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Craig

Tournaments

GottaCon 2014 – Day 0

Posted on March 3, 2014

I’m going to intersperse these next few posts between the photo posts of my models for the next week or so. I also only have 3 photos from GottaCon, I forgot to take any until the last day. 🙂

GottaCon is a full bodied video/board/card/miniature gaming convention held in Victoria, BC. It’s been growing steadily for years, and this year I assume they had some talks with the mayor of Victoria and worked out some deals and ended up moving the convention into the heart of the city and having a ton of advertising for technology jobs in Victoria. I support this move entirely – the con benefits by having a better and bigger space, the city benefits by advertising itself and by having tons of hungry and thirsty gamers walking around, and the people benefit by being closer to food and drink and the larger con means MOAR GAMERS.

I only decided to go a few weeks ago, so had to get my ducks in line pretty quick. Patrick was leaving late on Friday because of work and was considering taking the float plane over. As soon as he said this, I glommed onto the idea – working a full day and getting to play in the Friday Malifaux? SIGN ME UP. The float plane habour is about a 5 minute walk from my work as well.

If you have a fear of planes, avoid the float plane. It has heavy bumps as it travels along its “run way” (the ocean…) and occasionally flies sideways in the wind because it’s such a small plane. If you have no such fear, it is a delightfully civilized manner of getting to Victoria. You leave from Downtown Vancouver (as opposed to Tsawwassen or Horseshoe Bay), travel for 30 minutes (as opposed to 2 hour ferry, plus 1+ hours driving to get to the ferry and back) and arrive in Downtown Victoria – we left the plane and could see the hotel. Highly recommended.

We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and walked up the street to a local pub, the Irish Times, where most of our gaming friends had been getting drunk for several hours. Like…many hours. It’s nice to show up at a place and get that many cheers and hugs. 🙂 I love my gaming group. <3 After a pulled pork sammich and a beer, I left to get back to the con.

A notice of importance – if you’re playing at 7, be sure to stand in line for your convention badge before 7. Gaah. I was a little late for the event because I forgot the damn badge. I was tired, as I tend to be on a Friday, and didn’t play my best. Still 3 solid games of Malifaux though! I didn’t write down the Schemes for all the games we played because I’m lame. Should do that next time. >.<

Game 1

I played Mr. Dan Miner, a local Malifaux Henchman and his Kirai crew. Dan claims to be bad or unlucky at games, but I think he has negativity bias. Or maybe I’m even worse! Because when we play, it’s usually a solid game and I usually lose. 😛 We were playing fixed Story Encounters, and this one was Escort. Dan had to get a model up the table, using only (1) Interact Actions. He didn’t entirely read the scenario, so ended up moving his entire crew forward and then having to run back in turn 2 to Interact with the Escort! This cost him quite a bit – we both think he’d have won if he hadn’t had this issue! I got lucky and managed to top deck the Red Joker to kill Izamu the armour. Unfortunately, neither of us got the Escort in a position of power and this game ended with a 3-3 tie.

Game 2

This game was hilarious, and frustrating and not because of my opponent. I played Niko from the Island and his Lynch crew in the Plant Evidence Strategy. I took Line in the Sand and Distract. At one point in the game the TO called “20 minutes”. We were at turn 2. So we busted our asses to get through the next turn, hunkered down in some places and pushed forward in others and did our best to get the best results in those 20 minutes. 20 minutes later, I think we had either a tie, or I was winning by 1, I forget and we didn’t get to count. Because it turns out that the call to “20 minutes” was actually more like “20 minutes until the half hour mark” – we had another 30 minutes to play our game! We bugged Tao about that for the rest of the weekend. At that point Niko crushed my models – he has a very offensive crew that was hard to deal with and turn 4 I had very little left. This was a loss for me, 2-4. Some people suggested ending the game when we thought it was going to end, but neither of us were into that – I want to play, damnit!

Game 3

I think this strategy was Treasure Chest or Hunt, I took Protect Territory and Cursed Object. A marker in the center you have to pick up and put on your stat card. Except I couldn’t, because my opponent was playing Perdita and had Nino, who has an ability (which I think is game breaking…) where you can’t Interact if you’re in line of sight of him and another Family model. Really, my best chance of success here would have been to charge forward and bust up Nino and damn the consequences of the other models I would lose. At least then I could have gotten 4VPs from it. As it was, this game ended up in a 3-3 tie. I failed entirely at Cursed Object, because I was trying to remove Fransisco and Perdita before he could remove my models. This was a slow game, and I noticed a fair amount of inconsistent measuring from my opponent. The weird thing was that he would measure an extra inch in some cases, and an inch less in others, and not always in his advantage! This sort of thing bugs me, but it was nearing midnight on a Friday so I let it all slide with a smile and a handshake. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t playing my quickest either, reading a card 3-4 times before I understood what it did, despite having played with it a lot. 😛

