11th Company Live Nova Open Coverage

The guys from the 11th company will be streaming live coverage from the Nova Open for the next four days. I am embedding the player for you all to enjoy.

Thursday coverage at 6PM EST
Friday Coverage at 9AM EST
Saturday Coverage at 9AM EST
Sunday Coverage at 9AM EST


Live video for mobile from Ustream

Holy Carp!

I am sure that you may have noticed my lack of blogging for the past couple of months. I have not had the best of luck in my personal life, which is something I don't usually mention here. Things were finally starting to even out it looked like I was going to be back into the hobby full swing; then out of the blue my luck went sour again.

This past Sunday I was hit/clipped by a car while crossing the street. I am now on the mend from this event, but will be unable to do anything hobby related for probably another 4-6 weeks as my relocated shoulder and broken fingers heal.

This has been the most awful 10 months of my life, but despite that I have worked hard to stay positive.

What I am going to try to do is finish up my gaming outside the box series, if I can coax my friend into editing the articles. This one handed pecking is awfully slow and tedious.

The Bay Area Open GT

The above pic is my vote for most gutsy player, Necrons in a Zero-comp event!

The GT is over and I am absolutely beat, who knew that just taking pictures could be so exhausting! Reece and the rest of Team Zero Comp put on an outstanding event, congrats guys and gals!

There were tournaments for 40K, WFB and Warmachine. I will be covering some of the 40k stuff here.

The tables were really good for the most part, a few were a little sparse but even at that better than most Tourneys I have ever been too.

What was really awesome is that for the event being a tournament, everyone was extremely friendly and all around great guys. I am gonna go out on a limb here and say that I think it was the whole zero army composition and strait win loss scoring style of the event.


Top three were Winners for 40k were:
Imperial Guard Mechanized - the undefeated champion.
Battlewagon Orks - 2nd Place
Paladin GK - 3rd Place.

I will do a few more posts about this before the week is done. I have tons of Photo editing to do catch y'all later!

Here are a few pics to tied you over

Angels of Vengeance Speeder and Terminator fillers

Here is part of the second part of the Angels of Vengeance commission for Mags.

Angels of Vengeance Objective Markers

Here are 5 objective markers for Magilla's Angels of Vengeance. These are a last minute addition to his 2nd commission for the army.

He just wanted some simple bronze marine statues to use with the army for the Bay Area Open that is happening this coming weekend. I will also be at the event snapping lots and lots of Pics as the staff photographer!



Also before I forget, I will be finishing the Gaming outside the box series next week as this commission has got me otherwise occupied.

Gaming outside the box: Inspiration

When it comes to narrative wargaming the only thing holding you back is the limits of your imagination. Sometimes even the most creative amongst us fall short on inspiration, and that is what this post is about. I am going to share some of the ways that I get inspired.

A phenomenal source of 40k inspiration is the Black Library books, which just keep getting better and better. They contain some fantastic settings that are just screaming for recreation on the tabletop! If I had to pick my favorite series of books it would have to be the Horus Heresy series. Any of these stories can be re-envisioned to fit your current armies in the modern era of the 40k universe.

Another great source of inspiration can be the History and Mythology of our own real world. In fact I know that GW has used some of the great battles in history as inspiration for 40k. A small force of Space Wolves that is lead by Wolf Guard Ranulf the Strong holds a small mountain pass against an Ork horde to allow the rest of Space wolves to regroup, sure sounds like the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae.

A personal favorite of many wargamers and GW is Hollywood! Movies can be a great starting point for inspiration, cause who does not love the tension of being trapped in a spaceship surrounded by the foul xenos! I’ve even enjoyed games involhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifving a dozen military criminals sent on a suicide mission where you know all but a few are gonna die!

Other Sci-fi genre books can inspire also, but this can be a bit tougher due to the established Grim Dark of the 40k Lore.

Edit: a great suggestion from Porky. Lexicanum is a great online source for 40k inspiration!

The bottom line is that there is a world full of inspiration waiting to be transformed to life on your tabletop all you have to do is find the correct muse for your tastes!

See you Monday for part three, Objectives and Special Rules.

Until then!

On the table: Eradicators/CSM Havocs

Here are the first two finished models for the squad. The other three models are almost finished I need to finish painting the gold on them. I should have the rest of them up by Thurs or Friday.

I have finished the Centurion and one of the Missile launchers. Sorry for the dark pics I lost a lamp and didn't have a replacement bulb for it.






I was a bit worried about the rotting heads hanging from the missile launcher models. I am pretty satisfied with the result, they are a little lighter in color in person.

Gaming outside the box

In this series of posts I will be going over my thoughts on Narrative gaming; from tried and true mechanics that my group has used for years as well as ideas that are brewing for upcoming games.

Here is a little background for those of you that were not around in the early days of 40k Rogue Trader. Back in those hallowed days 40k was all about the story; it was so deeply ingrained into the game that you were supposed to have a game master. Most gamers back then were more worried about having a great time creating a fantastic story that winning and losing was only a fleeting secondary thought.

So for most of the been playing since 1st ed crowd narrative gaming is as natural as breathing. Oh how things have changed, now with the streamlined rules and tournament hungry gaming culture, narrative gaming has taken a back seat. I’d be willing to bet that there will be gamers that read this that have never played a narrative game of 40k

Narrative gaming means different things to different gamers, but at its core it is about creating a story with your games. This can be achieved in many ways, from a simple objective driven system where each objective has real significance to the actual story. It can also be very elaborate with custom special rules, random events or anything your imagination can cook up.

All you have to do is let your imagination take over and find a fried that wants to have a game where the results create a story.

Did Captain Antillies, and his Knights of Fire purge the traitors from Pergos, more importantly did he survive the engagement?

On Wednesday I will be going over idea about where you can draw inspiration for your narrative games.

Until then……

On the table this week: Eradicators/CSM Havocs

Here is a WIP shot of what I am working on this week. It is a squad of Soul Reapers Eradicators; so basically correctly priced Chaos Havocs! The squad weighs in at 155 points without an icon or costs 160 points with a personal icon.

I really like the way that they turned out, even though they were a nightmare to build with the metal heavy weapons.

The Champ is a particular favorite of mine, I worked hard to give him a natural pose for a model holding a bolter and pointing. I also gave him that clever spiky bit on his pack that can double as a personal icon for those time that I give the squad an icon.

Soul Reapers Praetorian Centurion: CSM Chosen Champ

I am working on finishing up my Praetorian squad, I have finished the Centurion. I really love these Forge World berzerker heads, they give the perfect look to these veteran madmen. He is armed with a Chaos Rune Blade and bolt pistol, but his right arm is magnetized so will have more weapons options later.

Have a great Independence Day

To all my fellow Americans, Have a safe and happy Independence day!

I will be spending the day in the man-cave getting some painting done on the Soul Reapers. Then round out the evening with a lawn chair on the roof, to watch the fireworks!

Until next time.

Cheers,
Jim