Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Chaos Pact? I Don't Even Know Her! (Blood Bowl WIP)

Good Day to you Out there JaRheads! (Patent Pending).
I have a quick little update for everyone on my Chaos Pact Team, the Toxic Evils (-Pros).
As you may remember from my last post I was building a team similar too, but not exactly the same as the Olde Chaose Alle-Starse! Hey! Did you know? That the original Chaos-All-Stars roster included Ogres, Goblins and Troglodytes? They didn't even have Marauders or Beastmans, it was just Gobs and Big Guys, not the least big guy to speaking of being ol' giant crossbow face himself Morg'th'n'Thorg (Shortened to MTG)! Even in those formative years of Blood Bowl pubescence Morg was quite the rough costumer, laying the smack'eth down'th on anyone'th he could get his hands on. Now, my Chaos Pact team needs an awesome ogre too, so there was no better place to look than in the annals of Blood Bowl past! I spent a lot of money, and I spent a lot of time, but now I have one of the original Blood Bowl ogres of my very own! :D He's so cute! And now that he's painted up and based he's ready to go run a pain-train on the field!


His name is Gruff Ramjam! And he's really cool! Notice his team logo belt buckle and manly chest and back hair! His banana sling says "pleasure" but his big fists and mohawk are all business! He's also got a familiar but awesome tattoo on his bicep but I forgot to take a good picture of it. I love him.

Now that we've looked at a classic model on my team let's look at one of my newer designs. She's a blood crazed Blood-natic of Khorne, she bathes in blood....BLOOD!


Her name is Fiercia Lowblow and she's a marauder!
Her lack of clothes might appear non-threatening but her name and giant blue crab-claw speak to a much more pointy and painful nature. She's not 100% done yet, I want to do some blood effects on her claw and obviously base her.

Well that's all for now, but I've still got some more surprises up my sleeve for this team so stay tuned, and always your comments and concerns are welcome.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Lunatic is on the Grass.

I like starting with a little greeting instead of just jumping right in there. My “personal touch” if you will. If you really could care less about this just skip to the next paragraph. I mentioned what I was listening to last time, this time I’m listening to Counting Crows singing “Accidentally in Love”. I’m a girl, I’m allowed to like what ever the hell I want. My computer is running super slow today, I just force quit a couple things that I wasn’t using (like Illustrator, I mean wtf why would I have that open and not be using it? Am I stupid? Do I enjoy torturing myself having my computer running 5 times slower than normal because I’m stupid and haven’t bought more RAM yet?) so now it is running better. Oh… but I know why Illustrator was open.


Attractive right? If you weren’t reading that paragraph I bet you’re pretty confused about that picture. Even if you were reading you probably are still confused. It is what happens when I’m left alone and have access to blankets and image editing software. Anyway, I think I should move onto something that is actually related to this blog now…


Blood Bowl Team Manager The Card Game!!! WEEEEEEE. So some background… Frank always buys games and tries to get me to play them with him. Usually these games require about half an hour of set up before you even get to trying to read the 28 page long rule book. So when he first told me that he bought another game, I wasn’t thrilled. He can learn endless numbers of rules for 20 million games at the same time… I can barely contain 2 games. (Moving onto Muse- Thoughts of a Dying Atheist) But seriously, this is a real problem for me… Maybe it is a problem for you if you’re also dating or know someone who plays miniatures games. Well, push those worries aside because BBTMTCG (doesn’t save much time does it?) is pretty freaking awesome. Why?


First of all, the set up is sooooooo easy. It is just cards and little tokens, its like pokemon all over again but better! (See end of post about pokemon rant that no one seems to be interested in joining in on, please tell me how you feel, I really am genuinely interested.) Moving on… You set up the cards and draw your dudes and then play 2-3 games per round. I’m not going to go into terrible detail of how exactly to play the game, but just a gist and my thoughts on it. Anyway, you roll to see if you tackle people. Sometimes there will be a special rule, like if you successfully tackle someone you roll again to see if they die. Fun right? So you play a couple rounds of that and then you get to the end where there are 3 games, 2 regular games and the Blood Bowl. Here is where I have a problem with this game.


