Warmachine and Dust Bunnies

Hi Kids,  Super B (aka Bryan) and I decided to get some of the lead out last Sunday, and the perfect game for us (due to ease of play, ease of transportation, ease of terrain, and ease of dice) was WARMACHINE!  Yes, they tell us we can't just type Warmachine. Its gotta be all capitals.  And who am I to argue? I don't agree with Check Your Six! either.  Why not just use Check Your Six without the exclamation point?  Go figure. Anyway, turns out we had a free afternoon so I headed over to Wargames West (aka Super B's house) in Elkin NC for some weight lifting. With Khador, it can be a lotta weight!

 I'm the first to admit these pictures suck, they were taken with a ten year old cellphone since I forgot to bring along my camera.  Bummer, huh?  So this is the army I choose; Scorcha (as we pronounce it), a Jugg, a Destroyer, a Demolisher, a Behemoth and a Kovnik. Had to use my gal Scorcha, that mini is the only reason I bought into this freakin' game at all!  (When this game first came out the only way to get her around here was to buy an army starter of her and two jacks. I thought the Khador jacks looked silly, but after six months gave in and had to have Scorcha!  Anyway, the jacks grew on me and I ended up buying about $1000 of PP stuff.  Last thing I bought was a Khador Colossus for $100!) This was the baptism of fire for my Behemoth, it's been sitting in the basement for about 5 years, the last one or two painted.  Yes, I know those are the wrong guns on the Behemoth. He came without them, and PP wanted about $18.00 shipping to replace them, so I just got some guns that were lying around and made do.



Here we have a shot of the final moments of the game, when my opponent's warcaster got body slammed by the Demolisher and about 3 bombard shots.  You can see the Demo's path of destruction through the unit of infantry. Huzzah!!! Remember there are only two rules in life; 1: Never get between a hippo and the river, and 2: Never get within 7.5 inches of a Khador jack!

Here we have a similar shot of the end of the second game, where my opponent's warcaster got crushed by the Jugg.  Cowabunga!!!

Turns out Warmachine (yeah, I'm a rebel, no caps!) wasn't that easy to transport as three of my jacks were broken in transit, and not so easy to play due to some cards I lost.  And as far as ease of dice, I doubt if Super B would agree on that score.  (I already checked, PP wants $9.83 shipping to replace the $1.50 worth of missing cards!  Sheesh!  Wonder what their profit margin might be...)  I'm gonna have to search the Basement of Heaped Minis for the damn things!

Privateer Press Customer Service for the Win.

Earlier in the month a group of the Basement of Heaped Miniature regulars made the trip to Atomic Empires in Durham for Cauldron 2014 with the Triangle Sim Society. I have a couple of posts about the day that I need to finish. While at the shop I took advantage and picked up some miniatures.

One was a Cygnar Squire model. I should have looked closer but when I opened it at home it was missing a leg. A call to Privateer Press' customer service and a short time later the leg arrived. I want to thank the fellows at Privateer press for a quick response and quicker service.

ColKG

Atomic Empire: a Game and Comic Store in Durham, NC

 Hi Kids, although I hesitate to call this place local being 75 miles from home, I think its worth reporting just cause it has a ton of cool stuff for sale.  It's on Westgate Road, just off Biz 15/501, about 3 miles north of I-40.  Just out of sheer dumb luck there was a War$ Fantasy tournament going on the day I turned up.

 Some of the armies were funkier than expected.  Fuzzballs with eyes?  I think they look pretty damn cool, but they don't call me king of the proxies for nuthin.  Your mileage may vary.

 Unpainted figs?  This is North Carolina.  Painted armies are crazy rare.  Just ask anybody.

 That's a pretty honkin' big unit of orks.  As Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all its own."  And I'm sure Uncle Joe would approve GW's business plan and price points!  (Yeah, yeah, I know...   its a cheap shot.  So purge me.)

 A big pile of loaner games.

 Gaming space?  Oh yeah, a great big yeah.  They even have a snack bar.

 A rack of used and/or discounted stuff.  You don't see "Blood Berets" or "Psiworld" everyday!

Most of the racks were this steel variety, great for displaying stuff, but looks strange in pictures.  Where does one rack end and the one behind it start?  Flames of War looks to be a big seller.

Variety is the spice of life, here we have Infinity, Bolt Action, and Malifaux all in 12 feet of shelves.  Somewhere in there is a few feet of Battletech minis.  When was the last time you saw Battletech on the shelf?  It's been awhile for me.  They stock a couple different lines of paint also.

Looking down the GW 40K row.

GW War$ Fantasy.  Overall GW has about 24 feet of these racks.

Reaper has about 12 feet of display space.  Hooks are pretty deep with stuff!  They are even arranged by numerical order!  How crazy is that?

Warmachine and Hordes, at least 8 feet of it.

RGP's.

X-Wing and Star Trek.

