Japeth turns 40.

SO my Shadow Warrior hit lvl 40 on Sunday. Wow was the last 3 lvls a grind but at least I made it although I didn't make my one yr mark I did it in 1yr1day. Our guild has also started trying out a thing call tactics so I signed up for a pre-made group and ran around doing RvR and scenarios on Monday evening.

We had alot of fun although we got slaughtered often and learnt a bit about our roles in the group.

I am enjoying WAR abit more now that we have moved server to Karak-Norn...Lots of destro and good fights.

Mythic has announced the next patch and it looks good. No more stun, instead stagger will be introduced (a stun that is broken when damage is taken). Instead of you being Ganked by a witch elf now she will get one free strike before you are back in action again.

On the miniature side there is also good news. Privateer press have released the new MKII rules early by allowing the players to download, the unpolished version, in pdf from their website. They have also given a date for the Hordes field test, 14 November. This will be great because the two systems wont be out of sync for too long then.

I am expecting my Stormclad any day now then all my orders have arrived. That will give me a nice 1300pts, now I just need to get painting. We had a 7 way last week Thursday (Bank holiday here) where every system taken down and every model killed required you to drink a shot of something.....lets just say the poor hordes players had it rough, disable a system (1drink) and they heal it one point, next turn do it to 2 systems (2 Drinks) they heal to spirals, the following turn kill the beast (4 Drinks)....we had some really drunk people that night.

I did take photos of a game against our local Legion player but I misplaced my camera for so long I forgot what happened when I downloaded them. Next time Ill have a pen and paper.

I have been very busy at work and should be able to start gaming again in 2 weeks.

but until next time....

What I've been up to......

Wow, this blogging thing does not come easy to me.

So whats happening in my life.
1) Got my new machine last week Thursday so now I am able to play WaR @ full graphics....wow everything is so pretty and I have to relearn how to play now tat my machine doesn't jerk anymore.... :-)

2)Looks like the 3+ guys will be having a tourney at the end of august I have 2 lists I want to try.

i)Coleman 4 WM
Coleman
Squire
Lancer
Ironclad
JNR
Hunter
3x Stormsmiths
8x Longgunners

ii)Hayley 4 Hordes
Hayley
Squire
Lancer
Defender
JNR
Hunter
Stormblades
Prof. Victor Pendrake

3) I will be going to MEAD (South African LARP) in September. Going to be a warrior fighting for House Gloom Cliff.....If you want to know what it involves watch Rolemodels (the movie, 2008).

4) SA Nationals is coming up in September and I have decided to dust off my Tomb Kings and give it a bash. Not looking to win, just looking to get "high" and have fun.

5) Going to attend a wedding, my wife's best friend. So that means no Kids for the weekend......."Jager"-bombs here I come....

Other than that nothing else, I will update once I have something to report on or something good to say.

Until next time...

Everything I've been up to in the last week.

Ok so lets start with last week......

Thursday I got my Maelstrom order, can I get a whoop whoop! So i pulled out what Ive got and made a 500pt list and played against a 500pt Thag list.....wow units are not the same as Warjacks....No boosting to hit or Damage. I got my "Rear" handed to me but it was fine I learnt my lesson, I'n this game everything needs to work together otherwise you die ....and quickly.

Saturday I went to ICON (South African Convention)....Got there a bit late (10am which normally would be on time) so did not register for the RPG modules. I went and watched the MEAD (LARP) people beating each other up outside the Gaming hall while gluing my new models together. Was pretty fun watching them beat each other with taped up pool noodles. Will have to give it a try some time.

I also spent most of my day helping out at the Warmachine demo stand that was run by one of the other groups here in Johannesburg (3+ Gamers). We had a nice bit of interest shown by the people walking around and had demo games running all day. Once everything had calmed down I decided to play a 500pt game against a more experience Menoth Player.....I held out for most of the game and if it wasn't for Death Sentence each turn and the avatars free focus I might have been able to pull off something good. In the end Coleman was on his ace staring at some agro'ed Knights and a Avatar......

I spent my night LARP'ing I was a German Indiana Jones who had discovered a mysterious metal and was attending a unavailing of some Egyptian artifacts at a hotel in Cairo....to cut a long story sort, I was eaten by a Chinese Dragon who's metal I had stolen and the metal was turned into a A-Bomb that blew up all the other characters in the end....good fun.

On Sunday I partook in a demo game of Vampire: the eternal struggle (TCG). It looks very good and I have also roped my wife into trying it out. I had a deck from 2001 that I never got to use so I am using that and my wife is using the free deck I got from the demo game.

So that was my weekend. Nothing special but was fun anyways.

Now on to the exciting news. A fellow player and myself might be starting up a shop so that we can sell Warmachine/Hordes at a much better price. We worked out that the local shops are putting the prices up by at least 60% this could mean the life or death of this hobby. If people could get starter boxes for R400 ( $40) instead of the current R675 ($75) that the local retailer sells them for, I think this hobby would fly.

So tonight after our Thursday night game at my house we will talk business and work on a way to get us from 3rd world gamers to 1st world.

Until next time.....

SA Comp And BCBSA.

Warmachine Breast Cancer Brawl SA.

This is something I am really looking forward to. Not only will it be my first Warmachine tournament but it will also be something that I can really be proud of myself for if it runs smoothly and raises a lot of money.

I will be running the Tournament at my local Scout Hall on the 10th of October 2009. I have drafted up the ruleset and will put it up on our local forum. I have already got a couple of people interested in playing and might have a sponsor in the pipelines for pizes.

I am hoping to get my Pressganger-ship by October so that I can get some PP prize support. I just need to get moving on my Cygnar....I promise I will start in the next week.

South Africans and Comp for Warhammer.

This is one of the touchiest subjects that you can post about on our local forum. The guys from the Liberal Cape have no issues in trying to fix the game system that GW themselves do not see as broken. But the people from the North (i.e. Johannesburg) are a little less open to the suggestion. We have been having a debate about implementing a Comp into our local Warhammer scene for the last year. Next month is the South African National's and if nothing is done to balance out the silly "Power Tiers" that seem to be present in the game I do not see myself having a good time. It looks like one of our locals has done his homework and decided to post a "SAComp" on the local site. So far it has had many praises and of course the normal criticism, but hopefully we will see some direction very soon.

I do not have the money to start a new army every 6months when GW release a new army book. I have sold my Beasts of Chaos and put my Tomb Kings away so that I can focus on what I see is a more balanced games system, Warmachine.

Warmachine might be the game of the cheeses but at least we know that there is a equal level of cheese for each faction. Warhammer seems to be the game of "Who ever got released last and was really loved by the mentally challenged play testers" has the advantage.

On a side note:
I am taking part in a study between the link of MMO gamers and their Avatars/Characters. It is being run by a friend of mine who will be doing his honours in Social Antropology. I will let you all know what his findings are and how messed up us MMOG's are.

Also I will be attending the South African ICON 2009 next week. I will take some pics and let you guys know how it went. I will be roleplaying and helping out at the Warmachine stand trying to get more converts to the cause.

Until next time....

Siege on Altdorf!

Japeth is now lvl 30 thanks to the Land of the Dead (Mega XP gained while doing all the pq's, Twice) also got myself some very nice purple gear that is now in my bank until I get to 37.

So Sunday evening I decided to carry on lvling because the lowest Bow I picked up in LotD is lvl31. While running around killing the odd Orc and Dark Elf I noticed that LotD had opened up for Order once again and seeing a quick release from the menial grind I was currently doing I decided to head over to Khemri.

I got as far as Altdorf when the first message came up saying that Destro where busy taking the tiers. I was about to get on the Blimp to fly over to Khemri when my mate came online.

He had been lvling his Whitelion and noticed the chaos lock down. He advised me to wait in Altdorf because a Siege was inevitable. So I decided to waist time looking at what was on auction.

Eventually a screen came up asking if I wanted to help defend our great city (Well not my great city, but the humans think its pretty neat) so I promptly click yes and was transported into the giant PQ.

First thing I noticed was the disrepair the city had fallen into in less that 30 seconds. I had never done this before so I just followed the crowd that running towards the Emperors Square. When I got there I noticed the Chaos Champions standing in the front of the gate. 2 minutes later the Destro characters started to funnel through. The first wave got shot down...

It was a back and forth affair so I started to look for ways to end it, little did I know there is no stopping it for 1 1/2 hours. I noticed that you need to extinguish fires that a raging around the city, So I started to run around putting out fires.

After putting out 10 fires there was a shout out telling whoever was putting out the fire to stop, so I finished up my last one and ran back to the square. Of course there is always one person who does not get the message and continued to extinguish the fires. Once hey where all put out I realised why you don't want to finish the PQ.......First thing I saw was a daemon spawn come charging at me and one hit I was dead, we had just summoned the PQ boss who was nigh indestructible especially with a army of Destro players helping him. So we fought on for the new hour holding out against all odds.

Our city was able to repel the attackers but the city my mate was fighting in was getting a wiped, eventually a message came up that Altdorf was lost and I was kicked form the city into the Camp just outside.

I was worn out and tired so decided to call it a day. What was left of the Warband's decided to try and cut off the Destro that would try and enter the city but I did not see myself doing that and having a decent Monday at work so I logged off and went to my warm toasty bed.

Well I will have to wait till tomorrow to play again as my Internet cap is up.

I am busy working on a rules pack for a Breast Cancer Brawl that I would like to run here in South Africa.....I will let you know how that goes.

Until next time....

Playing Warhammer online.

So I have been playing Warhammer Online since release but had to take a 4 month break when my house was broken into and they stole my PC. On Sunday I re-newed my account and started playing on Sunday night....hell, i had no clue what I was doing.

When we (Mate and myself) first started playing WaR, we rolled Chaos. I played a Squig Herder and my friend a Shaman, we got to lvl 15ish when some other friends wanted to play but wanted to roll order on the server we were currently playing on.

So Japeth Marvel was born/created a Shadow Warrior on K8P. I have always had a soft spot for Rangers from my early DnD Living Greyhawk days when Japeth used to run around the Deserts of the south.

I got to lvl 27 before my account expired. So sunday night I sat down with a glass of coke and a stick of biltong (Jerky) in front of my machine and logged back in.

First thing I did was run into the RvR zone and got whipped by a lvl 27 Magus before I could even figure out what stance I was in or what attack to use. So I re-spawned and ran right back in.....So buy the end of the night I finally got to lvl 28.

I have respec'ed scout, I know everyone says Assault is best but I just think a Elf with a Bow should be able to Out shoot any other model in the game. We have White Lions for the CC.

So I am back in the game and hoping to hit lvl 40 ASAP so that I can start taking part in the city sieges. I will use this blog to voice my opinions on the game and what progress I make.

Until next time.

Thought I should post a pic of the only model in my collection, of 5 models, that is complete.

So here he is my Ironclad, painted it back in 2004 in 2 nights after reading the article on the Brushthralls website on painting Cygnar in 7 days.....Well I got him done in two so I should get the rest of the Cygnar battle box done in the remaining 5, lol! I am hoping to get my new models in the next week from my LGS (a box of long gunners, a box of trenchers and a GMCA), so I think i should complete the models I have otherwise I'll sit with the same situation that I had with my Tomb Kings, had so many models I never knew where to start.

Got my Card yesterday so now I can purchase over the Internet again. Hello E-bay, its been 3 years since I left the UK and my Internet purchasing rights...I have really missed the convenience of it all. Also I haven't been able to play Warhammer online since they stole my computer in Febuary because once I got a replacement my account expired. So I am looking forward to playing my Shadow Warrior, Japeth Marvel, once again and hopefully getting to lvl40 this time around.

Our LGS had to cancel the tournament they were going to run because only 3 people signed up. Had we (The customers) received our orders earlier there would have been at least 8 more people. I will be getting a Menoth box with my next 'online' order, so that I can paint them up and apply to be a PP Pressganger, so that I can run my own tournaments. I have already asked the local scout master if I could use their hall so now I just need to raise funds for tables and scenery. As far as I know we only have one Pressganger in the entire South Africa and he stays in Pretoria which is 1 hour+ from where i stay.

Until next time........
(Cheesy I know )

LGS or Online Orders?

Note: This is going to be a Rant post!

OK so in South Africa we don't have a great demand for metal miniatures which means we don't have franchise stores situated around the country like the 1st worlders.

The problem with this is that we then have to rely on LGS to get us our miniatures, Previously I had no problem with this as I was helping to keep the LGS open and therefore create a presence where people could get into the hobby. But why order something that when ordered through a store takes 6weeks+ to arrive but if I order it online it would arrive in 2?

Why this all started is our LGS will be holding a 500pts steamroller this weekend and my order would have given me not only my 500pts but also a second list. One shooty the other combat, you know how it goes. But now I will only have my 2 Lancers, Ironclad and Charger with Coleman and his JNR.

I spoke to one of the gamers in Cape Town last week and he referred me to a site that if I could get models through would not only save me time but also money. The prices they can sell the models at are so much cheaper because of no import fees and added postage. So I have gone and applied for a credit card and will be receiving it next week some time.

If I receive my mail-order models before I receive my LGS order then I will be very impressed.

I do not want to do it this way but if I was just kept up to date on where models were and when they are expected to get here, instead of a "Wait" or a "They'll get here when they get here" response every time I ask. I think I could have held out a bit longer.

So this will be my personal space.

Hi there,

My name is Kelvin Jones and I have been War-gaming for the last 10 years.

I originally started out with Warhammer 40k and slowly made my way across to Warhammer fantasy.

I have recently started playing Warmachine, after noticing a horrible power creep in the GW world.

The main reason for starting this Blog is to get myself motivated to paint…..it is something I do not take well to. I have had my Tomb King “Big” box since they were release and have yet to paint them all…I am a firm believer that once the last model is painted you will DIE! It also seems to be a trend in my life never to complete/finish something I have started (Karate, MCSE & Warhammer online) ….let’s hope this isn’t true, for the blogs sake.

Also being a family man, wife and 3 kids with 2 dogs, I have many excuses not to paint.

Well I am hoping to cover the following on this Blog.

1. My progress into Warmachine. (Want to become Local Press Ganger and run some tournaments)
2. Any Warhammer I play.
3. Thursday night gaming at my place….Normally Warmachine, Warhammer or Board Games.
4. Progress of our group of gamers and what silliness we get up to.
5. I hope to get my credit card soon so will hopefully get back into either WoW or WaR.

Until next time.