GenCon, The Return

Ah, GenCon. How I missed you. After a nearly decade absence after going every year for a decade, and my first trek to Indy for the Con this year taught me one thing.

Never again.

Never again do I want to miss GenCon. This is my freaking Christmas. These are my people. I just love the Con and everything around it, I just wish it was longer.

I haven't blogged in a while, but I imagine my next few blogs will revolve around some of the stuff I played or bought at GenCon. But this one will be more or less limited to a brief summary. The majority of the Con I spent in the Exhibit Hall trying out demos of new games or ones I had been eyeing but wanted first hand experience at some gameplay before laying down the cash. Also enjoyed the time the Con can give you directly interacting with game designers and talking to them about their design choices or upcoming projects. You can always tell which studios have the real passion for their games when you interact directly with them.

We also played in a Magic 2012 Sealed Celebration event on Friday night. As my first organized Magic event since the Unglued Pre-release of many, many GenCons past .... this one blew chunks. It was horribly organized and not worth the time really. I mean yeah, I pulled a Chandra the Firebrand in my packs but we wasted a ton of time. We sat around for like almost an hour before receiving our packs and ended up dropping after the first round (lost to a pure red deck). Yes, we dropped after 2.5 hours from an event that was scheduled to run merely 2 hours and when we left hadn't even posted the start of the 2nd of 4 Swiss rounds! I think next year, we'll stick to some small draft or sealed 8 man pods. Probably enjoy that more.

This was also a year for a couple firsts. First year I gave the BattleTech VR pods a go. Very enjoyable, but will need some return practice and probably not jump into the tournaments of people who know what the hell they're doing right out of the gate. Played in a Medium-class tourney and pulled down four kills, but somehow did a lot of damage to myself (I think I may have auto-destructed at one point!) In the Heavy-class tourney only did three kills but a much better score. Also the first year I purchased any real art. Bought a nice print from Steve Argyle, very cool piece from the Magic: The Gathering universe (but if its on an actual card, I haven't seen it) with Chandra facing off to prepare for a duel with Jace's arm in the foreground with water floating around his hand. I'll have to get a good pic of it and post it later. Also bought a custom Magic playmat for my companion of the Obsidian Champion from Legend of the Five Rings, pictured below. Both signed for very reasonable prices - I'm sure we'll be revisiting this talented artist in the future.

Obsidian Champion II. I wish I had a demon mantis to play with!

I was going to blog about a bit more of the stuff we did, but running out of time here. So I suppose I'll just leave with a pair of money shots of all the stuff we bought for ourselves or as gifts, stuff I bought for other people was not included.

Everything as of Saturday night. That a lotta stuff!

Stuff from Sunday, or was in the car.

Khrone Berzerker - Iron Warriors Style!

So, I have two full squads of twelve each of Khorne Berzerkers. And boy do I enjoy using them, I always question taking them every time I play - due to points cost and whatnot. And then I play ... and they completely eat the face of at least one unit (sometimes more) and I remember why I take them. But these poor 'Zerkers have been just based black as long as I've owned them.

When life gives you a day off ... BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

For reasons unknown after I got home late last night, I was struck by the urge to finish painting one. I had previously done all of his armor pieces in Mechrite Red Foundation paint. I went over that with Blood Red and I'm pretty happy with the final coloration. Not too bright as I'm not a huge fan of some of the Blood Red over White base schemes I've seen over the years - too stark and bright for the Grimdark future of war in the 41st millennium. But also not too dark that they don't stand out enough on the tabletop.

Plasma for the ... Boiling Blood God!

I then caught all the accents metallic accents with Scorched Brown followed by Dwarf Bronze and settled on that, nice metallic effect - particularly on his huge skull shoulderpad. For the backpack, plasma gun base and other metals, I drybrushed Chainmail and then used my Secret Weapon Miniatures Armor Wash to dull it down and shade. The plasma coils were done with Hawk Turquoise and then Ice Blue.

Warrning: If you can see these stripes, you are probably dead already.

