The Tourette's Wargamer

Delicious Pustules

2011-06-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

My OFCC Nurgle themed Warriors of Chaos army is now painted! I have a few minor finishing touches to do but otherwise it's ready for the tournament.

The list has changed quite a bit since my original post. The primary change being that OFCC chose to go with 2000 point lists rather than the 2500 we had originally assumed.

I dropped the sorcerer as I did not want to take a Lord level wizard and the level two just wasn't worth the points. I prefer the close combat phase anyway so his points just went towards more killiness.

My original idea behind the army was adhering to Nurgle's sacred number as much as possible. Thanks to the aid of my friends Darron and John I was able to meet this beyond what I had even planned. Each unit that can realistically be a multiple of seven is so (when characters are included) and the total number of units is seven! It's glorious!

Here is a pic and the final list:

2000 Pts - Warriors of Chaos Roster - Delicious Pustules

Heretus Scabgrabber, Exalted Hero of Nurgle, 161 pts (Gen; MoN; Sh)
    Chaos Steed
    Warrior Bane
    Favour of the Gods

Argen the Poxed, Exalted Hero of Nurlge BSB, 175 pts (MoN; BSB)
    Charmed Shield
    Talisman of Protection

Excretus Purulence, Exalted Hero of Nugle, 160 pts (MoN; Sh)
    Glaive of Putrefaction

Heretus' Guardians , 6 Chaos Knights of Nurlge, 300 pts (MoN; Mus; Std)

Leprous Invaders, 20 Chaos Warriors of Nurgle, 388 pts (MoN; Mus; Std; Sh)
    Rupturous Standard

Rotted Legionnaires, 20 Chaos Warriors of Nurgle, 368 pts (MoN; Mus; Std; Sh)

Puss Gobblers, 21 Chaos Marauders of Nurgle, 147 pts (MoN; Mus; Std; Flail)

Unwashed Ones, 14 Chaos Marauders, 82 pts (Mus; Std; Flail)

Canker of the Great Father, Chaos Spawn of Nurgle, 85 pts (MoN)

Mar on the Countryside, Chaos Warshrine, 130 pts

Another Goals Update

2011-03-07T09:46:00.000-08:00

I've gotten numerous small items off my goals list.

Got my workbench cleaned up.
My "junk" pile has been gone through, culled and better contained.
I got several more wishlist games added to my collection last month.
Played a few more games in my collection that needed one. This one is going to get tougher and as time goes on I feel more and more that I won't be able to accomplish it. But it's having the needed effect regardless
Started playing in Glen's Traveler adventure which has been fun so far.
I'm not making very good progress on my Nurgle army and that is going to have to change very soon.
I haven't been getting in quite enough gaming with my kids but I'm gonna work on that some more.
I did get most of my game collection rated and commented on BGG though there is still work to do.
I wrote one review for BGG and while I plan to write more I think one a month is a far more reasonable and obtainable goal for me than one a week. Plus I need to rethink how I write reviews as this last one I wrote caused an annoying shit storm of comments that I would rather not have repeated.

One of the problems with my goals is that in some cases they are situational. I knew this was going to happen as the year went on that I was going to become less interested in trying to accomplish some of my goals (such as HOTT armies/basing for my LOTR figs) and others get added. It's odd because while I want to accomplish the goal it does really require me to have enough interest to motivate the actual work. Honestly I think it's why goals have never really worked well for me, my interests are too dynamic. If the goal isn't something I can accomplish within the time frame of that momentary passion then it just get's put off.

Despite this though i think the goals list is still a good idea. It reminds me of the things that I would like to get done "some day" if nothing else. Certainly this year the goal list has done a good job of keeping me more motivated than in the past with my gaming in general if not necessarily with the specific line item goals themselves and that alone makes it a worthy exercise.

WHFB Tournament

2011-02-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

Sunday was our bi-monthly Warhammer Fantasy Battle 8th edition tournament at Ancient Wonders.

It was a three round, Swiss pairing tournament at 1250 points with unique scenarios. We had nine players:

Me: Warriors of Chaos (Nurgle themed)
Jeremy: Warriors of Chaos (Tzeentch themed)
John: Wood Elves
Neil: Orcs & Goblins
Tom: High Elves
Jimmy: Vampire Counts
Josh: Skaven
Josh (Hanz & Franz): Empire
Nick: High Elves (Nippon themed)

Round One
Scenario: Mist shrouded magic woods.
   The entire table was wooded except a single road bisecting the table from player to player. It was also shrouded in a fog which forced a visibility check for each unit each turn of 3xArtillery die. If you rolled a misfire any movement would result in a dangerous terrain check with a wound on a 1-2.

Objective: Have the most units in your opponents deployment zone.

Opponent: Neil, Orcs & Goblins

Result: Tied on scenario points with both of us having two units in each others deployment zone. However I won the game on the tie breaker of victory points having wiped out all of his army except his Trolls (which went off board to score), a Rock Lobba' and a Spear Chukka' having lost only my Marauders (for VP purposes).

Round Two
Scenario: Capture the treasure.
    Each player placed three tokens representing treasure. You had to charge the token to collect the treasure. When collecting a treasure the first time you had to roll to ensure it wasn't booby trapped. Rolling a 1 cased a small template S6 explosion on the unit.

Objective: Player with the most treasure at the end of 8 turns wins.

Opponent: John, Wood Elves

Result: After a lot of beating the crap out of each other I managed to collect all six treasures. It was a real knock down drag out however with John putting in the effort to at least force a draw if he could making the game tense right till the end.

Round Three
Scenario: Kill the opponents banner bearers and general.
   For each banner you collected during the game you got battle points. Bonus points were awarded for the enemy BSB and General if you killed them.

Objective: Get the most banners and kill the enemy BSB and General.

Opponent: Jeremy, Warriors of Chaos (Tzeentch)

Result: Jeremy's army had his BSB and his General in a unit with it's own banner also, representing more potential battle points then he could get from me since I had only four unit banners and my general. While he did kill my general and we traded banners on a pair of other units, me running down this unit at the bottom of turn two represented a loss for him with little hope of even a draw (thanks to the bonus points from the BSB for me).

Tournament Result
1. Me
2. John
3. Jeremy

This was one of the best tournaments I've played in because no one (that I noticed anyway) was a tool.
The scenarios were interesting and made for unique experiences. Oh and also, I won! ;-P

Seriously though this was the first time at a tournament for me where there wasn't a player I was worried about facing. Tournaments have always been hard for me because of dealing with players outside of my normal group. Whenever there are new players that I've never face before at a tournament I get a bit anxious. While I didn't end up facing any of the new players I wouldn't have hesitated to do so as they seemed like decent enough guys. Alas this hasn't always been the case with our tournaments.

The Present and Future of Warhammer Fantasy Battle

2011-02-17T10:23:00.001-08:00

There was a great deal of discussion last night at my FLGS regarding the state and future of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Games Workshops handling of that game.

Currently WHFB is in it's 8th edition which was just released late last year. Since that time we've all been trying to get to grips with the radical changes in the game. Some of the changes we love, some of them we hate. We don't all always agree on what changes are good or bad but for the most part I think our group is on the same page. I plan on writing an article about the rules changes at some point, but beyond even the systems problems themselves lies a greater problem.

Army books. The army books provide the special rules, statistics and points costs for the units that make up that force and it is a necessary part of WHFB.

The problem manifests itself in that GW is very slow about updating these books. In fact several army books are two editions old, written for a game system that is completely different than what is available today. To make matters worse, since the release of 8th edition, not a single army book has been released. We expect to get the first, Orcs & Goblins, sometime in the next month or so. This has been a cause of serious frustration and it's unlikely to end anytime soon.

In years past GW was pretty good about cycling through the different game systems for updates. So one month might see the release of book for their Lord of the Rings system, the next 40k and then next Fantasy and so on. But in the past few years GW has focused more and more on 40k. Worse still, even in 40k there are armies without an updated book for it's current edition (5th), such as Necrons, because GW tends to focus on the most popular army in that game, Space Marines. Since WHFB 8th editions release there has been three releases, all for 40k, and two of them Space Marine related.

Couple this with some of the more drastic (and largely disliked) rules changes in 8th edition and even the most stoic WHFB supporters are jumping ship. The group responsible for Podhammer, a famous (infamous?) podcast dedicated to WHFB, has moved to other games.

This was a topic of discussion for us as well. Personally I have mixed feeling about WHFB. On the one hand I have loved the game for many years. But I've grown tired of the treadmill also. Yet right now, the treadmill is nowhere to be found, at least in terms of army book releases. It's almost worse! At some point though you have to make the decision, keep on with the status quo and be at the mercy of the publisher. Or finally say enough and find a spot that works for your group. I'm hoping that my group does one of two things. Either give up on WHFB as a game system (note not the Warhammer universe) and replace it with a gamer-friendly system such as Armies of Arcana or go back to an edition of WHFB that we all like and already have books for such as 6th or 7th.

Time will tell.

Nightfall at Ancient Wonders

2011-02-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

Monday night board gaming at AW consisted of us playing the stores shiny new promo copy of Nightfall and new deck building game from AEG.

I normally don't do reviews of games I haven't played many times and don't own, but I made an exception in this case. This review was originally posted to Board Game Geek.

