HistoriCon 2019 A new home. No more HOST

Pretty sweet for me. It is half the distance. I can be there in 10 minutes.

Historicon® 2019 Finds a New Home

The HMGS Board of Directors are excited to announce that Historicon® 2019 will be hosted at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square & Lancaster County Convention Center.
Features of the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square:
  Single through Quad Occupancy
$145 per NightIncludes Complimentary Overnight Self-Parking (normally $18.00 per night) with in & out privileges
New 12-story guestroom tower under construction
Complimentary guest-room Wi-Fi for any guests that are Marriott Rewards Members (free to sign up) 
No resort fees and complimentary access to pool and fitness center for all overnight guests 
Restaurants Within 1-3 Block Radius
88 Chinese Express
Annie Bailey’s Irish Pub
Aussie and the Fox
Bistro Barberet & Bakery
Bruno’s Sandwiches
Carr’s Restaurant
Character’s Pub
Cocina Mexicana
House of Pizza
Isaac’s Restaurant and Deli
Jimmy John’s
La Casa Bella Ristorante
La Dolce Vita Courthouse Bakery
La Piazza Italian Restaurant
Lancaster Cupcake
Lancaster Dispensing Company 		 Maison
Marion Court Room
On Orange
Passenger Coffee
Penn Square Grille
Pour Wine | Draft | Social
Prince Street Café
Sakura Asian Fusion
Silantra Asian Street Kitchen
Spyro Gyro
Subway
Sugar on Top
The Loft
The Pressroom
Tropical Smoothie Café
Yorgo’s Restaurant and Lounge 
  Across the street from the country’s oldest farmers’ market

Market Hours: Tue. 6:00a-4:00p, Fri. 6:00a-4:00p, Sat. 6:00a-2:00p

http://www.centralmarketlancaster.com/ 
Features of the LCCC:  https://lancasterconventioncenter.com/ 
90,000 sqft of meeting and event space
New carpeting in all meeting and pre-function areas
New LED lighting in Freedom Hall
Easy street access for unloading
Penn Square Parking Garage next door – 756 spaces
East King Street Garage 1 block away – 448 spaces
Prince Street Garage 1 ½ blocks away – 1,126 spaces
See You There in 2019!

Sudan project "Blue Jackets" part VII

          Back at the 20mm Colonial project. I had a day to devote myself to the Blue Jackets. A full 3 gun battery and 2 corner gatlings.

          3 bases (60 x 30) of Blue Jackets on the march. They could be column, open order, or skirmish formation. Plus one wounded dial marker.

         Love the Newline dudes. They are always clean casts. There is maybe some flash on 1 in 10. I don’t wash them or spend anytime on the bases to make them stand straight up.
           The gun is dark blue. I was editing out the bullshit pictures and came across a gun pic. The gun in the war museum is green with tan/yellow wheels. Well shit my wheel are green. I am not going back and repainting them.
The HAT dudes mounted on 60 x 60mm. Still WIP.
In the background the are Newline Design sailor on the painting block. One Artillery Officer on a 30mm round.
32 done to date. Goal is 700 this year. 668 to go in 300 days. I need to bang out greater than 2 a day.

NetEA Tau Vs Speed Freaks 3000 points

         We are playing at Gamers Keep in West Chester. It is a bit of a hike, almost in Philly, straight down 30. Steve let me know, we will need stuff to play. I am bring the terrain. The GW realm of battle FW table.
          It is a huge store. Tons of stock. Mostly every card board punch out game ever made. They have a 20 of tables, yet they are all below dick level. No proper wargaming tables. In height or size. If you go here, you will need to bring everything to play a game with you.

         Steve has just started to learn the game. I hope he got the most out of it. We talked about objective placement strategy, deployment, and target priority. In the end of the game, we hit upon some lessons, setting up assaults, and achieving/developing activation superiority.
         He had some shit luck with dice. His fightas failed to show in T3. He failed most saves.

         Speed Freaks are a tough army. If you were to play someone with stick time, like Eric or Chris, you will get your turd pushed by the end of turn 2. Once he gets that time behind the dice, Steve is going to club his own seals.

         Just remember. Don’t let them shoot you. Go punch someone in the face!

        I tried not to be an ass. Tau 5- 0. But it turned into a baby seal clubin! I am such an asshole.

