HoP test bed: pimpin'

Showing posts with label pimpin'. Show all posts

Community Announcement: 2nd Annual Headshots from the Heart Charity Drive

Hey folks, Lauby here to offer a friendly helping hand to the fine human beings over at Wargaming Tradecraft. Dave G is back for another 24 hours of Borderlands (2)... for charity! The team is, again, doing this for Child's Play - which is just a fantastic organization. I don't normally editorialize when someone is asking you to give them money, but I can't help it this time.

Sadly, there are no custom painted miniatures this time around, so the link with table top gaming is a bit tenuous. But Dave is in our network and helping our members is what we do. There are, however, a number of items that will be up for grabs via auctions just as last year. The loot table is pretty cool so far and Dave has even managed to expand participation with an attached LAN party for those luck ducks who live in Canada.

Last year, Dave raised about $2,700 with his efforts and if you're the kind of caring person who wants to help sick kids, you can go here for details on how to help Dave set a new record. As with last year, 100% of the proceeds to to Child's Play. So none of that Kony 2012 bullshit here.

I encourage you to at least check this out. I managed to watch a bit of the stream from last year and it was a bunch of fun.

User Content Friday: One Inch Warriors and "The Land"

Got a fun little post to share with you all on these laid-back Friday Afternoon that I had been saving for a while, waiting for an opportune time to unleash it's glory on an unsuspecting world.

It's called "Wargming Anecdotes - The Land" and it's not particularly long or even full of some deep, deep rules insight, but it is something we can all relate to. And I think it is just an absolutely delightful chunk of text.

The real, shinning jewel at the center of the post is that explaining our beloved hobbies to the uninitiated can be a bit of a challenge - or even a drag if you have to do it over and over again. I know in my own situation, I've taken to describing my hobbies as simply as possible for reasons relating to those touched on in "The Land". Typically, I'll say I'm into scale models or board games (depending on the crowd) with a certain amount of implied quotey fingers. Implied to myself anyways.

It's not out of some kind of shame or fearfulness, but just that I hate having to explain what the hell a table wargame is and why painting tiny little space mans is a thing I like to spend money on.

I think to an extend we all do that with hard to explain things. My big city little brother has a adopted a similar stance on describing his actual job since he hates having to explain (over and over again) his businessy job duties and what exactly his company recycles (it's boring stuff, not gross stuff).

So, enjoy the linked post. Give Alex some love at One Inch Warriors and feel free to share your own little shorthands for describing your beloved hobby to the 'normies'.

Community Announcement - The End of the Blood Angels

Hey folks, we've got a fun little announcement here for you on this fine Friday.

Some folks calling themselves "Ballistic Skill Four" contacted us a while ago about a pretty neat-soundin crowd-funding campaign they're running.

I'll let them do some explaining:

We are Ballistic Skill Four, and want to announce the release of the ``Last Days of the Angels´´ indiegogo campaign. The fictitious end of the glorious chapter known as Blood Angels. Our goal is to make between eight to fifteen dioramas. Each one tells how a tyranid invasion goes taking strenght and how the blood angels organize the last stand until the final breath. I´ve attached a pic of the first completed diorama. A handful of blood angels resisting in a corridor against a huge wave of tyranid genestealers. Our idea is realize the largest diorama of all warhammer 40000. For this quest we will need mountains of miniatures, materials, paintings, and a lot of hours and days of work.

To this end, they've gotten themselves an Indiegogo campaign up and running and they've even got the first completed example of the dioramas ready for your viewing pleasure.

As is customary with crowd funding, they have a series of funding goals AND, more importantly, a selection of perks for certain contribution levels. At $160, a custom painted Land Raider could be yours and if the examples they've got up are any indication, that's a pretty good deal on it's own.

Anyway, you can head over to Indiegogo and check it out.

Last Days of the Angels Campaign.

Disclaimer
The House of Paincakes doesn't endorse this project beyond thinking it's pretty rad. We're just posting this as news for our readers. There's always a lot to think about when it comes down to actually moving some money around, and we urge you to use your own best judgement.

As this is a crowd funded deal here, there's no guarantee that the project will be completed. Further, as this is an Indiegogo based campaign, if you contribute and the project isn't funded, you don't get your money back. I suggest checking out the Indiegogo terms of service page if you have any questions.

