Where the hell have you been??

Okay, so no one really asked that... Anyways, yeah, what a topsy turvy time these last few months have been. First off, I lost my job shortly after that last post. No kidding. Thanks for 22 years and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

So clearly my priorities have shifted from posting in a blog to finding work. And I've been doing just that...not finding though...lots of looking...searching....not a whole lot of finding. But you don't really want to hear about that. But I needed to bring it up to at least give a small excuse for not posting for several months.

Since September though, I have actually squeezed in some gaming here and there. Thankfully my D&D group is still meeting. That really helps to keep me on an even keel. Who knew? And, I've actually being playing some 40K. I started to sell and trade some stuff in order to get my hands on a Genestealer Cult army. The models are just fantastic and I'll have to remember to take some photos eventually. All I've done though is collect and build, no painting as of yet. But I did actually use them in a game. I went against some orks and they did okay. I actually think my opponent would have beaten me had he kept is mind on the objective. However, when genestealers start popping up behind your lines and charging your vulnerable units, I completely understand reacting to it. So basically in a very short amount of time, I was able to wrangle up a whole GSC army.

More recently, I went to a crafting retreat with my wife. So while she did scrap booking, I built models. We got to do that for a whole weekend away from the kids. I got so much done. I highly recommend it.

Not bad. Several broadside suits, a riptide, the new commander model, and some pathfinders and breachers too.

Besides the hobby stuff, I also have had more time to play computer games (you know, when I needed those breaks from all the job searching). Been doing a lot of Vermintide. A friend helped me relearn the game again and actually use the system they built for it. Still needs some tweaking, but not bad for a few runs each day. I've also still busting out the Overwatch, although I did uninstall it for about a week or so after getting a little frustrated with it. However, now they have this new character called Moria or something and it totally fits my play style. So had lots of fun with that.

Oh, and in the wargaming world, I watched a vid on the fate of Dystopian Wars. The gaming company that Wayland Games owns bought the rights for Dystopian Wars and Firestorm Armada I believe. Anyways, they are integrating DW with their own Wild West Exodus game. So they are rewriting some of the background for both in a brand new melding of the two. They are calling it Dystopian Age and putting out three separate games all within that framework. Nice to see DW get another chance at life, and will be interesting to see what they do with the rules. So to answer a few important questions, they are making new models, they are even changing the scale for some of it, but they also intend to make sure your existing models are still okay to use. So cool stuff on the way.

Oh, and I also got a new Ammo Box mini bag from battlefoam. I loved my FoW bag from them and was very bummed when they stopped making it. Well I guess the licensing ran out or something. Anyways, I found the Ammo Box at my LGS and was very happy to see a new bag that will work just as well. It is filled with pre-cut FoW sized trays, and even has a nice pluck tray for doing odd models and planes. Woot!

Okay, so I think that is it. I'm looking for work, still gaming, and going to try to get the blog thing going again. I'm pretty sure I can promise another update before the new year. Maybe even work in a battle report. :) Exciting no?

Till next time...

Bad Games

This past weekend I played a game of Kings of War. For the most part, I have found KoW to be a fairly well balanced game. Even when things looked bleak for one side, they could normally come back and make it close. That had been my experience so far.

Then I had what can only be described as my first bad game of kings of war. We were playing 1000pts, and this was for the new summer campaign they had started. I was asked to bring an "evil" army, so I brought an undead force. I opted for what I thought was a well rounded, fun to play against, army. I had a troop of vampire cav, a troop of werewolves, a regiment of skeleton spears, and a regiment of revenants. To top it off, a lich king, a necro, and a catapult.

I faced off against an ogre army. He had a horde of beserkers, a horde of normal ogres, a regiment of flamethrower guys, a giant, a boom wagon, a bsb and a goblin hero. Now I have already gone off on my issue with Large Infantry for KoW2. The smaller footprints they are allowed to have compared to other armies, to me, is unbalanced. But I was ready to see how my army fared against his.

What did strike me odd was the fact that he had nothing but regiments and hordes, while I had troops and regiments. That meant stat wise, he had the advantage (this is what I thought at the time). So I was a bit confused how our armies were even.

Well the game made it all the way until round two. In round two, I failed to route his berzerkers with my cav (he had been hit by his own exploding wagon previously, and his bsb saved them). His guys then counter charged my cav, and despite needing 5+ to wound, put 10 wounds on the unit. He then sent them on their merry way. Next his ogre horde charged the spearmen and routed them as well. His giant then hit my werewolves (whom were guarding the flank of the cav) and waivered them. So in one round, he decimated my previously unhurt army. The game was over. His giant and berzerkers would finish off the werewolves. My revs would charge and bounce off his ogre horde, who would then charge into them and most likely send them off. We were playing a control point game, and he was going to wipe me from the board.

