tomorrow is important...

...so make sure you know where your polling place is and know the issues on the ballot beyond the big ones. the small, local races have more impact on your day-to-day life than who's sleeping in the lincoln bedroom.

also, a lot of pundits are predicting large voter turnout, so remember that as long as you are in line, the polling place must remain open. it is the law.

real americans vote.

"welders, or for full employment after the war" - ben shahn, 1944

i'm not one of "zee germans"...

...but if i were this would make me very, very happy:

check out some more 15mm scale goodness here.

image courtesy of plastic soldier company.

summer 'o games

this summer has been a pretty good one with regard to new stuff added to my game shelves...

some of it was swag, a lot of it purchased. almost none of it played. making them very sad games indeed. 

help a sad game. play it today.

'running for fun and profit.

netrunning that is.

android: netrunner the card game is an asymmetrical, living card game from fantasy flight games set in a dystopian (is there any other kind?) cyberpunk future where scrappy 'runners hack the corps to discover insidious corporate agendas and steal them for creds, publicity, or just for fun.

the starter box for it contains 134 cards for the corporations,114 cards for the runners, and a metric buttload of tokens for tracking various effects (no surprise there, it is a fantasy flight games product).

as a player, you take on the role of a corporation (of which there are four: haas-bioroid, nbn, jinteki, and weyland consortium) or the role of a runner (either an anarch, criminal, or shaper). each of the seven options all play very differently with regard to the victory conditions of the game, and the rules for deckbuilding allow you to customize the way your role as corp or 'runner plays. i'm sure that future releases will emphasize new corps, new runners, and tons of new tricks for each.

for the novice, ffg's android: netrunner the card game is a revision and re-imagining of netrunner, originally designed by richard garfield (of magic: the gathering fame), and released by wizards of the coast way back in 1996. even though the original game received plenty of critical acclaim, it never took off in the collectible card game community the way that m:tg did.

ffg has made a massive investment in releasing android: netrunner the card game (from here on out at little mens we're going to refer to this one as just "netrunner"). ffg's big push at gencon and the fact that they've added it to their living card game line (along with warhammer: invasion, the lord of the rings, a game of thrones, call of cthulhu, and the upcoming star wars) shows that they're pretty serious about making sure that netrunner is here to stay.

i can see this taking up a lot of my gaming time in the near future...

the pale olympics - closing ceremonies

so august has come and gone, and the pale olympics are over. for my part in them, i attempted the following:

ulceratio taint - nurgle sorcerer
manipul ulceratio - a six man plague marine squad to hang out with ulceratio.
manipul cholerus - a seven man plague marine squad with a couple of plasmaguns
manipul bubonics - a second seven man plague marine squad armed like the previous
manipul leprosius - a five man terminator squad
the summanati pestis - a allied squad from the chaos demons codex: a herald of nurgle and a six man plaguebearer squad.

the interesting thing is that i did change horses in mid-stream, or mid-month so to speak. you can read all about that here. that post is from the 13th of august, and i had started the force a couple of days before.

the final tally is 81% completed. i got everything done except for manipul ulceratio.

enjoy the pics:

ulceratio taint: the harbinger of rot, keeper of the seven keys of nurgle.

manipul bubonicus 

the summonati pestis

and finally, a full pic of the army

the praesidio mortis

i'm very happy with my progress so far, even though i missed my goal by just six models.

i will be completing them next, and once they're done, i'll start on two death guard dreadnoughts (yay forge world!) and a deimos pattern predator that i'm thinking of painting in a quartered pattern with plenty of rust effects (can you say hairspray and kosher salt?)

stay tuned for more poop!

it's all about attraction

...or how to get two vehicles out of one.

let's face it, miniature wargaming is not an inexpensive hobby. i'd be lying if i ever said that "i don't spend too much on toy soldiers", or "i've never hidden a purchase from the sadie."

i'm a gamer. of course, i've spent too much money on games, and i have a man-purse for a reason: it's big enough to hide all but the largest of purchases.

this...