Community Pimpin' - FAQ's are Coming: Lets Help

Hey guys, got an interesting one here for ya today. As you know, the 6th edition of Warhammer 40k came out but there's been a bit of FAQ problem.

Enter Son of Dorn. SoD has been organizing a large community effort to try and make sure that the best possible questions we as a community can ask are answered in the FAQ due in September (if I remember correctly). We think that that is fantastic and are doing our part to help him out in his effort.

So that is what this post is. Any serious questions that you feel need to be answered can be posted in the comments, and then Son of Dorn and some other fine nutters will collate them and try and get them into someone that matters at Games Workshop.

The purpose of this is not to bitch, moan, complain or rules lawyer, but to really help the community with the hope that we will somehow, just maybe get these viewed by someone that matters.

So if you are interested, lets get this going. If you think a question can be easily answered that someone has asked, by all means answer it. It will help the community as a whole if we can get these questions answered.

You an also check out this fine post by Naftka over at Faeit 212 which we were advised to use as a template (and so we did). Much obliged, good sir. Naftka has a bunch more comments so feel free to post questions there as well or instead of here.

Around the Blogs Rolls - The Back 40k + Wyrd Plastics

Hey guys and gals, I was just snooping around the blog rolls this afternoon and came across something I thought I should share.

SandWyrm of the Back 40k has done a pretty great write up of the new Wyrd Games change to the way it produces the Malifaux models. There's a lot of good information about this recent announcement out there already, but I think the Back 40k post is a fantastic place to start.

Essentially, Wyrd have moved to digital sculpting, and hard plastic injection molding without making the moronic mistake of doing it at the exact same time of.. let's say.. an annual price increase that you could set your watch to. Holy Cats and such.

If you're willing to wade through some forum spew, these threads on Wyrd HQ are also full of stuff:

- Wyrd Plastic and Special Edition Models
- Wyrd Plastic and the Neverborn releases
- Wyrd Plastic and the Arcanist releases

We'll know for sure of this is the real deal once these babies hit the streets, but we could be looking at the next big step away from metal and a massive leap in quality over resin.

Now if Wyrd would just get around to cleaning up the Malifaux Rules they'd really have something.

Dave G - Straight Outta Canada

Just a little late afternoon pimping for you today, the world famous Dave G is back at it again after a much needed rest from his fund raising activities.

In this metaphor, Dave is the cat.

He's got his own Blog-network-finder-doodad up and running and it's the real deal. I'll let Dave explain:

First, my new network list is fully functional now, and a shout-out would be awwwesome and mucho appreciated. Haven’t had tons of people re-signup, (had over 70 sites before) and I’m really hoping to build this in to somewhere that authors can advertise their contacts and visitors can quickly find blogs with the content they’re interested in. The big change is that it’s searchable now, and authors can update their blog information themselves. How many times have you had to Google looking for an author to find their site, sifting through results, then from there having to look through bars is varying forms of (dis)organization for an email, Twitter or Facebook? This way it can be in one place!
Link: Wargaming Network List

Second.. I guess things got a little crazy on your site over the last few weeks, which made me think of a feature I was missing - so this weekend I added content ratings. Authors can now choose to list their blogs for “Everyone”, “Teen” or “Mature” readership. The idea being that parents, teachers, or the easily offended can find blogs that are upfront about the type of content they contain.
Link: Network content ratings and my own promise

Good stuff, right? Of course it is.

I may not be all that hip to the 'street' culture but I'm relatively sure that the G stands for Gangsta. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you should head on over to Dave G's site and check his shi... stuff out.

(For the record, I think the House of Paincakes is all over the place in terms of a rating - but usually between a T and an M. I wounder if I could get Dave to make us a special, HoP only rating that represents our wide range of appropriateness for age levels and the seemingly random chance it'll be different from day to day? )

Community Re-Announcement: Headshots from the Heart Charity Drive

Hey guys, SinSynn is running a bit late today so while you're all waiting for whatever insane thing he's going to post, why don't you check this out?

A while back, we posted a little announcement about Dave G's (of Wargaming Tradecraft) charity event.

In essence, it's a video game marathon and painted miniature auction where the proceeds go to the Child's Play charity. All the details are here and here.

