Why I am a Cyrissian

I am quite taken by the Art Deco lines and voltaic glow of the new Convergence of Cyriss faction for Warmachine. Privateer has done a great job in the design of the vectors and warcasters for the cult of the Clockwork Goddess, and I eagerly await getting my grubby mitts on the starter group later this summer.

But I am enamored of most of the factions in Warmachine and have sizable (unpainted) collections of minis for the game. (I also collect patches and have many for the various factions across Caen. Thanks, Privateer, for making them!)

The first faction that captures my heart was the Protectorate of Menoth. I used to be part of an evangelistic, fundamentalist faith and, truth be told, there is comfort in the assuredness that all the answers come from total obedience to dogma and can be found simply by looking in the back of the book. And like the Menites, when I think of how I was and what I believed back then, the ironbound prejudices and hatreds that are integral to that kind of belief structure, I wish, if I were to see myself back then, that I could seal my identity away behind an impenetrable brass mask. The garish ambition of Severius, the mute sacrifice of the Testament of Menoth, even the crusading passion of Feora are things I understand and can relate to.

Then I came to love Khador. I am a native of the American South, where ties of land and blood define so much of who we are. I understand the Khadorans' link to their Motherland. I understand the strength of her iron bones and the sway that her faith and folklore have on her populace, from the lowest laborer to the most prestigious prince. I understand it in MY bones, because I feel its echo in how and where I was raised.

And I have always been under the dark sway of Cryx as well. Even if the fluff and fiction written by the crew at Privateer were not of such excellent quality, the necromechanical excellence that is the Cryx would have pulled me in anyway. Blood and bone and brass, burning braziers of eldritch embers lit by nightfires, spewing alchemical energy into reanimated dead flesh and bound souls ... it's enough to elicit cold shivers on the warmest day. I love the dark poetry of Cryx, burning desire and cold bodies, bound in service to an ancient Dragon. I doesn't get more elegant and sinister than that.

And once the Mercenary pirates entered the scene, I had to expand my holdings. Pirates are the reason my supervisor at work learned never again to use that old adage, "Don't dress for the job you have; dress for the job you want." Well, I want to be a freebooter from the Golden Age of Piracy. (I really don't think the trip to Human Resources for a "conversation" was really necessary. After all, it was Casual Friday!) I have alway loved the depiction of pirates in popular culture, and Privateer's take on them suits me just fine. Love, love, love them.

I'm leaving out Cygnar and Retribution of Scyrah because they just have not fired my imagination the way they others have. I have miniatures of several heroes and units for both, but that's all.

And now comes the Convergence of Cyriss. I liked the hints and glimpses we got about the worship of the Maiden of Gears back in the Witchfire Trilogy and I have longed to know more. I love robots, cyborgs and AI's in all their forms, whether Maria from "Metropolis," Star Wars' Droids, Ladytron from the Wildstorm universe, or Solace from Spider Robinson's works or the post-Singularity Eschaton of Charles Stross. I resonate with them, since I have been a cyborg myself since 2007. Longtime readers will recall that I have congestive heart failure and carry in my chest a cardioverter/defibrillator. There's a computer on board, although of course I don't have conscious access to it. Maybe one day. I go in next year to have my battery changed. It is an odd thing to have them magnetically couple my device to a computer and download information about the performance of my heart. So my heart (both the fleshly organ and its battery-powered backup and booster) sings at the lovely lines and electric elegance of the Convergence. It is no small stretch for me to feel akin to the pieces I will put on the field for this faction. It takes no small stretch of the imagination to place myself among her worshippers or, better yet, a priest, donning my Optifex armor, waiting and hoping to one day be placed into a clockwork vessel to better serve my goddess, to devote myself to the Great Work, free of the weaknesses and limitations of the pitiful flesh.

