Did You Hear Something?

"Hey Bill, did you hear something?"

"Um... yes."

"Oh FETH!"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I've been really busy with my family today and haven't had much time for painting or blogging, hence the random hobby picture this evening. This photograph was taken last Halloween after I celebrated the holiday by painting a set of Plague Zombies which some of you might remember. Even though this picture is one of my favorites, tonight is its diceRolla premier. I know however that at least a few intrepid readers have seen it elsewhere, to whom I apologize for tonight's repeat presentation. :)

Happy painting and gaming!

For The Khadorland!

Originally I had wanted to begin working on my first Warmachine models today but my plans went a tad haywire. Most of the day was taken up in dealing with our basement that flooded during the night, followed this evening by my little daughter not feeling well. It's now too late for me to start on any of my hobby projects so instead I think I'll just take it easy and read for a while. I've been meaning to go back and reread the Warmachine and Hordes MkII rulebooks so maybe I'll start on them.

Therefore tonight all I have to share with you are just some more photos that I think are pretty cool. These are pictures of a large Privateer Press display that I saw at Adepticon a couple years back. It looked awesome but the only problem was that it was surrounded with plexiglass or something which made taking pictures of the minis rather frustrating. Thus none of the following photos turned out as well as I would have liked which is why I decided against posting them at the time in 2010. I guess my standards are lower now as I reason, "Eh... why not? They're still neat." But if obviously amateurish photography makes you cringe, you at least have been warned. Then again, if that were the case this blog would probably not be to your liking anyway, so why should I worry about catering to you hypothetical photo snobs?

Ah, sorry. This has indeed been a long day. I'll shut up now and get on with the pictures.

The display had been divided into three separate scenes, of which the Khador assault pictured above was one of them. I really like the alternative color scheme used on these models as well as the details of the overrun network of trench works and defenses, too. I've chosen as my initial faction for Warmachine the mighty forces of Khador, and since I wasn't able to actually get started on them today, I thought it would be fun to at least share these pictures of Khador minis. I hope you enjoyed taking a peek even if they were somewhat blurry or crazy looking from the flash. What can I say, it's been one of those days. :)

Goodnight!

Imperial Fists Team Display

After months of delay I've finally started writing the story of my experiences playing in the 40k team tournament at Adepticon this past Spring. Yeah, I know... timely as ever, right? It's going to take me a little longer to finish my summary of the tournament but in the meantime I do have something else to share from that day.

While hustling from one side of the main room to the other in search of the correct table for my Round 3 game, I happened to pass by an eye-catching Imperial Fists army that made me stop in my tracks. Imperial Fists armies always get a lot of attention thanks to their not so subtle livery, but in this case it was actually not the army that made me take a second look. Instead it was the team's massive army display board, complete with a beautiful backdrop to help set the scene. One thing this tournament has become known for is the great amount of effort and creativity some teams are willing to invest into every aspect of their army's appearance and how it is displayed, of which this particular Imperial Fists army is an excellent example.

No doubt many other people stopped to take pictures as well so presumably this army display has been previously featured elsewhere on the internet, closer to when the tournament took place and likely in greater detail, too. However since I went to the trouble to take my own photographs amid the hubbub and chaos between rounds of the tournament, I'm now determined to use them here no matter how stale the subject might be for you, my fellow hobbyists. And of course if you haven't seen this before, I think it's worth taking a look.

I was in such a hurry that I was not able to learn anything about the team responsible for bringing this brilliant spectacle to the tournament. If anyone who was involved with the pictured Imperial Fists collection and army display happens to see this, please let me know and I will happily give you the credit that you and your mates deserve. It's a marvelous piece of art and I would really appreciate being able to properly recognize the people who created it.

Seeing this sort of fantastic army and over-the-top display is one of the things I most enjoy about attending big events like Adepticon. I only wish I had more time to take better photos of the display and to meet the people who had built it. Oh well, I hope you had fun taking a look at this one as well. Goodnight!