While I'm sure I'll end up playing Nightfall again (others in my group like it) I know it won't change my outlook about it.

1. Theme -
If there is one single thing that I can point to that best covers the reason why I don't like this game, theme is it. As I have mentioned in my other reviews, theme is very important to me. Even in cases where the theme is really just a tacked on framework for a Euro math problem it's important because it gives my imagination the seed to work with during game play. I much prefer games with lots of theme (Arkham Horror for example).

This game has a pretty heavy theme and AEG has done a good job of trying to put the cards into that theme. The art is really good. The names and flavor text are only so-so but they get the job done.

But I'm giving the game no stars for theme for one very simple reason. I hate the theme they selected. Vampires? Werewolves? Really? Hoping to tap into the Twilight fad are we AEG?

I hate vampires. Hate them. They are a horrible horror genre. Werewolves are ok but they too have been done to death.

This alone will keep me from ever being interested in playing this game let alone buying it.

2. Components -
The cards seemed to be of good quality (keep in mind that the game I played was using my FLGS' promo copy). The box however was the best part. Very well constructed and best of all small. I'll confess to having something of a box fetish and while I've never had a problem with large game boxes there are times when a box is way larger than it needs to be for no good reason. In this case the box is big enough for the base game with some apparent room for future expansions while still being compact.

3. Rules -
I'm probably being a bit unfair here since I didn't actually read the rules myself. Also given that this was our first game we all knew we were going to get stuff wrong. However several mechanics got messed up multiple times with numerous reads for them and that gave me the impression that the rules were not written well enough to get the point across after the first couple of reads.

To be truly fair though there wasn't anything that really stood out to me as bad about the rules other than the confusion I've mentioned and that could easily be chalked up to the players themselves.

4. Gameplay -
Nightfall has a couple of interesting mechanics and a few that I didn't like.

Setup
Like Dominion, Nightfall has a "village" of cards that you can buy from. But rather than a simple randomizer deck to determine what cards are available the village is partially drafted. Also each player gets to draft two cards whose stacks only they can buy from (with some exceptions). I found this mechanic to be very cool and I think would make a great variant idea for Dominion.

Chaining
Unlike other games of this type, cards come into play via a play chain started by the currently active player. You can play as many cards as you like onto the chain so long as you are meeting the chaining requirements (handled by colored moons on the upper left hand corner of the card). Once everyone has had an opportunity to play onto the chain the cards are then resolved in reverse order.

This mechanic is both interesting and annoying. At first I felt that it had been put into the game simply to set it apart rather than as a good idea. After some play though I can see how it can create some very interesting combos and chaining effects and it certainly is a novel method of getting cards into play. It also helps to keep players involved in the game even when they are not the active player.

But I disliked that the chaining was done using color matching. I personally am only partially color blind and really only have a problem with colors which are too similar. While I had no problem discerning the colors on the cards one of our other regulars Mark is green-red color blind and had a hell of a time with any cards using either of those.
It also meant that you could end up without the chance to play a card onto the chain simply because you lack the color needed to add to the chain. Added to this the player starter decks have only a single color for chaining (all other cards have two) and in some cases you wouldn't want to play any of the cards onto a chain other than your own anyway. This made the game seem very very slow to get moving. To be fair however this was our first game and we were all feeling our way along so this could easily be just a failure of analysis on our parts.

Combat
One of the things that I think is a shortcoming for other deck building games is the lack of direct player interaction as a core mechanic. Nightfall flat out requires you to attack your fellow players if you have creatures in play. But then at the end of your turn all your creatures (again with a few exceptions) get discarded which I found annoying. Creatures are already able to take damage from attacks so the only reason I could think of to force us to discard them was to keep the cards cycling in your deck.

Victory Condition
The winner is the person who took the least wounds from combat during the course of the game. Wounds are tracked using special wound cards that form their own deck and this deck is the game timer. Once all the wound cards are gone the game is over.

What's cool about the wound cards is, while they go into your deck, they aren't a play detriment like Dominions VP cards. Not only can you discard wound cards from your hand to draw additional cards (only at the end of your turn) but you can also trash them from your deck with card effects adding another interesting dynamic.

Conclusion
Nightfall as a deck building game is not bad. It brings some interesting new mechanics to the genre. The card chain and the forced combat mean you will be interacting with your opponents which is something this game type needed.

For me though I just can't get past the theme. I know many others will love it and I would say that if you do like the theme and you like deck building games Nightfall is probably going to be great for you.

Game Room Rearranged

2011-02-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

Well I finally got the rearranging of my game room complete. Here are a few pics:

My new cabinets hold the games better. The old cabinet (large on the right) does better as terrain keeper.

My gaming table.


My Wall O' Minis (Yes I know, most of them aren't painted. blah blah blah)

My desk and new workbench.

Minor Goal Update

2011-02-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

My goal of adding a game from my wishlist to my collection each month has been achieved for February.

Arkham Horror and Defenders of the Realm finally got to me yesterday after a serious delay in delivery due to the huge storm across the country.

Both of these games are also very solo friendly which is a big part of why I ordered them now.

Also I'm nearly complete with rearranging my gaming room. I didn't end up taking pictures of the process because A) I forgot at the beginning and B) pictures of random piles of crap really doesn't make much sense. I will post a picture of the finished room though (as if you'd care).

It's All Mark's Fault

2011-02-10T23:29:00.000-08:00

Mark just had to let me know about the controversy over FFG's license loss with Blizzard. Had he not clued me into the goings on I probably would not have heard about it until after the remaining stock was already gone.

So I gave in to the pressure. The idea that a decent game that I've enjoyed in the past and lamented it's departure from my collection would be going OOP forever was just too much to bear.

So I broke down and purchased World of Warcraft: The Boardgame and the Shadow of War expansion (again). Honestly I'm glad I did it. I just know that sooner or later I would end up wanting the game again enough to try to purchase it only to find that the only copies available are used with asking prices well beyond what I'd be interested in paying.

Now I just need to add the Burning Crusade expansion to my library also.

Thanks a lot Mark, it's all your fault!

Corporate Arrogance and Licensing Tribulations

2011-02-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

So it seems that the license for Warcraft that Fantasy Flight Games had with Blizzard has expired.

Licenses expire all the time and so this isn't a bad thing by itself. But the disturbing repercussions of it are that all trace of the several games FFG did under that license, their expansions, the support files (FAQ's, rules, etc.) and even all community content (forums) have been completely eradicated from FFG's website. This is pretty disheartening.

Whenever there is an information hole around any given topic, people are going to quickly try to fill it on their own, from wild speculation to thoughtful analysis. While honestly there can be any number of possible explanations, the current view that seems to have the most traction is that this was a dick move by Blizzard. I personally believe this to be the case. Blizzard has grown more and more arrogant over the years and that "shit-don't-stink" attitude can easily translate into actions that, from a base line money making business stand point make sense, really are just asshole moves that piss off or otherwise alienate a portion of their customers.

I can completely accept that Blizzard has the right and the might to demand a sizable amount of coin for any license for their 800 pound gorilla WoW. It's practically a license to print money. I wouldn't bat an eye if I found out that the reason the license wasn't renewed with FFG was because Blizzard wanted too much money. It's Blizzards IP and they can ask for however much money they feel it's worth. The loss of the license is really no cause for concern (unless you are a hard core fan boy I guess).

But what possible reason could there be to cause FFG to suddenly erase all trace of the games from their website? It doesn't make any business sense to do so. There are a lot of current and potentially even new owners of the game (as the currently held stock gets sold) who are going to want access to the support documentation, read old threads about the game etc. FFG is pretty good about supporting it's large range of games and so I can't think of a single reason that, of their own accord, they would remove all that content.

So the only other option is that Blizzard made them. But why would Blizzard do that? My theory is that some marketing dipshit decided that, without the renewal with FFG, they were going to shop the license to some other publishers and being the license that it is they probably assume someone is going to pick it up. So why have any internet searches potentially hit FFG rather than the new publisher right?

Let's look at this in a little depth. First, who besides FFG would be interested in and capable of picking up such a lucrative (and expensive) license? Honestly there is only really one company who could and that's Hasbro/WotC. Personally I would lament them getting the license but that's a topic for another day. None of the other major board game publishers are likely to be interested let alone have the capital to purchase such a license. So lets say that for the sake of argument Hasbro picks it up and publishes a few new titles. How would eradicating FFG's content help them at all? The boardgame community is a fairly small one and most everyone is going to know the difference between Hasbro and FFG. It won't be hard to find support for the different games even for people who don't know the difference so forcing FFG to dump so much good content is nothing less than sheer arrogance.

Mark first told me about this last night as he had noticed I had World of Warcraft: The Board Game in my collections (it's actually a previously owned flag as I sold it last year) and mentioned this development to me regarding it. While I occasionally regret having sold the game now I'm really torn about it. On the one hand my reasons for getting rid of it were, at least at the time, good ones. But since then I've occasionally wished I hadn't and had even thought about buying it again. It IS a fun game (at least with the Shadow of War expansion it is). So do I buy it again since it's eventually going to be OOP?

I will say that if I do, it is likely to be the last thing I buy with the Blizzard logo. Unless some information comes out that Blizzard had no part in the content being removed I have to assume they were the catalyst as it's the most likely explanation. I had planned on picking up Diablo III when it comes out but now I'm feeling like giving money to a company whose dickishness has gone this far is out of the question.

Warhammer Night at Ancient Wonders

2011-02-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

Last night was pretty quiet. Two of our regulars, Tom and Neil, were no shows and John was busy being a filthy round baser (40k) in the other room.

Meanwhile Darron and Eric had a game of Uncharted Seas, while Jeremy and I worked on our respective Warriors of Chaos figures.

I did get to watch a little of Mark and Mike, two of our boardgame night regulars, playing a game of Call of Cthulhu LCG which just looks fantastic. I've been eyeballing the Warhammer LCG for some time now and reviews of it have pushed it up my wishlist. I'm hoping to get in a game of the CoC version with Mark at some point. I have no doubt it will be added to my (already overloaded) wishlist.

Goals Update

2011-02-09T11:42:00.000-08:00

I figured a good way to keep up on my goals is to do periodic updates. Right now I'm thinking I will update after the end of each month. I may do additional updates when/if I complete larger scale goals.

So here are the things that I completed or made progress on in January. Note that things I have done nothing with I'm removing for the updates.

General Hobby Stuff

~~Get my new game table mats cut to size~~ - DONE
NEW: I got a taller, rolling workbench and some cabinets from my parents who are moving and so I'm going to be rearranging my gaming room to utilize these new items (hopefully). I plan on photographing this process for posting here.

General Gaming

Get in at least one board game and one table top miniature game a week with my son Jackson.

I've gotten in several board games with Jackson but this past week marked the first time we would have been able to get a miniatures game in (now that my table mats have been cut to size). We were going to get in a game yesterday but it didn't work out. This week I think we will cover both.

More solo gaming to fill the void

This has actually been working out pretty well. I've played several solo games of Labyrinth and Runebound and I have Arkham Horror and Defenders of the Realm on their way to me which will mean even more solo play.

Work with George to build a BGG guild for Ancient Wonders

The guild has been created and is simply waiting on a Geek Mod to approve it.

Roleplaying

Participate in Glen's Traveler and Pathfinder games.

This should be happening here very soon. I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully the groups will not be full of power gamers like in the past. Why do so many people get into roleplaying and only care about the math in the books? It's called ROLE PLAYING for a reason.

Keep up with WFRP 3rd ed. releases.

This is going to be tough this year. With the release of the base line books as an alternate product to the main box starter set there is a whole slew of products out of the gate. Right now I'm going to hold off on the new Player and Game Master Guides & Vaults and get only the Creature Guide, Creature Vault and The Witch's Song adventure pack. I will pick up the other guides and vaults eventually, if for no other reason than to have enough components for larger groups and the convenience of the hard back guides.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Finish basing my Nurgle Warriors of Chaos, get them primed and start painting.

This is going fairly slowly. As mentioned above, I've gotten a new workbench and some new cabinets and so my game room is going to be rearranged which will push this back some more.

Board Gaming

Get at least one play in this year for each game I own.

This is going really well with 16 different games played from my collection in January. There will be games that will be a serious challenge to get a play in but even if I don't manage to do so for every game in my collection, trying to do it is the worthy part.

Track my plays on BGG in depth.

This is also going pretty well. I don't think I've missed one in the past several weeks. I am not bothering with play length right now and I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not. Time will tell.

Rate and comment on every game in my collection.

Slow going here. I do want to get this done however as I want it complete so I can take on the next goal which I'm adding:

NEW: Write a review for every game in my collection, with one created each week.

I have reviews written for four of my games already and have started to establish a format. However I will be adjusting as time goes on to try to find the sweet spot for my reviews in terms of content and length.

Add at least one game from my wishlist to my collection each month.

I managed to add several wishlist games to my collection in January and already have three added in February also.

Make it to board game night at Ancient Wonders at least once a month.

So far so good. Made it to one in January and I'm going tonight so February is covered. Honestly I enjoy gaming at AW generally speaking and it would be very easy for me to commit to a majority of times if it weren't for the drive. It's about a 45 minute drive (without traffic) one way and so it can be a bit frustrating sometimes. Usually if I'm not going this is the reason why.

That's the update so far. As I said I will do a new update at the beginning of each month to recap my progress in the prior month. Also if I do anything major goal wise I will post more frequently.

Board Game Night at Ancient Wonders

2011-02-08T07:49:00.000-08:00

Had another great night at my FLGS last night. The usual suspects were there and we ended up playing 7 Wonders multiple times. I even won one round!

Alas I had to leave after our third game just as everyone else was setting up for Dixit, a game I would really love to try someday.

Ever wonder why so few women are into gaming?

2011-02-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

How many of you have seen the following:

Setting; your FLGS on any given day.

The Cast; A store full of gamers, all male, rambling on about their favorite geeky hobby.

The Catalyst; A woman enters.

The Event; A gaggle of love sick nerds fall all over themselves to keep her in line of sight while simultaneously trying to act like it's no big deal.

Seriously, if anything with breasts walks through the front door of my FLGS I would say at least half of the population start acting like she's the one they've been waiting for.

Now in and of itself this isn't that big of a deal. I'm sure it happens all over the place in a variety of situations and I don't blame them per se. But then there are the ones who take it just a tad too far.

This past Saturday my FLGS had an Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer event that included handing out a really cool promo card. One pair of the participants to this event were a husband and wife.

The wife, we'll call her Marsha, was an attractive middle age woman who was very nice and a fun opponent (I played her in the first and last rounds of the event). She did, however have one particular endowment that ensured she would be oogled by every man and boy that had the chance, she had enormous breasts. I mean huge. And she wore a rather tight, white, some-what low cut shirt. Nothing really ostentatious, just something that called a little more attention to her chest than she probably realised.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a boob man, just ask my wife. But I also try to be a gentleman. Sure I'll notice, I may even stare from time to time (though generally this is just reflex IMO). But I still try to be a gentleman. Particularly when I'm engaged in conversation or activity with the woman in question. When playing against her I tried to make sure I was focused on the cards in play or in my hand. There was the occasional stray (I'm a man remember?) but I really tried not to embarrass myself or her. Particularly for the second game where my son was also playing.

Ah, if only gentlemanly behaviour were more universal. You see there was another person in the game room with us, we'll call him Al the Dinosaur Man (it's an inside joke). Now Al walked in, sat down at the table adjacent to ours and then immediately recognized a member of the opposite sex. But since he had the same orientation as her he couldn't really look at her without being blatantly obvious. Switching table sides would have been the same thing as putting up a neon sign that said "I'm moving so I can stare at your tits lady."

So you would think that he would realize that the only decent thing to do was accept his fate and steal the occasional glance. But you would be wrong. You see, Al is pretty hard up I guess so he spent most of his time hovering over our table, particularly on her side and right behind her shoulder. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out he was copping every view he could of her cleavage. What's worse, he was in full view of her husband. I couldn't see the husband to know his reaction but I doubt it would have been anything other than annoyance (jealously certainly wouldn't have entered in, Al is a super dork).

Like I said, I'm a boob man, and she had nice ones. But so what? If you live in any reasonably sized city you are going to see huge boobs everywhere. Does that mean you have to stare and be rude? Seriously, if you are that hard up to see some breasts, throwing "tit images" into Google will probably take care of you.

I'm realistic. Guys are going to look at women' breasts. It's the nature of things. I don't even think of it as a bad thing. I'm reminded of a scene in the movie The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, where the protagonist was addressing his rather well endowed assistant, all the while staring rather blatantly at her chest. She waits for him to finish and then says, "How about you look me in the eye when you are talking to me?". To which he responds, "I can't, those....". I do honestly think that woman should take the general glance at their chest as a compliment because I think that 99% of the time that's exactly what it's meant to be. I think the vast majority of the men in this world are not pigs, we just like women.

HOWEVER, there is a clear divide between appreciating the body of any one particular woman and being a total pervert. Dinosaur Man was being a perv. Plain and simple. There really was no excuse for how he acted. When I was telling my wife about what happened, it struck me that I probably should have said something to Al about it. Maybe not right then and there, I'm not heartless and despite how annoying he can be I wouldn't want to purposely put him down or embarrass him. But after the fact a word or two along the lines of "Dude, be a gentleman." may have been in order.

Next time you are in your FLGS and a woman walks in, make sure you act like a gentleman, and make sure the other nerds do too.

Family Night

2011-02-03T20:45:00.000-08:00

Thursday is our regular Family Night and that usually means game play with as many as possible.

Tonight was me, Jackson (13), Sara (10) and Emily (7). Sara wanted to play Apples to Apples Junior and I knew Emily would want to as well. While I don't care for the game (or the adult version) that much it can still be enjoyable, especially when the kids are having fun.

We played it twice with me winning the first time and Jackson the second. The really great thing was seeing how far Emily has come on the reading front, needing far less help now then in days past playing this.

Death to the Traitor!

2011-02-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

Got in a game of Horus Heresy last night against Jeremy. It was his first time playing and only my second.

Jeremy took the traitors and I played the loyalists. Having only played the Traitors myself I was surprised to find that one of the starting orders cards the loyalists get is "Boarding Action" which allows the player to move any number of units and heroes from a single palace section to the Vengeful Spirit, Horus' command ship. I had expected that card to be buried in the order deck. So I figured what the heck I'll go for the throat since one of the winning conditions is the death of either Horus or the Emperor.

We fought several battles between Horus and the Emperor and their retinues aboard the Vengeful Spirit, each time putting more and more damage on the respective leaders. In one of the final rounds I had drawn a card that would allow me to heal the Emperor for three points, but I had failed to remember that we had a limited number of turns in that combat and failed to play it (which meant I lost it).

In the next round of combat we fought, with both the Emperor and Horus a mere three health from death I thought for sure I had bungled my way to a loss by failing to play the healing card in the previous combat. But, as luck would have it, Jeremy was just as big of a bungler as me and played the wrong pair of cards and so only did two damage to the Emperor (despite the fact that he had the proper cards to do three and win) allowing me to follow up with three damage to Horus in the next combat iteration and win the game.

Realistically though it wouldn't have mattered either way as, win or lose, I had fun playing the game and it taught us both a lot of good lessons for future games.

I plan on doing a full review of the game for both here and BGG in the very near future.

The State of my Gaming

2011-02-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

I've been pretty happy lately because I've gotten a lot of gaming in, including some gaming with my kids and as part of the board game group at my local FLGS.

You may notice that I've added a BGG widget that shows my most recently played games with links to the game (the image and name) and the play details (the date). I'm trying to make sure I'm recording details on games in BGG though I know I've missed a couple already.

Note that currently the BGG Recently Played widget has a bug that causes every other entries link to the play details to be wrong. If you really care about the play details of any game that I log you can easily see the entire log of my plays via this link. Fixed.

Probably the most important of the recent games were:

1. Playing 7 Wonders for the first time. This was at Ancient Wonders regular Monday Night Board Gaming activity and it was a blast! 7 Wonders is a game that was already on my wish list because; a) it has a really cool theme, b) it has great looking components, c) people who's opinion on boardgames I respect have raved about it. But now having played it I can say without a doubt that as soon as I'm able I will be picking up my own copy. I got totally creamed in this game coming in last with six players but I didn't care, it was incredibly fun. There is a great G.K. Chesterson quote regarding this, "You never enjoy a game till you enjoy being beaten at the game.".

2. Getting in a game of Warhammer 40K with my friend Jeremy. I rarely play 40k. It's not the worst game in the world but it's not all that great either. I've expressed my frustrations with the current (5th) edition already. Luckily it can be a fun game regardless of its short-comings IF you have a good opponent. Jeremy is fun to play against, is very knowledgeable about the game and is very good at it. In fact, while I only lost by one kill point, it really would have been worse for me had I not had some superb luck in the first turn. Killing his Demon Prince and wiping out his entire unit of Thousand Sons with my five Lightning Claw Terminators made a big difference for the rest of the game.

3. Having my daughter Emily and son Jackson play a game of Agricola with me. Emily of course had no idea what she was doing but she had a lot of fun and that is frankly all that matters. I'm hoping this will mean more gaming interest from my kids in the future.

Oh yeah, I have a gaming blog!

2011-01-20T17:38:00.000-08:00

The past week or so I have really overloaded myself gaming wise. This isn't a bad thing per se but I have realized that I'm trying to do way too much. That's pretty normal for me though as I find so many things interesting in the gaming world and it's hard to accept that I would really need to focus my efforts in only a few areas to really get somewhere.
The fact is though that I'm just not going to be happy with my hobby if I can't continue to explore wherever I wish. This means that I'm likely never going to be some great expert on any one aspect of the gaming hobby, but I'm ok with that.

At the same time however if I don't control how I spend my time I'm just going to be continually bouncing around and not being terribly efficient. Efficiency isn't the most important thing, but I do have to try to keep it in mind. To that end I started thinking the past few days about how I'm going to get things under some kind of semblance of order and control. Really the only option is the ubiquitous goals list. While I was coming up with my goals in my head it reminded me that, HEY, I have a gaming blog. I've put my gaming goals there before, why not do it again?

So without further ado, here are my goals for the coming year. They are many. They will not all be accomplished. But it's a start.

General Hobby Stuff

Clean up my workbench
Get my new game table mats cut to size
Organize my terrain and make a list of what I need to build
Clean up my "junk" pile

General Gaming

Get in at least one board game and one table top miniature game a week with my son Jackson
More solo gaming to fill the void
Work with Jason to build a BGG guild for the Lodge group
Work with George to build a BGG guild for Ancient Wonders

Roleplaying

Participate in Glen's Traveler and Pathfinder games.
Run at least three small adventures in WFRP 3rd edition this year.
Keep up with WFRP 3rd ed. releases.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Finish basing my Nurgle Warriors of Chaos, get them primed and start painting.
Finish building my Tomb Kings, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dwarves & Skaven.
Start building my Ogres
Finish painting my Tomb Kings and Lizard Men

The Face of Battle

Base, prime and begin painting my WWII Americans & Germans and also my Vietnam Americans and Vietcong/NVA

HOTT

Start organizing my LOTR figs for HOTT lists.
Figure out whether I'm going to keep the LOTR figs on their round bases and build HOTT bases to accommodate them or base them directly on HOTT bases.

DBA

Finish painting the Spartans (II/5a) for Eric
Get a couple more of the in-queue armies I have based up

WH40K

Rework my Imperial Guard list and figure out what to do with all the Chimeras I have
Finish building my Eldar
Fix broken Tau figs
Rework my Orks, finish building them.

PnP

Build Malechi's US & EU Infection Express variants.
Build both Ilya 77's & Tears of Envy' Dune Express variants.
Build Koryo's 18AL variant.
Build Skirmish Wars: Advanced Tactics game
Build Dathkadan's Merchant of Venus remake.
Build Karim's Magic Realm remake.

Board Gaming

Get at least one play in this year for each game I own.
Track my plays on BGG in depth.
Rate and comment on every game in my collection.
Add at least one game from my wishlist to my collection each month.
Make it to board game night at Ancient Wonders at least once a month.
Miss no Lodge gaming nights.

This! Is! Sparta!

2010-08-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

Having taken first place in the 'Ard Boys tournament Eric won $60 in GW prize support. Knowing I needed several things to get my upcoming OFCC Nurgle army complete he offered to trade that for my DBA Spartan army (II/5a).

As much as I was looking forward to having a painted Spartan DBA army I already have a fully painted Athenian (II/5b) army, I needed the GW figs, and having another member of our group with a 20mm DBA army would be great so I agreed. Thanks Eric!

So now I'm working on finishing their paint and then getting them based properly so they are ready to go.

WHFB 'Ard Boys

2010-08-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I participated in my FLGS' (Ancient Wonders) Warhammer Fantasy Battle 'Ard Boys tournament.

Wasn't much turnout with only six of us but it was really fun.

I took a Bloodthirster lead Demon army (hey it's 'Ard Boys!) and placed third.
Jeremy took second (by ONE battle point!) with his Ogres.
First place went to Eric with his Slayers.

All things considered this was probably the funnest tournament I've ever played in. My first game was an absolute blood bath that resulted in a draw and even battle points against Jeremy. My second game was against Neil with a massive Empire war machine army. Both games were challenging and extremely fun.

Blessed be Papa Nurgle for He Has Saved Me

2010-08-26T16:33:00.000-07:00

Well I'm back. It only took two years of turmoil but that's life.

There has been a lot of changes in that time. Our group has added a few new members with Jeremy and John. Darron has changed to swing shift so he doesn't get to show but rarely which really sucks. We are making due however.

8th Edition WHFB is out now and we are starting to absorb it slowly. So far so good. Still not sure about it myself. I'll do a full review once I've gotten a better handle on it.

I have committed to go to the 2011 OFCC tournament. A quick look through the sordid history of this blog will reveal that I was slated to go to one in the past too... Well that got messed up by GW's Mat Ward (curse you forever) and his new Demon army book.

Regardless I am determined to make it this time. To that end I have a play test list ready and I've started working on the army so it will be ready in time. I'll post pictures of it's current, incomplete and unpainted state and do (hopefully) regular updates of my progress on it.

For now here is the list I intend to take. Note that we are currently under the assumption that the point level for the tourny will be 2500 but that is not official yet so things may change.

I made the decision to put fluff as the priority so all units meet Nurgle's sacred number of seven. (Note that the BSB and Sorc go into the two warrior units for 21). I will be running these units seven wide also! Yes, I do love Papa Nurgle. Because Papa Nurgle loves me.

2500 Pts - Warriors of Chaos Roster - Delicious Pustules

Heretus Scabgrabber, Exalted Hero of Nurgle @ 196 pts (General; MoN; Shield)
Chaos Steed
Gold Sigil Sword
Talisman of Endurance

Argen the Poxed, Exalted Hero of Nurlge Battle Standard Bearer @ 205 pts (MoN; BSB)
Charmed Shield
Talisman of Preservation

Zygen Pusbelly, Chaos Sorcerer of Nurgle @ 175 pts (MoN; Lvl 2)
Power Familiar
Seed of Rebirth

Leprous Invaders, 20 Chaos Warriors of Nurgle @ 378 pts (MoN; Mus; Std; Shield)
Banner of Eternal Flame

Rotted Legionnaires, 20 Chaos Warriors of Nurgle @ 368 pts (MoN; Mus; Std; Shield)

Puss Gobblers, 21 Chaos Marauders @ 117 pts (Mus; Std; Great Weapon)

Zygens Mutts, 7 Chaos Warhounds @ 42 pts

Heretus' Guardians , 6 Chaos Knights of Nurlge @ 320 pts (MoNurgle; Mus; Std; Shield)
Rupturing Standard

Heretus' Preferred Pestilence, 14 Chosen of Nurgle @ 361 pts (MoN; Mus; Std; Halberd)
Banner of Rage

Mar on the Countryside, 1 Chaos Warshrine @ 130 pts

Bile Spewer, 1 Hellcannon @ 205 pts

Total Roster Cost: 2497

Movies I just saw

2008-09-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

I stopped posting to my blog for a reason. You see, I could blather on all day about a whole variety of topics but it would just mean that many more words being blasted into the void known as the intrawebs and frankly I still can't get over the whole pretentious factor with them. It makes me feel kinda dirty (and not in a good way). But to hell with it. I've read far worse crap then what I'm posting and frankly I just don't care anymore. So without further ado, please rejoice in my latest movie reviews!

