Happy Halloween Indeed

This year's halloween promo -- sold out!

Quick post.  Two things.

1. Poots launched the Halloween sale.  My phone chirped at work, and I pulled up the store page and started frantically adding things to my cart.  The KD store works surprisingly well on Android, so I was able to get everything I wanted, including this years' orange box promo. 
   
   So there I am, in my (very uptight) office, where phone use during business hours isn't exactly normal, paging through scantily clad figures in my cubicle.  The (even more uptight) lady from across the way chooses that moment to walk up and ask my opinion on something inane that she was supposed to be working on solo. 
   
   Inside my brain, I'm screaming "OMFG lady, take a hint! NOT NOW, this is IMPORTANT!  ... there's KINGDOM DEAAAAATH on the line!"
   
   Instead, I said something articulate like "Uh huh, that should work."  I have no idea what the question was.
   
   I could have left my desk, but wasn't sure what quantities were up and didn't want to waste time getting to a public space where there may or may not be cell reception.  A few things were sold out by the time I was ready to head home, so thank goodness for modern technology.
    
2. I got my KDM Core Box shipping notice!  Happy Halloween indeed!  It's scheduled for delivery tomorrow.  But technically all that's been done is the label creation - but progress is progress!

ZPS - October

The monthly update of all the things going on around here.  Happy Halloweenie!

The status changes compared to last month is really minimal.  We were out of pocket for a long-awaited vacation with friends, which had us in other states - and other countries - across an 11 day trek.  Tack on the prep time ahead, recovery after, and the glut of office hoopla and yard chores awaiting our return, I feel like I lost 3 of the past 4 weeks. I'll try harder in November to make progress on nerd things. 

But it's the end of the month, so let's do this!  With bullet points.  Bullet points are cool.

1. On the Table:

• Shadows of Brimstone: Derelict Ship - Necronauts (Zombie Astronauts) - Partially based
• Shadows of Brimstone: Derelict Ship - Beacon Drones - Primed
• I really should knock out the Beacons. The paint scheme I have in mind for them won't be hard; I put them behind the Necronauts because I wanted to paint something other than silver and black.
• (Shadows of Brimstone: Derelict Ship - Remainder complete)
• Shadows of Brimstone: Trederra (Trederra Mutants in primer, Legionnaires now mostly based)
• This is less progress than I wanted, but more than it really sounds like.
• (Remainder of Trederra is complete)
• Ninja Division / Kingdom Death Twilight Knight chibi crossover in primer

2.  Gaining Momentum:

• Kingdom Death: Monster - Part of my reluctance to dig into other parts of my backlog is that "any day now" I should see a KDM shipping notice.  And I will do a happydance.
• PC Game: Guild Wars 2 - The new Path of Fire expac, plus the Halloween event, consumed more hours than I expected.  I'm working through things slowly compared to most avid gamers, but am almost done with the new story arc.  

3. Losing Traction:

• Dropfleet Commander - Two player starter pack.  This is the biggest disappointment on the list. I intended to devote a full weekend to assembly and paint, but still haven't cracked the shrink wrap.  I'm using the header image above to punish myself.
• PC Game:  Heroes of the Storm - No specific complaint, just lack of time.  Only the Halloween event kept this from being in the next category.

4. Going, going, gone:

• Basically, all other PC games.  WoW, EVE, Diablo3, Hearthstone, and a few others that I'm forgetting.
• Warmachine.  As mentioned last month, I considered picking this up to play at the FLGS.  This month that's even further from being a reality.

Odds and Ends

Still no Core box delivery, so the closest I can get to playing is looking at GenCon pictures.

This is a quick post to collect-up some odds and ends regarding the KDM Fulfillment.

At the point that I'm writing this, shipping started in the U.S. not quite 2 weeks ago, and packages started started hitting doorways in the UK sometime in the past 48 hours.

1. My copy of KDM.
At present, I've been charged $30 for my shipping (Core + 1.5 Upgrade) and am (im)patiently awaiting a tracking number.  Per the previous post, I got at the end of the line and fully expect to see my copy in some unknown distant future.  But still, every day I check the spam folder in the off chance I get lucky.


2.  Trays omitted from the 1.5 Upgrade Pack.
Although the product description in the campaign lists the heavy duty new game tray within the Upgrade contents, Poots deferred delivery of the tray due to the vast amounts of shipping it would cost. 

