Grab Bag

No league for me this week, going to watch my niece's band concert. So, I thought I'd review some of the other games I've been playing lately.

League Update

Damn I'm lazy. Here's what's went down the last three games of league.

Game 2 at 500 points saw me draw with Eldar cause #*$@ing pathfinders kept stunning my land speeders and a Warlock with a spear blew them up *sigh*.

Game 3 was at 1000 pts. I added to my list from 500 by adding 5 Thunderwolves 3 with storm shields, two regular, a Wolf Priest, and in a break from my heavy selection I took an Autocannon Pred with layzcannon sponsons. I like that config. It seemed to work well. I ended up losing to Grey Knights in what could be one of the saddest games played. 5 full turns I had 1 kill point and he had 2.

Game 4 again 1000 pts. I changed my list again adding my standard Rune Priest instead of the Wolf Priest. Kept the T-Wolves and the Pred. Once again I tied. Playing against Ravenwing. The Wolves made their points back by taking a full bike squad, an attack bike and Sammeal out. Game ended before I could get them back across the table to take out the last two bikes he had. I only had two wolves, one of my troop squads and the pred left at the end. It was brutal.

That brings me up to date right now I'm 0-1-3 giving me a -1 score.

Painting wise, I'm working on the thunderpuppies and I'm not posting pics till they're done. I finally got the bases for them and I am still impressed how well these look on the field. The riders are primed and ready for paint but I'm gonna finish the puppies first. I don't want to leave yall empty handed so here's a couple of pics of my finished and converted Razorback that I never did post up. Enjoy.

Giving Thanks

Just wanted to take a moment from gaming on this Thanksgiving day and offer my thanks for everything I have. Too often in this world we look over what we have looking only at what we want, lord knows I'm guilty of that. In light of that I would like to say "Thanks" to my family who give unconditionally, my friends who are always there for me, and God for all that He has given me. Hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving. 

Cry HAVOC!

And let slip the dogs of war!

Guess it's time to let the cat, er, wolves out of the bag. I finally got my order in from armorcast for my Thunder Wolves.

At $11 each I just had to get 5 of them. They're from Baelor miniatures and cast in resin. I'm pretty happy with them. There are some pretty noticeable flaws though. First off, these ain't Forge World models, and for 11 bucks no one should expect them to be. There's some excess resin in hard to get out places and 2 of the 4 paws are gunked enough that you can't see the claws. I'm ok with that though since I'll be using snow basing and can easily cover that up. Second, the breastplating is very, very thin. On all but one model it has totally broke through. Again, pretty big flaw but with my recent purchase of liquid green stuff, it's pretty easy to fix. Size wise, they're bloody huge. Here's a few comparison shots, 

Notice in the last one, that by themselves they're almost tall enough to give cover to a razorback. Put a rider on them and they're more than tall enough. Circle them around a Rhino w/ Rune Priest and have a rolling Living Lightning with a permanent 4+ cover save, well, at least until you go eat something.

The only other thing that I'm kinda meh about is that they're all the same pose. Looking the models over I just don't see any way to convert or change the pose they're in, but this is a minor detail and I'll just have to get over it. Now I just have to get them painted and seeing how excited I've been about getting them, I don't think that'll take to long.

League Game One

The first couple weeks of league are going to be quick. 500 points ain't a lot and doesn't take a whole lot of time to play. We've kind of been left to our own descression as to who we play. I had plans later on Monday so I needed to get an early game in. Luckilly pchappell was there to oblige. Less than an hour later it was a tie. I only had one guy left out of my army, the rest having been eaten by Thunder wolf cav or shot by wolf scouts. Neither of us held objectives in the end since in my cowardace I ran to the second floor of a ruin to avoid getting eaten totally. I'll take a tie. Don't know who or what I'll be up against next week, but I'm considering dropping one of the razorbacks and the speeders and bringing some t-wolf cav. They're just so hard to break and just eat whatever they want.

New League

New league begins tonight and I'm once again bringing Wolves to the table. We are using the Kill Team force org (no heavies, no HQ's) but using the standard battle missions out of the books. With that in mind I'm bringing the max of two troops I can have. I'll be brining 2 Grey hunter squads, decked out in my usual fashion in Razorbacks. One will have a TL assault cannon and the other will have the Layzcannon w/TL plasma gun. I'll also be bringing a couple of 2x Heavy Bolter speeders just for added dakka. The Layzcannon should give me the puch to take out heavy armor and the the speeders can run a flank while the assault cannon can run the other one. Sounds like a good plan, then you have to roll dice. We'll see how it goes.

On the painting/modeling front, I finally got off my ass and put together the house bastions that I promised I would assemble a year ago. Also, my new special project should arrive in the mail today and hopefully I'll have them mostly done by the end of the week.

Good News or Why I Suck at Math

It's Friday! Gonna be a big weekend. Two 40k tourney's in 2 days at FlatCon and I'm ready. I finalized my kill team list last night and much to my surprise I had miscalculated the points and actually had room for another guy. Here's the list I'll be using:

Lone Wolf - Frost Axe
                    Storm Shield - 75 pts

Grey Hunters x7 - Melta Gun
                            Power weapon - 125

The Lone Wolf gets the Fleet of Foot USR, the Melta gunner gets Feel No Pain, and the Power Weapon gets Furious Charge.

It's 8 bodies total, that's not a lot but one of them will have feel no pain and the lone wolf has feel no pain and eternal warrior with a 3++ save. Shooting I have 12 bolter shots and one melta shot. Assault wise I have what amounts to 2 S5 power weapons.  I'm a little worried about masses of guys like grots or something, but I should be able to wade through enough of them it won't matter. We shall see.

As for the teams tourney, the list is ready and the army is almost ready. All I have left to do is finish my razorback and I'll be good to go. Sorry no pics yet. I just haven't had the time. I'll post some Sunday after I get to take a break for a bit.

Tourney Wrap Up

Yeah, yeah. I know it was last Saturday but I've been busy painting and haven't got to posting. Had a pretty up and down tourney (ok so it was mostly down) and wound up middle of the group. First match was against a Grey Knight list that consisted of 3 land raiders, Draigo, a libby and 3 squads. I ended up tying this 1-1. Second game was against Blood Angels. I would say I held him to one point but that would be lying since he was only a decent dice throw away from tabling me. Loss for me 0-1. So into the last round I go and my opponent has to go to work so it was played this past Monday. Now, ya'll know from other posts of mine I'm not really a competitive player. I play for the fun of it and for the people I play with. Game 3 had everything. It was one of the closest, bloodiest matches I've played and had it not been for the dice deciding to screw my opponent, the board could have looked a lot worse from my end. My Thunderwolf Cav. were the MVP. They took down a squad of Khorne bezerkers with attached Khorne lord/w demon weapon, a demon prince, a squad of plague marines, and a squad of Oblits. Even with all that, I'm not sure they made their points back. End of the game I took all 3 objectives in the game and wound up with 4 points overall which I think put me in the clusterf$#k tie for second.

Now the real prep for Flatcon begins as I try and speed paint the rest of my guys before Saturday. I have some conversion pics for the razorback TL plas/Las Turret I did (based off the BOLS article) and a review of liquid green stuff (spoiler: I effin love it). So, back to the paint table I go and hopefully I'll be able to get pics for this weekend since my photographer decided she'd rather work than take snappy pics of me.

Tourney Time

It's tourney time again at the Gopher. Hoping there will be more than 3 people there this time. I won the last time, but out of three people kinda makes it a hollow victory. Here's the list I'm taking, it's a little different from what I usually take. I swapped out my speeders, lone wolf, and a razorback squad for a 5 man Thunderwolf rock. I had some points left over and threw a power weapon on the Long Fangs sergeant since they seem to get charged a lot. Now one squad will have a Rune Priest and sergeant with power weapons and the other squad will have a Wolf guard w/ Frost Axe and sergeant with power weapons. Hopefully that will be a charge deterrent, but probably not.

Here They are

Done! Finally! Well, with these 5 at least. Not to mention the 20 more I need to do to finish up my 1850 list. Pics are below cause there's a shit ton of them. Enjoy.

Kill Team musings

Getting my lists narrowed down for FlatCon. I've hit a bit of a dilemma with the kill team tourney though. The list that did the best in our league was: Lone Wolf w/ Storm Shield and Frost Axe, 8x Grey hunters w/ 1 melta gun. I would assign fleet to the lone wolf and feel no pain to the melta guy and then just put another USR on a random guy. What I'm thinking now is, do I want to drop one guy and give someone else a power weapon or Mark of the Wulfun. They're both the same price as a single grey hunter. I'm realistically only losing 2 shots and 3 close combat attacks (MotW could make up for that) and it would give me a distinct target for my third USR which would probably be furious charge. On the other hand though it cuts my bodies down by 1 making it a little easier to get me off the board. I've got 3 weeks to figure it out. Shit, 3 weeks, guess I should be painting instead of writing blogs hunh.  

Almost There

Another quick update. All I have left to do is the shoulder pads and backpacks, oh and the other 5 grey hunters.

Progress

Well, if you can call this progress. I'm moving slower than evolution right now. Need to pick up the pace since there's less than a month to flatcon.

Anyway here's a WIP shot of my first 5 man grey hunter squad.

Chill the F#$k Out Already

Ok. I don't know what the hell is going on. Either it's the economy that's got everyone down or maybe everyone's just hit a bitch cycle here recently or something. Damn. It seems like everywhere you look in the 40k blogosphere someone's bitching, whining, or complaining about something. Now, I know, this isn't anything new but it seems to have increased to some kind of new level. There are already a couple of forums I don't frequent any more and now I'm adding blog sites to my "not interested" list. On the one hand you have "internet celebrities" whatever the fuck that means going at each others throat then, hell, you even have people on the same blog going at each other.

So I ask, seriously. WTF is going on here? It's a fucking game with little plastic soldiers! It don't matter which side you fall on in the argument over fluff play vs. tourney play (an argument that personally I think is the dumbest argument ever) it's still JUST A GAME! But here you have me being a hypocrite of sorts since I'm on here bitching about all the bitching going on and I'm well aware of that fact, so I'm gonna do what I'm advising everyone else to do. Take a Kleenex, dry your eyes, and get the fuck over it. Damn. In the end, we're all playing the same game. Maybe for different reasons, but it's still the same game and at one point we all enjoyed it. I guess what I'm trying to say is, go back to what made you like the game in the first place. Did you like the competitiveness of the game? Fine. Enjoy it. Go to tourneys, do your best, but don't get pissed and cry if someone beats you or says bad things about you on the internet. It's the internet, no one gives a shit! Did you get in it for the fluff? Then play it for the fluff and the fun! It's simple. Me, I'm in it for the community, the friends I make when I play. I don't mind playing in tourney's ( I lose a lot but it doesn't matter to me) but I'll throw down a pure fluff list just the same. It's all about the game and the people not my win/loss total.

Anyway, my rants done. Oh, here I brought some tissues just in case you don't have your own.

Now dry them eyes and let's go play some 40k.

I'd Buy That for a Dollar!

Oh RoboCop. How I love that movie. Doesn't really have anything to do with the post, I just love that quote.

Anyway. Here's the finished pics of my Lone Wolf. I'm pretty happy with him.

Lone wolf sneak peak

Figured I'd post up a little teaser of the banner I finished last night. I'm pretty happy with it and only hope the rest of the model comes out as good.

FlatCon Bound

Here's some new stuff I'm working on before FlatCon 2011 to help make my list WYSIWYG for the upcoming events there. I'm entering all three events. The Kill Team on Friday, the Teams tourney on Saturday (with the awesome pchappel as my partner) and the 1850pt Championship tourney on Sunday. It's gonna be a tough weekend for sure but I should get some good experience for Adepticon next spring. Here's a peek at some of the stuff I'm doing.

I'm Baaaaack!

Ok. Money problems aside, my monday nights have just been too boring. Luckilly, the new 8 week league at the Gopher is starting up tonight. It's going to be an 1850pt Adepticon ruleset. Here's the list I'm looking at running.

Rune Priest - Chooser of the Slain
                     Living Lightning
                     Tempests Wrath
Rune Priest - Chooser of the Slain
                     Fury of the Wolf Spirits
                     Living Lightning

Lone Wolf - Frost Axe, Storm Shield

4x Wolf Guard - Frost Axe

5x Grey Hunters - Mark of the Wulfen
                            Melta gun
                            Power Weapon
                            RazorBack w/ Assault Cannon (4x, 1 w/Heavy Bolter)

2x Long Fangs - 5x ML
                          Seargent

I think that puts me about 20 points under. So I may give a couple of Wolf guard combi weapons or upgrade the Lone Wolf to Termi armor.

An unexpected, unwanted, but possibly needed break

Figured I'd put an update out here. Due to some personal crap, I'm going to have to take some time away from playing 40K at the Gopher. Hopefully I'll be back in a couple of months once I get everything straightened out and back to normal. When this first came up I was pissed. I hate missing Monday night game and seeing my friends. The more I thought about it though, maybe the break will be good for me. It'll give me time to finish up some painting so I'll have new pretties for the field when I return (and be that much less dependent on pchappel for his figs. Thanks for that by the way) and maybe some of the burnout will have gone away. As it stands I started a new army to get out of the one army funk I've been in and give the game new life. It did this but not as much as I had hoped. So my friends, I'll see you on the other side of this mess. Not to worry though, with all these now free Monday's I'll have more time to paint and that means more painting posts.

IT'S SOOOOO FLUFFFYYY!!!

Just a little fluff I made up concerning my space wolves, the 13th Wolf Spiders. I'm just gonna get this outta the way, it's a mash up of fictions, it ain't all correct and it only makes sense in my little corner of the universe. So, rail against it if you want, but it won't do any good.

I just don't get it

First let me get a couple things out of the way. 1) I'm a really mellow gamer, and person in general. It takes a lot to piss me off, I may get down and kinda sour every now and then, but never really pissed, that takes a rare breed. 2) I love the local group I play with. Almost without exception they are casual gamers that like to have a good time and they are awesome friends, my adopted brothers and sisters.
Now that's out of the way, you'll notice up there I said almost. There are a few players that make my blood just boil quicker than water on the sun. And in all 3 cases it's come down to one action. Cheating. I don't get it. Not even a little bit. What makes a person reach over and decide to do something they KNOW is outside the rules? I don't play that way, the majority of the people I've ever played in any format at any store don't play that way. So what, if anything makes these people so, I don't even know what word to use, overcompettitive maybe, that they have to break the rules to win. To me cheating is the ultimate way of saying you disrespect the person you're playing against and in some small way, disrespecting the system you're playing as well (although I'm sure we've all wanted to disrespect Games Workshop in some fashion at some point, just don't do it on the table). Maybe it's just my nature that keeps me from going "ohhhh I get it, that's why they do it" I'm not a real compettive guy. I like to win, everyone does, it's the being ok with losing that I think these people have trouble with. But even if I wanted to win so badly I couldn't stand it, I couldn't reach over and try to get that extra quarter inch out of that movement, or move my tape so that it's off my base when measuring for a charge, or not taking dangerous terrain checks hoping my opponent isn't paying attention. To me that cheapens the win, it's not worth it anymore, it'll always stay in the back of my head that I did something wrong to get that win. I suppose I should feel honored that I'm so good that they felt compelled to cheat against me that it was their last ditch response to win, but I know that's not true. Most of the people I see cheating do it against everyone, if they're winning or not. It's just something defective in them that makes them think it's ok. Now, I want to be clear here, I'm talking about straight up breaking of the rules cheating, not little things that, while disrespectful, don't harm the game. Stuff like rolling your dice behind terrain so your opponent can't see them. I can't call that straight up cheating, but it does make it look like you've got something to hide. I can tell this rant is starting to lose focus so I'll just end with this. Don't be a dick. Have enough respect for yourself and your fellow players to not do that shit. After all it's just a game and if you lose sight of that, maybe you should stop playing.

My Grandma, What Long Fangs you have

"The better to shoot the piss out of you my dear"

Holy shit! Is it really, am I dreaming?

