Finally....

Well we finally got the house stuff all worked out.

Man am I glad. What a pain in the butt.

Here's a pic of the house.....



I had totally forgotten what a pain it is to buy a house. Shopping for the house... FUN! Deciding which house after you have seen a few... FUN! Paperwork to purchase the house.... NOT FUN! :D

And going with a VA backed loan drags the process out at least another two weeks.

But I am SO JAZZED that the process is over. Now we are doing some light cleaning (like carpets, walls, dusting) and a few repair items, we'll be moving in very soon.

The Bonus Room (where I'll be doing my actual gaming) is 12'x15'.... or 3.657 Meter's by 4.572 Meter's (for the European Community). Depending on how much the Diplay cases take up (as well as my Workstation), I'm thinking at least 2 4'x4' tables which can be combined into a 4'x8' table. If it's possible, I'll be putting in three or four 4'x4' tables. If that's not possible, I'll see about 4'x3' tables. Combining those would make two 4'x6' tables.

Here's some pics of the bonus room...






I'll be removing the shelves on the wall since I have my own bookcase and two display cases.

The Garage has a workshop. Although I'm going to have an electrician come out and check the Power Panel vs how many power tools I'll have running.

There is room for my drill press, but not for the table saw. That will have to go out in the garage.

I'll post more of course now that the "danger" has been averted. The valley could still flood, but I won't be in it.

Saga So Far

To continue on the "Flood" saga.....

We found a house on the East Hill that we liked and put in an offer. It was accepted. Before the economic downturn, I would not have been able to afford this house. But the house is really cool. Not only do I get a gaming room (aka the "Bonus Room"), I also get a workshop along with part of the 3 car garage to put my Radial Arm saw, routing table and other large power tools that will create a lot of wood dust and make it easy to clean up.

The workshop is really nice with a bench with power and shelving already in place. There is a place for my Drill press and other smaller power tools. Once I have everything in place I'll post pictures.

I'm jazzed because I can now, supposedly, have the room and ability to create all the terrain I want and actually have a place to paint mini's etc. This will allow me to finish the mini trays that I had been posting pictures of and I am hoping to actually make a tutorial that I can post on YouTube.

So stay tuned to this space for further updates. (Just an FYI we should be moving over the US Thanksgiving Day Holiday.) I should be posting more frequently (but then don't I always promise that? :D ).

Life

As usual it's been a while. Life always seems to happen just when you start enjoying yourself.

At the moment, there are two things going on in my life. The first is I now live in a flood plain.... WTF?!? how could I go from not living in a flood plain to living in one? It's called the Howard-Hansen Dam. Seems this Dam was built in the 1950's to keep the area where I live from flooding..... which caused it to no longer be classified as a flood zone. Now fast forward 50 years later and with climate change hitting the Pacific Northwest pretty hard (we now get rain like the East Coast gets, large, hard and lots of it, were before we got drizzle), instead of 90 days of drizzle, we get 90 days of OMG CATS and DOGS flowing from the sky.

So last year (2008) was a record year for the Dam. The Dam normally fills to 75% capacity. Last year it was 90%.... then the operators/care takers noticed "depressions" in the Dam... not a good thing. They drained it and discovered that it is no longer viable to hold massive amounts of water and it will take 8-10 years to fix..... whoops... so all of my inquiries into "Do I live in a flood plain" and being told "No" was a bunch of crap. There is a single point of failure in the logic that a flood plain is no longer a flood plain just because some Humans built a Dam and said so.

This brings me to point number two. In our strive to not have everything we own ruined by said coming flood... we have started to raise items in the Townhouse. So all the books/video's that are normally downstairs, are now upstairs... all the fun stuff in the Garage / Workshop is being moved to shelving I have put into the ceiling. This creates a much more open workspace. And that is awesome because I've been wanting more workspace. Of course that euphoria won't last long as all that extra space will be in 6-10' of water when the rains come.

With all the new workspace and hoping that the rains do not come or are not as bad as trending has shown it should be, I'll be working on a massive amount of stuff. The display boards I have not finished will finally get finished and photo's taken and posted.

Too bad that the "right now" is taken up by flood prep. But hopefully it will all work out in the end and I will have a cool workspace that won't flood.

The DC Chronicles.

Discovered this series of short movies while checking out Fallout 3 Vids on Youtube.

The DC Chronicles.

The Fallout 3 engine allows for scripted sequences and I found a series of video's on Youtube by member Drakortha and OMG! this guy is good.

Not only is the scripting very well done, but the writing and how it is presented is incredible.

