Because I'll be fielding a lone troll, he needs to look awesome... and the BFSP troll doesn't look awesome... I feel like having him piledrive the Games Day slayer spices him up a bit.

Hey everybody, sorry for my absence (during which I managed to pick up another follower, so, welcome new follower!)-- I'm back now, conflicted as always.

Basically, the IFL escalation tourney is coming up in... 3 days. Crap.

Okay, so I have nowhere near enough stuff painted (due largely in part to the fact that Emergency Medicine stuff got me pretty busy). So I'm guessing I'll just play the Ogres unpainted for the day, and then retire them until the new book comes around.

This raises the question of what to do next, and my answer to that is to start up my Empire force again: AVERLAAAAND


Even more flamboyant than the rest of the Empire, Averland has some interesting pro's over some other choices...
- The Yellow/Black Color scheme is a REALLY good one
- The Moot
- Bigger Feathers.
- Some really cool background (Blackfire Pass, The Moot, A crazy Elector Count)

So the plan comes down to this:
-2250 points of Empire, representing Averland as accurately as possible.
-No Steam Tanks will be in the army- Heresy! (they're really cool, but out of the few that have ever existed, why would one by in MY tiny army?).
-Color Scheme will be Yellow and Black, and the army will be represented as ornately as I can make it (More Feathers!). I'll do my best to incorporate the Black flames/yellow field motif whenever I can.
-Archer and Free company detachments will be made of halflings. If possible, I'll convert up a hot pot to count as a mortar. Perhaps even a halfling chef (Astromancer?)
- It's always vexed me that pikes are unavailable to an army based on the Landsknechts... so I'll have at least 2 blocks of spearmen with longer spears (bought from either perry miniatures or old glory... I have to compare prices).
- Centerpieces are important to me in making an army.. Mine will either be a mercenary giant, or a war altar... I'll probably include both

The idea is to have the 2250 completed by mid-May, which is when I move down to Austin, Texas. It'd be pretty rad to have an army ready to go so I can get gaming down there ASAP

Hey guys, sorry about the ever-changing looks.. the last one was cool, but sort of gave me a headache. I feel that the newer, more minimalist look is more suiting.

Anyway, there's been a distinct lack of well, anything on the blog lately, and I'll seek to remedy that. I'm working on setting up a 1k game to get my Ogres going in the escalation league, so that should force me to rush and get some stuff done (as well as base the 7 ogres I've already got). The game will be on Tuesday, which begins the 75% (of total wounds) painting requirement-- expect pics before the game tuesday!

First off, the Ironguts are almost finished, I should be able to get all the work on them done in the next day or two (pictures soon!).. then I'll figure out just how I'll go about basing the army. On a related note, it sounds like Ogres are next up for an army revamp (though I haven't seen anything definitive on this), and with the recent trend of big monsters (bigger than ogres?!) being a big focus of the books, I'm anticipating having to buy a whole bunch more crap for the army sometime soon. So I think that I'm going to avoid buying more for the army than I already have.

Anyway, the last week or so, I've been overcome by an urge to start (or re-start, rather) 40k. I'd played before for a bit, but between a bad group and an unfriendly local gaming store, I got sort of turned off to the game. I've since found the IFL and the Game Parlor stores and the groups for all the games played there look really friendly. Between that, 40k's awesome background and the superb tourney support, it's just too hard to resist.

Because 40k's got such a good background, I just can't pass up the opportunity to model one of the specific really cool armies that are out there. After pondering several ideas, the one that's sticking with me the most is the Blood Pact. There's some really great stuff to tap into for a force like that.

First thing I'll have to do is look around and see what does and doesn't work (relatively) for a Imperial Guard army. I'm not going for the most competitive force possible, I mostly just want something that looks cool, and is fun to play.

So perhaps I'll toss a list up here soon, and if I've got the stuff I need, possibly a conversion for a basic trooper.

The biggest thing I'm worried about is the fact that my army is going to be compared to Dave Taylor's Blood Pact. I want to borrow a few of his ideas, namely his troop trucks/halftracks as counts-as Chimeras, aiming for a mechanized army. He's got some pretty good tutorials up for them, and just buying the bits will make it more cost-effective than buying normal Chimeras anyway. These'll be a big challenge, because I'm a total noob with scratchbuilding. But I'm determined to learn.

PS- Sorry I write so damned much every time!

Okay, so I've been scouring the Ogre Stronghold for what the community there believes is a formidable list for the Ogres, and after reading a TON, I've settled on the Paradigm Shift list.

Wildcard, who is sort of the Stronghold's resident tactical Guru, posted this list in their all-comers thread for an online battle, and it's something I'm looking to emulate:

1 Tyrant
heavy armour
cathayan longsword
brace of handguns
1 luck gnoblar
2 sword gnoblars
beastkiller
wyrdstone necklace
greedy fist

1 Bruiser
2 sword gnoblars
heavy armour
brace of handguns
tenderiser

1 Bruiser
BSB
heavy armour
2 sword gnoblars
sword of might
2 gnoblar thiefstones

3 Bulls
additional hand weapons
bellower
crusher

3 Bulls
additional hand weapons
bellower
crusher

3 Ironguts

20 Gnoblar Fighters

20 Gnoblar Fighters

9 Gnoblar Trappers

3 Yhetees
greyback

3 Yhetees
greyback

3 Maneaters
heavy armour
brace of handguns

The goal of the list largely focusing around getting the Maneater/Tyrant/Bruisers deathstar unit into combat, and tie the 1000pts+ up in combat where shooting cant get them. The list is only 2000 points, but I figure if I get this soonish, I can play around for a little while and see what I want to do with the 250 points I've got left.

In terms of models, the things I need to get ahold of are-
Another Box of Gnoblars
6 Yhetees (which I'm going to make myself... the current models are UGLY)

The Maneaters and Characters I can convert out of Ogres I have from the battalion box and such, so I shouldn't have to buy any of those, just maybe some green stuff for them.

All of a sudden, getting an army done for this tourney is looking so much more possible.

Alright, I've officially switched to Ogre Kingdoms for the IFL Winter 2010 Escalation League. As far as momentum goes, I'm kicking some major ass- 1 unit (9 wounds) finished (except for basing... but that doesn't count)-- and just got a unit of Ironguts ready for painting. I'll be priming them here in a minute.

I'll try and get a list up tomorrow, and if everything goes as planned, some WiP pics of the 'Guts. This weekend is going to be pretty much nonstop classes and general fire department whatnot, so my early estimate for Irongut completion is Monday night.

Managed to finish up the ogres last night, all except the basing situation, that is. I'm still not sure how I want to accomplish that, as the 40x40mm bases offer an interesting predicament of space. The ogres don't occupy very much of the overall space, so the normal flock and static grass basing that you'd do on a 20x20mm ends up looking really boring. So that's one more thing to figure out