The Blogging Oedipal Complex

In writing up the announcements for the House of Paincakes today (an honor which usually falls on Lauby's shoulders, but apparently he was too busy with things that he'll no doubt assure me are not in any way related to Fallout New Vegas) I realized something- its readership is about to surpass Dick Move and in record time, no less. 

Of Cocktails and Gaming

One of the many reasons I like playing at home would have to be the booze.  Usually when we get a game together at my house somebody brings some beer with them.  Now I'm not saying I have to have a drink to have a good time, but if you're going to get a relaxing game in, why not do it up right?  In reality I only really drink beer when gaming or playing gigs these days.  Too many calories in beer that actually has taste.  The rest of my casual drinking involves whiskey these days.  Hell I rcently decided that scotch plus ice cubes qualifies as a mixed drink.


This is neither here nor there, however.  In trolling the blogosphere looking for ways to not study for tomorrow's FIN 408 exam, I ran across a HoP related post and almost crapped myself.  Over on Crew Shaken, Not stirred, DaveHowitzer, the author was so tickled by being included in HoP's weekly top X list that he made up some cocktails dedicated to Lauby and Brent.  Now we're not doing the whole HoP thing for Internet fame, but I see this as a positive sign that we're helping to empower gamers and bloggers and perhaps inspire people to new heights of insanity.  This has gotten me thinking about what would be in a Dethtron themed cocktail.  Hopefully it involves raw egg. 

Anyway, that's it for today.  I should probably start studying a little bit.  If you're reading this and still haven't friended, followed, or joined the HoP blog network, make sure you do so today.  I'm sure there are still a few of you readers out there that need to check it out.

HOP's First Article, Self-Promotion, and Self-Loathing

Today sees the first actual article being posted on the House of Paincakes blog.  It's from Kirby, and I think you'll all like it.  There will be a link below.  Actually, half of Kirby's first article is up, to be more correct.  We split it in two at the last minute- shit was long, yo. 

Just to update everyone, the HOP is still moving along at a pretty good pace.  This week will see us working with a daily post schedule.  If you're interested in writing for he HOP, e-mail us with your ideas and we'll see what happens. 

In other news, my second FNIF: Extra Innings went up on BoK and nobody seems to have noticed :(  Please go check it out and comment so I can stop feeling bad about life.  Thanks to Brent for being the first and only commenter thus far. 

Here are some links for you guys:

Kirby's Article

FNIF: Extra Innings

The House of Paincakes is Now Open for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

That's right, there's a new blog network in town, serving up piping hot portions of pain daily.  Perhaps you've heard vague rumblings about it all ready.  Maybe you've even seen the logo.  Well we're happy to announce that it's now open for business.  The House of Paincakes blog network is here to make sure that all of us finally get the opportunity to promote our blogs.

There's a lot more to be said about the network than I can fit in a reasonable post.  Sufficed to say that as the site owners, Lauby and I, are very excited about what's to come.  If that's isn't enough, go check out our vision.  We've got loads of top secret plans for the near future and the long haul to grow this thing beyond it's humble roots.  More than anything, though, we're looking forward to promoting your blogs, hobby events, and community.

For information on joining the network click the link above to the site and poke around or go straight to our code of conduct and then join us.  Of course if you like what you see, be sure to spread the word.  We'd appreciate any publicity to help get this off the ground.

Looking forward to the Future....

Mathelete of the Week: Sepharine

It's been a while since we've had a mathlete of the week here on Dick Move, but the mathematics community has been very quiet in the 40 Universe lately.  All you kids must not want to talk about how awesome math is during your summer breaks or something.

E-mail In: Nerd Humor and Blog Advice, 2 Semi-related Topics, I promise

I have some thoughts of my own kicking around in my head- I know shocker, right?- but as I can barely type right now I'm going to do something of a more copy/paste nature from my inbox.  I won't assault you with brutal details, but sufficed to say it isn't a good idea to switch types of drumsticks on a night where you are playing 2 sets covering about 2 hours plus total. 

