Simple Gaming Table part 4

Hey, this thing is coming together!  I drybrushed the Apple Barrel Country Tan onto the surface.  It went on a lot easier than the Nutmeg Brown did.  I'm not sure if the paints have different qualities, my technique was different or the differing colors just made it seem easier.

Anyway...

Based on some great suggestions from The Pirate Viking in my last post, I watered down some white glue and made some static grass patches.  The grass is a little bit of Citadel "static grass" in the middle (very green) with Citadel "scorched grass" over most of the rest of the patches.  The photo shows them, pre-vacuum.  I'll zook up the extra after it's all dry and then brush on the protective glue/water coat.  After that the only step left is to adhere the borders on the long edges.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased.  The palette is a little colder than I thought it would be.  I'm not really sure what colors I would have used for a warmer, earthier look.  Either way, it looks great for the Warhammer, 40k and Warmachine/Hordes battles that it will host.  Now to make some terrain!

Simple Gaming Table part 3

I put the initial color on this weekend.  The first step was to haul the thing outside and give is a good spray of Rustoleum "Satin Espresso."  I bought a can that advertised 2x the coverage of normal (whatever that means) and there was more than enough in the can to cover the whole table.  Just like priming minis, I had to account for the fact that spraying is directional and that I didn't leave any areas untouched because they were in the shadows (so to speak.)

The next color was Apple Barrel Nutmeg Brown (about the same as GW Bestial Brown.)  Drybrushing was a lot more difficult than I would have thought.  I had bought a large, cheap brush for the occasion, but it kept shedding hairs in the process.  I ended up falling back on a higher quality brush with a 2" or so width.  I was also surprised at how much the lighter color diminishes as it dries.  Maybe it was just a trick of the light in my basement.  I ended up going over areas multiple times to get a decent look.

In the picture you can probably see spaces where rocks snapped off the board and left white underneath.  On one side of the board I had run an old cd jewel case over it to plane off some of the stuff that sticks up too much.  It definitely helped on that side but both sides seemed to have a lot of rock loss from drybrushing.  I'll have to go back over the table with a finer brush and some scorched brown to retouch those spots before sealing.

Next step is to drybrush with Apple Barrel Country Tan, then static grass some areas (not sure how I'm going to decide where still) and then seal with a spray bottle of watered down white glue.

Simple Gaming Table part 2

The surfacing of the table continues.  Drying has been painfully slow due the high level of moisture in my basement right now (long story.)  I bought a couple "Damp-Rid" or something tubs and they are actually sucking the moisture out of the air.  They are surprisingly effective for their size.  Drying is important because if you brush over areas that are semi dry they will pill up and pull off the wood.  I've been able to fix those places by tamping with a damp sponge to make the surface flat but rough again.  It seems to have worked.  I'm happy with the texture too.  Some of the largest bits in the sand (small rocks, really) stick up too much, but you can just pop them off easily.  I have yet to give the surface a stress test but I'm hoping it's fairly durable.  If not, maybe I can coat the top with polyurethane too.  I think Future floor polish might do the job too.

The 32 oz jar of spakle I have been using may not finish the job.  The technique I am using to place the sand down now is the most efficient for spackle to area ratio, but some earlier areas used a fair bit more spackle than I should have to stretch the 32 oz over the whole table.  If you want to emulate that technique, the thinned down spackle + sand mixture is about the consistency of melted Cookies 'n' Cream ice cream, and it brushes on nicely.

For this initial surface I am loathe to do things like place lakes or rivers (or any permanent landmark for that matter)  because it changes the nature of all games played on this board.  That's what the foam boards that lay on top are going to be for.  I bought 6 4'x2"x1/4" pieces of wood to make the borders.  They will get glued to the outside of the 1/2" plywood, so 1 1/2" of border will stick up around the table.  I'll be using construction adhesive to glue them, which is really amazing stuff.  I was hoping to mitre the border pieces, but in the end using the 4' length of pre-cut will mean the edges will meet at a square.  The 4' pieces match the length of the 4' side of the table and they would need to be a tiny bit longer to mitre.  No big deal.

Making A Simple Gaming Table

As my kids start to outgrow the toys in the basement, I am starting to have designs on putting a gaming table down there.  I may not have the ambition to show you every painful detail, but I'll give some highlights.  This isn't really an entire gaming table as much as a gaming surface that can be placed on another table.

I started by creating a 6'x4' folding surface made from two pieces of 3'x4' 1/2" plywood, two largish hinges (3" long) and eight cylindrical rubber bumpers (self adhesive, about 3" across and 1/2" tall.)  The bumpers are primarily to keep the hinges from coming in contact with my kitchen table, but they add some skid prevention as well.  The hinges were places so they would be under the surface when it is open.  Yes, that means the play surface will be on the outside when it is folded.  To get the hinges attached I actually stuck the bumpers on first, laid the two halves on my kitchen table and then got under the table and connected the hinges, each about 4" from the outside edge of the table.  It's a little heavier than I had imagined it would be.

For the texture on the surface, I wanted something generic and fairly tough.  I wanted to play Warmachine, 40k, WHFB, etc. on this, plus have the ability to drop larger textured foam surfaces on it.  I used a tub of vinyl spackle (seen in pic) and some sand from the hardware store.  The sand had a nice combination of particle sizes, so I was hoping it would look good as ground.  I tried a couple techniques to put the sand down, including spreading a thin layer of spackle and pouring sand over it and tamping down.  The version I ended up liking best was to put about a cup of spackle in a container and mix with a little water until it's about the consistency of gravy, then mix about half that volume of sand into the spackle-gravy.  It should still be pretty fluid after the sand is mixed in.  Brush this mixture over the table, trying to minimize brush stroke marks.  My plan is to go over most areas with another layer of this, since it's fairly thin and the wood grain is visible in places where the sand was thin.  After letting the whole thing dry overnight it looks pretty good, and seems fairly strong.

Next: final texture surface, and then I can get to painting it!

Lunch-Hour Games for Novices

My workplace has recently exploded with tabletop wargamers.  I find myself engaged in lunch-hour battles a few times a week now.  And I am pleased.

