March 11, 2015

W40K: Black Templars 'Land Raider Crusader 1'

The first of my three models that I need done for the Broadside Bash this April is now completed.

This is the first Land Raider Crusader I have for my Black Templars army, I am thinking later this year I will probably add at least one more. I need to have two Land Raiders Crusaders in a Black Templar army, for theme.

Up next will either be High Marshal Helbrecht, or my Vindocator replacement model.

Black Templars Land Raider Crusader
Black Templars Land Raider Crusader
Black Templar Land Raider Crusader
Painting Points: 10

March 9, 2015

Another Game.... Magic: The Gathering

It seems like every three years I tend to dabble with 'Magic: The Gathering'. Three years ago I played for a short while when they released the 'Avacyn Restored' set, then again three years prior to that. Well it happened again.....
 
I have always liked MTG for two reasons. One, it is a Fantasy based lore, Two, it has been around for a very long time and is not just a gimmick. The biggest problem I had with the game (and yes I know its a trading card game and the company needs to make money) is the fact you buy all these booster packs and have all these extra cards laying around and you are only going to use a few of them, unless you decide to spend a lot of money and buy the individual cards you want from the plentiful of sites out there. So now I have white boxes filled with cards in my room that most of them I will not use.
 
Well, starting with 2015 Core Set, they have released what is called 'Clash Packs', includes 2 ready-to-play 60 card decks (Two-Player), and these will be release with every other set. I thought this would be perfect for my son and I. Self contained playable decks without having all the extra cards laying around. Yes these decks are not the super competitive decks, but they can still be used for 'Friday night Magic'. Then with the in-between set releases, they still have their 'Event Decks' (One-Player). So my plan will be just to purchase the 'Clash Packs' and the 'Event Decks'. Keep those decks as-is, just so we can throw down for a game every now and then and keep the price realistic.
 
My first two 'Clash Packs' came in over the weekend, '2015 Core Set', and 'Fate Reforged'. I still need to pick up the 'Event Deck' for 'Khans of Tarkir' (released last Semptember) and the 'Event Deck' for 'Dragons of Tarkir' (releasing later this month).
 
Last night we played our first game with the '2015 Core Set' just to refresh on the rules, and I really enjoyed it. I am hoping by collecting this way that it gives me my 'Magic' fix, yet not stretching me too thin....
 
Boy do I need more hours in a day to play all the games I have....
 

Daily Chronicle: 3/9/2015 'Painting With A Deadline'

Like most of you who are reading this, I tend to get more accomplished when I am painitng with a deadline. I usually find an event in the near future that I would like to attend, then make my list, assemble my models and get them painted.
 
Since I will be attending 'The Broadside Bash' Warhammer 40K tournament at Kingdom-Con the weekend of April 23rd-26th with my son, that event is my current deadline.
 
Over the last few years since being removed from Warhammer 40K, I have thinned out a lot of the armies that I once had. So for current completed armies, all I have are my Space Marine Black Templars, and my Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum). The IG I usually play are all mechanized and a very tough army to play against (at least they used to be), and my Black Templars are more of 'fun' army for me to play with a good mix of assault and shooting. Seeing how I want to play in this tournament just for fun, I decided that I am going to be playing with my Black Templars and try to play more of a themed list.
 
I currently have about 2500-3000 points of Black Templars painted, but I feel like I needed a few different models for my 2000 point list for the tournament. Last week I completed a Stormraven Gunship that will be attending, and now next on the painting board is a Land Raider Crusader (yeah I know, how can I have a Black Templars army and not already have a Land Raider Crusader) well I did not, but now I will. Once the Land Raider Crusader is completed, then High Marshal Helbrecht will be next. Finally when those 2 models are completed and time allows, I have an old Vindicator model that I would like to replace with a current model.
 
Does not seem like much (3 models), but life always finds a way to interupt. So those 3 models are my goal for the next few weeks and my 2000 point list will be complete.
 
Once that gets completed.....I may elect to re-base my sons Dark Angels army that he will be playing (only if time allows).
 

March 6, 2015

D&D 5E: The Rise of Tiamat 3/5/2015

It has been awhile since I have last done an update for D&D 5E, but on Sunday March 1st our gaming group completed the campaign for 'Hoard of the Dragon Queen' and we were planning on rolling right into the next campaign book, 'The Rise of Tiamat'.
 
