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!

Missing 'Nids Found, Light Casualties Only

While cleaning out the garage today I came across an army transportation bag that had been missing since we moved into the new house almost three months ago. Along with an assortment of blisters, sprues, and other random miniatures, perhaps most importantly this bag is where I had stuffed most of my collection of Tyranids for the move to North Carolina. Even better is that the 'nids managed to survive the trip sustaining only minor damage to a few models. Woo-hoo! This is surprising to me because of the lack of care with which I packed them. After lifting out the upper layers of hobby detritus, this is what I saw today in my army bag:

Wow... I'd forgotten just how haphazardly I had crammed these minis into the bag. There in the picture you can see the uppermost portion of my Tyranid swarm in a tangled mass of chitin and claws. I knew for quite a while leading up to our departure for the mountains that I would not have enough foam or other safe means of storage for all my miniatures and armies. In particular I had never bothered to work out a good way of transporting my Tyranid army as I rarely ever had a reason to take them anywhere. Rather than come up with a plan to handle this I instead ignored the problem for as long as I could until that last night in our previous home.

Finally with a healthy sense of desperation and growing panic I then set about packing my bugs. There was room left in the foam that I used for my Dark Elf War Hydra in which I was able to fit the Tyranids' winged Hive Tyrant, as well as the winged Warriors and my Zoanthropes, too. The rest of the army however would have to tough it out jammed together in my last army bag, which also served as the receptacle for whatever other remaining loose hobby junk that I came across in my haste. I was worried about the 'Nids but hoped that the minis would be packed tightly together so as to prevent them from shifting around much and crashing into each other. As unlikely as that seemed, at the time it was the best option I could think of in the few hours left to pack.

It was therefore to my great surprise today when discovered that the irrepressible Tyranids did in fact survive and in relatively good condition no less. After unpacking everything and sorting out all the minis, I could find only three damaged models. Of the medium bugs a single diminutive claw arm had popped off of a metal Ravener, and one Warrior's Rending Claw arms broke away, too. The only small bug in need of repair is one of the Hormagaunts who snapped off of his base, something which I expected many more Gaunts to have suffered due to their fragile ankles and minimal contact with their bases. Fortunately none of the large bugs however sustained any damage. Incredibly it looks like it should all be fairly easy to fix... nice!

So here is the entire swarm of Tyranids unpacked and deployed onto my desktop:

Under the previous Codex I could play games comfortably in the 1850-2000 points range with this army, although by maxing out on biomorphs this could be pushed up to around 2200 points. It has been a long time since I looked at the most recent Codex: Tyranids, but I believe the army now comes in right around 1500 points with the current set of rules. Thus it seemed like it would cost more money than I was willing to spend in order to update and expand the army to take advantage of the new strategic options and units now available to the Tyranids.

I've since revisited this and decided earlier this year that I would go ahead and make a few more additions to the army. I now have a unit of Hive Guard and a single Trygon/Mawloc kit waiting to join Hive Fleet Hydra. I would also like to pick up a couple boxes of Gargoyles if for no other reason than to celebrate their transition from plastic to metal. Lastly I think I need to sort out my Raveners as they currently cannot be fielded legally as a WYSIWYG unit, so I'll likely also pick up a box of them eventually. While I was not terribly thrilled with the current Codex: Tyranids upon its release, I'm at least interested in them enough to again put my 'Nids back onto the hobby to-do list. Maybe I'll even provide for them foam or a case of their own, though I doubt that will be happening anytime soon.

Happy painting and gaming!

Hordes Switch, Time for Skorne

This is going to be a quick post tonight as I am about to start assembling my Titan Gladiator, hence I want to spend as much hobby time as I can working on the angry elephant. It looks like he's going to take a lot of pins and greenstuff so I'm eager to get to it. As I look at the generous pile of pieces that await me, I have a feeling this guy would really benefit from being rereleased as a plastic model. Hopefully PP has that in the works for their future Hordes plans.

