Waiting for answers, so... Gaming stuff :-)

So, cleaning up the basement and getting in some painting…  Not finding a color scheme for my Forge Guard that I particularly like.  I think that the Grey-Green with Copper trim would look boring on them, albeit uniform with the rest of my force.  The half Grey-Green and white looks pretty terrible, an I’m just not sure what else would work.  The Metallic Green I use for my Circle Armor might be OK(ish) and I might test one out…  A Forrest Green perhaps?  Not sure…   But have the Bear base coated, all of my Warcasters are assembled and getting some paint on them.  Slowly coming together.  Only thing I am lacking to field it as a proper army would be more War Jacks.  I have only the 2 Lights which are good for what they are, but…

Have to admit the Colossal looks interesting to me, and since I am seeing more and more of them at the Gopher…  We had a pretty long chat about them and the 40K equivalents with the Knights and Titans at the store this week, and it is pretty obvious that I am not alone on my “wait and see” to see what happens to 40K.  The MCs in general being just better than Vehicles and 40K being perceived as completely broken as long as the Eldar are unchanged and the Tau are still right up there with them.  The Colossals are big and powerful but really do not seem overly difficult to deal with.  Contrasting to the Eldar Wraith Knight which IS hard to deal with.  The Eldar has speed, HtH ability, great shooting attacks and can be easily healed.  I guess the Colossal CAN be healed, but not as easily as it is damaged.  The Rhulic Colossal is 18 points, and while I can see this being half of my Army (coming in at 11-13 points) it will be a pretty good one I think…  Not game breaking good, but a huge target and it fits the “Dwarf” mentality of being slow to move, but resilient and difficult to move OFF of the ground they choose to fight on.  Some good synergy with a lot of my Rhulic Infantry allowing firing without obscuring the target.  So, I can screen my big War Jack with my Infantry an still shoot.  Keep one of the War Casters up there to protect my lads from random blast damage, especially with my own 4” blasts going out only 10”, so chances are good I’ll be firing “Danger Close” to my own lads.  But in any case I guess I can trade off some MtG for more Rhulic stuff… 

Cygnar is coming along for me.  Mostly I look at the old casters as “OK”, with the newer ones seeming to have a much easier time dealing with the current environment.  CPT Kraye and Constance Blaize are two I think that are my “top tier” ones.  Blaize leads out my Paladins, an becomes essentially a guided missile killing off War Casters or whatever she needs to.  Effectively MAT 9, Weapon Master with a POW 13 Spear giving her 2” Reach…  And she can boost of course.  Just have to have something else “Morrowan” in there with her.  Thus the Paladins and the Solo in every list for her.  Kraye is just all about Cavalry.  Light Jacks with the Light Cav rules?  Yes Please!  So, I have moved from “Cygnar Shoots Things” to a more reliable assassination run sort of game with the Paladins of all people providing the ability to simply walk over and kill the War Caster…  Not what I expected, but very effective.

One more STAW event on the calendar in a few weeks.  It is the OP 3 for the Collective stuff, so fighting against the Borg again…  Faction Pure, so I’ll probably load up the Enterprise E, Sovereign  Class ship and see what I can do.  I STRONGLY suspect it will be a very short game as the Borg cube itself is simply too stupidly powerful, and not a lot of folks will be playing in any case.  Some of the lads are looking to get a “Space Day” together at the Gopher and looking forward to that I think…  Would love to get in more casual games I think.  The hyper competitive ones that the prize ships with their potential game breaking power and rarity are I think causing the game to die out quickly here.  A shame, kill off a few of the stupid combos and perhaps there should be an adjustment of some of the ships point costs.  Borg mostly, perhaps Voyager an Enterprise D…   Basically, the 360 fire arc is simply too good, and the Federation one is fairly limited.  I think the problem is corrected and there is a really good, fair point value assigned to that with the card shipping with the Enterprise E.  So, really just a few tweaks, but WizKids appears to have left this game on autopilot as they prepare for the Dragon game hitting this Month.  So, hoping they get it together soon as this has the potential to be a really good, long term game rather than just a “2 year run” game that it is looking like WK has budgeted for…

So, let’s see…  40K shelved, 30K some further assembly coming along…  STAW dying, hope to revive…  X-Wing looks good, but have limited ships and REALLY not thrilled to be buying into yet another game.  Warmachine/Hordes continuing to grow and be fun to play.

So, when DOES 8th Edition hit?

So, been reading a few of the gaming blogs that I normally read and there has been a trend I noticed…  There have been a lot of folks noticing the GENERAL power level and balance of the Codices is actually quite good…  As long as you completely ignore the giant elephants in the room of the Eldar and to a lesser extent the Tau books.  Now, a number of the writers are approaching this from the “competitive” perspective where taking anything but the All Star/best of breed/most stupidly under costed units is just silly.  Money on the table and all making this a “less friendly” game and all.  Not like high stakes poker money mind, but the principle is exactly the same.

I don’t really have any answers or anything of course, but given the current situation where there is one particular Army with one HUGE glaring UC unit and a bunch of things that are simply better than the baseline for the game in the standard Marine…  The game is just not really much worth playing at this time.  Yes, you can still play and even have fun, so I am NOT saying drop it like it is cursed or anything…  Just that as soon as one side breaks out the tier one list, the game is pretty much over (“What if they held a war and only one side showed up” a quote attributed to Lucifer from Robert Asprin’s Myth series) for the other side if they do not also have such a list.  So long as there is an understanding and NO ONE brings the uber lists, you can have a fun game and both sides might well be competitive.  Then it comes to dice and skill, and I think overall WK has done an excellent job.  Overall, but until they send Vinnie and Guido with a Nerf Bat to have a little chat with the two armies in particular and there is a complete rebalancing of those forces…  Well, the game itself is broken and I know I am not alone in the “let’s see what happens in the longer term, until then let’s play ‘X’”…  So, excellent articles here (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/10/40k-editorial-are-terminators-done.html) here (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/10/goatboys-monday-thoughts-new-release.html) and (http://www.houseofpaincakes.com/2014/10/terrible-armies-id-love-to-build.html)...  Common theme there for me being several of the armies I’d actually LIKE to play and how I kind of feel “Why Bother” breaking them out, packing them up and heading to the Gopher to get stomped into dust by pretty much anything I’d face.  Mind, I might do well against some.  There is a young lady playing a very colorful Chaos Demon force that could easily go either way, though I would consider myself the underdog as she can minimize the random silliness and just make me roll armor saves with each casualty being bad and grind me out of existence.  Sadly that is about the only army I can think of offhand that I would not be immediately outclassed with.  Painfully and obviously.  IG (or whatever they are called, IA in the older days) has the tanks and special weapons to wipe me in a few turns.  Marines have Grav weapons and bikes to move wherever…  Wolves have…  Well, no one locally playing them anymore except me and that is why J…  Eldar and Tau?  Beaucoup shots, too many of which are able to simply ignore my 2+ save…  And even without that, having so many shots and given the game mechanic of 1/6 fails whatever you are attempting means that weight of fire (“Quantity has a Quality all its own” one I’ve heard attributed to Stalin) will simply win every time.  So, Terminator based forces, even 30K ones are mostly dead at this time.  30K, I CAN bring them in Land Raiders or Spartans that ignore Melta, attach Medics, etc. making them ALMOST viable.  Assuming that the TO is OK mixing 30K and 40K armies in a League/Event…  Still die to the Xenos avalanche of dice though, so it is not even the answer in the longer run, just something that might work once or twice…

So, basically I shelved my DA (Consecrators) force long ago.  Not long after the new Codex hit honestly.  I played it in a League or two, but with some stupid scenarios (NONE of which were the fault of the local organizer, this is all GW) highlighting just how stupidly under powered or over costed the DA really were, especially with the Vanilla Marines book hitting soon after and getting everything the DA could do, but better and cheaper.  Being hit with IG forces that could come on from any table edge (table was a narrow platform) with rending las guns and squads that could respawn when I finally killed them all to come back the next turn with full squads again…  Not even a little fun.  The Ravenwing player getting wiped by the swarm of Heldrakes pretty well drove him from the game as well…  Yeah, the $50 book still irks me there.  Vanilla Marines are a good book, and I enjoyed playing them.  Until it became painfully obvious that the Marine as a baseline for the game was surpassed by the Tau and Eldar in every way.  Now, the Marines CAN in some lists compete in a fairly limited fashion against a well build tier one list, but overall?  My Crimson Fists are playable, but still a HUGE long shot against most.  White Scars bikers are decent, and until you hit the Chaos player who brought a Heldrake or two you will likely do well.  Against them?  No.

But looking at the GK and DE, things have been brought more in line…  And omitting the problem armies?  7^th edition has the potential to be an extremely well balanced and fun game.  If it survives.  Not really sure what to hope for myself, an eventual rebalancing when the NEXT edition of the T&E books come out, or the whole thing to crash and a complete rebuild?  First one I think, but when will that happen?  Last two Armies with soft cover books are due in the next few Months…  Are the priorities at GW the same as mine?  Um, no…  But I would hope they recognize that this IS an issue and should be corrected for the long term viability of the game…  J  Yes, I doubt it too, but just typing between meetings here so why not shoot for the moon?

Does bring me to Warmachine…  Again.  First time I got into the game it was back when WM started up, and I was still getting over the silliness of 40K third edition and being involved with some of the hyper competitive tournaments back then.  WM was NOT balanced by any means, but it had potential.  And eventually it did become a fun and balanced game.  So, back playing that game now and seeing how nice it is.  Haven’t actually seen the Ghordson Earthbreaker, but will probably end up with one…  Even if I have to trade off some FW stuff or MtG J…  Finding I have a LOT more of that than I remembered.  Guessing that quitting drinking a few years back has been quite helpful in that (among other) respect…  But, need to trade for or pick up some of the Warjacks and the Earthbreaker looks like it will be one to have on the shelf at least. 

Guess this is a long rambling way of asking: “So, when’s 8^th Edition hitting” or at least “When are the new Tau and Eldar books due?”

Painting Dwarves and Terminators... Not a lot of playing, but...

So, assembling and painting my rebuilt Rhulic force for Warmachine. Going with a Vallejo Green/Grey for most of the armor.  Pretty sure this was one of the WWII paints that I was using with my Flames of War US Airborne army for their webbing IIRC, but it works with the copper/bronze trim.  Need to come up with colors for the Shield Gunner shields, and some color to paint in the forward arc for the army.  The Blue I use for m Cygnar might be good, Royal or Regal Blue I think...  Goes well with the Copper.

Need to come up with a color scheme for my Forge Guard...  Not sure I want them to be the same as the rest of the lads.  On the box there is a scheme with half white and half green...  Maybe half the Grey Green?  Not so sure I will be OK with white.  The few Medics I've painted for my 30/40K forces were kind of a PITA with the white...

Artillery assembled as well, and the Warcasters are mostly done as well...  Well, assembled, and I have some paint on Gorten and Durgen at least.  Gorten is almost base coated, so could field now I think.  Heck, I have almost a full army ready to roll...  Have to admit I am surprised how quickly it is coming together...

With my Warhammer stuff, I have the Knight coming along slowly, Cataphractii almost done and I am deciding on whether or not to sell/trade off the Forgeworld Spartan...  Not sure I will ever get around to assembling it, so might be something to trade for the Rhulic Colossus...

Found one of my old partner decks and just out of curiosity I checked one of the random "we buy MtG" sites...  The deck was one I called a "Drop" deck with 4 Eureka and  4 Concordant Crossroads backed with loads of big trample creatures like Forces of Nature and Colossus of Sardinia (?)...  People are buying the Eureka card for something like $60...  Oh, and found my old Arabian Knights stuff...  Might be enough in the basement to buy the new(er) motorcycle, but I'll probably do something sensible like pay bills and pay down debt...

Heigh Ho! Wonder if the Rhulic Dwarves sing as they march... And 30K Legions mustering.

So, the gathering of the Dwarven Clans continues...  Just needing to complete a few more trades for actual Warjacks but I have the basis of the force in hand now...  Not assembled or painted yet, but I now have:

The Three Warcasters, Thor Steinhammer, Mortar Team, full unit of Forge Guard, full unit of Shield Gunners, with Brun and Lug are in the mail...  Not a bad start at all.  Not sure how many of the Heavy jacks I'll end up picking up, but have to admit more than a handful seems unlikely.  Like the Avalancher with the BFG class weapon, and the Rockham is a pretty devastating if extremely short ranged Jack...  Driller?  Slow, but tough.  Probably have to snag one just to have for the "Battle Box" builds and it is a decent "linebacker" to hang out near the Warcaster.  Probably needing 2-4 more of the Blaster/Gunner light Warjacks because they are pretty darn useful, and with my plan of making them with magnetized weapons swappers they will become my "general" use Warjacks...

Looks like I misread the Arcanists, and so will snag them ASAP.  For whatever reason I was thinking that they could ONLY cast their spells when they killed something in HtH making them "eh" at best, but being able to do that in addition, well...  Not so sure that the wee Rockbottom fig is needed, but he IS a Dwarf, so will probably snag one just to have him to round out some lists.

Looking at the Tier lists as the way this army becomes competitive,..  So, a cheap Solo for the General's force to get my Upkeep spells on at the beginning of the game and not having to pay for them on the first turn seems like a VERY good thing.  I think that if I play it right I could actually get an Alpha Strike type force that can put some real damage anywhere on the field on turn one before the other player can even react or cast spells.  NOT a friendly build, so I'll likely not use it myself, but the potential to do this exists, and I think that there are some forces that would be absolutely crippled if not just wiped off the field with a few well placed shots.  But I think all of the Seaforge stuff is quite strong, albeit not in the most obvious way.  I think Joe and I will play it differently, but there are going to be 2 Rhulic players locally...

So, in the Legion I have my next 5 Cataphract class Terminator Armor suits base coated...  Not sure if I will magnetize them since I now have so bloody many of them...  But with a 10 man squad and a Spartan I have that giant brick that I can just roll up the middle of the field...  The Spartan with all of the upgrades gets stupid hard to stop, especially when I can add the Techmarine and a Medic in the Squad...

Dark Eldar came out with...  Well, it was not really a bang.  Shame that Mike moved off to area 51 with his GK and DE forces.  There were MANY epic battles he and I had, kind of an Army Navy thing with him being former Navy and all...  But I do kind of wonder how he feels about it.  Guessing not so great because they kind of lost a lot of how he played them.  He was more of an Inquisition player with his GK, so guessing his Inq force is fine...  Hopefully his DE force will work out well...  But then, the DLC hits almost immediately to fill in some of the things that the $50 codex somehow just didn't have the room for...  Things like that are keeping me firmly away from 40K, especially with how completely packed the 30K books really are these days...  So, missing the League that starts tonight.  But not sure I'm ready to break out the Wolves again anytime soon.  Especially with my Seaforge coming along so well...

Gaming locally, Warmachine, STAW, and the jobs that support such activity :-)

So, got stomped into the ground last night playing Warmahordes…  Well, it was not REALLY that bad, the game itself was enjoyable, Karl is a fun opponent and it was just a horribly bad matchup for my aged Cygnar list.  LT Caine is not the caster I ever particularly enjoyed using, and with the almost complete reliance on “We Shoot Things” from a distance while we are on the move for a “run and gun” feel vs. a HtH list in a scenario where you simply lose if there is no model from your side in the 8” wide strip across the middle of the field at the end of any turn (starting on turn 3).  Not an instant lose from the beginning, but with the bulk of his forces hiding in instantly cast swamp terrain and thus immune to my shooting attacks combined with the feat of “everything is knocked down in my control area” to make all of my Defense meaningless…  J  Well, it cemented my decision that LT Caine will likely be relegated to shelf duty and never played again.  Too many other casters that would have actually done MUCH better and too much of the old (early MK1) stuff I have simply has no real chance in a modern environment.  I have had some fair amount of success with the “later” casters like CPT Kraye being Cavalry and immune to a lot of things that are “gotchas” dealing with the modern stuff and frankly ALL of the Hordes stuff.  The ability to never be Knocked Down and immunity to Free Strikes is huge.  The fact that his War Jacks are simply better as Cavalry than normal Jacks is a bonus.  Time I think to break out the dedicated HtH stuff for Cygnar.  The things I never used in MK1 because they were silly and OP?  Seems like they’ll be about right against some of the things I’m seeing now J…  Stormguard assuming I can find all ten of them will be a good solid “block” of Infantry until I can switch out to my Rhulic army.  Got the first two of my “new” (to me) “gun bunnies” assembled and ready to basecoat.  Plan is to magnetize the weapons as the two variants are the Gunner and Blaster with only the gun being different…  Top mounted and simple enough to swap, cannot imagine the Dwarves wouldn’t do this themselves being all about efficiency after all.

Finding the Feats are where the older and newer casters are simply built on two very different scales…  The older “REALLY OP” ones like Sorcha are actually toned down now and seem pretty much about equal in terms of power with a lot of the new ones.  The ones that were average or “eh” in the old game are really quite bad now….  LT Caine for example:  Can shoot everything.  Once each with his pistols.  So, it would be the absolute bane of a light Infantry force that for whatever reason decided to bum rush him and wound up with the bulk of their forces within 12” of him.  So…  Not likely to happen, certainly not more than once.  Compared to the “Everything is Frozen” within 12” or bringing back War Jacks/Beasts?  It is pretty obvious that some of the things have simply been overtaken and left far behind, especially in an era where you can shut down shooting or HtH pretty easily.  Or when your big ability affects only “Focus” or “War Jacks”…  Half of the game shrugs and ignores it.  I think the Rhulic casters (all three of them) are all at least beyond the point where the truly aged ones simply cannot easily compete, and so they will at the VERY least be interesting to play against some of the nastiness I see hitting the tables.  We’ll see I guess.

At the store, it was great seeing so many people playing…  Tom got his first win with a really nicely painted Khador force, saw: Gators (Hordes:Minions), Protectorate, Skorne, another Rhulic Merc force, Cryx, Everblight, more Khador, Trolls and some Circle IIRC…  I cannot remember them all offhand, but clearly the Warmachine/Hordes has come back locally at least.  Good to see, especially as I have zero interest being the “Press Ganger” again or running things if I can avoid it.  FAR more fun just playing the game for me.  Unfortunately at the same time it appears that STAW is dying along with 40K…  STAW overall seems a good system, they just clearly made some pretty serious…  Well, I’ll call them errors for lack of a better term.  The Gen Con fiasco hurt Wiz Kids credibility in a fairly major fashion.  Now they lost some good customers and lots more are simply not buying as much if at all.  Personally I think a lot of it is kind of overblown, and if WK had handled it better (sell to the people actually playing the bloody game, not the the speculators with dealer badges that got in before the normal badges, or just release them as a retail product…) would have been a non-issue.  But they seem to have taken a page from GW’s “Customer Service” manual and essentially assured themselves that their business model is superior and those silly peasants will get back in line soon enough to give their money to the Company.  I don’t know.  Looking at the shelves at the Gopher, lots of STAW ships there, OP attendance is bottomed out and not sure it will recover.  OTOH, the Star Wars ships are mostly sold out…  Seeing the same parallel with the Privateer Press stuff seeming to move quickly and the 40K/Fantasy stuff…  Well, not so much.  Heck, if I thought for an instant that I would get a good enough price for all of my 40K stuff I’d probably dump it myself.  Won’t happen, there are not many “collectors” out there looking for GW models from the late 80’s to late 90’s/early 2000’s where the bulk of mine were purchased looking realistically the overwhelming majority of what I have in the basement is just junk, along with my comics and random cards from the games I played back then…  Yes, some things like a VERY few of the Magic cards are worth a bunch, but the other 99%?  Fire hazard really J…

Initial rounds of trading have netted me the bulk of what I traded off, and store credit from one of those valuable MtG cards looks like it will get me a HUGE chunk of the way back to my Seaforge force in Warmachine.  So, just have to sell off a pair of motorcycles, likely a few random firearms and…  Hmmm.  Dunno.  I know my wife is far less comfortable with me riding the bike, but it is one of the few times I really get to relax and feel completely in control of my surroundings with the bulk of my attention occupied with actually riding the bike, etc…  So, we’ll see what happens long term there.  She wants a new vehicle, so I’ll likely inherit the Escape with the Ranger becoming the vehicle for the girls in a few years when they start driving.  Ideally, I’ll sell off my two bikes and get an older Goldwing…  Or the bikes AND a number of firearms go and I break down and get a much newer bike, maybe even one of those HD ones…  Never been a fan of any particular brand for the brand’s sake like a lot of HD fans, but they do make some nice bikes these days.  FAR more likely to go for something from Honda though as the price is more in line with what I could afford, etc…  And I REALLY prefer the shaft dive bikes to the chain, so…

Job front…  On one hand, things were moving nicely getting my line moved to reflect where I actually have been working the last 3+ years and getting my title, etc. correct for my new(ish) role in “IT Management”…  But then it stalled again.  Getting about to the FTSIOH level for me when I look realistically and find that I would have actually been making more had I simply “punched the clock” in Math for the last 4 years and not killed myself doing this.  And now there are some actual “Management” level jobs opening up North of Green in Engineering, so…  While I hate redoing my resume, it is I think time…

Cleaning up... Staw, WarmaHordes and the Basement of Doom (tm)

So, looking around…  Seems that the STAW group is dying off locally.  Darn shame, the game is overall quite good.  Yes, there are some stupidly overpowered units (ships and cards) and some combos that just break the game in silly ways…  The “Collective” OP events were certainly not helpful as they were clearly NOT play tested in anything like a realistic fashion.  But at a local level at least I think we’ve gotten around a lot of this by tending to play in a more “faction pure” fashion (not EVERY ship needs to be Captained by Jean Luc Picard).  The most recent one we played out last night.  No one actually beat the scenario.  The sheer stupidity of a 12 dice attack with re-rolls meant that the only ship to actually survive was one with a broken and silly combo on it (Weyoun/Varel to “discard Varel to cancel an attack, but Weyoun can disable to prevent the discard, re-enable and repeat as necessary”).  They still failed to actually kill the bloody Borg.  Last Month’s was actually a decent one, if a bit uninspiring…  Do as much damage with your Fleet before time runs out or you all die.  Not a whole lot of incentive to mess with each other, and the games were actually kind of interesting seeing just how much damage your Fleet COULD throw out if you build with only that in mind.  Yes J  I did a LOT better on that one…  But back on target, hoping to get in touch with some of the folks who have quit the game for various reasons and see if a few others might be interested in playing…  Scheduling is of course an issue as this is really a small (and currently dying) fringe game J…  But it really does not take up all that much space in the grand scheme…  So, I guess I start posting on the Facebook groups to see if interest and players cannot be drummed up…

Getting a lot more into Warmachine, and I have to say it is a much more interesting game for me at the moment than 40K.  Perhaps it is the perspective of taking several years off and coming back, but I honestly think that the system is far more balanced and the company producing it is FAR more responsive to issues of unbalance or questions/FAQ’s.  For the most part the local group is very low key and quite relaxed…  Always a few power gamers in just about every competitive group of course, and this is no exception.  But overall, WAY more fun, even when being smacked off the table by say, a Skorne build that was built for maximum efficiency…  Dusted off my Cygnar, but to be honest I am FAR more interested in the Rhulic (Dwarven) forces.  Traded them off when last I left the game…  Ironically for 40K stuff and Confrontation IIRC….  So now trading Confrontation stuff and Magic cards for the rebuilding efforts.  Surprisingly already a good part of the way there now.  Several “new” things since last I had this army, but overall a fairly small force, being Dwarves and all J…   Probably have to proxy some of the things like the Ogrun Assault Corps before dropping the $70 on what looks like it could very well be a mediocre unit at best for instance.  The Hammerhold Forge Guard (think plate armored Dwarves with two handed hammers), and will probably be on my “eventually” purchase list unless I can arrange a favorable trade, and the Colossal looks “neat”…  Saying that though, I am quite hesitant to drop that kind of money on a big “centerpiece” unit if it is not going to get played a whole lot.  I HAVE several of those already for 40K with the Imperial Knight being the only one that I suspect will ever really be one to see a LOT of play time.  The Spartan and Warhound class Titan are both VERY niche pieces that look nice, but really how often would I use them?  Yeah, almost never.  So, should anyone make a serious offer on the Spartan at least I would be VERY tempted to sell/trade it off since it is currently completely bare resin and unassembled.  Brun and Lug are headed my way thanks to some Confrontation Kelts, and I think that I have the basics for a pretty decent force after everything gets here…  Well, a fun force at least as I suspect that I will have some trouble dealing with some of the stuff out there.  But per my usual style, at the very least they’ll know they were in a fight as the Dwarves tend to die hard…

Basement cleaning continues, albeit slowly…  Still finding strange and sometimes interesting things down there.  Trying to get things organized and actually throw out some of the old and useless things these days.  Someday I actually hope to finish at least a big part of the basement as the workout room is pretty much just framed in, and laying down some sort of carpet type flooring and insulating/putting up a celling.  Been a LONG time since I worked in the “construction” area, and frankly I was never particularly good at it…  Built cabinets for a while and then houses between College and finding a real job thanks to one of my house mates (Steve) being a Foreman at a local construction company…  Pay was not great, work conditions were also “not great”, but WAY better (in both areas) than my time in the Army with the added bonus of fewer people actively trying to kill you.  But it kept me paying rent and you know, eating when times were pretty tough.  Took me some time to get some things figured out and frankly decompress into a VERY different reality being a civilian after…  Not really something I talk about, but it was such a stark and massive difference that I had a pretty hard time adjusting back to life here in Champaign/Urbana…  Probably took a LOT longer than it should have because I made a number of really poor choices, but made for some interesting stories I think J…  Just really needed a kick to get myself out of Joe’s (local bar where I worked), and back to “real life”.  J  And now things are so very different….  Amazing wife, kids and am moving into IT Management with a career that has lasted for 15 years here at the University alone…  Never would have thought it possible back then… :-)  All in all, things are going quite well...

STAW OP 3 tomorrow... And Warmachine being painted

So, going up against the Borg again for OP3...  Solid second place in this one, and I'm not really sure how well this scenario will play out.  Kind of depends on how competitive it becomes.  Cube CAN have a single attack of 12 dice against a single ship, re-rolling misses...  So, expect 9 hits/turn easily enough on the odd turns when my opponent controls the Cube.  Need something that might survive or at least outlast for the win. So, here's what I was thinking of running:

Fed Borg OP3 2

Resource: Flagship Independent (Romulan) (10)

USS Voyager (30)
Jean-Luc Picard (6)
Flagship (0)
Cheat Death (5)
Cheat Death (5)
Adm. James T. Kirk (5)
Montgomery Scott (5)
Hikaru Sulu (3)
Elizabeth Shelby (2)
Tom Paris (4)
Transphasic Torpedoes (10)
Multi-Adaptive Shields (5)
Ship SP: 80

Total Build SP: 90

Generated by STAW Builder
http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

Gives me 8 Defense Dice with re-rolls and at least 1 Battle Stations conversion, and of course with free BS...  Should get a decent number of hits when I attack, and I attack at Captain Skill 11 ("Ours Goes to 11")...  Faction (Federation) Pure and might be fun.  Not sure i will hold against a well built Borg but we'll see...

Slowly rebuilding my Rhulic Dwarves for Warmachine...  Some trades in the works and I;m almost half way back to what I had before stupidly trading them off.  Not a lot of casters, and being limited to the Dwarves and Ogres not a LOT of stuff altogether, but more than I can buy at once of course.  Now to get them painted up...

Motorcycles...  The Silverwing is working, Magna...  Well, not.  Anyone out there familiar with title issues in Illinois?  So, need to get that straight before I can sell it off of course....  Then probably look to sell the Silverwing and buy a Goldwing...  Probably in the 81-83 Range because I do not want to deal with a Stator issue on the 84-87 ones...  The look nice, but I really like the look of the 81-83's as well because they are really just the 4 cylinder version of the Silverwing that I otherwise like...  Just need the highway pegs and the bigger engine I think for more general riding.