400th Post: Retconning is a virtue

I'm a day tardy getting this post up, but i'm not opposed to post-dating! :P This an important milestone to recognize... 400 posts!!! What an achievement!

These last 8 years have been a journey. Real Life™ has kicked my butt a number of times over the last 14 years and I have had to back burner this blog. At the pace I try to maintain, I would have hit 400 posts in only 4 years. That said, I am very proud of this accomplishment. Heck, averaging 50 posts a year ain't bad.

But wait, there's more! I have a small showcase to share--A group of  WHFB Wood Elves Glade Guard Winged Fey Forest Creatures, given to me by Lord Grimskull. Whew, what a mouthful.

I don't have a WHFB/AoS Wood Elves army but I figured they could see the battlefield as Dark Heresy alien creatures, Necromunda mutated animals, or even as a stand-in for a small flying creature in D&D. With that in mind, I chose blue-green colors on the figure and a complimentary neutral base color. The figures are based on 20mm MDF round bases.

Thanks for the journey. Hope to see you in 400 more posts!

D&D 5e PCs Showcase

I am in a 5e D&D campaign that my buddy Lord Grimskull is running.

My character is a Human (1/4 Orc) Ranger who has been on his own for a long time. Influenced by the sci-fi game I am also in, I wanted to replicate having different ranged weapons for different situation.

So my character has a short bow for melee, and a heavy cross bow for sniping.

The finished piece. I started using a horn for warnings and long range communication in game after I started painting, but I still managed to add a bit last minute.

One of the other players is playing a Half-Elf Paladin. He bought the figure and I offered to convert and paint it for him. He wanted a head swap and here is the picture I sent him of possible options.

Here is the finished model. You can see the new head fits perfectly.

D&D 5e Test Run

I played a game of Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition!

My buddy Lord Grimskull ran a session of D&D 5e about a month ago. There were 4 PCs, although one player couldn't make it.

We started with some experience. Since 3rd level is a big power boost and there is a career path choice, the DM decided we would be 2nd level.

As soon as we started "rolling" up characters I was taken aback... point... buy... abilities... !?!?! Yep, the standard in 5e is stat buy... no rolling 3d6 for your abilities. This was different. I know 3rd and 4th edition had optional point buy rules, but in some way it felt wrong. 

The basic stat block is 15/14/13/12/10/10. I think everyone else took that. I chose to take the extreme of 15/15/15/8/8/8. With my racial bonus, I ended up with 17/15/15/10/8/8. The game is designed so you CAN NOT have a starting character with an ability over 17. In fact you would have to take the extreme starting stat block like I did and put two of the 15s in your racial prime stats to end up with two 17s (17/17/15/8/8/8).

It took about 2 hours to get 4 2nd-level characters rolled-up created. We were an adventuring group that had been together for at least 2 missions. The most recent was simple goblin extermination. Our party consisted of a Dragonborn Rogue (me), a Human Wizard, a Gnome Cleric (NPC), and an Elf Paladin. The game starts as we arrive back at the small logging village that hired us to hunt gobbos.

After a night of kicking back and spending our recently acquired coin, things started going awry late that night: Weird sounds, a dead body, missing grave stones, and a dense wall of fog surrounding the village. We survived the night. The next day, the fog spoke to us, threatening our lives. We dug here the missing grave stones were to find there were no bodies at all. Mid-day, the leader of the village guards went into the fog and never came back. We rallied the villagers to build up defenses.

Before night-fall we built a roof-bridge between the watch tower, the temple and the barracks. We put all of the food and supplies in the temple, and anyone who couldn't fight went in the barracks. we tried digging pits between buildings and boarding up windows, but we only managed to get the south face finished before the second night.

We were attacked by strange undead. I lost track of how many varieties, but it was at least 3--The "grunts", a long legged fast type, and ones with a 20' tongue attack that grabbed you like a lasso. The night did not end well.

The map shows were we left things. The figures laying down in buildings are actually on the roof (and alive). The one figure in the upper right laying down in the street was a prominent figure. We lost over half the fighting villagers (most of them were guard-types). If things go the same the next night, Im not sure we will make it through! 

This was supposed to be a one-night test drive of 5e, but things ran long. Everyone had fun and thants the point of all this anyway, right! We are planning to finish up in the near future.

Dark Heresy Character WIP - Scum mk 2 (part 2)

I probably should have retaken these pics...

Made some progress on the Scum mk 2 figure by blocking out the base color. Unfortunately these pics are making my work look very sloppy. 

This figure is for LordGrimskull's character and he really liked the colors I used on the mk 1 figure. So I am sticking to that color scheme.

The biggest change is the cape. I swapped out the old Mordheim cloak for a Chaos Warrior cloak. I used my Dremel tool to scrape out the attached torso on the inside of the cape.

