Gone Silent

I have been silent for a while so let me sum up...

• Our DnD group has fought through the seven-pillared hall and come out victoreous
• The hero's are taking time off to spend their gold and drink
• A new adventure has started in the modern day.  Monsters are real and the government doesn't want you to know about it.  But they pay well for the heads...
• For the new game, I took part of the World of Darkness Storytelling System and mixed it with DnD4e combat system.  The page is here.  I am pretty excited about the hybrid system.  We have only played it once but it worked out pretty good.
• We have 7 people at the gaming table plus one skyping in.  We are starting to look at different ways to get people around the game board, including webcam-ing the game board to the tv.  I am not sure how it will work yet but we will see. 
• Christmas brought a new gaming keyboard and mouse so World of Warcraft as taken up a great deal of my time.  I even managed to add another friend to my WoW addiction. 
• I, intern, was sucked into Castleville on Facebook.
• Christmas was also crazy busy working at a retail store.  I worked 10 hour days and never seemed to get down time.  I am happy the holidays are over!

Until next time!

Painting Notes for Cygnar Trenchers

These are the paints I used in painting my Cygnar Trencher unit.  I will eventually be painting a commando unit and I will want a similar effect.  Feel free to read along.  FA stands for Folk Art paints.

• Base coat black
• Overbrush base with FA Burnt Umber
• Drybrush model with FA Burnt Umber.  Avoid the chain mail and the gun barrel as possible
• Drybrush base and model with FA Honeycomb
• Drybrush base with FA Teddy Bear as needed.
• Block in the gun barrel and chain mail (and grenades if present) with black
• Drybrush the gun barrel with a 2:1 mix of FA Metallic Gunmetal Grey and FA Metallic Sequin Black
• Use the same mix of FA Metallic Gunmetal Grey and FA Metallic Sequin Black to paint the bracers, gun stock band, and details.
• Drybrush the chain mail with FA Metallic Gunmetal Grey
• Paint the shovel and the smoke grenades with FA Medium gray.  I am not entirely happy with this step, so feel free to find another level of shading on them.
• Block in the blue areas with FA Prussian Blue
• Dampen the shoulder pad with a wet brush, then highlight and blend with a mix of FA Cobalt Blue and FA Extender.
• Rank insignias were touched with a mix of FA Metallic Antique Gold and FA Metallic Sequin Black.
• Grenades were touched with FA Black Cherry, then tipped with FA Napthol Crimson
• Studs were tipped with FA Metallic Silver Sterling.
• The base was cleaned up with black around the ring.

I hate painting faces but I found a great tutorial for it.  Privateer Press' Escalation book uses the old MKI rules but the face painting tutorial makes it worth picking up.  Check out pages 120-121 whenever the need arises.  I also found that most Trenchers have no faces!  Woot!!!  They are covered up by a piece of cloth.  I only had to paint to faces of two officers and the Escalation guide was great.  It called for several basic colors like flesh, brown, and brown ink.  I used Delta Ceramcoat Dresden Flesh, FA Real Brown, and GW Citadel Brown Ink respectively.  When it called for red and brown mixed, I just used FA Black Cherry.

Dnd and Restraint?

This week, at our weekly game, I tried to start a bar fight with my players.  A troll named Brugg is the city enforcer.  He came into the inn they were at, shook down the inn keep for protection money, and then started playing grab-butt with the often intimidating tiefling warlord.  Wouldn't you know, of all the times to show restraint, this was it.  Not when they talk to city officials, not when they talk to city watch, not even when they talk to the inn keep giving them free room and board.  Nooooo, they show restraint with the enforcer troll who I am trying to use as an instigator.  She flirted with him, played along, and wrapped her tiefling tail around him in an oh so ticklish way..  When he pushed things too far and wouldn't help  with their questions, the players still kept things on the down-low.  Brugg left the bar (after a quiet dagger was placed at his nads) confused, pissed, and promising retribution.  Oh well, I will trade a bar fight for a recurring villain.

Spouses and Warmachine

I finally got my wife to play Warmachine with me... and she won!

Caine, taking it laying down!

The lay of the land.

Her group was based on the battle box and consisted of:

• Stryker
• Rienholdt
• Ironclad
• Charger
• Lancer
• 3 Stormsmith Storm Callers

Mine was 15 points of:

• pCaine
• Defender
• Charger
• 6 Long Gunners
• Gun Mage Cpt. Adept

I made the mistake of trying Caine's feat run while Stryker's +5 armor feat was in effect.  Note to self: when Stryker pops his feat, hunker down, get in position, and camp focus.  Stryker was able to break free from melee, throw Earthquake, and then shoot Caine while his face was in the dirt.  She needed 10 dmg for the kill and she got 11.

Next time we play, I will take out the storm callers.  She did not like how squishy they were and I killed them after they started disrupting my jacks.  I will probably give her a basic melee unit, like sword knights, next time.  Or I may just give her the Long Gunners, so we can continue to build on the current knowledge base.  Anyway, I had a blast and with the ice cream Sunday for incentive, she didn't mind kicking my ass.  Till next time =)