Painting, Playing, and Tournamenting

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not a word.

Anyway, it’s been a pretty long time since my last post, but it hasn’t been because I’ve been slacking. Things at work have changed, so I’ve been considerably busier on that front. I’ve been working later and even from home in the evenings here and there, so my time has been at a premium.

Generally, I’ve spent it pretty well, I think. I had a Warhammer 40,000 Combat Patrol tournament in January, and I wanted to run a different Chaos Space Marine list than the one I ran at the last tourney. Therefore, I needed to paint ten Khorne Berzerkers (which I had never painted before) in time for the tourney so I’d have a new list.

My January Combat Patrol list

The tournament went okay. It was five rounds, and I had a win, two losses, and two draws. I had never used Khorne Berzerkers before (pro-tip: try and use a unit type that you’ve never played before at least once before a tourney so you have a vague idea what you’re doing) and they worked well in some situations. In nearly every round, my Rhino troop transport only made it one or two turns before being immobilized or out-and-out destroyed, so it pretty much was business as usual on that front. I got to play five games in a day and against people and armies I don’t usually play against, so I look at it as mission accomplished.

I also was finally able to get in a game of Flying Lead from Ganesha Games with my man Lee. We had not played it in a long time, so it was also a bit of a re-learning experience as well. We got together at my place in the Nerd Bunker and played on one of the smaller 4×4 boards.

My AT-43 figures jockeying for cover

It was just a simple game of elimination. No objectives, no secondary or tertiary bonus points, just a simple game of killing everyone on the other team. It started out slowly, with the both of us trading shots to little effect. I started to do some work, knocking down a few of his guys and making them seek cover. I had three soldiers in my squad who had the Stealth special rule, and they were giving Lee some problems. Then, the tide turned, my dice betrayed me, and Lee made some really smart moves, charging my stealthed soldiers and wiping most of them out. Then he sniped my Leader, which caused a morale check for the guys who were still left… and then things pretty much ended. It was a good time and I’m hoping to get together and play more Flying Lead, and hopefully teach a few other people the game.

Then, it was already time for another Combat Patrol tournament at my local gaming store (they’re trying to run more tournaments this year; I think it’s a good idea) and, as usual, it seemed like time to try yet another list. This time, I wanted to bring two squads of Plague Marines and a squad of Havocs (heavy weapons specialists) so I needed to paint five of the Plague Marines (one with a plasma gun)  and three of the Havocs (all in Black Legion colors: a missile launcher and two heavy bolters) in a week. I didn’t need to paint all 15 guys in the list as I was able to use five Plague Marines and two Black Legion from my current group of painted figures. Also, this time I wasn’t bringing a Rhino.

They're not the 'Dirty Dozen,' they're the 'Unclean Fifteen,' I guess

This was only a three round tournament (since it was on a Sunday) and I played against an Ork Killer Kan list (known around these parts as a ‘Kan-wall’), a Dark Eldar list run by my good friend and painter extraordinaire Samson, and a ‘vanilla’ Space Marine biker and scouts list. I got pretty badly mangled by the Orks (though I did take out a few Killer Kans); Sam’s Dark Eldar beat me in the screwy mission goals, but I blew up all three of his crazy-ass flying pirate boat-things, so that made me feel better (seriously, I think it was the best game I’ve ever played against him); and though I beat the Space Marine biker player in the mission goals, there were so many weird secondary and tertiary bonus points and objectives (that he accidentally ended up claiming) that we ended up tying the game in points, so it was scored as a draw.

It was still a generally decent time, but it is starting to make my want to play some large, “normal-sized” games soon. Combat Patrol is a 400-point list per player; usually 40k is played with army lists ranging from 1500 to 2000 points per player. As soon as I get my two Chaos Vindicators built (I started on one of them on Sunday night and it’s more than half done) then I’ll be able to field a 1750 point list. They won’t be painted, but they’ll be built and I can start playing friendly games with people and use lots and lots of toys, like the aforementioned Vindicators and a Daemon Prince and Terminators and all kinds of cool stuff. I’m looking forward to it, I just wish there was more time in the day to build and paint and play (and blog) more.