Earlier today I repaired that Cyclops Savage who was damaged in the move without too much trouble. This means that once the Gladiator is built I will have my first 15 points of Skorne ready for painting. I still don't know if I'll go with the standard paint scheme or an alternative selection of colors. I like the basic red-flavored Skorne enough that I'm happy to use it as my default paint scheme should I not think of anything else with more appeal. Since the current Gladiator will likely take me a while to build, I'm sure I have plenty more time to consider my options.

As for the change of pace, I decided that I was ready to switch from working on Circle Orboros and start in on my next faction. Eventually I'd like to be able to run intro games in the Asheville area as it seems there is not yet much of a following here for either Warmachine or Hordes. Unfortumately I do not believe there are any Press Gangers within several hours drive of me so no help there. No worries though, I don't think it should be too hard to teach the game to someone else should I get the chance.

In order for me to do that, however, I need to paint some more monsters. Therefore it's time I return to the knives, glue, greenstuff and pins. Goodnight!

Mountain Warfare

And........ I'm back.

Hello and welcome to the start of a new era for this blog. Well it's not really so dramatic as that I suppose, this is just my first post since moving in to my new home in Asheville, NC. Hooray! My family and I have now lived here for a full month and we are exceedingly happy with our new surroundings. Rather than live in the city itself, we're actually located just a few miles north in the town of Weaverville, on the side of a mountain at an altitude of 2400 feet. Having spent the last decade at sea-level, it has been an exciting experience so far adjusting to mountain life. Driving here can still feel somewhat frightening at times, but otherwise everything is going swimmingly.

My goodness, though, how time flies! I can hardly believe it's been six weeks since I last wrote anything for this blog, and it has been even longer since I had any productive hobby time too. It's taken longer than I thought it would to get settled in, and indeed there is still unpacking left to do, but at this point we've done enough around the house that I can begin thinking about spare time again. Ah... spare time. :) Therefore this weekend I hope to start painting again and I should be able to return to my regular (i.e., erratic and random) blogging habits as well. That's the plan at least, yippie!

I am by the way very eager to become reacquainted with all of my favorite blogs, too. I have not been able to keep up with everyone's hobby activities as much as I would have liked over the past couple of months. Nonetheless I assume it's been quiet around the old blogosphere during my absence from it. Surely there have been no significant changes or controversies concerning our hobby, nor any upheavals or customer revolts of any kind during that time.

Right...?

Regardless I am thrilled to be back and look forward to sharing lots of wargaming hobby goodness with all my readers. Thanks for sticking with me, I appreciate your patience and continued support. Mahalo!

Incomprehensibly Tough Competition

After stopping by my LGS a few days ago for what was likely my last visit, I am forced to admit that I have not given the 40k scene there the proper consideration or respect that it deserves. I now believe that my soon to be former LGS can in fact boast of having the toughest competition of any game store in the world. Need proof? Check out this sign-up sheet I spotted for an upcoming 1850 point tournament they will soon be hosting:

That's right, both Chuck Norris AND Bruce Lee have signed up to compete! Who would have ever guessed that my humble LGS would host the most epic confrontation in the history of table top gaming, if not that of all humankind? And you just know those guys are total WAACs, too. ;) I'm not sure about his skill as a 40k player but I'd say Springsteen is a lock for third place and the Players' Choice award. I mean really, who's going to give The Boss a bad sportsmanship score? (Uh, besides Julianne Philips, that is.)

Considering the dramatic rise in competition at my LGS, I am a little sad that I won't be able to play in this tournament, nor even be in attendance to witness what will surely be a battle for the ages. The reason for this is that I am officially moving to Asheville, North Carolina a mere two weeks from today... hooray! No more speculation or hopeful optimism, this time around everything has been confirmed and it's truly a done deal. We will be moving into our new place on June 2nd so unfortunately I expect that I will be too busy even for the colossal Norris v. Lee showdown scheduled for next weekend.

Preparing for my family's move to NC has been the main cause of my recent decline in blogging, as well as my overall lack of hobby time over the past two weeks. Since my previous post I've picked up my paintbrush just one other time before doing so again earlier tonight to work a little more on Captain Homer. I'd like to finish him and a few other small projects before I have to finally pack away the last of my hobby gear, though I am not terribly concerned should I end up having only a minimum of painting time for the rest of the month.