You only have 6 people in your hand… splitting them between 3 games sucks especially if you didn’t draw a particularly good hand. (Led Zeppelin-Trampled Under Foot) I think you should be able to draw an extra two or three people. Yes, it makes it harder and makes you strategize more, which is awesome, but sometimes you really need to win a certain game, which leads me to what makes you win at the end. The whole time you are playing you’re earning fans in one way or another. You win the game if you have the most fans. The Blood Bowl offers the most fans if you win it. Therefore in the last turn of COURSE you are going to try to win the Blood Bowl! Duh! In one game Frank and I played, the only card he put on one of the other game cards was a Lineman with guard. He had to do that because you don’t have enough cards in your hand to focus on three games when ONE of them is so important to winning the game as a whole. I enjoy the other non-Blood Bowl rounds a lot better. I think they are more interesting with the special rules and just trying to win two games. I suppose we could create a house rule about that and see if it makes it better or if it just gets ridiculous. We’ll see.


So overall, BBTMTCG, super fun game. Easy to learn. Fairly quick to play. Good times.



Fenrich Gives BBTMTCG: 4/5 sticks.


Fenrich... you're holding it.. upside.. down. Ah he'll figure it out.

And as a send off: Weezer- Time Flies






OH BUT WAIT! POKEMON! You thought I forgot... did you forget? What are your thoughts on Heracross? More on the topic of, is fighting and bug a good combo for a pokemon? Do you use this pokemon?



Friday, April 13, 2012

JAR Grudge Match Matchtacular: THE RESULTS!

So, we here at Just a Rhino have a pretty neat system set up here. First, we decide to meet up in the blinding terror of 'real life' instead of just being internet buddies. Then, we hype up the super-competitive board game we're going to play. Then, Frank loses.

Then it takes a month to post a match/battle report.

Well, here it is, because I bet you still give tons of craps about it: The results.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

"Toxic Evil" Just Got a New Name



Evening/Morning/Equinox/Injury Time sports fans, Frank here to tell you a little bit about the pain and suffering of my human spirit! I'm sad and have a butt for a face! SAD FEELINGS!

...wait no, this isn't my "Pretend I'm Norm on his Live Journal" post...
Oh! Here it is!
That's right! Blood Bowl!
Ah, if there ever was an outlet for my Primal Rage (The Avatars), my artistic passion and my grand ability to roll all the wrong kinds of dice rolls (See Hanshin Tigers) it would be on the Fantastic Field of Blood Bowl. And since my little elves have been captured in a Time Spiral it's time to start a new team. And since I am really partial to Mutants, and Leagues and Extreme Thirst I decided no team would be better to begin than Chaos Pact!

My newest team the Toxic Evil-Pros! are a combination of the best mutants and renegades that there ever was! At least that's what I'd say about them in like...20 more games? Their definitely a development project, but the coolest thing about Chaos Pact is that you're allowed to make your players HOWEVER you want!
-You're whole team has access to almost every skill on the regs! (Except Agility skills which are doubles)
-You get 1 of each of a crew of racial positionals! 1 Goblin, 1 Dark Elf, and 1 Skaven. Though their stats would seem mediocre on their own rosters on Pact they have mutation access in addition to the normal skills they would have access to, making them a blank canvas for development.
-3 F@#$KIN BIG GUYS! AT ONCE!


Wow that sounds great! So let's get this 1,000 lbs crap show on the road!
First off let me say the first thing I could think of when trying to bring my creations to life (ALIVE!) is the original Chaos mutards The CHAOS ALL-STARS!
Remember when mutations didn't exist? Well the flippin' All-Stars had them then! WHAM!
Anyway the old Chaos All-Stars models are as famous as they are fantastically hard to find. Here's a picture of them for reference!
Frak yes! It does my heart to see a set of models that are older than me, but still way cooler than I'll ever be! So basically you got your big guys, 1 of each of your Multi-Racial Positionals, an of course some flipptards with mutations galore. It's awesome!
Now as much as i want to just make my own versions of this whole Iconic Team...I kind-of have had MUTANT FEVER! And now there's so many mutants I have planned that I literally gotta go with some of my new designs just because I really want to make them. But I'll be sticking in the neighborhood of the color scheme and some of my favorite Stars I'm going to rigga-remake.

First-Off A New one!


This here is Grim "Spike" Durfman his hideous face is made of a metal spore mine, with a cool fluffy lace color to keep his neck warm and stylish. His body is a plastic human blitzer. It's a very simple conversion but I kind of love him! You might also notice that my color scheme is actually Hot Pink and Turquoise while the original Stars are Red and Green. I actually always thought that the old ones were Pink and Green but I guess they undercoated them white and that red just got outta hand...into being awesome! So I decided to go with a cool hot pink and cool blue-green. I'm really liking it so far.

