40K Friday - 2013 & 2014

Looking back, 2013 was a pretty good year for 40K here. Focusing on one game helped a lot as my limited time wasn't split up trying to paint and play across multiple games. I find that having a regular routine of playing something reinforces my interest in painting stuff for that game, even if it's not one particular army.

Posting-wise I had 31 posts on it this year, and compared to the 21 in 2012 that's indicative of the jump it took in priority. I covered a pretty wide swath of subjects under "40K Fridays" and I expect that to continue. I'm going to keep it as the Friday thing too - it's working for me.

It's really getting ridiculous now

For the Apprentices:

• Red remains committed to his Orks and Necrons. Christmas was good to both, filling in some needed units and a painted Ghazghkul that he was very pleased to meet. As of yesterday we found a deal locally that just about doubled the size of his Necron force, allowing him to push ahead with his Necron ork-style horde army plans of throwing about 80 warriors on the table as his core force. I'm probably going to be the guinea pig for his first test of this concept on Sunday. 
• Blaster has been "ELDAR!!!" for most of the year though he rediscovered his Space Wolves after getting a painted Logan Grimnar for Xmas and started working on finally building his tanks that spent most of the year sitting in boxes. Both of his armies are in pretty good shape and he has enough units that he has some choice as to what he fields in a typical fight. Both of them are finally past the "take everything you have" stage and have to make some decisions on how to build their force.
• Apprentice Who began his 40K experience as of Christmas with some Chaos Marines. He spent a lot of time flipping through codexes and magazines and decided he liked those the best so that's what was in his box. It's a small force, but we will see if it holds his attention enough to expand it.

Some recently recruited Wolf Guard

Personally I played more in 2013 than I have in years. I played my marine, deathwing, and ork armies all multiple times over the year and I'm pretty happy about that. Having in-house opponents does make things easier.

On the crafting side of things I made lots of progress:

• The reorganization of the Crimson Fists is finally just about complete with the core HQ's and troops and tanks and transports all done and just some new units I'm adding in to be finished.
• I made a rule to only add painted unis to the Imperial Fists Deathwing and that's exactly what I did. It's a lot of fun to be able to tweak an existing force without adding to the paint queue. 
• My Orks finally came together in my head as far as what I want that force to be. It's not all built and painted - though a lot of it is - but it's all separated in the boxes and baskets it lives in and most of it is usable on the table. The new codex coming this summer might force some adjustments but based on recent codexes I doubt it will be anything major.
• Partway through the year I decided to make my Dark Angels a 100% "new" army - no old figures. My Griffons are entirely old RT miniatures and my Crimson Fists are a mix of everything from RT to 5th edition though mostly 2nd and 3rd and with all old-style vehicles. I wanted at least one marine army that was using the modern stuff. My DA's are all recent models so it was an easy choice to make. 
• Late in the year I realized that I had enough "waiting" models for my Griffons and Fists that I could instead build an entirely separate marine army. I had been looking at Blood Angels anyway, so I decided to turn them into a BA army. Right now this is purely infantry plus a dreadnought but it's a start. They are organized, mostly base-coated, and expanded a bit to from a usable force. The infantry is almost all old-school but I want to keep the vehicles new-school, so the next step is to start adding on those nifty fast tanks and special dreads. 
• I nailed down what I wanted my chaos marines to be and organized and built the core of that force. Now I just need to paint it.  

Well they're mostly red and ... mostly together

Not everything was a win though:

• Those Dark Angels ended the year largely unbuilt and unpainted. I was leaning towards a pure Ravenwing army for them, but I like having more options than just bikes. I have since come up with a plan for them though and they are priority #1 for 2014 as far as getting an army into usable shape. They will be 100% built and painted by me, no shortcuts.
• The Blood Angels are a messy mix of built but not painted and painted but not built. I am reconsidering them right now as it might make more sense to keep them at a minimal size (HQ + troops) and put some of the parts back into the other marines I already have. The plan would be to revisit them when their eventual new codex comes out.
• The Imperial Guard force I acquired a while back continues to sit - it's mostly painted and built (because it came that way) but I just can't get excited about them. The "allied IG blob" is still a fairly popular option so I continue to hang onto them as my Dark Angels especially seem suited to some kind of shenanigans with them, but so far they are "in reserve". Maybe the codex coming this spring will fire them up again.
• I also had the beginnings of an Eldar army but even with the new book I had a hard time focusing on them. At the very end of the year I was smitten with the idea of building an Iyanden wraith army and picked up some pieces for that. This would be another "100% new stuff" army as so much of my existing one is old old old. Some of the pieces are painted too so I am a little ahead of where I might be otherwise, but in general I want to build and paint this one myself.
• Lady Blacksteel's Dark Eldar continue to lurk in their box seeing zero progress during 2013.
• The campaign theme for the year pretty much fizzled out by March. I'm debating whether I should try to resurrect it for 2014, go with a different theme, or just play the games and not worry about it. 

