Orcs, Elves, and a Big Skull O my!

Well I finally got of my duff & took a few pictures of my Mordor Orcs that I promised a few updates ago, so here are a few shots. This is a group of converted Morannon Orcs using bits from the Minas Tirith warriors.

The next picture is of my Orc Swordsmen using the same bits from the Warriors of Mins Tirith.

Here is a shot of my Warg Riders, I currently have 8 out of 12 done:

The last two shots are of my Mordor Standard bearer & the Orc Captain.

Also here is my next project that I'm working on. It's a Elven force from Rivendall for the upcomming Campaign day event that I'm running on February 11th at Imperial Outpost. I'm really not playing but organizing the event & will only play if we have an odd number of players. Because of this I had to put together a good force to play not knowing what side I will be playing on. So I will either have the Good side with 250 points of elves (only 18 models) or I will use my Orcs. But reguardless I need to get started on painting really soon.

Now here is a shot of some Tactical miniatures that I painted up a while ago. have not used them in a game but looking forward to.

In my last post I included shots of my Sisters of Battle, well I have two Inquistors that I'm working on for the force and this guy is going to be the more Radical Inquistor, hence the Golden armour. This is an old figure that my good friend Rob B gave me. He had been wanting to use him for awhile & when I told him about my Radical Inq, he gave me this guy. Most folks that see him don't even know he is an older Games Workshop figure, from around the 80's I think.

He is still a long way off from being done, but he is getting there.

The last picture comes from a friend over across the pound in England, Tim Eagling. He recently went on holiday (vacation for us here in the states) to Paris Disneyland over Christmas. I asked him i he could snap off a few pictures of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride & Skull Rock for me. As soon as I saw the shot I loved it, this will be my next terrain project I think...

Thats it for now, off to paint...

TK

Not much painting, but alot of gaming going on!

So there you go, I had hoped to have more painting done as of late, but I have been distracted by playing a few new games. First game that I tried this monday was Victory at Sea by Mongoose Games

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/ basicly it's a WW2 Sea battle game pitting the Axis & Allies navies against each other. The game system is very much like there Babylon 5 rules with a few modifications. My friend Mike G brought the game over and we played a historical match up of two arch enemies the British verse the Germans. The match up was of four ships, the Prince Eugene & Bismark for the Germans, the British had the Hood & King George. Mike allowed me to play the Germans & he took the British. After reading through the rules we set out to play the game. The rules are very simple and fast playing, although Mike & I agree that the rules are biased towards the Germans, which is strange for a rules set written by English authors. The game lasted about an hour and a half with us looking up few rules. And all in all it went well. The only problems we had were the turning templates that came with the rules. They are only one sided and the are not evenly marked so if you turn to one side you have a greater move distance. Mike is planning on copying the template to clear asitate so you can flip it over and still see the markings. The other issue was were to measure from the ship counters provided. The rules state you measure from the red dot on the counters, but there are none. But all in all the game was very enjoyable and Mike has gone out & purchased GHQ models of British, Germans, Americans & Japanese ships. So we will be playing again.

After playing VaS we busted out another game Mike brought over which was Supersystems

which can be bought from Old Glory http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/ as well as about 15 figures from the Westwind line. One of my other friends Brandon f came over to check out the game. So once again Mike gave us a brief of the rules, and then we choose three figures each for our Super Hero teams. I had Grav Girl, T Bolt & Tekton, Mike had The Siberian, Emerald Alien, and Wildman, Brandon had Rigger, Adder & Saber Skull. The mission, to beat the crap out of each other & see who still stood after the cloberin time was over.

The game uses action points and at first I was very leery of this having played many FASAs games that use Action points. But this system worked out very well. In fact the rules reminded me of Lord of the Rings by GW. You have to make what the system calls Goal Rolls of 4,5 or 6's on a D6 dice roll. This is used for everything and is what feels like LotR when you fight. All in all the rules work very well & this is a game I will be playing more of. In fact I now have the rules (Thanks to Mike) and have been going through reading them so I do better the next time.

