Popa Wants a New Pair of Magnetic Shoes!

So I've been flitting about quite a bit lately, I've gone from painting Bloaty to building a Tudor house to putting together a High Elf infantry regiment. What can I say, I guess I'm a bit of a hobby magpie.

So I've gotten a start on painting the Tudor house. I think it'll turn out. I've taken the thatch off and spray based it with Krylon H2O, which is a water based spray paint that won't eat the styrene in the house. Then I've gone and given a starter coat of white mixed with a little raw umber and then painted the posts with raw umber. Here's a look at things so far.

Just so you don't forget this is the effect I'm going for, except it will have a thatched roof.

So, my local gaming community has been having a bit of a 'Golden Age' lately. Everybody seems to be up for something and we seem to be able to commit to and execute projects. In the last few months we've done Battlefleet Gothic, Legends of The Old West and some have even gone on and gotten into Impetus. So I figured with all the good energy going on it was time to jump into something new and get the ball rolling with Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

WHFB was the second wargame I ever played (after Space Marine, the old version of epic 40K) and the first one I ever owned. So this is a bit of a return to my tabletop gaming roots.

The High Elves in particular have always been a big favourite of mine, in fact before my 'Dark Period' (that's what I call my four years in Edmonton) I actually owned a complete High Elf army but I didn't have anyone to play with so I donated it to the lads to sell off for some gaming mats and terrain. So now that I'm back at it the High Elves are the very first thing that popped into my mind, though I did flirt with the idea of playing greenskins for a while.

I always remember from my playing before that the one thing that I hated about WHFB was the stupid minis would continuously fall off the movement trays (if you were lucky enough to have trays at all). So this time around I'm going for magnetic bases and trays.

I got some magnetic sheet at the local craft shop and put two pieces together, then I glued my elves to one side and a thick card movement tray to the other. What do ya know, it seems to have worked! View the results... as they say at Dairy Queen "Upside down, right thick!"

Of course this is a blog about success AND failure...

And again...

There ya' have it kids...

Yours in Service,

The General.

That Time of The Month (or how to get out of the basement)

I live in a place with a small and fragmented gaming community. We don't really have what you would call a good local gaming store. While there are a couple of stores that sell games, none of them really focus on providing a broad selection of miniatures or tables with good playable terrain. So what does a group of lads do when the want to get together as a group and have a tournament or event around gaming?

It's my understanding that it is common practice, in the U.K. in particular, for groups not to have a store to play in so they tend to find other venues. We decided to take a page out of that book to see how it would play out on our cold little rock in the North Atlantic.

The problem with the "rent a space" approach is that we are a small group of about five gamers so there isn't a whole lot of money floating around to go hiring a large space just to play with minis for a few hours. At the same time how do you expect to expand a group if there is no public venue where first timers can come and not feel like they are invading a private club in someones basement?

We had been discussing these issues for a while when JET over at Geektactica came up with the solution. His family has ties to a church in our local area and so he was able to secure a single room in the church for us to rent at a rate that was less than the cost to rent the entire basement. The big benefit of this is that if and when we manage to expand our little club there is more space available in the church when we reach the point where we've outgrown our current setup.

So once a month-ish we get together and have a tournament at the church. It's been working out well so far and we have seen two new people show up so it seems to be working.

As a side benefit we've been rotating the games that we play so we've had a chance to play tournaments in Warmachine and Battlefleet Gothic, and there are plans for a Legends of The Old West day and a board game day. Either way, since we require that minis be painted before they get played it gives a deadline to those people that need a little push to get their hobby on.

So if you don't have a decent local game store and you still want to form an actual gaming community perhaps you should try something like this, it's worked pretty well for us so far.

I Now Officially Own OUTER SPACE!!!!

OK
so first things first, I finally finished of Bloaty. I'd say I'm about
60% pleased with the result. I wish I'd had more patience with the
blending on the skin but I'm quite happy with the slime. I also tried
to make the sludge reservoir look like it was made of glass, I'll give
the effect an "... OK for a first try..."

Here's a few pics, let me know what you think.

