Bolters, Joysticks, and Warjacks

Still Around

2012-07-12T11:46:00.001-07:00

I'm aware that I have a habit of posting fairly sporadically, but since the last time I posted here, I've run two long Warmachine campaigns, attended weddings, suffered personal injuries and been drunk. Basically, life gets in the way of some the other things we enjoy doing.

But I digress.

At the local game store, we're in the final six days of round three of the War-Torn Alliance campaign season. That's kept me pretty busy, since there's a fair bit of paperwork involved in keeping scores. The fact that I can store the PDF files for the missions and point spreads on my phone does make it a bit easier, though. Thank god. Competition has been pretty stiff this time around, with everyone pushing to try and reach the five game limit for each week. After this round wraps up, I'll have about six weeks of downtime until the final round starts. In that time, I've been requested by the guys to run a Steamroller tourney, and the Colossals book release event. So in reality, there's not going to be any downtime. It's a lot of working being the Press Ganger, but damn if it isn't fun and rewarding when everyone is getting along and competing.

These events aren't the only events I'll be hosting, either. Lucky for the guys, I've got stuff planned for the whole winter, leading through until next spring. Heap and Infernal Contraption v2 are both releasing soon, so there will be demos of those two games (I can't wait for Heap!), I've just discovered that there is an "XGL" league for Grind that I'd like to run, and of course, the release of the IKRPG book soon. I'm in the process of designing a test campaign that has the potential to evolve into something truly awesome, if I can keep up with being a GM on top of everything else. I'm also hoping to have a terrain building contest soon. Lastly, I'll be running Journeyman v2 for the guys, likely in September or so.

Damn. That's a lot of stuff. I wonder if I could list this as volunteer experience on a resume....

Speaking of volunteering and helping the community, that reminds me of another event I'll be running. Yeesh.
If you read Privateer's "No Quarter" magazine, you'll likely know about Foodmachine, organized by the NJ S.O.B.s . We ran a splinter event at Forbes' Hobbies last year, and were acknowledged as the only Canadian event. Granted, we had a despicably small turn out of 6 guys. Regardless, we still managed to gather over 100lbs of food for our local Food Bank. This year, we want to try and get all the stores in the area together, and raise 1000lbs of food. Yes, a lofty goal, indeed, but I'll make it work. That said, I should start making some calls....

More later. Maybe. You know, life.

Learning....

2012-04-12T22:11:00.002-07:00

Its been a busy couple months.

Throughout February and March, I ran a Journeyman League for our local game store, my first attempt at running an organized event. That was a helluva learning experience, for sure.

Initially, I was intending to run the league for our main group, which consisted of about seven players, including myself. I was planning on using it as motivation for our group to get their stuff painted, as our models were all seriously lacking in that department. By the time the League actually started, I had 17 players, including myself! Nearly half of that were new players. Exhilarated, we launched Into it. Problems cropped up early, though.

You see, because it was just going to be our group of experienced players from the outset, I had allowed for custom battlegroups within the allotment of 12 points. That caused some problems with the new players, and I spent a lot time doing damage control from that. Then there is the issue of trying to organize 17 people, and dealing with the inevitable clashes that will occur between 17 different personalities. These clashes ranged from minor disagreements and passive-aggressive behaviour to arguments on Facebook and threats to "take it outside," if you catch my meaning. Eventually, all of these issues were ironed out, due in no small part to my close friends and I spending a lot of time talking and negotiating with the offending parties.

Now, I realize that all of this sounds negative, but in the end, everyone came away from the League satisfied, and with a positive attitude, including myself. I received a lot of feedback from the individuals in our group, and feel that it was a fantastic learning experience that I'll keep in mind when running future events, both gaming related and otherwise.

This weekend sees the beginning of Olgunholt, the second season of Warmachine and Hordes 2012 campaign, War-Torn Alliances. Here's to an exciting and competitive season!

New Year, New Stuff

2012-01-08T22:36:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I've been away for awhile, but that's what happens with the Christmas season. With that finally out of the way, I can get back into normal mode.

We'll start with an update:

In the middle of December, I finally heard back from Privateer Press regarding my application for Press Ganger status that I had applied for last March. I spoke with Will Hungerford briefly on the phone, (a 3 hour difference between here and Seattle), and shortly thereafter was given my status as PG. I'm quite happy about this, as now our LGS will be able to host official events, and maybe even increase the player-base for Warmachine and Hordes in our area. Better yet, the store may finally be able to get in some product. (Forbes' has had an ongoing problem with trying to obtain stock from their distributor, but that's a story for another day.)

I plan on running the Journeyman League around the beginning of February, which will hopefully lead us into the campaign season for 2012. Of course, I'll be throwing in Steamroller tournaments at least once every other month, so that we can start stepping up the competition around the area.

On the painting side of things, not a whole lot has been done, again mostly due to Christmas. My buddies Magus and Damien, however, did get me the Trollbloods warpack and a unit of Scattergunners, and I bought myself Epic Grissel Bloodsong, Marshal of the Kriels. I now have about 30 point of trolls to paint. Actually, that's not true. I have painted Grissel and Madrak.

