Author Archives: Josh Bazin

Weathering the Storm

  By Josh Bazin | October 17, 2012 - 10:33 am | Short_Story
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I feel it coming. I prepare myself to weather the storm. The preparations are never enough.

Never enough.

I hear the wind pick up. Debris smashes against my fortifications, tearing through as if it were only paper. This is only the beginning. The worst is still coming.

The howl of the wind dies, for a moment. Silence. I brush myself off. Maybe I will be ok.

That’s when I hear the rush of the oncoming water. My spirit sinks. I try to fill the holes, but it isn’t enough.

Never enough.

The waves rise up and the sound is deafening. I can’t hear anything else but the rumble of the oncoming water. I’m already prepared to fall. Ride the wave. Don’t drown.

The walls collapse around me. The wave carries me away from where I stood, yet…I still see my body standing there.

I ask myself what is going on, but I am too confused. My eyes sting from the salt water. My breathing comes in irregular spurts. But, I am not with my physical body.

The waves subside. As the water level sinks, so do I. I’m back with my body. Another unsuccessful attempt at repelling the onslaught. Maybe tomorrow my preparations will be enough.

Never enough.

I look to the sky. The black clouds linger.

Tomorrow will be the same.

I pick up the pieces and start again.

The Unknown

  By Josh Bazin | October 2, 2012 - 10:03 am | Short_Story
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He poked it, even though everything he knew told him not to.  The thing compressed against his finger, as if he were pushing against bread dough.  He pushed his finger in to the end of his nail.

That’s when the trouble started.

He tried to pull his finger back, but it would not budge.  The dough constricted around the finger.  He was more furious in his withdrawal attempts, but it grew tighter and tighter.

It began to move up the finger, enveloping the first joint.

He screamed.

The sticky mass was at the second knuckle now, spreading to the middle finger.  It was moving fast now.  His hand became enveloped in the dough-like substance.

Next his elbow.

The mass grew as it spread across his body.  Gasping, the dough rose up his throat.

His scream was cut short as the dough spread down his esophagus.

The last thing he thought was:

“Don’t touch the unknown.”

 

Finally, a win

  By Josh Bazin | October 1, 2012 - 9:17 am | Boardgames
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Up until this weekend, I had been winless when playing Malifaux.  According to my recorded plays on BoardGameGeek, that means I was going into Saturday at 0-11.  So, it’s been a long time coming.

Saturday, my record improved to 1-11.  I’ve got a ways to go before I’m close to even, but, its nice to have finally broken the goose egg.

So, for my win, we played a game at 35 soulstones.  I was using Rasputina of the Arcanists as my master (as I typically do) and she brought a the Essence of Power, Silent One, Gunsmith, Kaeris, Iggy and a Fire Gamin as her crew.  This left a pool of 6 soulstones.  My strategy was “Line in the Sand” and I had selected Bodyguard(Rasputina) and Hold Out as my schemes.

I was playing against Zoraida with Collodi and a whole pile of wicked dolls and marionettes and a pair of terror tots.  My opponent had “Escape and Survive” as his strategy and had selected Hold Out and Bodyguard(Zoradia) as schemes.

I spread my forces across my deployment zone (which was on the table diagonal), putting Kaeris, Iggy and the Fire Gamin together at one end, the Gunsmith on her own at the other.  Rasputina, the Essence of Power and the Silent One were in the middle.  My opponent deployed as a large group in the middle of his deployment zone.

As he had more models, his plan was to out activate me.  He did what he could to hold off on Collodi’s activation.  I did what I could to block the lanes as much as possible to prevent Collodi from moving too far (or, if you prefer – making him move where I wanted him to move).  When Collodi finally activated, he took the route I did not expect – he went after Kaeris.

Kaeris isn’t that strong defensively – she’s just pretty average.  But, when you consider Collodi’s marionettes and wicked dolls are only 2 and 3 wound models, that must fight in melee, I’ll let that mob fight her every day of the week.  Why?  Flaming Armor.  To deal melee damage on Kaeris, you take a wound (and gain a burning token).  Plus, as most everyone else in my crew deals at least 2 points of blast damage on moderate damage flips and above, that means dolls are going to die.  Add that fact that Kaeris can ignore blast damage (and heal a wound), and my opponent was in for a bad time.

After turn three, my opponent threw in the towel.  I had eliminated Collodi and all the dolls on the board, preventing him from achieving his strategy.  I felt he was a little premature in calling the game, as I only had activated one dynamite marker by turn 3 and he could have moved a unit into my deployment zone, preventing me from achieving my scheme (which, was unannounced, so only worth 1 VP).  I don’t know that I would have eliminated Zoradia, but I had the right units to ensure I could reach his deployment zone to prevent him from getting his Hold Out scheme.

It was a good game and I was happy with the outcome.  I think I had a good chance of winning even with my opponent’s error and I’m starting to be real comfortable with how I need to work my crew.  I think after a few more wins, I’ll be moving to a new faction for a change of pace, since I have Neverborn in my case (Lilith in particular) and Resurrectionists on the way (McMourning and Seamus).

Malifaux painting update

  By Josh Bazin | September 25, 2012 - 8:50 am | Boardgames
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It’s been a little while since I’ve updated with photos of how my painting is going, so today, I update you!

Here’s a photo of a bunch of stuff in varying states of being painted.

This is a close up of one of my Gunsmiths.  I’m really happy with how the duster is looking on the back side.

And finally, here is one of my Union Miners.  I’m pretty happy with how he’s turning out – still have some work to do and some touch ups here and there, but he looks good on the table.