That night I was sharing a room with Jamie and Dan. I went back to the room and tried to sleep. Unfortunately, cons make me excited and I’d had a Monster around 10 and was wired as hell. Jamie came into the room around 1, and had a conversation with Dan…until 3am. I couldn’t get mad, because I wasn’t sleeping anyway, but it’s bothersome to think that I couldn’t even had really tried. I dozed for this time, occasionally joining in the conversation. The next morning Dan slapped Jamie on the ass at 6am joking that this was for keeping him up until 3am. I woke up at that sound, and then lie in bed awake for another hour before deciding to get up. Rounding down, 3 hours of sleep. I felt quite poorly on Saturday. Jamie and I have since discussed the problem, and agreed to not share a room in the future – he uses tournament time to paint until 3-4am, and I like to get at least 7 hours of sleep otherwise I have problems concentrating and can get a little cranky.

Day 1 to come in a couple more days. 🙂

Featured Images

Malifaux – Rail Golem

Posted on February 28, 2014

I wanted to paint my skull cannon, but I wanted to try a new metallic technique. I didn’t want to try that on the skull cannon, so I worked on this golem that I’d had no intention of adding to my Malifaux crew until a few weeks ago. >.>

Skin

He started Mithril Silver. I read an article talking about how to make metallic red, and they suggested Ogryn Flesh+Baal Red 1:1 – that made it looks like slightly red silver, and not good at all. So I did another layer of Baal Red. Which was still absolutely no good. Heavy Body Black to darken it. Then…Lamenter’s Yellow. This was still bad, because now I had a bright gold colour on him. I did the Baal Red again, which finally made the skin look roughly where it is in the photos.

I let it sit for a day or two, before deciding to travel down a road I’d been trying to get to, but hadn’t had the courage yet – highlight and shading with glazes of a colour entirely different from the base. Mr. Wappel talks about this regularly, but I’ve never done it. If you look at some of his models, he has purple and green and yellow and so forth all on the same patch of Nurgling skin. It doesn’t look patchy, it looks like mottled skin. I was studying a painting of trees in one of the local Vancity branches and remembered that a technique used to shade forests is to use purple. Using dark green to shade a green forest is visually uninteresting – at the end, you just had a big patch of different levels of green. But if you use yellows and purples, you can highlight and shade and create visual interest.

I tried to Google Image search for what I’m talking about, but instead here’s a recent Wappel Nurgle Daemon and some random canvas painting that showed what I mean.

So I took Guilliman Blue, watered it down a bit and applied a few layers to the undersides of the Rail Golem skin. I did the same kind of layers as I would if I were painting using opaque pigments – paint a little less on each layer. I painted into the creases in between muscles and in the arm pit, and on any surface that was on the bottom of the model. Then I took Lamenter’s Yellow and some water and painted a bit on the top of the surface. This made the top a little more of that golden colour I didn’t want, but since I only used a little bit, it was more of a highlight than actually changing the colour of the model.

Pipes

The pipes were similarly done. I think I used Boltgun Metal so I could start darker. I mixed Guilliman Blue and Bloodletter to create a purple glaze and applied in layers, along with straight Bloodletter to create the worn and used look that his pipes have.

This all inspired me to do a multi-post series on different ways to use these 2 colours, as well as Bloodletter. I haven’t even pulled the green, Waywatcher Green, out of my box. >.> You’ll get the next few articles shortly, but this may be interrupted by a GottaCon report, since I’m leaving for the Island in less than an hour!

Tournaments

CHOP! Dreadball

Posted on February 24, 2014

I ran a Dreadball “League in a Day” event yesterday. I originally planned this because I wanted to see what a League looked like before I went to AdeptiCon to do it with people I didn’t know. Unfortunately, this backfired as I found 4 other people who wanted to play – meaning the organizer had no opponent!

Instead I answered rules questions and ended up running two demos of the game on the third board we’d set up! I leveled my team along with the league participants by pretending that my team played the same as the player who received the worst tournament points each round. I’d then randomized who on my team got a kill, or a 3-point Strike. My team didn’t level up much, but it was fun anyway.

I found that I didn’t really need more models. The 8 that come in the basic pack were enough. I ended up spending my megacredits on coaching dice (critical for the rats to score!) and replacing any models that died. Pro tip — if the model that died doesn’t have any XP, just recycle him for 5mc and then buy a “brand new player”, where the cost to save that player is his cost+1d6 mc, so you save 1d6+5mc!

