tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-112722522024-03-07T20:12:11.806-07:00The Raz FileRAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.comBlogger826125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-8070694176742807622015-11-12T21:05:00.000-07:002015-11-12T21:08:16.256-07:00The Big Winner!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-S34JzKvZGXCmERpaCmyZKnzILqdHKTMhvduoaVgyHqNNIP3hIqPRWDFnt_mQFpUQX1LkhC3TWk2EP_tGdgJXkhas_K80fPTEP89im64oiQLQ1rBZSTDROwS4oAp_ATpZuaCM/s1600/DSC_0345.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="457" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-S34JzKvZGXCmERpaCmyZKnzILqdHKTMhvduoaVgyHqNNIP3hIqPRWDFnt_mQFpUQX1LkhC3TWk2EP_tGdgJXkhas_K80fPTEP89im64oiQLQ1rBZSTDROwS4oAp_ATpZuaCM/s640/DSC_0345.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.gamersarmory.com/index.php/home" target="_blank">The Gamer's Armory</a>, a game store in North Carolina, recently held a gaming marathon to benefit the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/turnersyndromesociety/" target="_blank">Turner Syndrome Society of the United States</a>. I live across the country from North Carolina, so I didn't participate in the event, but I saw on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/The-Gamers-Armory-322595942136/" target="_blank">the shop's Facebook page</a> that they were holding a raffle as part of the event. There were a couple of items on the Raffle Wall that looked interesting to me, so I bought a few dollars in tickets. A while later I got an e-mail announcing that I had won a Flames of War Operation Market Garden: Guards Armoured Recce Company boxed set. That was my first choice in prizes and the one that I applied most of my tickets toward, so I was pretty excited about it. Because I live too far away to just stop in and pick up my prize, I sent in a payment to cover shipping and they sent it right out.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip-hw7WkZaU5cPiVethTopHTGP1wp6InvWqlEB42vZWIesikEY4F8BfqqkOQXNYbkkb79wb8qr2bBLv9tAYToM1UDPGeJcTS7V2IuHu6u5T3zGmEsPudYCUoLfy0-XCk1D7-i8/s1600/DSC_0346.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip-hw7WkZaU5cPiVethTopHTGP1wp6InvWqlEB42vZWIesikEY4F8BfqqkOQXNYbkkb79wb8qr2bBLv9tAYToM1UDPGeJcTS7V2IuHu6u5T3zGmEsPudYCUoLfy0-XCk1D7-i8/s640/DSC_0346.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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It's a pretty cool item, with 17 vehicles, 2 terrain pieces, and some dice and tokens. I haven't opened the plastic wrap yet. The box makes a lot of noise when I move it around, so I hope that the contents haven't been damaged too much in transit. The box is a little worse for wear, but even if a couple of the vehicles are damaged I still made out pretty well, getting a significant WWII miniature force for the price of a few raffle tickets. Their website says they have raised over $45,000 over the course of 4 annual events, so it sounds like they are doing some good things. It is nice to win a prize, but I didn't mind pitching in a few dollars to a good cause anyway.</div>
RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-3165258788219538142015-10-19T20:34:00.000-06:002015-10-19T20:47:41.814-06:00Getting a Little Bit of Gaming In<div style="text-align: justify;">
My gaming and hobbying hasn't quite taken off like I planned for a variety of reasons. It seems like there just isn't enough time in the day or space in the house for all of my hobbies. We have plans to move things around and increase everyone's usable living space, but to move one thing you have to take care of another thing and it seems like stuff goes round and round.</div>
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I have, however, been doing a little bit of wargaming-related stuff. After spending a long time thinking about it I finally have sat down and started working my way through the <a href="http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/138046">Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit #1</a> by <a href="http://www.multimanpublishing.com/default.aspx">Multi-Man Publishing</a>. I've read tutorials, watched videos, and even worked through the first scenario on my own. I've been trying to use the big 2nd Edition binder rulebook to reference rules as I come across them. I feel pretty comfortable with some parts of these simplified Starter Kit rules, but there are some rules that I don't have a good handle on yet. I am pretty sure I was doing the Rally Phase incorrectly, the Routing Phase still gives me pause, and I am pretty sure that I am messing up at least some parts of Morale Checks and Close Combat.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjTLNisUxZd6Cawl2od_xK_uul9U7CQwh4qESH0gfBx0o6TB-IwkAhKMmGruRJPC2zpyrW63WsZGL-z9ZjF6Ei86jB8Uuutr5EmRMOMZ5KeMP5V9xyXveVRSB8XlkJ4MKpzwcN/s1600/asl+sk+back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjTLNisUxZd6Cawl2od_xK_uul9U7CQwh4qESH0gfBx0o6TB-IwkAhKMmGruRJPC2zpyrW63WsZGL-z9ZjF6Ei86jB8Uuutr5EmRMOMZ5KeMP5V9xyXveVRSB8XlkJ4MKpzwcN/s400/asl+sk+back.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
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I haven't even gotten into the rules for Support Weapons, Artillery, Vehicles, and all the weather and terrain stuff yet. It's probably going to take quite a bit more time and work to feel like I have even a basic grasp of the system. It was nice to actually sit down and roll dice and move counters around a bit. It's a complex game system. I had a copy of the original Squad Leader when I was a kid, and I played a simplified solo version of that game quite a few times on my bedroom floor.</div>
RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-2447978324866660032015-07-08T21:34:00.000-06:002015-07-09T00:08:18.174-06:00I Found Some of the Missing Time<div style="text-align: justify;">
In my previous post I mentioned that I wasn't exactly sure what all I did in between my final blog post in 2011 and the start of school in early 2013. Well, the answer to part of the question has been bouncing around my desk and bookshelves for a long time. I painted at least one more figure before my long break; a Grey Knight that I painted as a sample for the rest of my planned Grey Knight army taken from an army list in White Dwarf magazine.</div>
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I think I pretty much took the paint scheme right out of the same copy of White Dwarf that the army list was printed in. It's not particularly fancy and I have realized in the last few minutes that I am a terrible photographer, but at least I have a never-before-posted picture of a figure I painted.</div>
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Today I visited the (somewhat) local Hobbytown after work in an attempt to find the latest copy of White Dwarf; the one with the free miniature and all the rules for the new Age of Sigmar iteration of Warhammer. At first I kind of liked the idea of the new rules, but now I am not so sure. The most alarming rumor that I've heard is that all of the older Fantasy sculpts are going away and will be replaced by newer stuff that looks more like the 'Space Marines without guns, so Fantasy Space Marines!' design of the new figures. If I wanted Space Marines, I would buy 40k figures. I just kind of see this whole experiment not working out very well for Games Workshop. I really liked all of the fluff and design that made up the previous ranges of Warhammer Fantasy figures.</div>
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Anyway, I really wanted to grab the new White Dwarf so I could see what the fuss is all about even though I already downloaded the rules and warscrolls from the Games Workshop website. Come to find out, the magazine wasn't there and the Hobbytown is closing up shop (with today as the last day of operation at the old site) and moving to another location, so I don't know if they had a copy of the magazine at the other location or not because their computers were down and everyone at the counter was in a bad mood. I didn't even bother asking about it. On the way home it started raining quite heavily, and I was soaked pretty well all the way through because I was on my motorcycle. Once I got ahead of the rainstorm, the wind was still pretty bad and I got caught up in a nice big dust cloud blowing in off of the farm fields. I managed to stay in pretty good spirits about it all, but it was irritating to go all the way to Hobbytown only to find the inventory all gone and then to be caught in the storms on the way home.</div>
RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-19415806634677304642015-07-07T21:34:00.000-06:002015-07-09T00:08:49.247-06:00Don't Call it a Comeback (Yet)<div style="text-align: justify;">
I knew it had been quite a while since I posted on this blog, but I hadn't realized the gap was nearly at four years now. I took a bit of a break to do some other stuff, and I just never really got back to painting figures and playing games. That doesn't mean that I've been entirely idle in the gaming world. I've managed to keep up on some of the gaming news and I still follow a lot of gaming- and painting-related Facebook pages and social media hubs. I've also added quite a few boxes of stuff to my lead/resin/plastic pile by way of Kickstarter campaigns from <a href="https://www.reapermini.com/">Reaper</a>, <a href="http://sodapopminiatures.com/">Soda Pop Miniatures</a>, <a href="http://www.manticgames.com/">Mantic Games</a>, and others.</div>
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Where have I been, and what prompted a return to this blog? Well, I went back to school and finally finished off a 4-year degree in Accounting and Business Administration. That took up a lot of my time and energy, and is really the main reason I was away from this hobby. But I didn't start school again until Spring of 2013, so that leaves a year of time unaccounted for. To be honest, I don't really remember what happened between November 2011 and December 2012. Judging by my Facebook feed, I got really into comic books, reptiles, and amphibians during that time period. I wound up with two snakes and a vivarium partially-prepped for Poison Dart Frogs before I got back into school and realized I wouldn't have time to care properly for frogs. In 2013 I rediscovered my card collecting hobby and started a trading card blog, which I have maintained with some regularity for about two years now. I've made a lot of blogging friends and really feel a sense of community with the sports card bloggers who comment on each others' posts and send trade packages back and forth.</div>