Anyway, Dave has masterfully finished up the minis for the auction and the actual gaming marathon is right around the corner and will be starting this Saturday!

So you have a few days to consider donating and drooling over Dave's amazing models.

Community Announcement: Headshots from the Heart Charity Drive

Here's a little something to warm the cockles of your collective hearts this fine Monday evening.

Seriously though, they do look pretty cold.

The illustrious and talented Dave G of Wargaming Tradecraft is gearing up for what promises to be a fascinating combination of a video game marathon and painted model auction. For charity!

Specifically, Child's Play.

Here's the skinny:

Dave and his wife (and a whole host of other fine folks) are planning on playing Borderlands for a day straight (24 human hours to you SinSynn) and raising money from pledges - either a lump sum or based on how many headshots the charitable team can produce.

Beyond that, Dave will be painting up some themed miniatures as part of a two-pronged assault.

Did I mention that the whole thing will be webcast? A crack team of support people are involved so you can follow along in the action.

Full details can be found at Wargaming Tradecraft or the Headshots from the Heart page. I urge you to head on over there and donate whatever you can - money or just plain ol' gettin' the word out.

Since this event doesn't take place until late may, I recommend that you stay tuned to the Headshots mainpage to check in on the painting progress that'll be there.

Gaming on a Budget: Spare Parts Month HoP Member Project Extravaganza

As promised, week 8 or so of spare parts month will close out the series with a collection of projects submitted by HoP members.

We had some great submissions and I even found a new blog to drool over in the process of this. Thanks to everyone who submitted.

How it feels to be pimped by the HoP; artist's interpretation

Without further hoopla and ado, here are the creme de la creme entries. (Hint- blog names are links to the site that submitted the project)

Warhammer In Progress

I'll be honest, while the name of the blog was familiar, I've been far too busy lately to spend much time on the Internet. This blog honestly proves that I need to get off my ass and get on my ass in front of the computer more often, because I'm missing out on something special. Warhammer in Progress, if that is his real name, is a master of conversions. Don't believe me? Check out his/her kick ass Defilers made from all sorts of bits from the Chaos and Tyranid range.

For our little theme "month" here, he/she submitted some awesome chaos plague spawn conversions made from spare Tyranid bits and possibly ghoul and lots of green stuff. I love the character of these models. The poses are just great. I can really see them shambling around the battlefield. Take a look won't you...

In case that wasn't enough, they also sent us some shield generators. These would make great markers for various strategem or objectives. Hell, they'd even make nice terrain as well. I'm told that these were made entirely from spare computer parts like VGA/DVI cables. Great budget move, using broken/obsolete parts for a gaming project.

One Inch Warriors

Next up, Alex from One Inch Warriors sent us a spooky diorama with a Halloween theme- the perfect accompaniment for the traditional Spare Parts Month scary story contest.

There are a bunch of great budget tips to be gleaned from this diorama, so do try and pay attention.

First off, the main character was made entirely from spare parts from Alex's bits box. Looks like it's mostly Empire Free Company with some other odds and ends thrown in there. That "tree" there was made from a stick. Net cost on that one- zero. We'll be visiting the topic of trees in a future article, so that's all I'm saying on that for right now.

Here's a WIP shot with some paint. Nothing particularly budgety about this, but I'd like to point out that Alex is an ace painter. But we all knew this already, no?

Here's a shot of the finished project. The base is made from a Christmas ornament.

This is what it looks like from the top. Alex dropped a big budget tip for adding leaves to a base. He made these from crushed bay leaves right from the spice rack.

Bonus Round

Just to round things out, I thought I'd throw in a few more projects of my own that I hadn't shown until now.

It's no secret that while operating without a budget, I built a 2,000+ point Elysian Army. While there was nothing cheap about this, I was able to reuse a few spare body parts (you get an extra one here and there with FW kits). When added to a variety of extra heads (some Empire and Catachan ones for example) that I had lying around, these made some great weapons crews with a grizzled look. To finish these, I took spare Lascanons and chopped them up to make something that looks like a stowable drop version of the larger canon. You'll also see lots of extra bits like 50 gallon drums that were spares added in for flavor.

