We Need More Magnets!

Sunday and Monday nights are usually my nights to airbrush since I'm solo at work for most of the night but last night was spent assembling and magnetizing a Land Speeder Vengeance/Dark Shroud.

This model has received a lot of hate on the internet but I REALLY like the way it looks when it's all put together.  It builds really well and is pretty easy to magnetize to use it for either variation.

To do the Vengeance version I just put magnets on the sides of the turret where the plasma cannons go and dropped in a magnet on each cannon.

For the Dark Shroud variation I cut the tabs off the part that fits where the cannons go so it sits flush and added a magnet to the bottom of the statue then put another under the top of the turret so it's held in the center.

For the assault cannon/heavy bolter I just used a pin on the gunner's handle that goes into the gun and holds it in place.

So tonight I will be priming and base coating both of these so the owner can get started painting them.

Oh... and I bought this tonight from a guy that was very motivated to sell it for a great price.  Maybe I can get it done this year.

Seriously, the Dice are Trying to Kill Me

Got in a game yesterday against my arch nemesis, Michael.  I was using a Dark Eldar Venom Spam list (Vect, Incubi (x4), True Born (x4 with 2 dark lances), Warriors (2x5 with 1 blaster each) and Wyches (4x5 with haywire grenades), 8 Venoms (dual splinter cannon) and 2 Razorwings(1 with dark lances and one with disintigrator cannons) against his CSM allied with Daemons 1 land raider, Abaddon, Kharne, Berzerkers, Daemon Prince, Bloodthirster, Bloodletters (2x10), Havocs (2x5 with lascannons) and Cultists (2x20 or so).

Overall I had a solid game plan and the poison with the splinter cannons should have done a lot of damage to his monstrous creatures and between six lance shots I should have been able to take out the land raider.

Nope... the dice hated me.  I did manage to take out the Daemon Prince in the first turn but it too me two more turns of shooting to kill the Bloodthirster due to stupidly bad dice.

Some fun (not so much) things that happened in the game...
4 Wyches assaulted the land raider with haywire grenades.  It moved so I needed 3+ to hit and 2+ to glance... I rolled four 2's to hit.  They died to shooting the next turn.
Vect decided to assault Abaddon (who was alone at that point).  Abaddon overwatched, got one hit and wounded... and I rolled a 1 for my save, negating my shadow field.  The game was lost before that assault, I just thought it would be fun to do... but with that I called it.

In the end of Turn 5, when I conceded, he held 3 objectives, had linebreaker, two points from killing heavies (Razorwings) and had we played it out he would have had Slay the Warlord (total 13 points) to me holding no objectives, first blood, one point for a heavy and linebreaker (total 3 points).  I had six models remaining on the table at the end of the game.

My dice were so bad that tonight I took my 36 count cube of Chessex dice and rolled the hell out of them.  I rolled all 36 dice fifty times and wrote down the totals.  I was actually surprised that they rolled ABOVE AVERAGE for the most part.

19 out of 50 rolls the majority was 1-3
20 out of 50 rolls the majority was 4-6
11 out of 50 rolls were even

On average, when you roll 36 dice 50 times each number should come up 300 times.
1 - 300
2 - 310
3 - 278
4 - 305
5 - 298
6 - 309

I'm actually going to sit down with my other 5 bricks of dice and do the same thing and see my results.

Yes, I am that crazy.

Actually Getting Stuff Done

Tonight I finished up the Thunderwolf and the base for him as well as the two Guardians of the Covenant models.  I didn't do any basing on the Guardians because I'm not sure what the guy wants so I'll work with him on them later.
I'm really happy with the base on the wolf.

Thunderwolf and Arena Rex

Got a lot done on the Thunderwolf last night.  I'm still waiting on the paints for the Wolf Lord that goes with him though.  I'm pretty happy with the results so far.

I'm pretty much done with the wolf at this point and am almost done with the base.  I just need to do the gold highlights on the Thousand Son and a little bit of weathering to it and then do a few additions to the base to finish it all up.

One other thought, I'm very tempted to get into Arena Rex.  I think the models they have previewed look amazing and even if I never play it I would love to paint those models.  The one thing stopping me so far is the cost.  It looks like the models are going to average about $17 each.  If they are all as good as the Aquila sculpt, I'm definitely in but since they only have two models previewed at this point, I'm going to wait to see what else they show up.  With 25 more days to go, I'm hoping they can get a few more sculpts up before the close of the kickstarter.

WWX

Got my survey for Wild West Exodus today and I am trying really hard not to go too crazy on this thing.  I love the Warrior Nation models (especially Sitting Bull and Geronimo) but I also really like the Outlaws.  Having so much on my plate I've had to decide to just go with the Warrior Nation for now.  Even limiting myself to that I've already almost doubled my $299 pledge in extra stuff.  Silly me, I'm a sucker for cool terrain and the stuff they are offering from Micro Art Studios looks really cool and should go well with the stuff I have coming from Impudent Mortal.

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on all this stuff in September.  Hopefully I'll have worked through enough of my backlog to get right into them.

I also got word that my Dreadball Season II stuff has shipped as well as my Impudent Mortal terrain so I'm going to be even busier than normal here real soon... and just before I go on vacation, too.

Speaking of vacation, I'll be in the states for about a month and will not be updating this blog for a while then.  I leave in mid May and return in mid June.  Of course, I'll keep you posted as I get closer to the actual dates.  Anyway, a couple of places I'll be hitting on my trip that have me excited are the Battlefoam Gaming Saloon where I hope to con Kyle, Rik or Romeo into a game (and get a look at the actual WWX models), Gamer's Haven in Colorado Springs, Co, which is my old stomping grounds (as well as the place that got me into 40K and is, in my opinion, the best game store in the country) and I'll be seeing my buddies from my LARP days (never told you about that, did I?) in West Texas.  I'll also be doing a little scouting in Austin, TX to figure out a good location for a game store.

Oh... and I get to get some more ink which will definitely include this

No hobby tonight but I'll be back at it tomorrow.

The Secret Life of a Wargamer in a War Zone

As most loyal readers know, I'm a government contractor working on a US Army base in Afghanistan.  I've been here for almost eight years now and a lot of people think I'm crazy and they just might be right (I am the Syko Wargamer after all) but what does my life really look like?

I admit, in some respects I've got it pretty good.  Free meals, lodging, free laundry service, my uber hawt wife is here with me, we both make pretty good money in a failing economy and I get to play with toy soldiers twice a week (plus I paint at work).

Sounds pretty cushy, huh?

Now let's look at the reality.

Free meals - We eat most of our meals in a DFAC (Dining Facility) that is much like a run down buffet.  The food is nothing to write home about but it fills you up and it's free.  There is also a Burger King and Pizza Hut on base but I rarely eat there because it's pretty nasty.  The highlight for me is when we get "take out" from the Thai place on another base.  We also have to present two forms of identification in order to get food from the DFAC.

Free Lodging - Since my wife and I are here together we get "married quarters" which is a major step up from the rest of the population.  Our room is 7'x16' (most single rooms are 7'x8' and some guys are living in 7'x16' with two other roommates) with indoor heat and air conditioning.  We don't have a window and have another married couple on one side and a Colonel on the other.  We can literally hear our neighbors fart.  As you can imagine, we have to be very quiet at all times.

Free Laundry Service - We can turn in laundry any day and have a 24 hour turn around.  Of course our clothes usually come back with new stains on them and are in no way clean.  Needless to say, we don't keep nice clothes here.

Internet - We are able to purchase wifi internet for $90 a month.  That package gets you a whopping 512k bandwidth.  That's so slow that it takes over an hour to download a 400mb video.

Travel - Ah the joys of travelling.  It is one of the perks of this job that I've been able to go places I likely never would have otherwise.  I've been to Uzbekistan, Kirghistan, Turkey, Germany, England, Ireland, Australia, Thailand and the UAE (Dubai).  Of course, that all comes with a price.  In order for us to leave here we have to pay $750 round trip just to get to Dubai.  From there we can buy a ticket anywhere in the world.  Our trip home in May is costing us $1500 each from Dubai.  So that's a total of $4500 in airfare for the two of us to get home and back.  That's quite a chunk of change.

Being civilians, we are basically third class citizens in the eyes of most military, especially those in charge.

I came up with an analogy the other day that can really break down how it is for us over here:

Imagine that your apartment is run by a group of transients who get to live there for six months to a year and get to make new rules.  You are completely at their mercy and they can evict you with no notice on a whim.  They are angry that they have to live in this dump and try to take it out on the residents as much as they can.

Now imagine that at your job your management are the temps.  They come in on a year long contract with very little training and rely on you to fix everything, even though they are the ones who get the credit for it.  They are unhappy with their current job and really want to go back to their old job so they take out their anger at the regular employees who have been at their job for a few years.

Now, I'm not saying that I dislike the military because I don't.  If I didn't like them I wouldn't be here doing this job year in and year out.  I respect them and what they do but I do have to admit that I get a little fed up at times.

What does this have to do with war gaming?  Nothing.  I just wanted to give you a little glimpse of what it's like to be a war gamer in a war zone.

It Must Be My Magnetic Personality

I've been doing some work for a new guy here who is brand new to the hobby.  After reading a lot of the 40K lore he was drawn to the Dark Angels but didn't want to do what everyone else was doing so he went with Guardians of the Covenant.  We got him the Dark Vengeance set and quite a bit of other stuff to flesh out an army and he has been learning to model and paint and is doing pretty well at it (because I'm an awesome teacher).
Yesterday he brought in his Ravenwing Dark Talon so I could magnetize it for use as either a Dark Talon or Nephilim Jetfighter.  Initially I thought it would be an easy job but the more I looked at it the more I started to worry that it might be too much.  After about 10 hours of work, the magnetizing is done and it's ready for paint.

There are 24 magnetized parts on this thing and it's entirely interchangeable.  I'm actually kind of proud of the way it all came together.

Here it is in the Nephilim Jetfighter configuration:

And here is the Dark Talon configuration:

We just noticed this morning that the model has some Dark Angel iconography modeled on it and we are debating whether to shave it off or leave it.  I voted for shaving it but since some of his other models already have it we might just let it go.

I also have a deal I make with a lot of the guys here that if they want me to paint one of their HQ models for them I will do it for free just to get to paint some new stuff and try some new techniques.  I'm not a great painter but this is helping me get better.  Here are a couple of models I've been working on for him.  They are close to being done but I still have at least 10 hours to go on them.  This was my first go at SENMM (Sky-Earth Non-Metallic Metallic) and I'm fairly happy with the result.  I used a technique that Les from awesomepaintjob showed on his "How to Paint Space Wolves" video.

I'll be glad to be done with these so I can get back to my World Eaters (I know, I keep saying I'll do them) but there is also the matter of the Thunderwolf Lord I posted up the other day.  I started on the wolf the other night but am still waiting for the paints for the Wolf Lord himself.

As always, I have way too much to do and nowhere near enough time or skill to get it all done.