Madrak Ironhide

I think save the rest of the trolls for the Journeyman league in February though, so that I can gain some points and hopefully badges for painting.

Grissel Bloodsong

In other news, the other day, coming back from my LGS, I was carrying both mine and Magus' stuff back into my place. (Remember, I'm painting Magus' army for him, bit by bit.) Well, it seems that Magus failed to properly secure the latches on his army case, and as I neared my door, it fell open, spilling the entire contents onto the snowy walkway. Great. I had to spend 15 minutes digging about in the snow trying to find all the pieces.Luckily, most of the damage was superficial, with only a few models breaking, and even then only on joins where the glue was weaker. Morale of the story: carry cases flat.

Finally, before I head off to bed, Damien has recently convince me to think about the game Firestorm Armada.Its a cool deep space dog fight game by Spartan Games. As far as getting into games goes, it's fairly cheap, with a starter box running anywhere from $55-$60 that gives you enough to play right away. The rules, while a little contrived, aren't bad. Not sure if you want to buy into the game? That's ok! The rulebook has sheets to photocopy that are representative of three of the starter fleets. That's pretty cool in my books.

As usually happens when starting into a new game, we've been discussing the races/fleets we most like. Damien will be playing the Terran Alliance:

And I'll be playing the Arachnid-ish Relthoza:

That's all for now.

I Hate Zelda.

2011-11-27T20:59:00.001-08:00

Ok, so the title is patently untrue, but that's part of the problem. Since Skyward Sword came out last Sunday, I've had four days where I've had any sort of free time. The majority of said time has been spent on that game. In my four play sessions, I've accumulated 25 hours of play. Do the math. And yes, I know it's sad.

The Devil wears green.

This game is incredibly addictive to me. Given the game-play innovations that have been added to the traditional Zelda formula, this game is too much for me to put down. Add to that the fact that at 25 hours, I'm maybe only half way through the game, and will have more to do after the credits roll, you can probably figure out that my other hobbies have suffered.

Over the past few weeks, I haven't had Magus' minis, since he wanted them back for a bit. So working on my commission hasn't happened. I have managed, however, to get three, that's right, three minis of my own painted. I've finished up Rahn and Sylys, making my first attempts at Object Source Lighting, or OSL. Overall, I'm not exactly happy with the results, but with practice, I hope to improve. I've also finished my Dawnguard Scyir.

OSL is hard.

A little bit about the Sciyr: though I like my yellow scheme, over the past week or so, I began to feel that I didn't want to take the time to paint it anymore, and was looking for a way change up my scheme a bit without alienating models from the rest of the force.My main goal to that end was that I wanted the three sub-factions to be discernible and unique from one another. Initially, I thought about more or less inverting the scheme, with grey armour and yellow clothes, but after a quick test model, I decided that was a bad idea. So after some color brain-storming, I came up with the following: The yellow stays. It might be a pain, but it looks really good. That means that the trim colours for each sub-faction would change, but the grey for clothing would stay. Rahn and his Mages and anything Houseguard, along with the Myrmidons would retain the granite. All the Dawnguard would receive purple for their capes and trim; the mage hunters would receive a dark blue.

Purple is the answer.

I'm hopeful that this will solve my partial exhaustion with my colour scheme while still retaining the feel of a unified force. Epic Eiryss is next on the painting docket, but I think I'm going to take her of the chimney thing she drags around everywhere. For reference:

I hate that gargoyle.

I think I'll have to find a way to satisfactorily cut her from the piece and mount her on one the custom bases that should be coming my this week. The thing is, her cloak is modeled to the wall, so I may have to rebuild it with green stuff... and my modelling skills in that medium are... sub-par, to say the least. I may even just cut her cloak shorter. I'll see what solution feels best then. I'll keep you posted on my progress, maybe take some WIPs.

The End

2011-11-17T21:21:00.001-08:00

I recently picked up a copy of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for Xbox 360, with the goal of playing through the series in chronological order. That means that I start MGS3: Snake Eater.

I've played every game in the series in some capacity or another, but the only two I've beat are Twin Snakes on the Gamecube (which, if you don't know, was a remake of the original MGS for Playstation), and Peace Walker on the PSP. I must say, that MGS3 is the best of the series. Of course, I'm only part way through the game and still have the rest of the series to play, but this game is GREAT. With the HD treatment, I'm hardly even aware that I'm playing a game that's almost 8 years old. The voice acting and cut scenes, while sometimes over the top are awesome. The story is fun, and Snake as one of my favourite video game characters of all time.

The End is near.

Today I reached a part of the game where you have to fight one of the main antagonist's soldiers, know only as, "The End." The End is an old man (like, over 100 years old) that only ever sleeps until it's time to fight. Then he's this agile old man that is a peerless sniper. This lead to probably one of the coolest boss battles I have ever fought. Most boss battles are the of the "run,dodge, fire, dodge, repeat" variety, but not this one. This is a game of sniper versus sniper. You must methodically comb a massive area of forest, using all the tools at Snake's disposal (including thermal goggles, a directional microphone, sniper rifle, and motion sensor, to name a few) to attempt to sneak up on the old man and hit him before he hits you. I spent close to an hour on this fight, looking for his heat signature, tracking his foot-prints, and looking for the flash of sunlight of his sniper scope, in a true test of gaming endurance.