Then, hoping to tie the 'Zerkers into my main Iron Warriors themed force I opted to give his blank shoulderpad hazard stripes. Shooting for a similar effect that of some of the paint schemes revolving around the Black Legion where the various Cult troops would paint a shoulderpad or some portion of their armor in Black Legion colors, while retaining their base (in this case World Eater) paint scheme. I don't really remember if it would work in the fluff for Iron Warriors, but I do know that they have a large contingent of Berzerker-style troops that would in assault "would give World Eaters or Blood Angels a run for their money in blood frenzy." So I feel at least partially justified, now I'm just deciding if I like the overall look of it. The hazard stripes were done by painting the entire pad Iyanden Darksun Foundation and then freehanding the black stripes over in Chaos Black.

Backshot ... for completion.

Now lets see how long it takes me to settle down and paint up an entire squad ...

Chaos Snipers

So as may have been mentioned before, I'm pretty sure I have ADD. As I've been slowing working on painting my first squad of Grey Knight Terminators as time allows my mind started wandering and thinking about my (mostly unpainted) Chaos Space Marines. Thinking about how they need a cohesive theme and for me to settle on a paint scheme, I thought back to my favorites from the 2nd/3rd Edition Days - Iron Warriors. With my mind wandering a little further I thought about also constructing and converting some of the loyalist Space Marines I just have laying around (back when Grey Knights could use Inducted Marines that was going to be my plan when I finally built them) that I wanted to give use to and then the answer jumped out to me: Counts As!

The rage of the internet 40k community is currently "counts as" armies. Take one army, in my case Chaos Space Marines, and then still within reason and WYSIWYG having them count as another army. Essentially allowing you to play as two different armies. The Iron Warriors are the Traitor Legion known best for breaking sieges and using technology over mutations, as well as capturing vehicles. So my idea is to start painting up my Chaos as Iron Warriors with an eye towards having a Counts As Space Marines army, which I can use some of their cool toys such as the Ironclad Dreadnought I have and maybe picking up some Land Speeders.

Which leads me to today's post, I have a small unit of 5 Space Marine Snipers constructed. I'd definitely want to use them, but there's no real precedent in the fluff for Chaos Space Marine Scouts. So how to make them more Iron Warriors?

Cybernetics, of course!

So I took my scout bearing the squad's missile launcher and lopped off his bracing leg and pulled out a box of some Necron Warriors that have been laying around. Bam! Cyberleg.

Stumpy

My plan is to try to find a way to work some of the Necron limbs into each guy, they won't be the prettiest conversions as in many cases the stuff I was cutting off was already glued on and didn't pop off cleanly. Then to paint them up in Iron Warriors colors and maybe some kind of shifty Tzeentch themed cloak colors to represent magical camo cloaks instead of the technological ones loyalists use.

Grey Knights Make Planetfall

Games Workshop Advance Orders are generally supposed to arrive at your house on the Thursday or Friday of their release week, so I was getting kind of antsy on Thursday night when I hadn't even gotten a shipping or tracking email regarding mine. Called up on Friday and found out that one of the special characters I had ordered wasn't actually releasing for another two weeks after the general Grey Knights release. Figures, right? So I had the customer service rep (I really miss the days when they referred to themselves as Trolls) delete that dude from the order and it would go out first thing Monday. But of course in the meantime I have four days off during which I had planned on doing at least some Grey Knights work.

GK Terminator with Nemesis Power Sword & Storm Bolter

Saturday happened to find me up around Southridge dropping my wife and mother-in-law off at David's Bridal for my wife to get fitted for a bridesmaid's dress for my brother-in-law's impending wedding. Oh hey, there's a GW store near there ain't there? ;) So I popped in and grabbed the most recent White Dwarf and a box of Grey Knight Terminators to keep me occupied while I wait for my full order.

Daemon Hammer Terminator, note the drilled gun barrels.

I love the new plastic kits, all sorts of cool stuff and weapons options going on in there. With this army I'm really trying to go all out when it comes to making something that will look nice on the table. Going hand and hand with my (attempted) commitment to get stuff painted and assembled as I get it. In this vein I had ordered some cool sculpted resin bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures, the intent is to base everything in the army on these. Of course this will cost a little more but just after putting the minis on them I'm already in love with them. Not only do they look awesome, like the Knights are assaulting some mountainous Chaos stronghold with runes glowing on the ground, they also add a small amount of weight to the miniature putting it somewhere between a plastic and pewter. They also helped with some of the posing I did.

