A Fistful o' Choctaw

Here they are, ten Choctaw in skirmish formation, with black powder rifles. After being publicly goaded into getting them assembled (and painted) over on Andy's nefarious site, I decided to put glue to metal. Check out some of his pics too, those guys look great. I'm going to paint these up as Choctaw, though they are ambiguous enough to really represent any tribe of the time period. These form the first leg of a future French & Indian War project. I still need to paint 'em up, obviously, and spread some epoxy to round out their bases. Oh, they're 40mm by the way, and I should also point out that they came via a birthday present thanks to the aforementioned Andy.


Here's their unceremonious "before" shot.

40k Fight Night: Dos

All right, it must be a sign or something...this week we played a second game of 40k. That makes it the 'official' game right now, 'cause we haven't played two consecutive games of anything lately. We had the usual suspects; Andy and his Tyranids, Jeff and his Sons of Medusa Marines, and me and my still unnamed Tau force. Waiting in the wings are Chris' Tyranids, and Ray's Cadian Imperial Guard force. We played another three-way battle, this time the terrain looked a little bit better, but it was still a basic beat 'em up with the last man standing. Actually it was pretty much a two player game, with my slow self not engaging either enemy until about halfway through the game. I'd give the win to Andy, even though I think I was the last force on the table. It was a great time, once again. Hanging out, rolling some dice, moving around little toy soldiers that go 'pew-pew', good times, lol. Here's some pics, enjoy.

Well, it may be a marginal improvement, but here's the battlefield. We've got a downed freighter, at least that's the assumption, no one really knows what it is. Hence the Tau scout ship perched atop it, and the Space Marines coming in on the top of the screen. Either the Tyranids were hiding in wait the whole time, or they were the reason the ship crashed.

The best bird's eye view shot I could muster.

The Tau Crisis team approaches the wreck, sensor drones showing multiple blips just on the other side.

Tyranids spring from the shadows...

...and assault the Marine Scouts.

Here's what I was talking about; Jeff and Andy duked it out for what seemed like forever before I even got into firing position. Even then, I had excellent fields of fire on both opposing armies. Here my troops set up to fire on the swift 'nids and what Marines were left after endless assaults.

Eventually I did have to face the music, and that's not a proposition the Tau do well with in melee. Here's a scything claw attack by the bugs. I thought it was over at this point, even though I came in late to the fray, my prognosis was not good.


I did have some fresh troops nearby, who had been busy trading long range shots with a few surviving Marines. Seeing their Fire Warrior brethren getting mauled, the XV-8's closed in for the counter-charge.

Projects, projects, projects...

Okay, I don't have as deep a queue as some, but for me, it stills seems like a lot. Here's some stuff in the works right now, some of it in the forefront, some of it on the backburner, some of it even still in the deep hole, so to speak. Up top here's what we've got on the top row: Top left, in this bag we have ten 40mm Native Americans, next to them is a Reaper "Eldritch Daemon" also known as good ole' Cthulhu, hopefully mine will end up looking at least half as good as Andy's, next up are a couple of packs of Traveler Vagr, those cool dog / wolf sci-fi soldiers, finally is a bag full of Quar, which looked too good to pass up, very alien and classic military to boot. Finally, on the bottom row; to the left are a couple o' Privateer Press Merc items, a Rockram heavy 'jack, and the Warcaster Durgen Madhammer, I may try to whip these out quick in a desert scheme, on the right is the Tau XV15 leader I've already posted. Here's some more stuff:

I mentioned we were kickin' around some 40k battles? Well, this Tyranid horde belongs to my good buddy Oz. When he showed up with them they were tossed into a cardboard box with nary any protection. They've been mothballed for some time, and when they came out, well, some came out in pieces. This army is a good example of 'tabletop' quality, and in force, they look great, they could use a little tweaking though, and I volunteered to help Oz get them back in shape. Here's the horde in all it's glory. I have been able to get a hold of sixteen of his 'Gaunts so far. Basically I whitened whites, picked out their armor plates with a brighter red, and gave a few key washed here and there to add some distinctive color. Oh, and I cleaned up and painted their bases, I'll go back when I'm done and give them all a dirt coat too. I hope I didn't bite off more than I can chew, heh. In the end, I think this'll turn out fairly well.














It's kind of funny these guys are still a work in progress. I've got a couple squads here of 15mm Star Grunt II figs, from the excellent folks at Ground Zero Games. The troops on the left are basically done, they just need to be dipped and based. The power armor troops on the right just need a little more drybrushing, and a couple of spots picked out, then dip and basing.







Speaking of Star Grunt II, there's a glaring line of silver down the middle of my otherwise complete army. These guys paint up fairly quick, I have no excuses. The other two empty spots are from the above two squads of partially finished units.











