Wargaming Social Networks

One of the biggest problems facing any wargamer, or any niche hobby enthusiast, is the difficulty in finding an opponent. This is one of GW's greatest strengths since their games is well known around the world compared to small companies such as DP9. That great strength however is just as limited in many aspects, as being known and played around the world makes no difference if there is no known stores or clubs in your region. The players at that point is left to hunt down people through sheer luck that play the same game as themselves.

One of the things that my years within this hobby has shown me is that wargamers, and the companies who make the game in which the gamers play, don't really push for a truly social networking ability. You get ways to play *some* wargames over the internet using various programs such as Vassal, but even that means you need to find opponents willing to play with you. Of course this problem can be easier or harder to see depending on your region. A Warhammer player in London is going to be able to network easier with fellow gamers due to GWs innate influence in that region, whereas on the Pacific coast of the US, GW stores aren't commonly seen and all gaming takes place in either clubs or indie stores.

I am not immune to this either, as I have mentioned many times before that since Knightfall Games closed their doors, my gaming time and opponents has also been severely cut down on. If it wasn't for my only single nearby opponent, that happens to be my wife, I would not get a single game in. Knightfall Games wasn't the only store to close their doors either, as Rivals closed their doors a few months later, effectively dropping most gaming support in this area. Rainy Day Games is still alive, but the gaming scene isn't as heavy there when compared to the Magic and Pokemon players.

On the flip side of everything, going back to my London example. In London it might be easier to find an opponent for a GW based game to play, but what if you don't want to play a GW game? Suddenly it becomes a bit more difficult and you are in the same predicament as the person on the Pacific coast of the US. GW's games are only a support while focused on GW games, once you start exploring other options of the hobby, you find an uphill battle.

For most things, the internet hasn't really changed the wargaming hobby overall. From the way I see it, that is because of numerous issues that separates the hobby from other hobbies. I'll use a comparison between myself and someone I know. One of my co-workers does a wine tasting blog, but from the blog they get samples (A few companies game companies do this), they have speakers come onto their videos (fewer game companies do this unless you are a big network such as BeastsofWar), and even offer temp positions if interested during harvest season (no game company does this to my knowledge). That is just from the company side of things, once you get into the actual wine side of things it becomes even more different. Wine tasting always seems to be a social gathering, far more than one or two extra people around a table, but a full on evening spent talking about the wines.

You look at wargamers though, and suddenly the social aspect vanishes. Even at a club or a store, people separate into their games, and once the game is over people go their own ways usually. Rarely do you see gamers sit down and talk about the hobby as a whole. Problem becomes more exasperated by the rampant fanboyism found within the gaming culture, which makes speaking about other systems a frustrating ordeal with the wrong crowd how may not have played any other system, or absolutely loves/hates one company or another.

As gamers, we need to be more social, need to be able to get out and show off our hobby, and most importantly we need to support each others preferred systems even if we don't play them. Just because someone prefers GW to Mantic or Anima Tactics to WarmaHordes shouldn't become impassable barriers for lines of communication between gamers.

The Hype of Something New

Today my nearly 5 pounds of RSN fleet arrived on my doorstep (I'll get around to doing reviews of them as I get to it), but the best part of opening the box for me was unwrapping the new Firestorm Armada V2 rulebook.

It may sound strange, but one of the major things I enjoy about the wargaming hobby is reading the rules and how a particular company tried to make itself stand out from the other companies out there. I actually enjoy reading through rulebooks and looking at the various studio armies shown in the books.

Even if I don't play a game any longer, I find it hard to get rid of the rulebooks because I always seem to find something I missed earlier. Could be a rule that slid under my radar, an interesting piece of terrain, or a paint job that strikes my fancy. I still have the 4th edition Warhammer 40K rulebook for this exact reason, some of the terrain ideas could still work for Heavy Gear Blitz, Infinity, or a wide variety of other games (40K wasn't as GRIMDARK as it is now days).

Miniatures are great, nothing like holding a well sculpted work of art in your hands fresh out of the package, but at the end of the day, it is the rulebooks that keep me hyped for a game. If the book is good, fluff is well placed, and the art actually makes me want to look at it, then I will spend hours upon hours going over that book. Already I was going through the V2 rulebook and found a space station I hadn't seen before. It looks amazing, and my interesting is piqued in regards to how it was constructed. Looks better than my idea of just using the Battlefleet Gothic Blackstone Fortress (although the Orbital Dock looks good too).

So the obvious question to the public then; Do any other folks get more hyped about the prospect of reading new rules over the idea of new miniatures?

Customization - How Much is Too Much?

One of the things that irk me while gaming, and has turned me off of various games is the amount of character customization available to me during the creation of the army. I am not saying I expect every miniature to have it's own rules for creation, as that would be simply too much for the table. I do however go into a force creation wanting to make a force or fleet *mine*, and some games do this better than others.

One of the worse offenders of character creations is Anima Tactics where almost every miniature has a name, stats, and about the only power you have over it is if you give it an accessory or not. They have some absolutely lovely miniatures, but the fact everyone is a special character is a major killer there. They are not alone in this regard either, as WarmaHordes also has this to a degree with the Warlock/Warcasters being 'special' characters right out of the gate. You will find that I don't even really enjoy playing Warhammer or 40K with special characters either. To me, as soon as you add a special character, the force is no longer really mine at that point.

On the flip side, if you have too wide an option for character customization, then you run into the issue of redundant, overpowered, and just worthless pieces of equipment. you see this heavily in WFB and 40K for instance. Look at the WFB Slann and how many people take the Cupped Hands of the Old Ones magic item as just one example. HGB sort of falls into this same category as well to a degree, as there are many gears that simply are outclassed by other available gears. Cheetah versus Jaguar for a quick example.

Wargaming is a strange beast in that even in this topic you will find peoples thoughts vary greatly about what they feel about the use of special characters and character customization. You are going to have people that play games like Mordheim that put HEAVY focus on individual characters because that is the game it is built around, then you have the other extreme of games like Firestorm Armada that has zero special 'characters' as all ships come just as listed.

For me, I find Firestorm Armada's lack of customization fine for some reason because it is in fact a ship and not an actual individual  It could be from all the various Gundam, Firefly, and Babylon 5 episodes I have watched over time (I am sorry but I simply have not watched Star Trek or Star Wars outside of the passing glance if it was on TV so can't talk about their space battles), but for me the tone of a ship should be based on the exploits of the crew aboard that ship. You take that combat to a gear or other man shaped mecha, and suddenly I start wanting more option loadouts available to me as I could easily see a pilot customizing his mecha to fight in his preferred methodology.

