Monday, October 25, 2010

Adepticon 2011

That's right folks, Adepticon has opened the web-store and registration is available for Adepticon 2011. I really enjoyed my trip last year and am booked to return this year for a full weekend of fun. Are you wondering what I am booked for? Let me share.....


Thursday
Thursday will be my travel day. I have made absolutely no plans but will figure things out as I get closer to the event. I figure I have lots of time to work this one out. Driving was not bad last year, and by the same token I am expecting a larger group to head out to Chicago this year for Adepticon.


Friday
Friday I will be playing a little 8th edition WHFB. I have not decided if I will be bringing my Dwarves or building some High Elves for this, but the event was pretty interesting to me. I will be playing in the "It's How You Use It" tournament.
Just getting started or looking for a new challenge? This 1000-point tournament is perfect for new players to the hobby and veterans alike looking to play as many games as possible in one day. Just remember, its not the size that counts.
I am booked for the morning event (11am - 4pm), so will be sleeping in a bit before the tourney, and then taking some free time to hang with friends after. Lots to do on Friday night, and Giodarno's is calling.


Saturday
Saturday is 40K day for me. I will be bringing along a solid Combat Patrol list constructed from my Eldar. I had a lot of fun with Combat patrol last year and the Dead Tau Project will be returning. For those who are not familiar:
The popular Warhammer 40K Combat Patrol tournament returns to AdeptiCon 2011. Combat Patrol is a fast and fun 400-point Warhammer 40K event for all skill levels.
Play four games of Warhammer 40K using the Combat Patrol rule set. Participants will need to supply their own Warhammer 40K army and gaming supplies.
 I am booked for the morning session again, 9am until 2pm. I may need a nap mid-day, but we will see how things go. I expect Jay and I will be recording at some point Saturday afternoon.


Sunday
Sunday is the day for my new love, Malifaux. I will be taking part in the 35SS scrap on Sunday morning. For those who are unfamiliar:
Come join us for the first annual Malifaux Last Scrap tournament at AdeptiCon. AdepitCon wraps up on Sunday so let’s send it off with a bang (or stab, cut, gouge, mangle, bite…you get the idea).
The Tournament will be a 35 Soul Stone Scrap. Factions must be declared at the start of the Tournament. Crews (along with Masters) will be drafted each round after learning your opponents faction and master. Strategies will be predetermined and announced ahead of time - two schemes may be selected each round.
I am unsure who I will be bringing at this point. It is very likely that I will run with my Guild, especially considering Lucius being released prior to then. I have the widest variety with the Guild, and I love Lady J. On the other hand, I am expecting to start playing with Kirai soon and expect to enjoy her play style. Time will tell.


Sunday Night
Last year on Sunday night, after the bulk of Adepticon had wrapped up, there was the post-convention poker tournament and mixer. This was a fantastic event that I would not miss! This year anyone who comes to Adepticon via Geek Nation Tours will also have an open pass into the poker event, which should increase the overall turn-out. I will admit that while I can hope for opponents who look like the picture to the right, I expect that as this is a Gamer convention the room will look more like this:

Friday, October 15, 2010

Painting Progress

I made a bit of progress that I wanted to slip in before the weekend. I was able to sneak away for a while today and knock out most of the Ortega Starter box, minus Papa Loco. Papa is still sitting on my tray, but I painted up Samael Hopkins in his place. The Ortega's will fill out the first of my demo crews, eventually to be paired with Lilith's start box. I am also looking to Samael, Fransisco, and Nino to fill in gaps in my Lady J crew as necessary.

Lets take a quick look at the pictures. I am starting to become really unhappy with my camera, but its doing something so I will keep on with it until my wife and I can come to an agreement on what to replace it with.

Here we go:

First up is the Ortega clan. I am fairly happy with how Perdita came out, and Fransisco's ghost face is not quite as harsh in person. The flash really washes him out.

Sam's browns are not as monochrome as they appear in the picture. Again, I need to work on the flash. I am interested in plugging him into a game with Lady J as Sam seems to hit like a truck with flaming bullets and such. Combine this with his 10 inch range and it looks pretty good. He comes in a bit more expensive than the Judge, but I like his additional abilities as well.

