Yearly Archives: 2012

GW Goes Digital

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Just spotted that Games Workshop is rolling out digital book releases on iTunes.

This should be a Big Deal.

I know that, as soon as I picked up an iPad, I loaded it up with FAQ PDFs and, as tablets have caught on, other folks at the club have started doing the same.  Doug McN rolls to tournaments with bins of codices for reference, which is a lot of hassle. GW providing electronic reference copies is huge; they turn a 20 lb box that he’s got to wrestle around into a tablet..  And I want those reference copies, legit.

Who am I kidding?  It is a Big Deal.

I’m unhappy with the reality of it, though:

For starters, this is all tightly bound to the Apple ecosystem.  I’ve decided I’m happy living in it, but not everyone is.  If you’re in the Android sphere, at the moment, this does you no good.

Also, it’s tough to find what GW’s actually offering.  I followed the link in the article, which of course runs into iTunes, and I get one Scroll of Binding by Mat Ward and a couple of books that maybe he contributed to?  Clicking through on the Scroll of Binding shows “More by Mat Ward” which turns up the above results.  So, I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to find what GW’s offering digital.  That makes things difficult.  This is probably Apple’s fault, though, since it’s not like iTunes provides all that great a digital shopping experience.

I’m not happy with GW shilling Scrolls of Binding for $1, since I’m pretty sure that’s the sort of content I have a White Dwarf subscription for.  $1 is totally doable (it’s less than a trip to the vending machine at work), but if they’re going to start putting new rules supplements up here, it’s tough to justify the magazine.  (White Dwarf’s value, or lack thereof, as well as its general lack of timeliness has been discussed to death elsewhere.  At least my copy of June’s issue showed up before the product it’s shilling for.)

Most significantly, this:

I get that pricing products digitally vs. physically is not a straightforward, simple equation.  I get that the bulk of the costs in generating a book have little to do with the physicality of the book.  But damn, I’m just not comfortable with paying the same amount for a digital book I don’t exactly-completely own as I would for a physical print book I unambiguously own that I can resell.  (Plus, this is priced at the post-price increase cost, so it currently costs ~$10 more than the print book, which is a particular button for me… but I get that it won’t last, so I can’t let it set me off.  Again: the annual price-increase thing’s been talked to death elsewhere; I have nothing to add.)

eBook pricing is a complicated, nuanced thing.  I get that.  But an eBook priced at 100% of the print book cost, particularly at a >$40 price tag is not something I’m willing to invest in.  This is making me feel pretty bitter.

(Two negative posts effectively in a row?  Crap.  I need to start posting painted mini pics so I can turn things around!)

Capitalism!

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Just a quick note: Casey over at The Hammer Dialectic is helping me facilitate a major RPG book purge.

If’n you’re the sort who might be interested in profiting from my need for shelf space, you should definitely check out his listings!

Rushputin vs. The New Citadel Paints

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That might sound overly confrontational.  I dunno.  It certainly turned out more of a battle than I anticipated.

I started these six Halberdiers I don’t know how long ago.  More than a month ago, at least.  Early April.

The new Citadel Paints had just dropped and, because I’m just starting this army, “buy up as many old paints as you can,” isn’t sustainable enough for me.  So, since I’m going to have to start using them anyway, I did just that.

Yeesh.

I can’t blame the fact that it took me ~six weeks to paint six dudes entirely on the paints: a lot of real-life excitement popped off in late April and early May (though most of it lent itself to painting more and not less)… but option paralysis and result disappointment really annihilated any momentum I managed to develop.

So, here are the dudes.  They’re painted mostly with new GW paints in place of the old GW paints.  P3 paints weren’t changed.  Notes on the original color scheme can be found here.