Part of a daemon army being repaired

So the plan for 2014 is to keep playing! After that it's to focus on Dark Angels first and get them tabletop-ready. HQ + troops and then the extra stuff. I'd like to see them completely finished by the end of the year - partly to have them finished and partly so I can work on a different force in 2015. That Eldar force will also be a factor though they will be behind the DA's. A third player is Chaos Daemons - I finally picked up the codex and I have about 2000 points worth of the things I had started converting over from fantasy a couple of years ago. There's a fair amount of paint applied too so this would be a quicker turnaround than some as far as getting a force on the table.

That's more than enough rambling for now - next week let's talk about Dark Angels!

Fun Finds #3 - The Paradise Inn

The Paradise Inn - Because nothing says "Paradise" like bombs!

I can see this being run by a guy like Jim Carrey's in Kick-Ass 2.

Fun Finds #2 - To The Lobstermobile!

Another find in Kissimmee.

Thought #1: "Captain Crustacean is on the job!"

also: "Lobsterboy! To the Lobstermobile!"


Thought #2: "The plague of giant confused lobsters continues - if you own a red car of any kind, it is recommended you stay home. Put it in a garage if possible."

Thought #3: "Wheeeeeeeeee!"

If you have thoughts of your own on this one, please feel free to share

Fun Finds #1 - The Wizard Store

I'll be easing back into the blog this week and I thought I would share a few finds from the trip like this one: I think this could be turned into the coolest-looking game shop/comic book store I've ever seen. This place is in Kissimmee near Disney and almost seems wasted as a mere gift shop.

I mean really ... what higher purpose exists for this guy than to be a beacon for all gamers?

More tomorrow!

Motivational Monday

For some reason this one popped into my head at Disney a few times so here it is to start the new year off right.

Operation: Mousetrip Begins

About the time this post goes up we will be hitting the road and taking the kids to Disneyworld as a big Christmas present. They found out Friday afternoon and we leave Saturday morning.

The whole blended family thing can be challenging at times with schedules and all of those complications (that lead to things like doing the family Xmas on the 27th instead of the 25th) on top of the usual school and time off issues and the teenage-specific weather of jobs, school projects, girlfriends/boyfriends, and general unpredictability of moods. We started planning this a year ago, after the kids all took off for the "other half" of that Christmas and it was just Lady Blacksteel and myself, and it has finally all worked out. The whole Disney thing still has enough magic to make all of the teenagers walk around with a big grin, overcoming all of those other potential obstacles. It was a surprise to them, a good one, and they didn't even complain about the short notice. The prospect of their first trip to WDW, including new year's eve at the park, seems to have shaved about 10 years off of all of their ages - for today at least.

As you might guess posting will be sparse this week. Beyond the Disney thing it was a 40K Christmas here when it comes to gaming as there's really nothing new in the RPG rotation of 4E/Pathfinder/Next that they needed. They were pretty excited about their new 40K stuff but the trip means it won't be hitting the table for a week or more  and we're all OK with that.

Anyway, Happy New Year! Posting resumes in 2014!

40K Friday: A Short Guide to Used Mini's

About as pro-painted as you can get - from the GW site

New miniatures, especially Games Workshop miniatures, are expensive. Fortunately there are many channels out there to buy used miniatures which can be far less expensive to acquire. I've been doing that for quite a while and I thought I would share my experiences.

In most ways the best avenue is buying them in-person from another gamer or store - you can see what you're getting up close and from all angles which should cut down on the unpleasant surprises. There's also usually some haggling involved too. This might not even be a financial transaction - I've traded units and armies for other units and other armies with no cash changing hands. It can be a lot of fun.

The most common channel though is online. The three main ones I know of are specialized miniatures trading sites, craigslist, and ebay. Most of my experience has been with ebay so I will focus on that in particular.

