2013 Resolutions Revisited

My 2013 resolutions: 
1) Two Retribution 35pt SteamRoller list built and painted, 
2) Blaize 35pt SteamRoller list with everything painted, 
3) Cygnar 35pt SteamRoller list built and painted, 
4) Infinity Yu Jing (200pts) army built and painted, 
5) Blood Bowl team painted, 
and 6) a Games Workshop army will be painted. 

What was I thinking when I came up with this list?

Mantic Deadzone, Kickstarter

This is one of the items I backed on Kickstarter.  It's a board game with miniatures and a derivative of Warpath, from Mantic Games.

X-Wing

Here are the photos from Nov when I got in a quick game of X-Wing to learn the rules and maneuvers.  This is a game that is quick to pick up and quick to play.  We finished this battle in under an hour.  

Mercs versus Scyrah

It's a sunny Saturday and we laid out 35pts of shooty Scyrah and mass infantry of Mercs.  Lord Ossyan led this force.  The Mercs were a force of specialists, with the McBain, Kayazy Assassins, Alexia Ciannor and the Risen, and Cylena Raefyll and Nyss Hunters.  No pictures from this fight.

This was an ugly game, with tricks being thrown around on both sides.  Kayazy Eliminators and Mage Hunter Solos faced off on the flank.  The Nyss Hunters charged their Mage Hunter Strike Force opposites, only to fall from the volume of crossbow bolts and swords.  Alexia fell to a charging Phoenix Myrmidon, losing her life and all of her Risen in one strike.  The battle ended with the Phoenix charging into McBain after leaving combat to finish McBain off before the Mercs won on scenario.

5th Edition Revisited

As the title says it, we went old school in our last group gaming session.  We broke out 5th edition Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Chaos Space Marines, and Tyranids.  It was a blast to pull out models that have been gathering dust and dueling each other.  Here are some of the pictures.

August going away

It's been a while since we've had most of the group together.  Too bad it's was a going away party for our resident Khador and Dark Angels player.  Good luck in all your future endeavors.

A lifetime of hoarding

I think the title says it all.  Since I had to pack and move, that meant I had to face the reality of owning a very large collection of miniatures.  This is best described in a series of pictures.  

<!-- more-->

My new hobby area.

Resolution Updates

It's been a little while since I've posted some status.  I'm working on my Raven Guard army and my Yu Jing army at the moment.  Life has been busy with my house renovations and other things.  I did get some hobby work done and here are some pictures of the work done.

Miniatures Anonymous

My name is Mike and I have a problem.  I can't stop buying and collecting miniatures for my wargames and for new wargames.

Everyone: Hi Mike.

Kublacon 2013 Part 2

So this will be a running commentary for the day.  ReaperMini had an excellent face painting for beginners seminar.  I learned a couple of techniques for eyes and highlighting of cheeks, chins, foreheads, and brows.

Kublacon 2013

Back at Kublacon this year.  Since I'm doing this at the convention, here's a couple of miniatures games and their boards.  The last picture is an Infinity board.

Nemo's Rogue Trader RPG: Back to the Business of Dynasty

During the night the raiders revel in drug induced dance and song. Root partakes and has horrific visions and passes out. In the morning the privateers (Root, Rook and Captain Lovelace) attempt to release the captive crewmen without alerting the raiders. They manage to get most of the cages free without alerting anyone but the last sends a piercing screech ringing out across the compound. The adventurers have to battle a hoard of raiders and a technical with a heavy machine gun mounted on the back and fight their way back into the palace where they meet the mentally retarded but deadly giant Mongo and his flame thrower. They manage to subdue him then make their way to the front entrance where Lieutenant Gil and his men are doing battle with more raiders, this time armed with grenade launchers. Several of Gil's men go down but they manage to wheel into the compound and pick the adventurers up but not before the adventurers manage to kill Lobax.

