Warhammer Work Night

The one problem with all of these cool new, multi-piece plastic kits from GW is all the freakin' parts! Well, those on board (so far!) with our upcoming WHFB venture were present and we spent the night hanging out and putting together everything. Ray had a good idea to keep us on pace and not feel overwhelmed; first off is the 'buy and paint only one unit at a time' thing. It's much easier to paint an army when you're not staring at nine pounds of unpainted stuff, just a single box o' troops. Secondly, and I don't know how well this will work, but it's an awesome idea...for every unit painted, you're also obligated to do one piece of terrain. Too often the tables are bare or have after-thought, secondhand terrain, so I like this idea a lot. Above is a work-in-progress shot of my little corner of the table. Basically my night consisted of clipping, trimming, and gluing


Here's a shot of the fruits of our labor. Ray has chosen to go with a Vampire Counts army, his unit of skeletons (already finished, darn him!) is on the left. In the back are Eternal Guard, the foundation of Jon's Wood Elf army, and on the left is my unit of Dwarves. I wanted a full unit of twenty, so you can see I supplemented the sixteen plastic GW models with four metal Reaper figs. I should go outside and primer them, but I'm not feeling it right now, heh.


I built these forever ago. They're made with plaster Hirst Arts bricks which I highly recommend. One's a chapel and one's a squat watchtower (perfect for Dwarves). I still need to cut some roof tiles for the chapel, and obviously paint them. Once done though, I think these will be right at home on a WHFB tabletop, even though they were made originally for Warmachine.


The new GW trees kit is pretty flippin' nifty.


GW's Fortified Manor is absolutely gorgeous, it's a blurry shot, but I was trying to get a pic of Ray's new Necromancer galloping by...

Beards, Beer, and Cannons

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I almost just left this as a pic post entry, but I'm feeling too verbose for that. Why, oh why am I going down this road again? I'm not sure, but there are two very unlikely antagonists to push me down the dark GW road. The first is my mother-in-law, who happened to draw my name at Thanksgiving to exchange presents with for the holidays and she hooked me up with some serious gift card loot at the geek shop in the mall, Nord's Games. Normally I'd try to shop around online to get a discount, but hey, gift cards work just fine. The other involved is Jon, mild mannered rpg'er who has never touched a mini in his life. Something snapped with his sanity recently and he thought he'd like to try his hand at some miniature gaming. We all tried to get him started off slowly, like with a single Blood Bowl team, maybe just a Necromunda gang, but no, he had it in his head to do something bigger.

Warhammer Fantasy it is then. Sure, it's the "nefarious" GW, frankly people only ever complain about 40k, WHFB has been quietly and kicking arse for some time now. We used to play it back in the day, say mid-nineties, and it was so much fun. The battles would take a while, but I remember nothing but good times from the game itself. I suffered too much from buying multiple armies and never painting them fully, if at all. Hopefully now I'm a bit more focused, and maybe a little more driven. Plus, I simply don't have the cash to go hog wild buying up whole armies with wild abandon. We're going to start small, warband skirmishes and the like, then work up to larger games, the key being to buy a box of troops at a time, and make sure they're painted until the next box comes along.


Here's what I've got to start off with. A unit box of sixteen plastic Dwarf warriors, which I'll assemble with hand weapons and shields. I've also got the makings of a fifteen troop strong unit of Ironbreakers, including a full command compliment. These guys are metal, and the look of them, with that heavy Gromril armor and steel face masks is just freakin' great. Lastly I got a box with an army commander and a standard bearer. Frankly I could've done without this purchase (see below) but they just looked too good to pass up, especially the general, he's pretty rockin'.

I chose Dwarves for several reasons; primarily I love Dwarves in rpg settings, I like the feel and scope to them and the whole constructed race is to my liking. GW has been putting out some great looking multi-piece plastics lately, and their Dwarf stuff is no exception. There were a lot of choices out there for army selection, but in the end I had to follow my heart. Also, I wanted some guns, big ole cannons, and running the Empire just didn't appeal to me. I'm not going to get fancy with what kind, just a battery of plain ole Dwarf cannons will do me fine. I'll pick up an "official" Dwarf cannon box, I've already got an Empire cannon I just need to get a Dwarf crew for, and lastly is this beauty, a Bob Olley sculpt known as the Thunderwyrm! Another reason I wanted to play Dwarves is because I've always have wanted to do a Bugman's Rangers unit.

This brings me to another point though, I am not going to go 100% GW with my army, there's far too many good looking figs out there to ignore. I don't play the tourney scene, and rarely (if ever) play with strangers, so it doesn't matter that my army won't be "official". The Thunderwyrm rocks, period, so I'm gonna field it. Also, with unit boxes from GW only having sixteen troops I need to fill the gaps in ranks. I'll probably look to Reaper to fill those gaps. They've got good sculptors and the prices can't be beat. For my first unit of warriors I supplemented their ranks with three metal Reaper Dwarf grunts, and gave them Freja Fangbreaker to act as their unit champion. The grunts and the chick were all sculpted by Werner Klocke who makes some great looking Dwarves. I already have plans to use some more of his stuff to supplement future units and weapon crews.


