New year.  New stuff.

Hey guys, Jay here... it has been... a while.  I have decide to give this blogging thing a try again.  I have been posting small amounts of content in a variety of places around the web.  I have tried streaming on Twitch, podcasting, being a youtuber, started a Facebook page, posted regular updates on twitter, I have my own discord channel, and even tried posting on Instagram, but have never quite had the same experience and feeling of connectivity as I did here on blogger. So here we are again...

I currently play 3 games actively, and have interest in and models for a few others.

My currently primary is Warmachine/Hordes.  I am playing Khador right now and feel like have so many more lists too try.  With Brawlmachine, Clashmachine, Streamroller, and Kommadant formats to build list for there are almost endless variations to try out. On Feb 8th my community will be starting up an escalation league that combines many of these formats together, so there is lots to look forward to for more Khador games.  I am also slowly trying to paint up all of my Khador collection and have less then 100 models to go.  I am not going to switch out until I have played at least one game with every caster and finished painting my whole Khador collection.

My secondary game is Riot Quest, a fun you go I go skirmish sized game from Privateer Press that is set in a possible post apocalypse future of the Iron Kingdoms (Warmachine/Hordes) if it was a Saturday morning cartoon.  So a silly, fun, and desperate setting, that plays more like a board game then a miniatures game.  I currently own all the models available for the game with a bit more then 50% of them all painted. There is also rules for all the models so that they can be used in Warmachine and Hordes, so there is lots of opportunities to use the crazy and fantastic sculpts. We play this game in the free time before the store closes when there isn't time to play another game of Warmachine/Hordes on my clubs PP game nights or occasional for a few hours on weekend afternoons.

And finally I have recently started playing and painting Warhammer 40K again, specially Death Guard which is my always army for 40k.  I have only just started playing again in the last few weeks and started painting again in late December as a way to increase my viewership on my streams on Twitch and as a subject for a future Youtube channel I am working on. Here is what my Death Guard scheme looks like currently.

I have been playing several other games over the last few years.  Monsterpocalyse (Monpoc) and Warcaster: Neo-Mechanica by Privateer Press, and Legends of Signum are the other games I have been building and collecting most recently in addition to the 3 mentioned above.  Until October 2021 Warcaster was the primary game I was playing, but it became clear that the next expansion, releasing in Q1 of 2022 is very unbalancing for the game and the online community I was in was split and broken up and moved to a few different locations.  Also the drive to play Warcaster in my local meta has dried up so for now, it has been put on the back burner.

Monpoc is a sometimes game I have been playing with one of my local friends but it sounds like one of the new players who joined my community recently is going to want to play more often. We will see how that goes and if it lights the fire in me to start building and paint Monpoc models again.

Legends of Signum is a newer game to me.  I found their Patreon in October of 2021 and only after subscribing found out that they didn't just produce cool models for me to 3D print, but they also had a very forward thinking and interesting game to use them in.  After discussing it with a few of my locals one of them ordered the starter set, and while we have not played any games yet, I have been printing and painting the minis and look forward to trying it out in the near future.  From the little I have seen the Legends of Signum's game design model it is where I think the future of miniature gaming is going to go, but more on that in a future post.

So welcome back, I am working on getting the cobwebs cleared out and I am starting to get thing rolling here again. More next time.  See you soon.

How we throw down in Norfolk

Hey there, as I said in my last post I have a Journeyman League that I am running for my local LGS starting tomorrow. I thought I would share some of my thoughts about the current Journeyman League system put out by Privateer Press and how we have edited it to make it work better in our meta.

Our league is based on the 2017 Journeyman League rules document publish by Privateer Press.  Now I am not sure why, but the way these leagues are setup for Mk3 seem overly simple and a bit counter intuitive in achieving what classically was the goal of a Journeyman League.

In the past, Journeyman Leagues were meant to provide an organized format to encourage players to build new or expand upon armies, while setting a easy to reach painting goal week to week.  This allowed players to focus on getting models painted in a 1 to 2 week time frame for each level while allowing them to play games while doing so. Usually players ended up with low to mid point armies with the option of 1 to 2 casters to chose from that were (and this is important) fully painted. 