Getting back into standard foot soldier themed games though, there are so many good games available to people, and yet I have found so few good character customization options available. Strangely enough, for me one of the best I have seen is the Kings of War ruleset. All the characters have a set stat line, they could be equipped with a great sword, sword and shield, halberd, or a harp if you so wanted, and it wouldn't change their stat line. In fact, even the magic items have a section that state that the magic items warp and twist to the form most preferred to the user. What this allows is for you the player to make ANY character to lead your forces and not worry about massive impacts and gear discrepancy since the weapons you put on the miniature don't actually affect that miniatures playstyle.

As I said, for me character customization seems a weird beast to tame. So obviously the question is, where do the players think the companies should aim for? Make a system like WFB, Mordheim and HGB with multiple loadouts per character, or a simpler game where the characters are preset like Warmachine and Anima Tactics? Should more companies walk that line Mantic does with trying to allow as many various companies as possible?

Friday Showcase - Elven Ranger Mage

I know I am late with this post. Ran into more games of WHQ then I expected to play last week, which of course required the mini to play, then also coming down sick sure didn't help me have any more motivation.

Anyhow, there he is. Looks decent enough I think, shiny as all get out thanks to the dip, but I've learned to live with that.

As I am more of a fan of Warhammer when it was very gritty, but not so 'skull-ified' as it is today, I made the Elven Ranger Mage very dark. I know that the Elven Range Mage is always supposed to use his scale mail armor he starts the game with, but the term Ranger just screams leathers to me. Also, the fluff behind the Elven Ranger Mage says they are more or less Wood Elves that refuse to accept they are Wood Elves (Like the Elves from the novel Gilead's Blood)

The Sword came out interesting looking. I used the same basic technique as I used on my Retribution Halberdiers, with less blue wash used. Gave the sword just enough color to look like it is a special, but not over the top special. Other then the sword though, I tried my best to keep the figure pretty much dark toned. The sword is a nice eye catching part of the figure.

The demon/summon/spell/thing came out a bit more tame then I envisioned at first. When I first starter, I was going to do a blue hot fire with a white core. It quickly became apparent to me as I painted the figure that I have no clue how to accomplish such a painting job. I know that I didn't want to use basic fire, as I expected the Elven Ranger Mage would use something so eye catching if he's supposed to be zipping in and out of combat keeping a low profile, but it should still be something that could be intimidating.

I won't lie, another reason I think I made it the way it turned out is the fact I already did the phoenix on my other Elven Hero figure I recently painted, and wanted to try another painting style. He still came out decent looking enough that I think I accomplished the overall goal. It might not be made of fire, but certainly doesn't look like anything from the mortal world.

The cape came out looking pretty amazing I think. The highlights and shading, ignoring those given by the dip, just seemed to click. Was really happy with everything here it was just bright enough to add some flourish to the figure, and yet look dark enough to fit in with the rest of the figure. When I first painted it, I tried to do a custom red highlight, but the red came out pink for some reason, so once that shade was dried went back over it with the standard red. That light pink color helped the normal red though by making it far more vibrant and 'right'. In the end it came out pretty much exactly how I was expecting it too.

I think the part that turned out the worse on this figure was actually the hair. If you look at the face and chest, those skins tones turned out really well, and the shadow were just right and gave the Elven Ranger Mage a very dark tone to him. I can't really complain about this at all, as it just came together with little effort.

The hair however, the hair I am just not happy with, and no matter what I did I couldn't get it any better. For me hair has always been a weakness of mine. There is a reason why many of my figures I paint tend to have minimum hair expose if possible. It's obvious that I tried to go for the greyed/white hair style, but for some reason I simply could not get the highlighting to work right. You can tell that I just can't do white in general if you look at the Elven Hero I painted up last, as the fur on the top of his cloak apears to have almost no shading although I really did try to give it some. The hair doesn't look bad by any means, but it didn't come anywhere close to what I wanted. In the end, I settled for the best I could do and moved on with picking out details.

So there is Kelarion, the Elven Ranger Mage I am hoping he sees a long and glorious life on the tabletop.

Monday Skirmish - Warhammer Quest AND Super Dungeon Explore

This week was rather eventful in terms of gaming, as I didn't really expect to get anything done in that regard, and it kinda borked up my plans to get my Elf Ranger Mage mini painted and posted.

I actually got in three games of Warhammer Quest and a game of Super Dungeon Explore. It was rather amazing fun. We even actually survived more dungeons of WHQ then we lost, which is amazing in and of itself for level 1 heroes.

The first couple games of WHQ that was played was my wife, her niece, and myself. We had a party made up of the Barbarian and Wizard (controlled by my wife), the Elven Ranger Mage (being controlled by yours truly), and the Dwarf (by the wife since we figured the Dwarf was a good straight forward character for a newbie).

The first dungeon we had to do was in the Fighting Pit, in which the warriors were tasked with killing the two prized minotaurs that were in the objective room at the end of the dungeon. the threat of having the objective room worth of monster spawn on us at any moment was also hanging over us the entire way. Something amazing happened though, they dungeon went stupidly smooth. We didn't get any unexpected events the entire path down, and we mauled each monster event that got in our way. It felt rather odd to have a dungeon go so well for us. Even the fight against the minotaurs was rather easy since we had the Elven Ranger's War Crown and the Wizards Fingers of Death scroll to use, which made quick work of the two minotaurs easily within the two turns we were allowed. My Elven Ranger's Sword of Aenarion spell was amazing that dungeon and I really felt he earned his keep, but of course the Dwarf always seemed to come in and strike the killing blow and take the credit (and the gold) for the kill. Smelly under handed Dwarves, what do you expect, am I right?

The second dungeon was more or less what we normally run into. I remember the Fire Chasm objective room being drawn, but for the life of me can't recall what our mission was going into things. The dungeon was made up of four dungeon rooms in a row (mind you, this was right after we just played a game, so the deck was well shuffled by this point), and the power die procced an unexpected event at least once in every room. It took us a long time to slaughter our way into the forth room before we had a cave-in event collapse the roof on us and end our ability to go forward anymore. Although we didn't die, we simply could not go forward any further in time before the cave-in would take effect so had to call it at that point.

