Power of One 2010 - Result = I DON'T suck!!

This past weekend I traveled up to Montreal for a 1 day blood bowl tournament called "Power of One" it was hosted at La Forge des Jeux in Lasalle.  4 games, $1M to build your team and every model gets one normal skill. This is the list I took. I practiced quite a bit on legendary edition.

Mummy - multiple block
Mummy - piling on
Wight - guard
Wight - mighty blow
Ghoul - block
Ghoul - block
Ghoul - sure hands
Zombie - block
Zombie - block
Zombie - block
Skeleton - dirty player

Instead of trying to go all out to win, I decided to try for most casualties and hope that meant I could easily score once their team was depleted. Meeting three AV7 teams in first three games definitely helped.

Game 1 (vs Colin - playing skaven)
I won the coin toss so got to receive.  Colin played very aggressively and it kinda played into my hands. 3 casualties by turn 3 and 7 in total by the end of the game. Ended up winning 3-1 (I smashed him for first half and forced him to score quickly in second half so I had time to score the winning touchdown (Colin managed a 7 touchdown game later on in the tournament - and won Most TDs, skaven are scary fast!)

Win #1 - Even though I won 3-1 with 7-0 casualties, Adam won 4-0 with 7-0 casualties playing against Ogres so he was top rank.

Game 2 (vs Adam - playing norse)
Won the toss again so received again.  An extremely tight game, still 0-0 by mid second half. Adam did manage to kill a mummy with his snow troll, but a fortunate one dice block resulted in defender down on his blodger runner and I managed to pick up the ball and work my way down to score on my last turn. Ended 1-0 with 3-1 casualties.

Win #2 - After suffering the worst tie ever at the hands of Adam at Lakeside Cup (see here) justice was served and I pulled out a 1-0 win.  Dan also won 1-0 but with fewer casualties so I was top ranked after two games.

Game 3 (vs Dan - playing norse)
Dan and I are the only two undefeated players at this point. Dan chose to kick first, and i kinda let myself be distracted by winning rather than just trying to cause casualties. The result being Dan was up 2-0 in middle of second half but i realized my mistake and spent a couple turns focused on hurting his team, the casualties started to tell allowing me to score quickly. He then failed a pick up with reroll allowing me to run in, scoop up the ball and tie it up. If I'd had a bit more guts to put my guys further forward (didn't want to give away any casualties) there was a possibility for one of us to score since we rolled a riot for the last kick off. Ended tied 2-2 and 3-1 casualties for me.

Tie #1 - Since I caused more casualties than Dan, I was still top ranked after the third game.

Game 4 (vs Mark - playing chaos dwarves)

Everything went my way for the final game except in turn 7 second half, my ghoul failed a dodge that would've seen me score a second touchdown. That would've won me the tournament, instead it went to Dan Campbell after he won as well. Marks Minotaur kept failing wild animal tests, and in general couldn't do what he wanted thanks to crappy dice. Finished 1-0 and 3-2 casualties.

Win #3 - Arrrgh, so close.  Still had the edge on Dan for casualties, but he scored a second touchdown where I didn't (TDs are first tiebreaker) so deservedly took home first place.  Congrats Dan!

So I went 3/1/0 w/d/l overall, caused 16 casualties to 4 taken and went home with second place (and a $30 gift card to La Forge des Jeux who were having a sale in addition to hosting the tournament) as well as most casualties.

Most CAS

Second Place

With the sale on and my $30 gift card I avoided miniature temptation and plumped for a bunch of new paints.  Just started going to tournaments in March of this year so I'm pleased to have done so well so soon!

XTBBF games 5 and 6

A couple more games in XTBBF league run by THMG at Dueling Grounds. Game 5 was first week of November and a rematch against The Olympians.  Game 6 was "technically" a rematch against the PhilAltdorfia Imperial Eagles, but I didn't count the first game as Jack was learning BB.

Game 5 vs. The Olympians. (1-1 tie) yes, again...

Game 6 vs. The PhilAltdorfia Imperial Eagles. (2-0 win)

The Olympian game I got smacked around big time by Jay's heavy hitter undead team.  A mummy died to a block and had to make some regen rolls vs. fouls.  The game against the Humans I faired much better, crowd surfing guys, caused four casualties and got important SPP for skill ups while I could hold off the meagre remains of his team.  So another ghoul is now at level 1 and I gave him wrestle.  My AG4 ghoul also got another skill and I rolled a double so I plumped for Accurate to give us a scary passing game.

XTBBF games 3 and 4

I've gotten a couple more games in with my undead team in the new XTBBF league run by THMG at Dueling Grounds. Game 3 was last week and was such a steamroller I was able to get first skills on a mummy (guard) and a ghoul (tackle), as well as a second skill on my wight (now frenzy/side step).

Game 3 vs. Sewer Rat Samurai. (2-0 win)

Game 4 vs. The Olympians. (1-1 tie)

Played Game 4 yesterday and was a very bloody affair and regeneration really saved my ass (he had four legit casualties plus a foul - all regenerated)  I think I held off using the wizard for too long, he might've had more of an impact if I'd used it a turn or two earlier.  Still, three wins and a tie puts me in second place.  I'm coming for you Drakwald Devils!!

DEATHBOWL XIII + Introducing my counts as Slann team... The Jawbreakers!

The Googlies
aka gumballs (hence the jawbreakers team name)

The Jawbreakers

Last weekend I participated in Deathbowl XIII - which for a few years now has had a "year of the ..." theme where if you use the particular team chosen, you will get a benefit other teams don't.  This was year of the slann and so slann teams got a magic item randomly chosen each half, which could be used in that game.  This seemed too good to pass up, and I only had a month to prepare for the tournament.  Unlike other folks, I usually prefer to use my own team - I would hate to borrow a team and damage it somehow.

Therefore I needed a quick way to put together a slann team, and having never played them before I wanted to make sure I had enough of each type that whatever my final team roster ended up looking like - I would have the models required.  Since slann all have the leap and very long legs skills - I needed something that would easily convey that.  Through some discussion with a friend I decided to build a team of "daddy long legs" using polystyrene balls, flower wire for legs and googly eyes!

