Apparently Ms. Lamb has now started up her own minis company, and is doing some REALLY nifty work – I am particularly a fan of the penal legionnaires and the highland guard.  I have a ton of Cadian torso bits, so those legs might be the perfect way to get my chaos guardsmen off the ground (not to mention finally use all those bits….).

For those of you who don’t know, this is because I was hired in Sept. 2010 by Games Workshop to be one of their retail employees.  I was originally hired as a Hobby Specialist (“Red Shirt”), and was promoted to manager when my boss resigned.  I did not want there to be any question that I was behaving ethically while in my position, especially seeing as how I was treated to advanced news of releases that were not even always common knowledge in the company, so I figured it was time for this blog to go on hiatus. I was there for about a year, but I eventually came to the conclusion that I could not in good conscience continue to work for a company who conducted business their way.  I’ll not go into details, but I doubt I need to – you’ve heard the stories, and too many of them are true.  I’m done venting to friends and family, and I really want to keep this blog positive and fun, so I’ll leave it at that.

In any case, I’m back!  In the year I was gone, I thought about what I would put here if and when I could do it again.  I eventually came to the I really want this to be a place for gamers of all stripes to come and see new stuff, share news, and show off what they are doing.  My health prevented me from posting as much as I wanted to last time, so I should be able to do something more regularly, including my own works in progress.

I also will soon be creating “open posts” for you folks to post your own stories and gaming links to; if one or more of them catches my eye, I’ll make a post of it, so be sure to give me a link that my hat top can send people to!  Finally, be warned that this is a FAMILY FRIENDLY blog – cursing, sexual content and general misanthropy will never make it into the comments section.

Have fun, be good, and go game!

- While I’m kinda meh about the Grey Knights, I might change my mind with some decent plastics.  The current range seems to be composed entirely of expensive metal models that spontaneously lose arms.  Backing up new models with contemporary rules would be kinda sweet too, since half their abilities were either nerfed in the edition change (and so not accounted for in points costs), or were made obsolete by the changes in Daemon terminology.

- I’ve also never been one for the “nuns with guns,” but that’s mostly because the current range of the Sisters of Battle is still reflecting an early 90′s sensibility on the female form, not to mention a very unrefined style of sculpting.  15 years later, it would be nice to see what the newer advances in sculpting talent could come up with.  Multi-part plastics seem to be the rage right now and this could be very nice.  I wonder how many female space marine conversions we’ll see if the new SoB range is done this way…

- I can’t imagine what GW could do to the Sisters Repentia models to make them cooler.  The battle corsets are a bit over the top, and they do seem to be a bit small to be wielding those eviscerators.  Based on what GW has done recently, I would assume those would be the things they addressed.  Honestly, some of John Blanche’s early work on the Repentia, with armor fragments, flowing parchment robes, and other M41 zaniness, would be really neat to see on a mini.  Unless these models really bite, I’ll probably buy at least one pack.  No matter what the unimaginative tournament players tell you, Repentia in the current rules are actually rather useful, so the current trend in leaving no “dead” entries in a codex should at least keep them as scary as they should be, if is doesn’t actually make them better.

- Bluntly put, Arco Flagellants need arms that don’t fall off when you look at them cross-wise (or at all, in any way, for that matter).  I love the wackiness of cyborg killing machines, but seriously, I rarely play with them these days just so I don’t have to repair and repaint their shoulders after EVERY game.  If they fix this, I’m there with twenty.  If they don’t…I may release a couple of life-sized real ones at the GW studio and watch the mayhem ensue.  No jury in the world would convict me.

This reputation is not undeserved, I suppose, but pictures and events like this one (from the daily GW blog) don’t do anything to help the problem:

Giant Tank Battle, or Advanced Chutes and Ladders?

I mean, seriously?  What kind of tactics are being used here?  The most essential element of warfare, maneuver, is completely useless in this situation.  There is no cover, no tactical deployment even.  None of these tanks will ever have to move, or even pivot, to do their job.  No measuring, no moving, just rolling dice.  A friend of mine likes to call games like that “advanced chutes and ladders,” and I agree with him in this case.