1. Batman, The Dark Knight - AWESOME! Seriously if you haven't seen this movie then you suck, period.

2. Tropic Thunder - So damn stupid it was funny. There was some dull times sure, but I love a lot of the over-the-top humor style movies like this one. Rental bait at the very least. Be warned it's crude and has some seriously gross scenes (Monty Python gross, not slasher film gross).

Back to your lives now people.

First game of 40k 5th edition

2008-09-01T20:32:00.000-07:00

Darron and I got together at our usual haunt, Ancient Wonders, to get in our first ever game of Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition. Now our group is not big on 40K preferring Warhammer Fantasy (and a whole host of other games besides) over it. However, we do have a sort of love/hate relationship with GW and we love the 40K background so we still keep up with it to some extent.

Really 40K isn't a bad game, it can be pretty fun. Sure it has some bizarre rules and a lot of the mechanics are dumb, but if you stop worrying about depth and just try to have fun it's actually a decent game. To be perfectly honest, the main reason that 40K has such a bad rep is that a good portion of the players are frankly idiots. Yep, I said it, morons, boobs, simpeltons, etc. And that's not even considering all the asshats. More often then not they fit the bad gamer stereotype to a T.

Our little FLGS has the same problem. I won't name names but suffice to say that there is at least two players who fall into one or more (actually all) of the following categories:

a) Cheaters - Either on purpose or out of ignorance
b) Unclean - I'm talking guys who would make Papa Nurgle proud. Allergic to both soap and water.
c) Obnoxious - And I don't mean just loud, but loud, know-it-all (they really really don't of course) and just plain crass. Not to mention having absoluetly no shame.
d) Powergamers/Poor sports - The degree of win at all costs players who play 40K is staggering, the concept of fun for both players is completely lost on these guys.

I'm sure I could come up with a lot more but that's good enough to convey my point. Frankly we try very hard to not associate ourselves with these guys. That may sound snobish or elitist, but frankly if you met them in real life, you'd likely make the same tough choice we have.

At any rate, enough of my tirade. Here are my impressions from our first game keeping in mind that I played maybe 30 games of 4th edition.

First of all, the only major change is true line of sight (more on this later), all the other changes, while for the better, really didn't require a new edition of the game. They all could have easily been wrapped up in a nice PDF for download from the main GW site or as a White Dwarf article. But lets face it, 40K is GWs cash cow and they are going to milk it for all it's worth.

Second, the big change of true line of sight is just simply retarted. Now granted, 4th editions bizarre area terrain size system was seriously dumb, but true line of sight is just as dumb and far more prone to argument. At least with 4th edition you and your opponent could agree on terrain sizes prior to a match, but now with "true line of sight" you can potentially end up arguing over a lot of shots. Now gentlemen gamers are generally going to have no problem with this rule, but you may recall my little bad-40K-player list above to see the glaring hole here.

As to the game itself, it was a very fun 1500 point match between Darrons Necrons and my Space Marines using the Seize Ground mission with the Spearhead deployment option. I must say that I really like the new mission and deployment system a lot and I think it brings a much needed level of variety to the game, well that is if players actually use it. Our regular 40K bad boys have been simpy ignoring it for standard annihilation battles. That's gonna end up biting them in the ass in the end but that's their problem.
I had a solid victory against Darron which honestly surprised me but it does show another of the problems with 40K. Space Marines, while beatable, are a very tough army that is very forgiving. This has fostered the joke, "You brought Marines? OK, you win". It has a grain of truth to it (though just a grain) but, like 40K itself, Space Marines are a cash cow representing a huge portion of sales for the system. GW is never going to bite the hand(s) that feed them in this regard.

Game Night Aug 27, 2008

2008-08-28T01:18:00.000-07:00

So it's been quite a long time since I posted to my blog. Mostly this blog was meant as an experiment for me and I had kinda figured I wouldn't keep it going for long (I know me you see). But tonight at our gaming group my friends gave me some grief about it and so I am returning the blog to action.

Our group are true gamers and that means we love all kinds of games. As a result we go through a lot of phases, playing a certain game we all like for a period of time and then switching off to something different when it takes our fancy. Lately we have been playing Warmachine and Hordes from Privateer Press. It is a very fun game with some absolutely gorgeous models (albeit some very difficult to assemble ones).

Tonight Neil and Eric had a Hordes match, Neil's Trollbloods vs. Eric's Circle. Tom, Darron and myself played a three way game. Darron had Skorne, Tom took Cygnar and I had my Cryx. I didn't see much of Eric and Neil's game apart from the outcome which was Neil losing (as usual, sorry Neil... Troops will help, honest). Our three way game was a lot of fun with some very difficult situations. Trying to deal with two opponents at the same time is very difficult but enjoyable, it makes you think even harder about the little things that make Warmachine/Hordes unique from other miniature wargames. In the end I lost first and the outcome wasn't certain between Tom and Darron before we had to pack up for the night (though I think Darron had the upper hand).

All in all it was another great gaming night.

Game Night Mar 05, 2008

2008-03-07T22:12:00.000-08:00

As usual, I'm late to posting. I worked a bunch of overtime this week and my new job is ramping up really quickly so it has been my primary focus and probably will be for quite a while. I will try to get better about at least posting game night info though.

So, this weeks game night was my turn against Neil's Pyrrhic army. I decided to use my Athenians as I want to get more practice with that army. As much as I love the Macedonian army I find the Pikes to be a bit of a crutch. It's too easy to rely on them because of their incredible support bonus. Needless to say, I felt I had a good plan for dealing with Neil and his rock hard center which is the elephant flanked on each side by two stands of Pike, one up front and one in support. However, my right flank was week and so I had planned on using my light horse as a decoy on an end around mission to take his camp, hoping that I would peal off his cav and maybe even his general (which is a Knight stand). But alas, thanks to really bad PIP rolls every turn except one I was constantly having to make too many compromises on movement. Finally I made a critical mistake and retired my threatened light horse rather than putting them into the fight or just squaring up. That one mistake (well, and making a key error on spear support because I didn't bother to look at the chart) caused my right flank to be exposed to his cav and knights. My left flank was strong and despite a somewhat drawn out shoving match between two of my spear stands and two of Neil's I came out on top. But it was too little too late as by that time my center was crumbling. For the final stroke Neil's elephant squashed my general under his big fat foot! Stupid elephant! :-P

It was a really fun game and Neil did a great job of doing the right things. I knew he would get up to speed on DBA soon enough. Great job Neil!

Game Night Feb 27, 2008

2008-02-29T21:13:00.000-08:00

First I have to apologize for the lack of posting and the delay in posting game night info. I started a new job recently and it has been occupying my mind heavily.

So this past game night I got to watch a great game of DBA between my Macedonians, fielded by Darron, against Neil and his new Pyrrhic army. Not a true historical match up but an absolutely great game none the less. In the end Darron managed to earn the victory but it was quite the slug-fest. It was only Neil's second game and so he is still getting used to the rules but he did a great job. A few better die rolls and the game might have been his.

So congrats to Darron on the win and a good effort by Neil. I'm sure he will be kicking ass with his Pyrrhic army soon enough.

Game Night Feb 20, 2008

2008-02-20T21:57:00.000-08:00

No camera for tonights gaming unfortunately but I probably wouldn't have bothered anyway. Not because there wasn't games worth grabbing pics of, but because I had to use all my time to focus on my game.

Tom was by for the first time in a while and so he and I had a game of DBA. Since my Spartans are still sitting on the bench he had to settle for playing my Athenians and I took Alexander. Tom always gives me a challenging game. He doesn't leave me any openings and so I have to earn everything I get from him (or hope he has crappy dice luck, which does happen a little too often for the poor guy to be honest). Tonight I got a solid victory but it was hard work and I had to think about every single PIP I spent. Thanks for the great game Tom!

Tom had a really awesome game of Warhammer warbands using his Khorne army against Darrons Ogres. It didn't look too good for Tom in the beginning but his Champion of Khorne, despite losing Frenzy, pulled a win out for him in the end. The game was a spectacle and a half I can tell you. Better luck next time Darron.

All in all a good gaming night.

Game Night Feb 13, 2008

2008-02-14T13:51:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was not the best of days. I woke up sick and though I felt good enough to go game when the time came I was not altogether with it. I had taken my camera and then completely forgot to get any pictures. Not that I would have wanted to document the absolute slaughter that occured. Darron played my Athenians and I my Macedonians and I ended up feeding my army to him piecemeal. I kept saying to myself "Don't do that." but it happened anyway.

