I am quite psyched to paint. My orks are looking rather nice, and I am really really into painting my Black Templar and all I've done is basecoat the armor, skulls, metal bits, and the maltese crosses, which sounds like more work than it really is. I think I over-watered the Boltgun Metal when I was working on the metal stuff though. I am really developing an eye for thinning my paints, I started out at a 2:1 paint to water ratio and I've sort of gotten good enough to just eyeball the amount of paint and put the appropriate amount of water into the puddle to thin it. The only problem with the Boltgun situation is that the Vallejo eye dropper bottle I use for water has a split in the nipple end of it which isn't too much of a problem, it just slipped a little extra water in this time.
The orks look really good to me and I can only imagine the details with tighten up nicely as I apply more paint to the mix to build up the colors. As I kind of expected, the Devlan Mud wash had no effect whatsoever on the Tin Bitz colored metals. I'm not sure what effect the Games Workshop guys were going for, but we'll see what Badab Black adds in.
I like going by these guides I have. They offer a nice starting point and allow me to have a concrete example of what happens when I do something with a wash or a certain paint on a certain basecoat or primer. If I want to, I can also change up the paints to see if I can get my own specific effect. I'd like to play around with colors and see what I can come up on my own without the guides, but the paint is too expensive to waste in that fashion too often.
In other news, I am having a crisis of faith in my DnD campaign. 4th Edition is pissing me off. I like the system and it works and its very solid, if all you want to ever run is high fantasy campaigns. My kitchen sink monstrosity is having a hard time being hammered into the weirdly shaped hole of 4th Edition. The problem at its core can be related to lasers. That is correct, lasers. I want to throw lasers in to my campaign world, and not steampunk lasers either. Like fucking Weird West lasers. I have ideas about heat dissipation malfunctions and misfires that melt your fucking face, but I cannot work them (the lasers) into 4th Edition. What is the point of using your class granted powers if the powers you can use with your laser top those, and what's the point of using a laser if its power is not comparable to your powers granted to you at your current level. The other option is this: It does fire damage, and that is boring as fuck. If I do a laser or a lightning gun, I want it to be slightly more snazzy than a sword that does fire damage or lightning damage. I don't know. I want to do so much awesome shit and it just ends up seeming like 3.5 Edition would have been an easier place to do this shit, despite the nice things about 4th Edition. I can't just change editions on everyone and be like "Oh well, bummer about the money you spent, now go buy some more." That's just plain a dick move. Plus, I really like 4th Edition. I really really do. It is so much more fun to be able to have neat tricks to perform as a fighter, rather than just swing a weapon every round.
The more I ponder this topic the more I consider d20 Modern/Past/Future/Apocalypse/Etc to be the ideal setting for my campaign. Magic is present, but toned down and could work in sync with my initial conception of the screwball random ass system. There are rules and such already in place for medicine, explosives (and the creation thereof), car (or steam wagon) chases, firearms, etc, etc, etc. All the gadgetry I want to put into my campaign already has rules in d20 Modern, or one of its expansions. It has the prestige class system I like Plus, Fell-Humans won't be tieflings, I can just make them fucking humans with mutations like I want to and make magic radioactive like I want to. It has oodles of skills and skill points, which I like.
The problem is that I made everyone buy books this time around and d20 Modern books are going to be a lot harder to find than 4th Edition books. I can't justify making them purchase or obtain another book just because I want to have my setting work better though. We'll play 4th Edition, and I'll ask the die hards like Jeremy and Eric what they think and we'll go from there. 4th Edition works perfectly fine for ninety percent of what I want to do in my campaign. Unfortunately, that last ten percent is one of the more delicious parts.
The orks look really good to me and I can only imagine the details with tighten up nicely as I apply more paint to the mix to build up the colors. As I kind of expected, the Devlan Mud wash had no effect whatsoever on the Tin Bitz colored metals. I'm not sure what effect the Games Workshop guys were going for, but we'll see what Badab Black adds in.
I like going by these guides I have. They offer a nice starting point and allow me to have a concrete example of what happens when I do something with a wash or a certain paint on a certain basecoat or primer. If I want to, I can also change up the paints to see if I can get my own specific effect. I'd like to play around with colors and see what I can come up on my own without the guides, but the paint is too expensive to waste in that fashion too often.
In other news, I am having a crisis of faith in my DnD campaign. 4th Edition is pissing me off. I like the system and it works and its very solid, if all you want to ever run is high fantasy campaigns. My kitchen sink monstrosity is having a hard time being hammered into the weirdly shaped hole of 4th Edition. The problem at its core can be related to lasers. That is correct, lasers. I want to throw lasers in to my campaign world, and not steampunk lasers either. Like fucking Weird West lasers. I have ideas about heat dissipation malfunctions and misfires that melt your fucking face, but I cannot work them (the lasers) into 4th Edition. What is the point of using your class granted powers if the powers you can use with your laser top those, and what's the point of using a laser if its power is not comparable to your powers granted to you at your current level. The other option is this: It does fire damage, and that is boring as fuck. If I do a laser or a lightning gun, I want it to be slightly more snazzy than a sword that does fire damage or lightning damage. I don't know. I want to do so much awesome shit and it just ends up seeming like 3.5 Edition would have been an easier place to do this shit, despite the nice things about 4th Edition. I can't just change editions on everyone and be like "Oh well, bummer about the money you spent, now go buy some more." That's just plain a dick move. Plus, I really like 4th Edition. I really really do. It is so much more fun to be able to have neat tricks to perform as a fighter, rather than just swing a weapon every round.
The more I ponder this topic the more I consider d20 Modern/Past/Future/Apocalypse/
The problem is that I made everyone buy books this time around and d20 Modern books are going to be a lot harder to find than 4th Edition books. I can't justify making them purchase or obtain another book just because I want to have my setting work better though. We'll play 4th Edition, and I'll ask the die hards like Jeremy and Eric what they think and we'll go from there. 4th Edition works perfectly fine for ninety percent of what I want to do in my campaign. Unfortunately, that last ten percent is one of the more delicious parts.
I wonder if there is a way to hybridize the two systems or if there is a Modern ruleset in the works for the current edition of DnD.
Fuck. This hurts my brain.
Music: Deep Inside - Incubus
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