Dazzling, isn't it?

o/

Just a quick post using my meager Photoshop skills (I work primarily in Illustrator). Pondering a color scheme for the YV-666, the first thought was the fading metallics that I use on our other S&V ships. Or, how about repainting it in a razzle dazzle paint scheme?

Ironically, with that backdrop, its does more to stand out than it does to conceal. Still, razzle dazzle only works at a distance anyways so...

Whatcha think?

Just as an aside: ever since the idea popped into my head, this song popped in there too, and hasn't gone away...which isn't a bad thing really. :-)

Enter the YV-666

It all started like this on the phone last week:

Hey, are you going to be there Saturday? (the FLGS)

Yeah, why?

Can I borrow that flying toolbox of yours? I just want to try it out for the hell of it.

You can have it.

That's not what I was asking for but okay...

Merry Christmas, its yours.

Makes ya wonder how such an odd design ever made it off of the drawing board...

lol, and with that ringing endorsement of the ship's capabilities...I'm now the proud owner of Murl's YV-666 (a.k.a.: the Flying Toolbox). List in hand, we crammed 4 players onto a standard 3' x3' space mat (myself and my beloved Wolfy on one side with Bob and Murl on the other, as well as Kushial who was acting as combat cameraman). With the exception of Bob, it was Scum and Villainy all around and battle was quickly joined. Here are a few highlight photos:

The enemy, Scum and the Empire.

The 'good guys' our pure Scum and Villainy!

...and just like that, the battle lines turned into a furball.

Guris, Guris everywhere! One is a 'butterfly ship' and the other, a 'moth'.

Fucking tailgaters...

Apparently hitting the broadside of a barn isn't so difficult after all, and the YV-666 goes boom. Nope, no escaping Z-95 from it either. :-(

My astro-mech's name? Its Wile E. Coyote: Genius! Or as Bob put it: 'That move has a whole lot of go F yourself written all over it' lol. That TIE lost 2 hull points to the Proximity mine!

Dear god, its almost 11:00 PM!

At that point we called it a draw as Murl was ready to crash (physically), and the rest of us were beat as well. As for the Toolbox, It'll take some playing around with to get used to, and it will definitely need a new coat of paint of some sort too!

For once, there's some exciting news in 40k...

...exciting to me anyways.

Apparently, Forgeworld is getting off of its ass, and is finally updating the Doom of Mymeara! I spotted this during my weekly perusal of Bell of lost souls, and for the first time in a long time, I was glad I gave that site a look. True, a quick skim of the comments ran along the lines of OMG! The Eldar are more OP! More D everywhere! Nerd RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!! and the like.

You know, the usual.

What the fuck ever, not everyone plays like that, and if they all do, then maybe the assholes playing the game are more at fault rather than the assholes in Nottingham, but I digress...

Anyways, the Eldar are my largest surviving army, and are broken up into roughly 3 equal, 500ish point parts: Craftworld Iyanden, Exodites and Siam-Hann-ish Corsairs (they're so counter-culture that they don't have any jet bikes!).

Sifting through the rumors, the following tidbits caught my eye and generated the aforementioned excitement:

The piss-poor Void dreamer has gotten an overhaul, though whether or not its for the better remains to be seen. Currently, the Dreamer only has 1 good power (Soul Scry) and is more dangerous for his Neural Shredder than anything else. I use the Dreamer so often that mine said 'fuck it, I'm going back to Iyanden where I can be an actual Farseer!' The powers have been redone, so there's some hope there, and they have their own perils chart which looks harsher than the normal one (basically, if you have to roll on it, you're fucked in some form or fashion).  Speaking of psychic powers, all of the Corsair HQ's will have the option to get them.

As for the Corsair Prince him/herself, there's a much needed point reduction of 25 points (currently a very basically equipped one usually clocks in at 120 points). Plus he has a 12" LD bubble, no idea if the rarely useful orbital strikes will still be there or not, but better yet...

Ahoy mateys!!!!

