New Podcast and Project Progress Video

We had meant to do a new podcast before TwisterCon but that didn't happen. Tracy was too busy trying to have his force completed before the convention to do the podcast. Besides some finishing touches like inking and sealants, Tracy was able to go to TwisterCon with his entire force beautifully painted, minus models that didn't come up until the day of the convention. A week later and we did a new podcast about our adventures at TwisterCon. I was going to do a post about TwisterCon but I didn't take enough pictures and videos. We talk about the highlights of the convention in episode 22 of War Journal. As always, you can listen to the podcast at http://neaceul.podbean.com/.

My own progress with Team Yankee is much slower than Tracy's. I have documented what I've gotten done so far in my second progress video. You can watch that video here. In April I won't be able to pick up anything new so I will focus on finishing what I've already have (that is not screwed up). I'm giving myself the goal to have 4 Abrams, 1 Cobra, 2 M113s and the FIST all done by the end of the month. For the M113s I'm just talking about the main bodies because the mounts require additional purchases. For that matter, I need to pick up magnets before the tanks can be finish as well. I'll consider the Abrams done if adding magnets is the only thing left to do with them. My goal also includes some Bretonnians. My Warhammer goal is to have 10 archers, 5 knights and a lady finish by the end of the month as well. I'll do another progress video in the middle of the month to see how close I get to accomplishing my goals. Stay tune as the forces of Team Wraith and Thylalon comes to life!

Update in Chaos (3-28-16)

Recently the only thing I've been working on is Team Yankee. That was because I was preparing to go to TwisterCon which was this past weekend. It was a 20 hour affair but it was a blast and well worth the effort. I got the chance to meet another community of Team Yankee players. Going forward any events or campaigns I come up for Team Yankee now potential has a much larger pool players who may participate. Exciting times! My Team Yankee force is coming together but there is still a lot of work to be done on it. At the same time I have push aside work that needs to be done on other projects that I want to get back to. So after doing another progress video and an overview of my time at TwisterCon, I'm going to put Team Yankee on the back burner so I can get something done on my other projects. Getting started on the Bretonnian Battalion is number one on my list. Watch for more to come!

Team Wraith Update

I'm jealous of how fast Tracy was able to put together his Soviets. Everything he owns is assemble and primed while I am not a quarter of the way to that with far less models. I suppose this is partly because I have a little OCD in me. Still I am happy to have any progress, with pictures no less! Here is the current look of Team Wraith:

I still have not done any work with the Cobra since my progress video. Everything else has some new elements. Minus magnets, the three Abrams are nearly assemble. And by assembled I mean a completed tank minus the tracks as I will paint the tank and tracks separately. The 66 is done and just needs to be prime. The tracks on it just need some minor touch up and then I can starting painting them. The others I will work on in stages so I don't mixed them up. That basically means when I prime the 66, I will then finish assembling the 11. When I finish painting the 66, I will prime 11 and assemble 12 and so on. I know this is slowing the progress down but I can't help it. The numbering of the tanks is based on the order I started assembling them and the OCD in me doesn't want to mix them up since putting on decals is the very last step. I got new black primer that acts as both primer and paint. This will make painting go much faster since I won't have to do a base coat. I will start on the next three Abrams shortly. Here is a close up picture of my Abrams.

Fortunately I don't have the same OCD issue with my M113s. There is an issue with their dragon mounts. When I deploy a mech platoon, I have the option of removing a M47 Dragon missile team to add a dragon mount on a M113. I have not played enough games to know how often I want to use this choice. I have never made one of my models modular before but I might need to learn how to for these. I probably should leave my M113s in an unfinished state until I decide on how I want to deal with the issue of the dragons. Except for the FIST. I will be working to finish the FIST as soon as I can. Here is a close up of the M113s.

In addition to these models I also have a box of infantry. I tried to prime 6 of them but something went wrong. For some reason the primer didn't stick so I need to redo them. Next time I will hopefully will have pictures of some of the infantry. Until then!


PS. War Journal: Flames of War has return! You can listen to episode 21 here.

So, what happen this month?

This month did not go according to my plans at all. I would like to say there was a lot going on behind the scenes and to a certain extent this is true. However my plans were far more ambitions than what my skills could keep up with. I added more projects to my plate and underestimated how long it would take me to complete them. I think the best thing for me to do is to talk about what I did get done, what I had plan to get done and what are my plans going forward.