I understand that this sort of boss fight is not for everyone. In fact, the guy who made the YouTube video above hates this fight. I, for one, found it to be an awesome departure from the standard boss fight fare of most video games. Hideo Kojima has been pushing gamers for years with the Metal Gear series, and I hope he continues to do so in the future.

...

Oh, and did you hear that Metal Gear Solid 5 was announced today?

A Work In Progress, Continued

2011-11-17T00:16:00.001-08:00

Insanely tired... So why did I stay up 'til 3am? 'Cuz I'm an idiot, that's why.

...

I spent about 45 minutes painting while watching T.V. tonight, which is equivalent of sitting with the brush in my hand, doing nothing. I did, however, manage to get the Scyir up to his second level colours. Tomorrow, I'll finish him off, save for the bases.

Behold! A picture!

As I'm hosting a tournament this weekend, Magus has taken his stuff home to plan lists. That means I get to paint my own stuff for a few days. Awesome.

...

I'm off to bed.

Painting Mustard

2011-11-15T22:47:00.000-08:00

I've been asked several times now, both in person and in certain forums, how I go about painting the my Retribution Forces. Seeing as how I have nothing better to do at 2am on a Tuesday(Wednesday?) night, I thought I'd post it here.

First, All the yellow is done as follows, all will with Games Workshop paints:

- Over a white basecoat, paint Iyanden Darksun foundation
- Wash with Ogryn Flesh Wash
- Leaving the wash in the recesses, paint with a 2:1 mix of Iyanden Darksun and Bleached Bone
- Leaving the previous layer showing a bit, paint on a 1:1 mix of the same colours
- For highlights, I use a 1:2 mix of the same colours
- For spot/extreme highlights, I use pure Bleached Bone

Anything that's metal:

- Since painting metallics over white is @$$, I paint it with Astronomicon grey to darken it back up.
- I paint a few thin layers of Boltgun Metal
- I wash it fairly heavily with Asurmen Blue Wash
- I then reclaim most of it with more Boltgun Metal
- Another, light wash of Asurmen Blue to smoothen the transition
- Highlight the edges with Mythril Silver

All the Grey Stuff:

- Astronomicon Grey Foundation
-Badab Black Wash
- Astronomicon Grey to reclaim some spots
- Highlight with Codex Grey

The Cloaks/Capes:

- Charadon Granite Foundation
- Devlan mud wash
- Reclaim with Charadon Granite
- Highlight with varying mixes of Charadon Granite and Codex Grey

For spot colours, I tend to use either Hawk Turquoise or Ice Blue. I know purple is the complimentary colour for yellow, but I like blue better.

A Work in Progress

2011-11-14T23:11:00.001-08:00

Just a few words before bed.
I've been keeping up as best I can with the Khador commission, but also painting some of my stuff on the side, so I don't get burnt out from painting either faction. Tonight I painted three more Winter Guard Infantry, including the Standard Bearer, making a total of 10 models ready for the dip. Now I just need a decent day to go outside and play with it. Being the middle of November, I may be hard pressed.

On a side note, I must remember to make sure that all the model are firmly attached to their bases. I've incidents in the past of models breaking in the most terrible way. On top of shattering the model into its component pieces, it tends to make the quick shade settle in a way that makes then final product look haphazard.

Also tonight, I got the base colours and some washes on to my Dawnguard Scyir. I love that model. His pose just screams, "Come at me, bro!"

I've also been working on Adeptis Rahn v.2.0. He's looking good, if I do say so myself. He was the first model I painted for my Retribution force, and I was still finalizing the colour scheme at that point. I thought that since I'm working towards a fully painted force with a decent colour scheme, I owed it to myself and my favourite Warcaster to give him a repaint. At this point, he only needs some highlights along with a small bit of freehand and a decent base.

Finally, I'm quite excited to have ordered a large amount of custom bases from Dragon Forge. I'm hoping these bases will give my force that little something extra and help them stand out. These are all from the "Forgotten Empires" line:

That's all for now. More when I have it.

For Khador!

2011-11-07T17:25:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned earlier, I have worked with the Quick Shade on Khador models before. Just a moment ago I found a picture of how it turned out, so I thought I would share it with you.

What do you think?

Painting

2011-11-07T17:18:00.000-08:00

As per usual, its been three or so months since my last update. That notwithstanding, here's what's been going on for the past little while.

Recently, my friend Magus asked me to paint all of his Khador force. This is quite an undertaking, since he owns something in the range of 70 points. I myself own somewhere in the vicinity of 120 points of Retribution of Scyrah, the majority of which is unpainted. I did agree, however. He has promised me payment, and as a show of good faith, bought me a unit of Dawnguard Invictors.

I spent the better part of 6 hours the other night just painting the man's infantry. In that time, I managed to painted two of the four main colours of the scheme on 18 minis. As I'm a pretty slow painter, I think this is going to take a while. That's ok.
Instead of painting everything to my normal standard, (using washes, highlights, etc) I'll be putting only flat colours on each model and then using the Army Painter Quick Shade, Dark Tone. I've used this stuff on a couple Khador models before, and it works great. Really, its only a matter of getting the flat colours on a high voloume of models.

