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"King of the Internet" "Wallows in Self Pity" from "His High Horse"

....... while being  "run out on a rail by the mustache twirling evil."

Title and first line are a combination of quotes personally pointed toward me over the past 5 days. I love the internet, I really do. I also love debates and discussions and opposing opinions. I'm even big enough (pun intended) to admit that I regularly consider myself in the right, who really pushes forward doing things they think are in the wrong? I find it absolutely intriguing when I express opinions and comment which start up a virtual fire storm of controversy on various places on the internet. On some level it makes me wonder if this is how things worked in the ancient Roman or Greek governments.

Some have posed the question "How did we get here?", which I think is a great question. I wish I had a great answer to that, but all I can do is make a guess and reference my personal outlook. I am passionate in regards to my opinions and my entertainment. A large part of my personal entertainment is tied to games that I play and the hobby that surrounds those games. To be fair, some people have fishing, some people have exercise, I have games. Going back a fair long time (easily 20+ years at this point) I have been a gamer in a particularly social portion of the gaming community. Despite enjoying the occasional board game or video game, my true love has been roleplaying games and miniature wargames. I did not start with miniature wargames, I started as a pretty hard core Roleplaying fan, playing a series of games including D&D, Champions, Marvel Superheros, GURPS, Shadowrun, Star Wars, Top Secret, and Call of Cthulhu. At some point along my own gaming arc I was introduced to mini-wargaming and did not like it. At that time I jumped into Magic the Gathering instead and really enjoyed a short but fruitful engagement with that game. Later on, after diving back into the RPG pool, I was reintroduced to mini-wargaming and this time it grabbed on and stuck. As life forced my RPG group to ramp down and disband I began to get my gaming fill from playing wargames.

"So what???" Thats what your thinking right now, correct? Your trying to figure out where the strife and drama that has filled the previous months of Wyrd Miniatures vs. Bill Anderson exists in this article. I mean you only really came here for more drama, right?

Sorry, this is unlikely to head in that direction, but let me see if I can help you out. Significant portions of my energy spent time developing the stories that played out in the variety of RP games I was involved in. It was not long at all before I was firmly moved into the "DM/GM/Storyteller" role for those games. This role further developed and built a strong following with contributing to wider world building and home-brew games built off the mechanics provided by the games I was playing. This was even better with the internet, as I started up "Towers MUD" and was able to build up an online game world (all text based mind you) and was able to experience a global community enjoying an effort I led. Over time these types of creative outlets waxed and waned and then dropped off significantly when I got involved in GW games. It's heresy to change GW games, everyone knows that.

Along comes Malifaux and the game itself hits on nearly every level for enjoying entertainment for me. To add to this I became a henchman and started to develop collateral that could be used by other henchmen. Namely I was able to find an outlet through pulling together, organizing, documenting, and creating dozens of different formats for tournaments, leagues, campaigns, and other types of games. Then I got pulled into play testing and was able to help the game grow and contribute opinions that resulted in the expansion of the game universe along with balance within the game. That was fantastic and became a really exciting outlet for that creativity that used to be applied to my RP games. In addition, this had the same impact of watching those efforts become well received by another global community.

"Ahh, that's the problem, he is an entitled snit who feels Wyrd owes him something." Some of you are thinking this right now. Others are not but some of you are feeling awfully vindicated and proud of yourselves at this point. I have to wonder, will you keep reading if I warn you you will likely end this article disappointed? Those of you who feel this quote triggering your emotional satisfaction response should probably stop here and feel good about yourselves.

Bear with me while I switch up one more time. I mentioned above that I love discussions and debates and especially that I love the internet. I am very secure in my personal opinions and "view of the world according to Bill". I spend a lot of time reading, researching, and contemplating a wide variety of thoughts and opinions. I use all of this information in one way or another to form my own views and opinions on how things are. I am very passionate about my opinions, and feel that I am often or always right in what I think. I feel this way because when I am unsure on the soundness of one of my opinions, conjectures, hypothesis, or facts I continue to research and question until I become more sure. I go to great lengths to understand where that personal line is between what I "feel", what I "know", and what is a provable "fact".  Often this is perceived by others as "Being closed minded and always thinking your (I'm) right". I guess this perception is more a one of "unassailable rightness" rather than "I think I am correct but if you can help me understand how I am not I will adjust until I am correct" Two different views on the world I suspect.