Big Plans for 2011

2010 was a good year for me overall, and I feel grateful for it. As it related to hobby gaming, however, 2010 could have been better. Without spending too much time looking back, I’d like to look forward to 2011 and touch upon the things I’m planning to accomplish this year.

GAME MORE
I got an ‘okay’ amount of gaming in last year, but I wasn’t able to do as much as I would have liked, due to the move to a new home in the later part of the year and all the packing and unpacking and whanot that that entails. Therefore, I plan to do more gaming this year and hopefully I’ll be able to do that in my Nerd Bunker, once it’s completed. I want to play plenty of skirmish games (Song of Blades and Heroes, Flying Lead, AE-Bounty and a few other small indie games) and more Warhammer 40,000 this year, the latter which has already occurred in 2011 (albeit not in the Nerd Bunker) which is a good start. Plus I plan on going to several conventions this year, including Fire & Ice, Adepticon, Chaoticon, GenCon, OshCon (natch) and maybe even RockCon.

PAINT / MODEL MORE
I didn’t paint quite as much as I would have liked in 2010, again, due to the move later in the year. However, I did get a good number of Tau Firewarriors done and I have some Pathfinders and a dozen Kroot that are very nearly done. Also, I got a bunch of my mercenary unit for use in skirmish games finished, and even some Reaper fantasy minis at the beginning of the year. But again, it wasn’t quite enough, and I can do better.

One way I can hope to do better is to make it easier for me to paint, and to that end, I’ve purchased an airbrush and a compressor. I’m really hamstrung at this time of year because it’s too cold to spray figures outside, and I won’t use rattlecans in the house because of the propellants. However, once I get the little room under the stairs in the Nerd Bunker turned into a proper spray booth, I’ll be able to prime minis down there and do basecoating and highlighting with the airbrush, which will allow me to paint larger armies (like one plays with in Warhammer 40k) quickly, and absolutely breeze through smaller squads for skirmish gaming. The only difficult part about getting this room set up (besides moving all of the books and other debris out of there) is getting the ventilation system installed, so that the propellants can be blown outside. I’m thinking a bathroom fan should do the job. Hopefully this won’t be too big of a deal, and I’ll be able to start working in there soon.

Lastly, I didn’t complete any terrain projects last year, and I really have to be better about that this year. If I’m going to be gaming in my basement I’m going to need to make more terrain. The upside to gaming in the Nerd Bunker will be that I won’t need to lug all of my stuff around as much to play in other venues, so larger terrain pieces won’t be such a problem.

CREATE MORE
I want to blog more this year and do a few more feature articles and tutorials instead of just the run-of-the-mill ‘this is what I’m doing now’ check-ins that I’ve usually done in the past. I’d also like to start some sort of outlet (a webzine PDF, a podcast, a collaborative website, etc.) to talk about skirmish miniatures games. Even though I’m getting into Warhammer 40k, my first love is still skirmish games, and there are so many indie games in that market that I’d have plenty of topics to talk about. So I plan to do more of those things in the coming year.

Also, I’ll be working with the lads at Beasts of War some more, including videos and interviews at Adepticon 2011 and GenCon 2011, if not more. I might even be able to make a recurring video segment about the creation of the Nerd Bunker that’ll show up on Beasts of War. That would be cool.

BASEMENTATION
So yeah, I’ve been mentioning the Nerd Bunker a lot on my blog, but that’s because it’s going to be a pretty big project. I’m only really working on the cleaning and the painting at this point, but after that’s all done, there’s a lot more work to do, and plenty of it that I’ve never done before: adding lighting, adding wall switches and electrical outlets, and then building the 4×6-foot gaming table. So my main goals this year in the basement are to get things done as quickly as possible so that I can build the gaming table as soon as it starts getting nice outside, which around here usually means April at the earliest. It gives me some time. Then will come the organization and setting everything up, and then will come the sweet, sweet gaming.

IN CONCLUSION
I have a lot to look forward to this year, including many new opportunities, including building my Nerd Bunker and paint spray room (things I’d never be able to do while still renting), learning more about airbrushing and Warhammer 40k, and hopefully doing more work with Beasts of War. All in all, I’m really looking forward to 2011.

Gen Con Booty Report

So, as I’ve mentioned, I was at Gen Con in Indianapolis a little while ago. It’s not just a place to get together and play games and demos and tourneys, it’s also a place to buy things. Many, many things.

Stuff I bought home from Gen Con... and a cat

The black case at the top of the photo is from Max Protection, and it was billed on the packaging as a “Miniature Case 2.0″ and the photo showed a troop-style foam cutout inside. I found when I got home an opened it that it did not have that kind of cutout inside, it had spaces for card decks. Maybe I can fit warjacks in those holes, we’ll see. Otherwise, I’ll have to see if Battlefoam can cut me a custom piece of foam for it, which will cost more than I paid for the bag, but it’ll be worth it.

Tuesday Night’s Game

Lee and I got together at House of Heroes last Tuesday night to play a game of Flying Lead, something that had been pushed to the back burner for quite awhile due to playtesting Lee’s Fear and Faith scenario for OshCon and the introduction of Zombie Dice, which will push a lot of things to the back burner (like eating and sleeping). We were planning on 600 point squads on a standard 3×3 foot board. We got everything set up and got started after some after-work chatting and a quick nosh.

No, it's not hiding, it's strategy

We used a lot of terrain, as one does with skirmish games like Flying Lead, and then positioned our teams. Lee won the roll for first turn (which never happens) and started moving his men up. Upon my turn, I did the same. We traded shots for a bit back and forth, and then… first blood. I dropped one of Lee’s soldiers and then used a few other figures in my squad to finally mop him up.

Shortly after that, things went poorly for me. Lee got a lucky shot off on my leader and I rolled really badly for his defense, and he was knocked Out of Action. This caused me many problems, the worst of them being that a Leader-type being killed or knocked Out of Action causes an automatic Morale check. One of my regular soldiers ran off as did my Medic character, which really hurt my chances. Without a Medic character, my Out of Action leader couldn’t be revived, so he was effectively dead. Did I mention that my leader also had the Sniper skill? So in one shot (and a few lousy Morale checks) my squad had been relieved of its leader, medic, a foot-slogger and my only character with Sniper.

They call him Mister Heavy Weapon Guy

However, Morale can work both ways. I had soon worked my last remaining personality, a figure with the Hero special ability and a really big gun, into a firing position and messed up a few of Lee’s men. Then, in the next turn or two I was able (with a pretty lucky roll) to knock Lee’s leader Out of Action. This caused him to make Morale checks, and it turns out that most of his remaining figures were actually big girl’s blouses. After all the running and crying and soiling of body armor, Lee had one lone figure left. And then eventually that guy was killed.

By the way, the scenario was to collect the most of the three items on the board, but in our group, the games rarely end that way.

The important thing we both learned that night was that Morale can be a real son of a gun and if your leader isn’t completely hidden in cover, then you should not put figures you want to keep too close to the table’s edge in case they end up R-U-N-N-O-F-T.

Looking Forward to Gen Con

I completely forgot to mention how much I’m looking forward to Gen Con this year. I missed 2009 and it feels weird when I miss it. It’s usually Friday or Saturday of that week before I realize why I seem out of sorts. I’ll be at work or something and realize that the disturbance in the nerd force that I’m feeling is actually from a very high concentration of gamers in Indiana and I’m not there. It feels a little like gas, but in my head.

Anyway, I am going again this year, and it’ll be with many of the lads from the Consoles and Cardboard podcast, good men all. I’ve been on the podcast a few times and I’m looking forward to the drive and sleeping on the floor in the hotel room and all of the related wacky shenanigans. I’m also trying something new this time in that I registered for games and demos ahead of time, instead of just fumbling around and trying to find stuff to do. I’ll be playing demos of MERCS, Leviathans, Reich of the Dead, Injurious Games, Gearmageddon and Malifaux.

