Cathayan Quesos and the ACCC

The ACCC Blood Bowl tournament is coming up so if you haven't already preregistered, go do it! It's for a great cause. ACCC Tourney Link.

So with that being said, I had originally planned to take my Lizards to this fine event. Sadly, the more I thought about them, the more I wanted to try something different. I've been playing my Lizards for something around 7 years. I have also been playing the Lizards in the Cyanide Blood Bowl PC game so needless to say, I'm getting a little burned out on them.

I hit up Impact Miniatures site for some inspiration. I figured I would go with Impact because they have a great range of fantastically sculpted figures at a MUCH better price than GW. After looking at all the teams (and really wanting the Sarcos!), I opted for the Ratmen. I ordered their Team #4 which had max figures for each slot with 6 Linerats, 2 Blitzers, 2 Throwers, 4 Gutter Runners, 1 Rat Ogre, and 1 Coach for good measure. In addition, I ordered one of their sweet team cases in graphite (since my Lizards are in a black version).

They came in recently and they were promptly assembled and spray coated. My biggest concern right off the bat was how they would fit into the case. They have some wild tails and 2 of the Gutter Runners are stretched out so I was not sure they would fit in just 1 square. I glued their numbers to their bases and went to work seeing how they fit in the case. Good news is they all fit. Sort of bad news is that some of their tails tend to "stab" the foam above (which is egg crate shaped) with 1-2 tending to pull out of their slots when I open the lid.

I am now working on creating a new dugout for my team(s). I opted not to make a team specific dugout so I could use it for all my teams (and save me the time, money, and resources from making one for each team). My fear is that it's a tad too large though. It's 12 1/2" wide and about 20" or so long. The length, I'm not too worried about but it's the width that I fear might take up too much table space.

The reason it's the size it is, is because the Reserves box is 5x5", KO box is 4x3", and the Dead/Injured box sits as 3x4". What adds to the length is I added a spot for a mini Litko dice tower for added flavor. I put the Dead/Injured box behind the dice tower to save some space. I also made the walls between the spaces 2" thick because I plan to use these sweet block dice counters I also got from Impact as counters for Home/Away score, Rerolls, and 1st & 2nd half tracks.

It has a hardboard bottom with 3 layers of insulation foam on top. So far I just have the hardboard and foam cut to size with the spaces cut in the foam. My next project is to cut a bunch of popsicle sticks into boards and plank the entire dugout. I plan to follow that up with a wood stain to darken and hopefully age it somewhat. I will post up some pics as soon as I take some.

Most Epic Day of Gaming 2: The Reschedule

Saturday, I played host to the reschedule of the MOST EPIC DAY IN GAMING *echo..... echo... echo* in my garage and kitchen. Last month, my wife agreed to let me have some people over for an entire day of all things gaming as part of my birthday but sadly, after a few scheduling conflicts and me getting sick, we had to reschedule. Thus arrives Oct 22nd.

Doors opened at 10:30 with most everyone arriving right around 11. We BS'd for a few then started the day off with a game of Cosmic Encounter. For those who haven't had a chance to play this game, I highly recommend it. It's a great, light game with a huge variety of alien races to select so it has a high replay value. Basic key to the game is to get like 8 foreign colonies on other player's planets. Seems easy but near the middle to end, politics start to play a huge factor. In the end, John pulled out the victory in a most convincing manner. I, on the other hand, hardly played into the equation after getting hit pretty hard early on by a Bistro double cross.

Next, I made the now painful mistake (hindsight is always 20/20, lol) of suggesting we break out Talisman to try out the new Dragon expansion Bistro had gotten. HOURS later, Tom had died and gave up and I followed soon after. We had played parts of the game incorrectly (but hey, it was our first time with the expansion) which drew the game out much longer and made it much more difficult. While Chris, Bistro, and John continued to duke it out, Tom & I retired to the garage to play a few games of Quarriors.

First game of Quarriors, Tom took a commanding lead (talking like a 10 point lead here) but somehow, I was able to mount a comeback and steal the win. Game 2 was more competitive but I was able to eek out the victory in that game too. By then, John had died and gave up so he joined us in the garage to watch game 2. Inside, Bistro and Chris decided that killing the Dragon Overlord was just too hard so they went for a last man standing victory condition. I think in the end, Bistro pulled off the win. They, in turn, locked us in the garage for a bit since they got stuck with clean up duty, lol.

John then had to part cause he had a few other stops to make that evening so the rest of us broke out Gears of War for another try at the first scenario. Last time, we had a strong start but got beaten pretty soundly near the end. We were determined to win it this time because we felt that in order to play scenario #2, we had to beat scenario #1. We started out pretty strong. I got hit pretty early and became sort of a lame wheel for the later part of the game but was able to at least seal 3 emergence holes. With Bistro and Chris helping me keep cards in my hands and Tom keeping the locusts off me, we were able to push through with Bistro closing the other 3-4 emergence holes. The end push was pretty sick but Chris broke out an insane chainsaw cutting 3 drones in half with 1 play. The rest fell shortly after and the victory was ours! We didn't even have a single player go down this go round either!

After that, we were all pretty beat. We had been gaming for a little over 12 hours at that point. Part of me wanted to push on but restrained since everyone had a drive home in front of them. All in all, it was an absolute blast having everyone over and playing some of my favorite games. I am eagerly looking forward to the next Epic Day of Gaming!!

The Calm Before the Storm

So I sit here planning my next few moves. I will be leaving in a few hours to visit my brother who got me tickets to the Eagles/Redskins game for my birthday so I am super excited (GO EAGLES!!!).

That being said, I have a few projects that I want to get started on when I get back. First off, I want to paint my Lizardmen team. Now that I think I've gotten a good handle on their playstlye and how to use them to almost their full potential, I will be using them as my main team (Sorry Amazons. You girls will be next in line though).

In addition to painting the team, they will require a new dugout. The one for Danzig's Destroyers just won't cut it for these thunder lizards. Course, I have no clue as to where I want to take it. I could go the classic stone & wood approach but part of me wants to make it swampy but that would rquire me to work with resin of which I have no experience with or even how I would be able to incorporate it well enough to do it justice. I hope to have a few plans written out by Monday.

Finally, I want to start work on pitch #2 which I have decided will be a stone dungeon-ish pitch. Course with this pitch, I will remember the appropriate square sizes. I also have plans for a standard testured board with grass patches for pitch #3 (yes, the pitch bug has sunk it's teeth into me hard but that is the reprocussions of the taste of success on the first pitch).

So there you have it. Those are my short into long term plans. Paintng the team should probably take me a few weeks tops just so long as I RnF paint. Dugout will take me some time but the plans should be done by the time I finish the team so I *should* be able to just jump right into it. I might even try ti multi-task and work on the stone pitch as a break from painting/dugout creation.

Stay tuned for more updates as they happen!

The Return of Koopa's Troopas!

Sadly, I forgot to take pics (despite setting the camera next to the pitch) but I finally got in a game with the Koopa's Troopas after close to 3 years in hiatus.

They took to the field to line up against my friend's Orcs. He hadn't played in even longer (still uses the 2nd ed roster pad. The little one!) so it was much like a learning game for both of us since it had been ages. I will start by saying I am so glad I had my playbook. My offensive set up didn't work out as well as I had anticipated but my defensive wall prooved to be almost impossible to break through (more on this in a moment).

So I won the coin toss and elected to receive. I lined up to appear to blitz my right sideline but set up my skinks to rush up then shoot left to streak down the hopefully vacated sideline. Sadly, this was not to be. My skinks seemed to have used too much lotion on their skin and had some difficulties picking up the ball. As the Orcs began the push into my half of the field, I was able to get the ball into my skink's hands and, in a fit of insanity, I tried to rush him through an orcish black hole. Apparently 4 dodge rolls is just 1 dodge roll too many and as he was about to break free, Dodge #4 got him and he tripped on a sprinkler (damned Buffalo Wild Wings bartenders!).

This is where some hilarious hijinks ensued. So the ball is right near the sidelines and an orc picks it up. I blitz the orc with a saurus and drop him. The ball bounces out of bounds. The crowd throws it back right to another orc, who tosses it up in the air, which then bounces off a saurus's helmet righ tback to the orc, who tosses it up again, right into the hands of a skink. Luckily, I was able to get that skink out of trouble and, fast forward a turn or two, he streaks into the endzone on turn 8 to end the half.

