Fresh Coast 40k

Review: Privateer Press Objective Markers

2012-02-21T11:55:00.008-05:00

I received a note from one of the gang that the new Privateer Press 40mm objective markers had just been delivered to our Local Game Shop - Gamers Sanctuary. I made a quick call and reserved a box.

The package:

What you get:

For less than $15.00 your package contains 3 highly detailed resin models and 3 each of the Privateer Press 40mm round-lipped bases. Each objective marker is unique – with stacked ammo crates as the central theme they are all completely different: a screwdriver, an awl, a coffee cup, ammo belt, etc. The objectives markers are also about 35mm tall – very substantial on the game table.

The resin parts have no visible mild lines, air bubbles or flash. I did not have to pick up a blade or file to clean them up – Nada, zip, nothing! A much better quality product out of the mold then Citadel Finecast and 1/4 the cost of Forgeworld resin.

Primer and Paint:

A quick wash in the sink and overnight drying and they were ready to paint. I started with Rustoleum brown primer (a $3 spray primer experiment), painted them with Citadel and P3 paints and finished with Citadel washes. I added Woodland Scenics green flock and a tuft of Army Builder tall grass to each base. I’ll spray them with Krylon Matte Clear (always excellent results) later this week.

Expect to take 2-3x longer to paint these than your original estimate – the closer you look the more detail you find.

New Tyranid Models - Worth the Wait?

2012-02-21T11:03:00.000-05:00

I ranted about 6 months ago about how badly the Tyranids needed new models. The model lineup is great, but has huge holes in extremely important places. Today we've seen leaked photos of upcoming models that makes this hive overlord extremely happy.

The Models.

Tyrannofex

They definitely took a 'hierophant' look for these new models. I really like the rupture cannon, looks great. I am definitely digging the overall look. I'll get one of these at least. I like the look of the assault shooty gun on the second pic - looks like basically a shield with little spores coming out.

Tervigon

The most important model to come out for tyranids? Definitely the tervigon. I love the model look - babies coming out, ready to fight. Again I'm digging the hierophant look to it. I'll get two of these at least.

Hive Tyrant / Swarmlord

I don't know what it is, but I am not digging the wings for this model. I also don't really need a Swarmlord, so I doubt I'll pick up one of these anytime soon. It looks to be the same hive tyrant that has been out for a while, although having it in plastic is huge.

The Prices.
Since the Finecast™ pricing debacle I've been very wary of new models from GW. GW's prices are rapidly approaching the break point for most hobbyists. The list of prices for Tyranid stuff:

Tyranid Hive Tyrant / The Swarmlord 3-Mar-12 $53.75 New Plastic
Tyranid Tyrannofex / Tervigon 3-Mar-12 $57.75 New Plastic
Tyranid Boneswords Pack 3 x 'Pair of Boneswords' 3-Mar-12 $19.75 New Resin
Tyranid Lash Whip & Bonesword Pack 3 x 'Lash Whip & Bonesword' 3-Mar-12 $19.75 New Resin
Deathleaper 1 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 $24.75 Repackaged Resin
Old One Eye 1 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 $41.25 Repackaged Resin
Tyranid Biovore 1 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 $41.25 Repackaged Resin
Tyranid Spore Mine Cluster 9 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 $24.75 Repackaged Resin
The Red Terror 1 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 $41.25 Repackaged Resin
Tyranid Ripper Swarm Brood 1 Base Clampack 3-Mar-12 $13.25 Repackaged Resin

The tervigon is a little less than a land raider, which is the worst. Tyranid players usually want to field two to three tervigons - most marine players are lucky to field one land raider. The Hive Tyrant is still overly pricey, but hardly anyone uses one anymore.

The boneswords and lash whip packs are extremely pricey as well. They should be plastic and come in three pair for $10 or so. Equipping a six man tyranid warrior squad with bone sword and lash whips would cost $124 for a 270 point troop unit. Absolutely terrible.

I'll definitely be picking up two tervigons and a tyrannofex when the models launch, and I'll definitely be picking up some bone sword packs for my shrikes... but man. GW can really grind your gears.

Speed Painting - Get Organized

2012-02-20T14:07:00.014-05:00

Trying to crank out a new army in a short time requires a bit of set-up and organization to be in-place before you begin. I’ll outline the set-up I use and what works for me in speed painting squads of miniatures at the same time.

Paint set-up: An inexpensive plastic spice rack makes it a snap to find any of your paints quickly.

A solution for craft paints is the plastic organizer (less than $3.00 each at Michaels Art) – bottles lock-in upside down for easy identification.

Light 'em-up - The paint area should be clear and well lit. I use a folding “OTT” light for all my work. Fine tip brushes on the left, wide tip brushes on the right. I’m right handed – so the cup of water to clean the brushes is on the right.

Line them up - Group models according to pose, when you pick up the next model to paint you already know where the color goes.

Up close and personal – I use a $2 pair of magnifying lenses for detail work. They take a little getting used to but allow you to get up-close and personal for easy detail work.

Tools and worn-out brushes for dry-brushing and washes are on my right for easy access.

My key to speed painting: Only open a bottle of paint once and apply it to every model in the squad before opening the next bottle of paint. This means picking up a model from your left, applying the paint, setting it on your right and then reaching for the next model on your left. Continue with that color until all of the models have moved from left to right. Then open the next bottle of paint and move the models from right to left, starting with the first model you applied color to.

The best part of this style of painting – you get a feel for how long a shift from left to right is going to take and it makes it easier to plan your painting session: Only 15 minute? One pass or color. Have 30 minutes? Two passes or colors. It also gives you a firm stopping point, you never wonder where you left off!

By painting in passes you can see the progress on the whole squad. It really encourages you to grab the next bottle and add another layer!

Podcaster Spotlight: The Independent Characters - Zachary Walter (Part Two)

2012-02-19T21:17:00.002-05:00

The Adepticon trophy isn't this nice.

Today we finish out the interview with The Independent Characters. We really appreciate Carl, Geoff, and Zach's time with these interviews. This blog focuses on different ways to play and that is always one of their points of emphasis.

Anything you'd like to say about the Adepticon coverage you'll be doing this year?

Beyond that it’s going to the most watched program of 2012, Superbowl and Summer Olympics included? It’s going to be great fun. I think we learned quite a bit from last years coverage, and we’ve made some really good changes to make it even better. I’m looking forward to doing tactical/strategic analysis of the top-tables again this year. I’m sort of professionally critical, so I really enjoyed the opportunity to watch good players last year and critique their performances, noting their successful decisions as well as obvious mistakes. We’ve got several new features we’re going to be adding

to the coverage this year that we believe will make for more compelling (and discernable) viewing. I’m just hoping we get some interesting army-builds in the finals this year…IG versus Space Wolves, yawn.

What are a few things that you'd like to get out of the rumored 40k 6^th edition this summer?

Oh, man, I’m so excited for this. I love changes in games. New ways to play with great models is what I’m always looking for. Like a lot of people I’m hoping for a more complex scenario or mission generator beyond just the 3 x 3, but I’d also like to see the game grow in its complexity of rules

somewhat. The 3rd-5th rule sets were good but are dated, I’d like to see something new and dynamic to arrive. I’d like a true version 6.0 rather than a 5.1.

I know that many competitive players are concerned that GW might “fantasy” 40k, as they did with 8th edition WHFB, with all of the craziness. I’d be fine with that for 40k, as I’ve never thought it was a particularly good competitive-type game and barring them releasing a tournament game-play subset of rules for tourneys, 40k seems to function best for fun or narrative play. Having said that, if 6th could meet both the demands of casual and serious players, I’d be pretty happy as both could be

viable ways to play this awesome game with less headaches if the ruleset accounted for all the various ways its played.

What do you usually look for in a blog or news site on the web?

New content daily (I need my distractions!). The less drama and nerd rage, and the more humor and rumors to keep me excited, the better. This is a game, I’d rather not take it to seriously and I like to see that reflected in the sites I visit. I’d love if a site could put together well-reasoned and executed tactics and strategy articles, stuff beyond just gimmicks or unit- specific strategies, but that might never happen. I’m just not sure that even top players necessarily understand what it is they are doing half of the time. Intuition and practice seems to account for the successes of many strong players, so articulating how to be a good general seems to be challenging. This is something that the ICs will be tackling to an extent in the near future, but as nothing beats print and visuals for demonstrating the

principles of miniature warfare the podcast forum could sure use some web-based accompaniment.

Can you tell the readers a little about the hobby challenge you're taking part in?

Aside from the fact that its making me blind from all of the edge hi-lighting and it might well earn Geoff a world-shattering wedgie? Almost a year back Geoff, Carl and I decided we should get some new armies painted and share the trials, triumphs, and tribulations with our delightful, engaged

podcast community. It’s an idea that’s worked elsewhere, and we thought we’d give it a shot to provide some focus to our hobby-ing for the year (as well as force Geoff and I to finish some damned armies). It’s been great to see members of our audience slowly build, paint and grow new 1850 point lists (with an additional 400 point sideboard). Many fun, well painted, and spirited armies are taking shape and I can’t wait for April to see them complete. Plus, the winners are gonna win some very nice prizes!

How are you prepping the 'guns' to give the atomic wedgie to Geoff?

It’s a complex regime of fitness and nutrition…with a little help from, um, “supplements.” Beyond extensive weight training, I’ve made use of some of my foreign contacts, some of whom since losing their main “employment” in the late 1980s, ya know, following the fall of the Eastern Bloc, have passed along to me some “additives” to provide the extra heft and leverage I’ll need to do Geoff right and proper. But as I’ve said on the podcast, I’m pretty sure Geoff will pull it out for Adepticon. I’ve

got faith in the guy.

From listening to the podcast, it seems like you are an educator. Do you ever face challenges with 40k and being an educator? Do the students ever notice and question you, or parents? Are you a 'proud nerd' when it comes to that or do you keep it in your basement?

Yes, I am a college instructor (and scholar of sorts) and it is sometimes an issue I consider whether my participation in the podcast and the hobby-ing in general might be viewed weirdly by the academic community or affect my reputation. Only recently has the serious academic study of games and gaming become a more acceptable topic for scholarship, and myself and one of my colleagues have begun working professionally on the intersections of gaming and society, combining something we’ve always experienced privately with our professional lives. Regardless, I figure even professors are entitled to hobbies, and more the better if we can maybe get a little career and hobby overlap.

Zach's closet is full of professor jackets.

Funny story: when I was teaching in Oregon a student came to visit me during my office hours and he flat out asked me: “do you play 40k?” I was a tad taken aback because in the small town where the college was located I hadn’t ever played. After a moment I admitted I did and asked how he knew

I played, to which the student responded that apparently I’d mentioned “the hive mind” in a lecture and such aroused his suspicions. I ended up playing with him and some of his friends once for the next year or so before I returned to school myself to get my doctorate. Now I now seed my lectures and presentations with subtle 40k easter eggs, figuring that the gamers out there will recognize the messages and come find me.

While I’m not ashamed of my gaming, I did grow up in the era where gaming was much more under the radar, and coming up in the hobby I was a “closet gamer” for the most part, as I was also an athlete, dj, regularly socialized guy, etc. 40k and gaming is just one of the things I do, so I don’t let it define me though I’m sure I would not be the person I am today without it and most of the time I feel bad for the ‘normals’ who live their lives without games.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell the world?

That I appreciate being asked to do the interview, for the chance to share a little about myself with the interwebz and your blog’s readership. I hope I didn’t ramble too much (it’s a danger with us professorial types). I wanted, also, to comment on my podcast mates, and just say they’re great guys

who, despite being unable to put up a challenging game of 40k, are a lot of fun to work with, game with, and be friends with. They put a lot of hard work into the podcast and its nice to see them recognized for their efforts. Finally, I always like to remind myself and others that a game is just a game and to play it, enjoy it, but don’t forget to get outside every once in a while (even if you, like me, live on Fenris…)

Hive Mind Triumphant

2012-02-19T09:32:00.000-05:00

Still my favorite 40k image. Thank you Jeff Porter

Yesterday Dustin, tau4eva, and I attended the monthly 1850 tournament at Gamers Sanctuary. I was super pumped to bring out my Tyranids again as I haven't played them in a few months. We had 11 people total playing, so one person got a bye each round.