Significant color changes are:

Was Now
Blue Basecoat – GW Regal Blue
Layer – GW Enchanted Blue
Highlight – Reaper True Blue
Wash – 3:3:2
   GW Asurmen Blue
   Water
   Matte Medium wash		 Basecoat – GW Kantor Blue
Layer – GW Caledor Sky
Highlight – GW Hoeth Blue
Glaze – Guilliman Blue
Yellow Basecoat – GW Iyanden Darksun
Wash – GW Gryphonne Sepia
Layer – GW Iyanden Darksun
Highlight – GW Golden Yellow		 Basecoat – GW XV-88
Basecoat – GW Balor Brown
Wash – 1:1
   GW Cassandora Yellow
   GW Seraphim Sepia
Layer – GW Balor Brown
Layer – GW Zamesi Desert
Highlight – GW Ushabti Bone
Glaze – GW Lamenters Yellow
Skin Basecoat- GW Tallarn Flesh
Layer – GW Elf Flesh
Wash – 3:3:2
   GW Ogryn Flesh
   Water
   Matte Medium wash
Highlight – GW Elf Flesh		 Basecoat – GW Bugman’s Glow
Basecoat – GW Cadian Fleshtone
Layer – Kislev Flesh
Wash – 3:3:2
   GW Reikland Flesh
   Water
   Matte Medium wash
Highlight – GW Kislev Flesh

So, let’s compare the two paint sets.  In each picture, the hapless Halberdier on the left is the old scheme, the one on the right is the new.

The yellow is more vibrant.  We can attribute that, I think, to Lamenters Yellow.  Unfortunately, it’s a hair brighter than I’d like.  Conversely, the blue is more drab…  in the old scheme the blue was matched well with the yellow.  In the new, the blue’s too dark and the yellow’s too bright.

The skin is particularly bothersome: I just cracked caucasian flesh.  The new scheme just isn’t nearly as good.

The bases are edged differently: Calthan Brown on the left, Mournfang Brown on the right.

(Also, what’s up with the red on the blue feather? Sloppy, Rush!)

The new paints are good, mind you.  I like the way they handle.  I like the additional selection.  I’m extremely disappointed in how they compare to the old paints, however.  I know that they (GW, GW employees) have to say they’re equivalent, but they just aren’t.  To suggest that Mournfang Brown is comparable to Bestial Brown (nevermind Calthan Brown, too) is insulting.

(It looks like my standby killer Scorched Brown -> Bestial Brown -> Snakebite Leather -> Devlan Mud combo’s been broken.)

So, anyway, I’m not happy about it.

Some hobby catch-up

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I’ve been keeping myself relatively busy with hobby stuff: painting an endless parade of Halberdiers, wrestling with the new GW paints (which are overall pretty good, but change is dang frustrating), and putting models together.

What I haven’t been keeping up with is photographing that stuff and posting it here.  I haven’t been too bad about getting stuff up on Twitter, but that’s not the same (and it’s never up in time for #MiniatureMonday).  So, here’s a quick catch-up post.

Just over the past couple of days, I knocked out two Great Cannons and a Helblaster Volley Gun.  The crews will follow at some point: they’re extremely low-priority, and I’m hoping inspiration for a scenic base will strike.

Some other club members and I finally got around to splitting a box of Demigryph Knights, which meant I could assemble my fourth.

Just looking at them, it’s clear the Musician’s lance needs to be repositioned; the glue’s already drying.  After I finish the first block of Halberdiers, these guys will probably be next.

Mounted Warrior Priest of Manann

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This guy was going to go in Monday’s hobby catch-up post, but I took enough pictures of him and I’m happy enough with him that he gets his own post.

As soon as I decided to start running Demigryphs, it was immediately clear that I needed to run a Warrior Priest with them.  A bunch of nasty baby gryphons hit hard, but Hatred helps make sure they hit as hard as they possibly can.

I’d converted up a few Warriors Priests of Manann on foot already (here and here), and was very happy with them.  The army has a disconcerting lack of conversions in it, for the most part.

Originally, I thought I’d use a special character’s horse… but it turns out that none of them are appropriate or any different from the basic knight’s horse.  So, I turned to the unassembled mounted General model in my bitz tub.

It’s a bit heavy on the Sigmarite iconography, so I had to do some shaving: removed the “SIGMAR”s (to later replace with painted “MANANN”s, replaced the moon with a trident, some twin-tailed comets with fish, and a twin-tailed comet hammer with an anchor.

I can’t get enough of these Flagellant heads as Priest heads.  These guys look way crazier and more dangerous than the bald Sigmarites.

The only unfortunate thing going on here is the shield.  Doing that Crown of Manann the first time and such was a huge pain and I didn’t feel like going through that again.  Since I’m not likely to need two Warrior Priests on foot any time soon, I just ripped the arm off the linked Priest and reused it here.

