Started a Small 40k Ork Army

So I picked up a bunch of Assault on Black Reach Orks over the last couple weeks and have been slowly assembling them. It's been fun putting them together, and the warboss model is just cool. Really good detail for a plastic 3 piece model. GW definitely has their plastics tech down. The deathcoptas are also neat looking and should be fun to paint.

Plus, the price for these was pretty good. I think in total I spent about $50 for 60+ models and the new rulebook. Not bad. Ebay for the win!

Short update - Warmachine Demo

So school has started in earnest now, and I must say, it's a ton of work. The first 3-6 months I hear are the worst, and the first couple weeks certainly seem to be keeping up appearances.

In gaming related news, I ran a demo of Warmachine for my long time 40k buddy and also my wife last week. I think fun was had by all, though I actually did forget a couple of rules...embarrassing! Well not really, but it's funny how I didn't pay as much attention to the Warmachine side of things as opposed to Hordes.

The game was one of Cryx (wife) vs. Menoth (friend) box sets. Both sides were plagued with pretty bad dice rolls, which added to the humor at times, but also made it frustrating too. I think Cryx definitely got the worse end of the bad dice though, missing a couple easy spells (missed two 5+ rolls on two dice) and slams (7+ on 3 dice). Those misses really tipped the game over to Menoth's advantage.

In the end, Menoth was victorious with a great showing from the Crusader, mightily smiting the Slayer in two massive, flaming hits. My wife was a little disappointed with her game, but wants to give it another go. I must say though that Denehgra is a bit tough for someone new to the game to use. I think my friend also found the mechanics of the game interesting/different, so I'm glad he got something out of the game too.

Anyway, off to bed for another fun filled day that begins at 5am. :/

Pics of Extreme Mauler and Special Edition Eyriss Assembled

So, a little late, but here are the pics of the mauler assembled:













This guy took about 5 pins, one for each arm, 2 for the main body, and one from the legs to the body. I also filled all the gaps with plenty of greenstuff. The model didn't fit very well together, and there were quite a few large gaps between the pieces. I'm not sure if this is because the individual parts had warped over time, or if it came like that.

Again, I used the greenstuff + a small dab of superglue at each of the joins. I've found that doing this really gives the greenstuff an easy time of drying correctly, as the superglue mostly holds the pieces in place while the greenstuff dries overnight. It also makes for a super strong bond.

And here is Eyriss. Was pretty easy to put her together...just required a tiny dab of greenstuff in her shoulder joints and some to cover the slot in the base.

Just need to add some sand to her base and she should be ready for primer. The only problem is I still haven't set up any place to do primer spraying yet. I might need to go pick up a bunch of old cardboard boxes outside home depot or Walmart as I don't want any errant spray particles hitting the house when I spray outside.

The other concern I have is that it's really really hot here, and I'm not sure how that's going to affect the consistency of the spray primer.

Lack of Warmachine/Hordes in the area...back to 40k? Eep

So it seems that there is a distinct lack of Warmachine/Hordes games being played in the greater Phoenix area...most players seem to play 40k/Fantasy. That makes me a little sad. I haven't investigated too many game stores around here yet, but the two I did go to seemed to be very focused on GW games. The selection of Privateer Press products seemed rather scant at both stores. Only one of the stores I went to carried any P3 paints as well. There is one store a bit further that I'm hoping runs regular games, but it is about a 30min. drive.

In other news, my old college roommate is out in the Phoenix area for the next couple months, so I may play some 40k games with him in the near future, depending on how school/work goes. Good thing I didn't actually sell my old Tau army, though it's in pretty bad shape: lots of busted models, several unprimered (stripped the paint off after I bought them off ebay/craigslist), and some still unassembled vehicles.

The good news is, I probably could field a fairly sizable force, maybe 1500-1750 pts. I'll probably want to start playing some smaller games first though since I have been out of the game for almost 2-3 years now I think. I do hear some decent things about the new 5th edition rules though, and hopefully the games will be a little more interesting than they were before.

I watched my friend play a game last weekend, and it does seem much more objective based which is nice, along with a bigger focus on using troops and cover. They've also taken several queues from the Privateer games it seems such as deployment, who goes first, and some of the missions. The downside was that it's still a game about rolling bucketloads of dice, and also that movement and placement really doesn't require much thought or planning. In fact most of the game is still very straight forward, mostly about who can unload more fire into the other guy's targeted unit.

Sidebar: I suppose it's why I liked the Warhammer Fantasy system more than 40k...movement and positioning mattered. Unfortunately, they ripped out all the fun aspects of my beloved Orc and Goblin army, and it just feels very vanilla now.

That's where I feel the Privateer Press games really have an edge over the GW games still. The amount of brainpower that I burn in one turn of WM/Hordes probably equals the amount I'd use in an entire game of 40k. I really loved those games I was able to play against Brokenzealot because they really made me think hard every single turn. Sometimes I could swear steam must have been coming out of my ears. Movement, positioning, unit synergies, and planning ahead are super important. Furthermore, there are tons of fun aspects about the game such as throwing, slamming, feats, special abilities, etc. etc. There is a ton of "fun" variety...the kind that I used to have in my Orc and Gobbo army.

Anyway, I still plan on continuing to model/paint my Hordes army. I love my Trolls to much to stop, even if I can't find many games in the area, though I'm still hopeful I'll find some folks somewhere that play.

Worked on the Extreme Mauler some last week

So I was able to finally finish building the Extreme Mauler sculpt yesterday. It took a ton of pinning work, lots of green stuff, and several hours, but he's finally put together. I've left him off the base because I want to paint the base separately first. Also, I still need to drill some pin holes for attaching him to his base.

This guy is a total beast. He has to weigh in at about a pound of pewter, and I pity anyone that had this guy drop on their foot!

I also worked on one of my Trollkin Champs, laying down some basecoating for his armor, leather, and weapons. It's been tough doing painting since I don't have a well lighted area set up yet in my house. I also don't have a modeling/painting table set up either, so I can only paint for very short periods before my back hurts too much from hunching over my coffee table. I'm not too happy with the results, so I'll probably improve it a bit before posting pictures.

Later this week I should have a table all set up though, so I should be able to paint for longer stints.

No pictures yet, but I will post some up tomorrow of the Extreme Mauler in all his unpainted (but assembled) glory!

I'm not dead yet!

So it's been, what, a measly 10 months since I updated this thing?

Yikes.

Anyway in that period of time I managed to:

1. Get into a MBA program.
2. Move out of state.
3. Quit my job.
4. Watch an amazing cancer recovery that my mother-in-law went through.
5. Get nothing modeling or painting done. At all. :)

But! Now that I'm settled in, I'm going to try to do a little bit of painting every week. Most likely no one reads this thing anymore so I'm doing these updates more for myself I suppose than anything, but it should be fun.

So picking up where I left off, I think I will be finishing up my Champions next. Let's see if I can still remember how to paint their skin...