Weekly Hobby Group Update: Malifaux Models in One Night

First off, I don't know what kind of crazy voodoo plague I got a couple weeks ago, but I am just now getting to the point of doing anything at night besides falling asleep on the couch after putting the kids to bed.  I probably would have slept for two weeks straight without the help of Five Hour Energy Drink.

Even with my life-sapping malady, we've still had Thursday night hobby time.  Both nights I have resolved to paint an entire figure in one night.

Behold last week's nurse and last night's zombie dog handler:

Quit barking at me or you'll get a dose of this.

I plan on using the zombie as a flesh construct for my McMourning crew.  Since the crew has a bunch of zombie dogs I figured that this dude was appropriate.  It has been observed that he looks like a Best Buy employee.  I don't know what the dark genesis of the extended warranty is, but I would wager that it involved the undead.  The nurse was last weeks model.  The original has a red cross over each of her nipples, which I did not find terribly appealing.  I removed them.

Seth worked like crazy on that shield for Harry the Hammer.  He is a total perfectionist, which makes for awesome single models and vast, unpainted armies.  This is the second base-coat that Harry himself has gotten, the first being stripped for inadequate awesomeness.

Mike has been working on his Dark Elf test warriors.  He can't decide on a blue/red/gold scheme or just a red/gold scheme.  I thought I had taken pics, but I can't find them on my phone.  hmmm....  He also explained that the servo-arms from the last hobby post I did were constructed from other parts.  We will be coordinating to do a tutorial on how to make those soon.

Jimmy continued adding things to Kroot-a-saurus.  He can't decide whether to keep the banded mail armor from the last picture or go with a more round armor that he made from pastic bottles.  He really has an amazing ability to see conversion fodder in everyday items.

Just for kicks, here is the rest of my Malifaux crew in their unpainted splendor.

In this picture there are 8 dogs.  Can you find them all?

Okay, so the Convict Gunslinger has paint on his face.  I guess that disqualifies him from one-night paint job status.

I am more and more wanting to play Malifaux.  The soonest I can get out to RIW in Livonia to play is 5/31.  Ach!  In the meantime I'll paint and listen to The Aethervox podcast, which is 99% Malifaux.

A Sickly Thank You

First off, I'm sick of being sick.  Seriously, last week was bad enough.  To descend back into the clutches of some unknown virus again this weekend after feeling so much better Friday was depressing.  So here I sit, after having slept most of the day away, listening to a lawnmower and wondering how long it will take me to 1) do the work I'm backlogged on and 2) catch up on the >100 RSS feed items I have on google reader.  If you blog about FoW, I'm probably just going to look at the pretty pictures.

My two daughters are home sick too.  They were told they could not stay home and watch TV, so I found them each a book they could read it they want.  Lily (9) is reading a 1978 copy of "A Wrinkle in Time" and Sarah (12) is reading a 1980 copy of "A Wizard of Earthsea."  I have requested that they be gentle with the books, but in my heart I am prepared for each book's demise.  It's a small sacrifice to see the girls reading fantasy.

Next, I want to thank all the people who nominated me for a "Stylish Blogger Award."  It's flattering to get a nod when there are so many blogs with similar subject matter out there. In truth, the first time I received such a nomination/award was January 2010 when the very clever but never posting "Pop and Ice" nominated me for the "Kreativ Blogger" honor.  I honestly had no idea what to make of it and so I basically sat on it.  With the current storm of nominations, I think just about every blogger in the 40k sphere has gotten at least one or two of these.

Okay, back to bed with me.

Starting Malifaux... sort of

I think I ought to just face the facts that my hobby is now "buying miniatures" and that gaming and painting are just extra activities that result from buying.  In that spirit, I have purchased a Malifaux crew.  After about a million permutations of who would be fun to paint and play (since they are all equally fun to buy) I decided to go with a McMourning crew featuring undead dogs.


Strategy:
The plan is to go to Miniature Market website, click the "Malifaux" link on the left.  On turn two I will go to the Resurrectionists section and find the McMourning box set and click "add to cart."  Finally I will click "checkout" and supply my credit card info.  A flawless plan.

