Introducing FunDave's 40K Blog

The local 40K scene at my FLGS is pretty fun as a rule. Most of the players enjoy playing, have a nice time with each other, and have good personalities.There's quite a bit of good natured joking and teasing with each other on things such as army selection (Tau suck) and rolling ability (several guys have hilarious reputations).  It's not all "fun & games"; there are a couple of serious players that while very fun to play against are pretty interested in winning.

In an effort to showcase this "little engine that could" (the community stuck it out through the world's tiniest store, an ownership change and a move), I decided to see about getting one of our guys to do a blog about 40K and the league. He very graciously agreed, and has put up the first couple of entries. At the moment, he's doing a "beatdown" and a "meltdown" of the week, and may expand out as he gets his feet under him.

The current league is a team escalation deal, with random partners. 1st week's scenario was kind of a "relay" where each partner had to control an objective one after the other, and 2nd week was a "guard duty" sort of deal.

Here are FunDave's write ups of the weeks' best (and worst) moments.

http://www.armored-gopher.com/node/1542
 
and

http://www.armored-gopher.com/node/1543


What FunDave missed for week 2 was not a beatdown or a meltdown, as much as a hilarious moment. Our League organizer was playing a private game in the back. LO was playing Nids against a well respected player running Orks. I overheard some of the game, and pretty much every other roll was "crap, I missed" or "crap, I missed that save". League games had finished and several players were milling around, hanging out and some were offering peanut gallery comments on the Nids/Orks conflict. One player, Jake, had rolled pretty terrible all night and was getting razzed about it. From the back, the Nids player and the Orks player said - in unison-  "Come back here and watch us, Jake. You'll feel better".

Paint & Metal

I have a large collection of WarMachine figures. I truly enjoy painting miniatures and I might just pick back up once my house is more unpacked. I recently asked for a critique on my painting ability and the scheme I picked, but realized I have so much undone it isn't funny. So maybe more critiques will come.

Here's the list of what I have:

Vlad
Sorscha

Devastator
Juggernaut
Destroyer

Assault Commandos
Doom Reavers
Man-O-War Shock Troopers
Man-O-War Demo Corps
Man-O-War Kovnik
Widowmakers
Iron Fang Pikemen
And Fluffy the War Dog

So now I have a good bit. I might actually be able to field an army if I ever decide to play... but I don't know about that yet.  Some of them came with paint because I bought them used, and I can live with that. For the most part, they match what I already have going one. One or two squads will need to be repainted because they are very shiny silver rather than the grungy brass theme I'm doing.

And I am trying to keep to Khador, but I'm not really trying to PLAY. I am interesting in painting at this point. Why Red? I just like the way they RedMachine looks, and find it easy to paint. There's a lot of wide, open metal to put my brushes on, and that's just the way I like it until I get MUCH, MUCH better.

I'm ----- NO. GOOD. ---- at "fiddly bits".

Sharing With Others

I'm helping a friend learn to blog; specifically regarding my favorite game I don't play, 40K.

I find that sharing my knowledge, experience, ideas and perspective with others is one of the many ways I can enrich my gaming life. Most of the time, I don't feel QUITE creative enough to do things completely on my own, so going in for the assist is effective and rewarding.

I'm excited to see how the project turns out, which I hope will be in just a few days.

Zombie Gamers Want Tacos, Not Brains

My regular WOD group heard a couple weeks ago that I was planning to move. I had scheduled today (Sunday) as my move day but they volunteered to help me instead of gaming on Saturday (yesterday). This group is pretty large, and then several others in my gaming circle decided to join in as well. I offered my husband's famous tacos as reward for the volunteers, and that got around. More people came to help; many having been lured by the promise of food.

I had 20 people show up to help me move.

The group of us arrived at my house in a convoy (10+ vehicles) and we began loading up. Just a few hours later, my stuff was at my new place. 

I was one of the last to arrive at the new place, and it was later in the day (actually full dark out) and there was a large group of my friends waiting for me on my lawn. My son had coordinated all of them to zombie shuffle towards my vehicle, moaning

"Taaaaaaaaaacoooooooooooooooos"

I  have not laughed that hard in a while.

The slavering horde was fed, and I am proud to know that many zombies.

Eile's latest find

Eile loves couture shoes. She's a true snob and looks for the best- Jimmy Choos, Prada, Blahnik, Ferragamo and of course, Christian Louboutin.


Here are her latest finds-simple, classic, elegant and very spendy. She's definitely going to have to do some hustling to pay them off!

Vague idea

a CtL character concept:

Mannikin or Elemental with Communion- Paper. Incorporeal unless communing with specific element.

Envision a paper poltergeist- able to communicate via guestures, folding, shaping and application to other items. Depending on scenario, windows, paper and scrapbooks are also tools or contractual abilities. Scissors could be both a greatest ally or a demonic tormentor.

Just ruminating.

Idea Generation

I have discovered that many  RPG players that I know read or belong to an online message board dealing with the topic most near & dear to them.

It seems natural- like minded people sharing ideas and thoughts on a topic that is of interest to them. Most of the time, this communal sharing is a fun and exciting experience. There's usually a good spread of ability levels- total newbies post just as often as the guys discussing the esoteric offshoot ideas. Even when things go south, it's possible to learn something new and gain a new perspective on an idea or theme you've not seen previously.

I'm a huge World of Darkness fan, and have been since Mark and the gang first introduced Vampire. I loved the rich and detailed way they showed an idea that was both new and old at the same time. The group of friends I was hanging around with at the time already told stories and made them into games, but I know my group wasn't the norm.

A lot of old school guys did the same, but there was a group of folks out there that never ran anything but pre-writen adventures. This new concept was a huge leap in how games were thought about, and was the foundations for some great games to come.

So it should come as no surprise that I read the WOD boards very often. I check them out for new ideas, different scenarios, character concepts, etc. It just so happens that no one else in my WOD group  checks out the boards there. None of them had seen the pages of contracts based on Shakespeare, or the discussion of freeing slaves having a consequence of being charged for theft.

I steal ideas from the boards all the time. I might not use them the same way, and I may not even put the ideas into the game- but I steal things whole cloth from the WOD boards. I have a pretty good sense of how to make the ideas "mine"; but I sure didn't come up with them myself.

I know my husband takes ideas from outside sources very frequently also. He once based an entire run of a game off of lyrics of a song. He's not the only one. My son made a TV character into a villain in his game. I played in a "Miami Vice" RPG.  One of my favorite movies is pure Shadowrun inspiration.

Every now and then I get asked; "Where did you get that idea?". I'm always honest- "I was inspired by" or "I saw this and adapted it" are pretty standard answers. But I love that I have a resource that is pretty untapped and ready to be perused any time I have a moment.