Back in Action

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Mistergone

After making my own custom miniature (my daughter, born on September 18th!), I’ve been out of commission for blogging purposes. But now I’m working my way back into action! So let’s see a few things I’ve had time for.

First, I’ve been putting together some bits from Scibor to decorate my Land Raider Achilles. These beautiful pieces are decorated with the Grim Reaper, complementing the commander who rides in the Land Raider, Captain Tharsis the Grim. Here are some photos…

I had to cut a big hole in the side of the Land Raider first:

Then I placed the (50mm square) reaper plate in the hole (this is the opposite side from the previous photo).

I glued sprues across the back, providing both a glue point and a way to keep the plates basically straight:

Here’s a shot of the Land Raider sides and top (with additional reaper plates, which did not require cutting big holes in the Land Raider):

Of course, I need to put some Green Stuff borders around the big plates – there are big gaps (neither my knife nor Scibor’s plates were perfect) and the plates obviously don’t match the contours of the tank. I debated cutting the back corners of the big reaper plates to match the angle of the back of the Land Raider – that might have looked better, but I think framing the square plates will look good.

If I did this again, I would consider trimming off the “background” of each reaper image and rounding the sides and bottoms of the plates. This might make them stand out, kind of like statues more than engravings. Then I could just smooth down the Land Raider and glue the “statues” to the sides. That might fit onto the tank better. Still, cutting out the plastic means the plates sit into the sides of the tank, rather than sticking out of the sides. I do think a clean border around the “plates” will look great… all I need to do is be skilled with my sculpting!

Second, I worked on two more Captains for my Space Marine army. I’m pretty keen on heavily customized Captains… and when I run out of Captains, I’ll do Honor Guard. And when I run out of Honor Guard, my sergeants are going to start looking real good.

Introducing Atlan the Doughty, Captain of the Immortals (1st Company)…

Atlan is a Scibor body (looks kind of like an Adeptus Custodes to me!) with Scibor shoulders and Grey Knight Terminator arms. He is “counts as” Vulkan He’stan, so that’s artificer armor, a relic blade, and a heavy flamer.

Alongside him is Ptolomaeus the Unyielding, Captain of the 3rd Company…

Captain Ptolomaeus is blurry, but he’s basically a Force Commander kit with some Green stuff on his legs and arms from Sanguinary Guard. I love the Sanguinary Guard bits, so you’ll see them scattered around as I work my way through the box. I also did some work to add wings to his helmet, which doesn’t look great here. He needs a bit more work, but he has artificer armor, a power sword, and a plasma pistol (and he “counts as” Cato Sicarius).

Clearly, I need to take better pictures, but I don’t have an ideal setup right now…

And… I should really be painting, but uh… I avoid painting like the plague. I think my fear that my painting isn’t good prevents me from painting, which means I don’t get practice, which means I don’t get better. I just need to sit down and do it… but I haven’t yet!

Thanks for reading – more to come soon!

Posted in Modelling, Warhammer 40k | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Give SvB a +1 Bonus

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Mistergone

I’ve integrated Google’s “+1″ doodad along with Twitter and Facebook sharing buttons to make it easier to inform your friends that you’re a huge dork! You can “share” the main page or individual posts – so enjoy that feature, bub!

Now, More About Power Cards…

The Warhammer 40k game is fun, but its rules are not organized well in current rulebooks. (I hear the 6th edition rulebook will be well-organized.) Thus, teaching a new player can be a pain. But… what if there were handy cards to hand the new player as a reference?

Of course, the default Magic card style isn’t really great for 40k stats, is it? It could work a little better for special abilities like psychic powers…

That’s a little better, but it doesn’t help us remember the WS of an Ork Loota. What if someone were to make a template that could easily display 40k character stats, vehicle stats, weapon stats or special rules so we could reference them easily during the game?

The templates aren’t done yet, but the first one (for infantry, characters and other things with wounds) came out very nicely. I’ll still need to finish a vehicle (possibly also a walker) template, a weapon template (with room for their rules) and two ‘generic’ templates (one with an image slot and a text box, and one that’s just a big text box).

Remember folks, Gamer + Graphic Designer + Programmer = Super Nerd… and I am that Super Nerd.

Posted in Site News, Warhammer 40k | Leave a comment

Vampire: The MinMax-querade

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Mistergone

Wow, that is a really lame title for this entry. I was going to call it “The Blood Is the Life,” but I like this one better. Anyway, this article is about the new Vampire class in Dungeons & Dragons.

