I've spent most of the past week battling a pretty severe cold. I stayed home from work on Wednesday and Friday and didn't do my Wednesday and Thursday runs in an effort to get well as quickly as possible.

This is week 7 of my marathon training and it is the first week of phase two. This is where I start adding tempo runs and track work to my schedule in place of the Tuesday and Thursday shorter runs. I'm starting off with a 20 minute tempo run tomorrow at 6:51 pace and 5 x 1000m at 3:55 on Thursday. There is also a 16 mile run on Sunday that will hopefully go well.

I turned 25 today. Laura took me to see Slumdog Millionaire (awesome!) and then for Ethipoian at Addis Red Sea (delicious!). She gave me a lovely cowboy shirt and a Tom Waits record as well so my quarter century celebrations have thus far been very good. I'm going out to a bar for some drinks on Friday night with several people which will conclude the festivities.

I haven't been painting much of anything lately since I ran out of primed models and it's been too cold to spray outside. I did finish the Widowmakers last week.

I wasn't happy with their faces and I rushed some details as the end to get them done and off my painting table but overall I was happy with how they came out.

John Smoltz is on the Red Sox! Super exciting.

I decided to go back to my Man-O-War DC and make the ice mauls a bit icier looking. I can't tell if I'm happy with the effect or not but I think the models look better overall.

I've also started working on my Widowmakers. I'm mostly done with the easy, flat parts but their faces are starting to worry me. I've had a lot of success lately painting faces but the most recent attempt didn't go very well and I'm nervous about the four of these.

Widowmakers WIP

My Khador reinforcements arrived from ebay the other day. The Greylord Ternion and Koldun Lord will find themselves painted in the next month or two but the Kodiak will probably sit on my shelf for a while longer.

I also recently discovered that all of my old, horribly painted Ultramarines can be easily given a new life as Crimson Fists. When I was painting them I would paint each piece individually and then glue them together. Since the glue was paint on paint it is really weak and I can separate the pieces really easily. Right now I have an assault squad broken up and I'm going to buy some Simple Green to try stripping the paint.

My new (old) stereo arrived in the mail yesterday.

Everything seems to be in good working order and I'm totally enamored over everything being analog instead of digital. Initially I thought the record player or the receiver weren't working but my dad helped me to figure out the problem. I ended up ordering a preamp to help boost the output from the record player - not a huge problem at all and even now I can use everything.

Laura has been knitting like a machine. She recently finished two toys, one for me and one for her brother's friends' little kids. The beige, fat, dog is mine and the blue one is for the kids. She's currently working on some owls and I hear they're adorable.

Lisa and I had a pretty good 13 mile run this past weekend. Our overall pace was a little slow (8:45 per mile) but that's because we had a horrible first half due to ice being on all of the sidewalks. The second half we both felt great and kept up a very good clip. The weather is supposed to take a huge dip in temperature over the next few days and I'm worried about how our 14 miler this weekend will go.

I've started working on my next Khador minis, a unit of Man-O-War Demolition Corps.

Last night I finished highlighting the red which gets the hardest part of the models done. I have to do their green shoulder pads, a few details, and then a lot of touch ups since I've been messy with these guys but I hope to have them finished by the weekend. I can't say enough how enjoyable Privateer Press models are to paint.

Once these three are done I'm going to move on to my unit of Widowmakers. That will give me 400ish points completed and take me through my first set of Warmachine purchases. I used $51.13 of my new model fund to purchase several more models to help round out my growing force.

Koldun Lord
image from Privateer Press

Greylord Ternion
image from Privateer Press

Kodiak
image from Privateer Press

The Koldun Lord is a 'jack marshall so he'll give me some versatility in how I want to control my 'jacks. The Greylords are a support unit that can make my units tougher or the enemy weaker and they work well with the Koldun Lord who is essentialy a 4th, more powerful Greylord. The Kodiak is there to smash faces and look cool. The Destroyer I have already is a solid ranged and melee 'jack but the Juggernaugt is pretty outclassed so I decided to upgrade him with the Kodiak.

When Spoony was in town we went to Danger Planet and played my first three games of 5th Edition 40k. I lost all three but had a lot of fun.

The first game was 400 points and his list was a tactical squad with a missile launcher, melta gun, power fist, and Razorback and a Sternguard squad in a drop pad. Mine was a tactical squad with plasma cannon, melta gun, power sword, and Rhino and a Sternguard squad. Our Sternguard exchanged fire for a while and I wiped his out but eventually got destroyed by his power fist squad.

The third game was also 400 points. His list was the same but I dropped my Sternguard for an assault squad with power fist. The game started really well for me when I destroyed his Sternguard right away taking only one or two casualties. The game quickly turned around though when his power fist beat my assault squad and then over ran them. He ended up winning with the power fist again.

The second game was 1000 points. He had a Dread in a drop pod, a 10 man tactical squad in a drop pod, a 5 man squad and a Commander in a Razorback, and some Terminators that deep struck. I had a 10 man melta squad in a Rhino, a 10 man plasma squad, 5 Terminators, a jump Captain, and an assault squad.

