FICTION: Expeditionary Force

This is the second in an intermittent series of fiction that I have written.

A few years back, prior to any Mechanicus models or codices were released, a friend of mine Lantz created a homebrew Mechanicus codex and a set of converted models. It was quite striking, and the points and abilities were well thought out. Very shortly afterwards,

FICTION: Tyranid/Mechanicus 1 pager

A few years back, prior to any Mechanicus models or codices were released, a friend of mine Lantz created a homebrew Mechanicus codex and a set of converted models. It was quite striking, and the points and abilities were well thought out. Very shortly afterwards,

Out with the old, in with the old

TL;DR posts are simple rants. Please ignore this if you are not into hearing my anger. Honestly, why WOULD you? But this post is an extension of one I made in May.

Happy thoughts....happy thoughts.....

I haven't had such mixed feelings about something since Keurig cups made my love of convenience clash with my love for the environment. This could be even more whiny (or whingey) than my normal ranting, so you've been warned.

TL;DR Whine and Cheese in the 41st Millenium

Apologies to Wayne England.

WARNING: THERE IS A BIG BUT AT THE END OF THIS VERY LONG POST

Hello, Hive Zero fans (as if there are any)! I'm back from yet another hiatus caused by work and quickly growing teenage girls who need rides to every activity known to (wo)man. Telling a varsity tennis player that her practices are cutting into painting and gaming time is met with a strong reaction in the Hive Zero household. But I have a moment, sooo...

Let's talk about all of the craziness happening right now with Games Workshop. And by craziness, I mean 180-degree-change-from-previous-behavior insanity. I know I will be leaving out

Conversion: Grot Flier

Roald Dahl! I've never even heard of this.

25-28mm scale is a funny thing, especially 28mm Heroic. It totally makes sense in terms of being compact enough for gaming but large enough to have some detail in the miniatures. But still, it becomes problematic when trying to adapt materials and models from other manufacturers that were not intended for gaming let alone this scale.

Review: Eccentric Miniatures Base Conversion

Adaptors are always nice.

Just a quick one today for the new year. I'm going to try to get through my backlog of posts that I meant to write, so we're going to go from no posts to a post every two days or so for a while. For the 3 of you who are actually still following this blog (hi Mom! Just kidding, even my mom won't follow this), brace yourselves.

So today we have a nifty little kit from Eccentric Miniatures. Or, more specifically, 

40k Kill Team unboxing and comments

When my wife saw me making this, she remarked "How is it we are married?"

In the five years or so that I've actively returned to the miniatures wargaming hobby, I never thought I would see this day. Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, my favorite flavor of 40k was Kill Team, a set of rules that GW's specialist games put out for squad-level skirmishes. With a tiny number of models per side, there was no need to play with unpainted figures (a personal pet peeve of mine). You can still find the old rules and fan-updated rulesets all over the Internet, and they've done an admirable job keeping the flame alive. The Heralds of Ruin

(I went crazy) Auctions and Adepticon

One of my favorite FLGSes is actually 1.5 hours from my house. Games Plus is located in a quiet suburb of Chicago, and it's been around for close to 40 years. I went there when I was a high school freshman, when the shelves were lined with Avalon Hill, Steve Jackson, and Ral Partha. It still has the most diverse inventory of any game store I have visited in my life. Of course, there are the complete lines of GW, Corvus Belli, Wyrd, PP, Flames of War, FFG, etc. There's also all the older and obscure stuff like Microarmor, Star Fleet Battles, many flavors of historicals, and every RPG and board game I've heard of.

Twice a year, they hold a three day auction. They've been doing it for decades. I had missed every one of them until this year. Sunday was the miniatures auction (RPGs and board games are on different days), and with my 11 year old daughter in tow, we waded into the fray.

TL;DR I surrender

So. Tired. Can't. Even.

I was going to title this post "I give up", but that has really negative connotations, and this is not necessarily a negative communication. But I have finally, without a doubt, surrendered to the torrent of ever-changing rules from GW this year.

Warhammer 40k goes back to the mainstream.

If you've been online today and surfing 40k sites, I'm sure you've seen the breaking news: GW is going start selling model kits as, well, model kits. It's actually a pretty smart move on their

Harlequin Solitaire On Deck!

Enlarge

Up to 7D6" movement ignoring all terrain with ten attacks? Wow.

I am really looking forward to

Batch Painted (Speed Painted) Plaguebearers

I'm on a roll these days getting back into the painting groove. I think it's because Daemons are so different from power armor and Nids. The multicolor scheme that I chose for Nurgle is not as cartoony as I thought, and I like the idea of allying CSM and Daemons...very fluffy.

So I had the presence of mind to document the batch painting of my plaguebearers. As usual, they aren't going to win a slayer sword, but they are definitely at least TT quality. Click any photo to enlarge.

Holiday Gift Guide for 40k Widows, Widowers, and Moms, Part 1

Hello, fellow 40k denizen. Is your girl or guy complaining about not knowing what the hell to get you for the holidays? Click on the "read more" link below, slide your laptop/ipad/phone over to your significant other, and scuttle out of the room like a 2nd generation genestealer. Now scat!

New Inquisition Codex???

WTF? This image is from the Black Library FB page.

Mantic Typhus Zombies, Part 1

At the last Adepticon, I noticed a deal at the Mantic booth. They were selling a box of 30 Zombies from their Kings of War game and 3 boxes of 10 Marines from Warpath in a bundle. This was an obvious kit to create cultist zombies for the Chaos Space Marine codex that had just been released. So I went for it...

Whoa! (Necron Apocalypse thingie)

Wow. That's pretty cool. So along with this and the Khorne Wheelchair thing, I guess we are headed straight into a summer of overpriced Apocalypse models. If the Wraithknight is $115.00, what would these be? Are we entering a new price tier? $150? $200?

Games Workshop Punishes Their Vendors for Being Naughty

This one absolutely blew my mind, and I didn't realize this happened. I've been a defender of GW's free market tactics from the beginning. I've always been of the mind that they work for their shareholders, not their customers. Other companies actually use good public relations to further that responsibility, but I can't fault GW since no matter how much they hike their prices, people buy more and more even while complaining.

But this made me to a double take...

The gentle hammer, or GW and their C&Ds.

So as you know, GW and the community have suddenly hit this crazy perfect storm of conflict. People are suing each other, DCMA notices are flying around, and GW is seriously locking down their intellectual property. I would put links to the Chapterhouse thing, but if you don't know the story by now, consider it a bullet dodged.

Anyway, I understand why GW is hurling out cease and desist letters like Pez out of a cartoon character's trachea, but I was really surprised to find out how far they were going.

Hive Zero Epic Giveaway!

This is the dumbest graphic I've ever created.

So in "honor" of Games Workshop discontinuing all of their Specialist Games, I've decided to pack it in and give away my small collection of Epic-scale Space Marines. [READ ON]

40k Meta has gone insane

First, there's the BoLS outage.

Then there's the Faeit212 craziness.

And now there's the Battlefoam/BoK backfire. (It's worth a read).

All of a sudden, we have three insane incidents all just waiting for conspiracy theorists.

It was bound to happen. 40k has reached critical mass. Adepticon is bursting at the seams, there are more and more people getting into manufacturing ancillary products, and suddenly you have a powder keg of supply, demand, competition, and fickle consumers. You have an audience of customers that are very opinionated, web-saavy, and smart, yet they, as a rule, lack certain social restraint (that is my anecdotal observation, and besides, it's all opinion anyway) on one side, and you have a veritable monopoly in terms of brand on the other. While everyone had a common enemy (GW) when this was a niche hobby, the community is now flush with revenue, and we are feeding off of each other, GW included.

So what are some options? Wait until the next post.