As you know, we've been playing a lot of Warhammer Quest lately, so I thought I'd spruce up the player characters a bit. I had this idea a while back, but never got around to implementing it, well, no time like the present. Basically I'm trying to find the best looking figs out there to represent the pc's, they don't have to be GW, just whoever has the 'good stuff'. Mostly, I keep going back to Rackham, their stuff rocks, and when it comes to fantasy, their stuff will fit quite well. There's some great characters in WHQ, and so far I think I've got some good models for a few; the Dwarf, a Wizard (also a Dwarf), a Pit Fighter, the Barbarian, and a Trollslayer. There's another Dwarf in there too, I don't know what to do with him, but he's a killer fig.





Here's some of that deep hole stuff I mentioned. Beyond backburner, these are still items that need to be completed nonetheless, even if they're low priority. I'll get around to them 'someday', sure, but part of the reason for doing this blog in the first place was to hold myself more accountable for the geekery. First up are a few figs from the old Warzone game, which was a pretty good minis game in hindsight. It's a couple of Praetorian Stalkers and Mistress of the Void Whats-her-name, all three from the Dark Legion faction. Anyway, I thought they'd be cool as 'boss monsters' or something in a game of 5150 or the like. Next up is a Wood Elf Dragon from GW. He's seen better days, he's been like this since, umm, the last move...five years ago. He'll get put back together, next time with pins, eventually. Finally, if you open one of the drawers to the painting desk, you'll find a ton of bits and pieces, you'll also find two unfinished SuperSystem teams. One will be a 'woodsy' team with a mix of GW and Mage Knight figs, the other is a basic bad guy team, made up of 'official' Superfigs. Mixed in there with them are some giant mushrooms I was going to do as some type of alien terrain. Mind you, terrain in general is my Achilles heal, so it's gonna be a LONG time before those see the light of day, lol!

The Shadow out of Tim

What can I not say about this concept album by the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets? Since having been turned onto them, I've been a big fan, their space-rock, Lovecraftian riffs are both rockin' and actually well played, which is a hard combo to pull off. Their other albums have been good, and they've got some songs that are top notch, but this latest effort takes the cake, hands down.

First of all, it's a concept album...about a marine biologist. A marine biologist whose mind is supplanted by the Great Race of Yith, and ventures back sixty million years to the Cenozoic. Meanwhile, in the present, his possessed body travels the globe, searching in dark nooks and forgotten crannies of the lost Earth. When our Doctor, the good Tim O. Vess returns to his body, he has to piece his life back together. After ten months he is back in control and finds himself, and his old crew back aboard the Steadfast, their ship, and searching for some coordinates in Melanesia. Cultists attack, kill most of the crew, the survivors rig the fuel tanks to explode, taking them all to a watery grave. The captain / doctor is rescued by the Royal Navy, and they finish looking for the lost island from his dreams. They find it and search around, coming upon the stone 'configuration'. There's a tomb, it's sealed...they decide to open it. Big mistake.

It's almost pointless to list the 'best' tracks on the album, they're equally brilliant. There are some that stand out though, 'No Way', 'Return to Melanesia', and the magnanimous 'Ride the Flying Polyp', which was a track that friggin' demands to be in the next Guitar Hero installment. If this funky blog interface had a 'star' rating thingie, I'd be happy to give this one a deserving five. Rock on.

The Return of Sir Talon

If you look to the left, you can see his red cloak. That's right, the rumors of Sir Talon's death have been highly exaggerated. He's back, with a whole new party of adventurers to terrorize and plunder the vaults of the Old World. A gaming friend of ours, Rucht, (see the Witch Hunter entry) was going to be in town for a couple of days and had two full nights of geekin' out cleared. We decided to break out ole Warhammer Quest, for all the reasons I've mentioned before, it's just simply an awesome boardgame. Last Friday night we did some dungeon-hopping, but had a disastrous second dungeon, where a cave-in, in the objective room of all places, killed two of our party members. The Dwarf (Sgt. Biffen) and my Elven Ranger Mage character, Sir Talon, were able to make it out, but just barely.

The next night we cranked out even more questing goodness, finishing the last game, literally, at four in the morning! We were able to tackle a total of three dungeons Saturday night, another two the night before, we were on fire. After the last game we finally made it to a city and levelled up Sir Talon, the human wizard Thane, and Sgt. Biffen. We alo saw a new Elf, a Wood Elf archer named Troyan join the team.

Looking for sutiable alternate figs for the PC's I stumbled across a very cool Elven High mage, with both a sword and a staff, but it's a chick, so "Sir" Talon may have to be "Lady" Talon next time!