I am hoping to have the figure completed by our next game (in 1 week). Although am scheduling this post a 2 weeks out so I will likely be done by the time this is published.

Links to past articles: Part 1 | Mk 1 Showcase

Ardbeg Scotch Party

Well, my plans for 23 more posts by the end of the years have slipped by. They days have been a blur with the looming holidays and my wife going in and out of the hospital. She is home now, but has began the process of retiring and starting disability.

Enough of RL... on to why I am here!

My band has another gig. After our last show, we were offered a weekly spot at Paddy's Bar & Grill. We unfortunately had to turn down the offer due to scheduling. Kilty by Association only practices once a week, and collectively we simply don't have the time. However, we countered with a once a month gig and Paddy's liked the idea.

The event will be showcasing Ardbeg Scotch. There will be Scotch tastings and, well us! Here is the poster I created.

The concept and composition was my idea, but I turned to Lord Grimskull to draw the line art. I then dropped in the colors, the background and added the text.

Only 1 practice and 1-1/2 weeks until the show... can't wait!

Dark Heresy Character WIP - Scum mk 2

Here is the second incarnation of the scum in our Dark Heresy group. The first rendition can be found here. This model is a Privateer Press Kommander Sorscha (2010 Metal). Lord Grimskull bought this figure and made the green stuff additions himself. What a bang up job for a first go around!!!

Image taken from Privateer Press without permission

Lord Grimskull cut off the head-dress and sculpted a new head along with a nice pair of bangs. He also added a skull around the hammer's head. I bend the left arm to make it outstretched as if challenging a foe.

I have also added some pieces from by bitz box: A small wolf head medallion; 2 chain swords; and a wolf pelt cloak. The character hails from Fenris, hence all the feral adornments.

Blood Bowl League Batrep Day 4 - Necromantics vs Amazons

Another game completed in our Blood Bowl League. These two teams are currently leading the league--The Playoff slots are slipping away from me! The points are close, and anyone could make the post season, but only if there is an upset.

Here is Lord Grimskull's Batrep for his second game vs Laertes' Necromantics...

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Prologue:
This was a game set for disaster from the start and I guess for everyone involved. To paint the picture, Laertes has been work'n hard to actually get our game together and it was all working out, but yesterday at 3 when we played the game it was anything but. Basically I've been spending the entire bit of last week trying to get my internet fixed after (while helping a buddy) I contracted a mighty virus. This thing by itself didn't do much, nothing my anti-virus couldn't take, but somehow someway... it managed to send our public IP from our router to what I assume is a remote server that could both monitor when I was online, but also hammer the ever loving blood out of our router. To the point that no matter what we did locally (at the time) could fix it. I was two reformats in and several attempts (including an IP change from the ISP) when Laertes and I played our first game. 

This thing was tragic, the lag and hiccups were so bad I couldn't reliably control my guys, including finishing setting up my line. It seemed to come and go in play-ability and I was ready to forfeit the match but Laertes urged me on to stick it out. To be fair it was a pretty exciting match if you could ignore the lag. Sadly however on turn 13 or 14 my net finally crapped out and DCed me with no hope of re-establishing a link to the game so we could finish. At that time we were 1-1 (like we were in the current game) but the ball was in Laertes's hands and he didn't have such terrible injuries.

So to fix our net we traded out the router and Bam, everything is fine. We'd been reading (though some wouldn't care to admit) that there was a chance that the somehow the router itself had been compromised and was the center of the problem. I don't know networking or anything like that well enough to comment, I'm just happy I can use my net and not be afraid that I'm going to loose everything.

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The replacement game was today, still 1-1, but now Laertes had serious injuries. The honest truth though is the dice seemed to rule out player skill or tactic almost completely this game. I'm not afraid to admit I got out played, and at first out diced. A lot of Defender Down rolls put me at an 8v11 early in the first. Only through complete luck did I manage a blitz that also put the ball in my hands and it turned into a game of lock down. It seemed like at every move Laertes had a counter, and while I'm getting a little better of expecting ball movement, it was very little of what I was doing this game.

The second half didn't start off any better to be honest. He punched up a good kick off and drove it far right for me. looking at my setup I could either grab the ball with my catcher (surviving a dodge roll and the pickup) or a GFI with my thrower. I had a feeling in my bones that the dodge roll wouldn't make it, I hadn't been making many of them all game, so I went with the GFI and boom down. I'd already used my reroll earlier in the turn to stop an attacker down so I was Kapoot. Before I knew it Laertes was swarming, picked up the ball with a WW and was well on his way. I needed a very specific set of circumstances to happen to even try to stop it, which was to push a guy off a blitzer so she could blitz. Even then, she was only throwing 1 dice, sure I had a reroll but you know. I get a defender down, plus an injury on the WW and I pickup the ball... complete luck. It didn't take Laertes long to grab the ball off her again and I was stuck in yet another do-or-die situation, this time my only chance required a successful dodge roll, and before it even went off I called a fail (it did). That was the first touchdown and it was like turn 12 or 13.