So there you have it: my many heartfelt affairs with the factions of Warmachine, and why I am, at heart -- pun purely intended -- a Cyrissian. A minority cult on the broad face of Caen, to be sure, but that is just our public face. One day the Great Machine will cover the land and the goddess will be made manifest in <koff, koff>

OK, I'm back. The newest issue of No Quarter is chockablock full of information on the Convergence, with entries for both Warmachine and the Iron Kingdoms RPG, a battle report, the spywork of Gavin Kyle about forces in the faction we've not seen yet (the Iron Mother Directrix!) and more. If you're at all interested, or think you might be, go ahead and pick this up so you can get a taste before the Forcebook and models come out later this summer.

Back to the boards, everyone, and I'll see you across the table!

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?!?

I'm a Kickstarter junkie.

I've really got to get it under control. Shiny, shiny! I want to support ALL the great miniature company Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects I see going on right now. But I'm not made of money. On the contrary, I'm made of old receipts, ticket stubs and dust.

I showed the unboxing for Zombicide, which was the first Kickstarter I got behind in a big way, but not the first one I contributed to. I first kicked in support for It Came From Beyond the Still, also known as Aliens vs. Hillbillies. I'll show some of my models for that later on,

What I want to share with you today is the result of what support I could put behind a project from Impact, called Little Urban Achievers. My rewards arrived today, and they look fantastic. The goal of this project was to produce minis with the look of the cast of a certain film involving bowling, carpet, and a Dude who Abides. I didn't have much spare cash as the funding period wrapped up, but I did have about $20, so I scored three figures from the initial run. I chose El Duderino, The Vet(eran) and Chino. Impact already had the Valkyrie figure available, so I figured I could grab her any time.

Chino, El Duderino and The Vet(eran)

 I plan on using them for my zombie table. Once I have a zombie table. Oh, I've got plans, but no table yet. Soon, oh my brothers and my sisters, we will viddy well a real horrorshow table for my zombie kriegspielen. Yes we will.

What you see behind the figures (and underneath them) was my other acquisition today, the limited edition strategy guide for Capcom's Resident Evil 6. I'm getting the game for Christmas, but I'm a patch collector, so I wasn't going to let these get away from me. I already had one of the BSAA patches you see behind Chino there, since it was included with the limited edition copies of the Resident Evil 5 game. But the other two are new. When I say I collect patches, let me be more specific. I collect patches of fictional groups or organizations and imaginary events. I have the patches for some of the Clans from Battletech, the factions in

Warmachine and Hordes from Privateer Press, one from the Miskatonic University 1930-1931 Antarctic Expedition detailed in Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness," by Propnomicon, who is a propmaking mastermind and artisan without equal, the Ishimura Planet-Cracker patch from the original Dead Space video game, several more. I haven't added any of patches for units from the Infinity game yet, but I'm sure I'll get some in time as I get more into that game. I read "Campaign: Paradiso" over my vacation and really enjoyed it. The writing was top-notch, the production values are off the chain, and the painting and art are breathtaking. Love, love, love it.

Enough rambling. So here's the other two patches, along with the BSAA one:

One cool thing of which I was unaware was that the strategy guide's cover is the box art for the Japanese release of the game. The U.S. edition just has that funky giraffe-looking weblike No. 6 on it.

Has me all excited! I hope all my friends and readers in the States enjoy their Thanksgiving, however they get to spend it. And I hope all my readers and friends elsewhere enjoy the next few days as well. I've got to come into work on the infamous "Black Friday" this year, but I'm actually off on Thanksgiving Day, which hasn't happened in a while. Not sure yet what Tracey and I are doing.

Check back in a few days and I'll give you a rundown of the kickstarter and indiegogo projects I am backing and the ones I wish I was backing.

Oh, and I think I disabled the Captcha on the comments, at least I tried to, but who knows?!? Somebody try it and tell me how it goes. I really want people to feel free to comment, and I'd rather spend my time deleting spam than hearing only the sound of crickets because I've made it difficult.

Thanks, everybody, for stopping by and spending this bit of time with me. You, my friends, and this hobby we share (these hobbies, more like, for which of us is ONLY a wargamer) are some of the things for which I am truly thankful this year.

Cheers!