...does not fit inside of this.

there are smart ways to game during an economic downturn, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to make sure that your vehicles are flexible when it comes down to their weapons.

i picked up the new forge world mark1c "deimos" pattern predator at gencon. it comes with all the bitz to make both the destructor and annihilator versions. 

drive closer...

...i want to hit them with my sword!

you'll notice that both the main weapon on the turret and the sponson mounted weapons are different. thanks to the wonder that is rare earth magnets i can easily change between an anti-infantry bloody smear maker, and a lascannon toting, tank killing, sumbitch. 

the key to mounting rare earth magnets is twofold:

1. planning planning planning
2. knowing your polarity

planning planning planning:

when it comes down to magnetizing a vehicle the more time you take to plan your assembly, the better off you'll be. my assembly plan for the turret was to drill a small hole in the barrel assembly just like i was going to pin the barrel to the turret. i then simply inserted (not glued!) a pin into the barrel, cut it just shy of flush with the mantlet, aligned it with the turret slot, and pressed firmly using the pin to scribe a mark in the turret resin. 

i then used the scribe mark to drill a hole in the turrent, inserted (not glued!) a pin into the turret, cut it almost flush with the turret slot, and used the turret to mark the other barrel assembly. then i used that scribed mark as a starting point for the hole for the rare earth magnet.

here you can see the magnet glued into place after i used a larger drill bit to widen the hole.

knowing your polarity:

once you've mounted the magnet, it's important to test the polarity of the magnets you're using. if you don't, there's a 50/50 chance that you're going to glue the second magnet down facing the wrong direction, and then you've got to drill that bastard out. you will get frustrated and you will use profanity. so save yourself the stress, test and mark your magnets.

for the turret here, i simply connected a magnet to the one mounted in the turret, and used a sharpie pen to mark the side to glue down. then i simply glued it into the barrel assembly.

if you could see the other side of the magnet, you'd notice a blue "x".

the connection is a solid one, and it also allows me to easily remove destroyed weapons. Eventually I'll scratch build a blasted and burning mantlet that i can stick on during a game.

for the weapon sponsons, i did something a bit different. since my magnets were too wide to mount into the body of the weapons, i had to use a ferrous material to work with the magnet.

you can see that i simply widened the hole on the bottom part of the sponson and mounted my rare earth magnet flush. then i simply drilled several small holes in the bottom of the weapon, mounted several cut pieces of a paper clip into the bottom of the weapon, and filed it flush. the attraction is enough that the weapon is held securely, and easily rotates.

that's all there is too it! the biggest challenge is planning your build well, and knowing the polarity of your magnets when you're ready to glue them down.

if you've got questions, leave them in the comments section, and i'll help you anyway i can!

horus heresy boardgame is property of fantasy flight games.

gencon and a tale of personal restraint...

after living in chicago for nine years, i finally broke down and went to gencon this year. admittedly, it was just for one day (woke up early on saturday and drove like a bat outta hell to indy), but it was all that i expected it to be and more.

of course, i forgot to take a camera so the following pics are from my phone (apologies for the quality).

i wasn't exactly surprised by the crowd (i've been to adepticon), but the fact that the hall before the exhibit/vendor hall stayed this full all the time, and that you couldn't walk through the vendor hall without constantly bumping into folks says something about the number of attendees.

i was particularly amused by the fellow in the foreground with his companion cube.

of course, i wanted to check out the privateer press booth, and as you approach, you're met by this fine fellow:

i tried to reach it's cortex, but it quickly became evident that i am not a warcaster.

wandering around i made it to the geek chic booth. the furniture they make is bespoke specifically for gamers and geeks. they had a credenza that looked like an old apothecary shelf for games and comic books, but the pièce de résistance was this:

the sultan table. all you ever need to geek out after dinner...

fortunately, i did stick to my budget (mostly) and only brought home some forge world additions to my death guard army, and the new khador heavy warjack (does khador have any other kind?)

the new mkic "deimos" pattern predator, a nurgle dreadnought, a death guard dreadnought,
and what shall be built as a khadoran devastator warjack

all-in-all, a great time was had, and i have started trying to figure out a budget for the entirety of gencon next year.