GENERAL: There goes the Momentum..

Nothing lasts forever.. After a good streak of paining, posting and gaming everything came to a halt after that last boardgame night with Star Craft.. I got with a very bad flu and was knocked out for a week. Oh well at least I managed to paint the orks while I had that momentum going....

BOARDGAMING : 6 Player StarCraft

Where to launch the assault?

I never thought I'd see the day that I would actually have the chance to get up to 6 players for a game of Starcraft (and its Broodwar expansion) usually players and even I would be hesitant to try this because the board would take up too much space  and the length of the game would be 4+ hours and longer specially if you still needed to teach the game.

TOURNAMENT: 40K GT 2011

Exactly after the 1111 tournament at the bunker was the Grand Tournament 2011 sponsored by Neutral Grounds Philippines and held at the Xavier Toy Fair in Green Hills last November 12-13, 2011

So a Warhammer 40k tournament with cosplay and Transformers in the background.. huzzah.

Unlike other countries tournaments never really have any comp scores over here. We may do the occassional weird tournaments (like 1111) but we never think that anything should not be allowed in the game.

TOURNAMENT: (sorta) 1,111 Tourney

Well last November 11 was the third year anniversary for the Bunker and unfortunately with the building being sold off to the nearby hospital this year would be its last. To celebrate there would be a 11-11-11 tournament to be played. We had to play a 1,111 point army list and any player that had a 111 point unit would get bonus points.

WIP: Killa Kanz

     Wow.. I'm still actually painting something.. I guess the painting bug is still biting then.. Here we have a pair of kanz that I will be using for the 11 11 11 Tournament to be held on November 11, 2011 to commemorate the BUNKER's third year anniversary and sadly our last year over there.

     Anyhow I got to finally start painting 2 of the plastic kans that I had for so long (two years ago??).. Only now once I started to paint the models did I realize how wrong it was to have glued the arms in already.. The model has to many bits that I may not be able to paint it all and my OC is kicking in and it's driving me nuts. I am beginning to dread having to paint the Lootas that I actually finished assembling.. Oh well.. will worry about it when I get there.

     At first I really did'nt know how to paint them so like a noob I went to the GW website to see how they did it and it a bunch of reds and oranges.. this should be easy then!! The first kan i just directly applied the Red on top of the undercoat... Several layers later did I actually remember that it's better to put on a more lighter color in (Bubonic Brown was the key) to act as a neutral color so that the red would be easier to apply. With no Bubonic Brown I settled for a pinky flesh paint and hope the red and orange would stick better.

     I am trully lacking a few paints though.. I am regretting the lose of my Tin Bitz. I severely need a rusting metallic color    and too much use of bolt gun metal is getting boring. The use of PP paints and there better plastic caps have at least kept my models from drying.. Too bad though that it appears that PP paints are a bit more watery. (EDIT - Obi mentioned that perhaps its too watery because I added in too much water... well doh for me)

     As always I was not able to finish it all when Tournament time came but well at least its a start.

PAINTING : 10 more Ork Boyz done

Yes

Wow, I actually managed to finish another 10 ork boyz this evening. Looks like the painting bug has finally hit. The fact that I had changed my old paints  and used Semco and PP paints seems to have helped (probably because the old paints had dried up and it took me more time to coax some paint out of them than actually paint).

I am just getting to realize that PP paints are more watery than normal.. similar to Semco, and they don't do drybrushing very well. Might have to start looking at Vallejo model color and see any Citadel equivalents.

GENERAL: Win - Lose Ratio Gaming - Over the years

Back in the day of me being more active in the gaming scene, I used to keep a very detailed Win-Lose Ratio in my games, just to see how good I was getting as a player. I also used this to stack up how my army would do against different players, under different scenarios and against particular codexes. This sort of stopped when 4th ed came along and I lost some interest in playing my miniature soldiers (paint drying has a way to do that to me).

I did manage to salvage as much of my win lose ratios over the years and because I am a pack rat I might as well star posting them up over at the Win-Lose Score board tab on top. These records are of course not complete with me missing games from here and there but at least it helps me see where I stand as a gamer.

I will not anymore break it down into individual armies or who I fought because its not anymore applicable with the current edition but will just post the win draw lose values I have had.. per army over the years.. regardless of what edition it was.

Perhaps when I get more time in will I start doing detailed game analysis.. After all 6th edition is right around the corner...

Anyway the link to my win lose ration can be found by following this Game Standings over the years or by just clicking on the link above.

