from the business end of her plague furnace of a nose.

"Yeah, man.  It's completely safe to touch me."

On the other hand, I got some time to catch up with current events, which wasn't all that great since the two big stories for me ranged from extremely fucking terrible to moderately shitty.

• The Penn State tragedy sure was fun?  I don't know about you guys but I totally get why FOOTBALL was placed in front of child safety. This one is especially relevant to me since I have a good friend at ground zero in a town he describes as having a "low level of humanity".  That's not a pro-Paterno statement, fyi.  Despite being from something awful, this is the most accurate timeline I've found. 

• It turns out that Frank Miller is not just a bigot.  No, no.  It turns out that he is a well rounded and complete piece of shit. 

Man, that was depressing.   Good thing I chopped this off of the bat rep I was planning on doing.  Score one for not muddying the message!  But minus one for a non-hobby post on a hobby blog.  Stupid zero sum games.
 

Chicago Field Report, part 1

You know what's lame - not posting for a while and then starting a new post and lingering on that fact.  I mean shit, man...  everyone already knows.  It's ins;t new information.  Plus, It might happen again.  Look guy, I know it ain't called 'low hanging fruit' 'cuz it's hard to pick but... shit... try not to pick it.

Soooooo...   dammit.  IknowIhaven'tbeenpostinginawhileandsoherewego.

Which brings me to the real topic of this post - What the hell have I been up to?

Lemme see....  I guess I'll break it up into manageable chunks over time.

Something somethings Go Faster

In case you missed it, Frontline gamer did a fantastic job on the interviewing skills portion of HoP Idol.  And it's not just because I was the center of attention.  It was a solid interview to be sure.  So thanks to FLG for that. 

I also got another subtle hint from his royal majesty, the King Elessar, that I should be blogging again.

Lauby, a request - Blood Angels. A bright, vibrant scheme, tabletop quality, but no more (I'm not you :P) without a white undercoat. Do-able? And how?

With some follow up questions, the following info was added to that request:

• GW paints would make his life easier
• He has access to the Citadel Spray gun
• a LOT of tanks are involved.
• He needs it to be easily repeatable

 Right, lets get to it.

Eeeeeeeebay

Hey America!  Check out my cool old stuff for sale on ebay.

I've got big plans, BIG PLANS I tells ya!  But I need all y'alls help.  So go check my stuff out.  Or maybe even bid?

There's even an old timey Doomwheel! 

WOAAH!

Hell, you feriegners can bid on some stuff too.  So long as its Magic: the Gathering cards.  Which I am also selling.

In all seriousness, I'm cleaning out the old stuff to feel better about getting even MORE new stuff.  I know, not quite the same tug on the ol' heartstrings as helping a buddy out with his mortgage, but still.

Help a brother out.  Despite his crude post.

Ebay Linkage

Strike Three

First thing's first - while digging through my own archives for links, I discovered a number of times where I was flat wrong and one time where I was mostly wrong.  So, in no particular order - Warmachine MkII turned out to be fine, percentages made there way into Warhammer Fantasy and GW did switch to resin.  Though it was this special kind of hybrid and everything I said about them needing new molds was correct. 

Gotta keep that ego in check.

Now - the real reason I'm writing today. 

Eve since GW stated there "What's New Today" post on the main site, I've been in love with it.  It's an example of GW understanding the appeal of the blogging thing from an audience viewpoint as well as a frequent source of inspiration.  Frankly, it's a masterpiece of the marketing arts - a sales pitch that people actually go out of there way to get into contact with.

But as time has passed, there's also an added bit of hilarity that has been subtly running through the updates in the form of a number of articles that directly contradict what the FAAC crowd and the fluff purists have been telling the world is the right way to play Warhams.

There's this army list that not only takes an MSU approach to army building but is also heavy mech and 'spams' units.  Who would have figured that all it would take for an army Stelek might have designed to get onto the GW mother ship was a good paint job?

Then there was this bit on special characters in JJ's own words.  A personal favorite, I might add - and one that works well with the blurb about disparate chapters in the Smurf codex.  Turns out that special characters are awesome and that if GW made rules for a model, they intend for you to take it in games.

And now we have a definitive answer on whether or not GW gives two shits about count's as Space Marines.  The answer is that GW do indeed give two shits about the subject.  You see, GW would very much like you to spend money on their products in whatever way you see fit.  

All three of these post were written by GW about GW employees.  There is exactly no room for interpretation. GW say: enjoy your hobby your way - we certainly do.

Which has always been there line.  It just boggles the mind that a frustratingly large group of the 40k population have lived, eaten and breathed Games Workshop's mantra of 'do what you want and have fun' and come to the conclusion that there is ONE way to enjoy the hobby.

Miscellanea - Pt. 2

I went through my mental checklists and found some additional odds n' ends that may be of interest.

