An in-boxing then, not an un-boxing

I promised an unboxing for "Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster," but there are so many of them out there right now I don't want to burden the Interwebz with another one that won't really add anything to the conversation. But there are some issues I can address.

First of all, packaging: This thing is huge!

And deep, too. This isn't a game to put on your bookshelf. It's a game to make a bookshelf out of. I may use the box this came in to add a room on to our apartment. It's big. B-I-G.

My meaty hand rests on the giant game box.

This is how thick the box is. Alternate use --
keep your trailer level.

Those of you who are members of the Miniature Addicts Anonymous on Facebook have already heard me talk about this, but I had a surge of disappointment because my Biohazard set of extras did not include the special edition resin Lt. Kara. I did, however, get two of the Mike McVey signed print of the cover art.

This is the Studio McVey painted version of the special edition
Lt. Kara from the Kickstarter website.

My second piece of signed art. I offered to send it back,
but CMON told me I could keep it. Hmmm, eBay maybe?

Now I'm nothing if not a whiny, entitled, overprivileged manchild, and that kind of mispack can just suck the joy out of a much-anticipated delivery. Two quick emails, one to Cool Mini or Not and one a message through the Kickstarter system itself, outlined my problem to them.

I seriously did not expect an immediate response, given that they're in the early days of shipping out the game. CMON's customer service sent an automatic reply acknowledging my issue, and I swear before I finished READING that email, I had a personal response from Ginger at CMON. She promised they'd ship it out as soon as possible, most likely the next day, and send me a tracking number. This was midafternoon on Tuesday, the 15th. On Thursday I got an email with the tracking number from Ginger, saying it had been sent out the previous day, AND I got a message through Kickstarter wanting to make sure CMON customer service was handling the issue to my satisfaction.

Here's the extra-special version of Lt. Kara herself, what Mike called in the Kickstarter
Updates "Tech-comm Lt. Kara Black." They've done special rules for her, in a pdf.
 Hard-card to follow in later release, I believe. Download her stats at alt-Kara stats

The package arrived Friday morning, less than 48 hours after I'd reported the issue. (It helps that I only live a few hours from CMON Central, I suppose.) But they were exemplary in fixing a problem that was, to me, serious. I told them Ginger deserves a raise.

CMON has always done right by me. This is the third Kickstarter they've been involved in that I've supported, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

Welcoming Wednesday!

Welcome aboard, JP! He maintains blogs at Herefordshire 1938 and  A Very British Civil War Miniatures Guide. According to his blogger profile, JP, or jp1885 as he is also known, is an "occasional wargamer, figure painter and amateur writer."

Thanks for joining in, JP. We look forward to many fine adventures in the future (and in the past, and in the alternate past)!

Sedition War is in!

Just as it says on the tin, I received my shipment of "Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster" today! I'll take some unboxing photos later today for a post tonight. Eager to dig in ...

Welcoming Wednesday

New followers to welcome! So exciting, a little bit like Christmas. Although I don't get followers at Christmas. I guess Jesus does. Whatever.

Joining us are the following:

Joe Kushner of Appendix N
Ian "Hendybadger" Henderson of Tales of a Tabletop Skirmisher
PMMDJ of Metal Skirmish

I also have it on good authority that mathyoo of 28 Millimeters Later is a reader, based on our delightful conversations on Facebook, but he's having browser trouble that hasn't allowed him to sign up as a follower, for some reason. So welcome mathyoo as well!

EDIT: OK, I see mathyoo listed now. He got bumped to another page, and maybe I needed to have him as a G+ friend for him to show up. Not the smoothest of integrations across all apps, Google.

I'm going to welcome new followers each Wednesday, because I think the alliteration of "Welcoming Wednesday" will help me to remember to do it, plus, like a toddler, I need structure.

Thanks to ALL my readers, whether you sign on as a follower or not! (Although I wish you would ...) Happy Wednesday!

Once more unto the Breach

You'll find this widget at the bottom of the page. There's about a day and a half left to back Wyrd's Malifaux RPG. I'm in for the great background and to get some of the new and limited minis they're doing through the Kickstarter.

Making the tough decisions

I have to narrow down my endeavors on the miniature front this year. I have a mountain of unpainted lead that is likely big enough to shield me completely from errant radiation. I have limited financial resources and climbing medical expenses, so I have to learn to focus. I'm also undoubtedly going to have to part with some things from my pile.

But how? I have such eclectic tastes and magpie instincts that everything looks like fair game as it's released. The lure of the "ooh, shiny" is almost too much to bear.

Some large guidelines are already in place, simply because of my interests. I'll be sticking to skirmish-level gaming, which was always my intent, as you can see in the subtitle at the top of this blog. I don't have the attention span or patience to paint large armies. I much prefer an assemblage of characterful individuals on my table.

I'm sticking to 28mm, or 32mm, or "heroic scale" or whatever it's called now. I want my baseline humans to be about an inch tall. My eyes are too old now to paint details on anything smaller, and I want everything to be pretty much compatible.

So here's what I'm thinking so far:

Modern zombies: I have multiple rulesets and sources for these, and I absolutely LOVE zombie gaming. With Zombicide's Toxic Mall expansion coming out and the remaining character figs from their Kickstarter due, and the recent 7ombieTV expansion from Crooked Dice, and the continued creativity of Kev White at Hasslefree and the folks at Studio Miniatures, and too many other good companies to mention, this one genre could keep me booked all day every day until 2014.