Last, I've got one of my favorite projects. Originally intended to be the CO of my Elysians, I created Colonel Chester A. Arthur from spare parts. In the end, he was a bit out of scale, due to the slightly smaller frame of most FW models, so I chose not to use him. He still remains one of my favorite (and easiest) conversions, though.

The body and legs are from the Valkyrie door gunner kit. The flight suit had the look I wanted. The head is an Empire one, I believe. Arms and kit come from various other guard kits including the command squad one.

Enjoy....

Contest Alert - Frontline Gamer and Winged Hell Beasts

Hey Folks, Just a little reminder on behalf of Frontline Gaming for ya today.

He's been on a BaneLegions kick lately and has an absolute double whammy of a post that you should all check out. It's an interview with a certain amiable fellow by the name of Rob Lane who is one of the Maelstrom Games honchos. The whole thing is as in depth as it is interesting, but what's more, contained therein is the key you need to enter a fantastical contest to win one of these bad mamajamas:

I shit you not, a 165mm tall resin model is up for grabs and all you have to do is some leisure reading.

So get to it! The post you need to immerse yourself in for the clues is right here. We've even saved you a step.

Frontline Gaming Super Fantabulous Interview and Contest

HoP Member on GW's "What's New Today" Blog

A member of the HoP since it's founding and singer of NWOBHM band Crusader, Hoagy has landed one of his minis on the Games Workshop "What's New Today Blog."

I've known Hoagy for years and have always been impressed by his attention to detail and ability to paint most people I know under the table.

Be sure to check out his blog When Canons Fade after you peep his Wolf Guard from GW's site. His is the one on the right.

Wolfin it up with Hoagy

Congrats Hoagy!

[Musings of a Game Store Owner] Intelligent Design Supplemental

I just wanted to throw out a quick heads up for all the Intelligent Design fans out there. Lo is running a kind of leftovers special over at her own blog (World of Wonder) and was too timid and polite to abuse her powers here at the House of Paincakes.

The first interview is up in it's totality so you can see all the cool stuff that hit the cutting room floor for the actual posts that appear here. First up is Brian of a Gentleman's Ones fame.

Here's the linky to series: Intelligent Design Interviews

Here's a picture of some cool as balls marines from A Gentleman's Ones to pad out this post's length:

User Content - 40k in a Flash + Campaign

Hello ladies, gentleman and people who reject rigid definitions of gender. While we're waiting for Dethtron's weekly Gaming on a Budget, I thought I'd share a neat chunk of content from one of our many, amazing blog roll members.

Col. Dracus over at his very own Journal has posted some rules for an interesting 40k campaign that has rally caught my imagination. It's quick, it's easy and I think it'd be a great thing to build a fully painted army challenge around. Hell, I've been planning army lists for the last couple of days and I'm not even playing 40k at the moment!

I put all of them on a FLASH drive!

Anyway, It's an interesting mix of small scale games, fast play and a persistent territory system. Most of the rules are grabbed from ye olden days of White Dwarf with some updates as needed.

40k in a Flash!: the introductory post with the basic rules

LAtCS Forum Thread: the complete rules, a selection of edits/updates and some army ideas from the players

40k in a Flash! Bat Rep: An excellent introduction to how these speedy, small scale games play out.

I heartily encourage you all to check it out.

Community Announcement: Old Stuff Day is Approaching

Just a quick announcement for this fine Monday evening. Thor from Creative Twilight has taken up the mantle of last year's Old Stuff day. I'll let him explain:

Last year Rob at Warhammer 39,999 began Old Stuff Day. In short, it’s a day where every blogger showcases articles they’ve done over past year (or longer), that might have fallen off the radar, maybe it’s just something you’d like to bring attention to again, stuff you may have done before you gained popularity or just anything you’re exceptionally proud of.

Lately Rob hasn’t been doing a lot of blogging and so you probably haven’t seen anything regarding it for this year, which is why I’m mentioning it. I’ve talked with Rob and it’s time to put it out there again. March 2nd is Old Stuff Day. So, take some time and go through your archive to find those articles you want to showcase and draw attention to. Rob said it best last year when he explained what Old Stuff Day is.

