Back from the dead...!

Ok, it's been said before, but I mean it this time.  I am going to start posting again and I've got a lot of material saved up from this summer!  Oh boy, the summer was a great one for gaming and hobby fun.  Look for new content this weekend!

Gaming earns a place in Wabash Magazine!

Yep, I know the blog has been neglected...  However, the newest copy of Wabash Magazine got me back in the game.  Sure enough, on page 19, you will find a nice shot of our end of semester gaming festival. 

The event last fall was a blast and nearly 55 folks turned out to support the Dork Club and celebrate the end of another semester of gaming goodness.  Yes, 2012 was a fun year and the club looks fwd to a great 2013!

Stay on target...Dork Club, you're my only hope!

The joy of a new game that meets your expectations is amazing!  Couple that with a childhood love for an intellectual property like Star Wars and money departs the wallet faster than a certain YT-1300 stock light freighter on a Kessle Run!  That's right, Fantasy Flight's new game, X-Wing, is one of my new favorites!  It couples the solid tactical mechanics of Wings of War/Glory with enhanced template movement and firing to deliver a great gaming experience!

I was very impressed by the game during a demo of the prototype way back at GenCon 2011.  Slightly more than a full year later, it finally hit store shelves (cough...discount online retailers...cough).  For only ~$25 you get the starter box that includes two TIEs, one X-Wing, cards, maneuver templates, dice, etc.  Everything you need to get playing is included and the production quality is excellent.  The prepainted fighters are gorgeous!  The mechanics of play are very easy to learn, there's lots of tactical fun, and the game has an addictive squad building setup that is engaging.  It also goes well beyond the "kill all the other jerks" by including a number of objective based scenarios in the rulebook.

Again, the game is really simple to learn and the Dork Club gang got going in no time.  Our first game was a bit ambitious in that we set up a challenging Death Star Trench run scenario at about 150 pts per side.  Ships were all over the place and the Rebels were hard pressed to avoid the horde of TIE fighters.  Vader is a beast in his TIE advanced x1 and Y-Wing ion turrets are also great fun!  After losing several Y-Wings and X-Wings, Wedge and Dutch made a move for the trench.  Valiant Dutch slowed down to buy some time for Wedge to take the shot.  Wedge moved in, locked in with the targeting computer, fired his proton torpedoes...and whiffed...epic fail.  Still, it was a great time and a nice trial for a large game.

This weekend, I played 1v1 with a friend and tried some simpler dogfights at about 60 pts per side.  The squadron building is aspect is great fun and there are some really nice combos to be had.  I can't wait to get more games in soon; may the force be with you!

Cardboard Crizzack? Yes, please...we're playing Magic the Gathering @ the call-out meeting!!

Tonight was the big Dork Club call-out meeting!  Wow, the turnout was great!  Our meeting room was pretty busy and folks were excited about the great events planned for the fall.  It was also such great fun getting to meet new members and learning all about their gaming interests.

The energy was very positive and folks broke out into groups clustered around games like Catan and Magic the Gathering.  A few folks brought out their laptops and played League of Legends and Starcraft.  The game library impressed a number of our new members and it looks like the club games will get a lot of use this semester. 

I started playing Magic the Gathering way back in high school in 1994...which blows my mind since this is the year that many of this year's freshmen were born!  I had one of the deck boxes from the revised set that was literally as old as some of the freshmen playing with me.  It is a superb game that grants you the ability to design a deck tailored to strategies and card combos you enjoy.  It is a simple rule set, exhibits tactical depth, and appeals to the hoarder in all of us!  In addition, the artwork displayed on many of the cards is stunning!  Wizards of the Coast also deserve some serious credit for the extremely powerful business model they have developed for the game....which is evidenced by the fact that it's still thriving after all these years. 

Shadow in the Warp!!!

The Dork Club and I have been working on building and painting up a Warhammer 40k army that is Wabash themed.  It has been great fun and we even played a few games with them last spring.  The "Sons of Wabash" Space Marine Chapter is largely successful in beating back the Ork scourge of DePauWaaaaagh.  However, as our champions regroup and celebrate their victories, a garbled distress signal is received.  Contact is suddenly lost with a string of remote mining colonies on the edge of the sector.  It may just be a series of solar flares interfering with the vox signals...or it could be something much, much worse...game over man, game over!

 

Here are a couple of teaser images of something I've been working on during the summer...

Back from the void!

Summer is over and classes have started up once again.  It's great being in the classroom and teaching labs again!  We've got some really sharp students and it promises to be a very eventful year for Wabash College.

The summer was a great mix of fun and scholarship!  I headed over to the UK for a few weeks, visited my family in Texas, and had two amazing summer research interns cranking out lots of good data in the lab.  I even gave a talk at GenCon this year!  However, the blog didn't get any love this summer, so there's lots to write about as I attempt to catch up.

First, I have to highlight the trip across the pond.  This must have been my fifth visit over and we were able to sneak in and out before the crowds converged for the Jubilee and the Olympics.  London, York, and Bath were just a few of the highlights for this visit.  It was an amazing trip...and I'm already missing the amazing lunches at Nando's, my favorite place on the planet to nab a peri-peri chicken sandwich and chips!

In addition to all of the sightseeing, shopping, and great eating (yes, it can be found in the UK!), I was able to sneak away to a gaming conference!  The train ride to Birmingham was an easy enough stop along the return from York to London.  This was the home of the 2012 UK Games Expo and it was a pretty good time. 

The venue was a little on the small side, and the place was packed!  However, the UK gamers were great people.  The stormtroopers and Daleks were running rampant!  The gaming groups I spoke with were passionate about their hobby and they went all out preparing gorgeous scenery and worked really hard to make sure everyone had a great time.  The dealer hall had a variety of booths that showed off new products and allowed you to demo new games.  I checked out the new items from the folks at Mantic and played a demo of Project Pandora.  It was great fun and I picked up two copies for the minis and tiles alone.  There was a used game booth that had so many good deals that my luggage was bursting at the seems to get it all home.  I spent two and a half days immersed in the best of British gaming culture and I was so happy that I took the time to explore it.  Maybe someday I can time a future trip right so I can spend  few days at Salute.

Gentlemen, start your engines...it's DORKSTOCK time!!!

It's that time of the semester again...

The Dork Club hosted its big end of semester community gaming celebration last Saturday! This was the 8th annual spring gaming celebration!  The campus community was invited to join us for an entire day of gaming goodness. Folks were encouraged to stop by and play an old favorite like Risk or learn something totally different like Warhammer 40k, Formula D, Dust Warfare, Uncharted Seas, Heroscape, or Munchkin. We broke our ever-expanding game library for folks to try out a new game or two. We played from noon until around midnight...good games, good food, and great fun for all!

Our favorite gamer historian broke out his copy of Formula D, along with the club's new expansion tracks!  The game is quickly becoming one of our favorites.  Given the large turnout for Dorkstock, we ran a number of games that maxed out at eight players.  The game really shines with eight players!  The initial stages of the race are truly hectic, with near collisions and racers jockeying for an early advantage.  At eight players, race teams become a factor and it's fun to "shake n' bake" around the track and competitors.  It's a really, really easy game to learn and provides infinite replayability.  We ran multiple laps, which is where the decision to pit or not becomes a major factor.  Our historian friend is a natural at the game and typically dominates, but I actually managed to win one race this time.  Everyone had a great time and the level of track talk and "advice" we give each other makes for a wonderful experience!

The day was filled with a variety of interesting and exciting games.  I squeezed in another game of Dust Warfare, a new favorite of mine.  Walking panzers and Nazi zombies...how can you go wrong?  The rules are authored by industry vet, Andy Chambers.  We took the Sons of Wabash space marines out for their initial Warhammer 40k sortie against those no-good orks of DePauwaaagh!  I also got to play a game of Small World, a clever and entertaining take on the traditional Risk vein of games.  It was a great day, filled with fun and camaraderie. 

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war...and lots of prizes!

This was one of the few weekends where I miraculously escaped a backlog of grading and got out of the house for a day to catch a film and enjoy some hobby fun. I headed out to the Grand Opening event at the new Games Workshop - Willow Lake East store in Indy. Kevin and his crew have a nice space with lots of room to build and paint. Plus, he's a good guy and is planning a trip out to Wabash in the fall. He's generously volunteered to share some minis with the Dork Club at our call-out meeting. It should be a fun time.

The grand opening event had all of the promised "exclusive" swag that is associated with such events. I picked up a nice Imperial flag for my office, some 40k patches, etc. I was very excited about checking out the new range of Citadel paints. The store hosted a little speed painting contest so folks could take the new formulas out for a spin. I have to admit, I like the new base colors...especially the yellow and reds! They cover well and even hold their own against a black base coat. Very impressive! We had ten minutes to paint up some simple models using only four colors (red, blue, white, & green) and a texture paint for the base. It was a blast and while you could buy additional colors, I enjoyed the color mixing challenge presented by the provided colors. My CHE211 students will be pleased to know that color theory has applications well beyond transition metal complexes. My mini won and I got a nice bag full of prizes: a nice terrain piece, cool portfolios, more patches, and a signed copy of Nick Kyme's Nocturne! Pretty generous loot!

