Yearly Archives: 2013

Norman Crossbowmen, Flemish Mercenaries

I’ve made excellent progress on painting these Normans: this past long weekend (opportunity) + the need to distract myself from shutdown/furlough stress (focus) went a long way towards checking boxes and getting minis ready for varnish.

For context, when I started painting these guys, the list was:

Warlord – Mounted
Hearthguard x8 – Mounted
Warriors x8 – Crossbows
Flemish Mercenaries x8
Levies x12 – Bows
Levies x12 – Bows

Now that I’ve played the game a bit, I’m swapping out those Flems for mounted Warriors… but I’ll need to pick up the models, etc, so they’ll be the absolute last thing I do with the warband. In the interim, the Flems are being used as regular Norman Warriors, split into two units of 4.

The backbone of the models I’m using are from Conquest Games, with missile troops coming from Perry Miniatures. I’ve also got a couple of Gripping Beast figures in there, too, but just a few.

Crossbowmen

The first models I worked on were the Crossbowmen. These are Perry Miniatures Crusades Mailed Crossbowmen (CU23) I’m not crazy about them; overall, I’ve been kind of disappointed with the Perry metals: insane amounts of flash, detailed where I want simple, and simple where I want detailed.

Flemish Mercenaries

Reading the kind-of-woeful Saga forums, I got the impression that I had to run Flemish Mercenaries. They’re hard as balls to kill and provide much-needed foot troops for some of the scenarios (because the Norman battleboard strongly encourages mounted troops).

I’m no longer convinced that they’re quite right for me: they don’t generate Saga dice and with two units of levies and one unit of crossbowmen… I can’t swing it. I have to drop either archers, crossbowmen, or flems to get a unit of warriors I can get dice out of: and the battleboard tells me that’s these guys.

Anyway: I painted them differently. Normans will be red and yellow (like this guy), levies will be drab… these guys are from somewhere else. I felt like doing this dark, rich blue with grey and white. I’m pleased with how it turned out.

Most of these are Conquest Games Norman Infantry, which I cannot say enough nice things about. They’re cheap as balls (44 for $32!?!), have just the right amount of detail, and are very cleverly designed. (Gripping Beast’s plastics have arms that attach at the shoulder, which that requires green-stuffing; Conquest’s Normans have an unusual design that attach midway up the bicep… or just where the arm pokes out of the mail shirtsleeve. It’s inconvenient for indiscriminate kitbashing, but makes for very clever gap avoidance.)

Two of these guys are from the Gripping Beast Flemish Mercenaries pack, ordered before I learned that I could download the rules for the unit from the forum. I hate these figures, and am only using two because I ran out of Conquest Normans with spears held up and not thrusting. They’ve got terrible proportion, are ugly as sin, and have worse flash than the Perry figures. (There’s less flash, but what’s there is sooooo much worse.)

SAGA – Rambling

9 Replies

Back at Historicon, I picked up some stuff for Saga (I almost don’t even want to link to the Studio Tomahawk site, it’s so bad). Somehow along the way, I managed to get some figures assembled for it (it’s really only been two and a half months?) and have gotten in a few games for it with Casey.

Directionless rambling about the game follows.

We’ve played through all of the two-player scenarios (except the wagon-based one) at this point, and although I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered the game in any way, I do think I’ve gotten a good feel for it.

Although I don’t think I love the game, I definitely like it a good amount. Since I’ve been trying to find a skirmish game I don’t hate, that’s definitely a victory.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, I won’t try to summarize the rules: you can find overviews at The Wargamer, Boardgame Geek, and RPG.net. For me, it’s attractive because of the relatively low model count and the fact that the rules are simple, but have some depth. Yes, there are lists of fiddly damn rules like the ones Warmachine and Malifaux use to turn me off, but they’re scoped to the entire army rather than specific models… and in practice they end up guiding the way the different armies play rather than being building blocks for combos (if that makes any sense).