Scatter Template Calculator

Holy crap, one of the other YTTH writers actually put up something interesting. You should go check out Purgatus' work on developing a post entitled Scattering Templates: The Calculator. I won't get into the specifics here, as you can easily click the link, but this is a pretty impressive piece of math wizardry. There is some debate as to how accurate some of the calculations are, but it still serves as a good rough estimate of your chances of hitting various vehicles with the center of a blast template given either BS3 or BS4.

Retail Win

For those of you reading from the US, you're probably returning to work today after your long Memorial Day weekend. I took some time off from the blog over the weekend myself, as Dr. Girlfriend wasn't on call for the first time in a good long while. Somehow all of my free time then materialized in reading lots of bad sci-fi and listening to a bunch of Gary Numan. There was also a super fun couple days of cleaning the house and gardening along with lots of grocery shopping and a small cookout for some friends and even a surprise band practice*.

Super 100th Post Spectacular!

It's been a fun ride so far folks. I've gotten the opportunity to get a lot off of my chest these last few months. I've also gotten to meet some new people, make a few enemies (or people who just don't get it), and pretty consistently make an ass out of myself.

40K for the New Professional

Another Monday is here, so it's time for me to share something positive- something that does not make me want to fling my feces at onlookers- with you.

Goatboy on balancing your army

Well, it's Monday again and that means I have to be positive. Luckily Goatboy from BoLS has given me something to live for*. If you haven't read it yet, he put up a pretty solid article on why spamming** units is a perfectly sensible thing to do. I'm not sure if that was actually his intent, but there's some really good food for thought in there. Don't believe me, go read it. I think his deliberately unfocused list provides a lot of support as to why spamming is not the end of the world, even if he does provide valid justification for all of the choices in his force and can cover multiple rolls across different parts of his army. Just because his choices can cover multiple roles, doesn't mean that it is as efficient as a list comprised of several of the same/similar choices. For his fire support, for example, I think he could stand to expand the theme of combat squading with razorbacks to get long ranged support. But then again, that would defeat the purpose of his post...

One thing that I really like about his post, was that he was able to work in some pretty choice self-deprecating humor. I liked that he took some shots at his recent detractors. If you want to put goat in the name of every army you make, I say go for it!

But anyways, you should go read the article. If you're into staying happy, though, don't read the comments. I think Dingareth go a few good (IE, not retarded) knocks in early on, but the rest of the comments thread has pretty much degenerated into a puddle of pure piss (alliteration win!).

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*so I will hold off on taking out my entire marketing project group, saving 1 bullet for myself :)... for now.

**I don't know why, but that term bugs the shit out of me...

Can Small Games Be Fun?

As promised, I'm going to continue to bring some positivity to your Mondays. Mostly this has, so far, taken the form of me pointing you towards blogs that are better than this one, but today I'll be defending an oft shat upon topic: the low points game. A lot of people out there decry any game of less than 1,500 (sometimes even 1,750 or 1,850) points as "not Warhammer." They see it like the WNBA- all the fundamentals are there, but it just isn't exciting. Well, I'm calling bullshit on that.

Time To Get Organizized

Spring is in the air over here at Dick Move HQ (aka Planet LaPorte; aka the Super International Hall of Justice). Over the past 2 weeks I've managed to get some new grass seed planted, donate a bunch of shit I don't need to the Salvation Army, and clean my garage*. Then I was catching up on my buddy Hoagy's blog, When Cannons Fade and realized how behind I really am. He recently ran an article on the hoarding tendencies inherent in himself and gamers as well as the joys of having a 2 year old son mucking up the place. It's a great read and quite inspirational. Even with working and having a kid running around, he still finds the time to clean up after himself and get some painting in.

Kirby gets down to bidness with the Blood Angels

Everybody knows that Blood Angels are the new hotness. They are clearly an overpowered product of GW's continuous codex creep. Haha j/k. They are, however, totally sweet and capable of making a lot of different builds that weren't possible or viable with other SM lists. You can run a list of almost all dreadnoughts, 6 predators, deepstriking land raiders, and jump packs, of course.