I’ll also be hitting the dealer room, ‘natch. I’m not looking for anything in particular, but I’ll probably do some bitz shopping and look for some terrain, too.  Otherwise, I’m just gonna look and see what’s there and let the cash fall where it may, as it were.

Man, I wish it were Tuesday, August 2nd instead of Tuesday, July 20th. Oh well.

In other news, I’m playing Flying Lead against Lee tonight and I’m going to crush his face, unless I don’t. Then I won’t.

Very Moist

It’s been terrible weather for miniatures the last week or so. Cold and damp weather makes spray primer a disaster and Dullcote spray even worse. Painting in the humidity is probably not terrible per se, but my painting is sometime iffy enough that I haven’t really wanted to push it. It’s okay weather for model construction though, so I’ve been building and doing a little tiny bit of conversion on some Imperial Guard soldiers. I’m going to be making a generic squad of ten guys for Flying Lead and I’ll probably just be painting them military green or something. Nothing fancy. However, I do plan on building the rest of the ten guys in the box as more fodder for my yet-as-unnamed mercenary force, so they’ll have the same blue and bone color scheme as the other mercs I’ve done so far and I’ll be replacing their heads with something cool from the folks at Pig Iron Productions. I used heads from their line for my merc Space Marine Scouts, and they’re really a lot of fun to work with and make figures look great. And, PIP makes some pretty cool minis themselves, so if you like sci-fi soldiers, you should really check them out.

However, I won’t be starting on those guys for awhile, as my new big project should be arriving by the end of the week, and then I’ll have a lot of work to get done. A lot.

Sunday’s Results

This is just a quick note about the results of my productive Sunday afternoon. I set up the trusty card table and newspapers and uncorked a new can of Testor’s Dullcote for the first sealant day of the summer. I end up doing a lot of priming during the summer and fall (when the weather is good for it) and then do a lot of painting of those primed figures during the winter. Then, when spring rolls around, it’s time to seal the winter’s miniatures.

A Random Grouping

I took a quick shot of these guys after the Dullcote had dried. In the back, you can see the finished Steam Golem figure from my oxidized metal test. To the left is a grouping of Space Marine scouts (with alternate heads from Pig Iron Productions) and to the right is a squad of Space Marines. These “blue & bone” figures are all part of my yet-as-unnamed mercenary unit that I’m building for skirmish games like Flying Lead. And in the foreground are two Tau Fire Warriors that I’ll be talking about soon.

I’ll be breaking out my fancier photo equipment for miniatures photography soon so I can talk more about these different sets in depth, but I thought this would be a good teaser for now.

A Bit One-Sided

Lee and I got together on Saturday and played another game of Flying Lead. It was a simple game of 600 points with six objectives on the board. The first person to capture an objective would roll a D6, and on a six that would give them a point. Once the second objective was captured, the point would be given on a roll of a five or a six, and the third objective would be scored on a four, five or six, and so on.

A well-protected position

I had five figures on my team, and I believe Lee had six. I had a Leader/Hero and a Medic/Sniper for my personalities, two standard grunts with assault rifles and a heavy gunner with a light machine gun. Lee had a leader and several combat medics, a few other soldiers and a figure with a flamethrower, which I was rather nervous about, as I had never fought against a flamethrower before.

However, luck was on my side, and not on Lee’s (as is frequently the problem) and I got the first objective and rolled a six. Therefore I was in the lead, objectives-wise. I also started making a series of pretty lucky shots, knocking one of his combat medics Out of Action pretty early on. His flamethrower turned out to be pretty ineffective, as well. He used it on me several times, but his attack rolls and my defense rolls added up to my figures wearing asbestos underwear, evidently.

Eventually, Lee’s leader was killed outright, which made for a nasty morale check that cost him another soldier, leaving him with one. At this point, I had been very lucky and hadn’t lost a single man. In the end, it was just a case of my soldiers ganging up on his last figure and finishing the game.

