2009 Year in Review

So after about two and a half years, the blog continues to thrive. I started this as a lark really, but it's caught on with me and I've had a lot of fun with it along the way. The only ironic thing is that maintaining it does cut into my actual hobby time!

I've tried little things here and there, but by far the best mechanic this last year was my "totals" box over on the top right. I've seen people track their painting progress, or use elaborate points systems, and that works for them, but I could never pull it off. No, mine is simpler than that, and works for me. Surprisingly it has kept me [kinda] focused and helps push me along if I need a little extra encouragement. Let's take a look...


Miniatures Bought: 144*

How does this number not just soar throughout the year? I know it does for most, and this is the Achilles heal of our hobby. Looking back I'm trying to figure out what all I bought in 2009, but I'm not coming up with this many! Also, whenever I would sell a figure (which isn't often) I would subtract that number, but I didn't count trades in there because money never changed hands. There have been a handful of singles I've picked up to use as characters in RPGs and such, but then there's also larger purchases. This year I did complete my Dark Angels army, so that was a handful o' figs right there to get and paint up. My failed 'traitor guard' project that never got off the ground...I bought a ton of minis for that one and only put together two squads (as in glued, not painted). More recently has been my pending Vikings project. I picked them up off of Bob, he gave me such a good deal I got a bunch, I couldn't skimp! Looking ahead to 2010, I foresee much fewer figs bought, if for no other reason than financial necessity. I'm also trying to force myself to become more and more thrifty about digging in my bins and boxes and resurrecting older figures from storage for current use.

*EDIT: I've been doing so well this entire year...up until now! In the month if December alone I've almost doubled my "models bought" category. So far I have picked up a whopping sixty nine models just this month! To be fair, 15mm is fairly cheap, therefore it adds up rather fast! On top of the 15's, I picked up a dozen 25m figs to boot. To justify, one place, Rebel Minis was having an end of year sale, so I just had to take advantage of that. Because of the money I saved on the sale, I had enough money leftover to pick up some "just because" figs from one of my favorite sculptors, Zombiesmith while I was at it.


Miniatures Painted: 121

If you told me last January I'd paint over a hundred models this year I would've called you crazy. Somehow I did it though, and then some! I'm not a fast or proficient painter by any means, so I'll call this one a win in my book, hands down. It also sets the benchmark very high for next year. Obviously finishing up armies, like the aforementioned Dark Angels, really helps achieve this goal, but just like 'minis bought' I can't tell you what all I painted, it's a good thing I kept track along the way! There have been a few gems, if I do say so myself. For one was the massively converted Blood Angel Terminator I tackled for a contest, I'm proud of that one. The Matakitty I did was just plain fun, and then there was the perverse Pumpkin Sitter! I'm also pretty happy with how my Rogue Trader characters turned out. All in all, it was a good year for the painting table. If you do the math and compare miniatures bought to miniatures painted, I've got a whopping 160% painting efficiency rating! 160%!!!**

**EDIT: Thanks to December, my new efficiency rating is 84%


Terrain Built: 12

Frankly, had it not been for our now defunct 40k campaign on planet Trucidos, I probably wouldn't even have this category! Part of the way to accumulate points during the campaign was to build terrain, and I built a good deal of it. Some people make terrain building the entire focus of their hobby, others blanch at the mere thought of making terrain, I'm somewhere in the middle. A lot of my pieces were scratch built, like my escape pods, but some were model kits, such as the Imperial tower. Like I said, many of my pieces were built solely for the Trucidos campaign, like my generators and barricades, as well as my crashed MkI Land Raider 'fort'. Good terrain, heck, any terrain makes the games much more enjoyable, even half an effort will go a long way. With twelve pieces in the bank, that's one per month, I think that's going to be an impossible goal to reach for next year!


Games Played: 102

This is another number to me that seems insanely high, so high I think I need to rethink my priorities in life, ahem. Basically, I played some sort of game about every three and half days for an entire year. Thanks to the Boardgame Geek widget on the right of my blog, I have tracked most of those games too, and you can always see the last ten I've played. Board games, miniatures games, and roleplaying games are the only types I count. No, I don't count video games in that total. I'm slowly adding European-style boardgames to the mix for family game night, so you can bet I'll be double-dipping in that category!


