LL13: Wrap Up and Pic Dump

Massive photo dump follows from my Lock and Load trip. This isn't a spoiler recap post, or a recap of whatever else. It's a review of what I remembered to take picture of along with other random notes at the end.

First up, and probably the most memorable chunk of things I did, was the painting classes. Here is pictured Matt DiPietro doing his Introduction to Two Brush Blending class specifically. I also took his True Metallics class, as well as Meg Maples' Femme Fetals and Color Theory classes, and Ron Kruzie's Painting Unclassified and Army Foundry classes. I'm not going to recap them here for brevity sake. However I want to point out that these classes were all really well run. The video support for them was really amazing and helped the class immensely in comparison to other classes I've taken. They also included handouts to take home where appropriate. I also really felt like they were extremely organized and the material for the classes filled the time very appropriately. All three of them were great about explaining details, but I have to say that Ron was my favorite simply due to the number of hysterical quotes. I walked out with several pages of notes and lots of things to practice. One last note was simply the ability to watch how they paint and note the subtle differences in their processes and set up to give me ideas to try (like twirling my brush when picking up paint). As I experiment I'll provide notes on this blog.

Next are some pictures of studio models that were in the case. It was hard to get good photos through the glass, but these two came out really well fortunately. I wasn't trying to get a full view of the models, but rather details of some specific bits, particularly battle damage. It was pretty amazing to look at in person and get a sense of the detail level. Hats off to the studio painters on these.

Another quick shot of a studio model: the Night Troll. Not a particularly good picture, but really amusing. It was cool to see the new releases in the case there.

And next is... oh... err... yeah, I apparently went out for drinks to my favorite bar in Seattle. Let's, uh, move on.

I didn't take hardly any pictures of models in the case, but this one really caught my eye. It didn't place as best in its category, and I don't even know how it placed, but for some reason I really enjoyed it.

Ok this was just amazing. Raven from Advanced Deployment had brought her Legion army which includes 55 Shredders. I was perplexed to say the least. She has painted each one as a different type of poisonous tree frog. I had a blast chatting with her about it. The spread of them was really amazing.

Now I start to transition to actual games I played. This first picture is from me playing eThagrosh against eVyros. My opponent was great and we had a really fun time. I'd never played against eVyros so it was new territory for me. I ended up winning this game mostly due to pushing Thagrosh in his face and his assassination run came up a little short on damage output to finish Thagrosh off. At that point I had to do a little maneuvering but I was able to bring enough firepower to bear on Vyros and finish him off. I will say that the table we played on was quite nice except for the unevenness of it causing some problems.

Next is where I played Absylonia against Ossyan. My opponent had this really strikingly painted army. It was green and gloss-black, which gave it a very "Tron" sort of look. We had a really fun game on a rather treacherous table (due to the slanted surface). At I think the top of the second round I took a Ravagore shot at Ossyan, landed it, and drolled triple 6's which killed him dead. My opponent was all set to shake hands but I called for a time warp and we replaced it with an average damage roll so that we could play out the game which is where the real fun happened anyway. There was a bunch of amusement with Eliminators sneaking around the side and flanking me from a stairway, my Scythean getting taken apart by Mage Hunters, and Typhon being a rock star and rolling in to beat a pile of face. To top off the fun game, Ron Kruzie came by during out game and commented on both our armies.

Oh, and yes, I drank more. Love that bar. Got to sit right at the bar and the bartender made custom drinks for us. This was one such example that he concocted on the fly.

Ok, so now to really nerd out this post, I'm going to list my "Achievements" from this trip:

Everyone To The Table! - I played every model that I brought with me! Well, technically not. I didn't play eLylyth (since she isn't really fun to play or play against), and I didn't play my unpainted stuff (cause I was enjoying playing fully painted in Iron Arena).

Iron Liver! - I went out drinking with my great friend Lance who I drove up with. Man what a great time we had. And I was able to walk back to the hotel safely as well!

Level Up! - I went to 6 painting classes and really feel like I learned a number of new things. Now I just need to put those into practice and use that experience to up my painting skills.

Hit Me, I Can Take It! - I sat down with Meg Maples and used my Shepherd as a sample model to get feedback. It was really constructive feedback with both things to improve and things that went well.

A Cut Above! - Not only did I enter the painting competition, but I got a Silver (for the Lylyth battlegroup mentioned before) and a bronze (for McBain). I also got great feedback afterwards and both Matt and Meg commented how much they liked my Lylyth battlegroup.

Like A Ninja! - I drove from the Bay Area to Seattle and back, and didn't get a speeding ticket or have any sort of incident with the travel. Hooray!

That's Unnatural! - I played a 200 point Unbound game with fellow painting fanatic Tyson Koch. I'll post more about that tomorrow, but needless to say, this was a first for me. I fielded nearly every Legion model I have.

There are more potential achievements, but I'll have to wait to see if I get those. Specifically appearing in No Quarter magazine in some capacity. Gotta wait till Sept apparently.