GENERAL: Campaign Play

A part of me really likes to do campaign type of play.. wether it be for a more narrative approach or to chain the games that you play wether among friends or in a tournament/league type of gaming. I believe these things add much flavor to the games that we play. These are a few of the campaigns that I managed to run or participate in and over the course of the following weeks I hope to put some of them here for posterity sake

List of campaigns:

• Corriba -- some one did a good job of expanding this section of the imperium. The original site is now gone but I managed to salvage as much as I can. Plan to at least increase this as much time as I have.
• Storm Campaign. - The first campaign that I ran during the Weekday Warriors gaming we did back in Makati and in Romy's place. I will be putting up the old stuff here
• Oakwood Campaign - Battle for Makat  -- This was back in the days of Weekday warrior gaming in Makati. Obi did a good job of doing the web work for me .

A salute to Going on Campaign for creating an online campaign mechanic that people would use and I hope to be able to do so again. Haven't played much for the past couple of years but I'm hoping this would inspire me to do some campaigns again (and get a couple of dedicated players to do so)

GENERAL: Change of URL

You know for those who are actually reading this, don't you find it odd that the title of the blog is different from the url? After a couple of years I finally unprocrastinated enough to actually do something about it.

After some time thinking how I would do it and googling to find out it was  surprisingly easy for me to just go ahead and change the url without having to redesign everything. Of course I found out about it after I created another blog and then redesigning it again and then discovering that I didn't have to do any of that at all. so doh.

Well it's fixed now so for those who need to please change your URL of me to:

http://badbeefspawningground.blogspot.com/

TOURNAMENT: Manila Team Championship Results

I'd like to drink beer in these cups

Well after much hawing and losing sleep over it, I managed to think of a list to use for the MTC and brought along the following Blood Angel army from a hodge-podge of units that I surprisingly still had and was stuck in storage.. Really need to finish all of them :P...

===

1750 Blood Angel List.

Librarian with blood lance and sheild of sanguinus

Sanguinary priest
furioso dreadnought with talons, heavy flamer, and frag cannon in drop pod

5 assault squad w/ flamer and hand flamer in drop pod
5 assault squad w/ melta gun and inferno pistol in drop pod
5 assault squad w/ melta gun and inferno pistol in razorback w/ lascannon (x2)
5 assault squad w/ flamer and hand flamer in razorback w/ heavy bolter (x2)

Land speeder w/ multi melta and heavy flamer (x3)

5 devastator squad with 4 missile launchers (x2)
5 devastator squad with 2 lascannon

===

MANILA TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - Crap what flavor of SM to use?

Barely a week to go for the Manila Team Championships and I still do not have a list ready to use by then.. Arrggh,,,

Hindered by my lack of list building I decided to try to do this in reverse. I would get all of the models that I have had assembled, display them and then think if I can get to use them ...

the more or less assembled stuff

TOURNAMENT : MANILA TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS -- me Captain?

Well this has come as a surprise.. well not really more of like I think I forgot about the event because of work :P. Following the theme for ETC and as to cram as much tournaments as we can before the BUNKER closes we have that scheduled this coming October 22, 2011.

There would be 4 players per team and we have to use different codexes. That got me off the loop as I had been playing nothing but orks for the past 2 years. That means I have to dust off my SM and start creating a 1750 list , assemble whatever models I still need to get it done, and NOT be able to play test it before the game tournament start.

Thoughts on Orks from the BOLs Comment section

 GROGDATYRANT over at Bols had a great comment regarding Orks in an article regarding how to fight GK using Orks (which is like having yet another hidden GK article)

His other discussions can be found here.. http://disqus.com/GrogDaTyrant/

But I would just like to follow on his summary of Orks and I think it hits the nail on the head with this one.

The Bols article and comments can be found here

"This is being generous an giving you the maximum shots with a 28 point bonus. So no, I will continue to laugh at Ork shooting, no offense.:)"
...in the most optimal circumstance possible for yourself.  No offense intended, as in a vacuum DA's are certainly 'superior' (in theory, like communism).  But Orks are not an army that performs well on a 'unit vs unit' basis.  In fact, they don't perform at all on such a comparison.

GENERAL : Bunker Closing: Tournament in the works

Well after three years.. the Bunker.. that place of gaming haven in E. Rod at Quezon City is finally closing because the building is being demolished. That place had been my gaming haven for the past few months .. even though it's far from where I live it was at least near where I work and I got my gaming fix during the weekday/nights.

The Bunker is not going out without a bang though. There would be a couple of tournaments scheduled until the end of the year. Currently they have a special 1111 point tournament in the works which I hopefully should be able to compete in..

That place had been a fun location for some geeky fun.. I wonder where Lito is going to be able to setup a new site..

PAINTING: Ork Shoota Boyz done.

Well finally.. I actually managed to paint something today.. yehey.. Managed to finish another batch of orc shoota boyz with the minimum in standards just to get it over with .. So that's 10 down.. about 50 more orks to go ^_^

Side shot of the boyz

MODELLING: There goes the Kill Team

As expected I wasn't able to join the tournament because I had errands to run through during that time and I lost the will to try to finish it all. I was however able to at least finish assembling the modified Burna Boyz and the Ork Nob with Big Choppa and Powerklaw (minus the backpack)..

Now the question is.. When am I going to actually finish all of this? Hmmm.. a good question.

BOARDGAMING:

One of the reasons that I haven't made some progress in finishing painting my army (aside from the new baby, laziness and whatnot).. has been because for the past 3 years I have been more invested in board gaming.
Now the new kind of board gaming is a far cry from those Monopoly or Risk days we used to have in college. Some of these games are complex with theme and great mechanics.

Much as this had been intentionally a wargamming blog I might as well broaden the horizons somewhat and include the other games that I am as well as life in general..

Speaking of games:
-----------

I have had Raipo, Homer, Roe and there friends come over for some boardgame madness.. I have had friends come over from time to time to play but I appreciate the fact that they would come all the way from Laguna for some boardgame madness..

----------
For the first visit I had introduced them to RuneWars which they seem to love "forget the dragon runes, send the armies forward!!!"

See Raipo's writeup  here

For there next visit I finally had them experience how tense A Game of Thrones boardgame would be with a full set of 5 players.. Next was a game of Puerto Rico and then Last Night on Earth. (my very first Modern Game -- realized that I haven't even had fixed the expansions that I had bought with the game.. doh)

Hopefully will get a chance for some more gaming in the months to come (probably just do this once a month)

KILL TEAM tournament Coming up.

With all the hoopla elsewhere about games getting higher and higher in points, Arvin has been keen on promoting Kill team as a quicker pick me up game and even came up with a tournament game for them. This might actually get me to finish a couple of more models in..

So with that said, here is my planned 200 point Kill Team list

Ork Boy squad
  9  Shoota Boys
  1  Nob w/ Big Shoota, Big Choppa, Heavy Armor   (USR  - FNP)

Gretchin Squad
 10 Grots
  1 Runtherd

Burna Boyz
 1 Burna (USR - Preferred Enemy)
 1 Burna
 1 Mek with Big Shoota (USR - Stealth)
 1 Mek with Big Shoota
 1 Mek with Kustom Mega Blasta

-- Let's see if I can actually manage to finish painting a few of these buggers shall we.

PAINTING: Broke a PP Bottle Cap

It has been raining all week and has been totally depressing. I was thinking that hey at least I can get to paint finally indoors... I was all set to do it when I took out and broke the Privateer Paint Bottle Cap that I had. It was brittle and it totally just fell apart in my hands.

I have been going WTF and tried to fix it temporarily with super glue and plasticard. I opened 3 super glues and they were all empty inside (another round of WTF)  and I managed to open a 4th one and it had glue inside.

Have wrapped it in tape to keep it as airtight as I can.. Well that ruined my shot at attempting to paint for me today.. Ho humm might as well just troll on the interwebz.

BATTLE BROTHERS 2011

My friend and I managed to have a good time in the 2 on 2 tournament that was Battle Brothers 2011 once again hosted by Lito at the Bunker. Much fun and much loudness as well as rubbing of butt cheeks (you have to be there to figure that out) ensued.

Though I have issues with the Missions (specially with Mission 1 - I mean its a doubles tournament - why do you have one mission where the other player just sits down?) and the fact that we did not have time to finish the 2nd game... it was an OK tournament for us.. with us ending in at 5th place..


I have at least managed to convince Obi how tough Ghaz can be and I on the other hand have seen more possibilities for the Ork Warboss on Bike..

I have however gotten sick and tired of not finishing an army and just the odds and ends.. It's time to at least paint a batch of models at one color at a time again. Will see how this goes.

More pictures can be found at Obi's blog here.

Finally some time posting and modelling

Howdy to whoever is actually reading this (which is probably just me.. helps to retain the sanity).