I'm disappointed here.  I actually bought the 1.5 Upgrade Pack because I wanted a 2nd hardcopy rulebook, which was $40 as an addon.  For $75, I got a rulebook, spares of various game components and (I thought) a 2nd tray.  As a Satan's backer, I am getting every expansion (27 if I counted right), plus crossovers and promos, and the idea of a 2nd tray for storage was highly appealing, so I grabbed the upgrade instead.

He's only spoken about this in KS comments, so a lot of backers are assuming the tray was ninja-cancelled, but I used the word "deferred" intentionally based on the most recent comment:

Bran on October 12
Will the insert tray be included with the upgrade package? 

Kingdom Death on October 12
@Bran, no. We’ll deal with that in a later wave. If people want em of course.

This BGG thread captures the timeline perfectly, for future reference.


3.  1.5 Integration.
If you own an older version of KDM and are upgrading, this will interest you.  Official collaborator Clark provided the following link for 1.5 Upgrade integration into an existing 1.x core box via KS comments.  It looks like Poots gave the same link via Twitter.


4. Assembly Instructions.
Official assembly instructions are now online for some of the Core box models.  I love Vibrant Lantern (and you should too), but the exploded view diagrams the KD staff is doing for the official set really kick ass.

Filling in the Gaps

Beli'al's "Pants" - Seam erased with Vallejo Matte Varnish

The KDM boxes are arriving, and the questions about assembly are starting to roll in.  Here's a quick post about how I manage the gaps between pieces.

Disclaimer:  I'm going to speak to how *I* fill gaps.  I'm not an expert. I've not used every product.  My goal, as always, is "reasonably boardgame" and I will win no awards.

1. Do Yourself Some Favors:
Most of our models are now molded from plastic, meaning we're probably using Plastic Cement for assembly.  During dry fitting, I try to look for problem spots and gaps and use a little extra cement in those areas as filler.

There's some risk in this!  The cement is a solvent (i.e. melts the plastic) and if you use a ton and it smooshes everywhere it will make matters worse. 

But - I've made a horribly-fit model far more tolerable by giving certain spots just a dab more cement.

2. Large Gaps:
Most people advocate Green Stuff for large gaps.  My luck with it has not been good.  Instead, I reach for Vallejo Plastic Putty.  This is water based, is applied with a brush, and can be wiped off with a wet finger or a damp brush to smooth out. 

I squirt a bit into a palette and then use a (very) damp brush to work into the gap.  A secondary pass with a clean/damp brush (or your finger) will remove excess.

I think it's comparable to Citadel's Liquid Green Stuff (at least from the youtube videos I've seen) but I've never actually used L-GS.

3. Small Gaps:
For small gaps, mold lines, or molding defects -- or even to further erase the use of the Plastic Putty -- I use Vallejo Matte Varnish.  This is also a water based product, can be thinned, and when applied in several layers will "erase" problems.

The trick is to work slowly and blend the edges, otherwise you'll see exactly where you applied the varnish.

This video is the one that got me using this product, so I'll be lazy and just link straight to it.

Good luck!

KDM Shipping Core Game

I am probably the ONLY guy on the planet that quietly swore when reading the KDM fulfillment email.

I knew this would happen.  Like the rest of the 14,000+ backers, I've been checking multiple times a day for any possible hint at KDM shipping news for the past several weeks.  But I also knew that there would be a brief window when Mrs. Zoxe and I would be out of cell/data service due to a long planned vacation.  As the weeks ticked by, I had the "sonovabitch" feeling that the two would align perfectly.

So, on Sunday morning, we returned to U.S. cell coverage and my phone began vomiting forth dozens of notifications. I wasn't at all surprised when one of them was an email from Adam Poots asking me to go pay for KDM core box shipping.  Since I hadn't seen an email in over a week, I was well behind the power curve of getting things confirmed.  Poots confirmed that by late Friday over 10,000 backers had paid for shipping, while I only missed this by one business day, people really did jump on the emails.

He's using a 3rd party shipping manager (Whiplash), and multiple warehouses so maybe - just maybe - throughput will be good and I'll get my box in a reasonable manner.  But if they do ship according to payment date, then I'm at the back of the line

In the grand scheme, this is not the end of the world - but I do take it as proof that the Universe has a sense of humor and enjoys poking me in the eye when it can.

In the meantime, and if I really try to push this towards a positive outlook, it means I have one last window to finish up the current mess of Brimstone figures before the 17 lbs of game shows up on my doorstep.