Time to try Whelp Pale Ale

Whelp pale ale has been carbonating in the bottle for a week now and should be ready for an initial flavor and carbonation test.

For best results I will wait at least two weeks before letting anyone else try it.

The hop flavor should be intensified even more with the increased level of carbonation. This beer is definately not for the person that typically stays with the large, commercially brewed pilsners.

No....I'm not Dead!

I have felt like dying the last couple of weeks, but no I'm not dead.

Nothing beats an early summer cold... oh wait, yeah having an early summer cold while travelling cross country.

I was in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago, got a cold and then came back to Utah and felt like I was going to die. I would have preferred if the weather had stayed overcast and crappy but not it got nice.

I suffered through work and am not feeling a little better. Whelp Pale Ale is now carbonating it bottles.

I will try one in a few days but it is best to let it carbonate for a couple of weeks.

We travelled to Idaho and visited the family. Played with all of the crazy neices and nephews and went to my brother's graduation.

With the weather warming up it looks like warmachine has dropped down a bit on my list of priorities. Work is keeping me pretty busy with an upcoming food safety audit. When I'm at home we are working on the yard and garden and preparing to start finishing the basement.

Oh and and the really fun side of things I am researching stuff to do when we go to Oahu and Maui. I am still finding some time to get hiking in and hope to at least get a few nights in a bag this summer.

I hope to still get the occassional game over in Logan and Kim and I have created our own board and we are making terrain so we will get a few games in at home.

We have artwork!

Thanks to Florian and G'DayBloke. I just have to figure out how to print it the right size. I don't deal with photoshop or printing much other than documents.

But let me know what you think and I give all of the praises to those guys. This kick's ass!

Cryx on Cryx Battle Report

Okay it is a little late and I hope I don't forget to much of what happened but here goes.

I was fielding the following:

eSkarre
Deathjack
Stalker
Nightwretch
full unit of Bane Knights
Bane Lord Tartarus
min unit of Satyxis
Sea Witch
Min unit of Mechanithralls
Brute Thrall
Necrosurgeon and Stitch Thralls
Min Unit of Bile Thralls
skarlock
pistol wraith

I think that is it.

Geoff had the following:

Mortenenbra and Deryliss
Deathjack
Nightmare
Seether
A couple of deathrippers
full unit of bile thralls
Withershadow Combine
a coupe of necrotechs and scrap thralls

I might be forgetting something but not sure.

The game went something like Geoff taking a couple of large jacks up one side and I had a line of banes coming towards him at the other side along with the Deathjack.

I used the satyxis and eSkarre's backlash to get some hits to Mortenenbra by trying to beat on some of his jacks.

I thought that I was doing pretty good, but I did realize that I forgot to feat and that left his jacks able to beat up my stuff, and unfortunately his Deathjack trampled over and gave eSkarre a couple P+S 18 fists.

It was a fun game. I enjoyed playing against cryx. Geoff brought a lot of stuff that I don't have and it was interesting to see how he played it as well as how he played the stuff I do have. He gave me a couple of pointers on how to better use the necrosurgeon, so next time I will have the stitch thralls positioned differently.

Good game, crappy battle report because I waited to long.

Whelp Pale Ale......Day 14

Ah, what a lovely two week old baby.  I don't have children, but treat my beers as tenderly as anyone would a child.  Well other than the shaking at the beginning to get some oxygen in there for the yeast.  I don't suggest anyone do that with a real baby.

We are 14 days into fermentation and it looks like primary fermentation is complete.  We started with a specific gravity of 1.054.  At the end of primary fermentation it looks like the specific gravity is 1.008.

This is the formula for calculating percent alcohol by volume.

((Beginning specific gravity - end specific gravity) x 105) x 1.25)

Using the 1.054 and 1.008 the %ABV (Alcohol by Volume) is 6.0375.

I tasted the sample that I pulled and it has a very floral hop aroma and taste.  It will be transferred to the secondary fermenter with additional hops tomorrow and will age for another two weeks.  The alcohol content is set, now it is just going to be adjusting the flavor and mouthfeel with additional hops and carbonation.

Girl on Girl! Sorry, meant Cryx on Cryx

Now I know it isn't exciting, but tonight will be my first battle against my own faction. I am playing Geoff, who is infinitely more experienced at table top war games, but I'm only slightly terrified.

I am still not sure who I'm bringing to the table tonight, but we are going to be playing with MKII rules. I have not spent the time going through the new rules and cards so it could be a slower game than Geoff likes. I am also planning on playing some models I haven't played, so it could be brutal.

If only Whelp Pale Ale was ready to drink I could have a bottle of that to provide some liquid courage.

I will post my list and how the battle turns out tomorrow. There is a possibility of a 25 pt MKII game against Menoth later in the evening, but I will have to see what how late it is.

New Lists

For those of you that have followed my blog for any length of time you probably noticed that my armies were usually pretty similar. I typically used one of three casters and then my core units and jacks remained the same.

I have recently come upon a lot of models and I now have access to all of the cryx casters with the exception of Mortenenbra and Goreshade the cursed.

I now have epic casters as well as Terminus and the Witch Coven. The question is who to bring to the table. I really want to play with Terminus even though I have been told I will lose. The model just looks bad ass and he looks like he could fly in and lay a beat down on a lot of stuff. The Coven allows for a huge control range and paired with more focus efficient jacks allows for a lot of focus to throw around on spells.

I have satyxis and the sea witch in case I can find someone to play MK II rules with, and if I take them I think I will have to bring out epic Skarre.

I also now have the revenant crew. I am not really familiar with what they are capable of in MKI or MKII, but I might have to put them in an army just for the hell of it.

Then there is the always fun Deneghra and bonejack army. I have been toying with running Deneghra at 500 points with 4 Deathrippers, 4 Nightwretches, and 2 Defilers. I would probably get my ass kicked, but it would be fun to have all that speed.

I have a few other jacks that I have never seen anyone play, especially in MKI rules, but if I get a MKII game in I might bring them to the table. I have a stalker, a couple of harrowers, a leviathan, and a reaper. Most of these aren't assembled so for jacks it will most likely be the cankerworm and Deathjack.

The choices are starting to make my head hurt. I now have to deal with list optimization where before all I had to deal with was learning to play the stuff I had. I now have the ability to switch out solos or units if they end up not working in conjunction with the rest of the list.

I guess I should first try to get a game for tomorrow before I get ahead of myself.