Progress Report 9/23/13 - Alive and kickin' (butts).

Another month almost done and in the books without much to show for it on the hobby front. Spent most of the month away from home.

Attended Chaos Cup 9/7 and 9/8 with the Trailer Orc Boyz. Had six great games against six fun opponents and came away with 3 wins and 3 losses for my first 6 games playing Orcs. Pretty happy with that especially due to some terrible (very bad) dice luck throughout the whole tournament and being quite ill for the duration of the event. Finished 34 out of 75 coaches and beat the coach of my first Orc game loss! Not too shabby. Didn't manage to snag too many pictures but here is one of me on my second to last game of the tourney (and last loss) against Majortusk's Dwarfs. 

Hi Tom.

Now back on the painting train. Working on commissions, gangers, terrain, ratmen, dirty elves, and more. Gotta get back into painting mode!! On the gaming front I had a great KUBBL 5 season going undefeated with the Khorne R'Backs, winning my playoff game, and the championship game will be played today. With any luck I will have my first KUBBL  championship under my belt with more to come. Until next time...

Chaos Cup 2013 Preview - Year of the Trailer Orc Boyz!!

Tomorrow I head towards Chicago for the annual Blood Bowl spectacle known as the Chaos Cup!! I've been for the past two years now and I have to say it has been one of the most fun tournaments I have attended... and that was with me playing Nurgle both years (and losing terribly most of the time)! 

This year I wanted to bring a team that:

A. Wasn't Nurgle (I love em but they are a terrible tourney team, especially at this point value)

B. Was something I needed to finish painting

My hope was to finish a team to a high enough standard that I might feasibly compete in the painting awards, and feel bad ass about myself, even if I lost most of my games. Towards that goal I finished painting the Trailer Orc Boyz a week or so ago. You can see photos of them in my earlier posts. I feel this team represents my strengths and weaknesses as a painter/converter and I am very proud of how they turned out. One small problem though... I have never played Orcs in Blood Bowl!! My first game with Orcs will be my first game of the tournament this weekend! Oh well. Here's hoping my three recent seasons of Chaos pay off with the Orcs. 

Here is the roster I am bringing to the event:

It's your basic "everyone has block" roster. The small tweaks include 2 x Guarding Blitzers to get my assists where I need them when I need them, and one Dodging Blitzer to get me touchdowns and help on offense. 3 x Rerolls should cover too many mistakes and the Sure Hands of the Thrower will work in a pinch against Strip Ball opponents. A little light with 11 and no Apoth but I hope the higher armor will help keep me on the pitch. We'll see how they do! I can't believe that Ricky and Julian would let me down and I am sure I can always count on Bubbles and Randy right?!!

Going to the even alone this year without any KUBBL buddies... which is good and bad. Good because I won't make them listen to my disgusting METAL in the car nor torture them with all of my eating requirements. Bad because I will be alone and won't have anyone to talk about beer with! In memory of my KUBBL friends and our near repeat victory in last year's Skaven-ger hunt I snagged a few photos from the Chaos Cup website. At least we'll have the memories?

Me losing game 2 of the tournament.

Me losing game 6 of the tournament.

Skaven-ger hunt (red shoes I think) with Furry.

It's a monkey and me. Not sure what the clue was here.

I think this was supposed to be G-dub? That's Furry's nipple pinching hand.

I dunno... it made me laugh?

It's a beer. Mmmm beer.

I'll do my best to chronicle my adventures in Blood Bowl at Chaos Cup this weekend so you can live vicariously through me. Wish me luck!!

Progress Report 2/25/13 - Homeward bound?

Holy crows it is already almost the end of February!? Where oh where has time gone...

This month I have spent very little time on anything hobby related. New Warriors of Chaos? Sounds rad but I haven't even seen the cover of the new book. Then new Daemons? Mneh... not really a DoC player or fan.Michigan Beer Fest!? Didn't get a chance to go this year...

So what have I been doing? Not much... besides buying a house!? Yeah. Started the process early this month and at this point (today) we have submitted all of our loan approval paperwork on a house we intend to buy and move into sometime in April. DAMN THAT IS CRAZY!!! Now it is the waiting game to see if our loan is approved and to work out some small details with the seller.

Freaking out a little bit but mostly in good ways. New house has tons of character, nice neighborhood, huge garage and attached shop (for woodworking or other stuff), nice yard with a fence, and plenty of space in the basement for nerd hideout pursuits like setting up miniature wargaming tables on a more permanent basis. Oh yeah and it's close to folks who brew beer and can help me get that rolling again here in my hometown. So... all in all it is damn fine news !

I had hoped to finish up my (long) drawn out Blood Bowl Orc team this month and if you asked me at the beginning of last week I would have said I had failed at that. Then... voila! I slapped some paint on them in record time this week. And they don't look too bad either? Still thinking about how to finish the details (numbers, bases, spot colors, decals?) but here is where they stand today:

The mob with just basecoats applied.

Blitzers! Really happy with how the metal turned out.

Black Orcs! The metal was a bit of a happy accident.. or instinctual?

Giant Orc (Troll) and Thrower! I like the poses here a lot.

I didn't grab photos of the Lineorcs but they haven't changed much from the test models I did way back last year. Still no Goblin for the team though I will keep my eye out for a good addition. That's all for now! Off to play one of the last regular season KUBBL 3 games now. Wish me luck!

Progress Report 4/17/11 - Painting dem greenskins.

Managed to get some test scheme paint on the two Orc lineman for my Blood Bowl team. Still toying with the idea of adding some battle damaged paint to the armor. I kind of like them as is though... learning how to paint green skin and yellow cloth has been tricky. Maybe add a colored stripe down the helmet?

 

I feel like I have so much to learn about painting but not as much interest in getting myself to the next level. I suppose a medium-quality is all I really want for the tabletop anyhow. Thoughts?

Progress Report 2/6/11 - A super Sunday?

Darn it! Here we are... another Sunday and another one post week on the blog. I need to find another day or two during the week that works well for updating!

Got a bit of stuff done this week and still managed to work a bunch (in between sleeping and finishing two books). Quick rundown...

• Assembled the rest of the "core" for my Orc BB team - the Trailer Orc Boyz (three more Blitzers and one Thrower). Working on my "troll" now (basically a big Orc made with an ogre body and Black Orc head and hands). 
• Finished another test mini for my first potential painting client - basically the same just a different skin tone.
• Got more basecoat/skin done for my BB Ogres.

And that's it! I didn't manage to play any BB this week due to the blizzard weather and some long hours at work on Wednesday, and the super-something-bowl put a cramp in my plans to get some WHFB in today. Behold! Photographic evidence of my progress!

 

So there you have it! Photos! Comment, critiques, and commentary are welcome as always. This week I hope to finish up my Orcs and get a bit of primer on them. Then it's time for me to decide which team I will be playing in KUBBL IV - Nurgle, Ogres, Orcs, or ???

Progress Report 1/9/11 - WIPweek

Not a lot going on in the gaming department this week. Felt sick on Wednesday and my BB league game was canceled so I stayed home to get some painting done and sleep. In the end I got less painting and more sleeping done but I didn't get sick!

Just one week left to get these nuns painted to a basecoat/tabletop standard for my first BB tournament. Got the black and skin done and I am working on the red cloth now.

I also spent a little time sculpting some greenstuff on an Orc Blizter. It's a start anyways...

I need to add some more to the "fisty punchy thing" as it looks a bit crap right now. I might just take it off if I can't make it look better. The biggest thing was making sure the spiked shoulder pad looked attached and not just "floating" on this arm which I have accomplished.

For my "best theme" award from KUBBL II (for the Bulltimore Bullies) I received a cheerleader model to paint. Sadly she was missing one of her arms. I decided to add on an arm holding a gnoblar/snotling to replace it. Here is what I have so far:

I'm thinking about having the gnoblar/snotling holding the other pom pom but we'll see how it looks once she is holding him. The end result should be suitably Ogrish and disturbing.

Progress Report 12/19/10 - BB Orcs continued...

Orcs! Managed to get a few additional Orcs assembled for my Orc BB team the Trailer Orc Boyz this week. In the back you'll see four Black Orc Blockers (the one with the blade on his hand is my team captain), then the two Lineorcs, with my one Blitzer in the front. I added some face guards to the Lineorcs, and the Blitzers will have a spiked shoulder pad and Black Orc gauntlet to show their faster moving and additional smashing capacity on the pitch. 

Only played one game of Blood Bowl with the Germs this week - crushed a Vampire team 2-0 leaving me with 3 wins and 0 losses so far this season. My two hardest division opponents are next in line.. we'll see if I can manage to make this season a complete shut out or if the fast moving Dark Elves and Underworld teams will manage to beat Nurgle back. 

Got more page layouts for the next issue of the Bellower done as well. Just a few more articles to go and we'll have another issue in the bag and out before the end of the month! This one has been hard going... I hope it gets a little easier in the next few issues. Not sure I can manage to devote as much time to it while still finding time to work on my own hobby stuff. 

Picked up my two Hellcannons from the FLGS this week. I'm not looking forward to cleaning and assembling those bad guns... might be a project for the new year. 

Look for a few Christmas beer reviews this week!

Progress Report 11/22/10 - Quick little WIP pic.

I survived the first of three turkey days and I managed to slap together a couple Orcs to boot! Only two more days and 14 or so more models to go...

Black Orc Blocker on the left with your average run of the mill Lineman on the right. Pretty happy with the options on both of these sets and I look forward to playing around with them more to make a couple Throwers and some Blitzers.

Sunday, sunday, sunday!

Stopped by the local game store today to see what the WHFB Sunday folks were getting up to and discovered a slew of new armies and generals playing the game! There must have been 14 people in the store playing Fantasy when just a month or two ago there was only a handful (4 or 5 of us at the most). This is most exciting!

I didn't manage to get in any games as everyone was finishing games in the store's first escalation league (which I wasn't able to participate in due to work and life restrictions) but I did meet some new folks and learned a few things about 8th ed as well. 

For instance... did you know?

• Units fleeing in subsequent turns no longer flee towards the nearest table edge - they continue moving forward until they run into something or run off the board.

This one was new for me... just one example of how I really need to play more 8th ed especially if I am going to attend any tournaments or events in the coming months. 

In the meantime I picked up a couple boxes of models for my next Blood Bowl project:

I'm not crazy about the standard BB Orcs so I will be making my own out of these boxes of 40k Ork Boys and WHFB Black Orcs. For what team you ask? Why for the Trailer Orc Boyz of course!!

This week is going to be really hectic with lots of work and long long days. I hope to get some WIP shots of the Orcs up as well as some pictures of my (mostly) painted Nurgland Germs. Until next time...