January 03, 2013

Holiday Recap / 2013 Start

Holy crap, I can't believe that it's the year 2013. What the hell happened to time? I remember being a kid and watching movies like Transformers and thinking "2005, that's so far away!" Maybe I'm just getting old(er) and starting to wondering what I've been doing with my life. Regardless, 2012 was mostly good, with some unpleasantness occasionally thrown in to mess it up. Not unlike most everyone else's I'd imagine.

Overall I can't complain too loudly. It's a New Year full of promise, just like every new day should be.

I won't be doing a full recap of the year, because well...that'll probably be boring for me and you. All the hobby stuff I did last year is available right here on the blog, so you can go through it at your leisure. I'd rather fill you in on all the stuff that's happened over my winter break! We'll just skip the parts about the exorbitant traffic ticket I got from less-than-honorable traffic cop, and my washer/dryer vomiting water all over the place shall we?

Firstly, I picked up a sizeable Sebeki army for Wargods of Aegyptus from Brett, as well as a hardcover rule book. The army will need some painting and assembly but they're pretty spiffy models. I've got a bunch of reading to do before I decide on a second army to buy. I'm leaning toward the Anubi because I like how they look. Sadly he couldn't find the action counters, so I'm trying to find a nice looking set of those somewhere. I finally have an excuse to build some kick-ass desert / Egyptian tabletop scenery!

The week before Christmas was a (mostly) good one! My first box of Dreadball stuff arrived in time to play a few games. Included in my striker box was the base game components (board, dice, tokens, cards and team sheets), one of each of the season 1 teams (Corporation, Orks/Goblins, Forge Fathers and Veer-myn), 48 clear hex bases, a set of the kickstarter acrylic tokens, Coach Renton and eight of the MVP figures.

I started cleaning up the models and overall I think the team figures are very nice. There a fair amount of moulding lines that need cleaned up, which will take a while. I've planned to paint my Corporation team first as that's the team I'll be playing in the Jan/Feb league. I'll be running the casual league at Trilogy Gaming Club and we're starting pre-season games this coming Sunday.

The package also included a list of "Stuff to come in 2013," but the Battlefoam bag I'd added to my pledge wasn't listed anywhere. It showed up on the 27th, which is the first day of postal service here after Christmas. It's not the bag I thought it was, but it's not bad. In retrospect I think I'd have rather ordered a PACK 432 with generic load out. I'll have to reserve final judgement until I test it out.

The same day as my washing machine mishap occurred, my massive box of Carnevale goodness arrived! This was the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink box from their recent IndieGoGo campaign to fund their Mograur-Rashaar monster figure. There were dozens of models in this box, along with lots of metal bases to mount them all on. I really only had time to go through the box to figure out what all was inside. It was a pretty glorious collection of stuff. Take a look...


There are so many figures here than I'm not sure where to start. Maybe I'll actually read some of the fluff from the lovely looking rulebook. Like most of my other games I'd like to get two starter boxes painted up so that I can play a few games with a friend. Of course we could play unpainted, but that just feels so wrong!

Like a lot of people doing miniature gaming, I started off with 40k. That also meant that my figure paints were from a Citadel starter set. I still have some of those paints, or have used them up and replaced them with new pots from their current line. However, with the constant price increases, changes to the pots (they don't click open anymore?), or changes to the line (where did my basic inks go?!) I've started switching.

My first new paints were Privateer Press' Formula P3. I like the consistency of the paint itself, it covers nicely, the containers seal very well and they're easy to shake without worry of them flying from my hand. A friend of mine used to be a large collector of Warmachine, but no longer plays or paints, and so has sold me his entire collection of paint, as well as some brushes, matte finish spray, superglue accelerant and grey primer.

I already had seven or eight pots of P3 paint, but only two of them are in this case. There were 47 pots in there, half of which have never been opened. I've already cleaned up and saved the very small few that were in need of it. It's much appreciated, and I can't wait to start painting again this year!

For Christmas we headed out to my parents' place. I usually bring a few games, but more often than not they don't really get played much, if at all. My dad is especially tough to convince into a game, but this year we played three full games of Ticket to Ride. I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that he loves trains, but after the second game he collected up his pieces and asked "So, are we going to play again?"

Naturally I got some great gifts for Christmas, one of which was a shiny new hobby lamp from my girl! I've been using a little desk lamp from Ikea which works well enough, but now that I have a proper lamp, I can see just how inadequate it really was. My desk is a total mess at the moment, and the Lycaon faction for Empire of the Dead is still sitting there, but now that the holidays are over I can't wait to get them finished and start on my Dreadball team. I'll take a picture of it after I get it all sorted out properly again.

Lastly I finally ordered up the Mega Paint Set from Army Painter. I also grabbed a can of plate metal spray primer and a few board games, all from www.starlitcitadel.com (top notch store by the way!). They arrived on NYE but I didn't have time to look them over until yesterday.


Having already picked up over a dozen bottles of these paints I knew what to expect. I did have to go through all the bottles and clean up a little leakage and tighten the caps when I closed them. Not very surprising given the traveling they've like done, and the leakage was minimal. Between these and my new P3 paints, I hope to not need any paint for quite a long time!

I'll save the board game talk for another day after I've actually had a chance to play them.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2013 is a good one for you all.

2 comments:

Simon Quinton said...

Sweet lots of toys to looks forward to and get painted then. I sometime pick up the old citadel paints off ebay when they ar going cheap, I have got some of the new GW ones yesterday as its more convenient to just drop in and fetch them I used one or two last night and they aren't as bad as what people are saying time will tell on the new pot shapes.

Obsidian3D said...

I still think the GW paints are good, but the lids don't have the little tab on them that kept the lid upright. If I can't get my brush into the pot, either to put onto a palette or paint directly, without holding the pot open I'm simply not going to use it.

It's also my opinion that the range is too big. I think the size of the Army Painter range is perfect, and I can supplement it with P3 or by mixing colours as needed.

I also think that the lids were purposefully redesigned to drip more paint...but that's probably just the conspiracy theorist in me!