WHFB: Don't Forget!

The most difficult thing for me right now in Fantasy is remembering all the stuff that's going on.  I played a game last night in which a highly annoying unit of 30 White Lions with a BSB and level 4 Life Mage just would not die.  At one point I got them down to 4 models, but the mage just used Regrowth and got them back.  I could have slowed this down but I made a crucial mistake.

I forgot that even if you don't have any casters you can use power dice in your phase to dispel effects.  I could have been using that to shut down the Throne of Vines so that he could have cast fewer spells that round.  So if you run out of casters, make sure you make the most of it and dispel what you can with your power dice.  You only have to meet the base casting value which for Throne is 8.  If you're a Dwarf player you especially cannot forget this.

On a side note, Life magic is proportionately better the more expensive and elite your troops are, which makes it perfect for High Elves.

I also forgot that the Storm Banner affects fliers.  He shouldn't have been able to fly his eagle around but I completely forgot that.  It didn't matter as I chopped it up pretty quickly.  I also did all my shooting before remembering to check if the Storm Banner ended.  It did, but if it hadn't I would have had to redo the whole shooting phase.

It might be helpful for me to write a little cheat sheet so I can remember things like "ring the Bell" or "Storm Banner is up" and such like that.

Also, we had a Temple of Skulls and I had a Warlock Engineer get up to S6 and 3 wounds before he got greedy and was sucked into the warp.  Too bad he never got to fight, but his Doomrocket took out tons of guys.

In other news I've got a huge backlog of commissions.  I'm working on two Venomthropes.  After that I've got a huge pile of Dark Angels tanks.  Furthermore, my second child should be born sometime this week.  Busy busy busy!

Island of Blood Command Groups

Here's the command groups for the Island of Blood.  There's a lot of pictures and the weather outside was partially overcast with winds so the light was constantly changing.  I was too impatient to wait so the photographic quality is not my usual standard but since it's Skaven we'll just blame someone else for casting Howling Warpgale outside.

I don't know how this guy can hold his standard up.

I particularly like this musician model.  I painted the rat a light gray because it reminded me of the Grey Seer on the Screaming Bell, so this is kind of a parody of that model.

I need to figure out a way to make the markings more visible with the black and white.  I may need to designate a circular space or something.

The hardest part wasn't the quartered scheme but making sure the runes were in the same place on opposite sides.

I used a touch of a verdigris wash that I mixed myself on the bronze bells (and champion helmets).

I've only painted a few of the rank and file troops.

Completed Doomwheel

Of all the models I have ever painted, this one was possibly the most complex.  There are so many surfaces, inside and out that make this a difficult model.  I had to pretty much paint everything separate from each other.  I'm still not satisfied with the base, I need to add some stuff to it as it is kind of boring. 

I considered rusting up the blades but I kind of like it as is.  I can always go back and add it.

I'm also not satisfied with the banner.  I may end up redoing it later.

Interior detail.  I tried a glow effect on the eyes.  It came out better than my other attempts but I still need practice with the technique.

Frequent Internet Spelling Mistakes: Horde vs. Hoard

Here we go with one of the most frequent mistakes.  First off, this is a hoard:

And this is a horde:

Now if you're hoarding hordes, that's horrible.  Don't be a horde hoarder.  And don't mix the two up.


Images shamelessly stolen from teh Interwebz, the Ork army is from Dakka and it is pretty great looking!

Bowie In Space?

So while the entire blogrolls of FTW are clogged with people posting and reposting the latest Dark Eldar rumors and such, the latest batch from BoLS featured a character named Duke Sliscus the Serpent and described him as "Bowie in space,"  This is the first thing I thought of when I read that:



But it all still leaves several questions.  Can Bowie settle down on one army list or is he always making ch-ch-ch-changes?  Is his Fantasy army Goblins?  Does modern love get him to submit his lists on time?  The list goes on.  What else would Bowie do in the grim darkness of the far future, besides re-invent himself every decade?

Vendetta With Aquila

This Vendetta was another commission.  This is the first IG vehicle I've ever painted.  The client requested tabletop quality with an Aquila on the wings, leaving the colors up to me.  I didn't build it (you can still see some mold lines), just painted it.  The canopy is also a bit crooked as the pilots are a bit off, but the client said he'd fix it.

I went with the blue and gold because I had accidentally bought a pot of Necron Abyss and figured I might as well get some use out of it.  I highlighted it with Royal Blue and Ultramarine Blue (another accidental wrong color).  The Aquila is Shining Gold with Burnished Gold highlights.  By the way, don't try and paint gold over blue without some kind of basecoat.  I should have basecoated it either Iyanden Darksun or Tausept Ochre.  It took about 4 coats to get the gold on right, and it still is patchy in places if you look up close, though it looks fine at tabletop distance.

I didn't use a stencil, I just freehanded the Aquila.  You can see that the left side is slightly different from the right.  Were I going for a higher standard I would have corrected it.  It was very difficult.  I'm no stranger to freehand but this goes down as possibly the hardest I've done.  A lot of the difficulty was the symmetry and the fact that it's such an established symbol.  It probably needs more pinions but I couldn't really fit them.  The other thing that made it difficult as I said before was the fact that it took many layers to get the color on.  If I ever do another freehand metallic on a strong surface I'm going to be sure and do a proper basecoat.

Review: Gamescience Dice Part 2

Continued from Part 1:

Now, are they actually balanced?  I did a completely non-scientific study of my dice.  I made 1,000 rolls each on both my old Chessex dice and the new Gamescience dice.  I'm loath to publish my results because they are pretty non-scientific but here they are.  The rolls were made on a hard surface.  I picked 5 dice at random out of my pool for each roll.

Chessex Results:

1:  15.8%

2:  17.4%

3:  18.2%

4:  15.2%

5:  16.5%

6:  16.9%

Average roll:  3.499

1:  15.5%

2:  18.1%

3:  13%

4:  16.3%

5:  19.2%

6:  17.9%

Average roll:  3.594

So it would appear that the Gamescience dice roll higher and the Chessex roll lower but closer to average.  This is where I think my results are flawed.  I don't know enough about probability to say if 1k rolls are enough to really determine an average.  And if the Gamescience dice do indeed roll higher, am I an unethical gamer if I use them and I know they roll higher?  Am I a total nerd if I made 2k rolls to see if my dice really are biased?

In the end most gaming rolls are made on a felt surface.  I probably need to redo the test on a felt gaming board but I really don't feel like doing it again.  Furthermore, when I roll my dice I try and bounce them for best results.  I also own a dice tower and I wonder how the results would be there.  So I don't think I can count these results.  Further tests are needed.

Final Verdict, the Bad:  The sharp corners of Gamescience dice kind of hurt my hands and they're a bit bigger than the usual dice so it's hard to pick up a big handful of them.  The clear non-inked ones are hard to read (if you buy the clear get inked) sometimes.  They're more expensive than Chessex dice and are not sold in bricks.

Final Verdict, the Good:  They don't go bouncing every which way when you roll them or when they fall on the floor.  Also, this will sound really stupid but I feel more confident rolling them, that I know if I get bad dice rolls it's because of probability not because of flaws in my dice.  The greatest plus of all is that if they are truly statistically even, that should outweigh all other considerations.

So for anyone who knows more about probability and statistics than I (which isn't much), I'd appreciate you weighing in.