Finally...

I finally got to play a game of Warmachine last night.  It has been around six months since my last game of Warmachine by my reckoning.  There are just so few people in my area that play the game that it is hard to arrange one.  I was pretty happy to get this one in.

I must begin with the statement that after so long of only playing Warhammer, it was tough making the transition back to Warmachine and quite honestly, I had forgotten a lot of what I had learned.  I had only played 6-10 games before my little vacation and only one above battle box level.

We were playing 35 points.  I was playing Menoth becuase it's all I own.  I took the following:

pkreoss
Reckoner
Vanquisher
min Choir
min Exemplar Errants with UA
min Exemplar Bastions
Vassal
Covenant of Menoth
Exemplar Errant Seneschal

This list is constructed by choosing from my limited arsenal of minis rather than the optimum build.

I was playing Khador.  He had:

eSorcha
max Winterguard with UA
2 mortars
Widowmakers
2 Kodiaks
Kovnik Grigorovich
Some merc solo that was attached to eSorcha and let her upkeep a spell for free.

After turn one.

This was a pretty tough game for me.  Not only was his list nails, I was struggling to remember my rules and to activate one model at a time.  I was still trying to move everyone and then have them shoot or fight.  I had to move minis back on more than one occasion.  Cheers to James for being pretty forgiving.

James had me go first and my deployment kind of sucked.  I totally misused my Bastions and sent them after the Widowmakers.  I eventually got there and then got two chances to hit them and couldn't.  Lesson learned.  I also didn't get my Errants into the Winterguard or block charge lanes from the Kodiaks.

My dice also abandoned me.  I sent four shots over two turns  into the Winterguard and Sorcha.  I missed on all of them, but then had massive deviation rolls.  From all of those shots I set a total of four guys on fire.  My reckoner charged a Kodiak and did no damage on his shot and even with extra attacks, did a total of 6 damage.

Finally, I forgot to Feat.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  But I had so much going on in my head that the feat just slipped out.  I'm not sure it would have helped enough to avoid the loss, but it would have made it respectable.  The game ended on Sorcha's feat turn when all of the Winterguard blew up the Vanquisher and a Kodiak demoed the Reckoner.  I did have fun and I did learn a lot for next time but it did hurt a bit.. 

Construction Zone.  Beware of messes!

Besides finishing my Errant Seneschal as posted earlier, I spent my vacation building things.  I'm on a mission to finish building and painting at least 75% of my minis before I buy anything else.  My mission is saving me lots of money and scratching my completionist itch.

I forgot I even had these guys.

I took my first large step over the past week, by going through the boxes and blisters on my shelf and building and basing what was there one by one.  I already have a large number of built and primed models, but I want to be able to look at them all and see my overall progress.  As you can see, I built a lot of crap, both Warhammer and Warmachine.

The Dragon Princes need painting before final assembly.

I have now built all of the miniatures I plan on painting (there are a few I acquired here and there that no longer hold my interest).  The only things left to build are a couple of pieces of Warhammer terrain I got for Christmas.  I'm starting them today and I hope to finish them by the end of next weekend.  I need to pick up some styrofoam insulation to make the bases of the terrain more interesting and then I can begin the long road to redemption.  Stay tuned for continuing progress reports.

A Cautionary Tale

In the time before I was introduced to the seductive world of tabletop miniature games, I am told that the gaming community in our town was very disparate.  Some people knew some of the other people that gamed and some didn't.  Around the time that I was being exposed to the genre a fellow came to town that made it his mission to introduce the gaming community to one another and to open the lines of communication.  He also wanted to provide a central place for games to be played.  At this he succeeded.  There was a "clubhouse" of sorts and through message boards and other events, most gamers in town at least were aware of the other gamers in town.  Good job and happy ending, right?

Unfortunately,  the leader of the crew took on all responsibility and in organizing and communicating with the different people and groups that make up our local gaming community.  When the club was set up, there was no formal structure or committee put in place to run it.  None of this was a problem as long as the head guy is there at the centre of the web for everything to run through.  Honestly, we were all lazy enough to just let him take care of everything and he didn't really ask for much help.  However, this past winter, due to a new child, and various family issues, our guy sort of dropped off the face of the earth.  No blame for it, but it happened.  This is when our lack of organization started to show.  There was uncertainty about when there were club nights and if anyone with a key would be there to open the thing up.  There was nobody publicizing the club or running the Facebook page.  Attendance at gaming nights plummeted.  Then in a grand finale, the space we were using was going to be closed to us. 

