K......... A R L S Disco Wiener Haven

I've had this song randomly stuck in my head all day. Spontaneous outbursts & mumblings of it have followed. I haven't seen the movie or heard the song in decades. No idea why it popped into my head today.


So, naturally, I started thinking about gaming. Naturally. You see the connection, don't you?

About a year ago, I typed out a bit of the background & start of the campaign outline for the Jackrabbit Trading Company's part in my ridiculous grand Marienburg campaign that will probably never even get played. I think I've written a little more since. But the relevant part here is the Anabasis that follows in that outline. The plan has been a series of scenarios based on the classical "soldiers road trip" of the same name and its various relations & derivatives.

So with that in mind, the rest of my cultural mashing would involve our protagonists having a Straight to Hell like stop along their journey home through the Wasteland. I like the bonus tie-in between the hobbits' legendary wurst and Karl's Disco Wiener Haven.

At the very least, I will need to convert or sculpt (or have sculpted?) a Zander Schloss "wiener kid miniature. Maybe a few other characters.

KoW Tournament

I did end up registering for an upcoming local KoW tournament. I've got mixed feelings on the whole "tournament" thing. But I'm going to give it a shot. I think I'm just hoping to find someone (or someones) near me who are interested in playing more narrative/friendly type games. And I do like KoW. It satisfied the easy-going mass battle side of gaming for me.

Orctober

Orc's are not really a major part of any of my plans, but I'm going to paint up at least an orc or two, in the spirit of the season.

In Which Our Hero Reflects Upon His Travels, Art, Family, and Half-Orcs

Not much new painting lately. I've been travelling a lot the past few weeks and just got home yesterday.

One week was in North Carolina, taking in the sights...

And the sites...

I was doing field surveys, and the site I was working at was one of the creepiest I've done. Power was off, and one unit was a former diner that reeked of rancid fryer oil and gave me nighmare visions of some of my favorite films... Like Return of the King. You know the scene where Frodo was stumbling in the dark through webs in Shelob's lair? Been there. You know that scene where Aragorn, Gimli, and the elf are walking through the Paths of the Dead and the floor makes a crunching sound? Well... replace the skulls with giant cockroaches & their corpses. I eventually went out to the hardware store to supplement the flashlight clamped onto my clipboard with a headlamp and ended up deciding that the suspended roach corpses made me think less of Lord of the Rings, and more like that scene where they find the colonists in Aliens... but reproduced on an insect scale...

So that was North Carolina. My prior impression from travelling through NC was pretty much summed up as "strip-malls." Good to know it's not so one dimensional. They also have empty strip malls with movie sets reproduced with insects.

Eventually, I had to say goodbye to my field office...

...and head back home. For a short time. Before heading out again. But next up was my upgraded Tulsa field office...

Sadly, no bucket to sit on, nor an actual table. But this bit of casework was on casters, so I could wheel it around like a mobile work station -- although I had to stand & hunch over it. The site was a large, single, relatively clean unit, with electricity and Muzak. Which I cranked up loud. So, once again, it was an upgrade.

Tulsa was really the best city I've visited since taking the new job. It felt surprisingly familiar, and the people were really friendly. I got some decent BBQ, ate at a vintage diner on Rt. 66...

And best of all was that between working my ass off the first few days, and the site being a bit easier than I had planned for, I was done a little ahead of schedule. Usually on work trips, I work as much as I can, grab some food, pass out, wake up and repeat, until my flight home. This time I managed half an afternoon for a side trip. An hour north of Tulsa is Bartlesville, home of Phillips 66 and Price Tower.

The latter was originally the HQ of the H.C. Price company, and was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I managed to get there just in time for the last tour. As with all Wright buildings, seeing it in photos is one thing, but being there in person is another. That's true of all architecture. Its nature is spatial and experiential. Architecture is not two dimensional, and it's meant for human interaction. But there's something about Wright buildings... something good and something bad. But profound, in either case. I stepped out of the car and was in awe.

While I was there I picked up a few things from the gift shop. (The tower is now home to an arts center, with the rest of the building serving as a hotel and restaurant.) I picked up a couple of books on the architect Bruce Goff, who lived in the tower for nine years, taught at O(K)U. As the receptionist was ringing up my purchases, she asked if I would like a list of addresses for the homes that Goff designed in the area. So I went on an architectural stalking spree through Bartlesville, checking out Goff homes and was well rewarded.

I'm as much a fan of Goff's work as I am of Wright's, but more than that I have a great respect for him as a person and his influence on architecture & education. (Whereas Wright was kind of a dick.) And similar to driving around Oak Park, IL, driving around Bartlesville, OK there was a really fun sense of a treasure hunt, spotting the houses as real gems without even having to look at the address or Google Maps. It was obvious where there was a Goff house, even among some of the other Prarie Style & Mid-Century Moderns.

My flights were routed through Dallas-Fort Worth, and the return trip had what turned out to be a slightly extended (but not too bad) layover. DFW terminal D was pretty cool, as I was entertained by the sound sculpture there.

I thought it was a shame that despite the huge number of people there, everyone was sort of pretending like this giant blue thing wasn't there. Except for a few kids. And their parents who only ackowledged it to the extent that they wanted them to stop enjoying it, I guess. Which is sad, because it seems the whole purpose of the thing is to provide a bit of playfulness in the airport terminal.

Also, there is a candy shop right next to it.

Back home again, as of yesterday. Settled in a bit. Had a pretty easy-going day today, and amid catching up on all the mundane chores I needed to take care of, my daughter (age 5) asked if we she could "make something with you, like those statues in the basement." That would equally refer to miniatures and vinyl/resin/sculpted custom toys. Figuring the latter was the best option, I initially thought about starting her on sculpting, but decided upon some blank vinyl, acrylic paints, and some butterfly cut-outs from an unfinished decorating project at our old house.

This was a fun start ( I hope) to getting her into painting stuff -- whether its toys or miniatures. :) The important part being that we spent part of the afternoon sitting together at the table and painting something.

I also prepped a half-orc (sold as orcs by Black Tree) mercenary unit to paint tonight...

Wait, WTF is going on here? Oh... yeah... after getting everything ready to paint tonight... fuzzy primer. So into the jar of Simple Green they went, not long after being primed. The primer was also pretty tacky, so I guess that's why it was so easy to scrub it all off the minis just a half hour (new record?) after being dropped into the Simple Green.

Ahhh... that's better. Used the last of my Krylon (grey) primer instead of the crappy -- in spite of online recommendations -- Rustoleum (black) primer. And despite my worries (and some posing acrobatics) I got them ti all fit in a ranked up unit on 20mm bases! But no paint tonight, still waiting on that glue to dry.

(Speaking of mercenaries, if I can make it to another convention or gaming event, I've got what I believe is a great idea for a fun multi-player game! More on that in the future....)

So there it is... half orcs on the horizon. But possibly not for another week or so. I'll be heading out of town again. But this time for a (hopefully) fun & relaxing family camping trip instead of work.

Giftsmas '16

We're still working on visiting family for the holiday, but had a nice Christmas morning at home. This year I even got closer to receiving a gaming related gift than I have before, with an awesome retro themed Stranger Things t-shirt. ;)

For fun, we all got new "onsie" pajamas to wear for Christmas eve/morn. (I'm sporting a fuzzy wookie pelt.) 

A week or two ago, I jumped on the opportunity to pick up a second hand set of Northumbrian Tin Soldier "Time Robbers." I loved these figures the second I saw them (earlier this year?) so even though I shouldn't have been buying myself gifts... I couldn't help myself. They arrived Christmas Eve, so that's also like a Christmas present... to myself. ;)

Of course, this means I need to get the rest of the range, now. :)

Small Update

Painted some small figures. Some of the extras from the Westfalia Kickstarter rewards -- some samples of their upcoming range of kobolds, and a steppe goblin. I really like all of these! They will all work their way into Zogmar's band of misfits -- the kobolds just one of the diverse flavors of "lesser goblins."

Seeing as Halloween is approaching, my wife wanted to watch some spooky movies.

The Witch was possibly an OK-ish movie, at best, until the last scene ruined any chance it had of a positive review from me. Bleh.

Alien Flu

I've been sick most of the week, and needed a break from painting for a few days anyway. So I've been posting my battle reports and going through some other photos from the trip to Dayton.

I've also been watching the Alien(s) marathon on AMC. They're showing the 4 films in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Alien film. Very enjoyable.

Between this and a recent browsing of some 40k stuff, I've been tempted (though resisting, so far) to jump back in after many years away. Bugs, of course.

GW news and District 9

Space Hulk

So the announcement of the long rumored Limited Edition Space Hulk has been made.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1430053&prodId=prod210009a

I liked Space Hulk. I liked Advanced Space Crusade. I liked the hybrids with both of those and 40k 2nd ed. my friends and I used to play.

I would have liked to get the new Space Hulk, but I don't think I will. First, i don't actually care for the look of the figures. Second, the price tag seems a bit high for what you get, especially if you don't like the figures. Third, the LE thing seems goofy -- I'm not going to wait at the store for the game to arrive, so if two weeks after release they're unavailable, then I guess I'm out of luck and won't feel too bad. I suspect that just as with other LE items, many of these games will never have a chance to get to your average customer and will instead hit eBay at twice the price.


District 9

This brings me to my next point... I saw District 9 over the weekend. It was OK. It was seemed caught between being a social/political commentary and an action film. But it seemed a bit like a high budget B-Movie.

However, even before reading the official Space Hulk announcement, I had started thinking that the setting & visual concept behind some of the action scenes in District 9 could make a good sci-fi game. That said, I may have too look into doing something like that rather than Space Hulk.



Forgeworld

So according to the news at this site:

http://www.brueckenkopf-online.com/?p=6879

if I am understanding correctly, Forgeworld will split off a Fantasy division to focus on WFB stuff, so that the original Forgeworld group can continue to specialize in 40k stuff.

Earlier this year, Warhammer Historical Wargames was rolled into Forgeworld with little news since then. So what does it mean that they are now splitting Forgeworld into two groups, each concentrating on one game/genre (40k & WFB,) neither of which are Warhammer Ancients?

I am increasingly concerned that WHW and WAB in particular have been abandoned. :(