There’s another sale going on Steam…  This time around it’s their Autumn Sale.  They’ve had different specials every day.

Today, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine was on sale – 33% off.

I’ve been a big fan of pretty much all of Relic‘s 40k games, and I’ve been eyeing this game for a little while, so I had to grab it while it was on sale.

Tried it out earlier tonight…  And it is certainly an interesting game.

It definitely captures the dark, gritty, brutal feeling of the 40k setting.  But it also completely ignores the current trend in shooters towards more tactical gameplay.

I don’t know how many shooters I’ve seen recently where cover was absolutely essential.  Games with all sorts of interesting covering-fire and blind-shooting mechanics to allow you to take advantage of cover.  Games where you virtually *need* to use the gun’s sights just to hit the broad side of the barn.  And, while this is fun, it doesn’t exactly fit the in-your-face nature of the 40k universe.

Which is why I was so delighted to see Space Marine ignore that trend.

Rather than ducking behind cover and waiting for your health to regenerate, you have to gloriously destroy the Emperor’s foes to recover your health.  And, rather than hanging back and carefully picking off enemies from the safety of cover, you’re generally encouraged to wade into the fray and mete out justice with a melee weapon.

It’s a hell of a lot of fun.

Since I haven’t been playing WoW lately, I’ve been looking for other ways to amuse myself.

I’ve spent a good chunk of time working on my Warhammer 40k models.  If I ever actually get new batteries put into my camera I’ll have some new pictures up.

I re-installed Soulstorm.  I know I have frequently claimed that it is the worst of the Dawn of War games, and that hasn’t changed.  However, it is the only Dawn of War game that lets you play as the Sisters of Battle.  So, crappy as it is, it’s what I’ve been playing.

I also finished up the single-player storyline in Dawn of War II.  Very satisfying.  I only wish they’d let you keep playing in a sandbox-type mode…  It is fairly obvious that the xenos aren’t completely gone.  There’s Tyranids everywhere, and I’m sure there are still some Orks and Eldar hanging around.  It would be fun to keep slaughtering the foul creatures.  But you can’t.  And the only thing left in DoW2 is the multi-player, which I haven’t been impressed with.  So I guess I’m waiting for an expansion pack now…

I re-installed Fallout 3, re-loaded my saved game.  Turns out that finding your father in that vault isn’t the end of the game.  He heads back to Project Purity and there’s still some plot left.  Unfortunately, that plot isn’t terribly satisfying.

It all happens very quickly…  You’re helping out at Project Purity, then the Enclave attacks.  You run away and hook up with the Brotherhood of Steel, who send you off to find a G.E.C.K.  Then you fight your way back to Project Purity with the Brotherhood of Steel, turn it all on, and the credits roll.

Not only does the game resolve itself very quickly…  But there’s no wandering around after the fact.  No sandbox mode.  Nothing.

I found another game that looked interesting – Cthulhu Returns.  It’s some kind of Lovecraftian MMORPG.  Looked like a good way to kill some time.  But the installer wanted to do some weird things in my system32 directory, so I didn’t wind up playing it.

I fired up Left 4 Dead again…  But, despite a number of patches, there really isn’t any new single-player content.

I wound up digging through my pile of old games…  Re-installed Wheel of Time…  I never did finish this game.  I bought it back in the day, when it first came out, back when I was really into the Wheel of Time books…  I made it through Shadar Logoth, but then basically stopped playing for some reason.  I thought it would be fun to actually play through it to the end.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that is going to be possible.  The game, amazingly enough, runs great on my computer even without any patches or updates.  But the graphics are horribly, painfully dated.  The textures are very flat, the effects are very simple, and it is all giving me horrible motion sickness.

Worse, that motion sickness means I’ll probably have a hard time playing through other old games like Thief, Undying, and System Shock 2.

So, I’ve got another ork pretty much finished.  I’m pretty happy with how he turned out…  The blue on his shoulders worked out really well, and I managed to do his eyes pretty cleanly.

* WPG2 Plugin Not Validated *This brings me up to four orks that are, more or less, done.  I’ve still got to get some kind of sealer for them…  And there are some bits and pieces that I ought to tidy up…  But they look pretty much like I want them to.

I primed up some more orks last night – a couple guys with big shootas.  And I’ve come to the conclusion that I really should have given this more thought before I started glueing things together.  There’s no way I’m going to be able to paint these guys right.  Their guns obscure most of their chests.

I’ve gotten a little tired of painting all these greenskins, so I decided to prime up the two marines that I’ve already got assembled.  I got the bright idea to prime them with straight gesso, figuring that the white color would work better with their predominantly-blue paintscheme.

* WPG2 Plugin Not Validated *Big mistake.

The straight gesso doesn’t work nearly as well as the gesso mixed with paint.  It doesn’t seem to cover as well and the finish is much chalkier.  I’m not at all happy with the results.