Needless to say this team was cheap and quick to put together!  I painted the bases and drybrushed them to get a bit of the stone texture.  I drilled holes in the bases and slotted the wire legs in from underneath - using a hot glue gun to secure them.  I bent out the legs then twisted all the wires together and dabbed a little white glue on top before stabbing the bottom of the variously painted balls and applying some pressure to make the legs bend out.

Deathbowl XIII

My slann team was as follows;
catcher - block/dodge/sure hands
catcher - block/dodge/nerves of steel
catcher - block/dodge/guard
catcher - dodge/tackle
blitzer - strip ball
blitzer - tackle
line - leader
4x line - no extra skills
2 rerolls

Even with all the chaos that a deathbowl game brings, I still produced my best ever tournament result - coming in 6th with a record of 3 wins, 1 loss.  With a titch of luck and a bit more focus on my part, I could easily have gotten onto the podium (both attempts at backstabbing my "ally" failed even using a reroll, and I let someone intercept a pass on a 5 when he needed a 6).  On top of that I forgot about diving catch giving +1 to catch accurate passes ALL tournament long!!

Game 1

The googlies were a big hit - everyone found them hilarious.  We put them up for best team and they even earned 25% of the vote (4 of 16).  I'm claiming partial assist for Mark H winning best team (he's usually the bridesmaid) I figure those four votes would've gone to another team and forced a second round of voting if not knock him off outright!  You're welcome buddy!! (This even while the eternal bridesmaid of winning a tournament acted as campaign manager for my team - thanks Rob! LOL He might be re-thinking his actions since I screwed him off the podium and his campaigning in all likelyhood helped to finally get Mark hitched - to a best team trophy)

Game 4

All in all deathbowl was a blast and really well run.  Lots of fun and laughs as well as a few lessons to be learned which all point towards me becoming a better tournament player.  As an added bonus, slann are so new that from this single tournament I am now ranked as the 2nd best slann coach in Canada!! (Right behind the tournament organizer)

XTBBF = more blood bowl.

Recently the THMG has started up a blood bowl league - XTBBF. A buddy of mine let me know and I've had a couple good nights there. First night I just kind of demo'd the game for another person - but last Weds I played my first two league games. I've resurrected the Torne Bane Flaming Ears (STARS Roster on the NAF website) again (it's hard to pass up on so much regeneration in league play) for this season (#?) Generally I think it's up to the winner to post the game on the XTBBF site, so I will just link them as they get added.

Game 1 vs Middenheim Eagles. (3-0 win)

Game 2 vs Janissaries of the Hidden Flame. (2-0 win)

Another good start for my undead. I've had some luck so far as well - especially with my skill rolls, getting an AG boost for a ghoul (as well as a second ghoul getting block), but also rolled a double with my wight. I've plumped for Side Step since he already has 10 SPP and is closest to a second upgrade - at which point frenzy shall be selected! Muhahahahaha.

Spyrers step by step.. or using washes the "wrong" way

I've always been a fan of washes. With the latest GW washes I've taken it a step further in many cases check out my Raptors space marines or my LOTR/WHFB orcs & goblins if you are interested in seeing more.

I've had a couple requests for step by step on my Spyrers, which I'd call more of a staining method than anything else.  I wanted a similar style to paint all my Spyrers but wanted the various "suits" to have an easily recognizable colour.  I decided to try stealing a technique I'd seen used in 'Eavy Metal by Mike McVey for painting horses.  This was basically a grey/black undercoat, with a heavy white drybrush and a couple coats of brown ink to stain it the correct colour.  It handled all the highlights and shadows, looked solid and above all seemed really easy!  I thought it would work well on the Spyrers due to all the texture to the models (armour plates, tubing, etc.)

Step 1: Basecoat

This will define the overall look of your finished mini.  I went with black & red mainly because I wanted my malcadons to be reminiscent of spider-man (and I'd chosen to use a blue wash for them)

Step 2: Drybrush

Here you can see I basically just drybrushed the entire model white.  It picks out all the detail, and looks like crap - until...

Step 3: Stain (aka wash) #1

Ta-da! You can see it starting to come together here with the first coat of purple wash.  The black takes on a purplish hue and the white is quite easily stained to a light purple colour.  I go quite heavy and literally just splash the wash all over (told you it was quick!)

Step 4: Stain #2

Here the effect has really come together.  Without close inspection you can't tell the highlights were originally white and drybrushed on, they end up looking quite natural since the wash is used (quite liberally!) all over it pulls all the colours of the model together with it's unique tone.

I usually like to do some small details with proper paints, I find instead of being glaringly obvious (the difference between the washed parts and painted parts) when used correctly it can really bring the mini to life and makes the staining method even less obvious.  For the Spyrers I painted their weapons silver with a black wash and painted their faces.

I hope this inspires you, be sure to let me know if you try out any crazy painting with washes techniques!

Week 38: Tristan - a couple singles

A couple singles that I've gotten finished up over the past little while.  I've had the wyrd finished since I got into building my pit slave gang.  I took some time trying to get two good photos of the wyrd with the magnetized electric bolt (pretty cool if I do say so myself) this was as good as it got.  I actually ended up leaving his skin (pretty much just the head) as just the skull white + badab black wash undercoat I've been using frequently of late.  I wanted to try and get a very pale/albino type look and finally just realized it was staring me in the face!

This guy is an old warhammer fantasy elf from back when there was marauder miniatures.  I kept him to build up my collection of mini's suitable for warhammer quest (or any other fantasy character based game) and the original plan was to use him as the elf ranger or lord of aenarion from deathblow.  I was browsing through a buddies blog when I saw he had a few warhammer quest posts up, and in one he has a mini to use should the ranger select the "mage" path.  Well another mini I've kept from before my hobby sabbatical is a high elf mage.  I've decided I'm going to touch him up and re-base him along with the other few warhammer quest mini's I've painted this year to use as the "mage" version of the ranger. For now this guy will be the "knight" version, but I may decide at some point to get a specific elf knight model so I can count him as only a lord of aenarion and boast of having a model painted for all the "official" characters.

200th post giveaway!!

Wow! Post #200.  This calls for something special.  I have a prize for each of the five GW games I play frequently.  I just want these to go somewhere they'll be used, from the hint you should be able to guess what the model is.  If you want it, post your guess as a comment and the first person to get it right will win the miniature.

Simple, right?

