Monthly Archives: July 2011

"Let’s Have a Tournament" Tournament

I ran a WHFB tournament over the weekend at GPC.

I think it’s safe to say it was successful: “full” at GPC is 12 players, max capacity (where people have to start playing on 5.5′ tables) is 16… we had 14 players.  Everybody seemed to have a good time and, with the solid turnout, prizes were good.

With the NoVA Open on the horizon, I decided to just use their composition rules (making an allowance for Chaos Dwarves ’cause we’ve got a player who’s running them), their first three scenarios (which were kinda  lackluster and a bit schizophrenic) and their bracketing (which meant we had two undefeated players at the end of the day).

We had a ton of Orc & Goblin Players, which was kinda neat.  No Skaven, though. :/  Warriors of Chaos performed the best, with both WoC players going undefeated through the day.  Best appearance went, by popular vote, to Joey J.’s Daemons of Chaos.

It was a long day, but we managed to pretty much stay on track throughout it… a huge accomplishment.

Results:

One of the local players took a bunch of pictures that can be found here.  (All of the pictures in this post are his.)

Something I really wanted to touch on was that I decided to take a risk that morning and run the tournament without a laptop.  Instead, I used just my iPad… and brought a pad of graph paper in case that didn’t work out.

It worked, extremely smoothly.  I had no trouble inputting results; because I was able to just walk over to a table where folks were working through their results, I’d say it was actually considerably easier than it would have been with a stationary laptop.

Tomorrow, I’ll touch on what apps I used.  I could probably stick them in here, but I imagine it’d be more useful on its own.

Most Ostentatious Turn Counter Ever

It’s done!  I’ve talked a bit about it before, so I’m just going to photodump!

Painting!

Finally finished that large batch of Plague Monks I’ve been stuck on for a few weeks, now.  Lesson learned (well, confirmed): smaller batches = faster accomplishment = more motivation = more done.

Eleven to go.  They’ll wait a bit for me to knock out some other things.  I need to knock out some smaller, lower-hanging fruit before I get tangled up in these again.
Here’s where I am on my plan:
I’ve started on my turn counter, and am making tracks.  If I have the chance to paint tomorrow (and I should), it’s quite possible that I’ll finish it.  In the mean time, since I’m posting, here are some WIP pictures.

I’ve gotten color scheme info from Mike: I’m taking a few liberties with his process to make them fit with my style, but not many.  I’m really happy with the face of this poor bastard:
Other’n that: 
  • I’m running a tournament at GPC tomorrow (that I should have advertised here, but it filled up so quickly… there was no need).  It’s ostensibly a NoVA Open prep for the handful of us that are going to play Fantasy.  Hope it’ll be fun, but it definitely makes me want to run a looser, goofier tournament some time soon.
  • Storm of Magic came out: I’m super-stoked to play it.  I desperately want this thing to catch on so I can convert up a bunch of silly Skaven crap.  Say one thing about me, say that I like to convert up silly Skaven crap.

Painting Progress 20110708

Haven’t had much to post about: haven’t actually finished anything in a bit, but I don’t like leaving things quiet for but so long.  So, I’ve got some WIP photos.

For starters, the test model I started for the Vampire Counts / Empire army I was noodling about the other week.

Pooling on the bit beneath that left eye aside (something easily fixed with a bit of matte medium), I freaking love this.  Pale, unhealthy, striking.  This is good stuff!  For the curious, the face is:

– GW Dheneb Stone basecoat
– Heavy GW Ogryn Flesh wash
– GW Dheneb Stone drybrush
– Wash of 3:2:2:1 of water, GW Ogryn Flesh, Matte Medium, GW Asurmen Blue

For the curious, that 3:3:2 ratio of water / wash / matte medium is my new magic freaking bullet.  Any time I want to wash something that isn’t super-powerful, it’s my go-to.  Mixing washes is also a hugely powerful tool.  I really should throw up some comparison photos to prove it, but Ogryn Flesh plus, or Thraka Green plus produces much richer, more interesting colors.

I’ve made a good bit of progress on the rest of the guy.  It’s enough for me to know that I hate everything else.  The bits swapping hasn’t worked out very well, I think.  Worse yet, the colors– the ones I kinda need to use to make this work– are pretty much exactly the same colors I use on my Skaven.  I need to do something different.

So, I don’t think I’ll be going forward with this.  I’m still kinda shining on the Empire, though, so maybe I’ll push forward with a more traditional province.

Still plugging away at ten Plague Monks.  I’m closing in on finishing them, but I’m not quite there.  Poo.

Also, to try to break up things, I’ve started on the turn counter.  It should paint up pretty quickly when I get a solid couple of hours to sit at the desk.