I mentioned before that I did not like the scales when I looked at a picture of them. I am much happier with this model in person and it fits better with the overall look of the crew than I expected. I have not gotten a huge bonus out of the card swapping "Balance" ability, but we will see. I now have the choice between the Student, the Scales, and the Governors proxy. The proxy and scales are both fairly cheap, and have interesting benefits. The proxy has a hell of a downfall. Then there is the Student, which while expensive can give someone in the crew fast. Thats a nice ability on Lady J when she gets ready to make her attack run.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Update and Ramblings


Jay and I have discussed our perception of how important a picture is to lead into and break up a blog post. It keeps readers eyes from straining while looking at a wall of text, and also gives blog-rolls that link via Blogger a picture to post within the blog-roll. Unfortunately, this is the best I could come up with today, after looking at a number of images and what not on Google Images for a while, trying to find a good image to use as a lead in for this post. Mmmm, mini-fail.

Welcome to the update post. I have realized that I am sitting half way into the month of October and I have slipped a bit behind on my hobby overall. Well, lets be honest, not too much behind just a bit further behind than I had planned. I am having trouble reconciling my hobby activities vs my hobby queue sitting and staring at me downstairs. So whats been going on you ask? Here is what I am looking at.

Lets look at accomplished first, because thats supposed to make one feel better about themselves! So, in the past 6 weeks I have:
  • Run a Malifaux Tournament
  • Created 2 fully built and painted Malifaux tables of "fixed" terrain (3'x3')
  • Created 4 flocked "no-fixed-terrain" tables (3'x3')
  • Taken part in the founding team of a new Gaming Club
  • Become a Wyrd Henchman (basically the same as a GW Commando or a Privateer Press Pressganger)
  • Painted up 3 new models for Malifaux (Scales, Francisco, Nino)
  • "Finished" the base for my Titan
  • 75% painted my Forgeworld Phoenix (Eldar Flyer)
  • Built and Primed my Titan
  • Base coated 2 Eldar Night Spinner tanks
  • Built and painted 3 objectives for Malifaux
  • Played ~14 Malifaux games
  • Played 2 40K games
  • Recorded 3 podcasts
Looks pretty damn productive on the hobby front when I look at it that way. All listed out  and bulleted and actually looks like a lot of stuff accomplished. Here are the things that drag me down a bit:
  • Malifaux painting tray - Santiago, Perdita, Papa Loco, Sam Hopkins, Essence of Power
  • 40K Painting tray - Titan, complete my Phoenix, Weapons for my Falcons, 2x Night Spinner Tanks,
  • Malifaux to do - Lilith's Brood box (5 models), ~6 guild guards, Kirai Crew (~28 models)
  • 40K to do -  10x Harliquins, Phoenix Base, 10x Storm Guardians, 9x Dire Avengers, 4x Winged Seer Council, 5x Fire Dragons, Fire Dragon Exarch, 5x Scorpions, Scorpion Exarch
Funny enough, listing it out like this does not look that bad at all. It feels a bit overwhelming, and I need to figure out how to manage through that. I have enjoyed tracking my progress with the paint tracker and queue on the blog (look to the left) as it has been helpful overall. On the other hand, it was a bit of a downer when I realized that while I did a lot of things during the last 6 weeks, it was not really accounted for in my  hobby tracker, only incrementing 3 points for painting 3 models. Perhaps I need to look at adding into the paint tracker points for terrain and terrain boards. Something to consider. Ok, time to break up the mini-text-wall with a quick picture. This picture is not great (I took it with my iPhone), but here we go.....

According to a couple of my regular opponents, these guys look much better in person. I was not really a fan of the Scales in the pictures, but I like him now that I have one painted up. I actually painted him up based on the recommendation of one of the Podcast listeners and DTP reader, Lord Shaper. I recently started following his blog, its good reading for those who are interested and I recommend him. I need to add that to a separate post!

Adding into the shameless plugs and self promotion, some of my feelings are probably coming from a state of burnout I have been in lately. Its something we discussed on one of the recent Gamers Lounge episodes. I have really gotten into Malifaux lately, but have been completely burnt out on GW games. While I have enjoyed my last 2 40k games, they just have not been scratching that gaming itch like Malifaux has. I assume this is adding into my overall malaise on painting models. I did get motivated a bit the other night and went back to touch up my Phoenix. I know, there are no pictures posted yet, but it has gotten better. I went back over several sections with my airbrush to even out the paint coverage and then touched up the whites. I will need to finish up the white (I am now considering going more ivory/bone) and then reapply the transfers.