And the game plays really pretty fast: we’ve done games in 30-60 minutes with extensive digressions into how The Shield is one of the greatest American TV shows produced and how the finale of Breaking Bad didn’t quite deliver. As 40K games seem to take longer and longer with every new book, “fast” is a value.

Almost all of our games have been unbelievably close, too. Like, down to a final roll of the dice. It’s very swingy. When we started, at 4 points, I asserted that it was a game about who could roll dice better… though at 6 points (where it’s actually supposed to be played) I don’t think that’s the case.

Model count is fairly low: there’s effectively a hard window of between 25 and 73 models (and that 73 models would come in a wildly impractical list). I’m putting together a list that’s two of each choice: 2x Hearthguard (4 each), 2x Warriors (8 each), 2x Levies (12 each). My Warlord puts it at 49 models.

This, combined with the relatively low overall cost of historical miniatures, means the game is kind of bullshit cheap. The rulebook’s almost as expensive as an army. The Tapestry has a great article about to get several armies out of just a couple of purchases.

I’ve turned to Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories for motivation and focus with a great deal of success: despite the books basically being about Saxon Conan the Barbarian (UHTRED OF BEBBANBURG) who rampages across Britain screaming “KILL! KILL! KILL!” (seriously; I think those are actually his first words in Sword Song), the books portray a people (Vikings and Danes) much more believable and interesting than what you get if you start and end with “The Immigrant Song.” I’ve really enjoyed them.

I initially put together some Anglo-Danes, but swiftly ended up putting together a Norman warband. I’m not sure I remember why I made the shift, but I’m glad I did. Now that I’m digging in on painting them, I’m finding that all that chainmail paints very quickly, and I feel like I can get away with a more regimented, standard paint scheme with Normans than I could with a less organized force. I’m probably wrong here: as far as I can tell, none of these people had uniforms, but I’m more comfortable painting models uniformly.

The game came up on RPG.net OGO, and someone brought up a photo from a Viking reenactment group’s website as an example of the sorts of colors used during the Dark Ages.

I’ve used this as a bit of a guide in painting: colorful, but not bright and colorful, I don’t think I’ve gotten specific colors 100% on this, but what I’ve got is close they’re close (I think), and believable.

Also significant: horses. I can’t say that I’ve ever painted a horse before, which is a little surprising to me. I can probably attribute that to loathsome ratmen and all their vile kin not really having much of a use for them beyond eating. I’ve done some research, though, and I am pleased with the results. They’re not perfect by any stretch, but for a first-timer they’re absolutely sufficient.

Anyway, I’ve made really great headway into painting up those Normans: I’ll post some photos in the next couple of days.

Wednesday Workbench

Weekend Workbench

7 Replies

I’m paintin’ Normans and Flems. Yup.

NoVA Open 2013 – 3 – The Games

1 Reply

So, the army I took was a shortest-path-to-tournament-ready deal. I’d rather be playing Tau right now, but they’re so far from presentable it’s tragic. I considered trying to update my Dark Angels to something I could bring, but ended up settling on my Khornate Daemons.

Casey was an immense help in figuring out what the list needed to look like given the models I had ready to go.

It started out just needing a Bloodletter with Instrument of Chaos. Then, it just needed a Herald of Tzeentch. Then, some travel got cancelled, so I decided to push on and do some Plaguebearers. (As in, I got the call while I was on other travel, and stopped by the game store on the way home from the airport to grab the kits I needed.)

In the end, this is what I ran:

05-2013-08-30 10.10.07

MAXIMUM KHORNAGE
HQ
Bloodthirster – Exalted x1, Greater x1
Herald of Khorne – Juggernaut, Wrath, Greater x1, Lesser x1
Herald of Tzeentch – Warlord, Lvl 3, Conjuration, Exalted x1

Elites
Flamers x4

Troops
Pink Horrors x16 – Champ w/ Lesser x2
Plaguebearers x10 – Champ w/ Lesser x1, Instrument

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x16

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince – Khorne, Flying, Armor, Greater x2, Lesser x1
Soul Grinder – Slaanesh, Baleful Torrent
Soul Grinder – Slaanesh, Baleful Torrent

There’s a lot stupid, extraneous upgrades in there, yes. I was pushing to build as few models as possible; that’s why.