Yes, calm down I really am doing a 40k post. I've been really busy here lately and between life and trying to keep up with writing for World of Darkness (I'm failing at that by the way) I just have had no time to post anything 40k related. Well, this weekend I finally got off my ass and decided I was getting those Long Fangs off my table. Right now I have 5 missile launchers, 2 plasma cannons, a multi-melta (the burrito maker 5000) and Brother Sargent Grumpyass. Funny story, the great company decided it was time to promote Brother Sargent Grumpyass after he was in a shouting match with a Blood Claws squad saying quote "You damn kids get off my lawn!!" He now spends his time directing fire for one of the Wolf Spider's Long Fang units.

Results after the break

Movie Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Yadda yadda yadda, spoilers, yadda yadda

Austin TX: An Awakened Perspective session 9

My first game session back after an extended downtime. It was a little rough getting back into it at first but soon found my stride, just in time.

Austin TX: An Awakened Perspective Downtime Session

Here's The extended downtime scene I wrote up to explain my characters absence from the game for 7 weeks. It's kinda long but hopefully enjoyable.

Movie Review: X-Men: First Class

*WARNING* Possible spoilers may lie ahead. I'm putting everything after the jump so make your decision now.

*WARNING* Nerd Rage Imminent!

Music Review: Seether - "Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray"

Just picked up the new Seether album off of iTunes. I love this band and have since their first album "Disclaimer". It was a good, solid rock album that tore stuff up and when it did slow down it was really good and melodic. This album is nothing like that. I started off liking it, the first couple of songs were in the same vein as "Disclaimer" heavy, driven and smooth, then the album just nose dives like a plane with no engines. It just degenerates into a soft repetitive mess. It becomes hard to tell when one song ends and the other begins, it's just depressing really. I usually judge an album by how many songs I have to skip on the CD. I have many, including "Disclaimer" that I can listen to all the way through. By the time I got to the seventh song of sixteen I was skipping like a mad man. There are a couple of bright spots on the album though. "Fur Cue", "No Resolution", and "Effigy" (an iTunes bonus track) are all great tracks that go back to what the band was all about. "Country Song" is surprisingly good despite it's different feel and if they had decided to do a few more with that kind of melody I wouldn't have minded a bit. Over all this album is the second worse album they've put out. Nothing beats "Karma and Effect" for shittiness and this doesn't even hold a candle to "Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces" or even in the same galaxy as "Disclaimer". I give it a 2.5 out of 5 mainly just out of the hopes that the next one will be better and they're on a good album, shitty album, good album, shitty album, good album pattern.

The First Saturday of May

Every year something awesome happens on the first Saturday of May. Every year at Churchill Downs, they run the Kentucky Derby. For those of you that don't know the derby is the first part of 3 of one of the hardest championships to win. A horse must be perfect to win all three races and join the ranks of Triple Crown winners like Secretariat. But that's only part of why I love that day. This is the 137th running of the Derby and this will be the 32nd one I've watched. I've had the privilege of watching 28 of them with one of the greatest, most influential  people in my life, my grandpa. With the exception of three races when I just could not get home (and even then we talked on the phone while watching the race) I've watched every one in the same house in the same place with the same man, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Now granted, I don't remember some of the first ones I've seen, but the ones I do remember have made indelible marks on my memory that I will cherish till the day I die. I don't know how many I'll have left to see with Pa but I know that I'll be making them count even more till then, cause after he's gone the race will never be the same. 

Austin TX: An Awakened Perspective session 8

So, after the major sceneage I had in session 7 I was almost afraid to see what session 8 had in store. Turns out it wasn't that bad. It was a pretty crazy night in character and Calin bounced around so much that it's really hard for me to put it into a story form like I usually try and do. I think I was in character like 90% of the night which is a first for me, something that didn't go unnoticed by the ST's and the assistant narrators as I once again gained an extra XP given at the end of the night (a few more of those and I might even lose the "I'm new" moniker I've been given. LOL probably not) So, here are a few highlights since I'm having trouble smashing them all together into a story.

Calin had his first interaction with Wacco since the night Wacco disappeared. This was fun, since the last time Calin saw him, Terrance had him by the throat and Avere was asking Calin to kill him. After Reece explaining the situation, Calin now regards him with suspicion but isn't actively going to kill him (yet).

The werewolves made it know to Calin that they have officially split from the pack and that Ed, Ginger and Raaf are now their own pack and the others are going by the name "the guardians".

Terrance continued his training and informed Calin that there were "gremlins" following him around and generally making his life a living hell. Not knowing anything about them, and unable to see them, Calin starts to think Terrance may be a little off his rocker. Later that night Terrance and Avere show up with a new arrival in Austin and ask if they can stay at the cemetery house. Calin reluctantly agrees at first but later reconsiders his decision since it really isn't his house and he has no business saying who can stay there.

T.K. and Mary Ann stop by the house for a discussion about the book and how exactly it was lost. When T.K. asks for a description of the man that took it, the man that Calin describes isn't the same one that T.K. has been dealing with leading to the possibility that there are either multiple people involved in the power of the book or that there are more people who are just merely out to steal it. Either way it's a disturbing development which only cements Calin's decision to make a pilgrimage to his temple. The others though were not so sure taking the time would be wise, but after assurances by the Obrimos they accepted his word.

Contacting the temple Calin was informed that he would be allowed to return and the whole of the training grounds and the library would be open to him, the temple elders ask in return that he find out what happened to the ruling council there in Austin and to confirm their location and if they were still living or not.

Coyote Joe paid a rare visit to the house and Calin would later learn it would not be a good one. After following the Guardian into the sewer system to gain somewhere private to speak, a long list of orders was laid out before him. Listening to the half insults and insinuations from the Guardian made Calin's blood pressure rise, but deciding that it would be useful to keep the peace he agreed to the terms on the condition that Coyote Joe help him in finding the Austin council.

Whew! I think that's all of 'em. Like I said it was a busy night. I'll be missing the next game session giving me about 6 weeks worth of downtime. This is when my trip back to the temple will take place and I'm currently writing that up to give to the ST. After he looks at it and we do all we need to do with it, I'll post it up here, right now it's looking to be a long one.

Austin TX: An Awakened Perspective session 7

Ok, so I'm getting a little behind on these since I've been busy trying to get my Space Wolf units painted (pics of them still to come). So I'll try and catch up now.

Austin TX: An Awakened Perspective Session 6

Session 6 of the world of darkness game involved the majority of the players passing through the hedge and trying to rescue Eile. This happened outside of my characters realm of knowledge and can be read about here. To be honest I'm quite glad my character wasn't involved as I had reservations about taking him into the hedge and playing the character he would have had reservations about it as well. Add in the fact that I had to leave the game early due to working the next day and you can tell it wouldn't have ended well. So, Calin was totally absent from the actual game that night. What I did do is sit down with one of the assistant ST's and hash out some character details and background stuff. This was a pretty good talk for me as it led me to change my character concept around. I originally had Calin as a defender of the weak and poor kind of a Robin Hood without the theft type character, but after answering some questions I began to get a different view of him. My revised concept is that he functions as part of the Internal Affairs Department of the Adamantine Arrows. He is a "fixer" of sorts. Finding the problems in cabals and setting them right again. This view explains away some of the things I was having difficulty with such as why he didn't really have any close companions and why he wasn't in a formal cabal himself. He IS in a cabal but it is more of a loose affialation of the "lone wolves" of the Arrows called the "Arrows Fletching" for those of you who don't know, the fletching of an arrow is the feathers at the back of an arrow that give it stability and make it fly straight. In other words the guides for the arrows. Which is exactly what I imagine my character doing. He's there to correct the mistakes by whatever means and set the cabal flying straight again.

Austin TX:An Awakened Perspective session 5

I'm a little behind on these. This is actually from the Feb. 19th session and is a direct continuation of the other post I have here since we were "time frozen" in the two weeks in between games.

     Calin stood his eyes fixed upon the faint blue glow of the workshop room at the top of the Hedgerow, he knew somehow he had to get this place secured and this energy point into service for the Arrows. Standing in the awe of it, it took him a minute to hear a little of the racket downstairs. Deciding that this needed to be planned a little more carefully he headed down to check everything out. The bar was pretty well empty of patrons save for the motley supernatural crew that he had come to expect. The Shimmer Strikes were all there with their alpha, having come late to the party after Wacco had disappeared into that void. The topic of discussion: how best to get Eile back. It became apparent that going tonight would be a bad idea since the one person who knew where she was just vanished into a black hole.

