JP On Gaming

Saturday, June 30, 2012

PaizoCon is almost upon us

Its been months since I've been constantly blogging about it and now its almost upon us. Opening on the 6th of July, PaizoCon in Redmond, WA is going to be a great event.

Not just because thousands will descend upon the place to play Pathfinder, but because NeoExodus will return for the second year. And like the previous time, the slots I'm running are FULL.

The world of Exodus WILL be forever changed by the events there. This is a very exciting times... The unknown... Cannot wait to see the players' thought process as they explore and go through the two adventures. The first one is "A2 Ruins of Trovaska" to give an idea what the event is about. The second is the "Interactive" adventure called "A5 Battle of Trovaska".

It will also be the first chance for LPJ and me to meet face to face. You don't want to miss this confrontation. That's right, I did not say "meeting". If you attend, make sure you stop by and say hello!

Louis will have no less than 4 NeoExodus books: The Campaign Setting, Enemies of NeoExodus: The Folding Circle, Enemies of NeoExodus: The First Ones, and the Free RPG Day adventure Undying Legacy of the First Ones. I have yet to see the two "enemies" books in print and I am very excited about seeing them, especially The First Ones... my own devilish creation!

It's gonna be great!

If you're gonna miss it? You will have to live precariously through tweets: follow @jpongaming (me), @LPJDesign (LPJ) and #NeoExodus for full details!

JP

Cygnar 13th Strike Team For NeoExodus !?!?

These guys are a character unit. They look very unique. And were surprisingly easy to paint. For some reason I keep having this impression that characters should be hard to paint. Perhaps it stems from my GW days... I'm not sure.But these guys painted up quick and easy.

As I painted them, I kept thinking how they would make a great group of Arman Protectorate bounty hunters. Perhaps I need to write something...


JP

Thursday, June 28, 2012

PaizoCon: More terrain pieces

As another bonus before PaizoCon, I am posting a few of the new terrain pieces I built for Battle of Trovaska, the NeoExodus interactive... You'll see that they are easily re-usable for other purposes.

The trees have a few little surprise highlights in them. See if you can see them.

NO, Skarre the Pirate Queen is NOT the surprise! She is just there to show scale.



JP

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Colorado Springs Fire: Real Life

Ever since I moved to Colorado Springs in 2005, I have seen and been part of so many things. But never in my life would I believe that being a city dweller that I am. But never would I have believed I would bear witness to the horror I am looking right now.

In case you did not know, there is a massive 5200 acre (at last count) wildfire burning just west of Colorado Springs. In the picture above: the driveway to my workplace is just behind the emergency vehicles on the left. I mean, that IS the driveway...

The west of town is on fire. Many homes are burning as I write this. I even saw the fire climb the slopes and set one of the home afire. I'm stunned right now.

Before anyone asks, my home is (currently) safe and quite far from the fire. We have difficulty breathing when leaving the basement and the kids, Julie and I will cram in the guest bedroom tonight.

I pray to the Lord that the current tally of no casualty holds, and though it sucks that property burns, I prefer that to human life.

Dear Lord protect the families of the evacuees and my family and everyone in our community. A special prayer goes to those people working tirelessly to protect us: Mayor Bach, Sheriff Makida, Chief Brown and everyone working with and under them.

Our prayers are with all of you. I can't wait for this situation to be resolved.

Here is an article on the situation by the Denver Post that contains some more information.

If you are evacuated and need a place to go. Contact me, we'll take you in.

JP

The Legions grows: Warmongers

The final miniatures for my Legion of Everblight army. I've yet to use these ogruns in a game, but I think this is just a matter of time. With the warspears and the war chief. I want to see this large mob going forward.

The color scheme is the same as the other ogruns: purple skin with fur and metal armor.

JP

Sunday, June 24, 2012

I'm published in Wargames Illustrated!

Back in 2009, I was reading the Foundry Newsletter where I read that they were looking for writers to build up a library of war game-related article to rebuild the library section they removed years ago. I wrote an article, about the Illyrian Rebellion of 6-9 AD and submitted it. This rebellion engulfed an area that covered Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia. It was a very unique and interesting conflict that included action by the first dynasty of Roman emperors: Augustus, Tiberius and Drusus (Caligula's father).

Fast forward three years.

After consistently not receiving replies to my requests for information, publication - and eventually payment - I decided I really wanted the article in print. Although I skim a few, the top one in my opinion, is Wargames Illustrated. So I went and submitted it to them to see if they would be interested in it.

They liked the article, its length (3,000 words) was the size they wanted. Dave informed me that they would look for minis to illustrate the article and that it would take a few months.

Fast forward a few months.

Wargames Illustrated 297 is on the way and guess what!? "Wolves Guarding the Flock" is currently out. I got to skim through it earlier today at Gamers' Haven. It was the first time I got to see the article formatted.

I have to say that I liked what I saw! The article looks really professional with the pictures. I cannot wait to get my own copy!

This is my first ever magazine article and I'm very proud of it. I want to thank a few people: my wife Julie for her patience, my mother for providing me with a "non-wargamer's point of view" and finally my good friend Linda for proof-reading the many, many, many mistakes I put into the writing. But the final results are there...

I am SO anxious to read. If you get your hands on it, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the article.

Hopefully it's just the beginning of a new "career" with many more articles to come.

JP

Friday, June 22, 2012

Random Bitz: a wagon

I've been working on wagons and beasts of burden (pack mules to come) for A5 Battle of Trovaska. Going through my piles of old stuff, I found this Warhammer Fantasy Battle pony-drawn wagon. Very very nice! It add a different look to the others. I'll have to post a picture with all of the wagons and beasts together. I'm sure it'll look very nice! Very eye-catching!

JP

Thursday, June 21, 2012

More Vikings!

Here are more vikings... Like the previous post on the vikings, these guys got a single coat of paint years ago, then were placed on a wood plank and left there to gather dust. When I dusted the other guys, these guys were relegated to the "second batch". Their location on the wood plank was the only reason for it.

The two mounted characters are from a pack of "Asgardian warriors" I got from "somewhere". They look more like fantasy barbarians than historical vikings. Still I think they look pretty good as viking leaders.

So, now I have completed my viking infantry. And as I do that, I am currently working on a couple (5) archers that I will post here soon.

JP

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Denver Comic Con 2012: Post-Mortem

With Denver Comic Con behind us, now is the time to reflect upon how it went, identify the mistakes and the issues and see how we can address them for next year.

Cuz let's be honest, it's all about next year at this point. And not just "getting by" next year, but making it really awesome.

This year, being the first Denver Comic Con had its growing pains. For me, as an organizer I found it very difficult to get timely information - and indeed any information at all. I have to give a big shout-out to Bill and Jacque Woods for sending a lot of information my way.

I considered pulling out completely a few times. In the end, I decided against it, preferring to keep up my part of the bargain and make the strongest statement I could do. A big reason for it goes to my Venture-Lefttenant, Martin Blake who offered to man the fort throughout the con while I attended my co-commitments of running Free RPG Day events down in Colorado Springs.

Some of the issues:

- The Con fell on the same day as Free RPG Day.

- The Con fell on Fathers' Day (and being a father, I like to be around my family on that day).

- Communication: This one is mostly for me. I had a fair amount of difficulty getting the information I needed to pass it to my GMs. This is the point I believe the con folks have acknoledged and I believe they will work hard to improve next year. I'm very happy of it too.

- For PFS, I would like to see a few "short intros" to the campaign to be run only here in Colorado. I already mentionned it to my Overlords and will see what happens. Having a few more 1h adventures would really be cool, especially in a con setting where many players walk in for an hour or two at the most.

- On site, the organization was pretty good: signs were up, the volunteers knowledgeable about where to send people and what was going on, the organizers gave me some great and direct information. That, to me was perhaps the strongpoint of the Con. I know its funny to put this in the issues, but I think that a lot of the work done before the con led to this. And I want to salute the volunteers and the organizers (particularly Lee and Matt) for their tireless work.

So thinking back on all of these issues, I would say they are growing pains and over the coming years, they will improve. That's great news because from what I was able to see, this could be the next "big thing" here in Denver. For with the loss of Bencon so many years back, the spring/summer period has been basically... Well it's been dead con-wise.

Number-wise, they are much smaller than Genghis Con or Tacticon, but it's a baseline on which to grow, that's for sure. We had 5 tables of PFS many with new players. Five different GMs (David, Orion, Christian, Martin and Everett) ran great games - seeing as many ComicCon attendees joined our yahoogroup after the con.

You will have no doubt noticed that I was not one of the GMs for ComicCon... That's right, I managed not to GM anything, and to play one game! But in the slot where I was doing "nothing" I did not stay idle. Martin and I went through the con hall. We checked out the Cosplayers and the booth babes (thank you girls!). What? You mean there were guys cosplayer too? I didn't see them. Then I spent a fair amount of time with the guys from the Wizard's Chest here in Denver. I got to learn the basics of Marvel/DC Heroclix, but also we talked about PFS. Check out the RMPathfinder Yahoo Group for any news on that...

So this is it... Denver Comic Con 1 is in the books. There are things to improve but I think those issues can be overcome and experience will tell in the coming years. Already before the end of the con, some announces were made: we would be at the Convention Center per se (not the Hyatt across the street), that Stan "The Man" Lee would be the guest of honor, and a number of other small things that only interests organizers. But a lot of positive. I will take from Comic Con that this is a great event and one I would like to see grow and become a staple in the gaming community.

JP

Monday, June 18, 2012

A Monster-Writing Contest!

Today I have a few elements I'd like to share with you. I know a fair number of you have been asking me for ways to get into the RPG industry. LPJ Design is currently running a monster-writing contest for their Obsidian Twilight/Apocalypse setting.

Yes, I will be participating.

I mean its a contest and I'm a sucker for contests.

Let me give you two links to get you started. The first one is the World of Abaddon available for free at RPG Now. The second is to the contest rules at LPJDesign.com. This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in getting some RPG design credit, the admiration of millions and the undying love of women across the world.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I FAILED MY BLUFF CHECK!?

Dang it.

Okay, maybe not this last part about the masses or the women, but it's definitely a way to get yourself noticed and get some writing credits. Worth a try don't you think?

JP

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

May Commissions: Martin's Pathfinder Society Mini!

I posted a while back about the three painted minis I offered for the Biking for MS. Martin Blake (the British VL for Sydney who may be moving to Denver) won one of the minis (I'm still waiting on John & Matt to tell me what they'd like...).

In Australia, Martin got a cert allowing him to play an ifrit: one of the half-fire elemental/efreet creatures (for full details about the ifrit, check out the PRD). After a quick look at the illustration, I was pretty fired up (hehehe the pun isn't that funny, but I had to). I've been thinking about making a flame-covered flesh for a while. And I have to admit that I met with more "failure" than success. No, I have not posted the many fails... I won't lie that though excited, I felt a little apprehension.

So now I had a mini with skin that would need some new types of effects. I toyed with the idea of adding green stuff to make flames on the body but after thinking about it, I decided against for two reasons: first, there wasn't enough skin on the model and second, my sculpting skills. Once primed, I placed the mini before me and took a good look at it. A fair amount of armor... I hesitated between painting the armor gold/brass or a silver/steel color. After some internal debate, I went with the steel as a means to provide some contrast with the fiery skin. Plus I could always use gold as an accent for the armor.

For the skin, I did a basecoat of typical "skin". Then did the highlights using an orange color and the result was surprisingly like the original illustration! Huzzah! With the skin tone a success, I moved back to the armor. Base steel, then some gold highlights. But I didn't like the result. It the highlights did not pop as I'd hope, maybe it was because of the skin, I'm not quite sure.

So I placed the mini next to a few pots: blues didn't look right, I was already planning on using green on the "skirt", and yellows clashed with the hair. I tried looked at purple, reds, browns. Finally I settled on a blood red (GW's red gore from the 1990s actually) because I thought it felt in the "theme" of the mini best. Just a few highlights of red replaced what used to be gold and the effect popped.

The hair was done in bright yellow. Using orange to give it a flaming appearance did not look right, but yellow shined. I liked...

Because much of the mini relied on bright, popping colors, I went with rather dull green for the skirt. Some simple accents of red and yellow brought it in-line with the rest of the mini.

Another one I'm very proud of! Hope Martin enjoys it!

There is one last part of this story... last night I met Martin face to face for the first time in a while... And I forgot his mini! So he'll be getting it as a "Comic Con Present". This post should give him an idea before getting his hands on the mini...


JP

Friday, June 8, 2012

Random Pics: Cryx and Mercenaries

I have been working on a number of side projects recently: World War One, Pathfinder characters, writing Call of Cthulhu, writing NeoExodus, getting ready for PaizoCon. In the middle of all that I managed to paint up a few creatures.