I'm lucky I guess that I picked Dwarves and that I've chosen to go ad-hoc with the figs in my army. I've been sitting on this slew of Rackham Dwarves for some time. I got them on a SUPER 80% off clearance at Hobbytown and I just had to get them. People think GW is expensive, but Rackham figs are on par, if not more expensive than even GW. Their sculpts are amazing, and the one complaint is that they use a softer metal, which doesn't matter with beefy Dwarf figs anyway. There's still some figs I won't be able to incorporate in my army, they'll be ebay fodder, but above is what I can (and will!) use.

The box up on the top left is a War Staff of the Plains, but with their savage looks and bare chestedness, they'll make great Trollslayers, once those beards are orange they're good to go! I'll supplement them with a handful of "real" Trollslayers to round them out. Top right is kinda funny, because it's a Giant, a really kick butt looking Mountain Giant, here's a pic of the chap, he's huge and exquisitely detailed. Why is it funny? Well because Dwarf armies aren't allowed to have Giant allies, which makes some sense in the big Dwarf scheme of things, apparently Rackham Dwarves are a little more open-minded...darn French, haha. Well, I'll use him, he's a Dwarf Giant, and he looks great, plus eleven Warhammer armies can already use Giants, so what's one more? Next we have the blister packs. Top row, left to right we've got: a fig to be used as a medium level hero, a fig to be used as an Elder Runesmith, and finally another fig that will work great as a lesser hero. Bottom row, left to right; an awesome looking Dwarf wizard who'll make a great Runesmith, and finally, two Thermo-Priests who will rock as Master Engineers.

X-Boxocalypse

Well, I think my painting productivity just took a solid kick to the privates. It's true, where I'm not the most avid (or hard core) video gamer, I do enjoy some laid back button mashing from time to time. I've had a PS2 for pretty much forever, and I've played some great games on it, but it was beginning to show it's age. Frankly, in the end, all it had become was a glorified Guitar Hero machine. So it had come down to either getting the next installment, GH3, or maybe even get a hand held PSP, which is awesome. All said and done though, I opted for the good ole 360, and I'm pretty happy with it. Last year I played a LOT of it up in New York with my buddy Marc, we even beat Ultimate Alliance and Gears of War while we were at it, I kinda knew I wanted one then, it's just taken me this long (about a year) to save up for one.


The system I got was a pretty modest one, it wasn't baseline, but then again it wasn't the super deluxe pro-model thingie either. The main draw was that it came with two games already, and both are fairly well regarded, they aren't chump games whatsoever.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance: As I've said, I've already beat this game, but it was a quick run through. We didn't unlock half the heroes available, nor did we unlock all the special moves, costumes, and special moves of those heroes we did use. It's a great game, a beautifully rendered button masher beer-drinkin' supreme kind of game. Think of it as a Gauntlet remake, but with Marvel supers!

Forza 2: Well, I must say I'm rather "meh" on this one, racing games are not my thing. But, this one comes highly rated in the video game world, which normally I ignore ratings and stuff, but when it comes to video game reviews, I've found they're much more reliable. One neat thing I've heard about this game is that you can load up your own music that will play while you drive. It'd be fun to tear it up to some Rush while I'm playing I guess.

Bioshock: Speaking of highly rated games, this one comes with much fanfare. I admit, I bought it pretty much due to all the hype and little else. The screen shots look fantastic, and other than the fact that it's really nothing more than "just another shooter" I've heard very little complained about. Plus, I had some trade credit, woohoo.

Dead Rising: While I'm not the biggest Zombiephile around, I do love me some senseless slaughter. Dead Rising offers that...in spades. You're a dude, stuck in a mall...full of the walking dead. What's not to love? Anything and everything is fair game when it comes to whacking the undead; golf clubs, potted plants, benches, night sticks, even stuff from the toy store. A note of sadness though, this is where it's all too apparent that my ancient television can't hold it's ground with a next-gen game system. My tv is so blurry that I can't read any of the dialog lines when they come up during the game. Some janitor guy keeps calling me on the walkie-talkie to go rescue somebody or something, and since I can't read it, I don't know what to do. Ten minutes later as I'm runing through the mall, a big "mission failed" pops up on the screen. What freakin' mission?

Halo 3: Saving the best for last? Yeah, maybe so. This game rocks, pure and simple. I'm sure there's a nation full of twelve year olds ready to kick my butt in online play, but still, on my speed, hanging out on the couch, it's a blast. My brother-in-law got his system and this game about a month ago, and that's really what got me hooked again. It's also why I picked up my first controller, well before I even had a system. The game plays fast and fun, with lots of variety and it's really open-ended in terms of where you go or what you want to use. The campaign storyline is all sci-fi goodness and the environments are just gorgeous. Endless deathmatch after deathmatch on little maps is okay, but just okay. This game really shines in campaign mode.