Amid the talking and arguing a stranger walked into the bar, had a seat and ask for a menu. Nothing very remarkable but since he had arrived here Calin had taken to looking at everyone with suspicion. Rolling his eyes back a bit and shifting his focus he looked at the stranger with the eyes of heaven and that is when his heart sank. Calin jumped immediately as chills of fear ran down his spine. He had seen the strangers true nature. Large fiery wings stood out from his back and he was surrounded with a pure unblemished white light. "No. It can't be. One of THEM? Here?" he thought. "The denizens of the Aether should never be in this world!" Fear, anxiety, hate all filled his body till he was about to vomit. He remembered hearing Memento tell of an angel that slew his friend but had dismissed that as just an impostor pretending to be one of THEM. Now after looking at the stranger, even though it's form was wrong, he knew it had to be one of the Heavenly Host. Quickly turning from the stranger he looked at Giovanni the young Thyrsus mage that stayed at the cemetery house too. Breaking into high speech so others couldn't understand, he confirmed that Gio had noticed the same thing. Being a life mage Gio mentioned that the stranger was more full of life than he had ever felt before. After discussing that this could be the one who killed Walker Lee, Gio suggested that Avere be let in on what was going on. Calin moved toward Avere and ask if she would be able to recognize Michael if she saw him again. Asking her to open her mind he allowed his sight to overtake and fill her mind. She gasp at what she saw and immediately suggested that Ed be informed. Calin hesitated a little. He trusted Avere, but was unsure how much he could trust the wolves that everyone seemed so attached to. Putting his reservations aside he showed the true world to Ed, and that's when everything collapsed. Ed in a fit of recklessness decided that as an officer he had to take the stranger in for questioning. Calin pulled him aside and tried to reason with him, explaining that the stranger could kill him with barely a thought and if he were pushed to anger he could kill them all without much effort. The headstrong cur wouldn't be dis-swayed from his course of action and Calin braced for the worst.  He watched as Ed approached the stranger and was told repeatedly to leave, both by the stranger and by the manager of the Hedgerow, but Ed persisted on. Sensing a boiling point Calin protected himself with a barrier of pure Prime energy, but it was all for nothing, as the stranger finally relented and simply allowed himself to be taken into custody. Then, as quickly as they arrived the shimmer strikes all fled the Hedgerow as if something was chasing or was about to chase them.

The next two weeks passed fairly uneventfully for Calin. He went about business as usual but with the thought of the stranger firmly in the back of his head. He stayed fairly quiet away from the group until being called by David one of Ed's pack. He needed help locating someone and possibly more. Calin agreed to help locate the people David was after but no more. An eerie sort of calm had descended upon Austin and Calin knew it was just the calm before the storm. If there was an Angel walking around town, death couldn't be far behind it. 

I'm still here

I know, I know. The whole purpose of a blog is to post stuff and I will be, I just haven't had any material to put up. My painting has slowed to a halt due to no budget and I've been having trouble getting back into writing for World of Darkness. Things are coming it's just taking a while.

The First One is Always the Hardest

Got my first Wolf done. I'm actually pretty pleased with it. I don't have it based yet since I plan on doing snow bases on them and don't have the materials yet.

Special project

Got ask by my good friend Loq to build her Storm Raven for her. I took it as an honor since I will probably never be able to buy one myself (no real reason to). After reading some stuff online it appeared a daunting task. Everything from it being a VERY hard model to assemble to taking a whole bottle of glue to assemble. None of the rumors were true. I had very little trouble putting the thing together, and barely used a quarter of a bottle of glue. It did take a long time to assemble. I worked on it about 9 hours total which is more than I've ever put into assembly on one model. That did include though the magnetization of the wings, the turret and the weapons and the drilling out of the heavy bolters up front and the assault cannon. Priming however did take an entire can and I still could have used a little more, so keep that in mind if you build one. Pics are after the break. The only thing I haven't done is the doors cause I'm still waiting on a response from Loq on how she wants them, it is  her model after all.

Space Puppies WIP

Finally picked up my Rune Priest from the Gopher today and like usual I've spent all night working on it. Just thought I'd throw up a shot to show how it's going.

I'm pretty happy with it so far. The hardest thing for me is going to be learning how to paint faces, something I've managed to avoid with my Eldar.

The Slow Grind of Time

Made a trip back to my southern Illinois home this weekend to see the family and got kind of a shock. When I grew up down here I got to listen to one of the best rock stations I've ever heard on the radio period. I've always listened to it every trip back down here even though I have satellite radio in the car, I still switch over to Rock 105.1 WTAO. Till this trip. I haven't been as vigilant listening as I first was and when I turned the station on, I didn't hear Godsmack, Metallica, or Slipknot blasting the speakers. No, what I heard instead was top 40 pop music. You know Lady Gaga and the like. I was sick, one of my favorite stations of all time, a bastion of hard rock had fallen. I don't know what happened, if they sold to a new company or just decided to change formats, but the effect was still the same. I'm starting to believe the phrase "you can't go home again" time just keeps marching along and changing everything in it's wake.

A swing and a.....hit?

Had my first game with the Space Wolves army I've put together. Got to play against the youngest member of the Gopher family which is always a blast. He's a good kid and if you don't have fun playing him there must be something wrong with your head. Hell, before the match even started I was already laughing cause in a somewhat ironic twist, he had brought his Eldar army. So now I'm facing off against the army I'm leaving behind. Here's a condensed form of what happened. He won first turn and kept it. I placed my guys down and then started to roll to seize the initiative. Here's where my night first revealed how it was going to go. I picked up my die said "hey this is the first time seizing has been important to me" and then promptly rolled a 1. Yup it was gonna be a long night.

First turn saw his Dark Reaper squad (a sentimental favorite of mine) launch an attack on my poor Long Fangs squad that had been deployed to deal just with the Reapers. Two 4/3 ignoring cover blast templates later, there were only 2 guys left alive (mistake number one on my part I forgot wound allocation) and I of course fail morale and run 11 inches to the edge of the board. Also he popped one of my razorbacks and stunned the other cutting my mobility in half from the start. All I could do was sigh. Bottom of 1 my two ML long fangs regroup (thank you ATSKNF) and move back to their position. My thunderwolves rolled to move out of cover and my fastest unit decided that they didn't really want to move today and only got a 3. The two RB's that could move went 6 toward the objective. Shooting, Lascannon from RB to his wave serpent HIT! woot my first shot with a lascannon and it hits. Damage roll: 1 ahh, so that's what it feels like to be on the other end of the wave serpent energy field. I shot the rest of what I had at the same serpent and finally managed an immobilized result.

Turn 2 saw more of the same from turn one. The grey hunter squad that lost their ride, lost a lot more to the dark reaper exarch (who at this point had already paid for himself) and another RB went boom. My turn saw one ML out of two manage a kill from the dark reaper squad and the rest of my shooting only managed another wave serpent immobilized. I did however manage to move my remaining las/plas RB closer to the objective with the other displaced squad hiding behind it for cover.

Turn 3 another round and another group of kills for the reapers. This time my thunderwolves who had barely managed to get out of cover got decimated by the reapers leaving only one alive with one wound, which was promtley taken down by the wraithlord they should have been in combat with by now. Bottom of 3 I moved my RB screen and my grey hunter units on top of my left side objective, while my assault cannon RB moved toward the right side obj. Shooting didn't consist of much seeing how I had little to no army left. The untouched long fang squad readied ML's to fire and I roll three 2's. Yup it's been that kind of night. So, my shooting sees no damage on my part to him at all.

Turn 4 This was the worst round my opponent had. He managed no kills on me and managed to do nothing to my vehicles. My turn 4 was spent moving my assault RB to the objective, getting my guys out and setting them right on top of it. On the left side there was not much going on plasma and missile alike were having difficulty taking the wave serpents all the way down and the best I managed to do was take a TL bright lance.

