Things I am getting involved in and stoping

I am taking part in cool mini or not's  ME35, that's model exchange 35. I think this is a great idea and wish I had heard about it sooner. So check it out here if your interested in signing up. I'm looking forward to a surprise.

I have also decided to do what Sofie is doing here. The painting table Saturday. The idea is plain and simple a pick of whats on my workbench and what I'm up to. I think it is a great way to get a better snap shot of what I am doing every week then my normal, OO look what I did posts.

I have also decided to stop using Kabanize. It just doesn't have the features needed to manage my epic project easily. My standard excel doc works much better in this case. To be specific when you get to 10+ cards each with sub tasks that you cant have at different stages in the swim lane, it just makes it to tricky to remember what needs to be done. Supposedly this can be done when you have a premium account but I am not convinced it is worth it.


Anyway painting table on Saturday and don't forget the contest closes on saturday night my time as well.

aruki

Dark side part 2

Well after messing around with the gun drones I decided to just assemble them because they wouldn't work for the conversion I wanted to do so here are before and after pics.

Here is also a pic of the warhounds assembled.

anyway enjoy and remember to check out the contest.

aruki

The contest

I know its early to celebrate the 200th post but I figured now was a great time to do it. There will be two winners. They will both get a random models from my KOW KS stuff. There is also one thing besides the rules. If we get over 20 entrants I will increase the winnings to three prizes and first place will automatically get a sprue of guys instead of just a single model.

The rules are simple:
1. You need to or must already follow the blog.
2.leave a comment on the post and say if you want in on the contest.
3. If you plug the contest somewhere provide a link, this will get you an extra entry into the contest.
   Forum, blog , facebook etc. (I am always looking for new interesting blogs)
4. Comment on a post done in January to get another bonus entry into the contest. (please no just comment comments :(  )

That is all people except for the end date. The contest will end at the end of the lunar new year holiday. That is February 1st 11:59pm my time. Which will also be done by the time in Seoul Korea since I live here.


Best of luck.

Gone to the dark side in the quest for epic 40k

So I went to the dark side on this order about a month ago and ordered from a Chinese company. Let me start off by saying there are two reasons why I did this. First, GW and forgeworld no longer make the models and I am not going to pay $20+ dollars a model when I need them from ebay even more for the Forge world versions. The second thing I picked up was for a conversion idea and it fit into my budget for this experiment. The second point is that this really was an experiment. I wanted to see what sort of quality and such could be gotten from these Chinese companies.  I decided to try the one that people probably most see advertised  yoymart.

Lets us start with talking about cost which will be added to my total at the end of the post. The two epic 40k warhound titans and the heavygun drones set me back a total of   $23.18 , this includes free shipping and I splurged on the insurance.

Next up let me address the overall time from order to my door. I ordered on December    29th . They shipped it on January  13th   and I received it on January 23rd. So in total you are looking at  a little less then a month from order to door. Which considering the fact that the shipping is free and the epic models are stated as needing 1-4 weeks before they ship I think is pretty good turn around. But do be warned I live really close to China so shipping time will be faster for me via China post than for many of you readers. Given, I could have gotten them faster but I wanted to see how bad the shipping time was going to be.

Now for the packaging and models themselves.

As you can see the box showed up well protected and the models inside were all individually bagged.

The warhounds themselves are in pretty good shape, there is no real residue and very little in the way of flash and mold lines. I will post pics of them assembled later in a few days. For the price of $12.60 an important note is at the time of this post the price has increased by about one dollar.

 

The heavy gun drones are in the same boat very little flash and details were fine. I want to use them to do a special shield for my commander I think. These were also a steal at just under $10.

I will be ordering more epic warhounds (probably 4 more in total) and probably epic thunderhawks from this site in the future mainly because it’s the only place to get them besides feebay and  at an acceptable price. I may also use it for ordering more bitz I need in the future.

Also to bring my spending up to date.
Jan: -$27.18
YTD: -$27.18

Special announcement on Monday.

Aruki 

Kid Gaming: Mobile Frame Zero edition.

I found another great source for Lego related kid gaming, Mobile Frame Zero. This one is a rule set for Lego based robot combat.  Overall, the rules are mostly straight forward but with the different types of customization it makes it a bit to complicated for young kinds. I tried parts of it with my 4 year old, mainly the different dice colors for different things and it was too difficult for him as I expected.

 

Used without permission from the Mobile Frame Zero website all rights reserved to them

So I would rate this rule set best for probably 8 or 9+. The rules for movement and such are straight forward and easy enough I think for them. The great thing is the rule set is free and includes some instructions for making a few different robots out of legos. However, you don’t have to use the robots they give you. There are quite a few other designs on the forums and all over the net that can help those of you who don’t have the skill to create off the top of your head. For me I particularly like how you can customize the equipment on different robots so you can fulfill different roles. Another interesting aspect of this game much like brick wars is that the terrain rules are not only simple but most terrain is destructible, with a few exceptions.

So check it out here and please remember to donate to it if possible even though the rules are free.

Aruki 

General update and first new products of the year.

The hand is almost completely healed. Which means in the next week or so I will be able to start painting again. I have completely organized everything for my epic SM and will be getting going on them again as well. This may end up being interrupted by hopefully interviews and such. So the plan for coming months is epic SM and whatever DW and FSA stuff I can get done. After that more tau and such as well.

I am also continue my experiments with  Kanbanize. Though I must admit I am a bit disappointed with it.

I also have purchased some Vallejo game color washes, specifically umber and sepia, which will both come in handy for painting the Prussians/         . 

So there goes my spending already.

Jan: - $4.00

YTD -$4.00

On a side note, went to the only store in South Korea to buy this sort of stuff at and noticed they had no FSA 2.0 books so asked when they would have them. He tells me no you should get PDF, PDF is better. I point out A there is no pdf and B I want an actual book. His answer, no pdf is better I think.... It is things like this that make it so even if I can buy it here and I am all in favor of supporting your LGS, that make me want to shop on the internet instead. Not only is it cheaper but they don't argue with me when I want to buy something and they don't keep screwing me for almost a year on something I want and they keep telling me next month. To be honest I blame most of the negative changes at the LGS in the past year on the fact that the owner and main guy behind everything moved far away and maybe pops in once a month to check on things. He left it in charge of someone who is sub par in every way.

I will of course also being doing more kids war gaming, another book review and of course reviewing some of the stuff I got for Christmas. So stay tuned.

I am also thinking about doing a give away to celebrate the 200 post milestone. Would anyone be interested in some mantic stuff?

Anyway more as it happens.

Aruki

An experiment

In trying to better organize my projects and also better track my progress over the year I have signed up for Kanbanize. I will give you my impressions so far.

Overall the basic features it comes with are easy to use and for me the fact its visual is a huge bonus. I am a very visual person. So far I have entered all my info into the board for each of my companies for my epic force. I will add more later for all the other epic stuff. I have also started to add all the various tau stuff I want to do. After a couple months I will give you a better review on how useful I have found it.


Aruki

Some blogs I have been looking at lately

There are four blogs I have been watching lately and probably will be keeping tabs on.

Sound officers call is a blog mainly set 15mm and 20mm more modern stuff but he has some interesting ideas for doing war gaming rules. His initial ideas for converting epic rules are what really caught my attention recently.

20mm Gamer covers a wide range of periods and scales and has done battle reports, kit reviews and even comics. I have been enjoying digging through his backlog and looking at stuff hes written.



I see Lead people is one that I often return to time and time again. At the moment the blog is reviewing some 3d printed ships that hes reviewing which is great for those of us who may want to start up or augment such things as BFG forces.


Finaly, I have been keeping an eye on Little Legions. He has done some great ancient armies in 10mm I believe and has recently decided to focus on epic this month.


So check them out.
Aruki

lack of post

Sorry for lack of update today. I got sick a few days ago and the kids are sick as well. So no posts till next week.
 Injury wise I am style out for at least 2 more weeks according to the doctor. Then on top of this I am also on the job hunt after my company went bankrupt.
So some hobby updates in the future but no idea on what besides book reviews and kids gaming for the near future.

Aruki

Napoleonic's: how to get started

The purpose of this series is to walk you through the steps that I went through to create my 6mm Prussian army,

For me it began with seeing a friend of mine painting up some of his 28mm Napoleonic's from warlord games I think. He has two forces for Black powder. I went cool and then it just sat there in the back of my head. I started looking at models and rules from various companies. I had already settled on Black powder as the rule set since most people around her that I have met play it. With models I was immediately hit by the many options in scale and company wise.

After searching around for awhile, reading forums and then talking to that same friend I found out about Baccus. I went for 6mm even though no one here has it for two reasons. First I want a full force based off of a mostly historically based one. I say mostly historical because I am not basing the force off of a specific force at X battle. Second, I really wanted to be able to have the grand army  view when playing. In 28mm its cost prohibitive to build said force and the space it would take would be enormous. In 6mm I can easily build 2 different forces that will take up half the space of a single 28mm and cost less than half as much.

After that I started readying to decide who I wanted to build. I had already decided I didn't want a French or British force because most people do them. I ended up picking Prussians after reading Napoleonic Armies: A wargamer's Campaign Directory 1805-1815 by Ray Johnson. After that I started tearing through the net trying to learn more and diving into my Osprey book collection.

I have easily spent 200+hrs researching these guys everything from army structure to uniform colors and names of units. While doing this I settled on 1812 as the period I wanted to focus on. 

So things to consider if you want to do Napoleonic armies.
1. Rule set: there are many out there (some easily scale, some don't)
2. at the same time scale (6/10/15/28) 
3. who you are going to play with and what they want to play as
4. More specific time period (this can alter your armies composition quite a lot)
5. $$$- ie how much time and money you want to spend on it.


Hope this helps other people if you need help let me know and I will try. I will start reviewing the osprey books I used in the coming months.

Aruki

Osprey Reviews #1

The first book I looked at after Napoleonic Armies: A wargamer's Campaign Directory 1805-1815 was Osprey's Blucher's Army 1813-1815 from the Men at arms series.

Now even though this book focuses on 1813-1815 it includes a lot of background info thoughtout the book which is excellent for helping new people understand what happened up to that point. The book also covers the history of not only Blucher but others as well. The greatest resource in my opinion though games at the end of the book in the notes section. They give a great list of books that was used as references which gives you a nice place to start from for further reading.

Now in point notes here are some of the usefull things in the book:
-background info on 4 other major influences during that period
-explanations of how things were different under blucher for
         -staff
         -cavalry
        -infantry
         -artillery+pioneers
- page 24 has a great chart for the lance pennons for the ulhans and landwehr cavalry
-other points of interest are
         -the wounded (how they were dealt with)
         -music
         -honours and awards
- there is also a great explanation of the order of battle for June 15 1815
-The plates, no Osprey book is complete without these and there are a good number of units covered in here
         -staff
         -hussars
         -dragoons
        -uhlang and staff
        - line infantry
        -landwehr cavalry
        -landwehr infantry
        - artillery 

Overall, I would recommend this book if your looking for more details on how and when things change. However, there are better books for more details on the units themselves which we will cover in other reviews.



Aruki