The Raz File

It is freezing in my hobby shed tonight, but despite my frozen fingers I have completed painting another 5 Clanrats from the unit of 25 I am working on. That brings me up to 10 total, or 40%. I am quite proud of my recent streak of motivation. I got those 5 Skaven done today as well as getting a bunch of stuff primed. It is very late now, so I think it's off to hit the sack for a few hours. I have to catch up on the homework I've been putting off during this painting spree.

I finally got back to the paint desk today. I was even somewhat productive and finished an entire rank of five Skaven Clanrats. All that's left to do on them is finish the bases and clearcoat them. My brother-in-law came over and assembled a bunch of the Tyranids from the Macragge box set. I have several of them drying in the primer box right now and hopefully I'll have some time to slap paint on them this weekend. My brother-in-law also based his Space Marines from the Macragge set and worked on his paint scheme.

He had an idea that I wasn't too sure about at first, but so far it's turning out all right. He took a heated dentist's pick and scarred the Space Marine armor all over. He also added bullet holes and the like. Basically, the Space Marine's entire armor was all cut up and blasted. There's no way the dude inside the armor could still be living. Then we primed it and painted a bright green in all of the gashes. It sounds strange, and when he explained it to me I'll admit I was pretty wary of the idea and mostly hoped he wasn't going to ruin a bunch of good miniatures. It turned out all right, although there are still some details to work out. I'm actually coming up with a bit of fluff as to how this particular army came about. More on that later once I organize my thoughts.

I'm mostly just excited that I was able to finish up some miniatures and I'm looking forward to completing some more.

My wife, my little sister, and I went to see Benchwarmers today. It was a pretty good movie. I recommend it.

I was thinking today about the accessibility of comic creators as opposed to other celebrities. After every convention I usually try to make contact with the creators I talked to and say thank you for taking the time to come out and meet the fans. Sometimes I ask questions about comics or the industry.

The thing that gets me is how many comic creators have e-mail addresses posted on the internet and how many of them actually write back and answer questions. That doesn't really happen with most famous people. I realize that comic book creators don't have fanbases in the millions like many actors, actresses, sports stars, and whatnot do, but there are still probably a few hundred thousand or maybe even a couple of million fans out there. Try writing to ten sports stars and see if you get six or seven of them to reply.

On the wargaming front, I got my workshop set up enough that my brother-in-law could come over and work on miniatures with me. I got six Tyranids from the Battle for Macragge box set assembled and based today. He's about done cleaning up his Space Marines. He wants to start painting his miniatures, but he can't come up with a color scheme for them. I think he's afraid he'll get halfway through the army and then want to change colors. I'm thinking he could do some sort of army like one I saw in White Dwarf. The Space Marines in that army had defected from their original chapters and banded with some sort of fallen commander. They still had their original color schemes, but their insignia was scratched off and painted over with something new. That would be more work to paint, but it might provide variety.

I could probably be done assembling the Tyranids this weekend, but we'll see how much other stuff I have to do. I have to get this project moving so he doesn't lose interest before we get to play a game. I'm thinking I should just do a bare-bones job on the Tyranids because they aren't my real army and I would really like to get started on my Witch Hunter Sisters of Battle army. But I realize that playing the scenarios in the starter set will go a long way toward helping us both learn the rules. I can read the rulebook all I want, but until I see it all in action I have a hard time picturing it.

This sentence is here to remind me to post about the game of 40K we saw going in Hobbytown the other day. Actually, I want to write more about the kids playing it than about the game itself. I am so tired. I stay up all night and then I wonder why I don't feel like going to work in the mornings.

I often do not think things through very well. And I have an example just waiting for everyone. A couple days ago I bought an "Easy-Open" coconut from Wal-Mart. This morning I decided to eat my coconut and found that I couldn't just pry it apart with my incredible strength. So I drilled out the holes with my Dremel and poured the milk out. The milk tasted terrible. I drilled out part of the patented "Easy Open" line, which appears to be a line where they shaved a little of the "hair" off the coconut surface, apparently making it incredibly easy to open. Still the coconut wouldn't budge. So I began looking for things I could use to open the coconut with blunt trauma. That's when I spied the brass from my tank round. And here I digress into the story about why there is a Canadian tank round in my home.

Every few years the Idaho National Guard tankers, of which I am one, has a shootout with the Canadians. We have M1A1s and they have some form of Leopard 2 (a German tank that Canada purchased for their Army). In 2003 I got to be a part of that competition (which we won by a small margin). After the serious stuff was over, they gave some of us junior soldiers the opportunity to fire a round from their tanks. And after we fired the round they gave us the shell casing from it. I do not have any American casings as the U. S. is very careful to collect and inventory stuff like that. The Canadians were happy not to have to cart the shells back to Canada. Firing a tank is a huge masculinity injection. Your chest hair practically doubles within ten minutes after you fire a round. But anyway, that's the story of how a Canadian tank shell casing came to be my home.