At the start of the next round I count my players, 10, okay so I'm not doin too bad, glad I picked up that spare. but I've never been a 2 turn scoring type so this is going to be rough. I take my chances with a pass play and it works, get a linewoman deep and Laertes' only chance is to get his super ghoul next to her in a GFI, he fails and it breaks his collarbone. Holy cow super luck again. by the next set I think I'm back to 11 and he's down to 8? I don't remember right off hand. But we're so close to the end of the game he'll need to 2 turn it and gets unlucky with a blitz pretty much ending it in 1-1.

The gist of this game.... luck, no strategy just luck. It seemed like Laertes could throw Defender Downs all day long till it was clutch then it was all pushes, you'd have to see the first half to understand that. Then he gets both of the worst injuries this game completely by luck. I know it's the name of the game but yiesh. x_X

Blood Bowl League Batrep Day 3 - Dark Elves vs Amazons

Lord Grimskull has written a Batrep for his recent Blood Bowl game...

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Elves vs Ladies Part Duex

So I entered this game a little wizened by my experience with [Draxar], most notably that while I love to play the Zons bashy they are still pretty frail and that I need to take this into account.

We flipped and [Wintervoid] won the toss and opted for me to kick off. I setup in a standard array, blitzers on the sides, linewomen setup for optimum 2 roll blocks, and my catcher deep just in case. [Wintervoid] setup accordingly, putting some space on his left (my right) and putting a blitzer and his witch there (I'd have to try to blitz that, forget it) and a good spacing to combat my lineup.

So boom, the kick! I get a chance to reset my line up, and not paying attention to where the ball is going I send my catcher up to the line to help begin my elf bashing wall.  Well, I should have paid some attention, because the ball sailed right into the hands of his receiver  maybe 3 squares from the line on the left side, no need to pickup and in good position... crap.

Next his first block he throws in the game dumps one of my left side blitzers, not just down but an injury first block of the game, and now there's a growing hole on my left side. Not a particularly good looking start for me but it's still early.

There's some fighting as we maneuver to the left that ends in catastrophe for me when one of my blitzer throws a double skull block, rerolls, and double skulls again opening up my left side completely uncontested as his witch strides down field and eventually for a touchdown. All this in the first two or maybe three turns of play.. I could tell it was gonna be a rough game.

The rest of the first half is a slow, slow crawl for me to score, getting it finally on the last turn in the half. It was a sludge fight with players on both sides getting hit hard and me finally having to push portions of his team off the pitch entirely to actually gain any maneuvering space. [Wintervoid] on 3 occasions had knocked the ball out of my hands and I think by turn 4 or 5 I had burned all 4 of my rerolls just to try to stay in the game.

The second half started and as the dust cleared though it was evident that of the two teams mine had taken a significantly less bashing than [Wintervoid]s as I'm able to field a full 11 and he's down to 8. Initially as I setup to kick off I throw all my meat on his right side, a ploy I hoped would drain most of his resource and distract him as I clicked to kick deep left. While he did adequately prepare for a bull rush on the right side of the field he still manage to field enough coverage to have men in the right places.

The kick! another doozie, I'm seeing a pattern with zon kicking! he gets to move 1 square on the kick and adjust accordingly, now there's a lineman on the line with my women, with only 1 tackle zone. the ball flies waaaay out of bounds, and is thus given to the nearest dude, the darned lineman. Panicked as now I see he has a straight line to my endzone on a MV7 vs my team of MV6s and he has 4 ag.... As he moved his guy nearly to the edge of his running distance I freaked and began monitoring the movements of every zon on my team. I could see that with just enough Oomph I had 4 or 5 zons who could both position and give one a chance to 2 dice blitz (but none in ranger were blitzers x-X) I could tell [Wintervoid] knew this, as with his limited resources he began tackle zoning all my options. I got a lucky break when he couldn't get away from a tackle zone which limited the number of zons he could lock up.

So after gauging who was the best choice I setup for the blitz, the first linewoman made it safely, but the blitzer... I don't know I click blitz but it must have been a "go for it" move or something because the moment she hit him she just dropped, turn over. My heart sank, I knew there was nothing I could do to stop this elf who was mere squares away from my endzone.