Well that's a wrap! All in all, from a geek and hobby standpoint, 2009 was a very good year for me and although I can't promise these same kind of numbers in 2010, I'll certainly give it my best. I know I'm going to try and start the year off right (and differently) by focusing on fewer, but larger, projects and trying to see them through to completion before moving on. Also, these last few months, I've been digging deep in the bits boxes and coming up with some real treasures, so I may try to curb the spending and rely on on those. I just looked over this last paragraph and nearly laughed out loud, but that's the "plan".

I want to say a sincere thanks to all the readers. I look at the stats and see many thousands of 'hits' per week, and my photos get even more views than that. As of this writing, I've also got over eighty readers (don't like the term "followers") many of which I carry on dialog with often and I try to respond to every comment I get.

So, thanks again y'all!

Big ol' FoW

Unfortunately I had to bow out of the group's regular historical game the other night. It was "date night", so I shouldn't say "unfortunately", but I definitely missed out on an amazing looking game of Flames of War. I know there's some FoW fans out there, but even if you're not and just like pushing around figs on a tabletop, head over to Brian's Repple Depple blog for an excellent batrep; good writeup and fantastic photos.

Merry Christmas!

Edward Miller kicks us off with his stunning Cthuhlu Christmas!


Our next bit o' holiday fun comes from the fine folks over at Penny Arcade!

Novus Dorn, Imperial Scholar

For our Dark Heresy campaign (podcast plug here) I am playing an Adept. We have a fairly large group, when they're all at the table anyways, so I felt I could go the route of a less combative character. I've had a lot of fun with it, and am finally finding my niche in the party. Not only that, but I've found that he's not too shabby in combat either! I've painted him up in similar colors to my Imperial Cleric and I will work on getting a group pic of all the Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy characters together.


More views

Equipment closeups. This is the part where I "converted" the figure to go from medieval traveling monk to a denizen of the 40k universe. The pistol is from the Dark Angel veterans box, it also has a ceremonial "sword" attached. In-game it will represent his Hecuter 9 pistol (just like Eisenhorn carries!) and fortunately we recently dispatched some assassins, so I snatched up a mono-edged knife, just because there was one shown on the figure. The book is also a devotional item from the DA box, and I cut away just enough of it to make it look like the fig is holding it, since he's an Adept after all, he does a lot of reading! The final touch was to put another DA bit on top of his staff in the form of a little winged death's head. I fluffed this in-game by saying it is in the image of Saint Orendel, the saint of the tomb world that the character hails from. The "staff" is really a tetsubo, which is kind of a cool touch. In keeping with true "wysiwyg" fashion, I tried to pick a shock maul up in-game as soon as I could find one so that's what would also be represented on the figure.

The figure itself is from Reaper, and I get more and more impressed with their line every day. I used their "figure finder" and just put in the key words 'bald', 'beard', and 'robes'. When Friar Stone here popped up I knew it was a perfect fit. Just a few bits later and you've got a perfect Dark Heresy fig. The fig is huge however, I'm guessing about 32mm, easily towering over the other figs on the table, so I retconned his size attributes to fit. Now the character is about 6'6" and weighs in at a pretty hefty 350 pounds or so. This also goes a good way to represent his toughness and wounds which are both high for an Adept at 40 toughness and 15 wounds respectively.

How to Host a Dungeon

Tony Dowler's How to Host a Dungeon

Recently I had the joy of playing around with the indie rules of How to Host a Dungeon. The .pdf is a mere five bucks and for that you get a fun little, self-contained map-making jaunt that can be played on its own, as a one-shot, or it can be used to generate dungeons for other fantasy games. It's actually a surprisingly versatile game in its scope, yet its easy to come to grips with and get into the thick of it without skipping a beat.

My first time through, I drew this 'test map' which was created without having read the rules first. It would've helped with at least a read through, but it wasn't a complete disaster. The game is pretty neat, you start out with a land mass, focusing mainly on the underworld portion of it and 'build' your underworld through the ages.

