Death of a Game Store

I have the most unfortunate luck with game stores that I like and visit frequently closing down. In this particular instance, I'm referring to Empire Games in Mesa, AZ. It was by far the largest game store in my general area of the Valley, and it will be missed. The one glimmer of goodness that came of this was the 50% off everything sale they had the day they shut the doors.

Map Campaign pt1

One of my local shops (Empire Games in Mesa, AZ) is running a map based campaign/escalation league for the next couple months. The map updates weekly on Sunday as a result of battles that take place over the course of the week. I'm playing for the Xenos team, and there are also Imperial, Marines, and Chaos teams... and the one Tyranid player is all by himself. So far it looks pretty awesome, and I've participated in two battles as of this post.

Fishie Sticks

I've made quite a bit of painting progress on my Tau in recent days. I finally got one out of my three Firewarrior (Strike Teams, now... I suppose) squads done to tabletop standard. I painted both my fixer-upper Devilfish I bought off ebay a jillion years ago disruption pod effects and all. I also painted a Remora to see how easy it would be to do a batch of them, and I like the results. I even rewarded my progress so far by painting one of my HQ models that I have set as off-limits while I paint my rank-and-files. In this case, it is Shas'O R'myr the sweet, sweet XV89 commander with a fancy plasma rifle.

Also, for kicks, a picture of my WIP infantry models that need to get done. Then I can move on to my Sniper Drones and probably my squad of XV-88-2 with Heavy Rail Rifles.

Pics after the jump.

Progress

What did I get myself into...?

As always, vaya con Dios,
Tim

A Tau Too Far

This is the sum total of all the painted Tau stuff I own. Also, pictures of a R'varna I did for a friend that ended up 80% painted before I left Michigan. I'll be back up there to finish it eventually.

Two Long Years

Quite a bit has happened in the time since I last posted. We finished the story of Silvr, there was a war, things blew up, we made a narrow escape to the outside world that was just as post-apocalyptic as I'd hoped. Great stuff. I'm sincerely sorry I can't regale you in better detail.

The Journal of Silvr (Entry 4)

It's been three days since the last job, and the wanted posters have been popping up in more and more places. They're starting to make me think maybe this one won't just blow over... I did some digging at a terminal no one was using at the time and I traced the source of the warrant back to someone in the Middle Level, but it looks like it was just a relay from someone above him, but by the time I got that far, someone noticed me, so I had to split.

I got word from Vashuk that while I was bunkered down in my apartment, the boss wanted us to meet up for intel on the next job. They went on without me, and after the meeting everyone, minus Vayne... I don't know where exactly he disappeared to... met up at my place to let me know what the job was.

The Journal of Silvr (Entry 3)

There was actually something I neglected to mention in my last entry. While I was still at the loading docks one of the workers who was busy loading and unloading things had stumbled upon a small unaccounted for box that was throwing some pretty wild readings on a magical trap detector they were using. After calling me over to investigate, we opened the box, and discovered more Force shards. After a few minutes of him calling people over to look at them, he turned to me and asked me if I knew what they were. I told him I didn't, but that I was very intrigued by tiny stones that could trigger a trap detector like that, and asked what would become of them.

The Journal of Silvr (Entry 2)

That was a strange mission. It started off well enough, I suppose, but then the gang showed up and almost ruined it... The rat bastards. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

We met up at one of the usual meeting places, I won't say which, or when, just in case this datapad ever falls into the wrong hands. But we did, and our fearless leader came in and offered us a particularly lucrative... job opportunity.

The Journal of Silvr (Entry 1)

I call myself Silvr, it isn't my birth name, I can't even remember what it was, it's been so long since anyone ever used it. Silvr is actually short for Quiksilvr, my alias in the Underground. The Underground is a group fighting for the rights of the so-called "Lesser-races." We fight against who we call the Uppers, mostly Dwarves and Gnomes who formed a ruling class that has done everything in it's power to make all of our lives in the Lower Levels a living nightmare. But that is just the most recent chapter in my story. Let me start over from the beginning...

I played (40k... and I liked it!)

So I played against Jeff, aka Ultimate Rival, yesterday morning after I got out of work. It was pretty fun, and I started to remember part of the reason I enjoy playing 40k... I love painted models. I'm not a fan of half-painted, and even less so regarding plastic grey, so being able to face off against a fully painted army (to a really high quality, to boot!) was... amazing. Mind you, I say all this, and *my* models weren't painted much more than basecoated black... so... yeah, I need to step up my game.

Not gone, just forgotten...

...you have no idea, good sir... you have no idea...

I've had a bit of a rough... 3 months, apparently... since last I posted.

Lost in the Warp... how'd that happen?

Turns out half the Tau stuff I ordered almost a month ago now hasn't even been shipped by the place of purchase yet (I've bought from them before with no problems, and I suspect that they are having issues with GW supplying them... like nearly every other independent stockist...)

Herohammer 40k!

This is the list I brought to the most recent tournament I went to at Battlefront Gaming. It was mostly just to try it out and see how it would do, and for what it's worth it did not that bad, actually.

Anyway...

Stealth Cadre... Mark 1 (1850)

http://drazhar24.deviantart.com/art/Tau-Stealth-Team-174144996

So this is the basic concept I'm going with for my 1850 Tau list that is fast-moving-sneaky themed... I was going to go with a Cadre Fireblade (or maybe even Darkstrider) instead of an Ethereal for my HQ... but Ethereals are cheaper both in terms of points and money, and have a really cool area of effect ability to buff my nearby Firewarriors, thought they do yield and extra VP when killed...

That said, here's the list... and 12 out of 18 of the Stealth Suits are old metal XV-15's... because they're awesome.

I finally broke down and bought X-Wing...

I was weak... and I went on a bit of a spending spree at one of the cooler game stores in my area... which is also a coffee shop... Alpha Omega Coffee and Games. I love that place!

Fishies!

Random intro is random: for some reason I still don't feel like a Tau player. This may be because I haven't actually played the army with my own models yet... dunno. Just struck me as odd that I feel this way... even though I'll likely end up playing the Tau more than I ever played the particular Marine variants.

Tau-tally awesome!

So I finally bit the bullet and have started phase one of my future Tau Empire army.

The End of an Era

Not an accurate depiction of how much I get paid, but the first check still felt that way!

So... funny story... I haven't had a full-time job in all my 4+ years of playing tabletop games... until now. I've been working for a factory running an injection moulding machine (non-gaming related... unfortunately...) since April 1st, and boy was having a goodly sized paycheck a cool thing. The first gaming purchase I made with the new source of income was a secondhand Landraider Crusader, a Secondhand Dreadnought (with dual autocannons and everything!) and an Arjac Rockfist (who is freaking awesome, despite the obvious casting flaws and bubbles... I'm still on the fence if it's bad enough to complain to GW about it...)

Apocalypse Now (Yesterday!)

Yesterday marked the second Apocalypse 40k game at Battlefront Gaming. It was freaking amazing. There were two teams of three with ~3000 points each. I was with the Forces of Disorder and had the Titan Maniple you see in the first pic, my teammates had 3k of Imperial Guard/Chaos Space Marines, and ORKS! The orks did infinitely better than I ever imagined they would. Especially that squad of Grotz, who just would not die (vs a Dreadnought!) Unfortunately, I didn't get good pictures of that side of the battlefield, as I was slightly preoccupied with my end. My worthy adversaries included another Titan Princeps, commanding a single Warlord and a handful of Stormtalon reinforcements, (who was actually kind enough to allow me the use of a Reaver!) a Tau player who felt the need to NOT run the "cheese list" he came up with with tremendous amounts of Rail Weapons (including Area Denial Nodes, which could have gotten NASTY.) and a Space Marines player (he calls them Salamanders, but they aren't green yet... :P )

Now on to the breakdown of turns:

What a week!

Well, it's been ~13 hours since that last post, and I officially declare myself to be done building titans for now. I didn't finish them all, in fact, I only got one more to the point where I'll be able to use it tomorrow (for a total of two), but that's ok. Chance smiled upon me today, and as it turns out, there will be another Titan Princeps joining the fray, and he was kind enough to agree to allow me to utilize one of his Reaver Titans he ran out of room for. I'll be 50 points under the 3k limit, but I'm totally fine with that.

It's the Final Countdown!

I wish I had 24 hours left!

So it's Friday, and the game is tomorrow. I'm not sure I'll be able to make all the remaining Titans in time, but by the Emperor I'm going to try!

Progress!

I'm currently taking a break so I figured I'd sit down and share what I've gotten done already. I finished the first Titan yesterday, and assembled the torsos of the other three. I'm about to start on the heads and then the... pelvis... area of the Titans, and if that goes really quickly, I'll finish off the weapon arms tonight that way I'll have two whole days to work on the legs and feet, which happens to be the part I'm dreading... the pose of the model is 100% dependent on the legs and they take FOREVER to assemble. And I'm doing all this before the big game on Saturday... I hope there's an Apocalypse game this Saturday... if not, well at least I'll have the structural stuff done and then I can detail as I see fit. In any case, here's a couple pics:

Combat Patrol 40k... the best kind of 40k

I'm starting to see the appeal...

So I played in a Combat Patrol Tournament today at Evolution Games in Lansing, MI...

Made of Win

One of my friends who plays in the local tournament scene sent me some pictures of one of the other armies in attendance during one such tournament. I really do still have a soft spot for Salamanders (and Space Wolves for that matter!), so I found these to be... most impressive. Now I want to take the time to share them with you, because they are so awesome!

The Eastern Sea

Release the KRAKEN!

So, I played an 1000 point game on a 4x4 board, vs Empire of the Blazing Sun. I don't remember much of it (the game was played yesterday night, but I've slept and worked since then, so my mind is fuzzy on the details...) so I'm not going to do a play-by-play, and I apologize, but I really don't have the current brain-capacity to remember order and the details.