Two Weeks to AdeptiCon, Gaming, and Broken Contract

I've used this pic like 3 times. Myself and Eric Brose in the team tournament. Also pictured, Max and my old friend and team mate, Mike Nogle (who sadly won't be at Adepticon for the first time in like 8 years.)

 AdeptiCon is two weeks away and I'm feeling very unprepared. I have tables to finish, army lists to write, a scenario to prepare, and (theoretically) models to paint. I have to say that working on scenery non-stop at Next Dimension Games has given me serious hobby burn out. When I get home my hobby time is almost entirely Broken Contract related because I'm using a whole different set of "hobby muscles", focusing on writing and game design, or discussing the concept art.

Another re-used pic. The archers were not in my army list, but that spear unit with the Light Wizard aka Liche Priest was the unit that was decimated in its own Skullstorm.

I at least have had the joy of getting some gaming in. In addition to Tuesday night board gaming at Next Dimension Games, I ran a WFB tournament, and while they were playing their final round I got in another 1000 point game with my Tomb Kings - this time against Vampire Counts. On the first turn I tried to cast Sakhmet's Incantation of the Skullstorm using 6 dice and it of course blew up in my face devastating the skeleton unit my Liche Priest was in and forcing me to take evasive action with all of my other units to avoid the Skullstorm as it moved away. Somehow, I managed to come back from this cataclysmic mistake and still win the game. Once again, my star players were my Screaming Skull Catapults, and my Carrion weren't too shabby either. It was a fun game and I'm looking forward to playing against Ken Aponte again.

New Broken Contract logo by Sam Alcarez.

This week I made a pretty detailed post at the Broken Contract blog discussing the concept art for the Security Officers and how I decided to do some concept art of my own by taking Sam Alcarez's work and cutting it up with scissors and re-pasting it together to vary up the looks he's be working on. I feel like it was a pretty effective exercise so go check it out.

"Paper doll" of a Security Officer using pieces from 3 separate pieces of Sam Alcarez concept art.

Speaking of Broken Contract. Before I part for today, I want to mention I created accounts for all of your social media needs relating to Broken Contract. Follow Broken Contract on Facebook and/or Twitter. Thanks and more soon!

-Nick

A Weekend of Gaming Part 2 - WFB 'Its How You Use It'

Next weekend, Saturday March 8th is a small friendly tournament at Next Dimension Games using Adepticon's 'Its How You Use It' WFB Tournament guidelines. For those that don't know, the 'Its How You Use It' format is 1000 points, which in WFB is generally considered - "not a lot".

One of our regulars at NDG, Josh Raymond, was looking to get in a warm up game to see how his Warriors of Chaos might fare in the 1000 point arena. Originally we were going to play the game at NDG, but I couldn't swing the bus fare, so he graciously offered to make the drive out to my place.

Now its important to note that the last time my Tomb Kings hit the tabletop was 2 years ago at Adepticon's 'Its How You Use It' tournament that year. My knowledge of 8th Edition is pretty abysmal and I felt really guilty making Josh stand around for an hour while I made my army list and asked him a million questions. Finally, after muddling my way through making my list I was ready to go. I would be fielding a Tomb Prince, a Level 2 Liche Priest, 19 Skeletons with Hand Weapons and Shields, 19 Skeletons with Spears, 10 Skeleton Horsemen with Spears, 3 Carrion Birds, and 2 Screaming Skull Catapults.

The ensuing conflict was surprising to say the least. Early on in the game Josh charged through a forest into my Skeleton Cavalry on my flank with a unit of Chaos Warriors and a Chaos Gorebeast Chariot.

My Cavalry draw a combined charge through a forest. I ultimately lost the combat but it left his big unit of Chaos Warriors wide open.

Meanwhile my Skeletons with Hand to Hand Combat Weapons and Skeletons with Spears glared vacantly towards the oncoming Chaos Warriors. My Cavalry were quickly destroyed, but left a perfect target for my Skeletons with Hand Weapons as you can see the tempting flank in this shot.

These two units made a lot of 2" moves this way or that way to always be in the idea position to deal with Josh's forces.

To reduce the threat to my own flank, I hurled Screaming Skull after Screaming Skull into Josh's exposed units and Chaos Warriors and Gorebeast Chariot (proxied with a normal Chariot) fled the scene allowing my Skeleton Warriors and Carrion to beat up on the Chaos Warriors.

Catapult view of the fleeing enemies. You've got to love "Skulls of the Foe".

 Multiple times the Chaos Warriors, Gorebeast Chariot and Chaos Hounds were forced to panic and were kept at bay consistently the latter half of the game. It was a hard day to be a Warrior of Chaos.

Heading north to Kislev, Troll Country, or maybe Norsca. Regardless, they decided the deserts of Khemri were not for them.

All told, I played a solid game. My memory of WFB tactics is still solid and I made sure to make his charges difficult and to take advantage of his own exposure which helped win me the day. Though, my fighting skill was pathetic. The only thing that saved me was my constant use of charging two facings at the same time. It wouldn't have been enough though if it wasn't for my Screaming Skull Catapults which honestly won me the day. They started off slow the first couple turns, but later in the game the scored direct hit after direct hit absolutely punishing his lines. It was glorious, but not easily repeated. It just happened to be my day in the sun.

I really appreciate Josh coming over to get a game in. It reminded me that I genuinely miss playing WFB and that I should play it more than I do. two years between games is far too long.

-Nick

Shameless plug, if you haven't checked out the blog for the miniature board game I'm developing, go check it out. Its called Broken Contract.

Trudging My Way to Adepticon

The next 4 months are going to be a very busy time. I need to build something in the range of 8 gaming tables for my Battle for Piscina IV event at Adepticon and I signed up for several events to participate in as well. One of the events I'm preparing for is the "Its How You Use It" Warhammer Fantasy Battle tournament. I chose to bring 1000 points of Tomb Kings because in a pinch I already have that many points painted. However, ideally I'd like to replace most or all of the models I have already painted. Most of my Tomb Kings were painted in the days when the Undead were all in one book and their was no differentiation between Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts. Then, somewhere around 1998 the decision was made to split the two factions. I diligently repainted my bases a sandy tone and pledged allegiance to the court of Khemri. I still have all of my random vampires, zombies, and ghouls with their uniform Goblin Green bases packed away, shunned, and forgotten but the Tomb Kings still get some love from time to time. A year ago I decided to add/drybrush a few more models and repaint their hideous shields painted around 1995 when I was about as adept at free hand painting as a 5 year old. Personally, I'm not much for drybrushing models. The technique has its place and its my roots but like 8 years ago I tried my hand at painting a skeleton meticulously - not just drybrushing it. That model has sat unfinished in foam carrying cases for the better part of the last decade waiting to be fully risen into the world. Over the last week I experimented with shield painting, redid his spear shaft, and based him with a higher contrast landscape. I'm really happy with the end result.

Above is a Skeleton Warrior most likely painted around 1995. He was painted with Brown Wash over a Skull White Primer basecoat and then dry brushed Bubonic Brown, Bleached Bone, and highlighted around the eyes with Skull White mixed with Bleached Bone. His base was changed to a Bestial Brown top with dry brushing of Vomit Brown and Bleached Bone, and the edge was painted with several coats of Vomit Brown. That was my "desert look". The shield was repainted last year to try and emulate the how I envisioned the shields on the cover of the original Tomb Kings book if there wasn't the ever present orange haze.

This is the meticulously highlighted Skeleton Warrior I started painting like 8 years ago. Similar to the original skeleton he began with Brown Ink over a Skull White Primer base coat. The model was then painted Bleached Bone in successive thin layers to build up a solid coat while leaving the Brown Ink in the recesses. Highlights of Bleached Bone mixed with Skull White, and then pure Skull White were put on again in successive thin layers. The spear shaft is Red Gore with the texture highlighted with Blood Red. Its fairly subtle. The gold accents began as a base coat of Tin Bitz and then was highlighted with Shining Gold and then Shining Gold mixed with Mithril Silver. The shield face itself began as a solid coat of Bleached Bone. Then the edges of the metal, the bottom edge, and the gouges got thin washes of Devlan Mud. Thin watery streaks of Bleached Bone were used to blend the Devlan Mud into the base tone. Then Skull White was painted on in thin watery streaks building up a solid tone and blending the darker lower area of the shield into the brighter top half of the shield. It was a lot of work the first time out but now I think it'll go really fast in the future. Finally hieroglyphics were added using Chaos Black at the very end. The base is Scorched Brown with dry brushed highlights of Shadow Grey, Iyanden Dark Sun, and Bleached Bone. The edge is Scorched Brown.

This adds one more model to my total model count for the year. Also, this week I received a Necrosphynx/War Sphinx in the mail. I still haven't committed to which it will be. The points are roughly the same. Anyone have any feelings on one vs the other?

What Are You Doing At Adepticon 2012?

My first Adepticon was in 2005. I was living in Washington, DC and my friend Anton from Chicago who had just gotten into 40K found out about this 40K convention and wanted me to fly out for it. I looked over the event schedule and ended up signing up for all 3 of the big 40K events – the Gladiator Tournament, the Team Tournament, and the 40K Championships. I remember the stress of trying to prepare for the Team Tournament and having two of my teammates flake on me last minute and the frustration of having to find 2 substitutes to fill in for us the weekend of. It was a whirlwind weekend of gaming… Way too much gaming! In the years that followed I dropped the Gladiator Tournament, then I eventually dropped Team Tournament, and last year I didn’t even do the 40K Championships. I came to Adepticon exclusively to shop.

This year I am taking a whole new approach to Adepticon and eschewing 40K overkill for a mix of seminars and events. This is my game plan for this year:

Thursday night I will be attending the Introduction to Mold Making and Casting seminar. Over the years I’ve made countless pieces of scenery and a few of them I would have loved to have reproduced. Additionally, the idea of making molds of custom pieces I build to make even cooler pieces seems way too cool to pass up. This could turn out to be a whole separate hobby I have within the hobby or I could hate it, but it’s something I’d like to know how to do so I’m really excited for this seminar.

Friday evening I will be joining in one the Warhammer Fantasy ‘It’s How You Use It Tournament’. At this exact moment this is the event I’m most excited for. I haven’t played the 8^th Edition of WFB nor did I play the 7^th Edition. It feels almost like I’m starting over fresh. I bought the Tomb Kings book this week and as I’m looking at some of universal special rules I realized I have never heard of some of them and have absolutely no idea what they do. You would think this would be frustrating but I’m not a hardened WFB player so it’s actually kind of fun and exciting. It feels fresh and fun. Hopefully people participating in this event are as relaxed about it as I am. Another nice thing about this event is that I already have 1500-2000 points of Tomb Kings painted from 5^th/6^th Edition when they first split the Undead into “wet” and “dry” armies as they were termed at the time. If at any point I find I don’t have time to complete my 1000 point army list I’ve just written up, I can always fall back on what I have.

Saturday morning I’ve given myself the opportunity to sleep in a little. I probably won’t but the option is there. At noon I will be taking a class on Painting Weathering Techniques. I think I do fairly well at weathering but my techniques are pretty rudimentary and some of the things people do now are really evocative and dynamic so I’d like to see what I can glean from this class.

Saturday evening will be fun. I was considering signing up for the Combat Patrol Tournament and though I was still on the fence while I was picking events I discovered via Facebook that some of my friends were also signing up for Combat Patrol on Saturday night. That sealed the deal for me. All 5 previous Adepticons that I’ve played in 40K events I always brought my Angels of Absolution and my Redemptors of Gholinar Imperial Guard force. Never have I brought my Orks because they are my smallest army. Well this year, the Orks are coming with and getting some game time. I’m worried that I’ll regret that choice when things come down to the wire and I don’t have a good selection of models painted but I can’t worry too much about that. It’ll be fun to throw down with something different and maybe get some games in against my friends.

Sunday though is the big day for me and will be the subject of a column in and of itself. This will be my first time running an event at Adepticon. The Battle for Piscina IV is my adaption of the Storm of Vengeance campaign pack fused with the Purging of Kadillus novel by Gav Thorpe. Over half of the slots have already sold out and we haven’t even put up the rules yet which is both exciting and terrifying. I’ll talk more about that later though.

What are you doing at this year’s Adepticon?

PS. Sorry for all of the recycled photos.

UPDATED: A New Year and New Scenery

Before I talk about my own projects I want to take a moment to pat my compatriot Scott on the back. After looking at his year in review entry I went through every entry of 2009 that I did between my old blog, Redemptors of Golinar, and here at 2nd City Warzone. What I discovered was really disappointing. In the first weeks of 2009 I had completed enough scenery to complete an entire table. You can see that here. Then, over the course of 2009 I pulled all my models out of the figure cases, did minor upgrades to a few, and then put them back in the case. I'm pretty sure I only finished 4 Angels of Absolution and added shields and 5 Skeletons to a unit of Skeletons with Hand Weapons.

So not exactly the most prolific hobby year. In fact, I bought the Imperial Guard Codex, played 1 game with it. I bought Planetstrike and haven't played a single game with it. And I bought a Stompa that remains untouched. I really want to turn things around in 2010 and walk away with something to show for it like Scott did last year. Especially with having a new born midway through the year and having all sorts of other things on his plate, he powered through and really accomplished a lot.

That being said, what are reasonable goals for me to have for 2010? These are the things I'd like to accomplish:

• I'd like to get the Angels of Absolution to 2000 playable points. I have over 1500 right now and adding just another 4 or 5 models will make certain squads playable pushing me to this goal.
• I'd like to get my Tomb Kings of Khemri to 2000 playable points. Once again, painting a handful of models and updating a few units will get this army to this goal.
• Complete the Ork Trukk I've been working on for the last 2 years. This is my only Ork goal. I just need to paint the crew and do some weathering. It's so close to completion it really shouldn't sit like this anymore.
• Complete my Humboldt Park/Chicago themed city board. Last year I started the project of making buildings loosely based on buildings in my neighborhood and putting them on giant sidewalk edged movement trays to create an authentic yet playable city. A week of work and I can turn the work I've put in into a 4' x 6' or possibly larger board. I really think the end result will be very dramatic and I'm looking forward to it.
• Update: Run a narrative campaign that links a mere 5 games with the Nerd Night crew.

All that being said, exactly like how I started last year, when the holidays come around I feel compelled that I should be playing with toys, so that's what I did. Here are 4 new pieces of scenery I made to go along with the scenery I started 2009 off with.

A quick note on these pieces of scenery. The "concrete tube" piece was a piece of busted PVC pipe I found on the ground while walking the dogs. Similarly, the railroad track section was one of several railroad track bits I found busted in the alley while walking my dogs. The desert "giant thicket" trees are based around broom bristles from a beat up broom I found in the trash somewhere, and the pile of metal pipes - the tubes are from the center of a roll of dog poop bags. Recycling at its finest. Here's to a productive and fun 2010!