Archive for April, 2008

Tuesday April 8 2008 Burning Up

Picture: Venerable Dreadnought with Dark Angels iconography. The plasma cannon is from the plastic devastator kit. See the rest.

Everyone at the studio is stretched to the absolute limit.

I started my day at 5am. We had “family home morning” this morning, everyone eating pancakes, bacon, hash browns, and eggs. It was great. We sang some songs and just spent some good time together.

I am currently booking projects for May.

I am working on a super-secret project at the studio. You’ll see it at Adepticon.

Renn and Alan were working on getting projects assembled.

I got out about four projects at the PO today. I had a ton of certified letters, too, and a massive line backed up behind me. I’m always self-conscious about that. I think it comes from the logging road etiquette of pulling over for faster cars on a single lane.

I wish I could give more. But I’m really insanely tired now (it’s nearly 10pm and I still haven’t cleared my inbox).

Murphy’s Law of Combat

A client sent this to me.

- By Anon
1) Friendly fire – isn’t.
2)Recoilless rifles – aren’t.
3) If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid.
4) If at first you don’t succeed, call in an airstrike.
5) You are not Superman; Marines and fighter pilots take note.
6) A sucking chest wound is Nature’s way of telling you to slow down.
7) Try to look unimportant; the enemy may be low on ammo and not want to waste a bullet on you.
8) If you are forward of your position, your artillery will fall short.
9) Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
10) If your attack is going really well, it’s an ambush.
11) The enemy diversion you’re ignoring is their main attack.
12) The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions: when they’re ready; when you’re not.13) A retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.
14) The important things are always simple; the simple are always hard.
15) The easy way is always mined.
16) Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
17) Don’t look conspicuous; it draws fire. (For this reason, it is not at all uncommon for aircraft carriers to be known as bomb magnets.)
18) If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in the combat zone.
19) The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
20) Things which must be shipped together as a set, aren’t.
21) Things that must be together in order to work, can’t be shipped to the field that way.
22) Radios will fail as soon as you need fire support. (Corollary: Radar tends to fail at night and in bad weather, and especially during both.)
23) Anything you do can get you killed, including doing nothing.
24) Tracers work both ways.
25) If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will get more than your fair share of objectives to take.
26) Professional soldiers are predictable; the world is full of dangerous amateurs.
27) It’s not the one with your name on it that should worry you; it’s the one addressed “to whom it may concern” you’ve got to think about.
28) Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep.
30) If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove anything.
31) To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.
32) A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.
33) Body count Math: 3 guerrillas plus 1 probable plus 2 pigs equals 37 enemies killed in action.
34) If your flank march is going well, the enemy expects you to outflank him.
35) Odd objects attract fire – never lurk behind one.
36) The self-importance of a superior is inversely proportional to his position in the hierarchy (as is his deviousness and mischievousness).

Podhammer

Monday April 7 2008 Errands

Picture: an Earth Elemental painted the colors of Amethyst. You can find all sorts of unusual figures in our extensive RPG Figure Gallery.

Let’s talk about my car. It’s an ’89 Plymouth Voyager. It has no heat, no A/C and leaks oil all over the place. Whenever I hit a pot-hole the radio randomly changes from AM to FM or quits out. It’s a tin can. But it does get me to and from work every morning.

This morning I headed out with the family to pick up the same line of car except a ’94. It has a heater. That’s pretty sweet in the winter. I paid $900 cash. It’s extremely bad timing, but it was a pretty good deal. It was one of those “old people” cars that is very well taken care of.

I don’t buy new cars. For the same cost as a car payment you can buy an old clunker and ride it into the ground for sixty days. And if it lasts longer… bonus!

I ran my errands with my two handsome boys this morning. At Wal Mart I picked up a bunch of drawers for the Bitz Wall, which I am refurbishing. Four people have said they would organize it, but then dropped out. I can’t say I blame them, it’s quite a challenge. Soooo, I think Alan and I are going to tackle it.

The Bitz Wall is a great resource for BTP clients. We don’t charge for bitz needed for your project. If you have a missing part, we just quietly take care of business.

While we were at Wal Mart, Griffin ran off and we had like five clerks looking for him. That kid is a real piece of work. That gave me quite a scare.

I got in an enormous shipment today. I’m going to sort all that out tomorrow. I think that will get about six orders out of the gate.

I interviewed a guy from Salt Lake Valley this afternoon, as a potential artist. He’s a Warhammer Fantasy buff. Which is a good balance with the rest of the group which is mostly 40K oriented. I’m getting an almighty urge to do a Fantasy army.

I’ve pitched the idea of “Dark Bretonnians” to several clients, but with no bites. Essentially, it’s an anti-paladin list. All dark knights, but using the Bretonnian list, changing everything to evil names. More to come on that.