I don't want to burn myself out on painting Khador, however, so I've decided to alternate between painting Magus' stuff and my stuff. The advantage of doing a job for a friend is being able to do it at my leisure. I hope that the other guys at our FLGS take note of the painting and approach me to do the same for them. I figure if I can make some cash of it, I can support my habit, er, hobby by doing my hobby.

I also started doing a repaint of Adeptis Rahn Shyeel, my personal favourite warcaster, now that I've definitely settled on a colour scheme and improved my skills. I'll get some pictures up at some point.

That One Game

2011-08-29T14:45:00.000-07:00

Out of all the games I've ever played, there's one that sticks in my mind more than any other:

First released in North America in 1993, and ported to numerous consoles through the years, Final Fantasy 3 is the game that truly made me fall in love with video games.

While it might be cliche to say that FF3 is one of the best games ever, there's a reason why cliches come to be. Quite simply, FF3 does nearly everything right.

The game opens up with a story about how, far in the past, a dread force known as "magic" more or less destroyed the world. Now, thousands of years later, the world has begun to rebuild, and high technology reigns. This game is laden everywhere with what I would later learn to be "steam-punk" As an 8 year old, I didn't quite appreciate it, but having gone back and played through the game again rather recently, I'm enthralled with the world you, as the player are placed in.

Keeping in mind that this game is edging in on 20 years, old, the graphics, while extremely dated, are still a joy to look at. Everywhere you turn, some stack is spewing steam or smoke, there's cogs turning in infernal machines, and great suits of steam powered armour piloted by goggle wearing soldiers. And airships. Quite literally a ship with propellers. Its impossible not to become enthralled in such a fantastical and well thought out world.

The story does start out fairly straight-forward for a Japanese style role playing game. You play as a young girl named Terra, who (surprise, surprise!) is suffering from amnesia. As per usual, there's some evil empire that is threatening the realm, and its up to Terra and a group of rebels to bring back peace. The hitch is, Terra can use Magic, something noone else can do, and as such, most of the conflicts in the game center around her abilities. Rather quickly from there, you are forced into many strange and wonderful conflicts, such as the numerous fights with a fast-talking, condescending octopus and a very evil clown.

Developed in a world before widespread voice acting in games, SquareEnix (then SquareSoft) lets the music convey the tone of the story. The score has many themes that have become classics in the gaming community, from the main antagonist, Kefka's theme to the Opera scene, to opening credits. The score is spot-on throughout, haunting and sad at times, playing and silly at others. Other sound effects, such as when casting the spell fire, to swinging swords, are nothing particularly special, again, letting the music do the work.

As this was the third North American release of a Final Fantasy game, (the sixth for Japan), the gameplay is familiar, and old-hat for long time RPG fans. Walk around in towns, talk to NPCs, leave town, fight some monsters, repeat. The battle system followed the same formula as other games in the series, which was to select the commands for each character as their action bar fills up over time, watch the commands play out on screen, then repeat. Square did try to get the player a little bit more involved, though, with special commands such as "Blitz" for the character Sabin. The truth of the matter is that Final Fantasy games are not about exciting gameplay as much as they are about an engaging story-line.

Spanning a storyline of at least 30 hours of play, not to mention the plethora of sidequests and alternate story sequences and secret weapons to search for, it is certainly feasible to spend upwards of 70 hours or more playing through this game.

Released in 1993, this game has been ported to the Playstation, Gameboy Advance, PSP, and most recently the Wii's Virtual Console service. This game is widely recognized as being one of the best games ever made, and if you have never played it, or its simply been a long time since you last picked it up, I would highly suggest immersing yourself in the world of Final Fantasy 3.

Score: 9/10

What have you been painting?

2011-05-07T22:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since I've done an update, and this is going to be a fairly quick one. I've been busy with work and what-not, but have managed to paint one model to completion, and have done quite a bit on another.

I've painted the Magister to completion, save for the flocking on the base, and have brought the Hydra up to about 80%. I have to finish the highlights and the magical glow. I'm discovering that Retribution Warjacks look a little... boring when painted. They're basically just large panels of singular colour. If I had any sort of talent with freehand, I'd paint murals or something on the shoulder pads. Here's some pics:

These actually look better to me in the pictures than they do in person. I need to tidy up some lines on the Hydra, particularly around the wrists. I like how the blue looks on the yellow. Each of the nodes will painted as jewels, as opposed to bolt look they have normally.

Well, I'm rambling too much, so that's enough for me.

Hobby Happenings

2011-03-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

Been a bit of a busy week here for me. I'm working through the tail end of me two week work-marathon. And my cable's out. Nothing new to report really. Mark and I did manage to get out to Forbes and play some Warmachine this weekend. A 15 point game took us nearly two hours, but that's because we basically talked about what we were doing as we were doing it with two store regulars, Caleb and Dustin. Mark ended up winning the game, as I underestimated the assassination powers of Sorscha. I've got two pictures here, and a bit of a mini battle report (a summary, really)

As I said, it was a 15 point game.

