Drow Retribution: Kaelyssa Tier 4

Finally got a few minutes to photograph the finished army. I'm only missing the arcanist. Enjoy!

2012 in Review

Greetings from a proud new papa! Lydia Grace was born on 11/7 and is absolutely awesome. I've been off on paternity leave for the last several weeks and while actual time to hobby has been limited, time spent thinking about hobbying has not!

GAMING
2012 was a big hobby year for yours truly. Back in January, our gaming group started up a slow grow league for Warmahordes. I started with Grayle the Farstrider and went to work. Over the next few months I played a lot of games, branching out to other Circle casters, until finally winning a local Steamroller with Grayle and pKrueger. I also took eKaya to a tier list tournament where I definitely didn't win. Warmahordes continued at full tilt in the garage with gaming happening almost every week.

Pathfinder was the other game of choice as always. This year saw three campaigns played at various frequency. Our main group is currently three modules in to the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path and loving every minute.

I think I played one game of 40k in there somewhere...

Video games saw the end of several years of World of Warcraft, a short torrid affair with Diablo 3, an incredibly dissappointing run at Star Wars: the Old Republic and then a return to Guild Wars and migration into Guild Wars 2 which has died off with the baby's arrival as I've fallen back to xbox.

PAINTING:

In 2012 I painted 90 models. I'm pretty proud of that number. Lots of Circle Orboros models and a few Cygnar ending the year with my drow themed Retribution.

So... time for my Top 3s!

BEST GAMES OF 2012:

1: Pathfinder
2: Warmachine/ Hordes
3: Guild Wars 2

BEST NEW PRODUCTS OF 2012:

1: Stormwall: Cygnar Collosal
2: Guild Wars 2
3: Descent of Angels (Horus Heresy)

BIGGEST GAMING DISSAPOINTMENTS OF 2012:

1: Warhammer 40k 6th Ed.
2: Star Wars: The Old Republic
3: D&D Next Play test

Mid Hurricane Models!

Greetings from stormy Maryland where we've been getting our asses kicked all day by Hurricane Sandy. My wife is at 40 weeks and we're just praying she doesn't go into labor tonight.

I did get two more drow ret models done this week though....

Drow Retribution of Scyrah: WIP Shots

Wow has it been a long time! Sorry everyone, but life has been on turbo mode. Work, bike season, and the little item of the of the arrival of my daughter sometime in the next two weeks!

Still, lots of hobbying going on. I've been painting and playing quite a bit. My latest project has given me a break from Circle and Cygnar (and Cryx... I gotta get back to those guys one of these days...) and I'm painting a tier 4 Retribution Kaelyssa list.

I didn't want to do a normal scheme. Mostly because I wanted to do something different AND so as not to piss off Joey Baltimore and his angry elves. So... in the midst of our Pathfinder game the other night, I had an epihany. DROW.

Here's some WIP shots.

Three Games with Nemo 3

Good evening gentle gamers!
No pretty pictures tonight, my humble apologies, just some thoughts on Cygnar's latest caster.

A beautiful night in the garage for the Carney Gaming and Drinking League. I rolled back to Cygnar tonight to give Nemo 3 a test drive and see how he performed. Some thoughts:

My List Building Plan: I wanted to take a tier list and focus on lightening damage to get the most out of the feat. At 35 points, that didnt give me a lot of wiggle room.

Nemo 3+ Finch
Thunderhead
Firefly

Min Stormguard
3x stormcallers
Stormstrider
min. Mechanics
Storm Tower

So going into the game I was happy with the zappy. Lots of extra damage on the feat turn (Nemo 3's feat gives an extra dice to all electrical damage that originates from within his control) and some shennigans with Nemo's ability to ignore his own troops for electroleaps.

The plan was good.

The outcome was not.

Game 1:  vs. Skorne. Nemo got too far up while trying to maximize his feat (which was impressive) but still got knifed in the face my Morghul.

Game 2: vs. Gators. Baranbas is still my least favorite caster to play in the game. Anyways, Nemo got to live the dream in the feat turn with a pretty impressive Thunderhead pulse, but I think I screwed up my order of activation and didn't clear as much as I should have. He failed an assasination attempt, but Barney was sitting at def. 19 and I just couldn't crack him. Scenario win for the dirty swamp suckers.

Game 3: vs. Skorne. Another great feat turn and then, damn those Skorne are fast... knife to the face... again.

0/3... not a good night for the reigning champ... not a good return to Cygnar...