Plus, priming them was a real pain in the ass.  I definitely should have done some of this painting before I assembled everything.  The little marine is going to be a nightmare to paint…  His gun is completely covering his chest, it’s very hard to even get to his arms very well, and that backpack is a pain.

And the blue that was supposed to look so good over that white is, instead, looking like crap.  I’m sure it’ll be ok after several more coats…  But it’s much brighter than it was over the grey on the ork.  Bah!

I’ve finally got some new pictures of my 40k models.  Unfortunately, the pictures aren’t so good…

I got a new camera from a guy on CraigsList…  A Kodak EasyShare CX6230.  Not the most amazing camera, but good enough for me.  Unfortunately I’ve got little idea what I”m doing with it.  So these newest pictures are pretty rough.  Hopefully that’ll be corrected as I better learn what I’m doing.

Anyway…

* WPG2 Plugin Not Validated *These three guys are, I think, basically done.  There’s a little touch-up to do here and there…  And I’d like to seal them somehow…  But I think I’m mostly done painting them.

I’m pretty happy with the level of detail I managed.  It’s nothing like what I see on the 40k websites, but I think it’s pretty decent for how little practice I’ve got at this point.

I like how the yellow turned out now that it’s been toned down a bit.  And I’m very happy with how the horns turned out.  The little guys are decent, but don’t have quite as much personality.  Still, I think they turned out OK.

I really need to get some more pictures of my 40k models…  It’s kind of a pain though.  I have to borrow Terri’s camera, which has entirelly too many buttons and cost entirely too much money.  It’s very intimidating.  I’m afraid I’m either going to drop it or accidentally reformat the thing.  And I don’t have a card reader in my computer, so she has to dump the files onto a network share for me.  All just to get a couple pictures of some models being painted.

Makes me wish I had my own camera…  But I can’t justify spending the money on it.

Anyway, progress has been made on my 40k models.  Terri bought me a nice brush on sale at Michael’s the other day…  It’s got a much smaller tip on it.  Much better for painting these models.  I also got a couple eye droppers, and a mixing tray, and I’m having much better luck thining/mixing my paints.

I put a couple more coats of mustard-y yellow on my ork’s armor, and I think I’m liking how it is turning out.  The coverage is getting better, and the color looks pretty decent too.  It’s a little bright…  I’m going to have to dim it down somehow.  Maybe do some washes/drybrushing over the top of it.  Make it look dirty and worn.  But I think I’m liking the yellow.

Terri doesn’t.  She’s downright opposed to the yellow.  So I’m going to try a few other colors as well…  I figure I can paint them pretty much however I want since I’m not planning on actually playing with these orks.  I could even give them purple skin if I was so inclined.  So I’ll do a few orks with yellow armor, and some with red, maybe a few with blue or purple…  We’ll just see how they turn out and what looks best.  These guys are really my guinea pigs.

I’ve also found some nice off-white that I’m using for the teeth and horns on some of my orks…  It’s got a slight yellowish-grey hue to it…  Not quite a cream color, but not a bright white either.  It’s got a nice ivory color to it.  Hell, for all I know it is actually “ivory” paint.  None of these jars are labelled, so I’ve got no idea what color it’s supposed to be…  But it looks good.

Spent the weekend busily accomplishing nothing of consequence.

I played around with my Death Knight some more, and got him up to 80.  That’s probably the death knell for my Warlock…  I’m thoroughly enjoying this new character and I have a very hard time going back to my warlock when I need to.  I’ll probably wind up mothballing my warlock and playing my Death Knight almost exclusively.

I can’t wait to get him into some heroics and raid stuff…  But my gear still sucks.  I need to work my way through plenty of lower-level dungeons before I’m equipped to deal with the fun stuff.

I also spent some time working on my Warhammer 40,000 miniatures over the weekend.

I started with the orks because I felt it would be safer to make mistakes on them, since I don’t intend to play with them once I’m done…  And I’m certainly learning as I go.

I definitely need smaller brushes, and a better light source.  Properly thinned paint is also important…  And difficult to accomplish.  Too thin and it doesn’t actually pigment anything.  Too thick and you lose detail very quickly.  I also probably should have done some of this painting before I assembled the miniatures…  There are areas that are no impossible to get to because there’s an arm/let/head/gun/axe/whatever in the way.

Still, I think they’re turning out fairly well…  I don’t have a whole lot of paint on them yet – green skin, black clothes, metal axes…  But I like how they’re looking so far.

I’ve got some 40k models assembled and primed…  Letting them dry overnight, and then I’m going to try my hand at painting them tomorrow.

I decided to start with some orks…  I honestly have no desire to play with an ork army, so I figure it’s safer to start out with these guys.  I won’t mind so much if I mess things up.

I’m using gesso as a primer…  I’m told that you can just glop it on and it will shrink as it dries, revealing the details again.  I certainly hope it works as advertised, because right now they’re looking pretty goopy.

It’s been literally years since I tried painting any mintiatures…  And even longer since I did it with any frequency.  I wonder how bad they’re going to look?