By the way, Brandon was the one who one the bash and we all had a blast playing. Now Mike G is supposed to be painting up some of his figures for the next time we play.

I have also been busy assembling the new Warhammer Empire figures for Mike G. He has no patience for assembling models, so I get the fun job of doing it in trade for more lead & plastic. I have to say the new plastic Empire troops are crap! I don't like them. They have too much detail sculpted on them and only allow a very limited number of poses. GW also has switched to a new type of plastic that is a dark grey color & is a little more flexiable than the previous plastic. My complaint is that mold lines are harder to clean up, the plastic seems to score more when using jewlers files & you can see the grooves it causes in the plastic. My advice to Mike was to look for the older plastic models, but he has already bought everything for the army, so I now have to deal with it for him.

So there you have it, been distracted by new games & new toys, man I'm so weak!

TK

Lord of the Rings Event 2/11/07

Well,

Have not had time to paint in the last few days, been busy getting a Lord of the Rings event organized at my local shop. here are the particulars:

Lord of the Rings Campaign Day
Date: February 11, 2007, Place: Imperial Outpost Games, Time: 10:00am, Cost: $10.00

This event will be a campaign driven tournament. Players will sign up in either the “Evil side” or the “Good Side”. Players will then be divided into teams that will compete against each other for “World Domination of Middle Earth!”, while the individual players compete for the titles of “WARLORD!” or “CHAMPION” of Middle Earth

TOURNAMENT RULES
Scale: 25/28mm armies. They should be painted but not necessary although bonus points will be handed out for fully painted armies. You may also use non LotR figures for this as long as they follow WYSIWYG rule. WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) rule is in effect for this event, so models must be armed appropriately so as no confusion occurs during the event.

Rules: We will be using the rules from the Lord of the Rings Rulebook, NO House rules will be in play. The following errata/additions will be used Legions of Middle Earth & the Lord of the Rings Rulebook FAQ found here http://us.games-workshop.com/errata/errata.htm
Table size: All games will be played on a 4’x4’ table. Terrain will be randomly determined, but preset on the tables prior to the tournament start. Players will not move terrain, it will remain in place, but players will move between the tables. If a player ends up on a table that he already played on, he must use the other side. Otherwise, each player rolls 1d6 and the high roller then picks the side of the table he wants to use.
Army size: Players need to bring 250 points maximum of appropriate troops for their army. Armies must follow the army list as laid down in the Legions of Middle Earth Expansion Book.
Restrictions: No Named Heroes may be taken at all and you must include a Captain to lead your force. The only rules that will not be in play are for the newest supplement Ruin of Arnor.
What to bring: You must bring two copies of your Roster (one for the judges & the other for your opponent to look at). You must also bring the appropriate troops that you are fielding for the event. Also please bring your rulebook or any relevant supplements that you are using for your list. Also bring dice, tape measure, paper & pen.
Teams: Players will be divided into 2 teams for each of the sides prior to start. Players on each team will then roll off (1d6 with high die winning) for command of their side for the first round. The commanders for each side will then roll off (1d6 with high die winning) to determine the match-ups. The winning commander picks who from his team will fight which opposing player; the losing commander then picks which table this battle will take place on. The losing commander chooses the second match-up, with the winning commander picking the table for the game. The commanders alternate in this fashion until all players are paired off for the first round.

Game 1: Meeting Engagement Follow all guidelines for this scenario as listed on the sheet.
Between Games 1 and 2: Scores will be recorded and the commander for each side will now be the high-scoring player from Game 1.
Game 2: I’ll met by Moonlight Follow all guidelines for this scenario as listed on the sheet.
Between Games 2 and 3: Scores will be recorded and the commander for each side will now be the player with the highest cumulative score.
Game 3: Take & Hold Follow all guidelines for this scenario as listed on the sheet.
Between Game 3 & 4: Scores will be recorded to see which armies per side are the top leaders, then the players will be paired up as follows: Top 2 armies leading will be paired and then the next top 2 will be paired. So that there are tow teams per side (2 teams for Evil against two teams of Good). Then these two Teams will fight against the opposing Top 2 teams for the final Battle.
Game 4: To the Death! Follow all guidelines for this scenario as listed on the sheet. But for scoring the winning side will split the points awarded.