My list:

Adeptis Rahn +6

Phoenix 10

Arcanist 1

10 Houseguard Riflemen 8

> Riflemen Officer and Standard 2

Mark's:

Kommander Sorscha +5

Beast 09 11

6 Winter Guard Infantry 4

> Winter Guard Officer and Standard 2

Winter Guard Mortar Crew 3

The table was fairly basic. Some houses around the perimeter with an open center. We both chose to use infantry to show Caleb and Dustin how each part of list works (Caster, 'jacks, solos, and units). Mark won roll off and deployed first. He deployed the guards and mortar crew to my left, hugging a house, I think Sorscha was more or less in the middle, and Beast 09 was in front of her, acting as a shield.

On my side of the table, I deployed my riflemen in front of a house, hoping to take advantage of their long range (14"). I had Rahn and the Phoenix on the right side of the table behind a house.

On first turn, all of Mark's stuff ran up. I'll say this now. Mark has been doing reading or something. It seems like Warmachine just makes sense to him. Aside from the occasional reminder about rules, his list ran like clockwork. Anyway, the guard ran up, with Sorscha and Beast behind. He used her Veil of Mists to provide concealment.

On my side, I fired away with the riflemen, having all but two in range. Due to concealment, I only managed two casualties, but not terrible. Rahn and Phoenix moved up and to the side.

In the next turn, Beast was close enough to charge, thanks to his affinity with Sorscha. He charged the riflemen, but Mark misjudged the distance, and so thresher only accounted for three wounds. Manageable. The riflemen and mortar crew were out of range, and the mortar went wide. Sorscha ran up behind a house on my left, keeping Beast just within control.

On my side, the riflemen backed away from Beast, and towards the guard. The officer delcared ""Whites of their Eyes" and I rolled extra hit dice at them. I got two more wounds. Phoenix was close enough to charge Beast, but Rahn wanted more leverage. The Arcanist power boosted the Phoenix, giving him +2 to melee dmg, and Rahn then TK'd Phoenix into a position in Beast's back arc. Fully charged with focus, the Phoenix rushed in, choosing to go b2b. He did something like 26 damage overall, knocking out Beast's cortex and open fist. Not that the cortex matters, thanks again to his affinity to the Ice Queen.

Next turn, the Bear showed its fangs, and nearly ended the game. Sorscha winded herself around the building, feated, then charged Rahn. I was quite thankful I had left Rahn sitting on three focus, or the game would have been over. She expended all of her focus trying to beat on Rahn, but even at DEF 5, she could get past his ARM 19. Sitting at three health on Rahn, I was in a bad postion. The guard moved up (I had forgotten they had the officer with them. He grants them grapeshot, 8" spray) and grapeshot the HELL out of my riflemen, killing all but two and the standard bearer. The riflemen managed not to panic, though. Beast did the best he could against the Phoenix, but managed only four damage to his shields.

On my side, it was basically do or die, so I had Rahn keep all of his focus. Spending one to shake stationary, he then force blasted Sorscha 4" back, then charged in, and swung and swung, pushing her back at total of 7" over the turn, including the force hammer. When all was said and done, Sorscha was at three health, with nothing in position to provide assistance. The arcanist, being stationary, was just out of range to give the Phoenix a focus, and so Phoenix did negligible damage to Beast, and the Riflemen were a lost cause.

On Mark's turn, Sorscha got back up, and charged in, doing 9 damage to Rahn and ending the game. Victory to the Motherland.

Things I learned:

DON'T underestimate Sorscha's mobility. Seriously, bitch is fast. Also, a review of my tactics later revealed that on my "do or die" turn, what I should have done was popped Rahn's feat, then cast Force Hammer, as that does a STR 12 hit, which would have been boosted, and taken the chance of not pushing her 3" away, which is what I wanted for my charge bonus. I should have played the math. She was likely to be pushed 4", and taken an extra hit. For the extra focus it would have cost me to cast the spell, it would have been worth it, in my opinon. Ah well, live and learn.

A discussion with Mark after the fact had us both agree that the fact that we were talking through the game with the other guys, and answering Dustin's many dithering questions (yeah, the guy gets on my nerves. Caleb's cool, though) had us both forgetting some things, and taking way too long with others. Still, it was good to show off the game.

Mark had to take off after that, but I stuck around. While we had been playing, Caleb had been gluing together his Legion box, and Dustin was proxying the Circle box set... using 40k models. I explained the importance of using Warmachine models, as millimeters make the difference in this game. He didn't seem to get it. I promised he would and let him some models. Over the next two hours, I guided them through a game of Hordes. As it turns out, my time spent gaming against you left me in good standing to teach Hordes. I only had to consult the Hordes book twice, because I forgot about riling and reaving.

I'll say this about Lilith. She's damn mean, and fast. She has Buswack, so she gets to make a full advance before advancing. So, Bushwack, shoot with her bow, which in turn allows her to cast a spell against that target regardless of LOS or RNG, then advance back behind cover. Also, I impressed the two of them with Kaya's mobility using spirit door in conjunction with her feat, which won Dustin the game. They were both satisfied, and were thankful for my non-partisan advice. Also, I'm not going to deny that I got pretty excited watching their game unfold.