In the first turn his Dread dropped down and hosed my plasma squad and his Commander wiped out 7 assault marines with an orbital bombardment. The Dread would end up assaulting and swamping the tactical squad for most of the game before my Terminators came and finished it off. My Captain would rally and destroy his 10 man tactical squad alone before dying and my melta squad would kill of several terminators before also dying. In the end it came down to three of his terminators, two tactical marines, and his Commander against two of my terminators and three tactical marines with a plasma cannon and plasma gun. I held on for a bit but ultimately he won.

These three games taught me that I do enjoy playing 40k but that I really have no idea how to do it. I would like to be playing more and the best option would be for me to head over to DP on Thursday nights to try to get some games in. I haven't yet because I'm nervous about going into a situation like that where everyone knows each other already and knows the game a lot better than I do. I think I should probably suck it up and go though.

I'm going to post up some pictures of a Razorback by Gareth so I can reference them later when I finally start painting my Rhinos. I'm hoping that looking at them will make me less nervous about getting mine done.

I've been thinking about where I want to take my Crimson Fists after the first 1000 points are done. The list will look like this:

Jump Captain
10 man tactical with melta weapons and a Rhino
10 man tactical with plasma weapons and a Rhino
5 Terminators with assault cannon
7 man assault with power fist

Some things that I would like to add are a Vindicator, a 10 man Sternguard squad in a drop pod and 5 to 10 scouts. The second wave of additions (or perhaps the first wave depending on my mood) are a melta attack bike, melta / heavy flamer land speeder, a drop pod Dread, and a Landraider. That would all look something like this:

Jump Captain

10 man tactical with melta weapons and a Rhino
10 man tactical with plasma weapons and a Rhino
10 scouts with various weapons

5 Terminators with assault cannon
10 man Sternguard with combi-meltas, heavy flamer, and drop pod
Dread in a drop pod

10 man assault with power fist
Attack Bike
Land speeder

Vindicator
Land Raider

That's a lot of stuff to purchase and paint but I think it would give me a lot of flexability in list building and playing. I'm also not sure I want to commit to purchasing and painting all of this stuff if I won't get any use out of it.

This past year was a big year for my and my little men hobby so I'd like to take a moment and recap it.

When Spoony and I moved in last September we decided to start Warhammer Fantasy armies. I chose Wood Elves, joined a Tale of Painters event at Librarium Online and ended up with a 2000+ point painted army. Over the course of those 12 months (not all technically in 2008, but I'm going to count it) I painted 78 models and went from what I would consider a low level painter to someone at the higher end of the painting spectrum. I don't consider myself a fantastic painter by any means but I think within the scope of people who paint miniatures I think I do alright for myself.

over the course of the year I went from painting the fellow on the left to the one on the right

I was (and still am) incredibly proud of how hard I worked and the improvements I made as a painter and I continue to get better. Once the elves were done I stared a Crimson Fist army and a Khador army. The Crimson Fists are an exercise in improving my speed while maintaining my quality and the Khador is about my improving my quality. Right now I've finished 25 models for the Crimson Fists and 3 models for the Khador.

Stealing another idea from lone pilgrim I'd like to give myself a score based on my productivity last year. His scale is 1 point for infantry, 2 points for cavalry or bikes, 5 points for monsters, dreads, and 'jacks, and 10 points for vehicles. Over the course of 2008 (and some of 2007) I painted 92 infantry, 12 cavalry, and 2 'jacks for a total of 126 points. I think I can match or beat that in 2009.

A new month means a New Model Fund update. I didn't spend any money on my hobby last month so I lose half of that month's left over money (half of 50 is 25) and pick up another 50 for this month, bringing my new total up to $75.

This month I will be spending some money towards the hobby. I plan to purchase the rest of the models that I need for my Khador Army (Koldun Lord and Greylord Ternion) as well as a Kodiak. I'm also going to puy some paints because I am out of black primer and running low on some other important colors. I also need another Space Marine Assault Squad but I can put that off for another month.

I recently finished my squad of Terminators after struggling with them for nearly a month.

I am pretty happy with how they turned out and I was ecstatic to finally have them off of my painting table. For my Tale of Painters this month I have a squad of 3 Man-O-War Demo Corps and a 4 man squad of Widowmakers to paint for the Khador and no real idea what to do with the Crimson Fists.

My 1000 point list has left to paint a commander (150 points), two Rhinos (35 points each), and a 6 man assault squad with power fist (143 points). I have all but 2 of the assault marines build already but none of them are primed and I have almost no primer left. I do however, have a 5 man scout squad primed and ready for paint. I may hold out for the black spray to arrive (I can paint all of my Warmachine models while I wait) and see how much I want to do, or I may just prime the commander and paint him - time will tell.