The problem becomes how large a game to play in the roughly one hour we have to work with.  15 point Privateer Press games seem to work well.  They went somewhat long at first but we have become efficient enough to hit the hour mark pretty close now.  The problem is 40k.  500 point games are about all we can manage in an hour, and the primary players are Space Marines and 'nids.  At 500 points, 'nids get repeatedly beaten by a simple FOC of 2 tactical squads + captain.  If nids go for beefy marine killing assault units, they take a beating in the shooting phase.  If the nids go for weak models in numbers, there aren't enough to overcome the no-save shooting and still make a difference in assault.  Mixes haven't helped either.  Every game ends up with both tactical squads in cc with the hive tyrant, and eventually even the tyrant gets beat down.

So, inveterate 40k players, what point range gets nids in a competitive range against equivalent marines?  Alternately, is there a 500 pt list that our 'nid player could field that would work better?

And although it really doesn't match the post well, I just had to put the happy Agonizer pic in.

Blood Ravens Chapter Symbols (4th ed. style)

When I first started painting Blood Ravens I took the design of the chapter symbol from the 4th Ed. Space Marines codex. The logo there varies a bit from the the Marines in Dawn of War, but I didn't realize that until quite a bit later. I've stuck with this version, as have some other painters I've seen. Here is a quick guide to how I paint them. I am purposefully using a less-than-perfect example to show that this can be done in one pass, somewhat imprecisely and still have a good overall effect.

Start with a vertical black line approximately one third the height of the shoulder pad, centered vertically.  From a point two thirds up on the line, paint two more lines at 45 degrees upward to the same final height.

Paint a line from the tip of each outer point going 45 degrees downward.  The bottom point should be right around or slightly below where the original upward line diverged from the central line.  Paint two small feather lines parallel to the first on each side.

Broaden the body from the bottom of the vertical line to where the innermost feathers meet the wing line.  Paint a small circle for the head and extend the line for the beak.  Paint a grouping of five small lines for the tail feathers.

Use blood red to place the blood drop in the center of the symbol.  You will need to put more than one coat on to get good color, as blood red does not cover black in one coat typically.

The final version, although not perfectly symmetric, is clearly a Blood Ravens symbol, and looks pretty good contrasted against the bone field of the shoulder pad.

Blood Ravens Shrike Proxy - Skipping A Bit

I am mortified by the quality of the photos in that last post.  For what was supposed to be a step-by-step I certainly lost the ability to show the different steps.  When I did the Hormagaunt step-by-step for Hive Fleet Emervac, I had the photo set up and just placed the model in position after each step and click.  This time I just pointed the Ott light more or less at the mini and took a hand-held snapshot.  Ouch.

So here at left is hopefully a little better idea of what he looks like.  I had intended to show the varying levels of bone as I built up to what you see here, and I still have those photos, but I haven't looked at the quality yet.  Maybe I'll do a "step 3" that bridges the gap between step 2 and this.  Maybe I'll just pick another mini and do a real step-by-step with decent photos.  Even with the photo setup this guy shows very little of the red variation.  That may be partly because I applied some glass varnish to some point I wanted to protect and ended up varnishing a lot more of the model than I had originally planned.  (Don't ask why... I really don't know.)  The right thigh looks like it still has a little shine to it, even after the whole model got a spritz of Testors Dull Cote. 

So, still to go on this model.... hair, face clean-up, belt buckle clean-up, badge thingy clean-up, silver highlights, base detail, purity seals, and jump pack.

Blood Ravens Shrike Proxy - Step 2 (lots of pics)

A lot more procedural steps here involving red and metallic/silver.  If you are painting tabletop quality, just follow the steps until you get to the red you like then skip to the metallic.  I really wish my cameramanship (if that's not a word, feel free to refudiate) was better.  I'd really like the differences between these steps to be more evident in the photos.

First step is to basecoat with Mechrite red. Make sure to use multiple thin coats as much as possible to minimize acrylic texture as the paint dries. Don't worry about being 100% neat at this point. Covering all the right areas is more important than going out of the lines a little.

Next, wash the entire model with Devlan Mud.  Keep the wash moving if it pools up anywhere to prevent it from drying too thick in any one place.  You will probably end up with "tide marks" somewhere, but we'll deal with those later.

The right leg (left on the picture) has some tide marks.

Paint Citadel Red Gore (I used the Vallejo Game Color equivalent) over the larger areas of power armor, focusing more on the areas that face upward.  Again, use multiple thin coats to make the smoothest transitions.  The tide mark on the right leg are gone, faded into the color of the leg using multiple coats of Red Gore.

This might be a good place to stop on the red for tabletop Blood Ravens.

Highlight with a 50/50 Red Gore / Blood Red mix.  I know I'm a broken record, but thin coats will ensure good transitions.  Controlling your brush load allows the thinned out paint goes on where you want it rather than wicking into the mini like a wash.  Use something like a coffee filter or paper tower to draw excessive paint off the brush if needed, touching the side of the bristles to the edge of the paper.  You should see the thinned paint soak into the paper.

Further highlight with straight Blood Red, being very selective about the areas painted.  Pick areas that are perpendicular to the lighting direction, or edges that would pick up the light.

Say it with me now:  multiple.  thin.  coats.

Apply medium silver (Citadel Chainmail or similar.  I used Reaper Master Series Honed Steel.) on the flex joints and other metallic areas.  Touch up and areas you accidentally get metallic paint on with Mechrite Red.

Selectively wash the metallic areas with Badab Black.  We'll be touching up the metallics later so feel free to liberally apply the wash, but keep it on the metallics and don't let it slop onto the other areas.

In the next step I'll cover the bone colored areas and small details like lenses.

I Don't Normally Gripe About Prices But....

So I'm helping my 9-year old with her Orcs and Goblins yesterday and we realize that neither of her Orc chariots have a base.  Okay, so I get on the web site to see how much the bit costs. 

$4.50 each?!  Really?

I mean, this really isn't a case of custom tooling and making profit over time.  This is the same chariot base that comes with every chariot.  If they had been $2 a piece I would have probably just thrown a few in the cart, bought a few more things to get up to the free shipping point and never thought a thing of it.  Now I'm just going to buy some plasticard from FLHS and cut 50x100mm pieces. 

I remember when GW first started releasing the $25 boxes.  At the time we had a GW store around the corner from my house and I told the manager there that the move was brilliant.  $25 is firmly within "impulse buy" territory, while $35 is just a little too steep.  For all the time I ended up hanging out at the GW store playing and painting I made more $10-$25 purchases out of pure proximity to the merchandise than I ever have since that particular store closed.  It's just not convenient to order one little thing online. 

