Magic the Gathering!

First, thanks for the kind words in the comments section of the last post. I really appreciate it! You guys keep reading, I'll keep writing!

A short Warmachine update: Wednesday night I'm going to break out Constance Blaize for the first time. Hopefully I'll give a little theory article tomorrow night, and then see how it works out on Wednesday.  Progress is steadily being made on the Stormsmiths as well, and I should have pictures for you all soon.

Saturday night eleven of us converged on my basement for a night of sealed deck MtG. Most of us have been playing Magic since revised, but for a few folks this was their first time. We each got four packs of cards, and then drafted nine more cards from other closed packs. From this card pool everyone built a 40 card deck. I went with green and white due to two "mana elves" in my packs and a few big green creatures. My deck was solid, but really didn't have any game ending combos in it. I won quite a few of my first games (besides being ground out by Joey Baltimore! Maybe he'll give us a guest testimony on how he managed to build a grinder deck in a sealed environment... ) but soon the late hour and copious ammounts of alcohol began to take their toll on my already adled mind and I fell into the loser's circle for the end of the night.

It was an incredibly enjoyable evening and a nice change of pace from all the tabletop wargaming we do. There's talk about a Magic league for the fall/ winter using only our sealed deck cards. Should be interesting...

Oh well, I'm off to paint. BTW: www.swor.com I've preorderd!
-D9

State of the Games: Warmachine, 40k, WoW, and More!

Not sure anyone ever actually reads my ramblings any more (post comments! Let me know you're alive!) but I thought it was time to update everyone in what's going on in my little corner of the nerd galaxy. Time for... (cue suitably impressive music...) D-9's State of the Hobby Address. (bound to be more cheerful than a state of the Union address, because, let's face it, the Union's pretty much in a bad state right now, but I digress...) Let's talk about all the things that make nerdin' great.

1: Warmachine/ Hordes: As you can easily tell by my blog posts, this is THE game right now. We've been playing PP games for almost two years in our gaming group and they have become the only mini game we really spend time with any more. I've been steadily cranking out painted models and just as steadily getting solid games in on a weekly schedule. Wrath was awesome, and our group is looking forward to Domination. We still have spirited discussions about the balance of Hordes vs. Warmachine, but overall the PP system is a very enjoyable, solid game. My biggest gripe is that I don't get to play enough to try all the armies/ ideas that I come up with. Currently on the hobby table is my goal to get 35 points armies done. eStryker, eSkarre, and pSkarre are all 100% finished. eNemo has two models left to get done. From there, pStryker, pDenny, and pNemo are the next candidates for the full paint treatment.

2: Warhammer 40k: Wow... how the mighty have fallen. Our group has let 40k silently slide to the wayside, and then fall of the table to be crushed under the steam driven heels of a plethora of warjacks. Some great models have come out in the last two years, but to be honest no one seems to care. GW's business studipity has been met with a few chuckles and I'm just glad I have almost every model I'll ever need in metal and won't have to muck with finecast at all.... Will 6th edition re-light the fires of grim-dark wargaming? Probably. A new chaos codex would inspire me to dust off the World Eaters. I look at all my 40k armies and the models are incredible, the rules just really need a change.

3: World of Warcraft: Forgive me Blizzard, it has been a week since I last logged in to Azeroth... and I really don't miss it. WoW has taken a hit this summer, everything feels "grindy." Even the fun of leveling Horde characters for the first time hit a wall when I got out of the re-designed zones. I don't even touch my Alliance 85s unless someone needs me to heal a raid. The instances just aren't as fun as they were in WoTLK or BC. This is preturbing. I love WoW. I really do. I have a lot of fun playing this stupid game, but right now I'd rather paint models, play XBox, watch TV or even write pointless blog entries that no one will read. I have one eye on the horizon right now, and have already pre-ordered Star Wars: The Old Republic. We shall see what the fall brings. (but Old Republic looks freaking sweet! Space ships! Jedi! Sith! )

4: D&D/ Pathfinder: We had some awesome Pathfinder sessions in the spring, but now we are back in the traditional rut. Its hard to get working adults with families together for long rpg sessions. That said, the Pathfinder rule set is, hands down, the best RPG I have seen in my 20+ years of playing RPGs. Our group is working through "The Curse of the Crimson Throne" adventure path, and it is truly an incredible experience. If we can just get everyone to play....

5: Magic?!?!?!? yep... the crack is back on the street... Saturday night yours truly is hosting a sealed deck 2012 event. It's always fun to come back to MtG, especially in a controlled setting. Depending on how the event goes we may be looking at a contained league for the fall/ winter. I've never written about MtG on this blog, so maybe I'll put some stuff up following our weekend.