The shell was large and heavy, so I set the coconut on the floor (this is where I stop thinking) and dropped the shell on top of it. The shell cracked a little and I probably could've pulled it apart at that point, but I decided to make sure. I added a little extra push to the drop this time. The coconut splattered all over the carpet and was made very unappetizing, with bits of coconut shell and dog hair stuck all over it. There are several lessons to be learned here.

1. Don't smash wet things on the carpet.
2. "Easy Open" isn't all that easy.
3. Coconuts from Wal-Mart are often rotten.
4. Canada is pretty cool, and boy could those Canucks drink!

It's raining. I hate the rain. I think the worst rain is when it rains while you're doing stuff in the Army, because water gets in all of your gear and makes life miserable. On the farm, if the rain gets bad enough, you can usually go inside and wait it out. Or at least put on more clothes or something. In the Army you're pretty much hosed. Driving a tank is the worst, because the hatches never seal right and there is a constant waterfall coming in and pouring straight down your neck. Occasionally it will land on your helmet instead of your neck, but then it proceeds to drip from your helmet onto your face or from your helmet down your neck. Rain also makes my dogs smell terrible. But rain isn't what I really wanted to talk about.

1. A Space Marine character model.
2. 24 Tyranid Miniatures
3. A bunch of scenery bits.
4. Templates (which I'd been meaning to buy eventually anyway).
5. Dice (I already have a set, so I could give them to him).
6. A small rulebook.
7. Another book containing several scenarios meant to introduce the rules slowly, which would be good for both of us, as neither he or I is familiar with the rules.

My wife approved the purchase, so I grabbed up the box and ran for the counter before she could change her mind. Upon arriving back at the trailer park, I got out of the car at my brother-in-law's house and took the box set in to show it to him. I also convinced him that moving our furniture would be an awesome experience and make him into a manly man (the kind of man whose chest hair is so bristly it pokes right through his shirt). He was pretty excited (about the miniatures, I don't think my manly man speech really got the point across). We moved the furniture and then he and my sister came over to eat dinner with us. The food was awesome because my wife is a grand master in the kitchen.

Afterwards, I threw a huge pile of White Dwarf magazines onto his lap and showed him some of the Space Marine paint schemes that he could consider, as well as reminding him that he could make up his own. He kept pulling the Space Marine sprue out of the box and saying, "I wish I could get them off of here," so I pulled out my sprue cutters and let him have at it. He also started cleaning up the flash and mold lines while we sat around and talked. My sister finally dragged him away from the X-Acto knife at 3:00 am and they went home. I sent the Space Marines Codex with him so he can read up on the fluff and think about some models he wants to put in his future army.

I slept for a couple of hours and then had to wake up for my Fantasy Baseball Live Online Draft. Then I did homework. It was great. My sister and brother-in-law came over for dinner again tonight, and after dinner he pulled out the box and started in on cleaning up the figures. Once again, my sister had to drag him away. I think I've got him hooked. Now I just have to get my hobby shed set up so we can start painting the figures and terrain and playing the starter scenarios.

I guess I could do a little review of the components in the Macragge Set. This is of course colored by my own personal biases. It's a good value for the money. Like I mentioned earlier, the whole thing costs only ten dollars more than the basic Space Marine squad. The Space Marines in the starter aren't as detailed and don't feature the customization options or extra bits, but they're still Space Marines. The Tyranids so far don't fit together very well, but some cutting and some glue will fix that. I realize that the battle for Macragge is a big part of the 40K mythology, as is the battle between Space Marines and Tyranids in general, but I don't really care about the Tyranids at all. Having to buy 24 of them is sort of lame when I don't plan to pursue a Tyranids army at any point. I have the same problem with the Warhammer Fantasy starter. I just don't care about the Empire vs. the Orcs. But the Tyranids may be useful at some point, even if it's just to play the starter games with my little brother or broken into parts to serve as vanquished foes on my Witch Hunter bases. The terrain and scenery pieces are kind of cool and we'll be able to get good use out of them, especially now as we don't have any other terrain. The templates and dice are cool, as well as the little rulebook so you don't have to lug around the big hardcover beast. From reading through the little introductory booklet, it seems like the scenarios do a good job of covering everything in manageable chunks, as well as giving out some hobby information as far as assembly and painting the minis is concerned. It would be a good way to get a friend into gaming, as everything is included except the paints, glues, and other hobby tools. I highly recommend it, with the only real negative being a complete lack of interest in the Tyranids.