The year of living EPICly

or how I've gone big (and not gone home).

I share, with many in the gaming community, a bit of an obsessive personality. Hence I've now determined to focus on building my non-canon, non-endorsed chapter The Sons of Sol. The means vigilant trolling of the ebay, which I've noted in several posts already. You'd think those 6mm bits of plastic are gold given the prices online. It might be a fun cost-breakdown of the weight of gold v. epic space marines to see if indeed it's worth more. Maybe that's for another day.

Since I began searching ebay, I've seen prices for the fecking bastards increase greatly. It's a little shocking, though I'm guessing the international community senses an easy mark in me. Hence, this will be the year of living EPICly. My gaming/fun fund will not be scattered to the four winds, but focused on my Sons of Sol chapter and marginalia.

Well, not solely. I do intend to do the Empress Miniatures Kickstarter (the modern German v. Russian one) if it should come out this year. I also intend to throw money at Rivet Wars if they do another Kickstarter. Finally, I've saw on Realms of Chaos that there'll be an Oldhammer Kickstarter soon. But the bulk of my funding shall be in and around my new epic obsession. This does include:

• getting some GHQ hex material to make terrain.
• getting some 1/300 and/or N-scale buildings to add to the fun.
• continuing on painting the eyestrain inducing little bastards I have/hope to have.
• possibly getting a second army. While I will be playing with myself most likely (pun intended) I want to do it in style (eww).

Of note as well, painting white sucks. The scheme (after consulting the wiser half who isn't color-blind) is white and gold. I've had to make a special run to grab some vallejo white paint (I swear by vallejo model colors, though I like GW washes) from my local game store.

Enough nattering, I'll put up some pics when I feel like I can do them some (in)justice. 

p.s. the title is stolen from http://ajjacobs.com/books/the-year-of-living-biblically/. A great read I might add.

I'm a loser baby...

so go ahead and outbid me.

Here at MadKat's labs my first lot of Epic Marines have arrived, and a test-group (5 marines, one dreadnought) was done up in my made-up Chapter's color scheme. I'm not terribly pleased, but neither am I filled with unholy rage.

l-r Battlefront ANZAC, Epic Contemptor, Epic Marine

test stand, and a chaos 28mm samurai

No, the unholy rage is reserved for eBay. I've been delving deeper into the mysteries of eBay, actually  mostly losing bids, and I cannot figure the damn thing out. Some items go like their plastic is infused with platinum. Others are left for the carrion eaters like me, who get chased off at the last second (literally). I lost at least one bid because The Little GM*, distracted me with tales of what her Monster High (that oughta boost hits) dolls were up to. Now, I assume there are the "three weird tricks to winning all eBay auction" pages out there, but we're bidding on plastic and metal at eye-numbing scales. Plumbing such depths are beneath me, or are they...? Oy.

It's been real, but I'm off to paint before I learn what Abby Bominal ate for breakfast.

*The Little GM is the name my friends have given my daughter.

The Postman always rings...

well, in the case of Rivet Wars (phase I) I intercepted him at the door! There is a story behind that, but I'd rather not reveal my OCD quite yet.

Image from: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/rivet-wars

In other news, my painting quest this year will be Epic 40k. I kind of inadvertantly won my first ebay auction. I bid on some Epic Space marines and low and behold I won on my second shot at some Space Marine stuff.  Now, for veterans of the web winning an auction isn't all that, but I had joined the site and won within a day. Now I regret getting rid of a those boxes of stuff in the mid-90s. Once again, foresight failed me.

Have I mentioned...

I have an unhealthy habit of getting obsessed with games/settings? I know this is a common affliction amongst folks.

Exhibit A: Flames of War - wherein I have painted more Germans than one-who-has-never-played-the-game should have. If that wasn't enough I painted a small American force as well.

A box too far

I still look at the box(s) and wonder what I'm going to do with this stuff.

Exhibit B: My brief fling with GHQ Soviets - wherein I painted many vehicles at the eye-straining scale. I considered using the Avalon Hill MBT rule set quite a while ago - to the point of buying a used copy of the game. I'm still in the consideration stage.

Micro Blur next to a WIP Samurai

Exhibit C: My briefer fling with Bolt Action Americans. Wherein I painted up a platoon of Americans while telling myself they were practice for the impending arrival of Rivet Wars. Great, but that was 5 months before Rivet Wars was set to ship (it's somewhere in the middle of America as we speak). I also did some Romans, because nothing says WWI like Rome.

Converted Centurion with fanciful transverse crest.

Exhibit E: Nah, we'll stop while I'm ahead.

Of note at Madkat Labs is our current sussing of the e-version of Wargames Illustrated. I yearly purchase an "e-something." Last year was a silver subscription to Osprey (for the pictures really).

Also of note I apparently entered the electronic age and have bid on an item from e-bay. I sense I am going to lose.

What doth the new year bring?

Other than trials and tribulations?
I've embarked on a quest of sorts recently. The goal is to cease simply watching tabletop gamers and to do it. In that vein I've purchased Osprey's Ronin game rules and painted up a decent sized Bushi Buntai and Sohei Buntai (even sticking to the Sohei after reading The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha, which was interesting despite its condescending attitude). That group was primarily Perry Miniatures samurai in non-historical color schemes. 

Several crap samurai in progress (taken with an iPad)

My goals for the year are:

• Improve my painting and basing!

• Paint and post images of my work (to inflict punishment on the world) including;

• Empress miniatures' Devil Dogs and Dragons mini's

• Rivet Wars figures and vehicles

• Start on either an ECW army, Napoleonic army, or finish my Zulu War Brits (which I have dreams of using for Space 1889.

• Possibly start an Oldhammer Army (inspired by Orlygg at the Realms of Chaos blog)

• Work on making some terrain for the Ronin system.

• Do some modern 15mm or 20mm army building (thinking Twilight 2000 inspired armies).

• Get a copy of Epic 40k, or at least dabble in something akin to it.

• Game!

This hardly seems an audacious set of goals. Trust me, it is. We'll see how 2014 turns out at Madkat Labs.