New Podcast up at the Minions

Our group endeavor, Minions of the Monster Master, just wrapped up our fifth podcast episode. We continue our Dark Heresy campaign with some actual-play, as well as the usual shenanigans that preface the game itself. If you haven't checked out the sister blog as of yet, head on over, it will be worth the trip!

Trip the Comments Spamtastic

Well it finally happened, I had to activate the word verification system for leaving comments. I've had a few spammerific comments pop up here and there, it wasn't a big deal, until today. I clicked the spam box on my Gmail account looking for something else, and I realized I had only been seeing the tip of the iceberg, it was full of spambot blog comments! It's just one extra step to keep the blog relatively clean of pesky intrusions.

Besides, there can be some fun to be had with the words that the system makes you type up. There's been some creative monster mashing going on between Brutorz Bill of the Green Skeleton Gaming Guild, and Eli Arndt of the I SEE LEAD PEOPLE blog with their Word Verification Wednesday features. They stat up a host of critters named after whatever the verification word was. Go check 'em out!

Holiday Huzzah!

So here in a few days I'll be announcing my projects for 2010, it's really no surprise (Vikings, 15mm sci-fi, etc.) but the new year came early this week! The fine folks over at Dropship Horizon, which by the way is an amazing resource for 15mm sci-fi gaming, recently held a little holiday contest, the Dropship Xmas Cracker.

They posted pics of some great looking 15mm alien mercs soon to be released by Critical Mass Games, and held the contest open for people to write background bios on one of the characters shown. One winner was chosen at random right off the top, and a second winner was chosen from among a group of five finalists. Craig and Dale at Critical Mass have graciously donated one of each of their three new packs to the winner.

But wait, there's more! Gordon Roach of Task Force Production Games has also donated some prize booty. Andy and I have actually played the first edition of We Can Be Heroes a while back, and Señor Roach has put forth the latest edition, a PDF copy of We Can Be Heroes II. Described recently on TMP as a fusion of .45 Adventures and Chain Reaction (which is good, I've played both and love them). It's more realistic than .45 Adventures, and more cinematic than Chain Reaction. Sounds good, sign me up. Plus, as the images on their main site show, I'm assuming you'll be able to handle a host of genres (shown is a pulp hero, a pirate, and a sci-fi colonial marine) so that excites me as well. I may need to break out my Chaos in Cairo figs!


One of Critical Mass' packs. Check out at that alien on the far left!


Another of Critical Mass' packs; the contest figs to write bios on.


The last pack, mini-mecha robot walkers!

So, all in all, quite the little prize pack going down. Naturally I would not have lavished quite this much of a post just for the fun of it, but I was the winner! Woohoo, that's right, out of the thirty one entries, mine somehow clawed it's way to the top, and I read every one of those entries and I'm just as surprised as you. There were some awesome entries, kudos to everyone who entered. Without further adieu, here's my entry!

Aliases: Ms. Scarlet, Shard
Real Name: Banda Krone
Species: Zoysian

Shard hails from the crystalline planetoid belt in the eastern fringe of the Horner system. Her translucent features are concealed beneath a thick, thermal cowl. Shard acts as an illegal arms dealer with secret channels and in the back rooms of Mudd Eisley. With Mudd Eisley's constant influx of mixed alien traffic from all over the sector, Shard is able to procure a myriad of different weapon types and fulfill most requests for hard to find items. She carries a crystal-focused energy weapon from her homeworld of Zoysia Prime.

So what can I say? I'm extremely thrilled, and THANKS! The Dropship Bunny seems to have come early this year, truthfully I didn't even know she existed until now! Dropship Horizon has been a great resource for me since I started following their blog, and I use them as my number one source for 15mm sci-fi news, specials, and announcements. It's very cool of them to have held the contest, and even cooler of the folks at both Critical Mass Games and Task Force Productions to put forth some great prizes to boot!

James Cameron's Avatar

Chances are if you run in the same circles that brought you to read this in the first place...you're going to go see this film. Unless you've been under a rock for the past year or so, you already know about the latest Cameron flick, Avatar.

