Diesel DM

Wow, what a great time that was. I was successful in all of my goals: I attended lots of seminars, won a coin in the P3 painting competition, played a few games and met the guys from HCO.

Inside the PP store, no frills, just lots of product

My first morning was spent queuing for over an hour in order to purchase a Stormwall. I also picked up a Nemo3 and some more faction patches. Then of course I needed BattleFoam for my colossal and some half trays to fill out the room left from the Stormwall foam. Getting my suitcase packed with all of this proved to be a real challenge.

Battlefoam for the Stormwall and a commerative L&L 2012 topper

Studio painted Cygnar goodness

Within the main hall there were display cases featuring the newest studio painted models.  As great as the models look in the books and the website, they looks way better in person.  The face on the newest incarnation of Nemo (Nemo 3, or 3mo) is the most impressive painting I have ever seen, done of course by Matt DiPietro.

Best. Painted. Face. Ever.

Speaking of things looking better in person, the Corvis table is remarkable.  You can’t get a sense of it’s scale and detail from photos alone.  It makes me want to build an over-the-top amazing table.

The Corvis table

The seminars were fantastic, I have returned with new ideas and techniques not just for painting, but for sculpting as well. Thanks to the Customizing Miniatures seminar I am envisioning a customized Defender for Kara Sloan that had shoulder pouches similar to what she has on her left shoulder. For painting the P3 crew covered two brush blending and while I have been working at it for sometime, I feel like I have an even better understanding of it now and look forward to continuing my advancement. Doug Seacat’s State of th Factions address was hilarious as he gave each address from the point of view of the current faction.

My pButcher in the case, defending his bronze coin

Having won a bronze in the painting competition has taken a bit of a weight off me a I feel somewhat vindicated that I really am making progress in my painting and that I am doing a good job. It also gives me a baseline to work from in the future. Matt DiPietro was kind enough to talk about what he liked and areas to improve, so that also valuable.

Agamemnon and his light-up, eight-legged Storm Striders

Between seminars, socializing and just taking it all in, not much time was left for actual gaming, which sounds a big odd, I know. One of the games I did get in was against Agamemnon and two of his light-up, eight-legged Storm Striders. Kara’s battlegroup on her feat turn was able to bring down one of the Striders but game was still a loss for me, though instructive and fun. In another game Arlaharen’s gators destroyed me.

Meeting the HCO writers in person was great. I distributed the custom HCO t-shirts I had made and we all wore them with great pride. HCO also made a sweep of the painting awards, with Ghool winning Master Craftsman in the Hardcore tournament, Grandmaster, Best Single and Best group. Arlaharen took Best Large model and Geist and I each took a bronze.

Concept art fro Epic Grim

I also had time to talk with several Privateer Press staffers, which is one of the great things about Lock & Load; so many staffers are there and accessible. I enjoyed chatting with and watching Brain Dugas sculpt the next incarnation of Angus Grimm. Talking with Matt DiPietro and Meg Maples about painting was fantastic as was chatting with Sean Bullough about the customizing miniatures and bases seminar he did. Jason Soles, Ed Bourelle and DC were all available for open questions in their seminar, which I took advantage of to ask some random things I have wondered about.

Big Blue greets you outside the main hall doors

Lock & Load covered all three aspects of the game: gaming, hobby and fluff. Each was covered well and that was one of the biggest reasons I had targeted this as the convention I wanted to attend above all others.  L&L really had something to appeal to my interests in all aspects of the game.  I look forward to going back again in the future.