So again, I had to go back to the armies and look at how this was such a total and complete thrashing. I did make mistakes. Perhaps I was too quick to charge into his berzerkers, but the table was getting smaller and I didn't want to give him first charges. I did fail to realize my liche king was inspiring, so he could have backed up the cav and might have saved them. And granted, he got really lucky with his berzerkers. Average roll should have given him 5 wounds and he doubled that.

What got stuck in my head though was the fact that he had the same number of units that I did, but his were hordes and regiments, while mine were regiments and troops. Of course, now that I've had time to go over the armies and such, I do see that the Large Infantry stats are appropriate based on cost. They still get the army selection advantage from their unit sizes, but points wise, their hordes are equal to other units regiments, their regiments are equal to troops....

It took me days though to digest everything. At the time I was convinced that ogres were just broke. In the end, it was just a bad game. And those happen. Unfortunately it soured the experience for me and really put me off of Kings of War for several days. Hopefully this will teach me to keep my cool a little bit better and roll with the bad times because like it or not, it's going to happen.

Dystopian Wars 2.5 game

This past weekend I was able to actually get in a game of Dystopian Wars. Yes, there is someone else in Portland that plays! Unbelievable.

I totally forgot to take pictures, but you really aren't missing anything. We did a 750pt game and I brought a battle flotilla from the FSA. I faced off against a bloke called General Eric from the spartan forums and his Prussian fleet.

This was a friendly learning game as I had not tried out any 2.5 games yet and just got the digital rules a couple days before. I haven't even read them yet...just glanced here and there.

I think we went through 5 or 6 turns in around 3 hours. That is pretty good for Dystopian Wars. Granted, we didn't play with all the bells and whistles, as I wanted to focus on core mechanics, but still, the game flowed fairly well. In the end, my FSA limped off the field of battle. My dread was almost dead and I was down to one gunship, vs his barely damaged battleship. I did a ton of damage to his smaller stuff, but the dice failed me on a few crucial initiatives and one round of shooting at this battleship. He was able to keep plinking away on my dread and made it completely ineffective. That Rugged 2 on his battleship was just harsh.

It was fun though and again, the play went fairly smooth. So that is enough proof to have me spend more time reading the book. Who knows, maybe 2.5 will help resurge the game in this area again.

All Is Not Lost

Ha! snuck in another update before a month had past. Whew! Not bad considering I was out of town for two weeks with no internet. <shudder> But as you can see, I have survived. So, what is up in Brother G's gaming world?

The tabletop wargame world has really taken a turn towards the strange. I have people asking me to meet up to play Dystopian Wars and Kings of War. Wha huh? All the while my own interest was to get going with 8th edition 40K. Yeah, I'm not sure when hell froze over, but damn. Either that or I need to check to see if everyone has a goatee. Bizarro world no? Long time readers will know that I have tried several times to get people into the former games, and have blasted the latter for its evil policies. Okay okay, that isn't true...I don't have any long time readers....

What can I do but take a stand and help these minorities by adding another player. Just have to hope that the scheduling can work out. Also, I need to figure out what KoW army I want to play, and I need to dig out my Dystopian Fleet. I'm going to go with the Federated States of America this time around. Long long ago, they were my first fleet, but I gave them up when I had heard that an Italian fleet was going to be produced. And then I bought a Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet to hold me over until the Italians got released, but then discovered they were only going to be a secondary nation...long story slightly shortened, I own FSA once again and will be fielding them soon. Now I just gotta paint them all over again.

The prospect of which KoW army is going to be a little trickier. Apparently I am the odd man out for a league which means I need to have two armies? One for the side of good, one for evil. No idea what I want to do yet. I'll think of something.

D&D has been going strong, though current group is on a summer break. On my trip back east, I did meet up with some of my college buds (some haven't seen in over 20 years), and we gathered for some D&D one day. What a blast! It was like the last two decades hadn't even gone by. So much fun. Wish I could see them more.

Not much going on with the PC front. Still playing DDO and Overwatch. Keeping an eye on Total Warhammer 2, but will wait until after release and then get it on sale. Pre-order is for suckers. Oh, and I have played a few games of Vermintide with one of my college friends. Not bad...will give it a few more tries.

I'll try to start posting up pic of the Dystopian Wars fleet I come up with. That painting is fairly easy and enjoyable for the most part. Until next time.

p.s. Rick and Morty season 3 has started. God damn that is a funny show!

Plague Wind

Ugh and howdy,
That's right boys and girls, old Brother G. has contracted Nurgle's rot and he is not happy. First off, I can't believe it has been over a month since my last post. Must have lost some time in the warp there. So much has been going on and it is mostly a blur. So bear with me as I try to recall some of it.

So first up is 40K. Seems like forever since a GW game has been a priority, but here it is and rightly earned. Well I got my box set in, as well as my Xenos II book. That book was the best purchase for me. I own all the flavors of models for the Eldar, and my painted 40K army is the necrons. So I can use that whole book. Looking through it, I've been focusing on the Necrons and it doesn't seem like that army is out of whack in either direction. Solid units and rules, but nothing abusive so far.

I did make some purchases as some ad mech models became available at a good price. I'm also going to be trading some ork stuff away for the Xenos I book. Beyond that, my wallet is officially closed to the hobby for the time being. The Summer has been crazy busy, and if I can find time to play, I have the rules and models for several armies already.

Flames of War has pretty much died out for me. The company's decision to go with this slow roll out of material and models for only two factions has really bummed me out. I love mid war, and I love my DAK and Italians....I also love my 8th Army Desert Rats...But so far only two books are out and they left out a ton of units that I own. They just killed the momentum for the release. I suppose if you don't own any FoW, then the release would make sense. But as an existing player, with multiple mid war armies, this sucks. Before we got beautiful books like Afrika that contained everything we had for every army. Now I have a book that contains the rules for DAK and maybe a quarter of the units? So Flames has been put on the backburner once again, waiting for them to give me the rest of my mid war armies.

Surprisingly, Dystopian Wars popped up on the radar recently. Found out there was another local player who actually played the game with a few friends. Nothing has happened except for a few messages back and forth, but who knows...I may be breaking out the models for some DW action.

Digitally, there is quite a bit of movement. DDO is still going strong, although summer has made our group shrink from time to time as people go on vacations. Blizzard actually got me to play Heroes of the Storm again with a few events and I actually am having fun doing elite AI runs. Still going with Overwatch from time to time as well, but I quit if it pisses me off to much. Gotta work on that temper of mine. :)

Also, I'm looking at upgrading my system again. My daughter's PC has been having issues, so I started looking into upgrading hers at first...but then when I saw the prices and performance differences, I realized it was time to update mine as well. That should be happening soon, as I've decided upon the update, and now just need to pull the trigger.

So for the gaming stuff, that's a pretty good recap I think of where I'm at.

8th edition 40K has arrived

Hey Sportsfans,

As much as I hate to admit it, the gaming airways are pretty much filled with the sounds of 40K. Despite my long standing issues with GW, I have to say they are knocking this one out of the park. In just two days, the new 40K set goes on pre-order and I'm expecting it to blow up. Already the internet is flooded with info from the new army books.

From what I have seen, GW has done a good job and took this quite seriously (unlike some of the stuff that made it into AoS). As a huge fan of orks, I was very happy to see the rules they have received so far. I think they are one of the most characterful armies in the game and now you can actually take those units without being blasted off the table.

Of course, we won't know anything for sure until it actually gets in the hands of players and games are played. And we also have to mention that there is no whining. I have yet to hear someone come up with a legitimate issue. Simple rules. Rules for all existing models out at launch! That right there is unheard of for 40K. No more waiting a few years after new edition to get your new book. Day one, you have your updated rules for your army. That is a pretty huge undertaking and they did it well.

For anyone local to the Portland area, the Ordo Fanaticus club is having a garage sale at their Western Oregon Wargamers location. It will be going on this Saturday starting at 11am. They typically end up with 10-20 people bringing games, books and models for sale or trade. Deals are to be had. Sometimes whole armies can be purchased. I know I've got stuff that I don't need and will try to sell.

My D&D group is going very well. So happy that I have a steady group that I enjoy playing with. We are still using Pathfinder and that seems to be going okay. For someone how never jumped on that train, the amount of info and options is a bit overwhelming. But all in all, its still D&D and that is what matters most.

Flames of War has gotten bowled over by the 40K hype I'm afraid. I probably should be on the looking for some of the stuff I wanted to get...but honestly, all thoughts and extra cash are going to be going to the 40K set and those books...which I need 4 out of the 5. My fault for having so many armies I guess.

Apparently the Dystopian Wars kickstarter stuff should be hitting in June as well. Wonder if I'll even notice it? Let's face it...the biggest thing on my mind is which army to focus on for 40K. :)

Until next time....

Where are my orks?!?

Hey people,

So what the hell GeeDub? You keep releasing these Focus pages on the various armies....but somehow the orks haven't gotten one yet? What's up with that nonsense?

Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of you for releasing all these previews and rule snippets. But damn...give me my orks! :)

So as you can see, I've been keeping an eye on the 8th ed updates for 40K. I haven't seen anything yet that is worrying people or scaring anyone away. I've liked what I have seen so far. Just going to come down to whether or not any armies got screwed at this point. I own lots of armies, so the odds of one of them getting hosed is pretty high. But I'm holding out hope that they did they all a solid. For the orks, they need a way to mitigate morale. As a horde army, if they don't get some way to ignore morale, then their number of valid builds is going to be very small.

