Malifaux Painting Update 001

Latest Malifaux Painting update. Here if my Taelor model that has been setting in the box for like three years now. Figured I would break out my Viktorias box and get back into the swing of painting. I am pretty much finished blocking in the color on this model now. The next step is to shade and highlight the model as well as painting the metals.

New Malifaux bases!!

Since I am getting back into Malifaux I figured I would finally put together my Viktorias box. I put the bases together for a variety of other bases I had laying around. Stay tuned I will have a modeling update on the next couple days.

Infinity Painting Update

Here is an update to my Infinity TRON Style test model. I am calling this complete but I will probably tweak it until I seal it.

Infinity is back...who knew

So its been a almost two months since my last post. No excuses really just been busy with work and school and oh yea getting back into Infinity. Infinity? Yes...Infinity the game that I swore off some five years ago ad a game that was so cool but brought our group to near fist fights over what was then some clunky translations and misunderstood rules. Well the game has matured over the years and so have I as a gamer. Don't get me wrong I still want to compete in tournaments and will try to do some over the next year but I enjoy just playing the game as well and the cinematic nature of it. Its actually another game that I am into that really got me back into Infinity that game being MERCS. MERCS is a great game and I love the scale and the nature of it but I found my self saying everything time I was playing MERCS that I really missed playing Infinity. So I made the jump picked up a started and now we are playing weekly games. I am even building terrain again which is completely crazy.

In other news. I am painting again and going about it a little weird. So with my new kick toward Infinity I have been on a sci-fi kick lately and a friend of mine turned me on the TRON:Uprising. Now I love both movies and this show fits right in nicely. The show has also inspired me to do up my Infinity models in TRON style. Now I am not the first person to do this but it looks really cool...Even though I may not match the terrain(I am working on that too). I have added some images below of my current work bench and my progress on my first TRON Style model. I will try to keep these up to date as I work out the best techniques to get these models looking cool.

Images from my workbench

Her is the first TRON Style model primed in white.

The two images above are the first setup in details out all of the detail lines that will go into the model. I will make a couple more passes picking out more details and then I will start highlighting the model.

New Guild Wars 2 Trailer

Excellent Trailer for a Truly Awesome Game

Guild Wars 2 Initial Thoughts

So I am not just a table top gamer. Like many other table top gamer's out there I also love video games. I am a bit of a collector,been playing since I could hold a controller. I am also one of the luck gamer's that have grown up with video games as part of our lives from day one I am talking Atari 2600 on up through modern computing. I enjoy a wide variety of games but over the last few years I have been increasing drawn to Massive Multi-player Online games. It started with Ultima Online and I have played just about every game since including all the major players. Recently  I have been playing Guild Wars 2 and I have to say I am impressed.

Now let me qualify that I loved the original Guild Wars but it was always a secondary game partly due to to its subscription model and partly due to the fact that it wasn't your typical MMO with a persistent world. Basically every time you left the city you got your own private version of the world which was great but didn't offer much in multi-player aspect. Guild Wars 2 changes this up, it still has the buy the box player for ever for free business model which is excellent but it also adds a persistent world making it like every other major MMO out there but that is just the tip of the iceberg. 

For the outside Guild Wars 2 looks like any other MMO out there but its the subtle details that make the game great and dare I say a WoW killer(lets be frank here WoW is on its way out anyway).  I can't go into every single detail but I can get into a few that jump out at me. First the game has a lot of polish from the interface to the combat everything works well and looks good. Secondly PvP is a level playing field. Instead of relying on a bolster mechanic where everything gets buffed up to max level like in Star Wars the Old Republic, Guild Wars 2 just make everyone level 80 and give you access to everything you need. PvP is now about how your play and setup your character instead of what your gear is. The game also does a way with the "fiddly bits" that can make and MMO a pain to play, have a bunch of crafting items filling up your bags no problem one click send them to your bank, need to use the auction house, you can access it from any ware buying and selling. Speaking of crafting when you are ready to craft you don't have to make a trip to the bank to pick up your stuff when you go to a workbench it already knows what you have in your bank and uses it like you had it on you.Now this may break the "Role-Playing" experience for some people but the game strives to streamline the tedious stuff so you can actually play the game more. The other major change that I have seen in Guild Wars 2 is the fact that your are not locked into a server like in other games. Yes, you do choose a home server which is used the the World Vs World PvP(Which I have yet to try looks awesome) but you can "Guest" on any server you want so you can play with whoever. They have also put the Structured PvP into its own instance so there are always matches to be played with little to no waiting. Lastly probably the greatest thing about Guild Wars 2 is that I don't feel rushed to play the game. Since there is no gear grind there is time to explore and simply take my time.

Overall I believe that Guild Wars 2 is a step in the right direction that removes a lot of the barriers that people have with other games. Much like Everquest was an improvement over Ultima Online and WoW was an improvement over Everquest I believe that Guild Wars 2 is the next step in MMOs. I also believe that Guild Wars 2 marks the change from a subscription based model to a buy the box play the game model that has already been around for a while with other Free to Play games. This is especially the cane with Star Wars the Old Republic switching to a free to play model in the near future I can also see the Secret World switching as the subscriptions numbers drop because the options for free games are amazing.

I hope to post some more info on my progress through Guild Wars 2 as I can.

Gencon for those that Can't.....or Won't or that just don't get it

I always like to follow up Gencon by reading and watching of the new that comes out of Gencon. I do this mainly for stuff that I may have missed but really its just an effort to extend the con for a few more days. I found the video below on an excellent gaming news site called Games Salute. Sometime in the future I will go over all the cool stuff Games Salute does but for now I am sharing this video to kinda show people who can't  or won't go to Gencon or those that just don't understand what they are missing.

This video gives a very brief look at what is going on at the con.

I am currently reading the Dark Age Apocalypse core book and will post up my thoughts on it once I have a chance to get a few games in with my Dragyri. Currently on my work bench are my Dragryi and some JR Miniatures Sci-Fi terrain that will be used for MERCS,Dark Age and Infinity.