Empire, after several games…

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So, I’ve gotten a handful of games in with the Empire at this point: 1-2 a week since the new book came out.

I’m doing okay with it.  (By “okay with it” I really mean “I’ve yet to lose with it,” but it’s not a point I’d like to swagger over, since several games have been learning-the-new-book games, and there was even a teaching game in there.  That’s very different from crawling to the top of the challenge pyramid with it.)

This is basically the list I’ve been running for the past couple of weeks:

Lords
General of the Empire (General) – Armour of Meteoric Iron, Sword of Might
Battle Wizard Lord – Heavens, Lvl 4, Talisman of Preservation

Heroes
Battle Wizard – Shadow, Dispel Scroll
Captain of the Empire (BSB) – Great Weapon, Shield, Armour of Destiny
Master Engineer – Light Armour
Warrior Priest – Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield, Ironcurse Icon, Warrior Bane
– Warhorse, Barding

Core
Halberdiers x33 – Full Command
– Handgunners x10
Halberdiers x32 – Full Command
– Handgunners x10

Special
Demigryph Knights x4 – Full Command, Steel Standard
Great Cannon
Outriders x5 – Champion w/ Brace of Pistols, Musician
Outriders x5 – Champion w/ Brace of Pistols, Musician

Rare
Celestial Hurricanum
Luminark of Hysh
Helblaster Volley Gun

Next time I play, I plan on swapping on of the Demigryph Knights for a Witch Hunter with a Brace of Pistols. I like having an ablative Demigryph, but in combat I’ve found I don’t always get him in to swing, and he makes the unit pretty unwieldy to maneuver (225mm wide).  Conversely, I’ve yet to not yearn for that 4+ (Witch Hunter + Aura of Protection) Ward Save vs. unpleasant magic.

For the most part: the General and the Lvl 1 go in one unit of Halberdiers, the BSB and the Lvl 4 in the other.  The Warrior Priest joins the Demigryphs, and the Engineer (obviously)  hangs out by the Helblaster.  Ideally, I place the Cannon near enough to the Helblaster that the Engineer can go support it if necessary.

I vanguard the Outriders up so they have a good angle to shoot at things until they get charged, stand and shoot, and die.  Halberdiers hold back as long as they can.  The Demigryphs hang out on a flank and either push forward really aggressively or hold back to counter-charge or, at least, disincline my opponent from charging where they might be able to countercharge.

The Hurricanum and Luminark move around enough for the whole army.  I’ve had really good fortune in getting them where they need to be to support whatever needs their support just in time.  Ideally, the enemy pushes towards me: once they’re within 24″ the Handgunners and Helblaster open up.

Heavens has been magnificent.  The debuffs it offers goes a long way to helping out my otherwise mediocre dudes (the Wizard Wagons help a lot, too).  Harmonic Convergence on the Helblaster is, frankly, bullshit. So good.  I need to never not take Miasma on the Shadow Wizard.

The Cannon is a cannon.  I’d love two, but I can’t afford the points.  The Helblaster is soooo good.  In one game I rolled one misfire (that the Engineer rerolled) total.  Well before that, I rolled three 10s.  It’s amazing.

I tried Pistoliers instead of Outriders, thinking that their additional mobility would help with War Machine hunting: they’re cheaper, but for a reason.  The lower BS, the lower range, the lower number of shots really hurt.  I love Outriders, however.  Amazing BS, disgusting rate of fire.  Someone at the store (John) suggested (in the last book, but just as applicable now) taking a Champion with a Brace of Pistols: this means that, when they stand and shoot, they always do so at 12″ from the Champion.  Depending on positioning, this means that at least half of your Outriders should be firing at short range.  This has been amazing.

The two Wizard Wagons are so good, I feel like they’re auto-includes.  I don’t think I can say that one’s better than the other, though: they’re both very useful in different ways.  Halberdiers hitting on 3’s (or, if Miasma’s in effect, 2’s) is really, really nice.  The 6+ Ward save runs hot and cold: sometimes it doesn’t do much, other times, it makes the army (within 6″) invincible.  I hate them, though, because they’re going to be nightmares to paint. :(  If and when you assemble them: magnetize those suckers.  It’ll make transport a lot easier.

