Oh, and in the spirit of Christmas...

Here's a little video for everyone. It's called "Don't Shoot Me Santa" by The Killers. It's pretty decent.



I am anticipating all of my free time in the near future being taken up by the game Medieval 2: Total War and its expansion. And there is a little voice in the back of my head talking about what sort of miniatures applications this could lead to. It's all speculation right now, as my wife is standing pretty firm in her decision not to let me open it until Christmas Day. I really would like to get into Warhammer Ancients, but I'm not sure where to start and I'm probably not prepared for the jump into a new game. The whole jump into WWII didn't go so well, and I imagine that it will be a similar situation for Medieval wargaming.

I printed off the Mordheim rulebook. With all the minis I picked up I should be able to fill out warbands for the Sisters of Sigmar, Witch Hunters, and I can use my Skaven figures from Warhammer to field a Skaven warband. I also printed off some optional rules for Orc warbands, so once I get some Orcs painted up I can use them too.

Orcs & Goblins Update

I've been struggling to come up with a theme for my Orcs and Goblins army. I want them to have plenty of variety and a lot of color, but I also want them to look like they all belong together. I didn't really want to do red or green or brown as I already have various forces in those colors. I read a bunch of articles on themed armies and greenskin tribes in particular, but didn't really see anything that jumped out at me. While I was painting the straps on the armor for my first few Orcs I came up with an idea for using blue colors to tie the army together. After some more thought I came up with an idea that incorporates the comical aspects of the Games Workshop version of Orcs as well as a unified color theme.

I present to you the Blu Jeenz tribe, led by the famous Savage Orc Pantsmaker Lurv-Eye Stross. That pretty much sums it up. It makes me laugh and it's given me the motivation I need to paint these figures. I even have some ideas for customized banners that will hopefully turn out all right. The blue pants can unify the army, leaving me free to paint shirts, helmets, and other clothing in whatever colors I want. Here's a work-in-progress photo:

New Feature

I added a music player to my blog with most of the songs I've been listening to recently. So if you want to have a musical experience for 23 seconds while you read my blog, feel free to check it out.

Posting From My Phone

I worked on my Warhammer Orcs today, finishing up the skin tones on several figures. I am leaning more toward quick army-painting methods than anything extremely detailed, as I have so many different projects I want to work on. I don't want to spend 1 1/2 years on each army like I did for the Skaven.
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I finished up the goblins I've been working on, so here are a couple of pictures of them. I still need to do something about their eyes, perhaps dot them with pupils or something. And as I typed this I realized that I haven't painted the rock that the big boss goblin is standing on. Not much else going on hobbywise at the moment.

The week isn't going extremely well in Fantasy Football, but depending on how the Vikings do tomorrow against the Bears I may still have a chance to earn some trophies this year. We'll see how it goes.

Barring a 50-point performance by Drew Brees tomorrow, my Fantasy Football teams went 3-1 this week. Unfortunately, my one loss happened to be in the first round of the TMP Fantasy Football playoffs. I went in as the second seed and got destroyed by the seventh seed, knocking me into the consolation bracket where the best finish I can make is fifth place. Wins by my other three teams put all of them in the regular Yahoo! League playoffs, so I've got a couple more opportunities to grab trophies.

I worked on some more goblins tonight. I should have finished them, but got sidetracked by message boards. My new goal is to have these seven figures painted by the end of next week, and possibly to have the Cave Troll assembled and primed so I can start work on him the following week. After that I may work on some Mordheim figures or the box of Easterlings I picked up last week. Warhammer figures have kind of taken a back seat right now with the nerd drama that caused the Boise Warhammer group to implode. I don't really have any opponents to play these other games with either, but the projects are small enough that I can bounce around without getting bored. Whenever I get a real job I hope there is a nice group of gamers nearby, as this lone gamer stuff is awfully boring. I like the painting and planning, but sometimes I think I would like to play a game with some people who can carry on a conversation and have fun.

I am considering a ceramic heat emitter bulb for the tortoise. The UVB lamp gives him the UV rays he needs to process his vitamins and the other bulb puts off some heat, but I don't think it's enough. And he's supposed to have night cycles with the lights off. The ceramic heat bulbs are supposedly good for 5 years, and the fixture and hardware to hang it are $10 at Home Depot, so I'll probably need to make that happen next week some time.

I've been writing up 500-point army lists for several of the Lord of the Rings factions with the objective of having several forces ready for the map-based campaign I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Most of the lists can be made using the army boxes that are available and one or two blister packs. Once I'm done with the Moria force I want to go after the Dwarf box set that Hobbytown has had on their shelf for a long time. They are traditional enemies anyway, so it seems like a good army to build next.

My wife has some secret present that she wants to get me for Christmas. I have promised not to guess out loud what it is, but that hasn't stopped me from postulating in secret. My real dilemma is deciding what to get for her. Her main hobbies (knitting and crocheting) are similar to my own hobbies in that there is too much variety and specialization for someone outside the hobby to accurately guess what to buy. I don't know what sort of needles she needs, what kind of yarn is the best, how much yarn it takes to make an item, what color of yarn to get, or even if she wants hobby-related items. And she has remained absolutely silent on the issue, leaving me to my own devices. So if anyone who knows her has a suggestion, please send it my way.

Owen

Here is Owen, the Russian Tortoise, eating his food. That's not dirt on his lettuce, it's a supplement to make sure he gets his vitamins and minerals. I really should take a video of him eating, as he is surprisingly ferocious and aggressive toward his food. He really likes his new home; he spent the first full day in it racing around the edges to the point that he carved a little track out in the substrate. Hopefully we'll find him a rommate soon.

In this post I mentioned the series of auctions that are going on so a little boy can get some hearing aids. My minis all arrived this week; five Mordheim blister packs and an old Skaven Screaming Bell. I am very seriously considering several more packs from the Mordheim range, so I can fill out warbands for the Sisters of Sigmar and the Witch Hunter factions. Several miniature companies have donated rare or studio-painted figures for the auctions, and they've been fetching decent prices.

In the latest White Dwarf magazine there is a little article for a map-based campaign in the Lord of the Rings universe. You can find the map here. I think it looks like a lot of fun, even just as a motivation to paint a few hundred points of models from several different armies. The LotR minis are pretty nice, especially at the price point they have for basic infantry ($23-25 for 20-25 figures).

My Fantasy Football teams didn't do so well this week, going 2-2 to bring me to 34-18 on the season (11-2, 9-4, 7-6, 7-6). That wouldn't be so bad, except that the teams that already had playoff spots won and the teams that were fighting for a berth lost. One of my 7-6 teams is barely clinging to a playoff slot and the other is one slot out of playoff contention right now, but with tough matchups next week it's going to be very hard for them to stay in the race.