When Heroes of Shadow came out, I flipped through it, noticed the “Vampire” class and thought, “What the what now?” But I quickly became used to the idea of “Vampire” as a character class. After all, anyone of any race can become a vampire, and “vampire” defines the powers and abilities of the character. And, if you want to play a Vampire Paladin or something, there are still reasonable ways to accomplish that (like the Vampire heritage feat, or hybrid Vampire, which has playtest rules).

The Vampire class is weird, though. It’s an implement user – ki focuses and holy symbols, for some reason. It’s an “Essentials” class, so it doesn’t have the power choices of the Player’s Handbook classes. But you do get to drink blood (basically), turn into a bat (if you want to) and generally be creepy and lurk in the shadows. Fun times!

I decided, then, that I would play a Vampire when the opportunity came up in our Living Forgotten Realms game. I was making this character at 11th level so, while I didn’t have any choices of encounter powers or daily powers (the Vampire class has set powers and few choices), I would need to pick 7 feats, some magical gear and stuff like that. Intrepid explorer that I am, I went to the internet to find recommendations for Vampire choices.

Now, I am not really a min-maxing guy, but I like a little optimization, I like combos, and I like to contribute effectively to my party’s success. So, I try to make characters who can hold their own when the chips are down and the solo is doing a burst 5 that dazes.

And that is how I found out that the internet hates the Vampire class. From the character optimization forum at wizards.com to the various reviews of the class around the net, everyone was coming down hard on the Vampire. It made me sad. It also made me double down on my Vampire – I was going to find a way to make this guy work.

“I Vant to Optimize Your DPR.” Continue reading →

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons | Leave a comment

The Magic Set Editor and You

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Mistergone

The last two posts have used the Magic Set Editor for “visual enhancement.” Now, let’s talk about what that is…

The Magic Set Editor is software aimed originally at creating custom cards for the Magic: The Gathering card game. The site also has templates for Yu-Gi-Oh!, VS, L5R, Innovation, and many other games. Another fellow, “Ander00″, created a nice template for 4e features and powers (check out the thread on enworld.org).

But, even without downloading and installing the Anders set, the MSE can do some great things for you. I had used the Anders template before the Character Builder duplicated its functionality, but until recently, I hadn’t thought of what else the MSE could do for me.

One thing I always feel is lacking in most D&D games (and which leads to players being more easily distracted) is the lack of visual stimulus. While players might have an idea of what their own character looks like, in their mind’s eye, the other characters in the party don’t have faces, and are probably just tied to the player who plays them.

Drow vs. Bruce

But it doesn’t stop with what other PCs look like. You’re swinging around that +6 holy avenger, an artifact in its own right – what does it look like? What style is your armor? What physical qualities does that key NPC have? Certainly, D&D is a game centered on imagination, but grown-ups have to work all day and take care of adult stuff  - by the time we get to the D&D table, we’re a little too tired to play pretend sometimes.

Well, MSE can’t fix all your problems, but it can certainly provide you with some visual stimulus. Let’s start where I started – key NPC cards! For those recurring NPCs – good or evil – it’s not a bad idea at all to give the players a visual reference. And, instead of turning your laptop around to show them the picture every time, why not make a little “Magic” card of the NPC?

Now This Gets Image-Heavy… Continue reading →

Posted in Board Games, Dungeon Mastering, Dungeons & Dragons | Leave a comment

Behold the Blessing of Anyanna!

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Mistergone

In my previous article, I talked about Convocations as a magic item idea for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons games. In this post, I’m just going to talk about the Blessing of Anyanna Convocation I just introduced to my Dark Sun campaign. For more information about my Dark Sun campaign, check out the blog The Light of a Dark Sun, which has been discussed on this site earlier.

So, in the Light of a Dark Sun campaign, the characters have been introduced to the idea of a divine god existing and wishing to heal the world. All the characters are members of the Veiled Alliance, so they’ve heard stories of Dark Sun’s green past. But not all the characters are convinced this goddess, Anyanna, is real (and rightfully so). One of them, however, is a devout follower.

After the only priestess of Anyanna cured them of a zombie disease, the player characters gained access to a power called “The Blessing of Anyanna.” They can only use this power if they are Good-aligned and their character has faith in Anyanna, which (as of last game) only one of them claims. Here’s the power card for Blessing of Anyanna:

I know what you’re saying – “A deck of cards? How gimmicky.” Or maybe you’re not saying that. But most of my players are folks who love card and board games, so I think it fits their pre-existing interests.

The deck of cards also gives me a chance to add some more flavor and visual appeal to the game. I whipped out the “Magic Set Editor” software (which I’ll explore in yet another post) and slapped together some cards for the Blessing of Anyanna deck. I’m super-pleased with them:

Continue reading →

Posted in Dungeon Mastering, Dungeons & Dragons | 3 Comments