Nonetheless I will try to post at least a few more times before then. Tonight I just wanted to provide a little update on what I've been doing and to offer an explanation for my absence from the blog. I've been really busy but I am so excited about moving that it has been very much worth all the associated hassles. I hope all of you are doing quite well too, goodbye for now!

Asheville Plans on Hold, etc.

Okay, things are settling down again so I'd like to briefly update a few things tonight. The mother-in-law has departed once again for frozen New York, the monstrous Hydra is done for now, and in the past week all I managed to assemble for my Dark Elves was one little crossbowman. (Uh-oh!) How's that for an update? I suppose that's the most pertinent info anyways, the rest will just be details.

All that extra hobby time I thought was just around the corner for me turned out to be entirely imaginary... shocking, right? My daughter turned two years old yesterday so we've kept busy with friends and family stopping by in addition to having a very exciting and noisy birthday party on Sunday at the beach. We were staying one island over while my mother-in-law visited because preparations for the expected move to Asheville, NC have lead to a lot of upheaval at home and no space for guests. In vain I brought my Dark Elves to assemble but there were no good opportunities to work on them, although the stay at the beach was otherwise a great time. Getting to sleep in a bit as my mother-in-law took the early shift with my daughter was bliss. :) (Thanks again, Cheryl!)

As I said, the only progress I made on the Dark Elf front was putting together a single pitiful crossbowman. Oh and the Hydra is mostly done, still some minor greenstuff work to do on all those gaps but that's almost finished too. What this means however is that my timetable for this project is already thrown off track but worrying about it won't help, the only thing to do is press on. I'll focus my efforts on the miniatures I most expect to use for the 1000 point tournament at Adepticon, and if I can pick up the pace I might then look at some of the other models I've purchased. Hmmm, I think I should save details about this for a future post.

While I've made little tangible hobby progress recently, on the other hand I did find plenty of time last week to really dig into the first volume of the Malus Darkblade collection. I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would even with its moments of face-peeling grotesqueries. (As an aside, I sometimes forget what a sicko Dan Abnett can be.) So despite his cruelty and all around horribleness, I've quickly grown rather fond of Malus and find him to be surprisingly funny and even kind of endearing in a weird way. I actually find myself thinking of him as almost a Warhammer version of one of my all time favorite characters, Ash from the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies, in that he is constantly being pummeled, beaten, stabbed, knocked out, captured, poisoned, suffocated, drugged, and otherwise generally abused at almost every turn. Yet to his credit he never stays down or out of the fight for very long and always seems to come out ahead in the end. As a hero, or antihero as you please, his greatest virtue so far appears to be his ability to take a beating. Also as I had hoped it would, the reading is helping me tremendously in my understanding of the Druchii as a people and their culture which previously had felt somewhat bland and one dimensional. Good stuff!

Another positive, albeit still somewhat disappointing, development from last week is the new plan my wife and I devised concerning the aforementioned move to Asheville. Musings of a Smurf kindly enquired not long ago how things had been going with this and I realized it had been awhile since I last updated the situation. As the title of this post suggests, unfortunately we've had to put everything on hold after getting burned recently by the anemic housing market. Less than two weeks from closing on my wife's old house, now on the market for more than 39 months, the current renters had to back out of their contract which they had signed almost a year ago to purchase the home. Instead they are moving out at the end of February so not only did we lose the sale but also the rental income as well. Their financing fell apart at the last minute and so now there's much to do to get the house back on the market again by spring.

The result of this is that we're going to have to wait on moving to Asheville for the time being as we deal with these new circumstances. Our goal now is to have everything resolved by summertime and will hopefully then resume our ambitions for moving to the mountains. So while I'm still eager as can be to translocate the family, for now we're staying here and will likely only unpack things as needed but otherwise restore order as best we can. Candidly I don't know what's going to happen but I'm optimistic everything will turn out for the best. I'm very grateful for everyone who has been so encouraging of me and who so graciously invited me to come game with you once I have moved to North Carolina. I appreciate it very much and I'm sure that such a welcoming spirit will provide ample motivation to see me through the coming months. Demolition work on the house begins March 1st, hooray!