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As I was wrapping up my final semester, my wife went back to school to start her attempt at finishing a degree plan. This prompted a shuffling around of the room assignments in our home, which is an ongoing process. My wife is moving her study and hobby area from a hutch in the living room and a room in the basement into the room that previously housed our sons and a closet full of my gaming stuff. The boys are moving down the hall into a different room. I am moving my stuff from my wife's new area down into my basement lair, and our treadmill and other workout equipment are moving from my basement lair into the other basement room that will be vacated by my wife's hobby stuff. It's a lot of moving pieces and it is very hard to find the motivation to get it all done, so it all happens very slowly. As part of the process I have had to move a lot of my gaming stuff around and this prompts me to look at all the figures I've built and painted, opening boxes and sifting through all these forgotten treasures while waves of nostalgia crash over me. All of the old army plans and ideas have been coming back to me and I feel the urge to build and paint and plan out armies and projects. So I've been going around and reading more gaming news and visiting the blogs on my gaming blogroll and thinking about what it will take to get back into miniatures. I need to find all of my paint and see if any of it will reconstitute with the addition of plenty of water. I need to clear off some space on my desk for hobby stuff, and I need to get my shelves sorted out. There are a couple of unfinished projects just waiting for me to get back to them and I hope that I will be able to overcome the various obstacles that are currently in the way of my return to the hobby of painting figures and (possibly) playing games with them.</div>
RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-66437675252335567502011-11-30T16:54:00.000-07:002011-11-30T16:54:47.425-07:00Silence is Golden, Unless You're a Parent<div style="text-align: justify;">Today we were pretty sure that our toddler had gone downstaris to play in the toyroom. At some point I realized that there wasn't a lot of noise coming from down there and asked my wife what he might be up to. Usually when he plays you can hear him acting out the voices for his cars or various crashes and bangs. He is a rather active child, so his play is usually quite noisy. Our hope was that he had climbed onto the beanbag chair and fallen asleep for a nap. I went down to check on him, but he wasn't there.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then I went upstairs and saw the door open and the light on in the bedroom that contains my hobby desk. I went in and there he was, helping (his word) me with my figures. He'd managed to get a couple of paintbrushes and use them to paint my player character model (the half-orc from a couple of posts ago) a nice cement grey color. Luckily, I was able to rinse off most of the damage and the model doesn't look too horrible. Some of the grey didn't come out, and some of the clearcoat peeled off or clouded up, but the figure will survive without a full repaint. Then I cleaned up the brushes and some of the paint on the desk. I'm glad that he didn't hurt himself with anything and that he didn't manage to paint my Dwarf army, which was lined up on the far corner of my desk. I wanted to take a picture of the model before I rinsed it off, but I left the camera on for a couple of hours the other night and the battery was dead.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are a couple of lessons in this. Always close the door to the hobby room, and never trust a quiet child.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-59819891282675226342011-11-29T00:27:00.001-07:002011-11-29T01:15:40.096-07:00<div style="text-align: justify;">I put some varnish on a bunch of figures today. I guess I should've taken some pictures before I put the gloss coat on my Dwarves, so the pictures have a lot of glare. Here's the best of the bunch. In addition to these handgunners, there are a couple units of warriors that I'm mostly done with. I've got about a third of the army done. The rest of the figures are sitting on my desk waiting to get some paint on them.</div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">I also assembled a bunch of Grey Knights for 40k. I am putting together the list from White Dwarf #375. It's got 10 Terminators, 19 small-based Marines of various types, a special character, and two Dreadknights. I've got half of the infantry put together and both Dreadknights are on the way. I still need a couple boxes of figures to finish out the army, but we'll see how long it takes me to get through painting what I've already got.<br />
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Oh, I went to the Games Workshop website and saw the pre-order price on that Mangler Squig model. It's a big model, and they want a pretty big price for it. I guess I could understand if it were some kind of modular kit or a centerpiece monster, but it's a 65-point novelty figure for a $57.75 MSRP. I guess in a Night Goblin and Squig army it would be the centerpiece model on account of the size, but I can't see paying full retail for it.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-47292138772421145822011-11-25T22:28:00.000-07:002011-11-25T22:28:08.823-07:00Mangler Squigs<div style="text-align: justify;">I saw an interesting photo from the French White Dwarf magazine on the <a href="http://darkfuturegaming.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-orc-and-goblin-huge-squigs-lost-in.html">Dark Future Games</a> blog. It looks like Games Workshop is going to produce a Mangler Squigs model. I've seen the photo in a couple of other places as well, like the <a href="http://battlereporter.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-finecast-mangler-squigs.html">Warhammer Fantasy Battles Tabletop Gaming</a> blog. It looks like the model will be Finecast, and also much larger than I imagined. I pictured Mangler Squigs as being a couple of normal-sized Squigs with some chains and an unlucky Night Goblin handler, but it looks like these Squigs are huge, and no less than five Night Goblins have been tasked with keeping them pointed toward the enemy. I really have no idea what all I've got in the attic, but I'm pretty sure I've got most of the figures for my planned Night Goblins and Squigs list. This will probably be a must-buy for me at some point down the line. Much of the list features random movement, so it will probably be quite silly to play with. Just point everything at the enemy and off they go!</div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">I dug out the Dwarf army I worked on while I was overseas because I needed to get at my paints. My pot of Chainmail paint exploded during transit, but I anticipated such an event and wrapped the figures in plastic before I mailed them, so the only damage was that a few of my other paint pots got a nice silver paint job. At some point I will go upstairs and take some pictures of the Dwarf units I've finished so far. They might make a good rival for the previously-mentioned Night Goblins and Squigs army.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I made it to D & D Encounters this week and had a pretty good time. My Barbarian has a habit of never hitting anything the first time he swings his axe at it. But I still killed my share of bad guys and took at least my share of damage. And I even got a wondrous magical item for asking a magical hallway the right question. Today I went and got some basing material and varnish for my figures. I did forget to pick up some Badab Black wash, but I think I have enough to get me by. Oh, and I got some Grey Knights. I may even paint them. I meant to work on assembling them tonight, but that hasn't panned out so far.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I also ran into my cousin and his wife at Hobbytown today, which was a nice surprise. I don't get out much socially, so it's good to have random encounters with people who I know. Oh, and I turned 30 a couple of days ago. So far it's not much different than 29.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-81706844253713713142011-11-23T04:15:00.000-07:002011-11-23T04:15:34.071-07:00PC Model<div style="text-align: justify;">I painted up a character model for the new season of D & D Encounters. I may get around to finishing his base tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. It's a half-orc barbarian.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkTxPVWDM8j7ZkcGwyY8TD4Sn49y4h56mrKvnNfqzWHtbV_yJn15lcV_YfKB72XgsjFFlETLKaX3LJSiif_go8-aHL17TqWzeqhwpedCRLC9ebHt5ymyfuNoC3HpKSlB_9FFHI/s1600/Half-Orc+Barbarian+Front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkTxPVWDM8j7ZkcGwyY8TD4Sn49y4h56mrKvnNfqzWHtbV_yJn15lcV_YfKB72XgsjFFlETLKaX3LJSiif_go8-aHL17TqWzeqhwpedCRLC9ebHt5ymyfuNoC3HpKSlB_9FFHI/s320/Half-Orc+Barbarian+Front.jpg" width="296" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_QnMqdB2moI1Km66pXycrP8irtKIHBPcbVip1Sv5KqIptIXlXsqYTv60RRG-hN67E-1qrvni7agECStcj-u9HZ8_hSTYfp9JChyq0P991ZaB0lgFccNal6AVVjs8Ts_G5ZBp/s1600/Half-Orc+Barbarian+Back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_QnMqdB2moI1Km66pXycrP8irtKIHBPcbVip1Sv5KqIptIXlXsqYTv60RRG-hN67E-1qrvni7agECStcj-u9HZ8_hSTYfp9JChyq0P991ZaB0lgFccNal6AVVjs8Ts_G5ZBp/s320/Half-Orc+Barbarian+Back.jpg" width="287" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Also, for those who read this blog for family stuff, here are pictures of the boys taking impromptu naps. You'll notice that the twins tend to wear more of their food than they eat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lRnW18WUNjXkFnzuPl9JjPfdx2Rznnl0Dpra0xqr4AdtbwMHC6K-FZskKNhuSZSoQ2cmYO4TgBOjx-BDk-tjLFjQnqrCliX87Jde_S-cVqryMKODp2yXjmgKeBml2sjUG4N6/s1600/Thing+Sleeping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lRnW18WUNjXkFnzuPl9JjPfdx2Rznnl0Dpra0xqr4AdtbwMHC6K-FZskKNhuSZSoQ2cmYO4TgBOjx-BDk-tjLFjQnqrCliX87Jde_S-cVqryMKODp2yXjmgKeBml2sjUG4N6/s320/Thing+Sleeping.