Happy Holidays!

I can't say it any better than Steve over at 'Turn Signals' did. Happy holidays!

Settle this, y'all!

Game night rolled around, and because I haven't complained about it enough, we ended up not playing Forgotten Realms, argh, haha! So we poked around a bit in the game room, I think sometimes it's a curse having quite so many options to choose from. We opted away from minis though and Ray pulled this one off the shelf, good ole Settlers of Catan. Holy crap, it's my own game and I've barely scratched its surface before now. It kicks so much arse it's not even funny. We whipped it out, fumbled through the first few turns, then we're rolling. It was a good night, there was some Michelob and Yuengling, we thoroughly trash talked one another, and listened to the Smiths, Talking Heads, the Refused, and, if there's adult beverages present, you've gotta have Skid Row!

But I haven't talked about the game. Where to start? Well, go here to get the gist of the mechanics. You lay out some tiles to represent a vast island full of natural resources; sheep, ore, wheat, and wood. I may have left one out. Anyway, you've got a build chart that shows you how much of what kind of resource you need to make roads, settlements, cities, and the like. You can also buy up development cards which really do a lot for you, I need to take more next time. You only get resources if you have a city bordering one of the producing lands when that land's number is rolled. If you're lucky, you'll be spread out enough to have access to varied resources, if not not, you have to trade...that's where the trash talking starts! There's also a 'robber' piece, but that's a whole other story.

We got two games in and a few close calls when it came down to determining a winner, there weren't any blowouts, the game plays very well balanced. The first game I messed up and went for the win just a tad early, a turn, maybe two turns actually. The win eluded me, but it was fun nonetheless. In the second game, that nefarious Ray blocked my route to getting access to wheat early on, argh! I was dependent on trade for the rest of the game. My resources were pretty scarce to begin with too. Jon pulled the win out with game two, sneakily pulling off quite the multi-combo in the end. It was pretty impressive actually. All in all it was a good time, a really good time. I see us playing it a bit more in the future.


With Catan, it's kind of hard to have any "action" shots, lol!

Zombpocalypse Survival Rating

62% I think my devotion to my family held me back, haha.

Rise, err, Cthulhu?

I haven't mentioned good ole Monsterpocalypse in a while, but this is worthy of dusting off the topic! Halloween was the last time Privateer Press let out a peep about the upcoming monster-mashup miniatures game they've got cooking, but here's another sneak peek. Some type of eldritch, mind-numbing terror from the deep or just one heck of a honorable mention? Who knows, but I'm diggin' the direction this is going in, if this is a faction, I'm totally calling dibs!

Death Star Canteen

Welcome to Sunny Eberron!

With the upcoming DnD4.0 looming on the horizon next year, I think people are getting skittish with their current 3.5 sourcebooks and ditchin' them wholesale. I don't get this really, books are books, they always work, and unlike software (where this mentality hails from) you don't have to upgrade whenever a new version comes along. Anyway, I've been reaping the spoils and picking up a lot of Eberron books on the cheap.

In front of every Eberron book they tell you what the deal is. In 2002, Wizards of the Coast put out a contest for campaign world submissions. The winner would have their idea fully realized with all the creative and marketing power of WotC at their backs. Well, they received over 11,000 entries, mine was one of them, haha. Therein lies the problem too, I was turned off to Eberron forever because, well, it wasn't mine, haha. My setting wasn't that great, I mean heck, I named it after a Rush song after all, but I thought it rocked at least! So, they chose to go another direction and I boycotted it, haha. Maybe I shouldn't have though, the setting, I have to admit, is solid.

These are the books I've picked up so far; Eberron Campaign Guide, Player's Guide to Eberron, Explorer's Handbook, the Five Nations, Sharn; City of Towers, Magic of Eberron, the Secrets of Xen'drik, and the first adventure module, the Shadows of the Last War. Saying I've picked these up cheap is an understatement. The most I've paid for a book was five bucks, for a near-new $40 dollar sourcebook. Everything else was around $3 to $4 bucks each, and we're talking $30 hardback sourcebooks here, most are still new too. Like the module, it was brand new, in the shrinkwrap for twenty six cents.

Anyway, I'm not just collecting books for the fun of it, I think I'm gonna run some kind of side game for players who don't get a whole lot of table time, namely my nephew. He's read some Salvatore books, painted a miniature or two, and has even tried his hand at an rpg. It's time to bring in the big geek guns, haha. I'll review the books here as they come in and go from there. I've been a bit of a no-show lately here, I'll just use the tired "I've been busy" excuse, sorry!