Which reminds me, I’d really like to sell off my Tau Drone Army to finance that. I have it on the block for $650 temporarily. I have taken a ton of pictures of this army.

Sunday April 6 2008 General Conference

Today is General Conference. My wife is up at her sister’s house for the weekend. I dearly miss them, but I had to “work” Saturday and my little tin can of a car isn’t reliable enough to make the journey. So, here I am home alone.

Flashback: I went to Priesthood session last night and left, as always, uplifted and inspired. And of course with a great urgency to improve my life.

If you are a client trying to reach me, please try back first thing on Monday morning. You can get my undivided attention.

I am also looking up the voting record of my congressman, Chris Cannon. There’s too much money flowing to the Feds. I can’t believe what is going on up on “the hill”. Let me be specific, the budget for this coming year is about $2,200,000,000,000. I think it should be more like $800,000,000,000. It’s like getting an alcoholic to put down the bottle. They are drunk on our money.

If I compared it to a household. I think the budget needs to get scaled back from a roaring $8800 a month to about $3200 a month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6NfXk7Bvc8

Yeah, you heard me, I’m talking about both religion and politics on the same day.

Mike (one of the BTP painters) and I are going to form the “Torch and Pitchfork” society. We don’t know what we’re going to do, but we’re headed up to the capitol sometime soon. Initial goal: get a membership of 15 good and stalwart men. I’m talking about fiscal responsibility here.

I am ever so tired of seeing my pie get taken away by force, then pecked over by rancid vultures, then returned to me in the form of so-called government services, which aren’t even fit to be spit upon.
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Exhibit A: Social Security.
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Exhibit B: A “Ward” in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Within our community we are not only able to stay off the government dole, but also to pay our onerous taxes AND STILL take care of our own. I belong to a Ward of about 600 people. I am convinced that almost every problem can be taken care of by a community of that size. We could do an even better job if a fifth of our crops weren’t stolen by bandits every year.
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How does it work? Each individual is expected to be self-sufficient. If there is a problem you rely first on yourself, then on your family, then on the church. In times of need, my wife and I have gone to the bishop, who has counseled with us, and in each case within 48 hours taken care of us in an immediate and substantive way. But we were expected to get back on our feet post haste. .
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And we did.
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My point: money is most efficiently managed on a local level. The more local the better.

Every month we fast and also make a donation to the Fast Offering fund. It is from that fund that we take care of our own. And not only that but the church gives all sorts of aid and service worldwide, quietly and with no publicity. My point is: if people are left alone, they will take care of themselves. Government is only needed for a very narrow and limited range of operations.

Back to the church welfare program: In one case I was eating some pears from the Storehouse, when I cast my mind back to my days as a new Mormon, sixteen years old, and working as a volunteer at the pear orchards in Oregon.

What goes around comes around.

PS- If you’re going to start your own business you had better have a backup plan for food.

Dragons of Moloch- hindsight

Well, the game is over. The first part at least should be up on Youtube tonight. I won’t say if I won or lost. I will say how I plan on improving my army.

Units with the most flexibility seem to do the best. For example, my Raptors have a meltagun, champion with power fist, and a plasma pistol. They are very vast and can take on a variety of threats.

My regular units of Berserkers (I use regular CSM models, with conversions, to represent them) could really use some more flexibility. I plan on including one plasma pistol and giving the champion Melta-bombs standard from now on.

I also forgot during the game that they have Furious Charge. That could have really given me the edge on numerous occasions.

Melta-bombs now standard on the Chaos Lord, too. I might try a Deamon Weapon next time. Not sure. The Lightning Claw is all right.

I will likely just play him with the stat line of Huron Blackheart, though.

As for additions to the army, I think a dreadnought or two would round things out nicely. They would provide good modeling opportunities.

I did pick up some of those Chaos Ogryns from FW, so I think I may just run those as Spawn. That would work.

Dragons of Moloch- Game Today

Friday April 4 2008

A Good Word

In the course of my travels, I have come across a few miniatures painting companies that have a good track record. Both of these following companies can produce a good traditional style figure as well as some non-traditional stuff, not to mention display quality figures.

Middle Pillar Path Painting
Some of you may remember Jay (Jason) and Heather from Blue Table last year. They got married and are still painting miniatures under their original name Middle Pillar Path Painting. Jason finished over two hundred projects for Blue Table Painting. Both are accomplished artists.

Grey Matter Musings
www.gmmstudios.com/
Brandon is a fellow entrepreneur. He’s always been friendly and has managed to survive this very, very competitive business for many years now.

Battlefield Scenics
Thomas is another accomplished local painter that I have worked with extensively. He can certainly service your L7+ needs. http://www.battlefieldscenics.com/

Client Testimonial

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