A Big Jim Podcast two for

Hey guys I just wanted to let you know that both podcast that I participate in have both posted new episodes. So go have a listen if you need more of me in your life! (that's for you Mags, Haha)

The Codex Project podcast episode 2

Jeff and I discuss future projects for TCP.

Deepstrike Radio episode 33

We have coverage of the Valhallen Ice Warriors this time.

Available for limited painting Commissions

Hey guys I just wanted to let the larger community know that I do a limited amount of commission painting. I have mostly been doing them for my friends, which has been great fun. I am out of work right now and could use some extra cash to supplement my hobby.

Disclaimer: Some of you may think that my prices are a bit high; which may be true in some cases, but I do quality work and am not willing to work for much less than minimum wage. I have spent a lot of time working out these prices over the past few years. By the time I am done with cleaning, building and painting an entire army I usually make between 7-8 dollars an hour.

I offer a wide range of miniature related services. From painting to modeling, I can be your one stop location for assembling and painting your miniature armies. The prices for my services are listed below, these prices reflect cleaning and building your models as well as our standard quality paint job; better than your average tabletop quality but not quite competition quality. I can do higher quality paintjobs with pricing being discussed on a case by case basis.

Painting Price list

Character Models are start off at $80 depending on the model. (These models are painted to a much higher standard than the “grunt” models and are meant to be centerpieces to your army.)

Standard Models (20mm-30mm Base) $10.00

Weapons Teams $20.00 (Ork gunz, IG Heavy Weapons Teams, Eldar Weapons Platforms)

Medium Models (40mm Base) $14.00

Bikes/Cavalry $16.00 (mounted on cavalry or bike bases)

Large Models (50/60mm/Chariots/Attack Bike/WFB Warmachine) $30.00

X-Large Models $45.00 (Trygon/Tervigon, WFB giants and large Warmachines)

Giant Warbeast Models $65.00 (WFB Warsphinx, Stonehorn, Hellpit Abomination)

*Pre-assembled Small Vehicle (Walkers, Land Speeder/Vyper) $25.00

Small Vehicle (Walkers, Land Speeder/Vyper) $45.00

*Pre-assembled Medium Vehicle (Rhino/Chimera/Wave Serpent/Trukk) $35.00

Medium Vehicle (Rhino/Chimera/Wave Serpent/Trukk) $55.00

*Pre-assembled Large Vehicle (Land Raider/Battlewagon/Monolith/) $65.00

Large Vehicle (Land Raider/Battlewagon/Monolith/) $95.00

X-Large Vehicle determined on a model by model basis

Basing

Basic (painted sand your choice of color with patches of flock) included in the base cost

Premium basing (rubble, static grass or anything else reasonable or client provided resin bases) $2.50 per model

Extras

Fully detailed and painted vehicle interior $25.00 (basic grey/tan with a wash interiors are included in the base costs listed above)

Model Conversion prices are determined on a case by case basis.

Custom printed decals (design provided by client) $20.00

Simple Magnetization $ 10.00 (one mounting point on the models body)

Complex Magnetization (multiple mounting points on the same model) $18.00

Notes:
Prices are subject to change, I will do my best to keep this post updated.

* I have a high standard for my commission work when it comes to preparing and building vehicles. To gain the pre-assembled rate the models must have all “burrs” from removing the model from the sprues and any mold lines that may be on the model must be removed. If they are not adequately removed I will take pictures of the non cleaned up models and charge $10.00 to clean up the offending items.

Shipping

I use UPS ground with tracking to ship, since the US Post office has decided to be unworthy losing a commission that had to be redone. So far I have found UPS ground to be pretty reasonable with shipping running between 8-25 dollars for the various commissions I have sent in the past.

I wrap models in bubble wrap and fill the rest of the space with packing peanuts. I have not had any issue with breakage so far.

Setting up a commission

Getting in touch with me is simple just go to my blogger profile and email me from there. Then we can start discussing your project.

Below are some example of my work both personal and commission

Converted (major) HQ quality model

Converted (minor) HQ quality model

Stock HQ quality model

Cheers,

Jim

The scale of Heavy Gear

I figured it might be useful to put up a few scale shots of the Heavy Gears. Especially since most of you guys are 40k fans and have no frame of reference, other that 12mm 1/144 scale is small.

