Really quick post before the weekend :)

Hey all, just wanted to throw something out there really quick before the weekend! And apparently repeat my title... but no matter!! Onward we go!!!
So, I've been really getting into 40k again, poring over the rule book, trying to re-learn a game that I never really learned how to play... however, in order to facilitate my re-learning of the game I have decided to make a cheat-sheet for myself. But not just any cheat sheet... I plan to use the Magic card editor to make myself a series of Magic-sized cards that will contain all of the rules in abbreviated form. I figure, with my Magic experience, I can flip through a pack of cards much faster than I can flip through a rulebook... specially when that rulebook isn't exactly made of paper if-you-know-what-I-mean :P

I'll probably use this sorta format, and fill the center with txt rather than an image, and probably not red... Since im planning on printing out mini (card sized) color pictures of the 40k rulebook to serve as the back of the card, I'll probably go with either black or artifact-gray... just depends on which one matches better :)

I also have started to plan out my Angels of Reclamation force... I think I have the Army List for my Chapter Master and his Honor Guard all set. The honor guard will be those angelic space marines from the last post, armed with Relic Blades and a Thunder Hammer, as well as a Bolter of some kind probably... this is likely to change though, as I become more familiar with the rules... it'll definitely be a small force, just the six of them add up to almost 500 points...
I also hashed out a basic color scheme:

Starting from top left, moving clockwise: Tactical Marine, Vanguard Veteran, and Honor Guard
Not shown: Devestator squad- will be painted the same as the marines, but with a black helmet.
Terminator: same generally as the veteran, notice the inverse color on the shoulders :)

My one concern is that the scheme is very similar to the scheme for my vampire counts... I don't want them to look too similar, or to have people think I'm trying to tie one into the other... i think the solution will have to be making sure that the whites and blacks on the vampires have an obvious blue undertone, that wont be present in the smooth clean white finishes of the Marines. Also, making sure that the Vampires use a lot of neutral colors, browns and the like to make them appear dirtier... and make the angels appear stark white by comparison :)

One last thing, starting to contemplate a librarian/chaplain of some sort, with the winged Caduceus, and possibly a snake around his shoulders? Also, I think that would be a good name for a character... Caduceus... hehe sounds pretty bad-ass :)

Bunches of New Stuff! Post 2 of 2!!'

Hellow again!! Long time no see :P Unfortunately, this post wont be nearly as sexy as the last one, but I hope that it'll be just as interesting :) Now that my entire Vampire Counts army has been planned out (don't worrk, I havn't forgotten the list of what I need to share with you all :) descriptions of my conversion plahns will still be forthcoming:) ) I was still cruising around BitzBox, just seeing if I could be inspired, and I remembered one of my old planning pet-projects: Chaos Dwarves.
Several generations ago, both in the literal sense in some cases, as well as referencing reincarnations of Warhammer. Chaos Dwarfs were a staple in The Game of Fantasy Battles... the were also quite silly looking:

I thought that there must be a way to make Chaos dwarfs look a little less silly and more BA... and then I saw the Hell Cannon of Chaos HERE and knew that these were the dwarfs I was looking for! They were freaky looking, and I could just imagine them, standing over their dark forges, crafting weapons for men and demons, binding vile energies of the Warp into cold steel... it was brilliant! 

 I knew that this needed to be the centerpiece for a new, all chaos dwarf army! I decided to forgo using the old chaos Dwarf rules, firstly, because they hadn't been updated since about edition 2 (we're on 5 now), and because then I wouldn't be able to field the giant war machine that inspired this army!! I decided to stick with the warriors of Chaos rules, and create units that would fit the bill and could 'count as' :)

I envision squishing together the 'marauders of chaos' and the 'dwarf warriors' kits (yes I know that this is technically kitbashing, not conversions, but I'm not going to create a tag for Kitbashing and a tag for Conversions, I want them all in the same place!)

The dwarf warriors will get the shields and weapons from the marauders and be painted in dark reds and blacks and bronze. In case yo haven't guessed, they'll be an army of Khorne, both Dwarfs and Khorne are very anti-magic, have a propensity for axes, AND if it turns out I could still use demons in a Warriors of Chaos army (not sure if I can :P) I can use the Slayers to represent Bloodletters! (if not, they'll probably be Chosen)

I figured as well, to represent both Knights and Marauder Horsemen I could mount my dwarfs on Boars from the Orcs line, and Bloodcrushers (possibly) from the Chaos Demon line... but I'll probably stick to Boars :) After all, Chaos dwarfs are known for their tusks, and would probably feel some kinship to their long-toothed brothers :)

Keep in mind that this is all still in the development phase, and I probably wont act on any of these ideas for a while.... but that doesn't mean I can't continue to develop them ;)

And speaking of developing ideas, I've been considering going back to Warhammer 40 as well... but not with Necrons! I love necrons dearly, and they've won me a few games, but they're just sooooo boring!! Both to play with and the flavor text. Well, the text is cool, but there's no room to personalize it and make it whatever I want :P And it terms of combat, they're amazing... a little too amazing...  every game consists of walking them forward until they can open fire with their rapid fire super guns, and then they rip everything (especially tanks, the only things with weapons big enough to kill them for good) to little tiny sub-atomic particles :P no, necrons, for now, I think I shall put aside...

But what to collect in their place? None of the other armies really appeal to me... or so I thought...

I knew my obsession with Angel Iconography would do me in someday! Yes, *hangs head in shame* I believe I might be almost taking an interest in the most over played army of all time... the Space Marines... It's just these models! They're so pretty... (+10 for using 'pretty' and 'models' in the same sentence and having it refer to hunks of metal) 

But! My Space Marines will be different from every other! I know that other people create their own chapters, but mine will have the full might of my creative juices behind it! Hehe, I cannot justify purchasing even a single space marine until I have a phenomenal back story, and a good amount of the army all planned out! With that in mind...

I kinda worked through French 402 to come up with the bare bones of this back story (+5 alliteration) I had been toying with an the idea of an Imperial Search and Rescue  Chapter, Space marries that swoop into war zones and rescue dead and dying space marines from other chapters. I say 'rescue' in regards to dead marines, because in the creation of a Space Marine, they receive a number of biological implants. One of these implants are the Progenoids, the Gene-Seeds. They're implanted into the Marine's neck and chest, and react in conjunction to the other biological implants, causing them to work to their full efficiency and granting the Space Marine certain special traits. These Traits vary from chapter to chapter and are what make each individual chapter unique. Progenoids grow and mature within the body of the Space Marine, and when fully developed are harvested, replaced with immature ones, and new Progenoids are created from the harvested ones. In this way, Space Marines can only be created from other Space Marines, and a Chapter's Gene-Seed is one of it's most protected secrets...

Knowing all of this, I sat down a hashed out the beginning of of a back ground for:

The Angels of Reclamation

 All of the Imperium knows of the Angels, warriors clad in gold, white and black who swoop into highly contested battle zones and rescue dead, dying and wounded Space Marines. These warriors are returned to their chapters, to the eternal gratitude of the Masters.

But what less know is that there is a darker, more sinister side to the Angels of Reclamation. While it's true that they return every Marine rescued, these Marines are rarely in the condition they were found in...

The Angels expect a ransom for every Marine they return, often the best piece of equipment they possess. That, and the Progenoid from the back of their neck.

The Masters are grateful yes, but it is a gratefulness tinged with bitter disappointment and smouldering fury. There's no way to prove that the Progenoid was taken by the Angels, and even if there was, there is still a complete Progenoid remaining, and they have a Marine, and most of his equipment, that would have been lost otherwise. That doesn't stop the Angels being referred to as Vampires in private, with gestures towards the holes in the rescued Marines necks.

In this way, the Angels of Reclamation are some of the best equipped warriors in the Galaxy, and this advanced equipment almost completely counterbalances the flaw in the Angel's Gene Seed.

The Gene-Seed of the Angels of Reclamation is one of the weakest in the Imperium. Most that know of the true nature of the Angel's rescues assume that they're using the Progenoids to create stronger Angels... but that is not the case...

The Angels or Reclamation possess some of the most advanced Apothecaries in the galaxy. In addition to healing the dying Marines rescued, they are also hard a work on the stolen Gene-Seeds. They seek to isolate the strengths and diminish the weaknesses of each chapter's Progenoid. They seek to create what no human has created for thousands of years... a new strain of Gene Seed. With this, and their great technology, the Angels or Reclamation seek to become the most powerful force in the Galaxy.

