Accolades for the Children

And, finally, here are some awards won at the three indy GTs I attended this season. First up, was The Midwest Rampage 4 in Bloomington, IL, in May, where I took the Player's Choice award. Unfortunately, my wife called me on Saturday AM to let me know that she had only had 1 hour of sleep the night before because our two young children had taken sick, and I needed to come home early. So, I left after the first three games, didn't receive a paint score, and took dead last in the tournament (grumble, grumble). Next up was The Quake City Rumble in San Francisco in June, where I took Best Painted Single Miniature for my DP. I also got 2nd Best Painted army (behind Ed Phillips beautiful VC) and 2nd Player's Choice (behind John Lentz' hilariously themed and converted "Squigtonnians"), finishing up 24th overall out of 103 players. Lastly, The Battle on Beale in Memphis in July, where I took Best Appearance (this time edging out Ed Phillips), and 2nd Player's Choice (where he edged out me;), finishing up 7th overall out of 93 players, which was my best GT finish ever. All in all, 6 awards in one season, an unprecedented number for me. This is going to be something quite difficult to repeat, I have a feeling, anytime in the near future, but rest assured, I'll be looking to surpass it one of these days.

The Monstrous Brethren of the Children

This gnarly thing is a conversion I made to represent a DOW Ogre Maneater. At the Midwest Rampage, during one game, you get an additional 250 points of DOW troops to use in a single unit, so I decided to run 2 Maneaters with heavy armor and great weapons. Not the most tactical option, but I already had my old Exalted Daemon model on a 40mm base that wasn't being used for anything else, and, let's face it, you can never have too many monsters in this list;) The main body is mostly sculpted green stuff over the torso of a Lichtor. To this I added yet more Tyranid bitz (his claws, spines, and tail maul). The head and tail were entirely sculpted, as were the muscles overlaying the Tyranid claw arms. After having seen Primeval, I was very much taken with the giant crocodile, Gustav, portrayed in the film. There is a scene where the beast rises out of the muck and reeds to confront Orlando Jones with his mouth wide open, and there are all these flies buzzing about in the air, and the words "Gustav, Greatcroc of Nurgle" swept unbidden into my mind. This conversion was mostly spawned by that movie image. I was going for sort of a mutated, devolved crocodile, and I think it turned out pretty good.