A Lovely Iron Kingdoms Table

I don't have much time tonight for blogging as I continue to be occupied by visiting relatives. So for this week's Warmachine/Hordes post I'd like to show a picture of one of my favorite gaming tables. I saw this one at Adepticon and I have no idea who is responsible for it, although I guess it was made by someone associate with Privateer Press. It was located right next to one of their big display pieces in the ballroom where all their tournaments were held.

Okay, check it out:

Why then do I like it so much? To begin with I think it's just a really attractive table built to a high standard of craftsmanship. I wish at the time I had taken more photos of it so that I could show some closeups as the buildings and train station are all well detailed, beautiful pieces of scenery. Also the train and boxcar apparently received a similar amount of care and attention. I remember them being quite lovely.

Beyond its aesthetic appeal I appreciate that it is still a very functional wargaming table for the system for which it was created. It doesn't appear overly crowded with too many lavish terrain pieces and so it should still allow for an enjoyable, standard type of game, not one in which the table itself dominates how the game is played. While I definitely have a lot of fun playing on those specially designed, narrative-heavy tables, this one comes across to me as a top-notch, "I can play on it everyday" sort of table.

Perhaps what I like the most about the table, however, is how well it fits the background and themes of its game world. It seems to me a perfect expression of the Iron Kingdoms and very representative of that Steampunk-styled setting. Sure it would work fine for a lot of other games, but with even a glance I know where the action on the table is supposed to be taking place. I'm also impressed that this isn't conveyed by means of any overt references to in-game factions, symbols, etc. or other sorts of give-away clues.

Finally, I just think it's really neat that the table has train tracks and a train, too. I've wanted to build a table with train tracks for a long time but have not yet done so. That's a terrain feature I would like to see show up more often. Growing up my dad was into model trains so I've thought for a while it would cool to integrate a little of that into my own hobby. Maybe someday I'll get around to that... seems like it would be fun. By the way, does anyone know what scale or gauge of track works well for 28-30mm miniatures?

So that's why I think this table is so groovy. I hope everyone is having a rockin' week so far. Goodnight!

250th Post and Some Evil Dead

Unfortunately I am not going to be able to write on either of the topics I had in mind for tonight's Warhammer posting. We had a surprise visit from family today and will now be entertaining house guests for the next few days. This was a very happy surprise for us but it has curtailed somewhat the time I have available for blogging this evening. What I had planned on writing about can certainly wait another week so it doesn't seem sensible to rush through either of them.

This does however happen to be my 250th post for this blog, and I am not above taking the easy way out. Therefore tonight diceRolla is celebrating having reached an entirely arbitrary and meaningless posting milestone. Hooray for blogging! Hooray for me! Woo-hoo! I believe this is the first of these of which I have taken note and mentioned, so please forgive the gratuitous nature of my self-congratulation. It's taken diceRolla some 30 months to arrive at this point and it seems like a long time coming. So… ta da!

It wouldn't feel right, however, to mark such an important accomplishment [snicker, snicker] without anything at all related to our shared interest in the world of gaming. I thus went digging through my photo albums in search of something that would be appropriate. Here then is what I found for such a solemn occasion:

This... is my BOOMSTICK!

This photograph is from one of the team 40k tournament games I played in earlier this year at Adepticon. In the first round our team was matched against a group of guys from Florida called Skull-N-Bonz who had brought to the event an alliance of Imperial Guard and Nurgle-based Chaos Marines. You can probably tell from the picture that what really made their armies outstanding was that they were all themed around one of my favorite movies, Army of Darkness. The miniature version of Ash pictured above was used as a counts-as Colonel 'Iron Hand' Straken for one of their Guard armies. I was playing on the adjacent table and so did not get the chance to go up against Colonel Ash myself, though I did enjoy watching him chew his way through a big group of Space Wolves. I tip my hat to the Skull-N-Bonz crew for bringing such a fun army to the tournament and for being an awesome group of competitors, too. Well done, guys!

