...and now for something completely different!

Well, I've taken the plunge and bought the PAK/CEF starter box for Heavy Gear.




Yeah I know, I know, I'm always crying poverty, but the BFG fleet auctions are going well and with 750 pts of Ork ships already, I'd rather give them a few tries before investing more. Plus now that my 'OOH! OOH! I wanna paint Cygnar' bug has passed, I'll probably sell those minis (no Rob, I won't sell your Nemo mini) & the Forces of Cygnar book. I think my IG Demolisher will go too & just wait to see what new tank kit comes out with the 40k Spearhead update. So it all kinda balances out. I know a lot of blogs like to follow their 'hobby funds' quite closely, whereas I just sorta 'wing it'. I usually finance my new purchases through the sales of old stuff, and I'm sure that my return to Heavy Gear will be no different.

A little BFG this week.

Hello, I haven't done a whole lot hobby-wise this week. I've been outside a bit more with the slowly improving weather (March is more or less a free-for-all weather wise). I also went to my Sister's for the weekend. My folks were in town for a brief visit. So was a good weekend.

Okay, minis...

I've been reorganizing my Battlefleet Gothic fleets. A buddy & I play about once a month on average, but we both have Imperial fleets, so its been a bit repetitive. So I've decided to try out the Orks. I'm now up to two of my scratch built 'Ork-N-Saw' Klass (the name is a play on the name of the state of Arkansas)light cruisers, however I need to bigger Kroozers as well as some escorts. So, with money tight as ever I've put the majority of my Imperial fleet on ebay. As they collectively stand, my auctions are @ $56 with four days & a hoard of watchers to go. So hopefully that'll give me a good start for Da' Boyz.

I did keep a paired down Rogue Trader fleet though, roughly 850 points or so. I've always liked the fluff of Rogue Traders, however the official GW RT rules 'Fabric of the Imperium' aren't too exciting. So instead i use the Warp Rift (issue 17) Rogue Trader rules. They allow for a lot more flexibility. However, there are quite a few typos and I really recommend double checking the point values via the Smotherman 2.0 formula available on the Port Maw website. Its about as close to an official BFG VDR as you can get. Its not technically official, but I've been using it for quite a while.

With the sale of all of my carriers, I reequipped my RT 'Trade Galleon' as a carrier. I had to repaint it but that's of no concern as i never much cared for its previous paint job. here it is so far, still a work in progress.



I've dubbed it the Merisicord, after a Rogue Trader like ship with a truly bizarre interior & culture(s) in the 2nd Sandy Mitchell Inquisition novel Innocence Prove Nothing.

We've also been looking into trying out Heavy Gear Blitz. I'm leaning towards a Port Arthur Korps (P.A.K.) starter box which also includes the rulebook. Dunno yet though, will see.

Burnout...

So at what point do you realize you're there?

I've noticed over the past several months that I've been getting grumpier & bitchier when it comes to my mini gaming hobby. I still love he models, still love the fluff, but...I just don't seem to be getting the enjoyment out of it that I used to. I'm sure that the omnipresent proxying that I was ranting about previously has a bit to do with it. Facing the same armies all the time doesn't help much either. A buddy of mine is coming over to play tonight and wanted to know if I'd mind if he brought the Deathguard...again. Prior to the SW codex release, barring 2 or 3 appearances of either Eldar or Witchhunters, he played Deathguard or demons for close to a year and a half straight. Actually prior to the Demon codex, it was nothing BUT Deathguard. He does also have enough marines to easily make another SM chapter, and there's an assload of IG I'm told will see the light of day sometime, and I hear of Orks getting painted too. But it always seems like he wants to play the same army (note, he is bringing WH tonight after some grumbling by me).

I think its a symptom of our small gaming group here locally. After the release of the SW codex, the three guys I play regularly (including the guy mentioned above) all play Space wolves, and as such it felt as though I played the entire chapter over the course over the course of 2-3 months. I have a bunch of armies myself, and try to rotate them every week so as to not get bored, sometimes I'll use the same list for 2 weeks in a row, but then they hit the shelf, and something else comes out. Perhaps that's just my continuous indecision & general lack of focus, but it REALLY aggravates me when my opponents get fixated on one army to the exclusion of all others. (the fact that I had three guys stuck on the Wolves just compounded that).

Problem is, that really shouldn't be a problem.

In fact most people have a 'primary army' that they focus on to the exclusion of most, if not all others. Mine started with IG for a few years, migrated to SM for a few more, and only in the past several have I started the constant rotation idea. So, I'm starting to think that I'm just burnt out on gaming. I really don't want to start any other armies, and frequently complain about GW's 'codex creep' (having dumped my beloved Orks so far down on the scale of HTH armies, that they're right there with the Eldar on the Psychic power scale is a common rant of mine). With winter's end I can go play outside some more (even though I'm told that its snowing out right now). Maybe I'll just pull back a bit from the hobby. I tend to game more in the winter due to the cold limiting what there is to do.

