I have a pretty large family. Most of us are in Wyoming, though that’s shifting now–I’m the oldest and I went the hell away for college and only returned to the home state a few years ago, but as my cousins reach the age of autonomy some have left. One actually came TO Wyoming, though, so there’s some fluid dynamics going on.

Anyway, one of my cousins maintains at least a tertiary interest in the things I’m into. This is distinct from the good hours I’ve spent playing video games with my little brother, because he’s my little brother (well, younger…he’s like 6’6″) so I was able to apply sibling pressures when we were kids, and playing a game via the internet’s been one of the more effective ways for us to stay in touch as he deployed his fully-operational 60-hour-a-week work ethic in his adult years. With my cousin, finding out he’d held a controller was a bit of a revelation (that’s not exactly hyperbole, as two of my other cousins, at my wedding, legitimately didn’t know how to hold a 360 controller).

We don’t hang out all that often because we’ve got like an 11-year age difference–so high school is a thing–and the parent with whom he lived wasn’t exactly encouraging of our interacting. He’s popped by the game store to watch (and even play!) a few games of Warhammer though–he even Instagrammed a picture of a dwarf slayer killing my carnosaur, which I can’t for the life of me find anymore.

With Warmachine/Hordes starting to pick up steam at the store (demos were last night, and their success was…middling, but the big game in the basement went much better), I extended an invitation to my cousin to join us. Theoretically I’d even pay his way in since I didn’t give him a graduation present and had set roughly the price of the starter set as what I’d get him–I adopt my brother’s wedding gift principle, which is that rather than buying people shit when everyone’s doing exactly that, you wait like 6 months and see what they actually need in their life. My brother is a wise man. Anyway, the message (with some of the soft-precision-grammar cleaned up):

• Public service announcement cuz (and holy g-shite, I apparently haven’t sent you a facebook message in more than a year; nice to have a non-blocked phone number to allow for texting!), but first a disclaimer–You are a teen man. You have a lady person. I fully recognize and at all times acknowledge that you have shit to do and organs to grind, and I respect these things. Post high school I hope that the concept of image-management is less of a deal, but I also acknowledge that tiny plastic and metal men may run counter to the goals of a youthful man particularly vis-a-vis genitals (whereas I, in my august age, have a cool wife who is down with cool things). THAT SAID! The game store is starting up a league soon for a game which is like Warhammer but different. The game is a bit of a mix of 40k and Fantasy, and is technically 2 games that just work completely in unison with each other. One favors playing wizards who control giant robots alongside elves and skeletons and robo-Catholics and robo-Russians; the other focuses on playing OTHER wizards who master the boundless rage of giant monsters alongside eyeless shark monsters formed from their own blood, werewolves, and trolls in kilts.

   Here are links to the two system galleries, which show the various models in each army: Warmachine (http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery) and Hordes (http://privateerpress.com/hordes/gallery). I personally am playing the voodoo Southern Baptist alligator men. This is because of course.

  The league starts on October 1st, which incidentally coincides with a “play it painted” league the store is running. The painted thing has a $10 buy-in, but buying any models can serve as that buy-in. You “pledge” to paint models and after a couple weeks of painting your pledges, you get a 15% discount so long as you keep painting shit.

  The actual league itself is what’s known as a “grow” league, which is like the one I joined when I started playing games at the store last year. That means that you start with a tiny number of plastic/metal men and each chunk of time the amount you’re allowed to play increases. It’s not a strict models-to-time relationship because models cost different amounts in terms of points, so I start the league with 3 models (an albino alligator who’s like 300 years old and wants to kill enough men to become a god, a giant alligator literally called a “Wrastler” who throws robots into headlocks and suplexes them, and a giant turtle that spits acid) but they’re expensive enough I won’t be able to add anything but cheap dudes for a while.

  The starter buy-in for each army is on the website at the links I provided, under “starter products.” A few armies have alternate choices, or don’t have a starter box, but all of the starters are 50 bucks (which is STUPIDLY cheap for models…Stacey has a robot that costs twice that) and Kyle at the shop can order pretty much anything in.

  If this is of interest to you, lemme know. They ran demos at the shop last night and will again in early october, but the folks who ran them aren’t known to you; enough of my friends have models that I’d prolly set up a non-stranger demo for you, and Stacey and I are learning the game as soon as our models come in so it’d probably be with us.

  Return to your EDM-infused life! Much love!

   

  Edit: 15% discount, not ten! Moderated a wee touch of language.