Dynamically posed, with Nemesis Force Halbred poised to receive a charge.

Also went the extra bit of drilling out all the storm bolters double barrels with my pin vise. They look much better than just that flat plastic look. After some long debating I settled on the weapons loadout for this five man Terminator Troops squad.

• Justicar Thawn (halbred & storm bolter)
• Terminator (halbred & storm bolter)
• Terminator (sword & storm bolter)
• Terminator (sword & psycannon)
• Terminator (daemon hammer & storm bolter)

Psycannon mid-fire, with his weight back on his rear leg and bracing on the rock outcropping.

The swords improve the models invulnerable save by one to 4++ which will be helpful when I have to take nasty plasma or power weapons saves. The halbreds strike at Initiative 6, so a couple of those will hopefully knock off some attackers before they go. The Daemon Hammer works like a power fist, so it will be slower but give me a shot at high Toughness Daemon Princes and the like or vehicles. Also, for the heavy weapon I chose the Psycannon. I've loved this gun since I first saw it in the third edition codex. Its strength 7, ap 4 with rending and either Assault 2 or Heavy 4 depending on movement. With Terminators being Relentless and always counting as stationary for firing heavy weapons, its a no brainer!

Justicar Thawn. Still need to add some embellishments. Bloodletter head!

For the Justicar I opted to make the special upgrade character Justicar Thawn. There's no real model for him, but in essence he's a Grey Knight who somehow became immortal and just keeps coming back after dying. Represented tabletop, every turn after he dies he has a chance to be resurrected on the spot as his own separate unit. Sounds like a great harasser unit, that can hold objectives to boot. The fluff about him doesn't have a picture and the only distinctive mark he has is an imperial eagle on his forehead. Well, looking at the pair of unhelmeted heads on the sprue neither has enough room for me to attempt anything like that, and I'm not sure if my skill even could. So instead I'm going to double down on purity seals on him and gave him one of the blank tilt shields which I hope to put something resembling an imperial eagle on. And maybe try to write Thawn across the scroll on his backpack heraldry.

After Action (Chaos v. Chaos - 1500)

Played a for funs "kill'em all" style game with one of my friends last night, Chaos Marines heads up. Here's the list I took.

Winged Daemon Prince (Tzeentch, Doombolt, Warptime)
Khorne Berzerkers, 10 (Champion w/Power Weapon, Rhino w/Havoc Launcher)
Chaos Marines, 10 (Flamer, Missile Launcher, Champion w/Power Fist, Rhino)
Bikers, 4 (Nurgle, Meltagun x2, Champion w/Power Fist)
Defiler (Havoc Launcher, Reaper Autocannon)
Vindicator (Daemonic Possession, Havoc Launcher)
Terminators, 3 (Reaper Autocannon, Combi-Melta)
Terminators, 3 (Heavy Flamer & Chain Fist)

So in all mostly a mechanized list against my opponent who was fielding some variation of (from memory):

Winged Daemon Prince (Nurgle)
Thousand Sons (Rhino)
Noise Marines (Rhino)
Obliterators, 2
Terminators, 5 (Khorne, Dual Lightning Claws)
^ Land Raider
Dreadnought (TL Autocannon & Heavy Flamer)

So pretty much everything was inside a box at the start of the game. Not going to go through a blow by blow here, but if I was ever half baked on Daemonic Possession before (20 points on vehicles to ignore Shaken & Stunned damage results, but lowers WS & BS to 3) I am a firm believer now. On appropriate targets of course, but the amount of fire that the Defiler & Vindicator absorbed that they just shrugged off in this game was crazy. My Terminators and Bikers were all pretty much a waste in this game due to poor target selection: the Nurgle Daemon Prince. Now I know the frustration my opponents must have felt in the past when I used such a beast :)

What I take away from this game?

