Oh No! Somebody Set Us Up the Bomb!

I forgot to add that the spackle I picked up worked out well for plugging the gaps in the Skaven bases. I also tried it on a couple of pirates and molded it from their built-in bases down to the washers they're based on.

I tried to order my fur hat today, but shipping was too much and I'll just have to wait until the local Cabela's has it in stock.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us!

I finished up the bases to all the painted Skaven. It went pretty fast, and I even had time to prime the last few Skaven miniatures. I guess I don't have many excuses not to finish the army now. While I was working on the bases I tried to work out what I want to add to the army after the giant and another unit of slaves. I think it would be cool to add a Grey Seer, a Screaming Bell, and a bunch of Plague Monks to push the Screaming Bell. It seems like that would make a good centerpiece to the army. I'm not sure what the points cost on that would be, though.

I picked up some spackle at Wal-Mart. We'll see how it works on these Skaven bases.

Today I painted almost all of my Skaven bases. I need to get some putty before I can do the rest of the bases, as the ones I have left are slotta-bases and I need to fill in the slots before I paint them. Perhaps tomorrow I will find time to clearcoat them. Then I will have to find some time to add the flocking. Once all that is finished, I'll have to get up the motivation to get the primer out and finish the last few minis in the army. I'm not really sure what I have against painting the last Jezzail team and the Warp-Lightning Cannon, but I don't even want to look at them. I even got some new miniatures for Christmas, so it's not like I'll die if I paint the last few pieces for my Skaven. Either way, it'll be nice to have the army finished (at least at the 2000-point level). I'd really like to make the Giant my next big project, but we'll see where my whims take me when I'm done with whatever's on my desk at the moment.

I got a pretty good haul of miniatures for Christmas. I got an Orc Warboss, some Night Goblin Fanatics, a Snotling Pump Wagon, and a Goblin Doom Diver Catapult for my Orcs and Goblins Army. I also got the Reaper Townsfolk set for my Pirate Tavern, as well as a Grave Horror for my Warlord Necropolis army. In addition, my wife gave me The Games Workshop Complete Catalog 2006-2007, which I've been using to plan a couple of conversions for my Orcs and Goblins. I also got a Cabela's Gift Card which I will use to buy one of these bad boys. My parents got us a set of super electronic toothbrushes that do everything but tuck you in at night. They're pretty cool. Loot-wise, it was a very good Christmas.

A Very Busy Christmas

We had Christmas a day early to accomodate family schedules, and after a full day of running around the farm and barking, Buddy crashed on his chairs and hasn't moved at all.

I haven't really had much to post about the last few days. I've worked a little on the bases for my Skaven. I think I've got 90 bases done and still have 90-some to go, plus the last few minis that I haven't got around to priming yet.

I haven't done anything with my pirates yet, although El Grego posted a comment on my last post with some ideas about what to use for the bases. I'll probably decide what to do with them early next year.

I really need to finish this Skaven project so I can move on to something else. After a year of painting ratmen I need a change of pace. Hopefully I can get at least one game in with them before the next Skaven army book comes out and changes everything. I've been thinking that 3000 points of Orcs and Goblins sounds like a pretty big project. I hope I can get through it in a year or less. I did have a few months out of this year in which I didn't do any painting, so if I keep it up all year in 2007 I should be able to get quite a bit done.

Basset Hounds Are Not Lap Dogs

I cleaned off my desk today in anticipation of our upcoming furniture shuffle. In theory, the bedroom will become the hobby/computer room, the storage/dog kennel/weight bench room will become the bedroom, the dogs will move to the living room, and the weight bench will go to the shed, which will in theory be cleared out enough that we can use it, although we're going to need some sort of heat out there if we plan on using the shed as a workout room. In theory all of the stuff in storage will either be sold off, donated to good causes, or thrown out. Or we could try to find a cheap storage unit. My main reason for posting all of this here is that the blog has been a good motivator for my miniatures projects, so maybe it can get me motivated to get rid of stuff and move everything around.

I got the new Skirmish Campaigns book from Scott Fisher in the mail today. It looks like it should be fun. I'm hoping to get my initial order of Micro Armour during the first week of April, which will get the ball rolling on me playing the scenarios from the Drive on Minsk book.

The pirate project is stalled at the moment because I need to go pick up some finer sand for the bases. I also need to find some sort of cheap putty or something to sculpt the bases a little. The bases currently have big gaps in them and I also want to do something more visually interesting than flat washers covered in sand.

Tomorrow I think I'll prime the last Skaven pieces. I may start working on the Warp-Lightning Cannon. I got out the Dremel and worked on the hole that the Cannon's gunner mounts to, so he fits a little better now. The slaves who turn the cannon are still a problem as the don't fit to it very well at all. I may end up building a base for the cannon out of sheet styrene and using some sort of putty to even things out. The whole model is a huge pain even to look at. I'm still kicking around the idea of adding two Rat Ogres to my army so I can avoid working on this cannon. I'm also held up on the last Jezzail team as I'm still short one cavalry base and don't want to pony up $5 for a bag of bases that I'll never use.

Oh, and Basset Hounds really are not good lap dogs, no matter how much they try to convince you otherwise. Long, heavy dogs just don't fit on laps. My Basset Hound makes do by putting his front legs on one side of you, his back legs on the other, and resting his belly on your lap. I can't imagine that it's comfortable for him, but he must get something out of it.

A Sample Base

This is the sample base I did last night as a test. I'll probably do something similar to this for my Orc and Goblin figures. I may also use the gravel (Woodland Scenics Medium Ballast #B1379) on some of the larger Skaven bases as well, like the Rat Ogres. I need to get some of the smaller stuff for my pirate bases, to simulate sand. This stuff is a bit big for sand.

Pirates and Skaven Bases

I took a picture of all my pirates together. They are quite the crew.

Today I painted and flocked the bases and movement tray for my Stormvermin. I decided to just do the simple base design on this army. Maybe on my Orc and Goblin army I'll do the bases up with gravel and whatnot mixed in. I've already done 60 Skaven in this simple scheme, and I don't really fancy scraping the flock off of them and redoing the bases. I'd like to have the army finished sometime this century. It doesn't look amazing, but from tabletop distance the bases blend into each other and sort of "disappear." And that's the effect I want. Now I just have to get motivated to do the rest of the army. I also need to come up with some kind of base for the Warp-Lightning Cannon and crew.

Not Much Progress

I didn't really do anything with my miniatures today. Monday always sucks because on Mondays I work from 1:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. instead of my usual daytime schedule. So I come home from work and sleep for most of the day. It usually throws off my sleep schedule until at least Wednesday or Thursday. Hopefully soon I'll get enough seniority to get aschedule that doesn't require me to do the Monday thing. On a good note, I had my second six-month review at this job and got a bit of a raise. That's always a good thing because it means I can get more miniatures.