Marathon training starts up in eight days. I've been working on nailing down 8:30 mile pace the past few days (it is the pace I'll be running my long and recovery runs at so I'd better know it) and I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll have it before next week. I've been doing 4 mile runs that include the big hill that my house is on to get practice on downhills, uphills, and flats.

Right now I think I have the first six weeks of training tentatively planned out, as well as the final three weeks. Those middle nine are giving me trouble. Every time I read something new it seems to contradict what I have previously learned so I think I'm going to hold off scheduling those middle weeks until I know more about what I should be doing. Lisa and I are going to run and get sushi on Wednesday to talk about it and I'll go from there.

I finished Sorscha last week so I have a legal army. I think she turned out really well and I was really happy with her face. I should have painted her eyes first because once the skin was done I was scared that I would ruin it if I tried to paint the eyes.

the face that I'm so proud of

the whole battle box done

I've started work on a squad of Terminators for my Crimson Fists and they should be done before I leave for Christmas.

Laura, Britta, and I went to a cool artisan fair yesterday downtown. Britta and I bought some stuff for our parents and Laura and Britta both bought a lot of jewelry for themselves and friends. There was a lot of cool stuff there and we met up with Lauren for a fun time all around.

Laura's birthday is today. We're going to see Quantum of Solace tonight and last night we went to Zon's for a delicious birthday dinner. Saturday is her party thing at the Pour House. Thus far she's enjoyed the dinner and the present I gave her and I anticipate her having a good weekend as well.

The weather has taken a rather intense drop in temperature. This morning I rode to work in 27 degree weather and had to spend time at work thawing out. My run yesterday wasn't as fast as I had hoped because my legs couldn't warm up. I know it was colder last year when Lisa and I would run in December and January but I'm just not used to it yet.

Last night I finished the Destroyer for my Khador army. I got some really good feedback on Librarium Online regarding battle damage, highlighting, and shading that I feel really helped me improve this model over the Juggernaut.

After some experiments with the blue to white gradient as a background I've decided to stop using it. It was creating a lot of glare on the models and washing out their colors to the point that they all looked like flat, neon messes. The pictures above were taken without and background at all and I think they really show what the model looks like so I may just stick with that.

For reference, this is what he looks like with the gradient.

This isn't a terrible picture but if you compare it to the ones above you can clearly see how washed out the model is; the highlights disappear and the colors are a lot brighter than they are in reality.

Oh, and if you haven't seen the puppies you need to take a look.

I was not really happy with the red on this model so I went at it again last night. First I added some shading to bring out the depth, and then I tried to add some more highlights and brighten up the ones that were already there. I don't think it worked very well, to be honest. I still think the red is pretty flat overall, and now that I've been screwing with it repeatedly I think it looks sloppy.

The next idea I had was to add some battle damage to distract from the poor highlighting. I didn't really think out the placement, size, or shape of the scratches much and I think the model's left side suffered as a result.

Ultimately, while I'm not happy with how he came out I think that I learned a lot of things that I can apply to the next warjack that I paint.

<-- good side, bad side -->

good side

I spent several hours this weekend painting a Khador Juggernaut and this is the result (photographed poorly - they don't show the highlights that do exist however faint):

I had a lot of trouble conceptually highlighting the huge red armour plates. My typical strategy of line highlighting was pretty useless on the vast, flat expanses that needed to be highlighted. I went for what I thought would be natural highlights but I'm not satisfied. I don't think I executed my plan correctly and I don't think I have enough contrast for the highlights to be visible. The Warmachine rulebook has some good reference pictures and I'm going to try to use them to touch up this guy. I'm also thinking of trying to paint on some battle damage, but I'd like to get the highlights correct first.

I decided to enter a second army into the Tale of Painters on Librarium Online. In addition to my 1000 points of Crimson Fists I will be working on 500 points of Khador. The Juggernaut represents 100 points done already so my first month's submission is already take care of. Once I get those next 5 tacitcal marines done I'll have my Fists sumbission done for the month also so I think I'm in pretty good shape to take care of both.

Once these two projects are done I am thinking of doing some Cygnar models. The two that have really caught my eye are Coleman Stryker and the Journeyman Warcaster.

Coleman Stryker (image from Privateer Press)

Journeyman Warcaster (image from Privateer Press)

Khador has a feeling of steampunk Russion, and Cygnar has a knightly feel to them. I also really like the vibrant blue color of their armour.

My next marathon is coming up on Sunday. I think if I can run a 3:40 and help Lisa to qualify that I'll be happy. Somehow I managed to get a blood blister on one of my big toes; hopefully that won't be too much of a pain in the ass.

Spoony was in town this weekend for regionals. It was really good to see him. Since I had Monday off (hooray Chris Columbus!) Laura and I got brunch at the Center Street Cafe. It was really good and a lot of fun. Even though we've been dating for over two years now I still like going on dates with Laura.

The Red Sox have dropped two straight to fall behind 1-2 against the Rays. Hopefully they can pick it up tonight and bring it back to even.