I had SO MANY really great games. NoVA scoring is a pretty basic affair: 3’s unbelievably enjoyable game, 2’s an average game, and 1’s a shit, miserable game.

I had 6, 1, 1, respectively.

That said: I didn’t finish hardly any games. Out of 8 games, I think 7 were called for time. Most games had a pace where, when they’d call “30 minutes” we’d agree that we’d get one more full round in. Maybe because we were (in general) chatting too much?

Also, I really dropped the ball on photographing my opponents armies. I always do that, and I’m really annoyed with myself that I neglected to this time. Sorry, guys.

Day 1

Game 1 – Sisters of Battle with Imperial Guard

HQ
Saint Celestine – Warlord
Primaris Psyker
Uriah Jacobus

Elites
Marbo

Troops
Battle Sisters x10 – Meltagun x2
– Rhino – Dozer Blade
Battle Sisters x10 – Meltagun x2, Meltabombs
– Rhino – Dozer Blade
Infantry Platoon
– Command Squad x5
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
– Infantry x10 – Plasmagun, Power Axe
Seraphim x9, Two Hand Flamers x2, Meltabombs
Seraphim x10, Two Hand Flamers x2

Fast Attack
Vendetta

Heavy Support
Exorcist
Retributors x5 – Heavy Bolters x4

I lost, 0-20.

I did a lot wrong here; if I’d played my army ten more times, maybe I’d have considered that in a Kill Point mission, taking the Portalglyph is probably the stupidest thing I could do. I also might have respected the two hand flamers a bit more.

I got my clock cleaned… but I don’t mind. Stephen was a nice dude, and I got the weekend off on about as right a foot as I could with an enjoyable game.

Game 2 – Tyranids

HQ
Hive Tyrant – Warlord, Wings, TL Devourer w/ Brainworms x2, Hive Commander, Leech, Paroxysm
Hive Tyrant – Wings, TL Devourer w/ Brainworms x2, Old Adversary, Leech, Paroxysm

Elite
Doom of Malan’tai – Mycetic Spore

Troops
Tervigon – Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
Tervigon – Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
Tervigon – Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst
Termagants x20 – Devourers, Mycetic Spore
Termagants x10 – Fleshborers
Termagants x10 – Fleshborers

Heavy Support
Biovore x2
Biovore x2

I lost, 0-20.

This game was a mess: lots of big monsters and a lot of chaff to wade through to get to them. My Herald of Khorne was MVP, decapitating two Tervigons himself. He didn’t roll Decapitating Blow every round of combat, but when he did, he rolled it a lot.

The game ended on Turn 3, unfortunately. If we’d gotten the rest of the game, I might have been able to turn it around. Things were, frankly, looking pretty dang good for me, but we’d have needed a 5 hour round, I think.

Lots of generated models here: his Tervigons kept pooping out above average sized broods, and I rolled two new units of Daemons on the Warp Storm table.

Game 3 – Tau

HQ
Aun’Va – Warlord

Elites
XV104 Riptide – TL Plasma Rifle, Ion Accelerator, Shielded Missile Drone x1, Early Warning Override, Stimulant Injector
XV8 Crisis Suits x3 – TL Plasma Rifle x3, Fusion Blaster x3
XV8 Crisis Suits x3 – TL Plasma Rifle x3, Fusion Blaster x3

Troops
Fire Warriors x12
Fire Warriors x12
Fire Warriors x12
Fire Warriors x12
Kroot x20

Fast Attack
Pathfinders x6

Heavy Support
Broadsides x3 – TL Rail Rifle x3, Velocity Tracker x2, Positional Relay x1
Hammerhead – Ion Cannon, Blacksun Filter
Hammerhead – Ion Cannon, Blacksun Filter

I won, 13-7.

