You know you are a miniature Hoarder When...

You keep track on miniatures on multitab spreadsheets and think that maybe a custom database system would be better.  Ofcourse the spreadsheets do not help you track what you have if you do not update them when you get new stuff.

Happy Halloween.

Banhammer

There was a post yesterday on Bell of Lost Souls where one of the regular authors says he is not going to cover GW stuff for a month to protest various GW corporate activities against the community.  Now if you are a regular reader here you might remember that like 2 weeks ago I announced that I was not going to be covering GW Mainline stuff anymore.  Not in protest against GW just that it was not worth my time anymore to try to follow their goings on.  Depending on where you are in the 5 stages of Games Workshop players, your opinions on my posts or comments are either that I am a HATER or I am preaching to the choir so it is just not going to be a priority for me going forward.

If you are not going to cover GW for a month or maybe year, you need to make sure you not just cover the competition but go out and play it at your local shops.  Ofcourse better than not talking about GW, don't buy GW.  That is what they pay attention to not if some tiny blogs stop discussing them.

+-Wing: X-Wing vs Tie Fighter Range Breakdown

So here we have a very basic result from my +-Wing (Plus Wing) probability calculator for the X-Wing miniature game.  I compared the average number of hits plus criticals generated by an X-Wing shooting at a Tie Fighter Ranges 3-1 to that of a Tie Fighter Shooting at an X-wing at the same range band.

Card Proxies in X-Wing

X-wing is an essentially combination of a Miniature Game with a Deck Building Game.  Each ship comes with pilot cards which are only useful for that type of ship but different sources for ships can have different pilots.  The starter set X-wing and Tie Fighters have the same generic but different unique pilots fro the X-wing and Tie Fighter individual blisters.  Each ship also comes with a few upgrade cards which can be used on other ships also based on the types.  You can put droids in both the X and Y wings.  Crew cards can be used on any of the bigger ships plus the Hawk, etc.  Now this is great for FFG bottom line as you might be forced to buy ships you do not really need to get the cards.

Reaper Bones Kickstarter II Final Hours

Reaper Kickstarter is in the final hours.  Here they show off a 3M Dollar Stretch Goal.  Lots there for 35 dollars.  Dragon scales to be about 11 inches tall from bottom of the base to top of wings.

Update: The kickstarter ended at 3.16M in funding.  If you pledged but did not pay enough for all the new upgrades Reaper says they will have something to help you out in a couple of weeks through paypal when you lock in your options. ks.reapermini.com

That is a big hunk of Plastic

Reaper showed off this as a Kickstarter Stretch Goal for their current bones kickstarter.  I am estimating that it is about 7.5 inches tall which makes it imbetween a Riptide and Wraithknight but with similar width across the arms.  Not sure if they will make it to this as it requires like 300K on the last day but it is certainly large.

Reaper Bones Spider Demoness

As the second Reaper Bones Kickstarter closes in 24 hours at Saturday 7 PM Eastern, it is time for a quick look at another one of the Reaper Bones models from the first kickstarter.  This is the large Spider Demoness that was part of the spider centaur (Drider) group.  She is currently priced at 7.99 and stands  about 5.5 cm tall with legs spreading out to 9 cm width.  She is quite a bit bigger than man size and hence would be a stand in for Lolth or other major baddie as opposed to work a day driders.  This model is 4 parts head/torso/arms, legs, upper back half, and lower back half.

What's with the Expansions for Reaper's Kickstarter?

So the current Reaper Bones II Kickstarter has one 100 dollar core set, and currently 3 expansions at 50 dollars plus individual add ons in the 10-20 dollar range.  I have written in the past that I did not expect the kickstarter to deliver the same 200+ models at the base level since Reaper really did not make much money on that last time.  Probably without certain add ons whose kickstarter price turned out to be essentially the retail price they probably would have not had the 52K left in profit they reported (ingoring accounting questions relating to capital equipment or cost of online store stock).