The idea is to spread the word so that on March 2nd every blogger participates and the blogosphere is full of cool articles you might have missed. Feel free to link to Rob’s original article, linked twice above, or to this one. There are also some banners you can snag and use to show your participation in Old Stuff Day and to promote it.

The one above is even larger than you’re seeing it here. I had to scale it so it fit in my content area. If you save it then it will save at its full size. The one below is shown at its actual size.

So, help spread the word!

And that's the gist of it. I know we'll be reposting something, and we hope to see as many of you joining in as well. See you on the 2nd!

BUJILLI!

Porky took some time out of his busy schedule over at the Expanse to drop us a line concerning something he felt we needed to promote. He explained everything to us and we immediately agreed with his appraisal of the situation. We also mentally noted how awesome it was that his promotion request wasn't for himself, but for Hereticwerks. That's community, people!

Anyway, I'll let Porky do the talking since what he emailed us is way better and more informed than what we'd write:

They're (Hereticwerks) planning to get an online game up and running, or rather up and
running again, because they were running it last year until Blogger
pulled the rug out.

Here's the post they used to announce the continuation, and it explains
the concept.

http://hereticwerks.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-is-bujillis-sojourn.html

Here's the map of progress so far. We broke in at 'E', found and opened
the secret door, bridged the gap with a trunk from the wilds outside and
got jumped by a strange gassy creature in area 3. We almost got us eaten
by its young in one of the rooms further in, but we hid and I think the
vortex is holding them back.

http://hereticwerks.blogspot.com/2012/01/bujilli-map-as-of-episode-7.html

All the related posts use the Bujilli label, but there's not a lot yet
because all the old was at a different blog.

http://hereticwerks.blogspot.com/search/label/Bujilli

Basically, a yeti-like creature called Bujilli wants to escape his uncle
and make his own way in the world, a very strange world. He's found a
gem that tells him things and it's sent him to a ruined palace, a weird
take on the classic dungeon. The whole thing is a kind of online
roleplaying by blog. The readers control Bujilli by suggesting actions
through the comments and using the dice roller widget in the sidebar to
generate numbers. Before the Blogger thing the group of players was
getting big, and they had a mix of backgrounds, from the roleplaying
blogs as well, even from outside the gaming blogs.

Thanks, Porky!

Episode 8 went up today, so I highly suggest you head over to Hereticwerks to check it out.

House of Paincakes Blogroll Search

Normally on a Friday, there'd be a Top X to read. But not today.

Normally, someone from our crack staff of ace journalists would sift through the blog rolls and select 5-12 posts to promote. It's actually some pretty solid fun with a hefty dose of self edification. But there are a couple of flaws - it's time consuming, it's not all that guided and it leaves people out.

That last bit is the important part.

Unacceptable

As the House of Paincakes has grown and ~~matured~~ evolved, we've always stuck by our goal to promote our members. The Top X. the intermittent User Content Days and all the authors we add are here to draw attention to the blogs we support. Back in the beginning it was pretty easy to make that happen. The blogrolls were shorter (and there were only two of them) and the only challenge we had in promotion was making sure we didn't constantly double up on our small (and elite) constituents.

We're at about 370 members now. It's been a wonderful ride so far and everything has exceeded our expectations. But the mo' members, mo' problems. Given the sheer number of people out there who have given us their support and the huge amount of conntent that gets churned out, we just can't keep up.

Until now.

Today is the day that we roll out our master plan to promote ALL of your blogs ALL of the time.

With the House of Paincakes Blogroll custom Google Search Widget Thing.

You can bask in all of it's glory over there on the right. Nestled between our site header and the hallowed blogrolls.

What this will allow anyone to do is run a regular ol' Google search but only for information on the blogs on the HoP blogrolls - and not just the recent stuff. It's pretty darn amazing if I do say so myself.

Not only does it give people an easy way to search for specific information , it gives people a reason to do so. What's out there? What did you miss when you got caught up in finals/your cousin's bar mitzvah/serving jail time? It's all at your fingertips now. The fleeting and ephemeral nature of blogging has been punched squarely in the dick.

Now, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that this fantastic Google tool is add supported. At some point you may see some sort of product or service being offered in the search results. Rest assured that we are not the recipients of the revenue that may be generated. Unless it's a specific brand of penis enlargement pills. In which case I cordially invite you to spend money on them and add length AND girth to your genitals. But that's more of a direct sales thing and outside the scope of this conversation.