So, there the lesson I guess.  If you have just opened a store selling this stuff (you listening Big D?) the more time people spend in the presence of easy purchases the more likely they are to just go ahead and buy something that catches their eye.

Blood Ravens Shrike Proxy - Step 1

I've had a few random emails lately about my Blood Ravens painting recipe.  As a result I'm going to do a step-by-step with a model I'm painting.

We have here the model I plan to use as a Shrike proxy.  His head and the front of his body are from the Black Reach captain, which also includes that sash in the front.  The legs and his back are standard Space Marine tactical bits.  The arms are from an assault terminator, with the tops of the arms trimmed down both to mate up better with the body and to accommodate the smaller shoulder pads.  The base is a few odd pieces of shale.

I'll cover the basecoat next time.

Magnetic Putty Conversions?

I am intrigued about the "Magnetic Thinking Putty" over at Vat19.com.  How strongly magnetic is it?  Would it mix with two part epoxy putty and create magnetic sculpting material?  Could the magnetic particles be extracted and used with epoxy putty?  It is just iron filings in silly putty?

I can't really think of a good use for magnetic putty in conversions (assuming you could get it to harden) but I'm thinking there's gotta be something.


Ideas anyone?

EDIT:  I bought some.  It's fun, but useless for conversion potential.

My One Year Goal

July 13th isn't really the traditional date for making one-year resolutions, but I am sick to death of seeing the same five minis on the left side of this blog.

My goal:  Replace as many of my CoolMiniOrNot top five as I can with new ones.  I mean, come on.... that Black Templar fig is more than four years old, and I've only managed to post four other minis that even come close to that?  Even the most recent addition is almost a year and a half old.

So, the plan:

1. Pick up a couple new brushes that have better tips... Done!
2. Figure out how to better photograph minis.... no idea!
3. Slow down and concentrate on quality.

I took a couple years to do this before and managed to boost my painting skills to the point where I won my one-and-only Golden Demon.  I need to do this again so I can start hitting 8's on CMON with fairly predictable frequency.  I'm not sure I'll be able to score five >=8.3 in the next year, but I'm going to try.

I'll check back with this goal on July 12, 2011.

This Is Why Brian Gave Up WHFB

A few years ago I convinced a few of my coworkers to take of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.  Of those, one gave up the game out of frustration with game mechanics that, in his words, are all about making the other army sad instead of actually killing things.  I vividly recall how irritated he would be when his Dark Elf crossbow troops would shoot a volley of bolts that would darken the sky, only to inflict exactly zero casualties against the Dwarfs he was fighting.  Then, in combat, his troops would inflict more casualties but lose combat because the other guy had ranks, a standard and outnumber.  The Elves, disheartened from their lack of having a pretty flag, would then run away crying and die.  Brian was, shall we say, unsatisfied.

With the advent of 8th Ed. Warhammer, I thought I might see if Brian wanted to give the new ruleset a try. Then I read this passage from an 8th ed. battle report on GW's web site:

Martin charged his Ironbreakers and Warriors into the Eternal Guard. The Elves went first and unleashed a total of 38 attacks, and killed not a single Dwarf. In return the Dwarfs chopped up four of the Elves and the Dwarf Lord caused enough wounds on the eternal Guard Champion to kill him four times over. The Elves promptly ran only to be cut down.

I laughed when I read it, because this is exactly the situation that Brian found so frustrating.  38 attacks and zero casualties.  I think I'll stick to playing Warmachine/Hordes with him and find an opponent for my Skaven elsewhere.

Storm Wardens: Get In While You Can!

The amazing Storm Wardens charity raffle for Doctors Without Borders is supposedly completed sometime in "mid-July."  (Does anyone have a fixed date?)  That means to have precious little time to help a good cause and possibly turn your paltry contribution into a painted army!

So do it!  Don't miss out on this one!

EDIT: July 18 is the final day to donate!!!

The Master of Information

We just got an email from our Chief Information Officer that reads as follows:

On Monday, July 12, the TV show "America's Next Top Model" will hold a casting call in the Student Center Ballroom from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. They expect up to 1,000 young ladies to show up, especially with the heavy promotion planned on CW 50/WWJ for next week.

I want all of you to be aware that the Student Center (and surrounding parking lots) will be pretty chaotic that day. You may want to pick an alternate lunch location!

If you want to show up to witness the event, you know about it!  If you are concerned about how long the line will be at Wendy's that day, you know about it!  Speaking of Wendy's... they better stock up on side salads.

Music: Doom Remix Project

Hey 1990's gamers!  Remember Doom?  Yeah, that Doom.  The first and only game that made me think "I didn't know a computer could do that."  The game that made me ditch my Amiga and get a 40MHz AMD 486 equivalent DOS box (yes, 40MHz.)  The game whose sequel forced me to upgrade to an impressive 8MB RAM.  Yeah, that Doom.

In honor of Doom's 6041st birthday, I would like to bring your attention to something wonderful released 1783 days ago, the Doom Remix Project.  This is a freely downloadable group of musical reinterpretations of the incredible music that accompanied the carnage in Doom.  Go listen and relive the days of 6000-some-odd days gone by.

Also, kudos to timeanddate.com for their date duration calculator.

First 40k Solo Victory!!

It's true!  The long series of draws and losses I have suffered is over.  I actually won a 1v1 game of 40k, and I beat Blood Angels with my Blood Ravens.  Blood this, blood that.  Come, sit, and I will tell of the time those loyal to the Emperor defeated the aberrant Blood Angels.

The mission was seize ground, with five  objectives.  Deployment was Dawn of War.  I'll spare you a long batrep, but I only won this game because I was able to kill his only scoring unit (an assault squad) and then run like a scared rabbit from his units of unstoppable killage and hold a single objective at the end of turn 5, when the game ended.

So here are the Blood Angels units that caused me so much pain:

• Death Company w/ Reclusiarch:  re-rolls of 3+ to-hit and 3+ to-wound.  Ouch.  Nothing these guys assaulted lived past the initial Furious Assault-driven wave of attacks.  The only thing that even got attacks back was my captain, and only because he is I5 and struck simultaneously.
• Stormraven: I had wondered how much a "flat out" cover save could do for a skimmer.  The answer here is that it prevented the Stormraven from being destroyed repeatedly.  All I ever managed to do is shake it and at one point knock out its assault cannon.  With the machine spirit is can flat-out and still fire too.  Whee.
• Baal Predator: what's better than a tank with 12 anti-infantry shots?  An outflanking fast tank with 12 infantry shots.  Zoom.  Brrrrraaakkkkkk.  Ugh.  
• TH/SS Terminators: just like your regular 3+ invulnerable save dudes, but with Feel No Pain!  That means your average marine shooting a single boltgun shot will kill, on average, one Terminator every 36 turns.  A marine with a plasma gun stands a much better change, killing a single Terminator every 5.4 turns, and only a 1/18 chance of killing himself each turn!