I started a third blog. Beside this one, they are about League of Legends and Shadowrun. I have not done anything with League of Legends because the eSports scene moves fast and I am not able to write fast enough to keep up. Also just staying on top of the games is very tiring. On average it takes 30 hours a week for me to watch 2 of the 5 major leagues and its easy to fall behind. I'm probably going to have to wait until the summer split before I will have the time and skill to write about eSports. The Shadowrun blog will be for a new project that I didn't think will feel right putting here. I'm apart of a new Shadowrun table top campaign and I thought it would be interesting to write about my character's adventures in that game as an ongoing story. My new Shadowrun blog will host this story, "A Spirit of Shadowrun" which should happen twice a month. I'm half way done with the first session's rough draft so I'm hoping I will be able to keep this up. In the future the Shadowrun blog will be a perfect place for other projects like my idea for the Shadowrun: Crossfire show and me just writing about interesting Shadowrun sessions of the past. For now "A Spirit of Shadowrun" is the only thing I'm planning on working on for those two blogs.

For Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights I am still working on background information. I'm fleshing out details on Thylalon and it is taking longer than I had thought. In the meantime I've played many more Warhammer games as Bretonnia so I'm getting a feel for how they work. I've also pick up the Bretonnia Battalion and will put them in the queue to be work on after some Team Yankee stuff. Holy Moon is high on my list to get done but I'm so bad at judging how long it will take that I'm hesitant to give a release date for the first episode.

Helping Tracy move and waiting for him to setup his new studio cut into our time to do anything with Team Yankee or the podcast. Now that is all done we will be doing more video content on Team Yankee. I have also pick up infantry and the M113 box. We are currently planning on going to a Team Yankee event in another city at the end of March. Tracy has order several new Soviet models, so getting our new stuff assembled will be a top priority for us both. Getting them primed or painted will be gravy but I am not holding my breath on that. The podcast has constantly been delayed but we will get back to doing it. The podcast will be very different from what it was last year. It has become clear that the focus of the podcast will be on Team Yankee instead of Flames of War as we have no plans to play Flames of War anytime soon. I'm sure Flames of War will continue to be apart of our conversation in someway but our interest right now is only on Team Yankee. Lastly, we are strongly considering doing another podcast about games more broadly and adding my Warhammer pal Phil into our discussions.

Since making my first video I've been trying to follow it up with others. Vince Venturella has a youtube series called "Topic of the Week". In these videos Vince talks about a subject that he wants the community to respond to in either the youtube comments or with their own videos. He had two topics this month that I wanted to respond to and I had plan to make them into videos. I have yet to finish either one of those videos. I thought it would only take an afternoon worth of work to do one video but that is clearly not the case for me, at least at my currently level of skill. I do plan on finishing at least one of these videos. Vince gives thought provoking subjects to discuss so I do plan on attempting to make more respond videos. You can find Vince Venturella's youtube channel here.

Short Update

This week I spent most of my time working on a video showcasing the miniatures I am working on as they relate to my projects. I had plan it would take a day or two to finish the video and then I could work on the first issue of Holy Moon. Instead it took the entire week to finish. My experience with making this video will go a long way to help me with future editing. I now know the process of what goes into making a video for when I start to produce my own battle reports. I also got a valuable lesson into what it takes to make the War Journal: Flames of War podcast. New episodes will be recorded the same as before but now it will be on me to put them together.

Outside of working on the video, I did find the time to play a practice game of Warhammer Fantasy. It was months since the last time we played and I figure we need the practice to get back into form. The rules came back to us fairly quickly but I realize there is one skill in Warhammer that I have sometimes neglected. List building. When I make a list in Warhammer, what kind of story I want to tell usually has a bigger factor than battlefield effectiveness. I don't want my web novel to be about the Bretonnians that loses every battle! I don't plan on being hyper competitive but I now realize list building I need to pay more attention to. Not that Bretonnians have that many choices compare to armies with newer books, which is everyone else.

So here is a quick run down: Holy Moon - Going to start writing the first issue this week. I plan on it being out in about 2 weeks. Going to play another practice game with Bretonnians this week. Might do a short battle report about it. Everything else I'm working on is touch on in my new Project Progress video. Until next time!

Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights Intro

The land of Thylalon is protected by the guardian Lady Vivianna. She is beloved by Thylalon's people and in return she empowers Thylalon's defenders. Lady Vivianna's powers of precognition foresees dark days ahead and the Thylalon kingdom is not ready to deal with the upcoming threats. She tells King Dylan and his knights that they must undertake a dangerous quest that will end with the deaths of many beloved knights. If they refuses or fail in this quest, then everything they hold dear will be no more!

Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights is my serial fantasy fiction series. Key elements of the story will be decide by the results of various games such as Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer Age of Sigmar. Holy Moon/Scarlet Nights will be release as chapters and episodes. Chapters are entire story arcs made up of multiple episodes. Episodes are the individual story post. Episode titles will be based on the chapter it is from. For example the third episode of the first chapter will be entitled "1.3" while the fifth episode of chapter seven would be "7.5". The story will be told in two ways. Text post which will tell the story just like any other piece of fiction and with battle reports which is a description of what happen during a game that is apart of the story. I will be using two types of battle reports. Summary reports will give an overall description of what happen and will treat the event like a game. That means it will include game concepts such as army list, dice rolls and custom rules if any that were used in the game. Dramatic reports will summarize events in a narrative style. Any concepts that are game system specific will not be included in dramatic reports. Battle report titles will be named after the episode that sets up its events. So the battle report based on episode 3.6 will be entitled either "Summary Report 3.6" or "Dramatic Report 3.6". If a single episode sets up the events of multiple games then the corresponding titles would include a letter ie "3.6 A", "3.6 B" and so on.

The story centers around King Dylan and his knights which will be represented as Bretonnia in Warhammer Fantasy. As the story progresses other actors will take stage in the narrative represented by different Warhammer armies. Age of Sigmar will probably be used when the battles are either smaller or one of the forces don't neatly fit into one of Warhammer Fantasy armies. My personal collection is not as big as I would like and a lot of it still needs to be painted. My friend's collections is probably about half fully painted, half only assembled. I don't actually own a Bretonnia army yet. I will be putting together one as I am writing this series. Many of the early games will be done with my friend's Bretonnia army along with a lot of proxying. Hopefully by the end of the year the battle reports will be done with my own fully painted models.

In addition to the above I will be doing Author's Notes post as needed to keep readers inform on my current progress. These will be for discussing scheduling delays, answering fan questions or behind the scene elements I want to share. The Author's Notes are separate from my general Chaos Updates for the blog which I try to do every 3 to 5 months. I am a little behind where I wanted to be at this point so I will probably won't get to a battle report this month. Chapter 1, Episode 1 should still be out before the end of the month. I've never done a serial series before so it might take me a while to find my rhythm. I hope you will follow me along this journey and enjoy the ride. Until next time.

New Year Update!

2015 was a very mix year for me and Chaos Magic. I co-started a Flames of War podcast and we were able to release new episodes throughout the year semi-regularly. I also took the steps needed to move this hobby into a business. In the middle of the year I had a personal crisis which derailed everything I was doing for 4 months which prevented me from having the level of progress I had hope for in 2015. 2015 was not the year I hope it to be but it was a year I took many steps forward. For that I am very grateful. And I need to keep going. For me to be successful in 2016 I need to produce even more quality content. Here is all my current projects and my plans for what I plan to do in 2016 with them.

Border Prince Campaign - As far as I know, I am one of only two players in my local community that is still interested in playing Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition. As long as that is the case then the Border Prince Campaign will remain on hiatus. That doesn't mean there won't be new updates in the new year for the Border Prince story. When I went through my notes to finish the skip story article, I realize I have many more partially written short stories that needs to be finish and posted. In addition I have ideas for stories I can tell as flashbacks in the Border Prince Campaign to help flesh out the overall story. The Border Prince Campaign will no longer be the main focus of this blog but these new stories will help bridge any gaps with my new main projects.

Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar - I no longer know enough people interested in Warhammer Fantasy or Age of Sigmar to do a normal campaign. So instead I'm going to commit to a narrative campaign. How this is going to work is I will write a story that ends with a battle of some kind. I will play out the game with my friend Phil using either Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, Age of Sigmar or Kings of War, depending on what we want to play. I will followed our game up with a battle report here. Based on the results of that game will determine what direction the next part of the story will go. While Phil has told me he has no interest in working on the story aspect of the campaign, he will have an opinion on what armies we will play with, which in turn will affect how the story will go. My goal will be to have at least 1 story post and 1 battle report a month this year. The name and intro of the campaign will be upcoming in the next two weeks or so.