Lastly I want to say a big THANK YOU to all the fantastic people who have been reading my blog, however long that happens to have been. It's been a blast getting to share with you my experiences with this hobby and I greatly appreciate you providing me with such an opportunity. Thanks for sticking with me!

Goodnight, everybody. And remember… shop smart, shop S-Mart. :)

Daemons and Dinosaurs

Earlier today I was able to recover a large amount of data from my old computer and so I'm in the mood to celebrate this bit of good fortune. Among the recovered goodies were all of my photographs from this year's trip to Adepticon, and therefore tonight I'd like to share a few of my favorites. First up are a couple of crazy count-as Flamers of Tzeentch followed by a count-as unit of Flesh Hounds. These are from the gorgeous Daemons of Chaos army painted by Jeff Schiltgen for Adepticon's 1000 point "It's How You Use It" tournament. I could be mistaken but I think he won a Player's Choice award for his well painted army and display board.

Unfortunately a lot of my pictures of this army did not turn out very well, being in many cases much too blurry for me to use. The next photograph is itself rather blurry though perhaps not as bad as some of the others. Still I think the unit of Bloodletters is pretty enough to be worth a look despite my shoddy camera work. (I apologize to Jeff for not doing his army justice.)

I spotted this next set of Lizardmen miniatures during a break between games and had to take a few minutes to admire the uber cute approach to modeling Stegadons. While these lumbering beasts may not seem as intimidating as the standard Stegadon model, I think they have a very pleasant and light-hearted charm that you rarely find in wargaming. Unfortunately I forgot to find out the name of the army's owner, though I do remember him being quite generous with his time as I asked questions and took my pictures. If anybody should happen to recognize this army and know the name of its painter, I would happily update this to give him his due credit.

There were of course many other fantastic armies to drool over at Adepticon. However my schedule was primarily filled with gaming this year and so I did not have as much time as before to wander around and take pictures of all the cool miniatures. Although I had a blast playing in the events, in the future I think I would prefer to leave more time unscheduled so that I can take advantage of having so many lovely armies gathered in one place. It's a great opportunity to be inspired and see some amazing works of art.

Happy painting and gaming!

Chris Borer's Killzone Team

I don't have much time for blogging right now so tonight I just want to quickly show a few pictures I took at AdeptiCon of some really amazing Space Marines. I played in the Killzone event on the last day of the convention and had the good fortune of both playing against and then later teaming up with one of my favorite miniature painters, Chris Borer of Full Borer Miniatures. Having admired his painting for years and even taken one of his painting classes at the previous AdeptiCon, I had come to think of him only in terms of his work as an artist. It was therefore a particularly special treat for me to get to actually spend time gaming with him and have fun throwing dice with a winner of four Slayer Sword awards and more than twenty Golden Demon trophies. (Click here to see his tally of Golden Demons.) You can imagine then my elation when Chris even complemented my own Killzone team and said what a pleasure it was to play against a well-painted army!

For his Killzone team Chris brought a mix of Space Marines and Space Marine veterans primarily equipped for rather specialized roles, and complemented by a number of cheaper Space Marine Scouts. His team was lead by what I think was a Veteran Sergeant who had been upgraded to carry the special issue Medipack, and hence was modeled as a Space Marine Apothecary. The other members of the team included a Sternguard veteran, a Vanguard veteran, two basic Space Marines armed with a Heavy Bolter and a Flamer, and one more Space Marine with the standard equipment. Finally there were five Scouts, one carrying a shotgun and the other four armed with bolt pistols and close combat weapons. It seemed to me to be a really well balanced and quite lethal Killzone team and I believe Chris did fairy well with them in his games. Oh and they look fantastic, too! Check 'em out...

Apothecary (Team Leader)

Sternguard Veteran

Vanguard Veteran

There was also one more member of the Killzone team, a very cool Space Marine posed in the act of throwing a frag grenade, but unfortunately none of the pictures I took of him turned out well. Too bad as it was one of my favorites from the bunch and I apologize for not getting the complete set photographed. Chris was very kind and allowed anyone who was interested to handle his minis and set them up for photos, an opportunity of which a number of people took advantage. So who knows... maybe I can track down a decent picture of that last Space Marine from this team.

