Legion of Everblight - Progress Report #2

Well hello there!  Sorry for the radio silence of late, but shortly after I wrote the last LoE progress report, a job interview cropped up and I am currently waiting to see how much, if any, my life is about to change.  Plus, the Skyrim train finally pulled into my station.  It's certainly not 'Skyrim Widow' bad, but between that, gaming, painting and a general sense of anxiety torpedoing my ability to focus on any one thing, let alone all the thing, it's been a bit hard to blog.

I've still been getting games in with the 'new' system and I've actually managed to win a few games in addition to learning the shit out some stuff.  


I'm still rocking with PLylyth and the Carnivean from ye battle box, but those 4 shredders haven't hit the table in a few weeks.  A single shredder is a great thing as tenacity is rad as heck, but having three more at that small a level... or outside of an eThagrosh list... It feels a whole hell of a lot like pissing up a rope rather than positively contributing towards a win.  Reinforcing this experience is the whole host of roflstomps the battlebox + 2 points lists have received as well as the sage wisdom of the local gaming crowd.

Legion of Everblight - Progress Report #1

Last time around I dipped my toes into the shallow end of a much larger conversation - that being that I have started up HoMachine again.  Since then, I've managed to get a few more games in and I now have more than enough experience to draw any number of serious and ground breaking conclusions about how the MkII rules function as a game.  I will also be proclaiming myself a master of this game followed by a cordial invitation for you all to suck it.

Haha!  I guy can dream, amiright?  Clearly that's all lies. Though you should go back and read the post I linked to - lots of good conversation in the comments and some of it doesn't even involve Frontline Gamer. Hoho!

All sweaty wrestlers and hyperbole for comedic effect aside, I managed to work in a couple more games with Legion battlebox.  Fully painted, no less!  I may not even have my brain completely wrapped around the game's basic rules yet, but I can talk about the learning experience so far.

6th Edition, Hobby Weltschmerz and New Beginnings

In recent months, I had been back in a 40k mindset again.  The wild success of my Vindicator Project got the ball rolling on the 'finish past projects' drive and the long slumbering forms of some counts as Wolf Guard terminators were soon awakened as a result.  The mad idea of a Loganwing army was alive again!  . I was already about a third of the way through it and I already owned more than I'd need to finish it AND expand it.  The feedback I ended up getting on the paint scheme was more than encouraging as well.  It was time to move forward into some 40k with the best army I've ever wanted to field.

So I jumped into some more Space Wolves in disguise:

Projects: Back Burners and Breaks

Nothing like a little change in pace to get the old juices flowing again.  I'm talking blogging AND painting.

So where am I?  The Vindicator project was a smashing success and deserves a bit of discussion:

First, the Vindicator kit is significantly more complicated than the regular rhino chassis.  Lots of extra parts, lots of extra bulk and lots of extra details.  It all eats up a lot of time.  In a way I'm actually kinda glad that I won't have to mess with them again.  Which is not to say that I am anything less than completely chuffed to bits about the results. 

Now, to answer Snake88's question since it's a good one and one that I've been mulling over for the last 5 days while I worked on a Malifaux model.  Short and simple:  The dreadnoughts.  If I'm actually wanting to immediately continue on.

The whole Vindicator initiative was to kind of a jumping off point to work my way through some of my old stuff and see how close I could get to an army on just left overs.  I would have submitted it Dethtron for his Spare Parts 'month', but it was more of a 'spare kits' thing.  Moving forward, I have two Forgeworld Dreadnoughts, a speeder, two drop pods and who knows how many marines I could scrounge up.  So a pretty good basis for a list if not the basis for a good list.  

Vindicator #1 - Day 9 + Supplemental #2

Nothing new and spectacular to report again, I'm afraid.  I'm close to done with this tank, but it's all tiny little steps that either involve oil paint or an airbrush - or both.  So long drying times and a limit on running the compressor (quiet time, boooo) abound.

Day 9 carried on the trend nicely.

The metal bits have been washed and are ready for sealing.  This pic is also the closest yet in terms of color accuracy.

Old Stuff Day: The Word Bearers Are Pretty Bad Ass

In lieu of making any progress on my Vindicator for a Day 6 post, I'd thought I'd use the space provided by serendipity to participate in Old Stuff Day.  A little over a year ago today, one of my most read posts popped out into the world and I think it holds up quite nicely.

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.

RebuttalFoam

People who know me tend to describe me as an optimist. Aggressively so, some would say.  Sure, I get bummed out or angry from time to time, but I'm usually a glass is completely full (half water, half air) kind of guy.

Which is why Battlefoam was always harshing my buzz. Because I wanted to be positive about what looked like a great product, but Romeo Filip just wouldn't let me!  If it wasn't his early, early promotional videos devoted to bashing Sabol Designs then it was the bizarre events surrounding his various legal actions.  Hell, the weird thread camping he would do and reviews that looked paid for were just icing on the cake.

It was a huge deterrent for a product that I was already kind of cold about because of the price.

Keep in mind that all of these shenanigans were strung out over the years so it was always something new to frown at.

Well, I ended up getting a Battlefoam bag anyway.  But I managed to get it without spending my own money. Xmas, baby!  I guess I thought it was a clever way of sidestepping the issue of giving them my money while still being a self righteous consumer.

This is Techno the Cat.  He's pretty great.

Since Frontline gamer is always prattling on about his cats AND getting away with it, I thought I would too.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'. 

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.