1) Privateer Press... Again.  While I was reading all the great comments I got from the last bit on PP (thanks everyone!), a few more similarities were pointed out to me - and a few more came to me on their own.  So, added to the last list: PP has its own house brand paints and hobby supplies, attempted to sell it's own branded terrain, brought a high quality line of licensed gaming material in-house and made it suck, barely supports an old range of its product line, has a tournament system with massive flaws and, AND runs a bunch of self congratulatory bullshit posts on their own website.

At this point, all we're waiting for is the inevitable cancelling of the bits service.


2) Infinity:  The one positive side effect of everyone idly threatening to abandon the 40k armies they've spent a grand on is that in the quest to find the next new game they can love to hate, a ton of really, really cool looking games got some blog time.  Which is great for my rulebook collection.  Using some ebay monies, I picked up the Infinity rule books from Corvis Belli.  I plan on reviewing this a bit later.  For now, lets just say that I wish I had not spent the money.  It would have saved me a lot time being bummed out that I can't find a regular gaming group locally to prod into the game. I dunno whether this is a 'le sigh' or an 'el oh el' moment.

3) The Metagame:  Whether or not it exists is a pointless debate I'll leave up to the sort of people who truly care about it.  But what I can't get over is the fact that even if a national metagame is a real thing , the people for which its existence is the most important have an extremely limited grasp of how a metgame actually works. 

Here's the thing, the reason top builds/methods/paths to winning exist in a meta game is not because of dumb luck, ease of use or by shear virtue of being commonly available.  They exist because they are successful and good - and have been proven to be so.  Simply doing something different - 'going against the meta' - does not give you a leg up unless what you've brought to the table is actually any good. Further, your super secret weapon has to be good against more than one other build.  Sadly, knowing all this and implementing it successfully requires more than the pat on the back you just gave yourself for confusing cognitive dissonance with cleverness. 

4) There is no #4.  I dearly hoped  I would think of one.  Sadly, I didn't.

Miscellanea

"Jesus, has it really been over two weeks since I last posted!"
                                                                   - Me. Just a second ago, 2011

Life has been busy.  Luckily, I took notes.  Here are a few of them:

1) Grey Knights Week.
Was a total bust.  Tuned out that I just didn't care enough.  Not a lot of you did either, if my stats are to be believed.  Though I will sum up:

I think its a fine addition to the 40k line.  The plastic kits in particular are genius seeing as how you can build almost every GK model out of two kits.  The army design is good too, if I'm honest (and I pretend that I don't own a Daemon army).  There's this whole 'three armies, one book' thing going on that gives you a ton of options for list construction without kicking over the sandcastles of the people who were still struggling under the old book.  Plus, the internal balance is great - none of the force org charts are invalidated by one overly good unit.  A good codex, though one I'm not entirely sure is for me.  But then again, terminator spam....  But then again, everything is silver...

2) Writing for 3++
Kirby dragged me kicking and screaming into the 3++ fold.  I've gotten two posts on some theory (which people hate) and the response has been good.  Though it looks like home base may suffer even more now that I've added responsibilities on top of the HoP workload.  Though I do have some ideas for doing 'supplemental' stuff for the Kirby posts here.  Which could be a great way to funnel people into my personal e-space to stroke my own e-peen in a more... intimate venue.

Grey Knights Week - Part 1: The Beginnenning

My little psuedo-vacation gave me a chance to sit with the Grey Knights codex and I think that I can safely say that I'm one of the proud few who did most of his pondering at airports or at cruising altitude.

When the book first dropped, I was not in what I'd call a mood to be fair and objective.  I  was and am currently making my way through a big ol' box of daemons and there were quite a few things about the book that a daemon player couldn't help but notice.  Specifically, the fact that every unit in the book seems to have been given a number of value added features for no cost specifically aimed at raping all daemons in all their holes all the time.
The inanity of the accompanying WD bat rep wasn't helping either.

Style. Profile.

Lo from ye olde World of Wonder nominated me for a Stylish Blogger Award!

If you're one of the few people in my tiny corner of the internet who haven't already  checked her shit out, then you should do so.  And may I add further congratulations for finding a rock big enough to live under.

Anyway, Lo, I accept.  I will also steal your post title joke.  Think of it as my way of saying thanks.  In addition to me actually typing out the letters in the word 'thanks' a couple of times.

Unfortunately, the award comes with levels of responsibility unheard of outside of the Miss America Pageant.

• Thank and link back to the person giving you the award
• Share seven things about yourself
• Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award 
• Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award

Ricochet Biscuit

It's supposed to bounce off the wall and back into your mouth.



Kirby has invited me to write for ye olde 3++.  He wants me to do something with painting.  But here's the deal:  I have no idea what direction to go in.

I have some thoughts - something along the lines of trying to take the anxiety and/or mystery out of painting with the idea to get shoe gray legions taken care of. 


I feel like there are a lot of hurdles for people to get started:

• The impossibly high standards for the big painting contests
• the perception that artistic talent is required
• the perception of there being a 'right' way to do things
• the time involved
• the added expense

Maybe I can help lower those hurdles.


I guess I'm really asking you guys is this (due to the high reader crossover):  what would you like to see in a hobby series as written by me?

