I Love Specialist Games

In an attempt to keep busy during the surplus of family time that I've had over the past week or so I dug out a bunch of board games we had lying around. I'm not a hardcore boardgamer and only really have the classics - Risk, Monopoly, Clue. But when I was going through our collection I stumbled on a game from a few years ago that I'd never tried before, Milton Bradley's Battle Ball. It was easy to pick up, and while the rules are very poorly written, my family and friends spent a few quality hours playing it.


I was having a particularly enjoyable game with one of my other friends that I play 40k with, who asked if it was anything like Blood Bowl. I admitted that I knew very little of Blood Bowl, but we were having such a good time with the poorly constructed Battle Ball game that it only stood to reason that such a game with a solid set of rules would be even more fun. I spent the next couple of days researching anything I could find on Blood Bowl, which, for someone with an internet connection, is quite a lot! I started with the reference page on Games Workshop and read their competition rulebook which had me interested but didn't seem very accessible for a new player.

On a whim I googled "Blood Bowl Podcast" and found an absolutely fantastic show called "3 Die Block." They have an episode from October of 2009 for beginning Blood Bowl players that details everything about the game in an easy to understand format where one of the hosts assumes the roll of a Blood Bowl novice, and asks questions about the game mechanics that the other host then answers. It was a really great show that made it feel like I was personally being taught how to play by a couple of local veterans.

There are two problems with Blood Bowl, as with any specialist game: old miniatures, and the need for a thriving community. The miniatures problem is easily tackled with all the new GW plastic ranges (I'm planning on converting up a team of Orcs). When it comes to the 2nd problem, I'm in a very lucky position. Evan and I live thirty minutes from the LA Battle Bunker which provides awesome support for the specialist games ranges!

I've taken advantage of this community support by playing Epic 40,000. Epic is such a fantastic game! I'm the type of person who has every episode of Battle Plan recorded on their DVR, and reads memoirs of Guderian, Patton, and Rommel. The application of tactics are what got me into wargaming in the first place, and Epic truly gives the experience of strategically commanding an army.

Epic Troops

Super Heavy Detachment

The Crown Jewel of my Epic IG

Epic Aircraft. I also use these for Forgeworld's Aeronautica Game.

The other thing I like about Specialist Games is the involvement of the community. For both Epic, and Blood Bowl, there are a variety of community collaborated "Living Rulebooks" which keep the 20+ year old games up to date, and it is up to the community to design terrain, convert better looking minis, and generally maintain everything about the game. I feel like these games belong to the community, where the bigger games like 40k and Fantasy belong to GW.

A Piece of Epic Terrain I made from Sacrificing an Ork Great Gargant.

This is why I love the Specialist Games ranges, and why in the new year I want to make them a bigger part of my hobby experience. Along with the Chaos Challenge, my primary hobby focus for the new year will be constructing a Blood Bowl team or two, designing and building a custom Orky pitch, and participating more often in the local Specialist Games community.

What are some of your new years hobby resolutions?

Merry Christmas!

Hey guys, just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas! Or a happy holidays depending on your religion, I hope you all had a great day and were able to spend time with the family and get some sweet stuff! :D

Sorry for the lack of posts, the holidays have slowed things down a bit . The Chaos challenge is still on, I got a lot of cool minis today, and look forward to posting porgress on my Nurgle army, full of lots of conversions and a fairly cool paintjob :) - sort of unorthodox means of painting the Marines, but it turned out pretty good. I will post pics and the steps in the paintjob within the next day or two.

Time to get drunk with the fam, play some goofy American Idol PS2 game (a game that can only be played drunk) and pass out on the floor :P

Cheers!

Holiday Giveaway Prize

Papa JJ, the winner of our holiday giveaway, requested a drop pod for his Raptors Space Marine Army and here it is! Evan and I picked this up for him today from our FLGS, Brookhurst Hobbies.

We'd like to thank Brookhurst for making this giveaway possible with their 20% discount on all Games Workshop products. Check out their website here.

You can also check out Papa JJ's Raptor's project on his blog dicerolla.

Congratulations Papa JJ, enjoy the drop pod!

Holiday Give Away Winner!

Well the day has come to announce the Holiday Give Away winner, which is Papa JJ! He won a box of troops, details will be posted later as they are in Jake's email and I can't see them to post exactly what was won.

Congrats JJ, and thanks for being a loyal follower!

Cheers

Nurgle!!!

Finally! My Forge World Nurgle Daemon Prince and Herald came in the mail today, and after spending an extensive amount of time trying to get everything how I liked it, I finally got everything built. I forgot how tough the Forgeworld stuff is to build sometimes, it seems a lot of it doesn't properly fit together, but the detail makes up for any problems! Now it is just a matter of finding a few good zombie painting tutorials and doing a little research on what I would like the skintone to look like - I will definitely post updates as I go. I have to admit, I am pretty nervous; after spending so much money on the mini, it has to be perfect (and it doesn't help that I am extremely self critical).