If you, like me, are confused about where to get started with BAs, due to the ridiculous number of options available, you should go check out Kirby's fantastic index of basic BA lists on "3++ is the new black". You won't be sorry. Click here to not be sorry

I'm kind of liking his "blood rodeo" list myself, but am most likely still going to stay the course and rock a mech 6x predator list.

Gaming and Obesity

In my daily tour of the Internet, I came across a pretty provocative article on "The Army Collector" that deals with gamer obesity. It's not a particularly deep read and doesn't step into examining the issue of obesity in any kind of detail, but I like the candor. The author takes a long look at himself and resolves to change his situation (which doesn't seem too bad in the first place), so kudos to him.

Now I know that there are a large number of gamers out there who don't fit the plus sized gentleman stereotype, but I think that we can all admit that this (and hygiene all too often) is a problem in our community.

I think there are a lot of us out there that can identify with this issue in one way or another. Personally in the face of a rapidly slowing metabolism, quitting smoking, moving from a highly active retail management position to a highly sedentary unemployed status, throwing the towel in on a 15 year stint as a vegetarian, and insert additional victim statements ad naseum I am finding myself in a similar situation. In the last 10 years I have slowly seen my own weight increase from around 160 to damn near 200 pounds today (I think I'm somewhere around 5'9"-10" as I recall). But, I've resolved to fix this issue. I did it once before when I was 15 and I can do it again. The GF and I picked up a sweet elliptical to replace the ancient exercise bike that I decimated* and I am henceforth resolving to use it 5 days a week without fail, with the goal of losing 25 pounds. The proposed miniature rewards program seems like something that might just motivate me towards this. It might also get me some of those blood angels I'm drooling over.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Anybody out there up for starting the "Gaming's Biggest Loser" program with me?
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*previous owners of our house left a 15+ year old excercise bike in our basement. It was one of those fan style ones with the moving handlebars. Was using it 3-4 times a week for the past few months, until one of the handlebars broke off in a way that would have required welding to fix.

Primer via the Hobby Lauby

You may have remembered that last week I promised to be positive on Mondays. That's still totally happening. Go check out this article from a while back at Laubersheimer Industries. Then go check out the follow up article.

He has got some great painting articles up on his site, and I found his article on primer to be quite helpful and informative. A certain other gigantic blog that none of us here seem to think much of has been running articles on this subject with lots of incorrect information in them. Go check this one out instead and spread the word.

If you take only two things away from this experience it should be that-

• if your can doesn't say primer, it isn't


• duplicolor sandable primer is inexpensive and good

On a personal note I have switched from Citadel (too expensive), to dork tower (worst spray paints ever made, unless you enjoy stripping fuzzy paint globs from 90% of what you paint*), to krylon black spray (good but not really primer), and have ended up on duplicolor. Haven't regretted the switch, although I have run into instances where even my fingernails will rub primer off of a metal model. I have a feeling that this has less to do with the primer and cokenails and more to do with me generally not washing minis before assembly. Fuck you mold release agent!

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*I paint in my basement** with a dehumidifier, so humidity is not the problem. I also always hold the can upside down and spray until clear mist comes out after use to clear the nozzle, so that's not the issue. The issue is that this truly is the shittiest paint ever.

**I'd fuck me***

***yo dawg, I heard you like foot notes....

Great Advice For New Players

I got to thinking and figured that maybe those of you who are in the working world* don't necessarily want to be confronted by a wave of negativity on Monday. Going forward, I'll try to highlight something I've found that I think is good advice, intelligent debate, or a least amusing. Basically something that isn't as flawed as the other stuff you'll find here and just might make you think happy thoughts.

Anyway, for today I wanted to direct everyone to Raptor1313's blog "Spite for the Dice Gods." In an introductory article that kicks off a series on armybuilding, he gives us "Armybuilding 101: essential capabilities." Lots of good advice to be found there, and in his other articles. This forms a strong counterpoint to last night's post from Dick Move UK, and offers up some very useful information on the tasks that any army must be able to complete. Great advice for newbies and even a good idea to look at if you're a veteran player. It might give you some new perspective on your game. This is certainly a lot more helpful than any piece of "getting started" advice published by GW in the history of space and time.

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*ie suckers