The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

Gamesday Baltimore 2008

So I have just returned from my brief stint in Baltimore, and I have to say that Gamesday was pretty spectacular.

 

It's been a while since I've been around that much noise. I figured out pretty quickly that it might have been a good idea to buy tickets in advance after seeing the line at the box office, but it wasn't particularly bad after that - they sorted us into thrashing, drooling mobs by assigning 'clans' at the registration desk to keep us busy before they opened the doors. I had the good (?) fortune of being placed with the Deathskullz, which I suppose is appropriate enough.

My first order of business was to throw my gargant into the ring in the 40k vehicle category for the Golden Demons, though truth be told I wasn't expecting much, since it's a painting competition and my entry's strength was primarily in the conversion. I walked into the event thinking that if I made first cuts I'd be happy.

 

I did have the good fortune of making it into the finals with my model, though I didn't get any farther than that. I certainly have a better idea of what I'm up against next time! The dang eyes were a big hassle, as they were not designed to remain lit for the entire duration of the day, but the Golden Demon judges were champs about my request to turn them on for judging and photographs.

As far as the gargant itself goes, I'm happy to consider it finished at this point, barring the occasional touch-up; proper pictures will be taken and posted up on it's project entry by tomorrow.

By 3:00, the winners had mostly been decided, and I got a chance to get a look at what took the awards in my category. An NMM'ed-out Blood Angels Dreadnought took home the gold, a Death Korps-ish vehicle of some imperial design took the Silver, and some sort of Eldar jetbike took bronze. This just goes to show how much I know about non-ork races, I suppose. I only took photos of the winners in my category to give some comparison.

 

They were all exceptionally well done, though there were some other dynamite entries that I thought got overlooked, particularly a chaos land raider. This event was the first time I've ever been able to see NMM in person. In person, the effect looks fairly underwhelming, to be honest, as I imagine it has much to do with the angle at which it is viewed and the lighting conditions. However, peeking back over some of these macro photos I took of the winning blood angel dreadnought, I can easily understand it's appeal, as it pops.

I spent a lot of the event wandering around looking at everything going on. Apparently, there was some kind of product development conference they had at the beginning that I missed that all of these new sprue pictures are popping out of. Despite that, I still got to take a peek at a couple new items they had out and about. I've no doubt anyone who reads a site like this has already seen the models they had there somewhere else, but since I did photograph them I thought I'd throw some of the pictures up, particularly of the orky models they had on display such as ammo runts, the new warboss model, and a souped-up engine kit that I think might be a forgeworld part:

 

A giant display of an imperial army that easily had to be 10-15k+ points caught my eye right at the onset. The scheme was a bit drab, but when you're looking at a table full of it, there is no arguing - it's totally awesome.

 

There was also a 'Big Game' that was being run in one whole corner of the convention. I didn't hang around that area too long during the day, but it seemed to be a bunch of Imperial Baneblades versus a number of looted Orky Baneblades. I snapped some photos of the orky baneblades for later inspiration on my own - a large number of them were spectacularly done. I assume they were made by Games Workshop staff, as everyone I asked about them claimed they didn't know where the models had come from.

 

There were also some ridiculous, ridiculous templates made from other apocalypse templates that just had to be photographed. These were for orbital bombardments that were rewarded to the team (ork or imperial) that could bellow the loudest. When I was there, the orks took it by a mile, and I have to say, my head nearly exploded when they were all bellowing 'WAAAGH!'. I have a newfound sympathy for weirdboyz and their 'Eadbang rolls.

There was also a new Mars Pattern Reaver Titan on display from Forgeworld, painted up and looking fairly impressive. Truthfully, I thought it was going to be a little bit bigger than the model actually turned out, but it's still very nice. However, ringing in at 1,100 USD, I don't think I'll be picking one up any time soon.

Kim came along with me to Gamesday, and handled the event admirably well. She toughed it out alongside me all day, building models at the conversion corner and participating in the scenery make-and-take. She even painted some of a model!

 

She liked a lot of the fantasy models, too, particularly the Wood Elves. Now all I need to do is convince her to pick up the hobby! (This will probably never happen). My wallet wasn't safe from Gamesday's shenanigans, either. Midway through the day, they offered up blister grab bags for , each containing ten blisters. Within about ten seconds, the store area was swamped in gamers all trying to peer into the semi-translucent bags to find the best goodies they could, myself included. I had the good luck of grabbing a bag filled with only 40k stuff, and most of it was character models, making it a huge steal - for 30 bucks, I ended up getting Celestine, the Living Saint, Apothecary Corbulo, Grand Master Azrael, and Mephiston, Lord of Death, just to name a few. To top that, almost all the rest were ork models! I did get one tyranid in the mix, a Ravener, that I wasn't quite sure what to do with until I ran across this fellow...

... named Chris, a tyranid player who I gamed with regularly down in New Brunswick, who was wearing one of my Turbosquig T-Shirts. He got the 'nid for going through the trouble of actually wearing the shirt to the event. I didn't hang around until the very end of the event to see the awards get given out, since we were exhausted, but from what I hear one fellow took like six or seven of the golden demon awards, so I can only assume the slayer was his as well. I have a lot more pictures of the event that I took that I may put up later, but I think on all of the important parts of my day. All in all, it was a great event. I think next time I go I will try and enter a couple different things into the Golden Demons, because it was a really exciting process that I enjoyed.

Never a dull moment

It has been quite a while since I last updated, and in the interim I have been keeping myself quite occupied. I'm sure a number of you were probably wondering if the lack of updates was due to me killing myself in a horrible pressure casting accident, but I can assure you that not only is that not the case, I have had wondrous success with the whole process. In any event, an absence of nearly two months is inexcusable, but I'm going to try and explain anyway.

Its been an exceptionally busy time for me! Finals, law school, and graduation have all been keeping my free time fairly well tied up, but I am happy to say that my courses are all done with and I have successfully run the gauntlet of graduation at Rutgers.

Its not been just school keeping me busy, either; I've been caring for a baby squirrel! The little dude took a big fall out of his nest and landed on his head, but fortunately someone was around to see him take the dive. Since both of my folks are vets, he was brought to us. Because of his little 'incident' he is blind in one eye, but damn if he still isn't the cutest thing I've ever seen. We've not yet named him, but the lack of an eye and the drunken swagger suggests a pirate theme. I need to craft him a jaunty eyepatch.

Moving on.

With any luck, I will be at Gamesday Baltimore on June 14th to enter a fully painted gargant into the vehicle category. I've been withholding pictures of it's painted state so far to build the tension, though I realize my absence has probably not done much to help with that. I may throw out a picture or two as the day approaches, but I am hoping it's first public, painted outing will be there, at Gamesday. I don't expect to win or even come close, but it'll be a nice way to start off my first Gamesday ever.

In anticipation for the event, I've made myself a completely ridiculous T-shirt. Behold!

Like I said, completely ridiculous, but it should be fun to wear at Gamesday despite the fact that I am sure nobody will have any idea what it means. Surprisingly enough, a couple people I showed it to were interested in getting their own, so I uploaded a high resolution version to zazzle.com that you can order as a Dark T-shirt in a variety of colors and sizes. I didn't honestly expect anyone to buy these, but a couple people who are going to GD Balt already have, and I think it would be absolutely hilarious if we got a bunch of people down there wearing them. I wonder how many it would take for GW to start noticing.

The one I crafted for myself has the logo for The Warforge shamelessly emblazoned on the front, with the turbosquig on the back. I encourage anyone who recognizes me with this to come up and say hello, because I've somehow managed to trick my girlfriend into thinking that a trip to Baltimore is a vacation. She'll be with me at the event and I think if she still loves me after hearing all the super-nerd-talk that I will invariably engage in, I will be a lucky man.

There's much more to talk about, but at least I've made a start.