After picking out a few pots of paint and shades, the store put on a conversion contest. I had never participated in one of these before. The store gave us piles of plastic bits from across a number of their miniatures ranges. The challenge was to construct a miniature from these spare parts. My Frankenstein creation took shape pretty quickly. After cutting and gluing away for about 30 minutes, I was really pleased at the result! The new Citadel "thick" plastic glue is great! The "thin" stuff is really nice too, but they need to refine the applicator tips since it clogged way too quickly in my opinion. I think I have a new inspiration for another army on my hands...and he really doesn't like Space Wolves. He's got a Thousand Sons vibe to him and he is standing over the guy he just took apart and is still clutching the head as a prize. He was worthy of a three-way tie for first, but no need to be greedy with the prizes. Check him out below.

After realizing that I forgot to grab lunch, I scarfed down some grub and headed over to Keystone for a movie. I'm a huge Asian film fan: Hard Boiled and Ong-bak are my favorites! I decided to check out The Raid: Redemption. It was INTENSE! Not great enough to dethrone HB or O-b, but very entertaining! Just one more week of classes, finals, and then summer arrives!

Welcome to the "Hobby Lab!"

Dorkstock, the club's end of semester gaming celebration, is quickly approaching! So, that means I need to kick it into gear and get those Warhammer 40k miniatures painted up in time for the big event...

There's never enough free time to fit in as much painting is as I'd like. That's why this semester I've recruited the guys to pitch in and help. I've hosted a couple of hobby nights this semester as an experiment to gauge student interest. The events have been more successful than I first expected. The turnout has been pretty good and the guys have really helped to slap some paint on those darn DePauw orks. Also, it's been pretty fun sharing my painting knowledge with the guys that are getting excited about the hobby aspect of miniature wargaming.

I really had a blast at our most recent hobby night. About twelve or so guys showed up. Some played games and chatted, while others pitched in for a bit and we got some minis painted! One of the guys brought along the Space marine dreadnought model he'd been working on for awhile and made some pretty awesome progress on it. I really enjoyed the atmosphere. We had music streaming on the laptop, the conversations were lively, and it was a really fun evening spent painting and hanging out with the students. Time well spent!

Another night of gaming goodness!

Given the current stress level on campus, it was great to take a break and game with the guys! One of our favorite mathematicians hosted a game of Lego Heroica! It is a simple enough rule set and a large part of the fun is constructing the game board. Playing with Lego never gets stale, no matter how old you are! We had a big group in attendance, so we constructed two dungeon crawls and got to killing spiders, goblins, druids, orcs, etc. Our armless heroes completed their killing sprees, sold their loot, and enjoyed bouncing about the board. Great fun was had by all and I think everyone realized the limitless fun that could result from crafting our own set of house rules for the game.


In addition to the Lego fun, I brought back a club favorite, Wings of War! We enjoyed the WWI version and tried something new...no teams, no historical accuracy, just a big ol' furball deathmatch! Eight planes going at each other was super hectic and simply a blast! Backstabbers were rewarded with laughter and everyone enjoyed shooting each other down! It was a really fun evening of gaming and bonding. Games really do bring folks together!

Deep Strike! Sons of Wabash Arrive!

Winter break was nice and I made time to progress on a few minis! Finally, I finished the test squad for the Dork Club Warhammer 40k army project: The Sons of Wabash Space Marine Chapter! I'm pretty happy with them, especially since it was the first time I played around with custom made water-slide decals.



I'm still working on the back-story for these guys, but here's a sneak peak. Hailing from the planet Wabash Secundus, the Sons of Wabash are a chapter of space marines known for their dedication to tradition and doctrine of honorable victory above all. Chapter colors are white and crimson. Their Codex Gentlemanus provides guidelines for chapter organization, code of conduct, and tactical philosophy. A Black Templars successor chapter, the Sons of Wabash have earned great glory in the infamous Monon Wars. The chapter will never falter in its eternal crusade to seek out and eradicate the epic ork menace of the dreaded DePauWaaaaagh.

Nuts!