I think my AdeptiCon painting priority is still valid. Finish the Malifaux models (going to GottaCon!), finish my skullcannon and then worry about what to do next. Because I still want to paint my Veer-myn Keeper, and painting 5 rats is no more difficult than painting 1 rat. 😛

CHOP! is a great venue – we have games, we have people and we have beer.

Jamie’s orx started the fight, but we ended it.

This was hilarious. Owen’s Forge Father’s cornered Chris’ human and proceeded to beat the ever-living snot out of him. Chris was 1 point from winning the game of Ultimate when Scott took the last point!

Ultimate Dreadball!

In the end, Chris won the tournament/league having won all of his games, 2 of them in landslide and earning 17 points overall! Owen killed the most people at 4 kills, and Chris got the most popular team at 10 cheers! Scott won the Ultimate game.

I really want to play Ultimate again. It took everything I liked about Dreadball, and ramped it up to 11!

Work-in-progress

Dreadball Veer-myn Booster pack “parting”

Posted on February 20, 2014

I picked up the Veer-myn Booster Pack the other day, as the last few models I need to get my AdeptiCon models done. I opened the box and found 3 of the now well known Mantic baggies inside. The sprue-less plastic is nice for packing and shipping. Hell for figuring out what pieces go with what model! Thankfully they have done a superb job of ensuring that the joins for each piece are different – you literally can’t put the wrong tail on the wrong rat.

I thought I’d write and post a photo of the final sorting. The easiest bag is the Keeper, who is in the bottom left of the photo. There are 2 bags that are identical, containing 1 prone marker, 1 alternative guard and 1 alternative striker. The other 4 models in this photo are from 1 of these bags. (I opened the other bag before realizing that I didn’t want to do that…)

I’m playing in a Dreadball one-day league this weekend (or rather, I’m organizing it…) so I’m hoping to figure out roughly how many extra models I’ll need for the Adepticon League in a Night event. I want to get the Keeper done, at a minimum, because I love the idea of a rat who’s sole purpose is to knock people over, take the ball and then punt it into the other end zone. YAY RATS!

I also constructed a name for my team — the Cheddar City Blade Runners. I think it’s a delicious mix of goofiness and sci-fi tropes. Now they all need names. 🙂

Musings & Meta Tournaments

AdeptiCon Planning

Posted on February 13, 2014

This is more of a post to get my own currently scattered project plans back under organization.

For AdeptiCon, I currently need to paint:

Skull Cannon. This is near the top of the priority list, since it’s the last item I need to finish my Daemons. 1 model, but should be to a high quality.
Deadzone strike force. This is a bigger task, that I may leave until the end. I have ~10-12 models here.
Dreadball rats. I have on order a booster box, and I should paint at least 1 Keeper, 1-2 Guards and another 2-3 Strikers. About 6 models then. I painted the original 8 models in 2 days, so this is a relatively easy task. I can’t do it until I have the models in hand though.
Malifaux Rail Golem. I started on him shortly after getting back from vacation. I like the model and it’s use on the table.
December Acolyte. This guy keeps seeing use, as he’s a fantastic model for “being somewhere early”.
The Firestarter. I’ve been running her as my henchman for numerous games now. Cheaper than Kang and super fast and flexible with Wk5, Flight and Reckless. Kang is still better for dealing with those damn Ressers. Also she has synergy with the Rail Golem, both in giving him Burning Counters and also Twirling the Gas Can after he Vents Boilers.
Display Board. The biggest task on this list, also the one with the most risk since I need to directly schedule time for it, instead of just “whenever I have time”.

I’m noodling on whether to go to GottaCon or not, so I may prioritize the Golem, Acolyte and Firestarter so I can use them for GottaCon Malifaux. 3 weeks is enough time for that.

So I think my current tasks are to paint those 3 Malifaux models, and to try to schedule some time to work on the display board.

Thanks for joining in my planning. 🙂

Work-in-progress

Skull cannon

Posted on February 10, 2014

(This message has been pre-recorded for your reading pleasure, but I’m probably back in town by now…)

The last thing I built was…

Well, not this. Patrick built this for me. When we dreamed up our Adepticon team army, he was going to do Tomb Kings and I was doing Daemons. We had an elaborate conversion of a necrosphinx planned, which was going to be absolutely brilliant and gorgeous. As the plan continued, Patrick decided that “Chaos Empire” or, potentially, just “Chaos Warriors” would be his team army. The conversion was going to be for a Skull Cannon, and I still needed one, so he built me a Dark Elf Cauldron of Blood with a giant fucking Tyranid gun in the middle.