In Fantasy Football I had a better week than I anticipated. My first-place team lost their playoff game, so they drop into the consolation bracket to play for 5th-8th place. My second-place team won by two points and will play in the Championship game for that league next week. And my 6th-place team barely won this week to place me in the 5th-place game for that league. If I win all of my games from here on out, I can potentially end up with teams finishing in 1st/10, 5th/14, 5th/10, and 9th/16 for the season. It's not great, but any year that I win at least one championship is a good year.

I played around a little with the Blood and Swash rules today, just as a sort of playtest. I generated up some statistics for some pirates and rolled through a couple of combats. It should be pretty easy for my players to learn. I toyed around with pregenerating the stats when I run my game, but I think I will print out some blank stat cards and let the players generate their own before the game. There are four different stats (Slug, Shoot, Sword, and Save), all based on rolling a D20, so I'll probably let them roll 5D20 and keep the four best scores. All of the stats are generated by comparing the rolls to a chart which is different for each level of figure. For example, if you're rolling to generate the Sword stat for your Pirate Captain and a basic Crewman, a roll of 15 will give the Pirate Captain a Sword skill of 16 while the basic crewman would only get a 10 for the same roll. It sounds a lot more complex than it is, but in the little playtest I did, the Pirate Captain was very much able to defeat several basic crewman, which is as it should be in a cinematic game.

I have also been thinking of a follow-up scenario to the Tavern Brawl. If someone is able to make off with the Governor's daughter during the Tavern Brawl scenario, I want to run a cooperative game in which the Governor and the Pirates meet up to exchange the prisoner for the ransom. Of course, neither side trusts the other, and a battle erupts. Victory conditions will likely hinge on who ends up with the ransom and the daughter. I'm sure there are more scenarios to play, but I haven't put much thought into anything else yet.

I've been dreading doing the bases on my Skaven and my Pirates, but I think I need to get started. Tonight I'm going to try to get a couple sample bases started so I can at least have an idea of what I'm doing. I've already based a couple units of Skaven, but I'm not entirely happy with the ones I've done. I may just leave them as is and finish that army in the same style (the easy choice), or I may try to clean off those bases and do something different for the army (the hard choice). For the pirates I will probably do some sort of sandy beach theme. I thought about doing some sort of wooden planking, but I think the sand will work out better for me. My glue was frozen out in the shed, so I've got it on the heater vent warming up right now. Hopefully it's still okay to base with.

I'm getting a little excited for Christmas. We got a lot of presents that I think will be well-received. I also have a feeling that some of my presents are things I've had my eye on lately. I just have to clear out some space in my house for the new stuff.

Another One

One More Irate Pirate

I painted one more pirate today. I'm pretty happy with everything except the skin. This figure is one of Foundry's Chinese pirates, and I haven't quite got the skin tone down yet. This is my only Chinese pirate, so I'll have to buy more miniatures before I can continue practicing. The good news is that this is my 12th painted pirate, so I technically have enough for my tavern scenario.

Production Is Up, Matey!!!

I painted another pirate today. Nothing too exciting about the paint job on this one, except that I lettered a couple of X's on the jug tied to his belt, suggesting the presence of a stronger-than-average beverage.

The weather is probably good enough to spray some primer on the last few Skaven, but I've been having fun painting pirates and will probably roll with that for a little while. It's best to paint things while you're interested in them, as it makes it seem less of a chore.

Yarrrrrr!

I painted another pirate today, bringing my total number of painted pirates to ten. This was my first attempt at painting African skin, and I think it turned out pretty well. I used a method from an article on painting various skin tones from the November 2003 (#286) issue of White Dwarf. A lot of people rag on White Dwarf for being simply a catalog for Games Workshop miniatures. That is true, as the magazine is published by Games Workshop to support and promote Games Workshop games, but among the self-promotion there are a lot of tips and tricks that can be used for any miniatures. Maybe an "old pro" would not find the White Dwarf articles useful, but a noob like me sure does.

I Can't Sleep

I am suffering from a full-fledged attack of insomnia, complete with racing thoughts and magnified senses to the point where every sound in the house is increased a hundred-fold. It's pretty extreme stuff, so I've been planning out my Pirate Tavern project.

I'll need 12-16 pirates, depending on how many players I have in the game. I think I have enough purchased to at least have three teams of four pirates, and I currently have all but four of them painted.

I need to get Reaper's Townsfolk pack with the bartender and serving wenches, and I'm thinking about getting this little deal from Impact! Miniatures. The Beer Garden Beauty isn't really period accurate, but she does have a certain charm and the barrel pyramid and monk will be good scenery for the tavern.

I'll also need some suitable miniatures to represent a small group of noblemen/merchant types and their bodyguard. I could also use a contingent of the Governor's Guard and, of course, the Governor's daughter. Maybe I will add a couple of civilian-type figures to my collection as well.

As far as the tavern goes, I will probably build it using a 3600-count trading card box. They look something like this:

The tavern will have at least one main room with the bar, tables, benches, and other scenery. I'll probably divide off a portion of the box and build some back rooms with the barrel pyramid and maybe an office with a locked trunk in it or something. I'm still a bit fuzzy on what exactly I want the tavern to look like. I'll probably do some poking around on the internet to find some similar scenery and borrow from that. Theoretically I could have a game ready to go as soon as late spring. That would be pretty awesome, considering that I bought the pirates and Blood and Swash rules approximately ten years ago and will finally be able to use them. Anyway, that's the plan in a nutshell. Hopefully I can get to sleep now.

Yo! Ho! Ho!

I've been waiting on the weather to cooperate with me so I can prime the last few Skaven miniatures for my army. So far it's been humid, so I decided to paint something I've already got primed, a pirate! This is a Foundry pirate with a sort of Andre the Giant build. I did a few experiments on this miniature. The first was his red hair and beard. I started with an actual red basecoat, but that looked a lot like Ronald McDonald, so I mostly covered it up with Vermin Brown, which has a bit of an orange color to it. Then I used Blazing Orange to highlight it and finish it off. It's hard to see in the picture, but it looks very nice in person.

The flesh on the severed head was another experiment. The guy kept looking a little too lively, so I mixed some Rotting Flesh paint in with my skin tones to give his face that dead, bled-out look.

I toyed with smearing blood and gore on the sword, but every time I see the blood effect on a miniature it ends up looking sort of hokey. I may try it out later if i can find a good tutorial that looks a bit realistic. I suspect realism may be achieved by using more browns than reds.