This is their chapter symbol:

The twin serpents of Greed and Envy...

Bunches of New Stuff!!! Post 1 of 2 :)

Ok!! Where to begin!! Blogger has been acting up for a couple of days so I haven't been able to get here, but it appears to be up and running once again!! All my ideas have been building and building in my head, and I havn't been able to share them with the world! I'll probably split this into a couple of posts :) So, without further adieu...

First things first, I GOT MY LAPTOP BACK!!!!! It's amazingly exciting!! hehe back behind my shield and separated from the world!! Well, not really, but it's really nice not to have to walk to Kingsbury every time I wanna use the internet, especially on my crutch!
Second: I downloaded this program that allows me to create my own magic cards! So, as promised, I'm posting the fruits of my Sexy Magic card toils and, more importantly the descriptions behind them :) this is not all of the cards that I've made, but it is a good selection and contains some of my favorites :) I'll post a card and then the description underneath it:

Starting off strong with a nice big Legendary Creature! When I envisioned what white could be, my main thoughts were of Purity and Innocence and, most importantly, Love.
When making my list of 'Creatures that could be considered sexual' Angels were the top of the list for white. First and foremost, because I'm obsessed with angel iconography (not religiously, just the concept of winged humans) And secondly, because they were a humanoid creature that I felt perfectly embodied the concepts I associated with White. So here she is, Cupid herself, firing her arrows that will put enemy creatures in a daze of Love :)

More cards after the Break!!

Time for some questionable content... ;)

"Jocks are so good at sports because that's all they think about, we nerds, all we think about is sex"
One of my favorite quotes of all time, from revenge of the nerds :) because it's so true! But yeah, that was just a preface to the amazing post I have for you today! (those of you who are sensitive to bad puns may want to cover your ears) Thus far the most steamy things in this blog were the steam punk skeletons.. *snicker* but I promised to post whatever comes into my head, so...
So last night I was thinking about magic cards, and I was thinking about sex, and I was thinking, what if there was some way to combine these delightful things...
SO, I started brain-storming, how to make MTG sexy, or, at the very least, humorous and vaguely soft-core
pornographic... But the thing is, I'm too much of a purist to just throw some stuff together, I needed to make it as much like real magic as possible. In magic, all the card are tied strongly, both in theme and what they do, to their color. Red is all about fiery rage, chaos, and white is all about morality and order. So, I stared brainstorming, and then brainstormed more, and ended up with a list of words and I ideas. I then put them in categories based on what color, what idea, they closely resembled. For some, I came up with how they might be represented within the game itself.
If you promise not to steal my ideas, I shall post the refined list here:
Or not. Sorry, I was in the process of typing it, and it made me sound really creepy and sexist and awful... hehe if I was able to explain it to you in person it would make perfect sense, but for now... I'll leave it at the description :) I'll keep working on it though, and, as I finish stuff, I shall share it here, with the description of why it exists :D

Hehe, please don't judge me too harshly :)

More soon :)

So.. here we go!!

It seems that I'm olny ever able to write here when I should be doing something else, this time: Character Bios and GOTE sheets for History of Musical Theater! (For those of you who are unaware, namely, the entirety of the world GOTE stands for Goals Obstacles Tactics Expectations and is a standard sheet you fill out when you start working on a scene )
Last time I said that there would be big things coming, and I wasn't lying!! Also like I said last time, I've managed to plan out almost my entire army!! A lot of it is just simple 'counts-as' model swaps, and none of it requires quite as much explanation as the previous two entries (Ghouls and Zombies), but if it seems like I've put less time into these, think again! I have spent hours on the likes of bitzbox.co.uk, thewarstore.com, and my old standby games-workshop.com looking for the perfect bitz to bring these models to life! And dont get me wrong, every unit will have technical descriptions similar to the Ghouls and Zombies, but that's the next phase! I generally start with an image as my concept and explain how it works from what I see, adding to the image if absolutely necessary, as seen with the Ghouls :) So yeah, this is just the first you will be seeing of all these models!
In this post I'll start with all the easy stuff, the simple model swaps. I'll talk about the more detailed conversions (the Vampire Lord, Corpse Cart, Black Coach, Fell Bats, Blood Knights, Necromancers and, my favorite, the Black Knights) in later posts, so I can give them the attention I feel they deserve :) In Warhammer, for those of you who don't know, there is a rule known as 'Counts As'. You can have anything 'count as' something else of a similar size, as long as you announce it to the opponent at the beginning of the battle. Similar size is important because, if the stand in unit is too small, fewer enemies can attack it at the same time and it becomes harder to kill. Controversely, if a stand in model is too large, the opposite occurs making it easier to kill, however, the model can also be used to block other unit LOS (line of sight) and movement on the tabletop, giving an advantage to the owner of the too-large unit. In table-top gaming, size matters ;) (+10 points for penis joke)
Simple Swaps/Conversions:
Core Units:
Skeletons:

I really love these models, in my opinion,. they are some of the best that Games-Workshop has made, and I wanted to change them as little as possible. I needed, however to give them the diesel-punk theme that I have running through the rest of the army. The solution jumped out and smacked me in the face one day when Games-Workshop announced a bit that they were going to be selling independently of the set it came in...

The Space Marine backpack! Slap one of these babies on the back of the skeleton (it does fit, I've tried it) give it a nice brassy paint job, possibly run some wires or hydraulic tubes from either side to the rest of the model and, if I really felt like it, some steam/smoke from the exhausts, and you've got a skeleton running on steam power!

Dire Wolves:

I've never been a fan of the wolves from the Vampire Counts range, however, I adore these from the Beastmen army! Still not entirely sure on how to make them Diesel-Steam Punk, but I'm working on it! One idea was to possibly have them being herded by a little robotic guy? Possibly? Any Ideas? Anyone?

Bat Swarms:

While I was trying really hard to use all Games-Workshop citadel minis for this army (don't ask me why, the idea just sorta got stuck in my head, seeing what I could make from what they had available) I just couldn't see using their bats... ugh painful... you can see them HERE. These are from reapermini.com, a fantastic website, and one with a lot of beautiful models on it :) For how to make them Deisel-Steam, I was thinking of borrowing something from Batman... a small sonar device? Well, it this case large... or maybe these should be the ones being herded... Sorry, I don't really plan to be using a lot of these, or the wolves in the army, so I haven't thought about them as much... maybe that'll be reconsitered though if I think of something cool :)

Special Units:

Grave Guard:

What can I say? Games-Workshop knows how to make skeletons! Another beautiful unit, and one that I cant wait to open up a box of!! These will be as is, with a similar addition to the other skeletons (i figured all skeleton shaped things would be made to work the same way):

This backpack from a Chaos Space Marine, bigger and better than the skeletons, showing their better stats and higher standing, this will be made to work with the model in the same way as the similar conversion above :)

Rare Units:

Carin Wraiths:

Stand back everyone, I'm going to be overly masculine for a moment! Hehe what could be better than hot women wielding big ass swords? What's that you say? You're correct, nothing! Not to mention the fact that the swords are acctually giant chainsaws! Very Diesel Punk. 

These were one of the first units I picked for the army and, after all sorts of other changes, they remain. I'm even finding that they'll fit well with the paint scheme Im toying with at the moment, with equal parts skin, metal and cloth, they should look extremely striking.

Varghulf:

Which leads to the Pièce de résistance of the army! The model that started it all!! I don't know what else to say about this fantastic model, it's just perfect! The one concern is that it may be a bit too big (that's what she said) but with some bending and repositioning it should be able to fit! (that's what he said) (+15 points)

So that's all the simple stuff, next time I'll start talking about the really interesting stuff, the intense conversions :) the stuff I'm even prouder of :) I'll also start sprinkling in some interesting tidbits, maybe some of the back story of the army, or the specs on how exactly those skeletons work :) More cool stuff to come!

I have so much to tell you! Just not right now...

Hi everyone!!! I have so much to tell, especially about the Warhammer Army!!! I've spent long hours on Bitzbox and Thw WarStore and Games-Workshop, and I've managed to plan out almost the entire army!!!
Unfortunately, this is destined to be an incredibly short post, as I need to to run shortly to see Mask and Dager's production of Almost, Maine...
But don't go too far!! Exciting things are coming, and quickly!!