Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain!

Hey guys! I went through the photos I took from Warstore Weekend and I have to say i wasn't impressed enough to actually post them. Oh well... fail.

But anywho, I had a chance to check out the GW store in Manhattan this weekend which was kinda cool, and kinda not.

I have never been inside a GW store but after hearing the guys over at TEW (The Eternal Warriors) talk about The Bunker, I just had to check this out. I have to say, seeing this store kind of reminded me of when i found out Santa Clause wasn't real, or finding out that The Wizard of OZ is actually an old qwack behind a curtain.

First thing, the store was TINY! I was actually bothered by the fact that this store was so small. If i could describe it i would say it was about the size of your smaller strip mall Gamestop. In face it looked exactly like a Gamestop but instead of video games the shelves we stocked with GW product. The overall appearance of the store was... crap. There were only about 5 gaming tables and the store was... dirty. The product was nicely displayed but there wasn't much of that either. One cool thing was that there were plenty of nicely painted demo models and a few demo tables. Amazingly enough this store smelled like an ass too! (paraphrased from Mrs. Wiggles)

The staff was cool but only moderately helpful. I asked one of the employees there if he could give me some suggestions on starting an Eldar force for my wife, and all he could do was tell her to read the stories in the codex? That's not very good salesmanship. Or is it? cause he then tried to sell me a Black Library book about the Eldar. It didn't seem that anyone that worked there was really stoked about their hobby or their job, I guess i could understand that.

But one thing I did notice about the store was that it was full! Packed so much you couldn't walk! I was happy about this. It's cool to know that the hobby is very much alive in The City that Never Sleeps. in the store there was a painting competition going on, some pick up games happening, shoppers and your average joes talking shop. That I found familiar and comforting.

This is the ONLY GW store in the metro area. so i guess its cooler than not having one at all. I guess my final thoughts on the store are that I myself am a little spoiled. But I'm also very grateful for my FLGS and the staff that works there. i don't think i ever need to complain about that place again after seeing whats really out there.

'Till next time this is Wiggles signing off!

Warstore Weekend part 1

Ok so this is a quick blog entry to tell everyone that Warstore Weekend 2010 was great!

I was surprised how well Dan did in the Softcore tournament coming in third place his first day and making it to the finals a the second tournament. What can I say the kid is a prodigy.

I had a great time hanging out with the Warstore guys and hanging out with PG Norbert. Our super heavies event was a flop, but that was to be expected cause it was running right after the 40k tournament.

I took a lot of photos that I'm gonna put up in my next post later this afternoon.

There were lots of cool industry people there as well, such as the Heavy Gear crew and the Soda Pop Minis guys which I had time to hang out with. They were all a blast.

All in all I think Warstore Weekend was a huge success for it's first year out and I know next year's event will be bigger and better. I wanna thank Neil, Steve, and Kevin for putting on a great Con and for inviting us to be a part of such a wonderful weekend!

That's it for now, pics will be going up later today!

I'm Back Bitches!

Ok, so i decided after reading a few blogs and becoming hooked on blogs that i should start mine back up. I've been up to a lot lately now that work has slowed down a bit. I've made tremendous progress on my Blood Angels army (photos to come soon), and I've had a lot more time for the hobby. I also read a few Black Library books that I'll be giving an opinion on in the near future.

Right now the biggest hump for me to get over is list building in 40k. In the BA book almost everything seems like its gonna work and every time i present the list to a veteran player they say "change this" or "Change that" or "that's a waste of points". Personally i think i just need some more time on the table so i can figure out what I'm comfortable with and then i can form my own opinions on the matter.

In other news, this weekend is Warstore Weekend in Jersey and the whole Hooligans crew is gonna be there. Saturday we are running a 40k SuperHeavies Battle and Broadcasting LIVE on Ustream.tv. this should be awesome. Don't miss it. If you would like to know when we are going to be broadcasting on Saturday check our twitter feed @ twitter.com/tthooligans.

Well kids, this is all I got for now. I'm sure ill have more very soon.

It's Been A While

Hey guys! It's been a while since my last entry. Episode 5 of Tabletop Hooligans dropped. I've been playing an ass-load of 40k lately. I'm really loving my Blood Angels. Had a few games with Andrew against his Chaos army. All I have to say is that Havok Squads with assault cannons rip everything apart. I think What I'm going to start doing with this blog is just post my latest gaming ventures and battle reports and things likee that. And also whatever other random crap I can push out of my head.

I also had a chance to try the new Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition rules. I'm not going to say too much about it here because we are going to do a show about it but all I can say is that I love the Horde rule. It makes my Skaven Clanrats that much more scary, to the point where Andrew didnt even want to play me with his Ogres...

In other news, Tabletop Hooligans is going to be making a guest appearance on the Podhammer marathon show. For those of you who dont know what Podhammer is, it is the premier Warhammer Fantasy Podcast with host Jeff Carol. They are planning to do a LIVE 40 hour show on uStream.tv this comming weekend and Jeff was cool enough to ask us to pop by via skype and hang with them for a while. The show is an effort to raise money so the Podhammer crew can make it to Adepticon. They're Aussies so getting here is'nt going to be cheap so they are taking donations throughout the show. The more you donate the longer the show lasts so support them and support us by listening.

