I Bent My Wookie =(

Or I broke my B-Wing while transporting it in my Plano Organizer...


Regardless, It really stood out with a chunk of the laser cannon missing so I did what any other crazed gamer would do...
I took a saw to it!


As you can see in the pictures the bottom cannon is half missing but now that it is on the bottom you hardly notice it during a game.
I simply twisted the mounting peg and re-secured it with some thin super glue in between the four engines.
I was a little nervous cutting the cockpit off but halfway through cutting it with my GW meat cleaver err, chop saw, it popped right off. Another dab of glue and my broken B-wing was back in action!

Green Group Repaints

All my friends know that I am a sucker for the old Star Wars flight sim games. As terrible as I was at them I loved them all the same. I played X-Wing alliance the most and fondly remember being a part of green squadron.

When I finally decided to take the plunge my choice of color was simple. Green all the way!I used GW Snot Green and simply layered up a few thin coats over the existing red and yellow markings. I used a little Secret Weapon Soft Body Black to weather the bright green and that's it! It only took a few minutes and turned out pretty darn well!


 For the HWK-290 I brush painted a base coat of GW Astronomicon Grey that was heavily watered down before adding my Snot Green Markings and giving the ship a heavy wash with the Soft Body Black. The base coats added a considerable amount of time but I doubt I spent more than a half hour in total.



 I have to say painting these ships goes a lot faster than I thought it would. If you are playing regularly I highly recommend it to make your game pieces more easily identifiable. Now if I could only think of what I want to do to all my Tie fighters...

X-wing Winner!


     A few weeks ago I played in and won my first X-Wing tournament! It took place at All the Kings Men in Pitman, NJ where I have been playing on Monday nights as of late.

     You can see the list I ran here.

     My overall strategy was to keep the Lambda class back as far as possible and stay close to the edge of the map limiting the directions that opponents could attack me from. My Tie fighters deployed opposite and engaged the opposing ships, generally taking evade actions to maximize their longevity. When my opponent went for my lambda class I would try to cause as many ship collisions as possible to maximize the use of my anti-pursuit lasers and give my Tie fighters time to chip away at my opponents hulls.

     During the day I faced a 3 large ship list and 2 seven tie swarms. My first match against the three large ships I managed to get them entangled with my ties and hammered away with the heavy laser cannon. Once I got behind the opposing lambdas they were pretty much goners.

     Game 2 was against my brothers tie swarm. This the match up I had crafted my list to handle and It went mostly how I had planned it to go. My five fighters raced ahead to meet his seven while the lambda hung back and devoured ships from afar. Things went mostly according to plan and I got done in time to go up stairs, get a soda, and relax a bit before the final round.

The final match of the day was against one of my friend, Joe, who I had infected with a love for the game a few weeks prior to the tournament. Joe is the epitome of a power gamer. He makes strong lists and plays them well in every system we play. Every game against him is always a challenge and i knew this game wouldn't be any different.

      His list was similar to the one I faced in game 2 with a horde of seven ties including Howlrunner and some other named pilots. We placed the asteroid markers mostly to my right of the map and I deployed within them to cover my approach. Joe deployed in the adjacent corner and had a clear path down to my end.

     The big difference in this match was in the way my opponent maneuvered. Each of his seven ties maintained a massed formation 3/4 of the way down the map where I decided to turtle  in my corner. I hit asteroids and bumped my own ships trying to stay back as far as possible from his organized assault. Finally once he split his forces into two groups I sent bait ties forward as far as possible to keep his forces from rallying around Howlrunner and create some chaos for my lambda to take advantage of. At this point many game turns had taken place and when we finally joined battle I was already in my survival mode mindset. Tragedy struck when a lucky critical card took the heavy laser cannon of my lambda. With my most powerful weapon lost I began to think I had already lost the match at this point. We had been playing for quite a while and most of our ships had taken some damage. Looking at my ships most had been damaged while I had managed to focus fire on just a few of my opponents ties.

     Final fantasy seven had just released on steam that weekend, and the battle arena flashed through my mind as I told my opponent the brave do not fear the grave. I placed a focus token on my tie who had a long range shot lined up at his most damaged ship. Against all odds that brave tie pilot shot right through his four evade dice and got the kill! Exalted by my small victory in the face of impending defeat I glanced over my remaining ships. One tie down and everything else I had was heavily damaged. One more hit could have ended any of them. My opponents remaining ships, on the other hand, were barely scratched. We began the next turn, and after maneuvers had been made we began firing shots. A few inconsequential rolls into the phase the TO called dice down and came over to tally points.

     After 75 minutes of intense maneuvering, counter maneuvering and rolls of the dice the final tally was my heavy laser cannon upgrade and one tie lost versus my opponents two academy ties. (19 points destroyed vs. 24 points destroyed) Still not believing the scores the TO congratulated me on my modified victory and proceeded to announce the prizes.

     I have to say I have really been enjoying playing this game more than any other I have picked up. The rule set is simple yet complete and a game can be so complex with all of the planning and prediction involved. I can play a fun game with my five year old and have a match like the one i just described above where every maneuver and roll counts. I would strongly encourage you to give the game a try if you can!

     We have an average of 6-8 guys show up every week to play a few games. If you live in the area stop on by from 6:30-9pm and join us for a game!

Unfinished Buisness - My First Warjack

This is my first jack. There are many like him, but this one is mine.
Digging through old pictures on my phone I found this beauty. I had recently read about the salt and hairspray method of weathering and wanted to try it out.
For those who don't know of this awesome technique it involves painting your flavor of rust all over the model. After the paint is dry give it a good coating of hairspray from and aerosol can and begin throwing salt at it. The salt will stick to the hairspray and after a few minutes it will be dry enough to then apply a thin coat of your main color. I used an airbrush and skull white watered down a bit for my main coat and let it dry to touch.

Once the topcoat was dry I took a paintbrush and hot water from the kitchen sink and began rubbing over the salted areas. It doesn't take much to get the paint to chip off where the salt resides, and once you have your initial chip going its rather easy to keep tearing off the layer of topcoat.

I continued this process removing all of the salt and getting my jack sufficiently oxidized. finally I hit the jack with some krylon matte finish and painted the rest of the model. I used vallejo copper for my mechanical bits and GW washes over the rusted areas to give the appearance of rust streaks from the rain.


Being happy with my results form the first jack I continued to rust the jacks from my original starter box also. I got a little overzealous and even went as far as to hold them under the running faucet and the topcoat really crinkled up. It made some rather large patches but I don't mind. Personally, I think it gives the older models more charm and a sense of age when compared to the newer plastic decimator.

Currently I am undecided if I want to use this same technique on my infantry models or just paint them red for a little contrast. Looking at the date on the pictures they were from January of 2012. This was the last time I painted a Khador model. Ever since they have all just sat in my cabinet and come out for the occasional game once a year or so.

X-Update Wing-ish

We do exist! We're just playing Fantasy Flight's X-Wing at the moment. Tight turns and ship bumps all the way.