I love debates and discussions because they provide a variety of other views held by equally (and sometimes far more) passionate people. There are numerous opinions presented in heated debates and discussions that I disagree with, can disprove as non-factual, or are simply arguments to be loud. There are points and opinions presented in those same discussion and debates that illuminate an area I had not understood, not realized, or simply not considered. These types of discussion are really great for an opinionated person for two reasons. On the one hand I gain new facts and perspectives to further refine an opinion. On the other hand I gain more opinions that demonstrate how solid my original perspective already is.

"Wait, your saying that your passionate about your hobbies, opinionated, interested in opposing views, and other people infer their own bias on your views?" I realize there is unlikely to be many people still reading who actually had this thought. This one is mine, take it as you will.

To make a final comment in this rambling and leave the whole post not really wrapped up, let me say this. I seem to have a lot of time lately because I am not a fan of Malifaux v2. I am wanting to play Malifaux (RealFaux, ClassicFaux, Malifaux Classic, V1.5, etc) but there are only a handful of my previous play group who are willing to even consider this. The rest of the group is becoming fairly militant about only playing V2. Then again, maybe its me being militant that I do not like portions of the new update. Either way there are two camps being equally stubborn and not enjoying playing in the other camp. As I am in the minority, I suffer the curse of free time.

What I do with that free time is really my choice. I am enjoying lending brain energy to really picking apart and analyzing my own view and preference in relation to Malifaux V2. All that time energy I used to spend contributing to the Malifaux gaming community, playing the game, and tied up with some connection to the game is going to go somewhere. I find it's still rewarding to do some writing and lend that energy and those efforts to the Malifaux I enjoy (and by proxy really picking apart the Malifaux I do not enjoy). I also know for a fact that there is a wide community who is in love with those opinions and public ramblings. If the reaction from the wider community is any indication, there are as many who love it because it allows their "inner crusader" to emerge as there are who love it because they feel vindicated. My opinion is that this vindication comes in two flavors, those who recognize some issues and feel comforted they are being publicly highlighted and those who feel vindicated because they need something to point their personal distaste and ire at. I have certainly pointed my personal ire at several targets through my life, especially when I feel its warranted.


Dear Reader who made it this far, I want to ask these simple questions. If your so offended by my opinions, why are you still reading? How do my opinions impact or attack your own enjoyment of your hobby?

What would WRabbit37 do different in Malifaux V2?

This is a great article from Mike. If you read my blog but do not read his, go there now and read it!!!

http://wrabbit37-legendaryblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/malifaux-m2e-how-i-would-have-done.html

Blogsharing!!! There's a Monkey on that door!

Just a short little post to send people over to And Wiseman's new blog. Go check it out and give it a read. http://gamingmonkee.blogspot.co.uk/

93 Malifaux pictures - Mostly New Art!!!

The public Beta of Malifaux V2 brought more than just rules and changes to models to the Malifaux community. The Public Beta brought some early looks at some of the new art for the upcoming models. Wyrd is updating all their art, presumably in preparation for the transition for models to plastic. This is further supported when you consider that the art for the current Storm of Shadows models has not been changed from what we saw in that book.

Part of the draw Malifaux has for me is an art style that I find appealing. I find that the majority of the art used for the game is in a style and has a look that I really prefer. Wyrd has done a fantastic job in transferring a very accurate representation of that art into the actual models that are produced. I have not found this to change at all with the move to plastic. If anything, some of the new plastic models better represent the art than the metal models do. In some cases this makes me very interested and excited to see some of the new models.