Good movies get made thanks to James Cameron, it's as simple as that, and Avatar is just another one of those good movies to add to his lengthy resume. I'm not going to focus on the budget, I don't care how expensive it was to make, I didn't go into the movie hoping for just eye candy this time. Honestly I didn't know what to expect, I knew the hype was too good to be true, and lately I've been critical of most movies I've seen, so yeah, I wasn't quite skeptical, but I was cautious let us say. I came out very fulfilled on every level.


The storyline itself is actually very straightforward, I wouldn't go as far as to say it was "simple", but it wasn't exactly a multi-layered cake you have to chew through each level in order to appreciate. I would liken Avatar very much to a hybrid of Dances with Wolves meets Last of the Mohicans, and given a sci-fi flavoring of Aliens with the emotionality of, I dunno, some emotional movie. Of note, this is not a military sci-fi epic, there is a militant force in the movie, and they are lavished a good deal of attention to detail, but they are but one of many, many facets that are throughout the movie.

The central theme of the movie is that of cultural preservation and ecological harmony. Perhaps it's because I've become enamored with the works of Hayao Miyazaki over the years that I see his influence all over Avatar. There are several strong female characters who are independent and fully capable of standing on their own, there is a strong tie between the beings themselves and the flow of nature, many visuals like floating mountains wrapped in vines, and creeping tendrils all give homage to facets from Miyazaki. The end of Avatar reminded me very much of the end of Valley of the Wind, and the scene with the forest spirit at the pool in Princess Mononoke was very much like the scene with Sigourney Weaver's character at the Pandoran 'life tree'. This movie has thought behind it, sure there's some explosions and firefights, but they're part of the overall picture, they aren't the picture.


You of course have the humans coming in a messing it all up over a natural resource grab and a general debasement of the indigenous peoples in order to justify the use of force. Our protagonist is a character study in itself, and we see the lead role, Jakesully, go through many changes both inside and out. He's not the only though, there are several intriguing characters along the way, both human and alien that you take an interest in. Performances range from the fairly flat in the more stereotypical roles, to the complex.

Visually, the movie is absolutely amazing, end of story. Pick an aspect, any aspect of the film, and it will be the best you've ever seen of that type on screen. Even simple things like view screens, monitors, and dashboard readouts were just breathtaking. The alien world in its myriad of flora and fauna was fully realized and just felt right, not fake or made-up at all. The human element wasn't overdone, fortunately, but it was contrasted with industrial and military elements. I'm sure most of the movie was CGI, but it didn't matter, after a while you forget what's what and just become immersed in all of it. Since the movie had an actual story and characters you actually cared about first and foremost, the rest of the "eye candy" just kind of falls into place after that. But yeah, it looks fantastic.


My one letdown was that the "evil" corporation in the movie [and at this point I should tell you I am about say a spoiler, but it's something, but it doesn't really "spoil" anything anyway, the corporation in the move was not Weyland-Yutani. Now, they never said who they were actually, but it didn't say W-Y anywhere, so unless they pull that one out in the extended DVD release or something, it's not them. Weyland-Yutani is firmly in the Alien and Predator franchises, so that's good enough I guess. I wasn't expecting this, mind you, but it would've been cool. Also, I would've liked a lot more of the military forces, although they were obviously the protagonists and didn't garner too much "cool" screen time, personally it would have been cool to get some gun/mech-porn in there.

So what can I say? I liked it, top to bottom; it made me think, it took me to another world and put me right in the middle of it, it told a good story, and I walked out with a whole mix of emotions. For being nearly three hours long, the time seems to just fly by. When the credits start rolling, you find yourself not wanting the movie to end.

A Pair of Wraiths, Really Old Ones...

One thing I really liked about the minis we used the other night for the Blighted Lands battle was all the 'classic' feeling fantasy figs Bob had on the table. I was digging around my really old stuff, you know, Ral Partha lead and what-not for some Viking stand-ins, and ran across this pair. They're mine from way back, frankly they might have even been my folks, either way their bases are both stamped 1977. That makes these guys 32 years old!


I tried a couple of things here, so these were my guinea pigs. First was object source lighting, I've got a Rackham Dwarf I'd like to paint up with a wickedly glowing green sword, and I wanted a little practice. So these guys have the same green glow coming out from under their hoods. The other trick I wanted to try was to use a textured paste on their bases and just paint it with a two-tone effect and a splotch of scrub. I've seen this done with 15mm figs and it didn't look so bad, so I thought I'd try it out. Either way, both techniques came out very "meh" for me, but these old figs were fun to paint nonetheless!