Plastic minis, I think Wargames Factory.

Bolt Action (aka Satan's Rules).  For those gamers too wimpy to handle "Disposable Heroes," The Best WW2 Rules Ever!  And other stuff, too.  How often have you seen TSR's (ex-SPI) "Firefight?"

A few shots of Euro Games.

Privateer Press a-go-go!

Dust and that new 25mm action from Dystopia Wars.  I'm really curious what the new owners will do with Dust, I think the idea, artwork, and figs are all pretty honkin' cool, but so far the rules have left me cold.  If they can come up with something in an anti-Bolt Action vein we might be able to do some gaming!

Score one for the Chuckster! Wargames Illustrated Oct 2013!  The store 62 miles from home (Parker, Banner, Kent and Wayne) was sold out, but I got lucky and bought the last copy at Atomic Empires!  WoooooHoooooo!  I've been jonesin' to check out the Arab-Israeli stuff in this issue.  You're damn skippy that I already have some of the tanks and infantry painted up ready to go!  In fact, I blogged about it awhile back.

Cygnar reinforcements

It seems that Warmachine may be coming back around. Some of the guys over at Gaming Underground have stated an interest in learning the game. It has been two or three years since I played so I will be learning the game also.

This will be my second squad of Gun mages and my second Sentinel warjack. I already have a Gun mage Captain that lets me field more units of Gun mages, thus a second unit.

The Sentinel is just too cool not to have two and has a great double duty a a steam contraption for Victorian Science Fiction gaming.

ColKG

Spring Fever 2013 AAR Part 2

Hi Kids, Here we have the second and final installment of pix from last weekend's local Raleigh NC con.  All TRUE gamers make it there!  Unless it conflicts with Cold Wars...  @*#$&@(#*@%&*!!!

 Anyway, on to the show.....   Here's a shot of Dystopia Wars, the awesome game from Spartan!  That's black mass in the center is a steam powered heli-carrier!  What could be cooler than that? TWO steam powered heli-carriers!  Sgt. Fury would be proud!

 The sister game, Firestorm Armada!  Cruisers a-go-go out in deep space.  As opposed to shallow space.

 One of the 40K armies looks mean!  I shudder to think how long it took to paint the details of those funny looking birds.  Bet they're angry, too!

 Back to the Warmachine tournament, run by the local PP group the Gunbunnies!  That looks like a Circle Colossal from the Hordes sister game.  I wonder if Kafka could sue, after all weren't Golems his idea in the first place?

 These things are in such high demand the factory is kicking them out with just a splash of primer!  Shades of Stalingrad, so you could argue its historically accurate!

 When you absolutely positively gotta kill every @($&(*^@!! in the room!

 Ahhhh, there's my baby!  I bought one of these Khador Colossals!  Mine is still in the box, though.  Judging how long it took to build a normal sized jack, its gonna stay in there for awhile.

 Big, bad, and out of control!

 Brace yourselves race fans!  Yesterday's "Formula De" race was just the warm up for Team Ellis' Saturday night hoot:  McGartland Racing card game!

 Can't have a con without Gnome Wars!

 World famous John plots to take over the landscape in "To Reign In Spain," a middle-ages multiplayer struggle for control of Spain.

 More Gnomes, more better!  Maybe these are Prussian.

 Lord of the Rings Helm's Deep battle.

And from the other side of the fence.  Not much greener over here.  We need more guys!

 World famous Curtis left his Macross game in SC to run some Cowboy action shooting!

 The starting positions of the Nascar race.  That's me in the Danica racecar second to last, while the guy running the game's relatives were 1 and 3.  Hmmmmmm......... Yes, its rigged. We all know it but we play anyway.  Things would get worse before they got better, Team Ellis guaranteed!

And here we have the finishing positions.  That's me in second place, after fighting through the mob three times!  I documented all the shabby underhanded tricks the others pulled, but still managed to claw my way past them!  Only one cheating SOB still ahead of me!  Why yes, he is the son of the guy running the game.....  And some people still doubt the existence of Team Ellis.  I bet they turn a blind eye to Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, too.  And Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.  Go figure.

 Action heating up at Helm's Deep.

 Leviathan, a new game available from Wargames Factory. Looks really cool!  And everything comes already painted!

 The Hobbit? Lord of the Rings?  These guys are too tall to be gnomes.....

 The wide view.  Those orcs look like they have the standards of the White Hand, so it must be the Fighting Uruk-hai!  Saruman is once again ruining the neighborhood.

The close up.  LOTR has some great minis, but they are so different in overall size I just couldn't get into them.  Every now and then I get tempted by their Wargs, but I continue to resist.

And that's it for this con report!  Hated to miss Cold Wars but once they move it further south I'm sure the bad weather will no longer be a factor!  I heard next year it's going to be in Richmond.  Yes, I'm joking.  More's the pity.