I got to leave work early today, and thought I'd crack out some US Airborne before the family gets back from Germany tomorrow night. I started on these around 2:00, and finished...well, it looks like around 2:00... I didn't paint all the way through, but almost. I'd call it eight hours. I think in this one fell swoop I have doubled my poor painting productivity for the year.

We didn't have anything on the plate last night, so we dabbled in some RPG stuff. We're planning to run through a D&D 4e campaign, so we worked on our characters a bit. Then, we decided to break out Zombie Cinema and give it a go. Zombie Cinema is a small, rules-light, "storytelling" RPG, where the players are survivors of some sort of zombie breakout, in the vein of Night of the Living Dead or any of its stylistic descendants.

I picked this tip up from a recent White Dwarf, where they mentioned using a stick for priming. I typically use a sheet of cardboard with figures around the outside, which makes it difficult to get to the inside; or I used a strip of cardboard, which works well, but can't hold that many figures. A yard long, one inch square board of wood is just what I need, and I tried it out this morning with my Battlefront US Paratroopers which I'm finally getting around to painting. I really need to leave both ends free, though, and just put the figures in the middle. That would allow my to switch ends easily and spray from the other side. Now, in the White Dwarf article, they actually used all four sides at the same time, rotating the stick and spraying different angles. I'm just not that brave with my figures...

Reaper has a nice little article on building Sci Fi buildings out of electrical junction boxes. They do a good job of it. I have scads of these things. Every time I think about making Sci Fi terrain, I go buy a couple-- even though, yes, I still have a bag of the things from all the other times I thought about making Sci Fi terrain. And I never do anything with them. Oh well. One of these days I'm going to need a junction box RIGHT NOW and I won't even have to go to the store to get it.

I don't paint many vehicles, so this is notable-- a not too shabby little Chimera I hand painted. It took a long time and I can't say I really enjoyed it, but I got it done and am pleased with it. Now I have another one to do. Eh. Then two Valkyries...ehhhh...

We've had a couple of sessions of our Dark Heresy game so far, and I've really enjoyed it. Here is my completed character model. I still haven't had a chance to actually pick up the sword yet, but I've gathered enough money to grab it once I have the chance. Assuming I stay alive long enough...I tried jumping out of a second story building and wound up darn near killing myself...

I picked up Galaxy Trucker the other day. It was a bit pricey, but it sounded like a lot of fun and we've been playing more board games lately, so I sprung for it. I ran it through the intro with Mik...and, honestly, I was thinking I might have wasted my money. I just didn't quite see the real fun in it. I persevered, though, and we played it with several other friends this weekend. It was a blast! Everybody had a lot of fun with it, including me. A lot of it just had to do with playing it a few times and getting the hang of it. Anyway, now I'll have to get the Big Expansion, which lets you play with five players, and includes some new components (and a new alien!)

It's been quiet around here-- and this is why. My family and I visited my wife's home in Germany, to have our youngest child, Silas, baptized by her father. Due to his recent birth, this is the first time we've all been back in Germany together in at least two years (it may have been longer since I was there-- I'd ask my wife, but she and the kids are all still in Germany, whereas I had to get back home and slave away at my job).

Looks like there will soon be some new Superfigs!

I own the original Reaper Warlord rules. I always thought they looked intriguing, and I own a lot of Reaper figures anyway, just because of the quality, but I never got around to playing them. Now, with the upcoming release of a second edition, maybe I will.

From the Warp has a lot of links to vehicle and armor modeling articles. Gotta be something useful in there.

It looks like we will be doing a Dark Heresy role playing game. We rolled up characters the other night, and it looks promising. I whipped up a conversion of my feral world Imperial Guard character, replete with flintlock rifle, pistol, explosive collar and (hoped for) mono-edged great sword. I will probably add some wild hair to him.

Somewhere along the way, I posted my 1,000th entry on this blog. I'm not the oldest or the most voluminous, but I figure I'm near the upper echelon of both, despite my periodic absences. Anyway, here's to me and my handful of readers! This site is hosted out of my home, which explains its sluggishness at times, but next week should see a new 25 Mb/s down, 10 Mb/s up (from me to you) fibre service installed! Hopefully, that should noticeably speed things up. After that, maybe a modest server upgrade...it's currently running on a pretty old Pentium III...

I've never been much of one to play with figures other people have painted. I've bought and used a handful of used units before, and I've sent a few units to Fernando Enterprises, and one thing is clear to me: I just don't enjoy my miniatures as much unless I have painted them. Plus, you tend to have the additional cost of painting labor on top of the figures themselves, making the whole thing more expensive. Yet I finally broke down and bought an entire army.

Sounds like we may be playing a little Dark Heresy...I ordered the core rulebook today.

A Year of Frugal Gaming has some quick ladder building tips. I've used HO scale model railroad tracks before. You just can't have enough ladders, especially if you play Necromunda...

I heard about Agora on the Master Plan podcast, and thought it sounded interesting. You're actually simulating the construction of a society from one of several colonies on a distant planet. It's framed that you're roleplaying the ideologue leader of your faction, but it looks like it's more faction than personally focused. I haven't looked at it too closely, but it reminded me of a Sci-Fi version Dawn of Worlds, although it looks more complicated.

Updates have obviously trickled dry after a nice little run as life caught up with me. I have three kids, the youngest of which just turned one, and they can be quite a handful. In the last month since my last post, I managed to play in a game of Red November, which I found fun. I thought the rules were a bit ambiguous in places, but probably with a few plays through to sort that out, it would make for a quick, fun game. I got in a couple of games of our monthly 3.5 D&D game, as well as the online GURPS game I participate in (I'm Tonim). I even ran a game of Spirit of the Century. I also finished the Dan Abnett Ravenor trilogy. Looking at that, I guess my gaming life hasn't been the wasteland it's felt the last couple months. I mean, it's almost May, and I've only painted just 14-15 figures, less than four figures a month!!

A video of me unboxing my Wargames Factory zombies.

Mik has more Warlands in a game we threw together this week.

Let me just scoop TMP and TGN and point out that Reaper is announcing a "substantial" price decrease starting 3/30. Awesome! Hopefully, this will cause more manufacturers to follow their "lead." Haww, that's funny!!!

Scott Pyle is "pretty much working every day on SuperSystem 3rd edition."

Miniature Peddler has posted some pictures of upcoming figures from Darksun Designs, makers of AE-WWII. They could be interesting-- I think it depends on the rest of the figures. They do look a tad cartoony, but that's not necessarily bad. The same criticism could be leveled at the Spugs, and I really like them. So, something to keep an eye out for.

Mik posted a game report of our recent Warlands night. We played two games and had fun with it. I intend to get some forces and play some more. There are also videos of two moves with rams and shooting. I may follow up and post more thoughts about it, but I'm tired and busy. Basically, I thought it was good and fun.

Scott Pyle of Superfigs and Chaos in Cairo (and other places) fame now has a blog.