WIP - D&D Party (Day Two)

Ugh, woke up later than I wanted to and had to run my daughter on errands. I was only able to put a little work into the party today before I head off to hang with friends and play some Starcraft and enjoy Chinese food! It is becoming apparent6 that i may need to replace my brushes. Its getting harder to control them.

At any rate here is the update. Blue text indicates some progress has been made.

Auriel (Cleric)       - 10% done

Bhesh (Sorcerer)   - 90% done, base completed

Joeseph (Fighter)   - 99% done

Ketheryn (Bard)    - Primed

Leyr Joir (Wizard) - 20% done

Leyr Joir (Dog)      - Primed

Mathias (Fighter)   - COMPLETED

Perrin (Rogue)       - 10% done

Rhagan (Fighter)    - 90% done 

Ferox (Enemy)      - Cleaned, ready to be Primed 

Hakkar (Enemy)   - Cleaned, ready to be Primed 

Labros (Enemy)    - Cleaned, ready to be Primed 

Lupa (Enemy)       - Cleaned, ready to be Primed 

Thoos (Enemy)     - Cleaned, ready to be Primed    

I have some thoughts that I am gonna post about later tomorrow. One of the posts will be my view on both "Dr Who" and "Game of Thrones" TV season. I also plan on starting a new Blog feature this week, so look forward to that. I know I am.   

WIP - D&D Party (Day One)

I have been neglecting my blog this past week. Hopefully I can make up for it this week. My personal goal is to write 1,000 words a day scattered throughout my D&D campaign, other projects and this blog. I know I am capable of doing it since this past Sunday I churned out 1,200 words for some D&D fiction.


I really need to set up my camera so I can get some photos of what I am working on. That should happen this week I am hoping, provided I can get it all power up and working again.  


My goal for this week is to finish my D&D party and probably some of their foes for the session coming up this weekend. Each night by midnight I will be updating my current status on the nine miniatures for the party. Unless otherwise noted basing is done separate.   


Auriel (Cleric)       - Primed
Bhesh (Sorcerer)   - 90% done, base completed
Joeseph (Fighter)   - 75% done
Ketheryn (Bard)    - Primed
Leyr Joir (Wizard) - 20% done
Leyr Joir (Dog)      - Primed
Mathias (Fighter)   - COMPLETED
Perrin (Rogue)       - 10% done
Rhagan (Fighter)    - 75% done 

Progress Report

The month of May is half over and sadly I have made little progress on my painting and modeling projects. With two weeks to go, I think I can get some work done.

What has been taking up my time? T^his week it has been retro gaming with Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. It is so easy to lose hours to that game since it is a classic 4X game and you just want to play one more turn ... every turn.

I did get the miniatures for my D&D party cleaned up and primed. I plan on painting tomorrow. I am pretty happy about the miniatures I found for the group. Now I just need to get them panted and on the table for my p,layers to enjoy. So help me if anyone complains about what I chose to represent them, I will be savagely annoyed since nobody really looked for their own miniature.

In between I will be basing all my marines, so they too can be primed and I can begin painting them. I did finish up some conversion work for my assault squad sergeant.

I am also working on magnetizing a commission piece, along with painting several other miniatures for Warmachine.

I am hoping that these projects do not lapse into June.     

Ack Price Increase Incoming

So this weekend is the Rapture as proclaimed by some religious old guy. If you are not familiar with the concept, go Wikipedia it. My plans this weekend are to game and possibly go looting!

The big announcement from Games Workshop this week is that they are going to resin instead of metal. This comes along with the annual price increase. I have mixed feelings about it. Nobody likes it when their hobby increases in cost, but in some ways I think resin will be easier to work with. For one resin holds more detail. I also think that resin is lighter in terms of weight.

On the other hand it can also be more fragile when it comes to weapons like swords, spears or bows. You also must be careful when sanding resin since the dust is toxic. I am not looking forward to wearing my workshop mask to do clean up work.

Interestingly enough there has been no mention of new Eldar Wraith Guard, or them becoming resin. God willing there will be a plastic box set coming soon for them.

Course, I do not think the price increase has anything to do with the new resin miniatures. After all, Games Workshop likes to increase their prices every year or so. I have already cut back on what new items I buy, mostly because my extra funds are limited at the moment. Though, that is fine as I have several thousand other miniatures to paint! Might want to get them done first before starting a new army.

I think that is really the lesson here. It is better to focus on one army, than dabble in a dozen. I wish more people would play smaller point games. That would allow others to dabble in different armies. When the local 40K club was going strong we used to play 1250 to 1500 point games. That was a lot of fun as it allowed some of us to get armies painted for the gaming. Others would show up with unfinished models, substitutions  and paper bases. ::sigh::

Smaller games allowed me to effectively get back into the game without spending a lot of cash upfront. Though in the end I did end up dropping about 300 bucks to round out my Eldar army with tanks, more troops and walkers. Now I have a fair amount of choices of what I want to field. Eventually I will spend another $275 to finish rounding out my Eldar army even more and fully mechanizing it.