The third game took place the next day with a friend of ours. The make up was the same, with our friend taking control of the Barbarian. We got the Idol Chamber mission to retrieve the sword of the elector counts. The dungeon again went pretty strange for us. First the power die never rolled terribly for us for most of the dungeon, it wasn't until we were in the objective room fighting that all the dice just refused to cooperate. The second thing that was rather weird was the fact we somehow only got hallways, and when it came to t-junctions the barbarian somehow kept us on the right track (which meant of course all the dungeon rooms were on the other route). In the end the Elven Range Mage managed to take the sword without the guardian coming to life and hitting one of us like a mack truck. Afterward an unexpected event occurred which of course made the Ranger trigger a pit trap and almost die. We recovered from that thanks to the Dwarf rope, only for the Cave-In event to follow up, which meant the warriors ran out of the Objective room. Apparently holding the sword of the elector counts is to accept a curse onto oneself.

We decided not to worry about doing any campaign stuff since this was most likely last time we'd be able to play a game with her anytime in the foreseeable future and got out Super Dungeon Explore for a romp. Because we haven't played in a while, it took us a while for me as consul and for everyone else as players, to get back into the swing of things. I picked the lava board thinking I would hinder the players a ton, and all it did was slow down my own mobs since the players never even got into that board. Our friend picked up the barbarian girl (don't recall the name) to keep the theme going, my wife picked the Ember Mage, and her niece picked the Holy Paladin. The first spawn point went down really fast, I wasn't at all expecting that and started to think I may well lose some thing fierce, but it came down to the same old thing that let me win. I simply choked the pathway between the first board and the second with spawns until Rex and eventually Starfire could join in. I will say that the Kobold mage's buffs are freaking insane and a huge part of why I was able to pull out such a long entrenchment in that corridor. At that point it was just a matter of time. It certainly didn't help that the Ember Mage was rendered almost useless on the boss fight as soon as Starfire spawned because of his immunity to fire.

In the end, it was a fun few games. I am finding that my WHQ boards are starting to warp, bend, and twist due to age and use, so I need to start looking into something to do as a replacement. problem with that is the coop factor that WHQ has that I have yet to find in another game. SDE, Descent:JItD, and other dungeon hacks I have come across so far all require some type of GM figure to play the bad guys. Unfortunately my kids don't like that type of playstyle, so that means we don't get to play those games as frequently as I would like.

Reaction Tuesday - GW Price Increase Reactions

Something that is still making waves after a couple weeks has been GW's latest price increases. I made a blog about it last year when it happened, and didn't really expect to write about it again, and yet people are still making the same 'deer in the headlight' type posts/sayings again this year.

GW has this thing called an annual price increase, which people really shouldn't be shocked by, prices go up on nearly everything every year. The difference is though that the consumer of GW products actually does hold all the cards in this area, and yet they refuse to actually play with those cards they are dealt. you see the exact same posts as you did last year about how people were going to stop playing GW games because of the prices, and yet six months down the line you find those same people happily handing their credit cards over to GW at some new release.

If you dare ask them why they play WFB or 40K, they almost always have some terrible excuse that apparently helps them sleep at night. 'Oh the background is what keeps me', 'No one else at my club at play anything else',  'I don't like the rules of Warmahordes'. All these excuses are complete rubbish in the best of cases and on multiple levels.

First and foremost, while WarmaHordes might certainly be one of the more popular competitive products, that doesn't mean you have to play it. Mantic's Kings of War and Warpath rulesets are much closer to WFB and 40K respectively then WarmaHordes is. To top it off, the Kings of War and Warpath rulesets are FREE, no excuse why you and your club aren't willing to give it a shot. That is also assuming you aren't willing to start up a new game in a new scale. Heavy Gear Blitz, Drop Zone Commander, Dust Tactics, and many other games are simply amazing foot based armies in varying scales.

The background excuse was one I always did hate to hear as well. Where in the background does it say Teclis is going to be in 500 different battles throughout the day? Where in the background does it  talk about dice rolls not going well? Simply put, nowhere. The background is something that is completely separate from the tabletop game. if you play a game of Warpath, the background for 40K just doesn't change. You can easily keep up on the background of the game without having to buy multiple $33 dollar codexs/army books.

The last point was slightly hit on already about no one else using the system at the club. With free rules for Infinity, Kings of War, Warpath, Full Thrust, and multiple other games out there, there is no reason not to give something else a try. Most of those other system even allow easy conversion to use of your current miniatures to work with their systems. Even if you don't want to use one of those systems, most other game systems rulebooks are a half to a third the price of the GW rulebooks (and most tend to actually give you the full force rules as well).

In the end, if you don't want to give up GW games, simply say it. We live in a great time for tabletop wargames, with almost every type of game having multiple rulesets to use within our grasp. If you choose not to take advantage of that, then simply sit back and suck up the annual price increases and stop acting like their blindsided you again.

Monday Skirmish - Warhammer Quest

My family enjoys playing Warhammer Quest a decent amount, but none of them has really had the chance to use the roleplay book that comes with the core game. That is, up until last night they hadn't. This isn't much of a battle report, given that the most battle that happened was my wife's Barbarian killing a runaway bull in a single strike and my Elven Range Mage fighting a duel. It is a start however, and should lead into great things.

In our last dungeon, we actually managed to survive the dungeon and decided to make our way towards the nearest town. We quit at that point since it was late, but last night we picked up that game from the town. First visit to the city had most of us laughing at our horrible luck.

The Dwarf on the first day managed to buy the stonebread from the Dwarf Quarter successfully, but was kicked out of the city (still had to pay living expenses though every day though). My kid wasn't exactly pleased she had to continue to pay living expenses while just sitting there, but the die rolls just wasn't on her side.

The Wizard had a fairly good run in town over the course of three days, getting bandages, six potions from the Wizards Guild, and a mule and cart from the Animal Trader, plus an additional starting Wound. Eventually the Wizard had to flee under the threat of marriage. You could tell it was a hard choice for my kid since was stuff left to do in town, but  she wasn't fond of marriage.

The Barbarian got a Halberd,a once per dungeon special pig fat dodge ability from the Tavern, a load of provisions for the next dungeon, and killed a runaway prize bull. Lots of gold spent, but nothing really terrible happened to her on this trip.

The Elven Ranger Mage just wasn't fated to have a good time in town. Got a few provisions for the next dungeon, met the Elven nobles in the Elf Quarter who took 400 gold from me, but in return gave me an additional starting wound. I also was given a vision  of a treasure at the end of the next dungeon that was worth 5D6x100 gold... I rolled 1,1,1,2,4... The Elven Ranger Mage also had a duel to fight, that came back as a draw (I did get food and stay paid for that day though, so no living expenses yay!).

At the end of the night the family all had reasons to throw up their hands and say we were done in town and strike out on our own to the next dungeon. My youngest kid actually exclaimed "Finally, we can set the board up!" By this time it was getting late however, so we decided not to worry about the dungeon for the time being, that's for next week. That made both kids sigh, but agreeable under the ice cream they got to have before bed time.