I think that's about it. if anyone has any questions, I'll be watching the comments thread.

Thanks again to everyone who's made this sort of tool a necessity.

For Holy Terra Contest!

By Odin's beard have we got a doozy of a contest to share with you from one of our member sites.

Paul (if that is indeed his real name) over at For Holy Terra is holding a reverse painting contest.

While perhaps not exciting in the same way as a reverse cowgirl contest, this one still looks like a great time. In the spirit of the season Paul is giving away a Space Marine Battleforce on his dime. All you need to do is design a new chapter complete with heraldry, a color scheme, and back story (well and maybe a few other things that I've forgotten) and you're in the running. 3 lucky winners will receive fully assembled models from the set done up in your chosen color scheme. How awesome is that?

For full details, but less needless sexual innuendo check out the contest specifics on For Holy Terra.

Now hurry up and make your chapter. The deadline is nigh'.

Dateline HoP: Things You Should be Aware of

We like it when people ask us to help promote their own efforts. It's fun, it gives us a feeling of satisfaction and it's a key part of our whole deal here. So here are three such projects people want you to be aware of.

(Though apologies upfront to the people who asked us to do this. You see, with last week's deadly struggle against our negaverse bizarro selves we weren't able to post these bits of news in a place that would make sense or at the very least get enough attention. It also doesn't help that our bizarro doppelgangers aren't all that helpful - it's like they're opposites or something...)

No matter the universe: Spock is awesome

1) Bad Journalism: the Antipope has run into a nasty piece of yellow journalism in his country of origin and would very much like to draw people's attention to the fact that it's being claimed that the Greek Warhammer 40k scene is a hotbed of fascism. It's worth your time to head over there and check out the details. There's even a way for you to help out.

2) Charity Army Project: Speaking of helping out. Some buddies from the Relicnews Forums have gotten together and built a pretty fantastic Blood Ravens army for a raffle to raise some money for charity. Bidding is now live and all the proceeds go Child's Play. Full details of the drawing can be found here and be sure to check out the rest of the blog for more information on just about any question you may have about the endeavor.

3) The Lord Inquisitor - A few of our readers felt that we needed to help make people aware of the fact that there a new 40k CGI movie in the works. Ah ha, but there are some key differences.

It's fan made
It doesn't look like shit
Explosions

For more info and a peek at the trailer, go here.

Charity Game Auction-

Hello ladies and gentlemen. There will be no Top X today since I want the following to be the focus for the day. Our very own Loquacious is doing what she does best - being a good human being - and wanted to get as many eyes on this as possible. This is not an advertisement for Armored Gopher or anything like that, they just happen to be the face of the good deed. So please, with the spirit of the holidays in mind, please check this out. Even if all you can do is pass it along to a friend, that't a bigger gift than you know.

Huge Charity Game Auction

Cordelia “Cee” Geiken is a wife and mom. Her small size may make her look like a pushover, but Cee is a fierce and determined woman. Her son runs track, is in band, and as a senior, is nearing graduation. Her daughter is soon to enter high school, and has endless possibilities ahead of her. Cee’s husband Deane is an enthusiastic, lively and passionate man, devoted to his faith and family. Deane is also an active member of the local gaming community. The Geiken family has been dedicated to serving others through leading youth groups, scouting, fundraising for public radio and many more service activities.

This generous and loving family has been hit hard by an accident in August. Cee was riding her motorcycle and had a serious incident that crushed her pelvis and created a tear in her aeorta. The first indications after the accident were very dire- there was a serious concern that she would not make it through the surgery intended to save her life.

As stated before, Cee is a fierce woman. She made it through the surgeries and is on the mend- but she has a long way to go. She is out of the hospital and is in a skilled rehabilitation center, working to get well
enough to go home for Christmas.

****

She wants to go home for Christmas. What a simple and tender wish.

** **

The community of people around her want to help her open GIFTS and not bills this Christmas.

The ever-rising cost of her recovery and rehabilitation is a serious and pressing worry. The hospital stay, the surgeons, the anesthesiologists, the medications, the medical equipment (such as a specialized bed, wheelchair, and wound care), the ambulance rides to and from doctor appointments, the rehab facility, the physical and occupational therapists, and many more medical expenses have become daunting. In addition , the loss of wages, extra tanks of gas for her husband to go to and from the hospital to home, extra meals out, the parking passes, and numerous other incidental costs have hit them financially as well.

