State of the Blog Address (2019 in Review)

I have to say that this year passed by quickly!  It's basically a blog tradition that I go over what I did and didn't accomplish over the past 12 months and this year is yet again a bit of a mixed bag.  I'm the traditional hobby front, 2019 wasn't unfortunately much different than the prior year.  I managed to finish what I thought would be my final Winged Hussar (link here) as well as four figs for basically the same rpg character idea.  Why so many?  Well, the character changed as well as my ideas of how to portray him.   The first fig (link here) was printed on shapeways for a previous defunct campaign attempt whereas the others were done at home on my only big hobby project purchase, the Elegoo Mars 3d printer.

I had previously thought I was done with my hussar project but the upcoming release of Master Lazarus for 40k as well as a free 3d model from Artel W might convince me to dip my toes back into that pool later this year.  In the meantime, I've taken a stab at samurai inspired space marines instead with some success (link here) that I have yet to paint as well as a Space Wolf that at least I finished (link here).

Too big...too small...just right!

On the Star Trek front, I made a few entries to my SHIELD UP! house rules section.  While I didn't end up revising my Fasa STSTCS ship manual, I revised the existing D-15 FASA ship (link here) as well as added the Atlas dreadnought to my STA house rules (link here).  I also decided to test out a theory regarding whether you could noticeably improve prepainted heroclix minis with a quick wash and/or drybrush (link here).    Finally, I  came up with some more nuanced rules for playing STA in the Enterprise/NX era of trek (link here).  In that same update, I previewed a 3d version of my old NXL ship design which later got a test print or two (link here) but I never did more with them.  It's not alot but I suppose an optimistic way to look at it would be that I put out at least quarterly trek updates if averaged out for the year.  I don't have any ambitious plans for the trek side of the hobby but I do hope to revisit printing my NXL design now that I'm more experienced with supporting prints as well as coming out with a short Klingon D-7 update for FASA.  I generally need a direct motivation for my hobby work and the lack of any real chance of playing anything trek related locally unfortunately hampers that.

 Cactus Trek!

Ending the recap on a positive note, I was finally able to find a relatively stable rpg group this past year.  While I'm not enamored particularly with the ruleset (review link), it works for me as a player and we've been managing a monthly game since the summer.  It's because of that campaign that I've been focused more on my Krogan miniatures than the others.  I'd love it if we were playing longer than the 3-4 hours per session we average as well as playing every two weeks as originally planned instead of monthly but it's a good group of easy going players and I'm glad to have them.  With that, my yearly TL;DR hobby therapy session post is over and I wish everyone a happy 2020!

 

Another upcoming Krogan RPG character mini!

State of the Blog Address (2018 in review)

Well, another year has gone by and so it's time for another year in review post.  I'll start with what amounted to the majority of progress on my blog... digital hobby publishing.  Starting with Star Trek tabletop gaming, I worked on over a dozen sheets under my SHIELDS UP! house rules (link here) divided up between the current Star Trek Adventures RPG by Modiphius and the classic FASA Starship Combat games.  This is where the bulk of my updates are for 2018 and, while I myself haven't tried any of them out in actual games, some other players have reported using my fan ship designs in their own campaigns.

Additionally, I tried my hand at some very basic programming and developed some custom ships (link here) for the fan made computer game version of the classic FASA game along with a tutorial for getting it all working (link here).  All in all, I'd say that I was significantly more productive in that virtual realm compared with typical tabletop hobby work albeit with almost no difference in the "games played" metric described above (excluding single player missions).

When it comes to actual hands on traditional hobby work, I frankly didn't accomplish much.  In 2018, the only miniatures that I worked on were the painted Winged Hussar pictured in the center below and another converted/built yet to be painted.  I had hoped to finish off a half painted Tau broadside suit conversion I worked on a few years ago but never got around to it. 