That's it for tonight, however. I hope you enjoyed taking a look at these beautifully painted miniatures, I'm very thankful for the chance to share them with you. Happy gaming, everyone!

AdeptiDone - I'm Home!

With the dust settling from AdeptiCon and the sounds of battle finally fading away, I am happy to report that I had an absolutely marvelous time! I will have plenty to report on in the coming days though it will take me a little while to get things in order and to sort out my thoughts on what took place. Unfortunately after spending almost all of Monday dealing with some... ahem, car troubles... it wasn't until after 6pm before I at last departed Chicago and began the thousand mile drive back to Charleston. I therefore did not arrive home till the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday and only now am starting to feel recovered from the past week. It was an amazingly good trip but has nonetheless certainly taken its toll on me. :)

AdeptiCon was a fantastic weekend, by far one of my most enjoyable hobby experiences and well worth the long journey and the associated expense. Every one of the twelve games I played in was a blast and in the process I didn't meet a single gamer whom I'd avoid playing against in the future. The games were fun and exciting and the opposing players were uniformly good sports, patient and fair. I couldn't have asked for a better lineup of people with whom to spend a few days rolling dice.

Besides the games which I enjoyed thoroughly and the huge amount of inspiring models, another highlight from AdeptiCon was meeting and befriending so many wonderful people, either across from me at the gaming tables or else those I randomly encountered while wandering the site. Along with all of my opponents from the weekend, I was also fortunate to have met many wonderful gamers and painters and enjoyed every minute spent talking with them about our shared hobbies. So that I don't forget to do so later, I would like to thank and say hello to the following new friends:

TheDude (aka GopherDave) of Armored Gopher Games.

Neil from the Dark Future Games crew.

Bill/Nix of The Dead Tau Project and Gamers Lounge.

Dave Pauwels of Gogon Studios.

Hoagy from When Cannons Fade...,

Dethtron of Dick Move fame,

and their bandmates from Crusader, Joe, Ian, and Brad.

Aaron V., Nick H., and Robert C. from the Friday tournament.

The members of Team Snake Eyes - Iron Hands contingent.

The members of Checkmate Hobbies and Skull-N-Bonz.

Brent of Strictly Average whom I accosted in the elevator.

My teammates Wolf Lord Pat and Company Commander Josh.

Chris Borer of Full Borer Miniatures

b.smoove of A Gentleman's Ones

Also I want to thank all the staff and volunteers who obviously put in a ridiculous amount of effort into making AdeptiCon as much fun as it was. Lastly I want to thank my good friend who has tolerated my antics for many years, DrGabe of DrGabe's Miniatures. Once again being able to hangout like old times was the best part of the weekend... thanks, buddy! It's my hope that I will get to see lots of these same good people again before next year's event, but if not until then, that will be yet another reason for me to look forward to AdeptiCon in 2012.

I do intend on reviewing the various events I played in at AdeptiCon though I haven't decided yet on the manner in which I will do so. Since I'm not sure if I was ever clear about my schedule before leaving for Chicago, essentially it was the 1000pt Fantasy tournament on Friday, the 40k Team Tournament on Saturday, and the Killzone event on Sunday. I expect I'll at least put together a separate report discussing each of those tournaments although I likely won't try to do a full battle report for every one of my games. But for now I've picked out a sampling of pictures from my weekend to sort of preview what I will be posting and talking about over the coming days.

"Follow me, men, I know the way to VICTORY!" Famous last words...

Mere seconds before rolling three of my many twin-linked misses of the day....

"Uh, guys... hello? Where did you go? Weren't you alive just a minute ago?"

One of Chris Borer's amazing marines from his Killzone team, of which I will show more in its own post...

Beasts of Annihilation enter the Killzone, never to be seen again.

I will begin organizing my AdeptiReports later this evening so hopefully I'll have more ready to post soon... until next time, take care and happy gaming!

J.Wappel's GK Land Raiders, etc.

Well it's good to be back everyone, sorry about that unanticipated absence. The past couple of weeks RealLife has overrun my defenses and collapsed the entire hobby front, leaving me with no progress to report whatsoever. Things have been so hectic lately I haven't even had time to keep up with my beloved blogosphere [Gasp!] or post up any of my usual blather. After reading this over at Musings of a Smurf and reflecting on it a bit more, rather than feel down about the lack of hobby time I'm instead thankful to have accomplished a lot that needed to be done along with spending lots of time with my family. Thanks for helping to refresh my perspective, MoaS!

Enough rambling for now, let's get to it. All the recent excitement over the imminent return of the Grey Knights reminded me that I never got around to posting all the pictures I had of an amazing pair of Grey Knight Land Raider Redeemers painted by James Wappel of WindyCity Miniatures. I'm fairly certain I remember RealGenuis of BoLS fame showed off pictures of these last spring at that website and maybe also at The Painting Corps. Even so they're such brilliant models it's worth taking another look. Right then, check out these lovely Land Raiders...

While on the subject of WindyCity Miniatures, the next two photos are of miniatures painted by Cathy Wappel. These were also brought to last's years Adepticon and available in the Wappels' seminars for us to see as examples of their work and to admire. Also the Bretonnian was referenced specifically in the class on painting free hand designs to show how their techniques for painting tattoos can be applied in other situations. I know I've posted these here before but why not post 'em again? They're simply awesome!

(I'm not positive but I think that's RealGenius in the background taking photos.)

Alright, I've run out of time for now and need to wrap it up. If you ever get a chance to meet the Wappels, do so as they are some of the sweetest, nicest people I've encountered in this hobby. Great people with great talent... dig it!

Flashbacks and Nightmares: Plaguebearers

While messing around with my Chaos Marines yesterday I took some extra pictures of my unit of Plaguebearers that I painted probably about seven years ago. I'm not sure exactly when these miniatures came out but it seems like it has been a long time now and I think they've stood the test of time nicely. This group of ten daemons is still one of my favorite units that I've ever painted and they always make me smile. Also, since the models are basically just a blob of gross on legs and a sword, I remember them being super easy to paint as well. There's no denying it, Nurgle is fun.

I painted these Plaguebearers having been inspired by two of my med school classes, anatomy lab and pathology, and wanted them to resemble the cadavers from class rather than going for the more classic, sort of fantastic style of daemons. It might be macabre but I thought this would be an appropriate way to differentiate my monsters somewhat and still represent the Nurgle aesthetic. I started by painting them like tanned skin and then proceeded to bruise and disease the hell out of them with numerous washes and glazes. One of my goals was to avoid the wet, slimy look and instead intended them to have more of a putrefying flesh vibe going on. I wanted this to be true even for the areas of exposed organs which I tried to make look like rotten fatty tissue streaked with a some blood and pus but without going overboard on this.

The challenge therefore was to use the thinned pigments, maybe even some inks but on that my memory is hazy, without letting too much shine build up. I am happy with the results and I feel like these guys do a good job conveying the cadaverous plague-corpse look that I had envisioned. Green is my favorite color to paint so I was also glad that there were a few nurglings scattered around to get my hue of preference involved. Per my usual style of photography, all these pictures turned out rather dark and shadowy so it's hard to make out the loathsome runts. I just wanted to note them as they were also one of my favorite elements of these miniatures to paint and are really characterful and quite expressive.

It's been fun taking another look at these guys and remembering all the vile times I've had with them over the years. These little abominations have been a staple of my Chaos Marine armies ever since I finished painting them and have been as satisfying to use in games as they were to paint. So thank you for indulging me once again in another trip down Psychosis Lane. Ciao!

(These are the seven I would normally use when feeling fluffy, or when short on points....)