...And
in other news... the Trophy Wife decided that she needed to show up all
the other geek-widows out there and made me a space mat to play
Battlefleet Gothic (BFG) on. My local group is planning a bit of a BFG
tournament on Saturday and now I'll have the best looking region of
space in which to kill my opponents.

Oh happy day!

Here's my table in all it's glory... please ignore the pink walls, I'd rather paint minis than walls.

I think it looks pretty good. :)


Yours in Service,

The General.

H.A.D.D. (Hobby Attention Deficit Disorder)

First, some progress on Bloaty. I've painted up the metal bits and the slime and slime reservoir, I'm pretty pleased with how it is working out. I've been thinking that I was going to make the nozel end of the sludge cannon a bone colour but now I'm thinking that won't work so I'll probably switch back to an all metal gun. Overall progress is slow, BUT I HAVE AN EXCUSE! Read on...

So... you may not know this about me but I can sometimes lose focus in matters of hobby. I was working along nicely on Bloaty and I took a break to rest my eyes and my eyes fell on a piece of pink insulation styrene. Now this is a piece of styrene that I've had for about 18 months and I haven't done anything with it since making some hills for my gaming table. But there you have it, for some reason I put down Bloaty and grabbed the the styrene and started thinking...

Since I play mostly Warmachine and I'm starting Warhammer Fantasy Battle(WFB) and I'm getting tired of playing on the old 'forest and hill' table I thought I needed some buildings to shake it up a bit. After some thinking I decided that Tudor style cottages would be the best style since they could be used in both Warmachine and WFB. So I scrounged around on the interwebs and found this pic to use as inspiration. http://www.cavinguk.co.uk/holidays/Margam2007

Away with the paints and out with the foam cutters and hobby knives... So as Jet suggests in his excellent article on making cheap buildings I started with making templates for the building, including a door and window template.

Using the templates above and a bit of cursing and 'field fitting' I managed to knock together this basic steep roofed structure. If anyone is more interested in more details just let me know and I'll do an in depth tutorial on this stage. But suffice it to say, you cut out the styrene using templates, and glue together (using Weldbond glue if you can find it), then realize that you failed to account for the width of the styrene when making the templates and adjust. I used a bit of cereal packet to make the roof.

Now for the dressing...

I've always liked the look of thatched roofs, I just think it adds to the fantasy feel of the buildings. The problem with it is that it is a hell of a lot more difficult to make convincing thatch than it is to make shingles. I cast about a bit and found this article at Wargear Studio on making thatch. I've modified the method a little bit but in general it's the same idea.

I started with a porch mat that I got from a department store, one of those twine embedded in rubber jobbies. Incidentally this is also the stuff that I use to make wheat fields.

Take a pair of needle nose pliers and pull the fibres out in bunches.

While still keeping the 'bundle' of fibre together in the pliers lay it down on a piece of 2" paper packing tape. Repeat this process until you have an entire course laid down. As each course is laid down run a bead of glue along the top two thirds of the last course laid. This bead of glue will soak through the last course and also help bond the course going on. I also use a craft stick to help press the new course down into the glue of the last course, it helps bond the whole works together.

Then all you have to do is attach the thatch to the structure, I've also made the thatch slightly longer than the roof so I can curl the edges around the eves of the roof structure. Glue the thatch down and cut off any excess tape.

Here's what the finished cottage looks like, from the front...

and the back.

To make the sides of the cottage I first cut pieces of craft stick up to look like timbers and glued them onto the styrene. Then fill the gaps with drywall compound, simple really. Again I didn't really take any pics during this step but if anybody is interested I can do a more in depth tutorial on how I worked this out.

All in all I'm very pleased with the look, the materials are cheap and the model is quite durable. Now I just have to finish that damned Bloat Thrall...

Yours in Service,

The General

What I Did On My Summer Vacation: by General Jigger

So I got home about a week ago and I'm just now getting around to giving an update on what's been going on.  Mea Culpa, but hey, it's a busy life.  :)

So the Trophy Wife and I went to Edmonton for a few days and then followed that up with a few days in Vancouver.  It was a great trip and I was able to come away with some new hobby supplies and some toys too.