200 Posts and Counting

Rather shocked that I have managed to get over the 200 post hurtle. Granted to do so I had to delete my old blog due to a weird bug losing all those previous followers, and to this day this blog certainly isn't the busiest (not as though I ever aimed for it to be). I am still proud of myself for being somewhat regular in updating this blog thus far and plan to continue so far a good while longer. Life might get in the way sometimes, but wargaming is still my first love of hobbies.

So what is next on my chopping block...

I still have some Firestorm Armada Miniatures that I think I can paint up and get field ready. That will most likely be my next painting project.

My wife is working on a Utopian Heavy Gear Blitz force, so will be working with her to get that army built and battle ready. Shes still deciding between pure Utopian, or CEF with Utopian allies, as she wants the Overlord tank something fierce.

May expand on my PRDF with a Red Bull, Anti-Rover Squad, and a Patrol Squad. Fill out my PRDF so I can more or less field any type of unit I want at any time. After that will see about starting a Northern force.

Have to work on my Kings of War Elven army, not going to worry about painting it up right away. I am trying to think of the best way i can paint it up without wanting to kill myself later. I am thinking about using the Army Painter colored primers for the base colors, and work from there. That may make it less annoying for me, not to mention faster turn around.

Still working on my personal Warhammer Quest revamp. Getting into the sticky part of cardless dungeon creation now, but figure I'll be able to punch through that barrier eventually. The rules aren't set in stone yet, but thus far it is a mix of SDE, Descent: JItD, HGB, and WHQ. Not going to go into much further details just yet.

Those are just things off the top of my head. Lots of little projects to knock out, so plenty of blog updates to be expected as time goes on. Granted real life may slow down posts here and there, but as always I'll get something else up before too long.

Actually survived a dungeon!

 
Last night, for the family gaming night, family played Warhammer Quest again with my daughters new Dwarf mini she picked out and my new 'Elven Ranger' mini.

We decided to house rule, that the heroes wouldn't be stupid enough to go out into the wilds completely unprepared, and they would have 1D6 provisions to start the first dungeon with. We also let the Wizard have the Healing Hands spell, as we needed a dedicated healing spell that would be easier to cast then my Elven Ranger Mage's spells. Just those two rules alone, made the game go from impossible (we would not have made it past the 2nd room otherwise), to just down right challenging.

The quest we received was the 'Sacrifice?' quest, in which the Elven Ranger found one of his kin was being tortured and the heroes needed to stop the sacrifice. Standard dungeon deck building starting us off in a golden corridor. The warriors included the Barbarian, the Dwarf, Elven Ranger Mage, and the Wizard.

The first room we explored was a dungeon room with three minotaurs in it. While we were busy fighting those minotaurs, we had snotlings and goblins also join the fight due to unexpected events. As I said earlier, if it wasn't for those provisions we brought along, we would never have made it pass this room.

Eventually the heroes did manage to beat down all the mobs in front of us, and every turn the Elven Ranger's kin was still alive so we moved forward, plowing through a couple more dungeon rooms, none of which were nearly as dangerous as the first one we entered.

We got to a point, that the Elven Ranger, due to peoples positioning, got left in the dungeon room we just cleared as the other three heroes entered the new dungeon room recently explored. As the event occurred I almost let out a complete moan of defeat. The portcullis slammed shut between the Elven Ranger and the other heroes. Not a good sign at all. Of course that event called for another event card immediately, and just by luck in the same room happened to be the dying Dwarf with the key to the portcullis.

The Elven Ranger's luck didn't let up from this point on. The next Power Phase found me rolling three '4's on the 3D6 required for the quest. Unfortunately that meant my kin had died, but as a team we all went onward for revenge.

Eventually got into the Objective room, and wife rolled the D6 to see which enemies awaited us in the shadows, and much to everyone's joy it came up a '6' meaning 12 snotlings, 6 goblin spearmen, and 6 goblin archers. The warriors started mauling their way through the enemies, with numerous Pits of Despair being planted on the back wall by the wizard, and the Elven Ranger's Shockwave spell taking out numerous goblins before being to weak to hurt anything. We had a single Unexpected event occur that brought another minotaur into the fight, but by the time he showed up, most of the greenskins were already dead, and the heroes had enough equipment to quickly dispatch the minotaur.

Because the Elven Ranger's kin was already dead, we decided he couldn't show us the secret way out, so we walked out of the dungeon, everyone still very much alive, and almost completely full health. At this point wife said we were going to get the characters to a settlement to restock, as she wanted to get into the roleplay book finally.

We decided to go to a town, and made the rolls. The only thing out of the ordinary that happens was the chapel event, in which the barbarian gained another point of health, the gods wasn't listening to any other of our prayers. Once we safely arrived in town, we called it a night and sent the kids to bed. We figured we would take the time to restock our supplies before the start of our next adventure.

We survived though, that's the important thing!

Last night's gaming fun

Last night we had company come over that hadn't played any real dungeon crawler or tabletop game other then D&D and Heroes Quest, so we first played through a game of Warhammer Quest. Things were going decent up until we got into a dungeon room with four orcs and five orc archers, then my wife rolled a '1' on the power die bringing in 5 more orcs. The next turn she rolled another '1' which got the 1D3 minotaurs events (which thankfully I rolled low and we only got one). The whole time this was happening we simply could not hit. As you might imagine, everyone died.

The neighbor didn't seem to really know how he felt about the game because of so much randomization, which of course is understandable if it is your first game of Warhammer Quest. I think that if it wasn't for the fact that for a good chunk of the dungeon we were pushing along at good speed with everyone rolling decently, only to suddenly see everyone rolling 1 and 2 on their die didn't help. For me, that is just one of those things you can't help. The die are going to do whatever they feel like, so if they turn on you, then they turn on you. Newcomers though are obviously going to get frustrated with the sudden shift of control.

After we were done with the game we talked a bit about the various dungeon hack games I had from Warhammer Quest to Drakon all the way to Decent and Talisman. Eventually the conversation went to my wargaming which seemed to intrigue him, and of course I don't mind chatting it up about my favorite hobby. I told him about wargaming basics, the core differences between games like Anima Tactics, WarmaHordes, and Warhammer, and of course showed him the miniatures involved. Eventually he was curious enough to want to see a basic intro game, which of course WarmaHordes is the best set up for a good low level balance.

