Karmic Backstab

Realigning my priorities

2009-05-13T13:24:00.002+08:00

Never ending pain. Quickly ending life.

I cutting off some ties and keeping some. Fuck the naysayers.

40K Philippines

2009-01-27T15:07:00.001+08:00

Graphic scoreboard now up! I posted it on the HGR blog since it has the most activity when it comes to anything and everything about 40K. Check it out here!

Sorscha and the Beast

2009-01-25T17:21:00.003+08:00

Date: January 23, 2009
Pointage: 500 points Contested Ground
Venue: Fortress, VMall Greenhills
Result: Kommander Sorscha victorious against Grim Angus (Kei Valentin)
It's been a while since I played using pSorscha. Played properly, she can still bring a frown to your enemies' faces. With Kei's Grim Angus, I was juggling between Freezing Grip on the DTE or the Champs. I realized that the Champs may well bring the beatdown to whatever gets in its way, but with the DTE down, that's one less Fury source for his warlock. Timely Icy Gaze froze Grim, the DTE and an Impaler - my setup for charging with Fenris and the Great Bears. Once those were down, Kei promptly gave me the game.

Beast-09's affinity with Sorscha seems redundant at certain times. By the time Beast-09 gets into melee with any opponent, Sorscha would have popped Icy Gaze, cast Freezing Grip or her Greylords would have frozen a solitary model target. But the P+S 19 with Critical Freeze, that's just awesome! I'm still looking for a chance to do a Beast-09 boosted headbutt with Harm, but I guess the axe will pretty much break anything it swats at.

WIP Khador

2009-01-20T18:02:00.005+08:00

Here are some long overdue WIP pics of my Khador models. I'll be posting some more from now on since I got the camera and the battery back.

My Record of WARMACHINE/HORDES 2009

2009-01-19T17:54:00.004+08:00

Date: January 13, 2009
Pointage: 500 points Contested Ground
Venue: Fortress, VMall Greenhills
Result: Kommandant Irusk draws against Iron Lich Asphyxious (Fred Escalona)
Looking back I recall I made a lot of blatant mistakes. I did try to salvage what I can on my succeeding turns. Apparently, we never got to finish our game since it was already closing time. I recall Fiona casting Discord and ruining my newly-fielded Great Bears of Gallowswood. It was also where Irusk almost got downed by Croe and his Cutthroats! I did enjoy a free-running Beast-09 who crossed the board a whole 12"!

Date: January 17, 2009
Pointage: 500 points No Man's Land
Venue: Fortress, VMall Greenhills
Result: Vladimir Tzepesci, Dark Prince of Umbrey victorious against Fiona the Black (Fred Escalona)
This was the game that I got to play before we went to Treiz' birthday party later that evening. That was the game where Fiona was spamming a lot of Discord that brought down a lot of Man-O-War Demolishers! But that was where a Koldun Lord-marshaled Destroyer brought down Fiona to only one wound with a Signs and Portents bombard! Fred got muddled and recharged Fiona's power field but forgetting the rest of her activation. He forfeited the game a few moves later on since Vlad was within bashing distance of a zero-charged power field on Fiona (well, it would not have mattered since Vlad will just use Mimic's ability and ignore Fiona's unspent focus on his succeeding attacks).

Date: January 23, 2009
Pointage: 500 points Contested Ground
Venue: Fortress, VMall Greenhills
Result: Kommander Sorscha victorious against Grim Angus (Kei Valentin)
It's been a while since I played using pSorscha. Played properly, she can still bring a frown to your enemies' faces. With Kei's Grim Angus, I was juggling between Freezing Grip on the DTE or the Champs. I realized that the Champs may well bring the beatdown to whatever gets in its way, but with the DTE down, that's one less Fury source for his warlock. Timely Icy Gaze froze Grim, the DTE and an Impaler - my setup for charging with Fenris and the Great Bears. Once those were down, Kei promptly gave me the game.

My Khador - 2008

2008-12-22T17:57:00.004+08:00

I got to read my WARMACHINE Superiority again last night. I liked how those Notable Kompanies struck a nice touch in the Khadoran force. So since I do have a lot of models at home which are in various states of incompleteness , I decided to adapt the Notable Kompanies in my collection.

I have a whole new box of Iron Fang Pikemen which I'll paint up to be the Howling Wolves.

The other unit of Widowmakers will be painted up in the colors of Blood Ravens.

I'll be adding some freehand to my Man-O-War Demolition Corps and make them that Ram kompany (I'm forget their name).

Maybe I'll get another box of Winter Guard and paint them white, too.

Well, since I'm very happy with how my painting and gaming turned out, I'll just continue with it (while I'm waiting for the Koldun Lord and the Khadoran Guard Dog; Great Bears... not so).

Reawakening the Tomb Fleet

2008-12-17T00:41:00.001+08:00

I got to play a 1000-point game: Necrons versus Ultramarines. More details here.

CTA `08 Week Two Aftermath

2008-12-16T14:55:00.002+08:00

Fortune has been by my side for the second week now. I've gotten top place for the second week of the Christmas Call To Arms despite the peculiar handicap for me (yeah, I'm used to playing with Eiryss, what can I do? LOL).

My second game was against John "Tiny" David who used Lord Commander Coleman Stryker. Apparently Tiny was still shaking off his rust, as he was grasping at proper application of his new models (the ones he bought off Ryan Tamayo). No Arcane Storm, no early feat. But as always, I do not make it a habit of underestimating my opponents. I took Supreme Kommandant Gurvaldt Irusk for that game. Unlike my old build, I dropped some infantry in favor of a Destroyer, which would be a good candidate for a mobile Fire For Effect firebase. But it was the Battle Lust + Kill Stroke on my Kayazy Assassins that won the game for me. Ventilate death!

My third game was not counted because it was against Tiny again (Kei did not favor gaming against me). I used Orsus Zoktavir and he used his same list. I went for sending eButcher out front as fast as he can, even though I was rolling abyssmally low for his Arcane Dementia. In the end, I went for objective victory, clearing No Man's Land of Tiny's three Storm Lancers.

My official third game was against Dick Sy and his new Circle Orboros army. He fielded Kromac the Ravenous that evening and I used the eIrusk list I had (I did not have time to change lists since I came from Fairview before I went to the game). The maneuverability and speed of that army was blinding. I knew I was going to be outmaneuvered so I opted to bunch up all the squishy models I had within 10" of eIrusk, just so they can benefit from Tough. Another objective win, this time I went for his lone Gnarlhorn Satyr with my Drakhun and some Battle Lust Iron Fang Pikemen while my Fire For Effect Destroyer sent his Druids fleeing.

Good games all in all. Again I hope I can squeeze in time for the CTA games this following week.

Blood War - Chaos Daemons versus Tyranids

2008-12-10T16:24:00.003+08:00

Posted by Ian Siongco on the HGR blog:

Soul and Flesh

Posted by Kuneho at 12:08 PM
1000pts: Hive fleet Conqueror (kuneho) vs Chaos Deamons (Kim)
Location: Battlr Bunker
Date: 08Dec'08
Mission: Seize Ground
Deployment: Dawn of war
Terrain: Hills

The Conqueror fleet moved towards the desecrated island in the south, a deamon controlled sector, looking for yet another prey. Consuming every life form that crossed their paths, and destroying every deamon tombs along its way. It made the deamons mad, as bloodletters and a deamon prince was summoned out to reclaim the remaining tombs. The battle between the Soul devourer and the Flesh devourer commence.

soulless, the Hive tyrant together with the genestealers assaulted the bloodletters and the deamon prince, totally devouring them. The deamon flesh was sweet, better than those of humans. Another batch of deamons arrived, as the juggernaughts slaughtered one of the hormogaunt brood. The bloodthirster was caught by the other hormogaunt brood, holding it until the carnifexes arrived.

It was a total carnage for both sides, and ended in a stalemate as 2 of the tombs were recovered by the deamons.

Result: Draw!!!

Looks like I'll have to be more narrative on my battle report for this one *LOL*

"Do you sense it, brother," the Daemon Prince's words were like a smoldering knife cutting across rotting fat, "It is the deafening song of the Devourer's brood! They have come at last! The foretold day, it seems, has arrived earlier."

Sauhandiir held an Imperial Guardsman's soul in one of his massive claws. It dragged the suffering entity across the flames of the tempestuous Warp as it moved closer towards a massive hulking form of a Bloodthirster. As if feeding of the soul's torment, Sauhandiir reared its head and revealed it sharp, misshapen teeth in an elated smile.

Marzog ignored the daemon prince behind it, its thoughts only brewing on how to bring much suffering to the Guardsman that brought him low in close battle no less. Countless souls were being sucked into Marzog's gaping maw. They would need such to be able to break out of the Warp once again.

Unlike the other denizens of the swirling Chaos, the brotherhood of the Daemon Prince and the Bloodthirster were utterly impatient. They enjoyed devouring souls in the Warp as much as blood bathed their material forms outside of it.

The Daemon Prince weaved several souls into the form of a humanoid skull, and latched it upon one of his wings as he continued towards Marzog.

"Do you not feel them, brother," Sauhandiir asked again, its face warping in and out of a blur, "They are close."

The Bloodthirster's voice was a low rumble of thunder. "They are soulless. We will benefit nothing."

"Nothing," Sauhandiir interrupted, "nothing save glorious battle. Open your eyes, brother, and see!"

Marzog allowed the Daemon Prince's slithering tone to convince it. It turned it's horned head, as if looking afar into one of the pockets of void upon Chaos. And indeed it saw.

The Greater Daemon's vision was flashes of scuttling claws amid a shaking earth and the euphoric screams of mortal pain. Beyond the sea of Hormogaunt scythes and Genestealer claws, Marzog saw the hulking forms of a Hive Tyrant and a pair of Carnifex. As sudden as the vision vanished, the Bloodthirster immediately felt a great hunger. Tyranids may not have souls, but Marzog knew his craving for battle will be sated.

The Bloodthirster bellowed, it's sound deafening through many world. It has called for his army.

+++

Learning points when fighting Tyranids:

Never be on the charging end of Genestealers. EVER. They will eat you up quite literally. I don't care if you're Daemons. You CHARGE THEM, never the other way around.
Use their numbers against them. For all that model count, it will be difficult to move into proper position (same with the truckload of Khadoran infantry but without eIrusk).
Never underestimate those small bugs. You big Daemon MIGHT still roll stupid, even with just 3's to hit and 2's to wound.

Christmas CTA `08 - Week Two

2008-12-10T15:54:00.002+08:00

I got my first game in for Week Two. With this week's special rule of "no other characters besides the warcasters and warlocks", it seemed strange for me since I'm very used to playing with Eiryss. With the recent addition of Orin Midwinter and Beast-09, it's too bad for me since I won't be able to use them.

My first game was against Fred Escalona, who still used Iron Lich Asphyxious even at 750 points. But with the double-edged scenario rules, he won't be able to use Tartaus, Gorman di Wulfe, Darragh Wrathe or the Withershadow Combine, too. He used four bonejacks and the two spider-legged helljacks, the Leviathan and Harrower, his usual pair of Pistol Wraiths, a Skarlock, three Soul Hunters and two Ogrun Bokurs (one had the Skarlock as client, the other was Asphyxious').

I opted to use Dark Champion Vladimir Tzepesci with a Kodiak. The rest of the 750-point force was comprised of infantry - a lot of Iron Fang Pikemen, a lot of Greylords, some Kayazy Assassins, some Uhlans, a pair of Winterguard Mortar Crew and Widowmakers deployed way out front (since I won the roll off for first turn anyway - good thing there is no "Sieze the Initiative" rule yet here in WARMACHINE *hehe*).

TURN ONE

Early on I managed to snipe off the Skarlock, despite it being screened by its Bokur bodyguard. The rest of my force surged forward. No Blizzard screen for me this turn. I hoped for an early Pegasus, so I casted Hand of Fate on my Kodiak before it ran forward with the Drakhun close by.

Fred answered his Skarlock's demise with a channeled Breath of Corruption on my Widowmakers. With only one sniper remaining, he failed his CMD check and turned tail. His Soul Hunters took my right flank speedily and uncontested while his All Terrain helljack strode through some woods. His Pistol Wraith pair took to some elevated ruins at my left flank. Asphyxious was way out in the rear though, so I had to rethink my strategy.

TURN TWO

I dropped the Kodiak's Hand of Fate and recasted it on one unit of Greylords at my left flank. With seemingly precision spellcasting, the Greylords eliminated both Pistol Wraiths with Frostbite. The Skarlock's Bokur was the target of my Uhlan's charge, which was easily brought down. The bonejack which channeled the Breath of Corruption was also destroyed by my Iron Fang Pikemen.

Fred charged the Uhlans with two of his bonejacks, scoring some wounds but failing to kill even one of them. It was the start of some bad rolling for Fred.

His Scything Touch Harrower charged the furthest end of my Pikeman line, hoping to break them with a Thresher-like special attack. Only two out of its five targets were killed, and he only needed to roll 8's for the auto-kill hits.

His Soul Hunters also charged, killing another Pikeman. But it was here that he made a crucial mistake. With SR4 No Man's Land, for a unit to be counted as controlling the area, ALL models in the unit must be completely within the No Man's Land area.

With his last moves, only his Harrower was inside the No Man's Land.

TURN THREE

For a "righteous kill", I had eVlad pop Blood Legacy on my Drakhun and three Pikemen. The first Blood Legacy Pikeman scored tremendous blows on the Harrower, with an extra melee attack for good measure, too. The IFP Sergeant's first blow was the one that reduced the helljack to a smoking scrapheap, and bagged the win for the Khadoran force!

Christmas Call To Arms 2008

2008-12-08T09:42:00.006+08:00

I got to play a unique league for WARMACHINE in Mike Ang's Call To Arms 2008. It's a set of four separate leagues broken into the four weeks of December. Veterans must play a minimum of 750 points though. There's a special global rule and specified scenario for each week.

In the first week, warcasters and warlocks may not use their feats while playing the SR4 Mosh Pit scenario. I put together an all-infantry list with Supreme Kommandant Irusk as my warcaster. And by all-infantry I mean a lot of squishy models like Greylords and Iron Fang Pikemen. I think the only multi-wound models I had were Iron Fang Uhlans and the Drakhun. I got to fight against Jake de Jesus' Lord Commander Stryker, Mang who also used epic Irusk and Arvin Tan's dire troll-heavy Grim Angus army. Apparently, I had a lot of time on my hands and was the only one to play the maximum 3 games in a week. Luckily I also won all my games for that week.

For the first week, it looks like Khador had initiative. Dick Sy, who also played Khador, and myself won the pins for being top 2 during that week.

This week, except for warcasters and warlocks, no other characters may be included in your army. In the case of my Khador army, that would mean no Eiryss, Kovnik Jozef, Fenris, Aiyana and Holt, and Orin Midwinter. That would mean no unique warjacks like Beast-09 and the Behemoth, too. Playing SR4 No Man's Land without them would be more difficult than usual for me.

I hope I can get to squeeze in playing the minimum 3 league games, as well as playing Tuesday nights at Oberon Sector.

November's End, December's Beginning

2008-12-04T16:23:00.004+08:00

WARHAMMER FANTASY

I've been able to help organize the Warhammer Fantasy minitournament at Lito Tan's Oberon Sector the past two Fridays. After the dust had settled, Clarence Cua and his Vampire Counts rose victorious above the beaten heap. Looks like I'll have to rethink my stand on the new Zombie rules *chuckle*

I got to play against Sunny Yu's Wood Elves using Daemons of Chaos in a 1,250-point game. Knowing that I can't outmaneuver his fast army, I decided to spread my forces and just get as many of his units into close combat as possible. I managed to score a win in a crucial mass combat at the center of the table, which pretty much dictated the outcome of the battle.

This was my first game against Sunny since several years back. The experience was tremendously fun. I got to apply Page 5 into WFB *LOL* Even if both of us were into technical spots at times during the game, none of it were serious. I'd better pretty up my army real soon though. He has very pretty Wood Elves and well-painted, too, in a winter theme to boot!

Learning points in fighting against Sunny's Wood Elves:
• They can surf in their woods closer or further away from my forces
• They can whittle you down in short range with S4 missile fire
• That wood surfing spell is indirect, and he can use it as often as he can so long as he has Power Dice (which pretty much screws me over in the Magic Phase since I usually run with only two Dispel Dice and rely on Magic Resistance).

WARHAMMER 40,000

I also got to play against Freddie Yu's Imperial Guard using Chaos Daemons in 40K with 1,000 points. This time, I knew I had to risk Deep Striking in the midst of his firing line, hoping that the lone building would provide ample cover for my non-shooting Bloodletters. With a lot of unlucky rolls on his part, and a lot of lucky rolls on my part, I managed to turn a supposed loss into a draw. Surviving the hail of IG fire were the Daemon Prince with only a single Wound left and a fat unit of Bloodletters. Morale victory for Freddie was when a Guardsman brought down the Bloodthirster in close combat (yeah I got some unlucky rolls, too)!

I learned a lot fighting Freddie's IG. Cover rules, assault rules and assault results, I got to fine tune my understanding on those. He did mention that 40K now drew a similar picture to WMH now, and I'll never complain about that one. Maybe he'll jump into WMH, too *grin*

Learning points when fighting Freddie's IG:
• Luck, luck, luck! I really cannot have managed as well as I did if I was unlucky. The numbers game will always work in the favor of the Guard.
• Get into assault quickly!
• Do NOT get assaulted by those Rough Riders. Assault them instead *LOL*

WARMACHINE/HORDES

I put together a 500-point list for Irusk using Beast-09 and my entire Winterguard collection - which wasn't much since it's only the basic 6-man unit, with Kovnik Jozef, the WGUA and the Rocketeer. The rest were two Mortar teams and two units of Greylords. Apparently, the list should have included Orin Midwinter, but I was stupid and left him at home.