I like the Foundry Pirate sculpts a lot, especially after painting a million Games Workshop figures. The Foundry sculpts are very simple. This guy consists of only a few blocks of color, but he looks very convincing and was fun to paint. The Games Workshop figures can be fun, but the sheer amount of detail and skullz on the figures can get tedious to paint and to look at. Overall I really like this miniature and I'm hoping that once I get my WWII Micro Armour project under way I'll be able to spring the cash for one of the Foundry Pirate Hordes, with 60-some random pirate miniatures.

And here's something that made me laugh today. When I came home from work I noticed that the garbage men (sanitation engineers?, waste removal persons?, the noble men and/or women who remove unwanted items from the curb as a civic service?) had left the neighbor's garbage cans in the driveway, which is normal. The trailer park manager has probably requested that they do that so we'll actually bring our trash cans in on the afternoon of trash day.

Anyway, later on I went out to get the mail. As I got to my house I saw the neighbor coming down the road in his truck. After I went around the side of my house I heard an awful grinding metal-on-metal sound. The neighbor completely ran over his garbage cans. He jumped out of his truck and commenced to swear and kick the garbage cans all over his driveway. It was quite the display of rage.

Oh, and one more thing miniatures-related. A while back I ordered the Russian '41 - Drive on Minsk book from Skirmish Campaigns. The book ended up being short one page. I e-mailed one of the book's authors and he hooked me up with a file containing the missing page and offered to replace the book for me. I left the decision to replace the book up to him as I can easily get by with a printout of the file. Today I got a message from him that all of the books are missing that page and that he's sending me a copy of their newest book free of charge. So it's like a free Christmas present.

All That's Left

This is all I have left for my Skaven army. One Jezzail team, three crew, and one Warp-Lightning Cannon.

Jezzail Teams Finished

I finally finished the Jezzail teams. The tiny details all over made them a pain to work on, so I'm pretty happy to be done with them.

In other news, the coat my wife got me for my birthday didn't fit quite right, so we were going to send it back and get a refund. With the refund we were going to buy tickets to see George Strait in concert when he comes to Boise next month. As luck would have it the concert sold out the day before the refund processed and we don't have the cash to pony up for scalper prices. So we paid some bills, which is quite probably the practical thing to do with the money. Probably the second or third-biggest disappointment of the year for me. I guess I should be glad that missing a concert by one of the greats is one of my biggest concerns for the year. It means I have a job, a wife, a home, a car, two stupid dogs, and enough money to feed and clothe us. But I won't turn this blog into some emo navel-gazing whine-fest. I just needed a venue to air my frustration at missing the concert.

End of the Fantasy Football Regular Season

I had a relatively successful week this week in Fantasy Football, going 3-1 to give me a 33-23 record for the year. In the 'Rama Football League, I beat the top-seeded team, but still missed the playoffs by one spot, going 7-7 and finishing 9th out of 16 teams.

In the TMP League I lost my game, but remained in first place out of 14 teams with an 11-3 record. I have a pretty good spot in the playoffs and I hope to do well there.

In won boh games this week in my public leagues. One team finished at 6-8 and goes into the consolation playoffs ranked 6th out of ten. Hopefully with a couple of wins I can take 5th place. My other public league team finished 2nd out of ten teams and goes into the playoffs with a 9-5 record.

Overall it's been a pretty good season, especially since I have three of my four teams playing into the postseason with a chance at some championships.

I haven't done any painting yet today, but hopefully I'll find some time this afternoon or evening to get those Jezzail teams done.

I've been slowly working on painting some of my Jezzail teams, but it is going slowly as I can't seem to keep working for long periods of time. I may need to paint a pirate or some Warlord figures to recharge a little from painting ratmen. I am done with almost everything on them except for the metallic parts. I am not really a fan of most of the metal Skaven miniatures so far, as they have endless amounts of tiny little fiddly details that take forever to paint. I finally had to stop painting today because I couldn't squint at the little bands on the gun barrels anymore. Hopefully I can finish them up after work tomorrow and then I'll just have one more Jezzail team and the Warp-Lightning Cannon to paint. Then I'll have to do the bases for the army and be done with Skaven for a little while.

I've also been trying to find some enjoyment in World of Warcraft, as it seems I am the only person in my immediate group of friends (all five of the people I know, who all happen to be related to me) who is not excited about the game. I played for a little while yesterday "helping" my little brother level up his Orc warlock. I had to start a new character to help him out, though, as his Warlock is on a different server than my characters. He was at level 6, so I'm not sure how much my level 1 Warrior really helped him out. I think that once my wife starts her World of Warcraft account back up I'll be able to enjoy the game a little more, as we can go quest together in some of the high-level areas and work toward goals other than the end-game sets and dungeons. The expansion is supposed to come out in mid-January, so then we'll have another continent to quest and grind in. And I still need to grind out about 100 more gold that my sister and brother-in-law lent me to buy a Core Marksman Rifle. I would also like to get my full tier 0 set, but that would require going into a few dungeons and instances that are somewhat time-consuming. And who knows what they'll come out with for the expansion? The tier 0 and 0.5 sets will probably be obsolete in a few months.

The neighbor has been trying to start his truck for about two hours now. I don't think it's going to start. He just had the starter going for about 35 seconds. I don't know much about cars, but I don't think keeping the starter going for that long is good for the vehicle. I'm sure he's not thinking about that at the moment, though. It sounds like he's hit the overwhelming frustration and anger stage of car repair. I hope he doesn't keep it up for too long, as I've got to wake up in about four hours for work.

Blizzard Dupes Me Again for (Hopefully) the Last Time

I'd been hearing good things about the new World of Warcraft patch, especially the new honor system that allows players to save up PvP honor to buy the high-end PvP gear. It sounded pretty exciting, because one of the major reasons I quit the game before was the fact that unless you were invited into a big raid guild or played PvP for hours each day, you were pretty much out of luck when it came to end-game items. With this new system, you can theoretically play whenever you have time and eventually earn enough honor to get the high-end items. With the new patch they also refunded everyone's talent points and came out with new talent trees. Unfortunately, the new Hunter tree isn't very exciting and doesn't really offer a lot of talents worth taking.

I restarted my account last night and repicked my talents, going with essentially the same build I'd had before. Then I went to the trainer and found out that I'd need like 50 Gold to buy back all of the ranks I'd lost with the new patch. That was disappointing.

Then I went to the Arathi Valley Battlemaster to do some PvP and check out the new honor system. As soon as I logged in, people on chat started yelling, "Don't try to win, just kill the LTs. You get 400 bonus honor for killing the LTs!" So now instead of fighting any opposing faction players or capturing towers, AV consists merely of following the pack to each high-level NPC and killing as many as possible to farm honor. Since I don't have a fast epic mount, I usually arrive at each NPC just in time to dismount, collect my honor, and mount up to go to the next one. So if I wanted to farm honor to get items, I'd have to spend hours doing nothing but riding my mount around with all the other players. No one is trying to win the game, no one is having any discernable fun, just honor farming en masse. I quit after two battles last night. Today I made it through part of one, hoping that since I started at a different time things would be different. I guess they really don't have any endgame content for solo players.