Things did not go Zander’s way. First, I Seized Initiative. Then my Soul Grinder Baleful Torrented most of his Kroot to cinders. Then all of my Blood Horrors looked at Aun’Va standing behind a row of Fire Warriors and said, “There’s no way he can make that many cover saves,” and were proven right.

I did some stomping; on the flank with his Fire Warriors, I outshot him with my Horrors. On the Flank with his Broadsides and Riptide, my Hounds, Herald, and fliers swarmed over him.

This was only a Minor Victory, though: the Hounds multi-charged a unit of Fire Warriors, a Hammerhead, and the Broadsides; this was a mistake. It took them too long to chew through the Broadsides… and the game got called on time. If we’d been able to play through to the end, I think odds are high I might have been able to table him.

Day 2

Game 4 – Chaos Daemons

HQ
Fateweaver – Warlord
Herald of Tzeentch – Lvl 3, Conjuration

Elite
Fiends x9

Troops
Plaguebearers x10
Plaguebearers x10
Pink Horrors x16
Pink Horrors x16

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x16
Seekers x15 – Icon

Heavy Support
Soul Grinder – Nurgle, Baleful Torrent

I lost 7 to 13.

Kevin and I had been chatting about Daemons and how rad it was to be running a goofy army when we realized hey: we’re both at this table ’cause we’re supposed to play each other.

Anyway, this was the best possible way to start the day. It really looked like I had him on the ropes, but when time was called: he’d eked out a win over me.

Unfortunately, he’d also managed to knock my Bloodthirster to the floor, shattering him into four pieces. I’m still working through that. But, when a dude can (accidentally) destroy one of your minis and you still point at it as the best game of the weekend: it was a good game.

Game 5 – Chaos Space Marines with Daemons

HQ
Chaos Lord – Warlord, horne, Juggernaut, Axe of Blind Fury, Sigil of Corruption
Bloodthirster – Greater x2

Troops
Bloodletters x10
Chaos Marines x10 – Khorne, Meltagun x2, Meltabombs
– Rhino
Chaos Marines x10 – Khorne, Meltagun x2, Meltabombs
– Rhino
Chaos Marines x10 – Khorne, Meltagun x2, Meltabombs
– Rhino

Fast Attack
Chaos Bikers x5 – Khorne, Plasmagun x2, Meltabombs

Heavy Support
Havocs x5 – Autocannon x4, Veterans, Meltabombs
Maulerfiend
Maulerfiend

Fortificiations
Aegis Defense Line – Quad-gun

I won, 17-3.

SIck of me saying “this was a really good game” yet? A lot of fun, some unexpected Warp Storm results, laughs all around.

Game 6 – Necrons with Tau

Of course, this list would be the one I can’t find. Figures. So, from memory:

HQ
Overlord – Warlord, Warscythe, Command Barge
Commander – Command & Control Node, Puretide Chip, Iridium Armor, Vectored Retro-thrusters

Elites
Riptide – Ion Accelerator, TL Fusion Blaster

Troops
Kroot x10
Warriors x5 – Night Scythe
Warriors x5 – Night Scythe
Warriors x5 – Night Scythe
Warriors x5 – Night Scythe

Heavy Support
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Broadsides x3 – TL High Yield Missiles x3, Missile Drones x4

I’m almost certainly off on some particulars, but the big themes are pretty hard to forget.

This was my bad game. It’s probably not entirely my opponent’s fault: he was probably (and I don’t know that I exaggerate here) all of thirteen years old. He can’t help that he was an unpleasant little shit: all boys that age are unpleasant little shits. Why we’re permitted to survive past that into manhood is one of nature’s greatest mysteries.

He had an unfun list, an unfun personality, and didn’t know the rules. (At one point, I just turned, walked off looking for a judge. I was done arguing with him.) The thought of just dropping the game had occurred to me; I’m glad I stuck through it.

I’d have played him at some point anyway: if I hadn’t have lost to him in Game 6, I’d likely have played him in Game 8, where he played for our bracket. (Instead, he played IFL’r Seth in that game, who had as much fun as I did. “The first words out of his mouth,” he said, “was that I had to have my Blacksun Filters painted on my tanks.” So, yeah.)