• I think I'm going to try to think of something to permanently model on the Vindicator to represent the Daemonic Possession I liked it that much. 
• Havoc Launchers are awesome against non Marine forces, but very so so against Marines if I know who I'm fighting in the future ahead of time they might sit out. 
• I liked my Tzeentch Prince, but I think I'd swap out Doombolt for Bolt of Change in the future.
• This was the first time (outside of an Apocalypse game) that I took the Vindicator and I'd probably call it my MVP in this game.
• Bikers were a non-factor in this game, but mainly due to player error on my part. They'll need another shot or two before I have a real feel for their use and effectiveness

Next game will probably be with my Grey Knights which are due to show up (hopefully) by Saturday. Probably try to take some pictures of the action throwing down as well.
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Also got to take Nightfall for a spin in a two player game. First impressions are that I can foresee it being a great multiplayer game, and with some more experience probably quite an interesting two player game even. Like the feel of the rules and card design, I'd like to put aside an evening for it to give it a real workout and see how it comes across.

Wonders Never Cease

So lately I've been painting "outside the pot" as it were for the first time. Back when I began this hobby and up until now I've always just dipped my brush into the paint pot to varying results. But lately I'd been pulling out a little paint and actually thinning it out a little with water to get a better consistency to spread over the model. Also giving me more control of how much I put on the brush. But I was running into the problem of everything outside the pot drying out quicker than I'd like and wasting paint.

After doing some research, and a quick trip to Pick 'N Save I whipped up this little wonder.

The Wet Palette

And thus far, I'm loving the results. I pulled out a good bit of Mechrite Red to do the power armor on a Khorne Berzerker and suffered none of the drying out I was experiencing even while doing the interior of the Stormraven. Supposedly with it sealed like this it can last for days or longer, time will tell. If people are interested I'll do a short tutorial on what materials you need and what to do (really simple).

So no progress on the Stormraven today as I was up way too early on my day off to head to Menards to take advantage of a very nice deal on a 42" LED thin as hell HD TV. Five hundred bucks for a MSRP $1200 TV? Yes, thank you sir. After taking a midday nap I also headed down to Rockhead's to grab me a Daemon Prince for my Chaos Space Marines army as I've finally grown tired of the old 40 mm based  fantasy model I'd been using. The new kit looks like a nice imposing Daemon Prince should, on a 60 mm base. I'll post pics once I put it together. Also grabbed a game I'd been waiting to come out: Nightfall. Its a deck building game based around heavy player interaction, which is one of the problems I've had with Dominion and its ilk. At times its like playing multiplayer solitare, I can't wait to try this game out, I'm also a fan of its modern horror war motif.

Stormraven Update

Made a lot of progress on the Stormraven today. Whole thing is pretty much constructed, could easily plop it down on a table for some play. All that's left is finishing off the pilot and gunner cockpits. They're all apart separately, but due to the unique little clear plastic windshields they added I've hit a couple snags. First off more painting I have to do before finishing assembly! Since the two dudes will be sealed inside and in complete view all the time, they gotta be painted. The gunner is just a servitor so that's no biggie, but I keep batting around ideas for the pilot. Since all Grey Knight vehicles are also psykers I kinda wanted to make look the part, by grabbing one of the spare Grey Knight heads off the incoming plastic sprues and putting it on the pilot since their helmets are a little different than a normal marine's. But upon closer inspection, the pilot is actually a Techmarine and I could probably get away with leaving the dude as is but I kinda liked the idea but don't really want to wait until the minis show up to finish closing up the vehicle.

And the other problem caused by those windshields is that each windshield is a solid piece, and then after gluing it onto the cockpit cover you have to glue a pair of little supports to make it look like three separate windows. Now these are tiny supports and they slid all over the damn place trying to get them on and thus got excess glue on the windshields which after it dried gave messy looking white streaks.

Really, they're freak'n tiny!

I'm thinking of trying to see if my wife's nail polish remover will get it off, but I have no idea where its currently at and she's already asleep. But if that doesn't work I'll probably try to work the paint job with them to just look like weathering or something.

So tomorrow I'm off as well and hope to get a little of the detail stuff done on the pilot & gunner, I was planning on doing more of it tonight. But I'm thinking of some Dawn of War 2: Retribution campaign is calling to me.