Suddenly! before I was even really aware I heard the buzz of a turn over. Somehow the ball handler had taken a spill and turned over the ball! I was flummoxed but quickly moved folks into position, the shear number of zons giving me plenty of wiggle space to setup a box around the ball and pick it up. The rest of the game was a slow crawl back up field. At this point the Elves were down to just 7 and even with some amazing placement which stalled out my ability to drive up field I just had too many zons for him to do anything to get the ball back.

The take away: I don't know what happened tonight, it seemed like even with AV8 my zons were really putting some hurt on his elves. I did some more passing this game because I didn't feel safe just running the ball up field, and especially with how well [Wintervoid] was positioning and blitzing. I think he had one blitzer actually get dodges through 3 tackle zones in 1 turn.


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The final score was 1-2 in favor of the Amazons. I looked over the match record and noticed that the Dark Elves sustained 6 Stuns, 8 KOs, and 1 casualty while the Amazons only sustained 1 KO--These are some tough ladies! I am really looking forward to playing them... My Orcs play the 'Zons in back to back games on the last two games of the regular season.

A new Contributor!

I would like to welcome a new contributor to the blog... (drum roll please)... Lord Grimskull!... (cymbal crash)

Lord Grimskull is a member of our Dark Heresy and Deathwatch campaigns, where he plays a feral scum (pic above) and a Salamander apothecary. He also is part of our board game group, the GM of another group, an artist (he drew the line art for my band's poster), and will be running a play test group of D&D 5e.

He recently did his own green stuff work on the next version of his Dark Heresy character. It is an amazing job--Especially as a first attempt. I will be painting the model and will post a showcase when I am finished.

I can't wait to try out D&D 5e! We have made our characters (most of us) and will run a sample combat before actually putting boots on the [campaign] ground.

That's all I have to say... I will let Lord Grimskull take it from here. I look forward to reading his musings!

Bikes, Beers and Bawdy Ballads

My band has a gig tomorrow night. It is our first show in town with our current line up, so we are all really excited!

Charcaters Drawn by Lord Grimskull
Colored and Designed by John Hanan III

The venue is Velo Cult. It is a bicycle shop by day (hence why we are all riding bikes) and a bar by night--Very Portland!

A good friend of the band [edit: Lord Grimskull] drew the line art, and I did the coloring and graphics. The poster has gotten rave reviews and we hope our show lives up to it!

Dark Heresy Character Showcase - Scum

(click image to enlarge)

Here is my "recent" project for the "probie" [edit: Lord Grimskull] in our Dark Heresy game. A scum from the planet Fenris. I really like how this turned out with some fairly simple conversions--and the player if happy too!

Image taken from internets without permission

The body of the miniature is a Dark Age Forsaken Coil. I added a WFB dwarf warhammer to the head of the weapon, and used bitz from a chaos vehicle sprue to add some heft and warhammer bling!

(click on image to enlarge)

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I added an ancient Rogue Trader era space marine bolt pistol as her sidearm, and a cape from my bitz box.

(click on image to enlarge)

To emphasize the connection to Fenris, I added some trophies from the Space Wolf sprue to her shoulder and hip (not pictured) and a Mordheim bit to her belt buckle. Lastly, I swapped the head for a WHFB elf head.

For the base I used my standard basing sand mix. I painted the ground a ruddy brown, and the larger rocks a purplish-grey. Next I added a custom mix of dark static grass and finally some leaf scatter from Skullcrafts.

Well that is about it... I hope you like it and that you come back to see more...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, this was supposed to be my Halloween post. RL has just been to consuming. So this is now a Day of Thanks post! I really appreciate all my followers and I hope you and yours have a great holiday!

Now, on to the fun stuff!! Below I have a brief synopses of what I have managed to work on over my absence from the world wide web... hope you like it!

My GM requested I make a graveyard
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My GM ran a special Halloween themed Dark Heresy encounter on the game session just prior to Halloween. Unfortunately, mostly due to my character's actions, the encounter never occurred in the graveyard (it stayed in the crypt below ground), so the terrain was never used! Oh well, it will get used eventually. I will explain how I made this in a later post.

Rel, our new scumer
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We have recently added a new player to our Dark Heresy game. In a future post, I will show all the conversions to this model, but for now I will say there is a head and weapon swap.

Remote Comm Unit
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Back in this post, I showed a WiP communications console. Here it is ready to be painted. I will also discuss this piece in more detail in a later post.

Trailer progect
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I am rally not sure where I am going with this one. I am half inclined to remove the element (an old school transformer toy) from the yellow trailer and just scratch-build a box-trailer. But on the other hand I could build a box trailer without the toy trailer, so why not just keep going to see what I end up with?

Image taken from the internets without permission

Finally, I have a project to complete for my GM--Convert 12 of the above HeroClix models to Rak'gol's for our future Deathwatch games. I have all the bitz (various tyranid arms) ready to go, and just need to find the time.