In an effort to support the Geiken Family, Armored Gopher Games is hosting a fundraising event, with all proceeds going to the Geikens to alleviate their financial distress.

Saturday December 10, 12pm-6pm

Activities include raffles throughout the event and a live auction (over $1000 worth of games) at 2pm.

List of items donated includes:

Fresco
Mordecainen's Magnificent Emporium
Ultra Pro 18 Pack 10 pocket pages
Isle of Sea Drake
Medieval Handgonnes
Great Expedition
Defense of the Rhine
Erich Von Manstein
KODT #180
Mutants and Masterminds Silver Age
Noble Armada
Malifaux Twisting Fates
Killer Bunnies Red (and 7 expansions)
Bugs
Munchkin Zombie Kill-o-Meter
Bankruptcy Card Game
Master of Devils Pathfinder Novel
Game Science Color Explosion Dice Set
Albert's Insomnia
Resident Evil Playmat
Yugioh playmat
FoW M10.3 GMC Tank Destroyer Platoon
Scavengers
Martian Dice
Ligretto Green
Crappy Birthday
Impossible Machine
Hecho
King's Vineyard
Master Builder
Kings of War:Elves
Dixit Odyssey
Frag Gold Edition
Magic Duel Decks
Guardians of Graxia
Alhambra New York
Thebes
Samarkand
7 Ate 9
Life -Vintage Edition
Monopoly-Vintage Edition
Risk -Vintage Edition
Magic: the Gathering Singles Binder (Mostly 2011 Uncommons but many others)
Crocheted Hat & scarf sets
55" Projection TV
Home Décor items
Art Prints
Avon Basket
AND MUCH MORE --

Please join in this effort to help an incredible family, going beyond charity and redefining community.

For more information, please see this article. To bid on an item or donate, please contact Loquacious

Happy Turkey genocide day for our American readers. Later today you'll most likely be tucking in to a lovely spread of food just before going into a carbohydrate related coma (yeah many would allege that you're sleepy due to the tryptophan in Turkey, but that's a bunch of bullshit). This article is going to have a bit of an interactive component to it, so make sure you help out your fellow gamers in the comments section when you're prompted to at the end.

Once you awake from your slumber and maybe watch some sports on the old boob tube if you're like me you'll be ready for some shopping.
If you're even more like me, you're also broke as shit.

Lucky for us, two of the biggest shopping days are just around the corner: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Having worked in retail management for far longer than I'd like to admit (and recently being thrust back into the trade), I've experienced more than my fair share of the insanity that is Black Friday firsthand, so I can tell you that it's a great day to be nearly crushed to death (or actually crushed to death if you shop at the wrong Wal Mart) while searching out great deals. Now, though, there is a second day making huge gains on Black Friday's share of holiday sales: Cyber Monday. It makes a lot of sense for consumers because it eliminates a lot of the issues related to holiday shopping- namely the tramplings, out of stock issues, and having to wake up at the ass crack of dawn just to wait in line.

What does this have to do with gaming? Well I'll tell you what. It's a great day to pick up some new hobby products on the cheap if you know where to look. For Black Friday itself, many FLGSs will be running deals. Don't be surprised to see some of your favorite hobby products go for 30% off or better while stores sitting on a lot of clearance or discontinued items may seize the opportunity to offer even deeper discounts.

If you're not lucky enough to live in an area with a store offering Black Friday deals, don't despair. Many online vendors, such as the War Store, will be offering steep discounts throughout the weekend and into Cyber Monday. A few years back I bought the Dark Angels fortress of solitude model or whatever the fuck it's called for damn near half off during just such a deal.

This is where the audience participation portion of today's show begins. If your favorite FLGS or web vendor is running a special deal on Black Friday, provide us with a link, physical address, or whatever you can to help other gamers find a good deal in the comments section here. Happy shopping and everybody have a safe holiday.

Until next week, enjoy some black metal (providing a close approximation of what it feels like to be in a big box retailer during Black Friday).

HoP test bed

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