Life sized Heavy Gear

Here is a comparison shots of common Northern Gears:

Hunter, Jaguar including an infantry model and a Grizzly

Here is a comparison shot with a space marine.

Until Next time!

-Jim

Heavy Gear is Locked and Loaded!

The latest set of Heavy Gear rules is called "locked and loaded" and are available from Dream Pod 9, for those unfamiliar with the game and setting, Heavy Gear is a 1/144 scale Sci-Fi game with a focus on "Heavy Gears" they are roughly 15 foot tall armored suits that bridge the gap between conventional infantry and armored vehicles. Heavy Gears make up more than half of each army list, the other half is filled with Tanks/AFV's, Infantry, Artillery and Aircraft.

The guys over at Frontline Gaming have recently started playing Heavy Gear and I want some of that action! 

Here are some of my painted Northern Alliance miniatures. (disclaimer: these are old sculpts from the late 90's, the new sculpts blow these outta the water!)

Strike Squad group shot

Kodiak Heavy Gear

Jaguar

Two Hunter general purpose gears

Grizzly Heavy Gear with Med Bazooka upgrade

12mm Infantry stand

Get your S.O. Killzone Cards, tokens and Glory

Hey guys,
Brian is offering up some sweet S.O. Killzone tokens and decks of Mission and Fate cards over at A Gentleman's Ones. While not required for play, they are a Glorious way of enhancing your S.O. KZ experience! So head on over and pick your combo pack.

With the metal clank of tank tracks FOW arrives to AiW

I am in the process of updating my Flames of War armies now that 3rd edition has been released. Nothing major in the way of changes, I am really just using it as an excuse to fish up some stuff that has been sitting here forever gathering dust.

First up I am working to finish up my Mid war Afrika Corps army:

Dusty Panzer III

The Dreaded 88

Panzergrenadiers

Yup, I went a little crazy and painted the cuff titles!

Armored Reece

 Next I will be working on stuff for my LAH Panzer/Panzergrenadier/Reconnaissance force that straddles the Mid and Late war gaming eras. All the vehicle camo and most of the weathering on these have been done with an airbrush, man do I love that thing!

Company HQ

Markers

Assault gun halftracks

Anti-aircraft halftrack

StuG III Assault gun

So you can expect many more FOW WWII goodness in the weeks and months to come!

Until next time!

-Jim

More info on Killzone Evolution

Not to be confused with Special Operations Killzone; Killzone Evolution is a completely different animal of a skirmish game. It will diverge even more from the basic 40k rules than S.O. KZ did; it will add much more modern mechanics that will still utilize many of the basic stats/rules of 40k.

I am currently testing out a non-phased, alternating activation turn system. Each model will have a set number of actions that they can perform when “activated.” The initial results have really been fantastic, creating a really cinematic feel to the games while adding real tactics to the game play.  

The reintroduction of “to hit” modifiers has been well liked all around from initial playtests.

Instead of dumping cover saves completely we added a to hit modifier to shooting and added a cover save mechanic where you get +1 to your armor save roll against weapons that have an AP that ignores your armor save; with the maximum cover save of 4+, so the best cover save a power armored model gets is 4+. This was done for game balance, it keeps those cheap units benefiting from the smart use of cover and keeps them from being better than they should be for their points (as the current cover save rules do, IMHO), without making power armored troops god like. (who knows if this will survive, but we are giving it a go!)

We have also added in a reaction mechanic to being assaulted/charged where your models may shoot or flee for the attackers if they pass an initiative test.

We are also testing out a few ways to make moral more important to the game.

We would like to add a suppression system to make the game more dynamic.

There will also be two ways to build and play forces, the first is the traditional S.O. Killzone way; with individual model units for lists of 250 points or less. The second will be squad based unit combat with forces over 250 points to a maximum of 850 (or 1000, I have not nailed this down yet) points. In the squad based games there will be limited access to HQ’s, vehicles and tanks.

That's it for the information burst, until next time!

-Jim

Rules from the Man-cave: 40k House Rules PDF

I have been asked many times to put out a list in PDF form for the house rules that we use here in the Adventures in Wargaming  Man-cave. Here is a short list of the main rules we use in our every day games. This is a living document and I will add to them over time as I transfer the hand written rules into this document.