I played against Patrick Palma, who used Jeremiah Kraye - something he also wanted to try out. He had a lot of jacks, I remember a Thunderhead, a Lancer and a Centurion. He also had Arlan Strangeways and a Journeylass Warcaster.

We played two games, both at 500 points. One game was using a No Man's Land scenario, and the other was using Destruction scenario. I won both by killing Kraye with well-placed Rocketeer shots, with the help of the Greylords' Ice Cages.

The two games were some of the more enjoyable games I had. Patrick was as much a technical player as he is a good sportsman. I'll be looking forward to playing against him again.

Orin Midwinter

2008-11-24T17:18:00.002+08:00

I finished painting Orin Midwinter last night on a sporadic burst of painting interest and effort. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, especially how the blending on the cloth parts of the miniature looked. Also with the magical glow effect I did for the tip of his staff.

I also tried out playing with the Winterguard. Their performance against Karl's Circle Orboros wasn't as well as I expected. All three rockets from the Rocketeer didn't kill the alpha Warpwolf. I was rolling horribly low then. I'll see if they will work better with Irusk. I've always wanted to play with a Superiority Beast-09!

Lito's Oberon Sector seems to be doing very well. I'll be continuing to judge the 2-day Warhammer Fantasy minitournament that we started.

Looks like my Angelic Legion project will hit some snags. Things are getting more and more expensive and I can't go buying stuff like I used to anymore. I'll see if I can get more painting done on my Daemons, since they're pretty much playable between WFB and 40K.

I'm also planning on easing up more on my spending. I hope I can discipline myself from buying more stuff. At least until I get the current stuff I have painted first.

Beast-09

2008-11-03T15:42:00.003+08:00

I have to say Beast-09 has to be the BEST Khadoran warjack model every made! The arms were in ball sockets and the shoulders were made for swiveling upon placement, allowing for a wide variety of arm poses lower part. The waist to torso joint was also in ball socket structure, so you can have the Beast lean forward or arch back. The legs would have been better if they made them as dynamic with ball joints like the arms, but then it would make for somewhat unstable base.

I'm still painting it so hopefully I can post up pics once it's done.

WARMACHINE Gaming

2008-10-26T17:15:00.004+08:00

I got some WARMACHINE games in via the campaign and some casual games at Fortress. I'm more relaxed with my gaming now since I realized I've already achieved a lot of success in the hobby. I'm still giving my ace game to anyone who wants it - but I feel I'll try to be less of an ass from now on LOL

People will always have something to say despite whatever you do anyway.

I got to try out my new Khadoran warcaster, Koldun Kommander Aleksandra Zerkova - mainly because I got to finish painting her.

My first game using Zerkova was against Fred's Iron Lich Asphyxious in a campaign game. I won via objective in a King of the Plateau scenario - killing as much of his units on the plateau on the third turn. It would have been better if I had Greylords but I opted for Winter Guard Mortar and Iron Fang Pikemen instead. Ah well, winning's winning.

My second game was against Kei's Grim Angus. It was the first game in Fortress that day and I made many mistakes like not allocating focus on the first turn and mistaking the Fury tokens on the nearby Bouncer. I tried to patch up said mistakes late in the game by covering up my warcaster with as much of the troops that I have. But Kei surgically removed all of them via awesome shooting and a well-placed Mantrap, knocking Zerkova down. The Earthborn Dire Troll made short work of her after that.

Third game was against Fred again, but this time I used Beast-09 instead of a Spriggan. It was hilarious because Fred kept on damaging the warjack, and naturally Beast-09 moved closer towards Asphyxious, who was dead center on the table (pun intended). Beast-09 did manage to do a Critical Freeze on the Cryxian warcaster, but failed to finish the job. Then upon Raymund's jolly persuasion, I lobbed a Mortar on the Beast, which hit! Not only did it deal damage to the ARM 20 warjack, it got a high roll on Asphyxious as well! But then the Beast's big nasty axe got an arm bar from the surviving Withershadow Combine. Beast-09 did manage to get the casterkill later on via boosted P+S 14 head spike. Beast-09 = awesomeness! ^_^

My fourth game with Zerkova was against Les' Kaya. We played at home after a very long hiatus (I feared the table would feel bad and give us bad rolls). I swapped the Mortar Crew and the extra Pikemen out and placed in Orin Midwinter and some Greylords. The army performed wonderfully! Orin hid behind a house and spammed Null Magic (although I kinda got too excited because I Nullled kinda early, so my second turn, no spells from Zerkova and the Greylords duh~). With a dead Warpwolf and Argus later via MOWDC and Beast-09, I got the No Man's Land win via objective.

Will post pics as soon as Barby returns the cam ^_^

The Plan

2008-10-16T00:47:00.002+08:00

I've always wanted to play using Chaos Daemons, be it in WFB or 40K. Their rules make them awesome and fun to play with. Sadly, the models aren't really appealing to most normal people.

I have tried assembling an Angelic Legion for WFB way back, having bought and coverted some units already. Sadly I discarded the idea in favor of a more tournament-legal army - meaning using the legit units. But that was before I won tourneys in miniature wargaming. Now, I think I've reached a point where I want to play with very nicely-painted models. I've given myself a personal rule - that I must play only with painted miniatures or not play them at all - as observed by the old gods Pork and Luigi.

Admittedly, I've striven to win a lot of in any of the games I play - WFB, 40K and WMH. I have been humbled by my share of losses and have learned to take in victory with equal grace. But in all my years in the hobby, I have never played with a fully-painted Warhammer army. I've played with my fully-painted Khador, but my GW armies haven't been showed ample attention.

That's something I mean to correct.

I have gone over some of my old models in all the game systems I play, and touch up on them again - be it painting over chipped areas, adding highlights or some freehand, or even disassembling whole models to be repainted and converted.

Going back to the "Angelic Legion", I'm planning to put together a WFB army that's heroic-looking, but using the rules from the Daemons of Chaos army book, or even the Warriors of Chaos army book for that matter. But this time, I'm meaning to apply the best that my meager painting skills can offer. I know I can o blending, and highlighting and freehand and convert and sculpt and make scenic bases, but can I pull it off on this planned army of mine?

As Pork would say, "Abanagan!"

WIP Fenris

2008-10-08T11:34:00.001+08:00

I've been trying some better techniques with my painting. Here are some WIP shots of Fenris' big horse.

Necromancy

2008-09-29T10:02:00.008+08:00

Legion of Everblight Nephilim Warrior completed

My workbench wil a lot of black-sprayed stuff

Some Khadoran models

I am aware I haven't updated my blog for about a month already. Real life got me snowed in apparently. I'm trying to bring back my momentum with updating the blogs I have at present time.

Looks like we'll be looking at megabattles for both WFB and 40K before the year ends, with the WFB megabattle under my coordination.

Tournament/league scene for WMH not looking too good. Most players seem to prefer casual games, with only a few willing to go competitive. Ebb and flow it seems. Hopefully it picks up soon.

Some hills I decided to make, to be donated to Fortress

Here the hills in action

Another shot of the custom hills

Fortress Table

I'm planning to make the table at Fortress prettier to play on. I already started with giving a pair of hills and forest bases.

Yeah the hill is black/somewhat black/grey. That's because the next step would be setting up either just heavy black cloth or black rubber or foam to cover up the table. The black is easiest on the eyes IMHO. The fact that I painted up the bases of my miniatures the same way has nothing to do with it. Really.

Blogroll Update

Kei drops updating his blog and adopts an automatic one for his XBOX. Check it out here.

WIP Nephilim Warrior

2008-08-27T11:31:00.002+08:00

Started on Mando's Legion of Everblight Nephilim Warrior. He wanted it to be similar to how I painted Kei's Bog Trog Ambushers with heavy fleshy, brown and yellowish-brown tones.

I just tried my hand at painting again despite my aching limbs due to cheer-dance practice (plus Barby and Patrick were playing Resident Evil on the PS2, so I really couldn't play Guitar Hero even if I wanted to LOL).

Hopefully I'll get to finish it tonight. And apply the same technique on his Carnivean.

Tomb Fleet Vyr Repulsed From Cuan Sector

2008-08-24T10:36:00.001+08:00

I got to play in this year's 40K Grand Tournament. Details on Tomb Fleet Vyr.

Preparing for the 40K GT

2008-08-20T13:47:00.002+08:00

The 40K Grand Tournament for this year will push through this Saturday. As such, I'm finishing up a few more details on the Necrons. Despite the tiring practice sessions for an office sportsfest, I'm still making significant headway to playing with a fully-painted 40K army by this weekend.

On a somewhat different note, I'll be putting up some new features for the WARMACHINE Philippines blog and something new for the local Warhammer Fantasy group.

More Random Gaming

2008-08-10T14:10:00.003+08:00

Summer Rampage 2008 is now officially over. I hope I've done well, but I guess I'll find out more this week. Above is one of my last games in SR`08 against Arvin's Magnus Agenda army. I was using Irusk in an Iron Rain build. Primarily I was just gunning for the Mayhem Rampage, but I had fun playing the list anyway.

I got the buzz in WFB back, thanks to Fred and Dexter. I'm still bummed about the new Daemons of Chaos rules, so I'm going to stick using the old Storm of Chaos rules instead. Above are some of the miniatures I got prepared for some gaming in Fortress or Dex's place.

Up there's Fred and his old Hordes of Chaos army. Also is my old army which evidently needs painting. I used a sampling of the new Daemons of Chaos rules with the army I used above. I'll be looking forward to using the Storm of Chaos again though.

Continuing with Kei's D&D campaign, I fashioned a pair of boards with penciled-in grids and covered it with plastic. That way Kei can just draw on whatever map, dungeon or feature on the grids and run the scenes there. Using the good old dry erase markers idea from WARMACHINE, too bad I didn't think of this earlier LOL

Kim's Gaming Spin

2008-08-06T12:22:00.003+08:00

EJ has been crushing my Khador with his Cygnar every time we face off against each other. I'm going to give credit where credit's due - I'm gonna have to say EJ is THE top player now in the local WARMACHINE/HORDES scene! He'll be a tough gamer to beat in any tournaments or leagues in the future!

Back to my status in Summer Rampage 2008, I haven't been able to update my blog. Too much work at the office and too much time on my freelance stuff. Here's where I'm at so far:

Date: July 23, 2008 (Tuesday)
Kim's Vlad victorious over Arvin's Magnus via forfeit
Pointage and scenario: 500 points Contested Ground, Western Khador

Date: July 25, 2008 (Friday)
EJ's Darius victorious over Kim's Sorscha via casterkill
Pointage and scenario: 750 points Predominant Front, Northwestern Khador
EJ's Centurion performs MAGE CRUSHER Rampage on Sorscha!

Kim's Karchev victorious over Kei's Borka via casterkill
Pointage and scenario: 750 Predominant Front, Northwestern Khador
Kim's Behemoth performs MAGE CRUSHER Rampage on Borka!

Date: July 31 (Thursday)
Kim's (shink1m) Irusk victorious over Fred's Asphyxious (PantyMan) via forfeit
Pointage and scenario: 500 points Scattered Lines, Eastern Khador

Date: August 1 (Friday)
EJ's Epic Haley wins over Kim's eVlad
Pointage and scenario: 750 Ord

Kim's Epic Vlad wins over Fred's Asphyxious
Pointage and scenario: 750 Northern Cygnar

Date: August 2 (Saturday)
Fred's Asphyxious wins over Kim's Epic Butcher
Pointage and scenario: 750 Protectorate of Menoth

Kim's Sorscha wins over Fluffy's Harbinger
Pointage and scenario: 500 Ord

I think I have enough wins to get that Magus merit. Too bad I couldn't get any Finishing Moves done (I didn't get to play against any HORDES players during the time I was in Fortress). Ah well, there's always the next league.

I'm painting up 1,500 points worth of Khorne stuff for Daemons of Chaos. Hopefully the trip to Dexter's will push through this Friday. I'll demo a game with him and Fred then.

Summer Rampage: Western Khador Contested Ground

2008-07-23T17:03:00.003+08:00

I got to play my first Summer Rampage 2008 game in via ninja lunchbreak! From last night's results (which is officially Day 1 of this year's SR), it seems Khador has taken Global Priority. And since Arvin will be playing his Magnus Agenda this time around, I got to pick where we'll be fighting. The choice was more of whimsy since I just asked what territory was still being contested (plus I wanted my first game to be in Khador as much as possible, good thing we had Global Priority, hehe). We rolled off and got Map 20 (the one with the wheat field and hedge rows) and Contested Ground for the scenario, but Arvin ended up getting first turn.

Arvin claimed he made a mistake by not putting focus on one of his three Nomads as his forces advanced forward. He had his Trenchers dug in on my left flank and his Steelhead Halberdiers hugging a hedge row on my right flank. Magnus and his three Nomads made a cautious but direct advance on the inner left territory.

With Vlad's Signs and Portents, I got to down a good deal of his Steelheads (which included their unit leader) with one of my Winterguard Mortar but Arvin made his Command check, and the Halberdiers stood their ground. The other Mortar Crew snagged some dug-in Trenchers, too. My Demolishers ran forward, providing some semblance of a screen for my Greylords. Both my Kodiak and Juggernaut took positions with running forward.

On his second turn, Arvin took to running his Nomads forward, jockeying for a good feat turn later. His Trenchers pulled back, continuing to pepper my Juggernaut with combined ranged attacks. The Halberdiers took to the inner right territory, maybe to lend support to Magnus or just a free bait. By doing so, he opened an opportunity for me to score a Control Point if I placed Eiryss there, but she'd be far from hitting Magnus if I did.

Before he ended his turn, Magnus popped Hit and Run - his three Nomads, laughing off the supposed free strikes from my Demolitions Corps, ran straight and positioned behind my Demolishers! Now all three can't be charged by the Men-O-War and my Juggernaut. Magnus finished off my bounding towards the outer left territory, taking concealment behind some hedges.

On my second turn, I had Vlad put a focus point on his Juggernaut, cast Signs and Portents and Blood of Kings. Vlad then advanced towards the Frenzied Nomad behind his line (Magnus has a spell called Frenzy), copied the knockdown ability of Magnus' Mechanikal Arm and brought the mercenary warjack down, doing some damage to it.

The Juggernaut on my left flank ignored Magnus in front of him and advanced towards one of the Nomads, snagging it with Critical Freeze and chopping off some metal from it as well.

The remaining Nomad had a Demolisher engaged, which gave it some defense bonus against the Greylords trying to Ice Cage it. But with Signs and Portents, the three spellcasters managed to freeze it, too. With Magnus' two Nomads frozen and another knocked down, MOW Demolition Corps with Back-swing under Signs and Portents destroyed two that were in the inner left territory.

Eiryss took the outer right territory, taking one of the Halberdiers with her death bolt. The remaining two were finished off by the Signs and Portents Mortar Crew. By then, three of the territories were all mine.

On the third turn, Magnus trotted over to the Juggernaut and broke it easily. But seeing the numerical advantage my Vlad already had on him, Arvin promptly tapped out.

WIP Long-overdue Behemoth

2008-07-14T12:59:00.002+08:00

I've bought this Khador Behemoth since Mang's shipment came in way back a few years ago. I had included it in several attempts to repose and convert it to how the artwork for it is in the Apotheosis rulebook. In the end, I decided to scrap the ideas and go for default. I'm no Golden Daemon painter. I'm no tactical expert. I just aspire to be somewhat capable in both areas though.

It's almost done, even with the experimental step back into forced highlights. Hopefully I can finish it within the week. I'm working on the skills required to make it better before I work on Karchev.

OMFG GW

2008-07-02T11:03:00.003+08:00

My brother got me the latest army book for Daemons of Chaos from Australia. Straight up, I'm disappointed with it. Sure, we got new stuff and yeah, all we have to do is adjust. But if adjusting means that I have to buy several more boxes of models that cost 3K Php (each for 10 models inside) in order to make the army work, then that's just stupid.

The same can be said for the Vampire Counts army book. A big chunk of my troops were Zombies with which I used the old Zombie Bunker tactic. Now with the new army book, Zombies have not only dumbed down to S2 T2 and STILL strike last, if they win combat this time around they DO NOT pursue the enemy! Now, you will need Skeletons and Ghouls to be able to do that. And again, that means BUYING more boxes of said models. Sure, using Zombies can still be worked around on. How? By BUYING several new Corpse Carts!

But since I wanted to make a Daemon army more than a Vampire Count army, this rant will be about those wretched denizens of the WFB Warp. And since I'm all for looking at both sides of the coin, let's start with THE GOOD:

- Daemons have new models that can be used both in WFB and 40K (except for the 40K Soul Grinder). Their abilities come across both systems pretty good.
- Khorne Daemons have lost their Frenzy (except for Skarbrand)
- Bloodthirsters (as well as the other Greater Daemons) can now be customized with Daemonic Gifts
- They still retained their 5+ Ward save
- Bloodletters now have Killing Blow
- Basic Core Troops (Bloodletters, Plaguebearers, Daemonettes and Pink Horrors) have a basic cost of 12 per model, which makes for easier math

And now for THE BAD:

- No more Unholy Icons
- No more Exalted Daemons (what about that conversion you did for Scylla? That is now an expensive paperweight)
- Bloodletters may have Killing Blow and high WS, but still at T3 and no armor - I doubt they'll survive crossing the table
- Bloodcrushers are now pathetic T4 with W2 and 4+ armor save. I don't care if they can hit hard. If they can't survive crossing the table, taking a Rare unit of 70 points per model will just lead to frustration.
- Chaos Furies do NOT count towards your Core Troops. So you really NEED to buy more Core box sets.
- Flesh Hounds may be W2 but are NOT Fast Cavalry anymore. Again with no Armor Save, meh.
- Your survivability would generally depend on your 5+ Ward Saves. And more models. Again, leading to force you to buy MORE new boxes.

