3 hours from sprue to glue

I think I might have found the perfect set of fantasy miniatures for me. In fact, I think I might have found the perfect set of mass battle rules to go along with those miniatures. I mentioned in a previous post that I had ordered the Mantic Games Elven Warhost. This is a set of miniatures for Mantic's Kings of War (beta rules are free) game, and comes with 53 plastic figures.

The figures form a good basis for an army for the game. The box set includes a unit of 20 spearmen with command, 20 archers with command, 10 scouts, and 1 bolt thrower (with two crew). They are nice figures, but more importantly they are incredibly easy to assemble. Sunday night I sat down to try and assemble a few of the models. I decided to start with some of the scouts. I figured I would get the scouts done at the most, likely not even all 10, as I only had about 90 minutes. Much to my surprise I complete not only the 10 scouts but all 20 spearmen as well. Monday night I assembled the 20 archers and the bolt thrower, took about 90 minutes as well. I am pretty sure I have never assembled so many miniatures in such a short amount of time. There are some extra bits I can add if I want, but for me and my needs the models are done. I recorded a quick, well 5 minutes quick, video last night where I basically said everything I just wrote here.

I am going to grab some army painter spray to get them painted up using the army painter dips. I think I will include a few more models to go along with these as well. Kings of War is all about big games, with lots of models, and I think I can oblige.

I will cover the rules for this game in a different post, but I am very excited about them. They have a great feel to them with enough crunch but only 12 pages of rules. It is one of the first games that I feel I know how to play fully after a single reading of the rules. Hopefully I can find someone in Houston who is interested in playing.

Prime Time

Pulled a whole bunch of miniatures out of my storage closet earlier in the week. These are mostly miniatures that I forgot I had. After cleaning out the garage today I decide if would base them up.
Pictured are a Necron fleet for Battlefleet Gothic, a Syntha strike team for Urban War and my new Malifaux crew.
The Necrons should be pretty easy to paint up,  my Necron color scheme isn't that fancy. No idea what to do with the Syntha though.  I doubt it will ever play,  maybe they will just go back into their foam and into storage.
Iain is ready to see Teddy painted for Malifaux so I will be working on him first. He is playing in the jumping house while I clean,  and paint and blog.

To Vanquish a dragon - Gaming Recap

We played 4e again on Thursday, making the decision to move on from the battle against the trees. The party found themselves in an ancient tree fortress, long since lost to forces other than those of good. The trees lower levers resembled the Sziezlock fortress in basic design, but the remainder of the enormous tree was made of a series of levels. Stairs curved around the edge of the tree, and openings in the walls led out either to balconies atop huge branches or into the middle of huge branches. The interiors of the the branches form massive living chambers.

The party rushed to the top of the tree, following who they thought might have been their former party member Pax. When they arrived they found themselves in brilliant sunlight, above the tree line of the Feywild. Keyleth and Jack notice the figure they saw as Pax slip through a portal before it closes. He looks back right before slipping through, and Keyleth is sure it is Pax. The party investigates a bit more and they find it is a place like the top floor of the Skiezlock tower. An energy field divides the top in half and one arm of a massive orrery can be seen. Beyond the field are two containers, each housing some disembodied body parts, they are in less than good condition. As Uthal investigates he hears a voice he does not understand. Keyleth and Jack perk up to the voice in Elven, especially his words about how hungry he is.

Dystopian Scenery

Oh these look very nice. My book for Dystopian Wars should arrive today, and I am sure that an order for a fleet will not be too far behind.

Jumping to Malifaux

Malifaux Rules Cover

It really is all about the miniatures. They just look so damn cool, and creepy, and you cannot EVER go wrong with a giant killer teddy bear...EVER! So I have watched with great interest the discussions around the skirmish miniatures game Malifaux for about a year now. I have not been playing many miniatures games though, so I figured I would just skip it.

Since OwlCon my interest in miniatures games, especially Skirmish level miniatures games, is at an all time high. I mentioned in my weekly recap post that I had ordered up the rules and a starting crew for the game. The order has shipped, and I will have my new toys in hand on the 18th. Very excited.