I am currently modelling up yet some more orks to complete a 1000 point list as I am going to be compete with Obi in a 2 on 2 team tournament.. We have both decided to field orks and just to have it all on the line and get it done.. both of us have decided oh what the heck and fielded Snikrot... (hence our team name Sneaky Bastards)

The difference is that he will be playing a counts as Ghazgul while I would be having a warboss on bike. Well for the past few weeks after we had decided on the army list I have managed to do just squat... procrastination and real life have stopped me from doing anything meaningful with the army.. I have managed however to assemble 10 more ork shoota boyz for the list that I am fielding.. As well as sorta making progress on the Warboss on Bike.

With actually no imagination/inspiration for me whatsoever.. I will merely be using AOBR Warboss and putting him on a bike that I managed to get from dktiger last April.. If I managed to finish this one maybe I can actually have time left to spray bomb some figs.. (assuming it doesnt rain) and maybe make another lobba..

Who knows.. will see.

Pampanga Feast and Model goodness.

As always dktiger shows up back in Pampanga and off we went for some great barbecue ribs and to ogle at all the warhammer stuff that was up for sale.

There were a lot of stuff that was available that day... and too much stuff that was sure to hurt my wallet. Ended up focusing on getting the rock lobbas, doom divers and squiqs that I needed as well as a bunch of other stuff that I wanted (and not needed). Like a dragon model (still would look good as a Battlewagon) tank and other arms and what not



Well there goes the model fund...

GLADIATOR WH40K - 2011 - Games 4 to 7

Game 4 vs Jessie and his Mech Blood Angels.

Jessie deployed in just one corner and it looked like we were fighting on a 4x4 :P. This was my first attempt at a Video Batrep (you can tell from the video :P )



The game was kill both HQs but only an opposing HQ can kill another HQ in close combat. Anything else and they become invulnerable to anything. See the video for yourself. But I was facing a very mechanized list with a very strong counterattack unit.

He managed to kill off the Warboss with Snikrot but not before they managed to destroy the dakka preds..

The death of the Warboss and Snikrot once again cost me 310 points but without that I probably wouldn't have been able to at least kill his Predator Destructors..

Game 5 vs Obi and 4th Ed Dark Angels

Game 5 was up against OBI and his Dark angels using the 4th edition ruleset (which was legal for Gladiator -- perhaps I should have just used my Lost and the Damned list) .. He had Tank Hunter Dev squads and Vindicator with Land Raider combo and more shoota units.. The scenario had meteors dropping at us each player turn causing massive casualties..

The most important shot was the Vindicator losing its Siege gun at the very start of the turn.. With snikrot and the Warboss appearing behind the vindicator and near the Predator and Dev Squad. I managed to gut them all and Obi proceeded to backpedal away and towards his Land Raider on his far left flank.

I actually had it in the bag with the Warboss and Snikrot managing to survive this mess until the last turn.. and despite me not making any single KFF save again like what happened last game

Game 6 vs Felix and Hestan

Game 6 was against Felix and his Vulcan Hestan list.. We had to deploy from the short table edge and had to walk on towards the middle .. there were 5 objectives in the middle of the field with 2 death rays moving to obliterate any model that it touches.

Felix had 2 dreads in drop pods and a teleporting 8 man thunderhammer squad.. he then had 2 tac squads and 2 multimelta land speeders. He decided to drop his first dreadnought near my lines and then tried to flame wipe out my boy squads.. I manage to hold on and manage to Powerklaw one dread... then his thunderhammer units teleport in. Instead of being more aggressive with it though he starts to back pedal with them.

This gives time for my Grotzooka Kans to hit them with pie plates and I manage to kill 5 of them in one go with a bit of bad luck from Felix.. still those 3 last Terminators manage to wipe out an assaulting Burna mob and to clump up another Boyz mob so they get beamed by the lasers..

I get some good luck and some bad luck as well. I manage to destroy his other dreadnought with nothing but bigshoota fire at the rear but I fail to dislodge the rhino in the middle objective and the Land speeder on the side that cost me the game.. oh well.



Game 7 vs Henri Tecson and his Space Wolves

Game 7 was against Henri and his Wolf-Priest Led Space Wolves army. He had the usual 2 Missile Launcher Long Fang list with 3 Wolf scouts and a GreyHunter with 2 Blood Claw units with rhinos and Razorbacks galore.

