Kickstarter Delivery: Mega Mat

I received a kickstarter shipment today and wanted to share it with y'all. Back in December I stumbled across a kickstarter by Frontline Gaming and Tablewars for a product they were calling the Mega Mat. Their concept was to have high resolutions video game quality backgrounds digitally printed onto mouse pad type surfaces in 6x4 and 4x4 sizes for high quality easy to transport/set up gaming tables. I watched the kickstarter for a few days and waited to see which designs were unlocked and finally decided to jump in when the space layout was unlocked. I picked up two mats one for Warmahordes and one for X-wing. On to the pictures y'all:

Box was checked with only one mat and the wrong one but Mickey warned me his was like this so I wasn't concerned. My guess is the outer boxes were re-purposed from the China shipment.  

Inner boxes were fully tapped without a single section of exposed cardboard. Grassy plains and Space just what I was looking for.

Inside each small box was a draw string sleeve which was made of a nice heavy material. these feel like they will hold up very nicely to transportation and storage. My only wish was that it had a should strap for carrying back and forth. 

Thinner than I expected but very strong and durable feeling. Smells pretty strong of mouse pad for the time being but I'm sure that will fad. 

Grassy plain partially unrolled to get a quick glimpse. Even right out of the box it laid flat right from go. I was very pleased with the quality and this will be great for my trolls to kick some butt.

Borka says he'll be the judge of that. So Borka what do you think?...."OK fine you were right this will be perfect now get me a beer"

Next up I partially unrolled the space mat. Could this be a galaxy far far away?

Han decides he want to take a peek.

Time to make the jump to hyperspace...."punch it Chewie!"

I am very happy with the quality of these mats and that I decided to back this project in the last few hours. My plan going forward is to have a table frame made for these so that I can just unroll the desired mat into the frame and throw it up on the card table whenever I'm looking for a game. I will need to bang out/pick up some terrain for the Warmachine/Hordes table but that won't be too tough. The x-wing table is pretty much good to go but may try my hand as some 3D asteroids or maybe a moon to give it a little more flare. 

Borka!

Title says it all. In a post prior to Templecon I was said I was trying to get the Rob Hawkins Borka conversion finished prior to leaving for Rhode Island. While I never got a chance to play him (see Templcon recap post) I am happy to say I was able to finish the big guy prior to making the trip. Here are the WiPs of the Kegslayer from the days leading up to Templecon:

Primed with black Vallejo Surface primer via the airbrush

Blocked in the base colors via the airbrush. Skin is my trollblood blue mix, fur is P3 trollblood highlight, leather is P3 bootstrap leather

I decided to try something new on Borka and paint the fur with a snow leopard pattern. I was a little worried going into this but followed the tutorial from a NQ GnG. When I went to bed after finishing the fur I wasn't too happy with it but upon second examination in the am I was very happy with the result and that I took the chance.

I also did the snow leopard pattern on the fur coming out of the gloves.

After cleaning up the base colors I washed the skin on Borka and pGrissel with my standard skin/metal wash

Different angle of above photo

Skin highlights. Also washed the leather sections and basecoated the metals.

Since I was working on my new Borka I took this time to touch up my old keg carrier. I reworked the keg and his skin.

Painted the tartan in Cygnar blues. I attempted to paint the tartan pattern from the trollblood forces book but didn't have time to get it right so just repainted it blue for now.

Detail work

Picked out the runes on the skirt with P3 hammerfall khaki

DONE! I have to say I am very happy with how he came out and in only 2 days. The matte varnish I used, after this photo, knocked down the highlights a little more than I would have liked so I may go back over him with satin varnish to see if I can bring some of the highlights back.

While she didn't get finished 100% pGrissel was very close and did get used three time at Templecon. I need to finish the red scarf and light brown tartan and she will be done too

Templecon Paint Push (Borka Begins!)

What would it be if I didn't have a paint project I was trying to finish the days before Templecon? I really didn't have anything going so I decided I would try and finish a mini I had started months ago and paint one that was still unprimed. Those that are new my not have seen this unboxing but back in July (sad it took this long) I got a great box from Rob Hawkins. The crown jewel of that package was the sexy sexy Borka conversion. I have been putting of painting him cause I wanted him to be "perfect" but the more I thought about it I am doing this beautiful model a major disservice leaving it unpainted and that a quality paint job, even if not perfect, is far better than leaving him "naked". I have wanted to play Borka a bunch at Templecon this year so no better time than the present.....right?

 Borka with some of the "family"......anyone need a refill?

All primed and ready for paint

 

While not nearly as sexy as the Borka I all had a subtle Grissel1 conversion in that box from Rob as well. I have heard over and over that she is amazing to play and a local play Lord Sorrow aka Tim has been playing her a lot lately and singing (no pun intended) her praise. I had started her a few months back but finally put some more paint to mini. I did the yellow metal trims last evening before work. I need to clean up a few spots but then a wash of the skin and metal will pull the mini together pretty fast. Here she is as currently stands:

 



 

Well I have two more nights of work then Monday and Tuesday off before we hit the road for Rhode Island. Will I be able to get Borka done in time? Will Grissel be signing the blues? If you're heading to Templecon hit me up in the iron arena for a game and see for yourself and feel free to talk some



$%@# if they aren't ;) Most of y'all don't know me so I'll be the big guy with the goatee wearing a Team Spite shirt or just ask a Team Spite player to point out Nog. Hope to see some of y'all at Templecon and maybe I can make a Templecon deadline for a change.

Oh Buddy! What's in the Box Part VI (I think)

I was up until well past 4am last night with a coughing child so I took a little nap this afternoon. When I woke up my wife brought me a package I received while sleeping.....oh happy days. Those of you that follow along can probably guess whom sent this pack but for those newer to the cave it was from Mr. Rob Hawkins. OK you don't care what I have to say lets get to the shinnies!

 Pretty straight forward....unit of scattergunners cause eGrim demanded it dammit :)

Storm Troll. One of  the last light I didn't own 

 

Bomber #2 cause what's better than two boostable 4" AOEs? Four of them. Once again at the request of eGrim and Gunnbjorn. You can see more angles and info on this conversion here: http://robhawkinshobby.blogspot.com/2013/07/bomber-conversion.html

Here is a little pGrissel conversion. pGrissel was the last of the trollblood 'locks I didn't own and mainly because I don't like the sculpt. Well I figured it was time to pick her up and rob did minimal cosmetic work on here since it is a tough model to convert without major work. He swapped out the much nicer hammerhead/end cap from eGrissel in exchange for the original (they are the same hammer they should look the same now?) This brings us to the best part of the post.......

What can you say but badass! You can see step by steps from Rob here: http://robhawkinshobby.blogspot.com/2013/06/building-better-borka.html the only thing that has changed from Rob's blog post can be seen in the final picture above. Rob sculpted some fur coming out of the gauntlets to match the artwork even more closely. I am so thrilled with this mini I cannot truly put it in works. I cannot wait for the plastic champ kit in September so I can properly fill out my family reunion list.

 One big happy family of troll beat down heading your way!

 

When I took that final photos I realized how much it looks like the cover of Forces of Hordes: Trollbloods. I may have to re-stage this photo when everything is painted up nice and pretty. OK I have to run I think I have a date with my priming stations :)

Borka is Smiling

If you saw my last post you know I have a really exciting new mini coming in my near future and with that my new Borka got a pleasant (yet expected) surprise on the PP main page today. They showed the plastic Trollkin Champion re-box based off the Trollkin Warder sculpts.

I currently own two mini units of champs and was in desperate need for a max unit to fill out my Family Reunion list. I know where this unit is coming from and will not have to worry about major conversion work to have some variety from my other champs. As you can see PP has three different sculpts in the five man unit which is a little disapointing but has been the trend with these kits. I think it will be pretty easy to integrate a little variety by getting a box of warders and mix n matching a couple heads and by clipping off a couple weapon heads and swapping them between champs. I am excited to gfet my hands on a box of these and suspect they will be a Sept/Oct release which should give me plently of time to get the other parts of list painted. Here is hoping the mold lines on these gentleman is no where near as bad as the fennblades or Nog's head may explode.

Just Have to Share

Hey all. As you know I have commissioned Rob Hawkins on a few different projects over the last year. He has done some awesome conversions for me and I have loved everyone of them (Rok/Extremoth/etc). Rob has just fnished up the latest conversion project and I just have to share it now. I would typically wait for a "What's in the Box" post but this is just too cool not too share. Here he is:

The latest project was to do a Borka conversion to make him holding Truama in two hands and looking more like his amazing artwork on page 47 of the Trollblood forces of box. Please check out this link to Rob's blog where he shows step by step shots of the project and has a ton of photos of this awesome mini:

http://robhawkinshobby.blogspot.com/2013/06/building-better-borka.html#comment-form

If you aren't familar with Rob's blog you really should check it out. He is an amazing hobbyist (that a word?). I really look forward to getting some paint on this guy. There are a few other things coming back with Borka but I will do a "What's in the Box" for the other stuff.

Sluggers Started

Started working on the sluggers Sunday afternoon. Despite Monday being my first night back to work (been off for three weeks) I was able to get some quality work done. I took about an hour on Sunday to clean off the mold lines and get these guys (and gal) ready for primer. The only issue I ran into was attaching the ammo belts where needed. The contact point for these wasn't great and I didn't have much surface area/depth to try and pin. It doesn't help that the attachment point is in a fairly tight spot and I have big sausage fingers. I fell back on a method I haven't used for some time...the green stuff and glue method. It seems to have done the trick. The addition of the little ball of green stuff held the belt in place while I moved it to the exact spot I wanted. Once I had the location locked down I gave it a little push and scraped of the excess green stuff which pushed out of the gaps.

After letting the green stuff cure it was time to beak out the air brush. I primed with my standard black Vallejo surface primer. I used the airbrush to basecoat two different section on Northblade's Grogspar and I was happy with the results. As an aside I will be posting photos of the finished Grogspar coming once I hear the mini has been delivered and Northblade has seen it in person first. I was determined to basecoat as much of the minis with the airbrush as possible. I felt even if I had some over spray this would be easily corrected and worth the time saved not having to hand brush everything. Here they are after the basecoating stage and prior to cleaning up any of the edges that had over spray issues:

I painted the pants with P3 rucksack tan (by far my favorite color for light leathers), the boots/gloves got hit with P3 bootstrap leather, the skin with my standard troll blue, and I did the green of the tartans with Vallejo Game Color Russian green. I would normally try and spray the metallic sections as well but seeing as there wasn't too much metal and I wanted to avoid metallic over spray I decided to pass on that for the time being.

I started tinkering with a 50pt family reunion list. I want to try and keep the sluggers for the first few lists and not go right to the trollkin champions. I also want to try and get the war wagon in as many of the lists as possible. Here is what I came up with the other night:

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Rok (11pts)
* Pyre Troll (5pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Sluggers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
War Wagon (9pts)

I previously mention my concern over running into heavy armor. I decided that Rok and pyre troll should be helpful to this end. I have the two damage buffs here in primal and flaming fist. I also have some fun knockdown shenanigans with the war wagon and mosh pit. This should aid the sluggers in hitting their targets. Once again I don't think this list is optimal by any stretch of the imagination but it sure looks like it could be fun. I am not sure when I will be able to grab a game again but I plan to bring this and the 35pt list from the other day to the the store and kick the tires on my unloved challenge.

Northblade's Unloved Model Challenge

Those of you that listen to Lost Hemisphere Radio may have heard Northblade mention his unloved model challenge he is running out of his home store Heroes World. This challenge has also been picked up on the Lost Hemisphere forums. Well for those of you that have not heard the podcast here is the gist: there are three basic levels to the challenge and they are as follows:

1. Select a model from your faction that sees little table time and is generally believed to be subpar. Then paint that mini up and play it on a regular basis and see if you can make it work.
2. Let Northblade or 'Gdaybloke select the mini
3. Let the guys select a theme force (since it is LH what would you expect?) and play that at tier 2 or higher. Try to play it to >.500 win percentage

Despite not being part of Mr Bell's meta I shot him a text message and said count me. I need to keep painting and this will be some motivation. I figured I'd get something like Gunnbjorn which would be good since he has been partially painted for nearly a year now. Mr Bell surprised me by selecting Borka's family reunion theme force from NQ #38. Those of you that follow along with the cave know I love the family so this isn't too out there for me. I still need to finish painting parts of it so sounds like a win/win for me. It also can be a reason to get the newly painted war wagon on the table more often. Trying to keep with the spirit of the challenge I have decided to throw in an unloved unit in my first list. The unit in question would be sluggers. I didn't own them at the time of the challenge and I have never seen them played (I did just see them on a tray at Templecon masters).

I picked up a box of sluggers Tuesday at my FLGS since I knew they would be in stock. I am pretty sure they have been on the shelf at the FLGS since the release date. Right off the bat the unit is already fighting me as the box was miss packed. Here is a photo of the unit.

You may be saying there are five minis there what is the issue? Well maybe it is not a big deal but I got two unit leaders and three grunts versus the one leader four grunts it is suppose to be. I am missing one of the lady sluggers. Like I said maybe not that big of a deal but it always bugs me when things aren't what they are suppose to be. On top of that the card was mangled in the box and will need to be replaced.

I have been brainstorming on some lists and while I feel it plays better (trolls in general) at the 50pt level I am toying with a few 35pt list:

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Pyre Troll (5pts)
* Winter Troll (5pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Sluggers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

This list ends up having two unloved models/units. the winter troll and the sluggers. After taking care of my tier requirements I only had room for 10pts worth of 'beasts. The pyre was an easy choice the winter was included because I don't own a second pyre or storm troll. I suppose I could go slag/swamp....swarm on an iron fleshed/stumbling drunk Borka could be fun (for me). I will have to play around with it some. I will probably have some issues cracking serious armor but this is a start. If I can win the roll for initiative I think I maybe able to get some solid use out of the sluggers. Use the advance deploy from the tier to move them and Boomhowlers then run the sluggers into a good firing position and hopefully aim and take advantage of full auto for a few turns. Once again all good in theory but we will have to see how it plays out on the table.

Templecon Day 1 Wrap Up

OK Templecon was officially to begin. After being up until about 2am catching up with out of town Team Spite members we woke up about 7am to get some breakfast and head down to the gaming hall to get seats for the keynote address.

Les rocking the new official Team Spite shirt. I picked these up two days before we hit the road. 

 Little Scudo wandered over to say what up and get some steamroller sheets.

z1g1 wide eyed and ready to roll to the team tourney.  

The crowd grew outside the gaming hall as we awaited our chance to grab seats for the keynote presentation. Guarding our door was the famous/infamous G'daybloke. It was nice to BS and catch up a little prior to getting into the hall.

PPS Ed Bourelle, Will Shick, and Lyle Lowery preparing to dazzle the crowd with the new hotness. If you haven't seen the keynote presentation yet....but I am sure you have head over to privateer press and check it out.

 

After the keynote address and Q&A it was time to get down to some gaming. The first event of the weekend was the team tourney. I played in this last year and lord is it a long event. it is far too long for my liking so I sat it out and decided to try and play in the 75pt time crisis event later in the day. I walked a round a little checking out the demos in the hallway, the vendor booths, registered for iron arena, and headed back to the room to relax and work on some lists for time crisis.

Time crisis was suppose to be a 75pt event with frenzy timing per the new steamroller 2013 rules. Frenzy timing for those of you that are unaware uses the turn times of two point lvls lower. This means a 75pt event would have seven min turns with one three min extension! The didn't have enough of the correct clocks so we ended up playing 42min deathclock instead. There was a drawing for anyone using two 120mm bases in a single list after watch round. The two lists I settled on were:

Chief Madrak Ironhide (*6pts)
* Mountain King (20pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Sons of Bragg (6pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

and

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Mountain King (20pts)
* Rok (11pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
War Wagon (9pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Champions (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)
* Skaldi Bonehammer (3pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

The Madrak list is a variation of the pMaddy list I have been paying for the last year and love to play. I have this list down pretty darn well and have my order of activation pretty well set. The second list is a Family Reunion list that I have played some but never with the two 120mm bases. I was really excited to try this guy out and planned to play this most if not all of the games. It was at this time that I ran into a serious snag in my plans. While I was unpacking my lists for the tourney I noticed I didn't have my keg carrier! I ran out to the war store booth to try and buy a new Borka but they had non in stock. Well looks like just pMaddy for me. The event had a pretty small entrance seeing as so many people were still playing in the team tourney.

My first round opponent was Andrew from New Jersey. The first round scenario was into the breach. He decided to run a Constance Blaze list. We both made some mistake throughout the fight but I think he forgot the effects of snaking when he selected his list as on his feat turn my beat up beasts destroyed large chunks of infantry and due to snaking he didn't get the souls and therefore the major benefits of the feat. The game ended with Constance being assassinate. We both played a little sloppy but it was a fun game and was a good opponent. 1-0

Round two I played Brian from New Hampshire. He was playing pDenny.....uggh. As a troll play I loathe pDenny since unless I am play pDoomshaper I know one of my units/beasts will be out of play the entire game. The game was back and forth. While he decided to crippling grasp the mountain king and take him out of action I was able to do some serious counter damage and was able to weather Denny brutal feat. This too was a fun game but there was a clock SNAFU on my part. Since we didn't have a chess clock that switched time over I forgot to start my clock. In response I decided to let my clock run off time as a penalty which we both felt was fair. I forgot I could just adjust the time and restart my turn. Well the round time ended and we learned of a new SR2013 rule. If the combined time on both clocks is greater than 5 min the game is considered a draw. my clock showed 5 min and his showed 1 min. Result = draw. We were pretty sure his clock was <30 sec so while waiting for the pairings for the next round I hit the start button and began to count. the clock had 12 sec left. Uggh I screwed this game up. 1-0-1

My opponent for the last round was Tim from Pennsylvania. I am not sure if you can make it out but this was a Sturm and Drang force made up of seven war hogs and two road hogs! Here I thought I was rolling beast heavy. The mission at hand was incursion. Incursion is not a favorite of mine playing beast bricks as spreading out is something I really would like to avoid. The game was going pretty well for me as the mountain king just wouldn't die and I was able to continuously block charge lanes with spawning whelps. I got a little careless however and ended up losing on scenario as I couldn't get enough back to contest the last flag. S&D killed the mauler that was contesting the last flag and dominated to get the last two CPs required to win. When the dust cleared I killed all seven war hogs and one of the road hogs but that darn scenario victory jumped up and bit me.

I finished 1-1-1 and never having played at 75pts in the past I have to say it was a fun event to play in. I enjoyed playing with all three of my opponents which helped to make it a fun event. Time to grab a little dinner and get ready for midnight madness. The midnight tournament was warcaster's dilemma which was a 35pt event with specialist. Specialists is a new feature in SR2013 which acts like a sideboard. The two lists I selected for the event were:

Hoarluk Doomshaper (*7pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
specialist:
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (4pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)

and

Jarl Skuld, Devil Of Thornwood (*6pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
* Ršk (11pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
specialists:
Sons of Bragg (6pts)
Alten Ashley, Monster Hunter (2pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)

My opponent for the first round was Tyler from Connecticut. He was playing Legion and while I cannot remember what his other list was I was pretty sure he was going to pick Saeryn and he did. I went with pDoomie. In hindsight I am not sure why I picked this list as I think Jarl would be a bit better here. I had an odd feeling the dygs were really going to get their moneys worth and maybe that is why I picked pDoomie. I won the roll and went first. Turn one nothing eventful on either side other than buffs and advancing. Two tur I popped the dygs, fell called them, fortuned them, and purified the respawn on an angle. The dygs then charge an angle and neph bolthrower killing the angle and taking out half of the neph. This was an early piece advantage for me and I was able to ride this out to a W. it did get a little hair there for a second near the end when I left the smallest of gaps between minis allowing Saeryn to throw some knifes at Doomshaper but he made it through relatively unscathed. 1-0

Round two I ran into Derrick from Canada. I actually met Derrick last March when I headed up to Toronto to play in the Conquest Tournament that Northblade and Boots were running. Based on his two lists I selected Jarl planing on popping feat early to prevent some shooting. He selected Ravyn as 'caster. The game ended top of three when he moved Ravyn a little too far forward and I was able to drop two sniped bomber shots on top of her. 2-0

Round three was Chris from NYC playing Protectorate. I watched some of his game from the previous round and hear him say he like to play Thyra versus trolls so I had a pretty good idea which list he was going to play. I selected my Jarl list. The game was back and forth with both of us making some mistakes. My biggest mistake came when I had an enlivened Avatar in charge range of Rok. When enliven was put on the Avatar I laid out my plan to trigger enliven and still be able to get Rok on him. Well when I got to that part of my turn I forgot my plans and just primaled Rok and charged....oooppps. We were both starting to see a lot of attrition when the judges came over and called time. I was a little thrown off by this as we didn't have any major clock issues that I could recall. His deathclock had less than a min left on it and my had just over 5 min. What did we learn earlier kiddies? Doh another drawn 2-0-1

 

The last round of the tourney started about 5:30am. I was pitted against Paul from NYC (a buddy of Chris in fact). He was playing Cirle and picked a Grayle army. I went with pDoomie for no specific reason. I was a little on auto pilot at this time and figured out game really didn't mean anything. Paul had me from the get go. He was putting his pieces in far better location and was just out playing me without question. He ended up winning the game on scenario. We had a fun game but he won really easily. While out game was still going on the sun began to shine through the windows and when all was said and done it was 7:00am when the event was over.

 

I really enjoyed this event and liked all my opponents. Despite being thoroughly beaten by Paul I was really happy to hear during the announcements that he finished fourth in the event and qualified for masters. I guess our game did mean something. 

 

After the tourney nick and I stumbled a round for a little bit looking to grab some breakfast but ended up just heading back to the room and crashing. That wrapped up day one of Templecon and I have to say it was a fun day and I was really glad to have seven games that were enjoyable and seven opponents I would gladly play again in the future. Thanks guys for fun games.