The Butcher of Khardov

As I mentioned in my last post, I had purchased The Butcher of Khardov from Skull Island Expeditions, the publishing arm of Privateer Press.  The Butcher of Khardov is a novella, so it is not really that long.  I read it in two or three hours.  It is not a tough read, but is definitely enjoyable.

The Butcher of Khardov is the origin story of the Warmachine warcaster called The Butcher.  The novella is not told in chronological order.  In fact, the story flips between several time periods.  This type of story telling can often get very confusing if it is not done right.  However, the author Dan Wells does a very good job of keeping all of the characters and events straight, even as he bounces through time.  The story is engaging and I was curious to know what happened next.  For a novella, Dan Wells does an excellent job of developing the characters.

I think my favourite part of the story was the fact that the Warmachine aspects of the story were not overplayed.  The warjacks and steamjacks were in the story, as were a few other types of Khadoran troops, but they were not put front and centre of the story.  The aspects of the Warmachine world were weaved into the story and just mentioned instead of attempting to centre the story around them.  In my opinion, this is what separates this book from what I have read from the Black Library.  Games Workshop shoe horns their properties into a story, this novella makes a story out of Privateer Press’ properties.  It may seem like a subtle distinction, but it makes all the difference in determining whether a story is advertising garbage or an enjoyable romp.

The bottom line, is that I would recommend this story to anyone who is familiar with the Privateer Press properties and I think anyone who likes fantasy would also enjoy this story.  A firm indoctrination into the Warmachine world is not required to get everything out of this story.  Add to the mix the smoking good price of 99 cents and you really can’t go wrong.  I plan on trying another offering from Skull Island Expeditions and we’ll see if they can keep up the high quality or if it was just a blip on the radar.

Reading material

I recently found an email in my inbox from Skull Island Expeditions, the publishing wing of Privateer Press.  This is not in and of itself unusual.  I get their emails.  This email caught my attention, because it was offering The Butcher of Khadov novella for only 99 cents.  Apparently, this piece of fiction has also been nominated for a Hugo Award.  I was more intrigued than usual.

I have been mildly curious about the offerings of Skull Island Expeditions, but was wary.  I am not a fluff bunny, and so don’t gravitate towards all things fluffy about the games I play.  I play the games because the games are good, not because the story is good.  I have also had less than stellar experiences with game based literature (if you can call it that) in the past.  My wariness of fluff based writing comes mostly from Black Library offerings.  I read several of their books because I figured they had to get better.  Unfortunately, they are complete tripe.  They are pumped out at an alarming rate by second rate authors using the most basic of formulas over and over.  But I digress.  The bottom line is, while I may have been interested in looking into what Skull Island Expeditions was offering, I very hesitant to spend money on it.

Enter the 99 cent novella.  I decided to buy it because if it is shit, then I have only lost a negligible amount of money.  If the book is good, then I have an ever growing library of books to access for some pretty reasonable prices.

By the time this is posted, I hope to have started the book.  I’ll give my thoughts on it when I’m done.  I sincerely hope I have a glowing review. 

Image property of Privateer Press Inc.

Pardon the interruption

Sorry about the long interval between posts.  There’s a lot going on right now and it’s keeping me busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.  I was determined to writing something down this fine Sunday evening.
I thought I would tell you about a recent purchase.  I read about the foldio on a blog (sorry, I don’t remember which) a while back.  The blogger had backed their Kickstarter and had just received their reward.  The foldio is a small portable light box made of plastic which is foldable (hence the name) and is held up with magnets.  It is designed for people to take nice photos of small objects with their cell phones.  So, I checked out the the website and the manufacturer, Orangemonkie had begun selling them with free postage at the time.  I decided to give it a go.  As you may have seen on an earlier post, my light box is a sad operation right now and I’m looking for something to take its’ place.

I paid $59 US for my unit, which worked out to about $65 CDN.  As you can see from the photos above, the unit folds into quite a small package.  The foldio is only about 1” thick and comes with a flimsy little travel pocket.  Assembling the foldio is a bit confusing as at first, as there are lots of tabs and you have to have the magnets lined up just right in order for it to stand up properly.  The unit, once assembled is about 10” square on the inside.  I opted for the model with two strips of LED lights.  The lights are located at the top of the unit and the light bounces around the inside to light the subject, so I figured more was better.  I was right.  In a nice touch, the 9V batteries that power the LED strips will hang from the side magnets which keeps them out of the way.