Awards: Overall (Top Score) - Best Sportsman - Best painted

Really looking forward to this, off course I'm the Odd man out, so the only way I will get to play is if someone can't make it. Right now we have 8 players that are supposed to be comming. The other thing is that I need to paint up a Good Force for the event. Right now all I have painted are my Mordor Orcs (which I still havn't posted pics of!). So I think I will go with a Rivendall Elven force which will give me about 18 figures. That means I have only 18 figures to paint, with me having to go out & buy 10 figures this weekend. So I should be busy with painting in the next few days...

TK

Pirates & SOB's

Tonight I have a few Pirates that I was working on for the Pirate Project. These are a few Old Glory figures. Some may notice a few of the Pirates from the Old Glory Army deal, not sure if any of them are for sale yet. So here we go,

This is a conversion from a Foundry pirate & some GW parts.

Here is one of the Pirate Captains from the Old Glory Army Deal.

Here is another one

Here are two Pirates from the Looting Range of pirates from Old Glory

Now I also have been painting up a few Sisters of Battle (SOB's) that I got from a good friend. I have about 40 Sisters painted & tow units of ten Seraphim done. I also have a few Heavy weapons taken care of.

TK

RNC's

Here is a few pictures of some sailors that I painted up for the pirate project I have been working on for the past two years. These are Old Glory figures from the European line of sailors.

Here are a few shots of the various sailors from above. Once again these are sailors that I use for my pirate project that I'm working on.

TK

Lord of the Rings & Things

Well last night I decided to do some painting, so here is what I started last night. So heres a well known elf.

Now for a famous Dwarf

and now a famous Wizard

And here are a few shots of a Robs Urk hai from a game last week.

Will post more later...

TK

A Friends New Blog

I have a new Blog to report, my good friend Rob Brightwell has put together a painting blog with some cool pictures on it of his newest work. Take a look @

http://dspaintingblog.blogspot.com/

Something that i have to point out is his nice little painting Cube. Rob has all the details about it, but it's something that I have been wanting to do for some time because I'm getting tired of carrying all my paints out to the dinning room every night to paint. The wife is not that understanding about me leaving all my stuff lying around on the dinner table. I guess it's time for me to start looking for something like Rob got...

To Paint or Not to Paint?

I have been motivated to play more of GW awesome Lord of the Rings game lately, not sure why, but having a blast with it. So for the longest time my figures have been largely unpainted for this, but I have been bitten by the painting bug to get them finished. I think this is partly due to me not wanting to play with unpainted minis out in public. Let me explain.

The guys I game with are for the most part Historical players and we have an unspoken rule about using unpainted stuff. Well it’s really not a rule, we just don’t do it! This unspoken rule has a plus & a negative to it. The plus side is that you get to face off against nicely painted armies or figures. The negative side is that you usually don’t get to play much because you are painting most of the time.

I started wondering why that is and I think I might have figured it out, well why I don’t anyway. Besides gaming, I have been an avid model builder & model railroader. This seems to be the reason why I don’t like playing with unpainted stuff. I have noticed that whenever I go to a game shop I always will stop and watch a game with painted figures over non painted stuff. The best way to advertise your “game” is to have nice looking stuff on the table. Eye appeal is everything, and nice looking stuff will always catch people’s eyes. Take for instance a few weeks ago while I was at my local game shop, there was a huge mega-game of 40K going on. It had about 6 or 8 people playing. The only thing I could tell you was that there was a lot of grey plastic & silver metal on the board. I couldn’t even tell you what armies were being used.