Reaper Bones Bone Giant

Here is another photo set on the Reaper Bones models this time looking at the Bone Giant.  Trying to get some more of these done before the second kickstarter ends this weekend.  This model is very characterful with tons of little things to see.  The current price is 14.99 and it stands 12 cm tall.  His hammer is really a tombstone, lots of places where the bones are braced, and the dangling heads on the belt.  The Bone Giant is 4 part base/legs, torso/head, and the 2 arms with weapons.  Mine has a noticable backwards lean.  Not sure if this is the design or the classic Bones bend.

New Lego Hobbit Sets Images

Images of the upcoming Hobbit sets have leaked on the internet.  First we have a small set Dol Guldur Ambush which comes with a new Hero and 2 Orcs.  I would guess that this should be 20 dollars but Lego pricing for Hobbit stuff runs really high so I would say it probably will be 25-30.

Epic Lucius Warlord Titan

Here we have one of the Big Boys in the Epic playground,  the Warlord Titan.  This one is Lucius pattern and matches the styles seem in the forgeworld Reaver and Warhounds that I have in my collection.  Add in the thunderbolt fighters for anti air and maybe some sentinels and you have a whole 3000 point Titan Legion list.

12 Dollar Great Unclean One Substitute

Reapers next Stretch goal got an update to replace the very vague art with a model sculpt and it looks way better.   They have a pretty long way to bring this into the kickstarter but it definitely looks  like it might be an interesting model for people collections.  I certainly do not have anything like it.

Reaper Bones Kickstarter II Core Set Status

This is the current rewards for the Reaper Bones II Kickstarter at the Core 100 dollar level.

Victoria Lamb Paints and Reviews a Reaper Bones Miniature

My Photo of a Bones as I try not to steal images

Reaper's Second Bones Kickstarter is into its last week so a good time to finish up some Reaper Bones coverage.  I have mentioned my opinions on Bones in the past that they are a good value and that many of the monsters look great but if you want the opinion of a real expert miniature painter as opposed to a miniature hoarder like me check out Victoria Lambs review of one of the Orc models.

X-Wing Attack Odds Calculator Under Development

So I enjoy math but sometimes the math is not as straight forward as you would like.   For example in the X-wing game it is easy to determine the mean results for the attack dice and defense dice under an of the standard rules(no pilot abilities but standard actions allowed) but the mean number of hits and criticals are not going to be the direct comparison of these since if you cancel hits before crits and if you have more evades than hits and crits combined on an specific test those extra evades are wasted.

Reaper Bones Demon

This is one of the Reaper Bones Demons from the first kickstarter.  It was a optional buy with another demon and one of my favorites of the ones I got.  I currently goes for 12.99 dollars which is about twice the kickstarter price but still pretty reasonable price.  There are 6 parts: Body, Wings, Tail, Head, and two forearms and weapons.  The wing span is 22 cm and the height to the top of the head is about 5 cm.  Lets zoom in for a closer look. 

Epic Squat Overlord Airship

Back with another look at an Epic model.  This time from my Squat collection.  We have the overlord airship.  Normally I show all the parts but this one is assembled and not in need of stripping so it is staying together.  We can see this model is essentially an blimp/zeppelin with thrusters and some big cannons.  There are currently no official squat lists for Epic Armageddon but in one of the unofficial ones this ship used to have Anti Air abilities which was handy since Squats are very weak in anti air.  The major anti air unit is a non mechanized anti air gun which are really pricey on ebay.  You could probably sub a forgeworld anti air battery (stationary hydra) but those are OOP now also.

Reaper Bones II Kickstarter Progress

Here I have posted the data for the Reaper Kickstarter Pledges made per day.  I have cut the first day off in the grapth since it was almost 1M dollars.  We can see that the kickstarter was very front loaded with people who were either very satisified with their models from the first kickstarter or people who missed the first one but did not want to miss this one.  Probably a strong combination of both.

X-Wing Miniatures: B-Wing Starfighter

I picked up the new B-wing set for the X-Wing Miniature games.  Like all the other ship you get the maneuver dial, cards, and card stock counters.