...there's now a 'Baron' option for an HQ which clocks in a mere 30 points. He's probably a glorified Sgt., but as I only have 500 points of Corsairs to begin with, I have a feeling that this will be my little contingent's go-to-Commander.

All of the Corsairs will also have 2 LD values, a higher one to test on as normal and a lower one to regroup with, because Corsairs know that dead pirates don't get any booty! Its fluffy, and yes its detrimental, but I like it! Also, for +10 points they can upgrade their armor to a 3+ save, and can reroll difficult and dangerous terrain, at the cost of Fleet. Hell, they didn't have Fleet to begin with so yes, sign me up for some of that please!

Speaking of, the Corsairs' version of Fleet is a flat 6" AFTER shooting. With jet pack equipped models getting 6" + another D6". That means jet packs are still optional: YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! I believe the intent is to let people bolster their forces with plain old Guardians (lasblasters and shuriken catapults are interchangeable currently). HOWEVER, if you have the lasgun toting Guardians from the olden days lying around like I do (I have 20+ of them) then you're in luck...and if not, well they sell for ridiculoulsy low prices on ebay. Also, Corsairs will now have Guardian stat lines (LD excluded), with Felarchs (Sgt.'s) having +1 WS & LD.

An finally regular Eldar (all of the other types) are Battle brothers so they'll still sink up nicely with my other little contingents.

Edit: ....and then this morning I spotted this post on Faeit 212 (just skip the parts about the Titan and summoning Daemons).

Painting minis in space...

My beloved Wolfy was stricken with a cold this weekend, and as such we skipped going to the FLGS in hopes of not passing Nurgle's blessings onto the rest of the gang. So, whilst she slept for most of the evening, I geeked out with a combination of miniature painting and EVE Online.

More commonly known as Spread Sheets in Space, I've done quite a bit of painting whilst in EVE as I'm not a spread sheet person. While shuttling ships around on auto-pilot I found anomalies galore in a neighboring system to my destination, and the fact that I had them all to myself! That's about as good as high-sec PvE gets. Sure all of the combat sites would have been more entertaining (and probably lucrative), but I opted for mining a bunch of rare ores instead. Its much easier to paint when you can play afk.

Ah yes, this is the life....

There was some excitement of a sort though I guess. I got into a discussion-turned-argument with my alt. character's corp execs about just how fucking boring the corp itself is. No, this wasn't the first time, but it got a bit more heated this go round, with one rage-logging off and myself eventually just closing the chat channel in disgust. They did mention a fun idea, but quickly killed/buried it in their typical over-abundance of caution, so much so that I likened it to wading thru government red tape. 

They were not amused.

That said, my in-corp character hasn't been given the boot, so I guess they'll get over it. Of course I said this was about painting in space and yes, amid the furious typing another infantry squad for The Buffet Assault Group as well as my HMG team managed to get painted, additionally my third infantry squad got a base coat too.

Blue Squad standing by...

The weapons team's armor is slightly different, hence the altered paint scheme.

A group shot of all of my painted Gruntz thus far.

Up close they're not much to look at (curse you zoom lens!), but all together and when they make it to the table top, I think they'll be looking pretty good.

The Victory (class) is mine!

o/

As I mentioned in my last post, Screech brought over his vast Armada collection and after a quick rules crash course, challenged me via the starter scenario...

Anyone who's run this scenario knows the set-up, so here we see turn one already in progress (i.e.: I forgot to take a set-up photo).

Go forth little TIE Fighters, either glory or your doom awaits you....

1st blood!

Sadly, it was their doom, not glory as the Rebel's Vermillion Squadron not only went first but was assisted by a full-on broadside coming from the Nebula class frigate.

That's my boy!

Concentrate firepower into the Nebula's starboard side!!!

With 1 hit point left it was time to move, and (quote) 'You could ram me, and because you're 'that kind of player' you will ram me and its dead. Crap.'

For the Glory of the Empire!!! Actually no, here we see the last few TIE fighters dying...