I'm pissed because it rendered my current build utterly USELESS. Buying is alright, but with their current price, it would mean I won't be seeing any WFB action for the next few months or so. And we all know during that time, GW may come out with FAQs and errata that screw up your current build by then.

I'm so pissed, I might go ahead and do my Angelic Legion project. And if anyone complains about it, they can just kiss my big, fat ass.

Looking at it, spending 3K Php would either get me a box of 10 Plaguebearers (which by itself can't be used effectively) or Warmachine's Fenris (which will totally give me something new and exciting to play with). Looks like a no brainer to me. Debate about it? My fat ass.

Call To Arms II Unfinished

2008-06-30T16:49:00.002+08:00

I guess there's a first time for everything. Things just got too busy with the reunion, the folks at home, the side projects, D&D 4th edition, the HGR minitourney... I only logged in five of the ten games needed for the Call To Arms II league.

I did well with my games though. Here they are:

Game 1: eVlad victorious over Lesther's eKreoss via casterkill
Game 2: Karchev the Terrible victorious over Fred's eAsphyxious via casterkill with Kodiak
Game 3: eVlad victorious over Fred's Asphyxious via objective
Game 4: Irusk victorious over Jeff's eHaley via objective
Game 5: eVlad victorious over Jeff's eCaine via casterkill

Ah well, maybe I can do better next time. Now, I can concentrate on repainting my Necrons for the upcoming 40K Grand Tournament this August. And some more relaxed casual WMH gaming ^_^

The Harvest of Garrison Sector

2008-06-19T12:45:00.001+08:00

I got to play in a minitournament hosted by HGR last Saturday at Robinsons Galleria and won 2nd place. Read more on Tomb Fleet Vyr.

Cheap Display Cases

2008-06-07T10:30:00.003+08:00

This is a take from the hobby project show on WeeToySoldiers:

I did not bother much with transparency, as I just wanted a space-saving display case that also helps with keeping the miniatures dust-free. Also instead of using PVC pipe for spacing, I just cut 2" strips of plasticard and superglued them to hold the upper CD levels.

I tried placing epic Vlad on the second CD level and I saw that what I set up cannot handle that much weight in metal. But they work perfectly well with plastic 40K Necrons. I got to free up some space in my big cabinet with this thing. ^_^

Materials used:
• 100-piece CD spindle (50 Php)
• Plasticard
• Loctite superglue
• Utility cutter
• Cutting mat
• Pencil

Essentially, I only spent for the spindle since I already had the other stuff I had at home (the perks of hoarding a lot of hobby stuff over the years). It took me only a few hours - since I was flitting between doing the project and watching Hellraiser and eating dinner.

Looks like I'll be making more of these (and essentially thinking of better ways so that the upper CD levels can hold heavy metal miniatures, too).

Khadoran Ogrun Bokur

2008-06-07T10:00:00.001+08:00

This is my Khador army's Ogrun Bokur. I did no conversion on this model despite the local craze of replacing the head with GW Ork heads back in 2006.

I painted him predominantly red, and using the heavy black and red scheme of Irusk on the cover of No Quarter #1. I had been greatly influenced by Confrontation back then so I decided to add some of its flavor on this miniature.

This is also the first time I tried to better my methods with taking pics with Koi's digicam. Maybe later on I can come back to this miniature and improve on my painting on it.

I'll just use this post as reference to what I already did and what I plan to do for it in the future.

PG_shink1m

2008-06-03T14:26:00.002+08:00

It's official! I'm now a full-fledged Press Ganger! I know I've been pimping this hobby since it started in this country, but now I can do it the proper Press Ganger way!

Hello Mr. Ian Navarro,

Your application has been accepted and you are now a full member of the Privateer Press Gang!

Please take some time to go to the press gang forum (you will have access within the next 24 hours) and introduce yourself and become familiar with the FAQ and all the tools and resources you need.

Please feel free to let me know if there is anything else you need or if you have any questions.

Glad to have you aboard!

Thank you again for your interest,
Privateer Press Quartermaster
Dan Brandt
quartermaster@privateerpress.com

CTA2 First Blood

2008-06-01T12:13:00.002+08:00

Apparently, the games we played at Pitshop yesterday were the first ones to start off the Call To Arms 2 league. Despite the late start and the few number of games, I think I have made a good start with my Khador army.

I got to fight Lesther and his Protectorate of Menoth. I was making lists before Les and Kei arrived at home yesterday, so I was more prepared in a way. I used Dark Champion Vladimir Tzepesci, more affectionately known as epic Vlad. I don't have my army list now so I'll just post it later on.

We played 750 points in an SR4 Contested Ground scenario. Les used an Exemplar-heavy Grand Exemplar Kreoss list. As far as I can remember, he had two units of Knights Exemplar, a unit of Exemplar Errants, a fat squad of Temple Flameguard, a unit of Idrian Skirmishers, the Piper of Menoth, a Devout and a Guardian (the rest I can't remember right now).

I got in a second-turn Caster Kill victory via eVlad's Blood Legacy feat. I took care of his bodyguard Devout first. He made a Defensive Strike against a Blood Legacy Doom Reaver, but one of the other two made short work of it. Blood Legacy Drakhun got Flying Pegasus via Behemoth and easily broke eKreoss.

An underslept Kei fought Les' same army next, with Kei using his Grim Angus list. Kei was pretty much out of it and Les was playing 40K style with his Protectorate army.

After those two games, Les had to leave early so me and Kei met with Mando at home, where he tried out a 750 beast-heavy Legion of Everblight Saeryn list against my eIrusk list.

We played SR3 Killing Fields. Since he is obviously faster, he go to two of the points on his first turn. My Winterguard Mortar was useful with eIrusk's Fire For Effect, taking a big chunk of his Striders who took the left point. Despite three consecutive snake-eyes rolls, Battle Lusted Iron Fang Pikemen on the charge can still easily bring down a Carnivean. Extra bonus is Shield Wall-ing right after and taking the point after the slaying the warbeast.

There was a chance that eIrusk could have charged Saeryn with only one Fury left - but I decided against it. All I needed to do was ensure eIrusk's survival and I would win via objective. Balancing a risky charge move (hitting Saeryn on 9 and hoping to do big damage) or securing a guaranteed win via objective? Winning's winning.

Late Start

2008-05-25T18:27:00.003+08:00

Patrick and Mike visit `da Bunker

Attendance: Kim, Kei, Mando, Mike, Patrick

Got to play three games yesterday! Need to practice some more though. Good thing these four will play the CTA2 league! Tiny was a FAIL, as he didn't make it. Again.

Pics and results on the WMPH blog.

I'm getting frustrated with that Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow game on the NDS. Looks like I'll be looking forward to playing some more Hack GU Rebirth on the PS2 instead LOL

Ah well, more to come soon. As Pork would say, abangan!

Warhammer Grand Tournament 2008

2008-05-19T14:59:00.004+08:00

It's finally over! And it was a success! It was the first time that I actually moderated a whole GT, and I got to play some Warhammer, too! We had ten participants with a varied representation of the various armies in the Warhammer World. More details here!

My (shamefully unpainted) Khorne Daemonic Legion prepares to face off against Lito's Tomb Kings

My Khorne Daemonic Legion got a last hurrah battle before the arrival of the new Daemons of Chaos army book - I got to fight Lito Tan's Tomb Kings!

My preliminary deployment was about 10 inches from the table edge, as opposed to the usual 12 inches. I decided on this because on the first turn, my units with Frenzy might be baited out too far, especially the Bloodthirster since it has wings, and be left unsupported by the rest of the army. In hindsight, I should have deployed them far out on the 12-inch line since I had them facing the other direction anyway (the usual counter-counter-Frenzy deployment).

Nonetheless, my advance was fortunate. Being throttled by two Screaming Skull Catapults during the Magic Phase AND his regular Shooting Phase is not fun. Relying on the Daemonic Aura for survival was not fun LOL! Good thing the Bloodthirster did not die when it got hit by a scattered Catapult artillery!

Godfather Lito planning his cunning moves

In the end, fortune favored the followers of Khorne! All my die rolls for Daemonic Aura saves were made, and my forces managed to get him into grips by turn three.

At the bottom of turn five, and after my big block of Herald-led Bloodletters survived (and won) a dual charge of a unit of Ushabti and flanking Tomb Guard, Lito concluded the match via forfeit.

Now if only they can perform the same with the new army book~

Tomb Kings bombard the Khorne Daemonic Legion as they advance

DW + Blogspot Table Test

2008-05-19T13:50:00.001+08:00

table cell 1	table cell 2
table cell 3	table cell 4

The Long Walk

2008-05-04T16:09:00.003+08:00

I already experienced this from last year when Mando invited me and Kei to walk with him from Robinson's Galleria all the way to that church in Antipolo. I know that afterwards, I have drenched my shirt in so much sweat and that I can easily walk up from ground floor to 6th floor at work. It was funny because Kei had apparently "written himself into a contract" which he must be forced to comply.

This year it was different. There were a lot of us - Mando, Kei, Papa Jun, Tiny, Sarah (Tiny's sister), Barby and myself. And worse, the shoes I had on had REALLY, REALLY thin rubber soles. Walking around in Galleria, I felt the contour of the ground I walked on. I knew they'd hurt more when we started walking.

And hurt they did.

I was the slowest in pace because each step was excruciating. Foolishly, I trudged onwards without calling the signal to rest. I dunno, maybe I had to prove that despite the pain, I can still push myself onwards.

When we got to Chowking, I was about to agree with Kei to put a stop to the madness and just take a ride there. But when I got rested, I felt I could finish it. I mean, I already finished it last year anyway.

But I did get to finish, painful and numb feet and all.

I could have had a long weekend since I have my off day on Fridays and Saturdays -- would have been Thursday all the way to Saturday with me just gaming at Fortress and/or Galleria. The pain with each step put a quick and harsh end to that.

Pics on my Multiply page here.

Tomb Fleet Vyr

2008-04-28T13:53:00.002+08:00

I decided to put up a separate blog for my armies. And since I got to play 40K last Saturday, I decided to start with my Necrons I named Tomb Fleet Vyr.

Check it out here.

Circle Orboros Warlocks

2008-04-28T13:36:00.002+08:00

I got to finish Baldur the Stonecleaver last night. Nothing spectacular, just keeping things simple. But getting the Circle stuff done significantly. I took a picture of him together with Kaya Wildbourne for comparison. I'll be painting Tharn Wolf Riders later on when I get home.

Warhammer Grand Tournament 2008

2008-04-21T12:39:00.006+08:00

I will be moderating the Grand Tournament for Warhammer Fantasy this year (and will be playing odd man competitor if need be with the new Vampire Counts or the new Daemons of Chaos). More updates on this event soon!

+++

Some miniatures I got painted recently: HORDES Bog Trog Ambusher and Circle Orboros Argus

+++

Updating my blog links!

	the wind up KC chronicle KC hasn't been updating her Multiply site, but I'll link it here anyway.
	Self-Proclaimed Geek Jun just started his own blog. Check it out while he's still posting one article everyday!
	Where is Kat? Where's Kat? She's keeping in touch with pics on her Multiply site.
	pinkcandysparkles Jillian hasn't been updating her Multiply site, but let's put it up here, too.

Summer Works in Progress

2008-04-17T12:30:00.004+08:00

I'm still undecided whether or not to have Supreme Kommandant Irusk with that stubble effect on his chin, but at least I managed to straighten the flag he was carrying.

One of Lesther's Woldwardens, repainted into stony gray (the runes I'll have to figure out how to make them light up)

Assembled Les' new Circle Orboros additions!

The Great Rock Band Local Tour

2008-04-13T11:38:00.002+08:00

Impatience. It can be a virtue. It can be turned into a drive to achieve something that you REALLY REALLY want.

Kei has been paining to get his own Rock Band set. Sadly, it's been region-locked, and cannot be played locally unless you own a US region XBOX 360. And yeah, he's looked into a lot of ways into playing it on his 360, but to no avail. After gleaning on some local forums, he decided to sell off his XBOX 360 just so he can get himself a US version.

It was a Saturday at `Da Bunker when he brought out his newly-bought Rock Band instruments set and his second-hand XBOX 360. Maybelle had lent Kei a nice sum of cash for it, too, just so he could get the instruments and play it ASAP. Yeah the Rock Band had drums and a mic, and since Kei already bought an XBOX 360 guitar controller, he now had two (which were perfect for lead guitar and bass). I was demoing WARMACHINE to Maybelle when they started playing. When my demo was done (I lost BTW LOL), I had to try that Stratocaster controller.

Then suddenly, the damn thing blurted out "Unreadable Disc" on any games you put in it.

So Kei has to reluctantly call up the seller and asked for his money back (which I assume was done promptly).

Sunday rolled on by, and Kei had gotten hold of a new XBOX 360 (from another seller online). He suggested that he pick me and Barby up, head on to his place, play Rock Band, and just head on to work the next day straight from his place. We got to his place around 4PM. Kei set up his stuff and propped in his Rock Band DVD in the XBOX 360 unit.

The depressing message saying "disc is not this region" kept coming up when the Rock Band DVD was placed.

Maybe it was a mix of the heat outside and the realization that the unit Kei got was NOT a US version, but when I kept reading that message, my head just swam.

Trusty cell phone in hand, Kei called the second seller up, explaining his problem. I also realized how calm (*cough* plastic *cough*) Kei had been with the call. I'd have been combative already, but he was trying to be civil. It was really annoying that the dude was even asking for P500 just because he went "out of his way" to deliver the unit, explaining it was gas expense or some such shit (even moreso annoying when he tried haggling the said amount).

After some badgering, I managed to convince Kei to meet up with the guy that very moment to return his unit. Forget repair checkups. The guy might go and say that the deal would be void if we opened up the unit. With some further badgering, Kei surfed again and looked for other sellers of a damned US version unit.

It turns out that the guy THOUGHT it was a US version because it managed to play some version of NBA. OMG! I don't own an XBOX 360 and I would've checked all the specifics before posting anything! Assuming the worst, I thought that if Kei had agreed to meeting the guy for the exchange on a later date, he'd just have another excuse NOT to return Kei's money.

So the guy texted Kei his home address, and we forcefully agreed to meet him at his home to save him the "inconvenience" of having to meet us elsewhere. And damn it was in Tondo! We've all heard the horror stories of that place, but hey, my baby sister was born in a hospital there. The people there looked the way you'd expect them to look, but they generally didn't bother me when I was there.

And it was a grueling trip there indeed! We had to ask Trisha's (a niece?) boyfriend, which in turn, was a sad sorry excuse for directions! We were supposed to find a church named Santa Monica in the midst of the Tondo jungle. The journey started at 8PM Sunday evening, and we were lost the moment we hit Manila. After some semi-random wandering at a big street which name I forgot now, I had Kei hit the enemrgency lights and park. I walked over to the nearest person I saw to ask for specific directions.

The dude was a vulcanizing shop employee. But he didn't smell like a vulcanizing shop employee because at that moment he was scrubbing his hands with soap. If some pestering with exacting questions, he directed me to his boss inside the shop - which surprisingly had a road map booklet! With some further exacting questions (and having Kei step out of the vehicle to see for himself), we had precise bearings as where to go.

We came upon an insanely crowded side street which pretty much had space for one vehicle and a pedestrian walk path. And somewhere in that mess was the seller's house!

Transaction was done in about fifteen minutes. Kei had to demo what region versions were to the guy, Apparently he had a DOA game which was US version and DID NOT play on his console. The message came up (the regional thing) and the exchange was done.

In the car, Kei made a call to the other seller, which we had to meet somewhere in Alabang!

Off we went to Alabang, but after a quick dinner at a Chowking LOL! The trip was relatively faster than I expected - probably because it was an ungodly hour to be driving then. We got to a gas station (Gatorade stop for me) and Kei called to confirm where we were this this new seller. We met the dude at a Jollibee near Zapote road, and the "shady dealing" was done. Finally, after a few more minutes of driving through all of that road, we were back at Kei's place.

Moment of truth - will the bloody goddamn Rock Band work now?

It did.

And we were happy.

^_^

Pics on Multiply KB

2008-04-10T13:07:00.002+08:00

RHGC Gathering 2008

Kei Bash, Holy Week 2008

Cha's Birthday, April 2008

The Blur That Came When Summer Started

2008-04-08T16:32:00.003+08:00

• Second Anniversary shout out for WARMACHINE Philippines on No Quarter 17! I don't care if it's small. That's global recognition for all gamers who picked up and read the issue!
• Patrick Palma and Jake de Jesus have gamed at `da Bunker, too! Looks like I have to REALLY seriously consider renovation for a bigger gaming area.
• Kei Bash event an unprecedented success! I'll be helping out turn Kei's place into a gamer haven, too!
• Barby's birthday gift for me - Supreme Kommandant Irusk! Thanks, baby!
• RHGC Lito's 40K Apocalypse Megabattle an awesome success! Too bad I did not get to participate in it T_T
• Joel dela Cruz (Larkin Vain) plays Tau on 40K! Confrontation also showing a strong following in his Hawaii Gaming Group (I wonder when the locals will notice Rackham games...)!
• Les officially now has a GF! Rose, take good care of our bud!
• Forged World WFB terrain already playable at `da Bunker!
• I serendipitously bought a new guitar controller for my PS2, which works tremendously well with Kei's PS2 Rock Band solution! Alkhemy continues its world tour real soon! (I totally suck at singing, so I handled the HARD guitars, LOL)
• Finished Pokemon FireRed on GBA, but sadly the Hall of Fame feature in it is stupid broken. Playing a lot of Pokemon Pearl on NDSL now.
• The reward for painting Larkin Vain's Sea Dogs - the WFB Skull Pass set! My own WFB rulebooklet at last!
• I'll be hosting this year's WFB GT, which sadly has been rescheduled many times already due to venue restrictions.
• Acquired the new WFB Vampire Counts army book. It's a whole hella different to say the least!
• Looking at making use of the loyalist and traitor Marines at home into a usable footslogger-heavy 40K force!
• Plans on the family reunion in Cebu this June still pushing through!
• Koi emailed me this funky MP3 of the boss stage on Rockman 2! Bwahahah! Okkusenman!
• Had a mad burgerfest at Apol's place (Cha's birthday)!
• Ah shit, speaking of which, I just turned 32, meh.

