. . .Bueller. . .

Is anybody reading this? The lack of comments (and jokes at my misfortune during my Dwarf Pirate escapade) is leading me to think not.

Greater Demon, Possession Monkey, and other stuff

This will be my Greater Demon. I know, in the current codex they can't fly, but I really liked the wings and so I figured they could be bound with the chains & spellbooks. The nice thing is that if in the future they do away with the nonsense structure of the Chaos codeciis, then this guy be a Greater Demon of Khorne or Tzeentch.



And here's the Possession Monkey for the Greater Demon: an Aspiring Champ with nothing else. Arms & head from the fantasy marauder line.

Familiar for my special character. I'm using the rules for Huron Blackheart, so this guy is the Hamadrya. This is the Enslaved Nephilim from Malifaux. Here is a painted picture.


Familiar for the Radical Inquisitor (aka Chaos Sorcerer) model. She's the Candy model from the Malifaux line. Painted pic here.



Odds & ends that I built. Slightly retooled my list allowed me to add another "Summoned Demon."

Bound Demons finished

First "Bound Demon"

For the Relictors. They'll be generic chaos demons, their Slaneeshi powers reduced by the Inquisitorial obedience helms & incantations of binding.

The bases are Secret Weapon Miniatures Ruined Temple bases: http://www.secretweaponminiatures.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3_22&products_id=78

They're a bit tall, you can see the lines on the base where he sculpted the ruined temple from green stuff right on top of a normal base. Plus they're straight bases, instead of with normal beveled, so they'd seem tall anyway.

Vampire Team

The team's actually been painted for like a week now, but I was lazy in getting pictures. The starting lineup for Kublacon is: 5 Vamps, 10 Thralls, 4 rerolls, FF 2, and an Apothecary.

I found after playing a couple of games that 5 Vamps on the field is the sweet spot. Any less and you run out of Thralls late in a drive. However, I painted 6 Vamps and 12 Thralls for expansion & casualties. Provided I have the money & enough Thralls, I'll add the 6th Vamp after game 1. Obviously the Vamps get targeted, so you want a spare when one get injured or KO'd.

Also another thing I've discovered is that this team has a weird weakness: stunty teams. Against bashy teams and passing teams I do well because the Vamps have the natural stats to compete with both. Plus their hypnotic gaze is tailored to bust up a cage or negate tweaky powers like Dump Off.

So between the fact that there's only 5 of them, they can negate tackle zones, and they can bash or throw/catch the ball the vamps are flying around the field. I've had possessions were Vamp #1 runs up and hypnotizes a guy on the cage (taking away his tackle zones). Then Vamp #2 runs in and blitzes, knocking the ball out. Vamp #3 picks the ball up and passes it to Vamp #4, who breaks for the end zone.

The problem with stunty guys like Goblins, Halflings, & Snotlings is that they have Dodge. Normally, you can knock guys down 55% of the time: higher strength means two dice & 2 of 6 block results are the other guy down. Against stunty guys with dodge, you lose one of those block results. So you only get about a 31% chance with your two dice.

So ironically, the best thing a stunty player can do is just cage up and then force you to use your once-a-turn blitz on something that is a 1 in 3 chance of working. The cage isn't there to protect the stunties, but actually it's extra hands to catch/pick up the ball after its been popped out.

Now, since we play using the BBCS rules as standard, we started with 30 SPPs. So I can give those 5 Vamps skills. I've debated and tried several variations of what to give them.

Block is the most obvious and I'm trying to avoid it. Yeah it's good, but that's kind of dull. It's like putting Guard on 5 of my Chaos Dwarves: effective, but kinda boring. Also, I don't think its so necessary with Vampires. +1 Strength over an average guy is on par with block. Giving all 5 Vamps block would make them reeeeally bashy, as in 75% chance against a Str 3 lineman.

I read on some forums that dodge was the way to go. Personally, I didn't see it. Since my Thralls didn't have it, all the Vamps tended to do was outrun their happy meals. I keep Thralls nearby and usually don't waste rerolls on Blood Lust, so between the Agi 4 of Vamps and the team rerolls I can usually dodge pretty well. And if I don't feel comfortable dodging him because of tackle zones, then there's no way the Thrall will make it and so you have this situation of outrunning your happy meal.

I tried Jump Up, because my vamps spend a lot of time getting beat up. I tried it and it in fact was very nice. However, I don't think it'll work because of the "Stunty Problem." It's a good second advancement.

So I think Strip Ball is the way to go. In terms of the above "hypnotize a guy, knock the ball out, scoop it up, and pass it downfield" it's the best. Now 4 of 6 die rolls result in the ball coming out. If I have a higher strength, that's knocking the ball out 88% of the time. It also is hilarious because it means the ball is coming out or my vamp is eating the dirt (rolling 'skull' or 'pow-skull').

The question is how many times do I take Strip Ball, with 3 or 4 Vamps? Usually I've been lucky and gotten at least one Vamp with +1 Agi. That I take because he becomes my passer and since Hypnotic Gaze is an unmodified Agi roll, he also serves as a defender. +1 Strength I'd probably also take to fight the big guys. But +1 AV or Move, or even doubles, I'd probably just take Strip Ball.

But I usually give Kick to one Vamp. I sort of wonder if I shouldn't. Kick is nice, but I don't really feel the need to pin the enemy back when my Vamps can threaten the whole field. In fact, I've found I want him to bring the ball up because if I send 1 Vamp into the backfield, they can gang tackle him with lots of assists. But if he comes up, that means if I get a breakaway, then he can't get enough guys back to get a two-die block.

So I'm currently thinking 4 Vamps with Strip Ball and 1 with Pass (if I roll doubles), or +1 Agi/Str if I get them. Otherwise, maybe 5 guys with Strip Ball.

Really enjoying this team...

Bad day to be a meat-stick.