I don’t want to sound like I’m telling other people how to have fun.  If this is your thing, go for it I suppose.  I’m just (one) confused as to how this is appealing, and (two) concerned that GW is looking at events like this and ‘Ard Boyz and thinking that these mindless grinders are what the game should look like for everyone.

First on the addition list is Warpstone Pile

Run by a guy in Virginia that I only know as Rushputin, I first came across WP when I was looking for some skaven conversions for a commission.  This guy’s stuff blew me away, and most of it wasn’t Skaven!  Always on the lookout for techniques to copy (honestly, its a compliment), I kept on going back and found out that he’s a genuine guy who, while beig a tournament player, seems to have remembered the most important thing about tournament gaming: namely, that your are playing GAMES and supposedly having fun.  It’s a breath of fresh air reading his stuff, so you need to check it out more.

Next up is Musings of a Metal Mind

A blogger blog, meaning that I have a heckuva time leaving comments, it is still something I check a few times a day.  I am, again, unfamiliar with the author, but his work speaks for itself.  I found it while looking for tank conversions and found that he had done some scratch-built chimeras and Leman Russes that totally blew me away.

Then I saw the Tyracons, and I had to keep seeing more.  I won’t spoil the surprise by blabbing on about it…but have you considered how cool it would look to see a hive fleet be absorbed by the necrons?  Heh…pretty darn cool.

The third is not a very personal blog by any stretch, but is still quite good.  Some of you have been asking me in real life how I know so much about upcoming releases and obscure miniature lines.

Well, I won’t give away all my secrets, but I will share Tabletop Gaming News with those of you who haven’t yet heard about this incredibly cool site that seems to have its finger on the pulse of all the gaming releases I wanted to know about – even the ones I didn’t know I wanted to know about.

That’s enough for tonight.  I’m, not feeling good, but when I am again, and I find something good, bet that I’ll pass it along.

Woof.

What can I say?  I’m a roleplayer at heart, and though I do love the fiddly feel and look of a bunch of toy soldiers running around, it’s getting to tell a story with them that really gets me going on my hobby.

It is this reason that I decided to keep my 4th edition 40k rulebook, and why I have never felt the need to buy the 5th edition hardcover: 4th edition was chock-full of special rules, scenarios, and even came with the expanded rules for playing kill-team missions.  5th edition came with a bunch of (essentially) ads for GW products.

The rules for 4e kill-team aren’t available anywhere that I can find legally, but PDFs are floating around the net if you just have to get a copy.  The 5e “kill-team” mission from the Battle Missions scenario book is a decent substitute, but as I was looking for a small-scale game I could play on a campaign basis, 4e kill-team had the extra rules and complexity that made it possible to do without a ton of work on my part.

To that end, I got a couple of buddies together before our Bible Study last week, and we had a go at the game.  Enjoy the pictures (after the fold), and then I’ll talk about my opinions.

So, what about the game?  It needs some rules expansion to make it worth going back to every week.  The movement of the brute squads is rather predictable, and a decently equipped kill-team can shoot down all the brute squads without ever really moving.  I think that shooting should do way more than simply add a single klaxon counter to the store – d3 counters sounds about right, maybe, unless you use a sniper weapon.  I don’t know exactly how I would do that, but I’m looking forward to figuring it out.

The missions also need to be a bit…varied?  I know the missions in the book are starting points, but they don’t seem to have enough variety in them to even extrapolate from easily.  I think if we make any more that I’m going to post them so that you guys won’t have to do all the annoying work.  Don’t hesitate to give me your scenarios if you like, either, by the way!

I really do like the specialist kit that both sides can take, but I want to add more to the brute squad list, and modify some of the existing entries for both lists.  There are some choices that are no-brainers (las traps), and some bizarre choices that I can’t imagine any incentive for ever taking (red-shirts, for example).