Ah yes, that oh-so-typical scene you see in battle reports about Armada, the Corvette behind the Victory. Concentrating forward firepower unfortunately amounted to very little as the lasers were obliterated by the VSD's engine wash...

The TIE fighters are all dead, sad face.

Unable to slow boat it, or simply wanting the game to end, the Corvette comes alongside for an exchange of broadsides which...

...ends in predictable fashion.

Yes, he: let the Wookie win (and yes, that's applicable as my beard is going on 2 months or so w/o a trim...). The game was fun and I wouldn't mind getting a small fleet of my own, however for the foreseeable future there's no budget for that. Luckily, Screech has 5 VSDs, 2 Gladiators, hordes of TIE fighters, 3-D printed alternate ships, 2 Nebulas, 3 (or maybe more) CR90s, and another horde of Rebel Fighters, so purchases by me are not required.

:-)

Something, Something, Something, Darkside...

o/

So, when Star Wars Armada was officially announced as a future release, I was curious about the game but that's about it. However Screech, my adopted little brother all but had a raging hard on for the game for no other reason than the fact that he could have a Star Destroyer. He freely admitted it too. Hell, we were giving an X-Wing demo to some friends and his comment was (quote):

'You don't need to worry about this game, because 6-months down the road a vastly superior game is coming out.'

The game was still in development, little was known about it aside from you can field a Star Destroyer, and that apparently equaled 'vastly superior'. As such, the insistence that Armada is better without knowing really anything about it mantra really kinda ticked Wolfy and I off, and we basically ignored it out of spite/annoyance.

You will respect my authoritah!!!

Then the game was released and very quickly, people got bored with it because with so few models every game was basically the same (i.e.: Screech kicking everyone's ass!). Combine that with FFG's 'there's a new release every 4-6 months' schedule (something that's caused at least one local Armada player to rage-quit the game already), and stagnation was almost immediate. Another reason we avoided Armada after its release, is that we didn't know if it would catch on or not. Actually that's partly why we stayed away from X-Wing for a year or so. Has Armada caught on? Well, honestly its kinda gone quiet locally, as people await further releases and some much needed variety.

A little ways back I downloaded the rules and read thru them, I checked various blog reviews on different ships, cards, squadrons, and game play, and in general all seemed positive for the most part. The game does look good, and looks to fill the void created by the demise of BFG (and no, a video game of BFG doesn't make up for that either!)

Really? They couldn't do anything better than this fugly looking ship? Did they never show the back end of the ship in the video game that spawned it? What the hell?

The Rebels don't have much appeal to me (unlike X-Wing where they're my preference) because (1) their 1st capital ship looks just god awful (Screech's thought on the Mk II was: 'Rebel players were so desperate for a ship to compete with a Victory Class and would buy anything due to the lack of choices' which sadly, makes a lot of sense...). (2) Whilst I understand that a Victory Star Destroyer isn't an Imperial Star Destroyer, I don't think its right that a pair of escorts ought to have a good chance of killing one just for game balance (despite the above mentioned need for the Mk II). Fluff wise, that just strikes me as a contradiction right out of the box (literally). (3) and yes, I'd rather have a Star Destroyer because, who the hell wouldn't?

Game Balance?

...or Canon fluff?

...yeah, fuck you game balance!

The game's cost is a concern as well, X-Wing is cheap by most standards, whereas Armada is a lot more expensive though still nothing like 40k's insane pricing (What's that you say? Three new Battletech-like Tau super-suits for $150 EACH?!? Sign me up!). Still, Screech is coming over to give me a demo on Armada tonight (a.k.a.: last Thursday by the time this posts. We have family in town from New Jersey, Kentucky and Nashville and its not even a friggin' holiday! So this post is being typed up well in advance).

Actually, the biggest draw that I have to Armada is the simple fact that its a game that Screech and I can play together. I've called him my adopted little brother for years now (he used to be one of the annoying little brats at the FLGS) and we've gamed together for over a decade. However over the past few years, our tastes have changed and we don't currently play any games together. Sure we both still have Battletech and 40k, but those two rarely hit the tabletop anymore. Indeed the last game we played together was Infinity, yeah..that game.