It was a good time and I’m looking forward to playing again. We’re getting the rules figured out more and more, so the play goes along pretty well. We’re really looking forward to some sci-fi expansion rules, perhaps covering power armor and jump packs. Hopefully we’ll see them soon.

Fire & Ice 2010

This past Saturday and Sunday I spent most of my day in the Manitowoc County Expo Center, waist-deep in other nerds like me at the 10th annual Fire & Ice gaming convention in Manitowoc, WI. As always, I had an excellent time.

Soldiers stalking through the battlefield

On Saturday I ran two games of Flying Lead (Ganesha Games) and that was really fun. I’m enjoying this game more and more the more I play it. I brought some of my terrain and set up a 4×4-foot playspace and used some of Rackham’s excellent AT-43 miniatures for the two forces. After a pretty quick description of the rules, the games moved along quickly for the players. That’s what really makes Flying Lead (and several other of the Ganesha Games’ line) so much fun to run at conventions.

The orc leader seems a bit perturbed.

And speaking of other Ganesha Games, on Sunday I ran a game of Song of Blades and Heroes for a couple of friends of mine that were attending the convention. It was a group of orcs and goblins versus a band of humans and there was a fancy scenario involved, too: in the very middle of the board, there was a crate on the ground. Also, on each starting side, each player had a crate available to them, as well. However this crate was up on a hill, instead of down on the ground. To win, a player needed to capture two crates and bring them back to their starting side of the playspace. Therefore, it started as a sprint for the crate in the middle of the board. Lee (playing the human group) made a quick dash out to the center, grabbed the crate and hoofed it back to his starting side, scoring his first crate and putting Tim into a situation, you might say.

However, Tim and his band of orcs and goblins stepped up and stopped Lee’s humans from capturing their second box and winning the game. They did this by brutally slaughtering the entire group of humans down to the last man. Lee’s luck had abandoned him; he could barely roll above a 2 on his six-siders. On the other hand, Tim was ‘throwing rocks’ as we like to say, and the worm had turned.

Fire & Ice is a great convention and there were tons of people there, easily 500 over the three days, if not more. And they have a game auction, which is always a good time. I picked up a 15-year-old game still in the original shrinkwrap for $65. Sweet. I’ve really been thinking about trying to set up a game auction at OshCon this year. I’ll have to ponder on it more.

Finally Getting Some Miniatures Done, Part 1

Have I mentioned in the past that I’m a slow painter? I am. A very slow painter, unfortunately. But this past weekend, Eric and I had another Paintpocalypse and I got a bunch of stuff done. Behold:

The first squad of my 'yet as unnamed' mercenaries

I don’t play the Warhammer 40,000 ruleset, as I have mentioned in the past. However, I love their ‘fluff’ (backstory, novels, artwork, etc.) and think that they make some of the coolest miniatures in the industry. So I ended up with a few bits and pieces that I had come across here and there, and I eventually had an idea to create a mercenary unit for a different sci-fi miniatures game (in this case, Flying Lead, which can use any miniatures) and then I’d have an excuse to cherry pick a bunch of space marines (and the like) to build my merc unit.

I eventually decided on a color scheme (the reasons behind it will appear in a later post) and slowly started working on these six marines. All of the figures except the soldier with the rocket launcher are newer, plastic space marines that I bought off of a guy I know who sells miniatures on eBay. The figure with the missile launcher is an older, metal marine and I purchased him when I was still in college. That means it took me at least 15 years to get him painted. I’ll probably need to work a bit faster than that in the future.

Anyway, I mostly like the way they turned out (I need to get that guy with the pole on his back some sort of flag or banner or something) and have two other squads completely built, based and primed, waiting to also be painted in this matter: a squad of five or six space marines mainly kitted out for melee combat and a squad of six space marine scouts with the lighter armor and the fancy cloaks. I’m not sure which group I’ll start next.