There are 3 episodes up at the time of this post. It is highly recommended that you watch them, even if you are not a fan of the game.


My hats off to you Drakortha. Damn good job.

Blame Fallout 3

It has been quite a while since I posted last.

I blame Fallout 3 for my absence. I have been sucked in, hook, line, sinker and life time subscription to Anglers Monthly.

I am still plugging away at the ORK-43 rules as well. Just not as quickly thanks to Fallout 3. (By the way I DO RECOMMEND that you get this game and play it).

I wish it had a co-op mode, but it does not and that is very sad. Having a few "buds" with you as you explore the Capital Wasteland would have been awesome.

Oh well. I have have land to explore and Karma to gain or lose!

Computers Suck

We had a power outage a week or so ago and my PC started acting up. So it became so bad that I really, really needed to get a new box.

So I got an iMac. I've been a PC "dude" since 1982 when the original IBM PC came out. Now I'm a UNIX Guru, having Linux or FreeBSD boxes in and out around the house, but supporting and having to constantly rebuild or compile my own drivers, etc... sucks. So I wanted a Unix variant that was supported by manufacturers and a company that would actually fix bugs that are reported and I don't have to compile anything.... unless I write it myself.

So now things are being ported over and hopefully I will be done soon.

Oh, why an iMac and not a MacBook Pro? Twenty Four Inches of Real Estate... now I have 48" of screen.... OMG!!! So the iMac has a 24" built in monitor and I have a 24" Dell monitor from my Windows Box. WHOOOT!!!!

Once I get stuff converted over and transferred, etc, etc. I'll be posting more!

TTFN!

Ork Boys for Ork-43

I've been able to work on more of the conversion for Orks for AT-43. I'm planning on putting this all into a handy dandy downloadable PDF when it's done. So please be patient. And please post feedback!

Ork Boyz (size 2) Type: 1 Numbers: 10 to 20 Standard Equipment: Shoota and Choppa Optional Equipment: Grenades Special Weapons: Burnas Specialist: Pain Boyz Ork Boyz(size 1) Mv: 16, Mrl: 8, Armor: 5, Combat: 8 Standard Equipment Acc ROF AOE PEN Shoota 0 4/0 - 4/1 Choppa 8 1/0 - 8/1 Special Weapons Burnas (indirect fire, projection) (25) 1/0 4 9/1 Optional Equipment Grenades (indirect fire) 0 1/0 1 4/1 Equipment Standard Number(1) Maximum Number(2) Extra Fighter Standard 100 AP 160 AP +6 AP Grenades 160 AP 240 AP +12 AP (1) 10 Ork Boyz, including 3 special weapon and 0 to 2 specialists + 0 to 1 officer (2) 20 Ork Boyz, including 6 special weapon and 0 to 2 specialists + 0 to 1 officer

Necron Display Board (WIP)

I thought I'd document my Necron display board. I'll be using the same method to create boards for other armies. Not just for Warhammer 40k, but for AT-43, etc.


I have a set of Hole Saws, but I purchased them at Harbor Freight and I'm not thrilled with the sizes or that the 1" (25mm) one cracked on first use. So I purchased some Forstner bits and those are wonderful. The MDF board is a little hard, but with some patients it works well.

I should be able to use these bits to drill down into thicker wood to just the right depth. So making really nice wood boards should definitely be possible.









I put marks and made lines every 5cm since all the miniature bases I use are in millimeter and not inches. So the board gets covered with 5mm squares, I then place a base on the board and mark the corners of where a square would fit around it, then I draw lines between them, making an X. The X is where the drill bit goes for a nice cut. I have been spacing the small bases (25-40mm) 10mm apart just for strength. Since I'll be gluing this to metal, it probably won't matter, but I want to be sure.

As you can see, besides the Ork-43 conversion I'm doing, I also have other projects that I'm trying to get done.

So much to do, so little time.

Ork-43 Infantry (Type 2) Tank Bustas

Here's the 2nd unit I've come up with. The Tank Busta's.