The freighter captain is true to his word and the adventurers leave Ferngarden, headed home to Footfall. On the way the onboard gellar field fails and Root is assaulted by a demon. Rook also has a visitation from a demonic entity from his dark past at the same time.

After landing at Footfall the adventurers learn that Tristan Lovelace has done nothing to find a buyer for their drugs. No matter, they find one themselves, one Logan the Good. Also, they get several offers of work. One is a request from an investor in a lost colony to investigate what happened to it, another is a request from Captain Keel of the Imperial Navy to investigate the disappearance of an Imperial Envoy in a long lost colony that used to belong to the Lovelaces.

Miguelito Lovelace gets a drink at the Adventurer's Club, a small tavern that is patronized by the likes of Rogue Traders, merchant princes, pirates and other frontier adventurers. There he learns more about the Righteous Path, a lost treasure ship and a planet called Rain that promises a hoard of xenotech... if one is brave enough to slip past the xenos that guard it.

Wanting to get on the good side of the Imperial Navy and seeing an opportunity to reclaim a valuable colony, the adventurers agree to Keel's proposal and set out after the Imperial envoy.

Update: Robotech Kickstarter

There's only 12 more days to get in on this Kickstarter as of this blog post.  This game will be released, but this is really getting an opportunity to invest into the game while it is affordable (assuming that these models are going to go up in price after release).  To help decide on what models and pledge level to look at, here's a copy of the playtested force org charts.

Resolution Update

I guess it's time for an update. We're through 4 months of 2013 with Robotech models in my future. I've still got Infinity, Tau, Retribution, and Cygnar to work on. However, this update is about my Raven Guard.

Robotech!

If you haven't done this yet, please go here first: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm; or if the link doesn't work, try www.kickstarter.com and search for ROBOTECH.

Why am I blogging about this?  It's because this is an opportunity to help get a miniatures wargame that has been in hibernation for 20 years out into the open.  This is the granddaddy of most modern anime and big robot shows.  I won't debate that other, more notable, anime titles that came before Robotech, but the influence on American audiences, good or bad, was helped by this 85 episode epic.

Podcasts - The New Talk Radio

I'm posting this to give you some insight to all of those podcasts that have popped up. I typically listen to the Warhammer 40K content ones, but most veer off to other topics. The podcasts I'm going to cover are: 40K Radio, The Independent Characters, Guts 'n Gears, Infinity O-12, Imperial Vox Cast, and Forge the Narrative.

Nemo's Rogue Trader RPG: The Trouble with Bandits

Our intrepid adventurers discover their Rogue Trader captain, Captain Miguelito Lovelace, captured by the bandits. They break him out of captivity. With the help of their newly hired mercenaries, led by Lieutenant Gil, they conquer and subjugate the bandit hideout. They discover a cache of valuable drugs and the location of the Blood Steer Big Boss, Lobax. The adventurers move on to the abandoned laboratory where they encounter genestealers that had escaped from their experimentation chambers. They then enter into a deal with drug lord Lobax, but renege when they discover a captive freighter captain and his navigator in the bandit camp. Is this their ticket off the planet?

Resolution Updates

March has been a terrible hobby month for me. I haven't done any modeling, painting, or even playing (although we did get in a single evening of Infinity at 200 points).

Tau, Tau, and more Tau!

I picked up the 400th issue of White Dwarf this weekend. Since I owned the 300th issue and I consider that the pinnacle of the White Dwarfs, I was hoping this issue could match it.

Nemo's Rogue Trader RPG: Stranded on Ferngarden

With no work, their Rogue Trader captain Tristan Lovelace involved in projects of his own, and their ship undergoing repairs, Rook, an astropath transcendent, and Root, an explorator (no relation!), join, temporarily, with the famous Rogue Trader Captain Julius "Marvelous". Quickly the players find Julius is odd, to say the least. Condemned by Julius' witch, Mida, as mutineers, they are left stranded on a backwater frontier world, Ferngarden, where the main export is former residents fleeing the planet.