As some of you may know I live in a small city on an island in the cold North Atlantic.  This means that I really only have access to hobby materials from the interwebs or when I travel off the island, so going to a city where there are multiple hobby and game stores and in a province where there is no provincial sales tax is a bit like heaven for me.  So here's what I got:

I went to Hobby Wholesale (which, for those of you into any hobby, should visit if you get the chance) in Edmonton and picked up The Scenery Manual by Woodland Scenics, a great terrain resource.  It's targeted at the model rail community but hills are hills, water is water, and trees are trees right?

I also went to Mission Fun & Games in Edmonton (well actually St. Albert but close enough) to pick up some board games.  The Trophy Wife has been slowly dipping her toe in the geek pool by playing some hobby games like Pandemic, Settlers of Catan and Carcasonne, so I thought we might go to the store and she could pick one out and I could pick one out.  She chose Lost Cities the board game, and I chose Galaxy Trucker that I've been wanting to try ever since I heard about it on the D6 Generation podcast.  I haven't tried them yet but I'll let you know how they go.
Now I couldn't go to the big city and not tap the Warmachine vein.  I've always loved the Satyxis Raiders but they never seemed to be a practical choice in MKI of Warmachine.  In MKII however I think they are more worth looking at.  So I snapped these up at Comex Hobby.

Now here's the real winner.  I went to The Paint Spot on Whyte Ave in Edmonton and picked up a couple of Winsor & Newton Series 7 paint brushes.  Painting with these things is like sex!  I swear, they are awesome!  They load a good amount of paint and they allow it to flow out nicely, and they keep a phenomenal point.  They are VERY expensive though so if you are just starting out with the painting or if you have a tendency to destroy brushes I'd give them a pass.

And finally here is an update on "Bloaty".  I haven't done much, just a bit of a wash and goring up the wounds.  I'll probably do some more with him today.

What is with the Interwebs?

So I wanted to get some feedback on my last post so I started a thread on one of the larger forums. I was looking for some positive discussion on how to play the Coven as they are in MKII. Now I know what you are thinking, "WTF, start a thread on a forum and expect some positive discussion!?!? This guy is obviously a moron." Well you are right I admit it. For some strange reason I figured that since there was already an entire thread dedicated to bitching about how the Coven has changed and how they need to be changed, I figured it would be interesting to get a perspective on how to play them as they are.

Alas, it is the interwebs, and people don't actually like to read an argument, all they want to do is spray. Sorry if this is a bit of a rant but hey it's my blog. :)

I did get a few interesting responses, but in general (Ha!, get it? in General? Ha! I kill me!) the signal to noise ratio is just way to low.



So if anybody that actually want's to have a discussion about how to play the Coven in MKII as they are, please let me know and we'll figure something out.

Whew, now that I have that out of the way...

I'm working on my Bloat Thrall...

This is just the basecoat of Thrall Flesh, boy is there a lot of flesh on this guy. But the real problem with this guy is his teeeny tiny legs supporting his MASSIVE FAT BODY. There is now way that I could put him together and expect it to last. So I've put a wad of green stuff under his arse and I plan to disguise it with paint and flock to blend it into the base.

I havn't played with this guy in MKII yet but I'm sure I'll find a way to make him work out, especially since K has started playing the High Reclaimer so he has ooodles of infantry. The 5" AOE on this fella' is sure to come in handy.

I just added the last bit in about the Bloat Thrall, so I wouldn't end on a bitchy note.

Yours in service,

The General.

VVV the local game day

So as discussed over on Geektactica we were at a local open gaming day held as a fundraiser for the Diabetes Association. It was a brilliant day, we got there at around noon and played until about Sixish. There were about 30 people in attendance, which is an excellent turnout if you ask me. (Which you probably weren't, but I'm saying anyway)

J and CE and I played Old West for most of the day, K showed up later on in time to get a game of Warmachine in with a guy from another group.

