Hackmaster plus Classic Dungeon Dice Bag = epic gaming!

Classic Dungeon Map Dice Bag by Greyed Out. Gray suede and dungeon map fabric, 4.5″ tall, 4″ square base, double drawstring closure. Fully reversible.

If you’re a fan of skirmish level miniature games, you owe it to yourself to check out the Kickstarter campaign for Torn Armor.  A mere $75 pledge gets you the full game, and one of the higher pledge levels gets you all sorts of cool bonuses, like any and all miniatures from stretch goals that get unlocked as the campaign progresses.  

The miniatures include a variety of cool figs, including some really great-looking stretch goals, like a rhino-headed colossal battle platform type mini on a 120mm base; that’s the size of a cd, to give you some perspective.  

If Greyed Out receives 200 “Likes” for our Facebook page by the 12th of March, I’ll give away *two* dice bags… so please share and spread the word where you can!

On March 12th I’ll do a random drawing for the winner, and then announce it on the Greyed Out Facebook page on the next day.

You can find Greyed Out Productions on Facebook and on Etsy – note that you must “Like” the Facebook page in order to enter the contest!

Pattern is based on the runes that Circle Orboros warlocks show when casting spells.

I have always had terrible luck with dice.

I am the guy who will need to roll a five on two 6-sided dice(2d6) to hit an enemy model, and will roll a 3 and a 1. Or who will roll triple 1′s on a crucial attack roll. Or miss 14 out of 16 possible attacks, because the dice just aren’t cutting it. I’ve always been that guy.

People have commented on it, and I’ve always thought it was somewhat amusing, that I can’t roll high numbers to save my life. Until a few weeks ago, when it happened again, and my opponent said something along the lines of “I have bad luck with dice, but you probably have the worst rolls I’ve ever seen”. That was when I decided that I had to change something. I needed to take action and find a fix for my dice. So I approached David, my friendly local game store owner, and told him I’d like to order new dice.

I had used Chessex and Games Workshop dice for years, and due to being a Shadowrun player, where 6-sided dice are rolled in the dozens sometimes, I had a big block of 36 12-mm dice in the color “Strawberry”.  Meaning red speckled with bright green pips.  They’re small dice, and a handful is about a dozen dice.  I’d also heard that the Games Workshop dice(12mm, red and black dice with white pips) were often terrible rollers and not terribly well made.  ”Superstition and poppycock!”, I cried.

In an effort to try something new, I ordered slightly larger dice – 16mm Chessex “Recon” dice.  Green with white pips.  These come in a block of 12.  As luck would have it, they failed to arrive in time for last night’s Warmachine games, so I made due with the only two larger 6-siders that I had in my dice bags.  And lo and behold…. my dice rolls were mostly average and not terrible.  I’ve come to suspect that one of the causes of my years of bad die rolls was the small size of the dice I was using, especially after the games I played last night.  So I’m very much looking forward to trying new dice and seeing the results.

Chessex – if any of your reps are reading this, I’d be happy to test any dice you’re willing to send my way!  I ordered the Recon, but I’m partial to any speckled dice you make, particularly Stealth, Ninja, and Water or Veronica.  *grin*

One thing I do know is that Graven Games reviewed a couple of Greyed Out dice bags, and that I’ve already seen several orders as a result.  Graven Games is based in the UK, and the last week has seen orders with United Kingdom mailing addresses, so it’s a logical conclusion that the review caused the orders.  It was also pointed out to me by a customer that Tabletop Gaming News posted a link to the Graven Games review.

As the new year approaches, I’m already thinking ahead to 2013 and to a few things I’d like to do differently in the coming months.  I want to build up stock, so that I can reduce my shipping times.  I do make all Greyed Out dice bags myself, and a stock of already-finished dice bags would allow me to ship within 1-2 days rather than the current 3-6.  I also want to seek out more opportunities for having my dice bags reviewed, and may look into craft fairs or conventions here in the area as well.  I have no experience with selling locally, so it would be a learning experience for me.

Life-wise, the year is ending well.  We had our Christmas celebration a week early, when my wife’s mom came to visit for a weekend.  The days afterwards were weird, as I kept thinking that Christmas was already over, and had to keep reminding myself that the rest of the world didn’t celebrate the day on the 17th.  I received several very cool gifts for Christmas, including a few Moleskines(limited edition Hobbit kind), a book on the sketchbooks of various authors and illustrators, new boots, wine, art, and a few roleplaying books.

I now own the Hackmaster Player’s Handbook and the Hacklopedia of Beasts, and Kenzerco has outdone themselves on the production values for both.  These are incredible books, both faux leatherbound, 400 page hardcovers.  I can’t wait to start running a Hackmaster game, and I may already have several interested parties.  Earlier, around Thanksgiving, Kenzerco had a Black Friday sale, offering 50 issues of Knights of the Dinner Table for $50.  I snapped up the deal, and am now actually mostly caught up with the magazine.  I’m still missing a few issues here and there, but for the most part, the entire collection is mine.  It’s hard to believe that the magazine started around 1996-97; I was in high school at that point, and although I can’t remember when I first picked up an issue, the comic/magazine is one of the pillars of my high school roleplaying experience; nobody I knew was like the characters, and yet they were easy to identify with.  Issue 200 is closing in fast, and the magazine is still as great to read as it was in high school.

2013 is going to bring new challenges and tasks, but I’m looking forward to it.  I want to see Greyed Out Productions grow, and I want to take on some challenges for myself as well.