At the top of turn 5 I was holding one objective with a single sergeant w/ power fist, and was within move/run of two others with a combat squad and scout squad.  He ran the Baal pred up to my pf sergeant, zoomed the Stormraven over near the scouts and moved the Terminators to block the combat squad from getting to their nearest objective.  He had already lost his scoring unit, and all he needed to do is prevent me from taking an objective in case the game ended and engage me as soon as possible to win.  Nothing I had on the table could withstand what he still had.  The scouts and double-autocannon dread were unable to take out the Stormraven, so no objective there.  The Terminators were too scary for the combat squad to get near, so no go there.  The last hope was the lone sergeant (a conversion of the Crimson Fists char Cortez)  who needed 6's to hit the pred.  He charged, rolled enough on difficult terrain to make it to the tank, and made his three attacks.  One six!  Okay, now it's S8 vs. armor 10... glance on a 2, pen on 3+.  Even if I pen I still need 5+ to make the objective uncontested.  I roll.... pen! and on the damage chart...... 5!  wrecked!  (wipe sweat from brow.)

Finally, at the end of turn 5, I rolled to see if the game ended, and it did.  Blood Ravens take the victory 1 objective to 0.  

Rules note:  When jump troops fall back, they move 3d6" and use their jump packs to go over other units and terrain.  I lost a unit of assault marines because they fell back from a tank shock and I didn't apply this rule.  I moved them like normal marines, although I did move them 3d6, so they just couldn't put enough real estate between themselves and death company to avoid getting assaulted.  If I have been able to jump over the DC I would have put myself out of assault range easily and would have survived.

The Strange Case of Alvin Greene

I am absolutely fascinated with the whole Alvin Greene story.  If he was just an unknown who managed to squeak out a victory I don't think anyone would be all that surprised.  No, instead he's a felony-facing, zero-campaigning, unemployed dude who managed to get almost 60% of the primary vote.

Wha-huh?

So here are some theories, with my analysis:

• He's a Republican "plant."  This would imply that R's crossed over and voted in the D primary to sabotage the general election.  Vote counts in each primary make this hard to swallow.  Democratic primary turnout in 2010 was almost identical in vote count as the 2004 primary, the last time this seat was up for election.  More votes were cast in the 2010 Republican primary for the seat than in either the initial 2004 Republican primary or the ensuing runoff.  2.4x more votes were cast in the R primary than were cast in the D primary in 2010, so for this theory to hold water it implies that Republicans were able to increase their own turnout, get >25% of their own voters to cross over and vote for Mr. Greene and simultaneously suppress the Democratic turnout in similar numbers.  Sure.
• Voters are stupid.  Actually, this one is a combination of two theories.... that voters voted for him because he was the first name on the ballot or because they confused him with soul icon Al Greene.  Seriously?  Seriously?
• Voting machines were hacked/broken.  The SC Elections Board has declined to initiate an investigation of the process, stating the the system "performed accurately and consistently" on June 8, so we're not likely to get much investigation on this one.  Next logical question: who is on the Elections Board?  Are they appointed, perhaps by the governor?
• Anti-Incumbent fever. Neither democratic senate primary candidate was the incumbent senator. The favored candidate in the race, Vic Rawl, is a member of the Charleston County council and a former state legislator, for what that's worth. Negative name recognition? If Mr. Greene beats incumbent R senator Jim DeMint in November then I'll give this one a second thought.

Or maybe.... just maybe.... he actually won.

Miscellaneous Wedding Tales

So, some thoughts about the wedding this weekend....

The gentleman officiating the ceremony is seen at left, taken in the limo between the ceremony and the reception.  Apparently his office of "bishop" is holy, but he's just a regular guy.  He had adequately established his "regular guy" status such that by the time he started talking about "the shocker" I was in no way shocked.  I had not however heard of "the Spocker" which I will leave you to research or not at your discretion.

The ceremony itself was outside in a park by a pond and was quite nice.  A light sprinkling of rain fell on and off punctuated by bright sun.  There was runner going down the aisle which was not holding up well to the wind and foot traffic.  As I escorted the corresponding bridesmaid along the runner I was overly concerned with not tripping on the thing, so all picture Stef took of me have me looking down at my feet.  I look so stupid in them.

If your limo is designed for 11 and you have 14 people in your wedding party, take two cars.  The 14 of us + Bishop Shocker made for a very cramped car ride in which there were four of us on the floor at any given time.

Silver Yo-Yo's as a groomsmen's gift:  Best.  Idea.  Ever.

The guests were wonderfully eclectic, ranging from military in dress uniform to decked-out goth to gamer stereotype (fat w/ big beard.)  Everybody seemed to be having a great time and the groups seemed to mix seamlessly.

I'm not terribly loquacious with people I've recently met, but apparently I had a lapse in social skill during the reception.  One of the bridesmaid's boyfriend had only moved into town in the last 4 months from Hawaii, and when I found out he painted 40k I started talking to him.  I showed him a couple of my painted minis using Stef's iPhone, and we talked about painting and eBay selling.  Then he turns to his girlfriend and says, "You'd better say something or he's just going to keep talking."  Plain as day.  Wow.  I can honestly say I have never had someone drop such an overt "shut the hell up and go away" on me.  So, I did.  Thanks for the memory, Charles from Hawaii who recently moved to the Mason area.


So after the festivities had wound down, I tried to help get things put away as much as I could.  The parents and relatives of the bride/groom were doing all the work while all the 20-somethings were standing around watching them.  (Was I like that?  I hope not.)  I took the push broom away from the elderly aunt and went to work.

All in all, a fun and interesting time.  Thanks for the good time, folks!  I'm glad you liked your present.

Jimmy and Mimi: Zombie Hunters

Congratulations to Jimmy and Mimi, getting married tomorrow afternoon!  Jimmy likes miniatures and Mimi likes "Left for Dead" so I could not think of a better present than a zombie diorama starring the happy couple.