Then as the night wore on the sicker I got. Needless to say I feel like crap today too.

On the Bench

2008-02-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

I'm in the midst of working on the horde of Greeks that are on my workbench at the moment. Right now I'm painting the Spartans with the Thebans on deck.

Look at that mess, I really need to reorganize my workbench.

But then I decided I needed a change of scenery as it were and finally cracked open my Warhammer 40,000 Eldar Army box I bought with the latest reissue. Here is the Wraitlord in progress.

And here is what I have completed so far.

Notice that the Fire Dragons are missing an Exarch. My stupid army box had the six Fire Dragons it was supposed to but none of them Exarchs. Lucikly GW didn't balk at sending me a new one so I should have it by the end of the week. I just need to finish the Wrathlord, three Warwalkers and Falcon and I will have built everything I currently own. Then it will all go sit on the shelf with my other unpainted 40K armies. Someday they will get painted.

Going Solo

2008-02-11T13:14:00.000-08:00

I've been getting pretty frustrated lately with the lack of gaming in my life. Sure, I feel pretty lucky to have such a kick-ass gaming group in the gaming wasteland that is Portland Oregon, but just one night a week doesn't cut it.

I plan to play more games with my kids, but I don't get anywhere near the level of gaming satisfaction from that as I need. Though as time goes on that will change.

Gaming with the wife is more painful than it's worth. At least the kids are interested in playing games. My wife, I love her dearly, but she just doesn't game. It's sad really.

So I decided to start gaming solo as much as I needed. Gaming solo isn't anywhere near as enjoyable as getting together with your friends, throwing some beer and pizza down your throat and taunting one other mercilessly while pretending to kill his toy soldiers using your toy soldiers and a bucket load of dice. If there is a Nirvana, let me tell you, that's it.

However, beggars can't be choosers so solo gaming it is. With that in mind I decided to try to make some headway with what are widely considered some of the most solo friendly rules in existence. Those from Two Hour Wargames. Specifically their game 5150. Alas that did not go so well. 5150 (and frankly most of THW rules) is a game that I want to love. I really do. It has so much going for it. But the mechanics are just flat not fun. I know there are a lot of THW fans out there and I say more power to you. I own a lot of their games myself, but every time I try to play them it's an exercise in frustration. The Reaction System is great in theory but I find it tedious and annoying in practice.

I considered using the Stargrunt II rules (which are now a free download by the way) because they are a fantastic set of rules that do a great job of capturing ultra-modern combat. But they don't cater well to alien races and the combat system, while really good, doesn't have a lot of room for extreme variation or bizarre weapon systems.

So now I'm thinking about using the No Limits game. It uses more familiar mechanics and has the additional benefit of being completely free. It has a complete figure, equipment and force creation system that looks clean and straight forward. You can just hustle over to Wargames Unlimited to get it or one of their other free games if you are interested.

Since I'm mainly interested in doing a heavily narrated campaign I'm creating a journal for tracking my characters and their games. So, with that in mind I have started another (undoubtedly pointless) blog to act as my journal. If you can spare the brain cells that will commit suicide because you forced them to read my drivel, just head on over to Holden Salvage. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Game Night Feb 06, 2008

2008-02-06T22:05:00.000-08:00

Well tonight was a game of DBA between myself using my Athenians and Neil using my Macedonians. This was Neil's first game of DBA and he did well. But he made a pair of critical mistakes that let me take his camp and coupled with some bad dice rolls meant I won the game rather quickly. It was a very fun game however and hopefully Neil will soon have his Pyrrhic (II/27b) army ready for the table and more DBA action.

Game Over!

1/72 Plastics

2008-02-05T09:49:00.000-08:00

I've been rather busy of late and so I have been somewhat neglecting the blog. My friend Tom wondered about an update so I figured now was as good a time as any to write the little blurb I had promised on why I like 1/72 plastics so much.

I discovered 1/72 plastics quite by accident. Being a Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 player I was trolling the net one day in an effort to find cheaper alternative miniatures to feed my need to own every single army under the sun. As it happened, searching for "plastic miniatures" brought me to Plastic Soldier Review which is an excellent site devoted to 1/72 plastics. While it didn't apply to my needs at the time I bookmarked it for future reference.

Time went on and I started to get interested in perhaps doing WWII and Moderns skirmish gaming and had purchased some rules for that but I had such a heavy investment in WHFB and WH40K that I didn't want to go down the 28mm path again. I really like 28mm miniatures but their cost can be prohibitive especially when you add vehicles into the mix. So I began to look for alternatives and low and behold I read that 1/72 was a popular scale for these genres due to the inexpensive and prolific vehicle kits. This of course reminded me about Plastic Soldier Review so I went to have a look at what was available for actual soldiers. The reviews of WWII soldiers seemed promising but I wanted to see them in the flesh before I committed.

The next day I went to a local hobby store that I thought carried 1/72 plastics and got my first look at a set of Italeri WWII Americans. They were far far better than I had expected. Their detail was superb and it was only $9.50 for a box with 45 miniatures!! I bought them and some Germans and a couple of 1/72 tanks.

At the same time I was getting interested in both Ancients and Napoleonics and decided to buy some boxes for those periods as well. As time has gone on I have extended my collection a great deal with 1/72 plastics.

I can hear you saying, "Great, but why? What makes 1/72 plastics better than 15mm or 28mm?" Well, I wouldn't say they are "better" necessarily. It really is about perspective. For me cost is the number one issue. This is simply because I know myself and knew exactly what was going to happen as soon as I started playing ancients with my gaming group. I was going to start wanting armies, lots of armies. That same motivation had really hit my bank account with WHFB and 40K and I didn't want a repeat of that. At the same time I knew I didn't want to try to limit myself on army counts. So in the end, price, above everything else was what made me decide that 1/72 were for me. Having said that, price is irrelevant if the miniatures were not good enough for me and 1/72 were very surprisingly good.

Are there draw-backs to 1/72 plastics? Oh you bet there are.

First, they are a real pain to work with. Cleaning up mold lines and doing conversions are made that much harder by the soft plastic that is used. Regular plastic glue (usually) doesn't work and so you need to find alternatives such as plastic activator with super glue or "hot welding". Even more than with regular hard plastic and metal miniatures you need to be sure they are thoroughly washed and properly primered before you paint them. For me, the glueing and painting issues are small and easy to deal with. The only one that really bugs me is mold lines and they vary from none at all to just bad enough to be annoying.

Second, while the periods and armies covered is rather broad, the depth of coverage is inconsistent and things such as command models are a bit harder to deal with.

Third, quality isn't always consistent between sets from the same manufacturer so you have to carefully review your potential purchases to be sure that they meet your needs.

Fourth, historical accuracy isn't guaranteed. As with quality, if you are concerned with historical accuracy make sure you review the sets you wish to purchase first. Plastic Soldier Review is the perfect resource for this.

In the end, I don't regret deciding on 1/72 plastics. On the contrary, I am very happy with that decision. As it stands I now have two painted DBA armies in this scale and nine more waiting their turn in the queue. There is no way I could have gotten so many of the armies I am interested in if I had chosen any other scale. Even if you never decide to use them, I would suggest you look at a few boxes at your local FLGS and see for yourself that they really are every bit a valid part of miniature wargaming as lead.

Game Night Jan 23, 2008

2008-01-24T08:48:00.000-08:00

Last night was a rematch of last weeks DBA game between Darron and I. He with my Athenians (II/5b) and me with Alexanderian Macedonians (II/12). Last week I won, but this week after a lot of pushing and shoving on the table he managed to kill my general and then essentially surround a lone phalanx pair and destroyed them for the win. It was a fun game but very long, Darron and I are still getting used to the DBA rules and we encountered several situations that were not clearly covered.

The two armies move to engage.

The beginning of the end.

Game night regular Neil finally decided to show his face again so without further ado, here it is in all it's hideousness.

Get a haircut, HIPPY!

DBA Athenians - Foot Troops Complete

2008-01-22T10:43:00.000-08:00

I've completed all the foot elements for my Athenian DBA army. I only have a cavalry and light horse stand left to do in order to complete the army.

DBA Athenians

2008-01-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

With the completion of my Alexandrian Macedonian army I have started working on an Athenian DBA army (II/5b). Here is a pic of my generals element, though it still needs to have it's base painted and flocked.

My progress on this army isn't as fast as the Macedonians mainly because of the lack of uniformity of color. But my goal is to have them done by next Wednesdays game night.

DBA Macedonians - Complete!

2008-01-14T16:01:00.000-08:00

I finally finished my Macedonians! Now I will start working on my Athenians/Thebans.

Here are some pictures of the completed army. They aren't very good as I still haven't quite figured out how to take good pictures with the new camera we got last year.

Game Night Jan 9, 2008

2008-01-09T22:19:00.000-08:00

Tonight was Warhammer warbands for our escalation league. Alas my 500 points of Nurgle Demonic Legion couldn't quite get the job done against either Darron's Ogre Kingdoms or Eric's Dwarves. Some armies just don't do as well at the lower points levels and unfortunately both my favorite armies, Nurgle and Tomb Kings, suffer from this problem. Still it was fun to get some games in and talk with friends about gaming and miniatures.

