Blood Rage

My copy of Blood Rage just arrived!  I'll do an unboxing with photos later.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/blood-rage

It's a bug hunt: Tyranids Update

I've started back to working on the Tyranid Hierophant Biotitan in hopes of fielding it on the 24th...10 days to at least assemble it and maybe some paint on it.

Mounting the legs are a pain.  I plan on mounting them with glue, then running a drill through them and into the body.  I'll then pin them and sand down the pin to match the surface (probably drop a short pin in and then refill the hole with putty).  I can double pin each back leg like this and single pin each front and not lose much of any detail.

Really gotta get going on this if i'm going to make it work.

I also plan on dremeling out a slot for a flying base and supporting most of the weight on that.  That'll take the strain off the spindly legs and hip joints.

Phone was on the fritz so no WIP pictures.  Hopefully have some of those later.

Not my picture, but you get the idea.

Bugpocalypse: Tyranid progress inbound!

It feels like it's been forever since I've worked on my Tyranids.  It really kind of has...and that's about to change.  I have an Apocalypse game coming up on the 24th of this month.  5000 pts per side, dropping most of the extra Apoc rules (like the master of disaster stuff...who wants to lose half their army before they get a chance to play?)

I have a somewhat assembled and painted Barbed Hierodule.  I'm going to push to get my Hierophant assembled and maybe painted by then.  If I have enough points to play with both, awesome.  If not, I'll likely play with the Hierophant (if it's finished).

I'll likely run the Hierophant with the transport upgrade and squirrel either a venomthrope or malanthrope inside.  Something the size of the Hierophant should really have a better invulnerable save, but shrouded will have to do.

If I dont run the Hierophant, I'll run the Hierodule with some nasty surprises coming down in drop pods.  Dakkafexes and Exocrines.  The last game I ran Dakkafex pods, Flyrants, and the Hierodule.  The imperial forces on the receiving end of that didn't have the best time...so I'll likely drop the flyrants since they're still not likely to bring much in the way of Anti-air.

Riotous Progress

Got the T5s lighting the 125, but I still need to pull the casing apart and install mounting hardware.  Until such a time, I'll make due with the little legs provided.  I went with all ATI bulbs, 3x Blue Plus, 1x Purple Plus, 1x Aquablue, and 1x True Actinic.  Getting some nice color off of those, definitely a lot more red.  The super vibrant greens from the LEDs are markedly duller.  I'm hoping these will turn around with some acclimation.

Found a new fish store less than 10 minutes away from my apartment, they focus on sustainability and preservation.  Gorgeous interior (still a work in progress) and friendly owner.  One of the only fish stores in the city proper.   Picked up some Carribsea Life Rock here to finish out the bulk of my rock structure.  It's pretty nice stuff, but expensive for dry rock, definitely glad I used Marco Rock for the majority at half the price.

I've scrapped the shelf rock frag rack and opted for another arch structure.  Going to pull my branch rock from the 65 and some other reef rocks and sell the rest from that tank.

Most of my coral has been transferred (a few waves of that).  Starting it off on the sand bed and moving it up the rocks to let it acclimate to the 6 bulb T5 fixture.   The Acans are really happy.  Currently waiting on the anemones to find a spot they like before I start gluing in corals.  most of the stuff growing on big discs will get broken off and mounted directly to rock.  Chalices will likely live on the sand bed with some open brains when I find stuff I like.  Also looking into some nice neon octospawn.  gotta chip off a few more corals from the 65 and then I can start piecing this jigsaw puzzle together.

The 125, ignore those large discs and tiles on the rocks.

The 65 after I busted some rock...such disarray.

T5s Inbound

Got a 6 bulb T5 fixture inbound for my 125 gallon aquarium.  Also 7 ATI brand bulbs.

4x Blue Plus
1x Purple Plus
1x Aqua Blue
1x True Actinic

Going to tinker around with configurations until I find something I like.

Additionally I'm thinking about scrapping the rock frag rack and planting a nice size staghorn on the center pillar rock and making the one on the end into an acan rock.  Zoas would also be put on the staghorn rock.  Gorgonians might also make an appearance in the 125, I havent decided yet.

Filefish is almost halfway through the aiptasia, so in the next couple of weeks I'll start busting corals off the existing rock and placing them in the 125.  Some of the existing rock will live in the sump, and the leftovers will be sold off.



The office tank is in shambles.  Current plans are to change up the rock into something  more interesting and grab a blue tux urchin.  Massive water change tonight/tomorrow.  Soon I'll add another clown to replace the one we lost (back up to a pair of ocellaris clowns).  Maybe a black/white one.


Pics later maybe.

Dragoncon 2015: A Recap

This was perhaps one of the best Dragoncons I've attended, in large part to a fantastic room dynamic and a distinct reduction in responsibility and lack of drama.

We only had 9 people in the room this year and they got along swimmingly.  Don't worry, we tip housekeeping pretty well for the over occupancy.

I managed to make it to some nice panels for the Maker track.  The Molding Hacks panel was pretty educational with some nice tips and tricks.  RC Everything track was cool because it dealt with some hardware do's and donts.

Are You a Deatheater had a massive crowd this year.  I counted 9 games running concurrently, staggered to allow people removed from play to start playing in a new group.  We ended up having around 4 decks go missing after the session...we'll have to keep better track of them next year.  I'm still a little disappointed in people for stealing those.

The other disappointment of the convention was the CoolMiniorNot booth.  They didn't bring any miniatures to the convention for their vendors booth.  It was all board games...high quality board games, but board games none the less.  I'd have bought quite a bit of the Goritsi faction for Wrath of Kigns at the convention had it been available.  After talking with the guy at the register, CMoN evidently tried selling minis one year and didn't sell a single one.  I think it was poor marketing on their part not to try to push Wrath of Kings a little better.  They need to really be pushing it and making it more visible if they want it to continue to grow.  It feels like they're trying to just throw it out there and let it grow based on it's own merit, which is a mistake in a market so crowded with competition.

The vendors hall being in Americas Mart Building 2 this year was interesting.  It was a lot further away from the con than anything else but was much better organized.  Having the lightsaber booth and chessex right next to each other was problematic, but otherwise a solid transition.

I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this year's Dcon.  So maybe a part 2 to this later.

Wrath of Kings Motivations, wave 2

I'm now out of motivation decks for Wrath of Kings.  Friends got most of them, raffled off 3 decks at the 2 tournaments I went to this month.  So I'm ordering 9 new decks with some updates (like this blog's logo).  I plan on having them in time for Dragoncon!

Wrath of Kings Tournament at Game On! in Chattanooga

Flying Squirrel Bar in Chattanooga...go there!

This past Saturday I attended a tournament at Game On! in lovely Chattanooga Tennessee.  I always love going to visit Chattanooga (it helps that I have some excellent friends who live up there and know all the best places to eat/drink).  This trip was no exception.

Check out the Flying Squirrel Bar if you get a chance.  Excellent beer selection, great setting, and most importantly fantastic food!

On to the tournament!

Zach Beker did a great job running his first tournament.  Using the Conquest of Kings tournament setup, he deviated slightly by allotting time to deploy before starting the round timer, thus giving us more time to actually play.  Both styles have their benefits, but I'd much rather have more time to actually play the game than spend a portion of it deploying.

Game On! is a clean store with excellent air conditioning and friendly staff.  The locals gave me a warm welcome and I got to see (and play against) against several people I first met at the CMoN Expo.

We had 6 players (2 each from the houses of Teknes, Nasier, and Hadross) in this skirmish level tournament and played 3 rounds.

My Hadross list consisted of:

Gutter Friar x2
Frenzy Charger x1
Carcharian Frenzies x3
Sevridan Gutters x4
Deepmen Guardians x4
Calith Reavers x2

Option A:  Ilva
Option B: Sevridan Gutters x3

Motivations were (in order): Treasure Hunt, Burn It Down, Land Grab

My first round was against a fat bottom girl list from Ross, one of the local Nasier players.  Lots and lots of Pelegarth, including a Howl and the character.  Wow are they tough to crack open.  My first onslaught with the Carcharians resulted in a lot of sloughed off strikes while the Sevridan had a better go at it.  I was mopping up objectives for Treasure Hunt while he was trying to get his leaders stuck in but not over extended for Call to Glory.  Ilva was the MVP of this match as her Wail obliterated swaths of pelegarth.  Hadrossian victory!

Round 2 resulted in 3 mirror matches.  My opponent was the other Hadross player Chasen.  We had been talking tactics most of the day so far, so I knew it was going to be a grueling bout.  Hadross is expertly equipped at taking out Hadross.  He brought more sharks than I did, but our lists were pretty similar.  He racked up points using Sever the Head and got a huge early hit taking out my Ilva with his.  After our armies took severe beatings all game, we drew at 0 to 0.

Final round I played against Mike Schaefer.  Mike's a real stand up guy I met and played at the CMoN Expo and so far his pigs and linemen went undefeated.  Taking the win in this match would put me at 7 Tournament points to his 6.  We both took Land Grab for our motivations, and I was confident that I could lure him away and drop either sharks or crabs on my objectives to keep things close.  Starting out 11 to 8 morale (he had a lot of pigs and linemen) meant that I had to keep the pressure on him.  Ilva's Syren's Call and the Sevridan's Gelatinous Shift were extremely useful for keeping him from popping his objectives.  His Zalaak's abomination was troublesome...and the CAGE didnt see much action.  The game went to time with a score of 8 to 7 in Mike's favor for the tournament win relegating me to somewhere around 3rd or 4th place.

I did get Top of House and a set of gold foil Hadross stat cards though!

Ilva was hands down my MVP.  Ilva riding a crab the first round or two is absolutely killer.  Unfortunately you have to really dedicate to that list with at least 3 ranks of specialists...and by unfortunately I mean for your opponent's 1 wound infantry.

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The tournament point system is interesting in the fact that after 3 round I was playing for 1st or 3rd place, but not really 2nd place depending on how the other 2 games went in round 3.  So even if you lose a round, you're still in the running.

As people get more practiced at the game, I'm sure the 1 hour time limit for skirmish level will be more viable.  I urge TO's with newer player bases to let the games examine cards, make choices, roll for side, and deploy before starting the round clock.  Or adding a few extra minutes to the pregame period and allow deployment during then to give the players more time to actually play.

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Some pictures of the tournament taken by Zach Beker!

CAGE MATCH!

Hadross on Hadross Hate!

More from the Hadross Hate Bout

3 Mirror Matches

Hadross: A speed bump

I played a couple games of Wrath of Kings this weekend (and a game the previous weekend).

This weekend's list was:

Torvosh
Frenzy Charger

3x Carcharian Frenzies
2x Sevridan Gutters
8x Deepman Guardians

Ilva
Orsund

First game this past Saturday was against my friend's Nasier at skirmish level.  He played the motivation where he had to get markers for his infantry for interacting with my leaders/specialists.  I chose burn it down.  The game was over pretty fast, as Ilva devastated his Pelegarth and the rest of my forces picked apart his ashmen before they could do any real damage.

The second game was against Goritsi playing alpha, wolves, some dance masters, Anton, and shield breakers.  Motivations were disrupt supply lines for Goritsi and Land Grab for my fish men.  I was wrecking his wolves the entire game, but he kept me penned in and slowly worked his way to one of his objectives and popped it (while sitting on one on the far side of the board in wait).  He then popped the second one and killed the carcharians and leader and a few guardians.  Dropped me to zero and it was all I could do to grab one of my objectives.  Final score was 2-0 Goritsi.

I played a similar game the previous weekend against Goritsi using Disrupt Supply Lines.  The wolves having skirmisher and their raw speed with the Alpha as Commander makes that matchup an uphill fight.  I'm still working on how to beat that one with a tournament list (core for all games and 2 sets of options)

Holding Water

I was out on staycation last week and finally got the 125 gallon acrylic system setup.  Only had a couple leaks.  One was where I threaded my hose barb into the manifold as a placeholder (teflon tape fixed this).  The other was a missing O-ring on one of the ball valves which was replaced.

I bent some acrylic and used weldon to attach it to the stand to support the manifold and anchor the return lines on the back of the aquarium.

I utilized the Marco Rock I got from a LFS on sale...around 65 lbs of it.  The 2 pieces on the right will be supports for a natural frag rack.  I plan on placing a piece of shelf rock with a grid of holes drilled in it for frags to sit in.  I'm not sure if I'm going to stack it higher than what you see there yet or not.

Eventually I'll end up putting T-5 lights in it.  I'm not convinced with my LEDs abilities to grow well and produce the colors I want.  I've found them to be lackluster.

My existing rock will have all the corals removed from it, and then it'll get sanitized due to the extensive aiptasia infestation I'm battling.  Then that 65 gallon tank/stand/canopy and sump will be sold to buy more equipment for this one.

The Waveline DC 10000ii does not disappoint.  It pumps so hard that I have to keep it around 3-4 (out of 6) to keep water in the chamber for it to pump out.  And wow is it quiet.

Death Eater: Rules and Moderator Guide

Time to post up the rules for Are You A Death Eater...and the handy dandy moderator guide.

These will be handed out at the Dragoncon panel on Friday night at 10pm.  They have a double time block this year, so double the time to play!



First off, the Rules:

And the Moderator Guide.  This really helps the game to flow.

Manifold Destiny

Finally got the buffing done and started working on the plumbing for my 125 Reef Aquarium Build.

Running my return line from a Waveline DC 10000ii pump and splitting it off into 5 separate lines for 4 returns and a stub (all with valves).  Also installing a check valve to prevent water from siphoning back into my sump when I cut the main pump for water changes and feeding.  That's currently a problem I have on the 65 gallon reef system in my living room.

Had I run the manifold in a straight run, it would have been 3 feet long...way too much to deal with in that stand considering the sump is resting on the floor between 2 cross braces.  So I made it C shaped with the connection and the check valve on the bottom and the 1" manifold above that.  I also incorporated a union to minimize cost when that check valve finally stops working.  A friend of mine is using 1/2" check valves on his return lines and they kicked it after about 8 months of use.

It aint pretty, but it'll do the job.

With the stand being acrylic, I had an interesting thought.  So I cut a bunch of acrylic brackets, popped holes in them and plan to use my tube of Weldon 16 to just mount them to the stand instead of using conventional hardware...fewer holes in the plastic that way.  I'll then use zip ties to keep the pipe attached.  Theoretically that'll work like a champ.  In the above photo you can see burn marks on the board where I used it to help bend my brackets after I heated them with my brand new heat gun.  I hope to be able to put that thing to some use after this project.

With the existing 2" holes in the stand, I'll be able to run 2 return lines out of each hole with room to spare.  I may mount some additional acrylic brackets to the top of the stand to anchor the return lines and then pop some locline on each one.  Ordered the locline from Premium Aquatics per my LFS's instructions (he could only save me about $0.60 on my order).  End of the day I'll have about $140 in the plumbing, not counting the pump.

Death Eater Update

Quick update.  Our new batch of Are You A Death Eater cards came in.  We now have enough cards for 347 people to play at Dragoncon (12 decks with varying numbers of players per deck).  We'll likely add to each of the new decks later this month and push up closer to around 380 players.  Everyone should have a chance to play that shows up to the double time block panel on the YA Lit Track.

Past Project: Drink Dispenser

This is from my other blog (now defunct).


The Mask (Final Stage):
So I finished the mask, did a wash in black, then drybrushed Inca Gold acrylic paint onto it.  My significant other's mask is pictured below (the half mask) along with mine.

Drink Dispenser:
I got a dual cylinder gravity fed drink dispensing backpack for my birthday.  It was a lot of black nylon, so I opted to change that to fit more with some steampunk stuff and possibly even one of the LARPs I play in.

I built out the backpack with some leather I had laying around, keeping the guts of the system, and dropping the nylon bits.

(Everything laid out after cutting, edge finishing, tooling, and punching stitching holes)

(Tooling with a simple stamp)

(Dyed with a diluted Dark Brown alcohol based leather dye)

(Dry Run to make sure it fit together...added LED puck from Harbor Freight with some green cellophane inside the unit to filter the light)

(Mostly finished.  I had to wet down the caps to allow the leather to stretch and accomodate the original black plastic caps.)

Overall it turned out great.  I'll have to snap some shots with liquid inside and of me wearing it later.  It's pretty comfortable to wear around, and as long as I dont incline my body more than about 30 degrees, it doesnt slosh too much.   There are two modified ammo pouches attached to the front straps to put the nozzles in. The nozzles feed pretty well into a cup or you can just drink directly from them with a bit of suction.  When I added Orange Juice to the mix in the tanks, it started to look like toxic waste.  Got a lot of questions about what was in the tanks after that.

Nano Tank: 20 Long

A while back I found that my frag racks were taking up too much space in my display tank.  So I picked up a brand spanking new 20 gallon long from Petco during the dollar a gallon sale, then proceeded to order everything I would need for the build.



The Build:
20 L aquarium
Hydor Slim Skim Nano Skimmer
Finnex 100W titanium heater
Eheim Compact Pump 1000
1/2" locline nozzle for return
Cheap chinese LED box, dimmable
Cheap chinese powerhead (~800gph)
Black acrylic, spray paint, plumbing, etc.

The build is an all in one system, the sump comprises the left 6 inches of the tank, so everything had to be low profile to fit this.  I'm not totally satisfied with the baffles in the sump area of the tank, if I do this again, I'll go with a different design.  I'm also not sure how effective the skimmer is.  It gets noisy and I have to take it apart and clean it after about a week.  The heater is actually in the main tank.  When located in the sump compartment it just didnt heat enough water to maintain a steady temp.  A higher output return pump might be in order.

I taped off the tank and sprayed a nice black gloss to hide the sump area.  Overall it could have come out better, but I'm happy with it.

Full of parts for the build...that is the raw stand with no modifications.

Bandsaws are my friend!

Snug as a bug in a rug.  Not a whole lot of space for hands in there.

Added a screen top for fish...which really never got added.

For the stand, I looked around for a while trying to find something used.  Nothing worked out, so I went to a local discount cabinet shop.  They set me up with a perfectly sized prebuilt short wall cabinet.  The back wall was a thin sheet of plywood, so I framed out the back with 1x4's.  The inside corners were reinforced with metal brackets as the staples and glue that held the whole thing together seemed insufficient.  Add a nice piece of birch plywood as a top, stain to taste and it worked out wonderfully.

Nothing to see here, just the raw cabinet before I started reinforcing it.

Reinforcements!

More reinforcements!

Kona Stain for that Ikea BlackBrown look to match our other furniture.

The light is mounted on a single piece of conduit, bent in a U shape then bent down.  The conduit is finished in a hammered black spraypaint.  The light grows zoas decently, maintains LPS and SPS, and grows algae like crazy.  I think it has too much yellow spectrum.

Need to finish and attach the doors.

It's been a good little system.  I'll likely break down the system itself and keep the cabinet for storing aquarium stuff.  But that's all after I get my 125 up and running.

CMoN Expo

This past weekend I attended the 2015 CMoN Expo held at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta Georgia.  I missed last year's so this was a brand new experience for me.  I have to say, it was smallish, intimate, and pretty busy the whole time.  The turnout was solid with people flying in from all over the country.  Many of the demo tables were full up most of the expo.

Spending most of the expo playing games, I didnt really go out of my way to meet the game designers (plus I'm not much of a people person).  My friend and I went to Brandon Palmer's panel on his Golden Throne diorama for Warhammer 40k.  Very awesome guy from Indiana.  If you havent seen his work, check him out at gmmstudios.net and the Golden Throne here. 

We also played some of the demos.  Chaosball was fun, but after a game and discussing it we feel it's better for 1 on 1 games.  1 on 1 on 1 just resulted in a lot of killing of models and not trying to actually score with the ball...it was more worthwhile to neuter your opponent.

Xenoshyft is a fun deckbuilding game modeled off of tower defense.  It's built to be pretty challenging, but I think the price tag is a little high for what you get with this one.    Apparently the guy doing the demos was way off about the price.  It's about what you'd expect for this game (~$60) instead of the $90-$100 we were told.

I ended up picking up my Character Box 1 (wave 3) for Hadross and they had some of these guys in their CMoN store.  Limited run (100 of the Red, 50 of the White).

                                                                                                                                        

I did play in an excellent Wrath of Kings tournament on Saturday where I pitted my freshly built Carcharians against 3 opponents (one of them Hadross).  My record for that tourney was 1-1-1 and I learned quite a bit in the process.  For instance, it never dawned on me to use my sevridan's gelatinous shift when they werent engaged...

I have to say, I love the use of a sideboard in the tournament system (Option system).  We had the core list with 2 different builds using the "Option" section of the army list.  After viewing your opponent's core, you chose which option (A or B) you wanted to use against them.

The list I brought with me was evidently a very anti Hadross list.  2 Friars, 1 Frenzy Charger, 5 Sevridans, 3 Carcharians, 2 Taxi Crabs, and my options were A) Ilva and B) Orsund Cavalier.   I beat Teknes, and due to some grievous player errors on my part lost to Shael Han.  Not to say the Shael Han player wasn't skilled, but I screwed up a couple times in big ways.

Great sportsmanship all around.  It was a very fun tournament.

Hadross vs Teknes...Wow I'm outnumbered hard.

Hadross vs Shael Han...Note the location of the Orsund off to the side...yeah, that was the biggest 
mistake along with not using gelatinous shift to break up those clusters of guys.

Cards: Death Eater and Motivations

I sent off for another batch of Are You a Death Eater decks yesterday.  I also tacked on my new motivation cards for Wrath of Kings.

As in my earlier post, Are You a Death Eater is a social game based on the Are You a Werewolf game.  Just with a Harry Potter bent.  It's run at Dragoncon in Atlanta GA every year on the Young Adult Lit track, and in the last couple of years it has grown tremendously.  We've had to send groups out to the hall and even to the Hilton Game Room last year to accommodate the numbers.  8 new decks are on their way to augment our current supply for Dragoncon (plus some get given out as prizes and thank you's).

                                                                                                                

Unfortunately, the Wrath of Kings cards had an error on some of the art.  I'll have to have some of them reprinted.  But it'll work out to about $1.10 per deck to fix, so no biggie.  I have heard through the CMoN Expo that the company has plans to make Motivation Cards for their game.  These are a nice stopgap that will likely work out to be pretty inexpensive.

Samples of the layout (note that Intrigue has the wrong symbol in the corner, I'm correcting this):