Easter Backlog

2008-03-29T18:31:00.005+08:00

I'll be updating this blog really soon. A lotta things happening (and have already happened) and I need to sit down a bit and recollect stuff before taking it to the keyboard. Hopefully I'm getting stuff done this week.

And as much as I'd wanna put a fine chick to make this post better, I can't because I'm working off-site LOL

Later.

Celebrating Your Friends

2008-03-17T11:24:00.004+08:00

I got to know some really great and talented people here at work. And like any good friend, I'm proud of their successes!

Naz and Jojo as Team Fuchikoma bagged the 48-hour Indie Game Development Competition [read details here] while Baby AA represented WeeWillDoodle for Meg magazine’s Young Achievers below 25 for 2007 [read details here].

Back From The Dead

2008-03-16T15:25:00.007+08:00

I had been down with a severe case of fever and an equally painful case of coughing. Everything's better now. I can taste food again but my coughing is still horrible from time to time. I got some paint work done though.

Khorne Daemonic Legion Bloodletter

Trollbloods Pyg Bushwhacker

Khorne Daemonic Legion Bloodletter
Primer: Bosny Primer Red spray
Skin: P3 Khador Red, washed down for blending. I touched up the raised areas of the mini with more Khador Red.
Hair: P3 Thamar Black drybrushed with GW Shadow Grey and Space Wolves Gray
Bones/Spines: GW Snakebite Leather + P3 Menoth White Base + P3 Menoth White Highlight
Metal: P3 Rhulic Gold + P3 Shining Gold + P3 Quick Silver

Trollbloods Pyg Bushwhacker
Primer: Bosny Flat Black
Skin: GW Hawk Turquoise, washed down for blending. Touch up with more Hawk Turquoise and P3 Ryn Flesh

Hobbycraft, March 8 2008

2008-03-09T12:44:00.002+08:00

Almost done with Lesther's Anima Tactics Evangeline -- done with robes and main hair color. I'll be finishing up her hair later when I get home. Then I'll try to finish up the whole model -- attaching the hands and glowy bird (OSL wouold make it look really good).

Spraybombed MANY miniatures after me and Barby glued sand on their bases:

- 8x Protectorate of Menoth Temple Flameguard with Unit Attachment
- 6x Trollbloods Pyg Burrowers
- 6x Trollbloods Pyg Bushwhackers
- 1x Circle Orboros Pureblood Warpwolf
- 1x Circle Orboros Woldwatcher
- 4x Gatormen
- 1x Trollbloods Dire Troll Earthborn
- 1x Lady Aiyana and Holt

After the Larkin Vain Sea Dogs commission, my painting speed improved without damaging much on quality. So I'm pretty much enjoying painting and modelling all these minis, too. Sorry, no pics. Still high on spray paint fumes.

Fortress Friday - Crushing Your Foe Utterly

2008-03-09T12:16:00.002+08:00

I got to play a Warhammer Fantasy game and a Hordes game last Friday at Fortress. I had to lug a heavy carry case that had both my Khorne Daemonic Legion and Legion of Everblight inside, and all of them were metal. Good thing I decided not to bring my Khador or else it would have been heavier (and the handle on my carry case would have snapped off from the weight). I won both games handily but both were against relatively new players.

The young guy who just started out with Warhammer Fantasy was Ron and he was playing Bretonnians. And by young I mean high-school-student young. He had great difficulty with the basic movement for WFB, which is essentially very difficult in the first place. All that wheeling, turning and reforming -- he should have photocopied the whole rulebooklet instead of just a few pages. It was his second game against me (the first he lost against my Vampire Counts army a week ago) and he was surprised how he could not beat me. It surprised me as how ambitious this new player is. I mean, I have been at this hobby since year 2000, and I have been playing WFB since 2002. I have played many tourneys and gamed against the best in the community, winning a Best General award a few years back. And here's a new dude who expects a win on his second game against me. I know this post is beginning to sound arrogant, but I've never been one to give a lame game. I will give my ace game all the time, and I will crush you if I get the chance. But that's only because I expect my enemy will not half-ass his game as well. I will not baby newbies just to hook them into the game further. I will weed out the weak, and all the old players know that. If you're new, and you beat me, then you earn a great deal of respect from me in return. If you lose, dust off and jump on the saddle for another ride -- I'll be happy to play again so long as I can.

My other game was against Manolet, an older player who uses a beast-heavy Skorne army. The scenario that we got was Invasion and I knew I would have an edge with Rhyas' Dash and the Angelius' wings. He did a sound tactic, using Subdue on a Titan Gladiator and charged in the center of my own warbeasts. Evidently, he hoped that the Subdue effect would prevent me from running but found out that warbeasts do not need orders to be able to run. The game was over without anyone giving or taking a point of damage. Now, the game may have ended on a less than appealing note, but winning's still winning. Taking on three Titans -- Bronzeback, Gladiator and Cannoneer -- head on with Subdue or Diminish in effect would just be plain stupidity on my part. Sure the Rapport Carnivean would be able to rip apart the forward Gladiator (failing that the two Angelius who may not use their special attack might still provide support), but that would have left my beasts open for a counter attack. Now why would I do that when I can easily go for objectives, right?

I've taken my share of licks over the years and I still do. And I never want to underestimate my opponent. I still love playing, win or lose. And I still try to have fun either way. And if my opponent didn't enjoy the game just because of how I play, sorry, my friend, take a big whiff and deal with it because I'll keep on being like this for as long as I can.

Larkin Vain's Sea Dogs

2008-03-06T14:44:00.002+08:00

The commission for twenty Sea Dogs finally arrived to their owners' hands. I'm glad it passed their standards over there. It was a first time for me to do twenty models in more or less two-month time span. I was pretty happy with how they turned out and even happier that Larkin Vain liked them, too.

Here be pics:

Higher resolution pics can be found here.

Hobbycraft, March 5 2008

2008-03-05T10:59:00.002+08:00

Got to finish my Alessa Raincross as scheduled. Well, maybe not 100% finished. Looking at this pic, I think I need to touch up more on the blackline between her face and the cloak that covers her mouth. Looks too black. Plus that base needs some grass.

Ah well. On to the next one on the work table (grass is easy to glue later).

Gary Gygax passes on

2008-03-05T09:35:00.003+08:00

From various online sources:

Reports from numerous sources are that Gary Gygax, one of the pioneers of the RPG genre, has passed away. Monte Cook and others have posted their thoughts about the man and his impact.

Ernest Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American writer and game designer, best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson, and co-founding the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with Don Kaye in 1974. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of the role-playing game.

Gygax died the morning of March 4, 2008, at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He was in semi-retirement, having almost suffered a heart attack after receiving incorrect medication to prevent further strokes after those on April 1 and May 4, 2004. He was diagnosed with an inoperable abdominal aortic aneurysm. Even while his health failed, gaming remained very much a part of his life. Gygax was still active in the gaming community and had active Q & A forums on gaming websites such as Dragonsfoot and EN World.

"I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else."

Unlike a lot of the people who posted on Monte Cook's blog, I had no personal affiliation with the man. But all they said were true -- he was the Father of RPG. Having played Dungeons & Dragons from the red basic set, I can credit much of my personal character from the games I ran (as a DM) and the roles that I played (as a player character). A lot of the better personal aspects in that matter.

Many of my random encounters will stop harassing PCs for the moment, and pay their respects to a great man.

Hobbycraft, March 4 2008

2008-03-04T10:33:00.009+08:00

I managed to spraybomb the sizeable lot of Anima Tactics miniatures at home last night. With the AT spraybomb I included some of Lesther's Circle Orboros and my Alten Ashley as well.

Looking at the Tsubasa Kurokami and the Takanosuke miniatures I have, the proportions on the necks/heads are a bit off. I'll be grinding off a portion from Tsubasa's neck peg so that his head would fit more natural-looking.

I did get to slap some paint on my Alessa Raincross. Maybe she'll be the one that I can finish by tonight.

I decided to paint her up in her default colors. Well, at least as close as I can get. Too bad the people at Anima Tactics haven't included a painting guide as to what colors they used on their miniatures (since I'll be painting the stuff at home in their default colors anyway). So she has leather gloves after all! In her card, her gloves looked like the same color as her red top. I used a Bubonic Brown approach on her skin, Ultramarines Blue on the blue stuff, and P3 metallics on her legs and pistols. Hopefully I can take pics of this so I can post them soon.

Anima Tactics

2008-03-03T14:33:00.003+08:00

Last night, I took the four blisters I had left - Tsubasa Kurokami, Jiang Pao, Faust Orbatos and Celia - and assembled their general parts together. I decided to leave off several bits like Faust Orbatos' large cape, Celia's arms, Jiang Pao's arms, Tsubasa Kurokami's head and arms for the meantime. It would make for easier handling when I glue on sand on their bases and also for painting the inside details, too.

Hopefully I can start spraybombing them later when I get home. Much of the sand was already dried when I checked them this morning before I went to work.

Fortress Friday - WFB

2008-03-02T15:23:00.003+08:00

I got to play some Warhammer Fantasy last Friday at Fortress VMall, Greenhills. I used Vampire Counts, kinda like their last hurrah before their new army book comes out this March.

I got to play against Fred's cavalry-heavy Hordes of Chaos army. It was my first WFB game using a Vampire Counts army again in years. And sadly, I played horribly (much more like I played them like I played a Khorne Daemonic Legion). I suffered equally horrible losses as his big cavalry of Khorne Chosen cut a veritable swathe through a huge mob of zombies. Ranks after ranks literally fell every round.

Post game, EJ consulted me on how to better play the VC army I had. A lot of which I happily applied on my second game, which arrived a few hours later.

Ron has the exuberance of his youth. He was flawed on basic line of sight, moving ranked units, premeasuring and dice conventions, something which had to be remedied later on. As this was his first match against me, I was lax and allowed many of his flawed logic on the table, which mattered really little since his battle plan was rendered ineffective by the swarming hordes of zombies that I had. The game had to be cut short by the fifth round as Fred was needed elsewhere. So for me it was either a solid victory on the fifth round or a massacre on the sixth round. I'll just let the game sink in to the guy.

For sure if the new book comes out, it would mean me buying new stuff. Either that or I just stick to playing Khorne Daemonic Legion LOL

Necrons Progress Report 01

2008-03-02T15:08:00.003+08:00

After cleaning up the house Saturday morning, I got to set up my painting table properly on one clean side of the living room with the TV in full view. I have dusted off both my sunlight desk lamps for usage again. The long 6x4 board also got to rest behind the big cabinet. All in all, it's pretty much organized.

I scrounged up some bases for 40K which I can use on the Destroyers on the Necron army.

I also tried using thinner on several of the green tubes on a painted (soon-to-be-repainted) Heavy Destroyer. It kinda works but there are still some residue on the ends of the rods (I don't know if it's the super glue that did that).

I decided on retaining on my old color scheme for Tomb Fleet Vyr - a lot of metal, gold/brass collar and spine, plus neon green on some of the extra tubes and detail. I will try to keep the green rods as is, and maybe thin off the black of some of the basecoated rods.

Flying bases still got me in a bind. I'd want my Destroyers hovering and not glued directly to the bases themselves. I'll look more into how I can solve this problem of mine.

Lastly, I will be painting my Destroyer Lord by the end of the week.

Check back for more updates on this project.

The Fleet Stirs Once Again

2008-02-25T09:58:00.002+08:00

This is like the first real game I had in Galleria in... years. I had a game in 40K a few days back in Fortress against Romy and his Emperor's Children, a refresher match so to speak. I know I might play against a new guy, so for sure I will play my ace game and not disappoint.

I was matched up against a high school student named Jessie (he was still in his uniform when we played). He played Luna Wolves and apparently is the kid brother of another player there, and was relatively new in the hobby. Now seeing that I had years over this kid, the initial impression would be I'm just a big, foul-mouthed bully. And indeed I may have been a big, foul-mouthed bully, but that's how I play. Mercy is for the weak! Besides, one thing I learned with playing all the miniatures games that I play is to never underestimate your opponent.

The mission was Omega Take and Hold, with the objective being a tower in the middle of the table. My list was pretty much expected for any Necron list - Warrior Phalanx with Flying Circus. I opted not to go for the more common Destroyer Fleet build (wanted to try out commuting with a Monolith) or a Fear build (not enough models).

My opponent had a versatile mix of Marines with varied heavy weapons. His force was led by a Terminator Librarian who he attached to a Terminator squad. He also had another Terminator squad (assault) reserved for deep strike.

The boyz there said that he played a reactive style when Jessie gave me the first turn. Since a lot of his artillery were still off-board, my Phalanx advanced their slow 6 inches forward. On his turn I got to gauge which targets from my force he prioritized, but I got a pretty decent share of WBB rolls on the following turn.

The Lord veiled with the Immortals to thresh down his Lascannon squad, while two Warrior squads took my right flank to tie up his Assault Terminators. With the Lascannon Dev squad gone, all I needed to worry about him breaking the Monolith was his Predator and Razorback. Later on in the turn, I managed to bring those down, too, as my Necrons only received little casualties.

Reducing his squads to non-scoring units or immobilized vehicles, I had free reign to have my squads to get even more victory points from the objective at the center of the table.

I had to rush over to Fortress for some WARMACHINE so I had to leave after that game. But all in all, I was very pleased with how the Necrons played out. I had my share of bad rolls so I had to rely more on target denial for Phalanx safety and fire discipline for surgical removal of his key units.

The Aftermath

2008-02-19T11:55:00.008+08:00

I got to play a mixed WARMACHINE/HORDES tournament last Saturday at the UPCFA hangar. The tournament was organized by Arvin Tan of Fortress/Pitshop. The tournament followed rules for Steam Roller 3 and Prime Remix missions.

I had hoped that there would be good exposure of the hobby since it was UPCFA week, but it did not happen as the tourney date was moved from a Friday (the supposed last day of the UPCFA week) to a Saturday (week-long event was already over).

Anyway, I intended still to give my ace game nonetheless. This time around, I tried using list with a warjack. And the Behemoth no less! I'm pretty much known of using jack-less lists, but I went on ahead and just enjoyed my games. Here's the list that I used:

Vladimir Tzepesci, Dark Prince of Umbrey
Behemoth
Man-O-War Drakhun
Man-O-War Demolition Corps (Kapitan and 4 Demolishers)
Iron Fang Pikemen (Kapitan, Standard Bearer, Sergeant and 5 Pikemen)
Manhunter

My first match was against Doclance (Laurence Tan). The scenario was Prime Remix's Crossed Lines, something that we at the bunker have already tried playing several times. And all those times, I never won. And all those times, it was against Cryx's Deneghra. So when Doclance brought out his minis from his case, surprise surprise, Dirty D! Vlad came up with Blood of Kings on but a hail of debuffs (Withering, Crippling Grasp, Helldiver's Sinkhole) made the Dark Prince a mewling kitten against a line of Bile Thrall Purges. No excuses on that one, save for that I know very little playing against Cryx. Continuous playing should remedy that.

My second match was against Pork and Ashlynn D'Elysse in a Pendulum scenario. Getting first turn, I had rushed all my models towards the center line. When Pork pushed up his force, Ashlynn was out in the open. With Signs and Portents, the Behemoth two-hand threw the Drakhun (via a diluted version of the Khadoran Pegasus). Drakhun charged Ashlynn, at the time was sitting on just four focus. Rolling 3 attacks for Flying Steel, the Drakhun successfully brought down the Highborn warcaster on his second attack.

The match was relatively over fast so EJ and I got to play a quick in-between game with his Coleman Stryker. The game was pretty evenly-matched but I had to throw in the towel because the next game had to start then.

My third match was against Fluffy with his Harbinger of Menoth in Divide and Conquer. It was then that I was served an annoying Protectorate combo, which pretty much centered on Harbinger's Martyrdom spell. I tried bringing down Vilmon, but I found out that even under Martyrdom he cannot be knocked down if he had a Paladin of the Wall in base contact. So I decided on pounding down the Paladin instead, which greatly injured Harbinger. But alas on his turn, all that damage was wiped away with focus healing and Doc Killingsworth. Seeing that I would not be able to repeat all that, and seeing an opportunity that Harbinger was on empty focus, I allocated three focus on the Behemoth's sub cortex and sent it walking with Vlad's Forced March through the center woods (and surviving Vilmon's free strike in the process - 1 damage box only). Signs and Portents plus a (what I had just discovered it was called) "god hand roll" (6, 6, 6 and 5) promptly put the Menite warcaster away.