The biggest danger when trading online is paying for something you didn't actually want. Pictures are key here - I would not buy any used miniature without seeing a picture first, preferably several of them from different angles.

All that said here is my handy dandy guide to descriptions of miniatures online:

"NIB" - new in box/new in blister pack - this is pretty easy to see and it's pretty much a yes/no as there are really no degrees of "new". For a current game these are usually discounted as you can otherwise just go buy them at a store. For an old out of print game they can be more expensive, as it's the only way to get pristine copies to work your own magic upon.

"Primed" - this usually means one spray coat of black, gray, or white. Hopefully a lighter coat rather than a heavier coat. People are pretty honest about this one.

"Basecoated" - well for space marines this usually means "sprayed in a chapter color" and not much else. For other armies it's pretty much the identifier for "primer + one color". As long as it's the right color it's not bad.

"Painted" - usually a true statement, though one with a thousand degrees of sub-classification. The basic statement itself here though is pretty much another binary thing - either there is paint on the mini or there is not. This is not nearly as useful or complete as NIB though - see below.

Old 2E Tyranid Warriors - to me that's at least a "tabletop Quality" job! 

"Hand-Painted" - well yes, there aren't really any machines or trained gerbils doing this sort of thing yet so this is a red herring in many ways - it sounds better to the uninitiated and means nothing. It seems to mostly be used by people selling something they don't understand or deal with regularly.
"Well-Painted" - ah, here we have our first truly subjective rating. My "well painted" may be your "tabletop quality" or worse. This is an instant "look at the picture" for me (most of these descriptions are, truly) and again tells you almost nothing. I've seen many a figure described as "well painted" that makes me want to know what kind of curve they were grading on.

"Pro-Painted" - now theoretically a pro is a professional, someone who gets paid to paint miniatures. This does not guarantee any level of quality at all, but from the way it is used you'd think it did. I will say that it's far more rare to see a bad "pro-painted" mini than it is most others, so there is that. But I've seen painted mini's for $30 that are far more intricately painted than some I've seen for $130, so the actual quality and cost varies wildly. Then there are the various painting services that do have a track record and lots of pictures to browse, versus the one man operation that doesn't even have a web site beyond ebay. It doesn't mean they don't do good work, it's just harder to see samples. Of course a lot of times "pro-painted" means "painted by someone other than the person selling the figure" and they have no idea who did paint it. Again, all you really have to go by are the pictures.

Perfectly tabletop-ready. I'd do a little more with the bases but those are fine otherwise.

"Tabletop Quality Paint Job" - This is another description that varies wildly - again my "tabletop" may be very different from yours. That's not a snobbery thing, that's covering a range form "dipped in melted crayon then clear-coated for good measure" to  "better than most pro-painted stuff". It also may cover everything from "bases not painted" to "custom bases with detailed paint jobs" so there's a lot of variance. In general I find these aren't too bad, but you do want to look the pictures over carefully.

"Badly Painted" - well you don't see it a lot but I have seen it a few times and none of them were wrong. Should be used a lot more than it is. When you let the 8-year old try painting for the first time, then he decides he doesn't like the game so you decide to sell the stuff on ebay to make some of the money back here's a hint: this is where those figures belong, not in "painted", not in "hand painted", and not in tabletop painted either. Right.Here.

More Nid Warriors from 2E and these are not so good

One other consideration:  Bases. If you're adding to an existing army, don't forget to check the bases and see how much work it's going to be to blend them in with the rest of your army. If you're buying a whole army this is not really a problem, but if you're adding figures or units to a pile of stuff you already have it can be. Note: Spaceships usually do not have this problem!

One Final Consideration: Is it a paintjob you can match?  Sure, those neon purple and green Nurgle Terminators look awesome, but there are only 3 of them. What if you want to add a few more? What if you want to swap out a weapon? Can you match it yourself? Can you find other painted figures that will fit into the unit?  Even known paint schemes (marine chapters in 40k for example) have some variation in shading and unit insignia. They are easier to manage though. Pretty much any Space Wolf squad or vehicle will at least look like it's in the same neighborhood as another Space Wolf unit. At the opposite extreme, with some armies it barely matters - chaos daemon armies probably shouldn't look alike, and orks are a ramshackle enough bunch that it's OK there too. Heck, bringing in units painted by someone else can help diversify the look of your army, making it even more characterful in these cases.

Merry Christmas!

Trek Tuesday - Christmas Eve Edition

Motivational Monday