People really need to think harder about when they decide to be born.

Gdaybloke, for example, was born right after New Year’s. This was a terrible decision, because it means that when his birthday rolls around, I’m just winding down from my holiday gift model production and in the last desperate weeks of Templecon model production. This leaves little to no time for any additional projects to be added to my docket, and as a result, Gday’s best-case scenario is an IOU; worst case, it’s a “Sorry, maybe next time you should try to hold out a little longer in the womb.”

He wouldn’t even need to wait that long in there– four months would do it. See, Templecon is in early February, and then I usually collapse in exhaustion for a month or so afterward. March is largely spent planning the next year’s project list and attending to various small projects I’ve had to put off for the sake of the November-Through-February meat grinder.

But April? April just works. I’m relaxed from my post-TCon break and not yet buried in brand-new projects, which I generally save for warmer months. If I have a random whim to knock a model together in April, I can generally pull it off with little to no collateral damage to my schedule.

And that is why I must dole out rare praise to my perpetual cab passenger, Tom. By nearly any rational accounting, Tom has proven to be an utter waste of the biological, financial, and nutritional resources his parents deigned to invest in him. To call his long-term and day-to-day decision-making “questionable” would be an act of abject charity. Yet in spite of all that, when it came time to make the one decision that mattered, Tom chose wisely.

Displaying a level of clarity that he would utterly abandon in all the years that would follow, Tom burst forth into the world on a day that would, decades later, place him in the ideal position for collecting Spudgiftery year after year after year. When April rolls around, Spud is feeling renewed and ready to commit unrepentant acts of creation. And Tom, most generously, is always standing there, palm upturned, waiting to receive them.

There has been a further development.

“Mr. Spud,” he pleaded, “you have to sell me one of those Journeymen.”

Scott was, of course, incorrect. But I was feeling generous, so I made him a counter-offer.

“These ones make up a set,” I explained, in the tone I reserve for small children and mischievous puppies. “But if you’re a very good boy, you can go to the wall, pick a mini, and I’ll make you your OWN Journeyman model. How does that sound?”

“Gosh! You really mean it, Mr. Spud?”

I did. I was enjoying making them, and they weren’t exactly difficult to construct. Some armor plates, a tacked-on backpack, and you’re pretty much done. Scott skipped off excitedly toward the Privateer wall, clapping excitedly the way he does, while I turned back to my work. Some time later, he returned; his face flushed with innocent joy, and his arms loaded with possibilities.

“Alright, now you can’t have ALL of them,” I reminded him, peering over the top of the glasses I don’t wear but that I have on for the purposes of this story. “You’ll have to pick.”

He deflated slightly, but after a few minutes of rummaging through his precious cargo, he made a selection. And while his choice was unusual, I think that ultimately, he made the right one.

And so, once my own work was complete, I set about the task of bringing joy to yet another young heart.

Every year, I go to Templecon. It’s the only event to which I travel any significant distance– I won’t even drive the 90 minutes to events held by 3rd-Best-Toronto-PG Northblade, no matter how lucrative the proffered bribes.

Because Templecon is my “one big event”, I like to bring something new there every year– whether new models for an existing army, or a wholly new one that I rush to complete in time for the event. The past two years I’ve taken the latter road; last year yielded my orange Legion army full of conversions, scratch sculpts and retina-searing paint. When I built my Legion army, my goal was to build a collection of display models; I sculpted and painted every model to the best of my ability, resulting in an army that took 14 months (on and off) to build.

This year, however, I didn’t want to work very hard.

I don’t help people.

People ask me to do a lot of conversions and sculpts for them, and as a rule, I turn pretty much everybody down. It started out as “no commissions, but I’ll do favors for people I know” because of the sheer amount of time I was dumping into those, but then I found myself agreeing to so many other people’s projects that I was having to book them six to nine months in advance. This made me a terribly sad Spud.

The main problem is that in order to drag myself through the weeks and months of work required to complete a project, I need to be excited about it. I need to think the idea is great, or badass, or hilarious, or whatever other adjective may apply, and be excited to finish it and reveal it to the world. Without that spark of excitement, it’s just too hard to dredge up the motivation to sit down for an eight-hour Saturday of rivet application. And as much as it sucks, I will just never be as excited about another person’s ideas as they are; people bring me projects with a look of glee on their faces, positive that I’ll think it’s awesome and be happy to take it on; but when they explain it, it usually turns out to be based on some inside joke I don’t understand or a reference I don’t think is that funny, and I’m left having to shatter this person’s excitement.

So I just cut everybody off. It’s easier to let people down due to an ongoing policy than to have to tell them their specific idea is f***ing terrible.

Lava so WARM and RED and WET
It’s Lava
LAVA!

…

…sorry.

Just a quick update today– the question of “how do you make lava” has come up a few times in the last week, and since I’ve made quite a bit of it over the years, I figured I’d toss together a quick infographic to explain my process. Hopefully someone will find this useful.

As promised, here are the rules for the Thunderdome format, taken from the event posting for last month’s event. Hopefully someone will find it informative. 🙂

-Spud

1.0 – Event Rules

• 1.1 – Thunderdome List Construction Rules
  • Thunderdome is a multiplayer format that supports anywhere from 4 to 8 players at a time.
  • Each player’s army consists of only three models: three Warcasters/Warlocks (hereafter  referred to collectively as “Casters”) from the same faction. There are no warjacks, warbeasts, solos, units, or anything else in play.
    • Warlocks use the mechanics for Focus instead of Fury– they gain their full Fury value at the start of the turn, and overcharge instead of transferring.
    • Ignore Pacts and Contracts when constructing your pool.
  • Each Caster choice can only ever bring one model to the table. No Halfjacks, no Keg Carrier, only one Coven member, Goreshade has no feat, etc. Yes, this makes some casters a bad choice in the format.
  • The Casters are considered to share a battlegroup.
• 1.2 – Additional Rules
  • Game Board: The board is a circle 3ft in diameter. The outer rim is divided into eight deployment zones; each player chooses a deployment zone through democratic elbowing, and may deploy models up to 3″ from that zone’s board edge.
  • Friendly Neighbors: Take note of the players who deploy in the spaces adjacent to you. You cannot damage or otherwise affect that player’s Casters in any way until that player has killed an enemy model. (In other words, you’ll need to walk a bit to find your first victim)
  • Combat Has Consequences: Models cannot be healed (exception: models with Tough can still heal 1 point on a successful roll), cannot be repaired, and cannot regenerate power fields in any way. Once damage is inflicted, it cannot be removed.
  • Spite Turns: Once all of a player’s Casters have been eliminated, that player continues to have turns. Whenever that player’s turn comes up, he may select one model anywhere on the board and place it anywhere completely within 3″ of its current location. That model’s controller may then turn that model to face any direction. If the owner of that model attempts to influence your choice of where to move that model in any way, you may instead place that model anywhere on the board and turn it to face any direction of your choosing. You are encouraged to put it in the most precarious and/or disruptive location you can possibly think of, and then smile coldly at the folly of the model’s owner.
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