Day 4 Giveaway Finale

Hello again, friends! Well we've come to the end of the "Thanks Plus Giving Plus You" contest with just one more 2.5 oz jar of "The Masters" Brush Cleaner and Preserver left to give out. Before doing so however I would like to say thanks one more time to all of you who have visited diceRolla and found something here worth your while. After spending a lot of time reading other folks' blogs I feel that my own can be, putting it nicely, something of an oddball at times. Therefore I am very grateful to have reached as many people as I have and to have sustained so many regular readers over the past two and a half years. This has always been a personally motivated thing that I enjoy doing, but it certainly has made it much more fun getting to interact with such well informed, interesting, and lively people.

Okay, now that I'm done with the blubbering part let's get on to the exciting conclusion and announce the final winner. So who will be joining GopherDave, The Grim Darkness, and nickthewise in the winners' circle? Why it is none other than...

Spacejacker

Congratulations! I encourage everyone so inclined to find out more about Spacejacker's hobby interests by visiting his blogs, Tiny Solitary Soldiers and Nano Solo, as they are chock-full of miniature goodness. I've been a long time fan of painting and gaming with 15mm scale and smaller miniatures, although my experience with them has been mostly in the realm of historical wargaming. Spacejacker however has some of the most incredible small scale sci-fi minis and scenery that I have ever seen. When I first started reading Tiny Solitary Soldiers, I found it so inspiring that I was barely able to restrain myself from buying up as many little spacemen and monsters as I could afford. In fact I still find that quite tempting but have held off from doing so mainly because there are already enough projects clamoring for my attention. Nonetheless I'm sure at some point I'll pick up at least a few 15mm sci-fi minis and... um... just see where it goes from there. ;) When you get a chance, Spacejacker, please email me and let me know where I should mail your jar of Brush Cleaner and Preserver.

Alright, that's about it for this contest so let's wrap it up. Although I was able to give out four prizes this time around, unfortunately that leaves 230 of you going home empty handed so to speak. I'm sorry I couldn't come up with a way to do something nice for each of you. Instead I'll just have to say how grateful I am for all of you who have helped make diceRolla so much more than I ever imagined it would become. THANK YOU!

And until next time, happy painting and gaming!

Day 3 Giveaway Winner

Hey, hey! It's that time again to announce another winner in the always thrilling, "Thanks Plus Giving Plus You" giveaway extravaganza. Okay, that might be overselling it just a bit. :) But I do have another 2.5 oz jar of "The Masters" Brush Cleaner and Preserver to award to one of my faithful readers chosen randomly from The Esoteric Order of Jason. If you haven't seen anything about this before and want to know what's going on, I welcome you to visit the original post in which I explain the rationale behind this contest.

I'm quickly running out of steam this evening and, due to spending the past week with my in-laws, my patience and cognitive functioning is just about used up. Therefore let's move right on to the fun part. Joining our two previous winners, GopherDave and The Grim Darkness, tonight's lucky winner is...

nickthewise

Congratulations, Nick! 40k players may know nickthewise from his Dark Eldar Blog where he is focused on compiling as much information as possible about those most sinister of space elves. If however you're not already familiar with him, I've copied the following little introduction from one of the other blogs he contributes to regularly, The Dice Abide.

Nick aka nickthewise
Started Playing: 1996
Favorite 40k Army: Tactically I’m really drawn to the new Dark Eldar and the versatility the new Codex offers. Fluff-wise, Eldar has always been my favorite – I can’t wait for their new Codex!
Favorite Fantasy Army: I’m a 40k snob, sorry!
Current Armies: Dark Eldar (8,500), Eldar (6,000), Grey Knights (4,500)
Favorite Aspect of Hobby: I really enjoy the tactical aspect of the hobby, and pitting my wits against my opponents. I’m also a big collector and really enjoy seeing Rouge Trader era models and armies.

With more than 14,000 points of Eldar, of both the Dark and Craftworld varieties, that's some serious dedication. I don't think the Eldar are in any danger of dying off so long as nickthewise is in their corner. It looks like he's also got a significant pile of mon-keigh Grey Knights as well, but I'm pretty sure that's just to make his Eldar feel superior in comparison. (Yes it's true, Eldar even look down their noses at the Grey Knights, despite those humans somehow being better psykers than them.) In case there's still something left to be painted from that huge collection of minis, hopefully this brush cleaner will come in handy.

Thanks again to everyone for reading my blog, I'll be back tomorrow to announce the winner of the last jar of brush soap for this giveaway. And nickthewise, please email me and let me know where I should send your prize. Happy painting and gaming!

Day 2 Giveaway Winner

Hello and welcome to Day 2 of the "Thanks Plus Giving Plus You" giveaway. In case you've arrived here and don't know what this is about, you can check out yesterday's post for a full explanation. Short version is that, beginning on Thanksgiving and going through this coming Sunday, I'm randomly selecting one person each day from those Following this blog to win a 2.5 oz container of "The Masters" Brush Cleaner and Preserver. It's just meant to be a little way of saying thanks to all you good people who read my blog.

With GopherDave having won the first one, that leaves three more jars left to give out. Therefore today's winner is...

The Grim Darkness

Congratulations! The Grim Darkness is author of the aptly named blog, The Grim Darkness. Well somehow I'd missed out before on signing up for his blog but I took care of that earlier today. I highly recommend for anyone interested to pay him a visit, he's got some fantastic models and scenery that are definitely worth taking a look at. I especially like his Death Guard Chaos Marines and his recent work on an outstanding 28mm Inquisitorial warband. I appreciate his style of painting and am hopeful this brush soap will prove to be helpful with future projects.

