Wha!...I played in an 8th Edition Fantasy Tourney

???  Yes, I did play in a local 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy 2000 point Tourney.  I have not played very much of 8th, quite frankly I dislike the version.  So yesterday we had a local tournament, so I thought I would try it again against a number of locals that I have not played in awhile.  Chad Hanson hosted the event and played, in total we had 14 local guys turn out, great turnout.  There was no paint requirements, so there were a few more of the guys that turned out.  There were actually 4 dwarf armies present. 

So I dug out of the abyss, the Khorne Demons.  I went to the tourney with a list that would have been terrible in the 7th edition days, but hoping that it might actually work in 8th edition.  A unit of 20 Bloodletters, a unit of 24 bloodletters, 2 units of 6 Fleshhounds, 3 bloodcrushers, a BSB herald on foot, a khorne herald on foot, and Tzeetch Demon Prince.  Yea I know what the heck is that Tzeentch thing......just a unpainted winged demon.  So, no expectations of doing well, matter of fact I figured I would finish in the bottom, lose all of the games.

Game 1 was against Christen Sorensen and his dwarves.  Now I know Christen plays and paints, today he had his dwarves.  It was about turn 3 before I remembered the 8th Edition charging rules.  I did manage to win the game, despite the stupid laser beam statue thingy that was part of the terrain.

Game 2 was against Jerrod Horstman and his super converted Nurgley Demons.  Jerrod has good gaming skill and great looking armies besides.  I initially was going to play a agressive and then my one flank exploded, so I played like I would with my Romans and started backing up.  In the end I managed to pull of another win.  Key to the game was BSB with the Banner of Unholy Victory. So now I'm like 3 rd overall and really have no clue as to what I'm doing. 

Game 3, I matched up with Chad Hanson.  This didn't end well, I managed to have everything in my army dead by Turn 6, having only killed 2 giants and hero and huge unit of trolls.  Well since I got rolled Chad maxed out points and ended up winning his whole tournament as the first two guys beat the crap out of each other.  So yes....Chad is one of those guys...j/k 'ing, I'll take partial credit or blame.

So, I still don't like 8th, but it was a fun day and good tournament.  Back to Romans....

WIP on the Desk: New Romans Part 2

This is where they are at this morning.  Hopefully by the end of the weekend they will be nearly finished.  They are all shiny right now.  Unlike with the Vikings, I won't use any rusty looking washes, I'll be using the Secret Weapon's Soft Body Black and possibly a blue-ish gray acryllic to get in and define those recessed areas and tone down the metallics. 

 

But, I'll wait to do all of that until I get the flesh tones, wood, and capes done.  These are very close.  I'll have to get the shields primed up also. 

 

Although, that will have to wait, as I'm going to the shop down town today to actually play a game or two of Warhammer Fantasy, that ugly cousin of WAB, with the local guys.  I have not played Fantasy in well over a year, I really do not miss that game, but next weekend is the Local-Only 2000 point Tourney, so I'll join in with the guys. My lack of interest in Fantasy as a game is definitely hurting my ability to get my Warriors of Chaos and my Orc armies done.  For this, I've dug out my Khorne Demons, dating back to 2008, we'll see how they do.   I'm not expecting that they will do very well, since I have no shooting and no magic whatsoever.

Hey I got a new Toy

I'ld been thinking about doing this for quite sometime, considering getting a helmet video cam for racing video.  I know a lot of people use the GoPro HD and the Contour cameras.  Then I saw this one a motorcyclist was using, a Tachyon OPS HD video camera.  That little black thing shown between the black orc and my Nikon Coolpix, is the camera on its helmet mount.  And yes the lens is the size of a dime.  A guy on one of the karting forums showed some of his video from this little bugger and the quality looked as good as the GoPro HD3 so I found one on sale and ordered it.  Now I just have to figure out the best way of keeping it on my helmet.

And over the years I've had lots of people ask me what camera I use for shooting pictures of my miniatures.  Well it is that old Nikon Coolpix 4300, a 4.0 megapixel.  The camera is probably closing in on 10 years old, but its much better than my much newer camera at taking pics of my minis.

And below is my trophy haul from karting this past summer.

 

I also got around to uploading some more racing videos, a pair of feature races. 

 

It took me awhile to get over the first one below, matter of fact when I watch it, I still get pissed about being run off the track and crashing into bales at about 50 mph.  With the karts, if you are going to hit something like that barrier, even though it gives, spin it out and try to back it into the barrier.  Anyways it hurt, you can't really see it, but I was actually holding the engine onto the kart by the exhaust pipe to keep it from landing in my lap.  Good thing I had leather jacket and a glove on and heat wrap on the exhaust pipe or that would have burned.  So if you want to see me crash, tune into around 1:20 into the video.  My old man was in the race and saw what happened and was probably as pissed as I was, and took it out on that guy later on in the race also caught on the video.  He's got my back.

 

Then I uploaded this video of another of the Feature Races.  I gave it my best, but ended up getting beat after leading quite a bit of the race.  The guys that beat me finished second and third in the season points standings.

WIP on the Desk: The Return to Rome

Well the desk has been cleared of that first large batch of Vikings.  So now the desk has been filled with a large batch of Romans.  I recently sold my Praetorian unit and needed to replace them with a new veteran unit of Legionaires.  This unit I plan to use different shield transfers on and I am painting them in a slightly different paint scheme than my current Romans.  I also took time to paint a few more Vikings from the second unit with some of the creamy whites, which actually is the Reaper Master Series warm bone Triad over Vallejo Model Colors English Uniform, great for skulls and great for an off-white.

The metal is a base coat, I will still highlight that with two brighter metal colors and then wash it with Secret Weapon Soft Body Black to blend everything together and also define the recessed areas in the armor.

Above in the center is a Foundry model.  I have two Foundry command models and a Warlord Games command model in this batch.  Once I finish those three models I'll be putting them on Ebay or accepting OBO off of Ebay.  Keep that in mind if you are interested in them.

Next up a new toy and some more kart racing videos.....

WIP On the Desk: 1st Batch of Vikings nearly complete

Really starting to get back in the groove of painting.  I have the first unit of Viking Hirdmen, Bondi archers and my shield wall markers, along with a few extra figures basically done.  Only thing left is the banner.

The shieldwall markers are simply some shields, using the idea that Mike Butcher had done with his Saxon army that I have teamed up with a number of times.  I seriously changed up the way I paint flesh tones, and I think it will only get better from here on out.  I have watched a number of miniature painters over the years do some really cool stuff in fleshtones, and my models have been lacking in the area of the faces in particular.  Bennett Blaylock Doane in particular with his historical armies got me to realize just what I was missing.

I still need to clear coat and do a few little touch-ups and then it will be on to static grass and a few more different things as I attempt to spice up my basing a bit more, doing some things that I don't normally do.  Next time you see these they will be done and in a movement tray.

Next up for painting a new unit of Romans and another unit of Viking Hirdmen, as my Danes come to life.

Racing Season comes to a close...or does it...

For those of you new to my forum, bare with me, I do not always talk about miniatures and wargaming on this blog, because I like to rant and rave about sports, that should be fairly obvious if you look around on my blog with all of the kart racing and the Czabe, who is currently part of the Yahoo Sports Radio Network in my blog list.  Sports for me is a huge part of life, it hardens you, it makes you focus.  It teaches you how to deal with the winning and the losing.  Its life lessons in an arena where its okay to lose once in awhile, as long as you learn from it and you come away with the knowledge of what it takes to succeed as an individual or as part of a team.

This weekend was not about football for me, it was racing, as Nascar comes to a season ending weekend with all 3 of the series, I did not watch a single football game this weekend, did get a couple Badger Hockey games in the evenings. 

I am certainly a fan of Brad Keselowski, the newest Sprint Cup Champion.  I like rooting for the Midwestern guys, I rooted for his dad years ago, and this is a guy I get.  He's calculating.  He has a huge chip on his shoulder and I'm glad he speaks mind, even if that means rubbing some people wrong being brutally honest.  I'm not brash like he is, but I certainly don't like backing down to anyone, anytime.  Its nice to see guys like Carl Edwards, the so-called poster-child, and others heads explode when this guy wins.  His Sports Center interview after the win is an instant classic. 

I don't know what its like to win at that level, I know what its like to win at a local level, so I can only imagine the exhilaration.  Until this year, my entire time in sports competition, all the ball sports, I have never been a part of or won a championship.  That's a long drought, now that I'm in my 40s and once again competing, I never thought that I would win a race in a racing kart.  I dreamed that I would one day with my father who I grew up watching race.  I wanted so much to be a part of that as a young kid being around it, but the cost in dollars to do so was so prohibitive back then.  Not to mention, that there is a certain amount of fear to overcome going that fast sitting a 1/2-inch off the ground.  The winning of races came often this past spring and summer and worked its way into a Championship at a local level, in equipment that we had built.  I know my old man was extremely excited to see, as I was also happy to see him at 65 still be able to beat guys that were 10-20 years younger than me even.  I know what that pride is about, I can only imagine would it would be like to be Brad or Ricky Stenhouse who won the Nationwide Championship, and to be a part of those organizations.  It's cool to see from the outside looking in. 

And now, the off season begins.  I'm going to be training, at my age, I need to stay fit to continue doing this.  And my dad and I will shortly begin the building of a new kart for next season.  Lighter, stronger, and hopefully faster than I can drive it.  As always persevere...

WIP on the Desk: Oh...the Monotony

Yep.  Some 66 Viking Shields.  I've often been asked why I have painted some wood grain on the backs of the shields.  The answer is simple:  I'm crazy. 

Then I'm often asked if I painted them while glued to the model.  The answer is often a question:  Are you crazy?

I hope the front of the shields turn out better than the back sides.  Finishing up the first unit.  I'll glue the shields onto the models that are missing shields in the back ranks and paint those up.  You see there are two types of shields here, ones that were primed all black and ones that have the front primed white and the back primed black.  The ones with the white will get the Little Big Men transfers and I'll be putting those on in the early morning.