Next week Darron and I are going to try to play some DBA games in addition to warbands and I'm looking forward to that.

DBA Macedonians - First Elements

2008-01-06T21:35:00.000-08:00

I decided to tackle painting my DBA Macedonian army by element. I have to say that I did not like the dip method at all. The result too heavily subdued the paint below. This required me to essentially reapply the primary colors. While this resulted in a decent looking miniature it was at the expense of basically painting it twice.

At this point I decided to go back to my usual method of block painting and dry brushing. I rarely ever highlight (beyond simple dry brushing at any rate) as it adds little to the table top view of the miniature but does nearly double the amount of work.

I have never been overly pleased with my painting skills but I feel that my work is good enough for game play. Here is a couple of shots of my first two elements of Phalangites.

All of these miniatures are from Zvezda

The Phalangite on the far left was done with the dip method.

I apologize for the weird orange semi-circle at the bottom of these shots. It is actually the shadow of the lens from the flash. I hope to build a light tent (I think that's what is called) to improve my pictures in the future.

DBA Macedonians - Primered

2008-01-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

The second stage of preparation for my Alexanderian Macedonian DBA army is now complete.

I decided to use a completely new method for painting this army. Usually I primer my miniatures black and use a combination of block and dry-bushing. This time I decided to use white primer, straight block painting and then the famous "Miracle" dip method for the first time.

In other news I got my copy of DBA in the mail yesterday and am eager to start playing in earnest. As soon as my new Greeks and Persians arrive I will get some good rival armies built and then my son and I can get some games in.

2007 and 2008

2008-01-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

Several of my favorite bloggers have done "2007 Year in Review - 2008 Goals" posts that I thoroughly enjoyed. It inspired me to follow suit with my own humble offering.

2007
The past year has been a rather poor one for me on the gaming front. I allowed myself to be drawn away from it all by the PC game World of Warcraft (a.k.a. World of Warcrack). I made some really great friends there and I enjoyed the game. But events transpired that reminded me where my real love was, the table top, so with renewed vigor I got back into miniatures wargaming.

I will say that the main thing I got accomplished last year was to build my 1/72 plastic Alexander the Great army for WAB and to start one for DBA. I also rounded out my Nurgle Demonic Legion army and reconfigured it for the latest version of WHFB.

I also found Neal Shuck's "Meeples & Miniatures" podcast, which I absolutely love.

2008
I've never been much of a goals oriented person but I can see the value in trying to set at least a few realistic goals for myself even for just the hobby part of my life. So I think these will do for now:

Complete my Alexander the Great DBA army (meaning completely painted)
Plan other DBA armies in 1/72 plastics. I've already got Greek Hoplites on the way, and Early Imperial Romans waiting!
Work on the miniatures to fill the OOB for Fuentes de Oñoro for the game Grand Armee. This was a project I started (in 1/72 plastics) before I got into WOW and I really would like to finish it. There are a number of difficulties that have to be overcome however and I'm not sure just yet how to proceed, but eventually it will get done.
Get my Nurgle Demonic Legion army painted. In fact I need to paint WAY WAY more than I have in the past, I have lots of plastic and lead wanting paint.
Game with my son more. In the past I have always felt that he was too young to really appreciate gaming at this level, but frankly playing more will change this and he deserves the time with me.
Read more history. For Christmas my in-laws got me two books from my Amazon wish list, one on the Duke of Wellington and one on Lord Nelson (two of the greatest men in history as far as I am concerned). Both are simply wonderful books and I plan to add to my historical library heavily this year.
Explore more podcasts. My daily commute has been greatly improved with Meeples and Miniatures but sooner or later I will be caught up and then waiting for additional episodes. Hopefully some of the other gaming podcasts can live up to the standard set by Neal.

Finally, DBA is on the way!

2008-01-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays Darron and myself have been trying like crazy to get the current DBA rulebook ordered. But we were getting the same story from every place we tried, that the book was out of print and there was no news on a new print run from WRG. Needless to say we were both getting a bit worried about being able to get a copy.

Luckily I found that WarWeb still had eight copies on hand! PHEW!

So hopefully by this Saturday or Monday at the latest we will finally have the rules. We have only played DBA once, a few weeks ago when Tom introduced it to us. While the rulebook is absolutely atrociously written, the game is really really good. Enter WADBAG (The Wasthington Area DBA Group) with their fantastic "The Unofficial Guide to DBA" which is what the DBA rules should have been like in the first place I don't mind saying. I simply can't wait for the DBA rules to arrive at my door and am looking forward to playing it more.

Now if we could just find someone with WRG's HOTT rules in stock as it seems to be suffering the same fate at the moment!

Game Night Jan 2, 2008

2008-01-02T23:29:00.000-08:00

Tonight saw a rematch of the mighty Macedonians versus the Persians at the request of one of our game night regulars, Tom. This was only our second game of WAB in the group and we are starting to get a better handle on it, particularly it's rather interesting differences from WHFB which we are all very familiar with.

The Implacable Tom

Now Tom is about to be absent from our regular gaming night for quite a while as his job has a new contract in California. So, being the gentleman that I am I allowed him to select which army he wished to general. Let me be the first to tell you what a giant mistake this was! Tom, of course, selected Alexander. And low and behold I lost to them again... (This is the point where you feel sorry for me folks.) The worst part is that Tom is a much better general than I am to begin with, I needed the more powerful Macedonians on my side!

Seriously though it was a fun game and Tom is always an enjoyable opponent who gives a challenging game. Here are a few pictures from the battle. I didn't take notes and I'm really not up for another long-winded battle report anyway. Suffice it to say that my plan to disrupt his line with either shooting from all my skirmishers or to punch a hole with my heavy cavalry did not go so well. The Macedonian army is rock hard.

The two armies move to engage

I know what you are thinking.. "Those armies look rather plain.". You're right of course, I just barely completed building them last week and I haven't gotten the initiative to paint them yet. Some day though, I promise. The terrain is rather sparse as none of us brought our terrain and the store we play at has had all it's good terrain stolen by jerks over the past years. But we make do.

Another thing you may have noticed is that these are all 1/72 scale plastics. I absolutely love these things. Yes they have many drawbacks but many virtues also. I plan to do a post in the near future with my opinions on using these miniatures in gaming.

The final hour for the Persians

I used the Later Achemedian Persians list from the v1.5 WAB rule book (which is the same list as in the Armies of Antiquity book) and I am starting to think that I should probably review the list from the Alexander the Great book to see if it gives the Persians a slightly better chance against Alexander. The main reason I didn't do this right away is because it does not support the Sparabara formation which I built several units as. By the time Darius faced Alexander the Sparabara had been phased out so my Persian army isn't really historically accurate for this fight but I really like the Spara option.

Regardless, the Macedonian army is incredibly tough with several large blocks of Phalangites, a Companion Cavalry unit, a Thracian Cavalry unit, a Mercenary Hoplite unit (with many of the same benefits that the Phalangites enjoy), some very good light infantry and then the Oracle points on top of it all. Still in all it was a fun game and I look forward to more WAB in the future.

I would be remiss without putting a face to a few of the other regulars in my gaming group. Plus I never would skip a chance to strike absolute horror and revulsion in my readership with such frightening pictures! ;-P

Darron the Mighty (or Annoying, depending)

Eric a.k.a. Mr. Grabby-Hands

Another regular, Neil, wasn't able to come so I will save his image (most vile) for another day.

Ancients Take Over

2008-01-01T12:24:00.001-08:00

Despite really needing to work on my Nurgle Demonic Legion army I have instead spent the last few weeks working on my ancients armies. Particularly I finished building my WAB (Warhammer Ancient Battles) Alexander the Great army and am now building out a DBA (De Bellis Antiquitatis) Alexander army.

Last week I had a game of WAB with Darron, him playing my Macedonians and me playing my Achemedian Persians. As was bore in history so it was on the table top with Alexander firmly crushing the Persians. Another gamer in our group, Tom, wants the same match up this week so tomorrow will be another Greek vs. Persia WAB battle. This time I will take my camera and get some pictures of the game.

Combat Patrol Bravo 67

2007-12-15T20:43:00.000-08:00

Prior to leaving for the theater my son Jackson had asked to play a game of Warhammer 40,000. So we set up a game and when I returned it was time for the lead to start flying.

Generally speaking, Jackson has a somewhat short attention span. Nothing drastic for your average 10 year old mind you. But he likes to play games with Dad so I went with much smaller armies using 40Ks Combat Patrol rules. He got 400 points of Tau and I took the same of Imperial Space Marines. This is the After Action Report for that battle. Alas neither of these armies have a spot of paint on them... Don't hold it against me! :-)

FROM: Captain Hesh Boral, 3rd Company, Trouble Corp
TO: Reclusiarch Gradon Mendor, 3rd Company, Trouble Corp
DATE: M40.387
LOCATION: Kedge Sector, Brown Zone Zeta 4, Bunker 764202
MESSAGE: Gradon, your timing for morale and devotion activity with Bravo 67 Platoon could not have been better. Lord General Velinth has requested from the Chapter Master that a probe patrol be initiated immediately in Brown Zone. It is his belief that the Tau have begun to pull out from that Zone to reinforce Ultor Sector some 300km away. Orbital scans have confirmed an increase in Tau Devilfish activity in BZZ4 and General Velinth believes that this is part of a large redeployment of Tau forces. It is thought amongst command that this makes BZZ4 (and specifically the line near Bunker 764202) weak and ripe for a break through. However, active Tau jamming has prevented detailed biological scanning and so for all we know all that Devilfish activity has resulted in a reinfocement of BZZ4 rather than a withdrawl. You are here by ordered by the Chapter Master to personally lead Bravo 67s two squads in a combat probe of the Tau line from Bunker 764202. If you can affect a breakthrough activate your personal teleport homing beacon and 1st Company will immediatly deep strike their Terminator assault squad on your position to establish a beach head. Further drop reinforcements will follow to exploit the break. May the Emperor be with you all.

The two armies face off

Setup
I had to deploy first and so I placed my main squad being lead by the company Reclusiarch on my right flank with the plan to move through the woods towards the Tau line. My objective was to move up and assault his left flank without having to suffer the withering fire that the Tau are best at. I setup second squad to the left of the bunker in the dragons teeth hoping that I could cover the relatively open ground quickly enough to assault either the Stealth Suits or his center Fire Warrior unit. I knew I was taking a gamble since Jackson did a really good job of deploying his troops to take maximum advantage of cover. Putting his Stealth Suit team behind the hill was very smart and allowed him to use the mobility of their jump packs and the awesome fire power of their Burst Cannons to harass my 2nd squad during their march across the no mans land.

Tau Fire Warriors keep watch from their prepared position

Turn 1 - Space Marines
I won initiative and moved 2nd squad up as fast as they could go. The porcupines don't provide any realistic cover to the squad so I had to rely on the Space Marines superb power armor to help them survive the hail of fire they were sure to encounter. 1st squad didn't fair so well. Because they were moving into the difficult ground of the woods a dice roll is made to see how far they could move... A pitiful one inch! Not even enough movement to get them into the woods let alone covering the ground they needed to get into a position to threaten Jacksons left flank. 2nd squad opened fire with their bolters on the central Fire Warrior team who were well positioned in their prepared defensive bulwark. However this wasn't enough to protect them, the surprise attack caught three of them out and killed.

2nd Squad, Bravo 67 Platoon move into the open

Turn 1 - Tau
Jackson did exactly what he needed to do. Stay hunkered down and blast the encroaching Space Marines mercilessly. First he jumped his Stealth team over the hill and opened fire on the completely exposed 2nd squad. However, despite numerous direct hits the marines armor saved them from taking any casualties. But it wasn't to last. Angered at the loss of their comrades, the Fire Warriors in the central squad manage to kill a marine. Another two marines in 2nd squad die to fire from the Fire Warriors positioned in the dragons teeth. But 2nd squad holds strong, passing their morale test.

Turn 2 - Space Marines
1st Squad finally starts moving in the woods, and while this protects them from incoming fire it also prevents them from shooting at anything themselves. 2nd squad soldiers forward and opens fire on the Stealth Team, but the XV15 armor protects the unit from all the hits the Marines inflict. This isn't a good sign.

Turn 2 - Tau
Jackson repositions the Stealth Team to keep them out of assault range. The Tau are superb at ranged combat being arguably the best shooters in the game. But they are less than competent at hand to hand combat, something the Marines excel at. Again, the entire Tau gun line opens fire on the beleaguered 2nd squad killing a further three marines. Despite the massive casualties putting them below half strength, 2nd squad does not break.

Turn 3 - Space Marines
1st squad again makes good progress in the woods, but 2nd squad is in a bad way and is ineffective with its fire. Things are starting to look very grim for the marines of Bravo 67.

Turn 3 - Tau
Again Jackson keeps his Stealth Team out of arms reach and with only one visible enemy, they continue the slaughter of 2nd squad, killing a further three marines. At this point, 2nd squads lone Sargent breaks and runs, heading back to friendly lines.

Jackson celebrates his good dice rolls

Turn 4 - Space Marines
2nd squads lone Sargent fails to rally and continues to run for his life while 1st squad makes further headway into the woods.

Turn 4 - Tau
The Fire Warriors occupying the dragons teeth are certain that the push through open ground was a feint for an assault to come from the cover of the woods to their left. They wisely pull back in good order towards the prepared position of their fellow Fire Warrior squad.

Turn 5 - Space Marines
The lone man from 2nd squad fails to rally again, determined to make it to the safety of his own lines. 1st squad, now realizing their massive tactical blunder emerge from the woods well short of the designated assault point in an effort to disrupt the Tau lines on the left flank any way they can. Their bolters prove ineffective but fortunately the Plasma gunner risks a weapon failure and rapid fires into the Tau who were occupying the dragons teeth killing two Fire Warriors.

Turn 5 - Tau
The Stealth Team was prepared for exactly this event and immediately opened fire on the Marines emerging from the woods instantly killing the three point men. The marines superb power armor protects them from the Fire Warriors Pulse Rifle fire however.

Turn 6 - Space Marines
Reclusiarch Mendor now knows that not only have the Tau not weakened their positions with troop withdrawals they still have a strong fortified line and the will to hold it. He orders the remnants of 1st squad to continue firing on the Tau positions while he reports this back to company command. He can only hope that he lives long enough for the transmission to go through. 1st squad manages to take out two members of the XV15 Stealth Team, but it is too little too late.

Turn 6 - Tau
With a new target to focus their superb firepower on, the Tau unleash everything they have and kill a further three marines. Despite the Space Marines hardened will allowing them to pass their psychology test they know that a rapid withdrawal back into the cover of the woods and back to their own position on the line is their only hope for survival.

Victory!

Conclusion
And that was that. Jackson did a great job of deploying his Fire Warriors and resisting the urge to move them until it was absolutely needed (knowing that the Marine unit in the woods was getting too close for comfort). He made excellent use of his Stealth Team to keep 2nd squad at bay, always tempting the marines to move that much closer while the Fire Warriors tore them to shreds. Admittedly I had setup the game to give him maximum advantages and gave him tactical advice during the game but still he surprises me sometimes with his own grasp of the tactics of the game.

For my own part I knew that the probability of survival for 2nd squad was very low from the very beginning. I had hoped that their armor would have been enough for them to at least make it to the Tau positions at half strength but no such luck. While moving 1st squad through the woods was the right thing to do it was a huge gamble since every movement phase meant I was at the mercy of the dice for the distance I could travel. The first turn move of only one inch really hurt me. Despite getting far better roles for the remainder of the game it put the squad way behind on their objective. If I were to repeat this mission I would probably add some visibility limiter such as fog or heavy rain fall so that the marines had a slightly better chance of making it across.

All in all a fun short game.

A Trip to the Theater

2007-12-15T20:29:00.001-08:00

My friend Darron and I went and saw I Am Legend today. It was a pretty good movie, very creepy in many ways. I was really worried that having Will Smith it would just be another I Robot, super guy wins kinda thing. But Will did a remarkably good job of portraying a man who has been without human contact for many years, and the psychological toll that it took. Not a movie for kids but definitely worth watching.

The Current Projects

2007-12-14T20:24:00.001-08:00

Wargaming is an ongoing hobby. There is always something to be done because I (like most in this hobby) suffer from SOS; Shiny Object Syndrome. The medical description for SOS is snooze inducing so I will summarize: "Oooooohhhhh, Shiny!" Followed with the sound of my credit card being swiped. The end result is a pile of lead that should keep me well alive in the event of nuclear attack.

For the moment however my bench has two primary projects upon it, both awaiting further TLC. The first, in the foreground, is my 10mm undead (Tomb King) Warmaster army. It's about 35ish% painted and I am currently painting my single (/sob) unit of chariots for next Wednesdays game.

The other larger and far more important project is my 28mm Demonic Legion of Nurgle Warhammer army which dominates the bulk of the workspace at the moment. I'm just finishing up the final touches and basing prior to primaring them and begin painting the 500 points I need to start my gaming groups upcoming warbands escalation league.

We usually do an escalation league each year in an effort to encourage our regular members to make progress on a specific army. The last time (and this upcoming time) were to help gear up for our big local team tournament that draws teams from as far afield as Vancouver BC and Idaho to participate. I opted out the first time our group did it because... Well that's a topic for another day. Suffice to say that I am determined to make my painting goals for this army so that I can participate in the 2008 tourney (despite my general dislike of gaming tournaments).

So that said, my goals for the moment are:

1. Finish painting my Warmaster Tomb King chariots and fix basing problems with the rest of that army for next Wednesdays regular gaming night.

2. Get my Nurgle army primared and the first 500 points painted to at least table top standards by Wednesday January 2nd, the first night of my gaming groups Warhammer escalation league.

In other words I should stop typing this stupid crap and get to work.

Blog...

2007-12-14T20:10:00.000-08:00

Well, inspired by my wife I finally decided to start a blog of my own.

I've always had mixed feelings about blogs. On the one hand they clearly have a cool factor and provide an excellent canvas for people to express themselves. But I also view them as rather pretentious.

I mean frankly who gives a rats ass what I think about anything? I know a lot of people would say "Hey, no one has to actually read it, think of it as your own online journal." OK, but I think journals are pretentious too, and mind numbingly boring to boot.

But then again, I have drawn a lot of inspiration from other peoples blogs and who knows maybe some fool will look at the crap I post and be inspired too... Though likely just to commit suicide.