The paper on the side of the stairs is a scan/reprint of their invitation, which I'm hoping they will recognize.  The paper on the back of the stairs is devised to look like a flier from "Necto" (a night club they frequent) and has their wedding date and a replica of the wax seal that came on their invitations.

The top picture is taken with a spooky backdrop, and the final product is encased in a glass dome, shown in the bottom pic.  I took the pic before the glue along the dome wasn't quite dry, so it still looks white in spots.

Update: I got a call from Jimmy on Sunday (6/13) to tell me how thrilled he and Mimi were with the diorama.  Jimmy, Mimi and her family apparently spent  an hour just looking at all the details.  I am pleased.

Here's another great zombie diorama that was created as a gift. Everyone loves a zombie themed gift.

Secret Project : Miniature Math

Addition time:

Girl with chainsaw + 
guy with shotgun + 
green stuff long hair + 
zombies + 
simple masonry 
-----------------------------------
= wedding present.

Pics to come... the wedding is this weekend, and I don't want to spoil the surprise.  Oh, wait.  I think I just spoiled the surprise.

I would have liked to make more elaborate masonry for this project, but all the Hirst molds I co-owned were siezed by a friend's former house-mate (and defacto landlord) for non-payment of rent.  All in all, the charming gentleman took about $500 worth of models/hobby supplies/etc. in lieu of $150 owed for rent.  And by "took" I mean "I'll go through your stuff, take what I want, and dump the rest on the front lawn for you."  

It's a Little Thing But It's Annoying

ClickLock.  Grrr.

Stef's new computer has Windows 7, and we discovered a little irritation with the way it operates.  When browsing, sometimes the vertical scroll bar would "stick" to the mouse, so movements of the mouse would move the page you were browsing up and down. 

This irritating little feature is called "ClickLock."  To turn it off, go to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound and then click "Mouse" (located at the top, in the vicinity of "Devices and Printers.")  Once the Mouse Properties window is open, uncheck "Turn on ClickLock" at the bottom.

Warmachine/Hordes Template Deviation

For the number of times we've had to calculate what model gets hit by what template after it deviates, I'm posting it for the world to see.

small base = 30mm = 1.18 inches, .59" radius
medium base = 40mm = 1.57 inches, .79" radius
large base = 50mm = 1.97 inches, .98" radius

Radius of the base + radius of the template = maximum deviation and still be touching model.

When hit, models within (radius of template - radius of model) of the target are hit indirectly.

3" template:

small base: 

• When target missed, deviation > 2.09" misses completely
• When target hit, models within .91 inches are hit indirectly

medium base: 

• When target missed, deviation > 2.29" misses
• When target hit, models within .71" are hit indirectly

large base: 

• When target missed, deviation > 2.48" misses
• When target hit, models within .52" are hit indirectly

4" template:

small base: 

• When target missed, deviation > 2.59" misses
• When target hit, models within 1.41" are hit indirectly

medium base: 

• When target missed, deviation > 2.79" misses
• When target hit, models within 1.21" are hit indirectly

large base: 

• When target missed, deviation > 2.98" misses
• When target hit, models within 1.02" are hit indirectly

5" template:

small base: 

• When target missed, deviation > 3.09" misses
• When target hit, models within 1.91" are hit indirectly

medium base: 

• When target missed, deviation > 3.29" misses
• When target hit, models within 1.71" are hit indirectly

large base: 

• When target missed, deviation > 3.48" misses
• When target hit, models within 1.52" are hit indirectly

Please feel free to correct my math if I'm off.

Know Your Enemy: Another Protectorate Victory

Today, the Menites were victorious, but only just.

Khador:

• Commander Strakhov
• Spriggan (heavy warjack)
• Great Bears
• manhunter solo
• Yuri the Axe 

Protectorate:

• Vice Scrutator Vindictus
• 10 Holy Zealots w/ monolith bearer
• Choir of Menoth (6 models)
• Dervish (light warjack)
• Repenter (light warjack)
• Hierophant

Turn 2 the bloodshed began as the Zealots surged forward, augmented by Vindictus' "True Path" spell.  They were able to get within 5" of the Great Bears, making the stealth granted by Strakhov's "Occulation" useless.  A few Pow14 bombs later the Great Bears were gone.  Brian had placed Yuri the Axe in woods, but had placed him close enough to the edge that I could see in, so the remaining Zealots killed Yuri with indirect hits.  With effective DEF of 18, they weren't going to hit him directly.  

On the other side of the field, the two warjacks were advancing with the choir acting as a screen against the Spriggan's charge.  To my dismay, Brian charged the Spriggan right through the choir, using bulldozer, Superiority and Strakhov's feat, knocking them back as he heads directly for my warcaster.  I remember back to the last time I played at Planeswalker's, and a Spriggan with Superiority charged Kreoss and won the game for my opponent.  With 3 focus on the Spriggan, I didn't really stand a chance.

And then Brian whiffs the charge attack roll.

The remaining attacks did enough damage to bring Vindictus to within 4 damage of seeing Urcaen first-hand, but he held on.  The rolling was bad in the way my last battle was (with all the snake-eyes.)  With Vindictus still standing, I pelted Strakhov with fire bombs from the Zealots and then finished him off with the Repenter's flail.  

So here's the lesson.... not knowing your enemy can cost you the game.  Brian didn't know about Vindictus' mobility focus, and the extra movement (and pathfinder) that he can grant to everyone in his control radius.  It caught him flat-footed on turn 2 and cost him 8 points of models.  I, on the other hand, didn't know about bulldoze.  By setting the choir up I thought I was shielding my jacks from the Spriggans charge.  When Brian picked the straight path between the jacks, through the choir and straight at Vindictus I thought I was done.  He bounced each choir member back 2" clearing the path and only taking minor damage from the free strikes.

I am now almost at 50% win/loss in Warmachine, which is a new high for me.  Maybe next week I can officially tie it up.  Maybe.

Dune (movie) and 40k Imagery

Second Dune post in two days.  Second Dune post ever, come to think of it.

What an odd coincidence that the 1984 Dune movie was on TV last night.  I watched it, and was fascinated by how closely the imagery resembles what we have come to expect from 40k.  I'm not talking about the conceptual comparisons like warping space or god-emperors or what not.  I'm referring specifically to the way Dune was represented on-screen in that movie.  From the winged flying lamps to the translator-on-a-staff that the navigator guild envoy used to the ...