Also we are thinking of attending the DaBoyz GT in Rochester NY this fall. This means one thing... I have to get my Blood Aangels all painted up nicely and ready to go. If anybody is going let me know.

Episode 6 of Tabletop Hooligans is being recorded this weekend so keep your ears open for that one!

Thats the update for now, thanks for checkin me out and PEACE!

My Blood Angels So Far...

Hey guys! As you may or may not know I have started a Blood Angels army. This has been very exciting so far. This is what I have built... A Razorback, 2 Rhinos, a Baal Predator, 2 Dreadnoughts, 2 10 man squads of assault marines with a powerfist infernus pistol, and 2 meltaguns, a 5 man Death Company squad all with power swords and an infernus pistol, Miphiston, and a Librarian. I decided to go mech-assault because it seemed to be the most sensible build i could come up with. Being a noob to 40k, I needed a rock solid list that would kinda play itself so that I couild get a firm grip on the game and not loose interest. You might not know this but this isnt my first 40k army, I used to play Tau :(

So I had to do some kit-bashing to make my Assault Marine Squads look a bit more "Sanguine". For every 10 Assault Marines it took a box of Death Company and a box of regular old Assault Marines. That rounds out to $59.50 a 10 man squad but with a box of DC costing $33 and an Asssault kit going for $26.50, an extra $9.50 for some bad ass looking dudes is not a bad deal considering all the extra bits you get. If you notice in the photo none of them have shoulder pads, thats cause I'm not sure if howI'm going to divy up the shoulder bits. The coolest thing about my squads id that all of the backpacks are magnetized. I couldnt see spending all that money and just not being able to put jump packs on them so i could deepstrike them whenever I wanted. The only annoying thing about the magnets, besides how fucking long they took to build, is that they spin around as you can see in the pic but its a small price to pay to save a little dough.
I think in the long run I'll be happy with the decision I made.

Now as far as painting goes I've decided to go with Army Painter's Dragon Red Primer. The primer gives you such a nice deep red color that is easy to work with and its a very high quality primer, second to none in my opinion. I grabbed a couple of painting tips from some friends and more importantly youtube videos from Jawaballs. His videos are the best if youre a little intimidated by painting red. OMG on our show said that if youve never painted in red then you should really practice before you go ahead and paint that centerpiece model so i took his advice and tried a few techniqued on a spare dude I had lying around (god knows ive got a million of those). I have to say I was happy with the way the samplw turned out and i decided to go for it and start painting. this is what my result was:
Not too bad for my first go. The guy in front there is a Sanguinary Priest I made from some Death Company bits i had and i gave him a banner that I plan on painting a Chalice on. Well, this is gonna wrap up this blog entry. I will be adding more hobby updates as I progress through finishing up my Blood Angels army. For some reason I'm very motivated to get these guys looking their best and completing the project. It would make my first ever fully painted army :) Well thanks for checking out what I'm up to and I hope you guys come back next time. Maybe I'll have something more important to post but hey, its all good either way right?

Ok so here we go! I've been waiting for something like this for a while! Space Marine the video game. Its not an FPS its not a RTS or a poorly done RPG, no this is third person in your face Action RPG the way a Space Marine game should be done. Looks like you'll be taking on Ork after Ork in a blood bath that only a servant in the Emperor of Man's Holy Army can deliver! There isn't too much news or press that I have found personally but I'm sure i just didnt dig deep enough (I usually don't). THQ, Relic, and GW is a powerhouse in gaming if you don't believe me play Dawn of War for the PC. But the best thing about this game is that it is releasing on consoles, so yeah you ll be able to fire up your 360 or PS3 and see the world of Warhammer 40,00 on your HDTV. I cant wait until E3 because THQ is going to unveil this game and possibly the new rumored 40k MMORPG... sounds like we might get Space Marine before the MMO just to wet the appetites of all those fan-boys out there, myself included... What do you think about this? My only hope is that Space Marine doesn't fall to the wayside like the other GW console attempts such as Fire Warrior, Blood Bowl, and an even more bizarre title for an older Sega system Space Hulk, yea if you can believe it Space Hulk actually released for a Sega system, Saturn I think it was. So anyways keep your auspex on and keep a look out for this one! Space Marine looks like it shows some promise and lets hope THQ can deliver.

Here is a trailer I found for Space Marine:

Here it Is!!!

Wiggles Here! Well this is my first post on my new blog! So, what to expect from this blog? Well... Random thoughts about gaming, drinking, partying and that kind of stuff. What I really want to use this blog for is to keep in touch with the fans of my podcast "Tabletop Hooligans". I'll be posting any snippets of news, forum threads that catch my eye, and any pics of modeling and painting projects im working on. So with that said I hope i can at least keep you guys entertained enough to keep comming back to my blog! Hope this works and i hope you enjoy!