Tuesday, April 30, 2013

The Grymn Prospectors


I'm back after a soggy but fun weekend spent in North Carolina (but not on the trail sadly). Our decision not to go was justified when after a drizzly Saturday, it started raining that evening. During the night it started pouring...and continued to do so thru to early Monday morning. Watching it rain during breakfast Sunday morning, we determined that we probably would have used the tents Saturday night as at the approximate time of set up, it wasn't too bad out. However taking them down and gearing up in a downpour, meant that by that point Sunday morning, everything we would have had with us would have been cold, wet, and it only would have gotten worse as the day wore on. As such backpacking has been tentatively rescheduled for the fall.

On the geek front, one thing I've been pondering a lot about here of late is what to do with my Grymn. They're too cool looking to live permanently on the shelf, and thus I've come up with a use for them in 40k: as 'counts as Tau'. Now, before you guys go hopping up on the 'jumping on the bandwagon' soap box with your cries of 'foul!', given what few minis I have (both at home & on order) for the Grymn, most of the Tau 'goodies' aren't applicable. Rather the idea is just to use them for fun, and probably only at home.

Twin-burst cannon and...fusion blaster?
I've ordered a Grymn Walker which I've renamed the Mawe Walker (explained in the fluff below). It wil function as my Tau Crises suit commander, all upgrades will be paid for as is normal,  and the cost of the 'counts as' will come in the form of having no jet pack capability what-so-ever (which is evident from the model).

The Grymn troopers themselves have been the most challenging to fit into the 40k mold. First of all they're tiny (they are branded as space dwarfs by their creator). Standing shoulder height to a Fire Warrior means that behind any sort of cover, they disappear from sight and can't be targeted. The problem with that is in order to attack the enemy, they have to pretty much stand out in the wide open in order to see anything.

Another (and ironically the biggest) issue is their tiny guns. They're scaled to be about the size of a bull pup style of assault rifles for the tiny Grymn, but they're pistol sized for anything in 40k. So, I've decided that the Grymn will be 'counts-as' Fire Warriors that are armed with pulse pistols rather than pulse rifles or carbines.

At this point I'm sure some, if not all of you are asking:

 'Fire warriors with pistols only? What is the point in even using them?'

Note the unused Core Probe Launcher
Well, there is none really, I just want to and have no other existing game system to shoe-horn them into. To my guesstimate, I have about 250pts. of them, so they'll purely be an occasional allied side show.

I'm also pleased with my way of working the Grymn into the Tau Empire, as well as explaining the otherwise unusable LAWs and lap top that are modeled onto the minis.  Like any self respecting Dwarf race, 40k, fantasy or otherwise, these little guys are miners at heart, and their equipment reflects it.

The Squad Engineer, still my favorite Grymn sculpt.

The Grymn:

The Grymn are a diminutive humanoid race that joined the Tau Empire early in the second sphere expansion. Those few encountered by the Imperium (usually Rogue Traders) normally mistake the Grymn as Ratlings. This mistake offends both the Grymn & Ratlings (if the latter ever hear of it) equally as all contact between the two races has been hostile (this mistake often leads to the loss of all hopes of iridium trade contracts).

The Grymn homeworld (also named 'Grymn') is located deep within Tau Empire, and is not threatened by invasion due to its location. Grymn is actually a mountainous, fairly desolate, high gravity moon that orbits an enormous gas giant. The Grymn's system's star is too far away to provide a habitable zone for Grymn, however the gas giant radiates enough heat (though not much in the way of light) to make Grymn habitable, if not exactly pleasant. The moon of Grymn is also the Tau Empire's primary source for the experimental Iridium alloy.

The mining of needed ores, refining, production of the iridium alloy and the application thereof, are the primary contributions of the Grymn to the Tau Empire. However iridium exports to the Tau are far less than the Tau would prefer. Not wanting their already bleak little world to become an environmental wasteland of industry (as is so common in the Imperial worlds of the same nature), the Grymn have not allowed the Tau's Earth Caste engineers to expand, or assist in their iridium production efforts.

The mineral resources needed for iridium manufacture do exist outside of those on Grymn, however they are quite rare and difficult to find. Earth Caste engineering expeditions have located some small deposits, but most are found by the expertly trained Grymn prospecting detachments (the quasi-military of the Grymn) which often accompany tau expeditionary fleets. Those deposits discovered by the Grymn (whether in whole or only in part of those needed for the alloy) are jealously hoarded and 'claimed' as Grymn territories, much to the Tau's chagrin. While these Grymn holdings do continue to stifle the Tau's access to Iridium, the heavy Tau presence required to safe guard these new settlements, ensure that virtually all production goes to Tau use.

Iridium Armor (the most common application of the alloy) is still in 'experimental use' among the Tau Fire Caste, however all Grymn armor is of Iridium manufacture. As such, all members of the Grymn Prospectors are armored to the same level of protection as the Average Tau Fire Warrior, despite the light weight appearance of their armor. Communications gear is contained within the prospectors' helmets, and information is projected onto the inside of their helmet visors.

Prospectors are also issued with core probe launchers as standard. These single use, ground penetrating probes are fired into the ground (they have no military application aside from the accidental discovery of the occasional hidden bunker). Penetrating the soil and eventual bed rock via an ion charge, the probe emits an electromagnetic radiation pulse that determines ground composition elements, and beams back all relevant data to the squad's Engineer on the surface. The data returns are filtered, catalogued and if necessary passed on to the Master Engineers, and potentially the Grymn vessels in orbit the if the returns are especially promising.

As such, combat is not the prospectors' primary role. This results in the Grymn Prospector's armament being far less capable than that of a Tau Fire Warrior. The Grymn's primary hand held weapon is the Grymn carbine. Pistol sized to a human or even a Tau, the carbine is actually rifle sized to the Grymn. With the help of Earth Caste Engineers, the Grymn carbine's ammunition was improved to be the equivalent of a Tau pulse pistol. Given their small size, the Grymn see the battlefield from their prospective, and combat ranges are down-sized accordingly. Unfortunately for the Grymn, their enemies do not share this perspective, often leaving them to be well out of range if separated from their Tau allies.

Hand to hand combat is commonly trained for among the Grymn as Prospectors may sometimes need to fight for their newly discovered deposits in any way possible. However once again their small size works against them. The Grymn can equal the aggressive nature of a human, however from the human point of view, hand-to-hand fighting with a Grymn is like fighting with a child. As such, despite having no aversion to that method of warfare, the Grymn rarely fare any better in close combat than does the Average Tau Fire Warrior.

Taking a page from the Fire Caste, Master Engineers (Grymn Commanders) have adapted their Mawe walkers for command purposes in addition to providing heavy support. Mawe Walkers are now exclusively piloted by the Master Engineers who lead Prospector detachments (originally the Mawe was a heavy engineering vehicle). The Mawe walker's name is taken from a variety of quadruped creatures native to Grymn. Like the Orkoid 'squig' subspecies (to which the 'Lesser Mawe' bares a vague resemblance), Mawes are ubiquitous and used by the Grymn for nearly every imaginable use. The weaponry carried by, and capabilities of the Mawe walker is comparable to that of the 'Crises suits' of Tau Manufacture. The Mawe's standard iridium armor, lack of any sort of jet pack propulsion systems, and smaller stature are the only notable differences.

Occasionally, Grymn Prospector detachments will operate separately from their Tau Empire compatriots. It is quite rare, though not unknown for Grymn expeditions to unknowingly (or otherwise) stray beyond the Tau Empire. Within the Tau Empire, the Grymn have little to fear, however on the war torn battlefields of the 41st Millennium, when fighting on their own the Grymn tend to find themselves on the losing end of combat against virtually any opponent.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

If you die first, we're spitting your gear...

...I sure hope that that doesn't become reality this weekend. lol, but if I don't make any more blog posts from this point on, you can assume the worst I guess...

Nothing hobby related this time as I spent this week gearing up (literally) for this coming weekend in which I'm going backpacking on the Appalachian Trail with my Mom and her boyfriend. We've been pretty excited about it for awhile now, and tomorrow after work I'll be heading out to the mountains!

On the map above you can see the route we're taking. We're starting where I-40 crosses the AT (left side of the map) and going to Hot Springs, NC which is just short of where the French Broad river crosses the AT (right side of the map). Its 30ish miles, give or take a few.  My pack, fully loaded clocked in at about 38lbs, which is a bit much. When we meet up tomorrow, we'll check and see what redundant gear that we have and can potentially leave behind to lighten the load.

Despite the for the most part beautiful weather that we've had here of late, as you can see above the weather forecast for the three days we're going looks to be rather abysmal. Yes we all have rain gear, but hiking in the rain isn't as fun as hiking in the sunshine is. I'm hoping for once that the meteorologists have no idea what they're talking about (which, is usually the case except when you want it to be).

Either way we're going, we'll have fun, and I'll post up some photos assuming I return alive.


Edit: The weather forecast has deteriorated to the point that, it's supposed to start raining Saturday mid morning and not stop till Monday afternoon, thus the trip is a washout and been postponed. Mom's boyfriend didn't want Mom's first backpacking trip to be an exercise in misery, because she'll never go again!  :-(

Monday, April 22, 2013

For the Girlfriend's Good...

...umm, well the 'Greater Good' is already taken, how bout the Greater Girlfriend's Good? Greater Good's Girlfriend? No, no, don't like that one at all!


As I've mentioned in the past, my girlfriend has taken an interest in 40k, and I've walked her thru a few games in which she has consistently beaten me with my own Chaos marines. However given her fondness of Anime, the Tau naturally appealed to her, and so for her forthcoming birthday, I'm giving her the beginnings of a Tau army. She is well aware of this and has seen all that is pictured below, so there are no spoilers to worry about. RTVoril has also generously donated to her cause, as it will add to list of people who can (quote) 'kick your ass' which was all the incentive he needed.

Codex and Sabol tray aside, nothing is brand new (I still need to get her a case of some sort for the infantry & drones). When starting an army from scratch, it's almost required to start with 2nd hand minis as the start up costs of this game are truly horrifying! As such, these were either my own, purchased from or in the case of the white crises & two broadside suits, given to her by RTVoril.

So here's what all she's getting:

RTvoril's well done conversion, made to look like the Fire Warrior novel cover.

The tank commander-turned-fire warrior conversion that everyone does.

RTVoril gave her these two broadsides, however they were suffering from the usual 'broken ankle syndrome'. Some  aluminum flight stand pegs from ebay ought to eliminate that issue.
She decided on black and purple for her preferred color scheme, rather than completely restart the half painted Devilfish, I painted over the gray areas with purple, which has gotten the stamp of approval. Still not sure how the infantry and drones will be painted yet.
The starter army as a whole. I have parts to add another drone, and alter the unpainted crises suit's weapons. RT also had some extra broadside bitz, enough to make a third with the purchase of a crises suit.
I've been skimming thru the codex trying to get a handle on the new rules to help her out with them, though I'm sure she'll discover more than a few surprises for me within its pages...

Not sure of the point total, but this will certainly be a good core to build around. A third broadside, some pathfinders, and another troops choice seem to be the obvious next additions. Once she gets up to speed on the Tau, I figure we can play as a team with one of us with the primary detachment and the other as the ally till the army build's up to a stand alone force.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Hey Iron Wind Metals, hurry up and make the Arbiter will ya please?


So, since first seeing the artwork for it, I've immediately wanted an Arbiter, if not several of them! lol, they clearly had space marines, or rather chaos space marines in mind when it was drawn. Battletech is theoretically set in our universe, so who knows, perhaps GW survives as a miniature game manufacturer all the way into the 3060s (though I dread the thought of what the price increases are up to that many years into the future...).  Anyways, the Arbiter is basically junk, but scary looking junk, and is marketed as such. Well, they probably don't actually use the word 'junk' in the marketing...but that's marketing for ya.

Its an industrial mech (read: civilian work mech) and terribly ill suited for actual combat.  It at least has military grade armor, or rather heavy industrial grade armor (which is the same as the basic military stuff), decent fire control, and an ejection seat (which will be used in the event of combat), but that's about it. Its built on a planet that's on the ass end of nowhere, and sold to anyone too poor for real battlemechs. As such, corporations, poorer planets/settlements and even some merc units have been buying them (in the latter case, for nothing more than base security, and possibly cheap mech-simulators) by the battalion load in the fluff. Good thing, as a company of the factory model is about the smallest effective unit size.

Ya see, that giant gun, yeah...its really a woefully obsolete heavy rifle. Basically its something like  modern day 155mm howitzer. Sure weapons that are 1000+ years old can still kill you today, and that's more or less what a heavy rifle is like in the CBT universe. Obsolete beyond description. The world where the Arbiter is manufactured is capable of nothing better weapon wise. To help though, the doctered it up to look big and scary (yes literally) in hopes of scaring off raiding pirates. Just hope the poor bastard piloting this thing never has to fire as the secret will be out that the weapon is garbage, and the arbiter (and all others) will be toast.

Speaking of toast, the rifle generates so much heat that it realistically can only fire once every 3 game turns or so as it has only one heat sink and can't cope with the rifle's heat build up. So going back to company deployments, one lance fires one turn, and then rinse and repeat till the first lance can fire again. Just hope the enemy isn't returning fire, or realizing that the incoming fire isn't doing a whole lot to them...

Anyone who buys one, can afford to, and/or has the know how and equipment needed, swaps out the rifle for an AC-5. This 'upgrade' eliminates the heat issue as well as the Arbiter's woeful lack of ammo (which is somewhat mitigated by the heat issue). The Arbiter's rifle has room for just 6 rounds, whereas the AC-5's ammo can fit 20 rounds into the same amount of space. You can tell it was designed for the AC-5, but as stated above, the planet of manufacture can't build modern weaponry. Of course its laughable to think that in the 3060s, the standard AC-5 is something of a 'premium' upgrade for...well, anything!

So essentialy the Arbiter is the typical piss-poor-podunk's mech-substitute of choice. Given my love of infantry which generally fits into the same category, I really want some of these. Unfortunatlely its mainly a fluff design, and odds are it won't ever see production. Though why other even more useless and less popular industrial mechs are in production is unknown to me (the Cattlemaster, really?). The Arbiter is actually in the same 'It's so bad I love it!' category as the Urbanmech, and on various forums is quite popular.  Ironically, it also makes the Urbanmech look awesome by comparison.


So not having a mini available, I painted up a Heavy Gear Hunter with a snub cannon to use as a proxy. The cannon is painted to look obvious from  distance, but otherwise that mini lacks any of the aesthetic appeal of the actual Arbiter. Its painted in my favorite 'government issue green' (Knarloc green) which doesn't match my other HG minis, but I don't know if we'll ever play that game again, so is no matter.  I have another one of these, so will probably paint it up to match. I have several hunters actually, but would need to get them some more snub cannons. Mainly as the AC-5 field refits, usually keep the over-sized housings so the enemy doesn't know what kind of gun its facing till it actually fires. Indeed, I've seen tons of custom versions built via Skunkwerks (Battletech's VDR software) which are basically wolves in sheep's clothing refits as it won't take long for pirates to figure out this 'mech' is absolute garbage.

Monday, April 15, 2013

...and for today's random assortment...


Just have some various, unrelated odds and ends for this morning. First up, I finished painting my Stirland army's mascot, the mounted mockery of Elector Stoutfart! It was a really fun mini to paint, though at times a little tedious as paint tends to easily wear off of some of the detailed bits as I was holding it during painting. All in all though I think its a great addition to the army.

Not sure if I'll use him as a character, or just a unit champion.

Next up, I painted two more Mechs for my company of the Legion of the Rising Sun. The Dragon (right mech) is silhouetted on the legion's logo, so that will be my company commander's mech.  The Cicada on the left is one of my favorites, as its so friggin fast! In a stand up fight, its dead meat vs. just about anything. Instead it spends the game running around at high speed while sniping at enemy units, and often threatening to get into the enemy backfield.

Nothing fancy, but far better than bare metal.

There's 9 of them in total.
And last up, my game room is closed! Temporarily anyways. My grandparents are moving to a house that's all on one floor and much closer to me in roughly a month's time. So to get them safely out of the way, this past Saturday we relocated their dollhouse collection into my game room for safe keeping. They're a bit fragile to be left to the not always gentle hands of the moving company.

While the scale is all wrong, they do have stairs, so I suppose I could fill one with barricades, and host a Necromunda up-hive gang raid or something...lol. Nothing like some viscous room-to-room fighting to change things up. Of course my game board can still just go atop the dining room table, which worked just fine for years.  That said, the next month or so will be rather busy for me, so I doubt there will be much time for gaming anyways. Will see...

Oh! One last thing, I just wanted to give a shout out and congratulations to my buddy Necron Bob. He took 4th in the Brawler Bash's WHFB GT this weekend!

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Da Green Tide!


Last Saturday, da' boyz left all of their trukks and wagons (of various descriptions) at home and decided to go foot slogging for a change. They came upon a beleaguered force of Beastman IG who were in the process of getting exterminated by the  Space Wolves. Orks being Orks, they decided to get stuck in!

1500 points, Orks with Beastman IG allies vs. 'Cheesy Broken Space Wolves' (...snicker...), Dawn of war deployment and Da' Emprah's Will scenario. The Wolves stuck their objective up high, as they had no intention of defending it, and rather were just coming for mine. Neverness was without an opponent, so volunteered to serve as our combat cameraman.

(...and thus what follows is my usual, half-assed attempt at a battle report...)

Da' Boyz and Beastmen, assembling for war!

Da puppies. Note: the Iron Priests have sorely neglected that one rhino, its actually covered in rust!
Da Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun guards da objective while da uvvers deploy.

Da puppies deployment.
Beastmen also have MOAR DAKKA!!!

Beastmen, advancing to their doom...

OI! Dat wunz mine! Not that a Kan vs. a dread is a fair fight even at long range...

Da Bloo Kans pop open da rusty box!

...and at this point, our combat cameraman appears to have been killed in the crossfire as there are no more photos and he was no longer on the premises.  Basically it was the usual slug fest in which virtually all of both armies were wiped out (and the Wolves did succeed in their beastman extermination campaign).

At the end, Screech's wolves were down to about 7 or 8 models, my boyz numbered maybe a dozen or so, but they held an objective handing me the victory (4VPs to 3). At one point, Screech had my objective, and came off of it to help finish off the remnants of my 30 strong slugga mob, however his dice then said (and I quote) 'Fuck you buddy, you should have stayed on the objective' and his game went all to hell from there on. Two squads of Wolves crumpled like tinfoil leaving da boyz with a win!

Much as it pains me to say it, the Green Tide (per teh interwebz' collective opinion) does work a lot better than my beloved trukk mounted speed freaks. Hopefully the new codex will remedy that...somehow.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Square basers suck!

Nick Nolte and his blunderbuss is still the extent of my artillery.
 lol, that seems to be the general consensus around here anyways. Armies exist (like mine) but there's very little want to play within our group. Still, as always I like the models and a few weeks back picked up another box of Empire militia, and a few Great Swords from ebay. They've fleshed the ranks out nicely I think, as ever though, just one more box of militia ought to do it...lol.

I'm still rather fond of my Amber Wizard conversion.

Black Guard of Morr (Great Swords) with my Warrior Priest. Like many Empire armies, this unit is the pride of my army.

The Black Guard unit is full, but I still need four more halberders.

The Swordsman's ranks are pretty thin as well. I still have 5 Archers to assemble, and another box ought to give me enough archers to either split into 2 regiments, or 1 regiment and 2 detachments. Note the general's pet miniature griffon in the background.

The full battle line with the Tower of Leichburg in the background. I need to get some foam board out and work on surrounding that tower with a fortified wall. However I'm going to be fairly busy for the rest of this month, thru the middle of May, so that plan might continue to stay on hold.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Nurgle's blessings have been bestowed upon me...

As you've no doubt surmised by the title, I'm sick and as such, its been a fairly miserable week. Anti-biotics among other medications are now in heavy usage, and I sorta feel alive. Only just though.

I had intended to create a background for my new Dark Heresy arbitrator this week, however my imagination more or less curled up and died. Needless to say that didn't happen. I did find on Monday that there is quite a bit of info on his home world of Hilarion (chosen for no other reason than it sounds like 'hilarious'). Not realizing its feudal world rather than an Imperial world, I'll need to go and make a few alterations to his stats. It remains to be seen as to whether I'll be feeling well enough or not to play tomorrow night.

Even the Black Guard's full plate armor really isn't. Stirland's poverty afflicts everyone within its boundaries I guess...

Thus, not much really happened on the hobby front this week. Monday I managed to glue a bunch of washers to bases for my Stirlanders (they have magnetized movement trays) and another rank or so was added to my Black Guard of Morr (Great Swords). At this point I think I have more of them than I can squeeze into a 1000 point army due to the 25% of special units rule (and what a dumb rule that is).

In the event that I return to the realm of the living, then hopefully I'll have something of interest for you next week.


Monday, April 1, 2013

'Granola Geekdom' (at it's finest?)


One thing that's been kinda interesting here of late at the FLGS is that we're being studied. Taylor, who is a friend of Screech (and by this point, the rest of us) is taking an anthropology class at ETSU and is doing an ethnology-anthropological (or something like that) study on sub cultures. In doing so, she decided on the local warhammer geek culture (her fiance plays 40k which is what spawned the idea).  As such she hangs around, making observations and scribbling notes, interviewing us on our thoughts on the subject and what not. Its all kinda neat really.

Anyways, when doing interviews the weekend before last, as I was going to retrieve some orks (whose trukk had just been blown up by their own looted wagon) that were on a nearby table to where she was interviewing Neverness (periodically I'd pass by & heckle him, and he was all too happy to reciprocate during my interview). I heard my name mentioned and inquired about what they were talking about. He said they were discussing how 'granola' I was. lol, what? Later when I was being interviewed, she asked about the geek lifestyle and its stereotypes and I connected the dots.

The stereotype as we all know is that we're all socially awkward virgins, who shun women (thru our social ineptitude), and daylight and live in our mom's basement, etc. On her first visit Screech and I even went into the 'there's a girl in the game shop, panic!!!' type of theatrics which she found both amusing and alarming.  Basically though, we were discussing the varied lifestyles of our group and how we all still connect via 40k.

The 'granola' label has kinda amused me these past two weeks and so I thought I'd do a recap of this past weekend to see if it really fits. Here goes:

Friday Night:

Something I worked up on my break at work.

We met up at Neverness' place to make our new characters for his next Dark Heresy campaign. This is the first time we've gotten together to play DH since late last spring, and are looking forward to it. This will be an Adeptus Arbitrator campaign, and for 'inspriation' I brought donuts. No proper arbitrator can execute (key word there) Imperial justice without some good donuts!

Donuts, the anti-granola? lol!

Saturday morning:

Checking up on my afk corp mates...
After staying up too late at Neverness', I managed to sleep in till 9am, which is pretty late for me. I've taken it as a sign of progressing into middle age that I can rarely, if ever sleep in anymore. Sleeping in till noon or later is a thing of the past. Most saturday mornings I wake up at about 7:30. ...sigh...

After getting up, I then puttered around the house while playing eve online (semi-afk as usual). I  made adjustments to my pack, filled it up, etc. ate lunch, and then went out to 'play in the woods' for a while.

Saturday Afternoon:

I'm going on a 3-day backpacking trip on the Appalachian trail the end of this month. I haven't gone backpacking in close to a decade, so I've been prepping for that. We're not going to be pushing real hard or anything in an attempt to go too far (a common mistake made by novice backpackers). My Mom and her BF are going as well. He and his buddies have hiked from the AT's starting point in GA to where we're starting our trip on (where the AT crosses I-40). Mom's BF and his hiking friends were pushing too hard earlier this year and he hurt his leg in the process, and had to bail at that point by hobbling out to the road for an evac. This trip will be for him to make up the distance from where his friends had continued on without him.

My hike covered about three miles. The first half mile was rather steep and that trail was chosen for just that purpose. After climbing up to the ridge top, I went about 2 miles heading out about a mile (according to the trail markers) before turning around and heading back.  I then hiked back down again via another, not quite as steep trail. All told I was out there for about 2 hours, with a 28lb pack (basically everything I'll have on my trip, minus my food supply). It was a good microcosm of the trip, and there were no breaking clips or anything as happened on my first test run a month or so ago.

The 'granola' part of my weekend, lol.

Saturday night:

I came home, unloaded, showered, loaded up my toys, and met up with Murl, RTVoril and Kushial for dinner (celebrating RTVoril's birthday a little early), and then onto the FLGS where my dice said 'fuck you buddy'. There I spent a game vs. Kushial rolling a statistically impossible number of 1s and 2s all game. The only silver lining to that was in turns 2-4 the Doom of Malan'tai only killed 4 chaos cultists. I also acquired some Tau from RTVoril, plus he donated some more to the cause in starting up an army for my GF for her birthday (which is also a bit early, but I'll be backpacking when that rolls around, so now is as good a time as any).

This pic was from last week's defeat vs. Bob's Dark Angels, where at least the dice were cooperating with me...


More eve online in the morning (I don't watch TV, so eve has replaced that), and after lunch i went to my grandparents' house for the afternoon. I did paint a bit more on Elector Stoutfart, but not enough to warrant anymore photos at this point.

So there you have it, my weekend recap. I suppose that does qualify me as a 'Granola Geek' (despite the donuts). This evening, my GF is coming over and we're going on a dinner picnic followed (or possibly preceded) by either a short hike, or a short canoe trip out on one of the local lakes. We've yet to decide, but it'll be fun regardless I'm sure.