Done with one, on to the next

I finished Josh's Outcasts yesterday, and Ryan liked they way looked I guess because he commissioned me to paint his Guild. Starting with Sonia Criid, The Executioner, Nino Ortega, and 3 Witchling Stalkers.

Here are the last few Outcasts

Taelor



Ronin 2



Ronin 3

Even More Outcasts

Really powering through Josh's dudes, I want them out of my case.

Vicki the Bounty Hunter




Sword Vicki




And Lastly Misaki, who I am not overly pleased with, but I think her sculpt is kinda crappy

Post #100

Its been a long time Since I wrote my first Blog and with this post I hit triple Digits. *pats self on the back* I don't have a lot for this post so I'll leave you with this gem. I recently heard someone refer to Sarah Jessica Parker as a transvestite donkey witch. And Im struggling to find fault in that assessment

Some Painted Models

I agreed to Paint Josh's guys and the first 2 are finished. Convict Gunslinger was an easy job since I've done one before, only problem is I did better with this one then I did with mine... grumble grumble



I also painted up the first Ronin, they have very little detail in them so it won't take me long to get them all table ready for Josh. And most importantly out of my case.

Some Malifaux stuff

I got in a game last night against the Viki's with Seamus and things went pretty well.

in a 25 stone game I took
Seamus +3 extra stones
CopyCat Killer
Rotten Belle
2 Punk Zombie
2 Necro Punk

He Took
Viki Twins +2 or 3 stones
Hans
Convict Gunslinger
2 Ronin

The list performed well. It reminded me why I like the Necro Punks more than Canines with Seamus. Leap and Hard to kill are a sweet combo and one that I've been missing with the Canines. I started the game focusing on his Range Support. Seamus made used 2 soul stones to Kill off Hans, and I kept the Gun Slinger in melee for a while before he finally fell on a slow to die attack. My Necro Punks were pretty strong as they did most of the dirty work in killing off both Sword Mistress Viki's. The gun viki eventually fell to Seamus in Melee. The Ronin Killed themselves to Bring back Viki.

This game also had me testing a theory. I have been saying that taking a master with less than 5 or 6 stones is a mistake. But I think thats the warmachine player in me talking. See I keep thinking you cant play this game without your master, but thats just not the case. You still want to protect them, but you don't lose if they die. So I've been taking more and more points in Soul Stones, when My army would most likely have benfitted from taking more models or upgrading to better models. Im think 4 is plenty. If your master comes with 4 or more, then try to spend every point you have. If not I would consider setting that 1 or 2 aside for soul stones. Its all preference, as some masters like Nicodem might need extra soul stones so he can cast his raise dead spell. But I think 4 is the perfect number.

Back to Painting

Its been a while since I did any real painting and The Copy Cat Killer has been on the Block for a while.



Little guy came out pretty nice. His hair is different from Seamus' but I thought black wouldn't look as good.

Hopefully this jump starts to me back into painting more. As my Painting List has grown quite a bit lately and my finished section is rather slim.

Call of Duty: World at War

So i picked this game up on Sunday I think, because I had heard great things about the Nazi zombie level. For $35 I'm feel like I got my moneys worth, but Im still a bit bummed by how short the campaign was. I hear the multi-player campaign is pretty sweet, so i;ll have to check that out when I can.

The game focus' on two aspects of WWII the Pacific Campaign vs the Japanese and the Eastern Front against the Germans. As a US Marine, you play Private Miller the riflemen, machinegunner, Flamethrower-er, Radio, Air-Strike Caller. Pretty much what ever the mission called for Miller was the guy who took over. You fight through severl Islands and clear out the Enemy with several weapons etc. The Japanese has a penchant for using Grenades and the Banzai attack, which killed me far more times then Bullets. With Grenades you have to see them early to get away, with Banzai you have to push the right button really fast and I constantly hit the wrong one. There is also 1 mission where you are the Gunner in a Black Cat and have to shoot down Japanese boats and planes, all the while taking a break to rescue US Sailors.

The other side of the campaign begins in Stalingrad, you are Private Demitri Petrovich, you begin the game in a pile of dead and wounded Russian soldiers, by playing dead you are spared an execution from the Nazi S.S. You meet with a Sergeant who teaches you to snipe. Its a little like that scene from Enemy at the Gates, and you have to time your shots with the bombings. You fast forward a few years after Stalingrad and you meet that same sergeant who saves your life again. Your in germany now and killing more Nazis. This campaign takes your through most of germany, jumping a few years here and there, until you assault Berlin's parliament, the Game ends when you cut down the Nazi flag and Place the Russian Flag on top of Parliament. Also Petrovich might die, they were fuzzy on that one, you do get shot while planting the flag, and that Sergeant jumps in and slices the dude who shot you like 4 times and then kicks him off the building.