Tank Busta's (size 2)
Type: 2
Number(s) 10 to 15
Standard Equipment: Rokkitt Launcha and Choppa
Optional Equipment: Grenades
Special Weapons: Tank Hammer or Bomb Squiq
Specialists: Painboy; Kombat Engineer

Tank Busta's Glory Hogs MV: 18, Mrl: 8, Armor 5, Combat 8

Ranged Weapons	Range	ROF	AOE	PEN
Rokkitt Launcha	0	2/0	-	12/2
Special Weapons:
Tank Hammer	6	1/0	-	18/2
Bomb Squiq (Indirect fire)	40	1/0	-	17/3

Equipment	Standard Number (1)	Maximum Number(2)	Extra Fighter
Standard	160 AP	300 AP	+15 AP
Grenades	200 AP	350 AP	+20 AP

(1) 10 Tank bustas, including 2 special weapon and 0 to 2 specialists + 0 to 1 officer
(2) 15 Tank bustas, including 4 special weapon and 0 to 2 specialists + 0 to 1 officer

Ork-43 Infantry (Type 1) Gretchin

I've created my first Type * (1) infantry unit for Ork-43 (what I'm calling my conversion of Warhammer 40k Orks to AT-43). Please be reminded that no playtesting has been done yet so when all is said and done, this might not be balanced.... YET! Once I have all the units and costs done my group will be play testing and modifications will be made. Once the whole document is finished, I will be posting the "Army Book" and people will be able to download it for free. I will also try to come up with Cards for these units. If anyone knows a good artist that would like to volunteer for that job, I'd be glad to have the help. Otherwise people will be stuck with my crappy photoshop skills.

But without Further ado....


Gretchin (Size 1)
Type: 1
Number(s): 10 to 30
Standard Equipment: Blasta and Stabba
Optional Equipment: Grenades
Special Weapons: None
Specialists: Mekanik
Officers: Rank 1

Gretchin (size 1) MV: 12, Mrl: 6, Armor: 3, Combat: 3
                                              Range   ROF  AOE  PEN
Standard Ranged Weapons:
Grot Blasta                             0         4/0       -        3/1
Mêlée weapon
Grot Stabba                            5         1/0       -        5/1
Optional Weapons:
GRENADES (indirect fire)      0         1/0      1        4/1

Equipment      Standard Number(1)      Maximum Number(2)      Extra Fighter
Standard                         30 AP                                    90 AP                           +3 AP
Grenades                         80 AP                                 240 AP                           +8 AP

(1) 10 Gretchin, including 0 to 2 specialists + 0 to 1 officer
(2) 30 Gretchin, including 0 to 6 specialists + 0 to 1 officer

Mekanik: The mekanik has the "Repair" ability. At the beginning or at the end of his unit's activation he can repair a friendly armored fighting vehicle within 2.5cm of him. The armored fighting vehicle recovers 1 SP in a location chosen by the player. Destroyed parts may be repaired.

A Gretchin officer cannot be the Company Commander of any Ork company unless Gretchen are the only Ork unit on the field even if there are Ork units that do not contain an officer that are not Gretchin.

Ork Special Rules

I've been thinking Hard about Ork special rules. Rules that only pertain to them that would help balance out the Large number of models that players will be able to field.

So here's what I've come up with at the Moment.

WAAAAAGH! (Card inserted into activation) move all orc units up to 6cm. If orc units come into contact with enemy units, orc units may make a Combat attack. If attacked unit is destroyed, then unit may move another 6cm. If contact is made with an enemy unit, a combat attack may be made (lather, rise, repeat).

Mob Rule: Orcs are brave as long as there is another orc around to compete with for glory and bloodshed. Orc Infantry units do not roll morale checks due to loses until there is only one model left unless specified by another rule such as a faction special rule.

Recycled Technology: Orcs equipment is used / scavanged from previous battlefields and the ranged weapons re designed to make big boom noises, hence they are prone to misfirings. When Type 1 or Type 2 Ork Infantry Units make shooting attacks, only 1/2 of the unit may shoot, the other half is clearing jammed weapons.

Furious Charge: On the Activation where an Orc unit enters into combat, attack roll required is read as one result better (ie 4+ is now a 3+).

Edit/add
"Shuddup 'n listen ta me!": An Ork officer may execute one member of the ork unit he is attached to instead of spending LP in order to take a unit from Disorganized to Valiant.
end Edit/add

On the Officer Titles: I have come to realize that there are characters like Kaptain Badruck (or what ever his name is). So I've come to the conclusion that Orks have similar titles for their leaders as humans do except the Warboss. That title will be reserved for the Rank 5 position. So I'll be posting an update list of the officer titles in the next post.

If anybody is watching this blog and the development of the Orks for AT-43, I would appreciate your comments.

TTFN!

Ork conversion: Officer titles

AT-43 has 5 ranks of officers and those officers can be attached to any unit. Now 40K only allows 2 HQ choices. So I'm having to come up with the titles for these items that never existed in the Ork meliue.