My List

Steve’s list

Garrisons

Tau Pathfinders & Recon1
Orks Bike & Bike

Off table support

Tau Cuda1, Cuda2, Ocra w/ FWs, Ocra w/ Suits
Orks Fighta1, Fighta2, Fighta3

Teleports

Tau Stealth suits

Turn 1

Stealth suits teleport onto the RF. 1BM

Ork win initiative roll
O Buggies RF FAIL, FAIL SC reroll. Shoot Stealth, 1BM

T Ocra w/ FW targets Bikes RF. 7KIA BROKEN

Retain
T Stealth sustain targets Buggies RF. 4BM Disrupt

O Fighta1 ground attack targets Recon2. 1KIA, 2BM
Retain

O Fighta2 ground attack targets Ocra w/ FW. 1KIA 2BM

T Cuda1 ground attack FAILED

O BikeC FAILED removes BMs

T Cuda2 ground attack targets BikeC. 1KIA 2BM

O Trucks RF advances targets Ocra w/ FW. 4KIA BROKEN
T FW sustain targets Trucks RF. 1KIA 2BM
O Fighta3 ground attack Ocra w/ FW. 1KIA

T Recon1 Overwatch
O Buggies RF advance targets Recon1. 1KIA 2BM

T Ocra w/ suits targets Buggies RF.  ELIMINATED

O Buggies C advance targets Stealth. 1BM

T Recon2 advances targets Buggies LF.  4KIA 5BM BROKEN

O Trucks LF Over watched by Recon1 1KIA 2BM. advance targets Recon2 1KIA 2BM

T Broadsides advance target Trucks LF. 2KIA 3BM

O BTS advances targets PF. 1KIA 2BM

T PF advance target BTS 1BM
T Ion heads sustain targets BTS. 3KIA 4BM

Rally

Everyone

Turn 2

Orks win initiative roll
O BuggiesC sustain targets Stealth. 1KIA BROKEN
T Suits advance targets Buggies RF. 6KIA 7BM BROKEN
Retain
T PF FAILED removes BM
O BikeC engage targets PF. Irks loses. Orks BROKEN. PF 1BM
T Recon1 sustains targets BTS. 1BM
O Fighta1 ground attack targets Suits. 1BM
Retain
O Trucks RF FAILED shoots Suits. 1KIA 2 BM
T Broad sides Over Watch
O Bikes RF engages targets PF. Orks lose BROKEN. PF 2BM
T Cuda1 ground attack FAILED
O Trucks LF sustains targets Recon2. 1BM
T Recon2 advances targets Buggie LF. 3KIA BROKEN
Retain
T Ion heads FAILED shoots BTS 1KIA 2BM
O BTS Over watched by Broadsides 4KIA BROKEN
T Cuda2 ground attacks targets BTS. 1KIA
O Fighta2 Intercept targets Cuda2 1BM

T Ocra ground attack targets BTS 1KIA
O Fighta3 ground attack targets Suits. 1BM BROKEN
T Ocra ground attacks BTS. 2KIA ELIMINATED
T FW march for T blitz
T FW double targets BikeC. 3KIA

Rally

T Stealth & Suits Rally
O Buggie LF & Bike RF Rally
O Buggie RF, Bike C BROKEN

Turn 3

Tau win initiative
T Stealth engage targets Trucks RF 5KIA Broken
O BikeRF FAILED BROKEN
T Broadsides advance targets Trucks LF. 2KIA 3BM
Retain
T Recon2 sustain targets Trucks LF. 2KIA 3BM BROKEN
O Trucks RF advances targets Recon2. 1BM
T Suits double targets Truck RF. ELIMINATED
O Fighta1 FAILED
T FW FAILED move to my blitz
O Fighta FAILED
T Recon1 FAILED shoots Buggies LF 1BM
O Fighta3 FAILED
T Cuda1 FAILED
T Cuda2 FAILED
T Ocra ground attacks targets Buggie RF 1KIA
T Ocra ground attack targets Buggie RF 2KIA
T Ion heads March for Ork Blitz
T FW FAILED shoots Buggie C 2KIA ELIMINATED

Warmaster Weekend "Skirmishers"

          Skirmishers. It is great to have some multi-taskers. Those dudes will fit the role across the various armies. I will just need enough to cover two armies worth of spear chuckers. Their clothing is taken from Roman references to represent Italians. (mostly ancient warfare)
Touch ups and spear points. Two more units down.

Every stand will get based all at once. That way they all will match.

NetEA Tau Manta test weekend.

         Off to CT to play with the New England group. They are about 25 strong. 11 are playing this weekend. I am the only one coming up from the PA group.

          I will be the testing monkey for the Tau. The Manta is a giant beast of a mini. It is rare and expensive toy to own. Manta sucks badly. The beast is hardly ever fielded. It is so bad, I won’t take it any more.
        Now I did try and make it work. To make something work. I played it for 2 months, including a weekend with the New England group and it went to the Fall In tourney.
        The 650 points never earns back its value. It is too slow for Tau. It suffers from a weapon system mismatch. Instead of having a defined role, it tries to be a jack of all trades. Long dong silver MW, x4 AA, mid range AT, short range AP. What range is it really deadly at? 90, 75, 45? It ain’t fucking 30, because your going to give away 1 point! BTS. The purposed change is to reduce points 575 and give it 2 MW+3 shot instead on the 1.

