8 Down, 12 To Go

Well, I managed to get another 5 White Lions done today.  They have been almost done for most of the week.  I have been quite busy and I have been sucked in by a book.  Neither of these has helped the hobby much.  But I finally got down to the cave and finished them up. 

This now makes 8 WL thatI have finished out of 20.  I am such a slow painter that I'm not sure when I'll finally be finished the unit though.  I have some magnetizing and some Warmachine minis to work on in the meantime too.  I guess it's better than being bored.

1500 points Goblins vs. High Elves

This happened a week ago and I'm just writing about it now, so forgive the vagueness of the account.  It was also a horrific experience for the Elven side, so maybe I've blocked it out of my memory.

HE
Mage Level 2 - Seerstaff, High Magic
Noble - Armour of Caledor, Guardian Phoenix, BSB
15 Phoenix Guard, full command
5 Dragon Princes, banner, musician
27 Spearmen, full command
10 Archers
2 Bolt throwers

Goblins
Goblin hero - Giant Blade
2 Shamans
40+ Night Goblins, full command, 3 Fanatics
40+ Night Goblins, full command, 3 Fanatics
Arachnarok Spider, Goblins with bows on top
4 River Trolls

This was only the second time the I have ever played O&G and this is the first with so many goblins and the big spider.  My idea was to use Curse of Arrow Attraction and Flames of the Phoenix to whittle down the goblin units before I had to engage.  This would be a great plan if I had actually wounded anything with my shooting.

We rolled a meeting engagement for the scenario.  That sucked.

High(low)lights

James rolled 4 direct hits in a row with his fanatics, which meant he could send them continuously into my spearmen.  They also scattered into the spearmen a couple of time for good measure.  The saving grace was that they didn't do too many wounds each time.

James cast the giant template of death vortex spell and had failed to cast at first until he remembered the magic mushroom.  I couldn't get the double sixes on five dice to stop it.  I waved goodbye to a good chunk of my unit of spearmen.

Flames of the Phoenix took off 2/3 of a unit of goblins over 2 turns and the didn't run.  I beat them in combat once and they didn't run.

TSN turning point.  I forgot my plan at one point and let my Dragon Princes get charged by the reduced night goblin unit.  I did one wound with the princes.  The giant blade took out two princes and after failing several 2+ armour saves, the other three died all in the first turn of combat.  One of the saves was a reroll of a six due to a goblin spell.

Finally, my mage was high tailing it to the archers for some safety, when the spider crawled OVER the watchtower (you learn something new every day) and the four goblins on top after moving and at long range hit my mage twice and wounded on both to kill her.

The Aftermath
Well, I leaned that with some good rolling, Fanatics can really mess you up and hem you in.  I'm not sure what to do about that right now.  I think more experience is necessary.  Don't count on goblins running, even though they should.  These guys passed all of their psychology and combat resolution checks.

The biggest one was to make sure you get the cav in a charge.  I have been having trouble with that lately and I'm going to make sure I keep taking cav so I can work on making sure I get the charge. However, the trick I'm having trouble learning is getting them into a charge as support.  I find with elves, there is always lots of other units to either get in your way and prevent the charge you want or that want to get into your face first.  It's a skill I'm working on.

Oh, and roll less ones and twos.

Finecast and Price Increases

Games Workshop has been the centre of much discussion on the interwebs over the past couple of weeks.  First, the rumoured move from metal miniatures to resin was confirmed and second, that announcement was coupled with an announced price increase on some of the GW range.

Finecast looks  like a good move to me.  The GW blog today shows us some of the new minis and promises us more glimpses over the coming week.  The detail on the minis they've pictured are stunning.  This is a real move forward in the mass production of gaming miniatures.  Usually, minis of this high a standard are produced in small batches, but these will be produced in large quantities and should be readily available from multiple retailers (rather than only a handful of online sellers). 

GW has even converted some multi-model kits from metal to resin.  These models look better and will definitely be much lighter in the carrying bag and on the table, giving people even more opportunities for amazing basing.  The article even points out the sculptors may now try things that they could not do before due to limitations when it came to producing the model.  I for one am looking forward to picking up a couple of special characters I've had my eye on and I am not too fussed if I have to pay a bit extra.

Which brings us to the second reason GW has been making waves lately.  A 20% price increase on part of their line.  People have been going mental about a relatively small price increase.  My theory is that people are snapping for one of two reasons.  First, everything has become much more expensive over the past year or two and salaries have not kept pace.  People are seeing their real income drop when inflation is taken into account.  Now you tell them that not only is a tank of gas 75% more expensive and a box of cereal is 150% more expensive, you tell them that their toys are going up in price too.  Snappo!  The second alternative is that there are so many "squirrels" (flitting from thing to thing and ending up with a closet full of unopened and assembled toys)  in the hobby that they cannot conceive of a way to cope with limiting their purchases. Panic leads to fear, fear leads to hate, hate leads to frothing at the mouth and gnashing of teeth on the internet.