I am going to resist with all my might the urge to expand into pulp zombies, Weird WWII zombies, ancient zombies, or any other kind of zombies (except the Strain, see "Far Future" below.) When I do get my John Jenkins Designs Terror-Cotta Warriors painted up, they will inhabit a museum in either my modern setting or my gothic horror/steampunk games. Speaking of ...

Gothic Horror and Steampunk: This will primarily be Empire of the Dead, although there will be a good mix of Malifaux and some Hordes and Warmachine (primarily Cryx) in there. I also recently bought the pdf of the Chaos in Carpathia rules and plan to give them a spin. And I may pick up some of the constructs coming out for Dystopian Legions. The rank-and-file troops, at 40mm, would just stand out too much, I fear. However, this giant sumbitch here is gonna be mine:

"You are direct violation of Penal Code 1.13, Section 9.
You have five seconds to comply."

Just like the Dark Age Abomination model, sometimes size is all that matters!

Far future: This will mainly be for Sedition Wars. I went a little nuts (for me) during the kickstarter campaign, but I'm really looking forward to getting my gribbly hands on these. Plus, if I were to lose about 100 pounds or so, I think I could cosplay Vokker Dargu.

The metal Vokker Dargu figure from Studio McVey. They've added an exclusive
conscript figure of him to the SW:BoA kickstarter deal to compensate for delays.

"Dead Space," which significantly influenced the look of Battle for Alabaster, is one of my favorite videogames of all time. How I'm going to figure out a way to shoehorn my Relic Knights Star Nebula Corsairs into this setting to justify that kickstarter spending remains to be seen.

Engineer Isaac Clarke from the "Dead Space" series of games.
I love it that most of his weapons are modified tools.

Captain Harker and Ceasar, space pirates!

There are also a couple of tasty Dreadball figures I might try to worm in there too.

Mantic's John Doe MVP for Dreadball. I prefer to preserve his Lovecraftian mystery and think of him as "The Lurker at the Goal Line."

Of course, Dark Age then has to go and release the new factions of the CORE and the Kukulkani. Dammit! Can't you people see how weak I am?!?

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm so glad that followers contacted me if I'd messed up or missed their blogs in the previous post. Those that I missed have been added. What's embarrassing is that I was following almost all of them, but I just couldn't connect certain avatars or usernames to those blogs. And Blogger doesn't always make it easy, not giving you the information you think it should.

We're up to speed now, though, and I also get to welcome my newest follower, pulpcitizen of Pulp Citizen. This supers-centered blog focuses on the game Pulp City and is filled with good hobby content that's applicable across a wide range of genres and to a variety of pursuits.

So we begin the chant, "Gooble-gabble, gooble-gabble, one of us, one of us!"

Welcome, pulpcitizen. Enjoy!

A heartfelt and personal thank you to all my followers

I've never done a proper welcoming post to thank those of you who've honored my by joining my blog. Thank you and a belated "Welcome aboard!" to all of you. I never thought this blog would have 24 such distinguished followers, much less 5,000+ page views in its first six months of existence. Since you've done me a solid, I'd like to return the favor. In the list below of my blog's followers, I've listed YOUR blogs, that is, if I can discover them from your blogger profile or through my weak web fu.

• adam of Miniatures, Painting and Hobbies
• Bringer of Death
• Brummie of Brummie's Wargaming Blog
• Chronowraith of Chronowraith's Corner
• clint of Anything but a One and 28 Dice Later
• commisarmoody of Moody's Adventures
• dannydiddle of diddle's world and (the currently empty) The Monkey Lives
• Doctor Warlock of Keelhauling for Fun and Profit, The Illustrated London News, Pulp City Planet, The Realm of Dungeons & Dragons and (the currently empty) Not Another Wargames Blog. 
• elquintodestino of el quinto destino blogzine. I guess this is actually blogger member homerleonidas, but I'm not sure. I also don't speak Spanish, sadly.
• laughingferret of Laughing Ferret Lab
• Mecha Ace of G3 and The Hangar Bay
• Minitrol of Strange news from under there
• Mr. Lee of Mr. Lee's Painting Emporium (I think)
• myincubliss of Dead Lead Project
• pench
• Shelldrake of Shelldrake's Wargaming Blog, Shelldrake's Soapbox and Shelldrake's Zombie Wargame Blog
• shintokamikaze of Shinto Kamikaze's Zed Men Walking
• spankyhojek of The Haunting of Portsmouth and Geek in the basement
• styx of Strange Aeons Adventures, Dice of Legends, Suncoast Skirmishers and Army of the Week
• The Secret DM of The Secret DM
• Vampifan of Vampifan's World of the Undead
• watchtower78 of The Armchair General and Aliens vs Hillbillies
• Weird WWII of Weird WWII
• Xander of Xander's Wargaming Musings
• Zabadak of Zabadak's ZombieWorld
• and my loving wife, Tracey Sheets

If I've missed your blog out, I apologize. Please comment below or drop me an email and I'll get you added in. Likewise if I've credited you with work not yours, please also let me know and I'll correct the listing.

From here on out, it'll be acknowledgement as people join. Again, thanks for your support in this venture and best wishes for 2013.