Diesel DM

Wrath of PAX

The most fun I had at PAX East 2011 was playing Wrath of Ashardalon (WoA).  That’s a huge statement to make considering PAX was a giant geek-playground stocked with more board games and table top games than I imagined existed.  I was lucky enough to get in on a Wizards of the Coast (WotC) sponsored WoA game.  Wrath of Ashardalon is for 1-5 players, and with a lengthy queue forming, Wizards of the Coast was getting five in for every game.  As first in line I was picked first along with three guys who knew each other and one more person in line who was also by themselves. (Helpful Hint: At PAX you can sometimes skip part of the queue if you’re by yourself and they just need one more to fill out a group.)

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I am new to painting miniatures of any kind.  I just started painting my first WARMACHINE models: a Cygnar Battlebox.  Years and years ago I did paint the occasional model car, mainly muscle cars from the 60’s and early 70’s, especially Mustangs.  But in painting those I painted each part a single color, no blending or shading. WARMACHINE models can be painted in the same way, choose a color for each section, apply and you’re done.  You can search the “What I Modeled/Painted Today” post on the Privateer Press (PP) forums to see excellent examples of this.  It’s a good way to paint a large army quickly and have them all match one another.  It’s also good if you’re more interested in the playing than the painting.

If you want more dynamic models, ones that really catch people’s eye, then you’re going to want to take the next step and do some shading and some highlighting.  For some model parts you will be able to get away with a base coat, a dark wash and some dry brushing.  This works very well on metals and heavily texture areas.  I used it to great effect on my Ironclad’s metal sections, which will be another post.  But once I came to Stryker’s cape, a quick wash and dry brush were not going to get the job done.

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For the uninitiated PAX is the Penny Arcade eXpo.  Last year they spread out from their original PAX Prime in Seattle to have a PAX East in Boston.  It was a massive success.  So massive that they brought it back to Boston again this year, only in a much larger building.  At 69,500 people, it became the largest gaming convention open to the public in America.  It should be noted that this post is not heavy with PAX pictures as I did not bring a camera (beyond my iPhone).  I’m not sure I would have taken the time for pictures even if I had.  I feel like I was on the go my entire time and to fit anything else in would have been impossible.

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Countless D&D adventures begin with these six words, so why not a blog?  No, not a blog, a campaign, with each post an encounter, building into grandiose adventures set it in a world of geeking out, games, dice and table top miniatures.  Build a character, assemble your scale army and join in the tale that I create as we go.

Since I started DMing a 4e campaign last July, I have continually had thoughts and observations both from my own games and from what I read in the community online that I wanted to shared, but forum posting has it’s limits and is often just more noise in a sea of opinions, nearly unsearchable.  Those were the first stones, rolling down down a hillside.

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