Overpriced miniatures

The above, of course, should be pronounced with the best possible Monty Python accent. Today's blog entry is a movie review instead of anything about miniatures. My hope is that anyone reading it will be dissuaded from spending money on a bad movie and by doing so encourage Hollywood to make even more intelligence-insulting crap . The move is Olympus Has Fallen, and I agreed to see it partially out of obligation for a birthday celebration and partially because I remembered the screen presence of Morgan Freeman as the president in Deep Impact. While Freeman does a good job as the Speaker Of The House, acting as president since the president and vice president are unavailable, that alone is not enough to carry the movie on its own. It's basically Die Hard, without Bruce Willis. Spoilers below, as I list the numerous plot holes and other ridiculousness that I was unable to ignore. As the movie opens, North Korea is rattling sabers again, and the South Korean ambassador arrives t...

I've had a fair amount of time to paint recently, so the Circle Orboros force is shaping up nicely. I have all-but-completed a starter set of Kaya the Wildborn, Feral Warpwolf, and Regular and Winter Argus; plus two Warpborn Skinwalkers and four Reeves of Orboros. The Feral and the "Summer Argus" might still need some highlights, but other than that I'm happy with everything here.  Group shot: Kaya herself: I put a lot of effort into this one since she's the boss of the army, and I hope it shows. In the blow-up picture here she doesn't look so great, but with the naked eye she looks quite good. I might try to make the eyes more distinct as it's almost invisible that I actually painted them.   The Argii, or whatever the heck the plural is of Argus. I have no idea why that Winter Argus came out looking so good, and I hope I can duplicate that feat when I get to the Pureblood Warpwolf. The Feral Warpwolf: He needs a few highligh...

Just a quick update now that I got a bunch of pictures off my phone. These are my first three painted models from Hordes: Circle Orboros. That's Winter Argus and two Reeves.  There are more of them in progress, but these are the first finished ones. I think this picture was taken before I painted the Argus's eyes yellow, and they don't have base rings because I haven't decided what color to make them. I'm thinking maybe a dark orange or brown? I'm also unsure of whether I need to add any pattern to the cloaks or whether screaming yellow is just fine!

Guys, I'm worried about you. Hardly anybody plays 40k by choice anymore. Those who play it at all do so not because they want to, but because they (and by "they" I mean "we") have too much invested in the hobby to give it up. But that's not going to sustain your company forever. I thought you had come to terms with this fact when Privateer Press showed up and started taking your lunch money a few years ago, but you can't get away with treating your established customer base like an unlimited resource to be exploited. Take us for granted like this, and we will look elsewhere! Instead of attracting new players with our borderline-fanaticism over the game, we will be warning prospective players away. This is not out of vindictiveness (at least, not primarily), but about concern for our fellow hobbyists and honesty regarding how much fun the hobby is at this point. The biggest problem for me is price and game balance issues. While I realize that balancing ...

No pictures yet because I haven't remembered to take them at the time, but I had a good 1750 point game of 40k this weekend with my Tau against a new opponent's Eldar. Lists on both sides might have been sub-optimal as most of mine had Eldar allies and most of his had Tau allies, and we wanted to avoid having the same faction on both sides. Both lists had a little bit of everything. Mine had 2 squads of 10 fire warriors, 2 squads of 12 kroot, a commander with Slow and Purposeful and defensive upgrades attached to a full squad of pathfinders, a squad of plasma-rifle broadsides, one skyray, one squad of 3 plasma rifle / missile pod crisis suits, 5 bare-bones stealth suits, and 2 souped up smart-missile devilfish. All 3 vehicles had disruption pods for the super-duper cover save, and flechette launchers to defend against assault. My opponent (I'm not naming him because I didn't ask permission first) had, roughly, a variety of mechanized cavalry, anchored by Eldrad Uthw...

There are three rules in the current set for the Tau that I feel are dreadfully wrong, and I'm going to make a case for their change. I ask that you give my objections an honest hearing between now and whenever the next batch of FAQs is released. 1) Drones in challenges. Tau drones have always been a little weird as they are sort of separate models and sort of wargear, so I can understand some confusion. However, which one they are should be reasonably consistent, rather than the current ruleset which seems to be "whichever interpretation is least favorable to the Tau!" The current FAQ states that drones can not be used to strike blows or take wounds when their controller is in a challenge, and that's fine. They are treated as models in the unit in most other cases, such as drawing LOS to the unit, counting whether the unit is under-strength, whether it needs to take a morale check, etc. However, the rule also states that they can not count for moral s...

The random rants and pictures from a guy who paints miniatures. Firestorm Armada (made by Spartan Games, UK); Hordes (Privateer Press, USA); Warhammer 40k (Games Workshop, UK); and anything else I end up adding. How did I get here? Well, once upon a time in college, I saw a couple of people playing this neat custom wargame: no squares, no hex grid, and not even the same pieces on each side! They let me "drive" one of the units for a game, and I had fun with it, but I was scared away by the horror stories of what the game cost so I never picked it up myself. Years later, my son was getting into Star Wars miniatures and I realized the economics of that one were even worse than what had scared me away earlier! The boxes of figures were randomized, so you didn't know for sure which ones you had bought until the transaction was final. This economic model seems to work well for the company that makes the minis because it's a fairly constant revenue stream; there are alway...