I don't want to quit gaming, far from it, I'm just not getting what I used to out of it. I dunno, does that sound like burnout to you?

Banner (version 243.5)

At least that's what it feels like. I close a document, look @ my desktop, and theres icons for logos, banners and portions thereof all over the place. Kinda mind boggling. Anyways, as you can see, I went off in a totally different direction this time around, aaaaand I think I like this a bit more.

As I've stated in the past, 'Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop' name was inspired by the famed WWII British recon unit known as the 'Long Range Desert Group'. The LRDG logo was a gold ring with a gold scorpion inside of it, and the initials 'LRDG' under the scorpion. So, going with that in mind I came up with the above logo. The squig was an image I pulled out of a google search, 'traced' in Adobe Illustrator, and the tweaked a bit. The Rest was also done in Illustrator. I dropped the gold instead just sampling colors out of the squig image.

So with that out of the way for the moment, I'll try to get my posts back to miniatures next time around (as opposed to focusing on my 'window decorations').

Banner

I've been playing around with a banner for this blog for the past two days. I got the idea after reading about it on 'Suneoken's' post on the 'Pathfinder' blog (many thanks to Dverning for finding this again for me, I'd lost the identity of that blog & post) . Anyways, depending on who has been viewing and when, some of you may have seen various banners pop in & out. I kinda like this one but I gotta ask, is it a bit too much? Over-powering, etc? I wanted to use my Battlewagon, but I think the model might just be too tall.

I dunno, as indecisive as I tend to be this banner may just be the first of many.

'Da Matilda' is my Battlewagon. It predates the current GW model by several years, instead being designed around the old Ork codex. In the old dex, zzap guns hit automatically so were far better than in their current form. The tank is relatively slow (futile as it often is, I still shoot the zzap gun every turn), a bunch of boyz can ride on top, its heavily armored and the zzap gun (with its variable strength & BS 2) makes for an abysmal offensive weapon. So rather oddly, the fighting characteristics of this Matilda are really little different from the Matildas of WWII.



Here's the first banner, which was removed, but is kinda necessary for this post)

WYSIWYG is DEAD! (and I weep...)

Okay, so I've so far avoided ranting on here (and I rant often, ask anyone I know) but this weekend @ the my FLGS more or less put me over the top, so now its time. The night started with the following (and basically went down hill from there as far as WYSIWYG is concerned). The 'flavor of the month' club was foaming at the mouth about the new BA codex, and the conversation went something like this:

"...and I'm going to run 2 harbingers, and have deep striking Landraiders, and Dante, and fast scouting Baals..."

"but they don't make harbingers, probably won't for a year'

"I'll just use Valkyries."

"will you convert them to look like they're Blood Angels?"

"no cause when the actual model comes out, I'll probably sell them.'

...sigh...


This seemed like as good a time as any to show you my entire BA collection, so here it is, whatcha think?

I would imagine the above conversation is being repeated allover the world @ the moment. I don't mind if someone proxies a mini to try something out a few times to see if they like it (nothing sucks more to spend $30-$50 to only find out you don't like your shiny new unit), or if something was left @ home, etc. But in general it seems anymore that when I go to the FLGS for the game, the same people have the same models proxied EVERY week, and they have NO plans to change this. "dude I always use my chaos marines as plague marines, except that week they were all Khorne berserkers..." I could just not play them, but I live in a small town with a small gaming group to start with. Being a veteran gamer, I should be able to look at an army that I'm about to fight, an army that I myself have I've played for years and know what I'm dealing with. I shouldn't have to hold my opponent's army list in my hand to try & figure out what the hell I'm shooting at for the entire game.

For example: My renegade IG took on the Orks this weekend. It didn't really occur to me till I was on my way home that literally every model in the Ork army was a proxy of something. The closest to the actual thing was a Battlewagon with an invisible deff rolla (because they're 'too expensive' according to the guy with roughly $400 of Orks) Here's what I faced vs. what it actually was:

HQ:
Warboss on bike w/2 power klaws, model used: reg. biker w/2 power klaws

Big Mek w/KFF, Model used: a reg mek on 25mm base with Kustom mega blasta, it was the one that comes with the Lootas

Troops:
a big mob of Nob bikers, models used: reg bikers

3X Ork Boys with shootas (20ea.) led by a nob with power klaw Models used: 3X(20) AoBR slugga boys & Warboss (acting as nob)

Hevy Support:
3x Battlewagons with Deff rollas, Kannon, Big Shoota & armor plates, Models used: (1) Battlewagon outfitted accordingly except for the Deff rolla, (2x) standard Leman Russ with no sponsons (certainly no size difference there, right?)