Okay, that's strange.  I just got a call on my office phone and the number is from a Pizza Hut in Naples, FL.  Huh.

Anyway, if you can sit through the 2.5 hours of mediocrity, then I recommend 40k fans take a good hard look at this movie.  I don't remember how much style is lifted directly out of the book, but considering it came out three years before Rogue Trader I suspect it had no small influence on the stylized setting we've all come to know.

Maud'Dib

I did this for the amusement of a friend.

I thought I'd share it with y'all.

The Old Man Pulls Off A Win!

Oh, yeah.  Hierarch Severius beat down Epic Irusk today at lunch.

My Protectorate list:

• Epic Severius
• Crusader
• Crusader
• "Blessing of Vengeance" (character Revenger warjack)
• Choir of Menoth (4 models)
• Choir of Menoth (4 models)

Khador list:

• Epic Irusk
• Great Bears (character unit, 3 models)
• Destroyer (heavy warjack)
• Mortar
• Mortar

The MVP of the battle: Influence.  For 1 focus, Influence is fantastic.  It allows you to take control of an enemy model (after making a magic attack roll) long enough to make one melee strike with it.  I used Influence to kill 2 of the 3 great bears of whatever-they're-called and half a mortar crew.

High point of the battle (in a comic relief way) was when one of my Crusaders attempted to disassemble the Destroyer.  Out of four mace attacks, two of them were snake eyes (auto-miss) and one of the damage rolls of the two hits was snake eyes.  Let's call that a statistical out-lier.   Remember: all 1's = miss.  all 6's = hit.

Irusk has this annoying upkeep spell that gives a model an extra die on ranged attack and damage rolls.  Applied to a mortar it was annoying.  Pulling the "upkeep, fire, recast on other mortar, fire other mortar" trick is double annoying.  With effective RAT 3 and three dice against DEF 10, it's going to hit your heavy jacks a fair bit.  Boosted POW 16 hits hurt.

In the end, Irusk took down a Crusader in melee, and eSevvy charged him and got the kill.  The spell that gives Sevvy an extra die on attack and damage sounds too good to be balanced until you take into account that Sevvy has a MAT of 4.  An extra die is like having a MAT of 7.5... a lot more on par for warcasters.


We made a few mistakes during the game....

• No backstrikes for the Influenced model: A model receives a back strike bonus only during its activation. (pg 61)
• Brian forgot all his "tough" rolls.  All of them.
• I forgot BoV gets "defensive strike" which might have saved it from getting trashed by the last remaining Great Bear.  Those guys are amazing.

Big fun.

The Unspeakable Shame of Proxying

I have no problem with people proxying models for things they don't have in their army.  I greet each request with enthusiastic approval.  Approaching this week's Warmachine game, I found myself balking considerably at the idea of fielding models that I either did not own or had not assembled.





It occurred to me that I never proxy.  Ever.

So why not?  I clearly have no problem with it, since I gladly let others proxy.  What is my deal?  Well, today I am proxying no matter how squeamish I may be.  Regular Severius shall be representing Epic Severius, and a garden variety Revenger will be the character warjack "Blessing of Vengeance."  It seriously took an act of willpower to settle on this list for today.  I almost reverted to a non-proxy list.

It's going to be tough, but I'm pretty sure I'll live through this.

Sun, Rain, Hats, Parasols

Saturday was my daughters band concert.  This year her school tried something different and had an outdoor picnic-type affair.  Although it rained before the concert, the sun was out as of the time this video was taken.  I managed to get both wet with rain and a sunburn in the same 2 hour span.  Apparently the risk of being exposed to sunlight trumped my desire to be exposed to watching my daughter perform.  Perhaps not "every inch" was obscured, but my ability to video recored portions of the concert seemed threatened at the time of this recording.  This recording includes my semi-coherent whining.  I faithfully captioned the parts that don't make sense.

Actually, most of them put their parasols away when the concert started.  The Hawaiian Punch hats remained on.  Oh, and someone put on a bright white straw hat as well that features prominently in my recordings later.

I sure complain a lot.

Orwellian Mathematics

Somehow the topic of "Newspeak" came up at work.

A: Newspeak?  I don't know the reference.
S: It's from 1984.  Orwell.  Newspeak is boring.
M: Boring is interesting.
A: I only read the barn one.
M: Animal Farm?  My whole life goal is to be more equal than the other animals.
P: How can you be more equal?
S: What's the mathematical symbol for "more equal"?

After a few candidates, we decided that the above symbol would mean "more equal" as it splits the difference between an equal sign and a greater than sign.

Recommended Reading: Gringo Nightmare

Okay, this one is a great read.  I followed this story closely when it was in the news, and Eric Volz's retelling of his experiences are riveting.

The basic premise is that a young American in Nicaragua is arrested for the murder of his Nicaraguan ex-girlfriend.  Over the course of the next year he endured the hellish conditions of the Nicaraguan prison system, the corruption of the Nicaraguan court system and the ever present shadow of the Sandinista government as the country creeps inexorably back into totalitarianism.

Of special note is the online "Exhibit Hall" that is accessible with a code in the book.  It contains a wealth of photographs of locations and people, pdf's of documents related to the court cases and even some audio files and videos.  It augments the written portion extremely well, and reminds one that these things happened and these places really exist.  The conditions he experienced are a daily reality to these men even now.

Seriously, get this and read it.  There's an excerpt available at http://gringonightmare.com.

Iceland's Not Even Trying Now

Okay, I've heard the whole "infinite monkeys with typewriters writing Shakespeare" thing, but I think it would take about half an hour for a room full of monkeys to type "Eyjafjallajokull".

Seriously, Iceland?  If you ran out of names for volcanoes just ask for help.  There are lots of countries that don't have huge spewing ash plumes that would be more than happy to help you name yours.  You don't have to just bang on the keyboard and call it good.

EDIT:  I'd also like to thank you for naming my all time favorite candy "Opal" instead of "ytaisdnasdbg."  For anyone who has not experienced it, Opal is a sublime black licorice tablet with just a touch of chloroform.  Mmmmmm, tingly mouth.

How to Lose vs. Karchev

I'm on a Warmachine losing streak.  Thursday lunch again saw my Menites facing down the Khador juggernaut.  (Not included in Khador list: a Juggernaut.)

So here's the breakdown of how I lost:

1. I didn't stick to the plan.  I brought Holy Zealots to act as a wrecking crew against low DEF jacks.  All those POW 14 bombs can ruin a jack's day quickly.  Instead of moving them as I originally planned, I sent them off chasing a Widowmaker solo.  They killed him, but it marginalized a 4 point unit to kill a 2 point solo.
2. I forgot how mobile Karchev makes other jacks.  Between his feat and tow, Karchev can take a jack an awfully long way, even across rough terrain.  In this game, the end result was that Behemoth got the charge off on Feora.
3. I tried to wreck Behemoth with my warcaster.  If I had been smart I would have pushed Behemoth back an inch to get it out of melee with Feora and then ran like hell, but nooooooo, I just dropped 2 focus for Engine of Destruction and tried to disassemble the biggest jack in the game with my caster.  If I'd had optimal rolling it might have worked.  I had less than optimal rolling.  Zero systems disabled after all those P+S 17 attacks. 

It was pretty funny to see Karchev in his warjack body being chased by the Khador War Dog.  I likened it to a dog chasing a car.

Last week, the High Reclaimer got a one-night paint job as penance for losing.  I basecoated Feora Thursday night, but had too much Eldar work to do to give her a whole paint job.

I've been losing a lot, but I've also been playing with unpainted models.  Brian has at least a few models painted when we play.  Maybe that's it.....

How To Lose Vs. eVlad

Lunchtime yesterday saw a 15 pt Warmachine game of my Menites vs. Brian's Khador.  I took the High Reclaimer, some Knights Exemplar, a big unit of Exemplar Bastions, a Revenger and a small choir.  He took eVlad with a war dog, 3 IF Uhlans, the Great Bears, and the character warjack Drago.  

The game was a series of mishaps and bad rolling.  His Uhlans failed their charge against my Knights by about 1/2" and were in turn charged by my Knights, almost completely failing by only killing one.  The remaining two Uhlans wiped out 2/3 of the squad with just mount and regular attacks (albeit with Hand of Fate upkeep, which gives them "roll three, keep the highest two" on attack and damage rolls.)  My Bastions charged Drago, only getting three in combat and one of them whiffing his charge attack (need a 4, rolled a 3!)  The Great Bears chopped half my Revenger up, but it came back and killed one with its halberd. 


So here's the moment of truth.  I have 6 "soul tokens" gained from the Exemplars and some choir dying.  I'm thinking I can charge in to the Uhlans with the High Reclaimer, spend all that extra focus on attacks/boosts and kill the Uhlans, then pop his feat to get the Exemplars back and charge Vlad.  Rrrrrrrr.  Sorry.  Didn't quite work that way.  Despite having 8 focus on him (after allocating some to the Revenger) he charges in and whiffs his charge attack, despite boosting it.  He then proceeds to roll so abysmally low that none of the other Uhlans die.  I pop his feat and get the 4 Knights back, who then manage to kill one of the two Uhlans.  8 Focus warcaster + 6 Exemplars with their P+S 11 swords and weapon master could not take down 2 Uhlans.  Sad indeed.  At least I was fairly sure the HR could survive the return attacks.  Enter "Transference."  This is an upkeep spell that lets Vlad spend focus to boost a model's attack/damage rolls.  He boosted the rolls for the Uhlan's mount attack and took about 80% of my health.  The rider finished him off.   Game over.  


Nasty, nasty capability.  Great, fun game though.

You Had Me At Steam Powered Armor

I don't really care how much the legacy of Zork has been compromised by LegendsofZork.com (if at all) but I have created an account specifically because of this picture.

...such a Warmachine fanboy.... tsk tsk

Warmachine Mk II / Protectorate: the Awesome and the Meh

First off I want to say one thing I love about mk II: the point system.  By removing the GW-ish high point cost for units, I can pretty much make army lists in my head on the fly.  Forget 19 point and 21 point and 26 point solos.  Now they are all 2 points.  I can easily remember warjack point values as well.  Thank you, thank you PP.

Now, onto Forces of Warmachine: the Protectorate of Menoth

In the eternal battle between wargaming and my wallet, wargaming has reliably won. Sure, I face buyer's remorse at regular intervals but most of the time I'm pretty happy with my purchases.  This book makes me feel like I should have listened to my wallet. Don't get me wrong... I adore my PoM army and I have praise for the mk II ruleset, but this latest book, at a fairly steep $35, seemed like I was buying "Menoth's Greatest Hits" more than a new book.

Allow me to explain...

One of the things I love most about new books is new artwork.  Almost all the artwork for FoW:tPoM is artwork I have elsewhere, even if you don't count artwork included in No Quarter.  It's great artwork, but I've already bought Prime, Escalation, Apotheosis, Superiority, Prime:Remix, Legends and Prime Mk II.  That's almost as many books for my single army of WM as I've bought for all my Warhammer Fantasy and 40k armies combined.  I know recycled artwork is common practice in this industry as you get more and more editions under your belt, but I guess my expectation levels were artificially high because of how great all the other books have been.  If I'd taken a good hard look at the book before buying it, I would probably have only bought the Protectorate card deck.


EDIT!!!  Just got my Exemplar Bastions and Crusader/Vindicator/Templar in the mail!  Wow!  The Bastions might  be difficult to convert because of the peg/hole assemble, but they are soooo easy to put together.  No more glue and hold with the model exploding in your hand multiple times.  Plus, $35 for a unit of 5 is a breath of fresh air next to what Man-o-wars cost.  You can bet I'll be buying Cinerators! 

How To Play Frustrating 40k

I'd like to make a basic gaming assertion, a postulate, if you will.  Here goes:

Losing a game feels better if you feel like you could have changed the outcome by doing something different.

Whether that "something different" is not trying a risky deep strike, assaulting something instead of rapid firing against it, etc., it implies that you made choices during the game that affected the outcome.  If you've played a great deal of Nethack, you know what I mean.  Death is infuriatingly frequent in that game, but you (almost) always feel like you could have prevented it by doing something different.  You earn death in Nethack through stupidity, impatience or failing to use all the tools at your disposal. 

I have told this story many times before, I know.  Let me take you back to the early 90's...
==BEGIN FLASHBACK MODE==
I was not a wargamer then.  I was a computer gamer (and programmer) and found the miniature wargaming hobby to be intriguing but somewhat steep to enter in terms of initial price and time to paint an army.  A friend offered to run a demo game for me in which we would each play one of his Epic 40k armies.  It sounded like fun, so we blocked off a Saturday.  After that day I would not even consider going back to tabletop gaming for almost 15 years.

Here are the mistakes he made for the intro game:

1. He deferred too many of the parameters to me.  Having never played, I didn't know how many points would make a reasonable game.  I didn't know which army would be the best for me.  I didn't know how to make a reasonable army list.  By insisting that I make these choices he immediately caused me confusion and frustration.
2. He made it far too big.  We had a huge area of the living room cordoned off with little cardboard buildings and paper rivers, etc.  It was visually impressive, but for someone playing the game for the first time it was easy to lose my units or lose track of who had moved or shot.  
3. He used too many "tricks."  My Squats were pummeled by his Eldar with an endless series of maneuvers that weren't basic rules.  Flying plows that kill everything in their path.  A giant vortex that consumes a huge part of my army.  Jetbikes that jump up from behind cover and shoot me, only to be untouchable during my turn.  Every turn was a new explanation of an attack I had never heard about before and for which there was no defense.
4. He had partial knowledge of the rules, or at least partial willingness to apply them all the time.  Granted, in the days before the internet having rules meant lots of photocopied sheets in manila envelopes, but even some of the basic rules conveniently escaped him at the crucial moment.  One of my units was this unstoppable armored Dwarf train that had lots of shooty cars on it.  He zoomed up to it with some jetbikes and claimed that it was immobilized because it was locked in combat.  To me it was like one of those Wild West train robbery scenes, except the steam locomotive comes to a grinding halt as soon as the bad guys ride up to it.  Yeah, not likely.  As it turns out, he conveniently found the rule stating that the huge train couldn't be locked in combat by the tiny jetbikes after the game ended.  The whole game felt like this to me.
5. He rolled me hard.  This one was the icing on the cake.  If the other issues had been absent then this one wouldn't have bothered me, but it felt like he was evening some unspoken score with me in every way he could imagine.  I was massacred with gusto, and everything I tried against him came to naught.  By about halfway through the game I was just hoping it would be over soon because this was the opposite of fun.

==END FLASHBACK MODE==

Okay, back to the present.  This weekend I played a 2k points game of my Marines against a force of Blood Angels.  I'll admit, I don't know the BA codex at all, but this game was just ridiculous.  It was my ninth game of 40k ever, so I feel like I have to take a lot on faith when people say what their army can/can't do.  Whether this guy was playing straight or not is a mystery to me, but here are the things he was doing that left me feeling frustrated.

1. Sliding tape measure syndrome.  I watched this guy get an extra 2" of movement by sliding his tape measure while moving his models.  Then, after three or so of the models had been moved, he'd just pick up the rest of the unit and move them into coherency.  The last model would move somewhere between 12" and 16" depending on how spread out the unit was initially and how close he wanted them afterward.
2. Introduce as much chaos as possible into the saves.  I cannot tell you how many times I asked him to make n saves, and he'd pick up a bunch of dice, mumble something, roll various groups of dice which visibly includes at least one "1", and then pick up more dice, saying "oh that's right, so-and-so gets a something-or-other save" and rolling them again and finally looking up at me and saying "they're all good."  A few times I stopped him long enough to ask, "Okay, what just happened?" but the answer was always convoluted and seemed reasonable insomuch as I couldn't trace it back to show any obvious malfeasance.  It just always seemed like something wasn't quite right there.
3. Joke about the capabilities of an army your opponent doesn't know about.  This one got old real quick.  He was constantly saying things like "these guys get 36 inch bolter shots," or "all these attacks are AP3" or "these guys have 4 attacks base" or something.  When I'd look shocked, he'd smile and say, "just kidding." The result was that throughout the whole game I didn't know what crazy rule was a joke and what was just a crazy BA rule.  It constantly left me guessing.
4. Make last minute list changes.  Agree to a points value, start to move models onto the table, then at the last minute remember that your list is 250 points shy and start handwriting crazily on a notebook.  In the end, he brought 20 jump troops, 7 devastators, a Vindicator, a Storm Raven, 2 Baal Preds, 10 Death Company, Dante, Corbulo, a couple priesets, a librarian, a couple Furioso Dreads and that crazy dread that keep swinging as long as you keep dying.  I had 30 tactical marines, 6 assault marines, 5 scouts, 5 devastators, a LR Crusader, two razorbacks and a Librarian.  I didn't think of it much at the time, but as the game progressed I wondered how cheap BA's must be for him to field 42 infantry (most of them with jump packs), 3 tanks, a flier and three dreads to my 47 infantry (including one non-character HQ and Sgt. Telion), three tanks and three dreads.  Are BA's really that cheap, points wise?

I'm new enough to this gaming venue that I wasn't comfortable calling the guy a cheater (intentional or inadvertent) but there were enough tell-tale signs that I just felt icky about playing.  I don't think I realized how frustrated I was getting until someone wandered over and asked us how it was going.  I stammered something like, "Great, except for all the re-rollable 2+ invulnerable saves that these guys over here get."  It was meant to mimic the capability jokes he had been making all through the game, but my voice shook when I said it.  I swear, it sounded to me like I was going to cry.  How embarrassing...  The fellow who wandered over gave an alarmed look at my opponent and started to question what he was doing, but I waved it off and said, "No, I'm joking.  I'm just having a hard time killing these guys" as I pointed to Dante's invincible jump squad; I wish I had just kept my mouth shut.  In the end we drew the game, each having captured one objective.

So here's where my flashback becomes important.  A fellow had just bought a painted 1k Daemons of Chaos army, and was looking to get a first game in.  He had played WHFB years ago but never 40k.  The opponent of the previous game gave me the option to play against the new guy, or he would.  I chose to play, and I'm glad I did.  We played a few things wrong but nothing overwhelming, and I got massacred by the Daemons.  I had fun doing it too.  We talked every die roll through, and looked lots of stuff up in the books.  After the game, I gave him my rulebook (a mini AoBR version... I have several) since he didn't have one.  I thought it was a good experience for both of us.  I can imagine what being steamrolled with mysterious rules would have been like if I had just purchased an army, so hopefully I made the inaugural game for this guy one that will lead to future play rather than just shelving the army and walking.

On a positive note, I played another 2k game of 40k earlier in the day, got a draw and had a great time.  My solo winless steak continues, but I'm  having fun.