Well I've rambled on long enough tonight. I apologize for the amount of RealLife whining contained in this update, it was something I had wanted to avoid for that reason alone but I didn't know how else to explain the situation. I remain very hopeful however about our chances of still being able to move to Asheville in the near future. Besides it was a perfect 75 degrees today with beautiful blue skies so I think I should manage alright in the meantime. For now though I've got some Dark Elves to attend to... goodnight, everyone!

I'm a Gamer, Get Me Out of Here!

It's official, we're moving in February! We had initially expected to move to Asheville, NC at the end of summer or early autumn of 2011, but the window of opportunity to do this kept creeping closer and closer until it's now only two months away. It feels rather sudden and leaves quite a bit to be done in the time left so getting ready will likely not be much fun. Otherwise I am quite excited by this development and look forward to once again being a resident of North Carolina. I foresee better gaming days ahead. :)

Meanwhile these are going to be busy times for me over the next several months. I don't know for certain how this will impact things on the hobby front though I imagine there will inevitably be less free time to spend on my miniature wars. With AdeptiCon looming at the start of April I've decided I need to take a more organized approach than I normally do in order to have everything finished in time. This weekend I'm going to review and assess all the projects I have underway and come up with some basic priorities for them. I believe this will also be useful as I begin considering what hobby plans I want to focus on in the coming year.

These past few days have however turned out to be rather unproductive as Father Nurgle has continued to bless my household with his gift of the flu. It's therefore been a little painting here, little painting there type of week. Slow but steady progress at least and I have also been working on army lists for the Raptors to give me a sense of direction. Right now I have some spare minutes in which to paint so I'll catch up on that other business later. There's power armour to paint... bye!

Gaming in Asheville, NC?

First I want to start with a quick reminder about the contest I'm running. If you haven't already, please click here to see the details and enter for a chance to win some MkIII Iron Armour marines as well as a display base to go with them made by Secret Weapon Miniatures. So check it out and enter if you wish, I'll select two winners a little more than a week from now on the night of October 24th.

My hobby activities are presently on hold as I am currently in Asheville, NC with the family and will be here for several more days. I did bring some things to work on when time allows but I forgot a few necessary items. I brought along a batch of HORDES models to assemble but forgot my glue, and I also packed a bunch of paints but failed to bring anything that's ready to paint. D'oh! Well, that's what I get for packing at literally the last minute before leaving home.

We're visiting Asheville to begin getting a sense for the area as we'll likely be moving here next summer. Nestled within the Great Smokey Mountains, it is a beautiful place and I've always liked this part of the country. So far everything looks good and I suspect we'd be quite happy living here. While driving around yesterday the wife and I came across an awesome Bavarian restaurant where I tried Das Boot of lager for the first time in my life. Fortunately it was only the single Litre version as I would not have been able to handle any more than that. Overall it was a great dining experience though I was worried enough about falling asleep at the table. : )

Along with all the usual pragmatic concerns involved in moving, like neighborhoods and school districts and such, I'm also quite curious what type of gaming scene I might find here. There is a severe paucity of tabletop gaming where we live now so it's difficult for me to imagine my hobby situation not improving with this move. I have a lead on one game store that I expect to visit tomorrow afternoon which I think is promising. Otherwise I'm still wandering around blindly, listening to the winds for the welcome sounds of rolling dice and gamers' incessant whining.

I have a positive feeling about this place and I believe it could be a good fit for my little family. It seems like a town well suited to weirdos and eccentrics. I'd love to hear from anyone who knows this area or has had any experience playing games in the Asheville region. I'm definitely interested in learning how well represented our hobby is in this part of the state, plus I'd really appreciate any other advice or words of wisdom my Tar Heel readers might have for me. So please let me know what your impressions of this area are like. I would be very grateful for any help in this regard.

Thank you!