BattleTech - I have two projects in BattleTech I plan to do this year. I mention the Warhammer narrative campaign to my friend Chris and he suggested I do something similar with BattleTech. He gave me the idea to do a story about a group of warriors that is defending their home during a planetary invasion conflict. I love the idea as it immediately made me think about my favorite Gundam series, After War Gundam X. I don't feel as confident in writing science fiction but this is a great idea for me start practicing! I still don't own that much BattleTech stuff. After coming up with my team of heroes and their equipment I will need to pick up the corresponding models. The problem is that I'm not familiar enough with BattleTech to know what I want in my force (I'm always amazed at how large and in-depth this setting is). This have given me the idea of doing another project first before starting the narrative campaign. Chris and myself will compete in an abstract attrition campaign. The both of us will start with a set number of BV points, like 200k. When we decide to play a game, we will pick mechs from our individual rosters. At any time we can add new mechs to our roster by buying it with BV points. The campaign is over when one side is out of BV points and have no functioning mechs. There will also be a resource mechanic that will be earn by winning some of the battles. Resource will be use to fix damage mechs that have otherwise survive a battle or to pay ransom to the other player in certain scenarios. This gives us an easy to run campaign that will eventually end on its own. It is also a system that will allow me to try out many different types of mechs. I will give updates on where we are on starting the narrative campaign. Once we work out the numbers more details on the abstract campaign will be posted and its first battle will be around a month from now, hopefully.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark - I mention in my Refocusing post that I was considering doing something with Descent. Since then I have started running friends through the base game campaign. So far I am enjoying the game and I think my friends are as well, even though we are still making a lot mistakes with the system. Trying to craft a story to fit into my setting will be harder than I initially thought. So after we finish the base campaign, if my friends are still interested I will pick up one of the expansions and run them through that campaign as well. After that I think I might be confident enough to design my own campaign. In the meantime I will be picking up various Descent products such as lieutenant packs and the monster packs. We are playing with Tracy's copy of the game but eventually I want to get my own copy so I can paint the models. In the coming months I will be showing off my Descent models and maybe reviewing elements of the game. I am not sure we will get to my own crafted campaigns this year but we will see how far we can get.

Alien vs Predator: The Hunt Begins - This is a game I heard about but I really did not think it would be something that would affect me. I was wrong. I failed to realize how much Tracy and Chris were Alien fans. Tracy picked up the game when we were at the gaming store to play Team Yankee. We have since played it 3 times and overall think its a very good game despite some pretty big flaws. The rules are in desperate need of a FAQ. That said I can see many fun hours being had with this game. With it being such a big brand and how protective Fox is with this brand, I am much more reluctant to do anything with this game. That said, sometime my mind doesn't listen to reason and have already generate ideas on how to develop stories with this game. Nevertheless this is one game I will never buy anything for nor will I have any pictures of its models here. There is too much risk for me to include them. A possible idea I could do is recreate our games with Descent tiles and Warhammer models and I could take pictures of that. My only problem with that is that the marines don't have a good analogy in my fantasy fiction. Of course two weeks ago I barely heard of this game and there was no way for me to imagine it might be one of my most play games in this new year. Given more time I am sure I will come up with something.

Team Yankee - Team Yankee as well as Flames of War is in a weird spot for me in that I know they will be major elements of this blog in the new year but I am not sure how. With Team Yankee being a new game, all of my current efforts are going into learning how to play the game and deciding on what my force will look like. Much like with Flames of War, I am not sure if Tracy will have the time to commit to do a campaign with either game. That said, I have notice there is a lot of buzz about Team Yankee around my local gaming store when we played. If a couple people pick up the game in addition to Tracy and myself, then the prospect of a Team Yankee campaign increases immensely. The only thing I can be confident on is that I will have Team Yankee models in my gallery and a few battle reports here and there. I am very interested to see where Team Yankee takes me in the new year.

Others - Even when I think my hobby is full, something always surprises me and changes things up. I am sure 2016 will continue that trend. I have side projects like Relic Knights, Samurai Battles and BattleLore that I'm not sure at this time what my level of interest will be in the new year. It is possible in six months one or more of these games will be added or replace my current project list. Or they might remain on my shelves, unplayed. I do plan to show up at my local gaming store more often this year on my own and see what people whom I don't normally play with are playing. I might discover a new game that I'm interested in with new friends to play with.

I will end on two more points. In this new year I plan on playing as many games as possible and giving my thoughts on those games here. Whether I'm doing reviews, offering tactic advice or exploring ideas on how to make games better, I hope readers will find my content entertaining and informative. On my major project I will work hard to make sure they are release on a reliable schedule. I am working with friends whom have their own time constraints and may not be available when I would like. I will try to work around my friends' schedules but that may not always be possible. Those are my plans for the new year. Be safe and have a Happy New Year!