The 2017 Journeyman League requires player to add on additional models in 15pt increments each week , taking a starter box army of a just a few models to a full 75pt army in just 6 weeks.  That is a pretty big task if you ask me and Privateer Press though so too it seems.  Gone is the robust paint scoring system of Journeyman Leagues from the past and instead it is replaced by +1 win (effectively +1 point) towards obtaining a Destroyer point each week when you paint 1 or more models.  What motivation do players have to paint a whole army or even a full sized unit during the course of the league if they at most can get 1pt a week that might be meaningful, but likely not, during the course of the league.

Destroyer points are the silliest thing in my opinion.  At the end of each week the Event Organizer checks to see how many wins each player in the league has in the previous week.  Whoever has the most wins gets 1 Destroyer point.  The person at the end of the league with the most total Destroyer points wins the Destroyer award.  Yuck! Journeyman Leagues in the past had a robust system that rewarded players not just for winning games, but for playing games at different point levels and against different opponents.

OUR CHANGES

So the first change we made was the paint scoring system for the Creator award.  The old system that I thought was pretty good ended up being too complex for some players to track easily.  In the end we kept it simple (stupid!). Players receive:

1pt - Small Base
2pts - Medium Base
3pts - Large Base
4pts - Battle Engine
5pts - Colossal/Gargantuan

Simple, easy, basic.  Players also receive 1 bonus point per box of models or blister purchased for their army during the course of the league... to encourage players to support the store.

Second, we changed the Destroyer scoring system to award players more points depending on the size of game that was being played.

Week 1 & 2 - 1 Point
Week 3 & 4 - 2 Points
Week 5 & 6 - 3 Points

We are still using the Destroyer point system, but the score to decide who gets the Destroyer point each week is based on the total number of games played with +1 bonus point for each game won.  Total points scored during all 6 weeks is also used as part of a players score for the new Best Overall award that we added for this league.

As mentioned above, we added a new award to this league, Best Overall, that adds the total points scored for Destroyer and Creator together to decide the winner. If needed, the tie breaker is based on which player received the most votes for Best Sportsman (Favorite Opponent).  This will hopefully encourage players to play more game and keep coming in during the later weeks of the league. We have noticed attendance in the final few weeks tended to dropped off in the previous 2 Journeyman Leagues from 2017.

Finally we did something a bit radical. This will be the 6th Journeyman League my local LGS has run since the release of Mk3.  Many of our players can't afford to start new factions regularly and the skill levels and even the style of play our core group of players are looking for can very widely player to player. To address this, instead of forcing players to play the same old battlebox again we changed things up and allowed players to create there own starter boxes.  At first we used a list of 3 alternate Warcaster or Warlocks from each faction that players who had played in at least one previous Journeyman League at our store could pick from.  But then, after the cries for more competitive options out of the gate came in we decide to try something different.

Players who had played in a previous Journeyman League were allowed to build 2 lists instead of the normal 1 for the Journeyman League.  The first list had to use the normal battlebox or one of the suggested list from the 2017 Journeyman League rules for their chosen faction that did not have a dedicated battlebox.  For the other list, players could chose any Warcaster or Warlock available to their chose faction and build a starter box around them. 

The only limitations were that they could not included character warjacks or character warbeasts in their starting battle group, and their battle group could not total to less points then 5 less then their chosen Warcaster or Warlocks dedicated warjack or warbeast points. When playing games, players were required to use list 1 when playing against new players or players that chose to only run 1 list during the league.  But if their opponent also had taken the option of building a second list, then each player had a choice of which list they wanted to play after learning what faction their opponent was playing... just like in a Steamroller Tournament.

This system proved widely popular and is returning for the Journeyman League starting this week.  The only change that was made is that players may not chose a Battle Engine Warcaster or Warlock as their starting Warcaster or Warlock for their alt battlebox.  They can of course chose to switch to a Battle Engine Warcaster or Warlock in week 4 as normal if they so chose.

TO SUM UP

This system has developed over the last 5 Journeyman Leagues run over the last 1.5 years since Mk3's release.  It works for us.  If you think it might work for you... or some part of it might... then please feel free to try it out for yourselves.

Until next time...

First Models of 2018!

Okay guys and gals I have officially finished my first 2 models of 2018.  Here they are, a Gorehound and a Frightmare, both Warbeasts from the new-ish Grymkin faction from Privateer Press's game Hordes.  

Warmachine and Hordes has been my primary game for the last few years and since Mk3 was released in the summer of 2016 I have only played models from Warmachine factions (Cygnar, Khador, Cryx and Menoth respectively).  One of the things I want to do in 2018 is play more Hordes, which thanks to a sweet Black Friday deal that let me pickup the Grymkin starter box for 50% of the retail cost, I am able to do.  Add in that there is a Journeyman League kicking off at my local LGS this coming Tuesday (which I am running, more on that soon), the models for the next CID release I am interested in do not release until March/April, and it seemed like the perfect time to jump right in and get a list or three painted up.

More pics, hobby info, cooking experiments (I have a new Fondue Pot I need to break in soon), and other bits and bobs from my life coming soon.

Until next time...

I'm back baby...

Wowzers... yes I said wowzers.... I am not old... well I am... 

So guys it is hard to believe I have been gone for a bit less then 3.5 years, Sept 5, 2014 was my last post.  A buddy recently started up a new blog and I thought it might be fun getting this old thing back up and running.  

Please excuse my dust while I upgrade and update the info here and prepare for a new year of blogging.

Back soon...

6 Month Mountain Reduction and Painting Challenge

Hey guys, Jay here again... how is it going?

So I know it is a bit late buy I have decide to jump in on the "6 Month Mountain Reduction and Painting Challenge."  I originate on the blog "The Spider Web of History" but I got it from my friend Daniel Weber from "Shiny Penny Musings" off Facebook. Really I tried to get out of it a number of times and Dan kept pulling back in... thanks Dan!

Here are the rules:

1. The challenge starts September 1st, 2014 and goes for six months. (yeah, yeah, I’m posting this on 9/2, sue me)
2. No purchasing of new miniatures, EXCEPT if you use a joker card. As in a deck of cards, you get two jokers to use on a figure purchase during the six months of the challenge. This could be a blister pack, an eBay bundle, or a single figure. Not an entire army and you can’t splurge!
3. Gifts do not count against the you. If you’re given gift cards, you can use them without penalty on anything you want miniatures wise.
4. Paints, terrain, materials, and other hobby supplies are exempt from the the no purchasing rule.
5. You must make at least one hobby related blog post and/or Instagram update a week. If you Instagram, be sure to hashtag your pic with #6MMRPC.
6. Zombtober will be part of the six month challenge so Zombie related stuff during October is ENCOURAGED!

With school and work going full bore right now I don't know how much I will get finished week to week, but at least I can post some progress on the commission stuff I have kicking around that is long over do...

Until next time...

Journeyman & Feat of Service

Hey guys, how is it going?  So I started a project recently that I want to share with you today.  My local Warmachine & Hordes group, the Beerthralls, recently started up a Journeyman League at the LGS I work at, Huzzah Hobbies.  It sounded like fun so I signed on expecting to work on the next section of my 2014 Retribution of Scyrah army project.  Well the day of the kick off, one of the Beerthralls called out a challenge to all the members brave enough to accept.  Hardcore Journeyman.

In Hardcore Journeyman, first you roll a D6.  1-3 you are playing Warmachine. 4-6 you are playing Hordes. Then you roll a D10 for the army you will be playing for Warmachine or a D6 if you are playing Hordes. Reroll if you already own models for this faction. Then you roll for a random warcaster or warlock from within the faction.  Feeling brave I agreed and rolled up Warmachine, 4 Star Syndicate, General Ossrum.

WWWWAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! (Not Waaugh!)

Ossrum is a great warcaster when playing the Searforge Contract as his feat is specific to friendly Searforge models.  However, fielding him leading a 4 Star army would mean I get none of the Searforge benefits and all of the Searforge drawbacks.  Not dissuaded I jumped in, bought Ossrum and all the Rhulic warjacks at the shop and dove head first into the project.

This is where I am so far:

And another shot of the Grundback Blaster from another angle.