Though there is an extreme of focusing on just one army. You sometimes become that guy who has over 10,000 points of forces that you will probably never get to field at once. Kudos to you if you have it all painted, but in my experience I rarely see that. I mean are you really going to play Apocalypse that often to get that much use out of your collection? I don't see it.

Though, it is nice to have different options of what you want to field. I have toyed with the idea of adding 6 bike squads to my space marines so that I can field an entire bike army. That is in vogue now. However, I think I would rather spend the money on some awesome Grey Knights or Blood Angels.        

40K - The God of War

 was listening to this weeks 11th Company Podcast. During the list building segment. The gang was making a Space Marine list called the B-Team. The idea was to make a list that was composed of stuff that people do not generally take. Neal dubbed the list a collection of fail, which cracked me up until he suggested Marneus Calgar was added to it.


Really??? Was Neil suggesting the God of War is fail? Or was he mealy thinking of including him because so few people do? I will assume the later, since there are not many people who really play Ultra Marines. Which is ashame since they are an iconic chapter. In my Space Marine list I always take Calgar.

He is the rundown on selling points for Calgar:

• Calgar is an Eternal Warrior! What is even better is that he comes with four wounds, which means he won't be doubled out.

• He can re-roll wounds with his shooting which includes Orbital Bombardment! In theory this means every model under the template should be wounded. That could be utterly devastating if the blast marker lands correctly on top of a key unit. Best part is no cover save, unless they are in area terrain.

• His bolters are assault 2 with AP 2!

• On the charge, he can get 6 power fist attacks if you are willing to go at Infinitive 1. Put him in with an assaulty squad and let him finish them off. Six power fist attacks will ruin anyone's day.
  
The best part about Calgar is his "God of War" ability. This ability allows units with Combat Tactics to choose  to pass, or fail, morale tests as long as Calgar is on the table. This is critical to my non-mechanized marine list. I generally take 80 marines in that list, and being able to combat squad them and then automatically pass morale tests means my boys in blue are going to weather a lot of shooting and tank shocking craziness.

The down side for some of the 40K community, is that Calgar has to be on the table for this ability to be utilized. That means he cannot cower off the board in reserve. It also means that he will be a high priority target of the enemy. You will need to protect him by putting him in a squad. It would be awesome if you could get a Command Squad for him, but you cannot without taking another HQ.

Marneus Calgar also has only one fault that I can see. His power armor is only 3+. He is the fraking Lord of the Ultramarines, the God of War and he doesn't even get artificer armor?  I guess he is a true mud marine, not needing anything really shiny to do the job. I do not consider this one a huge problem since you can upgrade him to wearing terminator armor for 15 points.

He is rather pricey at 250 points. Truly, you need to play a specific army list to really get your points worth out of him. I am not sure he would be worth it in a fully mechanized space marine list. This is something I will experiment with  soon.

New Goodies

I was a little bummed that the Warstore did not have all the Reaper miniatures I wanted, so I was forced to buy them directly from the company. In the past 5 years this is something I have had to do from time to time and always found the experience to be irritating. For one, I hate paying full retail and shipping and the last time my miniatures took two weeks to get to me. With hesitation I ordered a batch of miniatures for my D&D game from reaper on Tuesday Morning.

What a difference! For one they now offer free shipping on orders over twenty five bucks! I was ecstatic since it is hard not to spend thirty of more dollars with any good selection of miniatures that I want. Second, the miniatures showed up today!!! I would not hesitate anymore when it comes to order from Reaper. In fact, this means if I need something for my Saturday game, I could get it in time to actually paint it on the week of the game.

This batch contained the character models for the remaining D&D cast, and a big bad that will soon be tormenting my party. The big bad will be a converted miniature. I happened to find a pose I liked and ordered some bits to customize it. I cannot wait to see my party's face when the enemy is revealed and I have a miniature for it! Better than Christmas!

What's on my Television?

While I have been prepping marines for painting, I have also been watching some Netflix goodies. One of my personal passions is movies and television. If given the opportunity I would love to work in Hollywood despite all the craziness a simple production worker would put up with.

My passion for film making, may be one of the reasons I love to DM role-playing games all the time. Its movie making, without the movie, but still with visual props and the interesting story telling techniques I love. In the future I will blog more about my role-playing sessions and views.

Here are some of my thoughts on what I have been watching this week:

Remember Me (2010)
My mother recommended this movie to me, saying I have got to see it. I looked it up on IMDB and it had Chris Cooper,  Pierce Brosnan, Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson. The cast, with the exception of Robert Pattinson are some of my favorite people in Hollywood.