Some ideas are:

Rank 1: Arm Breaker
Rank 2: 'Ead basha
Rank 3: Boss
Rank 4: Big Boss
Rank 5: Warboss

Rank 1: lil' boss
Rank 2: boss
Rank 3: Big Boss
Rank 4: Battle Boss
Rank 5: Warboss

As you can see this not that easy, especially keeping the names Orkish.

Got to admit, this whole conversion thing is showing me how game design sort of works and all th considerations that have to go into it.

Ork Conversion (Factions)

As I mentioned in my post the other day, I'm converting GW Warhammer 40k Orks to be used in AT-43.

I'm going to start off with the Factions for the Ork army. Unfortunately Orks don't have factions, so I based them on some of the different Ork tribes.

If you have any comments, please let me know. I have not had a chance to play test yet since I don't have all the units worked out yet.

Goffs
Advantage: All Combat attacks are read as one result better.
Disadvantage: Cannot take any unit that has the "stealth" special ability.
Platoon Pattern:
Infantry Unit (**)!
Infantry Unit (**/***)
Infantry Unit (*/**/***)
Armored fighting vehicle unit (*)
Armored fighting vehicle unit (*/**/***)

Evil Sunz
Advantage: AFV's can capture objectives.
Disadvantage: Lose game if all AFVs are destroyed.
Platoon Pattern:
Armored Fighting Vehicle Unit (*/**/***)!
Armored Fighting Vehicle Unit (*/**/***)
Infantry Unit (*/**/***)
Infantry Unit (*/**/***)
Infantry Unit (*/**)

Snake Bites
Advantage: Gain +1 extra infantry fighter / rank for free.
Disadvantage: If Commander Dies, morale must be rolled every activation and is read at one result lower
Platoon Pattern:
Infantry Unit (*/**)!
Infantry Unit (*/**/***)
Infantry Unit (*/***)
Infantry Unit (*/***)
Armored fighting vehicle unit (*/**/***)

Deathskulls
Advantage: All heroes gain the "stealth" special ability (and pass it on to the unit they are attached to).
Disadvantage: Must roll morale not to go after the most "high tech" enemy unit (start with Rank 3 AFV's and work your way down the list)
Platoon Pattern:
Infantry unit (*/**)!
Infantry unit (*/**)
Unit of soldiers (***)
Unit of Soldiers (***)
Armored fighting vehicle unit (*/**/***)

I tried to follow the Ork Codex as best I could for these tribes and think of the AT-43 Universe and attempt to fit them in. Again, there's been no play testing, but I'm steadily working on the units so hopefully I'll have that by months end.

I'll post items as I come up with them. If you want to leave comments, please do so.

Sorry to ignore it all

Another "WOW, time's flown bye post"!

After my great force additions, it snowed in Seattle and pretty much ground everything to halt, then I was on Holiday, then there were a RIF (Reduction In Force) where I work (I'm still employed thankfully), so it's been tense and busy.

Games Workshop became a thorn in my side over December. They opened a store just right down the street from where I live. Now I'd tried to get my Built In Gamers (BIGs) into GW games, but they were not that interested. Now that there's a store down the street and their friends play... OMG.... every weekend the literally live at the store. That meant dad had to play. This was quite a bother because I had gotten rid of my GW 40k "Nids" of yesteryear a while ago. So, now I'm the proud owner of a Tyranid Assualt Brood, to go along with the 'Nids my middle BIG one in a tourney at the store. At the moment, I'm cruising with approximately 1600 points of Alien Hatred.... AND A Necron Warrior Phalanx. The killer part is I have found I don't have the time to paint, and I abhor putting unpainted models on the table. I am now working on rectifying that. I've started on both armies at once. And I have decided to magnetize some of the units, not only for ease of transport, but also for easy weapon load outs based on what I see I'll be facing.

Here's what I'm workin' on..









I'm also going to magnetize the Flying bases for the Necron Destroyers. That will definitely help in transportation and non-breakage.

Once it's all painted up, I'll be a much happier camper.


But the Biggest thing is my conversion of Warhammer 40K Orks to the AT-43 Universe. I am a much bigger fan of AT-43 than I am of Warhammer 40k. And my one BIG that is into Warhammer 40k to the extreme will not abandon his Orks. Now he's seen the light of some of rules of 40k that made me switch but he is a 100% bonafide Ork fanatic. He plays one in World of Warcraft and refuses to go give them up in gaming. So I'm working on creating a whole new Army for AT-43. And it has been a definite PitA, but it has also been a lot of fun. Reading through the Ork's in Warhammer 40k Codex and then attempting to keep it for the AT-43 universe has been a very uplifting experience.

I'll start posting some of the fun stuff soon (in the next day or two).