Wife loaned him access to her Cryx, which we used the eSkarre, Reaper, and Slayer helljacks. I used Reznik and the Wonder twins (Castigator and Reckoner). I started off very basic, expecting to only show him how movement, combat, and other core actions behaved, intentionally not spending focus points on things like boosted attacks, running, additional attacks, ect. He was a quick learner though, and only a few turns in started to use those advantages as I discussed the options. For a good chunk of the battle it looked like I might actually lose, but in a single turn the Castigator and Reckoner managed to destroy his helljacks (the dice finally starting to show some love for me), and Reznik went for eSkarre, between two boosted attacks and Reznik's feat, I managed to kill her almost twice over.

Of course I was holding back at first, letting him get far more damage then he should have since I wasn't going into elemental damage, warjack power attacks, and whatnot. As anyone who plays Menoth knows, our jacks aren't the best in a basic punching contest. I am hoping though, that with his interest still somewhat peaked, that he might look further into some form of wargame and possibly give us another enemy to fight.

Another busy weekend ahead of me

This weekend should be fairly entertaining. In addition to all the normal house work I have to get done, I also have some gaming planned with strangers.

Found out only recently one of my neighbors played Heroes Quest, which is just a basic form of Warhammer Quest, and they made a bunch of house rules that more or less made heroes Quest into Warhammer Quest (Character advance, travel, blah blah blah). This of course will be the first time the husband will play Warhammer Quest at all, and the first time the wife has played the genre of board games period. Will certainly be interesting, and I am not sure if I want to bring in my Elven Ranger instead of the classic Elf or not. I guess it will depend entirely on what the rest of the group chooses.

I also want to start knocking out some of my Firestorm Armada miniatures, as I believe it should be fairly quick turn around on getting those painted. Found a basic color scheme on the web I liked, with some modifications to make it 'mine' of course. This site has more or less what I wanted to do, mine scheme of course will use silver instead of grey, darker blue, red instead of orange, green for the command decks, ect. Will be interesting to see if it turns out the way my minds eye thinks it should, or if the painting just gets on my nerves and I quit half way through again.

On top of all that I am still fighting with myself if I should start up Warhammer 40K or Fantasy again. I really do want a Tau force, as I have gotten much better at playing a range heavy force, but at the same time rumor mill says the Crisis suits are getting a complete overhaul, and I will hate to have to get completely new, and most likely more expensive, minis. Of course the fact I won't ever finish painting the force myself is another heavy factor. Heck, my Lizardmen force is still largely unpainted and incomplete.

Next on my busy weekend agenda is working on at least one of my RC helis. I know I posted about my 250 yesterday, but I think it'll come down to which I find requires less time from me over all. I do want something flyable by next spring though for sure, and one or another, one of these helis will be air born.

After all this is said and done, I still need to get leveling my Marauder and Lancer in FFXIV, fight Ifrit, work on my crafting. Almost finished with the basic Orcs must Die! game, so have to finish the up and try to clear all with 5 skulls. Maybe this weekend I'll also get some time to do a hot seat game of Might and Magic Heroes VI with the wife and maybe the kids. So much video gaming to top of the other hobbies.

This is all on top of doing yard work, changing the faucets in the house, visiting the wife's nephew (still not sure I care to), basic house cleaning, and many other 'fun' tasks all lined up. honestly these next four days off are just going to be loaded to the brim.

On the hunt for a good WHQ minis

My favorite character in Warhammer quest in the Elven Ranger, as you may have guessed from me constantly mentioning it in most of my reports on Warhammer Quest. Anyhow I have been looking for a decent mini that looks like it could be either a Knight or a Mage version of the Elven Ranger with ease. Thus far I have found one that is high ranking compared to most is Seltyiel Iconic Eldritch Knight from Reaper Mini.

I like how it looks like a decent enough fighter with obvious magical abilities, something the Elven Ranger is capable of in both forms you can choose from as it levels up. This mini however isn't the only option I am keeping my eye on.

A bit more passive looking, but still fairly stalwart, but not so showy in terms of it's magic abilities is the Arael, Half Elf Cleric miniature. Sure it says he is a Half Elf, but really you can't tell. it still has pointed ears of a normal Elf. He looks decent enough for a dungeoneer overall, and can really be both the normal Elf (even though the normal Elf is far better with a bow then the Ranger is strangely enough) or the Ranger.

Now both of those minis have price on their side. They are both between $5 and $7.50, and for the quality, not a bad choice. There is of course other options, that starts becoming far more expensive quickly.

The most obvious of course is the Warhammer High Elf Prince and Noble box set. It is much more expensive, but offers more variety to make a wide choice of themed Rangers, from White Lion to Swordmaster.

As I said though, the price does jump up rather drastically for what you get. $26.50 for a small boxset, and not much higher quality then found in the previously mentioned minis. It is hard to justify spending that much on a game that GW has already let die years ago. Warhammer Quest is only alive thanks to the fans, and there are so many sources of good, cheap alternative minis now, GW minis are hard to validate spending that much money on. Especially considering the number of various minis you will eventually need.

Anyhow, onto my Saurus Warrior mini. honestly, this is one I that I do like the look of GW's enough to validate spending the money on.

It is a nice mini that looks like it would eat your face, and yet also looks like it could take a punch. At $13.25, it isn't completely out of the realm of possibility to buy and use.

Right now I am currently using Kriv Blackspear from Reaper Minis. Of course mine is equipped with an axe and shield, rather then the spear shown in the pic, as I thought the shield was more fitting of the Saurus Warrior rules. Now this mini isn't cheap, coming in at $10.99, but it is larger then most GW minis, and pretty detailed. Unfortunately the best equipment options isn't shown, so you can really see that detail. he certainly does need a good base however, as in our last game, he seemed almost ackward on the board when positioning because he was twisted in such a weird pose. I know it's supposed to be a shield bash pose when everything is said and done, but it didn't come off exactly great.

Strangely enough GW has a pretty good edge here as there is very few good dragonmen/lizardmen options to choose from out there. GW's Lizardmen are excellent, being both just detailed enough to be eye catching yet not over the top enough to drown out the important bits.

Of course I need minis for a good number of other minis as well. We already replaced the Barbarian with Amon, Viking Warrior from Reaper Minis. It was also really nice for the price of $8.99. have a lot more to do though, including the enemy minis that are just getting outdated.

Another Warhammer Quest family night

Tonight we had another night with the family all playing Warhammer Quest again. This time we went into with a different mix up of heroes. The Barbarian, the Wizard, the Dwarf, and a Saurus Warrior. The adventure was the simple identification quest for the Tomb Chamber.

First room was a T-junction and no events happened. The barbarian lead us to the left hallway at explored the door there, which on the otherside sat the Guards Chamber dungeon room. We filtered into the room with the Barbarian, Saurus, and Wizard standing next to each other while the Dwarf went to the otherside of the room.

After the warriors had moved into the room a portcullis slammed shut behind them as Orc warriors and Orc archers leapt from the shadows at the heroes. The Dwarf quickly dispatched the one who dared to attack him and was left alone in the far corner while the rest of the group fought off the larger pack. The Barbarian went Berserk, but rolled a '1' so managed to deal one wound to the Saurus warrior, the Wizard's power die was simple to low for her to cast any magic, and the Saurus missed his to-hit roll. The Orcs returned fire dealing heavy damage to both the Barbarian and the Wizard, with minor wounds to the Saurus.

Turn two started with the Barbarian and Saurus both failing to hit with his attacks, the Dwarf moved forward and attacked the orc attacking the Wizard but missed. The Wizard cast a Lightning Bolt spell on the orc in front of the Saurus hoping to free him up and destroyed the creature. In retaliation the orcs once again dealt more damage to both the Wizard, Dwarf, and Barbarian.

The next round of combat started to show some promise as the Barbarian had finally managed to slay his stubborn orcish foe, freeing the Saurus up to assist the Wizard. The Saurus brought his axe down heavily on one of the orcs defeating it, but the deathblow failed to land on the second orc. The Dwarf and the Wizard however failed to land any blows this turn. Again the Barbarian and Wizard were hit, the Saurus using his provisions to heal the damage he could, keeping both warriors at two health.

The next turn started off badly with a roll of a '1' on the power die. First event was scorpions which thankfully had 9/12 of them destroyed before they got to the Wizard, followed by the Dwarf Prospector Event (we simply removed the porticullus at this point), then six more orcs jumped into the fight. The warriors fought hard, each killing most of the mobs on the board at the time. The orcs fought back and once again forced the Saurus to use more of his provisions to keep the Wizard and the Barbarian from death's door.

As if it wasn't bad enough, the next turn Skaven leapt into the fight from somewhere. The Dwarf mauled many before he tripped on his beard and landed face first on the ground. The Saurus took many hits, but thankfully his high toughness and Scaly Skin rule negated most of the serious damage. the Wizard and the Barbarian both fell, leaving the Dwarf and the Wizard back to back with many Skaven still around them.

The next fight, as if the dungeon knew we were close to going down had a Minotaur and four goblins join the fight alongside the Skaven. The Dwarf mauled one of the Skaven, while the Saurus killed one of the melee goblins and a Skaven in turn. The Minotaur, seemingly playing around managed to miss with both his attacks against the Saurus, and the Skaven's light attacks dealt more little wounds to the Saurus that were now adding up with no healer and the Saurus fell to the ground.

It certainly was not looking good for the Dwarf, as he was now along with the remaining mobs. He did what he could, and killed a goblin with his attack that turn. It was all in vain however as the minotaur came up and unloaded two strong connecting hits which took the Dwarf out of combat.

We decided to look at the dungeon deck now that everyone was dead and found that on a positive note, we were at least heading in the right way. Sucks that we didn't even get past the first dungeon room, but really what an you do when you have such a long succession of monsters wanting to eat your face? We fought long and hard, and at least went out like warriors this time around rather then crying in the darkness.

So after everything was said and done, I really missed the Elven Ranger's higher Weaponskill rating as the Saurus did manage to miss far more often then I liked. On the flip side though, the Saurus was a masterful tank, taking rounds upon rounds of damage and not healing himself. The Dwarf fought admirably, and I think has locked in a position in the group in some it's decent balance of tank and DPS. The Wizard again wasn't that useful to use for power, low die rolls just handicap that character so much. The Barbarian didn't function to well, simply because the dice did not like my wife much at all tonight. I am thinking the Elven Ranger Mage, the Wizard, the Saurus, and the Dwarf might have a decent shot at survival in the next game.

At some point I do need to start updating minis for Warhammer Quest. I could at least get Mantic's Orc range, but will have to look for other things. A part of me wants to put the Minotaurs on 2x2 base, as it is stupidly powerful to take up the same space as an ogre and other mobs you could face later on in the game.

First family gaming night report

Well tonight was a first for many reasons. As I said in my previous blog, I was going to get the family involved in a new weekly ritual, in hopes to at least for us to spend time together and for my daughters to both learn some lessons.

Tonight was certainly an interesting learning experience for us. My oldest daughter picked the Dwarf character to use, my youngest picked the Wizard, my wife got the Warrior Priest, and I selected the Elven Ranger Knight. Because we didn't have the Barbarian in the group, the Dwarf got the lantern to lead us through. For the most part everyone's health was either maxed or within 1-2 points of max, so good rolls there.

I let my youngest daughter pick the objective room, which turned out to be the Fire Chasm. This is one room where even if everything else goes in your favor, the entire party could possibly be killed just trying to cross the bridge to the other side. Of course my oldest daughter got us the 'Destroy the Bridge' adventure, which required us not only cross the bridge, but also destroy it. Our starting room as a simple golden passageway, nothing out of the ordinary.

Things started off pretty well, as my youngest daughter managed to keep rolling 4 or 5 on the power dice each turn, and the cards were literally passage > passage > passage > passage > dungeon room > passage. The first dungeon rooms event was the dieing Dwarf event, so Warrior Priest decided to hold onto that card (which we later turned to regret), following that event was the scorpion event which dealt 6 damage to the wizard. The silent march moved forward into the darkness.

It wasn't until the stairs where things began to go very badly very quickly. With an unexpected event we got surrounded by 8 skaven. The dwarf and the ranger whiffing with each of their attacks to the shock and horror of the group. The Warrior priest and the wizard also missed there attacks, but none of us at the table expected them to be awesome fighters. The skaven missed pretty much everyone but the warrior priest, and quickly brought her down to two health. Thankfully we managed to survive, just in time for another unexpected event card to happen which spawned some orcs that attacked us. Everyones health was low, and neither the wizard or the priest was able to heal so everyone was getting low. A solid arrow shot the warrior priest through the chest killing her, and leaving us extremely handicapped, plus losing the portcullis key was going to turn around and bite us too.

Finally we manage to get a good power die roll and the wizard casts Life Force on the Elven Ranger Knight. The Ranger managed to deal 14 wounds, which turned to heal us. The wizard taking 8 of those, and then splitting the remaining equally out between the Dwarf and Elf. Eventually we killed the orcs with just the three of us, we gave our praise to our fallen warrior priest and moved on.