Day 3

Game 7 – Chaos Space Marines with Daemons

HQ
Chaos Lord – Warlord, Nurgle
Daemon Prince – Nurgle, Flying, Armor, Greater x2, Lesser x1
Sorcerer – Lvl 3, Bike, Aura of Dark Glory, Gift of Mutation, Spell Familiar

Troops
Plague Marines x8 – Meltagun, Power Fist,
– Rhino – Dozer Blade
Plague Marines x8 – Meltagun, Power Fist,
– Rhino – Dozer Blade
Plaguebearers x10
Plaguebearers x10

Fast Attack
Chaos Bikers x5 – Slaanesh, Meltagun, Icon of Excess, Gift of Mutation, Power Fist
Heldrake – Baleflamer
Heldrake – Baleflamer

I won, 20-0.

Torrent of Fire has the wrong pairing up: it shows the Dark Angels player who no-showed, rather than the Chaos Space Marine/Daemons player I played (whose opponent dropped the night before). Sadly, I neglected to write his name on his list.

Anyway, this was another great way to start the final day. A fun game that was looking pretty grim for me at points but I managed to swing it around to a pretty decisive win.

Game 8 – Grey Knights

HQ
Coteaz – Warlord

Troops
Servitors x3 – Plasma Cannons x3
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, Dozer Blade, Searchlight
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight
Warrior Acolytes x3
– Razorback – Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight

Fast Attack
Storm Raven – TL Assault Cannon, Hurrican Bolter Sponsons, Psybolt Ammunition
Storm Raven – TL Multi-melta, TL Lascannon
Storm Raven – TL Multi-melta, TL Lascannon

Heavy Support
Dreadknight – Teleporter, Heavy Incinerator
Dreadknight – Teleporter, Heavy Incinerator
Dreadknight – Teleporter, Heavy Incinerator

I won, 17-3.

Man, I thought this game was going to hurt. I haven’t really played Daemons against Grey Knights, and he had kind of a lot of Dreadknights which kind of scare the pee out of me.

Despite running a list that I’d have judged harshly an edition ago: I had a good time against him. Things were pretty close in the last round: we got very tactical about charging here, holding things up there: in the end I pulled out a W because he failed something like a 4″ charge with his last remaining Dreadknight.

The Stanktini

2 Replies

Because I’m a goof, one of the finds I’m most excited about while digging through the Game Room bins was a pair (one needs stripping) of 1992 Imperial Steam Tanks.

Why is this? They’re tiny. Yes, the wheels are missing, but they don’t add that much height.

No, really. You could probably fit at least one in one of the current Steam Tanks. Like a clanking, hissing Tervigon, you could have a Steam Tank give birth to little baby Steam Tanks.

My first thought was, “This is so small, I bet I could hide it behind cavalry.” I could do this list as a goof, only up the douche factor by hiding those Stanks behind the block of Inner Circle jerkfaces.

Did I mention how small it was?

Later, I was talking about it (because, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m excited about the find), and Eric suggested that it might be small enough to run as a Doom Flayer.

I’m not sure that it is, but it’s definitely right for something ratty that wouldn’t pass OSHA codes.

Medieval Man-at-Arms

8 Replies

I picked up Saga back at Historicon, and I’ve been looking forward to putting it on the table and rolling them fancy dice around it. The plan was, initially, to use Gripping Beast Saxon Thegns as Hearthguard, Gripping Beast Dark Ages Warriors as, um, Warriors, and one of those sweet Aenglish models I got from one of Tre Manor’s Red Box Games Kickstarters as my Warlord. (Worrying about Levies later.)

I’ve had some Saxon Thegns on my workbench basically ever since.

When one of my several August trips was postponed, I jumped on the chance to power through converting and painting a new unit for the NoVA Open. When I finished that with time to spare, I chugged some crazy juice and decided to paint a model specifically for the Capital Palette. I’d had Captain Whistlelock prepped, so it was on.