40k - These guys work in a team and are generally associated with vehicles named after mythical creatures. WINNER: ctreleheb

WHFB - He wears warpaint, rides a beast with tusks and his head can explode! WINNER: Kuffeh

Blood Bowl - These bits will let you make a star player who only plays for two extremely unlikely teams. WINNER: eriochrome

Mordheim - He carries a weapon with an axlike blade and a steel spike. WINNER: Fajalheretic

Necromunda - A visitor to the underhive armed with sword and shield who almost wants to be shot at. WINNER: Mordian7th

Good luck!

other blood bowl related matters...

Over the month of August - other games (8th ed.) and lack of motivation (read: opponents) has led to the second season of blood bowl at one of the local GW's to die a slow death.  I thought I would just post up some stats here since we used the OBBLM php league manager.  I was fielding my dark elf team, the Karond Kar Raiders.

Season 2 standings

Name	PTS	CAS	W	L	D	GF	GA
Troll Country Turbos	14	14	4	2	0	12	7
Karond Kar Raiders	10	1	3	1	0	8	5
Altdorf Renegades	7	5	2	1	0	5	4
Proctors of Pestilence	5	3	1	2	0	3	5
Cothique Falcons	4	1	0	4	0	3	10
Borgut's Boulda Boyz	4	3	1	1	0	3	3

It was a little disappointing for the season to die so soon.  I had quite a good record going on, having the best points to games played ratio.  My witch elves were skilling up quite nicely, I even had a second skill on one witch (also league leading scorer with five td's) I did however lose my skilled blitzer to freakin' death last game though, so I was in for a journeymen filled game next up.

ps. I'm going to do some work on a few new blood bowl teams, as I need some more variety.  I've got this crazy idea to make a daddy long legs "counts-as" slann team using styrofoam balls with flower wire and googly eyes.  The deathbowl tournament in October in Ottawa gives bonuses to slann teams and I'm positive I could get that team done on time.  Mini wise there's an all female team that could count as amazons, norse or wood elves and the original plastic humans (that I've converted) which I'm going to do halved white & red with some black detailing and probably dip them.

Week 37: Tristan - Necromunda... Pit Slaves!

I've practically finished up my necromunda pit slave gang.  Gave them a light dip and left to dry.  Then I did the bases by gluing some techy bits down, painting them and adding a mixture of various sand/rock flock - the rest of the base was painting black. A spray of dullcote followed by a few touch ups to cover up some dipping accidents (some blood on a few arms and the barrels of guns) leaves just a thin layer of mud to finish up the base.  I left the mud until last because I'd like it to keep a bit of a gloss (impossible with dullcote)

I can't wait to get a game in with these guys.  I'm currently sealing my recently reacquired escher gang, so I hope to get some nice pictures from the next couple battles using completely painting gangs. I'm planning on using Anthony Cases updated rules.  I'm already collecting bits to make some more arms.  Since I've actually glued armour bits onto all of the plastic models, I'll probably use something like skill rings to represent actual armour plates in game terms.  

 For the amount of effort I put into these minis, they look great.  Dip + Dullcote = Win.  I got excited, built all the models, painted on a base coat, dipped and then some basing and touch ups.  I'm really happy with the "piece of crap" tone they have, obviously being cobbled together from spare junk.

Finally - I will also have no problem playing these guys as servitors in my Space Marine armies.  I've tried to make the bases very busy so they will kinda blend in with whichever marines I'm using.  Also why I've kept the rims black.  They should be right at home with my marines - guess I should get that thunderfire cannon built!

Pit Slaves 99% complete!

I've practically finished up my necromunda pit slave gang.  Gave them a light dip and left to dry.  Then I did the bases by gluing some techy bits down, painting them and adding a mixture of various sand/rock flock - the rest of the base was painting black. A spray of dullcote followed by a few touch ups to cover up some dipping accidents (some blood on a few arms and the barrels of guns) leaves just a thin layer of mud to finish up the base.  I left the mud until last because I'd like it to keep a bit of a gloss (impossible with dullcote)

I can't wait to get a game in with these guys.  I'm currently sealing my recently reacquired escher gang, so I hope to get some nice pictures from the next couple battles using completely painting gangs. I'm planning on using Anthony Cases updated rules.  I'm already collecting bits to make some more arms.  Since I've actually glued armour bits onto all of the plastic models, I'll probably use something like skill rings to represent actual armour plates in game terms.

 For the amount of effort I put into these minis, they look great.  Dip + Dullcote = Win.  I got excited, built all the models, painted on a base coat, dipped and then some basing and touch ups.  I'm really happy with the "piece of crap" tone they have, obviously being cobbled together from spare junk.

Finally - I will also have no problem playing these guys as servitors in my Space Marine armies.  I've tried to make the bases very busy so they will kinda blend in with whichever marines I'm using.  Also why I've kept the rims black.  They should be right at home with my marines - guess I should get that thunderfire cannon built!

Warpstone Cup 2010 - Result = middle of the pack

Went to Niagara Falls this weekend with some buddies for a blood bowl tournament.  We drove up Friday night and we stayed at some cheap cabins on a campground.  The tournament is a ressurection style, two team tournament, you pick a TV100 and TV110 team and they are randomly drawn into two pools.  You get 1 skill roll before first game (applied to random player), and 3 before the next two games.  You also roll to see if you win a warpstone token (3d6 - need a 13) which can be used (with varying results) as a reroll, bribe or bloodweiser babe (one off). There are a bunch of videos from the tournament to be found here.

Day 1 (aka day of "le woot")

Game 1 vs. Eric
Finally a chance at revenge!  It was Eric's poor play that won me the wooden spoon at the Canadian Open - it was time to prove he's the true spoon gatherer of our group!  It was my Undead vs his Humans, both at 100TV.  One of my mummies had gotten guard and one of his linemen block.  Eric chose to receive and I decided to just try to hammer his catchers.  I only ended up causing two casualties - but first half I got the ball off him and scored and second half I stomped down the field.  Decided against stall ball as I was up 3 players (my undead roster had 12 players) and the last few turns fizzled out.  First time I've won my first match at a tournament - woo hoo!!

Game 2 vs. Tom
Time to get Rummery'd!  Good old Tom (aka 3 time burger buddy award winner) was my opponent for the second game.  We've played once before and tied so I was hoping to continue undefeated.  This game was my Dark Elves (TV110) vs his Chaos Dwarves (TV100).  Tom took a reroll as an inducement.  I gave sure hands to a lineelf and I think he gave guard to a blocker.  He also had a warpstone token (that he never wanted to use since they are so unstable).  He won the coin toss and opted to receive.  I racked up my first and only casualty of the game pretty quickly (a blocker at that - woot!).  I also used my witch elves to full advantage pushing a couple of his guys into the crowd.  I managed to stop him from scoring on his drive, get the ball and scored once in the first half.  In the second half he kicked to me and I started working my way upfield.  Then came his blunder where he forgot one of my star players was a runner.  He gathered a bunch of assists to throw his blitz when I got to use my dump off skill and passed it successfully to another player before getting smashed.  I managed to run the ball upfield and score again - leaving Tom with only a couple turns left.  He ended up having to try his luck with the warpstone token on a failed pass(? i think, or maybe the catch) but it fizzled and had no effect.  Two wins out of two!  Best start to a tournament yet!

Game 3 vs. Greg (TO)
By this time I'm playing on the top table.  Greg was one of the tournament organizers and they each played one team for three games to give us an even number of players.  This game was my Undead vs. his Orcs.  I don't remember his skills but my other mummy got guard and one ghoul got sure hands and another ghoul got block. A very tight game with low casualties ended as a 1-1 tie.  I don't remember a lot of this game - I think because it was fairly un-spectacular.  It was basically two grinding halves, with each team taking a turn and leaving too few turns for the other to score in the remainder of the half.  Actually I do remember one other thing about this game.  Both halves, first two turns my first block was a double-skull and Greg had stuff screw up early so neither of us ended up with rerolls beyond turn three of either half.

Game 4 vs. Charlie
Last game of day one.  It was my Dark Elves vs his Orcs.  He had three blitzers with guard and a black orc with block.  I gave a witch elf block, a blitzer dodge and another blitzer kick.  By this time everyone was making mistakes.  Our game had a fair few - including me not remembering his first touchdown!  How much did that suck when I thought I had the game in the bag when he scored on turn seven of the second half only to find out we tied!!  To be fair Charlie played really well - focused on what was important and clawed himself back into this game.  Next time I'm definitely having a coffee mid day though as I made a really boneheaded mistake (confusing my blitzer with kick with my lineman with sure hands) and I should have just copped to using a proper reroll.  Charlie was a proper sport during the whole match and all smiles all the time.  A great game vs. a great opponent and regardless of what my brain thought - he deserved a draw.

So end of the first day and I'm sitting on 3 points with 2 wins and 2 draws.  I knew I was in for a tough second day - so when our nighttime shenanigans got rained out and we hit the hay early, I wasn't too dissapointed (Definitely would have changed my tune if I knew what I was in store for on day two)

Day 2 (aka day of "le waaaaaaaa")
Based on what I knew of the results and the standings, I was hoping to draw Matt first and play his Humans with my Undead.  Then if that went well I expected to play Laurent (who won the tourney) with his Undead against my Dark Elves.  Didn't work out that way and Laurent played Matt first.

Game 5 vs. Solomon
My Undead vs Sol's Dark Elves.  Both my mummies got another skill and I chose stand firm for both.  My skeleton got a skill and I gave him tackle.  I won the coin toss and chose to receive.  I built up a nice cage and left the ball downfield turn one (worked out since I failed the pickup!)  Turn two I picked up the ball and got it to my ghoul with block and got him in the middle of my cage.  Here's where it all started to go wrong.  Sol's turn two he blitzes my wight and kills him outright!  I even failed the regen roll so I basically spent nearly the whole game at 10 players max (got worse later) In the next couple turns Sol proceeded to bust into my cage, blitz the ball carrier and killed my skeleton outright (failed regen again!) while he was at it.  Sol couldn't seem to roll worse than a KO, meanwhile I could not do more than stun an elf.  He actually played stall ball against me as he would just run his cage around so I wouldn't get more than one blitz a turn.  He scored a single touchdown in each half and just ran my Undead ragged.  Totally demoralizing as I felt I'd played really well and with a bit of luck might have evened the numbers a bit.  Wasn't to be, game ended with me having seven or eight guys on the pitch and he had ten.

Game 6 vs. Matt
Final game and I knew I was screwed - stuck playing Dwarves with my Dark Elves.  There wasn't much I could do - for my skills unfortunately both runners ended up with skills.  I gave one lineelf wrestle, I should have just given both runners wrestle too, but I thought a leader reroll would help and nerves of steel for maybe a sneaky play.  I tried an early rush to try to get the jump on him, but unfortunately my blitzer couldn't make a 4+ catch even on a reroll after my successful dump-off so he picked up the ball and stomped me on his way to scoring.  Matt caused so many injuries this game I lost count - and his chainsaw didn't even hurt me, it killed itself!  This game just kinda sucked because I had no way to fight him with numbers and with all the tackle I couldn't just dodge away all the time.  Next time I play Dark Elves I will definitely be taking Leap on a blitzer.  I just couldn't bust into cages at all, but ended up throwing a lot of two dice, opponent picks blocks. If I'm going to be doing that anyways, might as well be on the ball carrier.

Overall this was a super fun tournament - I loved the two team format, the random skills and the special warpstone rules (tokens and some changes to kick off table) all combined to make it every game exciting.  Next up - Deathbowl in October.

Necromunda Escher gang - commission received!

I just received delivery today of my necromunda Escher gang that I had farmed out to a local painter (My buddy  @ http://scipunk.webs.com - HIGHLY recommended.  Excellent value)  I was using them quite frequently unpainted, but necromunda had to take a backseat for a while as other things were afoot.  I figured it was a good time to have them painted.  I would rather farm out some little projects instead of just having tons of unpainted mini's sitting around.  I now have several options for playing necromunda, so I am thinking about what's on deck in the "farm out painting" queue.

I will get some better pictures in the near future, once I am setup to edit them.  Until then I just grabbed this quick group shot.  20 miniatures, a good mix of armaments - I don't think there's anything else to add to this gang.  I even converted a leader model to be carrying a meltagun in case I want to spend big on my initial gang (and just to make my opponents FEAR her - hehe).  This gives me three fully painted necromunda gangs, time to get playing again!

Row 1 (Juves): autopistol, stubgun/club, autopistol/maul, stubgun, stubgun/club.
Row 2 (Gangers - Ranged): shotgun, lasgun, autogun, lasgun, shotgun/autopistol
Row 3 (Specials): meltagun/laspistol, plasmagun, autogun/stubgun, boltgun/laspistol, heavy stubber
Row 4 (Gangers - CC): laspistol/sword, plasma pistol/maul, 2 swords, autopistol/chainsword, autopistol/sword

Latest necro gang - Pit Slaves!!

Thought I would throw up a couple photos of my progress on the pit slave gang.  As I literally hacked these together from old junky bits (as evidenced by metal plates I just glued to their bodies) I just went for simple base coat with a very limited palette of skin, green, gray, silver, tin.  I did undercoat the metals, and alternated between brown and black.  I alternated the metal colour too to try and get four tones.

I added five more arms today (30 total), and now can legally arm each of the fourteen models.  Sorry about the photos, neither are great shots, as I still plan to give these guys a bit of a dip - I'll take some better photos later. I'm sure the dip will tie everything together well - a diluted version produced extremely good results for some earlier necromunda hired guns.  Then all that will be left to do is the bases.

I had been inspired to get this complete by my planning a large necromunda campaign.  I haven't seen the kind of response it will require so it might not be the right time.  Instead I think will start another small home based campaign.  I essentially have two Spyrer gangs, I'm getting my Escher back (painted, yippeeeeee!!!) on Saturday and now this gang is practically complete and easily tabletop worthy.

Week 34: Tristan - Necromunda... Spyrers

I do have some other pics to do a step by step if anyone is interested, but here is my second batch of Spyrers, doubling my initial gang size to ten!!  You can see pics of my first batch on my blog here.

Let me know if you wanna see the step by step photos.  I'd highly recommend the painting method used.  I took these five models from basecoated red and black to finished in about four hours. They look quite good for the amount of effort put in.

Must Finish Project #2..... FINISHED!!!

Back at the end of February I wrote a couple posts about some small-ish projects I hoped to complete this year.  I'm happy to say trying to get some necromunda organized and get my brother involved in the hobby again has gotten me quite motivated.  Over the weekend and today the rest of the MFP #2 - my spyrers - have been painted and based.

Sorry for the weak photo, but it's getting late.  This batch gives me two of the jakara, malcadon and orrus suits, as well as four yeld suits. It's pretty insane to have a collection of 10 spyrers considering it's about twice as many as I'll ever need, but the paint scheme I chose is so easy finishing them up was a breeze.

Next up, some posts about the necromunda campaign as well as some more pit slave posts.

Bringing back an old favourite... Necromunda!

A few items in this post.  First I'm glad to have found something to inspire me to start modeling and painting again.  I hope this is just the beginning, and have even taken the step of ordering some stuff from Forge World thinking about some other projects.  This year so far has nearly been a write off in terms of non-gaming hobby, but I have some time to change that before the year is out.

For a while now, I've been wanting to get a Necromunda campaign going across more than one hobby store, as there are many within a reasonable distance in the GTA.  I will post some more specific posts about this, but so far I've put together some simple rules to try and keep players interested and motivated to play.  The goal is more narrative than competitive.  I think we are going to use mybattalion.com to organize games and post content.  If you are around the GTA and this sounds interesting please get in touch.

It was this that sparked my motivation to get some hours put into my Pit Slave gang.  I will probably lend my Spyrers to my brother - and my Escher are actually being painted in trade for some sentinels (they might be ready in time for the campaign) so just in case I thought I should start modeling a gang myself.  I still might do something crazy like run a Wyrd Coven gang and save these guys for some big showdown battle at the end of the campaign.  The best part about these guys is I'm going to use them as servitors as well for my 40K gaming, hence all the magnetization.  I have a good 13 bodies and have already built 25 different arms.  The best part is this is probably the easiest gang/model to build upon.  This way I can keep making various armaments and I can always throw some technological bits onto various models to make more bodies.

These are my four actual pit slave models.

I've simply glued a magnet on their arm socket and puttied over it.

Here are four goliath plastics with a single magnet each.

The two on the left have cheap pistols since I figure I will always want some pit slaves with a simple pistol/pit slave weapon.  Third from the left could be a cheap cutting torch or a regrafter for a techno.  The final guy was the prompting for this gang when I was wanting some servitors.

Four more goliath plastics with both arms magnetized.

With both arms able to take pit slave weapons, I can use a couple of these guys as my pit fighters and still use the other guys with one pit slave weapon and some other armaments.

Finally the leader with all the arm options built so far.
Basic; autogun, boltgun, lasgun, shotgun
Pistols; autopistol, boltpistol, laspistol
Pit Slave Weapons; buzzsaw, chainsaw X4, claw, hammer X2, regrafter, rock drill X2, shears X3
Special; grenade launcher, plasmagun X2, meltagun

I want to balance out the options a bit more for the left side.  I still need some arms with swords, some stub guns, maybe a flamer or hand flamer, another melta/multi-melta, definitely another claw and a buzzsaw.

Mini Painting 4 Free = free painted models for me!

Several months ago I found a blog with an interesting concept, Mini Painting for Free.  Basically, our protagonist (Dave) is offering to paint a mini or two for you for free in an attempt to keep himself from buying more figs he won't get around to painting.  As you may or may not have noticed I've decided to farm out some painting projects (see my space hulk genestealers, or my dark elf blood bowl team) instead of letting it sit there forever.

Dave and I ended up doing a swap of models to paint, as I'd hit a bit of a wall in terms of motivation to paint.  I've been tracking my progress painting them on Weekly Minis (a cowboy and a cloak & dagger type "antagonist") but wanted to post up something about Dave's awesome work and pimp his blog a bit.

I sent Dave a couple very OOP 40K models, the old running genestealer patriarch and a harlequin.  I wanted to send him the harlequin since I wanna have a bunch of different people paint them up so they all look really different (going to use them as a spire brat gang in necromunda) and then base them the same to tie them all together, and just threw the patriarch for fun since I knew it would be a long time before I ever took a brush to him.  If you read the history on Dave's blog you'll see he was excited about the harly, but the patriarch inspired him.  The colour scheme Dave used on the harlequin is very cool and definitely will be unique I'm sure.  I like his pictures better so I'm just going to repost them here.

Genestealer Patriarch

Harlequin

Lakeside Cup 2010, Result = I Suck!

Lakeside Cup is a team tournament (East vs. West) held in Cobourg, ON.  It's TV125 where only two players can have more than one skill (Captain & Asst. Captain) and the Captain gets Leader for free and a new upgrade after every game.

My roster was; Ripper, Blitzer w Dodge/Frenzy/Leader (C), Blitzer w Guard/Stand Firm (A), 4x Black Orcs w Block, Orc w Block, Orc w Wrestle, Goblin, 1 Reroll.

DAY 1 (Or - "1 out of 4 is pretty bad")

Game 1 vs. Mark H
Mark had a nicely painted Chaos Dwarf team, including a Minotaur with Claw, 2 Bull Centaurs, 6 CD Blockers. The game started really well for me, I had 3 casualties by the middle of the first half.  I managed to score, but unfortunately I couldn't capitalize any more than that and in the second half, Mark just started owning me, I think for something like 5 or 6 turns in a row he would knock a player out.  By the last few turns of the game I had 3 black orcs and a goblin left on the pitch.  I had faint hopes of holding out for a draw, but his damn Bull Centaur scooped up the ball and ran in it on the last turn for a second TD.  Loss #1.

Game 2 vs. Matt C
This game was against another Orc team.  Matt had a regular troll who spent much of the game being stupid, but it couldn't make up for the fact he surrounded Ripper the first time he was knocked down and fouled him out of the first half (knocked out)  I played pretty well and had earned myself a chance to tie up the game late in the second half, only to have my captain drop an accurate pass on the last turn of the game. Loss #2.

Game 3 vs. Dan C
Dan had combined his mini's from his Khemri and Necromantic teams to bring a vanilla undead team.  This game got off on the wrong foot for me when I decided to try kicking to him when I won the coin toss and I rolled "Throw a Rock" as the kickoff result.  Guess who spent most of the first half knocked out before turn one...  RIPPER! Yay!  Dan immediately knocked out a black orc with his first hit and it just went downhill from there.  Dan mentioned (I think after his second or third touchdown) that every time I rolled the block dice, at least one of them was a skull.  Yea, that kinda game.  Still I find Dan one of the most fun guys to play and I voted him Best Sportsmanship or whatever the Lakeside equivalent is called.  Loss #3.

Game 4 vs. Colin
Colin's wretched Nurgle team.  Anyone who actually reads these will know he DESTROYED me at the Golden Sweetbun.  After some atrocious luck in my earlier games - the luck reversed and I managed to cage my way slowly downfield.  He did enough to slow me down quite a lot which meant I had to rush it near the end of the half.  Then I shot myself in the foot by rushing it and skulling a single die block with my only guy in position to score. BONE-HEAD!  At this point I figured I'd earned my fourth loss.  It was going to take a mistake on Colin's part to give me any chance.  Well a mistake was made, he had burned his reroll and did a "Go For It" with his ball carrier...  and rolled a one.  Probably the turning point of the game (except maybe his block with his captain that he skulled and casualtied himself) regardless I got a few casualties in as I picked up the ball and ran it downfield.  He did keep knocking my ball carrier down but I managed to complete a handoff in the last turn of the game to win it 1-0.  Win #1 - YAY!


DAY 2 (Or - "I can't believe I still lost!")

Game 5 vs. Adam J
Probably the highlight of the tournament for everyone but me.  I was SMOKING Adam in this game.  It seemed I couldn't NOT injure his guys.  Failed to score in the first half, but for most of the game he had 5 or less players on the pitch to my near full team (I think I had one guy KO'd or Casualty).  However the big moment was in the last turn of the game.  Adam had one guy left on the pitch (his captain) who had side step.  He had a tackle zone on my ball carrier so I had to surround him before trying to push him off, otherwise he would just get a tackle zone back on the ball carrier.  I had a choice of using my captain with frenzy to push him off or using a line orc with a "Go For It" to be able to blitz.  I picked the frenzy guy which ended up losing (it was a tie but I have to count this as a loss!) me the game.  All I could get was a push which meant I had to hit him again.  Another push meant he got a tackle zone on the guy with the ball again.  I had managed to save my reroll so all I had to do was make a successful 3+ dodge out to score and win the game.  1, reroll, ONE.  ARRRRRGGGHHH!!!!!  Ours was the last game being played so EVERYONE got to watch me screw-up.  My own team-mates were even giving Adam advice (thanks Ben! Winner of the Jackass award..  Hell yea I voted for him!). Tie #1.

Still this game will live forever in memory as possibly the funniest game I've ever played.
Damn you Jones! I'll get you yet!

Game 6 vs. Pat
A game against Pat and his dwarves.  After the last game I didn't really have much to play for (not to take anything away from Pat, he played a really solid game and just crunched my team into the dirt) Didn't stop the bad luck from continuing with a couple single die = skull and 2 die = double skull rolls on my part.  I don't really remember much of this game as after Game 5 I started drinking quite heavily!! Loss #4.

A really really fun tournament hosted by Peter and his wonderful wife Tammy.  They fed and housed us all weekend and it was nice to not have to travel anywhere to play our games.  The team format was extremely fun and generated a lot of laughs and  good times.

Week 27: Tristan - Antagonist "aka the bad guy"

Another long hiatus between posts.  Life hasn't been too crazy I just seem to lack motivation.  I've finally finished up Dave's second model (from mini painting for free)

Sorry for the quality of the photos, just took these quickly with my phone.  When I get a chance I'll stitch these last four together to give a 360 degree look.

I used my tested and true method for black which is very light gray drybrush highlight followed by several layers of badab black wash. I missed a tiny piece of flash on his cloak so I painted it green to look like a caterpillar or bug. Other than that I stuck to neutral'ish colours since he's not necessarily uber evil. Though I did paint dark arched eyebrows to make him look sinister.

Mantic Games = FAIL

The original name for this post when I originally planned it was going to be Mantic Games = WIN, I would like to explain the series of events that has changed all that, and soured me on Mantic forever.  Even if you don't want to read my rant - please check the bottom of the post, as I have a bonus for someone making a donation to a very impressive Storm Wardens project.