I hope to do better next year but realistically I said the same thing last year in my previous review so I won't hold my breath.  While I did visit the local games store a bit more in 2018 for RPG reasons, I only ended up playing a single miniatures game after an RPG session.  That definitely puts a damper on any larger hobby plans leaving me with the occasional conversion project (like my RAFM minis or Winged Hussars).  In the next month, I do plan on painting some of my 3D printed figures as part of the last phase of my review of them.

Next we have a mix of the two categories above in my Shapeways miniatures printing.  I relearned by brute force trial and error how to pose and modify existing models (although actual modelling is still far beyond my grasp) and mostly successfully printed out physical miniatures.  I did hear back from Shapeways about the misprint in my order and am awaiting my reorder of tweaked figures.  I do plan on covering the reprints as well as painting up several of the figures for use as well.  If time and budget allows, I also hope to place another later on in the year for my first ever custom starship miniatures including hopefully a ship or two featured in my SHIELDS UP! house rules.

Finally we have the miscellaneous updates.  In between the above, I've recounted my truthful experience in backing the failed Robotech Tactics miniatures kickstarter (link here), reviewed Artel W's series of boutique 40k themed miniatures (link here) as well as the Star Trek Discovery Season 1 (link here), reviewed the Starfinder RPG and my unsuccessful attempt at starting a local group (link here), and even covered the history of my blog's title (link here).

All in all that makes 26 updates for 2018 or roughly one every two weeks or so on average.  In reality, they came more in fits and spurts with May being a month without any update.  In addition to hopefully doing a bit more hands on painting in 2019, I do also hope to post a bit more regularly or, at a minimum, not completely miss any months on the blog.  As stated above, I do hope to finish off some existing miniatures on my painting table (like my 40k Tau broadside linked here as well as my recent 3D printed figs).  On the digital front, I don't see myself coming out with too many ships but I am considering publishing an updated 2019 edition of my TOS Recognition Manual (link here) if I can come up with a suitable Romulan ship to add to the roster.

I don't know if this type of review is informative to any potential readers but I do feel that it (at least temporarily) helps to focus my efforts for the upcoming months.  Regardless, see you all in a few weeks with my next 3D printing update and thanks again for reading!

What's in a blog's name? The Phoney War blog...

I've got a few different things to talk about this week on the blog that will probably result in a few smaller and varied posts on the blog.  If they were in any way related, I would put them together in one longer post but they're realistically not.  The first thing that I'll cover is the origin and meaning of my blog's name... SITZKRIEG!  Over the years, I've been asked one or twice how I came up with the name (usually with some implied dread).  I figured I'd finally address it in a quick post given the ridiculously volatile nature of politics here in the US right now and the penchant of certain people to use labels like "fascist" and "nazi" at the drop of a hat.

I'll start with the origin of the word.  Sitzkrieg, aka the Phoney War, was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front following the invasion of Poland.  It's a mashup of the German words "to sit" (sitzen) and "war" (krieg) and means "Sitting War".   It was a word play on blitzkrieg created by the British press to make fun of the Nazi war machine in WW2, not to glorify it.   When I was trying to figure out a name for my blog, I figured that a "sitting war" was a good way to describe what we as wargamers and rpgers do when we enjoy our hobby; we literally sit on our butts and make war with tiny soldiers.  The first version of this blog actually was started under the mechablog name and only switched to this once it became available a year or two later.   As a Pole who grew up on first hand stories of my own family's suffering at the hands of both Nazis and later the Communists, I'd never support either hateful ideologies.  Hopefully that puts to bed any potential thoughts that I'm some sort of wehraboo.  :) 

State of the Blog Address for 2017

It's that time of the (new) year so I'll recap the past year's progress on the blog moreso for myself but hopefully might be useful entertaining or informative for any readers as well.  Looking over the past year, it was more productive than 2016 largely due to digital hobby work as opposed to physical models painted.

I caught the Star Trek bug again back in 2016 and started doing a few FASA style sheets for some of my favorite fanships.  I continued that in 2017 with many more ships as well as some house rules and even counters to use them on the tabletop.  This culminated with my publication of a fan ship pdf collection under my SHIELDS UP! label.  While I definitely needlessly reinvented the wheel by using MSPaint for interior and cover art and Open Office for publishing, I was quite happy with the end result linked below.  I can't thank enough the various artists who let me use their fan created ship art on my sheets as without them I'd have some pretty bland stat lines and nothing else!