The Blighted Lands

The vile necromancer Nekrotut has been kidnapping fresh bodies in the lands of Count Sevrain far too long. The good count and his loyal troops march to the necromancer’s lair in the blighted lands to destroy the sorcerer of undead and all his minions...


Last week we played another game of Clans and Companies with its author, Bob of Might of Arms. The last time we played Clans, it was the massive Viking raid with just a 'touch of saga', in other words we had a Hill Giant and a couple of seven foot Viking chiefs. This time around we used the same rules, but went full-on, frontal fantasy; I was the forces of the Undead (with some secret allies), and Bob headed up the stalwart humans.

The game was a blast, and with the second go of playing the rules, I'm really digging them, especially after seeing how adaptable they are. I lavished (with a lot of Bob's help!) plenty of narrative with the Viking raid, and this time around is no different. I feel this is one of my more entertaining battle reports to come along in a while, both with the narrative and the photographs themselves, so sit back and enjoy!


Count Sevrain has consulted with none other than Lady Talon of the Elven delegation. She has advised the count that the previous year’s terror in his land has all the markings of a powerful necromancer named Nekrotut. He has operated in this region before, in ages past, and only with great difficulty was he driven out. Lady Talon, a powerful mage in her own right, has consented to accompany the count on his mission to destroy the necromancer.

The count’s men and women have split up to search the valleys in the blighted land, looking for signs of the necromancer’s lair. The [game] begins with three bands of the count’s retainers in the midst of blighted trees facing a large barrow. They are puzzled by what looks like despicable activity, but no one besides the count’s men seems to be present.

The barrow located in the dead wood is long forgotten. This land was once a lush, green forest teeming with life, just scant years ago. The barrow lays within sight of a an older shrine venerating the warrior saint Marcus Gideon himself. Atop the barrow stands a ring of power, carved of black basalt and built by the hands of druids from long ago. The tranquil serenity the area has been known for in previous ages is all but gone.


Lich Rhomus has infested the lost barrow for nearly six decades, and until now has kept his machinations hidden from prying eyes. Rhomus is powerful in his own right, and always at the ready to conduct his master Neckrotut's bidding.

Three groups of skeletons approached through the blighted trees, the large barrow at their backs. They are apparently driven forth by wretched humans in the midst of each band. The central group is equipped with bows, ready to let loose their deadly volley of arrows.


Damien the Blackheart is the youngest of Neckrotut's necromancer acolytes, he makes up for his lack of experience with pure spite and malice. He carries the skull of his former mentor and uses it as his arcane focus. He is tasked with leading a unit of skeletal archers and keeping them animated with his necromantic energies.


Lady Hexus is human, but her pallid skin and cold gaze speak otherwise. She has given up her very soul in pursuit of the dark arts. It is said she prefers to keep the company of the dead opposed to those of the living. Her unit of skeletal warriors speaks to this, and is unique in that they do not originate from the barrow, or from hapless villagers abducted from the kingdom, but are the remnants of her past lovers.


The wily old necromancer, Edgar, was once a promising student at the University of Majics located in the scholarly city of Dornshire. He found a hidden nook filled with all manner of profane and dark tomes within the catacombs of the library while a student. At first he thought he could harness this dark magic and bend it to his will, but as the years wore on, his will could no longer hold out against the call to darkness.


On the longbowmen’s left stood the Count Sevrain’s stalwart halberdiers. They would advance on the flank and exchange blows with Edgar's skeletons.


Count Sevrain visited the venerable Shrine of Marcus at dawn, payinh homage to the patron saint of warfare. Accompanying Count Sevrain is a young apprentice wizard from Pigsmole, the academy of arcane arts for gifted youngsters in the capital city of Dunderholme. This promising young mage is destined for greatness and bears a peculiar scar on his brow. His dreams are haunted however by the image of Neckrotut.


Rising sun at their backs, the count's archers prepare to volley at daybreak.


The count's own household Men-at-Arms, heavily armed.