Our final "regular" Dork Club meeting of the semester was a fun one! One of the club's good friends visited and hosted an exciting World War II battle. The game used the Nuts! rule set, produced by Two Hour Wargames, and we found it to be an interesting and fun event. Our game setup was very simple, given that it was our first experience playing this rule set. We had roughly three squads of U.S. army facing off against two squads of Germans. It was a scouting mission scenario, where each team was to locate the opposing force and identify any unit markings from fallen soldiers. The Germans opened fire immediately in an attempt to take out the American sergeants. Nuts! allows for a number of sight and received fire checks to be taken, which allows various players to act in response to the active player's actions. The system took a little time to get used to, but was pretty fluid once we became more comfortable. In the first game, the Americans claimed victory.

In the second game, we played a take and hold mission that focused on a single structure objective, located in the center of the board. The Germans made aggressive initial moves and captured the objective. They were successfully able to keep the Americans pinned down in the surrounding forests, racking up victory points in the process by holding the objective. It was another fun evening of gaming!

This may be our...Last Night on Earth!

Yes, we were overdue for another fun Dork Club game night, especially since Halloween is right around the corner! This week's gathering focused on some of our more "spooky" games. Last Night on Earth, produced by Flying Frog Productions, remains one of my favorite board games. I enjoy it so much due to the way it translates the survival horror film narrative into a cooperative board game experience.

Our first game was a scenario where the heroes had to search for gasoline and keys in order use a truck to escape the zombie horde. Two players teamed up to control the zombies while the other players control a fun cast of human characters that must cooperate to complete the scenario mission goals. In this game, the humans were waaaay too confident and met their end as they frantically attempted to gas up the truck. Ripped limb from limb, it was an embarrassing epic fail of a defeat.

The second game we played was a killing spree mission, where the hero goal was to dispatch fifteen zombies. This one was really fun and came down to a cinematic moment where the heroes were surrounded by a mass of undead that closed in for the kill. Luckily, a simple fire extinguisher turned the tide by providing the humans with a clutch means of escape! Once away, pistols, chainsaws, and blow torches were ultimately used to dispatch enough zombies for the win. It was another fun night of gaming. When I left, the guys were starting up a fun game of Munchkin Zombies!

Battle beyond the stars...my first Directorate Fleet!

Following our last Dork Club meeting, I've been meaning to post a few photos of my Firestorm Armada fleets. First up is my Directorate Fleet in all its red and white glory. The fleet didn't require any assembly since all the ships are cast in a single piece. Just a little elbow grease to remove some flash and you're off to prime and paint. The color scheme was inspired by a number of examples over on the Spartan Games forum.

Everything was primed black and followed with about four colors of dry-brushing. I used Cold Grey, Stonewall Grey, Bone White, and Dead White (all VGC). Each color was applied so that some of the previous layer was left exposed. Finally, the red panels were picked out in a gradient of Scarlett and Bloody Red (VGC). A little VGC Black was used in the panel recesses, followed by three coats of Krylon Gloss Coat and one coat of Krylon Matte Coat. I was please with the results and they really look fun on the table!

In space, no one can hear you roll for crits...

Tuesday was another Dork Club game night! It was a blast trying out my newly painted Firestorm Armada fleets. Firestorm Armada is another great game system by the folks at Spartan Games in the UK. It is very similar in mechanics to Uncharted Seas, with a few added layers of complexity. The game is also quick to learn and lets you roll lots and lots of dice as you duke it out across the void. Firestorm Armada includes fighters, teleport assaults, torpedoes, and a pretty sweet miniatures range. The ships are detailed and a blast to paint.

Our game was based around a capture and control mission to take a secluded weapons research space station. Two fleets raced toward the station and did their best to teleport their assault troops onto the station in order to score victory points. At the end of each game round, teams earned points for each squad of troops remaining on the station...or at least those that survived the fighting if both teams had squads on board. Victory points were also earned by destroying ships of the opposing fleet. The swifter frigates and cruisers raced in and traded shots early, but the game took on a different tone once the big dog battleships entered the fray. Our favorite high-rolling history professor scored some really nasty hits from his battleship that disintegrated two of the opposing cruisers, leading to a reactor meltdown that mauled the remaining one. That turn changed the tide of battle and the other team's battleship ultimately made a hasty retreat to hyperspace before being encircled and destroyed. It was an exciting game with loads of fun moments...another fun game night!

For a few mechs more...

Lots of papers to grade tonight, so I took a break and decided to throw a couple more mechs up on the site. Again, these were blending practice with a couple of new color schemes. A few water-slide transfers spiced things up, followed by a simple black wash.

The Orion is a painted with a core of cruiser tank green (FoW) and blended outward into limbs of green ochre (VMC).



This fun little Piranha mech is loaded to the gills with MG's. I decided to try a simple gradient of magic blue (VGC), imperial blue (VGC), and Andrea blue (VMC).

The Hunchback of Battletech...IIC that is...

Yep, here's another mech post. The Hunchback IIC is truly a fun one to play with in a close quarters game...at least until you run out of ammo. This bad boy packs two Ultra AC20's that can cause some serious pain! Anyway, mine is painted in a dirty Halloween scheme with orange fire and black (VGC). As always, I appropriated a few GW transfers to decorate this guy.

Ahoy! Thar be fun playin' Uncharted Seas!

Over the past few years, Spartan Games has become one of my favorite game companies. This UK outfit has a stable of really fun games that are quick to play and let you roll tons of dice. I enjoy all three of their flagship games: Uncharted Seas, Firestorm Armada, and Dystopian Wars.

Last year Uncharted Seas, a game of fantasy naval combat, was a big hit with the Dork Club. Moving squadrons of beautifully sculpted ships around the table and blasting your opponent out of the water makes for a fun evening. Play moves back and forth between the players as they take turns activating small portions of their fleets. All of the archetypes are represented (elves, orcs, dwarves, etc.) and a couple of original races as well. The game is The exploding dice mechanic is a blast and the rules allow folks to jump in and enjoy the game quickly.

Below are a few images of my Shroud Mages (think chaos dwarves) fleet. I'll try to post more as I get my other primed fleets properly painted up.





Here's a photo I snagged last semester that shows a clash between the above Shroud Mages and my Iron Dwarves fleet. You can see a chaotic frigate battle raging on (note the epic fail markers on frigates that completely missed their shots at point blank range) as the Iron Dwarf battleship withdraws in search of bigger prey...

Battletech Mechs: Werewolf & Hornet

Battletech was the gateway drug that led to my love of miniatures wargaming. Imagine sixty-ton robots the size of office buildings beating the crap out of each other! I discovered the game during my first summer research internship. I was away at Texas Tech and spent free time at a small game store near campus. Battletech still holds a special place in my heart. While ownership of the intellectual property has bounced around over the years, the game still has a loyal following. The mechs also provide a really nice distraction as painting projects. When I get burned out from painting scores of space marines or 15mm aliens, mechs are great side projects. I love the spirit of the early 3025 time period of the game, as opposed to the more recent story arcs of the Battletech universe, that conjures up a WWI "knights of the sky" fighter imagery where each plane had a unique paint scheme. Even though I collect mechs from various time periods, my painting attempts to keep my paint schemes diverse. They also provide a great way to practice painting techniques. Here are a couple recent projects that I used to practice blending various colors. Sure, they won't win any competitions, but they look great on the tabletop.

Werewolf: Hawk Turquoise, Jade Green, & Scorpion Green (all VGC paints)



Hornet: Sun Yellow, Moon Yellow, Bloody Red, Gory Red, Red Black (all VGC)

Contact! Taking on the Red Baron and the Fokker Scourge

Our first Dork Club meeting of the semester was a good one. The turnout was great and we saw a lot of new faces. We even had a mathematician show up and lead a game of Munchkin that looked like a lot of fun. Our regulars were there, except for our new President that was working hard at rehearsal for an upcoming campus theater production. Our loyal historian (now a TV star) and Dean were able to make it out as well.



I introduced one of my favorite games to the club, Wings of War. This is a very accessible and extremely fun game that puts you in the chaotic skies of WWI dog-fights. The game has some of the best prepainted miniatures that I have ever seen. They are historically accurate down to the camouflage and squadron markings. Many are specifically modeled after the planes used by famous aces of the war. Gameplay is fast and furious, where each plane has a deck of cards that allow each player to select maneuvers as they try to hunt down their opponents on the table. Damage is also handled in a simple manner using decks of cards that denote damage values when planes are hit. The deck includes a number of zero valued cards to represent shots that miss. The damage deck also includes special damage cards that add the fun of planes on fire, trailing smoke, engine trouble, gun jams, pilot injuries, and the sort. Wings of War plays very quickly and allowed us squeeze quite a few missions into the evening. My favorite missions were the team deathmatch fighter patrols and an attack/defend mission where we had a huge observation balloon on the table as our objective. It was a fun time and the game was well-received; I'm sure we'll be playing this one again soon.