Short tip: Use your own distilled water

If you live in a region like me where tap water can be pretty chalky you can have some problems with thinning your paints because the chalk and other minerals in your water can leave residues on your miniatures. Especially if you thin colors for your airbrush or mix your own glazes. If you are very unlucky it already can cause trouble when you use a wet palette, although I never experienced that before.

Yes, you can overcome this by using a glaze medium or specialized airbrush thinners, but these are somewhat expensive.
Or you switch to distilled water which is in most regions I know of pretty cheap.

But as you know me, I am always in the search for saving money so that I can spend it on more useful projects.
Therefore: if you have a tumbler which collects the water instead of blowing the hot air out, you can get your distilled water for free.

Maybe it is not chemically perfectly cleaned distilled water (I am not sure it is 100% cleaned of all minerals since for that you would have to boil the water) but at least it is WAY more "soft" as in less chalky than before.
Every tumbling will give you 1-2 liters of water, so it would be a waste of just pouring it into the sink. You can also use it if you have a steam iron or as addition to your window cleaner. Or even for your flowers, but then only if you fertilize because, as said, the minerals are already washed out.

But don't drink it! At least be careful with it, because it CAN cause issues because of the osmosis happening in our cells it can drain out too much of the potassium or sodium ions if you don't have a balanced diet.

Hope that tip was somewhat useful for you.


So long,
Paradox0n

Angel Giraldez: Masterclass Vol. 2 - Ready for preorder

Corvus Belli: Imperial Agent Crane Rank

I think I mentioned it in one of my older posts: I got my hands on the Masterclass Volume 1 from Angel Giraldez (a review following soon). If you followed him on Facebook, you could see that he is working on a Volume 2 and since today it is ready for preorder!

For those who don't know what this book is about, a short teaser video from Covus Belli:

So is this book something for someone who doesn't play Infinity? Sure!
Is it something for me? It depends. But not on your preference of the game but more on your skill level. Some of the recipes shown in the book are no step-by-step guide (although Angel calls them that) but are more like chaining previously shown techniques together (even if they were only shown briefly).
If Volume 2 continues to be like that (which I think it will, if not directed more to pro-painters) and you are an absolute beginner, then there are better fitting books/tutorials out there. If you want to look at awesomely painted miniatures and need something to improve your basic skills, than you should think about getting it.

This time the limited miniature will also be only available when preordering the book, so think about it until November 14th ;)

What you will get:

Painting miniatures from A to Z, Ángel Giráldez Masterclass Volume 2
Recommended retail price: 45,00 €
Number of pages: 152
Format: A4
Cover: Paperback
Language: English

So long,
Paradox0n

Back from Andalusia

I am back from a well earned and thoroughly needed vacation. This time my wife and I did a long wished trip to Andalusia to have a look at all the Moorish influenced monuments and stuff. This was also something on our bucket list, so the Alhambra in Granada and Mezquita in Cordoba are now crossed out :)

It was a very nice experience, we planned the trip ourselves (after getting some offers from agencies which were incredible expensive) and went with a rental car and tent on a round trip to Andalusia. For cost saving reasons we started in Madrid (flights and rental cars were much cheaper there) and accepted the 4 hours drive to Granada. We had then 11 days to to all the crazy sight-seeing and driving around including some hiking trips and where blown away by the differences and the strong Arabic influences in this region. In Granada we even saw signs to the monuments in Arabic!

Our tour was like: Madrid → Granada & Capileira → Torre del Mar & Malaga → Grazalema & Ronda → Sevilla → Cordoba → Madrid. So it was quite a hardcore tour ;) Especially since we tried to get to all of the monuments and cathedrals possible. I think we did every day some kind of a 15 - 20 km walking trip.

We made zillions of pictures (ok only 1100) and have to sort all the impressions and stuff now. So I think I will make another post with some of the pictures from the trip.

Was it worth it? Absolutely!
Hope you all also had a good time the last 3 weeks :)


So long,
Paradox0n

Kings of War Official Errata and FAQ v1.4

The newest Errata and FAQ for Kings of War is out. If you are interested you can find the document here.

It is pretty compact and not so many changes are in, if you are only interested in the difference to the last one, I have the changes (which are marked red in the document) for your convenience:

Errata

Core Rulebook
Undead Armies, Touch of Darkness may only be given to a unit with the Shambling special rule.

Destiny of Kings
Rordin the Dwarf, change to Inspiring (Dwarf Army List only). He will only inspire units from the Dwarf army list.

Demon Lord Ba’el, Bane of the Mortal Kingdoms, He has Thunderous Charge (2) rather than Thunderous, and Charge (2).

Historical
Slings are range 30”.

FAQ

Q: In the Loot scenario, if one of my units is routed by shooting can the loot marker be placed outside the units footprint?
A: No it should be placed entirely within the footprint of the unit.

Q: Can the Crystal Pendant of Retribution trigger multiple times?
A: No it will only work the once, when the unit actually routs. So if a unit is saved by Inspiring or Herja’s Judgement of Korgaan for example, the Crystal Pendant will not take effect.

Not so much isn't it? Happy gaming to you all!

So long,

Paradox0n

Kings of War Demo - Ratkin vs. Kingdom of Men

Some days ago I gave a friend of mine a short demo of Kings of War. Labschi is the guy whom I played Warhammer Fantasy with and he has a complete Imperium army in his shelves which now settles dust. So moving to Kings of War is something I tried to convince him for a while now, but after seeing the last battle between me and NumbDice on Universal Battle, he finally had some interest again.

So we spontaneously met online and I created two armies just to show the rules and get a feel for the game I tried my best to get  all aspects into the game and not necessarily have balanced armies. He chose to play Kingdom of Men and I my Ratkin. The terrain was inspired by a tourney map, but nonetheless we have one rule for boards: NO hills in deployment zone.

Turn 1 was nothing fancy, some moving around and some shooting. Most of this round was spent on explaining rules and for Labschi getting used to Universal Battle.

Round 2 also involved lots of moving, some shooting and more rules explanations. The first wounds were inflicted and I was lucky with my roles.
He tried to sneak up his knights on my left flank but I felt pretty comfortable with the wood and swamp there to get only a hindered charge there so I just sat back and waited while my center moved forward.
His Scouts made a flank move on my right side, and to be honest: they where a problem for me because I was unlucky to get them wavered with my Lightning Bolts and I didn't want to get a flank charge.

Turn 3 got things going. Lots of charges here. I could prevent a charge by moving into the woods (jehaaa) but got then the Polearms into the front. Now stuff got bloody and we smashed on each other like there was no tomorrow ;)

Meanwhile he advanced his bowmen on his right side, to get some arrows into some of my units as support. And his scouts where luckily wavered now, so I hadn't the danger of a flank charge there (which would have routed my Rats, I have no doubt there).

Turn 4 was our last round because we started pretty late in the evening and both of us had to work on the next day.
I managed to rout the scouts and get a flank charge onto the Polearms. My Clawshots managed to inflict 4 wounds on the Knights and wavered them (lucky me).
The bashing continued and more wounds were inflicted. The Polearms were wavered, the Swordsmen got some wounds on them. Not looking good now for the Humans.

We called it a day here. It was clear that round 5 would have been the massacre point for the Kingdom and we wanted to share experiences after the game.

I think Labschi should have moved up much more brave with his Bowman and Knights to put more pressure on the flank. Or ignore the flank and move the Knights inwards to break the Blight unit. But since it was just a Demo to get the rules, it was really more important to get a good amount of rules going.

And it looks like this game convinced Labschi to dust off his Imperium, multibase and paint it and get it going as Kingdom of Men! He also has some pesky Elves, so maybe even those will see the battlefield in the future.


So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.:
If you wondered what Universal Battle is: It is a online tool to play games like KoW or 9th online. The basic version is free, but if you want to create your own armies or use the tool to its full potential you need a PRO account.
All my battles so far have been played with the free version.

Review: Kings of War counter set

© Mantic Games

As you all know, I am a big fan of Mantic Games and their attitude towards our hobby. So I was also on board when the second Kickstarter for Kings of War went off. One of the many things I got there is the two player counter set.

At first I thought: What a rip off. It is made from plastic and the looks aren't very appealing. And even more annoying: There was no explanation what the different symbols and colors mean. The only useful thing I saw was the Arc of Sight template and also the round counter is quite nice. The ruler is "OK"ish but I have a very good measuring tape.

In my last game I gave them a try, but since there was no clear explanation what the symbols mean, I just made something up.

© The nice forum guy who made it

Oh if I had found a forum thread earlier. Someone also had these questions and some while ago put down a chart of the symbol and their meanings. Sadly I cannot find the thread anymore because it is more than a year old... It would have made my live so much easier. That is why I have to share it here. Twitter followers may have seen it already yesterday.

So I now have to revise my opinion on those counters quite a bit: As part of my pledge they are pretty cool. You get enough tokens for 2 players, 6 objective markers a Arc of Sight template (which you can also use in other games), a turn counter and a 6" plastic ruler (which most likely is only interesting for new players who don't own their measuring tape yet).

I don't know if I would buy the set though. With 15£ (or 25$/25€) this is not really cheap and is in direct competition with a lots of other sets out there (even Mantic selling one which looks much better). But if you can get your hands on one with a discount I think it is worth thinking of (that is if you are into Kings of War).

Ok, so this mutated to a review. In the beginning I just wanted to share the chart. But more content is always good, no? Hope you enjoyed it.


So long,
Paradox0n

In a deep slumber

Wow. That was some loooong time off. Health issues, Working-Life balance off the mark and a big lack of motivation just stopped me from doing anything wargaming related. But the last weeks this changed a bit and a recent spam comment awakened me from this very deep slumber.

So I am motivated posting stuff again, and I think I have some interesting stuff to post.
First I had birthday and got some great hobby stuff as presents. Second I had some games of Kings of War going (the first one I already posted some time ago) but some followed and last I really get into gaming again. Looks like there is a gaming group in the making and even if it is a good 2 hours drive away, I could be getting some more regular gaming in the future.

I hope someone is still reading here :)


So long,
Paradox0n