Making the most of their situation, Rook and Root hire a driver and a troop of imperial guardsmen turned mercenaries, who claim that their unit was "disbanded." They head into the desert. There they find a village in need of defense from leather-clad, mohawked desert raiders. They help the bumpkins and have infiltrated the raider base in the mountains...

Resolution Status

February was the month to take a break from Warmachine and Retribution and return to my roots from 9 years ago.

Resolution update

I didn't think that I would be able to paint or build another WH40K army for a couple of more years, but Groupoftrees convinced me to pull out the 3+ armor save dudes and find a 1500 point list to try out 6th Edition. Originally, I was going to use my built White Scars army, but the task to make updated bases for the whole army was a bit too daunting. While I was looking for bitz to work on the White Scars, a bag of metal scouts fell on me. Searching through the contents, I realized that I found the minis for my 3rd Company Raven Guard (4th edition). This was a Scout heavy force with an Assault squad and Chaplain doing the heavy lifting, a list that was marginal in 4th and unplayable in 5th. With 6th here, foot lists are coming back so I thought this might be worth a stroll. Supporting Shrike, a Chaplain, and an Assault Squad of 10 is the 3 Sniper Scout Squads with a Missile Launcher and the bolter scouts with a heavy bolter. Two Land Speeder Storms and 2 Terminator combat squads complete the task force of 1500-points.

Resolutions: Retribution of Scyrah

So here's the January progress report on my Resolutions.

Another January Gaming

Here's another battle report without pictures.  We got in another game in January recently.  This was nice because it wasn't too long ago when we played last.  This time I decided to play Ossyan with Battle Mage support.  The scenario was to hold the middle, with a kill box of 36in x 8in.  Opposing me was Lord Commander Stryker and his lightning happy army.  It was an extremely close game between the two forces, and it was finally decided by Stryker overcharging and making an assassination run in the 3rd round.  At this point, the Cygnar 'Jacks were taking a pounding and his infantry were being shot up.  The Retribution also took heavy losses to the Battle Mages, Stormfall Archers, and the Mage Hunter Strike Force, but the Myrmidons were barely scratched and pEiryss was moving to a vantage point.  Lord Styker made his move and tried three times to strike Ossyan, missing on all three.  Stryker then activated his feat and took down Ossyan in one melee strike.  It wasn't until after the damage was done before I realized that Ossyan had his upkeep spell on him, allowing him to disengage and move 3in away before the strike could have occurred.  This would have given Stryker one more shot at killing him on the feat move.  With this in mind, Bob gets the win for this battle because of my lack of knowing my 'caster's spell and for Stryker's feat that may have won him the game.

LordChiHuaHua's Warmachine Mercenary Army

Here's the entire Mercenary collection of LordChiHuaHua.  He claims it is of 100 miniatures.

Hobby time: Alten Ashley

For Christmas this past year, I went with my standard gaming gifts to friends.  Typically, this meant getting a blister of a model and letting them build and paint them.  Not a problem for most of the friends.  However, one friend prefers the gaming and less about the hobby portion.  As a challenge to myself, I took it as a chance to build, paint, and base a one-off for his gift.  Picking a model for his army was tough, not knowing what was in his collection, with a focus on Cygnar and some mercenaries.  I decided on the Minion Mercenary Alten Ashley, hoping he hadn't picked it up yet and that it would be useful at tournaments.

January Warmachine Gaming

So I was able to work on, build, and primer up the majority of my Retribution of Scyrah Warmachine force.  This is really a force of 2 warcasters, 2 warjacks, a Mage Hunter Strike Force with unit commander, a Stormfall Archers unit, pEiryss, a Ghost Sniper, and an Arcanist.  This gives me a flexible set of options to learn the army.

Happy New Year and 2013 Resolutions

It's January 2013 which can only mean one thing:
New resolutions and a review of 2012 resolutions: