The Weekly Top X - Defining the 3-Way 3 Ways

Brent:  It always scares Lauby when he leaves the Top X in my care... not sure why. Anyway, he shot me this email:

Brent, thanks for helping me cover, but for God’s sake don’t pull out your selection of genitalia shaped terrain. It’s not funny. We don’t want the House of Paincakes readers to dream of a Herpes and Hep C explosion crawling down a leg. It’s just not cool.

And for God's sake, don't lose control of SinSynn!

Drats. Still, his week I’m determined to do him proud! I will bring zero - and I repeat ZERO - fun and frivolity to the post...

...so I’ve invited SinSynn and Loquacious; the former to bring the juvenile humor and the latter to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.

Don’t worry, Lauby! Nothing can go wrong, I assure you. So, first up Synn, we’ll put Loq in the middle, and I’ll finish it all up.

What?

Last Chance to Enter HoP Idol- Two Idols Enter, One Idol Leaves

As the title of this post implies, today is the last chance for you to enter the HoP Idol contest that will be beginning shortly.  So, head down to the convention center for your audition send us your short micro blog post audition tape today.

You've just a scant few hours left until the deadline (the end of today 7/21 in whatever time zone you're in), so don't procrastinate.

Lauby will be on vacation for the next few weeks, but is dropping in to Chicago to get some games in and decide on the contest finalists with me, so stay tuned for more announcements about this in the next two weeks.

Full contest details can be found by following this link up in here.

Gaming on a Budget: Dethtron's Gaming Table Revealed

A couple of month's ago I set off to make a gaming surface and more than enough terrain to fill it up in as short a time as possible and as cheaply as possible.  To make it even harder, I decided to base the whole project around the Vilers-Bocage area of France during WWII.  This has been the subject of my last several Gaming on a Budget posts and has been a shitload of fun for me.  For those that have missed this series so far, I'll have an index of the tutorials involved in making this gaming table at the end of the article. 

All said and done, I came in slightly under both my time budget of 2 weeks and my budget of $250, so I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, proving that you can make good looking terrain for cheap.  My complete cost breakdown (minus tools, as those are a sunk cost paid for long long ago) is after the jump, so click away.

Friends, Rivals...Knuckleheads

Hey folks, SinSynn here. This post is dedicated to Purgatus at Best Overall....cuz he's my dogz, and a big ol' knucklehead, too.

So not too long ago I decided to pull my Tau outta the closet, dust those bad boys (and one very special lady) off and take 'em out for a spin.

"I'm tired of getting beat up with my Tyranids," I thought, "I feel like getting beat up with an entirely different army for a while."
Genius plan, right?
:P

Glutton for punishment that I am, instead of taking a ride to the (not-so-local) LGS, and playing a wonderfully pleasant pick-up game with any one of the many friendly 'regulars,' I immediately called my Ultimate Rival......

-Yeah...that's him-

User Content Wednesday - Learning to Love Losing

The King Elessar was one of the first bloggers I started following on a regular basis once I figured out that forumitis was a communicable disease.  He probably also had a psychic hand in my subconscious when it came time to pick an army that would take me two years to paint.  As useful as his Eldar specific advice was to me, I was always a bigger fan of his general gaming philosophy.  This little bit on losing is one of the treasured and rare rants on the internet with a focus and actually makes a point. 

TKE is currently in posting hibernation, but hopefully some renewed interest in Mindwar FTW will get him to at least forage for berries more often.  


Notes:  I've added pictures to liven things up. Oh, and because he'll mention it, Kirby posted this once as well.

In order to be a Competitive Player of this game, this is a skill you require.
In order to be a non-Competitive player of this game, this is a skill you require.
In order, basically, to not be a dickhead - this is a skill you require.

No-one LIKES losing, in of itself, of course.  It's ingrained in our genes - feeling like a failure isn't something any of us set out with the ambition to do, and it hurts.

However, losing is simply the best way to learn.  If you steamroll all your opponents with your list, then find better opponents, or tweak your list slightly.  Maybe they are intimidated by your army/reputation? Swap armies.  Mix it up.  Hell, buy a new army, whatever.

If you never find yourself taxed in games then you will not only never improve, you will probably stagnate and get worse.  When a player eventually DOES come along who is better than you (and it will happen eventually, unless you quit first) you will be the one getting rolled...and you will almost certainly be a bad loser from your lack of familiarity with it.

Why Do I Still Bother With This Blogging Stuff.....

I recently had a brief break from blogging.

My excuse was that I was too busy with a number of personal issues to spare the time to come up with posts that would be worth reading so it was better if I just took a break.

Of course that wasn't strictly true.....

I could probably have found time if I'd tried but the truth is I really couldn't be bothered...

Terrible, huh?

Most people reading this presumably have blogs of their own based on the fact that this is an article on a blog network, lol. So I'm sure there's a lot of different levels of experience in the world of the blogging ranging from 'just started' to 'been doing it for fucking ever!!!' reading this right now.

New Member Monday - Samson Minis

Shockingly, we only had one new addition to the House of Paincakes.  A temporary and fleeting occurrence, I'm sure.  In the meantime,  rather than pretend I have enough content to make a traditional New Member Monday, I'm going to do something a little special for our one and only add.  A little something called:  "We Only Had One New Member This Week so Here's an In Depth Look at His Blog" (WOHONMTWHILHB).

I was initially going to call it something else that was much cooler, but I was having an overly hard time trying to communicate reverb effects via text.

Now for a quick aside:  If you see a blog in your e-travels that isn't flying the HoP colors, you should probably point them our way.  Not only would Dethtron and I appreciate it, but you'd be doing a great service for your fellow gamers.  Call us an awesome-based initiative that tacitly supports civil and rational discourse. So get out there and spread the Good News.

[Musings of a Game Store Owner] Dressing The Part

When I first proposed this series, there were some articles that the bosses wanted to see. They're pretty cool guys and let me write on their blog once a week, so I figured I should at least humor them and see what I can come up with out of their suggested material.

As a rule, I've tried to keep my articles about things that stores across the country (and maybe even the world) can identify with. It just makes sense to keep things relevant to more readers than fewer, and maybe I'll hit on something a lot of people find interesting.

However, I was asked about a topic that's very specific to my store, and it's given me a lot to think about.