Lament of a Xenos Player

Hey folks, SinSynn here.

I'm a lil' emotional right now. A lil' choked up.
The reason?

I'm gonna say it straight up, since this is HoP, and that's what we do here, right?

I was chatting with someone the other day, and this person said "Xenos suck in 40k right now, GW really gave them the shaft this edition."
Despite my arguments to the contrary (bear in mind I'm a strictly Xenos player), I....couldn't win this debate.

Not even close.
Hell, I barely dented his defenses, and in the end I sorta conceded....like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail conceded.

Badly.

The Weekly Top X - The One From Last Week

This was the Top X that was supposed to run last week.  No idea why it didn't get posted, but it might have something to do with me being somewhere in the Pennsylvania wilderness and not being around to schedule it.  Then again, the original title was "Brent and Lo Get Nasty" so maybe Dethtron felt like he'd give the two of them a chance to reconsider.  So sit back and enjoy the hot pics from two weeks ago while Brent gets ready to go to Wargames con.

Hello and welcome to the House of Paincakes!

Right this way; we'll sit you in a booth and serve you up some nice, fresh Top X... which I sort of imagine is like reconstituted roadkill or something.

Anyway, this week the Lauby is away so the mice - me and Loq - will play!  I picked three, she picked three, and we're commenting on why the other chose how they did.

Easy right?  Let's get started with my picks.

Gaming on a Budget: We Interrupt Flames of War to Bring You Some Papercraft

Dethron forgot to take pictures of his finished Bocage before he moved on to demolishing his basement under the admittedly thin pretense of building a better gaming room.  Or he smashed off his own penis in a freak sledgehammer incident.  I can't remember which it was.  In either case, we'll all have to wait a little while longer for the final unveiling of his FoW board.  In the meantime, I bring you some Gaming on a Budget goodness of my own as Dethtron finishes up his basement and/or waits for his penis to regrow like one of those little lizards you find all over the place in Florida

One day on the internet, just like any other (at the time, I think I was doing a risk/reward analysis concerning looking at Blake Lively's leaked nude photos at work), as I was poking around looking for some new information on naked Blake Lively Infinity, I found something truly wondrous - papercraft terrain.

So cool.  This picture courtesy of Fire Broadside.

It's a great way to get some terrain up and running for almost no money and in almost no time.  Perfect for supplementing your collection of book hills and Mountain Dew Storage silos.  Hell, some of the stuff I've found looks good next to 'actual' terrain.

Become the first HoP Idol

As the HoP continues to grow- we've got over 300 Google followers, almost as many blogs on the network and a pretty damn active comments section- we've decided that the time is right to get some more authors on board.  We've got one or two people in the pipeline ready to make their debut any day now, but we've got a special opportunity for the community at large to get some names out there and find another author or two chosen by you, dear readers.

User Content Wednesday - Are You In an Abusive Relationship?

The House of Paincakes is coming dangerously close to having 300 blogs on the rolls.  As you can well imagine, finding posts to promote and figuring out how to give everyone a chance at some fame is an increasingly hard task.  Thankfully, our long standing policy of "the squeaky anus wheel gets the grease" has served us well once again.  Frontline Gamer recently joined us and recently squeaked a bit.  I think the article we're posting is one of my new favorites.  It's a poke at GW, but the exact kind of poke that we like at the HoP - intelligent and funny. 

Over the last 5 or so years I've slowly watched all of my fellow gaming buddies become steadily disenfranchised or disillusioned with the hobby... no sorry lets clarify, the Games Workshop. I watched Chris 'the cursed' Tapper go away time and time again to Warhammer Fantasy Tournaments and come back saying he had a good time, only then for him to tell me what happened and him realize he was only enjoying the beers on the nights out after the gaming. I've watched others grow tired of the price gouging and the annual price hike. I've watched as people realize that the tactics in 40k pretty much stop at army building, I've seen gamers grimace while reading the Dark Elves or Space Wolves army books. I've watched as the Games Workshop have systematically trashed their two core systems and pissed gamers off...

Willow Road, off of Lenton Lane Nottingham

MWC Conversion Contest

It looks like those zany funsters over at Miniature Wargame Conversions are at it again.  The Pay it Forward may have ridden off to different lands, but Red is back with the first of many conversion contests.

I strongly advise heading over there RIGHT NOW to check out the details.  And here's a link to the rules since I know you all love things that are easy and convenient.

Look. Clearly you're still reading this post - you just took the time to read these words and process them.  Why haven't you clicked on the links we gave you?  Seriously.  Go over to MWC.  STOP READING THIS POST!

Forums - The Spawning Place of all Evil.....

I used to spend a lot of time on forums, dispensing advice as I felt the need, helping people with rules queries, giving opinions on army lists and any number of other things that I thought might be considered helpful*.

* I may also have occasionally mentioned that I had a blog...you know...just in passing ;-)

Unfortunately I have grown weary of them over time for a wide variety of reasons.....

Imagine for a moment that your in a pub (or a bar as I believe you Americans call them) and your listening to a fairly lively conversation about some subject you have an interest in. Would you feel the need to interrupt the conversation, call half the people involved a bunch of twats, automatically agree with the person who had been doing the most talking up to that point and then act like a badass when you got told to fuck off?

New Member Monday - America Day

Hello Everyone! The 4th of July is kind of a big deal around the parts of the world where most of the HoP staff is from.  Luckily for you this isn't a real business or we'd have to give everyone the day off and then you would get to know about our new members.

New Member Monday

Sons of Twilight
Keywords: Specialist Games, Blood Bowl, Epic, Warhammer 40K, General Gaming

Bernohn
Keywords: Warhammer Fantasy and Infinity blog, gaming, painting and terrain

Frontline Gamer
Keywords: Infinity, Firestorm Armada, Dystopian Wars, Warmachine, Anima Tactics, Hell Dorado, Malifaux, reviews, rants and random crap concerning toy soldiers

Defenders of the Cadian Gate
Keywords: Warhammer 40k, Flames of War, Starship Troopers, rants, long winded speaches, battle reports

Pro Imperator
Keywords: Painting, 40K, Warhammer Fantasy

And now, this weeks winning essay from our field of five (which I'm reasonably sure is complete - email me if I forgot you) come by way of Frontline Gamer:


Firstly lets get this out of the way now, there is no God. There might be dice faeries granted, but there is certainly no God, I know this because I am awesome yet my life sucks and if there was a God my life would be super cool and my Ben & Jerry’s Phish food wouldn’t have dripped out the bottom of its container all over the keyboard… hang on, got to clean this crap up. Right I’m back again, why am I non-existent Gods gift to the internet? I’m not, however I have only received 3 death threats thus far for my blog due to a wonky Gandalf, I feel with extra exposure I could get at least 5, please expose me, because other networks are too chicken shit to add me too their sycophantic lists. Plus I don’t think my blog is too bad. Not quite the full 500 words but hey I’m lazy.

HoP Hits 300 Followers

WOOHOO!!!  The HoP has just hit the 300 follower mark.  I'd like to say a big thank you to all of you that have made this possible.  Without you dear readers, this blog and blog network would not be possible, so this victory is yours, not ours.

Oh also, it's the 4th of July here in the states, so happy independence day to all.  Remember that without fingers, this hobby is a lot more difficult, so pay attention to your fireworks safety.  Until next time, I leave you with this:

[Musings of a Game Store Owner] Costs

Over the past few weeks, I have had several inquiries about what it costs to start a game store. I’d like to try to address that with you today. I’ll also be addressing some of the considerations outside of monetary cost one should take on prior to entering this business, and offering some been-there, done-that commentary.

When someone asks about the cost of running a game store, they invariably are asking about a dollar amount. Those kinds of costs come down to three factors: location, stock and staff. These factors are equally important, and each one has other “sub-factors” that need to be examined just as much as anything else. All of these factors need to work together to create the best possible mix for your situation.

Location-

We’ve all heard the real estate mantra of “location, location, location”. I can tell you that it’s pretty true. Finding the right mix of all the required elements in a location is a headache inducing endeavor. Something that a lot of people overlook when considering location is the dynamics of the town or city they’re in. If your locale already has a game store, the physical place YOUR store will go is a critical and business altering decision. Too close to the “competition” and you can and will lose business to the other guy. Too far away, and the same thing will happen for different reasons.