All in all, this is definitely something I would come back to however.  Having a loose system like this means that we can actually get six games in in the 2.5 hours before Bible study (for example), while having the flexibility to make more rules is actually kind of fun.  If you decide to play this, I’ll let you discover the joy of pulling normal models out and suddenly finding a new purpose and use for them.

Originally, it was D&D 3.5, but I had just finished my first playtest of the setting when they announced 4th Edition, and it completely took the wind out of my sails.  It didn’t help that I was paralyzed by PTSD at the time, or that we made a 200 mile move.

When I regained some of my equilibrium after our first winter here, I made another go at it.  Pathfinder was still in its infancy, 4th edition had done its damage on the continuation of 3.5, and I realized that a high fantasy rules set might not do the job I wanted it to for this setting.    I worked hard on creating some rules, but I was still very much in a dark hole emotionally and spiritually, and when summer ended, so did my efforts.

Fast forward 18 months to this week.

It’s summer, and I won’t get any sub jobs for a few months.  Work that requires me to be on my feet for more than a minute or five at a time is not going to work for the foreseeable future.  But my mind is working just fine, and my emotions, while a bit drained from the constant search for work, are just fine – and actually in need of a long-term project that might get some recognition for my writing skills, I think.  My buddy Isaac has been talking about writing some background to run a Cortex RPG game in, and I got inspired again.  I really am lucky to be surrounded by such creative and interesting people.

To that end, and because I have basically no money for games for the near future (I mean, maybe a dollar here or there, but that’s about it), I started trawling around the DriveThruRPG.com site for free stuff I could use or, if not free, at least interesting blurbs that would give me some inspiration.

A search for “noir” came up with some very interesting possibilities, and if we had guaranteed income right now, I would have just ponied up the $15 it would have cost for the five downloads I wanted – seriously, people, you NEED to look at this site closely.  There are a lot of creative people out there who have written some very good games, and just don’t have the connections to make it big.  That is, not yet for some of them.  Seriously, good stuff.

But (duh duh daaah!), and now I get closest to making my point, I found out that West End Games’ most excellent game engine, the D6 system that the classic Star Wars RPG ran on, is available for FREE!  Yeah!

There are a few downloads that you can get.  There is D6 Adventure, which covers roughly from post-industrial revolution era to the near future, set in the real world but with some limited amounts of fantasy.  They have D6 Space, which is their true sci-fi rules set, which will be rather…ahem…familiar (!) to anyone who has played the SWRPG they published and then lost.  They also have D6 Fantasy, which I haven’t checked out yet because I have roughly 12 BILLION books from a well known fantasy game, but which I may use if the magic rules in the D6 Adventure download aren’t thorough enough.  If you like them, the bundle pack is here, and links abound to the other free D6 offerings.

Here is the beauty of the situation.  After (even more) financial problems, West End Games has decided to offer almost all their D6 products as an open gaming product line, meaning that not only can it be used for anything you would want to run at home, but there is a decent chance (crossing fingers here) that a young (and maybe upcoming) game writer could license it as a dedicated engine for his own setting.

The story continues, and I’ll let you know if anything comes of this if, well, anything comes of this.

I think the heads are the best parts of the sprue, but I’m thinking Col. Straken conversion for the other parts?

MaxMini Bionic Head Bits

Quantum Gothic

Here are a couple of nifty pieces that I like:

Quantum Gothic Missile Launcher

Quantum Gothic Watch Tower

I like that these things work well with the 40K universe, but don’t just seek to copy it.  They are fully usable in any gothic sci-fi setting, and even have that steampunk feel to them that makes them perfect for a clockworks and arcana game as well.

Have you been interested in the Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay games (Dark Heresy, or Rogue Trader), but been itching to play a Space Marine too?

Have you been following the trickle of Deathwatch RPG news from the Fantasy Flight website?

If so, be at Pwner Games this weekend for Free RPG Day.  I’m running the Deathwatch Preview Adventure “Final Sanction” from 2PM to 6PM, as soon as there are enough interested people to get a game in.