In addition to the above models, I own for the army:

• Gorten Grundback
• Grundback Gunner
• Grundback Gunner/Blaster (It can be either)
• Ghordson Driller
• Ghordson Avalancher (Ordered)
• Thor Steinhammer 
• Lord Rockbottom (Ordered)
• 10 Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corps + Unit Attachment
• Herne & Jonne
• Tactical Arcanist Corps

As it so happens the Nova Nomads, another local Warmachine & Hordes group in Northern Virginia will be hosting a charity event to support the Wounded Warrior Project at Huzzah Hobbies on June 7, 2014. Full details below:

1st Annual Nova Nomads

Feat of Service

To Benefit the Wounded Warrior Project

www.novanomads.com/featofservice

FB: Search for "Feat of Service"

To help with their effort, I will be donating the completed army I am painting for the Journeyman to the Nomads to auction off at the event with all proceeds going to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Stay tuned as I will be posting more pics here as I finish additional models for the project.  Click on the Feat of Service link on the right to see all post involving this project.

See you next time.

Dusting of the Warfare, SSU Steel Guard

Hey guys I am back with some freshly painted Dust Warfare minis and my thoughts on the state of Dust Warfare to share with you.  Dust Tactics and Warfare have been in the mini gaming news a lot recently.  Last July Fantasy Flight Games decide to discontinue distribution of Paolo Parente's Dust Tactics and their own spin off, Dust Warfare.  Thankfully Battlefront, makers of the superb 15mm WW2 warfare game Flames of War, decide to pick up distribution rights.

However Battlefront didn't realize until it was preparing to release its updated version of the Dust Tactics rules system that it had full rights to Dust Warfare, so they have been scrambling to keep the Warfare guys happy while pushing their revamped Dust Tactics rules.  One way they are doing this is by releasing Unit Cards for both Warfare and Tactics (they are similar to the ones used by games like Warmachine and Hordes from Privateer Press, with all the units stats, special rules, and points cost listed on each card; making for easy in game reference).  Besides the cards however, not much new stuff is on the horizon so far.  There is a new wave of models that has been slowly trickling out but the Warfare rules are still in the beta test phase (thankfully it is an open beta so we can use them in league games).

I recently finished up 3 new units, all of them from the beta test that I wanted to share with you today. The are from the beta-test SSU Steel Guard Platoon list.  Think of the Steel guard as a cross between 40k Terminators and Dreadnoughts, each suit holds an injured veteran soldier that has been able to return to the battlefield thanks to the Steel Guards Heavy Power Suits.  In game terms they are Type 4 Infantry, meaning most guns will only roll a couple of dice if any at all against them and with 4 Armor Save dice they are very hard to kill.

SSU Steel Guard Command Squad

SSU Steel Guard Assault Squad (the US and German markings on the next 2 squads are Kill Markers)

SSU Steel Guard Snipers Squad

So where does the uncertain status of Warfare leave me?  Well I am worried, but I think that it is going to be a good thing Battle Front has the Dust License. Yes they have screwed up when it comes to Warfare but at least we are getting unit cards (In February Hopefully) and though we will probably have to wait a while, I think Battle Front will continue to support Warfare.  What I really want is a v2 Rulebook with some slight tweaks and better explained rules interactions in a few places (which battlefront can definitely do) and Army Books for each of the factions that puts all the unit information and special rules in one place for each of the existing armies.  Will we get these? Definitely not any time soon, but it would be a good way to assert control over Warfare as a Battlefront brand.  We will have to see.

More as I have it...

Return of 40K...?

For me? No... Probably not.  But I have committed to painting up a 2K Death Guard army this year after how much fun I had painting up my 2500pt Nurgle Chaos Warriors WFB army last year.  To help me along I decided to join with the Independent Characters 2014 Hobby Challenge.  The first half of the year everyone paints up a Zone Mortis 1000pt army and then the second half of the year you upgrade that to a full 2000pt 40k army.  Not terribly hard to do and it kind of keeps me motivated to keep painting up new units, characters, and vehicles.

So long story short I have painted up the first unit of my new Death Guard army.  It is an EX-Imperial Guard Penal Legion Chaos Cultists Squad.  Here is a pic:

Never fear plague fans, my army is of course going to be filled with lots of Plague Marine goodness (and I have some sweet Rouge Trader and 2nd Edition Era one to paint up too), but for now I am working on my compulsory choices for this army.  I already have a nice Chaos Lord painted but need to do a second one for this new army, so in the month of February I am going to be focusing on a second unit of shooty Chaos Cultists and a basic Nurgle Marked Chaos Lord with a Power Axe to lead the army for the IC's Challenge.