I cancelled my account today. They already have my 15 dollars for this month, so I guess my complaints don't matter to them. I hope they don't find some shiny new way to dupe me out of more money. I'd rather use up my hours painting more miniatures.

The Hoff

A Little Progress Today

Today's post is going to be one huge paragraph of brain dumping before bed. Feel free not to read it if you are one of my three regular readers. If you haven't been here in a while, scroll down a couple posts and there are some pictures and entertainment for you there. I started painting the fur on my Jezzail Teams today, but once I got the initial color on I lost my motivation and set them aside. So I clear-coated the Clanrats I just finished instead. I almost went outside to put primer on the last few minitures in the army, but it is cold out there and I didn't really feel like it. Also, we're out of the rubber gloves I usually use to reposition the figures while I'm priming. I only have a few more miniatures to get through before the army is finished. I think I'll probably get through all of the painting by the end of the year, but the bases and movement trays may take me into next year a little. At least I'm moving a lot faster now than I was the first 8 or 9 months of the year. At this rate I may be able to finish a few projects next year rather than just one army. But I won't get too far ahead of myself just now. I still have to tackle that stupid Warp-Lightning Cannon. The painting itself shouldn't be too bad, but all of the assembly is a beast. I finally got the chassis and barrel all put together. The model seems to be sculpted or cast poorly, so the parts weren't even close to matching. I had to use some green stuff to cover the huge gaps. It's still not pretty, but at least it's together. The paint should hide most of the issues anyway. I'd really like to paint the giant next, but that is a lot of work. He's not doing me any good unpainted in a box, though. Neither is the Witch Hunters Immolator. Or the Warlord miniatures I've accumulated. Or the pirates I've got primed but haven't looked at in months. Or the Micro Armour that Red Rick sent me for winning his contest. I also found some Quality Castings miniatures I got for my birthday when I was about 15. It's a bunch of WWII American and German stuff; an infantry pack, two tanks, and two anti-tank guns per side. Not sure if I'll do anything with them for now, as they aren't in my chosen scale for the period. Maybe I can find someone to offload them on and use the cash to buy some Micro Armour for my Eastern Front skirmish project. Right now it's time for bed, as I was dragging all day and almost got to work late this morning. I'd rather not be late again, especially with my six-month review coming up in the next week or so. It's hard to get a good raise if you sleep in all the time.

Just For the Record...

The Skaven Warp-Lightning Cannon must be the world's fiddliest miniature. If there is anything out there more frustrating and hard to hold together, I hope I never encounter it. I'm looking for a good excuse to play two more Rat Ogres in place of this dadgum thing.

My Fantasy Football Season Goes Down the Toilet

I had another bad week this week, going 1-3 to bring me to 30-22 on the year. Next week is the last of the regular Fantasy Season, and I don't think I will be able to reach my goal of getting every team into the playoffs, even if I loosen my restrictions a little and count the consolation playoffs as real playoffs.

My team in the TMP League is doing quite well with an 11-2 (1st/14) record and a guaranteed playoff spot. Hopefully I can go on to win it, although I may want to tone it back a little since I want all the players to come back next year. Just kidding, if they can't handle it I'll just find more people to play against.

My team in my other bragging-rights league, The 'Rama Football League, is doing quite poorly at 6-7 (11th/16) and has to win this week against the first-place team to make the bottom spot in the playoffs. I don't think it will happen. The good thing is that I won the 'Rama Baseball League this year, so I at least took one championship from them. This will probably be my last season with the 'Rama folks as I don't visit the Newsarama message boards anymore.

I have a Public League team that is at 8-5 (4th/10) and has to win this week to stay in the playoffs. A loss will drop that team into the consolation rounds to compete for 5th-8th place.

My other Public League team is at 5-8 (9th/10) and needs to win this week to get into 8th place and be in the consolation playoffs. After a hot start I've been losing more than winning lately, so I hope I can pull off a miracle and get some wins this week.

Fantasy Basketball season is getting into full swing now. I have some mixed results there. My 'Rama Basketball League team is in first place out of ten teams at 33-10-2. My TMP Basketball League team is in seventh place out of 14 teams at 22-21-2. I'm in two public rotisserie leagues, each with twelve teams. In one league I'm in second place with 74 points and in the other I'm in seventh place with 60.5 points. I've been moving up in all my leagues, though, as I've made a few roster changes recently.

Howard Dean Made Me Laugh Today

Clanrats Finished

I finally finished the last unit of Clanrats for my army. It was a painful process, but they turned out pretty nicely. My main gripe was trying to get them to line up after I attached their shields, especially with the spikes sticking out so far. Some rats didn't get shields at all and some ended up with flat shield emblems. Most of the stuff for the unit standard came from the Plague Monks sprue, and the unit hero got his arms from the Night Runners sprue. I think the only real interesting things of note as far as the paint goes are the rust effects on the shield emblems and the corrosion on the battle standard's copper disc.

Colonel Marbles' Miniatures Reviews

I added a link in my sidebar to Colonel Marbles' blog in which he posts video reviews of miniatures.

Johnny Cash Video

John the OFM on The Miniatures Page posted a link to a Johnny Cash video that I think just about anyone could enjoy, unless they are some sort of PETA activist. Watch it here.

3,000 Point Orcs and Goblins List

Characters

Savage Orc Warboss - Boar, Martog's Best Basha, Armour of Gork, Bigged's Kickin' Boots, The Collar of Zorga

249 pts.

Night Goblin Warboss - Great Cave Squig, Porko's Pigstikka, Light Armour, Spiteful Shield, Collar of Zorga

178 pts.

Goblin Big Boss - Battle Standard Bearer, Spider Banner

110 pts.

Savage Orc Shaman - Level 2 Upgrade, Staff of Baduumm

145 pts.

Night Goblin Shaman - Level 2 Upgrade, Staff of Sneaky Stealin'

135 pts.

Core

20 Savage Orc Boyz - Additional Choppa, Full Command

230 pts.

20 Savage Orc Boyz - Additional Choppa, Full Command

230 pts.

20 Savage Orc Boyz - Additional Choppa, Full Command

230 pts.

29 Goblins - Short Bows, Full Command

136 pts.

40 Night Goblins - Nets, Full Command, 3 Fanatics

250 pts.

10 Forest Goblin Spider Riders - Full Command

160 pts.

Special

5 Savage Orc Boar Boyz - Shields, Full Command, Big 'Uns

193 pts.

Orc Boar Chariot

80 pts.

