Tea and Biscuits with Lauby and Frontline Gamer: Starting the Hobby, part 1

With Von is taking a short HoP sabbatical, there was an obvious hole in the posting schedule that needed to be filled.  Unfortunately, we can't just keep making SinSynn write about Flames of War indefinitely.  And believe me, we tried.  Luckily, Von has many IRL friends who were willing to help out in his stead.  Frontline Gamer, in particular, jumped at the chance and even had some rather complete thoughts on what we could write about.  

Still not entirely convinced that Frontline Gamer isn't a hyper intelligent cat.

What follows is the first part of a conversation we're having about the nature of our hobby.  The idea being that will we discuss a topic in a semi guided fashion until we reach some kind of conclusion... or Von returns.  Whichever happens first.


Lauby: Waaaaaay back in the dimly remembered days of last october, Frontline Gamer conducted an interview with me as part of the wildly successful HoP Idol contest. A lot of great topics came up and new pals were made. Sadly, far, far too much of what either one of us had to say about anything ended up not written down or on the cutting room floor due to time and space constraints. After having gone back and read through the post to mine it for ideas, I found this question:

Thinking about why you started and when you started, I had a bit of a worrying piece of introspection two weeks ago or so when talking to a friend about starting the hobby right now. If you were looking at the hobby today would you get into it? Because I’m not so sure I would, mainly to do with the upfront cost and time investment required now. Should we be worried about this?

Truly an interesting subject, but we didn’t even get close to exhausting this as a topic of discussion. Let's call that the short answer version. So this is where we start the series at:  the pursuit of the long answer.

The Weekly Top X - All Natural Peni... Post Enlargement

Last week's Top X was a little short for my liking.   Probably for a lot of you out there as well.  I had some grand intentions of falling on my sword and begging for forgiveness, but then I looked at the page views.  So, it looks like I'm a genius?

I am the Val Kilmer in Real Genius to the your "the opposite of that"

This week is different.  This week X equals 10.

1) Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher - Interview with Morf, creator of Pulp City by Wargamesgeek.pl
Though not actually conducted by Hendybadger himself, I think the service he provided by moving it off a forum so we could all see it on the blog rolls it is well worth recognition. Plus, if you’ve been paying attention, a ton of pulp city stuff has been flowing from this blog and it’s high time I made sure you were all aware of one mans love for super hero fights and the fact that a game like this exists.

2) Fresh Coast 40K - DFG Adepticon Primer Tournament Wrap Up
Adepticon is nearly upon us and if the historical precedents remain constant, we should be in for some very cool reports from the floor, a touch of drama and some amazing results from the Crystal Bursh contest. More immediately though, one of the boys in Michagan attended a primer tounry and did this awesome write up. There was a cool report, some drama (the good kind) and some amazing models. Adepticon in a miniature form.

Gaming on a Budget: Spare Parts Month- Ogre BSB part 3, "Conclusion" hyphen semi-colon dot dot dot or is it question mark

As we enter the second month of spare parts month don't forget that next week I will be highlighting your -dear readers- creations made from spare parts.  Send an e-mail with "spare parts month" in the subject line to me at info@houseofpaincakes.com.  Be sure to include some pictures of your work and a link to your own site (if you have one) and anything else you might find to be pertinent information.  The pimping you will receive should provide good times and I'm told that my gracious backhand doesn't even leave behind ring marks- how kind am I?

For those of you who have not been following along the last two weeks and were all like 'Ogres, fuck that, I don't give a shit about Ogres' you can get caught up on the previous posts:

Part 1

Part 2

I'd highly encourage you to do so, since I'm going over some pretty basic and universal techniques for finding spare parts to make extra dudes for your army for next to nothing.  The model I'm finishing up today will weigh in at 138 points of my 2,500 point army and cost me basically nothing to make.  He's the leftover gunner from an Ironblaster kit- which you'd know if you were paying attention and would know that I mistakenly called a Thunderfire canon last week if you'd really been paying attention :p

You Can't Win An Argument With A Stump...or Can You?

\Hey folks, SinSynn here.

I'm pretty sure most of you are aware that I would argue with a stump, right?
Whatever the subject is, I probably have some sorta opinion on the matter. An opinion I feel strongly enough about to argue over.
If I don't, I'll make one up in a jiffy, and wade right in. That's just the kinda knucklehead I am.

*Y U so stumpy? ANSWER ME!*

When it comes to 'real life' arguments, I'm fairly mature about the whole thing (shhhh! Don't you judge me...this is my post and I'll tell it as I see fit).
Eventually it'll dawn on me that the stump simply isn't gonna comply, and I'll throw my hands up and say 'whatevs, stump.'
Like most adults, I'm acutely aware that it's nearly impossible to change someone's mind (much less a stump's), and it's usually less frustrating and more productive to just...meet in the middle somewhere.
That's 'real life,' though. We all know there's no middle ground on the Internet.

As Balanced as a Rock...

'Broken' armies are somewhat of a myth...

Certain units are inherently powerful and certain combinations of units have a power level beyond that of the sum of their parts but quite often that perceived level of power is an illusion based primarily on the 'myth' of their invulnerability rather than the 'fact' of their invulnerability...

New Member Monday - Seven Samurai

Akira Kurosawa is responsible for some pretty amazing films.  He also did Rashomon which I just plain don't like.  But whatever, everyone has a misstep here and there.  Akira Kurosawa's triumphs far outweigh any halfhearted defense I could give of my, admittedly, off kilter taste.

When I googled for the phrase off kilter, i thought to myself : "surely there has to be a tacky
Celtic  band out there who thought the phrase would make a good name.  I was right!  Sadly.

Yojimbo was so good it's been remade at least two times.  Speaking of amazing things and piss-poor segues, we have a fantastic and large group of new blogs to welcome to the rolls.  So I should probably get on that.

[Musings of a Game Store Owner] Stumped Results

A couple weeks ago, I put out a call for you guys to "stump" me with your gaming likes, with the idea that I would try to match you up with games you would enjoy. The responses I got were pretty fun (and challenging!), but it's time for me to reveal my results and see if I am any good, or even CLOSE to what you might enjoy. Please let me know how I did!


LAZtheinfamous started off with his criteria.

1. I like to paint models. Love a good looking model. 
2. I have tons of 40K and WHFB stuff, but I've turned away from GW's stuff because of increasing prices. 
3. I love skirmish level games with a hint of campaign-ness. My all time favorite game is Mordheim, but I don't really dig Maulifaux because of the locked nature of the characters. There's no growth, and you can't make your 'own' leader, just the ones they have. 
4. Easy rules are a must, because my most common opponents are my pre-teen sons. They don't have the patience for a real rules heavy game.