I decided to take a few pictures of my newly painted Mage Hunter Strike Force UA.  I figured I should show it off as it is the only thing that has come out of the hobby cave in a good long while.  Anyway, here is a picture taken with my cell phone.

The picture is not bad and is much better than the usual blurry and out of focus cell phone picture we see posted on Twitter.  I decided to see what I could accomplish with my DSLR.  I set up the tripod and played a bit with the settings.  This is what I managed straight from the camera with no post processing.  The unit comes with a white, grey and black backdrops.  I tried one with the black background and kind of liked the look.  The backdrops are actually just sheets of coloured foam you can get at the dollar store.  So, it will be pretty easy to get lots of different colours for a very reasonable price.

I ran into trouble when I tried to photograph the entire unit.  The number of models was difficult to fit nicely into the available space.  I also had a tough time finding the right depth of field (keeping all of the models in focus) and not catching the sides of the box.  I don’t know if this would be much of a problem with a phone as they are usually set to take a much wider angle shot with a deeper depth of field.  I finally did it, but it took several tries.  I also don’t like the positioning, but my options were very limited.

Finally, here are the pictures I took with some post processing in Lightroom.


I think that the foldio would be a great purchase for those that want to take quality pictures of their miniatures with their phones or point and shoot cameras.  You can be taking pictures within a couple of minutes, the foldio is so easy to set up (once you figure it out).  If you like to tweet out your pictures or put them up on Facebook, I think the foldio is a nice purchase.  It also takes up a miniscule amount of space when folded up, and not much when unfolded either.  I wish more people had the foldio so we could be spared the wretched photos that rarely do justice to all of the work many people put into their beloved miniatures.  I would definitely pony up the extra $10 for the extra strip of LEDs.  More light is better if you are using your phone.  If you want to look into getting your own foldio, you can follow this link to Orangemonkie’s web site.  I see they are still offering free shipping to anywhere.

What I learned last night

I played two games last night and learned a few things I’d like to share.  First,  I learned that when you are answering a bunch of new players’ questions it is very easy to lose track of what turn it is.  I was playing No Man’s Land and I could have sworn it was turn two and it was actually turn three and I was not in the zone, so I lost.   Below is a picture of the turn I lost.  The sad part is I thought I was going to kill his caster next turn.  The next game I kept a die off to the side so I would not lose track.  It didn’t make a whit of difference because of what I learned in that game. 

My second lesson is that at 25 points, Bane Thralls are broken.  With the AU there is no way to kill enough of them before they get to you and kill everything you have on the table.  I killed three Thralls with an AOE and they made three tough rolls and just got up and trashed a heavy the next turn.  Not fun to play against.  Bellow are both of my heavies trashed by about two hits from the indestructible Thralls.

My final bit of learning in the thrashing I took last night was that pDenny everything is awesome.  This lady is the ultimate turd polisher.  When you can make everyone else’s models  crap, yours work a lot better.  Seriously, her feat and then Crippling Grasp?  There is no way to avoid it with three arc nodes on the table at 25 points. 

I have to say that I am having a lot of trouble getting Retribution to work at these low points levels.  I don’t know if that is my hack abilities as a player or the faction itself ( I do make a lot of stupid mistakes).  I do know that I have only won two games in this league so far and it is quickly getting taxing to have my poop pushed in weekly.  Oh well, I’ll see what Kaelyssa can do to turn around my fortunes.

Hobby Stress

Should my hobby be causing me stress?  The past week, I have been dealing with my own peculiar mental issues.  As I have stated previously, I am running a local Journeyman League.  As such, I have put pressure on myself to have painted and built models at each stage.  This particular goal has recently bumped up against my detail oriented self.  I always have to do my very best when I paint models.  There is never a model that I just get the basics on and say, "Good enough".  Many times my minis look as though this has been my attitude, the intention to have a perfect model was there.  I am the guy that highlights everything and uses 12 colours on a model.  While that is fine while I putter through an army in my basement, it is a source of stress when there is a deadline.  I have a deadline and I am about to miss it by a country mile.

I have worked all week on a max unit of Mage Hunter Strike Force and UA and I just can't seem to get them ready for tonight's game.  I haven't watched any hockey or read any books.  It is all nose to the grindstone.  But, there are so many and they are so detailed, I just couldn't blow through them.  Arrgh!   Now I am forced to take a tray full of wonderfully painted resin bases with no models on them to game night.  The shame!

Clearly, I need to think a little bit harder the next time I put my anal retentive self into a situation where I have quotas AND deadlines on my hobby.

 

Photo Credit: The Telegraph