I mean, who doesn't love a crazy coroner dude with steel toed shoes.  Oh, and his totem?  A Zombie Chihuahua.  That was sort of the clincher for me.

Yappy, shaky little jerks.  The box comes with Sebastian (who can make zombie dogs, aka "Canine Remains")  and a couple of nurses (who can supercharge the dogs into one-turn "dog bombs.")  Meanwhile McMourning is making big, nasty flesh constructs and trying to get himself into combat.  Add Mortimer and a Convict Gunslinger and I have a healthy 25 pt crew (using only one nurse.)  It's kind of fun to think about summoning dead dogs.  No, I don't know why.

Gaming Strategy: 

Find someone else who plays Malifaux.

So the next question is whether to try and make it out to RIW Hobbies to get a game in on Tuesdays or to try and get a local community started.  My personal (read: non-family) life begins at about 9:00 PM unfortunately, so very few "go somewhere and game" options present themselves.

Heroes of Armageddon Tip: Give Early!

Remember!  There are weekly "Heroes of Armageddon" prize giveaways, including this week's amazing choice between a Blood Angels Battalion, an Ork Stompa or an Imperial Shadow Sword.  To maximize your chance of winning one of these weekly drawings, give your full donation early instead of waiting until close to the big army giveaways.  The pool of possible winners is much smaller in the beginning (theoretically) so stack the odds in your favor!

Speaking of which, I got my weekly-drawing swag from Secret Weapon Miniatures yesterday.  I have been sick lately, so I did little more than open the bag and rub the bases luxuriously over my body. (Quick suggestion: do not rub resin bases luxuriously over your body... they have pointy and scratchy bits.)  I will do a nice write up of what I got once I get a chance to really give them a go-over.

A Winner Is Me!

Yay for free stuff!  I won the weekly Heroes of Armageddon drawing and got one of two $25 vouchers at Secret Weapon Miniatures.  Showing great thought and restraint, I placed an order there today.  While I was there I dropped another $35 in addition to my $25 voucher.  It was definitely my desire to make the order slightly profitable for them, and not at all related to my inability to limit myself to the amount I had won.  Nope.  No connection whatsoever.

So here's what I bought:
1 x Dark Sepia Wash = $2.99
1 x Armor Wash = $2.99
1 x Soft Body Black Wash = $2.99
1 x Small Roman Style Helmet Crest = $5.00
1 x Round Lip: 30mm Urban Streets Bases = $10.00
1 x Round Lip: 40mm Urban Streets Bases = $10.00
1 x Round Lip: 50mm Urban Streets Bases = $5.00
1 x Round Lip: All Your "Flagstone" Bases = $22.50

Why those, you ask? I don't know! They looked cool, and I will need to base my (currently completely unpurchased) Malifaux crew(s) eventually. I also wanted to try their washes, which are both larger pots then Citadel (20ml as opposed to 12ml) and pigmented heavier. Expect critique here at some point. Their color range is good; I was tempted to just buy the whole set. I may yet do so, depending on how well I like the three I bought.

Another Reason Having Kids Rocks

Having kids is like living with comedians.  Tiny, sloppy, needy comedians.  As evidence I give you these two exchanges between my daughters (Sarah and Lily) and me.

From last week...

Me: I watched part of Dumb and Dumber the other night.  I was surprised at how much casual profanity is thrown around in that movie.
Sarah: Oh, so they were like "Hi!  Hi!  Hi!" (waving and smiling madly)
Me: Uh, no.  More like beeep beeep beeep beeep.
Sarah: (looking serious and thoughtful) I see. So they were robots.

And this one from breakfast this morning...

Me: Do you kids know who Osama bin Laden is?
Kids: No.
Me: He's the leader of the group who planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Lily: I suppose we'll be hearing about him in Social Studies.
Me: Well, after searching for him for almost ten years, the military finally found him and he was killed in an attack yesterday.
Lily: Well then I guess we'll be hearing about him in History.

My son isn't quite there with the verbal wit yet, but he's only six.  He tells me thrilling tales of playing Portal with his friend Colin at school.  I'm not quite sure what two six year olds play-acting Portal is like, but Jay is developing a passable impression of GLaDOS's speech cadence.