Now there was a game of Battle Fleet Gothic being played as well with two fully painted Imperial fleets slugging it out over some distant planet. Both players were new to the game and were playing on a nice space board that was reversed painted on Plexiglas (painted on the bottom side). The each had two cruisers and a few escorts and played for about 45 minutes. This game was going on at the same time as the huge Mega-battle but you can tell which one I watched.

So to make a long story short, this is why I have been busting my butt on getting the Mordor Orcs painted. I figure if I have nicely painted stuff, than other people will stop and watch our game and maybe inspired to paint up there stuff. I will try and post pictures in the next few days of my progress since I have a game coming up on Monday against a few friends…

Christmas Haul

So, what did I get for Christmas…

This seemed to be the year of DVDs for me, here’s what my friends & loved ones got me.

Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Mans Chest 2 disc DVD. My wife got this for me, really a no brainier since I told everyone that I wanted it. Spent Christmas morning watching all the bonus features about the movie, some great stuff on the second disc.

My mom sent me a $50.oo gift certificate to Best Buy, I had received that on the 23rd of December so off I went to fight the crowds. I was looking for the Band of Brothers DVD set, but it was a little more than I had ($67.00 but I heard on the 24th it was half off! Arrggghh!). So I picked up a classic Sci Fi movie, Logan’s Run (1976) got this gem for only $7.00. I also picked up the Chronicles of Riddick Trilogy. I didn’t know there was a third movie, which there isn’t but it’s a 30 minute cartoon that takes place in-between Pitch Black & Chronicles. Pretty good stuff. I also picked up two CD’s one Disciple Scars Remain http://www.disciplerocks.com/ and Mute Math http://www.mutemath.com/ both Christian bands. Disciple is very hard & edgy and Mute Math is a cross between Sting/U2/Linkin Park all rolled together.

My In-law’s sent me a $40.00 gift card to Hollywood video, so on the 24th I headed off with my son to see what I could get there. Once there Hollywood video was having a buy 2, get 2 DVDs free, so we dove into the DVDs looking for movies. What we came up with were, Kingdom of heaven, The Great Raid, Doom & I know this one doesn’t make sense, but the Lakehouse (that one was for my wife).

I also received from my good friend Brandon F, a plate of home made cookies (which he makes every year, but all I like are his Cheese Cake cookies) and as a surprise he gave me a Pirate board game by a German company, looks pretty good but I have not opened it up yet, so we will see.

Also I got to play some games over the Christmas weekend as well. I got to play Legends of the Old West & some Lord of the Rings with my good friends Tom O & Mike G. We played a three way battle of LotOW and sadly my Mexican Banditos were the first to run for the hills & I was the first one out of the game.

I did better with the LotR game which was a 400 point per side with Tom & Mike taking 200 points each (Riders of Rohon & a Minas Tirith with Elven allies). I took Cirth Ungol Orcs and by the 7th or 8th turn I had the game won. So a good day for gaming.

So all in all a very good Christmas was had, the only thing that would have been better was to have my family from California out to spend the holidays with us, but there is always New years…

How I will spend Christmas

Well that time is upon us, and for me besides the traditional stuff, I look ahead to the New Year and what it will bring. That usually means taking a look at what I got done this year and what I painted, then the reflection moves to next years projects.

So let’s take a stroll down memory lane of 2006 and see what I accomplished.

I wrote my own rule set based on Pirates and will have them published in the very near future.
I finished… well not much really. The Pirate project kept me very busy all through the year. I did start a few projects so maybe I will list off what I started instead of listing what I did.