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipy0DEQceGbvFqeDYD6DoLnv5txefEh7TAZhyphenhyphenVtz08oEltmsSnXVmP-M-uOXs2f4Mv7KMQ5ILcYJYWcS71FXtl2qOxJeuIbf5xTmRGrnrhJtrmp2ECRZsArrsBV6xiXy5cEFAZ/s1600/Hulk+Sleeping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipy0DEQceGbvFqeDYD6DoLnv5txefEh7TAZhyphenhyphenVtz08oEltmsSnXVmP-M-uOXs2f4Mv7KMQ5ILcYJYWcS71FXtl2qOxJeuIbf5xTmRGrnrhJtrmp2ECRZsArrsBV6xiXy5cEFAZ/s320/Hulk+Sleeping.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX8gvV2yE7awZWpoh6PEQu4nKc0L5VoOQzyXIp9lMRWdlKkeMA94JXpq-Dpy5juBXp6OtoiJwbRypVO3hVVVjwINodrdXtrNy1XHCgH57uJ4ZXj9W6p-rTAZ0XGb3QhxGItSND/s1600/Wolverine+Sleeping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX8gvV2yE7awZWpoh6PEQu4nKc0L5VoOQzyXIp9lMRWdlKkeMA94JXpq-Dpy5juBXp6OtoiJwbRypVO3hVVVjwINodrdXtrNy1XHCgH57uJ4ZXj9W6p-rTAZ0XGb3QhxGItSND/s320/Wolverine+Sleeping.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sorry the post is pretty light on words. I stayed up way too late painting, and I have to wake up in four hours to go get tires put on my car.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-44595457138386314042011-11-04T23:28:00.000-06:002011-11-04T23:28:18.802-06:00<div style="text-align: justify;">It's been quite a week for us. Two of our three boys have pneumonia and I have been laid low by some kind of energy-sapping head cold. Our oldest boy, Thing, had a good Halloween and got a whole pile of candy. He dressed as a pumpkin. He received many compliments on his hat, which was crocheted by my wife. She is pretty handy when it comes to making things with yarn and fabric. We didn't get pictures of him in his costume, as he wasn't feeling well and went straight to bed after trick-or-treating.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yesterday was Thing's third birthday, but no one was really feeling well enough to celebrate, so we postponed it for a day. He got to decorate a cupcake with some toppings of his choice, open a couple of gifts, and also watch Cars 2, which was one of his presents. His little brothers, Hulk (left) and Wolverine (right), woke up from their naps in time to eat a few bites of cupcake. They enjoyed that quite a bit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_32JKrNoPe5bQ7TDGXcQaCZLmSR1d2yDIWHLpLVfZNSNY3EhTxiR8bvxcK3GI8LjTgGmV-dr-YCa3H14oi5HR7sbuJzXI1N3WndWWTLG8vfQpDh9n5ESFBltWQcQSehw1EnlN/s1600/021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_32JKrNoPe5bQ7TDGXcQaCZLmSR1d2yDIWHLpLVfZNSNY3EhTxiR8bvxcK3GI8LjTgGmV-dr-YCa3H14oi5HR7sbuJzXI1N3WndWWTLG8vfQpDh9n5ESFBltWQcQSehw1EnlN/s320/021.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">He also got a Human Torch Mighty Mugg action figure and a Hot Wheels Criss Cross Crash track with some cars to go along with it.I gave him the Hot Wheels set last week, partly because he was feeling sick and needed a good inside activity and partly because I couldn't wait any longer to play with it. Overall, I think he had a pretty good birthday experience.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMuzgw3YKuKGM9qmnl9lO5RUMWWDvp3BxFQylYAfquVn4nC2_7j-i_BQTsbPao2FxTVJBhaArrdLduAFXLGMjHtCPxY6-F1A8Gcoer0TRaa38XwFAE9dXG9ZQklvLfcwPuJeIx/s1600/human-torch-mighty-mugg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMuzgw3YKuKGM9qmnl9lO5RUMWWDvp3BxFQylYAfquVn4nC2_7j-i_BQTsbPao2FxTVJBhaArrdLduAFXLGMjHtCPxY6-F1A8Gcoer0TRaa38XwFAE9dXG9ZQklvLfcwPuJeIx/s1600/human-torch-mighty-mugg.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Yesterday also marked our 7th wedding anniversary. I am not sure when we will actually get to go out to dinner and celebrate that, but we agreed that forcing the issue while I am feeling so low wouldn't be worthwhile. Whenever I transition back up from a corpse-like state to my usual zombie-like state we will do something to mark the occasion. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This picture of Wolverine is my favorite of the night. I'm glad I was able to get a picture while he was still making this face. He enjoyed his first taste of cake, although he was rather picky and only went for the pieces that had frosting on them.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX65g4yOdDrnb_jZgGV8VQZfAj7WMfHpUE7lI4ch9iX8Hfb-N3SKqvcm2bJ9qDRhmNM9AvdgKt07pxGh7LI8dWT_VCmh3gjRRmFVl9LmVXViAYzhSUTnVKwn7_lXQSXd2qSHJk/s1600/053.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX65g4yOdDrnb_jZgGV8VQZfAj7WMfHpUE7lI4ch9iX8Hfb-N3SKqvcm2bJ9qDRhmNM9AvdgKt07pxGh7LI8dWT_VCmh3gjRRmFVl9LmVXViAYzhSUTnVKwn7_lXQSXd2qSHJk/s320/053.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Hulk ate all of his cupcake pieces, and spent the rest of the time scouring his tray for any leftover crumbs or smudges of frosting. So far he is the only kid who has avoided illness, perhaps the gamma rays have made him immune to pneumonia?</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0y0Fz42jjMRI68uFFuU87Xi9WgcsKuR7ZCpNJ9A8TK0GjiqW367HTWUvG0mWg3sAsklSVwQeXcM3OHU2zE1aEXG6gZnSWAdGcbPLE0vXu-c-_5cofX8lkB-4WX2cRy_O1FM8I/s1600/055.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0y0Fz42jjMRI68uFFuU87Xi9WgcsKuR7ZCpNJ9A8TK0GjiqW367HTWUvG0mWg3sAsklSVwQeXcM3OHU2zE1aEXG6gZnSWAdGcbPLE0vXu-c-_5cofX8lkB-4WX2cRy_O1FM8I/s320/055.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">I didn't go to the D & D Encounters session this week. I didn't think the other folks would appreciate me bringing my plague with me. I spent most of the week being a slug and lazing about. I watched a whole pile of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/">Top Gear</a> episodes on Netflix, and that's about it for the week. This was the sort of week that you're just happy at the end of it to still be among the living. I am hoping that I will be up and running by next week so I can get a few things done around here. Next weekend will be taken up by mandatory Army stuff (even though I am still on leave), so I would like to fill the weekdays with things on my to-do list.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-16649910708741982032011-10-28T02:08:00.000-06:002011-10-28T02:08:49.764-06:00<div style="text-align: justify;">Last night I attended another D & D Encounters session. It went pretty well, in part because the tiresome guy from last time didn't show up. Actually, he did show up, but he was 20 minutes late and his spot was already taken by someone who paid attention and contributed to the game. My character didn't spend the whole game unconscious and dying this time around, so that was a bonus. He may have done better since I purchased a new d20 just before we played. My nice-looking one rolled two natural ones in a row last week, and I don't feel like I can trust it. I've got the only Level 1 character because I started so late, so I try to keep out of combat and use ranged attacks. I am nearly to Level 2, but that will probably happen just in time for the season to end. Hopefully I can get in on the start of the next season, and have enough time to keep playing with school and work. That's about it for hobby stuff. I would still like to paint up a character model this week, even though there is only another month or so left in the campaign. I learned that the comic shop was bought out by the gaming shop, and while I was in the game store I overheard the employees expressing that they don't know much about comics. That worries me slightly, as I started up a subscription box in the comic shop just before going into the game shop to play.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-32446110693448961822011-10-26T03:26:00.000-06:002011-10-26T03:26:28.891-06:00<div style="text-align: justify;">This past Saturday my sister hosted a Welcome Home dinner for me. It was pretty nice. My mother and most of my siblings were there, as well as some aunts and cousins, some friends, and some other folks from church. It was nice to see everyone and meet some of the people I hadn't before, specifically my third sister's new husband. I made an attempt to connect with each person who showed up, and I hope I was able to make everyone feel that I appreciated their presence. I felt a little silly about having a party in my honor, as this particular tour overseas wasn't all that crazy for me. My jobs were pretty easy, I had a fairly regular work schedule, and there wasn't a whole lot of hardship or deprivation. The hardest part for me was dealing with the people in the unit I was transferred to just prior to the mobilization. My wife had a much rougher year than I did, having to deal with the toddler, the twin infants, and running the rest of the household while I was gone. It will be nice for me to get back to my home unit once my leave is over. I did receive a <a href="http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/Awards/joint_srv_commendation.aspx">Joint Service Commendation Medal</a> in the mail recently, from a unit I worked under for the first few months of the tour. It was supposed to be kind of a crap detail, but it turned out to be the best part of the deployment for me, and I got a shiny medal out of it.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUeTGM45m5x1nv-biPxfQ4mwKrvq9PA9RTmb76H9iZvw85-ov8AdZndE_6Ruaj_qkiq5o0_KMPVzClXw0C4GaARp8EzNquUTQlX4mDaJOflRtw_rmdlX4izrvTXIunLIOty6s1/s1600/JSC_Obv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUeTGM45m5x1nv-biPxfQ4mwKrvq9PA9RTmb76H9iZvw85-ov8AdZndE_6Ruaj_qkiq5o0_KMPVzClXw0C4GaARp8EzNquUTQlX4mDaJOflRtw_rmdlX4izrvTXIunLIOty6s1/s1600/JSC_Obv.jpg" /></a></div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also on Saturday we went to a carnival being held to raise funds for a little girl in our church who has leukemia. Our oldest boy had a pretty good time. He rode on a horse for the first time. We were kind of surprised that he got on the horse without any fuss, as he has historically been pretty wary of livestock. He didn't want to pet the horse, but he was pretty happy to get in the saddle and ride around the block. He really didn't want to stop riding. Later he told my wife that he likes horses, but cows are scary.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDEwpq5mGLXnj6JbB50e4h-ysexfLzzATJanw0l1XsvkWfGCtsij2g8Fk-JCx7hwiU03N8U_eCvBMul-V3uBJTmpNTHz-NLDdQzsoNQ_f8KoO_kgd1pS9oFjNxWL9UrXT94RyO/s1600/thedreadfleet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDEwpq5mGLXnj6JbB50e4h-ysexfLzzATJanw0l1XsvkWfGCtsij2g8Fk-JCx7hwiU03N8U_eCvBMul-V3uBJTmpNTHz-NLDdQzsoNQ_f8KoO_kgd1pS9oFjNxWL9UrXT94RyO/s320/thedreadfleet.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I've seen some very nicely painted Dreadfleet ships on the internet, including <a href="http://hardorc.blogspot.com/2011/10/dreadfleet-painted.html">these ones</a>. I've also read some positive reviews of the game on various blogs. When it was first announced I didn't have much interest in the game, but I'm warming up to it. I've got a big backlog of stuff to get to on the hobby side of things, but stuff like Dreadfleet and Space Hulk you can just pick up and play. It would be nice to paint up my Space Hulk figures, but it's not entirely necessary. I borrowed the above photo from BloodyBeast.com, which I've linked to in the paragraph. There are plenty of additional photos there.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxjgS41Q3vf2vILh_BQVZG6mltCLsYY8jOoEgIksCr1IDUEjj8TZQns7OpTVoRZkLxn3_xUS5Yjqpd3AhuZ-hx_8Nh5x_ny_8hnHTZgA7p-DLGV8pzrdDEwBnFAz0Nzt4bDFio/s1600/14222_G.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxjgS41Q3vf2vILh_BQVZG6mltCLsYY8jOoEgIksCr1IDUEjj8TZQns7OpTVoRZkLxn3_xUS5Yjqpd3AhuZ-hx_8Nh5x_ny_8hnHTZgA7p-DLGV8pzrdDEwBnFAz0Nzt4bDFio/s320/14222_G.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Tomorrow I am planning on participating in another week of D & D Encounters. I had hoped to find a miniature to represent my character, but time got away from me and I won't even have a bare metal figure in-hand, much less a painted one. There is <a href="http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/Reptus/sku-down/14222">one Reaper figure I like</a> for my Dragonborn Warlock, but I never got around to ordering it. I'm not sure how long the current campaign will run anyway, as I think I've come in pretty close to the end of things. I'll have to think about it. I'd probably have better luck at finding a figure if I picked a more conventional class and race, but that didn't enter my mind when I rolled the character up.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjADZGfKpkV5eC9hzsXzMTKeskcXa0HBJzmq46MBvDNsM5UkkQUnnLrQTVr5HXeRW5JptDsphJqwdsGGmF8JIwS0fDSDcINxP3xb66rlQ3V4rreeXcWwLyUehOBWtAFqJY6VecZ/s1600/K+%2526+N.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjADZGfKpkV5eC9hzsXzMTKeskcXa0HBJzmq46MBvDNsM5UkkQUnnLrQTVr5HXeRW5JptDsphJqwdsGGmF8JIwS0fDSDcINxP3xb66rlQ3V4rreeXcWwLyUehOBWtAFqJY6VecZ/s320/K+%2526+N.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
And today I installed an intake kit in my car, which was much less frustrating than I thought it would be. I guess that's a good thing. I didn't even wind up with extra parts! I feel like the intake improves the performance of the car, but it might be wishful thinking on my part. Next up for my car is some new brakes and a windshield. I think I'll let a professional install the windshield, though. I also have some stuff to do on my wife's van, which ought to be fun. They don't sell a high-flow intake kits for minivans, so I just had to settle for replacing her air filter. And at some point I will get around to finding a space in the house for my hobby area and maybe even put some paint on some figures.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-75854399011509354892011-10-22T03:37:00.000-06:002011-10-22T03:37:12.167-06:00<div style="text-align: justify;">I've been back home in Idaho for about a week now. The adjustment to back to life at home is going fairly well. I think my oldest boy is pretty happy to have daddy back home, and the twins seem to be okay with me. I've got a few projects going, mostly trying to get some things done around the house. My car has a few things that need done, and there are plenty of things around the house that need taken care of. I replaced the kitchen faucet because it had developed a leak. I moved out of my hobby room while I was home on leave, so I am hoping to clear out a spot in the house to move back into. We are cleaning out the garage, but the temperature fluctuations isolation out there make it less than ideal as a hobby area.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Wednesday I went to an area games store to participate in the weekly D & D Encounters event. It was all right, and I will probably try to attend regularly. They were running two tables, and I wound up at the table with the younger crowd. The GM was pretty good and a few of the other players were prepared and into the game, but there were a couple of other players who need to develop some more social skills. Perhaps I am growing up into the grumpy old man role, but if you are playing a game with other people, you ought to show up on time, have your papers/pencil/dice/snacks in order and be prepared with your next action when your turn comes around. If your girlfriend doesn't want to play, don't bring her along for the game, because it is a waste of everyone's time for the GM to tweak his scenario to fit in another player, then tweak it back in the middle when she gets up in the middle of her turn and leaves. And no one wants to wait for you to say you're going to the bathroom, only to walk past the bathroom and go outside to argue with her about the game, smoke a cigarette, buy a soda, and decide that your character is no longer named Fluffybunny, he is now Mr. Bojangles. Even the two immature teenage boys were able to name their characters something thematic, track the action, and be ready for their turn. Everyone's time is valuable, and you ought to be aware of that before wasting the time of others. The GM stopped short of inviting the player in question not to come back, but I could tell he was trying very hard to be civil. The vein in his forehead didn't stand out that much during his interactions with anyone else. The other table looked like they were having a lot of fun, perhaps because they were all over 25. One of the guys at that table was an acquaintance from my National Guard unit. I've been away from my home unit for the last year or so, but prior to that we were in the same platoon for a while. I've been shopping around for a miniature I can paint up to represent my character.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Thursday my wife had to go back in that direction to get some stuff, so we dropped back by the shop to look around. She actually seemed pretty interested in the Dreadfleet game from Games Workshop. I don't know that I will get around to picking up a copy, but I was surprised that she expressed an interest. She also mentioned that we had never played Space Hulk with each other, so maybe we will have to do that at some point. There is a comic shop that just relocated to that same retail complex, so we visited that as well. The guy there was pretty friendly, and he complimented my shoes, which is a surefire way to my heart. Most people don't notice shoes or know that Nike put out Bo Jackson commemorative editions. I may move my comic subscriptions over to that shop so I can support the local business. I will be on that side of town anyway on comic book Wednesday for D & D Encounters, so it will be pretty convenient to pick up my books every week instead of waiting for a monthly shipment.<br />
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And speaking of shoes, I saw on <a href="http://www.nicekicks.com/2011/10/nike-trainer-13-mid-shield-rivalry-army-navy-release-date/">Nice Kicks</a> that there is now a release date for the Nike Trainer 1.3 Mid Shield "Rivalry" Army shoes. The site says that they will only be released at very select stores (I have no idea what that means), so I may not be able to get my hands on a pair, but I am hoping I will be able to find a place that will sell them to me without a huge markup. There are other versions for the other branches of service, but I prefer the Army ones.<br />
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</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-23268821538263810412011-09-27T23:04:00.000-06:002011-09-27T23:04:42.594-06:00Bran Redmaw<div style="text-align: justify;">I forgot to mention that pictures of this upcoming release from Forge World have popped up on the blogs. I believe the model was on showcase at the UK Games Day 2011. I pulled the picture from <a href="http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/2011/09/bran-redmaw-games-day-uk-2011.html">this post</a> on a <a href="http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/">Space Wolves-specific blog</a>. I think it looks like everything a Space Wolf should be, with the fur, the big hair, the big axe, and a big helping of feral rage. I may not wind up getting one, but it's pretty to look at.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUxyDlWVLYxtDwrP_J3tfqSKvBXpW5Je_2humrVOBzP-Rbb9duhpnc8cdENCkgW_z_5O4HqyjCgzIdyLL2Z5LR990YkIgq1fZsSsuqRPuEneVqqzx2ZUJXGAPKoZDVeD0x-iR7/s1600/BranRedmaw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUxyDlWVLYxtDwrP_J3tfqSKvBXpW5Je_2humrVOBzP-Rbb9duhpnc8cdENCkgW_z_5O4HqyjCgzIdyLL2Z5LR990YkIgq1fZsSsuqRPuEneVqqzx2ZUJXGAPKoZDVeD0x-iR7/s400/BranRedmaw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">I've also been eye-balling the Contemptor-pattern Dreadnoughts that Forge World has been putting out. At current conversion rates the base model, two weapon arms, and shipping comes out to just over $80, so that takes some of the steam out of the sails. Even the prices on the regular Games Workshop models have given me pause as of late. After the most recent price increase and the release of <strike>Finecast</strike> Failcast, I have pretty much just stopped buying GW models. The price increase before that one really caused me to slow down on hobby purchases, but this latest one just went too far for me personally. I know the ire over the move has already flared up and dropped to a simmer, but for me at this moment I am likely to work on what I have and hold out for good deals on second-hand stuff.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is a miniatures gaming convention called <a href="http://tactical-solutions-gaming.tripod.com/index.html">Tactical Solutions</a> in Spokane, Washington that I've flirted with attending every year, but it seems like I always have a military commitment on the weekend of the event. It is kind of looking like I will be home by the time it kicks off this year, so I began making tentative plans to go. Then my wife reminded me that my sister is getting married on that Saturday. Curses! It looks like I'll be spectating from afar for at least another year.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-27356504187813511282011-09-26T23:07:00.003-06:002011-09-26T23:13:13.292-06:00<div style="text-align: justify;">I had a couple of meetings today that will hopefully lead to getting my medical issues sorted out. The people I talked to about it last week were all hellfire and brimstone, but I am not quite ready to burn down City Hall without giving the system a chance to answer my questions. The people I talked to today are a little more level-headed and seem to have good working relationships with the medical personnel. Hopefully I can get some answers and get this sorted out. The military is a decent career path as far as pay and benefits go, but it can be mind-wrenching sometimes to sort through the many levels of administration and bureaucracy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Just saw an ad for the video game Battlefield 3, and noticed that the guy loading the round in the tank at 0:55 pushed in the round with open fingers instead of a closed fist. That's a good way to get your glove caught and at best lose some fingers. With the way that breech comes back, you're more likely to get maimed or killed. I suppose I'm being a bit of a pedant, but after you've seen that gun jump back once, you never again want to be anywhere but plastered up against the side of the turret when the gunner squeezes the trigger.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">I've got a large pile of gaming projects in mind for when I get home, but without all of my books and figures close at hand, it's hard to remember what I've got for any given project. I've been following some stuff on eBay and The Miniatures Page, but I'd hate to duplicate things I've already got or relegate even more stuff to the dusty pile in the attic. I'd like to put together a few small forces for The Lord of the Rings, which is something I've mentioned on this blog a few times over the last few years. I've actually got four or five lists written up, mostly using figures I've already got in my collection, but each army needs one or two units or heroes to complete the 500 points. I even have a good number of the Evil forces (Moria Goblins and Easterlings) painted up already. My Dwarf army is still sitting in boxes, and my Fiefdoms list exists only in my imagination aside from a Prince Imrahil I picked up on clearance at some point in the hazy past. I would really like to do a Far Harad list, but that range is all metal models in blister packs, which gets expensive in a hurry. I love the way the GW Lord of the Rings figures paint up. They are a joy to paint. I think they strike the right balance between being too simple and being overly complicated. There is detail where you need it, but not six billion skullz and bitz and details that turn into a huge time sink, like you see in the Warhammer and 40k ranges. I may sell off some of my spare figures in those lines so that I can expand into more Lord of the Rings stuff. It's a shame I didn't do that several years ago when the local Hobbytown had a metric buttload (as opposed to an Imperial buttload) of the stuff on clearance. Now I think they've just got an Attack on Weathertop boxed set that has been there long enough to pull seniority on several of the employees.</div></div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-71374354433079087422011-09-22T21:18:00.001-06:002011-09-22T21:20:28.746-06:00Back in the USA<div style="text-align: justify;">
I've been back in the US for about three weeks now, but I haven't made it all the way home yet. During the demobilization process I expressed a couple of my medical concerns and got pulled into a Warrior Transition Unit pending some surgery on my feet. Today I was informed that I will not be receiving the surgery as my condition has been rated by the doctor as not serious enough to prevent me from deploying again, and now I will start the process of being sent home to return to duty. I will probably wind up opting to have the surgery done on my own dime by a civilian doctor as it causes me a lot of discomfort and affects my ability to do my job. It has been a frustrating process, but I guess the upshot is that I will soon be able to return home to my wife and kids. I should not complain much more as too much whining is unprofessional, so I will close out by saying that today I am in a rather dark mood as I feel I've been strung along by a series of doctors and have been delayed in coming home to my family without anything to show for it.</div>
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The twins have been growing their first couple of teeth and have just recently become mobile. They are quite adept at finding ways to get into trouble while they explore the house. Their older brother is no stranger to mischief, either, as he usually has more energy than he knows what to do with. I am looking forward to seeing all the kids again and getting to know the twins, who are now twice the size they were when I was home on my R & R leave.<br />
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I have plenty of idea for hobby projects, but I am not sure how much time and space I will have when I get home. One of my first tasks will be to clean out the garage. I hope that will not take too long, but there is a lot of stuff. I need to do a few things to my car to make sure it's good to go. I had hoped to get out to a convention this year, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. School starts for me in January, so I need to get mentally prepared for that, especially if I am going to be taking Math courses. I would like to fit some painting into my schedule, but that always seems to go out the window. My time management skills are awful, and when you add that to all the little emergencies that pop up in a household it seems like nothing ever gets done.<br />
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RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-43741790323293556982011-05-29T21:38:00.003-06:002011-05-29T21:38:00.376-06:00Puerto Rico<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thrafi-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B00008URUT&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 281px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 136px;"></iframe>The guy who lives next to me over here in the desert is a board game fanatic. He plays them, he designs them, he loves them. He works the same job I do, but on a different shift, so we don’t hang out much. He’s recruited a group of people to play a game called Puerto Rico in the evenings, when I am sleeping, but he came in the other day while I was on shift and talked me and the Lieutenant into trying it out. It’s a typical resource management game, with players trying to colonize an island, build infrastructure, grow crops, and ship those crops out for victory points or sell them for money to buy more buildings. I’m sure the website for the game offers a decent summary of gameplay, but you have to balance out all of the different actions you can take and eventually build more buildings and ship more goods than the other players. If you get out of balance with your resources, it is possible for the other players to lock you out for a turn or more based on what they choose to do when they lead a turn off. It seems like an okay game, but I haven’t quite grasped all of the rules or even all of the objectives yet. We may play again sometime soon, if he pops in again during my shift.Here's the game description from the <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-rico">Board Game Geek</a> site: </div><br />
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<blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">The players are plantation owners in Puerto Rico in the days when ships had sails. Growing up to five different kind of crops—corn, indigo, sugar, tobacco, and coffee—they must try to run their business more efficiently than their close competitors: growing crops and storing them efficiently, developing San Juan with useful buildings, deploying their colonists to best effect, selling crops at the right time, and, most importantly, shipping their goods back to Europe for maximum benefit.</div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">The game system lets players choose the order of the phases in each turn by allowing each player to choose a role from those remaining when it is their turn. No role can be selected twice in the same round. The player who selects the best roles to advance their position during the game will win.</div></blockquote>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-41485033492889835622011-05-28T21:36:00.002-06:002011-05-28T21:36:25.454-06:00Blah Blah Blah Games Workshop<div style="text-align: justify;">There’s been a lot of talk on the web about Games Workshop’s recent doings. As is usual with enthusiasts, the talk ranges from Apocalyptic End of the Hobby fare all the way through the spectrum to This Is the Greatest Thing Evar I (heart) GW 4EVS!!!! Actually, that really only applies to the ‘all-new’ Finecast range, which is pretty much all of the metal models from the catalog pulled out of circulation and swapped out for resin castings, along with some new releases for Tomb Kings and Dark Eldar, the most-recently published army books for Warhammer Fantasy and 40k.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The talk about the changes to the distributor agreement and the general price increase has been mostly neutral or negative. As I understand it, GW noticed that people in Australia were buying many of their miniatures from retailers in the UK, because currency fluctuations made the Australian MSRP much higher than paying for figures and shipping from the UK. Independent retailers in Australia, and more importantly, the local GW shops were seeing a lot less business, making them unprofitable, while shops in the UK were rolling in Australian money. Games Workshop made changes to their agreement, making shops sign some sort of agreement saying that they wouldn’t ship figures to certain countries. No agreement, no retail account. Games Workshop claims it’s a move to help recruitment in their local Australian shops, growing the hobby and helping the gaming community in the long run. People who were purchasing or selling the figures across the ocean see it as a ham-fisted moneygrab that restricts free trade and flies in the face of freedom. I think it could have been handled better (Games Workshop isn’t known for being tactful when it comes to legal actions), but I’m sure the company has a few accountants and economists looking over the numbers and this will probably blow over and work out in the end. Gamers in the affected countries will either buy the figures at the higher prices, quit gaming altogether, switch to a different game system from another company, or find another way around paying MSRP and wait for GW to catch onto it and snuff that, too. It probably doesn’t really affect me personally all that much, and it will probably not affect the ‘GW Hobby’ in Australia as much as the Doomsayers are predicting. It wasn’t handled well, and GW’s corporate attitude tends to default to condescending and secretive, but gamers will either pay the enforced prices or find another way around it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The timing is a little off as well, with the annual price increase being announced at about the same time. Price increases hit about 1/3 of the line, with most of the increases coming in at 10-15% over previous levels. Some of the prices got smaller adjustments. Army books took a decent-sized jump, with the softcover books jumping up to $33 each. The hardbound books jumped up to $41.75. Most of the Lord of the Rings line jumped by quite a bit, and almost every Battleforce and Battalion took a big leap. Then it’s just a random assortment of boxed sets to fill out the remainder of the increases.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One notable thing missing from the annual price increase list is the Finecast models. They didn’t escape from it, though. They got a lot more expensive as part of the rollout of the ‘new’ line. Some of the figures got increases of up to 50%, making them more expensive than comparable Forge World models. Again, aside from a few new releases for Tomb Kings and Dark Eldar, these are the same old metal sculpts recast in resin. The casting quality from the press photos and releases has been pretty bad, with plenty of miscasts, air bubbles, broken parts, and mold lines across the line. Some of the pictures I’ve seen are pretty horrid, with entire parts missing and Space Marine figures with only half a Boltgun. Quality control appears to be uniformly terrible, and so far GW hasn’t addressed it. The much-touted midnight online release also got flubbed, with the website failing to update and offer the new models for same until several hours after midnight. I didn’t buy a lot of the character models anyway, but I did buy some of the metal figures from time to time, and it seems like there are always a couple of must-have units that aren’t available in plastic, so this change will probably affect me a bit. I hope that I can find most of the models for my lists on eBay in the old metal. Unfortunately a lot of other people have expressed the desire to do the same thing, so it may be a good time to put your metal figures up on eBay. So far I am not impressed with Finecast, and the switcherooney price increase that goes along with the change seems a bit underhanded. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Will all of this drive me away to another game? Probably not. I am too invested in the background and the figures to really go elsewhere. It really just pushes me further along a path that I’d already started down. The last two or three years of price increases have pushed just about every GW model up and over my psychological impulse purchase line. I can’t just go into the shop and buy an infantry box anymore. More often than not, it seems, I walk out empty-handed after a trip to the shop. Or if I feel really guilty about not buying something I will get a bottle of paint or a Thomas train for my son. Every year there is something, like the repackaging on many of the regiment boxes that dropped them from twenty figures to ten per box and increased the price per figure. Then the next year the ten-figure boxes got another bump in price. This year it is price increases, the great Australian trade embargo, and a poorly-executed exchange of resin for metal. Next year Games Workshop will do something else stupid that many people hate and more than likely increase prices on another group of figures. I can no longer afford to buy every shiny new thing that comes out, so I’ve been brain-storming about what to do. I took a look at my figure inventory and realized that at my theoretical painting rate I have something like a six-year backlog just in Warhammer Fantasy and 40k figures, but much of it doesn’t really fit into any list that I actually want to purchase. My plan is to focus only on the army lists that I really get jazzed about. I will work on one major project each year, and mix in one or two minor projects as well. I’ll probably start with one of my Orcs & Goblins lists, as I have most of the figures for them already, less a couple of trolls and maybe one or two odds and ends. A minor project to go along with it could be a skirmish game (maybe some Pirates or Old West figures), some terrain, or something else that’s been sitting on my shelf for a while. That system should allow me to focus my time and money on projects that are actually meaningful to me. I suppose it’s similar to The Pledge or the Frugal Gaming movement. Talking about it is all fine and good, but the proof is in the doing. Games Workshop will still be getting some of my cash, but not as much of it, and I should be getting more bang for my buck. I hope that the quality control on the Finecast line improves, as I may wind up needing a few of the figures to fill out my lists, and I’d rather not have to build a Boltgun or a cape from scratch.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-61177503372742484662011-05-27T08:33:00.000-06:002011-05-27T08:33:48.826-06:00Miniature Me<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">My sister made a doll of me for my oldest son, so he would be able to have daddy around while the real deal is overseas. It's a fairly common thing to do, and it's generally seen as kind of a sweet memento for the kids to carry around and talk to and act as a place holder. Well, this is kind of like that, except that it's a bit more frightening than comforting. This is me, in doll form:</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJNOjEKDejHnkGezOKPhRfVHqqvj0Nk3uO3MtSo-a2HLxjC6JW9aUFJI47sHS68na7UFurMPHXa0Wuh2MSFJT7zUv-kb83LIolNfYyDjwWFEkROGbz2QlYkfG15Z7vzvFPcBVB/s1600/243204_10150202541317348_595992347_6895257_5439710_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJNOjEKDejHnkGezOKPhRfVHqqvj0Nk3uO3MtSo-a2HLxjC6JW9aUFJI47sHS68na7UFurMPHXa0Wuh2MSFJT7zUv-kb83LIolNfYyDjwWFEkROGbz2QlYkfG15Z7vzvFPcBVB/s320/243204_10150202541317348_595992347_6895257_5439710_o.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;">There's no accounting for taste, and my boy has taken a shine to it, so it all works out. The photo she chose is not that flattering, but it is pretty accurate. The uniform is from the wrong service, but my sister's husband is a Marine, so I can let that go. I think it helps my son to get to sleep at night, and after all the trouble we've had with bedtime over the last 2 1/2 years, anything that makes it easier for him to go to bed and actually go to sleep is worth its weight in gold. I also hear that Miniature Me is serving a dual purpose. Apparently he was using the doll as a makeshift gun and shooting members of the family. It's a good sign. He's got the bloodthirsty bit down; now I just need to teach him to paint and roll dice.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-37448445507203731322011-05-17T07:57:00.000-06:002011-05-17T07:57:10.831-06:00Really, Games Workshop?<div style="text-align: justify;">Well, Games Workshop is rolling out yet another set of price increases. It probably doesn't rank very high on the scale of world disasters, but it just seems like a bit much. I guess it's good that I have an attic full of figures that need painted. There aren't a lot of things I "need" for my next few army lists that I don't already have, but the cost of a playable army is already more than my house payment (really most armies are close to two house payments unless you can find a good deal on second-hand figures) and that is a lot of cash. I usually make the argument that at least it's not as expensive as some hobbies, but it's getting there.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In other news, I am currently reading book 16 of the Horus Heresy, and after the last few books I am full of ideas for my miniatures. We'll see if I get around to actually doing any of it, but it's exciting to have so many ideas. I haven't touched my paintbrushes for a little while. I got hung up on painting some cloaks and lost my momentum. I would like to get back into the swing of it. I'm also trying to decide if I should do a Traitor Guard army in addition to my Orks, so my Imperial forces have more than one enemy to fight. These Traitor Guard wouldn't be all mutated or anything, they'd probably just deface the symbols on their vehicles and have a different color scheme.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not much else to report from over here in the desert. I hope the next few months go quickly so I can be home before my kids are all grown up.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-17410593974259792752011-04-04T11:55:00.000-06:002011-04-04T11:55:04.228-06:00Orc Lists<div style="text-align: justify;">A week or two ago I went through the Orcs & Goblins army book and made three lists based on what I view as the main Orc & Goblin tribes. The first list is made up of Forest Goblins and Savage Orcs. This includes the Arachnarok spider and every other Spider-riding unit in the list.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The second list is Night Goblins and Squigs. I added some Stone Trolls to this list for muscle, as I figure they can be found in the same caves the Night Goblins inhabit. I also added a couple of Spear Chukkas, which aren't specifically Night Goblin war machines, but could easily be converted and probably would be useful for cave fighting due to having a flat firing trajectory when compared to Rock Lobbas and Doom Diver Catapults. I guess that doesn't matter too much in game terms, but it makes sense when considering the 'reality' of Night Goblins battling the Dwarves and Skaven for control of the underground. My suspension of disbelief only goes so far.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The third list is a bit larger, and is what you could call a traditional Orc & Goblin list. It's got all of the standard units (Orc Boyz, Goblins, Snotlings, Boar Cavalry, Wolf Cavalry, Chariots, Trolls, and Giants) as well as the war machines that didn't make the other lists (Doom Diver Catapult, Rock Lobba, Snotling Pump Wagon). It even has an Orc Warboss on a Wyvern. I wasn't sure about this one, as it's a huge number of points to spend on a single character, but I have the model and need an excuse to paint it up, so it's in the list.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If I were able to up my painting production and paint a couple hundred models a year, this group of lists would probably take me about 2 1/2 years to finish. That's a pretty long time, but at least now I have an idea of what I actually want to paint up for each army. I'm pretty sure I have some surplus figures that I can try to sell or trade for the things I still lack. I'm planning on making additional lists for every army I'm working on.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-15366902769039671722011-03-29T16:46:00.000-06:002011-03-29T16:46:10.203-06:00March Update<div style="text-align: justify;">I've been working on my Dwarf army and with the completion of the current 5-model batch, I will have 35 models finished, just over a third of the army. I've got a pretty good system going for the models, so they are going faster with each batch. The most time-consuming part of the work is painting the beards, but painting beards is also the best part of the process, so it all balances out. I hope to work my way through some more of them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I recently got books 9-12 in the Horus Heresy series, so I should be reading through those over the next week or two. I just finished reading the first Ciaphas Cain omnibus, which takes a more light-hearted look at the 40k world. It was pretty good, and I look forward to ordering some more of those books.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After I got back from my R & R leave, I took a little break from exercise, but I've picked that back up. Running isn't quite the chore it's been for the last few years. I finished my run today and realized that I was only wheezing and snorting during the last half-mile or so, rather than being out of breath in the first couple hundred yards. We have a PT test coming up, so we'll see if I continue making gains. When we got here I was barely finishing the 2 miles in the minimum 17 minutes, but I've worked that down to 15:50. It would be nice to get under 15 minutes by the time we go home. I also need to push myself on the other events and my fitness in general. I've been considering the P90X workouts as I've heard good things about them from many sources, but haven't justified ordering the DVDs just yet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I also bought a car, which has been quite an ordeal. We've been looking for something pretty much since we traded in my truck for a minivan to replace my wife's Subaru wagon before I left. While I was home on leave we looked at a whole pile of cars, and I've been a fixture on the car sales sites and fueleconomy.gov during most of my free moments. We nearly bought two or three cars, but things fell through each time. We finally found something that met our transportation requirements and fell into the right reliability/fuel economy/low mileage brackets. I'll admit that it doesn't look that practical, but it was a decent compromise. That big wing on the back is a bit silly, too, but at least it is a factory option and not something from the aftermarket. My wife is not a fan of garish yellow cars, but she knows that I like flashy colors when it comes to shoes and cars, so she relented in this case. For the most part I hope to ride the commuter van to work and save that gas money for other things, but we wanted something with reasonable fuel economy to drive when the commuter van or my motorcycle (52 mpg) weren't an option. I'm pretty happy with our decision, but we'll see how it works out for us over the next several years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our twin boys are growing pretty well. I think they are both rapidly approaching 9 pounds. My mom got to meet them for the first time a couple of days ago, which is pretty neat I guess. My wife had a family friend take some family pictures of her and all our boys, and they turned out pretty nice. I don't have access to any of them here, so you'll just have to take my word that I have a pretty good-looking family, especially when I'm not there to lower the bar.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-59491942523328603352011-03-03T02:05:00.001-07:002011-03-03T15:28:49.361-07:00Phoenix Fire Games, Part 2 and Malifaux<div style="text-align: justify;">I stopped back into Phoenix Fire Games this evening and had another look around. It appears that their Customer Loyalty program is a bit more robust than the one at Hobbytown. The Hobbytown program here offers a $5 coupon for every $100 you spend, good for use on any purchase over $25 in the next 90 days. Idaho has a 6% sales tax, so the coupon almost covers that. Most of their Warhammer box sets are marked down from list price a fair amount, while blister packs and army books are usually sold at MSRP. Core rules are usually offered at a discount as well. I'm not sure what formula they use, but it works out in general that the Hobbytown prices are pretty competitive with internet prices, except during seasonal sales, bulk purchases, and/or when the Pound is weak against the US Dollar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Phoenix Fire Games Rewards program is based on the $100 model, but for every $100 you spend, you get 10% off on your next purchase. The website encourages you to load up and save, making sure that your 10% discount applies to a large purchase. On the surface it seems like a good system for someone who plans out an army and buys it all at once, with hobby supplies and odds and ends making up the initial $100 of purchases. It's not the 20% off + shipping that certain online retailers offer, but the online retailers can't offer a space to game and a local community of like-minded people. If you planned out your purchases, this program would probably work out a bit better than the Hobbytown program, but for multiple small purchases Hobbytown still offers the best deal locally. But Hobbytown doesn't really focus on gaming and has moved away from having games going on in the store, although the Hobbytown here in my town has a pretty active TCG group that takes over a large portion of the store on tournament days. They don't offer enough table space as the shop is quite small, so most of the games are played on the floors in the aisles, luckily away from the miniatures section of the store.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There were a fair number of people in the gaming area of the Phoenix Fire store today. It looked like they were mostly playing TCGs. I've purchased decks and cards for most of the major TCGs (Magic, World of Warcraft, Vs., Pokemon, probably some others), but the sheer number of cards and frequent releases overwhelms me a bit. I just can't process all of the stuff that's going on in most TCGs. Even when I was playing Heroclix, the sheer number of stats and abilities crushed my brain. The other guys who played seemed able to memorize every stat on every figure, but I never really mastered it. Anyway, there was a decent crowd in the shop and they all appeared to be having a good time. I saw one guy walking around with a Tyranid codex and a box of figures, but I didn't see anyone playing any miniature games. I didn't look too hard, though, and the event calendar says tonight was board game night. There could have been five games of Warhammer going on and I may have missed it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the games on the shelves that haven't seen elsewhere in town (I haven't been to All About Games recently) is Malifaux, the miniatures game by <a href="http://wyrd-games.net/">Wyrd Miniatures</a>, It's a skirmish-level Steampunk/Fantasy game with an accompanying line of figures. I know it is a diceless game that relies on cards, but I don't know much else about it, aside from seeing the figures and reading about it on a few of the blogs I follow. To me, an uneducated observer, it appears to target the same sort of person who plays Warmachine/Hordes, which I categorize as a mix between a standard miniature wargame and a TCG. I don't think I'll buy into either system, but I can't say I haven't thought about it. I do hope that the shop runs a Warhammer or Warhammer 40k league around the time I get home from Iraq. I will try to support the shop, as it's the closest thing I've got to a local gaming-focused store.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-70518760625980711522011-03-01T16:01:00.000-07:002011-03-01T16:01:08.971-07:00Phoenix Fire Games<div style="text-align: justify;">Yesterday I stopped by a new gaming store in the area, <a href="http://www.phoenixfiregames.com/">Phoenix Fire Games</a>. They are located just two or three blocks from our previous home, which would've been nice to have at the time. I don't know how often I would go there now, as there is a Hobbytown located just down the road from my house here in my new city. The new store seems to have a fairly active event schedule, which is something Hobbytown doesn't offer anymore.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The shop looked clean. It's a bit small, with a few gaming tables in the back. Not a lot of GW product, but I think D&D/Magic/WoW TCG/Board Games are their main focus. They do have a Warhammer Escalation League going now, but they are pretty far along in the cycle at the moment at 1750 points. They also run weekly D&D Encounters events, which would be nice to participate in, as getting a group of friends together for playing RPGs requires one to have at least three or four friends with matching blocks of free time. But store-run events don't require you to have friends at all. I guess we'll see what the shop is running when I get back home. An escalation league could be pretty fun.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One god thing they had was a few of the upcoming Orcs & Goblins releases on a shelf for customers to look at. I got to take a look at the Savage Orcs box and the Arachnarok Spider box, as well as flip through the pages of the new army book. The switch to hardcover is an obvious ploy to add ten dollars to the book price without offering anything new in terms of content. There's nothing in there that couldn't be done in the already ridiculously-priced softcover format, which has gone up by ten dollars in the last five years anyway. But I am a shameless fanboy, so I pre-ordered it. Most of the new units have been previewed elsewhere on the web, with the big spider and some sneaky Goblin assassin-types being the main new entries to the list. The only other new thing that really caught my eye was the Mangler Squigs, described as two really angry Squigs chained together and sent spinning into combat, sort of like Night Goblin Fanatics on crack. Hobbytown used to put new models in one of their display cases for people to look at before release, but I haven't seen anything there for a while.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The shop also carries a few boxes from the Lord of the Rings range, which is pretty cool, but also probably a money sink for them. I have really mixed feelings about the Lord of the Rings games from GW. The miniatures are, in my opinion, some of the best-looking figures out there. I like them a lot. I just have so many game systems going right now that it's hard to justify really going after this one, too. At my current rate, the backlog on my shelves will take me approximately 3,500 years to paint, and each box of figures will add another year to that total. Still, it is cool that they carry portions of the line.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-6541411722096350522011-02-27T16:53:00.000-07:002011-02-27T16:53:28.439-07:00February Update<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0QJSDJ_YSbGBbX_7REUzQC9_DSl7ZrJLgpTDsOXpdWrlo3HP7P-om1KpV_nE-Q3qSJ9014mBS9gvjMcOjjMh-DRhKztd73p8GWKzyOONFcsxFpsq-V6kvdXwy6SDeWvPy4mz/s1600/twins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0QJSDJ_YSbGBbX_7REUzQC9_DSl7ZrJLgpTDsOXpdWrlo3HP7P-om1KpV_nE-Q3qSJ9014mBS9gvjMcOjjMh-DRhKztd73p8GWKzyOONFcsxFpsq-V6kvdXwy6SDeWvPy4mz/s320/twins.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">This has been quite a month for me. I spent about three days in transit from Iraq to Idaho for my two weeks of R & R leave. On the 22nd we welcomed a couple new folks into the family. Bruce Banner (left) was born at 7:47 a.m. and Logan X (right) was born a couple of minutes later at 7:49 a.m. As you can see from the picture, they are not identical. The last few days have been a bit of a haze. Our 2-year old is slowly warming up to them, but he's a bit jealous of the time that momma spends with the new brothers. We have to remind him a lot that he needs to be gentle with them, but we haven't had any major disasters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">All of my paints and brushes are back in Iraq with my Dwarf army, so I haven't been working on any hobby stuff (not that the twins give me any time for that). I'm pretty excited for the new Orcs & Goblins releases, specifically the new Savage Orcs and the massive Arachnarok spider. These releases have got me thinking about the state of my armies. I've realized that my Orcs & Goblins are really three separate armies. These fall into the Forest Goblin/Spiders/Savage Orcs section, with the other two armies being the Night Goblins/Squigs and then the traditional Orcs/Goblins/Snotlings army. There is some overlap between the armies, but for me most of the units in the army fall into one of those three molds. I'm not sure what the new army book will look like. I hope it doesn't change too much.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVaUyO4oUU4I3EsqBnbXDHbtx4Rko551VE3N7rxLIs-WXKYjOZ8swmzGC-TdJk90uwlxChn4Hihuad5A3ltnOER8jOLQ7xdI7MRSrExRuBegG2MTrS5Z4ligsDYMoVRvzc6VU/s1600/arachnarok.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVaUyO4oUU4I3EsqBnbXDHbtx4Rko551VE3N7rxLIs-WXKYjOZ8swmzGC-TdJk90uwlxChn4Hihuad5A3ltnOER8jOLQ7xdI7MRSrExRuBegG2MTrS5Z4ligsDYMoVRvzc6VU/s320/arachnarok.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">I borrowed a couple of pictures from the <a href="http://catweasel-scatterbrain.blogspot.com/">Scatterbrain</a> blog that show the new Savage Orcs and the scale of Arachnarok compared to standard Orcs. You can also see the mount for one of the Forest Goblin Spider Riders sitting under his leg.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsmIK0lwX-lfcXiB3UsePVQjiw5IddkKO5xWUXHcSLm62jO3qcaBdiYL5gKAwmkq1d7XZh7KmmwqAURUuV93Qh3a6dRVj97n3cyjAqUNwXSFED3jw1R3m26vrbi-m4UmiihAH/s1600/savage_orcs_2011+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsmIK0lwX-lfcXiB3UsePVQjiw5IddkKO5xWUXHcSLm62jO3qcaBdiYL5gKAwmkq1d7XZh7KmmwqAURUuV93Qh3a6dRVj97n3cyjAqUNwXSFED3jw1R3m26vrbi-m4UmiihAH/s320/savage_orcs_2011+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">If I get a little more free time in my life I want to sort all of my figures from every range into army lists. Skaven sort out into a couple of different lists, I need to figure out the fictional make-up of my Space Marine army so I know how to paint each squad, the Imperial Guard need split out into a few different groupings, and I'm sure the Empire will break out into a standard State Troops list and a fanatical Crusade list. Then there are the other game systems and stand-alone figures. I have most of the Warhammer/Warhammer 40k stuff in my collection inventoried, but I really don't have any clue about how much other stuff I've got from other game systems and companies.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11272252.post-33546031844904764892011-01-31T00:11:00.000-07:002011-01-31T00:11:23.668-07:00Recent Reading<div style="text-align: justify;">I finished reading the <em>Bone</em> anthology a couple of days ago. It's a really good adventure story. Although it's got over 1300 pages, it ended much too quickly. But the story ended, and I'm not sure how you could top what the characters had just been through, so I guess it ended in the right place. Most of the complaints from Amazon reviewers focus on the lack of color in the anthology printing, but I think the line art really stands alone very well. The few other negative or neutral reviewers are just cold soulless folk who wouldn't know fun if it bit them on the bum and said, "Hi, I'm Fun!" I'd recommend reading it if you get the chance.<br />
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I also read the <em>Sabbat Worlds Anthology</em>, edited by Dan Abnett and featuring short stories and novellas from him and several other Black Library authors. All of the stories take place in the world of Gaunt's Ghosts, although many of them focus on other units and other planets. But all are part of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade that Gaunt's Ghost's made famous. After reading the first two stories I wasn't sure I'd spent my money wisely on the book. They left me feeling a bit flat, I'm not sure if the writing wasn't very good or just because I didn't identify with the characters and situations in them. Luckily, the book picked up for me from that point on, and I enjoyed the rest of it. The first Abnett story was a bit silly, though, as you could tell pretty soon what the surprise ending was. I sincerely hope that he was just trying to give some insight into Gaunt's character and values rather than trick the reader, because it was pretty obvious what was going on. I can't really say more without giving up spoilers, so I'll leave it at that. I'd recommend the book if you are following the Gaunt's Ghosts series, but otherwise you probably won't miss much by giving it a pass. Next on my agenda is <em>Blood Pact</em>, the most recent book in the Gaunt's Ghosts series, and after that I will probably start in on the Horus Heresy books.<br />
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I slapped some black wash on the Dwarf Warriors the other day, but that's about it on the miniature wargaming side. I've started running again after a few days off, so that's been fun. I can't say I enjoy running, but I do feel better when I've made it a point to exercise (almost) daily. And I've enjoyed watching my times slowly get better.</div>RAZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17519699812373438878noreply@blogger.com3