For me, I have a set amount of money I spend each month on my hobby and often don't even use all of the money.  I think very carefully about what I wish to buy and shop endlessly for the best price.  Price increases mean I either buy less or increase the amount I spend each month.  I guess that it will lead to buying slightly less.  I am sure this is something that GW has factored into its' decision to increase prices.

Finally, rarely do you get more for less in our world.  GW has spent a considerable amount money and time improving their technology and processes, so that they can provide truly fantastic miniatures.  I've only been in the hobby for a little over a year, but I look at the difference between older kits and newer kits and I'm stunned.  All of this costs money.  GW has decided to go the way of quality rather than quantity (see Mantic Games).  Both are acceptable, just different.  Personally, I will pay for better.  After all, this is a discretionary expense we're talking about, not the weekly groceries.

Fluff and Me

Fluff was what got me into miniature gaming.  I had borrowed the first few Horus Heresy books from  my neighbour.  I thought they were pretty cool.  Unfortunately, I didn't think 40K was very cool.  Warhammer Fantasy Battles was more to my liking though.

However, since those early days, I have not paid too much attention to fluff.  I have read a few Black Library books and generally found them wanting.  I own a copy of the Big Red Book and have only read a few pages of the massive fluff section.

I think of this subject after listening to the Garagehammer podcast. David Witek is crazy for fluff.  The man loves his stories and likes to think of the game as a movie in his head.  Wayne Kemp on Heelanhammer, also likes to talk about the fluff of a race and how his armies and conversions would fit into those stories.  I find I never think like this.

I look at Warhammer and Warmachine (the two systems I play currently) as games.  Games have rules and these games also happen to have cool little dudes that I use to play them.  The games have strategies and plans.  I can honestly say that I have never thought of a game I was playing in any other terms than the pieces on the board and the next move to make.

I guess it is nice that some people like the fluff because they are the ones that come up with the really cool little dudes that I get to paint up and play my favourite games.

The Mighty Thor

Yesterday I went to see Thor in 3D.  This was my first 3D movie and I'll express my thoughts on that at the end of the post.  First, I'll talk about the movie itself.

I was cautiously optimistic going into this movie.  The guys at Here Be Geeks thought that it was pretty good, but they had also thought Sucker Punch wasn't that bad (and it was).  The movie turned out to be everything one could hope for from a super hero movie.  I thought it was almost as good as Iron Man.  Thor has high production value,  and great special effects.  The best part of the special effects was that they were not the focus of the movie.  The effects were used to enhance the story and make the the setting of the story seem more "real".

The story wasn't Oscar worthy, but it was logical and moved along smoothly.  The story wasn't bad by any means, and was good enough for me not to notice anything bad about it during the movie or upon reflection afterwards.  The acting was actually very good and the script didn't have the actors spouting cheesy or tired dialogue throughout the movie.  Natalie Portman was cute as ever and Chris Hemsworth as Thor was acceptable.  On a side note, the dude is a beast.  This guy is built like a brick shithouse.  If you are looking to go to this movie and have some convincing to do with your honey, show her some pics of this dude and you'll have a lot more luck.

I would definitely recommend this movie to any nerd and I think most people that like a good summer blockbuster would enjoy Thor.

As for the 3D experience, I found it extremely distracting for the first 15-20 minutes.  I kept paying attention to the backgrounds and superfluous details because they were either beautifully rendered in 3D or looked so cool!  After the adjustment period, I noticed the 3D effect less and less as the movie went on unless it was something that was really amazing.

Given this, I don't really see the need to pay an extra $4 for an effect that my brain normalized within 20 minutes and distracted me from the movie before that.  I think 3D is a gimmick that really only costs movie goers more money without giving them a better movie going experience.

The Scaley Beast

I finally finished my dragon!  My wife bought the beastie for me two Christmases ago.  At the time I had only been painting for a few months, so decided to wait until I could do a better job on it.  Fast forward a year, and during Christmas break, I broke out the critter and built him.  Needless to say, the project has been a lot longer getting done than I had intended.  I found the model so large that painting it got tedious at times and I had to switch over to something else for a while.  But now I've finally fished her.

If there was a way to paint this model with the wings off and then attach them at a later date, I would definitely recommend it. The wings were constantly banging into the table top, lamp and anything else close to my painting area.  I even got one of them up into the bulb of the lamp at one point and blunted the tip a wee bit.  However, I don't see how it can be done.  The model needed a fair bit of green stuff in order to fill the gaps that were present around the wing joints and various other conspicuous areas around the model.  You can really see the difference a few years has made in the moulding technology and techniques that GW uses.

I'm relatively happy with the finished model, but there are several areas I wish had turned out better.  I am still working on blending and highlighting.  I need both more practice and more patience in equal parts.  However, Rome was not built in a day and for a year and a half in the hobby, I should be pleased with my progress.

PS.  The rider will get some attention at some point in the next month.