My last match was against Jake and Major Siege Brisbane in a Moshpit scenario. Again I surged at the center but with key models under Vlad's Wind Wall. I had rendered his Ironclad crippled early, removing its legs. The Behemoth proved to be my MVP again, aiming away at Brisbane even with all his anti-range spells. Jake retaliated at the Behemoth but only damaged column 6 which spilled to column 1, not too effective. Again with Signs and Portents and focus, the Behemoth hailed down on the Cygnaran warcaster for the win.

More thoughts: I sorely missed using Widowmakers all throughout my five games. Looks like they'll be my obligatory American Express. The Behemoth's performance was surprising though. In 500 pointage matches, it is a heavy points sink but it does so many things in a round that it's pretty much alright. I would have hated if it got hit by Crippling Grasp or Ice Cage though LOL!

A Slayer Valentine

2008-02-14T14:18:00.004+08:00

And so came along lunch time and the computer here at work was stuck with a DVD burning task. Preferring not to wait for the damn thing to finish, I decided to go hunt for a South Park boxed set and a meal instead. An ~~LRT~~ MRT ride later, I came upon an old DVD mecca that Nelz shared with me way back - the Shaw MRT station.

Long story short, I found a concert DVD of Slayer, one of my more not-so-pleasant influences also from way back. And even if the trip back was a tiring and sweaty one, I came back to the office with a big grin on my face. I know a lot of folks out there don't agree at all with the "noise" that Slayer makes. Again, big grin on my face.

For the ignorant (from Wikipedia): Slayer is a two time Grammy Award winning American thrash metal band founded by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer rose to fame as a leader of the American thrash metal movement with their 1986 release, Reign in Blood, which has been called "the heaviest album of all time" by Kerrang!. The band is credited as one of the "Big Four" thrash metal bands, along with Metallica, Anthrax, and Megadeth.

You can guess what's looped in my media player here at my desk now ^_^

The Dragon, The Anvil

2008-02-12T17:37:00.000+08:00

I have tried playing using Legion of Everblight last weekend. Using Rhyas as my warlock, I tried out a list with the available miniatures at home. I have always liked LOE (Legion of Everblight) because essentially, you get to play with dragons. With models like the new Angelius and the ever-terrifying Carnivean, I penciled up a list using them. After a few minutes with the rulebooks, I decided on this list:

Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight
Angelius
Angelius
Carnivean
Shredder
Forsaken

I tried the list against Kei, who also opted to playtest a new warlock, Borka Kegslayer. It was pretty much a surgical removal of key warbeasts for me, as the main goal was a direct assassination using either Rhyas, a Rapport c-Rex and/or the Thrusts of the Angelius; and I can't pretty much do that if he has warbeasts that he can transfer damage to. The game ended after an hour with me scoring more VPs than Kei.

I tried the same list the next day against Lesther's wolf/all-female Circle Orboros theme build. Again I had successfully reduced many of his key units, but I noticed that I had not sent a model across the center, hence I reminded Les immediately of the scenario objective and accepted my loss.

I had also used a Khador list with Kommandant Irusk against Mando who playtested his Privateers Shae list (I will be posting the list I used on a later date). Having seen a similar type of army in action, I knew what I had to remove. In the end, I succeeded in winning the game after the casual one hour time limit. I would have preferred an assassination win, but my opponent was pretty tricksy in keeping Shae useful and still out of harm's way.

With a Behemoth and a Kodiak in "Tow" (insert punchline drum roll here), Karchev the Terrible proved to be a very fast build, even though I faced against a fast army in the form of Les' Circle (OK not as fast because it was Baldur and a pair of Woldwardens, but the rest of the army was fast ^_^). I got the hilarious and yet surprising Ass Slide trick in, catching both Wardens in the curtain, and Gorman putting in a lock with a well-placed Black Oil grenade. Between the Kodiak's Hammerfist attacks and the Behemoth's armor piercing hits, both Wardens were taken care of in two consecutive turns.

Joel (Larkin Vain of Glory and Coin) shared with me his macho 500-point list with Vlad as warcaster. Maybe I can get to fix my Uhlans and IFP in time for Saturday, as I think it would be a fun list to play.

All games I had played were all 500 points at my small place at home. Hopefully I can get to play this Saturday's tournament at UPCFA. And maybe get some fresh pics in as well.

Dark Heresy

2008-02-11T11:22:00.000+08:00

You are an Acolyte in the service of the Emperors’ Inquisition. You stand in the front line of a great and secret war where your duty is to hunt out the foul stench of heresy, the vile alien, and the twisted influence of Chaos. You will tread where others fear, venturing to distant planets, ancient space hulks and the unsavoury depths of the under-hive.

You will never know fame nor reward, yet if you stand resolute your deeds will be whispered to the God-Emperor of Mankind and your name will be revered for millennia.

Fast character creation to get you into the game quickly, followed by a lifetime of possibilities with an expanded advanced careers system.

Dynamic rules for all eventualities th at let you handle everything from social interaction to deadly fast-paced combat, psykers and psychic powers to insanity and mutation.

Comprehensive background on the Calixis Sector, the official setting for Dark Heresy written by best-selling Warhammer 40,000 novelists Dan Abnett and Ben Counter.

A galaxy of guns to equip your acolyte, from lasguns to inferno pistols, chainswords to power blades.

Pitch your players straight into the midst of dark events with a complete adventure to get you started.The Dark Heresy core rulebook contains everything you need to start your adventure in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

+++

Raymund (PG Raymund Tesoro) generously sold the currently out of stock Black Industries RPG book, Dark Heresy, to me (actually me and Les will co-own it). I'll be running a campaign for it alongside Tiny's Dragonlance campaign and Lesther's World of Darkness campaign on a later date. I will be absorbing a lot of material from the many volumes of rulebooks, source books and White Dwarf magazines at home before I start the campaign. Miniatures for combat? We have oodles of those LOL

Sadly there are no stats for Necrons in the core rulebook T_T

Zian

2008-01-29T16:05:00.000+08:00

Got to start my Mini City today and it's grown quite significantly. Thanks to everyone who took the bother to click the link and see my starting city. It would be appreciated if you check back to it once every so often, as its growth is dependent on how many viewers it gets on a daily basis.

If you make your own, let me know. I'll include that on my Minicity visit list. ^_^

Here's Larkin Vain's Larkinvaindia. Let's build up his Minicity, too ^_^

Progression

2008-01-16T17:53:00.000+08:00

• Self-teaching myself Adobe After Effects 6
• Looking at learning (seriously learning) PHP and 3DS Max
• Still painting Larkin Vain's Sea Dogs
• Playing Rune Factory on NDSL
• Got Francine Prieto loot (no DVDs T_T, Connie/Jillian, kayo na bahala ha?)
• Photobucket unblocked at work (Yey!)
• Working on new Photoessay for Joe Galvez (used more stylized application for Flash on this one)
• Abusing FM radio capability of phone

Dau Raid

2008-01-14T10:25:00.000+08:00

The boyz were planning to have a road trip to Dau for some airsoft supplies, and after some weather interference and last-minute change of plans, only five of us pushed through: me, Arvin, Pork, Obi and Jake. The supposed trip was supposed to be short, but between the five of us, stops for food and CR needs made the trip longer. Weather was drizzly cool and traffic was, according to Jake, "why couldn't all roads be like this?!?"

All of us got storage implements in one form or another: Pork got a metal ammo case, I got a heavy-duty backpack, Obi got a Ryu-style duffel bag, Arv and Jake got bags for carrying their WARMACHINE models with. They also got other phat lootage for the others who couldn't make the trip.

Went straight to Greenhills and played some WARMACHINE at Fortress right after the raid.

Jake's Brisbane played against Marlo's Vlad: Jake managed to reduce a lot of Marlo's forces, but failed to take down the Dark Prince with surging Blood of Kings. Marlo victorious in 500 points Assassination.

I got to play using Irusk and the Iron Rain theme against Pork and his Ashlynn (who is longing for some tabletop game action). Inhospitable Ground effectively forcing Pork into a slow offensive. Spriggan's Flares and Winter Guards' Mark Target make for more effective Mortar shooting, taking out a Mule's cannon arm early in the game, while two units of Greylords made for jack traffic control. I managed to take down several elements from Pork's force piece by piece while staying away via Inhospitable Ground. Ashlynn reduces Irusk to 4 damage with fancy shooting and spellcasting, but rendering herself unguarded. Irusk under his own Undying Loyalty bonus takes the mercenary warcaster down for an assassination victory in 500 Divide and Conquer.

Boyz take dinner at Le Ching before closing time at Fortress. Kei and Les do a raid of their own, taking home an HD widescreen and a cordless Guitar Hero guitar.

A few pics on my Multiply site.

2008

2008-01-09T10:46:00.000+08:00

New year, late post. What else is new? LOL!

I got to play two games using epic Butcher the past week. He did not disappoint. Plus I got to play with two of my warjacks, too -- the Behemoth and the Kodiak. The Doomreavers, being Orsus' elite cadre, delivered problems to Kei and his Grim Angus. I got to win Killing Fields via objective because of the Doomreavers' elite cadre ability. Against Fred's Iron Lich Asphyxious, I got to his caster in Mosh Pit with two Doomreavers and the Drakhun with Feel The Hate! I will be painting him up as soon as I finish Larkin Vain's Sea Dogs.

I also plan on applying for Press Ganger this year. I'll either be getting the Cryx starter or the Merc starter. Arvin says that we should get the Menoth and Cygnar starter, as was also posted on the Privateer Press site. Well, that would depend on what I'll be working on this year.

I'll be demo'ing and playing Anima Tactics as well. The stuff is already on its way here.

Me and the boys are still looking at Flames of War and Heavy Gear Blitz. More on this soon!

Luigi has been pimping a lot of the new Vampire Counts and it's getting tremendously hard to resist! I guess I can wait for the army book to be released first before getting anything. Zombies suck now. Unless you get that awesome new Corpse Cart. Temptation... strong...

Tiny also started with a Dragonlance campaign. Kei is playing a human rogue, no surprise there. I'm playing a human fighter (again no surprise) but with two daggers. I was hoping to go for the assassin prestige class later on, but found out I have to be evil to do that (and I have little inclination to veer off my true neutral alignment). Fred got to join on our second week as a half-orc barbarian. More updates on this soon!

Lots of changes at work. Most of it not fun for me T_T I'll just have to keep myself busy.

Blood for the Blood God

2008-01-03T12:41:00.000+08:00

I got to play with my Khorne Daemonic Legion again last Saturday at the RHGC Summoning at RHGC HQ, hosted by Lito Tan. There was a good turnout of WFB players from all over, and the fun games were started with an informal tourney-style pairing.

I got to play against Jojo, a Bretonnian player from the South. His list was pure cavalry, no infantry at all. And his approach was textbook ~ he had his main Knights of the Realm units in the middle, charging my units and holding them, while the flanking Grail Knights deliver the crushing blow.

The Bloodthirster was phenomenal, crushing anything in its path. I tried a similar flying pincer with the`Thirster and my other flying Exalted Daemon. I guess it kind of worked as they charged from key positions on the Bretonnians' rear.

The Grail Knight's flank charge on my Bloodcrushers was met with disappointment (for my opponent at least), as the Khorne cavalry took only a few wounds and stood their ground.

Despite a mutual mistake on rules for Terror, I managed to win via Massacre on a Pitched Battle scenario.

Since I will head the Grand Tournament for this year, I'll keep my KDL in check in case there'll be an odd number of participants. WFB may not have a strong following as 40K, but I'll still support it and just give a finger to any naysayer who disses the idea.

GMANews.TV Christmas Party

2007-12-30T16:24:00.000+08:00

Here are several pics from our office Christmas party a few weeks back on my Multiply page.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-27T14:47:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas, guys ^_^

Very busy season, so almost zero blogging. See you all in 2008!

Blog Remix

2007-12-13T16:25:00.000+08:00

After quite some time, I decided to update my Karmic Backstab blog.

In the spirit of Christmas, I placed a freebie Flash Christmas countdown on the top part of my blog, easily seen upon page load. It's cheesy non-Pinoy Christmas design, buy hey, free's free.

I also decided to upgrade my Blogspot template. In effect I cleaned out redundant links from my old layout and it's easier to code in new stuff now.

With the upgrade, I now have to re-tag post labels of each and every post I have on this blog since I started way back in August 2005. Ah well, slow and steady is better than nothing.

Trollblood Long Riders

2007-12-10T09:53:00.001+08:00

I decided to do a step-by-step with the miniatures, from assembling to painting. For this one, I chose the Trollblood Long Riders (primarily because Kei wants this done ASAP so he can play with them already).

As soon as I open the box, I make sure to see if all the parts are there (and maybe see if I get some bonus bits as well ^_^). If it's all there, I dry-fit the pieces together. This is a basic mistake for some as they just go and superglue on whatever bit they get from the box. Some parts just don't go or fit right with another ~ a harsh lesson I found out with Protectorate Knights Exemplar.

With Games Workshop plastic bits, it's very easy to do. You can even just go Exacto on said bits and glue them together easily. You get nice action poses easy that way. Unfortunately, it's more difficult with Privateer Press metal miniatures. Luckily, Pork has shown me the light - via a jeweler's saw we got a few years back ^_^ But with this project, I decided not to have the Long Riders undergo surgery.

Another thing to consider about metal miniatures is that unless you prep up the metal before you paint, the paint rubs off more easily with handling (especially since we're talking about minis that get moved a lot on a battlefield table).

Pork and Arvin talked a lot about this - the release agent that's on the miniature, so that it doesn't stick to the mold; and some chemical reaction when the metal is shelved for a prolonged period of time. All that messes up with how paint is supposed to cling on to the metal. So, ALL the metal parts need to be cleaned, too. And I prefer to do that before assembling them.

I got a nifty grinding tool with a steel brush implement. I just take that whirring thing onto the metal and give it a nice shiny buff. Those steel brushes at hardware stores work as well, but I suggest not using the industrial-strength type steel brushes (those will erase a model's face LOL).

After the buff, I get some dishwashing liquid and some water, mix it together in a basin, and give the parts a nice bath. This works with those recesses that the grinding tool can't reach. I use a steel brush for this, but since there's a lot of splashing involved, I didn't get a picture of that step.

The main body of the Long Riders consist of two halves. If you just superglue them together, you'll have unsightly gaps that could ruin even the best masterclass paintjob you put on it. To close it up, you need to fill it up with putty. Most miniature modelers use Green Stuff. I just roll those up and line one of the Long Rider halves, and add some super glue as well, before slapping them on together. You should allow the putty to squeeze out and fill in those gaps.

I then break out the timer and wait for 10 minutes. This is also important, as Green Stuff needs to cure a bit before you can work on it effectively. I have made countless attempts previously with using Green Stuff for gaps and working on it without having it cured first. It just ends sadly as the putty usually comes out of the gaps as soon as you try to smooth it.

Another important thing to remember when working with putty is always keep your hands and tools wet. It's putty, it'll stick. Water helps a lot so keep a bottle of water nearby where you can dip your fingers and/or tools.

With the ten minutes, I decided to do some base work for the Trollblood cavalry. I got some various sized pebbles and superglued them onto the bases.

This is what I've been doing with the Long Riders so far. For any comments or criticisms, feel free to discuss it in the comment section of this post ^_^

7-Year Madness Hoard

2007-12-08T09:52:00.000+08:00

I have been in the hobby of miniatures tabletop wargaming and painting/modeling for a little over seven years now. It may be a bit difficult painting in such small scale but I have always been more at ease with it so long as I have the proper tools. A lot of this stuff I read about from various sources on the Internet, White Dwarf and No Quarter magazines, words of wisdom from other veteran players (you all know who you are), and from many explorations (by myself or with the Boyz) in the depths of Cubao and Quiapo.

I now NEED to have my own work shed, as all of this junk is now squatting in the living room LOL

Cold War

2007-12-03T15:26:00.001+08:00

Yeah, it's pretty cold in this year's December. It's very hard to wake up every morning, even if you did sleep early. Ironically, December started with some stir in Makati when Trillanes bunkered up in the Manila Peninsula.

Call To Arms
The recent league concluded with a special one-day tournament. I got to face against Kei and Obi. On my second match, I decided to take up on Mang's offer for a bye. I really wasn't up to playing the Mk. PS Mine Field scenario with anyone LOL, and the food downstairs was too good to pass up ^_^ In the end, I got my second Khador coin that day.

I'm hoping to get a nice Nintendo DS this year. The call of Pokemon is too strong. And Jojo had to show me how good his is LOL! I've already placed a bid on one on Ebay Philippines.

I got lots of more stuff planned for the coming year. Tune back in for updates. Have a good one! ^_^

Random Weekend (Late Post)

2007-11-19T15:02:00.000+08:00

Better late than never (looks like I've been saying that a lot these past few weeks LOL). Here are some pics from Weewilldoodle's Instantinopol and a league day at Pitshop ^_^

More pics here!

Last Quarter Stuff

2007-11-02T14:48:00.000+08:00

Again, not been updating as often as I'd have wanted. A lot of momentum now in the local WARMACHINE/HORDES community. Not so with WFB and 40K. No matter though as I have very little time to play. I do get a lot of painting time though. Got some more details in on my Winter Guard Rocketeer, as well as the whole Druids of Orboros lot. I will look into spraybombing my Khorne Bloodletters later when I get home (unless Guitar Hero 3 wrenches me off it though LOL).

Updating the now functioning Miniatures Wargaming Philippines forum. As per my last conversation with Lito, this new free forum will serve as the alternative once the old RHGC forum shuts down.

I'll be undertaking a new terrain project for my table at home. I'm planning to make something for Trollbloods, Menoth and Circle of Orboros. Not big projects but rather modular flavor pieces. I still don't know what exactly -- maybe a ruined Menoth church (the corners at the very least), maybe some herdstone-type obstructions, too.

Games at home: Atelier Iris 3 and Guitar Hero 2 (Hard) on PS2, Bang!
Games at work: Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, DOTA, Counter-strike 1.3
Target for the week: Winter Guard Rocketeer and Greylords Ternion or Kell Bailoch

I got lots of pics, just not on this blog. Go check out the WMPH blog instead.

Adding Larkin Vain's Glory & Coin to my blogroll ^_^

WIP 20071022

2007-10-22T11:24:00.000+08:00

Just some works in progress. I evidently failed on my last weekly target and finished my IK Alexia instead (plus assembling the Risen and Thrall Warrior). Right now I'm contemplating on painting some more of Kei's and Les' stuff (maybe that other Fell Caller and Kaya).

Call To Arms
I got owned by Doclance's epic Deneghra last Saturday. LOL I'm not gonna make any excuses. I got caught. I'll try better next time. I only got to play against two guys last league Saturday. I hope I can get more games in this week ^_^

Mang's Website
Already laid down the foundations for this one. I hope he takes time off to email me his logo though. Can't proceed well without it since it will dictate the general look and feel of everything on the site. He's still hyped with WMH gaming though. Maybe after CTA, hehe.

Alone
My brother, Koi, will be leaving for Australia this evening. As if mom and Babee and Jei leaving wasn't sad enough. I'll be home alone again. Koi's Alone (scary Asian horror) won't help, too. Maybe they'll come back for a visit on Christmas?

Dawn of War
Zero 40K presence these past few days. My Necrons are getting all dusty on the shelves. Crap. Looks like playing the Dawn of War campaign will be my fix for any 40K action.

Shameless Plug
Christmas is just around the corner. And here I am with no side projects. Referrals would be cool, dude. I need the extra cash T_T

Call To Arms

2007-10-16T16:13:00.000+08:00

In addition to the current Escalation campaign, I am also participating in the Warmachine/Hordes Call To Arms league.

Escalation (Pod 2)

Throat Cutter
Opponent: Jeff's epic Stryker
Result: Victory for Kommander Sorscha

Within the Dark Soil
Opponent: Fred's Asphyxious
Result: Victory for epic Vlad

Awaiting schedule matchup vs Mang's Protectorate of Menoth

Call To Arms

WEEK ONE

Finished Matches
10.12.2007 - Patrick Palma (W), Mike (L), Joel Tiongson (W)
10.13.2007 - Tiny David (W), Cocoy Reyes (W), Ryan Tamayo(W)
10.15.2007 - Arvin Tan (W)

Scheduled Upcoming Matches
10.17.2007 - Mang, Kei Valentin

Unavailable Matches
Laurence Tan

Awaiting Confirmation
Dick Sy, Fluffy Peña, Obi Parcon, Raymund Tesoro
"Any of you guys available to play at Pitshop this week, I'm available for CTA league games so long as it's after office hours."

Weekly Painting Target: Time to show my Khador that I haven't left them unpainted ~ Greylord Ternion, Kell Bailoch, finishes on epic Vlad and Widowmakers

Weekend Fun Games

2007-10-07T17:01:00.001+08:00

Very slow day with very uncomfortable weather. And I still haven't had my laundry done. Was waiting for Fred so we can play our Escalation campaign match, but later in the day he decided to reschedule.

The guys decided to drop by Hobby Haven on the 12th (hopefully they'll still be open by then) for some farewell matches - as sadly, Chicco confirmed that his shop will close by the 15th.

SO since I'm already paid for both the Escalation campaign and the Call To Arms campaign, I just hope my sked would cooperate and let me play.

Here are the results for the games at home (relaxed time limit rules in play):

Game 1
Tiny's Captain E. Dominic Darius victorious over Les' Kaya Wildbourne via victory points in 500 pts Moshpit
- Tiny tries out Darius as warcaster
- Les' big game gamble did not pay off, as he miscalculated distance
- Les' Totem Hunter made its first ever warjack kill (killed one of Darius mini-mine jacks)
- Tiny sees a lot of exploit points in Darius' spells

Game 2
Joel's Warwitch Deneghra victorious over Kei's Grim Angus via forfeit in 500 pts Killing Fields
- Kei tries out Grim Angus as warlock, using a shoot-heavy list
- Kei curses the knockdown effect of Deneghra's Scourge

Game 3
Joel's Warwitch Deneghra victorious over Kim's Hoarluk Doomshaper via forfeit in 500 pts Divide and Conquer
- Kim tries out playing Trollbloods after months of playing just Khador
- Kim clunkered through terrain where Joel took full advantage of his Cryx debuffs

Game 4
Kim's Dark Champion Vlad Tzepesci victorious over Kei's Chief Madrak Ironhide via assassination in 750 pts Divide and Conquer
- Kei surges forward, denying the Khadoran infantry charge
- Kim preps Wind Blast and Blood Legacy on some Doom Reavers and Drakhun FTW!

SIDEBAR: It's nice when your work is recognized. I scanned this off of one of the local journalism publications. Good thing I put my name there on the bottom of the screen LOL. Makes working more enjoyable ^_^

BER Months

2007-10-04T16:11:00.000+08:00

What the hell have I been doing all this time?!?

- Angela celebrates her birthday today!
- My sister gave birth to a healthy baby girl! (Mama: Dapat ikaw may baby na rin diba?)
- My folks are here from Australia; my Mom, Koi, Jei and Babee
- GMANews.TV nominated as semifinalist on the 10th Philippine Webby Awards!
- Koi bought me two boxes of the GW Woods. Put together one set for immediate home use. Set aside the other for Arvination.
- Les hoards more Menoth and Circle stuff at home. Very little progress since the folks are at home (dislike spraybomb fumes)
- Small farm partnership biz in Batangas already green light
- Organized backup CDs at work
- Pork gets Mando's LOE assembly done in record speed!
- Lito's RHGC forum closing down soon. Already setup another forum for community use.
- Hobby Haven will also close down soon T_T
- Koi brings home his heavy duty arcade controller for the PS2! Jun! Laro raw kayo ni Kei ng SF Alpha 3! LOL!
- Guitar Hero madness at home! My brothers got into NORMAL mode faster than I did! Babee also on NORMAL now! Don't worry, Kei, your guitar controller isn't broken. Much. LOL~!
- Koi and Jei let me borrow their Cybershot digicam! Woohoo! More pics soon!
- Mang to hold Call to Arms WMH campaign on the 20th! No time limit guys! But you go high up the ladder the more games you play! Coins on the line, too!
- Playing in Mang's Escalation campaign Pod 2! Won my first campaign game a few days ago vs Jeff's Cygnar!
- Raf came and got me some "Japanese entertainment!" Kamote, hindi man lang tayo nagkita, nagninjavanish ka na!
- Got to go to Trinoma for the first time!
- Got to watch Rogue Assassin at Trinoma theaters! It was a stupid experience. Just justified why Pinoys SHOULD by pirated DVDs instead!
- Jun got me some Dawn of War installers! Just installed the first one and playing through the campaign now.
- Connie got to have my Maxim mag signed by Francine Prieto ^_^
- Found the quested Battlechasers and Shanna CBR files on my computer! At long bloody last!
- DVDs watched: Conspiracy, Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix, Eye 10, LSATSB, Ace Ventura, Ace Ventura When Nature Calls
- Doing a lot of progress on the Kingdom of Loathing bounty hunter outfit run (if you call 9 filthy lucre progress); will ascend as soon as I complete the bloody outfit!

Still very sluggish updating the rest of my sections here.

Blogging Hiatus

2007-09-27T19:04:00.000+08:00

No updates. Still fiddling around with that PHP for the ranking. Enjoying painting and modeling more than playing. Got to play Hard-level songs in Guitar Hero. My cavy's are both dead.

Live chat with Francine Prieto and Maureen Larrazabal tomorrow. It's Francine so there.

Be back whenever.

RIP Mark "JC" Lim

2007-09-17T12:37:00.000+08:00

Yeah, we'll see you when we cross the fold, too, dude. You'll be very much remembered.

The best memories I have with this guy is his non-sugar-coated sharp-witted snaps. Everyone knows his own flavor of articulate remarks.

I've only played against him twice in the sporadic moments that he does play. It was both in 40K, his Grey Knights against my Necrons. Yeh I got owned both times LOL. Looks like our rematch will be later on, my friend.

The Game

2007-09-17T05:13:00.000+08:00

The WARMACHINE/HORDES (WMH) momentum has picked up in the past few months here in the Philippines. I am indeed glad and proud to be one of the pioneers of the game in this country, but as with any gaming community that's growing, disagreements of varying degrees appear. As if fighting make-believe battles weren't enough. Luckily, said disagreements are very minor.

As I've observed, there are players who prefer laid-back casual gaming, and there are those who prefer tournament-style competitive gaming. The "disagreement" occurs when tourney players insist that the more casual gamers follow the tourney standard; or when casual players drag out the time during their turns in a game (something that tourney players value). Some players stay away from the stressful timed turns in tourney gaming. Some players dislike the scenarios laid out in the rulebooks or the official Steamroller format. Some dislike playing against opponents with unpainted models. But all of these are familiar issues from any miniature wargame.

Don't get me wrong. The said disagreements are not full-blown fights. Some players just do not play against other certain players because of contradicting standards. But for me who can play casual or competitive, that is something I really have a concern for.

Time Limits

Officially printed in WARMACHINE Prime Remix, it says there that 500-point games have a 1-hour time limit (an hour and a half for 750 games, goes for both WARMACHINE and HORDES). In Mang's current tourney setting, 500-point games dictate a 7-minute limit per player turn. In more casual settings, some games last for three hours even for just 500 points in playing an assassination run or objective win.

I do know some players who refuse to play tournaments even before the 7-minute/turn concept. I do know some players who take at least a minimum of 15 minutes even before activating his first model.

In tournament formats, players can always choose to join a tourney or not. But in a casual format, crossing the boundary between standards can be tricky. A player who trained himself to complete everything his army can dish out in 7 minutes will have his patience stretched if he's fighting a casual player. Alternately, a casual player will have fits if a tourney player is prodding him unceasingly to hurry up and finish in just a few minutes.

My suggested solution for casual games: Mutually agree with your opponent whether or not you are playing with time limits before bringing out your models. If your opponent doesn't agree with your suggested time limit, make some sort of compromise. If in total disagreement, just go look for another opponent and respect your opponent's choice.

When playing at my place: I will have a sports timer there so I strongly suggest (if not enforce) an additional 30 minutes over the time limit in the book (1 hour 30 mins for 500-point games, 2 hours for 750-point games).

Additionally, a player should limit his turn to a maximum of 15 minutes. If models are not activated during the end of the time limit, they are considered to have activated but have done nothing (no movement, no action). If a player is resolving a model or unit's activation at the time the limit is called, he should resolve the model/unit's activation and end his turn immediately afterwards.

These resolutions for time limits are the most fair I can come up with for casual gaming.

My suggested solution for tournament gaming:As for tournament gaming, organizers will always have final say in how they run tourneys.

I do suggest a timer for each table, but that would be costly to the organizer. Proactive minutes for players would be more fair, i.e. if it only took you 2 minutes to finish your first turn, your second turn should have 12 minutes, and so on. Maybe later on we can have something like this.

Scenarios/Missions

As many of us have our roots in miniature wargaming from Games Workshop's Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, it is normal to compare both. There has been significant difficulty by some players in adapting a chosen WARMACHINE or HORDES faction to fight (much less win) in certain scenarios as laid out in official Steamroller scenarios.

In casual gaming, this is alright since most just dust off and fight another day (sometimes another game right afterwards). But in tourneys, it bears a lot of weight since there's money involved. And to some, dropping P250 is easy, but others' pockets aren't as deep.

Some stick to Steamroller scenarios strictly, and frown on custom scenarios. I would understand, as I assume SR scenarios have been playtested and approved to be as balanced as can be by the makers of the game itself. But does it mean playing custom scenarios aren't worth it? I disagree. I do agree with Mang testing out various scenarios during his tournaments. It may be a pocket risk to some, but then again, no one is being forced to join any tourney anyway. Others frown on the official Steamroller scenarios (most notably Killing Fields) for many, many reasons.

My suggested solution for casual games: Same as with time limits, mutually agree with your opponent as to what scenario you'll play. They may be from official tourney scenarios or custom scenarios, or even tweaked tourney scenarios. Just try to have fun while trying your best to win.

We're all used to making a come-on-all-takers list with WFB or 40K, and doing such is a bit more difficult in WMH. In the book, players do should decide what scenario to play first before making a list. It may mean that you'll be carrying a cabinet-load of your minis wherever you go if you're that intent on making such a broad spectrum list though.

When playing at my place: I will have a copy of the rulebooks at home, plus the latest Steamroller tourneys, plus I had the Summer Rampage scenarios bound. I also have No Quarter magazines with special scenarios in them. There will be very little in the way of a lack of scenarios at home.

However, I do suggest playing Summer Rampage scenarios. IMHO they are more balanced.

My suggested solution for tournament gaming:As for tournament gaming, organizers will always have final say in how they run tourneys. Yeah they do.

Tournament Scene

Some think tourneys are the end-all of the game. But since we all live in an imperfect world, there can never be a perfect tournament. Some will complain of venue. Some will complain about entrance fee. Some will complain about time limit usage (or lack thereof). Some will complain about scenarios or special rules. And being in the Philippines where complaining has been raised to the level as art, it's worse.

The game may continue to stick around even without tournaments, but it is the tournaments that spice it up.

To organizers, I suggest switching between formats and attract the different mentalities of players. Mang is already doing this one, considering timed tourneys and casual campaigns. Other people can readily setup their own tourneys with their own standards. I'm sure you won't find it difficult to attract participants since we all wanna help each other out anyway.

To players, I suggest to play tourneys, even the ones you dislike. You may learn a few tricks here and there, plus you break the monotony of your usual casual gaming. AND you may teach yourself to adapt to the community's current tourney scene.

Parting Shots

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that as players of such a small community, we should all practice common courtesy. You cannot have your way all the time, but bottom line of the game is for all players to have fun.

Nobody wants to play with an asshole, and with such a low number of players in the community, a rep of being an asshole spreads quite fast. Sayang naman ang ininvest mo sa pagbili ng miniatures, diba?

Peace ^_^

For the Motherland: Battles

2007-09-16T14:15:00.000+08:00

Dark Prince Vladimir Tzepesci wins over Baldur the Stonecleaver (Obi) via forfeit
500 Pendulum, 9/15/2007 Kim's place

The Butcher of Khardov loses to Warwitch Deneghra (Joel) via forfeit
500 Crossed Lines, 9/15/2007 Kim's place

Forward Kommander Sorscha Kratikoff wins over Grand Exemplar Mikael Kreoss (Les)
750 No Man's Land, 9/15/2007 Kim's place

Dark Champion Vladimir Tzepesci wins over Lord Commander Coleman Stryker (Ryan) via assassination
750 No Man's Land, 9/14/2007 Hobby Haven

Karchev the Terrible wins over Chief Madrak Ironhide (Kei) via assassination
500 No Man's Land, 9/14/2007 Hobby Haven

Kommander Sorscha loses to Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight (Mang) via assassination
500 Invasion, 9/8/2007 Pitshop Tournament

Kommander Sorscha wins over Iron Lich Asphyxious (Fred) via objective
500 Invasion, 9/8/2007 Pitshop Tournament

Kommander Sorscha wins over Baldur Stonecleaver (Chris) via objective
500 Invasion, 9/8/2007 Pitshop Tournament

Kommandant Irusk wins over Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight (Mike) via assassination
500 Pendulum (old), 9/8/2007 Pitshop Tournament

Old Witch of Khador wins over Kaya Wildbourne (Les) via victory points
500 Invasion, 9/1/2007 Kim's place

Kommandant Irusk (Heavy Winterguard) wins over Chief Madrak Ironhide (Kei) via forfeit
500 Divide and Conquer, 9/1/2007 Kim's place

Butcher of Khardov draws to Baldur Stonecleaver (Chris)
Undetermined scenario, 8/27/2007 Pitshop Tournament

Butcher of Khardov loses to Pirate Queen Skarre (Doclance)
Undetermined scenario, 8/27/2007 Pitshop Tournament

Butcher of Khardov wins over Chief Madrak Ironhide (Kei)
Undetermined scenario, 8/27/2007 Pitshop Tournament

Butcher of Khardov wins over Lord Tyrant Hexeris (Patrick)
Undetermined scenario, 8/27/2007 Pitshop Tournament

Kommandant Irusk wins over Commander Stryker (Ryan) via objective
500 Twister, 8/20/2007 Kim's place

Kommandant Irusk (Iron Rain) loses to Chief Madrak Ironhide (Kei) via forfeit
500 No Man's Land, 8/20/2007 Kim's place

Butcher of Khardov wins over Kaya Wildbourne (Les)
Undetermined scenario, 8/19/2007 Kim's place

Butcher of Khardov wins over Kaya Wildbourne (Les)
Undetermined scenario, 8/19/2007 Kim's place

Kommander Sorscha wins over Lord Tyrant Hexeris (Patrick) via assassination
500 Moshpit, 8/17/2007 Hobby Haven

Kommander Sorscha wins over Chief Madrak Ironhide (Clemence) via assassination
500 Invasion, 8/17/2007 Hobby Haven

Kommander Sorscha wins over Lich Lord Terminus (Emp) via objective
500 Killing Fields, 8/17/2007 Hobby Haven

Butcher of Khardov wins over Archdomina Makeda (Chris) via objective
500 Pendulum, 8/17/2007 Hobby Haven

Kommander Sorscha wins over Commander Adept Nemo (Ryan) via objective
500 Invasion, 8/11/2007 Hobby Haven

Kommander Sorscha wins over Iron Lich Asphyxious (Fred) via assassination
500 Invasion, 8/11/2007 Hobby Haven

Old Witch of Khador wins over High Exemplar Kreoss (Les) via assassination
500 No Man's Land, 8/4/2007 Kim's place

Kommandant Irusk wins over Chief Madrak Ironhide (Kei)
500 Killing Fields, 6/30/2007 Kim's place

Kommandant Irusk wins over Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight (Mando) via victory points
500 Invasion, 6/23/2007 Kim's place

Kommandant Irusk wins over Hoarluk Doomshaper (Kei) via forfeit
500 Mosh Pit, 6/23/2007 Kim's place

Record of Llael War

2007-09-10T20:00:00.000+08:00

Trollbloods on the rampage! Chief Madrak Ironhide has been leading crushing attacks against the west fronts of the Circle Orboros and Protectorate of Menoth!

Splinter Cryxian forces reported clashing against each other! Iron Lich Asphyxious, Lich Lord Terminus notably vying for assault rights on the weakened Llaelese states!

Khador still recuperating from the failed assault on Rhydden! Kommandant Irusk amassing large contingent of Khadoran military poised to retaliate southern Menite holds!

Cygnaran military recuperating from various skirmishes on its border! Reinforcements reported on its way! Heavy warjack production increased in Cygnar!

+++ So far, here's how the map looks like after all the games we had at home since the 20th of August. New participants are considered raiding forces and will have their presence felt as soon as they get their best-of-three win against anyone of us.

WIP 090705

2007-09-05T12:17:00.000+08:00

Got some work in on models at home.

The Fell Caller got some OSL plus toned Trollblood skinwork. He'll be needing some grass flock and varnish to finish him off. Kei needs to transport this better though.

Barby helped with a lot of the reds on the Iron Fang Pikemen. My first squad will be dunked in brake fluid to remove the stupid thick paint I tested on them. This one will be finished real soon. I'm still thinking how to personalize each IFP model though. Maybe add some battle trophies and rank markings or something.

The Winterguard will also be done soon, too. But that stupid standard bearer is giving me a lot of problems. The pole itself is soft metal. So it was only a matter of time before the heavy metal flag broke itself free from the pole. I'll be prepping it up with brass rod and just green stuff a new right hand on the damn thing.

Take It Easy, `Foo!

2007-09-03T10:35:00.000+08:00

Now that I've got a chance to have a breather, I can finally get to update my blog. Several things happened already and I hope I can remember those:

WMH Tourney at Pitshop

Congratulations to Doclance for winning the recent tourney at Pitshop/Petstop. The feat charge of Bane Knights were mind-numbing! I will make no excuses, it was a good loss for me.

Me and Kei will get a free bottle of P3 paint, I think, for joining, so it's nice! Plus I get a P500 blister of something. Right now, I just don't know what. Maybe a Manhuntress.

Domestic Tragedy

I lost a cousin the past week. His name's Jonnel. We're not that close. Not close that the most conversation we ever had was a casual nod of greeting. I dunno. Maybe I'm afraid we couldn't have some common ground of interest. But it's all late for that. He passed away at Ate Aileen's birthday bash at a beach somewhere in Iba. Something dumb happened in the water and he didn't make it. We received news about it in the evening that he was missing and the family was afraid that he drowned. Me not knowing all facts assumed a lot (maybe he ran away, or maybe he got kidnapped). But sad thing is, he did drown. He was buried yesterday and in the midst of all the crying relatives, my twisted perspective just wished him good journey because, after all, he is free of any tribulations in this mortal world.

The Smell Of Metal

Tremendous WMH momentum at home. Now I have to paint and assemble a lot more stuff in addition to my Khador LOL. S'all good, gives me a chance to paint and play other factions that are parked at home. The list includes a growing stack Menoth and Circle models, the Trollbloods, and a Legion of Everblight starter. Walang magrereklamo kung matagal matapos ha? LOL!

More on the Hobby

I'm now finalizing the map I'll be using to track wins on the games played at home, kinda like a minicampaign (Bond rules stand of course).

Got to play using my Irusk Heavy Winterguard and Old Witch AD lists.

I played the Heavy Winterguard against Kei's Trollbloods in a No Man's Land scenario. I still have trouble with timing between Grigorovich and the Winterguard as I'd like the to have charged something. I ended up using CRA a lot with them, as Kei propped his Champions in front of the Winterguard unit. I would have preferred to see them if they can down one of his warbeasts though. In the end, I managed to remove his Fell Caller and Axer, both of which mess up Irusk's Inhospitable Ground. The turning point of the game was when my Widowmakers made the CMD check at 6. Kei would have won if they didn't. Quantum mechanics for you LOL!

I played the Old Witch AD list against Les' Circle in Invasion. It was insane! He made a block advance of his full Wolves and Druids on one flank, backed by a Totem Hunter. I propped my Snipingdeath squad on top of a hill and started sniping off his unit leaders, successfully routing the Druids. Running my Scrapjack and the Witch into position, I routed the Wolves with Murder of Crows and activated Field of Talons. Both units were forced to run on their Maintenance Phase, Field of Talons stabbing all fleeing models with POW14! Two squads vanish in fine red mist! It was wonderous LOL! I know THAT will never happen again. I'm just happy that I DID get to do it ^_^ And for a final move, Gorman dropped a Smoke over Zevanna; Zevanna teleported via Unseen Path from Gorman's smoke into an upkept Murder of Crows; measured control area; seeing opponent Invasion point is within her run range, Old Witch huffed it FTW!

I also taught Barby how to play. Not just some passing this and that. She wanted to learn the specifics so I did teach her. I just hope she doesn't get too much info overload. She already played two 350 starter box games before, but just surface basics. We'll be making a Menoth list, but she said not to buy models first. So we'll either proxy up stuff plus I'll just custom-build some models for her. I doubt she'll be playing any tourns any time soon anyway.

My plan to make more terrain at home failed. I ended up painting more instead. Since the Bokur is already finished, I want to finish the Pikemen squad. We'll see. I hope Koi buys me those Warhammer trees ^_^

Geek

2007-08-22T12:09:00.000+08:00

- Warmachine Philippines is now two years old!
- Summer Rampage already finished
- Assembled Epic Vlad, painting around 65%
- Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition? WTF?!? Bloody good thing I haven't bought those expensive core books yet
- Assembled Lesther's Save Points (Orboros Stones)
- Assembled Lesther's Wolves of Orboros
- Repainted my Widowmakers, around 80%
- Too much work at the office, no nice layout

WARMACHINE/HORDES Gaming

Hobby Haven 8/17/07
- Kim's Butcher x Chris' Makeda, 500pts SR3 Pendulum via Objective Chris was trying out Patrick's Skorne; 2nd turn win for me
- Kei's Madrak x Chris' Morghoul, 500pts SR3 No Man's Land via Assassination
- Kim's Sorscha x Emp's Terminus, 500pts SR3 Killing Fields via Objective Emp got to feel some Whoosh lovin' on my 2nd turn
- Ryan's Nemo x Nick's Rhyas, 500pts SR3 Assassination via Assassination
- Clemence's Madrak x Chris' Morghoul, 500pts SR3 Killing Fields via Assassination
- Emp's Terminus x Arvin's Butcher, 500pts SR3 No Man's Land via Assassination
- Pork's Ashlynn x Ryan's Nemo, 500pts SR3 Invasion via Concede
- Clemence's Madrak x Fred's Asphyxious, 500pts SR3 Assassination via Assassination
- Arvin's Butcher x Chris' Kruger, 500pts SR3 Pendulum via Assassination
- Kim's Sorscha x Clemence's Madrak, 500pts SR3 Invasion via Assassination Another 2nd turn win; Clemence feels the Whoosh; Snipe Death major contribution
- Fred's Asphyxious x Kei's Madrak, 500pts SR3 Killing Fields via Assassination
- Clarence's Madrak x Emp's Terminus, 500pts SR3 Killing Fields via Assassination
- Patrick's Hexeris x Pork's Ashlynn, 500pts SR3 Invasion via Assassination
- Kim's Sorscha x Patrick's Hexeris, 500pts SR3 Moshpit via Assassination No 2nd turn victory here; had to chop down all his beasts so that he can't transfer damage to them
- Kei's Madrak x Ryan's Nemo, 500pts SR3 No Man's Land via Objective

Kim's 8/20/07
- Kei's Madrak x Kim's Irusk (Iron Rain), 500pts SR3 No Man's Land via Concede My ace game did not pay off; Curse be to Madrak's magical tissue paper of doom!
- Lesther's Kaya x Ryan's Stryker, 500pts SR3 Killing Fields via Objective
- Kim's Irusk x Ryan's Stryker, 500pts SR `07 Twister via Objective Hard fought gamble with the twister right in front of my force; tied up Ryan with Superiority Kodiak and Inhospitable Ground
- Kei's Madrak x Ryan's Stryker, 500pts SR `07 Floodlands via Objective
- Lesther's Kaya x Kei's Madrak, 500pts SR `07 Dust Bowl via Victory Points

My Dice Tower

2007-08-16T14:07:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Raymund Tesoro for the information on dice towers. I got surfing yesterday, hoping to buy that Chessex dice bowl/tray. I wanted to play without having dice scattered all over the battlefield. Plus, this thing prevents, ehem "engineered luck", too ^_^

What materials I used:
• Some thick plasticard (it's called high impact plastic locally; like in Joli's)
• Some thicker rubber foam (the ones I had left for making costumes for the old NMI Christmas parties)
• Loctite superglue
• Utility cutter
• Scriber (Got this from Quiapo during one of the Boyz' supply runs)
• Metal rulers (I have three at home, various lengths)
• Thick scotch tape
• Felt paper
• Yellow glue (Wood glue, dries faster and stronger)

There are a lot of plans for dice towers online, so just go surf for them. I was unlucky I did not have access to the office printer so I just winged it with this one.

BE VERY CAREFUL when cutting and scribing the plasticard. I had a lot of close calls last night.

Superglue will bond the plasticard pieces very well. Greco should be have a stronger bond, but harder prep time. I hope I had some Gel version of the Loctite glue I had. Ah well...

I padded the tray dice contact bottom with green felt paper because it was the only color I had at home. I would have preferred red of course (LOL). Then I sliced up some rubber foam and padded the bottom of the tray, as well as the inside walls of the tray.

The tower itself was just all superglue and tape. Hence the Orky look. But it works BWAHAHAH! I'll be taping on whatever stuff on it. Spraypainting would have been better, but I should have done that before gluing on the felt and rubber foam.

Well, it's in two parts, so it should be easy to carry around. No more scattered dice for me hehe ^_^

+++

My blog's officially two years old now! Yey! That's a feat for me LOL! As always, gifts are always welcome ^_^

Small Place, Big Crowd

2007-08-13T14:18:00.000+08:00

Attendance: Kim, Barby, Pork, Emp, Fred, Kei, Les, Ryan (special participation of Kim's Cavy pets - Buddha and Elizabeth)
Grub: Some chips, some Coke, some Nestea
Games played: WARMACHINE/HORDES, Guitar Hero, Bang!
Stuff on DVD: Afro Samurai, Highlander anime, Ranma Nihao My Concubine

Invite list got a bit bigger, with a great turnout, despite the sunny weather. Seeing as the guys who came were on the bottom rungs of the Summer Rampage campaign, we all celebrated Doclance's complete victory by just hanging out and enjoying pickup games and some Guitar Hero, LOL ^_^

Bang! brought out later in the afternoon (should have brought it out earlier LOL). Emp and Les rock on Guitar Hero! Pork and Fred raid Kim's FHM collection!

Game 1 750pt Invasion: Kim's Kommander Sorscha victorious over Fred's Iron Lich Asphyxious via assassination
Game 2 500pt Divide and Conquer: Emp's Lich Lord Terminus victorious over Kei's Chief Madrak Ironhide via victory points
Game 3 500pt Mosh Pit: Lesther's High Exemplar Kreoss victorious over Pork's Ashlynn D'Elysse via victory points
Game 4 500pt Invasion: Kim's Kommander Sorscha victorious over Ryan's Commander Adept Nemo via objective
Game 5 500pt No Man's Land: Emp's Lich Lord Terminus victorious over Ryan's Commander Adept Nemo via victory points
Game 6 500pt No Man's Land: Kei's Chief Madrak Ironhide victorious over Lesther's High Exemplar Kreoss via objective

Quotable quotes:

"Grabe. Malas talaga itong mesa ni Kim." - Kei, after rolling badly. Many times.

"Hindi itong mesa ang malas. Kahit nung sa isang tourney noon minalas ako. Basta merong black cloth, malas lagi rolls ko!" - Emp, after rolling badly also.

*loud insane maniacal laughter* - Pork, upon getting Indians and Gatling Gun at the same draw on Bang!

"Uy Bang! Concede na ako!" - Emp, while playing WARMACHINE with Ryan

Bang! Game 1: Sheriff (Kei) and concealed Deputy (Kim) win! Renegade (Fred) blown up by Dynamite! Outlaws (Pork and Les) Banged by Deputy sniping (hehe that big gun)

Bang! Game 2: Outlaws win as Sheriff (Kei again) blows himself up with Dynamite! Shortest BANG! game ever, LOL!

+++

LIFE AND TIMES OF A PHILIPPINE GAMER
This blog is all about games in the Philippines… board games, card games, tabletop roleplaying games and even the occasional PC or console video game. So many games, so little time. Click here.

ODIE'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN
From this day forward, this space will be Odie's laboratory in her attempts to develop the skills of a web developer. Recurring bugs or strange occurrences should be ignored and will be dealt with as soon as she finds her bearings and figures out what to do. Everything here is strictly experimental. Click here.

New Blood, Old Blood

2007-08-06T11:55:00.000+08:00

Instead of competitive Summer Rampage gaming, I opted to reintroduce some old friends into WARMACHINE/HORDES. On a smoldering Saturday afternoon, Ryan , Lesther, Kei and I enjoyed some WMH and Guitar Hero at home.

Ryan and Les would have arrived earlier were it not for Les' Ryoga syndrome. Kei would have arrived earlier if he wasn't caught up at work. Me and Barby had stupid headaches because of the stupid heat. To the rest, sorry I kept the invite list short. I only have a small house and I wouldn't be able to accommodate you all there. But I'll see what I can do next time, since I'm looking at fixing up the back area, too. Well, most WMH gaming was for SR anyway, puro fun games lang kami sa bahay, hehe.

All games were at 500 points, using Steamroller 3 format:

Game 1 Invasion: Kei's Madrak Ironhide victorious over Ryan's Commander Adept Nemo
- Kei won via objective, rushing towards the two control points
- Ryan fought his first HORDES battle; "Ang cheesy mo, Kei! Trollblood Champions pa lang tinitignan ko!"
- Centurion slayed DTM on one go, via massive 5 FOC attacks

Game 2 Divide and Conquer: Ryan's Commander Adept Nemo victorious over Lesther's High Exemplar Kreoss
- Ryan won via victory points at the end of the time limit (1 Knight Exemplar unit, half of the other Knight Exemplar unit, Exemplar Seneschal; Lancer)
- From YM: kreoss stayed behind two light jacks yelling "save me! save me!" in a girly wurly way.LOL

Game 3 No Man's Land: Kim's Old Witch of Khador victorious over Lesther's High Exemplar Kreoss
- Kim won via surgical assassination, combined attacks from Widowmaker snipes, Manhunter charge reduced Kreoss to 1 damage, and being charged by the Old Witch with full 7 FOC
- Snipe death all around!
- Lamentation renders Old Witch spell tactics useless

+++

MY FREEDOM SESSIONS
Fay decided on dropping her Blogspot and go for Multiply instead. She's enjoying herself in New York here.

PRETTY DAMN RANDOM
All this time and I didn't know Binky had a blog!?! Stupid me! FHM couch chick has a lot of random thoughts here.

BUBBLES
Doclance has his own blog now. He's blogging his WARMACHINE exploits, tips and tricks here.

+++ Woohoo! Pretty pics! Got Kei's digicam working so I'll be taking pics more now! You'll see more here from now on. Plus, I changed my blog links into pics of the authors. If you don't see your face there, send me a pic so I can thumbnail it ^_^

A few more days and my Karmic Backstab will be two years old ^_^ Great success!

Pit Fight 2

2007-08-01T14:02:00.000+08:00

Excerpts from the journal of Kyril Nedeljakov, Iron Fang Pikeman:

I now understand. Giving ground to the Trollbloods was just a ruse to lure out the Menoth warcaster Kreoss' forces. The ploy was a success. The forces of the Protectorate was divided. It was wondrous!

The repaired Juggernaut made extremely short work against the enemy Castigator. It cross the field with such speed and swung it's massive axe like it was not made up of soot-covered iron! But what struck it down was what seemed to be an effortless shot from Widowmaker Kapitan Anya, tearing off the Castigator's arm cabling. At the same time, Drakhun Raischev utterly crushed their Revenger. The center field was cleared right then and there, the Menites had no choice but to pull back and reinforce what ground what they had left.

For the Motherland!

500 points Khador scenario: Pit Fight
Kim's Kommandant Irusk victorious over Mang's High Exemplar Kreoss
I won via objective, capturing the center ring. My Juggernaut with Superiority charged at Mang's Castigator and broke it (dealt very heavy damage) on its activation. With one system left from being destroyed, I had my Widowmaker Kapitan under Undying Loyalty and aimed at the Castigator even if the Juggernaut engaged it. Muzzled zing and all, the Menoth heavy jack was destroyed.