Half time - Lizardmen 1-0 Orcs

Second half prooves to be my half with the exception of one insane play. I set up my defense in a solid wall with good tackle zones and a strong support. I am playing that he will attempt to run the ball (despite him having a thrower). He has absolutely no luck in breaking my wall and ends up turning over the first few turns due to poor block rolls which most were in my favor. I get a skink into his backfield to pressure the ball which forces his thrower to pick it up and streak down his left sideline. This is where things get really hairy. There is a mass that is literally a checkerboard of orcs, saurus, and skinks on the sideline. Clear on the other side of the field is a Black Orc jumping up and down for the ball. Yes.... He decides to throw the ball. I couldn't find in the rules anything about if you need a roll better than a 6 so we just kept it at a 6 (overall, he needed like an 8-9 to make the pass due to it being a long bomb and being in so many tackle zones). My Skink failed to intercept and *Drum Roll* he rolls a 6 to pass. He had 2 shots with his throw ability but he only needed the one. So the accurate pass streaked right towards his agility 2 Black Orc.... Who catches the damned thing!!!! Luckily, he is slow as molasses.

Seeing his Black Orc within 2 turns of my end zone, I pulled 2 skinks back and streaked them towards the orc. 1 had to Go For It to create a series of tackle zones so the orc would either have to make 1 dodge roll and stall for a turn or take a couple to get closer to the end zone. Either way, it didn't matter because he didn't make the first, tripped over the skink, and fell on his face 3 squares from my end zone.... Man, that was close.

This is where I was tempted yet again to go balls deep and take risks. Initially, I wanted to pick up the ball, hand it off to another skink, who would then run up to hand off to another skink who would then streak towards the end zone. This would put me within like 5-6 squares of scoring (not bad when the ball is almost in my end zone). Instead, I played it safe. I picked up the ball and handed it off once. That skink raced down the now vacated sideline. Fast forward 2 turns and he races in to score since my friend couldn't free up any orcs to get close enough to challenge him.

End result - Lizardmen 2-0 Orcs

We both had a blast and he agreed that it took a lot more thinking than he had originally thought. We also need to work on getting our turns down faster as it took like 3 hours to play (we played with no time limit as it was our first game in awhile on the board). The new pitch worked out really well. The slightly smaller squares didn't really make a factor as my Kroxigor didn't have much issues moving around. It was even suggested that I just re-base him on a smaller base since they take up only 1 square anyways.

Blood on the Pitch!

So I last left off after I had set the foam pitch to dry after I glued it to the hardboard backing. Once dry, I set to basing it with a coat of watered down black paint. Once based coated, I realised that the wedging from the ruler wasn't going to give enough seperation between the squares. So, I hit the interwebs then parted for Home Depot (sonce Lowe's doesn't carry the size I needed). I left HD with 2 bags of 1/16" tile spacers. They might seem small at first but they are as big as you can spare for a project like this. I spent a good part of the evening then on pushing and wedging the spacers into each cross section. I clipped spokes off some so they would fit as end lines and corners. Here is a pic of the board post prime and spacer:

Once that ordeal was done, I went back with the black paint and painted the spacers black while touching up any parts that I might have missed or messed up while adding the spacers. When that was finished, I grabbed a paint brush & a pot of white paint and went to work on painting the pitch lines:

I was finally ready to start flocking this sucker. With my grass selections lined up and my guide next to me, I mixed up my glue mix and set to work. I won't lie. This part really sucked. It took me close to 4 hours to complete. I had to do it all at once since I had mixed up a rather large batch of glue and didn't want to waste it so I popped in my Hobbit audio book and went to work. Here is the pitch before I got to the sidelines and endzones:

Once the sidelines and endzone were done, I went back with the white paint and painted the endzone lines. Here is the pitch after everything is done and it's been given 1 coat of matte sealer:

So now it is complete. It has since gotten 2 more coats of matte sealer. I am debating doing the spray template for endzone and mid field logos but I am scared because I don't want to mess it up as it looks pretty sweet as it is. I might just leave this one be.

Next project: Dugout!

Koopa's Troopas! The quest for a new field

Well, the local Blood Bowl league is now in full swing. Sadly, I can't participate because of conflicting work schedule of the wife (someone has to watch the little egg head, lol) so I was given the opportunity to play "challenger". This means that, when my schedule allows, I can show up and smash heads with guys in the league so they can "attempt" to get some bonuses off me while I bash their heads in *insert evil grin here*. That being said, I decided to dig out my old Lizardmen.