My list:

HQ: Tervigon (1#, 195 pts)
   1 Tervigon, 195 pts (Unit Type: Monstrous Creature; Bonded Exoskeleton; Claws & Teeth; Synapse Creature; Brood Progenitor; Psyker; Shadow in the Warp; Spawn Termagants; Cluster Spines; Adrenal Glands; Toxin Sacs; Dominion; Catalyst)

HQ: Tervigon (1#, 195 pts)
   1 Tervigon, 195 pts (Unit Type: Monstrous Creature; Bonded Exoskeleton; Claws & Teeth; Synapse Creature; Brood Progenitor; Psyker; Shadow in the Warp; Spawn Termagants; Cluster Spines; Adrenal Glands; Toxin Sacs; Dominion; Catalyst)

Troops: Genestealer Brood (19#, 266 pts)
   19 Genestealer Brood, 266 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Reinforced Chitin; Rending Claws; Brood Telepathy; Fleet; Infiltrate; Move Through Cover)

Troops: Genestealer Brood (8#, 112 pts)
   8 Genestealer Brood, 112 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Reinforced Chitin; Rending Claws; Brood Telepathy; Fleet; Infiltrate; Move Through Cover)

Elite: Hive Guard Brood (2#, 100 pts)
   2 Hive Guard Brood, 100 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Claws & Teeth; Hardened Carapace; Impaler Cannon; Instinctive Behaviour - Lurk)

Elite: Hive Guard Brood (2#, 100 pts)
   2 Hive Guard Brood, 100 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Claws & Teeth; Hardened Carapace; Impaler Cannon; Instinctive Behaviour - Lurk)

Elite: Hive Guard Brood (2#, 100 pts)
   2 Hive Guard Brood, 100 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Claws & Teeth; Hardened Carapace; Impaler Cannon; Instinctive Behaviour - Lurk)

Heavy Support: Carnifex Brood (3#, 570 pts)
   3 Carnifex Brood, 570 pts (Unit Type: Monstrous Creature; Bonded Exoskeleton; Instinctive Behaviour - Feed; Fearless; Living Battering Ram; TL Devourer w/Brainleech Worms x2)

Heavy Support: Trygon (1#, 210 pts)
   1 Trygon, 210 pts (Unit Type: Monstrous Creature; 2x Scything Talons; Bio-electric Pulse; Bonded Exoskeleton; Instinctive Behaviour - Feed; Deep Strike; Fearless; Fleet; Subterranean Assault; Adrenal Glands)

Total Roster Cost: 1848

From the start I knew this would be a tough list to play with. It is not that optimized - carnifexes are EXTREMELY overpriced in 5th Edition. They should probably cost 130 points for each one with guns, or have a 2+ save, or both. With FNP from the tervigons they're pretty sweet... but can't do as much as they should.

The general plan was to infiltrate the genestealers up and annoy the enemy, destroy some squads, then finish them off with the big space dinos. In practice I outflanked the genestealers in two out of the three matches.

The carnifex brood was there to delete units and take fire. The trygon was there to take fire as well. I was concerned as hell that my tervigons would die quickly. Two out of my three opponents didn't really do that.

My first game I played against Grey Knights. It was auto-tie. He put his objective way on his right flank (mistake!) and I put mine centrally. I deployed first and stacked the left side with my carnifexes, trygon, a tervigon, and hive guard. I outflanked my two genestealer blobs. I put a tervigon and four hive guard holding my central objective.

My tervigon spawned 17 gants on the first turn and up the left flank we went. The trygon was there mostly to soak shots and provide cover. The carnifexes managed to delete off some terminators, but their librarian still killed two of them with a force sword through shadow in the warp =/ Gants with tervigon support = dead dreadknight.

Squad one smashes into the line

The trygon also killed a 260 point dreadknight. Dude had two of those. He had a strike squad? on the point and my first wave of 8 genestealers whittled them down really well despite assaulting into cover. When the 19 genestealer squad came on it was all over for those dudes. He managed to divert some walking terminators over but it was too late. He had no vehicles. He tried a late game assault on my objective with another strike squad, but I had gants backed by a tervigon and two hive guard there still. No go. I won 2-0.

Squad two smashes into the line

My second game was against Dustin, also a Fresh Coast 40k goon. He brought daemons - lots of variety. Bloodletters, flamers, fiends, horrors, other slaanesh blue things, a greater daemon of nurgle, and a soul grinder. This was a daemon lollercaust. He deep strike mishapped two squads (including the huge flamer squad, saved my ass). He also landed a 20 man bloodletter squad right next to my carnifex shooters of doom and they were deleted.

I had setup to give him very little room to deep strike in, and when I had gants spawned it was probably just unfair. I blew up his soul grinder on turn 2 with a lucky hive guard shot. He came in piecemeal and I destroyed every piece very quickly. Five genestealers killed 10 horrors in two turns, I think. I won 10-1.

My last game was against regular ole' space marines with Lysander. This was dawn of war with 4 objectives. He dropped Lysander in turn 1 in my area - I had reserved everything because it was Dawn of War and I wanted to outflank onto his flank placed objectives. I brought on my army in turn 1. Lysander was with a damn command squad so I wasn't able to delete them - damn FNP. I did manage to kill their speeder with hive guard. Being able to triumphantly bring out the FAQ and say you don't get cover saves from HG for all out made me feel pretty smug.

Lysander ran through a trygon. I fucked up by not assaulting him with my carnifex squad. I don't know why, I just screwed up. This cost me the battle as I had no troops left when he killed my tervigon next turn. I had to outflank my genestealers over to my objective just to hold two.

I had outflanked the blob squad onto his left flank where he put an objective. They had wasted a tac squad. He had no rhinos, and he was super concerned that the genestealer squad would just run through his entire army because he couldn't choose to retreat - stubborn from Lysander. Somehow I was stuck in combat and he moved his tac squads really really fast.

My other tervigon he killed on the left flank with devastator shots. I figured I had a cover save but he wouldn't give it to me. TLoS, meh. In the end it came down to my flank squad of genestealers repeatedly going to ground on his objective. I should have won, but I failed a LD 10 morale check in the last turn and they ran. So bitter.

My opponent and I went 2 wins and 1 tie in that last game. KPs meant the winner was 2-1. Overall I had a lot of fun and got some games in with my neglected Tyranids, placing the highest I've ever placed singly with my Tyranids at third place. With my winnings I bought eight more genestealers so next time I can do 20, 20, and 8 in my troops slots. It was nice seeing everyone out again.

Steampunk Saturday: Dygmies

2012-02-18T01:54:00.004-05:00

My latest painting project for the Trollbloods meant I got to paint up the surprisingly lethal unit of Pygmy Burrowers, a.k.a. Dygmies. These guys were fun to paint, with lots of character and cool little details.

These guys get to burrow underground, hence the periscope model which replaces the unit once they dig. With the right caster, dygmies can be surprisingly powerful with strong but very-short ranged guns. Dygmy shooting ability is poor, but a special rule lets them use their guns as melee attacks. This means they can benefit from any of the many buffs to melee ability that Trollbloods have to offer.

Steampunk Saturday: KR Multicase Followup

2012-02-18T01:37:00.006-05:00

Last week, I posted a review of my new Kaiser 2 case from KR Multicase. I forwarded the review to the fine people at KR Multicase, which you can find after the jump.

"Many thanks for the review, I enjoyed reading it, I appreciate the time you have taken to prepare it, it will be a great help to other gamers. It is nicely written, and I think there are a couple of points worth mentioning, you can post them/edit them as suits, no worries either way. On the subject of the 40mm bases in the 32mm trays, the tray base being the same material as the tray itself means that the base can stick out with no damage, and that enables you to get much more in a small space, the soft foam can effectively hold the figures too. The general way most people put multiple figures with 40mm bases in the F3H tray is to alternate them head to toe, that means the compartments are squeezed/stretched alternately - works well for GW space marine terminators too!

The pick&pluck is our unique segmented design as it adds strength to the over all tray. Other "cubed" designs do not give any strength across the tray. You are spot on that a snip of the dividing wall with scissors to create a large compartment is just what it is designed to do, the wall can be removed from the base just as you have done.

The one comment by a reader so far indicates issues for the 40mm bases, the F3H is fine for them as above, and for an exact fit the 40mm (D format) pick&pluck is perfect, and for 50mm bases the J-pick&pluck is ideal - though of course you can combine them to suit your needs"

First off, big thanks to KR for their response. It's really refreshing to see a company that is so responsive to their customer base! I can attest that this is certainly not an isolated example, either. The folks at KR have always responded quickly and politely- which I hear is not the case with other mini case companies.

KR's response re: the pluck foam confirmed what I expected- that the walls are in place to provide further rigidity. I have noticed that the KR foam does have more give or flexibility when picking it up (especially when it's full of metal models), so the extra support is certainly needed.

Regarding the issue with 40mm based infantry, I have to admit that I am not 100% sold on their explanation and justification. I appreciated the tip about alternating the orientation of the minis. But I still feel like that doesn't change the issue that many 40mm infantry models just don't work in those 32mm trays. I'm hopeful we'll someday see another pre-cut tray that better fits larger infantry pieces.

Again just to be clear these are relatively minor quibbles. Overall I'm super pleased with the product and will certainly look to KR for all my future transport needs. Thanks again to KR for their comments.

Fantasy Friday - Dark Elf Hobby Update

2012-02-17T00:02:00.001-05:00

I had some time this week to devote to Warhammer Fantasy hobby and got started on the unit of Dark Elf Cold One Knights. I have been running a block of 10 (5x2) in some games and they have performed well enough to be in almost every list I run now over 2000 pts.

I never really played 7th edition (one game doesn't count), but I get the feeling that cavalry got hit with a bit of a nerf going to 8th edition. It sounds like chariots are probably a more competitive choice. However, I love the details on these guys and they hit really hard on the charge.

I managed to get four done out of the 10. So I guess I these can be my four ~~horsemen~~ lizard-riders of the apocalypse. Next up, I plan to get the details done on my banners. My first attempt at printing banners on transfer paper didn't work out so well. Actually, they printed fine, just didn't transfer very well. I hope to get the rest of this unit finished soon and then move on to my blackguard and witch elves next.

Future Nerds: Tips on tabletop gaming for parents

2012-02-16T10:43:00.003-05:00

(The first in a series of reviews based on the Lego build-and-play games.)

My daughter Avery is all of 7 years old. She loves to paint 40k Orks and help dad base his Marines and Daemons. She’ll even humor me by trying her best to play Nexus Ops, a board game from Fantasy Flight Games.

In turn, I often humor her by playing Candyland and various other insufferable games. But, she’s finally to an age where I can influence her gaming habits to more amicable terrritory: dungeon crawls.

Enter LEGO HEROICA.

As the tagline goes… “The World of HEROICA was a peaceful place of culture and beauty. Now overrun by monsters and in turmoil, the fate of the world now hangs by a thread. Join the heroes and free HEROICA!”

I stumbled across this toddler dungeon crawl accidently as I was browsing through blogs and other bits of internet refuse. I was immediately intrigued due to my childhood love of Legos and adult love of tabletop gaming. And because I have a kid that I need to make sure to keep her brain engaged. I started with the one that appeared the easiest to grasp: Draida.

Picking this up from Toys’R Us as her Valentine’s Gift this week, we got home, ate dinner, and immediately began to assemble the game board. Before I finished opening the last of three bags of bits, she already had the easy-to-follow assembly instructions open and was putting together the starting point for our heroes, a boat that has landed at Draida Bay. Our task? To defeat the Goblin King and his minions to restore the Crystal Crown.