The movie itself is a coming of age drama that opens with 11-year-old girl named Alyssa "Ally" Craig (Emilie de Ravin) witnessing the murder of her mother on the subway. It then jumps forward a decade to show her as a college student living with her over protective father.

The audience then is introduced to Tyler Hawkins (Robert Pattinson), a moody, direction less 21-year-old, who is auditing classes at NYU and working in a book mine. He has had a strained relationship with his businessman father, Charles (Pierce Brosnan) since his brother Michael's suicide.

Both of these characters are dealing with a tragedy and both of them find happiness in each other's company. What intrigues me about this film is how real the character's feel. Within the two hours you see them all grow as people, overcome some of their problems and generally learn to live again. That is really what this movie is about - learning to live in the moments we have since you never known with some terrible event that cannot control will befall you.

The ending is very bold. I never saw it coming, and when I did I stared open mouthed at the screen saying "No way". A few critics have blasted the movie for the ending, but honestly it was one of the most thought provoking pieces I have seen in a long time.

I warn you dear reader, do not look the movie up and ruin the ending - watch it unfold!

Saving Grace (2003-2007)
Saving Grace is a television show that aired on TNT about an Oklahoma Cop named Grace Hanadarko (Holly Hunter) who lives a reckless life of booze and promiscuity. She blames herself for her sisters death in the Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. In the series opener, Grace meets up with her "last-chance" angel, when after a night of drinking she runs down and kills a pedestrian with her Porsche. In desperation she calls out for God's help, and a scruffy, tobacco-spitting man who calls himself Earl (Leon Rippy) appears.


The three seasons of the show follows Grace as she tries to deal with the unwanted attention of her last chance angel and figure out who or what he is really. Earl's only goal is to convince Grace to have faith in God. 


What really intrigued me about the show was how it dealt with the topic of religion. The show does not promote any one religion but does use the story to discuss the topic of faith, and how difficult faith can be in such an imperfect world. In fact one of Earl's charges turns his faith to Islam! The show is never preachy and sort of makes you wonder if we each have guardians angels looking out for us or of people are just lucky.


The beat of the story was also unusual. Most episodes closed on a pseudo cliff hanger or thought provoking question. It made me want to see the next episode just to see how some part of the story played out. Also the character development is pretty rich and well done. 


Another underlying theme is that you cannot blame yourself for the evil in the world. Many characters suffer from this flaw and carry guilt from the death of a loved one thinking they were somehow responsible. This theme struck home with me because for a while I was carrying guilt for grievous crimes that a friend of mine committed before he took his own life. As people we think we have more control over the actions of others than we do.


Evil and hatred become personified in the series when we are introduced to a mysterious character who turns out to be a agent of the devil. The actor played the part well, and you will find yourself completely hating what he does.  


Finally the ending to the show is more abrupt than I wanted. However it was perfect ending for the character of Grace. I will not spoil the ending, because I did look it up before I saw it and it lessened the wow factor I think.


ThunderCats (2011)
I cannot wait for this show to start! I was reading up on the show's voice actors and discovered that Will Friedle has been cast as Lion-O. Some of you may remember him as the voice of "Terry McGuiness" in Batman Beyond. I cannot wait!  
  

Cheesecake Burritos

Sunday I went out to the local Mexican place and discovered a new dessert - Cheesecake Burrito! The cheesecake burrito is simple divine! I can not say enough good things about the dessert. Martin will complain because they put whipped cream on it ... like they do to the flan. If you see the item on the dessert menu, give it a try. You will not regret it.  

I realized that this past Sunday was the first of May, despite my thinking otherwise. Yeah, I live in my own time zone - deal with it. I did make some progress on the remaining scenery pieces from RoundCon. All they need now is a good flocking and they are ready for the table. In theory, I might be able to get that done before D&D tonight.

I have started the process on getting my Ultramarine army prepped to paint. I spent all the past weekend laying out my figures and deciding on how I wanted to field my marines. In the end out of seven squads, four of them are the classic Mark 6 "Corvus Armor" and three are Mark 7 type. It should be noted that one is an assault squad. I have enough classic marines to do another squad and a little bit, so I might replace one of the Mark 7 squads down the road. I did not want to initially since I have them already painted and that seems like a waste. Besides, I want to have some extras for the time being in case I need to change weapon load outs. The next step is basing all the marines and then spraying on the primer. That should be done hopefully by the weekend.
 
I have also started on building some War Machine models for a friend. I cannot wait to get the Retribution of Scyrah suits all assembled, magnetized and painted up. I am seriously thinking of getting into the game since I love aspects of the rule set and the miniatures look great. Plus I feel the urge to make some steam punk scenery!

In my spare time I have been watching "Saving Grace". The series seems to really draw one in and always seems to end of a pseudo cliff hanger. I really like the flow of the show and it is not too preachy. It keeps me company while I work on miniatures. This week I should finish up the series and then move on to something else.