So with that, I started…
Painting a huge Sister of Battle army I got from Lonnie G. but I only got to about 60 figures out of the 250+ models I got from him. I will post up a few pictures once I get further along.
I started a Mongol army that I got from Robert B, this army has traded many hands but no one really took up the challenge of painting it. Well when I got it from Robert, I based all the figures on GW cavalry bases, but that was about all I did. Maybe this army has a curse on it???
Got two platoons of Imperial Guard figures from my friend Brandon. He has had a platoon of metal Mordians & Valhallans for some time now. Well after some trading & begging I finally got those figures from him. Now for years Brandon only had them in bare metal. Once I got them, I primed them white, then stuck them into a box to never see the light of day for the rest of the year. Hmm perhaps these are cursed as well…
Continued working on painting 15mmWW2 figures for my friend Tom O. I took on this project as a trade for something, but now I can’t remember what, but Tom does. You see Tom took advantage of the Old Glory sale and purchased a huge part of there 15mm line for WW2 for Flames of War. Tom didn’t have the time to paint so he asked if I would paint them. Well I started with the Tanks and busted them out pretty quick, but now I’m down to the infantry & I swear I think they are multiplying! I’m sure these are cursed!
Also for Tom O I took on building some cool 28mm tanks from Pig Iron in trade for some GW Space marine scouts, but as far as I got was washing the models down and that’s it. Hmm I think I hear the C word coming again…

There are also other projects that are still around from 2005 (28mm buildings for Mike, Near Future project for Tom, LotR projects, LotOW Projects) as well as my own 28mm WW2 collection I’m working on and a whole lot of other projects too.

So what are my plans for 2007, well I would like to say I will finish up all of these projects & start something new, but realistically I will probably still be working on the Pirate project, so that will be answering questions about the rules, painting Pirates, and playing demo games of Pirates as well as running a campaign or two.

So I guess I’m cursed to never finish projects, Oh well, A Pirates Life for Me!

About my Hobby Part II

Well I left off with me getting involved with WAB, so I will just go from there…

So after getting the WAB armies up, I was soon corrupted by Rob B to start playing a neat little game called Necromunda by Games Workshop. Rob soon organized a group of us (Myself, Brandon F, Lonnie J, Tom O, Dave C) into a campaign and we played for a few weeks straight. Rob & I also were commissioned by Darren at Imperial Outpost to build some cool Necro/40Kish terrain.

Soon after that my interests started to turn to more skirmish style games. I found that I really loved the Necromunda system (I had also played Mordheim) and soon was looking for similar games. Rob had put together a cool modification of the necromunda rules for World War II and we started playing that.

Rob & I continued to play this mod of Necro and soon Rob talked me into playing 40K, 4th edition. But I really never got into it until that version until the published the Trial rules. After that I was hooked and it seemed that 40K was my new game. I jumped headlong into building a Night lords army but soon lost interest. What I always wanted to play was Imperial guard, but I couldn’t justify paying the price for the metal troops. That all changed when GW released the Plastic Imperial Guardsmen. I soon had a huge army of plastic men to assemble and paint. Well long story short I know have a good sized IG army along with a small collection of tanks & vehicles (40 or so!). My friend Lonnie also gave me his huge (250+) Sister of Battle army that was unpainted. So now I have two huge Imperial armies to play with.

After painting so many IG figures, I needed a break and about that time Warhammer historical released Legends of the Old West, a skirmish game set in the Old West. I soon was hooked and started collecting Cowboys & Desperados and soon had a campaign going. I also was distracted by the Lord of the Rings game along the way & have only now started playing it (it’s my replacement for WHFB).

So there you have it, 25 years of gaming wrapped up into two short stories. When I look back I can’t believe all the games I have played (and still play!) and the friends I have met. Now on to another 25 years gaming…

Whats with the name??

So some may ask whats with the name?

Well the name comes from the Disneyland ride pirates of the Caribbean. If you have been on the ride you used to hear it after seeing the treasure pile and a ghostly voice would say:
“Perhaps ye knows too much. Ye’ve seen the cursed treasure. Ye knows where it be hidden. Now proceed at your own risk.

Well thats where it comes from!

So why did I use that for the name, well I'm glad you asked. As some of you know, I have been working on a little project that has to deal with Pirates for my gaming. I have been reading books, watching movies, going on rides, and doing everything I can to learn about pirates for this project. Hopefully in a few more weeks I will be able to announce this project to the world, but until then...

Dead men tell no tales.....

About my hobby

So what is this blog about & who am I?

Well my name is Tim Kulinski, I reside in the Valley of the Sunstroke, Phoenix Arizona. This blog will be about my passion with war gaming as well as any other thoughts or rants that pop up.

So on to my hobby, I have been a gamer since I was 13 and it all started with the red box edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I then advanced to the Advanced D&D system about a year later. I have to say that I absolutely loved the old TSR products & I used to save my allowance to purchase the books. Back then the only cost about $15.00 for a hard bound book (The old DMG guide & Players Handbook). So I feverishly purchased them every two weeks from my lawn cutting money.

Shortly after getting into D&D, I found a wonderful company called Grenadier and back then they released Official D&D miniatures. That’s what started me into minis and I soon found companies like Marauder, Citadel, and Ral Partha to go along with the Grenadiers. In fact I still have a bunch of those old minis & some are still being used today.

My gaming stayed primarily RPG’s (Role Playing) with title like Star Frontiers, Gama World and other classic TSR title. I also started to branch out by playing Star Trek by FASA games which then lead to Battletech. I never really jumped into the Games Workshop games, but was aware of them. Until my wife & I went into a local shop (Quest Games) and she suggested we purchase Space Hulk. You see my wife loved the 2nd Aliens movie and Space Hulk reminded here of it. So we happily plunked down $40.00 and went home and played Space Hulk.

Well after we played a few games with friends the fever spread & we soon ended up buying Blood Bowl (the version with the old Astrogranite board). This lead to some friends (Jeff O, Don G, Pat O, and my brother) buying their own BB games & purchasing the GW teams.

After the BB fever subsided, I was soon looking at other GW products like Warhammer Quest, Space Marine, and Warhammer Fantasy Battle. WHFB soon became the game I started to play & I soon was a proud owner of an Undead Army, then followed an Empire Army, High Elf Army & Orcs. But my main focus was on the Undead.

Then the unthinkable happened, My Company moved me from Southern California, to Phoenix Arizona! The reason why it hurt was that I was going to a new city with no friends to game with. Well once the family (My wife, Son & three Cats) got settled in I went out looking for Game shops here in the valley. I visited many shops, but the one that was closest was Imperial Outpost rune by Darren Johnson on 43rd & Cactus.

Imperial soon became my new home and I soon struck up a friendship with Darren and started to build terrain for him. Darren soon prompted me to play in a few of his WHFB tournaments and soon found a good group of guys to game with (Brandon, Mike & Jim). We gamed a lot of WHFB and we still do some gaming today even though we are all so busy.

Then one day at work a co-worker (Kathy B) mentioned that her husband Rob played with “little toy soldiers” and that we should meet. So we set up a time to meet at Imperial Outpost and I soon had a new friend by the name of Rob B. He and I had the same background with gaming & I often wonder if we were not twins separated at birth since he has the same likes that I do. You can see Robs stuff here at:
http://robert.bluedream.com/

Well Rob does primarily historical gaming and I had been getting tired of just playing WHFB and been wondering about trying something new. Rob introduced me to the North Phoenix Irregulars, which is a Non Club of guys that do mostly historical games. And when I mean non Club, it’s basically a group of guys that play whenever & whatever they want.

Anyhow, most of the guys play Warhammer Ancients Battle (WAB) and this was the game that got me to do historical gaming. After consulting with Rob & a new friend Tom O, I decided on doing a Viking Army from the Shieldwall book.. Soon followed a Norman army & I have acquired a Mongol army as well.

More later…

Test

Trying out posting pics, how about this??

Well I did it!

Well I finally did it, I started my own blog after thinking about it for years. I hope to add to it weekly, but we will see...

TK