Chatter Of The Squirrel

GenCon 2008

August 15, 2008 on 11:03 am | In WARMACHINE | 1 Comment

Someone asked me, that if I had all the money in the world, where would I want to go?

Everyone will probably start thinking of walls, tombs, or falls that they must see. Dead things. Or dead things made by dead people FOR dead people. Me, I started thinking of life, especially where people are teeming with PASSION.

My first answer: I will want to be in Indiana this weekend.

This is the GenCon Indy weekend. Probably the most important event for gaming all year. Where game companies show off and release new products. Where unwashed geeks flock to see the latest cool games. Games. Demos. Panels. Tournaments. Painting competitions. Painting classes. LOTS.

Where I will be able to see things like THIS first hand.

Now THIS is a thing of beauty. A Slayer Helljack, crouching over a girl holding a teddy-bear. Beautifully sculpted, fantastic pose. Here’s an art piece that tells a story! It inspires terror, menace, and a tiny sliver of hope! Will this mechanical warmachine powered by necromantic energies show mercy to this hapless human, or will it reason that it will reap more suffering from letting the traumatised orphan live.

It brings a tear to my eye, and makes me glad that Cryx is my chosen faction when I started this hobby.

雞狼毫

May 30, 2008 on 11:55 pm | In Me!, WARMACHINE | No Comments

While walking around Muar, killing time… I came across this big shop that specialises in Chinese calligraphy brushes. Hundreds upon hundreds of brushes, in many dozens of varieties. It was fun just looking and poking at everything. Except for the lady boss hovering behind me, making me feel like a tourist who’s aimlessly browsing and not really buying.

Which I was…

Rabbit hair brushes. Sheep hair. Goat hair. Pony hair. Etc.

Then I saw something called 雞狼毫. Literally, “chicken wolf hair”. That’s, interesting… Never heard of a .chicken wolf’. Asked the lady what animal hair is this? She says chicken wolf hair. I can read the words on the brush just fine, thank you very much. But there’s no such thing as a chicken wolf. Is there?

Could it be some kind of chinese fox? Or, dare I hope, a kind of sable ??

The most desired painting brushes are made from Siberian sable.

I have bought a pair of Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes for my miniature painting. They were around RM50 each. For very very few hairs of Kolinsky sable hairs. Price of different size brushes increases rapidly proportionate to the amount of hairs used. For best quality, only the the hair from the winter coat of the tip of the tail of the male kolinsky sable is used. These are fantastic brushes, and well worth the price I think. The tip is sharp, and STAYS sharp for years. Nylon brushes will begin to hook within half a week of moderate painting. I’ve put these hairs under the microscope, and every hair is Sharp! It’s very springy and will snap back into shape every time. They’re wonderful.

And these 雞狼毫 were only about RM2 each? Might these be the same sable? Even found a series of smaller art series brushes that was pure 狼毫. So I bought like 3 of these brushes.

Did some Googling. Well no, for ‘Chinese’ knowledge, it’s better to use Baidu.com.

So it seems that there is no such thing as a ‘chicken wolf’. Those brushes are a combination of the neck hairs of a cock, and the 小黄鼠狼, ’small yellow mouse wolf’.

They’re quite adorable. And that reddish brown fur, is VERY familiar. More Googling. Found it’s genus name, Mustela sibtricus Palias. That’s the Siberian Weasel. Commonly known as the Kolinsky Sable, but the animal is not a sable.

This. Is. AWESOME!!

Sable brushes for PENNIES!! Relatively…

Then further research showed that there are TONS of fake 狼毫 on the market, which uses dyed pony hair instead of weasel hair. And the way to tell the fake, is that it’s many tens of times cheaper than the real thing.

D’oh!!

I tried out the brushes anyway, at the last Legio club meet. And the brush does not perform as well as a W&N. Softer, not as much snap. But the brush can hold a lot of paint and it’s pretty good for RM2. Until bits of hair starts frizzing, or breaking off and sticking to the model.

GAK!!

That’s chicken hair for you!

I wonder if I’m the first person to review using chicken hair brushes for miniature painting.

Terminus

December 20, 2006 on 3:50 pm | In WARMACHINE | No Comments

Spent the past few weeks painting up the Lich Lord to display and play at the event at Cineleisure last weekend.

After gluing up the wings and most of the bits, I used my airbrush and sprayed Chaos Black all over it. Giving everything a good black coat to paint on.

Then, I used Skull White, and sprayed a thin layer from the top at an angle. This way, the upper surfaces, and parts that light will shine on, will be white. While the shadowed bits will remain black. This is a lazy cheat.

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Then I sprayed the wings with Naphtanol Red. And I quite like the resulting effects. As I had hoped, the surfaces exposed by light came out a brighter red, while those parts in the shadows remain darker. Thus, enhancing the looks of the miniature, without the tedious paint layering or blending.The rest of the model took me about a week of painting while at work.

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The finished product:

Still a little too shiny for an undead creature eons old. But I can continue to improve on it as skill or accessibility to new paints allow…

The Black Spot #6

December 19, 2006 on 2:27 pm | In WARMACHINE | No Comments

Who is a Press Ganger?
This is Norman, your local Press Ganger.

I’m the guy judging tournaments, and being roped in by gamestores to do demos for WARMACHINE and HORDES. [These games kick so much ass, they have to spelt in all CAPS].

“But what is the Black Spot, Captain?” - Jim from Treasure Island
I’m starting up this newsletter as a means to get word out to the small crew of Privateer Press fans out there. I’ll use the newsletter to keep everyone updated on the local WARMACHINE and HORDES scene. Especially notices for demos or tournaments happening locally. When new stuff comes in. What kind of new stuff to expect.

==========

Tournament Reports

We had two events last weekend at the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Festival at Cineleisure.

Photos found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/64603942@N00/sets/72157594425701057/

Great times had by all, and those of you who missed it should be sorry.

It was a 3 day fest with comics, cos-play, tournaments, toys, and games.
Things you will have missed:
Electra
The Invisible Woman (with the very visible pantie-line)
dancing teenage girls
christmas carols by a mass of sweet young church girls
a lascivious lupine (see above)
Stormtroopers with droopy pants
Eric as a Jedi
Zach as Predator

And you’ll also have missed out on two WARMACHINE tourneys…

We started with a 350pt Guts & Gears on Saturday.
Was hoping to make the tournament more accessible to the new players. But alas, only 6 players turned up. Ah well…

Kuok - Butcher
Rahman - Vlad
Khalead - Sorcha
Alvin “the Slammer” - Butcher
Geoffrey - Darius
Jefri - Vayl

With the poor turn-out, and tardy players, it seems like everyone was just going through the motions. Not much happens in a 350pt game after all… No wacky combos. No heroic dice-rolls. It was going to be a pretty bland tourney until everyone agreed to making the 3rd match a Six Way Free For All!

Mark had built a large factory for Flames of War games. But no FOW players were at the event and the huge terrain was just a big diorama. We moved all the little people out, and deployed 6 armies on the table.

Rules:
For every Warcaster/Warlock you kill, you earn another 5 Tournament Points. Player with most points win.

And to spice it up, player order will be determined randomly every round! This made for some sweet sweet chaos!

Standings before Match 3:
Carlead - 10
Kuok - 6
Geoffrey - 6
Rahman - 6
Alvin - 6
Jefri - 2

Four Khador, one Cygnar, one Everblight.

I think everyone was able to see that the 350pt Darius with 2 Centurions was the biggest threat. No single army can take out that much tempered steel on its own, and in a battle of attrition, the bothersome Half-jacks will make all the difference.

It’s only good strategy that persuaded everyone to converge on the cocky mechanik hiding inside his crusty Jack suit.

Alvin’s forces was the first to collide with the Full Throttled & JackHammered Centurions, and took massive casualties. Jefri’s Carnivean plowed into the fray from inside the factory and crushed one Centurion, which was almost immediately revived again by Darius’ feat.

At some point, Geoffrey started screaming, “I’m getting gang-raped by X players at the same time! This is so gay!!” Over. And over. And over again… But the value of X only kept increasing as a result.

In such a scenario, it would have been tactically wiser for Darius to use its greater mobility (relative to Khadorans), to hit and run one army at a time. Instead it chose to clash into the first army it sees and proceeded to get itself bogged down as a second, then a third, then a fourth army joined into the fray.

Kuok’s Butcher was the first to fall from a charging Centurion. Leaving him with one Kovnik & a Devastator for the remainder of the game. And Geoffrey takes the lead with 11 TP.

Carlead’s Sorcha lumbers in from the far far end of the table. Popped her feat to trap almost everyone, then wailed on Darius with her Ice Scythe. Doing far short of fatal damage.

At this point, Kuok’s lumbering Devastator finally got into threat range of some juicy targets. While Sorcha was dinging Darius’ armour, the Devastator moved into base to base with both WarCasters and gave them a group hug. 2x POW 18 Rain of Death.

Rolling 3 dice for Darius, Kuok got 6,6,5. The mechanik swallowed so many grenades that his remains are going back to Caspia in a cup. Kuok is now at 11 TP.

POW18 damage roll for Sorcha… came up 6,6. Leaving Sorcha with only 1 life left! The Kovnik charged in to finish the job, but missed.

Alvin quickly moved up to steal the kill, and earned his new nickname. He slammed the Destroyer into Kuok’s Kovnik, and the heavily armoured northerner flew so far it rolled over Sorcha, a Manhunter, and an innocent Shredder. But failed to do the critical point of collateral damage on Sorcha.

No matter. Butcher moves up and tossed Avalanche on Sorcha’s prostrate form. And failed to do damage.

Butcher loaded up his boom-stick, took aim and fired off a round into her back. And failed to do damage yet again.

New round. It boiled down to who will get to activate first. Either Sorcha escapes, or someone will take the kill.

The Hug-anator got its activation first and buried Sorcha in shrapnel. Winning the tournament.

Great fun.

==========

Sunday was a quieter day, so we had our 750pt WARMACHINE event. Just so we can end 2006 with an epic battle.

We had:
Khairul - Prime Kreoss
Saleem - Epic Haley
Geoffrey - Epic Caine
Kuok - Karchev
Norman (me) - Terminus

We already had an even number of players. But Wolf wants to break open the faction certificates for this event. I had to sign up too so that the Best of Cryx doesn’t go to waste.

Round 1

E.Caine vs Kreoss.
As I understood it, eCaine forgot that he was fighting Prime Kreoss, and not the epic. He got hit by the Kreoss Pop & Drop, the oldest trick in the book.

E.Haley vs Karchev
Karchev was badly outnumbered in this matchup. eHaley out-manuevers Karchev and was whittling his jacks down very effectively.

eHaley, thinking that she was in the clear, having successfully knocked out the Spriggan’s cortex and shield-arm, finally popped her head out of the rabbit-hole she was hiding in…. Not realising that Karchev had lulled her into a false sense of security and was subtly setting up a death-dealing blow.

Caine from the next table, possibly motivated by the Best of Cygnar certificate, wanted to ‘help’ Khador win and proceeded to ‘teach’ Karchev what he should do. This alerted eHaley, who had one last model to activate. The JWC immediately hopped in to block the fatal counter-attack.

Otherwise, Karchev could’ve Towed the Spriggan into position, cast Unearthly Rage, popped Total War, and the Spriggan will be able to bear down on eHaley with MAT8 to hit with 3d6, and POW18 damage with 3d6. That’s 63% chance of hitting, and pretty goods odds of winning too.

Saleem never saw that move coming until his fellow Cygnaran blabbed it out.

Round 2
Kreoss vs eHaley
These guys got so lost in the game they just couldn’t stop. The match must’ve lasted 2 hours.

Good moments: eHaley Dominated a Menoth jack and used it to blow a hole into the Monolith Bearer’s back. There was even a convenient Focus on the jack to spend for boosting.

Terminus vs eCaine
My list:
Terminus
Skarlock (I forgot I had enough pts left for this!!!)
2 Deathrippers
8 Bile Thralls
8 Bile Thralls
8 Satyxis + Seawitch
8 Bane Knights
Bane Lord Tartarus
2 Pistol Wraiths
Gorman di Wulfe
10 Croe’s Cutthroats
(750 pts)

Geoffry:
Epic Caine
Journeyman WarCaster
2 Hunters
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Eyriss
Stormblades + Unit Attachment
5 Storm Lancers
1 Storm Smith

Yea… I’ve got a butt load of models in my army. After selling my Deathjack, I don’t have a good Helljack to fill out points. Thus the 16 Bile Thralls…

The Advance Deploy for Croe’s was great. First turn, they ran in and bogged down a Hunter. And there’s nothing the ATGMs can do about them, with their Stealth, and DEF 17 in melee. And it gave time for the Satyxis to run up behind to charge next turn.

Next turn, some of the Croe’s charged into the Storm Lancers, some others into the ATGMs bogging everyone down.

Thus allowing the Bile Thralls to pour through the gaps to wipe out the ATGMs, all but one Storm Blade, Eyriss, and injure the Storm Lancers. The Bane Knights got the charge on the other Hunter, then on the Storm Lancers. By tying up the range units early, my Bile Thralls over ran the center uninhibited and mopped up.

But in the end… Gorman’s 3″ Smoke template proved insufficient protection for Terminus. eCaine got line of sight to it, with True Sight on. True Sight will negate Terminus’ Sacrificial Pawn ability. eCaine popped his feat and shot Terminus 8 times.

Fatal damage. If not for Terminus having cast Shadow of Death the turn before…

So the game came down to a single Tough roll… And I rolled a 5! Termie lives!

After that, a Bile Thrall purged on Caine. An arcnode went in to throw Annihilation. And 6 Bane Knights charged in and surrounded Caine (DEF17).

5 BKs (MAT6) have 1/12 chance of hitting each;
1 BK Lt (MAT7) has 3/12 chance of hitting.

About 50% odds. Even if they all missed, if Caine tried to run on his turn, he’ll take 6 Free Strikes at +2 to MAT.

If Caine stays put, Tartarus will walk up and curse him (-2 DEF), giving the BKs the same odds again as the Free Strikes. Then the arcnode that’s still there will drop another Annihilation which can’t miss. Or another Bile Thrall will walk in to purge. So staying put is a death warrant.

So here’s your homework. What were Caine’s odds of dodging the 6 BK attacks, and THEN running away on his turn. You can of course assume that he’s on his last legs and a single strike with Weapons Master will bury him.

First correct answer submitted gets a cookie.

BTW, my 4th BK killed Caine and narrowly won the tournament.

It had already been a long day at this point, so we stopped the tournament with just two matches. With Saleem taking home the champion cards. The rest of us got Best of Faction certificates, and only Geoffrey went home empty handed. But he should take comfort with the 2nd place he won on Saturday.

==========

Upcoming Tournaments

There’s nothing else for the remainder of the year.

Almost thought we might squeeze in another friendly at Settler’s Cafe, but there’s been some management upheaval at the cafe, and our beloved hang-out is on hiatus.

But there’ll be new things to look forward to next year.

The Quartermaster had whispered, to PressGanger ears only, that in February (or before), they’ll start a Worldwide Campaign. With battle conditions changing week from week. Every Monday, there’ll be an official post on their website with some new thing happening.

That’s all I know about it so far…

And this doesn’t even include the Grind event happening next year. This was only hinted at the end of No Quarter #9. Even I don’t know what that’s about yet.

==========

The Crow’s Nest

Our devoted Cygnaran in Kiwi-land, Arzmi, got so itchy without his army with him, he just bought himself Stryker, Defender, 2x Ironclads & JWC at the Christmas sale. And whooping ass, surprisingly. He also bought the Cygnar P3 paintset, and seems to be all praises about it. Particularly liked the blue highlights, cos he’s too lazy to mix highlight colours himself…

==========

Phat Lootz

Also, Wolf is STILL having a 10% sale on ALL Cryx products until the end of the year.

Where are our Cryx players?

At present, there’s still some Harrowers, Leviathans, Satyxis Raiders, Epic Skarre, Reapers, random blisters on the shelves.

==========

Wolf is also trying to encourage some HORDES action at his shop.

Play HORDES there, and earn 1 pt. The points can be used to redeem free HORDES merchandise later.

Remember that there’s a table rental charge at Wolf’s now. This applies to all games, even card games and boardgames. These table rentals pay for the electricity. But for HORDES players, the money you pay for table rental just goes into a piggy bank for you to redeem that free mini later.

This now applies even for WARMACHINE games. But those points are still only used to redeem HORDES merchandise only.

==========

The next big Privateer Press shipment to Wolf’s will happen in January, when No Quarter #10 and Prime:Remix is ready.

I think we’re pretty sure we can expect Trencher Grenade Porter, Trencher Officer + Sharpshooter, Devouts, and maybe Alten Ashley. And two sets of each P3 paint set.

Yet again, no Cryx love… Unless some Cryx players, especially the new ones, come forward soon. Coming releases have the Helldiver, (which even our Khad-Orkan might get cos it’s “shou kewt”), and the Satyxis Seawitch, which roXXored my soXXors in two games on Sunday.

Prime: Remix will be in full colour, with very few tweaks of some units possibly. And new stories. It’ll have all the updated and errataed rules in the last few years. Including Trampling rules that popped up in Apotheosis and likely the Cavalry rules in Superiority.

Please note that Prime:Remix won’t have unit stats from the units in Escalation onwards. It’s a compilation of rules from all books. But not all the units. I think some of you might have been under this misconception.

From now till Wolf places the order, you may pre-order Prime:Remix, pay in full, and get a 10% discount.

BTW, I’ve got a 2nd hand copy of Prime for sale….cheap cheap, any takers? ^_^
heh heh…

The Bilge

No new web-comic to recommend this week. Although someone missed out the link to http://superdickery.com/dick/126.html… Trust me, that’s more brain damage than a Smallville marathon. This is like… an in-bred face-hugger that violated the wrong orifice and implanted a baby alien through your ear.

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Epilogue
Please help get the Black Spot around. Let our community grow.

Back issues of The Black Spot will now be here, and here.

The Black Spot #5

December 7, 2006 on 11:53 am | In WARMACHINE | No Comments

Who is a Press Ganger?
This is Norman, your local Press Ganger.

I’m the guy judging tournaments, and being roped in by gamestores to do demos for WARMACHINE and HORDES. [These games kick so much ass, they have to spelt in all CAPS].

“But what is the Black Spot, Captain?” - Jim from Treasure Island
I’m starting up this newsletter as a means to get word out to the small crew of Privateer Press fans out there. I’ll use the newsletter to keep everyone updated on the local WARMACHINE and HORDES scene. Especially notices for demos or tournaments happening locally. When new stuff comes in. What kind of new stuff to expect.

==========

Tournament Reports
On the night before the postponed HORDES event, the bulk of the players messaged me that they’ve gotten sick. Seems that there’s a bad bug going around Settler’s Cafe… I myself was crippled by two different germs in a row.

So, that tourney is so DONE! It’s not meant to happen. And we’ll just let everyone throw in at the Guts & Gears events at Cineleisure. Hope that one will be blessed with greater success. More details below.

==========

Upcoming Tournaments
15-17/12/06 Cineleisure
Sci-fi & Fantasy Con in honour of the launch of Eragon.

Wolf’s Game Shop was invited and promised a lot of tables. Wolf is planning to throw in a lot of effort and resources for this one, but we’ll need everyone’s help to make it a successful con too.

There’ll be a fair bit of Warhammer Fantasy and Flames of War happening. Confrontation and Privateer Press will have tournaments.

We’ll have a large space to fill, so we’ll do one big event to pull in EVERYBODY.

==========

16/12/06 (Saturday) Cineleisure 1pm
350pts HORDES + WARMACHINE RUMBLE

This is the Guts & Gears event. Beasts will fight Jacks and vice versa.

We want everybody to come and participate. I’ve made the point cost low, so that new players will join in, so please do not disappoint me. These tournaments are not about who wins. It’s about who PLAYS!

Wolf wants to make this a pre-registration event. We need to count heads. We need to know how many tables to prepare. We need to plan how much terrain to make ready. So, if at all possible, please register for the event at WGS before the 10th Dec. Very short notice, yes… and chances are that some of you won’t even read this email by then… But well, them’s the breaks I guess.

Either register or RSVP me at my email (ratatosk@pressganger.com).
Or you could turn up on the day itself unannounced, just because we’re Malaysians, and we’ll fit you in anyhow… But it will seriously help everybody out if you can pre-register or tell me if you’re coming or not.

Entry is a mere RM5. There’ll be Best of Faction certificates for both WARMACHINE and HORDES.
And hopefully we can get hold of some freebies from the organisers to give away too.

The Eragon event will probably start running way before noon. But the tournament will begin at 1pm.

==========

17/12/06 (Sunday) Cineleisure
750pt WARMACHINE

All those who are ready, and will be able to make it for a 750pt event on this day, please RSVP me. Then we’ll see if it’s worth running or not. At my current count, I’m probably looking at 2 tables only, which is fine enough for a game, but it won’t do justice to the event venue. We might be able to hook some S’porean players up to compete with us, but I can’t bet on their coming and build an event around that possibility.

Anyway, if enough people can RSVP, then we’ll just have a small event on the quieter Sunday.

And throughout all this, I’ll like to have some WARMACHINE and HORDES demos going too.
A show of hands who’ll like to help me out?

==========

The Crow’s Nest
To follow-up on the previous Figmentia Saga… Someone just threatened to nuke the writer. That’s on top of the bomb and arson threats already.

Anyways, one of us had written a letter to the editor, and we won’t know if it gets printed or not, but the letter was shared with me. Here’s a fascinating snippet from the impassioned writing.

“A casual observation of those involved in this hobby will reveal an astonishing fact, most of us are male, most of us are single and most of us are lacking looks and figures above average.”

*sigh*…

The truth stings, doesn’t it?

==========

Phat Lootz
Had a discussion with Wolf, and he’ll bring in P3 paints, if enough people place orders for them.

For those of you who are new to the hobby, and don’t already have a huge collection of GW paints, these P3 paints are great value and worth buying.

==========

Also, Wolf is having a 10% sale on ALL Cryx products until the end of the year.

Where are our Cryx players?

At present, there’s still some Harrowers, Leviathans, Satyx Raiders, Epic Skarre, Reapers, random blisters on the shelves.

==========

Wolf is also trying to encourage some HORDES action at his shop.

Play HORDES there, and earn 1 pt. The points can be used to redeem free HORDES merchandise later.

Remember that there’s a table rental charge at Wolf’s now. This applies to all games, even card games and boardgames. These table rentals pay for the electricity. But for HORDES players, the money you pay for table rental just goes into a piggy bank for you to redeem that free mini later.

==========

The Bilge
This issue has been a little late coming out cos I was busy playing Bookworm Adventures Deluxe .

And after I’d conquered that, I was reading http://goblinscomic.com.

==========

Epilogue
Please help get the Black Spot around. Let our community grow.

Back issues of The Black Spot will now be here, and here.