I was preparing to put together this blog post and was contemplating the last couple weeks of life, and how they have related to my hobby. I realized I was incredibly busy over the lat 2 weeks of "Working Vacation" and did not really realize how busy until I sat and thought it through. I then added into that my recent work schedule. If I go back to Sunday, June 20th my work schedule and trips have accounted for 32 out of 49 days being gone from home. I am pretty sure that qualifies as a lot, although I recognize that my employees spend more time than that away from home. On the other hand, I am a bit of a home-body so this creates growing stress over time.
August, while it should be a slower month for me, is anything but. I will be volunteer staff at the upcoming
NOVA Open this weekend, which is very exciting for me. I am looking forward to the success of this tournament, and happily putting in the time. On the other hand, nearly 40 hours of volunteer time over a three day weekend is a lot of work. I am confident it will go well, as the whole volunteer staff seems to be just as dedicated and
Mike Brandt is pulling together an incredible event. This whole week has been madness with work during the day, and then Event prep at night. My stress has kept at a fairly mid-high plateau with not only staff prep but also prep for the
Gamers Lounge live broadcast from the show, which will have our podcast broadcasting live internet video and interviews with players on Friday night, then again on Sunday for the top table game. There is lots of small prep going on for that, which has delayed my goal of painting up my Battlefoam X-Board to put on display at the event. On the plus side, I know the scheme, and have an airbrush so painting up the board should go quickly.
So that brings us to
Games Day Baltimore the weekend after the open. This event is trending toward being smaller than originally expected on the Podcast front, but still an exciting day. Dinner and Drinks after the show may be a small event, which to be honest could be a blessing. On the other side, Jay and I need to pull together a fresh episode of the
Gamers Lounge that weekend as well, since we did not get enough segments together for a Summer Sessions #3. Not a bad thing, just a thing to plan for.
So all of that is some rambling on how my summer has been going. There are other little tidbits added in, such as the fact it looks like I will be founding a gaming club in a couple weeks, a friend of mine is opening a new gaming store (which I am trying to help with), and I am trying to get a regular Malifaux group together for weekly play. So whats the point of all this. Well, what started me thinking was an initial disappointment with myself for the amount of hobby I have completed lately. Going through the previous thoughts, I realize I have been more productive than I originally felt, and I am, perhaps, being to hard on myself. I took a look at what I have done:
First, I need to give a heartfelt thanks to Teek and James in Atlanta. I look forward to seeing Teek at Games Day this year and catching up with him. Teek and James met me while I was on travel in Atlanta, and I played a great game against James. James brought a fully painted 1500 point Deathwing army to the table to face 1500 points of my Dead Tau Project. We played one of the space marine battle missions and had a fantastic game. Following that we headed out to grab some pizza at
"Big Pie in the Sky" in Kennesaw GA. Yes, that's one huge pizza you see above.
While in Seattle I had a great conversation with Tim, owner of Games & Gizmos in Redmond and John, the creative director of
Soda Pop Miniatures. Games & Gizmos is a great store and I really enjoyed speaking with Tim. In addition, the chance to talk to John about Soda Pop and where they are headed was very exciting. I look forward to getting John onto the Gamers Lounge for an interview in the near future. I also grabbed one of his mini's which I plan to paint up soon!
And then comes my trip to NH. I was, disappointingly, unable to meet with with Russ Wakelin of D6G fame for a Malifaux game. He says he was working, but I believe he was scared of my crews! I did get to spend some time at Myriad Games in Manchester and this is also a great store. While I did not get to meet the owner, Dan, I did speak with his wife a bit and they are very invested in being part of the community. This truly breeds success for their store.
And that brings me to the painting I accomplished. Back at the beginning of July I was able to get in an Apocalypse game with 3 friends in the area. This was an excellent 8K per side game and was my first Apoc game. We did not use any super-heavies for the first game, but there was a flier on the table, and I was able to field my Phoenix Court pictured at the start of this very long post. I also had a chance to play a Malifaux game with
Jay between all the travel. I lost the game (Jay tabled me) but it was still great fun. I am really falling in love with Malifaux and looking forward to playing more games. Lastly, I was able to get some painting done. As promised in an
earlier post, here is a look at what I accomplished.
First, I actually did some work on the Dead Tau Project and completed my last two Phoenix Lords. The first is Baharroth, Call of the Wind.
And then we have Jain Zar:
I can honestly say that these are two of my least favorite 40K models to date. And between these two, I really, truly dislike Jain. The sculpt is just not good, and I have developed a true dislike for painting black hair. On the positive side, my phoenix court is completely painted and on the shelf and my army has reached 6800 points of painted models!
Then we have a slew of Malifaux models painted.
Arcanists:
We are starting with a look at my full Rasputina Arcanists crew. I added in a Razorspine Rattler which I completed painting in "Icy Blue" colors to match the crew. Here is a closer look:
Guild:
Next we have my full Lady Justice crew. I added in:
New Death Marshal:
A Student of Conflict:
My Student needs some work, but honestly I will probably just paint up a new model and replace him. I ended up with too much glue on the hands, so when you look close up you can see the mess up. On the good side, I do not think he looks too bad at a table-top distance (see above).
And I added in a Govenors Proxy:
Neverborn:
I also completed the basing and painting of my wifes Neverborn crew. I really like how the bases came out and think they look great with the models! Here is some close-ups of the new models:
Malifaux Child totem:
Pandora:
and the Sorrows:
So thats pretty much it for a very long post. For those that stuck through this far, I have a bit of a teaser for you. As I mentioned, my goals for the near future are larger models. I have a Forge World flyer in bound, a Titan, and 2 Night Spinners to put together and paint up. Toward that end, I have started work on the Titan base. Here is a glimpse:
The Gamers Lounge podcast, episode 3, was posted over the weekend. Dan from Dice Like Thunder joins us to discuss playing within the spirit of the rules along with where we think 40K is going in the Meta-Game. We also discuss Adepticon plans! We also add some different music-bridges between topics for our Unmentioned Listener and for Col. Corbane @ Corbina Prime.
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