2 Goblin Spear Chukkas

70 pts.

9 Night Goblin Squig Hoppers

135 pts.

10 Black Orcs - Full Command

168 pts.

Rare

Goblin Doom Diver Catapult

80 pts.

Snotling Pump Wagon

40 pts.

3 Stone Trolls

180 pts.

I was going to paint today, but my dogs broke the gate and got out, so I had to fix that. Of course I ended up slicing a couple chunks out of my fingers and my painting hand is somewhat incapacitated at the moment. I have discovered that I am not Bob Vila, but at least the dogs shouldn't be able to get out now.

My Guard unit had our Christmas dinner today, along with a excruciatingly long awards ceremony. I got a few ribbons, as did everyone else. I even won something at the raffle. I'm not sure what to do with it. Maybe someone can offer a suggestion?

I may try to post my Orcs and Goblins list tonight. Hopefully it works out this time.

Another Trailer Park Story

This past Wednesday I came home from work at the usual time and when I opened my car door to get out, I heard a man sobbing loudly and repeatedly saying, "I'm not leaving until you listen to me."

I thought, "This sounds pretty interesting," and I cast my eyes about to find the source of the noises. It turned out to be across the street, where crying guy was blocking the porch, and his (apparently) ex-girlfriend was standing at the bottom of the steps talking to someone on her cell phone, making a big show of ignoring what he had to say. I fiddled with my car and tried to appear very involved in the fact that I have no stereo in my car's stereo mount.

He repeated his, "I'm not leaving until you listen to me," mantra a few times and then he got to the real point of his visit. He announced, "I promised myself and I promised God that I wouldn't give up on you."

She cut him off with, "That's nice," and continued her phone conversation.

But he wasn't done. After softening her up with that smooth "promise line," he got down to the nitty gritty. "I want to live with you!" he said. He didn't say he loved her, he didn't say he was sorry, he just wanted to live with her. I don't blame her for being unimpressed with this final remark. After this he went back to his, "I'm not leaving until you listen to me," line and I went into my house. When my wife got home he was still out there, but he had given up on speaking to his ex and was just hovering around looking pitiful. I suspect that when he took off on her he had some sort of plan for living off of someone else and when those plans fell through he was faced with the threat of pending employment, so he had to run back to his sugar-momma.

I was going to post my Orcs and Goblins army list tonight, but the Blogger formatting tools weren't working and I had to stop working on it due to the blind rage I was feeling. I don't think anything makes me more angry than a document that won't do what I want it to, except maybe the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

The Orc and Gobbo List Will Have to Wait

I am too tired tonight to post the Orc and Goblin list. I can talk about the concept of the army a little, though. The army is based around Savage Orcs, as I think their more primitive weapons look better and I want to mess around with the concept of warpaint. Their barbarian tribe vibe also seems to work well with the idea of shamanistic magic and the loose Native-American theme of the Forest Goblin Spider Riders. In addition, I added a bunch of models I think will be fun to paint, such as a unit of Squig Hoppers led by a Great Cave Squig-riding Night Goblin Warboss who is a huge waste of points especially when you figure in the random movement of his mount. But how could I pass up on the opportunity to mount an insane Goblin on a wildly-bouncing mount wielding such fearsome armaments as Porko's Pigstikka and the Spiteful Shield? At the very least it will be a fun army to model and paint. Anything aside from that will just be extra.

I did write up a couple of 1500-point Warlord armies, one for the Razig's Revenge faction and one for the Necropolis faction. As soon as my Crusaders army book arrives in the mail I will write up a list for them as well. I'm not sure when I'll get around to purchasing and painting those armies, though. My current priorities are:

1. Finishing the Skaven army to the 2000-point level, as well as painting the Giant and perhaps a Unit of Clanrat Slaves to bring the list to 2250.
2. Building a Pirate Tavern for use with the Blood and Swash rules. I need to paint about 8 more pirates, a barkeeper and some serving wenches, some of the local Town Guard, and maybe a civilian or two (perhaps the Governer's Daughter, a crochety old man, and some sort of Frenchman who feels the need to duel everyone). Hopefully I can use these props to run a tavern brawl for my wife, sister, and brother-in-law. My little brother could also be included, as well as any other family who wishes to try it out.
3. Orcs and Goblins
4. Maybe Warlord armies, maybe skirmish-level WWII Eastern Front in Micro Armour scale, maybe completing my 40K Witch Hunter army. I do have a 40K Ork list written up, but I don't think I'll get around to it. If I do another 40K list it will probably be an all-infantry Space Marine force. I'd also like to pick up a Foundry Pirate Horde and really have a lot of pirates to choose from when running tavern brawls. I suppose I'd also need to pick up a lot of various townsfolk and other bar patrons.

Skaven Army List

I have not posted my army list yet, so I guess now would be a good time to do it. I have a couple of issues with the list as it stands now. First, I don't really have any set place to put the Warlord and Battle Standard Bearer. As far as I know, it is customary to have the spellcasters move independently. From what I've read recently, the new edition of Warhammer makes it easier to shoot at characters in the open, so most characters are now attached to units. I could designate units for the Warlord and Standard Bearer to join, cut one model from those units to make room and then make the points up elsewhere, but that would mostly be for vanity purposes so I don't have a one-model rear rank on the unit. I think I'll just stick with the list as-is and attach the characters to whatever units need the extra manpower. My other issue lies with the legality of the Warlock Engineer carrying Dispel Scrolls. Theoretically, he is a spellcaster and can use the scrolls, but I've never seen a list using a Warlock Engineer in that way. Usually people take a Plague Priest or Grey Seer to fill that role. On to the list. One thing to keep in mind is that I built this list for flavor as well as to include the models I wanted to paint. It may or may not be competitive, as I have yet to play any games of Warhammer. Also, I'm not sure if I'll be finding any games locally to play with my Skaven, as the moderator of the Boise Warhammer Yahoo! Group recently posted this to the Skavenlair Yahoo! Group:

If anyone is interested in picking up my Skaven army let me know. I have to many armies (4) and people locally do not like playing my Skaven. PM me I will send you a list.

Not exactly a good sign for a new player to the group to have an army that everyone hates to play. I have noticed several posts lately that say in essence, "Looking for a game on [date] at [place], no Skaven!" I'm not exactly sure what is so bad about playing against Skaven, but maybe this guy has a really cheesy army or something. I guess I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

The List

Characters

Warlord - Weeping Blade, Warpstone Armour, Great Weapon, Heavy Armour

182 pts.

Chieftain - Battle Standard Bearer, Umbranner

105 pts.

Warlock Engineer - Warp-Blades, Upgraded Warp-Energy Condenser, Super- Charged Warp-Power Accumulator, Dispel Scroll x2

135 pts.

Core

25 Clanrats - Spears, Full Command, Warpfire Thrower

250 pts.

25 Clanrats - Spears, Full Command, Ratling Gun

235 pts.

25 Clanrats - Full Command

150 pts.

20 Stormvermin - Full Command, Shields

205 pts.

10 Night Runners - Additional Hand Weapon, Nightleader

80 pts.

9 Night Runners - Throwing Stars, Nightleader

73 pts.

20 Clanrat Slaves

40 pts.

20 Clanrat Slaves

40 pts.

2 Poisoned Wind Globadiers

20 pts.

Special

5 Warplock Jezzails

100 pts.

2 Rat Ogres - Packmasters

100 pts.

20 Plague Monks - Additional Hand Weapon, Full Command

185 pts.

Rare

Warp-Lightning Cannon

100 pts.

The list comes out to exactly 2000 points, with 422 points spent on Characters, 1093 points of Core Units, 385 points of Special units, and 100 points of Rare units. One alternate list is to swap out a Dogs of War Giant with the Stormvermin unit. I still have not worked out any additions to the list to bring it to 2250 or 3000 points, although for the 2250 list I think I just have to add the Giant and a unit of 20 Clanrat Slaves to bring it to 2245.

Mission Accomplished

About an hour after I set the glue traps down I heard some movement in the kitchen cupboard (my painting desk is right next to the kitchen). The mouse must have been emboldened by his previous raids on the regular mousetraps and got himself stuck in the new trap. Since he was still alive, I tried to extract him from the trap with the intention of maybe setting him free near the annoying neighbor's house, but he was extremely well-set in the trap and I had to just put him out of his misery. At least my wife will be able to go back into the kitchen and I will not starve to death.

Yay! Car Trouble!

We went over to the family farm again on Friday for the birthday party. I also had to change the brakes on my wife's car. Unfortunately I found a leak on the driver's side, so I had to go back out there on Saturday after work and change out the caliper. It was pretty sweet. I guess I should be glad we didn't wreck and die in a fiery crash. And at least I have a general idea about how to do the brakes on a car now, as this was the first time I'd done it.

I got some good birthday presents. My wife got me a Denver Broncos jacket. My sister got me seven blisters of Reaper Miniatures' undead pirates for my Razig's Revenge army. My mom got me a box of Warhammer Forest Goblin Spider Riders for my Orcs and Goblins army. And I got a bunch of candy as well.

I also found out that the Reaper website has a wish list feature that allows you to load up your wish list and e-mail it to other people. The Warhammer site has one as well, so now it should be easy to make lists for birthdays and Christmas. The interweb has sure made my life a lot easier.

I finally wrote out a 3000-point Orcs and Goblins army list. I still have to write up the additions to my Skaven army that will take it to 2250 points and then to 3000 points. I'm not sure if I should add a Grey Seer or use those points on another big block of infantry. I'll have to think about it some more. I did start painting up my last unit of Clanrats for the 2000-point army. I hope to make a lot of progress on them tomorrow while my wife is at work.

It doesn't look like the '51 Ford project is going to go anywhere, as it needs a little too much money put into it for my budget. I was pretty down about it for a little while, but I have a new top-secret project in mind that should be a little more within my means. It'll be a little while before I have some money saved up to get it going, though.

The mouse in our kitchen has been making a mockery of the mousetraps we set out, eating the peanut butter off of them every night. Today we went out and got some glue traps, so maybe it won't have such an easy time bypassing those. My wife is to the point where she won't even go into the kitchen anymore, so this mouse is affecting my ability to obtain home-cooked meals and thus s/he has to go.

This week's Fantasy Football was a little more exciting than most weeks, as every one of my games came down to the wire during tonight's Seattle-Green Bay game. I could easily have gone 4-0 or o-4 for the week, but I ended up getting about half of the breaks to go my way and had a 2-2 record for the week, bringing me to 29-19 (10-2 1st/14; 8-4 3rd/10; 6-6 10th/16; 5-7 8th/10) for the year. With two weeks left before the playoffs, I've got two teams that should make it in, one team that could make it in if I at least win one more game, and a team that may be out entirely but could potentially slip in if it wins both games and the teams above it lose some games. My Fantasy Basketball teams are doing okay, but with the football season in full swing I've mostly just been setting the rosters at the start of the week and checking in on them at the end of the week.

We went to the family farm for Thanksgiving today. The food was good as usual. We actually had all of the siblings there and it was nice to see everyone, especially my two nieces. As it was also my birthday, my sister and brother-in-law gave me a couple of Reaper miniatures from my list. My other brother-in-law has a birthday this Sunday, so I think we're going back over tomorrow to have some sort of get-together.

I may rework my Orc and Goblin list tonight and try to get it sorted out at a higher point level. I should also work out my 1000-point addition to the Skaven army.

I Am Now the Proud Owner of a Butterball Turkey, At No Cost to Me.

The other day my boss handed me an envelope which contained a coupon good for a Butterball turkey of up to $15 in value. I mentioned it to my wife in passing and she finally made me dig the coupon out of my car and exchange it for a turkey. So now we have a turkey.

We also have a mouse loose in the house. We had one earlier in the year and were able to trap it. I set out the mousetraps tonight and hopefully by morning we will no longer have it rustling around under the fridge. I keep hoping it will find it's way into the snake's cage and solve two problems at once. I have my doubts that this will happen, though.

I worked on my unit of Slaves a little more today. They are almost done, but I didn't quite have the stamina to push through and finish them up. I think part of my reluctance to finish them is that I have relatively few options to choose from for my next unit to paint. I could do the Clanrats, but they are a big unit that will be quite mind-numbing to work through. I could do the Jezzail teams, but they are awfully fiddly. Just their gun barrels look like a nightmare with all sorts of runes and whatnot that I'll have to figure out. I also want to wait until I have the fifth team assembled and based, but to do that I need one more cavalry base and I'm too cheap to spend $5 on a whole bag of bases when I only need one. Or I could paint the Warp-Lightning Cannon, which has enough issues to make me scrap it and use the 100 points on another five Jezzail teams or a couple big units of Slaves, or even 5 more Globadiers. I think I may paint up a pirate or two to break the monotony of the Skaven army.

I never really know what to do when someone posts a comment on my blog. It would appear that I am just as awkward in internet society as I am in face-to-face society. I feel a need to acknowledge and respond in kind to people's comments, but I feel somewhat incapable of doing so. So, if you have posted a comment on my blog and I have not given you an adequate response, I did read your comment and appreciate the feedback, but I may think that I have nothing of real value to respond with. And no, I don't have anything against people named Greg. I just think that the idea of an elf named Gregolas is hilarious.

The Ford Trucks forum is open again, so I got a picture of that truck I was talking about earlier. The image is property of Ford-Trucks.com and you probably shouldn't copy it and use it for commercial purposes.

Does She Have Big Boobs?

My wife has been telling me that I should write a book about my experiences in Iraq. I am somewhat reluctant as my memory is awful, especially when it comes to chronology. I could probably tell a lot of stories, but putting them in order would be impossible. Also, we didn't see a lot of action over there, so it would mostly be about the other 98% of Army life, namely waiting around for something to happen. The only reason I would be tempted to undertake a project like that would be because there are so many books out there right now written by people who went to war and lost their faith in the government or had their lives ruined or whatever. I think that has a lot to do with the media and publishers controlling what gets put out and what gets the hype, but it would be nice to get some more positive stuff out there, as I think a lot more positive things go on over there that people have no idea about. For example, one day I was in my dad's office (we were based in buildings about two blocks apart for the majority of the deployment) and saw a huge list of projects in progress or completed to build up the infrastructure of the city. Part of my unit's mission was to go out and talk to community leaders and the general population about problems that the engineers (my dad's unit) could work with them on. And I even went on a couple of escort missions to guard the engineers while they worked. That's the sort of thing I tell people about that they've never heard mentioned in the press. But my real purpose here is to share a story.

On one mission we were going through a neighborhood searching houses and gathering information. I was in a three-man team covering one side of the street. We had a Sergeant in charge of our team (Sgt. H), my friend (Spc. B), myself, and an interpreter. We went into one house with Spc. B in front with the interpreter. I went to a room on one side of the hall and Sgt. H went into the other. Spc. B went down the hall, stepped through the doorway, and then came back out a few seconds later. Sgt. H asked what was going on.

Spc. B said, "We're just waiting a couple of seconds. The guy's wife has to finish getting dressed."

Sgt. H asked, "Does she have big boobs?"

Spc. B answered, "Yeah, they're huge," holding his hands way out in front of his chest. "They're like this big."

Sgt. H got all excited and said, "You guys stay here and watch the exit. I'm gonna go check out that room." He went into the back room and a little while later yelled, "You guys suck!" The lady did have huge boobs, but she was about 60 years old, very overweight, and her boobs sagged down to her waist.

When we got back outside Sgt. H was mad, so he sent me around the back to search the apartment that was there. Of course, the lady who answered was one of the most attractive women I saw during my year there. I made sure to tell him all about it when I got back to the street. That just made him more angry, so he wouldn't talk to us for the rest of the day. The Lt. asked us what was wrong with Sgt. H, so we told him the story, and he told everyone else. For the next couple of days the whole platoon kept asking Sgt. H to tell them about the woman with the big boobs. Every time his face would go bright red and he'd yell, "Shut up! Those stupid Specialists tricked me!"

I've been thinking about my upcoming Orcs and Goblins army. There's no way I'll be able to fit everything I want into 2,000 points, so I'm thinking about making it a 3,000-point army instead. It also wouldn't be too difficult to bump my Skaven army up to 3,000 points. To hit 2,250 I'd just put the giant in full-time and add another unit of Slaves. And for 3,000 points I'd add maybe a Gray Seer and a couple more units of regular Clanrats.

I've also been extremely crabby about the holidays, which is not that surprising. I hate the holidays. I don't really know why. In my family we all draw names and exchange presents. I enjoy picking out gifts for other people, but I hate making my list and asking for things. Mostly I think I just feel selfish making a list of things for people to buy me. I know that people need a list because my interests are so narrow that I'm hard to buy for. I think it might make for a better holiday if the focus was more on family and the religious aspect of Christmas than on the commercial side of things. People who know me will laugh because I'm usually the least sociable person at family gatherings, but ideally, we would spend less time and money on presents and more time making memories and doing things together. And on the subject of Christmas, one part of Christmas I can get excited about is a film called The Muppet Christmas Carol. My wife and I watched it this weekend. I think everyone should watch it every year.

I've also been thinking about the things I want to accomplish in the next year. I think I would like to go ahead and finish the 2000-point Skaven army and start on the Orc and Goblin army. Then later on I could add the extra 1000 points to the Skaven. I'd like to finish up my two 750-point Warlord forces. And it would be nice to finish out a few more of my Foundry pirates so I'd have enough for four 4-pirate teams. Along with that, I'd need to build a tavern in a box for the Pirates to brawl in, as well as painting some tavern workers (I think Reaper sells a pack with a barkeeper and a couple of serving wenches), civilians, and maybe some of the Governer's Guardsmen. That's a lot of painting, but if I keep my nose to the grindstone I should be able to do a lot of it. There were several long periods of time this year in which I did no painting at all, so if I am a little more consistent next year I should be able to get a lot done. If, and this is a big if, I get all of that done I'd like to start building a terrain board for my first World War II scenario and gather the forces for it. There are only a few infantry and vehicles needed for each side, and at 6mm scale they won't take long to paint. Those are my current wargaming plans for the next year.

I'd like to gain a few pounds as well. I'm holding fairly steady at a few hairs under 160, and I'd like to put on five or ten pounds by the end of next year. That means eating a lot and hitting the weights. Of course, it's not as simple as that. Our trailer and storage shed are stuffed full of stuff. We want to rearrange things so we can use our back bedroom, so we have to move a couch out of the living room to somewhere else, clear out the shed, clear out the back room, move the weight bench to the shed, move the bed into the back room, move the desks, computers, and hobby stuff to the current bedroom, and find a place for the dogs' kennels. I did the first couple steps to that progression this weekend, but there is plenty of work to be done. We have boxes and boxes of things we haven't used for over a year, so we have plenty to get rid of.

And of course, there's a car (or truck) project to get started on. I think that even if my dad doesn't want to make a deal for the '51 Ford I need to find a car to work on, take apart, and put back together. It's a self-improvement thing. At my workplace and in my National Guard unit there are so many people who "plan on [insert project] someday, but never do anything but go home after work to watch TV and drink. I don't drink or watch much TV, but I spend a lot of time doing nothing. I don't want to hit 30 or 35 and have nothing to show for my life. So I'm laying out projects and activities that I can do now while I've got some time and some expendable income so when I have a few more years on me I can say I built a sweet car and can wargame several rule systems with miniatures that I painted and got all huge and pumped up so people are always mistaking me for Arnold Schwarzenegger. And maybe even if I fall short of those marks, maybe I'll be able to say that I built a car that can usually beat Ford Pintos off the line and I can wargame one rule system adequately with miniatures that are mostly painted and got all pumped up so that people are always mistaking me for Richard Simmons. The sky's the limit.

Deep Thought of the Day

Today I was thinking about naming game characters and I thought it would be funny if your name was Greg and you made an elf named Gregolas. I've been chuckling about it for a good ten minutes now with no signs of it slowing up.