Demigryphs are really intimidating.  They hit pretty hard, and I’ve been pleased with them.  Hatred from the Priest is immensely helpful.  If they ever FAQ it so Hatred doesn’t affect mounts, though… I’m going to have to rethink things.

New Empire Draft List

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So, the Empire book came out over the weekend… and I’m not sure I’m entirely pleased with it.  I don’t hate it, but there’s some oddness in it.  I dunno.  It’s definitely going to take a lot of time for me to process.

My list’s definitely going to have to change a fair amount, but I certainly expected that.  I’m extremely thankful that the Halberdiers I’ve built look to be the Right Choice: Spearmen are cheaper, but clearly worse, Swordsmen are better, but not worth their cost.

I’m not going to try to do a unit by unit or even a section by section breakdown, though: I’m sure much better players than me are doing/have done that right now.

The sad truth is that, with the new book, I’m less enthused about knocking together an Empire army.  My initial motivation was that they did everything I did with my Skaven list, only with better Leadership, better shooting, more reliable shooting, better magic defense and more magic options.  Now… that’s not quite as clear.

Anyway, I’ve started noodling through a list.  It’s probably horrible, but I’ve got to start somewhere, right?  Stop judging me!

Lords
General (General) – Shield, Gold Sigil Sword, Ironcurse Icon, White Cloak of Ulric, Gryphon
Battle Wizard Lord Lvl 4 – Light, Talisman of Preservation

Heroes
Battle Wizard Lvl 1 – Metal? Beasts?, Dispel Scroll
Captain (BSB) – Great Weapon, Armour of Meteoric Iron
Warrior Priest – Heavy Armor, Warhorse w/ Barding, Enchanted Shield
Witch Hunter – Ruby Ring of Ruin

Core
Halberdiers x34 – Standard Bearer, Musician
– Handgunners x10
Halberdiers x34 – Standard Bearer, Musician
– Handgunners x10

Special
Demigryph Knights x4 – Full Command, Banner of Eternal Flame
Great Cannon
Great Cannon
Outriders x5 – Champion w/ Brace of Pistols, Musician

Rare
Helstorm Rocket Battery
Luminark of Hysh

Core is two buses of Halberdiers.  I don’t waste points on champions, ’cause they’re going to be character-heavy.  Handgunners are probably not as worth it any more, but I really like the models (and have 30 of them).

I’ve got a block of Demigryph Knights instead of Greatswords.  The models are badass, they’ll be able to counter-charge better, and they cost less (shocking!).

There’s still a unit of Outriders in there.

I’m not in love with any of the Lord choices.  Besides the Wizard Lord, none of the choices feel like they offer enough to justify their cost.  So, to make a General feel worthwhile, I’m bloating him up up with a Gryphon and a few defensive items.

I’m taking a bunch of cheap Heroes, ’cause you can do that.  I like to take a baby Wizard, but I’m not sure what I want to do with him in terms of Lore.  The BSB and the Witch Hunter go in one unit of Halberdiers, Battle Wizard in the other.  Warrior Priest goes on a Barded Steed and rides with the Demigryphs; he’s a different type, so no Look Out, Sir! but I figure the army’s target rich enough to minimize worries about that… and if there’s a unit in here that wants Hatred, this is it.

Effectively four warmachines. Two Great Cannons, might be too much.  We’ll see.  The Rocket Battery (and the Volley Gun) have gotten much better, and I already have one painted, so that’s an easy call.  I think I’d rather have a very accurate, higher strength small template instead of the lower strength mortar.  Finally, the Luminark (and the Hurricanum) are best considered War Machines.

I put enough time & money into the dang Greatswords, but there’s just no room in the list for them.  They cost even more than they did before, and I’d have to replace the Demigryphs and something else to make room for them.

The overall idea is to be obnoxious with the War Machines and force them to come to me.  Try to take their charges with the Halberdiers and counter-charge with the Gryphon or Demigryphs.

Thoughts?

Warpstone Pile – 3 Years Old!

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Image courtesy of TurboPhoto

Today, WarpstonePile’s three years old!

It feels like it’s been a lot longer than that; not sure why.

I suppose I could get into a breakdown of what each year’s looked like in terms of content, and how it’s evolved over the past year… but that’s basically what my Year In Review posts are, and one of those a year is self-indulgent enough.

So, instead, I figured I’d 1) acknowledge the milestone and then 2) actually post (since March has been a bad month for that).