Upon looking at them, their current manager Danzig (formerly manager of the Chaos team "Danzig's Destroyers") just didn't seem to fit the bill. So, I sent him packing back to the Destroyers and began the search for a new manager, new name, and overall a new look for the team. That's when it hit me. These lizards need to be lead by the king lizard. King Koopa himself! So the Koopa's Troopas were born!

Fast forward a few minutes and it was decided that Koopa's Troopas don't play on cardboard. These reptiles are elite! They demmand the finer things in life. Thus, they require a custom pitch! I broke out some graph paper and began to plot how I wanted the field dimensions to look:

I have the basic pitch size with a few minor tweaks. I increased the side lines to 2 squares so figures running down them don't have to fear of falling off the board. The end zones were also increased to 3 squares deep because I plan to add end zone graphics of some sort to them. Next, I took stock of what grass colors I had:

I have Light, Medium, and Dark grass to play with. I decided that instead of a universal spread of grass, I would alternate squares to give it that freshly mowed look. To add to that, I didn't want the typical lines back and forth so I went with a different type of design:

So now I had everything mapped out. Time to start putting things into motion. I hit my garage and grabbed some insulation foam and cut my 30" x 19" board out. I then proceeded to grid the entire board (I didn't really need to grid the sidelines or end zones but all I had was a ruler so I played it safe for accuracy):

Once the lines were drawn out, I ran an exacto knife down each line to deepen the groove. I was careful not to cut the foam too deep. Once the lines were all cut, I pushed my ruler into each groove and rocked it back and forth to widen the gapes between each square to give them more definition:

Next, it was off to the garage to use the bandsaw and cut myself a piece of hardboard to go underneath for added support. Foam won't last long at that size without some form of stury support underneath:

And now, as I sit here typing this, the pitch is in the garage, drying. I laid it out on a few stools and applied woodglue to the back of the foam. The hardboard was then laid on top with a few weights to keep constant pressure to ensure a tight and firm bond. I have found that woodglue works best when gluing foam.

So that is the current status of the Koopa's Troopa's new field. I have a few ideas and templates made up for the center field logo as well as a few other odds and ends. Pics and future work will follow soon as progress happens!

In It to Win It!

As the seasons turn, as so do my gaming tastes. 40k and Uncharted Seas are the flavor of the day. I recently made an awesome trade via Bartertown where I traded off a chunk of my Hordes Circle of Orboros army for a crap ton of Tyranids. I never really wanted to play Circle in the first place (I had gotten them via another killer deal on Bartertown) so I wasn't too down for getting rid of them. On top of it, I still have enough to play a decent sized game with them. So they aren't all lost. In return, I got plenty of bugs to make my growing horde a happy one. I now have enough gaunts to entertain a horde style army and enough genestealers to go that route as well. New Hive Tyrants give me the flexibility to try alternate builds while new Carnifexes will let me experiment more on their various uses in the latest edition codex.

So far, I've only gotten in a couple of games with the new Tyranid codex but my last game was probably the most enjoyable (even though I got slammed). My Mycetic Spore pods I got from Target (Mega Bloks Dragon Eggs) worked great! They are a perfect size and when they enter the game, their attacks are still useful (so they don't just become pretty pieces of terrain). I forgot various rules which came back to haunt me but overall, I had a lot of fun pitting my bugs against the might of the Orks & Space Marines. At one point, I charged a full unit of Orks with choppas with my Swarmlord and retinue of 2 Tyrant Guard. Naturally, I died but not after about 5 rounds of combat and the addition of 3 Killer Kans entering the fray. I was very impressed!

In other news, I'm starting back up in Uncharted Seas again. With my Ralgard fleet built, I finally got around to priming them. Course, I am the world's worst primer so I had to go back and basically basecoat all the models by hand. But that wasn't all a loss as the paint scheme I found on-line that I really liked calls for a lot of black so having that darker, more uniform coat of black actually works out for me in the end. I get to give them their first test game tonight against the Mac and his Shroud Mages. I will take the time here to flatten my tires and say that I have yet to win a game of Uncharted Seas even though I've played in every game my game group has played in the system, lol. But to even the score, I have followed Colonel Lou and invested in 16-20 Game Science d6's. No longer will my ships die prematurely due to rounded edges and lop sided die!

Anyways, I'll post up some pics of my Ralgard ships once I get down to painting them. I need to get some new brushes this week as I need some fine detail ones for these suckers. I should have some preliminary pics up by the weekend (provided I remember to update). I should also have a bat rep for tonight's battle up later this week. I'll also try to get some game shots as well.