The plan for him early on was to paint him up using Rush heraldry.

It’s anachronistic: unless I’m turned around (possible), this is Tudor-era, quite some time after Normans and Vikings were stabbing each other over rule of England.. but who cares?

He came together quite quickly. Because I was doing him for competition, I went with more and thinner layers of everything. I also gave into the impulse to keep highlighting lighter and lighter basically everywhere.

The metallics are my usual lazy drek, but fortunately there’s not much metal, so it’s tough to spot.

The only stumbling block I hit was with the shield. I’d printed out some decals with the horses from the above image at ~4mm wide, hoping to use them as a guide to get the shapes roughly the same. Well, that didn’t work out at all… so, after a moment of panic, I put on my big boy painter pants, did a couple of test freehands, and then did them on the shield.

I’ve never really done much in the way of freehanding before: mostly just fake text on books; never shapes like this. They’re not perfect (and boy does it show up close, like in these pictures) but they’re really, really good for a first try. I’m super-proud of them.

It was worth the effort: not only was I pleased with him, he was able to place Silver in his category (Historical – Small). It wasn’t the most competitive Historical category (single figure / small is usually the most competitive category, but there was so much amazing 54mm figures, especially in the historical group), but still: that’s a huge achievement. This is probably the biggest win I’ve had, yet.

(I think he looks best in the lighting in that picture immediately above.)

I’ve had some difficulty getting a good HDR glamshot, however. This is thwarting my using him as a permanent Facebook profile pic.

This also means that I’m pretty leery of carting him around to game with: particularly because that dang sword’s broken off twice. Just means I’ll have to build and paint another one. I’ll get over it. (In fact, I’ve already done the first half of that.)

I will say that this means dire things about how quickly I expect to bang out Hell Dorado minis.

NoVA Open 2013 – 2 – Photodump

Random Stuff

I have a soft spot for pink armies.

Doug makes LEDs look easy.

This was on the table next to me at one point. I love it! I wish I’d had a better look at the rest of his army, but I was too busy pulling my models off the table.

This was from one of my games: Chaos and Chaos about to collide!

Appearance Second Looks

This one was my favorite.

When they talk about scoring for Impact, this is the best example: This display board was HUGE, and had some sort of metal blaring out of it while lights flickered.

Painting Competition!

22-2013-08-31 21.30.07

Just as cool in person!

32-2013-09-01 17.11.01

31-2013-09-01 17.09.05

Lots of 54mm figures, most of which were gorgeous.

21-2013-08-31 21.29.46

How in Sigmar’s name did I not get a picture of the Best in Show?

This was my favorite diorama. It won, IIRC, Gold in its category.

30-2013-09-01 17.07.46

NoVA Open 2013 – 1 – Overview

14 Replies

NoVA 2013 happened!

Preemptive tl;dr I had an excellent time, an unreasonable number of excellent games, went 4/4/0, performed unreasonably well where appearance is concerned, and am still sore.

I won Silver in the Historical – Small Capital Palette competition with my Captain Whistlelock figure (who’ll get a post of his own)!
I placed 3rd for Best Appearance in the 40K tournament, winning one of the Hobby Ace awards!

(I’d love to lead up to all of that, but no point in burying the lede, right?)

There’s a lot to cover here that’s all over the place, plus some relevant hobby posts that need to thrown up: expect things to be scatter shot and smeared across the next week or so.

No Fantasy this time around: I played 40K. 8 games across three days: 3, 3, and 2.

I’d had some concerns that the schedule would be too much for me: 8 games is a lot. The ability to drop after Game 6 took a lot of pressure off, though, and not doing more than the three games in any one day made it a thing I could actually do. I mean, three days have passed and I’m still sore. Four games in a day would have ended with me balled up and crying under the game table.

The tournament went unbelievably smoothly. Things might not have fired exactly on time, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect clockwork precision with a tournament this size. We have a hard time getting 12-14 player events on schedule; adding another ~240 bodies isn’t going to help that.