I am really hoping that GW is also working on a nice transport model for my Ad Mech. There are going to be lots of strategies using transports in 8th and that seems like a big glaring hole in their list right now.

All the rest of my armies seem to be pretty solid for the most part. I wonder if the necrons will get some sort of wound regen. And I want to see how the gauss weapons are going to work.

In other news, I've just plugged up some model needs for my undead army. I think it will be my main force going forward in Kings of War. I have always loved my undead, and while in Kings, they lose some of their sparkle due to the more generic army list, they still are going to look great on the table. I just need to get creative with some of the units and model choices. For the first time, I'm actually going to replace a GW model with a Mantic one. I've bought a bunch of the mantic zombie models. They are quite decent and actually fit better with the newer GW models than the old GW zombie. Maybe I'll even put some together and toss in a pic or two down the line.

Nothing new to report on the PC gaming front. Been pretty much playing the same games. For DDO, my dragonborn Sorcerer build is just crazy good. Granted, he is still only level 10, but the damage he can put out is just redonkulous. So much fun and since it's Monday, I get to use him...woot!

I did actually install and play the Blizzard MOBA game Heroes of the Storm. They had this Nexus 2.0 event going on where if you played games with "friends" you could unlock bonuses for Overwatch. It worked in that it got me to play again. But I'm not so crazy about some of the character balance I witnessed, so I doubt I'll play anymore than I have to.

Oh, I did get Dawn of War III, but I haven't played it yet. Meh..I'll get to it eventually.

Well, that is it for this week. The sun is coming out in the PacNW and that means models can be primed again. That means I might actually paint something. Till next time.

And on the 8th edition, he played

Hello gentle readers,

Today we are doing the near unthinkable, talking about a GW mainline game. For those that have read my previous posts, they have seen a hate/hate relationship bloom with GW over the past few years. I watched my beloved games turn into miniature selling schemes and prices go through the roof. My investments in their miniatures have kept me in the orbit of their games if not actually playing them.

Well, GW is about to release their 8th edition of Warhammer 40,000 and the journey so far has been surprising.

Winds of Change or Clever Ruse?
First off, GW has been releasing good info about the new edition. Nearly every day they have talked about the various phases of the game, giving a general outline of how they work. These are actual articles with real words as opposed to a ten second teaser video that showed nothing. For those that are wondering, no, I don't know the name of the rogue GW employee that has released this info. For his safety, that is being kept very secret. :) You can't blame anyone for thinking that. This is a huge turnaround for GW from years past. So either someone hit their head really hard, or they actually paid attention to the community when AoS dropped. Either way, this has been well received by the community at large by all accounts that I have seen. Lets hope that this new direction for GW is a permanent one.

40K, Age of the Emperor
The rules themselves are very much like Age of Sigmar. Movement values are back for troops, and armor is no longer a static save. Since 40K has always been a skirmish game, the change isn't so drastic unlike Warhammer Fantasy Battle to AoS. I believe we have been promised a free 12 page rulebook. So more meaty than AoS, but still very simple and streamlined. This means that the units themselves are going to be loaded with any special rules they might have. I'm fine with that. I always liked that units could have very individual abilities in AoS that fit their nature. One sore point that may come up is that the 7th ed books are completely irrelevant now. But to sooth that over, GW is going to release info for every unit currently in the game, IIRC. So again, very AoS like. But learning from AoS, they are releasing point values for units from the start. Using them is optional, but at least they are there, allowing no disruption to the competitive community.

Is that Hope?
So what does all this mean? Well honestly, it means I'm actually excited for 40K again. I have friends that have sworn off GW, reading the forums and asking questions about the new rules. In one swoop, GW looks to be making 40K accessible to new players with the "Play with what you have" style of play, yet keeping the veterans happy with point values. Also, they have outright said that they are hoping to speed up play, so that a typical game (based on previous game size) will take only 90 minutes.

Wasn't Born Yesterday
That said, we still don't have the rules yet, nor a solid release date. Also, we don't have the "warscrolls" for the various units. Simplifying the rules is good and all, but if you don't get the flavor and balance right for the units, then it is all for naught. GW seems to be heading in the right direction with 8th edition 40K. Whether or not they will stay on that path is still to be seen. I will say that with what they have done so far, I would recommend people to keep an eye on this one. It could turn out to be not only GW's biggest win, but a win for the players as well.

Till next time...

Close calls and forging ahead

Hello True Believers,

So here we are, smack dab in the middle of April. That was fast. Not that I had any goals to hit before now, but still, seems time is in a hurry to get somewhere.

Welcome to my random thoughts on gaming. I'll try to organize them a bit though.