Overal a Lot of fun, my only complaint is how short the game is. I already beat it and i've had it less than a week.

There is a side game where you are in a building with boarded windows and Nazi Zombies attack. you have to kill them while keeping your windows borded up. I haven't done great, but I think its designed to work better with 2 players. There is no way to Win, as the game continues sending more and more zombies at you until you die. Scares the bejeezus outta me though.



At the end of the day i give it a 4/5. Would have been higher if it were longer.

NBA Draft Lottery

The NBA doesn't follow the NFL in draft order, it uses a lottery system. The idea is that it will prevent teams from losing on purpose to increase their draft position. It stems back to 1984, the Houston Rocketts were a poor team, not the worst in the NBA but not even close to a play off spot. With about 20 games left in the season they began to tank. Around the NBA it was assumed that they were losing on purpose so they could have the worst record and be allowed to draft Hakeem Olajuwon, the top rated player in that years draft, at 7'0 he was a monster on the court, leading his team to 2 championships. The Fans knowing how special Olajuwon could be chanted for their team to lose those 20 consecutive games in 1984 and get the worst record. After this draft it had become too much and the NBA's commisoner implemented the Draft Lottery. In 1986 the Commisioner took the name of every team who had not made the playoffs, put their names into an envelope and pulled out a team one by one until all non-play off teams had been selected. This gave every team an equal chance at the top over pick, that year the New York Nicks, who had the 3rd worst record won the lottery. This system remained until 1990, when they introduced the weighted system. The new system works like this, worst record gets a 25% chance at the top pick, second worst almost 20%, 3rd, 4th, 5th 15%, 11%, 8% respectively, down to the 14th place team who has a .5% to win. The top 3 picks are chosen via lottery and the remaining 11 teams chose in order of how they finished the season. When two teams are tied, they average out the percentage and make a coin flip to see who get the better .1% or whatever the difference may be.

The point of this long winded ramble is that last night at 8pm the NBA held their annual lottery proccess. It is held behing closed doors with a representative from each possible team. Tied for the 4th worst record in the NBA the Wizards lost the coin flip to get the moderatley better % for the top pick.

But that didn't really matter as a 10.3% chance was enough and the Wizards won the Draft lottery and will have the 1st overal pick in the NBA draft for the second time in Franchise History. This year was especially important as there is one player who stands above the rest.



John Wall was an outstanding player at Kentucky, and after a single season in college is coming to the NBA where it is all but a lock he will be the #1 pick. The last 2 point guards to go pro from Kentucky have 1 with a championship ring, and the other an all star who won Rookie of the Year. Its a good school and they bring great Point Guards. With the Addition of John Wall, it looks like the Wizards can kick their rebuilding plot into over-drive and bring in a power house free agent, such as Chris Bosch, the center from Toronto who would just work great here in DC, And get this team back into the Eastern Conference race where it belongs.

Thinking battle foam

Its a great case, and Im considering setting myself up with a battle foam case. I went through and kitted out a pair of Custom made trays. Its not a cheap case, but damn is it cool. The idea would be to have a decent size case to hold just my Salamanders. They are a reasonably small army and don't need a lot of foam. Also i'm cutting the Land Raider from the army, so i will need a lot less foam. at the moment with the raider out of the army, its 60 points short of 2k. So i'll need to fill those points before I finalize the Foam.

*Ok so after some mental math, I fixed the List, adding in 1 land speeder to fill out the points. I was also able to fit that into my Armor foam tray.*

The Foam tray for the Rhinos and Drop pod needs to be larger then the Kit i made, but there is plenty of room in the case, so no worries.

Here is the case Im looking at:



These are the Foam trays I designed





Only issue is the damn set up with only 2 trays is $125. If I could get it cheaper I will consider this more.

Bowling Awesomeness

Its been a long 30+ weeks of bowling and we are down to the final round next week. It won't really matter for us though as last night we locked up 1st place for the league. We had a decent lead over everyone else and the schedule happened to have us facing the 2nd place team. We crushed them 3 straight games taking all 7 points and giving us an 11.5 point cushion for the final week.

Personally I had a great night. I've been improving steadily since February, my average has gone from 102 to 118. Which is difficult since I was in a major slump from november to december. But as a group we have all been very strong since then. Last night I rolled a 169, 140, 151 going way over average, which plus my handicap was pretty awesome. Rick bowled a great 203 game 1, Ellen was high score game 2 with a 181, and Rockett took over game 3 with a really impressive 208. No one really fell under their average, and that combined with 2 people way over average gave us a huge lead and eventually the League. So next week we still have to bowl the team who is now 2nd place, and we kinda hate them as they always beat us, so we're gonna try to crush them out of spite and help another team pass them in the standings...

Also there is a guy on their team who freakin is the Jesus



He actually does that every time he bowls... we call him the ball licking guy... its really disturbing.