After putting out the above supplement for a long dead game from the 1980's, I decided to focus on the exact opposite and publish a few ship stat sheets for the then upcoming Star Trek Adventures RPG from Modiphius games.  Just like with the above FASA sheets, the company and fan artists were kind enough to use their art yet again.  I eventually decided on releasing two four packs of ships that likely would never otherwise see themselves officially written up for the RPG, one set of fan ships and the other of FASA classics.

 With the release of Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition this past summer along with the Primaris marine models, a tiny bit of my 40k interest resurfaced.  Largely due to the horribly unbalanced army construction rules of the previous 6th/7th editions, my interest in the property (models, novels, game rules, etc) dropped down to almost zero during those years.  While I don't have any definitive opinions on the new edition, my first impression is that, while they did address my biggest complaint in returning some semblance of sanity/balance to the construction rules, they also made the game more bland with bucket'o'dice mechanics at the expense of some common sense and variety in the ruleset.  Similarly mixed is my reception to the new Primaris style marines.  Whereas I really like the actual basic intercessor models themselves, I wasn't a fan of their introduction into the backstory of 40k and the likely replacement of "normal" marines both figuratively and literally (in terms of models) down the line.  I'd have strongly preferred introducing them just like every other model kit and fluff development for the past 30 years but there was no doubt that I preferred the more truescaled proportions and poses.  I picked up a few models here and there on ebay and decided to finally start my long awaited Winged Hussar chapter of Space Marines.  With some trial and error, I decided on the paint and modelling scheme on the left below.

 

Yup... my entire 2017 completed physical hobby effort amounted to the two models above along with a third prototype marine.  I do hope to continue to paint a few more with the same scheme (including a larger 54mm Inquisitor scale variant) but it was always meant to be a small project of a few models largely for potential future wargaming or RPG characters rather than a full army.

Additionally, I posted a few other one off updates about topics such as finishing my Heavy Gear Rafm scale force with some head swaps thanks to Ashley from Paint it Pink, tweaking some images to make a bucket filling version of the Primaris Coloring Book from GW, and commenting at length about the closure of several gaming companies (most notably Spartan Games whose line of Halo Fleet Battles miniatures I covered here extensively).

Looking forward to what I hope to accomplish in 2018, I hope that I'll strike a more even balance between virtual hobby work (like house rules) and phsyical ones (painted models).  While I've got several other house rule ideas at various stages (like advanced rules for Star Trek Attack Wing, rules lite intro Shadowrun, and mass battle LRB HG Blitz modifications), I don't have any concrete plans to publish them at this time.  With my slow return to physical painting, I'd like to instead finish a few more models from previous years such as my last remaining Tau Broadside battlesuit, the Logan Grimnar conversion from the Primarch Horus model, as well as a single Deathwatch model which happens to be my first hobby purchase of the new year.  There are some more substantial hobby projects dancing around my head as well (like a small force of Adeptus Custodes for 40k or finishing up my Rafm scale Heavy Gear force) but, in the interest of keeping myself honest, I won't be counting those chickens before they hatch and instead keep my sights a bit lower/more realistic.

Thanks again to my readers for sticking with me for another year and I hope to post some interesting things in the 12 months to come!

State of the Blog Address for 2016

Last year, I did a two part post reviewing 2015's hobby progress and I've decided to do the same this year.  The good news, for folks who found the previous one too lengthy, is that this one should be shorter since I've accomplished less!  I'm not sure if that comment deserves a :)  or :( though.  Additionally, I'll be trying out some new embedded image formats in this post so let me know if they're presenting a problem for legible reading as I'm having some difficulty in formating them here on blogspot. 

Unfortunately, my previous three big completed hobby projects (Heavy Gear, Robotech, and Halo Fleet Battles) failed to garner me any games despite having 2 player painted forces to use to lure (absent) curious folks into a battle.  In the meantime, I've mostly lost interest in the old standby games of 40k and X-wing and my local (25 miles/40km away) store even closed down early last year.  None of the above really had a positive effect on my motivation to buy, build, paint, or play frankly but I did find a few things to keep me interested in the meantime.

The first project that I picked up on a whim was to build an old RAFM Heavy Gear force up.  These were the figs that first got me into painting independently (although I was a part of a Star Trek FASA group prior to that in which I used other players' figs) and I couldn't pass up the chance to put a few of them together.  I mostly went with a one of a kind style force building with no repeated variants for my northern force.  I'm really happy with how the Grizzlies and Cheetahs turned out but not so much on the Jaguars mainly because of the Arrow Jaguar whose head I had to scratch build/mould with my meagre skills.  I'm also still undecided whether I'll crack open the blisters and build a southern force to potentially face them.   I could theoretically use them with the current nuBlitz rules as I modelled/converted them to be legal for use with them but I've already got multiple painted demo armies in my foam case in the current scale and am even expanding the ones I carry with me a bit (see below for details).


On a similar nostalgic note, I started last year by catching up and rewatching old episodes of pretty much most of the Star Trek series, both my old favorites as well as ones that I missed in both first run and reruns.  This in turn rekindled my original hobby experience and I started designing stat sheets for fan ships for use in the old FASA game.  Most of the designs come from the mind of Bill Krause so I'm very thankful that he let me use his images and ships for my sheets.  He's got a few more designs on the way and I've got a few others I'd like to cover so you'll all be likely seeing more of those in 2017.  Additionally, I worked on some Star Trek Attack Wing house rules that aren't still ready to publish but I do hope to post a review of some Star Trek deckplans hopefully tomorrow.

My only played game though was in the final days of the year with a quick post-Christmas session of Munchkin (Adventure Time edition) that I bought for some younger cousins who were fans of the show.  I'd unsuccessfully tried to get them into card games (although one has since picked up a Pokemon habit in college), miniatures games (with Heroscape), and comics.  Munckin has caught on though with one cousin and his friends and I look forward to passing on my original Munchkin collection to him so it can see some use.  When he turns 21 and starts playing with some friends who have already had a few drinks, the true backstabbing should begin.  :)

Since my previous hobby efforts with Rafm Heavy Gear only involved assembly and conversion and not painting, I decided early this year to dip my toes back into that hobby pool as well.  And by dip my toes I mean exactly that... just some minor weapon conversions on existing painted pics.  After a year of disuse, my inventory on supplies revealed alot of dried up paint pots and glue tubes so my options were as practically limited as they were theoretically by my willpower.  I left off in my previous current scale metal HG project at converting my Northern commander into a legal model as his previous variant/loadout didn't carry over to nuBlitz.  Additionally, my Tau side project had a special character commander model conversion (that I use as my profile pic here) that I wished to be able to use as a WYSIWIG competent normal commander as well so I decided to add another plasma gun to fit the theme of his squad.  These were some very minor projects that hopefully will yield more in 2017.  Ideally, I'd like to finish up the remaining primed, basecoated, and washed broadside suit for that same small ally Tau force.

Finally, I'd end of on a positive note in that I found out about a month ago that another store roughly the same distance from me opened up not far from the location of the previous one.  While I haven't made the trek up there yet, I hope to do so in the next few weeks.  While I suspect the player population is largely the same, I hope that my own personal prospects for getting a few games in will vary from my previous attempts in 2015.  In preparation for this (and after checking the Spartan Games forum), I've taken out my Halo minis from my case and replaced them with a selection of X-wing ones instead.  In all honesty, Halo Fleet Battles has no worse prospects locally than either Robotech or Heavy Gear but I have alot more nostalgia for those minis games so they'll stay whereas I'm primarily nostalgic for Halo in video games.  I've added additionally the above Northern HG commander and some more Nucoal forces into the empty slots as well.

Apologies for the absence!

It's been a while since I updated the blog and it might be a bit longer before I put anything up with real substance.  It hasn't been a particularly good 18 months for my gaming hobby and the lack of actual games has resulted in frankly a lack of enthusiasm in building and painting models to use in those non-existent games.  I've never liked the Apocalypse all the time! direction 40k has taken in the last two short lived editions and Halo Fleet Battles and Robotech both failed to launch locally (and seemingly worldwide as well).   Heavy Gear has had some hurdles (some avoidable, others not) but is progressing SLOWLY but at least the end of that project is in sight sometime late this summer or early Autumn.

Finally, my FLGS (friendly local game store) announced that they were closing permanently so my chances of actually finding new opponents to try out games I'm interested in has dropped significantly as has the possibility of spontaneous gaming with friends and acquaintances.  The next closest store (roughly 70 miles away directly across a major US metro city) that I'm familiar with is just too far to travel without a definitive game scheduled ahead of time with a reliable opponent (that last part being an issue in the past).   For UK readers, the "club" model just doesn't really work well in most of the US including mine so that isn't a realistic workaround either.  Neither I nor any gaming friends have enough terrain to host games ourselves for the most part (barring some space terrain and cardstock buildings) so that is largely out.  My tabletop hobby always has been centered around the neighborhood (or in my case 25 miles away) FLGS. 

I made my first major new gaming acquisition in a long time (since my Halo Fleet Battles starter mid 2015 iirc) with the purchase of some original larger scale Rafm Heavy Gear minis.  I'm frankly not sure what I'll do with them (Build/paint them?  Sell them?  A bit of both?) and in hindsight the purchase was largely fueled by nostalgia more than any concrete hobby project plan.  I've still got the same 40k Tau broadside sitting on my painting desk although I have base coated and black wash lined the model since last posting about it.  If I start back with anything, it would be finishing that model and therefore the WWII themed formation it is a part of.  That's it for now and I'll leave you guys and gals with a few quick pics of my recent RAFM haul.

I now have more of those original scale models than I did back in the 1990's and I'm left with the classic toy quandry... do I open them up to look at and play with them or keep them in the original packaging to keep their value up!   I suppose that is a good problem to have.  :)

2015 and Beyond... Part II

And now we get to what I unfortunately did not finish during 2015 as planned.  First up would be my long planned but stalled 28mm VOTOM/Heavy Gear squad.

While I did try a few paint schemes and techniques like traditional painting as well as washes/drybrushing, I never got the models to quite look how I wanted them toand stripped them down.  I dont think I ever covered it here on the blog but I also converted a snub cannon for the fifth model as well as some extra comm gear for the Jaeger Command squad leader.  I still plan on working on them eventually but the wait and see approach to the Heavy Gear kickstarter I took somewhat drained my enthusiasm for the project.  Perhaps the potential fulfillment of the rewards this year (delayed four months or more so far) will have the opposite effect.

The second project that I had planned but didn't complete was my small Space Wolf 40K Primarch ally force.

While I didn't touch Logan Grimnar on the right, I did a few coats of grey and some metallics on the Iron Priest on the left.  I again wasn't quite happy with the preheresy scheme effect I achieved but I also wasn't unhappy enough to strip it off either.   We'll have to see if I end up able to salvage it in the end.  Like the VOTOMS above, I don't really have a practical use for these in any future foreseeable game so they'll likely stay on the backburner for a while.

Finally, I'm back to what was posted on my last real hobby update and my first really hobby work of the new year...my 40K Tau Broadside conversion.

He's currently primed green with recesses washed black and ready to paint.  With even my glacial pace of painting, I should be able to finish him completely this month and be done for a second time with my Tau side project.  

After that, I'm not sure what I'll do in what order in 2016 but I do have a few ideas knocking around my head.  The easiest would probably be a set of house rules for improving (hopefully!) the effectiveness of fighter/bomber wing combat in Halo Fleet Battles as well as incorporating the boarding actions into the normal mechanics of the rest of the game instead of being entirely separate.  My tentative name for the house rules would be "Their Finest Hour" and I hope to start posting them next month.

Besides my two main stalled projects above, the only hobby work I've got planned is to repaint one of the new T-70 xwings in Poe Dameron colors after seeing the movie.  While I thought the movie was better than the prequels, it didn't entirely captivate me as I found most of the characters uninspiring (except Ray) and the plot too derivative of the original movie.  I did however like the battle scenes and especially the new xwing both in design and Poe's color scheme.

The other thing I'd like to do more of in 2016 is actually play games.  For a variety of different reasons, I only played a grand total of 4 games in all of 2015 from all game systems combined.  I'd probably focus on Halo if given a choice with the upcoming house rules needing some real world testing but I'm not particularly picky!  I'm not sure if my cellphone camera is up for it but I'll likely post battle report videos of any games I play this year both on youtube and linkef here on the blog.

Thanks as always for reading and I hope I didn't cause anyone to nod off while reading!  I've been pecking away at my tablet typing this so I apologize for any typos as I'll hopefully correct them in short order.

2015 and Beyond... Part I

I had initially planned on doing a detailed review of the year 2015 but something derailed my plans... netflix!  I had gotten a membership to the service for Christmas and ,instead of working on the final hobby project of the year and the year in review post, I've been watching things like Knights of Sidonia and Jessica Jones!  It's a bit late for a proper year in review but I'd still like to share a couple of some thoughts on 2015 and 2016 in a sort of State of the Blog address.

First, we'll start with 2015.  While it didn't feel like a particularly productive year, I did mostly accomplish several projects that I set out to do.  The first is my Farsight Tau ally army.

I actually completely finished this project around the summer but then ran into a bit of a snag as credible rumors started coming out about a new set of rules for the army.  When they did a few short weeks later, I realized I'd probably want to add another model to my small group to make it a functional force with the new rules.  I built, primed, and washed that final model (my Broadside conversion) but failed my will save vs Netflix and binged on some shows instead of finishing the model.  I do hope though to get it done this month though.

The next project that I worked on this year was my set of house rules for the Robotech Tactics minis game that I dubbed "Vermilion Squadron".

I got in early on the game's kickstarter in large part because of a promised set of small model count skirmish rules.  When half the rewards were finally released a year late (with the remaining half still pending and approaching three years late...grumble... grumble), the skirmish rules were unfortunately not included and got lost along the wayside.  I decided to try and make a relatively quick set of house rules to retrofit back into the game that functionality.  It wasn't as large in scope of a house rule product as my Heavy Gear houserules but I'm happy with the results.

The final main project that I worked on was two fleets for the newly released Halo Fleet Battles game.  I initially thought that I'd do only a single fleet that was easily divisible in half for demos; after finishing that first fleet, I decided to just make a proper OpFor for the game.

With a few non-modelled options like Spartans and Zealots onboard ships, I'm at around 900-1000pts for each fleet with regard to what I can carry in my foam case.  Not pictured above is the extra base of small UNSC frigates that replace the second large carrier for that faction.

Of course, not everything is rosy as I did have a pair of projects that I had planned to complete in 2015 that I didn't.  I'll be discussing them along with some initial thoughts on 2016 in the next post that I'll hopefully put out today as well.

Blog URL change

Just a quick technical update... After a friend changed his blog's URL (which I didn't know you could do), I decided to look and see if any of the names I initially wanted for this blog were available in the year or two since.  While the "mecha" related names were still dormant for a decade or more, the simple "sitzkrieg" blog name was now available and I decided to snap it up.  I left a quick change of address post at the original "scifisitzkrieg" blog address but all the content that I've been boring you all with will now be at this simpler address.  I'll be changing the occasional dead links to the old URLs in various posts but feel free to comment if I miss one.  Thanks for reading and additionally for bearing with the changes.  And if you don't like them, comment on Brandon's Heavy Gear Thunder Run blog (link to the right) as it is his fault that I know the possibility existed!  :)

SITZKRIEG.BLOGSPOT.COM

Thanks for reading!

 

State of the Blog Address (Part 2)

Thanks for bearing with the last post and I promise this one will be a bit more upbeat since I plan to focus on the hobby progress I've made over the past year.  While honestly it didn't seem like I accomplished much due to months long stretches of not working on any minis (and having paint dry up unexpectedly during that time!), I was pleasantly surprised by what I accomplished in the meantime. 


I pretty much finished up (except for less than a half dozen figs) my entire 40k collection and mostly sold off the stuff that I never planned on finishing.  My 6000pt Blood Angel, 2500pt Deathwing, 2500pt IG, 3000pt Eldar, and 2500pt Tau armies are officially done except for two figures.  The only other 40k related things I have left are 5 "truescale" marines that I kitbashed back when I was attempting to run a regularly scheduled Deathwatch 40k RPG campaign that has since sputtered out.  Mainly due to a lack of HG playerbase and the Robotech KS delay, 40k has actually been my second most frequently played game after X-wing. 


Over in HG land, I've made some significant progress.  I sold off my unwanted southern minis and actually finished the ones that I picked up post Forged in Fire.  My Heavy Assault King Cobra squad is done as is my platoon of Visigoth Khan tanks.  My support options models (airstrikes and turrets) were also completed along with a cityscape set from Dropzone Commander to use as terrain.  My Nucoal army went from completely in the blister due 2/3 done with two squads of hovertanks along with two sections of hoverbike GREL infantry.  The only Nucoal models left are my Chasseur MK2's that will make up a veteran GP squad.  I picked up a painted northern army as well and then spent a lot of time dealing with the dozens of breaks (and even a few missing parts) due to very, very poor packing for shipping.  I've picked up more northern minis (likely too many for blitz!) that are still unfortunately in the package though.  With the delay of Robotech, I had expected to instead work on my Northern minis but the 3 month delay and counting since the advertised Jan delivery date has put a damper on that.  Despite being a playtester, I don't know how much the product changes after it leaves our hands so I'm avoiding putting together the models until I see what the final pdf looks like.


X-wing is a pre-assembled and prepainted game so there isn't too much of a hobby aspect in that sense but I managed to get into some trouble with it anyways.  After reading some interesting reports over on Board Game Geek, I decided to make my own version of the Corellian Corvette model and rules.  I picked up an old 1990's toy in roughly the same scale and made a custom base to place it on along with some datacards and scenario rules.  Additionally, I made some 3D asteroids out of lava rocks to use during games.  At some point, I'd like to convert my TIE Advanced into Avengers but I'll likely leave that one till after the TIE Defender model comes out as that will be their squadron commander.  At that point, all my favorite LucasArts XvT models will be out and I'll be a happy starfighter pilot.


All in all, I'd say that the past year (or technically about 16 months) has been quite productive despite the relatively large gaps.  Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to finish my 40k figs and might post them here.  I'm going back and forth whether I should buy any more as I think GW has officially gone bonkers with their recent pricing but the new tau commander crisis suit looks pretty darn incredible.  As a grimdark mech, I'll post about that one if I end up acquiring and working on it.  Additionally, I hope to finish my truescale Deathwatch marines along with a kitbashed Aegis defense line and turret.  After that, assuming the Northern book doesn't come out, I'll work on my TIE Avengers and possibly the Nucoal GP squad. 


In any case, thanks again for reading and I promise the next update won't be a solid wall of text but rather filled with pretty pictures of mediocre painted minis like usual!  :)

State of the Blog Address (Part 1)

I was checking out my blog links to see what new stuff other bloggers added and I realized that I completely missed the first anniversary of my blog earlier this year.  To celebrate the passing of that first year, I decided to follow the US government tradition of posting a "State of the Blog Address" going over the past year and my hopes for the coming year.