Next is another one of my creations!
This little 'demonette' is Fiercia Lowblow, just in case you thought that claw didn't mean business because she's in a metal bikini. I got this model from Reaper to use as a cheerleader and then cut one of her arms off and sculpted a new one, and added a chopped down dryad claw from WH:GFB.

Now here's some guys based right off the old models. The left guy is an ork biker boy torso with nob arms attached to the legs of a plastic human lineman, his chest face and awesome pompadore I sculpted on. To the right is a metal human thrower I fashioned a giant tentacle throwing arm onto, just like old Lewdgrip! He's got some paint but's not really even started.

My Dark Elf Renegade Hellena Murderson is a converted Malifaux figure, whom I sculpted extra arms onto, now she's like a little Spiral. Her paint is actually almost done just need to do a bit more highlighting in her pants and skin (Which is light purple) and she'll be ready to hit the pitch.
Another note on these is I'm using the NEW Citadel Paints line (Along with the old) and as far as things go I'm really liking some of the new Types of paints, like The green glaze I used on this last girls hair just really rules! The two colors I picked out were also new Layer Paints, Pink Horror (AWESOME NAME!) and Sotek Green, the green is washed with the new Shad Biel-Tan Green. All in all I'm loving the new paint line even though I only bought a few. The 2 things I'm still upset about with the new paints are:
They dry VERY quickly and,
FUCKING KIDDING ME!? The SAME LIDS!?
Come on!
I've gotten used to sneak attacking the thermal paint port on my paint pots to cause massive paint to get on my brush then I always have set up a giant pile of paint on my pallet that I'm not going to use. But I would have much preferred to not be a jack-ass thinking about secret space-plane missions when I'm putting paint brushes in paint.

And that's as good a note as any to leave on so...L8sk8ers

Norm will be posting a sweet post about our Grudge Match later this week, and I'll be doing lots more Toxic-Pro-Jam Pics all this week, including lots of designs for new mutants from my sketchbook. I might even have an old pro show up in my roster (WINK!).



Saturday, April 7, 2012

They Want to Rock and Roll All Night and Part of Every Day... Everyone Has to Sleep Eventually.

Hello all, Becky here. Today instead of talking about myself, I’m going to talk about something a little more interesting. My blood angels list, YAY. *searches for music to epically write this post to as the soundtrack from Riven is playing right now and that is just NOT the right mood for writing.. epic-style-Immigrant Song it is*


Yeah this is a real picture from the internet


Awesome right?

Onto my list! As it stands right now it is 2027 pts but there is one thing I’ll probably cut unless once I get to that point it becomes necessary. If that happens I can just drop something else to bring it down.

Captain Becky…100: (160)
-Lightening claw x2 (+30)
-Melta bombs (+5)
-Jump Pack (+25)

Honour Guard…115: (280)
-Blood Champion (+20)
-Chapter Banner (+30)
-Jump Packs (+50)
-power sword (+15)
-lightning claw x2 (+30)
-storm shield (+20)

corbulo…105: (105)

priest…50: (90)
-jump pack (+25)
-power sword (+15)

Furioso…125: (175)
-librarian (+50)

death dread…125: (140)
-blood talons
-magna-grapple (+15)

chaplain…100: (100)

death co…60: (205)
-5 extra (+100)
-3 power weapons (+45)

assault…100: (130)
-no jump packs
-lightning claws x2 (+30)

assault…100: (217)
-four extra (+72)
-lightning claws x2 (+30)
-infernus pistol (+15)


drop pod…35: (35)

drop pod…35: (35)

razorback…55: (80)
X-TL assault cannon (+35)X
-extra armor (+15)
-storm bolter (+10)
-minus (-35)

Land Raider Redeemer…240: (275)
-extra armor (+15)
-multimelta (+10)
-storm bolter (+10)

So that’s all well and good right? But how will it function? Let me tell you my magical plans for this list that I have yet to run. I like to think it is a fairly well rounded list. I’ll start with the badass Captain Becky and her Honour Guard of Violent Misfits.

To get it out of the way, Becky is a girl, she’s modeled after me, you can see her picture in my last post. She has two lightning claws because it takes a special kind of asshole to only have one lightning claw. A member of her guard also has a pair of lightning claws. They are equipped for close combat. Armed with jump packs they drop in with descent and wipe out what they can.

Brother Corbulo is accompanying the Assault squad without jump packs in the razorback. He’ll give them feel no pain-y goodness. The other priest will be with the jump pack assault squad with a jump pack of his own. This squad has lightning claws and an infernos pistol so they’re ready for close combat if they drop in.

I have two dreads, Furioso Librarian and Death Company. They will each be dropping in via drop pod. They are mostly equipped to take out tanks (I hope, I need advice on that, haven’t quite gotten the hang of vehicles yet).

Then we get to the Chaplain with Death Co. This is how I feel about Death Company.





That being said, I know they have major flaws. I just cannot seem to bring myself to stop playing them. Seriously, I mean they’re so fun! So blood-thirsty and kill hungry, just what blood angels should be! But that is also their demise. The whole chasing what ever is closest gets old really quickly, getting kited around the board the whole game is never fun. One event in my history with Death Company will make me keep them. It happened in the Texas Tag-Team Tournament. We were up against some orcs and dark eldar. My death company met a mob of boys in the middle of the board in close combat and (not to be rude) ate them alive. It was amazing and redeems them enough even with their other flaws for me to still include them. The will be driving the Redeemer. This is a throwback for those of you who have been following Frank from other places, remember the orc tank WrekBekka? Well these guys are the ones who had the original before it was orc-ified. WreckBecca. Frank is in the process of painting her so in the future there will be a picture, along with as I actually get these guys built and painted.

That’s really it. I feel like this is a rip off for a post but I haven’t played them as a team yet so I can’t really say how they work.

What she said.




On a more personal note, happy holidays to all celebrating this weekend. I'm going to go make frosting to put on my mini carrot cake cup cakes! Yayy!

The Wheel of Chaos Rolls Over Frank and Norm

A brief introduction: Frank and I play Blood Bowl. Blood Bowl is best played online (sorry, purists). Online, there are sweet tournaments, such as the WHEEL OF CHAOS III! Frank and I both qualified, though with relatively unprepared teams. Remember my our grudge match teams? Those were our entrants, plus a few extra rookies to buff up our benches. Each of us were paired with a tough-looking team; Me against Lizardmen, Frank against some blodged-up Dark Elves. Here's a transcript of my match report (original report and java replay available here.)

Click through to read the report on our site instead, because we love you.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Yo! I'm fly. I'm the female boss. I'm number one.

I decided it was time to step out of the shadows of this blog and into the light. You've seen my influence around the blog and you don't even know it! How does that feel? Is it strange? Let me back up, I'll tell you the story from the beginning.

Frank started teaching me how to play 40K about a year and a half ago. Due to moving from one state to another and then other responsibilities, I've learned some, but not nearly enough to comfortably hold my own on the table. I play Blood Angels. This is my captain which Frank sculpted for me!


Captain Becky


I had a decent list that I could occasionally beat Frank with (though I'm convinced he was letting me win), but when I took it into my first tournament (infantry only), I was sorely disappointed with how poorly it did against other teams. This scared me off of 40K for a little while, but eventually Frank got me to play again in the team tournament where we played together (re: Texas Tag-Team Tournament ). That's right, his dark apprentice is here... on Just a Rhino. Writing about... wait for it... 40K from a beginning girl's perspective (keep reading, don't give up yet). I know what you may be thinking, what could this girl tell me that I don't already know? A girl talking about learning the ins and outs of 40K will be boring right? WRONG! You are so very very wrong. Ever wish your girl friend, wife or girl who you sort of know who lives down the street that waves to you sometimes would play with you? Point her to this blog, I'll show her anyone can do it and it is fun! Are you a girl whose S/O plays miniatures games and you have no idea what he's talking about? I'm here to help. Plus I'm funny and my hair is blue so you have to like me.

Anyway, in the time that I've known Frank, he and Norm started Just a Rhino. I take 85% of Frank's pictures of the grudge matches and edit 100% of them. I also created the JaRBBL poster as well as filming and editing the grudge match videos. So as I said in the beginning of the post, you've already seen my influence around JaR, but now you'll see more of it. Don't worry, I'll post about other things as well, like Space Hulk (which by the way Frank has never beat me in... take THAT) and perhaps Super Dungeon Explorer or other board games.

My hope is to entertain and perhaps lure some more girls into the miniatures gaming community, it is kinda lonely over here! I was trying to find some witty all encompassing picture for the end of this post to reward those of you who worked so hard to finish it. I mean it is the end right? You should feel satisfied for your efforts and the time you put into this, but all I could come up with was this:


Mass Effect 3


No seriously here you go.


How Star Wars should have ended.