Knights, Workout, and FF7 RPG!

Pre-priming Cerastus-Knight Lancer base!

On this most illustrious gurpgork, I figured I would share the meager few shots of the Imperial Knight I had been working on recently, (briefly) talk about my new workout strategy, and touch on an RPG I have been GMing for, since why not talk about that too?

First up, I have a Horus Heresy army in the works - a Questoris Knight army! Currently, I have all my Knights purchased, but am slowly getting them all assembled and ready to paint in one big go. The only one I have ready to roll thus far was my first Forge World Knight - the Cerastus Knight-Lancer.

That thing is huge. I built mine with a magnetized torso and arms, so I can twist them a bit for slightly altered posing. Nothing crazy, but it was my first. I will try to make my others a bit more dynamic. I have an Acheron and a Castigator left to do for the Cerastus variety, two Styrix, a Paladin, and an Errant for the standard.

Now, I have experience painting the latter two. I have built two and painted three and because why not, here are some pictures - red Knight, blue Knight, and Obsidian Knight. They were all commission work, so I got some practice in before I had my own to work on. Truly, I fell in love with the models during those commissions and just had to make an army of them.

Cerastus Knight-Lancer (armor is just sticky-tacked into place)

The planned paintjob is going to be House Taranis (click to see Dave Taylor's amazing work of the same House!), because they are an Adeptus Mechanicus oriented army, meaning if I want to expand into that faction for the Heresy, I can to it a bit seamlessly. I mean, I don't need much of an excuse to pick up a Thanatar, now do I?

Workout Strategy Switch-Up
So, I have done a bit more reading and discovered some talk about the merits of weights-before-cardio. Apparently, this is better and I put it to the test tonight. No joke, I was wrecked afterward.

The entire dynamic was different and I am going to keep at it. I did a nice 5 minute warm-up jog on the treadmill, did my weight-lighting, then did 25 minutes on the stairmachine (set to intervals). Whew!  Usually, I did 30 minutes of cardio, then did my weights and was done. Well, that didn't leave me nearly so worn out (in a good way).

Also, today is my fifth straight day of taking Shred Jym. I do feel it has increased my energy, because I have certainly been going harder and not feeling drained like I had the week prior. In fact, by this time last week, I could barely get through my normal routine. Today, I powered through it and then some!

Lets talk RPGs! 

Who doesn't love this game? No one is the correct answer.

So, not only do I do the whole tabletop wargaming thing, which I love, but I am also a Game Master. Currently, I have a group of four close friends who are playing through a game I had been really wanting to run for years and years. The setting is the Final Fantasy 7 world just before the Mako Reactor mission in the game and set concurrent to the "alpha" team's story. They are basically a B-team and I am having a blast running it.

Though in hindsight, I wish I had gone for GURPS, I opted for Savage Worlds because I love the open nature of that system. It has really made things easy for everyone, I think.

Right now, we have a "Ronin" from Wutai who survived the war with ShinRa. We also have a sleezy, petite former-Chocobo rider who suffers delusions of grandeur. Then there is the Goblin who is heir-apparent to the throne of the Goblin Island and seeks to retake it from ShinRa (because in our story, that is a thing), and last but not least, we have a dangerously curious naive young materia-master from Cosmo Canyon. All told, they have been a damn fun group to work with and I am beyond content to be running this game, as FF7 has been a love of mine sine '97.

Anyhow, I think that will do it for today. I am going to get crackin' on the Avenger Strike Fighter for my client this weekend and plan to have it finished. If able, I will start working on those other Knights too and post some more this weekend.