I as many other gamers I'm sure - was quite impressed with Mantic when they first burst onto the scene.  I liked their elf figures quite a bit and thought when I had the cash, I would use them to build a large Melnibonean themed army (based on the Elric novels by Michael Moorcock).

I signed up for their newsletter and would check out their blog and website to keep up to date on new figures and developments.  It was at this time I noticed their "Speed Building Challenge" - essentially, beat their time to assemble a box of Mantic figures (10 figures) to win yourself a warhost (a boxed special costing about 30 pounds or approximately $60 USD.  It includes a quite large number of figures and I decided this prize was tempting enough to order a box of spearmen to try and beat the best time posted (at the time, 11:33) especially when I noticed their free worldwide shipping offer.

It's not an easy challenge and I failed by at least two minutes in my first attempt, but this only motivated me more!  Around three weeks later I ordered a second box of spearmen and tried again.  This time I was successful, beating the time by more than 10 seconds!  Was I ever excited, I encoded the video as best I could to reduce the file size and sent Mantic an email.  At the same time my excitement led me to buy a special deal they had online, which included some elven models that would not be in the warhost box.  This was near the end of March.

Here is a link to my video - be warned it is boring as I have no video editing skills.  It is also quite large at 1.5gb :\

I tried to be patient knowing they are a smaller company, but after two weeks had passed with no response, I sent another email.  Another week, another email.  Another week, another email.  Finally after a month I received a response from Mantic.  I don't plan to post the contents of the emails as that is unnecessary, but regardless I was given the impression my entry would be reviewed, currently this is late april.  Throughout the entire discussion I always asked if there was any problem with the video or anything I could do.  Never have I been asked to do anything or told there was any problems with the video.

I waited for more than a month before I sent another email explaining my disappointment in hearing nothing.  Another week, another email.  Finally I received another response, promising me a prize and asking for the video link again.  At this point it has been more than two months since I submitted my initial email.  I waited expectantly hoping to come home one day to a box in the mail.  No dice.

ANOTHER month passed with no response regarding the contest.  During that time I tried to keep in touch regarding something other than the contest - as I saw the person I had been corresponding with had participated in a tournament with poor results.  I had just come back from a blood bowl tournament where I ended second from last and thought perhaps some gaming discussion might keep me in his memory.  It didn't.  I emailed again about the contest after the month had passed and received no response.  I waited another week and sent another email.  I still have not heard anything back about the contest since I was last promised a prize on June 8th, 2010.

It has been 112 days that this ordeal has been going on.  Nearly a third of a year!!!  Over a $60 prize.  I have had enough. Today I noticed that Mantic has altered their site.  The challenges pages are gone (they used to be in the "Mantic" tab). They can still be found through google (http://www.manticgames.com/Hobby/Mantic-Challenges/Speed-building-Challenge.html)

My wasted effort amounts to the below.

• Feb 24, 2010 - I took advantage of their free worldwide shipping and spent $16.26 USD for a box of 10 spearmen.
• Mar 19, 2010 - I took advantage of their free worldwide shipping and spent $15.65 USD for a box of 10 spearmen.
• Mar 26, 2010 - Mantic had a special deal, which I ordered for $49.99 USD which got me 20 spearmen with command, 10 scouts and 5 metal characters (still taking advantage of free worldwide shipping)

Total = $81.9 USD

The first person to donate at minimum half that amount ($40 USD is acceptable) to the Storm Wardens project (use any of the links to your personal favourite storm wardens participating blog I've linked below) and forwards me their paypal receipt email (my address is in my blogger profile & I will confirm with the guys at Santa Cruz Warhammer before shipping - this is for charity, please don't try any scams) will receive all of my Mantic figures FOR FREE! (I will also include my 6 mantic points stickers) In addition this will enter you to win possibly the coolest space marine army ever made!

Please be aware this donation must be made by Sunday July 18th at 7pm PST.

Also please be respectful and post a comment here if you have made a donation with the intention of getting these models - I would hate for multiple people to donate expecting a bonus.  I will also try to update this post as soon as possible upon hearing someone has taken me up on this offer.

Donations can be made at any of the blogs listed below
http://stormwardens.blogspot.com
http://santacruzwarhammer.blogspot.com
http://miksminis.blogspot.com
http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com
http://warhammer40kbloodangels.blogspot.com
http://davetaylorminiatures.blogspot.com
http://www.misterjustin.com
http://dulanisminis.blogspot.com
http://40khobbyblog.blogspot.com
http://wynnstudiomodels.blogspot.com

Golden Sweetbun '10, Result = not last place (by the skin of my teeth)

I was originally going with only 1 runner (leader), 4 blitzers, 2 witch elves, 1 assassin (multiple block) and 3 linemen, but I ended up ditching all the blitzers so I would have money to spend on skills.  I probably should have dropped a reroll and kept a couple blitzers.  Final roster was 2 runners (leader/sure hands), 2 witch elves (block+tackle/block), 1 assassin (multiple block), 6 linemen (1 guard).  We got to pick bonus skills by drawing balls from a box.

Day One (the day of hell!!!)

First two ball skills were juggernaut (gave to block only witch elf) and stand firm (gave to guard lineman)

1st Game
Dark elf vs dark elf against Adam.  He scored twice in the first half and we both thought he had the game in the bag, but in the second half I came back to score two touchdowns and tie the game, leaving him needing to score in a short space of time.  Unfortunately for me, even though I swarmed all around his ball carrier, he managed to dodge his way through my players to score (3+, 3+, 2+, didn't even use his dodge reroll)

2nd Game
Against another elf team, Chris' pro elves.  This was nearly a complete blow out until I scored a second touchdown very late to finish 4-2.  I think I was a bit unfortunate in this game, not to have been closer early when I dropped a pass in the end zone in the first half that would've tied us at 2-2, but was definitely a fair result as I lucked out earlier due to our lack of understanding in juggernaut vs side step.  Chris went on to win second place, and I believe Most TDs.