40k Fight Night

All right, the other night was the kickoff to our new 40k venture! It went well, we had three armies present altogether and no one had played a game in about five years, we were off to a good start, heh. We were able to fumble through the rules though and managed even to crank out some semblance of a game. Here's the pics from that night, enjoy! Above is a pre-game shot of the forces arrayed on the table. It was a three-way battle consisting of Andy, Jeff, and myself.

Jeff's Sons of Medusa Space Marine chapter.

Andy's Tyranid forces of Hive Fleet Ythogtha.


My humble patrol team of Tau forces (of which I've yet to name).


Fire Warriors spot Space Marine Scouts in the distance and advance behind derelict refinery equipment, Gun Drone in the foreground.


The Sons of Medusa Scouts advance confidently along the side of a shattered monolith.


Contemplating fields of fire, a Crisis Suit scans the target-rich Tyranid environment from atop a burned-out generator.


The Scouts close in melee with the Tau.


From behind the scuttling hordes of Gaunts, Tyranid Warriors stalk forward...


...as does a brood of Genestealers.


The Scouts make extremely short work of the weaker Tau.


An XV-8 leaps into the middle of the Scouts, hoping to avenge the fallen Fire Warriors.


The remaining Crisis Suits tend with the charge of the Termagaunts.


The Scouts will have to earn their stripes today; after dispatching the lone Crisis Suit, a pair of Tyranid Ravagers emerge from underground tunnels to assault the Scouts.


In the end, it was the Sons of Medusa who won the day. Though they took some losses, they were able to successfully cleanse the area of both alien foe, and malign horrors. Although I personally had a terrible showing, I still had a blast nonetheless.

Witch Hunter: The Invisible World

All right, I've been waiting a long time for this one! My buddy, Rucht, has been one of the authors on this new rpg from day one. Rather than paraphrase, I'll just quote the book:

Set sail for a New World of Horror in Witch Hunter, the exciting roleplaying game of colonial horror and swashbuckling adventure! In the late seventeenth century, as settlers and explorers from Europe draw back the unknown darkness of a new land, horrors best left undiscovered are revealed! Now, it falls upon a rare few to put down the darkness and preserve the common man from horrors beyond their ken!

Sounds pretty freakin' exciting to me! Anyway, the company is called Paradigm Concepts, definitely a small outfit but with a lot of cool ideas. Looking at the book cover I immediately think of good ole Solomon Kane, especially the comics of the early 80's. As part of my Anthropology major, I actually focused on the colonial era whenever possible, well, that and Cavemen, haha. Also I took two really great Colonial English Literature classes too, so needless to say, I am chomping at the bit to get a crack at Witch Hunter. I managed to snag a copy on ebay too at a fair discount, so hopefully I'll have it in my hands soon. Hopefully, Rucht will get his family back here sooner than later so he can start running it too!

Just for nostalgia's sake, since I'm thinking about it, here's the man himself, Solomon Kane!

Road of the Patriarch

So there's this guy, Salvatore, and he writes...a lot. I'm a big fan of his Forgotten Realms books, the "Drizzt" books, but there's a lot more characters than just one conflicted Dark Elf running around in them. Road of the Patriarch is the third book of the Sellswords trilogy featuring a bunch of bad guys, that became popular enough to get the good guy treatment.

Jarlaxle is a Drow, who is witty, charming, part swashbuckler, and apparently has the powers of a genie when it comes to summoning and using magic items that can give him any kind of power, at any time. It gets a little old to be honest, just once you'd like to see him get taken down a notch. There's the Dwarf, Athrogate, who has got some really cool weapons, an even cooler mount, but he is way too over-the-top when it comes to negative Dwarven stereotypes. He's also a relatively new character, so he may get better over time, and I'm a sucker for Dwarf stuff. Then there's Artemis, who the book is really all about. When he made his debut, geez, almost twenty years ago, he was a stone cold killer, brutal, scary, efficient. Now he's all justified, and righteous, and has a conscious. I don't mind that too much, but most of the book was spent on developing him, which is cool, but little else really happened.

Book two, the Promise of the Witch King really needs to be read right before this one, without a gap between them. I waited well over a year between them and was kinda lost throughout a lot of the book. There were some great characters introduced, but only briefly, and whole trilogies could be written on them alone, but they disappear too quickly. It also seemed like the first half of the book could have been added to book two, while the second half of the book could've been expanded and just made into a book all its own. I'll spare the actual plot recap, besides, Amazon.com has about as good of one as you can get here. It had a user rating of four stars, frankly that may be a bit generous. It's a good book, if read in conjunction with the others, but overall, it just didn't grab me like I had hoped.