More as I have it...

2014 Hobby Goals

Hey Guys, here are my Hobby goals for 2014:

1. Paint 300 AP of Dust Warfare, play 8 Games

2. Finish 2000pts of one of the 40k armies I already have

3. Paint 100pts of Warmachine/Hordes plus at least 4 Warcasters/Warlocks, and play 20 games

4. Paint 1500pts of Bolt Action and own no more then 3 different armies at any one time

5. Paint 2500pts of Non Bolt Action 28mm Historical Miniatures

6. Paint and play no more the 4 new games I do not play now

7. Participate in 5 Tournaments or Painting Contests

8. Continue reducing the size of my collection by Selling, Trading, and giving away more models

9. Post 52 blog posts on my personal blog (link in sig)

10. Keep a record of my total models painted in 2014

2013 was a big success for me hobby wise.  This year I have toned it down a bit (still lots of models to paint, but less multi-part goals).

Over the next few weeks I will be doing a series of posts explain my thought process behind each of my goals and what my current plans to complete each of them are (for now).

More as I have it...

Finally a free day: 2013 in Review

Wow the start of 2014 has been rough. I have been drunk, sick, working, sick, working, visiting family, sick, and out of town. All in the first 6 days of 2014.  But that is not important now, lets do a Year in Review for 2013.

At the start of 2013 I set up 10 goals (some with multiple parts and added a 11th which was my Total Painted Model count for the year) for myself to try to complete.  They were ambitious and while I did not complete all of them, they did push me much harder hobby wise this year than I have been in a while, and also allowed me to complete several armies  

Lets look at those 10 (11) goals one at a time and see how I did: (Green is complete, Yellow is incomplete but satisfactory, Red is a fail, and Blue is sold/incomplete-able)

...Tiger By It's Tail...

Finished up a Tiger 1 for my German Bolt Action army recently.  I have two Panzer IIIs on order right now that should hopefully arrive soon.  One has a 75mm Howitzer on it and the other is a Flame Tank.  Once they are painted up I should be ready to play some tank battles, as I will have a Tiger, a Stug G, 2 Panzer IIIs, and a Puma for my army.

See you next time.

Rockets & Robots

A recent commission for a new client.  He wanted me to match the paint scheme of the AT43 Red Block models (with a more of a Khaki color instead of the green).

See you next time.

Brit Commission Part 1

Part 1 of a larger commission I have been working on for a while for my regular Bolt Action client.  This army is actually Scottish, as seen by the heads of the Universal Carrier drivers and crew.

Lots more to come.

See you guys next time.

Boldly Go!

Been playing some Star Trek Attack Wing the last few months.  Been working on some repaints.

Federation:

Klingons:

See you guys next time.

Tanks & Artillery

Some additional Tanks and an Artillery piece for my regular Bolt Action client:

See you next time.

Happy Halloween!

Chaos Warrior Nurgle Chariot.

Halloween second post.

Have a fun and safe night!

Dancing with the Dead

Got Alexia and the Risen painted up completely recently.  Also finished up Valachev (UA that makes them count as a Khador unit) and 2 Thrall Warriors.

Happy Halloween!

See you next time.

GRR ARGH!

31 Zombies for Thursday night Bolt Action Halloween game:

I will share some pics of the game soon.

Until next time.

Thinking Space Marine

Well jeez, the new space marine codex has me thinking about 40k again (this will make my friend Chris happy). I have to say I think the new codex is very well done, especially the return of Chapter Tactics (though being able to ally 2 marine list with different Chapter Tactics seems to encourage min-maxing, at least to me).

So current I am bouncing back and forth between wanting to add to my existing Howling Griffons or starting up Crimson Fists to ally with said Howling Griffons.  I  know I want a unit or two of Centurions and some of the new Stern guard minis. That is as far as I have gotten.

More as I think of it.

2013 Goals Update!

I thought I would do a 2013 goal review now that we are halfway through the year.  You can see my goal status to the right of this article.  I keep that as up to date as I can.