Turn 5 Shooting again opens up with the reapers into my newly disembarked grey hunter squad killing all but one who made his morale check and stays put. Other than that it was pretty quiet again this turn (probably cause there wasn't much to shoot at) My turn 5 I move nothing. I have one chance to still pull this game out and that's to take down his as still yet mobile wave serpent. ML's fire- immobilized, Plasma's fire, weapon destroyed. Ugh, one chance left. Assault cannon fire- 4 hits, damage- one 6, rending. Penetrating result- 4(+1 for ap1) wrecked. This left his DA's out of range for the objective. Now I just need a 1 to end the game, shouldn't be an issue been rolling them all night, and yup it was pretty easy I got my 1. Game end on turn 5. Result- Space Wolf victory? I held 2 objectives to his one so I technically won even though I lost like half my army.

So, what did I learn from all of this. Well, I learned that the Eldar gods are vengeful and they do not like deserters, I also learned that Marines are so very survivable. Losses like that taken with my Eldar would have totally lost me the game, but the Wolves managed to hang on and pull a victory completely out of their ass. I also learned that Dark Reapers + tempest launcher + crack shot + guide = lotsa dead marines, well, I kinda already knew that but I just never utilized it. So I soldier on to another free play week next week and I'll see how they fair against a different opponent. I also learned that I'm a little rusty on some of my rules. Take wound allocation which I screwed up on. I hadn't really used it or been forced to use it with my Eldar since everything is pretty much uniform in a squad save for an odd Exarch, Autarch or Farseer joined in. But that just makes it more exciting since now I have a use for that heavy book and codex I lug around with me all the time.

Once more with feeling

Ok, we're gonna do this again. Since I learned that my second Wolf list is illegal I decided to write up a new one.

HQ - Rune Priest w/ Living Lightning, Tempests Wrath

Elites - Wolf Guard Pack x4 w/ Frost Axe x4

Troops - Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Mark of the Wulfen, Melta gun
               Razorback w/ TL Assault Cannon

               Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Mark of the Wulfen, Melta gun
               Razorback w/ TL Assault Cannon

               Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Mark of the Wulfen, Melta gun
               Razorback w/ Lascannon & TL Plasma gun

              Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Mark of the Wulfen, Melta gun
              Razorback w/ Lascannon & TL Plasma gun

Heavy Support - Long Fangs x5 w/ ML x3, Plasma Cannon x2
                          Squad Leader

                          Long Fangs x5 w/ ML x3, Plasma Cannon x2
                          Squad Leader

There now the list is legal but I've now got 188 points to play with. So, a couple of options.
1). 2nd Rune Priest w/ Living Lightning, Jaws of the World Wolf. Make first RP Master of Runes and Termi armor. Leaves 18 points.
2.) 3 Thunder Wolf cavalry w/ Frost Axe, Mark of the Wulfen. Give RP storm bolter and melta bomb just to even out the points. This is my favorite option.
There are a couple more options floating around in my head but they involve taking the assault cannons off the razorbacks to save points and I'm not convinced that's a good idea.

Edit: Fixed my retardation in the rune priest power.

Kickin' It Old School w/ pics

Here's some pics from the game last night along with a very, very brief report of the action. Had to separate it to here since my intro turned into a rant. Sorry.

Kickin' It Old School

Got to play one of my all time favorite miniatures games of all time this past Saturday at the Gopher. Battletech. If you're unfamiliar, Battletech (btech for short) is a game where you try to kill your opponent with a giant robot. Try to find one un-fun thing about that statement, I dare you. I've been playing it off and on for about the last 15 or so years and have yet to see a game where I didn't have a blast. Hell, one game I even had two. But in all my years I've yet to see btech do one major thing, catch on to the masses. As much as I try to preach it's funness (hehe I made up a word) I'm only one man. I've chatted with players all over the nation and all I can ever find are small maybe 5-6 member strong pockets of resistance, and they are strung out over quite a bit of distance. So why, if it's so much fun, doesn't it catch on. Couple reasons mainly. One, competitiveness. As much as I may not like to admit it, a competitive game brings more people. Like I said, I've talked to people all over the place, played with people all over the place, and not one of them plays this game to compete. It's a fun game, just for fun, and at the end of the night if you didn't have fun, then you probably were in the bathroom when the one guys mech fell over, critted it's self and blew off the leg of the other guys mech, trust me it was hilarious.  It's a win/lose for me, I love playing games just for fun, but on the other hand it's the competitive players that drive games. You look at games like 40k, Warmachine, Hordes, Warhammer Fantasy, they are all games that have a very competitive base to them. You can play them for fun, but the WAAC players will always be there ready to crush your "just because" list. Second reason: Speed. Btech ain't fast period. The four games I named above, all can be played in a relatively short amount of time say around 2 hours. Btech, you're lucky to get 3 rounds done in 2 hours. I've played games as long as 36 hours (though that game we had been drinking heavily and were using WAY too many mechs and vehicles). The game I played last night started at 6 roughly and I had to call time at 1030. We had only 6 mechs (3 per side) so I consider that one a quick game. If it had been allowed to continue it could have gone on probably another 2 hours, so you're looking at 6 and a half hours for a SMALL game. I've been to cons where there are only two btech games scheduled per day because that's all you're gonna get. This is the real killer. When you're looking at taking as much time for one game as an entire 40k TOURNAMENT it represents a large investment of time for anyone but the most die hard for the game. Kind of a side note to the time issue is the rules set. Nearly everything you can think of in the game is in the book. Want to kick a mech underwater? There's a rule for that. Want to know what happens if your mech skids into another one accidentily? There's a rule for that. The main rulebook for btech is nearly the same length as the 40k rulebook, but when you take out the fluff, the btech book has nearly double the rules, and all those rules take time to look up and that's one of the reasons it takes so long to get through a game. Another reason it takes so long, is because after you do something cool in the game you must spend at least 20 minutes talking and laughing about it like it had been years since it happened instead of minutes. It's a rule, look it up. I think it's in one of the FAQ's. So then with all of these problems, why do I still love it so much? Were you not paying attention at the beginning? It's giant robots shooting lasers at each other! And I'll continue to support it and try to drag as many others into the madness with me. Ok, this went on a little longer than I wanted it too so I'm making a separate post for the actual game. 

Space Wolves Take 2

Workin' on a second list. This one has a much, much lower model count but has a lot more special toys in it.

HQ - Rune Priest w/ Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane, Storm Bolter, Melta Bombs

Elites - Wolf Guard Pack x4 w/ Frost Axe x4

Troops - Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Power Fist, Mark of the Wulfen, Plasma gun
               Razorback w/ TL Assault Cannon, Extra armor

               Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Power Fist, Mark of the Wulfen, Plasma gun
               Razorback w/ TL Assault Cannon, Extra armor

               Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Power Fist, Mark of the Wulfen, Plasma gun
               Razorback w/ Lascannon & TL Plasma gun, Extra armor

              Grey Hunter's x5 w/ Power Weapon, Power Fist, Mark of the Wulfen, Plasma gun
              Razorback w/ Lascannon & TL Plasma gun, Extra armor

Heavy Support - Long Fangs x5 w/ ML x3, Plasma Cannon x2
                          Squad Leader

                          Long Fangs x5 w/ ML x3, Plasma Cannon x2
                          Squad Leader

Basic strategy is to set the Rune Priest back with the Long Fangs and either use living lightning on squads or pop Murderous Hurricane to make them a rather unattractive target to deep strike near. Everything else drives up and hurts stuff going in, hopefully getting me into a charge position. Low model count could really be the death of this list though and I'm putting an awful lot of faith in armor 11 vehicles. Oh and an explanation, I put the storm bolter and melta bombs on the priest cause I had 8 points left and wanted to spend them on something.

Austin TX: An Awakened Perspective session 4

The night started off normal enough, as if anything in this town could be considered normal. Why the council had sent him here he still couldn't figure out, but they usually had their own reasons for everything and after all he was just a weapon, an arrow to be fired and destroy the target he was aimed at. He headed off to the Hedge Row to meet up with Reece the PI he'd been working with on the local disappearances. Meeting with the man always made him a little uneasy seeing how Reece wasn't exactly a member of the human race, or a member of the living either. He was surprisingly friendly for a vampire and that helped take a little bit of the edge off. Unfortunately their investigation had dead ended again. Calin had went to the public works department to see if any info could be gleaned from the building plans of the building over the area where they found TK's body. The clerk was all to willing to help stating that they had the blueprints I wanted, but there was no current owner listed and that it was basically condemned. Then she dropped the real bomb. The building had mysteriously burnt down just a week prior and nothing was left but rubble. Calin relayed all this info to Reece and they decided that whoever this was had decided to lay real low and that now it was just a waiting game.