More corridors was ahead of us, but now we were on our guard for what the event deck could throw at us. They didn't let us down either, as the next room we entered popped out a fresh minotaur with eyes on the wizard. With the minotaur came two goblin spearmen and six goblin archers. The wizard used her hand of death scroll to deal 14 wounds to the minotaur, just barely failing to kill it outright to the groans of my daughter and myself. The minotaurs first counterattack was vicious as it killed the wizard in a single blow, the second blow missing the Dwarf which was standing next to her. The Dwarf struck down the minotaur with a strong blow of his axe, killing the creature. Now it being just the Dwarf and the Ranger, the two heroes fought on with righteous fury as they now fought for their lives and killed the last of the goblins.

The Dwarf opened the door and we moved forward to explore the next room and found the circle of power waiting us menacingly. As we stepped in, both the Ranger and the Dwarf prepared for the worst, and the worst is exactly what we got. The first event was the portcullis event, which in itself wasn't horrible as we hadn't seen a T-junction to this point, so shouldn't have a need to go back. The game proved that assumption wrong real fast and the second event card turned out to be the avalanche card. Now both warriors were stuck with no way forward and no way back.

We died not fighting as warriors should, but in the darkness with no food or water.

At this point we packed up the game, but it certainly was fun. I am hoping that with more games I can get my kids more into it and learn not to throw the dice across the table when they roll. My oldest daughter still doesn't understand why it's bad to be standing dead center of the dungeon and objective rooms when mobs spawn around her, she simply sees more potential for death blow gold.

Teaching lessons through gaming

When I was a young little kid, before I even heard of Warhammer (mind you that means earlier then eight years of age), my father sat me down and taught me chess. While we played he taunted me, lured me on, made jokes, ect that at the time angered me and of course I kept losing. I remember my dad telling me I had to learn to focus, to forget about outside distractions, to keep calm, and focus on the game. It was a worthy lesson, even if it took a long time to stick. Now days I constantly fall back to my wargaming as a stress reliever, as I do have to focus and calm myself or I play like rubbish, so the lesson my father taught me all those years back is something I still do to this very day. It might not be chess, but the core is still there.

Of course you might be wondering as to why I am telling you this story, and I am getting to that. Tomorrow is going to be the first test run of a new weekly ritual with my family, something I am not sure will work, but certainly something worth trying.

My daughter is acting out, much like I did when I was her age. Like me, she also doesn't have a true hobby. She likes a few things simply because they are either like animals or dinosaurs, but she doesn't actually show interest in anything in particular. Also like me, she is starting to act out and annoy those around her with her actions and voice.

To try a less competitive game then chess, and something the whole family can be involved in, I am going to have a family game night where we sit down after dinner and play Warhammer Quest. Here is my thinking on why this game in particular. The kids can pick whatever they want to play, and my wife and I will carry our own characters. My oldest daughter will have the lantern and need to make the calls to guide and protect the group. Lead us the wrong way and we waste valuable time and resources. Leave everyone behind and the party perishes. Of course there are many other options as well.

I am hoping that while my daughter is playing the game, we can start planting that seed for her to slow down and think about her actions and how they'll affect everything in the future. I want her to really stop and think before acting, which I know the first few games, she will rush head first into dungeon rooms without any tactics, or leave stragglers behind, and every other bad thing you could possibly want from the lantern holder. Of course I will post followups as we finish games and see how things went.

This will also be the gateway to see if either kid really shows any true interest in wargaming. My youngest has already had us buy her a Tomb Kings minis, as she liked how it looked, but a single mini does not in any way equal a hobby. I will support either kids interest, but they need to figure out what those interests are first and foremost. Better I spend money on expensive hobbies then on expensive drugs as I see it.

On the flip side of all this, I am also looking into how to make the 3rd edition of WFRP work with Warhammer Quest. This biggest issue I am finding is the lack of grid style movement for dungeons. Yes, I could go get AD&D 4th, but I already have WFRP 3rd, so not going to waste money needlessly. I will not be trying that work with the kids however, instead focusing on the gameplay itself.

Didn't fully accomplish what I wanted

Well, I made some decent headway this weekend, but didn't get everything I needed done due to some real life things stepping in the way.

As I posted, the Firestorm Armada playmat is done and looks excellent. Wife did a great job doing that. You can see pics for that here in case you missed that post. Went out with the wife and bought a bag of lava rocks, $5 for a few pounds of lava rocks not only lets us have asteroids, but also starts making the yard look a bit nicer, figure I'll buy a couple bags a week to keep working on that second aspect. Anyhow...

Reprimered the Firestorm Armada carriers that got boned up by me primering to early a couple weeks back. Simple green did the trick yet again, and the minis came out looking excellent, just needs to be painted and assembled. of course we forgot about the minis outside and it rained, so those minis are drying off before trying to paint them.

I priced out a Tau Firestorm Armada fleet, and it was pretty cheap, even my wife was rather surprised. it came out to just over ~$100, but even gives me a few extras. Yeah, I am aware that it is more expensive then the official Spartan minis, but that's par for the course when dealing with Games-Workshop in any fashion.

Have my eyes set on the new LM leader, think it will go awesome with Warhammer Quest and Kings of War. Unfortunately for me, doesn't look like my nearest store even carries finecast, so need to start widening my search or order it offline. Either way it still looks excellent. In this regard I do wish LM I had extra LM bits to make my own equivalent leader, but the LM boxes are rather limited in giving JUST what you are supposed to built. It is rather disappointing, especially when looking at the same dour Slann as the only option.

This week in FFXIV my wife and I just putzed along for the most part, still coming to grips with the game. I got my Marauder to 25, Gladiator to 19, Archer got a few levels, ect. Still trying to figure out all the skills I need from each job since I don't have the dedicated subjobs I am used to in FFXI. Not making a whole lot of gil in FFXIV right now, some items are just questionably harder to sell as I am not sure what exactly is worth selling and what isn't at my level.

So was a semi-busy week this week for what I managed to get done. Not all my projects were met, but you can't help real life taking priority. I shouldn't have as much on my plate for next weekend, so will try and get a few more tasks on the list to complete when it gets closer to that time.

Lots of wargaming on the horizon

Lots of stuff happening soon for my wargaming.

Seems my wife has suddenly gotten the urge to not only play, but paint up our Firestorm Armada fleets, so looking forward to that. I am also going to buy a bag or two of lava rocks. use a few for asteroids in game, and the rest for the yard. I got the Warhammer Fantasy Storm of magic spell vortexs to represent gas giants on the tabletop. Firestorm Armada is really coming into it's own cheap and quick.

I am going to try to paint at least one mini this week, and keep that up. It will be slow, but maybe I can deal with one a week. Before I set myself up for failure, trying to do a mini a day on my off days when I can't stand painting and I simply don't have the drive to finish 3-4 minis a week. One a week however I should be able to do, and I need to get back into the painting thing and get my skills back up to par. Might break this up with other hobby things though, like finishing up the Realm of Battle board I bought like three years ago that still only has two panels painted/flocked. I really do need to finish up my Menoth force since I have a few minis painted up already compared to my other games.

GW recently released a new Saurus Old Blood miniature I am going to get to lead my Kings of War Lizardmen force. I like the way it fits in decently with my Temple Guard, and it look like I could swap it into Warhammer Quest easier then Chakax lets me do at the moment. have not played Kings of War for a while, but right now just playing the field, see other genres of games other then Warhammer Fantasy and 40K at the moment. I'll come back to Warhammer/Kings of War in due time, and most likely even 40K/Warpath eventually.

I kinda hinted at it, but I am still wrestling with the thoughts of starting a new Tau force up. Lots of ideas are swarming around my head for conversions I  could and should be able to do. I don't want to go all in though. I have simply too many other games going on right now. With Firestorm Armada taking off, Kings of War and Warmachine sitting on the shelves ready to go at a moments notice, Warhammer Quest easy enough to unbox at a given time.... Just to much. Maybe once we start locking down which games we will eventually stick with for a long term, I'll make a better choice if I'll really start collecting Tau, or simply get a mini here or there for the building aspects. What I might do is simply get the Tau ships from Forgeworld and use those with the Firestorm Armada ruleset. Either way is fine with me.

Like I said, lots of tabletop stuff rolling out soon. I am hoping I remember to actually start taking pics of my games for battle reports. Simply lazy and just want to play.

Thoughts on rebuilding my Tau force

I will be honest, it has been a long time since I played 40K, I believe it was right after the newest Eldar was released. Anyhow, prior to that I had a decent Tau army that seemed themed well enough. I don't know how it plays in today's game though. The list itself is:

HQ: Shas'o (1#, 137 Pts)
Cyclic Ion Blaster; Fusion Blaster; Hard-wired Multi-tracker; Stimulant Injector; Shield Generator

Elite: Crisis Battlesuit (1#, 67 Pts)
Team Leader; Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker

Elite: Crisis Battlesuit (1#, 67 Pts)
Team Leader; Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker

Elite: Stealth Suit (6#, 205 Pts)
Burst Cannon (x3)
1 Team Leader
Bonding Knife; Burst Cannon; Markerlight; Hard-wired Drone Controller; Hard-wired Target Lock
2 Marker Drone
Networked Markerlight; Targeting Array

Troops: Fire Warrior (13#, 255 Pts)
Pulse Rifle (x11)
1 Shas'ui
Bonding Knife; Pulse Rifle
1 Devilfish
Burst Cannon; Smart Missile System; Targeting Array; Multi-Tracker; Decoy Launchers; Landing Gear

Troops: Fire Warrior (12#, 135 Pts)
Pulse Rifle (x11)
1 Shas'ui
Bonding Knife; Pulse Rifle

Troops: Fire Warrior (12#, 135 Pts)
Pulse Rifle (x11)
1 Shas'ui
Bonding Knife; Pulse Rifle

Troops: Kroot (10#, 70 Pts)
Kroot Rifle (x10)

Troops: Kroot (10#, 70 Pts)
Kroot Rifle (x10)

Fast Attack: Piranha Light Skimmer (4#, 120 Pts)
Burst Cannon (x2); Gun Drones (x2)
2 Gun Drones
Twin Linked Pulse Carbines

Fast Attack: Piranha Light Skimmer (3#, 65 Pts)
Fusion Blaster (x1); Gun Drones (x1)
2 Gun Drones
Twin Linked Pulse Carbines

Heavy Support: Hammerhead Gunship (1#, 170 Pts)
Railgun; Smart Missile System; Targeting Array; Multi-Tracker; Landing Gear

Total Roster Cost: 1496

Still a decent enough army for the casual player? Would be cheap enough for me to rebuild, but would be yet another force I would have to paint.

My wife would most likely either be playing Orks or Tyranids. not sure yet.

A past choice turned to regret

For some reaosn I was thinking about something I did a couple years that I now regret with a passion. I was a heavy tau player for a long time, even have my codex still even though I don't play 40K anymore. I made a nicely balanced hybrid army list that I enjoyed playing because it felt like how the army should play. Of course I still didn't enjoy painting so I actually commissioned out my force to be painted my Blue Table Painting. The various minis could be found here.

As you can see, I didn't ask for much, but I loved how things came out. The race even had a decent win:loss value when I played with it. For some reason though I fell out of love for it, think the new Eldar drove me back towards Elves I have always played. Anyways I sold the force, and didn't really think much about it.

Until lately.

The last few days I have found myself kicking myself for selling such a great set of minis. I want them back and to play with them again. Of course I won't commission again, as Blue Table Painting has raised their prices simply too high for me to want to do it again.

So just a quick lesson for you. Don't sell your minis unless you really have to. you will eventually come to regret it.

How I hate painting

I have been pretty vocal in the past about my dislike for painting minis. I really can not stand it, and it seems that it is a self fulfilling prophesy that every mini I do try and even primer gets boned up in some fashion, making me hate the process even more.

The latest in the long long of why I can't stand wasting time painting is my Firestorm Armada Relthoza fleet. I washed them, since they are resin and went to primer them. Apparently they weren't completely dry so water got stuck under the primer in some key locations. Ok, simple enough, throw them in some Simple Green and things should be good.

Fast forward five days and here I am trying to strip the paint. I have no clue what this primer is, but its resistant to scrubbing on textured surfaces, and came off smoothly on the large flat area. This of course means that to get all the primer knocked off and okay to respray, I will need to take a pick and clean out each area separately. Such a huge waste of time, when I could just glue things together and just play.

If this was just the first time I wouldn't be nearly as irritated with painting, but it seems literally every time I try and paint things blow up in my face. My Lizardmen are still down stairs in a state of half paint and half stripped because the primer just wouldn't let go. Seems like some kind of latex skin rather then primer. Even my menoth force is largely unpainted  because I simple can't sit long enough to paint without my back hurting anymore..

As I said before, I love wargaming, but painting I can't stand. It doesn't change how I or my enemy will play. Honestly, if more companies came out with prepainted minis like AT-43 and whatnot, I would probably play them more often. In a way I miss AT-43 since I could literally just put the minis on the table and start playing, it is a really pity AT-43 is gone for good.

The saddest part of my hate for painting is the fact I do want my armies painted, but no way in the depths of the seven hells will I pay some of the outlandish commission prices some people want. The painting thing is one of the biggest parts of the hobby that is actually driving me AWAY from the hobby the older I get.