I had forgotten that the Deft Koptas have HIT and RUN.. a small chance to pull it off with my initiative.. but still .. that would have kept them alive against the assaulting blood claws. The mission had us randomly be deployed from left center or right of our deployment zone. I had my KFF mec at the very left flank and would not help with providing cover for the rest of the unit.

I experienced first hand how preferred enemy on a wolf priest and blood claws can get in close combat. The squad managed to wipe out my 20 ork boy unit and the gretchin squad. The other Blood claw unit managed to wipe out the other one as well. This was the only game were all of my troops got eliminated in the carnage.

Fortunately though my troops got wiped out, I manage to wipe out most of his other units except for the hiding Blood claw unit in the rhino. Well another phyrric victory for me.

CONCLUSION
So there goes the entire series for me. It had its ups and downs and I manage to actually at least be decent in some of those games.. Here's to the next series of games..

All your base belong to us

It's the start of the Holy week season here and I'm taking the opportunity to at least repair and assemble the night goblins that I still have un-assembled from the prize I got the last time in time for the an actual game of Gladiator Fantasy

And I can't believe it but I am out of fantasy slotta bases.. I have been going about removing square bases from the units that I don't need (particularly the skaven bits that I have) and I'm still short of 13. Hmmmm maybe doug is selling em. The visit to Pampanga should be interesting.

GLADIATOR WH40K - 2011: Intro and Recaps of Game 1 to 3

Introduction

Well the start of 2011 was a blast as I once again participated in the Gladiator Cup, a 7 week series of games with oddball scenarios that would eventually lead up to the top 2 of each area battling it out in a win-all type of gaming.

As was reported before in my last year's Glad up starting here, I managed to do all right in the Southern Sector with my Green skins. With my work throwing me far north of where I lived the best place for me to get some games in was to be at the bunker.

I decided to tweak last year's list and came up with the following. Sadly I screwed up my understanding of some of my army lists as we shall see.

My list was the following:

State of the Spawning Address: 2010 is gone here's to 2011

A bit late in coming (heh) but here is looking back at 2010 and what 2011 happens to bring:

To the year that was:

Well 2010 wasn't a total loss of my hobby time. I had managed to get more gaming in. Bought some new paint and managed to get in a couple of tournaments. With the Feb to March as the Gladiator Cup gamings this should be a good time to get back to finish gaming.

Model fund wise we saw it all evaporate to other commitments that need me to break the penny jar.. Was able to sell off some unwanted stuff though.

Revew: Frequency of posts: C-
Well 2010 was an increase of posting on my part.. From 6 back up to 17 for the whole year.. Not better than 2008 but at least better than 2009. I aim to increase the number of posts for this year as well (target at least 30 again).. will see.

Review: Number of games in: C-
Well managed to get me some 14 games of 40k and was able to even get a game with my old LaTD and some BFG action.




NEWs on the hobby side.

Have done some rework with the stuff upstairs.. basically any filing, assembling and cutting must be done on the 2nd floor balcony to be it aerated.. (at the very least) and to prevent the room from being filled with plastic dust and other toxic stuff.

I have managed to start painting again at the dining table.. I however need to remember that some things like undercoating could have been done sooner and without mess had I just spray bombed them and not having to brush it on myself.. that and I need to remember to clean with soapy water first the models.. oh well.. at least it's a start.







So now what?

The glad cup is now in full swing. I will be posting my army lists and the games I have had so far. I have forced myself to play with the other parts of the army that I have not yet assembled and primed. With me finally finding a way to transport the army without it going to pieces (using lots of double sided tape) I should be able to play then paint with the army that I have.

Speaking of paint. One of the things that have made me procrastinate is all of my GW paints gunking up and being totally unusable and me spending needless time in trying to coax some paint out of them.(oh GW .. great paints but your containers are crap crap crap)  Ah fudge it... I am replacing my paints already with SEMCO and Privateer Paints..


I do plan to get at least TWO Video Batreps in  for the Glad cup.. ala what they do in BOLS. This has been hampered a bit by the lack of motivation on my part AND having to endure 3+ hours of gaming. But I have managed to get one video report in and I hope to get it up and running here on these blog during the next few days.

Here's to it then.

HOBBY: Nearly completely finish assembling one SM drop pod

Well that was an excercise in learning what not to do when assembling the SM drop pod.
-- Should have painted the inside or at least sprayed it black before assembling the interior.
-- fitted the top wrong so there is too much of a gap in between the doors when they close.
-- assembling a space marine drop pod when I should be more focused on finishing the WH40k orks that I do have.

Oh well..