As with many of the decisions Wyrd is making lately, I am also disappointed with the direction of a fair amount of the new art. I want to first say (and wanted to start out this article) by pointing out the positives. There is a fair amount of art that I really like, even with the changes and evolution of the individual pieces from its V1 art. There is a nearly equal set of art that I just do not find to my liking. This is certainly a disappointing situation for me, as there was so much of the aesthetic that I previously enjoyed and appreciated which now has moved in a distasteful direction. Nino Ortega (pictured to the left) is one example of this move in art style. The first edition art had some fantastic style to it that is now completely replaced by what I consider a pretty bland looking gunman.

There is other art that is certainly nice art despite my dislike for the asthetic. Joss (pictures to the right) is one of these pictures for me. Joss used to be "Injun Joss" in the early sculpts, an American Indian in Malifaux who works as Ramos's enforcer and is wielding two powered axed linked to a generator on his back. The new art for Joss looks (to me) like a reject from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. He has a real "meld of machine and man" look combined with a strong post-apocalyptic feel to him.

I won't dive into a deep critique of all the new art, but I wanted to post a small article about it and my thoughts. Gaming on Tuesday evening it was mentioned to me that some people had not been able to get a look at the full art that was used for the new V2 stat cards. The cards were not "flattened PDF's", which made it fairly straight forward for me to pull the pictures out and save them off for upload. Now there is a whole archive of the art in my flickr account linked here. Enjoy poking around and looking! This is all the art I could find in the Stat cards except the 10 Thunders cards, which do not seem to have changed.

Malifaux Gencon 2013 Nightmare crew art leaked?

While I took French in high school I was not very good at it and with the exception of possibly 3-5 words it has completely fled my brain. That's a shame as I am now digging around for a website translator to read what FredRaider Adventures has to say about the fantastic picture above. Trying to piece together the English words on his blog post it appears that the picture above is the soon to be released Tara, Herald of Obliteration. I saw a question about this on the Wyrd Forums and read the mention that it had been leaked. A little diligent google searching (Google Image Search: wyrd malifaux tara obliteration) showed the art above was posted back on June 12 of this year. Posting the link on the Wyrd forums quickly got my post disapeared, so I can only take that as confirmation that the art is accurate.

I will say, the art looks interesting. Despite not being a resounding fan of Malifaux V2, I am looking forward to seeing what this crew does. As Wyrd is listing this as the nightmare release at Gencon 2013, I expect it to be a lot of fun!

Ramble on

There are a couple blogs on the interwebz which I write for and post on, with DTP being my own little private pulpit. Occasionally I run into a day like today where conversations similar the following happen:

Me: I posted a couple updates to and realized it had been 9 days since I had posted something there.
Wife: That's nice, do you think people will like the post?
Me: Probably, it had some good updates in it. It made me realize its been a while since I posted to _my_ blog though, I need to write up a post for that.
Wife: Oh really? What are you thinking about writing about?
Me: Honestly I have no idea.
Wife (somewhat confused): Why do you feel the need to post then?
Me: Well, its been a while and my last post got some really good traffic and comments. I think I need to figure out something to write about.
Wife: Can't you just write something about the last post?
Me: Nah, that doesn't feel right.
Wife: Why do you need to post something if there's nothing you want to write about?
Me: I don't know, I just do......

Sometimes I get the urge to write something up for the blog but cannot put my finger on exactly what approach I want to take to the article. In those situations I have a goal in mind or a topic I want to explore via writing and need to just narrow down the angle I want to present or how I want to express my point of view. Other times I have a general idea about things I want to write about and I just let me fingers wander across the keyboard and then go back and read out what I ended up with. Then there are times like now, where I can feel something banging away in my brain but I can't find the exact door to open to let it out.