Got some Battlestar fun last night, with 6 people. So we had 2 Cylons and a sympathetic Cylon. The sympathetic Cylon was screwed because he got one of the harder missions: keep morale & population within 2 of each other.

Anyway, the humans died. Correction, the humans got curb-stomped. Never made it to New Caprica before we blew every civilian ship out of the sky.

I say "we" because I got to be a Cylon again. There were no Cylons in the first half and then Boomer and Ellen became a Cylon. I was Ellen and I was basically on the Cylon side before I knew it: two of my crisis cards were Cylon fleets jumping in (we got a lot of those again) and twice I fired Pegasus but rolled a 1 (damaging Pegasus).

But here's the real hilarity: I pulled off what is basically now the Corey Maneuver. It was Adama's turn and then me (I have my Cylon card, got it after the sleeper phase). We have two basestars in front of us, and a special rule on the cylon fleet card that says if we blow up the basestar instead of jumping we lose morale. And the engine room is damaged (you can activate it to make every crisis card advance you on the jump track).

So I tell Adama to activate me with Executive Order. I say I have a politics card that will let me draw two engineering cards so that when I go next I can fix the engine room. Otherwise, I say, we'll have to wait three turns before the engineering person can fix it. Next to me, the sympathetic Cylon player says "He's just doing what he did last game so he can reveal as a Cylon."

It took effort to not strangle him.

My internal monologue had to be a thing of comedy:
(After the Sympathetic Cylon speaks)

"Shit! Marco outed me. Damnit! Don't respond, look down!"
"Crap, you're looking down! You look guilty!"
"Don't look right at her, that's a dead giveaway!"
"You've been quiet too long, say something!"
"What do I say! Can't deny it! That just makes me look more guilty!"
"Okay, you're outed. Best bet you have is the Tell-the-Truth lie."

So I look straight in the eyes of my wife, roll my eyes, and say "Yeah, Marco's right. I'm a Cylon and I'm trying to get you to activate me so I can screw you guys and then reveal."

Yeah, you read that right: Meredith was playing. We asked Nana to drive an hour and babysit so Meredith could play. And in her very first full game, I give what's got to be the world's most bald-faced lie.

She believed me.

Enough to activate me anyway. So rather than do what I was supposed to do, I use Ellens once-per-game ability to become the Admiral. Nuke basestar #1 (morale goes down). Then I realize, between laughing, I get two actions. Nuke basestar #2 (morale goes down). No more nukes for the meat-sticks.

My turn and I reveal. The humans never really recover. Turns out Boomer was a cylon, and I helped get him out of the brig (the irony is that the previous game, we were both Cylons there with him getting me out of the Brig so I could reveal).

The hilarious part is that Boomer went before Adama. Then he tries to get Meredith to activate him again, but she's twice shy. So it didn't work, which is good because I think Meredith would've had a funny aneurysm if she was tricked twice.

Anyway, lots of cylon fleet cards blowing up civilian ships and not enough vipers to save them. Humans went from 10 population to zero in like 2 turns.

So I think "What you should do is activate me . . ." goes in the record books right besides Tom's "You're all making a big mistake."

Who knew that Battlestar could cause a divorce...

BB Vampire team (in progress)

Picked up a box of Empire Militia to be my Thralls. Unlike most fantasy boxes, nobody has shields so you don't have that "everybody's lowering a shoulder" thing to deal with but you do have some weird hand positions. The back row are the ones I consider not perfect fits. But by and large I liked them, with an honorable mention to the "duelist" in the front row, far left. I also like the bruiser; front row, third from left.

I'm using reaper vampires. I'll have two of each of these: Cloak_1 and Cloak _2. Each will be painted with their cloaks a different color so that, in addition to numbering the front of their base (thank you Trent), I'll be able to say "Green Cloak has Strip Ball, Blue Cloak has Kick, etc."

Then I'll round it out with one of each of these: The Lady in Red and her Wench.

The plan is to use 5 vampires to start and as the BBCS progresses pick up the sixth. When I was playing them I felt that 5 vampires on the pitch at any given time was the right balance. Enough happy meals (i.e. thralls) around to keep them playing.

But I will definitely need to play a couple of games through the year because unlike the Chaos Dwarves, the Vampires require some serious forethought to play. And rather than take 3 hours to play a game I'll just need to have the experience that I intuitively grasp what order to do things. (For example, always move your happy meals first wherever the vampires will be. Also when busting a cage or facing a player with dump-off, use Hypnotic Sight first and then blitz).

Geek Weekend 2010 (and Kubla '11)

Well actually Geek Weekend has been over for a week now, but I had a day between when Trent got back on the plane and when I got on a plane for a family trip. And this is the first chance since I hit Discovery Bay to just sit and type up stuff.

Geek Weekend. Got in 15 games. Less than last year, but the quality was better. Last year there were a few games of Cardhammer where I wanted to smack my head into the table. This year, I can't say I had a bad game at all, and I got my ass kicked in more than a few.

Highlights:

--Going to play Vampires for Bloodbowl. I tried them out and they're awesome! Oh yeah, they're actually a sub-standard list, but not terribly. There's a learning curve, but they played thematically very like the Ogres (i.e. 5-6 guys do the heavy lifting and the other 5-6 guys are just space filler; except the Thralls can actually do stuff).

Even when I got my ass kicked (Dwarves on the Karak Bowl pitch . . . oy . . .), I had fun with them. So time to get some reaper figs and a box of empire militia.

--Relictors: holy crap these guys were fun. After last Kubla, I decided to actually play my army before I built/painted it. Amazing concept. Anyway, played a proxy game and they were simply cool to play. Now, again, I lost. But not as bad as I thought I would. Trent had like 2 objectives to my 1. Not bad for the first time playing a list.