First I converted a non-tourney-legal Scavenger for the Cryx.

Second I painted up a unit of Croe's Cuththroats. These guys are great and fun to paint. Now I need to use them!



JP

Thursday, June 7, 2012

VIKINGS!

Years ago, I purchased these vikings from a bargain bin at my local Hobbytown. I gave them a base-coat, and put them on a holding plate, where they've been for at least 2 years (at least). Earlier this week, I looked at the collection of dust-gathering vikings and got the urge to get them painted again. Giving them a fresh touch-up, completed the paint jobs, I got them done.

I chose to paint the shields with a white cross on a red field. Then, I realized it was the flag of Denmark! So I guess I now have a mob of Danish vikings! I've been meaning to play Saga for a while, but it hasn't worked out for me... Need more play time (which also means less RPG/ writing)! SO I'll have an army ready to go when I finally get to play.

That said, these guys may make appearances as Janus Hordesmen in NeoExodus.




JP

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

PaizoCon: two wagons and a statue

As I gathered my goodies for Battle of Trovaska (the PaizoCon Interactive for NeoExodus), I realized that I needed a few more elements, particularly wagons and a larger statue. This past weekend, I spent an hour or two with the kids building these wagons. I used a few Popsicle sticks, balsa wood, old plastic wheels (from a short-lived collection of plastic 20mm Napoleonics) and one of my cheap-ass horses I won years ago. The kids liked gathering the bits for me. And I liked to let them do it.

I used the WSS infantry to give an idea of size and scale of the created items. I used them during the construction as well.

The statue at the bottom was created using an old Bandai miniature from a game I won years ago. The original base read "Navia Debora". Looking at the mini, I really thought it looked great and in the feel of NeoExodus.




JP

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

World War One: Over The Wire Germans

As promised, the Early War Germans. I prefer the late 19th Century/Early 20th dark blue to the khaki-green. I guess I'm just a sucker for the brightly colored uniforms of the 19th Centuries and before: red coated Brits, blue-clad French, white coated Austrian. Nice.

My comments for the OTW

The Forces I've assembled include two 5-men squads, two snipers (that can be used as normal soldiers), a flamethrower and a machinegun unit (with a very dynamic leader).






The only group of figs I have left to paint from these guys are the Turks... Those look extremely unhistorical so it might take some time to get them done. Then again who knows? I may watch one Lawrence of Arabia too many...

JP

Monday, June 4, 2012

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Trenches WWI British Figs

Years ago, while I was living in Ireland (wow, that's already 10+ year ago!), I bought some miniatures from "Over the Wire"'s line of "England Invaded" figs. They were the only World War One figures I have. When I began working on Dark Trenches, I went and dug through my boxes of unused stuff. And there they were... My Entente Infantry: British and French troops. I find that painting miniatures of a given period helps me to focus on that period. I don't want to say that I gain insight from it (it would be too strong a word) but it allows me to think and reflect on the period.

Back to "Dark Trenches", I have the miniatures painted up, but I chose not to use them. Because of the way the adventure itself is organized, using miniatures would detract from the horror of the whole thing. Dark Trenches is an adventure I find better played all - or mostly - in the mind. Ah the mind... Theater of the imaginary oh! the delicious horrors and monstrosities it can summon!

As a mini-review of the figs themselves, the sculpt is are not great, definitely not the same level as GW/ Foundry/ Privateer Press. They remind me of the older sculpts from Old Glory, but a little better. However they paint up very nicely and especially quickly! An average painter (such as myself) can make them look good with just a few basic colors. I painted them in an early war theme. This is particularly visible for the French with their red pants.

You will notice that one of the Frenchman - the machine gunner - is not like the other. I have a story about that mini. As I was looking through my bitz boxes to create the analyzer for Milka (see the iconics), I found an old WWI machine-gun I bought in a small shop in Paris called "Le Champs de Mars" as part of a bitz collection. It was a hole in the wall near the Bastille I used to visit every time I went to Paris. Last time I was in Paris, it was closed. Sigh. So that gunner is from Foundry. He's smaller and had a loader, but I can't seem to find him at this time...

I actually searched for the store and it's been gone so long that I wasn't able to find one link or reference to it on Google! Yikes!



Next time: The Germans.

JP