Privateer Press - Leaderboard

As you might not know, I am a press ganger for Privateer Press (a volunteer that promotes their game and runs events). To that effect the last couple of weeks/months, my gaming time have been used to get things ready on that end.

The first was getting ready for a tournament at the local game store. One of the scenarios requires the use of flags for objectives. I quickly whipped up some (aka 18) for the game!

As you can see, I ran out of time for the actual flags and just had to use white paper with the Privateer Press faction symbols on them. The rest of the flag was quite simple. The base was coated in my 'basing material' (the road crews in my town use sand/dirt for the roads instead of salt. After the snow melts and the sand/dirt dries, I go and get a couple of scoops, sift out the bad stuff and volia - cheap rocks for bases) and spray painted black.

For most of my bases, I start with a basecoat of dark brown, followed by a dry brush of light brown and finally a dry brush of tan. Nothing fancy and it works. The only issue is that I have to do my 'basing' prior to the spray painting the model or it takes a bunch more time. I need to buy some pre-painted basing material for when I get the miniature done prior to the base.

The flag pole is a dowel rod cut to ~2 inch pieces, also sprayed in black primer followed by a brown and then a red/brown ink. All in all, they came out great and I really need to have more objective games so I can use them! :)

The next warmachine/Hordes project was for the Nightfall League. It started a couple of days after the tournament and most of my energy has been going into that (I mean, I'm playing my Trolls two or three times a week). The one thing that needed to be finished for the league was a ladder board. My local game store didn't have one so I took it upon myself to make one. Here is the end result...

The board started as a 2' x 2' one half inch oak board that I had Lowes cut into half. Then, I (and my dad) cut the 0.25 inch slits for the cards to fit into (the slits are 3.5 inches). Finally, I added a 0.5 inch square dowel rod to the top and sides so the board would sit out from the wall. The board was stained twice with a minwax and two miniature hooks were added to allow a piece of paper at the bottom (to show what league is currently going on). I think I am going to tweek a couple of things once the league is finished, but for now, it is a nice little piece that in currently hanging up at the game store.

How am I doing in the league, you ask. As of Friday, I was in second (tied with first in points), but I'm sure that I have fallen off since games were going to happen on Saturday.

35 point Warmachine Army - Color on the metal!

In an effort to ensure that I meet one of my missions this year, I am planning this early so I can have a lot of time to finish it. Since I have a new army, I figured that I would go with the Retribution for my choice (I really should paint pirates, but I'm scared of the number of solos)!

35 Points:
Ravyn, Eternal Light (*6pts)
* Griffon (4pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
* Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard (2pts)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3pts)
Ghost Sniper (2pts)
Ghost Sniper (2pts)
House Shyeel Magister (2pts)

First mission is that I'm going to need to purchase two Ghost Sniper models (not really an issue - I need them for the army anyways). Then a paint scheme. I really don't like the official white - that's not true, I don't think I can make te white look cool.. In that end, I'm looking for something different. I really want to do Black/Orange, but I don't think painting-wise I can pull it off.

2009 Year in review - thoughts for 2010?

I really didn't want to put a 'year in review' in my gaming blog since it seems so cliche. But then again, perhaps it will spark me to get off my butt and get moving on more gaming.


My plan for 2009 was to play two games a month for a total of 24 games. I logged only 10 actual games over 17 messages. It seems like I am way off and that I don't play very many games (which is true), but these numbers don't include all of my Warmachine/Hordes that I played on Thursdays or the Bloodbowl league that started last year (3 wins, 0 losses). Except for a few miniatures, I really didn't paint anything either.

Enough excuses... The simple truth is that I need to formulate a plan and stick to it.

So the 2010 plan
I think I can get to the two games a month so I will try to make my goal be 24 games. Also, I am going to look into getting a couple of genre finished so I can play games in those.

Mission 1: I am starting to get everything I need to play post-modern and modern horror (aka zombies). That means a lot of miniatures to assemble and paint. Honestly I have about 50 zombies that need to be put together and a handful of modern hunters that need some paint. Should be easy!

Mission 2: Space fleets - I have a lot of spaceships about, but I don't have anything really complete. My mission here is to go through the two GZG fleets that I have and redo them (possiblity with a new paint scheme). Then work through fleets of about 1000 - 2000 points in the different iconic Sci-Fi films about for Starmada. I had a lot of fun running the Starmada games at Origins and want to do that again.

Mission 3: Terrain - I have a collection of half finished terrain projects in the collection and I really want to get those done. When I didn't have space or the need, it was different, but I'd like to clean up that part of the basement and finish some terrain

Mission 4: Painting - I have a lot of miniatures that aren't painted. I'm not looking to complete the whole list, but perhaps I should get to painting some of my Warmachine/Hordes stuff. As well as the other things I've bought along the way.

Mission 5: Use or lose - I need to go through my collection of miniatures and clear out stuff that I'm not going to need or play. I have a lot of micro armor still in the boxes that I need to paint or get rid of (perhaps both). I also have a some 15mm stuff that needs to go.

Okay, that's it for now...

No 'games' to report

Okay, so another month goes by with little actual gaming occurring. The big issue is that I do find time to play games; every Thursday I go to the local game store to play either Warmachine/Hordes or MonPoc. Warmachine was in the mk2 playtest for April which was very exciting! It changes a lot of what has come before, but I find myself wanting to play games with the new set. It's a nice change.

I'm still working on the both the starmada and SBH scenarios for Origins. I have to make sure that I have enough stuff for a decent game, but not alot in terms of packages. I don't want to have to drive myself so I would really like to limit it to a case or so.

My current project is making the room monsters and the assorted accesories located in the dungeon. I am in the process of taking a bunch of my old mage knight miniatures and rebasing them for the game. Hopefully, I'll have that done in the next few days and I can begin to playtest what I got...

Still alive

I know that It's been a while since I posted on this blog. It's not that I have stopped or anything, but the recent couple of weeks have been too cold to make it to the game area. The major problem with a walkout unfinished basement. It's gets pretty darn cold in there if it's cold outside!

Still, I'm working on a couple of games and with Privateer Press talking about not going to Origins, I am working on a different idea to get a free badge. Table Top Gamers (based in Ohio and an awesome bunch of people) are always looking for help and I might bring SBH to Origins for a couple of 2 hour sessions. I'm hoping to have about 4 sessions to learn the rules and a couple of sessions of a four-for all!

Stay tuned...

The gaming area!

The first post is always the hardest or in my case, since this is a gaming blog, the start up is always the hardest. I have a lot of gaming stuff, but I never seem to play with it. I have countless miniatures, rulebooks and solo games that go unused since I don't ever 'feel' like playing. In late August, I decided to change that. I figured if I started a gaming blog that I would play more games so I would stay current.

The first mission was a place to actually game. Folding tables or dining room tables are nice, but the game needs to be cleaned up once the day is done or you get some angry family members. I have an unfinished basement that I was leary to do anything with since the more stuff you put into the area, the harder it will be to move all that stuff once the time and money for finishing the basement begins! Of course, all of my gaming stuff is actually down there, so why not add a bit more to the 'clutter' and start on my project! That in mind, I figured that I'd need some more lighting and a couple of gaming tables to get this off of the ground.