Latest temptations from GW, Blood Bowl and Shadow Wars.
I have to say, I'm digging the new models for Blood Bowl. The orcs in particular look fantastic. In the past, I had tried Blood Bowl a few times, and even own a couple of iterations of the PC game. There is one constant with the game in that it throws me into a blind rage pretty much every time I play. Something about those darn block dice just trigger that inner barbarian. Looks fun, seems fun, going to cause me to have an aneurysm one day.
And now we have the "spiritual successor" to necromunda with the new Shadow War game. I haven't delved too much into this one. I have owned a necromunda gang since that game came out. And the whole "gang campaign" game seems like it should be fun. One thing always bothers me though, the dreaded WYSIWYG. In most cases, I'm all for it. However, in a game where a character/model may end up changing weapons several times...I can barely get the motivation to convert/paint a model once. Now you want me to cut it up after the fact just because they now have a bolter instead of an autogun?? Screw that. I get that you want to represent whether its a heavy weapon, standard, or a CC kind of model..I do. But there is no way I'm going to cut up my classic escher models just because of a gear change. So necromunda sits on the bench.

Spartan Games reaches out...to late?
So I'm a big fan of Spartan Games. I love the models they come out with. I'm not so much of a fan of the rules sometimes...and definitely the sheer amount of games they keep pushing out, each one with little support. Well it seems they are trying to right their ship and have taken a big step with reaching out to the Firestorm fans. They've laid out their internal changes and a roadmap for the future. So it's a big "wait and see" with them. I hope the community hold their feet to the fire on this. They really need to change their ways if they want any hope of winning people back.

Leading the way for Flames of War v4
So I've invested in V4. I probably should have waited to see if the community would take hold of it first, but they suckered me in with the Africa focus. So now I'm going to see if I can help this game get some local traction. I think Flames is a great game, and I'm really hoping that V4 follows in that tradition. I'm going to go digging through my collection and see what forgotten DAK models are still in blisters and boxe and start working on them. I think I have a few units that are present in 4th that I had never used before. Also, the new command cards that were talked about might prove to let me use some of those units that were left out of the book. For instance, I could see a card that lets you bring Nebels instead of the 105s. At least that is what I'm hoping for. The best part is, assembling Flames units is normally pretty easy, so I will hopefully get a few done this weekend and then can add pics later. Hold your breath for that.....heh.

'Til next time...

The Flames are rising higher

Hello Sports Fans,

So March was a slow month...meh...I was sick for most of it. Seriously. I'm currently going on week four of a cold that still has its nasty hooks in me. I've almost forgotten what it feels like to be well. However, I didn't let it stop me from getting in my gaming.

Dungeons and Dragons Online
Yup, I'm playing the "bleep" out of this game. They recently added in the Dragonborn race (for free) and some additional content. I've already got two new characters made and running around having a blast. It doesn't matter that I've run the same quests 10 times or whatever. Whether it is solo play or getting together with my friends, it is fun and challenging. The new Reaper mode they added to the game is fantastic. It really cranks up the difficulty and keeps you on your toes. And there is actual reward for that added risk in the way of additional chests and reaper skill tree points. Now I do pay to be a VIP. For $30, I get three months of full content, lots of character slots, and 500 DDO points a month that I can spend on whatever. I consider it a bargain. The new dragonborn are really interesting, but not overpowered or out of balance. I replaced a  half-elf sorcerer that I was running with one. Now he looks way cooler, and will eventually get some nice buffs when I can spend points in the dragonborn tree. My daughter made a favored soul and it really got some nice boosts from the race tree.

Overwatch
I typically play Overwatch around 15-60 minutes on a typical day. Now I play quick matches almost exclusively. I want to play the game, not wait around for stuff and I'm a casual player. However, that being said, I still try to win when I play, and I expect the same from others. I can get worked up when I see people playing really poorly or just not doing what I want them to do. :) Seems silly when typed out loud, but there you have it, I'm human. So I play in small bits to keep working on my skills and hopefully become more tolerant. My daughter reminds me if my temper is not kept in check.

Flames of War
Yes, there is actual miniature games content in this update. My purchases this past month include the new v4 mid war rulebook, the free books from BF, and the first two army books for v4 (Desert Rats and DAK). I haven't talked a whole lot about v4 because to be honest, I wasn't sure how much I was going to get into it. First off, kudos to BF for producing quality stuff again. The new rulebooks are all hardback, reasonably priced ($25 or less per book), and well done. The free books were also well done (but not hardbacked). Now the reason I haven't jumped in to v4 with both feet is due to the initial info that popped out. You see I've been playing FoW since v2. I started out with DAK and the North African front has been my favorite theatre. I also own a desert rats force, I have a sizable Italian army as well, both Carri and Bersaglieri companies....the desert war is the shit. So I was super excited to hear that was the focus of the v4 release. But then the actual info came out and they gutted the armies. I say gutted, because as a vet gamer who owns a ton of stuff for these armies, over half of my units are gone. I was like, "where the F is my army??". I was all ready to rage against BF for what they did. But then in a moment of maturity and clarity, I realized what they did, the made the game accessible. They released with the new player in mind. I am not a new player. So I will have to be patient. But if you are a new player, you are a happy clam. You have an $80 boxed army that you can jump into with brand new plastic kits that are freaking cool. You have army books that do keep things simple, but still gives you options to expand and add more depth to your game play without asking you to become a historical expert in WWII. Plus, you are being fully supported with accessories and terrain right from the start. This is a great time to try out Flames of War if you previously haven't. As a veteran player, I get a bunch of new people to play against, and a new system to learn that brings new options of play. Yes, I will need to make adjustments, and I will have to wait before I can bring all my favorite toys, but hopefully I won't have to wait too long. And if I really miss them that much, then I can always bust out v3.

Flames of War has always been one of my favorite games. The rule set was always good, the armies well balanced*, and I loved how you could play for a close loss that still makes you feel like you accomplished something. All of that wrapped up in the knowledge that stuff like this actually happened and that this is history, not fantasy.

* as with all games, you can find a way to abuse them. However, I have always found that it was easier to make balanced games with FoW than most others.

Rainy Days

The pacific northwest is living up to its rep this Spring. I haven't seen it rain so much since the late '90s. This always creates a huge lull in any painting I want to do as rainy weather makes priming impossible. Okay, so maybe not really impossible, but it has been so long since I brushed on primer that it pretty much feels like it.

On to gaming. Well the search for the two missing vanguard models has pretty much been called off. I have no clue where those models could have gone. At this point, they are lost to the warp. I did trade for a new kit though, so I'll be replacing them shortly. Still, I hate losing stuff.

I have also been purchasing some air brush paints recently. I found some gift certificates that have been building up over the years and finally remembered to bring them with.  My son also surprised us this weekend by coming up and getting all of his furniture out of the garage. So with some work, my garage man-cave can be reassembled and I will have space to pull out the airbrush. That is exciting and scary all at once.

I also made some bolt action purchases with that money. I would have liked to have spent them on GW stuff, but GW retail is just too expensive. And GCs are basically money. If I'm not willing to spend cash on GW, I'm sure as heck not going to spend a GC on it. But that is okay because I got some cool bolt action units. They will go on the bolt action stack in my office. Sad I know.

Oh, I have also gotten a few fantasy models as well from a local guy selling his stuff off. Good prices and well worth the trip. Who doesn't need more savage and black orcs? So I keep finding ways to spend money on my hobby without actually playing it. One day they will actually name that disease.

This weekend I also went to go get my free 4th ed Flames of War book...but was denied as battlefront didn't deliver to my store on time. Boooooo. However, I did get to see what the new book would be and I'm very happy with battlefront. They treat gamers right. Didn't get a chance to get the new mid war books as they were already sold out, but hopefully I'll get them this next weekend.

Also, Dawn of War III is on preorder. Now this really gets me a bit. I went to the site, and they have a collector's edition ~$130 and then a limited edition ~$60. The collectors is pretty cool, but the limited edition is pretty much crap. Steam also has a pre order deal going on too. I'm going to think about it. I have a little time before I need to decide. I'll probably get it as I have enjoyed the DoW series so far.

And finally, got to play Pathfinder this weekend. Had a good time as always. And I saw that 5th Ed D&D has a new app coming out and you can sign up for beta. I really think Wizards could have been doing so much more digitally for their game. Such a shame. They have had good tools out since 3rd ed, but they have always fallen short at some point. We'll see if this set is better.

Till next time...

Deserters!

Models gone AWOL! Gah! I am missing models! And it is driving me crazy. I currently busted out my Ad Mech guys to take inventory so that I could see what I had available for the OFCC. Well once I got them all out on the table, I found several were missing. I had two partial big robot guys that were missing their arms, and the tech that went along with them. Then I found that I was missing two electro priests, and two of my vanguard armed with arc rifles. I haven't been doing anything with this army for months...so it has really thrown me off as to what could have happened to them.

I have scoured my office, section by section, looking for the models. Thankfully, I did find the missing pieces to the Kastelans. However, the four others are still missing. I have checked every case, every foam container, every shelf. I've pulled out whole sections of my office to no avail.

I've wracked my brain trying to think of where they would have gone. I hate losing things. And there is no reason for these four models to be missing. I could see maybe one if some odd accident happened where it got bumped off a shelf and into a garbage can or something...but four? I just don't see how that could happen.

It's also depressing. I just don't like losing stuff.

EDIT: okay, so after some research, I've discovered that I only ever had eight electro priests, and not ten. Thus, I am not missing two models. That is a relief. So now I just gotta figure out where I put those two darn vanguard models!

A little R&R goes a long way

What HO! and forsooth and all that stuff. And no, I did not just get back from a Ren-fest. Nope, instead I just got back from a nice getaway with the wife unit. The only thing that was wrong with it is that it was far too short. It is very nice to get away from it all, and where we went didn't even have cell singals...so we were pretty much completely unplugged. I also didn't bring any hobby stuff with me. Normally I always bring something along, some models to assemble or a book to read at the very least, but not this time. It was nice to get a break from everything.

But that isn't why you folks (or more accurately, folk) are here. You want gaming news of some sort. Even my pitiful amount of gaming news for some odd reason. So what have I got for you? As if you couldn't guess.

Well first the bad news. My PC's HD went out again...only three months old the "new" drive died on me. I say "new" because I didn't install it, a PC shop did...so whether or not it was really new or not is somewhat up in the air. That was not what I was hoping to have happen when I got back from vacay.

I did get a chance to play Pathfinder last week. That was fun...except we are still playing too late. I was just zoning out most of the time until finally some excitement happened towards the end of the night...which sucks because then I get all awake and then we quit....at midnight...and now I gotta try to sleep. People who RP know that isn't easy to do.

On the war gaming front, there is a little bit more. The big news is that I just secured a bunch of squat models to add to my meager collection. It isn't as good as I had hoped as the collection that I'm splitting wasn't as advertised, but I'll have enough guys to make an IG detachment for my Ad Mech army. How cool will that be? I've got all these super cool Ad Mech dudes, and then have a nice bunch of retro squats supporting them. And Knights too....not sure if it gets any better for 40K than that.

Also, Spartan Games has been putting out some Dystopian Wars news lately. Freaking about time. And here's the crux of it, when they do promote their game, I get interested in it again. Because its cool! So my buddy bought into the Kickstarter they just did and he hadn't closed out his pledge yet, so I was able to hop in and get the new rulebook and an expansion fleet. They have also released some modular battleships for the main six fleets. Not so sure how crazy I am about those yet. We'll see. But the big thing is, when Spartan actually promotes their game, it makes me what to play it. Gah!

Also, with the new year means a new OFCC. I really want to participate in it again. It has been years since I went to one as a player. Originally, I thought I'd go with Flames of War, but it seems that game has really died out locally and I don't think they are in a good position to have a tournament for that game. That means I'm now looking at 40K. I suppose I could enter in the 9th age tournament, but honestly, I don't want to get into 9th age. With 40K though, I'd want to bring my Ad Mech...which is great, because I love them...but they are completely unpainted. So that is a lot of work. So we'll see. Maybe the squats will motivate me into painting a new 40K army.

That's it folks. Until next time....

Times are a Changing

Man, I had really hoped to get in one more post in January, but it was simply not to be. But that is okay, as lots of stuff is going on. First off, we have a new President. This means I'm spending less time on facebook as it's all filled with political crap. I don't think it matters much on which side of the fence you fall, the whole topic is just so toxic right now. I'm done with it. Therefore I am spending more time on gaming. Yay me!

Kings of War - well I decided to take my new Dark Elf army over for kings of war day. However, we only had three players, and not feeling my best, I decided to sit it out and help out a new player that had showed up. Thankfully, he brought Twilight Kin (dark elves) so I got to play them sorta anyhow. :)

Poor Nick, his Tomb Kings got beat again. But it was a good match and things just fell the way of the dark elves in the end. That is a nice solid army and one that I will happily play. However, now that our new guy is going to be bringing them, I have to go and figure out a different army to bring. Someone requested Orcs, so I'll give them a go next time. However, I may use my herd models as they are simply more table ready than my orcs.

I still haven't found a buyer for my abyssal army yet. A few people were interested, but nothing solid came out of it. I may have to go Ebay. Bleah. If I do, I'll also be putting up my Mantic Enforcer models too. Got them in a Kickstarter a while back and just never did anything with them. Might as well find them a good home.

Pathfinder - finally got to play pathfinder again with my new group. We hit level four and I have to had it to Matt, he gave us one doozy of a fight. The only downside to the pathfinder group is that they like to play late, like midnight late. I'm old. I don't do midnight games anymore. Just wrecks my whole weekend. :)

DDO - well the Clemson DDO group is still chugging along. Its like herding cats, I swear. There are three of us that are pretty committed to playing. The others....well not so much. Shame too because I really like it when everyone makes it. We don't take it too seriously and try to even inject some roleplaying into it. Last time we played, the little kobold shamans on elite were throwing lightning bolts around. One nailed my poor sorcerer in the back and I was a floating spirit stone. I laughed out loud. It was just so unexpected and funny to see happen. It was fun, which is the whole point of playing. So I'm gonna keep herding those darn cats.

GW - so I do kinda keep an eye on GW's announcements and such...mostly just the 40K stuff. Well they just released a new model for one of their primarchs. The funny thing is, he looks like a grown up version of Joffrey from Game of Thrones. It's creepy.

TV - all of my TV shows are back! So now its back to watching just hordes of bad shows with the wife unit. One of the few stand outs though is Magicians. My daughter and I watched it last season and really enjoyed it. Its definitely one of the more mature shows, but I like the writing and the story makes sense most of the time. Which is a whole lot more than the DC comic shows that the CW produces. I mean I want to support comic book shows as much as I can...but damn the writers just fail so much. :)

Okay, so that's it for now.

Changing of the Guard

Hey-oh! Hello Sports fans, welcome to the latest edition of "oh crap, I forgot to blog". The blog that doesn't plan at all and is just posted on the fly. Readers beware.

So what do we talk about today? Well gaming stuff of course. The big news is, I've bought another army. I just couldn't pass it up. It was a great deal, and it was a great set of models. Doesn't matter that I've owned this army twice before and sold or traded it away. Nope, what matters is that I like the models. Luckily for me, I can use them in Kings of War as well as Warhammer 8th/9th edition. When I will use them or where I will store them are completely unknown. But I'll have them.

I'm also selling my Abyssals. They just aren't for me. Which is really a shame since I just spent a significant amount of money in order to bolster them. GW was selling this certain range of female demons that I could not pass up. However, I think I'll be able to fit them into my new army just fine. So its all good. I have yet to actually sell the Abyssals though...but I have had a few inquiries, so fingers crossed.

I haven't played any more KoW since the last post, but I have games coming up this Sunday. Now to decide what to take. I could take my new army which I'll be picking up on Saturday....or I could bring the gobbos again to make someone else feel the pain.

Otherwise, the weather here has been both lovely and destructive which has put my Pathfinder game on hold. I will be playing this evening though again, so that's good.

Myself and Anthony (college buddy) was able to successfully herd the cats and get a full DDO group of Clemson Adventure Guild alum together! That was a big deal. We had our first game on Monday night and it was a hoot. Just like the old days. Oh, and of course...Go Clemson! Whoooooo! National Champions! Go Tigers! (football reference for those that don't know).

Still playing quite a bit of Overwatch as well. Some characters I just hate. Like Genji. Gah! can't stand him. I swear they shrunk his hitbox when he jumps around. Oh, and I wish there was a way to detect aimbot usage. But if I find myself getting mad then I quit playing. Just not worth it.

So that's it...but honestly...quite a bit of stuff. New army, getting rid of one, D&D, computer games....and my wife is still happy with me and my kids are safe and healthy. I call this a win. Till next time.

The New Year

Whoops, I really should have gotten in a second post in December. Ah well. It was the holidays. And I did get in some gaming. I have finally gotten into a new D&D group....well we are playing Pathfinder....but basically its D&D. So far so good actually. The only issue is that they like to play late and I'm old and have to get up in the morning. Thankfully we play over the weekend, but still. How sad is that that after one night of staying up to 1am, I was wiped out the whole next day? Ugh. Aging sucks. And now its yet another year where I'm slowing down instead of speeding up.

Oh, I do sort of have a reason for the lack of posts, for the last 8 weeks I had a splint on my right hand that made it very difficult to type. It just came off yesterday and now I have to torture myself to get my finger to work right again. PT sucks.

I took two weeks off over the holidays so that I could be with my kids, so that was cool. One of the things I was able to do was to pull out all of my goblin stuff to see if I had enough for a goblin KoW army. Turns out I do. So I sat there for a couple of days putting models together and then a few days ago, got in a 1500pt game with my friend Robert and his Kingdom of Men army. We played a straight up Kill scenario to keep things simple. The goblins performed really well...okay, so perhaps not the goblin troops themselves, but the army did very well. At 1500pts, I had a lot of options. I had two goblins infantry hordes, a troll horde, and two regiments. That doesn't then go into the monsters, warmachines, and characters on top of that.

The goblins won the game quite handily, in fact, it was probably one of the biggest wins I've had yet playing KoW. I did get lucky with an early route of some knights on a flank, but mostly it was due to Robert making an error in the middle with his spearmen horde and thinking that bane chant was a surge spell. Unfortunately, he didn't share this plan ahead of time or I could have corrected him. With his center block gone, it wasn't long before the rest collapsed. I will say though, if it wasn't for the non-goblin units, the game probably would have gone a lot differently. Yellow-bellied really rears its ugly head just when you don't want it to. That and hitting on 5's in the best situation is not great. Had a good time and nice to see an army like that is completely viable.

I'm going to try and gather my thoughts on Kings of War to do a system review now that I've gotten more games in. Until next time.