Full Steam(punk) Ahead!

2011-03-02T14:29:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been feeling quite motivated on the painting front of things, and have been pushing ahead on my Retribution models, in attempt to get a 25 point list painted up. Over the past two days, I've managed to complete one arcanist, bring the other to about 75%, and get my two Magisters to about 60%. For me, that's a great amount of progress. Here's some pictures:

I'm working over 100 hours over the next two weeks, so my free time is going to be severely limited, but I'm going to try and continue the progress I've been making.

2011, the Year of the Backlog

2011-03-02T12:46:00.000-08:00

I'm certain this is nothing new to you if you're life-long video game fanatic like myself, but I've accumulated one hell of a backlog over the years. You know how it is: you get a shiny new game, and you're completely enthralled with it for a while. Nothing else exists. Then a new game comes out, shinier than the last. The first game gets put aside while you play the new one. "Oh, I'll come back to that one after I beat this new game." But, that never happens, because another game comes out. And another. Its a vicious cycle, one that I've been repeating the better part of twenty years now.

No more. I have officially declared that 2011 is "The Year of the Backlog" for me. I actually took the time to go around my house and find all the games over the last 15-20 years that I've never played all the way through, or have played through and think they need another go. Given my obvious lack of focus on any sort of structure in playing games, I've organised the games alphabetically, but I choose three games at random to play. I keep track of my progress here:

http://backloggery.com/athalos_gallant

Backloggery is a convenient website for me to keep track of my progress.

The three games I'm currently playing through, chosen at random are, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Game Boy), The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (Game Boy Colour), and Dragon Warrior (NES)

I'm nearly done Link's Awakening, and have just started Dragon Warrior. Having never played any of the Dragon Warrior/Quest series before, I'm surprised at how.... grindy this game is. I've spent more time leveling up and earning gold to get new weapons and armour than I have actually playing the story line. Still fun, though.

Ffor your perusal, my entire backlog. Keep in mind, this includes games from every platform, from NES to Xbox360, and everything in between:
A
Advance Wars Days of Ruin
Adventure Island 2
Armored Core Last Raven
Astyanax

B
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Tooie
Batman
Battletoads
Battletoads and Double Dragon
Bionic Commando
Blackthorne
Blaster Master
Brave Story: A New Traveler
Bubble Bobble

C
Castlevania
Castlevania 64 (Legacy of Darkness)
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse
Castlevania 4
Chibi Robo
Chrono Trigger
Cladun
Clash at Demonhead
Cobra Triangle
Comix Zone
Conker’s Bad Fur Day
Contra
Contra 3: The Alien Wars
(Final Fantasy) Crystal Chronicles
Crystalis
Custom Robo

D
(Castlevania) Dawn of Sorrow
Dawn of War 2
Demon Sword
Demon’s Crest
Dissidia
Donkey Kong 64
Double Dragon
Double Dragon 4
Dragon Warrior
Dragon Warrior 2
Dragon Warrior 3
Dragon Warrior 4
Dynamite Headdy

E
Earthbound
Earthworm Jim
(Final Fantasy) 8

F
Faxanadu
Fester’s Quest
(Pokemon) Fire Red
(Final Fantasy) Five
Front Mission

G
Gargoyle’s Quest 2
Ghost’s and Goblins
Gradius
Guardian Legend
Gunstar Heroes
Gunstar Super Heroes

I
Ice Climber
Ikari Warriors
Ironsword

J
Jackal
Jet Force Gemini
Journey to Silius

K
Kickle Cubicle
Kid Icarus
Kid Niki
Klax
Knights in the Nightmare

L
(Castlevania) Legacy of Darkness
Legend of the Ghost Lion
Legend of Zelda
Lifeforce
Link’s Awakening
Link to the Past
Little Big Planet
Little Nemo
Little Samson
Lode Runner
Lost Vikings

M
Magical Quest w/ Mickey Mouse
(Legend of Zelda) Majora’s Mask
Maniac Mansion
Mario Golf 64
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour
Mario Kart Wii
(Legend of Zelda) Master Quest
Mega Man
Mega Man 2
Mega Man 3
Mega Man 4
Mega Man 5
Mega Man 6
Mega Man 7
Mega Man 8
Mega Man 9
Mega Man 10
Mega Man X Collection
Metal Gear
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (Don’t save Meryl)
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Metal Storm
Metroid
Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime 2
Metroid Prime 3
(Super) Metroid
Metroid Fusion
Micro Machines
Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out
(Legend of Zelda) Minish Cap
Mother (Earthbound Zero)
Mother 3

N
Need for Speed Most Wanted
(Final Fantasy) 9
Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos
Ninja Gaiden 3
Nyx Quest

O
Ogre Battle
Ogre Battle 64
(Legend of Zelda) Ocarina of Time
Oracle of Ages (Legend of Zelda)
Oracle of Seasons (Legend of Zelda)

P
Patapon 2
Perfect Dark (360)
Power Blade
Prince of Persia
Prince of Persia Warrior Within
Prince of Persia The Two Thrones

Q
Qix

R
Rad Racer
Ratchet and Clank Size Matters
R.C. Pro-Am
Resident Evil 0
Resident Evil
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 3
Resident Evil Code Veronica
Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 5
Ring King
River City Ransom
Rune Factory Frontier
Rush n’ Attack
Rygar

S
(Pokemon) Sapphire
Secret of Evermore
Secret of Mana
Section Z
Seikun Densetsu
(Final Fantasy) 7
Shadowgate
Shadow Run
Silent Hill Shattered Memories
Sin & Punishment
Skate or Die 2
Snake Rattle n’ Roll
Socom Firestorm Bravo 3
Sonic Mega Collection
Spy Hunter
Star Fox Assault
Star Ocean
Star Tropics
Stinger
Street Fighter 2010 The Final Fight
Super C
Super Mario 64 DS
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels
Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. Wii
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario World
Super Metroid
Super Smash Bros
Sword of Mana
(Castlevania) Symphony of the Night

T
(Final Fantasy) Tactics A2
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
Tales of Phantasia
Tales of Symphonia
(Final Fantasy IV) The After Years
TMNT
TMNT 2
TMN 3
The World Ends With You
(Legend of Zelda) Twilight Princess
(Final Fantasy) Two

U
V
Vectorman
Vectorman 2
Vice: Project Doom
Viewtiful Joe

W
Willow
Winback
(Legend of Zelda) Wind Waker
(Dawn of War) Winter Assault
Wizards and Warriors
X

Y
Yggdra Union
Yoshi’s Island

Z
Zoda’s Revenge: Startropics 2
Zombies Ate My Neighbours
Zombie Nation
All in all, I think that's somewhere around 208 games that I've scheduled myself to play through this year. That's without including any of the other games I'm sure I'll buy. I'll be done somewhere in 2014, I think.

... Not to mention that life has that funny habit of getting in the way. Work, and other hobbies.

Does anyone else out there have a comparable list? Let me know, I'd like to compare.

Moar Paintenz!

2011-02-24T06:04:00.000-08:00

I'm aware it's been a week or two since I updated, but I've been working quite a bit, then I was in Ottawa for five days to visit my brother. I'm back now, so it's back to the painting and general geekdom.

First up, I painted Sorscha to completion before I left for Ottawa. I'm happy with everything except her face. I attempted to line her lips with red to show some make-up. Well, it's not great. It kinda looks like someone set the make-up gun on "whore" before leaving the house to crush Cygnarans. Forgive the quality of picture. That was taken at 5am before I got on the bus to the capital.

Last night I sat for an hour and a bit and painted up the Arcanist for the Retribution. Hey, I can't put all the love in the box sets and ignore my angry Elves, right? He's not done yet, but so far I'm quite eased with how he looks. At this point, it's just highlight and details left. Maybe an hour a most.

I plan on painting up the Juggernaut next, followed by my RoS Magister. I'm trying to paint up the box sets and get a 25 Retribution list finished in the next two weeks. We'll see how that goes. More when I have it.

Seriously, 8 Months?!

2011-02-03T23:46:00.000-08:00

Wow. I mean, just wow. I'm terrible at this blogging thing. Eight months between posts is pretty terrible. Especially since I have a lot of crap rolling around in the ol' noggin that could do with being written... er, typed.

So, anyway, I've been doing a fair bit of hobby stuff over the past couple months. By a fair bit, I mean I painted six or seven models. That's a lot for me. I don't get how some guys can push out an army of 50+ models in a week. It drives me mad.

I've been painting painting Warmachine models for the past couple weeks, because I've decided that I want to rekindle peoples' interest in the game. I figure a good way to do that is to organize official events. To do that, I have to be a "Press Ganger". In order to be one of those, I have to have two painted box sets and a completed application form. I chose to paint up the Cygnar and Khador boxes, since they're both relatively simple models, with small model counts and easy colour schemes. I finished painting the Cygnar box set last night, with basing and everything. I have to say that they look quite sharp, standing together as a group.

Judge for yourself:

I chose not to paint the models with the metallic gold. I feel that is a failing of the Privateer official colour schemes. At least for Cygnar. Two much metallic paint. I instead painted the Warjacks' shoulders and Stryker's armour with Tau Sept Ochre, which I find to be less offensive to my eyes. That's why I never really liked Grey Knights. All metallic colour scheme. Ick.

Next up is to paint Sorscha and her motley crew. I'll admit that I took a bit of a shortcut, and spray primed them red. I'll basically just wash the 'jacks with Baal Red and then some highlights. I'll of course take more time with Sorscha. Warcasters deserve full attention.

Here's where they sit now:

If you're interest in checking out the other WIPs I have going on:

http://s903.photobucket.com/albums/ac231/athalos_gallant/Warmachine%20and%20Hordes/

APoD!

2010-05-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

This week, I worked on Marneus Calgar to the exclusion of all my other models. He's still not even half done

APoD! May 20, 2010

2010-05-20T12:19:00.000-07:00

So, I finally get around to making my update, not because I haven't had time, but because I'm a bum. Anyway, I managed to paint most of my assault squad, stopping only because I got sidetracked by Marneus Calgar. I'll be painting him to 'Eavy Metal standard (or the best I can) before moving onto the next unit. The Sternguard are finished. At this point, with six weeks left to go, I have thirty-five models to paint. A little daunting, but I know I'll get it done.