We take a very “Old School” approach to our gaming; none of us care about the actual win or loss scenario as much as we care about having a great time with our bros creating great stories and epic memories. 

Most of these rules have been posted to the blog over the years. Many have been tweaked since their initial postings. Now you can get them all in their current incarnations in a simple little PDF for ease of use. 

Get it here!

I know that house rules are not everyone’s cup o’ tea and that is fine by me to each his own I say. If you have an open mind and decide to try these; I will assure you that if you try these that they will add loads of new tactics and fun to your games of 40k. 

Enjoy,

-Big Jim

Gaming Outside the Box Pt 3: Wow Factor

Real men may not look at explosions, but….

…they sure do cheer when things blow up on the tabletop!

This is part 3 in my ongoing series of posts about Narrative gaming. Now most of the posts will focus on 40k, but a lot of the ideas can port into any wargaming genre. 

Part 1: an Introduction

Part 2: Inspiration

When I speak of the “wow factor” I am talking about those epic moments in a game that get everyone involved cheering and laughing! Successful narrative games emphasize the fun aspect of the game.

Here are two examples from the event I just ran last weekend: first up is the Daemon Prince that just would not die! That monster made more saves than were statistically possible and everyone involved was whooping and hollering as he survived a torrent of fire that should have pancaked him!

Next we have the apocalyptically exploded Baneblade that took out buildings, terrain and scads of other models with it! The cheering on both sides of the table was so loud that it turned heads in the gaming hall!

There are ways of creating these moments artificially through special rules, random events and even through game master involvement.

Creating house rules to help the game feel more like the stories in the novels can be a great way to make those wow moments happen. Let’s look at one of the rules I made for the BAO event.

“Dangerous Terrain checks usually remove a model if they roll a 1 on the D6 test. In this event if the model fails the dangerous terrain test it is only removed if the model fails its saving throw (Armor or Invulnerable). Feel No Pain may not be used to save a model from a failed save in this case.”

Now this was a relatively simple change that allowed jump troops to cinematically jump in and clear troops from dense terrain like woods with less chance to trip over a rock and die. It also allowed deepstriking troops to be really gutsy with their deployment; just like they would do in one of the Black Library novels.

I also for this event took a page outta my S.O. Killzone design philosophy by including Fate and Strategy cards to each player. These were very well received and added a new twist to the game.

The Fate cards allowed players to do things like once per game re-roll all failed saving throws, gain furious charge for that assault that had to be won or double their firepower for one shooting phase.

The Strategy cards allowed for all sorts of nifty in game effects like giving players Orbital strikes, veteran infantry or tank crews and strategic redeployment of one unit.

Through game master involvement I was able to add tension to the game by having randomly deployed warp portals that would transport units that moved through them to a “pocket dimension” so they could attempt to claim an alien artifact.

These are just some ideas I have used to good effect, but there are countless more things that can be done to add that “wow factor.”  

The Adepticon events for S.O. Killzone are rapidly appraoching

To help prepare you for the event, Brian over on a Gentleman's Ones is running a great series of articles. He is sharing the changes and design philosophy behind the latest edition.

Team Building
Themes
Armored Might Space Wolves
New missions

So head on over and check them out if you have not already!

The Bay Area Open Narrative event was a hit!

Yesterday I ran the event, we had 10 players and it was a fantastic, no scratch that a GLORIOUS success!

The planet Delis fell into ruination as the forces of Disorder set everything ablaze in their hunt for the artifact.

One of my favorite epic moments in a game filled with epic moments!

Titus the Butcher staring down a Baneblade; I though he was a goner! Boy howdy was I wrong, Josh the Daemon player rolled the most epic batch of Saves I have ever seen. Titus basically shrugged off 6 Lascannons and 15 heavy bolter shots, although he did lose 2 wounds.

The two sides shaped up like this:

Forces of Order
Tim: Space Marines
Sean: IG
Seath: Sisters
Adan: Grey Knights

Michael: Praetorian IG

The Forces of Disorder
Carl: Chaos Marines
Josh: Chaos Daemons
Aaron: Necrons

Zathras: Necrons
Mark: IG

I will do a full write up later this week, but here are some pics to tide you over for now.

I would like to thank all the great guys that participated in the event for making it a success, you guys are the best!

-Jim