And on top of all that, I also picked up a Battlefoam Malifaux bag, which is FANTASTIC.  I really recommend them for anyone looking for a storage solution.

 

The 100 Words a Day Challenge

  By Josh Bazin | September 24, 2012 - 3:12 pm | Building Blocks
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I’ve fallen off the blogging horse again.  I let things slip for a few days and bam, I was back to not writing daily.  Not so good!

So, taking a page from my friend Brandon Schatz (The Soupy Toasterson Show), I’m committing to write 100 words a day and post it here.  While the 100 Words Daily challenge for Brandon is focused on fiction, I will not limit myself to fiction, but I will try to post some stories from time to time.

Now, I’m doing this for two reasons.  One, I feel good when I regularly post.  Two, moral support – I’ll encourage Brandon, he’ll encourage me.  Less likely that we will fall off the horse, methinks.

Now, this post is coming in around 125 words.  Not hard to do at all.

Music that moves

  By Josh Bazin | August 14, 2012 - 9:05 am | Building Blocks
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For me, most of the time, music is just background noise.  I enjoy it, but most of the time, I take very little away from it.  But, once in a while, there is a song that comes on the radio, or is part of a soundtrack, or on an album that I buy that just evokes a strong emotional response.

Today was one of those days.  I knew it was going to happen, since I picked the CD off the shelf to listen to specifically for the song – but, I had forgotten about a second, perhaps more powerful song on the same album which just gave me chills.

The song I wanted to hear today was Extreme Ways.  The opening notes give me chills and forever invokes the imagery of the credit sequence of The Bourne Identity.  Digging deeper into the song, it fits with the themes of Bourne so well.  The inclusion of it at the credits hits at the continued difficulties that the character will face.  It’s a little haunting.  I liked the song before Bourne came out, but now, the song is forever linked – which, makes it perhaps, more emotional for me.

The song that surprised me was One of These Mornings.

One of these mornings won’t be very long

You will look for me and I’ll be gone

The lyrics are truly haunting.  Is the song about leaving a lover?  Is it about someone on their death-bed?  It it about something more sinister?  Many possibilities, most are heart wrenching.

When a song gets me, it really gets me.

Thinking about strategy and army building

  By Josh Bazin | July 16, 2012 - 10:00 am | Boardgames
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From my latest posts, it should be no surprise that right now, I’m very excited about my Space Wolves army and the game of Warhammer 40,000 as a whole.

I’ve had the opportunity to play two games, which both were a blast, but I’ve realized that for how I want to play my army, I made some poor choices!  Now, for clarity, they aren’t bad choices overall.  They’re just bad for how I want to play my army.  Certainly, someone else would make a different choice and be just as effective.

So, what did I do wrong?  Well, the way I see my army – I’m all about the close combat.  None of this shooting from a distance thing.  I want to walk up and rip your head off.  So, with this in mind – Plasmaguns and Combi-weapons aren’t exactly the best for a group that is looking to assault as often as possible.

What else?  I don’t have much in the way of tank-busting.

So, what am I to to?  Bust up a bunch of models, of course!  Thankfully, I used super glue, so it was relatively easy to break my models apart.  I tore off several arms and prepared them for re-assignment.  Meltaguns will be added to bolster tank-busting abililty (in addition to a unit of Long Fangs) and a Wolf Standard will be added to each squad of Grey Hunters.

My next game, I will have a force that is a much greater threat, methinks.

 

Not just miniatures…

  By Josh Bazin | July 13, 2012 - 10:00 am | Boardgames
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So, miniatures gaming would be pretty boring without terrain.  I had some foam core sitting around the house, so, I pulled a few templates off the web and started cutting.

This is a pretty impressive terrain piece that adds quite a bit to the battlefield.  Imagine a squad of snipers in the windows.  Pretty much negates any cover saves another unit might get for cover because of the height.  Could be terrifying.

Alright, so these aren’t exactly great looking, but they’re suitable for small pieces to add a little cover around the battlefield.

These need work, particularly lots and lots of flocking.  But, that’s ok!  So far, I’ve spent about $2 on materials and no more than 2 hours of my time.  I’ve got one great piece and a few little ok pieces.  Not bad!

More painting…

  By Josh Bazin | July 11, 2012 - 8:35 am | Boardgames
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So, I’ve been keeping up with my painting, trying different techniques and things here and there and just working on my skills.

First up, here’s a model after the application of the first layer color, which basically covers all stained areas from the wash.  Definitely looks a lot more like a Space Wolf suit of armor now.

Then I applied some highlights and gave the model some drybrushing.  It looks pretty decent.

Now, the backside of the model, again, it looks decent.  You’ll see on the right leg some area that was drybrushed – definitely not happy with that area of the model, BUT, it isn’t noticeable from a distance, so it’s ok.  And ultimately, this model is about me trying out different techniques.

So, with lessons learned from the model above, I just applied highlights to some key areas of the armor.  This model is looking pretty good, aside from sloppy work on the first layer.  Again, on the tabletop, it’s going to look pretty decent.

Overall, I need to work on my brush strokes.  I’ve often had too much paint on my brush, or overshot the area I’m trying to paint and I’ve covered area of wash that I shouldn’t have.

I have a smaller brush now and I need to work on just using the point to get the nice, tight lines.  I need to steady my hand a bit.

I also have a number of models that were washed poorly, so there isn’t the nice ‘pools’ of paint in the crevices, but rather just a big pile of ‘dark’ all over.  Definitely need to revisit those models and work on that.

It’s enjoyable to paint the models.  It’s a learning experience and I know I’m not perfect.  Overall, I like the look of what I’ve produced – and that’s the important thing.