My First Game of Team Yankee

I played my first game of Team Yankee against Tracy two days ago. We used the models from the two box sets, Bannon's Boys and Potecknov's Bears, along with several Flames of War models as proxies so we could get a feel for the entire range. While its too early for me to give a proper review, especially how our game went, I did gain a lot of insight into the new rule set.

I played US while Tracy played as the Soviets. Even as we were setting up we both were learning new aspects of the rules. I quickly realize my list had a major flaw. Essentially I had nothing that could shoot at Strike Aircraft. I had no idea helicopters are unable to shoot at airplanes. So I was really worry about my chances before the first die roll. Turns out my anti-aircraft problems were worst than I thought and I didn't even get the chance to be concern about the Frogfoots! For the mission we rolled up Dust Up, which gave us Delayed Reserves. Only getting half our forces until turn 3 (maybe) really change how we approach the game. Tracy decided to start with a unit of T-72s, BMP-2 Recons, Gophers and Hinds. I had a unit of M1 Abrams, Mech Platoon and M109 Field Artillery Battery. In addition we both had our commanders and an observer. Tracy "won" first turn (neither of us wanted to go first) so his Hinds had to fly off the board. Since they used spearhead the BMP-2 were close to an objective so they moved up to take it. The T-72s moved across ruins and half of them got bogged down. The remaining T-72s plus the commander shot at my unit of M1 Abrams. They only bailed out two of my tanks which would be no big deal in Flames of War. However in Team Yankee since I only had three to with start, that was a morale test. Failing that test would mean I would instantly lost a quarter of my entire force just like that! Luckily I passed the morale test and began my turn 1. The Abrams remounted and were ready to go. Tracy had place pre-planned artillery target on that objective so I was hesitant to approach it with my M1s and commander. It slipped my mind until later that his artillery was still in reserves so I had nothing to worry about. I was fairly sure my shooting was going to removed the BMPs off the map but if I had bad dice rolls I would instantly lose the game. My Abrams destroyed three and bailed out the 4th BMP so now Tracy couldn't win on turn 2. Mech Platoon dash across the field to take on the Gophers. The Gophers couldn't do anything at the time but I wanted them destroyed before my aircraft came in from reserves. My artillery rain fire on the Gophers as well but I only manage to bailed out two of them, who immediately remounted next turn!

Turn 2 was the beginning of the end. The only Anti-Aircraft weapons I had were AA machine guns on the Abrams and M109s which I wasn't confident in their ability to take down Hinds and the Dragons in Mech Platoon. However Dragons are guide so I can only fire them on my turn and they can't be fired while moving. Given they also have a minimum range means the Dragons will never be a threat to the Hinds if Tracy knows what he is doing. So on turn 2 6 Hinds showed up and wiped my commander and M1 Abrams off the map. Turn 3 the hinds nearly wiped the M109s off the board as well and there was little I could do about it. Neither one of us got any reserves on Turn 3 so I surrendered. There was a chance with some good rolls I could delay Tracy from winning next turn. Ultimately I felt it wouldn't have help me win the game and next turn Tracy had a way to auto-win.

I wrote the previous sections the day after the game so those was my initial impressions. However my feelings have change after spending a day reading the rules and the forums. While my lack of dedicated AA made the game an uphill battle for me, I now realize that slope wasn't as steep as I first thought. My list did have the tools to deal with the Hinds if I only played it better. My points about Dragons were mostly true. However I forgot to consider the Blitz Move order. The ability to move 4 inches and still shoot changes its usefulness. During the game I thought both of the Abrams' AA machine guns range was 16 inches. This allowed the Hinds to be able to shoot at the Abrams outside of that range. In actuality the .50 cal machine gun has a range of 20 inches! If the hinds can shoot at the Abrams, the Abrams can shoot back with the .50 cal. I am not entirely sure I would have shot if I had known because in my mind its probably not worth giving up the ability to fire the main guns on my turn. Of course we had this rule WRONG as well when we played. The rule is if you fire AA weapons during the opponent's turn you are not allowed to fire that WEAPON on your own turn. We are used to it being teams but it is per weapon fired. That means the Abrams can fire both AA guns during the opponents turn and still fire its main gun on its own turn. So I had no reason not to shoot at the Hinds! I had another powerful option against the Hinds I didn't realize was there. My artillery had the laser-guided projectile upgrade which gives the guns the Guided special rule. That means while the FIST is alive the artillery could shoot at the Hinds on my turn. The next time we play should have a much closer result. That said I learn several things about Team Yankee in that game.

1. Options - When I first learn Team Yankee was just going to be Soviets and US at the start, I was concern that the initial lists would be limited in the options you could take. We were both pleasantly surprise this was not the case when we made our list. With the system as it is I could easily makes 3 to 5 very different lists and I wouldn't be shock if that number goes up the more experience I get with the system.

2. Need dedicated AA - Weapons need AA in there description to be able to shoot at Strike Aircraft. Only relying on Guided weapons to take out helicopters might not be enough to stop helicopters from taking over the game. US and Soviets both have cheap options for dedicated AA so remember to take some.

3. Strike Aircraft in reserves - Strike Aircraft can go in reserve like any other units and they count when picking how many units need to go into reserves. In the starting step rolling for Aircraft is before rolling for reserve. That means Strike Aircraft in reserve can not be used in the same turn they arrive from reserves. So if you put Strike Aircraft in delayed reserve, the earliest you can used them is turn 4!

4. Bogged Down - Being bogged down doesn't matter for morale, just destroyed and bailed out. This is one of the differences from Flames of War that caught me by surprise.

5. How many Abrams? - Abrams are really expensive so it is tempting to go with a few as possible. Six total Abrams (1 HQ, 2 platoons of 2 and 3) cost 48 points out of a default total of 100 point game. With the new morale rules however one or two bailed out results means a morale check that could wiped them out! I don't think there is an easy answer to this and will always be something to consider when making a list.

6. Brutal Game - Things die fast in this game compared to Flames of War. I'm used to playing with strategies that limited my own casualties. In Team Yankee that's not going to work. My models WILL die and I need to plan around what to do with those that survive. This makes delayed reserves a lot scarier than in Flames of War. I wouldn't be surprised if most delayed reserve games end before reserves even show up!

I foresee us playing at least two more games next week. Whatever knowledge I gleam from those games I will share here. Until next time...

Border Prince Lore: Warriors of Chaos 3

Healing

The battle between Chaos and Lizardmen was a close fight and extremely bloody. The generals on both sides had apparently died in the initial moments. The lost of their general did not affect Chaos morale much. If anything army morale went up because of how much they hated Xizamiron. Still they were surrounded by Lizardmen so they couldn't celebrate yet. So they fought all day long and in the end were the victors.

Without a leader the army decide to just celebrated their victory for the next few days. Those unfortunate enough to be injured and not die were taken to the medic squad. These warrior doctors uses a mixture of medical knowledge and dark sorcery to heal their patients. Sadly for the patients is that the medic squad's healing techniques are similar to their killing techniques, only that the killing techniques are less painful.

Dizadeim watch the celebration in silence. After a time he decided that their true leader and queen needed to know what had happen. Figuring a normal scout would be too slow to send the message he travel to his own personal tent. He was one of Vanacyr's most trusted advisers and arcane student. He knew dark magics that could get word to Vanacyr in mere hours. While in his tent he could tell the celebration was still quite boisterous and loud. However Dizadeim had elven ears and he was highly trained to use them. They alerted him to a presence entering his tent. He quickly spun around with a sword at the ready. He paused however once he witness the intruder with his own eyes. The intruder look like a male, possible human covered head to toe in dark robes. It was impossible to see the features of his face. More than that, the intruder moved like he was severely injured and seemed to be struggling to breathe. The intruder said something that Dizadeim couldn't quite make out, but he immediately recognized the voice. A very unique, unearthly and unforgettable voice.

“My Lord?” Dizadeim said amazed. Xizamiron was turned to ash in the battle. How could he still be alive.

“Move the army … march them northwest,” Xizamiron whispered. He sounded like every word was painful for him to say.

“First we need to get you to the medics, you need their power,” Dizadeim said.

“Don't worry about me. Your medics healing would do nothing for me. I just need rest and to be alone. Now get the army moving!”

Xizamiron gasp heavily for a few moments and then stumbled out of the tent. Dizadeim followed his commander to the entrance of his tent. From there he watch Xizamiron walking staggeringly away from the rest of the army and eventually vanishing into a copse. Dizadeim started moving towards the rest of the camp to issue Xizamiron's orders but then he changed his mind.

"No, our true leader must be informed first!" Dizadeim said aloud though he meant for those words to remain unspoken.

He returned to his tent. On a parchment he scribes the recent events of the army from encountering the Lizardmen to witnessing Xizamiron vanishing in the trees. Trying to balance finishing quickly with providing enough details proved to be challenging but Dizadeim decided it was worth risking time to make sure his mistress had an accurate picture. Once finished he rolled the parchment up and sealed it with his own blood by pricking his thumb and saying a short incantation which gave his blood the properties of hot wax. The words of another, more potent spell was already on his lips. Dizadeim left the tent with his report in hand. Unseen magic took hold in his surroundings as he finish the second incantation. The rhythmic sound of a flapping bird overhead told Dizadeim his spell had its desired effect. Dizadeim toss the sealed parchment into the air and a falcon flew down and yank it out the air. Raising quickly, the color of the falcon slowly darken until it was a solid pitch black. A third eye grew from its forehead. Each wing suddenly split into 2. The now 4 winged creature flew at such speeds that should be impossible for a living bird. Dizadeim eye sight was superior to most, but even he lost sight of the creature in mere moments.

Team Wraith

First I want to say the newest episode of War Journal: Flames of War is out. Episode 20 was our Team Yankee Special and you can listen to it here: http://neaceul.podbean.com/. In 'Our Hobby' on episode 20 we discuss ideas on developing a Team Yankee campaigns. I want to expand on that conversation and go into what my Team Yankee forces will look like.

Starting with my Himmlisch Drachen Stamm, I have decided that my fictional nations will only use what was available from a single nation. That means I won't have a nation that has Cobra's and T-72s. Tracy brings up the possibility of playing such a game but I am not interested in modeling a force in this way. The exception to this is if I ever decide to build a force based on the classic GI Joe cartoon. I have decided to keep my Himmlisch Drache Stamm to be inspired by Germany and I will have a NATO and Warsaw Pact version of them. I have time to develop my history and organization of the HDS since it will be a while before Battlefront gets to release Germans. Another nation I really want to work on is a France inspired force. Like the Germans there isn't much I can do until Battlefront gets to France. However if the community puts together a historical accurate fan list for France using models Battlefront had already release then I would immediately start putting together a French force. At the moment the only forces available for Team Yankee is US and Soviets. I am still working on a concept for the Soviets. It will probably be something based on Slavic mythology. As I know nothing about Slavic mythology there will be a little moment on this front until I can get some research done.

US is a different story. My plans is to develop a ghost theme battalion that I will be able to used in multiple different stories and campaigns. In scenarios where we are using fictional nations the ghost battalion can act as part of my country's fighting force. In a more realistic setting it can still act as a fictional part of the United States military. The ghost battalion, which I haven't came up with a name yet, will be compose of 4 companies. The lead company will be called Team Wraith. They will be a mix of ideas from Bannon's Team Yankee in the book, movie version of Delta Force and other ideas of my own creation. The color scheme of my vehicles will be black/near black with white/light grey highlights. I will be playing around with patterns so I might end up with a force with widely different markings. Uniforms will be something I will be waiting until I'm done with several vehicles before I decided on. I don't see myself picking up US infantry anytime soon. For upcoming battle reports I will be either using Tracy's infantry or my Germans. One of the other companies will have a more traditional US look. For the last two companies I will wait to see how things develop, both with Team Wraith and the local gaming scene. At a minimum Team Wraith will have a three tank platoons of M1 Abrams, 4 AH-1 Cobras and 4 A-10 Warthogs. After playing a few games I will decided what else to add.

Beside picking up US models, I will also be purchasing a small collection of terrain for my own use. I like the looks of a few building Battlefront and others are releasing that could be used with Team Yankee. This will allow me to play Team Yankee games without Tracy involvement, which will be useful to help spread the game locally. Also I will be needing my own terrain for long term projects. Once my Bannon's Boy box set arrives I will be posting updates on how the assembling is coming. Before the end of the year I plan on posting one more fiction piece and a update post on what is coming up for Chaos Magic. Stay tune.

Amended to War Journal Episode 19

We just release the newest episode of War Journal: Flames of War. On this episode, which is 19, Hydra, Cobra and a New World Order, Question of the Week #94 baffled us. Even after doing a little research we were still confused about this question. We say that we finally figured it out during the podcast but we really didn't. It wasn't until we were editing the podcast together that we finally got what was confusing us. I suggest you listen to the episode, or at least to Front Page News where the issue came up first before reading the second part of this post. Doing so will give you a frame of reference to understand my explanation.

First of all, this question only deals with moving in the movement step. I missed that part until much later. Knowing that wouldn't have help us get the answer right but it would have help us understand why their answer was correct. Next, rotating the turret does not count as moving at all. You have to rotate the turret to face whatever you are shooting in the shooting step which doesn't count as moving. I suppose it would be unfairly harsh to punish an action in one step when you could just simply want until the next step and do the same action for free. I think we made up the rule about the turrets hitting the trees causing bogging check because we were trying to explain a ruling about a different issue we saw in "Letters From the Front" which had to do with the stormtroopers move. That dealt with the question 'Can you use stromtroopers special rule to just rotate the turret'. The answer was yes but it counts as moving (thereby causing a bogging check). I think we mistakenly took rotating the turret with stormtroopers move causing a bogging check meant any rotating the turret in difficult terrain counts as moving. We now know that is not the case. I hope this brief explanation helps you understand what our issue was in the podcast. Until Next Time!

Inspirations From The Joy of Painting

At the end of October Twitch Tv did a marathon of every episode of the Joy of Painting to celebrate their new Twitch Creative community. The marathon lasted over a week and once I learn about it, it was always running in the background. For seven days I went to bed to the soothing voice of Bob Ross. Judging by social media, I wasn't alone. The number of viewers the channel had was insane. Blizzard's Blizzcon started around the time the marathon was ending. Compared with a highly anticipated opening event, the Joy of Painting marathon had about 20,000 more views than Blizzard's. There is good reason why so many people tune in to hear about 'happy little trees'. Even if you had no interest in painting landscape, Bob Ross's voice had a way to make yourself feel better. I've found one of the best ways to relax after a stressful day is to listen to the Joy of Painting while laying down.

While painting landscapes and painting miniatures are two vastly different hobbies that involved painting, there are a few tips I got from listening to Bob Ross that I plan to used the next time I paint. The big thing I notice is that he only uses a handful of colors that mostly remain the same season after season. Titanium White, Phthalo Blue, Phtalo Green, Van Dyke Brown, Alizarin Crimson, Indian Yellow and about 2 to 3 other colors was all Bob Ross used. Maybe exchange one or two colors for something else but that's really all he had. I heard Titanium White, Phtalo Blue and Pthalo Green so often that they were burned into my psyche. I don't know if this is common with oil painting, but when I thought about it I found it amazing. When I go buy a new paint for my miniatures, I'm looking through 60 to 80 or more different colors to choose from. My own collection has about 40 different paints in them and I feel I still need more. I didn't realize I had that many colors until I just now counted them. The reason Bob Ross can paint such colorful vivid painting while using few colors is because he is constantly mixing them. And half the time it seems he's not sure what color he wants. He just add colors together until he gets something that feels right. It is that kind of experimenting that I bring to my miniatures. I have mix paints before but until I watch Joy of Painting I felt mixing was more of a last resort opposing to it being a tool I should use as often as possible. I now don't feel paralysis by not having a specific color. Now I feel more comfortable going through my large collection and try experimenting mixing paints together to get something close to what I originally want. Or even mix random colors together to see what I get for fun. Now when I say mixing paint, I mean mixing together multiple colors on the palette before applying it to the model or canvas.

That brings me to my second related but slightly different tip I picked up and want to try. Bob Ross not only mixed colors on the palette, he also blended them together on the canvas. Oil paint is slow to dry, especially compared with miniature paints. That means Bob Ross is using wet paint on top of wet paint. So even using a single paint Bob can get a wide range of coloration because of the wet paint underneath. Every now and again I remember hearing Bob saying to switch to a new/dry brush or don't touch specific areas on the canvas with a particular paint because it would ruin the effect he was going for. This is something I doubt I would have thought of on my own. Granted no doubt that oil paints and miniature paints will behave differently so not all of Bob Ross techniques will work for me. Still it will be another tool for me to use, albeit much harder to incorporate due to miniature paints drying so much quicker. Also I am not sure what kind of look this technique will earn me but that's what experimenting is for. Though there is one look I think this technique will help me make. For some of my BattleTech mechs part of my plan paint scheme will have one solid color morphing into a different color. I attempted to do this look on my Valiant model but I did not like how it came out. The next time I attempt that look I can try out Bob Ross's blending style. My only issue would be that I will have to paint fast and will probably need to use three brushes at once. Two for each color and a clean dry brush to blend with.

I end with saying that the Joy of Painting marathon is not really over yet. Probably shock at just how popular the marathon was, the people behind the Joy of Painting twitch channel have decide play a marathon of a single season every Monday. In addition they have decide to have the full week long 24/7 marathon every year starting on Bob Ross's birthday. I'm usually excited at the end of October for either Halloween or the start of National Write a Novel Month but now they both have taken a backseat to my new favorite event, the Joy of Painting week! If the Joy of Painting have brought joy into your life, please tell me about it in the comments below. That is it for now, see you next time.