That means that today you get wild ramblings about what I have been up to lately. Thats not entirely fair, you also get some more pictures from my latest picture taking spree. Yes, that is an actual painted Malifaux Child in the intro to the article. I picked him up as one of my very early and first Malifaux purchases, not recently after seeing the wonderfully updated and newly justified V2 version. I grabbed and painted the Malifaux Child to add as a totem to my original Pandora crew. Originally I picked up Pandora for my wife to play, and Kade was actually the first Malifaux model I painted up. The idea for her crew was going to be a Kid crew with Pandora, Candy, Kade, Teddy, and the Malifaux Child. I went so far as painting the little guy up before realizing he was pretty damn bad. He has since sat in my shelf, sadly watching as Pandora and Kade regularly hit the table.

Recently I was able to sit down and play through Mass Effect 3 on my XBox. I really enjoyed the game and while I have no plans of doing a complete write up ala Mike, I will mention a couple things. First off, I heard that early on in the game you choose to kill off a race and that it is inevitable this will happen. I am not sure where that happens, if it did I missed it in my play through. Next I will mention how my Shepard developed in game and relay one amusing quip from my game play. In ME1 I played a fairly saintly Shepard and did not develop any romances during the game. In ME2 I ended up developing a romance with Miranda and took that through the non-graphic physical scene. I had decided that come ME3 Shepard was pretty much going to nail any female character he could. Partway into the game I got the first opportunity to hook up with a female character in Shepards quarters. Now, let me pause here and explain one little piece of info that's fairly important to this story. I have the Kinect for XBox and had been using it off and on for voice commands in ME3. The way the voice commands work in the dialog allows you to read the whole selection and the Xbox will automatically have Shepard choose that selection. So, back to the "nookie scene". My wife was watching me play the game and I had walked to the kitchen to grab a snack. I was using the Kinect voice commands to progress through the options and my wife was fairly amused at my talking to the TV. When the option came up for a romantic interlude I joked with her that "now comes the sex". My wife made a disgusted face and asked "Seriously? Your guy can choose to sleep with these characters?". I told her Yes, see there are two choices on the screen. When she asked what choices I read them to her in order, starting with the one to "keep things friendly" (i.e. no sex). Of course the Kinect picks up my reading of that option and selects it for me, losing my opportunity for a hook up. Sigh. Overall I enjoyed the game and found it to be a great ending to the series. I had downloaded the extended ending so have no idea what the original and disappointing ending was, but for those who are wondering (without giving away to many spoilers), I was able to choose the middle ending.

So, with just rambling I have been able to show Santana, Purse holding Marcus, and the Malifaux Child. Lets Ramble just a little more and finish up showing Pink Dress Lilitu. I would be remiss to post Purse Holding Marcus without mentioning where it came from. Many of you probably already know the story, but its worth retelling. Damian (Lord Shaper) is a friend of the show (Gamers Lounge) and the blog for a fair while. He heard the interview with Mike and Craig (UKRocky) on the podcast about how to play Marcus and enjoyed the jokes about Marcus only being good for holding Kaeris's purse. In response he modeled up the pictures Marcus above and sent it over as a surprise for me. I have gotten him on the table with Kaeris and enjoyed the game immensely. I also have had several fans of the show ask to see Marcus and the fantastic job Damian did. Apparently that is just enough rambling to get pink-dressed Lilitu into the blog and then finish up with a Cherub.

On the Malifaux front I have started getting games in with McCabe. I find that I am enjoying him the least out of my 10T masters, but he rounds out the faction for me so I want to get experience playing him. I have a lot to learn as he is not exactly clicking for me yet. I am hoping to get in another 5 games before the end of Summer!

Malifaux V2 and the Rose Colored Glasses

I mentioned this article in an earlier post and now have come back to write about my thoughts. I want to be clear up front, this is a heavily opinionated article. This is my opinion and I am confident that there are several people out there who do not / will not agree with me. I am a little amused writing that since I am not really aiming at convincing anyone of anything in particular. This is an observation from my little corner of the internet, a commentary if you will.

At the time of this writing Malifaux V2 is a month into the open beta playtest, and four and a half months into the closed beta. The open beta forums reveal a great deal of interesting tidbits to anyone who goes digging through the hundreds of posts. One of those tidbits is something that was also claimed adamantly during the podcast interviews Mack and Justin did to introduce Malifaux V2. This claim is that the update is being well received overall and that its a vast minority who are unhappy with the changes. I both agree and disagree with this sentiment overall.

I will step back a second before diving back into my observations of the current state of satisfaction/dissatisfaction that I perceive. I was aware that Malifaux V2 was on the calendar for development and release a long time before the bulk of the community. Due to a variety of discussions and conversations with my own network of Wyrd employees, I learned very early in the process what was coming. I agree that Malifaux 1.5 needed some updates and clarification and was excited to see where things were going. I even had some inside track on the ideas that were on the figurative "docket" on how to improve the game. One of the big concerns for any game company is when the right time for an update occurs. Key people within Wyrd knew that they would inevitably lose some players and customers with a version update. The goal is to offset these losses with significant growth, aiming to replace each lost customer with 3 - 4 new customers. Those same key people knew that updating and balancing the entire system would take a fair amount of time on both the development and play testing front. Time estimates were assumed, a goal was picked, and key "gating factors" were determined. The development team was given thier marching orders and they struck out to update the game system.

We jump forward to today and look at our current V2 Open Beta test. As I read through the posts I can pretty easily pick out the members of the community who are really positive about and defensive of Malifaux V2. There are a handful of forum members who seem to go out of their way to attack and be abrasive to anyone who has something the least bit critical to say about V2. I am a very big advocate and fan of Malifaux Classic and have spend a lot of time on the Wyrd Forums. I have even become involved in some back and forth discussions with a variety of forum members over time. I never felt I was attacking another forum member with my posts, but I allow that this is merely my own opinion and others perception could be different. Based on this perspective, I would like to assume that these current V2 advocates do not see the aggressive nature of thier posts. Then again, we all know what happens when you assume.......

Another things I notice are the posts from Wyrd employees that are specifically written to minimize the perception of unhappiness among the Malifaux community. I do not read these types of comments as just a minimization but more as a concerted effort to refute the perception that people are unhappy with the change. Some quotes in threads such as:

"Despite being really really loud, it has become incredibly clear in the last 2 days that the original poster in this thread is in an even smaller minority that I already thought."

and

 "That said, for every one looking to leave right now, I know another six or seven knocking on the door saying 'hey, lemme try this' and turning in their henchman applications - a fair number since the announcement and showing of M2E."

 and

"So far we've had four henchmen resign, which is less than when we switched to plastic."

strike me as very interesting comments.  I certainly do not want them taken out of context, so provided the links where they are available (the middle comment is not on a public forum) so people can go read the threads for themselves. Minimization or concerted effort, it seems to me that the questions about unhappiness have really gotten under the skin of some Wyrd employees.

Then we come to Henchmen and Podcasters departing the game or displaying unhappiness over how V2 is developing. I group these two together as they are both significant portions of how word about the game get disseminated. In addition, there is a level of dedication to being a fan of the game that both of these require that tends to surpass the "normal" expectations of just people who play the game. I find some interesting points in these two communities when it comes to V2. The quote regarding henchmen resigning that is referenced above was posted on June 20, 2013 and comes 20 days into the open beta for V2 starting. On the henchman front I will be curious to see how many henchmen actually resign versus just become inactive. I also believe the number of henchmen resigning will not truly be a good measure until after Gencon 2013 when the actual V2 rules are released. I personally know of several henchmen who are sticking around through Gencon but are unhappy and considering quitting. On the podcasting front, there was always a limited amount of Malifaux podcasts out there. Of those podcasts that were still actively broadcasting when V2 testing began, there has been an interesting divide. Two of the podcasts are still actively discussing V2 and show a great deal of enthusiasm for the update. Two have gone on hiatus due to fracturing between the hosts at least partially due to V2. One other appeared to be favorably supportive of V2 but has recently shown some dissatisfaction in the direction of the game. Then at least 1 other has decidedly changed their focus because they are not happy with the game. Just looking at that spread is kind of interesting, 2 for / 3 against / 1 waffling on V2.

I think the last interesting note I have picked up lately is a look at the activity from key forum members. Keltheos, NerdElemental, and Ratty are all Wyrd Employees and have been heavily involved in the development of Malifaux until the current V2 activity. Each of those has been heavily involved with posting on the public forums and the private testing forums in the past. I find it interesting, disturbing, and curious to see what their current activity has been in regards to the Forums and new version testing. At the time of writing this article, Keltheos had not even logged into the forums in 4 weeks, and all three have been pretty significantly absent from the open beta. I want to say that these gentlemen are just busy or off on more important tasks, but I just do not believe that. The flurry of activity across the board demonstrated by the rest of the company (EricJ/Mack/Justin/even Nathan) in regards to V2 makes the absence of these three particularly noticeable, especially in light of their past involvement.

So what does all this mean? It's entirely possible that I am just grasping at shadows and conspiracy theories because I am unhappy with the direction of Malifaux V2. I am not of the opinion that V2 is going to bankrupt Wyrd or even be a necessary failure overall. I do suspect that the dissatisfaction with the new V2 direction is much larger than is being portrayed. I think that the militant defense by the V2 Crusaders has driven away or discouraged the bulk of people who will say something contrary to the company line. I hold the opinion that there are a number of Malifaux Classic fans who just cannot be bothered to post their thoughts or concerns on the forum due to the response from both Wyrd and the Crusaders.  I think that the V2 transition is not going to go as well as it could/should have, but hope that it goes well enough to be considered at least a minor success internally.


Now is a great time to disregard my opinion and go check out what Wyrd's EricJ has to say about the play testing process.

Picture Week - Kirai Commision

During 2012 I traveled up to Manhattan NY for one of the Warmonger club's Malifaux tournaments. I have spoken about what a great group of gamers this club is and I always enjoy catching up with the guys in the club. Typically there is a full day of games followed by drinks and food at a local Manhattan Irish bar. On the particular day in question my wife had also joined me and spent the day out at a Broadway play. At the bar after the event I got into a conversation with one of my favorite Warmongers, Brooklyn James (Foe Render on the Wyrd boards). James is one of the couple amazing painters in the Warmongers group and at dinner/drinks he mentioned that he really wanted to paint up a Kirai crew, although he did not want to play one. This really peaked my interest, as I had a complete Kirai crew that needed painting. In addition, James is dedicated Guild player and not a henchman, so he was really interested in how to get his hands on one of the Santana models that was going to release at the end of Summer 2012. Through a series of negotiation we came to an agreement that included one of the multiple Santana's I was receiving and I sent off the models for painting.

James did some amazing work on my Kirai crew. We had agreed that he would assemble and paint up the models, then ship them back to me for basing and sealing. I had an awful lot of spirits to send his way and he was able to deliver an amazing set of painted models back to me. I am really impressed with how they came out overall. My final Kirai crew contains Kirai, her avatar, and her totem along  with Ikyrio and Kirai's five Seshin. Dantsu Ba, six Gaki, and two Onroyo join a pair of Shikome who bring some heavy hitting power to the crew. I then added in a Desperate Mercenary, Canine Remains, Jack Daw, two regular Hanged and to Nightmare Hanged which Jame's did not paint to flesh out the overall crew.

One of my favorite models in the range which James painted up is Jakuna Ubume. This model is a fantastic model that comes with its own sculpted base from Wyrd. I love the look of the model and the color's James was able to pull out in the painting. She is a little fiddly to get working well in game and I have not had much luck making her compliment my crew. With that said, I aim to summon her whenever I remember to put the model in my bag. The only downside to the model is she is oddly shaped so does not fit well with my Kirai tray in my bag.

One of the other models that is a challenge to fit into the bag is the Avatar. This is the one model in the crew that I have not gotten on the table yet. The Avatar was a surprise last minute addition to the painting commission and unfortunately the card did not join the models when they were returned to me. This is one of the areas I am a little frustrated with Wyrd on, as the Avatar cards are not available to order via the Wyrd store. This means that in order to get a copy of the stat card I need to purchase a whole new Avatar model. Looking back on the positive side of things, James did an amazing job painting up the Avatar and matching the collapsed Kirai on the base to the standing Kirai he painted up. Knowing how I would be putting together and painting my bases (using Wyrd's graveyard bases), he also did a little converting to add in a similar fence to the Avatar base so it matched. This was a great touch for a great looking model.

I have played around with the crew a number of times last year, getting a handle on it. While I love the look overall I never felt like I was enjoying my games as much as I thought I would. Kirai is a fairly complicated master to play, but with practice she is incredibly versatile and works really well. I'm not sure exactly what it was about her play style that did not fit my taste, everything she does seems like it would work wonders with how I approach Malifaux. Regardless, I enjoyed playing her enough to keep her in my collection and still plan to roll her out from time to time for games.

The Onroyo deserve a special mention when looking at the models in the crew. As you can see from the picture, James did some research and looked up the characters to spell out Gamers Lounge in order to paint them onto the models. This is an incredibly cool touch and while I am unsure if they actually say Gamers Lounge or say something else, it looks cool and I trust James. In addition to that cool touch, the Onroyo actually get the model play of all the models in the crew. Yan Lo has become one of my new favorite Master's to play, and he has the ability to bring Onroyo to the table in his own crew. For this reason and the synergy they bring to his crew I have moved the models over to my Ten Thunders tray.

I am a little disappointed in myself for not getting pictures of the Gaki or Datsu Ba in the picture set I did over the weekend. They are as beautifully painted as the rest of the models and deserve pictures to be posted. They are near the top of my list for the next time I get the light tent set-up and pictures rolled out. At this time, please enjoy looking at the great job on these models!

Picture Week - Commision Gremlin Kin

A while back I mentioned on the podcast that one of the local players, Brian, was painting up some

gremlins for me. I had recently picked up a set of Gremlins from another friend (Mike) and Brian offered to commission paint my Kin and slop haulers in exchange for some Guild models he was missing. As I was not really looking forward to painting up the Kin myself and I had no immediate plans to play the Gremlins, I took him up on the offer. I have to admit that what I ended up getting back was fantastic. I suspect Brian thought he was playing a bit of a joke by painting pink on each of the models, but it honestly worked out really well. The lighter pastel colors play well off the green skin of the gremlins.

I have to admit that while gremlins are still not among my favorite parts of Malifaux, these models have a ton of character. Part of me wants to like them enough to play in regular games, but in V1 they are just not at the top of my list. I am very happy to have them and the kin compliment my purchased Gremlin crew very nicely. I even have some additional models to add to the crew at a future date, including Lenny, McTavish, and a Pigapult. I think I might even have a Limited Edition Hog Whisperer somewhere in my box of stuff that could use some paint.

That said, I hope everyone enjoys checking out the excellent paint job Brian did on these models. The Slop Haulers came out a little blurry, so I will need to retake their picture at a later date.

Picture Week opening Post!

I have not been doing a ton of painting lately, but I have been doing a little bit. As I was updating my variety of blog pages (see the top) tracking my models and my variety of tools (see left and Fridays blog post) I realized how far behind on model pictures I have gotten. To that end I carved out time over the weekend to clean up my Malifaux picture list and get some updates done.

That set of pictures have been uploaded to both the Flickr account (to the right) and to my Photobucket account, which is what I use to link pictures. I figured we would start out with the non-malifaux model that I picked up at Adepticon this year. The opening picture to this article is the Lady of the West model from Wild West Exodous. This is one of the limited edition models for the WWX kick-starter which was also given out to swag-bag recipients at Adepticon 2013. I did not base the model with anything, just gluing it down to the WWX base provided. I plan to use it as a display model over a model to use in game. Despite being just table top quality, I am pretty happy with how she came out. I still have issues with Eyes but I am continuing to work on them from time to time.

I am not sure where to go from there, as I have a lot of models with updated pictures. Sticking with the mildly western theme might not be a bad choice, so lets jump over to McHammish and some of his models. I have not yet gotten the man on the table to play but hope to do so this week. With the 4th of July coming up I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to dig up a Malifaux Classic opponent to grab some games with. I thought I was going to enjoy painting up McCabe more than I actually did.

I started with his horse using the horse skin painting directions from an old GW fold-out guide I had sitting with my paints. I augmented the scheme they provided (Mid/Shadow/Highlight) with a couple washes using Devlin Mud. Overall I am happy with the horse himself, but McCabe did not work out as well (in my opinion). I painted the rider and the McCabe on foot at the same time, hitting each of the areas with the same paints and washes to maintain a consistent look. I wanted Foot McCabe to match the mounted McCabe so that in game he looks like he just dismounted.I believe this was successful but the fiddly bits on both models just did not come together as I would like. I also wanted to get both an orange flair onto the model to represent the Ten Thunders ties along with a red flare to represent his Guild ties. The red worked out OK on the Horse, but I think the orange ended up too muted. Perhaps I should have gone with a red shit

in place of the linen shirt, but I am just not sure. I am happy that the pants, vest, and boots all came out different colors of shaded grey, with the boots actually black. I think the gradient worked well on the model. I suspect he will work out well on the table considering the distance most people will be looking at him and how he blends into the crew. The grey colors work well with my guild guard and dogs, and I will be aiming for a similar scheme for my riflemen and guild pathfinder that are still to be painted up. The third model in this little group is Luna, McCabe's trusty hound. I have heard great things about this little guy although I have not used him. He has magical extension so I should be able to squeeze in a cast or two of McCabe's stunner spell to paralyze a model that is already slow.
More importantly, Luna has synergy with the Guild Hounds, counting as a hound for purposes of On the Trail and Guild Kennels. I actually painted Luna up back in March as a side model to paint, and he has been sitting in my case since then.

The leader of the crew and his totem in place, we take a look now at some of the other models that work well with McCabe. One of the biggest boons Storm of Shadows brought to the Guild were the Wastrels. I only have two of the three wastrels currently painted up, although the third is sitting on my painting table currently.  I love the look of these guys and the models really stick to the art overall. I have had two of them painted up since April and have tossed them onto the table a couple times with other Ten Thunders crews. Two of my favorite Cast Off relics are the Earths Elixir and Petrified Feather. The feather is nice for those movement based schemes such as Breakthrough and the like. I can advance with the wastrel early on then make a critical jump to the opponents side of the board with an 18 inch move one time per game. This is something that has provided a key portion of my strategy in a couple games. Earths elixir makes the Wastrel unkillable for a turn,

allowing them to sit in a key position and guarantee its held. Both of these abilities are nice, slightly edging out the magical melee weapons in my mind. Overall, Wastrel's are fantastic models for both Guild and Ten Thunders.

So, that brings us to a close for today. I plan to write up a series this week with a number of the models I have pictures of now. Of key note, I will be doing two separate articles with some pictures of fantastic models I had commission painted. I have had these models for too long and have been remiss in showing them off.  Keep an eye out for those later this week.

Through the Breach episode 29

I really wanted to put the word out to those who may or may not have downloaded the latest Through the Breach podcast episode. I really enjoyed the most recent episode, especially the opening Hodge Podge section. TTB has presented a very positive face in relation to the new Malifaux V2 since their interview with the Wyrd developers. The Hodge Podge opening this episode reveals that not all is cheery in the TTB cast. I found the discussion to be very enlightening and interesting.

To say the least, there are several of Josh's opinions which I agree with very much. That said, Mark provides some counter points that are well presented.

Overall its very much worth the listen. If you don't know where to go to grab it, check out thier website.

Find Through the Breach Podcast here.

Check back here around noon today for some new pictures!