When my coworkers have an Insider blog that shows off a new piece of art or announces a really big development, I get a little jealous. You see, it is really invigorating to reveal something cool and exciting to our enthusiastic and passionate fan base. So when Will shows off the latest colossal model or Ed talks about the new book cover, I do admit to a bit of envy.

Check this out: I learned a new word! Well, not really, but I have solidified the spelling of a word that’s always been just a little squishy in my head, and I bet you know what it is: colossal. I can’t say I’d recommend the approach of having to confirm a word twenty times a day, necessarily, but I can tell you it certainly does wonders for getting that word down stone cold.

A couple of weeks ago, I and several other crewmembers from Privateer Press took a cross-continent trip to TempleCon in Providence, Rhode Island. In addition to being fortunate enough to speak about all the amazing things we’ve got lined up for this year in front of a 300-plus-person audience of WARMACHINE and HORDES players (the reaction to which I will not soon forget), I got to do one of my favorite things—play tons of WARMACHINE and HORDES! On top of that, I met some really great people along the way.

It’s hard to develop an immediate fondness for a person whose most defining trait is expertise in inflicting pain. Despite this, I have become increasingly attached to Morghoul. He is one of our most fascinating skorne characters, and one who perfectly demonstrates the perversely fascinating and unsettling nature of skorne culture.

For a few months now, I have been drooling over the studio-painted Stormwall for the upcoming WARMACHINE: Colossals expansion. I’m a big fan of this model, and I have seen all its numerous parts in the various stages of design and development. However, it wasn’t until today, as we prepared to do the assembly diagram, that I realized how much awesome is packed into this huge-based model.

I’ve spoken about modeling and gaming recently in my Insider. Today, I wanted to talk to you about something a little more personal: the challenges of painting while color blind. I can see color, but I have a pretty big problem differentiating between shades of colors that are close to each other in the color wheel.

Outside of playtest I don’t play WARMACHINE or HORDES with unpainted miniatures. My primary reason for this is that I feel the game is much more immersive when played with a painted army on really cool terrain. It’s even cooler if my opponent has a painted army, too. Unfortunately, the painting prude in me has a downside; having a limited selection of models to choose from can leave me a bit behind the competitive curve. It’s hard to keep up, especially since I’m trying to maintain multiple factions.

Every year during con season, a project comes along that requires the help of the whole company. It usually has to do with assembling and painting an enormous quantity of miniatures. In 2010, it was the Khadoran and Cryxian armies that were showcased at AdeptiCon. Staff members from all over the company chipped in to paint over 300 points of metal.

One of the best things about working with the IK fiction as I do is the richness and diversity of the stories. To help you get the most out of them, I put together some tips for reading with an analytical eye.