So its using the Chaos Space Marine codex to represent the Relictor's chapter. Each chaos Icon will be some chaos relic used by a squad.

Anyway, yeah, fun. Put it this way: I finished the game and spent the rest of the day wishing we had time to play again. I finished a game of 40K and wanted to immediately play again. That hasn't happened in some time.

--Battlestar Galactica: I GOT TO BE A CYLON!!! Mutherfrak yeah, baby!!! Ahem. I've been playing for close to a year now and I've never been a Cylon (except the time I played a revealed Cylon, which doesn't count).

Sadly, I didn't do much to stymie the fleet except get out of the board's way. Seriously, the game beat the humans, not the Cylons. During the first half of the game no one was a Cylon and we still lost. We seriously drew 5 Cylon invasion cards out of 6 draws, and it would've been 6 out of 7 if one player wasn't Roslin.

Still, it was cool that I got to pull a trick on the humans. I was Tyrol and because of a Crisis Card, I'd been brigged. But since the Cylons kept attacking, I kept taking one for the team and not getting myself out of the brig. Instead, I was activating people using Executive order (or whatever the card is).

So the sleeper agent phase comes about after we jumped away from what seems to been a Cylon thoroughfare and I'm a Cylon. So during the next player's turn (who is the admiral), I make the comment that it'd be nice if he executive ordered me so I could get myself out of the brig, since I'd "taken so many for the team." Turns out that the admiral was a cylon too. He activates me using executive order. Action 1: get out of the brig. Everyone is very nice to spring me from the brig, so I didn't even have to burn any cards (Zarek lowered the difficulty, then someone played Investigative Committee so the cards were face up).

Action 2: reveal as a cylon. I send Roslin to the brig and then resurrect. What's even cooler is that it's Zarek's turn then mine. Almost a two-fer.

But what's cool is that Roslin has to burn two turns trying to get out of the brig (dropping cards to activate the location) because they failed the first time. The humans are so screwed that I spend two turns just drawing super crisis cards, that I never got to play because it wasn't needed.

The colonials never even make it to New Caprica. Admiral cylon sends them to a crappy location where they couldn't get fuel, then he uses Helo's once a game power to make the president choose the worst of two choices. Luckily, there's only 1 player to go before admiral cylon gets to go, and both the Admiral's Quarters and the Airlock are damage, so no brigging the cylon.

At one point, Galactica had 5 locations damaged. They managed to repair one, but they were down to 1-2 fuel and food, and down to like 4 population. What got them though was the centurions that I managed to get on board (activated the cylon fleet and sent two heavy raiders onboard).

It was a clusterfrak of a game. Had a blast.


And so from Geek Weekend, I get my goals for Kubla 2011. I'll build & paint a vampire team. I'll build the relictors, but no plan to get them all painted just yet. If it happens, great. If not, no worries.

Mordheim: seriously, can a brutha get a break?

I go to the game store every week to blow off steam, and the last two weeks have left with steam shooting from my ears...

I know, I know, its just a game. And I feel like a complete ass afterward. But one of my pet peeves is when I spend cash on new minis and then have to shelve them. I'm known in my group for being very hesitant to get into a new game because I'm annoyed if the game sucks and I have to put them away.

So I was all excited to have Dwarf pirates. They were the coolest thing. And after two weeks, I've played 5 games and had to start over 3 times. If you count the first list I put together, I have essentially started a new warband 4 times out of 5 games played.

That gets annoying.

K, here's how Friday went. Played Scott first, with my Dwarves. I did pretty well with the list (see the previous post) but my dice just sucked. We fought for roughly 3 turns, or 6 rounds of combat. I had about 4 models, each with two attacks. That's 48 dice. No kills. I literally rolled over a 5 twice when it came to wounding.

But that didn't bother me. Seriously it was no big deal. We had an Ogre show up and ally with the lowest warband (me) and she evened out the score. I ended up winning and had a decent number of heroes on the table. Only my captain and 3 henchmen were out of action.

Then came the post game: Got my captain back. Huzzah. Rolled for recovery my henchmen. Three 1s. Awesome, down 150 pts in the first game. Next came wyrdstone, 100 gold. Okay, I'm not feeling terrible. But I had to pay the ogre (both recruiting fee and retainer), which costs 110 gold. Couldn't do it. So she thumps one of my guys and leaves. Roll for injury on my engineer...dead. Now I'm down like 230 pts.

Son of a bitch. sigh. Starting over.

So the Skaven player wants to play me. His list is, I kid you not, 5 Skaven heroes and the Rat Ogre. He's restarted a twice as well because his whole list is the Rat Ogre. If it dies and doesn't recover, he just starts over.

I don't care at this point and frankly don't want to play but no worries. We roll the occupy mission with 5 buildings to grab, almost as many as I have models. Plus his sorcerer gets the spell that gives him free rats. At which point I know I'm not gonna win. So I figure I'll turtle in the back, fight a little, take my two casualties, and flee.

He races across the board and when I don't move looks at me goes "Seriously?" Ummm, Rat Ogre. So he screens his guys behind the 3 extra rats he gets. They come close, I charge, a dwarf to each rat. Six attacks, two stunned rats and one knocked down. Couldn't kill rats.

My heroes charge his guys, and I manage to kill one. Then in the ensuing counter-attacks, I lose 3 of my heroes. Yup, I'm down to 1 hero model. Fucking great.

Skip to the post-game: captain dies, slayer comes back, other slayer is out for three games. So I'm down 150 pts permanently and down about 220 pts for three games. Oh and only 2 wyrdstone, so I can't even replace my losses.

Fuck starting over. List gets crumpled into paper and tossed into the trash. My opponent turns to me and days "You know, I missed having (don't want to mention names) here. I missed having someone sulk from me across the table, thanks."