The remaining enemy jack, his Revenger, was taken care of by a charging Drakhun under Undying Loyalty with two attacks from Flying Steel.

As a secondary measure, I had Irusk cast Battle Lust on some well-positioned Iron Fang Pikemen, which can finish off the two Menoth warjacks, just in case ^_^

Won the game via objective and Speedmachine boast.

Personal Achievements:
- Bringing down two ARM 19 warjacks in one turn.
- Getting 2nd-turn win with Irusk

Pit Fight

2007-07-31T17:56:00.000+08:00

Excerpts from the journal of Kyril Nedeljakov, Iron Fang Pikeman:

I was flogged today, for questioning the Kommandant's orders. I was punished for my disapproval at our loss earlier at the hands of the trollkin chieftain, Ironhide. But I ask myself, was my discontent not justified? Not only did the Kommandant allow our Juggernaut to be destroyed by the enemy dire troll, but he has ordered retreat when we vastly outnumbered our foes. I was flogged because I made myself heard. There is little room for doubt for whoever serves the Motherland. But I happily accepted my punishment despite my inward search for reason.

Not long after I was unlashed, Iron Fang Kapitan Andreas ordered me to take up arms and drill until dawn. I was indeed honored, for my battle brothers offered to join me, and carry the burden of punishment, even though they were not at fault. Even more so honored was I when Kapitan Andreas himself joined the rank, too.

On the fifth hour, I did notice Kommandant Irusk himself make his regular rounds around camp. He stopped, and observed our pike attack forms, our formations and defense. I remember he only stood there for a moment, but it seemed much longer.

There is no room for doubt nor questions in the hearts and mind of soldiers. There is only undying loyalty and honor in combat. The Kommandant said nothing. But his presence there made me understand everything. My place is not to question my betters. My place is to serve the Motherland. My place is to fight for the Motherland. And if need be, my place is to die for the Motherland.

500 points Khador scenario: Pit Fight
Kei's Madrak Ironhide victorious over Kim's Kommandant Irusk
Kei won by objective, rendering my Juggernaut broken in the middle of the objective area. DTM FTW!
There were bad dice rolls and bad tactics on my part, but whether it's by an inch or a mile, winning's winning. Hat's off to you, dude. You're one of the big boys now. The rest of the boyz will be expecting a lot from you from now on ^_^

Fortune favors the guy at the opposite end of the table
- Missing ALL five attacks (two basic and three from FOC) from MAT 7 Superiority Juggernaut against DEF14 Trollblood Champions

Kim's Gaming place

2007-07-30T10:58:00.001+08:00

HOBBYCRAFT
- Finished painting all five Man-O-War Demolition Corps ~ surfaced with clear gloss and Testor's Dullcote
- Finished painting Man-O-War Drakhun ~ awaiting basework
- Basecoated Ogrun Bokur ~ primed with Mr. Metal and Bosny flat black
- Started painting Doomreavers ~ primed with Mr. Metal and Bosny flourescent flat white; started on flesh work (P3 Midlund Flesh and Citadel Flesh Wash) and some of the red armor (GW Blood Red)
- Continued the terrain corner pieces ~ attached big rocks using wood glue
- Started on 12" diameter hill ~ wood glued 1" thick styrofoam on shaped plasticard (very very hard, even with a scriber); will be borrowing the styrocutter from Arvin; deciding on how much slope to put on the hills
- Assembled Swamp Gobbers, Totem Hunter, Alten Ashley and second Fell Caller for play ~ Greco already dried up (need to buy new bottle)

- I only have one table, but I try to make it pretty with a black cloth and terrain
- I'll be making WMH-compatible terrain, since they work well with 40K and WFB, too.
- Will be working on the woodland terrain as soon as I finish the hills, so only lots of rocky outcropping terrain at home for now
- Borrowed digicam from Kei, hope he remembers to bring the USB cable so I can upload on the computer

GAMING
- Very sluggish Summer Rampage gaming
- Playtesting a lot versus Kei and Trollbloods

Using Epic Vlad (My 2nd 750pt game)
- This guy is awesome even without Assail warjacks
- As long as you can moderate the damage he takes, not only does he bump up on his stats, he gets extra focus, too
- Blood Legacy for the kill ~ Drakhun even without Pegasus mode WILL kill, bounding Manhunter will kill, POW10 + 3d6 rifles on RAT10 Widowmakers will kill
- Render his infantry useless so that his Blood Legacy can't hit many key units
- He'll be camping on FOC for Transference, very annoying

Using Sorscha with heavy Advanced Deployment
- Very nice potential for abuse, unless the opponent goes first and knocks off the Bokur in one go LOL
- Forcing the opponent to engage you, since he can't pretty much run away as well
- Widowmakers, Eiryss and Kell Bailoch to snipe off key opponent solos or unit leaders ~ Already proven their snot worth, sniping off a whole Bile Thrall unit
- AD bash boys ~ Manhunter with Bokur, Doomreavers (sure bring on the Deathjack anytime)
- Crucial positioning with Doomreavers, because of their dumb Abomination ability ~ scared off Kell Bailoch a lot of times because of mispositioning
- Force Sorscha to Icy Gaze early, and hopefully weather the storm
- Feora would pretty much own the AD components with an early feat

Summer Rampage Week 2

2007-07-19T12:51:00.000+08:00

So I'm on the second rung on the ladder. I should try to put in more games for the Summer Rampage but I also want to play some more 40K and WFB (What can I say, I'm bad at selling stuff). I also want to try playing other miniature games like Confrontation and Infinity. Ah well, maybe some other time.

I've gotten the painting bug and have done nothing but paint my minis as soon as I get home. I'll be finishing the two remaining Man-O-War Demolishers by Saturday. Then get to work on the Drakhun. Looks like I'll be playing with a warjack this Saturday after all. And by the look of things, the Shell Shock scenario should play out interestingly.

Stupid me forgot to buy the Ogrun Bokur at Fortress yesterday. I should have gotten it along with the P3 paint loot. I hope Arvin can fix that problem.

New folks are dropping by my humble little Karmic Backstab. Muchas gracias!

Damn. I wanna go home and paint.

+++

127.0.0.1
Kei updated his blog. Check it out here.

(7/20/2007) Evidently I won't be playing any SR games this Saturday. The boyz will be huffing along UPCFA, our old haven, and engage in some cooperative terrain-making stuff with the other boyz there. I guess I can tag along and play some fun games there.

Summer Rampage Week 1

2007-07-16T13:05:00.000+08:00

SUMMER RAMPAGE officially started last Saturday at Hobby Haven. I was up for some games but I was a bit apprehensive because I know I won't perform well in the campaign due to work responsibilities. It's July and it's SONA month. Plus there's some major disagreement in Basilan which had to do with some soldiers being chopped up, literally. So, I'll just prop up some fun lists here and there and give my opponents hell.

I played using Irusk last Saturday. Irusk with a Behemoth. And it was stupid. I know all of you may have different opinions about it, but for me, it was stupid. It was such a points sink. I would have preferred playing with many other models. It did a lot, and was bloody accurate with his twin mortars, but it will be the last time you'll be seeing me play him at 500 points. It's not fun playing with a list wherein you're too forced to do stuff, and that's what happened in my two games last Saturday despite my wins. A Kodiak or a Juggernaut would have been much better.

Since I can't go for Rampages or any such stuff, I'll go for boasts instead. Boasts and bounties. To hell with warjacks. I'm using infantry at 500 and 750. And I'll be bringing ALL my stuff, too. So that I can bring whatever list that I want. That would be more fun for me than using that bloody fatass Behemoth.

SR Game 1: Kim's Kommandant Gurvaldt Irusk victorious over Emp's Pirate Queen Skarre
- MOWDC total the Deathjack on the charge!
- Sniper crew from hell obliterates the whole 6-man Bile Thrall unit
- Inhospitable Ground screws up Emp's diskarte
- Emp concedes, after aggro-ing a Skarre bomb, but short on distance

SR Game 2: Kim's Kommandant Gurvaldt Irusk victorious over Pork's Ashlynn D'Ekysse
- MOWDC waste time by chasing around Eiryss
- Behemoth does very well with twin bombards!
- Kim wins via VP at end of time limit

WTF no boasts or bounties! What lameness! LOL! Until next time, I'll field better then!

WEWILLDOODLETOO

2007-07-15T14:13:00.000+08:00

HEYWASSUPMYNIGGAZINDAHAWZY'ALL?!? You are cordially invited to be a part of the 2nd exhibit of WeeWillDoodle!

Featuring:
- All new original art from the WWD gang!
- Collabs with other great artists, friends, my lola and my yaya!
- Great myuzik!
- Cool stuff you can buy (Hint! Hint!)

Join us and unleash the raw power of your imagination (tsaka ansarap ang amoy ng markers! Masaya yon)!

July 20, 2007. 7 PM at the Fart Gallery K1 corner Kd streets Kamuning, QC

With ambient noise supplied by: Electronica Manila! Project Fusion! The Red Hot Chili Peppers (joke lang yung huli)

Come bwisit us online at
weewilldoddle.blogspot.com
weewilldoddle.multiply.com

Pass It Forward

2007-07-11T19:45:00.000+08:00

- My laundry bill was 300 Php so I paid with a 500-peso bill. While they had it changed, the manang there (yeah I've been a client of that laundromat for years and I STILL don't know their names) shared a sob story of sorts. It seemed that her nephew got into an incident with some stranger's dog (scratched the child's face). The poor kid had to go to several sessions with the doctor which basically cost around 1,200 Php per session; which had to run for five sessions. And the dog's owner evidently had the nerve NOT to give for the child's treatment. When my change finally arrived, I just handed it over to the manang, just to help out with whatever. She was happy about it so it's all good. Good deed for the day, yeah?

- Found out that there's a Smokey's hotdog stand in the canteen now! Spent over 100 Php for two sandwiches today (had a late lunch) but for sure I'll be a regular there.

- Found a use for the broken CDs at home. They're now scenic bases. Hey, if people don't mind models on round bases, surely only asses would mind my scenic bases on perfectly round CDs. Painted them following the same base scheme as my Khador army -- greys to tipped white, with patches of green grass and white snow. Barby helped, too, made one. As of last night, I have four Rocky Outcropping terrain pieces, and a Ruined Corner terrain piece; all complete and ready for gaming. Will be finishing that Khador Outpost project soon, plus three more Ruined Corners. Am also looking into how to make Woods.

- Assembled and basecoated my Drakhun. Also reassembled my Behemoth. Hopefully I can include them in the upcoming Summer Rampage campaign. I'll be painting it up later when I get home, which should be done before the weekend.

- Tried my hand at making an SQL database for WARMACHINE Philippines. My co-worker and our resident programmer, Randy Valencia, has been a TREMENDOUS help in this undertaking. I've already studied up on the basic PHP stuff, but I feel I should learn database interaction through an expert. Which I did. Kim = happy developer ^_^

Diablo 2

2007-07-02T21:02:00.000+08:00

I've been playing Diablo 2 for quite some time now. Going back to old school games like this has been pleasant. I went for a Necromancer who excels in summoning. Instead of wading into combat like other characters, I stood back and let my minions do the work. To compliment the whole thing, I set up my character with Topaz-slotted items, so that I get nifty item drops. Like I said, it has been pleasant.

Until I had to fight Diablo.

Bastard breaks all my minions easy with that blasted ring of fire EVERY TIME! I port back down to previous acts just to build up my Skeleton Warriors only to have them obliterated faster than I can bat an eyelash when Diablo engages them. Indeed, an exercise in futility.

My tactic then would have to level up before going against him; adding more points on Resist or Golem Mastery (just so the Golems can get to hit him before evaporating). But at level 34, that's goddamn hard.

Good thing Kei talked me into the Zeal-build Paladin (Zealadin to some), where a fast-attacking Paladin would plow through wave after wave of beasties. I just started the Paladin earlier. Now I'm at 13th-level with Zeal. And yeah, I can't wait to get back to Diablo.

No Title

2007-06-24T19:42:00.000+08:00

- Haven't blogged in a while, so I'm blogging now.

- Won the first official tournament of WARMACHINE/HORDES in the country ~ got me a nifty WARMACHINE shirt (and it fits me, too), redemption for gold cards of the list I used (hope I get those soon), the best faction coin for Khador, and of course the coin for Tournament Champion. Kim = happy gamer ^_^

- Just saw Marian Rivera on Showbiz Central. She got picked to play Marimar. Psh, I don't care what anyone says, she's damn f*ckin' hot! So hot I might just blog the damn telenovela. Yeah, I'd watch it just because she's there.

- Been fiddling around digital painting with Photoshop CS.

- Started D&D campaign at home. Just finished a refresher session. Hopefully the succeeding ones will be better.

- Barby's been doing some major cleaning at home. Kim = happy bf ^_^

- Sir Joe gave me a small doll set from Russia, the ones that split in half to reveal smaller dolls inside (I dunno what they call that).

- Been looking at Confrontation. Anyone want to game with me? Heck, I'll play this with you, just say so. We can order stuff from wherever ^_^

- Had my Hordes Primal hardbound for P150. I had to. Some people just don't know how to take care of their books.

- The Juggernaut is now my favorite warjack. Especially with Irusk. It's cheap. It still has a lot of damage boxes on its grid. It's still ARM 20. And it has a nice POW19 axe that freezes things.

- Been able to watch Roxanne Guinoo more often now, since Barby is more Kapamilya than Kapuso. Yeah, some people just have that effect on you. You get relaxed just by watching them.

- On a similar note about lovely Roxanne Guinoo, someone ordered that the White Castle billboard of her on EDSA be taken down and replaced. Boo!

- Got my old big pair of Phat Farm shorts back. Yeah, good times!

- Been downloading a lot of Akari Yamazaki, Maria Ozawa and Saori Nanami. Send them over please. Anything. Pics, vids. Anything! ^_^

- Gaming table now playable at home. Terrain contributions appreciated, too ^_^

RHGC Gamesday

2007-06-12T09:55:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was the largest gathering by far at RHGC HQ, catering to several game systems - Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40,000, Warmachine, Hordes and World of Warcraft CCG!

I got to play WFB using Lito's Tomb Kings. Looking back, my selection of units was inappropriate. Scenarios for the Nemesis Crown campaign were used, and most of them favored direct assaults as opposed to the protracted Pitched Battles. I should not have used a shooty Tomb Kings configuration. Not only were the other armies real bash monsters, but a shooty TK army can be outshot by a shooty High Elves army.

Ah well, just proves the point that GW is directing WFB into a more bash-oriented game. KDL or VC will definitely be good choices.

I would have played in the WMH games. Evidently my body could not handle the heat and the sleep deprivation. So with WMH, I sat that one out. As with the rest of the games later on.

Luigi did arrive, along with some much-awaited loot! Doom Reavers! I'll put those together and see how they play very soon.

All other hobby projects on hold. Sleep deprivation ruins my painting.

For the coin!

2007-05-28T16:42:00.000+08:00

Well, I can't say I did my best on that last Total War 2 tourney because I lost my last game against Carlos. I blame no one else but myself for that loss, and it was because I did not follow one of the prime rules of war - to know thy enemy.

There stood my warcaster, confident that her feat can freeze up all of the Temple Flameguard in front of her. Then I learned right then and there that they have an ability which prevents them from being frozen. Like what I posted on the other forums, it does seem stupid for me to buy the rulebooks but rarely get to read them.

I can say I may have been too complacent, or too worried of domestic issues, or just plain too tired. Or all of the above. I'll just charge it to experience and do better next time. It was such a dumb way to lose.

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I took a break at the Howling Griffons painting project and started to make a Khadoran outpost instead. Barby helped me so it's really cool and sweet of her. It's very much like Alfonso Falco's Khadoran outpost in the No Quarter issue 3, but I left the roof off so I can place models on top of it (cough... cough... Widowmakers... cough). Then I realized there're some rule discrepancies with elevated models and such. I already posted a query about that on the local RHGC forums. Hopefully I get an answer that clarifies things before I continue.

Painting Competition: The Underpaid and Overworked

2007-05-24T15:46:00.000+08:00

From Arvin on RHGC:

The backbone of any battleforce is made up of the underappreciated trooper. To showcase these normally overlooked units, we will hold a painting competition featuring units only from the Troops and Core choices. A player may enter one(1) unit from either the Troops selection for 40K or a Core choice from WFB. Vehicles, Terminators, charoits, warmachines, monsters and diorama entrees are not eligible.

Further details TBA

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I've decided to enter this competition with a five-man squad of renegade Howling Griffons. The fluff behind that is that this particular company fell to pride and vanity, discarding the ideals of the strict Howling Griffons and turning to Chaos, applying their martial prowess and taking extreme pride with their victories.

BASEWORK

I have skimmed through several White Dwarf magazines and have settled on taking a different approach to basework - urban-themed bases. I have already started with the five bases which I'll mount the models on.

1. I superglued five slotted bases on a used Globe callcard, making sure I glued the bases on the back of the callcard (the one with the silver rub-off part). This is so that I can get the smooth surface for the base. I also used Greco as my adhesive (a new favorite, no more Loctite or Bulldog for me).

2. After a few minutes and making sure the superglue had already dried, I carefully cut the bases with the callcard surface using a utility cutter. I had originally planned to sand off the rough edges with a rotary tool, but going at them again with the cutter worked fine, too.

3. For added texture on the base surface, I sliced several thin strips of plasticard and some paperclips. I also glued on an old resin Terminator arm (or what's left if it).

4. After all the glue has set, I spraybombed the five bases with Bosny Flat Black.

Sorry, no WIP pics. Will post what progress I can make tonight. Seventeen more days until submission.