Toward that end, the local store (Huzzah Hobbies) is running a Tanksgiving event that will directly compete with the GW event usually run the same weekend. This will be interesting, as GW games have not really taken off at Huzzah. On the other hand, most of the regulars at Huzzah have lost interest in going to the local GW and have shifted their support. I an intrigued to see how many people show up for the Huzzah Tank event. The owner is running a full weekend of Tank events, with a Flames of War Tanksgiving event earlier int he weekend, then the GW event on Sunday. I have committed to showing up with my Titan and my Phoenix, hopefully with both fairly close to complete. This gives me about 6 weeks to get them done.

Ok, so after airing my thoughts and ramblings, I need to look forward and get on track. Running events recently has begun to get me re-energized for painting and modeling. I am also feeling the push to "complete" my eldar army and move to the next phase in the hobby for me. I am not sure what that will be, as I have a couple options:
  • I still have lots of Malifaux in my possesion and coming up
  • I have a LARGE box of High Elves for WHFB (well over 6K points with no equipment) and an idea for a theme 
  • Dark Eldar are being released, and I love the new models

Here are some of my recent thoughts for next steps. I have an idea for a theme for my High Elves, but am having some difficulty wrapping my mind around how I will execute the theme. I also need to settle on a decent color scheme for the army that will fit in the overall theme. On the one hand, these two hurdles are making me hesitate when it comes to considering starting this project. On the other hand, the box of models in my closet keeps yelling at me to get started and knock it out.

Then we come to the new Dark Eldar. I know I will not be building these before the end of the year, so I am in no rush to purchase the models. I expect that in the first couple months of next year (2011) I will go out and make a massive purchase of as many models as GW releases, then put them in a box and store them next to my other future projects. On the other hand, I really like the models as they are, which has given me the idea of just painting the models as they are with no conversions, or at the most limited conversions. For a paint scheme, I will be using a fairly standard black/purple/silver scheme I used on my original dark eldar.

That brings me to Malifaux. I actually had the thought the other day of completely switching over to Malifaux, and placing my 40K models in the cabinet for a while. There is some irony to this thought. On the one hand, I have pretty much done that already, when you look at the amount of Malifaux games and painting I have accomplished vs how much GW I have done. On the other hand, I still have my Eldar in a bag ready to travel to a game at short notice. I also am making an effort to discuss 40K and 40K related ideas on the podcast. Clearly I am not ready to switch over yet. That thought aside, I did just get in fair number of blisters for my next crew (Kirai), with a couple of the missing models coming soon. I feel I have a fair grasp on the Lady Justice crew I was playing, and have switched to Rasputina as my primary crew until I get the hang of her. I have taken the approach (so far) of playing one crew exclusively until I learn it, then switching to the next. I say that's the approach, as I have had the Rasputina crew painted the whole time I have been playing Lady J, but only just started playing with her last weekend. I am still finding the Malifaux models more compelling than GW's models, resulting in a stronger draw to paint them up. It might be good to take a break from GW after completing my Eldar army and focus on playing Malifaux for 6 months or so.

I guess only time will tell, as I am becoming increasingly fickle as I age.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Dark Eldar Mandrakes

I know it was posted yesterday, but HOLY CRAP!!! I think this model looks incredible, and really am looking forward to the closer look at the rest of the box. I expect them to be metal, but even if their rules are only average I think I will grab these guys. Its too bad the average GW model is a bit big to fit in Malifaux, as I am sure I could come up with a couple alternative uses for these guys.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Malifaux Tournament a Success

Saturday October 2 I ran a Malifaux Tournament at the local store, Huzzah Hobbies, in Ashburn VA. Overall I am very pleased with the turn-out and the results of the event. My wife and I took several pictures through the day and I thought I would share a couple here.

Some readers may be aware of the efforts I have put into making the board and preparation for this tourney over the past two months. There is not a lot of information out there for people putting together Malifaux tournaments, and Wyrd is still working on coming up with an official tournament recommendation. With this in mind, I stepped out and asked a fair number of questions on a number of board to try and prepare for a good tourney. I settled on running a tournament targeted at new players, as most of the players in my area are fairly new to the game. To this end, I chose 25SS with fixed lists for the tournament. This is a departure from the recommended method of playing in the rule-book, which is to choose your faction first, then after the Strategies are decided to pick your crew. My thoughts were that fixed lists would be simpler to grasp for new players and the local community.