To Sum up:

1. Dust Warfare -  I exceeded my goal for painting SSU and need 3 game to reach my playing goal.  No progress on Axis (though could change with new announced Wave 8 stuff today).  Sold my Allied Army in hopes of Vrill Aliens that were rumored for Gencon, not going to happen as it turns out.

2. 40K - Little to no progress here, I have paired down my collection to the point where I have a bunch of unpainted Chaos Marine stuff, my Howling Griffons, my 30K Project Death FW Army, and some misc stuff here and there.  To bad I didn't set this as just a GW army project as I am closing in on finishing up 1500pt of WFBs currently.

3. Warmachine/Hordes -  I am doing really well here.  I have just surpassed my painting goal for non-Warcasters/Warlocks this past weekend, I need two more Warcasters/Warlocks to reach my goal, and I have already played over double the number of games I originally targeted for the year.  Though not originally part of the goal structure, I have also painted 61pts and 1 warlock worth of Hordes models on Commission too.

4. Flames of War -  This one isn't going to be successful because as of the beginning of June I decide to sell off the rest of my FoW models since I had not played the game in over 2 years.

5. War & Conquest - I have made a good start on this project, but unfortunately WFB has knocked this project off my painting table for the foreseeable future.  W&C is getting played a bit at my LGS right now, but with out a painted army I haven't been up for playing.  At some point I want to put some time into building a 100 years war W&C army as my Saxon do not really fit time period wise with the other armies owned at the shop which are all from time periods before or after my Saxons.

6. Relic Knights - Unfortunately the release of the Relic Knights from kickstarter was delayed due to Manufacturing delays.  Hopefully we will see models this Fall.

7. Start Up To 4 New Games/Projects - I am currently at 3 new games/projects for this year, unfortunate they have all pretty much stalled out.  The first is a 15mm Fantasy game called Pride of Lions.  This was big at my LGS for a good while Winter/Spring.  I have a rule for myself, when a new game you are not 100% sold on starts up at the shop, wait 6 months and if it is still going strong, then get into it.  I was burned a few times back in 2010 and 2011 so have found this to be a good rule for me.  PoL reached the 6 month mark in March and I purchased an army but before I could get it built and painted PoL stopped being played in the shop.  Sigh.

The Second Project is 2 small 28mm Civil War armies, Union and Confederates (obviously), using perry plastic miniatures.  I did a lot of research and work on this project this spring, but it is currently on hiatus waiting on a gap in my painting queue to get painted up.

The 3rd project is 'In Her Majesties Name', a cool Victorian Steampunk game recently released by Osprey Publishing.  I'd say it is a bit early to say this game has stalled out as I see it more as a now and then kind of game, at least at my LGS.  I have one organization worth of models for it so far (the models are a mix of Spartan Legion & Incursion minis) and plan to get another one in the near future.  There is an organized Demo at a convention I am going to in the middle of July so hopefully this will generate some more desire to play.

8. Participate in 5 Tournaments or Paint Contests - Last year I fell short of my goal in this category, however this year I have already succeeded, playing in my 5th tournament at the beginning of June.  I am already schedule to participate in another Tournament this month, along with my first painting contest.  I think the big change from last year to this year is that I am no longer the Privateer Pressganger for my LGS, so I am able to play more this year as last year I would have been running the tournaments.

9. Reduce the Size of my Collection - I have already had great success this year, with over 1000 models/bases sold, traded, or given away this year.  I have also made over $1,200 in gift certificates at swap-meets this year to put back into my hobby endeavors.  The 3 big purchases I have made with that money this year are a Retribution army for Warmachine, a Circle army for Hordes, and my organization for 'In Her Majesties Name'.  I also have spent some of that money on WFB stuff.

10. Post 52 Blog posts over the course of the year -  I am falling behind on this one, with just 13 on the year so far (including this one).  I think I still have a shot of reaching my goal as I now am part of a blog/podcast group called the Beer Thralls.

11. Total Models painted this year - I set really high painting goals for myself this year and I quickly decided after posting my original list of 10 goals that I wanted to shoot for 1000 models painted this year.  Well I am doing pretty well so far with 492 models completed since January 1st.

More as I have it.