Like many people, I was drawn to the awesome weirdness of the Neverborn. It really is the giant teddy bear that seals the deal, but the fact that many of the miniatures are kids, with knives, does not hurt. When the models arrive I will be visiting the doll house section at Hobby Lobby to see if I can find some suitable toys to include on the bases for my new crew. While I have heard she is not the easiest to start off with, I decided to grab the Pandora crew, Legion of Sorrow. As I understand it, she is all about tormenting the minds of her opponents. She opens the box, and all hell breaks loose. There is a great thread on the Wryd Games (publishers of Malifaux) website with all manner of tactics and tips for Pandora and her crew. It was actually a very informative read, even though I have not read the rules to the game yet.

Teddy Model for Malifaux Neverborn

Pandora's crew comes with Baby Kade and Candy. As sweet a little boy and girl as you will find in this world. The box also comes with a few smaller minions called Sorrows. Apparently, they exist solely to amplify the torment caused by Pandora and the rest of the crew. There was no way I would start off without the big guy himself, Teddy.

Looking at the other available models, and reading some of the tactics I am pretty sure I will be getting a doppelganger and some terror tots to grow the crew.

I talked to a few gamers at OwlCon this year who said they were playing Malifaux, but I know that at least two of them were not from Houston. Hopefully, I will be able to find a game.

Really looking forward to the this game because of:

• the cool models,
• the interesting setting (and terrain options),
• the fact it is another skirmish game to try,
• the unique card based resolution mechanic (pretty sure it does not use dice at all).

Here are some resources for the game if you are interested in finding out more:

Wryd Games Home (Check out the forum)
Battlefoam Custom Carry Case
World Works Terrain (should be available in March)
Board Game Geek Page

Malifaux Podcasts & Videos of Interest
D6 Generation Malifaux Review Episode
D6 Generation Rising Powers Discussion Episode
The Aethervox Podcast

Gaming Weekly Recap

Fairly typical week for gaming this week. We played D&D a little bit on Thursday, still trying to wrap up the modified Tear of Ioun campaign. Due to a late start again we are still in the midst of a combat in the Feywild. I am tempted to simply call the fight a success and move in, in fact I think that is what I will do. Really don't want to drag out the same set of tiles for a 3rd session. I think that over all interest in 4e has become non-existent. I am reading through my materials for Hellfrost, a Savage Worlds setting, and would like to run an adventure in that world sometime. I am still quite fond of SW in general, especially how easy it is to just run.

Speaking of roleplaying games I started looking at the 6d6 rpg this week. I was planning to buy the game that had available, but issues with Google Checkout and my recently updated card prevented it. The game does look interesting though, using a deck of custom cards to help resolve things in game. Sounds interesting, and the site has some dates for public playtest sessions, which i might try and get in on.

I am continuing to make a dent in the huge amount of bare metal I have in my miniatures cabinet. This week I was able to paint up a good number of the models in my Reptus warband for Warlord. I also started painting ships for my Sorylian fleet for Firestorm Armada. Iain bought me some paints for Christmas this year and I used those paints for the fleet. He was glad to see them put to use. My goal with all of my painting is basic tabletop quality, and these ships are not taking long at all to get done to the degree. I need to dip my Reptus models and complete the bases this weekend, but the warband is well on its way.

Sorylian Ships - Firestorm Armada

Reptus Snakes for Warlord

Just a couple of more weeks until my Song of Blades and Heroes game day. Jeff, from 6 arrows and my weekly RPG group, bought a copy of the rules and tried the game out. He has also invited a couple of friends along, so we should have a good turn out. I plan to have one graveyard board setup as well as a larger wooded board with a ruined castle in the middle. I spent some time re-basing a lot of my trees so that they look more consistent and are on more stable bases. Really looking forward to playing miniatures for a whole afternoon.