Anyways, here are some extremely pixilated pictures I took with my $10 phone.

And of course I accept the Chaos challenge, and will be doing some pretty heavily converted Death Guard stuff. Death guard has always been my thing, and was what I was primarily known for at the local hobby store until I got fed up and overwhelmed and sold everything. Now, I am hoping my second attempt will be even more crazy than the first, with cooler, cleaner conversions as well as a semi competative list.

Here is the rough list so far - it obviously needs tweaking, some play time, and some buffing up, but it will give a basic idea. Going for the Havoc Launcher spam this time around:

HQ: Daemon Prince

Troops: 7 Plague Marines, X2 Meltas, Plague Champion with Power Fist and Bolter

-Rhino, Daemonic Posession, Havoc Launcher

Troops: 7 Plague Marines, X2 Flamers, Plague Champ with Power Fist and Bolter

-Rhino, Daemonic Posession, Havoc Launcher

Then quite possibly a Vindicator..or 3 :)

Cheers!

(The 'Not So Drawing' for the Holiday Giveaway is tomorrow, seeing as no one else entered, it looks like Papa JJ will be the winner! Thanks for being such a loyal follower! However, there is still time for others to enter, don't see why anyone would pass up on free stuff)

Final Week of Holiday Giveaway and I Call Evan out For a Chaos Challenge

Finals are finished and I'm coming into a nice long Warhammer break! We've gone ahead and taken the luxury of neglecting the blog over the past week to make some study time without the guilty feeling that I've been having when I go too long without posting over the past months because there weren't any more followers anyway (except Papa JJ, thanks for being so cool!). Seriously though people, we're offering you free stuff! In an effort to streamline the process I'm removing one of the original steps we had from the contest. Now, all you've got to do is click "follow" on the blog and you're in the running for some free minis.

The break just started but I've already committed myself to a hobby overload. Much, much earlier this year I offered to paint a buddy's Space Wolves army. His collection is probably in excess of 4,000 points. I've dawdled around, painting a single terminator, or a blood claw here and there but now he's laid down the law and slapped a January 14th deadline on at least 1,250 points for the team tournament that we'll be entering. Thus far I've completed a Land Raider Crusader, a handful of blood claws, and that's it.

Minor Victories

While the task seems astronomical, it's by no means insurmountable but there's one major problem holding me back - The Call of Chaos!

Chaos has some kind of hold on me and I know that I've never really strayed from its ruinous powers to explore other facets of the game, but I just can't resist.
As I draw my Khorne CSM army to a close I'm looking for another project, and it's undoubtedly going to be Chaos related.

Evan, having pulled together the final pieces of his Blood Angels, just started converting a new Nurgle CSM themed army. I know the blog has thus far given the impression that Evan and I are real tight, but there's competitiveness between us pushed on by the Chaos Gods themselves. Right here, right now, I'm calling him out for a Chaos Challenge! Who can make the most awesome abomination of an army the 41st millennium has ever seen... between the two of us anyway. But already I feel that I"m somewhat behind. Evan has a clear picture of what he wants to achieve with his Nurgle force, and I haven't even decided on a faction!

On the marine front I'm faced with two distinct choices - Slaanesh, and Tzeentch.

Here's an example of some Noise Marines I painted (for the record though, Evan did these conversion for me, so I might just be awarding him points by using them for the challenge).

I've never done any Tzeentch but I have a lot of ideas for a very mystic looking force that would make use of Dark Angel cloaks, chaos spiky bits, and a whole lotta green stuff. They seem really fun, and pretty under-represented on the table top. I'd love to run around, turning people into Chaos Spawn and letting AP 3 bolter shots fly all over the table.

The other routes would be a huge deviation from my marine-centric hobby experience: a Chaos Daemons force, or a Traitor Guard legion. I love a lot of the daemon models, but I'm seriously worried about my dice rolling abilities, the steep learning curve, and the spattering of daemon hunters across every gaming table in the near future.

I actually own some Daemons

On the other hand I've got serious wood for the Forgeworld traitor guardsmen, but they're so damn expensive! I'm at a loss at this point. I'm continuing to pray to the dark gods for guidance, but eventually I'm going to have to bone up and make a decision. Help me out brothers!

Holiday Giveaway!

As promised, here are the details for our Holiday Giveaway! In order to enter, you must either be an existing follower, or become one. After becoming a follower, send an email to either angeluscensura@yahoo.com or daemonetteboobs@gmail.com letting us know what project or army you are currently working on.

Each email should contain "New Entry - [your name as a follower]" as the subject, and your project in the body.

The raffle will be held on December 15th by random drawing from a hat, and the winner will receive a troops box unique to that individual's current army project, just in time for the holidays! We will announce the winner on the 16th of December, as well as send email notification. If all goes well, we plan on doing similiar contest and giving out free stuff more often, hopefully getting bigger and better prizes as the blog progresses.

The only rules: Entry must be 40k, and only one entry per person

Good luck, and happy holidays!

Cheers!