Or, at least that’s what we came up with; a slight alteration from the actual rulebook (which is all of two pages long!). With the rules being easy to understand and simple enough to grasp in the first 30 seconds of starting play, I thought we might have a winner on our hands.

Half the fun is putting the game together. My wife and I had a proud moment watching her build everything on her own. We just observed and offered helpful advice, often to my daughter’s dismay (“I can do it myself”). Avery had a sense of accomplishment after sitting back and surveying her job well-done.

The game says it is for two players, but we easily made it work for all three of us to play at once. The rulebook encourages you to make up your own rules on the fly and remember, it’s all for fun.

Avery and my wife played the heroes, a wizard and barbarian respectively, with each having his own special power. I played the monster master, controlling the four goblins and goblin king.

The entire game is played with one die, an especially nice die made of a rubber composite and marked with Lego tiles. Throw in a magic potion to restore health, and we had ourselves a game!

Movement and combat are all done on the single die and we finished our first game within 10 minutes; my daughter victorious by defeating the goblin king twice (once to receive the Crystal Crown and the second time to knock him out).

Final Comments:

Lego Heroica is perfect for parents looking for a new way to bond with their children and for those of us into tabletop gaming, also ends up being fun for everyone involved. Plus, it is cheaper than the least expensive 40k or WFB box set at $15-$25. Aimed at the 7-12 year old crowd, a game of Heroica only takes 10 minutes or less and you can transform it into whatever you want. Make up rules and change them as you go. I feel that a game like this encourages critical thinking and that’s an important skill for kids to develop young.

Many of us FC40k bloggers either have one or two children, or have one on the way. I think there are probably others out there on the internets with kids that are looking for a way out of the Candyland stage and want to transition their kids into something more advanced. (You don't go from Twister to Warmachine overnight!)

Consider Heroica as a way to make that leap. Draida is the first of four HEROICA themed games available, each becoming more detailed (with later versions that include collecting loot and buying weapons). Over the next several weeks, I will be posting reviews of each experience. Stay tuned!

Podcaster Spotlight: The Independent Characters - Zachary Walter (Part One)

2012-02-16T10:24:00.001-05:00

Today we begin our interview with Zach Walter, co-host of The Independent Characters podcast. Zach is often brought in via Skype, since he does not live in The Golden State.

It seems like from listening to the podcast you live in the middle of nowhere. Has it been tough continuing your hobby without a FLGS close to keep you going?

I do indeed live in the middle of nowhere. My friend Greg jokes that I moved to Fenris. Lots of snow, tall Nordic types abound, but (thankfully) no kraken or thunderwolves stalking me at the supermarket. The downside of living beyond the reach of the God-Emperor is, of course, that its hard to get regular games in and my skills are getting rusty from disuse. I’m pretty soon Carl or Geoff is gonna beat me one of these days.

On the upside, whereas when I lived in California I could spend too much time gaming (and not painting), so here in the outer rim colonies I have much more time to hobby. I’ve compensated somewhat also building a pretty nice game room with lots of new terrain and such so that when the few guys I do know around here come to play I’ve made it worth their drive.

Very recently a new game store opened up in Sioux Falls, which is about an hour from where I live (Fenrisian storms permitting) so there is a FRGS (Friendly REGIONAL Game Store) at least. It’s a little bit of a commute in the deep of winter but if I’m just pleased there is a more reasonable option than flying back to Carl’s house in California when I get the jones to game.

Zach's realm of battle board with added slip protection

What armies do you play, have you played? What armies are you looking at in the future?

Well, as Carl and Geoff love to poke fun about being an old timer, I’ve been playing 40k since the hoary old days of Rogue Trader. Back then most people had one army (especially poor students) and they identified themselves as “Marine” or “Ork” or “Squat” players. The thing of owning a ton of armies seems to be a newer phenomenon—a fun if expensive one at that. I bought my first clear-plastic box of metal as an adolescent, and from 1^st to 4^th edition I was primarily an “Eldar player” with largely the same list of footdar that I run up into early 5^th. I started adding Tau in 3^rd when they were released, but I’m not a ‘gun-line’ kinda player so I kept the force small until a few years ago.

These days I rotate between my Dark Eldar, Khorne Demons, Orks, Tau, Eldar, and ‘counts as’ Blood Angels and/or marines. They’re not equally painted or complete, but I’m always working on something. I tend to enjoy small model count armies, as there is less to paint, and I feel that we’ve been living in the MEQ Age for the last few years, what with all of the power armor codices so I’ve spent the last few years rolling 3+…

And of course, I’ve also got my Squats. I’ve got a pretty extensive collection of the stunties… which I can and have run as Greyknights, Space Wolves, Imperial Guard and Orks, depending on which models I’d like to play with and which codex best fits the original GW models lines.

In the future I’d love to flesh out my Dark Eldar from the 1000 points I’ve been working on for the team tourney at Adepticon, as well as finally picking a color scheme for my ‘nids so I can set about proving that they’re a viable army.

Ridiculousness

Can you tell us about the Grey Squats you're doing?

I’ve been hoarding the old Citadel space dwarf models since 2^nd edition, though it wasn’t until they were “deleted” from the game in 3^rd that I really started collecting them in earnest. I always had Epic-scale Squats and over time just fell more and more infatuated with them and their retro-ness and the “good-old” pre-corporate days of GW that I feel they embody well.

I don’t want that piece of history of the game to pass away, and the underlying foundation of 40k as basically fantasy races in space…and how can you have fantasy without little surly, fat dudes, with bushy beards and beer bellies? (Editor's note: so many players these days seem to think that 40k is GRIMDARK SCI-FI - but really it is fantasy in spaaaaaaaaace!) So, I committed to keep them alive and my bank account has consistently taken a hit for it (especially once eBay showed up!). Now, I have all of the unreleased 2^nd edition squats and most of the official Iron Claw and Citadel product lines. I love the fact that when I bring the army out to play so many newer players get to see the models for the first time and old timers get a touch of nostalgia.

For the IC’s hobby progress challenge I decided I would finally paint up some of my rarer models and scratch-build 40k scale versions of some epic Squat models so that I’d have a truly unique, fun, and weird army to bring to events (I’m scratch-building a Overlord Armored Airship and a Iron Eagle Gyrocopter at present). I opted to use the Grey Knights codex because the great variety of units allows for the nearest ‘counts-as’ possibilities for using the surprisingly varied Squat model line. I’m not thrilled that many people view the codex as over-powered as that’s not why I chose it—I had used the old demonhunters codex for the Squats previously and the new codex offers even more opportunities to represent some of the more obscure models.

Have you been doing a lot of magnetizing? This editor finds it very difficult to manage all the magnets - I get extremely irritated with the parts moving and falling off etc.

Funnily enough, I was an early convert to the faith of magnets – playing Tau and Eldar in early 3^rd and discovering “rare-earth” magnets was like finding a lost testament. I was living Ann Arbor, Mich. at the time and playing a lot of 40k, and I kept trying to sell the magnet thing to the players there, but it took a while for the idea to take off. More than once I heard, “shut up about those #$%&*! magnets!” Now it’s pretty standard to magnetize armies, so I feel fairly vindicated for my earlier enthusiasm. Nowadays, I don’t go overboard with them on most models, but weapon swaps or extra bits are much easier with them than without them. I think the key is to use the correct size of magnet and to not unnecessarily magnetize parts that don’t need to be swapped out. I don’t think EVERY frag grenade needs to be magnetized to each space marine…unless you’re playing Draigowing with 8 models or something.

What other games do you play besides 40k? Do you enjoy the video games? Would you consider starting a new system? (Fantasy, Warmachine, etc)

Some of my earliest memories are of gaming. My hippy-dippy Berkeley, CA grade school introduced me to D&D in the first grade (as an actual class) and I’ve been playing games ever since. Over time I’ve tried most mediums, though as I get older, busier and more interested in hobby-ing I’ve find myself gravitating more and more towards miniature war and board game.

Among the I.C. hosts, Geoff and I seem to be more interested in wargaming in general, rather than just remaining exclusive to 40k. Carl is the GW loyalist, even though he claims the ruinous powers. I love the world of Warhammer 40,000, though the rules have always left me somewhat cold at the outdated-ness of them, so I love trying out different rule-sets. However, I always seem to return to GW’s loving, if expensive, embrace. It’s got great background, the best aesthetics, and the most players of any system, so I resigned myself years ago to the fact that while many really good wargames come and go, if you’re a miniature hobbyist, Warhammer 40k ends up being the girl next door you know you’re gonna end up married to.

Dust Tacits does seem to have a certain appeal to it.

Recently, I’ve been playing Dust Tactics and I’m looking forward to the Dust Warfare rule-set that should be arriving intermittently (Damn you, FFG!). I’ve played Zombiesmith’s Quar games and Malifaux within the last few years, and enjoyed both of those games quite a bit. I always toy with the idea of getting back into WHFB as the models have gotten simply amazing, but I just can’t commit to painting that many damned more models.

Only within the last three of four years have I found my way into console games. They suck up a lot of hobby time, so I try to keep them under control (press ‘X’ to make your evening disappear), but I played the heck out of Space Marine – who could pass up a game where a Tactical space marine actually kick’s ass?!? Am I right, Geoff?

What do you think GW could do to fix Tyranids?

The Tyranids need fixing?!? They’re the only army I’ve lost to in 1v1 play since 2009! Ha! But seriously, there is a three fold issue with the Tyranids which I believe has led to the perception of their weakness, though I’m on the fence as to how underpowered they actually are. They are certainly not played as much as previously so I guess that, at least, demands some fixes.

I play them, in a limited capacity (as I don’t have time to paint up so many models at the moment with other projects) and have really good success with them. I feel the new codex represents a pretty dynamic, interesting army choice in the current landscape. It is however, an army that plays very differently than the prior codex and relies upon strong generalship and synergy to win against the hardier builds out there. That might be more of an investment than most people want to make or the actual experience of playing them isn’t worth it.

I agree with what Carl and Geoff had to say on the issue, and the elite slot is a problem, in that too many of the good units vying for attention, but I also feel that one of the main reasons Tyranids are showing up less and less on the tabletop is that G.W., for whatever reason, never got the models out to keep players interested. Dark Eldar, Greyknights, Necrons are all too big of attractions to keep bug player’s attention without shiny (or slimy) new tervigons, harpies, etc.

It also hasn’t helped that most competitive players (and the Interwebz) very quickly abandoned the Tyranid codex. Losing eternal warrior and no Inv. saves are both big issues, but the codex gained a lot in exchange. Many players tend to focus on what is lost between updates, which I think is not an ideal way to approach change. When I peruse a new book, I always look for new possibilities and I was bowled-over when that ‘dex came out at the possibilities for the bugs. If I had to say something, the lack of offensive grenades in most units that need them is a pretty big issue that I would address for a CC army that relies on initiative and numbers to win combats.

So the big three reasons, at least from my perspective, for what’s hurting the ‘Nids are: complex style of play, lack of necessary models, and under-representation in the competitive environment. Personally, when I read through the ‘nid codex, I get terrified at what a general could do with it…

Podcaster Spotlight: The Independent Characters - Geoff Hummel (Conclusion)

2012-02-15T09:46:00.002-05:00

The Independent Characters Podcast team works hard at Adepticon 2011.

Today we finish out our interview with Geoff Hummel, co-host of The Independent Characters Podcast. Watch this blog later this week for our final interview with The Independent Characters hosts - Zach!

Anything you'd like to say about the Adepticon coverage you'll be doing this year?

As Carl already mentioned, we're trying to innovate the format and step up our game. While we feel that the coverage we did last year was well done, we'd really like to push things a bit and get the audience the feeling of actually being present for the games. We've continued researching both sportscasting and other televised events (such as poker and magic) to help us figure out exactly how best to bring the Adepticon experience into people's homes. Of course we've also taken steps to help the viewers understand exactly what's going on during the game, such as using wireless lapel mics on the players and focusing on only one table per round.

What sort of events will you be taking part in at Adepticon this year? Any huge plans?

This year I'm really looking forward to playing in the 40k Friendly Tournament. The theme is The Emperor Abides. It seems like a really fun way to meet other players without all the pressure of the Championship. Also, and this is a HUGE bonus for me, it doesn't start until noon. The whole event should be nice and relaxed. I think all of the local guys going with us that aren't in the Championship will be playing in the Friendly.

I'm also taking part in the Team Tournament once again. Last year I had a great time as a last minute addition to Team Table or Tie where each of us took armies with no scoring units. We tried to keep things fun and light by dressing as 70's era tennis players (with sweatbands that matched our armies!) and handing out gold star medals to all of our opponents. This year we're going to try playing with more competitive forces, but our theme will keep things light-hearted throughout the day. I can tell you though, the Team Tourney is exhausting. Four games with two 1,000 point armies per side is a lot of 40k. I can't believe there are some guys who play all day Friday, Saturday, and then compete for the top spot on Sunday!

Of course the great thing about a huge Con like Adepticon is meeting up with people from around the country and all over the world. We made a lot of great friends last year and although the internet makes the world feel smaller, there's nothing quite like grabbing a beer with a pal after a long day of gaming.

What do you envision for TIC podcast in the next three years?

Three years is an awfully long time! We'd love to see the show continue to grow as it has over the past 2 years. Our main focus has always been on delivering quality content that people will enjoy listening to. It doesn't do any good to deliver information to listeners if the show isn't entertaining. On the other hand, we don't feel like entertainment without content is a sustainable model for a 40k podcast. As long as we continue to keep things fresh and exciting, I'm sure people will continue to enjoy the show.

With that being said, we're always talking about new ways to keep the show fun for us to make and for people to listen to. The Golden Throne Awards that we're working on currently have been a blast to brainstorm for and are a great way for our forum users to participate in the show itself.

Geoff's Eldar attempt to murder Carl's Ultramarines

What have been some of the biggest challenges that you've faced as a 40k podcaster?

The biggest challenge for me has been the deadline nature of podcasting. We've tried really hard to make sure that we don't miss release dates. Every once in a while we have to release a day or two late, but that's always due to some technical issue or other. A lot of people don't realize how time consuming podcasting is. We have to talk about the show well ahead of recording to make sure that all three of us are on the same page with the topic. Then we each spend time researching and brainstorming. We try to hold regular production meetings over Skype to stay on top of this as well as update the calendar. Then we have to set aside a whole day to record. While the shows are usually between 2 1/2 and 3 hours, they can take around 6 to record with breaks and other delays.

After the show is recorded one of us will edit it. It takes twice as much time to edit as you have audio if you go through the entire show with a fine toothed comb. I always try to make sure to do this when I edit as it gives the show a level of polish that sets us apart from more casual offerings. Once the show is edited, Carl takes the files and compiles them along with all of our commercials and music. Also, he does the show notes at this time that give links pertaining to the content. All of these steps take up an incredible amount of time, and that doesn't even count all of the technical work on the website and answering emails. Podcasting really is a hobby within a hobby!

What are a few things that you'd like to get out of the rumored 40k 6th edition this summer?

There are a number of things that I think would enhance the game. Morale rules that actually mean something would be great. They seem to cripple some armies while being completely ignored by others. Also, I'd love to see some options for reactions. The easiest example is when a unit gets charged. Maybe they could voluntarily break, fire a shot, or brace for the assault. Going to Ground was a great step in this direction and I'd like to see more in 6th. Flyers could be a lot of fun too. If each race got some kind of plane I'd be happy. If nothing else, I love the models.

There's a lot of cleaning up that can be done with 5th Edition to tighten an already great rule set. A bit a tweaking to Wound Allocation and True Line of Sight/Area Terrain rules would help a ton.

What do you usually look for in a blog or news site on the web?

I actually don't spend a ton of time looking at news or blogs. Generally I check Bell of Lost Souls every few days for news and rumors. They used to catch a lot of crap for stealing news from Dakka and Warseer, but I love the one-stop shopping feel of the site. From there, I'll jump to whatever catches my eye from the margins. A lot of times that'll be Fritz or Dave Taylor's blogs. I also try to check out From the Warp for some painting and modelling tips as well as hobby product reviews. I trust Ron to give me the low down on all of the best tips and toys. Of course, nothing beats our forums at theindependentcharacters.com (shameless plug achieved!). We have such a great and friendly community there that I find a lot of awesome links and pics to fill my browsing time.

Can you tell the readers a little about the hobby challenge you're taking part in?

Sure! Many moons ago Zach had the idea for us to do a long term hobby challenge. It rapidly evolved into getting forces done for Adepticon, since that is a huge event on all of our calendars. We each chose an army to paint, and then decided on a points level. Since most of our gaming is at 1850 locally, we decided that it was the perfect level. Once we opened it challenge up to our listeners and forum users we also tossed in the idea of having a sideboard so that people could have different units to play with as well. The extra 400+ points gives a ton of flexibility. Those who are doing the challenge to win a prize have created threads on our board to track their self-determined monthly commitments. The beauty of this system is that if people want to set really low commitments each month, they won't finish an entire army on time! I'm really proud of the fantastic armies that everyone has been working so hard to complete.

Will you get your Eldar done in time?

Well sadly the answer is probably no. The chances of me finishing the full 1850 are really slim at this point, and you can just forget about the sideboard. I do still plan on having 1,000 points for the Team Tourney as well as an additional 500 points to add to that for the 40k Friendly. I know I'll never hear the end of it from Carl though...

Any fear of the Atomic Wedgie that you may receive?

The wedgie is certainly a factor for me, as Zach is a pretty large guy. My real motivator though is making sure that I don't let my teammates down for Adepticon. These guys added me last year and I was honored to join them in battle. I can't stand the thought of not being able to fight along side them this year because I was too lame to finish some painting.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell the world?

Only that we really appreciate all of the listeners and the feedback that have made The Independent Characters as successful as it is. It has been a wild ride watching our download numbers climb from their humble beginnings. We love making the show, but it has been the overwhelmingly positive support that motivates us to continue pushing ourselves and the medium of podcasting as far as we can.

Podcaster Spotlight: The Independent Characters - Geoff Hummel (Part One)

2012-02-13T09:01:00.000-05:00

Geoff on the left, Carl on the right!

This week we continue our interview series with the gracious hosts of The Independent Characters. Geoff Hummel is co-creator of the podcast and hails from California (like Carl).

Geoff: First off, I'd really like to thank you and the Fresh Coast crew for giving me the opportunity to answer some questions and cover areas I normally wouldn't get the chance to on the podcast. I spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to be in the 40k hobby and the different ways that people consume their 40k. Blogs, videos, podcasts, and forums all have their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and highlighting these can really help people decide how they can make the most out of limited hobby time.

Nurgle? Nope. HARKONNEN.

Dune: The Tabletop Game - what faction are you playing?

Wow! Now that's actually a really tough question for me. I'm not sure that I'd really care which faction I ended up playing if such a game did exist. I'm the kind of guy who loves borrowing armies just to give them a try. The only 40k tournament I've ever done really well in was with a borrowed Khorne Daemon army. What really interests me more than the factions in a Dune game is how the Dune property could take many different approaches to tabletop gaming. I'd love to see an integrated system where players could roleplay meetings of the Landsraad, fight Epic or 40k scale battles, and even play out skirmish missions or dagger duels with miniatures! I wish I had the time to write a system like that, because I'd sure love to play it.

What armies do you play, have you played? What armies are you looking at in the future?

My first army was (predictably) Space Marines. When I decided to take the leap from Mordheim to 40k, I had no idea what I wanted to play. The only thing I was certain of was that I absolutely DID NOT want to play Necrons. I thought the idea of Terminator knock-offs on the battlefield was absolutely absurd. When a great deal on some Marines came around, I went ahead and jumped on it and scored a ton of Tac Marines, Terminators, Assault Marines, a couple Landraiders, and a Rhino. This formed the core of my force for a long time until I slowly added more units like a Vindicator, Bikes, and a Speeder (among other things). I was drawn to Salamanders, and so I ended up collecting a good number of Flamers and Meltas for my 4th Ed Marines.

Tau4Eva's not gonna like this one

When I was looking to start a second army, I was really drawn to the Eldar. In particular, I love the plastic Wraithlord model. As an anime fan, I was drawn to the sleek mecha feel that it had. Very agile and deadly looking rather than a lumbering Battletech type mech. I was again fortunate in grabbing a core force pretty cheap, as another friend unloaded some random stuff he had that also included the entire Windrider Warhost. I scored a Grav Tank Warhost from an online retailer at a decent discount and I was off collecting (mostly dust) another army.

Kawaii

I'm really anticipating the Tau release. I am very drawn to the style of the army in terms of both look and play. I think that if recent releases are any indication, we'll be blown away by what the Greater Good will gain in rules and model kits. I feel like there's always a certain amount of anticipation tied to a Xenos release. Marines tend to get cool toys but can be a bit predictable. With the aliens it seems like anything goes.

How do you usually play Codex: Space Marines? Three of our bloggers are enjoying that codex right now and looking forward to a Badab War campaign this year.

I played Vulkan Salamanders for a long time. They're a lot of fun, but my army was missing key elements that add depth. I played dual Land Raiders backed up by Tactical Squads but the build was just too fragile. When I added Fast Attack elements such as Attack Bikes and Land Speeders everything really seemed to fall into place a bit better. I dropped one of the Land Raiders and so my threats were spread over more units and I could control board space a lot better as well. I learned to support units a lot better and to make sure I was in a position to capitalize on any mistakes my opponent might make.

These days I tend to use Lysander (who is a TH/SS unit all by himself) or for a smaller game a Power Armor Librarian. If I want to play something more fun I'll throw in a Dreadnought with a Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer. At this point I consider a Command Squad with four Flamers to be a sort of trademark unit for me. People tend to underestimate how many wounds I can stack, especially with Vulkan in the mix. They don't have a lot of close combat punch, but with a Company Standard they can stay stuck in with a lot of units that might otherwise steamroll them.

Salamander sergeant has to get some lotion for that ashyness.

I got really lucky in picking Salamanders in that I already have a force that's Badab War ready. After Adepticon I plan to spend some time kitbashing together a few of the special characters that Forge World has released both in their books and in PDF downloads. Also, Carl is giving me a certain HQ Dread for my birthday, so you can bet I'll be working on Brearth Ashmantle over the summer. My current roommates have been talking about running a Badab campaign, so I hope that it actually comes to fruition.

What attracted you specifically to the Salamanders?

I wanted to pick an established Chapter that I didn't see very much. I remembered bits and pieces about them from the Armageddon book years back. I like the green color of their armour, but without a doubt I find few things in 40k as satisfying as laying down a flame template and making a WHOOOSH sound as my toys shoot liquid fire all over my enemies!

How familiar are you with the Salamanders 'fluff', and how important is it to you in terms of modeling, painting, building armies etc?

I am quite familiar with the fluff side of 40k. I read a ton of Black Library material, old White Dwarf articles such as the Index Astartes, and codex/expansion fluff. As far as modeling and painting go, I haven't put a whole lot of effort into my force. They're very basic right now, but I'd like to spend more time converting individual characters to add personality to my otherwise bland force of Snot Green Power Armour. In terms of army composition though fluff is very important to me. I actually really like the old rules from both the Armageddon book and the 4th Ed Marine Codex and try to build my force to reflect them whenever possible. For instance, I try to never include more than one of each Fast Attack choice. I think it would be neat to write up a fandex for my Salamanders where I could field mixed squads of Termies, two flame or melta weapons for my Tac squads, and have my guys go slower than Initiative 4 opponents but faster than I3. Maybe one day I'll write something like that up....

Painting green (especially over black primer) can be quite time-consuming I've found. Do you feel like this has influenced the dislike for painting you've expressed on the podcast?

I've never really found green to be that difficult of a color to paint. Two coats seem to be sufficient when I use a brush. My trick was getting Carl to airbrush most of my force for me. That was a HUGE time saver! I think my dislike of painting derives from not being a very patient person. I'm not very artsy to begin with so sitting in one place for several hours repeating a task over and over isn't relaxing for me. It's actually somewhat stressful. It's just not a part of the hobby that I get pleasure from, but I do appreciate the fact that a painted force adds a lot to the game. If I could afford to pay someone to paint my stuff, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

What other games do you play besides 40k? Do you enjoy the video games? Would you consider starting a new system? (Fantasy, Warmachine, etc)

I mostly play hobby board games and deck-building games, although I've been playing a lot of Magic lately too. I don't play many video games but I had a blast running through Kill Team. If I had a computer that could handle it I would love to try Dawn of War (and the same for a console and Space Marine).

I'm always willing to try playing other systems. I own a bit of Fantasy, but just don't find the game that compelling. I like the fluidity of movement in 40k. It feels more gritty and real to me. Lately I have been looking at Warmachine since my roommates play. I've always been a bit put off by the models though. As the quality of Privateer Press' stuff goes up I'm going to have a harder time staying away from it. I did try Malifaux once and I think that if any game could pull me in it would be that one. I really like a lot of Wyrd's models, but the gameplay seemed a bit too combo driven for my taste.

What do you think GW could do to fix Tyranids?

Ah the poor Bugs! I had really high hopes for this book when it dropped. I'm a strong proponent of 5th Edition 40k and a lot of that has to do with the added dimension of Reserves, Outflanking, and Deep Striking. No force seems to be able to pull these off as completely as the Nids. But a lack of models supporting the new release coupled with some lackluster rules (and an almost crippling FAQ) has meant that I've seen very few six-legged opponents across the table from me. I think that assault grenades on a few key units would go a long way to helping them out. Finding a way to relieve some of the pressure on the Elites slot would be a cool move too. If nearly all of their tank busting power is in Elites rather than Heavy Support, they're going to have a hard time competing in an environment filled with mechanized MSU.

Do you guys run your own tournament or GT?

We don't run any large events right now, and odds are we won't ever commit to doing anything on the scale of a GT. I am about to run a small convention tournament (24 players) this weekend and I'm very excited about it. It has turned out to be more of a challenge than I had originally thought, as I'm not much of a detail oriented person (as I'm sure Carl would attest to). In the future, you may see us do a large gaming day such as a narrative event locally or even perhaps a large campaign...

Watch this blog for the continuation of our interview with Geoff Hummel, co-creator of The Independent Characters!

Steampunk Saturday - KR Multicase Review

2012-02-11T01:31:00.000-05:00

We're debuting a new weekly feature on the blog- Steampunk Saturday! Many of our contributors enjoy Warmachine/Hordes in addition to GW games, and while we've featured articles about the game we've never made it a regular part of the blog. But no more!

For my first Warmahordes post, I wanted to focus on the case I just purchased for my Trollbloods, from KR Multicase. For those who are unfamiliar with Trollbloods, they're a race of heavy-drinkin' tribal blue-skinned dudes who best represent the 'good guys' in Hordes. They're known for being melee powerhouses that can be very hard to kill (ask Muggins about my Trollkin Champions, for example). They're a very synergistic army, relying on buffs from other units or solos. What they're also known for is that nearly the entire army is medium-based or large-based. While that provides some interesting advantages and disadvantages in game, it make transporting them much more difficult.

Why this case?: After exploring my options, I ultimately went with KR Multicase, specifically their Kaiser 2 case. First, I like the idea of soft foam- much easier on paintjobs! Even with multiple layers of sealant, hard foam will scratch eventually. The modular nature of their card cases is super useful as well. I can store armies in different card cases, and just swap them in and out of the bag as needed. In addition, the people over at KR's USA branch were super nice in fielding some emailed questions I had before ordering. Finally, KR have been very generous sponsors of numerous tournaments and painting events, including a painting challenge I took part in at the Something Awful forums. So once I made my decision to go with KR, it was easy enough to select the Kaiser 2 and fill it with their preset foam loadouts. Delivery was super quick, though I'm in the same state as the US branch so I was lucky in that regard.

Exterior: The case itself is sturdy and well-made. The material (canvas?) is the standard type of material you'd see a backpack or softsided case to be made of. There are quite a few zippered compartments of various sizes on the outside, as well as mesh pockets. There's a sturdy handle as well as an adjustable shoulder strap.

Interior: The interior compartment holds two of the modular cardboard cases. The cases can be carried horizontally or vertically. I'll be storing them horizontally to minimize jostling of the minis.

Card cases: These cases are not cheap, flimsy cardboard. They're thick, sturdy stuff that seems to have a waxy coating that would help prevent damage from rain, etc. The interior comes packed with the soft blue foam mentioned in the introduction above. The foam trays can be ordered in all kinds of permutations. Unfortunately, the naming system and website can make it a bit difficult to figure out exactly which trays to get. Luckily, KR provides pre-set foam options when ordering a case. For Trollbloods, two loadouts are suggested. I ordered one of each.

Storage: The pre-cut infantry trays I got (the F3H design), while likely useful for most infantry, are not great for Trollblood models. Most Trollblood models are medium-based, meaning 40mm bases. But the pre-cut tray slots are 32mm wide and 32mm deep. This means the base rims jut out. Not a big deal, particularly if you keep them on the top layer of the case, thanks to the soft foam. More importantly though, the width of the slots means many models just don't fit well. Anything but the most static-posed models tends to be very crammed in:

As you can see, most of the models fit poorly. Three models had arms or shields pop off just in test-fitting them in the foam. Frustrating for sure!

The deeper pluck-foam trays work well for beasts and oddly-shaped infantry models:

Interestingly though, the pluck foam is only cut such that you can remove it in 1x3 or 2x3 sections. There are also lengths of foam running across that are not 'pluckable'. (Is that a word? It is now.)

Neither is a huge deal, but it's also limiting. For example, getting the oddly-shaped Dire Troll bomber to fit meant cutting some of that foam wall down in one of the pluck trays:

You can see the bomber in the bottom tray.

Customer Service: So as you can see, I was somewhat disappointed with the infantry trays. I should note here that the dimensions are available on the website, but are not displayed through the bag-ordering menu. So I didn't do enough research to be sure, but nonetheless the suggested loadouts really didn't seem to work for me. So, I sent an email to KR explaining my disappointment and a suggestion for a different kind of foam to be offered. I got a very nice email back very quickly, and to my surprise was offered replacement foam!

After a bit of discussion, we hit on the J3H pluck foam as being my best bet. While these trays hold less models per tray, they allow the models to fit much better. I got the trays in two days, and the whole process could not have been easier. In addition, they will be looking into offering another pre-set loadout using some of the foam trays I was sent. So the customer service could not have been more excellent!

Picture of the J3H foam:

Conclusion: To wrap this review up, I want to be clear that I think KR Multicase offers a fantastic product. But anyone with an army like mine, such as Hordes Trollbloods or a terminator-heavy 40k army (mmm Draigowing...someday...) should be very careful to find just the right foam solution rather than necessarily using the suggested default loadouts. Their pluck foam is a bit different that I'm used to from say, Battlefoam or Sabol as well so if you have a lot of irregularly shaped models, be ready to break out the hobby knife to get them to fit. Finally, I'd recommend to anyone with a decent-sized army, get at least a Kaiser 3. I'm already filling up a big chunk of the case, though of course with so many medium and large based models this is going to happen much quicker. Still, these are minor concerns overall and I definitely recommend the product. Big thanks to KR for being super helpful! I look forward to using their products in the future.

Fantasy Friday: From the forests of the North!

2012-02-10T16:10:00.001-05:00

I have to piggyback a little on Cerberus' post. I've been working on my fantasy army as well. I painted a test Gor model and my beastlord, and magnetized the entire army. I have to say I'm really liking the look of the models as a whole.

First up is the test gor model. I dipped him, so he might need a little more dullcote. I started with Army Painter human flesh primer color then basecoated all his details. This should make it easy to pump out tons of gors pretty quickly.

The beastlord is the leader of an army, so he needed a huge axe. He also has a tzeentch shield and coloring on his axe. I figure since the beastmen really aren't all that powerful in the Chaos gods' minds that only a certain few will be 'marked'. I chose Tzeentch for this army because I really haven't had an army with blue in it yet.

I added skulls to his base and his weapon and shield. These are Secret Weapon Miniatures skulls. I also gave him a blue loincloth.

I think the dip came out pretty well. Beastmen are basically covered in feces, flies, and fur. The brown dip shows that pretty well. I do have to dullcote him again, I think. I really like his shield - it is a Tzeentch icon from 40k.

I managed to pick up some Gale Force 9 magnetized bases for all of my models out of the bits bin at Gamers Sanctuary. This was a really good deal. Even without the deal, however, I still would have based all the beasts like this. It just works so well as opposed to the method I was using before - putting a rare earth magnet on each base. The bases would fly across the room and smash together and fall off - sometimes even breaking the model!

After that, I put metal sheets in each base. I wasn't looking forward to this as I thought they'd be sharp all the time, but K & S produces some sheets that are easily cut with scissors. They even come in 4x10 sheets which are the perfect size for horde movement trays. I was able to find these at Hobby Lobby for about $1.50 per sheet. It is possible to use rubberized magnet sheets, but I found these to be too weak.

Fantasy Friday: From the jungles of Lustria!

2012-02-10T15:58:00.001-05:00

Painting time has been scarce lately with all the preparations for my little Grot, who is due any day now. However, thanks to the constant encouragement from my little buddy, and youngest Fresh Coaster, Oscar, I did manage to get my test model for my new Lizardmen army painted up.

I love the color orange. It is an under represented color in the Warhammer world. I wanted them to look like the mythical Salamander, a fire lizard. These guys come from the base of one of Lustria's many volcanoes. Orange skin with red scales on their backs, lots of gold decorations, and obsidian weapons compete my scheme.

Of course, I couldn't stop there. I had to put some paint down on one of my favorite models from the Lizardman range (which I picked up half-off from the wonderful folks at Gamers Sanctuary); Kroq-Gar and his faithful carnosaur, Grymloq!

Everything else I have is assembled to a pre-painting stage. I have a Slann and Chakax on the way to add to my battalion box and Ancient Stegadon. Another battalion box, regular Stegadon and some Teradon Riders are on the horizon for later this summer.

As excited as I am about these scaly bad-asses, I must finish my Star Phantoms for this spring. I'm targeting my original 1850 list for the next few weeks.

Captain w/ Power Fist and Combi-Melta
2X Tactical Squads w/ Power Fist, Combi Melta, Melta Gun, and Multi Melta in Drop Pods
Scout Squad w/ 8 Sniper Rifles, Heavy Bolter, and Sgt Tellion
Ironclad Dreadnought w/ 2 Heavy Flamers, 2 Hunter-Killer missiles, and assault launchers in a Drop Pod w/ Locator Beacon
Dreadnought w/ Multi Melta and Missile Launcher in a Drop Pod w/ Locator Beacon
5 Thunder Hammer Terminators in a Land Raider Redeemer w/ Multi Melta and Extra Armor
Devastator squad w/ 2 Heavy Bolters and 2 Plasma Cannons

The Dreads are painted, but not based. Everything but the Land Raider has been base coated. These guys should FLY off my desk as the paint scheme is so easy to complete. Once I get them moving, pics will follow.

Later

Podcaster Spotlight: The Independent Characters - Carl Tuttle (Part Three)

2012-02-09T08:29:00.001-05:00

Today we finish up the conversation with Carl Tuttle, host of The Independent Characters Podcast. Check out their site and join their forums! I think they also have a Facebook.

One thing that seems to be a challenge with any kind of hobby-related blog, podcast, forum, etc. seems to be getting your name out there and promoting. What advice would you give to someone just starting out?
I think there are a couple of things you can do to get your Blog or Podcast some exposure. First, provide a quality product. I think this is the number one thing you can do. And if you keep doing it, people start to take notice.

Second, get yourself out there on various forums, events, etc. Attend gaming conventions, be outgoing and social (a hard thing for some people who play this game admittedly!), and make friends. If these two things occur, before long you will get a larger and larger audience.

I don’t know that there is an easy answer to this. We are actually always looking to extend our reach. We started out by being active on various forums, and actually we paid for some advertising on some well known 40k sites for a period of time. Ultimately most of the people learn of our show by word of mouth.

Obviously articles like EvilEds “This Week in Podcasting” on Bell of Lost Souls (and formerly on From The Warp) can go a ways towards increasing your profile. Heck even this interview may get someone who didn’t previously know about our show to take a listen.

Right now we are focusing on trying to get people who are not familiar with Podcasts in general, to at least give them a try. I strongly feel there is an “untapped market” of people who have either previously listened to poor quality Podcasts or discounted them all as bad, or have never really considered Podcasts as a form of entertainment.

What are a few things that you'd like to get out of the rumored 40k 6th edition this summer?

I would like to streamline wound allocation a bit. That's a somewhat small change. I would like, more than anything, more ways to play the game. By that I mean more than the 3x3 table. A 6x6 or even a 9x9 would make for way more mission types to be played. But deep down I am hoping the changes are a bit more drastic than that. I am wondering if they will make changes to terrain like they did in Fantasy! I would be ok with that!

You seem to be very into Forge World and the items they produce. What has been your favorite model that you have put together, painted, and used?
Wow that is a really tough call. I do have quite a bit and I love my Death Guard plague marines, but I guess I would have to say at this point it is probably my Khorne Demon Prince. I use it as a Summoned Greater Demon for my World Eaters army. But every time I pull him out onto a table in a store or event, he draws a lot of attention. It is just such a beautiful model people are drawn to it.

Your Badab War coverage was something that personally inspired me to start a Mantis Warriors army. You had mentioned previously when you decided on Ultramarines that you had looked at some of the BW chapters... what made you decide to ultimately not start one of those chapters? Will you be doing any BW campaigning any time soon?

Well I was REALLY close to doing a Red Scorpions army. I still wonder if I should have just done it. But in the end I think it was really the color scheme of the Ultramarines that won out there. I was also seriously considering doing a Howling Griffons army. I sometimes still think I should have maybe gone that route. I have seen some really amazing versions of that army… but the problem there is that Forge World doesn’t have any doors for vehicles for the Howling Griffons yet. And as we have just discussed – I am a Forge World addict.

I don’t have any plans to do a Badab War Campaign at the moment. We did just finish a campaign that basically borrowed heavily from the rules of the Badab war Campaign rules. It just allowed people to play any race they wanted. The campaign system described in The Badab War books is truly a lot of fun and you can’t go wrong with it. I found it to be really superior to the Planetary Empires system.

Next up is the Eye of Terror Campaign for us.

Your name is always out there regarding your podcast, Adepticon, gaming, etc. Do you worry about having your somewhat unique name (as opposed to Bill Smith) associated with 40k and all that you do? A lot of people don't understand the hobby. I know personally I've struggled with it before, especially when it comes to work, but I've kinda gotten past that now - what do you think about it?
No. I don’t really worry about it. Look, I’ve played role-playing games since the mid 70s. So I’ve been through all of the “Dungeons and Dragons is Satan Worship” panic that went on in the late 70s and 80s. I long ago came to grips with who I am and what kind of hobbies I enjoy. Whether they are more “socially acceptable” or my relationship with them is “exposed” doesn’t make a difference to me.

I work in a professional environment at a large company, and I am (at least I like to think I am) fairly well respected in my professional life. The majority of my friends also work in the corporate world. We are all pretty open about what our hobby is. It really boils down to your own self confidence. If you are confident in what you do and believe, you don’t feel the need to justify it to other people. If they can’t understand it, well that’s really their problem not mine.

Most of my co-workers actually ask to see pictures of what it is we are doing or like to ask a lot of questions about it. I have never had it become a problem.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell the world?

Well obviously if you haven't listened to The Independent Characters, please give it a try! I really think you will like what you hear. Beyond that, make sure when you are playing, you are having fun! That's the whole point.

Podcaster Spotlight: The Independent Characters - Carl Tuttle (Part Two)

2012-02-08T09:19:00.000-05:00

Today we bring you part two of our interview with Carl Tuttle, host of The Indepedent Characters Podcast. Look for part three tomorrow, then Fantasy Friday to end the week! Next week we will be posting interviews with Geoff and Zach, the other two main hosts of TIC!

Download their current episode here.

What has been your experience lately with Tyranids?

This is a tough one. I have a fully painted Tyranid army, and I often think of going back and fleshing it out a bit and playing it more. I think right now the Tyranids changed drastically from the horde of monsters scrambling towards you, to a really sensitive army to position. If anything I would compare them more to Eldar now, than to the Tyranids of 4th edition. The army really requires you to have the right units, in the right place, at the right time. It's a very tricky army for people to work with at the moment. I really do not have too much trouble beating them currently. Which probably puts me off to playing them. Of course a really good Tyranid player could probably clean my clock. Let's face it - I'm not the best guy when it comes to tactics.

However, I know more about how the game is played now than I did when I was playing my nids. So I could probably use some of that to my advantage and do a bit better than I think I would.

What do you think GW could do to fix Tyranids?

There's too much competition for their elite slots. I think this is the thing that hurts them the most. I also find it really tough to justify putting a Hive Tyrant on the table with no invuln save these days. Which is unfortunate, because I love the idea of the Hive Tyrant. There are just too many missiles out there in newer armies (or dreadnoughts with autocannons) to risk losing such an expensive unit that really has a hard time taking advantage of cover.

Can you tell us about the narrative campaign you have planned?

Well it's actually not a narrative campaign. I found rules for running The Eye of Terror Campaign for your gaming group in some old White Dwarf Magazines I have. I'm really disappointed I wasn't playing 40k at the time this world wide campaign was run by GW. I would love to play in something like that. So when I found these old articles, I thought, "Hey I could run this for my local area!". The rules as written can accommodate about 24 people. So that's going to be my first step. I'm going to run it for about 24 guys (we have a LARGE gaming group to draw from here!) and see how it goes.

Then, there are some changes you can make to the math of the thing to make it viable for larger groups. This would become quite cumbersome for one person to do, so I actually have a friend helping me with the back end to a web site which will allow people to submit their games, and see real time changes to war zones. If the concept works this summer - I think you can expect us to "re-brand" the Eye of Terror Campaign into something of our own devising. I will change up a few of the rules and then the idea is to launch something "world wide" that game clubs and players can take part in. I already have the back story worked out and an area of space in mind for the campaign. It should be a lot of fun I think. I will be sharing more on this on our show in the near future!

Geoff's favorite part about Adepticon?

Anything you'd like to say about the Adepticon coverage you'll be doing this year?

Well it's going to be great for one thing! We had a lot of fun doing it last year. This year we hope the changes we have made are going to help make it easier to tell what is going on, while still allowing us to do commentary and have fun with the whole thing. We've just finished running a drawing/contest for some KR Multicase prizes to help us raise money for this coverage. Our listeners are amazingly generous. So I think they have helped us a tremendous amount to bring this coverage to life. So we really do not want to let them down!

I'm mostly hoping I don't have the technical problems we had last year! I was forced to stay up the entire night troubleshooting the problem. I wonder how much better our previous coverage would have been if I wasn't so exhausted!

Not only are we going to be covering the finals, but we are also going to bring you a lot of interviews and some other special things we have in the works while we are there!

What do you envision for TIC Podcast in the next three years?

Whew! That's a hard question. If I'm being honest, the show has already exceeded our expectations at this point. I would certainly love for the show to continue to gain in popularity. We see a significant upward trend in our downloads month over month. I would love to see that continue. I guess I would like to just ensure that we continue to innovate the show and remain relevant and entertaining! We are trying out some new things this year and we will see how they go over. We really just want to grow with the game. In that sense I am really looking forward to what 6th Edition will bring us.

For the show to continue to grow and do new things though, we will likely need to change up some of the way we work. I think until people really do a Podcast like this, they don't really understand the amount of work that goes into it.

It seems like there are a lot of 40k / minis wargaming podcasts out there, but you have consistently provided one of the most organized / on topic / creative podcasts. What do you think has contributed to your success?

I'm always surprised when people refer to us as a successful Podcast. I'm not really sure how that is measured. I probably measure it in terms of the number of friends I have made through the show. I really have a hard time keeping up with everyone I have made contact with because of it! So in that sense I would say the show is a success.

All of that aside though - I think there are a couple of ways we approached the show that made a huge difference. The first thing is that we came into the Podcast with a plan. We knew what we did and didn't want to do. For example: News? No thanks. Everyone reads Blogs and by the time a bi-weekly Podcast announces news. It's old. Codex Overviews? Nope. Everyone else does them. Take a look at how many Podcasts did "Necron Codex Overviews". I don't think we could really add anything, that hasn't already been talked about there. Tactics? Not really my personal strong suit, and for the most part I personally don't find hours of tactics discussion to be entertaining. There is obviously a market for it, but I am not that market.

So we knew we wanted to not travel the same road everyone else did. But there were obviously a few things we were going to do that were the same. Hobby Progress for example. I actually LOVE listening to people talk about their hobby progress. So this was something that appealed to me to share. Games Played. I don't like to go through them blow by blow - but a nice overview of the game and a memorable moment or two is nice to hear as well (in my opinion anyway).

So we settled on our strengths, which was a friendly, positive environment. So right out of the starting gate we wanted to make people feel "like they were a part of our gaming group". We also wanted to steer away from negativity. That's not to say we wont be critical of products, but we will also talk about what is good about a product as well as bad. This seems to have resonated with people a lot. As I mentioned before, the show has allowed me to make a ton of friends across the country and abroad!

We also were sticklers for being on time with our show. We say every two weeks and we mean it. The occasional episode has slipped but we do everything we can to make sure we meet our deadlines. Shortly after we started, we had played with a couple format ideas. We finally settled on the "theme" for each show. This would usually comprise of the majority of the show. At some point we also kind of morphed into the Podcast that really is willing to branch out and explore playing 40k in different ways. This is something I think we have latched on to.

And then of course, the Imperial Armour and Forge World coverage we do. Honestly, we got lucky with that one. I was such a huge fan of The Siege of Vraks series, I insisted on doing a show about it. Geoff was on board. So we did the whole thing in one show. I wish we had spread it out now! We had an immediate and positive response about it!

What have been some of the biggest challenges that you've faced as a 40k Podcaster?Time is always a challenge. My wife puts up with a lot of my time being taken up by this thing. It really has become a second job. Having to juggle the show, along with my real job (which takes about 60+ hours a week), family obligations (I have a kid as well!), and then my own personal playing and hobby time... doesn't leave me with a lot of free time NOT dedicated to 40k and the show.

Podcaster Spotlight: The Independent Characters - Carl Tuttle (Part One)

2012-02-06T11:18:00.002-05:00

One thing I've been extremely keen on doing with this blog is making sure that hobbyists know all about the different ways they can consume media related to hobby games. This includes YouTube videos, other blogs, forums, and podcasts.

As a commuter (one hour one way) who had to give up my Sirius radio for baby funds, I've latched on to podcasts as a way to keep me entertained and awake while driving. A good podcast will keep you awake; a great podcast will make it seem like you just left work when you get home. The Independent Characters is a great podcast; they are organized, efficient, technically-minded, and on-topic.

This week and next we will be interviewing the three main contributors to The Independent Characters. Today we will start with Carl Tuttle, one of the main co-hosts who started the show. Carl answered my questions with such fervor that he will be our main focus this week. Geoff and Zach will be next week's interviewees!

Check out their website here. Get the latest episode that talks about Narrative Gaming here. I would definitely check out their Imperial Armour Reviews and their Noob Army introductions. They also have a Facebook page!

The man, the myth, the legend

Without further ado, Part 1 of the interview with Carl!

Who are the people who staff your podcast? How did you meet?

There are actually five of us involved in the Podcast - though two of the guys doing some of the work really don't get much attention. Let's start with them.

Adan (Black Sword on our forums) is our forum admin and he does a heck of a job keeping the forums moving, clean and fun. I cannot say enough about how much he helps out there. I met Adan through Zach and he plays up at Endgame in Oakland a lot.

Aaron, or as we call him on the show "Magneto" is helping us keep track of some of our larger undertakings like the Hobby Progress Challenge currently going on. He is always willing to help us out and just make sure things are on the correct path. Aaron and I have known each other for close to ten years or so. We have worked together at several different jobs now.

Geoff

Geoff, as you know was my first co-host. He and I started the Podcast about two years ago. Interestingly enough we met through the 40k Radio forums. At one point we were both Freebootas there (though we aren't any longer). Geoff was moving out to California from Virginia and I told him I would be happy to play some games with him and show him some of the local stores. We hit it off immediately and shortly afterwards decided to start the show.

Zach

Zach, who has joined as our third chair, I met at Pacificon during a tournament. I'm a pretty friendly and outgoing guy and so is Zach, so we hit it off pretty well right away as we discussed each of our armies we had brought there. I think he and a bunch of guys from Endgame were looking for new blood to game with so he invited me to come up to Endgame and play some time. I took him up on it and I have yet to beat him in 40k.

What is your FLGS, and how did you find it? It seems like you guys play a lot at the 'boiler room'. Do you literally have a boiler in your house and that is why it is called that?

I'm really fortunate in this area as there are several game stores to play at all within 30-45 minutes of each other. There is a Games Workshop in Oakridge Mall in San Jose, this is probably the closest store to me though I don't play there often. Game Kastle in Santa Clara is an AMAZING game store with a huge selection and recently they have opened up some more room to play in. Legends in Cupertino is also a pretty friendly game store. But my favorite has to be Endgame in Oakland. This is an amazing store designed by gamers, for gamers. Take a look at their web site and you can see some of the pictures of the place. The layout is amazing, but the game tables, space, and terrain is all top notch!

The Boiler Room!

We play a lot in "The Boiler Room" because I am fortunate enough to have a large room in which I have all of my gaming supplies and two gaming tables. I really prefer this type of atmosphere. Geoff and I often refer to it as "Garage Gaming". Several of our friends have gaming areas set up in their garages as well. We call it The Boiler Room simply because it can become pretty hot out there in the summer here. It's a converted half of a two car garage, which used to be a painting studio. So it isn't insulated the greatest. Interestingly enough, in the winter it can get pretty cold out there. So sometimes we call it The Meat Locker.

As a side note - I am looking for a better name for the room. Something more... 40kish. So if anyone has any great ideas let me know!

What do you look for in a FLGS when you attend?

For me personally, its a comfort level. Places to sit, comfortable temperature, and friendly people. I am a really outgoing guy and so it has to just have the right "vibe" to it for me. I really like a friendly, non-pushy environment. You give me that and I will shop and play there, no problem. That's probably why I avoid playing open games at the GW Store. It just doesn't fit well for me.

Carl in SoCal with the Imperial Vox Cast guys and Josh from Life After The Cover Save. From left to right (Dawson, Tor, Bill, Josh, Carl)

I also really like a store that has a wide variety of terrain. I actually own quite a bit of terrain, so for me to play in a store, it has to have something I really don't have. Obviously location can be a central factor as well. Sometimes a store is more centrally located between friends and thus easier to get to for everyone concerned.

The previously mentioned Endgame in Oakland is a really great example of a game store I love. I just wish it was a bit closer to me! It's about a fifty minute drive from my house to there.

What armies do you play, have you played? What armies are you looking at in the future?

Chaos!

Well I like to think of myself, now, as primarily a Chaos Space Marines player. I played several different armies on the way to this conclusion. I originally picked up Space Marines after everyone in my original group snatched up the armies I was thinking of playing first. Though one guy picked up Tau before I could - so I guess I dodged THAT bullet! (Ed's note: OUCH! Tau4Eva is incensed.) I found the Space Marines interesting but I wasn't as in love with the game at that time as I am now. I remember seeing in an old White Dwarf issue, a picture of Typhus and a bunch of Plague Marines in a city fight. I immediately told my buddy "I want to do THAT army! But all Forge World pieces!".

Tyranids!

However, after I priced it all out, I realized how much cheaper I could buy a huge Tyranid Army (Ed's note: Hi5! Hivemind). So I went that route first and I had an idea of how I wanted to paint them. This was 4th Edition, and I really did enjoy the Tyranid army for awhile. I still want to go back to it at some point. Maybe when the fabled "second wave" of models come out I'll jump back onto it and build out my army there some.

Eventually the timing (ie: Money) was right and I plopped down the cash for a Forge World Death Guard Army. It really was, and remains to this day, my pride and joy. I just love the idea of these fallen angels turned so hideously to Chaos. After I had completed painting that army I was looking around for another project and I decided to go with a World Eaters army. Of course it had to be heavily influenced by Forge World pieces! I love the Forge World stuff!

Now of course, if you listen to the show, you know I have gone back to Marines. Though this time I am painting them to an established Codex Chapter. The Ultramarines.

I'm not sure what the future holds right now. I have a pretty large Space Wolf force that is unpainted. I was thinking of doing a drop pod Space Wolf force at one point, but I am kind of wavering on that right now. I may just sell off that stuff and build up the Ultramarines more. I'm really waiting to see what happens when the new Chaos Space Marine Codex comes out. I think that will determine what way I go with my Chaos army.

Why did you decide to start playing Ultramarines?

So here’s the deal; I don't know about how it is where you guys live. But out here, I hardly see anyone ever play actual Ultramarines. People on the Internet and in game stores like to complain about the XIII Legion a lot. 40k fans call The Ultramarines, Games Workshops Poster boys and then of course there is the movie, which met with a pretty lukewarm reception. (And that's probably being generous.) But the reality is, you don't actually SEE them that often on the table! It also happens to be, in my opinion, one of the great color schemes for Space Marines out there. Blue happens to be my favorite color... so it all kind of fell into place.

While I was trying to decide, I knew I was of course going to use a lot of Forge World components again. So I played around with a couple of ideas. Red Scorpions, Imperial Fists, Howling Griffons... but in the end I decided to go with the Ultramarines and I think they are coming out amazingly well. I am really looking forward to showing my progress with them at Adepticon this year!

How will you be playing using the Codex: Space Marines? Any specific plans for special characters, units you'll use, etc?

Thunder Hammer / Storm Shield Terminators of course! I complain about them all the time when they are used against me - so why WOULDN'T I use them!? They are an amazing unit for their cost. And lets face it - Terminators are cool! People also know that I love Land Raiders - so initially I have a couple of them as well. I tend to build armies that are not geared towards fine tuned winning machines. So my initial foray into these guys is probably not going to win me a lot of games. That's ok. I really just enjoy every aspect of the game, from painting, modelling, and playing - but primarily socializing.

With that said, I really do see this as my "starter force" for the Ultramarines. I plan to expand on them in the years to come! Oh and of course I have to field my Terminator Chaplain - mainly because he is my favorite model in 40k and I'm really pleased with the paint job I pulled off on him.

Look for part two of the interview with Carl Tuttle - co-host of The Independent Characters - later this week!

Fantasy Friday - Bringing the Pain

2012-02-03T01:02:00.002-05:00

As Mike has stated in a prior post, some of our group have recently started Warhammer Fantasy armies. I have had my Dark Elves for over a year, but I am now just getting some real painting started on them. So far, I am still experiencing "new model syndrome". It is nice to take a break from the 40k and Warmachine painting grind and start something new.

Mike and I have a pickup game planned for this weekend. I will be trying out my Dark Elves against his new Beastmen army. I have never played against Beastmen, so I am looking forward to crying "cheese" the first time he pulls out some crazy rule I don't know. Mike has played against my Dark Elves a few times with his Tomb Kings, so he knows what I am bringing. Or does he? I have added a new weapon to my army and am going to use it for the first time. I picked up the "Cauldron of Blood" and got it painted up this week. These "ladies" are here for a blood donation and they aren't bringing juice and cookies.

I did a conversion for the death hag (no relation to my ex-wife) and made it so she is carrying my army's BSB. It is probably my best green stuff job to date. I cut off the blood cup and replaced it with a banner full of Dark Elf bits. I printed up a Dark Elf banner decal on a sheet of Testors decal paper, but I wanted it to dry overnight before trying to apply the transfer.It is a cool option for Dark Elves to hide their BSB in toughness 10 warmachine crew.

Painting the fun models is... well fun. However, I have not forgotten about getting some core models painted. It is a bit of a grind, but it didn't take too long thanks to some nice base coat primer I picked up. I still have a ways to go get my spear men done, but at least my Sorceress has a nice bunker of troops to protect her now. I still need to go through the army and get the bases flocked.

Next up, my Dreadlord really likes dragons. He wants to ride a dragon while he has a miniature dragon on his shoulder. I really want to get started on the resin dragon model I picked up from Gamer's Sanctuary's used mini cabinet. This model is from Ultraforge and is probably the coolest looking mini in the history of forever. I hope I my paint job will do it justice.

Pay Where You Play

2012-02-01T11:42:00.001-05:00

This week has been slow for me; I've been assembling Beastmen for fantasy and reading Badab War books in Imperial Armour 9 and 10. I have also been taking part in a discussion on Reddit talking about FLGS's and how to spend cash there. I've always been a proponent of Pay Where You Play, which is a slogan I heard on the Heroic 28s podcast.

Different Environments
First I will say that I got a little passionate in the Reddit thread. I live very close to what I consider the best FLGS I've ever been to. It is staffed by people who care about the hobby and their business and it shows. The store is clean and bright and well stocked.

This is often not the case, so one has to take that into account when discussing pay where you play on the interwebs. Oftentimes people have an experience with a store that is not so great and so they don't consider it as important. Any discussion of this idea should take this into account.

Warhammer is An Expensive Hobby
No matter how much I rail on GW for raising prices unreasonably, one must always remember that this hobby is expensive. Going into it trying to cut corners at every opportunity may not be the best method of joining the hobby. I think out of our whole playgroup, most of us started 40k / Fantasy / Warmachine AFTER college!

What Does the Store Owe You?
FLGS's should be clean. They should have a nice bathroom that isn't stanked up and stainy. They should have a brightly lit playing area with a plethora of terrain and tabletops. They should stock the main merchandise lines and be open for orders if they don't have it. Staffers should be pleasant and willing to answer questions. It is reasonable to request that miniatures be sold at least at a 10% discount; this provides some incentive to purchase in store, obviously.

What Do You Owe the Store?
If you spend your time there playing games, you should purchase your hobby merchandise there. Buy your Warhammer models there at the very least. This is what the store makes money on, not so much once-a-year purchases like brushes or clippers. Justifying purchasing things online to save money that you can spend in the store every few months is just that: justifying.

If you don't purchase your stuff in store, if everyone purchased from the internets and then walked in to play, pretty soon you'd find yourself playing in someone's cat smell basement.

Considerations
Obviously there are things you can't purchase in store. Bits are something that sometimes have to be found at bits retailers online. Alternative companies sometimes aren't big enough to sell wholesale to stores. Old and out of print models usually aren't available either. I can't say that I've spent all my hobby money in stores; I've purchased things here and there on eBay, but that is a small percentage of my hobby expenditures. I've also sold many models to fund other projects, so I'm not Mr. Moneybags or anything.

Why Not Shop Online?
There are quite a few full-service stores online that will sell you items for a great discount and ship it very fast and very well. These stores have no local buy-in to your area. They won't run tournaments, they won't give you advice on painting, they won't listen to your well-held opinions on the state of the hobby.

Most of all, they won't invite you into their place of business to let you play wargames on their tables with all of their terrain that they built and painted.

Fantasy Friday - Beastmen and Ghorgons Oh Dang

2012-01-27T11:31:00.003-05:00

I posted earlier this week about the new Beastmen army I'm starting (I'll have TK and Beastmen) and all the other happenings locally in regards to fantasy. It is pretty cool getting hobby questions and rules questions for an old fantasy vet!

I've cleaned out my basement, removing a ton of models I haven't used in a while, won't paint, and don't want to learn how to use. I sold some 40k models, some fantasy models, and some Warmachine models. I managed to get enough store credit to purchase two battalion boxes and a ghorgon with another battalion box on order (the price of bestigors - special elite infantry - is ridiculous if you don't buy them in the battalion box).

I already had a list in mind, based off of some things I read on the interwebs. (The Dice Abide is a pretty sweet blog that I just found!)

2000 Pts - Beastmen Roster

Beastlord (1#, 233 pts)
   Beastlord, (General; Primal Fury; Hand Weapon; Shield)
      Armour of Destiny
      Crown of Command

More than a lot of other armies the beastmen rely on their general to provide leadership. Everything is pretty low LD, and he has 9. With Crown of Command he's stubborn, leading a large unit of gors with the BSB. Armour of Destiny will give him a decent save. He's T5 and S5 so he'll be pretty effective in close combat as well.

Wargor (1#, 210 pts)
   Wargor (Battle Standard Bearer), 210 pts (Primal Fury; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield; Battle Standard Bearer; Extra Attack)
      Gnarled Hide
      The Beast Banner

The Wargor BSB also seems pretty necessary. He holds together the lines and provides Primal Fury re-rolls (primal fury gives the unit hatred; on a snake eyes they get frenzy as well). This is huge. He has a 2+ armor save from the scaly skin. Beast Banner gives his unit +1S, so gors with additional hand weapons are re-rolling hits on WS4 with S4. Pretty nasty!

Great Bray-Shaman (1#, 260 pts)
1 Great Bray-Shaman, 260 pts (Primal Fury; Level 4 Upgrade; Hand Weapon)
1 Dispel Scroll

I have no idea what spells he'll take, but I've read that Beasts is not very good. I'd like him to have more items but I'm right up at 2000 pts.

Gor Herd (45#, 385 pts)
44 Gor Herd, 385 pts (Ambush; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)
1 Foe-Render (Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)

Additional hand weapon makes these dudes nasty, and the Beast Banner makes it worse for the enemy. Huge block, probably horded up.

Bestigor Herd (30#, 390 pts)
29 Bestigor Herd, 390 pts (Always Strikes Last; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour)
1 Gouge-Horn (Always Strikes Last; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour)

These guys are the heavy hitters. Great weapons and heavy armor means they're gonna destroy stuff in close combat and go up against monstrous infantry and huge creatures. Hopefully I can get a spell that gives them T5 as well.

Ungor Herd (30#, 165 pts)
29 Ungor Herd, 165 pts (Ambush; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Shield)
1 Halfhorn (Hand Weapon; Shield)

Probably a bunker for my bray shaman. Might break them up into two units to try out ambush. Not really sure what to do with them yet, they're basically humans with primal fury.

Tuskgor Chariot (1#, 80 pts)
   1 Tuskgor Chariot, 80 pts (Primal Fury; Chariot; Swiftstride)
      1 Gor Driver (Spear)
      1 Bestigor Warrior (Always Strikes Last; Great Weapon)
      2 Tuskgor

Fast, heavy hitter. May replace it with a razorgor and get some more items.

Ghorgon (1#, 275 pts)
1 Ghorgon, 275 pts (Beserk Rage; Causes Terror; Frenzy; Immune to Psychology; Large Target; Stubborn; Thunder Stomp)

I've heard this dude isn't that great, but I'd like to try him. Plus the model is amazing. He probably wouldn't be assaulting anything by himself, just supporting with thunderstomps.

Not too much variation in a small list, but it should be interesting to play. The characters are a little more expensive than what I'm used to playing, and there is no shooting, which is weird having played TK for a while. We'll see how it goes!

Fantasy Army ADD

2012-01-25T12:17:00.003-05:00

It has been an interesting winter so far. Cerberus came into some cash by selling off Heroclix crack (it is getting big at Gamers Sanctuary right now!) and purchased a starter Lizardmen army, Dustin started a Skaven army, Brian bought the High Elves from the box set from Dustin (and apparently a large force after that), Tau4Eva was working on painting his Dark Elves and Phil purchased some Brettonians. This was really encouraging to me, a fantasy player from 4th edition (fantasy was really my game - I didn't start 40k until 5th edition, really, although I had models for it).

I was pretty unimpressed with the lackluster Tomb Kings release last year. I like the new models, but it seems like the army doesn't have a ton of options. I'm interested in getting back into them and really trying new things... but I wanted a second fantasy army. In the fall I bought up a bunch of used Empire stuff on eBay and put together an army. I used it a few times. It did what I wanted it to do, shoot a lot. It was fun to play with and the army had the character I wanted it to (the fluff for Empire is so cool).

About that time they released the ghorgon and the cygor for Beastmen. I began looking longingly at beastmen pictures on the internet, seeing all the cool stuff. I will admit, my first model I ever bought was a beastman with a halberd. I split a blister with my brother. We sat in our living room with our one model each, desperately trying to remember the rules from what our friend had told us (we may have had the one page cheat sheets they used to give out). We marched at each other from 8 feet away on the carpeted floor and then killed each other with our one model each.

I really like the look of the Beastmen models. They show a kind of ferocity and difference that makes them truly look like the Children of Chaos. They have so many conversion opportunities with mutations and chaos gifts... so cool.

Dude gives no damns

Our snowblower died (it is a 25 year old hand-me-down from my parents), the baby's room needs to be re-carpeted, and there are other pressing financial needs, so I made the decision to sell off the Empire army. I didn't think I'd ever get the army painted, either, so that was a part of the decision.

My wife and I received some good news, so I didn't have to get rid of the Empire army. My mind was already set on purchasing a small amount of Beastmen though! I couldn't get them out of my head, so I arranged a trade and now Geneguard will be using the Empire army. I'm happy to hand them off to someone I know who will play with them... and now GG has a fantasy army!

I've done some winter cleaning of my models in the basement. I've gotten rid of fantasy and 40k models I'll never use or never paint. I'm in the process of inventorying the models I have for Warmachine that I don't need or won't paint in the near future. Nobody needs to own every Khador unit that exists. I'm using the cash from getting rid of these units to purchase some Beastmen.

I bought a Gor box and put them together as my beastlord, wargor battle standard bearer, and bray shaman. I really like being able to build my own model for characters. Having a simple pewter guy who is the same as every other dude's leader is a little lame to me. I'm looking to have these guys painted within a week, as I like to paint the army's characters first.

I've read through the army book (holy cow there is a lot of fecal discussion) and I'm going to make this army blessed by Tzeentch. The chaos gods don't really care that much about beastmen, so really only the characters will be blessed. I really like how you can give them chaos gifts - basically extra magic items.

Beastlord. You have to keep this dude alive.

Gors. I've since learned that it is best to equip them with extra hand weapons. I'll change that.

Wargor BSB with tzeentch standard.

Overall I'm excited to start this army. Beastmen are considered to be somewhat undepowered but I've got some tricks up my sleeve and I like the way the models look and the fluff portrays them. I'm also super glad that we have so much interest in new fantasy armies in our club.

The Big Game - Post Battle Photos

2012-01-21T21:22:00.001-05:00

We fielded about 60,000 points between both teams. Imperials won 20-1 (objectives are scored during each players turn). It was much closer than the objective points show, though. The xenos players took a huge risk in reserving their entire army at the beginning.

Overall, it was a TON of fun. So many things died... my TL autocannon dread knocked down two flyers! My titan died in a hail of railgun fire. The thunderhawk went down like a baby to a few Eldar flyer shots. Three land raiders raced up the middle and unloaded terminators into the Eldar line. Tyranid monstrosities rampaged through marines...

Please forgive all the unpainted Mantis Warriors. I have about 1/4 of my points painted so far. Bill's Salamanders are 99% painted.

I will say I greatly enjoyed this battle because of the huge field. I think sometimes when I read about military campaigns I imagine these huge battles where thousands of men were moved around, flanks turned, etc. It is nearly impossible to do that in a regular 40k game because troops are so fast and the field so small. In this game I genuinely felt the pressure of holding the left flank and hoping my men didn't collapse. The chapter banner definitely helped in keeping them in the battle!

Click to embiggen:

Turn 1 lineup. Xenos forces reserved their entire army. Salamanders (about 7,000 points) were held in reserve. Mantis Warriors were to prove their loyalty to the emperor!

The center of our line. To the right of the Mantis Warriors the Space Lions, a very elite force, planned to break the enemy line.

Space Lion tanks

The Mantis Warriors move up on the first turn to capture an objective. The Stormraven held the Contemptor and a vanguard vets.

Drop pods drop to the planet and begin to hold key tactical points. Predators move up to hold the midfield.

Salamander drop pods drop down in front of Space Lion tanks.

The Fortress of Redemption is held by the Grey Knights, including a warhound titan.

More midfield shots.

In the bottom of turn 2 the enemy took to the field. The tyranids were being held in bondage by tau wiles.

The eldar also brought a small force onto the board to enable the rest to come through a warpgate.

Tau Tiger Shark!! Huge!!

Tau flyer gives my Stormraven an eskimo kiss. Spent all week painting the raven and it didn't fire a shot, lol.

The thunderhawk came in on turn 3 and started shooting. It was my job to hold the left flank at all costs. Four tyranid hierodules, four flyers, and numerous rail guns pointed at my troops.

Right flank of the imperial forces. The grey knights were unengaged for much of the beginning of the battle but would soon prove their mettle. The Space Lion commander had to be physically restrained by the other Space Marine commanders, such was his vigor for the fight

The warhound titan Impetus Maero held the center.

Whole battlefield shot!

The stormraven used to be here. Lelith landed and killed a ton of dudes

The day is getting long and the Tau decide to make their move.

The two land raiders survived the day! We entered the battle with five and lost one just barely at the end.

The Big Game - Mantis Warriors Stormraven and Master of the Forge

2012-01-20T09:58:00.000-05:00

I had wanted to finish a few more models for The Big Game, so I chose last week to do a Stormraven and my Master of the Forge. I spent this whole week painting these models, which I wasn't expecting.

They were both relatively simple models, and I'm pretty pleased how they came out. The stormraven takes a long time to highlight, and I tried to write something on the cockpit sides that didn't turn out. Those sides will instead have a Maelstrom Warders logo put over them. I have to dullcote over the decals on both models as well.

For Apocalypse, the Master of the Forge will have a servitor retinue and I'll be using the Blood Angel rules for the Stormraven. I reckon at some point regular ole' space marines will be able to use the stormraven as well.

Tons of highlighting on this one! I painted the stripes using painting masking tape.

Each side of the cockpit will receive a maelstrom warders logo.

Thruster scorch detail method thanks @geneguard. I love how that turned out. Mantis Warrior symbol looks really cool too

I love this model - looks so cool. I wanted to go with more of a 'bleached' old dude space marine look on this guy. I wasn't going to attempt the white / black logos, I'm just not that great, so I painted most of the Mars logos mechrite red.

Dude loves grabbin' things.

Mantis Warrior logo on his shoulderpad. Microset has worked really well on this stuff. I varnished him this morning, then he'll be dullcoted and based tonight.

Aaaaand Done!

2012-01-19T17:45:00.000-05:00

Well, almost. I ran out of Elmer's glue for the base, but the model itself is complete. I was really hating the look of it last night after the wash dried. I'm still not thrilled with it, but the highlights on the blue and the decals helped set me at ease. I would still like to highlight the yellow, but I am not sure what color to use.

Unfortunately, this bad boy will have to wait for its debut. Due to my work schedule and the need for some quality time with my wife and son, I have to bow out of the big Apoc game this weekend. Have no fear; it will be very present in the Apoc game to finish out the current campaign we are running at GS.

Next up, the Star Phantoms will get their base coats and my Lizardmen will begin to be assembled.

Later