We all pitched in to make the table around 'Assumption' look as good as possible. CE brought a rive, a bridge, some walls, fields and forests. I brought my hills and forests, S brought some walls and fields, while J brought the buildings that make up the heart of our little piece of the Old West.

Here's a few pics of the terrain and the like.






A grand time was had by all, and my Outlaws got a little bit meaner, & a little bit grittier.

It was a sad day too though. George Scranton, elder brother of Willian "Bill" Scranton, was shot through the heart and killed by some no good, dirty rotten bastard Reb. The Sundown Gang will have it's revenge. Below is a portrait of George taken of him just a few hours before his untimely demise at the hands of a coward.

The Kamloopian

So further to my last post regarding playing on a budget...

I was roaming around the interwebs the other day and I discovered this guy. He's a man after my own heart, a little crazy but full of great ideas about how to make great terrain and pretty cheaply. You should check it out, particularly the section about making coniferous trees.

Yours in Service,

The General

Gaming on a Budget or A New Year's Resolution a Month Late

So The Trophy Wife and I have been looking over the books of the last year and it turns out that I don't spend as much money on my hobby as I thought. But that doesn't mean that I can't do a little better. Over 2008 I spent on average $29.83 on geekly pursuits.

In the last year I've been relatively productive but I still haven't been chewing into my backlog of projects. In fact, I think I have more on the "to do" list than I did at the beginning of the year. A great deal of that may have to do with the fact that there has been a bit of a diversification of interest over the last little while in the group. I have built & painted a Warmachine army, a BFG fleet, a Legends of the Old West posse. I have also acquired an Alkemy boxed set, and the beginnings of a Warhammer Fantasy Battle Army; but I digress...

The point is, I think I could probably still have a bunch of fun and spend less than $30 a month. So this year I've decided to spend a paltry $25 a month on my geekery. Now don't get me wrong, I fully expect that I will be off the wagon by mid-year, and I will be enlisting the aid of friends and family to supply me with geek only gifts on my birthday in the event that I'm not; but I'm gonna' give it a go. Gaming on 5/6 of last years budget. I'll let you know how it goes.

Yours in service,

The General

The General Store's Big Fall Sale!!!

Here’s the deal, I have a bunch of Space Marine stuff that I’m never going to get to. So what with the new Codex out people might be looking to beef up their forces or maybe start a new one, and I can help out with that. Everything listed below is partially painted and/or partially assembled. Nothing is so over-painted that it can’t take another coat of primer to start over. There are a bunch of bitz including several special weapons close combat weapons, enough upper bodies to make a couple more squads of Tac marines.

For Sale:

40 Space Marines (4 heavy wpns, 4 special wpns)

6 Assault Marines

2 SM Commanders

1 Techmarine

1 Librarian

1Chaplin

1Rhino

1 Land Raider

1 Land Speeder

1 Razorback

5 Terminators

1 Sanguinary High Priest

1 Dante

A Bunch of Bitz

I’m interested in selling this stuff as a lot, and no reasonable offer will be refused so make me an offer!

Buyer pays shipping. I have more pics if you want to see more. Just leave a comment if you are interested!

I will also take some things in trade and I will trade in your favour; here is a list of what I’m looking for:

Warmachine Books etc

Prime Remix

Gale Force Nine Warmachine Templates

Warmachine (Cryx)

Satyxis Raiders

Sea Witch

Harrower

Bane Knights

Mechanithralls

Bloat Thrall

Seether

Helldiver

Pistol Wraith

Brute Thrall

Where the magic happens

So this is my hobby table. As Han Solo said "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts kid."

New Mat for a New Era!

I finally got fed up with my old GW battle mat this weekend. I went down to Hobby Wholesale in Edmonton and picked up a Woodland Scenics grass mat. It has a vinyl back so it lays perfectly flat on the table top. Unlike the crappy-ass GW mat with the paper back that curls up and tears when you look at it funny.

Another nice thing about the new mat is that it is larger than the GW mat so you can trim it to fit your own table. It is very easy to trim with a pair of scissors. Not only that it costs about half as much as the GW mat.

To GW I say BOOOOooo to your crappy mats.!