Since our guy was the main point of communication, the notice went to him.  He didn't respond and didn't pass it on.  Lucky for us, there were three of us in the club when the news came down that the next Friday would be the last day the club was available to us.  The three of us came up with a plan.  One of our members found us space in his school to play and since the other two are school district employees, there are three of us with keys.  We got all of the stuff moved to the new place.  We got our guy to give us admin. privileges to the Facebook page.  We have a plan to start to promote the club again.  The next step is to formalize the arrangement so that the club can survive any one of us dropping out of sight or leaving (we have a very transitory population).

I just thought that people starting clubs or running them should know the potential pitfalls of either concentrating responsibility in one person or not formalizing your relationships.

What I've been reading

Well, actually I've been listening as much as I've been reading.  I like to listen to a book while I paint or build models.  It keeps my mind occupied while I'm painting (especially assembly line painting) and the book motivates me to get back into the man cave so I can find out what happens next.

A few weeks ago I finished listening to the Codex Alera by Jim Butcher.  I'm a big fan of the Dresden Files series of books, so I decided to give his high fantasy work a look.  These books are really good. The series follows the adventures of a boy named Tavi and various others as the world around them faces multiple crises and eventually possible extinction.  The world he makes, while being loosely based on the Roman Empire, is different enough with enough vaguely referred to history that it is very deep.  The series also has enough magic of a type and drama to keep most people happy.  I think you should check it out.

I've also been rereading (listening) the Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan.  I originally started these books shortly after the Eye of the World, the first book in the series came out.  Unfortunately, the books never seemed to stop and the story started to meander and lose direction.  Now that the story has finally reached or is reaching a conclusion I wanted to go back and go through the whole thing.  All of these books are massive, so I decided to listen to what was available from the library and read the rest.  This is still at least a year long project.  If you have never read these books, you really owe it to yourself to give them a try.  Even though there are a lot of them, they (for the most part) are so well written with so much depth and detail that it would be a shame to not at least sample the world Jordan created.

My First Solo

I finished my first Warmachine solo model today.  I've been working on the Errant Seneschal for about a week.  I always over detail my minis and I've been told that it takes too long for me to paint and as such I'll never get an army or faction done.  But I don't care how long it takes, because it's fun.

I'm pretty happy with this guy except for the banners.  This was my first attempt a two brush blending.  The shadows turned out not bad, but the highlights look like ass.  I was very close to repainting the whole banner and starting again, but it was late in the evening and I decided I could live with it.  Besides, it will be a reminder to keep working on this technique.

Oh, and an apology for the pictures.  I decided to play with my fancy camera's settings, so the pics don't always turn out perfect yet.

The Malaise

If you happen to read this blog you will probably notice that the posts have been few and far between of the past several months.  I've been trying, but there seems to be a basic lack of motivation.  I've done some thinking and the lack of motivation seems to stem from a recent lack of passion for nerd stuff in general and table top gaming in particular.

The reasons for this malaise are many.  Earlier in the year I was working a second job and just didn't have the time or the energy to do much in the way of painting, listening to podcasts or even playing the games.  I got the job so that I'd have more money for hobby, but didn't end up having any time to hobby.  A bit of a catch 22.  So the job went bye-bye after Christmas.  Unfortunately, the damage was done and I'd gotten out of the groove.

Another reason is the disintegration of the local gaming group.  For the first year of its existence our local gaming group was doing pretty well and had very good attendance.  Then things started to tatter.  I live in an area where the local industry is oil and gas.  Winter is the busy time for the people in the O&G (not Orcs and Goblins) industry and they are often working long and irregular hours.  This past winter it was hard to get any games in but with the same couple of people all the time.  I have only played 3 games of Warhammer since Christmas and I haven't played Warmachine in nearly 6 months.  When you're not playing you start to lose touch with the game and the interest begins to wane.  I still enjoy painting and I've been doing lots, I just set them on the shelf when their done.

I think I'm tired of playing only High Elves.  I started playing Warhammer with High Elves around three years ago.  I made a promise to myself that I would finish my army before I started into another.  However, this far into the adventure, I'm still not quite finish.  I am finding I'm getting a bit tired of running an army that is becoming more and more difficult to play.  There is also no sign of a new book on the horizon.  Boredom is making me kind of blah about the hobby in general.  I had decided to wait until the Brettonians came out, but that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon, so I'm back to the drawing board.

Luckily, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm starting to get more regular games in.  The club has moved to a new home and has some members returning as spring approaches.  I'm going to make a push on the elves and I'll start a new army in the fall.  I'm listening to podcasts from around the hobby again.  Hopefully, you'll see a difference in the blog in the coming weeks and months as I slowly regain my passion for the hobby.