Reaper Prepares another Expansion for Bones II Kickstarter

Reaper has added a second 50 dollar expansion option to their kickstarter.  This one seems to have more unlocking levels and is set to start at a funding level at a faster pace than they had been using.  The additional unlock levels from 3 for the first to 5 for the second probably allows them to have lower spacings and makes it seem more exciting without really changing the number of minis in the final set.  I would guess that they want Expansions 1 and 2 to end up pretty similar in value since people officially decide later what they actually want later.

Announcement: No More Mainline GW Coverage

After being drag back into following stuff on GW mainline games by the new Space Marine Codex, I am done.  I will no longer read, post, comment, or discuss anything having to do with 40K, WFB, GW Corporate Reports, GW Stores, or 40K Events.  I am sure many out there will say good riddance.  I am fine with that.

I will continue publishing about my Blood Bowl and Epic collections from GW.  And if GW actually does anything on those games I will look into it.  I will also keep posting reviews of my Reaper Bones and Lego Sets.

Does GW need a 40K Lite?

So I was thinking about the issues of getting people into 40K with its very high start up cost.  They have their start up box but that is 100% more expensive than it was when I started with 40K with the 4th edition starter set at like 48 dollars for 10 Marines, 1 Pilot, 6 Genestealers, ~10 Termigaunts, 6 spore mines, 1 crashed lander terrain set, mini rulebook, and scenario booklet.  So compared to the current set you get fewer units but you get some terrain and you got a mini campaign of missions that helped people learn the rules while having fun.  You might have only played the missions once or twice but they were much better than just line up the models and read the 80 page rulebook to play.  They also had download missions that used other models in the armys to encourage you to buy more models but at least the missions were free.

Lego Hobbit: Escape from Mirkwood Spider

Today we look at a Lego Hobbit set from the last Christmas releases, Escape from Mirkwood Spiders.  This set is 30 dollars and was called a special preview set since it involved a scene not in the first movie.  The first movie ends with the company being dropped off a the edge of the Mirkwood forest so they still need to go in and get captured by the spiders for the elves to come and recapture them.  The set comes with 4 minifigures, 2 spiders, a stump, and a twisted tree.

Reaper Finally Responds to my Questions about Model Quality for New Kickstarter

Reaper finally replied to my questions about the model quality from the last kickstarter and how they were addressing it in the new one:

I was a Bad Boy on the Reaper Forum

In my quest to get an answers about Reapers plan to make sure all of the model's in the new kickstarter will have noses, I started a new thread on their message board in the Bones section essentially asking the question.  I come back later that day and cannot find it.  I search under my profile and find that my little thread was merged into a massive thread for all discussion on the kickstarter.  It is now hidden in a thread with 175 pages of 20 posts so pretty much an unreadable collection of posts.  This seemed fishy to me as so I left a trolling comment to the moderating thanking them for relocating my post since before people might have been able to find it before.

New Warstrike/M42 Project Post

I wrote a new take on the Morale system for the M42 project the other day.  It is up now.  The basic idea is to integrate unit unreliability under fire better into the system without forcing fall backs for every failed leadership test.  The system involves limiting unit actions in degrees before a fallback is forced and I hope allows for more failed leadership tests without losing units as the morale system is vital to the proposed game play elements.  Take a look.

The Cost of Getting Started with Space Marines

So I was wondering what it would cost to get started in 40K as Space Marines now.  So I worked up a quick list of some basic units to see.  So we have 1 commander, 1 dreadnought, 2 tac squads 10 man, 2 rhinos, 1 scout squad 5 man, 1 Assault squad 5 man, 1 landspeeder, and 1 predator.  That will kit out to about 1000 points with some very limited options.  Add in the just the rules book and the new codex and you line up at almost exactly 400 dollars.  I am not including paints, tools, glue, etc.  Just a very basic playable force and the rules.  That is getting to be real money.  If you are playing with a friend can you really tell them that 400 dollars to get started is the way to go for gaming.

It Does not Appear Reaper Wants another 200+ Model for $100 Kickstarter

So I was looking at the Reaper Bones II Kickstarter progression.  Specifically at rate of increases for the rewards and how the awards are being distributed in the categories.  Currently the core $100 set is in the ~130 model range but there are many days left for more models to be added but after an incredible growth in the first 12 hours things have moved to a very healthy 125K a day or so.  This is about the space between rewards right now but each reward is spaced farther and farther apart at an increase rate of about 12%.  So to get to 200+ models again if they kept their about 6 models per reward all going into the core set they need to get up to 4.4M using the trends currently seen.

Blood Bowl Human Team

Here we have the newer Human Blood Bowl Team produced by GW. The copyright stamps on the bottoms say 2004 so they are about a decade old now. Most recently (until April) they were sold for 60 dollars and have 16 team members making them similar in price to the 12 man team for 40 with the 20 dollar 4 man booster that many of the teams were available as during the middle of the last decade.  The team looks pretty good if you like the GW spike motif.  I had not picked up the team before since I did not really play humans much and already had the 2nd ed monopose plastics, the 3rd ed starter plastics, and a 2nd ed partial metal team that I was filling in.  With the end of GW metal production I decided to pick them up since they are pretty interesting looking.

Michigan Grand Tournament Codex Breakdowns

This weekend was the first Michigan Grand Tournament for 40K.  Even though I am not an active player I wanted to swing by and check it out as it was only like 1 hour away but unfortunately I ended up spending most of the weekend at the Hospital.  So instead of a first person look I can only look at the results which will probably come as no surprise to current players.  First we will look at the parcipation level for the various main detachments:

Reaper Kickstarter another Up Yours to Retailers?

I reported yesterday that Reaper had launched their second bones kickstarter.  It has brought in over a million dollars in the first 24 hours but has currently cut the growth rate a ton as it was like 900K in the first 12 hours.  I expect pretty slow growth going forward until near the end again.  I do not expect it to double up and up every few hours but it will probably net about the same total, but I do note that the average pledge is 100 dollars currently when before it was closer to 200 but this might have to do with the available levels and not a ton of options.  They also might want to get people to add money later again as that did not unlock new rewards.

Plastic Legions has pretty Harsh Review of Reaper Kickstarter.

John over at Plastic Legions has a pretty harsh review of the new reaper kickstarter but it is worth a read.  He is a little more down on the Bones material than I am but he does have a bunch of the same models in metal so he can really speak to the detail loss in ways that I cannot.  He wonders who is putting down for this new one but I am not really surprised that it has reach its current nearly 900K in like 12 hours.  Last one had about 20K backers in the end so even if you get only half of them back it is still in the 1M just at the core.  I do not think it can hold this pace as it would be at like 48M by the end but I would not be surprised if they met or exceeded their haul from last time as people (like me) can be suckers for big piles of minis for 100 dollars.  Currently they are at like 122 minis in the core set for 100 dollars.  So you need to like about 40 or 33% for the buy to be worth it.  Not there yet but it is only the first day.  Not very many of the add ons are interesting me so that is good.

Reaper Bones Kickstarter II

Reaper launched their second bones kickstarter today.  As of my lunch time they were at about half a million in pledges.  They have admitted that shipping this time will be much later listing the shipping as 1 year out.  So you will be giving them your money about the end of october to get your minis next year in time for christmas.  I left them a question about how they were going to improve the quality of the minis and deliver 100% of the models with noses.  They did a nice job replacing models people complained about but many of those replacements had the exact same problem since it was something either in the plastic flow in the mold structure or the actual mold not having the details.

On the Road Game Store Review: Game Links Fowlerville MI

So recently my family and I went to a local outlet mall to get some clothes and shoes for the kids (pesky growing children).  The mall is reasonably close to our home but direct travel is limited to either country roads or we can out of the way to take the highway so we do not head over there very often.  I had remembered that a few years ago a gaming store opened in a town I had never heard of on the same highway somewhat farther down.  So I looked it up again and it turned out to be just one more exit down the road.  I decided that our trip to the outlets would be a good time to take a look.