Damien the Blackheart forms his troops into a long line and with dark energy, commands the archers to return fire on the count's longbowmen. The skeletons' bows are strengthened and given increased range by a timely cast Far Flight spell from lich Rhomus on the nearby barrow. In the distance, on the far right flank, Edgar the Elder sends his skeletal troops into the Duke's halberdiers with wild abandon.


Lady Hexus sends forth her minions to clash with the Men-at-Arms. The count’s spearmen fared well, beating their assailants back. To their dismay, a baying could be heard as howls and barks filled the air over the din of battle. The spearmen pulled back to coordinate their stand with the arrival of the rest of the count’s men.


Cresting the large barrow came the warg pack. Diminuitive, green-skinned goblins armed with short cavalry bows came charging forth, spurring their wolflike mounts on faster and faster. The motivations of goblin-kind is wholly unknown to the other sentient races of the realm. They are completely alien in scope and understanding, but somehow a pact was fashioned between their tribe and Nekrotut's undead. The goblin's speed and tenacity complements that of the slower undead host all too well.


The shieldless halberdiers could not block the blows of Edgar's skeletons, and were forced to fall back demoralized. For the skeletons know no skill but simply power their weapons with mighty blows to their front urged on by animating necromantic energy. The halberdiers did weaken their foe with their murderous weapons, but suffered mightily for their efforts, whereas the skeletons, mindless automatons that they are, just kept coming, unmindful (literally) of the pile of bones left in their trail. The halberdiers had suffered so many fallen, that they lost all heart and continued to retreat to a place besides the shrine of Gideon, some ways from the barrow, where they felt relatively safe.

Edgar, imbued with ample necromantic energy, plowed his unit of skeletal warriors through the count's halberdiers. As they made short work of the humans, scattering them, Edgar whipped them into a frenzy pushing them forth.


Chief Greatswill's warg pack rushes forth, jaws slavering.


Count Sevrain wasn't without his own support as heavy cavalry burst from the rear of the ruined woods, riding hard for the oncoming warg pack. Entangling spells of Phagus Brush were cast on the oncoming warg, stymieing their progress.


The halberdiers, routing back to the shrine from their failed melee with the skeletons, found themselves assaulted by a massive treant! Until this point there had been no sighting of the undead having any such creature. The count prepared to charge the beast, then reeled back, recognizing the trick for what it was. Lich Rhomus had cast the illusion spell Phantasm on one of the mangled, dead trees, making it appear to come to life in the form of a hulking treant. Rhomus fooled the halberdiers, but not Count Sevrain.


Just how were the undead able to ally themselves with Chief Greatswill's tribe? A smaller figure emerged from behind the circle of power and came to stand next to Lich Rhomus. Shroud the Interred was as much a snake now in unlife than he ever was living. His twisted words and honeyed tongue can convince anyone to do his bidding, much of his success bolstered now by arcane means. Who knows what promises he made the goblins? Who knows what might happen if he doesn't keep them?


Greatswill's unit of goblin spearmen.


The long-lived Wood Elf and advisor to the count, Lady Talon.


Goblin archers screen what's left of Lady Hexus' unit.


The enigmatic boy wizard holds off the goblin spearmen with his wand.


The warg pack tore into the heavy cavalry and had initial success. But the heavy cavalry wasn't so easily dispatched. After the initial charge, they regrouped and charged full tilt into the warg, lances cutting a bloody swath through their mangy ranks. The warg pack would have seen more success, but time and time again their charge was plagued by the Phagus Brush spell. Had it not been for this spell hampering them, the thunderous duel with the heavy cavalry might have ended much sooner.


The Phagus Brush spell entangles the unit of goblin archers.


Near dusk, the architect of the undead stepped forth from the barrow. Necromancer, arch-lich, tactician, and more, Nekrotut is evil incarnate. He is said to have harangued even the Elves during their infancy before man or dwarf walked the lands.


As darkness fell, the hostile warriors stood apart some goodly space. It seemed to be a stalemate, but many good men of the count had fallen in battle. It was perilous to remain in these parts with the evil brewed by the night, so the count withdrew with his survivors. The necromancer’s force of evil was too strong and the count was ill-prepared. Another day will come, and soon, vowed Count Sevrain.