There were two hiccups: At one point Torrent of Fire went down and we lost something like an hour while they tried to sort everything out. (As someone who builds web applications for a living: that sucks but it happens. ) The other was Sunday morning, when roughly half the event dropped or no-showed on Tuesday and they had to sort out pairings the hard way. Things were scheduled to start pretty early on Sunday (7:30 AM); that’s an hour more of fitful, poor sleep I could have had but didn’t get.

But yeah, overall: it went revoltingly smoothly.

Since I mentioned it: Torrent of Fire. I think it’s best to consider ToF in two parts: one is a tournament organization, pairing, and scoring tool, the other is this newsletter / strategy thing.

The latter is, at best not-for-me and at worse pretty risible. If I felt like being cruel, I’d scan in the flyer which was full of some fairly ridiculous marketing assertions.

The former, though: that’s got a lot of legs. People (who wanted to) got their pairings off of their phones: no crowding around tiny printouts or mobbing around a blurry projector. Pairing up went smooth.

Plus, at least one person I know had had his scores entered wrong and had a game marked as a L instead of a W: he was able to use ToF to notice the error and have the TOs correct it.

There’s a lot of work to be done with it, I think. For example: you could submit your scores with it… but it couldn’t/wouldn’t capture sportsmanship (wha?), so there was no point. (Just as well: I feel like the score sheets were insufficiently useful for the complex scoring rules; I can’t imagine doing it with my big fingers on a tiny screen would help with that any. It’s a great start, though.

The vendor room/floor was an improvement over last year. Bigger, with more vendors and more space. I bought some stuff from Games N Stuff (who had a great, helpful, nice staff), Powered Play, Game Room aka “The Bitz Guy,” and a Breast Cancer charity booth.

Loot:

A Powered Play starter kit (with custom color loadout)
A Deep Wars Dark Mariners starter
A heap of old metal Empire minis (some Elector Counts, Engineers, and 1st run tiny Steam Tanks I have big plans for)

I did speak to Dan at Tectonic. I suspect that some of the NoVA organizers might have spoken to him, about me, before I got the opportunity to do so. Between that, my post last week, and being one of the squeakier wheels on the Kickstarter Page: he had my things ready for me.

He clearly feels emotions appropriate to the situation. I get and appreciate that. Folks who’ve worked more closely with him assert that he’s a really nice guy who’s just gotten in way over his head; I can believe that.

I’ve got my stuff now, and I’m glad I’ve got my stuff now. I’m not glad that I effectively had to shout and stamp my feet to get it, but it’s over. I’m moving on.

I only did one seminar this year: Working with LEDs, run by Chris MIchaels of Powered Play. There was some overlap between it and the sales pitch he gave me the day before when I bought a Starter Kit, but it was a lot more in depth and hands-on.

I’m definitely inspired to do some things with these LEDs. (On that note: if anyone has an unassembed Dreamforge Leviathan Crusader that they’d be interested in trading for an assembled & primed one: talk to me! I’ll make it worth your while.)

I won three raffles. That might seem excessive, but since I don’t think I’ve ever won a raffle at NoVA before… that evens out to 1/year, which isn’t too crazy.

Infinity Haqqislam Support Pack
Ironheart Artisans Knuckleduster combat template (basically a funny TAC template)
Some Greenman Designs credit (they’ve got some really neat stuff!)
The full Jawaballs painting DVD set

So, a lot of cool stuff that I wouldn’t have gone looking for, but am delighted to have.

One of the highlights of this sort of thing is getting to see (and if I’m lucky) chat with folks that I don’t otherwise have much of a chance to see. There were definitely some absent faces that were missed, but it’s always a treat to sit down and talk with folks like Mike Schaefer and Bob Likins & son. I Managed to mfinally meet Sean Parker in person, which was great, and (very) briefly got to chat with hobby hero Dave Taylor. Of course, I spent most of my time hanging out with fellow CGL‘rs Casey, Ashley, Kevin, Bart, Phil, and Joe. Briefly saw some IFL‘rs: Doug, Chris, and Jeff, but not much.

I feel like I didn’t spend as much time chatting with folks I only see annually as I’d have liked to, though. I think that’s a combination of playing more games, needing to organize my day with the other folks in my group, and layering the various painting competition activities on top of all of that.

Should have packed some 5 Hour Energies, I guess. Will try harder next year.

I’ll come back to the actual games and competitions and all that in another post in a day or two.

Tectonic Craft Studios at NoVA Open

12 Replies

Guys, Tectonic Craft Studios is going to be at the NoVA Open this year. Don’t buy from these jerks.

Before you give them so much as a penny, be aware that they funded themselves via a Kickstarter that they have yet to fulfill. They’re one of Those Guys who’ve run a scummy crowdfunding campaign that’s given the entire process a bad name.

And, of course, there’s the small matter of them taking money for product that they haven’t delivered.

Look: crowdfunding hardly ever ships on time. It’s a disappointing reality, but one I think we’ve all accepted. Despite that acceptance, there’s a point where it’s clear that it’s not so much late as it is vaporware. When NoVA hits, they will be over 15 months late on delivery. That’s longer than the gestation period of a camel*.

The past year or so’s been an exercise in evasion and putting things off. “Just a few more weeks.” “Done by next month.” “I’ll have an update tomorrow.”

Whatever. I’m actually writing this a bit in advance (late July). He sent out surveys a month ago, and nothing’s materialized. It was just another stalling tactic. It’s telling that I’m writing this now, knowing that nothing will have changed in the next month and a half.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, myself: demand my money back, pick up the stuff he should have shipped to me a year ago, give him the finger, and walk out or what; I’m a pretty non-confrontational person, and it’s a lot easier to imagine screaming and flipping tables than it is to actually do it. I’m not going to lay out some hard-man act that isn’t actually going to happen.

Whatever I do: you, reader, should know about them, their character, and their failed obligations before you give them either your time or money.

UPDATE: About to hit Publish on this. The only developments since first writing this are 1) he sold stuff at GenCon and 2) he posted yesterday that his “ultimate goal is to get everything up to premium terrain packages out before 2014.”

Estimated Delivery is June 2012… but he’s hopin’ to get stuff out before 2014?

UPDATE 2: So, I talked to him at NoVA, and got my stuff. Some details can be found in my first post about the 2013 NoVA. This is a pretty negative post, so I wanted to make sure I noted the closure of the issue.

* Said gestated camel was found, spinal cord broken by promises of “next week,” “later this month,” and “soon.”

Warpstone Pile

The TIGER-FORCE at the core of all things!

Yearly Archives: 2013

Norman Crossbowmen, Flemish Mercenaries

Crossbowmen

Flemish Mercenaries

SAGA – Rambling

Wednesday Workbench

Weekend Workbench

NoVA Open 2013 – 3 – The Games

Day 1

Game 1 – Sisters of Battle with Imperial Guard

Game 2 – Tyranids

Game 3 – Tau

Day 2

Game 4 – Chaos Daemons

Game 5 – Chaos Space Marines with Daemons

Game 6 – Necrons with Tau

Day 3

Game 7 – Chaos Space Marines with Daemons

Game 8 – Grey Knights

The Stanktini

Medieval Man-at-Arms

NoVA Open 2013 – 2 – Photodump

Random Stuff

Appearance Second Looks

Painting Competition!

NoVA Open 2013 – 1 – Overview

Tectonic Craft Studios at NoVA Open

Crossbowmen

Flemish Mercenaries

Share!

Share!

Share!

Share!

Day 1

Game 1 – Sisters of Battle with Imperial Guard

Game 2 – Tyranids

Game 3 – Tau

Day 2

Game 4 – Chaos Daemons

Game 5 – Chaos Space Marines with Daemons

Game 6 – Necrons with Tau

Day 3

Game 7 – Chaos Space Marines with Daemons

Game 8 – Grey Knights

Share!

Share!

Share!

Random Stuff

Appearance Second Looks

Painting Competition!

Share!

Share!

Share!