I built some bases for it. The Cauldron is on a giant base that’s huge, and the Skull Cannon is a chariot base, so I built up from a chariot base to something that this conversion would sit on.

As I was building this massive base, I realized that we had decided that the Skull Cannon would sit on his side of the table we were building. So I built yet another base…with the same technique as I’d previously built cobblestone.

I won’t be doing this technique of cobblestone for the entire display board…

Work-in-progress

Building a lot of stuff

Posted on February 7, 2014

(This message has been pre-recorded for your reading pleasure!)

After my paint-fest for a week or so, I didn’t feel like painting anymore, so I built a ton of things.

Rail Golem for Malifaux!

I used this guy once the other day. I’m trying to find a replacement for Miss Step, who I feel isn’t performing well. I don’t know if this guy will, but he was fun to use. Hoping to use him some more before Adepticon, just in case I want to bring him.

Deadzone Reb humans!

I’m playing in an informal Deadzone campaign. Last game I played I lost 7/8 members of my strike force who went into the game. I made a mistake. My force went under 70pts, so High Command sent me 3 free humans…who are at -1 dice for everything for the next game. But I needed some more humans first. No problem…I bought 2 Reb faction starters and a booster, so I’ve got a few humans kicking around the house

Just a ton of Dreadball MVPs.

I’m running a Dreadball tournament next month, so I thought I’d have a few MVPs available for that. Not certain if I’ll paint them all, but I wouldn’t mind getting at Gabe and Reek at least, because they are cool. Slippery Joe too…who knows. 🙂

Featured Images

Herald of Tzeentch – Backup

Posted on February 4, 2014

(This message has been pre-recorded for your reading pleasure!)

I painted this guy many years ago when I first did a “Warriors of Chaos” Tzeentch army. That’s in “air quotes” because it had a several units of Horrors, Flamers, a Gor Herd, as well as two units of Tzeentch Warriors…and a lot of other stuff. You can tell it was a long time ago because this mishmash of units was a legal army…

–

This guy has been sitting on my “best of” army shelf for a while, because I’m generally really pleased with how he turned out, especially at the time. That shelf is now in cases because I don’t have space at my apartment anymore, but I pulled him out to maybe use him as a back-up Herald in cases where I roll “turn your wizard into a Herald” on the Winds of Magic table.

I fixed up his plumage a bit, as it was definitely a bit ratty and showing it’s age. I put him on a new base to go with the rest of the army, and left everything else as-is. He won’t see a lot of use, but I’m happy that he has a place in the army regardless.

Featured Images

Beasts of Nurgle – Final

Posted on February 1, 2014

(This message has been pre-recorded for your reading pleasure!)

As I said last time, I was in a painting frenzy and just wanted to get some things done. These guys had been basecoated last I wrote about them, and now they’re done.

The manes are pretty simple – Ushapti Bone, Gryponne Sepia and then drybrush up Ushapti Bone and Skull White. I haven’t drybrushed for a while, but I think it works out really well for this sort of thing.

The skin is blue, similar to the horrors from a while back. (Actually, it seems I didn’t post a final photo of the horrors…oops). But I didn’t want just plain blue daemon cat things, so I painted some faint lines of Warpstone Green in the middle. Not really strong, but strong enough to be a little green tinge.

Last, I used Bloodletter GW glaze along the edges where the metal and skin meets…because that doesn’t look comfortable at all, and red is the colour of uncomfortable skin? Sure. Here’s some photos.

Featured Images

Herald of Nurgle – Final

Posted on January 29, 2014

Final?! I was to involved in painting to take photos, just wanted to get ‘er dun, so I skipped all the middle posts. The skin and sword was identical to the plaguebearer unit, but with more care taken and more layers.

Unfortunately, I’m still a little disappointed with the paint job. I was hoping to enter this model into Crystal Brush in April, but he missed the mark by a bit. The freehand isn’t good enough, the cape is supposed to be “fire lighting”, but it doesn’t work at all and the base is really plain. The paint job is competent and looks great, but it isn’t my best work.

That’s ok though, as I have a back-up entry for Crystal Brush…you’ve seen it here already, and you can guess if you like, but I’m going to keep it to myself until I get back.

I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to paint for the back of the cloak. I knew I wanted something to “obscure” the fire-lit part of it, but nothing else. I pulled out my tablet and Sensu brush/stylus (totally a product placement, because it’s fun) and doodled a bit until something came together.

When I translated it to the cape though, it still wasn’t what I wanted. It doesn’t cover enough, and it isn’t “intricate” enough to cover enough.

Lastly, some basic OSL. 🙂 This is pretty easy – paint the fire, paint the skull and hand and then apply a layer or two of that Lamenter’s Yellow. Done!

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