User Content Friday - Better Playtesting: Running The Gauntlet

Nikephoros has been dropping some excellent science about better playtesting over the last month.  In short - we're doing it wrong.  In any case, the HoP is proud to present the first in what will, hopefully, be a longer series over at Bringer of Victory.  Be sure to check out part 2 if you dug this.  Oh, and bonus 3++ linkage today so Kirby should be happy.

Like many 40k players, I used to be a competitive Magic the Gathering player, and for a short time I was on the Pro Tour circuit. I never won more money than I spent on the trips, so the whole thing was a losing proposition unless you think of traveling to exotic locations to play Magic as a real vacation. Some do, I don't. Tournaments I got eliminated on Day 1 were usually a blessing in disguise because it gave me a day to go out and sight see the place I spent so much money to travel to.

Pictured: early playtesting efforts

Regardless of my boring life story, there are so many valuable lessons I learned about competitive gaming that can carry over to 40k. The biggest lesson in my mind is playtesting. I've mentioned elsewhere that I seriously doubt anyone playtests enough to get useful quantifiable data to make the right decisions about their army composition. There are two problems that cause this.

Where in the World Is Lantz- Seriously?

This week's Lantz related post will be decidedly Lantzless, as we didn't hear from him this week :(  Lantz, I hope you're ok and not suffering a slow Tuberculosis related death like Lauby is right now.  So, like over the weekend with the Weekly Whimsy, you're stuck with me, Dethtron.  Ever wonder what I really look like?  I slip photos of myself in all secret like every once and a while, but this will be about the most blatantly full on pic of me ever published here at the HoP....

The Weekly Top X: Dat Ass

No clever intro today folks - Brent and I are celebrating the holidays early by having an eggnog chugging contest. every time I stop to write, he sneaks ahead even more. No time to waste.  Onward!

Also, Snoop is judging the contest.

1) Claws and Fists - Arena of Death - The Sanguinor vs The Swarmlord 
John: This reminds me of a special character showdown that was published in White Dwarf so many years ago. I loved it then when I was a wee lad and I love it now with newer and better contenders and better methodology. Dice for the dice throne of Khorne!
John: Also: FIGHT!!!!!!!!
Brent: I agree. This was a cool idea - I’m surprised nobody has thought of it before. My only complaint is there were no pictures to go with it. Even a pic of each model stolen... er, borrowed from the internet would have been great.
John: FIGHT!!!!!!!!!

Of Dice and Men...

Dice, those six sided (In the case of 40K anyway) determiners of the fate of the universe…

They have minds of their own you know…and a sick sense of humour...don’t believe me…does this situation sound familiar?

It's for that all-important dice roll, you know the one…that ‘needed to win the game’ die…a two or more is all you need…

Your dice are waiting for their moment. You know the moment I'm talking about. That moment just before you roll when of course somebody will say “Anything but a one”…

User Content... uh... Monday: Dark Eldar Test Schemes

Sorrowshard over at Rant In E Minor painted some super sweet test models for his Dark Eldar army. He then did his damnedest to make sure people knew about how awesome they were. He marched straight into the HoP offices, grabbed Dethtron by his head and said "I'm not going to jail for you or anyone!" Wait, that was Wayne's World... But Sorrowshard did want more people to enjoy his work and as HoP exists as a sort of non-profit pimp, we said "hell yeah!"

Dethtron and Lauby have asked me to give some insight into the process I use to create color schemes for my new armies.

As I feel they are more interested in the creative process than the actual method of army selection Ill just stick with painting methodology for this article.

I usually have a few ideas floating around in my head I'll usually go through the various GW schemes for ideas, trawl the net, art, comics whatever, some ideas just stick and start to grow out of some of that collated stuff.

For Example, the first piece was kinda inspired by the Obsidian rose scheme which was my favorite from the Dex, crossed with some inspirational colour work by MajesticChicken. throw in my own painting style and approach to colour and voila we have a test model.

1st attempt, failure

At this stage depending on how it takes me ill always try and do a decent standard on my test models, as I want to know how good it can really look. I'm trying to convince myself its the shizzle after all. The quicker I can hit what I want/clicks the less painting I have to do, Less painting = good.

New Member Monday: Pizza is Metal

Actual News... Apparently
As soon as we stop reporting that there's no news, we have news:  The HoP writing staff just got international.  GMort has joined the HoP team!  We've re-published a number of his articles over the months and we thought it  time to take things to the next level.  Keep your sleeves rolled up for an additional weekly shot of GMort via the HoP. 

I don't have much else to say about this, except that we're chuffed to bits.  Sooo.... its animated GIF time!

[Weekly Whimsy] Goes to the Movies

[Welcome to Weekly Whimsy, where Loquacious' lot leaves laid-up.   Lays low, letting libelous logician lasso longhand.]

Shit, alliteration is hard, which is precisely why I wanted to write the intro in the form of a palindrome.... that was until I remembered how hard palindromes are- race car.  'Dethtron what are you doing here?' you may be asking yourself right about now.  Well it seems that Loquacious has taken ill and I have, therefore, asked myself to take up the mantle of gaming's best written female perspective on the net.  Now, I am sad that Lo couldn't pull through enough to scrawl some NyQuil addled musings for us- that would have been pretty amazing- but we'll all have to make do with me for the week.