Imperial Fists: Psykers

I love spell-casters.

I've always enjoyed mages and wizards in my roleplaying, commonly using those classes in Dungeons and Dragons, World of Warcraft, and others. I even use "Archmage" in my xbox gamertag, and have used it in the past as parts of various usernames. Even in my first foray into the Warhammer 40,000 universe, I felt the need to use a spell-caster of some sort. My first army was 3rd Edition Space Wolves, and Rune Priests had one psychic power, Storm Caller, which gave the attached unit a cover save. Although not offensive in nature, I enjoyed the utility of this ability, and this single unit sealed  my desire to, if possible, always include a psyker in my armies.

As you can imagine then, I had to include a Librarian in this army. The decision was then between whether to get a power armoured librarian, and a terminator armoured one. Then end result followed the Rule of Cool: I thought the Terminator armoured librarian was much better looking, and a such, painted one up.

I really enjoy the variety of powers the Space Marine Codex gives now, and the terminator armour lets me attach the librarian to various terminator squads for both protection and increased utility.

As always, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. See you all next time!

Imperial Fists: A study in yellow

As miniature colors go, yellow seems to be one that gives a plethora of individuals cause for concern, so it is a wonder that reasonable painters like myself would undergo a task like this. As it happens, my wife's favorite color is yellow, and when asked which Space Marine army scheme she would like to see, she chose the Imperial Fists.

With my goal laid out before me, had tackled my challenge head on. I tried a few different methods to get the yellow acceptable, and after years of different attempts, and many months passing in despair, I settled on a reasonable method which I can apply consistently and which is not beyond my skill as a painter.

One of the first models I decided to paint was the iconic Imperial Fist model: Captain Darnath Lysander.

I felt this would be a good first test of my abilities to not only paint yellow, but also to use a limited palette. Although my favored techniques have evolved over time, I've tried to keep the colors consistent throughout the range.

As far a basing is concerned, I haven't settled on a style/location yet, so as a place holder, I have simply painted the base green to dictate painted models.

As always, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. See you all next time!

Starting Over

It's been awhile since I posted here, so I think now is a good time to restart this blog. I've been getting back into painting, so I'll have pictures to post. Also, I'm going to try and get pictures of any games I play, and post the battle reports here. I'll follow up this post with my first focusing on my new-ish Space Marine army, the Imperial Fists.

Hopefully, I can maintain this with regular frequency, and get some good feedback to improve my painting. Here's to the new Pandora's Urn.

"You're A Gamer" ... "No I'm Not"

Hey Everybody,

Wow it's been a long time!! I want to apologize, but I'm not going to. Going to school full time, working part time, and dealing with everyday life has the highest priorities. However, I've been thinking about what to write about and the first thing I want to cover is my husband's dream of making me a gamer. He is totally convinced that I'm a gamer, I on the other hand, don't really care about being a gamer. Yes occasionally I'll play Xbox, Viva Pinata and Viva Pinata Trouble in Paradise are my favorites, but most of the time if I play a video game, it's during the same time that my husband is working on a game. Zelda on the Wii is one example. During his duration of playing, I would play too, but only to get help solving puzzles and such. Once he beats a game I'm done playing it because he doesn't want to help me any longer... "You need to figure out how to do it on your own," he says. So I always give up. Lego Batman, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars is super fun too, but I never play by myself. I always join in with my husband until he gets "annoyed that I'm way too focused on gathering coins and don't keep up with him." He tried to get me into Warhammer 40K, but I found the rules way to difficult to remember and still haven't mastered identifying each type of army... Black Orcs are the exception... I only remember that particular army because I told my roommate that his Black Orcs were cute because they looked like hippos. It was a joke, but the joke still stands each time he pulls them out of their box. My husband tried to get me into all sorts of games, whether they were on the Xbox, Wii, or the computer. Needless to say I was never interested. He is now bringing home card games and board games. And I like them!! Maybe I am a gamer after all! So before this post becomes too long I'm going to say... tune in for my next post when I explain my reaction to Munchkin!!

Being the Better Gamer

Recently, within the last few months, I had the opportunity to play in two tournaments.  My LGS is small, and the tournaments had a max player count of 10. In each, I was presented with the option to be either “that guy” or be the sportsman.

 In the first tournament, I ended up in a draw for second (there were only 1^st and 2^nd prizes).   The TO gave us a choice: roll off for 2^nd, or have our HQs battle.  I had a Daemon Prince with Mark of Nurgle and Warptime while my opponent had a Warboss with Attack Squig, ‘eavy armour, and Power Klaw.

Which would you have done?

With the decision left to me, I chose the roll off.  Although I had a much better chance of taking 2^nd with the HQ battle, the prize would have been bittersweet, and it would not have been a satisfying result.  Unfortunately, I lost the roll off, but I don’t regret my decision in the least.

The second tournament presented me with a similar outcome.  In my final game, it was Guard vs. Guard.  A slight odor had accumulated in the LGS from the bodies of the gamers, and Febreeze™ was used to clear the odor.  Unfortunately, my opponent was allergic to the active ingredient in Febreeze™ and rushed outside to clear his lungs, unable to re-enter the building and finish the game.

The game looked like this.  Final turn, he has last turn.  I’m up 2 to 1 on objectives.  If we end the game, I get 2^nd. If he plays his turn (an impossible feat due to the Febreeze™) he could kill one squad holding an objective, tying the game and costing both of us 2^nd place, kill both squads holding the objectives, giving him the win and 2^nd place, or manage to kill neither, giving me the win.  Again, the result was left to me to decide.

Again, which would you have done?

I analyzed the table.  How did I feel his turn would have gone?  I couldn't tell, and it depended entirely on the dice.  So I conceded the battle, giving him the win.  Why? Same as before, the prize for 2^nd would have been less than fulfilling and those models would have reminded me of my decision for as long as I owned them.

My point here is that as gamers, we should always be willing to give up a prize for the good of the hobby, and the good of ourselves.  We always hear about those cutthroat players that take every advantage possible, even if it requires grinding their morals into dust.

If you are ever presented with a scenario like this, think about your choices carefully, and don’t act on impulse; you just might surprise yourself when you make your decision.

Sons of Medusa Terminators

I am not a good photographer.

This is, essentially, my first test image with my new, scratch-built light box.  I took the image with flash, as I don't have enough light and I get some pretty strong shadows from my light source.  You can see the shadow caused by the flash of the camera, but it's not as bad it was before.

There's not a lot of detail, I don't consider myself a good painter, and I haven't done any conversions, but it's a good start. For those who want a better look at one of the models, here's a close-up on the sergeant.

As you can see, I haven't done any detail on the face. I don't feel comfortable doing that kind of detail yet, but I think I'm going to attempt it with my Scout snipers. Hopefully I can get more painting done on my Sons of Medusa, as these were painted 4-5 months ago. Again, questions, comments, and concerns are always welcome.

The Opener

Ah, the beginning of a new era. Welcome to Zijan's general gaming blog/future podcast. I've got a few ideas in the pipe, but for now I simply want something here to welcome anyone stopping by. I'll try to keep this regularly updated, but as this is a free-time project, other things (like life) will take priority. Here's to a new era