First game: vs. Retribution

The scenario here was with two flags on the table, and my opponent had a lot of high-armor infantry.  I made the mistake of clumping up too much on the left side of my deployment zone, getting in my own way, and hampering my efforts.  Unfortunately, Pow 10 lightning doesn’t do much against ARM 18-20 troops, and  the game ended after an ill-fated assassination attempt with Krueger went awry,  and Vyros took him down.

Result:  Loss

Second Game: vs Khador

Three flags set up along the center line of the table, with one flag disappearing after the first few turns.  My opponent was playing pButcher with WG Rifle Corps, a lot of Widowmakers/snipers(Kell, Eyriss, Widowmaker Marksman).  The list included a Destroyer, Black Ivan, and a mortar as well.

Once again I chose Krueger.  This time it was my opponent who made the mistake of clumping, to some degree.  His deployment zone had a wall very close by, so he chose to move the warjacks and mortar behind the wall, with the WG just to the left, lined up in formation between wall and a forest.  I was able to run my Bloodweavers up to engage the Rifle Corps, keeping them in place while I advanced with other units.  My druids took on the Widomakers, killing a number of snipers over the next few turns, but losing several of their own as well.  I was able to get two objective points, and my opponent left Butcher standing in charge range of a Feral Warpwolf after losing most of the Rifle Corps to Bloodweaver freestrikes and Chain Lightning.  The Feral unfortunately failed to kill a focus-camped Butcher, and died the next turn.  The bombards and mortar took their shots at Krueger, and he survived due to a lot of misses/drifted aoe’s. The Destroyer had moved over the wall in an attempt to block charge lanes to Butcher.

In my last turn, I was able to use the surviving druids to pull the Destroyer out of Krueger’s way.  My Woldwarden moved up to Geomancy Chain Lightning into Butcher, and then Krueger charged for the kill.

Result:  Win, 2 Control Points

Third Game: vs. Cryx

I was facing pAsphyxious, with Soulhunters, Bloodgorgers, and Blood Witches.  I think my mistake here was to try my Kromac list, instead of keeping Krueger and his Chain Lightning.

The scenario called for two zones on the table that were to be controlled for points.  His first turn, my opponent ran everything in his army up the table, and I was left facing an intimidating wall of models to take down/budge from the zones.  I made another mistake in letting the blood witches run to engage my Warpwolves, keeping me from contesting the closest zone through bodies.  My opponent actually won through control points, by literally keeping me out of the zones that had to be contested.  A well-played game, but I think I could have done better.  Lessons learned…

Result: Loss through control points

Fourth Game: vs Trollbloods

I was facing a Madrak brick, and again chose the wrong list I think.  Here I should have stuck with Kromac, and a berserking Stalker would have enormously useful.  Instead I went with Krueger, who had trouble breaking armor.  I ended up getting slowly taken apart piecemeal, and Krueger died a reluctant death after my opponent spent two turns trying to take him down.

Result:  Loss

The game ended a bit after midnight, and I ended up receiving the Circle Faction patch – I was one of two Circle players, and I believe that I had a slightly better record than the other player.  The tournament was a lot of fun, and I’m really looking forward to playing more games and becoming a better player.  Until moving to Atlanta, I had only played casually, and in our meta we have a lot of very, very good players, many of whom regularly attend convention tournaments and take top places.

The faction patch is currently gracing my transport bag:

Chaos Star Dice Bag by Greyed Out

The dice bag is lined in black fabric.

I’ve been working on ideas for new dice bags, and ended up with something that I think a lot of Warhammer 40,000 players will really like, especially with the recent release of the 6th edition Chaos Codex and the newer miniatures for Chaos Space Marines.

The dice bag is sewn from black cotton canvas, with a yellow chaos star screen printed on it.  It’s also lined in black fabric, so the only colors on the bag are the star and the dark brown drawstring.  You can find the dice bag listed at Greyed Out.

I’ve also been working on a Warpwolf Stalker for my Circle Orboros; I think he’ll be getting a mohawk modeled on him, and I’ll try to post some pictures of that. I’ve updated my Miniature Painting Commissions page a bit as well. My rate is $8/hour, which includes assembly, pinning, etc. I will probably cap certain projects after a certain time period, meaning that while I quote $8/hour, I would only charge for 7 hours of work for say, an infantry squad. The cap option comes into play when painting entire armies, where a discount for volume might be really appropriate.

With the October 24th release of the Woldwrath, the Circle Gargantuan, I decided that maybe it was time to do something about my lack of experience with constructs. I love the hobby, but I don’t have a big budget for miniatures. I decided that I’d start an Indiegogo campaign, and add a construct blog where I discuss painting techniques, assembly, and various list-building thoughts as well as battle reports.

As perks I have a variety of Greyed Out dice bags, and I’ll be coming up with some cool construct-related logos as well. Since it’s a crowd-funding effort, I’ll be taking a poll on what colors to paint the Woldwrath and all the constructs in the project. I’m going to be doing a lot of research to find various types of stone that would look great on Circle Orboros constructs.

The People’s Constructs Campaign went live yesterday on Indiegogo; I actually wanted to set the funding goal much lower, but apparently IndieGogo has a $500 minimum.

One of the big things I’d love to do with this campaign is support my FLAGS(friendly local awesome game store) rather than going to a giant internet retailer. It’s important to spend locally to keep great businesses in the community, and I think that game stores are where many people first get introduced to the hobby.

Please spread word of The People’s Constructs Campaign; I’d love to make this an incredible gaming and hobby experience, and hopefully bring something awesome to the Warmahordes community.