I had an okay week in Fantasy Football. Two of my teams are doing very well, and two of my teams are doing horribly, including one that has lost five games in a row, dropping it from 5-1 to 5-6. I had a 2-2 record for the week, bringing me to 27-17 overall. My teams are 9-2 (1st/14), 8-3 (1st/10), 5-6 (12th/16), 5-6 (6th/10). One team is guaranteed a playoff spot, another should make it in with one more win, and the other two are 4 spots and 2 spots out of the playoffs right now.

I found another Ford Truck forum, but it's all about Hot Rods and Lowriders, which is not my bag, so I probably won't spend much time there. I found a few nice pictures of a red and black '51, but the Ford Truck Enthusiasts forum is down at the moments and I can't access the pictures.

I started on a unit of Clanrat Slaves, but I got distracted by some house and yard projects and they've been sitting on my desk for a couple of days now with no progress made. I may do some work on them this afternoon or evening.

Google Earth

I just downloaded Google Earth. It's pretty awesome. It's basically a satellite photo search engine that you can use to look at pretty much anywhere in the world. I found my trailer in our trailer park, and I looked at the house my family lived in when my dad was stationed in Alaska, with the shop across the street where our famous family car chase ended. You can even see the blue roofs on the sheds at my parent's farm. I'm not sure how often the photos update, as the ones of my trailer appeared to have my wife's car in the driveway, but the ones of the family farm seem to be missing a couple of outbuildings that were put up in the last two or three years.

I took most of the unpainted miniatures for my Skaven army out to the shed today and primed them. I also made two more movement trays for the Slave unit and the Clanrat unit. The Clanrat standard bearer kept falling over, so I filled his base with steel shot and glued it in to make him a little less top-heavy. Then I lined the whole army up for this picture. All that's missing is one Jezzail team and the Warp-Lightning Cannon. I am excited to be this close to finishing the project, as I'd really like to have it done by the end of the year. The only trouuble is that by painting so rapidly I may be jeapordizing my lifespan. They say that a wargamer cannot die as long as he has miniatures left to paint, so most wargamers accumulate enough lead to ensure their survival. I'm running on slim pickings right now and will have to make a large purchase soon to ensure that I will live through 2007.

Our ball python has graduated to eating small rats, which is somewhat exciting to watch. We had been feeding her three mice at a time, but now it appears she can kill a rat without being harmed, and that is good news. Rats may be vile, smelly creatures, but they are not nearly as vile or smelly as mice.

I have recently become obsessed with a magazine called Keith Martin's Sports Car Market, which features high-end collector cars, especially older cars. The most interesting section for me is their auction reviews, in which they go to major car auctions and review each sale to see if the buyer got a good deal. It's sort of like watching Antiques Roadshow or something to see if the people who bring stuff in have a hidden treasure or a piece of junk. Most of the cars in the magazine are worth more than my life, but it sure is fun to read about them. One interesting article this month analyzed the costs of owning a Ferrari. The car in question ended up costing something like $10.40 in maintenance for every mile driven over the course of several years and 36,000 miles.

And finally, to address the elephant in the room, my dad has plans to take me down to Chinatown. I'm not sure what that means, and I'm not sure what his plans are regarding the truck. I could just call him up, but the cat and mouse on the internet is interesting enough to keep me busy until Thanksgiving. It seems that the man who sold the truck to my dad has found my blog. I'm not sure if he is one of the people who my dad enlisted to help take me down to Chinatown or if he just stumbled onto my blog by accident (highly improbable), but when two officer-types get together, anything can happen. I did pick up a Hot Rod Magazine special issue on body and paint work, just to see what it's all about, as I think I've mentioned before that my automotive knowledge is quite limited. It looks like I can do a lot of the work myself, which is good, since I probably have more time and energy than I do money to pay someone else to do it. Besides, what's the point of doing a big project if you have someone else do all the work? It's like paying someone in China to level up your World of Warcraft character so you don't have to put in the time to have your level 60. But the main point of all this is that I have no idea what my dad is planning.

I finished the Warlock Engineer today. It turned out pretty nice. I admit to being somewhat lazy with the metallics on the backpack because I just wanted to get the blasted thing done.

I was going to work on my Warlock Engineer today as I only have about 20 more minutes of painting to do on him, but I got lazy and didn't finish him up. Maybe I will do it tomorrow. I am actually progressing at a fairly rapid rate on my Skaven army and it shouldn;t take too much to get it done by the end of the year. Once the Engineer is finished, I only have to paint 5 Warplock Jezzails, the Warp-Lightning Cannon, a unit of Slaves, and one more unit of Clanrats. The Clanrats and Slaves should paint up pretty fast, as I already have a fairly set color scheme for them. The Jezzail teams shouldn't take too long, as they are just Clanrats with guns. The Cannon worries me, as it is difficult to assemble. The parts don't really match up all that well, and I don't want to have to sculpt huge areas out of green stuff.

I was going to build a Dwarf army next, but Dwarfs are mostly just beards and metal. It doesn't really sound like a fun army to paint, so I've been thinking about doing an Orcs & Goblins army instead. There seems to be a lot more variety as far as units, and the fluff has lots of room for different color schemes and whatnot. It is quite possible to do an Orc & Goblin army list and not have any of the units be the same. They also have a Warboss box set, which allows you to build your army general however you want him, while the Dwarfs only have two or three solid sculpts to choose from.

My dad knows that I'm interested in his '51 Ford truck, but as of yet we haven't talked about it. I will probably make some sort of formal proposition when we go over to the farm for Thanksgiving. Or at least discuss it a little. The project would probably take several years, both due to time and money issues. I'm not entirely sure what level I would want to clean it up to, but it would be awesome to go all-out on it. Maybe I wouldn't take it to the point where I was only putting original parts into it, but to the point where it would be a clean, convincing-looking old truck. I wouldn't want to lower it or make a street rod out of it, but I wuldn't be opposed to putting a modern stereo in or working with the interior a little. I think there's a lot I could do while I save up some money for the project, like go through and inventory what's there, what needs work, and then taking things apart and cleaning them up. It's an exciting project to think about, and I think that if I got a good start to it I'd be able to see it through and have a very good-looking truck in 3-5 years. I'd also have a lot of learning experiences, however good or bad those may be.

Poisoned Wind Globadiers

Ratling Gun!!!

I painted up this Ratling Gun. I'm not too proud of the actual gun, but I really like the clothing on the rats. I tried something a little different, using a much lighter color than the base color to outline the areas rather than drybrushing. It turned out especially nice on the rat with the gun, probably because his clothes are so light anyway that drybrushing would not have looked good.

Packmasters and a Warpfire Thrower Team