[hail marry:]  Incidentally, if anyone has a spare terminator cyclone or two laying around (he said, knowing that they're in high demand) , I'd be more than happy to give them, a new home.

Throw Away Post - Tomb Kings and Metal Miniatures

Tomb Kings
 I was in the local game store the other day grabbing some paints I needed when I espied the stores advance copy of the new Tomb Kings book.

I didn't spend much time reading it other than to check up on a couple of irritations from the Orcs and Goblins book.

Specifically, I was interested to see whether or not they had ruined the magic items section again and whether or not page references were incldued as part of the army list entries.

It was the same lack of important reference numbers and the same overcosted and underpowered magic item section.  I'll reserve full doom and gloom mode until the third book (scientific method ftw) for the edition comes out - but it looks like I made the right choice by not investing in Fantasy a few months ago.

Metal Miniatures
This one is just cheesing me off.  In a lot of ways actually....

First, everyone is reading too much into what's going on.  GW are not discontinuing production of metal miniatures.  They are simply not allowing the independent stores to order them.  That's it.  Full stop.  Anything else is doom and gloom.  I'm not sure why people think that not being able to buy a Varghulf at the Warstore anymore is tantamount to ALL metal miniatures disappearing.  Producing enough models to create stocking levels is expensive.  Especially given the cost of the bulk materials.  GW are just plain not doing this anymore.


Further, the process of making plastic versions of the special characters would be exorbitantly expensive and horrible unprofitable. It aint gonna happen and your metal models ain't gonna dissappear.  Making molds for plastic miniatures is quite expensive.  It's not just a matter of pouring some damn rubber over a master.  Auto CAD and frickin' lasers are involved in order to craft a steel mold.  It ain't cheap.  That's why when it comes to new release time, all the units are in plastic and the goofball stuff is in metal - its all about making the investment back on things that can be expected to sell more units. 

Really though, think about it - GW has far, far too many models that only appear in metal.  Complete discontinuation would pretty much kill a ton of armies off - most of them for Fantasy (an already shaky area).  Though I do expect GW to move armies with predominately metal ranges closer to the front of the update line.

Thirdly, GW may want to move to resin (unlikely given the labor required), but you can't just repurpose the old molds.  A lot of people seem to be operating under the assumption that since the resin and white metal casting processes are so 'similar' you can just pour some resin into the existing mold and you're good to go.  Flat wrong.  

I guess the processes are similar in that your pouring a liquid into a mold.  But here's the deal:  there are a number of quite massive differences in material properties that come into play.  White metal casting involves injecting molten fucking metal into a spinning mold.  That's just a tad different than the two part resin + wating typically used in miniature making. 

Plus, The molds for metal models are typically made out of vulcanized rubber to deal with the temperatures and to add durability for repeated use.  The molds themselves would actually destroy resin casts during the demoldong process. 

Oh, and the labor intensity of resin casting would still cause a model to cost an arm and a leg.

So yeah, metal models are just getting harder to get and resin is not coming. 

Gaming on a Budget: Wasting Money to Save Money

Holy Crap!  Its been two weeks since I last posted.  So here's something kinda dumb.

The Gaming on a Budget stuff over on the HoP is one of my most favorite blog series of all time.  Its chock full of great tips (some are a surprise) , it increases out traffic and Dethtron is one of the funniest writers out there.  Its the pinnacle of the infotainment arts.  Get your lips offa Dethtron's e-peen, Lauby! 

Plus, I get to write for it as well from time to time. Always a bonus when you get to put all those research skills to use for something you actually enjoy.

Anywho, my last post for the series got me thinking about all kinds of ways that you can actually save money by spending money up front - pointing out false economies and the like.  There's a post on airbrush purchasing floating around my brain and there's a post out there about the pitfalls of ebay that I want to rip off (incidentally:  Brent, add a goddamn search function to your blog!).

Which brings us to my recent purchase of a White Dwarf issue and my issues with White Dwarf.  Lame, dude.  Lame.

Now I know taking a shit on the current state of White Dwarf is about the easiest thing to do... but what can I say, nostalgia gets the better of me from time to time and the reality of the situation seems to always surprises me. 

Basically, I picked up the most recent issue because it had a bunch of stuff in it that seemed relevant to my interests at the time and as a precursor to maybe getting a subscription again ( I do love those masterclasses).  The whole thing was crap - perhaps the single most worthless issue I own.  But it did save me $75 as it was a reminder on why I didn't resubscribe last year. Like I said - spend money to save money.

Tyberos The Red Wake - Wrap up

First, a big thank you to everyone who took the time to stop by and a even bigger thank you to all the people who commented.  Some very nice things were said, some teaching occurred and hearts and minds were won (a special 'hello' to my seven new followers!).  This is what its all about, kids.  All in all, a very successful series that I may have to repeat will be repeating in the near future.
As far as the actual painting went, a lot of good was had on my end:

1) I got out of my comfort zone on this one - key to learning.  There was actually a point when I was scared to go on because I might ruin the model!  Kind of an eye opener really.  But, I pushed through and learned something about my abilities in the progress. 