6: Board Games: Board Game night continues to be a big hit amongst our group of friends. Last Night on Earth by Flying Frog Games is probably our favorite. I wrote a review a few months back, but suffice to say it's the zombie apocalypse board game. Other games in rotation right now are Killer Bunnies and the Search for the Magic Carrot, Red Dragon Inn (hilarious!), Forbidden Island, and Cleopatra. Forbidden Island is a cooperative game that is fast paced and a lot of fun. I highly reccomend it out of this list.

So there ya have it. That's where good ol' D-9 is in the hobby right now. If you still read, post a comment to let me know I haven't finally become that guy who types to himself in the internetz. Who am I kidding.... ;)

Thunderhead!

Here he is! In all his finished glory. I'm very happy with the finished product, especially the whites. I really worked on getting them smooth through several layers of very thinned down highlights and I think it paid off.

Gamewise, the T-Head is an infantry killer supreme. The Energy Pulse ability hits (automatically) all models within 6", doing enough damage to wipe out most one wound infantry models, and put a hurting on even big stuff like man o' wars and ogrun. After the pulse, T-Head can use focus to buy shots with the lightening coil which automatically hit due to sustained assault. Great for finishing off those tough multi wound models. I run T-Head with eNemo, and with lightening shroud on him he can do a tremendous ammount of damage in melee as well. Energizer can get him where he needs to be to pop his bug zapper ability or just to line up the charge if needed.

In other Warma-Hordes news, the Carny Gamers Society is having an interesting event this week. We're running a Prime/ Primal only 25 pt. tournament. More about this later.

Storm Strider Assembly

My Cygnar Battle Engine arrived in the mail from the fine gents at Miniature Market today! I spent about two hours tonight doing the initial cleaning and pre-assembly. The model is impressive, both in appearence and in heft. The middle section is metal, as are the upper portions of the legs. The only resin piece that reallt was a mess was the arc that has the tesla coils on it. Lots of flash and mold lines as well as some pour tags that had to be removed. I drilled a hole for the foot peg of the second crew man on the main deck, while the first storm smith has a small platform that he stands on (and that the levers connect to.)
As for the base, I put a little detail on that giant pie plate, but didn't go too over the top. Some green stuff worked into a ruined road with a resin terrrain piece and a bit of rock and sand make up the base. Hopefully this beauty will be on the painting table soon!

I'm still slowly plugging away at thunderhead. Hope to have him done sometime this weekend. He seriously might be my new favorite warmachine model.

Finished Cygnar Charger and Thunderhead WIP

Well my summer painting projects are rolling a long. By the end of the summer I wanted three fully painted 35 pt. armies for both my Cryx and Cygnar. eSkarre and pSkarre were 100% done months ago, now eStryker is finished. eNemo is coming close to completion, and pDenny is at least started!

I finished off the Charger last night for eNemo's army. I shied away from this jack for a while, but Nemo loves it. It's perfect long range fire support for the Hammersmith and Thunderhead as they move across the field. I usually load it up with the full 3 focus and then matrix back anything I didn't need when Nemo gets his turn.

Thunderhead is next on the list. I've been slowly working on him between other paints right now. This jack is an incredible sculpt and all of the large empty spaces really need a little TLC to get the highlights right. I threw in an extra stage to my normal painting of whites, two extra stages to my normal painting of blues, and three extra stages for my golds on this guy. I'm proud of the progress thus far.

I've also wrapped up the alt. pDenny sculpt and Nightmare. I'll get some pics snapped of them later on this week. I've had a pretty solid run of games with my pDenny list over the last month. Needed to take a break from the boy's in blue and get back to my Cryx-y roots...

Stay cool!

Other Finished Cygnar Models

Good morning! Sitting here watching the Tour de France and updating the blog!

My secondary Cygnar army has bounced between pStryker, Siege, eHaley, and currently is eNemo. I'm playing him a bit jack heavy with a charger, thunderhead, and a hammersmith. The storm guard add some infantry tarpiting, with the Black 13th giving fire support. Three stormsmiths and Arlan round out this list. I still have some painting to finish off the list, but here's what I have done.

Back with a Finished Cygnar Army!

Holy crap it's been a while since I've posted! Life has been a bit crazy in Baltimore, new jobs for both the wife and I, lots of work with the secondary job, WoW committments ( hee hee) and the start of cycling season. Add in some great TV, good books, and actually playing nerd games and painting models thus my posting time has been a bit lean... anyways enough for the excuses, D-9 minis proudly presents, a finished eStryker 35 point army!
Caster: eStryker

Stryker is joined by the squire and two heavy jacks. Ol' Rowdy is Stryker's permenant companion and often is my "second wave" hard hitter. The storm clad is my main beatstick in the army, and he doesn't dissapoint.

And finally the infantry contingent. The StormGuard are great anti infantry and a hard hitting first wave. The two units of Stormblades are the core of the army. One is in traditional blue colors while the others are wearing white and the Black Swan, the symbol of Stryker's personal cadre from the storm brigade.

Tune in tomorrow for the rest of the stuff I've gotten painted in my absence!