I’d started these guys before the new paints were announced, and I’ve decided to go ahead and finish them.  When they’re done, I’ll have 20 (well, 21) painted Halberdiers… and a decision to make in regards to proceeding with my current paint scheme or picking up some of the new paints and seeing what results I get with those.  I’m early enough in painting this army that it’s not too painful to change my approach.

I don’t expect to have too many problems finding a comparable look with the new paints, but it’s better to evaluate it now, before I get too much further into the army.

Speaking of painting the Empire army: I also need to stop and reevaluate where I’m going when the new book comes out next week.  I’m pretty excited about it, but I’ve no doubt I’m going to have to build to a new list.

Finally, I’ve gotten around to making some progress on replacing the Google Spreadsheet for tracking hobby progress.  The DB’s setup, the interface with the DB’s in place, and I’ve got a charting approach sorted out (using HighCharts).  There’s more charting to be sorted, for sure, and I’ve got to figure out how exactly I want to handle data entry and authentication… but progress is progress.  I come from a .NET background but have Unix hosting, so there’s a lot of relearning how to do things that should be pretty basic, which slows things down but is growth.

More than anything, I’m looking forward to the dust clearing with my job and having enough time to get out and actually play with my toy soldiers.

Shillin’ Like a Villain

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I’m going to take a moment to shill for some friends:

Zpocalypse is a competitive/cooperative zombie survival boardgame some good college friends of mine.  It’s got a Kickstarter that is blowing up: it’s more than doubled its goal and has a month left.  I haven’t had the chance to play it yet (they’re up in Massachusetts and I’m in Northern Virginia), but that will likely change mid-April.  It’s blowing up on BGG, and folks who have had the chance to play it have good things to say about it:

So, if you’re into boardgames, zombies, or both: be aware of the game and check out the Kickstarter.

Speaking of living in Northern Virginia: something I’ve been remiss in noting here* is the DC Geeks blog that (another set of ) some of my friends run.  It’s dedicated to tracking, advertising, and documenting geeky things in the DC/NoVA/MD region.  This ranges from roller derby to video game art exhibitions to LARPing and on.  I’ve tried to keep them hip to local wargaming events, but not methodically or regularly.  I probably should change that.

If you’re nearish to the nation’s capital and are into the sorts of things that would be featured on a blog about geekery in DC, you should check them out.

* Negligence?  Or deliberate snubbing over not being interviewed as the region’s preeminent expert on piles of Warpstone? Jerks.

Madicon

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Last weekend was Madicon the college gaming con (run by SFFG, my college gaming club) I’ve been going to since 1997.  I’ve missed two (thanks to grad school in Texas) since then, so you could say I’ve been a few times.

This year, I passed on playing in any mini tournaments so I’d have more time and flexibility.  I like mini gaming, but even a three-round tournament pretty much eats your entire day.  This was the smart move, since it meant I got to get in a lot of tabletop and board gaming.

Friday

I’ve had a WFRP 2E bug that’s been picking up steam for a bit, and Madicon was a great opportunity to act on it.  I’ve got a larger post to make about what worked and didn’t work with the game (probably not here), but everyone seemed to have a good time and that’s what counts.  I like the system and I’m obviously invested in the setting.  I’ve been steadily picking up the books over the past few months: I still have a few holes in the collection, but it’s mostly complete.

Saturday

I got in a game of Thunderstone (Dragonspire to be precise), which I’d been eyeballing for quite some time.  Although we had some speed issues, I liked the game enough to order the newest core set (Advance: Towers of Ruin).

Then I got pulled into trying the Resident Evil deckbuilding game, which impressed me less.  Different modes of play sound interesting, but I couldn’t get past the abominable graphic design of the thing.  Evocative design is good: design that makes your components that hard to read is terrible.

We got in a few games of Elder Sign, which was fun but so very, very, very hard.  We were crushed thoroughly both times.  I like the game, but I’d advise people to avoid the mobile game which I find to be too unbelievably difficult.

Ended the day with our third annual Madicon Dark Heresy game.  Not much to say about it besides that this image pretty much sums up our party:

Sunday

Didn’t see anything besides a test run of the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game, which I liked a lot.  I think the system did a good job of emulating the source and there are a lot of clever little things built into it.  I hope I see some more of it.