I’ve just updated the template for this sucker. It’s not 100% done, but all that’s left are wonky little text-formatting little things I expect I’ll slowly work my way through.
If something looks especially retarded, please let me know. I hate, hate working with CSS sometimes.
Also, for the hell of it, I’ve added a separate Twitter feed where I can dump thoughts that relate to the blog… but aren’t big enough to actually merit posts. Hopefully, it’ll be useful.
Spent the weekend at Madicon. Ultimately decided against playing in the tournament, such as it was, which was a good decision. Still, had a good time.
Did (finally) get to play a game of Dark Heresy, which was a lot of fun. I think it’ll definitely see some action in my gaming group, which should provide me with the motivation to convert up some cool models to use with it.
I tagged the Bloodcrushers with some varnish Friday morning, so I reached that goal (1750/1850 fully painted before Madicon), but just barely.
I still have the three Daemon Princes that need finishing before Battle for the Cure this Saturday, however. It’s going to be close, but I think I can do it. The flesh, the time consuming part, is pretty much done, so it’s just black and brass and blood left.
I love the minotaur models. These things are great!
I haven’t done one of these in kind of while… mostly because painting the Bloodthirsters was unsatisfying. Haven’t been eager to post pictures of them. Might as well get it over with.
Well, there they are. I’m not especially happy with them: what worked, I think, quite well with the Bloodletters didn’t really come together for this big sucker. I’m on a schedule, though, so done and imperfect is better than not done. When I get around to running multi-god, and I don’t need two ‘Thirsters, I’ll probably do up the FW Khorne Daemon Prince as a Bloodthirster and just run that.
I’m slogging through the Bloodcrushers, which I’m somewhat more pleased with. Progress has been way too slow, however. I’m going to have to power through them tonight to have them done for tomorrow. That’s a week behind schedule, and only leaves a week for the Daemon Princes before Battle for the Cure.
Still, things could be worse. I might actually be able to pull this off.
In other news, I’ve signed up for the NoVA Open.
I’ve been thinking a lot about playing skirmish games with 40K lately.
This is, I think, entirely the fault of Battle Missions. I’ve yet to get in a game of Kill Team myself (in fact, I won’t be able to pick up my copy of the book until this evening), but I’m very excited about giving it a spin. I expect I’ll be able to play a few games at Madicon, for sure.
Sons of Taurus has a pair of KT battle reports that are worth checking out. (They’re also a great example of why I much prefer that format to video battle reports.)
It’s also stirred up a lot of interest on RPG.net’s Other Games Open forum, my primary gaming forum. A number of alternative options for playing with skirmish games with 40K figures have come up, and I thought I’d share them here.
I haven’t played (or really read all the way through) any of these, but I’ve flipped through them all.
Thunderhawk Down requires the 5th Ed rules, but Brutal Conflict and Death Squads appear to be stand-alone. Thunderhawk Down and Brutal Conflict appear to have pretty complete sets of armies, while Death Squads is a little light (with several listed as “Coming Soon!”).
For the heck of it, I threw together a chart comparing armies each game supports:
|
Army
|
System
|
||
|
BC
|
DS
|
TD
|
|
|
13th Company
|
Y
|
||
|
Black Templars
|
Y
|
||
|
Blood Angels
|
Y
|
||
|
Chaos Daemons
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
|
Chaos Marines
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
|
Daemonhunters
|
Y
|
||
|
Dark Angels
|
Y
|
||
|
Dark Eldar
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
|
Eldar
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Imperial Guard
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Kroot Mercs
|
~
|
||
|
Lost and the Damned
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
|
Necrons
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
|
Orks
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
Space Marines
|
Y
|
~
|
Y
|
|
Space Wolves
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
|
Tau Empire
|
Y
|
Y
|
|
|
Tyranids
|
Y
|
||
|
Witch Hunters
|
Y
|
||
GW has posted a FAQ for the Skaven book.
Some things, as usual, were pretty obvious. Some things are silly. (Master Moulders in the front, for example. I’ll give you RAW, but it’s silly.) Some things I like (Unit Strength on a Bonebreaker Rat Ogre is 3(+1). Vindication!)
While poking around this mess called The Internet, I stumbled across Fear and Loathing on the Tabletop‘s collection of understandings his gaming group had come to for War of the Ring. I though I’d mention them here.
A few random things, smushed together into a single post:
I’m officially sick of the Soul Grinder model.
On Tuesday, I noticed that some of the leg blades on one of them had broken off when I’d dropped it a few weeks ago. Uncool! Especially because I’d vacuumed that area just a few days before having this realization. Fortunately, I was able to turn up both blades (which means I must not have done as good a job cleaning as I’d thought I had).
Closer examination of the Soul Grinder legs reveals some chipping, both on the blades that had gone AWOL and some that hadn’t. Ugh. The model’s been painted for less than a month, and already it looks like it’s been ungently used by years by a middle-schooler.
Finally, on bringing them in from gaming, I stabilized the foam tray I’d bought hours before (specifically to protect these stupid models)… and in doing so snapped off another leg.
This is frustrating.
I’ve gotten all of two games in in the past month: too busy with work and painting Daemons. Both games have been against John C.’s Tyranids
I’ve come to the conclusion that, with my mono-god Khorne list, if I see a Tyranid army on the other side of the table, I should shake hands and thank my opponent for the game before we roll for mission.
I’m hope this is a little different with more diverse daemon lists… I’d be surprised if it weren’t. But with all Khorne, it’s too much of an uphill battle. Against Khorne, Tyranids have:
Due to what is almost certainly a combination of the above two points: I have no energy for painting Daemons. I’ve hit burnout point. I’m hoping to just power through the Bloodcrushers over the weekend but… I’m just tired of painting.
That puts me at:
I’m excited about Battle Missions.
I expect many of them will be… meh, but Kill Team looks like fun. I have every expectation that, within the next few months, I’ll have allowed it to seduce me into building a Kommano team.
I think there’s a lot of thinking to be done about Kill Team. How the format will require different sorts of lists. For example, each of my first cut lists have included something like a Klaw or a Powerfist because, you know, that’s just what you do… except there are no hidden Powerfists anymore. That sort of thing.