2) I got some much needed experience with shooting from the hip, or heart if you prefer a more passionate idiom.  It was good because I got some practice with just doing things without all the meticulous planning I'm used to.  And it was good because It's been a long while since I've been able to paint something without having to ne able to reproduce the whole thing over and over (and over) again.  Very freeing in a way.

3) Freehand practice.  That shark icon was freehand.  I'm not completely happy with it, but it was a good attempt.  One of my weakest areas, to be honest.   

4) I got a couple of really good recipes for unique colors I can add to the repertoire.  The gray for the armor and the blue rippey claws in particular.  Not too bad for an off the cuff kind of thing. 

5) Most importantly: I've got my very own fully painted Tyberos.  Quite possibly my favorite model from the GW ranges.

But it ain't all good:

1) My work schedule kinda, sorta blows donkey dique.  Part of that is because Special Lady Friend and I only have one car and there's a two hour difference between our shifts three days in every week.  Basically, I get to hang around work for two hours just wasting time until its time to go home.  Loosing that two hours is a killer and drastically alters how fast my projects take to complete.  What's worse, is there's nothing I can really do about so its not even like I can have an after school special silver lining.

2) I'm still an abysmally slow painter.  Even on projects I'm in love with.  Bah. 

/introspection

With Tyberos sitting in the ol' cabinet, it's time to get back to the Eldar.  I think I'll do another long term WIP on Eldrad Ulthran once I get past my last Wave Serpent.

Tyberos The Red Wake - FINAL!

After 17 days of nearly sporadic work, Tyberos is done.  It's been a fun ride and a special thanks to all of you who took the time to drop by and comment. 

And here he is in all his glory:

I'm not entirely happy with the pictures (as usual), but every time I get a little closer to what I want. Plus, I saw (and fixed) a couple of bugaboos.  But such is the nature of learning - if you're were perfect, there'd be no room for improvement. And nothing to live for.

Thanks for looking!

Tyberos Supplemental #3

Since the update posts have been moving quickly but haven't had much substance, I thought I'd toss in another supplemental.

This time around its just a quick not on a happy side effect of all the pictures I've been taking.

We've all had that moment where we thought we had finished the miniature - but then, out of nowhere, we notice some crucial flaw we had completely missed.

A few days ago while I was posting some of the shots for the main body, I noticed three things that I might have otherwise missed.  Who knows for how long.  For example, there was a lens on my Baal that I didn't notice I had missed until like 4 months after the fact.

Here's what I caught on Tyberos:

1. Totally forgot to highlight one of the plates on his chest.  I think the angle I was using to paint most of the model kept this out of site until I tried to get some details on the lightning bolts.
2. A highligh on the leg was the next culprit - I had missed a key blend.
3. When I was gluing the figure to the base, I must have smudged the red paint on the skull

Nothing too major to fix, just a bunch of niggling things that I might have missed otherwise.

I'm not sure macro photography is the most efficient way to go about things, but...

I guess the lesson here is:  always go over you work one way or another.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 17

I've been pretty run down and stressed out lately, but I was able to get into a nice, relaxing groove and bang some work out:

That's right guys, we're a day away.

Stay tuned!

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 16

Sorry for the delay on today's post.  Though you didn't miss much - I was struck down by some eye strain.

Though I did paint a bit just to say I made progress.

A red lens and the chipping. Weee.  Though stay tuned for later today - things got interesting!

Tyberos the Red Wake - Supplemental #2

So, no progress last night on Tyberos.  Though the mighty Japanese nation was fully absorbed by the far superior Aztecs and their Giant Death Robots!  At least there's that.

And this:
 
On Sunday, Nikephoros hit me up with a question:

Oh man that looks incredible. If you don't mind sharing, what gold do you use? I don't get why GW silvers are so good but the golds are so bad. I'd love to know your recipe.

Because its a good question and because he's having such a completely shitty week, this one goes out to Nikephoros.

Allright, the first thing that you (plural here) is that most acrylic gold paint is shit.  It's not an issue for a specific brand - its an issue for the color in general.

Most of the gold paint you're gonna come across is formulated for a specific consistency that's usually ready to use out of the pot/dropper.  The problem comes from the fact that the pigments typically used in gold paint have the same issues as yellow paint - the pigmentation isn't all that opaque.  The coverage is shit.  Some brands will play with consistence to get a paint that'll coat well... but it's usually goop.  It's bad either way.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 15

Nothing to magical about yesterday's progress - just the highlighting on the remaining arm, some minor corrections on the body and some normalization on the highlighting.

I've had kind of a rough day today - not a bad day, just tiring.  I'm also into the midpoint of my week where my schedule gets shitty.  I think it's entirely likely that I'll take a day off from Tyberos.  I've got a supplemental planned so it wont be a day without Lauby.

Which is just as well, those Japanese pikemen that have been amassing near my boarder aren't going to strategically bomb themselves. God, Civ V is fun.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 14

Here we are at the two week mark.  It's been a fun experiment for me so far.  The day by day tracking has really kept me focused.  Plus, it turns out the format is great for educational purposes (thanks, SinSynn!).

I think there's a good chance I'll do more of this kind of stuff with that in mind.  I've always wanted to use this blog for teaching as much as the other stuff.  I think I may have finally stumbled onto a way to make that happen.

Yesterday was another productive day all things considered - Special Lady Friend got a ride to the airport,  Ma and Pa Lauby sent some enablers gift cards in the mail and then there was the shopping and the beer.

Despite the odds, the main body segment is done.  Here are the WIPs.

all the gold trim is done

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 13

A day off from work is a day where I can make some progress.  I'm aiming to have the main body finished soon.

Since it was kind of a busy day, here are the WIPs:

Shading (Note: I shaded the other arm too)

Highlighting and touch ups

Chipping, a little blood spatter and some of the non-gold metallics done.

Looks like I was also able to match the gray's pretty well too.  The next step is to get the golds, the skulls and that little chest symbol done.  Then I think it might be video game time!

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 12

Right, so I ended up taking the risk and went ahead and finished the arm I was working on.

What risk?  The risk that I'll have a hard time making the rest of the model match the completed arm.  Why'd I do it?  Lets just say that I don't have as much confidence in my own ability to 'just go with it' as I'd like.

Though I did get my camera sorted out a bit better this time:

Well, there we are.  I'm off to work on the rest of the model after a quick snack.  Since I plan on making a ton of progress, I'll be sure to get some WIP's as I go along.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 11

We're coming up on the two week mark - eeeee!

Though with any luck this bad mamma-jamma will be done by Sunday.  Double eeee!

I got the last little bit of experimentation and color finalizing done last night. 

same bit of paper from yesterday - no with extra color experiments

Because I'm working on one part of the model in isolation (which, granted, is a bit odd and seemingly counterproductive), I'm keeping the old sheets of tracing paper on the off chance I may need them for color reference.  I'm also taking copious notes on recipes as well.  One of the dangers of working on one bit separately is that you always run the risk of it not 'matching'.  I aim to minimize that as completely as possible.  It helps that my color choices aren't all that complex.  So does the fact that some of my recipes are old standbys.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 10

The pics from this post will look suspiciously like yesterday's.  Such is life.  Monday - Wednesday, I can only put about an hour/hour and a half in due to time constraints.  I'm trying to be productive as possible and do all the little things that'll slow me down come this weekend.

Like color tests.

Last night I got the silver metallics figured out (nothing too fancy) and dicked around with a color test for the rippy claws (the beastman axe).

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 9

I got a lot done yesterday in the sense that I made a bunch of important decisions and got a successful proof of concept done on my recipe for gray.  Hell, I even nailed down the chipping effect on the armor.

But not enough work has been done on the one part that I worked on to make me get out my light box

As I've said, free time in the middle of the week is at a premium.  Though I will probably be finding some time to shoe horn in some prep work an an Eldrad Ulthran model while I kill the two dead hours (3 days a week) that arise from only having one car for two people.

No close ups, but here's a shot of my work area and the wet palette I was doing color tests on:

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 8

I had planned to get more done than I did, but all too frequently, I just don't have the time/energy to completely devote myself to painting after I get home from work.  Though I always try to get at least a little bit done so that I'm at least making some progress, not mater how minor. 

So as a heads up - the next few days are gonna be a bit lame.

A failed experiment with oil paint and my acquisition of the OnG army book didn't help either.

On the plus side, the base is done:

pictures still 'off' somehow - I have it narrowed down to a camera setting issue

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 7

Due to scheduling weirdness at work thanks to Spring Break, I only ended up with one day off this week.  But I sure as hell made the most of it.

I got some pseudo color modulation done on the figure itself - important but uninteresting.  So no pics.

However, I completely killed the base.  Once the water effect dries, all I have to do is glue the two halves together and its ready for a Terminator to stand on it.

I started out with the top plate due to time constraints and the noise rules of my apartment complex.

The Massive Voodoo tutorials I linked to yesterday were put to good use:

this picture is a bit washed out.

I'm actually really proud of this.  Though there's a stray metallic paint brush stroke that I just discovered is bothering me.  Easily fixable.

Tyberos te Red Wake - Supplemental #1

In the continuing saga of my mad quest to improve the worsening situation in Libya by painting a Tyberos miniature, I embarked on a side quest.

One of the great joys of painting little plastic/metal/resin mans is that once you're done, you have something to show for all your work.  Which is all good and well for face to face interaction.  But if you're gonna blog about it then you need to show your work there too.  Otherwise people might think you're a liar or quickly lose interest in baseless claims of skill.

I've been... well... kinda almost completely falling down on that.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 6

Back on track - no problems last night.  Just some nice, although incremental, progress.

Tyberos FINALLY got his base coat on.  P3 Bastion Gray - my favorite gray EVAR!  Possible my favorite miniature paint color as well.  Which I know makes me a bit lame... especially once you know that a couple of browns are duking out for second place...  maybe I'm not as interesting as previously thought.

This Tyberos project and even just the Space Sharks (Carcharadons) in general gave me a little bit of a squee when it dawned on me that I had an excuse to paint a whole army with Bastion Gray.  Though sanity and WHFB have been nagging at me for some time so it may be that Tyberos sits in the case alone.  Like a BOSS, however.  Non of this 'forever alone' crap.

This is where I wanted to be a day ago.

Tyberos the Red Wake - Day 5

So far, I've been writing these posts about the previous day's work.  So by the time tomorrow's post goes up, the progress in this post is over a day old.  Just thought I'd mention that.

Right... so last night was a bit of a motherfucker as I lost about a day's worth of progress on the model itself.  Or at least a few hours of work and a day's worth of waiting (thanks to my work schedule).  It turned out that my primer coat had fuzzed on me and i was back to the Simple Green bath.  This made it very hard to maintain the 'keep on happy painting' vibe the Massive Voodoo guys are into.

aaaaand it turns out that most of the pictures I took last night were garbage.  Except this one:

Luckily for me, things resolved nicely so no ashes to sift through.  Plus I got a nice, fat educational moment to play with.

For me, there were a number of lessons I learned or at least had reinforced by the experience.  Some things I think have a great deal of value as far as improving the knowledge of other people who maybe aren't quite as into the whole painting thing as I am.

Tyberos The Red Wake - Day 4

All right, now I'm starting to get into the part of the project where it actually looks like I'm making progress.

The putty filling on the actual model turned out really well - there's only one section I wasn't completely happy about - but there's not too much I can do about.  Thankfully, the flaw is in an out of the way place that won't be seen too much.  But would definitely harm my chances at a serious painting contest.  Good thing I paint mostly for myself.

After some sanding and general clean up, the model gets some black primer and gets to warm the bench for the next 24 hours.

most exciting picture ever.

A note on my system:  You'll notice that all the parts have a nice little section of wire sticking out of them.   This is a nice little two for one deal - when I trim them down it'll be a pin and before that happens, its a great handle so I can stick the piece in a hemostat for painting.  With models like this I usually paint the individual parts before assembly.  There's a lot of detail here and I plan on using an airbrush to get the base coat down.  basically, I get better access to all those hard to reach areas.  Once the bits are ready for assembly, I'll scrap the paint off the joints and assemble just before I seal.

Tyberos The Red Wake - Day 3

Incremental progress, FTW!

I have to apologize to anyone reading this at this stage of the project.  The early, early prep stages are the most boring.  It's basically just a bunch of waiting around for putty to dry.  Lame.

In particular, I'm waiting for Apoxie Sculpt to dry.   A nice and cheaply available 2 part epoxy clay.

Last time, I spent an almost undue amount of time bitching about mold lines and casting flaws.  Time to fix them.  Lots of people will say that green stuff is the way to go.  For organic shapes, I tend to agree.  However, green stuff sucks rocks for anything that's supposed to be flat/manmade.  Green stuff doesn't hold an edge like you'd hope it would and isn't sand-able.  So with gaps and flaws in large, falt areas and along hard lines, green stuff is pretty awful.  Mostly because it's really hard to get it so that the fix is flush with the surface.

Tyberos The Red Wake - Days 1 and 2

It's been a while since I've done anything that remotely showcases the kind of painting and modeling stuff I'm into.  It's been post after post of empty words.  Bah!  This isn't LiveJournal, you chumpasaurus!

To get back in the spirit if Laubersheimer Industries past, I'm going to be trying a bit of an experiment:  the day by day progress on a model I plan on painting to a high standard of quality.

The Model in question is my man Tyberos, the Birfday Money Impulse Purchase Red Wake.

My Eldar are almost at their fighting wake and I'm staring down 32 Khorne Dogs so the time is right.

Excruciating detail, HO!

Digesting WHFB 8th Edition + Bonus Topics

Thanks to a generous donation last month from the Mom and Dad Fund For People Who Are Turning 30, I was able to get my hands on my very own copy of the 8th edition Warhammer rules.

I thought it might be a fun diversion to flip through since all my 40k books have been thumbed through at least a million times - even to the point where they aren't even a good thing to read while taking a crap.

Don't kid yourself, blogoshpere - every red blooded gamer has read an army book on the crapper.

On top of that, my Eldar are coming close to being completely done.  Then it'll be time for actual games (good bye vassal!).  But the Daemons will still be lurking on the workbench.  And burnout is my greatest enemy.

Old Stuff Day - The Siege of Laporte

According to Warhammer 39,999, today is Old Stuff Day.I decided I wanted to get in on this before the greeting card companies commercialized it and ruined it's true meaning.  What follows (grammatical errors and all) is a semi-battle report from an Apoc. game I played with HoP co-founder Dethtron and his rowdy local gaming buddies back in 2009.  We may have only played two turns, but it was a blast and I have a lot of fond memories about the game and the people involved..  Maybe there is something to this whole 'casual' 40k thing...

The Siege of Laporte - an Apocalypse Report

While I was on vacation I had the opportunity to play an Apocalypse game with some really cool dudes - My buddy Colin and his extended gaming group.

First things first: Colin, Joe, Evan and Hoagy - thanks for the fun. You guys are a blast.

This was a real treat as I don't have a fully painted and assembled army of my own and have yet to find a play group where I live. I've played a whole two games of 5th edition and they were both Apoc games.

On the plus side, these big games are a good way to learn the rules due to the everything and the kitchen sink approach to army consturction. It's also a much more relaxed gaming experience for me as well.



Here is a direct link.

Here are some highlights not covered in the photos:

1) The night before the game, Colin and I spent a few hours turning an old siege tower I made 10 years ago into a plague tower. This thing was a bit terrifying on the table, but manageable. It would have been scarier if it hadn't absorbed almost every anti-tank shot we had for two turns. By the end, it was down to one weapon and was immobilized.

2) the Annihilatrix was also super cool looking but a series of the unluckiest roles in history ensured that we never actually got to see what it could do.

3) Joe and his accursed Fallen Angels killed one of my Vindicators, thus preventing me from getting to destroy terrain pieces. Curses!

4) Both sides had a land raider and wildly different experiences. Hoagy's LR absorbed scads (SCADS I tell you) of rocket and laser fire and kept going with not so much as a scratch on the paint. Joe's LR got one shotted by my Vindicator.

5) The Imperial super heavy's didn't have too much of an affect on the battle at the end to two turns. Lots of missing and piss-poor roles for any kind of damage.

6) We misplayed flank march a bit as we applied it to ALL reinforcements. But, it was kinda hard to tell which units were controlled by which player and, in any case, Team Chaos won because they had bothered to grab the only objective any body bothered to take.

7) The Green Tide was scary right about until the time it broke cover and ate a bunch of 10 inch templates. However, between all the fire this and the Plague Tower was absorbing, there were still a few Maelstrom of Gores lurking. I was not looking forward to that.

8) Early in the game, I ended up moving a dreadnaught (with no cc weapon) into combat with a chaos lord. We never did get to see who won. On the plus side, I did get a good lesson on using dreads to tie down enemy units in CC.

9) Due to a late start and some wife issues, we only got to play two turns. But it was fun as hell and in hindsight, I don't know if I had the fortitude to complete the game anyway. Apocalypse can be very draining... especially if you stayed up the night before to make a plague tower.

There you have it, a nice little report on the kinds of things I got up to in Chicago. I can't stress enough how much fun it is to play with buds and their buds (who are cool dudes).

And there you have it.  I was initially thinking about re-posting one of my more informative bits, but hen I stumbled across this and decided that the memories of the fun and camaraderie were way cooler than a bunch of bullshit about primer.  I hope you all enjoyed!

FW: WTF?

[Note:] I know these are experimental rules and all, but given the 'experimental' rules accompanying the Land Raider Achilles and the Assault Ram, I don't feel like things will change much.

What the hell is going on with Forgeworld's new Eldar releases?

Normally, there is a certain even level of mild crappiness that I've come to expect from the Forgeworld writers when it comes to model rules.  I'm not saying that they're terrible, just slightly less than good.  Things tend to be written with fluff firmly in mind.  Which is all good and well given what Forgeworld is all about.

Whatever your opinion may be on the rules, there's a kind of internal logic that goes along with the FW rule writing and a consistency.  In that there is internal logic and consistency across the rules.

But this new Eldar stuff for IA 11.  Man....

Oh, I Dunno... War Stuff, I Guess

 Man... It's been a while, huh?   Let's not cheapen the moment with crappy excuses.  I've got a lot of my recent pondering to share.  Lets start smallish yet meaninfully (and hopefully not ponderously):

It's Special  Character Week on the GW Mothership

Now I know most 'sane' people don't cotton to much of what Jervis has to say about the game he designs (oddly enough*).  However, this bit of JJ's brain is actually quite interesting - and causes quite a bit of collateral hilarity with the people who do treat his word as the RAI Gospel of the Church of Fluff.

PotMS on a Vindicator - Just Think About It

It's time to stop resisting the urge to talk about the recent Dark Angel and Black Templar FAQs.  I know its a little bit like low hanging fruit, but its a pretty monumental thing for the player base.  Not only does GW care about you, they care about their game.

There's some pretty ridiculously cool things that are going with the 'new' books beyond the equipment normalization.  For instance: the DA FAQ used the word 'penultimate' at least once.  CRAZY!  Some equipment costs were even updated too.  That's really what I'm excited about - it bodes well for Space Elf buddies in relation to their evil cousins.  I'm not saying its gonna happen - just that it could.  I could get some much needed pricing love in the future. 

The image we all had in our heads is now a gaming reality.

Old News: GW updates FAQs

For the guy still living under a rock, GW went ahead and did the unthinkable - they updated the Dark Angel and Black Templar codices to make the rules and equipment more in line with the rest of the marines.

I wont get into to the rules updates (the blogosphere is awash in posts about it), but suffice it to say: I am super excited about that.  If you go back far enough in my archives, you can see me rage quitting the Dark Angels rigt around the same time the harbinger of all things marine to come was released.  The Dark Angels have always had a special place in my heart and its just plain good to see them being made good again*.

Prior to the new FAQ,  Jessica Alba was the only dark angel nerds cared about.

Especially since the last time GW addressed the equipment problem they handed us a load of "the most important rule' bullshit.  This is what really drove me up the wall in the last FAQ.  They might as well have written this:


Q:  Is there going to be an update to bring the DA equipment options in line with the Vanilla Marines?
A:  No.  FUCK YOU!

The Word Bearers Are Pretty Bad Ass

So my intro to what was supposed to be this post got a little out of hand.   Now its time to go exploring.  I'm coming down from a sugar high, so here's to hoping this makes sense.

As part of GW's plan to expand the defining moment in the time line of the 40K universe's pretend history, Black Library has been publishing the shit out of novels about the Horus Heresy*.  For the most part, its been pretty good.  They've gotten some pretty good sci-fi authors working on it and Prospero Burns is actually in the New York Times Literary Review.  Crazy.

Like a lot of you, I have mixed feelings about the amount of information we now have on the Horus Heresy.  I'd like to talk more about the whole fun of trying to fill in the details ourselves prior to Dan Abnett, but that's a post for another day.   In short - I think the mystery and ambiguity of the story as presented in the 2nd edition rules was in many ways more fun.  However, all the detail we have know allows us to play games other than 'fill in the  blanks'.  Let's play 'historian'. 

I Don't Usually Swear In My Post Titles... But Tyberous is Fucking Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

My friends, a war is being fought against common decency and propriety.  Its been going on for some time and it has to stop.  Our very souls are being preyed upon by the miniature industry and there subversion of our good Christian morals.  Just look at what those vile filth peddlers are are debasing us with...

Underboob - the so-called gateway drug that sucks the naive and unwary ever deeper into the smutty back alleys of society.

What About the 40k Universe Lends Itself to the Word 'Fluff'?

Ah, the  fluff.  Or back story - even flavor text if you prefer descriptively better and less loaded words.  Its a part of almost all the games we play these days.  From Warmachine to freaking Candy Land and everything in between, there's this need we have to create stories (and I'm using the broadest possible definition) for our games - even if its the barest shred of an idea.  It's just one of those human things.  Even Chess has its own narrative what with the king being the objective and all.  In that same vein, you're deck of playing cards has a pack of royal persons in it too.

Especially Battle Chess

 Sure there are things like Jenga and checkers that seem to defy that trend, but they seem to be the exception to the rule. Then again, who the fuck cares about Jenga and checkers who aren't past the age of 12?  Actually, I have some fond memories of drunken Jenga but that's another set of stories (dear Penthouse Forum...) and you do get kings in checkers.  Anyway, the really memorable games tend to have stories on some level and it's not the kind of thing that you stop enjoying once you get past the Chutes and Ladders stage of your life.

/generalizations

It's a new year, time for a new post

2010 was a fun year for my hobbies.  Recaps are trite, but here are the highlights:

• Started a 2nd army to languish in the hell of my backlog of unfinished projects.  Sitting next to my desk is an entire box of Deamons. Painting them has been a blast, thouhg.  Now to make sure they don't take a year and a half to be playably ready to go.
• Completely collected and then completely abandoned a Warhammer fantasy army. My poor dino-horde is why I continue to have mixed feelings about 8th edition despite knowing better.  The silver lining is that I broke even and didn't waste time with wood elves.
• Got my first and only hate mail from a man very confused about how the internet and logical arguments work.  Bonus points on this one for receiving one worthless rant and then receiving a spell-checked version with a polite explanation on why I was getting two copies.  Also, thinly veiled threats of physical violence.
• Started up the House of Paincakes with Dethtron.  It's killed my ability to write for this blog, but the whole thing been fun as hell and great for networking.  Its going strong and getting lots of love.
• Discovered the wonder that is the wet palette.  For your own sake, go get one. Now.
• Entered a BoLS painting challenge.  Got third place as far as I can tell; they never announced winners to my knowledge. 
• Got tons of fantastic books from GW and Forgeworld.  They're relly stepping up the quality of what they produce and it is fantastic.  Badab War II is on the way and I have a bit of a hobby boner.
• Sold a bunch of my old crap to pay for new crap.  The viability of hobby cannibalism is firmly established for me.  I also got better at letting go of my precious, precious work.

 I think 2011 is shaping up to  be better.  I have an army pretty close to done and if the job-gods are kind to me, I'll be in a better position to actually make some games happen and then fart around with new stuff.  Plus, the Eldar will actually be done and ready to play.