New Toys

I just got some new bits and pieces to play with.  First, I received Elven basing kits from Cool Mini or Not.  They come with various broken down statue bits to add to bases or movement trays.  Since the theme of my High Elf army was in an abandoned city of Ulthuan, I thought they would come in handy.  They look pretty cool.

The second thing I got were these small gears.  They are not actual watch gears, they are produced for scrapbooking.  My wife is a scrapbooker and she found a packet of these ones for a reasonable price at Michael's.  There are some brands that are quite large and expensive that you want to steer clear of.  I think these will be brilliant on the bases of some Warmachine minis.

Another Tick Off The List

Well, I've managed to tick another mini off the To Do list.  I sat down for a couple of evenings and did up this Vassal of Menoth.  I'm reasonably happy with the job.  It isn't fantastic, but it isn't shameful either.

Next on the list is my magnetized heavy warjack kit.  I've really enjoyed painting individual models lately.  I like that I'm not doing the same thing over and over for hours upon end.  I also like that fact that within a few sessions, I have something finished.  This doesn't bode well for my still unfinished High Elves.  I have a few units yet to finish and the thought of it at this point makes me droop a bit.  Maybe over March Break I'll be able to find the energy.

Success!

I have finally finished both of the Malifaux crews that I was working on.  Both Lady Justice and the Death Marshals  and Colette Du Bois and her performers are completed.  I only need to varnish the figs and then I'll be ready to try out this cool looking game.  I will post a report on how it goes when I give Malifaux a whirl.  I've read the rule book and I'm ready to make a mess of it!

I've been working on these crews for so long I'm not quite sure where to go from here.  I have plenty to work on, so maybe I just have TOO MANY choices.

Anyway, here are the pics of the minis.  I got a new DSLR and I was playing with the settings, so the pics aren't quite perfect.

Very happy with Colette's paint job.

Lady Justice is standing on a dungeon door from the Lord of the Rings starter set.

Rehabbing

I am currently rehabbing from my Xbox 360 addiction.  I recently played Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Revelations back to back.  It seemed to  be the only thing I could do when I had some free time.  The man cave was feeling neglected and even my computer would go days without much action.

I finished my games and now I'm feeling an urge to paint, which is a good thing, because I have a lot to paint.

 I've been working on my Malifaux minis and have only a few more to finish before I have two full crews to play with.

What I've been up too

I've been listening to Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series lately and it's got me into the man cave far more frequently than in months past.  In addition, the Blackhawks have been playing like rubbish lately so, I haven't been busting it to see all of the games, it just makes me grumpy.

Sometime in the fall, I purchased a couple of Malifaux crews.  The idea is that if I have two crews, once I learn how to play, I can convince others to give it a try if I already have the toys.  I decided to start my painting quest with them.  I'm pretty happy with the results so far.  Lady Justice was particularly detailed and a bit difficult.  She was a nice challenge.

Collette - my wife picked the colors

Lady Justice, I picked these colors...with a little help

The Judge

Cassandra WIP

For 2012

For 2012 I want to making this blog a priority again.  My experiment with having two jobs has come to an end, and I expect my amount of free time to increase.  In my newly rediscovered free time, I'm going to get back to chronicling my adventures in gaming.

In order to further chronicle my gaming experiences, I need to get back to having some gaming experiences.  No time, means little painting and no gaming.  I was too tired and unmotivated to game the last few months of the year.  This will need to change this year as well.  I want to get back to playing Warhammer, continue learning the ins, outs and nuances of Warmachine and learning how to play Malifaux.

I also aim to finish my High Elf army this year.  I started my Elves two years ago and have chipped away at them over that time.  I am near finishing them (as much as any army can ever be finished) and I'm going to make a push to do so this year.  Of course, full photographic evidence will be featured right here.

Finally, I plan on finishing all of the models I acquired over the past year, in the coming year.  This last one may be the toughest one to complete.  The total count of miniatures both built and unbuilt that I have sitting in the man cave is 96, plus 2 pieces of terrain that I got for Christmas.  I am a slow painter.  Speed and table top quality are not  concepts that I subscribe to.  I pay good money for my miniatures and I want each one to look as good as I am capable of making it look.  The strategy I plan to employ in order to complete this quest for completion, is to paint an average of 1 hour per night.  Since I got the Center Ice package I've spent a lot of time watching hockey lately, along with actually playing.  So, I need to set a goal to make sure I sit my butt down in the painting chair on a regular basis.

I look forward to sharing my progress on the above goals throughout the year.  I hope you follow along.

Oh, and Happy New Year everyone!