The Basement of Doom! Need to clear off my painting table...

So, need to get the basement cleaned up…  Too much random crap there, and with the new couches of doom upstairs J…  At some point I need to rearrange my “hobby” desk and perhaps be able to see what all I actually have ON it.  So far I know I have:

• ·         Imperial Knight to assemble/paint…  I have the lower half assembled, more or less and the base coat of paint in place…  Going to finish it in the colors of House Chappell (Crimson/Gold with the Lions and Roses on the shield)…  So, fairly basic and it should look pretty good with my existing Imperial armies of various types…
• ·         Wolves…  A LONG time ago I started the stripping/repainting project for them.  Got a ways in and then…  Well, lost interest I guess.  Going with the 30K Legion scheme, so a much darker grey with crimson trim.  Not the silly baby blue with bright yellow/red/white.  Much more “we’re here to kill things and move on” than “we’re in town for Carnivalle and we got bored”…  Terminators and Siege Breachers as well…  Terminators at least are good, but the Siege Breachers are…  Well, not.  Amusing playing them with a Spartan to transport the 20 man squad and attached ICs, but effective?  Not even a little.  Still a LOT of models, and no real motivation to play the game or keep painting them for the moment…
• ·         Grey Knights…  Almost the same thing.  But as I always played ACTUAL Knights, I really did not lose any options with the new book.  Just not a lot of motivation to finally finish the force.  So, back to the shelves for them.
• ·         Crimson Fists…  Another one that is “Meh”…  Got a good sized force painted up and ready for Tournament play if need be.  Not bad, but…
• ·         Eldar…  Eh, I got almost all the way through painting/repainting them before the new book hit.  I was really excited to have them come out of the “penalty box” with their very limited codex and…  Well, it was far more powerful than anything before or since.  Have to admit on my initial reading of the book, the Wave Serpents were the thing that struck me as the long term over powered thing.  They did not magically become fliers like the Necron transport tanks, but I’m pretty good at math and I saw the immediate potential of the “shield” shooting every turn.  6-11 high Str and TL shots/turn makes a lot of things simply disappear.  Without the WS?  Good book, I was happy that most of it meant I could field most of my stuff without feeling like I was just giving away points and fighting with one hand tied behind my back.  Scorpions are “eh”, but at least usable I guess.  The Banshees though did actually get worse.  Shame, I had a full unit of them painted and ready…  In the ancient times they were unholy terrors, but now?  Better to fight short on points than give away the kill points I think.  So, not ALL of the book was OP madness, but…  But caffeine hitting and back on subject… I have a BUNCH of them in various stages of painting on the table, guess they get shelved as well…  Still have too many that I never did get around to assembling or painting over the years like Vipers, etc…
• ·         Warmachine and Hordes stuff…  So, a game I am actually playing at the moment.  Woo Hoo!  Not many new models for me, but a few…  Stripped and getting ready to repaint my second unit of Gun Mages.  Sword Knights as well…  Just in time for a Journeyman League.  Not thrilled about having to use the “Battle Box” as I think I successfully avoided fielding that caster for all my time as a Pressganger…  We’ll see I guess.  Longer term, I have to dig up my Circle models.  THOSE I have a bunch of and no clue the condition as they are scattered about the Basement of Doom ™…  Despite not playing the game I DID pick up a few of the “neat” models over the years, so have things like a Warpwolf Stalker to paint up…  Giant Werewolf with a big sword?  No kilt, but still…
• ·         Confrontation “stuff”…  Celts, Wolves and the Paladins of my Lions armies…  Guess they get a shelf or two.  Really no hope that game will ever return at this point.  Shame, I rather liked the skirmish rules at least for v3…  v3.5 was easily broken, but still fun.  V4 was another game altogether and just not very good at all…  Just my opinion (well, mine and all of the people locally playing), but then of course Rackham went under so…  Amazing models though, and happy to have so many on my shelves.
• ·         STAW/X-Wing…  Planning on repainting at least some of the minis for those games.  Nothing too drastic I think, and since I have only a few X-Wing ones…  But getting a wash/ink on the Star Trek ones will make them look a lot better, at least the base set ones and a lot of the early things.  Looking at the K’Tinga from the new blind buy booster vs. the early D7/K’tinga model and seeing the vast improvement in the models makes me think that in the longer run, they are getting a lot better and might actually stay around for a longer time than expected.  The Romulans and Klingons though I think could do with some paint to make them look more like I think they should, or at least different than everyone else’s J…  Old time SFB player myself, so once upon a time saw the much older models on the table for that… 

So, coming up for playing? 

40K tournament is in limbo and I doubt very much I’ll bother with it.  Yes, I could field one of my several (too many) armies and likely have a decent shot at winning…  But, my heart just isn’t in it.  Eldar are just too far out of line with the rest of the armies in terms of power, and locally there were 4-5 of us who played Eldar over the years, so guessing they’ll be the eventual winner here.  Not saying that the local (excellent) Necron/Chaos player could NOT win, his force is pretty darn good as well.  Just that there is so little variety if you actually want to win as opposed to “let’s just get in a game”.  With money on the table, it’s a much more serious game, so the “fun” forces might have fun, but are unlikely to win if even one player shows up with the very efficient and overpowering forces…

STAW event(s)…  Looking at one Wednesday and another one at the end of the Month.  Going up against the Borg.  At least a worthy challenge J…  Not winnable, at least the Wolf 459 one.  Just trying to do damage delaying and dying.  Not entirely sure the OP3 event IS winnable the way we play locally.  We tend much more toward the “Faction Pure” end of things.  The rules for the Borg in the scenario will be a challenge at best.  We’ll see I guess.  Not seeing any good ways to deal with the Borg AND the other player’s fleet.  So, I’ll just ignore the other player and do what I can against the Borg.  Even so, Federation might survive long enough, Dominion and Klingon might do enough damage, but with the cube going up to 10 Defense dice just before dying not sure I CAN do 25 damage quickly and reliably enough.  Will need to be lucky to get the points I guess.  That AND hope that Lon (current League leader) gets unlucky I guess to allow me to grab the prize ship for the Month (USS Stargazer).  Not a hugely powerful ship by any means, actually in the NCL class I’d guess from SFB, but a familiar ship and looks neat.  Unfortunately, until FAQ’d, there is one card that is not limited and probably can be used in stupid combos so will b hard to trade for if not won…

Warmachine…  Mentioned the Journeyman league, so that starts in 2 weeks.  Probably Cygnar again for me as my Circle stuff is scattered in the wilderness…  Think it will be somewhat OP in the longer run though.  Now that I understand the new edition better I think that I can see a lot of the Circle strengths and strategies that a lot of other armies will simply not have an answer for…  But seems a much more “friendly” group overall, I do not want to do what I did last time and enter the league sweeping all of the categories and risk driving away players…  J  Was something of an “oops” for me as I got carried away with building overly powerful forces and winning big against the local crowd.  Toned it down a lot, except for my occasional “making a point” builds to deal with similar situations.  Frankly, those were never really fun games I suspect for either of us, but needed I think.  So, looking like WM/H is going strong locally for the time being…  Maybe it will last long enough for 40K to sort itself out while we take a break from it…  But in any case, it is quite enjoyable in a very "non serious" way to get away from the silliness of IT management...