I really can't complain about all the warbikes, as the Forgeworld models are horrifically exepensive, although he could have made an effort to differentiate the wargear. I couldn't tell the doc, from a big choppa, from a power klaw, from a plain grunt, and so on. As for the Leman russes, they'd make for good looted wagons if an effort were made to 'Ork them up', but they aren't even painted, one isn't even fully assembled. You can just forget true line of sight, and the argument obviously ensued when the earthshaker round scattered off of the back of a russ, when were it an actual BW it would have been hit. (I held a russ over the BW to help visualize the footprint difference).

"but I don't want to pay for them!"

"then get them the hell out of your army list! You can easily make a full list without them."

"but I want them!"

Does this happen elsewhere? It's literally gotten to the point where roughly half of the armies that I'll potentially face on Saturday, are going to be proxied all to hell, and not because the player is trying something new. Rather because WYSIWYG doesn't matter.

And a few days for chaos...

So as per the norm, I put aside the Tau & painted a few Chaos minis. In preparing for the 610pt. game I talked about in my previous post, I figured that in an army that small, my commander should at least be painted. The 'new guy's' army is fully painted, though its kinda rough looking (in his defense, when I started playing my paint jobs were dreadful too).



Anyways, This model is an old one, been painted, repainted, stripped & repainted again over the years. I named him 'Ivan the Cannon' years ago, don't recall when, or in which army he was painted for at the time. I've always used this model as a sorcerer, usually armed with his 'bolter of change' or as in the last game, 'the doom bolter'. This time around I moved him back on the base (I glued a nickel into the base to eliminate any balance issues) & added the familiar to the base and the book of sorcery on his back. The pages are painted in a flesh tone, as no self respecting chaos sorcerer uses a book made of paper.



And the other mini I painted was my converted Renegade IG Enginseer. I used the Foregworld Nurgle Preacher and just added a servo skull, pistol holster, grenades, and a bit from Fabius Bile's backpack as a servo arm (not sure where I got this bit as my Fabius Bile mini is fully intact). The scrolls draped over the top are again painted in Dwarven flesh, to look as though the litanies (instructions/schematics?) of the Dark Mechanicus were written/carved into human flesh. It looks kinda pinkish though, may have to tone it down a bit.

My first game vs. the 'new guy'.

So we've got 2 new players that have been coming to the shop here of late, and I got to play one of them this past Saturday. So Dillon (the new guy) had 610pts total, and on hearing that the week before it occurred to me with a point limit that low, I could drag my gutted collection of CSMs out of storage for a game! Knowing that he's inexperienced and what he has in advance creates the problem of coming up with something competitive without handing him a soft list in which I'm all but letting him win. That was another reason for choosing my CSMs, as I have so few of them, I'm sorely limited as well.

I had:

HQ: Sorcerer with doom bolt

Troops: 7 man CSM squad with Power Weapon
6 man CSM squad with plasma Gun & Powerfist

Elite: Dreadnought with extra armor, twin-heavy bolter & Heavy Flamer

Hvy: 5 man Havocs with 1 ML

vs:

AoBR's ork contingent with an added Trukk & 5 Lootas.

Capture & control (I think, I can never remember, it was the mission where you each have 1 objective to capture & defend), Dawn of War deployment. He won the roll & deployed one mob with the warboss dead center & as far forward with the 2nd mob in the trukk aside them. I deployed the 7 man CSM squad on my objective (both of which were in opposite corners as is usual), & the Sorcerer & 6 man squad on my right.

Turn 1, I stole the initiative and in general just advanced. The sq. of 7 moved forward of the objective into some trees and away from my table edge, the dread hit the table, heard something in the darkness & blood raged forward into the night on my left flank. The havocs moved on into my center, the remaining CSMs & Sorerer advanced up on the right towards his objective. The orks, in true Orky fashion moved straight towards my objective, the Lootas moved into a decent firing position while the nobs moved in to cover their objective. The Trukk went 13" straight for my squad on the right his boys disembarked & opened fire (missing completely) swinging the wrecking ball also to no avail & then charged. Die rolling was pretty lousy all around with 2 wounds a piece & a tie combat.

The then the dark gods said 'Let there be light', and there was light, and it was good! The whole split second switch (as the turn ends) from darkness to daylight always strikes me as odd, but that's chaos for ya.

Turn 2, With my right locked in combat, the Dread & CSMs on the left opened up on the rapidly approaching Orks, killing all but 2 & the WB, not wanting the potential of them to drag the WB off the table the havocs fired (krak missile first so a scrub would take it) finishing off the mob & wounding the WB (He didn't give the WB eavy armor or a cybork body, to which I suggested that he never do that again!) Luckily the WB passed his LD. At this point I was afraid that I was murdering the new guy, which can be quite discouraging for the both of us, luckily though fate intervened and my dice rolling tanked. For the rest of the game. The lootas opened fire at the Dread, but inflicting no damage, the trukk sat & watched (if it fired it didn't connect, not sure exactly) as I lost 2 marines in HTH for no Ork losses, of course when rolling all 1s & 2s, I didn't run away. The WB chose (@ my suggestion) to use his WAAAUGH to get into combat with the CSMs (after explaining why he shouldn't charge the closer dread, which he was about to do) meanwhile the lootas continued to annoy the dread, though not cause it any harm. Charging in with his Power claw, the CSMs & WB were dismal all around with 1 wound a piece, while my CSMs on the right finally broke the Orks & ran them down.

Turn 3, The Dread, disgusted with getting shot determined that it was the Havocs that were causing all of his problems & summarily killed one while expending lots of ammo. The Sorcerer & 2 remaining marines advanced passed the trukk, fired a few shots @ it & missed. The Havocs distracted by the dread managed to not hit anything either. Nothing of interest happened in HTH. The Deff Koptas arrived on turn three right into my backfield, while the trukk tank shocked my CSMs on the right who simply stepped aside.
Amused by the dread shooting @ me, the deff Koptas ignored it & charged into HTH, adding a whole lot of more bad dice rolls. I lost a few more CSMs, but they held.

Turn 4 the Sorcerer split off from the 2 CSMs on the to go for the Lootas while they survivors ran towards the Nobs. The Havocs unloaded on the approaching trukk missing with the missile and not hitting anything important with the bolters. The Dread blood raged into HTH rolling 4 '2s', although the CSMs finished off the WB & wounded a Kopta breaking & running them down. The ork trukk meanwhile tank shocked & broke the havocs sending them off the table, while the lootas switched to the CSMs, killing one.

Turn 5 the dread opened fire on the Trukk immobilizing it, The Sorcerer doom bolted and rolling a snake eyes to wound the lootas & the 2 CSMs closed to shooting range of the nobs, though not hitting. The Dread then charged & destroyed the trukk. Having no forward units left, the Lootas continued shooting the CSMs on my objective cutting them down to 2, while the nobs shot @ my other 2 CSMs to no effect.

Contnuing into turn 6, the Dread blood raged forward again while Sorcerer turned towards the Nobs & killed some foliage that seemed to have caught his attention. The 2 advancing CSMs fired into the air before charging the nobs & dying to a man for no positivie effect. The lootas in turn fired @ my 2 remaining CSMs on my objective killing 1. The lone survivor passed his LD test, and with the next roll being a 1, the game ended in a tie.


So in the end it was a close fought game. I made a few suggestions for tooling up his WB, and he bought a box of boys to add some numbers to his army. Normally I'd be mad as hell with the dice rolling so horribly, but this turned out to be one of those rare occasions in which it worked out nicely by balancing out the vast difference in experience levels.

Tau, 3rd Sphere expansion...

Or, umm rather 3rd wave of assembly.

So I've FINALLY started on the Tau again in earnest. I (try to) blame a friend of mine for the previous stoppage on working on the Tau. I had offered to paint one of his Hammerheads using his colors (blood red & commando khaki) & just coming up with a decent scheme. Ugh, it was a nightmare, coat after coat after coat...ya know, for a 'foundation paint', deneb stone isn't very opaque!

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

Anyways, onto my Tau. I recently finished Commander Farsight as was posted earlier, and this week has been one of assembly, with a touch of paint. I've put together 12 fire warriors, a squad of 8 with pulse rifles, and a Sushi (yes they're really called that) with a bonding knife. The remaining 4 were given carbines and will fill out my carbine squad to 12. Mounted in a devilfish, I've dubbed them the 'forlorn hope'. Their job will be to flank the enemy & not lose me the game (whenever I successfully flank someone, there's a 90ish% chance that I'll lose the game, no idea why this is). I've also assembled & base coated a hammerhead with railgun & burst cannons (the smart missiles were giving me problems, so I tossed them into the bitz pile), and primed 6 gun drones (read: filler). I can easily field 1500 points, but locally we usually play 1750pts. Though I've made a 600pt list to try out vs. one of the newer players. Too small a list to use Farsight, and the new guy plays Orks, typical.

I've yet to start on the Broadside. Looking though the pieces, there were the usual bends in the railguns, nothing a little hot water and some gentle bending won't correct. However the gates on the plasma rifles are in what looks to be the most inconvenient place that Forgeworld could have placed them.



Really? NOT on the nice flat surfaces on the back of the gun, but on the curved tip with all the recessed areas? ...sigh... I'm sure that falls under the 'for experienced modelers' clause (maybe I'll send them to 'The Inner Geek', he's one of those).