Weapon Range Firepower Notes
Twin Heavy Railcannons 90cm MW2+ Fixed Forward Arc, Titan Killer (D3)
3 Heavy Ion Phalanx 75cm AP3+/AT4+ Fixed Forward Arc
4 Twin Manta Burst Cannons 30cm AP5+/AA6+ –
Twin Missile Pods 45cm AP5+/AT6+ Fixed Forward Arc

2 Seeker Missiles 90cm AT6+ Guided Missiles

        The purposed change is to reduce points 575 and give it 2 MW+3 shot instead on the 1. Then there is a whole list of upgrades. I am not interested in upgrades. The beast is too expensive. Why would you voluntarily make it more expensive?

Original Fall In list

 Adjusted Fall In list

        My thoughts regarding the toy are based on my experiences with Fall In and the primer games for it. I will take the same list. The point savings to spread around to make shit meaner. 
        Other differences.  Skyways as units of 3, I am not a fan of any more. It is gone. The skyways points are upgrades for skyways. Rail heads for Ion heads.

I got IG in the first game. The IG had death strike launchers. Can you guess how that went? I teleported Stealth suits on top of them. They were blasted off by manticores. The retain saw the Death Strike double launch the Manta off the table. (blew up on crits)

Second game was Dave orange Eldar, ghosts in suits. This game went down to the last activations in turn 3. Dave blew up the Manta in the bottom of two. It held up but never moved off the Blitz. The best performance came when he was silly enough to march up into marker light range. It took four activations to down it.

So……..it is too slow and still too expensive. It will earn its points back if someone is dumb enough to feed units to it. I am thinking it should be made into an aircraft or allowed to planetfall without a space ship. If allowed to planet fall without a space craft, it could became a variable landing craft. (a thunder hawk) 

NetEA Blood Angels Vs Eldar 3000 points

         All the international internet theory hammer bullshit going down lately had me shelf the Tau. I will be testing some of their great ideas. (remember, he who fucks with that which works is a stupid mofo) Armies and lists work differently for each person. Part of it is your idea of what the army should be capable of and mostly your style. You can copy someone’s championship list. You will do good, but you won’t get the results they did. The is YOU. With that in mind playing someone’s idea wish list, sucks if it is not your idea.

          So Thursday night I wanted to play something fun. Blood Angels have not seen the light of day in years. A stop off at storage and straight to 6 Feet under.

         I got beat so bad it was a crime scene. Kal sexually abused my sweet candy ass in turn one. I was back in the foam before turn two finished. Must units never got off the starting line.

Tau Vior’la dev-list WIP

        Last game I was short on tanks. Also noticed my Cudas didn’t match. 6 more Ion Heads completed. (no picture) And all the Cudas were painted to match. Some extra Recons. (no clue where the bases went to??) New Skyrays

I think its a ghost keel? Ripetide? whatever?

 Special dudes, get special bases. That and all the french bases are buried somewhere in one of two storage units. Round epic base flipped over. Some old copies of the FW roads were broken up, along with the GW ruins, and cork chunks tossed in.

 Everything was shot with a gray home depot primer.

 Next painted with foundry 76A

Everything wash with MIG.

FoF flocking.

         The weapon caches and EIDs have been in the paint line for 3 years. Prior to 2014? They were painted up and based down in Argentina. For some reason I never packed their flocking sand. Yes every army has it own flocking material.  The Colonial dudes are based in building/construction sand. The Tau are based in a pink/red sand taken from Fire something or other canyon by Vegas.
         The dudes were primed before I left for Argentina. They were painted up down there. All my Africans, Afghans, and Middle Eastern dudes get the same flock. It is the desert mix from Battlefield Concepts. Only the Zombie dudes get a green grassy flock.
Tier 1 operators & Camera crews
7 Zombies awaiting the location of their flock. 4 gators for Egypt and the Sudan.
Child soldiers, Africans & Foreign Fighters
Afghans
        These 2 mini boxes need repairs. They were packed two years ago and made the round trip. The cotton securing the dudes stuck to about 12 or 14. Some warm water and a tooth brush fixed it.

Warmaster Weekend "Transfers"

          I am back at it. Some slingers and extra Heavy INF on the painting block.

          Ahhh these dam transfers. After these last units, I will be painting the shields. This has turned into a giant black hole for time. I am about 35 bucks into transfer paper, microset, and matte coat. It is slowing me down to a point where the project is not moving along.

 If you don’t get too close, they look great. I have to go back and paint the edges of the shields.

         These have to be the worst transfers ever. I have never had such a problem.