Third ball skill I drew was kick (gave to a lineman)

3rd Game
Versus Colin and his Nurgle team.  He had a strong bashy load out, with his beast getting pro, block, leader and all his warriors having guard.  I got my first casualty of the tournament in this game very quickly but it all went downhill from there.  He had three casualties before the end of the first half and I was playing with 5-6 players for the entire second half.  Needless to say I got spanked!  Damn you tentacles, damn you!!!

4th Game
Against Pat's dwarves.  Another game with multiple early casualties and knock outs against me (damn mighty blow!)  This was probably the most fun game of the tournament, as I really had no chance to stop him from scoring a  third touchdown (while we were sitting at 2-1), however I managed to dodge a witch elf through a bunch of tackle zones to get to his ball carrier (including multiple 6's required), then threw a 2 die HE picks block, re-rolled it to get double kapow, grabbed the ball, dodged out and passed to a lineman I ran up the other sideline in case I got lucky and he caught it.
I had nobody to protect him so ended up having to just throw the ball into his end so he couldn't score again - but the witch elf was absolutely legendary!  I rolled something like eight or nine 5's & 6's to pull it off, plus the two die HE picks block.  Still lost the game but it was hilarious!

So overall some fun and some nerve racking games, but 4 losses and England drew to USA in World Cup...  ARGH!!  I was having visions of another last place finish.

Day Two (day of redemption!)

Fourth & Fifth ball skills I got were guard (gave to a lineman) and leap (gave to the tackle witch elf)

5th Game
Against Pat's wife Jess, who had a brilliantly done amazon team based on the movie Avatar.  Green stuff ears and tails on the standard GW amazons, with actual tiny little feathers from a pheasant in the head dress.  She had also built a tall tree shaped display board/case for them.
Unfortunately for Jess my luck started to reverse right away, and within 5 turns I had caused two casualties and knocked out another two.  Nothing she did worked and everything I did worked.  Ended up winning 4-0, but it still managed to be a fun game (even for Jess I think, she was still laughing and smiling - as befits the winner of the best sportsmanship award) and it also gave me a win in the tournament and gave me a whiff of hope to not finish last.

6th Game
Against the tournament organizer, Dan.  This was easily the most ridiculous game in the tournament.  Dan had a halfling team with two monstrous treemen with block and pro and some halflings tooled up to be thrown and score in one turn.  I used a guard lineman and witch elf to cause some problems in one side of his cage and the assassin and a lineman on the other side.  I still had to keep a strong line of scrimmage as otherwise it would've been too easy for him to throw a halfling for a touchdown.  He still ended up pulling it off with a 6 required to be accurate and scored the first touchdown. 
Unfortunately for him it all started to fall apart after that, as I just focused on getting his halflings out of the game.  I only caused one casualty, but I just kept knocking out his halflings (thank you stunty!) and by the end of the game, was just holding up down the field for a 2-1 victory while one treeman was rooted to the spot and the rest of my entire team was surrounding and fouling the other (to no real benefit, even having +5 on foul rolls I was rolling 3 or 4 needing to break armour 12 due to the tournaments rules for the soft ground)

So my final record was 2/0/4, but the two wins pulled me out of last place.  I think I need more practice with the dark elves!

A GREAT CAUSE

Another quick post before I head away for the weekend, I waited a bit before posting so I can say my donation is in (payday was thursday) I may still donate more depending on my finances before the drawing.  The earlier you donate the better as they are having tons of mini-raffles for other great loot!

Wanted to promote the Storm Wardens - Collaborative Army Build Charity Drawing. What a brilliant idea this is, these guys are going to make a certain individual very happy and in the process raise a ton of funds to donate to Doctors without Borders.

The basic premise is a 40K Space Marine army (Storm Wardens chapter from forthcoming Deathwatch RPG by fantasy flight games) built and painted by the pillars of the 40K blogosphere (santa cruz warhammer, from the warp, dave taylor, wynn studios, jawaballs, secret weapon miniatures, mik's minis)

Each dollar donated gets you a "raffle ticket" for when they give away the army. ALL proceeds are going to be donated. Can't lose with this one folks - donate today!

Golden Sweetbun '10

My third NAF tournament this year is rolling up this weekend. The Golden Sweetbun is a halfling hosted tournament that takes place in Montreal, Canada. This tournament gives some benefits to halfling teams, however I'll be bringing the Karond Kar Raiders, recently painted up for me by my friend Thomas.

Since I managed to stick around for both days, and avoid the wooden spoon at my last tournament, my objective will be to improve on my standings in this tournament. I'm looking to land better than 1 spot into the top half of players. This will be pretty tough as I've had lots of practice with my bashy teams (Orcs, Undead) and have yet to play a full game with the Dark Elves!

Keepin' my fingers crossed!

Week 18: Tristan - Cowboy

Well hopefully this gets me back on track. My last post was more than 5 weeks ago just before a local blood bowl tournament when I finished up (nearly) the rest of my orc blood bowl team. While that gave me some motivation to finish them up, it sadly didn't live long. As soon as I got my dark elf blood bowl team back from my friend Thomas all painted, it let me off the hook in terms of getting a team ready for the next tournament. I had hoped this would mean I would jump back into painting for the fun of it, but it didn't really work out that way.....

Until - I found Dave's "Mini Painting for Free" blog. The premise here is that Dave was struggling with motivation, so he decided to paint other people's mini's for free, in the hopes that it would at least curtail his own spending on models that would sit on the shelf. It hasn't stopped his spending 100%, but it does seem to be working fairly well. I decided I was going to send Dave a couple figs of mine to paint, but I also thought I would give a go at painting one or two of his figs, to try and spark my own motivation.

It has worked to a degree, first of all the motivation is definitely there to paint when you owe it to someone else (just ask Thomas ;-) ) and secondly while I haven't started painting batches of guys yet - I have started painting some more of my individual figs. I decided to focus on getting Dave's done since I'm off to Jamaica tomorrow and have yet to send him mine. This way that week won't be in vain - Dave will get one of his figs back and mine will go along for the ride so he can begin painting them. Without further ado...


I distinctly remember telling Dave when we were figuring out the swap that I didn't care what figs he sent "hell send me a cowboy if you like" since I hoped a change might do me some good, and sure enough a cowboy was in the package he sent. I will be sending him an old genestealer patriarch and one of my harlequins (I've decided to get various people to paint up my few harly's so they all should have their own "touch" - if any of you guys are interested, let me know!)