Sunday, August 5, 2012

Starting an Army: Mantis Warriors

So I've been tinkering with the idea of actually starting and playing an army again. I mentioned in my last post that I would be interested in starting up a Mantis Legion/Warriors army. 

With the new edition fairly new I figured it would be a good time for me to jump back into the gaming aspect of 40k. Having sat out all of 5th edition, it'll be like learning the whole game from scratch. But non the less, I've decided to start and painted up my first test model. 

So check out the model and let me know what you think so far. Mind you it's only a test model to get the color scheme and knowing which colors I'm going to use. The model isn't finished, but I'm sure I'll get around to finishing up the fine detail stuff sooner or later.

Mantis Legion/Warriors Sergeant with Power Fist.

Mantis Legion/Warriors Logo free-handed. Not the exact symbol, but close enough. I mean come on, I had to make it simple enough to free-hand paint all of them on all the other minis.

Just wanted to show the gradation of the shoulder pad and NMM I did on the boltgun. Will add the tactical symbol and number shortly.

So let me know what you guys think.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Games Day 2012: Part III


Fritz meeting up with us on Friday to head down to the GW Bunker


GW Bunker

Jawaballs and Fritz getting ready to play an epic battle on the ice world!


The crowd gathers before the doors open for Games Day

Jawaballs sitting and waiting like the rest of us, a mere mortal!

Jawaballs somehow finds a way to get in early!!! 

Jawaballs and his Ultramarines banner which won the banner contest (again!)

Jawaballs speed painting

Fritz speed painting

Fritz playing a game with a fan

The outcome of speed painting! Our group rocks!

Banner Contest

Costume contest

Sister of Battle, won the costume contest

DKoK costume

28oz Jawa-steak over at Gibson's after Games Day!

Oh and btw, we went gambling after dinner and I won THIS much :)  Spent about 2 hours at a blackjack table and it paid off. This paid for all of my Forgeworld LOL. 

Games Day 2012: Part II

Ok so let me explain why in my last post I wrote that Gamesday sucked for me this year. Don't get me wrong, I had a great weekend and enjoyed the events all day, there's just a few things that really stood out to me that made me feel the way I did.

First, I look forward to going to Gamesday every year. Not just the social part of it, but the experience of seeing new things and the excitement of the day itself. People walking around costumes, banners flying all over the place, screaming maniacs all over the convention, etc. But this year it was SUPER light. I mean there were a total of I think 5-6 costumes, 4 banners, and sometimes quiet enough that you could hear crickets during the convention. To me, compared to past Gamesdays, it sucked because of that, not enough extra things going on.

Second, it seemed as if almost half the convention floor was dedicated to the GW and forgeworld store. I get it, as a business they want to make money. Even in years past I believe there was only one year that I can recall that GW actually did a 20% off sale on models that they had pulled off the shelves and had overstock on. But it seemed this year that they focused on selling things and cutting corners with expenses by getting rid of some fun activities (chaos carnival, big canon, movie screens, full sized marines or orks walking around) and eye candy. Getting rid of these things also means less staff they have to pay also. But in doing so, they killed the mood of Gamesday imo. 

Third, there was no demon lounge. As you guys know by now, I love to paint to compete more than painting armies to play. Well, in the past few years, I looked forward to going to the demon lounge to talk with past demon winners to get ideas and insight on painting differently or to better improve my own painting style. No such thing this year. Hopefully they bring it back next year or maybe the demon winners will find a corner and do it on their own.

Lastly, no amazing looking displays or club tables. There was one amazing table this year from Iron Snakes (or something like that) where they had a huge battle barge where you played 40k. The table was big enough to put down a Thunderhawk and it made that model look tiny. Just jaw dropping. But that was about it. GW failed to put out any interesting display tables like years past. Those massive display tables brought tears to peoples eyes because they would tell stories within the display. And also not a lot of club tables this year. I believe that having clubs come in and bringing their own tables and helping run the events throughout the day would help elevate the outcome of Gamesday as a whole.

Well, I'm sure I can go on and on, but enough of me ranting. Onto the good stuff....I'll post up in another topic right after this one.