I love Monster Hunter

2010-05-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

It's true. The title says it all. Capcom has made a game that gives me a unique sense of accomplishment like no other. I found an article on IGN today by Mike Thomsen that pretty much summed it up:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/108/1087446p1.html

Pictures

2010-05-04T23:01:00.000-07:00

As an addition to my post from yesterday, I also did some painting on my Adeptus Rahn model from Warmachine. I'm going to try and upload the pictures from yesterday's post, along with a pic or two of Rahn. Behold:

APoD!

2010-05-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

I figured that I need to do more regular updates on ApoD here it is:

Its the beginning of May, meaning Just under 8 weeks remain in our challenge. At this point, I have 45 models left to paint. That's a little daunting, but given my extra free time now that school is finished, I'm confident I'll make the cut.

I'm pretty much finished the Sternguard unit, not counting the bases, so I thought I'd upload some pictures of them.

First, a picture of the force in its entirety. Then, a pic of the squad, and the front of each individual model, along with any interesting features.

...ok, well, blogger has decided that it doesn't feel like uploading my pictures right now. I'll try again later, likely tomorrow.

Special Characters

2010-05-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

More on my painting methods, now for special characters.

For armour, I paint as recommended in "How to Paint Space Marines":

Basecoat with a mix of Chaos Black and Regal Blue (or straight Necron Abyss Foundation), then layer on a mix of Regal Blue and Ultramarine Blue, then highlight with Ultramarine Blue.

For red cloth, I follow a method that was shown in White Dwarf 361, Feb. 2010:

1. Basecoat the cloak with Scab Red. Shade the area first with a 1:1 mix of Chaos Black and Scab Red, followed by a 3:1 mix of the same colours

2. Begin highlighting the areas with pure Red Gore, before blending up to a 1:1 mix of Red Gore and Blazing Orange

3. Continue to bend the highlights to a 3:1 mix of Blazing Orange and Red Gore. Apply a final highlight of pure Blazing Orange

4. Create a wash using a 1:1 mix of Devlan Mud and Regal Blue; apply this directly into the recesses. Overlay with a wash of pure Regal Blue to finish

For Purity seals and parchment, as in White Dwarf 360, Jan. 2010

Wax part:

1. 1:1 mix of Scab Red and Chaos Black was applied to the purity seals

2. Layer on Scab Red

3. Highlight with Blood Red

4. 2nd highlight with Blazing Orange

5. 3rd highlight : A 1:1 mix of Bazing Orange and Skull White

6. Dot highlight of pure skull white

Scroll Part:

1. Basecoat with Dheneb Stone

2. Two watered down washes, Baal Red, then Devlan Mud

3. Layer on Dheneb Stone.

4. highlight with a 1:1 mix of Dheneb Stone and Skull White

5. final highlight of Skull White, then letter with watered-down Chaos Black

For pretty much everything else, its the same, except with a few extra intermediary colours on some things.

Painting?!

2010-04-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm done school. As in, completely done. Graduation is on June 17. That being the case, I'll now have significantly more time to do the hobby related things I want to do.

Apocalypse Paint or Die! Is passing us by, and most of us have slowed our progress down significantly. None of have quit, but we've slowed down. I, for one, plan on not failing, and will enforce the rules if someone doesn't finish, myself included.

To that end, I thought I should post my methods for painting each piece on my miniatures so that I would have central place to look, should I forget, or someone is curious. I paint things slightly differently depending on if its a normal trooper or a special character. I'll list "Normals" first, then any differences for "Special Characters".

Normal Troops

Armour

Base: Mordian Blue Foundation, washed with blue

2nd Layer: Ultramarines Blue

1st Highlight: 50/50 Ultramarines Blue/Space Wolves Gray, wash with asurmen blue wash

Points highlighted with white.

Anything Red:

Base: Mechrite Red Foundation

Layer on Blood Red

Highlight with Blazing orange, wash with Baal Red

re-highlight with blazing orange

Anything Metal:

Boltgun

Wash with black wash

(sometimes) re-boltgun on raised surfaces

highlight with Mithril Silver

Anything White:

Astronomicon Gray

Skull White

Anything Gold:

Dwarf Bronze

wash with brown

shining gold

(sometime the steps above may be reversed)

highlight with 50/50 mix shing gold/mithril silver

Parchment, Etc

Base with Dheneb Stone

Bleached Bone

50/50 Bleached Bone/Skull White

Skull White

I have some other things to get done right now, so I'll update later with my methods for painting special characters.

APoD! Week 5(?)

2010-02-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

Well, my progress over the past couple weeks has been fairly limited, due in no small part to the release of Mass Effect 2. Between this game and school, my life has been effectively ruled over since Jan. 26. I will however, post below the progress that I had made up to this point. I'm quite happy with how the vehicle portion of my force has turned out, and look forward to painting the troops and completing this challenge.

Feast thine eyes: