My... Birthday... Present... Precious...

I often come to you with descriptions of the kind of rampant interactivity-centered madness that my life revolves around. I have been forthcoming, I think, about how utterly consumed I can become with tiny avatars of humanity... pawns, perhaps (or, maybe ambassadors is a better descriptor) that I maneuver around a wide variety of imaginary, conflict-laden grounds. It's my thing, I think. It may not be "news" to any of you that I have a lot of these little guys, both virtual and physical.

I play with dolls.

Fast-forward to Now... into this atmosphere of collective avatarism arrives an innocent looking white cardboard box.

This box is rumored to bear a collection of metal and plastic Ork reinforcements to supplement my Orkie hordes. I have a friend, who you all know on this site as "The Todd". The Todd played and collected Orkies waaaaaaaaay back in gaming prehistory, and decided this year that it would be really funny to bury me under his collection, and see how long it took me to dig my way out.

But... see... there are already a great number of Orkies at my house.

So, it behooves us on this occasion to take a step back and assess what it is we are actually talking about here. Hand me that wide angle lens.

I command three Warhammer armies. 2 for Warhammer 40,000 (or, "WH40K" as it is affectionately abbreviated), and 1 for regl'ar ol' Warhammer (or, "Warhammer Fantasy" as it is affectionately extended). Each of these "armies" number in the general area of 5000 points.

...

I know, that means nothing to you. Let me put it to you this way.

The bulk of my Space Marines are something like eight squads of these guys (yes, that's eighty figures). I have Four squads of these (20 figures total). Three of these things. Like, twelve of these guys. One of these, him, a couple of these, two or three of these, and a couple of special banner dudes. Aaaaaaand, then I have like twenty five of these guys, with another ten of this kind of those guys, a couple of random ones of these, and like ten of these. They drive around in two of these, and I've got two squads of these guys (which really will fuck your shit up, I can tell you), and I just got this guy (finally). Oh, and like two squads of these guys. Soooo, that's like 200 figures.

Aaaaaand so my Tyranid forces are controlled by two of these, who are guarded by three of these guys. I have three of these, and three of them... who spit out lots and lots of these (so I have like twenty of them). I can deploy four of these guys, much to the chagrin of my enemies. I have sixteen of these, which is just not enough to be useful, as I can attest from lots and lots of experience watching them die. I need 16 more. Nine of these, ten of these (getting those was a bitch, I can tell you), and three of these that I have recently brought back from the "all of my arms have fallen off" graveyard. There are a bunch (like, twenty) of these lying around, but they don't get any action because they suck. Aaaaaaaaaand then of course I have something like eighty of these... (thirty-two of the pointy-clawed ones, and the rest are the guys with guns). And I have him, and he leads... a whole bunch of these. Five squads of twelve, what is that? Sixty. So, okay, that's like 250 models.

Hooo.

My Orc Hordz are lead by these three maniacs. Somehow, I manage to accumulate around eighty of these guys, um... uh... Okay, it's one hundred and forty of these. I can admit it. They are supported by sixteen of these, twenty-odd of these, and around forty of these. I recenltly acquired twenty of these. I have two of these, one of these, and two of these. I have like four of these fine fellows, and six of these (and as my opponents can tell you, they are the bloody beating nefarious heart of my army). I command twelve of these guys, and a nice big unit of these delightful things. Six of these. And, everyone needs one of these in their army. Um, oh dear lord that's almost four hundred models.

...

Like I said. Around 5000 points per army.

It's okay. I can quit any time.

Do you begin to see the absurdity level here? You remember the white box of yore? The box that contains another player's nearly complete Orc army??

So, I open it.

Keep in mind that I'm only showing you the new figures in these pictures. Everything I already told you about is behind me, in shelves, neatly tucked away.



I may never recover.

Hey, Matt, I Builded Yer Raider

And, here is a word about that. If you, or anyone near to you, has it in their head that it would be a good idea to:

Paint a Dark Eldar Raider with black tacky primer while it's still on the sprue! That way it's easy!

...please, do yourself and them a favor and punch them in the mouth.

I can assure you. It is not an easy thing to glue together a plastic ship with glue made for plastic when there is a thick layer of crap between the glue and the plastic. Nossir.

Either way, though, England prevails.


The raider is the one in black. Here's another way to look at that:

Yes, it's true, that crab-scorpion-lookin' thing is out of your worst nightmares. It's no fun, and I mean that as a Tyranid player.

The little guys are jetbikes. Matt has 85,000 of these that I intend to assemble, regardless of whether or not he wants me to. His comment about them when he dropped off all this marvelousness was "...meh." I can tell, he's only hiding his enthusiasm in order to throw me off guard. I'm sure that when he sees his Dark Eldar jetbike fleet, he'll warm to the notion.

Or not. Either way, I gets ta build 'em.

Power Failure = Bridge Pics

Grr. I just lost a huge post because the power failed in my office.

I don't have the spirit to re-build it. Sometimes, what you are writing is a process on it's own, and reproducing it is next to impossible. I think this was one of those posts. Maybe I'll return to the topic later, once I've finished stabbing this screwdriver into my goddamn defective battery backup system over and over and over.

On the bright side, my wargaming bridge got painted over the weekend, and I'm startled by how well it turned out. This picture is, of course, horrible, and does not really get across the detail that the model contains, but you can kinda see the green ink job I did for moss in the stone cracks...


And, more marvelously, the bridge was bloodied that very day.

Those are unpainted Chaos Warriors on the left, being (as it turns out) overrun by painted Beasts of Chaos on the right. Which just proves the age-old adage that painted figures always win.

Which helps explains my losing streak. At least that's what I tell myself when I'm crying myself to sleep.

Again With The Blocks

These may well be the most fun toys I've ever gotten.

Just to be clear, what's happening here is that I'm taking molds like those shown at the right (and also shown in a previous post) that were purchased from Hirst Arts, and casting blocks out of plaster.

When I say "casting blocks out of plaster", one must understand that this is a significant threshold that I've crossed.

Plaster, you understand, is one of those craft materials that only grandmothers use. It's so fasionable out-of-date as to be historically quaint, in this era of plastics and uber-clay of all shapes and sizes. Why, the very notion of casting something out of something else is itself quaint in many circles. That would involve work, and why would you do that when you can just go and spend money?

Yes, but see...

The molds cost between $25 and $50 each. You can use them (get this) hundreds of times. They are not, in any sense of the word, disposable. You buy them with a certain commitment in mind, something like "boy, I'd better use these, or my wife will slice off my testicles with them, and wow, they are dull." Hypothetically speaking.

You need plaster to cast with. Plaster, for those of who who have lingered on the edge of craftyness, but have never actually dipped your toe in the waters, is a white powdery stuff that can easily pass for cocaine. You mix it with water (or, as I have learned, sift the plaster slowly into the water, thus allowing it to absorb more evenly... lumps are bad), pour it in to the mold, make a huge mess, and then wait for it to dry. It hardens into something that resembles stone, although is more fragile. It is, in a word, invented by God himself for constructing wargaming terrain.

And, it's like $3.00 a box. I've spent like $9 on plaster so far. It's cheap.

Beware, though. Once you first discover within yourself the ability to create your own Lego blocks, the future may become clouded and uncertain, filled with constant 40-minute casting cycles in which you generate more and more and more construction material for your constantly inflating plans. This may be unhealthy for those prone to obsessive behavior. I may suffer from this disorder; no conclusive evidence on the topic has yet escaped my minion's suppressive powers.

Once the blocks have been cast, they must dry. I can now measure the dryness of plaster blocks by touch. And, perhaps more chillingly, by smell. I dry my blocks our tiny oven, on cookie sheets. They don't taste as good as cookies, but they provide much more joy. Imagine that.

What do you do with a pile of plaster blocks? What wizardry is needed to assemble them into something intelligible?

Wood glue. Lo:

I give you, the Traveller's Bridge, Darklord-style.

What boggles my mind is that I modified their design on-the-fly while building this thing. The bridge steps in their version are narrow as sin, and are far too steep for my tastes. So I extended them and lengthened the bridge. Try that with a terrain kit from... some... other company that sells terrain... things.

Not only that, I can make a giant phallic symbol!

This is from this Egyptian mold they make.

A question: can you tell me, off the top of your head, the difference between Mayan and Egyptian architecture?


...

Well, fuck you, so you can. Who asked you anyway. My Mayan architecture that I'm building for my Lustria campaign is going to be graced with heiro-fucking-glyphics. Deal with it.

And what Mayan setting would be complete without a ziggurat? You know, a ziggurat?

It's on its way. I'll let you know when I'm done.

Hee hee hee

I love my toys.

Some time ago, this wacky friend of mine bought a metric truckload of molds from Hirst Arts Fantasy Architecture Inc.

At the time, I called him crazy. ... I also called him a diety, and washed his feet with wine, and my hair. See, because these are some of the coolest damn toys of all time. Imagine: Lego, except you can make all you want, and they're textured like stone.

[drool]

This weekend marked the first actual excursion into the land of Casting Plaster Blocks. And, I've gotta say, it's really, really fun.

First thing you do, see, is...

Well, wait. The first thing you do is read the instructions. Over and over.

Okay, then, the first thing you do is make yourself a litle casting station.

Here's the recommended station, from the website:

And, here's mine:

Mine's better. Mine isn't a goddamn STAGE SET.

In short order (like, within an hour of getting started), I was cranking out a bunch of these:

I have, at this point, a reasonable collection of blocks. I need more (oh yes, I need more), but for a first day's work? Not so bad.

My first attempt at assembly will be something resembling a bridge, although I'm going to have to modify the original plans some to accomodate the width of a Warhammer movement tray.

(If the phrase "Warhammer movement tray" means nothing to you, don't sweat it. You're normal.)

Here is the current status of said bridge:

Dude (and by "dude", I mean the goddamn sugardaddy who hooked me up with these badass toys; that's right, I'm talkin' to you), you have no idea how happy these things have made me.

It's stupid, but... I really like making bricks out of plaster. Go figure.