Graveyard table for SoBH Game Day

Speaking of miniatures games I ordered up a new load from The Warstore this week, should be here on Friday. I bought the Dystopian Wars rulebook, but decided against getting a fleet right now. I am pretty sure that I will be going with the Blazing Sun though. I ordered up an Elven Warhost from Mantic Games as well. I finally had a chance to read through the rules for Kings of War, and I really like the simplicity. Having read them, and looked at some of the models, I am not sure why I thought it was a good idea to buy back into Warhammer. Oh well, the VC army should still look nice if I get it completed. I am looking forward to the Elves though. I have never had an Elven army, and in general am not a fan of elves, but I like to get different armies with different games. Last thing I got was the rules and a starter crew for Malifaux. I have been on the fence for a long time on Malifaux, but decided to take the plunge. I will write more about that decision, and why I am so excited about it in another post.

The Mobile App Dilemma for Legal IT

Image via Wikipedia

The opinions presented in this post are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer.

There is no question that mobile technologies such as smartphones, tablets and netbook sized computers have changed the way IT must think about the technology they provide. It is no longer enough to think about how an application or service will run on a Windows desktop or laptop computer. We must consider how to make a similar experience available to our clients on a device they can carry in the palm of their hand. If we cannot replicate the experience, we must endeavor to provide access to the same information.

I think these challenges are especially hard for IT departments in the legal industry that have spent the past decade or more building up a staff that is knowledgeable about Microsoft Office, iManage, document comparison and table of authorities generation. It is quite a radical shift to no longer think about how to provide a service like metadata cleaning just through Outlook, but through the Blackberry, iPad and multiple Android devices as well. IT has not been immune to staffing changes through the economic down turn, and must make due with less staff. The pace of technology change, it would seem, forgot to slow down with the economy.

We are past the time where we can argue whether or not we need to get into the "mobile mindset". Mobile devices are here to stay and will only continue to increase in numbers, and variety.  The challenge now is to decide which path we walk down in mobile. There are really two choices we can make:

1. Develop web based applications.
2. Develop device specific applications.

Neither of these choices are ideal for legal IT staff as they both will require the acquisition of skills not currently available in the department. Neither choice is clearly superior to the other, each offering a unique set of benefits and challenges. Web applications should run on most modern smart phones, meaning that coding can be done once for all devices. However, web apps need to be written using the newest HTML 5 standards in order to provide even a fraction of the functionality that native apps can provide. Device specific apps have the opposite issues. They are great for building rich, data driven applications but you need to write a different app for each platform. Cash and time strapped IT departments will have a hard time making that work. I think it is a real problem that will require a fair bit of discussion internally to determine the right path to walk down.

I don't know that I have a great solution to this problem, but I do have a couple of points I would like to raise.

• Blackberry Rules: Regardless of how fast the iPad and other devices rise in legal, the Blackberry is still the king. A mix of familiarity, a great keyboard, and easy enterprise integration make this device the undisputed leader in terms of smartphones in legal. I don't hold out great hope for the Blackberry Playbook, but I think we will see some firms adopt them. With this in mind, the solutions that IT provides should work on the Blackberry. The legal IT community should encourage vendors to focus development efforts on the Blackberry (at the very least). 
• Web Apps: Where possible we should be looking to see how we can use native web apps to meet our mobile needs. We should encourage vendors to do the same. There are some good examples of web apps right now that provide an amazing UI experience in the browser. If you have not checked out PostPost I suggest you do. They have done amazing things in the browser for displaying Facebook information. Use Google Chrome if you can to see what they have done with the UI there, quite impressive. I have talked to a couple of vendors that understand the need to keep things web native, even for them developing for iOs, Blackberry and Android is too cumbersome. Legal IT needs to encourage vendors to move down this path.
• iPad Fevor: There is no doubt that the iPad is the king of the tablet space right now. I think we need to be cautious though that we do not put too much emphasis on one device. I would be surprised to see even 20% of lawyers using a iPad for work at any given firm, likely far less. I fear that if legal IT puts too much focus on the iPad vendors will see that as a sign to push development efforts in that one direction. I think that is a bad move for legal in the long run.

I am excited to see the sessions for this years ILTA conference. I am hopeful that we will see sessions covering the issues of mobile development, and see some new mobile offerings from vendors. I also hope that sessions do not focus too heavily on any single device. The iPad is a great tool, but it is not the only tool. I would love to come back with some information on how to use mobile technology in the legal industry, iPad or not.

It is my intention to start posting more articles of interest to me professionally. That is not something I have done much, but I think it is time. Expect to see more short articles of interest to those in the legal technology field over the coming weeks and months. Use the legal IT tag to find these posts. I will include a feed link on my Subscribe page in the next couple of days.

The Lure of Cool Minis

Mechanical Squid..how awesome is that?

I was pretty sure I wanted to buy an army for Dystopian Wars, and I was pretty sure it was going to be the Blazing Sun army, mostly because of the cool train look to the vessels. Now I know for sure! Spartan Games has a preview up of some of the sea vessels for the game, including the mechanical squid. Looks way too cool.

Dystopian Wars - Mechanical Ika [Squid]

Warhammer RPG got you confused?

If you have even a passing interest in the Warhammer Fantasy RPG I suggest you take a listen to the 2nd episode of the Reckless Dice podcast.

They do a great job in this episode of talking about the various dice in the game and how they can be used. The dice are such a unique and key component of the game,  and they do a great job of explaining their importance in this episide.

They also address a few of the misconceptions of the game that you can find on the Internet. You really get a sense for how well this game helps players build a story. Even if you focus on combat,  you cannot help but to let the dice build the story.

Give the show a listen if you have not. Hopefully you will get a sense of the game and the desire to play.  Houstonians look me up if it does.

Episode 2 – Dice and Misconceptions | Reckless Dice

The Cult of Cuska - A Warband for SoBH

I cannot wait for the end of the month. I have scheduled up a game day with my game group to introduce them to Song of Blades and Heroes. I have spent a bit of time today pulling out some of my old warbands for Song of Blades and started putting them down on paper. I want to be ready, and I want to make the game as easy as possible since most of the players are not really familiar with miniatures gaming.

I think making warbands for this game is actually about 50% of the fun for me. I have so many miniatures lying around from old Warhammer armies, D&D miniatures and a number of other games, that I just have to try and build a warband from all of them. Each army is getting a brief write up, and a detail page for each models statistics. I highly recommend using the warband builder available online. You can output a text file with the saved warband and keep it in a document along with the write up, makes for easy army list maintenance. I keep all of mine in Google Docs, and when combined with the online warband builder makes for a perfect cloud based system.

D&D Minis work great for this game

As a sample, I completed the Serpent Cult of Cuska warband earlier today (Cuska is the Latvian word for serpent, love Google translate to get names for things). Below is a sample of what the write up looks like. The printed write up also includes a chart with all of the Special Rules for the warband included. This warband is made up of models from the D&D miniatures line, and focuses on the use of poison and a few other tricks. Perhaps the weakest part of the army is the overzealous leader, Arwelnydd (another name from translate). Losing your leader in SBH can be a disaster, and he likes to run right in and mix things up.

The Serpent Cult of Cuska (293) 

For many years Cuska, the self proclaimed king of all serpents, has been building an army. From the lowliest garden serpent to the might dragons of the sea he has quietly built his power. He now sends roving bands of his minions out to steal, kill and otherwise create mayhem in the world. This warband represents one such band. 

Arweinydd y Sariff (90): Half man and half snake. A fast poison coated blade is his weapon of choice. He prefers running into combat to make a quick kill before moving on to his next target. 

Quality: +2 Combat: 3 Special: Dashing, Evil, Poison, Leader 

Tywyll Neidr (44): A large snake, super intelligent with a deadly poisonous bite. Uses his huge tail to knock down his enemies after an attack. 

Quality: +4 Combat: 4 Special: Big, Evil Poison, Tailslap 

Death Rattle Viper (33): This small rattlesnake packs a serious mean streak and deadly poison in his fangs. His small size gives him great stealth ability, and he always finishes off a downed victim. 

Quality: +4 Combat: 3 Special: Animal, Evil, Opportunistic, Poison, Stealth 

Viper Fiend (38): Watch your feet, because the Viper fiend can burrow under the ground. When he attacks he uses his vicious fangs, and sharp spiked body to savagely maul his prey. 

Quality: +4 Combat: 3 Special: Evil, Burrowing, Savage, Poison 

Spitting Vipers (22x4): Working together as a team, a group of spitting vipers can quickly take down enemies. Not as strong on their own, and far more likely to act as a group. 

Quality: +5 Combat: 3 Special: Animal, Evil, Gregarious, Shooter: Long

OwlCon Day Two Recap

Realized I never posted up my thoughts about my second day at OwlCon. I only attended a single 4 hour session on Sunday as I needed to get home to take part in the weekly rituals of laundry and house cleaning. The session I attended though was well worth it, and I was almost tempted to stay around for a second 4 hours (they ran the session twice back to back).

The game I played is called Song of Drums and Shakos. This is a skirmish miniatures game set during the Napoleonic era. The rules are based on the game Song of Blades and Heroes, and both are published by Ganesha Games. These rule sets are awesome for two reasons: 1) they are cheap at $8 for the PDF and 2) they allow the use of any miniatures you want. Song of Blades and Heroes is a fantasy based game and works well with pretty much any fantasy figures you might have from Games Workshop, Reaper, WoTC you name it. Song of Drums works equally as well with Napoleonic miniatures from a variety of manufacturers. Both games work well in 15mm and 25mm scales.

The scenario for the con was a group of British riflemen had retreated to a position in a burnt out village. A group of french infantry and dragoons followed and prepared to engage. I played on the side of the french with two others. I took up the center, and control of our sides commander. I did not play him well. The game did last most of the 4 hours we were scheduled, and it was very bloody. In the end, the loses suffered by the French were too great and we had to retreat. Throughout the game I tried to kill one single rifleman who had climbed up into a building. In hindsight I should have gone around one of the building and left him there, but I didn't. I shot at him almost every turn during the game and didn't manage to hit him once. I think he killed 3 of my guys including the commander. He was basically superman, and it drove me crazy that I could not take him out. There had actually been two guys in the building, but the first one I was ale to kill in one or two shots. Of course, it is this unpredictability that makes this game so much fun.

As I played I was reminded of everything I liked about this game system. The games actually play quite fast compared to something like Warhammer or 40K. The rules are easy enough to teach to someone in a 5 minute overview and new players are comfortable with the game after one or two rounds of playing. There is enough depth to the rules to allow good tactics to impact the outcome, and enough luck of the dice to make sure that the game cannot be gamed. Best of all this game is about combat, and it is bloody. Once combat starts it can be over very fast. The games is deadly, and that's how it should be.

One thing I will say for OwlCon this year is that all of the people I gamed with were awesome. In years past I have always seemed to find at least one player who wanted to argue rules or otherwise generally be unpleasant. Not so this year. The wide variety of gamers is what makes a convention like OwlCon great, and this year I got to game with the cream of the crop.

If you want to read more about the game at OwlCon check out the write up on the Tactical Miniatures Gaming blog. There are some additional pictures of the game in my OwlCon album on Picasa.

Related articles

• OwlCon Day 1 Recap (blogger.seanabrady.net)
• Minis for Song of Blades and Heroes from Trollish Delver (trollishdelver.blogspot.com)
• Headed to OwlCon (blogger.seanabrady.net)

Amazon Extras - Amazon sites you might not know about

Image via CrunchBase

When it comes to online addictions, most people know me as pretty addicted to the tools that Google offers. Those who have been to my house know how regularly boxes from Amazon show up on the front step, and it is no surprise that I am about as equally addicted to the tools that Amazon offers. I wanted to talk about 4 tools from Amazon that you might now know about. Amazon has become much more than just an online book store, and you can really see that in some of these Amazon extras.

1. Kindle: Most people know about the Kindle e-reader by now. The device is vary popular and you see them everywhere these days. What I want to talk about though is the http://kindle.amazon.com site. One of the benefits of the Kindle is the attached keyboard. The keyboard makes it possible to easily annotate the books you read. You can highlight passages and make notes. It is a great way to help make sense out of what you read. Getting back to all of these great highlights and notes on the Kindle is not always the easiest, which is why the URL above exists. When you visit kindle.amazon.com you will see all of your books, along with your annotations, from any web browser.  You can add new notes to highlights to further think through what you read, delete unwanted highlights, and see public highlights from others in the same book. There is also a tool for rating the book and marking the book as read or unread. The tool is simple to use, and very powerful.



My Highlights Page for Kindle

2. SoundUnwound: This is a wiki based music catalog that Amazon runs. The service has been around for a while, and allows you to help edit a library of information about music. They have some tools for music discovery based on the music library you have imported. They have a tool to sync Amazon purchases to your music library which is nice if you buy a lot of music via Amazon. If you are up to the challenge there is a music quiz you can take based on the music in your own library or a set of generic quizzes for various genres of music. Editing the site is easy, and the more you edit the higher you rank. I am not sure there is anything to rank other than seeing your name on the list of top editors. Likely not the best music discovery site on the net, but a useful tool especially with the Amazon sync.



My Library View on SoundUnwound

3. Shelfari: What SoundUnwound is to music, Shelfari is to books. They have recently merged logins from the original site to use Amazon accounts and have enabled book syncing with Amazon. Like SoundUnwound, Shelfari is a collaboration style site. They encourage users to add Facts to the books in their shelves. Things like authors are usually filled in, but other details like first sentence are asked for. You can tag, rate, review and and other personal metadata to books on your shelf. Groups and sharing options add a social aspect to the site. Shelfari works well for me now as I purchase 99% of my books via Amazon. Kindle and traditional books both show in the sync which is nice. I really like Shelfari. It is similar to Good Reads and other book reading tools. The collaborative bits go a bit further though, and the Amazon integration standout.



My Shelf on Shelfari

4. Amazon Console: I make use of Amazon's S3 storage service, in conjunction with Jungle Disk, to save backup copies of files to the cloud. The Amazon console is one tool I can use to access the files I have stored online. I use the service purely as offsite backup, but you could store anything on S3. Jungle Disk integrates nicely with my desktop running Windows, but when I get onto other computers I turn to the web console when I need access. The S3 part of the console looks very much like browsing files stored on your computer. You can also use the console for Amazon's other cloud based computing tools, but my usage is limited to S3 currently. If you are interested in inexpensive offsite back up I suggest taking a look at Jungle Disk and Amazon S3.

There it is, four tools that Amazon has that you may not have known about. If you use SoundUnwound or Shelfari give me a shout. Audible, the audio book store, is now owned my Amazon, but I figured enough was known about that service. Are there any Amazon run tools that you like to use?

Blogging from Android

Google just filled with huge hole on the Android platform with the introduction of a native Blogger app.

The app has basic Blogger functionality including the ability to share pictures from the phone. This post written with the new app, we will see how it turns out.

I am noticing that there does not appear to be a way to see/select from the list of labels.on a blog. Hopefully, that is something that can be addressed.

Blogger Buzz: Introducing Blogger Android App

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.blogger

Uncharted Seas - Iron Dwarves Fleet

I was just so excited about getting a chance to play some Uncharted Seas this past weekend that I speed painted my way through my Iron Dwarves starter miniatures. Certainly not an expert paint job, but more that adequate for me to play with. Just a few other ships to paint and I will have a complete fleet. Now to find more games.

If you are in the Houston area and play Uncharted Seas (or any of the other Spartan Miniatures games) give me a shout.

Iron Dwarves Fleet for Uncharted Seas