Character profile: Calin

Well, this is it. This is my most current character. Calin is my second World of Darkness character. He's a mage like my previous character, so not much has changed there, but the personalities are totally different. Where as Dan was brash, vulgar and a drunk, Calin is very composed, sure and also sober. I've already posted one short story on Calin here but haven't done more since he wasn't properly introduced. Since he's an ongoing character I don't have a whole lot on him yet. In game he hasn't done a whole lot yet. His main contribution has been trying to decipher a journal found alongside a very much dead TK. He's also been involved with the local P.I. (who just happens to be a vampire) in trying to solve who this guy is and where he might be. Due to recent developments (the building over the chamber mysteriously burning down) however, they are back to square one. He's also finally given in to allowing an outside source to help with the translation of the book from Latin as his feeble language skills were just not enough to crack it. His most current situation is getting a little interesting and I'll be writing it up soon, as well as trying to give updates after each session.

Something Grey This Way Comes

For a while now I've been kicking around the idea of starting a Space Wolves army. I mean a LONG while, and it's gotten to a "shit or get off the pot" kind of moment. So, with a couple weeks of free play looming I made a list:

HQ - Rune Priest
         Murderous Hurricane
         Fury of the Wolf Spirits

Troops - (6) Grey Hunters x10
                    Mark of the Wulfen
                    2x Melta
                    Drop Pod

Heavy Support - Long Fangs x5 w/ Heavy Bolters
                           Squad Leader w/ Flamer
                           Drop Pod

There ya have it. 7 Pods o' doom, with the priest riding with the Long fangs. Is it a good list? Hell if I know. Will it be fun to drop 7 drop pods, 4 on the first turn? Can't see why it wouldn't.

I really hate the thought of leaving my Eldar even for a little while, they've been my only army since I started (except for this weird Tau phase I had) but I'm getting really burnt out on playing them, and I think a change of army will help this, that way when I go back to them (and I will go back) it will be even sweeter playing them. Of course this does mean I'll have to endure all the taunting and teasing I'll receive for playing a faction that I've always professed to hating, but hey, what else are friends for.

Done!

Well, here they are. I promised you pics of my two newest skimmers and I'm done with them. Well, not TOTALLY done, but good enough to use them in the tourney. Pics after the break.

40k Tournament

Tomorrow is the 40 tourney at the Gopher to celebrate the end of the league (only due to scheduling conflicts it's not the actual end of the league). I've got my list finalized and low and behold I'm short on points again. 22 points to be exact. Now, if you know anything about the Eldar codex, you know 22 points buys you a whole lotta nothing. I can buy stuff, just not anything real effective and I can only buy one so it kinda throws the balance off that I've got going on.

Change of Plans

So all last week I was working furiously on getting my firedragons done. I wanted to have all 10 done before the tourney on Saturday. Well, Monday came and I still didn't have them done. *sigh* These guys have been on my paint que forever and a day and every time I quit painting again it's because of those guys. I had them mostly done and wasn't real happy with them so I decided to ask my fellow gamers their truthful opinions: yeah, it wasn't good. I got everything from "Macaroni and cheese Eldar" to people fumbling for nice ways to say "they suck" so the general consensus was "Try again" so that's what I'm doing. I'm stripping them and starting anew. Luckily I only had 5 of them this way so it won't be too bad.

I'm moving on for the moment though. I have two skimmers left to paint, a fire prism/night spinner, and another wave serpent so I'll use them to get my painting kicks for a while. Hopefully I'll have pic's up in a couple days. I need to be careful though cause I'm running out of excuses to not paint those fire dragons.

40k batrep week 6 (game 5)

6 weeks down and only 2 to go. Had my quickest match to date. Played against one of the Blood Angels players at the Gopher. I was a little worried at first because BA's tear me up usually, we rolled for mission and I got "Hold Fast" which meant I had to hold my two objectives as my primary and my secondary was have more of my units in my deployment zone then he did. My opponent rolled and got the same exact thing. Wow. So basically neither of us were going anywhere because to move anything would cost us our primary and nothing short of an all out assault with the entire list would get us off the objectives. Looking at how the board was set up I could keep both units of wraithguard in Fortune range AND keep both objectives and still have the Wraithlords to sit back and take pot shots. My opponent did have some mobility options, but anything he brought over would pretty much die the next turn, thus costing him and I the match causing a draw. After talking it over for about 10 minutes we just decided to call the whole thing a draw and never fire a shot. It was either this or play what would have been the most boring game of 40k ever. Turn 1-5 Player 1: I'm not moving, your turn, Player 2: I'm not moving, your turn. Yeah, not fun. So we played a second game outside of league just because. That one was interesting and it's sad that I can't remember everything but here are some of the highlights (well, at least for me)

2 Warwalkers tied up an assault squad for 3 or 4 assault rounds
A ramming wave serpent blew up a rhino and was its self destroyed by the return hit
My Autarch bravely stood in front of a land raider (I shoulda got a pic of this it was really cool looking) and immobilized it with his fusion gun.
2 10 man squads of Dire Avengers blade stormed a 5 man Tac squad

This Saturday is the 1500 point tourney. I'm hoping to actually win a game this time around as last tourney I was in I didn't win a single game. I'll post up a tourney report over the weekend when I can.

War Walkers ASSEMBLE!

Holy cow! 4 posts in one day! No, you're not dreaming. Got my war walker squads finished(well, 2 of 3 anyway) and thought I'd throw the pics up.

Character Profile: Daniel Amsden

Ok, getting close to running out of characters, well at least the important ones, for you guys. Dan (aka Pence, aka Mr. Book) was my first World of Darkness character. I made him after much, much pressure from a couple of my friends ( you know who you are). I was really hesitant about joining the game, it's a LARP/table top hybrid and looked totally foreign to me. I'm used to a hard and fast tabletop game where everything is laid out for ya and all you need to do is sling some dice. This was nothing like that. Characters interacted with one another with and sometimes without GM presence, and it was a tremendous amount of actually thinking on your feet and actual role playing. An apt description given to me was "improv street theater with dice rolls" and that's really what it was. So, with all my previous characters I've played a spell caster of some sort with usually disastrous results (burned down a bar, almost killed an entire party, etc. etc.) so naturally I chose to play a Mage character.

Status update

Ok, I've got to apologize. I haven't been neglecting you guys on purpose. I still owe you a new character profile and vol 1 of "Tales of the Imperium" from just last week. I've just been really busy at work, I'm workin' my tail off, litteraly it's gone (TMI?) and that just makes me really tired and lazy. Factor in that I've had to make two trips into town here lately and I just haven't had a whole lotta time. So stay with me guys and I'll get the content to ya.

40k batrep week 5 (game 4)

Ok, got snowed in last week and couldn't play the second game at 1000pts so this is technically week 5 of the league but only game 4 for me. I took the 1250 list I posted about earlier. My opponent was AGG's resident  Dark Eldar player. I knew going in that if I played him, I should make another list instead of the one I had. Guardian spam with war walker back up seems to be effective against DE. But, the time came, he got chosen as my opponent and I said "Eh, to hell with it" and played my wraith list anyway. It was going to be interesting. He had massed volume of fire but I had re-rollable saves IF I got first turn. I didn't. I'll spare you the whole battle report cause it's kinda boring. Pretty much, first turn he took out half a wraithguard squad and all I killed in return was one Ravager. Yeah, it was pretty much that one sided the whole game. The only highlight for me was watching his Haemonculus and squad of Wracks charge into a full 10 man (11 with the warlock) with their feel no pain and furious charge and do nothing. I took no wounds from that at all. I returned and killed three only to have two get back up, he lost combat by one and promptly ran away. Next turn I shot all I had and made the entire squad dissappear putting an insta-kill on his Haemonculus with a wraith gun. That's pretty much it. I gave him the massacre at the end of turn 4. Oh, well. Lesson learned. Next week I plan on throwing my "Wraith of the Ancients" at someone again, hey, it's gotta work one of these times right?

Another one bites the dust

I know I haven't been posting a lot here lately, well, here's the reason why......

Jump for more

40k list revision again

Since I got snowed in and couldn't go to 40k night last week I'll be jumping headlong into the 1250 list. I'm kicking around using a paired down version of my "Wraith of the Ancients" list I like to use at 1850. Basically the 1250 would go something like this:

HQ Eldred Ulthran

Troops 2x 10 Wraithguard w/ Spirit seer with conceal

Heavy Support 2x Wraithlord (I don't have the codex in front of me so I'm not sure how I'll load them out)

What this does is give me two squads of T6 3+ (5+ cover) rerollable saves instakilling death, and then the 'Lords backing that up scaring the crap outta everyone. Yes, it's about as slow a list as you can get with Eldar, but it works more often than I thought it ever would, well, at least at 1850.

Kai 'Al Sun Origins

Found Kai's backstory on an old thumb drive. It's a little rough but here it is for your viewing pleasure. Oh, yeah, and it's kinda long. Enjoy.

A slight hiccup

Earlier I posted that I intended to start my "Tales of the Imperium" to recount Kai's adventures. It seems I've hit a small, er well not so small problem. The problem is I've got to much info. I intended to have the first write up done and posted on Saturday but had written 2 or 3 pages and I'm not even a third into the adventure. So, it's going to be a while before any of that gets published, hell I didn't think I'd need an editor for posting some old RPG info, but it appears it's turning into a small novel. So, please stay tuned to this channel and I WILL have some of it done by the end of the week.

Thanks,
FunDave

On second thought......

Ok, went ahead and finished the second Autarch. He didn't turn out to bad. He's still not my favorite model (that belongs to the Avatar) but I'm fairly impressed with how he turned out.

Character Profile: Kai 'Al Sun

The Man. The Myth. The Legend. The Character with the most death threats made against Him. Kai 'Al Sun. What else can I say about him. Kai was the character I made after a very long hiatus from RPGing (11 years to be exact) for the Dark Heresy campaign I was going to be in. He's a character that almost didn't get off the ground. I knew I wanted to create an Imperial Psyker so I didn't roll for that aspect of him, everything else I did and that's where the weirdness started. I almost started him all over again when I rolled his homeworld as being a feral world. Basically an Imperial backwater world with no or very limited technology. Generally associated with warriors and the like. Not a good start for someone whose supposed to be good with his mind. Then I made the stat rolls. High toughness, high strength, on and on his stats were becoming extreme with the exception of his ballistic (shooting) skill, and his fellowship (how likely people are to follow him) score. I now had something I had never seen before. The way things usually go is that a mage, psyker, caster, whatever they're called in the particular game are always good at range but once you get them in close they die. Now I had someone that could say "I'm going to kill you with the power of my mind, and if that doesn't work I've got an axe!" I set out to make him a close combat monster and by the time the campaign had to break up due to the GM leaving, he was doing around 25 points of damage per hit and he got 3 hits per turn!

I have a lot of material on this guy, his backstory is around 4 pages long and I'm working on writing up the missions we were on for my "Tales of the Imperium" series I'm doing. All of that will wind up on these pages eventually.

Frustrations

So, still painting away doing my second Autarch. Tried to do a different variation on my normal scheme to keep them from looking the same and I just don't know about the results so far. So, I'm asking for opinions. Is it really that bad(you can tell, me it won't hurt my feelings) or am I just being crazy cause it's not my normal scheme and I should push through?

You make the call, keep it or strip it?

Finished

Well, like I said last night when the paint bug bites it get it bad. So here's the final results for my Autarch. I'm actually happy with the results for once. Hit the jump for more.

With this Ring........

  Calin closed his eyes and began to meditate. He thought back to his days at the temple training, he remembered his old master having objects with power directly in them. How they had been made was never directly revealed to him, only that he would learn them at a later time when the order felt he was ready. That time had yet to come and because he was still in the field he couldn’t go back and petition for the rote. He didn’t have a choice though, since coming to Austin he had seen a couple of things that already had him thinking this was a rough neighborhood. It seemed to be some sort of supernatural nexus. Which was all the more reason he needed to have his defenses up at all times.  “I know I can place this on me, I just have to figure out how to get it from me to the ring” he thought to himself. Opening himself up to the Aether he began channeling pure prime energy. The warmth of it always overwhelmed him when he first held on, but what else do you expect when you are pulling down the power of Heaven into the earth?

                Slowly Calin began to try and maneuver the shield woven of pure force onto the ring. He first slid it wholly on, but that just seemed to protect the ring and not himself. Recasting the shield again he began to chant using the high speech he had learned. As he did the world around him began to flicker and change. He could see the waves of heat coming from the vents feel the pulsing of the electrical wires in the wall, hear the winds blowing outside. It made the shield around him become more defined and have sharper edges. “There has to be a way” he thought “Maybe if I could join them together that will work" Using his hands Calin began forming a tube impossibly thin by material world standards. He stretched and thinned it out even more, then placing one end in the shield he "welded" it in place with Prime. Doing the same for the other end he could feel the force of the shield flow into the ring. Elation filled him as he believed it to have worked, however it was short lived as the ring was now tethered to him and he couldn't move his hand without pulling on the thread of Prime. Frustrated and starting to lose concentration Calin dug deeper into himself and drew deeper on the power of the Aether. "What am I missing?" Looking around himself he could see everything now. He could hear the chourus of the angels singing around him and he could see the energy going from his body into the shield. "I got it! It's not the shield, but the source of the shield that must be moved. No wonder they keep this from you. I have to give up a part of my self to sustain the energy in the shield. I understand now" Summoning all the will he could Calin reached into his essence and took the tiny bit that was powering the shield and placed it in the center stone of the ring. The smallish brown stone that was once plain now clearly had a star of light in the middle of it shining with the power placed in it. As Calin released the flow of Prime he nearly fainted as his body slumped over. A quick glance at the clock showed the reason why. He had spent 15 straight hours chanting and channeling, but it worked, the shield was still up.

Painting update

I finally got bit by the painting bug again. It happens from time to time, I'll paint for a while, then stop, then get tired of seeing unpainted stuff and start back up again. So here is my latest project. My Autarch's are my new BFF's in my army so I'm trying to do this guy up right. I'm still trying to figure out how to to the ribbons/seals coming from his helmet, the crest on top and the fusion gun so if ya got any suggestions let me hear 'em.

40k batrep week 3

Welcome to another edition of my 40k batreps. This week saw me go up against the "Blob for One and One for Blob" guard player.

40k list revision

Week 3 of the league starts tomorrow, and that means a bump up to 1000 pts. I'm thinking of adding the always deadly 5 man firedragon squad in another wave serpent and a doomseer. The seer is there because I seem to find my Autarch in a lot more CC than I would like and letting him re-roll to wound will make him much much better. The dragons are there to blow the crap out of some sort of heavy armor or crack a squad or two, usually they get to do one thing, then they die as my opponent destroys them.

Character Profile: Mr. X

This is the last of my 3rd ed. D&D characters I'm going to do. There were others but they were just new guys generated for one certain scenario or another.

Beginnings

Ok, so one of my non-gaming hobbies is computer repair/building. I love it, probably cause I don't have anyone but myself to answer to if it screws up or doesn't work. Anyway. My mom, knowing what a genius I am ask me to put a system together for her. I got most of the parts in today and will get the rest tomorrow. I plan on putting together a how-to on this just because. For now just enjoy the pretty pic of some new shiny parts.

40k batrep week 2

40K league week two saw me play against one of my Ork playing buddies. I used the same list from last week.

Movie Review: The Green Hornet

Just a cautionary advisement. I will use spoilers in my review below so if you don't want to see them, don't read this.

Character Profile's: Kira and Pence

Gonna set the way back machine again for around 1998-1999 when I was playing a lot of D&D 3rd ed. Our group was kinda small and sometimes it would just be the DM, my friend and me playing so we would have to double up on characters in order to run a game. That's were these two polar opposites come in.

Kira, the shining paladin of Heironeous fresh out of training at the tender age of 16. Her training did not go as she had hoped however. A prodigy she might have been, but ready to take the field of battle she was not. Which was why her first assignment was to watch over -

Pence. What would you get if you put Quagmire from "Family Guy" in the body of Frodo? You'd get Pence. Pretty much the loudest, most obnoxious character I've ever played. He was your typical Halfling Rogue. Though he had learned you can distract just as many people being loud as you could sneak up on being silent. His latest exploits had put him in the bad graces of the local defense force. The only thing that saved his tiny little neck, was that his "skills" were needed by the king to retrieve something of the highest value. In order to assure his co-operation, he was assigned a watcher, protector and defender.

Sadly we never finished the story arc these two are in. It's a shame too, I had some of the most epics in-character fights I've ever had. Ever felt crazy for having a conversation in your head about whether or not to do something? If you have, now try and imagine doing that out loud and with imaginary people who only exist on paper. It's enough to make a shrink see little cartoon $$$$ in his eyes. But it was sooooo much fun. Pence would run off and try to do something, Kira would yell at him. Sometimes he would feed her bad info, make her a distraction for a group of people, just to steal money pouches. I used these two for all kinds of crazy things. Once I made the DM pissed because I kept looting with Pence instead of Kira to avoid having her give any gold away. I just explained to him that since she was so young that she was a bit naive and trusted where he was telling her to look while he went and got the real goods. Like Bakish though, I haven't had the opportunity to ever play them again and they only progressed to lvl 3. Pitty, I think if we'd continued I could have driven everyone nuts arguing with myself.

Anticipation

I really hate it when I get worked up about something then the final product just doesn't deliver. I've had this happen quite a few times and I've gotten pretty good about not letting it happen again. Well, I guess no ones perfect as I'm letting it happen now with the new "Green Hornet" movie. I've spent the last few years watching this movie go from stage to stage in progression, only to have hope dashed against the rocks with it's untimely demise. I have to confess I love this franchise. It's not the most popular, but it's something kinda near and dear to me since my dad is the one who got me into watching it with re-runs of the old T.V. show. Speaking of which, SyFy has been running a marathon of it all day today and it's really getting me ready for the movie. Sure it's campy as hell and the effects are horrible, but Bruce Lee is bloody awesome and Van Williams makes a very convincing hero. So yeah, I'm letting this one build up on me and hoping that Hollywood doesn't see fit to destroy me once again, I'm looking at you "Wolverine Origins" I'll have a review up after I see it on Friday, I'm planning on taking a quick trip down south just so I can watch it with Dad on friday night, then come back up for World of Darkness on saturday. It's a hell of a waste of gas and pretty damn taxing on me, but I get to watch it with the man that introduced it to me and that's worth quite a bit.

FunDave out.

40k batrep week 1

I'll make this short and sweet. I don't batrep the way others do. I don't take pics during the game as I'm too busy figuring out what I'm doing to stop and snap off a pic. I don't do narration cause I don't have that kind of time, and I don't publish my opponents list cause quite frankly, I don't remember them and don't make an effort to.  So with that in mind, here we go.

First up was a deathwing termie list, played by the toughest player in the store.

First turn was easy enough, as he deployed only a single dread and left the rest of his army to come in from reserve. I in turn, did my usual strategy (which no one is surprised by anymore) of leaving my entire force in reserve. So, in essence, not a damn thing happened first turn.

Second turn saw half his army come in (he only had two troops) and deep strike on his objective. I chose to not use my Autarch bonus and try to keep my guys off the table for another turn and give him less chance to kill me. It worked........almost. One stubborn  squad of warwalkers decided to come in on their own, and took a potshot at the termie squad he had just dropped in.

Third turn saw the other half of his force drop in on his second objective (thus giving him completion of his primary), and the taking out of one of my warwalkers. My turn, I turn on the bonus and bring the rest of my army screaming in. Ok, so maybe it was more like whimpering in. Here's where I made a pretty large blunder, instead of hiding my two fast skimmers to block LOS and keep them alive (all I had to do was get two vehicles in his deployment zone) I chose to go for the win on turn 3. Not a good idea. Shooting sees my walkers fail again against his dread and one of his termie squads.

Turn four things took a turn for the worst. With nothing left to do but hold his objective, he turns, drops one squad of walkers, and uses his dread to down one of my wave serpents. My turn four sees little action from me as I realize the error of my way and back my remaining serpent behind a wall.

Turn five saw the loss of my other walker ensuring that I could not complete my objective. I made a last ditch attempt to contest one of his objectives, but was way too far away. Roll for turn 6 and get a 1. Sadly that was seemed to be the theme for me for the night, "oh, something important needs to happen, eh, here's a 1".

Reflecting on the game, I could have done it a little different. If I had hid my skimmers behind the wall, not only could I have made a late turn charge to his deployment zone, but I could have landed them near enough his objective to possibly contest thus denying him any points at all. Oh well, live and learn.

Looking forward to next week and my next game though, cause win or lose, it's all about the fun.

40k on the horizion

There is a new 40k league starting at my local game store. Escalation, with an alternative rule set. First game is 750pts, and my Eldar are hungering for a fight (usually though, they end up biting off more than they can chew).

Here's the list I'll be taking for the first two weeks.
HQ- Autarch - Power weapon, mandiblasters, fusion gun.

Troops- 5x Dire Avengers w/ Wave Serpent - TL Shru. Cannons
             5x Dire Avengers w/ Wave Serpent - TL Shru. Cannons

Heavy Support- 4x (2 squads of 2) War Walkers w/ EML

That leaves me 50 points to play around with for upgrades to either my Avenger squads or the vehicles. I'm thinking Spirit Stones on the vehicles would come in the most handy. Then, that leaves me only 30 points.

Character Profile: Bakish of Ravenwinter

This was one of my favorite characters from D&D 3rd ed. Only the second one I ever had (the first being a 2nd ed character played once). I leveled him from 1-12 and would have went further but my group fell apart and I haven't been able to use him since. So, he wound up being a lvl 6 sorcerer lvl 6 dragon desciple and that's it. Seeing how I was a lot younger and less into the role play aspect of the games, I never got around to writing a backstory for him. I would just make up small details here and there to explain away some of the "quirks" in his personality (like his drinking). I played him as a very loud, very agitated drunk. The main problem with that being he was half-elvish and a sorcerer, not the best combo for being a drunk. That is what led to what I consider one of my more humorous moments, though the party didn't think so.

We had just slogged through a long dungeon (the reason for being there is lost to time) the session before and we started the new one off in a tavern (of course, where else are you going to start a new run). Bakish was being his usual cheery self when he noticed a dwarf at the bar. Having just survived quite a bit (our DM could be a very harsh dude) he considered himself ready to take on just about anything. So, much to the dismay of the rest of the group, he goes up and challenges the dwarf to a drinking contest. Some of you can see where this is going. He starts off well, then as usual, the dice start to let me down and I fail a couple of stamina tests which leads to an exchange something like this.

DM: Ok, you are totally drunk out of your mind now.
Me: Sure, not like I haven't been here before. In character: "Hey everyone, look what I can do!" (my intent was to cast a couple lvl 0 spells and make a light show of sorts. I succeded.........kinda)
DM: Well, if you're going to start trying to cast something while drunk, Let's see if you miss cast.
(Dice roll: 1) Oh, that's not good. (DM smirks, never a good sign) You just learned Fireball didn't you?
Me: Yeah, why?
DM: Ok then, you miss cast fireball inside the tavern. You hit the kegs behind the bar.
Me: (no words just a grim expression as I realize the entire bar is about to go up in smoke)
To make a long story short, the entire bar caught fire and we were ran out of town without rest and without food. I was not very popular after that.

I am still working on the backstory for this character so maybe I'll have it up someday.

FIrst Post

Ok. So this being my first official post I'll just let ya know, this blog is going to be all over the place. I'm a gamer and like multiple games and I plan on talkin' about them all. From D&D and World of Darkness, to Warhammer 40k and maybe, if I really hate myself that day, I'll even talk about Magic: The Gathering.