I didn't say anything for two reasons: 1) he was right, I was in a foul mood and I knew there's really no reason for it. 2) I knew if I responded, it wouldn't be with words. So I'll say it here:

Hey (no name), fuck you. I didn't complain when you whined about your (admittedly epic) bad luck. I didn't say anything when you took a cheesed out Skaven list. So I had a bad couple of days. Sorry it inconveniences you. Ass hat.

So at the moment, I'm done with Mordheim. One guy is playing lizardmen and has an army with something like a 200 rating, and another guy is just always going to have a Rat Ogre, so basically there's no way I'm going to have a chance to do anything but get slaughtered. Basically, I'm so far behind the curve that a high points cost warband like Dwarves won't be able to catch up. I have a Marienburgers list, but after Friday I'm pretty burnt out on Mordheim at the moment.

We're talking about paying a Bloodbowl league with the BBCS pitches, but I'll be honest, I'm really not feeling like it at the moment.

Mordheim: Well, back to the old drawing board. . .

So yeah, the Dwarf pirates list . . . let's just be kind and say it "didn't work."

3 games and restarted twice. Ouch.

The big problem isn't losing, I expected to lose every game. The big problem is that when they lose, I can get enough wyrdstone to build up slowly. Essentially, you're just always going to lose. After the second game, I was down to 3 models and one of them had a leg wound (so Mv 2). So my first restart and I played a third game: all but 1 hero went out of action. So when one model died and the other went out for two games, I was back down to 2 models.

Ultimately, I'm paying for a lot of stuff that simply isn't worth it. For example, the brace of pistols? Worthless as a shooting weapon, because you're almost always at long range & moving (so -2). Their only use is a first turn shot in melee. Frankly, I don't think they're worth it there either, but I want to use pirates.

Plus I used Clansmen instead of Beardlings for Henchmen, so that I'd hit better in both melee & shooting. Well, shooting I'll only hit on a 6 anyway, so no point there. And while hitting on a 3+ vs most guys is nice, it's not that nice.

Then there's taking lots of Dwarven Axes. The parry is neat, but it makes them pretty expensive. If I get master of blades as a skill, they become pretty brutal (essentially I can parry half of all attacks coming my way). But giving them to everybody (especially henchmen) just becomes too pricey. Still I should have a few so I don't have to search for them all the time.

The long and short is that at an average model cost of 100 gp per model, I was getting terrible returns on my investment. But I really like the idea of Dwarf Pirates. So I came home, sat and stewed (my dice were not kind to me either), and I'm gonna try it again next week with this:

Noble: 2 axes, pistol, helmet

Engineer: handgun

Slayer: axe & dwarven axe

Slayer: axe & dwarven axe

Beardling: 2 axes, pistol, helmet

Beardling: 2 axes, pistol, helmet

Beardling: 2 axes, pistol


The pistols still aren't worth it, and I could get another Beardling if I dropped them. But they're Dwarf pirates. First, half the models have pistols on them. Second, they're fucking pirates!

So the theory is that the engineer will hang back and snipe. This gives me some long range, plus an extra hero for wyrdstone hunting. Usually in a losing fight 2 heroes get dropped, so this'll give me 2 to search for stones plus the extra one Dwarves normally get. But maybe if I use the Beardling screen, when I drop two I can just run away with all 4 heroes and build up.

The pistols on the Beardlings are 100% for the first round of melee. I'll shoot as I approach, but not expect to hit a damn thing. I can tell in the rules: if you shoot (with a single pistol) and then get charged, do you get the pistol shot on that first round?

And the fewer Dwarf Axes is so that if one guy gets a skill, he takes master of blades and we swap weapons around.

We'll see how it goes. Again the goal is to be able to build up after each loss I take. Pretty low standards egh? "My goal is not to be crippled after each game..."

Mordheim: day zero

Two posts in a day? WTF?

Yeah, I have time and if I don't do it now when I have time, I won't do it.

So our local group has been playing Mordheim for a few months and just decided to restart the campaign. My Halflings were just murdering people. At last count, I had seven BS 5 henchmen, my Elder had BS 5 with Quickshot & Trick Shooter, and both my Youths had BS 4 and Quickshot & Trickshooter. I'd received a Pit Fighter for free, had purchased and Ogre, and was starting to purchase melee Halflings. And my band wasn't the sick-and-broken one. That honor went to the Amazon list with a model with Frenzy, Str 5, and 3 base attacks.

Like all groups, we struggled with armor. Essentially it's more worthwhile to buy an extra guy than armor. So the first thing we did was reduce the cost to 40% of list price (light armor is 5 gp, heavy is 20 gp).

It still didn't fix the problem, so I came up with a radical idea: in addition to be 40% list price, we increased the body armor by +1. So Light Armor grants a 5+ save, etc. We tested it out with a Gromril-heavy Dwarf list. In essence, if a shield+gromril armor (a 2+ save) isn't broken, then the idea had merit.

Turns out, it worked. I mean, it does make guys more survivable (which is the point), but not excessively. Suddenly people are looking at double handed weapons, morning stars, flails, axes, etc. People aren't just putting 2 maces on every model. People are considering "crazy" things like light armor and shield.

And its having positive ripple effects. It sounds weird that 7 gp could get someone a 5+ save, but the cost point vs the benefit makes it a viable option. So models are now only making 1 attack (since they have a shield), which means parrying suddenly seems like a better idea.

So its not that 2 maces are going away (it's still a decent option against light armor & shield). It's more that its one possible option among many. Warbands are starting to have a mix of axes, double handed weapons, swords, etc. Which is cool.

I ordered a box of Empire Militia to recreate the Marienburger warband I did when I first played 10 years ago. Scott is borrowing my Dwarves, so I picked up a box of Dwarf Warriors (because all I had for henchmen was Thunderers with crossbows).

I spent a couple days designing Dwarf warbands and I started thinking it'd be fun to build a Gromril'd up Dwarf warband. Scott felt 6 models was too few. So in the end, I built 15 dwarves out of the box of warriors so we could both have enough.

Then I saw these: Yaar! Me Mateys!

Dwarf pirates.

Dwarf. . .pirates.

DWARF. PIRATES.

Sveeet...


So here's my warband:

"Captain" (Dwarf Noble): Brace of Pistols, 2 Dwarf Axes (the cutlasses 'count as' Dwarf Axes)

"Master Gunner" (Engineer): Brace of Pistols, 2 Axes

"Bosun's Mate" (Slayer): 2 Dwarf Axes

"Bosun's Mate" (Slayer): 2 Dwarf Axes

"Midshipman" (Clansman): Brace of Pistols, 2 Dwarf Axes


Yep, 5 models. And no armor. I fully expect to be murdered each and every game. But it's gonna be fun, and I'll document it here.

The New Ekrund ExPatriots

I had planned to post this a few days after Kublacon, but you know what my motto is about plans. So I've got 45 minutes before the eldest child wakes up: just enough time to get into writing, not enough to do real work. Anyway, for the 1 of you that read this and didn't go to Kubla, here's some more pictures on the New Ekrund ExPatriots.

The team in all it's glory:

Quarterback Thoom Broody & Coach Bild Billy-Chuck

The "Chaos Dwarves"

The "Bull Centaurs"

The Hobgoblins

If you're interested in how I came up with the name . . . you're fricken bored. Here's a map, open it and zoom in a little bit on the Black Gulf region (which is roughly centered).

To the right of the Black Gulf you'll see the Dragonback Mountains. At the bottom of those is Ekrund (Mt. Bloodhorn).

So basically I needed something that sounded like "England." Then I looked through various wikis and found this:

-1498 Imperial Years

The mines of Ekrund are siezed by the Orcs after heavy fighting against the Dragonback Dwarfs and the watch towers of Mad Dog Pass are gradually abandoned and siezed by the Goblins.

So I constructed some fluff that the original survivors of Karak Ekrund made their way north and settled in the foothills of the Moot, founding New Ekrund. After years of breeding with Halfling women, the folk of New Ekrund weren't exactly Dwarves and weren't exactly Halflings. They were gnomes.

Yeah, okay, a lot of silly thought for a Bloodbowl team. But I have a lot of time during the day where I'm physically busy but the brain is otherwise unengaged.

Right, there you have my team. I have considered doing Undead next year, using Malifaux minis. I've also looked at doing Lizardmen, using the Impact Minis Sarcos. Right now, I'm thinking of maybe taking the New Ekrund Expatriots again or maybe doing the Ogres. I had fun with both of those teams.

Or maybe I'll just dust off the High Elves. Unlike most folks, I give them Block when they get advancements because I like to mix it up. But passing is fun too.

Kublacon

Finally about functional after Kubla. The kids took longer to recover, as shown by Jocelyn wanting to be picked up on our short walk Thursday. I myself didn't have a ton of energy that day either.

So here it is:

Wednesday: Scott arrived at 2:40pm. Promptly when he said he would. Which, if you know him, was a gentle shock. So I packed the kids up and we picked him up at the airport. He hadn't slept well, so no gaming that night. Which was fine.

Thursday: Manny arrived at noon. Left Scott behind (couldn't fit everyone in the car) but Jocelyn wanted to see Papa. She'd been saying "going to Klubla" for about a day now. Met Scott at Neto's for lunch. They make sausage burgers. Manny was braver than I, and had the Linguica Burger.

Picked up some terrain and GK, cooked some tri-tip, during which got rained on (!). Neither Scott nor I had played Bloodbowl since December, so I pulled out my High Elves and he borrowed my Norse and we stumbled through the Bloodweiser Bowl. After wards, Manny was to tired to play. Something about being up for 24 hours.

Pansy.

Anyway, crashed out at about 1:00 or so.


Friday: was woken up by Jocelyn ("Dada get up! Dada get up!"). Manny was up, but Liam was asleep in the office. So figuring I couldn't really pack & print stuff out, Manny & I played a game of cardhammer. I won't describe the details, let's just go with "Manny now hates dragons as much as healer mages."

Mer woke up around 10:00-ish and we started packing. About 2:30pm or so we were ready to go. Oy.

Got there at 3:30. Unloaded, checked in, then had to switch rooms so we had adjoining rooms, then swap keys in and out. Then it was run to the BBCS. This was the pattern all weekend.

BBCS was great. Had 10 people show (more than we expected). Round one, I got to reveal to super secret Blood Bowl team to Manny.

Drum roll. . . .



Chaos Dwarves! Behold, the New Ekrund Expatriots!

See Manny hates Chaos Dwarves with a burning passion. And he's a New England Patriots fan. So I made a Chaos Dwarf team and painted them up like the Patriots. Only, I couldn't just do that. So I got the Impact Miniatures Gnome Contraption team, which is a proxy for the Ogres & Goblins team.

So the contraptions, mounted on 30mm bases, are Chaos Dwarves. The Gnomes on foot are Hobgoblins. And the Deathrollas are Bull Centaurs.

Manny did not find this funny at all. He pouted through the entire first round. I'm serious. He. Pouted. The. Whole. Time. He was surly, nothing-is-funny Papa-bear despite beating me 1-0 at the Ulthuan Bowl (overly strict officiated Blood Bowl). Everyone else thought it was hilarious. Not Manny. It's okay, not like he's people anyway. He keeps trying to get up on the furniture.

Next round I played the Hurricane Bowl against Trent's Dark Elves. Played on an archipelago where the tide could come in. Was fun and I won 1-0, mainly because Trent simply didn't have enough land to run away.

Last round was Mordheim Bowl against Scott's Norse. I believe it was a 1-1 tie, but don't remember clearly. It was late, and what I do remember is that Scott thumped me. At one point, I had 4 Chaos Dwarves and 1 Bull Centaur either KO'd or killed.

Three fun games though. Frankly, the most fun I've had had at BBCS. We crashed out sometime around 2:00am.

Saturday: I was awoken by my daughter. Had some coffee (we were smart and brought the coffee maker this year), a muffin, and packed up for Battleground Fantasy Warfare (aka cardhammer).

We played a three round Civil War in Hawkshold, with me playing Hannibal. Frankly, this was the low-point event for me. I thought it'd be more fun, and it was, but more a "me'h" kind of thing.

Round 1, I played Manny and IIRC, I pretty well butchered him. He was playing the unreleased Dark Elves and so he really didn't know what he was doing. The funny part was him trying to pull the same trick on me with his drake riders that I'd done with my dragon earlier. Wasn't having any of that, and I sent some elephants to take care of bidness.

Rd 2, I played Niko, the guy who wrote version 3.0 of the rules. I was tabled. It was ugly, quite possibly the worst defeat I'd taken in awhile. I was doomed from the beginning, as he had more line units than I did and there was nothing I could do. The my dice decided to desert me. Oh the pain.

Rd 3, I played Trent. In another odd-couple army pairing Trent decided to take 4 units of archers at the time when I decided not to take any skirmisher meat shields. The game ended up a draw by like 15 pts or so, mainly because my Hannibal's Elite failed their courage check (again!) and then his T-rex mulched through my line until it was pinched by two elephants. A draw and a good game.

After that it was race upstairs to drop everything off and then off to an In & Out run. Oy. We had to get our order three times, and by the time we got back it was cold and Manny got the wrong order... Next year, the Walla Walla folks can borrow my car.

After food, it was grab the Rezolution terrain & minis, then head downstairs. In another theme of the year, we had more people than we expected. So many that I ended up bowing out of the event to simply run it. The event maxed out at 4 people and I was too fried to figure out how to adjust it for 6 people. Turned out Trent didn't make it either, so he played GM for the event.

One thing I did get to do was set up Jason with the broken psyker-nun, on the promise that he pulped Manny. I don't know how well he did that, but they seemed to be having good natured fun.

Having Trent as GM freed me up to play a playtest game of cardhammer with Niko. Played Alexander against High Elves. He wiped me out again, but it was a good game and showed him what the list could do. Probably shouldn't have played drunk either.

Oh yeah, did I forget that part? Saturday night we busted out the Cokes . . . with nothing else in them. They were Just Cokes. So yeah, three Just Cokes and Corey doesn't make the best tactical decisions.

Also very cool is the miniatures coordination pounded his Just Coke on an empty stomach and then proceeded to play Tzeentch Bowl. Good times.

Crashed out at about 2:30 or so. Not exactly clear on the time...

Sunday: I roused myself sometime around 8:00ish in a fog. Thank goodness for coffee. Because I had to shower, then load up the terrain & minis for 40K, and out the door.

We had 10 people. I was shocked. We did everything we could to discourage people except lighting entrants on fire. Seriously, we had them read the Macharian Manifesto and sign it.

So the campaigns rules turned out to be a wee complex... But everyone loved it. They loved awarding experience and giving their guys upgrades. They loved the wackyness. They complained the rules weren't wacky enough. Huh, okay.

Rd 1 I played Scott, against my Orks. I wasn't tabled...because we ran out of time. It was some bad luck, but also the new Battlewagon really brings the army together. Despite being whupped, I had a great time.

Rd 2 I played Manny. His luck was terrible. He had units not make reserve rolls for most of the game. Which balanced the fact that I read the rules wrong and let him deploy three force org selections instead of three units. It was this mistake which allowed him to have anything left on the table as opposed to nothing.

By this point, none of the guys who wrote the campaign rules were even keeping track of experience. We were just happy to play.

Rd 3 was against Trent. I did a fair bit of damage, and might have pulled it out, but he won the scenario. If we'd fought it out, it would've been a draw most likely. But I was kinda done and didn't want to play anymore.

In the end, I was bored with my army but had a great time playing. Strange, egh? Essentially, the Martian SRO played too similar to regular shooty IG and so I got bored after about 2 games. But the scenarios and the opponents were awesome, and it was cool to know everyone had such fun.

So we finished up, brought stuff back to the room, and came back down for some Battlestar Galactica (boardgame). We only got half a game in, but it was funny. Highlights include

--Trent's HORRIBLE poker face as he tried to convince me he wasn't the Cylon.

--Me almost single handedly brigging and then airlocking Trent (at which point he was revealed as a Cylon).

--Manny playing like this was Twilight Imperium and thus appearing guiltier than Dick Cheney, despite actually not being a cylon.

--Jason & I teaming up to airlock Manny in the last round (we stopped after the Sleeper Agent phase) just because we felt like it. Only to find out he was the Cylon.

Monday: We all crashed out, got up, had our annual brunch, packed, checked out, said bye to Trent, Darby, & brood, Dana, Michaela, then drove home. Unpacked, returned some stuff to Game Kastle, gorged on pizza rolls, watched the kids while Mer crashed out.

Then we decided to play some more. It was our usual game of lazy choice: cardhammer. I figured I'd show how the Romans played against his Undead. And by "show him how they work" I apparently meant "show them how bad they get thumped when Corey consistently rolls three 5s and a 1." (low is good in that game)

Yeah it was ugly. I was tired so I got a little frustrated for a few minutes and then it just became comedy. I refused to quit and wasn't tabled...because time ran out.

After that Manny and Scott played Bloodbowl on the Kislev Bowl. Didn't get to see much because I was sort of ghosting in and out, playing with the kids, etc. Plus I was simply exhausted so if I sat still I knew I'd collapse. There was lots of broken ice and skating, and general wackyness. Apparently Scott rolled really well when blocking ("a skull and the roll he needs" according to Manny), but Manny still won 1-0. Manny whining while winning seems to have been another theme of the weekend. ;-)


Tuesday: wake up, hang out with Manny, take him to the airport. Was sad to see him go, but maybe he'll fly out for the Geek Weekend in July. Come back, relax outdoors with Scott and some very tired kids. They crash out, and we played some more Cardhammer, Romans against the playtest Alexander list. We had some terrible rolling on both sides and didn't play it to the death because we were so tired. But the Romans had collapses the Alexander flanks and were going to roll them up, so we weren't worried.

Wednesday: wake up, take Scott home. And with that Kublacon was officially over. The entire ride home, Jocelyn kept saying "We going to Klubla?"

Was a great weekend. I'd say we 90% escaped the Even Year Curse. Liam teething and not sleeping well was rough on Mer & Janet (I got to escape most of it). Plus logistics was rough, with Trent & I running around quite a bit.

But the gaming was a total blast. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and at all but the cardhammer event we had 10 people. Pretty impressive, frankly. I got in 15 total games and I can't say I had a bad one. Even ones where I got crushed I had a blast and I'd have to go back to 2007 to say that I had fun at every single game I played. So in that regard it was the best Kubla in years.

Yatta!

(Been watching Heroes while I painted)


So I made it. With some help from Mer who did all the bases, my guys are done. Finished the BB team, flocked them, painted the numbers on their bases. Painted the last IG guys (tech priest and servitor), and they are waiting to be based.

All that's left now is putting them in their foam trays.

Kubla Kountdown

(I'm suddenly reminded of the Simpsons "Krusty Komedy Klassic, at the Apollo Theater")

Looks like I'm number two on the "only so many days before Kubla" post. I have actually been painting pretty consistently, but not "like a madman" I'd say. Mainly because I knew once I got the Monolith finished, it'd be downhill. Plus Meredith, my loving wife being the wonderful person she is, offered to base my minis and paint my Sentinels. At which point, I knew I was going to make it without too much rush.

So what I have left is the Techpriest and his servitor. I finished the Super-Secret-BloodBowl-Team. I have to flock & number them, and they're totally finished. In what has become sort of a ritual, I'll do the flocking dead last after I finish almost everything else.

Beyond that it's fix some broken Orks (weapon popped off here and there), put the IG in their trays, and then put the Looted Monolith in its box. I ended up buying a $4 cardboard evidence box used by lawyers. I figure that plus some bubble wrap and I'm good to go. Probably can stuff a tray or two of Ork stuff in there as well.

Mer happened to comment that I seem unenthusiastic about Kubla this year. Which is odd, because I am jazzed about it. But she is right in that there's not the energy I've had in previous years. But not in a bad way. Usually, I get this excited energy because, hey, I like hanging out with my friends. And usually that makes me fairly high strung.

But not so much this year. Part of me wants to say its because I expect it to be an "off" year. See, I've noticed there's this trend where during the even years stuff goes wrong at Kubla whereas odd years are more fun. For example:

2008: didn't really get to play as much with my friends as I'd like, plus Jocelyn screeched all weekend. Plus I referred a babysitter to Trent & Darby that . . . didn't work out.

2006: Manny couldn't make it due to his granddaughter being born. This was also the first year I wasn't involved in the Golden Gargant, and Trent & I hung out for like 20 minutes all weekend.

2004: Worked as an Orlock. We worked 34 hours in 4 days. In addition to gaming. I am no longer friends with someone as a result of this weekend.

2002: Our first Kubla, so probably can't really be included. However, we still drove up to Oakland every morning before the event and drove home afterward.


Compare with the odd years:

2009: Our second year of the BBCS where we improved on things, plus our first cardhammer event which went really well. Even the Rez event, which was just the four of us, was fun.

2007: The year we did the big Rezolution event, that worked perfectly. Everything that could go right did: I had enough terrain show up, an even number of people to a couple of events where we had an odd number to start.

2005: Despite doing two Wargods events in the evening and Golden Gargant during the day, it went fabulously well. Was the first year Manny came out, and we had a conclusion to a campaign that had been going for six months.

2003: First year in the new hotel, where Mer & I basically ran the Gargant by ourselves. Plus I'd gotten a sneak peak at the (now two versions ago) upcoming Guard codex and got to play with that all weekend.

So according to the 'Even Year Curse' stuff's going to go wrong this year. I predict it'll be
a) at the 40K event
b) something Scott does
c) Both.
d) All of the above, plus something totally out of left field.


But really, that's not what has me mellow. I think what's going on is that . . . I don't care. Not about Kubla. I mean, I'm not terribly concerned about stuff going wrong. I'm sure something will. And while something might frustrate me, I'm just not worried about the bad stuff. Shit will happen, we will roll with it. I'm starting to think that all that nervous energy I had was my natural predilection to fret about all the various things that could go wrong.

Or maybe something will go wrong and it'll make this Kubla leave a sour taste in my mouth. Only one way to find out. . .

Ork Battlewagon: Looted Monolith

The pictures kind of say it all: a looted monolith that counts as my battlewagon. Now one of my shoota squads can get into the fray pretty quickly.

I knew I wouldn't have time to paint it, so I made the zzap gun at the top able to support the crystal if I just set it there instead of gluing it (which I'll do after its painted). The other thing is it has two turret mounted rokkits, represented by the four rokkits but only two can fire at any time. I tested it out, and you can fit 4 models on each side and 5 models in the front. That's 18 models, so if you cram two up at the top, you can actually fit the correct amount of models on this thing.

On the whole this project was a blast, and I'd forgotten how much fun it is to make orky stuff. If your modeling skills aren't superb, it's okay because it's Orky! Like the gantries on the side. They're slanted because the supports made them that way.