'The Rise of Tiamat' is a Level 8-15 campaign and the next installment in the storyline 'Tyranny of Dragons'.
 
With my oldest son just starting a new job, weekends were going to be tough for us to do. So our Dungeon Master put together a new group for us that would be meeting on Thursday nights. Some of his other weeknight players started to not take the game seriously, so he took his dedicated players and my son and I for a new Thursday night group.
 
Our first meeting was Thursday March 5th, it was more of a meet-n-greet with the other players, and the first half of the night some of them were rolling new characters. My son and I are happy with how our existing characters are, so we decided to keep playing with them. Our new group is going to consist of a 'Ranger' (myself), 'Fighter' (my son), 'Monk', 'Palladin' and a 'Warlock'.
 
Once the characters were rolled off, we started into the new campaign 'The Rise of Tiamat'.
 
Currently our characters are attending a council meeting, and are set to roll out for our first adventure.
 
Stay tuned for a quick recap following our next session on Thursday March 12th.
 

March 4, 2015

Broadside Bash: April 25th-26th 2015

The past few weeks I have been searching the internet for a Gaming Con for my son and I attend this Spring. I came accross the following events: Kingdom-Con, Kublacon, Gamex (Wizard World Vegas was also in the mix for my middle son to meet Norman Reedus), the problem with Wizard World is, it is the same weekend as Kingdom-Con.
 
With these events only 2-3 months away, I have been patiently waiting for a list of scheduled events so I could request my vacation days and book our hotel room. Coming from Chicago, helping to run events at AdeptiCon and playing in events, I guess I have become spoiled in the way they run their event and have their schedules posted as soon as they can so everyone can make arrangements. The three cons I have mentioned above still do not have all their events posted.
 
I first started to look into Kingdom-Con in San Diego, CA the weekend of April 23rd-April 26th. Just this week they started to list a few events. Warmachine events (which I am no longer interested in) and The Broadside Bash, a 2 day GW GT Style Tournament for Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K. At this moment I do not feel like I am ready for a 2 day tournament (been looking for smaller 1 day events and other events) and possibly to have some more time to try other games. But I decided to keep the Broadside Bash on the list.
 
I then decided to look at Kublacon up in the San Francisco, CA area over Memorial Day weekend. Their website is a little bit more up to date and had a lot more events posted. They had listed for that Sunday a 3 day Warhammer 40K RTT at 1500 points. I thought this would be perfect for my son and I. Unfortunately the event was still listed as 'proposed'. I then contacted the organizer of the event and the miniature coordinator for Kublacon, and they both informed me that there was a scheduling issue for the event and it does not look like it was happening....so much for going to Kublacon then....I probably could have found other things to do that weekend there, but I really wanted to get in some Warhammer 40K.
 
Next I looked at Gamex 2015 out in Los Angeles also over Memorial Day weekend. At this point on their website, the events are very limited and there are no 40K events listed yet. I also contacted the gaming group who usually runs the events out there, at this time they did not have anything planned.
 
Now we come to Wizard World Vegas.... plus side I could have had a free hotel (timeshare), downside was the price to enter Wizard World, especially for the main reason we would be going which is the photo-op and autograph session with Norman Reedus. The VIP package for Norman Reedus is $350.00 plus an additional $150 for 2 more tickets for my other son and myself. $500 just to get into Wizard World. I went to plenty of them back in Chicago growing up (back in the day when it was still for the comics and DC/Marvel would actually attend these events), nowadays its more for the celebrities and a giant vendor hall.
 
I thought about still attending Wizard World Vegas (instead of the other three) and then just look for a gaming con in the fall. There was not really much coming our way this Fall either. So this morning I elected that we would be attending Kingdom-Con in San Diego and that we will be playing in the Broadside Bash Warhammer 40K Tournament. I know I am going to get 'whipped', but I am going to play with the mentality to 'just to have fun'. Hopefully once they release the full schedule of events, we can also find things to do on Thursday afternoon and Friday.
 
I am really hoping that I am going to enjoy Kingdom-Con, I really do miss AdeptiCon have only been back twice since moving to Arizona 10 years ago.
 
"Just going to go to have fun!!!"