Observations: Nemo 3 is fun. With some practice, he might be a good casual caster. I like my list. Nothing there that would be immediately shifted out. At 50 points I would definitely try to get a stormclad in there and some stormblades. The Strider has a home in this list, I just didn't play it too well tonight. The biggest problem is the Admiral Ackbar Conundrum...

The feat looks so good. His control area looks so big. Those damage rolls kill stuff so nicely...

IT'S A TRAP!

Every time I found myself too far forward, trying to get too tricky, then I died. Next time, a solid turn 2 feat that pumps up the strider, the storm tower and Nemo's gun is safe.

Finch is definitely equal to a squire. The free upkeep is awesome but the added focus during allocation is actually in a way slightly more valuable than a squire.

Any which way. Fun games tonight even with the losses. I am finding more and more that Circle is fitting my play style more than my other two factions, but always fun to mix it up.

eKaya Tier 4

Just a couple quick army shots of eKaya at tier 4.

Completed Stormwall

Last but not least for our marathon update tonight... the Stormwall.
He was fun to paint, but I wouldn't relish doing another one. He hasn't seen the table yet, as I just finished him tonight, but I look forward to seeing what kind of damage he can dish out. Looking forward to trying him with pHaley first and then pStryker... we shall see... now pics!

Circle Orboros Updates: Lots and lots of pics

Other than two diversions into Cygnar land (ahem... Stormwall...) My painting has been focused entirely on my Circle Orboros. Here's a sample of the latest stuff.

My forseeable future of painting is still going to be wrapped up in Circle as well. I'm enjoying everything about the faction right now, from painting to playing, so look for some more stuff shortly.

My New Nerd Den

Greetings and salutations everyone! Been a while. As I said last time, life has been a bit intense. With the impending arrival of my daughter it seems that there's always a lot to do. Hobbying has still been a huge part of my time, but photographing that hobbying and writing about it on the old interwebs just hasn't taken precendence.
Until tonight.
This is one of three blog updates to bring things back up to speed. I've been painting fiendishly, bringing this year's model count up to 62 as of tonight. Included in that 62 is a battle engine and collosal, so I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment. I also wracked up my first ever Steamroller Tournament win last week at Crit Hit Games.
One of the biggest changes in my hobbying has been my work space. For years I've had a room that was simply "storage" for all my hobby stuff, terrain, models, shipping materials, old magazines, books, comics, pirate treasure, the odd lost sock, and maybe Jimmy Hoffa. With Baby-9 on the way, my wife and I decided that it was time to reclaim that room and make it liveable, and in the future, secure from toddler invasion.
So after the summoning of many arcane rites, I brought all of my nerdiness together into one place. I sold a ton of stuff on ebay, gave away a ton more, but soon consolidated everything into the greatest nerd den of all time...

Pic one. All of the warhammer fantasy armies that will never get played still look good on display. The couch is a recliner, perfect reading spot and...

it's facing my nerd altar. Pathfinder stuff? check. Talisman? Check. All Warmachine and Hordes books? Check. Blu Ray player and Star Wars Themed xbox? check. Other board games? 40k books? ipad? = Perfection. The cool thing is that the furniature and the TV and the blu ray were all financed through my ebay sales. No complaints from the wife and one happy D-9.

My painting station is set up in the other corner of the room with plenty of room to work and extra storage.

And finally the closet has most of my armies bagged up and in foam as well as my Dragon magazine collection (you can't see it in the pic.)

So the den has been finished for over a month now and I have to say it was a great idea. The game tables and terrain are stored in another closet in the basement, so I can still host up to three games of Warmahordes in the basement.

Ok, so post one down. Get ready for post two, in which in the intepid blogger shows you, the rapt audience, all of the progress he has made on his Circle Orboros army in the last several months.

The Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Overstated...

Hello oh interwebz... I have returned to you from the deep dark reaches of a far off kingdom called... real life... in this mysterious place they expect you to do things like "work" and "mow lawn" and "home improve..."

Greetings, salutations and all the over things. Sorry so quiet lately. Had some big news hit the D-9 castle last month. I'll be adding a new miniature to the collection sometime in the fall. It's titan sized apparently and comes already painted... but it needs a lot of cleaning... Yep Missus D-9 is prego. Very excited, mildly terrified, but looking forward none the less.

So the blog took a break due to a myriad of other things hitting my plate, including cleaning up my gaming space. All my photography gear got trapped in a box and I'm just now starting to rescue it. Hobbying didn't take a break though. In the 2 months since I last typed your way I've painted a ton more Circle stuff, finished the slow grow, and played in another tournament. Pictures to come this weekend off all the finished models. For the meantime feast your eyes on some WIP of big daddy Ghetto-Rex.

So much to write about in the coming weeks. Look back soon!