I published all the missions in the players pack, and only had to make minor tweaks leading up to the tourney to keep things in balance. I received some very solid feedback overall, and I believe the feedback and my willingness to adapt added to the overall enjoyment of the players. I put together the players pack announcing that there would be 4 prizes available through the day, Overall, Tactics, Players Choice, and Sports. I decided I wanted to have Tactics, PC, and Sports all equally weighted to determine Overall, taking on a theme from Mike Brandt and his NOVA Open. To be clear, I did not adapt NOVA Open scoring, but I do like the idea of Hobby, Sports, and Competition all being equally weighted for an overall prize.

We did end up with an odd number of players at the tournament, so had to have a proxy/ringer crew played through the day. The ringer was intended to be played at the bottom table and not be a spoiler army, being fun to play against but not highly optimized. The results indicate this may not have been achieved, as the ringer army placed second overall in competitive scoring (Tactics). As there were multiple players through the day, I did keep the proxy/ringer army at the bottom table, and only had to do a bit of shuffling in the match-ups on turn 4 to keep everyone playing someone different. The Ringer army was the Lady Justice starter box plus an Austringer.
Here is Lady J waiting for Viki to leave protection

The winner of the day was playing the Ortega Starter box. He had played a lot of practice games preparing for the tournament, and it really paid off. He ended up going 4/0/0 and missing only 3 of the total points for the whole day. This added to both PC votes and a slightly above average sports score to give him best overall for the day. The Tactics winner was using a Leviticus, although not his new starter box. He ended up going 3/1/0 on the day, losing only to the Ortegas in a game. He was hurt overall by not having his crew completely painted, but still came in average on Sports.
The Ortegas facing Marcus' Razorspine Rattler

Analysis on the day was pretty interesting overall. The missions were laid out as follows by round:
  1. Supply Wagon
  2. Claim Jump
  3. Treasure hunt
  4. Slaughter
Ignoring the proxy/ringer army, we have 4 Arcanists, 2 Guild, and 3 Outcasts, with Collete showing up twice, then Marcus, Som'er, Sonia, Perdita, Vicki's, and Ramos as the other Masters. Not a bad spread across the two books. Only 1 scheme was to be taken per round, with no scheme being duplicated through the day. Round 1 had "Bodyguard" being taken 4 times and Round 2 and 3 were a fairly even spread among the schemes. Round 4 has "Kill Protege" show us 5 times, and Assassinate show up 3. I expected that turnout on round 4, as both those schemes work very well with the Annihilation strategy, but round 1 was a bit of a surprise to me.



Sonia makes the move on Collette's crew

I would like to provide everyone a glimpse at the tables. Tables 1 and 2 were built with fixed scenery on foam boards. Boards 3, 4, and 5 were all flat foam boards (flocked) with mobile terrain on them. Board 6 was brought by one of the players, and was a fantastic 4 piece board with mobile houses.

Board 1 was a bog board, with a whole bunch of Water Effects on the board. The clouding in the Water Effects was used as Bog Mist, providing obscuring terrain. The Islands were close enough to jump onto, and then the bridges provided a path over the water without incurring severe terrain. At the end of the day, most players just rushed through the water.
Board 2 was a ruins board, with a lawn in the center that is clearly affected by some sort of magic. We did not use special terrain in the tournament, but I can foresee this being used as such in the future.

Board 3 was setup with mobile terrain on a flat/flocked board. The chapel and the Tower canot be entered, however the house behind the tower can.

Table 4 represented the "Badlands" of Malifaux. This was setup as a desert board with lots of blocking and severe terrain.

Table 5 was a small village. All the terrain is mobile, and all the houses have removable roof's so models can enter the houses.

Table 6 was a fantastic table brought by one of the players. The black side-bars were placed to bring the 4x4 board down to the 3x3 size used in Malifaux games. The houses are all custom built with removable doors and roofs. This made a fantastic "Streets of Malifaux" board.

Thats about all I have for this post. I am going to close out with a couple random pictures from the day: