Wargaming Tradecraft: December 2011




Donate

Foodmachine 2011 Charity Auction and WIP painting

A little while back, Papa JJ of DiceRolla posted about a charity project going on called Foodmachine, raising money for Feeding America. [ http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=5271 ]

Basically, the idea was to get a bunch of people together to paint up a pirate army for Warmachine that would have an orange (hunger awareness) colour theme. Next, that army would get raffled off. For every dollar you give, ($10 minimum) you've got a chance to win the whole thing.

If you'd like to donate a little something or see photos of the figures, visit the following link:
http://www.razoo.com/story/Foodmachine2011/
(Photos are from the artists - they're in the process of being uniformly based and professionally photographed)

Here's a list of the artists involved:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At_zruzbwbYWdHE2T2wwSURxX0JUOUg1ekQ4WGFIblE&hl=en_US#gid=0

If you've got a blog, Twitter, Facebook, why not share a link to the donation page as well?
(Feel free to copy and paste my above description, and/or the below release if you want to save some time.)

Release:
"While official Foodmachine tournaments end this Sunday (1/1/12), there is a way you can still help out the cause.  Expert painters from around the world have been painting up models for a Tier 4 Shae army using orange in the paint scheme.  (Orange is the color of hunger awareness).  We have a few early photos up on our donation site in this "soft opening" phase to whet your appetites.  Soon we will have all the models based and well-photographed so you can see what you will ultimately win.

Here's the website with all the details of the raffle:  www.razoo.com/Foodmachine2011/

Read more details about it at the Lost Hemisphere blog:  http://losthemisphere.com/blog/?p=18027

Listen to some information about it at the Elite Cadre podcast:  http://elitecadre.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/bonus-episode-1-a-visitor-from-afar/

Thanks in advance for your donation and good luck winning the army!"



Papa JJ sent out minis to people who wanted to get involved in the project, so here are my WIP photos for the Sea Dog Crew Leader. Nothing detailed, as I was focusing on the work, but here you are:

Weekly Update

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft


More work on the Impalers, and an article on the Beginners Guide to Creating an Army List.

Last Week in the Community



Merry Chaotic Christmas!

via
Happy Holidays and Merry New Year to all from Wargaming Tradecraft!

A brief Weekly Update on Monday, no posts this next week, and the new year will return things to its regularly scheduled programming!



Video by the folks over at Miniwargaming.com

Beginners Guide to Creating an Army List

via
Last week, I outlined some of the reasons that people choose armies. This week I'll talk about some tips to help you design a list.

My suggestion for getting started is take a look at some of the styles in the following article, read your rule book and do something that interests you. Play the game, learn how things work, and tweak your list. This could mean buying models you later decide you won't use... ever... but sometimes that happens.

Impaler [10] More green stuff mohawk hair

 Just about finishing off my other Impaler, is also the hair aspect.. another mohawk, but this time more of a trihawk.

To start off, a slight mod to the base. By default he ends up being way too far forward since he's holding the other model. So, I cut a new slot and used some green stuff to give his base a level surface.

Weekly Update

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft


Slight update to my citing references article. Work on the Impalers continues, as does my gaming series with Beginners Guide to Choosing an Army.

Last Week in the Community



[UPDATE] Citing Your References

I've added the following to my article on Citing Your References. If you have any comments, please leave them on the original article.





Asking Permission / Paying for References

Just adding this to give another perspective to people on the topic of going a step beyond just citing references. A journalist and photographer recently got some media coverage over some views they shared regarding citations without permission. Long story short, so you don't have to click the link:

The wife of the creator of Angry Birds wore a dress styled like the red Angry Bird.
Photographer takes pictures at a formal event.
Many prestigious media outlets then use his pictures, without permission, to write their own stories. Only one offered to pay, but backed out when they found the cost. Others asked permission after being caught, but still no offered of compensation. (Until lawyers got involved)
"From aggregates such as Huff Post / Mashable  etc. you sort of expect nothing...
...But for crying our loud: LA Times? Pulizer Prizes and all…"
"Matti has three kids and his images bring the bread and butter to the table. "
It's true... the big button topic these days being the downloading of music and movies... whether you dis/agree on them at a personal level, you have to at least realize that artists deserve something for their work. Why not treat photographers the same? Their equipment costs money, as does their travel, food, credentials, time, etc.

Now, I'm not actually this zealous about citing, and I'm not going to pay someone $200 to use a photo of a woman in an Angry Birds dress on my blog. But I'm not making a business on reporting up to the minute breaking news. I'm not even a business, nor am I profiting from this site. Images I grab have typically been around for a while, aren't in high demand and have been made available online. I cite my references and I don't edit out signatures and watermarks. Again, I just wanted to tag this on to this article to give another perspective on the whole using other peoples works thing.

Of course, y'know what I don't see? Anybody citing who made that dress. As long as we're going to nit-pick about giving credit where it's due, lets not leave anybody out.

Beginners Guide to Choosing an Army

Confusion by psychicLexa
I've spoken about this a few times already. One of my first posts on this blog was actually about Picking Your Army. I've also recently talked about Planning Your Artistic Army and The Creative Process.

The difference is that this post will be directed at people who are completely new to wargaming and I'm going to be generic enough to try and help you pick an army for any system. Lets start with a clean slate. You've been researching game systems, watching people play it, maybe even gotten a few trial games in. You've found a system that seems pretty fun, your friends are interested and / or there's plenty of people in the area to get to know and play at your local shop.

Impaler [9] - Mohawk and Skeleton

Some more progress done tonight on my Impalers.

First, I changed the spine support for the one's head. Then, I added a first layer of green stuff around his neck to support the head.

I'm liking this layering Green Stuff thing. It sticks together well, it's sturdy, and it gives you a strong surface to sculpt on that won't fully cave in as you apply pressure.

Weekly Update

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft


Back to work on the Impalers this week.. and my gaming articles continue with Choosing a Game System.

On a personal note, we broke 100,000 hits (in 1.5 yrs) this week! Woo!

Last Week in the Community


Great round up of links this week... about time for me to get crackin too.

Choosing a Game System

Creating an Artistic Army - the Creative Process
(This image isn't entirely fair in this context... for a new
player, GW has some great sculpts)
So, last week we looked at a brief overview of what wargaming is. Today we're going to try to come up with some ways to figure out what game system works for you. There are some different methods... the best is seeing what others are playing and what interests the friends / family you'll be playing with. Most companies have starter boxes though, so it's not a huge investment to try a new game out.

For the full details, keep reading...


Impaler [8] - Some Green Stuffing

Work continues, next on my Impalers. The first is ready for his mohawk, but I ran in to some problems... it likes to flop around. So the first step I'm trying is to make a rough "outline" of a mohawk. Boy it sure looks aweful. The plan is that it will support his hair while I layer more greenstuff on the outside to create the actual mohawk. (So it can't be too thick at this stage)

Weekly Update

Last Week at Wargaming Tradecraft


On the hobby front, I look back at my first conversion. Then, I talk about two other different topics.. first, using stat gathering to protect yourself online, then the beginning of a gaming series.

Last Week in the Community



Pre-Vyper Jetbike (My first conversion)

Zoids Neptune, 1987 catalog
Game Workshop's he-love of Space Marines has existed far longer than you may realize. When I first started playing Warhammer 40k, you could get vehicles like Bikes, Speeders, Rhinos and Land Raiders... but what about us Xenos? I had a codex with rules for Shining Spears, Vyper Jetbikes and I think Falcons and Wave Serpents too...  But no models.

This isn't a tale of conversion for the sake of conversion, this is conversion for necessity!

So you want to be a (war)Gamer?

Pandora, by IgorSan
The other day you wandered by a strange looking store on the street / were taking a look at some comics / poked your head into a geeky looking shop / noticed some advanced looking boardgames / had a friend show you / your significant other reached under their bed looking guilty, and pulled out a tackle box...

However you were introduced to wargaming, the completion of the above sentences goes something like "...and saw these tiny figures that looked interesting, and you wanted to know more." Some of you reading this blog may very well be at that beginning stage, allowing your curiosity to investigate the various options out there.

Let me try to help you...