So I'm hoping I'll like Armada, and if so then maybe down the road I'll build up a smallish fleet of my own (Christmas presents perhaps? hint, hint...lol).

well, technically 1/3 of my infantry is painted now...

...sounds kinda impressive till you realize that that's just half a dozen 15mm minis plus a small stand of my Battle Cattle. Man life has just been brutally busy here of late, so much that only managing to finish 6, half-painted 15mm minis sadly feels like an accomplishment! Wolfy and I keep telling ourselves that next week things will slow down, but after 2-3 weeks of that, I'm starting to wonder if it ever will or not.

Over there. Shoot the one over there!

I guess that that's why I cling to playing with my toys (mini gaming), because aside from sex, being an adult sucks!

My little army is starting to take shape

o/

With the arrival and assembly of my 2nd order from Khurasan, The Buffet Assault Group is starting to look like a coherent force. Check em out:

My 1st infantry squad has started to get some paint.

My commander is still awaiting his/her replacement weaponry which is enroute from Scotland...

After building the APC's turret and seeing what the gun actually looked like up close, I changed its stat card, swapping the full-auto laser cannon to a medium grenade launcher.

I wonder how long it'll be before that little machine gun snaps off of there...

My army as a whole.

These will work for the time being as right now what they need is paint and to get some games under their belts. Additional units are something I can worry about later after everything has been painted. Yes, I know, I know, how many times have I, or has every other game said that, right? but at 15mm, these guys are so small that honestly, there's no excuse no to have em all painted...

(...and again, how many times have I said that too?)

Recruits from The Ion Age.

o/

One rule that struck me as odd in Gruntz, well not so much a rule but rather a stat is that of the army commander. I had figured on using a spare squad sergeant as my commander but...

Hrmm, the guy on the right has the same number of hit points as a light tank...

Yeah, okay that won't work.  There is an optional rule which allows you (and your opponent assuming you both agree to it before hand) to give your commander a more realistic single wound, or just house rule it to whatever number of wounds you'd like. However we've yet to even get a single game in, so adding in house rules from the outset ought to be avoided I think.

I thought the command tek/module that can be added to a vehicle would effectively turn that vehicle into your commander, but then I found the following on the Gruntz forum which killed that idea.

Damnit.

So, I decided (as I've mentioned in an earlier post) to 'build' my commander as a mech (essentially) since he/she'll be a walking tank anyways...thus my purchase of a Havelock battle suit from The Ion Age. However my mini arrived with the incorrect weapon fit.

The gun I received is the one in the top left corner.

No, this is what I was wanting.

Sad Face. 

There's a small gun on the back of that huge fist, which I'm calling a grenade launcher...

Sending them an inquiry about the mix up, I was told that my mini went to Holland and I got that customer's mini in turn. However the correct weapons are already in the mail, so all is good. Gavin, The Ion Age's Creative Manager also asked where I'd heard of them (Table Top Fix) as I'm a new customer, and what I'd intended to do with the minis I'd ordered (and I was happy to do so).

That was 'minis' (plural) as aside from the Havelock battlesuit, I also ordered an previously free monthly release called a Vending Bot (there's a new free and unique design every month), but even paying for it the cost was minimal (plus I received this month's free mini as well). I'm sure we'll use the bot as an autonomously roaming objective in a scenario of some sort. Meanwhile Gavin's reply in regards to the free minis echoed my sentiments on gaming here of late:

"The free monthly's are pure 'whimsy' a sense of fun that is sadly lacking now.  Without it there would be no Vending Bot and as it is, it is REALLY popular."

What? you wanted a Mountain Dew? Sorry, the vending bot slammed a few itself and now its so hyper that it won't slow down long enough for anyone to get one for themselves!

Whimsy, yes what happened to that?  That wasn't necessarily what I was looking for in Gruntz, but hell let's add it in anyways!