It's too difficult trying to describe people without revealing their names, so I'm going to have to come up with some way to refer to commonly encountered people in my blog. So the male half of the couple we hang out with is now going to be E.A. We went to Hobbytown yesterday and had a look around. He picked up a Player's Handbook for D & D and I got some Space Marine Scouts with Sniper Rifles.

We looked at Tau a bit and I had to admit that I didn't really know much about them. Well, an employee found us and filled us in on pretty much everything you would ever need to know about the Tau. Possibly a bit more than you would ever need to know. He was like a living Codex. A visibly excited living Codex. After reading a bit about the background and how the army works I've gained an appreciation for the Tau army. Their battlesuits are very customizable, sort of armored shells with hardpoints so you can build them with the weapon and wargear loadouts you want. I always thought that the Tau were kind of starved for variety, but that's because one kind of battlesuit can be built several different ways depending on function. The Tau Battleforce box appears to be one of the better Battleforces out there as it is literally packed with models and saves a lot more money versus buying the units individualy than most of the other armies. I ran the contents of the box through the Army Builder software and it looks like the box set plus a leader for the army will run right up to about 750 points, perfect for opposing my Space Marine army list. Now E.A. just has to talk is wife into it.

After we left the store we realized that we hadn't looked for figures to represent our D & D PCs, so we went back in to search the Reaper shelves. I finally found a dual-wielding ranger to serve as my wife's character and E.A. found figures for his Dwarf Fighter and his wife's Eladrin Wizard, but I had no luck finding a Tiefling Warlock. I'll have to keep digging.

I assembled a squad of Space Marines and got a black undercoat slapped on them. I haven't got much beyond that, though. Hopefully I'll be able to knock them out pretty fast and at least get my 750 points out of the way. Then I get to work on some Orks. I'm looking forward to building and painting the Ork Trukk. The new White Dwarf is stuffed with Ork articles so I'm looking forward to that, as well as all the new Ork releases coming out in Wave 2 during Janu-waaagh!-ry.

I think that's about it for me. I'll probably be pretty quiet during the next couple of days as we gear up for Christmas and do that whole shindig. What we're really looking forward to is the big meal that my parents have been putting on around Christmas time the last few years. They put a plastic sheet on the table, boil up huge quantities of crab, shrimp, potatoes and onions; then they dump it all out on the table and everyone digs in until they can no longer move. It's one of the highlights of the year for everyone except the one or two siblings who lose out by claiming not to like seafood. Then we've got my sister's wedding reception to go to and another round of D & D with our friends. It should be an action-packed weekend.