Okay, that's it for tonight. The Grim Darkness, if you would please send me an email (you can find the address near the top of my blog's right-hand column) we can work out where you would like me to send your prize. Thanks again for supporting diceRolla! And for everyone else, please check back tomorrow because I'll be choosing another winner. These past several days I've been in New York staying with my in-laws so it will likely once again be later on in the evening before I get a chance to post the next winner.

So until then, happy gaming!

Thanks Plus Giving Plus You

Since today is Thanksgiving for those of us celebrating in the good old U. S. of A, I want to express my sincere gratitude to all of you kind people who visit this blog. Thank you! I really appreciate all the support I've received over the past few years and have enjoyed immensely hearing from each you. I've had a blast sharing my hobby life with you and I look forward to continuing to do so for a long time to come.

In the spirit of the holiday I am kicking off a little giveaway for all my blogging buddies as a way of expressing how thankful I am for your readership and your participation in the diceRolla experience. Starting now and going through Sunday, each day one member of The Esoteric Order of Jason will be randomly chosen to win a 2.5 oz tub of "The Masters" Brush Cleaner and Preserver. This brush soap works like a charm and will seriously extend the life of your brushes, not to mention getting out all that left over pigment stuck to your bristles.

And so the first winner in our "Thanks Plus Giving Plus You" drawing is...

GopherDave, aka Dave, aka TheDude

Congratulations Dave! For those of you who don't know him, Dave is one of the co-owners of Armored Gopher Games in Urbana, Illinois. As well as being an entrepreneur, Dave is also a philosopher, artist, devoted husband and father, and one hell of a sharp dresser. It was a great honor for me to meet him and to be able to spend some time talking about our favorite games when I stopped by his store on my way to Adepticon earlier this year. I'm therefore pretty psyched that his number came up first for the contest.

Although Dave has won this round, I've got three more jars of Brush Cleaner to give away. Using the trusty random number generator we'll do this all over again tomorrow to select the next winner. So thanks again to everyone for checking out my blog and offering me so much encouragement along the way. Happy painting and gaming... and of course, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Old Bloggers Never Die

Nope, I'm not dead yet. :) Trying my best not to fade away, either. I'd say it's therefore time for a little bit of updating.

After staying busy throughout October, my family and I then hit a rough patch at the start of the current month. Nothing too dire, mind you, but stressful enough to kill most of my hobby and blogging motivation for the past few weeks. Normally painting is a great relief for me but I was in too much of funk to even pick up a brush for a while. Fortunately everything seems to be working out for the best now and I've started to get my hobby-groove back. Yippee!

Thus with the will to paint having been restored I finally got down to business and began working on my Sea Dog for the charity auction Project: Orange Crush (Hunger), part of Foodmachine 2011. (You can see my original post about getting involved here if you like.) I finished painting my pirate this past weekend and I'm really pleased with how he turned out. I had planned on keeping this under wraps until the auction goes live but I'm simply too excited to wait that long. Therefore I'm going to hold off from showing any further photos for the time being, though I cannot resist presenting at least one shot of my contribution to the effort. I'll have plenty to say later on about painting the miniature and the project itself, but until then here's the first look at my Sea Dog:

While painting my pirate I also spent some time thinking about the hobby in general and what I would really like to be doing with it. To help me out I reconvened my war council so as to determine the best use of my hobby time. After some discussion concerning various army projects and the different game systems with which I've been experimenting, it became apparent that I have not adapted to my new environment and instead I have continued on as if I were still living in a hobby wasteland. Despite moving more than six months ago to a much more gamer-friendly city, I have been slow to take full advantage of these new opportunities.

Once again I had allowed side projects to take precedence over my painting time, neglecting what I had initially intended to focus upon after moving to Asheville. While I am still very keen to get deeper into Dystopian Wars, Infinity, Malifaux, and Flames of War, there is just no way these other games can compete locally against 40k with regard to the availability of opponents and the potential to play games on a regular basis. I was starved for gaming in Charleston, yet now it would be no problem at all for me to play a few games of 40k every week should I choose to do so. I have been dissatisfied however with the state of my armies for quite a while and so, in order for me to get back into proper 40k-gaming form, I have decided to rededicate myself to working on my Raptors Space Marines.

Ideally I'd like to have 1500 points worth of Raptors painted by the end of this year. From there I will continue to expand the army with the goal of having significantly more painted in time for the release of 6th Edition. I always feel like I'm caught flat-footed whenever a new edition comes out and so this time around I want to be prepared as much as possible by having an army I'm happy with painted and ready to go as soon as the new rules drop. And in the meantime, if all goes accordingly, I'll have something I can take to the FLGS so as to enjoy these waning days of 5th Edition. That's my plan for now at least and I'm starting off by painting a squad of sniper Scouts.

The last thing I want to mention for this update is that starting tomorrow I will be doing another little giveaway for those of you Following my blog. I'll most likely post the details sometime tomorrow night (November 24th) though I'm not exactly sure when due to it being a holiday and the potential for post-turkey lethargy. At this point I just want to give everyone a heads-up in case you're interested. It's going to be a simple random drawing so all you'll need to do is check in occasionally to find out if you've won.

Okay, that's it for now. I hope everyone is doing really well... happy painting and gaming!