Bitch #1: Seriously, GW, what the fuck? It's a good thing I didn't need this monolith for actual Necrons because NOTHING on this this sits flush or straight. Sides are warped and don't fit together, causing other sides to not fit. This whole kit is just a giant cluster fuck.

Shout out #1: This one to GW. Making the deth rolla sprue separate from the battle wagon: brilliant. I was wondering how I was going to make one of those when I found the sprue existed. Nice job.

Shout out #2: The gantries (and their bracings) are all out of this kit Here. Really nice set that anyone contemplating a Necromunda campaign should buy. It's a really versatile kit with tons of attachment pieces so you don't have to make what's on the box (as I've showed).

Storm Troopers done

You know you're using a lot of black when you're taking pictures in direct sunlight and the the camera's flash still goes off. Anyway, if you ignore the flash on the red clothing, it's a pretty decent representation of my storm troopers.

Compared to the guardsmen, I whisked right through these guys. Basically 20 of them done in about a month (including some time off).

This leaves my total Kubla to-do list as:

• Assemble Tech priest
• Paint Tech Priest & Servitor
• Assemble & Paint 2 sentinels
• Flock all IG models
  
• Assemble 3-4 Ork converted Flash Gits
• Assemble looted monolith (battle wagon)
  
• Paint & flock Blood Bowl team

The Ork stuff is so that my buddy can have a playable 2,000 pt list at Kubla. Plus the army has no looted necron stuff, so this'll be nice to add.

I'm going to switch gears and work on the blood bowl team, just to change stuff up. No pictures forthcoming though, because this year's team is a little present to Manny...

Strom Troopers: pardon the lighting

Yeah there's just no good lighting in my house, so if I want a really good picture I have to go outside. And I'm lazy so I took a picture on the dining room table (rocking the baby wipes too, that counts as difficult terrain but provides a 2+ cover because it absorbs everything!)

Anyway, here's the storm troopers. I used Vallejo Black Red for the clothes, the P3 Greatcoat Grey for the boots, cords, etc. Any metal you see in Vallejo Gunmetal Grey. The black is Vallejo's Game Color black. Then I took some Gloss Medium for the armor plates. So if they look all shiny, they are. That's the plan.

I also finished the Command Officer & the Techpriest Astropath. Maybe pics at some future point.

Flash Gits

For Kubla, I'm letting Scott borrow my Orks. The only problem is that I don't really have enough models to get up to 2,000. Heck I have a squad of Flash Gits in my 1,850 pt list that I never got around to building.

Going with the Death Skulls theme, I figured these guys would have looted Necron weapons. Necrons are the only major race not represented in the army because those were still the new hotness when I did most of the conversions for this army (lets you know how long ago I assembled this army).

Anyway, so Necrons + Ork nobz . . . there's a bit of a scale difference. So I have a box of Necron Warriors which are just sitting around, plus 3 Ebay-found Destroyer sprues (thankyouverymuch Trent). Here's the result of about 90 minutes of work last night:

Flash Git plus Painboy. The pistol is meant to be some 'awtoe injektor' for the painboy. I'll probably put something spiky in the barrel to show its not a gun.

Here's the other two I assembled. For reference, what I did was assemble the nob minus an arm. The gun is the gauss cannon off a destroyer. The gun-arm is actually the spine of the destroyer. For the 'git finder' I clipped part of the destroyer skull, then (in a display of unsafe use not seen since I put my exacto knife into my finger all the way to the bone) cut away part of the nob face. Finished by gluing the Destroyer spine to the back and called it a day.

The end result will be a squad of 7 Flash Gits with More Dakka and Blasta plus a Painboy. I felt the FNP would accurately represent Necron auto-repair systems melded with Orks. Game wise, probably not smart but at least it'll give me an extra save vs the "Gets Hot!"

No Joy, Yashuman

To say slow progress would imply any progress. My painting table simply hasn't been touched in weeks. Burned out pretty hard, to be frank.

What I have been doing is assembling my super-secret Blood Bowl team. I'd post pics, but I want it to be a surprise for some people, who may or may not be reading this blog. I'll post pics later, along with a surly commentary of how it took me literally hours to frakking assemble these things.

Is anybody even reading this? The lack of commentary on my basing requests (only two people, with whom I'm in touch fairly regularly anyway) makes me think no.

Grunts done

So not so much with the posting, but I have been doing some steady painting. My progress has been what I've come to expect now that my painting time is like 6-8 hours a week. Anyway, so I have the entire section of grunts done: the 4 squads plus the guys in the command HQ. Working on the commanding officer and the Lex Mechanic (i.e. astropath).









So after I set all this out, I realized that I'm going to have a bitch of a time when it comes to wound allocation. I already find those rules stupid at best, and I think after playing this army I'm going to be grinding my teeth.

See, if you haven't noticed from the army shot, my squads come in two forms: "dear god keep them away" shooty and the "come get some" shooty.

The longer ranged shooty has: Vet sgt, a guy with a vox, 3 plasma gunners, a missile launcher team, and 3 regular guys. The up close shooty has: vet sgt, vox guy, 2 meltgunners, hvy flamer guy, and 5 regular guys. Yup, five different types of models in a ten man squad.

The event at Kublacon is Four. Fucking. Rounds.

So if you're playing and you hear this rhythmic thump, thump, thump sound that's me trying to make the pain stop. Unless there's a lot of cursing with the thumping. Then that's me breaking some douchebag's models with his own head because of extreme douchebaggery playing or whining about how the event is unfair to his army that won Best General at the last 18,197 GTs.

Anyway, still haven't solved the basing problem. I had this idea to just not base them and let the buyer of this army put whatever he wants on the base to match his other army. But I know that's just me justifying being lazy.

At this moment I'm leaning towards some kind of rocky. Any ideas what colors to paint this thing?