When I started the blog last February, my goal was to focus on my house rules for improving the Heavy Gear Blitz game under my catchy little "Flash" title.  At the time, I had some ideas that I wanted to publish before getting involved in some official playtesting which would possibly limit what I could post due to the likely NDA.  I've been burned before in the past by Heavy Gear and DP9 making bad decisions (like flipflopping through rules editions and dropping the old RAFM scale gears unceremoniously) so I figured I'd try to get more involved and hopefully prevent another debacle especially given the relatively poor (and deserved) reception the Forged in Fire Southern Field Guide got.


I'd say that I definitely met my goals for improving the blitz game.  Though the rules went  a bit further than I initially had planned and still need some more testing, I'm happy with the overall final results.  In the end, it doesn't seem like anything will be incorporated into the next HG edition due to the vastly different rules in open alpha right now.  I actually joined the alpha in the spring of last year (right around the time I stopped posting large updates to the FLASH! rules and switched to modeling!) so the scope of the changes were not a shock to me this past January.  I think that the core rules have a lot of promise but obviously still need work.  Unfortunately, as demonstrated by the army lists, there still exists plenty of room to screw up the whole endeavor.  As for Blitz, I got involved in the Northern playtesting as well and anxiously await the release of that final product for the venerable Silhouette system.  Just don't expect it to be as broken, unfair, and overpowered as the Paxton release for several reasons.  The most important is that the lead playtester's primary faction is Paxton so they naturally got the best stuff (and paid nothing for it frequently) but also because cooler heads were involved in the development of the Northern book.  The north was originally my faction back in the old RAFM 1st edition days and I worked on a northern army over the past year as well... but the difference is that I view army guides that I play no differently than ones I don't so I tried to keep that in mind while still trying to give it a unique feel.  I have no idea when the North guide will finally come out (the January release has slowly crept into April now and counting) and I'm not entirely happy with the results (especially one very key aspect) but I would like to see HGB given its last hurrah before the release of the Beta files this summer. 


The other big game that I expected to cover frequently this year was Robotech Tactics.  Unfortunately, absolutely nothing has gone right since the end of the kickstarter for that game.  Only a few days after taking pledger money, Palladium announced that they were releasing convention only minis that people had been clamoring for but excluding backers from getting them via the upcoming pledge manager.  A contest run during the KS to design ace veritech paint schemes ended up running 6 months late and only had a single winner instead of multiple.  Everything was just fine and dandy with empty platitudes about how things were progressing for months until just 4 weeks before the October delivery estimate (revised just days after the end of the KS) at which point it was delayed till January/February. 


Since then, the project feels like its just treading water with the delivery date now at June/July and counting and frankly that date looks incredibly unlikely given that no moulds have even been started on.  The rules have not and apparently won't be previewed so they're another big question given Palladium's very poor (to put it mildly) history of RPG rules.  We're finally seeing prototype minis but the part count is ridiculous (30+ pieces for 40k terminator sized figures) and the seams between the parts almost exclusively run RIGHT ACROSS THE FRONT OF THE MODEL WITH BIG GAPS.  The TL;DR version is cheap looking overly complicated models that will come out at best 8 months late.  I've avoided talking too much about Robotech because I don't want the blog to turn into my private whine fest but it deserves mention in this end of the year post as I had expected to cover the game significantly over the past year but haven't been able to. 


That's it for part one of the State of the Blog address where I cover things overall.   Part 2 will deal with what I've done hobbywise during the past year.  Thanks for reading and bearing with me in the meantime.  :)

Google Blogspot Problems...

I've been updating some articles over the past couple of days on the blog and have run into a problem.  I discovered (after deleting my link list to remake another one) that Google seems to be having a problem with their HTML links system wide.  Some of the posts have been moved around a bit by me but I'm unable to properly update my table of contents to show it.  Also, I'm not able to save a new link list for the websites that I previously had linked on my blog (like other fan blogs).  Hopefully Google will fix this problem that has been going on for almost a week.  I'm patient seeing as how they're just a mom and pop operation and not some multibillion dollar company with thousands of employees... :)

EDIT:  The problem is partly fixed so I've updated the links to include the new chapters as well as restored the links to other blogs and websites.

Edit:  Testing out some added pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funny pic